I finally finished reading the fourth volume of svsss in full, and thing is--the first time through I only read the bingqiu content because I was ravenous for more of their happy ending.
Turns out that was a perilous mistake.
Because I started reading the airplane extras. And I swear to god. MXTX is trying to kill me
What do you MEAN demon lord Binghe was sitting on his big fucking throne. All stoic and forbidding. Surrounded by his demon generals who don't know shit about human courtship. Asking them what he should do, fully demoralized by constant rejections from sqq, only to have airplane tell him to act more pathetic and needy. Which is already hysterically funny and insane, UNTIL LBH'S RESPONSE IS THIS, KILLING ME INSTANTLY:
LUO BINGHE. WHY DOES HE SAY IT LIKE: "I already tried that, didn't work--nothing works :/ not mean, not maidenly, not housewife, not spicy, not capable disciple. Is doubling down on clingy really all it will take? What's a born hater with only one love in his life to do????"
The dichotomy of him sitting there like 'how can I reach the unfathomable depths of shizun's heart?' A HEART HE'S ALREADY WON OVER, MIND and then in the Holy Mausoleum solving the puzzle without blinking and being like 'oh yeah you just have to hit the acupoints, no sweat.' Literally the comedy writes itself I'm so--
How am I supposed to be normal about this. MXTX understands the juicy quintessential queer joy of a person with the world's power at their fingertips wishing only for love. Willing to do anything to earn that love, when unbeknownst to them it's already been freely given. Totally not screaming and yelling and clawing at the walls
And that's not even touching airplane's uproarious account of events. The way he's like 'lol what's next, lbh and sqq are best friends now? smfh' only to see lbh TACKLE SQQ LOVINGLY. FOR SQQ TO BE BASHFUL ABOUT IT BUT SO SO FOND OF THE LITTLE SCAMP. This when we've been experiencing sqq's constant inner monologue of 'I'm so cool and so dignified about my role, truly the epitome of propriety and poser-level fortitude.' Meanwhile, in their universe:
Airplane constantly flaming???? Sqq and lbh in his observations????? His absolute bewilderment and confusion????? Legendary. No notes every single second of this shit was hilarious.
Airplane's comment that sqq + older adolescent lbh traveling together was just watching a couple in their honeymoon phase. OR the fact that lbh is exceedingly petty and refuses to share their food in the wake of airplane's interruption of their time together, until sqq relents sheepishly and insists airplane eat what's left (ONLY AFTER PLACATING LBH WITH MORE FOOD FROM HIS PLATE, SOBBING)
Watching airplane salivate over Mobei-Jun and acting like that's totally normal behavior. Finding out mbj and airplane got together first. Finding out sqq encouraged airplane. LIKE THIS. WHILE HE IS STILL IN DENIAL ABOUT HIS OWN FEELINGS:
Mobei-jun clearly thinking their arrangement is a forever thing, heartbroken his human abandoned him with all the hapless fury of a scorned wife swept away by false promises of fidelity. Airplane writing demons to be the type to beat up their crush lovingly and still unable to connect the dots about mbj's feelings. Mbj letting him go and respecting his wishes, only relenting when there's indication airplane was poorly processing his own feelings and didn't actually want to leave. Mbj caring for him and listening to him as soon as airplane voices what he needs directly and with clarity. None of these gays are functional and it's everything to me
Unrelated, but I physically can't hold this information in anymore:
I'm still reeling from younger lbh having his sexual awakening from the image of sqq wrapped in the immortal binding cables. Condemn me as you like he was so, so real for that.
And no I will not be taking any comments about how luo bingge couldn't bear to see luo binghe cherished in ways he never got to have and all the haunting implications of that. I will also not be taking any comments about luo binghe's instinct to look for sqq in that alternate universe, only to be shaken to the very core to be unable to find his shizun anywhere. The unspeakable and latent horror of his relentless mind likely piecing together what happened, but unable to say it; to suspect what is true, and live with the harrowing confusion of his double's actions. To blame himself, to assume that he had let his anger get the better of him in that world and result in unspeakable folly...
I also refuse to talk about how heartrending it is to hear Tianlang-jun weakly say "In the end, I really can't bring myself to hate humans." The implication that the foolishness of that hope and bright-eyed fondness--the very thing that put him through such unspeakable agony--couldn't be beaten out of him entirely. To discover that his faith in Su Xiyan hadn't been misplaced, to the contrary: his beloved hadn't scorned him at all, but rather fought to the miserable end to protect the fruition of their genuine feelings of love when she couldn't protect tlj or herself.
How MXTX has sqq deliberately draw parallels between their situation and that of ygy+sj and tlj+sx; desperately wishing it might not be too late for them. The concept of breaking cycles of abuse and harm pervasive throughout the newly devised story, how it evolves for the better only when love takes the place of power, pride, and domination. How the moment sqq chooses vulnerability instead of saving face, the genre shifts to the so-called "cringe" girly genre where most if not every character is more fulfilled, more true to themselves. How the "male-oriented" former genre was aimlessly sensationalized and sexualized, how it was a sustained performance of aspirational toxic masculinity. How men objectify other men without end. All of the unspoken gendered implications that come with that.
Anyways. Going to go put my head in a sandbox and try to process everything I just witnessed because even a second reading is not enough to find a modicum of closure.
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Steddie Upside-Down AU Part 78
Part 1 Part 77
Eddie always thought he’d be in jail before all this hard labor bullshit starts. Still, here he is, chipping away at the cold earth with a shovel Mama Byers stole from Merill’s shed. And it’s all to save the same man who’s busted his balls more times than he can count.
But Steve had pointed, and Eddie’d started digging.
He’s sitting now, criss-cross as he stares down at the ground like he can see through it, feet crossed, and t-shirt on backwards. Eddie had thrown it over his head as Steve walked out of the house, while While stuffed his sockless feet into his tennis shoes as best as he could. It’s not right. He’s not right.
Eddie can still feel the thread tying them together, but it’s brittle now, obvious next to the nylon still twined between Eddie and Will.
Steve’s barely there at all.
He’s always lived in an empty house, been an empty house. The thing inside him is just the first to take up residence – to fill the vacancy.
Eddie wants his empty house back.
He’d spent a year watching Steve blossom, filling that emptiness with laughter and cooking and someone to come home to. Eddie’d helped Steve move in, rearrange the furniture in his mind and feng shui that shit until the sun was always shining. He’d seen the curtains begin to open.
It’s jarring, now, to look into his eyes and see the glassy windows of an abandoned home.
So Eddie does all he can; he digs. The hole grows bigger and bigger, growing at the same rate as the blister on the side of his right thumb. He takes turns with Mama Byers, her lithe frame hiding surprising strength.
She’s the one at the mantle when the shovel strikes air. She pushes it down hard, gasping as it falls straight through, clattering somewhere below with the dull thud of metal on packed earth.
“Well, shit,” she says, staring down at the far-too small hole in the earth, just big enough to lose a shovel in.
Eddie peers down with her, eyeing the loosened sides and the distance of the drop. “Think we can stomp the rest out?”
“I don’t think that’s–” Mama Byers starts, but Eddie’s already stomped down.
The dirt crumbles easier than he expects, like all it wants is to tumble down into the unknown with the shovel. Eddie’s whole foot goes through, and he tumbles down with it.
It’s not far, but he lands on the handle of the shovel, feels it reverberate up his spine. He closes his eyes against the pain, groaning as he rolls away from the impact site.
“Eddie?” Will and Mama Byers both call down to him. He opens his eyes to look up at their worried faces, haloed by the dim gray of the November sky. Steve doesn’t make an appearance, but he can still dimly feel him up there.
“I’m fine!” he calls, hoisting himself onto knees and hands and hoping it’s true.
His ankle twinges as he gets it under him but it holds his weight as he levers himself upright. He barely even notices the pain because then he sees him: Hopper. He’s on the ground, and he’s not moving, as the vines writhe around him.
“Shit!” Eddie cries, rushing over and dropping down next to the man. “Shit, shit, shit!”
He says it like a mantra, barely noticing Mama Byers calling down at him, demanding he tell her what’s happening.
Eddie yanks at the vine, trying to wrench it from the man’s throat with little success. He sobs when Hopper croaks out a quiet, “knife.” It’s the first sign of life the man’s shown and Eddie will take it with both hands.
“Where?” Eddie cries. “Where is it?”
“It’s there!” Mama Byers calls. She’s collapsed on the ground, winded from her own fall into the tunnel. Eddie follows her pointing finger to his right.
He lurches for it as Mama Byers crawls up to take his place holding the vines away from Hopper’s windpipe.
Eddie saws at the vine around his neck, around his torso, around his wrists. He loses time to hacking away, barely noticing the viscous black blood that oozes out of it and splatters his clothes, hands, face.
All he knows is Steve’s barely there at all anymore, and this is the same fucking thing that had slithered down his throat
and made its home inside him in the first place.
He can hear Hopper coughing, Mama Byers calling his name, but it’s all muffled, like he’s under water. Like he’s still in the Harrington pool, drowning. Like he never made it to the other side.
Maybe he didn’t.
Maybe he’s still down there, sucking down chlorine like it’ll quench his thirst. At least down there, he’d had a hold on Steve. But, now, he can feel the tether turning to ash in his mouth. He’s so thirsty. He wants to swallow the world.
“Munson”
He keeps hacking away at the vines, like they’ll stop strangling Stevie. Like this will be the thing that saves them.
“Eddie.”
Like they’re what’s strangling him, smoke and helplessness clogging Steve’s esophagus and making a home within him.
“Kid!”
There are warm hands gripping his wrist, hard. Warmer than Steve’s been. Eddie looks up, and Hopper’’s staring at him, ragged and dirty and panting, but alive. Eddie looks down at the wrist he’s holding. Hopper’s knife is clutched hard enough that it hurts.
“You got them,” Hopper says, voice that soothing, gruff timber he uses on little kids, and victims. “You can let go.” He squeezes Eddie’s wrist before loosening his hold and running his thumb up the veins of his inner wrist. “You saved me, kid. You did good.”
It hurts when he drops the knife, tendons protesting the change of position after he knows how long clenching down. Hopper drops his wrist, clasping his shoulder and squeezing that instead. “You did good,” he says again, and then again, like that’ll stop Eddie’s shaking. It doesn’t.
Eddie nods, still looking down at the knife. His hand clenches on air. He feels bereft, so he pulls on the threads that bind. One made of titanium, and one made of dust he can barely feel at all.
He jerks his head up at the ceiling, straining his neck to see Steve and Will’s faces. He needs to know that they’re both still there, waiting for him to come back. That Steve’s still Steve, waiting for Eddie to save him.
Steve’s always dying. Eddie’s always trying to save him.
But Steve’s not there at all.
There’s just dirt, only a shovel as proof of the morning spent digging a hole. Digging a grave for them to disappear in.
“No, no, no!” Eddie cries, scrambling up.
“Munson, what–”
“He’s gone!” He lurches forward, grabbing for the shovel, like he can somehow dig his way back. He hears Mama Byers gasp as he pushes the shovel up into the dirt. It doesn’t give. He pushes harder.
“Eddie, sweetie.” Mama Byers says, reaching up to pat his shoulder. “Will’s got him.”
Will’s got him. Will, who’s bright light he can feel at Steve’s side, just above. Will’s got him.
Eddie drops the shovel on a sob, still looking, up, up, up.
“But how are we going to get out of her?” Eddie asks. No one answers because no one knows.
Digging a hole and escaping a grave are two very different things.
Like the answer to a prayer Eddie would never send up, there’s a shout behind him. “Go!”
Eddie spins, and there’s a man in a Hvac suit, with a gun pointed straight at him. He stumbles back, feels Mama Byers’ steadying hands on his lower back.
“Get out of here!” the man calls, voice muffled through his helmet. He gestures with the butt of his gun behind him. “Go! Go!”
Eddie flits by him, keeping as much distance as the small tunnel will allow just as something inhuman begins shrieking behind him.
He doesn’t hesitate anymore. He bolts, Mama Byers and Hop hot on his heels, visions of Demogon’s on his heels pushing him faster.
He passes more suits and more guns, and keeps going. The ground begins sloping upward toward the light of an open tunnel. He stops for a second, shocked by an end to the darkness.
The safety of right-side-up is steps away. The warmth of light and air and his people are so close, he can almost taste it.
That’s when the screaming starts, from a voice he would know anywhere. Even like this. Even loud and wretched with pain.
Eddie runs toward the sounds of his angel screaming.
Part 79
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