#I have so much story for her but no name lmao

[xinganhao]

some notes on to all the boys i've loved before!svt (hyung and maknae) | 💌 est. release dates for special chapters -> feb. 13, thurs (hyung) & feb. 15, sat (maknae), gmt+8.

(1) in the smau, cheol is 'your best friend's brother', but it was originally supposed to be something else: 'your [older] brother's best friend'! i brought it up in conversation with someone (chugging-antiseptic-dye, i think) and was convinced to do a switcheroo at the last minute.

it's acknowledged in the first line of the letter ("this is the cliche of all cliches...") but something about cheol just slots into the trope all too well. i've seen people joke that he's a strong start, and i blame myself for squeezing the 'pretty girl' and 'gorgeous' pet names in one screenshot. lmao.

(2) jeonghan being an upperclassman at the school play was a call made by diamonddaze01, with respect to jeonghan having attended an acting institute for a short while. initially, the 'main lead' trope was supposed to be seokmin's— but i was convinced that jeonghan's acting background is way too underutilized in fic. [linking jeonghan's acting stint in KIGGEN(키겐) ((PHANTOM)(팬텀)) _ PLAYBACK(다시보기) for funsies!]

the little letter is so jeonghan as well, particularly "you didn't have to be so nice to us." i think it's very telling of hannie, to crack jokes and give words of encouragement even to the 'smallest' role in a production.

(3) i have zero shame in admitting that this trope came way too easily to me. guitar teacher!shua? sign me the fuck up. it's a blend of all his little passions— the guitar, other people, etc.— and so it was a bit of a no-brainer. couple that with his politeness over the letter and you have something that is just so shua-coded.

i have visions of fingers with embeddings of the strings, of shua's eyes crinkling in quiet laughs as he teaches you to play. it's all in the letter, and i'm just amused at the thought of MC being so distracted over her crush on shua that she didn't learn anything past the most basic song to play on guitar.

(4) nothing like a good rivals to ...? trope to get the blood pumping! i will be honest: if i had a say, my hyung line vote would go to junhui. the ending line in his letter ("wen junhui, if i didn't know any better— i'd say that you liked me a little bit, too") was my absolute favorite for the hyung ver.

this one has a healthy dose of emotional constipation/tsundere!jun/etc., although here is also a small confession: the trope was initially soonyoung's. i switched it out after staring a little too long at his exclusive fairytale photos.

(5) among the hyung line, this was the one i settled on last, if only because i had to pull that switch. this was prior to soonyoung admitting he knows how to get latte to stop kissing him ([sighs heavily]). i was thoroughly amused by MC falling for the owner of the pet she sits often.

i like the line "you care deeply for all loving things, big and small" in the letter, if only because i think it's characteristic of how soonyoung is as a person. latte is technically a plot device (lol) in this story, although i can just imagine how part-lovable/part-insufferable soonyoung would be as a client.

(6) this is not the first gamer!wonwoo trope you will see. it will not be the last. this was also a relatively easy trope to assign, although a expounds on it by referring to wonwoo as "the guy you meet/play with on the League of Legends forums." i make a passing LoL reference in the letter, because that's the foundation of the crush: the bespectacled guy on the other side of the screen who will beg and borrow for one more game with you.

i tend to make my gamer!wonwoo's a little more on the awkward/'loser' side, so the cockiness in the texts are certainly new. i didn't want to get too nsfw on the main (lmaooo) so the jab of "i didn't know you liked my fingers that much, though" is up to your imagination. (:

(7) in her reblog of the hyung post, heartepub says something to the extent of "i can imagine jihoon's fingers shaking as he types out 'if you want'" and it endeared me to no end, because of course. anicon-goer jihoon is another stroke of brilliance for a. in hindsight, i think it's just a little too niche to hit the right makrs, but i wanted to do something that was characteristic to the members.

this almost became something akin to jihoon falling for a cosplayer/being a cosplayer himself; i don't think i had enough room to worldbuild that much, though. overall, this is adjacent to a more tsundere jihoon/a jihoon that reciprocates but cannot confess.

(8) on a technical end, i'd written mingyu's letter first buuut i rewrote it... and so i consider seokmin's the first that i really wrote for the maknae line. immediately, i was worried i'd be screwed and everybody would be able to tell that i am madly in love with this man. anyway. we ball.

for the maknae line, my vote admittedly goes to seok! one part i really enjoy is the parallels between "everything good about the summers… the hot days, the crackle of campfires, the chirping of cicadas" -> "you're the sun, seokmin. you're the fire; you're the song", which is really just MC's roundabout way of confessing that seokmin is everything good about her summers.

(9) it took several consultations with maplegyu to nail gyu's trope. she's eventually the one who came up with the prospect of him being that handsome constant on public transportation. the letter says a lot about mingyu's more caring attributes, and there's also a bit of a parallel to hannie's.

mingyu doesn't have to be nice, to be sweet, and yet he wants to. <- this was a concept i'd wanted to integrate in the texts, but since the texts come first, i didn't know how to make it seamless. the vague idea here is "is mingyu sweet to you because he likes you, or is he like that to everybody?"

(10) combining the two things i love (bookstores + minghao) is, unfortunately, a cheap shot on my end. bookstore cashier!minghao sliding in with a pickup line alluding letters to milena just had me shaking my head at myself, honestly.

i couldn't resist sliding in a small poetry reference. his letter ends with "xu minghao, you could sell me the world" -> which is a shameless allusion to maggie smith's good bones, namely the part where it goes "i am trying / to sell them the world. any decent realtor, / walking you through a real shithole, chirps on / about good bones."

(11) the idea of 'weekend warrior' seungkwan entails some backstory-telling, since i feel like it doesn't translate too well in text/letter: seungkwan is a guy you run into a lot at your weekend markets. the two of you exchanged numbers, mostly for convenience, to discuss produce and essentially find somebody to go with! for my fellow filipinos, the scene i have in mind is comparable to the salcedo saturday market hehe.

i've gotten a number of reactions to seungkwan's 'mrs. boo' quote, which, you know what? completely valid. MC x seungkwan bicker like an old couple, and the thought of a seungkwan on the flirtier end is just a little too good to pass up on.

(12) 'friend of a friend' vernon is a very specific trope wherein you find your acquaintance/etc. attractive and desirable. there's a joke constantly made that a crush is only a crush until you find out more about them, and i feel like that's the vibe of this particular verse. vernon is ~mysterious~ and [seemingly] unattainable, making him the guy of your dreams.

the letter is vague enough. the texts are a little more in character, in what (i hope 🤞) reads like actual textspeak you might expect from this Man.

(13) i do think it's worth clarifying that chan is not blood-related to MC; 'auntie's son' had a longer title ('the son of your mother's friend') that didn't quite roll off the tongue lol. this one has two lines i enjoyed writing ("i think i'm supposed to fall in love with you" + "i don't want to have you, because then i stand the chance of losing you), and overall just slots right into the childhood friends to ...? trope.

i've grown quite fond of the more sunshine-y aspects of chan's personality, hence the excitability and sarcasm in the texts. it's a bit of a puppy love situation, admittedly, and it's a question of whether that's enough for something real.

thank you for receiving this little project so well! :") whenever i do annotations, i always say "this story is yours now"— but the choose-your-own adventureness of it all makes it all the more true.

see you all for the special chapter! xo linking one final time for those who want to cast votes/reread:

[yesimwriting]

omg irl (personally) i would get so fed up with armand like... nothing's ever straightforward with you... there he goesss with his ulterior motives.

I love how you describe Louis' worry in the latest chapter, because as anon requested, it is the crashout of all crashouts BUT its so sublty written and kept between the lines (big kudos to you) because Louis is not burning and killing 20% of the vampiric population like he did in paris BUT there are hints/implication present that he absolutely would do something much worse to protect and/or avenge bestie reader.

And it really shows during the part after the phonecall when he's thinking to himself. Him repeating Josh's name like a mantra??? Girl his last victim was in the year 2000 but im sure he's willing make sure josh will never use both of his wrists to operate a car ever again lmao. Also, being an english speaking foreigner, i'm usually able to keep my accent at bay but i know damn well that Nola accent was HEARD through that damn phone. This reminds me of that older brother vibe ask of yours you wrote before. We all know he booked a flight arriving after sunset so he can personally drive and pick her up from the airport. Also stand as close as possible by the arrivals so she doesn't need to carry her luggage with a broken wrist.

His worry over the medication that makes her drowsy??? Omg Louis loves her so much its sickening what the hell. I need to see Daniel catching bestie in 4k, casually snoozing peacefully with Louis bc she feels so safe and i need daniel to snap a picture to blackmail louis with it later. (the 70 year old senior is louis younger brother confirmed by jacob anderson himself lmao)

The one hundred thousand over set price for her painting reference???? So Louis doesn't even know, I wonder where armand is keeping the painting. I also wonder what his intentions are with reader. Like... what are his feelings, is his interest romantic, platonic, sexual or something completely different.

Now bestie reader is so gen z and i know for a fact the people in this generation will see bullshit from miles away. (we've been trained by social media) I love the idea of armand being the manipulative gremlin that he is and reader just seeing straight through it. She's a baddie we know damn well she will CLOCK HIM the second he tries to shift the playing field. And I know he'll like it too. Just look at him and Daniel. (rip non book readers, devils minion will give you whiplash)

SIDE NOTE: i love the moment in the show when armand is retelling his story of the trial in paris and Daniel questioning how tf a five hundred year old ancient did not have the ability to stop his own coven. Daniel's smug face and the deadpan "Or what?". Daniel GO GET HIS ASS.

Daniel and reader would get along so well.

side note nr 2: i apologize for the bomb i just dropped in your inbox.

omg what a fun ask <33

i love armand, but in real life i'd be so over the theatrics of it all 😭 like yes you're playing chess and we're all playing checkers we get it!! no one will think you're less mysterious if you just answer the question omg

thank you for mentioning the louis thing! i'm glad you liked how i set it up bc i wanted his worry/frustration to be apparent but i still wanted it to feel in character. ik he's not opposed to greater crash outs (like the paris thing for my girl claudia ✊) but i also think that even when he's upset he understands time and place to an extent. like claudia's very intentional killers deserve worse than a guy who has done something relatively minor to reader on accident. however, it's still important that he very much would do the same if not worse for bestie reader if something actually bad happened to her, so i'm glad you read it that way!!

the josh thing pls 😭 i almost didn't have bestie reader give the guy a name bc she knew how he'd react. also i think that while louis isn't chill with murder, knowing that it'd be so easy to hurt someone who he thinks deserves it isn't an easily dismissible thought. i don't think he's jumping to hurt/kill everyone that's wronged bestie reader, but i do think it's an intrusive thought. the wrist thing 😭 i can see louis reacting like that if he was right there, but i feel like louis would only plan out violence if someone seriously/intentionally hurt reader.

this is going to sound off topic, but bare with me for a second. i haven't delved into this yet, but friendships can be just as complicated as romantic relationships, and while i'm committed to louis and bestie reader always being completely non-toxic, that doesn't mean their dynamic is simple. a major thing that complicates their relationship is the way that they worry over the way the other perceives them.

bestie is worried that louis perceives her as fragile and therefore fleeting and unworthy of long term attention. she's scared of being seen as a hindrance and as a burden. louis is worried that one day everything will click for bestie reader and she'll realize that he's a monster. so he's doing all he can to not demonstrate violence in front of her.

anyways, all this to say that he's not going around attacking people partially bc of his values but also bc he doesn't want her to associate violence with him.

also, total side note but this dynamic is actually what leads to reader and armand bonding. louis loves her so much and the thought of losing her is so distressing that sometimes he censors himself a little too much or treats reader like she's extremely fragile. armand doesn't. yes, this is because it's easier to risk losing someone that isn't the your emotional support human, but also bc he genuinely thinks she's capable of handling it. he'll tell her every (non-incriminating) vampire story ever in full, gory detail and reader is fascinated.

the accent comment is killing me 😭 ik that nola accent was HEAVY over the phone. reader felt those words in her soul.

and yes he’s AT that airport and he’s happy about it too lol.

also yes louis loves her sm 😭. ofc he was worried about her all alone on drowsy medication. that's the light of his life! what's he supposed to do if something happens to her? go back to only talking to his companion and occasionally a journalist accidentally moonlighting as a divorce lawyer??

also omg daniel and reader interactions are a need!! daniel being described as louis's younger brother is so important to me here omg. i love daniel and louis's relationship sm, and i just know daniel is ready for someone else with common sense to be sitting in. daniel looks at bestie reader like that one meme that's like 'you're the only bitch in the house i ever respected'.

the picture concept is so cute 😭 might have to write that into a scene bc i can see daniel seeing louis and reader asleep and at first being like ? and then taking the picture to bring it up later.

YES THE PAINTING REFERENCE i'm so glad you noticed!! i was so excited for it lol. i mentioned this in another post briefly, but i think armand's lowkey disgusted with himself for purchasing the painting bc it's a physical representation of the fact that he finds reader interesting. even before louis, before he knew her, he found something about her interesting, and bc he thinks reader has dismissed him, he wants to pretend that he's never thought about her at all.

i don't want to spoil where the painting is (it's not a major spoiler lol) but armand still has it and it is somewhere secret.

omg armand's intentions with bestie reader 😭!! i'm going to give you a short answer and then a long answer bc his feelings for her evolve slowly.

short answer: he has a really intense hate-crush on her. she's so beloved and perfect and basically the sun personified. he wants to consume her soul, he wants her to not exist, he wants her live forever, he wants her, he wants her to be just as obsessed with him so that he can calm down. she's an affliction. she's a blessing. he's going through it.

long answer: at first, he resents her bc she's taking up all of louis's attention and love. then, he starts to wonder what is so perfect and wonderful about her that has louis absolutely enraptured by her existence. then, he tries to win her over for his pride, and then..well...it spirals.

there's also the underlying benefits of getting reader to care more about him than louis bc then louis can't leave him without losing reader (most delusional and unrealistic part of his thought process tbh).

as far as end goals, he's a little lost bc all of this was an accident <3. it gets to a point where louis and reader are so intertwined, armand thinks he deserves to be with both of them. he's entitled to a matching set.

bestie reader's gen-z-ness being the reason she can see through everything armand says 😭. omg. in my head, she likes louis and armand together so when she realizes something is up she's like oh no. bc she obviously has to tell louis but she's not happy about it. lowkey on a subconscious level she doesn't want to not have armand in her life so she's like :(.

still calls him out tho bc she's loyal and also bc his lies are so egregious it's hard not to. i can picture her being lowkey sneaky when armand mentions saving louis, like feigning confusion and asking something like "just so i'm clear, isn't lestat also technically a powerful vampire? and wasn't he also in the building?" just to start something but also as a way of sending louis subliminal messages to lock in and open his eyes.

also i can see daniel realizing bestie reader knows something is up and looking at louis and being like "come on...i know, armand knows, even the girl that was really happy to be talking two minutes ago and now can't stop staring at the floor knows..." 😭

omg and armand liking being called out. this is for sure when his obsession with reader peaks. also, this hasn't come up yet, but i picture bestie reader as being very perceptive and when she argues with armand over small things she accidentally clocks him with next level reads that she'll never know how accurate they are. i'm talking reads so accurate, louis is immediately stepping in between them bc he thinks it's so over for her just for armand to let it go. (might need to write a drabble featuring this)

armand's love language to reader is not killing or torturing her for calling him out. it gets to a point where louis is like ? girl i've seen you kill people for implying what she just directly said?? if louis ever notices that something is going on with armand in relation to bestie reader it's bc of a suspicious lack of attempts to physically hurt her fr.

(also total side note, but bc you mentioned devil's minion, i just needed to say i love devil's minion era sm.)

omg in response to your side note, i LOVED that moment so much. "or what?" had me gagged. on the GROUND fr.

daniel and reader would get along so well. two divas coming together to maximize their joint slay. they're sitting around the penthouse giggling over the vampire drama like they're the immortal ones 😭.

also,, never apologize for sending me a long ask!! i'm currently very hyperfixated on iwtv and this was so fun for me! if anything, i'm sorry for how long this response was 😭💗

[all-pacas]

Okay but now i desperately want to know your non canon life story for chase pre canon

i have tricked you into doing exactly what i hoped -- a lot of this stuff works its way into fanfics i write lmao, so i guess spot the easter eggs? here's a couple:

when he was 4, maybe a bit older or younger, he fell out the upstairs window. that's what he tells people. it's mostly the truth. the whole truth: he was locked in his father's study, as ever. he needed to pee, or he was hungry, or something (he probably doesn't even really remember). so he tried to escape. he pushed a chair to the window and climbed onto the verandah roof. and then slipped and fell onto the ground below. and lay there screaming for a while before his mother, drunk, found him. he broke a number of bones, cut up his face, was rushed to his father's hospital. the nurses all doted on him, he was being so brave after such a scary accident! his father made it very clear that robbie was not to mention he was locked in the study, that he was not to mention his mother's state, that he did it to himself because he was disobedient and getting into mischief and that was all. he considers this an embarrassing and vaguely shameful memory. because it's the only time he ever tried to escape the study. because he failed. because he, naturally, did just as he was told.

his mother took him on a bunch of special outings and trips to the beach and amusement parks and zoos for weeks after. she stopped drinking for a while, too. when she was sober, she was very loving (very much overcompensating) and made it out like they were the best of friends. when she drank she was angry and sometimes violent, both with rowan and her son. chase, as a kid, sometimes tried to get rowan to intercede, to tell her to stop, to do something about it. no one did. it became easier to hate his father than his mother. mum couldn't help it, she was drunk. dad knew and just didn't care.

he went to a super posh private all-boy's catholic school. robbie was the "poor kid" in class: sure, his family was doctor rich, but his best friends's dads were politicians and land barons and oil/gold mine types. school was fairly unremarkable. he had friends, went to a lot of rich kid parties on private yachts, played soccer and AFL and never invited any of his friends over to his place.

first girlfriend was named melina ryan. she went to a sister school (literally) to his, an all-girl's catholic school. she was... fine. he was never that infatuated with her, but she was pretty and wanted to date him and he was 15 and very interested in sex lol. it lasted about a year, mostly due to inertia. she absolutely had an 80s perm and feathery bangs.

he also had a friend called dickie campbell, one of his super rich classmates. they'd skip school together. dickie's homelife was also really bad, and while they never talked about it they kind of... looked at one another and knew, you know? they'd fool around, experiment, never talked about it. dickie was probably gay and deeply closeted and working through some stuff; chase just wanted the attention/validation. they had a huge falling out at 16 and never spoke again.

a third friend: [some terrible nickname], the like. ur-typical 80s jock bully type. he and chase actually got along fine; this friend is yet another rich kid with daddy issues and would throw wild parties on his parent's dime, borrow their yacht, ridiculous shit like that. when chase's parents seperated and his sister was born and he started to see the writing on the parentification wall, he had something of a breakdown and "ran away" from home (his parents didn't care), stayed in this kid's guesthouse for a few weeks. his friend was like, you're too uptight, you need to relax, and they had their own little drug and hookers and alcohol bender... at age 14-15. this friend is like. now a sitting member of parliment or something. chase finds this very funny but can't explain why to anyone without getting into way too much ("no, it's just funny because i once saw him do a line of coke off a stripper's stomach when we were 14 lol"). by some miracle chase didn't develop a massive drug problem. the miracle being that party drugs just made him think of his mother and filled him with so much misery and guilt he couldn't commit to enjoying them.

when his sister (danielle) was born, chase was a very good parent to her. he got so much praise for it. he'd pick her up from daycare and pre-school, he took her out, they'd go grocery shopping together. everyone thought he was just the sweetest big brother; his sister absolutely worshipped him. he was a hair away from a total mental breakdown. he begged his father to sue for custody or take her in or something, and rowan totally ignored him of course. and chase was putting his mother in the shower and doing laundry and managing the household budget (they were living off a very small stipend from rowan) and just on the verge of total collapse.

his relationship with his sister sucks, because she feels (justifiably) abandoned and betrayed by him leaving and moving across the world when, to her, chase was her only real parental figure, but he just. he couldn't do it any longer. and then danielle became an addict and he hated her for it, and whenever they talk they revert to old patterns - he bosses her around and acts like her parent, they're both miserable, they do love one another but they just cannot. talk. they really do better at low contact.

he truly believed he and mrs. groundkeeper's wife were... maybe not in love, but had a real connection, were both lonely, bonded. she was in her 40s, he was 17. when their affair was exposed, she said he seduced her and cried and apologized and just blatantly abandoned him. nowadays chase is aware it was fucked up but... in a way where he doesn't really want to think about it. he doesn't think it was power imbalance/grooming/etc. or, he doesn't want to think about it that way.

he has not had a lot of Relationships in his life. short flings, for sure. one night stands, easy. he absolutely had a FWB arrangement in college that worked perfectly and satisfyingly for both parties with no feelings involved. he tends to average 4 dates with someone before getting bored and politely breaking up. cameron was 100% his first real Serious Relationship. and possibly his last, r i p

[followerofmercyart]

[volivolition]

part of that "raising a kid au" i was working on, this is almost definitely not how skill checks work and i don't even know if i'll include this, but for now i think it's. so funny kjkgj

[sunbloomdew]

the void is speaking to me. i feel it in my bones...... i am once again falling down the dating sims and visual novels hole.

it's only a matter of time before i download mystic messenger again

[seleneprince]

By the way, in my fem! Snape au (known as Sevrina Snape), she and Evan become lovers eventually and, during the Second Wizarding War, they end up having a daughter

This is her:

She looks just like her father, with all the Rosier features and all, but she has her mother's eyes and pale skin. Signature traits of the Prince family.

Regardless of whether Evan and Sevrina actually get married and love each other or they just have a friends with benefits kind of deal, they always conceive her. And Evan is killed by Alastor Moody along with Wilkes, leaving them both.

Ah, and just like Snape's daughter from my other au, she was born with a particular condition because of her mother...

[callonpeevesie]

Kid Howl and Megan because I love whatever they have going on and I've been thinking about them reading LOTR together

[redgearsmovin]

peggy and nina are rotating in my brain now ohh wowie here we go again

[geee-three]

yk the "nightcord broke up? vbs surpassrd rad weekend? what are you talking about? cmon lets theorise about the missing x in wandashows song trailer!" post that made the rounds on pin?

the whole akito facing away from touya in the haven 2dmv is gonna be like that too istg

it probably doesnt mean anything. like colopale has not thought out vbs past this point. if it does mean anythings its a cheap cop-out for aibou angst and yaoi bait while they figure out the main plot

like im not opposed to aibou angst but cmon they can do better

[deus-ex-mona]

unnecessary comparison of the day!

volume 5’s release of one of asuna’s chapters changed the subject of her stan twt cancellation posts from mona to miyu (of frusu)!

[coachbeards]

also btw michelle lasso is a victim!!

[morrigan-sims]

another late night / early morning wip pic under the cut

>:)

[cicicolorao]

I hope to one day come back to this idea, but I’d love to illustrate the disney princesses in my own style, with some redesigns to some of them, or just adding neat details I think are cool, like elvish attributes. For now, sketches!

[bluejaybytes]

@snowshinobi Hiiiii :3 I'm responding to your tags on a new post and not the original since the original was already somewhat lengthy, and I plan on being LONG and RAMBLY, but I have sooo many thoughts on what you said and I'm going to say them. Also my browser crashed TWICE (TWO TIMES. 2) when trying to write this post so I'm really fighting for my life out here to get my silly little OC posts done. Also it's under the cut because it's looooong as hell LMAO

Firstly, you're so nice to me forever <3 Secondly, I think you've basically hit the nail on the head. The majority of the issues Maggie has coming back from death and her 9 years gone are really tied almost exclusively to her close family, because she... never really had anyone else. While in-universe it's only 9 years, realistically the jump in technology and culture is around ~20-30 years (Maggie died in the 90s/early 2000s essentially, and wakes up in a just barely futuristic city), but... the most jarring thing to her in terms of what she missed out on is just. Flipphones are no longer popular. Other than her family, she's only close with one other person... who just so happens to be a ghost, and therefore both 1. Wouldn't change much over the timespan due to how long she's been a ghost and 2. Unlike her family, was aware that something happened, since she could see the ghost-of-a-ghost Maggie left behind (The ghosts name is Opal, she positions herself as a sort of "guardian angel" figure, though she's not actually, and serves as just another parental figure for Maggie while also getting after the ghosts that constantly harass her to pass on messages to the living). Maggie has no real relationships outside of her family, and while her relationships with her family are massively impacted by her unknowing death, other than that... the timeskip itself doesn't weigh on her because she had no one regardless. Her struggle to adjust to everything thats happened would've happened regardless of the timeskip for her, because she was such an isolated shut-in that it's the same whether it happened the next day, or nearly a full decade later

So another very interesting thing is that you've actually completely seen where I was going with everything, in spite of everything I said being very surface level and not actually delving into the plot at all. I completely skimmed over Jenna (She's very important to the plot, but she's by in large a regular person as opposed to Maggie's... everything), but for some additional context, Jenna has a horrendously shitty homelife, so her moving in with Maggie is both a gradual process (It goes from spending time there, to spending nights, to eventually just never going back home and moving in fully), and also serves as an escape for her. Part of that is also, so vitally, the food aspect. For some additional additional context, souls essentially serve as a persons lifeforce, practically every bodily function is improved by a soul that's stronger, though the "strength" of a soul is essentially entirely random, and not dependent on the individuals actions of any kind. Maggie had a generally weird soul before (Seeing ghosts inherently means she has to have something going on with her soul), but when she wakes up after her death, her soul is now even weirder, and part of that is that it essentially lets her get away with bad habits she absolutely should be seeing more consequences for. She barely eats, and when she does, it's basically exclusively crackers and whatever other safe foods she has around the house, because actually making food is a level of care and effort she just... doesn't give to herself in the slightest. Part of Jenna staying with her is that Jenna, without really discussing it, entirely takes up the mantle of caretaker of the apartment, with the biggest task being food prep, Jenna sees Maggie's unwillingness to take care of herself and silently steps up and starts making her actual meals so she's eating properly.

The problem is is that this also kinda... just straight up sucks? Jenna doesn't think much of it, it's something that needed to be done so she's doing it, she wants Maggie to be well fed even if she won't do it herself, and she's already been responsible for making all of her own meals for years prior anyways, so it's just another thing she does. Except that's shitty! Maggie's seen firsthand how terrible her homelife is, and it really weighs on her how even in her escape from that, Jenna's still being put in a position where she feels like she must care for her or else she just won't eat properly. So food is such a massively important thing to both of them, it's this symbol of love for both of them, it's love on the part of Jenna, for stepping in and taking care of Maggie when she can't do it herself, and it's love on the part of Maggie, for realizing how her own bad habits impact the people she cares about and wanting to lift that weight by taking care of herself better. It's also very vital for Maggie because she just... doesn't... have hobbies. Learning how to cook becomes really her only hobby and she puts all of her love and care into it, because for the first time in a long while she's actually passionate about something! ...Unfortunately she also is very very bad at it. She's inventing new dishes like "Burnt Salad" and "Please Help I Fucked Up Kraft Mac N Cheese" and still having to have Jenna come in and help her. But it's the thought that counts, and it'll only be a matter of time before she can make something vaguely edible.

And finally, the stuff about names! I didn't post it here, but while idly talking about her in a Discord server I'm in, I definitely think that had I made Maggie like even a few months later than I would've done she would've been nonbinary. As it stands right now though, I'm saying she's probably some form of genderweird but too busy trying not to die to think about it <3 Growing up knowing that ghosts are real and routinely being shut down by authority figures in her life about it has made her very aware of how bullshit a lot of things are and how the people who claim to be knowledgeable tend to not know what they're talking about (Beyond just the "people don't think ghosts are real", she's also got ghosts willing to tell her when people are lying because they've got nothing better to do than just gossip) , so if she spent even just a moment thinking about gender as a social construct she'd instantly recognize that and probably take up some form of genderweird label, but as it stands she's just too stressed with Being The Protagonist to think about that

Now, the thing with Margaret. I'm not even going to lie to you, I think you made a better connection to how a name connects with community in terms of the narrative themes than I did. The thing with Margaret denying the name "Maggie" existed for two reasons, the in-universe explanation is that, with the little scrap of soul Margaret has leftover from Maggie, it's essentially working overtime just to keep her vitals working, it can't dedicate time and energy to making her an individual with preferences and a personality, so part of that is that she doesn't respond to "Maggie" because ultimately, that is not her name. Her name is Margaret and she's not going to respond to "Maggie" because "Maggie" isn't her name. Of course, out of universe the reasoning is that I wanted an easy way to distinguish between Maggie as she is the protagonist, and the version of her that lived in the years she was gone, so different names makes the most sense.

I think your connection to how name relates to community genuinely works on a level I hadn't fully pieced together myself yet and I really love that because I think that absolutely works with everything. One of the main conflicts of the plot is how Maggie is entirely disconnected from her family thanks to the years she was gone, with Margaret having no priorities beyond "survive", she basically never spoke with her parents or brother for years. While her family tried to reach out to her repeatedly (Especially given that, while they're unaware the truth of what happened the night Maggie was murdered, they do know something happened, and they believe that whatever it was severely traumatized her, and that's where the sudden and drastic shift in personality came from), there's a point where they just... gave up. She wasn't trying to talk with them or contact them in the slightest, so around a year or two after Margaret moved out, her parents gave up on her. Her brother would still be there a bit, but he also didn't really... try... anymore.

When Maggie wakes up, she tries to call her parents... and they don't pick up. They'd grown resentful over the years, and now that Maggie wants to talk to them, they don't forgive her for the years of not speaking to them, and aren't interested in whatever she has to say after nearly a decade of trying to reconnect with her and being met with nothing. It's her insistence that she wants to be called Maggie that actually gets her brother to realize she's telling the truth and that something happened. She shows up at his door, already something that Margaret wouldn't have done, and that combined with her being visibly upset when he calls her Margaret and tells him that's not her and that she's Maggie, it signals to him that whatever's going on is real (...though he would've figured this out eventually, given that she also literally 17 again and not in her mid-20s, and has a giant glowing stab wound in her chest). I think it works absolutely perfectly as being a symbol of community, her disconnect from her community is what led to her being called Margaret, and her desperation to be returned to that community is when she's Maggie again. So uh. Congrats on getting the themes of my OCs better than I did <3

And uhhhh closing thoughts! I honestly did still skim over the majority of the plot (Literally never even mentioned Eli or what's going on with her stab wound </3), but I think you reeeeally hit the nail on the head with everything I'm kinda getting at with these OCs, which is... frankly wild given how little main plot I actually got at. Basically everything I mentioned in my original post was the setup, not the main plot. But waaaaugh thank you for being so niceys to me and also giving me another excuse to ramble endlessly <3

[sensesdialed]

i've talked about this but i'm still kind of obsessed with the idea of peter either knowing or having a sense of Who Is Doomed By The Spider-Man Narrative bc of nwh and trying so hard to steer them away from that path in advance but it only ends up pushing them further towards it