I Dee Kay

i thought i posted these here but i guess i didnt!! it x pokemon! click for higher quality

I sneak out of my mother’s house every night after she goes to sleep. I call it her house because it is not my home. Home is where I’d feel at peace. Home is where I’d know my own name. No one calls me by the right name in the daylight, and I want my name back. During the day, I tell the boy with curls and buck teeth and eyes like a lightning strike to call me Eddie. He never does. At night, I don’t care what he calls me. At night, I am always me, no matter the name, because the woman who puppets me puts her hands to sleep. I don’t sleep much.

I make it look like my body is still in my bed with pillows under covers in case my mother comes in. I look at it. I wonder if, maybe, it doesn’t matter what’s in my bed as long as something is sleeping: human, ghost, or monster. I wonder if, maybe, I am the ghost haunting my own body. I wonder if, maybe, my mother doesn’t care what’s inside me so long as she can control it. I look at myself in the reflection of the window. I look human, but I could still be a monster, because I know better than anyone that nobody can tell the difference between the two. My puppeteer mother taught me humanity is monstrous, and after this long, I'm starting to believe her. I open the window. I climb out onto the roof and jump off. I stick the landing and look up at my mother’s bedroom window. I look back at my own room; my prison cell. I run.

I take nothing with me but a five dollar bill and my name. Eddie. Eddie. It beats with every crash of my heart against my ribs, begging at my viscera to become unconfined. It breathes with every gasp my lungs take, greedy in the stifling air of this monstrous town. I have seen the face of evil, and I have devoured it, vivisected my own demons, and now they’ve made a home inside me. Evil broke my bones and I just put them back together in the shape of a boy. Evil is the ghost laying in my bed while I run through town, ducking through trees to avoid the streetlamps. I want to be me, but I don’t even know who that is. I want to be me, but I really don’t know if I ever was to begin with.

I am always running, it’s just that sometimes, I’m not allowed to look like it. I am always running, it’s just that sometimes, my lungs can’t take the pressure and they burst open, flowers blooming and choking me stiff. Those flowers are beautiful but the puppeteer rips them out root from root when my inhaler comes out—useless, a placebo, empty of any real power, just like me. I am scared more than I cannot breathe. My head is sick more than my body is. The puppeteer would have my hide if she could lick my brain, if she knew that I know how I am not sick or dirty or broken. I am Eddie. I am Eddie.

My name is alive inside me when I end up in front of the lightning strike boy’s house. I grab a stone and toss it at his window, one for every time I thought of him tonight and was ashamed of it. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. The boy I love comes to his window and opens it, looking exhausted and excited and lovely. He is always himself, unabashedly and unashamedly. I wonder if he knows I love him because I love how he wears freedom like a second skin. I wonder if he knows I love him at all.

He smiles down at me. Eds, he says, and it’s not my name, but it still sounds like home, the one I’m not allowed to live in. I smile back. I always fashioned myself a little like Juliet: just a broken bird, waiting patiently for somebody to save her. But maybe I was never broken at all, and neither was Juliet; we were just waiting for somebody to tell us that we can save ourselves. I remember the lightning strike boy setting my arm in place when it snapped in two, when evil laughed in our faces. Evil came in the shape of a smile. But maybe the true evil has lived inside our homes all along and we never even knew it. My evil has strings and a placebo inhaler in a hand outstretched; my boy’s is a wolf who’s wearing his skin. We all have things that long to control us, but in the end, they never even come close. They don’t know about the things we love when they aren't looking.

He says, I thought I was your Flynn Rider. I don’t have enough hair for you to climb. I say, then come to me. He does, and as he lands at my feet, I ask him if he likes running. He smiles, like he is only ever smiling, and says, I like you. I grab his hand, and together, we run into the night. There, we don’t need names to still be ourselves. He screams, unafraid, not never considering he could hide from the light. Laughing like he is only ever laughing, he says, our friends will never let us live it down if they find out we went running around town all night in our fucking pajamas, you loser! I shrug, say nothing, and keep running. He doesn’t know that all I do is run, even without him, even without our friends, even and especially without my mother.

We stop at the school, and I buy him a coke from the vending machine outside the building while we catch our breath. He leans against the cool brick, glowing red from the light of the Coke machine, and pulls out a cigarette. He is unpredictable and wild and lovely, and my lungs don't mind his smoke. They are not sick. I have to tell myself they are not sick, or else the fear will scream louder than the love.

When he looks up at me through his eyelashes, he doesn’t look evil—he looks beautiful. Lightning strikes. He tosses his cigarette to the ground, only one drag in, and stamps it out with his boot as he reels me in. I kiss him back, because it is dark, and we are young, and there is nobody around to tell us we are sick and dirty and broken for wanting to. I tell myself that two boys can kiss without it being evil. The words are louder than anything else. The kiss tastes sweet, like soda and freedom. There is a lot my mother doesn’t know. There is a lot my mother will never, ever find out about.

We ditch the cans and keep running, and when we laugh, we don’t sound like the evil that tried to feast on us. We don’t sound like our mothers who don’t understand us. We don’t sound like anything but ourselves. I drop him back off at his house, and because I’m wheezing a bit, he asks if I brought my inhaler with me. I shake my head and smile, broad and proud and brave.

how i thought this scene was gunna go..... 👶🏽

I still love the sketch so here

but she doesnt talk to eddie. its not that she doesnt want to, its just that eddie is always kind of attached to richie’s side, shrieking laughing at all of richie’s bad voices. or hovering around bill like an animated little fly. one time, she had found herself the target of one of eddie’s rants. they’d been in the clubhouse and he’d started to rant about how they needed to sand the wooden support beams because they could all get splinters if they didnt. and he was so caught up in it that he didn’t realise she was only one looking at him, listening to him, until he was finished. and once he realised, he had gone red, and turned away. 

so bev thinks that eddie doesnt want to talk to her. which kind of sucks, a lot. and she doesnt even know why it sucks so much. because he’s just like…a tiny little rude boy (and she laughs at herself when she thinks that but she doesnt know how else to describe him) just this tiny stressed kid with a surprisingly foul mouth. who likes playing loogie with richie and berating them all for not wearing sunscreen. but sometimes she thinks he’s like her. in what way, though, she doesnt know. its just, sometimes, when he thinks no one’s looking, she’ll see his face change. watch as it falls. he’ll look tired. he’ll look sad. and then one day he tells them all about his mother, his chest heaving, his expression all twisted up, and it all makes sense. and suddenly she’s never wanted to know someone so badly in her life. 

i wanted to ask why she was throwing you away after only a week, but i kept silent.

i went, of course. it was yours. i was on a flight that night and in new york by morning. when i showed up at your door and your wife welcomed me inside i almost burst into tears. i couldn’t find a trace of you anywhere. there was your sweater on the couch, and a wedding photo on the mantle, but nothing said “yes, eddie was here. this was his.” it was obvious you had lived there, but it didn’t feel like you had been alive. 

the box had been opened, momentos from childhood moved around in an attempt by your wife to figure out who you used to be.

(i didn’t have to search. i remembered everything. i loved you completely.)

your favorite comic book was sitting on top. and farther down, the mixtape i made you the night before you left. i still remember how you teared up when i handed it to you and how you whispered “thanks, rich” and how my heart broke. and there, that silly poem ben wrote for you that you had loved so much you kept it in your wallet. and there, the red string bracelet bev made you that you wore every day. and there and there and there. memory after memory.

(and you loved me the same.)

and at the bottom, shoved into a book, was a stack of polaroids. the one bev took of all of us boys at the quarry. the one of mike and bill on silver, mike standing with his arms spread out and bill grinning ear to ear. me, my face twisted as i did some stupid voice and you, head thrown back in laughter that i could hear, all those decades later. stan, binoculars to his eyes, sticking his tongue out at the camera. beverly squishing ben and bill’s faces, both of them with stars in their eyes. you, in the background of that one in the club house, glaring. stan, smiling and eating ice cream with bill in the corner of another.

and the last one, the one that made the tears finally come. you and stan, arms around each other, you so much shorter and stan so much sterner but both so young, so happy, so carefree that it made my heart ache. the water in the background shines and the walls of the quarry glow with afternoon light, even in the old film, and i wonder who’s behind the camera, who made you smile like that and who made stan glare like that, and i want to step into it, go back in time and wrap my arms around you both and just stay for a while. i can’t though. i know that. 

and i thought about you carrying this box around each time you moved, never opening it and never remembering what was in it and only knowing that you had to keep it with you, that your heart was inside. 

and i thought about our initials that i carved into the kissing bridge. and i thought about stan’s letter, folded over and over into a tiny square and nestled in my wallet. and i thought about your hoodie that i kept when i was packing up your things, the one that still smells like you. and i thought about the photos patty had sent all of us―after we got the letters and called and told her who we were―the ones of stan completely focused on his puzzle and of stan, laughing, glasses sliding down his nose and of stan holding a mug, eyebrows raised and of stan at their wedding, the happiest richie can ever remember him looking. 

(that’s all.)

and i slid the polaroid of you and stan into my wallet, right next to the letter, and i thought that neither of you are really gone. you’re in those photos. you’re in that bridge, that sweater, that letter. there are pieces of you everywhere. i can’t turn around without seeing you both.

They broke into Eddie’s room to keep him company while he was “sick”. Sonia doesn’t know, of course

Like what if one day Beverly was walking along the beach and she saw someone bird watching and she thinks “Stan had that bird book” and is really confused for a second before she shrugs it off

Or it’s been a few years since Eddie left Derry and he is out to eat with his friends and he orders bolognese and one of them laugh and say “Eddie Spaghetti” and then he just absentmindedly goes “beep beep Richie”

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Gasp! Some people have physical reactions to podcasts??? How ridiculous! /s

Truly, it must be so nice to not have negative physical reactions to things, to only have positive physical reactions. I can't relate, unfortunately. See, when I get stressed, I tend to get migraines and nausea, and the podcast stresses me out nowadays. It didn't used to, but now it does. So I don't listen to it anymore! But, see, I still have issues with it because it used to be really important to me and I know more about the bullshit going on now.

The cast has stolen plots from fanworks and hovered over fans (including repeatedly contacting them to inform them that they have seen their comments, both positive and negative), constantly joke about incest and pedophilia, refuse to address harmful practices/negligence in their Discord (including ignoring or even contributing to discussions about 13-year-olds' penises, kinky kids, etc.)...

I mean, it's up to you if none of this is a problem, but only for yourself. No one is obligated to feel like you do. I'm not demanding that anyone feel like I do. So I'm not sure what the problem is here.

If you don't like what someone says, block them. I'm not slapping your phone out of your handing or headphones off of your ears. Go nuts! Have fun! I can't enjoy the podcast anymore, and that's what I talk about. It's nice how we can do what we like and talk about what bothers us, isn't it?

first, I do get physical reactions when stressed. the problem is that in this case it is so easily avoidable? like, someones going out of their way to listen to something that they know makes them ill, and then spewing hate about it in the internet? on a hashtag where people who enjoy the podcast go to have fun? thats unhealthy, but you do you I guess.

I dont wanna defend everything the cast says or does because I really am not that invested and nobodys perfect so ill go to the interesting part.

Constant jokes about incest and pedophilia? I mean... there arent that many, and they are jokes about fictional people. I dont think making and laughing at a joke about a non existent 13yo not being able to masturbate in his house because of the fear of being caught makes you a child predator or even justifies constant hate

I could block everyone with an opinion I dont like, but I prefer to talk about it. Also, the same advice goes to you, you could not interact with the podcast and the community and not search the tags on tumblr but you do anyway and actively seek things that you hate.

Also bruh if you have ten sideblogs and they all revolve around hating on a group of people like this one (which is borderline stalkery and cyberbullying behavior) then i dont even know what to tell you.