Here's a link to the art on tumblr. Although it's now in the final chapter, too! So happy to get to the scene and it means so much to me to have art for the story. Thank you, again, @ciriceart!
The season five premiere of The Next Generation was, according to Steve, a very big deal.
Robin had not understood how big a deal it was until he'd rearranged his entire Sunday around it. He'd checked the TV Guide three times that morning. He finished all his chores before noon and the groceries after lunch. He acquired snacks, a frozen pizza to split for dinner, and a six-pack of beer.
She’d never watched Star Trek on purpose before August, and Steve’s confession of being a Trekkie.
After she told him that, Steve spent the afternoon fretting that she wouldn't understand the episode without the context from the previous season. “You don’t even know it’s Trekker, not Trekkie.”
🥄Out now on Dropout - The Don Hertzfeldt Collection!
The films of Don Hertzfeldt - including Lily and Jim, Billy's Balloon, Rejected, The Meaning of Life, Watching Grass Grow, Wisdom Teeth, It's Such a Beautiful Day, World of Tomorrow, World of Tomorrow Episode Two, On Memory, World of Tomorrow Episode Three, and ME - can all be watched now, ad-free on Dropout.tv!
The new award-winning film Paper Trail will be available starting September 1st.
Also when it did die it probably didn’t feel very much pain. Sunfish have a super thick outer layer. The protective outer layer has very few pain receptors. It’s basically a suit of armor.
Like a sea lion can take a bite out of one and the fish won’t be bothered because they just bit into the armor.
This fish is fine.
The seal is getting nothing but tough skin and rubbery tissue (the armor)
The Sunfish’s survival strategy is to save energy and tank damage. Predators can’t get through the hard outside.
All of the actual fish meat parts of the fish, the muscles and organs are in a tiny compact circle deep inside the protective layer that make up most of the absolutely giant fish.
Nothing can get to its vulnerable vital organs- except these orca have figured out how. By exploding it the armor is destroyed and they can pick through the debris for the actual meat.
Modern AU fic idea titled “I Want Your Video” where Eddie Munson deals with bullies who harass him, his friends, or his sheepies by seducing them, taking videos of the sex, and blackmailing them into fucking off. So far it has a hundred percent success rate.
Enter Steve Harrington. He’s the most popular guy in school. Girls love him, teachers love him. Eddie doesn’t think about him much at all beyond selling at the parties he throws in his big house (no parents). But Steve has been watching Eddie, curious and eventually knowing once Tommy starts suddenly leaving the freaks and nerds of Hawkins High alone. When it comes to Steve, Tommy has no poker face; they’ve known each other for too long, and vice versa.
“Don’t,” Tommy warns when he catches Steve eyeing Eddie in the hallway. “He’ll only—It’s not worth it, man.”
But Tommy’s worst fear is being outed, and Steve isn’t sure he cares. Not now that he’s noticed Eddie’s dimpled grin, or the way he talks faster and faster and with his hands when he’s excited about something. Do you know how long it’s been since Steve’s been around someone who let themselves get properly excited about anything beyond who’s dating who or what happened on the court? Which, fine, he gets into that stuff too, but that’s not all he wants to feel engaged in.
He starts getting Eddie’s attention with mild jabs in the hallway—the verbal equivalent of pulling the guy’s pigtails. Nothing particularly cutting, but Eddie’s made his way through most of the popular guys at this point so he zeros in on it like a shark tasting blood in the water. (Maybe he’s bored. Maybe he wants a challenge—Steve likes to think of himself as a challenge. All the girls vying for his attention seem to have the same idea too, judging by how they stop returning his calls after a couple of dates.)
Eddie does his thing: drive-by flirting in the halls, taunting with just enough innuendo to titillate while still retaining plausible deniability. He’s fishing, seeing if Steve will take the bait. And Steve, feeling the thrill of the game in a way he hasn’t in a long time, takes it.
They hook up, and (because Steve knows what to look for) Eddie isn’t even that slick about setting his phone up to record it. He sucks Steve’s soul out through his dick, then looks comically shocked when Steve sits up, says “I’ve never done this before, so feel free to call out any pointers you might have,” and inexpertly but enthusiastically returns the favor.
The next time Steve taunts Eddie in the hallway, Eddie tugs him into the bathroom despite the ring of the tardy bell and lays out his usual terms: cut it out, or the video goes all over social media. But Steve interrupts his spiel to ask, “Did you watch it?”
Eddie’s cheeks start to color. “Well. I mean. To make sure it was obviously you, yeah.”
Steve hums in faux sympathy. “So sometimes you have to do this more than once for it to work? If they’re not recognizable in the video.” Eddie’s jaw drops, and Steve laughs. “Hey man, don’t worry about it. It’s pretty funny, actually. And I had a really good time. Actually, could you send it to me? Or come over again sometime, whatever you’re comfortable with. My parents really aren’t around much, as long as the front porch light is off the coast is clear.”
“… You’re bluffing,” Eddie tries, flustered. Trying for but not really achieving his usual bad boy bravado.
Steve responds by locking the bathroom door, snagging Eddie’s phone from his jacket pocket (the obligatory “I already backed up the file” goes duly ignored), and setting it up to record before putting it back in Eddie’s hand. Then he gets on his knees with a wink and a cheeky “Be sure to get my good side,” before making surprisingly quick work of Eddie’s complicated belt and going gloriously to town.
By lunchtime, Eddie plops down in his usual spot in the cafeteria still feeling shaken to his very core. After blowing him, Steve had persuaded him to unlock his phone so the dude could send himself both videos, and saved his own contact info as “Steve 🍆😜.” In the middle of second period, Steve had texted him an “Eddplant” joke. After third, it had been, “Hey, do you want to hang out sometime? Maybe a movie. Let me know what you like.”
Eddie can’t tell if the game has been turned around on him or if Steve is for real. He doesn’t know if Steve is asking about his preference in movies, associated snacks, or sex. Part of him hopes it’s sex, because Steve is a real quick study. Maybe he should start carrying condoms and lube around, just in case—no, that’s just his horny brain talking.
Or is it?
(It’s not, and Steve thinks it was a genius idea when it pays off later in the week.)
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Really having a moment with "now" and "just" in my writing. Why? No idea. Maybe I've edited out "that" and "even" enough times my brain has decided to use other filler words.
and my take today is that framing misogynistic writing as an "inability to write female characters" subconsciously takes away most of the blame, implying that women are an alien creature compared to men and that it is no fault of the writer because it's out of their skill set. it's not an inability, not a lack of expertise, it's the simple refusal to consider women as individual people and give them the same depth and grace that comes easily to the writer when they write male characters. it's not that christopher nolan, stephen king, james cameron (and frankly anyone using the argument, both professional and hobbyist; yes, that includes fanfic writers) etc can't write women, it's that they just won't. at that point in time it is a conscious decision driven by the laziness to unpack their misogynistic biases, and should be addressed as such
if you want butterflies, you need to live with caterpillars.
i am not being metaphorical, i work in a garden center, stop buying plants 'to bring in the bees and butterflies' and then immediately poisoning every caterpillar that dares to consume a single leaf
you will not get butterflies if you kill all the things that turn into butterflies! what are you doing!
getting a lot of responses to this going 'ok but it would be good as a metaphor though' so I will accept a metaphorical interpretation as long as you ALSO (!) promise to be considerate towards larval forms of insects specifically and biodiversity in general, deal?
Steve’s No Good, Terrible, Kinda Perfect Life After Graduation
Read Chapter 12 - The Patrol Gone Wrong - on AO3
Steve is trying to stay together, and keep his monster in check, as things fall apart around him - his relationship with Eddie is strained, something is wrong with Max, his nightmares are won't stop - then a patrol goes wrong.
I want to live in a world where Steve gets to experience Barbie Girl and Eddie gets to experience Blue (Da Ba Dee) and they’ll annoy each other with how much they play them.
