The recent wave of movies/shows that go on a "tell don't show" route because people behind them think consumers are too stupid to understand a thing on their own makes me appreciate arcane more than I did before
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Steve notices when Eddie disappears from the party, almost immediately. Robin and the others are crossfaded and a little weepy, and Steve knows they're excited—and scared. They're all heading out next week, Robin to Chicago, Nancy to New York, Jonathan to California. So they didn't notice it, when Eddie got up for the bathroom and didn't come back.
Steve did. Steve's pretty good at recognizing stuff like that, especially when it's painfully familiar.
He's pretty loud when he crawls through his own bedroom window out onto the roof, loud enough that Eddie startles and drops his cigarette onto the asphalt shingles.
"H-Hey!" he says, all false cheer despite the croak in his voice and the sniffling—the way he wipes quickly at his face.
"Hey," Steve says, going for softness and compassion. God knows he's spent many a night out here crying by himself. He doesn't want Eddie to think he's being a dick about it. "You okay?"
"Yep!" Eddie says, pitched too high and the words crack between his lips. "Totally fine! I'll come down in a bit so—"
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Eddie's teeth clack together when he shuts his mouth, falling into silence as Steve settles down at his side. Neither of them say anything. Faintly, they can hear the murmur of their friends' voices, mixed with the summer night call of forest frogs and bugs. Steve thinks about chasing fireflies in the back yard when he was little, how the dark woods are near impenetrable to Steve now, the boyhood security long stripped from him.
Beside him, Eddie wipes at his face again, his elbow brushing Steve's arm because Steve's sat himself so close. Steve, carefully not thinking about it, leans over—further and further—until his head hits Eddie's shoulder.
The sound Eddie makes is soft and broken, so Steve tucks himself even closer into Eddie's side, arm going around his back, and closes his eyes just so he could overwhelm himself with the warmth radiating from Eddie, the smell of soap and sweat and weed, the feel of Eddie's hair on his head when Eddie bows his head as he cries, hair long and curtaining the two of them—Eddie keeping Steve, pulling him in to witness his private grief.
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steve harrington realizing that he’s got no purpose if he’s not protecting the people he loves from outer-dimensional beings, and has a minor (read: major) spiral about it post-vecna & the party fixing everything. he’s just a regular ole 20 something with no purpose— his friends are all in school, except eddie, who managed to pick up an apprenticeship as an electrician; putting all of that wire knowledge to use (just not in cars, he hasn’t hotwired one since 1986 and he’d like to keep it that way si vous plais) and making the rich houses have even cooler guts than they deserve.
the kids end up graduating (their first tries) and heading as one little pack to the same school (don’t ask me which, i’m a college drop out) and steve, eddie, and rob end up staying just outside of indy. rob finished school early, because of course she did, and she found that she may have a knack for hanging around high schoolers, so why not teach them how to become polyglots like she is?
steve still doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing— he bartends at a little club in the gayborhood, because they went there so often that the bartenders just kind of pushed him into it, and don’t get him wrong— mixing drinks and flirting all night is super fun, but it also… is kind of depressing? even if he gets to be around people like him and see them happy— he knows that a lot of alcohol and drugs causes that happiness and he wants so badly for his people to be out and proud and not murdered for it. but he can’t do that,, so he does the next best thing.
he talks with one of the regulars, andy, who owns a little tattoo shop on the corner, and andy invites him to come check it out. so he does the next day he’s free, and holy fucking christ. tattoos aren’t his thing— at least not on himself, but on other people they’re gorgeous. and they’re painful, but you’re turning the pain into art and you get to live with it in your skin and look at it and think about the fact that you’re here and you made it and you fucking survived. and people purposefully put scars into their bodies? and not in the i-battled-literal-other-dimensional-beings-and-won kind of way, or the i-battled-my-personal-demons-and-won kind of way, which both are things he’s dealt with so fucking intimately— but in the i-will-decorate-this-flesh-prison-and-make-it-a-castle kind of way, and that’s fucking beautiful. queer people taking their bodies and making them into art with ink and hot metal and needles and the love that they have for each other and the passion and the fucking spite at the world that keeps them going and making their presences KNOWN.
and maybe he gets some piercings while he’s there— it’s fascinating and feels so weird and freeing when the needle punctures his flesh and the jewelry goes in— and now he’s got a shiny little ring hanging through his earlobe; his nostril; his lip.
he learns that piercings take time and effort and care and that he has to treat himself with love to be able to heal— and that he is deserving of that love and care and dedication, especially from himself.
he keeps going back, maybe not always to get stabbed, but to watch others have it done. to see how different people’s anatomy takes different piercings, how he can’t have a piercing through his cheeks because he bites them too much when he’s anxious, but the girl that just left got both of hers done and they looked good. they fit her face, like little shiny dimples.
eventually, the piercer, killie, asks steve when he’s going to help them with their needles and their piercings— and he doesn’t know how to react because he hadn’t even thought about it and yet… maybe he could help other people fall in love with themselves and their bodies and help turn them into art one day
maybe he could be a pretty boy with his scars and his metal and his missing chunks and his polos and his jeans and his sneakers.
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✅moved to the suburbs
✅successfully used a grill for the first time, without burning down the neighborhood OR my food
im on track for Suburban Dad Life, what else should i add.. maybe watering the lawn in board shorts? wave unnecessarily cheerfully when people drive past? im new 😔
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If we were in a movie, the fact that Ternopil, the hometown of TVORCHI, was bombed by russia minutes before the band's performance in the Eurovision finale would be deemed bad writing. It's over the top, it's trying too hard with the drama, and why make the villian into a cartoonish character? But the reality is such that russia is the cartoon villian. No tragic backstories, no understandable motivations. Just the desire to erase Ukrainians as culture and people. I know that for a lot of those living in other countries, the war seems like something distant, a scary story they want nothing to do with (hello, Switzerland with your 'I don't wanna a soldier', it's not like we haven't noticed, neutrality and all). But here's another reminder that for Ukrainians, fighting russia is fighting for our right to simply live.
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Lee was so relatable as a protagonist cause out of every zombie game protagonist ive seen hes the only one who trips or slips and falls just as much as i do🫶
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