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laundrybiscuits · 1 year

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(part 3 of the not-hallmark fic, now tentatively titled grace coming out of the void)

It’s not too long before Robin tumbles through the door in a whirlwind of apologies.

“Don’t worry about it,” says Steve, wrapping her up in a bear hug. “Eddie kept me company.”

It’s true, actually. There’d been a few minutes of awkward silence, before Eddie’d visibly steeled himself and started making small talk with the grim determination of a general heading into battle. It would’ve been funny if it hadn’t made Steve feel like dirt just a little bit.

He’s trying, Steve had told himself firmly. Yeah, it sucked that Eddie clearly still had some kind of problem with him, but if he was willing to try this hard to get over it…well, the least Steve could do was try, too.

So they’d filled each other in on all the stupid unimportant details of their lives, the stuff that was easy to talk about, and gradually the talking got easier. They’d never been strangers, not really, but somehow over the years it had gotten so Steve could forget that Eddie was fun to be around. There hadn’t always been a weird sour feeling in Steve’s stomach that had to be ignored; there was Eddie’s hands looping in big descriptive shapes as he described some new student who has absolutely no idea why she’s in my class, Steve, I swear someone’s blackmailing the kid to be there, she just shows up and like, grimly struggles through whatever I give her. Won’t even tell me what she wants to play, and I’ve tried everything. I arranged Cyndi fuckin’ Lauper for this kid, Steve!

Eddie’s face, relaxed and bright-eyed, never happier than when he’s telling a story. The way Eddie cares so much about every little thing. Just being around him feels like sitting at a fireplace, soaking in the warmth and light. And when Steve manages to make him laugh, it feels like winning the damn lottery.

So they’ve managed to get on pretty well in Robin’s absence. Steve’s hoping it doesn’t take them another few years before they can have a real conversation again, like some kind of timer that needs to reset.

“Good,” says Robin. “Because you two are like my favorite people, and it would really suck if you couldn’t get along.”

“Favorite people?” Eddie drawls, raising an eyebrow. “Can’t wait to tell Ronnie that.”

“Oh my god, don’t you dare!” Robin shoves at his shoulder until he moves over so she can squeeze onto the couch with them.

“Am I finally going to get to meet the famous Veronica?” asks Steve. Robin’s been going on about her for a while, but he knows the relationship hasn’t been official for that long. So it’s fine, it’s normal that he hasn’t met his best friend’s girlfriend yet, and Eddie has.

“Yeah, of course,” says Robin. “She’ll be here in like an hour to set up for the party.”

Of course there’s a party. From what Steve hears, Robin and Eddie seem to be constantly throwing parties and having people over, a rotating cast of quirky personalities with artistic inclinations and improbable backstories.

This one’s not even really a party, Robin assures him; it’s just the new girlfriend plus a couple local friends. Or, one local friend and one Hawkinsite who’s in town for the holidays.

“You remember Jeff, right?” says Robin.

“Oh sure, Jeff, yeah,” says Steve. “And the other one’s…Hannah?”

“Helen, she’s an artist who’s been working with Eddie on an installation. She’s great, you’ll love Helen.”

———

Steve does not love Helen.

“Wait, it’s true?” Helen cuts in. “People actually thought Ed was a cult leader? Our Ed?”

Steve breathes through the flicker of annoyance. Eddie doesn’t belong to Hawkins anymore.

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s, you know, a small town. Folks were just scared, is all.”

“Aww,” she coos. “It’s just so tough to imagine anyone being scared of this guy.” She ruffles Eddie’s hair and Eddie slaps her away, laughing.

“Yeah, it was a whole torches-and-pitchforks thing,” Eddie says. “I met this guy when I was on the run from some villagers who wanted to burn me at the stake. Me! Can you imagine?”

Steve huffs, amused. “Think I remember something about that meeting. Something like…you threatening me with a broken bottle at my neck? Ring any bells for you, Ed?”

“Wait…that’s not how you got those scars, is it?” Helen’s looking a little more hesitant, like she finally realizes there’s something here she can’t ever understand. Steve’s viciously pleased about it, then tries not to be. He doesn’t like strangers talking about all that shit like they can relate or something.

All he says is: “Nah. That was a little later. Eddie’s the reason I lived long enough to let this—” He rubs awkwardly at his neck, fingers skidding and pulling at the ugly ridges. “—scar at all.”

“Don’t listen to Harrington, he never wants to admit he’s a fuckin’ action hero. I barely did anything except freak out and almost get murdered. He saved my life for real, like, at least three or four times—think at this point he just owns my entire ass.”

Steve is tempted to ask why Eddie’s been avoiding him for the last six or seven years, if that’s the case, but he knows that’s not totally fair. Steve’s been doing a lot of avoiding too.

“Shoot,” says Helen. She’s still got an arm tucked into Eddie’s. “We’re all very grateful, Steve.”

Instead of saying I didn’t do it for you, Steve says, “Just, uh, glad I was there. I’m…gonna get some more wine.”

Robin catches him in the narrow hall leading to the kitchen. It’s a nice apartment, yeah, but Steve thinks the layout’s weird as hell compared to the right angles and neatly aligned walls of his place back in Hawkins.

“Everything okay, dingus?” she asks. The way the hall bends, they’re sheltered from the living room. It’s a soap bubble of privacy, fragile but whole.

“How do you handle people asking about—stuff?” Steve blurts out.

“It’s actually been easier here,” says Robin thoughtfully. “Because in Hawkins, people always think they know a lot more than they do. Remember how Vickie and I used to get into those big fights?”

Steve nods. He hadn’t really understood what was going on at the time, and Robin hadn’t been great at explaining. She’d talk up a storm, get all worked up, and at the end of it, all he’d get was that she was mad and Vickie didn’t understand why.

“Well, later on I realized that they’d always kick off when Vickie said something like, I know what you mean, or I was there too. Because she didn’t, and she wasn’t. With Ronnie, it’s like…she doesn’t get it, but she knows she doesn’t get it. It’s easier with her, I guess. How did you handle it with Laura?”

Steve shakes his head. “I didn’t, I guess. But she wasn’t, y’know. The One.”

“Still holding out for that fairy tale romance, huh?” Robin smiles. She’s just teasing him; she doesn’t mean anything by it.

“I’m really not,” says Steve. “Listen, I’m gonna—” He holds up his empty glass and escapes to the kitchen.

Jeff’s there, pouring some wine into his own glass, and fills up Steve’s without being asked.

Steve nods at him in thanks. It feels a little rude to just turn around and leave immediately, so he leans against the counter and takes a drink.

“So, uh,” says Steve. “How’ve…you been? Since, uh, Hawkins.”

Jeff gives him a wry smile. He definitely knows that Steve doesn’t remember him at all. “Not bad,” he says, drumming his fingertips on the counter. “I’m just in town visiting family for the week; I’m actually at Michigan right now, studying to be a doctor. I want to specialize in geriatrics—like, taking care of old people? But right now I’m in the part where they shuttle you around to different specialties to get a taste for everything.” He makes a face. “Surgery definitely ain’t my thing.”

“Shit. A doctor, huh?” Steve shakes his head, surprised for no real reason. It’s not like he hadn’t known that people from Hawkins could be smart; hell, he’d dated Nancy Wheeler. But this seemed like the kind of smart that just didn’t fit into his memory of Hawkins High. Other than Nancy, who—last he’d heard—was still sharing an apartment with two other girls and fighting her way up the ladder of some paper in Boston, nobody he’s kept tabs on has really gotten successful in a big-city way. Like, the kind of successful that could be on a TV show.

“Yeah, I was always into science. Used to keep caterpillars in my room, see if I could get ‘em to turn into butterflies. Drove my mama crazy, ‘cause she hated having critters in the house. But I just thought it was so wild how the caterpillars could have a whole life crawling around on the ground, and then their insides just rearrange, and suddenly they can fly. I was such a dramatic little shit, I was so damn sure I’d grow wings too.” Jeff laughs. It’s surprisingly nasal for such a broad-shouldered guy, and Steve decides he likes how unselfconscious Jeff is about it.

Steve reaches out to clink their glasses together. “Hey, you did, didn’t you? Got outta Hawkins, got to chase your fancy doctor dreams.”

“Guess I did.” Jeff nods and takes a slow sip of his wine. “Look…tell me to fuck off if this is too much, huh? But I gotta ask. Why’d you stick around? Why not get outta Hawkins too? Not that we knew each other or anything, but…even from the Hellfire table, it didn’t seem like you were having the greatest time, either. At least, not by the end.”

Hellfire, right, that’s how Jeff knows Eddie. A vague, blurry memory of seeing them both in those dorky shirts is surfacing.

“It’s not too much,” says Steve. “I don’t mind you asking. Don’t know that I’ve got an answer, though. I just didn’t have a plan like you guys, I guess.”

“Buddy.” Jeff laughs in that nasal way again and claps Steve on the shoulder. “None of us had a plan. I guess I did, a little more than the rest of them, but—I thought I wanted to be an ER doc, you know? Which, damn. Definitely not my scene, as it turns out. You don’t leave your hometown because you already know what you want out of life, even if you think that’s what you’re doing.”

“Getting philosophical in the kitchen?” Eddie appears in the doorway, empty glass dangling from his fingertips. “Congrats on being a cliche, guys.” He’s smiling, and it looks real. Happiness looks good on him.

“What’re you drinking?” says Steve. “Let me top you up.”

#I may need to rewatch the relevant bits of s3 before I write the next part of purify our misfit ways #so I'm not sure what's coming next but I had most of this written already #in very standard Me fashion—I like this snippet much less than the previous two but I just need to post the draft so I can stop fussing #I never know what to do with the hellfire lads so I'm just creating a characterization from scratch here #fic: grace coming out of the void

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thelegendofstella · 1 year

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Gravesfield + Gravesfield County probable locations in TOH

So, out of all the Gravesfield speculation I’ve seen so far, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone try to actually parse out its specific location within Connecticut, which is a shame because that window is SURPRISINGLY narrow now that we have certain bits of information about it on our hands. Not only that, but we also know that Gravesfield is part of its own county (”Gravesfield County Zoo,” anyone?), which has a lot of interesting implications as well. At least location-wise it does—I don’t know if it has any lore connections or not, though it’d be interesting to see if it did, at least. Not the point of this post though, so whoever wants to figure that out can have at it. Anyway...

TL;DR: I’m almost 95% sure that Gravesfield is located somewhere in southwestern irl Litchfield County along Route 109, and that its county should surround it and some other cities in mostly the same area. All the evidence I have to support this is below the cut:

The main source I'm drawing from here is this image:

Source: Tweet from John Bailey Owen, posted Oct 14 2022

For those who don’t know, this was a promo image of a fake Gravesfield website homepage screenshot that was posted October 14, 2022, just before Thanks to Them aired. For the most part, it looks like a regular, albeit slightly clunky 2000s-era-looking, website, except for the bits of weirdness/dark humor littered about the text (”Escape Routes,” “The Truth About This Place,” “Sightings,” “if you visit once, you may even wind up staying”) and the hidden text in the bottom corners of the page (which spell out “HELP THEM”). People of course freaked out about this stuff, as is evident in the replies of the original tweet, analyzed all of it to death, blah blah blah, that’s pretty much old news at this point.

There’s also a small calendar on the right side of the page that indicates that the events of the show are possibly happening on some year that the first day of October lands on a Saturday, and when accounting for Luz’s age (14/15) and her modern lingo and stuff, those years could be 2005, 2011, 2016, and 2022. Smartphones like what Luz has in her possession were definitely not around in 2005, and probably not around in 2011, so either 2016 or 2022 are reasonable in-universe years to guess, with it probably leaning more towards 2022 because of the irl show’s creation date.

I could probably make a whole separate post on my thoughts on the date stuff and speculate the hell out of it, honestly, but that isn’t the subject I want to cover in this particular post. No, I’m more interested in what seemingly no one else has picked up on here: the location hints.

The fake screenshot doesn’t explicitly say where Gravesfield is located, obviously, but it does have two pieces of information that narrow down the possibilities significantly when put together.

The first piece of information is this:

Route 109 is an actual route in Connecticut, which spans from New Milford to Thomaston as seen here:

Source: Connecticut Route 109 Wikipedia page, retrieved Feb 1 2023

In order for this route to be relevant to Gravesfield news, the town has to be along this route somewhere, or at least nearby it in some measure (aka it has to legally be within city bounds, which I’ll get into later). Route 109 is located in southern irl Litchfield County, which means that Gravesfield is also located in southern irl Litchfield County somewhere.

That’s pretty good and all, definitely a lot better than just throwing a dart at the map and hoping it lands somewhere decent, but it can be narrowed down even further. The second piece of information we have is this:

This is a real thing too. Regional School District 12 (or the RSD 12) is one of many school districts in Connecticut, and it happens to serve the towns of Washington, Bridgewater and Roxbury, all of which are, coincidentally, located in southern irl Litchfield County.

Washington is pretty much right on Route 109, as seen in the map above, so that means that in order for Gravesfield to be both within RSD 12 bounds and nearby Route 109 at the same time, it has to be within irl Washington’s city bounds. I’ve drawn up a diagram of sorts below with this information in mind:

Source: me :D (and google maps)

The speculatory boundary I marked between the Washington and Gravesfield city bounds here is really just one rather simple possibility of how it might be cut up while still accounting for a part of Route 109 being within Gravesfield’s jurisdiction. Again, if the route weren’t part of it, it wouldn’t show up on the city website as a relevant announcement (and if it were part of a county-wide thing, it probably would have stated it as a county announcement or something).

So there you have it: most likely locations for where Gravesfield might be in Connecticut, give or take. I could speculate even further on where exactly within these areas Gravesfield could be placed, with analyzing the smaller roads and all that, but that would honestly just be pure speculation based on personal bias/preference/etc. and not, y’know, anything concrete enough to be a plausible theory, so I’ll just leave it as it is and let individual headcanons do the rest of the work on that front.

But there’s also Gravesfield County to worry about, as shown here:

Source: The Owl House Season 3 Episode 1: “Thanks to Them”

(The fact that this is even a canon background thing in the show is bonkers, because holy shit I can’t imagine what kind of butterfly effect nonsense this must’ve made in-universe compared to irl history, but I digress.)

What this means is that the southern part of irl Litchfield County at minimum is actually Gravesfield County in the TOH universe by default, since it has to include Gravesfield in it, being the town its ultimately named after. And since we’ve already established Gravesfield’s approximate location here, its county could possibly look something like this:

Source: me (and google maps) again

It’s a lot less concrete than the location of Gravesfield itself, obviously, but that’s because I don’t have much else to work with here other than that one screenshot from Thanks to Them and what I’ve theorized about Gravesfield so far. For all I know, the entirety of irl Litchfield County is Gravesfield County, not just a part of it, or maybe Gravesfield County goes even further south than what I’ve depicted and contains parts of the Fairfield and New Haven counties for whatever reason—who knows, really? Whatever it might be, it’s definitely somewhere in western Connecticut, surrounding New Milford, Washington, Route 109, etc., and that’s good enough for me in the interest of sticking to the concrete stuff.

Fun fact: apparently Connecticut doesn’t have county governments nor county seats, so despite the fact that Gravesfield County is named after Gravesfield, the town itself isn’t, like, a grand authority on other places nearby or anything. Each city within the county deals with their own police, fire department, schools, hospitals, etc. (and zoos. Gravesfield is apparently big enough to have a whole-ass zoo in it. Wild.)

The only thing that might break this in some respects is, well, potential butterfly effect shenanigans. It can be argued that because Gravesfield and Gravesfield County exist in the TOH universe, the exact positions of the other counties, towns, etc. could be drastically different from where they are irl, and things like the regional school districts could have totally different boundaries and thus the triangulation I just did using them is pretty much useless, but there’s nothing confirming any of this in Word of God or in the show canon as of today, so I’m fairly confident that we’re working with a world that’s very similar to the irl world Except For Gravesfield. Unless the last special pulls some sort of epilogue nonsense in Gravesfield that completely obliterates my base-line irl world assumptions for this universe, anyway. You never know lmao

So basically, in short: Gravesfield and its eponymous county are most likely located in southern/southwestern irl Litchfield County around Route 109 or thereabouts, and probably replace that particular area as their own governmental entities instead of being part of a different county or something. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

#the owl house #toh #gravesfield #gravesfield county #i haven't posted on tungle in a hot minute how is everyone doing #to any remaining people still following me: i am v sorry fhjkgYHFGBHDFDF #this is not like any of my previous content rip #i got into TOH back before Thanks to Them came out (which was Scatter's fault. you know what you did you jerk /j)#and i've been obsessed with the lore about Gravesfield and the Wittebane brothers ever since because WOW are they interesting #i. basically started creating a few TOH AUs and was researching tons of stuff about Puritan life and historical Connecticut + other things #and then i basically got hit with this whole thing last night and i HAD to see it to the end. it was VITAL for me #so now i'm posting this all here so that others don't have to go through the same cross-referencing hoops i had to for this #uhhhh okay now for as many other relevant category tags as i can possibly think of #analysis #speculation #toh speculation #toh analysis #gravesfield analysis #gravesfield speculation #my text #i'll probably disappear again after this (because being active here is tiring) but i just had to get this out here man #for all the other lore researchers out there who might need something like this #and also for me. because i actually really really really need it for an AU project of mine #so there you go lmao. time to vanish back into the aether again wheeeee #edit: i am Big Fucking Idiot who doesn't know their directions #i mix up east and west/right and left ALL THE TIME

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musical-chick-13 · 5 days

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ANYWAY. What if I sang and recorded Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan.

#would it 'count' as a wlw anthem then?#probably not. if people aren't gonna acknowledge HER as a legitimate queer artist they certainly won't do it for me #STILL thinking about that one absolutely DERANGED (derogatory) anon I got that one time telling me bi women bring biphobia on themselves #(granted. as far as I'm aware this artist doesn't identify as bi. so not directly related per se.)#(but still relevant re: de-legitimizing sapphic art)#making this post partly to clarify a previous post because if that gets widely misinterpreted...I would honestly rather die. like actually.

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aftermath-askblog · 2 months

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i think sooner or later im gonna go through this blogs archive and read EVERYTHING. because i really need to. so beware of the consequences when i eventually do /silly

(You have no idea how excited I am for that)

#answer #miscellaneous #I did put “next” and “previous” links on most relevant posts but I know I missed a few in case that makes it easier!

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worstloki · 1 year

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Hey! I'm was trying to show my friend stuff about Mike Waldron and why I don't like him lol - do you happen to have a link to some posts that talk about how he made the story for the Loki show from his failed movie pitch or whatever it was? Like about how he basically made the Loki show his own fanfiction (it would also be helpful if the post had references cuz my friend only believes sources stuff lmao)

It's good that sourced stuff is required, that's how it should be XD.

It's known that he was hired for his name being on a Rick and Morty episode and for a script that was blacklisted as those were his only writing credits which showed his skill in the area, but this information is easily found online too.

This twitter thread goes through similarities between the scripts, and this post has a link to the script and a few extracts.

This post by @nikkoliferous has a bunch of links to things on the Loki series, including a section on the writers/producers etc.

#there are a lot of posts around but I think this covers the main ones about the show #i know there's one post that talks about Mike Waldron's previous writing credit and how he was hired but that's not immediately relevant #i think #idk XD #hopefully this is fine #the Loki show

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little-eye-guy · 6 months

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i play overwatch at 30fps if i'm lucky. i once accidentally started watching someone's 200+fps overwatch videos in hd and it scared me how smooth and fast it was

#eye guy speaks #i haven't actually played in a while but #this is relevant to my previous post

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codgod-moved · 2 years

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for the record: i don’t think tumble townies necessarily will die as a result of finding out they’re kept alive by magic, simply that they can if the circumstances aren’t in their favour for whatever reason

#.txt #*gestures to this and the previous post* this is a surprise tool that will become relevant later!#maybe. we’ll see.

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winter-spark · 7 months

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Alright Orange and Navel headcanons [that will totally might give me away if I ever post the fics where these ideas spouted from (I was planning on posting them anonymously if I ever finish them)] in order of creation.

Navel likes lacquerware. I know that's vague/broad but I'm thinking he also likes to compare how differently/similarly they end up based on location creation, I think there are certain designs he's more drawn to than others but he likes to look at them in general.

Orange is an owl kid. You know the ones. Sees an owl toy or owl decoration on something and is like I want that one. Additionally, I think he probably can identify a lot of owls too. (is this because he's studying more now or has he always been able to? I dunno, stop asking me questions.)

Navel is an astronomy(but mostly stars)kid. How many constellations does he know? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Orange has a sweet tooth. I mean if Zafra has the spiciest spices but also the sweetest candy there's probably two type of people: Spice cravers and Sweet tooth havers and Orange is definitely a sweet tooth haver in my humble opinion. (Ah which means the others are too. uhm well, I'll say Citron seems to have a lean towards spices, I feel Navel would too. and Tangerine probs has a lean towards sweets.)

That's what I have so far. Also sidenote, before all of this, I figured that between Navel and Orange, Navel is more... of an "!" if that makes sense, like more outgoing-ish, more excitable, more warm, none of those words seem quite right but somewhere in that ballpark. And seeing them in the recent Spotlight event sorta further confirmed that for me.

#a3!#act addict actors #Orange a3!#Navel a3!#Citron & his brothers #headcanons #I'm obsessed with my thoughts on them #well them in general #so I'm like so tempted to bump up all my queued posts on them #I want to talk about them so much #the fics that I came up with these in are not really about them btw #and only in the fic that the last hc is in (I think I sorta thought of it outside of writing but it was a good place to put) do they appear #but not as much as I want to get them into a story #and it's mostly Orange that appears so far #Tangerine has more talking lines than Navel #but also like I said it's not about about them. Like they have to do with the motivation but they aren't the main focus.#Just more important than they have been in the previous stories as it's been going so far #they get slightly more relevant each wip #lol at this point #every citoita wip I make is just me getting a step closer to writing a fic solely about the complex relationship between Citron & his bros #mayhaps one day I will actually get there lol

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