#and that's not even going into the horror story that is daphne ending up with fred; or shaggy's closest connection continuing to be scooby

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

this rewatch of sdmi has so far been a combination of skipping around and watching straight through from the beginning, and my feelings are increasingly that shaggy, daphne, and marcie are precious and oh my god someone please get these poor kids away from everyone else in this cast

[fyeahaudiodrama]

Happy @podcastgirlsweek to all who celebrate! While I haven't had the time to properly work on fics (and probably won't this week because oops, hurt my hands yesterday) I still wanted to take the time to highlight some favorite podcast girlies along with everyone else!

The prompt for Monday is highlighting podcasts with women in the leading roles, so here's a few of mine (and hopefully, some new ones of yours if you don't know them yet):

Back Again, Back Again: Ilyaas, you absolutely fantastic disaster of a fantasy ace, never stop trying.

Breathing Space: While the show is anthology with a rotating cast, some of my favorites from across its run include:

Evie Yuriskin

Amity Archer

Any characters who were introduced one episode and then started referring to each other as "my wife" by the end or by their next appearance

Camlann: Some apocalypse survivors interpret dangerous dreams about dark magic to cope. Some knit sweaters. Both are valid and should kiss.

City of Ghosts: Featuring the grungy, disgruntled, tormented-by-visions LADY detective of your dreams.

Desperado: Take note - give your ladies knives. And god powers. And witchcraft. And a sniper rifle, for good measure.

Do You Copy?: I think [REDACTED] deserves three weeks of paid vacation

Fawx & Stallion: Madge Stallion is THE moment. She's six feet tall. She can't stop making innuendos. She's not your fucking Mrs. Hudson (although, she is - no, I shan't say).

Hi Nay: Mari & Laura are my everything - the loving and self-sacrificing hero and the newfound friend who chooses to stand by her side (fire axe and all).

Inn Between: Oh, my Inn Between girlies, where do I start? Fina and Betty, the OGs and life partners that even death couldn't stall? Rosie and Zara, the new best pals who chose to stay together? Phoebe, just one step at a time learning what she deserves and what she doesn't? All impeccable, A+.

It Makes A Sound: Any show focused on music is going to be a slam dunk for me, but Deirdre's quest to reclaim her memories as well as those that tied her to her mother is so damn real and compelling.

The Kingmaker Histories: No female character in this show has ever done anything wrong. Colette gets a migraine pass. Ariadne can turn people inside out. Daphne is owed this for working in a theme park.

Life With LEO(h): Janiiiiiine, so messy and smart and dedicated and she cares so much, I love yoooooou.

Me and AU: Kate's worries and desires and doubts are some of the realest out of any audio drama so when do I find an Ella too

Palimpsest: My faaaaavorite gothic horror anthology, each one fresh with a different brand of haunted, tormented, secret-keeping (and quite frequently gay) gothic protagonist

The Pasithea Powder: Jane and Sophie. Sophie and Jane. What more could you need? <3

The Silt Verses: Women who start cults/leave cults/seek an end to the endless cycle of meaningless sacrifice as so valid. For all your wet cat(fish) woman needs.

Second Star to the Left: Because I always love a good Ishani performance. Hi Gwen, please tell Boots I love them.

Small Victories: You want sad wet cat women? How about one that literally can't stop self-sabotaging (but at least manages to draw the line at sabotaging others...occasionally). She even gets stabbed!

Starfall: I mean, kind of a given, but anyway, Leona definitely exists because she's the kind of action protagonist woman I always wanted - one that could be unapologetically powerful, but still full of flaws and desires (especially ones that weren't about falling in love and minimizing her own strengths). She's even autistic!

Stories From Ylelmore: Keryth! Keryth, Keryth, Keryth! She reminds me so much of the kinds of characters I would make up when I was younger - I love her and her small magic so dearly.

The Strange Case of Starship Iris: Hi queer space pirates <3

Unseen: Another anthology show, but Harry Winters and Never-Ending Circles remains one of the most perfect premiere episodes I've ever heard in audio drama.

The Way We Haunt Now: Get your podcast ladies here, dead or alive!

We Fix Space Junk: My favorite type of repairman is a woman who could kick my ass.

Wolf 359: I don't think I need say much more here - y'all know and love 'em just as much as I do.

[ananke-xiii]

"The Born-Again Identity" is one of those SPN ep that I like despite the fact that there are so many things in it that drive me a little bit insane (truth be told, in part it's only my fault cause I can never completely turn up the "suspension of disbelief" volume and I go to a default "but why?" mindset everytime I see something on screen, so okay it's a *just me* problem). However, I do think that S7 was not that bad and it had some quite intriguing and original ideas while the execution was... well, let's say clunky. So, all in all, I think this episode is kinda cool.

the things that drive me a little bit insane:

the imagery of sam desperately running alone in the night along some tracks in a supposedly dangerous part of town. The "derailing" and "going off the tracks" symbolism was a bit on the nose; him buying drugs from the "tweaker" and sleeping with the guy in his car: mmm I feel like that was, like. a lot. to be just thrown away like that.

sam being admitted to the hospital with no mention of said drugs use and the whole scene with the doctor telling dean that they had to put sam in the locked psychiatric floor. I don't know, it also feels like.a lot. and.all of a sudden. they could ease into that way better, it's too ham-fisted as in: we have to find a way to put sam in an horror asylum-like facility in less than 5 minutes for the ep to make sense. so that what feels like to me.

daphne. everything about her drives me insane. I have a whole story where she has to clean up the mess dean has made and hide the body of the demon or something. she'll later start her own private hero's journey to find emmanuel and bring him back to their white picket fence life so perfect and so based on manipulation and stockholm syndrome.

the demons showing up at the grocery store. like what? it was established just a few scenes before when dean told the demon that he was "hands-off" or something and that the demon was actually looking for emmanuel. so why oh why would the other demons look for dean when there's emmanuel.alone.in.the.car. nonsense.

that one demon torturing sam with the electroshock. what was the point? why were demons there anyway? weren't the brothers hands off? maybe i missed something here but to me just felt like "asylum ep= electroshock scene is a must" and meh.

sam leaving the hospital.just.like.that and "swapping place" with cas. i'm sorry, what? i won't even comment on meg being suddenly hired as a nurse cause okay i want to give the writers that, but wtf? oh okay, this guy that has just showed up here (and has definitely possibly murdered 4 or 5 people at the entrance) is maybe not okay, let's not call his wife or someone, let's just lock him up. whaaaaat?

the quite intriguing and original ideas:

the cas/sam parallel: they are both evidently mentally unstable for very different reasons. cas has, in a way, "left the life" and dean, of all people!!!, is not 100% cool with him regaining his memories because what if he leaves???? sam is quite literally very close to leave life in general because the trauma is affecting his body in an irreversible way. they are both "born" again identities at the beginning and at the end of the episode. Very cooooool.

sam and lucifer interactions: the actors really did their job well in this ep cause everytime I watch it I'm exhausted, like I can't bear to hear Lucifer talk and talk and taunt and I definitely feel worn out like sam. I think Jared works very well with Mark Pellegrino, too bad that the whole Lucifer storyline was a mess in later seasons cause the actors had great chemistry.

meg. every scene with meg is just joy for me. and her storyline? left alone looking for "friends"? sure, she totally plans to use cas as her ally but what's new? (jokes aside, there's a whole pattern of women manipulating and using cas, am i the only one seeing it???).

marin. first of all, hello abigail????? (hannibal memories flooding in). second of all, cool MoTW-Not-So-Much-MoTW story. ofc she's a sam's mirror used to basically explain what happened to sam but the ghost who's tormenting her is also her brother and he must die-die-die because he won't let her go. hello??? paralleling sam's hallucinations with sam's issues with dean was super intriguing and too bad that the MoTW was Not-So-Much-MoTW cause marin's story was maybe not even 8 minute long.

bonus: "Peace of Mind" from S14 echoes this ep brillianty, they even cast one of the same actors (the doctor/the mayor) and they used the same surname for sam (sam smith/justin smith). cool cool cool (although unrelated to s7).

[justsomerandomfanfic]

Hi I was wondering if I could have a match up please? (and thank you :))

Age: 19

Pronouns: He/It

Matchup: Scooby doo, happy potter, and Dc please

Zodiac: Libra Sun

Sexuality: Bi

Looks: I am 5 '3 and kind of lanky, I have short hair. I am slightly tan due to my Hispanic genes but not much. I tend to have RBF. My fashion sense is all over the place but I stick with black or dark clothes. I am also almost always cold.

Hobbies: Reading, writing, crafts, watching TV and gaming.

Interests: Cartoons, scary movies/stories/etc, writing, mythology, books, FNAF

Style: Mine switches but mainly, dark academia, goth, nerdy, and middle school boy.

Personality: I am an introvert and have very bad anxiety. I tend to be chatty at times and be a pessimist. I also get frustrated with things because of my ADHD and Autism. I tend to stim, have anxiety/ADHD tics, scratch my arm, and stutters. I am pretty smart but my procrastination doesn’t help that. I am also almost very tired because I have horrible sleeping habits. I have a habit of going non-verbal for times so I learned ASL. my MBTI list is INTJ/INTP

Love language: I like giving things to people since it shows my love. I can cook and bake food, give to my friends. I also am very excited about holidays because I would make gifts, cards, drawing, etc for my friends and family.

I personally like gift giving, I really like weird stuff like bones, rocks,etc. I also like words or affirmations or touch from time to time

I’m so so sorry if this is too long.

HI! Don't worry, it's not too long! Thank you for all the information you gave me, it helped a lot when finding you the perfect match! ;)

I hope you enjoy your matchups!

<333333

Romantic Matchups; Scooby Doo, Harry Potter, and DC

~~~

Romantic;

~~~

Scooby Doo;

Velma Dinkley -

You first met Velma in a quirky, small-town library where she was researching an obscure paranormal phenomenon.

She noticed you pulling a thick stack of mythology books and couldn't resist striking up a conversation about your shared interest in the mythology and supernatural.

You were hesitant at first, overwhelmed by her somewhat shy but also confident - and rapid-fire explanations - but her passion drew you in.

She noticed while in conversation that you were stimming with a pen, and so she offered you a stress toy that she carried around 'just in case'.

Really, it was whenever Shaggy forgot his stress toys, Velma always had a few extra on her.

Velma loved how your knowledge of mythology and horror complemented her detective work.

She started asking for your input on cases, even ones where the supernatural wasn’t involved.

Yeah, it wasn't long into your friendship that she told you about her job with her other friends.

Though, she made sure that you were ready when introducing you to her friends; Fred, Daphne, Shaggy, and Scooby.

You bonded over late-night study or gaming sessions.

Who knew that she actually liked video games?

She introduced you to her favorite puzzles and logic games, and you surprised her with your knack for finding unconventional solutions.

She quickly learned to recognize when you needed space or were overwhelmed, offering quiet support without pressuring you to talk.

Velma began to fall for you when she realized how deeply you cared for others, even when it hard for you to express it.

She admired how you poured your energy into making/finding thoughtful gifts for people you loved.

On your end, you couldn’t help but notice how Velma’s intelligence was matched by her kindness. She made you feel understood in a way that no one else did.

She would obviously already know ASL, so she can communicate with you if ever you go non-verbal.

Velma officially asked you out during a quiet moment at the Mystery Machine. She’d written her feelings out in a little notebook.

Dates involved exploring old bookstores, binge-watching classic horror cartoons, and even arts and crafts.

She loved the gifts you had given her - homemade bookmarks, shiny rocks, and hand-drawn cards.

And food! She loves it whenever you bake her something!

She is a sucker for your cookies!

She loves giving you things in return; a piece of a coyote jaw bone, a very cool and smooth rock, a raven feather made into a quill - with some ink for your writing.

You helped Velma organize her notes when she got overwhelmed with research, offering her snacks and tea to keep her going.

She took you on ghost-hunting adventures, letting you hang back with her equipment if you were too anxious to join the front-line sleuthing.

Velma would often give you hugs or hold your hand when she noticed you getting fidgety in social situations, her presence calming you down.

But, if you are not into hugs at that moment, she will soothe you with her kind words and soft voice.

If you don't want that, she will just sit or stand beside you, comforting you with her presence, in the peaceful silence.

She bought you a heated blanket for your always-cold tendencies and loved wrapping you up in it while you watched horror movies together.

If anyone made you uncomfortable or dismissed your stims, she’d give them a firm, no-nonsense lecture about respecting boundaries.

You’d leave encouraging notes in her notebooks, reminding her how brilliant she was whenever she doubted herself.

Knowing how much she loved mysteries, you created a mini-scavenger hunt for her birthday, with clues leading to a handmade scrapbook of your favorite moments together.

By the way, Fred, Daphne, Shaggy, and Scobby love you!

~~~

Harry Potter;

Sirius Black -

You were friends with Lily Evans and often helped her with schoolwork.

Through her, you untimely met Sirius.

Sigh.

Who initially came off as loud and intimidating to your more introverted self.

He was also quite the hindrance when you were trying to work on homework, but then again, you were also procrastinating.

Sirius found your quiet nature intriguing and took it as a challenge to get you out of your shell.

He’d sit next to you during meals or throw playful quips your way until you eventually started bantering back.

Opening up a bit took a while, he had to earn your trust.

Sirius loved dragging you into mischievous adventures, but he also respected your need for calm moments.

Which surprised you a bit because, well, he was Sirius Black.

But he was considerate, knowing when you were becoming overwhelmed or overstimulated and making sure you found a quiet place to destimulate.

He’d often sit with you in the library, pretending to study while secretly drawing funny doodles to try and make you laugh.

Sirius Black? In a library?

Never heard of that.

When he started spending time with you in the library, that's when James, Remus, and Peter started getting the feeling that Sirius liked you.

Yeah, more than a friend.

He always carried a charm or trinket you’d made for him, claiming it brought him luck during Quidditch matches.

He really likes the black dog keychain you made him, it's on his satchel bag.

Sirius realized his feelings at James and Lily’s wedding, where he saw you sitting alone, looking lost in thought. He was struck by how much he wanted to make you smile.

To be the reason for your wonderful smile...

Oof, he was hooked, smitten; he fancied you.

For you, it was the little things he did - like carrying a scarf to lend you when you got cold, buying you and him matching slippers, and when he tried baking you something for once... That made you fall for him.

After years of friendship, the transition to romance felt natural, as if it had been building up all along.

The night of the wedding, Sirius sat next to you and quietly confessed his feelings, offering you his hand for a dance.

That dance turned into a slow, heartfelt moment where everything else faded away.

He was fiercely protective, always checking in on your anxiety or making sure you had an escape plan at crowded events.

You’d spend hours curled up together, you reading while he absentmindedly played with your hair or practiced spells.

Sirius loved taking you on nighttime walks, and pointing out constellations while you shared random historical facts.

He taught you to ride a broom, holding you steady until you felt comfortable soaring on your own.

Sirius made a point of remembering your stims and comforting habits, offering distractions or grounding techniques when you were stressed.

Buys you all the pillows, blankets, and stuffies you could ever wish for whenever you are tired.

Just take a nap, and let all your worries wash away...

You defended him fiercely when people brought up his family, shutting down any judgment with calm but firm logic.

And, yeah, you know about his dog form.

Doggy pets.

Totally helps with anxiety.

~~~

DC;

Helena Bertinelli (Huntress) -

You worked with the Justice League as a coordinator for resources and information.

Helena - Huntress - initially saw you as another "desk job" person and didn’t think much of it until you helped her track down a lead she’d been chasing for weeks.

She felt kind of bad for underestimating you.

She was impressed by your efficiency and sharp intellect, but it wasn’t until she noticed your quiet confidence that she started to really respect you.

You bonded over late nights in the Watchtower, where she’d take breaks from patrols and find you engrossed in a book or crafting.

Helena appreciated how you respected her boundaries but also had a knack for offering support when she needed it most.

She’d often sit with you during your breaks, sharing stories about her latest missions while you listened attentively and asked thoughtful questions.

You started stashing snacks and warm drinks for her, knowing she often forgot to take care of herself during long missions.

Helena started to develop feelings when she noticed how deeply you cared for her well-being, even when she tried to brush it off. She admired your determination and the way you made her feel seen and heard.

You didn't see her like some of the others in the Justice League.

They didn't fully trust her because how she thought killing was justified if the person had done something incredibly horrible.

You understood her, you made her feel seen, and you knew that she was just doing what she could to get rid of the bad people in the world.

Oh, and she usually ran on revenge, they didn't like that either.

But you liked her.

:)

Basically, what I am saying, is that you supported her unconditionally, standing by her even when her methods were questioned by others, because you believed in her heart.

For you, it was her unwavering sense of justice and the rare moments when she let her guard down around you that made your heart ache for her.

The realization hit you both slowly but undeniably, like puzzle pieces falling into place.

Helena confessed her feelings one night in the Watchtower, her voice soft but steady as she admitted that she trusted you more than anyone else.

Dates were unconventional - training sessions in the gym, sneaking away to cozy diners or sharing a bottle of your favorite drink after a long day.

If you both aren't in the mood for anything crazy - as said above - the both of you would spend time reading together, watching horror movies, or even napping.

She was fiercely loyal and made a point of checking in with you, whether through a quick message during missions or a surprise visit to your office.

You helped Helena upgrade her gear, offering creative ideas that combined her combat expertise with your resourcefulness.

She is obsessed with the upgrade you gave her crossbow.

She loved reading alongside you, even if her taste leaned more toward gritty crime novels than your mythology and horror books.

Movie nights were a staple - she secretly enjoyed the cartoons and horror flicks you introduced her to, though she’d never admit it.

Helena made a habit of walking you home after work, her protective instincts kicking in every time she thought about you being alone at night.

Loves secretly leaving your gifts on your desk in your office - like cozy, dark-colored sweaters that fit your aesthetic.

She'd also surprise you with other small tokens of affection - a rare book you'd mentioned, a sleek jacket to match hers, or a plushie she saw and that reminded her of you.

She totally understands when you need to be alone, if ever. She also likes her alone time.

She also totally understands whenever you become overwhelmed or overstimulated; she has a full bin of fidget toys and craft supplies in her room whenever you need them.

Speaking more about fidget toys; Helena kept a small collection of fidget toys you introduced her to, finding them surprisingly helpful for calming her nerves after intense missions.

She’d often fidget with one while talking to you, claiming it was your fault she’d gotten attached.

[4rainynite]

Scooby Doo x Goosebumps

This better be some universal foreshadowing that we're getting a Scooby and Goosebumps crossover or I'll be so mad!

This week while I was in Barnes & Nobles I came across this and almost cried from joy. I'm a huge fan of Scooby- Doo and Goosebumps so this was just perfection. I know this was most likely a setup from leftover Halloween stuff, but I love it (also give the person a raise for the idea)!

Headcanon Time/ Scooby Doo x Goosebumps AU:

The Mystery INC is called by an anonymous benefactor to help find some missing people (mainly children) in a small town.

The gang jump to it since they love mysterious, but they love helping people more.

Once they arrive in the small town they begin investigating and hear strange stories around town for example: an evil dummy coming to life, a witch who grants terrible wishes, haunted mask that attach to people and turn them evil, cameras that predict omens, and so on.

At first the gang thinks it's another hoax and real estate plot, but the stories sound eerily familiar like something out of a 1980's -90's children horror book series.

The townsfolk don't trust Scooby - Doo due to his abilities to do things a normal dog can't possible do: speak human language, cook, dance, the works. This hurts Scooby and makes him start doubting himself (how dare you townspeople!).

The gang then investigate a writer who half the town think is responsible due to the kidnappings are similar to the horror novels he writes. When they meet the writer it's none other than *drumroll* R.L. Stine (who plays himself in the movie fanfic).

Mystery Inc: It's famous children's horror writer, R.L. Stine!

At first Velma is excited to meet the famous R.L.Stine, but after her encounter with Ben Ravencroft, she fears he'll be the same as Ben. Until -

R.L. Stine: So, you've met Mr. Ravencroft. How was he?

Velma: (Gloomy) I was excited to finally meet one of my favorite writers. Only to be disappointed when he turned out to be evil.

R.L. Stine: Yep! I met him before, he's a huge jerk! You should've met Stephen King aka the 'Adult horror writer of Goosebumps'.

Velma: *Perks up*

R.L. Stine reveals that he called them, and he is the cause of what is going on due to bunch of works he never finished/ can't find the ending for a current story from his old typewriter he had since he was nine, and if he can't come up with an ending soon things will get worse. The gang don't believe him and think all the rumors around town about him being the kidnapper are getting to him. The gang stays with R.L. Stine's place during the investigation and Scooby and Shaggy come across certain items from the Goosebumps, Fear Street, The Nightmare Room, and The Haunting Hour franchise. Scooby and Shaggy come across Slappy in his inactive state and unknowingly read his spell.

The next day Stine's home is trashed with a message in blood (or ketchup) reading: SLAPPY'S BACK!

Slappy (played by Jack Black or Cal Dodd) plans to possess Stein to bring a new era of horror to the world. He's been bringing all the monster/villains to life and the real world and framing Stine for the crimes.

Slappy: Hello papa, I'm back!

R.L. Stine: Slappy!

Slappy: That's right. Ooh! I see you got some friends and their dog.

Scooby: Rog rhere?

Shaggy: Check it out Scoob, the puppet really is haunted.

Daphne: Yeah, I guess we were due an evil dummy sooner or later.

Slappy: (Flabbergasted) W-what? You're not scared of me?

Fred: No offense Mr. Slappy, but we've dealt with real monsters before.

Velma: Zombies, cat-people cultist, witch's ghost, aliens, virus monsters, the list goes on and on.

Shaggy: Me and Scooby here even taught at a monster school once.

Scooby: Reah!

Slappy: Wow! I just met you people and I hate you already.

The gang and Stine recruit now adults Carly Beth, Danny Anderson, Hannah Fairchild (ghost child), and a few others to help end Slappy's reign.

There's an epic battle and the find a way to defeat Slappy and return everything to normal. R.L. Stein and the gang are cleared of all charges and are now heroes to the town!

It wouldn't be Goosebumps without a twist - Slappy survives and with his own typewriter he begins writing his own series. His first book is of the original Goosebumps series with an image of Mystery Inc. and R.L. Stine in the Mystery Machine with looks of terror on their faces.

[light-miracles]

Please share some fav frelma moments or headcanons? The fandom is so quiet ahaha

Sure!

Canon from the books trilogy (spoilers duh) (shot out to my friend Clei for getting me the books)

1) When Daphne makes Velma accidentally admit she has a crush on Fred and her reaction is just 'Damn Velma I didn't know you were so traditional'

2) When they dance together in Shaggy's house in the second book

3) Fred shamelessly flirting by touching her hair at school and Velms' almost heart attack.

4) Really, Velma's pining in the books is delicious.

5) The almost kiss in the third book.

6) When Fred almost dies in that fire and Velma just starts to cry out of pure relief when she sees him alive

7) Fred telling the journalists next thing he's doing is asking 'the girl he likes' out when he leaves hospital.

8) Their last scene together at the end. Which lives rent free on my head. I even wrote a little continuation/expansion of that scene in a drabble.

(Overall, the books aren't perfect. The focus is Daphne and Velma's friendship and that means too little focus on Shaggy and Freddie. But it was absolutely worth it. It was like the best Frelma fanfic but actually canon in its verse. Clinging to those books forever)

Honorific mentions of other versions: the "DORKY CHICKS LIKE YOU TURN ME ON TOO" line in the live action (lmfao) (Linda Cardellini and Freddie Prinze's chemistry was awesome), Fred going all the way to show her he appreciates everything she does in Be Cool Scooby Doo, and their scenes together in The Mystery Begins. Also every moment they share the screen in 'Mystery Incorporated: Welcome to Coolsville'. That version of the characters was the best one in recent years.

..

Headcanons now:

1) Has anyone watched that animated short horror video parodying the totally awful Velma show? The one with eldritch monster Scooby? Yeah they're together the next time Scooby reboots reality. Both of them are aware of what's going on and try to scape the time loop (confusing if you don't know the story of the video 'Velma Meets The Original Velma' on YouTube, plz watch it)

2) Moving on to greener grasses, eventually they have twin boys, Ricky and Roger (named after Fred and Shaggy). Obviously Daphne and Shaggy are the godparents.

3) Shaggy let's them adopt 3 puppies from the Doo family years in the future.

4) Scrappy lived with them for some time. Velma was the only one who could boss him around. Fred spoiled him.

5) Velma sends him food to his work out of nowhere because sometimes she's sure he's forgotten to eat. He does the same plus flowers. Both of them are right: they forget to have dinner. Shaggy never shuts up about it.

6) (I usually go with Archeologist!Fred and Astronomer!Velms. They travel a lot) (The kids are homeschooled until they can leave for a boarding school)

7) Ricky and Roger are mama boys

8) Fred does the taxes. Velms always forgets.

9) Shaggy is a chef (duh) and Daphne a private detective and they're never too far away. Their kid is a little older than the twins but they hang out a lot. Sometimes Velma refers to Daphne as 'her sister' so the boys don't figure out Daphne isn't their 'actual aunt' until they're older.

10) Velma has a photo of him on her wallet. Fred is the little spoon.

[dusty-daydreams]

Hi! Fic Anon again! I was wondering what the consequences might have been had Eloise and Theo gotten married? (Post s3) What would have been the reactions of the Bridgertons and the Ton? Because that seems like a big, BIG scandal, maybe the biggest scandal.

(On a brighter note how cute it would be if Eloise and Theo opened their own bookshop/printing press together and they spend a peaceful life away from the aristocratic society)

Have a nice day!

Interestingly enough if the show was doing things realistically in relation to the actual social politics of the time it probably would have been just slightly less scandalous than the scandal that Penelope outs Eloise as having

Cavorting unchaperoned with working class radicals? Deeply scandalous, implies that Eloise is impure

Answering that with Eloise marrying a working class printers apprentice - still deeply deeply scandalous but maybe she just fell in love with someone below her station and made the feelings honest and honourable with marriage.

She wouldn’t be welcome in high society and it would have realistically impacted the overall reputation of the Bridgertons probably made them on the reputational level of the featheringtons when Eloise’s scandalous marriage is weighed against their connection to the Duke

Though I don’t think Eloise would care about loosing her place in society and unlike Kate’s step mother I don’t think that the Bridgertons would cut her off, so she would still be able to visit her family and rely on them for help

In fact it is my personal headcannon that if Eloise were to marry Theo, Anthony in his role as protector and provider (which in this scenario Anthony would probably not see as ending - like if Eloise marries Theo Anthony probably continues to feel responsible for her, in a way that he doesn’t for Daphne)

So Anthony as the provider and protector that is core to his identity probably “invests” in a print shop for Theo to “own” and run so that the marriage is slightly more respectable - like the daughter of a viscount marrying a printer’s apprentice - extremely scandalous, but marrying a business owner - still extremely scandalous but less so

As for Bridgerton reactions I think it depends on the Bridgerton, I think Violet, Anthony, Daphne and maybe Colin would be horrified because they are all invested in living up to the social contract and standards of the Ton.

I think Benedict and Francesca would be worried for her but ultimately pleased that she was doing what made her happy.

I think Hyacinth would think it was Romantic and as she grew up probably a bit unwise (Hyancinth loves romance stories but her hero’s are usually men of higher rank than even her family)

I think Gregory would be uncertain and torn between Anthony and Benedict’s reactions as to which he should mirror, but as he grew up I could see him settling into a concerned but happy for her state

Especially as time goes by because I can see Anthony mellowing out into “concerned but happy for her” the longer things don’t go wrong

Daphne and Violet would always be in a state of horror about it but would still want to see her

[smokin-symbiotes]

October Horror Movies #2

'Don't Look Now' (1973)

Summary: A couple losses their daughter in a sudden accident. While in Venice for work, they recieve signs their daughter is trying to contact them from the other side. But is it real? Adapted from the 1971 short story by Daphne du Maurier.

Entry 2/31 of my October film series. Some spoilers ahead.

It's a testament to the strength of a movie's screenplay where you can read a summary about it and still be caught off guard through most of the movie. The back half of the film is particually anxiety inducing, where husband and father John Baxter (the late, great Donald Sutherland) is left alone in Venice, chasing phantoms of his wife, Laura (Julie Christie), and daughter, Christine (Sharon Williams), as a serial killer is on the loose.

It's not just the unfolding plot that keeps you on edge. It's the surreal editing, the labryinthian layout of Venice, the uncomfortable confrontations between a grieving couple as they come face to face with seemingly supernatural forces. The horror of the film is derived from the crushing reality of the death of the child and the unknown of the paranormal.

The movie is focused on the seemingly never-ending search for closure after the death of a loved one, trying to get "the full picture" of the circumstances of their passing. You're given the impression that even months after their daughter's death the couple is still coping poorly: John has thrown himself into his work, and is unable or unwilling to be vulnerable with Laura about the subject. Laura is more open about her feelings, as she's the only one of the two parents who tries to connect with their surviving son, Johnny (Nicholas Salter). However, she is immediately wrapped up in the supernatrual after a chance encounter with a blind clairvoyant (Hilary Mason) and her sister (Clelia Matania).

It's interesting how the movie plays with typical gender roles, i.e. men are stoic and rational, women are emotional and irriational. On the surface the movie seems framing Laura as "weak" and John as "strong," but John's inability to be truly vulnerabe is what leads him to ruin. Meanwhile, Julia finds kinship in the sisters and is finally able to make real progress in processing her grief. Laura achieves some form of closure: John cannot, and will not.

Interestingly, the movie is preoccupied with duplication and doubling. Two supernatually inclined sisters, Christine's doppleganger roams the Venetian streets, John's an architect that restores churches, where he dupes mosiacs and statues to bring the church back to life. I think this doubling reflects the desire to recreate life as it was after a loved's one death: you want things to go back to the way they were (Laura even says she wishes she could forget what happened to her daughter) but you can't. The last few minutes of the movie drive the point home that it's better to move on rather than go back.

I think the title of the film plays into that theme. In the short story, the title is dropped as soon as the story starts:

"'Don't look now,' John said to his wife, 'but there are a couple of old girls two tables away who are trying to hypnotise me.'"

I don't know the thematic importance of the title for the short story—I have yet to read it—but for the movie I think it's a command. "Don't look now"—for closure. Closure isn't something to be chased, it comes naturally, sometimes suddenly, sometimes with the passing of time. Laura suddenly recieves closure in the form of the clairvoyant: John rejects this, believing he can seek closure in what's real, what he can see. He chases his daughter's doppleganger through Venice, beliving that by somehow confronting her, he can get some kind of relief or explanation. Of course, in his quest, there is no relief to be had...

[just-an-enby-lemon]

@unrestrainedbalderdash said they don't care if I put Jonathan Crane into my idea of how I would do an adult Scooby cartoon. And since they are someone who I really liked and I really just need one person saying "hey is okay" to me to overly babble over something here we are.

Disclaimer: I did not watch the Velma show. I saw the trailer and reviews but that is it. This is also not a recreation of it. It's merely how I would do an adult scooby doo story with a more representative cast.

▫️Alpha Kappa Scobby (I'm bad naming stuff)

Is time to grow up.

With the end of high school comes the anxiety inducing question of what to do next? To the Mystery Inc. the answer was always obivous: continuing solving mysteries together. Unfortunally fate appeared to have other plans. Between parental presure, a crashing economy, a shitty job market and an investigation that abelit sucefull ended up breaking the Mystery Machine, hurting a civilian and facing the local authorities ultimatum that they could not keep their unregulated detective agency it appears to be the end.

But the thing is mysteries never ever leave the gang. Where they are things happen and as they face the monsters of adult life other monsters may appear on the way. Are they ready?

▫️The Gang

- Velma is our main characther. She is a second generation imigrant kid from an indian-american family, possibly autistic (mostly represented by her sensory issues and examples of masking) and a genius who suffers from anxiety and the pressure that both comes with societal expectations related to prejudice, familial expectations (especially as a second generation imigrant) and being a gifted kid. She is also a lesbian.

- Shaggy is Shaggy. They are a possibly stoner black latino (he may be a stonner or it may be just harmfull steriotypes possibly both) and they are also ace and non-binary using they/then pronouns. Norville is their deadname and the fact their parents call them that is a dead give away of the time of people they are. Shaggy was adopted and their parents are upped middle class white guys who adopted three POC kids and act extremily white saviour over it. Their bio parents are implied to be scientistis at Star Labs that died in an freaky accident when they eere still little. They may have something to do with Scooby being a talking dog. Though they met by Shaggy adopting a stray puppy. Their personality is still the same. Except for the parents issues. Like they are still the same glutonous coward who cares a lot for their friends and likes bad horror movies.

- Scooby is Scooby. Like nothing changed at all about him. Except that outside the gang people do question the fact he is a talking dog. Since their world is really weird people go from allien to failed scientific experiment of either LexCorp or Starlabs. The more accepted theory is that he is the first non-human to manifest a meta gene. He isn't being studies because he flied over radar until the gaang started solving mysteries and at this point he was too popular plus the governent had other more important issues going on. So he is just a fact.

- Daphne is a girl who defy expectations. She is weird. She has two mons (a thing I know is cannon on the Velma cartoon and am using), one is a british martial artist and the other a american fashion designer and she got very deep into both of her mons careears. She has some relatives in jail and she learned a bunch with them. She loves to learn except not the school stuff, so her grades were meh and people usually saw her as just a pretty face, even though she has a bunch of great skils like fighting, fashion, faking signatures, lock picking, stealth, acting, a bunch of sports and more. She is bissexual and has a huge crush on both Elvira and Hex Girls. She also loves escape artists (being good at scaping herself) and is a fan of bad horror movies and campy actors. She also has a crush on Fred.

- Fred is a sweet bissexual himbo and he is very clearly neurodivergent and definitvaly autistic. He stims a lot, has dificulty getting social clues, misses most sarcasm and some abstract expressions, has a huge special interest in traps, sometimes goes non-verbal, just the whole book. He is a rich white boy but fails to meet his misoginistic racist parents expectations not only by hangin with the gaang but by having a disability. His parents never took him to a doctor to be diagnosed because they believed it would bring shame to the family to have a disabled kid and just hoped he would "grow out of it". He does have some internalized prejudice but it's working to be better. He also has a huge crush in Daphne, is a very supportive and loyal friend and infodumps people a lot.

▫️The Pilot

The pilot episode starts with the gaang reciving their ultimatum and having to undergo an state aproved course to became private investigators and be abble to keep the Mystery Inc. going. Shennanigans issue and they all end up failing.

Daphne is too good on the self defense courses and also may have caused a teacher who implied she would need to do sexual favors for him if she hoped to pass in his boring law class to never be able to walk again. Luckily he was too afraid to press charges.

Fred keept trying to insert trap making into the course to ridiculous extremes.

Shaggy broke the vending machine, ate all the food and also just keept running away from the clues in all the pratical texts. They answers also mostly involved running and getting uninvolved.

No one knew if Scooby should do dog training or humam courses and he ended in a confusing stream of buerocracy.

Velma should by all means had suceeded though and the only reason she failed was racial bias. She tries to brush it off, after all she was not going to be a detective on her own anyway and all her friends failed, but it clearly afects her and this will be a thing hanging over her head the whole season. The episode ends with Velma discovering she got approved to a full scholarship on a fictional ivvy league university outisde of Crystal Cove she had applied more for her parents sakes than her in criminology.

▫️They failed what now?

After a whole debate during the second episode and the gaang being supportive even if it means it is the definitive end for them, Velma decides to go to college. Of course trying to keep together the whole gaang somehow ends up involved with the campus.

- Shaggy and Scobby get a job at the college cafeteria that Shaggy uses to move into a trailer in the college parking lot (that they plans into turning in a food truck) so they can get away from their transphobic parents. Scobby of course moves with them.

- With help of white rich cis man priviledge Fred gets accepted to the same school but into architeture (he does uses this knoledge to plan traps but also realizes he likes projecting rooms on general). The thing is thanks to missanderstanding a sarcastic coment from Velma he ends up being part of a very "bro" fraternity. It's mostly played for laughs as he definitivally doesn't belong there but also accidentaly starts turning the guys into better people. But also features on Fred understanding his priviledge and the internalized prejudices his parents dumped on him and evolving past them and also dealing with ableism.

- Daphne decided to try to work in a close by cafe and became roomates with a goth girl called June that works with Shaggy and Scooby. Both are fired and decide to open an etsy store together. She is also doing an online course on fashion. Velma has a crush on June and June is implied to have a criminal past. The etsy store is mostly used for laughs though it also is used to show Daphne dealing with being different from soceity expectations and the hardships of having a small bussiness.

▫️The Plot

The story focuses on their adventures on campus as they deal with adult life but also as weird things keep happening and students end up either getting murdered or disapearing all the time. While focused on episodic shennanigans with characther growth as the linear aspect there are some key episodes that show that there's a major conspiracy involving the university's past and the looming presence of an white supremacist cult.

▫️Cool and all but where is Jonathan Crane?

The thing is if I was writing this series I would make the connection with DC be mostly references with some few special episodes starting on the second season (including the obligatory Batman team-up and a episode were Riddler, who is on his P.I arc, is hired to the same case the Mystery Inc is in and they have to work together). So we would have things like Scooby possibly having the metagene, Velma being a Batman fangirl and having some batfam merch in the middle of her detective merch, Fred being a Green Arrow fan and buying trap material for Ace Chemicals and LexCorp, Daphne mentioning her uncle Alfred or Shaggy's bio parents having been Star Lab scientistis. Some name drops like WayneTech or Lex Luthor.

The exception being Jonathan Crane. Jon is an actual relevant secundary characther. After mysterious circunstances involving a fight with the dean, a recomendation letter and an ultimatum, Jonathan leaved Gotham University and became a teacher at the Yet To Be Named University where the gang is.

His disciplines are an eletive about phobias, psychophatology and forensic psychology. He is famous over the campus for being a genius and a great teacher but also for being harsh, having extremely high standards and hard exams and just being creepy and really really weird. There is legit theories of him being some kind of cryptic or a ghost. He has the uncanny hability of walking without making any noise and being abble to be silent and quiet until he suddently scares someone with his presence. He speaks little outside the classroom and is always alone. And if someone tries to be friendly with him, he will just leave and let the person hanging. No one ever saw him eat only drink coffe (that may be spiked with whisky sometimes). He is mostly saw outside classes either writing/typing or reading (he only reads text books and horror stories). He has a crow in his office and while the bird is calm and sweet with him it sings creepy old childrem rhymes and it definitivaly attacked a student who got emotional over a bad grade and started screaming with Crane.

With all that being said Crane is Velma's fsvorite professor and she is his favorite student. He doesn't presure or mocks her and is fascinated by her theories and they can discuss psychology, chesmistry, literature and criminology for hours. They respect each other and have a deep understanding being fairly similar (and yes make Crane be also POC, prefencialy south asian), they are friends and with her family alway Velma sees Crane as a pseudo father-figure. Even Crane's bird Ichabod seems to also enjoy Velma a lot. The rest of the gang has more mixed views of Crane. He is always polite with them but he is also creepy as hell specially with Shaggy and Scooby as he asks them a lot of questions about their fears.

Every single time someone either dies or disappears everyone accuses Crane. He is ALWAYS a suspect. And Velma is his only defender (sometimes the gang as whole also). And he is always show to be innocent. But is also hinted that he is still planning and doing Scarecrow shit and while it's played for laughs the huge impact Crane and Velma's bond have to Velma overcoming her issues is a hint that when it finally happens of Crane being the guilty part and his Scarecrow persona coming to light it will break Velma's heart.

[spacerangersam]

nobody asked but here's my idea for a scooby doo show. tl:dr slice of life roadtrip

it's the 80s/90s

the gang are all 21 - 23, and have just finished university

Daphne went for journalism/creative writing, Velma went for something archeology related, Fred…something something engineering, and Shaggy did not go to uni but works at a nearby cafe

Him and Daphne were childhood friends and when she announced she was going off to uni he made a joke about going with her that she took 100% seriously, so they (and scooby) moved together, renting a place just outside the campus

Fred and Velma met during their first year as they lived in the same apartment block, bonding over their hatred of all the late night parties the other tenants keep throwing. lesbian + her himbo, a very important dynamic

Velma and Daphne met through the uni newspaper and brought the whole gang together. they have a will they won't they thing going on

So, it's the day after graduation and after the buzz of getting their diplomas, everyone is just absolutely terrified of the idea of facing the adult world.

None of them feel ready to start thinking about jobs and housing, marriage and kids and everything else their parents expect of them

So, Shaggy suggests they take a year off. Just one year to do whatever they want, have all the fun they want, and then they can face 'real' adulthood

Everyone agrees and they decide to kick off their year break with a country wide road trip in Shaggy hippie van

As they travel around though, stopping at various hotels and tourist destinations on the way, they find themselves repeatedly caught up in strange events, some supernatural and some not, and do their best to work together to figure out the truth

Maybe there's some underlying story linking most or all of the events, or maybe there's not

What's more important to me is the gang and their insecurities of not living up their parents/society's expectations of who they should be and what they should do/their fears of the futures

At the end they they realise that, hey, they've got a nice little gig going here, that they can do adulthood their way, together in their weird little hippie van with their dog, haunting down fraudsters and ghouls

To go into my characteristics of them:

Daphne - very intense and outgoing, she's the one who's usually dragging them into danger, for better or worse. She loves a good ghost story, a good alien story, a good monster- anything that's fun, weird and supernatural. That's the kind of thing she wants to write about, even if her parents don't really approve. She's big into horror movies, though she tries not to watch them around the others as they're a bit more squeamish. Coming from a rich family, they had the cash to let her try out all the hobbies she wanted growing up so she has a wide range of skills and abilities which always come in handy. She doesn't care as much about actually solving the mysteries, she just likes living in the moment and enjoying the weirdness she gets caught up in. She is absolutely the brawn of the group.

Velma is the bookworm of course, smart and level headed, she's the one who wants to actually solve the mysteries. Growing up, she devoured all the mystery / detective stories that she could, trying to solve them as she went along. She can get worked up very easily though / gets impatient so, left to her own devices, would often give up and move on. After she meets the gang they keep her motivated though, and she finally starts seeing all these mysteries to the very end. She doesn't believe in the supernatural at all initially, and even after tends to assume it's not something spooky. She also has a big love of history, obviously, and loves researching and info dumping about it. Also knows a lot about bones. It comes in handy surprisingly often.

Fred is just a nice himbo, that tweet that's like: I didn’t come here to make friends (big grin) I came here to make best friends? Yeah, that's him. Of course, he loves his traps, and mechanics outside of that. He always has to keep his hands busy, he has to, so it's not odd to find him fiddling with random scraps, trying to make something out of them when he's nor driving. He's the strategic one out of the group, the one figuring out how to put all their skills to use to take down the bad guy. He's also big into board games and somehow wins monopoly every single time.

Shaggy is simultaneously the most laid back and up tight one of the group. He considered going into culinary but thought it'd just kill his love of cooking and food. He also just like had very limited amounts of energy each day, so uni would've been hell. He's a hippie, of course he is. Cares a lot about the environment, is very anti-war etc. He keeps up to date with politics, much to everyone's shock. Is the only one of the group who knows anything about first aid and the only one who can sew. Has some angst about the fact Daphne her parents always looked down on him / thought he was holding her back and is worried he's doing that with all of them with this road trip idea. Hates anything even vaguely spooky, but does like a good cryptid

Scooby is just a dog in this one. Or may even at first he is and then after some supernatural stuff he begins to talk? Actually I like that idea more. Yeah, at the end of one episode, he randomly starts talking, everyone panics and screams, cut to black

He seems so human that the gang just start treating him like another person but then he goes to try and eat chocolate or something and everyone has to be like no! Scooby! :000

[tetsunabouquet]

I mentioned in my birthday post last December that a kid used to call me Medusa as a means of bullying- likely because of the combination of my good looks and the fact that even as a elementary school girl I had an icy glare. I'll never forget that one time where high schoolers were checking me out when I was like 10 and I glared at them causing them to yell out I had the evil eye. Now I actually had a practise assignment for writing recently, where I was supposed to build a character through the means of a picking a story theme and slowly letting the associations come to me. I actually picked women in mythology; themes & retellings because there were a couple of myths that I thought were interesting for a modern retelling. Whilst the character I picked was Daphne, Medusa was fresh in mind so I noted her down in my list. After the assignment, I kept thinking of the other women and their modern retellings -like I thought a modern retelling of Demeter's Hymn would be excellent to go after Daphne's retelling because I have a pretty fucked up ending in mind to show the brutality of men not accepting no, and the mother's horror after that seemed like a stroke of genius. But when coming to Medusa, I felt the instinctive urge to paint her so I did. Before anyone asks, yes I covered the see-through bits of her dress with glitterpaint. I thought it would look pretty and it does! (seriously why is glitter such a fucking paint to capture nicely)

[gotyouanyway]

the next life anon here! thanks, at least knowing there’s something relevant to their dynamic at the end makes it sort of worthwhile. re the creed of the kromon - yeah for me it was the misogynistic torture porn. in my specific case anything pregnancy related is just a super hard no so that’s why i found it so personally offputting. that’s just me though, not really a reflection on the quality of the story.

in terms of comparing it to scherzo or tnhof - in the first place i think in both cases, the story is just a lot better, which insulates them from any grossness by at least making listening to them more enjoyable. and in both cases there’s something else going on to the body horror or sexual assault. scherzo obviously is very consciously using its body horror as a vehicle to examine love and codependency but even tnhof is interrogating agency and the lack thereof under a totalitarian state. (i read the reference to rape in tnhof as a direct allusion to 1984 but idk if im right on that). i don’t love the way tnhof references assault, i don’t think the story really needed it, but it did at least have some use within the story.

creed of the kromon, on the other hand, subjects charley to metamorphosis purely for the sake of it - the worst part, and what really seals for deal for me in terms of it being unsalvageable, is that she doesn’t remember it and as of halfway through the next life it’s literally never brought up again. so we don’t get to hear her process it, there’s no examination of what this might mean for her as someone who yearns to be a mother, there’s no character moments whatsoever. l’da’s fate is classic fridging, which would be misogynistic but not really worse than other big finish audios, and so at least provides a lot of character work for c’rizz, but there is literally no point whatsoever to it happening to charley other than for the listener to hear her being subjected to it. that’s why for me anyway creed of the kromon is so egregiously bad.

to be really clear though i’m not trying to make a sweeping moral claim here! i personally did not enjoy it for those reasons but i can totally understand that what’s a dealbreaker to me absolutely wouldn’t be for someone with a higher tolerance for body horror etc. and i would be a real hypocrite to say that i’ve never enjoyed a story where a main character is tortured! those are just the reasons why for me i find it much harder to listen to than other audios with a comparable level of body horror.

ironically i do think if the stuff with charley and l’da wasn’t in it creed of the kromon would rank relatively high on my list of divergent universe eps - the story is pretty decent and i certainly found it much more interesting than the last, which i thought was just so boring. and i would put the next life below creed of the kromon in and of itself i think just because christ it’s a slog. not to mention the racist overtones and the crime of finally having daphne ashbrook in an audio and giving her a role basically indistinguishable from an early bond girl (highly derogatory). anyway, thanks for your support in these trying next life times and hope this answer is a bit helpful too!

i totally get this!! you're definitely in the majority here. it's not that i never noticed all the misogyny (i don't want to come across as someone who needs these things pointed out to me lol), i think i just responded to it differently than a lot of other people did (less disgust, more exhausted disappointment). and that's why i didn't *quite* understand the popular opinion, but i get it better now.

and i totally agree about charley.. but again i think the reason most of this stuff wasn't a total dealbreaker for me is that it's unfortunately not that unique. scherzo is never brought up again either, charley forgets what happens in the last, she doesn't even seem to give a shit when c'rizz chokes her out twice.. it's an ongoing problem of charley being hurt and not being allowed to deal with it, so to me creed is just another unfortunate example of that :/

i said more stuff in the reblogs/replies of your original ask btw! and thanks for the explanation <3

[rubysunnday]

I'll look after you (but I won't stop complaining about it)

requested by anon: Hi I love your Bridgerton sister fics! They got me to finally watch the show. Can I request an Anthony x Bridgerton!reader fic where it’s “4 times Anthony protects the reader and 1 time she protects him”?

requested by anon: Okay but, a twist to the story and instead of the typicall bridgerton!sister being stung by the bee, what if it’s Anthony, and everyone worries about him because of what happened to their father, and it’s specially the youngest bridgerton!sister who has a reaction like him in the show out of fear of losing her brother/father figure?

requested by anon: anthony x bridgerton sis where reader is around 15 and she has a really big fight with colin or eloise and she goes on a walk to calm herself down, falls down a hill and anthony finds her after looking for her for a while? but like fluffy pls

summary: four times Anthony protected his sister and the one time she protected him (albeit it was from the ton)

After Edmund Bridgerton, the 8th Viscount Bridgerton, died, his son, Anthony, made a promise. He sat at his father's death bed, staring down at the cold corpse that had once been his beloved father, and promised to look after his siblings - all eight of them - and to try, in any way possible, to guide them as an elder brother and as a father figure.

Whilst his siblings did not make this promise an easy one to keep Anthony kept trying. But right now, at this exact moment in time, Anthony wanted to throttle his sisters.

He vaguely wondered if anyone would find their bodies at the bottom of the lake, only to be yanked out of the thought by a pillow smacking him in the chest, the intended target oblivious as she glared at her twin.

"What is so wrong with wanting marriage?" Y/N yelled, throwing her hands up at her sister.

"It shackles you for life!" Eloise yelled back. "It silences you and your dreams."

"Oh, not this conversation again," Y/N groaned. "El, not everyone wants the same things as you. Is it so wrong for me to want to be married and happy? There are plenty of things you can still do when married."

"Not if you marry some old man who treats his women like objects!"

"Nope, absolutely not," Y/N said, getting up from the sofa, throwing the cushion she'd been hugging at Eloise, "I am not having this conversation again. Marry, do not marry, I do not care. But I am not going to sit here and listen to you call me an unintelligent woman simply because I dream of being married one day."

The door to the drawing room slammed shut. Eloise huffed, sitting back down on the sofa, crossing her arms.

Anthony pulled back a page of his newspaper, eyeing Eloise. "Is it so wrong for your sister to want marriage?"

"She does not understand what it can do to a woman, brother," Eloise replied. "The consequences, the silencing..."

"It can be a positive thing, El -"

"I have heard far too many horror stories of women being treated like cattle to view it as a positive thing. We all saw what nearly happened to Daphne when she came out."

"That was entirely my own doing -"

"This is what I mean!" Eloise exclaimed, sitting forward. "We do not get to choose our husbands. Our husbands choose us or our fathers and brothers choose them for us. Not once does a woman get a say in who she marries."

Anthony exhaled through his nose, seeing that he clearly wasn't going to get anywhere with Eloise. He folded his newspaper shut, setting it down on the coffee table beside him.

"I'm going to go check on Y/N," he muttered, standing up from the sofa.

Whilst Anthony knew Y/N and Eloise were devoted to one another, he also knew that when they argued, it got mean, very quickly. The marriage argument had been one they'd had many times before and it never ended well.

Eloise could never quite seem to understand why any woman would want to willingly be married. Y/N never quite understood why Eloise was so opposed to even the idea of marriage. What was so wrong with wanting a future for herself where she was ostracized to the edge of society?

It took him fifteen minutes and five servants to work out where Y/N had gone. As much as he adored Aubery Hall, he did curse its extensive grounds, especially when his siblings ran off.

Another ten minutes later and Anthony was finally down in the woods of the grounds, walking through patches of bluebells and snowdrops, peering behind trees and bushes.

He looked behind a fairly large oak tree and stopped, casting his eyes down. Y/N looked back up at him, her face blotchy from her tears.

She didn't say anything, turning her head away and looking straight ahead at where the river cut through their lands.

Anthony crossed his arms, leaning against the tree. "This is an argument you have had before. We all know how it goes."

"I know. Does not stop it from upsetting me or being infuriating."

"It reminds me of the argument I so often have with Colin about travelling," Anthony replied. "If he had it his way, he would be gallivanting around every corner of this world, spending as much money as he likes. I am the one who has to bring him back down and tell him that whilst we have money, we do not have enough money for that."

Y/N gave him a small smile. "It is utterly exhausting. I have tried to explain to her multiple times that marriage can be a good thing. If you find the right person."

"I can attest to that."

"Five words I never thought you would say, brother," Y/N said, looking up at him.

"This argument is not worth your tears, Y/N."

"Oh, I am aware, I was not crying about that." She looked a little sheepishly at Anthony's raised eyebrow. "I was so angry I did not look where I was going and I twisted my ankle, falling down a rabbit burrow."

Anthony stared at her for a moment. Then, he burst out laughing, leaning back, putting a hand on his chest.

"Yes, yes, laugh away," Y/N muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Are you alright?"

"No! I fell down a rabbit burrow!"

Anthony snorted. Y/N reached over and pushed her brother's leg, knocking him off balance. He stumbled to the side, catching himself.

"Are you going to just stand there and laugh or will you help me up and back to the house?"

"Alright, come on then."

Anthony held his hands out to Y/N and she placed her hands in his, letting him help her up to her feet, hopping awkwardly. She put her foot down and winced, pain shooting up from her ankle.

Without uttering a word, Anthony turned around. Y/N, snorted but climbed onto his back, using her good foot to propel herself up.

"I feel like I'm ten again," Y/N said as Anthony gripped her legs.

"I don't," he grunted. "When did you get so heavy?"

"Don't be rude. Come along then," she said, nudging him with her foot.

Anthony rolled his eyes. "If I fall down a rabbit burrow, it'll be your fault."

"Bloody hell."

Daphne whacked her sister with her blue mallet. "Language."

Y/N shot her a withering look. "It's just family, we are quite safe." She tilted her head up, looking at the tree. "How on earth are we to get that out?"

It was a well-known fact that Y/N Bridgerton did not know what gently meant. Especially when it came to pall mall. One well-aimed hit later, her purple ball was stuck up in the tree, nestled amongst the branches.

"We'll have to climb."

"No, Y/N, do not -"

Daphne trailed off as Y/N dropped her mallet and put her booted foot on a stump next to the tree. She pushed herself up, pulling her dress up over her knee and climbing up onto the lowest branch.

She could see the purple ball wedged between the fork of two branches. If she climbed up another branch and crawled forward, she could definitely grab it.

The panting of breaths came from below as Colin, Benedict and Anthony rushed up to Daphne, all looking up at the tree.

"Is she climbing the tree?!" Colin exclaimed, both delighted and slightly concerned.

"Of course she is!" Anthony snapped. "Y/N, get down at once!"

"Let one of the boys get it, Y/N," Daphne added.

"I'm up here now!" Y/N yelled down, climbing onto the second branch. "I might as well get it!"

Y/N crawled forward again, the leaves shaking at the sudden movement.

"Someone should get her down," Benedict muttered, following Y/N's movements. "Knowing our dear sister, she will fall down. She's not exactly gentle."

"Y/N!" Anthony yelled, moving to the bottom of the tree trunk. "Mother will kill me if you fall!"

"I've almost got it!"

Y/N leant forward, her fingers brushing against the purple ball. Instead of the ball falling into her grip, she lost her balance entirely and teetered forward and off the branch.

Her arms flailed as she struggled to find anything to grip on, her sibling's yells of panic from below silencing her own yelp of surprise.

Y/N was falling until she wasn't. Arms wrapped around her just before she hit the ground, her body smacking into Anthony's. The force knocked them both to the floor, Anthony taking down Benedict at the same time.

The three siblings hit the ground, hard. Anthony's head smacked against Benedict's chest as Y/N knocked her own head into her older brother's chin.

"Oh, my go - are you three ok?" Daphne exclaimed, crouching down beside Y/N and helping her sit up, a concerned hand on her back.

Y/N rolled off her elder brother and to the side, coughing slightly, winded from her collision with her brother.

"Anthony get off me," Benedict grunted, pushing his brother off him.

Anthony stumbled to his feet, swaying just a bit. "I'm fine," he muttered, dusting his jacket down. "Just another victim of Y/N Bridgerton."

Something landed on top of Anthony's head with a fairly loud thud. It rolled off him and bounced onto the floor, rolling down to Y/N's feet.

"Oh!" She said, bending down and picking it up. "I did get my ball after all!."

Y/N looked behind her frantically, desperately trying to find an escape as Cressida Cowper walked towards her, her friends walking alongside her.

She was not having a good day and she did not need Cressida Cowper to make it any worse.

"Y/N!"

Bloody hell. "Cressida," Y/N said, curtseying politely.

"You look beautiful. As ever," Cressida added snidely. "Anyone asked you for a dance yet?"

Y/N gritted her teeth. "No, not yet."

"Oh, shame. Mr Patrick, Sir Carter and Mr Norris have all written their names in my dance card."

"Well, I hope you enjoy all your dances."

"Hmm, I suppose I will."

Cressida brushed past Y/N, tipping her glass of lemonade onto her dress and down her chest. Y/N gasped, the cold liquid startling her. Cressida sniggered and sauntered off to another corner of the ballroom.

Y/N inhaled shakily, closing her eyes. She turned her back to the rest of the room, feeling her throat closing as the tears threatened to fall all over again.

A jacket sleeve brushed against her arm and Y/N knew instantly it was Anthony. He shielded her from the rest of the room as he unbuttoned his jacket and put it around her shoulders, handing her his handkerchief.

"Come on," he said quietly, taking her hand and pulling her along with him.

Anthony walked out into the corridor outside the ballroom and then into another empty room. He shut the door behind them and Y/N sat down heavily on the sofas, hanging her head low.

"I have half a mind to go yell at Miss Cowper," Anthony muttered, walking over to her.

"Not that it would solve anything," Y/N replied, straightening up. She dabbed under her eyes with her fingers, shaking her head. "Thank you."

"Whatever for?"

"Getting me out of there before I made a scene."

Anthony smiled softly. "If anyone made a scene, it was Cressida." He sat down next to her on the sofa. "We do not have to go back. We can leave."

Y/N shook her head, pulling Anthony's jacket tighter around her shoulders. "No. I do not want her to win. Give me five minutes and I'll be fine."

"Very well, then."

Y/N dropped her head to Anthony's shoulder, closing her eyes momentarily. "Thank you, brother."

Anthony kissed her forehead, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, squeezing tightly. "Anytime."

The rain lashed against the windows. A loud boom of thunder sounded from directly overhead and Y/N flinched, digging her nails into the leather of the chair she was sat in.

She didn't know what it was about storms that frightened her so much - whether it was the loud noises, the bright flashes of lighting, the sound of trees being felled - but this was the worst one they had had in years.

Anthony glanced up at his sister, pausing his writing. "Alright?"

Y/N nodded tightly, clutching her book in one hand. "Fine."

Another boom of thunder and she closed her eyes, jumping in her seat. Anthony set his pen down and pushed his chair back, walking over to his sister. He snatched up her book, putting his thumb on the page she was on, and closing it to look at the cover.

Pride and Prejudice was written on the front, each letter covered in gold foil. "Would you like me to read to you?"

"If it means distracting me from this god-awful storm, yes."

Anthony smiled, sitting down in the chair opposite his sister. He opened the book again and found the start of the new chapter. "Colonel Fitzwilliam's were very much admired at the Parsonage, and the ladies all felt that he must add considerably to the pleasure of their engagements at Rosings."

Y/N leant back in her chair, closing her eyes. Anthony's voice was calm and didn't flinch once, even when lighting struck almost outside his study window. His mere presence had calmed her down from the panic building inside her.

As Anthony reached the end of the chapter, he glanced over at his sister. He smiled softly upon seeing that she was fast asleep, her head drooping to one side. He concluded the chapter, gently tucking a piece of paper in between the pages and closing the book.

It had been many years since he'd last carried anyone other than Hyacinth and Gregory to bed. Even then, they were beginning to get a bit too big and a bit too old.

Anthony gently lifted Y/N up into his arms and crept through the corridors of Bridgerton House. He laid her down on her bed and pulled back the blankets and duvet, placing them on top of her, smoothing the edge down.

"Night, Y/N," he whispered, standing in the doorway, a soft smile on his face.

Anthony did not regret marrying Kate Bridgerton neé Sharma one bit.

He just regretted his mother's penchant for big ball's and extravagant celebrations. Anthony had hardly had time to take in his new wife and admire her as viscountess - it felt as if the entire ton had been invited to the ball.

Almost an hour later, Anthony finally found his wife again, walking up to her and taking her hand in his, squeezing it tightly.

"I missed you," he murmured, leaning into her neck and sniffing.

Kate shoved him gently. "Anthony, behave."

"Apologies."

"Your mother seems very determined to introduce me to every member of the ton tonight."

"Again, apologies."

Kate chuckled, smiling widely. "I forgive you, my lord."

The string quartet began readying themselves for another dance, couples moving into position on the floor with practised ease. Anthony held his hand out to his wife, smiling.

"Care for a dance, Viscountess Bridgerton?"

"I would adore one, Viscount Bridgerton."

They danced three times in a row. Which was preposterous for any courting couple but unheard of for a married couple. But Anthony and Kate were so in love with one another, that no one seemed to really mind.

In fact, both were so enamoured with one another, that they did not seem to realise the line of people wanting to talk to them slowly dwindling down to nothing.

"Is it me," Kate said quietly, "or has no one been over to talk at us for a while?"

Anthony sipped on his lemonade and looked around, raising his eyebrows. "No, I do believe you are correct in that statement."

It was suspicious, Anthony thought, that they had been left alone for as long as they had. His eyes scanned the ballroom - he spotted Daphne and Simon, both pretending to look interested in a conversation with the Cowpers, and suddenly realised.

"I do believe my siblings are deflecting anyone that comes our way," Anthony murmured to his wife.

"Whatever do you mean?"

He pointed over to Daphne and Simon. Then he guided Kate's eyes to the left, where Colin and Eloise were listening to Lady Trowbridge.

"Oh," Kate said, understanding. She looked around the room, her eyes latching on to one Bridgerton in particular.

Y/N stood with Mr Dorset, pretending to be engrossed in Lord Lumley's conversation. She was surrounded by numerous other gentlemen, all waiting for her attention.

"Oh, Lord Bridgerton!" Portia Featherington crowed.

"I knew it couldn't last," Anthony muttered, turning his back.

"Lady Featherington!" Y/N exclaimed, pulling Mr Dorset with her as they walked over to the lady. "I have been meaning to ask you all night about your stunning dress."

"Oh, really? It's new in from Paris -"

And just like that, Portia Featherington forget entirely about the newlywed couple she'd been marching towards.

Kate caught Y/N's eye as she walked back to the wall. She mouthed a thank you to the younger girl, smiling when Y/N winked back at her, blowing her sister-in-law a kiss.

"I do believe, we have Y/N to thank for a bit of peace," Kate said, leaning into her husband. "She seems to have gathered an army to distract the ton."

Anthony looked over at her, a fond smile taking over his face. "Of course she did," he muttered. "Well, I suppose, annoyingly, I'm in her debt now."

"Is that such a bad thing?" Kate asked, letting Anthony wrap his arms around her waist, resting his head on her shoulder.

"No," He replied, sniffing Kate's scent and pressing a kiss to her bare skin, "no, it is not."

[actofscoobris]

Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf

Original airdate: November 13, 1988

Date watched: March 1, 2022

Runtime: 91 minutes

Synopsis: Dracula has seen better days. When he finds out that his annual Monster Road Rally is in peril of being canceled due to the Wolfman’s sudden retirement to Florida, he opens a book to Shaggy’s face and decides to turn him into a werewolf instead of just, you know, doing the race with one less contestant. Long story short, Shaggy is indeed turned into a werewolf and forced to participate in the race, with his girlfriend Googy there to help him, as well as Scooby and Scrappy of course. The race happens, and then the race keeps happening, and then the race happens some more. And then, Shaggy wins and his werewolf curse is undone! Yay!

Culprit: Much like Ghoul School, there is no unmasking in this movie. Although it is my strong personal belief that the Dracula in this movie is not the real Dracula. He’s definitely a vampire, but I think he just convinced a bunch of monsters that he was the real Dracula and got in over his head. Laura's alternate theory is that "Dracula" is not a name, but instead a job position, like James Bond. This allows the purple Dracula from Ghoul School and the green Dracula from this movie to exist in the same continuity, and explains why this Dracula is so easily lured into pratfalls.

Guest star(s): Jim Cummings voices like four guys in this one.

Trivia: This movie marks Scrappy-Doo’s last appearance until 2002’s Scooby-Doo.

Ratings

Spookiness: This movie is more harmless slapstick than anything. The “scariest” part is near the beginning, where Scooby keeps seeing Dracula’s henchmen (the “Hunch Bunch”) but Shaggy doesn’t notice or believe him. “No one but me can see this horrifying thing” is a classic horror staple. Oh yeah, also this Dracula’s teeth can grow and twist at will? It’s fucked. MARINA: 2.5 LAURA: 3.5

Characterization: Fred, Velma, and Daphne are still nowhere to be seen, but hey, Googy’s here! Everyone loves Shaggy’s girlfriend, Googy! The Shaggy werewolf design is also very good. They honestly barely change anything about him, which was the right call.

Check this out. Incredible. Anyway, the movie monsters (who, for the record, have completely different designs and voice actors than in Ghoul School, lending credence to Laura's aforementioned theory) have some decent designs, and the cars they drive in the rally? Great stuff. MARINA: 4.5 LAURA: 4.5

Overall: So, this was my (Marina’s) favorite Scooby-Doo movie as a kid. Rewatching it as an adult, it really seemed to hold up super well! And then Dracula, in his final attempt to prevent Shaggy from winning the race, opens a cage and unleashes a horrid racial caricature named “Genghis Kong.” None of us remembered that part, and for good reason. GK has less than 3 minutes of screentime, but it’s more than zero. As much as I enjoyed the rest of this movie, I have to dock it severely for being mega-racist out of nowhere. This also won’t be the last anti-Asian racism we see in these movies. MARINA: 2 LAURA: 2

Outlandishness: The crux of this movie consists of a race contested by various movie monsters driving extremely themed cars and constantly attacking each other. What more do you want? MARINA: 5 LAURA: 4.5

Brevity: The first half of the movie was paced extremely well. Even the race wasn’t that bad…and then it just kept going and going and going. This movie could have and should have ended twenty minutes earlier. That way, the racist monster design doesn’t show up and the race doesn’t drag on forever! Unfortunately, it runs for the full 91 minutes. MARINA: 2.5 LAURA: 2

Final Ratings: MARINA: 3.3; LAURA: 3.3

[contemplativepancakes]

sunsets for somebody else

Daphne runs into her long lost husband arguing with another man in the grocery store. Things start to take a turn when she realizes they're married.

The bottle of bleach drops from Daphne’s hand into her cart, landing with a sloshing thud as she takes in the scene in front of her, frozen in her tracks. Emmanuel is standing right in front of her, arguing with another man about cleaning supplies.

Wearing a beige trench coat for some inexplicable reason—it’s almost 90 degrees outside—Emmanuel listens to a man who’s explaining in minute detail how to clean an oven. They’re both wearing wedding rings, and Daphne’s heart swells for a moment before she realizes it’s a different ring from the one she gave Emmanuel all those years ago.

“Dean, I don’t think this is safe for Jack. This is going to create noxious fumes,” Emmanuel says, squinting at the ingredients of the cleaner apparently-Dean had thrust at him.

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, and Daphne squeezes the handle of her shopping cart harder, feeling faint. It’s not every day you come across your long lost husband at the Stop N’ Shop.

“I think the kid can take some fumes,” Dean says, plucking the bottle out of Emmanuel’s hands and putting it in the cart. “We wouldn’t even have to worry about this if someone didn’t let the pizza fall onto the bottom of the oven.”

“The directions said to put it directly on the middle rack!” Emmanuel protests, and Dean rubs a hand down Emmanuel’s back in a familiar way that makes Daphne’s stomach roil.

She’s not jealous, she’s not. She was just helping Emmanuel when she found him, after all. Their marriage was simply one of…convenience for Emmanuel. It’s not like he had a birth certificate with him, or a social security number. What did Daphne get out of all this? Well. Daphne looks at his cheek bones wistfully, her gaze dipping down to his strong forearms his trench coat is rolled up to reveal.

Dean rolls his eyes fondly, and then he tugs Emmanuel into his side, kissing him on the temple. Daphne jerks her stare away for a moment before returning it, noticing now that their wedding rings match.

“Emmanuel?” she chokes out, against her better judgment.

For a long second, she doesn’t think Emmanuel heard her, but he turns around. “Daphne?”

Daphne nods, her words forsaking her. She doesn’t miss the way Dean clutches possessively at Emmanuel’s hip.

“I…thought you were dead,” she finally says. “I filed a missing person report.”

Dean squints at her, before something like recognition passes over her face, and now that she thinks about it, Daphne recognizes him, too. He’s the one who showed up right before everything went to shit. Horror stories of Stockholm syndrome flash through her mind.

“Emmanuel, are you…happy?” she settles on.

Emmanuel gives her a smile, leaning harder into Dean. “I am.”

“Good. That’s. Good,” she says, a strangled look on her face, she’s sure. “Would you want to catch up some time?” she asks before she fully registers what’s coming out of her mouth.

Emmanuel gives her a warm smile. “I’d love that.”

As they set up a time to get coffee, Daphne tries to ignore the glare Dean levels at her throughout the whole conversation. He insists that their meeting be tomorrow, since apparently they won’t be in the area for long. Daphne tries to ignore the warning bells in her mind that tell her she’s about to get murdered and takes solace in the fact that at least they’re meeting in a public place.

Besides, even if Emmanuel’s husband is a serial killer, surely Emmanuel won’t let him murder her, right?

-

The next day, Daphne hems and haws as she debates what to wear. Whatever this is, it’s the exact opposite of a date, anyway. She knocks on the door of her foster child, Alex, to wake them up before she goes into the bathroom to do her hair and makeup. Really, she’s just doing it for herself. She’s allowed to want to look nice!

When she finally deems herself as ready as she’s going to get, she goes back to Alex’s room to make sure they’re actually up. To her pleasant surprise, they’re sitting on the edge of their bed putting on their socks and almost ready. “Excited for school today?” she asks.

Alex makes a face at her. “Never,” they say, but their voice at least has the edge of a smile to it.

They’ve come a long way since they were first placed with her, and even though Daphne knows she shouldn’t be getting overly attached, she can’t help it. She walks down the steps and into the kitchen, deliberating for a moment on breakfast before putting frozen waffles into the toaster. If she’s about to get murdered while Alex is at school, she can at least make sure the last thing she made for them wasn’t cereal.

Alex tromps down the steps, dragging their bookbag behind them, and Daphne hides her smile behind her glass of orange juice. Alex lights up at the sight of the waffles, disturbingly easy to please, as always. They inhale them, as teenagers do, before putting their dishes in the sink. Daphne cracks open her laptop as they wait for the bus, attempting to get some of her work done for the day since she’ll be taking a break later for the coffee. She really hopes her boss doesn’t try and call her while she’s out.

Or, maybe she does. She’s not sure she’s prepared for the level of awkwardness that she’s about to go through, but maybe it won’t be as bad as she thinks. She really wants to know what Emmanuel has been up to for all of this time. She’s still…embarrassingly hung up on him, and it would be nice to get some closure.

The bus pulling up in front of the house jerks her out of her thoughts, and she gives Alex a wave before they race off to get on. She watches them settle into a seat with one of their friends, and smiles at the fact that they even have friends now.

In the end, Daphne doesn’t manage to get much work done before she clambers into her car and drives to the coffee shop they agreed on. She doesn’t really think she needs caffeine with the way her leg is bouncing already.

Emmanuel and Dean are already there when she walks in, Emmanuel with a cup of black coffee he’s dumping sugar packets into and Dean with something with whipped cream and chocolate syrup drizzled on top. She gives them a tentative wave before ordering hot chocolate for herself, settling herself delicately in the seat across from them.

“So,” Dean says. “You were Cas’s wife?”

She squints. “Cas?”

Emmanuel speaks up. “After I regained my memories, I remembered that was my name.”

“Oh.” Smiling weakly, she tries to reconcile that. “You have them all back now?”

Emman—Cas nods.

“Just forgot about me, though?” she tries to ask lightly, but it comes out a little garbled.

“You took advantage of him!” Dean explodes from the other side of the table, making Daphne flinch. “Who the fuck finds someone naked with no memories and marries them?”

“Dean,” Cas chastises, his arm shifting like he’s putting his hand on Dean’s thigh under the table.

“I was helping him,” Daphne says hotly. “Would you have just wanted me to leave him there?”

Cutting Dean off before he can say anything else, Cas looks at Daphne and smiles in a way that makes her heart flutter. “I’m very grateful. I don’t know what I would have done without you. I’m sorry I didn’t reach out to let you know I was alright.”

Dean crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair, taking a sip of his sugar monstrosity. He comes away with a whipped cream mustache, and it’s hard not to laugh as he wipes it away in total seriousness.

“So,” Daphne says. “You two have a kid? Jack?”

Scowling, which seems to be Dean’s automatic reflex, he exchanges a glance with Cas before softening. “Yeah, we have a kid. He’s four.”

Daphne thinks maybe Dean should have been a little bit more concerned about the fumes of cleaning chemicals if they have a four year old, but she keeps her judgments to herself. Cas beams. “He’s very bright.”

Returning the smile tentatively, Daphne asks, “How long have you two been married?”

“It’s almost our one year anniversary,” Dean says gruffly.

Daphne tries not to let it affect her, even if that’s more time than she ever got with Cas. “Practically newly weds, then!”

“It’s been an adventure; that’s certain,” Cas says, smiling serenely even as Dean elbows his ribs. “Tell us about you, Daphne. What have you been doing?”

Daphne shrugs a shoulder. “Oh, not too much.” Mourning the man I pulled out of the woods and saved and married, she doesn’t say. She knows Emmanuel never felt the same way about her that she did him. “I got approved to be a foster parent, so I’ve had a few kids come through.”

“Helping people has always been your calling,” Cas says softly.

Daphne takes a few minutes to gush about Alex, and her previous kids before them, before she notices Dean’s not actively glaring at her anymore.

“That’s…nice,” he begrudges when she finishes.

“What do you do, Dean?”

Looking like he just dropped something on his foot, he stammers before he hastily says, “I work construction.”

Daphne squints at him. She has the feeling he’s lying to her, but she has no idea why he would be.

“And what about you, Cas?”

“Oh, I mostly just take care of Jack.”

“You’re a stay at home dad?” she asks, the thought making her stomach twist into knots and heat rise to her face.

“Of a sorts,” Cas agrees.

God, they’re making it impossible to carry on a conversation with them. Daphne keeps a smile pasted to her face. “What do you two do for fun?”

“I’m convinced Dean thinks fun is superfluous,” Cas confides, even as Dean splutters at him. “But I like to drag him to thrift stores with me. Dean likes to bake, also.”

“I work on cars, too,” Dean says, and Daphne can feel his desperation to maintain his facade.

She tries not to quirk a smile at his discomfort. They chat for a while longer, Dean getting increasingly dodgy about the questions she asks before she finally excuses herself to go to the bathroom. She shuts the door behind her and looks down at the dank floor. Is she getting what she wanted out of this? She has no idea what she even imagined happening when she asked to catch up. Emmanuel running away with her? Maybe in her wildest fantasies. Taking a deep breath to ground herself, she looks in the mirror and checks her makeup, rubbing at her under eye circles before walking back out of the bathroom.

Cas is at the counter ordering another drink, for Dean, by the sound of the sugar content, and she walks over to him. Hesitating before she bites the bullet, she asks, “You’re not…like, being held against your will, right? That Dean seems,” she pauses, “interesting.”

Cas laughs warmly, putting a hand over Daphne’s. “No, nothing like that. This is a choice of my own free will, believe it or not. Dean is much more caring than he lets on.”

Well, Daphne’s not sure she believes it, but. At least he’s happy, and in the end, that’s all she’s ever wanted for him.

[valeriareyes]

( MAIA REFICCO, CIS FEMALE, SHE/HER ) — Look who it is! If you take a look at our database, you’ll find that VALERIA REYES is a twenty-one year old FLORIST that’s been in Chicago for TWENTY-ONE YEARS. According to the file, they’re a mutant on LEVEL THREE with the power of PLANT MANIPULATION. That must be why they’re SOFT and NAIVE. If you ask me, they remind me of potted plants, flowers growing taller when she’s around, flower shaped lamps, pastel colored tea cups. They are affiliated with THE KAPPA RUNAWAYS.

character inspo — perfuma (she ra), keyleth (critical role), blake macintyre (yesterday is history), mack (you should see me in a crown), daphne (scooby doo), poison ivy (dc) 

trigger warnings for racism 

@forwardintros​

STATISTICS: 

Label:  The Wildflower

Full Name: Valeria Yamilet Reyes

Nicknames: Ives 

Birthplace: Somewhere in New Mexico

Parentage: Yamilet Maria Reyes & Unknown

Greek Zodiac: Taurus

Element: Earth

Myers Briggs: INFJ-T / 62% introverted , 69% intuitive, 89% feeling, 56% judging, 89% turbulent 

Temperament: Phlegmatic 

Seven Roles:  The Priest 

Alignment: Chaotic Good 

BIOGRAPHY: 

Yamilet Reyes wanted better for her child. So she promised the unborn child. She found a good group of people that snuck her across the border. There was no horror story, no terrible thing happened to her. Yami counted herself lucky. In a small town in New Mexico, the child was born. But Yamilet didn’t stop there. The further away from the border they got, the safer she always believed they would be. That’s how the Reyes family of two ended up in the Chicago suburbs. And maybe Yami had to work multiple jobs to keep them both afloat, but knew this life would be better for her child than any life back in her tiny village back home.

Valeria’s first memory was when she was four, walking through a garden holding her mami’s hand. The flowers seemed to grow towards her, seemed to brighten, seemed to get bigger. She remembers reaching her hand out to a daisy and it almost seemed like it was growing more. Then her mami snatched her hand away from the daisy and took them back to the apartment, muttering quick Spanish under her breath about not doing that in public. Valeria remembers not understanding. But at home there were all sorts of plants, so that would do for entertainment. 

The next memory she has is not a happy one. Maybe she hadn’t been careful in public. Maybe she said something in school. Valeria doesn’t remember why it happened only it did. One day she and her mami were sitting on the couch when [REDACTED]. She was five at the time. Was it really kidnapping if she had no where else to go? 

Valeria woke up at the Kappa Institute. Her mami was gone. Things weren’t great for her — a little girl, alone, with only the vaguest concept of how to speak English. Her mami had only spoken Spanish and rarely let her venture out in the world, although she’d watched some television and had some basic vocabulary, it didn’t help her much. While some people (mostly the other residents) were friendly, some people weren’t. She would like to say that she doesn’t remember much of her time at the Institute, but that would be a lie. 

But she was a bit of a blank slate. And one guard there was nice to her. He treated her almost like a father, was kind, caring, friendly, and even helped teach her English. AMMO knew that if she was shown a little bit of kindness, they could mold her into someone they could control, especially given just how powerful her mutation was. Valeria was too young and unaware of how bad people were to be anything other than susceptible to the manipulation at play with the people AMMO sent to talk to her and train her. 

Valeria didn’t realize that she was being isolated from the other mutants at Kappa until it was almost too late. She didn’t know this wasn’t how the outside world was. That people were free to go and do as they pleased. Her mami had always said that she came here for a better life, but if this was a better life then back where she came from must have been awful. But it was another resident that told her this wasn’t normal, that there was a life outside the Institute, and that AMMO did not have her best interest at heart. 

She was angry. Valeria didn’t know what to do, but she wanted out. Feeling like she had been taken advantage and not even known it was happening. It took a while, wanting to gain the trust of the other mutants stuck at Kappa, but she did over time, only to find out that there was a group planning to run away. Valeria’s chance at the freedom her mami had always wanted for her? She jumped at the chance and escaped along side her fellow friends?

Since escaping, Valeria’s tried to keep her head down, she’s also been trying to remember what happened to her mother. Her memories about that night are fuzzy at best and she does want to remember what happened. Her mami is the only family she has, so she wants to find her soon. 

Valeria spends as much time as she can outside because she didn’t get a lot of that at the Institute without her powers being nullified. After years of not using her power that much, she doesn’t feel as connected to the earth as she once did and being in a city it’s a lot harder to find places that are connected to nature, but Valeria does her best to find the spots that allow her to have that connection. Her job as a florist helps with that as well. People say that her flowers last longer than whatever other flowers they get from other shops. She adores nature and finds that the longer she spends outside, the more powerful she feels.