#It deleted and I had to retype the entire thing lMAO

[yourchemicallyimbalancedromance]

Something (Un)Familiar

Ship: none? Unless you count this as platonic LAMP lmao, also possible prinxiety?

CW/TW: heavy dissociation themes (like literally the main theme of this entire story revolves around dissociation.), also swearing

Summary: Roman wakes up in an empty parking lot in the middle of the night and panics, calling Virgil for help.

———————————————————————

The fluorescent streetlights above Roman were blinding; cutting, white circles. They pierced through his windshield and flooded into the car, lighting up the leather seats.

Roman had his head pressed against the headrest, barely conscious. Slowly blinking his eyes open, he immediately covered them with his arm, sucking in a breath at the light harshly beaming down on him. As the pressure in his eyes decreased and finally became adjusted to the light, he looked around, squinting, trying to look for cues of where he was.

The parking lot was empty, the only thing accompanying it being locked stores, rattling leaves on the pavement, and him.

Waves of fear racked his body, he saw his phone in the open glovebox and grabbed it, noticing that it was powered all the way off. He didn’t do that, did he?

His breath hitched further, he had no clue where he was, he was lost and he had absolutely no way of knowing how he had even gotten there in the first place.

He held down the volume and power button on his phone watching as it lit up and presented a passcode screen. He typed it in as fast as could, and with his entrance being accepted came hundreds of missed calls and messages. He scrolled through them.

Virgil: where the hell are you????? Patton is worried sick, literally. Text back soon, please.

Logan: Roman I think it’d be best if you answered your phone. No one is going to be upset at you, we are just concerned for your safety.

*13 missed calls from: Virgil* his lucky number, shit, he really fucked up.

Those were only a few of the multiple notifications from Virgil.

Patton hadn’t bothered texting, which made him feel nauseous.

With shaking hands, he quickly clicked on Virgil’s contact and began typing.

He deleted the message and began retyping again, and again, and again. This cycle repeated for a few minutes before he finally sent the message.

‘I’m fine. I don’t know where I am but I’m fine.’

The message was read immediately, a gray text box following hurriedly after it.

‘Holy hell you’re okay’

‘What the fuck Roman, you can’t just up and leave without explanation’

‘What do you mean you don’t know where you are.’

Roman shook his head, nerves still all over the place, the queasy feeling in his gut never left, only got increasingly worse.

He pressed the call button under Virgil’s contact and prayed to god he would answer. He picked up on the first ring.

“Virgil? Virg I don’t know— I don’t know where I am, I’m in my car but—“ he looked around, “I can’t see anything, it’s dark, I can’t read any of the signs. I- I don’t know how I got here”

He heard voices and then a muffled “Roman, Roman listen to me, we’re tracking your phone right now, it’s okay. Stay in your car, are the doors locked?”

Roman looked beside him, down at the little buttons on the car door, the lock button was pushed down, the lights streaming on it. “Mhm” he said, hushed.

“Okay, good. Do not get out of the car, do you understand? We just pinged your location. Roman—why are you in a bare parking lot?”

To this, Roman broke out into tears “I don’t know, I just— I woke up here and— Virgil, do you think I’m crazy?”

“You just—“ Virgil started, “The possibility of you being mentally deranged is extremely low, Roman. You are fine, this may be a case of amnesia due to dissociation” Logan butted in.

“Disso— what?” Roman choked out

“Dissociation. There are many types. For example, there’s Dissociative Identity disorder which has different subtypes such as OSDD which stands for Other Specified Dissociative Disorder and there’s DPDR which stands for Deperson-“

“Logan.” Virgil says sharply.

“Sorry. Right. Roman, what you are struggling with is dissociative amnesia, not being able to recall information about oneself, usually due to longterm stress and/or trauma. In this instance, you cannot remember how you found yourself where you are, and that’s okay. You are okay.” Logan explains all of this calmly, as if it is just another day, as if explaining why Roman is stranded is as normal as breathing to him.

Romans cries have died down to sniffles, and his eyes are darting around for any possible threats in the sea of darkness he finds himself in; the streetlights are slowly turning off one by one.

“Okay—okay just— when are you coming to get me?” Roman asks timidly, almost as if he’s not in the silence of his own car, no one around to hear him.

“You’re about 15 minutes away,” Logan says, “we’ll text you when we’re close so you can turn your headlights on” there’s a silence between them before he adds, “to make it easier to find you.”

Roman nods even though Logan can’t see him, he realizes this and adds a soft “okay”

———————————————————————

It felt like hours before Roman got the message Logan was talking about.

Logan: ‘We are a minute away, please turn your headlights on.’

Roman fumbled for his keys and put them in the ignition, turning them and jumping at the sound of the engine running.

He turned on his headlights quickly as he heard a car pull up beside him and park, the gravel on the lot kicking up and landing a few feet away in all directions.

Logan was driving the car while Virgil was holding Patton in the backseat, who was still visibly shaken.

Logan got out of the car, putting little pressure on the door to close it; Virgil and Patton followed behind.

Roman opened his door immediately and clung to Logan. He didn’t react immediately, just froze for a second before patting him on the back. “It’s alright, Roman. you’re okay.” He whispered soothingly.

Anyone else would’ve heard nothing but a monotone voice speaking into the cold air, but he heard it; the delicateness, the careful wording.

Roman let go and was immediately pulled into the embrace of Patton who was almost crying. It was a silent and drawn out hug, neither side saying anything; almost as if everything they needed to say had disappeared once they saw each other; Patton let go.

“If you ever scare me like that again I’m going to murder you I swear to god.” Virgil grumbled, only half joking.

Roman looked uncomfortable and fidgety at the mention of death considering anything could have happened to him while unconscious, he didn’t say anything about it, just said “sorry..”

Logan cleared his throat, “if I may interject for a second,” he looked around to make sure everyone was listening, “Roman I am extraordinarily content with the finding that you are alive and well but it is approximately 37 degrees outside. We need to get you home.”

Roman nodded in agreement.

“Alright, Let’s go. Virgil and Patton, you ride with Roman and make sure he’s well; I’ll take my car back and follow you.”

Everyone scattered to their cars and the sound of doors slamming shut filled the air. Roman was now in the passenger seat instead of the front seat, Virgil was in the front; He slowly backed out of the parking lot and headed towards their home.

Out of impulse, Roman grabbed Virgil’s hand. It was cold, but he didn’t mind it, he liked the psychical contact, it reminded him of the fact that he was alive and safe.

Virgil smiled, trying to hide it by looking in the rear view mirror, pretending to check for anything behind them. It was a dumb idea, really, it was 12:30 AM and no one would be out that late where they lived; he liked how hard he tried though.

Patton didn’t say anything the whole way home, only gave Roman the occasional glance to make sure he was okay.

He was fine with it, the silence, the lack of words. He didn’t need it, only needed their presence, only needed to hold and be held by the person he loved the most, Virgil, even if it was just hand-holding; he was fine with that.

And he didn’t know it, but Virgil was too.

[evegwood]

I was rereading your breakdown of the playlists and I was kind of intrigued by how you outright stated that David's insecurities are not related to his transness but to the power things - because, like, I don't think it's all meant to be a 1:1 metaphor, but specfic stories like that exist very much in conversation with more mundane issues people face so that distinction stood out to me? (cont.)

(cont.) Like, people such as David get detained in places that feel and work and look like the institutions in Inhibit IRL for various non-specfic reasons, and stories like this are a bit of a dialogue with these issues, especially one like this that goes into the mundane little miseries of it all. Would it be correct to say that that was your way of saying "I don't want people to reduce his character entirely to transness"? Thanks, love the comic!

Hey that's a good question! For sure there are real-world counterparts to a lot of the themes of Inhibit, but specifically when it comes to my queer characters I wanted the story to be completely neutral about their queerness. I do have a lot of thoughts on this so this might be long haha. Hopefully I cover everything I want to cover, I wrote this whole thing out and then hit ctrl+z to delete a line and Tumblr deleted the entire post without letting me ctrl+y because this is a working website that doesn't suck ass. I had to retype it all so I'm sorry if any of it is disconnected, I couldn't remember the exact order I said everything argh ANYWAY

When I started writing Inhibit I didn't realise I was trans, and then I came out as nonbinary, and then I started to transition, so I've had a whole spectrum of thinking "how should I handle transness in this comic?" over my time working on it. Pretty early on I decided that none of the characters would suffer because of being trans, they wouldn't have any anxiety about it, other characters wouldn't treat them differently etc; the story takes place in a world where superpowers are real, so it wouldn't be crazy for transness to also just be normal and accepted there lmao

However now I think that this is a pretty reductive way to represent the trans experience. Like it or not, being trans informs almost everything about you, and I didn't let my trans characters have that nuance. Vic being a white, seemingly cis* seemingly het** dude is pretty central to his character arc***, so actually examining queerness in this society would have been interesting. There was room to do that; something that is canon and just has never come up is that Urquhart sponsors their trans officers' HRT etc so they don't need to go through the NHS, meaning those officers are reliant on Urquhart long past their service. You're right: what would a conversation between the mundane and fantastical elements of Inhibit look like? I, 2023 Eve, would like to have that conversation! But this far into the story, I kinda missed the train on it.

* he uses any pronouns, he is shrug-gender ** he is bi *** spoilers wow he is privileged actually

I honestly think that I haven't done a good job at highlighting my trans characters, particularly for an audience that doesn't expect to see trans characters. I don't think I've done David and Masha justice as trans characters beyond little nods that readers could miss or not even understand, and there are some characters whose nonbinary/trans identities have just never been mentioned (Holly is nb, Jezza and Toby are trans - again just hasn't come up because of scenes and lines changing or being cut, there's so much that you can't fit into a story even when it's as long as this). So to finally answer your question, it isn't that I didn't want people to reduce David to his transness, because I don't think there's enough of his transness in the comic for that to even happen. I don't think anyone reads Inhibit and thinks oh yeah, David, you know, the trans one. It really was that at the time of writing the playlist breakdowns, I was firm that none of the Inhibit characters had anxiety or neuroses about being trans. Instead, all their neuroses were about their superpowers, because that's the fun angst.

Now looking back on Inhibit, there is actually an excruciating amount of evidence for the story kind of being a trans narrative ("oh god i can't control my own body oh god", "oh no people think my body should do this thing" etc). It's so interesting how creators have these themes that they continuously go back to in their work, even unintentionally, and mine is oops all trans. If I were to rewrite Inhibit from scratch now, I'd probably try to include more of that nuance and actually engage with those themes because I realise that they're there haha.

I hope all this answers your question? Kind of? A little? My ultimate conclusion is that I thought what I was doing was writing good trans characters, when ultimately I think I failed to write characters that are truly explicitly trans. On the other hand, maybe characters like David and Masha are the exact kind of trans rep that some people want and are looking for. Either way I'm actively working to write better trans characters in the future because trans people rule, and this was a really interesting question to reflect on, thank you!

[squarefriend]

Alrighty how about 14 with Mettaton and 9 with Toriel?

This is a long ass post, so buckle up buttercups >:)

So, if you really think about it, Mettaton IS a robot now. He fused with his body, considering he can die in Stabby Stabby/Nuetral routes. Robots can’t absorb alcohol, therefore they can’t get drunk.

Now, the argument could be made that he just absorbs the magic that makes up the drink then sends it to his power core, like an organic body. The that funky drunky flow intoxicates him.... But that also contradicts my personal head cannons on how Metta’s body works.

I’ll make this brief (if that’s possible in a post of this length lMAO), but how I think that MTT gets his power is either through electricity or, in a worst case scenario, gasoline mixed with magic. While I believe he can eat and drink monster food, it’s stored in an internal compartment before being broken down into manageable magic chunks over a series of several days. So, alcoholic beverages would give him at most a buzz over the course of like a couple of days.

That being said, there’s hope!!!

Remember when I said that I headcannon Metta runs on gasoline if he can’t get any electricity? Well, the means he can switch between which tank he’s drawing from. And, there is a type of gasoline made with a base of Ethanol! Which is the compound used to make drinks alcoholic! Therefore, the alcohol would be going to his core at the rate needed to actually get drunk.

Which means, if he wants to be drunk he can just switch into gasoline mode and slip into whatever tipsy needs he has! As long as he’s filled up on ethanol!

Now I’m not saying that this was found out by complete accident with Alphys testing out a new fuel type but.....

That’s exactly what I’m saying.

But!!! Yall didn’t come here to hear about Mettaton’s autonomy, so let’s talk about his drunken habits!!

I like to think he doesn’t drink often, mostly because of the aforementioned not actually realizing he could till he was on the surface. But, some of the best examples of how he is in a drunken state would probably be back when he was a ghost.

It was probably some rough times back then. Shyren’s sister had just fallen down, and it’s inplied the cousins are rather close with the family. Add in a healthy dose of dysphoria and yearning for a greater audience- no, purpose... It must’ve been rough for Metta.

Mabey to cope, the cousins invested in some ghost ale?

I like to think when buzzed, Mettaton is just a (somehow) more confident and showy version of himself. Just with less motor control and a higher chance of making impulsive decisions.

Once we pass into drunk territory... things start getting more emotional. There will be tears. Probably a lot of them. He’s very emotional and can and will state his mind. Heartfelt confessions might happen, rivalries may happen, or he may just tell you what you already know.

If the cousins cracked open a cold one.... Well.... That may of been the first indications (aside from behavior they’d picked up but not said anything about) of what was really on Metta’s mind. About how desperate he was.

Metta didn’t remember it in the morning. Blookie never told him what they talked about. It was never spoken of again.

Ok!! On a slightly higher note: Toriel!

I’ve always seen Toriel as having a very smooth sounding, mezzo soprano voice. It’s nothing remarkable. She doesn’t belt often, she doesn’t have much of a verbrato, she just sounds like your normal 50ish woman who sings abit too much in the car. But, her voice is warm and soft and perfect to fall asleep too, especially when a smile gets in the way of her vowels.

She sings fairly often, probably the most in the main cast (aside Mettaton and MABEY Papyrus). Be it in the car, or when she has too much to drink, or when singing a lullaby to her kids.

I’ll start with lullabies since I believe they’d be the most personal to her.

We don’t know exactly when the monster human war happened, but I’m of the belief that it happened sometime in the Middle Ages, which would place Toriel’s childhood in medieval times. While she wasn’t born there, I also think both Toriel and Asgore’s families hail from Ireland. Her mother would sing to her every night, sometimes mixing in ancient tales of wild beasts and faeries.

It’s a sentiment she’s passed down to her own children.

Albeit, she changed a few lyrics or scenes in the stories to make them less terrifying, besides when she was caring for some of the older souls. There may also be a touch more happy endings than there were in the older days, and mabey a couple more injuries instead of deaths. But for the most part, they stay the same.

The pieces she dare not change though, are the ones she sings in Gaelic.

Frisk hasn’t learned the language (yet), so Toriel finds no need to change any details to such relics. Plus, they have a lot more of an emotional connection than most of her other songs or stories. Her eldest two children were incredibly fond of them

(Also the song I used for these doodles is called Bó na leath-adhairce (One Horned Cow). The woman who sings it (Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh) sounds a lot like how I imagine Toriel sounding. But like. With a lot more vocal training. She still sounds like she’s singing through a smile and I love it)

On a much more fun note, let’s talk about Toriel’s drinking songs!

So, this doesn’t happen often, but if the moods right and Toriel’s had JUST enough to drink.... She might attempt to start up a drinking song with whatever crowd she’s got around her. She doesn’t know many songs, and she only half remembers the rest, but goddamn it if she’s not gonna try it.

It’s awful. Any recognizable lyrics are either slurred, butchered, or in a language no one else can understand.

But she looks like she’s having so much fun, no one ever tries to stop her.

Hell, some people might even join in, if there’s been enough to drink in the house. If that happens, and if she’s feeling confident enough, Tori might even get up and dance a little bit, dragging whomever she pleases in as well. If she’s drunk enough to start singing like this in public, then she’s definitely drunk enough to do some dances.

Mostly though, she just sticks to lullabies.

As for the second part of this prompt, it’s a lot simpler than all of the rest of this post. Toriel enjoys most music, especially the choral verity. She’ll let anything on the radio, so long as it’s appropriate when Frisk’s in the car.

Her favorite genres though, are Classical, Folk, and Celtic. They were the styles she grew up with and remains fond of to this day. They bring back a feeling of Nostalgia without too many memories, just how she likes it. She also quite enjoys Operas, and plans on taking Frisk to see one once she gets the hang of the internet.

She used to adore ballroom music and waltzes but....

Now they just bring back Memories she’d rather not have.

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

HAPPY FFWF !!!!!!! Okay so, what is your editing process like? Is it pure chaos ”I throw everything on the page and will fix it in post” ordo you outline in detail? Or neither? (and how did you develop this process, or we're you taught it from school/fandom/experience?) (I hope your Friday is a happy one, my friend!!!)

happy ffwf!! firstly, i gotta say that your ask is giving me Such Good Vibes for a reason i can't put my finger on, but i thank you anyways for them 💛

so i'll just kind of describe my fic writing process in general bc it actually overlaps, in a sense, with my editing process! (note that this is not the same as my academic writing and editing process, lol.) obligatory disclaimer that this is a general description, and of course things sometimes differ with each individual fic as i work on them 😂

step 1: think of an idea (yes this has to be its own step don't judge me pls)

step 2a: for shorter fics, brainstorm the idea in my head! i go over different ways the story might play out before i decide which way i want to go with it

step 2b: for longer fics, bullet point a ton of possible ideas on one page. on another page, create a more cohesive, orderly outline rather than an idea dump lmao

step 3: write by hand! use colorful pens! and pretty notebooks! if i realize i need to change or add something as im writing, i make a note in the header. i Must Not lose the flow if possible, as it is difficult to obtain again

step 4: type the fic! as i type, make the changes that i noted for myself in the notebook headers (ex. "expand this conversation" "make sure to mention that katara opens her eyes here, you idiot" "rework to include [whatever]")

step 5: let fic simmer i wait a few days before i go back and edit to give my brain time to break away from the fic, that way when i return i'll notice errors more easily (grammar, flow, plot, etc.) and in general im entering with a slightly more blank slate than if i was editing like. only a single day after i first typed it lol. the actual process of this editing is pretty simple - i make all my changes on the document itself, deleting and rewriting and expanding and all that jazz.

step 6: the final edit is a simple one! i copy and paste my fic into naturalreaders (online version) and it reads my fic out loud to me. this is how i catch nitpicky typos that my eyes glance over if im just reading the fic again (ex. "an" instead of "and," or skipping words entirely lol)

step 7: post! :)

so this process is like. an offshoot of my academic writing/editing process? for academic stuff, i will full-on print my drafts, edit them with red pen, and then retype them in a whole new document (although, for these reasons i do tend to skip writing by hand besides outlining/editing with my academic papers). but that is too much work for fic 😂 i love writing fic, but i do not have the Time to go through 5+ drafts before i post. so yeah, fic writing is a condensed version of academic writing/editing lmao. BUT! writing my first drafts by hand is something i did for years and then stopped because i was starting to write longer and longer stories, then my high school creative writing teacher had us write all of our first drafts for her by hand, and i just fell back into the habit. im a simple girl - i love pretty notebooks and colorful pens, what can i say?

[chrliekclly]

do you think charlei and dee had sex because they mistook their genuine platonic bonding as attraction? (serious question, steming from thatlesbian dee post). I never thought of it that way, and I'm interested to hear that side !

YES that’s actully smthn i lose my sht abt !! iv blown up ppls mssgs with this kinda talk like, im a mess. ok lemme type right nd lemme type A Lot Again Anyways cz thos 2 giv me Way too many feelings (im spposd to b working on a final rn christ…)

okay…i scrolled back up after finishing nd turns out i went…literally insane…aka Much too far…so i need to under-the-cut it. mobile…viewers…i’m rly so sorry. swipe hard to leap ahead…hell im sorry fr computer viewers too. my theme is rough.

to start, my HCs surrounding chardee are rooted in charlie being on the ace spectrum and dee being gay (or like @ least bi, but imo all the men stuff is straight up compulsory heterosexuality).

i will always cling tight to the deleted scene wherein charlie says he thinks sex is gross and will genuinely get sick when he thinks about it unless he thinks about it with one specific woman. i know he shows sexual interest a decent amount of times throughout the show and has canonically had sex (on camera too, yeesh) but i see each time as very out of the blue moments (coming onto dee @ multiple points while worked up, agreeing to bang tatiana cuz she says to, that kinda thing) or relating to his long standing and delusional obsession with the waitress. in that vein, he’s also canonically enjoyed sex, and I don’t try and blind-eye any of it, because ace doesn’t always mean sex can’t be enjoyed in the moment. charlie definitely has a libido, and bodies be bodies. hell, sex-repulsed can sometimes even flip 180 in the right conditions. shit is one fun spectrum i’ll tell you that…but either way, to start with him, i think him going forward with banging dee was very much a misjudgment of what feelings are and being extremely caught up in a moment where he felt real, genuine, closeness with someone else who he was having a damn good time making terrible poetry with.

as for dee, i, first of all, just agree with everything in that post. in the context of chardee, as much as i will lose my mind in tags about how hard i ride or die the ship, it’s mostly my obsession with their dynamic. i don’t think chardee is meant to be endgame. i absolutely 100% believe that dee, too, is misinterpreting her feelings. i think part of it is her consistent comp het, and the other is she’s never been close with someone the way she has been with charlie, and she doesn’t know what she’s meant to do with it. i think she was similarly caught up in a moment in which she showed her own vulnerability, opening herself up to someone who could easily just ridicule her as she’s used to (”right now? i’m scared”), and she receives support from him instead (”you’re not gunna bomb, you’re gunna do great”). we’ve seen how much dee craves validation, thats her entire thing. i’m not shocked she dropped her pants in this moment lmao. she probably felt her damn heart flutter cuz she got told by someone who she at least somewhat trusts that she really is good, even if she doesn’t think so. the only rational explanation for the feeling associated with that person is that he’s The One right? pretty big leap

just…basically i dont think either of them know what a relationship is.

charlie’s lived nearly his entire life deluding himself into thinking that, 1. he and the waitress have a relationship that is anything other than creepy, and 2. that the warped-ass mess of an image he’s created in his brain for what he and the waitress are to each other is what love is. he thinks he’s making progress in getting close to her when the only thing she’s Ever done pre-s12 is ask him to leave her the fuck alone. he’s never even attempted to look past the waitress before, and the only time he shows interest in other people it’s purely his libido talking. he doesn’t pursue romance, and the one time we’ve seen him do so he was using her to get to, who else?, the damn waitress. 

dee’s lived her entire life having to prove herself to every single person she interacts with, and its familiar to her to getting ahead by using men, usually as sexual objects. i’m hesitant to bring this up on a post wherein i speak on dee’s sexuality because i don’t want to link this trait to it in any way as if its related, but to be fair, dee is as much a serial rapist as dennis is in that regard. the gang are shitty people, we know that. she will get men drunk to have sex with them, or pressure them into it, or trick them into it. she’s not having sex with these men for pleasure, she’s literally doing it for power. it’s absolutely fucked up, but so is she.

when she Is romantically involved, she’s shown to leap headfirst into those relationships and blow them out of proportion on 0 grounds for it. she buys a promise ring for a guy who didn’t think they were dating, it’s implied she’s going to actually go ahead with the brad fisher marriage thing after the episode ends, she gloats about how important she is to a stripper who was literally shame-crying during sex (also? she says “we BOTH wept,” and she can say that’s because it was that good, but i really doubt it). i mean the woman GAGS when talking to men she’s “nervous” around, something she takes as meaning she’s attracted to them? lmao uh???

at this point i’ve probably repeated myself over and over, my brain is on backwards and my train of thought went off the rails years ago. but i’m still gunna retype an old set of tags i found:

i hc that neither of them end up together but they do go through a relationship-ish phase, but dee’s gay and charlie’s okay with that (and always ace in my mind) because they finally move on from their own irrational drives to adhere to what they think is expected of them. i dont think either of them have any idea what a relationship is meant to be and they pathetically grasp at each other because they’re kind-ish to one another and that feels safe for once. chardee may be my main ship but i purposefully backtrack on myself because i know they’re two people who barely know love and have found each other, both as underdogs in their environments, and feel an electrifying Something that they Cant Name wen theyre together, and that something just so happens to be friendship and they don’t realize it cuz they’re doofuses who’ve led really unfortunate lives where friendship and hatred are always intermingling.

i’ve never brought it up here, but i often imagine a timeline of their relationship, because i enjoy the idea of them figuring themselves out through each other, just because they are genuinely amazing (platonically) together, and they get into some of my favorite shit. the thought of late night talks and confessions about their worries and confusion about their feelings while lying in bed, just close because they feel comfortable that way, realizing they can keep loving each other and not force it to mean something it doesn’t, the relief that comes with that, a final kiss that really doesn’t mean anything but thank you, not losing what they had but rather gaining a whole new kind of intimacy, and still getting into absolutely ridiculous situations. maybe dee realizes shes, ironically, found herself with a crush on the waitress and it cracks charlie up. he doesnt mind. he’s finally learned that if he Is going to be with someone it should definitely be with someone who makes him feel at Least half as comfortable as the way being around dee does, and knowing he doesn’t have to make himself look for that, but when he knows he will know. plus, he cant imagine dee pulling that one off. but maybe one day she does. dees gentler around the edges, and she gets butterflies when talking to women, but she never gags. charlie’s a terrible wingman but he keeps convincing dee to let him try. she brings a girl home for the first time and charlie all but backflips in an empty pool that day. they’re still shithats but they’re learning to let that go. people can get better. AA would probably help.

iv gone too far goodbye