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felikatze · 1 year

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ok wait sitting on the arval stuff more (three hopes spoilers riu dni)

also i havent done the arval paralogue bcuz like. on god i'm not replaying this game rn cuz i will get burnout so bad

also this was the recruit byleth route on azure gleam so. again i am NOT replaying immediatly because i like the game but i also like myself.

ok ok so i think arval eventually betraying shez was set up really well actually.

the game does a good slowburn job of setting up that at some point shez just doesn't care abt defeating byleth anymore.

shez and arval initially are united in purpose, partners in destiny, but when shez joins one of the houses and becomes an important commander in a war, their personal revenge starts appearing insignificant to them and is eventually outweighed by their newfound trust and love for their friends.

additionally as they realize the connection arval and their power holds to those who slither in the dark, they grow afraid of their own power. the power they got from arval.

in azure gleam (and other routes similarly, probably) their fear grows so intense after unveiling how much tragedy those who slither brought into their friends' lives that they ask dimitri to strike them down should they ever turn their blade against their friends.

and, yknow, shez themself wouldnt just kill their friends willy-nilly. "if i ever turn my blade on you" actually means "if arval ever turns my blade on you." by making this request they acknowledge the possibility arval would do this.

whereas shez's drive for revenge fades, arval's only intensifies. arval's wrath drives a further wedge between them and shez, who starts to feel horror at arval's intent.

arval likely regained some degree of their memory when byleth went sothis mode, as seen by how fucking mad they got even before truly becoming epimenides again.

so like yeah this plot development was well-foreshadowed. and i think the map where you fight shez slaps. absolutely banger moment.

howeverrrrr. after that. i can accept epimenides banishing the three lords to the shadow realm as a cost-cutting measure because every route needs to resolve the arval plot and it would be hard to justify doing it differently three times so whatever. have a convergence point i dont care.

BUT. arval accepts becoming epimenides as their destiny. "i was always meant to become you," they say. but like? shez doesn't? shez never seems to acknowledge that the arval they know is gone. this is why i expected arval to show up again! bcuz. shez doesnr accept that they are the one who killed arval.

throughout the endgame they will still occasionally reference arval as their friend and like. pretend talk to arval in a more "if you could see me now" type of way but

epimenides makes it pretty clear that they (epimenides refers to themself as a man so did arval legit just forget their own gender? arval has so much transgender swag) don't really value shez and them calling shez their partner in destiny just felt like mockery to be honest. like oh you're not doing what i want so i'm gonna take over your body against your will you peon fuck you. that's the vibe on epimenides.

and then you gotta ask yourself how much arval actually valued shez for them to just become epimenides without a fight? without hesitation? cuz yknow typically in stories like this the power of friendship will snap whoever out of it which is what happens to shez but not to arval. arval just accepts what they've become and they die for it. the end. fin.

again!!! arval accepts this!! shez doesn't! it's such a weird dissonance. ig it's kinda subversive that power of friendship doesn't actually save arval but it still feels like a rugpull.

also suuuuper bad taste in my mouth from the azure gleam ending where like. thales and epimenides and all those slither guys talk about purifying the world from beasts right? reclaiming their rightful home above the surface by killing sothis? and at the end rhea says that she will purify the land by killing those who slither in the dark.

so it's like. both sides r the same. and the implication that sothis is the one who banished the agarthans to shamballah or wherever to let humans live in fodlan instead is. eh. everyone is the hero of their own story ig.

maybe i just dont know enough abt fe3h deeplore (<- has only played blue lions routes bcuz replaying academy phase gave him burnout and he hasnt picked three houses up since)

anyway this is just my experience. and my opinion

tldr: tho arval's betrayal is set-up really good and the first half of it is epic the actual fight against epimenides feels lacking because of how differently shez and arval feel about the situation with no attempt by the narrative to reconcile this dissonance.

#feli speaks #few3h #take a shot everytime i finish a video game and immediatly make a ramble essay abt ir #maybe i will actually play another route of three houses. and finally get like. lore #blue lions ily but goddamn you have NO fucking clue of what's going on behind the scenes in fe3h #the story is GOOD in how it hones in specifically on dimitri's development and that OWNS i love it but it does come at the cost #of the big picture stuff #'whoops ig el turned into a demon. time to kill her with no context!'

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loveinhawkins · 2 months

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ao3

It’s the last day of school before Christmas, and the first thing Eddie hears when he enters Family Video is Steve Harrington saying, “Fuck this,” which seems kinda unreasonable; he’s not even done anything yet.

But then Steve continues, his voice turning distant as he heads to the back of the store—“I don’t care what the goddamn handbook says, the radiator’s goin’ on full blast,”—and Eddie realises he hasn’t actually been noticed at all.

Not by Steve, at least.

Robin Buckley is standing by the computer. She’s checking her watch; Eddie can see the thought cross her mind, that he should’ve been out of class over an hour ago, like she was.

All of a sudden, he feels uncomfortably aware of what he must look like: drenched from the rain, dripping water onto the carpet.

“Hey, Munson. O’Donnell got you working overtime, huh?”

Eddie fakes a laugh. He doesn’t know Robin that much—but still just well enough to know she doesn’t mean anything by it.

So he nods and rolls his eyes, concocts a story about an unjust detention; he even embellishes it with a pinch of truth as he brings the video tapes out from the shelter of his jacket. Says that his last-ditch attempt at improving his grade before the holidays was offering to return the videos O’Donnell rented for her classes.

He doesn’t mention the fact that he stayed behind voluntarily. That he spent all that time staring down at a perpetually unfinished essay, gripping his pen with an all too familiar desperation. That kind of honesty somehow feels more embarrassing than lying; it always has.

Robin takes the videos from him. “Okay, tell me if that works,” she says, with a hint of sarcasm; she’s joking, Eddie reminds himself, but not in a mean way. “Because I’d be returning, like, so many library books if…”

She trails off with a frown, eyes on the computer screen. Glances to the stack of video tapes before punching in something.

Eddie doesn’t mind the wait; it’s only now that he’s really appreciating just how cold he is. He shakes some water off his jacket sleeve, fingers numb, and realises too late that he’s creating a puddle on the floor.

“Uh, sorry for, um. Dripping,” he says awkwardly, but Robin doesn’t seem to hear him; she just keeps frantically tapping on the keyboard.

Outside, the wind picks up even more, throwing rain against the windows.

There’s the creak of a door swinging open somewhere in the back, followed by a voice calling, “What’s up?”

Eddie startles—he almost forgot that it wasn’t just him and Robin in here. He watches Steve sidle up to the register.

“It’s this stupid—“ Robin gestures to the computer with frustration. “It keeps going all, you know, aaaah.” She draws out the sound, wiggling her fingers.

Surprisingly, Steve catches Eddie’s eye with a wry look. “Technical term,” he says, deadpan.

If Eddie didn’t know that he was the only other person in the room, he’d think that surely he’d been mistaken for someone else.

Not that he thinks Steve would ignore him outright; it’s just that they’ve not got much history—no fleeting camaraderie forged from sitting next to one another in class. Sure, they crossed paths as much as anyone did in Hawkins, Steve a recurring figure in Eddie’s peripheral; he knew of his existence, obviously, it’s Steve Harrington, but nothing more than…

A collage of all the times Steve’s picture has appeared in the school newspaper flickers through Eddie’s mind. Okay, but that was because of The Tigers, and the swimming team, and—anyone would’ve noticed that—

His justification is brought to a halt at a particularly fierce howl of wind; Robin flinches so badly that she knocks the video tapes onto the floor.

“Just the wind,” Steve says quietly.

As he speaks, he gently nudges Robin out of the way with his hip. Picks up the fallen tapes.

And to anyone else, it might seem kind—and nothing more.

But there’s something almost imperceptible in the way Steve does it, Eddie can’t get away from that fact: a meaning behind the words that he can’t grasp.

Then he hears Wayne’s voice in his head—son, you know fine well when something’s none of your damn business—and tells his curiosity to quit it.

“Sorry, it’s still not working,” Robin says, giving the computer one last thump. “I can, um, write you a receipt? To prove you returned them? So O’Donnell doesn’t get all…”

Eddie nods. “Sure.”

Robin gets a pen out of her shirt pocket and writes a receipt, triple-checking the movie titles as she does so.

Eddie thanks her as she hands over the paper. Catches himself hesitating.

There it is: the familiar prickle of discomfort, not knowing what else to say. Jesus Christ, isn’t that a failure on its own? Another year at school, and you’d think he’d be somewhat closer to other students, just from the sheer amount of time they’ve spent together in the same four walls. And yet, he’s starting to feel more distant than ever.

Granted, there’s Hellfire, but on bad days even that chafes, not that he’d ever admit it. Like he’s playing a part far bigger than who he actually is.

Eddie expects to just walk out without another word being said. In fact, he’s bracing himself for the cold again, almost at the door, when Steve inexplicably speaks up.

“Are you actually leaving?”

Eddie turns around. Steve’s leaning by the desk with his arms folded, looking at him expectantly.

Eddie’s half-convinced there’s a joke he’s not getting.

“Uh, yeah?” he says. He tries to ensure that ‘what the fuck else am I supposed to do?’ goes unheard, but from the way Steve’s eyebrows rise, he doesn’t think he succeeds.

Steve gives a pointed, dubious look outside. “Dude, you wanna drown out there?”

Eddie rocks back on his heels. There’d be a time where he would really snap back at that (the first time he flunked out, maybe), but now he’s more caught off-guard.

So he just glances outside and says, “Ideally, no.”

Steve gives a slight huff of laughter at that, shaking his head.

“Look, I’m just saying, man, I’m not gonna be driving till it clears up. Thought I was gonna need a canoe just to get into the parking lot.” He turns to Robin as if looking for agreement, stacking the tapes Eddie returned as he adds, “I said that when I drove you in, right?”

“I dunno, I’ve had crazier journeys,” Robin says.

Steve rolls his eyes like she’s made a corny joke—but he’s grinning like he just can’t help himself.

Eddie watches with a flicker of amusement rather than irritation, which catches him unawares. If he was honest, he’d felt drained not even a few seconds ago. But seeing Steve and Robin’s back-and-forth sparks an unexpected urge to respond in kind.

“Since when were you the spokesperson for road safety, Harrington?”

Robin snorts.

Steve shrugs. “At least wait until it’s not so brutal out there.”

And what brings Eddie up short is that, despite the dry tone, Steve sounds sincere. It leaves him struggling for an acceptable reply.

Before he can work one out, Steve steps to the side and pushes a swivel chair with his foot, right into Eddie’s path.

Eddie sits down in silent bewilderment.

He braces instinctively for an unbearable awkwardness, but it’s not so bad: Steve and Robin just continue working. It gives him time to try and dry his jacket off, at least, and when that ends up a lost cause, he turns to noticing the background noise in the store.

There’s a TV overhead playing It’s a Wonderful Life; George Bailey and Mary Hatch are about to Charleston right into the swimming pool.

Steve wanders into his eye line, scanning the aisles with a clipboard. Eddie doesn’t actually know how long he’s been there. He’d kinda got caught up in watching the movie. Steve seems to notice that; it’s gone too quick for Eddie to be sure, but his lips might’ve quirked, as if in approval.

“Hey, d’you want me to take your jacket? I’ve got mine and Robin’s on the radiator in the back.”

Eddie does his best not to stare. It’s a habit he’s still not shaken off: waiting for the other shoe to drop when anyone apart from Wayne is so… so…

“Didn’t realise this place was a hotel, Harrington.”

Despite his misgivings, he shrugs off the still damp jacket; Steve’s already stuck his hand out for it.

“Not everyone gets this treatment, Munson. You just haven’t annoyed me yet.”

“Then what am I doing wrong?” Eddie returns flatly.

This time Steve’s smile is obvious.

“Don’t move my scarf off the radiator!” Robin calls as she wheels a trolley of tapes.

“What do you take me for?” Steve says.

He disappears into the back again, returning empty-handed when the phone rings. He mutters at it before he picks it up, “Yeah, of course you still work,” and it’s not endearing, Eddie tells himself. It’s not.

And no, he isn’t listening in to the phone call. That’d be… that’d be stupid. It’s just that the movie isn’t all that loud, so he can’t help but…

“Hello, Family Video? Oh, hi, Mrs Wilcox, how are… Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.” Steve listens to whatever’s being said on the other end. His eyes find the TV, and then he’s silently mouthing along to George and Mary singing, ‘Buffalo Gals.’ “Oh, are you kidding? No, no, stay inside. It’s not a problem, I can just—yeah, of course. I’ll push it back to after the holidays. Yeah. Yeah, you too. Thanks for calling. Enjoy the movie!”

He hangs up, absentmindedly humming. Eddie quickly looks away.

He notices then that he’s sitting right on the edge of his seat like an idiot. He makes an attempt to sit back—be normal, just be fucking normal—but there’s a rigidity he can’t quite shift, that’s been stuck there probably since middle school, when the cafeteria was full of whispers, did you see the new kid? There, the one with the buzz cut.

“Steve, you off the phone?”

“Yeah. Hey, Rob, if I forget, could you make a note to extend Donna Wilcox’s rental? I’ll do it when we’re back, if the computer’s—”

“Sure, sure. Um, so—”

“Oh, God, what?”

Robin grins, a mixture of sheepish and teasing. Eddie stays put. Has she forgotten he’s here? Should he move? Leave? Yeah, he should leave, they’re not gonna notice… He’ll grab his jacket, slip away; the weather’s not that bad—

“I’ve got something for you to—”

Steve waves his hands in disagreement. “Nope, we said we weren’t doing presents!”

“It’s not really a—my grandma wouldn’t listen, Steve, it’s, like, more of a punishment, honestly, just—just wait there.”

There’s a clatter as Robin rushes off, scattering some more tapes off the trolley. The employee door slams shut behind her.

Steve tsks to himself, but picks up the tapes again. As he bends down, he glances over his shoulder with a brief ‘what can you do?’ sort of expression—which forces Eddie to consider the fact that he hasn’t been forgotten.

He doesn’t know how to feel about it.

He settles for an attempt at nonchalance: sticks a foot out to spin the chair ever so slightly, just side to side, and says, “So, uh, is this job just throwing tapes on the floor?”

“Yeah, we take turns,” Steve says without missing a beat.

He scoops up a tape, twirls it deftly before slotting it into place on the shelf. Eddie should probably find it annoying.

He doesn’t.

In the silence, he tries to lose himself in the movie again, at least a little bit, but he can’t manage it—feels too aware of himself, the creak of the seat as he moves even the tiniest amount, the restless fidgeting that he doesn’t even want to be doing, but knowing that never helps him stop—

“Ta-da!”

Eddie turns in time to see a blur of red; Robin’s just thrown something at Steve, who catches it easily—of course he does, Eddie thinks, but he can’t pretend that the thought comes from a place of resentment, not even inside his own head.

It’s a sweater. Steve unfolds it with a cackling laugh; there’s not a trace of the artificial veneer of high school in the sound.

Unlike you, whispers a nasty inner voice.

Steve’s still laughing. “Robin, this is the best—”

“Shut up, no, it’s so bad.” Robin hoists herself up to sit on the desk. “Grandma did the actual work, all the bits that are messed up are from me—”

“You knitted this?”

Steve beams. Eddie notices that there’s an endearingly crooked tilt to one of his incisors.

And then Steve’s glancing around like he’s checking no-one else has come into the store. He ducks out of view of the windows, but is still very much in Eddie’s view as he throws off his work vest, yanks his shirt up over his head, and…

Eddie suddenly feels like he’s been flung back into the claustrophobic space of the school locker rooms, the dread of changing for phys ed. The voice in his head gets louder: don’t look, don’t look; they’ll know.

But Steve doesn’t seem to care. He just leaves his shirt in a heap on the floor, wincing overexaggeratedly at the cold, and practically dives into the sweater with a boyish glee.

He laughs again; the sleeves are far too long. “I love it.”

“You do?” Robin says, and while she’s playing up her dubiousness, Eddie can hear how she’s pleased underneath it all.

“Uh, yeah!”

The back of Steve’s hair is ruffled from how eagerly he put the sweater on—but instead of fixing it, he focuses on artfully rolling up his sleeves.

Eddie should look away. Should, at the very least, attempt to appear like he’s zoned out, in a world of his own.

And yet…

Despite everything, he watches Steve Harrington with all the silent, rapt attention he usually reserves for movies.

Moth to a fucking flame, Eddie thinks, resigned.

“Suits me, huh?” Steve says to Robin; he does a stupid little move, one hand on his hip, like he’s on the front cover of a magazine.

“And you’re modest, too.”

“You just don’t know style when you see it.”

Steve’s at the desk now, nudging one of Robin’s feet playfully, before turning round to lean against the corner again. “Hey, Munson, what do you think?”

Eddie finds himself fighting the instinct to reply with something undeservedly cutting. He’d just be trying to cover, anyway, using barbs to conceal what the question makes him feel: something akin to the franticness when confronted in class with a test he hasn’t studied for.

And he looks. Really looks—his heart slowing, the initial panic from the flash of bare skin fading away.

Steve’s right; the sweater does suit him, in all its homemade charm. The shade of red is flattering, brings out his eyes: maroon, if Eddie had to put a name to it, although he suspects that the colour’s actually got nothing to do with it, more the way Steve holds himself—a quiet, certain confidence that’s always been out of Eddie’s reach.

He inwardly gives himself a shake as Steve and Robin keep waiting on his response.

This isn’t school, idiot; they’re not trying to catch you out.

“I’m hardly an expert on high fashion, Harrington,” Eddie says—thinks he just manages to pull off the lazy, unbothered drawl.

“Well, you have a look,” Steve says faux delicately, like he’s being incredibly generous.

Eddie cracks a genuine smile; it sort of weakens the whole aloof thing he’d settled on, but he surprisingly doesn’t care all that much.

“Damned with faint praise.”

Steve scoffs as if to say touché. His gaze catches on something outside, and Eddie wonders if it’s an actual customer, if it’s time for whatever all of this is to stop.

But all Steve does is poke Robin’s foot and add, pointedly singsong, “Rain’s stopped.”

“So?” Robin asks.

“I think it’s in between storms,” Steve says sagely. “Like, we’ve got a little window before more rain hits.”

“Great, Steve, I’ll love waving that opportunity bye.”

Steve tuts. “Rob, I’m saying we should ditch. Come on, it’s been dead all day. We can be home early and warm, it’s, like, single-handedly the best plan I’ve ever had.”

Better than when you won the championship game? Eddie thinks—wisely keeps that strictly to himself, because he’ll admit following Hawkins High’s basketball results on pain of death.

Robin looks torn. “I don’t know, Steve, what if—”

“Who’s gonna tell?” Steve says, gesturing around at the empty store. He nods at Eddie, says sarcastically, “Oh yeah, Eddie Munson, known snitch.”

“You flatter me,” Eddie says. He surprises himself at how easily it slips out, like for once, there was no need to overthink it.

“See? Rob-in,” Steve wheedles, “come on, I’ll cash out. You and your grandma could knit for hours.”

“Shut up,” Robin says fondly. “Fine! Quick, quick, I’ll flip the sign.”

The whole thing resembles a military operation, with how speedily Steve and Robin manage to close the store. Eddie stands up and moves the swivel chair out of the way, but feels almost exposed without it.

Steve’s just finished at the register when he catches Eddie’s eye. He snaps his fingers, “Oh, shit, yeah,” and yells over his shoulder to Robin in the back room, “Hey, pick up Munson’s jacket, too!” Then he’s stuffing a couple of tapes into a backpack. “Want one?”

Eddie blinks, confused. “What?”

Steve wiggles one of the movies in demonstration before zipping up his bag. “I always take some home. As long as you have it back by, uh,” he waves a hand vaguely, “some time in the New Year, whatever.” He clicks his tongue. “Damn it, forgot to turn this off…”

It’s a Wonderful Life falls silent.

Through the whir of it rewinding, Eddie speaks almost without meaning to. “Can I have that one?”

Steve looks up at him in faint surprise. “Sure. Hang on, I’ll just find…”

He ejects the tape and passes it to Eddie. It’s still warm from being played.

And then the case is being handed over, too—there’s scraps of paper folded in the corners, rolls of receipt in Steve and Robin’s handwriting: games of tic-tac-toe and movie recommendations.

As Eddie puts the tape inside, a thought occurs to him. “Wait, uh. Were you gonna take this one home, too?”

Steve’s folding up his discarded shirt and vest. He smiles, and if Eddie didn’t know any better, he’d think there was something shy in it.

“Oh, nope. I—” He laughs under his breath. “I have it already.”

The back door bursts open to reveal Robin all wrapped up in a scarf. She throws Eddie his jacket, jangles some keys and imitates Steve’s half-singing when she announces, “I’ll lock up.”

The wind’s thankfully died down so the contrast from inside to the parking lot isn’t terrible—though that’s probably helped by the fact that Eddie’s jacket is warmed right through from the radiator.

As he gets to the van, he expects that Robin and Steve will already be out of the parking lot. But when he slides into the driver’s seat, he sees Robin’s the only one actually inside Steve’s car; Steve’s half-in, half out, one hand on the roof.

“Safe journey, Munson!”

And maybe it’s just how Steve’s voice is anyway, but it sounds like it’s more than just a platitude. Like it means something.

Eddie honks his horn in reply. He lets Steve drive out first—his car’s parked closer to the road—and absentmindedly drums his fingers on the VHS case in the passenger seat.

This was a fluke, he tells himself. Like a movie being played in last period, the curtains drawn—how it always feels kind of like a dream.

Still, he drives home warm. Thinks in a gentler voice, one that sounds like Wayne—a reminder that not everything is a trap waiting to spring shut on him.

#featuring the anxiety of growing up gay in a small town #quiet magic in the last day of school #realising ‘oh i think i finally get who you are.’#eddie munson fic #pre steddie #steddie fic #steve and robin #eddie and robin #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #steddie

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steddieasitgoes · 7 months

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written for @eddiemonth Day 16 Prompt: Library & Curious a/n: This one might be my favorite one I've written yet! It's set at the start of season 2! read on ao3 | link to my ao3 Edde Month series

Eddie’s well aware there are a lot of stupid classes that Hawkins High requires its student body to take. Algebra (there’s no reason for the alphabet and numbers to mix, except in very rare cases, like D20 type cases), Physics (what more do they need to know beyond what goes up, must come down), French (as if anyone from Bumfuck, Indiana could afford to go to France — okay maybe some can, but Eddie’s certainly not one of them that’s for damn sure), goddamn Physical Education (only way he’s running is if someone is chasing him, thank you very much). But the stupidest class of all has to be Study Hall.

An entire class dedicated to doing work for other classes? What kind of idiot dreamed this one up? Instead of letting them out an hour early, some guy, probably in a suit because all bad ideas come from guys in suits, decided to hold them hostage to do more work. It’s ridiculous. Not to mention, it’s one of the few times, outside of lunch, that the grades get to mingle with each other. Sure, lots of studying goes on in between freshmen drooling over seniors and sophomores paying juniors for last year’s test answers.

The only time Eddie actually liked study hall was during his sophomore year when he had it first period and could do all the homework he neglected to do the night before. It’s the only time it actually made sense. And the only time, thus far in his high school career, that Eddie actually turned in more assignments than not.

But now, he’s a senior stuck with study hall as his last class of the day, and he wants to die. Okay, maybe not die die. But die in the sense that he’d rather risk bodily harm escaping the hellscape that is the Hawkins library during 6th-period study hall than sit here. His freedom is so close — nothing but a few windows and a brick wall separating him from the brisk late-October air. Eddie can’t risk it, though. He’s already reached his detention quote for the semester, and if he wants to keep using the drama room for Hellfire meetings, he has to sit in this damn library seat and at least pretend to get some work done.

Which, honestly, isn’t the worst thing in the world. At least it gives him time to work on his latest Hellfire campaign without the prying eyes of Jeff and Gareth or the unnecessary questions from Freak. Sure, he’s supposed to be working on an essay for English Lit, but he doesn’t think Ms. Washington is going to appreciate his take on Frankenstein, so he’ll worry about coming up with a dumbed-down idea another day.

Besides, even focusing on his new campaign is hard enough with the idle chatter going on that the librarian is either pretending not to hear or is too tired of shushing them for.

It’s the usual sort of study hall gossip. Who’s screwing who. What teacher is going to pull a pop quiz tomorrow and become the biggest asshole at Hawkins High. The occasional nervous whispers of the geeks actually studying.

It’s all mindless chatter that drifts into the background when the topic of Tina’s Halloween Bash comes up. That’s the real gossip of the night. Who got the keg, and what other alcohol is being provided? Who is going to be the best dressed? What couple is going to get caught screwing in Tina’s parent’s bed? Are there going to be any good fights or breakups?

Eddie rolls his eyes. Jesus H. Christ, can’t anybody be original around here?

Unfortunately for Eddie, there’s no escaping Tina’s Halloween Bash since he’s been summoned to provide some extra party favors, as the “cool” kids like to call them. Eddie, never one to back down from being a thorn in a “cool” kid’s side, always responds with the same spiel: “Drugs. What you want is drugs, right? Or should I go raid Melvald’s for you?”

Whatever. Money is money, and Eddie can take all the money he can get his grubby hands on if he wants to get out of this shit-hole town when he graduates in June.

Glancing at his watch, he tips his head back in a silent groan of annoyance. Only ten minutes have passed since he slunk into the uncomfortable library seat. Christ, why does time move so slow, sometimes? Eddie tries to focus on his Hellfire notes in front of him, and he’s successful for all of thirty seconds before something catches his attention in the corner of his eye.

Nancy Wheeler and the former Hawkins High King, Steve Harrington, are whispering to each other by the pencil sharpener. He rolls his eyes. Of course, no one else in the library is paying them any mind. And why would they? Harrington fell from grace last year, and Wheeler isn’t exactly the “look at me” type. Still, Eddie finds them morbidly interesting in a way he finds all the tragic heterosexual couples in this stupid small town interesting.

Before Eddie has a chance to fall deeper into his cynical outlook on this stupid Hawkins High couple, Wheeler starts tugging Harrington toward the private study room in the back of the library. It’s a move that shocks Eddie to his core. Don’t get him wrong, he’s heard all bout Harrington’s little trysts in that very room over the years (thank you gossip mill for the very cheap porn), but he never would have assumed Wheeler would be the one tugging him toward it.

It’s that detour from who she’s supposed to be that has Eddie peeling himself off his chair. At least, that’s what he tells himself as he saunters toward the stack of books in the back of the library closest to the private room. If he hears moaning or anything remotely sounding like they’re hooking up, he promises himself he’ll leave. He’s a freak in many ways, but a creep, he is not.

Glancing over his shoulder, Eddie can see the two of them in the small room. They’re close but not close enough to be doing anything beyond talking. From the look on her face, doing anything of that sort isn’t even on her mind.

Interesting.

Eddie creeps closer.

“Barbara. It’s like nobody cares. Except her parents. And now they’re selling their house.”

“Nance—“

Wheeler rants about something, but he misses most of it. Only catching the very end.

“It’s destroying them.”

No shit, Eddie thinks with another dramatic eye roll. Of course, losing their only daughter is destroying them. The Hollands are one of the few families around here that actually have a heart. At least they did before Barbara tore it from them by running away. Or so the story goes. Eddie’s always been a bit suspicious of Holland’s disappearance. He knows the runaway type, and a straight-A girl, with a well-off family who loves them like Holland had doesn’t fit the bill.

“I know. Okay? I get it,” Harrington says, glancing away from Wheeler to peer out the window. Eddie grabs the first book on the shelf and buries his face in it. It must fool Steve because he starts talking again. “But listen, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Yeah, we could tell them the truth.”

“This isn’t some game, Nance. If they found out that we told any…” He trails off again, and Eddie reaches for another book.

Eyes peering over the pages, Eddie watches as he shuts the blinds before presumably returning to Wheeler. With the blinds shut and their voices even lower, he can no longer hear what they’re talking about. Which is a damn shame because Eddie’s never been more curious about what the disgraced King was about to say than right now.

+ + +

“M’telling you guys. It was weird,” Eddie says through a mouthful of Doritos.

They’re hanging out in Gareth’s garage. Jeff sits in the old recliner while Gareth stays perched behind his drum kit. Freak is running late, as usual, though Eddie’s not too pressed about it today. Too distracted filling the boys in on what he overheard in the library.

“I don’t know man; it sounds like she was just concerned about her best friend,” Gareth says, lightly tapping his drumsticks on his snare.

“Yeah, those two were inseparable, remember.”

“All the more reason why it’s weird she’s been mopping around lately. Obviously, she knows where Holland is. Or what happened to her.”

“Not this again,” Jeff groans, sinking further into the recliner.

“Yes, this again,” Eddie retorts, throwing Jeff an intense glare. “This town is weird as shit. If the Byers kid can come back from the dead—“

“I thought they proved it wasn’t actually Byers they found in the quarry,” The Freak says, finally joining them in the garage.

“They did, but Eddie still thinks—“

“Shut up!” Eddie shouts, taking a moment to throw a Dorito at all of their heads. “Let me level with you for a second, okay? Yeah, sure, they said that kid wasn’t Byers, but they never said whose kid it was, which is weird. And then right after that, they “find” Holland’s car? It’s too coincidental, man. You know a story isn’t right when it’s too easy.”

“This isn’t one of our campaigns,” Gareth sighs. “Sometimes things really are just accidental coincidences.”

Eddie shakes his head, running his Dorito-stained fingers over his face. “Nah, man, m’not buying it this time. Harrington and Wheeler know what really happened to Holland. And I think they’re responsible for it.”

“So, what?” Jeff asks, leaning forward so his elbows rest on his knees. “You think they made her disappear or something.”

“Maybe Harrington got Holland knocked up, and his family gave her money to leave.”

“See!” Eddie shouts, slapping his hands together as he jumps on the balls of his feet. “Freak gets it! That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

“Okay, but if Harrington knocked Wheeler’s best friend up, why would she still be dating him?” Jeff asks.

“And why would they both be hiding her from her parents?” Gareth adds.

Okay, so maybe these are valid questions, but Eddie doesn’t appreciate the doubts they’re throwing at him. “I don’t appreciate you doubting me,” he says plainly. “You’ll see. M’gonna figure this out.”

“Right, just like you figured out that Ms. O’Donnell was actually failing you for a reason and not because she had some vendetta against Wayne for not dating her.”

“Hey. That was a good theory, okay. One I still think is true, by the way.” Turning his back on the boys, Eddie crosses the room and tosses the empty bag of Doritos into the trash bin before heading towards his badly parked van.

“I thought we were practicing!” Gareth shouts after him.

“Just let him go,” Jeff sighs. “He’s impossible to work with when he’s in conspiracy theory mode.”

Eddie flips Jeff off, climbing into the van. “I’ll see you boys tomorrow.”

+ + +

Eddie’s been at Tina’s party for an entire hour and a half, and there’s still no sign of Harrington or Wheeler. Not that he’s actively searching them out, of course. He’s just had some downtime in between upselling Hagan for the world’s shittiest pot he could get his hands on, and explaining to some cheerleader how Special K hits differently if you snort it. Plus, his supply ran out about ten minutes ago, so he’s just buying time before someone notices him lingering and kicks his ass to the curb.

He’s about to save himself and whatever jock gets thrown his way the trouble, when he spots Harrington and Wheeler arguing by the punch bowl. He’s too far away to hear what they’re saying, but he has a sneaking suspicion it has less to do with the conversation he heard in the library and more to do with Wheeler’s drunken state. Case in point: the red liquid she just spilled all over her blouse.

Chasing after her, Harrington cuts through the crowd and makes his way toward one of the bathrooms. Eddie waits a minute before following them down the crowded hallway. Thankfully, no one is in line for this bathroom — still too early in the night for the alcohol to have hit their bladders — so he’s first in the unofficial bathroom line. Leaning casually against the wall, Eddie angles his ear closer to the door so he can hear inside.

It takes a minute for his ears to tune out the music and nonsense chatter, but when they do, he can clearly hear Wheeler slurring her words.

“You’re pretending like everything’s okay. You know, like we didn’t… like we didn’t kill Barb.”

Eddie’s never experienced shock before, at least, he doesn’t think he has; the early days of his life are a little hazy around the edges, but that’s the only word he thinks fits what he’s experiencing right now. Part of him wants to shove his ear closer to the door to continue listing, while the other part of him wants to run for the hills, screaming in victory. And if he’s straight with himself, maybe screaming in fear a little, too. Harrington and Wheeler murderers? Who knew?

He knew, that’s who!

He knew there was something shady going on between those two.

Pressing his ear closer, he can hear Wheeler slurring more words, though he’s not exactly sure what she’s saying. Honestly, he doesn’t really care what she’s saying. He’s listening for Harrington’s response right now. What does the mighty King have to say about the bomb she’s just dropped?

“This is bullshit,” she slurs.

“Like we’re in love?” Steve asks.

Huh, clearly, Eddie missed a step or two in his shocked state. He’s not exactly sure how the conversation strayed from them killing Holland to their, clearly, toxic relationship, but the fact it did is all the proof Eddie needs. If they didn’t kill her, Harrington would have been vehemently denying her claim. And yet, he sounds like a kicked puppy dog right now because she doesn’t love him.

Join the club, Harrington.

The doorknob starts to jiggle, and Eddie bolts. It’s not that he’s afraid about coming face-to-face with the two who apparently killed Holland. It’s just that, well, he needs a minute to think about the information he’s just learned.

+ + +

With Gareth and Freak both busy supervising their siblings around Hawkins and Jeff on candy duty for his family’s house, Eddie has no one to share the good bad news with. RIP Holland and all that, but he’s sitting on some serious dirt right now.

The good part of Eddie’s brain knows he should head straight for the police station. Pull good ole’ Chief Hopper aside and gloat about how he did his job for him. But Eddie’s spent enough time at the stuffy station to know no one is going to believe him especially not against Harrington and Wheeler. He’d have better luck marching in there and turning himself in for her murder. Not that he’s going to do that.

He supposes he could tell Wayne about it, but he doesn’t need to be dragging his uncle into any more of his messes. And since Eddie has no proof beyond overhearing a drunken confession, a mess it’ll surely turn into.

So, he opts for the third option and heads out to Skull Rock to do some thinking.

Maybe Freak is right, and it was some sort of jealous rage brought on by a Holland-Harrington pregnancy. Or maybe Holland saw something she shouldn’t have; the possibilities are endless, and Eddie’s imagination is limitless.

Eventually, he circles back to what he’s supposed to do with this information. Should he turn them in? Maybe not Wheeler; she seems like she’s experienced enough guilt as it and the girl has a bright future or whatever it is the teachers are always talking about. Harrington, though? Harrington, he should turn in, right? I mean, he didn’t even seem phased when Wheeler brought up the murder. Eddie’s watched enough horror movies to know that’s psychopath behavior right there. Besides, it would be nice to see the King behind bars. But then again, he hasn’t been the King in a while. And Harrington’s never really done anything to Eddie beyond standing idle while Hagan threw slurs at him. But he’s not hanging out with Hagan anymore, so maybe he should cut him some slack.

Though they did murder someone.

Jesus H. Christ.

Maybe this is why they say curiosity killed the cat — Eddie’s head is throbbing. He’s about to take another hit from his joint when he hears leaves crunching in the distance.

Shit.

Someone’s coming.

Snubbing out his joint against the rock, Eddie tries his best to make it seem like he’s just here, escaping the busy Halloween night. Which, like, he definitely is, but he can’t be too safe. Especially not when there are two teenage murderers on the loose.

“She thinks m’bullshit? She’s bullshit! Bullshit.”

The voice is unmistakable.

Jesus H. Christ could tonight get any weirder.

Eddie’s only escape is to run deeper into the forest, and he’s not about to do that so he makes himself comfortable on top of Skull Rock like a fucking sitting duck. Searching the pockets of his vest, he yanks out a pack of cigarettes and his lighter. Neither of which he was looking for. Of course, he left his pocket knife in his van. Stupid. So stupid!

There’s a moment of silence before Harrington emerges from the clearing. The moon is bright above them, making Steve’s tear-stained cheeks and red-rimmed eyes glow in the otherwise dark forest.

Maybe he is feeling guilty after all.

“Ah, fuck,” Harrington groans, stumbling to the ground.

Eddie watches as he rolls around for a moment, struggling to find his footing. If Eddie were a mean person, he might let Harrington suffer. But something about his behavior reminds him of a wounded animal, and Eddie’s always had a soft spot for bruised and broken things.

“Shit, Harrington, you okay?” Eddie asks, jumping down.

Eddie’s boots crunch against the leaves, startling Harrington. He manages to pull himself into a seated position and brandishes a near empty beer bottle in Eddie’s direction. “Stay back!”

“Woah, man,” Eddie yelps, hands raised in surrender in front of him. “Don’t kill me.”

“Oh, s’you,” Steve says, slumping against the tree behind him. He tosses the beer bottle aside and runs both his hands over his face. “Jesus. Why does everyone think I would kill s-someone?”

“Uh,” Eddie stutters, glancing around. Now’s his chance to make a break for it. Put those hours of physical education to good use and sprint to the van before Harrington has a chance to make him his next victim. But there’s something in Steve’s sad eyes and dejected voice that makes Eddie stay. “‘Cause you have killed someone before?”

“Man, what the hell are you talking about?” Harrington snaps, fumbling to get out of his jacket. “I’ve n-never killed anyone.”

“So, you didn’t kill Barbara Holland, then?”

“No! Jesus, ‘course not. Barb was… Barb was nice. She was good. Like Nance. Better than Nance, maybe. I don’t know,” Harrington whines, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Barb she’s… yeah, man, she’s dead. But I didn’t have anything to do with that. N-not in the way you think I did, at least.”

Harrington’s not making a lot of sense, which only spurs Eddie’s curiosity on more. Closing the distance between them, Eddie hops to a squat in front of him. “But you did have something to do with what happened to her?”

“Shit, man,” Harrington groans, words slurring more more. “S’complicated, okay. I can’t talk about it with you or her parents or anyone. Or else they’ll come for me or Nance or our families and then we’ll all be toast like Barb. And that… that thing that came out of the Byers’ wall.”

Complicated? Jesus H. Christ, Eddie’s never heard anything more complicated than the jumble of words that just left Harrington’s mouth. He can feel his heart racing in his chest, the realization that they’re alone in the woods talking about something someone doesn’t want Harrington talking about.

“What?” Eddie says more to himself than to Steve. “Harrington, what thing in the Byers wall? You’re not making any sense!”

“The thing. You know, the… the,” Steve hiccups. “The thing we can’t talk ‘bout, else they’ll come for us next.”

Someone will come for him and his family if he reveals what happened to Barb? And the thing in the Byers wall? He wants to ask who would come. What would happen? Is he being blackmailed? There are so many questions dancing on the tip of his tongue, but none of them win the war.

“Harrington, man,” Eddie says, shaking his head. “Are you in trouble? Do you, like, need help or something?”

Finally, freeing himself from his jacket, Harrington lifts his head and looks up. There’s a moment where Eddie’s life flashes before his eyes, but then the sad replay of his life is interrupted by Harrington’s hand on his cheek. A dopey-looking grin on his face as he squints up at Eddie.

“You have pretty eyes, M-m-munson. Anyone ever tell you that?” Steve slurs before promptly passing out against the tree.

What the hell has Eddie gotten himself into?

#eddiemonth #eddie munson #eddie munson fic #eddie munson ficlet #steve harrington #steve harrington fic #steve harrington ficlet #nancy wheeler #nancy wheeler fic #nancy wheeler ficlet #stancy #stancy ficlet #stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things season 2 #implied steddie #steddie #dani writes

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artiststarme · 1 year

Text

Shakespeare? Gay as hell

Based on this post about Eddie getting held back for writing about gay characters in Shakespeare. Thanks to @lunaraindrop for needing more of his essays! I hope you guys like it and please leave your thoughts in the comments!

~*~*~*~

Many relationships can be observed in William Shaksepeare’s Romeo and Juliet. However, the most important relationship is not between the famous star-crossed lovers. No, instead the most important relationship is between Tybalt and Mercutio, another pair of star-crossed lovers often overlooked by the conservative, religious audience of the play. This relationship highlights the struggles of the homosexual community in the fourteenth century as well as those that still exist today. By analyzing the tragic gay relationship between Tybalt of the Capulets and Mercutio of the Montague side, efforts can be made in the present day to prevent tragic endings to gay relationships in the 80s.

Eddie didn’t know why he got called into the principal’s office. He was three weeks into the school year and he hadn’t even done anything yet. He’d been attending all of his classes despite how goddamn early they were and he’d been turning in all of his schoolwork. They had no reason to pull him from his lunch and tentative new Hellfire members.

His confusion only grew when he saw Wayne sitting awkwardly in one of the office chairs. “Uncle Wayne? What are you doing here?”

“Hell if I know,” he grumbled. “They said it was important that I be here. Boy, I haven't been in the principal’s office in over thirty years. What the hell did you do?”

Eddie threw his hands up in defensive surrender. “I haven’t done anything! Whatever they say is lies and slander! I’m innocent!”

He heard a scoff behind him and turned around to see Mrs. O’Donnell, his senior English teacher. She was a rigid old woman that wore three too many layers and went home every night to her twenty-seven cats and no husband, or at least that’s what Eddie assumed. She was standing next to an unimpressed Principal Higgins that glared at Eddie when their eyes met.

“Sit down, Mr. Munson. Now, we’ve called you both here today to discuss some concerns. It seems that Edward here has some… perversions that we are concerned about.”

“Perversions?!” Eddie shrieked. What the fuck?

Uncle Wayne sat up straighter in his seat. “No, that’s not Eddie. I don’t know what this is regardin’ but my Eddie is a good kid so you must be mistaken.”

Mrs. O’Donnell slapped his latest essay on Hamlet down on the desk in front of Wayne. “Read it! He’s disgraced one of the grandest plays of all time!”

Everyone sat in silence for a moment while Wayne read his paper. Both Principal Higgins and Mrs. O’Donnell looked almost giddy as they waited for Wayne to start yelling at him and his ‘perversions’. Instead though, Wayne just hummed and leaned back in his seat.

“I think it’s great, wonderfully written. The sex scene between Tybalt and Mercutio was a little graphic for my taste but it was beautifully written. Eddie always has had a gift for writing stories.”

Mrs. O’Donnell’s jaw dropped in the utmost offense. “Excuse me?! This is not ‘wonderfully written’, this is a travesty on Shakespeare’s good name!”

“You’re his teacher, ain’t you? You should be happy that your teaching is inspiring such creativity. Great job on your part,” Uncle Wayne told her.

Principal Higgins dismissed them hurriedly and as they left, they could hear Mrs. O’Donnell’s shrill screeching from down the hall.

He didn’t pass her class that year.

~*~*~*~

In the play Hamlet written by William Shakespeare, the most important theme is love. The love between King Hamlet and his son allows his ghost to appear from beyond the grave to pass along important information to aid in revenge. The false love between Claudius and Gertrude causes revenge to spark and ultimately people to die. Perhaps most notably, the romantic relationship between Hamlet and Horatio proves the most important. It shows that love can persist beyond heterosexually bearded relationships, as Hamlet’s is with Ophelia. Furthermore, it shows that love can exceed death, as Horatio’s feelings continue even after Hamlet’s death when he kills Claudius in revenge.

Honestly, the calls down to the principal’s office had become routine. Eddie was always being pulled out of class whether it was for goading on the basketball team, stealing Billy Hargrove’s clothes while he was in the shower, or allegedly selling marijuana to freshmen. It was always something.

But when he walked in to find Wayne sitting uncomfortably in the office chair once again with Mrs. O’Donnell and Principal Higgins standing behind the desk, he let out a groan of annoyance.

“Jesus Christ, can you not just let me live my life?”

“Eddie, don’t talk like that. Treat them with respect,” Wayne scolded him.

“Mr. Munson, I don’t want you exposing my eyes to your homosexual writing urges. Unlike you, William Shakespeare was not a faggot!”

“Now you wait a damn minute,” Wayne said, whirling around to face Mrs. O’Donnell. “It ain’t my Eddie’s fault that this Shakespeare fellow was writing about gay characters in his plays. Just because Eddie is noticing them doesn’t give you the right to put him down or spread your lies. Grade his paper properly like you should be doing and stop trying to stomp all over my boy’s creativity!”

Uncle Wayne grabbed his arm and pulled him all the way out of the school to his truck. They drove to the diner a town over, the best place now that Benny’s was closed. He turned to Eddie in the cab of the truck and rested a calloused hand on his shoulder.

“Look Eds, people are always gonna try and put you down but it’s your job never to stay there, alright? They don’t like your paper because it's too gay in their eyes? Write some more, do what makes you happy. And if you are gay, that’s okay too. I’ll always love you no matter what.”

By the time he’d finished, Eddie had tears dripping down his face. “I’m so sorry, Uncle Wayne. I didn’t want to be and I tried so hard-”

“Hey, stop that. There’s nothing wrong with being gay and you can’t believe anyone that says that there is, you hear me? Now c’mon, let’s get some burgers and you can tell me about any crushes you have at school. Any handsome fellas around here, you think?”

From that day forward, Eddie stops putting filters on his writing. Wayne told him that there was nothing wrong with him and he’d never lied to him before. He started making every character in his essays gay, he even added some gay characters to his campaigns and when no one questioned him, he centered the entire campaign around a lesbian elf saving her girlfriend from a horde of homophobic goblins. His friends didn’t so much as blink and Wayne beamed at him in pride when he told him about it later.

No, he didn’t pass his English class that year either but he remained true to himself and according to Wayne, that was the best thing he could do.

~*~*~*~

In the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare, the major theme of the play is homosexuality. This can be observed when Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to start killing all of the men that she thinks had a crush on him such as Duncan and Banquo. However, it can be seen most prominently when Lady Macbeth kills herself, may she rest in peace, because she realizes that despite all of her actions, Macbeth will remain fucking gay as hell.

Eddie received a note from Mrs. O’Donnell the last class before Spring Break that summoned him to the Principal’s Office upon his return to school. However, with the murder accusations, earthquakes, and sheer amount of deaths, his summons was thrown to the back of everyone’s minds.

Eddie graduated that year, passing Mrs. O’Donnell’s class with a pity A- but passing nonetheless. He walked across the stage with Uncle Wayne and the Party in the audience, ignoring the slurs and hate being screamed at him and focusing on Steve’s wolf whistling. Afterwards, everyone went back to the same diner that Wayne had taken him to a year prior and they celebrated the fact that he finally graduated. Who knew that all he had to do was remain true to himself and win over Mrs. O’Donnell?

(Or maybe it was the horrific events over Spring Break that allowed everyone to graduate despite how bad their grades were, but no one will ever know.)

My Permanent Tag List: @doubleb11 @nburkhardt @zerokrox-blog @newtstabber @i-less-than-three-you @straight4joekeery @carlyv @pyrohonk @ksherlock15 @conversesweetheart @estrellami-1 @suddenlyinlove @yikes-a-bee @swimmingbirdrunningrock @perseus-notjackson @anaibis @merricatty @maya-custodios-dionach @grtwdsmwhr @manda-panda-monium @lumoschild @goodolefashionedloverboi @mentallyundone @awkwardgravity1 @anzelsilver @jestyzesty @gregre369 @mysticcrownshipper @disasterlia @lillys-weird-world @messrs-weasley @gay-stranger-things @pnk-lemonades @coolestjoy30 @awkotaco24

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#stranger things #fanfic #eddie munson #uncle wayne #wayne munson

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iratempestatis · 11 days

Text

Pretty.

Kaeya x gn!reader

Just a bunch of fluff, reader is bad at showing their emotions and Kaeya's just shooting his shot lmao. Apologies for being too specific at times, I wrote this with someone in mind <3

Throwing food at pedestrians was generally frowned upon, whether you were a normal citizen or the esteemed captain of the Knights of Favonius. You're fairly certain your captain is aware of this, and yet-

You whip your head around and glare at Kaeya as another sunsettia makes an elegant arc and bounces off your shoulder, onto the ground. What was wrong with this man? Why was he wasting food like this?

Your captain had very thin hair already, curving over his shoulder like a rat’s tail. He didn't need to give you incentive to rip it all off. You're sure it would fall off on it's own by the time he was forty. You’re certain he'd still look as lovely as he did now.

But enough of that! He wasted food!

“Captain!”

“So sorry.” He grins and bites into a sunsettia. The bright morning sky brings out the cool blue tones in his eyes. He's pretty. “Please don't scold me, now.”

You only curse and turned away. It was impossible to remain angry with Kaeya Alberich for too long.

✦—————————————✦

You used to think you were quite clever.

But honestly, only a fool would graduate from the Akademiya with honours and end up working as a cavalry knight in a city full of drunkards (imagine being in love with one, the horror! It could never be you), far away from home, devoid of any fresh spices save for some fucking snapdragon. And the cost of shipping actual spices? Veritable insanity! 450 Mora for just shipping the stuff you could buy for 120 back home?

And only an even bigger fool wouldn't check if the cavalry had any horses before signing up. Because it's stupid to expect the cavalry to own a horse or two, yes?

It never seemed to bother anyone but you. These madlads managed life without sumpter beasts and Tri-Lakshana Sigils.

Mondstadt City didn't even have any slopes, just stairs! What if someone used a wheelchair? What if someone was too goddamn lazy to climb up all those stairs??

You'd bitched about the infrastructure nonstop at first. Kaeya had only laughed. He had a pretty laugh. Everything he did was pretty. He was pretty.

You could feel your friends rolling their eyes at you.

You were often tempted to take their advice and confess your feelings to him. How embarrassing, to not leave a city purely because he occupied it? To smile because he smiled and grin because he looked content? You didn't even like skewers until he threw some at you. They tasted as zesty as he looked.

But confessing to your boss? Unprofessional. You weren't a coward, you were just married to your job! (A rather toxic relationship. You barely spent any time together.) Besides, imagine getting rejected. It could never be you. That would be almost as terrible as crying in front of everyone as an Akademiya professor tore your essay to shreds. In your first year. (Maybe Alhaitham was right and you really did need therapy.)

Speaking of your job, however-

“Captain, I'm going to Springvale. Old Finch-”

“Surely you don't mean to walk there.” His eyes widen in mock horror. “We don't even have any Tri-Lakshana Sigils!”

You roll your eyes. “Old Finch told me-”

“Finch? Who would name their only child Finch of all things? At least there are slopes in Springvale-”

You groan.

✦—————————————✦

Of course you didn't fucking walk to Springvale like a plebian. You begged Nantuck to row you there. Kaeya tagged along as well, but you didn't question why. You were one flirtatious answer from giving your crush away. Or one pretty, pretty smile. Or even just one Kaeya elegantly stepping out of the boat and holding out a hand to you.

“I'm good,” you mutter as you step off on your own. Kaeya chuckles.

“My, someone's in an especially terrible mood today. Did someone anger you? When are you telling me what you're here for on your day off, anyway?”

The audacity of this bitc-

“I tried,“ You scoff. “Someone kept interrupting me-”

“How uncouth of them.”

“You piece of-” you hurriedly bite back the insult. “I'm here because Old F- someone told me there's a group of whopperflowers on the cliffs behind the spring. I'll deal with them and meet up with you… where?”

“So eager to meet up with me, even on our days off,” he muses as you rolled your eyes. (Wasn't he the one who started harassing you? No matter. Any time spent with Kaeya was time well spent, in your opinion.) “Very well, then. I'll be at Brooke’s. It's a date.”

Your face flushes. What the fuck? “Don't wander off.” You sigh, hoping you don't look like you're on fire. I need to get out of here.

“That's all you'll say to me? Hey, at least say goodbye as you run off!”

✦—————————————✦

Goodbye, you think as you plummet off a cliff and to your death (you hope.) The whopperflowers had been endless and honestly you'd rather fight a Regisvine than a dozen of these overgrown mist flowers together on a goddamn cliff. You could see the light (probably the sun.) You could feel Alhaitham chuck your clown wig and clown nose at you (in spirit, of course, although him actually doing that wouldn't really surprise you.)

You could also feel your body jolt as the cold waters of the spring abruptly shock your system. You're not conscious enough to feel yourself sink, though.

✦—————————————✦

Were you to die, you wanted death to cradle you close, carry you off and gently lay you to rest on the sands or the grass, whichever you were in the mood for that day. And you didn't want it to be fucking bony and jostle you as it carried you, no matter how nice it smelled. You also didn't want it to be so goddamn damp, and the least it could do is magically stop your head from hurting, maybe hand you a towel and some warm soup-

“There you go,” you hear Kaeya softly murmur as he sets you down on some grass. You can hear Finch and Hopkins frantically calling for help. Warm hands securely wrap a blanket around you and start gently drying your hair.

I won't be able to go on that date, you think deliriously. The ensuing embarrassment is enough to make your eyes snap open.

You're on the grassy banks of the spring, wet and rather cold. Brooke is rubbing your arms through the blanket and- you crane your neck to see Kaeya gently drying your hair. He smiles when he sees you turn. He smiles very often. You wonder if this is one of those rare times when it's genuine.

“You never fail to surprise me,” he says fondly as he lets go of the towel and ruffles your hair. “Forever reaching for new heights of stupidity. What idiot runs off to kill a dozen cryo whopperflowers with a cryo vision?”

This bitch.

“I didn't know they were cryo,” you rasp. “Asshole.”

“Is this how you speak to your superiors?”

“You're not exactly supposed to ask your underlings on dates either.” Shit.

He grins at that (you should never have acknowledged the date, now he'd make you commit) and heaves an exaggerated sigh as he begins combing through your hair with his fingers. His nails gently scratch against your scalp. “Very well, dearest. No dates.”

Your dismay apparently shows on your face, because his grin only widens with delight. “Alright, one date, because you're pretty. And not today.”

Your face flushes. “It's not like I want one, anyway.” What do you mean, not today?

He shrugs. “Then you're welcome to walk away from rather delectable free meal. Brooke promised she'd give us only her best.”

As if you needed any additional motivation. “Fine, then. Only for the food.” When? The food sounded almost as good as Kaeya. “So. Er.” You cough. “When exactly are we…when are you taking me on that-?”

Kaeya laughs (asshole, you think affectionately) as you trail off with a flushed face. “Hey, since you're not so opposed to the idea,” he says “maybe you can stand me after all.”

Oh, Kaeya. Your face softens. “I've never disliked you, captain.” You have no need for insecurities. I know what you almost did to Collei. I know you have a complicated past.

I wish you'd tell me about it. Maybe one day you'd muster the courage to ask.

“Oh?” He tilts his head. A bead of water trickles off his hair, on his nose, then past his cheek. It catches on his jaw. You fight the urge to wipe it off. “So does this mean you like me, then?”

You blink rapidly, then turn away. “That's for you to find out.”

He smiles at you then, just a small smile. The sort of smile he gives stray cats when he thinks nobody is looking. The sort of smile he gives Klee when she shows him a drawing she made of them together. The sort of smile he gives Jean as he helps her home after a long day. Or the sort of smile he gives Lisa when she gently pats his shoulder and tells him to take care before she heads home.

“Like I said though, not today.” He boops your nose and stands up, holding out a hand to you. You take it this time. He doesn't let go even as you start to walk back towards Nantuck’s boat, and your heart joyously skips a few beats. You hope he can't feel your pulse through your intertwined fingers.

“You need to rest, and archons forbid you catch a cold. It's no fun without you around. I almost miss you, even. How about we reschedule that date for next Saturday, hm?”

#kaeya x reader #genshin kaeya x reader #gn reader #genshin x reader #kaeya alberich #Pretty.

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captorations · 10 months

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just saw someone criticize tlt for having too many epithets and. that is. the worst take i have seen in a long time. tell me you have fanfic brain poisoning without telling me you have fanfic brain poisoning.

look, i'm firmly on the side of being careful with epithets. it's actually a pet peeve of mine. seeing people repeatedly referred to by their hair colors or race or other physical descriptors is the fastest way to get me to close a book or hit the back button on a fic, far more so than grammatical errors or the like. that's not because of the epithets, but because of how they're being misused.

it is possible to use epithets just for variety, but that should be kept to an absolute minimum. a far more valid use of epithets is to draw attention to traits which are currently relevant. if one character is being manhandled by another, referring to the former as the smaller one, or the latter as the larger one, or even vice versa depending on context, is an excellent form of imagery. but that's a relatively pedestrian use. effective and useful, but not necessarily powerful; not phrases you can build stories around.

but you can build stories around epithets, because the best possible use of epithets in fiction is to tell you what the pov character is thinking, or not thinking, without saying it directly. it's one of the most powerful methods of showing rather than telling.

the first time gideon calls harrow "her necromancer" in tlt is crucial. it's blink-and-you-miss-it, but it marks the first time gideon sees harrow as hers. which is both negative, in that it's possessive, and positive, in that it means she actually fucking cares! which before then, and for a good long while after, she couldn't consciously admit to herself, much less harrow!

for the record, gideon first calls harrow her necromancer after having spent days wrestling with herself over whether she should care about harrow being apparently missing, wavering back and forth before giving in and searching for her, and eventually finding her unconscious because harrow is a moron who kept working until she passed out in a haunted basement. gideon calls harrow her necromancer as she is carrying her, having confirmed that she is unharmed but dehydrated and having just seen her briefly struggle back to consciousness for the express purpose of bitching at someone.

every time it is used thereafter, it carries the weight of every time it has been said previously. the necromancer-cavalier dynamic in the world of tlt is fascinating, both on a conceptual level and in every example we are given. hell, it's the closest thing their society has to gender roles, but that's another essay, and a very pretentious one i have no intention of writing.

tlt is a master class in using epithets correctly. again, if you're just so fucking sick of epithets being misused in fanwork, i get it. i'm right there with you. but epithets are not inherently bad, no more than alliteration is, or goddamn semicolons.

on the other hand, if the person meant the silly nicknames gideon keeps giving harrow, then i'm even more baffled. at that point you just have no taste or sense of humor. but as a rule i prefer to turn venting into lectures that are potentially helpful to others; it's not like i've tagged the person who i saw do this, i'm not here to start a fight.

anyway. to summarize. epithets used randomly to replace calling people by their names: generally bad. epithets used to create imagery or remind the reader of details relevant to the situation: good, useful. epithets used to show changes in perspective and show rather than tell: fucking excellent.

#whenever i see someone say something badly wrong in a literary analysis context #it spawns another of these lectures #which considering it forces me to articulate things that were more inherent knowledge than concepts i was prepared to teach #means i guess i should thank people for being bad at literary analysis #it helps me do my job better #so thanks #the locked tomb #writing

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cloudmancy · 11 months

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i don't want to be mean or anything but like. the cr/t/cal r/le girlies in the dimension 20 tag are just sending me like, i just Knew these people be just all over this season and diving in and dissecting every little detail and speculating for the larger picture (of six episodes) (plus a season that's already been out for a year) as though people like. haven't been having to Sit with the Very, Very unfinished/untold part of the world of this campaign setting for Years already? (the Widely Established Fanlore of it all XD) although that's also been also been folding in the face of. all the colin posts (like Specifically colin too past even colin+raphaniel or colin+deli). like they fell for the cr bait so hard- group of fans starved for mlm content based on their typical cr diet, see a guy (Just Some Guy) looking the way he was, see his mysterious past and divorce and arc and glowup and post-divorce talks and. yknow. whaddya gonna do. that's all they're gonna talk about when the EXPLICITLY mlm radish priest who's been grooming that VERY SAME cheese guy for five years is right there.

anyways i'm going to write all that off anon and pretend i'm not deathly scared of invoking the wrath of cr fans after that thing on twitter

IT'S ACTUALLY REALLY FUNNY YEAH. gonna address the colin part first then talk about my problems with the season under a spoiler. listen I think deli & colin are very real in that deli wants him SO bad but it's crazy that people are dancing around colin's whole thing with raphaniel. like what do you guys think was going on there 😭 'he's his babysitter' SAY IT OUT LOUD! he was fucking that radish

now for my thoughts about the plot and pacing of ravening war

I do not like that this season (that was supposed to be about a war covering 7+ years of intense political conflict and full-scale warfare involving every country in the continent) got boiled down to 2 massive timeskips & 3 battle episodes of five guys fucking around in a cave because the entire war was actually started by a secret cult. there were no battles involving the actual war + 1 skill check for entire 5 years at a time + almost nothing politics wise + they missed the ENTIRE climatic final push for the end of the war because they were underground. it's so poorly paced, I really don't know what to say. am I the crazy one here for wanting a season about the ravening war to be about the war? it just doesn't feel like the characters had any impact on the plot past episode 3 and they ONLY because they kill the queen of candia because a cult told them to. because we get alliances forged and broken and conflicts ended and rulers crowned within the span of a single sentence from the DM before we chug back off to the mycelium hivemind main plot. hot take but every season does not in fact need a plot twist big bad to fight

all of the characters in the season are genuinely the most interesting characters I've seen in YEARS. it's a goddamn shame we didn't get to spend more time with them. it sucks that each of them brought so much intrigue and backstory to the war, but every single one of them ended up contributing not much at all to the scale of the campaign because, again, the final boss turned out to be a cult within the top secret cult of mushrooms that was ALREADY a secret but there is also ANOTHER, more powerful deity to fight in the very last episode. we needed more episodes, or less time spent on battles. we needed to not bring on a DM known for having all the time in the world to wrap up years-long campaigns in 5 hour chunks at a time, for a 6 ep miniseason. we did not need two more powerscaled deities for no reason to a war that should have been about the people and not... random alien eldritch forces. we needed closure on amangeaux's child, we needed to know WHY raphaniel was poisoning the king and starting a war in the first place. aabria wrote a whole essay about karna's backstory that I would've loved to see in the show itself, but... we didn't get to see it! there were almost no politics. we did get 4 separate secret underground mushroom fights though. in a campaign about a war.

"real life is messy! not everything gets wrapped up neatly! it reflects real wars!" this is a dnd show sir and when you spend 20 minutes out of 12 hours of content actually talking politics and the rest of the time fucking around with mushrooms in a cave, it starts to look less like a deliberate artistic choice and more like poorly paced plot threads that didn't get a chance to finish.

#and do not get me started on how dirty the rocks sisters were done.#asks #i-can-do-tricks #ravening war

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rubyvroom · 2 years

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What Do Cops Do?

I spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to excerpt from this essay on Alex Pareene’s substack, but in the end I think I have to just post the whole goddamn thing:

Lots of very smart (and even more not-so-smart) people have tried, over the years, to answer the question of what cops are for—whether they exist to keep us safe, to fight crime, to protect property, to enforce racial hierarchies, etc. I pose a simpler question: What do cops do?

Having spent many years observing cop behavior, reading news about cops, and occasionally even asking them for help, I have come to a pretty simple but comprehensive answer: They do what is easy, and avoid what is difficult. Seen through that rubric, much cop behavior suddenly becomes much more explicable.

Of all the improbable things about accused subway shooter Frank James’s last hours of freedom, the weirdest is how easy it is to imagine James still on the run, today, if he’d decided to do almost anything differently. Learning that he phoned in a tip on himself from a McDonald’s, and then that he eventually got tired of waiting there and left, was a sort of sublime punchline to the entire comic manhunt, in which New York City’s enormous and well-funded police department failed at basically every moment to stop or capture a dangerous criminal who literally told them where he was. Then, a few weeks later, another guy shot and killed a person on the Q. The shooter did so at what I’d consider, strategically, the worst time and place to kill someone on the Q: while it crossed the Manhattan Bridge, giving everyone on board both the time and ability to phone the police and have them ready to apprehend him the moment the train arrived in Manhattan. But when the train pulled into Manhattan, rest assured, the police were (according to one unconfirmed eyewitness) on the wrong platform. That shooter might still be on the lam, too, if he hadn’t turned himself in, an act the city authorities and a fame-seeking pastor with connections to the mayor apparently almost sabotaged.

In between those two shootings, and also before and after them, the NYPD busied itself with clearing homeless encampments. In the denouement to the subway shooting fiasco, the police arrested the panhandler into whose cup the second shooter deposited his gun, for illegal firearms possession. This is my thesis in action: It is difficult to prevent a random shooting. It is difficult to find a gunman. It is difficult to arrest an armed man. It is very easy to arrest an unhoused person.

Alexander Sammon just wrote a piece for the Prospect asking why the police are so bad at their jobs, based on their dismal “clearance” (arrests) rates and even more dismal conviction rates. The semi-glib leftist response is that they aren’t. They’re doing exactly what we pay them for. But even judged by their own cruel standards the police are extraordinarily lazy and incompetent. A study summarized by sociologist Brendan Beck in Slate earlier this year made a convincing case that more officers were associated mainly with more misdemeanor arrests. That is, the unimportant shit. It is nice to imagine that additional police spending will go to an army of Columbos solving the trickiest crimes. We are currently doing this experiment, with the real police, in real life, and it is proving that they are spending the money on throwing the belongings of homeless people into dumpsters.

It is easier to arrest a child for stealing chips than it is to apprehend an armed adult shooter. It is easier for several dozen police officers to arrest two unarmed people than it is for a cop to stop any single armed person. It is easier for hundreds of cops to kettle a largely unarmed left-wing protest than it is for an entire department to stop any armed right-wingers from entering a government building. It’s easier to clear homeless encampments than it is to investigate sexual assault. It’s easier to coerce confessions than it is to solve crimes. It’s easier to try to pull a guy over than it is to offer any sort of help when he crashes his car. It’s easier to arrest a mango vendor in the subway than to stop someone from bringing a gun into the subway. It’s easier to arrest a fifth grader than it is to save one’s life.

It is far easier to do “crowd control”—to restrain a panicking parent, perhaps—than it is to enter a room currently occupied by a psycho with a semiautomatic rifle.

#ACAB

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cactusmisslittle · 1 year

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Study Aid (Edward Nashton x Reader)

Summary: You decide that Edward needs a lesson in political theory. GN reader, but Edward gets fucked (whether with a dick or a strap-on is up to interpretation). This started as a joke but I don't think it's a joke anymore please help.

Word Count: 672

Warnings: 18+, degradation, dom/sub dynamics, modified spelling for emotional effect which may not be screen-reader friendly (such as drawn out syllables, etc.)

"Pl - hah! - pleaaase!"

Edward whined plaintively beneath you, his hips bucking back in a weak attempt to get more friction. You weren't having it, of course, and held his hips down securely.

"Keep going, baby boy," you cooed, placing a soft kiss on his temple.

A sob was your only response as Edward tried to pull himself together enough to do as you asked. You couldn't exactly blame him, to be fair. This wasn't exactly an easy task for him.

After one too many livestreams went sour, you had gotten tired of your boyfriend's edgy, 4chan-esque variety of anarchism and decided that it was about time he read some actual political theory. No matter what it took. One thing led to another, and now, here you were: hilt-deep inside Edward as you pinned him to the table he was bent over. Directly below his face, you'd opened up a copy of Anarchism and Other Essays, and though you kept one arm twisted behind his back, the other was free to turn the pages as he read.

"Come on, Eddie." You gave his wrist a playful squeeze, relishing the shudder that ran through his body at your words. "You want me to fuck you, don't you?"

"Yes! Yesyesyes, please, I-"

"Then keep reading."

A strangled whimper died in Edward's throat and he steeled himself, setting his jaw determinedly.

"...Every st-st- oh, fuck!" His jaw fell agape as you finally began to move again, fucking him at an agonizingly slow pace. You clicked your tongue in warning, and he scrambled to continue. "-stimulus which qu- nng! - quickens theeeeeeeEE imaginatio - ohhh... - on and raises th-the spirits is as necess-ess-essar-ry to our l-life as air!"

As though only reminded by that last bit that he did in fact need to breathe, he gasped sharply beneath you and looked over his shoulder pathetically. His big eyes were wet with tears and you might feel bad for him if it weren't so goddamn hot.

"Good boy. Keep going."

The next sentence didn't go much better than the previous, and by the time he'd choked out a third, his chest was heaving as he wept and convulsed beneath you. You growled softly and tugged on his hair, forcing his head back upright.

"Honestly, how pathetic is this? You claim to be this great visionary, but I put a book in front of you and you can barely read."

Edward sniffled, but the needy moan that escaped his throat and the steady stream of precum dribbling from his cock assured you that he was enjoying this far more than he let on.

"'m sorry…" he mumbled, his voice breaking in a way that really shouldn't be as attractive as it was, "A-a Byron and a - hng! - and a Poe have st-stirred humaaaANITYYY!"

His speech was cut off by another garbled moan when your hips snapped forward particularly roughly. He wailed as his hips rutted back mindlessly to meet your thrusts. Feeling cruel, you decided to keep up the rough pace. You wanted your boy wrecked.

"- deep-deeper tha - ah - an all the - oh, god! - Puritans caneverhopeTODOOO! Oh, fuck, please, how much more?!"

You laughed and slowed down a little to let him breathe, running your nails gently over his scalp. Despite his general wretchedness, Edward practically purred at the gentle touch and leaned into it, much like a cat getting its belly rubbed.

"You're doing a good job for me, Eddie," you said softly, momentarily pivoting from the crueller act you'd put on earlier. It seemed to do its job, as you could see him preening under your praise. "Just a couple more pages. Think you can do that for me?"

Edward whimpered at the thought. He hadn't even gotten through a full page yet. How long would several more take? His cock twitched at the thought, and he nodded.

"O-okay..."

He took a deep breath and continued to read. It would be a long night ahead of him.

#nsft #the batman 2022 #edward nashton x reader #dom reader #edward nashton #the riddler #riddler x reader

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minetteskvareninova · 2 months

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Anyway, in light of ContraPoints' essay, I promised to continue my slow, steady Chłopi brainrot, so here it is:

My thesis is that you can absolutely read The Peasants, specifically the central pairing of Jagna and Antek, in light of the DHSM, it's just that it comes out of the other end as a pretty brutal deconstruction, which I don't think Reymont had intended.

Consider Jagna. She's your typical feminine protagonist, beautiful, virtuous and madly in love. The object of her desires? Goddamned Antoni Boryna. Antoni Boryna is, of course, very conventionally attractive, I daresay the most attractive man in the movie (although the competition is stiff, see Maciej and the organist's son, whatever the fuck his name is). He's also kind of unhinged. Antek is the kind of person who mostly acts on instinct with little regard to morality. He's nice to Jagna at the start, because he likes Jagna; he defends Hanka from his father's abuse, because nobody mistreats Hanka but him, and also fuck his dad; he leaves his dad's household and stubbornly refuses to submit to his authority despite the difficult situation it puts him in, because fuck his dad (sensing a pattern here?); he tries to kill his father, because fuck his dad, only to chicken out at the last second and realize, hey, maybe I don't hate my old man THAT much? These two are an Oedipal nightmare, is what I'm saying.

More than that, when I say that he acts on instinct, his instincts are... How would I put this... Stereotypically masculine in a very toxic way. He's very angry, bad-tempered, doesn't express tenderness that much - mostly because there isn't a whole lot of it things or people in this world that he genuinely likes. As far as I can tell, he kinda likes Hanka at the start (or at least the way old Boryna treats her is too much even for an A-grade asshole like Antek Boryna; there's also the fact that it's part of the ongoing power struggle between Antek and his old man, but that's neither here nor there) and really likes Jagna, and that's about it. His main motivation in life is to get one over his old man, which I almost sympathize with, since his old man is somehow even worse person than him. But don't get it twisted, Antek is a very, very bad dude. Some might even call him... A bad boy.

That's right, I am going there! Antek is in many ways very similar to the typical "bad boy" love interest found in romance novels. Toxic masculinity? Anger issues? Desperate need to dominate? Freaking daddy issues??? Yeah, baby, he's an alphahole all right. The only thing he's missing is, perhaps, an elevated social position, but even then - his dad is supposed to be the richest man in the village, and in the second half, his old man dies, presumably leaving Antek most of his property.

Anyway, Jagna starts out having feelings for Antek, which are in context kind of understandable. I mean, he is hot and she's one of the few people he treats with any tenderness; 18-year old girlies have fallen in love for less. The situation these two lovebirds find themselves in is of course very difficult. Jagna is coerced into becoming the trophy wife of Antek's shitty dad, while Antek is still married to Hanka and still mad at his dad for other reasons. But aside from being start-crossed lovers, there's another tiny problem with their relationship: Jagna, though young and in love, isn't stupid, and increasingly realizes that Antek, as mentioned above, is absolutely unhinged. Add to this the fact that Jagna kinda feels bad for poor Hanka, and it's kinda understandable why their relationship turns sour. So Jagna just... Dumps Antek. For which he rapes her and lets the villagers do the ending scene to her.

And here's where we get to the DHSM of it all. A lesser deconstruction might go for the "see, you can't in fact change him" angle, but like... Here? The thought of Antek ever changing never even crosses anyone's mind, least of all Jagna's. If she fell in love with Antek despite him being, as mentioned above, unhinged, it's because she clearly didn't know him that well and didn't recognize the full extent of his assholery. An understandable, if unfortunate mistake to make. Anyway, if the common DHSM dynamic is a woman elevating herself by worshipping or in some way (like morally) elevating an already exceptional man, it clearly doesn't work here. Jagna cannot adore Antek once she gets to know him, cannot abide by his assholery (she's too smart and proud for that), not can she change him into any kind of admirable person, and that thought doesn't even seem to cross her mind. Jagna cannot elevate Antek in any way.

But he can, and does, drag her to the mud.

That is the other side of the coin, the objectification and degradation of the woman, isn't it? And, well, since Antek cannot be elevated in Jagna's mind above her moral concerns, nor in real life by becoming a better person... Well then. To abide with the DHSM, Jagna has to be humiliated instead. First morally by sleeping with the married man, then, when she refuses to participate in this "sin" anymore, physically trough the rape and the ending scene.

And that's the unintentional genius of The Peasants - it reveals, in its full ugliness, the degradation side of DHSM by subtracting the elevation side completely. Antek was never worth the pain he put Jagna trough and that she was put trough for the relationship with him. But of course, is any man ever? There's a reason why Jagna never actually seems to consider a relationship with any other man, outside of maybe her ex Maciej, who, while not as terrible as Antek, still does some pretty shitty things, namely lying about sleeping with her (unwittingly contributing to her downfall). It's not that Jagna just happened to find a bad man. The whole system is clearly broken.

Of course, "the system" here clearly isn't meant to be just DHSM, as much as I focused on this aspect of it in this post, but patriarchy in general - for the writers of the movie if not Reymont (because I haven't read the book, so I can't speak on it, sorry). But to make a full feminist analysis of The Peasants is kind of outside of the scope of this tumblr essay, so.

#the peasants #the peasants 2023 #chłopi #chłopi 2023 #contrapoints #twilight

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sieglinde-freud · 11 months

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i think the fell xenologue does a great job at characterizing some of the royals beyond the vanilla game mostly because every single royal has like one or two core principles that really make them who they are and so getting rid of those one or two things completely converts them into a completely different person. like alcryst losing his self doubt, celine loses her empathy, hortensia loses her resilience, etc etc. but i think my favorite version of this has to be fogado, who has in my opinion the most drastic change. i think all of the other royals have very outward presenting traits that you can easily catch onto and see theyve lost. but fogado is just a little different, because what fell fogado lacks isnt really a trait; he loses his sense of love. (rest under the cut bc it turned into an essay. my bad also fell xenologue spoilers obvs)

“our” fogado (?? idk how to differentiate between them. work with me here) is not an easy person to read in universe. he makes it very clear in chapter 13 that he’s pretty good at deception and is very willing to make use of that skill. his supports with timerra and pandreo also tell us he’s gotten used to keeping up a specially crafted persona meant to kind of suppress his feelings (that timerra and pandreo can see through but. like 1. theyre smart 2. sister and bff ok moving on). but he doesn’t do it out of malice or because he just likes being tricky, he lies because he loves. everything in fogado’s life is shaped by what he loves: his country, his friends, and his sister. every single motivation he has is fueled by this: the constant partying, how often he leaves the castle, all his acting. its even in his goddamn class name (cupido) and birthday (feb 14) if you needed the game to spell it out for you

so thats why when we get to the fell xenologue, the fogado we meet is changed in that one specific way: his love is gone. we know this because of a few things, the first of which is that he is honest. aside from the robe (in which he is assassinating someone! but also. lets be so honest with ourselves here. you can see his fucking face) he’s immediately upfront with his intentions: he wants the bracelets, he wants power, and he wants you to die. and thats it. he just kind of hands you that information, and then fucks off when you win. on what earth would our fogado do that? dude wouldnt even tell you if he broke his leg, he just partied a little hard last night. but thats just it isnt it? our fogado lies because he loves people, hes protecting them. fell!fogado is transparent because he’s not protecting anyone, he doesn’t care.

but the biggest kicker in fell!fogado’s lack of love is in his interaction with our timerra. our fogado loves his sister more than anything, as he literally plans his entire life around making HER life easier. he sacrifices even just spending time with her just because he needs to make sure hes fully prepared to keep her safe (not that timerra wants that for him but he doesnt really get that. which is another topic i could dive into but this post is long enough lets not make it a novel). fell!fogado though? well you see–

any love fogado holds for his sister, or any love at all really, is just not present in fell!fogado. and you could say that maybe its just because of the corruption, but then why do we still see love between the fierenese and brodian siblings? even fell!timerra still loves her brother if her conversation with our fogado is anything to go off of. but the writers know that fogado lives and dies on his love for people, its his entire being and so much more so than the rest of the cast. which is why thats what had to change in him for the fell xenologue. it wasnt really just a flip of the switch haha murder thing (though. it could have been handled better. lets be real) but it was the loss of everything that makes fogado him. and i think the fact that this gets to be highlighted in the dlc just makes base game fogado all that much more interesting, because it cements his motivation now that we know what he's like without it. fogado is a guy driven by love and its just fucking great

#fe fogado #ann gets engaged #im not really sure what compels me to type up gigantic rambles in the middle of the night but. whatever #anyways so next up on the agenda: my argument for why hes aroace—#ok kidding bc thats purely headcanon and has nothing to do with fogados motivations but cmon. let a girl dream.#anyways when i first started typing this out it was supposed to be like. four sentences about me liking the contrast between the fogados #whoops!#my hand mustve slipped #but idk i just like. i like talking about fogado bc i feel like not enough people really do #and like theres discussion about him but its usually either shipping stuff or unit viability #both of which are valid! its just that in those discussions fogado as a character takes a backseat #which is j such a shame bc. grerahhekkdke hes sooo compelling. im putting him in my washing machine #oh and then theres the racism in the fandom but. wow. fe fans and racism noooo way. so shocked #/s if that wasnt obvious #and THEN if there is discussion about him as a person theres like 50% chance its j ‘oh hes claude 2’#which i have already expressed my frustration about as i love both of them and theyre j. so not the same.#but people assume bc they know claude they know fogado and thats just not true. its so not true.#whatever im not trying to make the tags longer than the post i just think fogado is neat :)#engage fav? yeah. top 10 fe character? ykw. probably #ok goodnight

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fixa-ryeter · 1 year

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you know what. thank you to @rovercat ‘s post (sorry for the ping, but i would like to express gratitude) for reminding me of the Mogami Arc essay (slightly loose term) i had written (turns out it was fully written already LMAO) and abandoned because i forgot about it

so here’s the thing in full. apologies for the lack of pictures and the over-abundance of words ,,,

okay.. i know i always throw around the fact that i love the Mogami arc so much and when people ask usually i’m like LMAO BECAUSE ANGST but genuinely? there’s another reason.

there’s just something about being pushed down to rock bottom and being on the brink of becoming what you think is the lowest of the low… and having your perception of morality altered from there.

like listen. Shigeo’s rule of Never Use Powers Against Others is set in soft stone by none other than Arataka Reigen, and it’s reinforced by the alleyway incident with ??? emerging and hurting Ritsu in the process. up until this point his entire theory of how to be a good person like Reigen told him to a few years ago is… do not use your powers. the only exception he’s made is for his brother and it was a pretty reasonable,,, yk,,, his brother got beat up and kidnapped,,, like i would excuse myself for that too.

but enter Keiji Mogami who Challenges that rule. Shigeo has been able to adhere to that rule in his reality because he’s surrounded by good people who will support and defend him, so he has no reason to do it himself with his powers… now Mogami’s world treats him to a whole 180° where he doesn’t have powers, but practically every single person there is such a goddamn piece of fucking shit toward him that he starts wishing he had the power to defend himself. to fight back. to teach them a lesson, even. and when Mogami grants him that power after 6 months of hell… like come on. he’s fourteen. of course he’s going to get influenced. and he did—he had already made the decision to hurt Asagiri.

「僕があんたらに何をしたっていうんだ？さっぱりわからない。でもわからなくていい…どうでもいい…」

“What have I ever done to you? I don’t understand at all. But it’s okay if I don’t understand. It doesn’t matter…”

yeah i don’t know about you but to me that definitely sounds like a kid ready to succumb to using power

but then comes Dimple, who snaps him out of it, and he never truly lays a finger on Asagiri… but he’d already made the decision that it would be okay to do that, before Dimple stepped in. Shigeo has already lost to Mogami…

not really.

Mogami thinks the world is abhorrent. he’s had his own spoonfuls of poison that give him this view: the world is full of malicious humans who do bad and get away with it, so why not punish them? they are the people who should suffer the negative consequences, and it’s not wrong to wield your power to give them those consequences. they deserve it. it’s necessary, essential to punish wrongdoers. he wants Shigeo, one of the most powerful espers in the series, to empathise with his view. and he does. Mogami influences Shigeo to hurt someone. But it’s Dimple that influences him not to carry through with it, and here’s what i really want to expand upon.

influence is a powerful thing, but it’s not about winning or losing to influence; to me, this arc is (at least partially) about what influences you. what shapes you to be the person you are? what experiences lead you to bad deeds? what events lead you to good actions?

Mogami and Shigeo have both touched on this; it’s partially up to luck to decide whether you’re surrounded with good or bad people, and whether you grow up with good or bad influences… and those will shape you as a person. you don’t put all the blame on a person for their actions, because there’s another question to ask after ‘are their actions good or bad?’—‘why do they do this?’

reality is chock full of these examples, big or small. as a child who had great expectations (Dickens!) put on him, i grew up to be a person conscious of my achievements and how others perceive me; many of my actions have the purpose of keeping up an impression i want to withhold of myself.

but let’s shrink back from reality to anime—Teruki Hanazawa, a boy unlucky enough to have absent parents who don’t give him the love he needs, abusing his powers for a perfect world where he is acknowledged, praised, worshipped. Katsuya Serizawa, a man unlucky enough to be given powers he doesn’t know how to control, shutting himself in his room until he is manipulated by Toichirou Suzuki and dragged out of his room to become a terrorist. Fuck it—Yusuke Sakurai, who never experienced the good of society as a young child, feeling the need to put himself in an organisation who claims to be above society, to take over the world because to absolute hell with a society who’s never treated him well. They’ve all got their backstories, the things that shaped them into what they became in their futures. And each of them were also influenced by others to become better versions of themselves: Teruki and Serizawa by Shigeo, and Sakurai by Reigen.

it’s easy to put the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ labels on people, but i think that the Mogami Arc is against doing this so simply. the ability to empathise with one’s environment and experiences is the most important thing here. it’s what Shigeo learns from how he has been influenced by the people around him, but ultimately, Mogami, someone who had managed to make him a ‘bad person’ who was willing to hurt, even if only for a short while. it’s also why i think that the Mogami Arc is integral to how the World Domination Arc played out—Shigeo empathises with Toichirou. he offers to be someone to talk to, and up until 100% Resignation, attempts again and again to make Toichirou see that there is a way out of the lonely world both of them have seen and lived in, to make Toichirou willing to turn over a new leaf. and even after that, how he tries to absorb Toichirou’s energy to let him have a chance at apologising to his family, to become a better person by righting his wrongs… how to use his empathy is something that Shigeo learns from this arc, i think.

the Mogami Arc is also a testimony to Shigeo’s kindness.

「まだ最低な浅桐さんを助けてないんだから。」

“I’ve yet to save that horrible Asagiri-san.”

she’s been a horrendous character to him. Shigeo knows this full well, and yet he still tries his fucking hardest to save her. when he’s met with a vile personality like Toichirou’s, he displays remarkable insistence of trying to talk to him, to empathise with the world he lives in, no matter how much Toichirou hurts him in spite of his kind intentions. (if only he could grant himself this kindness earlier.)

like, shit. the world sure can be horrible. but the bitterness that Mogami carries doesn’t fix shit; it’s Shigeo’s faith in the power of influence and relationships between people that does. by being a kind person, he’s able to influence others to change, at least a little, for the better. Asagiri and Toichirou are good examples of this. it’s also neat fucking proof that people rely on each other, because influence comes from each other!!

so in short: i fucking adore the Mogami arc because of how it explores empathy and kindness, and ties them together. how Shigeo can change others with his kindness, and how we learn that we’re capable of changing others for the better, so why not try do to that?

#mob psycho 100 #mogami arc #mogami keiji #kageyama shigeo #mp100 analysis #mp100 #did you know i love the mogami arc with all my heart #mp100 meta

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trainingdummyrabbit · 1 year

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Hehe hi Pik :0 I'll give you three questions for your ask game and you can pick out whatever you want to answer <:]

What are your thoughts on Kaigaku? I know he's a bit of spoiler territory but I'm curious .. or maybe what are your thoughts on Muichiro? You decide!

A question just for me, though ,, do YOU have a favorite bird? .., !!

oh abolutely HYSTERICAL to give a pick scenario and then lay down topics that will instantly get me to talk for hours on end at the drop of a hat KSJNGFKDJNGKD

so!! the easy one!! my favorite bird, ithink, is between the mourning dove and the house sparrow! they are not terribly glamorous but i love them so so dearly and will instantly cheer up when i think about them :')

as for the character questions. thank you for enabling me HJBSJFBJD

i could very very easily write an entire goddamn essay about Either of them, but for the sake of saving whatever brevity i can manage to keep, ill save talking abt mui for when That Episode(tm) drops whenever it does, because inevitebly, i will be Absolutely Inconsolable and it Will happen anyway KJNDKGDF

instead, for now, under a cut because this preamble is already paragraphs long... kaigaku.

i fucking hate this man. i cannot stand him, hes the worst, he is so fucking stupid, i think about him fucking constantly, and he is one of my favorites. he is so fucking insufferable, and i love him!

ok so. getting into kny, i was like. immediately a zenitsu liker. like i saw him and went "god. fuck. shit. its gonna be this nerd i dont even know about yet and i can feel it already." (i was right.) which is Crucial to knowing the angle here. and when i got to his part in th manga, i . genuinely dont remember if i even thought too hard about him. i dont even remember when i Did, i just know that he Wasnt there, and then he Was, and he Never Fucking Left KSJNKDJGN

which is very very fucking funny, considering... how much of a character he straight up Isnt.

like yeah! he sure does show up in a flashback and then fights zen and dies about it! it takes like, a two chapters max! and the entire time, his only character trait is "bitch for no reason." like... that sure isn't a lot to go off of. so like... why? i guess thats kind of the answer in and of itself.

why is he like this? why is he like this?? what made him this way? we know he grew up orphaned, but why? we knew he turned on gyomei's group and ran, but why? we know he trained to be a demon slayer with zen and kuwajima, but why? why, why, why? we just don't know.

we know he's a survivalist. we know that he's willing to go to any lengths, stoop to any lows, just to make it another day. because another day is another chance you get to get them back, to prove them wrong, to rise above it and laugh in their faces and say "see? see what im capable of? bet you feel sorry now."

shame doesnt exist to him. he will make Anything of himself just to make it by. do anything, drop anyone. no connections, impermanence. its clear in flashbacks that, honestly... nobody liked him very much. and like, well, yeah. obviously. he sucks, and he isnt afraid to show it. but isnt that just so strange? broken box of happiness, disatisfaction. he refuses to forge connections, claiming the only people he tolerates are those who respect him, who see his worth.

and that's... the weird thing about him. see, because, the thing is that... i don't fucking believe him for a second. he talks big game, he can back it up, sure, especially as a demon, but... the entire time he talks, every word he says during his confrontation with zen just felt like a bluff. like he's trying to sound threatening, to sound powerful, making a threat display like an animal. every technique he chooses to execute is some new, big, flashy display of his Power, talking, taunting, still taunting.

its a lot of reading between lines, but... this man is a fucking liar. that fight felt different, it felt quick, and well... maybe because it wasn't a fight. this was some guy taking out his anger on someone in a desperate attempt to prove he's worth something.

i just think that this man is a deeply jealous bastard intent on making himself seem larger than he really is, convincing himself that he's the one that's right and it's everyone else that's wrong simply because he can't process just how awful he is.

growing up barely scraping by on his own, of course he'd become painfully self-reliant. of course he would take advantage of anything he could, anyone he could. you'd have to be that self-centered to survive. talk big, act big, nobody will mess with you. nobody can take advantage of you if you take advantage of them first.

and when he gets shown that kindness, being taken in for the first time... of course he'd take advantage of them too. he's hard-wired with instability in mind, so obviously the clear answer is to take what you can and go before something else happens and they get to you first (even if that was never really a threat.) and if they throw you out for it? it's just proof you were right. you were always right, clearly it isn't your fault. and if you happen to throw them under the bus for it... well, obviously they deserved it. there's no reason to think about it anymore.

being with kuwajima was fine. we don't know anything about the earlier days (which im so sad about) but from the looks of it, he was doing fine. about as fine as he could be, at least. he clearly respected him at first, enjoyed being treated as something special, having his work and talents appreciated-- which he did have! he was a staggeringly impressive slayer, but that's an aside-- and even berated zenitsu for supposedly "disrespecting him" by referring to him as jiichan. which. sighs.

so, zenitsu. dynamics Of Ever. honestly, even without the whole Contention there, kai would've just kinda disliked him because he's... motions with hand. look at him. but its the fact that they were considered together that pissed kaigaku off so much. because that implied that they were on the same level when, to him, they so very clearly were not.

zenitsu was annoying. he was weak, whined too much, cried too much, never put in any effot, he was so, so annoying. which made it that much more insulting that jiichan would continue to try to train him. just leave him behind already! he keeps trying to run away, let him! obviously he just isn't good enough. he's not special like he was. and yet, kuwajima kept trying.

and the fact that he did... probably completely went against everything kaigaku saw in the way the world worked. for lack of a better term, he was very "survival of the fittest" minded in that, if you weren't good, you just weren't good. you'd try and struggle and inevitably die off. the world isn't kind, and will take any chance it has to kick you down. that's why you take what you can, when you can.

if you're weak, nobody helps you. if nobody helps you, you either help yourself or die silently. that was what separated the weak and the strong. and you always, always were either one or the other. again, that's his survivalism talking. so, seeing this person he at the very least Respected waste time on some nobody instead of him, expecting something to come of it... well, it was insulting!

and to think that they were even anywhere close enough to put together? to share the title of successor? with this guy? either it meant that kuwajima thought zenitsu was as good as kai was (to him, a laughable idea,) or that kai wasn't any better than some kid who could barely swing a sword. and that was what irritated him the most.

that was the point of their final confrontation. it was kaigaku proving, once and for all, finally, that he was better than zenitsu. was it purely out of hatred for this kid who looked up to him like a brother? was it out of jealousy of someone who got so many kindnesses granted to him despite, to him, not really deserving it? was it just to prove that he was a powerful demon to those who now had their eyes on him, too? whatever it was, at its core... it was laughing in the faces of those who, honestly, genuinely cared about him (and in his eyes, never truly did.)

he could've ended that fight whenever he wanted to-- its even stated in canon that zen wouldve just lost if he was given more time to grow-- but... he just kept showing off. kept talking. it didnt feel like he was using techniques to fit the combat-- it felt like he was showing off what he could do now. he was proving a point. the only thing that stopped him was what he never acknowledged back when they were training together-- that zenitsu did have worth. that he was growing, too. and using what kaigaku refused to acknowledge in him, zenitsu cut him down-- with a symbol of the respect and comraderie that he hoped to have together. a "sorry, aniki."

kaigaku's appearance in canon is less of the role of a character, but as a statement. hes a walking tragedy. he pushes away everything that makes life What It Is in favor of this image of Strength, which is exactly why he becomes-- at first glance-- a caricature. he stops being a person and starts being a Thing. zen tries to keep him in mind as a Person (despite it all) but when he ultimately gives up hope is when the encounter ends. and when kai's role ends as well.

the only thing i still wonder is... does he regret it? in the very depths of his mind, behind all that mess he puts up, after throwing everything away... did he regret it? twice, he was shown care and kindness, and twice he betrayed them. does he know? does he regret it? does he have the capacity to? or has he simply committed so hard to the role he was given-- to the role he put himself in-- that he simply cannot fathom a world in which he was the problem? could it have been different?

put simply... what the fuck is wrong with him?

. anyway, heres a bunch of posts that remind me of him.

#ask game #pikramble #piktalk #kny spoilers #UM. VERY LONG POST; I DID ACTUALLY END UP TALKING FOR HOURS SKJFNKD #IM. SO SORRY. SLEEPER AGENT ACTIVATED. THANK YOU <3333 #THERES SO MUCH I DIDNT GO INTO TOO LIKE #his weird 'everyone is either above or below me' thing that he switches btwn on a dime #or how he has his sword on his back-- in a technique so focused on quick drawing--#so committed to doing things his way that hell actively hinder himself and how that reflects his whole character #OR OR OR!!! AUHGUHGG #CANT FUCKING STAND HIM. GOD.#so anyway he's one of my 5 rotating favorites. thankyou <333

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resident-gay-bitch · 1 year

Text

Day One of @steddie-week - hunger / pining / somebody to love

Eddie’s having a smoke out by the old bleachers. It’s a warm day out, the sun’s shining down and there's a cool breeze that drifted through his hair to cool the back of his neck. It was nice. He wished it could be a little nicer, though.

Tommy Hagan, the stupid oaf that he was, had just attempted to utterly humiliate in the middle of his English Oral on To Kill A Mockingbird, and despite his shocking grades, Eddie was actually very good at English and dissecting a text. He focused the main part of his essay on the prejudice themes within, granted he could understand and relate to them in one way or another, and pulled out a bloody brilliant essay if he did say so himself - though, he knew that he’d be coming close to a fail again, because Ms Click had it out for him and she hated his ‘vulgar language’ and ‘woke themes’. Bitch. Tommy had picked up on how Eddie reflected his own experiences to the text, and decided to start heckling him. You feeling a little left out, Munson? Gonna have a cry because you’re at the bottom of the food chain? All stupid shit that didn’t even make much sense because he’s pretty sure Tommy didn’t actually do the reading.

Eddie gave him a grin and kept going until he just wouldn’t shut up, and Eddie was about to run out of time and he still had a whole paragraph to go, and so he just turned to Hagan and said, I know you can’t go three seconds without everyone's attention on you, Hagan, but don’t you think it’s a little pathetic how desperate for my attention you are?

He got thrown out of the class instantly, and a big ‘F’ stamped on his essay.

Whatever.

Eddie didn’t care for all the attention he got. I mean, sure, he’d get up on tables and stomp around, preaching his shit and making a fool out of himself, but he only did that on the good days. The Confident days. The days he had something to say. Every other day, every other minute, he wished to go unnoticed. To blend in with the crowd and just live it out until graduation. But there's never a moment of peace with these jackasses. They’ve always got something to say.

For a group of people who always like to tell Eddie how unimportant he is, they sure do take up a lot of their own time talking about him.

It’s kinda funny, actually.

Either way, Eddie was sick of it. He just wanted to get up there, give his oral, sit back down, and get on with his school day. He had a campaign to host tonight, and then band practice after that since Gareth was going up to Florida to visit his grandma on the weekend. So he was kind of thankful he got kicked out of class… maybe he was asking for it, he didn’t care. Now he could stand out here and smoke in peace, rather than getting balls of paper with studpid drawings or dumbass notes thrown at his head for the rest of class.

Okay, scratch that, Eddie would prefer the bullying right now.

From here, he had a clear view of the outdoor basketball courts. They were shitty and dinged up pretty well, the hoop no longer had a net on it - save for a singular ratty old string hanging down - and there were marks all over the backboard. The courts were mostly used by the freshman during lunchtime for dumb basketball, and as a safe ground for the science class when things were too dangerous to stand near or if they’d swell up and explode.

But there, on the shitty courts, were Hargrove and Harrington. Two of the biggest dicks to ever grace the fine halls of Hawkins High. Eddie found their petty rivalry absolutely fucking hilarious.

One minute ‘King Steve’s sitting all high and mighty on his throne, pretty girl on his arm, and then in walks Billy and threatens everything he stands for.

Comedy fucking gold.

Though, Eddie did start to feel a little sympathy for Steve about it. After having his first real interaction with Billy - a quick deal at his own goddamned school locker - he realised how much of a cunt he was. And jeez, for Steve to be Billy’s main target, he’s gotta be going through it. And not only that, but it seemed to be getting worse after Steve got dumped by Nancy Wheeler. God, that was the talk of the school for weeks. And now Steve had lost his crown and was like… nobody. Steve was actually getting heckled in the halls now - nowhere near as much as Eddie, but still.

Yeah, maybe the little homoerotic rivalry between the two ‘Kings’ of Hawkins High wasn’t as funny as Eddie thought.

Eddie hated when people noticed him when he wasn’t actively seeking attention, but he kinda wished Steve would. He didn’t even look at Eddie when he’d jump up on cafeteria tables anymore - which is definitely not the reason why Eddie has made this a tri-to-quater-weekly occurrence or anything - nothing. He wouldn’t pay him any mind.

And yeah, okay, this was stupid. God it was so fucking stupid. Eddie knew that. He knew that better than anyone because why on fucking earth would the universe decide that Eddie the Freak had to trip and fall head over goddamn heels for Steve motherfucking Harrington?

What had Eddie done - in this life or the last - that was so horrible to have deserved this fate?

He hadn’t a clue. However, he did know it must have been utterly terrible because he’d been sporting these dumb feelings since Harrington's freshman year. Four years. For long years.

And for what?

He’s pretty sure they’ve spoken a total of (give or take) twenty words to one another in that time, and most of them would have been Eddie apologising for ‘accidentally’ bumping into Steve in the halls.

Okay, the crush was dumb, super fucking dumb. Steve was a popular straight jock. But at least Eddie didn’t fall for one of his bullies. Sure, Hagan gave him a hard time just about every day, but Steve didn’t give him a word of it. He’d either just stand there with a bitchy look on his face (which Eddie often thought about when daydreaming in class… or other times), bored out of his mind, waiting for Tommy to finish, or, he’d be standing there with the girl he’d claimed that week and would either talk to or suck face with her.

Eddie hated that last one.

A lot of the time Eddie would zone out on Hagans ranting and stare oogily at Steve kissing whatever girl it was and imagine Steve would just push her away and storm over to Eddie and just… just fucking grab him and slam their lips together. It’d be like in the movies, you know? With… with some dramatic love song like Dream Weaver or some shit playing in the background, and there'd be cartoon hearts in Eddie’s eyes and stars floating around their heads. And maybe Steve would shove him up against the lockers and kiss him like it was the only thing he’d know how to do, and then they’d peel away and look at Tommy and just laugh at him - because Eddie can definitely see that Tommy’s feelings for Steve ran a little deeper than the best friendship he claimed it was.

But that would never happen.

Steve has never- and would never kiss Eddie, passionately or not.

So now all he could do was stare.

He stared off at the basketball courts as Steve tried to steal the ball from Hargrove, watching the way his thick thighs moved in those tiny little shorts, the way his ass filled them out when he’d bend over, the way his biceps flexed when he’d managed to grab the ball and shoot, the way his hair would flop over his pretty eyes before it’d get swept back by his large hand that Eddie has also thought about… a lot.

When Hargrove shoved at Steve's chest (like a good damned toddler who didn’t get their way) so hard he went skidding to the ground, Eddie had to fight the urge to just run over there and punch Billy’s lights out - though, if he were to do that it could be justified with about a million other reasons, but he wasn’t looking for another detention right now - and cradle Steve in his arms. To check if he was okay. To kiss all the parts that hurt.

Lord, Eddie was so far gone over nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

He sucked on his cigarette and celebrated quietly to himself when Steve got back to his feet and shoved his shoulder aggressively into Billy’s before running to get the ball. He watched them fight over it again, and couldn’t help his smile as Steve made one of those goal things. You know… the one that’s made from the middle of the court. The big one. He couldn’t help the little blush in his cheeks as he watched Steve do a little happy dance, the wriggle of his hips as he shook his fists like he was holding maracas. Billy was not happy, and that seemed to make Steve even more proud.

It made Eddie proud.

Jesus.

Why was he so set on this asshole?

Why couldn’t he like someone a little more in his own league? I mean, he still probably wouldn’t get them then either, but he’d at least have a chance.

You know the worst part about this is Steve's tendency to be a little bit of a whore. Because like, he gets around. Skull Rock - that was once Eddie’s escape and eventually smoking spot - was only deemed the ‘hookup spot’ after Steve took multiple girls there within the span of a month. So, like, Eddie has to see him with girl after girl after girl every week, and know that he’d never be one of those girls.

He was a little ashamed to know that he’d spent a good few nights crying himself to sleep over it.

It was hopeless, this crush. It was helpless too. Steve was beautiful. The most handsome man Eddie had ever seen, and always had been, and yeah he was an asshole - so was Eddie - but he wasn’t a cunt.

Eddie didn’t understand why it stuck around so long.

He sighed and sucked on his cigarette again, blowing the smoke out as he smiled at Steve's little happy dance one more time. Right as he was crushing the butt of his cig with his sneaker, Steve turned his head and looked at him.

The smile that still lingered on Eddie’s lips dropped in an instant, and he swallowed the lump in his throat and ground his sneaker into his cigarette one more time so Steve would know he was out here for a smoke and not to perv… even though he definitely was.

Steve flashed him a small smile, the smile that he flashed teachers or past hookups or casual friends or just people he knew in the halls, and nodded his head once as a sort of ‘hey’, his hands perched on his hips as it was happening, his hair flopping back down over his eyes. He flicked his head back to clear his vision again, and then he turned back to Billy without so much of a second thought and crouched into ready position to get the ball again.

Oh.

That’s why. That’s why Eddie’s crush had never ended.

Because every so often Steve would give him one of those ‘I know you, hey’ nods, or a tight lined ‘I just realised I was walking past someone I know’ smiles, and Eddie would melt.

Eddie would melt so much because no one with Steves status would give those to Eddie. And he knew he was scraping for crumbs right now but that… oh, he recognised Eddie and he said hey, and- Oh, fuck! Eddie didn’t do it back… again.

Jesus, he never fucking does. Always too distracted by Steve’s pretty features and the fact that he noticed him.

Maybe Steve did notice him, sometimes.

Eddie just wished Steve would see him too.

super late submission but whatever :) it's in before it's over and that's all that matters to me rn lol.

read Day Two here

\/ a dodgy art piece for this one \/

#steddie week 2023 #jay writes #Day One #steddie #steddie angst #eddie munson #steve harrington #angst #pining #hunger #somebody to love by queen #eddie munson pov #season 2 #stranger things 4 #stranger things

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