#(funny thing is that i'm sure it would actually work)

[tumbleofwires]

It's funny that Tumblr is showing me this post on today of all days, because I've just made a discovery. I've had to practice cutting off toxic relationships in the past couple of years, sorta for the first time. It was a ride. An experience, a learning experience, to be sure. It wasn't fun at all and there was nothing in me that made me want to do it, except for the fact that I didn't want to be hurt anymore. But there was no, like, self-protective urge that was kicking in to keep me safe. I had to cognitively realize I was in bad situations, and convince myself to do what would be better for me. Even though they were good decisions, they really, really hurt. Now, for the first time, I'm experiencing something new. I'm in a situation where I recognize I want to keep up some strong boundaries with someone. But I don't have to fight the urge to do that. I don't actually *want* to talk to them any more than I need to. Or at least I feel like, now for the first time, I have the option to just not...engage them any more than I want to or have to. The fawn urge was there in the beginning, but as time goes on I feel more like I don't have to fawn. I almost feel like now that they're showing some of their true colours, they're not worth fawning to (which is not really how the fawn urge works, I'm just processing through it using words that make sense to me). So. That feels good. That feels like a good thing. It feels like I want to-- and more importantly *can*--protect myself. It feels like I have the ability. There's no surrender to the enemy, roll over dead and/or do what they say in order to protect yourself mandate. Even if that feeling comes back, I know now from experience that I don't have to do anything like that. They don't have any power over me. I have power over myself. Sometimes the feelings might be paralyzing or overwhelming, but I know now that there's a better way to do things and a better world out there for me. I don't think I knew that before.

sometimes you have to accept that people’s part in your story is over

[tanukitsuneko-suki]

build episode 37 thoughts:

- the suit actor for evol rabbit has a really nice ass

- the evol trigger doesn’t work even when he’s in sento’s body. i think it would be really funny if the reason why it fails is because he does not have love in his heart (ryusen love each other clearly that’s why the evol trigger works for them 😂)

- “sloppily possessing a human body is probably why i still can’t use the pandora box” no you’re just ugly

- I MISSED YOU SO MUCH. MY BABY

- HE CAN'T HENSHIN??!!?!?!?!?!?! IT'S SO FUCKING OVER YOU GUYS

- to be honest i thought the opening was kinda underwhelming when i first watched build but rn i'm in the middle of watching it and felt myself become teary-eyed what the fuck what the fuckkk

- 'my dna in you has been stripped away' oh okay so it's not selfcest then

- are we fucking serious

- my alien wife who is not an alien now so i cant even claim to be a monsterfucker anymore

- k-kazusen..(i get taken out the back and shot) (i really don't ship it as i am a senryu truther. but i would understand if this brought someone in a very deep rabbit hole..)

- my crackship (vernage and evolt)

- i wonder if evolt's personality changes slightly depending on who is his host (eg. becoming more curious about how humans work when he's with sento, aggressively attacking the country while he was with banjo, loving the 'game' and being playful while he was with soichi)

- in my head evolt isn't really a person in the conventional sense, but a culmination of impulses, the aggregation of desire and instinct. just like how the pandora box aroused the hidden ambitions and ruthlessness of everyone exposed to it, evolt for me at the moment is the personification of all these stray impulses, who does technically have its own thoughts but mostly goes along with the stupid selfish desires of those around it

- banjo asking gentoku to make him a rider as if gentoku wasn’t chilling by the sofa as the guys with actual illegal experiment knowledge aren’t the ones gassing the smashes up

- “i can’t do that for you. i don’t know a thing about science” i started tearing up giggling 😭😭 YEAH LIKE I SAIDDD

- “i got the job…” …BECAUSE OF NEPOTISM!??? IS HE GONNA ADMIT TO BEING A NEPO HIRE 😭

- 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

- this heated drama between men..

- “but i ended your girlfriend’s life” yeah damn his guilt runs deep because even EYE forgot about that

- nothing is funnier to me atm than kazumin and banjo setting their grudges aside to ask gentoku for help and he just. “I KILLED YOUR FRIENDS DO YOU REMEMBER‼️”

- gentoku: i killed your girlfriend

banjo: exactly.

gentoku: so why are you asking me

banjo: because of that, i didn’t want to lose anyone i cared about

second kasumi-sento parallel oh wow oh mann

- BANJO’S VOICE CRACKED OHHHHH EIJI AKASO YOU’RE DOING TOO MUCH YOUR CHARACTER SO TRAGIC YOUR SETTING TOO QUEER

- SENTO’S PHONE CALLING ENOUGHHHHHH

- i had to pause for a moment and stare outside because i had tears in my eyes when evolt said “even if you won’t see sento again?” GUYS PLEASE THIS BIG BAD VILLAIN OF THE SEASON IS A ONE-TRICK PONY ASS CLOWN AND YALL FALL FOR IT EVERY SINGLE TIME 😭😭

- evolt isn’t a mastermind he’s just a guy who discovered that if you threaten sento or banjo the other guy will for SURE do what you want . he just stumbled upon this bullshit cheat code and started using it every single goddamn time

- inukai looks really good acting like a villain asshole

- “i can erase his personality whenever i feel like it” ok now i’m not laughing

- kazusen..

- KAZUSEN… why are they getting moments all of a sudden.. stop it..

- jagaimo 😭😭😭😭😭😭 okay 🥔

- WAIT HE’S RIGHT…TOUTO HOKUTO SEITO RIDERS..TEAM UP..

- “but i can help build for a better one” HAHA

- MY WIFE😭😭😭

- AI WA MAKENAI 😭😭😭😭😭

- MAGMA WASN’T HIS FINAL FORM!?!?!!😭😭

- “we’ll create a future using the power you gave me” Ok

- i started tearing up cackling again what the actual FUCK banjo ryuga 😂🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

- HE’S BACK. ah. evolt!sento lasting for exactly two episodes…

- black hole… SHINDA HENSUU DE KURIKAESU. KAZOE KOTO GA HARANDA NETSU

- SENRYU REUNITING..! ALSO THE WAY BANJO CALLED OUT SENTO’S NAME…AUUUUUU

- “… you are—“ oh SHIT IS THIS KATSURAGI

- WE’RE HIT WITH A GODDAMN AMNESIA PLOT??!!!!!! FUCK OFF 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

- i hate it here

[sketchehm]

hi, im realising a slight obsession with vampires again anyway

does the town have any kind of wrong information? Because with all the warnings, theres probably something that got exaggerated or is believed just to be cautious like the poisonous bite? Cause based on how you formulated it, it seems thats something that might not be true 👀

also for the bitten vampire that comes across a lone Dream i have different ideas with different paths:

a) Bad or Techno who find Dream and want to genuinely take care of this fledgling who seems abandoned (potentially also with them knowing Dream as a human and recognising him, and that also fuelling a bit of possessivness)

b) Team Mafia because yes. them being a group of vampires that had to move around as something happened to their old place. they find Dream and note how he seems alone and figure it's best if he has someone around him

c) Sam wants to ensure Dream can't accidently or intentionally harm anyone (but tbh, just wanting to have him and care for him because they knew each other. and sam has been a vampire for longer. and maybe also had a crush on Dream when they were kids. and still has said crush)

but also the idea of it being someone with no good intentions at all and sap and george having to rescue Dream from him and then potentially one of the others coming by and helping (potentially because that vampire has been noticeable to other vampires before in a bad way)

You know what's wild and crazy. I was in the middle of writing up something about the bitten vampire who found dream when I got this ask lmao

But first! What's myth and legends and what's truth. (I love world building here lmao so buckle up)

Now. A lot of what I'm describing about vampires does come from the vampire video, which! Is all about vampire myth and legends, folklore. It's all fake yea? And it has so many fascinating things I never even thought about being vampire related. And there really was a point where I wanted it All to be truth in this AU. All this folklore ends up being the reality of this world. But that's not, like, feasible. However!!

Because there's plenty of vampire stuff that is from modern times that is nowhere related to folklore ya know? Like Sires and fledglings and covens and all that jazz. Which I like to think is Vampire Knowledge. How they know a Sire's blood is what helps a new fledgling fully develop their vampiric traits. The basically telepathic connection vampires have with their covers and fledglings. How vampires know a fledgling will subconsciously have their Sire crave to take care of them. Along with different bits and pieces that'll surely come up later. But basically how a vampiric society actually functions is not really a known thing in the human world.

Human Knowledge would be the folklore stuff. Which is all very...iffy. A lot of it sounds, weird and strange, how could anyone have thought this and this event were the cause of vampires, so on and so forth. Like how the plague(kinda) or natural disasters(not) were the works of a vampire. How they thought maybe rats were a cause for vampirism too(not).

Now the thing about our folklore is that humans never really see...a walking moving vampire ya know?(cause they aren't real) and it's always about exhuming corpses and finding blood at the ends of their mouths, which means vampire!(along with other various weird corpse decaying things that were blamed on vampirism) which makes it really funny picking and choosing what's real and what isn't because if these people are basing their research on exhumed corpses too, there are bound to be a whole lot of misconceptions. (But that's mostly to... describe the appearance of vampires lol)

So it's up in the air for me how humans discover a lot of these things but I do wanna say Most of their knowledge about vampires are based on unbitten vampires.

As I mentioned before, Sapnap and George's town preserve a lot of the "folklore" of vampires in this world, unbitten folklore really(though they dont really know the difference all too well). Since you know, those are typically the ones that randomly appear in human settlements.

And it's like....why does that happen then? How come unbittens occur? And I do want to say Vampirism in itself is just a curse on the world and I wanna say its a troubled unsatisfied human soul that gets turned into a vampire if it dies suddenly, still wanting more in the world. I guess it's a curse and a blessing? Getting a second chance for unfinished buisness.

And this...curse, well it does have a time limit. Or well. It /did/. Unbittens were the first kind of vampires, perhaps a blessing by whatever higher power, something that would allow humans to be given a little extra time after death to finish everything they thought they needed to do in life, being a sort of immortal beast, unable to be sick or easily killable so they have the best possible chance of completing their task. Before a kind of madness takes over and kills an unbitten through the sheer mental torture (oops this blessing not having a good way out, silly higher power)

And what ends up happening is humans forming all these "warnings" about how a vampire comes to be. It always seems to be people who were "bad" in/at life that seem to return as the undead. So a lot of the tales were shaped around that, such as being a "troublemaker" or being a highway man/crominal, dying alone and unloved, or perhaps a disease taking you too soon, ...suicide. A lot of the true ways unbittens happen is knowing if the human had a very sorrowful life/end....A lot of people who were wronged in this world are the kind of people to turn (unfortunately?). Though being "wronged" is very....debatable to the curse. Someone who's extremely greedy suddenly dying and unfulfilled because they continue to want to be greedy wouldn't trigger the curse. But say...a known and hated thief suddenly dying...well if said thief died feeling unfilled because they still have two people they need to look after and care for, to at least say goodbye to them, to say they love them one last time....well the curse would "bless" them with that chance.

There's also toss up reasons like....someone who is perceived a bad person because they outwardly act cruel but are just craving validation or something of that sort, suddenly dying, unfulfilled in life, then turning, just wanting to maybe make things right, or to enjoy just a little longer as their true selves and not this person they created themselves to be..

But like...no one wants to die. And in ye olden days, when unbittens were common enough that people knew there's a chance at becoming one. People mostly knowing that unbittens weren't really monsters back then, they were just people who wanted one more thing in life, as a goodbye, before they're in peace. Maybe they used to be well received back then. Maybe people helped them die again to prevent the mental anguish...

But if you kinda know youre going to become an undead, and know the little extra time you're blessed with afterwards isn't enough....Running away once you wake up again not wanting the people in your community to /kill/ you before you go mad(even if its for your own good, to die in peace this time). Surely there's a way to keep living. Surely there's a way for more /time/.

And when too much time has passed. Too much to still be standing but still persevering, the madness almost too much. Noticing a random traveler. Being so so /hungry/.

Then your mind becoming so clear. Like something that was tearing apart your very soul just disappearing. But noticing all the /blood/ everywhere. Especially in your mouth.

I wanna say bitten vampires came to be from unbitten who needed more time, who found the loophole to the curse. Blood containing the life they need to continue on. And if they kept drinking, their mind will always be at peace. Never again suffering and becoming basically immortal. An unbitten finding a victim but not killing them, realizing it just created another vampire. Maybe because it was a sudden death? Not knowing how to handle this newly turned vampire and leaving it.

This happening too often and people getting killed by rouge undead, rouge vampires. Killing people and animals to quell the insanity thats gripping their mind. Legends and myths changing, vampires being an evil Monster because of this...

Yet....when an unbitten turns someone, and cherishes and nurtures them(maybe someone they loved, someone they were able to restrain themselves from killing). Not having enough blood to feed their new companion, knowing that madness will take them if they can't get blood. So they make the sacrifice of giving their own. In hopes they live. And a bitten fledgling is born.

Blood from a vampire having a unique effect, it's blood of a curse(blood of a blessing).

And time will go on and on, stories changing, history lost and learned, and societies developing. Until we get to our boys :)

So to answer the question, yea. The town does have a lot of wrong things. Thinking the saliva of a vampire is what turns someone is correct in a sense, because being bitten has turned people (to go off the video, it said people would get super sick for 3 days, die, and become a vampire). But that food that was bitten by a vampire, say cattle, consuming the meat would also turn you into a vampire. Which is...kinda true...a half truth. If the slab of meat you got still had the lingering essence of a vampire, yea unfortunately ya gonna get the vampire plague :/ (which I wanna say bitten vampires still don't fully understand how it happens either. They just know an unbitten biting a human and not killing them will make them sick and die eventually :/...vampire rabies....and most likely become a vampire. I do wanna say there's a failure rate but...that's for another time :)

It was just easier to head a warning like "the food bitten by a vampire will turn you" than a "OK well actually if you just kinda avoid those bits and just prepare everything really well and not eat it any sorts of raw, ya probably fine tbh...also dont share spit..."

I wanna say the way it actually happens is...yes it's basically transmitted through the saliva of a vampire but....the vampire needs to have this kind of desperate urge to live for it to work. Cause then the curse is kinda...most active in them ya know? The curse transfers through them to the victim in a way. Though. The curse has to be the one that kills them, not the vampire. At least.....That's how it works for the unbitten.

So unbitten vampires being desperate for blood because they want to live and get madness out of their head, yea the curse is pretty active!

But a Dream peacefully eating and content with George and Sapnap feeding him prey they found in the woods. Nothings gonna happen. George and Sapnap could very well skin the pelt and cook up the rabbit or whatever they caught after Dream is done with it. Instead of like...burning it to char :/

Other things that the town have wrong! (That George and Sapnap(and Dream) may or may not believe in)

- Vampires obsessed with untying knots(no, idk where they got that from)

- Vampires cause famine (if ya got some rouge running around and scaring away hunts and cattle making meat harder to get, ok yea, that's on them....they dont affect crops.)

- Eating dirt from a Vampire's grave (after supposedly being bitten) would cure you of vampirism (No, don't eat dirt)

- a Vampire will return to its grave if it was buried (No. Most unbitten do end up dying if they were buried. But if they manage to dig themselves out, they ain't going back in. This is based more on the exhumed bodies of alleged vampires)

- Vampires are a supernatural all powerful creature (no, kinda. Unbittens aren't, that's basically a human still)

- Certain hallucinogentic plants can cause vampirism (no that's just someone who's high that went coo-coo crazy)

- Being an alcoholic can cause vampirism (not really. Depends on the person's life and whether it triggers the curse)

- An unproper funeral would be a cause for vampirism (no. Religion has nothing to do with vampirism(unless the religious trauma caused a very unfilled life oops))

-All sorts of body decaying things indicating that a dead body is a vampire (swollen body, liquid/uncoagulated blood leaking from the mouth, eyes, or ears, new fingernails/fresh looking skin weeks after death, ect.) (That's just decomposition, not a vampire)

- Vampires have no bones anymore and are just full of blood (based on how very difficult it is to kill a bitten vampire and bone breaking weapons not seeming to break any bones??(it can just not easily) An unbitten would have very obvious bones broke though...)

- Vampires have a sharpen pointed tongue to cut flesh easier (kinda of mixed up in the whole unbitten creating bitten vampires and those bitten vampires being able to bite through skin easily for blood, since unbitten back then were known to not have sharpen teeth there was a lot of confusion happening tbh (their modern day knowing vampires have sharpen teeth now, they just think the tongue thing also is a feature they have lmao))

- Vampires are just mindless creatures set on just drinking blood (that's just cause humans mostly experience a rouge vampire desperate for blood attacking them. The original plot of undead needing extra time for unfinished buisness got super lost in the whole....vampires killing humans bit)

- Vampires barely speak and will mostly groan (no. This is again based on exhumed corpses lmao)

- Vampires are allergic to daylight. (No. It's just easier at night, freshly turned are just very sensitive to most things but it mellows once they get used to it)

- Vampires can survive purely on animal blood (kinda...? You'll just get a really weak and continuously hungry vampire, with just enough sense to not start attacking randomly)

- Vampires will not only drink blood but also eat and mangle livestock and humans (no....? A rouge vampire desperate for blood might get a bit too vicious with whatever they ended up catching...though most of these accounts were actually animal attacks...)

- Vampires turn into bats. (Vampires have nothing to do with bats.)

- Vampires are also werewolves(i.e. turn into wolves) (no...those are just wolf attacks)

There's probs a butt ton more I could come up with tbh Most of these basically coming from the video really haha. (I feel like how to Kill a Vampire is a whole separate case of what's truth and what isn't that can be for another time)

BUT YEA. Humans are....not the /best/ source of what is and isn't a vampire/vampire behavior.

George and Sapnap do slowly learn what is and isn't true the longer they're with Dream, though most things Dream can't really prove (do vampires go back to their grave? Probably, Dream just never got buried really so that doesn't count)

Unbittens don't really survive long enough for a bitten to find and basically.. find out more either. So unfortunately, humans have the best unbitten vampire knowledge lmao (they kinda just throw random bad occurrences as a vampire's fault and sees what sticks) Though again....humans aren't really aware there /is/ a difference between bitten and unbitten.

So George and Sapnap (and Dream) will be...very suprised by what a bitten vampire is capable of when meeting one :3c

WHICH. I considered that I should just copy/paste what I have onto here when I first read this ask. But. This has become a lot of world building and the bitten vampire bit I think is also gonna be pretty long and have more world building. And the two should probs be separated. So I think I'll post that separately TwT

Though I will say I did choose Techno to be the bitten :3

What is funny though, I couldn't really think of anyone else to be the bitten and then reading your ask I'm like oh wait those are good...LOL

I actually...haven't fleshed out...the different people I want in this AU funny enough. I've been so focused on world building that I forgot there's people.. outside of dteam LOL

And your mentions gives me. Ideas :3c

Like Techno can find Dream first, but that doesn't mean other bitten don't find him either!

It is...a baby in the middle of a forest tbh...with no sire in sight....

It also gave me the idea of bitten very easily blending in with human society if they wanted to tbf. (Unbitten technically can too, but...their instincts are very.....baby coded(impulsive) unfortunately....and that makes it difficult to properly assimilate...)

I can imagine Bad being the baker who always gave dteam any leftover baked treats at the end of the day. Unknowing to them that he's a vampire...

That after Dream turns, some of the goodies snf bring back smelling....weird...and it makes his instincts kinda freaked out a little but he doesn't know why...at least, not yet. (It does end up making him super clingy to the two, his brain telling him he has to get rid of the smell somehow!!)

(Bad eventually figuring out why Dream is not the one picking up the treats anymore when he can smell a very distinct fledgling scent on snf...oh muffins...)

Team Mafia does give me...nomadic coven kind of vibe maybe(very rare for vampires to travel for fun, almost unheard of a whole coven doing that!) Though I think it'd be really interesting of them being a side plot with Sapnap lmao (poor Sapnap coming across these idiots alone and terrified for his life being surround by a coven of vampires who think he'd be their perfect fledgling heh) (LOTS of ideas for this one lmao)

Sam, I want to say, is an inventor and is called out to bigger towns/cities for his inventions and expertise but his hometown is where dteam are. Always having a crush on the troublemaker orphan that's always stealing from his neighbors. Unfortunately, seems like he promised himself to two other people, his soulmates he calls them. And yea. It hurt a little...but he got over it (he swears!!) And if Sam is always...dropping little trinkets that he knows Dream will find and be able to pawn off for some gold, something so he can keep his belly full, well...

I do want to say on one of Sam's travels he does end up getting bit...and taken to a coven...where...yea they were taking care of him as a fledgling and he was learning the ins and outs of vampiric society, but its been a couple of years....and he didn't want to be there. He wanted to go home. And so he ran away(as much as his instinct begged and pleaded to stay with his sire....)

Maybe Bad finds him, able to sense a fledgling in the town and takes care of him :(!! Sam is still very much a baby vampire and happily is accepting Bad as a new Sire (maybe his old one was bad...)

Sam is a little baby fledgling that should be in a nest too! Should be in one for years and years and years and despite Bad's insistence, Sam wants to continue his life!! (Wants to see Dream again!!)

Unfortunate that right before he got back Dream had his accident :(

So when Sam comes across a baby fledgling Dream!!! Barely a few months old!!! Maybe the fates were bringing them together!! He can just take Dream and take care of him and be so good for him and!!!

(Dream stop struggling what the heck, let's go home, stop, you need blood in you I know someone who can help, Dream wait please >:(!!! JUST STAY STILL!!)

Very scared Dream wants his Sires to come rescue him :(

For no good intentions. I do think rouge/unbitten vampires are generally looked down upon in Vampire society. Only cause they're also known to be kind of mindless and blood hungry. The unbitten of olde are really just legends for vampire kind. Only by chance was an unbitten able to turn into a bitten pshh

Bittens are...scary good at assimilating...and sometimes bitten really have a bad hatred for rouge vampires (should be put down, a disgrace really) So...there /are/ vampires who are part of hunter groups...(these vampires are considered a kind of pure-ist? Very...radical thinking in the vampire world I think)

And be it maybe Q or Punz(maybe the hunter groups knows Punz is a vampire and they're just paying him handsomely to be a kind of tracker for rouges) or someone else part of these hunter groups and ends up finding Dream...curious enough to want to find out how this unbitten isn't the ravaging beast that he's expected to be...and maybe he can be used for more...nefarious things...(killing a bitten is hard, but their fangs sell really well on the black market....and having a crying stressed fledgling is a really good way of attracting bitten and making them vulnerable :)

But yea!

[totally-not-spani]

it is them. it is their meme

(pretty sure this one was already made by someone but uhhh!!!)

[feroluce]

So I went to the wiki page for the henghill Bullet & Brain mission of 2.2 looking for some dialogue I had missed and

a) I found something incredibly tasty that slotted into some other thoughts I'd been having, more on that on another day, and

b) I saw this super fun little trivia at the bottom, which!

I knew Penacony characters like Boothill took a lot of inspirations from old movies, but I didn't realize it was even in his and Dan Heng's relationship, that's so cool!!

It fits them very well, it's such a fun reference. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was an old buddy Western film (from 1969- nice) about a pair of outlaws. Butch Cassidy was the leader of a gang, and described as clever, affable, and talkative. Meanwhile, his closest companion, the Sundance Kid, was known as a man of few words.

Cassidy's original birth name was much more plain, but similar to Boothill, he took on a new moniker when he became an outlaw. "Cassidy" had been the last name of his beloved mentor, who taught him how to shoot and ride. And Sundance Kid was known as he was because Sundance was the name of his hometown, and it was the only place that had ever managed to catch and jail him, back when he'd been younger (also similar to Dan Heng, but ouch).

These two stick together like glue throughout the length of the film- through Cassidy's leadership of the gang being challenged, through a train robbery gone wrong, through being pursued by mercenaries, and even through fleeing to Bolivia and trying to start over together.

I don't want to say too much more, since the mission title is referencing one specific movie that I've never seen. I kinda wanna watch it now, though, just to see the inspiration that went into Boothill and Dan Heng and how they get along. I just think it's really sweet that these two were literally made to be the best of bros, how lovely is that. 💕

[sysig]

Go play pretend on your own (Patreon)

[twpsyn-who]

People saying "Don't boycott Eurovision or Israel will win!!" - they already won the second they got past the semifinals. Israel is going to be the winner of this year, especially with the way things are going down at the moment.

You wanted Israel to not win? You guys should've made sure they didn't get to the finals to begin with- though I wouldn't doubt EBU would've changed some votes or pulled some bullshit to add Israel in the finals regardless of making it or not.

[antiadvil]

Also: THEY FIXED MY FOLLOWER COUNT

[kindlythevoid]

On Abigail and Shawn's Relationship (Psych)

~By someone who's only halfway through Psych~

I actually really liked Abigail and her place in Psych. She's obviously a tie to Shawn's past, but I think she plays an important part beyond just being an obstacle for Shules. For one thing, she feels like a fleshed out character. She has a personality, and while it feels like it's meant to bounce off Shawn's, very similar humor-wise imo, it still very much feels like her own; she has her own ambitions and her own life outside of Shawn and Psych. She likes people, she believes in education, she's a teacher, these are all aspects of her that come out in her time on the show (trying to fix Henry and Shawn's relationship (which I address a lil in the tags), otherwise respecting Shawn's distance, going to her teacher conference instead of the skiing trip, leaving for Uganda for an opportunity she's wanted for six years). She's also still clearly affected by the fact that Shawn had stood her up way back in high school, and this connection is what makes her such an important character for Shawn's development, imo.

Abigail is her own person, but she also serves as a waypoint for Shawn. He gets to fix his mistake of standing her up, and he also learns how to function in a long-term relationship. While admittedly having the relationship start with a "Gus, I can totally do it, watch this" isn't the best, it's reasonable for his character and serves as a wonderful beginning point for his maturation arc. Throughout the relationship, Gus (and company) helps Shawn navigate the differences between a fling and a long-term relationship. He starts to mature and understand that he has to check in with Abigail, he has to make dates and stick with them, he has to have mature conversations with her, he has to respect her time, etc.

Furthermore, it also helps Abigail get over said past mistake. She gets to take her relationship with Shawn one step further, feel it out, see how it would have gone, as Shawn progresses from child-like understanding of relationships to a more mature, grown-up perspective. His repeated showing up, starting from the moment he turned down Juliet in the drive-in because he had a standing date with Abigail (even though he was in love with Juliet at the time; honestly one of the biggest bullets dodged in the show; I have never seen a situation handled so neatly. There was no two-timing, no lying (well, minor lying to Abigail, ig), and they really tried to reinforce their platonic relationship instead of ignoring a possible wedge between them. It was so... refreshing.) I would bargain actually heals something in Abigail, showing her that Shawn is willing to step up as well as that Abigail is someone worth showing up for. It isn't as clear an arc for her, but I'd wager it's there, at least in the background, which is what makes their relationship so interesting.

In the end, the relationship works as a waypoint for the both of them. Shawn learns what it means to be in a long-term relationship, preparing him for a future with Juliet. In return, Abigail has a chapter of her life closed on a high note and is able to move on with her life without the what-ifs and emotional burdens of her past.

[isolophilian]

me @ Disney: make Smelly Gabe a sculpture or Mickey fucking gets it

[shitpostroundhouse]

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent game related things .. hrmm...

[angeltism]

"spar.kle is fictional who cares" I have seen people praising her for her racist anti-romani comments what the fuck kind of world do you live in

[vulturvolanss]

as much as i see posts about alhaitham not having a single social clue and agree with all my heart i do not agree he's an intj. he's an entj with little social acumen and i will die on this fucking hill.

[liar-remastered-2011]

i think the lady at the doctor's office today is a vampire

she took my blood........

[inbabylontheywept]

the fine and subtle art of arguing with old men

it was a good week for testing which meant it was a slow week for me. most of my job is fixing the machine when it goes down. if it doesn't go down, i don't have much to do. 

fortunately neither did marc. in a site full of ornery old bastards, he's the oldest and the orneriest, so it goes without saying that i enjoy spending time with him. he reminds me of my grandpa. hell, he reminds me of a lot of people. i've befriended enough grumpy old men that i've got a sort of momentum to it now - you know how it is, when you meet someone that reminds you of someone else you really like. you get to start that friendship off half built, because you already have an idea of how to like that guy, and some of that old warmth can be brought to the new friendship. a little ember to start the stove up with.

(i think that's one of the really undersold beauties of getting older. you stop viewing people as strangers and more like remixes of friends.)

anyway, i was sitting next to marc and we were talking about the future. i've got my eye on having kids sometime soon (year or two? hopefully?), and he's very happy for me. i've tried asking him for advice, but all he says is that he didn't do a great job with his own kids and they still turned out okay, so i should stress less and trust myself more. i hope he's right. he believes it, at least, and it's a hell of a thing to have the faith of an old man. his faith is hard won.

as for his plans, he's retiring at some point in the next six months, and is hoping to sell his home and buy something in florida. he's republican, so he views the state as paradise, and i'm not inclined to even try talking him out of it. it's his dream, you know? i know for a fact my paradise would be a lot of people's hell. life's funny like that.

still, we kept going on, and it was a good time, and then he reminisced about the last time he got close to quitting - back around 2020. our job required getting vaxxed, and he refused, and there was a big kerfuffle about it before the job actually backed down. i know there's not a lot of sympathy for the unvaxxed out here, but the man's 62. you get the shot when you're under 30 to protect the people around you, but when you're over 60, you're just getting it to protect yourself and it's hard to be mad at someone for kicking their own ass. 

still gave me pause though. i knew he wasn't going to take it well, but half the job of collecting curmudgeons is keeping them around, so i said 

hey. i'm sorry they bent your arm over it, but.

but. 

you should really get that shot. 

and he looked over at me, and i looked at him, and he actually spat. not on me, just the concrete, but it was enough to show that he was mad. then he walked away, as abrupt as anything.

i felt bad about it. i wasn't sure what i'd expected, when he was willing to lose his job over it before, but i'd been so invested in his dream of retirement - the idea of him sipping margaritias on a beach next to his wife, the wife he calls every day during lunch, the wife he says is the one thing in life he ever got right on the first try. the wife that almost divorced him back when he was in the airforce because he just wasn't home enough. 

(but he can be home now.) 

and then he mentioned the vax thing, and it was like seeing a pin hit a balloon. he works out every day and takes all sorts of crazy vitamins and is generally committed to getting the most out of his pension and his life. i didn't want this dumb weak point to be his achilles heel. 

---

i wasn't actually sure how long marc would be mad at me. i've seen him stay mad at some people for weeks. i wasn't sure if being friends would make that time go up or down. 

it went down. i'm glad it went down. 

he stopped being mad about two days later. we were doing front end maintenance one morning, and it was just that simple mechanical rhythm - hex key, replace the anode sheets, punch some off-gassing holes, oil it up, put it back in - that put things at ease. it always does. people working there are too busy to remember grudges, and it has this sort of mandatory practical communication that helps smooth things over. it was going great, and then out of the blue he said babs, you gotta be careful giving advice. those shots come with complications. what would you do if i got that shot, had a stroke, and died? 

and i don't know what answer he was expecting, but i just told him the truth, which is that i would be devastated. i'd feel like i killed him. i thought that was a pretty normal response, but he looked taken aback. he asked why i said it then, and i said i'd have felt the same if he died of covid. that's just life. sometimes, there's no way forward that doesn't risk some kind of regret. 

we finished the tube after that, in a silence that felt heavier than peace but lighter than anger. it felt like the ball was back in marc's court. like it would be rude to take that turn from him. 

we parted ways with a nod and didn't speak until the next day. 

---

i was doing spreadsheet work when he found me again. standard paper engineering - thinking of things we might need and ordering them in batches, months ahead of time. it always feels a little like plugging holes in a dam with my fingers. 

but he popped up, and we didn't even exchange pleasantries. he just said i'm gonna die one day, and you can't blame yourself for that. 

which is a hell of a thing to just tell someone right off the bat. 

so i said what 

and he said babs, i am in my 60s. something is gonna get me eventually, and whether it's covid or heart disease, or a stroke, there will be something you could have said or done before. and that's okay. it's not your job to make me live forever. 

and you know, he actually made a lot of sense. so i said 

okay. 

i'll keep your business yours. i just

you were talking about your retirement before this. and i want that for you very much. you've worked hard for 45 years, and you deserve a break. we're getting to sick season, and it would be the saddest fucking thing in the world if you got this close to winning the race then tripped in the last ten feet. 

and we sat there a few moments longer. i wasn't sure what to say, and i wasn't sure what he'd say, but eventually he just shrugged and said

yeah 

then he left. i figured that would be the end of it. 

---

i did front end maintenance yesterday, after being gone a week. it's one of my favorite things to do. i like working with my hands. i really like working with my hands. i'm glad i went to college, but in a different life, i think i could've made a better electrician than an electrical engineer. 

and at one step, when we were both hoisting the plate back onto the machine, his sleeve rode up, and i saw two bandaids on his arm. 

we finished the install, and i was ready to go back when marc actually stopped me. 

i got the shot, he said, almost embarrassed. like he'd been caught. and i knew he was gonna say something dumb about it, so i just cut him off by giving him a hug. 

i was relieved. hugging old men is kind of like picking up cats. if they like you a lot, they'll tolerate it, but that's about it. we sat there maybe three beats before his hands went up, and then he gave me one overly-hard thump on the back. in my experience, this is how old men tell you that they're done, so i let him go.

carla talked me into it, he said, almost defensive. his wife. his one good decision.

tell her i said thanks, i said back.

trump got the shot too, he said, less defensive, but oddly pleading. like he was consoling himself.

like he was nervous.

then it's gotta be safe, i said, and he looked up at me, strangely searching, strangely vulnerable. i don't know exactly what he was looking for, but i guess he found it because after a few moments his shoulders relaxed.

yeah, he said, one hand on the back of his head.

it's gotta be.