#since his world is set around the 70-80s

[galfromearth-22191]

Earth-138 HC idea:

Since it’s already in a constant state of change, how cool would it be if the dimension’s style also changed to reflect the decades of punk culture as the years go by?

#atsv hobie #hobie brown #across the spiderverse #atsv #just a shower thought I had #idk why I’m so drawn to making world HC’s now #you see how he and the world around him fit that specific era #since his world is set around the 70-80s #boom we see his world reflect 90’s punk culture #then we get into the 2000s visuals of punk culture #you catch my drift?

[fairlyaltheticquails]

imagine ford’s first few days of being back and he’s surprised to learn you still live in gravity falls when the kids mention you. he eventually asks if you’re married, trying to act casual about it (and failing)

hes my little awkward boy (hes 70)

words: 687

this is kinda poopoo but whatever

 “Hey, I know them!” Dipper exclaims, picking up the framed photo from the desk. 

The picture’s old, several decades old at least, but it's one of Ford's favorites. He specifically tracked down where Stanley had hid it within a day of coming back, restoring it to its rightful position in the lab. Fiddleford had set up the camera after a particularly special breakthrough, when everyone was still riding the high, smiling and laughing like little kids. What gets Ford is the way you are looking at him. 

Clearly unaware of the photo being taken, you look at the side of his face, stars in your eyes with a wide grin. Fidds had silently given him the photo, a knowing look on his face.Truth be told, Ford has always liked you. You're smart, you laugh at his bad nerd jokes, you're kind (even when the receipt doesn't deserve it), and you're pretty easy on the eyes. When he'd lost you, he knew if he'd ever make it back, you'd surely have someone else, somewhere better than Gravity Falls. 

This is why Dipper's comment makes him drop and completely shatter the vial he was holding. Ford turns briskly to Dipper, observing him closely for any sign of his knowledge.

“What do you mean? How?” It wouldn't surprise him if Bill had placed some false memory of you in Dipper's head just to torment him, knowing that Ford would want to try and track you down if he could. 

“Oh. They helped Mabel and I out earlier this summer when we, uh,, ran into some not so friendly ghosts. I've seen ‘em around town too.” Dipper says casually, unnerved by his grunkles strange state and reaction. “How do YOU know them?” he prys.

“We knew each other long ago, It doesn't matter.” Ford is unsurprised to hear you still poke your head into the strange natures of the town, It's in your nature as is helping others in a bad way. He imagines you fighting off ghosts like the 80s movies Stanley made him watch once he'd returned. His chest warms with something pleasant, before dropping like a stone. It's been thirty years. If you'd even made the connection to him from the kids, chances are you've long since moved on from your research days with him. Surely you've moved onto better people than him. “Have you, um, seen them around with… anyone?”

Dippers face changes to one of confusion. “Like who? Wait, Could they be working with Bill? I should've paid closer attention to them, they've been right under my nose, I…” Dipper spirals, panic increasing as his word vomit flows. Ford cuts him off.

“I meant a… partner. Spouse?” Ford adds, embarrassed. He isn't thirteen anymore, he has no need to be prying into his crushes from thirty years ago. His hand rubs the back of his neck, and he intends to tell Dipper to just forget it when Dipper thoughtfully hums. 

“Nope, don't think so. Or at least, not that I've noticed,”. Dipper's tone and expression are unnervingly neutral, not betraying his thoughts on this awkward line of questioning.Dipper ends the conversation there, placated by the information given, placing the photo back in its spot and returning to the task Ford had assigned him. 

 Ford feels a bit lighter that afternoon and has to force down the smile trying to work its way up. Mabel had offered to teach Ford all about the world of smartphones, and Stanley might have a phonebook lying around here somewhere. Ford resolves himself to having to hold off on looking until after the rift has been resealed, when he knows it will be more safe to contact you. He goes to bed that night imagining what you may look like now. If you still have the same glimmer in your eyes, or if you still do your hair the same. If you still pick at your sweaters, or smudge the  ink everytime you write. 

bonus: dipper totally knew what ford was hinting at and when he relayed the conversation to mabel that night, she went into matchmaker mabel mode setting up an "accidental" meeting, where you see each other for the first time since ford got back

#ford pines #ford pines x reader #my writing #ask answered #i had a bigger plan for this but lost motivation halfway through :{

[keerysquinn]

Coffee Cups and Unconditional Love

Summary: Wayne Munson has been there for his nephew since before he was born, and he'll be there for him for the rest of his life - a.k.a. an explanation of why Wayne Munson owns so many coffee mugs as told through his relationship with his nephew

CW/TW: alcoholism, mentions of child neglect, death, illegal activities, dismissal of mental health issues because it's the 70s/80s, season 4 spoilers if you haven't finished yet

Word Count: 17.6k

A/N: I'm just gonna apologize in advance for this one. It was a labor of love, and I hurt my own feelings writing it.

April 1965

Wayne Munson was a simple man with simple tastes. It didn't take much to make him happy. A couple cigarettes from his pack of smokes, a cold beer, and a working radio were the only things he needed to unwind after a long shift at the plant. He mostly lived off of TV dinners, cold sandwiches, and cereal, and that was fine with him. He had never been the greatest cook, and not wasting his time in the kitchen gave him more energy for work anyway.

At the age of twenty-three, he only had a few more payments left to make on his trailer before he owned it outright, and he had a foldout bed for his younger brother Richard to use when things weren't going so great with their parents. He'd made it clear that his home was always open to him, no questions asked.

However, that didn't mean he wasn't surprised to find his brother and a crying girl sitting on his front step when he got back from the grocery store.

Wayne was a man of few words, and the few he did have did not equip him with the skills to handle a clearly distraught, sixteen year old girl. He and his brother exchanged a look before he wordlessly ushered the two inside.

He put on a fresh pot of coffee before busying himself with putting away his groceries, occasionally glancing over to where his brother was attempting to calm down the crying girl on his sofa.

"Everything is gonna be okay, Linda," he heard his brother say. "Wayne'll know what to do."

Once his groceries were put away and the coffee was finished brewing, he realized that he only had the one coffee mug. He found a couple of plastic juice cups in the back of one of his cabinets and poured the coffee into those and the lone mug. He set the mug in front of the girl and then handed one of the cups to his brother. He held his own cup as he sat down in the chair across from the couch.

Before he could ask what in the world was going on, the girl gave him a funny look.

“Where are your other mugs?” she asked as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

“I’ve only got the one,” he replied.

“Who only owns one coffee mug?”

Wayne shrugged.

“My mother owns three entertaining sets in different patterns with eight mugs a piece. I can’t imagine someone only having one mug.”

She sniffled a bit, but it seemed as though she’d stopped crying for now.

“Don’t really need more than one when you live alone,” he said before taking a sip of his coffee. “Now, does someone wanna tell me why you were crying on my porch?”

Wayne looked back and forth between the two as they shared a look, both hesitant to come right out and say it.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on, Richie.”

“Linda’s pregnant,” Richie blurted out as he started talking a mile a minute. “We didn’t plan for it to happen or anything, but it did. And then her parents found out, and all hell broke loose. You shoulda heard what they said about me, Wayne. About us. About our family.”

Even without being there, Wayne could imagine it pretty perfectly. Their parents weren’t exactly the greatest people, and there was a reason he’d left home as soon as he could, a reason why he had a spare bed specifically for his brother. Their dad was a mean drunk and took it out on everyone around him. The neighbors would hear him yelling, and the next morning, broken furniture would be sitting on the curb waiting for the next garbage pickup. Their mom just made excuses for him and watched as it happened. A bystander in her own life sweeping up broken glass and scrubbing beer stains out of the carpet. They weren’t exactly the kind of family that you’d want your daughter to involve herself with. Wayne had some firsthand experience with that fact.

“It was just awful,” Linda said as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “They told me I could either stay with my cousins in Kentucky until I had the baby and gave it up, or I could get out of their house. So, I got up, and I marched out with Richie.”

“I didn’t know where else to take her,” Richie continued. “There’s no way I’d leave her at mom and dad’s, and I just panicked and brought her here. We could help pay your bills or buy groceries or anything else you need. I got that job that I was telling you about - the one as a bag boy down at the grocery store.”

“And I’m going to pick up as many extra shifts at the diner as I can until I’m too pregnant to work,” Linda added, talking over Richie. “And we’ll help out around here with anything you need. You’ll barely even know we’re here.”

Wayne ran a hand over the back of his neck and abandoned his coffee on the table.

“Where’s all your stuff?” he asked. “You’re gonna need stuff if you’re moving in.”

“They didn’t give me time to pack when they threw me out,” she replied. “But I still have my house key, so Richie was going to take me back over there to get my things tomorrow when I know they’re both out of the house.”

“And I was gonna head over and grab my own stuff after we talked to you,” Richie continued. “Didn’t want to show up here with a bunch of stuff if we were gonna have to go somewhere else. I figured she could use the fold out I usually sleep on, and I can sleep on the couch.”

“No, you’ll take my room,” Wayne said as he moved to get up from his seat. “I’ll be fine out here. Just gotta straighten it up a little bit for you.”

Before he could leave the room, Wayne was practically knocked over by the force of Linda leaping up to wrap her arms around him in a tight embrace.

“I can’t thank you enough,” she said.

He awkwardly patted her on the back.

“It’s fine,” he replied. “I’d do anything for my brother.”

The next day, Wayne busied himself with getting his room ready for Linda and Richie to move into while they were out collecting Linda’s things. When the couple returned, Linda handed a brown paper bag to Wayne.

“These are for you,” she said with a smile. “A little thank you for all that you’re doing for us.”

Wayne opened the bag, and inside, he found three different coffee mugs - one dark green, one light blue with pink rosettes, and one yellow and white striped.

“I snagged a mug from each of my mother’s entertaining sets. It’ll drive her nuts, and now you have enough mugs for us all to have a cup of coffee. Everybody wins.”

The gift of coffee mugs wasn’t the only way Linda started to improve his life. She actively scolded him about the way he’d been eating and told him that she was going to fix his diet even if it killed her in the process. And so his TV dinners were reserved for the nights when Linda was working the dinner shift at the diner and hadn’t planned for leftovers that Wayne and Richie could easily reheat on their own.

She’d promised that he’d barely even know that they were there, but she made her loving presence known.

October 1965

Wayne ducked out of his shift at the plant several hours early when he got the call that Linda had gone into labor. His brother wanted him there for support, and he wanted to meet his niece or nephew the second they were born, so he was happy to do it. He sat in the waiting room for hours until his brother came to grab him.

“Ready to meet your nephew?” Richie asked him as they entered the hospital room.

Wayne’s attention was immediately drawn to Linda sitting up in bed cradling her tiny son. She was sweaty, and her wavy, dark hair was even messier than it normally was, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen her look happier in the six months he’d known her.

“Do you want to hold him?” Linda asked, never looking away from the baby in her arms.

Wayne nodded and made his way to sit in one of the chairs by her bed. Richie carefully took the baby from his girlfriend’s arms and placed him in Wayne’s awaiting hold.

“Wayne, meet Eddie. Eddie, this is your Uncle Wayne.”

"Hey Eddie," Wayne whispered, as he cradled the newborn. "It's nice to meet you."

"His full name is Edward Wayne Munson," Linda said, causing Wayne's gaze to snap up from the baby in his arms to look over at her.

"Really?"

"Would I lie to you?"

Wayne's heart swelled, and he would have been lying if he said that he didn't get a bit choked up.

Wayne was often awake with Linda during the late night feedings. With Richie still going to school and working extra shifts whenever he could to support his little family, he needed all the sleep he could get, so Linda would take Eddie into the living room whenever he got fussy.

"Are you sure this is alright?" she'd asked the first time she accidentally woke him up.

"Don't worry about it," he reassured her. "I've always been more of a night owl anyway."

So the two would sit together at the tiny kitchen table as Linda fed her son, a light blanket draped over her chest to protect her modesty. Not that Wayne would have ever stared at his brother's girl. He'd come to think of her as the sister he never had, and he was fiercely protective of her. He'd make her tea, and she'd tease him about how nice it was to have more than one mug to share between them.

"If I didn't steal my mother's mugs, we wouldn't be able to have nights like these," she said. "And wouldn't that be a shame?"

"You're never going to let that go, are you?" he asked with a small laugh.

"The handle was chipped, Wayne. You only had one mug, and it wasn't even in good condition."

"I've never needed much."

"Well, you'll never have to drink out of a chipped mug again. I'll make sure of it."

On the nights where Eddie was particularly fussy and wouldn't go back to sleep after being fed and changed, Linda would move over to the couch and pass the baby over to Wayne. Wayne would sit in the worn out rocking chair that he'd picked up at the Goodwill, and he'd slowly rock with him as she made herself comfortable. By the dim light of the lamp on the end table, she'd read aloud from her beat up copies of the Lord of the Rings novels, and Eddie would fall asleep to the daring adventures of hobbits and elves with his uncle’s finger in his grasp.

December 1965

Eddie was only a little bit over two months old for his first Christmas, and he could barely hold his own head up, but Linda still went over the top to make it as special as she could on her limited budget.

They couldn’t afford to get Eddie’s photo professionally taken with the Santa at the big department store in the city. It was just too expensive if she wanted to put any gifts under the modest tree that they were all pretty sure Richie had chopped down illegally. Instead, she placed her son in the Christmas stocking that she’d found at Goodwill and stitched his name onto and had Wayne take pictures of him with his beat up polaroid camera. They didn’t have anyone that they wanted to send the pictures to, so every single one was hung up on the refrigerator until Linda decided it was time to add them to her photo album.

“Next year, I want pictures of him playing in the snow,” Linda said as she looked at the collage of photos on their fridge. “And I’m getting a picture of him with Santa even if I have to force one of you to dress up to make it happen.”

On Christmas morning, the three of them sat in a circle on the floor in front of the tree with baby Eddie laying on his stomach in the middle. They all knew that he was too young to know what was going on, but Linda made a point of setting each of Eddie’s gifts in front of him so he could marvel at the brightly colored comics that she’d wrapped them in. There weren’t many presents under the tree, and they were all for Eddie anyway, so everyone was content to sit there with their morning cups of coffee for as long as the baby wasn’t fussy.

“Oh, before I forget,” Linda said as she popped up from her seat leaning against the sofa. She headed back to the bedroom and returned with a small parcel wrapped up in newsprint. She handed it over to Wayne as she sat back down and pulled her son into her lap.

“I thought we agreed on no gifts?” Wayne asked. “Save all our money to make things special for the kid?”

“It’s not from me,” Linda said as Eddie gripped her finger. “It’s from Eddie, of course, and you can’t expect him to follow our rules. He’s just a baby after all.”

Wayne sighed and carefully unwrapped the gift. Inside the crumpled newspaper was a coffee mug with “World’s Best Uncle” hand-painted on the side along with a bright blue baby handprint of Eddie’s.

“It’s not much,” Richie said. “But we hope it shows even a little bit of how thankful we are for everything you’ve done for us.”

“It’s perfect,” Wayne replied. “Really. Thank you.”

April 1967

For Wayne’s twenty-fifth birthday, he insisted that he didn’t need any gifts, and he didn’t want them to make any sort of a fuss over him.

“You’re being absolutely ridiculous,” Linda told him. “We can’t just skip your birthday.”

“I’m happy with what I have,” he said with a shrug. “We don’t need to bring more stuff into this trailer, and I’d much rather just spend the day playing with Eddie and maybe listen to the ball game on the radio if there is one.”

“That’s fine, I guess. But I’m making you your favorite dinner. And a cake. I’ll maybe even get some ice cream to go with it. And we’re singing to you while wearing party hats made out of newspaper whether you like it or not. It’s been decided, and I will not fight with you on this one, Wayne.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a laugh.

So, on his birthday, Linda made a pot roast slow roasted with carrots and onions and a side of mashed potatoes with extra, extra gravy. For dessert, there was a double chocolate chip cake with vanilla frosting and strawberry ice cream. Wayne didn’t fight about the newspaper hat that Linda made him wear, and he pretended that he didn’t hate being the center of attention when they all sang to him if only because he got to hold Eddie while it was happening. The eighteen month old tried to feed him a handful of cake before shoving it in his own mouth and giggling wildly.

He shouldn’t have been surprised when Linda set a small gift in front of him. He knew what it was without even opening it. Every time she thought of giving him a gift, it was a coffee mug, and he had started giving the same to her. They’d started an almost competition of sorts, seeing who could find the most interesting mug at Goodwill or one of the small thrift stores in the city. This one was beige and had the words Ohio University Grandma printed in green on the side. It might have been the best one yet.

“We have something else for you,” Richie told him after sharing a look with Linda. “A gift we couldn’t really wrap.”

“I expected the mug, but I told you guys that you didn’t have to give me anything.”

“We know, but this is a really important gift,” his brother continued. “We’re giving you your bedroom back.”

“You don’t have to do that. I don’t mind sleeping in the living room. We’ve been over this a hundred times. You need your privacy more than I do, and with the kid, you need the extra space.”

“We know that’s how you feel, Wayne,” Linda said. “But it’s time for you to start sleeping on a real bed again.”

“Which is why we’re moving out,” Richie blurted out.

“You’ve been so good to us these past two years,” Linda continued. “And we are so grateful for everything you’ve done for us and the life you helped us build. It’s because of everything that you did that we know we’re ready to take this step.”

“I finally grew a pair and asked her to marry me, and we found an apartment that’ll be ready for us to move into next month. It’s not going to be easy, but we’re excited. Really excited.”

“Well, I’m really happy for you guys,” Wayne told them. “Truly. But you’re gonna leave the kid with me, right? I’m way too attached to him to let him leave.”

As if agreeing with Wayne, Eddie reached up and pressed a sticky, chocolate-covered hand onto his uncle’s cheek. Wayne dug his fingers into the boy’s side and smiled down at him as he giggled and squirmed.

“I don’t know,” Linda said. “I think I’d miss him too much.” 

She looked at her son as if he was the whole world, and to her, he probably was.

“You’re probably right.”

“But you’ll still see us all the time,” she promised. “We’ll be over here bothering you every chance that we get, and as soon as we’re settled into our place, we’ll be having you over for dinner every single Sunday night. You’ll get sick of us and be longing for some peace and quiet before you know it.”

Wayne didn’t know how to tell them he didn’t need peace and quiet anymore. He’d grown used to coming home from work to see his nephew playing in the living room and laughing as he toddled around the trailer. He was used to Linda singing loudly and off-key along with every song on the radio as she busied herself in the kitchen. He was used to his brother cracking jokes and making loud comments about every single sport he watched on TV. He was used to there being too many people in his tiny trailer, and he didn’t want that to change.

But he was proud of them. So extraordinarily proud of the two of them and the life they were building together. In the past two years, he’d watched them grow from a couple of scared kids into the loving parents that neither of them had ever had themselves. It would hurt to live apart from them, but he knew that it was what was best for all of them.

May 1970

“Munson residence,” Wayne said as he answered his ringing phone.

“Wayne, it’s Linda,” the voice on the other end of the phone replied.

“I was just about to head over to your apartment. Need me to pick up anything on my way?” 

It wasn’t unusual for Linda to ask him to pick up something on the way to dinner. Especially now that she was in college. She’d gotten her GED the year before and was about to finish her first year of schooling to become a teacher. Now that Eddie was a little older and getting ready to start preschool, she was ready to give up her waitressing job and work towards something more stable that fit better with her life as a young mom. Something that would allow her to be home for his bedtime every night.

“Actually, I was calling to ask you for a different sort of favor. I hate to cancel our dinner so last minute, but Richie got called into work for an extra overnight inventory shift at the grocery store, and I have a huge group presentation for one of my classes due tomorrow. Normally, I would give you more notice, but I was wondering if I could maybe drop Eddie off over there for a sleepover? Richie would be able to pick him up first thing in the morning when he gets off work, and this way I can meet up with my classmates to put the finishing touches on our project. I’d owe you a huge favor.”

“You know he’s always welcome over here. Are you heading over now?”

“In a little bit. I still have to pack an overnight bag for the kiddo. One of the girls from my group is going to pick me up, and then we’ll drop Eddie off with you before we head over to the library.”

“Sounds good to me. See you soon.”

While waiting for his sister-in-law and nephew to show up, Wayne looked through the kitchen to see if he actually had anything that he could feed Eddie for dinner. He hadn’t been expecting to have to cook that night, and he usually did his weekly grocery shopping on Mondays before he came home from work. He supposed he could make the kid a TV dinner if it came down to it, and he maybe had a can of soup or two in the cupboard, but neither were up to the standards of the food that Linda normally made him.

But, when Linda arrived with Eddie, she entered the trailer carrying dinner for them.

“I’d already started cooking before Richie got called into work,” she said as she set the lasagna down on the table. “I knew you wouldn’t have had a solid dinner plan, and I wasn’t going to let two of my favorite boys get stuck eating what I’m sure would have been TV dinners.”

“You know me too well.”

Before Linda could respond, Eddie took a running leap at his uncle who caught him easily.

“Uncle Wayne!” Eddie said as he clung to his uncle’s chest. “We get to have a sleepover! And mama said I can stay up an extra half hour ‘cause it’s a special occasion!”

“She did? Well, that’s a good thing because I was thinking we could have a campout in the living room, and maybe if it’s okay with your mama, we could even make some hot chocolate.”

Eddie shifted in Wayne’s arms to face his mom and fixed her with his best pleading gaze, all puppy dog eyes and pouty bottom lip. The kid had them all wrapped around his little finger, and he knew it.

“How could I say no to this precious face? It’s fine with me,” Linda said with a small laugh at her son’s excitement at her answer.

Wayne set Eddie down on the counter next to the sink.

“Why don’t you wash your hands while I talk to your mama, and then you and I will have some dinner, okay?”

Eddie nodded vigorously and turned on the water, so Wayne turned his attention back to Linda.

“Alright, so bedtime is anywhere between seven thirty and eight tonight. He’s gonna be home with Richie all day tomorrow, and I know it’s going to be a lazy sleepy day anyway, so he’ll get plenty of rest if he doesn’t sleep enough tonight. His pajamas and clothes for tomorrow are in his backpack, but if you don’t have him dressed before he gets picked up, that’s fine, too. If he wants a bedtime story, Peter Pan is his favorite right now, and he usually falls asleep around the second chapter. That’s somewhere in his bag with Mister Lion. I gave him a bath earlier, so you don't need to worry about that, but make sure he brushes his teeth. He will try to convince you that he doesn’t need to, but he wants to be just like his Uncle Wayne, so if you brush your teeth when it’s time for him to, he shouldn’t put up too much of a fight. I don’t think I’m forgetting anything, but it’s not like you’ve never watched him before. You know how to handle my little hellraiser better than anyone.”

She looked over towards her son who was now laying with his stomach flat against the counter as he clapped his hands under the running water repeatedly trying to make the biggest splash he possibly could. She moved to turn off the sink before sitting her son upright on the counter and drying his hands off with the dish towel.

“Were you making a mess of the kitchen, you little stinker?” she teased as she skittered her fingers across her son’s belly.

“No,” he replied through his giggles as he curled in on himself. She stopped tickling him and ruffled his messy curls that matched her own.

“You be good for your Uncle Wayne, okay? Daddy will be here to pick you up first thing in the morning. Now give mama big hugs and kisses.”

Eddie stood up on the counter and flung his arms around Linda’s neck. Once she’d wrapped her arms around the boy, he moved his hands to squish her cheeks as he smothered her with as many kisses as he could give.

“I love you so much, Eddie Bear,” she told him, laughing as he kissed one of her eyes.

“I love you more,” he replied.

“And I love you most.”

She gave him one last big squeeze and kissed his forehead before setting him down on the ground.

“Alright, I’ve kept Sandy waiting out in the car long enough. Don’t have too much fun without me!”

Wayne and Eddie had a relatively easy night together. They ate dinner, and Eddie didn’t fuss when Wayne had to wash the sauce off of his face afterwards. He sat at the kitchen table drawing pictures with the crayons and notebook paper they kept at the trailer for him while his uncle cleaned up the kitchen, and he narrated all of his art as he drew. They had the hot chocolate that Wayne promised with extra marshmallows, and there were no complaints about brushing teeth since Wayne was brushing his teeth, too. Wayne set up the foldout bed in the living room with an extra set of sheets and the fuzzy yellow blanket that was Eddie’s favorite. They both changed into their pajamas, and then they read four chapters of Peter Pan before Eddie fell asleep on the couch curled up against his uncle’s side with his fingers threaded through Mister Lion’s mane. Wayne carefully moved the sleeping boy to the bed and placed a kiss on his forehead. He fell asleep on the couch shortly after.

Wayne always woke up at five without an alarm clock no matter what time he went to bed the night before. It was both a blessing and a curse. Being careful to keep quiet enough that he wouldn’t wake Eddie, he made his way to the bathroom to take a quick shower before his brother got there. He didn’t know when his brother would be there, so he wanted to be ready to head to the plant early just in case he’d be racing out the door.

When he was finished getting ready, he headed into the kitchen where he found a very sleepy looking Eddie with the fuzzy, yellow blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He was dragging Mister Lion by his tail behind him.

"What are you doing up, Eds? Did I wake you?" he asked.

"Bad dream," Eddie replied, sniffling a little. “‘Mnot scared, but Mister Lion needed a hug.”

Wayne scooped Eddie up, and the boy immediately wrapped his arms around his uncle’s neck.

“I got ya, buddy,” he said as he rubbed the boy’s back. “I got ya.”

Wayne continued to hold Eddie as he moved around the kitchen and started his morning coffee. Once he’d poured himself a cup, he headed to sit down on the couch.

“Why don’t you try to get a little more sleep, Eds?” he suggested. “I’ll start making breakfast after I finish my coffee, and then I’ll get you up, okay?”

Eddie nodded a little and moved to curl up next to his uncle on the couch not wanting to stray too far from the comfort that he’d found.

By the time Wayne had finished his coffee and used the little he had left in his kitchen to make some scrambled eggs and toast for the boy, it was close to seven. He had to be at the plant by seven thirty, so he was going to have to call in sick if his brother didn’t show up soon.

Eddie was not a morning person, so it took a few minutes for Wayne to get him up and seated at the table, and when he glanced at the clock on his wall, he knew he wasn’t going to make it to work on time.

“Mr. O’Grady? It’s Wayne Munson,” he started when his boss at the plant finally answered the phone. “I’m gonna be a little late for my shift. I’m watching my nephew. My brother was supposed to pick him up by now, but I’ve still got the kid, and I can’t leave him here alone.”

“It’s fine, Munson,” his boss answered. “In the ten years you’ve worked here, you’ve never taken a vacation, and the only times you’ve ever called off were when your nephew was born and when he broke his wrist last year. Take the day to spend with the kid. Sullivan has been asking for more hours anyway, and I can call him in to cover for you this time.”

“Thanks, Mr. O’Grady,” he said as he lunged to take the ketchup bottle away from Eddie before he could empty the entire thing onto his plate. “I really appreciate it.”

Wayne poured himself another cup of coffee and sat down across from Eddie who was more interested in eating ketchup than the eggs on his plate. He figured that inventory took a little bit longer than expected. The grocery store opened at nine, so they’d have to be done by then, and if his brother wasn’t at the trailer by nine thirty, he’d start calling their apartment.

Nine thirty came and went, and the phone call to Richie and Linda’s apartment went unanswered. The same happened every other time he called between then and noon. Wayne was starting to get worried, but he was trying his best not to let it show. His focus was on Eddie who didn’t seem to mind that he got to spend extra time there.

Finally, when Wayne was getting ready to set the table with the TV dinners that he’d ended up making for their lunch, someone answered the phone at the apartment.

“Hello?”

“Is everything okay over there?” Wayne asked, skipping the pleasantries. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all morning.”

“Everything’s fine. I was sleeping,” Richie replied. “What time is it?”

“For the love of god, Richie.” Wayne lowered his voice and glanced into the living room to make sure Eddie wasn’t paying attention to him before he continued. “I was starting to think something bad had happened. I called you at least a dozen times. Scared the shit outta me.”

“I’m sorry. I came home from work and passed out immediately. Didn’t hear the phone until just now.”

“But you were supposed to pick up Eddie before you went home.”

“I stopped on the way to change my clothes. Smelled like sweat and pickle juice after someone dropped a box and the shit splattered everywhere. I figured Linda changed her mind and was picking him up since she wasn’t home when I got here.”

“Well, she definitely didn’t come here.”

“She had a group presentation due today, and she was really hounding the other girls to make sure it was perfect. She probably just caught the bus and headed over to campus early. Do you want me to come over and get Eddie?”

“Don’t worry about it. You should get some more sleep. One of you can come and grab him after Linda gets home from class.”

“Are you sure? I know he can be a handful.”

“We’re fine. I’ll take him to the park or something, and he can do my grocery shopping with me. Besides, I just made him lunch, and I kinda like having him around.”

“You wanna keep him?” Richie asked with a laugh.

“Don’t tempt me,” Wayne responded with a laugh of his own. “But I don’t think Linda would be too happy about it.”

“You’re probably right. We’ll give you a call when we’re on our way to get him, okay? Most likely right around dinner time?”

“Sounds good to me.”

After lunch, Wayne finally got Eddie dressed and took him to the playground across town. Since they’d done nothing but sit around the trailer all morning, the kid had a lot of energy to burn, and he chose to burn it by giving his uncle a heart attack every time he went to leap off of something he probably shouldn’t have climbed in the first place. Eventually, he got tired of scaring years off of his uncle’s life, and Wayne agreed to push him on the swings as long as he promised not to jump off of those, too.

Once he’d successfully tired out the kid, Wayne loaded Eddie into his truck and headed to the grocery store. His usual get in, get what he needs, and get out trip took a lot longer than normal with his nephew riding in the cart, but debating about breakfast cereal and lunch meat with a kid who wasn’t even going to be eating them was wildly entertaining. In the end, he only ended up with three things that Eddie had wanted in his cart, and he was taking that as a win.

Standing in the checkout line, Wayne couldn’t help but overhear the conversation between the two housewives behind him. He wasn’t one to pay attention to town gossip, but he couldn’t ignore them.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about the accident last night,” the first woman said.

“News travels fast in a small town like Hawkins,” the second replied. “It’s a shame really. Those poor girls.”

“Oh, I know. I wonder if they’ve been able to find their families by now. Eleanor said that they weren’t sure who to call.”

“How did Eleanor get so much information about this anyway? It wasn’t in any of the papers today.”

“Her husband was on duty, and you know he went home and told her every detail. The man can’t keep a secret to save his life.”

“Can you blame him? A drunk driver crashing into a car full of girls leaving the community college library is probably the most exciting thing he’s ever seen working around here. Not that a tragedy is exciting mind you. It’s just more interesting to talk about than the occasional traffic violation.”

Wayne almost dropped the milk that he was holding on the ground. Their conversation meant nothing to him. To him, or his brother, or the little boy who was currently fighting to stay awake in his shopping cart. The fact that no one had seen Linda since last night was merely a coincidence. She was probably at home with Richie right now telling him all about how her presentation went and getting ready to pick up her son. She had to be.

But, when Wayne pulled up to his trailer to find his brother sitting on his front step looking more scared and alone than he had when he came to tell him that Linda was pregnant, he knew that wasn’t the case.

Wayne held Eddie throughout the funeral. Richie was an absolute wreck and could barely hold himself together let alone take care of his son. But he had his older brother to help pick up the pieces, and that was a comfort in such an upsetting time.

Wayne hadn’t expected such a large turnout for the funeral. With the way she lit up every room she entered, the fact that she had had an effect on so many people in her short twenty one years shouldn’t have been a huge surprise. There were groups of girls from all of Linda’s classes, and the diner had closed for the day because all of the waitresses and cooks wanted to be there. There were high school friends who had just arrived home from college, and there were families from their apartment building. All there to pay their respects. The only notable absence was Linda’s own parents. Not that anyone had really expected them to show up anyway. They hadn’t tried to contact her at all in the time since they’d kicked her out, and Wayne would have forced them to leave if they’d tried to show their faces.

After the services, Wayne took Eddie straight back to the apartment. He and Richie had discussed it beforehand, and they figured that the whole situation would be too overwhelming for him. They’d explained to him what had happened in a way that was simple enough for a child to understand, but the boy was still so young and confused about why his mother wasn’t coming home. He didn’t need to be surrounded by a bunch of people he didn’t know talking about what a shame it was that his mother was gone.

So, while his brother stayed behind to receive condolences, Wayne reheated one of the many casseroles people had dropped off at the apartment for them, gave Eddie a bath, and put him to bed. But throughout it all, he couldn’t help but notice that his usually bright and talkative nephew was the most quiet and reserved he’d ever been since he learned how to talk.

When Richie finally came home, he didn’t say anything. Just grabbed the casserole dish that Wayne had left on the counter along with a fork and sat down on the sofa where Wayne was pretending he cared about whatever was on TV.

Without saying anything, Wayne got up and grabbed a drink for his brother. Nothing fancy. Just a glass of the iced tea from the fridge. But there was an unspoken meaning behind it that they both could feel. That Wayne was always going to take care of them and get them what they needed. No matter what, he would always be there.

“Thanks,” Richie said as he accepted the glass. “For everything.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Wayne replied. “It’s what I’m here for.”

August 1970

Sunday dinners had remained the norm for the three Munson men, but Linda’s absence was always in the forefront of their minds. Not just because she was the best cook out of the three, but because she was the one who really got them to talk to each other. Wayne and Richie were never big talkers, and she had bridged their gap in communication.

And maybe that was why Wayne had accepted the Sunday overtime shifts that were offered to him. He hated missing the time with his family, but he hated the awkward silences more.

After not attending Sunday dinner for nearly a month, he figured that it was time to start going back. Eddie was starting school soon, and he felt guilty for the time he was missing with the kid. He felt even more guilty once he saw the state of their apartment.

He’d let himself in like he normally did, and the first thing he noticed was his brother passed out on the couch. There were empty beer cans strewn across the floor around him, and the room was in complete disarray. The kitchen wasn’t any better. The sink was overflowing with dirty dishes, and the trashcan was filled with enough beer cans to show that this probably wasn’t the first time this had happened.

He made his way back to Eddie’s room since the kid was nowhere to be found in the front of the apartment, and he found his nephew happily playing alone. It wasn’t exactly a comforting sight though. While the room was in relatively decent shape, the laundry hamper was overflowing to the point where there were small piles of clothes surrounding it, and there was a distinct odor hanging in the air. But the worst part was Eddie himself. The boy looked dirty. This definitely wasn’t the first day that he’d worn those clothes, and his hair was a tangled mess that obviously hadn’t been washed anytime recently.

“How’s it goin’, Eds?” Wayne asked, finally alerting his nephew to his presence.

“Uncle Wayne!” Eddie leaped up from his spot on the floor to give his uncle a hug.

As Wayne picked up the boy, he was hit with another wave of that stench, and his suspicions about said stench coming from Eddie were confirmed.

“So, when was the last time you had a bath?” he asked.

“We don’t have to do that anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said with a little shrug.

“And I’m guessing you’d have the same answer if I asked why the kitchen isn’t clean?”

“Yep.”

“And why the laundry isn’t done?”

“Yep.”

“Do you know anything?” Wayne teased.

“I know we’re eating TV dinners tonight!” Eddie said, excited that he could tell his uncle something.

“And how do you know that?”

“‘Cause we eat ‘em every night. Daddy puts ‘em on a plate so I won’t know, but he never throws out the box cause he’s too busy sleeping on the couch.”

“Does he do that a lot? Sleep on the couch like that, I mean?”

“Yeah. He’s no good at bedtime anymore.”

Wayne couldn’t tell if he was more heartbroken for his nephew or angry at his brother at that moment. All he knew was that he needed to do something.

“How do you feel about coming over for a sleepover?” Wayne asked. “We haven’t had one of those in awhile, and I miss hanging out with my favorite kid.”

Eddie’s response was an enthusiastic yes, so Wayne set him back down.

“I’m gonna go talk to your daddy, and then we’ll get your stuff ready to go, okay?”

“Okay!”

Part of Wayne wanted to be thankful that at least Eddie still seemed happy. He was okay on the inside even if it was clear that his dad had dropped the ball. But a much larger part of him was consumed by his anger. Angry at his brother for letting his home get this messy. Angry at his brother for clearly not taking care of his child. Angry at his brother for picking up their father’s bad habits.

But, most of all, Wayne was angry at himself for avoiding the awkward silences. If he’d kept going over for Sunday dinners, he would have caught the warning signs sooner. He could have kept things from getting this bad. He could have done something to help, and he was going to live with the guilt of not helping sooner for a very long time.

When Richie didn’t respond to his name or being shaken, Wayne grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen and dumped it over his brother’s head.

“What the hell, Wayne?” Richie sputtered as he came to and glared up at his brother.

“Don’t what the hell me,” Wayne replied. He was trying to keep his volume down so Eddie wouldn’t hear them. “It’s barely five o’clock on a Sunday, and you were passed out drunk.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal. I shouldn’t have to tell you that with the way we grew up. Do you really want to put your kid through that?”

“I’m not turning into dad.” Richie sat up and laid his head in his hands. “I will never be anything like that man. I’m just not doing the best right now, okay? After everything, I lost my job. Missed too many shifts. It all spiraled from there. I just need some time to get back on my feet so we don’t lose the apartment.”

“You can’t take time when you’ve got Eddie to think about,” Wayne said as he took a seat next to his brother. “I’m bringing him home with me. This isn’t good for him, and you know it.”

“You can’t take my kid away from me.”

“The boy stinks, and I’m guessing he barely has any clean clothes left from what I saw in his room. This place is a wreck, and you don’t seem to care because you’re too busy drinking. He told me all you do is sleep on the couch like you were when I got here.”

Wayne ran a hand over the back of his neck. He hated putting this out there, but he had to open his brother’s eyes, and he didn’t see any other way.

“He starts preschool next week, Richie. If he gets there looking and smelling the way he does now or tells anyone anything about the way you’re living, someone is going to come here and take him away from you. He needs a safe and stable living environment, and this isn’t one right now. So you can either let him come with me while you pull yourself together, and you can still come and see him everyday. Or you can keep living like this, and you could wind up losing him for good. The choice is yours, and one of those options seems a lot better than the other to me.”

“Shit.”

Richie kicked the coffee table in frustration and sent empty beer cans flying.

“So, I can come see him everyday?” he asked after a moment.

“Whenever you want. I promise.”

“Okay . . . I’m not really turning into dad, am I?”

“No. I just think you went through some shit that you’re way too young for, and it made you make some bad choices. You’ve at least acknowledged it, so you’re doing better than he ever did.”

Wayne didn’t wait for a response from his brother. He just grabbed a garbage bag from the cabinet under the sink and headed back to Eddie’s room where he started shoving all of the dirty clothes into the bag.

“You can’t throw away my clothes,” Eddie pouted. “I need those.”

“I’m not throwing them away. I’m gonna do your laundry. Your daddy is awake, so why don’t you go talk to him while I get your stuff ready to go?”

Once Eddie’s clothes were taken care of, Wayne moved around the room grabbing whatever he saw that he thought his nephew would maybe want at his house and loading it into the duffle bag he found under the bed. He took the dinosaurs and toy cars that Eddie had been playing with when he came in. He took the stack of books and photo albums that were sitting on the tiny nightstand by his bed. He even grabbed the toy guitar that he was sure he was going to regret bringing with him. And, of course, he grabbed Mister Lion.

After a quick trip into the bathroom to grab Eddie’s toothbrush and other toiletries, he headed back into the living room where Eddie was giving his dad a goodbye hug.

“You be extra good for your uncle, okay?” Richie said as he pulled away from his son. “And I’ll be over to see you every day.”

“You promise?” Eddie asked.

“Cross my heart.”

Once they were back at the trailer, the first thing Wayne did was give Eddie a bath.

“I thought I didn’t need to do this anymore,” Eddie pouted as his uncle worked the shampoo into his hair.

“I’m gonna be honest with you, Eds,” Wayne replied. “You smell, and I can’t have you stinking up my trailer. So, it’s either you take a bath on a regular basis, or you’re sleeping on the porch.”

Eddie looked up at his uncle with wide eyes.

“You’d make me sleep on the porch?

“Never. Which is why we need to get you cleaned up.”

Getting Eddie bathed was the easy part. Tackling the tangled mess of his hair was an entirely different beast. Wayne tried to be as careful as possible as he worked through the knots, but Eddie was especially tender-headed, and his hair was a mess from the neglect, so there were plenty of complaints and tears.

“Mama never made it hurt,” Eddie said between his sniffles.

“I’m sorry, Eds,” Wayne replied. “I’m being as gentle as I can.”

“I miss her.”

“I know. Me, too.”

Wayne made grilled cheese and tomato soup for their dinner. It wasn’t anything special, but it was better than a TV dinner, and he made himself a promise that he’d never feed his nephew one of those for dinner ever again if he could help it. And, after the table was cleared and the dishes were done, he put the kettle on the stove to start heating up some water to make tea for himself and hot chocolate for Eddie.

When Wayne’s mug collection started to outgrow the small cabinet shelf, he’d moved most of them into the living room to put on display, but his favorites were kept in the kitchen for easy use. He pulled out the mug from Eddie’s first Christmas for himself, and then he grabbed Linda’s favorite mug - the light blue one with the pink rosettes - for Eddie. He carefully carried the mugs over to the coffee table before going through the bag of Eddie’s things to find the book he was looking for.

“Hey, Eddie, can you come over here?” he called over to his nephew as he sat down on the couch.

Eddie abandoned his crayons and the picture he was drawing to climb onto the couch with his uncle.

“You were too little to remember it, but did your mama and daddy ever tell you that you all lived here with me when you were a baby?”

“We did?”

“You did. The three of you shared my bedroom, and I slept out here. Whenever you were up at night, your mama would come sit in the kitchen, and we’d have tea together while she fed you. And then, when you still wouldn’t go back to sleep, she’d hand you over to me. We’d sit over here, and she’d read her favorite book to you until you fell asleep in my arms.”

Wayne grabbed the mugs off of the table and passed Eddie’s to him before picking up the copy of The Hobbit that he’d set aside.

“I know you miss your mama, and I know this isn’t the same as having her here, but this is a little piece of her that I can share with you.”

Eddie curled up against his uncle, and they sipped their drinks as Wayne started to read Linda’s most favorite adventure out loud to her son. It wasn’t much, but it was all Wayne could do to make Eddie’s first night in his trailer a little bit easier.

December 1970

Richie had made good on his promise to come and visit every day for the first two months that Eddie was staying with Wayne. But right around Halloween, he started missing days. And then multiple days in a row. It broke Wayne’s heart every time he saw Eddie realize that his dad had forgotten about him again, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Richie had either stopped answering his phone at the apartment, or he was never home no matter what time of day Wayne called. Nor did he answer the door any of the times Wayne dropped by to check on him.

On Christmas Eve, Wayne realized that his brother hadn’t been over to see them since Thanksgiving, and he wasn’t sure if they’d be seeing him at all the next day. Wayne wasn’t going to let his brother’s screw ups ruin the holiday for Eddie though. It was going to be hard enough on him to spend his first Christmas without his mom. He didn’t want the whole day to be miserable.

Wayne had hidden all of Eddie’s gifts from Santa in the cabinet over the fridge - the only cabinet that Eddie hadn’t found a way to climb to yet - and he had gotten a small tree to prop up in the corner. It wasn’t very impressive, but Eddie was all smiles when he got to put the star on top, and that was good enough for him. He’d even picked up everything he needed to make cinnamon french toast for breakfast and a roast for Christmas dinner. It was shaping up to be a fairly decent holiday.

But, when he asked Eddie if he was excited for Santa to visit them that night, he was met with frustrated tears instead of the happiness he’d expected. Wayne stopped what he was doing and went over to where Eddie was sitting on the couch. The boy had tears streaming down his cheeks, and his tiny hands were balled into tight fists.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Wayne asked as he knelt down to get on Eddie’s level.

“I forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

“I forgot your present, and now it’s too late.”

“It’s okay. You don’t need to get me anything. I promise.”

“No, I gotta,” Eddie said as he wiped at his tears. “Mama said it wasn’t special if you didn’t get a mug, and I wanted it to be special.”

Wayne moved to sit on the couch and scooped Eddie up in his arms, allowing the boy to cry into his shoulder and get his feelings out.

“I was going to ask daddy to take me, but he’s never here.”

Wayne could pinpoint a lot of things about his brother that had angered him lately, but he didn’t know if he could ever forgive him for hurting Eddie like this. Still, he didn’t want his nephew to end up hating his dad. When Richie pulled it together, they’d be a family again, and he didn’t want moments like this to sour that.

“It’s my fault, Eds,” Wayne lied as he rubbed Eddie’s back in an attempt to soothe him. “Your daddy gave me some money so you could buy me a Christmas gift and told me that I should take you, and I got so busy with work that I just forgot about it. But if we leave right now, I bet we can make it to the Goodwill in time for you to pick out something real special.”

The opportunity to go present shopping cheered Eddie up immediately, and before Wayne knew it, the boy was pulling at his arm to get him to help grab his coat and shoes.

The Goodwill was still open when they got there, and nobody was inside except for the very bored looking teenager running the cash register.

“Now, you go pick something out, and I’ll wait here until after you’ve paid so whatever you pick can be a surprise,” Wayne said as he handed Eddie a few dollars.

Eddie took the money and wandered off towards where the homegoods were kept, and Wayne busied himself by looking at a rack of kids clothes near the front of the store. He wasn’t necessarily planning on buying anything, but if he could maybe find something decent that would fit Eddie, he might as well look. He only turned his attention back to the checkout counter when he heard his nephew’s voice.

“Excuse me,” Eddie said as he reached up to set his purchase on the counter. The counter was taller than he was, so he had to stretch just a little bit. “I want to buy this as a Christmas gift for my uncle, please. I have my own money and everything.”

“Well, aren’t you the cutest,” the girl working the cash register said as she picked up his mug. “Are you sure this is the one you want to get him though?”

“Yes, it’s the best one.”

“Okay, that’ll be one dollar. And for an extra quarter, I can even put it in one of these fancy gift bags for you if you’d like.”

“Yes, please.” Eddie set his money on the counter and waited as the girl got his change and wrapped his purchase.

“Here you go, sweetie,” the girl said as she handed Eddie his things.

“Thank you! Merry Christmas!”

Eddie raced back over to his uncle, and it was apparent that the tears from earlier were long forgotten.

When Wayne unwrapped his new “Virginia is for Lovers” mug in front of the tree on Christmas morning, he couldn’t contain his laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Eddie asked.

“It’s nothing Eds. I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“Did I pick a good one then?”

“You picked the best one. I love it.”

And he did. Not just because it was Eddie that gave it to him, but because he knew it was the exact mug Linda would have chosen if she was there.

June 1973

Wayne and Eddie had settled into a routine together. During the school year, Wayne put Eddie on the bus before heading to work, and then he picked him up from after school care on the way home. Wayne made them dinner while Eddie did whatever homework he had to do, and then it was bathtime and books before bed. There wasn’t really enough room for two beds in Wayne’s bedroom, but he’d rearranged the furniture enough that they could just barely fit the fold out bed in his room when Eddie had expressed that he didn’t like sleeping out in the living room alone.

The only difference during the summer was that Eddie went to daycare instead of school. It was a little too expensive, but Wayne was doing his best to make it work.

Richie’s visits were few and far between at this point. They were lucky if he came to visit Eddie once a month, but it was usually a longer absence than that. They didn’t even have a way to contact him when he was gone anymore because he’d lost the apartment, and the only reason they knew he lost the apartment was because he’d told Wayne that if there was anything of Eddie’s still there, he should probably get it before the landlord changed the locks. When Wayne had showed up to grab the rest of Eddie’s toys and books, he’d grabbed the rest of the photo albums and a few of Linda’s things that were still around that he thought Eddie might like to have one day. Richie was supposed to give them his new address and phone number once he’d settled into a new place, but that had been nearly a year ago, and Wayne wasn’t holding his breath. His brother had broken so many promises since Eddie had moved in with Wayne, that he had a hard time believing anything his brother said.

So, when Richie showed up that morning and said that he wanted to take Eddie for the whole day, Wayne couldn’t have been more surprised. Even when Richie did remember to show up, he never spent the whole day with his own kid. But his brother said he had a new job, and he wanted to celebrate with his son. Wayne was reluctant to let it happen, but he knew the kid missed his dad, and if Richie wanted to step up, it would at least give him a chance to get some work done around the trailer without any distractions.

But when they came back around dinner time, Wayne regretted letting them go alone. Physically, Eddie was fine, but they returned in a different car than the one they’d left in. A much nicer car that Wayne knew his brother wouldn’t have been able to afford. He’d heard some rumors about cars getting stolen around Hawkins and getting brought to a chop shop somewhere outside of the town, but he hadn’t given it much thought since no one wanted to steal a car from someone who lived in a trailer park.

“Uncle Wayne!” Eddie said as he climbed out the car and ran to his uncle. “We had the best day!”

“You did?”

“Yeah! First, we went to the arcade, and then we got hot dogs, and after that, dad showed me how I can get any car I want for free!”

“Oh really?” Wayne glanced over at his brother who was leaning against the hood of what Eddie had all but confirmed was definitely a stolen car. “That sounds like a really great day, Eds. Why don’t you go inside and get washed up for dinner while your dad and I have a little chat, okay?”

Wayne waited until Eddie was out of earshot before he walked over to his brother.

“Seriously, Richie? Is that what your new job is? Stealing cars?”

“Lighten up. Do you know how much money I get for each car I bring in? I might actually be able to afford a decent apartment again, and I can quit sleeping on people’s couches. Eddie could even come stay with me.”

“Oh yeah. Sure. Being enmeshed in illegal activities is exactly what every seven year old needs. Do you even hear yourself?”

“Don’t tell me how to raise my son, Wayne. I think I know what I’m doing here.”

“Well, that’s rich coming from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Since when are you the one raising him, Richie? The last time I checked, we haven’t seen you since March.”

“He’s still my son.”

“Then act like it. Because I’m the one who gets him to and from school and makes sure he gets his homework done. I’m the one who makes sure that he’s fed and clothed and has a roof over his head. I’m the one that he cries out for whenever he has a bad dream or he’s sick. And I’m the one who comforts him and distracts him every time you say you’ll be here and then don’t show up because you’re too drunk or you overslept or just forgot and didn’t care. And I am sick of you coming back around for a day and lying to him about how you’re going to be around more often and promising to spend more time with him because every time you break that promise, his heart breaks all over again. He deserves better than that, and you know it.”

“Shut up.”

“You can’t just tell me to shut up when you don’t want to hear the truth, and frankly, I’ve stayed quiet long enough. This is something you should have heard a long time ago.”

“I said shut up.”

“If she could see the way that you’re treating her boy, Linda would be so ashamed of you right now.”

“Fuck you!”

Richie launched up from where he was leaning on the car to post up to his brother. For a minute, Wayne was convinced that Richie was going to take a swing at him from the anger burning in his eyes, but nothing happened.

“You want me to be a better dad? Fine. I’ll be a better dad,” he spat as he stormed toward the trailer door. “We don’t need any help from you anymore.”

Before Wayne knew it, his brother was marching out of the trailer pulling a very confused looking Eddie behind him.

“Say goodbye to your uncle, Eddie,” Richie said as he opened his car door. “You’re not going to be seeing him for a while.”

“Richie, be reasonable.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Wayne. Either I’m the dad that you want me to be, or I leave him here with you. So I’m taking my son, and we’re leaving because I will not stand here and listen to you insult me. And if I ever hear Linda’s name leave your mouth again, that’ll be the last time you ever speak.”

Richie climbed into the car and slammed his door shut. Once Eddie was inside with him, he sped away and out of the trailer park leaving Wayne to spend the night alone for the first time in years.

February 1976

It was after midnight when Wayne got the call. He'd been asleep for a few hours at that point, and he'd been woken up by the phone. At first, he'd tried to ignore the call, but the person on the other end of the line was persistent, so the phone just kept ringing. He stumbled out of his bedroom and into the kitchen to grab the phone.

“Hello?” Wayne answered the phone, his voice hoarse from barely being awake.

“Have we reached Wayne Munson?”

“Speaking.”

“Mr. Munson, this is Chief Carver with the Hawkins police department. We currently have your brother in custody down at the station. His bail hasn’t been set just yet, and he declined his one phone call, but I’m calling to inform you that we also have your nephew here. He was asleep in the back of the car when my officers picked up your brother, and we’ve been told that you’re the only other family the boy has. We were hoping to place the child in your care as we’d rather contact family than anyone else in situations like these.”

“I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

Wayne didn’t need to hear anything else before he was putting on real pants and racing down to the station. He’d barely seen his brother and nephew since their fight as Richie had cut him out of their lives. He only saw them in passing, but Richie would quickly leave whatever public space they were in when he noticed Wayne was there, too. And even if he had a phone number, he doubted Richie would take his calls. He didn’t want to say that he was afraid of what he’d find when he got there, but he wasn’t expecting anything good.

“I got a call from the chief about my brother,” Wayne said as he walked up to the officer sitting behind the front desk. “I’m supposed to be picking up my nephew.”

“Wayne Munson, right?” the officer asked. “I’ll take you back to see your nephew shortly. Just gotta go over some official business first. You know how it is. Now, your brother will be staying here overnight because we won’t be able to get him arraigned until morning.”

“What is he facing in the way of charges?”

“Well, for starters, he was already wanted for multiple counts of grand theft auto and the possession and selling of stolen merchandise. Tonight, he was picked up on a DUI with multiple traffic violations, expired plates, and child endangerment to sweeten the deal. There was also a startling amount of liquor in the car with him. When he was pulled over, he attempted to assault an officer, and he resisted arrest. We don’t expect you to stay here until he’s arraigned, so we can call you and let you know what his bail is set at after the hearing occurs.”

“Don’t bother,” Wayne replied. “I won’t be posting his bail. All I care about is my nephew. Is he okay?”

“As far as we can tell, the boy is fine. A little shaken up, but okay. He was asleep in the backseat when the car was pulled over, and he only woke up when your brother started to get belligerent. We have reason to believe they were living out of the car from the sheer amount of stuff loaded into the trunk and backseat. Because the car was one of the ones he’s accused of stealing, everything inside it was admitted into evidence. However, we’re hoping someone will be able to sort through it after the weekend, so we can set aside anything that belongs to the boy and get it to you then.”

“Can I see him now? I just want to take him home.”

Finally, the officer led him back to the station’s break room where he found Eddie sitting on the sofa with his knees hugged to his chest.

“Alright, Eddie,” the officer said. “Your uncle is here to take you home.”

Eddie got up from the sofa and headed over towards where they were standing without saying a word. It was the quietest that Wayne had ever seen the boy other than when he was sleeping, and he hated it more than he could say.

Eddie stayed quiet the entire way back to the trailer despite Wayne asking him how he was doing, telling him he missed him, and just trying to get even the smallest bit of a conversation going. He tried not to read too much into it. It had most likely been an overwhelming night for him so far, and he was probably worn out.

It was only once they were back at the trailer that Wayne realized he didn’t have any pajamas or extra clothes for Eddie. He still had most of the clothes that had been left behind when his brother had taken the boy back, but he’d grown in the three years since he’d worn any of that stuff, so Wayne doubted he’d be comfortable in any of them. He grabbed one of his own t-shirts out of the basket of clean laundry he’d neglected to put away and offered it to Eddie.

“I know it’s not pajamas, but you might be more comfortable sleeping in this.”

“I’m fine,” Eddie replied, not bothering to take the shirt. “I sleep like this most of the time.”

The boy moved to sit on the edge of the couch, and Wayne set the shirt down on the coffee table just in case Eddie ended up changing his mind.

“How long do I get to stay here?” Eddie asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Am I gonna have to go stay somewhere else?”

“No, Eds. You’re here with me for good.” Even if Richie didn’t end up in jail for any of the charges he was facing, Wayne was never letting Eddie out of his sight again. Even if that meant spending what little money he had on a custody battle for his nephew’s wellbeing.

Wayne noted the confused look on Eddie’s face at his response, but he didn’t press the issue further. It had already been a long night for the both of them, and he was surprised that Eddie wasn’t already passed out.

“I’ve still got all of your stuff here from before, so I figure we can go through it tomorrow. See if any of your clothes might still fit or if there are any toys you might still want, and then we can go to the Goodwill and maybe get you some new things to replace what doesn’t work anymore.”

“You kept my stuff?”

“Of course, I did. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said as he looked down at his shoes. “Figured you wouldn’t want my stuff here either.”

It was the either that struck him. How Eddie was so quiet when he said it as if he didn’t want to voice his fears out loud. Wayne moved to sit next to Eddie on the couch.

“What do you mean?” he asked gently.

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, Eds. You’re upset, and I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

Eddie refused to look at his uncle, continuing to stare at the ground instead.

“Dad said you didn’t want me here anymore. That there wasn’t space for me, so I had to go back with him.”

Wayne thought that being punched in the chest would have been less painful than hearing that. As much as he wanted to sit there and call his brother a liar along with a slew of much harsher names, he couldn’t let himself do that. Eddie had already been through so much that night, and he wasn’t going to be responsible for worsening the boy’s opinion of his own dad. Instead, he placed a comforting hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“That couldn’t be further from the truth. There was not a day that went by that I didn’t wish you were here with me. Your dad and I had just had a fight, and it made more sense for you to be with him than it did for you to stay here. That’s all it was.”

Wayne got up from the sofa and moved over to where the old foldout bed was pushed into the corner. Behind it was a small, wooden chest. He picked up the chest and set it back down in front of Eddie. He encouraged Eddie to open it, and when the boy did, the first thing he saw was his old stuffed lion. He pulled the plushie out and hugged it to his chest before looking back to find many more of his childhood play things. Toy cars, dinosaurs, and little army men mixed in with crayon stumps, notebooks filled with his drawings, and his mother’s well-loved copies of Tolkien’s epic fantasy. The boy looked up at his uncle with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry if my mistakes ever made you feel unwanted,” Wayne started, “because the truth is that I would still want you here and have the space for you even if this trailer was the size of my bathroom and nothing bigger.”

“You swear?” Eddie asked. He held out his pinky, and his uncle immediately gripped it with his own.

“I swear.”

Wayne moved to set up the fold out bed.

“You don’t have to go through any of that tonight. It’s late enough as it is. Let me get your bed set up, and we can deal with all of that tomorrow.”

“I’m fine on the couch.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m not gonna let you sleep on the couch when I’ve got a perfectly good bed for you.”

“It’s really okay. When we weren’t sleeping in the car, I slept on a lot of couches at other people’s places. The floor sometimes, too. But I always liked the couches best."

The boy seemed eager to please as if he'd been told not to be difficult about where he slept in the past. To accept what he was offered without complaint. Wayne didn't want to fight him on this, but he also didn't want Eddie to think that this was any trouble for him. He'd give him the choice and let the boy do whatever he was most comfortable with.

"Well, I'm just gonna go ahead and set up the bed anyway. You don't have to sleep on it if you don't want to, but I want you to have it as an option."

Wayne barely slept that night. Eddie had looked at the fold out bed as if it was a trap before curling up into a ball on the sofa. It was then that it occurred to him that his nephew hadn't had his own room or any space to really call his own since the first time he'd come to live at the trailer. He'd always shared his uncle's room or the living room or whatever space his dad was able to provide.

Wayne had never needed much space. He didn't have a lot of stuff, and he figured he could fit most of his things in the tiny closet outside the bathroom if he did a little rearranging. Most of his drawers had been taken up by Eddie’s clothes when he lived there the first time anyway. He could take the fold out bed in the living room and give up his bedroom for his nephew. And if Eddie had his own space, maybe that would silence whatever was telling him that he was unwanted and allow him to relax.

So, instead of sleeping, he went through his closet. The boxes filled with Eddie’s old clothes were emptied onto the bed so he could load them up with his things. Moving it all into the hall closet and drawers could wait until morning since he didn’t want to accidentally wake his nephew, but he could get the room mostly ready for the boy to move into it. 

By the time it was a reasonable enough hour for him to go and make his morning coffee, he had all of his stuff piled in boxes in the corner and another box of things he was planning on donating to Goodwill. He figured he could wash the sheets and put a fresh set on the bed later, but everything else was ready.

Eddie was still curled up asleep on the couch when Wayne exited the bedroom, so he tried to be as quiet as possible as he started the coffee. He woke up before the coffee was done though, and soon enough, he was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he stood next to his uncle in the kitchen.

“You sleep okay, kiddo?” Wayne asked as he pulled out a couple cereal bowls.

Eddie nodded before moving to take his normal spot at the small table. Wayne didn’t want to pry too much, but he was clueless about what Eddie’s life had been like over the last few years, so he tried to get the boy to talk to him without it seeming like he was interrogating him.

Over bowls of Cheerios, Eddie shared that most of the time, his dad had him hang out at the comic book shop after school and on the weekends. He wasn’t supposed to get in the way while Richie was working, so every week, his dad gave him two dollars, and he could spend that on whatever comics he wanted even if the only ones he really cared about were the X-Men ones. The guy who ran the shop was really nice and let Eddie sit there for as long as he needed to even on the days that he wasn’t buying anything. He never missed school, and his dad always made sure he was fed, so at least he hadn’t been lacking in those departments. Richie was neglectful in a lot of ways, but he had managed to do the bare minimum. He could be thankful for that at least.

After breakfast, Wayne had Eddie help him sort through the boy’s old clothes. None of the pants were going to fit him anymore, but he had a handful of shirts that had been a little big before that he could still fit into. Wayne just hoped that they’d be able to find a few pairs of jeans in decent shape while they were at Goodwill because he definitely didn’t have the money to drop on new pants.

Eddie wanted to keep his dinosaurs and the one little car that had been his favorite, and of course he was keeping Mister Lion, but the rest of his old toys joined the Goodwill boxes. He just wasn’t interested in those things anymore. Wayne made a mental note to pick up a new box of crayons the next time he was at the grocery store since Eddie was very adamant about keeping all of his old drawings, and his old crayons were barely usable anymore.

Their trip to Goodwill was a successful one. Wayne had to use up a good portion of his cigarette budget for the month on a new wardrobe for Eddie, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He’d been meaning to cut back anyway.

“Why don’t you go and put your clothes away in your room?” Wayne told Eddie when they returned to the trailer.

“My room?”

“The bedroom is yours, Eds. I just have to move a few things into the other closet and change the sheets, and then it’ll be ready.”

“You don’t have to give up your room for me.”

“I know. But I want to. Figured you should have a space of your own if you’re gonna be staying here permanently.”

Eddie dropped the bags he was holding and went to give his uncle a hug.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“No need to thank me. You deserve this.” As Wayne was moving the rest of his stuff out of the room, Eddie was drawn to one item in particular.

“You play guitar?” he asked, eyeing the old acoustic in his uncle’s hands.

“I used to. I don’t think I’ve actually played it since before you were born. I was about your age when I learned though.”

“Could you teach me?”

“Sure can. I was just gonna stick it in the closet, but you can keep it in your room if you want and you promise to be real careful with it.”

Eddie nodded enthusiastically before taking the guitar from his uncle and carrying it back into his bedroom.

The rest of Eddie’s first day back at the trailer passed by without any incident. Eddie was slowly warming up to being there again even if he still seemed cautious about what he was and wasn’t allowed to do. It wasn’t until bedtime that Wayne was certain things would be okay between them.

By then, he was exhausted from having stayed up all night and all the work he did to get the bedroom ready for him. He’d just tucked Eddie in and was getting ready to set up his own bed in the living room when he heard the bedroom door open.

“What are you doing out of bed?” he asked. “Thought you were going to sleep?”

“I was,” Eddie said as he looked down at the ground. “But I was just thinking maybe you could set up your bed in my room like we used to? Just for tonight?”

“I think that can be arranged.”

Wayne squeezed the fold out bed into the cramped bedroom. Without saying a word, Eddie handed his uncle the copy of The Hobbit that was sitting on the nightstand, and even though he was ready to crash, Wayne settled in and read until his nephew was softly snoring beside him just as he had so many times before.

December 1976

Wayne was not spoiling Eddie for Christmas this year. If anyone asked, he insisted he wasn’t. He was staying well within his budget for the holidays, but he was buying pretty much everything secondhand, so his money went a little further. He’d picked up a few board games and an assortment of mismatched legos from the Goodwill, and he’d managed to get a good deal on a new set of strings for the guitar. He’d even picked up the 64 pack of Crayola crayons that had a sharpener built into the box and some plain, unlined paper for him to draw on. Eddie's Christmases with his dad hadn't exactly been great ones, and he wanted to do what he could to make up for that. There was just one last thing he wanted to get.

It had all started when Eddie had spent an entire day drawing at the kitchen table. Wayne hadn't been paying much attention to him because anything that kept Eddie occupied and quiet for more than five minutes meant he could get some cleaning done around the trailer without his nephew getting underfoot or making more work for him. He loved the kid as if he were his own, but he could be a handful at times. When he went to put another load of dirty clothes in the washer and figure out what he was making for dinner, he got a good look at what Eddie had been drawing.

Wayne gathered up the papers and shuffled through them, and he was amazed by Eddie's work. They were good drawings. Not just good for a kid drawings where you could tell what they were supposed to be but they still looked clumsy. These were actually good, and they were all dragons. Different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some breathing fire, some flying, and some sleeping, but all recognizable as dragons.

"Did you draw all of these?" he asked.

Eddie nodded without looking up from his current drawing.

"And you didn't trace 'em or copy them from something or anything?"

"Nope. I just drew what I pictured."

“These are really great, Eds. Best drawings I’ve ever seen.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Don’t know where you got all this talent from. No one in our family can draw more than a stick figure.”

Eddie was absolutely beaming from all of the praise.

“Which one is your favorite?” the boy asked.

Wayne flipped through the stack of drawings in his hand before pulling out one of a purple dragon asleep on a pile of gold coins and jewels.

“If I had to pick, it’s this one,” he said as he held up the picture. “Would you mind if I hung it on the fridge?”

“You wanna hang up my picture?”

“Of course, I do. Gotta display it like the masterpiece it is.”

After the first drawing was in its place on the fridge, Eddie wanted to hang the rest of his dragons up in his room, so Wayne carefully taped up each and every one of them exactly where Eddie told him to. The entire time, Eddie was sitting cross-legged on his bed monologuing about how cool dragons were and why they were his most favorite fantasy creature. It was then that Wayne knew he had to find a way to get his boy something dragon-related for Christmas.

The problem he was facing was that there seemed to be absolutely nothing dragon-related in all of Hawkins, and he was running out of time. He didn’t know what he was going to do until he spotted something on one of the shelves in the comic book shop.

Wayne couldn’t give Eddie as much money as his dad had been giving him to spend on comics, but every Saturday, they took a trip there after lunch and before they did their grocery shopping for the next week. Eddie was allowed to choose one comic to take home, and Wayne would let him take as long as he needed to make that decision. Usually, he’d just stand and wait with Eddie, but a box with a large red dragon on the front had piqued his interest, so he went to examine it. It didn’t take long for him to realize that it was the perfect gift for his nephew.

When Eddie ran up to him with the comic he’d chosen, Wayne told him to go wait in the truck while he paid. As soon as his nephew was out of his sight, he grabbed the box and bought it along with the comic. It was a little more than he wanted to spend, but he knew it would be worth it to see Eddie’s face when he opened it on Christmas morning.

Wayne had barely opened his eyes before Eddie was shoving a gift into his hands on Christmas morning. He’d insisted that he didn’t need anything like he had for every single Christmas of his adult life, and he had been ignored as usual. When he opened the gift bag, he was presented with four different coffee mugs.

“There’s one for this year, and one for every Christmas I missed,” Eddie said, looking very proud of himself.

“How’d you get the money to pay for these?”

“A group of kids on the playground bet me their milk money that I wouldn’t eat a worm.”

“You ate a worm?”

Eddie shrugged. “It didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time.”

Wayne snorted and moved to ruffle a hand through the boy’s curls. “We’ve gotta work on your impulse control, kid.”

“Do you like them?” Eddie asked.

“I love ‘em. In fact, I’m gonna have my morning coffee in one of them, and I’ll make you a special Christmas hot cocoa in one, too.”

After the drinks had been passed out, Wayne pushed his bed to the side so he and Eddie could sit on the floor together with the tiny fake tree that Wayne had found at a garage sale. It wasn’t much, and it looked even tinier when the small pile of gifts for Eddie was almost the same height, but Eddie had just been excited to have a tree which was good enough for Wayne.

As Eddie opened his gifts, Wayne made sure that the one he was the most excited to give him was the last one he opened.

“Dungeons and Dragons?” Eddie read off the front of the box.

“It’s a fantasy roleplaying game,” Wayne told him. “I don’t know much about it, but the guy down at the comic book shop said it’s pretty fun, and I know how much you like dragons and fantasy stuff, so I thought this could be fun. I figured you could read the manual and maybe teach me how to play? If that’s okay with you, of course.”

It was more than okay with Eddie. Wayne watched as Eddie did nothing but read the manuals and plan out a small campaign for them to play for pretty much his entire winter break. On New Year’s Eve, he sat his uncle down at their kitchen table and walked him through creating a character before diving into their fantasy adventure. Wayne tried his best to understand what was going on, and Eddie often had to remind him which die to roll and when, but the boy’s excitement and enthusiasm for the game was apparent the entire time. He never got frustrated with him for forgetting what he was supposed to be doing, and he put every bit of his dramatic, over the top personality into painting a picture of this fantasy world.

There were plenty of days where Wayne was convinced that he was doing everything wrong when it came to raising Eddie, but as he watched his nephew fall in love with his new game, he knew that he’d done at least one thing right.

May 1980

When Eddie started middle school, Wayne had decided he was old enough to take the bus home from school and be alone at the trailer until he got home from work. For the most part, this hadn’t been a bad idea, and Eddie had only almost flooded the trailer once. But, towards the end of eighth grade, there was one big hiccup.

“I messed up,” Eddie called from the bathroom the second Wayne had walked in the door.

"Messed up how?"

"Can you just come here?"

Wayne made his way back to the bathroom where he found Eddie leaning over the sink. Sitting on the edge of the sink was a pair of scissors, and there was a very obvious chunk of hair missing from the left side of his head. Considering the fact that Eddie had just told him a week before that he was planning on growing out his hair in an attempt to emulate his favorite musicians, Wayne was more than a little bit confused.

"Wanna tell me what happened?" he asked.

"I was just minding my own business and talking to my friend Jeff about how awesome Corroded Coffin was gonna be at the talent show next week when the kid in the seat behind me smashed his gum in my hair."

"Is this the same kid who called you a freak and ripped up your notebook last month?"

"Yeah . . . I've been ignoring him like you said, but he just won't leave me alone."

Wayne had never considered beating a child before, but there was a first time for everything.

"And I'm guessing the scissors are out because you were trying to get the gum out by yourself?"

"I tried everything. But I couldn't get it out with my hands, and trying to pick it out with my comb only made it worse. And I didn't know what to do, so I figured I could just cut it out, and no one would notice. But I ended up cutting off too much, and now I look like this."

"Why didn't you wait for me to get home? I could've helped you."

"I was embarrassed," Eddie said. The boy looked like he was about ready to cry. "I don't like talking about this stuff, so I thought maybe I could do it alone, and then I wouldn't have to tell you."

Wayne sighed before squeezing past Eddie to pull his clippers out of the bathroom cabinet.

"I can fix this," he said. "It's not going to be what you want, and it's going to take awhile for your hair to grow back, but I can at least even it out and make it look like you wanted your hair to be shorter, okay?"

Eddie nodded.

"Good. Now take a seat and let me take care of you."

Eddie sat down on the edge of the toilet, and Wayne got to work. To make it easier for the clippers to do their job, Wayne started out by using the scissors to cut off Eddie's curls in chunks that he tossed aside in the sink. Once his hair was a more manageable length, Wayne turned on the clippers and started evening out the cut. It definitely wasn't what Eddie wanted, but soon enough, the boy was sporting a fresh buzz cut.

“I’m going to clean up in here, and then you can take a shower if you want. After that, meet me in the kitchen. I think you and I might need to have a talk.”

After sweeping up Eddie’s hair, Wayne headed into the kitchen and put on the water for hot chocolate. That was their routine. Whenever they had to talk about something even remotely upsetting, they did it over cups of hot cocoa in the hopes that the sweetness of the drink would soften the blow.

Eddie came out of the bathroom and took his usual seat at the kitchen table just as Wayne was finished making their drinks. He set Eddie’s mug down in front of him before taking his own seat. It was obvious to him that the boy had been crying while he was in the bathroom from his red-rimmed eyes, but he didn’t comment on it. He didn’t want to make Eddie feel worse than he clearly already did.

Wayne couldn’t get a word out before Eddie started talking.

“I don’t think I wanna do the talent show anymore,” he said as he stared into his mug.

“Why not? It’s all you’ve talked about for weeks.”

“They haven’t even heard me play yet, and I’m already getting picked on for it. What if I suck, and it gets worse?”

“So what?”

“What do you mean so what?” Eddie asked. “You just had to shave my head. I don’t want anything like this to happen ever again.”

Wayne sighed and took a sip from his mug.

“I know we don’t talk about your mama very often, but after you, music was her favorite thing in this world. When you all lived with me, there wasn’t a moment of the day that she wasn’t singing along with whatever was playing on the radio, and she might have been just about the worst singer I’ve heard in my entire life. Couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket if her life depended on it, and we all teased her about it constantly. But that didn’t stop her from singing her heart out whenever she heard her favorite songs.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“People around here are small-minded, and they’re raising their children to be a bunch of small-minded idiots. No matter what you do, there’s always going to be someone who’s gonna try to make you feel small. That’s just the way life is. And if you stop yourself from doing the things you love just because someone else is making fun of you for it, you’re only letting the bullies win. You’ve gotta be a bigger and louder version of yourself and not let them affect you.

“You are so much like your mama in a lot of ways. Practically a little clone of her at times. Especially when you smile. But the biggest difference that I can see is that you have talent. I may not understand the kind of music you like, but I can tell when something sounds good. I hear you practicing, and you’ve got a gift. I won’t lie to you and pretend that everyone is going to love your performance or that the bullies will magically disappear, but what I can tell you is that it would be a damn shame if you didn’t share your gift with the world just because some little shit stain on your bus clearly wasn’t raised right.”

Wayne got up from the table to put his mug in the sink, but he’d barely taken a step before Eddie had jumped up and wrapped his arms around his uncle in a bone-crushing hug.

“Thank you,” Eddie whispered.

“You’re welcome,” Wayne replied as he hugged him back. “I probably don’t say this enough, but I hope you know that I love you, and I’m always going to be in your corner.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

“Good. And if you have any more trouble on that bus of yours, you let me know, and I’ll kick that little punk’s butt. No one is gonna get away with treating my boy like crap.”

Eddie snorted as he pulled away from his uncle.

“I’m sure he’ll be terrified. You’re basically the least intimidating person I know.”

“Okay, smart ass. I’m plenty intimidating.”

“You’re about as scary as a teddy bear.”

It was Wayne’s turn to laugh.

A few weeks later, when Father’s Day rolled around, Wayne woke up to a gift and a homemade card waiting for him next to the coffee maker. He opened the card first, and printed in Eddie’s messy scrawl, it read:

I feel like this is probably long overdue, and I should have been honoring you today for at least a few years now. You’ve been more of a dad to me than I ever remember mine being, and I feel like I don’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me enough. So thanks for always being there. Happy Father’s Day from your boy.

Feeling a little choked up, Wayne pulled the gift towards himself next. It was wrapped up in the comics from the day before’s newspaper with way too much tape. He knew what it would be before he'd even unwrapped it, but he was always happy to see whatever mug Eddie had picked out for him. This one was dark green and patterned with sunflowers, and he knew that it was going to become one of his new favorites immediately if only because of the circumstances in which he received it.

March 1986

Wayne Munson was tired. Tired of people judging Eddie without really knowing him, tired of people not listening to him, and tired of people defacing his missing posters instead of actually helping him look. He was tired of having to keep his guard up when anyone tried to talk to him because he didn’t want to lose his temper and attack someone for spouting vile nonsense at him, and he was tired of spending every waking moment - and most of his sleeping ones - worrying about Eddie. Tired of sleeping in the high school surrounded by people who had actively been hunting down his boy to do who knows what to him. He was just tired.

So, when Dustin Henderson came up to him and gave him the news that Eddie was gone, he could feel himself crumbling from the inside out. At first, he didn’t want to believe it. It couldn’t be true. His boy was out there somewhere and hiding until someone could find concrete evidence that cleared his name. He had to be. But the guitar pick necklace that Dustin held out to him and the apparent pain plastered across the kid’s face had sealed it. His boy was dead, and he was never going to see him again.

Wayne had never been one to outwardly express his emotions. He tended to keep things tucked away until he could have a moment in private, and he certainly never cried in public. But hearing the way that Dustin spoke so fondly about Eddie broke him. Because Dustin was saying everything that he already knew to be true. If Hawkins had really taken the time to get to know his boy, they all would have been able to look past his outer appearance, and they would have loved him just as much as Wayne did. He was certain of it. He just never thought he’d hear someone else say it.

Shortly after he spoke to Dustin, Wayne and the other trailer park residents were given the all clear to go back to their trailers and gather their things. The relief workers had marked it as safe for them to enter briefly, but no one was going to be allowed to stay there for very long. They were instructed to gather up anything important and head back to their temporary housing at the school as soon as possible. Eventually, they’d be able to come back and grab the rest of their things when more permanent housing was found for them, but for now, they were limited in how much they could take.

Wayne didn’t know how much of his stuff was going to be worth saving. Frankly, he was surprised that his trailer had even been left standing when he saw the fault line that ran through what had once been his living room. Out of an abundance of caution, he had entered through the door down near the bedroom instead of the main entrance. He moved quickly, shoving as many of his clothes in his bag as he could. He’d much rather wear his own stuff than the donations that people brought into the school.

After that, he grabbed the sentimental things. For once, he was thankful that he didn’t keep things in conventional places because that meant that all of his photo albums were safe. The notebooks full of Eddie’s childhood drawings and his favorite dragon picture were safe. Eddie’s beloved stuffed lion was safe. All of these were carefully added to his bag. But the one thing he couldn’t take was what hurt the most to leave behind.

He’d known the second that he saw the fault line running through his home that his mugs wouldn’t have made it. What was left of his living room display was now smashed on the floor, and he could tell just from the look of it that there was nothing he could save. He knew it was stupid for him to be so upset about them. They were just a bunch of mugs and nobody else would find them important. Anybody else wouldn’t give them a second thought because they could be replaced. 

But they were important to Wayne. Those mugs tied him to better times with people he would never be able to see again. He could buy a new mug, but he couldn’t buy the mugs that Linda had stolen from her parents for him, he couldn’t buy the mugs that Eddie had eaten a worm to pay for, and he couldn’t buy the mug that Eddie gave him the first time he recognized him on Father’s Day. He couldn’t buy back the happiness that looking at those mugs and remembering their stories gave him. That was gone forever.

He didn’t want to set himself up for even more disappointment, but a part of him needed to know if the mugs that he stored in the cabinet had made it through the earthquake. Those were the ones that he used the most often. His favorites. He would be heartbroken if they were all destroyed, but he needed that closure.

When he opened the cabinet above the coffee maker, he was met with a shelf covered with the broken pieces of his mugs that had smashed against each other in the enclosed space. He knew not to get his hopes up, but it was still a painful sight to see.

But, pushed into the very back corner of the cabinet, there was one mug that appeared to still be intact. He carefully pulled it out of the debris to inspect it. Sporting a new chip on the handle, the mug featured the phrase “World’s Best Uncle” hand-painted on the side along with a bright blue baby handprint. The mug from Eddie’s first Christmas.

As he carefully wrapped the mug in a sheet of newspaper that was sitting on the floor underneath the kitchen table, Wayne felt himself choking back tears for the second time that day. It wasn’t his whole collection, but at least it was something. After all, he was only one man. He always said he didn’t need more than one mug.

#wayne munson fic #eddie munson fic #wayne munson #eddie munson #stranger things fic #my writing

[tutuandscoot]

hi! i am a new ice dance fan and was wondering if you could explain why everyone is saying the sport is going downhill?? just trying to learn!!!

Oh boy…. That’s a long story.

The quick version, as pertains to ice dance:

There used to be 3 segments of competition: compulsory dance, original (then short, then rhythm) dance, and the free dance

In the 70’s,80’s,90’s (and earlier?) teams would compete at least 2 compulsory dancers, then OD and FD. It was cut back to one CD around 2000- so eg the 2002 Olympics was one CD, OD, FD. After many scandals relating to judging and corruption, the ISU got rid of the 6.0 scoring system and brought in what is used now known as the Code of points.

Through 2000-2010, teams competed the CD, OD and FD. After the 2010 season (where VM won olys and worlds) the ISU abandoned the CD from senior competition bc ‘it was boring’ and ‘took up too much time at competitions’

As a compromise they rejigged the 2nd portion of competition- renaming it the ‘short dance’ which was very strict and technical- each year there was a chosen rhythm and set pattern dance within their own choreography every team had to perform- so it at least had a compulsory portion where every team was compared directly against each other. After 2018 (when vm won again) they renamed it the ‘Rhythm dance’ and since then have slowly been loosening to rules and requirements to make it less objective- so essentially judges didn’t have to justify their scoring and could just award what they liked. There is also a scoring component called GOE- grade of execution which was increased from 3 to 5 (plus or minus- a score which is added or deducted from each element base value)- this part of the score was given much more weight and priority so essentially a team could perform a fairly easy lift which isn’t worth many points, but the judge decides they really like the lift and can make up that teams points with a high GOE mark if they choose to. And vise versa- give a team low GOE to knock them down even if they are technically strong.

After 2022 olys the set/compulsory pattern was removed all together- so there is no part of ice dance competition now that offers direct comparison. Judges don’t have to reward the actual best team‼️This is where you get fans complaining about teams that are not technically strong scoring well/winning bc the judges “like” them or there is some other (bribe/political) incentive to reward that team.

It is impossible I think to get rid of all corruption in skating, but the 2007-2018 era/s at least had *some accountability (don’t get me started on VM vs DW)

The announcement yesterday that there is not even a solid set ‘theme’ or rhythm going forward (aLeDgEdLy) is infuriating. Add to that that there is no traditional, classical dance left in ice dance- no ballroom, latin, classical ballet. Die hard fans love compulsory dances like the golden waltz and tango romantica bc when a team ( VM) does it well it is ice dance at its purist.

The isu is essentially telling us what is good when we all damn know it’s not good. They are taking us for fools, they are pandering to tik tok audiences bc they know people don’t have the patience or interest to watch actual skating competitions and think they will get audiences back by “modernising” the sport bc people these days can’t relate to tangos and waltz.. which is BS bc back in the 80’s people weren’t getting around waltzing and tangoing at clubs and parties- this is classic dance and art that actually works on ice bc it is adapted from ballroom dance. Not sliding on the ice breakdancing to Party Rock Anthem!🤮

I’ll stop there bc this is getting long and blogs like @macaroni-rascal @anewbeginningagain etc can explain the technical stuff much better than me

#if you have anymore specific questing feel free to send them through #idk everything but can try to answer xx #ask #and when u say ‘new fan’ I hope yo I go back to the start of VM’s career and live in that era of ID

[taschamonnii]

More Than A Woman - Part 2 (You Slipped Me A Potion) 

Read Part 1

You x Shirley Carter (70s-80s Southern Housewife Original Character  - Elizabeth Olsen) 

*Disclaimer/Summary: This completely Fictional Character is based on the way Lizzie plays old-fashioned Housewives. (Some inspo is taken from WandaVision, I Saw The Light, and Love & Death) This character is in no way a portrayal of any real-life people. Audrey Williams and Candy Montgomery were real people that Lizzie has portrayed for entertainment purposes in tv & film. This story is not about them. I just want to see Lizzie play a 70s-80s housewife that is secretly Gay and stuck in a religious small-town in the South. Since she has never done that but has played the part of perfect housewife I decided to make my own character.* I will be using edited pictures from the characters she has played and unaltered gifs since it's way too hard to edit those.*

Character Description since this is a made up character: mid length-wavy-dark brown hair (think more the length in I saw the Light like it falls to her collar bones but the deep dark brown from goth Wanda era, Emerald Green eyes, Wears form fitting dresses and high waisted pants and skirts.  

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Angst/Smut/Fluff

TW: SMUT, 18+, Cheating on husbands to be GAY together, 

I am so obsessed with Lizzie playing housewife that I made a playlist! More Than A Woman

AN: This is part Two to this Original Series

Word Count: 3,945

Imagine This:

Every single time you close your eyes you find that intense emerald gaze staring back at you. You don’t even have to close your eyes, your mind is trapped in the moment, trapped in your truck…Your truck, that now has a different smell to it and god it’s devine. Her perfume lingered and the smell of her skin is still so fresh in your mind that it has you distracted and daydreaming every moment of the day. She is consuming your every thought. Her lips, eyes, skin, hair, and god her freckles. You can’t escape her and never want to. You are in this way too deep already but you don’t care. She wants to be smart about things. It is sexy to see her mind work on the logistics and come up with the best possible ways to do things. She is so fucking smart and creative. A few calls and one lunch in the next town over and you have worked out some things to play it on the cautious side.

She loves her family and you are smart enough to know you don’t want to ruin that for her but you are also smart enough to know that maybe her husband isn’t as straight as he seems and you are hopeful for a fun shared future with the Carter’s. Your Theo really likes her John so you are hopeful that maybe in the future there could be a more permanent agreement.

It took some convincing but she agrees to meet at your house after you convince her that two women hanging out around lunch time is not suspicious. You are nervous to let her into your world because you have done this in the past and married women always break your heart but something about Shirley is different. You spent the weekend cleaning your house and organizing everything. 

On Sunday while Theo cooks dinner as per usual he voices his concerns. “Do you think it’s wise to start this so soon? I just mean we are stuck here for a while. I have to not only stabilize the company but get them to a place where they are making progress.”

You sit on the island counter and sip your drink. “I know that, Theo. I appreciate your concerns but she’s different. You said it yourself that her and her husband set off your radar. Maybe this will be our chance to find a couple we could have a real arrangement with. Don’t you think it’s worth the risk?”

He smiles and acts like he is thinking hard “I mean, I guess. Just be careful, Honey.”

“Aren’t I always.”

Theo made extra food so you can warm it up tomorrow for your lunch date. 

You have everything all prepared and set up at your little kitchen nook table when you hear her knock in the pattern she chose to be your little secret knock. You rush to the door and check the mirror there. You are wearing a white button up that is tucked into your jeans. You fluff your hair and take a deep breath before opening the door. 

The smile you had prepared to meet her drops as your gaze devours the beauty in front of you. Your jaw drops and you can’t stop the stupid “Wow!” that leaves your lips. 

She smiles and puckers her lips, a light blush tinting her neck and cheeks. Her brown hair is down in loose curls and she is wearing a stunning maroon dress that falls just past her knees. You are at a loss for words and stand there in shock.

She giggles “Hi.”

You rub the back of your neck “Hi.” 

“Are you going to invite me in or are you just going to keep staring?”

“Shit! Sorry, come in.”

You move aside and gesture for her to come in and watch unashamed as her hips sway to carry her into your house. The dress hugs her curves and it is a sight to see. She looks around soaking in all the details of your house. Your decorations are more funky and fresh than most the houses in this town since you brought your things from Cali. You shut your door and lock it. 

“This is the front room obviously.”

“Obviously. What is that delicious smell?”

“Oh um, lunch, here.”

You head to the kitchen and she follows, still looking around trying to absorb every detail. She sets her bag down on your kitchen island and tosses her sunglasses next to it. She smiles as she observes you filling both glasses with sun tea. 

You pull out a chair and gesture for her to take it. “Why thank you.”

You take the seat across from her with a smile. You take a sip of your tea trying to calm your nerves. Something about having her here is overwhelming. 

She takes a nervous sip of her tea as well. You set your glass down and run your fingers over the edge. “I have a confession, I’m a bit nervous.”

“I am too. It’s thrillin’ you know. A simple lunch is so much more now. The world on the way over seemed brighter, more full of color than it has in a long time.”

“You really put it great and it’s even more than that for me. I thought moving here was going to be awful. Back in Cali everything is so bright and colorful and people are just different and more open to the endless possibilities of life. I was scared my life would turn into a boring black and white movie. It doesn’t feel like 1976 here, sometimes it feels like the 60s. But there you were in bright colors smiling at me like you are right now.”

She lets out an adorable giggle and averts her gaze to the food. “Well, I think you have a way with words, y/n.”

“It’s actually my secret talent.” You give her a cheeky smile and wink. 

“What do you mean Secret talent?”

“Well, I work as an author. I Write under different names.”

“Oh that’s fascinating. You must show me sometime.”

“I’d love to, as long as I get to read some of your writing sometime in exchange. I know you said you’ve written a few songs.”

“Really? Well, that would make one of you, ‘cause John has no interest, and I read all his boring stuff-”

“Mmm, do you want to talk about him?”

She shakes her head with a bit of a grimacing face.

“No, sorry. We’re definitely,” She sets down her glass with a smile aimed at the table as she gestures with her hands, “Not.”

She sighs and looks up at you as she licks her lips. 

You smile softly.

“I think we are both a little overwhelmed. This feels more real and significant, let's just go slow, let's just start with lunch.”

She nodded. “Yeah this feels like my life will never be the same. Slow is good. The food does look good”

You nod and pick up your fork and dig into the food. She does the same and dramatically moans at her first bite “Mmm, wow a woman of many talents, this is very good, y/n.”

“Oh well you can thank Theo sometime he made it. I don’t cook worth shit.”

She laughs and it fills your body with joy. “You don’t cook?”

“No I don’t do any cooking, actually I’m a bit of a fire hazard according to my Theo. I’m not allowed in the kitchen unsupervised except to re-heat things and make beverages.”

“I bet I could teach you. It’s really rather easy.”

“Well, any excuse to see you I will happily take.”

The blush that creeps up her neck makes you giddy. Small talk continues and the meal is quickly finished. But there is still an air of hesitation so you both slowly start to clean up. She insists on cleaning up. It’s oddly soothing to do the dishes with her like you are domestic together. It makes your heart ache because you are doubtful you will ever get that full-time. 

You give her a house tour. You show her your shared home office and even give her a glance at Theo’s room when she asks about it. You end it at the door of your room. You open the door and pull her into the room. She wonders the space of your room and decides to lean against your dresser as you shut and lock your door. You turn to her and the air grows heavy. Her gaze travels your body and you can see her eyes darken. 

You move to stand before her and place your hands on her hips. You feel her shiver at your touch and you know that she feels the intensity. Her hands go to your shoulders and run up your neck and into your hair. You glance at her lips and then her eyes and back to her lips then capture her lips softly. She sighs out in relief and digs her fingers into your hair to pull you closer. She licks at your bottom lip quickly moving to deepen and intensify the kiss. You grunt trying to keep up. Teeth scrape and tongues meet and the fire is set free between the two of you. You quickly unzip her dress and pull it down. You both step out of shoes and the spaghetti strap slip she has on is a silky and sheer little red thing. Her cleavage looks incredible.

You grab her waist and lift her up off the ground just slightly, making her gasp and part from your lips. You spin around and take a step so that the back of her legs hit the mattress as you set her back on the ground. She makes quick work of your button up shirt. You move your hands down to your waist and undo your jeans and pull them and your panties down which stops her from being able to fully remove your shirt. It's fully unbuttoned and reveals your body to her enough to satisfy her gaze. She puts one of her legs on the mattress behind her and works to scoot and lay down at the same time keeping her slip on. You smirk and follow her on your knees. 

You place a hand next to her to hold you up and run your hand from her calf up under her slip. You take your time feeling her smooth skin and bite your bottom lip as you look down at her. Her emerald gaze is intense and it is hypnotizing. She has angel eyes that say so much. Your hand is inches away from where you know she wants you but you remove it in a flash you pull at the fabric covering her and bunch it up. You adjust so your legs intertwine and she gasps when she feels your thigh against her and you sigh as you press your own wet core against her thigh. She pulls you closer forcing your body weight to be more on her. She captures your lips roughly. 

She moans against you as you both begin to grind your hips. Her jaw has dropped open leaving her mouth wide open as she pants and moans. "Ah ah ah!" 

Her moans are so breathy and hot against your skin they make you shudder. One of her hands is in your hair and the other has a death grip on your shoulder. Her legs are so fucking soft against yours. You feel overwhelmed by the tangled mess you are in. She smells so sweet and feels so good and her long legs are strong you can feel her muscles flex against you and it's sending you barrelling towards the edge. 

"Mmm oh Shirley! Fuck!" 

You both begin to get more erratic in your movements and you can tell she is just as close. You both stare into each other's eyes as you cum. 

"Oh Y/n! Ah! AH!"

"Yes! Oh!"

Both your hips buck hard and falter as muscles contract and squeeze and legs tremble. You can't hold yourself up any longer and collapse fully on top of her. Making her gasp and grip your shoulder harder. You breathe against her and she breathes against you.

You kiss her shoulder as you come back to reality and roll off her. She turns and lays half on top of you. You look at her and brush her hair back "Are you okay?"

"More than. That was wow! Are you okay?"

“Mmm, wow indeed.”

She bites her bottom lip. "Thank you, y/n."

"No Shirley, thank you!"

She giggles and leans up to kiss you once again. Softer this time, less urgent. You match her kiss and tangle your hands in her hair. She pulls away slowly. She licks her lips and puckers them to the side, something you have come to learn means she's thinking about something. 

"What is it?"

"Hmm?" 

"You are doing that thing with your lips, like you are thinking about something and want to say something. What is it?"

"I, well, I read this book."

She bites her bottom lip again and you nod patiently. You run your hand over her back enjoying the moist silky soft fabric on your fingertips.

"In this book these two women, they, well, do something and I am not sure if it is realistic or even feels as good as the book made it sound I'm just thinking about it." 

"Mmm, I see. Some lesbian literature has piqued your interest in trying some things?"

"Precisely."

"What exactly are you curious about?"

She licks her lips then sucks them in together and shakes her head as she purses them tighter. You pull her chin and make her look at you. "What is it? You can tell me." 

"I don't know what it's called or how to say it really."

"Hmm is it what I said I wanted to do in the truck?"

"No, I mean I want that too, at some point."

A smirk grows on your lips "At some point indeed, I will definitely have my tongue buried inside you. But if it's not that, I need more information."

"Can I just try to show you?" 

You raise an eyebrow at her "oh honey you can do whatever you like."

A nervous sort of giddy smile takes over her face and you are hyper aware of the effect it has on you. She moves all the way on top of you and fits herself between your legs. The fabric of her slip bunched up under her breasts as she adjusted and the spaghetti straps fell down giving you the breathtaking view of her breasts hanging as she lifted herself up slightly. She moves and in an instant your attention is on the sensation of her wet center pressed against yours. Your gaze shoots from her breasts to her dark green eyes. “Oh damn, Shirley. Okay I know what you are after.”

“You do so this is a real thing? I don’t really know how to do it.”

You hold her hips and nod “it’s real, just difficult.” 

You move your legs and angle your hips as you hold her hips until you get just the right angle. 

"Ah"

"Yeah? Is that good?" 

You move against her again and watch her reaction carefully. "Mmm yeah, so good."

"Mmm good. Move your hips like this."

You move your hands to her ass and move her hips against yours. "Do whatever feels best to you." 

"Mmm"

You hold her hips loosely and let her take control. She begins to move a sigh falling from her lips. You watch her as she holds herself up more to get more leverage. The spaghetti straps of her slip fall further down her shoulders. Her cleavage is so sexy and the way she moves her hips is memorizing. She changes the angle and moves harder against you and you throw your head back at the perfect wet friction. In unison you both moan.

"Oh fuck!" - "Ah AH!"

She looks down at you and manages to do it again "there?"

You lock your gaze on hers and nod "there!"

She repeats the motion and you are honestly overwhelmed. For being more of a novelty that you don’t usually prefer, this feels so good. A voice in your head tells you that it’s because of her and you can’t deny that. Everything with her is beyond anything you’ve ever experienced before. You are falling way too hard for her but how could you not?

Her  breathy moans are so hot and her grip on your shoulders and upper chest is definitely going to leave a mark. Her hips are magical.

“Ah ah AAAHHH!”

“Fuck Shirley! YES AHH!”

You watch in awe as her eyebrows furrow and her mouth opens even wider as her eyes shoot to the ceiling. “Oh Y/N-OH-GOD OH!”

You feel her release and it sends you spiraling off the edge into your own release. You two are soaked. She leans forward and moans into a sloppy kiss. “Mmm”

“Mmm-hmm.”

You hold her in your arms both of you sweaty disasters. Once you both catch your breath you let out a soft laugh. “You know most people don’t call me god, but I kind of liked it coming from you.”

She props herself up slightly and smacks your shoulder playfully “SHUT UP!” 

You smirk playfully. “Make me!”

She puckers her lips to the side and attempts to tickle your sides but you are unphased by her rapid assault. “Oh come on you are not ticklish?”

You grab her hips in a flash, flip her over and pin her to the bed as you tickle her and a burst of laughter escapes her sweet lips. “Sorry a tickle attack won’t work on me but I see it works on you.”

She is gasping for breaths between laughter “Not fair! Okay! Okay!”

You shake your head “Huh-uh, I want to hear you call me God again.”

“Fuck you, GOD!” 

You stop your tickling assault and burst out in laughter. “Oh you just did that, did you want to go again?”

“You are ridiculous!”

“But you like it. Don’t you, Shirley?”

She rolls her eyes “maybe.”

You smile and lean in to rapidly kiss her lips and cheeks and chin. She grabs the back of your neck and captures your lips in a rough kiss that she slowly releases. You are left stunned and she smiles evilly “you know I like you.”

You give her a crooked sort of smile, “even when I’m being ridiculous?” 

She grins. “Especially.”

You kiss her lips quickly then flip over to the side tired from your delightful afternoon activities. 

“Shit, I’m a mess!”

You laugh. “A hot mess.”

She gets up quickly “No, I mean I need to shower.”

You sit up. “Let's shower then.”

You get up and throw your sweaty button up into the hamper by your dresser and walk toward the master bath. You can feel her gaze on your ass as you pass her and it's so satisfying. That is until she enters the bathroom behind you and removes the straps of her slip and lets the thin fabric fall to the ground. Your jaw drops and you shake your head as you observe her bare form. She was crafted by a woman who LOVES the female form. She has soft curves and firm muscles and the longest fucking legs and the cutest tummy and perky breasts and your mind can’t keep up! 

“You’re drooling darlin’.”

You snap back to reality, closing your mouth and running your hands over your face. “I can’t really help it, have you seen yourself!?!”

She tilts her head with a silly crooked grin. “Please, look at you.”

“Forget me! You are a piece of art! How the fuck are you even real and HOW the FUCK did John manage to get your attention he looks so orinary and you are an actual goddess.”

She rolls her eyes and takes a step closer to you. “Anyone ever tell you that you are the most dramatic person they’ve ever met?”

You see right through her though the deep blush that appears on her skin is beautiful. You shake your head with a sly smile. “No never, I’m known for being brutally honest actually.”

She shakes her head as she tries to contain her smile. You lean in and capture her lips with a smile on your own lips. She wraps her arms around your shoulders and presses herself against you and you hold her hips softly. You could stay like this with her forever. She pulls back first slowly and you both sigh. “Alright smooth talker I really need to shower. I have to pick up Madison and Marissa at three.”

You can’t help the pout that takes over your face as reality hits you. “Don’t give me that face. It’s not fair.”

“I know they come first and I think your girls are wonderful. I just wish I was John. He’s so lucky.”

Her gaze softened and she leaned in and kissed you softly and you could feel she understood you. You gave her a soft smile as she pulled back. You took her hand and pulled her into the shower. A comforting silence envelopes your bathroom. The only sound is the water as you wait for it to heat up a bit. When it feels like a good temp you get your hair wet and sigh as the water soothes your sore muscles. You move after you have had a decent rinse and switch places with Shirley. 

You watch as she closes her eyes and lets the water run through her hair and down her face and body. She sighs and wipes the water away from her eyes with both hands. She opens her eyes and finds your stare. Her gaze locks onto yours and the softest smile takes over her delicate and bare features. The few freckles on her face make her look delicate. Her gaze makes your knees weak. Her emerald eyes are so intense and full of something that terrifies you. The look she gives you has your heart aching. You are falling for her. She is so soft that you can't stop your own heart eyes from forming. Your gaze softens and your smile reaches your eyes. You are both locked in this silent stare of being in awe of each other. Her sweet southern accent and voice are soft as she says, “Thank you, Y/N.”

You tilt your head at her and quirk an eyebrow and wait for more. “Thank you for seeing me.” 

You sigh happily “I couldn’t really help that. The second you caught my eye you were, are, all I see.”

She sucks her bottom lip as a blush cascades from her cheeks to her ears and down her neck to her chest. Seeing her blush bare like this is something you want more of. “Besides the second you saw me you slipped me a potion. Just like Leo Sayer says in that song.” 

You sing the lyrics that remind you of her imitating the singer as best as you can. “You got a cute way of talking, you got the better of me, just snap your fingers and I’m walking, like a dog hanging on your lead.” 

Her blush deepens and she laughs and you feel like you have won the game of life just being able to experience her joy let alone be the cause of it.

She imitates the singer and sings the next part as she shakes and shimmies her shoulders “You make me feel like dancing, wanna dance the night away!”

You join in singing the popular song and laugh and shimmy.

A/N: If this didn’t make you smile like an idiot then seek help because I was smiling like an idiot as I wrote it! 

#Elizabeth Olsen #Female Reader X Shirley Carter #70s-80s Southern HouseWife #cheating on husbands to be gay but the husbands are also Gay lol #original series #made up original character based on the way Elizabeth Olsen plays old fashioned Housewives #smut #angst #wlw #lesbian #playlist for elizabeth olsen living her best disco life and that are vibes for the show and for dancing #inspo taken from WandaVision and I Saw The Light and Love & Death

[a-strange-inkling]

Hey there! I was just wondering what your headcanon is when they find out Livvy is a girl? Chrissy especially ♥️

Hi!

I was actually wondering about this and had to do some research (and ask my mother, she had my sister a year earlier in 87) about when gender could be determined by ultrasound. It was as early as the 70s, but not common or affordable until the later half of the 80s. So, Eddie and Chrissy can find out their having a girl as far I’m concerned! 💕

💕 They’re both, of course, so excited when they go in for the sonogram and see their baby for the first time. It’s overwhelming and everything begins to feel very real when they see her and hear her heartbeat. They both break down into happy tears.

💕 They are both happy either way, but Eddie just felt like it was a girl since the beginning (and secretly wanted it to be a girl, half because of his endless love for Chrissy and wanting a sweet baby girl just like her, and half because he was afraid of Wayne’s curse if it was a boy lol). When they find out, he’s ecstatic.

💕 Chrissy already had her apprehensions about becoming a mother and finding out they were having a girl made her a little nervous. Not just because of the trauma her own mother put her through, but because she knows how difficult it is to grow up as a young girl in the world. How difficult it can be. But, she promises her baby the night after the sonogram that she will take of her and be the best mother she can be. She promises her that she will be told everyday how beautiful and special she is, that she will always be loved, that she can eat whenever she’s hungry, that she can do anything she sets her mind to.

💕 Eddie has his own apprehensions of being a good enough father for her, but he’s going to protect her with his life, give her the world. She’s got him wrapped around her finger before she’s even born. He’s a big softie for girls, a chivalrous gentleman at his core. His life is hers now.

💕 They both get emotional whenever they buy or get hand me down baby girl clothes, Eddie can’t believe how small she’s going to be. Also setting up her little baby nook in their apartment, they’re both saps about it.

#they’re both pushovers for their baby girl #hellcheer #eddie x chrissy #eddissy #munningham #baby livvy 😭 #livvy munson #chrissy x eddie #hellcheer fanfiction #hellcheer fanfic #old haunts #ask answered

[stolasbewitched]

here's another little analysis of the four bratty kids' songs + poems from the novel. this time some of them are from some research i did, and some are just things that i find interesting about some of the lines. most info here are from tv tropes btw.

augustus gloop

his song is bombastic and band-like, reminiscent of bollywood dance numbers. it's also styled after 40s mambo. it suits his overweightness and love for chocolate.

his song insults him and his appearance more than the other bratty kids' songs, which may be because while the other bratty kids are causing harm to themselves, augustus is causing harm to basically everyone by diving into the chocolate river. those chocolate are supposed to be for everyone around the world.

"nincompoop" is an actual word, and it means "a foolish or stupid person". apparently, the origin of this word is unknown, but it's believed to have come from the latin legal term "non compos mentis", meaning "insane or not of sound mind".

"great scott!" is an injection of surprise, amazement, and in this case, dismay. it was popular in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, but is now considered dated. the novel was released back in 1964, which suits the period that this phrase would be popular in.

violet beauregarde

her song is funky and jazzy, which is styled after 70s blaxploitation funk. it also sounds like a song you would put in the background while exercising, representing violet's competitiveness.

her song (or rather poem, this part was entirely cut out of the movie) insults her the least, instead telling the story of one miss bigelow. she chewed so much that her jaws widened and expanded, which also symbolises violet's transformation into a giant blueberry. this shows that she is the least at fault for her vices, and that the song is mostly directed towards her mother who controls every part of her life.

veruca salt

her song is very relaxing and soothing, almost as if it's straight out of a beatles album, styled after 60s psychedelic rock. the instrumentals also expresses her luxurious life, utilising indian string instruments usually used to display royalty in indian plays.

the first part of her song talks about how she would meet "a rather different set of friends". while she's an animal lover and has tons of animals as her companions, the friends she'll meet down the garbage chute are garbage.

the second part of her song talks about how her parents spoiled her and turned her into the menace that she is today. after all, "a girl can't spoil herself'. it's fitting that veruca's parents (or dad in the movie) went down the garbage chute as well.

mike teavee

his song is a heavy metal piece, which represents his violent and aggressive personality. it's also styled after 80s progressive rock.

his song blames his parents the most, criticising their hands-off approach to parenting and how they let the tv raise their child instead. as a result, mike becomes very violent and has no sense of imagination. the oompa loompas also yell in some parts of the song, which also represents mike’s aggressive personality.

the oompa loompa also name-drops and references other writers and books in the song. i don’t have a serious analysis for this, but i like to think that they’re recommending these writers and books to mike’s parents to help them raise him better, by reading more instead of constantly watching tv.

the song forgets about mike for most of the song until the final part, where the oompa loompa bring their attention back to him and seeing whether or not they can “get him back his height”. which symbolises how mike’s parents seemingly don’t care about him much. notice how mike’s dad in the movie wasn’t very fazed by how he had shrunken down?

i’ve already talked about this in the previous analysis, but the final line “it serves him right” is very satisfying to hear. especially since mike and willy wonka has been in conflict with each other for the whole movie. schadenfreude, eh?

“gadzooks” is an archaic injection, used when expressing surprise or annoyance. it’s an alteration of “god’s hooks”, the nails by which christ was fastened to the cross.

ok that's all i have to say about the four bratty kids' songs. i spent an hour and a half on this, which is why i'm tagging this under catcf. please check out the tv tropes pages for charlie and the chocolate factory because it is really great, and also another little analysis that i did on the songs that is shorter. this isn't meant to be a serious analysis, i just like to compile all the info i've found on my hyperfixations into one place. hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing this.

#stolas’ thoughts #charlie and the chocolate factory #catcf #catcf 2005

[bennydwight]

TGAMM Observations, Theories, Headcanons Pre Season 2

Long post!

1.      Scratch never tells Molly his name in episode one (there’s a theory on this that his name was divulged to her as part of the curse, since it also gave her the ability to summon him with his name)

2.      In ‘The (Un)natural’, Bartholomew can be seen writing in a cutaway scene, a diary entry saying “Dear diary, I had the strangest dream last night”

3.      In the same cutaway scene, we can see the McGees moved into the house June 2

4.      Other entries in Scratch’s scare report read:

·        06/01 Pizza Steve (I get him every time!)

·        06/08 Kid with Umbrella (Transformed into umbrella. Classic Rainy Day scare)

·        06/15 Wilderscouts (Used Howlin’ Harriet story to scare campers)

5.      In the beginning of Howlin’ Harriet, there’s a brief moment where Scratch puts his hand to his chin, deep in thought. Geoff notices and, a beat later, copies the position

6.      Weird amount of Canada references. Cousin Carl from Canada, Cousin Milly from Canada, in The Lucky Penny there’s a crashed car with a Canadian sticker on the window. When Molly is looking up a Bat Mitzvah there’s a recommended video about ghost hauntings in Toronto (it has four views and was posted eight years ago). The very last moving box in Out of House And Home has a shipping sticker that says Toronto. I’d be tempted to say that’s the last place the McGees moved from if not for Molly knowing nothing of Canada. The syrup bottle in Citizen McGee has a maple leaf on it. I’d be offended at the stereotypes if I weren’t so jazzed for the representation

7.      Despite claiming to be touch adverse, Scratch can be seen instigating physical contact even as soon as First Day Frights, where he puts his arm around Molly and pokes her nose. The touching gets more affectionate as the season goes on, but even at the end of Friend-Off (where he’s arguably ‘known’ Libby less than two days and has been fighting with her for most of that time) he initiates and seems comfortable with friendly contact

8.      Scratch first admits he may be ‘McGee adjacent’ in The Greatest Concert Ever, but (as far as I know) there isn’t a solid moment where he embraces the McGee name fully. It just kinda pops up later on

9.      Scratch is already calling Nin ‘Grandma Nin’ by the end of The Curse (which isn’t groundbreaking, I just think it’s a cute detail that he already calls her grandma)

10.   In The Best Of Nin-tentions he also calls Sharon ‘mom’, but I’m not sure whether that’s because he just does now, or because he was using Molly’s words

11.   The gravestones in Andrea’s film set in Hooray for Mollywood read ‘Howlin’ Harriet’, ‘Howlin’ Harriet’s Toes’, and ‘SK’. I wonder if the last one might be Scratch’s, but that’s just a theory seeing as how we don’t know his surname

12.   Scratch was alive sometime before the invention of the internet (a safe assumption) and after the invention of colour tv. Possibly died in the 70s-80s era?

13.   If the Ghost World doesn’t get anything until after it’s dead, how come they have mochas? Or clubs? Also Scratch is shown with a smartphone at least once in Scarin’ is Carin’

14.   Scratch may also have some variation of size-manipulation power, seeing as there’s a functional pizza box with a to-scale pizza laying around his dollhouse. Maybe it’s just a way he creatively uses curses idk

15.   The. The medical bill in Out Of House And Home guys. It’s just. Look at it. Friggin. Z Ray (x2). Minus $0.49 for insurance. The epitome of America’s medical system. Would be funny if it weren’t so true

16.   Also, hard to see the date on there, but I think it’s 05/14/21 if you’re looking for a timeline. Seeing as we’ve had a Christmas episode, this would probably mean the McGees moved in June 2, 2020

17.   Historically, the larger Scratch gets, the less stable his form is. Might just be for scary effect, but might also be a mass-displacement or concentration thing

18.   But he has no trouble maintaining consistency when he shrinks, so maybe all ghosts just have a maximum comfortable size

19.   Some aspects of transformation appear to be instinctive and subconscious, linked to a ghost’s moods, instead of all shape changes being intentional (most clearly seen in The (Un)natural)

20.   The repossession notice in Out Of House And Home is in Sharon’s name, and I admittedly don’t know a lot about mortgages, but does that mean the house is in her name? Isn’t Pete the primary breadwinner in the beginning of the show?

21.   The McGees have a ricecooker in their kitchen! I thought that was a cool detail

22.   The home purchase agreement is a little hard to read in Home is Where the Haunt Is, but it says “I, [blank], agree to buy the property at [address, I can’t read it] even if it is [a tiny bit haunted]. This contract is legally binding and Candace Green cannot be liable for anything”. Candace absolutely knew about Scratch before he revealed himself

23.   Molly has type A blood, but whether it’s negative or positive isn’t specified (hello, blood poisoning). Also, flyers in the background promote Debate club, which implies she’d donating at school. As USA blood donation requires most donors to be a minimum of 16 years old (with parental consent) or 110 lbs, we can conclude that the school is illegally harvesting blood from the student body

24.   Why do they… why do they draw Scratch’s butt like that

25.   Libby’s left handed!

26.   The cart stunt at the beginning of No Good Deed is referenced in Darryl’s file as ‘Incident 314’

27.   Scratch doesn’t cast a shadow

28.   I don’t know why, but there’s a red sticker that shows up in the school a lot, especially around the lockers, and it just says ‘Souffle’

29.   Apparently Scratch has shared custody of Molly’s phone

30.   Who did the subtitles on DisneyPlus I just wanna talk

Feel free to add on/expand/debate if you feel the desire! I’m mostly just putting these here so they’ll stop swimming around in my head

#the ghost and molly mcgee #tgamm #just ranting #i might add onto these later #i really like reading the background stuff because the artists put a lot of little jokes into it

[dookins]

Your head cannons, hand em over 🧲🕵️🌻🧠

Since I’m trying to distract myself from the potential implosion of the fruits of a month long labor, I’ll answer some asks….

🧲 - Truthfully I was hoping someone would ask me this…. This might be a long one. So just by default, we can see that P03 is a CRT monitor boi. UuU these were the relics we used in our computer labs in elementary school thousands of years ago…. In the 90s…. However CRT computer monitors have been around since their invention in the 70’s. In the 90’s CRTs and pretty much everything else was framed in plastic. But the shine on P03’s grungy metal exterior tells us he’s probably based on more of a mid 80s model. But what cinches it, is the little d-pad on his cheek.

This cute thing 🔝

The D-pad is an invention of the 80s. So I imagine most of his inner workings must follow that ‘futuristic 80’s tech design’ look. What I mean by that is, imagine technology is what it is today, but with an 80’s filter over it. Like the setting in Alien Isolation if any of ya’ll played the game. So his internals must all be made of things one could find in an 80s computer factory…. More or less…. His hovering unit I would assume is powered in one of three ways. Smaller and less harmful versions of EMPs, magnetic repel, or ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ‘science magic.’ And while that last one sounds like a cop out, I wanna bring something else to your attention. It’s been stated time and time again that the OLD_DATA is responsible for giving these characters awareness and true sentience. So perhaps all the scrybes have some of it at their center. The spark that provided their souls. P03’s would just be the most literal of all since he’s a computer in a computer. So you can think of it as the magical science glue holding him together. I feel like the OLD_DATA would interface with him in a way that’s far more unique than the other scrybes…. But I think I’m getting off topic. TLDR; He’s made of late 80s computer scrap and obsolete future tech/evil game code magic. ;)

🕵️ - I think right now P03 is simply existing as sentient data…. I mean, he was before. Everyone in the game technically is. But in the ARG you can see Stoat P03 in code form wink at you. Interestingly, and I didn’t know this, if you go on the Inscryption site and look in the notepad, he’s in there too!! Alerting the player to open the game https://www.inscryption.com/desktop The only difference between than and now is he uploaded the Great Transcendence and was given a bunch of user rights. Mostly I think getting access to the internet was the problem. Maybe now he can go about the web ordering stuff on behalf of a dead Luke Carder, using his information so he can gain access to things in our world later on? So, really chya boi is floating around the internet, with a strong possibility of being attached to Steam since that’s where he was uploading his files to…. I could branch onto another topic on how P03’s motivations never really made a lot of sense to me, but this is runnin hella long already.

🌻 - SECRET SOFTIE!!!! Obviously you can’t just be ANYBODY. You have to be…. (͠≖ ͜ʖ͠≖) In the KN03! Someone he would explicitly trust showing that side to. And even than, it wouldn’t be a stark change. Let me set the scene….

You pass out exhausted in your clothes from work, drooling on a stiff pillow with your Switch going slack in your hands. You’d fallen asleep playing Inscryption again. Shocker. Since P03 was making repairs to the factory’s Prized Particle Scanner, he couldn’t spare a moment to pause. It was his tool of inscryption after all. Integral to the production and progress of what he found worthy to be recorded. It was his duty as a Scrybe to oversee it. You understand of course, and aren’t perturbed. But without the conversation and witty banter that only a proper opponent could provide, the soft grinding of your thumb against the A button repetitively brings your tired eyes to close. It’s the wee hours of the morning now, and the automatic door to the room slides open revealing the Scrybe in question. He can see you’re sound asleep, sprawled out in what appeared to be an uncomfortable position at best.

…. How did you even manage to fall asleep that way any how? It baffles him. He follows the odd bend of your arm to the Switch barely being held upright by your boneless little fingers. Hmm.. Guess you fell asleep with it on. Quietly hovering over, he removes the Switch from the risk of falling from your hands and looks at the dimmed screen. Your cards are on the board and he can’t help the involuntary smirk as he notices your last play. A Stoat…. A Stoat you’ve leveled up to a 4,6 with the maximum sigils allowed overlapping the card’s inky illustration. Briefly he looks back down at your sleeping face…. Your mouth hanging open mid snore. Wordlessly he sets the Switch back on it’s dock to charge, and grabs the jacket you’ve slung over the back of a chair.

He floats back over, face still neutral, but his eyes carrying a mild trace of softness as he returns to your side…. Delicately he places your jacket over your sleeping form, watching silently as you curl up beneath it for warmth… he turns back to the door, taking one last look at you…

….the corner of his stoic upper lip ticks upwards as he stares and morphs into a light smile. A smile no one would see. Not even the cameras could pick it up…

And after that moment he leaves, the automatic door closing behind him.

When you awake the next morning, you try to remember if you fell asleep with your jacket or not…

🧠 - Kind of a two parter here. So remember when P03 brags to his diary notes about his shiny new OP card Plasma Jimmy? A part of me can’t help but think that Plasma Jimmy got special treatment from him. I would absolutely LOVE to see P03 pulling out his card from the deck and into his hand all surprised and internally going “Alright! P.J. !!” XD Like, YOU KNOW HE’D BE THAT KID RIGHT? The one who brings his rare card to school in a shitty top loader showing it off to all your friends and using it to crush them in battle. Ahhhh youth 😌

#p03 #inscryption p03 #inscryption #p03 headcanon #ask box #p03 asks #robutt #inscryption fanfic #mini fic #p03/reader #long ass post

[the-apostates-martyr]

So I initially added this to another post but then saw multiple others talking on the subject so I decided to just make my own take on it.

Ageing Daniel up was a mistake because Daniel Molloy isn't meant to grow old.

Youth is *such* a factor in the story of the Chronicles, with so much of the cast being young. Teen (Armand, Benedict, Antoine, Mona, Eudoxia to get more obscure) or their early -mid twenties (Lestat, Louis, Quinn). Of course there are those in their forties and over (Marius and Gabrielle come to mind) but I think it would be hard to make an argument that youth is not over valued in the Chronicles. Even putting David into a young, sexy body rather than having him remain in his 70 something form speaks to this.

So for Daniel to be made so specifically in his thirties is poignant enough to be noteworthy, but what makes it even more so is that Daniel had a *really shitty time* through his youth. He's a baby boomer who grew up with air raid drills and the threat of never growing up. He's queer in an era where it was still considered a mental illness, and then once it wasn't it was still illegal, and even in San Francisco he had such a huge risk of being beaten, arrested or murdered for being gay. He meets Louis, and his life ended that night. In QOTD we are told that the spark of life went out for Daniel that night. Knowing about immortality ruined him, as it would ruin so many people. And *then* comes Armand. Then comes survival, running around the world to escape this thing that might kill him. Then comes the sexual abuse of Armand forcing him to sleep with people he doesn't want, then comes the alcoholism, the cold streets, exhaustion, the complete lack of control. Then it's the 80s and ya know what queer men had to deal with in the 80s? AIDS, which I'm sure didn't help Daniels sense of impending death.

And yet even despite this, the price Daniel paid for this treatment was changing the world, his future world. Louis could have told anyone his story that night but he had no guarantee that anyone would believe him, or that anyone would do anything with his story. But Daniel "fuck it" Molloy did. He had the balls to sit in a room with a killer, and then seek them out, and tell their story. Daniel set the entire series into motion, he changed the trajectory of their lives, even those he had not yet met. And for his troubles he lost his youth.

I'm 32 years old this year- this is not old, but not only is Daniel a very old 32, but spending 12 years as the Devil's Minion, and then 30 years sick and in the care of another, isolated from his coven, that's the majority of Daniel's life to this point gone. He has only, in the modern day, began to live, for the first time since 1973.

Daniel Molloy didn't get to go live a live after the interview. He would never have survived to 33, let alone into his seventies. You can slap his name on this character, but it has fundamentally changed everything about him and reduced him down to just The Boy.

#Daniel Molloy #the vampire chronicles #tvc #queen of the damned #interview with the vampire

[astriiformes]

Wait, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was published first? What the heck, I didn't know that. I always assumed The Magician's Nephew was first, since it always came first. Thanks for making me aware of that!

Man, maybe this is just my own childhood nostalgia bias showing since I grew up with a set that was in publication order, but it's been absolutely wild to learn that a lot of people seem to either not know the original order of the books or assume that anyone showing a preference for is just doing so because of the new movies or pop culture osmosis as opposed to being deeply familiar with the series themselves. No shade to anyone just learning the opposite, of course, but I had no idea this had become such a thing!

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew aren't even the only Narnia books published out of chronological order. The whole series was written as a series of sequels/prequels (and one interquel) and I thought it showed a lot more visibly. They were originally published in the order:

1 - The Lion, The Witch, and The Wadrobe 2 - Prince Caspian 3 - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 4 - The Silver Chair 5 - The Horse and His Boy 6 - The Magician's Nephew 7 - The Last Battle

The Magician's Nephew was originally, like, an intentional dip into the mythology of the world as a penultimate installment before the finale and strikes me as a genuinely poor place to start the series, since it's got so many little nudges to previous books that I feel like work much better if you've already got familiarity with the world. Out of curiosity, I poked around and it looks like the series only started being published in chronological order in 1994 or so, which is why it's still extremely common to find sets in the original order in used bookstores (or, if you grew up with an extremely nerdy dad like I did, who picked up his copies sometimes in the 70s or 80s, as your personal family set)

I guess it doesn't really matter (and I'm not exactly a Narnia fan myself these days, so I'm not about to be a true pedant about it) but I feel like from an academic perspective at least it makes more sense to analyze them in the order they were written. Maybe that's just me! But I am also laughing a little at the multiple people today who have apparently assumed I cited The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as the first in the series due to only having casual familiarity with the books as opposed to the truth, which is that most of my personality was defined by them until, like, age 9 probably. The main reason I still have such strong opinions on this despite all my other complicated feelings about Narnia is because growing up I was the kind of kid who read biographies of C.S. Lewis for fun and thus have a lot of thoughts about the associated historiography. Do not cite the deep magic to me, Witch, I was there when it was written and all that.

[council-of-beetroot]

[gun emoji] tell us more about the baby feliks fics

Okay Okay okay

So there are a few routes that stem from this concept which I blame my early years in childhood watching old sitcoms from the 70s and 80s, combined with the fact that Iove taking tropes and making them insane.

Route one is Lietpru it was originally for lietpru week but I ended up just doing Office AU. Magic fanfic reasons (read I don't know why but I'm writing this shit so it happens) Feliks is now an infant. Liet and Gil argue a bit and decide neither one of them is going to be stuck taking care of Feliks by themselves because they don't know whose fault it is but the other is not getting out of this.

So they take Feliks with them try to be parents it goes as you would expect and they get annoyed at times but they also kind of bond on their experiences and successes and failures in raising their kid brothers in often less than ideal circumstances.

And as for Feliks well he really isn't aware of the fact that he was previously an adult all he cares about is that he has these twos complete and undivided attention. To babies, the world revolves around them and Feliks is no exception

Route two is Rusliet. Ivan is kinda happy about these circumstances since now that Feliks can't do much and what not as a literal infant he can't be as much of a thorn in his side (Feliks as it turns out, still in fact can) and besides he Liet and Feliks are a great start to a perfect little family Man, Wife, baby all they need is a dog and picket fence (lmao gil could work) all the sudden it's Ivans old sitcom family fantasy came true. Heck get Lat and Ed and now you got your 2.5 kids!

Feliks clearly has a preference for Liet and as such would be satisfied unless he knows liet is there, other guy is weird and Feliks doesn't know how he feels about scarf guy.

Now this one has quite a bit of like mini scenes and moments in my head that I could see happening.

Now when I discussed this on discord this quickly dissolved into an AU where it's stereotypical suburbia but with these idiots. And Liet's a PTO mom with a book club slowly losing their sanity. Alfred is their neighbor that Ivan feuds with and laughs at during the holidays when Alfred accidentally sets his house on fire due to their escalating Christmas decoration conflict that led to Alfred putting an insane amount of Christmas lights on his house and it basically ending up like that robot chicken sketch.

And in both of these there's a lot I have thought about how Feliks would act and behave and what kind of child he would be like throughout early childhood and how his interactions with Liet, Gil, or Ivan would be like.

#hetalia #asks and replies #proosh

[wildishmazz]

Tim Rice's "Get Onto My Cloud", Starmania

Since there isn't a transcript available for this podcast yet, I sat down and typed it out myself.

This is Tim Rice. Welcome to my podcast, Get Onto My Cloud.

[70s style theme music]

I thought for this podcast, I would tell you something about the only foreign musical I’ve ever translated.

I remember Cameron Mackintosh, in around 1983, sending me a copy of the Les Miserables French album, which I’m not sure I even played. Which was not the most astute move of my career. I think I must’ve been getting going on Chess at the time. However, Cameron and the French authors could not have been more brilliantly served than by Herbert Krezmer’s English lyrics in 1985, and of course Les Mis is a worldwide phenomenon still running all over the world(pandemics permitting). So, when I received another French musical album in 1989, a year after Chess had flopped ignominiously on Broadway, I actually inserted the recording into my CD player.

My career was going through - how can I put it? - a quiet patch, and I felt I had the time to listen to a French show with what had the rather uninspiring title, Starmania. Or, in French, Starmania.

Starmania is a cyberpunk rock opera. It was written in 1976, in French, by Michel Berger(music) and Luc Plamondon(lyrics).

Michel was a major player in France in popular music culture, both as a songwriter and performer. He wrote and produced records for French superstars including Johnny Hallyday, Françoise Hardy, and his wife, France Gall. Who, incidentally, won Eurovision in 1965 with “Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son”, representing(for some reason) Luxembourg. But Michel was not involved in that. It was he who had sent me the album.

Luc Plamondon was a French Canadian lyricist, who was responsible for many of Celine Dion’s French language hits in the early part of her career.

On first hearing, I was intrigued and impressed by the record. I speak tolerable French, especially after a few glasses of red wine, and had managed to pick up the drift of some of the plot which, to say the least, seemed fairly convoluted. It was much more rock influenced than the score of, say, Les Mis or Phantom. As a frustrated, failed rocker from way back, this appealed to me more quickly than a traditional theatrical score might have done.

Starmania started off as an album in France, and made it onto stage in Paris in 1979. It was a massive hit; and indeed, still is, with yet another major revival scheduled in Paris for 2020(or as soon as is possible). Its success is quite an achievement as the French don’t seem to like any musicals, with none of the English-speaking mega-hits doing particularly well when translated and presented in France. Jesus Christ Superstar, despite having its French premiere attended by both Salvador Dali and Frankie Howard, only ran for a few months.

Anyway, I went over to Paris to see the show and to meet Michel and Luc. The show was great, and I was even beginning to come to grips with the story - as this is only a 20 minute podcast, I don’t think I’ll go into all the subtleties of the plot. Suffice it to say, it was set in the near future, which then was the year 2000, in Metropolis(sic), the capital of the recently created Occident Nation. As it was already the late 80s, we were in for a pretty turbulent 11 years, if Luc’s story was to be an accurate prophecy.

The leading characters in Starmania were Johnny Rockfort, a cross-dressing student agitator(sic); Zero Janvier, a billionaire businessman planning to run for the presidency of the country(so Luc was right on the money there); his girlfriend, former sex symbol movie star Stella Spotlight; a waitress/narrator called Marie-Jeanne; hopelessly in love with Ziggy, an androgynous fantasist record dealer; Cristal, the host of the TV show Starmania, who becomes involved with Johnny; and then there was Johnny’s gang of street rebels, the Black Stars.

You probably don’t need to remember all of this.

Marie-Jeanne has one of the score’s most powerful moments, at the climax of the show, a song called “Le Monde est Stone”. In the English version, which after a lot of thought I entitled “The World is Stone”, it was sung on the album we recorded eventually by the fabulous Cyndi Lauper and was a medium-sized hit single for Cyndi in the UK in 1992. Here it is.

[musical interlude, “The World is Stone”]

Cyndi Lauper, and “The World is Stone”.

Not having a particularly full dance card at the beginning of the 90s, I happily agreed to translate or adapt the songs into English, for an English release album, particularly as Michel had done a deal with CBS in the UK where the delightful Muff Winward, formerly of the Spencer Davis Group, was the executive overseeing this particular project.

Muff was an all-round good egg, if eggs can be round. An all-oval good egg, perhaps. Muff and Michel managed to assemble a very distinguished international lineup of artistes to perform on the English-language album. It was recorded eventually in London, Paris, and Los Angeles. I also translated the book of the show, i.e. the dialogue between songs, and took the decision to rename Starmania “Tycoon” as the Zero Janvier tycoon character was pretty central and “Starmania” sounded a little bit too like Opportunity Knocks or, in today’s TV terms, Britain’s Got Talent. This was probably a mistake. “Starmania” today sounds like a great retro title for a show.

Muff and I had been over to New York with the aim of roping Cyndi Lauper into the project. She’d heard two songs that she’d been sent, “The World is Stone”, and another number called “You Have To Learn To Live Alone”, which is actually one of my favourite lyrics. And Cyndi seemed moderately intrigued. It was soon clear that she hadn’t a clue who I was, so I managed to subtly inform her that I’d written the words for “One Night in Bangkok”, which had been a massive radio and chart hit in the States. And by the time I’d flung Superstar and Evita into the mix, Cyndi’s enthusiasm had perked up a bit. Funnily enough I met Cyndi in a restaurant in Barnes, about 25 years later, and on that occasion she thought I was Robert Stigwood. Since her great success as a writer of the musical Kinky Boots, I’m hoping for recognition, instant recognition, as a fellow theatrical next time we meet.

Back to Starmania/Tycoon. On the album in addition to Cyndi Lauper we had Tom Jones, Bros, Celine Dion, Kim Carnes, Willy DeVille(who as Mink DeVille made that superb 1977 album Spanish Stroll), German punk superstar Nina Hagen, and - particularly exciting for me - the wonderful former Ronette, Ronnie Spector(whom I last saw in 1964 on the set of TV’s Ready, Steady, Go, when I failed to win a Billy-Jay Kramer miming competition). By any standards, that’s a pretty impressive list of artists, and it was a great thrill for me to meet and work with them. Obviously, the album would do well in the UK, and we hoped also in America. Why not? Which in turn could lead to an English language stage version of France’s biggest ever rock musical.

Obviously, this did not happen.

But I’m still glad I got involved, if only because it led to one of the best recordings of my lyrics I’d be lucky enough to have experienced. In French, the song was titled “S.O.S. d'un Terrien en Detresse”, which translated is “S.O.S. of an Earthling in Distress”. In the show it’s sung by Johnny Rockfort, mourning the death of his lover Cristal. I decided not to go with “S.O.S. of an Earthling in Distress” as the title, and called the song “Only the Very Best”. And it was sung magnificently by the leader of the US rock band Cockrobin, Peter Kingsbury.

[musical interlude, “Only the Very Best”]

Peter Kingsbury, what a vocal, with “Only the Very Best” from Tycoon, my English version of the French megamusical Starmania. I was particularly pleased that the distinguished composer of Les Mis, Claude-Michel Schonberg, chose that track as one of his Desert Island Discs.

So, my attempt to bring France’s greatest musical to the English stage was a total failure. The English language album and two or three singles did very well in France, and sold a few copies in French Canada, but that probably wasn’t because of my brilliant English lyrics. Nothing really happened record-wise in the UK after Cyndi’s initial success with “The World is Stone”.

The whole enterprise received a terrible blow when Michel Berger, aged only 44, suffered a fatal heart attack after playing tennis in August 1992. In France, his death led to a massive outpouring of sincere and shocked tributes to one of the nation’s best and most popular musicians. I remember him as a warm and civilised fellow, with whom it was always a pleasure both to work and to have dinner with, with him, France, and their family. I’m sure his work would have made an even greater international impact, had he lived a little longer.

All the same, Starmania lives on in its home country, and I hope to see it again before too long. I wouldn’t put any money on that English version ever emerging, but Luc is still happily with us(admittedly in Quebec a lot of the time), so if an insanely optimistic producer wanted to give it a go, I don’t think it would be too hard to get Luc’s permission. And mine.

The biggest star involved in the project was the legendary Tom Jones, who recorded my translation of the evil Zero Janvier’s big number, “Le Blues du Businessman”. For someone like Tom to sing a lyric one has written is as much an honour as a pleasure. I remember the recording session in Los Angeles as a great music memory for me, as was the session with the wise and wonderful Ronnie Spector in Paris.

So thank you, Michel, thank you Luc, thank you France, and thank you, Muff.

To end this Starmania podcast, here is Tom Jones, with “Le Blues du Businessman”, aka “I Would Love to Change the World”.

Remember, when this was written, I had not heard of Donald Trump.

[musical interlude, “I Would Love to Change the World”]

#Starmania #Tim Rice #I definitely get the feeling that when he last left the show Sadia did not exist

[dangarretjournal]

Introduction

Pictured here is Dr. Daniel Garret. If you’re at all familiar with him, then it’s because of his contributions to the field of archaeology, or his rivalry with the man known as Maxwell Miracle (formerly Maxwell Grant). He went missing some time in the early ’80s, and this photo is the last one taken of him (I believe the context was he or someone else was showing off vintage camera equipment… I know it was nearly 40 years ago, but there were color photos back then). Due to his dedication to the field, he never really talked to his daughter, my mother. Consequently, she couldn’t really tell me much beyond him being an archaeologist and fighting in WW2 (which may as well be a freebie for people who were alive back then).

Recently, my mother died, meaning I inherited what could generously be referred to as clutter, some of it hers, and some of it inherited from my grandfather. Normally, I’d be the sort of person to maybe look there once and never again, but then I found something rather interesting; a paperblank diary with a blue scarab beetle engraved on the front (specifically the pattern used by the vigilante “The Scarab”, a very commonplace symbol used by people who were politically active in the 50s and 60s, unfortunately commodified by a company in the 70s who started slapping it on everything… including expensive notebooks. Based on his profession, I doubt Garret saw it as anything more than a beetle reminiscent of etchings found in Egypt). 

The contents of this diary are a good argument for the use of pencils. Many of the pages were written with ink (probably from a fancy fountain pen I found in a desk) that has since smudged and spread due to water damage from the condensation in the attic. A couple of pages were written in pencil, making them the most easily legible (though not by that much; sorry grandfather, but your handwriting could use a bit of work), and contained unexpected insights into the world of what he calls “Capers” (an archaic term for vigilantes and superhumans coined by newspapers in the 40s), including many claims that are largely unknown to those who study this bizarre area of history. 

Mixed in with this are incidents that Garret believes relate to a folkloric figure known as “Fantomah” that he focused his studies on later in life. Of course, some could argue that she was a very early example of a superhero, what with how most stories around her talk about protecting people from invaders, but I’d argue that her system of punishment isn’t really in line with the typical Caper. 

Because of this (and, admittedly, a hope to know more about my grandfather), I’ve set about transcribing as many pages as I can. My hope is that his unique insights will garner the interest of historians who I may be able to send the journal so that the rest of the pages can be transcribed. Until then, these are pages from the journal of Dr. Garret.

Sincerely, Gale Porter

P.S. From now on, all notes from me will be italicised, and all excerpts from the journal will be normal.

[protectgeorgeweasley]

WITH THIS NEXT UPDATE, WE ARE COMMENCING WITH LUMOS'S FOUR PART FINALE.

Each part is a separate update/chapter--this is different than the parts we had to split "Inheritance" into. [And there's also the epilogue, which technically comprises our final, fifth chapter, but it comes after the finale].

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot believe we're here. <3 <3 As a fun, wrapping-up sort of thing:

Want to help me dress the Weasleys?

If you have Lumos-canon style wardrobe suggestions for George, Hermione, the Weasleys, or any of the other characters, please post any photos/moodboards/aesthetics/pinterest links/etc. and tag me here or on Instagram [@ lumosfic]! [Or dm me, if you'd rather not post.] Some general notes: -Is this weird? Sorry if this is weird. I thought it might be fun, and I've been wanting to try this for six months, but I've been too anxious to ask in case it's weird. -Depending on where I'm at in the writing process, I check platforms more or less often. If I don't see something right away, give it a bit of time. I'm likely hunched over my keyboard and will resurface for air eventually. -Within the Lumos universe, when dressing the characters, I typically consider a few factors: age, the character's relationship to the muggle world, their daily routines, the climate, and their financial status. For example, around the house, Arthur wears muggle clothes. But they're often from an earlier time in his life or handmade by Molly. He doesn't necessarily always match them correctly. The question of "when would they have gotten this item" is something I think on a lot when picking new clothing items, and I usually try to re-use pieces between multiple scenes. -Feel free to offer suggestions for either timeline, but bear in mind the characters haven't had much time for shopping in Hermione's timeline, so most of them probably aren't decked out in a set of Miss Sixty's ultra-low rises from the Birmingham location that's about to open in their era. Other things to consider/a moderately detailed rundown of characters and how they dress that ran away from me [a few, mild spoilers for the Lumos universe stories]:

Characters who work at the Ministry (or have worked there) are more likely to own things that suit a Ministry setting, though they may have differing attitudes towards these items, depending on the timeline in question.

The characters in the Lightning generation especially dress in a way that's very based in the costuming found in the films. So, think 80's/90's, since the wizarding world is a bit behind the muggle one, even with the younger people. Fleur is the exception, since she brought most of her clothes from France, and thrifts and alters her new acquisitions.

Other people in Arthur and Molly's generation might dress in a more formal wizarding style, or in items from the 70's, depending on their attitudes and relationships with muggle cultures. Older people who are better off might have newer things, too.

Characters fall into different places on the comfort/style paradigm.

Hermione dresses for function, mostly. These functions vary. Sometimes, it's about what's pragmatic for brewing or casting or training. But sometimes she's dressing to project a message--to George, to herself, to the world at large.

George dresses for purpose, prioritizing comfort when possible. He's grown a fair bit in embracing his own style where it differs from Fred's.

Arthur cannot do rough, uneven, and uncomfortable textures.

Molly fashions her own frills and sometimes wears them even when they might not suit her scheduled chores. Unlike Fleur, you can tell Molly's DIY pieces are DIY.

Fred wears nice clothes like armor,

and Fleur wears nice clothes like a second skin.

Angelina dresses for movement and practicality. Her mum usually braids her hair to help protect it in Quidditch practices and matches, and she'll do Angelo's.

Ginny hovers her hand over her trunk and makes a unique choice every day if she wants to be a sunbeam or a lightning strike. It is a coinflip.

Harry wears what Molly and Ginny buy him, since it always fits well.

Ron finds a sense of confidence in uniform, so he wears his even when he's not on duty.

Bill is constantly oscillating between his inner pulls towards independence and responsibility, so he might be cool-dragon-leather-jacket-Bill or grumpy-sport-coat-Bill, depending on the day.

Charlie has holes in nearly 3/4ths of his items. Not a single, whole sock in his collection. He's rough with his things, and doesn't think much of it. He can sew, from necessity, but it doesn't look pretty.

Percy dresses like Arthur dressed for the office in 1980, only he wears those things in his downtime, too. There are some differences, accounting for Percy's tastes--lots of long sleeves, neutral greys and blacks, and he's better at avoiding mismatched items because he is diametrically opposed to his clothing being affronting or loud [in color, texture, or the impression it might give others]. He wants his mouth or his quill to speak for him, and not anything else. The only statement Percy cares for his clothes to make is that he is intelligent. His only chance of having any sway when things get rough is to be seen as one of the smarter people in the room.

The children wear a mixture of hand-me-downs and newer things. Harry initially balked at hand-me-downs for Teddy, but eventually, he realized that sometimes hand-me-downs are not always markers of neglect, but rather belonging.

Young as they are, much of the children's style is currently a mixture of their parents and family's, though their own opinions do play a role [Victoire gravitates more towards Bill's aesthetic than Fleur's, at present; Angelo prefers red; Teddy avoided buttons until he was about four and a half, and his wardrobe still reflects this in some areas].

Luna is a shopfront magpie. She picks things only when they make her stop, smile, and say, "How strange." She gravitates more towards softer blues, like Fleur, but she is far less coordinated with them. She rotates her things so as not to hurt their feelings from neglect.

Emmeline and Marcus shop together a lot--more as they've gotten closer. It's one of their bonding activities, and Marcus is very much the dad waiting on the bench outside the fitting room [muggle or magical, it doesn't matter], who will hype her up when she emerges to do a twirl. She has a unique style that she cultivates, and it's always evolving. Details are important to her, so things like custom pieces or alterations catch her eye. She's more of a curator than a crafter, though; she's been too busy with school to allow for much else. [Marcus is admittedly less enthusiastic about his own wardrobe, but he lets Emmeline manage it from time to time.] He takes her to the same muggle stylist who did her late mum's hair, which is quite special for her.

Parvati used to be quite invested in style and trends. Now, she tracks them as a perfunctory task in case she needs to blend in somewhere posh. Since the war with Voldemort, her wardrobe has become less varied and a bit more severe-looking. She dresses to look older, stronger, and to conceal any appearance of weakness. Padma and Mrs. Patil sneak colour and whimsy back into her wardrobe anyway.

Every article of clothing that Winky puts on her body is an act of resistance. She never dresses without thinking. If she tries it on, she owns it. [She's donated a lot to the hidden cities.] She used to wear human children's clothing, but by 2003, she's since found a tailor. [It's Fleur. Fleur is the tailor, though Winky will also wear things made by elves and goblins, too.]

Gable loves his knitted caps and gravitates to bright colours because they're still distinguishable underground.

Dennis is equally likely to be spotted in something that looks vaguely like a shirt George or Harry might've outgrown as he is to be seen in some fleeting, muggle trend. Sometimes Dennis goes shopping with Marcus and Emmeline. [Dennis and Emmeline embraced grunge together for a bit; Emmeline grew out of it faster. Much, much faster.]

...I'm going to stop there, because that became far longer than anticipated. [Hopefully it's entertaining and fun and not a wall of annoying text.] Anyways, these are some of the things I tend to think about while dressing the characters, but don't feel like you have to account for all of that. <3 <3 I included it mostly for fun or for anyone who wants it.

TLDR: If you have any inclination to contribute clothing inspiration or ideas, I'd be quite excited to see them!! Inspiration/suggestions would be taken on an as-needed basis, with consideration to what fits within the outline and the remaining chapters.

Please specify in your response whether you'd like a specific shoutout/credit in the A/N if I draw from one of your suggestions. Otherwise, credit will be attributed more generally. <3 <3 <3

Finally, if this isn't your thing or you'd rather not, no worries! <3 <3 I thought it might be fun, is all.

#lumosfic #lumos #lumos wardrobe

[nurtureliterary]

A Few Things I Think About Differently Now That I’m Older

Aaron Burch

How, when we’d return to California to visit family in the summers, my dad would drive us around on little nostalgia tours — that’s where I went to high school, this was the strip we’d cruise on the weekends, that used to be our favorite burger joint…

The wooden model NASA space shuttle, hand-carved and -painted by my uncle, given to me as a gift in my preteen years; knocked off a shelf when I was a teenager, resulting in a broken fin and a few chips in the paint; left behind when I moved out of the house for college; and which is still in one of my parents’ closets, I presume.

Every sketchpad and package of pens and pencils and little kid watercolor set and every other art supply that my parents ever bought me.

How every Sunday was for chores, my brother and I tasked with cleaning our rooms or yardwork when it was nice out or sprinkling down deodorizing carpet freshener powder and vacuuming or moving framed photos and knickknacks and other small pieces of décor and spraying wood cleaner onto old rags and washcloths and wiping down tabletops and the fireplace mantel and windowsills.

The boxy 80s cars I grew up with and hated at the time—my grandmother’s giant blue Ford boat of a car that I thought was so big and ugly and grandparenty that my mom and grandmother would tease was going to become my car, as a punishment; my dad’s ugly Datsun station wagon that I didn’t understand why anyone (much less my dad) would ever purchase; my grandmother’s mid80s Mustang that she gave me when I got my driver’s license, which I loved but also treated like shit and also never understood how it could be the same make and model as such cool muscle cars from the 60s and 70s.

Every weekend that we drove a few hours to go camping or hiking or fishing or to some festival that I didn’t really care about—blues, bluegrass, kite, etc.—or to go on some kind of tour—chocolatier, cheese, brewery, candy, etc.

All the toys and report cards and baseball cards and photos that are still in my parents’ various closets.

The coffee table made by my grandfather that I took with me when I moved to California with my girlfriend-at-the-time after college and that I’m not sure what happened to after we broke up and I moved out but that was the nicest piece of furniture I’ve ever owned.

Eating healthy, exercise, drinking water, going to the dentist, sunscreen.

The smell of that Arm & Hammer carpet freshening powder, that Old English wood spray.

All the sports equipment and league fees and Taekwondo lessons and tournament fees and travel costs, often whether they could really afford it or not, whether it meant borrowing money from their parents or my dad working overtime or skimping on something else that I probably didn’t know about at the time, always so supportive and encouraging in every endeavor I wanted to try.

Aaron Burch's first novel, Year of the Buffalo, is out this month from American Buffalo Books. Recent short work (fiction and non) has appeared or is forthcoming in Hex, Menagerie Magazine, Complete Sentence, and Schuylkill Valley Journal. He is (too) on Twitter @aaron__burch and on the world wide web at aaronburch.net. The last time he visited Washington with his girlfriend, he felt a deep desire to drive her around and show her the house he grew up in, where he went to high school, his favorite teenage skate spots. He often wishes he took better care of things—probably most especially himself and also those things made and given to him by loved ones—when younger. His apartment is a mess, which only highlights the pleasures of when it is clean, and while he sometimes fears the slide from packrat to hoarder, he loves looking through his old ticket stubs and notebooks and other ephemera he has collected and kept over the years. He started painting again in the last couple of years, after not making any visual art since he was a teenager. He has written about this before, but he thinks often, and more and more every year, about how loving and supportive his parents were and still are, having always encouraged him to seek and follow passions and all those things in life that bring him joy, which he is hesitant to say he ever took for granted but will be the first to tell you he has only become both more aware and appreciative of as he has gotten older.

#prose #nonfiction