I think prism chapter 30 has got to be one of my favorites. the steve and robin miscommunication, god it hurts me so bad, but it’s also so accurate. as the person who asked you about stobin’s miscommunication, I feel quite happy about us getting to it in this chapter. not to mention, hopper moaning steve’s name. the rape fantasies. CHRISSY. EDDIE BEING UNSTABLE. STEVE NEARLY GOING TO SEE EDDIE? and there’s so little chapters left I’m so excited.
eddie wondering how drunk robin would have to be for sex with a man to feel good… I love how none of the adult characters inside of prism are morally good people. this is why this fic is so special to me.
as always, this chapter was beautiful. I can’t even gather the words for it. steve’s unraveling is so saddening to see. aware!steve is, quite literally, though probably not meaning to, ruining steve’s life.
then he and chrissy finally meet, and readers will think, maybe, just maybe she’ll be able to convince steve. only for steve to not be horrified at the actions, but be filled with pure jealousy. oh, then he loses time, AGAIN! and eddie lies to his face and seals all of it with a promise. absolutely saddening. yet so beautiful. are you able to tell us your thought process about this? why does steve have the reaction that he does?
more importantly, the whole rape fantasy. steve constantly wanting to be raped because he wants to feel wanted. does this have to do with the loss of autonomy? the memories he can’t get back?
also robin holding aware!steve calling her ugly over his head makes me so sad. I understand steve, he doesn’t remember and he hates that he’s losing time and so much of himself. and it hurts to see robin go through something that they both can fix if they were just honest. robin, honey, this friendship CAN be an adult one. I wish she knew that.
more questions, questions; number one, why exactly did steve choose, destructively, to go to billy the moment eddie left? number two, was steve telling robin to move out just out of anger, or did he really mean what he said? lastly, number three, did eddie love chrissy. okay, sorry, last one, WHY does he keep lying to steve!!!
sorry to fill your asks with my rambling lol! alas, beautiful work. I cannot wait for your next one. It’s your last full blown steddie fic, and my favorite one, so I’m for sure savoring this. prism summer!!
Hi my love, oh what an absolutely beautiful ask! I wanted to wait until I had the time to answer fully (and yes don't worry at all, I know you meant chapter 22)💖✨
Firstly, why does Steve react with jealousy after meeting Chrissy instead of horror? This is such an excellent question because it really provokes the contrast of who Steve is at his core, and how complex he is when it comes to love, romance and relationships. I think that for so much of Prism, Steve is framed to be "the normal one" in many respects. There are times we see glimpses of incredibly raw, broken emotions in him, chapter 12 especially, but for the most part compared to Billy and Eddie, he's fairly "normal" so therefore we expect him to react as we might when presented with an ex who comes bringing horror stories of past abuse about the person we love. One element of nuance here is that Steve, despite his denial, is not doing well mentally at this point. Despite not being able to remember the Tommy situation, his body is triaging stressful situations so they can actually handle it without shutting down/switching, therefore he rationalised some of what she said. But that's only a very small part of it, because what genuinely fascinates me about Prism Steve (created by @thorniest-rose) is, in my opinion, how keenly he feels jealousy and how it affects him. Brooke and I had been planning a version of this scene literally years ago and I remember very clearly every insight she gave to how Steve would react being presented with a degree of intensity that he had not experienced from Eddie and the initial reaction would be jealousy, this feeling of, "Why did I not get that?". I think that Steve's inner demon, one of several, is jealousy and insecurity. He can handle so much and tolerate subtantial abuse if he feels secure in the fact that he is the still point of Eddie's turning the world. The merest mention of there being someone else, even in the past, that Eddie was in an obsessive relationship with mentally unravels Steve in a way, and jealousy, in this scenario, is his go-to coping mechanism and his downfall because it removes him from rational thought. Instead of accepting the passage of time and what Chrissy and Eddie had was before him, he can only see the lack of himself in Eddie's life. Why didn't Eddie love me enough to be that crazy? I can't offer him a baby, does he secretly resent me for that? What was their dynamic? Did he use knives on her? Am I even special? It's his nature, in my opinion, to question his worth before questioning the actions of his partner, as we see with Silver Fox and Billy in past scenes. I also think it's easier to think "Why the fuck did he never do that with me?" than "Why the fuck did he do that?". That being said, this was only her first attempt to make him understand and their first face to face meeting, so we'll have to wait and see!
Moving onto Steve fantasies in this chapter - Does this have to do with the loss of autonomy? - Yes, it absolutely does, and a little more on top. Trigger warning - DISCUSSIONS OF FICTIONAL RAPE BELOW ------
For Steve, I think rape has been a consistent part of his life. However he frames it, a piece of him knows deep down that every single "relationship" he's ever had with a man is foundationally built upon being captured, stolen, taken, controlled, manipulated, forced and raped. Tommy, Billy, Silver Fox, Eddie, all of them have doggedly pursued him and didn't take no for an answer (this is very important to remember for upcoming chapters). While there are varying degrees of violence, disruption and damage in these repeated motifs, it's safe to say that Steve is no stranger to this. It's even been a coping mechanism in the past. Look at CH11 & CH12. When in emotional distress, he doesn't ask for help, he doesn't take care of himself, he doesn't seek new solutions, he falls back on old ones. Being wanted beyond reason matters to Steve. He'll tolerate so much abuse so long as he is the centre of attention, the recipient of obsessive, self-worth building devotion. He stayed with Billy, he would never have left SF, he loved Tommy and blinded himself as much as much as he could, and it's the same with Eddie. He goes to the bar, tempting fate. He calls Hopper, offering himself up, and eventually, he goes to Eddie. This, in my opinion, is where it becomes about autonomy, because choosing to instigate it yourself grants a sense of power that often eludes him in real life. Asking to be raped in a safe, loving roleplay scenario (as Steve understands it) and getting what he asked for is probably the most elevated form of validation Steve can feel when he's low. CH12 sees Eddie staunchly refusing to give into Steve's self-destructive desires, but this reflects the change of state for both Eddie and Steve. At a certain point, Eddie could have let Steve go if he begged, he had the ability to distance himself and disconnect. He heard Steve being raped by Billy in the bathroom and he walked away. Eddie will never be in that state of mind again, he's lost the ability to be "rational" (as he sees it) with Steve, and Steve, equally, has cultivated his desires into something more palatable, more befitting of a relationship. Within the boundaries of "kink" he can ask for anything, so he does, because the pain of being forced is, to him IMO, like biting down on a broken tooth, bittersweet and oddly addictive. And finally, there is absolutely a part of him that knows what happened with Tommy (aware!Steve) and is desperate to make Steve himself realise the truth, hence the unconscious pushing towards extremes.
Robin and Steve's relationship unravelling is, as I've said before, so interesting for me because it highlights the issues that have been papered over and ignored, as well as exploring more of who Steve was in that era of time when he was the jaded prince of a rainy town, pre-Robin, pre-kids. He wasn't sweet or kind, he was actively using girls he dated for sex and occasionally fucking their mothers. Oddly, this is one of the most healthy states of being for Steve because it is almost entirely without his fawn response. He was comfortable, if not happy, in his honesty during his brief reign over the school. This timeline of events is essential to understanding Steve as we learn more in upcoming chapters.
At 16, Steve is at the height of his popularity in High School.
At 17 the Shower Incident happens; loses his friends, all but Tommy, polaroids get leaked, "slut" on his locker, and he tries to kill himself. He then falls for Nancy, and during their short relationship, experiences another rise and fall of hope for a beautiful picturesque happy ever after. Then Will Byers goes missing, and Steve babysits the kids for the first time.
After all this, he met Robin and became the Steve we see in early chapters of Prism. Through the cold opens, we see glimpses of him, but Steve literally is a Prism, he is capable of separating and splitting parts of himself. This era of his life is important to understanding who is as a whole. If Robin and Steve met now, would they still be instant friends? Do we cling to past versions of ourselves to make someone else happy? What is the cost of an adult friendship and can it be borne when there are unspoken resentments on both sides? Exploring this is essential to Prism and much as it frustrates some readers, I think that in and of itself shows how easy it is to slip into Steve's viewpoint, for example feeling frustrated that Robin isn't being how she usually is, that she's creating friction, that she's not endlessly understanding of how Steve operates in the friendship. It's a fantastic dynamic to explore and I'm going hard with it.
Why exactly did Steve choose, destructively, to go to Billy the moment Eddie left? This ties in very much to the opening answer relating to Steve's destructive impulses when it comes to insecurity and jealousy, and it mostly boils down to the fact that he felt so unwanted he just couldn't take it. For Eddie to do that with him at the door and then leave without aftercare is hideous and Steve felt every inch of it, and to him, in that mindset, there's one person who (he thinks) will always want Steve beyond reason and that's Billy. We see through upcoming chapters how Steve and Billy's relationship has evolved and changed, mostly from Steve's end, but he will always love Billy and some sad, lost part of him will always frame Billy as the boy who wanted him when no one else did, who was open about their relationship, who tolerated Steve's bullshit even. It's a heavily distorted impression that left a deep scar and much as we know none of that is true, Steve can't help but feel it and so when Eddie rejected him, denied him aftercare, and left again, Steve naturally followed his most trusted coping mechanism - self-destruction, and being that no one ever came as close to literally destroying him than Billy did, that sad, small part of Steve will always want him, BUT AGAIN, this evolves enormously in upcoming chapters.
Was Steve telling Robin to move out just out of anger, or did he really mean what he said? - It was mostly anger and him being on the backfoot because he cannot stand being made to be the villain in any circumstances whatsoever. To accuse Steve of being manipulative in any way will have his defences rising like hackles. He is bonded to the idea of his victimhood making him a wholly good person. When Steve blames himself, it's for not being enough, it's for failing to love well enough, some deficiency that simply wasn't good enough. That's how he frames it because it's extremely hard for him to recognise that he is manipulative sometimes, even unconsciously. This, in my opinion, is tied to past events he has heavily repressed, especially when it comes to Silver Fox using him to make other boys feel safe etc... Steve has done bad things in his life, and I think he copes, especially when low, by leaning into his victimhood to compensate. How can a victim of abuse ever be accused of being manipulative? How can a rape victim ever cross sexual boundaries/violate consent? Therefore when Robin says these things to him, he becomes extremely defensive and he lashed out by pointing out that she was there on his generosity (even though it was Eddie who invited her to stay) in his house, the same one she wanted him to sell.
Did Eddie love Chrissy? We explore this very thoroughly in the upcoming CH23 so I won't answer this in depth except to say that how Eddie views and experiences love tends to vary from person to person. We know that he "loves" Billy, yet there are no frameworks in place to protect Billy from Eddie's destruction the way there are for Steve. We know he likes and cares about Will, I would even say he does love him, but there's a threshold for that love which we briefly see a flicker of in CH23. He cares for Robin, but will casually wonder what it would take for her to enjoy fucking a man. He is a many headed hydra, and love is a wildly inconsistent emotion for him to feel for anyone outside of Steve, however he does feel it, it all depends on how he handles the feelings it evokes. There's a part in CH22, excuse me paraphrasing myself, but it's like salt loves iron, the sea loves the cliffs. Love can be corrosive, destructive, it can consume. Something that's done amazingly well in fanfiction overall is that writers get to explore the darker side of love and how it goes beyond a white wedding, a mortgage and 2.5 kids. I love you enough to drink your blood. I love you so much I'll bite-bond us while you're in heat. I love you enough to follow you into hell and pull you out. I love you too much. It's endlessly fascinating to me and part of why I love fanfic so much and always will. Exploring love in a person like Prism Eddie is a dark, gruesome path I have no intention of shying away from, as we see in the next chapter!
WHY does he keep lying to Steve? - Eddie wouldn't think of it a lying, he's the Picasso of passive deception, but ultimately it's less about lying to Steve and more about his own denial. It's been a long time since Eddie felt helpless, since he felt really, truly terrified and much of that is unacceptable to him, so he closes it off and focuses on trying to make Steve's life as good as possible. Another thing to understand about Eddie is that he's fairly mercurial in terms of how stable of a loving husband he is to Steve. He can switch up fast. We have to remember that some of his rosy glow and romanticised depiction is Steve's own adoration of him and just because he loves Steve more than anyone, doesn't mean it comes naturally to Eddie to love him well. He is, at his core, a monster without peer. The kind of abusive thug Billy is, the vile corruption SF inflicted, the covert abuse Tommy got away with... none of it compares to how devastating it is for Eddie to love Steve the way that he does. Their honeymoon period is most definitely over and while Eddie has absolutely been corrupted by his love for Steve, Eddie isn't like other people. Violence doesn't make him cower and love doesn't always inspire kindness in him.
Thank you so much again for your amazing ask! I hope this answered your questions✨🌈💎🔪🖤✨💋
