callas-shitshow

Latest Posts by callas-shitshow

elon musk did a nazi salute twice at the inauguration, and republicans are defending him.

trump revoked executive order 11246, which prohibited discrimination.

trump put all dei employees on leave to be fired.

trump banned all lgbtq+ flags from being hung in government buildings.

trump rolled back biden’s executive order to lower prescription drug costs for people using medicare and medicaid.

trump rescinded the $35 cap on insulin, and prices are expected to rise to $1500 a month.

trump ordered the national institutes of health to cancel their review panels on cancer research.

when sean hannity asked trump about the economy, he said “i don’t care”, after campaigning with the economy as his main talking point.

trump has withdrawn the us from the world health organization.

trump is ordering health agencies to stop reporting on bird flu and halt publications of scientific reports.

trump has pardoned over 1500 people who stormed the capitol on january 6th.

trump changed mount denali back to mount mckinley.

trump signed an executive order to rename the gulf of mexico to gulf of america.

trump shut down cbp one, an app which granted legal entry to 1 million+ immigrants.

trump is allowing ice raids at churches and elementary schools.

trump announced plans to declare a national emergency at the us-mexico border.

trump signed an executive order to expand the use of the death penalty.

trump disbanded the school safety board that works to prevent school shootings. it was comprised of survivors, educators, and gun violence prevention advocates and formed after the school shooting in parkland.

trump withdrew from the paris climate act.

trump revoked all protections for transgender troops in the us military.

trump rescinded executive orders made by biden that benefited and protected women, lgbtq+ people, black americans, hispanic americans, asian americans, native hawaiians, and pacific islanders.

trump is attempting to make it legal to refuse to hire or fire pregnant women.

multiple state legislators are drafting bills to allow the punishment for abortion to be the death penalty.

trump pardoned 23 individuals convicted under the freedom of access to clinic entrances (FACE) act for their anti-abortion activism, including oftentimes violent protests at abortion clinics.

trump signed an executive order allowing deportation of foreign students who they believe express support for hamas or hezbollah.

trump announced that the us government will from here on out only recognize male and female as sexes. intersex is not legally recognized anymore.

trump refused to swear on the bible during his inauguration.

andy ogles drafted a constitutional amendment to allow trump to be president for a third term.

georgia republican congressman mike collins called for the deportation of new jersey born mariann budde, the bishop who urged trump to “have mercy” on the lgbtq+ community and immigrants during a service at the national cathedral.

amazon revoked protections for lgbtq+ and black employees.

every single republican told us we were overreacting. trump swore he had nothing to do with project 2025 yet continues implementing details outlined in it. not a single person has the right to tell us we’re being dramatic anymore.

hope the possibility of cheaper eggs and gas was worth it.

If you have Spotify reblog this and tag what your number one song on your “on repeat” playlist is.

you used to be able to go into a tag after you watched a little movie and find a gorgeous little gifset or photoset or 12 and now you're lucky if you can wade through all the xreader posts to find even one we used to be a website

and if you get rid of every depressed scrawny british boy hopelessly in love with his best friend, who's going to be the glue to your fucked up little maze experiments, ava paige?

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people on senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer listed. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

The timeline, the details, the screenshots (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

Again, please, please PLEASE reblog this post instead of the one I sent originally. All the information is here, and it's driving me nuts to see the old ones are still passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much.

rocker eddie/actor steve | exes to lovers | fame au p6 (final part)

p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 interlude

Steve thinks about second chances, as he walks along Greenwich Ave. He thinks about them when he tosses the wig in a garbage can that reeks of puke. 

And he thinks about them, when Eddie opens the door, eyes catching on the rip in Steve’s jeans, the liner under his eyes. When he lights up & says, “You came.”

Yeah, Steve thinks about second chances.

He offers Eddie a small smile as he walks in, can’t bring himself to acknowledge it all. The world of them. Him going. Eddie playing that song.  What that could mean, like, actually mean. Can’t do it yet.

He likes this place better than the mansion in LA. It’s messy and grungy with stupid, corny shit plastered on the walls. Feels more… Eddie.

They walk out to the balcony. It overlooks a tiny little green space, his neighbors’ homes. Eddie lights a cigarette and offers one to Steve. Steve quit years ago. Eddie knows that now. He takes it anyway. 

“Last tour I sold out Madison Square Garden and now I sell out Forest Hills.” Eddie’s chuckling, “Like I’m back at the trailer park.”

Eddie’s third album didn’t do the numbers his first two had. So they’d downsized, just a little.

Steve sighs, he didn’t fly all the way out here to coddle his ex, “It was a good show, Eddie.” 

“Yeah.” He drags, smiles to himself. “It was a really good show. I’m really glad you saw it, baby.”

Steve cringes, full body shiver. Eddie doesn’t seem to realize what he said, Steve’s sure as hell not gonna clue him in.

“How’d your meeting go?”

Steve tries to play it off. “Good. Pretty good.”

Eddie chuckles again, leans into him that way he always does, like personal space is more of a suggestion than a boundary. A hand brushes his cheek, a light, teasing tap of knuckles, “What’s pretty good, Harrington?”

Steve smiles into it. Can’t help it. “There’s uh… you know that blacklist script I mentioned last month? There’s probably a lead there for me.”

Eddie lights up again, bright and true, “Steve, that’s amazing.”

Steve snorts, “Not jealous?”

“Nah, I’m happy for you ba-” Eddie catches it this time, chokes on his drag, coughs and flounders, “Happy for you, man.” 

Steve’s not sure if he can do this, actually. Can’t face this Eddie. The one whose ego isn’t a storm cloud, who’s okay failing, who’s okay seeing him succeed. Who’s honest and sincere and wants the best for him. Eddie who would lose thousands of fans just to sing Steve’s favorite song. 

Eddie’s eyes are shiny, “But you’ve been good?”

“Yeah, yeah. Good. Keeping busy. I filmed an Amex commercial. Good money. Made my agents happy.” He’s rambling around it. He squints into the dark, drops it casually as he can muster. “I’m gonna start seeing that country singer, probably. The one with that Kansas song? Our people are setting something up.”

Eddie’s face falls, the sun out with a sentence. “What are we doing here, Harrington?”

Steve’s tone is bleary, sheepish, “What?”

“Been losing my mind this last month. Can’t stand not having you around. But you- you’re dating?”

It’s a shrug, it’s all he's got, “Sure.”

Eddie’s hunched, shoulders tight. He talks small. “You told me you loved me. Before you left.”

Steve huffs a breath. The air is cold. “C’mon. You were like, obliterating my brain with your dick. I say impulsive shit like that all the time.”

He doesn’t. They both know that. 

Eddie clicks his teeth, shakes a whisper. “Nah. You don’t.”

Steve falters, trips on his tongue. He finds his voice low and hoarse, he can barely say it, “Please don’t hold me to it.” 

Eddie won’t look him in the eye. He blinks up at the sky, “I love you. For the record. I um, I never stopped. Guess I’ve been pretty obvious about it.”

“Eddie, c’mon. Don’t do this. It’s not fair.”

“Date Dorothy.” His laugh is glacial. “I don’t mind. It won’t be real, right? Those things never fucking are.”

“I don’t know– it could be.” The ground’s falling under Steve’s feet. “Down the line, or whatever.”

Something cracks, crumples. “I had you. God fucking damnit. I had you and I–”

Steve’s not expecting the sobs until they happen. Flemmed and shaky and pathetic. Those brown eyes silver-wet like moons. 

Eddie pushes his palms into his cheeks. “Sometimes, after you leave, I just stare up at the ceiling and try to invent like, time travel or something. Just to go back and slap the shit outta myself. I was a goddamn coward. Couldn’t face it. Could talk around it, sure. Write it into my songs like that was honest. But, nah, I couldn’t look in the mirror. Definitely couldn’t look at you. I’m facing it now. I need you to know that. It won’t fix all shit I did, won’t fix the stupid fucking way I tried to fix it the first time. It’s there, it’s out, hell, it’s goddamn double platinum.” He sputters it out miserable, “But I am trying. Even if this– if we can’t. Need you to know I’m facing it now. I want to be better.”

Then Eddie looks right at him, looks at Steve like looking is enough to break his heart. “And I don’t wanna be selfish anymore cause it’s poison, Steve. But fuck. I know I don’t deserve it but if you’ll have me, I’ll– I’m there. Whatever way you’ll take me.”

“Eddie.” Steve doesn’t know why he’s here. Why he keeps digging this wound, ripping out stitches.

“Please? Can’t walk away again. Don’t have it in me.”

“Yeah.” Steve laughs. “You only do that when it’s easy.”

Eddie flinches. Shoves a ringed hand into a pocket. “Too late, huh?”

Steve scratches the back of his head and turns on his heel, “We can’t keep doing this.”

He gets as far the kitchen. Eddie quicksteps in front of the counter, blocks his out. But he’s cowering, ducking his head. “Did you um, like the song?”

It swells up all at once, that bone-deep cruelty of it. A gust turned tsunami. “Not really, Ed. Kinda broke my fucking heart.”

“Shit,” Eddie clicks. “Yeah, I, um, I’m not all that good at the grand gesture thing. Probably should have figured that out by now.”

Steve lets it all in. The red that’s been thrumming through his body since this whole thing started. Lets it possess him. He pushes into Eddie’s space, callous and cruel. “You’re really fucking me up, here. Do you know that?”

“I– I’m not trying to.” Eddie blinks. Frustratingly earnest. 

“What we’re doing– Whatever this is. It makes me feel pathetic. I’d be the dumbest asshole on the planet if I took you back.” He’s screaming now. The balcony door is still open. He doesn’t care if anyone hears. He wants them to hear.

Eddie’s lip is shaking. “I’m sorry.”

“I hate you.” Steve murmurs. The red’s coming off in whisps, quicker than it ever had, easier than it should. 

Eddie’s smile is weak. His face is wet. “I know.”

“You ruined me.” He leans in, finds half a punch in it. Last one he’s got. 

Eddie closes his eyes, brow furrowed. “I know.”

“I don’t want anyone else.” He’s tired. Bone tired. Tired of the ache that only ever seems to go away around, well–

Eddie’s guilt is plain. It's all of him. “I’m sorry.”

Steve takes a breath. He thinks about second chances.

“You really want to be with me?”

Eddie looks at him like he’s already burrowed in. Ribs and guts and blood. “Got my priorities way out of whack for a minute there. Jesus, way too many minutes there. But yeah. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.  You’re it for me, Stevie.”

Steve groans, taps his forehead lightly against a shelf. Eddie’s hand lands steady at his arm, awkward and cautious and right. “I’m a fucking idiot.”

“No.” Eddie says soft. “You’re not.”

“Yeah, I am.” Steve shakes his head. Waves a finger into Eddie’s chest. “You sang Dave fucking Matthews.”

“Don’t remind me, man. They’re gonna start shattering my CDs.” He pauses, sincere as ever. ‘I, uh, wouldn’t take it back though.”

Steve groans again, presses his head into Eddie’s shoulder. “No, you don’t get it. You sang Dave Matthews and now I’m gonna have to call my team and tell them it’s not gonna happen with the country singer.”

Eddie blubbers, big Saturday morning cartoon recalibration. “You’re– what?”

Steve shrugs, catches his eye. “Now I’m gonna have to talk about my coming out journey with Angie at People and dude, she’s been on my ass about it for years. Total sore winner.”

He’s shaking his head, “Harrington… Steve. Stevie.”

But Steve keeps rattling on, “I’m gonna have to tip off the paparazzi that Dark Pines star Steve Harrington was spotted sneaking into Eddie Munson’s brownstone at midnight for a secret rendezvous. Gonna have to go for a jog around the block first thing tomorrow, with like, more hickeys than a teen who just got their first girlfriend.”

“You’ve really thought about this, huh?”

Eddie’s back pushes into the edge of the kitchen counter. And Steve thinks about that photo that forced them together again, about Eddie’s easy grin, about the soft adoration high on his cheeks, about never being so young. He thinks about fucking up and growing up and growing apart and changing. And he smiles against chapped lips that taste like cigarettes and coming home.

And he says, “Gonna have to find someone to give me the hickeys.”

And Eddie lights up like the sun, “I know a guy.”

And Steve, well, he thinks about second chances. 

You've probably seen polls about "Would you sing for X minutes / in front of X many people / etc. for $" before. Well. Here's another one!

If you sing a song in front of 50,000 people, you get a million dollars... but this time, you don't get to pick the song.

Spin this wheel of song options, and that's what you have to sing in front of a stadium full of people. You will have 30 minutes to prepare.

i used to think my lil harry potter phase would stop when i got older.

then i crossed over to the gay side. oh boy. oooooh boy. this is now an integral part of my personality forever i'm pretty sure heh

and i'm so here for it.

this like perfectly explains how i feel rn please read the whole thing

2024 is the year I have slowly lost my love and respect for Taylor Swift.

I love Taylor for her music and the person I thought she was and in a way I still love her, but in 2023-2024 it feels like the person who I thought I loved isn't the person who I thought she was. And I just began to lose my respect for her. Here are some examples of how I've lost my respect for Taylor as a person.

Not one word of support for Palestine. Not even wearing a Artists for Palestine pin. She went out of her way in speaking out against Trump and Blackburn, but she can't tweet or speak out ONE ounce of support for Palestine. Instead she entered her Football girlie for one of the most racist cultural appropriating football teams since the Washington Redskins during her Bread & Circus era.

And before anyone says "what about other artists" I direct you to this

Yes more artists should speak up, not just Taylor. Billie Eilish should speak up. Olivia Rodrigo should speak up, Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Halsey, Lorde and more should speak up for Palestine. Taylor Swift is one of the biggest names in the industry, if not the biggest and one word from her and her thousands to millions and billions of fans will show their support for Palestine and demand a ceasefire. Like I don't know how else to explain how vital it is to use your voice as an artist and a huge platform as Taylor has.

She stopped speaking up for the LGBTQA+ community in 2021. She had all Pride month to speak up and could've used the Eras tour to speak up for us, especially in states that were heavily anti-trans and anti drag queen. But she didn't. Instead she propped up her precious racist Matty fucking Healy. She can have Trans performers in her music video and drag queens, but she can't speak up for them?

Taylor the climate criminal, need I say more?

Taylor the Billionaire. No one person should have this amount of money and it needs to be talked about more and honestly Taylor in 2024 is starting to feel like the female Elon Musk.

Questionable associations. David O'Russell. You can't tell me with a straight face that Taylor's team do not run background checks. Either they didn't do said checks or they did and Taylor did not care and would tarnish her image to work with a predator just for an Oscar. The Matty Healy fling. A brief fling and it was brief because everyone showed their complete disgust and contempt for it. Brittany and Jackson Mahomes friendship. Jackson is on video assaulting a woman. Taylor is a SA survivor. Brittany told the victim to "get over it" Taylor is shown high fiving Jackson, Taylor is shown for months with Brittany despite being a SA apologist and even having dinner with Brittany after the charges are dropped. Revolting. Taylor doesn't care about SA unless it's about her or how it can benefit her.

Continued silence on important issues when she said she would use her platform and voice. BLM? Nothing. Abortion/women's rights? Nothing. LGBTQA+ rights? Nothing. Palestine, absolutely nothing not even the bare minimum. The closest she'll get to using her platform is telling her fans to vote. Nothing but the bare minimum white feminist centrist rhetoric.

Ever since the countdown to Midnights and Midnights' release, the vibes I got from Taylor were not good. And something just felt off. 2023 and 2024 was just a mask off for Taylor and showing us who she really is and that she isn't who we thought she was.

And before anyone comes at me and says "Taylor is not an activist" yes, but she specifically made Miss Americana to tell her fans she would use her platform and voice to speak out more on important issues. She has done nothing. At this point I wish Miss Americana was never made, and I'm pretty sure Taylor wishes she never made it as many of her fans are disappointed in her silence throughout the years.

At best, Taylor is a coward. At worse, Taylor doesn't care beyond the glass house she has built her career on.

At this point all it feels like is she cares about the fame of her success and from her relationship with Travis and the profit of her brand and nothing else. Nothing about her is authentic, everything is performative. It's all about control and profit to Taylor Swift. It feels as though she's ostracized everyone in her audience who isn't white or heterosexual and made it clear we need to find a new guiding light and I think we should.

And in her own words she is telling us who she is

“i just think it’s so frilly and spineless of me to stand up here and say ‘happy pride month!!’ while people are coming for their necks.”

"My entire moral code is a need to be thought of as good"

" Spineless in my tomb of silence "

'I never had the courage of my convictions, as long as danger was near.'

"I've never heard silence quite this loud"" You should find another guiding light "

"You're on your own kid"

"Do something, babe, say something" (Say something)

"Lose something, babe, risk something" (You're losing me)

"Choose something, babe, I got nothing" (I got nothing)

Despite all this, I still love her and will continue reblogging gifsets, but I am done defending everything she does and intend to hold her accountable because when you love someone you just have to point out when they are wrong and just have to hold out hope they will be a better person, even if that hope is so very low.

''Swifties For Palestine'' is now trending on Twitter/X with 22.9k posts currently!

Every Swiftie at home and every Swiftie who's attending The Eras Tour is welcome to participate and help by being loud for Palestine and raising your voice by spreading awareness. Your voice and every action matters and can make a huge difference, even if it's something small and you think it may not help, even if the Internet tries to convince you that you're not helping, every single action matters. We cannot stay silent and remain neutral to children getting murdered, losing their arms and being orphaned and starved. There comes a time when silence is betrayal. We encourage everyone to spread resources and fundraisers, Trade Palestine friendship bracelets at the shows, chant, and post Eras tour pics using #SwiftiesForPalestine. @taylorswift We are calling for you to speak up and to donate to Palestinian families fleeing the bombing in Gaza now. To spread awareness about the massacre in Rafah now. We need you to be on the right side of history.

Call for a Ceasefire: ceasefiretoday.com

Donate to Palestinian Families Fundraisers HERE

Free Daily click to help Palestine arab.org/click-to-help/palestine/

Care For Gaza gofundme.com/f/careforgaza

donate feminine hygiene kits HERE

Learn about Palestine HERE

More resources for Palestine HERE

Stream HIND'S HALL HERE and HERE

because they all love and hate each other to varying degrees like patrick loves tennis and tashi and art but art the most and art loves tennis and patrick but he loves tashi the most and tashi loves tennis the most but none of them can have the thing they want most so they use one another to get closer to it and in the aftermath end up resenting each other for what could have been

obsessed with this letterboxd review for CHALLENGERS (2024) by rocky/WAYSTIAR

"This is a Joe Alwyn album" "This is a Matty Healy album" shut up shut up SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!! Swifties are so annoying, this is a TAYLOR SWIFT ALBUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY IS YOUR FIRST REACTION TO ASSIGN THINGS TO A MAN!!!!!!!!!!!! I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!!!!!

im sure lots of people will listen to TTPD and discount it because she talks about matty in it (and ofc people have their valid issues with him, but im not gonna go into that), but the whole lead up to the album has been “we’re investigating,” and imo a lot of us took that as her saying “we’re investigating why my relationship ended” whereas the album is actually about “we’re investigating this caricature of a girl who went through something life-changing, and she has apparently gone crazy” and she’s basically done a public autopsy of herself; something that the media/fans/public have done since the beginning, but this time around she was like “i’ll do it to myself.”

hence, the album aesthetic feels so sterile too imo. she’s trying to distance herself from the subject but!!!!!! she is the subject. and in conclusion, i think what she’s really putting down is “the summary of the investigation of this girl is that she went insane because of what happened to her, but it’s hopefully gonna be okay”

sidenote: i think what we need to take away from the album is to… let her live…

it was supposed to be short n small and now its 3k & its unedited and u all have to just deal with it bcos it was supposed to be SMALL

The driver's side car window makes a resounding thunk when Steve’s forehead falls against it.

Through the glass, his keys glint tauntingly back at him.

Still tucked in the ignition, locked in on the inside. So close and yet so far from Steve who is, unfortunately, locked on the outside.

I’m such a fucking idiot.

He lets his head raise up a bit just to drop it back against the window again, this time more in punishment. Of course, of course, he coughs up the money needed for a warrant of fitness and then he goes and locks his keys in the car the next day. Like he needed one more cost added to his finances.

Steve steals a glance at his watch. Fuck, if he doesn’t get on the road in the next 10 minutes, he’ll be more than late to work.

His eyes glance across to Eddie’s van, parked beside his own car, outside the trailer home in Forest Hills. Then he looks back at the trailer.

He can ask. He can just go inside and ask Eddie for the lift— and explain that the reason he can’t take his own perfectly fine car is because he’s so goddamn thick between the ears that he’s locked his keys inside, like some kind of moron.

The voice in his head sounds suspiciously like his father.

Something thick grows in his throat. He swallows it to no avail. Embarrassment begins to flush down his neck, hot and uncomfortable.

No, no— he can’t ask Eddie because as far as Steve knows, Eddie hasn’t quite figured it out yet.

Even while Dustin and Mike make their jokes about him being a bit slow, even when Robin says at least you have your pretty face, Eddie brushes them off and laughs. Takes them as jokes with no merit to them. Steve knows though.

So what if he doesn’t want to burst his bubble just yet?

He knows Eddie will figure it out eventually— because they always do. When he asks too many stupid questions and needs things explained twice and— and it’s just inevitable, okay? He knows that.

Fixing his glare through the window of his car at the shiny pair of keys within, Steve wrestles with what would be worse; being late or accidentally tipping Eddie off when they’ve just gotten so close.

Close enough to share a kiss, two nights ago, under the covers. It was barely more than a peck. But Steve knew it had taken a miraculous amount of courage from Eddie to do it— to surge forward and grab Steve’s face, his rings cool against his skin, and press his mouth against his Steve's own.

Eddie’s lips had been chapped but his smile had been pure sunshine and Steve thinks he could’ve stayed forever under that blanket, memorising the shade of pink Eddie’s cheeks turn after a kiss.

They’ve been dancing around it ever since. Each interaction is more charged, more flirty, more gooey. Long lingering looks and pointed nudges that make Steve feel like a 14-year-old with a crush again, in the best way.

So, no. He exactly can’t go ask.

With a heavy sigh and glance up at the darkening sky, Steve is only glad he’s not supposed to pick up Robin today as he begins to walk.

—

One phone call to the auto-shop reveals exactly how much it’ll cost to get his keys retrieved. Which is, to say, entirely too much for one adult living on the wage of a Family Video employee.

And they won’t be able to get anyone out for another whole day.

Growing more and more frustrated with himself, Steve angrily jots the number down into his little notebook, the pen pressing down hard enough to leave indents on the page behind it. Keith is somewhere out the back, snacking no doubt, and leaving Steve to man the front.

Normally, it wouldn’t bother him— especially because he could discretely make the phone call he needed— but now it’s just him, the empty store, and the number in his notebook that stares back at him.

Oh, and it’s raining.

The darkening sky from earlier had transformed into something closer to a thunderstorm, rain lashing against the windows and driving any and all customers away. Which is fantastic— just what Steve needs now, really the fucking cherry on the top.

The phone rings, the noise unusually shrill in the silence of the store. The film playing amongst the aisles has been on mute as soon as he’d gotten his hands on the remote and Keith had disappeared out the back.

Steve stares at the phone, watching it ring once, twice, before he picks it up with a heavy sigh. He dredges up his customer service voice.

“This is Family Video, how can I help?” He greets, putting as much pep into his voice as he can manage—which turns out to be a meagre amount.

“Did you walk to work today?”

Steve straightens up at the sound of Eddie’s voice on the other end of the line. His free hand instinctively smooths down the front of his vest before he quickly remembers Eddie can’t actually see him.

“Eddie?” He asks, instead of answering the question.

“Your Highness, himself,” Eddie responds. His tone is that usual jaunty playfulness that Steve’s come to adore. “Now answer the question, Steve-o. I thought you were one of those smart guys who actually listens when the weather report comes on the radio. Why the hell did you walk?”

Steve’s shoulders curl in, just an inch, and his eyes seek out the open notebook with the quoted amount, underlined and circled, staring back at him. His throat grows a lump at Eddie’s unknowingly poor choice of words.

“Thought I would walk today.” He replies, his voice clipped. “You know, walking, exercise, good for you? Any of these ringing a bell for you, Munson?”

It’s supposed to be a joke but Steve can tell by the end of the sentence, it’s come out way too sour to land that way. He sounds mean.

Steve cringes, clutching the phone a little tighter and screwing up his eyes. He waits for Eddie’s response.

“You know,” Eddie says, sounding a lot duller all of a sudden. “I was calling to maybe offer you a lift through the rain—”

“Sorry, I’m sorry, that-“ Steve cuts in, that same strange embarrassment swelling in his throat. “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”

“—But if you’re gonna be a dick about it, you can enjoy the walk.”

Steve grits his teeth and pinches the bridge of his nose because this feels a little too much like a line from his Dad— but it isn’t because Steve is the one digging this hole all on his own. He’s the idiot who fucking locked his keys in his car and walked to work and snapped at Eddie and—

“No, I’m sorry.” He says, still a bit too tense.

Idiot, idiot, you’re being a fucking idiot, Harrington.

“A ride would be appreciated. Please.”

A pause. This time when Eddie speaks, he’s a little softer. “You off at five today?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll see you at five.”

The dial tone sounds as Eddie hangs up but Steve stays where he is, phone pressed against his one good ear, with a sinking feeling in his stomach. The rain begins to flood the parking lot.

—

Five o’clock comes around too soon.

The rain has let up, just barely, but enough that Steve can actually see Eddie’s van when it pulls up into the parking lot. It rocks about dangerously in the wind and Steve suddenly feels bad for making Eddie come out to get him.

He could’ve stayed here, taken the longer shift. Told Keith to take off early and just walked back home when the rain let up a little more— or just camped out the back on the couch in the employee room if it never did.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

He’d started doing it more and more when his parent’s visits to home became more frequent. It was easy to pull a few white lies out and Steve far preferred answering questions like: Where were you last night? than Why won't you come out to our event tonight? Show face for the Harrington's? It's not like you're doing anything with your life, right?

The only reason he’d stopped, actually, was because he had become good friends with Eddie.

Eddie, who loved his company almost any hour of the day. Who gobbled up each and every morsel of food Steve cooked up, whether it was good or partially burned on the sides. Who told him he had a place in the trailer, day or night, rain or shine.

Eddie who… was waiting outside at five o’clock exactly, pulled up to the curb so Steve wouldn’t have to walk through the rain for more than a moment.

There’s a sliver of surprise, deep within his chest; like he thought Eddie might’ve not shown up and forced him to walk through the rain, just to learn his lesson. It would make sense, Steve thinks. You reap what you sow.

He clocks out hastily, barely murmuring his exit to Keith who doesn’t look up in the slightest. Steve heads for the door and decides then and there, he’ll happily pay the number in his notebook if he doesn’t have to tell Eddie what a fucking moron he actually is.

Water splashes as he dashes down the steps and Eddie’s leaning across, pushing the door open so Steve doesn’t even have to wait to yank it open in the rain. He slides in, sprinkled with rain, slams the door closed, and instantly gets blasted with heat.

“God, you’re a lifesaver,” Steve sighs, sticking his hands out towards the air vents which are working in overdrive. They whir loudly in complaint. Eddie smiles, the apples of his cheeks glowing in the warmth, and twists the wheel, his eyes on the road before him.

The van groans and the bumper dips, kissing the gutter, as they roll out onto the road and head for Forest Hills. For a moment, Eddie focuses on driving straight before he flicks his gaze across to Steve.

“You know I wouldn’t have actually let you walk, right?”

Steve blinks, unsure of what to say in response, because he actually did think that was a possibility until about 2 minutes ago. He shivers as a stray drop in his hair sneaks under his collar, cold and wet.

“Right.” He answers, giving a hesitant smile back.

They’re driving slower than usual due to the rain. Steve lets himself sink back into the worn seats of the van, comforted by the familiar smells. A tang of tobacco, a stronger hint of weed, and that musky deodorant that Eddie swears by— even if Steve has never heard of the brand before.

But, well, it must be working in some sense because when Steve takes a deep breath, he smells it and feels a sense of calm. He doesn’t even notice he’s begun staring.

The strange weather has made Eddie’s hair frizzier than usual and paired with his rosy cheeks, Steve thinks he looks goddamn delectable. He gets caught up in a daydream about having a hot chocolate when they get back to the trailer, maybe even sharing a blanket on the couch and—

And then, Eddie turns and says, “So, wanna tell me why you walked? For real, this time?”

Something shrivels up within Steve. The tightness in his throat from this morning returns. He turns his head and looks out the window.

“I don’t get why you don’t believe me when I say I walked because I wanted to.” He grumbles, almost too low for Eddie to hear over the rain.

Why are they still talking about this? He thinks of the keys through the driver’s side window, thinks of the number in his notebook and the much smaller one in his bank account, and has to hold back from thumping his head against the glass again.

Something metallic jingles behind him.

Steve whips around, his eyes zeroing in on his keys dangling from Eddie’s hand— clearly just retrieved from his pocket. Something ugly and warm wakes up inside him, his stomach knotting uncomfortably, and his cheeks start to burn in embarrassment.

Idiot, Idiot, Idiot.

He knows, he already fucking knows how stupid you are.

Eddie’s eyes dart off the road to look at Steve. “Cos you’re clearly not telling the truth.”

Steve averts his gaze, turning his face back to the window and the wet pavement rushing by beneath the car. He swallows but the lump in his throat doesn’t move.

“Okay, look I don’t actually care that you walked to work,” Eddie continues, placing the keys down in the cup holder between the seats. “I just don’t get why you wouldn’t tell me that they were locked in your car.”

Steve can’t help it, the way his shoulders hike up. His teeth sink into his bottom lip meanly, nearly drawing blood. He doesn’t get it, he doesn’t get it— Eddie’s still trying to rationalise away what everyone else has already figured out.

“I just—” Steve starts, on the defence, but it comes out a bit too wet. He forces himself to swallow again, thankful there’s no sting of tears in his eyes. “I can fix that shit on my own. That’s all.”

“Well, yeah,” Eddie agrees.

Below them both, the hum of the van begins to dwindle and Steve realises abruptly that Eddie’s slowing down, pulling over to the side of the road. He looks to the side, at Eddie.

“Please, c’mon, I just wanna go home, man.” Steve pleads, not even caring that he’s referred so casually to Eddie’s trailer as his home.

“Wait, just,” Eddie waves a hand as he sticks the van into park, releasing the wheel and properly turning to Steve.

“I just want to understand. You know I can pop the door to most cars in, like, 5 minutes. Why didn’t you just ask?”

“Eddie,” Steve stresses, turning away with a pointed sigh. He runs a hand through his hair, latching onto the roots and tugging at it. “Just leave it, please.”

“Or asked for a lift!” Eddie continues, his hands gesturing out a bit wildly. “I could’ve given you a lift even.”

Steve's eyes slice across the van and he wills back every emotional outburst that wants to lash out of him, to poke the right spot that will hurt to get Eddie to back off.

But Eddie is just staring at him, brown eyes wide, a little furrow between his brows, and is just confused. Concerned.

“If you keep driving,” Steve murmurs, almost dejectedly. He ducks his head low and turns back to the window. “I’ll tell you.”

It works— the engine rumbles back to life and the wheels roll gently back out onto the road, just a couple more minutes from Forest Hills. Steve watches the road and tries to grasp for the right thing to say, each possibility dissolving like smoke. His eyes squeeze shut tightly. The rain dins loudly on the roof of the van, a song and dance of the elements.

By the time they’re entering Forest Hills, Steve still hasn’t said a word. The van crawls up into its usual spot, next to Steve’s own car, and Steve stares down at it. He can hear the soft click of Eddie’s seatbelt as he releases it.

He supposes it’s too late now, anyway. Eddie already knows. He keeps his eyes out the window as he speaks, his voice flat and dull.

“I just... I didn’t want you to think that I’m an idiot, too.”

There’s a questioning noise behind him, a little noise from Eddie’s throat that slips out, unbidden.

“Too?” He echoes. “Steve? Who thinks you’re an idiot?”

Steve huffs loudly and turns back, throwing his hands up. “Jesus, who doesn’t? Would you like a list?”

Eddie’s face twists into a meaner expression than Steve's ever seen before and for once, he properly matches the dark clothes and spooky tattoos he dons.

“Yes. And I’ll go door to door— wait,” He shuffles, shifting up onto his knees so he can stretch over the console and place his large hands on either side of Steve’s face, directing his gaze towards him.

It’s reminiscent of a kiss not too long ago. Despite all the burning self-deprecation that churns inside, the pleasant reminder dulls it significantly.

“I’ll go door to door to anyone who ever made you feel that way,” Eddie repeats, now face to face with Steve, their noses nearly touching. His brows are still pull tight into a furious frown. But it's not at him, Steve realises. “And I’ll do something— I’m not sure what yet, but it’ll be foul and like, maybe I’ll put instant mash potatoes on their lawn and— okay the specifics aren’t relevant but this— this is.”

He searches Steve’s face intently, eyes darting around, making sure the message is sinking in. His expression softens out, his eyes suddenly sweeter than before. “You’re aren’t an idiot, Steve. You aren’t an idiot for making a mistake and I’ve never thought that about you.”

Steve blinks. Swallows heavily and god fucking dammit, is the thickness in his throat ever going to disappear? This time it feels different though. He’s not sure how.

“You don’t think I’m an idiot, do you?” Eddie asks.

Steve shakes his head, moving Eddie’s hands with them at the same time. It’s true, he doesn’t. Eddie is… goddamn fucking wonderful. He’s like a warm summer shower through the wretched seasons of Steve’s life. One of the reasons it was worth living through the entire ordeal of 86.

The rain outside continues, pitter-pattering on the roof, somehow softer than it was a second ago.

“Okay,” Eddie says, a small smile on tugging on his lips.

“Okay,” Steve says back. He tries for a smile and it’s easier than expected, though it wobbles at the ends. It doesn’t matter— Eddie is still gazing at him, brown eyes shining and Steve believes what he says.

“Okay,” Eddie says one more time, his smile turning closer to a grin. “Let’s go make some cocoa, yeah?”

He moves to retract his hands but Steve moves faster, his hands darting up to hold them in their place, palms against his cheeks.

“Wait,” Steve murmurs, watching how Eddie stills and keeps his closeness, their noses still a couple inches from touching— and Steve clings to the threads of courage in him tightly.

His hands slide off Eddie’s, grasping lightly at his wrists, and it’s easy to lean forward and connect their mouths in one swift motion.

Eddie squeaks— then melts.

It takes half a second before he remembers to kiss back, equally as enthusiastic and it’s nothing like the first kiss they shared under the covers. The rain dances around them and Steve swipes his thumbs over Eddie’s pulse soothing, feeling the barest jump of his rabbiting pulse.

When he shifts back, breaking the kiss, Steve keeps the closeness, the tips of their noses bumping together. Eddie’s hands feel blazing warm on Steve’s cheeks but when his lashes flutter open, catching sight of Eddie’s glorious pink cheeks, he thinks it might be his face burning up too.

They tumble inside through the rain and with all of Steve’s prayers answered today, they also share a blanket on the couch, ankles linked beneath the rumpled fabric. They make hot chocolate, Steve’s style, and sip it at, making googly eyes at each other over the rim of their mugs— until Eddie laughs too much and spits it down his front.

Steve doesn’t feel stupid again— unless that is, you count feeling stupidly sappy.

(He does not.)

okay hi i need help finding a fic. it was here on tumblr and i think it was recent? and it was steddie and it was about how steve is always perceived as like really dumb and everyone makes jokes and he hates it. and so then one day after he stays at eddies he locks his keys in his car but he doesn’t wanna go get eddie to help him get them out because he’s embarrassed so he walks to work. and i only got like halfway through it so i really wanna finish it but i can’t find it

Edvin is all of us

i think i just went through all the stages of grief watching that final episode but holy fuck bitches we did it.

BOTTOMS (2023) written by Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott

i had the funniest dream before my young royals season 3 marathon the other day. i was at a concert and it was an omar concert which is kinda odd cus i don’t even really listen to his music much but the funniest part is he was just the opener.

the main act was usher.

You're telling me this isn't nico di angelo?

jacks never had a bad track. “Glad to know you’re thinking about me when you kiss your husband.” BANGER. “But for tonight, let me pretend you’re mine.” ICONIC. “I’d probably kill another man if I found him with you like this” LIFE CHANGING. “There is nothing of equal value to me”. UNMATCHED.

#24 on ur spotify wrapped describes how 2024 will go, how screwed r u

I ADORE THEM

Great Gatsby x Hadestown x Newsies…

this is the best video ever

The fruity four are the most unlikely clique at Rose Hill.

The au/crossover I never knew I wanted til I saw those pastel uniforms

this was so fantastic

Hi, so I wrote a little fic, and I posted it. I gave it to Dani, she laughed at it, I asked if I should edit it, she said "fuck it we ball"

The entire fic will be below the cut because it's short enough to post here, but if you'd like to leave comments or kudos, it is also posted on my AO3. It's only 1k words.

Dress Up As...

This is the stupidest party they have ever thrown. They know that.

This was the stupidest party they had ever thrown, and they all knew it. No one was sure whose idea it had originally been, and no one was quite brave enough to own up to it. But it was their last party at Hillerska — their last third years’ party — and it seemed like a pity to go out without throwing at least one entirely stupid blowout. 

The theme was truly very simple: Dress Up Like… 

Throughout the entire week before, each third year had one at a time drawn a card out of a hat to find out what or who they would be dressing up as for the party. Every person had a different theme. No one should or would be dressed for the same party. In theory, that’s what made it fun. 

What made it decidedly not fun was the fact that no one was allowed to redraw their theme. Once the card was in their hand, they could not switch with anyone or draw a second theme. That factor made the whole thing more than a little stressful. Because not everyone had the clothes they needed just lying around. Some of them had even resorted to stealing from First Years just to complete their looks. 

But now it was the night of the party, and one by one they started to trickle in, costumes ready and on full display.

Some were better than others. 

Henry wore a black tank top and bright green basketball shorts, chunky sneakers and a backward baseball cap. The entire night, he carried around a can of beer and would randomly start shouting about his human rights. Dress Up Like… An American. 

Walter, his ever present counterpart, looked truly ridiculous. More so than usual. He showed up in short-shorts and a crop top, an LED flower crown sitting pretty atop his head. He had a mesh shawl overtop that went farther down than his pants did, and somehow he had managed to find what could only be described as cowboy boots. Dress Up Like… A Pinterest Girlie. 

Stella wore a baby pink nightgown with a fairy pattern and clearly not matching blue bunny slippers. She had her hair tied up into pigtails and she was carrying around a worn-in looking stuffed bear. She was drinking her alcohol through a sippy-cup and every once in a while switched to suck on a lollipop. Dress Up Like… A Five-Year-Old. 

Fredrika had it (arguably) the easiest out of all of them. She was quite literally wearing a bedsheet that she’d pinned into a toga and some sandals she’d managed to find on short notice. She’d gone the extra step to make herself a wreath for her hair, but pretty much everyone was mad at her for her lucky draw. Dress Up Like… An Ancient Roman. 

Alexander had somehow gotten his hands on neon spandex. He went all out for his costume, even finding someone to give him a perm. There was a neon sweatband on his head that had “mysteriously” gone missing from the locker room a week ago. He’d completed his look with sunglasses that were too big for his face and Henry’s orange wrist-watch. Dress Up Like.. The 80s. 

Madison wore a muscle tank and tight biker shorts. She was carrying around a big bin of vanilla protein powder and every time someone asked her a question she would respond with “do you even lift, bro?” She’d gone as far as to draw on faint mustache hairs and no one was actually sure if she was kidding about having bought into cryptocurrency as a way to commit to the bit. Dress Up Like… A Gym Bro. 

Sara had spent all week stressing about her costume, only to give in and ask Henry if she could borrow his tuxedo. The one she knew he had just lying around because it was Henry, and of course he had a tuxedo lying around. She’d stolen a ring box from Simon to keep in her pocket, as well, and she had found a top hat somewhere in their mother’s box of old Halloween costumes. Dress Up Like… A Groom. 

It was a lucky coincidence that Felice was her counterpart in all of that. They looked ridiculous, but at least they looked ridiculous together. Felice had taken the time to go to the thrift store in Bjärstad for her costume, though. Not even the students of Hillerska had wedding dresses lying around. She was able to find one for relatively cheap, too, and it had come with a veil. The dress was nice if you pretended it wasn’t from the 70s and ignored the suspicious stain. Sara had gotten her a bouquet to really sell the look. Dress Up Like… A Bride. 

Wilhelm had borrowed his entire outfit from Felice. It was a blue dress and some gold jewelry. Nothing too scandalous, though he was still sure Jan-Olof’s heart would fail if he saw it. They still hadn’t told him about Wille piercing his ears yet. Wilhelm had opted to wear his own shoes for the night, as much as Felice begged him to try out high heels. He’d promised her he’d try another time when he wouldn’t have to commit to an entire night in them whilst slightly drunk. Dress Up Like… Your Best Friend.

It was Simon that truly caught everyone’s eye, though. With the exception of a long coat and scarf that they knew wasn’t his, he looked like he wasn’t dressed up at all. Everything he wore was seemingly something he wore every day. A sweatshirt and jeans, converse and a silver chain hanging around his neck. 

“Oh, come on, Simon! You could have at least tried,” Fredrika called out, somehow already tipsy despite the party having just started. 

“I’m dressed up,” Simon said. He shrugged off the coat and scarf before depositing himself in Wilhelm’s lap. 

It was an obvious lie. 

“Simon, you wear that all the time,” Henry pointed out. 

Simon nodded, running his fingers through the hairs on the back of Wille’s head. “Yes, I do, and I’m still dressed up.” 

Wilhelm looked like the cat who caught the canary and, most of the time, the rest of them would take that as a clue to just accept Simon’s words as truth and move on. But not tonight. No, they had all made asses of themselves trying to commit to this stupid ass party plan and they would be damned if Simon ruined it. They would force him to go home and change if they had to. They’d drag him by the ear back to Bjärstad and stand guard until he emerged looking just as idiotic as the rest of them.

“I would bet all the money in my wallet that you are not dressed up properly,” Walter said. It would have been a serious threat, too, had he not looked so ridiculous. 

“Are you sure about that?” Simon asked, a smirk tugging at his lips. 

“I’d like to join in this bet!” Maddie declared, pulling her wallet out of her waistband. And, soon, they were all betting some kind of money on the fact that Simon had not properly committed to their stupid plan. 

Wilhelm didn’t say a word. He just sat back with a smug look on his face as Simon got all of his friends to bet him a small fortune. He, of course, knew what Simon was supposed to be dressed up as. He, of course, knew Simon was about to be several thousand kronor richer. 

When everyone had placed their bets on the table, his own sister included, Simon pulled his card out of the coat he’d earlier discarded. He knew they were going to challenge him on his costume. He’d come prepared for this. 

He cleared his throat, sitting up straighter, though it was difficult with Wilhelm’s arms wrapped tightly around his stomach. “Everything I’m wearing — boxers included — is something Wilhelm has, at some point, stolen from me,” he announced. He threw his card down on top of the make-shift money pot and then leaned back into his boyfriend with a satisfied smirk. “Read it and weep, bitches.” 

Dress Up As… Royalty.

this is so me

The feminine or whatever urge to commit crime after reading “Art Heist, Baby”. But like, aesthetically.

i adore this with my whole heart

Crashed the Wedding - Part 10

“Eddie I swear to all that is holy if you don’t stop fidgeting I’m going to stab you with one of these pins.” Nancy sniped as she fiddled with Eddie’s hair, the curls loosely tied into a messy mermaid braid decorated with silver crossing chains, hair rings, and gems. Even tied up as it were, Eddie had just let it grow down his back, only getting it dusted every few months to remove all the dead ends. He could have had anyone do his hair, anyone at all, could have flown in the best stylists in the world, but no. He’d asked Nancy to help him do his hair.

She’d told him the same thing, that he could get anyone to do it, but… he’d just smiled, told her they had similar hair, and that he trusted her to do it. She hadn’t let him down. She’d spent weeks researching braiding techniques because she knew he wanted it braided, spent ages working with one of those little mannequin heads with the hair to figure out how the gems, the chains and the little hair rings would fit into the style he wanted it to go in.

And only when she was confident that she could do it, did she attempt it on him. And that was two nights before at an impromptu hair rehearsal when she’d shown up with her bag of things to make sure what she’d done on the mannequin could be replicated with his hair.

It’d worked like a dream, she’d even managed to allow for a few messy curls to come loose from the braid, so they framed his face in effortless beauty that actually took a lot of effort. “I’m going to remember you said that at your wedding, see if you can sit still when you’re about to marry the love of your life. I feel like I’m being electrocuted but like… in a good way?”

“How can you be electrocuted in a good way?”

“Oh Nance, we gotta introduce you to the joys of electrostimulation, I’ll send you some links.”

“Please don’t, we had to get the scissors involved last time you sent me links to your kink stuff, honestly, Robin and ropes do not go well together.” There’d been knots, and not the fun kind, more the kitten trapped in a ball of yarn kind. “Almost dooone aaaand—” she slid one more bobby pin in place “finished!”

“Well… how do I look?” He turned in the chair to look at her, to look at her warm smile and emotional eyes. He’d already had his usual makeup team from his tours in to help him on that front, the crew invited as welcome guests but also helpy helpers in some parts. They’d covered his blemishes, however few he may have had, mattified his skin so the camera wouldn’t catch any oily spots lit up by the lights, and they’d gone the extra mile with his eyes. They’d been smoked with a dark shadow pallet, black blending into brown, into a warm honey gold the closer it got to his cornea his under eye lined with a soft brown, his lashes enhanced only a little by mascara to make sure it all blended together seamlessly.

He hadn’t needed anything on his lips, just a light swipe of a highlight over his cupids bow was always enough for his lips.

“You look beautiful, Eddie… Steve isn’t gonna know what hit him. Now let’s get you dressed and out there before Steve beats you down the aisle.” They’d already decided that Steve would be the one to walk down the aisle to him, followed by his Best Ma’am, Robin, and his groomsmaids an man, Max, Eleven, Erica, and Lucas. Preceded by their little flower girl Teresa Henderson, who’d sworn not to use her budding telekinesis to throw flowers everywhere.

Eleven would be watching that five-year-old like a hawk though.

She’d spent too long making sure that clearing looked as beautiful as it did to have her little demon child ruin it by whipping up a flower tornado. Too long lifting lanterns up to branches, too long artfully weaving string lights between the oranges, browns, and yellows of the leaves on the trees, letting some drape and some not. She’d spent too long ensuring all the benches they’d used as makeshift pews were arranged perfectly spaced to give everyone just enough leg room.

No flower tornado. Even if it would be extremely cool any other time.

The guests were beginning to arrive, walking down the long well-lit pathway from where they’d set up parking, Eddie had wanted a woodland fall wedding with elvish touches, and given Steve would bend to anything Eddie wanted if he bat his lashes cutely enough, the woodland fall wedding with nerdy elvish touches was happening.

It was extravagant, it would have cost a fortune to set up had Eleven not been there since the early afternoon setting it all up, it meant he got his way with his suit, a beautiful black tunic with faint dark grey brocade embellishments in the thick fabric, the cuffs held closed by silver cufflinks in the shape of D20’s, a high collar, open just enough to give his Adams apple room to breathe, hugging his neck.

The pants beneath it weren’t entirely visible but he’d gone for pants just tight enough around his ankles so he could wear his black calf-length harness boots over them, for ‘the look.’

It didn’t matter though, because nobody, not a single person would be looking at him when that music eventually started. A faint acoustic version of the march played by Jeff, Frank on base beside him adding depth to the gentle melody.

The little flower girl, her curls bouncing with each step as she carefully spread little yellow and white flower petals across the carpeted walkway, all the way down until she reached Nancy at the front who welcomed her and helped her to her own special seat at the front. And then, Eddie had to remind himself to breathe.

Steve.

He’d had no idea what Steve would look like on the day, they’d stuck to tradition, kept the outfits a secret and hadn’t seen each other for a whole twenty-four hours, even though that’d sucked. Now he wished he’d have gotten a heads up.

He looked like royalty, ethereal in his beauty, dressed in a similar style to Eddie, only his was white, a white tunic, golden in its embellishments, made even more beautiful by the cape pinned at his neck made of a thin gradient lace fabric that gently drifted across the floor, white and gold in its colour, embellished by golden glitter and starry patterns, in his hands a pretty arrangement of flowers in colours matching the petals little Teresa had decorated the walkway with.

He didn’t need makeup, he didn’t need anything but the clothes he was wearing, just looking at him was putting Eddie at risk of ruining his own makeup. He could feel the sting in his eyes, could see the watery distortion at the bottom of his vision, he breathed in sharply, the hand of their officiant, the grouchy old Chief himself, who’d gotten himself ordained purely to officiate that wedding, and Nancy and Robin’s whenever the hell they decide to tie that knot, on his shoulder, in a bid to ground him.

“Breathe kid.” Were his wise words, reminding Eddie that yes, air was required.

“It’s too hard, gonna asphyxiate.” Hopper only answered with a soft chuckle, and then Steve was there, their groomsmen and women at their sides, Robin, Max, Eleven, Erica, and Lucas at Steve’s, Dustin, Mike, Will, Nancy and Gareth at Eddie’s. Jeff and Frank lingering at the back to play them out at the end.

It all just sort of… tuned out after that, he couldn’t not focus entirely on Steve, on his smiling face, the happiness in his eyes, the warmth in his smile, the way the lights dangling in the treetops above made not just his outfit shimmer but his eyes too, he knew he should have been looking at Hopper as the man did his best to go through the standard opening words, to welcome their guests, to read out a little speech that Joyce had absolutely helped him to write that perfectly, leaving out all the monster bits, encapsulated just how much he cared for those two men, how he wished he could have been the one to walk Steve down that dumb aisle but he’d had to stay up front to do his actual job, something that had a tear slip from Steve’s eye and a soft laugh escape his lips.

He spoke of all the times he’d caught Eddie being a menace as a teenager, and how proud he was to see how much Eddie had grown up since then, even if it weren’t actually all that much, even a little bit was enough.

And then came the important part, the part Eddie had rehearsed so many times in the mirror he knew it better than one of his own songs.

“As you can probably imagine, our two grooms have chosen to write their own vows, so, without further ado as I know we’re all sick of hearin me speak… Eddie, i believe you wanted to go first.” Eddie took a deep breath. In, and out, before turning to Steve, the man mirroring him, his smile only widening as he witnessed that deep breathe.

“You got this, Bambi” he whispered with a cheeky wink, a direct crit hit to Eddie’s heart.

“Okay. Ehem… Wise men say that only fools rush into love.” Eddie began with a small grin that reached his eyes and made them sparkle in mischievous glee over his successful inclusion of song lyrics into his vows. Steve merely rolled his eyes in fond amusement, a smile seemingly permanently glued to his lips. “But I’m happy to report, that I’m no fool, although many would argue otherwise” a soft laugh erupted across the makeshift pews lining their little clearing, across the smiling faces of their friends, their families, their joy illuminated by the lanterns delicately dangling from the treetops overhead and the warm white string lights woven between branches between them. “I don’t think anyone can call nursing a love for half of the time I’ve lived as rushing it.”

Steve’s smile grew just a little wider, his hands gently squeezing around Eddie’s in a quiet show of support, as if he had ever needed support to talk.

“You came to me at my lowest, Steve, at my most frightened, and alone, you offered me warmth in your smile, safety in your words of comfort, and you supported me even though we’d definitely gotten off on the wrong foot.” Through sheer stupidity, assumptions of ones’ character, and jealousy over sharing their shared little brother. Not to mention the broken bottle to the throat. “Broken bottles, dorky little brothers, end of the world, you know.” Out of the corner of his eye he caught Joyce Byers gently waving her hand at Karen Wheeler as a simple ‘don’t worry about it’ gesture.

“I know” Steve quietly uttered with a gentle nod, his teary-eyed smile unwavering.

“You showed me what love is, Steve… you gave it so selflessly to anyone who needed it, welcomed them into your arms and kept them safe from harm even at the cost of your own safety. You’re like that single beam of warm sunlight through a break in the curtains on a cold winter morning.”

“And you’re the tiny little kitten that falls asleep in it.”

“Baby you get me so well.” He’d fallen asleep on top of Steve many a time and he always awoke warm, comforted, safe in a way that words simply could not explain.

“It’s a weird and wonderful gift.”

“Anyway, shh let me finish.” Steve’s smile widened a fraction as he nodded, lifting one hand up to his lips in a zip motion. “You adorable little shit. Ehem, as I was saying before I was so adorably interrupted. So, in light of how utterly perfect you are Steve Harrington, as there is no way on Earth, I will ever be able to pull off what you do so naturally for me every day, my vows to you will be to do my best every single gods-be-damned day, to be deserving of you. To never make you feel less than the most important person, the most important thing in my very crazy life. I vow to love you long after we become cranky old ghosts haunting our old stomping grounds because after everything we’ve seen, I flatly refuse to believe that I could stop loving you at death. I vow to never rearrange your hair stuff in the bathroom during my ‘rare as a unicorn’ cleaning sprees” at Steve’s fondly raised brow, Eddie tacked on a sheepish “again.” That earned another chuckle from their families. “I vow to give you all the applause, when you do something ridiculously badass so that you never feel underappreciated for the sheer awesome that is you in a crisis.”

“I am pretty badass, you are correct.” Robin, Steve’s Best Ma’am fondly rolled her eyes behind Steve.

“Shhh, I vow to pay attention to each and every one of your moles when I kiss them goodnight, even that one” Steve rolled his eyes, another soft laugh carrying through their audience “and finally, the most important one out of all of them… I vow to always leave the cap on the toothpaste instead of sending you on a treasure hunt for it every morning.” He’d somehow left it in the fridge at one point. Steve refused to let him live it down.

“Score” Steve quietly fist pumped.

“So, Steven Anthony Harrington, love of my life, I take you, to be my lawfully wedded husband, to have, and to hold, in sickness, and in health, for richer, and for poorer, for as long as we both shall live and beyond because fuck you, death, I’ve kicked your butt once and I’ll do it again.” He held his hand backwards toward Dustin, who deposited a subtle weight into his palm to be carefully slid into place on Steve’s finger. “To you I make this vow.” The ring a solid gold, oxidized at the surface to darken the metal, it had a raised texture made of gold dust randomly fused to the dark metal, creating starburst patterns across its surface as though the sun itself were trying to burst through the dark. “I love you, Steve… I love you so much.” His voice finally cracking at the end as he allowed the tears to gather where he’d been holding them back for as long as he could.

“I love you too, Eddie.” Steve whispered back, squeezing his hands once more, ignoring the single happy tear that fell from his own eyes, letting it fall.

“Steve?” Hopper’s gruff voice prompted Steve to begin his own.

“Right, one second.” He breathed inward through his nose sharply taking a hankie he’d wisely chosen to keep in his pocket out to dab it at his eyes, he could do this, he had his friends, his family, he had everyone he loved right there in that clearing, and he had Eddie, looking practically ethereal in the lights twinkling around him. He could do this, he’d spent weeks sitting with Nancy just trying to get the damn things to sound right, then an extra week rehearsing them so he wouldn’t have to pull out the papers they were written on. “I—uh…” He could do this, he could absolutely do this, he could—

“Baby, are they written on paper?” Eddie’s eyes were so soft, his words quiet enough so that only those at the front could hear him, Steve nodded “then read them from the paper, it’s okay.” Eddie gently lifted Steve’s hands to his lips and pressed a kiss atop his knuckles. Some things were hard when you’d suffered two too many concussions, Eddie never made him feel bad for not being able to do certain things sometimes, for needing days out of the spotlight, for needing moments to himself, for just… needing naps sometimes.

“I got you, Steve” Robin spoke in hushed tones as she offered the small number of pages to him, which he accepted gratefully. Now. Now he could do this.

“I wish I’d have gone first now, following that? Pfft, terrifying.” But then Eddie was the main lyric writer, lead vocals, and lead guitarist for Corroded Coffin, not to mention still the main DM for Hellfire so. He should have expected as much. Eddie gently squeezed the hand he still had hold of in an attempt to ease his nerves, it worked. “I’m not the best with words, so… forgive me.” The crows-feet at the corners of Eddie’s eyes only crinkled more as his smile widened, dimples on full display, nothing but love in that smile.

“For the longest time, I didn’t understand you, Eddie, when we were dumb teenagers still in school, you were this loud kid I could never wrap my head around, you played nerd games, and listened to music that made my head hurt even before the head trauma, you were an enigma that I didn’t try hard enough to figure out until you crashed into my life with a broken bottle to my throat that made me think things that didn’t belong in my brain in that particular moment.” He saw Hopper roll his eyes at their side, but Eddie was sniggering, so he ignored Hopper.

“We were pushed together through circumstance, and although that could have lead to us clashing, it could have led to resentment, you were just so easy to like. You never made me feel stupid for asking ill-timed silly questions” you have a car we don’t know about? Or, where’d you learn how to do that? As more than sufficient examples but god there’d been so many more since then. “You always so patiently just explained stuff to me without ever making me feel less than those around me, it was so easy to find myself drawn to you even if at the time, I didn’t really understand why.” He’d had a crush, a ridiculously ill-timed crush on a traumatised boy wrapped up in chaos, then after it was all finished, the crush had stayed, it’d stayed, it’d blossomed, he’d fallen deeper and deeper until resurfacing became impossible.

“You take the time to support me and lift me up in so many little ways and honestly, I don’t think you even really notice you do it. Like… you always remember where I put my glasses, even though you can never remember where you put your keys, you have like, this sixth sense for my migraines, like you know they’re coming before even I do—”

“You have this—”

“Don’t ruin the illusion, Bambi, just let me believe you’re magic.”

“Okay.”

“You make every space a home, Eddie, even that big empty house felt like home whenever you were in it, not because of anything you did, or anything you said, but because you, just you being your perfectly silly self, you are my home. You like to call me the sun, Eddie, but I’m nothing but the moon… I just reflect whatever warmth you give me. Without you I’m cold.” That mischievous little grin on Eddie’s face had softened, those beautiful brown Bambi eyes wide yet filled with warmth and emotion, shimmering with tears he’d previously shed and tears he seemed like he was about to shed.

“So, my vows to you are these… Eddie, I vow to support you, in every endeavour you take, be it music, be it writing, be it playing DnD until the early hours of the morning even when you know you have to be up at 6am to catch a flight. To never roll my eyes when you attempt to slip your nerdy references into our love life, I vow to never again ask you to play basketball with us, even if Lucas begs me to because I know you’ll selflessly say yes and suffer the entire time.”

There were pictures on the internet now. So many pictures. The Corroded Coffin fanbase found them all deeply amusing.

Lucas, now playing for some big-league team, had even signed one at his last signing event, almost choking with laughter when it turned up in front of him.

“I vow to continue, every day, to love you, and cherish you, and kiss both of those dimples at every available opportunity, awh yeah there they are~” Eddie ducked his head with an embarrassed little laugh, lifting one hand to his face to hide behind it, that didn’t last long though, because Steve curled his fingers around it and eased it away “nuh-uh, I wanna see that beautiful face when I do this.” Robin deposited into his waiting hand as she took the papers away, the ring that he’d specifically purchased out of his own left-over Harrington fund, the one he’d wisely kept in a separate bank account that the government had left alone when they’d seized his father’s assets.

He'd kept it from Eddie, hidden it away, because he wanted to see his face the first time he laid eyes on it. It was Mokume Gane in design, golds and silvers merged and shaped until the surface of the ring resembled an intricate wood grain effect, which on its own would have been beautiful, but it hadn’t been enough, it hadn’t been Eddie enough, so he’d had the words ‘One ring to seal our love, And forever to entwine us’ engraved around the outer ring in a beautiful elvish script, which Dustin had written down for him properly so the engraver could do it justice.

The expression of awe on his face when Steve slid it onto his waiting finger was more than worth the teasing he’d received from Dustin over how nerdy the whole thing was. “Steve…” Eddie breathed, eyes wide on the metal as they took in the beautifully curved writing, the intricate strokes, the pattern in the metal “you… you—”

“Yes, I did a nerdy thing for you, shh. I love you Eddie Munson, I will always love you, from now until forever, that is my vow to you.” And there were the tears, Eddie looking at him eyes shimmering and bright, beautifully reflecting all the lights around them more so than the twinkling little gems and trinkets tied into his hair.

“Ehem” Hopper cleared his throat “Eddie Munson, do you take this man—”

“I do.” Hopper didn’t chastise him for interrupting, even if he had interrupted the legal vows part.

“Steve Harrington, do you—”

“Without hesitation, I do.”

“Jesus Christ, well alright I suppose you’ve waited long enough, by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you finally married! Good luck boys, Steve, stick one on him would you so we can all get drunk.” Eddie didn’t resist in the slightest when Steve took his hand and pulled him in, he went willingly, pliant in Steve’s grip as the man twisted and dipped him, Eddie’s laughter almost musical in its beauty, his free hand lifting to cup Steve’s jaw as the man leaned in to close the distance between them, their families, their friends erupting in cheers as lips touched

“Much better than your first wedding, right?” Eddie cheekily murmured against Steve’s lips, barely parting from them they still brushed as he spoke

“Oh, be quiet.”

With a widening grin, Eddie whispered “Okay” right back, before Steve sealed their lips together once more in the second of many kisses, as Mr and Mr. Steve, and Eddie Munson.

~THE END~