It's interesting to think about the intersection of these two facts:
Films reflect the time period in which they were made.
Our most popular films right now are all reboots, sequels, and reused IPs.
On one hand, you could make the case that our generation is being deprived of its place on cultural timeline, because (as far as the mainstream goes) all we're being given is rehashed ideas from other time periods. Seems rather boring to analyze.
But on the other hand, I think future film historians will find that this era is culturally fascinating. Not because of the "nostalgia bait" itself, but because it represents the emergence of independent cinema and streaming.
When TV was invented, people could watch filmed media at home. You no longer had to go to a theatre just to watch cartoons or comedies.
So the studios responded with a wave of epics in the 1950s. They said "Okay, you can get Dick Van Dyke at home, but you can't get Ben-Hur." Television couldn't compete with the budget, big name stars, or visual tech that film studios could offer. They were financially incentivized to blow your socks off with visuals and big name stars.
But with the emergence of streaming and independent film, that's no longer the case. A-listers are happy to take TV roles, and TV offers Hollywood-level visuals. You don't need to mess with the theatre system at all. It's easier than ever to make good-looking movies and share them with the masses with no major studio backing.
So what's the one thing that studios still have going for them? What's the one thing that Disney can give you that an independent filmmaker can't? Yoda. The Little Mermaid. Iron Man. Fucking brands. That's all they have, so that's all they sell.
We aren't being sold reboot after reboot because it's what the people want to see, or because our current culture is somehow more boring and lifeless than ever before. It's because it's the last stranglehold that these soulless studios have over the industry. They will shove your own childhood down your throat because their domination over previous generations is the one thing they have left to sell to this one.
I compiled a list of Fox Mulder’s quirks, “character flaws”, and other things that could also be symptoms of ADHD, because there are a LOT of them
These are just observations made by someone with ADHD purely for self-entertainment, not to be taken too seriously… although I really do personally love how many people agree that Mulder isn’t neurotypical.
• Impulsive as fuck, does stupid shit without thinking (jumping on a train that has a bomb in it and eating stuff off the ground at a crime scene, anyone?)
• Pulls bizarre connections out of thin air but they often end up making sense somehow
• Can’t stand boredom, always needs to be doing something
• Night owl
• Somewhat disorganized?
• Clumsy
• His nearly obsessive habit of eating sunflower seeds, a.k.a. oral fixation, could be stimming (repetitive, self-stimulating activity that a lot of autistic people as well as ADHDers do to calm themselves down and/or to help themselves focus. Chewing things is quite a common way to stim)
• Incredibly intelligent but somehow simultaneously acts incredibly stupid
• Very imaginative and creative
• Seems to have a basic understanding of social cues but fails to follow them anyway most of the time
• Generally bad at teamwork, doesn’t seem to be able to compromise, doesn’t usually listen to authority except when it serves his own interests
• Always either too distant or desperately demanding attention
• I know they’re both guilty of constantly invading each other’s personal space but I think Mulder does the “forgetting that people have boundaries” thing a lot more often than Scully.
• Amazing memory (some people with ADHD have a very bad memory while some are the exact opposite….. I’m somehow both. And so is Mulder probably, after all, he did forget that he’s a psychologist that one time, lol)
• Very honest and humble
• Very good at reading other people’s moods and analyzing their motives (I’m assuming this because he’s a criminal profiler)
• Cracks stupid jokes at inappropriate times
• His unpredictable and hasty behavior makes him seem very selfish and insensitive to other people’s feelings but anyone who truly knows him, knows that he actually cares very deeply for others
• Very sensitive to any type of rejection
• Prone to addictions (*cough cough* porn *cough cough*)
• Comorbid depression (hasn’t it been pretty much confirmed that he fell into depression some time before season 10?)
• I’m aware that Scully does this too, but….. what the fuck is up with those hilariously off-topic over-the-top-philosophical ramblings that they call official FBI case reports
• Has very high self-confidence while also seems to struggle with low self-esteem (note that self-confidence and self-esteem don’t always mean the same thing)
• Manages to make every fucking thing about aliens or other paranormal things because his obsession with them is beyond unhealthy
• Didn’t he once have this bottle of orange juice in his fridge that had been expired for like a year or something?
• Gets really excited about new things and ideas and is quick to just drop everything whenever he comes across something new that excites him
• Says a lot of confusing things that just don’t make any fucking sense. But I mean……. same
it’s really important to me when men put their heads in women’s laps. one of the most important things i can see on my tv. men laying their heads in women’s laps or men sitting and women standing and the man holds her around the middle and presses his face into her tummy as she hugs him around the shoulders. two very important poses. extremely soul igniting tableaux.
what if the first time steve and eddie actually meet is when steve picks up dustin, mike, and lucas from hellfire a month or so into their freshman year.
and when steve starts dicking around and roughhousing with dustin a bit.. thats when eddie sees him
him.
steve harrington.
king steve harrington.
king steve harrington, jock extraordinaire fucking with his new (pretty brittle, he got told off for the same thing at the beginning of the year by mike and lucas) sheepie
Eddie’s at the car in next to no time at all, tears steve off henderson, and punches him square in the face
The day King Steve Harrington met certified Freak Eddie Munson was not one that they would be likely to forget any time soon
They had gone to school together for at least four years, sure, but never interacted beyond being at the same parties over the years. some of which were Steve’s own
That day, however, was a whole five months after Steve graduated and Eddie didn’t. For the second time.
“That herd of demogorgons was too easy, Eddie, y’gotta pick things up a little.”
“Oh, is that so, Henderson?” Eddie deadpans, patting his pockets for his cigarettes.
His flat tone seems to take some of the wind out of the kid’s sails. “Yeah, uh, just that—“
“We’ve run our own campaigns with them before, we know they’re not that big a deal.” Mini Wheeler says, acting like he’s annoyed with Dustin for cowing. Eddie can see right through him. Kid definitely idolizes him, though it’s been only a month since school started.
It’s a bit flattering, but he’s got to make sure these hellions know their place.
Damn, he must’ve left his pack on the table, “Okay, play with a minus three disadvantage on your rolls next week, that should make it more challenging, yeah?”
“Aw wha—“
“Way to go, dickheads!” Sinclair says, shoving both Dustin and Mike’s shoulders.
Eddie lets them go on, turning back to grab his cigarettes.
He’s shaking one out into his palm when he pushes out the double doors to the front of the school. Before he can light it, however, a shriek echoes over the empty school lot.
Snapping his gaze up, he sees the barely-lit figures of two of the young teens, and one larger figure hunched over and scrabbling with something.
Oh great, now he’s got an asshole musclehead to deal with. Wayne just bought some frozen peas, right? He’s gonna need them when he finally gets home.
He’s already breaking into a jog towards them when he hears Henderson’s muffled yell of “Cut it out! Get off me, Steve!”
Eddie's blood goes ice-cold.
Steve… As in Harrington? Here? Harassing his kids?? Hell fucking no!
Doesn’t he know Dustin’s got that medical thing? The kid’s brittle, got told off quick after trying to start his own roughhousing with the new sheepies only a month ago!
Eddie reaches the group in record time, his feet carrying him faster than he thought possible. If only Coach could see him now..
“Get the fuck off him, Harrington.” Eddie growls, grabbing a handful of fabric at the ruff of Steve’s jacket in his left fist, and snapping his right into the former King’s startled fucking face as soon as it’s in sight.
Lucas, Mike, and Dustin are yelling over each other, and Eddie’s following Steve as he stumbles back against his stupid fancy fucking car.
He grabs the lapels of Steve’s jacket and pulls him off the door, only to slam him back against it. “You keep your hands off him, Harrington, you hear me?”
Steve stares up at him wide eyed, nose bloody, cheeks flushed, but then seems to come back to himself.
“Keep your hands off me, Freak!” Steve shoves him back, hard.
“Hear that? The legendary King himself, gentlemen.” Eddie teases, backing himself in front of the boys, their continued yelling is really not helping.
“You don’t know what you’re—“, “It’s not like that, Ed—“, "He can't get another concussion dude, what are you doing?!", “He’s a jerk but he wasn’t hurting us!” Eddie catches snippets of what they’re yelling, but he’s still focused on the very real threat in front of them.
“Fuck you, Munson!” Steve steps forward, “You don’t know shit!”
“Let the kids go, Harrington, and I’ll—“ Eddie steps back.
“And you’ll what, dickwad? Let them get in the car, maybe?” Another step.
“Why in the actual fuck would I let—“
“Let me take them home? Like I was asked to? By their Parents?” Steve takes another step, and Eddie, thrown by the revelation that Steve was what, the babysitter?, trips over his own feet on his step backward. "Hmm, I don't know, why would you ever do such a thing?"
Eddie falls onto his ass, hard, and looks up at Steve. “You— They— Stop fucking around dude, just let them go, alright? They didn’t do anything to you, so you don’t need to do anything to them.”
“I’m not gonna— You think I was—?“ He cuts himself off, anger flickering from his face. It flashes to something Eddie would describe as crushed for only a split second, then goes completely blank. “C’mon,” he says, looking up to where the boys are, “Let’s get you home before I get yelled at.”
With that, Steve Harrington turns, and leads the newest Hellfire members back to the BMW.
“We tried to tell you, man.” Dustin mumbles as he passes, then climbs into the passenger seat.
“Yeah dude.” Lucas’ is even less comprehensible.
He and Mike climb into the backseat, and as soon as the door is closed, Steve pulls out and crosses the lot to the main road, Eddie watching the taillights as long as he could.
“And then, he insinuated that I was basically gonna kidnap them, can you believe that?”
“He did?” Robin gapes at him, horrified.
“Yeah! He said ‘Just let them go, Harrington.’, ‘They’re not getting in your car with you, Harrington.’, ugh! Who does he think he is?” Steve’s hands drop from his hair where he’d been mussing it in irritation, down to his sides. “Who does he think I am?”
He looks back at Robin, who’s now giving him a worried expression, “Was I really that bad in school that he thinks what, I just troll around town now, looking for kids to beat up?”
“I didn’t ever think you were that bad, more just annoying.”
“Yeah, you told me, the bagel thing, right?”
“How’d you get so many crumbs from one damn bagel?!”
Steve chuckles at her, but it’s short-lived. “Ugh, my head hurts.”
“That’s another thing, if I ever see that soggy rat of a man I’m gonna give him a little what-for.”
He snorts at her, “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah! Your head is precious cargo, Dingus, can’t have the living embodiment of the hairball you pull out of your tub drain every week giving you any more concussions.”
Steve blinks at her, still sorting tapes, but with a defined crease in her forehead, “You’re descriptive today.”
“I’m irked.”
He huffs another laugh, but they lapse into their usual routine. Rewinding tapes, Steve stacking them on the return cart only for Robin to come back through and re-stack them to her liking..
About an hour into this, though, Steve drops a bombshell.
“I think I have a crush on him.”
The neat stack Robin was adding a 20th tape to, tumbles under her hands. She flails her arms around uselessly trying to catch even a single tape (she fails), and when the final tape has settled onto the floor, she looks at him.
“You… what?”
Steve feels his face burn with embarrassment as he rubs the back of his neck. “I know, I know, ‘Soggy rat’, ‘Disgusting hairball’ and all that but…um,” He looks up at her, “You’re gonna catch flies.”
Robin snaps her jaw shut, Steve can hear her teeth clack together.
“I’m new to the whole,” he continues, waving his hand around at her.
“Liking boys thing.”
“The whole liking boys thing, and until now it’s just been…pretend, right? Like, Maybe I could be but didn’t know for sure.. It wasn’t…real?”
“Right. It was only in theory; You and Tommy H.’s weird-ass friendship and crushes on celebrities.”
“Exactly.”
“Sooo…. Eddie Munson..?”
Steve gulps, looks down at the tapes in his hands. They’re shaking. When did he pick these up?
“Yeah.” he croaks. “Eddie Munson.”
“Eddie Munson punches you in the face.. And you get a crush on him.” She says, disbelieving, then, to herself mostly, adds on, “Maybe that’s why also maybe Tomm— Hang on! Did you also have a crush on Billy and Jonathan?!”
“It wasn’t the punch!” He’s almost laughing at the thought of having a crush on Byers or Billy. “It was the– ugh, this somehow seems worse.”
“Well now you have to tell me.”
“It was the… the manhandling part..” the tapes in his hands are shaking even more. He puts them down.
“The manhandling?”
“Yeah, he lifted me clean off the ground, then shoved me against my car and— oh my god.”
“Oh my god is right,” Robin grimaces
“No, no, Tommy— Rude.” he says, flashing a glare at her. “Tommy did the same shit to me once, after Jonathan bashed my face in… can you believe I actually thought about kissing that freckled asshole about it?”
“Oh my god,” Robin repeats, fake gagging over the returns cart.
“I guess it was also the punch too..” He says after a little bit.
“I knew it!”
“Not in a weird way, or anything, not the punch, but.. why the punch?” he says, not sure if he’s communicating this right. “Like, yes. He punched me. But it was only because he was trying to protect the shitheads, you know? Sucks that he was trying to protect them from me, but still. He literally put himself between them and me.”
“So the guy with the hero complex has the hots for the guy with the hero complex.”
“Shut up, you’re the worst.” She throws an empty tape case at her while she cackles like a witch, but laughs with her, feeling something ease off his chest
Over the next five months, the stupid little crush he had on Eddie simmers and kind of dies off on its own. Aside from Robin, Steve doesn’t hear another person mention Eddie. The kids don’t talk about what happened back in October, Eddie never finds Steve to apologize, nothing. It’s as good as dead by the time spring break rolls around.
Until.
“C’mon Steve, Pleaeeeeease?”
“What, hang out with you and Eddie “The Freak” Munson? Yeah, I’ll pass.” Whew, yep, crush is basically non-existent. Only a single bubble of something stirs at the mention of him.
“Is this about him punching you? ‘Cause he’s totally sorry for doing it.”
Yeah, he doubts that. “Yeah, I doubt it.”
“Steve pleeaseee!”
“No dude, I’ve got a date tonight! And shouldn’t you guys be going to Sinclair’s game? It’s the championship, dude.”
“Eddie doesn’t–”
Before Steve can give Dustin a piece of his mind about his revered Dork Master, the bell chimes above the door.
“Sorry man, can’t, won’t, and don’t. And I better see you at Lucas’ game.” He drops the handset onto the receiver and immediately picks it back up.
“Brenda, hey, it’s Steve. Listen, I’ve got a change of plans.”
--
He doesn’t see any of the shitheads in the stands when he gets to the school.
All throughout Tammy Thompson’s spot-on muppet impression, he’s scanning the bleachers for any sight of them.
As soon as the crowds start to cheer again, Steve excuses himself and slips out into the hall.
He remembers Dustin saying something about the theater when he’d talked about Hellfire before, so he heads in that direction, not slowing his pace until he reaches the three doors that lead into the theater wing.
One, the Theater teacher’s office. Dark.
Next, the extra large door to the stage itself. Quiet.
Last one, the one to the set storage. Warm light and yells flow from the other side.
Bingo.
Steve shoves the door open, wincing minutely when it crashes into something behind it.
“Are you guys serious?”
“Steve?!”
“Damn it Dustin, I told you on the phone that you shitheads had better be at Lucas’ game toni— Erica? You too?”
“What does Lucas’ game have to do with me?”
“He’s your brother—” Steve presses his fingers into his eyes, “Look. All three of you. Gym. Now.”
None of them move.
“C’mon assholes, you know as well as I do that this is important to him.”
“This is important to us. It’s the final campaign against Vecna, we’ve gotta—”
“You don't think this stupid game is important to Lucas too?”
“If it were, he’d be here of his own free will, your majesty.” Aw shit, how’d he forget about Eddie? “And yet, he isn’t. Sounds to me like Sinclair’s gone over to the Dark Side.”
“Yep. He’s gone to the Dark Side, I’ve lulled him there with the promise of popularity,”
“So you admit it, Darth Shitass.” Eddie’s goons laugh, Mike too.
“Yep, that’s me, Darth Shitass, and you shitasses aren’t as dumb as he or I are,” Steve says gesturing between Eddie and himself, the former of whom starts to splutter defensively, “You know that your Party sticks together.” he emphasis the last bit, leveling them all with a look.
They at least start to look sheepish.
“Damn it, he’s right.” Erica says, starting to grab up some of the papers in front of her.
The rest of the table start to argue over and around her, the older Hellfire boys louder than the other two. Steve’s still just stunned that she’d agreed with him.
“You leave, we don’t have enough players.” the biggest guy says
“If any of you leave, your characters are dead.” Eddie says, still glaring at Steve. Damn it, why does he have to be so hot? Stupid fucking crush has been stupidly fucking reignited.
“Lady Applejack doesn’t belong to you, you long-haired freak. She’s mine.”
Eddie bristles, Dustin and Mike look at her, shocked.
Erica grabs the last of her things and marches to Steve. “You’ll have to show me where to go.”
“Sure thing, kiddo.” He says, still surprised, but he snaps a glare over to Dustin and Mike. “You two know where the gym is.” and walks out the door behind Erica.
His brain is fighting with itself over how damn hot that asshole nerd is and how much of an asshole that asshole nerd is when he and Erica arrive back to the game.
She veers off to where her parents are seated, and Steve climbs back up to Brenda.
He’s just gotten back into the swing of the game when the gym doors open again, and the rest of the Hellfire club slinks in and onto an open section of the bleachers.
Even Eddie, who lopes in last, partially obscured by his bigger friends.
–
After that night, time seems to speed along at triple it’s regular pace.
Chrissy is missing, Eddie is missing.
Chrissy is dead, Eddie is still missing.
Dustin and Max barge into Family Video, Eddie may be at Reefer Rick’s
“Seeing as how majority of the people in this room have almost died before, I don’t find it all that funny—”
Solid, warm, panicked, beautiful, sharp, gripping… Steve’s brain is running on adjectives.
“This is Steve..” Dustin says, as if trying to calm a wild animal.. And as if Steve being himself is any less threatening to Eddie at this moment.
The broken bottle is pressed closer to his neck, Steve can feel the cold glass warm to the temperature of his skin, can feel it twitch and shake in brief kisses to his throat.
Eddie’s other hand, gripped around the shoulder of Steve’s jacket, shakes too.
Steve’s on his tiptoes against a wooden beam of Rick’s boathouse, one of Eddie’s legs is pressed along the length of his, pushing in and up, helping his arm lift Steve off the ground and hold him there.
Steve repeats Dustin’s words in a daze, watching Eddie’s face the whole time.
The creased twitch of his brow, the twitch of his left eye, the tears in his right, the wobble of his bottom lip.
He wants to kiss it. He wants to kiss it so bad.
He’s released onto shaky legs without any sort of preamble, Robin rushes to his side.
“It’s still the manhandling.” he says, breathless, still hunched forward.
She huffs a nervous laugh, but helps him stand…
The cemetery, the school, skull rock, the lake, dragging, pain, pain, pain…
Relief, running, skull rock (again), pain, groans, the button of a vest smacking him square on the forehead.
“For your modesty, dude.”
Robin looks like she’s about to say something about his new garment, “Whatever you’re about to say, don’t.” he mumbles over to her, hoping the look he gives her transmits the “Crush’s Jacket” of it all directly into her brain. He thinks it does.
The woods, The house, the lack of guns, the lack of.. Dustin?
Bikes, Eddie’s trailer, Nancy’s Vecna vision…
Time goes stupid fast after that.
Until.
Screaming.
There’s screaming.
Someone is screaming Eddie’s name, his name.
“Steve! Steve please!”
“Dustin!” There’s a stitch in his side from running all this way. He ignores it.
“Steve! Eddie, he– The bats– He–” Dustin sags forward over a motionless Eddie.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay Dustin, It’ll be–”
“Don’t tell me it’ll be okay!”
Steve pulls Dustin to him, away from whatever Nancy is checking, “It’s okay man, we’ll get him out of here, we will. Promise, promise.”
“Steve! I have a pulse!”
Dustin shoves Steve away, dropping down next to Eddie and Nancy.
They do it, somehow, they get Eddie up and out of the gate, the ceiling sealing up after them. El’s work?
Doesn’t matter. They’ve got to get to the hospital, they’ve got to check on the others at the Creel House…
Time slows to a crawl when Eddie and Max are in the hospital.
Every minute with the government suits is tedious. Every second their friends are unconscious is agonizing.
But they make it through.
Eddie wakes up first, but is out again not long after his Uncle gets there.
Max is gonna need one hell of a prescription for her new glasses and a set of crutches she’s sure to whack upon every shin that winds up in her path, but they’re alive.
Eddie has hospital visits and additional surgeries, Max’s cast eventually comes off, the last graft Eddie needed is finally cleared to go bandageless.
“I’m as right as rain again, big boy.” Oh yeah, that hadn’t stopped either. Eddie’s incessant need to flirt with him.
Steve’s not complaining.
“Are you now?”
“Sure am.”
“So you’re finally all healed up? Off all your meds?”
“The very last of the good stuff is running through me as we speak.” He nods, tipping his head back to drain the last of his pop. The third one since they'd had pizza with the rest of the party earlier this afternoon. “Good thing too, because I could use a drink.” He says with a sigh, looking up at the stars above them.
Everyone else has gone home. Robin is upstairs, probably already drooling all over Steve's pillow.
They're the only ones still out here.
“Good thing.” Steve echoes, similarly draining his own can of pop. “Means I can finally do this.”
He flings the empty can over his shoulder, pulls his arm back, and punches a confused Eddie right in his perfect fucking face.
“Ow! What the fuck, Harrington?!”
“That’s for October.” he steps closer to him.
“I can’t believe you—” The rest of Eddie’s face goes pink in embarrassment as he rubs the red mark Steve made. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry about that, by the way.”
“And this,” Steve takes Eddie’s face in both his and leans forward, throwing all his doubts to the wind. For all his flirting before and after Spring Break, Steve’s 82% sure this is the right move.
He presses his lips to Eddie’s, who responds immediately, chasing after him when he pulls back. “Was for just now.”
-----
a couple tags of those who wanted to see more: @devondespresso, @hello-sweetheart, @orionchildofhades, @quarble, @shunna, @inkstainedheartbeats
Was absolutely no one going to tell them to stop looking at one another so lovingly? Did no one make them aware that they act entirely smitten for one another? Who failed to inform them that their gay romance was just for the movies?
Interviewer: Did you know that people ship you guys?
