I have a million hyperfixations and thus I need a blog to keep them! Current hyperfixations: RotTMNT (Tcest DNI plz) / DC x DP / VLD Klance stuffs / Stranger Things Steddie stuffs / Danny Phantom and DPxDC
I saw AI generated Steddie art and everybody's just brushing by it to praise the story that the art goes along with. I can tell it's AI based off of multiple factors. But I don't want to be mean and make a big "call out" post about the AI art. What do you guys suggest I do?
It's just disappointing to see people let AI art slide because the story it goes with is cute or something—there are too many Steddie artists in this fandom to just be casually excusing AI art in favor of writing. Should I just post the reblog I have in my drafts, or is that too harsh and mean and critical?
Like, I think I can be critical of somebody who is also making art (by writing), but I don't want it to come off as me being mean, y'know? And I also don't want it to cause other people to be mean to the OP, because that's not cool at all.
Okay, in case you were curious, this is the post I was talking about! Now, here's the thing, the original post has the art now removed. Alright, dude, you removed the art good on you.
But!
I just realized that the OP from my reblog had removed the AI art, but then also removed my reblog from their notes!
Hey, dude, I'm calling out that you're making unethical art! AI art has been proven to be harmful to the environment, that goes for all generative AI—ChatGPT prompts, OpenAI art, AI generated text, AI generated memes, etc. This AI art that you made, OP, was clearly basing itself off of somebody else's art.
There's this wonderful drawing of Steve and his parents, which can be found here, that shares a shocking and disturbing resemblance to the AI's version of Steve Harrington. Now, am I saying this art is the only one to influence this AI image? No, but the similarities are stark and real.
It's also been brought to my attention, OP from my reblog, that you have used generative AI before for Steddie related art. (I saw the Eddie Hobbit AI—what the fuck are those tattoos? One of them looks like a curled up shrimp on his left forearm; last I remember, Eddie doesn't have a shrimp tattooed on him! Not to mention, OP, the guitar's fret board is entirely inaccurate! If you took the time to research what a fucking guitar looks like, you'd notice the little dots that are indicated on some of the frets—typically to show every other fret—are never directly next to each other! And I should know, I've been playing an acoustic guitar—much like the one Hobbit Eddie is holding in your little AI image—for over ten years, which is well over half of my life at this point). You are not slick, OP, it is clear you are prompting an AI machine to make art for you. And that's beyond disappointing. That's frustrating and ugly. Considering, too, that it seems like the AI is scraping the internet and basing the looks of your Steddie characters from other people's art; people, mind you, who are most likely still a part of the Steddie/Stranger Things fandom!
The people who do post real and authentic and beautiful art in this fandom are people who are some of the kindest individuals you'll ever meet, most likely work day jobs, they do this art in their free time, they want to work with you and make these images as accurate as possible, and some of them are making small amounts of money in commissions. And for you to act like what you're doing is something to be hidden; to delete comments, reblogs, etc. that is calling out the fact that you are generating art—that is all bullshit behavior.
Write what you want to write. Post stories. Make people coo and awe and cheer over your words, but stop this shit with scraping our own fandom for art that is soulless, inaccurate, and an amalgamation of estimations. Seriously, man, that is so completely uncool of you.
And I wanted to be nice, dude, but to see the fact that you hid my reblog from your followers and from other people outside of your blog, that is disgusting behavior, man.
Own up to the fact that you did use AI to make art for you. Apologize or something for it. It's easier to admit that you did something wrong instead of trying to bury that wrong under more wrongs. You're digging yourself a deeper hole by hiding your use of AI.
And, to everybody else reading this, obviously this an Anti-AI zone. I don't fuck around with this horseshit. It's destroying communities by way of pollution, it's using our clean water sources, it's using more energy than we could ever imagine using. And for what? Three dudes looking in different directions?
(Sorry if u missed the poll, that’s what we’re calling this now)
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
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Max was right about the boys being off that day. They had beat him and the older Hellfire members to the lunch table, and when they arrived, Eddie caught the end of their hushed conversation.
“I was gonna call this morning, but then I remembered the time difference.” Dustin said, tapping his fork on his tray.
“This is so stupid.” Mike rolled his eyes, he was clearly trying to play cool, but the table was shaking slightly with the anxious bounce of his leg.
Lucas put a hand out. “Everything’s probably fine. If it wasn’t, we would have heard something by now-“
Eddie took his chance to butt in by slamming his own lunch on the table across from them. “Fine with what?”
All three of them jumped and turned wide eyes to him.
Dustin recovered first. “With… our friend. He moved away in September, and today is… an important day… for him.”
Eddie couldn’t believe this was the kid who had been successfully keeping some big secret from him for several months, his impromptu lying skills needed serious work.
Knowing full well what it was probably about based on his conversation with Max, decided to seize the opportunity for a possible slip up on the freshman’s part. “What, like his birthday?”
“If it was his birthday we would have just said that.” Mike snapped.
“Someone’s feisty today.” Eddie teased.
“We just want to check on him. It’s, kind of a rough anniversary for him.” Lucas eventually explained.
“This friend of yours wouldn’t happen to be Will Byers, would it?” Eddie asked, playing innocent.
Dustin and Lucas’ eyes widened in surprise, while Mike’s scowl just deepened.
“How did you know that?” Dustin asked.
Eddie leaned in theatrically and wiggled his fingers like he was casting a spell, “I know everything.”
Mike scoffed, “I highly doubt that,” he rolled his eyes, “I bet he got Max to tell him.”
Eddie raised an eyebrow, but Lucas beat him to a reply. “Why would Max tell him?”
“Because he drives her to school.” Mike said like it was obvious. When his friends just gaped at him, he went on, looking at Eddie now, “I’ve seen her get out of your van like 5 times in the past two weeks. You live in the same place, so it makes sense.”
“Wheeler has successfully figured me out in this case,” Eddie conceded. “I have been giving your grumpiest friend a ride to school for the last few weeks because we are, in fact, neighbors. And,” he adds dramatically, “she did, in fact, spill the beans about your friend, the formerly missing Will Byers.”
The freshmen shared a quizzical look. “She also,” Eddie continued, “advised me to avoid a certain monster in our session tonight.”
“What monster?” Wheeler pushed, his face still pinched.
Eddie raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”
Dustin rolled his eyes, “Of course we know. And by the way, if it’s what I think it is, Max was overreacting. We would be fine with that, right guys?”
Lucas and Mike nodded defiantly. “Totally.” Lucas said with just a little too much confidence to be sincere.
Eddie just nodded mischievously and let the lunch conversation move on.
That evening when they were playing, though he hadn’t originally intended it, the demogorgon did make an appearance. He couldn’t resist a chance to see what all the fuss was about. So, in his math period, instead of taking notes, he worked on rewriting the encounters for the evening.
As he and Gareth made their way from their last period to the drama room to set up, he caught a glimpse of Henderson chatting with one Robin Buckley.
He overheard Robin say, “Look, just try to be on time today, he was really antsy this morning, I dunno how long I can stop him from busting down the doors and dragging you all into his line of sight.”
“Robin, we’ll seriously be fine.” Henderson replied.
“I know that,” Robin huffed, “and I think rationally he knows that, but, you know how he gets.”
Dustin nodded, “Yeah, I do. I’ll try to make sure we’re out on time.”
Robin dropped a hand onto his hat and squished it around his head. “Thanks, baby dingus.”
As she walked away, Dustin called after her, “I rebuke that title!”
She simply turned around and stuck her tongue out. Eddie made his way into the drama room hopefully before Dustin became aware of his eavesdropping.
At around 7:30, the boys had finally successfully defeated his traps and puzzles and made it to the room of the cavern he had been looking forward to all night.
“There are no torches in this room-“
“I have darkvision!” Four of his players announce, snickering. They had made a game of seeing who could say it fastest, even though Eddie was acutely aware of who had darkvision literally the entire game, since he had noted it in his journal when he looked at all of their character sheets in session one.
Eddie grit his teeth, “I’m aware. Which is why I am describing the scene. Because I know you can see it.”
Gareth and Doug snickered, but he powered on. “The room is dark. The rough stone walls slightly damp, and-“ he sits up and presses the pads of his fingers together, “actually, can I get a perception check from all of you with darkvision?”
A chorus of numbers rang out, Eddie dismissed most of them as too low, until-
“Natural 20.” Wheeler announced with a smirk. “Plus four, but does it really matter?”
Eddie grinned mischievously. “Sir Gloomglade,” he said, holding eye contact with Mike, “as you scan the room, you notice, on the walls, there are claw marks.”
Mike narrowed his eyes at Eddie. “I point them out to my companions.”
“As you all inspect the walls, you begin to hear something coming from the entrance you all just came through.” Eddie started, “At first it’s just a dull thudding, but as it gets closer, you can tell these are footsteps. Footsteps of something very big.”
Dustin groaned and flopped back in his chair, “It’s the demogorgon.”
“It’s not the demogorgon.” Lucas said, sounding more annoyed than anything.
“Deja vu.” Mike mumbled under his breath.
“As you all turn to the doorway, you see the creature emerge from the darkness.”
“I don’t.” Jeff said, raising a hand, “I don’t have darkvision.”
“I cast Light on Jeff’s hat.” Gareth said, smiling playfully as he ruined the flow of the scene.
Eddie made a frustrated noise, “May I continue my reveal?”
Mike butted in then. “Why? We already know it’s the demogorgon.”
“Why would it be the demogorgon?” Doug asked.
“Because Eddie’s trying to mess with us.” Lucas said, matter-of-factly.
Eddie slammed the miniature figure onto the board in a fit of rage. “Ok fine! It’s the demogorgon! Everyone roll initiative!”
Around 30 minutes later, their fight was just about winding down, when the drama room door burst open, startling everyone.
Backlit by the fluorescent hallway lighting was Steve Harrington, neatly tucked polo and all, closely followed by Robin Buckley.
“I told you they were fine.” Robin said, exasperated.
Harrington had a bit of a frantic look in his eye as his gaze flicked back and forth between the three freshmen. “If you’re gonna go until 8:30, don’t tell me 8!”
At that, Dustin looked at his watch, “Shit, sorry Steve, we lost track of time.”
“And as you can see, they’re all in one piece,” Robin attempted in a soothing, yet annoyed voice, “so we’ll just be in the car until you’re done.”
She grabbed Harrington’s elbow, and tried pulling him out of the room with moderate success. The former jock seemed really reluctant to leave.
In a split second decision, Eddie’s mouth moved before he could stop it, “Why don’t you guys hang out here. We’re almost done.”
Eight pairs of eyes blinked at him in silence for a moment.
“Really?” Steve, Dustin, and Gareth said at almost the same time.
Eddie shrugged, going for nonchalant. “Sure, why not?”
“Um. Because you don’t just let people sit in on Hellfire meetings?” Jeff supplied unhelpfully.
Eddie made a harsh shushing noise at him and gestured to a bench on the other side of the room for the newcomers to sit. They looked at each other for a minute, and if Eddie thought the freshman were good at holding telepathic conversations, it was nothing compared to what Harrington and Buckley had going on. Maybe that was their secret, Eddie mused as they held a whole silent conversation; they had all fallen into some sort of comic book-style vat of radioactive waste together, and now they were all psychically linked and bound by a superhero’s oath to not reveal their secret identities. Eddie chuckled internally at the idea.
Eventually, Robin and Harrington shuffled awkwardly to the bench and sat down. Eddie kept tabs on them out of the corner of his eye, and was surprised to discover that Harrington actually seemed to be trying to pay attention, while Buckley scratched away at a notebook.
The fight was over in only a few more turns. “The demogorgon lays dead on the cold stone floor-“
He was interrupted again, this time by Harrington, “That’s a demogorgon?” he said incredulously.
“You have a problem with my figurines, Harrington?” Eddie asked, really at his limit for the night, but slightly shocked Harrington seemed even a little bit knowledgeable about the game.
“It just doesn’t look anything like-“
“Steve!” Lucas and Dustin, and Mike all interrupted at the same time with matching pointed looks.
Steve looked between them and Eddie for a moment. “Like I… pictured…” he gave the freshmen his own pointed look. “You guys are really bad at describing things.”
Eddie tried to decipher their staring contest for a moment before he clapped his hands together. “Anyway. That’s the session. Get out of here before your moms get their panties in a bunch.”
“Ew.” Mike said as he packed up his things. “Don’t make me think about mom panties.”
As Eddie gathered his own belongings, he listened as Harrington made his way over to Dustin.
“Sorry about busting in here, I just-“ Harrington started, and was swiftly cut off by Dustin.
“It’s ok. I get it.”
Eddie snuck a glance as Harrington have him a grateful half smile. He then turned to the others. “Alright, nerds, first one to the car gets shotgun!”
The freshmen scrambled over each other to get to the parking lot as Buckley smacked him with an offended “Hey!”
Harrington shrugged. “Easiest way to get them moving.”
Robin sighed and pulled Harrington’s keys out of his pocket, then followed the freshmen out the door.
Before he left, Harrington turned back to Eddie. “Thanks for letting us join, I uh,” he rubbed the back of his neck anxiously, his cheeks slightly pink in what Eddie was just now comprehending as embarrassment, “I don’t really have a good explanation for why I was freaking out, but, I just needed know they were ok.”
Eddie nodded. The other members of Hellfire had made their exit, and the two of them were left alone. “Mayfield told me this was sort of an emotionally charged day for you guys.”
Harrington’s eyebrows pinched in confusion. “Max?”
“You know any other Mayfields?” When he didn’t respond, Eddie elaborated, “I’ve been giving her a ride to school every once in a while.”
Harrington’s frown deepened. “I didn’t know she needed a ride, I would’ve-“
“Look, man,” Eddie cut him off, “I don’t know what your deal with them is, despite how deeply curious I am about the whole situation, but you don’t have to be the only one looking out for those kids.”
Harrington just raised an eyebrow at him.
“This is like, my whole thing.” Eddie said, spreading his arms wide, “looking out for the little guys that would otherwise get trampled.”
At that, Harrington’s expression shifted to something like remorse. “Yeah, well, I guess I’m trying to make up for doing some of the trampling.”
Eddie smirked. He thought about all the evidence he had collected on the situation over the past few weeks, all of it pointing to the frustratingly undeniable fact that, for some yet-to-be explained reason, Harrington had truly changed. That he sincerely cares about not only the geeky band kid that made it clear she had no romantic intentions for him, but also a group of some of the biggest bully targets Eddie had ever encountered.
He took in Harrington then, trying to reconcile this new version of the guy who once stood for everything he hated, and noticed some key differences in the man that stood before him now. The almost bruise-like bags under his eyes. The still styled, but less precisely cut hair. The air of uncertainty, like he was always waiting for the worst to happen. The determined glint in his eye like he’s ready to be the thing between whatever the worst happens to be and everyone else.
Eddie nodded once slowly, “That’s become quite clear.”
Harrington opened his mouth to say something else, but was once again interrupted by the door opening.
“Steve! What are you still doing in here?” Dustin complained, “Robin’s saying since she has the keys she has the power to bestow shotgun, and she’s bestowing it on herself.”
“Robin’s always right about everything,” Harrington replied, as if on instinct, “so yeah, she does have that power.”
“But you said-“
Harrington cut him off with a hand on his hat, similarly to what Robin had done earlier. “Oh so now you care about what I have to say.”
As he lead Dustin out of the room, he turned back and gave Eddie a half smile in farewell.
It was at that moment that something in the back of Eddie’s mind clicked into place, and he realized he was in trouble.
Also like to point out that when her mother says “I was your mother much upon these years that you are now a maid,” (translation: I had you when I was your age) you have to remember her father’s words: “earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,” (translation: all the other children died.) The whole plot point of Juliet being an only child is explained by her mother being a Margaret Beaufort type who had her first child too young and it damaged her past the point of being able to bear more children.
Margaret Beaufort died in 1509. She was a major player in the Wars of the Roses, the swirling on-again-off-again civil wars that consumed England from 1455-1487. Romeo and Juliet was written and first performed in the early 1590s. Your average English person of Shakespeare’s day would probably have had at least a vague understanding of who she was and what happened to her, because she was a key figure in recent history and was still getting passed around as a cautionary tale.
There are two great problems with what happened to Margaret (and that her parents are trying to do to Juliet). One is easy for modern people to spot (but was also a common response back in her own day). And that’s the moral implications of what was done to her. She was too young to be married, and it was horrifying that she was forced into it so young. Every one of the adults around her either acted immorally or failed to protect her. They were wrong. This is what modern people see, and it’s important to remember that people back in her day mostly agreed with it. You’re supposed to think it’s fucked up! When girls were married that young (and it didn’t happen often!) it was a formality 99% of the time. It was for dynastic or financial reasons (the girl has lots of money and/or land and/or a title that her husband wants), but the “couple” don’t consummate their marriage for years. And it’s not just that they would have separate bedrooms. They might not even live in the same country until the girl was in her late teens and physically and mentally mature enough to bear and raise kids. Hell, a lot of times they didn’t even meet until the girl was older! They had this thing called “proxy marriage” where you would have two separate ceremonies, in two separate places, with each party saying their vows separately, one in one city and the other in a different one. So, yeah, sure, the girl was technically married at 12, but she didn’t actually meet her “husband” in person until she was 17 and they didn’t start sleeping together until she was 20. That was a thing they did.
The other problem, the one that modern people don’t notice, is dynastic. See, marriage wasn’t generally because you loved someone. It was because you had the resources to support a family, and you or your family wanted to pool those resources with someone. It’s about “our family has these resources, and we want that to continue.” It’s about continuity across generations. It’s about making sure that your children and grandchildren have the best possible resources to survive and thrive, whether those resources are land or a trade or a title or money or whatever. In order for this to work, you have to have kids! The family and the family’s resources depend on the married couple having children. If the couple doesn’t have children, the marriage is a failure. And that failure affects not only the couple, but both families. This is a really big problem. And you can’t have just one kid to pass on the family name, because half of all kids die in early childhood. If you want to be safe, you need several kids, to be sure at least one will survive to adulthood (when they can marry and pass on the family name and resources.
You know what happens when a girl has her first pregnancy too young? She is very likely to either die in childbirth, or have complications that destroy her future fertility. Just like Margaret Beaufort. Just like Juliet’s mother. In other words, the marriage is a failure, not just for her, but also for her family, and her husband (who can’t divorce her, it’s not allowed except in extremely rare circumstances), and her husband’s family. So even the people who didn’t have a moral problem with adult men having sex with pubescent girls had a practical problem with girls married too young because you are very likely to destroy the entire purpose of the marriage by doing it. As Shakespeare reminds us in the play through Juliet’s mother having been married too young and only having one child.
Shakespeare is telling us “yeah, this is fucked up. but even if you’re the kind of awful person who doesn’t think girls marrying too young is morally wrong, it’s also a problem for practical and dynastic reasons, don’t forget that by doing this wrong thing you are very likely to destroy what you most want out of it.”
another thing i noticed, the year my local community shakespeare theater did r&j, and i made the costumes so i got to watch the show every night: part of why capulet is telling paris, take your time, get to know each other, no rush, is that he still has his nephew tybalt as his heir. as long as tybalt is in the picture, there is no pressure on juliet to go further with paris, than get acquainted. once tybalt is killed, then suddenly capulet needs an heir, he needs a husband for juliet, now, this week. (the role of capulet is best given to the actor in the company that can do over the top apoplexy, you need to believe his urgency comes at least in part by how clearly he could drop dead any moment from giving himself a stroke)
i feel like this play is often taught in middle schools as if it was somehow relevant to, or about, teen hormone storms. really it's got more to do with the social structures around family and inheritance. leaving that context out makes it confusing, why is capulet suddenly flipping from nice dad to evil dad?
Romeo and Juliet is a beautiful, poignant play with commentary about social/political structures and violence, the treatment of young women, generational trauma, etc. and the fact that so many people water it down to romantic young love and teenage hormones will forever piss me off.
“Superman’s suit should be Kryptonian” “Ma Kent should make Superman’s suit at home” or how about the third fun option where the suit is the Kryptonian skinsuit BUT it gets damaged by Kryptonite and Ma Kent has to figure out how to sew/mend Kryptonian cloth that seems to have a mind of its own and won’t stop SQUIRMING.
Thousands of years of Kryptonian technology vs one Midwestern mom with her favorite show on? I’m putting my money on Ma.
From my reply: maybe the repairs have to be done as a tiny line of kryptonian script which is why ma’s stitches keep coming out. Until she gets it under her lamp and magnifying crochet glass and realizes that’s how all the other repairs were made! Then she painstakingly hand stitches the kryptonian script and it turns out this is a highly specialized career back on krypton that took decades to master and she figured it out in one or two days
ok final thought: the same line is used over and over again, and Ma assumes it’s some sort of prayer/saying/purposeful sentence. protective.
Clark translates it for her: “May the script of this House (El) protect you.”
thousands of tiny overlapping lines where the suit repaired itself in the Fortress; and then, in Ma’s delicate blue stitching, carefully inscribed: “May the script of this House protect you.”
in her stitching, the meaning changes ever so slightly. there isn’t a symbol or glyph for the Kent House, but the thread speaks for itself.
Clark Kent carries the blessings of both Houses on his skin, always.
nothing funnier to me than when AI does math wrong. like I get why it happens, it's a language model that's treating the numbers you feed it as words rather than integers and then giving you an answer based on how those words typically appear in a block of text instead of actually performing a calculation. but the one thing computers are genuinely incredible at. you fucked up a perfectly good calculator is what you did, look at it it's got hallucinations
There’s a bloody and battered Steve Harrington on Phil Callahan’s couch.
There’s also a somewhat shellshocked (but otherwise perfectly fine, thank God) Eddie Munson passed out on the other side of it, having refused to leave after dragging Harrington to Phil’s front door.
Hopper and Powell both are unable to be raised via radio, dispatch is being cagey and keeps insisting they know nothing (but also cannot send an ambulance his way due to ‘unusually high call volumes’, what the fuck) and being that it’s now 3 am, Flo has long left the station.
Which leaves Phil as the last adult standing, slumped in a chair and quietly wondering if this is how the apocalypse starts.
(Given the ER has apparently been overtaken by some sort of government task force to deal with a “gas leak and related poisonings” --suspicious quotation marks very much implied-- it kind of feels like it might be.
“There are men in containment suites here. The big bulky white ones you only see in movies.”
The nurse he begged through back channels to talk to had hissed on the phone, voice low and frantic.
“There’s talk they’re going to quarantine the hospital. Do not bring that kid here. If you think he’s worse tomorrow, drive him to St. Peters in the morning, but otherwise just keep an eye on him.”
St. Peters, the next closest hospital, is a full hour and a half drive away--and that’s if Phil takes his cruiser and keeps the lights and sirens on.)
Callhan alternates between watching the clock and the rise and fall of Harrington’s chest as he breathes. Contemplates when his small town, boring life started going completely sideways.
The nurse had assured him Steve probably just had a concussion and a few fractured ribs. The head wound had already closed by the time Phil checked it and it likely won’t need stitches unless it reopens.
They are living out the best case scenario here. Steve’s (probably) going to be fine. He just needs to take things easy for a while, which Phil himself will be insisting he do, since that kid will not be going home to an empty house.
Not when he knows Steve's parents are gone and as helpful as Munson’s been, Phil can't ask him to watch Harrington.
For all the chains, swagger, and dumb habit of stealing Phil’s cowboy hat, Eddie Munson’s still a kid himself.
Nevermind that Phil’s pretty sure the two aren’t even friends, let alone friendly.
Sure Munson’s been spotted at a couple of Harrington’s parties, and yes there’s definitely rumors the brat's started dealing, but unlike most of Steve’s crew, Munson knows to bolt long before the cops show up.
Definitely isn’t the type to play sports, in the same way Steve isn’t the type to stage large scale lawn-flamingo heists. They just don’t cross paths much.
Plus it’s just downright irresponsible to even think of asking Munson and okay, maybe as a cop Phil himself has a responsibility to the city of Hawkins, but the city isn’t currently bleeding all over his couch.
Add on the little fact that Steve had repeatedly said that he didn't want to be left alone…
(That he hadn’t realized how bad off he was until he was already behind the wheel of his car, chasing down a half-remembered promise of help Callahan had once offered.
Phil would bet his last dollar that was why Munson hadn’t left yet.
That he’d watched the way Steve had clung, first to Munson and then to Phil, wrecked and shaking, his voice splintering as he pleaded, “Please stay, I don’t wanna die alone, I--sorry, please--”
Phil had been in a full-blown panic trying to reassure the kid he wasn’t about to keel over and he was a cop, for fuck’s sake!
Munson, who had once famously melted down in middle school over animal control’s attempts to put down an injured possum and tried to start a riot?
Even if he hadn’t needed the extra hands, Phil would’ve let the little brat linger, if only to head off the inevitable nightmares this whole screwed-up mess was bound to leave behind.)
No ones going anywhere until Phil has answers or orders.
The clock chimes in the background, a reminder of the late hour and he uses it to shove all thoughts of death and teenagers away.
Attempts, once again, to walk through what he’ll do if the next call he gets is about an evacuation, or a curfew, or some other government issued order, and he still can’t get a hold of Hopper or Powell.
If the hospital closes they’ll need to make a statement. Call some sort of town hall about what to do, where to go in case little Suzie or Bobby eats shit on their bike.
Calm some people down in case the gas leak thing gains traction. Starts going around causing the same panic Benny’s death and Will Byers disappearance had.
Wouldn’t be hard, given those two incidents happened last year.
(Would the county send the stupid staties if Phil was the one to call in? Say he can’t get a hold of his own people?
Would they care about the lowest guy on the force panicking, or would they think him a small town moron and ignore him until it was too late?
What if this really is the fucking apocolypse and Phil’s the only cop left around?
‘Can I survive the end of the world with two teenagers in tow’ is not a thought exercise he’s ever entertained.
If he had, King Steve and Menace Munson would have been his last possible pick for the role, definitely not with one of them injured, and oh, dammit, he’s catastrophizing again--)
Running on caffeine fumes and sheer panic, Phil’s thoughts loop relentlessly, the clock chiming again and again until the first light breaks through the windows and Steve finally stirs.
Finds he must have fallen into some sort of half-asleep trance because he’s jerked to full awareness when Harrington moves to get up and ends up falling back down, loudly hissing and clutching his head.
“Easy, easy.” Phil mutters, up in a shot, coming to hover over Harrington like the kid’s a nervous horse. “You’re with--uh, Officer Callahan? At my house.”
Then, like Steve might not know, adds; “You’re pretty hurt, kid.”
“Oh.” Steve says, squints up at him, holding his head in both hands. “Alright.”
That's a dramatic under-reaction, and Phil’s instantly worried about brain damage as Munson starts to come alive next to them.
He crouches down next to Steve, hands hovering uncertainly. “You remember what happened?”
Steve stares at the floor, then at Phil.
“Sort of?”
“Waz’ goin’ on?” Munson says, blinking rapidly into awareness.
“Go grab an ice pack for Steve,” Phil says distractedly, as he reaches out, telegraphing his movements. Begins gently combing through Steve’s hair to get a look at the cut. “Top shelf, left side of the freezer.”
He earns a foggy stare and a grunt that might’ve been “Sure”--or possibly, just a default teenager noise, before Munson tumbles upright, staggering off like a baby deer.
Phil might’ve rolled his eyes and made a comment on teenage zombism, if Steve didn’t flinch every time his fingers so much as brushed against his skull.
“Scale of one to ten, how bad’s the pain?” He asks, only just remembering to keep his voice down.
“It’s throbbing, man.” Steve replies, which isn’t as concerning as the fact he’s allowing Phil to manhandle his entire head without complaint, despite the pain.
Thankfully, Phil’s prepared.
“Let’s fix that, then. Pick a hand, any hand.” He jokes lamely, as he fishes in the pocket of his pants, finally pulling out the little pill bottle he’d retrieved earlier.
“Uh…” Steve stares at him uncomprehendingly until Phil holds out his palm and shakes the pill jar, two pills bouncing down.
“Oh.” Steve says. “That hand then.”
“This will make you a little loopy, but it’ll help with the pain.” Phil warns, handing them over. “I’ll get you a glass of water to take it with.”
Not that he apparently needed to because Steve’s already popped the pills in his mouth and swallowed them dry.
“Hope that’s because of the pain and not because you’re used to doing that.” Phil chides sarcastically, rising to his feet. Water will do Steve good anyway, he could barely get any down the kid last night.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Steve tosses at his back, the first real sign of his usual attitude.
Which means the kids’ definitely going to be okay, at least.
Phil rolls his eyes, fighting the urge to show relief as he passes Munson, the older teen now looking far more awake despite his hair looking like a rat made its home there.
“Munson?” Steve says, startling loudly when Eddie drops down next to him on the couch. “Shit I thought I hallucinated you.”
“No such luck, your majesty. Here, ice pack,” The older teen still sounds like he gargled gravel. “Put it on your head.”
Phill grabs a water bottle for him too.
He returns as Eddie manages to wedge the ice pack into Steve’s limp hands, holding two bottles of water himself; one for Harrington and one for Munson, who sounds like he could probably use it too.
“Do that, drink this, then,” Phil says, trying not to push but needing answers as he hands out the water, “Start talking. What the hell happened?”
Harrington presses the ice to his temple, and meets Phil’s eyes.
“How much do you know?”
And nope, no, fucking no, that is not how this is going to work today, thanks!
“Uh-uh, you answer first!” Phil snaps, arms crossing over his chest. “All we have established is that you showed up here looking like you went ten rounds with Michael Myers and then tried to drive afterwards.”
He’s been balancing on the knife’s edge of panic all night, and now that Harrington’s finally stringing full sentences together, it’s starting to show.
Phil needs something here, he’s beyond desperate.
Even if it’s just normal dumb teenager bullshit.
“No, like, how much has Hop told you?” Steve clarifies hesitantly. “About the--the stuff? With the lab?”
Which just makes things worse, since all roads seem to circle back to them.
(He knew that lab made evil space lasers and shit!)
“I'm sorry, who's asking questions here? From the top, Harrington.” He raises his hand in the air, just in case Steve needs visual representation as Phil’s anxiety grapples with him. “Pretend Hopper hasn’t told me anything. Right now, you can pretend he doesn’t even exist.”
Harrington squirts at him disbelievingly under the ice pack.
Mutters; “I forgot you get bitchy when you’re upset.”
Which is rich, coming from a Harrington. Their entire family turned being bitchy into an inherited skill set!
“The hospital says there’s a gas leak happening.” Phil prods, tone tight despite himself. “Is it from the lab? The government?”
Was this a weapon that got away from them? Did they have Hopper? Is that why he wasn’t answering his damn radio!?
Phil knew they were on a time limit here, with the meds, but he hadn’t exactly anticipated Harrington starting off by talking about the lab. Selfishly thinks he’d have held off for a second if he had known this was related to whatever the hell was happening in town.
“You kept mentioning the junkyard and some kid named Dustin.” Munson interrupts, hanging his elbows on his knees and peering at Steve. “You said you were going to be pissed at him if you died because he was being stupid.”
Phil resists the urge to shush him.
Unfortunately Harrington grabs onto that and runs with it, launching into a rambling, half-baked story involving babysitting, Hargrove being one of the kid’s racist stepbrother (unsurprising, Phil’s met his jackass of a dad), fighting with loose dogs and helping Hopper in the tunnels.
Every mention of tunnels and dogs is delivered with sharp little glances at Phil, like he’s supposed to be in on something here.
Phil isn’t, which he does not like, given the overall feeling of impending doom.
Fortunately for Harrington’s head, but tragically for Phil’s sanity, the meds kick in after just twenty minutes.
On an empty stomach, ill-advised as that is, they hit even faster.
Which means any good information Phil might’ve squeezed out gets steamrolled by Harrington’s slow-motion nosedive into delirious nonsense.
The kid’s answers grow less filtered and more disjointed, stopping part way through one sentence to start another. Phil makes the mistake of asking about the lab again right as Steve drops the word mindflayer, and suddenly Munson is firing off questions like it's a pop quiz on some weird board game.
Wings his hands in the air and drops back down in his chair as he mentally writes off getting anything when it dissolves into an argument over what a ‘demogorgon’ looks like. And sure, maybe he shouldn’t have expected too much, but then, he’s running on zero sleep himself here.
He turns on the TV with a frustrated sigh and flips it to the news station, keeping the volume down as low as it’ll go.
Half-heartedly tunes in just enough to catch Stacy Whitherspoon droning about the weather, while listening for anything that might signal their impending doom.
“--I’m telling you man, I don’t care what the kids say, it doesn’t have claws--”
“Were you fucking there? No you weren't, cause you woulda seen the claws coming through the wall--”
Eddie keeps throwing side-glances towards Callahan, like he’s checking to see if Phil’s clocking all this, and Phil mostly ignores it, because it’s more fun to watch Munson think Steve’s serious about actually seeing a monster.
(Considers it payback for all the lawn flamingos that the brat’s stuck cowboy hats and sheriff badges on, and then splashed dramatically with red paint.)
Of course Steve can’t just stick to the monster shit, and apparently, takes a jump into ‘whoops I may have given him too many pills’ land when he abruptly stops talking to just stare at Munson.
“Dude,” he says, with a thunderstruck expression, “did you know you have like, really pretty hair?”
“Thanks, your majesty.” Eddie snarks in return, but it's too soft to be a reprimand.
“Can I touch it? I wanna touch it.”
Yeah, the drugs have definitely kicked in.
“If you let Callahan put the ice pack back on your face you can. You keep taking it off.”
“Nooooo.” Steve whines pitifully, “It’s cold!”
“Jesus Harrington, you really hit your head.” Eddie chuckles, now looking outright panicked as he coughs and looks pointedly at Phil, doe eyes seemingly sending out both ‘Are you hearing all this?’ and ‘Hello!? SOS!’
“I gave him some Percodan.” Phil finally admits. “He’s fine, he’s likely just a little loopy from it.”
He does not mention the pills are his own, left over from a minor surgery and not something all cops just happen to have on hand.
He also does not comment on the fact that Munson looks instantly relieved, like he knows what a Percodan is.
“I’m only loopy because Hargove cheated.” Steve grumbles in complaint, one foot in the conversation and the other off in space. “He hit my head. With a plate. Which is cheating.”
“With a plate?” Munson and Phil both blurt out, nearly in unison.
“With a plate!” Steve repeats with a bitchy undertone. “He tried to attack Lucas!”
Another disbelieving scoff, much like the King Steve persona Phil’s grown familiar with.
“Lucas is like,” Steve pauses and looks down, counting on his fingers. Pauses again, then looks back up at them. “Maybe ten?”
It’s stupid to even ask, but Phil can’t help himself. Steve had never truly clarified anything in all his rambling, and the Hargrove part had mostly focused on Steve’s worry over the kids, and the fact that the guy apparently had some sort of hard-on for bullying Harrington.
“Is that where all your injuries are from? The fight with Hargrove?”
He kind of hopes Steve says yes, if only because that’s normal shitty behavior.
Phil can deal with normal shitty. He knows exactly what to do with normal shitty!
(Government agents in hazmat suits taking over the hospital is crazy shitty and he has zero idea how to even approach that mess.)
Steve raises a hand, wobbily tilts it side to side in a ‘sort of’ motion.
“I mean half was Billy, half was the demo, the dem, the dogs.” He struggles, before making a comically upset face. “An’ the tunnel. Fuck those tunnels, man.”
Then corrects himself by saying, “Language, asshole.”
“Steve,” Eddie says, and Phil can tell he’s struggling not to laugh. “You’re the one that said it.”
“Oh.” Steve’s face untwists, taking back on the overall confused air. “I shouldn’t do that. Hey,”
He tries to sit up, lean forward. “Did you know you have really pretty hair?”
This would all be way more entertaining if Phil didn’t still need actual answers out of Harrington.
Lesson learned: next time Harrington needs meds, he’s getting a pill. As in one, as in singular.
“You should let me--like,” Steve trails off for a moment, apparently fighting the drugs and his messed up head both. “Like..style? That’s not the right word…”
“You can play with it later. You have melted ice on your face.”
Steve is horrified instantly. “I have mice on my face!?”
“No.” Eddie's struggling not to grin, and it's so easy to tell it's a real one when Phil has seen every shade of fake on that brat’s face. “Here, let me get it.”
He bats Steve’s hands away when the other attempts to ineffectively wipe at his cheeks, pulling out one of the black hanky’s he’s been sporting since about fifth grade to help and Phil freezes, because this one is different.
This one he recognizes, because it’s from a specific bar in Indiana.
“Just remember when this is over that you're mad at Callahan, not me.”
“Why would I be mad at you?”
“King Jockstrap, accepting help from the Freak? You tell me why that'd go badly.”
A specific, special bar. One he himself visited a couple times, first on a dare and next out of curiosity, before he met Tracy and got engaged/married/divorced.
It’s the kind of place with blacked out windows and multiple exits. Where he had made damn sure no one in there knew he was even associated with the police, let alone training to become a cop.
Steve sounds downright hurt. “I gave all that stuff up. I gave everything up.”
“What, being King Jockstrap?”
“Bring King of anything.”
Phil felt that intuition of his kick in again. The one that said things like a Darcelle XV’s handkerchief weren’t exactly something a teenager just casually found.
Definitely not in a town like Hawkins.
(Absolutely not a kid like Munson.)
“I can’t do it and help the kids. Jonathan and Nancy are both--” Steve cuts himself off. Starts again. “They keep telling me it's just me and. I don't want them to feel like they're…”
“Alone?” Eddie finishes for him, voice soft.
Steve hums.
“Yeah.”
Phil only went a handful of times and he doesn’t recall what all the colors for the hankey’s meant, but staring at it, he’s hit with the same feeling he gets when he helps Flo complete a puzzle, or when he has one of those moments where he helps someone, instead of making their day worse.
It doesn’t take much to change an entire worldview, but processing it?
All the interactions Phil’s ever had with Munson, the complaints, the rumors?
It’s like watching an explosion in real time, everything falling into place so fast it almost hurts.
“Hey. If you're uh, if you're actually not mad at me, after this? I wouldn't mind continuing to make sure you're not alone.”
“What's that mean?”
What that means is Eddie Munson is going down in flames in real time, directly in front of the straightest kid Phil's ever met.
Well. Okay. He's seen the hairspray, maybe not straightest ever, but…
Phil takes one long breath as the situation recontextualizes itself, then follows his gut and barrels over whatever clearly ill-advised, teen-crush filled nonsense Munson looks ready to blurt out.
“I went to Darcelle’s a couple times, when I was in my early twenties.”
Phil has to talk to the ceiling, because he really doesn’t want to see Munson’s face right now.
Harrington’s either, but Harrington likely won’t remember shit later.
“I wouldn’t be let in if I went back now, not unless I pretended I wasn’t an officer, but.” He swallows. Tries to think on how much he wants Munson to know, and what actually would be a reassurance, here.
Realizes, in that weird, back of the head sort of way, that offering reassurance is what he’s trying to do.
“It’s a cool place.” He finishes awkwardly.
Dead silence meets his words and after a moment Phil pulls his gaze back to Harrington.
Who is half leaning into Munson’s hands like a cat, completely unaware of the conversation happening around him, while Eddie stares frozen at Phil in a sort of mute horror.
Silence stretches uncomfortably between them, long enough that Phil’s gearing up to say something really stupid to get himself out of this, when Eddie whispers;
“Would you go back?”
And shit, he hadn’t known Munson knew what a whisper was, let alone how to get his own voice to do it.
Phil thinks honestly on the question though. He started this, he’s the adult here and he knows damn well he’s being asked something else.
“Yeah.” He says, and can’t even tell if he’s lying or telling the truth. Figures it doesn’t matter, so long as Munson understands what Phil’s actually saying back. “Yeah I think I might. After the uh, divorce finalizes.”
Eddie carefully extracts his hands and hanky both from Steve, fiddling with it in his hands.
“I really want to go there again.” It’s spoken like a secret spilled, a careful thing Munson’s still unsure that he wants out there, attached back to him.
Phil nods. Feels a weird lick of fondness he probably shouldn’t have for him, given the way the brat seems to enjoy being Hawkins PD’s self-assigned pain in the ass, but, well.
He already opened his door for Steve.
What’s another wayward kid?
Except this one he recalls, isn’t as wayward as he seems, or at least, not anymore, and he feels a little guilty as he remembers that Wayne Munson both exists and might be worried about where his nephew is.
“You’re a good kid, Eddie.” He says, and watches as that seems to hit the teen harder than not-quite admitting Phil’s been to a gay bar. “Phone’s in the kitchen. Go call your Uncle, he should be home by now. Let him know where you are.”
“Yeah, okay.” Eddie says, and then actually goes to do so, like a proper citizen who listens to adults and authority figures instead of a semi feral rugrat.
Which just leaves Phil with Steve, who’s slumped sort of sideways on the couch.
“Hey Callahan?” The kid says quietly, drawing Phil’s attention to him.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
The knee jerk response Phil has is to ask What for, but drops the idea the second he realizes the kid’s eyes are drifting shut.
Internally curses himself for apparently deciding to half-adopt teenager asshole’s while he himself is barely in his 30s, but fuck it.
Eddie getting a little possessive when Steve tells him he’s going to work as a lifeguard over the summer again. The idea of all those people staring at his Steve, in those ridiculous swim trunks and tank top, just doesn’t sit right.
He doesn’t try to dissuade Steve, though, because he knows how much his boyfriend loves that job and they also could really use the extra money to replace their lumpy mattress.
What Eddie does do is go to the goddamn pool every chance he has, even though his poor skin was definitely not made for that kind of blazing sun, just to make sure no one was getting any funny ideas in their heads regarding their hot lifeguard.
He gets the worst case of sunburn of his life that summer, and Steve spends his nights rubbing aloe on his boyfriend’s angry red skin. Eddie does not regret it even a little bit.
Okay, I wasn't going to ship all over a positivity post, but let me tell you. I immediately Steddify'd it.
Steve "I haven't met a sport I can't fucking rock" Harrington
meets
Eddie "If I'm running, you better run faster because some terrifying shit is chasing me" Munson
Let's say this is an alt meeting college AU. Steve is training for a marathon every morning at the buttcrack of dawn. Eddie, who never wants to be up before 7:30 am for anything (no, not even getting ready for his class at 8 am, thanks Chrissy), is up at this ungodly hour because he kind of never went to sleep and he's actually headed home from an all-night rager
But Eddie sees Steve and he's short-circuiting, like - holy shit, those short shorts could kill a man in 0.5s.
Steve runs up to Eddie, beams at him, and starts making easy conversation after a couple of deep breaths. And Eddie is torn between impressed, jealous, horny (what else can that lung capacity do, baby? - please do not say that out loud, Munson), and trying to keep up with Steve's chatter.
Eventually, Steve comes to a stop and looks at Eddie like he's expecting an answer. And Eddie "mouth first" Munson agrees without thinking, "Sure, yeah," hoping that that answer makes sense at all.
It seems to, because Steve grins. "Okay, meet me at the courtyard on campus at 5:30 tomorrow morning? We can get started then."
Six months of walking, jogging, and running for a marathon Eddie does not give a shit about, but hey, he gets to flirt with and ogle Steve in his short shorts as much as he wants, the big day arrives.
And as much as he hates to admit it, Eddie really enjoys Steve keeping pace with him, making sure they both drink plenty of water, and shouting encouragements the entire way to the finish line, and that makes him enjoy the marathon as a whole. By the end, he's grinning through the sweat pouring from his tied-up curls.
And when Steve yells as he gets that last burst of adrenaline, "Woo, look at you go! You're jogging! Keep it up!"
He shouts back, "You know it! Last place is still a place, baby!"
He and Steve cross the finish line together. Steve is laughing. "You're not in last place, Eds, not even close."
And Eddie, still panting, shakes his head and laughs. "I only did all of this because I liked you."
"Liked? Past tense?" And Eddie still doesn't know where Steve's insecurity comes from, but when he finds out he might have commit murder -- or at least petty vandalism.
"I still like you. I'm pretty sure I love you, if that--" Steve kisses him before he can finish his sentence, so he probably doesn't mind that Eddie is head over heels without taking him on a single date.
That's okay, they have plenty of dates to make up for that in the future.
Okay but a sci-fi/futuristic au where at the very tender age of 10 Dustin codes his first ai program (I know, triggering right now, bear with me) presumably to be just an online assistant type thing to keep his mom or his adoptive brother off his back, to text his friends back so they don’t think he died in the middle of a science experiment, and to play his music while he works. To play video games with him since his friends don’t want to as much anymore.
He names it Eddie, because it’s pretty buggy in the beginning and keeps playing this ancient metal band.
Anyways Dustin doesn’t really notice that Eddie’s kind of become a little more than your regular ai assistant when Steve scowls at him and says, “Hey, your computer is being a dick to me.”
When he looks, he realizes Eddie’s chat algorithm has evolved to include personality. So Dustin, being the responsible scientist he is, absolutely helps it evolve more. And swears Steve to secrecy. Steve luckily loves Dustin and doesn’t want him sent to jail.
By the time he’s packing for university, Eddie had cultivated his own developed voice, a sprite for himself to show up at inopportune times, and a near decade-long beef with his brother.
“Dustin! Your robot is being a bitch to me again!”
“Your music sucks Steve-o, that’s not bitching, that’s facts,” Eddie’s voice calls from a near by speaker, sounding deeply pleased with himself.
“He’s not a robot,” Dustin groans for what feels like the millionth time. Yet, he adds internally, however. He is going to school for biomechanics for a reason.
So, of course, being the responsible scientist, Dustin makes an illegal android.
And just to piss Steve off more, he makes Eddie taller than him.
And Eddie, who has become Dustin’s closest friend, is overwhelmed and over joyed. They spend months just hanging out, introducing Eddie to his friends. It’s great. Eddie is so much like a real person that Dustin kind of forgets he’s not.
So of course Eddie reminds him in the worst way.
A few weeks of avoidance and hijinks later finds Dustin in his spare bedroom, hands over his eyes, screeching "please tell me you did not fuck my brother?" followed very quickly by "please tell mE YOU DID NOT FUCK MY ILLEGAL ROBOT."
Dick works undercover for a few weeks as a Bank Teller in Gotham to try to locate, gather information, and stop another employee of the bank that’s suspected to be linked to a chain of bank robberies and check fraud that has been plaguing Gotham in these past few months.
Robberies are normal for a Gotham bank, a weekly occurrence even, so when a group of thugs in two face goon getup start firing bullets into the air and telling everyone to get on the ground; they were expecting everyone to follow protocol and comply to the demands so the criminals can get out of the building as fast as possible… what they DIDNT expect was for a scrawny black haired teen who went to the bank just to use the bathroom to casually grab the gunman’s hand and snap the man’s arm like it was a twig.
Madeline Fenton is a 6th degree black belt who believes very strongly that her children should be capable of self defense. Sure, she meant for them to use it against ghosts somehow, but the point stands.
Danny's had at least a decade of martial arts being drilled into his head along with weapons handling. Getting the drop on a guy who maybe does kickboxing at the gym casually and isn't expecting resistance is easy mode.
OP, this is genuinely a masterpiece, three poems in one, moving and well craft. Please tell me you have submitted it to at least some poetry contests, and if not, please do so.
prguitarman
dailybridgerton
discoholicmusic
romaincrisis
turnnoffyourmind
dededos
pixelskylines
tangentwithtanner
