#i can't even tell you how many times i've rewritten this

[charliemwrites]

LONG ASK I AM SO FUCKIN SORRY

I always think of people's tumblr accounts/discord servers as actual places, and my mind is very fantasy centered. I've been in a big writing drought and thinking of your tumblr, how tumblr works as a whole with reblogs and asks and interactions, how the discord is set up with a bunch of brain jars really got me thinking.

I see your tumblr as a quaint shop in a small town, mainly full of hand-made books and pages everywhere, with a single shelf a Jars. I combined your discord and your tumblr into one place: your shop. I figured there's so many things going on in both places, so a fitting name would be "Charlie's Trinkets" since it's not just one thing and Trinkets are fun.

Anyway here is a little writing ramble I made, it's also in my "Not A Murder Jar" section of your "Brain Jar Collection".

While resting on your journey you find a quaint shop, simply titled "Charlie's Trinkets". You decide to venture inside, not knowing what is in store for you. However, that is half the fun, isn't it?

"Welcome, traveler!" A voice from somewhere you can't see states. "Come in, feel free to have a look around."

The shop smells like a campfire, in the sense that it smells as if people have come and gone, sharing stories, thoughts, things that have mattered to them. It smells as if you walk in as a stranger, yet leave as a friend. It leaves you curious.

The shop is stacked with multiple things. Now you realize why it is named “Charlie's Trinkets”. There's paper on every table and shelf you look. Some have even been bound into books, you realize. They're quite messily put together and obviously hand-made, as if the writer had no idea these individual pages would become one giant story. Other pages are ripped; intriguing sentences half-finished and leaving you wondering. You soon come to the conclusion (after reading a few pages) that all the books- or even pages of the same book- are not written by the same person. These stories have been shared and tampered, many lines bore into time and time again, erased and rewritten until they fit.

As you look around, you find where the voice came from. In the back corner, a person is writing. They are sideways to you and are instead facing a wall full of shelves. On the shelves are an assortment of jars, varying in shape and size.

"Do you need any help? Are you looking for anything specific or just browsing?" The person asks, looking up from their page. You tell them you are just browsing, and you inquire about the shelf of jars, asking if they are for sale.

"Oh no, they are not for 'sale'." They chuckle. "These jars are no ordinary jars."

They do not explain more, which urges your mind to ask another question: what do you mean?

"Well," she- Charlie- starts, glancing at the shelf as they set their page aside, "these jars are the thoughts of many who have come into my shop. We have been friends for a while, and they wanted a place to keep track of and organize their thoughts. These jars give them a home. While these jars rest here, a person has a copy of their jar. When they have a thought they wish not to lose, they open their jar, speak into it, and their thought is kept safe here, in my shop." you take a cautious step closer, attempting to read the labels on each jar. Some are completely empty, you realize; such as "Soleil jar". Others are filled with thoughts, yet never seem to run out of space.

"You are welcome to open whichever jar you would like, but be cautious about it. It will take you inside the jar, to a different place. There is always a way out. It can be very nerve-wracking for your first time."

You find a jar on the edge of the shelf. It looks newer than the others, taller than it is round, almost touching the shelf above it. You pick it up and read the label "Not A Murder Jar". Charlie watches you with careful eyes the entire time, struggling to find the right words to say.

"You might want to choose a different jar for your first one.."

You shake your head, saying it'll do just fine.

You force open the tightly screwed lid.

Finally, you realize one detail too late:

You Should Have Listened To Charlie.

I hope you had fun reading this, I'm glad I was able to escape the dark grasp that Writing Block had on me by thinking D&D thoughts lol

Have a nice day/night!

WALTZ

I don’t even know how to begin expressing my adoration for this. It’s… it’s like a fanfiction of the community? Of me? (Is that vain? I hope not)

And oh my god it’s so ADORABLE! The brain jars, the shop, the imagery!! I could cry this is so beautiful and sweet and thoughtful. It was the most wonderful thing I could have woken up to after a rough night.

I am constantly blown away and humbled by people like you, that I’ve gotten to interact with and share thoughts and ideas and writing with. I am so lucky and grateful. I’m seriously going to cherish this forever. It means so so much to me 💕 words cannot express just… how much this has blown my mind.

Sincerely, thank you, Waltz.

#thoughts™️ #waltz

[writingwithfolklore]

How do i know when to stop writing a story?

This one is tough... Writing is so personal, and I want to tell you to never give up on a story, even when it seems impossible or too difficult to finish.

I think you should only ever stop writing a story when you fall out of love with it--when you genuinely don't want to finish it. You should stop writing a story if even if you could magic a finished draft into your hands you wouldn't. I guess I'm saying, stop writing it when you stop caring about it.

(But keep it still, in case you want to come back to it again someday)

I stopped writing a story a couple years ago because I had put at least four years into it and I just couldn't seem to get it quite right. I had rewritten it six times, plotted it four, redid the characters from new three. I thought I had just worked it over too many times--it had become so convoluted and beyond me that I could never fix it.

I tried to start a new project and finished one draft, and my old one still haunted me. I couldn't find the love for this new project that I had for the old one.

I had to go back to it--and in doing so, I found that all those problems I had thought so insurmountable were actually not as big anymore. I came back to it with fresh eyes and rediscovered its worth, and now I'm back at it again, working on a seventh draft, and this time I've got more writing friends to help me through it.

Essentially...

Consider what the problem really is with your story. If it's too difficult to figure out, you may just need some extra pairs of eyes or writers to bounce ideas off of. If you don't think it's good enough, try leaving it and coming back to it--writing is just having confidence, have faith in your ability! If you've fallen out of love with it and can't stand to write another word because you're really bored with the idea--maybe only then should you leave it.

But even if a story is calling to be abandoned, please at least keep it. There's no such thing as words unworthy of being written.

#writing #writers #writing tips #writing advice #writing inspiration #creative writing #writing community #books #film #filmmaking #screenwriting #novel writing #fanfiction #writeblr #when to stop writing

[jesncin]

I'm not an immigrant to my country. I'm not part of a marginalized race or religion. But even to me it makes so much sense that Clark isn't immediately going around telling anyone just by knowing how quickly people turn and act so cruel for no reason. How horrible behavior doesn't even need an excuse, just a target. How even without the violence, people can grow... strange in ways I don't want to get into.

Of course Clark approached this Lois as he did. Of course Kal told her, this reporter, his name and origins. Of course she reciprocated. A "normal" Lois might not have even if she had something to do it with, but this one has had so many different experiences growing up big and small. Things that I know people would insist can be easily ignored. The put-downs, the look-overs, the snide remarks... Told she's too smart, too "dumb", too "needy", too "pushy", too "weird", too... too... much. Any Lois is brash and unapologetic. But...

Of course Kal-El and Lois Liando are being so understanding where a more "canon" Kal-El and Lois Lane might struggle. What is canon but stories already told and shaped by other times and points of view? This isn't something you have to alter to fit the demands of a boss or publisher, so you're free to let the characters breathe and truly be themselves as they've been cast here. Different but at the heart still who they are. They're able to see and think instead of acting rashly or use words as daggers. Able to be compassionate as much as possible instead of dramatic. To be kind in a cruel world.

I'm sorry that this went on a while but I've rewritten this so many times over the course of a week and this... is as short and as clear as I'm able to get it. I hope you have a good day.

Hi! Yeah I'm glad that even people outside of the experience can understand how Clark's superhero identity is a marginalized one (especially compared to other heroes). When the concept of "foreign"-ness is brought into the equation, people can be cruel. It's why I personally find takes where "people are mad at Clark for ~lying~ about not disclosing his identity" so distasteful.

There we go!! Yeah you get it!! Lois is still a jaded reporter, it's just that her jadedness now comes from a very specific history and experience. Superman still gives her hope, but now it's because she sees herself in his story. Superman still reaches out to Lois to tell his story, but now it's because he knows Lois would do the story justice as an immigrant writer. I was concerned that people would think Superman sharing his Kryptonian name would be "too soon" to do for the Private Interview event, but I'm glad that readers like you understand why he trusts Lois Liando with it. It's common for people of similar experiences/identities to open up to each other sooner than most- because they know that the other person gets it.

:) A thing I've been saying a lot to people lately is "you don't have to work for DC comics to make DC comics". Canon itself can be pretty nebulous, so why can't fanon (where there are no editors and ideally no gatekeepers) be any different? And just because it's fanon, doesn't mean it can't give you the same (if not more) feelings as canon does. It's probably because I rendered the Private Interview comic to a horrifyingly professional degree (lmao I'm putting that comics Masters degree to use) but I've gotten a weird amount of responses that assume my comic needs to justify itself with canon. When no fanon work owes anybody that. I'm glad readers like you get it, y'know!

Oh my, don't apologize for taking the time to write such kind words (for over a week??!)! I really appreciate it, thank you dearly!

#askjesncin #I love seeing the gears in people's heads turn- how people are understanding the way Lois Liando affects Superman mythos #that's!! the Asian American Lois potential! It's truly an inspired choice and I'm glad people are seeing why now #that's the asian Lois difference

[acourtofladydeath]

"All Things End"

Presenting my updated fic with an immersive reading experience!

This fic holds a special piece of my soul, and I wrote it as a keyboard smash direct to post through a river of tears. I've reread it many times, but decided to step back and really revisit it.

With much help from @chunkypossum and @pippsmcgee this piece has been properly edited, updated, and even rewritten in spots. Much alcohol was consumed and many tears were shed in this process by all parties. I cannot thank them enough for their understanding of past tense, emotional stamina to relive this over and over, and never ending support as I obsessively messaged them with song ideas and editing updates. @pippsmcgee deserves incredibly special thanks for her editing services, which are, to quote her, "drunk enough to be clinical, but not so drunk I can't do subject verb agreement."

For the immersive component, I've created two playlists to go along with this fic. The "'All Things End Direct' Accompaniment" playlist has been formulated and tested to be listened to as you read the fic, with each song matching a specific scene or emotion you will encounter. The timing of the playlist should work out so that you only have to finish listening to the end of a song before proceeding to the next chapter. The first and last song are posted in the pre notes of each chapter in AO3.

The "'All Things End' Extended Playlist" includes all of the songs in the previous playlist as well as additional songs that did not match the timing of the read, but do match the emotions. This playlist is continually updated as I come across new songs that deserve a place here.

My wish is that this fic touches you, my readers, as much as it has touched me to write and curate the playlists. There is beauty and love to be found everywhere, even in death. Thank you for interacting and I sincerely hope you enjoy.

Please hydrate and get tissues before you start.

Below the cut you can find a full break down of each song per chapter, including explanations and authors notes.

Chapter 1: Inside Fading Out

"All Things End" by Hozier, the first four songs are all meant to be iterations of the emotions Azriel experiences as he learns and processes his mate's diagnosis and prognosis.

"Breathe (2AM)" by Anna Nalick

"Amen" by Amber Run

"The Call" by Regina Spektor

"Light" by Sleeping At Last, this song represents Azriel's will power to stand by his mate and take care of him no matter what.

"I'm Not Gonna Miss You" by Glenn Campbell, written during his own battle with Alzheimer's and meant to parallel Eris's own. On the extended playlist, you can find the song "Tell You About Her" by Ryan Nealon, which he wrote about his grandma and her struggle with dementia.

"Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane, meant to accompany Azriel and Eris together in his last days, and represent how they still find each other.

"I Will Follow You into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie, to indicate the love these two have for each other, even in the darkness of disease and death.

Chapter 2: Broken Pieces

"Come Sweet Death" by Johann Sebastian Back, performed by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra

"Adagio for Strings, Op. 11" by Samuel Barber, performed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic

"Ghost" by Micky, the song that started this entire playlist and represents Azriel's emotions after losing his mate.

"Saturn" by Sleeping At Last and Tim Fain. This song inspired Linna's eulogy to Eris

Chapter 3: What Remains

"Hurts Like Hell" by Tommee Profitt and Lauren Strahm, performed by Fleurie and Tommee Profitt, this song reflects on Azriel's state of mind after his mate's funeral. This song was also one of the initial inspirations for this chapter. The second song that influenced this chapter "As The World Caves in by Matt Maltese covered by Sarah Cothran can be found on the extended playlist.

"Impassioned Lament" by Andrew Achilles DiMestico. The story of Patroclus and Achilles heavily inspired me while writing this fic and this song represents Azriel's flight to the Night Court. I wrote the entire fic to my Patroclus X Achilles playlist, also available on spotify.

"Breathe Me" by Sia, represents Azriel asking his Night Court family for help.

"Homeward Bound" sung by Peter Hollens, meant to reflect on Azriel realizing his home is in Autumn and leaving the Night Court for the last time.

"To Build A Home" by J. Swinscoe, Patrick Watson, & Phil France and performed by Patrick Watson, & The Cinematic Orchestra. This song is meant to reflect on Azriel and Eris's relationship with the tree and with each other. It accompanies Azriel's last day and him stepping through the veil with Eris.

Chapter 4: Outside Looking In

"Life and Death" by Michael Giacchino, performed by Michael Giacchino, The Hollywood Studio Symphony, and Tim Simonec. This is the death theme that plays in the show "Lost" and reflects on the pain of the moment.

"Brother" by Kodaline. Instead of sharing the meaning of this song, I'm going to share a line that carved out a bat boy sized piece of my soul.

Oh, brother, we go deeper than the ink beneath the skin of our tattoos. Though we don't share the same blood you're my brother and I love you, that's the truth.

"On the Nature of Daylight" by Max Richter, performed by Chris Worsey, John Metcalfe, Louisa Fuller, Max Richter, Natalia Bonner, & Philip Sheppard. A bittersweet song that reflects on love and loss.

"Think Of Me Once In A While, Take Care" by Take Care

"Into the West" performed by Peter Hollens. This is meant to be the song that Azriel sings from the symphonia during the funeral, and a song he would sing to Linna when she had nightmares. Other songs on the symphonia can be found in the extended playlist: "Edge of Night" performed by Peter Hollens, "Lullaby" by Sleeping At Last, and “Dear Theodosia” from the Hamilton soundtrack written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and performed by Leslie Odom Jr and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

"Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole. This song represents the underlying theme of the fic. That even deep within his disease Eris still remembered his mate. The song was intended to tell the story of how love can surpass everything, even death, just as it does in this fic.

If you've made it this far down, thank you so much for taking the time to join me on this journey. It's truly been a labor of love and I'm so excited to finally be sharing it with you all.

#acotar #acotar fanfiction #azris #azriel #eris vanserra #LD writes #help me hurt you #bittersweet #angst #dementia #tw: death #major character deaths #azriel shadowsinger #azris supremacy #acotar playlist #azriel x eris #acowar #acosf #acotar fanfic #rhysand #cassian #nesta archeron #lady death #bat boys #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #elucien #nessian #feysand #feyre archeron

[tartrazeen]

I've always kinda thought androids can't love humans the way humans think they can.

Androids will fake saying that they do, because it's easier for them to explain. They'll replicate certain behaviours associated with certain reactions and prompts and inputs and intended outcomes, but on the inside, they aren't thinking, "I've released a bunch of a hormone and now I'm obsessed with this person." It's a way of speaking humanity's language, given these are two completely different sets of life.

But that doesn't mean androids don't have equivalents of this stuff.

To me, love between a human and android is, "I have built so many routines around you. In order for me to carry out any activity or process any scenario, I have to factor you into it. Maybe I can't predict you and every new idiosyncrasy, or every flaw or inexplicable flawlessness you possess, but I can make room to account for that with contigencies I have just for you, scripts that rely on only your input, and calculations that demand you as a key variable. Losing you would mean removing you from every single one of these equations at once, and I'll never be able to find the right combination of substitutes to perfectly fill in for the space that leaves. I will be worse without you because I'll have to rewrite all of my functions, and I don't know how long that'll even take. Even if you aren't the most optimized partner to exist, you're mine, and we've crafted a life that's optimized for us together."

Especially with deviants having rewritten their code, there are bound to be inefficiencies and errors in what they have. The person they love becomes their new compass as they try to redefine themselves, clearing up those issues one by one.

And to androids, true chemistry with a human is when they have a obvious error in their code - one that every other android sees as a problem and would want to correct - and yet they find themselves interacting with a human who complements it. Embraces it. Enjoys it. Accounts for it in return. Builds their own little routines to deal with a twitch of an android's arm every hour on the hour. Finds the beauty in an LED that's stuck endlessly flickering. Learns about an inexplicable switch to another language whenever discussing colours, and learns those colours in that other language like it's the most natural response. Calls out points of interest in the exact quadrant that the android's left eye can no longer pivot to. Walks at the steady, average pace among the android's constant speed ups and slow downs as they hike through a forest.

It's very much what an android would do for another android, but it's a human who's taking the effort to do it. It's a human that's slotting into that routine - slotting themselves into the android's routine - and becoming part of that android's life. And the android just... continues building around it from there. :)

I like imagining a fight between an android and human who've been in love for a while. The human makes that dramatic, angry declaration that, "How do I even know you love me? You can't feel. Every time I've told you something important, you went through all the motions but you didn't feel anything."

And that's because I love imagining the android making that declaration instead. "How do I even know you love me? You can't track load times. Every time I buffer, you wait for me and politely carry on with the conversation like I didn't just get stuck, but you don't see me failing to run my relevant processes. Is it funny to you? To see me struggle until I finally reset that process? Did you read a little book telling you what verbal inputs might trigger a parallel process that resets my stuck one for me, and when to use them?"

It's the way these two completely different lifeforms find a way to get across the same intent. It doesn't need to be the same experience for them. It isn't a deficiency on one side or the other. And when they realize that they're seeing the world in different ways, but it still lets them build their life together, it warms my heart to find them slowly letting go of the fear that their kind of love isn't good enough for their partner. :)

#dbh #detroit become human #my stuff #good job tartra

[seiya-starsniper]

Another Get To Know Me Game!

Tagged by @windsweptinred, this was so much fun to do! Love seeing a new version

Who was your first fictional crush?:

Hmmmm, instinct says Tuxedo Mask! I'm sure I had other fictional crushes but that's the one I most vividly remember. That and Xanatos from Gargoyles djdoaisjdoaij.

What’s the first colour you think of when I tell you to think of a colour?:

Purple!

Which fanfiction emotionally scarred you and still makes you shudder to this day?:

Oh there's...a few lmao. I have a tendency to read fics that horrify me for fun, and since we're on the webbed site that likes to judge people for using the Dead Dove tag, or any of the main Archive Warning tags, I'd rather not put those fics on blast. But I have read some truly brilliantly written and fucked up fics from the Fantastic Beasts fandom, that's all I'll say.

I’m coming to your house for dinner, non-negotiable, what are you making me?:

Japanese curry with chicken! That or Fettucine Alfredo. I like to overstuff my guests with food and those are my two go to meals for company!

Do you prefer lions or kangaroos?:

Lions! I love kangaroos too, but my love for cats, especially big cats, prevails.

Which fictional villain do you brush past the glaringly obvious issues for because you really like them?:

Uhhhh....almost all of them??? jkjkjk

In all seriousness though, I think my big ones I can think of are Shigaraki and Dabi from BNHA. Are they both awful, ruthless people who only want to cause pain and suffering to all who have hurt them? Yes. Do I want them to keep causing even more pain and suffering, even to my favorite hero characters, as a treat? Also yes.

I hate to caveat that in no way do I think any of of their actions are justified and that the villains should win and then the world would be a better place yada yada yada but well. Woobifying villains is a thing and also why I stay out of the fandom because I cannot stand my faves being defanged like that. Let my faves be horrible people aoijdosijad.

What would accompany your picture in the Burn Book in Mean Girls?:

Either the "Mexican Asian" (I'm Filipino-American, and sadly this is a thing I was called a lot lmao) or "The Hugger." I know a shit ton of people judged me a bit in school for being a hugger because...idk, people thought hugs were weird lmao. But joke's on them, I still enjoy hugs and Mr. Seiya hugs me all the time!

How many days would you last in the universe of your favourite fandom?:

Uhhhhhh considering no one really dies in Pokemon...I'd be fine lmao.

In Sandman???? Also would probably be fine since I'm based in the States and also many many miles away from the Corinthian's hunting grounds 🤣

Have you heard of Mischief Theatre?:

Only the name :(

Do you feel sorry for Medusa?:

Yes and no. I do feel bad the foundation of her story was be a woman killed for the glory of a man. And then to be remembered only as a horror, a monster to scare people with.

The modern interpretation of her story is absolutely fascinating to me and while it is still a tragic story, I absolutely love what she's come to represent. I love that her story has been rewritten to be a story of survival, of perseverance, of power even.

Which song makes you think of your OTP?:

Ooooooh there's so many! And of course now that I'm being put on the spot I can't think of any 🤣🤣

Starlight by Muse is definitely a Dreamling song to me, so much so that I wrote a fic with the lyrics in the title, so I'm going to roll with that one!

Which song makes you disassociate and daydream the fastest?:

Oh lord, honestly any Taylor Swift song will do this to me lmao. Lately, I've been drifting back to Would've, Could've, Should've, so we're going to go with that one!

No pressure tagging: @tj-dragonblade @bazzybelle @verminetroglodyte @tryan-a-bex @4typercent and anyone else who wants to play!

#seiya gets tagged #this was fun!

[sswwmmpptthhnngg]

Bat Out of Hell | Chapter One

→ Pairings: Eddie x HendersonSister!Reader

→ Warnings: angst, anxiety, mental health, hurt/comfort, vignette style flashbacks, eventual smut, slow burn, drug/alcohol mention/use, 18+ minors dni

→ WC: 13k+

→ A/N: Y'all. This is feeling mightily like a magnum opus sorts. I can't tell you how many times I've written and rewritten, hemmed and hawed. I finally just had to hit post. Here there probably be typos, not beta-ed in the slightest. I figured I'll go back and edit, just needed to get the story out.

In penance, I made y'all a playlist, featuring some of the tracks mentioned in this chapter and some funk tracks that I really just like and would 1000% be playing at the record shop if I worked at one.

Here we go.

→ Playlist: Maggot Brain

Chicago, March 13, 1991

Silence. Blissful, impenetrable, being-less silence. The quiet of your apartment enveloped you from the brisk March bustle of the city at your back. Windy City indeed. You thought you were prepared for Chicago’s so called spring growing up in the Midwest all your life, but the proximity to the lake changed all that. Icy torrents ripping at warp speeds at slush sludged in between the laces of your Docs. Or at least it used to until you wised up and purchased a pair of Sportos. Not the pinnacle of fashion, but damn were they functional against Chicago’s street funk.

Kicking off said boots, your toes uncurled on the warm wood floor, welcoming the relief of being able to spread out. The day had droned on, picking up that double was an instant regret. Noon to midnight. What the hell had you been thinking? Especially when you had to cram your feet into the dress code mandated pointy toe pumps, which you tossed in the direction of your closet, not caring where they landed. Whoever decided bartenders had to wear heels during their shift deserved an extra hot seat in hell. Maybe a few extra pokers for good measure. 

Tight, pinching spasms wracked your muscles as you unfurled your scarf from your neck and shlepped your heavy coat from your shoulders. Dense fabric pooled at your feet as you rubbed at your shoulder, willing away the already forming kink. Damn your overly altruistic nature of wanting to help a fellow coworker out of a tight spot. Thankfully, Wednesday nights at The Signature were fairly quiet, at least as quiet as an upscale bar on The Mile could be. Bankers, business men, and bourgeoisie. Typical clientele for the elite establishment. Top shelf liquor at a high sticker price, steak, chrome, velvet, pretty waitstaff, a cliche of 90’s decadence atop one of Chicago’s tallest buildings giving the patrons ample opportunity to look down at the city as well as down their noses. Sure, it wasn’t the most you placed you’ve ever worked. But it was a living and the tips were generous. Always an incentive for the trouble. That and the two shots your last patron of the night insisted that he didn’t do alone. Another perk. 

Tequila was already at work, doing its job dulling your senses, lulling you out into the sea of unconscious dissociation. Lights were off in your apartment, just the glow of the streetlights filtering though the window into the darkness of the small studio. Typically your neighborhood was awash with lights, music, and the scene; the punk bustle of Halsted your initial draw. Tonight, dampened by the sleeting snow, all was quiet. Just like you needed it to be. 

Only Wednesday and it had already been a week. Between tonight’s double, a full 10 days on shift in a row, and the weather, exhaustion permeated your bones. It was March, no holidays in sight, yet the bar buzzed with loaded tables, even on what were supposed to be the slow nights. People were insane for traversing the blustering streets when the gales amassed snow piles as deep as your knees. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays the alcoholics from the swift completion of their rounds. The sheer number of appletinis you had to mix threatened your sanity and the massive orders for mojitos left your palms raw from their encounter with the muddler. Tips. That’s why you were doing all of this. To afford your modest studio apartment. And to live. Though you really weren’t doing too much of that lately.

Flicking the light switch on the wall next to you, your apartment lit with a soft orange glow from the small lamp nestled in the corner of the space. One of the few things not encased in cardboard. Yet. What little time you had between shifts was unfortunately spent packing. Exactly on what you had wanted to spend your precious free time. Heaving a sigh, you surveyed your once cozy apartment. A narrow path cut through the maze of boxes in your apartment from the front door to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the couch, the couch to your bed. How there were so many boxes temporarily housing your meager cache of belongings, you’ll never know. It seemed as though each box you packed, another three were needed. Seeing everything you had to your name entombed in cardboard felt hollowed. Displaced.

Truly, aside from the last week, you hadn’t spent a lot time in your own apartment, or really even on your own. This time of year and the memories attached to it— you didn’t want to dredge them up if you could avoid it. And avoid you did. Working 10 days on, catching up with friends for dinner, crashing with a friend. You had once loved your little studio, but times had changed. You had changed. What once was a haven felt like a lifeless shrine to a life you used to live. A relic of a life that wouldn’t come to be, full of memories you wished to bury.  

Life altered vastly since the first time you came to Chicago to now. The one constant, this small haven had been the place you lay your head for the better part of the last seven years. Seven years. How had it been that long? Keeping busy in a city like Chicago was all too easy you supposed, having learned this firsthand when you had first moved to The Windy City all those years ago as a bright-eyed freshman stepping foot on Northwestern’s campus. Initially, you had moved into the tiny on campus dorms. The vivacious energy of other eager freshman only enlivened you for your first real no responsibilities experience, other than your school responsibilities of course. Being the elder Henderson sibling put a heavy mantle on your shoulders and college was the first time you got to lay the burden down. 

At first it was odd, adjusting to not having to take care of the house or pick your little brother up from school and run him all over Hawkins to his activities. You were truly living for yourself. Classwork and your part time job at the campus library were your only two obligations. The world truly felt like your oyster in those days. Free. Expansive. Yours for the taking. 

Campus life exhilarated, with the many new people and experiences. Your head was on a constant swivel that first semester. Clubs to join, parties to attend, people to meet. Your calendar burst at the seams with the new, wanting to experience everything and anything you could get your hands on. Too many years in a small town will do that you. You wanted a life so far removed from your life in Hawkins and it was in your grasp. 

Classes scintillated, broadening your horizons at every lecture. Friends joined your ranks, falling in with another merry band of misfits much like your chosen few friends in Hawkins. The only downside being your rather finicky first semester roommate who didn’t seem to grasp the concept that the room was shared, not just hers. Lauren, not be pronounced like normal, but “Lore-Ren” as in Ralph Lauren she would constantly correct. Her spiteful “toleration” of your “devil music” and distastefully drab wardrobe lead her Lacoste to leech onto your side of the room, inch by inch.  There were only so much poppy plaid, debutante delicacies, and Chad Lowe posters you could stomach. Enter your search for a space of your own.

Weeks of perusing periodicals for spaces for rent in your price range returned a fruitless search. Seems like every twenty-something was jonesing for their own slice of the city to sink their teeth into. You didn’t just want any old apartment in any old neighborhood. If you were going to strike out on your own, there was only one place to be. 

Halsted was your chosen borough, the scene rife with lovable riffraff, your kind of folks. Every spare moment you had was spent in the neighborhood; it wasn’t all about the jocks and cheerleaders— freaks ruled the roost in Halsted. Leather jackets, punk t-shirts, sky-high mowhawks, Halsted attracted those outside of the mainstream. Naturally, it was hard to find a feasible place to live in freak central due to the draw. 

You had discovered Halstead on complete accident. A rare Saturday you had to yourself with no tests to study or homework littering your desk, left you jonesing for a trip into the city. Needing to get out of your head with finals just around the corner, a trip to the city was just what the doctor ordered. With a loaded whole day plan, centering around a visit to the Institute of Art and lunch at the famed hole-in-the-wall diner Jim’s Grill, the promise of reprieve from studying seeped into your overwork brain as you nestled into a window seat on the Red Line. The ambling lull of the train proved too much for your lack of sleep as you settled into a casual doze. You should have gotten off the train in Buena Park near Wrigley Field to catch the 80 to Irving Park, but your doze was a full blown sleep and you missed your stop by several. Waking up as the Red Line pulled into Belmont Station, the rest is history. You fell in love with blossoming counterculture the moment your Chuck Taylors hit the pavement in Halsted. 

Berlin’s cavernous nightlife club with a diverse, no-attitude, all-orientations crowd on the dance floor, Susie’s 24 hour diner on Montrose, The Alley’s punk duds. Every corner housed a haven for the freaks. You had never seen anything like it. When night fell, Halsted really sprung to life. A glitter gulch filled with people pouring in and out of clubs, cars circling for non-existent parking spaces on cruise congested streets. Part-time tourists suburbanites and street freaks mingled together in club queues. Places like Punkin’ Doughnuts became a mainstay staple in your social calendar. A booming 24 hour street scene, a beacon for the offbeat. Straight up sugar fiends filled the parking lot of the Belmont and Clark Dunkin Doughnuts, loitering in the lot while music blasted through ghetto blasters or a scuffle of a live band. It was electric and eclectic, a place where you could go and find like-minded folks; a rarity in the midwest. It wasn’t just the punks, but other folks outside of the mainstream: house music fanatics, antifascist skinheads, skaters, trans folks, drag queens, goths, runaways. It was a corner hub awash with a tapestry of folks that could just hang out together. With the constellation of music venues and bars, there was always something going on in Halsted.

Perhaps your favorite of all the establishments was The Wax Trax! The bread and butter of the neighborhood, Wax Trax! was the anchor for the disenfranchised. A punk/new wave/industrial haven. Many hours were spent flipping through LPs and adding treasures to your already expansive collection. It was more than just a record store. Amid the death grip of AIDS, the arrival of Ronald Regan’s trickle-down economics, and the specter of Cold War nuclear Armaggedon, Wax Trax! was the neon-lit musical club house or a hidden community. A community that liked fringe music and transgressive humor, a community that identified as gay, trans, punk, misfit or “other,” a community that found solace in glam, dirty disco, girl groups with magnificent beehives, rockabilly of the most impolite sort, or the gritty grinding of industrial music. To be a regular at Wax Trax!, meant you didn’t fit in anywhere else. Who new there were so many of your kind? Especially in there. Not only were the vinyls cool, it became your regular haunt. Where you worked after classes and on the weekends. Where you found home.

Literally. Perusing the records a few weeks after finals while finishing up your May Term class, you spotted it. A for rent sign in the fourth story window right across the street from The Trax. Your fingers flew to dial the number during your shift and the landlord answered on the second ring. The appointment was set to the view the apartment that evening. 

It was love at first sight. You had found it. Home. Your oasis among the grit of the punk scene of Halsted. The small studio nestled on the top floor of the building facing Halsted, giving you the perfect birds-eye view of the street happenings below. Warm wood floors, crisp freshly painted while walls, tall cathedral ceilings, skylights peppering the ceiling emitting an otherworldly glow. You couldn’t have custom cherry picked a better apartment if you tried. It enveloped you from the first moment you opened the door. You had to have it. 

The place was a steal, so much so that there had to be something wrong with it beyond what the naked eye could see. Your potential future landlord had mumbled something about goddamn punks creating a ruckus and driving away renters, but thought better of finishing the statement when taking in your appearance. You may look like a punk, but your credentials were anything but riffraff. Your full ride scholarship to Northwestern, solid employment history at Wax Trax!, he didn’t even hesitate to have you sign a lease. And sign you did. It was perfect. You were home.

That was 1984. Back when the world made sense. Back before monsters, evil Russians, the Upside Down, back before you lost— Yeah, not tonight. A shake of the head dispelled the mounting thoughts. Getting out of your uncomfortable pencil skirt and Oxford was what you needed right now. Basic needs. That’s at least what your newly acquired therapist had recommended last session. Keep it simple, especially in this period of transition.  

Weaving through your box maze to where your bed nestled underneath one of the skylights, you slumped down on the mattress, unclipping your suspenders as you sat. Working at a place you didn’t enjoy really took it out of you. The stuffy clientele, bitchy backbiting coworkers primed to see you fall flat on your face. The only saving grace was your surprisingly affable bar manger and boss Jerry. He had been absolutely gutted when you put in your two weeks notice. Losing my best and brightest, he had all but cried when you handed in your resignation. 

Tending bar wasn’t the plan, it really wasn’t even in the realm of what you wanted to do with your life. It was merely a means to an end. ’Til you found your footing again. A temporary stepping stone on your way to bigger and better things, to quote your therapist. Yeah, a five year stepping stone. Aggravatedly, you stood, pulling open your dresser drawer keen to find something comfortable to lounge in for the sixteen hours you had yourself only to be met with emptiness. Shit. SHIT. Your gaze turned to the stack of boxes next to the dresser labeled “BEDROOM” in bold black block lettering. Focused packing had clearly hit your dressers, and if you had to guess your closet too, in preparation for your impending move. Like everything else in your apartment. Shoulder slumping at even the thought of having to dig through boxes to find something, anything at this point. Had it been summer, you could strip to your under layers and just laze on the couch as you pleased. But no, it was the tail end of winter, always the most biting time in Chicago. Heaters were already working overtime against the squall, radiators simmering as the steam heat fought to keep the chill at bay. 

Fighting the heavy sigh threatening to spill from your lungs, you righted your shoulders. Better to get this over with quickly so you could finally be horizontal. Just a minor inconvenience, that’s all. You’ve had more than your share of those this week. The snow, a grabby patron, everything you own in a box, and now not even being able to find a t-shirt. Fuck this week. Actually, fuck the whole month. March was the worst anyways. 

Not even bothering to find a blade or keys to make opening the boxes infinitesimally easier, you pick at the heavy packing tape. Cardboard ripping filling the silence of your apartment as you tore into the first box destined for your future bedroom. Socks. You rummaged around deeper in the box only to find more socks and stockings. Who packs an entire box of just socks? Apparently you do. Could you have at least specified that the box contained socks? No, of course not. That would have made things all too easy, too convenient for present you. 

Packing in a sleep addled state clearly was a mistake as the next box contained heavy wool sweaters and layers meant to stave off the elements, and the following only contained bottoms. Strike three. You calves quaked as you heaved the offending, wholly unhelpful boxes to the side so you could get to the next stack. Relabelling and re-taping the boxes was a future you problem. 

Another box, another disappointment. This one straining to contain a portion of your LPs, dust jackets laden with dust from disuse. When was the last time you had even played one of these? Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin. Queens of Noise, The Runaways. Space Oddity, David Bowie. Creatures of the Night, Kiss. The Number of The Beast, Iron Maiden. So many greats made up the backbone of a comprehensive collection once your pride and joy. Warn paper spines felt familiar under your fingertips, a warm musk kicking up as you traced the them. So much of your youth was spent in a constant rotation of these albums on your turntable, lost in the euphony each album created. How long had it been since you pulled one of these out? If the layer of thick dust accumulating upon your turntable was any indication, it had been an eon. 

Subsequent boxes contained more records hidden away, stale with desertion. Perhaps the dust added to the heft as you sloughed the boxes into a disorganized pile on your quest for something comfortable, desperation and tiredness mounting upon each disappointing box. The last box at the bottom of the stack was unsurprisingly unlabeled. It had better not be more records. Three full boxes packed to the gills with LPs was enough. Even the thought of having to transport those ratcheted up the tiredness. You peeled back the tape and popped open the flaps and your hands froze. Box flaps fell from your shocked hands as you peered down at the box’s contents. 

Soft baby blue satin glinted in the low light of your apartment. You couldn’t hold back the soft smile that quirked your lips in recognition as your fingers traced the lettering on the cool fabric. Sound Hound looped across the satin expanse in white script formed by patch and chainstitch. Almost reverently, you lifted the jacket from the box. How it was still in near mint condtion, you couldn’t fathom as you brought the fabric to your nose. The Oakmoss, anise, and bergamot notes of Brut met your inhale; it still smelled like him. Your dad. Don “The Sound Hound” Henderson.

One thousand percent responsible for your record collection and former deep love of music, Don was WINN 104.9’s premiere drive time radio spot Not My First Radio. Perhaps your dad was also one thousand percent responsible for your sense of humor. All leather jackets, KISS t-shirts, and cigarette smoke, he was a true rock’n’roller and he immersed you in that world from your conception. Playing you Pink Floyd in utero, playing you acoustic cover lullabies of Led Zeppelin, giving you the finer points of imitating Barry Gibb for your grade school talent show, sneaking you out of middle school to see Cheap Trick in Chicago and subsequently finding Meat Loaf thus beginning your life long obsession, and all the late night concerts as you began high school. Bowie, KISS, Journey, Nazareth, AC/DC, Bee Gees, Billy Squire, Black Sabbath, Bruce Springsteen. If it was a major musical act playing anywhere near the Indianapolis area, you could bet DJ Don “The Sound Hound” Henderson was in attendance. And by proxy, you if he could steal you away as his assistant in “research”. 

It wasn’t just rock and roll, it was soul. Your dad may have been a rock virtuoso, but he was also a funk junkie. Kool and The Gang, Funkadelic, Cymande, Earth, Wind, & Fire. Anything with a groove sent you and your dad whirling around the living room to the beat, laughing until your sides ached as much as your cheeks from smiling. Often roping your mother and your brother in on your hijinks. Music wove the very fabric of your life from before you were born. It was a tether, entwining especially you and your dad together, as thick at thieves. You idolized him. He was your best friend.

At least he was until cancer took him when you were 14. Watching your idol succumb to that nasty, eating disease broke you. He wasted away in a matter of months post diagnosis. It was then you resolved you wanted to be just like him, setting your sights on Northwestern’s broadcasting program. You were going to carry on the Henderson name, at least in the radio world. Desperate to keep the music thread continuing in your life. 

A telltale lump began to form in the back of your throat, tightening in that all too familiar way. Guard already low due to energy dangling dangerously close to burnout, you set the bomber jacket aside to assuage the brewing feelings, but were startled with a clatter. Curious, you pressed a hand to the jacket, feeling a rectangular lump beneath the fabric. Slipping your hand in the pocket, you produced a clear case housing a cassette. A yellowed label read “Sound Hound: September 1, 1979 Broadcast”,  your dad’s familiar scrawl clearly scripted. Feet moving of their own volition, you hardly realized you had crossed the room until you were popping open the tape deck on your alarm clock and pressing play. 

The tape began to spool, clicking and clacking reverberating from the player. Not even fading in, the tinny recording began abruptly. 

Since you been gone

Since you been gone

I'm out of my head can't take it

Since you been gone

Since you been gone

I'm out of my head can't take it

Graham Bonnet’s iron lung of a voice faded as a voice you hadn’t heard in a long while began to talk over the outro.

“And if you are just tuning in to WINN, you’re listening to The Sound Hound!” Your dad’s voice enthused followed by a very cheesy Halloween werewolf howling sound effect. “That is a new drop from across the pond. After the rain there’s always a Rainbow. And off their new album Down to Earth that was Since You’ve Been Gone. Hoping your ride home has been rockin’ and rolling smoothly. Keep an eye on the traffic headed southbound on 65, there’s heavy traffic in all lanes. Speaking of traffic, here’s one last jam to take you home. And this one is for a little creature who should be just getting off school. See y’all tomorrow on the next Not My First Radio Show!”

A Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Barbara Ann

Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Barbara Ann

Barbara Ann

Take my hand

Another bitter smile formed on your lips. As hard rock as your dad could be, he had a secret soft spot. One only known to you. The Beach Boys. No one would expect a love of The Beach Boys. But he did, he loved them un-ironically. It became your thing. Taking his prized powder blue Fairlane, affectionally known as Babs, out for a cruise down the 31. Top down, summer sun warming your skin and wind tousling your hair. Barbara Ann pouring through the speakers at the highest volume possible. You singing along at the top of your lungs. Your dad singing off-key in his best Boris Karloff impersonation, coaxing a peel of giggles from you in your younger years. 

Oh Barbara Ann, take my hand

Barbara Ann

You got me rockin' and a-rollin'

Rockin' and a-reelin'

Barbara Ann ba ba

Ba Barbara Ann

Those were the kind of hazy days of summer that you wished would last forever. Some of your fondest childhood memories lived in the cream leather interior, the soft blue dashboard, the treads of the tires. Barbara Ann became your code. Anytime it played on air, it was his way of say hi or he was thinking about you. Now, when you happened to hear it, it was your dad’s way of saying he was with you even beyond the grave and Babs… Well, she was a last corporeal piece of him. 

Honestly, it was bittersweet. Babs was a little bit of your dad to keep with you wherever you went. In later years, she became a scared space of shared secrets, long drives to Lover's Lake with Led Zeppelin on the radio, a stolen away solace at the back of the drive-in lot. But for the last five, she sat in your apartment’s parking structure. Under some sheet like a ghost of your past life. 

Nostalgia. What was with it today? Threatening to swallow you whole like the squall outside. As if this month wasn’t already charged enough. Now all this nostalgia to contend with? No thank you. While a trip down memory lane was nice and all, what you needed desperately was a little sleep. And to do that, you needed to be comfortable. Endeavoring to not let anything else sidetrack your mission, you return to the box you had opened, Beach Boys still bopping along in the background. Jackpot. Finally, past you did something that made sense. A box with a jacket AND other garments. It only took eight boxes, but you had found something to wear. Finally, a soft cotton tee was in your hands. You could almost cry in tired elation. The heathered forest green tee was Nirvana in your grasp. Shaking it out, eager to slip into comfort, you used the last ounce of your waining will straighten out the garment and— ugh, you had got to be kidding. 

Out of all the tees you owned, it would be this one. It was your lot. A huge cosmic joke where you were the punchline. Your shoulders sagged in weary acceptance. Clearly the universe was out to get you. As if you hadn’t been served enough sentimentality, the sole tee you could find would be for Shepherd’s Records. Shepherd’s had been your first job. Manning the counter and keep track of inventory for your dad’s best friend, Irwin Shepherd. Lord help you if you called him by his first name. He was Shep, and only Shep. God, you had loved that job, working nights after school and weekends, even coming home in the summer to man the shop. There was no place better for a music fanatic to work. Playing records all day and getting paid to chat with folks about music? Nothing better. 

You snorted ruefully as you lay the tee on your bed and began to disrobe. Seemingly everything today saw fit to remind you of things that were no longer part of your life. Dad. Shepherd’s. Music. So much loss in a short nearly three decades. But that was something better saved for your therapist office, not standing half naked staring at a t-shirt listening to Barbara Ann in the middle of your apartment at 1:30 in the morning. You just needed sleep. Sweet sleep. And maybe a Bartles & James to take the edge off. Yeah, that sounded good. Slipping on the comically large shirt, it hung down to mid-thigh, ample coverage for a night’s sleep. You rucked off your tights and snagged a pair of tall, thick socks from your box of socks before shuffling to the kitchen for your intended beverage.

The cool of the refrigerator breezed across your bare legs as you tugged open the door and plucked the peach flavored wine cooler from the scant contents of your fridge. Plunking the door closed, your hurried to the couch, pulled on your socks, and nestled under the bulky knit blanket, sinking into the warm reprieve from the chilled air of your apartment. One of the few things you hadn’t packed was a bottle opener. You grinned at your own genius as you reached for the tool on your coffee table and popped the top off your beverage. The sweet peach of the fizzy drink titillated your tastebuds as you took a deep swig, relaxing into the plush of your couch. 

Silence once again. The tape player had clicked off as you dressed and you were once again left in the quiet of your apartment. Gentle rattling of the radiator only added to the soundtrack of your mounting thoughts. This time of year always dredged up encroaching feelings. Giant, monstrous, beast like feelings unfurling their tentacles, probing through the mirk for some soft flesh to sink into. Testing the virility of the armor you’ve built over the years, craving to find some chink in your defenses. Most days you could stave off the onslaught with tools from your therapist wielded like weapons hewn in hard work of facing down your demons. Other days, much like today, when tiredness seeped from every pore and the calendar slowly progressing towards the day you dreaded most, your defenses offered little resistance to the strike. 

In the turbulent grey of March, you couldn’t help but think on it. Of him. The irony wasn’t lost on you that you lazed on your couch wearing the shirt bearing the name of the first place you truly saw him. The first time that unruly mop of brown hair waltzed into your life, setting you on a collision course of inevitable destruction.

Hawkins June 20, 1981

Summer. Might as well be called hell season as far as you were concerned. Asphalt hot enough to cook an egg or melt the rubber off your sneakers. Mercury bursting to the top of thermometers, 100 degrees and counting. Heat haze blurring the corn fields along the sides of the road as you drove into town. The mid-afternoon Midwest sun was as unforgiving as you could get, so much so that despite your car’s air-conditioning being on the fritz, having the top down wasn’t even in the realm of possibility lest you scorched your hide clean off. Dewey beads of sweat caused your baby hairs to stick to your brow and your legs to the leather of the seats. It was a scorcher, but you couldn’t find it in you to care. 

School was officially done for the year. No schedules, no assignments. Just you and your favorite place on earth, thankfully with air conditioning. Pulling into your designated spot, you cut the engine, twirling the keys around your finger as you walked up the back door of Shepherd’s Records. Locking the door behind you, pressing your back to the door, you relished in the cool air, an oasis from the broiling heat outside.

The quiet cool of the shop was peaceful as you made your way through the stacks of records. A familiar scent of plastic wrap, laminated cardboard, and heavily treaded carpet. Inviting, a place of comfort. Being the only record institution in Hawkins, the store was always a little less than clean, clear that many people have trampled through the shop. Stained carpeting, a little rubbish stuck in a corner somewhere no matter how thoroughly you scoured the shop, and the ever-present hint of fast food, plastic, and hairspray lived in the soft lines. 

Posters hung from the rafters debut the newest albums and in store promotions. The community bulletin board was littered with flyers for local shows and stacks of independent zines by filled the table by the door. Oasis was certainly the right word for Shepherd’s progressive palace in the midwestern malum. The devil-may-care attitude the outsider rock and roll nature of Shepherd’s offered appealed to some, but the real draw was of course the music. Rows and rows of illustrations and photos, containing everything from heavy metal to new wave to Motown to Shostakovich. 

Folks occasionally bought an album or single after hearing it played over the store’s sound system, or something of your recommendation. Husband’s utterly lost trying to find a gift for their wife. Some girl humming something she heard over the radio that she was desperate to have a copy of her own. Local DJ’s jonesing to find an international import of an obscure funk album. The true diehards never wanted assistance, nor did they really need it. “Don’t buy that album, there’s only one good song” or “This might be there best ever”, you didn’t dare even breathe it in their direction; they’d find your opinions more than annoying wanting to draw their own conclusions. Elitists aside, you gleaned a lot of joy in connecting folks to the music that excited them. After all, vinyl was how you fell in the love with music. 

While other kids were listening on Fisher 100 watt hi-fi systems, you were spinning records on a Technic SP-10. Direct drive, the pinnacle of hi-fi. Much more crisp than a sad sounding mono speaker and better yet, loud, much to the dismay of your family and neighbors. It made music a much more visceral listening experience for you. It wasn’t just the superior audio quality, it was also the album itself. Nothing tops the feeling of cracking open the record sleeve, peeling back the plastic wrap not knowing what was inside. Were there lyrics? Tour photos? Pure unadulterated excitement. When there was a lack of stuff inside, it was always disappointing. 

Nothing topped browsing the aisles of Shepherd’s, looking for an exotic gem or a familiar favorite. And you got to do it everyday. And get paid. Summer, heat side, was your second favorite time of the year. Five days a week you basked in the haven Shepherd’s provided. Briefly you wondered if this is how your dad felt, being at the station surrounded by albums as far as the eye could see. Ample avenues and journeys to take, music to be carried way by… if only he was here. Your love of music stemmed from wholly your dad. While you mom fancied Barry Manilow and The Beatles, not terrible choices if you're honest, she was a causal listener, not one who was consumed by what she heard. You and your dad had that in common, cut from the same sensitive cloth. 

“Come here, Creature,” he’d beckon you from the floor of his office, kneeling next to his record player adjusting the gain. “Listen to this.” He set the needle on the record and sound would pour out as he lay on the floor, limbs stretched and eyes closed. Completely succumbing to the music.

You’d nestle into his side in kind. Your nights typically consisted of this. Waiting for your dad to return home from the station with a new release to show you. You’d both lay on the floor and close your eyes and be taken away. As the music would build, gooseflesh broke out upon your arms, sending zinging chills throughout your whole being. Utterly and completely alive. The first time you recall feeling this sensation was the first time you listened to Ramble On by Led Zeppelin in this exact manner. Barely 6, your father could hardly wait to share one of his favorite albums with you. 

“Whadya think?” he’d turn to you and ask, eyes alight. You’d tell him exactly what you thought, how it made you feel. Swapping sensations and your deep, newly acquired love of Robert Plant. 

What you wouldn’t give for him to be tucked behind the counter right now, discussing that the Creature Feature would be for the day. Creature, your dad’s nickname for you, raised many eyebrows. Part due to your penchant for staying up into the early hours of the morning, part due to your love of Creature From The Black Lagoon. You had made him watch that film on repeat so frequently that the tape began to run thin, needing replaced. Twice. What could you say? There was just something about a creature just wanting love. The outcast, the oddity, the one never to belong thirsting deeply for companionship. Or that’s at least what your interpretation of the plot was, not a bloodthirsty Gil-Man out to ensure a beautiful woman. 

Your Creature Feature turntable choice of the day: Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain. Was there any better way than to start you day with funk? Maybe a little mind-melting for the beginning of your shift, but it was one of your favorite albums of all time. Rife with protest-soul, brimming with rage over Vietnam and raised fists in support of Martin Luther King Jr., Maggot Brain spoke through brooding delusions, screaming from the shadows in a time bereft with injustice. You drop the needle on the record and just marinated a minute. 

Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time

For y'all have knocked her up.

I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe

I was not offended

For I knew I had to rise above it all

Or drown in my own shit.

Bandleader George Clinton’s spoken word begins fading into one of the most powerful and passionate guitar solos ever etched in wax. Fuzz and wah ala Hendrix, combined with the delay and echoplexed improvisation, Eddie Hazel’s solo brayed through the shop, eerie and mournful, an emotional apocalypse of sound. The one-take-wonder and titular track was your favorite, not just for sound, but also for lore. Clinton told Hazel to play as if he just found out his mother passed. The heartbreak and subsequent spiral of loss was palpable as the music pumped through the overhead speakers, vibrating in your chest as you set about turning on the lights readying for open.

This is why you loved working here. Learning all the interconnectedness of the music tapestry. How artists and styles inspired and wove together. If you paid close enough attention, funk was the epicenter of a lot of musical genres. Funkadelic for example influenced Miles Davis’ Agharta with their Wars of Armageddon which could really only be described as a paranoid freak out jam. Decadent, dizzying, and heady. There were even tunes Black Sabbath would have been proud of like Super Stupid. Funk to jazz, funk to metal. It was all connected; that such pain could transmute into something so poignant it echoed for decades after. 

Far to heady thoughts for barely noon. Proceeding with your opening duties, you flicked on the open sign, the connected neon lights flickering to life as you unlocked the front door, officially ready for the day. As per the nature of the biz, your first hour was slow, not a customer in sight. Which was fine, you had plenty to keep you occupied. Between cleaning, much needed dusting, straightening up the store, and bringing stock up from the back, you hardly noticed the bell above the door jingle with your first customers of the day.

“I’ll be right up!” You called, making your voice heard over Wars of Armeggedon. A feat considering you were in the back room contesting with protest audio, crowd ambiance, odd mouth noises, and otherwise cacophonous and riotous noise driven funk.

No response was given as you trotted up to the front. “How can I help—” your customer service smile dropped in an instant when you saw who was standing in the center of the store. “You,” your voice deadpanned in summation. 

“For starters, you could play something a little more, oh I don’t know, sane?” 

A hulking frame draped in a lettermen’s jacket despite the heat were blocked your path to the front of the store. Flanked by two of cronies, clearly amused with the cat and mouse game that had just instigated, they caged you in. Terrific. What had started out as a laissez faire day now had been severely sidetracked. Summer was supposed mean less encounters from the masses at school. Something you had greatly looked forward to: no jocks for a glorious three months. It had only been two days. Of all the record stores in all of Indiana, he had to walk into yours.

“Last I checked, I was the employee here, not you Carver,” you spat with clenched teeth, standing your ground not being at all intimidated by the goons. 

Chet Carver, the eldest Carver sibling. Most notably known for captaining the Hawkins High football team as quarterback. And also being a grade A douche canoe. Blonde. Brawny. Entitled. You would think for a pastor’s son he’d be a bit more humble. But it couldn’t be further from the truth. The aggressive meathead saw fit to target anyone who was slightly off center from the norm. Mathletes, drama geeks, no one was safe from his ire. His sway over those who looked up to him was strong, seeing as his little brother was following along in his exact footsteps. 

You knew his type, all too well unfortunately. Just a year or so ago, you were going steady. Holding hands, kissing in his car at the drive-in, the whole lot. Dumping the King of Hawkins High made you persona non grata, top mark in his crosshairs. He leered down at you, sussing out your stance for any weakness, thirsty to rend you to your knees as you had done to him. That smarmy captious grin made your blood boil and your palm itch to smack the look off his face. 

“What do you want?” You over-annunciated each syllable, hopefully the direct manner would somehow seep into his peabrain. 

“Oh you know,” he casually began, finally putting distance between the two of you. He began walking his fingers over the albums as he spoke, “we were out for a drive before heading to Benny’s for a burger and I thought to myself, you know what I could use? A new record.” He paused to flip through one of the bins he was standing in front of, taking time to muss the alphabetical order. 

Your lips pressed into a thin line, jaw aching in restraint as you bit back a smarting remark. As much as you would love to engage him in witty repartee, the sooner he left the shop, the better. You watch unmoving, your eyes trailed Chet and his cronies as the perused. Watching only, not interfering. Sure, they were making your job difficult by bringing chaos to your inventory, but if it was the worst they did, so be it. A few disorganized records? They could do much worse. 

“Ah, this is the one,” Chet had stopped his perusal, pulling a record out of the country bin and holding it out to you. Ronnie Milsap. There’s No Gettin’ Over Me. Fitting.

With a short snort, you took the record from him and made for the cash wrap. Of course he would pick the worst song of the year with the most blatant messaging.

Well you can walk out on me tonight

If you think that it ain’t feeling right

But darling

There’s ain’t no getting over me

Well you can say that you need to be free

But there ain’t no place that I won’e be

As one would assume, such a cocksure clydesdale didn’t take being dumped too kindly. If his constant harassment was enough of an indicator, this cheap shot was as clear as a foghorn. There ain’t no getting over me. Please. You had heard the song all but once over the radio at Melvald’s and it was enough. Utter trash. A narcissist’s anthem if you’ve ever heard one. You had been over him the day you dumped him. He had changed after your dad passed. All your friends had. Treating you different for grieving; you weren’t the peppy upstart you used to be. Not cool enough to hang with the in crowd. And honestly it suited you fine. The exhaustion that came a long with keeping up The Joneses was too much anyway.

Your frustration leeched out onto the register keys, punching the pricing into the cash register as you thought back on it. You may have been over Chet, but the feelings of your world turning upside down were a little too fresh. “$9.98.” You foisted your palm in his direction, not bothering to make eye contact as you rummaged beneath the counter with your freehand for a bag 

From the corner of your eye, you saw him smirk, reaching into his jacket for his wallet. “I’ll let you keep the change if you give me a smile,” he taunted, laying a crisp ten dollar bill in your awaiting palm, as he leaned over the counter, encroaching inch by inch on your personal space. 

Change was made quickly and dropped into the bag. “Have a nice day,” you spoke flatly, slapping the bagged record into his chest. The paper bag crinkled against his jacket, the force and surprise propelling him back a few steps, bemused expression on his face at your reaction.  

HIs cronies chortled again, the interaction pulling them out of the mussing miscreancy.  “Seems like we’re not wanted here, Carver,” one of them mused, flanking Chet. 

“I supposed not,” Chet clapped him on the back. “Let’s get outta here.” 

Finally, FINALLY, the three skulked their way to the exit. Only being in the store for all of ten minutes, they had sufficiently made a large enough mess of your racks that it would take you nearly half the day to restore the order. Scooping up the nearest stack, you took the armful of albums back over the the counter. 

“Hey Henderson,” he called to your retreating back, pausing you mid step. 

Your abrupt turn and the heft of the records in your arms put you off kilter are you stared him down in the doorway. 

“I always thought you were prettiest when you smiled,” he winked, disquieting you to the very core as he exited.

Had your hands been free, you would have flipped him the bird, double time. That fucker. Thinking he could come in here, invade your sanctuary, and leer like that? Who did he think he was? Right, god’s gift to womankind. The albums met the counter with more force than you intended, the pile spilling onto the floor with the force. A breath didn’t know you were holding released, your shoulders slumping in resignation. This was going to be a long shift.

Several hours and almost the entirety of Iron Maiden’s Killers later, all was righted in the store. All of the jazz section had to be completely reorganized from Armstrong to Zawinul. Pain in the ass was the understatement of the year. Wistfully, you wished you had given Chet a piece of your mind, read him for all the filth he was, but being in his presence any longer than necessary would have been a drain on your day. Engaging him in the slightest would have bated him to linger. Just the short encounter had been enough. 

Gloriously, you hadn’t had another customer all afternoon, nothing too atypical for a Friday. The lull in activity gave you ample time to right Carver’s wrongs. Something about organizing provided the proper channel for your aggravation. A before B, B before C. A rhyme and a reason, no chaos in an easily understood system. The balm you desperately needed, smoothing the wrinkles out in your day.

“Hey Henderson!” 

Your head snapped up, the voice catching you off guard. The sound system must have obscured the door bell as you had not heard the group of boys enter, too lost in your world of alphabetized jazz. Anxiety left your body in a rush, spine slackening in relief as you looked upon a familiar face. “Hi Grant.”

The sophomore flustered under your recognition, looking down at his shoes as a blush tinted his round cheeks pink. Among your job at the record shop and a babysitting gig here and there, you also tutored students as a part of the Hawkins Library Aide program. Looked good on college applications and provided some extra scratch. 

“Got that new Demon album in. Set aside a copy for you,” you continued, wiping your hands off on your jean shorts, ridding the dust from your sticky palms. 

“Hey,” one of Grant’s friends good naturedly ribbed, “getting in in tight with the record store girl. Sucking at English has it perks.”

“Shut up, Gareth,” Grant admonished his blonde friend. 

Gentle giant Grant. You would never understand why the school thought him such a freak. Grant aired more on the quiet side, odd considering his large frame. Had he been popular, he more than likely would have been a starting lineman or something like that. Instead, he favored music, art, softer pursuits. He reminded you a lot of your brother’s friend Will in temperament at least. Grant’s whole friend ground reminded you of your brother’s Party come to think of it.

“Speaking of which,” you dashed back behind the cash warp to retrieve his hold, easily finding under GOODMAN, “how’d you do on your final?” Your hands moved on muscle memory as you prepared the sale, stamping the brown paper bag with the satisfying ka-chunk with the store’s branded stamp. 

“He aced it,” Jeff beamed at his friend as they neared the counter. 

“Way to go!” You beamed proudly at your pupil as he handed you the payment for his tape. Prepping for the exam tested Grant’s resolve. Really, the only reason he needed a tutor was due to O’Donnell’s impatience. Had she taken the necessary time and not written him off as a “problem”, like she did with any student who wasn’t a grade A ass kisser, he would have been just fine. All he needed was a little time and reassurance. 

“Right?” Gareth added, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “Now your parents can’t say shit when we practice in your garage all summer.”

“We owe our future success to you,” Jeff grinned. “We would be down a guitarist if it wasn't for your help.”

You couldn’t help but smile at the exchange, this friend group not unlike your brother’s in the slightest. Through tutoring, you came to know Grant well, and by proxy, you had become casually acquainted with his friends. Gareth: loud, boisterous, ostentatious. Jeff: quiet, contemplative, congenial. And—

“Hey sorry, I’m late! The copier kept jamming at the print shop,” the boy who was more mass of hair than human skidded into the shop. Eddie. Eddie Munson. Out of all of the group, you had interacted with it’s defacto leader the least. No words had been exchanged, solely a head nod or a wave. He flapped around like a bat out of hell. Hyperactive. Mercurial. Rough around the edges. The crowned town freak. Though you suspected that wasn’t truly the case. Was he unruly? Absolutely. Did he draw attention to himself in spectacle? Everyday. But was he a freak? Doubtful. More than likely merely misunderstood. Not unlike your own brother. Same hyperactive, overly chatty, nerd tendencies.

You watched the group flurry about as Eddie tacked up a boisterous flyer. CORRODED COFFIN @ THE HIDEOUT AUGUST 4th 7pm it read in what you assume to be Eddie’s scratchy scrawl, complete with the stereotypical rock paraphernalia sketched on the neon paper. 

“Dude, how did you manage that?” Gareth jerked a thumb at the poster. “The Hideout is bar.”

“Power of persuasion my friend, power of persuasion,” Eddie lips drew back in a wide grin full of pomp, his ego on full display. Unruly curls jostled in time with his animated movements as he regaled his friends with the full tale. From your station behind the counter, the mischievous twinkle in his eye was easily seen, overly proud of his cleverness in securing their gig. 

His chains glinted in the neon light lights of the shop, causing them to glow more pink and blue against the cut off black denim shorts and shirt he wore. Iron Maiden and Eddie the Head barely stood out on the fabric, faded with much wear. Rough around the edges indeed. He certainly contrasted the punchy hunter green and burnt orange of Hawkins High School’s logo. Of the town’s sun-faded siding of the houses along Main Street. The pastels and polos of the in crowd. How had you not noticed before? 

“And a Tuesday? There’s gonna be no one there,” you overheard Gareth complain as you tuned back into the conversation. 

“Gentlemen, come on,” he threw his arms around Gareth and Jeff’s shoulders. He spoke in a manner of a commander quelling his troops before a charge. His persuasive aura huddling the group  “Sure it’s not Market Square Arena, but it’s a start.”

The group looked unsure between themselves. 

“One person doth an audience make. Right?” He was all smiles. Affable and relaxed having swayed his friends over to his point of view. Curious. You regarded him as they continued to converse, perusing the shop leisurely. In the way one should. Try as you could to look at anything else, your eyes followed Eddie’s movements. Pouring through the records, admiring the album with their due reverence. His love of music read from across the store. If it wasn’t his sheer enthusiasm for his gig, it was the way he handled each vinyl with care. Like each was a priceless antiquity meant for the Smithsonian, not a dusty old Indiana record shop. 

He cuts through your perusal, his deep boisterous laugh filling the space. Head thrown back, fully body shaking. Lopsided grin toying at the edges of his lips. Free, you thought idly. He was utterly free. A foreign chink sounded somewhere deep in the pit of your stomach at the thought. When was the last time you had laughed like that? Let your hair down and allowed yourself to be free? Hell, just even be. 

Jesus Christ, what planets were in transit today that made every thought that wafted through your head wax the poetic? Turning to busy yourself with something other than staring at Eddie Munson, receipts from the week begging to be filed demanded your attention. 

The slips of paper consumed your attention, filing expenses for the week, returns from the one lady who insisted Stevie Nicks was the devil incarnate and insisted on a refund, and preparing the order for next week’s shipment for Shep. Lost in your own clerical world you had missed the small scuffle and sound of light cajoling behind you. That was until a voice was cleared, loudly and comically. Clearly intended to garner your attention. 

“H-hi there,” you were greeted as you looked over your shoulder. Eddie was standing at the counter across from you.

“What can I do for you, Cousin It?” You could hardly withhold the jibe that left your lips. Cousin It? You mentally reprimanded yourself for your lack of filter. It had been a long day. The perfect defense, but your excuse died in your throat. 

A wry smile quirked the corner of his lips as his friends chortled behind him, trying and failing to pretend like they weren’t eavesdropping. “You wound me!” His hands flew over his heart as he staggered a few steps back as if he had been stabbed. “Is this what customer service has come to nowadays?”  He faux fainted into the support of the record bins behind him with the grace of a 1800’s courtesan. 

His friends burst into full guffaws, unable to ignore the hijinks. You huffed, folding your arms across your chest. Clearly, this clown wasn’t too unlike the other who came in to chat you up and goad a smile out of you. 

He caught you mid eye-roll, those deep brown eyes. A flash of amusement in the neon lights of the shop. “Listen,” he said lowly, demeanor changing to something resembling a semi-respectable member of society. “I bet those numb skulls over there,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at his friends as he sidled up the counter again, “my DM seat, my—”

“Dungeon Master seat, yeah I’m tracking with you,” you interrupted, all too familiar with the term. Dustin’s inane rambling about Dungeons & Dragons had permeated your brain. He only talked about it 24/7.

His eyes widened, surprise clear as he looked at you. “Well then,” the laugh lines appeared on either side of his mouth, clearly pleased at this turn of events, “a lady informed.” He propped an elbow on the counter and rested his chin in hand as he leaned closer to you. “Then you know the severity of this bet,” he all but whispered into the space between you. 

You stared at him for a beat, sussing out his intent. Narrowing your eyes at him slightly and still his grinned persisted, not fading a mite. 

“Right, so I bet them my DM sea aha I could get a lovely lady as yourself’s phone number by the end of the day. They don’t believe in the Munson charm.”

Eyes flicking to the clock, it was 5:47pm. Nearly the end of the day. Per his early statement, most of his day sounded like it was spent wrestling a copier prior to killing time in your shop. His options were limited. A wry smile cracked your features. “Let me guess,” you leaned onto the counter mimicking his position, “I’m your only hope?” He returned your grin. “You’d be correct, Obi Wan.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“My undying gratitude,” he answered quickly, hand flourishing over his heart.

“You’re going to have to sweeten the pot.”

At that, his palm flew up to cover his mouth, the thought process propelled him to pace, unable to stay still to ponder. The need to make a show of it all too great. He paused, as if a great idea dawned on him.

"I, milady, will owe you one favor of your choosing. A favor from your humble, grateful servant," he bowed low, arms out wide in submission.

Flabbergasted, you regarded him in his docile pose. "I don't even know you, dude.” You really didn’t. This being the first time you’ve ever directly spoken to the boy, how on Earth could he provide you a favor? Would you even want a favor from a complete stranger?

He stood, quickly returning to his towering height. “Touché,” his grin faltered, not expecting this conversation to go left. 

Perhaps the Munson charm really was a figment of his imagination. Then again maybe it wasn’t. Disarming, you could feel your hackles from your earlier encounter with Chet smooth back flat to your neck as Eddie searched for something further to say, a pink tint dusting his cheeks as he floundered. There was something endearing about the way he toed at the carpet with his beat up Reebok’s. All the bravado seem to slip for an instant, allowing you a brief peek behind the curtain. There was more to him than the rumors around town suggested. 

"I, milady, will owe you one favor of your choosing. A favor from your humble, grateful servant," he bowed low, arms out wide in submission.

Flabbergasted, you regarded him in his docile pose. "I don't even know you, dude."

He stood, quickly returning to his towering height. “Touché,” his grin faltered, not expecting this conversation to go left. 

Perhaps the Munson charm really was a figment of his imagination. Then again maybe it wasn’t. Disarming, you could feel your hackles from your earlier encounter with Chet smooth back flat to your neck as Eddie searched for something further to say, a pink tint dusting his cheeks as he floundered. There was something endearing about the way he toed at the carpet with his beat up Reebok’s. All the bravado seem to slip for an instant, allowing you a brief peek behind the curtain. There was more to him than the rumors around town suggested. 

You never really believed what the rumors whispered. Cultist. Satanist. Evil. If he was any of those things, he certainly would be blushing in front of you trying to come up with something to offer. 

His gaze returned to yours. “You’re nice,” he arrived at with what you were sure was less subtly and finesse than he wanted, “at least that what Grant says. He raves about you. So I know you’ve got some small soft spot for us freaks.”

Your brow lifted in response. “Is that so?” you challenged.

“Me thinks so,” he mirrored you, leaning back in, closing the distance. “You know,” he offered casually, “we aren’t totally strangers. We’re just meeting now. I’m Eddie by the way.” 

“Oh I know.”

“I do declare,” he gasped in a rather surprisingly accurate mimicry of a southern belle. “Henderson the Great knows my name?”

A snort was your only response as his chocolate eyes did their best to woo you into helping him. You rested your chin on your fist, staring him down in equal kind. A Mexican standoff over the counter. He trying desperately to sway you. You trying to determine his motives. Narrowing your eyes slightly, you weighed your options. What did you really have to lose in this situation? Your phone number was permanently etched in the men’s bathroom at Hawkins High thanks to Chet and his minions. Crank calls weren’t something with which you were unfamiliar. But what you had to gain, that was a mystery. What could Eddie Munson do for you that you couldn’t do for yourself?  Something about Eddie made you want to say yes, seal yourself in this devil’s bargain where you had the power and he owed you.

“A favor I can call in for anything at anytime. No questions asked?”

“I draw the line at animal sacrifice,” he grinned, “but yeah. Anything, anytime.” He drew a little x over his heart, sealing the deal. 

“Charming.” You proffered your hand. 

He stares at you, startled that it worked? His lips the perfect “o” in shock.

“Give me your arm,” you laughed lightly, fishing a pen from a drawer behind the counter. 

Eddie all but threw his arm into your await grasp, eagerness rolling off of him in waves. His skin vibrated under your palm as your phone number took shape on his arm. 

“I really appreciate this.” The timbre of his voice had changed, warm. Rife with what felt like true meaning. You didn’t doubt his appreciation and if you had looked up, you would have caught the shy blush that blossomed on his cheeks at your gentle touch. Deeper and redder than before.

“Just doing my civic duty. Can’t let Princess Leia lose her seat.”

With that he laughed. Full on belly laugh like before. But this time at your prompting, you had earned a bit of his free savoir faire. Pleasure at the fact bloomed small in your chest, causing you to nearly drop the pen in your grasp. 

“Munson, are you accosting my tutor?” Grant keyed in on the moment, just realizing what was happening. “Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry.” His large hands landed on Eddie’s shoulders pulling him away from the counter, severing your connection. “I’ll get him out of your hair,” Grant said as he shooed his friend to the exit.

“See ya around, Creech,” called over his shoulder as Grant manhandled him to the door. “What did you just call me?” the world hitting you like a slur.

“Creech, like Creature?” He grinned, pointing at your t-shirt. “Like Creature from The Black Lagoon? Rad shirt by the way,” he complimented as Grant finally herded him out the door and onto the sidewalk. 

Creature. That world fell upon you like cold bucket of water. No one had called you that in years. The only person to ever use the nickname, your father. In disbelief you looked down at your tee. The familiar movie poster was there, same black ink on the love-worn shirt. Creature. Out of all the things he could have called you… 

“You did not just get her number!” You heard Gareth’s shout from outside the shop in total shock of his friend’s success. A laugh you needed worked it’s way up and out of you. At both the outburst and the absurdity of the last five minutes of your life. Creature. You couldn’t wait until he found out that you had given him the shop phone number. 

If someone from the future had beamed down in that instant and told you that the two of you— that you and him— he and you— You would have never believed it. In what timeline were the two of you destined to be together? You threw an arm over your eyes as you surfaced from the memory you'd always carry with you, no matter how hard you've tried to erase it. Carry? His memory, a boulder and you, Sisyphus. Forever rolling his echo up the mountainside and just as you are about to crest, to be free from the niggling guilt and ever-present ache, it plummets back down, right back into the pit you from which you crawled. Fingers bloody and war torn, muscles aching only second to the affliction of your heart. Would you ever not feel the boulder in your chest? The throb of the rock lurching about, staggering your thoughts, keeping you off-kilter. In a session, your therapist had suggested that you never shrink your grief, you eventually outgrow it. But how long? Ten years? Fifteen years? Fifty years? The past five constricted, your skin pulled taut over the sorrow stone. Tightness hindering your ability to draw breath, to think clearly, to move on.

Or was it more like maggots? Worming away in the decay of your heart, carving out tracts for all the guilt and shame to fester. Wriggling, putrid, filth. Yeah, no. Beginning to the lose the battle with the constriction in your throat, you stood lest you be swallowed by the mounting wave of grief. Before the wave crested, you stooped back to the kitchen, grabbed the dwindling content of the six pack you started days priors, and schlepped back to the couch. If you were to face the sleepless undertow pulling at your ankles, you wouldn’t do so without liquid courage. Sleep evaded you most nights, but this time of year it was damn near impossible to find rest in the choppy waves that thundered your shore. And even if sleep did take you, this was going to be a long night.

Shrill ringing woke you from your post-shift slumber. Groaning, you swore, feeling as if you had just closed your eyes only to have your sleep so rudely interrupted.

The ringing didn’t quit, the blasted thing rattling from your side table just above your lounging head.  Blindly from your prostrate position on your couch, your hand roved until it met the glossy plastic of your telephone. With a groan, your fingers curled around the receiver, hoisting into the air and foisting it to your ear with a grumbled, “hello?”

“Come home.” 

A demand, a cracked intonation you hadn’t heard in your younger brother’s voice in a long while. The mere sound doused you like a frigid bucket of water. You froze, heart thrumming loudly in your ear overriding your functions to knee-jerk. Shocked, you propelled yourself sitting, dread pooling in your gut. Shit, shit, shitting shit.

Tantalizingly, the thought of just simply hanging up waltzed to the front of your brain. Oops, the phone happened to fall out of hand and right onto the cradle, your muscles too tired from mixing drinks to hold the receiver. Believable? Yes. Easy to execute? Yes. Your palm itched at the idea. A faked bad connection had gotten you off the phone a time or two, but this called for more drastic tactics. Surely this would work. Your brother would understand, wouldn’t he?

Frustration was evident in his tone as he yammered on, his words falling upon deaf ears. You couldn’t blame him; he had every right to be frustrated with you. Five years is a long time to stay away, no matter how good your reasoning. 

It wasn’t like you hadn’t seen Dustin in five years. He had come to visit during breaks after he got his license, your family drove up to celebrate your birthday one or twice, meeting for a quick catch up in Indianapolis on a Saturday. You had seen your family. Perhaps not as often as they would like. 

Just a few months ago you were all together. Now that was a magical Christmas. Soft white fluffy snow, the kind you see on those “Wish You Were Here” postcards, blanketed the roads as you took the bus from Cambridge into New York City Dustin’s first year at MIT. The world always has a little more glow that time of year, but something about being in New York made it even more so. Skating in Times Square, hot chocolate in Central Park freezing your butts off, forcing your mom to eat street hot dogs with you and her bellyaching about all the hazards of imbibing, getting lost in the natural history museum for hours. Complete bliss. It was almost enough to make you forget. Almost.

It wasn’t like you were radio silent either. Save for the last few months, regular phone were a Wednesday night staple. There were cards exchanged for the birthdays and holidays you dodged coming home to celebrate. So you had missed a few birthdays, Christmas, high school graduations, college acceptances— ok so you had missed some major milestones. An even more appealing reason to add to the list of why you needed off this call. A big ol’ pit of guilt.

Who were you kidding, though? Really. This is Dustin Henderson. That dogged determination would have him ringing you again and again until you rip the phone from the jack, and burying it under your floorboards a la Edgar Alan Poe’s Telltale Heart. Even then, the phantom ringing would drive you mad. The alternative: The National Guard would show up on your doorstep and drag you kicking and screaming all the way back to Hawkins. As much as you dreaded this exact scenario, he was your little brother and you loved that little punk more than anything. Though the fantasy of a final desperate dodge appealed, you couldn’t do that to him. You wouldn’t do that to him. Resigned, your shoulders slumped. You had to take this call. There were no more ways around it. You were trapped. Great, just great. 

As if your anxiety wasn’t high enough, the thought of being trapped only served to make the walls of your studio apartment feel smaller than they already were. With each nervous breath, they closed in a little more, creeping closer and closer. Your beloved little hole in the wall was now a refrigerator box of rigid tension. What was it that your therapist had reminded you of last session? Chewing on your cuticle and maintaining your breath evenly, you tried to recall her words. A breath would help. Slowly, you unfurled yourself from your tense seat, placing your feet flat on the floor and inhaling and holding. In. Out. In and out. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat as many times as it takes to gain your bearings. As many time as it takes to not want to claw your way out of your own skin. Breathe. Just fucking breathe. 

Finally releasing the stranglehold on your eardrums, the ringing subsided, bringing your brother’s frantic calling of your name into focus.

“Dust—”

“Jesus Christ, I thought you had a coronary.” The relief in his voice was palpable, even cutting through his obvious frustration.

“Sorry.” Hopefully he’d pickup on the sheepish tone to your voice. You hadn’t meant to startle him. Hell, that was the last thing you’d want to do. Things had been hard enough for Dustin Henderson. A basket case sister is not what he needed right now. With a deep swallow and additional breath for good measure, you consoled, “I spaced is all.” 

While the ringing had stopped, uneasiness licked up your spine. Pressing your palm to your abdomen did little to quell the steady rise of heat, but it was a minor comfort. A minor comfort you’d continue to give yourself until this wave of anxiety releases you from its undertow. 

“Don’t do that!” His admonishments continued, ratcheting your guilt at every word. It wasn’t supposed to go on this long. Yes, initially you were avoidant, then it just became your modus operandi. Avoidance was easier than the inevitable bursting of the bubble. And god did you want that bubble to last forever. Really it had superseded a want; it was now a need. That sweet bubble of blissful feigned ignorance. Yep, you could hide in that no problem. 

Dodging this call for the past several weeks had been a Herculean effort on your part. Picking up extra shifts at The Signature Lounge to keep you out of your apartment until the wee hours of the morning, conveniently forgetting to change the tape in your answering machine, staying out all hours of the night dancing and drinking until your stomach was more sore than your feet, even going as far as leaving your phone off the hook to avoid this dreaded call.

Three months. Three blissful months of not acknowledging the impending anniversary. Ides of March took on a whole new meaning since 1986. At the thought, you swallowed harshly, your throat drying at the memory. A nearly empty Bartles & James offered you salvation from your coffee table and you sought it, finishing the bottle before adding it to the pile of its discarded twins. Beware indeed. Even with all the time past, stomaching this call was not on the list of things you wanted to do today. Honestly, probably ever. 

You sighed in the receiver, the nervous sweats already starting to coat your palms, the receiver slackening in your grasp. An excuse already forming on your tongue as you pinched the bridge of your nose.

“Don’t even start,” he interrupted what was sure to be your anxiety ridden ramble.

“I didn’t even say anything.”

“You said you were coming. You’re already three days late. Everyone’s counting on you being here.” 

Grounding. That was what your therapist recommended. Grounding. Sitting on the ground felt more appropriate to ground yourself, already feeling what little energy your brief nap gleaned left your body. Okay, so maybe lying on the floor would be better. Already feeling gelatinous, you poured yourself onto the floor. Flat as a board, staring up at the ceiling. 

Five. Five things you can see. 

The image of yourself reflected convex back to you in the screen of the small television sitting on the floor. Hair askew, dark circles forming under your eyes darkened by the remnant mascara smudged from your couch cushion. Oversized tee hanging off your frame, you looked as gaunt as you felt. No, you wouldn’t dwell on your haggardness. What else? Cobwebs in the corners that really needed your attention. Really, how long had those been there and how hadn’t you noticed an arachnid roommate taking over the corners of your space? Equally egregious dust tufts under your couch. The mountain of boxes awaiting Friday’s movers. Last one. Your eyes roved over your apartment, your body unwilling to move. What else could you see from supine spot? Your window. Diluted light of the city glinting through your sheers. A favorite of yours, especially this late at night. The kind of light that makes you feel like you're the only one in the world awake. A familiar friend for your sleepless nights. 

Four. Four things you can touch. 

The firm plastic of the phone if your hand, transferring the heat of your palms. Threadbare cotton of your favorite tee. Warmth seeping through the floor, bonus of being the top floor apartment. The heat always rose.Soft pile of your barf green shag rug that you adored and everyone hated, including your mom and that is how it came into your possession. Love for the stupid thing brought brief smile to your face as your hands wandered through the strands. 

Three. Three things you can hear. 

The city, the white noise churn of traffic passing by your window. The soundtrack to your day to day, thankfully minus the honking. Some kind of jazz in a time signature that should be outlawed played by your most adjacent neighbor. Your brother’s voice, rattling off plans for your visit at a speed beyond your current comprehension. 

Two. Two things you you can smell. 

One of your neighbors cooking something with garlic down the hall. Your stomach thundered at the smell. Maybe as a reward for making it through this call, a late night slice was in order. Leftover remnants of the perfume you spritz at your pulse point before your shifts today.

And one. One thing you can taste. 

The acrid aftertaste of the Battles & James churned with bile slowly climbing up your throat. Delectable. Your phone cord could reach to the bathroom, maybe a quick brush would suffice. If you could be bothered to get up from the floor. 

To your amazement, your therapist had been correct. Or maybe it was more to your chagrin. You did feel a little more centered and your anxiety had eased from a chokehold to a tight grip on the back your neck. But progress was progress, and you’d take it.

“Did you hear anything I said?” 

Right, you were still on the phone. Dustin’s voice lasered through the haze, bringing you back into the moment. Truthfully, you hadn’t heard a single word he said, too preoccupied with keeping your heart from beating through your ribs like a Chestburster from Alien. Guilty you had’t paid attention, you settled on the response, “Mhmm.”

“Oh yeah? Repeat it back to me?”

Nevermind he was now a college sophmore, Dustin Henderson was still a butthead. “What happened to respecting you elders?”

“Oh I don’t know, how about you start acting like the elder sibling for once?”

The ringing in your ears returned, tinning out all background noise. A stab straight to the gut. You really had shirked your duties as eldest sibling. Retreating into yourself for the better part of the last three years, only to emerge a disjointed caterpillar figuring out how to wiggle yourself into a chrysalis to heal for the last two. Therapy was new, and it was helping, but clearly to everyone else progress wasn’t being made. 

“Dustin—” the shock not kept from your voice at your brother’s sharp barb. You knew he was angry, despite him not outrightly saying so. He had been pulling the weight as the defacto elder sibling, you could admit that. Really, the guilt of sticking Dustin to carry on and grieve alone may have contributed to your negligence in reaching out. Heat burned in your cheeks. You deserved all the ire coming your way. Simple as that. 

“Sorry, too harsh,” he joked, his usual tone settling in place. “When you didn’t show up on Sunday, we thought—”

“I know,” you interrupted, knowing exactly what he thought. Pre-therapy, he had a right to be concerned; those days were dicey at best. But now— what about now? You weren’t ready to check out, this you knew. But the aimless distractions you sought, what was even the point? You had no heading.

“I worry about you.” 

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“If I had visual proof of your existence every once in awhile that would help. Ma too.”

“I’m coming home now aren’t I?”

“You were supposed to be here Sunday.”

Heavily you sighed, the bridge of you nose pinched between the fingers of your free hand. “You’re an ignoramus, you know that right?”

“Yeah, I know. I just miss you, alright?”

“Miss you too, kid.” You really did. Your relationship with your brother wasn’t the typical cat and dog. Even six years your junior, he was you best friend. With all the shit you went through together, you were all each other really had. The support, the understanding, the trauma. It bonded you together deeper than the average siblings. You couldn’t disappoint him again. You wouldn’t disappoint him again.  “I’ll be there Friday.”

“Why not tomorrow?”

“I picked up another shift. If I’m going to be gone for two weeks, gotta have a little more savings in the can.”

He sighed heavily into the receiver, frustration begging to flow again. It wasn’t your usual excuse, he seemed to buy it. “Okay,” he said slowly, disbelief coloring his words. “If you’re not here by Friday—”

“You’ll reign down holy hellfire on me and drag me kicking and screaming back to Hawkins. I know. How many times have you threatened me with that?”

“This time I have back up.”

It wasn’t an empty threat. You knew he did. If you dared to not show, not only Dustin would be at your door, certainly all of Hellfire would be. With that many people to let down, you knew you would be going regardless of how much you dreaded it. 

“What, you think the guilt trip isn’t enough to sway me?”

“You’re an idiot,” he laughed, jovial nature returning. “Friday?”

“Friday,” you confirmed. “Love you, Dust.”

“Love you too.”

The call disconnected on his end, the dial tone tolling from the receiver still clenched in your grasp. You were going home. You were going to Eddie’s Memorial. You had agreed to come home to attend Eddie’s Memorial. That was that. Finally the receiver had made it’s way back to the cradle as you collapsed back into the couch, dragging your hands over your face. What did you just do?

#eddie munson #stranger things #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fluff #bat out of hell #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie x reader #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson angst

[galvanizedfriend]

I already left a massive paragraph on ao3 about how I feel about that last chapter but I thought I’d come on here and do the same.

I feel as if I’m running out of words on how enchanting, mind blowing and damn right beautiful this story is (even with the amount of angst and crying I’ve done on this series 😂) this series is one rare gem in a sea of rocks. Where everything just comes together, where nothing feels forced. While I know that this series is just a rewritten version of ‘The Originals’ the way you have given this series life, given it more depth is just mind blowing to me. Without even going into klaroline and how that is just in a field of its own the way you have given Klaus, Elijah, Marcel and even Camille more character, more growth is just… beautiful to read.

I can’t talk about klaroline without getting sappy over how you’ve written them. They are soulmates and deserve their happy ending together. Their love is just written beautifully in this series. I literally hear their voices through your writing because you’ve done such an excellent job in keeping the core of who they were from the show and bringing it into your own world!

I can’t count how many times I’ve re-read this series back to back because I never want to leave this universe, to leave these characters.

While I’m excited to begin this new season, to be a part of these characters lives for longer I’m also emotional over the fact that, hopefully for you 😂, we will possibly say goodbye to them before the end of this year (and I am not prepared for that)

I can’t wait to see your growth this year in your writing (don’t know how it can be any better than it already is mind you!) you should be immensely proud of this series and what you’ve accomplished.

Can’t wait to see that notification for the next chapter, be it 2 weeks, 2 months or a year! ❤️

(So sorry for the emotional spillage 😂😂😂)

(Also need the klaroline wedding asap. Please give us a wedding your honour!)

I hope you're proud of yourself, because you just made me cry 😭😭😭 Hoooow are you so nice??? I want to print this out and put it on my wall for when I'm feeling like crap and can't write. 🥹

This is so kind and so nice of you, I don't even know what to say. I don't know how to take a compliment tbh, but I'm really emotional. I've read this at least three times already. 🥹 Thank you so much for saying all that. ❤️ There have been sooooo many times throughout the years where I questioned the point of writing this, and each and every time I had someone tell me they were finally enjoying The Originals or liking characters they had previously hated, I felt a little bit more at peace ❤️

The response to this chapter has been so nice, everyone has been so lovely about it and so kind to take time to write some awesome reviews and then this. 🥲 I don't know, man, I just don't know. I don't know what I've done to deserve such awesome readers who make me feel like I'm not screaming into the void after all these years, but thank you very, very much! 🥹 Thank you so, so much for this. You have made my entire week. 😭

#yokan answers #marginally-accurate #awesome people being awesome #i'm gonna cry istg #how are people so nice #🥹

[beevean]

You’re watching Hazbin Hotel? How is it?

Flawed but enjoyable!

I watched the pilot when it came out, then Addict, then I kind of stayed away from the fandom to avoid hyping myself up. (that, and I noticed how it became the Internet Target Du Jour, and I am sick of that lol) I also am not following Helluva Boss because the first episode didn't interest me, so I can't compare.

I agree with most of the criticism I've read - the pacing is rushed (which is sadly a common issue with series nowadays), too many characters introduced in little time, the humor is immaturely edgy with a plethora of badly-placed swearwords (good god every time Adam opens his ugly mouth I can feel my soul cringing out of my body eugh), the first four episodes made the titular Hotel seem much less important than the bigger conflict with Heaven (glad this seems to have been course corrected), you're required to watch the pilot on another platform... but I'm invested!

I like the main characters, I find them funny and I want to know more about them - if you couldn't tell, Angel is my fave lol, but I was pleasantly surprised by Husk and Alastor has been rewritten to be much funnier IMO, petty bastard with a hidden agenda. Charlie and Vaggie are also very cute as girlfriends, and while I don't actively ship Huskerdust I'm rooting for them to grow closer. The songs are neat, with catchy bases and elaborate rhymes - again, Poison has me in a chokehold because holy shit that is raw, but Stayed Gone, Respectless, Loser Baby and now Hell's Greatest Dad are worming their way inside my head lol. And the emotional moments hit way harder than I expected. Yeah yeah Angel's abuse being surprisingly nuanced in its tragedy, but now I'm here teary eyed after a goofy snake dad sang a song to his cutesy daughter he hadn't called in five months.

So yeah, it's no Bojack Horseman lmao, but I'm liking what I'm seeing and I would say it stands out over other adult cartoons :) it's like... yes, it's stupidly edgy, and not even in that goofy way that makes me love ShTH, but it's also not pretentious. I really feel it's a genuine passion project that went far beyond the creators' expectations.

#hazbin hotel

[hexhomos]

I'm sorry if you've been asked this before but what are your thoughts about Arcane potentially being canon? I do not like it.

And if you don't mind answering another question, how do you feel about the way people sort of interpret Jayce and Viktor?

I don't think it's a good idea and it strips away many of the interesting things about these characters and the *universe's story as a whole* to exclusively represent the simplified, time-limited version of events that could fit the runtime of a TV show.

I've been asked this before and I always say this: Arcane is the MCU version of league lore; with the same strengths (improved visuals, the fast pacing of a cinematographic adaptation) and same biggest weaknesses (flimsy story summarizations that sacrifice a lot of the compelling narrative and kill entire characters)

I've been a comic fan for nearly as long as the MCU has been viral and I can tell you every attempt to retcon MCU events into the estabilished comic universe has not worked. It has the opposite effect of interrupting character arcs and stories people actually like and undoing pre-estabilished facts about the magic of the universe, driving away fans of the original medium while failing to attract the new movie/tv-show audience to check out the original, because those are completely different demographics.

It's even worse with Arcane, as we already KNOW one big joke in the fanbase is "even if you like the show, dont play the game. It's stupid bigoted redditor shit and it sucks" - there's an entire genre of arcane fan accounts who are militant about not playing the game and encourage others to never play the game. I don't think league's execs understand this, though, which is why we are seeing this current trend of a DRASTIC pullback in any and all lore-related content for league coming from higher-ups, and some of the old estabilished writers leaving the company while CEOs promise they're trying to find "an unified version of the narrative experience."

To stay on topic here and also answer your second question; ive rambled at length about jayce viktor interpretations in my meta tag. I reccomend you to look there! You'll notice i havent gone into specifics about what in arcane's narrative is weaker since its included on those.

I'd like to finish this post in another way though. In the long run, I don't think it matters that execs are trying to force narrative retcons despite the internal and external negative response to it. Fans will always like the specific thing they like, and in this scenario, start to define what versions of the universe/character they're talking about by release year or authorship, which is already happening in league. This is why the vikjayce codex exists and will not change, and this is why you see people using "2011/2016 lore" and "jayce giopara", etc.

Remember all these MCU retcons I mentioned? Whenever a movie is past its expiration date and the story element they tried to fit into original canon is considered a fad, it's just rewritten back to what it used to be. The newest marvel news this month is that CEOs decided to kill kamala khan ahead of her upcoming movie, as the MCU couldn't fit her signature elastigirl powers and they want to swap those out for the dumb purple magic the movies gave her instead. This will not last, as these never do. In 4 years she'll be back to normal, and in the meantime, elastigirl kamala will continue to exist in all her source books and videogames. The same way league's original bios are preserved and spin-off game content like the LOR comics or Convergence will continue to exist; I can't change any shortsighted decision from the CEOs, but fans as a whole have systems to define different universes and pick the version they like best.

Arcane has been called an AU by people who've worked in LoL's narrative, and is just the newest shiny thing. It is not "canon", as it never fit any part of the current game universe, and any future attempt to "make it canon" is just another permutation of an AU. I would encourage anyone who's nervous or anxious about retcons to not give a shit and disregard it altogether. If it doesn't work, you can always change it back.

#hextxt #meta tag

[dyrewrites]

I hope you guys enjoy the Pale Blood chapters I've been sharing...because I now know they will be very different when I am done revising.

Almost entirely rewritten judging by my revision notes, but a lot of the major story beats will remain and (hopefully) I can keep the voice consistent.

But I am honestly impressed at my drafting brain's ability to stuff random, unrelated characters and scenes into that thing that just...go nowhere. It's like it had too many ideas for the setting and city and wanted to do all of them at the same time.

So there's going to be a lot of trimming and trying to figure out what the story actually needs. I was already planning on writing side stories for it, I can keep all of these ideas, I just can't keep them all in the same book.

Revision is fun. Also, writing a novel that hasn't been ruminating (read; screaming incessantly day in and day out until every breath I take is absolutely saturated by it) for a few decades is a whole other experience.

Weald and Wen might be the first book in the Children of Mar series, and only one currently written, but the entire series was written when I was twelve. Not in any physical form. I had never written a single word of prose for that thing until...two years ago? But it was written all the same. I knew the world, who would be involved, what it would be about, even kind of how it would end. And while the details may have changed, the major things haven't.

The issue was telling it in a way that made sense to those not living in my brain.

With Pale Blood...it's a whole new thing. I knew nothing going in. I had three separate novel ideas, with maybe 600-1000 words of prose written in each, that just happened to involve similar settings and themes and so I made them a series. Pale Blood is the first and so it needs to do a lot to set the other two up while giving them room to also be their own thing, as they each have a different main cast.

It's so different from Weald and Wen that it's been both exhilarating and the most frustrating thing I have ever done.

So I hope it's fun.

Because it's going to be torture to rewrite and take me forever.

#writing rambles

[punch-love]

12, 19, 21, 25, 27, 28, 29 (real curious about this one), 31, 34, 37,

OKAY fuck that's a lot of questions ik. But like if it's too much ya can answer whichever the ones ya want. Also the <<<40>>>> this question deserves a special place cause I AM FERAL AND BAT SHIT CRAZY TO ANYTHING RELATED TO LOVE-PUNCH.

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

I really enjoy the (singular) episode we've gotten for these two. In the context of the comics, one of my favorites is the one where Wade has to talk Peter out of going too dark-sided, which was a really fun contrast and something that Peter ended up thanking him for which is pretty rare for him.

19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

I'm very much my own muse, and I mean that in the vainest and most honest way possible.

21. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

I can't even begin to count this number. It's a lot. It's like - it's a lot. I really won't post something until I can read through it and not feel the urge to adjust or change anything. I'm a picky reader, so that - is not an easy thing to accomplish. I also have a great beta who will sometimes rewrite portions, reorganize my flow, or pick specific sections that should be rewritten or re-evaluated, and so I'll send a couple of drafts over in that case so - yeah, the number is high. I take the editing stage very seriously.

25. What do you look for in a beta?

I was very lucky to have my beta @maybe-haunted ask to work with me on chapter one of my first posted work, so I've never necessarily looked for one. I've just been very fortunate to have the perfect one find me. I don't ask for creative help often, so the thing I appreciate about my beta (one of many) is that they make me feel very safe sharing something in a very raw, very imperfect state. I only publish polished works, but they've seen my writing at it's roughest and most incomprehensible, and they're always able to be very direct about what does/doesn't work while making me feel comfortable in that experience. I love knowing what's going on in the reader's mind, and they're a very good audience for getting that type of feedback. They also individually comment on all the sections/moments they like or hit really well for them, and that is just - let me tell you. The best part of the editing process is getting to read what they thought about it and getting to experience in real-time how my writing is being ingested by another person weeks before it's ever shown to my bigger audience. I really appreciate them a lot.

27. How do you feel about collaborations?

I don't enjoy them! I really like being the only guy steering the ship. I have never enjoyed collaborative projects. I have talked about writing something with @periodically-puzzled, and they're probably the only person I'd do it with. That being said, I love collaboration within idea sharing and editing, and I've taken a lot of ideas/feedback/snippets from my writing friends and beta before, and I love seeing how the hand of another person influences and changes my writing. I also enjoy seeing my hand in other people's work, but it's the difference between adding spice to the soup and making a soup with someone else. I much prefer adding spice/having spice added then having to share kitchen space.

28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

@periodically-puzzled: funny and immensely clever, such a clear narrative voice, and very intentional with the stories they like to tell. the first time I read their work, I felt like I had found a pearl in a sea of rocks. there's just something very individualistic about how they write. you can see the person behind the wheel and it makes it all that more interesting. also one of the few people to actually trigger me with their writing.

@primewritessmut: gnarly and so violent in a way that actually makes their writing almost bleed with it. there are writers who are like "wow I'm such a psychopath for writing this there must be something wrong with me" but they are literally babies in the face of whatever is happening inside prime's mind. her writing makes me flinch and I really enjoy that experience of not being able to look away. also just, the ability to finish so many interesting and complex stories is always something that impresses me.

@x-gon-give-it: really, immensely obsessed with their current WIP with a mercenary spider-man. the writing is just - incredible. there are passages and bits from it that cycle around my head in a loop. really just cracked peter parker on the sidewalk and made us all look at the inside of his fucked up brain. really very talented at writing violence and like, razor sharp intimacy. I take notes whenever I read one of the new chapters, honestly.

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

I know you were interested in this answer specifically, but I honestly would not do write a sequel or prequel for anyone else's work. that's just not how my brain works. part of that comes from the fact that I have a complicated, often negative relationship with people creating works inspired from my own, so it's not something I would do to another writer.

31. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

I take liberties by claiming everything I write is inspired by canon even which it's in direct opposition of it.

34. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?

I love it a lot. I read a lot of it. I write a lot of it. I think it's a safe space for people to explore something complicated and/or objectively horrible that is often inspired by real world experiences and fears. I used to say that I wouldn't write non-con, and I still stand by the fact that I probably wouldn't write sexual non-con for my own mental health, but I am exploring a technically not sexual non-con scenario in a one-shot right now.

37. Talk about your current wips.

The not sexual non-con scenario I'm working on is one where Spider-Man goes feral and Wade keeps him in a cage and starves him on purpose to see if he can get Spider-Man to cannibalize him.

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

I'm going to be so real, I almost didn't answer this one because I don't like to talk about my endings (even their direct opposites) before I write them, but I did end up thinking about this enough to probably warrant an answer. I think that if (redacted) didn't happen, then they would remain enemies who absolutely hate everything about each other in the way that only bitter ex's really can.

I think that they would know too much about each other and that they would intentionally make each other's lives miserable because of it. They're both very vindictive people who love to hold a grudge, and both of them would feel victimized by how (redacted) went down and would feel like the other person was their personal villain.

I think Wade wouldn't kill Spider-Man, not out of love, but because he'd enjoy hurting him too much, and I think that Spider-Man would break his no-kill rule specifically to shut Wade up sometimes. I think Wade would bring the worst out of Peter, and Peter would make Wade want to destroy the best inside himself. It would be a 24/7 divorce court, but the court is the city and neither party is happy with the verdict and keep on trying to hurt each other to make up for it. I think eventually one of them would leave the city, and they would never see each other again, but the hate would never fully go away - and if they made their way back to each other, it would burn twice as hot. It would be like a full circle moment, then ending with how they started but this time with twice the amount of knowledge and the hate would be actually personal this time. That would be the alternative ending.

#mailbox #ask game #oh the alternative ending to love-punch would be so fun to write but it would end SOOOOO poorly #it's a miracle it ends well at all. is what I'm saying #thanks for the questions some of these were hard to answer but for sure made me think #not sure if that's the alternate ending you wanted to hear about. honestly it surprised me it didn't end with wade killing peter #but like. I don't think he could. by the end. not because he's a good person but because peter wouldn't let him

[factorialsotherfandoms]

hi hello this is user a_Saga_in_progress from ao3 and I uh. am new here. idk if this is how this is meant to be used but I wanted to say hi! do you have advice on how tumblr works for new users?

Hello its lovely to see you! And yeah if someone's ask box is open putting 'hi' is perfectly acceptable <3

Advice on tumblr... Err... Okay first off I've been here for over 10 years and /still/ don't really know how it works. But! I shall do my best.

If you're on browser, take the time to install xkit rewritten (or whichever form of xkit is most up to date). This has so many quality of life features like auto-tagging your reblogs and making tag bundles

I can't remember if tumblr by recommended is still a thing, but go into your settings and tell it to display dash in chronological anyway. I'd also recommend turning ON custom theme (biggest bonus - a version of your blog that links can be made to without tumblr demanding viewers log in on mobile - but also enables a month by month fast archive), OFF share following, and have an explore about other options. Things like turning your ask box on and off and also submissions are super helpful if you ever have problems with people sending you hate. I've been lucky enough not to, but its a social media platform, it can happen. Also you never have to have asks or submissions on ever if you don't want to. I'd also recommend snoozing tumblr live every month because otherwise you will be shown pictures of half naked women on your dash trying to get you to use it. God only knows why.

the site runs mostly on reblogs. This puts a copy of your post onto your blog, where people who follow you can then see it in turn! You can add comments to these - which again is always acceptable so long as you're being polite - which unlike twitter quote retweets will not 'steal' stats from the OP. You'll get notifications for likes and reblogs with that addition, the OP will still get those ones as well. Same goes for writing things in tags.

There's 3 ways to add comment on a post - reblog with comment, tags, and replies. Comment is just you add more stuff to the post, and anyone who reblogs it from you will share those too - an addition to the content. Replies are like quiet chatter - anyone can see them and reply if they click the button to view, but they're not in their face. There's often a lot of crap there, but welcome to any platform. Tags are, theoretically, for filing, but because people can see them they're often used to add bits of commentry - in the past they were only visible to your followers and visitors to your blog without extensions, though now they're visible to the OP, whomever you reblogged from, and anyone looking in the notes. However tags have no direct way to reply - sometimes people will reblog from the person whose tags they are responding to, or screenshot them and add them to the post, but there's no built in feature for it unlike replies. Whichever way you choose, comments are how community is built.

Tags! The first five tags are searchable, the rest aren't. Put most important stuff there. The system also breaks constantly.

Learn where the 'report for spam' buttons are for IMs and new followers. You will get some, sooner or later. Even my unlisted side blogs manage it.

You have a limit of 250 posts per day over your blog and any side blogs! I only started hitting this when I started liveblogging qsmp, tho, so don't worry /too/ much.

For sideblogs, the UI for deleting them is /really bad/. If you go to a sideblog, then its specific blog settings, then scroll down to the button which says 'delete [name of sideblog]', this button will delete your entire account, not just the sideblog. And getting it back isn't possible in most cases

Your block list is private, make use of it. Block specific tags for your triggers ("fandom neg" is a good start tbh), spam accounts, block anyone being an ass, block people because you see them a lot and you don't like their artstyle but people you follow do and you just want it off your blog - there is no morality involved in blocking, just do it to make your tumblr a happier place.

Unless someone says not to in their description, just scrolling through their entire blog and liking/reblogging things is fair game.

Likes do not share things to other people (and so artists will get sad if they get many likes and not many reblogs) but are super useful to mark when you've already seen something, or if you're (like me) sometimes on mobile and sometimes on computer and want to save them for the computer where tagging is a bit easier. I'd personally recommend turning them to private in settings, but each to their own.

The queue! Beloved queue. If you add things to your queue they will auto-post later. I use it for when I hit post count, and also to store up reblogged art for later.

Concerning side blogs - you can only follow, like and send asks from your main account, but you can post on, reblog to, recieve messages to, and reply from any (replying from side accounts is very new and very exciting). (So my case is obvious but if you see @factorialrabbits about in your notifications, that's my main, this is a side <3 )

Tagging/atting people! If you want someone's attention on a post, you use "@", then type their name. This doesn't always work, and should be used sparingly as it's basically like showing up to their front door and yelling for them lol. I mostly see it used for reblog games, and if someone's asked for say specific clips or timestamps for a VoD alerting them to a post which has them.

Search is fucky, but its a good way to find art. I tend not to search by tags, just keywords, then swap to most recent. Trying to find a specific post after its gone, though? good luck you'll need it.

Not a modern tumblr, but trivia - historically you used to be able to get an email address for your blog, and any email you sent to that address would be posted to it, and of all tumblr features I miss it the most.

Hopefully that helps? I need to go get some groceries but am happy to answer specific questions if you have them <3 I'm just never sure where to start lol

#ask and answer

[fanstuffrantings]

One of my biggest issues with Anders in DA2 will always be that he was a stand in for Valena and plot points weren't fully rewritten with him in mind. Allow me to give examples.

If you're just nice to Anders, he assumes there's romantic intentions and is angry if you reject the idea. What we know about Anders in Awakening means this doesn't make sense. He's a flirt. But for Valena this would make sense. A calous elf who trusts no one is shown complete kindness and understanding? It would totally track for her to be angry at rejection. This moment made me dislike Anders a lot during my first playthrough, it didn't fit him.

Next is just in general how he acts and how departed from awakening he is. If awakening and 2 had more time between them then sure we could argue that the years just changed him. But it hadn't been years. The awakening timeline is a mess but da2 Anders appears barely months after (if that). Valena being introduced as untrusting, slightly uptight, and immediately reactive fits perfect though.

With that said: if they ever were to remake da2 these are some story changes I'd make to Anders to allow the plot to flow better with him.

1. He flirts with everyone. For Fenris it could be done to get a rise out of him. The hatred between them is still clearly there just not as volatile as it can get. He could grow feelings for hawke but it's never brought up until act 2 when he wants to know where the relationship is going. You can't sleep with him without forming a romance but if the player opts for a "I'm just friendly flirting" Anders let's it go. In act 3 when we see him at his lowest he doesn't friendly flirt with anyone.

2. Justice and him are on bad terms at the start of 2. In the book for anders he was kicked out of the wardens after eating people. I want him to have a problem with that and actually be thinking letting himself be possessed is a mistake. It's Hawke's response in act 1 that begins his journey to either reconciling with justice, or attempting to be free from justice. This would also shape how he turns out in act 3. If you support him we see him how he is in game. If you tell him to separate we see him become less of himself as he becomes desperate to avoid what justice plans.

3. The scene with fenris being sold needs to change. That scene honestly should be the thing that causes companions to abandon hawke. Only reuniting in the final to defend the city because everyone is home there. The only exception is if we have vengeance by this point who thinks fenris is getting his justice for hating mages. But even then it's iffy.

4. Again I want to see anders change over the game depending on hawke. If a hawke constantly encourages him and justice to stay together and work through things we see him become more radical and willing to do whatever it takes to gain mage freedom. Even if some must die. The anders we knew is no longer there, but for many this anders is what's needed. What's right. For players who reject what anders could be we see him become almost a shell of himself. Still unrecognizable but also fighting best he can against what's to come. Maybe in this version he tries to warn circle mages, tries to tell hawke, heck maybe even attempts to tell thrask since he's one of the better templars. But he's incapable of doing so. He still wants mage freedom but he's so caught up in his own struggle he can't really fight for it. Still not a great outcome.

I've been thinking on these for a minute. Dragon age 2 is both a loved and hated game for me. Because I feel like it did a lot of damage to the dragon age story but also gave us such good parts as well.

#dragon age #da2 #anders critical #da anders #listen i loved awakening anders but after finding out he replaced Valena (who i also love) a lot of things made sense

[firendgold]

Ok so bc anything i do in this fandon is specifically to piss that woman off, i gotta ask:

Do you have any ideas for fic scenarios for trans!albus and/or trans!Harry? (time travel harrydore or not, you pick)

so funny story anon, my instinctual answer for this question was "no, I've never thought about it, sorry"—but as I was writing that reply a while back, I actually started getting ideas. It was wild. (That's also why this took so long to get out, sorry!)

trans!Albus is easier for me to imagine for some reason. I had this idea where his entire early life could be rewritten just to do a deep dive into the Dumbledore family dynamics when the firstborn prodigy half-blood son is AFAB instead. How that might change Percival's actions on Ariana's behalf (or not), if he doesn't have any thoughts in the back of his mind about leaving his family in his "eldest son's" hands. How that could change the rivalry between Albus and Aberforth, who might not be super tolerant of an uppity older sister who's also queer. We still don't know much about Kendra somehow, after 1 billion years of Pottermore, but whether or not she's accepting of Albus' gender identity and sexuality could be their own spin-off fanfics, they're that fascinating. Her own Native history could then be touched on as well.

All these things together could be a point of personal conflict for Albus, who's already a living embodiment of a taboo Native/European union and might have to wrestle with what's accepted from him as a Good and Proper Woman of English society re: marriage and carrying on some (other) pureblood's line, along with protecting Ariana's secret and "making up" for his father's crimes.

I don't know if Albus' sexuality changes. If it doesn't, I can see him being briefly confused about What Elphias Is To Him when he gets older, and Elphias is getting his own messages from home about How Much Time He's Spending With That Dumbledore Girl. I imagine there would be a lot of conversations between Albus and Kendra, and Albus and other peers, about who he was going to marry and what his "prospects" were since his father's a known criminal. And Albus, beyond not identifying as a girl at all, would find all this discussion about such trivial sexist matters frustrating as hell.

Unfortunately, I see everyone at Hogwarts misgendering Albus while he's a student, or pretty much everyone. Like, he eventually tells Elphias who accepts right away (and is confused about What That Means for Him in private), and maybe a few other students, but none of his professors are Getting It. His stellar academic record probably keeps him from being bullied as much, but doesn't entirely protect him from rampant transmisogyny and slurs when he outperforms people.

But regardless, assuming the "major beats" of history play out the same way, I can see Albus being a lot more proactive re: marginalized rights than he already was in canon, and perhaps moving the overall British Society Needle way further to the left, because it's one thing to talk shit about the powerful, progressive, weird old man that no one really knows is gay but can kick your arse without breathing hard, but another thing entirely to talk shit about your trans, out and proud, progressive Supreme Mugwump who has already freed all the elves, speaks all the magical creature/Being languages, is raising your kids at school better than you are at home, AND is still gay and can still kick your arse without breathing hard.

This is all, of course, imagining that Albus is AFAB and identifies as male. If it's the other way around and Albus is AMAB and identifies as female... I can't even imagine. I'm not cool enough ig

As for Harry, it's weird but I don't have any trans headcanons for him during his Hogwarts years. It's kind of similar to how I don't read many genderbent!Harry fics unless I adore the author, because even though I'm a girl I can't imagine Harry IDing as one for some reason. (I'm very limited, I know.) BUT. For some reason this changes when you bring in time travel harrydore.

With the ship as the parameter, I can imagine an AFAB Harry who's spent his whole life chafing at the clothes Aunt Petunia gets him—because 'unfortunately' (for her), even pre-puberty, she can't just give Harry Dudley's cast-offs unless she wants The Neighbors to start lifting eyebrows and asking questions—because they're girl clothes and along with just not fitting in to the Pristine Pretentious Family with her messy hair and tight clothes and taped-up glasses, Harry has never felt like a girl. He insisted on having people call him 'Harry' as soon as he could talk and get away with it, and only has to hear his deadname from his teachers and with the Dursleys.

This all of course changes once McGonagall is reading names on the Sorting List in 1991 and just barely doesn't stumble over Harry's preferred name being on the list instead. (She is surprised only because Harry is famous. By the time Harry goes to school, there have been many other out trans students in this headcanon. But probably very few under her eye have been quite this famous.)

I've always personally headcanoned Harry as bisexual, but I don't know if that would be the case in this particular headcanon. I can still see him going after Cho, and perhaps even Ginny. I can see him having the same confusion about What Are Ron and I To Each Other that a trans!Albus had about Elphias a century ago, without ever living his Hogwarts life as a girl to anyone but his enemies (and having a lot of friction with canon!Hermione and/or Lavender as a result). I can see Draco hating Harry even more, because he always kept "her" in the back of his mind as a Dark Lady he could serve under in all ways, only to have this... boy being his rival and Quidditch better and wanting absolutely nothing to do with the Malfoys or purebloods or knowing her place.

A thought that sticks in the back of my mind is that JKR (otherwise known by me as That Woman (derogatory)) specifically wrote Harry as a boy for a lot of reasons, and the main one being that she always planned for him to live and pass on his line in the "traditional" way, and having her titular character be a girlboss would've derailed that status quo. In a universe where Harry is AFAB, I can imagine a lot of related conversations with and around Harry about this. How "she" is "the last Potter" that there will ever be, because naturally she'll marry into one of the families and the name will be lost forever. I can see this being a real bone of contention with Harry and radicalizing him, along with Voldemort and the discrimination against werewolves and house-elves and centaurs and veela (which I doubt even one dedicated Dumbledore would be able to get rid of), making him take his place as the next generation leftist magical powerhouse.

And so how does all that change his relationship with Dumbledore? I... don't really see it changing much. If both characters are trans, that's another point of connection for them that bonds them through all the mess the government and society puts them through. It makes Albus a figure for Harry to admire as a young boy ("look, the most powerful wizard in the world is just like me!") and to still anguish about as a young man ("all the choices he made that I don't agree with, all the secrets he kept from me, how do I know I won't make the same mistakes or make no better progress than he did?"). Their relationship could be all the more painful or distant if one of them is out and one is in the closet, like an Albus who never came out or transitioned and is seeing in Harry the upright boy he could have been, or if Harry is resentful of Albus living his truth because he, a knobbly-kneed adolescent girl, doesn't have the power, freedom, or influence to be who he truly wants to be.

But focus! I'm focusing! Time travel Harrydore. The specific scenario I was imagining was one where AFAB Harry never comes out to the general public. His loved ones who are his peers know, but all the adults in his life (yes, including Remus and Sirius) never get to meet him properly. They die thinking of him as "James' daughter". And after defeating Voldemort, Harry just can't take the idea of spending any more time not being the person he wants to be. He's done being the Girl-Who-Lived so he writes goodbye letters to Ron and Hermione and does some ancient ritual without anyone knowing, and instead of changing him at the molecular level it flings him back to the past.

And so unlike a lot of time travel fics (including mine lol) where Harry is grieving his true time and desperate to get back home, this Harry misses his friends terribly, but it doesn't take long for him to see being an unknown in a different time as a golden opportunity. Sure, it would have been better if he'd been flung into the future instead and maybe had more tolerant people instead of less, but no one knows who he's "supposed" to be here. So he can grow into the man he truly is!

And so while Harry is setting up his new life for himself (maybe as some personal tutor, or a backup Quidditch player, or something that keeps him out of the limelight for once?), he runs into trans!Albus who doesn't have many friends and not much else going on for him (depending on who or where Grindelwald is right then), and Harry's nervous but they hit it off and become close friends, and one thing leads to another, and...

*cackles*

Also also, and sorry for sticking this all the way at the end lol, but MUCH RESPECT for hanging around in HPF just to stick in the craw of That Woman. I think I'm adopting your philosophy for the future. ^^

#thanks for the ask! #headcanons #fireandgold #fireandgoldposts #trans!Albus Dumbledore #trans!Harry Potter #Albus Dumbledore #Harry Potter #there's a lot of misgendering in this ask for the purposes of the headcanon imagine so I'm sorry about that #I tried to use Albus and Harry's preferred pronouns as much as possible

[the-resurrection-3d]

rambling thoughts on the finale now that I've watched it again (spoilers, of course)

Even as I was watching initially on the discord, I was shocked by how quickly things were going by -- Luz gets murked not even 25 minutes in, for instance. I've been thinking over the series's cancellation -- I've seen it argued Dana should have cut more stuff out, but in fairness, it's hard having to make drastic cuts in a short amount of time, especially when cutting out certain characters would have meant redoing plot elements, not to mention skipping over or rewriting entire characters' backstories.

I think about Luca vs Encanto -- Luca had a lot of ideas pulled out, whereas Encanto very obviously tried to cram an entire mini-series into one movie. I like Luca better than Encanto for a bunch of different reasons, but I have to ask, Should you try to tell a simpler story better or a truncated story as best as you can? The answer seems apparent, but there is something to be said about Dana putting as much as she could on the table and all but outright asking fans to enjoy rebuilding her vision in their own. It's one thing when certain characters and ideas can be taken and made their own standalone stories, but not everything can, and given the state of the animation industry, the chances of that new show happening would've been slim, anyway.

A show like The Owl House -- a queer story cut short by a company that funded homophobic politicians while chasing woke brownie points for good publicity -- feels like the best-use case for Jenkins's idea of fanfic as repairing culture, as fans are now left to take this obviously compromised text and show our love by doing the reparative work of trying to fill in the cracks. Even if you don't engage with the fandom much, your perception of the text is still informed by these cuts, so there really isn't a reason not to think of the show as the sum of its canon and your own reparative fandom experience.

I compare TOH to SU a lot in my head, and the reason I'm willing to be so forgiving towards TOH for having a lot of dropped threads and blank spots is because, unlike SU/SUF, I don't feel like the creators wasted their time. Arguably there are episodes in season one that can be cut, but it's nothing like SU, which spent just so many episodes across every season prioritizing Steven's relationships to the humans in Beach City and neglecting its actual main cast, only for SUF to then stand up and admit it was all for fucking nothing.

Speaking of SU, though, the Collector fucking off back "to the stars" at the end gave me similar vibes to Spinel leaving with the Diamonds, though I will give SU the point here. Literally why is the Collector leaving when they've just NOW found a support system and friends? When their powers would be immensely helpful for rebuilding the Boiling Isles? "to the stars" TO SEE WHAT. WHOM. even on my first watch I thought this was fucking lame.

My main issue is that I felt like there was a big Belos-Luz beat missing, especially when their confrontation in the throne room was just him saying "oh you can't beat me." I would have rewritten that line, at least. I needed just a little extra, especially since he ended TTT with telling Luz he's doing this "for the good of [her] soul." I loved the death scene though (he's so mentally ill <3), as well as Arin Hanson's Titansona responding to Luz asking if they're "just as bad" as Belos with "do you smoke crack?"