#tell me one upside? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

trensu · 2 years

Text

Okay, as much as I love vampire!Eddie AUs (and I do; I love them) I think it's time to mix it up a bit.

Siren!Eddie needs to make an appearance.

Eddie's dad used to be a fisherman and he caught himself a siren. He was an awful person so when he found out what exactly it was he caught, he took the siren and traveled as far from any large body of water as he could.

She was lucky in that, eventually, she was able to escape and return to her home-waters but not before she had to make the dreadful man a son. A son that was left behind because there was a risk that he was too much Land and not enough Sea. She couldn't risk being tied to Land at all. Not after everything she went through; she never wanted to touch Land again.

But she made sure to teach her son, her little boy Eddie, how to hide. She gave him rules to keep him safe once she was gone.

Never go in the water, Eddie. Yes I know it whispers to you, but you can never go in the water okay? Bad things will happen to you if you go in the water.

She expected this; that he'd hear the Call. This was something she needed to tear out of him as soon as possible. It would hurt less that way; it would be easier to ignore the Call if he never submerged in natural water. She took them to the lake. They sat on the shore. She would smack him every time he edged too close to the water. The first few visits involved a lot of hitting.

She would bundle him into her arms, and kiss his head, and murmur consolation afterwards when he was in tears and hiccuping from the need to go in the water. Eventually, he learned to flinch whenever water lapped too close to him.

I know you love music but you can never sing for an audience. No one must ever hear your voice like that. I don't care how much you like it, Eddie, you will listen to me. Bad things will happen if you sing for others.

She knew the urge to sing would run through his veins. It was as natural as speaking was to humans. Natural, however, did not mean vital; it did not mean necessary. All it really meant was risk. Any time she caught him so much as humming in public she'd pinch his ear until his hum turned to a whine of pain. She'd do it even when his hum was audible only to sirens ears. He didn't always notice when he did that but he learned to pay attention and stop himself.

She rewarded him sometimes when he was especially restrained. She allowed him to sing only when mama sings with him. When she was free in the waves, one of the few memories of Land she permitted herself to keep was the handful of times she and Eddie found themselves a lonely, quiet place where they could sing along to a battered old radio together.

Don't go near anyone who is bleeding. Do you hear me? Never get near human blood. Oh, and don't eat fish.

The teeth were a surprise. Her baby was born as toothless as a human. His teeth later sprouted as dull as human teeth. But then her captor hit her on a day that she was already on a knife's edge and Eddie was squirming and grumbling in her arms. She raked her claws across the man's face and as he screamed at her, her little Eddie gnawed at her bloodied claws with little gurgling growls, his small teeth pricked at her fingertips, sharp as any of her kind. It took a while for her boy's teeth to blunt again. The only other time his teeth sharpened was when the man brought home cheap, stinking sushi. To mock her, probably, as if such food could compare to the relish of tearing her teeth through the belly of a writhing living fish.

She did not punish Eddie for this rule. She could not bring herself to punish him for his hunger. No one can help their hunger. She lied instead. Told him he would sicken and die if he ate fish or touched another human's blood.

Eddie loved his mama. He cried for ages and ages when she disappeared. Mostly because he missed her. Partly because with her gone, he'd never be allowed to sing again.

As Eddie grew older, he learned to hate his father. His mother had been violent with him on occasion but her violence felt different. When his father hit him, something in Eddie thrashed in indignation that someone like his father would dare strike him. But that thrashing thing in him was the same thing that urged him to the water, that urged him to sing, that craved to slurp up the flickering fish he'd seen during the school field trip to the aquarium. The thrashing thing that wanted to bite and tear into the man that hurt him was the same thing that wanted to do all the things his mama taught him not to do because bad things would happen if he did.

So he tied down the thrashing thing in him because his mama would have wanted him to, he thought. Instead he did what his father told him to do; learned some of the things his father wanted him to; did his best not to incur his anger. It worked for a few years. But there came a day when the thrashing thing escaped for just a moment, a scant few seconds, and drew his father's blood. The smell of it made the thrashing thing in Eddie so very hungry. He learned the thrashing thing was also a starved thing, and it terrified Eddie.

Eddie learned young to run when scared.

So he ran. He ran to the man that his father ranted about; the man his father screamed was the reason his whore of a mother was gone. The man his father had called a traitor of a brother.

Wayne opened the door to his trailer one stormy evening to find a boy, barely in double digits, with sharpened teeth and reddened claws. The boy shivered in rain, though Wayne knew immediately that it was not from the cold or wet. He looked into the boy's wide panicked eyes, dark as his mother’s had been.

"Unc-," the boy hiccuped in distress. "Uncle Wayne? 'm Eddie. Y-you knew my mama? You h-helped her?"

"Yeah. Yeah, kid," Wayne said softly, taking in Eddie's dripping hair and bare feet. His toes were pale but not blue as they should be with how cold the rain was in the fall. "I helped her once. Should've helped her sooner. But I worked up the nerve eventually."

"Could you," Eddie's voice cracked. "Could you help me, too?"

"Yeah," Wayne said around a lump in his throat. "Yeah, Eddie, I'll help ya." He clears his throat. "Come in out of the rain. I need to ask you some questions so I can help you."

Eddie told Uncle Wayne about his mama's rules. He told Uncle Wayne about the thrashing starved thing that lived in him. He told him how he clawed his father and the thing wanted to devour him. He told him how it scared him so much he ran without looking back.

Uncle Wayne said that the rules his mama gave him were very important but that maybe it made the thrashing thing worse. He told Eddie that they should find ways to keep it calm without breaking his mama's rules. Eddie was not allowed to go into lakes or rivers or ponds but once in a while Eddie could take a bath in the old stained tub Uncle Wayne had in the trailer. It's not exactly what the thrashing thing wants, but when Eddie lays at the bottom of the full tub, it gets quiet for a while.

(Wayne was relieved to see that even submerged in the bathtub, Eddie still looked human. He was relieved that Eddie didn’t seem to notice that he was able to stay under the water and not worry about being able to breathe).

Eddie must never sing. Ever. But Uncle Wayne thought music in general was good. He gave Eddie his old acoustic guitar. Eddie learned the few chords Uncle Wayne knew, and learned more from secondhand music books his uncle gave him. He had Uncle Wayne's permission to play the guitar whenever the urge to sing felt overwhelming. It wasn’t the same, but it still helped soothe the thrashing thing.

(Wayne was relieved to find that the one time Eddie slipped up, his voice didn’t affect him the way he dreaded it would. Blood recognizes blood, he remembered Eddie’s mother saying. The song still fogged his mind and that by itself scared Eddie enough that he never sang in front of Wayne again. Wayne doesn’t think Eddie fully understood what happened other than it was something bad that came from his singing, just as his mother had told him.)

Uncle Wayne said there’s no way around Mama’s last rule. Eddie must avoid blood and fish. However, Uncle Wayne added an excessive amount of red meat to Eddie’s diet. There was always plenty of pork and beef for Eddie to eat. The thrashing thing in Eddie was always full, even if it never felt quite satisfied.

It wasn’t until he was older that Eddie discovered something that makes the thrashing thing…sleep? Sleep. If only for a little while; just long enough for Eddie to get his head straight.

“Weed?” Uncle Wayne said around a cigarette. “What’s wrong with a good old fashioned cigarette?”

Eddie breathed out a plume of smoke. “Tastes bad.”

Uncle Wayne scoffed. “And marijuana doesn’t?”

Eddie’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know. It’s different. It feels…like I'm grounded?”

“Thought the goal was to get high,” Uncle Wayne snorted in amusement.

Eddie giggled. “No, yeah. ‘M not saying it right. It feels like…it sounds stupid. Doesn’t make sense. But it feels like Land.”

Uncle Wayne sombered. “That makes perfect sense,” he said after a long pause.

“...is this a mom thing?” At Uncle Wayne’s nod, Eddie frowned. “Are you ever gonna tell me anything about her? I don’t even know her name.”

“Neither do I,” Uncle Wayne said. “Your father called her Sarah. She hated it but she never told either of us her name. Said we’d never be able to pronounce it with our weak tongues.”

–

It wasn’t a lie when Wayne told his boy that he doesn’t know much about his mother. He doesn’t know anything about her, really, but he suspected quite a bit.

His brother brought her home after a fishing trip. She was…strange. Her eyes seemed too big and fathomless for her pale face. Her body moved as if it was expecting to meet resistance with every motion. When she spoke, her words seemed almost lyrical.

His brother would beat her terribly if she strayed too close to singing. The fury in her eyes after each beating made icy fear bloom in Wayne’s chest, and to this day he doesn’t understand how his brother never seemed to feel it; the fear of a prey animal that knew the only thing keeping the predator from ripping into them was a set of bars that seemed too narrow to last.

Wayne doesn’t know anything about Eddie’s mother except that his brother named her Sarah and once, during a drunken rant, called her a siren. But sirens were a fisherman’s fairy tale. They weren’t real. Eddie had imagination enough without Wayne filling it with his brother’s tall tales.

–

Eddie hissed as Uncle Wayne dabbed antiseptic on the cut across his cheekbone. The thrashing thing in him echoed the hiss in fury. Eddie squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to keep the fury from bleeding into the rest of him.

“I could’ve beaten them, Uncle Wayne,” Eddie snarls. “I know I could’ve. Why can’t I hit back?”

“...do you remember the last time you hit someone?”

Eddie scrunched his face. “Not really. Was that when I ran away from Dad? I was, like, ten. I can’t remember stuff that far back.”

“It wasn’t that long ago,” Uncle Wayne huffed, and placed some gauze on the cut. “Doesn’t matter. You can’t risk touching someone’s blood. Mama’s rules, remember?”

Eddie growled. The thrashing thing in him roiled. “I hate those stupid rules. I hate them.”

“I know you do,” Uncle Wayne sighed. “But I’m proud of you for following them.” He ruffled Eddie’s hair and Eddie felt the fury start to fade. “Why don’t you go practice on your new guitar for a while?”

Eddie nodded and hopped off the stool, relenting.

“Love you, kid,” Uncle Wayne calls as Eddie closed his bedroom door.

“Love you too, old man.”

–

Eddie had years of experience controlling the thrashing thing and it had been much easier to keep it calm once he joined a band as the lead guitarist. He made time to take long baths whenever he started to feel agitated with life. He still ate a hellish amount of red meat.

Eddie could almost forget the thrashing thing existed most of the time. Things were good.

Until he met Steve Harrington and his veins were almost violently flooded with wantwantwant and the thrashing thing screamed at him to open up and sing, sing, bring him near, SING.

His mouth was already dropping open and a sound was clawing to escape his throat. In the panic that followed the wave of covetous desire, Eddie sunk his teeth into his own forearm to stave off the sudden song pooling in his mouth. He fled the store and ran in to the abandoned alley two blocks away.

Only then did he unhook his teeth, which felt so odd in his mouth, from where he bit into his arm. He panted around the blood dripping from his lips. “What the fuck. What the fuck was that?”

#trensu tells stories #stranger things #eddie munson #steddie #sirens #cw: domestic violence #nothing too detailed though #this thought hit me in the middle of my work day and totally consumed my brain #from this point on eddie has to bite down on his tongue whenever he catches even a glimpse of steve #otherwise he'll sing #eddie doesn't really know he's a siren #kinda like how a queer kid doesn't really know they're queer #bc to know is dangerous #idk if the upside down exists here btw #but eddie and steve are both def not in high school anymore #eddie still does dnd #and dustin is the one who figures out eddie's a siren #obviously #idk what steve thinks of all this #probably that eddie's weird and doesn't like to talk for some reason?#he swears he's never heard the guy utter a peep #dustin's definitely pulling his leg when he says eddie is great with words and so dramatic in the best way #also? eddie's teeth itch with how badly he wants to bite steve #it's the worst #uncle wayne's google search history now has My Siren Nephew Is In Love With a Human Boy What Do I Do #because mama munson didn't leave behind a siren parenting handbook #also also #although i labeled it as abuse i don't actually see eddie and his mother's relationship as abusive because they're sirens #kinda like how some animal behaviors can look violent/aggressive to us but aren't read that way by others in the species #which is why eddie doesn't view his mother's violence the same way he views his father's violence

139 notes · View notes

bylertruther · 2 years

Text

"there's no basis or case to be made for will having powers" okay then genuinely please explain any of the following now after watching season four:

why does the upside down look like hawkins and is presumably stuck on the day will arrived despite the fact that vecna was there first and has been residing there this whole time? if vecna was capable of reshaping the world, as he's stated he wants to do, why hasn't he done it in his own world? why is he so intent on seeking out the person for whom time apparently stopped if it's all just coincidence? if will didn't do that and he doesn't have powers, then why didn't time progress or the setting change once the teenagers got there? why was time only influenced by will and will alone if he has no powers whatsoever?

how was will able to call joyce multiple times? the only person we've seen so far be able to do something similar is eleven when she would channel what she heard through the radio. electricity doesn't work in the upside down, so how did will do that? why did it cause a shock and ruin the phone, the same way that the radio went up in flames when eleven did it, if he doesn't have powers?

how did he manage to wake joyce up at one point? (it could've been her imagination, but the show made it pretty clear that joyce had been right about everything the entire time even though everyone thought she was crazy, and will was wearing the same outfit but he looked and sounded distressed + exhausted like he may have been while hiding in his upside down version of the house.)

how was will able to see his mother and guide her with the lights to the place he was hiding?

how was will able to see the letters she wrote on the wall?

how was will able to light up the lights that fast and sometimes simultaneously? especially with the lights that were on the ceiling? the way he communicated with joyce isn't totally similar to the way the teens communicated with the party in season four. he's too short to reach the ceiling and he doesn't have elasti-arms or super speed, so he couldn't have been touching that many lights that fast all by himself with his own hands. if anything, it's more similar to the training exercise brenner had the lab kids do, because they didn't need to touch the lights (obviously) to control them. so, how do you explain that if he has no powers?

how did he acquire true sight before his possession? the doctors thought it was ptsd and all in his head, but just like with joyce, we come to learn that will had been right the entire time. the mind flayer was real and it was coming for them all and eventually it did. how did he know that? how could he have had such knowledge before it ever melded minds and bodies with him? no other powerless human could do that, so how do you explain it?

if will is truly a powerless human being, why did vecna hunt him down? we know that vecna stalks his prey before he strikes. we know that "the monster" followed will from mike's house all the way to the shed where they vanished without a trace. we then saw it stalk will again and eventually possess him. will said that vecna wanted to kill everyone else, but not him. why? we know that vecna doesn't care about people. so what did will have that he wanted so bad? what was it about will that made him more valuable to vecna—a self-perceived god among useless, pitiful, and brutish men—alive than dead? what was it about will, a supposed powerless and normal human boy, that made vecna want to spare him and use him? if he wanted access to the lab, weapons, or tools that could bring down entire nations and rendered millions around the globe defenseless to his attack, then he wouldn't have picked a sweet twelve year old boy who lives a tiny little life in a tiny little town who just wants to hang with his friends and play games. unless... he was the key to achieving his plans? but according to this argument that will is just a normal boy, why is it then that vecna did all of that if will isn't capable of anything?

additionally, we know that gates are opened with a psychic connection. when the psychic connection was made in that shed, will entered the upside down. there, he was hunted for a week. why did the demogorgons kill and eat everyone else, but never will? why did they only carry him to the library aka the source of it all? why didn't they treat him roughly or eat him like they did all of the others? will didn't suffer any serious damage from the upside down, so he couldn't have been "dead" for long when his parents found him. why was it different with him? why did he get special treatment even in hell if he's just a boy?

why does will still sense the creatures of the upside down even after he's been exorcised? how is it that the psychic connection is still there? how is he still able to know what vecna is feeling, the kind of state that he's in, and what it is that he's planned? how does he have this connection still even though he shouldn't if he's Just Some Guy?

if will was just a normal, powerless boy... then why did a self-proclaimed god try so hard to recruit him more than once? why did it hunt only him? why did this god want to kill everyone but him? why did this god deem him more worthy and useful in life and at his side than in death? why did it seek him out and not eleven, a girl who actually has powers, powers that were once stronger than his own even and that he clearly wanted as we saw in s3? why is the upside down stuck on the day will went missing, despite it clearly being inhabited by other creatures that we assume to be more powerful than him? why is will going to be central to season five, the season where it will all come to a close and we'll be learning about the upside down and more, if... he's Just Some Guy that had to brave it for a week and that's it? why did season four (and the show overall, but said outright and explicitly here in 4x09) reiterate that it has always been vecna and that will has always been his victim/in his sights/connected to him? why did vecna choose will byers, who some of you claim to be Just Some Boy, of literally all people on planet fucking earth to achieve his plans?

vecna stalked will. he hunted him. and when his plans were foiled, he tried again. when he couldn't do it his way, he sought to kill eleven so that he could absorb her powers (s3). and now, they're back in each other's heads. the silver cat fed when blue met yellow in the west, but they're back now and we've been told that this is only the beginning. if will is just another powerless human, then what is the point of any of that? how do you explain everything that we've seen? how do you explain the choices these characters have made and continue to make? how do you explain away the connection that they keep drawing our eyes to? the connection that shocked the duffers and made them ask jamie if he'd seen the scripts when he brought it up (that it all goes back to will, how everything and everyone is connected to will)? the connection that they themselves are saying we'll see clearly in season five?

that isn't even scratching the surface of all the obvious instances where they make it clear that will is vecna's narrative foil, because that would make this already gargantuan post thirty miles longer.

they wouldn't have done everything that they've done over the span of multiple seasons now if it was just for nothing.

it doesn't make sense if will is just some normal kid and a random fluke in the master plan. the writers could've had vecna pick anyone. they could have made it so that will's connection was severed or lessened, but they didn't. they could've admitted that will was just a meaningless casualty, but they didn't because he wasn't. it wasn't a random animal that took will, he wasn't possessed for shits and giggles, and he doesn't continue to have that psychic connection for no reason. they don't tell us that nothing is a coincidence and they don't have the characters themselves remind us that they need will just for it to be... nothing.

will knows what's coming, what's happening, and the condition of the person who will do it all. why have him experience all of that, and even be able to in the first place, if he's... powerless? how do you even explain the connection in the first place? no other character, not even the ones cursed by vecna, are able to do what he's done. how is that not considered a power? and how do you write off the hours of content that you've witnessed as nothing?

clearly, at some point you have to realize that something is going on, no? like, you don't even have to take my (one-too-many) word(s) for it. jamie and the duffers themselves have been saying it over and over again. so... honestly, what's not clicking?

#like i just genuinely don't get it lol #vecna is a big bad and you think he hunted this tiny nerdy little twelve year old for shits n giggles?#you think the writers are making will a main point in their final season and are saying that we're going to learn so much more about #why the upside down is stuck on the day he went missing just to be like 'oh yeah jk it's nothing LOL'#you think that vecna jus went 'lol sure why not' and picked a child with no connections no powers no nothing just because?!?!#like literally WHAT #VECNA LITERALLY HATES HUMANS HE DOESNT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THEM SO WHY DID HE NOT WANT TO KILL WILL?!?!?!#why did he value will more than EVERYONE else!?!?!? IF HE'S JUST NORMAL?!?!?!?!#literally explain it to me genuinely bc i don't understand lol this is season five that we're headed into #i didn't think will had powers beyond his beast sense bc we weren't given any indication otherwise #but now that we know there was A Guy planning everything that it wasn't just random chance but A Person who is manipulative and cunning #and deceptive and ambitious and who is behind EVERYTHING THAT WE'VE SEEN SINCE THE VERY BEGINNING #and now that we know how the lights work and that that realm is stuck on the night will went missing and that gates are formed with psychic #connections and that will STILLLLLLLLL knows what he feels etc etc i just . I Just Don't Get It i don't get how you can think #there's nothing there? especially when the creators of the show are telling you he'll be a major focus? IN THEIR LAST SEASON?!#but no im sure its nothing. will did all those inexplicable things and the mastermind big bad chased him and wanted to spare him and use #him for shits and giggles or because the cuteness aggression was too much lol it means Nothing At All obviously #crazy together was in their auditions they Knew what they were going to do with will they're telling us that it MEANS something that the #upside down is STUCK on the day WILL went missing will spent all of season one trying desperately to go home he went to his house and his #castle to hide and joyce said that emotions can make time go really fast or really slow and one day vecna said Enough and stopped the cloc #k himself he created his own powers the duffers TOLD USSSS that it MEANS SOMETHING THAT THE UPSIDE IS STUCK ON THAT DAY #AND THAT WILL IS GOING TO BE A BIG FOCUS AND WE'LL BE GETTING ANSWERS AND THAT WILL AND VECNA HAVE HISTORY #WILL DID EVERYTHING RIGHT TO TRY AND ESCAPE BUT NOTHING WORKED AND THE FOUR VICTIMS IN S4 DID THE SAME THING #THAT WAS VECNA IN THE SHED WILL HAD A CONNECTION WITH HIM BEFORE HE WAS EVER POSSESSED WILL WAS STALKED THE SAME WAY THAT THE VICTIMS WERE #STALKED WILL IS ABLE TO DO THINGS THAT OTHER CHARACTERS CANNOT INCLUDING ELEVEN HE HAS EXPERIENCES THAT ARE ENTIRELY DISTINCT AND HE HAS #VERY SPECIFIC AND OBVIOUS PARALLELS TO VECNA BECAUSE HE IS THE LIGHT WIZARD TO HIS DARK WIZARD #WHAT IS NOT CLICKING !!!! am i missing something. do u think they would do all of that in EVERY SINGLE SEASON for it to mean nothing?#they're going to start and end the show with will but don't worry he's Just Some Guy? bro. duuuuude my GUY !!!!#mine

74 notes · View notes