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j2h5b5 · 1 year

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There was only one thing that could have dragged Steve out of bed at two in the morning when he was nursing a booze-induced headache and an Eddie Munson-induced heartache.

“We need you,” she said.

He didn’t even bother putting on a jacket.

***

Dustin was sloppy, red-eyed and so unsteady that when Steve thunked a strong hand down on his shoulder, he almost lost his balance turning away from the group of asshats he’d taken up with to see who had grabbed him. Some of the drink in his hand sloshed over the sides of the cup and dribbled down the front of his shirt and onto the already filthy kitchen floor.

“Hey, what the—” he began, and then he dragged his gaze up to land on Steve.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when those same eyes would’ve lit up at the sight of his babysitter slash idol slash best friend. He would wrap him in a hug if it had been a day or two since he’d seen him, or sling a companionable arm around him, or punch him good-naturedly in the arm in hopes of initiating a play scuffle, which inevitably ended with him in a headlock getting his mop of curls aggressively tousled because he was just never going to have any kind of athletic edge on Steve.

But now.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” the younger boy asked in a tone so sharp and cold and so very NOT-Dustin that it made Steve’s heart squeeze painfully in his chest.

“Hey, man,” Steve said, aiming for casual if only to keep Dustin from embarrassing himself in front of his new asshat friends. “Can I talk to you? Step outside with me for a sec, okay?”

“Um, no,” Dustin bit out. “This’s my party, i'ss my house. It would be rude to leave my guests.”

“Yeah, since you brought that up … who are these people?” Steve swept his gaze over the Henderson kitchen, which was almost unrecognizable with all of the clutter, displaced furniture, and wasted teenagers. “And Dustin … where’s your mom?”

“Not here.”

“Well yeah, I kind of gathered that. Listen, Dust…”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Are the others here?”

“Oh, you mean the traitors who called and ratted me out to YOU? Who the fuck cares?” His voice lowered to what he seemed to think was a conspiratorial level but was really just an extremely loud stage whisper. “Maybe they tripped and fell and landed their buzzkill asses back in the Upside Down.”

“Okay, that’s it.”

Before Dustin could protest, the cup was plucked from his hand and tossed expertly across the room, over the heads of several unwary drunken youths and into the crusty-dish-crowded sink and he was being towed along behind Steve through the kitchen, the living room, out the front door.

“What the fuck, Harrington? Let go of me! Let go!” Dustin struggled against the vise grip on his bicep but only succeeded in ensuring he’d probably have finger-shaped bruises there tomorrow.

Steve paid him no mind until he had deposited the boy into the passenger seat of his car, slammed the door, and locked it. Then he walked around to the driver’s side, unlocked it only long enough to get in, relocked it, and turned to Dustin.

“First of all,” he began loudly, drowning out Dustin’s sputtering attempts to find the words he wanted to hurl at Steve in his outrage at being manhandled out of his own party. “First of all. Joking about the Upside Down in a room full of strangers? NOT OKAY.”

“They don’t even know what—”

“Not. Fucking. Okay. SECOND, if you ever imply again that one of ours should BE in the Upside Down, you will find yourself with my foot so far up your ass you’ll choke on my shoe, and if you think I’m joking about that, Dustin, try me.”

This time there was only an eye-roll from Dustin, because he kind of didn’t want to try Steve on that point and because he kind of felt bad about saying it.

“Third, your friends are not traitors. They care about you and they’re worried about you; they called me for help because you’re treating them like shit and shut down every attempt they make to help you. Listen, I know I’m not your favorite person right now, Dustin, but you have to let someone help you. You’re not okay, buddy. This isn’t you. And all this shit you’re doing, the drinking and the partying and the pretending not to give a damn? It isn’t going to fix anything. It … it won’t bring him back.”

“Shut up!” Dustin shouted, flinching so hard at the words that he smacked the back of his head against the side window. Steve winced at the sound of skull meeting glass and resisted the urge to reach out and check for blood, or a bump. Dustin seemed not to have noticed that he’d nearly brained himself, infusing his next words with all the venom he could muster. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Steve. Even if you were right, it’s none of your business what I do! I am none of your business.”

“Don’t say shit like that, Dustin. Of course you’re my business.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! What are you saying?”

Dustin barked out a humorless laugh. “As much as I’d like to sit here with you and have a heart to heart right now, I have to get back to my guests.”

“No,” Steve snapped, reaching over Dustin to slap down the peg lock when the teen yanked it up. “We’re not done here. Now I can go inside and clear out your house and we can talk there, or you can drop the bullshit and talk to me right now.”

“You’re not shutting down my party.”

“Then we talk here.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Right, sure you don’t. Maybe I can give you some words, then. How about this, Dustin? How about: ‘Hey, Steve, you useless idiot loser, you promised to keep us safe and then you fucked it all up like you always do. The plan didn’t work and Max got hurt and Eddie fucking died, and you couldn’t stop it. I hate you for that, for lying and making us feel safe and telling us it was going to be okay. I can’t even look at you anymore and I hate my friends because they don’t hate you for some reason, but we know, don’t we? We know whose fault it is that we came back a man short. It’s yours, Steve. Yours.’” Steve’s voice was cracked and painful, like he’d been eating gravel and chasing it with cheap whisky and cigarettes. It hurt, that voice. “How’s that, Dust?” he finished, staring unflinching into Dustin’s shocked eyes. “Am I in the ballpark?”

Before Steve could react, Dustin unlocked his door and flung himself out of the car. He was drunk and it was dark, though, and he only made it a few yards before tripping and landing hard on the grass. Steve was on him almost instantly, hauling him up by the arms and scanning him for injuries.

He didn’t see the punch coming, wouldn’t have believed Dustin Henderson capable of such an effective hit, right in the mouth, knocking him back a couple of feet. “Jesus, Dustin!” he shouted, touching his lip and staring dumbfounded when his fingers came away wet with blood. “What the fuck, man?”

“Hit me back.”

“What? No! Dustin, what’s—”

“HIT ME BACK, STEVE! You have to!” Dustin’s voice cracked, the sudden violent burst of emotion threatening to unleash something big and scary and unforgivable. A tidal wave that had a name.

Steve grappled wildly with the boy, trying to grab his flailing arms so he could pin him, but Dustin was surprisingly swift in his current state, and he launched another punch, this one landing heavy in Steve’s gut and socking the breath right out of him.

“HIT ME, STEVE! I KNOW YOU WANT TO, JUST DO IT!”

Fueled by a burst of frustration and a sharper burst of fear (what is this?), Steve recovered enough to trap Dustin’s arms against his body, using his own weight to twist the boy around until he was trapped with his back against Steve, the hold immobilizing him so all he could do was squirm and shout out his fury. “LET ME GO FUCK YOU STEVE WHY WON’T YOU JUST FIGHT BACK YOU ASSHOLE?!”

“Dustin, stop. Stop it. Breathe, Dustin. Take a breath. No, hey, stop. You’re not going anywhere until you calm down for me. Breathe. Shhh, buddy. Breathe,” Steve’s hold was unbudging, his tone stern but soothing. Dustin’s violent struggles gradually slowed, and it took a couple of minutes for Steve to realize that the boy was shaking with silent sobs. And then the sobs became words, almost indecipherable in the wrecked, wretched voice that was rough and strained from screaming.

Every sentence Steve parsed from the stream of horrible self-accusations added another crack to his heart, which couldn’t have been more than a mess of spiderwebbing at this point.

It’s my fault.

He’s dead because of me.

I couldn’t save him.

You loved him, I know you did.

Why don’t you hate me?

Finally, finally, the words stopped and Dustin sagged, exhausted, in Steve’s arms. Only then did Steve ease up on his hold, but only long enough to turn the boy around and hug him properly. He bent down to bury his face in the unruly curls, his own tears falling unchecked and inconsequential.

“Dustin,” he whispered into the mop of hair. “Oh, Dustin, never.”

And when he realized he didn’t have the right words, he just stopped. He just picked Dustin up and carried him to his car, buckled him into the passenger seat, and told him he would be right back. He had a party to break up, some kids to chase away, and a boy—his boy—to mend.

“You loved him, I know you did.”

With a soul-cleansing breath that sounded more like a sob, Steve made his way back up to the Hendersons’ house.

#stranger things #found family #protective steve harrington #mama steve #dustin henderson #fanfiction #steddie #mom steve harrington #steve harrington #steve and his children #grieving over Eddie #survivor guilt #poor dustin #poor steve #unhealthy coping mechanisms #arm wrestling for the blame #angst #oh the angst #in my heart Eddie survived but this scene wouldn’t leave me alone

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tomurakii · 25 days

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I kind of hate all the comparisons between kipperlily and like. Those fuckass "affirmative action fucks me over I wish I was [minority] so it would be easier" people because none of that. Is what she said. She said the bad kids already had more experience with adventuring before they got to augefort and it meant they had an advantage. Which is true. Yeah Riz was lower-class but his mum was a COP. Riz, Kristen and Fig had parents who were heroes (Sandra-Lynn is an active ranger, Kristen's parents are paladins, Sklonda is a rogue), Adaine's family was super rich and politically influential, Fabian had both. Gorgug's the only one who wasn't actively at an advantage [IN THE CONTEXT OF HAVING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE ABOUT HEROISM] and she didn't have shit to say about him. Kipperlily was the first person in her family to try heroism, the bad kids are largely legacy admissions.

Additionally to the people comparing it to the "anti-affirmative action" crowd: do you know what affirmative action is. The bad kids didn't receive special consideration on their admissions to aguefort or scholarships or additional financial support or extended assessment times or anything. How could she be mad about affirmative action if none of these people received affirmative action. What they DID have was knowledge about their classes that started much earlier than high school, which is what Kipperlily said in her file that she thought grading should be adjusted for because she did not have that.

To me it's less like affirmative action and more like augefort is like an IQ test. They pretend that it's fair and objective, but you can be taught how to do those things from a younger age, and if your parents took the time to teach you pattern recognition and shit then you'll do better on an IQ test than someone who wasn't trained for it and everyone will act like that makes you innately smarter when it doesn't. It just means someone taught you how to do that earlier.

Barring Gorgug, every one of the bad kids had access to information about heroism and their class at a younger age than Kipperlily did, which primed them for success in their classes. Every one of them got additional information about mysteries from their families (and even direct battle-tactics training from Bill), Riz especially with getting classified info out of his mum. Kipperlily does not have hero relatives. She's the first in her family line to attend a hero school. She knew nothing about it before her first day, meanwhile Kristen was already the chosen of Helio, Adaine had already been attending the best wizard school in the country, Fabian had already spent his whole life training with his father, and Riz was already involved in solving mysteries using info and tactics he got from his parents.

They aren't necessarily "privileged" (except Fabian and Adaine), but Kipperlily didn't say they were, she said that in the specific context of attending a hero school they had a prior-knowledge advantage. Saying they didn't is like comparing the grades of a kid who's academic career started with preschool with a kid who didn't attend until middle school and acting like one of them wasn't better prepared.

#like cmon people. you already hated her so you're reaching to justify it more #is it reason to be as hateful as she is? no. but she was 14 when she said the shit about riz's dad and. CRUCIALLY. kids from healthy homes #dont wish death on their parents lol. like objectively #shes not poor but neither is fabian. neither was season 1 adaine. and yet we wouldn't say their home lives were GREAT now would we #or that they had nothing to complain about just because they were economically advantaged #she thinks its unfair because she came into augefort blind meanwhile riz had been doing investigator shit for years already #and she has not learned healthy coping mechanisms. like brennan calls her anger childish and its because shes a CHILD #and she only became this cruel because she's possessed by literally the god of rage. because it was that or death #ive even seen people waxing tragic about every other rat grinder's “deal” with ankarna but acting like kipperlily was just fine with that #because she was angry already. she DIED. and having anger issues/emotional regulation issues doesnt mean you WANT TO DESTROY THE WORLD #she probably wanted to live just as much as any of the others did. and this was the sacrifice. she was 16 #d20 #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #fantasy high #kipperlily copperkettle

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weirdwonderfulworld · 28 days

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i keep saying "one last thought" BUT I KEEP HAVING MORE and i type this one out as i am in literal tears ajshshsh.

i am not going to speak for steven bc he is a grown man with his own feelings and i have no business projecting my own feelings onto him but i will say there's something i feel asian americans are really good at doing and that's holding space for others. as a fil-am i think asian americans are so very good at stamping down our own needs and desires when it boils down to surviving, to navigating tough decisions, to making sure our loved ones can weather bad storms. i feel it's something usually so ingrained in our cultures, especially with first and second gen immigrants. and i could spend time here making the obvious connection here to steven but i won't.

what i want to do is extend my heart out to the watcher fans of color, specifically the asian friends in our community, and i want to give you back some of the space you held onto this past weekend. i know there are people out there who long ago joined this fandom for fun, then last friday, saw the fan response and was hit with this large wave of burden. because people were mad. and then people were cruel, in a way they might not even have understood. and you wanted to say something but there was nothing to say that wouldn't invite the same cruelty onto you.

out of three people behind a business decision, i saw one man receive the most hate for it. and the hate was so disproportionate, so deep and personal, that you knew the hate was coming from somewhere else that's usually unspoken. not everyone felt it, and it's not something any one person can describe to make them feel it. but maybe you felt it.

if so, i am so sorry that you had to hold that space, hold your tongue, and absorb it all. of course all folks won't feel this strongly affected but to the folks who do, to the ones who feel like this community has permanently changed for them, to the ones who are still grieving something that was never supposed to hurt them in this way—i am with you, i believe your pain, and i'm sorry that people are still trying to blame you for your own pain. i don't even know what else to say other than i love and support you. you're part of what made the original community so fun, inclusive, and welcoming. i hope you know that you're still so valued as a part of this community—maybe not the same exact one as before, but the one i want to see and create for us moving forward. some people will not hold the space for us, and to that, i say good riddance. together we can hold a kinder space large enough for us all... ❣❣

#watcher #thoughts #discourse #?not quite #so interesting how fandom discourse and backlash can be literally triggering but if you express that then you like. hate poor people sjsjsj #im using humor to cope but genuinely i am sending my love to you all!#im actually ready to move on now hoo boy

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cyberrose2001 · 12 days

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Hi, hope you’re having a good day!

Could I request a masc human!reader x tfp!ratchet where the reader is a classical musician. I could definitely see it help him calm down, and having a human who doesn’t talk all the time would be a welcome breath of fresh air for him.

TFP Ratchet x Masc Human Musician! Reader

Hi! Thanks for the request! Reader uses He/Him pronouns, can be read as platonic or romantic

thanks to @uselessmacrowave for helpin me out <3

Warnings: None, SFW

Word count: (will update soon)

Ratchet’s optics felt heavy, straining against the glow of the bright blue data pad. He glances at the time on the pad and sighs in frustration. He’d tried a couple of different ways to lull himself to sleep. One was a soothing and warm energon mix, light orange in colour, and gave a gentle glow to the darkened room while he sipped on it. But it was starting to cool off; he’d left it on the table too long.

He tosses the data pad next to him and stretches, old creaky joints moaning as he does so. Standing up, he takes the mug and swishes what’s left of the energon mix. Its glow has dulled, way past its primetime, and he can’t help but compare himself to a dull cup of energon.

He can’t help being old and irritable. It’s just part of aging, he thinks. Or that’s what he tells himself to justify his cold nature. He doesn’t mean to be, though; sometimes, he wants peace and quiet. Away from the war, away from his work and away from the bickering humans.

Most of the humans, at least.

He wanders off to the makeshift ‘kitchen’ area of the base, close enough to the main area so he can sneak off and concoct his energon mixes. He dumps the remainder of his cold drink and goes to pour himself another when he hears the gentle, long-winded notes of an instrument, causing his audial receptors to tune in. Ratchet hadn’t heard anything like this before, and it had a soothing, methodical flow to it, much different to music on Cybertron.

“What on Earth?” Ratchet questions to himself, glancing over his shoulder to find the source behind him. It sounds so close it may as well be, or maybe Ratchet is so sleep-deprived that he's finally at the audial hallucination stage. Probably not, but for his mental clarity he better check just to be sure. He finishes pouring his elixir and quietly treaded to the central part of the base. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find around the corner, but what he finds is somewhat pathetic but endearing.

Alone on the platform of the many catwalks was his human, one of the less irritable ones Ratchet was assigned. He’s seated on an old chair that looks like it could collapse under him at any moment, complimented greatly by an equally more dusty piano with the dust half hazard wiped from it. It’s not elegant, that’s for sure.

But there's something so charming and different about this music. Usually, when the kids play instruments, Ratchet is the first to book it out of there; the ‘fine art’ they 'perform' is worse than the ear-splitting grinding of a starved scraplet. But this time, he walks closer as if his pedes have become part of a flowing river. The sound isn’t overbearing, and the notes are light and gentle; it’s as if his human is playing as delicately as possible not to wake anyone up.

Ratchet creeps closer, standing just outside of his humans field of vision, “What are you-”

“GAHH!” Y/n jumps out of his skin, causing him to slam on the keys and nearly fall off the chair. Ratchet flinches but keeps his composure, managing not to spill his drink.

The human places a hand over his heart and whips his head around, sighing in relief as he realises its his guardian, "Jesus, you should come with a bell."

“My apologies,” Ratchet murmurs, pausing momentarily, “I was curious where that noise was coming from.”

Y/n looks towards his guardian with worry, knowing how horrible his sleep schedule is, “I didn’t wake you, did I?” He whispers.

“No, no,” Ratchet sighs, placing his still full cup on a nearby bench, “I’ve been awake for… quite sometime now. Don't concern yourself with me," The bot leans against the railing, "The question is, what are you doing awake?”

Y/n glances at his phone, two-thirty am. He should be asleep but can’t convince himself to crawl into bed. The deafness of the night is too enticing, “I like the quiet.”

Ratchet nods in all-too-familiar understanding, grazing his optics back to the old piano, “I see… so what’s this then? It’s certainly more quiet than the ones I see Miko playing.”

“It’s a piano,” Y/n smudges the dust off one of the keys before wiping it on his jeans, “And it can be quiet or loud, depending on how you play it.”

Ratchet hums, shifting on his pedes slightly to lean against the railings, “Interesting, you never mentioned being a… musician, if that's what you call it.”

“I don’t like the attention it brings me, but I found this piano in one of the old storage closets and dragged it out… couldn’t help myself.” Y/n titters and positions his fingers over the keys, “You wanna listen? I mean, if you’re not busy, that is…”

“I suppose, if you don't mind an audience this time.” Ratchet casually says, making himself more comfortable against the catwalk, again ignoring his energon drink, "Show me your secret talent, kid."

The first light chords drift through the deafening silence of the room like a soft breeze. Ratchet observes his human, eyes closed and focused. How his hands float over the keys mesmerises Ratchet and reminds him of a well-trained pair of servos similar to his own.

"Sounds...nice..." Ratchet blinks his optics slowly, stifling a yawn. He should probably sit down, but his aching joints say otherwise.

Before long, he feels his optics becoming more and more heavy. The sweet song beckons him to stasis, but he stays put, his hefty frame rocking slightly. The gentleness of this new music is how Ratchet imagines what a warm hug would feel like or that first sip of energon mix after a long day.

Y/n pauses on a long chord to look at his guardian. He’s fallen asleep against the rail, arms folded with his chin tucked to his chest, and Y/n can’t help but smile at the rare sight. Ratchet rarely gets to rest, but managing to put him to sleep is another secret talent he can tick off the list.

#someone give poor ratchet another coping mechanism instead of high grade energon #tfp x reader #transformers x reader #transformers #transformers prime #tfp #tfp ratchet #tfp ratchet x reader #tfp ratchet x human reader #sfw #cyberrosewrites

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r0semultiverse · 6 months

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Digital Circus AMA Notes

Digital Circus is getting a season 1 at some point!!!!

#webcore aesthetic board for the series design

Pomni was going to be a frog originally. 🐸

90s toys Zooble inspo

Caine is an antagonist, but not by active choice, he doesn't know he's not helping. He doesn't feel a whole spectrum of human emotions (he's an AI).

"Caine canonically just lets things happen if he thinks it's funny."

Characters eat like Chao in Chao garden in Sonic. The characters can eat the food, but they can't digest it.

Jax's favorite food is spaghetti.

Pomni likes salmon.

Q "Was the ending a 'Last Supper' reference?" A "in a very superficial kinda way yeah." Religious stuff is sometimes just used for the funny.

Gooseworx tumblr sketches MAY or MAY NOT be canon to the series, so it's up in the air for every single one.

People can abstract from feeling too much pain if it breaks their mind from it being too much. Characters feel pain from things, but not as intensely as they would in real life.

Zooble is gonna swap parts every episode (implying they have spare parts) except their body & head.

Jax chose his own name & gooseworx likes to think he chose Gangle's name.

Ragatha was named "Emmy" originally.

They (the cast of characters trapped in the circus) can't change their clothes but Caine can. It's part of their skin sorta kinda.

There's empty space under Pomni's hat because video game model physics.

Spamton was partially inspo for Caine, Caine's VA did Spamton dubs.

Gangle only has 2 masks. Why's it (her hapiness mask) break all the time? Mental state, but the "real her" is "harder to break."

Kaumfo was gonna be part of the main cast originally before Jax.

Kaufmo's model has nothing below the waist at this time, but was made for that promotional image on twitter.

Q "What kinda person was Kaufmo?" A "He was the same as Ragatha in a sense, goofy & cheery, sometimes toxic levels of positivity."

I'm paraphrasing for the sake of note taking in real time, go watch the stream playback for more context & details if you want.

#these are all from GLITCHX 2023 on the glitch productions youtube channel btw #for anyone curious as to where I got the screenshots & details #theory crafters pop off with this #someone else can reblog this with time stamps if you want I'm pretty tired #I'm not going back through that stream right now; I'm sure someone else will put timestamps in the comments maybe #but yeah consider the amazing digital circus officially greenlit for a first season I guess! :D #tadc season 1 eventually baybeee!!#I'm hyped! I wonder if the pilot will remain canon into season 1 or if we'll get a new introduction into the series.#Wonder why Jax called Gangle... well Gangle 👀 maybe he just thought it sounded silly or something i'm curious as to what gooseworx thought #Caine's AI really thought Pomni running around looking for him & Kaufmo abstracted in his room was funny 😐 or his AI is glitchy #(we saw him glitching out already in the pilot) alternatively I think Bubble could be distracting Caine on purpose but idk just yet #imagine how much pain Ragatha was in since they can all actually feel that though like being body slammed & thrown against walls & stuff 😬#also excited to see some Gangle-centric content in the future based on that comment about the 'real her' 👀#Kaufmo would probably make jokes at really dark moments when it wasn't appropriate because that was a coping mechanism for him poor guy 😭#mine #op #the amazing digital circus #tadc

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