“Eddie,” Robin says, eyes wide in a way that means trouble. “Edward Munson, I sincerely hope your last will and testament is in order, because you are going to completely and totally die when I tell you who just got hired at Scoops Ahoy.”
Eddie groans. “Don’t tell me Tammy Thompson is giving up on her Nashville dreams.”
“No, I hate you, shut up forever, you’ll never guess.” Robin pauses, then in a dramatic whisper she’s definitely picked up from Eddie himself, says: “Steve Harrington.”
“Jesus. No shit?”
“Yeah, I have to train him. Oh my god it’s the worst. He’s so bad at, like, everything.”
She shoves at his shoulder until he moves out of the doorway of the trailer, and flings herself backwards onto his couch. “Like! Okay! I showed up to my shift thinking it would be a completely normal day in which I would be bored out of my skull distributing frozen dairy products to the flotsam and jetsam of Hawkins, and Ned’s like, hey Robin, you’re showing the new guy the ropes today. And then that freaking jackass has the freaking nerve to say—” Her voice drops a full register. “Uhh, nice to meet you, I’m Steve. Nice to meet you! God!”
Eddie cringes sympathetically, sucking air between his teeth. There’s a special kind of indignity to being so completely and utterly below the radar of Hawkins High royalty, even former bearers of the crown. It’s not as if Hawkins is a big town; Eddie’s pretty sure he could pick every single person in the graduating classes of ‘84 and ‘85 out of a crowd. He’ll probably be able to do it for ‘86 too, though he’s trying not to think about it too hard. So he’ll be a senior again (again) this fall, whatever. It’s fine. It’s whatever.
Once in a while, he wastes some time really, really wishing he’d gotten to know Robin earlier in the year. Maybe even last year. For undying friendship reasons, yeah, but also because with her in his corner, he might’ve actually passed enough of his classes to fucking graduate on his second fucking try.
But he’d only actually met her, like actually met her for real instead of passing her in the hall sometimes, when he’d let himself get suckered into rejoining band. It wasn’t like he could’ve brought his guitar in, but he let it slip to Miss Genovese that he could read music and keep time, and they needed someone to wallop the bass drum, and he figured a little experience fucking around with percussion might be the one thing he could salvage from the year. He’d just…been so goddamn tired of feeling stuck, spinning his wheels. Music was something he could actually handle; something he could actually get better at. Something he could master. He's man enough to admit he needed a win.
The actual songs were all stuffy Holst and Sousa numbers, but they’d had some fun technical bits he spent his evenings hammering out for a couple weeks. And then right around the point when he’d gotten good enough to get bored and think about quitting like last time, it had somehow wound up that shooting the shit with the gangly weirdo in the trumpet section was one of the best parts of his day. Unfortunately, by the time they’d gotten close enough for her to start bullying him about homework and shit, it had been way too late to save his chance at walking that ‘85 stage with assholes like Steve fucking Harrington.
Not that Harrington would’ve even noticed, apparently.
“Anyway, the one singular saving grace about the entire situation is that he looks even dumber in the sailor costume than I do, so at least that will make me feel better about my life until he gets fired for burning down the ice cream freezer or something like that. Eddie, I cannot stress this enough: he is so bad at this job.”
Eddie very tactfully does not bring up the litany of screw-ups that Robin’s admitted to over the last couple weeks since she started at Scoops; he just says, “Buckley, it sounds to me like you might be in need of some quality relaxation time this fine evening. I can offer you a nice cold beer, some herbal refreshment…or a fiendishly weird new song to learn with an intro riff that'll make you cry.”
Robin, inveterate nerd of his heart, sits up immediately and chirps, “New song, please!” just like he knew she would. She’s going to run off and elope with his acoustic one of these days, and he’s not even mad about it.
“Coming right up, m’lady,” says Eddie. “I promise this entire Harrington situation will be over before you know it, and neither of us will ever have to think about him again.”
(ETA: First chapter of this fic has been edited/expanded and posted on AO3)
691 notes
·
View notes
The ring on Eddie’s right hand is often recognized as a “mood ring”. BUT there's a debate that it might be a specific stone. An obsidian snowflake. In close ups, you can actually see the ring better, with black and speckles of white.
A mood ring would be pretty cool. I'm all for it. But guess what?
Upon further research, an obsidian snowflake just so happens to be of importance in DnD. Here’s the description: “When exposed to dragon's breath, the stone absorbed an unpredictable portion of the damage and disintegrated. It is formed when the scorching-hot lava inside a volcano spurts out and cools down. Its birth signifies that in every chaos, peace is inevitable.” Coincidence? Or is it exactly describing Eddie's character arc? In the most chaotic of all places, the Upside Down, Eddie finally found peace when he "didn't run away this time, right?". Joseph Quin described Eddie as guilt ridden over what happened to Chrissy. Eddie could have found some serenity after all, by avenging her in his own way, and buying time for his friends to fight Vecna.
It also builds Eddie's character in such an awesome way. He probably stumbled upon that ring in a shop and recognized the obsidian. Just the kind that would protect him from a dragon's breath. A strong metaphor for people waisting their breath on him, calling him a freak and other colorfull nicknames. Eddie is the kind of guy that pays 👏🏻 attention 👏🏻 to the smallest things, wearing daily a DnD reference that most people won't notice. That melts my heart, because it shows our boy is detail oriented.
AND, in lithotherapy, the obsidian snowflake is the stone of rebirth and emotional growth; also why called “the flowering obsidian”.
1K notes
·
View notes
Hypothesis: Aziraphale HATES that Crowley is living in his car.
Supporting evidence:
The very first thing we see him do in the present is stop Maggie from moving out and making sure she feels welcome to stay as long as she likes.
He clearly knows Crowley’s unhappy before anything happens in the plot: “Does it calm you down?”. And also clearly feels helpless about it. Enter the conspicuous Eccles cakes: Aziraphale’s offer, which is rejected.
Crowley’s obviously, for all his hedging, spending a lot of time at the bookshop— so much that he has his own glasses perch and feels immediately comfortable removing them. See also: “Technically my bookshop but we both get plenty of use out of it”, “Why don’t you wait inside? You like waiting inside”.
It’s Crowley who immediately shoves the box of plants into Aziraphale’s arms after Aziraphale returns from Scotland.
Speaking of Scotland, why wouldn’t Aziraphale take the train? Why insist on driving the Bentley? Is it perhaps because he wants to get Crowley and his plants into the shop, and thinks if he creates a situation where Crowley has to stay there, maybe he won’t immediately leave again?
He’s got an empty bedroom and an apparently pathological need to make the person staying there very comfortable, creating cute little customized souvenirs like he’s an Air B&B host (displacement!).
He immediately jumps to having Gabriel stay with him— he didn’t have to. Arguably, both Gabriel and Aziraphale would be safer if Gabe stayed elsewhere.
That’s what I’ve got for now but I’m sure there’s more. Throughout the show, watch what Aziraphale gives to others and does for others, and it’ll tell you what he wants to do for Crowley. He’s living so deeply in displacement in makes him come across as manic and brittle.
(What probably happened is Aziraphale offered the spare bedroom and Crowley, who unconsciously didn’t want to be his roommate or sleep in a single bed with Aziraphale right downstairs because how could the poor lovesick boy cope with that, told him he wasn’t a “good deed” for Aziraphale to do and stormed off.)
Conclusion: Aziraphale asked Crowley to stay at his place, immediately and probably repeatedly. They had a row about it, and Crowley refused, and to this day Aziraphale doesn’t understand why.
And it hurts him.
3K notes
·
View notes
GOD there’s something so tragic about how all the horrors Ed fleetingly alluded to in s1 were so, so real. They were passive references, even sometimes jokes, when everything was bright and silly and hopeful. But when the lens is shifted everything takes on a new weight.
I mentioned it before but I can’t stop thinking about this line: “these past few weeks have been the most fun I’ve had in ages…years…maybe ever.” Ed meant that with his whole heart!!! His fall is all the harder because he was the highest up he’d literally ever been.
It’s just wild to think of the framing of this show because typically comedy implies that these characters live in a consistently comedic universe but it really is just that one blip in time up until this point. Ed and Stede’s solo stories are inherently tragic and yet when they come together they create a shared comedy universe. The meta use of genre in this show makes me CRAZY
2K notes
·
View notes
no i genuinely think james wilson is insane and i will prove it right now. be amazed at my deductive reasoning.
in season two when wilson is temporarily staying with house as he looks for a new apartment, house ends up deleting a message from a realtor involving information regarding an available apartment wilson was interested in. we're led to believe that this is because house has realized that wilson staying with him means a cleaner environment and real food to eat, and he doesn't want to lose those perks.
but tbqfh i am almost positive that wilson did that on purpose. this man has his OWN phone, so why would he give out house's number for information that only pertains to him? he was 100% trying to gauge house's tolerance of him living there.
i mean, even in episode one it's explicitly stated that house shows affection through actions, rather than words. based on his actions, wilson knows that house cares about him, and also house likes to feel as though he is mischievous and one step ahead of everyone else at all times.
if house, for some reason (say, idk, delicious meals), changed his mind about wanting wilson to move out, would he really swallow his pride and ask wilson to stay? no he fucking would not. he could never admit that he actually is obsessed with wilson's cooking, because that is essentially saying that he's become dependent on something that someone who is NOT himself can provide.
so, instead of having a conversation like a sane person, wilson gave out house's number for information regarding his moving. This way, if house really wanted him to move out, he could shove the message in wilson's face. But, if not, he could start scheming like a cartoon villain for a devious little way to make sure wilson didn't have the opportunity. which is what happened.
wilson 100% orchestrated that entire interaction i am fucking positive
2K notes
·
View notes