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fastcardotmp3 · 1 year

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Eddie Munson does do the whole rock star thing, but it doesn't quite go the way it did in the daydreams of a sixteen-year-old kid trying to stay awake in school.

He leaves Hawkins after the world doesn't end, gets himself out there, takes all the hurt and fear and fucked up shit and puts it into a handful of good enough songs to get himself signed.

It's not quite the genre he grew up with, not quite something any of his idols might have played, but only because it is so entirely Eddie, so influenced by where he's been and what he's seen that it kind of doesn't fit one specific influence.

It's new and it's good, is the point. Really good. And he skyrockets fast enough to give himself the spins.

He's recognizable and then he's famous and then he's too famous and too young to know what to do with it and too far from home and everyone he loves to really cope with it and it's just.

Eddie isn't built for it. Eddie hasn't even processed the fact that he was maybe supposed to die in that place, or the fact that he did watch people better than him actually die, but he's out here shooting to the top of the charts and being called the next big thing and it's too much.

It's just enough, at the end of it all, for him to self-sabotage his way out of being more than a one-hit wonder.

One big hit, a contract broken by the guys at the top with the fancy lawyers because Eddie has become the too much thing, just like always, and it's over as quick as it started.

He disappears, becomes one of those whatever happened to him? he was supposed to be the next big thing? stories that travel by word of mouth and then fade with the shift in conversation.

So what does happen to Eddie Munson?

He falls hard, he hits rock bottom, he crawls his way home to an uncle who deserved for Eddie to really make it, make him proud, have him financially set for life and get him into a real house with two stories and a garage to park the truck in, maybe even a yard for a dog.

He spirals and isolates and falls apart and stops letting himself make music at all and makes some personal choices that will probably have lasting effects on him for the rest of his life and then somewhere along the line a girl with hair like tangerines and terrible aim manages to smack him with her cane and says if I learned to walk again, so can you, asshole.

There are people in his life again after that, a reason to get out of bed and realize that he can make Wayne proud in more ways than the one he'd already fucked straight to hell.

Eddie watches a bunch of kids graduate high school and then he packs up and chases down some people who pulled him out of hell once before up in Chicago, crashes on Steve and Robin's couch until he gets himself a job painting houses and they can afford three bedrooms instead of just the two.

He cuts his hair, not short but shorter, and he gets more tattoos and itches for the guitar that sits in a case under his bed, ignores it. Itches for the pen in his hand, ignores that too.

He's still barely past his mid-20s and he still has some fucking around left to get out of his system, some finding out to accomplish doubly so, but he learns as he goes no matter whether it's forwards or backwards.

He falls in love and falls out of it, gets fired from jobs and tracks down new ones, gets into fights with his friends because they're all a little fucked up and codependent and weird but makes up with them for the same reasons.

The thing with Steve happens slowly, going from tolerating each other for the sake of knowing they'll always be on the same team to genuinely liking each other to discovering a care between the two of them that's a bit too strong to be normal about even if it still takes them a half-dozen so-called turning points to really name it and take it and keep it.

Eddie's 33 when they buy a condo together on the outskirts of Chicago two weeks after they fall into bed with each other for the first time, and he's over a decade on from being a kid who rose to the top too fast but it doesn't feel dissimilar, that sensation of a too-good thing that's bound to go wrong.

Only this time he doesn't try to sabotage it, tries the opposite, tries to hold it tightly in ways that would probably be too tight for anyone other than Steve Harrington with all his deeply intense feelings and inability to love at anything other than an eleven.

It's in the move that Steve finds a box of notebooks, snoops because it's who he is, and finds years worth of words that never made it past the tip of a pen but did, eventually, make it that far.

And it's not an easy thing, convincing Eddie that they're words worth sharing, because Eddie doesn't want it to be an easy thing. He can't let kind words shoved into his orbit by a beautiful man be enough to make it feel worth it, can't see a world where sharing his art doesn't end in another great big self-induced mess that he can't let happen when he's finally found something good.

He doesn't want to go on tour and get screamed at on stage and, besides, he's pretty sure the rest of the world doesn't want to scream for him anymore either, but then Steve has to go and remind him--

"You don't have to be the face of it. You can just be the words; you are so fucking good at being the words, Ed."

Which still isn't quite enough to be convincing, but it's a start in a solid six months of the words coming easier now that he has someone to share them with, someone to listen as Eddie plucks away at a guitar that sits out in the open now, free of dust.

It stops feeling like something shameful to hide, his music, and the thing is? It doesn't feel how it did back then either.

It's not an escape or a purge of violent energy or a distraction from everything he didn't know how to think about. Sure, it takes all of that into consideration because it takes the whole of Eddie into consideration, but more than anything it's just fun.

Like he's thirteen and still learning how to play the guitar, like it's just a hobby that never has to go anywhere, like it's just art that maybe deserves to be heard.

Everyone pitches in on ideas when they find out he's trying to come up with a pseudonym, and it's goofy and supportive and kind of the final straw in reaching out to old, burned bridges to see about any new artists looking for equally new tunes.

The first time Eddie and Steve catch familiar lyrics being sung by a new hotshot band on the radio, Eddie cries not because he's jealous or disappointed, but because it feels right.

He doesn't like being up in front of the crowds, had only ever walked across tables and made himself big and scary and loud out of self preservation, would always rather his biggest performances be for the people he knows really care.. Besides, after everything he's survived he's learned, albeit slowly, that he really likes the freedom of the quiet.

This way he still gets to say what he has to say, gets to throw his hat into the ring of an artform that he loves without selling his soul to a machine that tried to eat him alive (trust him. he knows what that feels like.)

Of course, someone is going to put 2 and 2 together eventually, the industry isn't as big as it looks and pseudonyms only pull so much weight when you went out in such a spectacularly messy and memorable fashion, but Eddie's got his condo in Chicago.

He's got the guy he shares it with in his bed.

He's got two cats and a windowsill full of plants he's going to keep alive this time, Steve, just you watch.

He's got his uncle settled in Indy these days, a small place with a small yard.

He's got music, too. Turns out even his own tendency to self-destruct couldn't take that away, huh?

It's what got him out of hell alive, after all.

#dot post #dot fic #eddie munson #steddie #one hit wonder eddie has lived rent free in my head for too long you guys have to join me in this before I lose my mind to it #rockstar!eddie #writer!eddie

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rosegoldenatlas · 2 months

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They're siblings, your honor

All of the hermits are one great big psychotic family. Here are the roles of the ones I know enough to point out properly and even reasoning. Might make this a foster au BTW.

Xisuma is the father, obviously. But like he's the kind of dad that works night shift just to see his kids more often. He's the kind of dad that adopts kids by pure accident. He's the dad that is always there to give advice and definitely got half of those tips from the internet and the other half from personal experience.

Doc is the eldest child, he was adopted by X because one day he just fucking appeared with his three friends at X's house (its basically a mansion because of how much space he needs to keep all of these kids in check) trying to steal food and supplies. He got caught because he hit his head on a doorframe an it woke up X lol. Doc would be like 17 in the au and he would immediately find a reason to not like Grian.

Beef is one of the people who arrived with Doc, he is on month younger than him and he's the reason X let them stay he night because he immediately invoked pity.

Etho also arrived with Doc, he is two months younger than him and he was supposed to be the only one going in to steal because he knew how to be sneaky but he had no conception of what was needed to survive on the streets so the rest had to join him.

Bdubs was the final person who arrived with Doc and he is a year younger than he rest of the NHO (he came up with the name in the au) Bdubs and Doc have this weird sibling rivalry where they'll have a huge argument over something important then Bdubs will ask for a ride two minutes later and suddenly all is well with the world.

Grian is classic middle child vibes except he's the kind of middle child that causes so many issues that he actually gets attention constantly. When Doc arrived (Grian was adopted a year before Doc was) he immediately accidentally broke Doc's robotics project he had been working on since before they met. Immediately he realized he effed up while Scar was only scared because Grian was. Grian is like 15 btw

Scar is three weeks younger than Grian and he is the kid who always gets in trouble for the most obscure things in school. Like comes home early cause he was suspended for creating a pyramid scheme for monster energy drinks kind of obscure. Also he has scammed most of his adoptive siblings out of their allowances.

Cub is Scars twin in this, he helped with all of the scams and pyramid schemes. But he never gets caught. Nobody knows how but he never got into trouble in school even though he sold pens that had test answers written on a piece of paper in them.

Cleo is 17 in this, she is the on who is put in charge of the house when X is gone because the NHO was deemed irresponsible after the incident which ended with Grian, Scar and Mumbo locked in a closet with the NHO taunting them through the door. Cleo is the only child who owns a car and the one who is consistently begged to drive people places. She has since used this to her advantage and now has the others pay by the mile.

Ren is younger than Cleo but is older than Mumbo, he apparently knew Doc before they were adopted and was adopted first. Ren is the classic theatre kid and does drama after school every Wednesday and Friday. One time he was supposed to watch the younger kids because X was at work, Cleo was shopping and the NHO group was doing stuff. This ended with X coming back to Ren about to be sent to exile (the yard) because he had crowned himself as king of the house and the TV remote was his magic scepter and he wouldn't let anyone else switch the channel.

Mumbo is a year younger than Ren and he used to be considered the most mature, for all of five minutes until he started doing things, these include; making a custom lock on his door out of rubber bands and twine which proceeded to somehow work two whole times before it ripped the doorknob out of the door, making a semi sentient robot out of an old furby and a gameboy, naming it Grumbot then adopting it with Grian, and then accidentally setting his curtains on fire while he was testing a homemade microwave because he wants one in his room but couldn't afford to buy one.

Pearl is the same age as Grian in this, she is labeled the demon child by every other sibling except for Gem and Cleo but she embraces the title. She is called this because she is known to bring dangerous animals into the house and her room is half full of terrariums and tanks of animals. She has brought in multiple spiders and snakes from outside and kept them as pets, she also has a running joke of taping objects to the ceiling so they're upside down. Her biggest prank was attaching everything in grians room to the ceiling including his bed and nobody except Doc, Cleo and Pearl herself know how it happened.

Joel is somewhere between Grians age and Bdubs' age. He is known for getting caught while pranking people in the house consistently. Which is a good thing because most of his pranks will end in something catching fire. He has started multiple cults and has convinced people to give him money to 'support the religion' He makes way too much money from it because he has multiple siblings convinced that the made up gods are real. He uses this money to buy insane amounts of Lego's to build with. He shares them sometimes. He also has a girlfriend at his school (Lizzie) and also whatever odd thing with his friend (Sausage bc c!Joel is probs poly) whom he has 'joint custody' over a small child they babysit sometimes.

That's all of the hermits in the au, here is all of their age in order of oldest to youngest ig

Xisuma (32)

Doc (18)

Beef (18)

Etho (18)

Cleo (17)

Bdubs (17)

Ren (17)

Joel (16)

Mumbo (16)

Grian (15)

Pearl (15)

Cub (14)

Scar (14)

And here is the order in which they were adopted;

Cleo & Ren

[Two months later]

Grian & Scar

[One week later]

Cub

[Three months later]

Pearl

[Two and a half weeks later]

Mumbo

[The next day]

Joel

[Seven months later]

Doc, Beef, Etho & Bdubs

Here is how/ why they were adopted.

Cleo and Ren were both originally foster kids and X was fostering them. They were about to age out of the system and be forced to live without any real help so X offered to adopt them.

Grian and Scar were runaways from their sucky homes and survived on the streets for a total of three days before X found them while he was at a picnic with Cleo and Ren. He took them in pretty quick.

Cub was actually Scars friend from school who tutored him sometimes, while staying over for dinner one night X asked about his home life. Cub explained that he had been emancipated and lived on his own. X offered to let Cub stay for a bit and Cub never really left.

Pearl just appeared in X's yard one day trying to catch a frog who had hopped into it. X was trying to find out where her parents were and she just sat there very confused on the concept of a parent and she claimed she had just appeared in existence one day. X was going to put her in the foster system but decided to just adopt her.

Mumbo was a kid up for adoption that Grian knew and Grian spent about three weeks convincing X to adopt him before X finally agreed.

Joel was found injured am knocked out in the forest one day and a pink haired girl (Lizzie) carried him over to the first safe looking house and knocked on the door. She was let in until Joel woke up, Joel said he was from space and X had decided that wasn't the weirdest story he's been told and yoinked him. X was close to adopting Lizzie until he found out Lizzie already had parents.

Doc, Beef, Etho and Bdubs were lab escapees who were apparently tested on in a shut down lab a few towns over. They had been living on the streets for a few months before they were caught trying to steal from Xisumas kitchen at five in the morning. They were adopted instantly.

Should I write this as a multi POV book of one shots from the same universe and put it on ao3? This is an idea just now occurring to me.

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shrimpathizer · 3 months

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this is just a theory (i haven't looked into this bit that much) but I feel like the reason that misinformation is so wildly rampant in online communities about ADHD (probably also autism) is in part because of how inaccessible actual professional information about it is.

Like, I remember before I got my diagnosis (what started off this whole thing a while back), I was looking at the CDC website description of symptoms of ADHD with my mom and. If you thought you were neurodivergent and were looking at this thing trying to see if you should get tested, its basically saying "screw you. you're either a child who is going to be here because of their parents, or an adult who is also here because of another neurotypical."

one of the criteria was literally "is often 'on the go' acting as if 'driven by a motor.'" that means absolutely nothing. you are using undefined expressions to explain something to someone who historically is not good at understanding unexplained social norms (such as expressions).

plus, its incredibly subjective. "on the go" could mean something wildly different for one person then the next. and "often" could mean "all the time every day" or "only at school" or even "every other week." not to mention the memory issues that at least a lot of the people who I know with ADHD struggle with.

someone who might have ADHD has no way of knowing if they "often have trouble organizing tasks and activities" or if that is a normal amount. there is no way for them to easily know if they "often do not seem to listen when spoken to directly."

so it seems obvious to me, that they would turn to other people with ADHD. and the easiest place to find them these days is online. thats how I started wondering if I should get diagnosed. they're probably trying to find some other way to understand or know. and since its social media and social media is rampant with misinformation, of course they are going to be fed misinformation.

people are going to tell them "you see this weird thing that you do? I do that too. and its actually because of this much larger thing. trust me." and people will. because there really isn't much of another place for them to turn. they are going to self-diagnose with every disorder under the sun to make themselves feel at home and feel like they aren't weird or wrong.

maybe i'm way off here but I think that if you want people (teens in particular) to stop turning to social media for comfort and information, you should give them other resources that are accessible. that they don't have to pay to see, that they can understand clearly, that acknowledges all the weird things that they feel bad about.

and sort of as a side note: i remember in elementary school, early on (this might have just been my school/city/state), the school set up one of those mobile classrooms on the yard and would pull kids out for like a good couple months to do eye exams. because we've normalized that kids also have eye problems and thats normal. and maybe, could we also get a small little assessment. just to see if we can find neurodivergent kids early on and get them help so that they don't suffer for years and years.

and i'm not talking as someone who has had it hard. i have had it so easy compared to so many others. i have supportive parents and get good grades, and yet, i am constantly burnt out. i constantly feel horrible. not just because of depression. maybe i'm being too radical here but i feel like i shouldn't need a 504 plan to say that if i'm having a panic attack i can leave the room. that if i'm having trouble focusing i can go to the library or somewhere else. that i can get extensions on due dates. that i can see a copy of the notes or lesson for reference. i don't know maybe i'm just incredibly radical that i think people shouldn't have to be expected to work four times as hard to get anything done and then get blamed when they don't live up to the expectation. whether or not they are neurodivergent.

#miso speaks #vent post #rant #adhd #adhd things #adhd problems #neurodivergent #neurodiversity #neurodivergence #social media #misinformation #long post

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innytoes · 6 months

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Hello, please do prompt 21 for willex!! So excited!

And also for @legolasghosty who asked for the same with Willex(ie). Because you all love the giant skeleton prompt lol.

You'd think after several months of being crammed into a tour bus during their first tour ever, Alex would have cringed at the idea of pooling their money to buy a house together as a band. But it wasn't like they were making Mansion Money (not yet! the Bobby in his mind shouted), and well, he kind of liked their little house. He liked seeing his friends every day. They each had their own bedroom, they converted the garage into a music studio, and there were enough bathrooms that nobody wanted to murder the others on a regular basis.

The house was in a nice neighbourhood, but nice in the way that people smiled and nodded at each other on the street, not nice as in 'everyone's lawn is immaculate and exactly according to HOA standards'. The house on the corner had an alarming amount of garden gnomes, there was a Little Free Library a few houses down, and apparently people went kind of hard decorating for the holidays.

Reggie had been more than happy to sweet talk the little old lady with the Pomeranian from down the street into giving up her source for decorative gourds. But it wasn't enough, so they decided to plan a trip to the nearest Spirit Halloween.

It wasn't like they planned to come home with a twelve foot skeleton. But it was there, and it was awesome, and when Alex had tried to object, Luke had turned to him with a: "We're the adults now, bro. We get to decide what that means."

And well, how could Alex object to that?

"Okay," he'd agreed. "But only if we can rig it so he's holding a pride flag."

And so, Clyde The Pride Skeleton was erected in their front yard, much to the delight of a lot of their neighbours. It wasn't uncommon for people to stop and take pictures, for little kids to shout HI CLYDE on their way to school, and for the local teens to salute him while biking past. Alex kind of loved it.

So yeah, he wasn't particularly upset to find a stranger in their front yard taking selfies with Clyde. The skeleton was located far enough to the front of their yard and they had enough greenery and porch between him and the house that their privacy wasn't exactly compromised. And well, who wouldn't want a picture with a giant gay skeleton?

The thing that was alarming was how this guy was taking selfies.

Because he was on stilts. Stilts high enough that when Alex looked out of his bedroom window, he was face to face with the beautiful, handsome, insane stranger in the front yard.

"Hi! I love your skeleton!" the guy called, waving as Alex opened up his widow in alarm.

"What the hell are you doing?" he called, a little alarmed. The guy was really, really high up.

"Taking a selfie?" Stilt Guy responded, wiggling his phone a little for emphasis.

"Okay," Alex huffed to himself, because obviously. "Why are you on stilts?"

"Oh!" the guy beamed. "Because else I couldn't get his face and my face in the frame!"

Which made a weird kind of sense but also who had giant stilts just lying around? How far had this guy walked with (on? that was a terrifying thought) giant stilts just to get a selfie with Clyde.

The guy moved around the skeleton, coming up to the window, and while Alex thought he should probably be more concerned, the closer the guy got, the more he realised he was very, very pretty. Besides, if he was a creep, he'd be easy to topple over.

"I'm Willie!" Stilt Guy said.

"Alex," Alex said. "Do you always have giant stilts with you, or did you make a special trip just to meet Clyde?"

"His name is Clyde?" Willie's smile became even wider. "I mean, I had them in my backpack, I just did a shift at the Hollywood Ghost Carnival. They're collapsible. You'd be surprised how handy they can be!"

"Uhuh. I bet you rescue a lot of kittens stuck in trees," Alex said sarcastically, and okay, maybe a little flirtatiously. Listen, it wasn't ever day that a handsome stranger hovered outside your bedroom window wanting to chat.

And so they did. For like half an hour, Alex sitting in the window sill and Willie shuffling around on his stilts. He told the story of Clyde the Pride Skeleton, Willie told him about his job at the Carnival, and they both flirted up a storm.

Alex was just about to offer Willie to come inside (through the window, through the front door, whatever would be easier in the giant stilts), when Reggie came running down the street.

"Guys, do we have a ladder?" he called. "Mr Emerson's cat is stuck in a tree in front of the Molina's house and she sounds so sad, we gotta help her out!"

Willie met his eyes. The mischievous smile was back.

Alex groaned. Okay, so he'd been proven wrong. "Actually I think we got something that will work!" he called down, and when Reggie turned to look, his face lit up.

Maybe afterwards, they could still grab a coffee or something. You know, on the ground like normal people.

#julie and the phantoms #willex #with vague reggiexalexxwillie vibes at the end there #fanfic #I wrote a thing #luke tries the 'we get to decide how to be adults' line on Alex more than once but it doesn't work for 'icecream for dinner 3 days in a row #willie would just strap on some stilts and take selfies with a giant skeleton

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ben-learns-smth · 6 months

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first months as a (substitute/supportive) teacher - some thoughts (an incomplete list)

autumn holidays start on friday, so I thought I'd write down some thoughts on my experience of the last 2-ish months. I definitely have some growing and learning to do, it shows that I'm only half-trained for this

surprisingly I enjoy working with the smallest (grade 1/2) the most. it's partially that (unless they need me for substitute lessons) I spend the most time in that class and have gotten to know the pupils quite well. I know the routines of the class and I got into a great rhythm with the main teacher

the pupils are opening up a lot more about their interests and their lives, striking up conversations with me when they see me in the yard during break. I'm glad that I don't seem like a stranger to them anymore!

substitute lessons without tasks prepared by the teacher are more draining than I expected them to be. I also lack skills for coming up with substitute lessons for my subjects (let alone other subjects) bc I have very little experience of what they're already supposed to know/be able to do. especially in english lessons it's hard to find an appropriate level

being the only visibly and out trans nonbinary teacher is exhausting. I'm looking forward to the day when I've given substitute lessons in every class so I can stop explaining myself. I don't mind explaining queer topics to children and it's important to have those conversations but I'm the only one having them bc I have to, bc my genderqueer appearance raises questions and if it doesn't introducing myself as mr./mx. does.

related to that I'm excited to work with another colleague on a diversity concept for the school that focuses on queerness. our main objective will be to raise awareness in teachers and students

I still struggle to find an appropriate mix between being strict and being fun. with some classes it works well, with others I need to be stricter than I'd like to be, with others I need to ease off a bit.

schools are incredibly gendered spaces and while I obviously knew that it still caught me off guard (and tbh I think it's having an influence on my habits which I Don't Like At All). everything is very clearly divided into boys and girls. I'm generally good with gender neutral language, but compared to my first weeks I jump to use gendered terms much quicker now (example: saying "the girl in the red jumper" instead of a neutral version when I don't know their names yet), including when I talk about myself which feels weird

good quality sleep is so important. being a teacher is super demanding, especially in some more chaotic classes and showing up with only a few hours of sleep is Not It

being able to remember names really well really fast is a super power and I'm grateful I can do that every time I meet a new class for a substitute lesson. the kids are impressed (teachers too), but most importantly it creates a different atmosphere in the classroom. (it's also easier to remind them of class rules when they need it)

so far, the past months have confirmed what I've been thinking for a while: teaching is something I could do, but I'm less sure if it's what I want to do in the long run. so even though I wasn't able to start deaf studies this winter I'm sticking to my plan: try out deaf studies for a year (starting next autumn) and work on the side, then decide if a) I keep going like that to do the full deaf studies b.a. b) I pause deaf studies to do my teacher training and then evaluate again or c) I do my teacher training and pick up uni classes for fun after

#I think there would be more thoughts if I weren't so tired #if you read all of that and are still reading this thank you and I love you and please have some water #mine #bente rambles #teachblr #studyblr #uniblr #knife gang

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violethursday · 28 days

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YOU

Fellow cephalopod enjoyer

DO YA HAVE ANY REFERENCES FOR YA AGENTS WITH YOUR HCS FOR THEM

If not

I WILL DRAW THEM

BOY DO I!

Captain 3: Masahiro "Hiro" Ikeda

Biromantic demisexual, age 24

He has pretty bad sight, so he uses glasses (the half-rim glasses)

Has a tired-looking face

Unlike in this photo, he has the "hipster" hairstyle and wears his Octo Expansion fit (but with sweatpants)

Has a facial scar from the events of Octo Expansion

Really really quiet

Despite that he was a theatre kid in high school

Plays a bit of guitar

Main color is the classic blue from the first Splatoon game

Likes to use E-Liter (sometimes uses scope) and Squiffer

Dresses up like 2-D from Gorillaz

He and his twin sister Riko were classmates with Callie and Marie pre-Splatoon 1

Is a diehard Squid Squad fan and is still slightly salty for Ikkan leaving the group

Second shortest of the group (5'7')

Agent 4: Celeste Cousteau

Sapphic transgirl, age 19

She's not a squid but instead a cuttlefish and has w-shaped pupils

Eyes are kinda shaped like the eye emoji

👁

She also has a bunch of freckles!

Can be quite reckless

Likes to wear the black fishfry bandana

Local girlfailure

Main color is magenta

Likes to use the Enperry Dualies and Bloblobber Deco

Kinda dresses similar to May from Pokemon

Her mom forced her to play cello but eventually quit for the drums (will angrily shred on the cello if asked to play it)

Has 2 older sisters, a younger sister, and a younger brother

Ink Theory fan!

Second tallest of the group (5'9')

Agent 8: Octavia Takowasa

Pansexual demigirl, age 24

She's Octavio's daughter via severed tentacle

Quite similar to their dad in terms of personality though acts more formal whenever she's leading

Despite having cyan eyes in this pic, they're blue with green sclera and more shaped like the rival octolings

Still likes using her Octoleet Goggles even after the events of Octo Expansion

Girlboss

Has been married to Hiro since March of 2022 (around the time when the Cherry blossoms bloom in Japan)

Likes using Octobrush and Splatana Wiper

Just like her father, they're a DJ (she sometimes samples some of Octavio's music). They're also great at playing the bass guitar!

Sometimes uses a modified version of Callie's hypnoshades at their concerts

Main color is a dull red-violet (which is DJ Octavio's swim form color)

Their fashion sense is a cross of Envy Adams from Scott Pilgrim and Yuko Suzuhana from Waggakki Band

Fan of both Off the Hook and the Squid Sisters' songs

Tallest member of the group (5'11')

Neo Agent 3: Marnie Aretz

Non-binary, age 14

Pupils are infinity-shaped (like Marina and Acht's)

Has a beauty mark on their upper right lip

Eyes are slightly more square with a thousand-yard stare

Very straightforward about things

Acht's (and Paul's) cousin via Marnie's dad and Acht's mom being siblings.

Child prodigy in engineering

Good at playing the keyboard

Really likes eating pineapples for some reason

Main color is a combination of dark indigo with rival octoling red tips

Likes using Big Swig Express and Nautilus 79 (which are my main weapons)

Despite having the surfcurl in this picture, Marnie mostly wears their hair in a ponytail

Didn't really have many friends when they were younger for being "weird" so they just focused on their education instead (totally not projecting myself onto them)

Dresses up like a "midwest emo"

Dedf1sh and Sashimori fan (obviously)

Shortest of the group (5'1')

#ask box #ask answered #Masahiro (Agent/Captain 3)#Celeste (Agent 4)#Octavia (Agent 8)#Marnie (Neo 3)

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writethesleepaway · 2 years

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Every Girl But One - P1

Summary: Growing up with Steve Harrington as your best friend meant that you saw each other as family. Watching that role stick after your feelings for him change can only hurt.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Fem!Reader

WC: 2889

Warnings: angst, swearing and dumbass steve :)

A/N: based on a true fucking story because god i fucking hate 'being one of the boys'

Here is part 2!

(divider by @delishlydelightfuldividers)

Steve always said that you were his best girl, his unbiological sister, his sidekick, ever since you were little kids. You'd spend summers with him, running around his or your yard, chasing each other with bubbles or water guns. In school, you shared all your classes, purposely choosing them each year so you'd be seated together. Every time you cried, Steve was there to wipe your tears, dust you off, and get you back on track. Every time Steve was sad at watching his parents leave for their usual meetings, you invited him over for a movie and a sleepover. There was this unspoken, mutually benficial relationship you had that no matter the situation, you'd always be there for each other. But of course, you just had to catch feelings for him.

You had to catch feelings for Steve 'The Hair' Harrington, who developed this flirtatious drawl and touchy mannerisms. You first witnessed it in the 8th grade, Steve wanted to ask Suzie Carter to the summer dance, and of course she said yes. Your eyebrow raised, initially weirded out by the sudden change in voice and unfamiliar behaviour, but you passed it off as 'something guys just do'. The second time it happened was only 2 weeks later, when Steve asked Alice Brown to be his girlfriend. Naturally, you were shocked that he took interest in her, as you thought he liked Suzie, but you didn't really question it further than that. Eventually, it overtook his whole personality, it was like some persona that possessed him, only when he spoke to girls, when he spoke to any girl. Any girl but you. To you, he just went back to his original self, talking to you like he would when you were 10 years old again.

Of course, you tried to brush it off like it was nothing, you guys were best friends, always had been, always will be, so of course he'd talk to you the same! Yet your foolish heart cracked more and more each time he'd tell you about his conversations with girls, girls prettier than you, kinder than you, more deserving of his love than you.

I'm telling you now Y/N, you gotta fix this, either tell him, get rejected and move on, or tell him and start dating, or just force your feelings away. It's only going to end badly for you, because he's stupid and blind.

Your other friends warned you, which you were appreciative of, but you couldn't help but follow your feelings. The familiar ache would start again in your chest whenever you saw him leaning up against some locker, running his fingers over some new girl's chin, wondering when it would be you. A part of you knew that if you ever had that chance, you'd probably just be another one on the ongoing list of girls Steve talked to, but you really couldn't care less, you just wanted the validation, the achievement, his attention.

"Steve, how many girls are you going to talk to this year?" you asked, sipping on your lemonade as you spent another day basking in the summer heat with Steve.

"What kinda question is that, Y/N?" he asked, tilting his head to the left.

"A genuine one! I always see you talking to girls in the hallway, so let's make a bet. I think that this year, this school year, you're going to talk to 35 girls."

"35?! I feel like I can do better than that!"

"Oh, so now your goal is to talk to as many girls as possible?"

"Well, not exactly, and plus, when you say it like that you make it sound like a bad thing!"

"Well... Yeah. Nobody likes being the second, third, or 35th choice Steve. You're breaking hearts!"

"Oh come on Y/N, it's nothing serious, I'm sure I'm not breaking hearts. If I was, they'd say something to me, but they're not! I'm just having fun, y'know?"

"Sure, whatever you say Stevie."

"I think I'm going to talk to 50."

"Jesus Steve the goal is to go down, not up!"

"Hey, I'm just being realistic."

"So, senior year, you'll go out with a bang, huh? Why not just try to talk to every girl! Get them all on your belt!"

"Every girl but one."

Your heart stopped at hearing Steve say this, somewhere deep down in your mind you knew that he was going to say that you were the exception, he could never see you as anything more than his friend.

"Who's the one exception Steve?"

"You, duh!"

He said it with such enthusiasm, like it was obvious, and you couldn't help but internally scream as you scrambled to pull together the broken pieces of your heart that had just shattered in your chest.

Steve spoke again after you were silent for too long.

"Y/N...? You okay?"

"Hm? Yeah, I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Yup! 'M good."

"Okay... You know you'll always be my girl right? These others might come and go but I'll always have your back, just you and me against the world."

"Yeah Steve, I know."

He pulled you into a hug, one that you didn't really reciprocate, but moved just enough to convince him that you were okay. A part of you started to dread going back to school with him, knowing that you'd endure another year of watching him flirt with girls left and right. But there really wasn't much you could do, Steve was too stuck in his mindset, or 'had his head too far up his ass' as your friends liked to phrase it.

To your surprise, Steve kept his number of girls to a minimum, somehow falling head over heels for none other than Nancy Wheeler. It kinda made sense, she was pretty, smart, motivated, and you guessed that Steve liked the challenge; she wasn't like any of the other girls he would ask out. So when you'd hear the occasional "Hey, have you heard? Steve and Nancy are still going at it! Can you believe it's lasted anything longer than a hookup?" you were slightly shocked. Naturally, as his relationship with Nancy progressed, yours deteriorated. He spent less and less time with you, talking to you, even looking at you, pouring all his time and attention into his girlfriend. Of course you understood, you'd want your own boyfriend to do the same, but your heart burned, longing for your friendship and the way things used to be.

"Come on, Y/N, we've got to get you out of this funk. I don't care that you and Steve used to be best friends, it's time for you to move on." Robin moaned as she tried to pull you off her bedroom floor by your wrist.

"Move on? Who said I was stuck on him in the first place?" you asked as you looked up at her.

"Y/N, I'm not stupid, you look at him like you're a puppy who got left on the side of the road."

"Uh, as if! I just, miss my friend, that's all."

"Yeah, and the hypothetical relationship you could have had! It's so obvious that you were head over heels for him."

"Even if I was, there's nothing I can do about it Robs, he's got eyes for Nancy and Nancy only."

"Y'know, I heard a rumour that she's been hanging out with Jonathan."

"Wait what, Jonathan who?"

"That Byers kid, the photographer?"

"I thought he was... y'know..."

"Oh my god Y/N you can say the word gay."

"Gay! Yeah, what happened to him being gay?"

"Who knows? Who cares? He's obviously done something to attract Nancy."

"I'm sure it's just some stupid rumour, started by Tommy or something, to get back at Steve."

"No I'm serious! People have seen them driving home together!"

"Yeah, whatever you say Robin."

"Look, regardless of Nancy's situation, you need to get off your ass about Steve. He's clearly too dumb to see what he's been missing. You're a great girl, you're kind, you're pretty, and you've always been there for him. Can you say the same about him? Aboslutely not! Therefore, I suggest we kick the 'ditch Steve' plan into action! We can even find you a different guy! I heard Billy's single these days!"

"Really Robin? You did not just suggest Billy as a replacement for Steve. And he's always single! That's his whole thing, hookups or nothing!"

"Okay, sure, maybe he's racist and misogynistic, but what guy isn't these days? He'll be perfect to take your mind off of Harrington!"

"Oh yeah, that's a great idea, get fucked by Billy Hargrove and lose all thoughts of Steve Harrington!" you deadpanned, causing Robin to losen her grasp on your arm and fall to the floor laughing.

"This is serious Robin! I can't continue living my life obsessing over him! It's bad enough that he's my best friend!"

"He was your best friend!"

"Thank you so much for reminding me."

The two of you stayed on her floor for what felt like hours, thinking of different ways to get over Steve, ultimately failing to come up with a concrete plan. It felt like no matter what you did you'd come back to the same conclusion, you'd always have a crush on him and he'd always just see you as a friend, and nothing more. At least talking to your friends about it offered some form of distraction.

A few days later word spread around that a Halloween party was being hosted, and for some reason, everyone was invited. Robin forced you to attend, saying it would be a good way to take your mind off of your crush, which you replied to saying you agreed except for the fact that Steve and Nancy would most likely be there, thus backfiring on her plan. Yet, for some reason you still went, choosing to momentarily forget about your problems. You showed up to the house with Robin, not really dressed as anything in particular, about 2 hours late, hoping you would have avoided the initial rush.

"Y/L/N, is that you?" a voice called out to you from the dark. You squint your eyes to find Billy, leaning against his car, smoking probably for the millionth time that night.

"What do you want Billy?" you asked with an uninterested tone.

"Just curious, since when do you go to parties little lady?"

"God, don't call me that. And whether or not I go to parties or not is none of your business."

He sauntered up to you and your surroundings suddenly seemed smaller, like the world was shrinking into you. You couldn't keep your eyes off of his as he slowly walked up to you, using his free hand to move the hair out of your face. If your heart was beating before, it was definitely racing now, as Robin's words echoed back to you. Sure there was a chance Billy would completely ignore you after the night, but the sudden attention made you burn up.

"Hm, a different nickname then? Princess? Sweetheart? Ba-"

"Get your fucking hands off of her, Billy." Steve growled as he burst through the door.

"This doesn't concern you Harrinton, go tend to your girlfriend, or what's left of her now that she's dealing with Byers."

You didn't expect Steve to show up and talk to Billy like that, especially after practically ignoring your existence for months. You also definitely didn't expect him to grab him by the collar and slam him into a tree, threatening to do worse if he didn't leave you alone. Billy took the hint and wandered into the house, claiming he wasn't 'drunk enough for this shit'.

Steve turned to look at you, his expression softening when he saw you looking at him oddly.

"Come on, Y/N, don't look at me like that."

"Don't look at you like what?"

"Like you aren't happy to see me!"

"Well, I'm not... I'm surprised you even remember my name."

"What? The hell are you talking about?"

"Steve, you haven't spoken to me in months, let alone looked at me. Now you come out here and shoo Billy away?"

"Billy isn't good for you, Y/N, you know that."

"And you do?"

"Yes! I'm your best friend, I'll always watch out for you!"

"No Steve, you're barely even just a friend these days! You've been so occupied with Nancy that you haven't even had the time to look at me! I'm not asking for much Steve, just for you to acknowledge my existence. But I guess your girl is more important than that."

"She's... she's not my girl."

"So the rumours are true?"

"Yeah, she got drunk and then told me we were bullshit, that our love was bullshit."

"I'm sorry Steve, that's a horrible way to be broken up with."

"Yeah. I guess it's back to finding a girl I go."

"Wait, you just got dumped, and you're seriously back to finding a girl?"

"I mean, yeah? What else would I do?"

"How bout take some time off? Think about what is wrong with you that made Nancy break up with you?"

"What's wrong with me? What about what's wrong with her? And what's wrong with you?! Why are you saying there's something wrong with me?"

"Steve, she's a smart girl, she wouldn't have just dumped you for no reason. And she's nice, so if it was the case of feelings disappearing she would have dumped you differently."

Steve shook his head at your words, sliding down next to your feet as you leaned against the same tree where Billy was pushed into.

"Y'know, I thought you'd be more excited to talk to me." he whispered.

"Y'know, so did I."

"So why aren't you?"

"I'm tired, Steve."

"Oh, do you want me to drive you home?"

"No, I mean my heart, is tired. I'm mentally exhausted."

"What's up?"

"I have spent years with you, loving you, and being in love with you. And you'd think that you'd be able to stop, just for one fucking second, to look at what's right in front of you and see what's there. See that I have always been, and probably always will be, there. But no, you fuck off from girl to girl and the second you get with Nancy, nobody else exists. And the moment you're done with Nancy, you're already gone again, looking for girl, looking for any girl, but me, of course. Because to you I'm not a girl, to you I'm Y/N, I'm different, I'll never be a girl that you can see in any way other than your close friend. That's what's up, Steve."

Steve's jaw dropped at your confession. You weren't sure where the sudden nerve to spit out such a monologue came from, it's not like you were drunk or high. The adrenaline died out and you were left a burning mess, thanking the darkness of the night for hiding the embarassment left on your face.

"Y/N... I, I don't really know what to say."

"Yeah I figured... You haven't known for some time."

"I didn't know you saw me that way."

"Of course you didn't."

"I'm sorry for being so blind."

"Yeah."

"I'm so-"

"Look, Steve, if all you're going to do is apologize for your behaviour, which is what you should have done ages ago, I'm going to go. I don't expect you to say anything, but I don't see any reason to stay. Unless you want me to stay."

You still held on to a slight sliver of hope, wondering if Steve would actually ask you to stay.

"I think you should go."

"What?"

"You should go, Y/N, I don't know what I can say to you. This changes things."

You felt your heart break at Steve's sudden coldness.

"What the hell does this change? I thought you would just go about ignoring me like you have for the past 6 months?"

"Don't you get it, Y/N? I can't ignore you now, now that you've said the one thing I've feared for so long."

"Hold on, feared?"

"Yes! Feared! Because now we will never go back to just being friends."

"Steve, you're being fucking weird. What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm gonna go, if you won't. I'm sorry Y/N. Bye."

Steve got up and walked away, back into the house. You felt the tears threaten to escape your eyes as you tried to process the mess of a conversation that had just happened. Some part of you thought it wasn't real, the other more logical part of you knew you had to find Robin as fast as possible and leave immediately.

"Holy shit, Y/N. I heard the whole thing!" Robin called out as she ran towards you.

"Wait, you did?"

"Yeah, I came out here cause the music was getting too loud inside and then I hid behind Billy's car when I heard you and Steve talk. Now let's go, you need to cry it out and I need to plan Steve's demise."

Robin pulled you along away from the party as you let the tears now stream down your face. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong, and Steve's words and behaviour felt like a slap in the face.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington angst #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington reader insert #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things #steve harrington story #steve harrington imagine #vellarawrites

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diocletion-aint-shit · 9 days

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You ever think about "Think of the children!!!" Policy arguments and how little they usually think about the children?

I remember when I was a kid a parents group at my school kicked up a huge thing over a new apartment building. It was adding two additional floors of apartments to a 2 story building on a busy commercial street. But unfortunately, the back of the building would (allegedly) be overlooking the school yard. Oh lord, think of it! People may be able to see the school yard! The one that's visible from the parking lot of the busiest supermarket in town! The parking lot that was between the proposed building and the school.

Having grown up to a severe housing crisis, I feel really weird about having been paraded out as a supposed victim of being in public view in order to preemt the construction of sorely needed apartments. Which were of course never built. They did build a new school building that actually blocks the view they were so scared of.

They ended my school play one year with a call to arms to complain to the local planning authority about the apartments. Like, this cause I didn't know about at the time, that I now would have come out against, used me to gain sympathy points. It just feels kind of gross.

Reminds me of a friend who showed me an embarrassing photo of herself as a kid where her mom had given her a "Vote Bush!" Sign. As an adult, she is most certainly not a Bush voter. But as a child? Fuck it you can hand them whatever cause you want, they're kids, they don't know. It feels kind of icky using kids as spokespeople for causes they knoe nothing about

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frankendykes-monster · 10 months

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But the question of one's favorite version of the Legion of Super-Heroes is a deceptively complex one. It's not just a matter of team line-ups or creative teams, but the actual directions and themes explored by the franchise. The Legion has been relaunched and repackaged more than anything else in the DC Universe -- a universe where the line-wide reboot has become the go-to move -- and each time it's based on different ideas of what these characters mean, and what the future looks like. As much as they might be in the same continuity, the original Legion has a completely different set of ideals that it's exploring than the Dystopian "Five Years Later" Legion of the '80s, and when Mark Waid and Barry Kitson "threebooted" the Legion in 2004, their stories were a reaction to a completely different environment in comics than when they rebooted it the first time ten years earlier.

And because each version of the Legion is so thematically different than the others, the question of which one's your favorite has a lot to do with which of those themes you find appealing. For me, there's no question, and I'm sure this won't surprise anyone: I love the original Silver Age Legion.

Part of that comes from the same reason that I love a lot of Silver Age books, in that it's just full of bizarre kookiness, with a sci-fi setting that allowed the creators to ratchet the weirdness up even higher than they did in the regular line back in those days. There's one story in the '60s where someone's spying on the Legion and they can't figure out who until they realize that there's a tiny little man living in Sun Boy's ankle who was surgically implanted there by one of their enemies when Sun Boy went to the dentist, and it's hard to say if that was actually the craziest thing they ever did in those stories.

But more than that, there's an optimism to it.

When I talked to him about writing the Star Trek / Legion crossover, Chris Roberson told me that one of the things that attracted him to both franchises was that they both showed an optimistic future, and he's right. When you think about the time when the Legion was created in 1958 and those years in the '60s when they grew in popularity, that was the same time when people were building fallout shelters in the back yard and teaching school kids to duck and cover under a school desk in the event of an atom bomb. Nuclear war wasn't just a possibility, it was seen as something that was pretty much inevitable, and that was reflected in the fiction of the time. This was the dawn of the post-apocalyptic story, with increasingly grim visions of the future based on the destruction that we'd already seen.

But with Silver Age comics in general, and the Legion in particular, it was different. I imagine that the Comics Code and a desire to not get any irate letters from parents about terrifying their children with visions of nuclear holocaust were as much a motivating factor as any bright-eyed hope for the future when creators like Otto Binder and Jerry Siegel approached it, but the fact remains that they showed us a future that was thriving.

The Legion's 30th Century wasn't quite a utopia, but it wasn't a wasteland either. It was a glimpse of a future where everything worked out okay, with a galaxy of strange aliens from even stranger worlds united behind Earth. Well, okay, admittedly, they were less strange aliens and more "a bunch of white people and one green dude," but the sentiment was there. The very existence of that art deco skyline of the 30th century was a sign that we as a civilization had made it through, even when it was under attack by computer robots.

There's actually a story from 1964 -- the first appearance of Dream Girl, if you want to look it up -- where a few Legionnaires take a one-panel field trip to a world that actually has been destroyed in an atomic war, but for them, it's a strange historical curiosity that they're viewing from the outside. It's a "might have been" and not a "definitely will."

Of course, the fact that things worked out okay was to be expected. Even though we were in danger here in the real world, the Legion's future was descended from an Earth that had Superman protecting it, which points to another great element of the team. They have that same aspirational element to them that I love about characters like Robin and Jimmy Olsen, but it's applied to an entire universe. The existence of the Legion is predicated on two different ideas about Superman. The first is just that Superman is there to make sure that their future exists, and as simple as that might sound, the fact that we see the end result of what he does makes his struggle in that Never-Ending Battle against evil mean something. A dystopian future means that he failed somewhere along the line and that in the end, all of his good works didn't matter. A future that's bright and united, however, means that all of those times he saved the world from Luthor or Brainaic actually counted for something, that there was something out there to make it worthwhile.

And the second is that it's those battles, and Superman specifically, that inspire the Legion to form and use their powers to do the same thing he did. It's a pretty strong recommendation for his character that his legend and his accomplishments last for the next thousand years, and it lends a power to the mythology of Superman. It immediately puts him in the ranks of Hercules and Robin Hood, these figures that we still talk about a thousand years (or more) after they first entered culture. It just does it in a way that we don't have to wait around to see if it actually works out that way once 2958 rolls around.

Just as important as that, though, it casts the Legionnaires themselves as fans. Just like Jimmy Olsen, it brings the idea that the readers themselves could be part of the story to the forefront, with the added wish fulfillment of granting them super-powers and sending them off on their own adventures. It's something that Waid and Kitson touched on in their "Threeboot" Legion, going as far as to have the characters actually sitting around reading Silver Age comics and drawing inspiration from the adventures there to escape from the boring repetition of their world. Which, incidentally, may be a metaphor for what was going on in the rest of the DC Universe at the time. Who knows.

Anyway, that ties in with yet another element that I find really appealing, that springs right from the fact that they're so readily identifiable to the readers: The Legion are a bunch of kids. There are later versions where the same characters have grown up, but for me, that doesn't work as well at all. It breaks one of the best metaphors of the entire franchise, that they're children, a group that symbolizes the future, who also literally represent the future. They're the ones looking around at their world with fresh eyes and going "Hey, we should all just be like Superman." Adults -- with the exception of those who sit around thinking about funnybooks all day -- don't think like that, but kids do, and the Legion are a bunch of kids who actually have the power to make that work.

Incidentally, I feel the same way about the X-Men -- not that there should never be grown-up X-Men, but that there should always be some kind of emphasis on young characters and the school. The metaphor of evolution and the newer, younger species arriving to possibly replace the old is just too good to pass up.

Speaking of the X-Men, I think it's fair to say that that's a franchise that owes a lot to the Legion, and not just because Dave Cockrum originally designed Nightcrawler and Colossus as Legionnaires before they were rejected and sent packing across town to Marvel. Because it was set in the future and not bound to the rest of the DC Universe, the Legion was free to build its own continuity, and it took a path of change and dynamism that you didn't usually see in the Silver Age. Things didn't always end with a return to the Status Quo. Lightning Lad died, came back, lost an arm, and had it replaced. New members joined. Prospective members were rejected and formed their own teams. A third of Triplicate Girl was killed off "permanently" and she returned as Duo Damsel. Things changed.

But the most important thing that the X-Men and most other comics about teenage superheroes lifted from the Legion is that for the first time, kids with super-powers acted like actual kids. And by that, I mean that they were massive jerks to each other.

And I love that about them.

I wrote about this once for a book of essays on the Legion called Teenagers From The Future (available now in finer bookstores everywhere, tell your friends), but it really just boils down to this: When adults are jerks to each other, they're just jerks, but when kids are jerks it's because they're kids. Kids make up weird rules about things and get unreasonably angry when someone breaks them. They form clubs with bizarre secret rules that they take too seriously until they forget about them and never bring them up again. They're dicks to each other for no discernible reason.

And that is exactly how the Legion conducts itself.

Maybe the best example of this is the occasional recruitment drives, which are literally just stories where characters like Matter Eater Lad and Light Lass (she makes things less heavy!) sit around and tell other super-powered youths how much they suck:

I spent a good chunk of my youth attending public school, so I can go ahead and confirm that this is exactly what it would be like if teenagers actually had super-powers. He can avert nuclear war, but even Superman can't make kids stop being jerks to each other.

And they were jerks. Their very first appearance is based around going back in time to play a prank on this guy that they idolize, and it just builds from there. At least one out of every three stories is some variation on that theme, and they get weird with it. The first time Supergirl meets the Legion, they don't let her join because exposure to Red Kryptonite has made her "over 18" for like an hour. Keep in mind: this is a temporary condition and they are time travelers. And occasionally, they just turn on each other, living out a kid's idea of gender relationships:

There's a lot of Legion runs that I love, but that original has never been topped for how much it appeals to me, which might seem a little weird when you consider that I got into it around 2006 at the age of 24 after never reading a Legion story in my life and not when I was the age where I actually should've been identifying with these characters. But there's something there that I can't deny the appeal of, that combination of hopeful optimism and kids being jerks, of Silver Age weirdness and emotional authenticity, and the past's idea of what the future could be if we all made it through.

Chris Sim, writing for Comics Alliance, 2012

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okaywolf · 20 days

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The librarian who is very excited about the poet is very excited you appear to be making friends with said poet

Chapter ten of Sheppard and You, a queer novella of monsters, monster romance, and body horror. A little birdie comes to roost. (start reading with Chapter one here)

-~~~-

The librarian who is very excited about the poet is very excited you appear to be making friends with said poet. She's not entirely wrong, but if feels like lying not to tell her your proximity to Murre is a matter of practicality. Murre, who is now well enough known by most of town, shows up dusty from the riding the dirt road into town in one of the ranch pickups that certainly doesn't have a cab filter. They're eating a muffin when you let them in. "The librarian lady is nice."

There isn't a lot of cabin to tour, though Murre's well past finished their muffin by the end. It's an A-frame with just about equal parts living room and kitchen, and a ladder masquerading as stairs to a second floor bedroom, a second floor would also be a bedroom, and what's a bathroom only because it contained a bathtub and nothing else. Downstairs, the bathroom—a sink and toilet—is awkwardly carved between the living room and kitchen retroactively since the outhouse in the back of the yard had been the sole facilities for some years some decades before you took up residence. The second floor not a second bedroom is a sort of awkward paradox of guest room, office, and child's bedroom—though the nearest schools are nearer the nearest hospital and it's been a while since a kid lived here. "If that's weird, the couch downstairs is pretty comfortable."

Murre shrugs and says something about seeing how they'd sleep tonight, they set their dusty backpack next to the couch though.

[continue reading on cohost]

#sheppard and you #actually me #queer fiction #fiction #actually writing #monster romance #novella #queer writing #queer writers #webnovel #web novel

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zenosanalytic · 9 months

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Life in Plastic: A Modern Galatea

Just watched BARBIE(2023) and: I Liked It!

Spoilers, Obvsl, Beyond this Point, I don't want to readmore cuz I've heard things about those being Weird on mobile? idk

BARBIE(2023) isn't trying to say anything we don't already know, or position itself as a "politically challenging" film. Honestly, having now seen it, the Republican freakout about the movie is even more Pathetic than it looked getting mocked on twitter. God in Heaven, Ben Shapiro, have some dignity!

The first two acts of the film are just a massive sendup of the capitalist mythologizing around BARBIE(2023); it only repeats those advertiser lies to call them the bullshit they are, and even that is done lightly and comedically. The mythologizing of Barbie's creator in the second and third acts somewhat undercuts this, but using her as a By-The-Numbers Deus ex Machina character ala The Oracle(or every god-role Morgan Freeman ever played), AND casting Rhea Perlman(!!!) to play Ruth Handler, AND-And the overall lightness of the film, renders that pretty irrelevant. Like: I noticed it, and |:T at it internally, but it didn't nag at me or detract from my enjoyment at all. It also presents the (all male)executive-suite of the Mattel corporation as a bunch of ridiculous bozos, but I'd hardly say any of this amounts to a "critique of capitalism" in any meaningful sense. Is it pointing out the failings and flaws in capitalism? Sure. But it's all rather milquetoast stuff we already know(I mean: who thinks ANY capitalist knows what the hell they're doing anymore?) presented with a "fondly-poking" tone, and only ever deployed while also serving the film's primary objective(to be funny). There's nothing ideological about it and it doesn't really spend time on it, only developing it while doing other comedic things. If anything, the harshest critique of the movie is saved for anticapitalists; there's a scene where Sasha calls Barbie a "Fascist" which lands so inauthentic and unfairly it basically embodies that "leftists call EVERYTHING fascist" argument centrists(and cryptofascists) have mainstreamed for the last 20-goddamn-years. And I mean: putting it in the mouth of a tween girl is not NOT saying something, right?

BARBIE(2023) Does Not Hate Men; oh my god, please leave your cootie-free zones for three minutes, I beg of you. Again: accusing it of this is SO Ridiculous that it really makes obvious how insipid and GENUINELY CHILDISH, I mean like LITERALLY SCHOOL-YARD BOYS VS GIRLS JUVENILE, contemporary conservative misogyny, and its reading of this film, is. Probably the most entertaining sequence in the WHOLE MOVIE is ABOUT Ken and the Kens! They end up fighting each other in a HILARIOUS Sendup of modern action-movies, equating them DIRECTLY to how kids act out fight scenes in play(with their toys and each other. They even have the Mattel Executives walking right through the middle of it as the confused Adults, unaffected by the make-believe rules), which is ALSO a great musical number, that Then Turns into a Wonderful DANCE NUMBER about self-acceptance and choosing Solidarity over the toxicity of competition. And all this happens, consciously and overtly(like: the film literally says this), as a super-low-stakes, super-ridiculous mirrorverse-version of how our OWN misogynistic society pits women against each other to prop up male entitlement(like: while the Kens are first fighting, then finding, themselves, the Barbies are reinstating their old Matriarchal constitution, with a few Ken-held circuit court seats added as a sop to reform XD Also Alan is there). Gloria's husband(literally credited as this in Spanish) is Cute and Loveably Dense in all two of his scenes. Green!Ken(Simu Liu) has my Heart forever. Alan is also there. The only opinion this movie has on men is that they are at their best when being soft and lovable, and only The Most Excellent Bros to each other, and that maybe treating the people you love LIKE you love them is better than trying to control everything all the time(which is hard, dehumanizing, and doomed to failure anyway??)? Probably the most "political" thing going on with gender here -even WITH a big speech about the contradictions of femininity in a misogynistic society being the crux of the movie- is filming the Kens the way women usually are.

And that really sums the movie up. Low-stakes and Light. Fun and Funny. Barbie's grand reward for the whole ordeal is HILARIOUS and I won't say anything more to spoil it. Alan is also there. The most hyperbolic(though entirely justified, imv) thing I will say about this film is that it understands what a Barbie movie is and nails it, thereby making itself probably the Best Live-Action adaptation since The Lord of the Rings(or possibly the live-action Kenshin movies, if you've seen those[the 2nd and 3rd one are really good; the first one's ok]).

I'd definitely recommend it, it's a fun low-effort(for the viewer; not knocking the crew at all) movie with a tasteful smattering of genuine Cinematic Spectacle, that doesn't let its gags get old. I predict it will be one of those middling movies that lasts; that it will be a staple of mid-day HBO summer lineups in 5 years, and stay such for the next 30. Go see it in theaters if you can.

#BARBIE(2023)#Barbie Spoilers #zA Views #zA Reviews #Movie Reviews #Movies #Cinema #Gr8 Art

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orbleglorb · 1 year

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sorry i just saw your tags i now need to know about dd and parker being friends

ALRIGHT. SO. DD is, of course, the doordash driver/delivery driver/designated driver for the Crabs. during and after the fall ball, DD is more familiar with the Crabitat and Baltimore than anyone on the team. there's the other staff, of course, but they're not important right now.

the actual stuff about DD and parker being friends is below the cut. there is kind of a lot

i like to imagine that DD is a college student. she works weird hours and gets little sleep because of it, so she's routinely awake late at night. one time, parker placed an order after midnight because he knew he would forget by the next day. he figured she'd get it after she woke up. but no, at the ripe hour of one in the morning, he gets a knock on his door and it's DD with his walmart-brand cough syrup and ibuprofen. and parker feels REALLY BAD about it. he gives her a $20 tip, which is like, more than the entire order. DD doesn't reject it, because money is money, but is just like "lol it's ok this is literally my job."

(meanwhile, declan would order shit like 26 boxes of bandaids at 2 am because she wanted to make a mosaic with them)

also, i REALLY love the headcanon that parker volunteers at the library. because 1) i volunteer at my library in my spare time and i truly love libraries in general, and 2) i mentioned this in the crabitiat, but someone brought up parker reading to kids, and my aunt is a children's librarian. she does these silly costumes with some of her storytimes, especially for the special events. as a result, she has a closet that could rival miss frizzle's. so the idea of parker reading to kids in some dumb costume is so precious 2 me

anyway, back the DD stuff: since DD is a college student, i'd imagine they'd visit the library semi-regularly. i know lots of universities tend to have libraries, but with her weird work schedule i would think that they might go to school online. or, maybe they're in-person but they're always at the university library at night (since it's open) and just need a change of pace for daytime. whatever the reason, she and parker run into each other at the library a lot. at some point, she's walking past the children's section at the library and is like "wow that guy reading looks super familiar... can't place it tho" so she watches for a bit. and parker's like WHY THE FUCK IS DD HERE. WHAT DID I DO. because all he can see is DD squinting menacingly at him from a few yards away. and then afterwards she walks up to him and is like "you're really good at this librarian stuff, they should start paying you for this shit" and parker's smiling and nodding but also thinking then why the fuck were you giving me a death stare... but that's just her resting face.

when at the library, DD starts finding and bugging parker whenever she needs help finding something, since she already knows him. parker is absolutely ecstatic about this, since he feels bad when people do things for him and he does nothing in return. like yeah, she's literally a delivery driver, it's a transaction, you're supposed to pay and that's all, etc. but parker just Feels Bad, even though he doesn't really order anything besides food and, occasionally, pain meds. DD always gets him water when he orders pain meds (because he typically orders them at like, 1 or 2 am) and he just does not feel like money is enough compensation for making someone go to walmart at 1 or 2 am. so, now that DD needs him for something, he feels a lot better about bugging her. but the thing is, he's the most normal customer DD has. DD is used to having to track down shit like stale baguettes, melted sundaes, three gallons of cranberry juice, live crickets, statues, something that looks like it might be a worthy sacrifice for deb, etc., but parker is like "if you have the time, would you please get me french fries from mcdonald's" then tips her $10 and apologizes upon her arrival. like dawg that is the easiest task she is going to have all day.

slowly, DD starts feeling more comfortable asking parker for things and just being around him in general. she starts greeting him with "hey, dork!" or something similar, and starts helping him with whatever task he is doing while taking a break from schoolwork. and parker's like, "oh good, i've gotten a good grade in friendship, which is both normal to want and possible to achieve." at one point, DD steals a sharpie and draws a little smiley face on parker's hand, and parker starts tearing up a little bit.

one of my personal headcanons for parker is that he bakes when stressed (and he's a good baker, too). the day before the S1 election results, parker has to order cbd gummies or something to make him not actively neurotic. so DD arrives and gives him the stuff and he's like "hey thanks! would you like two or more pies for the road?" and it's not like DD is going to say no, so parker invites her in to the apartment so that she can pick whatever she wants and take it. and she walks in and there's aluminum foil-covered dishes on all surfaces in the kitchen. he's set up a makeshift shelf because there's not enough room on the table and counters, especially not since he is currently still making a loaf of banana bread. DD stares in awe and horror at the stack of dishes in the sink. and parker's just like "yeah haha i've been busy :) if you need help carrying stuff to your car i can try, but i can't carry much with my cane" (the cane is another personal headcanon of mine). and from then on, parker tips DD by giving them some random dessert he's made.

during season 2, juke gnocchi moves into the apartment with parker. since parker and DD are friends by this point, parker will sometimes complain about juke doing things like molting and leaving the skin in his laundry or listening to music too loudly. meanwhile DD is trying so hard to conceal her facial expressions because she knows juke. (because they are from rival mobs. what, you thought DD just made stuff appear out of thin air once the Crabs order it? no. she has criminal connections with every store front in baltimore. she can just straight up rob a place if one of the crabs doesn't venmo her the money before she has to check out. unlike juke, she is actually somewhat good at being in organized crime). and so sometimes parker will be like "yeah it's super annoying that juke is in the mob because his rivals keep taking me hostage. they think juke and i actually get along or something" and DD is like "wow haha that's crazy. out of sheer curiosity, do you happen to know which mob they were from, as well as a name and general physical description?"

i know DD is supposed to remain Unknowable and Mysterious as part of the bit, but it's too late i've lored her. my bad

#blaseball #baltimore crabs #spreading my parker being friends with everyone agenda #asks 4 sasha #thank you marn baltimorecrab for asking about this! i will always take any chance i get to discuss the dumb lore in my brain

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9teenninety5 · 3 months

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16 Questions // Tagged by @9-wing-1 :))))

Are you named after anyone?

My mom liked the name and spelling of Hayley bc of Hayley Mills. Mae is my great-grandma's middle name.

2. When was the last time you cried?

Umm probably like two days ago lol

3. Do you have kids?

Just my Bammy. Love kids but love my potential kids too much to ever birth them.. so, not happening. Plus I couldn't imagine not being able to blast my music whenever I wanted, could never do 10 years of Kids Bop. Aunty life 5ever!!

4. What sports do you play/ Have you played?

LOL played softball when I was in kindergarten. Floor hockey was my fav in PE. I loooooove swimming. Does dancing count? Love that too.

5. Do you use sarcasm?

Probably if someone is sassing me. Not usually.

6. What is the first thing you notice about people?

Their energy. It's always refreshing to be in the presence of sweeties but a lot of people are weird af. Physically? Shoes

7. What's your eye color?

Blue, like a boring blue. Although one of them has a lil green, can't remember which.

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Depends. I prefer shitty endings tbh. I like to be fcked up when I watch something lol. Scary movies are only good if they're psychologically thrilling or incredibly cheesey. Happy ending movies are nice when you're cuddly in blankies during the day and it's raining outside.

9. Any talents?

I'm really good at floating in the pool, people tell me this so I'm not just making it up. I'm also not a horrid singer but only the shower will get that out of me. Oh and I'm also really good at spotting random animals from afar, I don't really know how to explain this one.

10. Where were you born?

Chesapeake, VA. I have been chained to the 757 my whole life except in first grade my mom moved us to Charleston, SC for a year.

11. What are your hobbies?

I could've copied his answer but.. walking nature trails, going to shows, going to museums, estate sales/thrifting/yard sales, buying art supplies that collect dust bc my creative juices have left me, going dancing, singing, designing houses on Sims or roomtodo, melting into a bed, loving on my Bammy.

12. Do you have any pets?

Bam aka my loverkinz

13. How tall?

5'3 shawty. Used to be 5'4 but I shrank bc I stopped stretching after high school PE class :D

14. Favorite subject in school?

Art all day, hate math

15. Dream Job?

When I was a kid I wanted to be a realtor just so I could look at houses all day. Now, I think it'd be fun to be a kindergarten teacher or own a big wildlife sanctuary.

16. What animals do you identify as your familiar?

Otters aka kitties of the sea

tagging @inlovewetrust555 :)

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parvamundi · 3 months

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The Han Solo metaphor falls apart disastrously when Mr. Armstrong starts bringing Sammy around for visits. Sure, it could just make him Kylo Ren, but what did that make Ollie? Besides, Auntie Lou might have been Leia but that made mom Luke and Luke didn't have any kids for her to be. Yeah. The whole thing's just been shot to shit, but that's okay. Weird as it is to be introduced to someone who goes by the same thing her father calls her, Sammy is okay people. Which makes sense.. he's an Armstrong after all. She likes watching him kick a soccer ball around in the yard, showing off his little tricks and looking pleased and bashful all at once when it makes him an easy favorite with the Mexican side of the family. Mom claims she's gonna buy him off Mr. Armstrong and sell him to the highest South American bidder and Sam, even knowing she's joking, can't help but wonder what it might be like if Sammy lived with them in her house— just down a hall instead of a whole country away on opposite coasts. She can't help but think then they might actually do what they keep dancing around doing but never do. At least she sure as hell never leans in first, even when the moment seems right, because she can never shake the thought that they only have so many days until he's on a flight back home and what would be the point in tasting something she can't actually have?

"If your dad says you're not for sale one more time, I think mom might just kidnap you." Small towel held out, she feels like some kind of a cliche, bringing the athletic boy his water bottle and something to dry off with but it hadn't started that way— it wasn't intentional. She was just... and he was over there sweaty and thirsty looking.. and it's HER house.. so it's only polite to... feel like an idiot in her own backyard, the heavy gaze of beloved aunts and uncles anything but discreet on her back. God, they're probably making bets about them. Sam flips the bird back behind herself and never takes her eyes off Sammy, as if it'll keep him from noticing. "It's not so bad here. My aunts and their Stus and Bullets actually go home sometimes. And Tara's in her shut herself up in her room phase. We could have most of the place to ourselves."

And the privacy to match. The kind she sneaks him into after dinner, when everyone's lounging about, drinking, smoking, talking... wrapped up in their own adult world; finally leaving her the room to tug him by the hand under her treehouse and set herself up with closed eyes and lightly puckered lips for a kiss.

( @echoestm )

Leaving California had become increasingly more difficult as of late. Leaving her had become nearly unbearable. Sure, there were girls on the east coast, cute ones, fun ones, but no one like her.

She was so distinct in his mind that he'd even shared his thoughts about her to his mother, which was a huge first. Suzy teared up, sniffled, and apologized for their life apart from his father and the little life Sammy had begun a whole country away. He understood, he did, but he'd be lying if he said it didn't still suck.

But he had the summer. They did. The whole summer to hang out and play and watch the grown-ups act weird around them or listen to them tease. It had been great so far, the greatest of his life maybe. Things are so different there, more laid back, fun, so much less hectic. He spends time with friends who feel like family rather than just actual family, like back home, in New York, where it's school, home, the tavern, or Aunt Anna's or Grandpa Sam's for weekend dinners. The Scotts were numerous and wonderful, but they weren't... like this.

Every time Ms. Christina talks about selling him off to the soccer (football) teams, he grins proudly and laughs at his father's reaction. When Sam mentions getting kidnapped, Sammy doesn't mind the thought, until he thinks of his mom and how much she'd miss him. He simply smiles, gives her a couple nods, but says nothing. He doesn't want to dwell on the what ifs.

And speaking of... There'd been quite a few that summer, but the particular one that consistently crossed his mind was what if they kissed. He found he couldn't stop thinking about it most of the time and only did when Mr. Loomis glared his way. In the moments he wasn't under that man's watchful eye, he considered asking Sam if he could kiss her or just leaning in and doing it and waiting for her to slug him. The time never seemed right though and he was still so unsure if that was even something she wanted.

Until she had him by the hand, drawing him to seclusion.

His brain doesn't process it at first, confused, staring down at her like an idiot for a moment when he realizes her lids are closed, lips puckered, chin tilted up. She's waiting, patiently maybe, for him to stop being a moron and make the move. Sam always seemed the type to wait for nothing, take charge, take what she wanted, and she's standing there waiting on him. He's so foolish and stupid for not moving sooner, but he's present and shifting, moving closer. A gentle hand lands on her upper arm before his presses his lips to hers, soft at first, timid, giving her space to stop this at any moment if she wants. When she doesn't pull away, Sammy applies a little more pressure, urging her to continue despite the fact that his heart feels as if it'll pound right through his sternum into hers.

#echoestm #( echoestm: sam )#( sammy. / && answer. )#( verse. / && whisper to a scream. )#( ;_____; bbs )

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 1 year

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Back in Jugdral with the Three Frat Houses AU for another important question (and actually a post I started to write before I went on a tangent about the Crusty Old Cult Leader Dudes):

What Is Loptous' Deal.

We know Manfroy's deal - he's trying to resurrect Loptous so that it can destroy the world, and he's trying to do this before A) the Grimleal resurrect Grima to destroy the world, B) the Duma Faithful convince Duma to conquer the world, or C) the Agarthans successfully infiltrate the Loptr Church, the Duma Faithful, and the Grimleal, and kill their gods.

However, we have several possibilities for Loptous:

1. Grima et al. Have A New Compatriot: Loptous presumably exists somewhere off with the other dragons and is paying absolutely no attention to the humans vying for his attention.

Pros: makes everything much much easier for Sigurd and Deirdre and they deserve it after what they go through in canon; one may consider the drama happening behind the scenes between Naga, Duma, Mila, Loptous, Grima, and the other dragon gods who are detached from the everyday.

Cons: no drama happening in the foreground in the everyday situations of the main cast

2. Sothis and Foresti Have A New Compatriot: Loptous is Julius' pet lizard and communicates with him in vaguely prophetic dreams which he ignores.

Pros: Foresti-Loptous slapfight except they're both lizards who are less than 5 inches long combined; Julius and Uncle Lewyn have this weird point of connection and bond over it; does anyone remember that viral twitter thread about the guy who ordered crickets and they got loose everywhere? that's Sigurd trying to facilitate his son's interests.

Cons: if Loptous is hanging around being a menace to Julius I want it to have begun at a very young age* and I don't think that even Deirdre would think that letting a two-year-old have a pet lizard is a good idea.

(*Canonically, Julia notes that Julius used to be a kind boy before he was influenced by Loptous and became a terror when he was older. The reverse will happen in this AU. Loptous influences Julius to be the absolute most menace of a toddler that anyone has ever known, who attends a different preschool than his twin sister because he got kicked out of his first preschool for biting other kids all the time. Then when Julius is around 8 years old, it's like a switch flips as he thinks "hm, I don't need to follow every impulse that I have, do I?" and Loptous ineffectually rages.)

3. Some Kids Have Cool Imaginary Friends But All I Got Was This Horrid Beastie: Loptous is simultaneously Julius' (not-so) imaginary friend and the monster under Julia's bed.

Pros: I think that the twins should be really weird kids and this fits the bill; duality of how Sigurd and Deirdre would handle combatting a monster under the bed (Deirdre does forest witch things to reassure Julia that monsters can't get to her; Sigurd gets a baseball bat).

Cons: there is a certain level of shenanigans that can't happen when you have an incorporeal dragon known only to two people.

4. Where'd This Fucked-Up Haunted Antique Doll Come From: Loptous' spirit lives inside a haunted doll plushie that Manfroy tossed into the yard in the hopes that one of the kids would pick it up.

Pros: similar vibes to Option 2 but Loptous has infinitely less dignity; Julius being in high school and still having this beat-up dragon plushie living at the bottom of his backpack is a really cute thought even if the plushie is evil.

Cons: similar to Option 3, as the plushie would not be able to navigate the world on its own.

#three frat houses au #this post was basically finished in my drafts and i am having an evening so i'm pulling it out to think about julius and his cursed plushie #or julius and his pet lizard and sigurd and a hundred crickets unleashed about the house.

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