#gonna have to send a mail to someone about this i guess

[sofusgirl]

Ugh

Why is everything with my job so goddamn messy and difficult since we got new owners?

My paycheck is missing like 10-20 hours of work. I should be getting paid for 10-20 hours more than what I've gotten on my payslip and I have no idea wtf is up with that.

As far as i know, all hours should have been there, since I've clocked in and out on time, but somehow we're missing shit.

[daughterofhecata]

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[findstenicht]

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[obsessivestar]

'What If It's All A RomCom?' - a Ted Nivison x Reader.

!! This is Chapter 2! Here's Chapter 1 if you're interested! !!

{{-Story Description: You're a youtuber with a fairly decent following deciding to help your good friend Tanner with a minor film project, with you set as the leading lady. When the actor for the male lead is a no show, Ted takes up the role himself. One problem: This short film's a Rom Com, and you just met the guy.-}}

//18+, Def gonna be some smut. Reader is implied to be afab, under 5'5 and has specifically named friends, all who have no real connection to Ted.

This story will be in multiple chapters. Also gonna post this on Wattpad and Ao3 (when I figure them out LMAO) under the same username: ObsessiveStarla. Hope you enjoy :^)

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☆ @k-k0129 ☆

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Oh and the gif was made by me!

Word count: 3.4k

Chapter 2: Is It That Sweet?

Ted and I headed out into the open road once more, having to go through a suburb to get to the closest coffee joint. For some reason, I expected the ride to be a quiet one, despite Tanner sending us on this snack run for us to socialize. Truthfully, I'm a little nervous. I know I said I'd be okay with kissing someone, but I knew Conner enough to be comfortable with it. This is different.

"How long did it take you guys to get up here?" Ted breaks the silence with a harmless question, keeping his eyes on the road. I move my eyes in his direction, but I don't look directly at him.

"3...maybe 2 hours?" I answer, making a rough guess. "We left a little later than we wanted to, but we couldn't get ahold of Conner and we had to just go."

"Did you guys call him at all?"

"Straight to voice-mail, like, every hour. Kinda glad you stepped in when you did." I turn my head to Ted as I finish that last sentence, seeing a grin spread along his face.

"I want him to get that A." Ted admitted, referring to Tanner. He half-opens his hands on the wheel as he speaks. "'Haven't known the guy long, but I know this is big for him."

"How do you know him, if I'm good to ask?" I tilt my head a little. I mind as well ask him, Tanner's answer was vague at best. "You don't go to the same college."

"No no no, I graduated years ago, pretty sure he was still in high school when I did." Ted scoffed with a shake of his head. "I met him through Joe."

"And how do you know Joe?"

"OK, this is gonna sound fucking insane, but..." Ted pauses and lingers on the sentence, like he's trying to find the right words.

"He's a friend...of my friend's cousin. We met at his wedding and Joe introduced me to Tanner at his wedding."

I believed him, but was surprised to hear that. I was at Joe's wedding too, I don't recall him being there at all. "You were at Joe's wedding?"

"I didn't stay for the after party, but yes, I was."

"I was there too. I was one of the maids of honor."

"I know. I remember you."

"You remember me?"

"Yeah. That's why I said 'finally'. Joe told me about you at that wedding."

"When???" I was even more confused now.

"When you were almost late!" He laughs, glancing away from the road for a moment to look at me. "Is this an interrogation? You don't trust me now?"

"It could be!" My concern breaks into a smile. "Tanner tells me about this mysterious 'Ted' that's gonna be on set and an hour later, you're practically my hero--our hero, the crew's hero. Now I'm learning we've been in, like, the same plane of existence before but it feels like you've just...spawned in."

"'Just spawned in'?" Ted repeated, still smiling. "I'd like to think I'm just a highly observant man, thank you very much. I remember you."

Now is the moment I realize I had sat up a bit more in my seat, leaning my back against the seat once more with a bewildered expression on my face.

"So--okay." I shut my eyes for a moment, ready to really process all of this information.

"You met Joe through your cousin."

"Cousin's friend, but yes." Ted confirms.

"You met Joe at your cousin's wedding, through his friend."

"Yes."

"Then you went to Joe's wedding."

"Yes."

"You saw me, and you met Tanner at Joe's wedding."

"Yup."

"And that's how you know everybody."

"You-You nailed it. Right on the coffin."

The first thing I do is start laughing, putting my face in my hands. Ted's laughing too, his eyes closing slightly as he does. He takes one of his hands off the steering wheel to run his fingers through his tall hair.

"I fucking told you it sounds insane!" He chuckles, glancing at me again. "I should just start lying and say we met in college, Jesus fucking christ."

"I'm glad you didn't lie! I just--oh my god, why is that so funny?" I wipe my eyes, trying to hold back the urge to continue laughing. I'm such a giggler. I'm the type to want to keep laughing about a joke that was told a good 5 minutes ago. "Why the fuck don't I remember you?"

"I don't fucking know! Maybe--Maybe, yknow, maybe it was just a long fuckin' dream I had and I'm really just lying to you. I don't know."

Ted and I are all smile's now, taking a couple minutes to come down from all the laughing. I don't even quite understand why that was so funny to me. Maybe it was the way he explained it all, or the way I tried reiterating it back to him. It did truly sound crazy, to an extent, but I believed him.

What I almost couldn't believe was that he remembered me. Why would he be able to remember me from the ceremony, but not actually come to meet me like he did Tanner? Tanner wasn't even the groom's best man, he wasn't up there with us. Before I had the thought to ask Ted, we pulled up to a Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru and got in line. Of course, it being the morning and all, there was quite the line-up.

I take my phone out to start getting everyone's order written down in my notes so I can pass the phone to Ted when we're at the speaker. "Have you been on many film sets?" I asked Ted, setting my phone down next to me.

"Oh yeah. I've helped make stuff before. Music videos, other short film's..." Ted, Tanner and I had talked briefly about each other while we were waiting for Conner to get back to us, so we knew about each other's respective channels.

"Is there, uh..." I paused, once again feeling a sense of embarrassment. "What's it all gonna be like? Filming I mean. It's not usually all done in order, right?"

What I was really trying to ask is: 'When are we gonna have to kiss?', but no way am I phrasing it so plainly.

"It all depends on how the director wants to do it." Ted explains, moving up a bit in the lineup. "We only have that set for about 3 weeks, so any scenes that need to be filmed there will have to be done pretty much immediately. Anything that's shot outside will be shot...out there." He pauses with a chuckle. "And then, yknow, everything else is just...after."

So that means one of the first scenes may be a kissing scene. Great. Wonderful.

We finally move up in line enough to be able to order everything. I hand Ted my phone so he can read off every order to the speaker, handing it back to me once he was done. He drove up to the window and was told he'd need to park, looking at me with a smirk before pulling away from the building to find a spot. As Ted drove around the parking lot, I thought about YouTube again. While Ted's channel had mostly grown during the pandemic, mine only started to grow within the last couples months after I was invited to this big collab creators like Eddy Burback and Jakey. I've become pretty good friends with a lot of the guys in the 'Commentary' corner of YouTube, I'm becoming as close with them as I am with my personal circle.

Huh. Kind of strange that I'm friends with Ted's friends and he's friends with mine, but we've never really met up until now. Small world, I suppose.

Ted found a decent spot to park in, slowing the truck down before putting it in park, finally able to take his hands off the wheel with a sigh. "Might wanna let Tanner know we'll be a while." Ted spoke, taking his seat belt off to better relax in his seat. I take out my phone to send a quick text to Tanner, letting him know we had parked and were just waiting.

There's a moment of silence after I set my phone down again. I can't think of anything to say, Ted is relatively quiet. I'm trying to think of a topic to turn to, but the pressure to speak completely blanks out my mind. It's unlike me.

"You're...okay with me doing this, right?" Ted speaks up, settling his elbow up on one of his armrests as he turns to look at me.

"Hm?"

"Taking Conner's place." He clarified. "I feel like I've just kind of...inserted myself into this, like...without your permission."

"I...don't think you need my permission, you needed Tanner's, right?"

"Well yeah, but I'm not...potentially gonna be locking lips with Tanner."

'Potentially'. I focus on that word in particular. Yes, he hasn't read the script. He doesn't know.

"I mean, I don't know, I'm just guessing." Ted added a humorous rasp to his voice, shrugging his shoulders up with his hands out.

"There's...a few." I admit with a bashful smile. "But I mean, he's there if you want to."

"Hey, I'm not opposed to smooching up the homies." Ted jokes, pointing at me somewhat. I start laughing and fling my head back, truly not expecting such a response. Ted starts laughing too, lightening the air up a little bit.

"I've--I've been down for it before! For the good of the content, I will settle my lips upon another man, another bro, if you will!"

I have to bring myself down from the laughing fit, moving some of my hair out of my face as the chuckling slowly subsides. Oh my god, he's just so funny and...oddly charming. I can see why Tanner suggested we do this snack run together, I'm strangely comfortble with Ted. If this was really the idea, it worked.

"Look, all I'm trying to say is..." Ted let's out a last few chuckles and for the first time, our eyes equally meet each other. He's giving me a genuine smile as he speaks.

"I can...reach out to a few other friends if you'd rather...have more of a choice. I'm cool with taking a step back, I'm sure Tanner would get it."

I keep my eyes settled on his for a little while, feeling warmth rise up my cheeks once more. It's in this moment I realize there isn't a lot of space between us. We're not uncomfortably close, but enough for it to make me blush.

"I'd rather it be you." I reply truthfully, making sure to sound confident. "I was surprised when you offered for sure, but...fuck, Tanner was right to put us on this trip, I think we'd work well together."

"Oh yeah? You'd kiss me?"

I see Ted's self-assured expression waver for a moment, like he spoke before realizing how it would sound. I take the opportunity to turn my body more towards him, resting my elbow on the backrest of the seat so I can prop my head up.

"Yeah." I reply in confidence, giving him a huge grin. "It's 7 kisses. I'll kiss you 7 times."

"It's SEVEN times!?" Ted sits up more in his seat to turn to me as well.

"Yeah! There's a fuckin...the first one is us playing spin the bottle with a bunch of other people."

"Oh my god, it's--you know we'll have to kiss more than 7 times, right? It has to--" He pauses to laugh "It has to look right!"

"That's fine! You're the one that said you'd 'kiss the pretty lady'!" I try to mimic his strong voice as I quote what he said back on set. Ted furrows his brows and rolls his eyes, looking down at his steering wheel. I raise a brow as he seems to glide his tongue along the front of his top teeth, opening his mouth to cackle.

"I did say that, didn't I?"

"You did. 'Pretty lady' here heard it."

Ted shakes his head again and mouths what looked like 'fuck' to himself. Before the conversation could continue, an employee of Dunkin Donuts knocks on Ted's window, completely startling him. I let out another little laugh as he rolls down his window to get all of the food, moving the bags of food to the backseat, putting most of the drinks in the cup holders he had available and handing me the rest to hold. He thanks the employee before rolling his window back up, letting out a huff before putting his seatbelt back on.

"Well, yknow what, I said what I said."

Ted smirks to himself, starting the truck up again. As I put my seatbelt on, he turns the radio on. Big mistake.

🎶'Now he's

🎶thinkin' bout meee, every night ohh,

🎶is it that--'

He turns the radio off.

I smile to myself and turn my head to look out my window, resisting the urge to laugh. Cute.

The first half of the ride back is quiet, only it doesn't feel awkward this time. I'm okay with it. I'm content, maybe even a little excited to get back. I can't bother to convince myself it's not because of Ted. Whether he meant to be or not, he was incredibly sweet and reassuring on this ride. Any doubts or worries I had about him taking Conner's spot had practically melted away.

"I suppose we've got good news for Tanner when we get back, eh?" I speak up, turning my head away from the window to look at Ted. He glances at me and lightly shakes his head, scoffing with a smile. "You're gonna let that slip up go to your head, aren't you?"

"'Slip up'? Awe.." I playfully pout at him "You don't think I'm pretty anymore?"

"Pretty fuckin' obnoxious."

"Ooh! Such harsh language, Teddy!" I put on an old-timey mid-atlantic accent, moving a bit away from the window. "That's not very becoming of a future star in the romance genre!"

"I'm gonna fucking pull this truck over and make you walk back, you fucking...prissy little passenger princess."

"With all the drinks in my hand?"

"You've got four. Four people not having their drinks would be worth it."

"You wanna watch the princess strut down the street?"

"No I wanna watch you trip and fall on your fucking..." I pauses for a bit longer than he probably meant to.

"My...pretty lady face?" I complete his sentence for him, shooting him a winning grin.

"I fucking hate you."

I break into joyful laughter as Ted tries to hold back a chuckle, making sure my grip on the tray in my lap is steady so I don't spill any of it. Bashful is a good look for him.

Finally we get back to set. Ted parks his truck exactly where he parked it before we left and gets out with me to start grabbing all the food. Joe and a few members of the crew come out to help carry everything back inside. This gives me the opportunity to talk to him about everything. As soon as Ted slipped up and flirted with me in the truck, I knew I needed to tell Joe.

We separated away from the rest of the crew for a moment while the rest of the wardrobe team got Ted into a different outfit for the shoot. I give Ted a quick little wave and he shoots me the middle finger with a mocking smile. Asshole. Joe and I decide to hang out by the top part of the stairs leading up to the second floor.

"He did not fucking say that." Joe gasps at me, giving me a look as if I were making it up.

"Dude, and he like...he was SO embarrassed after, I could tell."

"Ted did not fucking say 'you'd kiss me'"

"I swear to God!" I laugh quietly, getting shushes from Joe to keep it down. "You think I'd make that shit up? And!--And later, after he was all shy and shit, he tried to turn on the radio and 'Expresso' started playing and I've never seen a man turn the radio off SO FAST."

"Jesus christ..." Joe rests the side of his hand on his forehead, a dumb smile on his face.

"What's with you not telling me about this guy?" I ask Joe, turning more to him. "He was at your wedding! He met Tanner, but not me? What did you say to him?"

"I didn't want you two fucking!" Joe chuckled, getting a light but friendly smack on the shoulder from me.

"You're bullshit."

"I'm joking! Look--I didn't tell him not to approach you or anything, but like, I don't know, he didn't ask about you after the ceremony. He just left."

"Why did he leave before the party?"

"He had other plans, I guess. He didn't know anyone else there anyways. Dude would've just...danced by himself."

"Could've danced with me."

"He's literally right down there, (Y/N), go ask him why he didn't."

I take a peek over the railing to see Ted's new outfit being adjusted by the wardrobe team, watching as they were trying to decide whether or not to tuck the shirt in. He had a plain white tee on and some brown slacks with a leather belt around it, now with his glasses off and in his hand. I'm still surprised I didn't notice him at the wedding. Maybe I was blind, that's a fine looking dude, I feel like I would've remembered him.

I suppose my gaze was a bit too fond looking, as Joe's smile fades a little.

"(Y/N), I wouldn't do that..." His tone suggests he's worried about me.

"Do what? Look at him?" I joke, giving a light scoff.

"Not like that. This happens all the time."

"What happens all the time?"

"Cast members hooking up. It doesn't end well."

"Oh my god, Joseph, I'm not planning on hooking up with anyone"

"No no no, it literally happens like, all of the time. I'm serious." Joe clears his tone, setting his now empty cup beside him. "People that play love interests together will end up mixing the feelings, like they'll think on camera chemistry is real chemistry, and it ALWAYS ends badly."

"Isn't most of that faked for PR or whatever?"

"That would be worse! I'm just--I trust you, (Y/N), I'm just telling you, as your friend: don't fall for this guy. Don't even sleep with him. I'm serious."

I search Joe's face for any signs of this being a bit, but there's nothing. I don't know who he thinks I am in this moment, I just think Ted's a little cute, I'm not about to pull him into my chambers like some work siren. I've worked with a lot of male youtubers. I consider most of them to be great friends, I've never developed feelings for ANY of them and I'm certainly not the type to jump into bed with a dude because he smiles and twinkles his eyes at me.

I break the tension with a disregarding laugh, rolling my eyes. "Maybe I'll sleep with him just to spite you."

"(Y/N), I'm--"

"I know, I know, you're serious." I interrupt him, scoffing again. "I won't sleep with him."

"You're sure? You're gonna make sure you don't catch feelings for this guy?"

"'Catch feelings'..." I mutter in disbelief, snickering into my cup as I finish the last drop. Joe's silent, I guess he's looking for a genuine answer. I set my empty cup down and look at him, straight in the eye.

"I am not going to 'catch feelings' for Ted Nivison."

"You're sure?" Joe asks again, getting another eye roll from me.

"I'm sure!" I insist, the pitch in my voice elevating slightly. I can't tell if I sounded defensive or something, but it's a good enough response to get Joe to finally drop it.

I don't know why I'd sound defensive, I don't intend to catch feelings for anyone here.

I mean it. My feelings? Sealed. Shut tight. Buried in the hatch, if you will.

No one's catching those feelings. Not him.

__________________________________

|| Chapter 1 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 (smut) || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Chapter 9 || Chapter 10 (smut) || Chapter 11 || Chapter 12 || Chapter 13 || Chapter 14 (smut) || Chapter 15 ||

[myloveismineallmine]

was writing a seperate post about claire + carm and made a comment about how he avoids claire in a way that does not give a "infatuated, but nervous about how she sees him" vibes, but rather in a "treats their relationship as if it is a chore he wants to get done quickly" way. And then i fucking realized? that all of their dates ARE CHORES???

WALK WITH ME HERE...... where do they meet? at the grocery store. going to get groceries is what? a chore/errand.

their next date. that rude ass phone call. she asks (except she doesnt really ask?) him to help her mom move furniture. which is a WHAT? a chore!

he calls claire up and asks her to drive him to send mail. because at this point he's like ok i guess we do errands together? and those are our dates? yet another chore.

they go to the party after sending mail. this is the closest thing to a date and may seem like an outlier but i can stretch far enough to make it work. because the purpose claire gives to him for them to go is to take care of her friend who just got broken up with. as someone who personally has to do a lot of it, i would call this kind of thing emotional labor. which is a chore btw.

and lastly, the dinner. the "romantic" dinner. where carmy cooks claire dinner because she hints at wanting someone to cook for her. once more i will ask you: what is cooking dinner classified as? you know it, say it with me now- A CHORE.

no movies, no (other) restaurants, no picnics, no real date activities. just chores. which perfectly sums up how carmy perceives spending time with claire, it seems. also falls in line with how people tell carmy he should be with claire, because it's like people telling you you should do your chores. you agree, you probably should, but it doesn't make you really excited to go do it or anything.

i have another part of my song analysis that relates HEAVY to this that i will probably do next. honestly i think with that in addition to this, it's gonna be the final nail in the coffin for this relationship in terms of what it represents. hopefully none of you guys beat me to the punch on what that is, because i feel like even this makes it fairly obvious.

[terrence-silver]

Imagining high school sweetheart!beloved and Terry getting married before he gets shipped off to war and Beloved always sending letters to Terry while he’s away

Bonus: Terry comes back home after the war and finds Beloved’s unsent letters to him that were written when he was M.I.A. and sees how worried she was about him

---

I feel nobody would believe Twig is married because he's, well...Twig!

He's so young! So shy! So wide eyed! Scrawny! The idea of Privates infinitely more experienced and worldly than him only just being in the stage of sharing correspondence back home with their respective sweethearts and go-steady girlfriends while this kid here is already legally married is straight out of the Twilight Zone for most of his fellow soldiers who immediately wrote him off as a sore loser, perhaps with the rare exception of John Kreese who stands up for him and defends him when he's teased and called a liar who just about invented a full-blown Missus for himself to seem cool and less of a wimp in the eyes of everyone else, the letters he receives from beloved deemed fabricated one way or another even though they're actually entirely legitimate, the parcels bearing the seal of the military mail, arriving the same as everyone else's packages do.

''Did your momma write those?''

Someone might cruelly jest right before Kreese gives them a look, telling them to step off.

Gets slightly worse during POW captivity. All the members of Twig's platoon are in the same mess but it doesn't prevent in-fighting and the day-to-day cruelty and microaggressions from continuing even inside of a cage when validly, once communications are entirely cut off and they're trapped deep in enemy territory, there is no way for beloved's letters or anyone's as for that matter to come in and circulate, and the soldiers and even Twig's own Commanding Officer Turner never let him forget that like he's somehow to blame (And in their mind's eye, he is. They feel he's got them all captured through his negligence and incompetence. There will be payback for that. If the Vietcong don't do him in, his own will. For all Turner cares, Terry Silver got them here and pray to God, in the following weeks, he'll make this kid's life so difficult in this cage he'll wish the Vietcong ended him day one, bullet to the brain, same as Ponytail and what better way to utilize psychological warfare than to use the boy's own spouse against him the way he later tries with John and Betsy), finding it an apt pastime to pester one of their own even when facing death, torture and execution from the Vietcong that captured them. It's easier in a weird and very sick sense; poking and prodding at the weakest link in the hierarchy of things to better endure the gravity of the situation and just forget for a while.

You do some pretty awful things under duress.

''Guess the love letters stopped now, eh, Twig?'' Turner mocks.

''Momma back home ran out of ink?''

The older man laughs into his own chin as Twig scoots further back against the bamboo bars of their shared jail, missing beloved so badly he can feel the ache of it in his bones, loathing the fact he has no control of anything going on and John Kreese, witnessing the sight and having stood up for his friend countless times vows that one of these days, he's gonna give their Commanding Officer a piece of his mind even if he ends up court martialed for it after they're released seeing as how John can vouch that if the other soldiers are boneheads Captain Turner has enough intel on his own men to know for a fact Twig never lied and that he is in fact married back home. That beloved's real the same way his Betsy is real. Man has no excuse for the hell he's putting Twig through just because he can. John gets his chance to retaliate for the abuse a few weeks later once the Vietcong force them to fight over an open pit of snakes.

As for Twig?

Once they're rescued from the POW camp, he is finally reunited with the stack of letters beloved's been sending him back at base and it's like being reunited with a missing limb. When he gets home, beloved gives him a package of unsent mail just around the time he was captured and gone missing. Everything he's been made fun of entirely real and genuine; not one word of it a lie or made up. Everything right there, in black and white, written down with beloved's own pen. Every bit of concern. Fear. Care. Of course, it only serves to turn him a little more...well...Terry Silver as we know him. No point in being truthful if he won't be believed anyway, even when he is. Might as well fabricated. Might as well manipulate. Everyone who ever laughed at him died. And he's here. He survived. He is loved. He's won. And he'll keep winning and winning.

He hugs the stack of letters and beloved close to his chest with a vice grip.

The first seeds of something very dark have long been sown.

[madamemiz]

MILD SPOILERS! impressions from the votv 0.8.1 update (day 2)

KEL WALK CYCLE REAL even if it's a bit janky. feels almost strange to see moving feet when i look down. got peakaboo'd by this character model while climbing the tower too, i didn't realize the little rectangle on his beanie is the aso logo, that's a nice touch! (if i saw that correctly that is)

i love the glasses as an equipable item, velma mode is unnecessary but funny 10/10 just like me fr

tf you mean burgers cost 95???? and pizza so expensive?? hello???

flour?? cooking?! ok now that's a fun prospect, i'm getting the cookbook as soon as i can

on that note i've heard berry bushes are a thing now, but i've yet to come across any and i've been actively looking while out and about

aww kel's tummy growls when he's hungry now, that's cute. mfer got a hell of an appetite for someone so picky. also just like me fr

they changed the eating sound and i'm sad, i liked the original ;w; it was oddly satisfying

has the vending machine always had a nice glass texture?

that's it for now, so far so good. i've seen the stuff about kerfur, as well as more farming integration. the farming bit sounds fun, as for the kerfur crafting changes:

hoo boy. i like the idea of needing to get a few more things, it makes sense in-universe. they do most of your job for you, it's fine to make the requirements a bit more difficult, but... i'm gonna level with you, the recipe i've seen and what you need to do for it seems overboard for a casual player. keyword casual. it almost feels like the difficulty spike was created with youtubers and streamers in mind--yknow, people who are professional gamers, or at the very least people who look up hacks to speedrun their kerfurs, because several of them made it seem very easy. i don't think the vast majority of people playing the game play it that way though; i didn't have omega kerfur until a couple of weeks in-game time, and i've seen a lot of people say the same or later. these changes could potentially push kerfur to closer to endgame for a good chunk of players, which seems like a bad move to me for a few reasons--

firstly, i'd imagine this change is in part to encourage players to get out of the base more instead of relying on kerfur for the hashcodes, but having an omega greatly opens up how much free time you have, which allows you more time to explore and make your base cozy. i never had time before i had them, i was too busy running around getting hashcodes and scrounging up money

secondly, late game has quite a few enemies that can instakill kerfur, which makes sending them out for codes and repairs kind of pointless. at that point you may as well keep your base kerfur as-is instead of spending the time and resources to upgrade. not to mention that one of the items requires mining in the cave which... personal note, i never found the pickaxe or stepped foot in the cave in 0.8.0, and frankly never planned to. guess i have to now!

thirdly, like... people get attached to their kerfurs. a lot of returning players i've seen discussing the update are upset they won't have their wife/husband/partner/child/roomate etc back until later in their run unless they mail them over. why would you wanna separate the players from one of their favorite aspects of the game? hell, i've contemplated mailing my 0.8.0 kerfur over not bc of the difficulty spike, but bc i feel bad leaving them behind in my old save

maybe i'm just overthinking and it won't be as bad once i do it, but i've just been puzzling over the changes. what do y'all think?? are the changes justified, or nah?

[roxannepolice]

Rant 1/waiting for the department head to open his bloody e-mail/TDF doesn't work, really

The Doctor Falls is literally the highest graded Master episode on IMDB, and I'm not denying that it's a good episode, and also know that for some it is there that they like the Saxon Master best, but tbh for me it just doesn't work. Or perhaps works, but in that weird way where a work meant to send one message gets celebrated in a completely contradicotry way, Don Quixote style. Yes, Simm!Master's fans have been critcising it since 2017 as erasing his story in s3-4 (and tbc, I am pissed at the the way in which the Blasting of Rassilon was framed by Twelve, also bad at driving? the guy who repeatedly went back and forth between the end of the universe and 2007 UK? coming from the "oh I might have missed my mark by a few centuries" guy?), to which it is questioned if he really had a development, to which others ask if Missy had an actual development, and so on and so forth, but to me the problems go way, way deeper. At the same time, I always welcome pointing out if I missed something and general criticism (consider it a practice in waiting for the comments from my supervisors)!

First off, a simple question: did the Doctor have an actual plan that involved the Masters, or he was just expecting them to happily turn his sacrifical suicide into an expanded one for no practical reason??? Like, his only plan is "and then someone stays here and blows up the entire platform so Cybermen can't get higher up, and that's gonna be me because I'm dying and tired". So did he want the Masters to "stand with him" to, what die too? Leave with the colonists - and then what, live as retired alcoholic gunmen farmers, Clint Eastwood-style? Because the part where the colonists get away was achieved anyway! I guess they could get up to the Doctor's TARDIS all the way up and then even go fetch him, but I suppose that would elbow the sacrificial part away. Also, the option where at least some of the colonists pack themselves into those lifts and everyone gets onboard the Master's TARDIS is like. There. And wouldn't those guys know where more lifts were, like that's how they got to the level in the first place???

I'm not saying you can't headcanon an alternative plan that the Doctor had, but it sure as hell wasn't communicated to the audience, which, to clarify, I am focusing on here, like I'm analysing the episode as a work of fiction that someone was in charge of, not a documentary of strategic mistakes done by people under pressure.

Second: Missy just had to, had to, keep her plans a secret from the Doctor. Why???? I don't even have much to elaborate on here, I just could never understand this, and a more serious problem here is:

Why did Missy have to kill Saxon in the first place??? Like, seriously. Why. Do you really look at this guy and think he would have thought twice about running away on his own if he got to the lift and noticed she wasn't there??? Oh yeah, but "he's worried about his future!". Well everyone would be if they saw their future standing in awe of the protagonist doing exposition for ten years of your own timeflow, but frankly I just can't see this guy as not prioritising the here and now of his own (very nice) ass needing to run! Like, was he actively STOPPING HER from staying with the Doctor? No, he just strolled the fuck away without turning back! Oh, but maybe Missy knows he has to die now to regenerate into her, so it's all about keeping the timeline going. Soooo, she does remember these events after all? The Master went out of plot timeline overlapping induced memory loss at just the right moment to realise he's dying of a stab wound on a Mondasian colony ship, but also to already be onboard the TARDIS? Very convenient. Again, I wouldn't be raging if this was actually communicated, but it wasn't.

Which finally leads me to Missy's "sacrifice". What sacrifice? No, really, did her death actually change anything, because that's like the definition of a sacrifice? Leaving aside the whole problem of whether or not the Masters staying with the Doctor would have changed anything, Saxon was letting her get away until she started talking about her reasons for staying. Which she did because?... Like, again, it's not like either of them is going to remember anything of this. Yeah, but it needed to be communicated for the audience. Ok, then this is exactly when bad writing steps in. Like, if you need the characters to do something incredibly illogical for the audience's sake then you didn't write it in a way that would be naturally incorporated into the story.

Missy didn't sacrifice herself. She died of character exposition. She crashed into the fourth wall like a bird into glass door. She's shuffled off her screentime coil, run down the literal curtain, and joined the bleedin' incidental music orchestra invisible. She's not pushing daisies only because BBC's budget didn't include them.

Ok, I railed myself up, but really, the fact that Missy's death is usually framed as a sacrifice is one of those moment where I literally wonder if there are some glaring version differences between the episode I watched and that watched by everyone else.

But you know, I get it. As the Doctor explicitly laid out in his speech (which is its own can of worms on whether it's logically solid, that I'll get down to while waiting for my principal to open his bloody e-mail), this is not about winning, this is about doing the kind thing. Which is where the actually interesting interpretation of The Doctor Falls comes in. Which is the clash between deontological and utilitarian ethics.

Crash course: deontological ethics relies on viewing certain acts as good or evil by their very nature, while utilitarianism wages moral value in reference to some specific goal, which is not neccessarily "gain", but for example, preserving the lives of as many people as possible. To use the trolley dilemma (which is a thought experiment! it's meant to illustrate things, you're really not doing a "gotcha!" by asking about mass transport quality and regulations, though I appreciate this as a rethoric device), a deontologist will say reverting the train to one person instead of five is wrong, because at this point it becomes murder, while an utilitarianist will say reverting is right, because more people are saved than killed. To use a less cliche and reconfigured example, is it moral to blow up a planet if that's the only way to stop a war that's literally warping time into nonexistence? I've argued elsewhere that the deontology vs. utilitarianism is also the contrast made by John Smith vs. professor Yana. Yeah, I know the usual reading is "oh, look, the Doctor can be kind of a dick and the Master a good person!", but if you scratch down to the bottom of things, it's more the case of "the Doctor will focus on the values of people they identify with and the Master will focus on a goal; should they land in an environment where they will respectively identify with bigots, and have only one goal left in the universe and that's preserving life, they will be how they ended up being". Self-sacrifice becomes a matter of calculating yourself as the most expendable party.

In TDF, the Doctor is placed on the deontological side of the dilemma by everything he says during his speech(tm): it's kind. It just is, by its very nature. And to clarfiy for the pissing on poor website: I am not denying this! This is a very, very soild point! What I do argue is that Saxon Master isn't just being very bad because he never heard the music uwu, but that there's an ethical standpoint to his actions too! He's an utilitarianist, as the Master's always been! Why, just why is it wrong to mind control people if they clearly can't make the right choices on their own? Why is absolute power evil if individual will keeps going astray? Why is it wrong to body posses people if this saves my own life? Why shouldn't I change history if there are very good people in need of saving? Why shouldn't I run away if the only plan to save others will include me dying and no gain in return?

Again, the Doctor's speech is its own can of worms, but arguably the biggest leap done there is jumping from guilt vs. shame to "to thy own self be true" arguments. When you think of the Master as a utilitarianist... it's Saxon who fell where he stood. He stood on the side of "This is a pointless endeavour and I reject pointless. And if I'm to become someone who goes for pointless, then I won't be myself anyway and I might as well die." Absolutely not the intended reading, but death of the author, baby.

[smallishzine]

hi i was just wondering of any of the mods have any previous experience with organising fandom zines or events in the past?

Warning! The following answer is long, boring, mostly unrelated to the question, and kind of a Debbie Downer. Sorry anon/gen. hi it’s me one of the mods. The other mods are me when I’m actually on my meds, me at 3 am, and me when I’ve had a good nights sleep. The last one has not made an appearance as of yet. No I’ve never done this before and I’m freaking out because I have no clue what you’re meant to ask people on a mod application form and what determines who I should let in once they go out. I’ve never even been in a zine before, my experience with community events consists of I’m currently working on (read: avoiding cause I’m lost on what to do for) a gift for a gift exchange. That’s it. I’ve got no clue who to ask cause I’m paranoid about internet safety and also I’ve got school on top of this and I’m just kinda lost as to what to do because I’ve started this whole thing so before I can hand off the responsibility to someone who is capable of making good judgment and doesn’t have to split their time between working on the zine and doing homework, I’ve got to make some important decisions about who on the internet is trustworthy and I’m terrified that I’m gonna screw up and face consequences a whole lot worse then just the zine doesn’t get made. I don’t know how to verify if someone is a person I feel safe contacting over the internet, and how to maintain my anonymity as a mod so that my personal blog doesn’t get the same hate mail that the zine is getting and I’m, to be maybe a bit too honest, scared. Sorry for rambling especially cause I doubt this was what was intended with the question I guess I just needed to say this somewhere lol. Did I kill the mood? Sorry. I know you all followed cause the interest form was funny and the post I linked it on was funny and it seemed like there were a bunch of experienced people working together on this who knew what they were doing and so now using this blog to vent feels duplicitous and like it could possibly kill the zine because no one is here to listen to some kid whine about high school lol. I worked hard to seem effortlessly funny and confident about my lack of a plan, and while I didn’t necessarily say that there was more than one mod, I kind of implied it, cause I thought people would only want to participate if it seemed like there were a bunch of people capable of being responsible running the zine who would be fun to work with and would be totally on top of getting things done so contributors would be able to just focus on their piece. I wanted to seem like someone people would want to be friends with, cause really I started this zine cause I wanted to make friends, and I’m worried that now that people know that it’s just some whiny screenager who’s never touched grass with no idea what he’s doing who is really not all that funny unless he’s spent hours agonizing over what to say running the zine then they won’t want to participate, and I personally can’t blame them. I’m so, so, sorry for all the times that I made it seem like I’m someone I’m not, and I hope that people will still consider contributing even if the zine’s chances are a lot iffy-er than I made it seem. I’m scared to take offers from people saying that they want to help because creeps in the past have got me paranoid. So many people have said nice things about the zine and how excited they are for it and said that I could dm them with questions and I appreciate those people so so much but it’s difficult to drown out all the hate I’ve been seeing, which I’ve been trying to ignore, but it makes me hesitant about taking up those offers for help and sending out applications, cause I don’t want to bring some weirdo into a group chat to have them harass the zine makers and I’m not sure I’m capable of making this a positive experience for people without someone I can trust helping me and getting an internet friend I trust to help would involve leaking my personal blog and I can’t handle getting hate mail from both of them.

idk im just really lost and overthinking this and needed to rant about it, mod applications will still probably go out next month, I’ll do some research into what is usually on them, and also this is a niche enough thing that I probably don’t have to be so concerned about creeps, and there are a ton of people who’ve shown their support for the zine and it would be a disservice to them to act like everyone hates me, and everything is gonna be fine and probably a fun time and I’m just tired and needed to say all this somewhere to convince my brain how ridiculous it’s being lol. I might delete this post later, cause it’s kind of a downer honestly a high schooler complaining about his anxiety on the internet isn’t gonna get people interested and excited for the zine, I guess I just wanted to be transparent about what currently my thought process is and to ask that, having read this, you guys are patient with me as I figure out what the heck is going on. I’ll be back on my being funny enough that people think I’m actually Joel game on the form I promise guys, don’t worry just needed to get sappy there for a second but that is not what the zine is actually gonna be like it’s just gonna be fun and silly, and again sorry anon for derailing your ask.

[anotherdayforchaosfay]

I signed up for Informed Mail via USPS so I know know what mail I'll be receiving. This includes packages and parcels. Currently, I'm giggling about a piece of certified mail that's been going back and forth for the last several days.

Why? Under a cut because it's long...and funny.

Before we bought the house and moved in back in 2022, there had, at some point, been a man here who has never updated his mailing/living address. The people who lived here before us left a note saying as much. When we started getting his mail, I went to the USPS office nearest me, with his thick stack of mail, and told them he doesn't live here and hasn't for awhile. This resulted in them holding and returning his mail, save for a few things that have slipped through.

I was curious about this MASSIVE envelope, thick as a book, and looked up the return address. It's a child support office. Ooooo, now shit makes sense! Last year, a different mail carrier than our usual showed up with a piece of certified mail...and a lawyer for said mail. It was weird but the next thirty minutes had me deeply amused for over a week.

Basically, this lawyer arrived to try and force the Deadbeat Dad to sign for some paperwork. DD does not live here, and I informed them of such. They asked for his address, and I told them we have no idea who DD is nor how to contact him. The mail carrier chimed in, stating there was no forwarding address, and were constantly sending the mail back to the senders. Lawyer-Man didn't like this and refused to accept the answer. He got loud and turned a couple shades of red, likely due to frustration and humiliation. Then he demanded I go in and bring the guy out, except I couldn't manifest him. He refused this answer and told me to do it anyway, or he would contact the police and tell them to get a warrant to search the place.

I told him to go right on ahead, but that it be on speakerphone and done right then and there. It was a ten minute conversation of me state the guy doesn't live here, I can't make him appear out of thin air, and the lawyer is simply embarrassed about the situation. The police refused to do anything because they couldn't do anything. Lawyer then shoves his clipboard at me, tells me to sign it, and says he won't leave until he does. Mail carrier is laughing his ass off, and doing a piss-poor job of hiding it. Police are still on the phone and hearing all of this, and ask if I would like them to come over and arrest the guy for trespassing. I guess that's what snapped sense into the lawyer. He leaves in a rush, now a shade of deep angry red, and the mail carrier has to sit down because he's in tears from laughing so hard.

There is another piece of certified mail that I've received notice of. It left Junction City three days ago, shipped to Portland, then my local mail office, back to Portland, back to my local mail office, and is now in Portland again. My guess is they're unable to figure out WTF to do this guy's mail. Two weeks ago, we received a small stack of his shit, and it was full of Final Notice letters, one of which was for Kia (so I'm guess a car payment), a letter from DHHS so likely child support, and the DMV and I'm guessing that's because he needs to register is vehicle.

For all we know, the man is dead. If his certified mail arrives with a lawyer again, I'm gonna record it the entire thing because this shit is hilarious. If the man isn't dead, I'm guessing he's move out of state, possible out of the country.

I had a uni teacher who did this sort of disappearing act. A week into the semester, the teacher announces to the class they're "tired of dealing with people" and will be going on a sabbatical. They grabbed their bag and left. This was the only instructor for this particular topic, and it was a required course for most of us present. We showed up for class again, thinking hey, they were having a bad day. No teacher. Half an hour later, someone arrives and tells us the teacher has vanished. A week later, we all received full credit for the class and a refund. I learned the teacher had sold every piece of furniture they owned, packed up what matters most into the little RV they had attached to the pickup truck they used (that truck was something of gossip on campus for months prior to this because apparently it was weird enough to attract attention), and left a note on their apartment door stating "fuck you, I quit." I'm guessing they were tired of being the only person who taught this course, and the fact the school had refused to hire anyone else. This was over 20 years ago, so details are fuzzy anymore.

My point is I thing that either DD is dead or decided to run off to who fucking knows, just like this uni teacher I had. Money is being wasted on certified mail and pretty much everything else they try mailing to him.

[cult-of-the-eye]

MAG 83 woop woop!!

JONNY BOY

ooh first proper statement in a while

Wait he took some statements with him??

Georgie is actually so right. I love her so much. He really needed some good fucking advice in his life from someone he hasn't thought might've killed someone before

I COULD BE ON DRUGS HAHAAAAAA NO YOU SMALL LOSER BOY

Why did he even jump to that conclusion?? I wasn't thinking ah yes drugs and I don't think a normal person reacting to this situation would immediately jump to drugs maybe insanity yes but not drugs

Universal autistic experience, having someone you're close to say that they know you "get obsessive about stuff"

YES GEORGIE!!!!! SHES THE ONLY ONE NOT FUCKING ENABLING HIM!!! HE DOESNT NEED THE STATEMENTS

oh shit is this the start of him depending on the statements??

Oh shit I guess not being able to go back to his flat makes him homeless

Oh right someone dropped the statement through the letter box

SHIT SOMEONE DROPPED IT THROUGH THE LETTER BOX

SOMEONE KNOWS WHERE HE IS

AND IS GIVING HIM STATEMENTS???

Fucking Elias I bet, who else would it be??? he was like yah I know where Jon is but I'm not gonna tell you to daisy and he's creepy enough to fucking send statements through the mail so there

Ok I'm sorry what was my man doing in those four days??? Sitting there rocking and muttering to himself staring at a fucking piece of paper?? Hmm?? Not fucking sleeping???

Investigating MY ASS what INVESTIGATION do you plan to do holed up in your ex gfs house???

Ah fuck he needs it

When does it stop becoming paranoia and start becoming an addiction?

YEAH GEORGIE YOU SHOULDNT BE KEEN ON WEIRD STALKERS KNOWING YOUR ADDRESS YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT AND THE ONLY SANE PERSON IN THIS WHOLE PODCAST (apart from Joshua Gillespie and Karolina gorka my loves)

AHHH HE DIDNT EVEN GET THROUGH HEAD HES JUST GOOD OLD JONATHAN SIMS NOW

He doesn't have any of that pomp and fancy pants titles anymore, it's just the fucking paranoia and realisation that it's not just a normal job, he can't ignore it anymore

It's funny how it finally sinks in how it's not just a normal job when he gets fired from it

Ok just did a quick google fanton isn't a real department store that's a good start

Haha yeah customer service people deserve medals

Omg of course the tma transcripts write Halloween as Hallowe'en that's so tma of them

Oh fuck stranger alert

Oh shit is that Nikola??? As in everyone on Tumblr talks about her Nikola???

Her condition?? Why does it sound like they're describing her as a fucking werewolf??

Ok this is fucking creepy I actually fucking despise mannequins I don't think I'm gonna enjoy these stranger statements

FUCK I HATE CLOWNS

AHHHHHHHHH

Ooh she's smart she goes in with 999 dialled love that for her

oh FUCK that shhh was terrifying

Oh god Lana was killed???

Blood in a single neat line across her lips???

Uckinf SHITBALLS

Jesus fucking christ

I BET HIS ASS MISSES THOSE "EXPERT" ASSISTANTS

FUCKING BREEKON AND HOPE???

Circuses, skin, not quite real - the STRANGER

It seems like now he sort of knows what's going on, he's catching on really quickly, he's categorising things and using what he knows which is good it's steps in a positive direction

I guess he doesn't want another axe table fiasco

The taxidermy shop oh yeah the guy who was like yeah this is paranormal and creepy as fuck but he's not committing tax fraud so it's fine loved that guy

Elias probably sent it

Oh shit he doesn't know Elias knows where he is

SHIT IT WAS HAND DELIVERED

God poor Georgie, she's housing his pitiful ex boyfriend who lost his weirdo job and is going insane and bringing the weirdness to her life

What was he looking into??? Like Not-Them stuff??

"I've got work to do." Fucking famous last words

Jonathon "workaholic" Sims strikes again

Although I guess it's not workaholic when it's threatening your whole life

I guess it's just...surviving

[ramblesbiab]

Damn, got another yuri duty letter in the mail. Oh right, yeah, it's like... it's new, yeah! Like they just started doing it a few months ago, which is especially like, damn. How did I get it twice?? But it's basically jury duty, right? Except you're not allowed to talk about the crime, they just send you to the back of the court and you have to make out with and dry hump a bunch of other horny women.

No yeah, it's cool obviously! It's just like, y'know, I had plans for Thursday that I gotta cancel now. I was gonna clean, I was going to get coffee with Jackie to catch up. I mean, maybe we can still go after I'm doing sucking and fucking with a bunch of ladies.

Oh yeah, you can suck and fuck if you want! The dry humping is kinda just like, the baseline? Like you start with kisses and dry humping then if you want to build from there. There's not too many rules besides the fact that you have to go.

Ace people? Oh, right, there's like, a form you can fill out if you're sex-repulsed or just don't want to. It's actually super simple to find and submit, they're much more accommodating then you might expect.

Anyway though yeah, guess I'm gonna spend my Thursday eating cunt and getting railed! And deciding if someone is guilty or innocent or whatever, usually we just forget about that part haha. I'll just like, pick one.

[those70scomics]

Fictober Day 11: "well, that worked out great"

That '70s Show fanfic

Red had finished his rudimentary design for his gray Toyota Camry. His shop was closed for the evening, and he planned on surprising Kitty with all he was doing for her -- their -- Halloween party.

His -- their -- gray car, only four-years-old, would temporarily become a possessed monster. With some washable paint, Laurie's artistic skills, and the kettlehead's help with electronics, the Toyota would transform into a vampiric, seemingly murderous beast.

The suggestion was Laurie's. She'd seen some horror movie a few years ago based on a book, and she was excited to put her painting skills to use for the party. On a whim, she'd applied to art school with a portfolio of illustrations she'd drawn throughout the late '70s. She got in with a partial scholarship, didn't quit, met her future husband there. Turned her life around and was genuinely happy.

A damn miracle.

Red made a few copies of his design with the Xerox machine in his office. He'd send one to Laurie through the mail tomorrow. It should arrive by Friday, which was appropriate considering it would be Friday the thirteenth -- in October no less. Wednesday the eleventh, today, didn't have the same spooky ring to it.

The door to his muffler shop rattled. That had better be the wind. The door had a CLOSED sign on it, but the door rattled again.

With a sigh, Red left his office. He prepared to tell an impatient customer, as nicely as possible, to come back tomorrow. Through the door's glass window, however, Red spotted the familiar dark curly hair of someone he wouldn't be able to ignore.

"Oh, hell's bells!" Red unlocked and opened the door. Bob stepped inside the shop, wearing a thick coat. "Whatever you want, it couldn't be said over the phone?"

"No, Red, it couldn't. I have a big problem."

"I can't handle your El Dorado without my staff. If you had it towed here -- "

"It's not about my car. It's about my daughter. I think she's possessed."

Red had been wrong: October eleventh was plenty spooky now.

Bob moved deeper into the shop and picked up a monkey wrench from the counter. "You ever see the movies The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby?"

"Glad to say I haven't. What's your point?"

"As a Catholic, I don't take strange behavior lightly. If this wrench were covered in holy water, I'd feel a whole lot better."

"Crap, you know."

Bob raised the wrench to his face and peered between its jaws. "Know what?"

Red wasn't going to play into Bob's nonsense. "The only person who's possessed here is you. Either put down the wrench or bash my head in with it."

"Aw, jeez." Bob returned the wrench to the counter. "Are you screwing with me?"

"I'm not the one who went to your store in the middle of the night, claiming my daughter had some demon inside her. Why are you really here, an early Halloween trick?"

"To ... to ... " Bob shook his head. "What're you pissed that I know about?"

"Nothing anymore. It's clear you don't know, and I'm not gonna tell you. You'll just have to wait 'til Halloween to find out."

Bob moved toward the front door. "Can you give me a hint?'

"Sure. Paint's involved."

"Paint?" Bob squinted, obviously confused. "Okay ... I guess I'll see you around."

He left the shop, and Red waved bye. Once Bob was no longer visible through the door window, Red muttered to himself, "Well, that worked out great."

Bob had gotten wind of Donna's pregnancy, but as long as Bob acted dumb, Red wouldn't give anything away.

[mdzs-is-rotting-my-brain]

For @mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess

🎁 🐚✉️ (comfort, fluff)

I"m not convinced I nailed the 'comfort' or fluff on this one. But let me know, I'm open to criticism,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I'd be worried about these if you didn't say they were harmless."

Wen Qing held up the small blue and white gift box that had become the only regular occurrence in Wei Wuxian's life.

He sat up too fast, the heart monitor spiked, pain rushed from his stomach to his shoulder in a eye-blinding spike of pain. Clutching the well bandaged wound, he gasped for breath through the pain. White noise filled his ears for a solid minute before it faded back into Wen Qing' lecture, she wasn't talking to him but rather about his morphine drip, and the amount he was supposed to be on.

He fell into meditation breathing by habit, pushing the residual pain away and getting his breath and shaky limbs back under control.

"You good?" Wen Qing asked when he opened his eyes.

"Yeah. Shouldn't have done that "

She rolled her eyes, scoffing, “You’ve been awake for less than two hours following major surgery. You’re not used to it yet.” She handed him the box, “I’m gonna go find your doctor and talk to them.” She swept out of the room with all the fury of a patients rights violation behind her.

Wei Wuxian eased himself up slowly, crossing his legs and easing his posture until the strain of his stitches eased to a mild pain he could live with.

The box was smaller than the last one, he had to assume the contents would be smaller as well.

He smiled, running his hand over the plain blue box, and bow tied as neat and as perfect as every other box before it.

He wondered sometimes, the kind of man that pouty child in his blue overall shorts with the bunnies and carrots along the hem, and his pristine white shirt at the beach turned into. Besides a man that had found him and proceeded to mail back every single seashell Yu-furen told him he could not keep.

The kind of man that packed them all neatly into appropriate boxes and perfectly tied bows.

The kind of man that, no matter where Wei Wuxian went, from Lotus Pier, to Yi City, to Yiling, and finally to Gusu, found him and kept sending him seashells.

Wei Wuxian wasn’t sure he had actually gathered that many seashells, they’d been arriving one a week since he turned eighteen, no return address, no notes, nothing to give Wei Wuxian it was anything other than a creepy stalker.

But who else could it have been? Who else had Wei Wuxian ever dumped as many seashells and pretty rocks his ten-year-old arms could carry on? Who else had he met that wore blue and white? Someone from the Gusu Lan Sect? Sure, and that chubby cheeked child from thiriteen years ago maybe have been, or still was, a part of the Gusu Lan Sect. But if he knew Wei Wuxian had been living in Caiyi for two months, after taking all of the trouble to track him down through thirteen years and three moves, several upheavals, why would he not take the opportunity to come and see him?

The ribbon was silk, like all the others, sliding out of the perfect knot with ease, he wrapped it around his wrist, using his teeth to tie it off.

Nestled inside white silk lining was a gastropod seashell, a common turritella, mostly brown fading to white at the tip.

Yuan-er called them ‘unicorn horns’ and had glued several of them to the heads of his horse toys or the hoods of his cars, or two to a doll to make horns.

It felt more fragile now then it had when he was ten, he knew now how they were made, and how they washed up on the shore. But when he had been ten the world had been wide open. There was something new around every corner, if even exploring it came with bitter recriminations from behind him. The beach that one summer he was allowed to go had been once such place.

He’d never seen a body of water so big. The river in Yiling had been narrow, cold, and meandering, the water was always some form of green or gray, rotting piles of trash, bodies,, and waste the only smell for miles around the river. It took days to filter, and the poor people who lived around it were sick for weeks at a time if they had to drink before cleaning. The local government, despite years of effort, had done little to do anything about it by the time Jiang Fiengmen brought into the Jiang Sect as a ward.

In southern Gusu though, the water was a deep and brilliant blue, sparkling so bright it hurt his eyes to stare at the ocean stretching until it met the sky.

The sand was hot, rocks and shells biting into the touch callouses of his feet. Jiang Fiengmen showed little interest in his every discovery, and Yu-furen told him he could only take one home.

Not far from where they were, was another family, a woman and her two children, one of whom was politely reading while the other, with his chubby cheeks, and white-and-blue clothes, stared at Wei Wuxian like this was a private beach and he was intruding with his loud proclamations of every little new thing he found.

Ten-year-old Wei Ying didn’t understand why the boy was sitting under the umbrella, or why they weren’t dressed for the beach, and he hadn’t cared either. It’d only been a week since Jiang Fiengmen brought him in as a ward. Social skills would come later.

So, not only was it surprising that the boy that glared at Wei Wuxian like he was everything wrong with the world at that particlular moment, had not only kept all the shells, and rocks Wei Wuxian had dumped in his lap, and kept giving him as the day wore on until Jiang Yanli called him back for sunscreen where he passed out and woke up to find the boy and his mother gone, but now he was giving them back to him. Having gone through the trouble of tracking Wei Wuxian down and returning each shell one-by-one.

“This is why I don’t trust your care to anyone.” Wen Qing dropped into the chair beside his bed, flipping through his medical chart.

At least, Wei Wuxian assumed it was his medical chart, it’d be odd if she had someone else's.

“What’s happened?”

She snorted, “They brought someone down from the Lan sect to play Cleansing for you to purge your system of your guidao cultivation. Not bothering to check your golden core first. It’s no wonder your wounds became infected.”

He did wonder why they hurt so much when he woke up two days ago.

“That explains so much. How bad is my core?”

“Bad. The damage has spread to seventy percent now because it overcompensated trying to keep you alive during the Cleansing.” She looked at him, eyes flat and hard. He never liked that look on her. That banked anger, she was holding back for him, but she would be talking to doctors, nurses, and the board of directors and if any of them came out with their medical licenses, reputations, and egos intact, Wen Qing had lost her touch.

“You flatlined twice. The Cultivator should have stopped there, and the doctors did try to stop him. But he insisted on getting it all out.”

Wei Wuxian’s stomach turned, it felt like ice had ben poured down his back, he shivered, pulling the thin medical sweater tighter around him.

“The…boys?”

She put a hand on his arm without even looking, “You took care of your will last year, they’ll pass into mine and A-Ning’s custody.” She squeezed his arm.

“Oh good, they did list the cultivator here, now I know who we’re suing.”

“We’re…suing them?”

“Wuxian. There is a advanced directive in your medical file. Commanding any doctors that unless your life is in immeadite danger, you are to be treated by me or any of the Dafen Wen. Needless to say, while your injuries from the-” She waved her hand around, brows scrunching in thought.

“Crab yao.” He supplied.

“Yes, that. It wasn’t in danger until Su Minshin thought he knew better. They should have treated your injuries, stopped the bleeding and called me before anything else was done or medical decisions. Violating that, the hospital has made itself liable, and the Gusu Lan Sect for not ensuring they had the medical right to continue treatment after their ‘client’ flatlined twice in their cultivators care.” She snapped the file shut, squeezing his arm again, “I’m going to go talk to the board of directors, and the Gusu Sect leader. A-Ning is downstairs getting food with Yuan-er and Yu-er, they’ll be up here shortly.”

Wei Wuxian caught her hand before she left.

Family didn’t say thank you.

Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing taught him that. There was no need, they were family. Saying thank you was for strangers.

“Wear your white suit with the red flowers, you look like you could kill and not get it bloody.”

She smiled at him, “I’ll have A-Ning run home and grab it.”

Wei Wuxian held the shell in his free hand, watching her go. He reached under the medical gown to pull out the small blue pearl he’d threaded onto a leather cord.

The little boy with eyes as gold as every sunset Wei Wuxian had seen, had given it to him the last time he delivered an armful of shells.

It was the one thing he took home.

The hospital where he stayed had also been owned and operated by the Gusu Lan Sect. He wasn’t sure if they wanted to sweep the situation under the rug or were actually trying to make amends for his botched medical care, either way they were offered an extended stay at the Caiyi Cultivation Rehab Resort, also owned and run by the Lan Sect, but this one was owned by the main family, Zewu-jun and his relations.

A sprawling resort on the eastern shore overlooking expansive ornamental gardens, meditation gazebos, outdoor areas for relaxation and recovery, a private gym, indoor pool, heated jaccuzzi, and even a kids area though he had no intention of living his sons in anyone's care but Wen Qing or Wen Ning.

The receptionist was a polite young man, he had similar refined beauty as all the other Gusu Lan Sect Cultivators he encountered had. Fine, sharp, features with either wide or fine eyes, either dark or slightly lighter. They wore pristine white robes, and their sacred ribbons. None of them had the eyes of a sunset, or the magnetic pull of a child hiding from the sun.

They got the honeymoon suite, three bedrooms, a main room and a large balcony over looking one of the ornamental gardens and the ocean.

Wei Wuxian, Yuan-er and Yu-er would get the room with the biggest bed, Wen Ning and Wen Qing each got their own.

“I am supposed to tell you that Zewu-jun’s younger brother, Hanguang-jun, is also within the resort.” The Sect member that walked them up said, Wei Wuxian hadn’t caught his name, too busy trying to stop Yuan-er from pulling the fish out of the fountian in the foyer, “He is the only other guest at the moment, he is to be left alone.”

Wen Qing rolled her eyes, “Be sure he knows that we’re to be left alone as well. Don’t need anymore Lan hand’s fucking up my patient.”

The poor boy looked scandalized for a moment before he saluted them, leaving so fast he forgot to shut the door.

“Will I ever not be your patient when we’re in company?” Wei Wuxian asked, pushing the door shut behind the poor Lan.

“Yes, when people stop trying to kill you, and other people stop making it easy. You and A-Ning take the boys out for a walk, let them run off some energy after the car ride. I’ll order us some dinner.”

“Yuan-er, Yu-er, lets get out of Qing-ayi’s hair for a bit.” He called to the boys on the balcony with Wen Ning, “A-Ning you better come too, Qingqing is in a mood.”

He felt Wen Qing roll her eyes, he knew she was going to make him pay for that, probably ‘forget’ to order the chili oil, or something similar.

“Diedie, did you see the ocean? It’s so big. Can we go? Please can we go” Yu-er grabbed his pant leg with wide eyes. Xuanyu had the biggest doe eyes Wei Wuxian had ever seen on a child, he drank the sight of everything in like he wasn’t going to see it twice.”

“Not today little sunflower.” Folding his legs, he sat on the floor, holding both of Yu-er’s hands, “Its late, and during this time of the year the water gets cold at night. When you have your first impression of the ocean I want you to love it. We’ll go tomorrow, as soon as the sun warms the water, okay?”

Yu-er considered that with all the gravitas a nine-year-old was capable of. He nodded, said, “Okay!” Before running off to find his brother.

During the adoption proceedings, Wei Xuanyu, at that time Mo Xuanyu, hadn’t wanted anything to do with Wei Wuxian, the idea of adoption, or a younger brother. Until Yuan-er, and his perfectly timed flu, threw up all over Xuanyu’s atrocious aunt. They’d practically been inseparable ever since, forcing Wei Wuxian to move Yu-er’s bed into Yuan-er’s room so he could watch over his brother.

“Take it easy.” Wen Qing said as they stood at the door, “Nothing extraneous, no running, no lifting the boys up, and definitely no holding them. You still have two-hundred and fifty stitches in your chest. The last thing your core needs right now is more damage to try and fix.”

Wei Wuxian smiled at her, “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

“I’ll watch over him jiejie.” Wen Ning said.

“See, I have the boys to keep me distracted, and A-Ning to babysit me. I’m all set.” He kissed her cheek, then ducked out of the room before she could threw something at him.

“Gross! Wei Wuxian!” He heard her all but scream before the door swung shut.

The ornamental gardens was manicured lawns and hedges with some purple leafed trees Wei Wuxian hoped were native to the area. Well-maintained moss grew artfully over recreations of historical gates, obelisks, or guardian dragons. a pavilion was built in the middle of the large lake with no walkway, only narrow stepping stones. The boys wanted to attempt the crossing, but he was pretty sure Wen Qing’s ‘nothing extraneous’ included fishing a nine-year-old and a four-year-old out of the lake. And it was occupied. Too far away to make out details, but he could see pristine white robes, a long curtain of black hair, and skin as white as mutton fat jade.

Remembering that the Second Jade of Gusu Lan was also at the resort, Wei Wuxian quickly herded the boys towards the Chang’e courtyard, tempting them with the idea of jade rabbits and a history lesson.

The Moon Courtyard was everything he expected. A monument to Chang’e on one side of the courtyard holding two jars of the famed elixer of immortality, and her husband Houyi on the other looking up at his wife, between them a moon of gentian blossoms sat in the center with four rabbits around the moon.

The boys fell silent upon enter the courtyard. Wei Wuxian couldn’t blame them, there was something about this place that felt more reverent that the rest of the garden. More…personal. It felt like an homage. an honoring. Similar to how he felt in family shrines, or at funerals.

It felt holy.

Keeping the boys respectful as they saluted to both Houyi and Chang’e before they crossed the courtyard and into the hedgemaze on the other side.

“Tag.” Yuan-er shouted, breaking whatever spell had fallen over them in the Moon Courtyard. He slapped Yu-er’s shoulder, “You’re it.” He took off running before Wei Wuxian could even found the words to stop him.

“No, wait. We shouldn’t play that game.” A-Ning said, catching Yu-er's shoulder, “Your die is still hurt. Go, I’ve got him.”

Wei Wuxian walked faster then Wen Qing would have probably been happier with, and walked faster still when he heard tiny sniffles, and a quiet voice.

Rounding the corner he saw a Lan Sect member kneeling in front of Yuan-er, holding a handkerchief to his chin.

Wei Wuxian never minded blood, he could shake off his own injuries as fast as anything, a strong golden core and guidao cultivation ensure, was his delicate balance not screwed up, he could heal from most injuries within hours or days.

Seeing blood on his son however, twisted his stomach unpleasantly. Squeezing his heart, filling his head with white noise.

“Yuan-er?” he was patting his son down, looking for the stab wound, the gunshot, the yao injury, anything that would make the blood on the white silk and Yuan-er’s tears make sense.

“I’m okay diedie.” Yuan-er said, he didn’t look okay. His eyes were wide, red and puffy, fat tears trailed down his cheeks.

Wei Wuxian pulled him into his arms, squeezing him tight, “Are you sure? We can go back to gugu.”

“He fell.” The voice beside him rumbled, polite yet oddly strained, “Scrapped his chin. I believe he is just in shock.”

“Thank you, I-”

Eyes. As gold as at the sunset. Set in a face as beautiful as every lotus blooming, mountain range covered in snow, or one his son's laughter of pure delight. Skin as pure as mutton fat jade.

He knew him, all at once, from seashells returned in ornately wrapped boxes, and caring so gently for a child that was not his.

“Zhan-er. Ah, Lan…Zhan?”

His face lightened as if Wei Wuxian had said a password only the two of them knew, easing from guarded wariness to calm, warm and accepting.

“Wei Ying.”

There was so much warmth in that simple address. The way his eyes roamed across Wei Wuxian’s face like it had been something he had been wanting to see for decades.

His gaze locked onto something at the base of his throat.

Wei Wuxian smiled, touching the pearl, “You kept mine as well…well kind of, you have been giving them back.”

“You said your Furen would not allow you to have them. I believed when you became an adult she could no longer tell you what you were and were not allowed.”

He wasn’t wrong, mostly because when he turned fifteen, an adult by cultivation standerds, she kicked him out of the sect. Something she’d been promising to do since Jiang Fiengmen’s death.

The tiniest sniffle brought both of their attention to Yuan-er.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I should take him back to his aunt, get him looked over. Make sure he’s fine.”

He found a hand on his elbow, gently helping him stand,

“I want to see you again.” His cheeks warmed at the sudden, bold, declaration, he buried his face in Yuan-er’s hair, letting out a mortified groan.

A huff, something like a chuckle, or a gentle laugh, “I want to see you again as well.”

He jerked his head up, noting adorably pink ears, smiling at the still beautiful face in front of him.

“Don’t laugh, we’re in the honeymoon suite, I came with my…sister and brother, and my sons, so we needed the extra room.”

It was unfair that he even frowned beautifully,

“Your wife?”

Wei Wuxian scoffed, “Would I be flirting with the second-most eligible bachelor if I were married? Not to mention I am the fourth eligible bachelor on that list. If I were married, you’d have known.” He bent closer, sandalwood drifted across his nose, it was a fitting fragrance for someone so refined and otherworldly beautiful,

“And here I thought were you paying attention to me. You knew when and where I moved within weeks of me getting there, and yet you thought I was married.”

“Diedie, Yuanyuan!”

In the cinamatic history of perfect timings, Yu-er and Wen Ning came around the corner, clamping onto Wei Wuxian’s leg, tugging at them so he could see his brother.

“What happened? Is he okay? Does he need the hosptial like you did?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Wei Wuxian stroked his head slowly, “He just fell and is a little shaken up.”

“I will walk you back.” Lan Zhan said, folding his arms in his voluminous sleeves, “I am staying a few rooms down from yours.”

The warning about not disturbing Zewu-jun’s younger brother now made sense.

“Oh, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” He added a teasing lilt so Lan Zhan knew not to take him seriously, “You see, we were warned not to disturb Zewu-jun’s younger brother. And if you come up to my room well…” he let his eyes drift up and down Lan Zhan, “...we’d disturb the whole floor I feel like.”

Wei Wuxian smiled, unable to stop the urge to tease even if he had better control over himself.

Really, if Lan Zhan didn’t want to be teased, he shouldn’t have been so pretty and refined and understanding and kind.

It’s his own fault really.

“Shameless.” Lan Zhan retorted, his ears darkening.

Wei Wuxian laughed, long and loud, like he hadn’t since the Chang Clan and Xue Yang disaster.

“I can’t yet anyways. I’m here to recover and I feel like you would be the ‘extraneous’ activity jiejie warned me to avoid.”

“Do you flirt with everyone like this?” Lan Zhan asked, turning to offer a hand to help Wei Wuxian down the stairs into the Moon Courtyard.

“Only the really pretty Lan’s that return seashells.”

Lan Zhan hummed. He didn’t let go as they crossed the courtyard, pausing long enough for Lan Zhan to make his own bows to Chang’e and Houyi before wondering back through the winding paths they took before.

The pavilion was empty now, of course it was. Wei Wuxian if Lan Zhan had seized the opportunity to arrange a meeting in the hedge maze when he heard them talking the boys out of going to the pavilion.

Wen Qing was waiting for them by the door, she stubbed the cigarette out before Wen Ning saw, her eyes darting between Wei Wuxian, Lan Zhan and their joined hands and immediately decided she didn’t want to know a single thing about it.

“Yuan-er fell, I think he just scraped his chin, but could you look at him for me?”

Yuan-er was reluctant to be released, and he settled for leaning against Wei Wuxian while Wen Qing looked over his chin and hands.

“I’ll apply some antiseptic when we get back to the room.” She frowned at him, “You should have put sunscreen on before you went out. I don’t care that it’s spring, the sun is still cancerous.”

“Yes Jiejie.” Wei Wuxian suffered under her care, he really did. No spicy foods, no alcohol, no sex-she didn’t specifically say ‘no sex’ just nothing strenuous. Which is the same thing really-no fun.

Aside from Jiang Yanli, she was the best sister anyone could ask for.

“I am beside you, I will walk you to your rooms. Please disregard the staffs instructions not to disturb me.” Lan Zhan offered Wen Qing the appropriate salute, “I would like the opportunity to know you all further in the coming days.”

“He’s one of the good Lan’s” Wei Wuxian said, putting a hand on Wen Qing’s arm when he saw her stiffen and frown, “I doubt seriously he knows what Su Minshin did, or the Lan sects participation.”

“Su Minshin?” Lan Zhan brows furrowed, he looked at Wei Wuxian sharply “What has happened?” It was a question, but it felt like a demand.

Wen Qing sighed, “Why don’t you…come around for dinner. I can explain everything then. Does the Lan sect still eat at six?”

Lan Zhan nodded, “We do.”

“We’ll see you in an hour. Come one Yu-er, didi, Wuxian.”

Wei Wuxian stood, holding Yuan-er.

He stared at Lan Zhan, pristine features staring after Wen Qing.

“She’s making it sound far worse than what it was, really.” He kissed Lan Zhan’s cheek, he wished he flushed as subtly as Lan Zhan, cause right now he was sure his face was as red as tomato, and he couldn’t blame it on the sun.

“See you at dinner.”

He got two steps before he was pulled to a stop. Lan Zhan hadn’t let go of his hand yet.

Lan Zhan stepped up to meet him, his free hand drifting to Wei Wuxian’s cheek. His eyes searching his.

“I…have wanted to give you this for a long time.” He pulled a white envelope out of his sleeve.

Like the boxes it was plain envelope and no fancy seal. Even in its simplicity there was a subtle extravagance in the embossed paper and textured cloud design.

“Do not open it now. And you do not have to answer now, or soon. Just to know it is an option.”

It took every ounce of Wei Wuxian’s self control to not rip open the envelope until after Lan Zhan-apparently forgetting he was walking him back to the room-vanished around the corner.

Wei Wuxian walked over to the stone bench beside the door, slid his nail under the seal and opened it.

The paper was light blue, with a subtle pattern of seashells in hues of cream and blue.

Wei Ying,

If you remember me, I am a friend you once made thirteen years ago. I am Lan Wangji of Gusu Lan. I am a friend still.

If you want, would you join me in Gusu?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That concludes the final three emoji prompt.

thanks to everyone that participated and sent in requests.

A special thanks to Moma (Mdzs-owns-my-ass) for waiting two days longer.

While doing research for this prompt, I noticed the similarities between Chang'e and Wei Wuxian.

Legends vary about when, and why Chang'e ascended to the moon, but there was always the constant theme of rabbits and two bottles of immortality elixer and her husband was an archer.

Wei Wuxian climbed "ascended" the Gusu Sect walls at night, during a full moon with two bottles of Emperor's Smile, later he gave Lan Wangji two rabbits and the Lan Sect uses jade entrace tokens. The Archer is represented both in Wen Ning and Lan Wangji.

MXTX is Chinese, it makes sense that similarities from Mythology and Lore would be in her books, I just thought it was fun to notice it.

Anyway, I'm off to practice writing short oneshots.

[prehistoric-duo]

HELLO ROTOMBLR!!

It's your favorite MewTube Paleontologist Power-Couple, finally making an account on a social media site that isn't MewTube!

This is Taire- if you couldn't tell by my charming energetics (AKA Arnie didn't feel like making our introduction post lol).

I figure some of you don't really know who we are, if you don't find this blog from our description links, so why not talk about it real quick?

As I've said before, I'm Taire! I use he/him pronouns, and I'm 27 years old. Which, in my opinion, is actually not that old because I've worked with rocks older than uh. literally humanity? I have three Pokemon-

Rafflesia the Venusaur (She/her)

Geode the Sandslash (They/them)

Onoi the Omastar (They/them)

Here's my trainer card:

Arnie uses they/he pronouns, and is 26! He is like. My favorite person in the whole wide world and I love him so so so much and YES me gushing about him is a regular occurrence irl and in private. They also have three Pokemon-

Pablo the Torterra (They/them)

Grey the Aggron (They/Them)

Shelley the Carracosta (She/her)

Here's their trainer card:

We've been doing MewTube for about 3 years now, and married for 5! We work for an organization called The New Epoch Foundation as, you guessed it, paleontologists! The goal of the organization is to help further scientific research and runs mostly on donations! I might also end up as their head of social media because of the stuff we do on MewTube, we'll just have to see!

Of course, we can't forget about Baby Helix, we had them about a year ago and we love them so so much. We don't really post pictures of them, but maybe in the future? We aren't like. A family vlogging channel anyways (chills). We'll both sign off our posts!

Feel free to send us asks and pelipper mail! I'm hoping to be able to interact with the fans more this way :)

Hi! Mod here, just call me Vessel! ooc text from me will be red

My other blog is @canesvenatici-ribbons! But this blog is going to be more plot-based than slice of life ;)

A couple of ground rules:

1- I operate on DND and Improv rules: "yes and" and be respectful to other players.

That doesn't mean NO anon hate or whatever, it just means that if someone is playing a character in a way that makes me uncomfortable, I'm probably not going to interact with you. If the anon hate is egregious I'm going to stop responding to it, etc.

Typically I try to just go "yes and" to stuff, it's more fun to me that way and adds a layer of unpredictability to my stories- BUT- please DM me if you want to do BIG plot stuff (I don't bite!)

But if something makes me uncomfortable I won't do it, feel free to ask prior though if you want confirmation! If it's like. An overly dark subject matter I probably won't do it though.

2- No Magic anons or anon hate related to their identities please!

This is my one hard-stop! everything else like sentient pokemon, pelipper mail, regular anons, anon hate, is all fine right now!

3- Feel free to remind me to respond to a post or ask if I haven't gotten to it in about two days! I'm a college student and I'm really busy. I do this mostly for fun but I do really appreciate reminders. adhd brain

4- I want to confirm this rq cause I know people will ask about it- Helix is their biological child, one of them is trans but no actual like. Pregnancy is gonna be shown or mentioned on this blog because they think it's funny to keep it up in the air on who had Helix or if Helix is adopted. Trans families (no matter what kind) and seahorse dads are just. Very important to me as I am a trans guy/trans masc who wants kids myself one day. I expect you all to be respectful and mature about this. People who make M///pr///eg jokes and/or comments will be blocked and deleted.

Literally it's only funny with people I'm close with so if I don't know you, don't do that. This is my one other hard stop

Asks about who had Helix though- and speculation on if Helix is adopted, is encouraged and very funny!

I do plan on having actual references for the family done up at some point, I just haven't had the time or resources for it quite yet. But for now, here are their picrews + short add on descriptions! (Minus Baby Helix)

Taire:

Blue, Feathery hair, Oddly sharp teeth

Red, scaley patches of skin has grown in the three years of making videos- they started out small and almost unnoticeable and now it's beginning to take up their face.

Arnie:

DO NOT let this picrew fool you. Arnie is a large fat man. They also have a full beard that is not pictured.

Hair has turned white in the past few years. Blue Patch of skin over eye and looks strangely smooth, has only appeared since last year

[whimsical-westbrook]

hi!!

so something very peculiar happened to me and my daughter… she had a nightmare and we slept together, and then we woke up pokemon??? i’m a gardevoir and she’s a ralts.

i’m guessing from your blog this isn’t very uncommon, seeing you guys already have a nickname for it. but “eeby deeby”? really??? you couldn’t think of a better- im getting off track nevermind

what do we do??? im freaking out over here!!! im already a single mom I can’t handle this!!! what do i do when I need to get my drivers license renewed??? can pokémon even get drivers licenses??? what will i tell my family???? what will i tell my friends???? what will my poor baby tell her friends???? WHAT WILL MY LANDLORD THINK????? I HAVENT EVEN SCRATCHED THE SURFACE OF NEW PROBLEMS!!!!

………..

im sorry if this is too much for you.

at least she’s still the cutest little girl ever…~

Hey, I'm SO sorry I wasn't able to get to this when you first sent it in; I'd make excuses but what matters is that it sounds like you're getting help now! At least, I believe this is @pragmaticinstant?

I'm gonna start by covering the catch-options my friend @fated-furret was confused about:

the Johto National Park has designed pokeball charms that effectively work like just having a pokeball, but the ball is attached to a charm you can wear, which is both cute and works as a fun indicator. You might be able to see if someone can convert whatever pokeballs you can find into cute charms, I just know the national park already has some set up,

The anti-catch patches only seem to exist in certain regions, but the idea is that there's an invisible patch you can put on a pokemon that may be too anxious about a pokeball or have special needs, but still registers them as already caught for the pokeball system, causing catch attempts to fail? I don't quite understand the specifics of that one either.

Again, just regular pokeballs also work, and it sounds like you have plans there.

We have a support group for this exact thing, both between all the "eebydeebies" as well as some greater reach into the Tacklr community. I think there's an invite thing you can set so the Pelipper Mail delivery system can reach you; people can send you things that way pretty easily! A few good sites for determining what food is and isn't safe, some actual food; @goldenrodchef is SUCH a good cook and I bet he'd be delighted to make at least a few meals for you when he can.

You'll have to test and find out if you can speak human; some of us can innately, I was able to get a friend to make an everstone with a translator built in, and some folks just forgo talking to humans.

Uh, we can try and get you the group-chat invite, though I can't promise it won't be chaotic and confusing,

And enough of us have had this happen that you have a precedent to work with when trying to tell people, but unfortunately I can't promise how they'll react.

I really hope that helps, and again, sorry for the delay on my response!