Steddie angst. I’d love to read some fanfics where Eddie makes Steve cry and just crumbles like a goddamn wet paper bag. like he’d feel SO bad immediately
like “no, no, no, no, no—Stevie, don’t cry, oh my god I’m so sorry—“ because seeing Steve curl in on himself is breaking his heart.
and it gets even worse bc I’d imagine Steve is a quiet crier, who just kind of sticks his face in his hands and sobs like he’s trying to take up as little space as possible.
bonus points if it’s not even during an argument—Eddie just happens to say something that may or may not have a negative meaning, and suddenly Steve’s eyes are watering, tears silently running down his cheeks, and Eddie feels his stomach drop out of his ass
because we know Steve hardly cries, even when it would totally be valid for him to cry. he’s more inclined to like…screaming, or storming away, or making a sarcastic quip or some shit, but he doesn’t cry. and that concerns me.
like he yells—he gets upset, he looks upset, but he doesn’t cry. like. the emotionally charged scenes with Steve are already kind of rare and I need him to cry. but I don’t think he lets himself cry???
so that brings into question what WOULD make him cry. what would be his breaking point
please please please PLEASE give me recommendations or write something and tag me I need that SWEET ANGST
(feel free to add on id love to hear some more thoughts on this bc it’s consumed my brain)
(btw Eddie’s mental reaction to tears is just OH FUCK repeated over and over and over again bc he’s panicking. he’s a panicker. someone help him)
fucking love when I'm on a call with someone and they start to do a little errand or go somewhere else and they say "and you're coming with me" like. absolutely I am let's go on an adventure I've been spirited away
ooh ooh or when they accidentally drop the phone or something and go “i dropped you! :(“ like. that little glowing box you’re waving around does indeed house my soul!! it’s me!! you’re holding me!!!! and we’re going on a little trip together!!! delightful!!!!!!!!
i love the suggestion that the device they are holding is my corporeal form. very silly and whimsical
I need a steddie fic that revolves around Wayne Munson giving Steve a shovel talk only to in the process (or over time) realize Steve’s a hurt soul who never had parent figures that gave a damn about him. I need Steve who uses excessive manners and is trying so hard to prove himself. I need Steve who is scared shitless that Wayne will hurt him. I need Steve who finally breaks and Wayne who realizes this poor kid needs love and proceeds to bring him in.
Bonus points if Wayne absolutely hates Steve at first because he remembers Steve bullied Eddie for years when they were younger.
Bonus points if Wayne absolutely accuses Steve of using Eddie for drugs.
Bonus points if Wayne comes home to Steve and Eddie hanging out and immediately interrogates Steve.
“What’re you doing slummin’ it up trailer trash,?Harrington? I thought you and your family was too damn good for people like us?” Because Steve used to call Eddie trailer trash and Wayne remembers his boy crying over it.
Ughhh bonus points if Steve eventually moves in with the Munson’s because his parents are awful but Steve genuinely begs to pay rent because he doesn’t want to put any more strain on them.
Yesterday my little brother told me something very sweet and touching, that when he was a kid and had nightmares about monsters chasing him or whatever he would be able to end the nightmare by finding me in the dream and I would protect him by fighting off the zombies, or carrying him away. This is adorable, and makes me feel like the greatest older sibling in the world, but the hilarious thing is that when I was a kid I had nightmares of needing to save him from zombies and such. so many dreams where he was in trouble and I needed to save him. Like my nightmares began where his ended. Low key I think he mastered the ability to psychically transfer his nightmare to me as a child and I'm kind of annoyed with him.
I want to tell a story to the artists and would-be artists out there.
When I was 19, I made a large oil painting of the nerd I would eventually marry. I poured all my attention and care into this painting. It's the only art I have from back then that still holds up as a work I'm proud of today.
I entered it into a judged show at the local art center. It got an honorable mention. I went to see the show with my beloved model. One of the judges came up to talk to me, and highlighted that all the judges really liked the painting. It would have placed, except, you see, the feet were incorrect. They were too wide and short, and if I just studied a bit more anatomy-
I called over my future wife, and asked her to take off her shoe. Being already very used to humoring me, she did. The judge looked at her very short, very wide little foot. Exactly as I'd lovingly rendered it. I would never edit her appearance in any way.
The judge looked me in the eye, and to his credit, he really looked like he meant it when he said "Oh I'm so sorry."
Anyways the moral of the story is that all of those anatomy books that teach you proportions are either showing you averages, or a very specific idea of an idealized body. Actual bodies are much more varied than that.
So don't forget to draw from observation, and remember that humans aren't mass produced mannequins. Delight in our variation. Because it's supposed to be there.
Going to see children and adolescents dance badly, play ball badly, sing badly, play recorder badly because they are young: YES! YOU ARE LEARNING! INCREDIBLE!
People are so rude about going to watch the children in their lives do stuff shittily. “Ugh toddler dance recital,” “ugh tee-ball weekend again,” “ugh nativity play.”
That guy learned what skipping is this year and now he’s playing the piano the worst I’ve ever seen but the best he’s ever done! AREN’T YOU CAPTIVATED BY THEIR ABILITY TO DO A LITTLE BIT WHEN PREVIOUSLY THEY COULD DO NOTHING? Be filled with wonder and joy!
Literally every time a see a really mediocre youth production I cry tears. You can tell when they feel like they’re on Broadway. You can tell when they feel important, confident, and empowered. What’s better in the world than that, for our kids?
A Deep Dive because I've been thinking about it Too Much TM
I need to get this off my chest because the Reddit bros saying that the Stranger is either a random blue wizard or Gandalf are driving me crazy, because from my perspective, they're so obviously wrong, and here's a compilation of all the clues and hints we've been given in Seasons 1-2 that prove why!! (Quick disclaimer: I've watched the PJ LOTR movies over 5 times, and have it pretty much memorized, so I'm coming from mainly a movie perspective - which the ROP showrunners have said they want the show to remain connected to, as shown by how they reference the films every chance they get. But I've googled the backstory of relevant characters from the sacred texts/lore to familiarize myself with it.) (Also spoilers for everything up to 2x06.)
The "Blatantly Obvious" Gandalf Clues (and why they're not that obvious)
The Stranger has a relationship with Harfoots -> Saruman was also familiar with Hobbits. "Your love of the Halflings' leaf has clearly slowed your mind", and his Isengard cellar is filled with Hobbit weed. He's also shown to have a dislike for them (perhaps if he was betrayed by Nori in later seasons).
"Grand-elf", "gand", "follow your nose" -> it's not hard to believe that these are surface level red herrings, they're barely of any plot consequence and are more like random remarks thrown in to throw you off the scent. If the Stranger is Saruman these would make sense, since Saruman was Gandalf's mentor, and the films bait-and-switched them before (see: the Gandalf the white scene where he literally had Christopher Lee's voice)
"They all but confirmed it at the end of Season 1" -> then why is there still a mystery in Season 2? The writers clearly want you to keep guessing who he is. If he was Gandalf, they would've just said he was.
Aaaand, that's about it on Gandalf evidence. Not a lot, is it? No, precious, not at all, the Reddit bros lied to us.
Now let's get into the Saruman theory, starting with the four big things that Gandalf doesn't have, that the Stranger does: Rhun, Sauron, Ents, and Palantirs.
1. Rhun
Gandalf never went to Rhun. (From the wiki: "Unlike Saruman, Olórin never took up permanent residence, and never went to the east, apparently restricting his activities to the Westlands of Middle-earth[.]") He has no business being there. For the writers to send him there would be a giant canon departure, and kind of pointless. But Saruman did! In his early days, he travelled to Rhun, stayed there awhile and then returned. The Stranger travelling to Rhun was the first dead giveaway.
2. Sauron
"Is it my task to stop the fire? Is it my task to face Sauron??" (2x04) Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm 99% sure Gandalf was never destined to face Sauron. In the films, he faced a Balrog and won, which already was an intense fight that killed him, and Gandalf indirectly facilitated Sauron's destruction by guiding Frodo, but he never directly confronted him, afaik. (Again, I might be wrong and missing lore info.) But we know Saruman was more powerful than Gandalf, and he was supposed to face Sauron, but ultimately ended up aligning with him. But in the show, the Stranger is supposed to face him, and if he was Gandalf, this would be a bizarre departure.
3. Ents, nature & trees
The Stranger is heavily associated with nature, but the biggest dead giveaway that he's Saruman was the scene in 2x04 where he's following the star map to a tree branch, and tries to break it off when the tree retaliates and sucks him in (very similar to what happened to Merry and Pippin in the films, with Tom Bombadil saying exactly what Treebeard said to free them, although that line was originally Tom's to begin with). But because of this scene, they're directly linking the Stranger to Ents & Fangorn. Which is fascinating, because Saruman, before he was evil in the TA, used to walk among the trees and befriended the Ents. In the films, his betrayal of Treebeard by cutting down the trees for his army is one of the key emotional moments of the film ("a wizard should know better!!"), and is what causes the destruction of Isengard. And in that scene, Stranger/Saruman tried to harm the tree, and the tree attacked him. Seems like foreshadowing to me.
4. Palantirs
Now, even though the Stranger hasn't been linked to Palantirs and Seeing Stones in the show, we know they're there, and characters have used them many times. We also know that Saruman has one in Isengard, and would make sense if ROP showed us how he got it. Gandalf never had a Palantir.
Some other theories and notes others have made:
The Stranger is established to have darkness in him and the potential for evil. The fireflies die, "I'm peril", having to remind himself that he's good. The opening line of the entire show is "Nothing is evil in the beginning."
An emphasis on names and the importance/power of a name -> naming the Stranger as Saruman will change our whole perspective of him. The writers want us to see him as good and loveable before putting that name burden on him. (Another show I love, The Chosen, did that for the character of Judas, a notoriously infamous traitor, calling him 'the Apprentice' for an entire episode before officially naming him.)
The Stranger's magic is super powerful. The conjuring of the sandstorm reminded me of Saruman's conjuring the snowstorm over the pass of Caradhras, in FOTR.
There's a moment where the Stranger's staff dissolves when he uses his magic, similar to the scene where Gandalf dissolves Saruman's staff in his hand.
The two towers theory: introducing Sauron at the end of Season 1, Saruman at the end of Season 2, so now both heads of the towers are in play.
"i can’t shake the feeling that the actor’s intonation is pretty much the midpoint of Ian McKellen’s Gandalf and Christopher Lee’s Saruman" (ntraumintraum on Reddit)
Daniel Wayman did an Irish lilt in his voice, that Gandalf doesn't have.
Saruman has a fascinating, tragic journey of going from good to evil, while Gandalf remains good through it all. The former is more compelling for a show like ROP that's built around tragic fates + Saruman's story is still mostly untold and mysterious.
In conclusion, if he is Gandalf, I'll be very disappointed, but can live with it. It would just be a huge missed opportunity, but as of now, I'm pretty convinced that the Stranger is Saruman, and the dark wizard is a bad blue wizard.
So in further conclusion:
Update from 2x06: that Bombadil quote is kinda killing my theory here. ("some that die deserve life") it's such a famous Gandalf quote, but at this point it's so obvious that it feels like it's even more of a red herring. Ugh. idk. i'm confused. I'm starting to think the Stranger is actually Gandalf which is pissing me the fuck off. Dumbest choice ever made on the show 😭💀
Changing my belief system from "this is the hill I'll die on" to "this is the hill I'll kill you on" has done absolute wonders for me 10/10 do recommend
“Do it scared” but please realize that, if you Do It Scared too much and don’t let yourself rest + relax + have fun in between, you will fuck yourself up. If you “do it scared” all day every day, you will burn out badly and quickly. Sometimes this is temporarily necessary but please keep this in mind.
