#i was already in a weird limbo because of my family that is sort of accidentally feminist if that makes sense

[ghostcrows]

i for sure have male privilege as a trans guy in spaces where i am not stealth, like in trans safe spaces and at home with family members and at work. the way women are treated is atrocious

The thing I have consistently run into is the part where my stealth fails and I become the ugly woman again, like the stealth was already a tightrope I was tripping over myself on and having to omit any details of my own personal life (not something anyone should be required to do) and then somehow some way it comes out to people and it's like you can just sense the shift. Not everyone I'll give them some credit, some people have been great.

But it's like yeah it just doesn't....it's built on such a slippery foundation and to me personally I don't feel that it's ever gotten me taken much more seriously than before, because people still infantilise me, they treat me like a little boy at 25 bc of the way I look. I still get "mansplained" everything but this time in a weirdly paternal way

Like whatever amount of macho posturing or natural masculine rizz you need to make privilege work for you is something I mostly lack. Not to say I don't get any benefits at all, but many things just don't feel like they really changed from before. It's ways in which being a woman either didn't apply to me because I lacked the femininity for it or ways where being a man didn't apply to me because I lacked the masculinity

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Hello! I just wanted to say I stumbled across one of your posts and ended up looking through the trans tag in your blog for a while and idk it felt so so nice to see a middle aged trans guy just living life and being there for others who are at earlier points of their own trans related journeys, and I hope I can look as awesome as you and be as comfortable in my own skin and style and everything when I'm older.

I guess I also wanted to ask if you had any insight or advice about a couple things, if you're willing to share.. First thing is, did you ever struggle with passing but looking much younger than your age and that somewhat affecting your perception of yourself? I'm 28 and I started T 11 months ago (though at a pretty low dose because I wanted slow changes) and my face just recently started visibly shifting to a more masculine contour and I love it, but I still don't really look like a 28 year old guy.

I've always passed easily even before T but people think I'm like 18-21 max. Things were fine while I was in college (I came out at 19 so for a while my face just felt fitting enough and didn't make me feel either dysphoric or in a weird age limbo) but every year it feels more frustrating and makes me feel sort of alienated from myself including in mental ways, like I'm just a little kid who can't grow up. Like I'll never look like a "real guy" even though I can be stealth because I look like a weird teen and not like a grown up man. It's especially bad when I look at my amab younger siblings who are now also adults and see how I "should have looked" in some other life if I was cis. I guess maybe that's just another manifestation of dysphoria that I didn't have to deal with before? Did you ever experience something like that? And if yes did it get better after some years on T or how did you deal with it?

The other thing is just.. internalized transphobia. It's one thing to know things in a logical or intellectual sense but it's so hard to really feel and believe it sometimes and let go of all the awful transphobic stuff my family said to me during the first years of me being out. I just kept going anyway because I needed to be true to myself and my family basically bullying me wasn't gonna just magically change how I felt about my gender, but what it did do is put my already low confidence and self esteem (in this context regarding my gender) down on the floor. And sometimes I still just think and worry "what if they were right and I was wrong and I'll never be real and valid because of x y z", "what if I'm just delusional", "what if I'm a ridiculous freak". I know, in a way, that no I'm not. I'm just a trans person and they're just transphobes. But feelings like that just get to me sometimes and I don't really know what to do about them even nearly 10 years after coming out. Does that get better at some point? Just like you kinda stop giving a shit what people think about you in general as you get older? But how can you change those internalized views affecting what you think of yourself?

Bit nervous about asking this stuff tbh, so sorry it was so long also sorry if I worded any of it in a not so great way.

I will say though, that seeing older trans people like you does help a little bit. Just makes it feel like "hell yeah I wanna be like him when I grow up". So thank you for showing me that today ;u; (and also for inspiring me to put a little more thought and effort into my styling and fashion choices haha)

Heya, Anon! Let's see what I can cover here:

Looking young.

Oh my god, yes. I was getting carded to buy superglue and spray paint well into my late 30s (I started T at 33). When my partner first asked me out for a date, they were worried I wasn't old enough to drink yet (I was 36).

This is me 1 year on T, age 34.

Years 6 & 7 (ages 39 and 40), is when I feel I started looking older.

I feel like it's only been recently, 14 years in at 47, that I look in my 40s, and a "mature" adult. My beard finally getting full helped, as did my receding hairline. And I feel like my skin texture has toughened up enough, to where wrinkles show more.

That said, yes, it is tough and annoying to deal with. Even when people tell me I look like a particular cis man (where I actually see the resemblance, lol), when I look at us side-by-side, I feel like I'm just a pale shadow of him. I feel jealous and dysphoric, even while I'm flattered by the comparison. I wonder what I "should" look like, and it feels like something has been stolen from me. Its a roller coaster of emotions.

That feeling never really goes away, but you need to afford yourself some grace. You're going to be your own worst critic, and I guarantee you that, of many cis men you grew up with, you can probably still see the kid in them. So of course, you're going to see the kid in yourself.

But, you also just need to let time run its course. HRT is a marathon, and a lot of changes don't really settle for about 5 or 6 years.

I hate to say "enjoy it while you can" because I sure as hell bristled at being mistaken for a teenager or barely 20 when I was in my 30s. But do enjoy what you can of it. Because once you hit middle age, you're going to start dealing with a strange intersection of dysphoria and aging that I myself am still trying to navigate.

One other way I help myself get over negative feelings is to think of how differently my life would have been if I were cis. I honestly worry I would have been a worse person; even though being trans creates a lot of obstacles in my life, I feel like it's been a net gain: being able to know myself so well and help others learn about themselves.

Internalized transphobia

This got better for me with age. My epiphany was that, even over a decade into my transition, I was still softening myself for the benefit of friends and family. I was still using my gender-neutral birthname (I only recently changed it). I would call myself a "person", "guy", or "dude", instead of a "man". I dressed on the young and casual side, eschewing full-on masculine outfits like proper suits with ties.

I only recently pulled myself out of this. It still is a habit-in-progress to refer to myself as a man, even though I have always felt like one. And I've started to dress more vintage, not just because of hyper fixations, but because it's a way to lean into a presentation that is unequivocally, "this is a middle-aged man". And it's done a lot of good for my mental health.

What I'd suggest is to see if you are holding yourself back in any way wrt your gender presentation or how you talk/think about yourself. Give yourself full permission to acknowledge that you are a man, full stop. You're a young man, sure. But still a man, and a full-ass adult at that.

I hope some of this helps. Transition gives us a unique toolset for examining who we are and how we want to move through the world, and that work certainly doesn't end after finally getting on HRT. <3

[moltengoldveins]

so it’s been about a year and a half since Technoblade’s passing. I’m not ready to talk about it, but let’s be real. I’m never going to be. We have what we have when we have it, then it’s gone. I didn’t talk enough about him while he was here, so I’m doing it now.

I was really active in the MCYT fandom when I was younger, ages six to twelve or so. Then again for about three years before Techno’s passing, joining early 2019 as far as I remember. Techno was the first online figure I’d encountered with even a passing resemblance to my own sense of humor and philosophy on life. I respected him a lot, and grew to love the community because of the environment he cultivated. He was also a big figure in my journey towards realizing I was ace. I’m not about to speculate on him or his tastes, but he didn’t base his humor around sex or romance. He never really brought it up. He avoided the topic when other people did, and he was Still Funny. He was still loved and valued by his fans and community. That was really big for me. That someone could ignore all that stuff and still be loved. That Will and Tommy and such never made him feel lesser for being uninterested.

His character kept me invested in the DSMP. His humor helped me through the worst parts of Covid. I’d already read The Art of War, but his love for it made me appreciate it and the rest of the classics so much more. The stories and art, the music and headcanons, all of it irrevocably altered the way I tell stories and the way I view the world. He helped me articulate a lot of my moral code, and concretely understand a lot of my beliefs. His relationship with Philza, both in character and out, also helped me. I had no idea friendships could be that intimate without being romance, and my friendship with my best friend is significantly closer now. My family has lost a lot to cancer. At the time of Techno’s announcement, I’d recently lost a grandfather to lung cancer, my other granddad had just barely fought it off, and my aunt had dealt with blood cancer as a kid, leaving her incapable of having kids. I’ll admit: I panicked. I hated cancer with a passion and I still do: I couldn’t fathom loosing another person to it, public figure or otherwise. I was never allowed to interact much with the internet while I was a minor. By the time I wasn’t one anymore, watching fandoms from the sidelines had already become habit. I never stepped in, never commented, never sent any messages in chat. I think I did it to maintain emotional distance. I was there for years, every stream, every video, cheering and screaming and chanting with the best of them, but entirely silent. I only really got close to breaking out of that weird sort of limbo once. It was some random stream, late in his illness, when a timer went off for his meds. He ignored it, cracked a joke, and even though I was at work I spent the next ten minutes thinking about it. “Just go take your meds, idiot.” I kept muttering to myself. I think I scared a coworker. I had the chat open and my fingers on my phone when he noticed the rest of chat yelling at him and took them, so I didn’t say anything. I never did. I regret that immensely now. I wasn’t any further removed emotionally because of my distance. I just felt like I’d never done anything of value when I could have.

I don’t think I really… processed it. When he died. I wasn’t in a very safe environment anyway, as my family had no idea I watched his content, much less cared so much, so I couldn’t emote much externally. What was I gonna say anyway? “Oh, some random guy on the internet died of cancer and won’t be making stuff anymore, darn, what a shame.”

So I didn’t process it. I went on as normal. I didn’t engage with any media made after his passing and I let the hurt fester. Everything was ✨fine✨… and then a few months later, I got a call while at college, “Grandad has cancer again. He’s probably not going to make it this time.”

Yeah. Yeah that. That hurt. A lot. That semester became a painful mess of travel and sickness and missed classes and hard conversations with a dying man I still love more than anything. I was kicked out of my apartment without warning the day I got the call about his death. When I got the chance to breathe, it finally hit me, and I just sort of broke down. And the person I was grieving? Techno. Not my grandpa. Not at first. It was like I’d blocked the pipe up, and the first stuff to come out was the stuff that’d gotten stuck first. i sat down and cried about it. I reread Passerine for the first time since he’d announced the cancer. I started writing again on things I hadn’t had the heart to touch. I found Grandpa’s old dog tags and I haven’t taken them off since. It was… ok. I guess. But I still wouldn’t watch his videos. I couldn’t watch any of the other DSMP creators, especially not Phil. To be frank, I was also dealing with a lot of doubt in my faith at the time. Techno was the first person I’d ever known who died without being a professing Christian. I still don’t know what’s happened to him, and at the time I didn’t know what to do with that. I couldn’t tolerate the idea that, according to everyone around me, someone so funny and noble and kind and strong willed would end up parted from God or lost or whatever you think the afterlife might be for people who don’t ‘get everything right.’ And most of the people in my church circle are painfully callous when it comes to people who aren’t ‘in the right,’ who don’t die ‘correctly.’ I still don’t really know what to do with that, except for the fact that I hate it, and I don’t think it’s Christlike. I don’t think I’m going to find peace on that for a long while. I might wait until I die and see what happens. So I figured it was done and over. I’d been sad, I’d come to terms with it, I’d moved on. But I wasn’t… really acknowledging how much it mattered? And I wasn’t reengaging with the fandom at all. I assumed I never would. But recently, I made a friend. We’ll call her Jamie for privacy’s sake. Jamie’s really similar to me, but she’d never really interacted with the DSMP fandom. She was asking for fic recs and before I even thought about it I’d recommended Passerine. Then Bones in the Ocean. She loved them, then started asking who Techno was, so I mentioned the Potato Wars videos, and before I’d had the chance to flinch I was watching them with her, laughing and rolling my eyes and trying my hardest not to cry in front of someone who hasn’t the slightest idea why I’d be so emotional. But I watched them. And that evening I put a Philza stream on. I’m not done mourning Techno, the stuff he stood for, and the community he built around him. But I’m done hiding it. I’m sharing the art and the half-finished fics and the stuff I still laugh at years later. I’m gonna find time somehow to join Phil’s streams, and actually talk to people instead of watching from a distance. I’m gonna talk about it with people. I’m gonna buy merch. Because I loved him, in that same weird friend-brother-online-stranger way he seemed to love us right back, and I still do. He’s still here, in a weird way, making us laugh and cry and fight every battle with flawless confidence and our heads held high. It’s not easy, but he’s not dead until we let him stop. He’s not gone until we all decide he doesn’t matter anymore. And we’re Chat for crying out loud, that’s never gonna happen. Technoblade never dies.

[send-me-a-puffalope]

Listening to "Overcome" by evidentlyfresh.

Ough. This part of the song, reminds me of my whole idea of like. Garrett visiting Vanessa in the hospital:

"I know it hurts" (s) he says, so warmly " forgive yourself. For I already have" he gives her a smile.

Vanessa doesn't trust this. Doesn't trust him. It's weird. After all of what she's done, how can she be forgiven? She's an Afton, or at the very least always going to be connected to William.

"You're panicking, I can see that. Take my hand and never look back" he hands out his hand, bloody as it is as it was when he was drowning in his own blood. His hair is wispy, he doesn't stop smiling.

Vanessa just stands, where she is at. At the front door of her house, shaking.

" You can do this. I believe it."

Do what?

" Return to your mind, and take back: all your control and sanity. "

Can she really do it? He's done enough damage as it is. Can she really just be herself? And do what she wants to do?

“ Face your past. ”

She can't. It hurts. Why her? She can't do it. She just can't. It would hurt so much. It already hurts.

“ I know you're sorry. ”

She is. She truly is. She wants everything back to normal, she wants it to be normal. But that's always going to be a myth. She's been told it's a myth. And it always is. But can she really face her past? Be herself?

His form starts to shift. It seems to be the end of her dream. Nightmare? Who knows. But he starts to shift into a slim animatronic, face a dirty white. All black body but with iridescent three stripes.

“ I still love you. ”

An Animatronic she knows so well. One that gave her gifts, one that gave her comfort, one that gave her good dreams.

“ Just as you do, *(-----------), I still love you. ”

Vanessa wakes up. Back in the hospital.

______________

*(---------) <- dunno what Garrett would call Vanessa. Some sort of nickname? A title? Like "older sister" or smth. I dunno. But I want them to see each other like family- iejsjhdhsjs

(Garrett & Vanessa friendship soso real. To me. I love them. Sm)

oh my fucking god,,, YOUR BRAIN AUDREY,,,, ITS HUGE AND WRINKLY. This is SO GOOD. I am eating a FULL MEAL TONIGHT !!!!!

Vanessa being the one forcefully keeping herself in the coma, afraid to leave the safety of limbo. and Garrett slowly encouraging Vanessa to leave the prison of her own mind and come back to the real world, where Mike and Abby are waiting by her bedside??? I’m on my knees. I’m never recovering.

I can see Garrett referring to Vanessa as Nessa because her nickname all her life has been Vanny (by her father). So having Garrett call her by a different nickname with a more hopeful connotation ??? perhaps???

Audrey you’ve truly infected me with your Garrett & Vanessa thoughts. oueghhhhhh.

[suremarkj]

leo.

“I hope you’re right,” Leo says, earnest as ever and uncharacteristically somber. She has felt so alone for such a long time, and it means more than she can say that Mark so readily accepts her as a member of his family. She can only hope (in absolute vain) that Terrence will receive her just the same. All she wants is a family, and the traditional sort is a door many centuries since barred to her; this is the best she can do. Briefly, the light of excitement flares in her as she considers how many near relatives Mark has. All Leo’s family, now, too! But dearly though she’d like to seek them out, it occurs to her almost as quickly that that would probably cause Mark some level of distress. “Of course, I will keep my distance from your part of the family. I found you first, so you get priority. I don’t approve of any upset or fighting in my family anyway, so I disapprove of them on that account already. And you know, if you ever need anyone to speak with them about their conduct... I have some good friends that are rather better at being threatening than I am.“ Leo herself is of course about as threatening as a teddy bear but she has plenty of friends in high places whom she wouldn’t hesitate to call upon in aid of a family member. Mark’s other side lost the right to consider themselves family when they treated Mark poorly! His vendettas are now Leo’s vendettas. @sabbioneta

mark supposed he was lucky. unlike leo, and possibly unlike terrence, he did not have to learn to live with everlasting life. he could resurrect himself, yes, but he could also choose to die. he could choose when he no longer wished to stay in the state of limbo, the border between life and death. leo was stuck with life, forced into that committed relationship by their 'god' ( what kind of god could be so cruel ? ), and terrence... mark didn't know. but he knew that, if anyone could help them ( really, if anyone could help any mutant ), it would be leo -- and not just because she was their great-great-great-great-something-grandmother. no, he would have thought the same mere minutes ago -- long before he knew he was related to leo, long before he knew leo was related to terrence walker, long before he could even recall who terrence walker was. and what could he gather from that ? " no matter how it seems, man's gonna be lucky to have you. " however, the beginning of leo's tangent regarding mark's family broke his spirit -- from heartfelt, from sentimental, to... a bit humored -- but appreciative, nonetheless ! " don't gotta worry about that, leo. you wanna find another jensen, i ain't fixing to stop you. " his family, his community, had been the root of it all. without the behavior of his family, of his community, there was a decent chance he would have been different -- a decent chance he would have been a better man, but who was he to stop leo from seeking out... dozens upon dozens of other jensens ? " just don't know if they'd be real welcoming, though -- got a weird look on mutants. " and a woman going up to one of them to proclaim her very distant relationship to them ? ...it would either go over very well, or very poorly -- no in-between.

[vatican3]

Do You have any thoughts about Nihil's friend. Would love to hear if you do.

Prefacing all of this with the fact that you really need to buy into my Nihil-is-a-girl canon for almost any of this to interest you.

I feel like I need to split this up into sections but as I'm writing this I have no clue what those sections will be. But they're all. General concepts.

BESTIE:

Cishet. Sorry.

Except for when I sometimes hit him with the transbian beam because I can't help myself. But we'll get to that.

Despite looking like a massive douchebag this guy is so sweet and full of love. Assigned dogboy.

Best friends with Nihil for a long long time, Nihil is known and loved by his family.

They are roommates. They live in a shitty apartment together. They're in a shitty band together. They go to shitty parties together. They're having the time of their lives.

But he's like, hm, I do sort of want Nihil carnally but as far as I know I am not into men. They get drunk and make out constantly.

Nihil eventually comes around to telling him she's a girl and he's like OHHH THAT MAKES WAY MORE SENSE FOR ME, PERSONALLY.

Upon learning he is avoiding a sexuality crisis (for now. We'll get out the transbian beam in a minute) he's like okay, obviously we should have sex. Nihil also thinks this because she is bored and horny and thinks hey he's pretty sexy that would be fun. This is a great solution to the nights when neither of them experiences success with women.

So they fuck raw every single day basically.

It does not take long for them to individually figure out they are in love with each other but it does take them forever to say fucking anything about it.

There is a weird relationship limbo where they are really not sure if they're dating and are too scared to ask. Bestie has stopped trying to hit on other women.

Their friends in their shitty rock band do not understand what their dynamic is and they are trying to piece it together from context clues and it just is not happening. They are also confused about Nihil's general gender situation but they are beyond asking questions.

BESTIE IS PRIMO'S DAD:

Despite the fucking raw every day they are somehow surprised when Nihil ends up pregnant (there is nary a brain cell between them).

Nihil is vomiting. They think it must be a stomach bug. And then she just keeps vomiting and now certain smells are making her nauseous that didn't before and her period is not making an appearance when it should be. And then they're like, don't think this one's a stomach bug, man.

Bestie is terrified for fatherhood.

But very excited!

Nihil has to speedrun going girlmode because pregnancy is not going to wait for that to get figured out.

Nihil, because of how she is, has about 50 books about pregnancy in her room. Bestie makes the mistake of reading one of them and is now gripped with anxieties about everything that could possibly go wrong.

Bestie tries to gather band friends without Nihil to tell them she's pregnant. They do not understand. He can see the gears trying to turn in their heads. It's not clicking. They are excited for this mystery baby regardless.

Bestie calls his family to explain that hey you know Nihil? Yeah you do. We're having a kid and also she's kind of my girlfriend not clear on that one yet. Try not to ask questions I do not have answers.

He wins some shitty arcade jewelry for them to wear as wedding rings to doctor appointments because they are already not stoked about this greasy freak having a kid with some nice girl but an unmarried greasy freak is worse.

They go to see Bestie's family for Christmas with baby Primo in hand. There are clearly questions. Nobody is going to ask. Bestie's siblings try to talk to Nihil like she's a new person and she's like, I have known you forever what are you fucking doing.

They can pawn off baby Primo on Bestie's extended family and cuddle and fall asleep by the fireplace together. They are so tired. Did you know having a baby is so hard.

BESTIE IS A VAMPIRE:

You don't need me to explain this.

You've seen the Dance Macabre video.

NIHIL IS BESTIE'S GIRLFRIEND FOR REAL THIS TIME:

They are so into each other it's either adorable or disgusting depending on what kind of person you are.

Bestie is at work exclusively talking about his girlfriend and how she is and how excited he is to go home and see her.

I don't have time or room to fit all of my nurse Nihil thoughts prompted by that other person in here. But please understand how much I thought about this concept.

Bestie is so into her and constantly brings home presents for her. Candy. Clothes.

They just fucking love watching horror movies and cuddling and eating Chinese leftovers together.

TRANSBIAN BEAM:

Someone tell this girl she can be butch.

Imp/Nihil/Bestie Femme4Femme4Butch throuple.

Nihil has two hands for two hot vampire gfs.

[scumbag-monthly]

The Young Ones - Oil 🛢

Original air date: 16.11.82

Reviewed by: mankoneko

Oil is one of my favourite episodes of The Young Ones because it not only showcases very clearly the personality of the four housemates, it also expands the metaphor of their dynamic outwards into the bigger picture of a society; actually it pretty much chucks the whole metaphor thing out the window in favour of this more direct view of a social hierarchy.

It starts off innocently enough with the boys arriving at their new house, and it's almost like they're a family. Sensible and stern father Mike, not so smart housewife Neil, and the mad siblings Rick and Vyvyan at each others throats fighting for rooms. Things get silly very quickly when Mike finds Buddy Holly hanging upside down from a parashute in his room, Neil summons a genie from an old tea kettle and very temporarily acquires six pairs of hands, and two rather dishevelled hallucinating gentlemen are sitting under a light bulb in the cellar. One of my favourite things about The Young Ones is that all this weirdness is always just so casual. Like this is normal life in a London student flat.

Another thing I like about this episode is that Mike gets to be his full on opportunintist and slightly insane self. When Rick tries to go to bed he finds that business-Mike has turned his bedroom into a roller disco to make some money and when he tries to rob Neil of his bed insead he finds that mobster-Mike has placed a severed steers head in it in order to expediate the repayment of a few quid. This trajectory culminates when Vyvyan claims to have found oil in the cellar and after misdirecting Rick and Neil to a house meeting in the broom cupboard the following morning emerges, not only as "a president" but El Presidente, referencing a fully fledged fascist junta.

The next morning Rick and Neil find themselves alone in a house meeting in the broom cupboard because Mike has allied himself with Vyvyan and already decided the course of action to take. The Mike junta is born with Colonel Vyvyan as enforcer of the law. Rick and Neil are very much on the lower end of the hierarchy and have no choice but to go and dig up the oil. However, after disabling Vyvyan Rick gains a little courage to stage an uprising. It is very much a staging, as in "an act" because the moment Mike realises they are not digging Rick reverts back to obedient underling. He is very much the middle class which sucks up to authorities and pretends to like the working class (Neil) only when it makes him look good. The moment he becomes an inconvenience Neil is on his own.

There is very little conclusion to this whole story other than Vyvyan admitting that the whole story about finding oil when playing murder in the dark was a lie. Again, this is not unusual for The Young Ones and still it doesn't feel like there is anything missing. They are just four mad buggers stuck in some sort of torturous and surreal limbo between not quite done being children and not quite being adult yet.

[danghyuk]

BTS having a tall but timid boyfriend

A/N: Request by: @awkfanboy, this is really long (like 2,6k words oof) and I’m sorry it took ages to finish. ​​

Namjoon:

Namjoon is the tallest member in BTS, and though he’s not used to be the smaller person for once, it’s not a bad thing at all. It’s not before one of his fellow members points it out, that Namjoon starts to notice the slight difference in your heights.

With the slight teasing about how Namjoon isn’t the tallest anymore, especially from the youngest, the older members like Seokjin also starts to hint about and assume your bedroom situation. 

Though Namjoon never comments on it. He’s mature about the teasing and he knows to keep your private matters to himself. In fact, he often refrains himself from smiling due to the rest of the members being so clueless and assuming that your height defines who’s the more dominant. The two of you are not your average heteronormative couple, starting with the both of you not being straight, so why do the same social expectations apply to you in every aspect?

They just continue with the teasing, taking it for granted since Namjoon never says or does anything against their claims. He wants the members to see for themselves rather than correcting them for judging a book by its cover. Because he also assumed that you would take the lead when it came to sex, and Namjoon doesn’t want to appear as a hypocrite. 

So, when he finally introduces you to his fellow band members, he refrains himself from laughing as their expressions one by one changes into pure surprise. None of them can tear their eyes away from the two of you, and being shy, you naturally hide your face into Namjoon’s neck, to which he just smiles and pulls you closer. There’s not really a distinct height difference between the two of you, but it’s still surprising to see your taller and longer frame sitting on Namjoon’s lap. 

Seokjin:

No one, not even Namjoon believes that you – Seokjin’s tall and intimidating boyfriend, are as shy and cute as he describes you as. “What do I have to do, huh? Drag my small baby to meet all of you hyper kids at the same time?” “Hyung, I’m sure [Name] is a lot of things, but small is not one of them…”

It takes a lot, and I mean a lot, of persuasion (and diversity of bribery) from Jin’s side to make you finally accept the fact that you were going to meet them all at once. A pep talk, murmurs of sweet nothings and loving kisses is a big part of it (and it never fails to make you blush, which Seokjin takes great pleasure in – that sadistic bastard).

Seokjin reassures the rest of his bandmates that he under no circumstances was trying to hide you, but then again no one believes that you’re as shy as he makes you out to be. On the other hand, he resonates with you that he wants the most important people in his life to meet. 

On the big day, neither of you can tell who’s the most nervous judging by both of your clammy hands (Seokjin simply refuses to let go of your hand). He steers you right away towards the couch when you’re done taking off your outerwear because he knows for a fact that you’re not going to be left alone for the entire evening. The couch is therefor the perfect limbo, he can press himself into your taller and warmer frame at the same time as the members can join you.

 Meeting them isn’t as chaotic as you thought it would be, and the members (especially the younger ones) are perplexed, which quickly turns to giddiness. They do not pry much (thanks to Jin’s warning looks and Yoongi’s sharp elbow into Jeongguk’s stomach), but their curious eyes bulge every time your cheeks flush due to Seokjin’s flirty antics, and whenever your hand unconsciously searches for Seokjin’s calming touch. By the end of the day, your boyfriend is wearing a permanent smirk and your ears have never felt warmer due to Seokjin ‘accidentally showing off the long scratch marks on his back. 

Yoongi: 

Yoongi can be blunt when he wants to, not to mention honest, but there are some aspects of his private life he values too much. One of those being you, of course. The other members know he has a boyfriend of some sort; however, they are rather bad at getting any type of information out of him. Jimin and Seokjin are the nosiest, being two different menaces – one nagging and one too curious for his own good.

From what they have gathered, they know that you are younger than Yoongi and that’s about it. Despite Yoongi rarely opening up when it comes to the boyfriend topic, he does sometimes slip up. Like that one time you changed his lock screen to the two of you and he forgot to change it back.

Despite his fellow band members constantly begging him to introduce you to them, Yoongi declines every time with no room for any argument. What his members don’t know is his reasons for not wanting to introduce you to them just yet. Even after being together for almost four months, you’re still extremely shy and nervous around large groups of people, especially nosy ones. BTS is exactly that and because they’re considered as his second family, he just knows you will be way more nervous meeting them and to give them a good impression of yourself. 

When they do meet you, it is just by accident and poor miscalculations. Yoongi had texted you earlier to come over and with a clear signal that the dorm was empty except him. However, it is not your boyfriend who opens the door for you when you arrive. Jimin, who wasn’t expecting anyone, mirrors your shocked expression as you both stare at each other for a while. He figures out who you are immediately seeing as Yoongi was everything but subtle when he pulled you after him in a hurried manner towards his room, and he doesn’t waste a single second to text everyone about his discovery. 

When the rest of the members arrive back home, they are met with a pretty funny and slightly pathetic sight. You, a 190cm tall male, trying your best to hide behind your much smaller boyfriend. Your much taller form next to the smallest idols in BTS is a sight to take in. Just like Jimin, all of them are shocked by your height, but also how you behave around Yoongi. With looks as sharp as knives from Yoongi, no one dares to look at the two of you too long nor ask the question at the tip of everyone’s tongue. This lasts until Yoongi, by accident again, manages to tug your sweater down and expose your hickey covered throat. 

Hoseok:

When Hoseok starts to date you, everybody knows it. Before they have even met you, BTS knows what your favourite colour is, how you look when you sleep and how many plants you have. He can’t particularly help it since you’re his favourite topic and honestly, everyone is rather amazed at him not having exposed your relationship. The weird thing, which Yoongi pinpoints every time you are brought up in a conversation, is that they have yet to meet you.

Being constantly reminded by the other’s and not having a good answer as to why they haven’t met you, makes them slightly annoyed. You are already a huge part of Hoseok’s life and it’s not hard to see how much you affect him in every aspect. A single text from you can make his entire day and he wears the same dreamy smile whenever he returns from a date with you. 

There’s nothing else Hoseok wants to do other than introduce you to them, but he respects your comfort zone and takes your feelings into consideration. If you don’t feel ready meeting them, then he’ll wait for you 100%. You’re his adorable boyfriend after all, even with your taller and bigger build, he adores how easy he can make you flush and writhe underneath him.

“Yah! When are you going to introduce your boyfriend to us?” “Soon, I hope. He’s just… really shy.” Whenever Hoseok uses that specific word to describe you, the others have a hard time believing him due to his other stories about you. Luckily, they do not have to wait long before you agree to meet them all.

The first introduction goes like dream, except for the many times you hit your head in the door frames. They are all in awe of your height, whether they voice it out loud or not (like Taehyung asking you if he could get a piggyback ride). Some of them feel slightly guilty for not believing the rapper earlier, though those feelings are quickly brushed away by their curiosity. How come someone so tall has a personality resembling that of a fragile flower? Another thing they learn, to their surprise, is Hoseok’s new favourite hobby – teasing you until you’re hiding in his embrace.

Jimin: 

The first thing Jimin had noticed when he saw you was your undeniable height, but it wasn’t what drew him towards you. He can’t deny that you look absolutely stunning, with your long legs wrapped in skinny jeans or slacks that make your figure seem as if you’re sculpted by the gods, but he simply can’t enough of your flushed cheeks and you averting your eyes whenever the two of you lock eyes for more than five seconds.

He simply thrives on how completely different you are compared to your looks. Even though he is the smallest in BTS and is relentlessly teased for it, he has absolutely no problem standing at the tip of his toes just to whisper something dirty in your ear, kiss your nape or just tug you down by your collar to meet your lips in a deep kiss. 

Because of Jimin’s never-ending PDA, you’ve gotten quite used to being showered in affection and more used to ignore prying looks, though you can’t stop yourself from blushing whenever he decides he wants to kiss you. And you just know he does it on purpose, that’s a no-brainer because your boyfriend will always, without a doubt, burst out in a cute high-pitched giggle every single time he manages to make you hide behind your own hands. 

Jimin is pretty quick to introduce you to his friends and the first thing they immediately point out are your ridiculous differences in height as if you weren’t aware of it yourselves. Your boyfriend is used to comments like that, but you aren’t and causes you to step behind Jimin- using him as a shield. You’re practically digging your own grave by trying to hide behind your boyfriend, BTS are ruthless and they tease you even more after laughing at your attempt at hiding. 

BTS thinks it’s cute how the two of you compliment yet contrast each other in your relationship. With your tall build and shy nature, it’s easy to imagine your personality as cold and stoic, so, until now you’ve done nothing but turning the other member’s expectations upside down. They still can’t phantom the image of you turning towards Jimin for permission someone asks you to do something or join them. 

Taehyung:

Like Namjoon, he isn’t really aware of height until he has a hard time kissing you, messing with your hair or jumping at your back for you to carry him. He also tends to forget how tall you actually are because he is a rather spontaneous and impulsive person. It doesn’t bother him even if he has to ask you to bend down time after time, Taehyung just huffs in fake annoyance and simply tugs your head downwards.

Due to your own awkward and timid personality, you feel bad whenever he has to ask you to bend down. Taehyung thinks you’re being ridiculous when you tell him and shows you just how hot he thinks your taller frame really is. That certain event made Taehyung realise in which direction your relationship was establishing and unfolding, and he realised how little he cared whether you took control or not.

The discovery makes him more aware of your sheepish habits and your reserved way of accepting his affections. From how your neck would turn darker whenever he does something you really like or display your relationship – to how you would try to make yourself smaller next to him in the public (he always scolds you for doing so because he’s worried about your posture). 

The two of you have spun your own net of habits around you and your relationship, which you often are unaware of, but when you meet his bandmates, they’re a little thrown off at how you and Taehyung’s dynamics work. You are completely used to your boyfriend making the decisions and don’t think much of it until the rest of BTS, especially Jimin and Hoseok, catch on to who’s really in charge. 

Suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a sexual innuendos and joke battle, and your face feeling as if it’s on fire does anything but defuse the situation. Even after getting Taehyung to save you and sitting in his lap, it’s Seokjin and Jeongguk’s turn to laugh seeing as you’re trapping your smaller boyfriend between you and the couch. Having the build like an intimidating basketball player doesn’t help your case when a little kiss makes into a stuttering and flustered mess. 

Jeongguk:

Your height is something Jeongguk was jealous of originally before you got together and before he knew that your ‘tall, mysterious and handsome’ appearance is you being too reserved for socialising in large groups of people. Now he just relishes and finds pride in being able to push you down on your couch, bed, floor, whatever to start a heavy makeout session, knowing you love it as much as he does.

He loves to show you off to everyone, everywhere. “Look at my boyfriend, isn’t he gorgeous?” “He’s legit a tree, Jeongguk, but sure.” Having him constantly spewing out compliments and bragging left and right, doesn’t help your shy persona at all and makes you pull out of social interactions more often than not.

Thus, portraying yourself as unapproachable and standoffish to others. BTS has a hard time warming up to you since the first few introductions were brief and pretty awkward for both parts. Even though they’re all impressed by your height, it just adds to your ‘tough guy’ image. Jeongguk doesn’t give up however and tries harder to include you in the group activities. 

Whenever you try to excuse yourself or go somewhere quieter, your boyfriend hurries to pull you back in even if he has to haul your tall ass over his shoulder. It’s quite the sight to see the youngest member dragging his way taller boyfriend after him as if he has no worries. Your flushed expression makes them ponder a bit before they all realise the same. Seokjin even apologies for not being the most welcoming, they just found you slightly intimidating, and of course, that makes you even more flustered as you accept their apology. 

After the big revelation, Jeongguk’s friends watch your interactions with your boyfriend wide-eyed, disappointed in themselves for not having noticed your constant flustered expressions, how you seem to lean on Jeongguk and the fact that it’s the youngest BTS member who initiates all physical contact like kissing you and placing his hands on your thighs. The two of you fit together like a puzzle even if some stereotypical roles are reversed. 

[datawyrms]

snap

It is The Day I post my Invisobang fic! it was a wild ride to write everything and not post. This is actually the second fic I did, as the first fell into my pit of ‘i hate it now’ and will sit in limbo for the rest of eternity. I teamed up with Spirit ( @ghostportals ), who has done some accompanying art! That, and Red @redead-red saved my bacon by doing some betaing last moment, so tell em they’re great too. Hope you’re all enjoying the flood of finished fics and art this week! Only the first chapter is here, the rest is posted on my Ao3 and complete. hope you enjoy!

One careless fall changed Danny's life forever. He was kind of hoping one fall like that was enough for any lifetime. Clearly fate disagreed.

It's fine though! He's got this. He's fine. He can totally explain why he ran off with his own body to mom and dad.

The stairs had always been a little too steep, a titch too narrow, but he was used to them. Jazz worried too much- the whole Fenton family knew how to take them two steps at a time. He wasn’t going to admit she might have a point just because he’d slipped one time. He wished there was a railing to catch himself with- it would have spared him some of the pain of his head knocking on the stair.

It didn’t hurt that much. Plenty of ghosts hit harder, and far more frequently.

“Took a bit of a spill eh, Danno?”

Great, dad saw him slip like he was three again. He wanted to speak, wave his behemoth of a father off before he got tangled up in some long lecture about whatever they were working on down here. Just had to sit up.

He was a little stunned or something. All those late nights made his limbs rebel when he wanted them to hurry up. Come on, before he tries to help and accidentally shaves his hair off with some anti-ghost stepladder or something.

His arms stubbornly rejected his internal horror story. His attempt to say ‘I’m fine’ was more a gurgle than anything. Way to go, Fenton. Do everything to get dad to worry! Really using those genius genes. Jazz probably stole his anyway, or they got fried in the accident. Come on! A bit of self berating should have him sitting bolt upright by now. Maybe his arm twitched. He felt something move, anyway. More like a muscle spasm.

“Danny? You okay?” The large man came closer, his usual jog slowed.

Of course he’s fine. He could see dad, sort of. He totally moved his eyes to see him better, even. Stupid ghost powers were just acting up.  It’s okay,  just give me a second to stand up. You’re worrying over nothing.

 Jack had already made it over, crouching to get a better look at his fallen son. Like he was trying to look smaller or something with how carefully he was moving. Where was all that slow, ginger movement when he was driving? Or trying to tell them about some new invention that might burn off your eyebrows?

 I’m fine, dad. He couldn’t get the words to come out, but he was just fine. He really didn’t like the strange look on his father’s face. After all, ‘Jack Fenton doesn’t know the meaning of the word fear’ or whatever random thing he felt like shouting when chasing after entities from another dimension. Come on dad, stop looking like that. It was creeping him out. Moving should be easy, a snap, but part of him didn’t feel like doing it. Apparently an important part? He could visualize exactly what to do, but he wasn’t sitting up. He swore he could feel his muscles clenching but not finishing the movement. Maybe they were testing something down here that just made all the ectoplasm hiding inside him take a nap. His ectoplasm was so fired after this.

 “Can you look at me kiddo?”

 Coaxing him. This was weird. Why wasn’t he just hauling him off the floor and laughing about how clumsy he was at his age too? Looking at him was easy. Pretty hard to miss him, with all the bright orange.

 “Maddie? Can you come over here?” His question was strangely stilted, not much of a bellow.

 Dad was going to get the wrong idea because his body didn’t want to cooperate. Great. Fantastic. He could feel the warmth in his chest, the sign his heart was still going. He was just fine, just a bit inconvenienced at the moment. Why couldn’t dad just be  dad  and do something dumb like pick him up with one hand while sounding way too excited about some new tool that he built?

 “What’s wrong?” His mom said, her footsteps doing the same thing dad’s had. Speed that suddenly cut down to almost nothing. “Danny, did you hit your head?”

 “I think he might have, he’s not responding. I didn’t want to try to move him-“

 “You did great Jack, it’s okay.”

 Gross. He hoped they didn’t get caught up in one of their lovey dovey circles while he was stuck trying to get his stupid legs to remember how to do things. He was responding! He groaned, and he definitely twitched a bit. Weren’t they paying attention? He tried again, a bit more forcefully and ignoring the pang in his neck. More of a jolt from someone with too much static cling than actual pain, really.

 “Should I call 911? He isn’t moving! He just stayed there- didn’t even act all tough for his old man!”

 Jack was panicking.  Dad was panicking. Over nothing! Why wasn’t mom distracting him with fudge or some random study? No one was being normal today. Danny shuddered, he knew he did, it went with the pulse under his skin.

 “That’d be great sweetie, just stay close.”

 “In case you need my big strong arms to help carry him, right?”

 “Just in case.” She wasn’t wearing the hood of her jumpsuit, at least.

 It didn’t make it more comfortable when she crouched down, biting her lip and staring at him. Like this was concerning. It was the opposite of that, he was a klutz, a gangly teenager, it was normal for him to be a bit banged up. This shouldn’t concern her, or anyone. The only reason it bugged him was the not being able to move right now nonsense.

 “You aware in there sweetie?” she said, rather loudly and clapping near his ear.

  Yes I am, but I can’t tell you. Maybe he could focus on taking a breath and it would kick off whatever turned off his mind to body connection. Had he done anything strange before coming down here? Not really. He could absolutely feel her digging her nails into his earlobe though, ow! More motivation to move, but something wasn’t getting across. Maybe he was getting a bit freaked out about it too. Only because of his parents being weird. He was fine, he had to be fine. It was nothing, less than nothing.

 “I’m just going to make sure he’s still breathing Jack, do you have anyone on the line yet?”

 A loud response, but not to her question. “No it’s not a ghost emergency! It’s a human emergency!”

 Of course he was breathing. He couldn’t look that bad from such a small fall. Just breathe out the words ‘Hey mom, personal space’ and they’d laugh and it’d be nothing. All this fussing was making his skin crawl but of course he had to have ‘special ghost freezing up’. Was it his ice powers? Like he could get his powers being snarky like that, appreciated it in a twisted sort of way- but it would be better around people who wouldn’t assume the worst? Like anyone else. Even Dash.

 “Tell the operator he isn’t breathing.” Maddie’s voice was cold and controlled, even as she went back to biting her lip right after.

 He was totally breathing. He could feel the air that ran in and out of his lungs, the swell and fall that other ghosts knew as a weak point, a way to slow him down. He knew what being doubled over, air shoved right out of him from a harsh blow felt like, how it felt like the portal again. Throat twitching, body heaving and trying to regain what it lost. The darkness that bit at the edges of his vision as every nerve went screaming  You’re Dying . Hated that feeling, shook the ghosts who did that hard once they were in a thermos. This was nothing like that.

 “He isn’t breathing, you need to hurry! My wife knows CPR- just tell them to hurry this is my  son , please”

 Yelling to hide the quaver in his voice. Like a kicked puppy yelping. It sounded so wrong. This was going to be so awkward after. They’d just...pretend this never happened, right? That’d be for the best. No, he was going to get grounded forever for some ‘dumb prank’, since he was fine and worried them so much. Which didn’t seem too bad if it stopped all of...this.

 He moved a little. A toe, he was pretty sure. More notably was his mother, carefully getting him off the uneven stair to be flat on his back. Trying to keep his head from moving, and she couldn’t see he was looking at her? When she was this close? Too busy trying to be calm. Who could be busy enough to think he wasn’t breathing or tracking with his eyes? Another twitch, another inward curse that he couldn’t get back in control.

 “Just hold on, help is coming.” She said, but the half ghost couldn’t tell who she meant, exactly. Him, dad or herself? Either way the quiet remark did not prepare him for the sheer force slammed into his crest. Like she wanted to slam right through him! Was it so much to ask that his parents stop nearly killing him by trying to help? Just try moving again and everything will be fine.

 He couldn’t keep the mental mantra up when he heard- when he felt his ribs crack from the pointless force. She was killing him, he didn’t need help breathing, he had to get it through to them no matter how much his body buzzed and resisted his need to move. He had to focus and push through it, ignoring how cold and wrong it felt, how it seemed like he was squirming free of something that didn’t want him to go.

 Her bone crushing assault stopped once he got his arm up, not even needing to touch her before she froze. The fear was wrong, out of place so he redoubled his efforts, twisting and struggling against himself, the sticky mass that wasn’t letting him act or speak to calm them down.

 The phone hit the floor. He heard it. So why didn’t dad say anything? Danny twisted, wanting to make sure he was okay. Still stuck. At least he had a hand free and most of an arm, the edges of his fingers tracing the tiles of the floor. He could brace himself that way, pushing down hard to try and jar his shoulder loose. He could hear air moving, like a harsh breath out. Good- breathing was good. Even when it sounded so harsh and low. 

 “Jack- are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Maddie moved back, giving him the space he wanted ever since she’d cracked his ribs. They still stung under his skin, hissing at him to keep his parents away before he managed to get even more injuries over something so silly.

 “I’m not sure what we’re seeing.” The phone remained on the floor.

 That didn’t seem right. He’d sat up, mostly. Half sat up, propped up with an arm. Still mostly stuck and uncomfortable, the snapping and crackling sensation still clinging to his free shoulder. Really, he felt worse than how he started. at least there wasn’t pain in ‘hah my body is playing freeze tag without me’ land. The pulling sensation made his head ache and vision swim to the point he wasn’t actually sure if he was still looking at the ceiling or not. He couldn’t go back to just being frozen though, that’d suck. So just convince the rest of himself to get up. No problem!

Were lies in his head always this unconvincing? It felt like yanking himself free of a too sticky slime, strands clinging and tugging back until they finally snapped, parts still stuck but free of the main mass. At least ectoplasm had the decency not to stretch when you got drenched in it most of the time.  Come on, focus and keep it together.  He let out a wheeze as the last stubborn strands snapped, ignoring how loud it sounded to properly reorient himself.

 Sitting up, properly, good! Parents staring with weird, half horrified expressions: bad. Very, very bad. 

“I’m okay, I just fell.” Danny spoke, he could speak properly again. So why? “Sorry for scaring you guys?” He tried again, trying to ignore the first thought across his mind.

 They kept staring. Maddie seemed to be recovering, shoulders starting to relax, but she seemed to be reaching for her belt.

 He didn’t sound right. No, that wasn’t quite right, he just sounded wrong for Danny  Fenton. Who he should be right now, he hadn’t been able to talk, let alone go ghost. This probably looked really, really bad. How had he switched, anyway?

Mom was reaching for a gun, wasn’t she? Crud. Now he regretted talking at all, how was he going to explain why Danny Phantom was treating two ghost hunters like his parents? Or how he managed to look like their kid. Maybe he could change back and convince them they were seeing things?

Yeah no, that was way too dumb.

 “Wait.” Jack rested a hand on his wife’s shoulder, causing her to stop pulling the weapon. He wasn’t looking at the ghost at all, just her. Maddie remained stiff, not able to ignore the glowing kid on her floor.

 Okay...dad was usually the gung ho one. Maybe he could get away with this? Danny tried to get a better grip on the situation. Felt a new pain, sharp and cold in his throat. Deep green scars clashed against his white gloves and ran all across his jumpsuit,  glow intensifying as the panic choked him into silence. Fresh and angry like back- back before he managed to stumble out of the portal when he died when the accident happened.

With his human arms just as scared below them, still against the tile. The damage looked old, half scabbed over with only a dull glow deep in the death marks wounds. His arms attached to the rest of his body- that he was half out of. 

 Why? How was his body still and silent while he was sitting and looking at it. He’s cold. His body is cold. It isn’t  breathing  there isn’t some other facet of his personality sitting behind the dull blue eyes. This isn’t how it works! If he splits, it’s just temporary, he can fix it but his other half- corpse is wrong.

The pulling and clinging at his legs doesn’t feel like slime anymore. Rotting flesh that wants to drag him back, smother him in a cloying warmth that will only remind him why it burned, how it hurt. He had to move, he couldn’t stay half like this, it would get better once it wasn’t like this.

It didn’t want to let go as he tried to pull away, ectoplasm getting snagged on every nerve and muscle fiber, each pause a reminder of the shock and pain of his end that day.

He knew he screamed when he pulled free and slammed into the wall, furious green scars still marring his jumpsuit where there should be none.

 What would Mom and Dad think?

 No no no no no. He spotted movement from them and acted. He couldn’t let his mom break his body more, or look at it too closely. Dad couldn’t see what happened! This was fine, he could fix this!

 He grabbed his corpse and fled through the wall.

[stellocchia]

Haven’t watched Sapnap’s lore yesterday, so here’s a few thoughts from watching it today: 

“Where is Quackity?” it took a few months to ask, but at least they he got there in the end

“Do you know that gods of death like apples?” Is- is that a Death Note reference? 

George: “I did some cleaning up the other day”, no he didn’t. That was Tommy and his entourage of babysitters

They fixed the El Rapids poster

MEXICAN DREAM!!!!

Ghost MD???

Sapnap and George not figuring out that MD is a ghost until he tells them is just further proof that they are a couple of himbos...

“George, why id Dream always hurting our friends?” 🥺. Because he’s an asshole and Sapnap and George both deserve better

Well... Sapnap is not wrong. Dream, Eret and co ARE the ones who destroyed Mexican L’Manburg. Quackity destroyed El Rapids, not Mexican L’Manburg. It’s also interesting that this implies that MD only lived with them towards the very beginning of their country

“George has a sleeping issue” it’s finally acknowledged in canon, so now I can be happy!

Okay, MD canonically opened a store in the afterlife. Also he definitely interacted with Wilbur, Tommy and Schlatt. Which generally makes me think that it’s not as lonely over there as we thought?

Why is attraction to animals so normal in this universe...?

MD misses Mamacita... 🥺

“You’re telling me the guy who can fucking kill people, fucking exile little kids, fucking put him in- he can just stay in jail man? I’m gonna go in there an fucking kill him man! That’s what he fucking deserves!” MD is a Tommy apologist and that’s really all I need in life

Oh Sapnap knows someone tried to kill Dream but doesn’t know who? That’s interesting...

“Last time I saw him he wasn’t even talking” oh Sapnap... god I feel sorry for him. Because, like, Dream had no problems talking to Tommy when he went. Or Techno now. But he didn’t bother with Sapnap...

Sapnap just wanting to check on Quackity because he misses him is actually kinda sweet

“It’s okay to cry, you don’t have to hold in your feelings” Sapnap being the most well adapted person on the smp once again!

Hmm, more Limbo lore, this time from MD’s Limbo: he still got tired in the afterlife and needed to sleep. Ooooh, and he dreamed about that one George’s lore stream I guess? The one where George saw him again?

So killing a ghost while they’re holding the totem doesn’t work to bring the person back to life. Pretty sure the revive book is the only way at this point...

New Drem to add to the collection! This time it’s American Dream, not to be confused with Dreamwastaken, who is also american

They gave me a heart attack 2 times already making me think they’d kill Shroud. I swear if they do I’m becoming a Sapnap anti

Is Mexican Dream just a very high American Dream? 

“Quackity, money, Las Vegas” that should be enough to figure out where Quackity is for them

They got to Las Nevadas!

Awww, and now MD has been invited to Kinoko Kingdom. Sort found family once more?

MD does have favourites among his friends, and he’s definitely another one of George’s simps

Welp. MD did say he would have to go back at some point...

And that was it. I’ll give a couple of my thought on it under the cut.

This was fun honestly! Not too intense, but it was a good way to reintroduce Sapnap (and George surprisingly enough) back to the lore. It also gave us some more info on George’s weird Dreams, specifically how some of them seem to be connected to souls in the afterlife. 

Also, MD keeps being the most based character in the smp. Just saying, c!Dream would have been killed off in season 2 finale if he didn’t have the resurrection book and he would have fully deserved it. Also love how the 2 things that where enough for MD to decide Dream deserved death was being killed and Dream exiling Tommy. It’s a nice reminder of the fact that he did, in fact, see a bit of exile. And an acknowledgement of the fact that the exile was unjust regardless. 

Also, it was a nice setup to remind us of Sapnap’s protectiveness over Kinoko Kingdom and to show how much he wants to see Quackity again. It was pretty simple in the execution but it worked well I’d say.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: The Ghost Gang

Debut: Pac-Man

Fufufu... frighteningly Funky Friday, friends!

This post has been waiting patiently in the drafts since my Pac-Man fixation way back in July, and it has really been about time it gets to be posted. And what better Friday to talk about ghosts than the one before Halloween? I can think of two. One would be Friday the 13th, and the other would be a Friday that Halloween itself falls on. But I’m posting it today! On only the third most ideal of Fridays!

Yes, I’ve already talked at length about some Pac-Man ghosts, but there are so much MORE. And they’re all so wonderful. My Best Ever Characters list includes “Ghosts” in the Namco character section, because they are all so wonderful. And now we’ll talk about some more notable ones!

So, here we have the Ghost Gang of Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, in and around their Ghost House, in an image I got from the Annoying Orange Wiki. Though I love them all, I’m not gonna talk in depth about ALL of them, and out of these four, I’ll give the spotlight to my darling Clyde.

Look at him. Do you think he’s darling? Yes, you do. You are probably aware that each ghost has their own behavior, and Clyde will target Pac-Man until he gets close enough to him, then entering “scatter mode”, where he will instead move randomly. Why change it up when you’re so close? Does he even WANT to catch him? Well, I have a theory...

The official Pac-Man Twitter has not one, but TWO posts showing Pac and Clyde as friends, emphasizing the importance of kindness. And it’s just Clyde he seems to be friends with... so this has me thinking, they’re Secret Friends! While Clyde is part of the Ghost Gang, he doesn’t actually WANT to attack Pac, so he targets him to make it LOOK like he’s doing his job. When he gets close, he sort of just lingers around to try and seem like he’s doing something while not actively trying to get him. It’s the perfect strategy, and the others have never found out, and Clyde and Pac get to be friends, and it makes me happy.

Before I talk about some more ghosts, I’d like to analyze the ghosts as a whole! Pretty much every Pac-Man game has its own self-contained “canon”, if you can call it that, and each one brings its own interpretation of what the ghosts truly are. And my favorite of those is that of the very first game!

The first Pac-Man has three intermissions, famous for being where the second-most iconic Pac-Jingle is from, but they deserve to be even more famous for how bizarre they get. The first is pretty standard, with Pac being chased by Blinky, only to turn the tables and chase Blinky instead. The second, however, has Blinky get his sheet caught on something sticking out of the ground and rip, revealing a human-like leg! Are the ghosts just people wearing sheets...? Nope! Because in the third and final intermission, Blinky’s sheet comes ALL the way off, revealing him to be some bizarre flesh blob, wearing a sheet! Awesome! Is this true for all four of the ghosts? Is just Blinky hiding this embarrassing secret? Pick whatever explanation you think is funniest!

My SECOND favorite is from Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures, a wacky point-and-click style adventure game where you manipulate Pac’s emotions in order to make him do funny things. I highly respect whoever thought this should be localized as the direct sequel to the most iconic video game of all time. But in this one, the base of villainous operations is a creepy factory, and if Pac gets caught in the machines, he turns into this familiar shape! Is... is this factory MAKING ghosts? Are they artificial? Wow!

The other iterations don’t have nearly as wacky implications for how the ghosts came to be, but I’ll tell them anyway. In the Pac-Man World series, they seem to be naturally occurring creatures native to the Spectral Realm, who entered Pac-Man’s dimension and began to live on Ghost Island. In Ghostly Adventures, they’re the souls that were forcibly extracted by the Pac-People who were on the losing side of a world war that killed Pac-Man’s parents, and are now forced to spend eternity in the Pac-Man equivalent of Hell. Bo-ring!

And now time to talk about even more ghosts you may not know about!

Clyde is the only member of the Ghost Gang I’m actually going to talk about here, because there are so many ghosts that the world needs to know about! Like Orson from Pac-Man World! He built and piloted a scary robot Pac-Man and kidnapped Pac-Man’s friends and family, but he just wanted to be loved. Pac does not accept this as an excuse. He eats Orson without a shred of remorse. I guess it’s justified from his perspective. They become friends later, though! Canon ghost friend!

Speaking of canon ghost friends, there’s Miru from Pac & Pal (she’s the pal)! I know she doesn’t look like a ghost, but she might be one. It’s kind of unclear. But I love her so here she is. She helps Pac by collecting fruit for him, but this gets fewer points than Pac doing it himself, so some players don’t like it. I, however, think it is worth losing a few potential points in order to let Miru feel like she’s helping.

Yet another friendly ghost is Yum-Yum from Junior Pac-Man! She is the daughter of Blinky, and she and Junior just want to be together, but of course, their parents will not allow it. That, however, is what ultimately allows them to be together, as while their parents are off bickering, the two little lovers are able to escape together! How lovely! Too bad Junior Pac-Man is in some bizarre copyright limbo and Yum-Yum never appeared again. Goodbye.

Here we have Bash, who is a somewhat strange character. He looks like he’d be the big bad boss of all the ghosts, right? Maybe even their ruler? Well, maybe he is, but we don’t know, because he was made exclusively for the Pac-Man crossover event in Sonic Dash! He never appeared again! I think he should, though! He’s funny. Despite his apparent authority, he just talks like a school bully.

One of the newest ghosts at the time of writing is Creepy, who as I’m sure you can tell, debuts in the Pac-Man DLC for Minecraft! This DLC is kind of weird. But good weird, because Miru is playable! Her most major role ever! But this is Creepy’s paragraph. He explodes, and this hurts not only the player, but his fellow ghosts, and even destroys walls, which crumble into glitchy text! Especially neat is that, when eaten, his eyes remain black with white pupils as they retreat to the Ghost House!

The VERY newest ghost at the time of writing is Itchy, from Pac-Man Party Royale! Itchy is not a “dangerous” ghost, but a “mischievous” one, and I think that’s great. As far as I know, they are only capable of inverting a player’s controls, but new effects were said to be included at some point. What a pleasant design, too, with the seafoam coloration and black sclerae! And how magical it was to witness a NEW GHOST revealed in real-time, during the time when Pac-Man was all I could think about! What are the odds? The odds were high. It’s the 40th anniversary year.

Finally, I will leave you with this little fellow. He appears in Pac-Man Arrangement, and is constantly vulnerable, even acting like a Power Pellet when eaten! However...

He can combine with the other ghosts to transform them, giving them new abilities! Blinky gains the ability to charge forward, Pinky can now hop to far-off points in the maze, Inky creates a mirror duplicate of himself that mimics his movements, and Clyde wanders around spitting up extra Pac-Dots in places Pac-Man has already been. That’s so cool! I love this ghost! I love that he has cute little nerd glasses, I love his role in the game, everything! Why haven’t we seen more of him? What’s his name, anyway?

I see.

[missmonsters2]

Between the Lines || III

PAIRING: Steve Rogers & Fem!Reader (Platonic) / Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader / Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Reader / Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader x Wanda Maximoff

Summary: Vampire AU. Life has changed drastically since the 1600s. Things are always on the move, and you’ve been very careful to not get on SHIELDs radar. Living on the down-low owning a café, you’re content to live out a quiet existence. That is until the Avengers enter your life.

[Set after the New York Invasion, in CAWS, and goes up to AoU. Canon divergent after.]

Warnings: This series will contain smut(**), poly-relationship, and dark themes.

Note: Things..are happening. Please let me know if you want to be on the taglist for this fic :)!

PART I || PART II

PART III of XX

Count: 3311

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The following week was routine once more. Natasha didn't revisit the café, which you couldn't tell if you felt relief or not. David did lecture that you had to be more careful because it was most likely that Black Widow was looking into your background. He wasn't worried she'd find anything, but one can never be too careful.

Steve stopped by the café less too, as they now hung out outside the café more regularly. You had finally given in and hired two more people to the café and promoted Sarah to the manager position, so you didn't have to spend too much time there yourself. You essentially only came in when you knew Steve was going to be in...or maybe on the off chance Natasha would come in again.

Allison's mother was finally discharged from the hospital, but with all the missed time from work, you still found yourself looking after the young girl while her mother picked up extra shifts—not that you minded.

It was currently the weekend, and you had planned to take Allison to the park for a picnic and some games. You had asked Steve to tag along if he wasn't busy, but it turns out that he did have work that day. He seemed really crushed that he wasn't going to be able to go, but you had assured him it would be fine, and they could get together another time.

It was strange. They weren't dating or anything, definitely just friends. But the last time they had gone out together with Allison, the number of strangers who commented they looked like a beautiful family made you panic a bit, especially with the wistful look on Steve's face. It seemed like he was thinking about other things as people made those comments, though, not necessarily wistful to have a family with you.

And you knew—about this lost love, about Peggy Carter.   

The poor man seemed unable to move on while wanting to, but then feeling guilty about it. Since you were supposed to pretend not to know anything, it wasn't like you could talk to him about it. So, they were stuck in this weird limbo.

"Lainey, can we please get peaches?"   

You immediately brought your attention back to Allison, who you had in your shopping cart with multiple things strewn in for their picnic date.    

You grinned at the kid, "Alright, put the puppy face away, you're killing me here. We can definitely get some peaches."   

As the two of you stood in front of the peaches, you meticulously picked out peaches as Allison animatedly recalled a story.   

"Really? How interesting," you hummed to Allison.   

"Quite a cute one you've got there."   

The gruff voice brought your attention away from the peach. You looked up to see a man in his late 30s standing next to your cart with a basket.    

"Thanks," you said politely but curt.   

"My name's Glenn. I just wanted to say hi," He gave you a flirty grin and held out his hand.    

"Hi," you shook his hand politely as he stared at your gloved hands.   

"Cold?" He asked.   

"Something like that," you said with a wry grin.   

"Anyways," you said with an eyebrow raised at the stranger, "We've got to head off now, nice to meet you."   

Just as you were turning away with the cart, the man grabbed you by the arm to stop you.   

"Wait!"    

You clenched her jaw, turning back to him, eyes darkening, and just as you were about to speak a command, someone grabbed his arm and gripped it tightly enough to make the man let go. You blinked, your eyes clearing as you looked over to see Natasha standing there, her jaw set in a tight line and eyes entirely calm.   

"I think you should leave now," her voice was low, and she gripped the man's arms tightly enough for him to wince before she let go with a fling.    

The man looked like he wanted to say something, but there must've been warning bells in his head when he looked at Natasha, so he grumbled and turned to leave.   

Natasha turned her attention back over to you, eyeing the kid from the side. Steve definitely did not mention that you had a kid.   

"Natalie! What a surprise. Thanks for that, really," you said sincerely, a happy grin on your face.   

"No worries," Natasha shook her head with a wave of her hand.   

"You're not working today?" You asked curiously. It was only about one in the afternoon.   

Natasha grinned. "Got off early today," she said simply.   

"Lainey...peach..." Allison whined slightly, her lips jutting out in a pout. You turned over with a slight chuckle and roll of your eyes.   

"Alright, alright, I've got the treasure in tow, we can go." You turned back to Natasha, biting your lip slightly. It was a long shot, but why not. Sometimes it was better to keep people like Natasha close to ward off suspicion.   

"Listen, I don't know if you're busy today. We're about to head to Central Park for a picnic. Steve couldn't make it, but would you...would you like to join us?"   

It was a lot to ask someone who you've spoken to just once, even though it was a lengthy time. Natasha considered it for a moment with a tilt her head.    

"I'd love to," she said after a moment. If the opportunity to get to know the mysterious girl presented itself, why not?   

You smiled, "Great! We'll meet you there. Bring anything you'd like, but I do have a lot of food and drinks."   

With that, you went separate ways before shortly meeting up at the park again. You made small talk as you put out a picnic blanket and set everything down. Natasha helped carry some things, and as they sat down, Allison already pulling the kite that you packed.   

"Oh, hold on, I'm just going to get her set up," you said, walking off with the bouncing child.   

Natasha watched from a distance, arms crossed as she sat with her legs pressed together and on her side.   

She thought about calling Steve to see what the deal was with the kid but decided against it since she didn't want to end up answering the hundreds of questions the guy would have about seeing you. Allison didn't quite look like she was yours as the two of you shared different hair and eye colors.  

Maybe a niece?   

Before she knew it, you were back and taking a seat with a small huff.    

"Tired?" Natasha asked with a grin.   

You gave her a wry grin back, "Think I'd be used to that bundle of energy now, but she definitely keeps me on my toes."   

"Is she yours?" Natasha asked with a tilt of her head.   

You shook your head, feeling like a broken record with how much you had to repeat things.

"Oh, no. She's my neighbor's kid. She's a single mom and just got out of the hospital. They don't have any other family in the city, so I offered to watch her. Now, her mom is picking up some extra shifts to make up for what she's missed, so I watch her when needed."   

Natasha gave a small gentle smile. "You have a lot of free time?"   

You shrugged, "Well, I did end up hiring more people and promoted my one employee to be a manager. So, yeah, I guess I do have more free time now."   

Natasha hummed. "I guess your side book rentals does make a good profit after a certain point."   

You laughed, "Sure does! I'm like a blockbuster."   

"You do know they went out of business, right?" Natasha said with a raise of her eyebrow and a smirk.   

"I'll become Netflix then," you replied right back without missing a beat. It caused Natasha to chuckle. With that, you pulled out a thermos and some paper cups.   

"Coffee?" You asked, and Natasha nodded. You handed the redhead a cup, and the aroma already made Natasha feel warm.    

"Mmm," Natasha purred at the taste. "Seriously, there's got to be a secret ingredient in this coffee. I refuse to believe you can just make it this good."   

You jokingly looked affronted. "Well, suck on it. I do just make it that good."   

You pulled out the peaches that you bought, wiping them clean with a wet paper towel, and began to cut it with a knife. Natasha watched, again, with the black gloves but also that it was clear that you were experienced with holding a knife as you cut it with ease and quickly. You took out the pit and shaved off peach skin into a plastic bag and put the sliced peaches in a container.   

"Allison!" You called out. The little girl looked over and beamed with pure happiness as she trotted over for the fruit.   

"Thanks, Lainey!" Allison made a move to grab a slice, but you grabbed the girl's hand gently.   

"Hold it there, my little criminal. The last thing we need is sticky fingers. Here, use a fork."   

Allison grinned as she grabbed the utensil with the fruit already on it and took a bite. She eyed Natasha, and the redhead smiled at her.   

"Are you friends with Steve?" Allison asked, remembering that you told Natasha that Steve couldn't make it.   

Natasha looked taken aback slightly before smiling at the kid. "Yeah, we're friends."   

Allison simply nodded but didn't ask any more questions, which Natasha found a little strange.   

"Okay," she said simply. Maybe the kid was assessing her?   

"Do you like peaches?" Allison asked, and Natasha blinked. She should be more used to this, with Clint having kids and all.   

"Yeah," Natasha replied with ease. "They're delicious."   

Allison grinned, and Natasha felt like she passed some sort of test.    

"Great!" Allison exclaimed, passing over her container with some peaches left. "You can have some of my peaches. I'm going to go play now. If you play with me later, I'll tell you some funny stories about Lainey."   

You looked in disbelief as you looked at the child, "Don't you dare, Allie."    

Allison stood up, grabbing the frisbee, spotting some other children in the field. She laughed, looking at Natasha once more and winked as she ran off.   

Natasha had to put her hand over her mouth as she tried to control her laughter. You glared playfully at the redhead.   

"I can't believe I was just used as leverage for your participation," you muttered.   

"Why? You got some really embarrassing stories?" Natasha smirked.    

You merely pursed your lips together and pretended to zip your lips, and Natasha found herself relaxing a little more. She really should use this opportunity to find out more about you, but she found that it was just natural to be the moment with you.   

But as you handed her a cut sandwich that had a fried cutlet in it with a mystery sauce, Natasha found it was the time to ask about the gloves.   

"Are you a germaphobe? Or perpetually cold?" Natasha found that the weather itself was warm, no need for gloves. She knew some people with arthritis would wear gloves, but the type that you wore didn't seem like it was for warmth.   

"Kind of a germaphobe," You answered, without missing a beat. You took a bite of the sandwich, leaning a little back.   

"Nothing extreme, but working at the café and touching money has gotten me sick a couple times. I don't like touching things directly if I can help it."    

Natasha nodded, enjoying the sandwich. She didn't question it too much when there were people like Tony Stark out there with weird quirks himself.   

"So, I guess since you know I own the café, what do you do?"   

"I'm a personal assistant for Stark Industries," Natasha answered, eyeing your reaction. You didn't seem to react much.   

"Oh, cool. Must keep you busy if you work for Tony."   

"You know Tony Stark?" Natasha asked with an eyebrow raised, and you gave her a look.   

"Who doesn't know Tony Stark? Even I, a hermit, would know."   

Natasha smiled, but she felt it. There was something off about you. Knowing Tony Stark meant knowing about him being an Avenger. So, you had to know about other members who were publicly known. Steve had been doing so many interviews.   

But Steve wouldn't appreciate her asking outright.   

Even if she wanted to, Allison had come back from playing frisbee. You gave the girl a hand wipe and handed her a sandwich and juice that was in a bottle to avoid spilling.   

"Alright, kid. We got enough time for one more game, and we're gonna head out. Your mom said she's going to be home for dinner. Choose wisely."    

Allison pursed her lips, gripping her bottle before she seemed to come to a decision.   

"Jenga! I'm going to win this time."    

You smirked, "alright."   

Allison immediately moved over to Natasha. "Can we team up? Lainey never loses in this game!"   

Natasha blinked, looking over to you, who nodded. The redhead looked back to the kid and smiled. "Alright, we'll secure victory this time."   

"In your dreams! Allie will spill my dirty secrets, so there will be no mercy."   

With the game set up, they began. You were pretty good, but Natasha was just as good. The redhead noticed that you had incredibly steady hands. As you took pieces out, your hand was impossibly still.    

Eventually, they had gotten to where the stack was pretty unsteady, and a lot of the levels had only the middle pieces, including the bottom. It was coming down to that even trying to take any side pieces would result in the stack collapsing. As it was Natasha's turn, she eyed the stack, calculating her best bet. It would have to be the bottom piece. She steadied her hand as she latched onto the piece, and with precision and quickness, she yanked out the piece, the stack moving down perfectly without even swaying.    

Allison cheered, and Natasha smirked at you. You didn't even look phased. You eyed the stack, and just like Natasha, it would be foolish to try to grab a side piece. 

This was it.    

Natasha watched in disbelief as she saw you eyeing a middle piece that was literally in the middle level of the stack with no side pieces.   

No, you wouldn't.   

Would you?  

There was no way you could grab that without having the stack fall over.   

You lifted your gloved hand and put your fingers in a flicking motion, and with just the right amount of force and speed, you flicked the piece out, and it flew right into Natasha. The stack lowered another level and barely swayed as it settled.   

You looked at Natasha smugly.   

"ты серьезно," Natasha muttered are you serious in Russian and she swore, the slight twitch in your lip made Natasha believe that you knew what she said, but as quick as she saw it, it was gone.   

"Ugh," Allison groaned, taking out a piece, making the entire stack collapse. "I'll never beat you, Lainey."   

You laughed as you collected the pieces to put away. "Practice, sweetpea. You can challenge me in the next lifetime."   

You cackled as Allison playfully threw a piece at you in retaliation.    

"Don't worry, we'll get her next time," Natasha said to comfort the young girl who leaned against her and sighed.   

"There's a next time?" You asked playfully, and Natasha tilted her head.   

"Should there be?" The redhead asked back cryptically.   

You licked your bottom lip slightly, the action drawing Natasha's attention to it.   

"Yeah," You said finally. "We're friends, right?"   

Natasha nodded. "Yeah, friends."   

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It was a few days again before you saw Natasha at the café. She seemed to stop by more often now to pick up coffee but didn't have the time like Steve did to sit around and chat with you.   

It was fine by you, it seemed like Natasha did find you odd, but not to the point where she was investigating you.   

It was becoming a problem, though. You liked Natasha and Steve, liked spending time with them. But the more you did, the more you were putting yourself at risk, putting David at risk.    

You figured you would have to leave soon. Maybe tell them you had a family member in another country that was ill, and you needed to take care of them. Then, you would die in a fiery car crash with nothing to identify you but your dental records and disappear and start over with a new identity.   

It was another month that passed that neither Steve or Natasha showed up, and it worried you.   

Steve used to stop by 3-4 times a week and Natasha at least 3 times when she was free. You were aware that sometimes they would have missions, but they were always back within days, the latest a week.    

That night, you called David.   

"What's up? Great timing, I have some more news about The Winter Soldier and the descendants." You got an immediate reply.    

"Great, brief me on that later. I need you to look up something else. Something's wrong. I haven't seen Steve or Natasha in over a month. Can you find anything?"   

You could hear something like "good riddance" being mumbled, but you chose to ignore it.   

"Oh shit," David finally said.   

"What? What's wrong?"   

"Steve has been listed as a fugitive. It looks like SHIELD is compromised by HYDRA. Black Widow is most likely helping him, and Nick Fury is dead." 

It was quiet on the other line for a bit, you could hear him clicking on his keyboard.   

You were shocked, and worry overcame you. Steve was a fugitive?    

"Ah shit, this was what I wanted to tell you. The Winter Soldier is in America, caught him on a couple street cameras. He killed Nick Fury."   

"Is the man actually dead?" Based on your past experience, there was no way the man would die that easily.   

"I'll have to look more into that and get back to you. I don't know. There's a lot of shady shit going on within SHIELD. It doesn't look good right now for them."   

"Where are they? Can you find them?"   

"Hold on, let me find any live feed from street cameras." 

The minutes passed by agonizingly as you heard typing on the keyboard and the mouse clicking.

"Okay, I've got visuals. I'll send the details to your phone. What are you going to do?" 

You were already changing and packing anything you might need.

"Well, I know The Winter Soldier doesn't play around. I can't just let them deal with whatever's happening. I need you to send more intel to my cell, okay?"

David was silent. "You know this means you're exposing yourself, don't you?"   

You sighed. "Yes, but...I don't know...I care about them enough."

David let out a huge frustrated sigh. "Fuck sake's, fine. I'll send you some details. You better hope our asses don't get imprisoned."

"Well, if Fury is really dead, we might not have to worry about that too much. Worst case scenario, we can work for Stark."   

"Oh, so we just really exposing our asses to everyone now."

"Well, I highly doubt we'll be able to keep our existence a secret to just two Avengers."   

"I hate you."   

You let out a chuckle as David hung up. You sent a text to Allison's mother that you would be out of town indefinitely handling some personal business, but you left some money and a babysitter's number in Allison's drawer when you were over the other day in case of emergencies.   

Grabbing your car keys, you left.   

Somehow, you knew you were going to change everything by doing this, but maybe that wouldn't be the end of the world.  

PART IV

[nadohunter]

Im so tired ya’ll

I worked more hours than ever this month and its still not enough to catch up on the debt I’m in. I had to overdraft my bank account again to make sure I could still keep internet. I worked enough so I can cover rent and pull my bank account out of the negative.

However I have to find some way to cough up $480 to pay off my drawing tablet which I had to get to school, and I’m really glad I have.They’ve already been pretty damn patient with me and given me until November to pay it off or it’ll be referred to collections... which would really really suck because I was good and already paid $1,200 on it over the course of a year. And despite working my ass off its still not enough.

That’s not even taking into account the fact I need to find the funds to A. Get groceries and kitty food because I’m running out of everything, and B. I’m getting constant calls from the phone and credit card companies because they’ve also been patient with me for a while but they want their money. I haven’t been able to get meds, and I have to cancel my appointment with  my psychiatrist. On top of all that my computer is on the fritz and beginning to limit what I can do even further. So that’s another kick in the teeth that has me super super stressed.

I’m super scared and exhausted. I haven't been able to get any other work since being dropped by that client, she really did fuck me up hardcore. I was getting by okay before she pulled that bullshit and I’m still super angry about it. I’ve cut costs everywhere that I possibly can. I want to make art work, I want to be able to make comics and tell interesting stories bc tbh that’s the only thing keeping me sane right now outside of pure distracts when I’m not given projects by my job to work on... and honestly my only long-shot possibility of getting back on my feet. I went to school for that, its the only thing I’m really trained in, so I have to make it work.

It is sort of at a point where if you like the art I make, follow my fan comic, want me to do more in the future... it’s really all going to have to be shut down if I can’t overcome this massive debt I’m in. At least if I get back down to zero somehow I’ll actually have a chance to rebuild and find financial independence. I’ve tried apply for a few loans and another credit card too, but I’m in that sort of weird limbo bracket where I’m not in quite enough debt to get a credit rebuilding loan, but I’m in debt enough to where i’m rejected by your average companies.

I know also everyone is kind of in the pits right now. So I feel horrendous whenever I get desperate enough to try and ask for help on this platform -> But if you can spare even the tiniest little bit: You can donate to my Paypal using the address: nadohunter@gmail.com

I’m super scared and stressed and I know its only going to be harder for me without my Meds but I really really want to make it work. I’ve been trying so so hard to keep myself calm by being like “this will be the month I can catch up“ and trying to play it off as no big deal to others because I don’t want to worry them or make them feel bad when I know everyone is super stressed and kind of in limbo right now. And I always kind of feel like I’m not worth making someone worry and I struggle with feeling super pathetic. The other reason I want to stabilize is because my dad and his GF who I honestly really love and appreciate now that I know her is also going through a really hard time mentally and just had to go in for an MRI scan. So her and my dad are also really scared, and she hasn’t been able to work and they have a pretty large family to support... so I want to be able to support them too.They’ve been nothing but kind and supportive of me so I really want to be able to give back and idk, at least do a run to sams club and buy some food in bulk to split up between us.

With all that out of the way, I’m going to get over my fear of being judged and scrutinized for a second and just admit it. I’m desperate. I’m super scared. For those of you that have helped me out before. I am so so grateful for you and I’m sorry I’m still struggling because when I am it feels like I’m letting you down. I’m going to make it up to you if my life depends on it.

[whencallstheheart]

We’ll find out tonight if our predictions are correct! 

Responses to the written questions are under the cut.

Where is Ned and what is he doing?

No idea

Business trip

Dealing with some financial issues.

Doing business in UC or Hamilton. Nothing major

He stayed behind next episode and will be back in the finale.

I think planning something for Florence, maybe expansion for the mercantile?

I don't know

I have no idea, wth!?!?

Yo i have no idea. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say he's trying to contact Florence's daughter who wasnt there for the wedding

Maybe he's visiting his daughter? Or expanding the Mercantile somehow

With Mike. Oil pipeline

Hiding

It sure

I have no clue honestly, maybe planning a surprise for Florence?

Perhaps...expanding his store? Or ordering something new to begin to be shipped to his.

something related to factory

Sussing out suppliers

Maybe something to do with the Wyman guy?

visiting his daughter

Buying a new house or a surprise for Florence

Visiting Abigail

Planning something special for Florence

He is doing something with his daughter

No clue

With his daughter

Planning to expand the mercantile to include deliveries (Hope Valley Amazon) lol

Not sure

I really dont know!

Made out a Will since he now is married to Florence

Business in Union City

Business, but he’ll be back

I don’t Know

I dont know. This one threw me!

Literally have no idea

maybe he will come back with his daughter who will come to live at HP

some sweet surprise/gift for Florence

He is involved im some growth in HV.

Taking care of business.

He's making a business deal somewhere

I have no idea. I think it was a weird to put in o.O

Making purchases for the store.

Business stuff somewhere

I don't know

i don't know

ned things

He just took the long way home...

Adopting Flo's son

Hiding

He is picking up a surprise order gift for Florence, and it’s taking longer than expected.

Fighting attempt to take over mercantile

Talking to a divorce lawyer. Or putting a pillow over Abigail's mom's face so she can bury her already and come back to Hope Valley for his buddy Henry's sake.

Honestly I’m not sure but interested to find out!

Idk honestly. Probably actually doing something sweet for Florence but she doesn't know it.

What's up with the Pinkertons?

Not sure

A storyline to bring a change of pace to the show.

I really Don’t know

Not sure, but I don’t think it will be resolved this season, maybe it’s the cliffhanger?

I don't know

They’re hired thugs like they were in S1, just there to show Walden is a bad guy despite appearances

Factory related

Up to no good! Don’t trust them.

Yo i dont even know. They look totally sketch but they are probably the good guys actually. I'm predicting they are after someone who's been wanted for a long time. I think it may be too easy to link them with the guy who took Jesse and Clara's money

Not sure yet

Working for Waldon

Railroad

Sneakily buying land

I couldn't care less about them

Perhaps something is in the cabin/someone they don't want found.

No idea

Something to do with the mine disaster (even though it's been ages).

we will see in season 9

Setting up a good storyline for season 9

Not sure maybe something to do with the new factory that might be built

Maybe it has to do with Henry

I have no idea, but I do not like them!

No good

Buying all the land

They have Jesse. Someone wants to reopen the mine and seek revenge on Elizabeth for his son going to jail (Spurlock).

Looking for some kind of hidden good

Shady dealings going on

Guarding the future factory site. But something extra at the cabin connected with Spurlock.

Trouble

?

An even bigger I dont know on this one. Like, what in the world???

Holding Jesse captive

I think they kidnapped Jesse because he found out what they were up to but I have no idea what that is

stumped on this one

That is difficult. He is apparently connected to S1 Spurlock. Is he there for revenge? Or, just a heavy hand like his relative?

Revenge? They want to take over Hope Valley.

Something sketchy, probably bigger than just whatever is going on with the cabin though.

Land grab

No clue but they'll be one of the big bads next season

They are probably the goons of the Industry dude

They are working for somebody bigger.

They want to take over the town

I don't know

i'm worried about Nathan

idk they are the bad daddys of the season

they can only be there to cover up a crime, or some valuable find

No clue

They’re wanting to uproot Hope Valley for better business by destroying the town.

Keeping identity of mastermind safe from townspeople.

Maybe looking for Ned, who alternatively is a serial killer and now on the run. Possibly for the murder of Abigail's mother?

I’m so confused lol

Creating a monopoly & doing some villain nonsense (as it would seem the show is hinting).

Any other thoughts going into the finale?

No

There will be at least one surprise- not sure what

There are too many loose ends to tie up in one episode and I just want Elizabeth and Nathan together (and perhaps quickly married in this episode!)

I’m honestly really nervous, I’m rooting for Nathan but I have a feeling she’ll go for Lucas, I really don’t mind Lucas as a character but like what storylines can they do with them as a couple? The manuscript is finished, they’ve gone on every sort of date at this stage and she’s been in his office. What else can they do? With Nathan they can do the being scared because of his job again but making it different, there’s children involved now, it’s not just Elizabeth. Jack won’t understand but Allie will 100% feel worried for him. Also Allie having a mother figure, especially at this stage in her life, how could you not want it! The blended family as the main family would be so nice for this show, I know it’s been done before but they will be fairly front and centre in the show. Sorry for the rant, I love your blog so much! I don’t have tumblr so I can’t leave comments or like your gifs but I thoroughly enjoy all your theories and opinions!!

Just ready for this stupid love triangle to be over!

I’d love to actually see Henry meet up with Abigail, but doubt it. I hope they have Clara do something heroic for Jesse, but also doubt it. Henry will definitely be putting Hickam in charge at least temporarily. I think Ned will return but we won’t get a full explanation yet. And the dramatic ending won’t be the triangle choice, it’ll be Elizabeth losing the school.

Allie’s adoption finalized and reaction to Elizabeth choosing Nathan is something we should see.

Glad the triangle will be DONE!!

I hope that Elizabeth follows her heart and not pick someone who is a safe option.

I wish Faith were leaving instead of Carson. Also, I think there will be lots of set up for problems with the school board and Elizabeth. Also, I want more little Jack scenes but i don't think we'll get much since child acting laws and covid combined make that difficult

Excited for Elizabeth to move on from her past and enter a new adventure with either of the two men and really just everything else (Rosie and Lee, Fiona, Henry.)

I hope Faith doesn’t end up with whoever doesn’t get chosen by Elizabeth.

hopefully the finale will clear up the drawn out love triangle

The triangle was waaaaay drawn out. Be done and choose.

Nathan and Faith......would be great......

No matter who Elizabeth chooses I'm SOOOO READY to get this over with!

Kindness matters - no matter who she chooses. Isn't that why most of us watch the show

I am so over the love triangle and just want to know who Elizabeth picks.

Worried about the fandom more than anything

Elizabeth please pick Nathan

It's just a TV show and no matter what , it's there for our entertainment. I do think they're setting things up for the return of Abigail in some way.

The must be a Season 9!!!

I hope Fiona does not get involved with Mike.

Hopefully things get back to normal for Elizabeth and Rosemary

Interested to see the other storylines. I want Elizabeth to choose Nathan but I think JT will throw us off. From the promo pic, it looks like they will try to put Faith with Nathan.

- I just want Elizabeth to chose so that this storyline can come to an end and we can finally get to see her marriage and functioning has a wife. - Wonder what will become of Lucas once her choice is made. - I would like Lucas to have a proper storyline that doesn't involve Elizabeth or the love triangle. - I would love to see Rosemary and Lee finally become parents however that may happen. I feel like the writer just left them in limbo about it and keep teasing but never delivering on anything.

Hopefully will end with Nathan but the very last minute. I would prefer more romance before the finale

Elizabeth will have to decide on what’s important with school.

Jack might make an appearance in a dream scene?

So excited! I hope I don't wake up my kids while watching.

I hope they don’t pick Lucas

CLARA DISCOVERS SHE IS PREGNANT

?

Just excited for this to be over. I know we needed it and I think overall it was handled decent enough, but I'm glad to finally move on.

Why is everyone so scared?

The whole season has been about getting over your fear. Elizabeth doesn’t have to deal with her emotions or real life with Lucas because school is out for the summer and she is working on her book. She needs to make up with Rosemary and get over the loss of Jack and fear to be with Nathan.

this season has been totally not what I expected...I thought the hug at end of season 7 was definitive and we'd get at least some Nathan courtship, not a complete U-turn to Lucas (with hopefully a turn to Nathan at the very end). I now think Season 9 will be what I expected season 8 to be, and I am very much looking forward to that.

Something sudden will allow Elizabeth to bring her feelings to light for everyone...Nathan. I think she will have decided by the time she takes of the rings, but will not have the opportunity to share with the man until later. Until she faces the prospect of him being in danger again? Full circle from the end of S7.

I need Elizabeth to really apologize to Rosemary. Rosemary has always been there for Elizabeth.

I’m so afraid :(

Hated the triangle

I am so ready to finally move on from this triangle!

They put waaaay too many storyline in the last 2 episodes, they will never manage to conclude them all and we'll have another weird random cliffhanger which will not tie in with the Christmas episode (If we're getting one ?)

I hope the guy who loses, has a good life in later seasons

The annoying love triangle will finally end. Elizabeth/Nathan are endgame, unless Jack suddenly comes back from the dead. But, I doubt it. I hope Lee/Rosemary are pregnant, or decide to adopt children. I just want Lee/Rosemary to have children. Can't wait to see how this season ends. Hopefully, it won't be a cliffhanger.

Nervous as hell

Elizabeth and Nathan get married

i kinda hope someone dies tbh it would make everything more interesting

Elizabeth was so tiresome this season, they could have told her story of overcoming grief in a much more relatable way. Why did they not just have her talking to Rosemary about how sad or exhausted or numb or angry she feels all the time? You know, something a widow would actually go through. At the very least she could have been stoic, instead she was just kinda bitchy.

Faith and Nathan will have some sparks; Elizabeth will choose Lucas and they will kiss twice one being at bridge one being at her home inside with baby jack present.Carson will leave; Jessie will be found; Ned will come back safely.

Lucas endgame, Nathan and faith have sparks, Rosemary paper, Jessie and Clara make up.

I think Henry will take his own advice and leave to find Abigail to see if there is still any hope for them. Though I like his character, I want him to finally be happy, and if that means staying with Abigail, then that’s what it means. I don’t think TPTB will bring back Lori soooo.... that means Henry would be the one possibly leaving. I also think some scare will happen with Nathan between him and the Pinkertons. Then it may come full circle at the end where Elizabeth runs to him like she did last season, but instead of hugging him, she’ll kiss him instead.

Hallmark execs dictated ending and will cut salaries to bring back Abigail, hence Paul leaving.

My condolences to whichever guy gets to look forward to being bored by Elizabeth for the rest of his life. Are we sure Jack's death wasn't a suicide?

Ready to see how it ends and already looking forward to next season!

I will be really disappointed if she chooses Lucas but I’m afraid that’s where it’s headed. Either way I don’t understand how they’ll end in “the healthy place” they’ve said it will be with so much left for one episode.

[zosonils]

What are some headcanons for you ghost Ferb au???!! I would love to hear if your feeling up for it

oughgh so basically the plot of this one is that Ferb Fucking Dies either shortly after the main series or somewhere between seasons 2 and 3 [as always going off my personal timeline where there’s a school year between those]. due to some weird cosmic soul bullshit that i’m not invested enough in an angsty phineas and ferb au to think up actual lore for, ferb hangs around as a ghost after dying, but can’t physically interact with anything or be seen or heard by anyone. after ferb dies phineas’ inability to process grief in a healthy way leads him to develop an obsession with finding ghosts, and after a few years he builds some sort of gadget that can strengthen a ghost’s connection to the living world, which subsequently makes ferb tangible to living beings for the first time in like 3 years. a lot of hugging and crying happens

from there the au kiiiiinda returns to status quo with the inventing stuff together deal but everyone involved is so emotionally traumatised that it’s impossible to just carry on like nothing is wrong [as phineas ‘i know, i’ll simply invent my way out of my years-long indescribable grief and then everything will be just fine’ flynn learns the hard way]. there is still something resembling a happy ending in there though because the thought of writing something that’s just hurt with no comfort ever makes me want to puke

there isn’t really a plot to it beyond this initial setup but i do have a couple key bits and pieces mapped out

i have no goddamn idea how ferb dies but it’s probably injury related because ghosts that have scars from where they died are sad pog as fuck. the obvious hell route is to say it was somehow caused by one of his and phineas’ inventions but i don’t know if i can bring myself to call quite that much crushing guilt down upon phineas :(

phineas predictably does not deal with losing ferb well. he has zero experience coping with grief and can’t remember the last time he had to face anything without his bro by his side and it just breaks him completely. even when he eventually pulls himself together enough to somewhat function his optimistic personality has been broken beyond recognition or repair and although some of his old self starts to come back when he reunites with ferb and can convince himself that everything is okay again forever, he’s permanently less cheerful and more stressed and he needs to go to fucking therapy

also his coping mechanisms are all fucking terrible. don’t try this at home, kids

the Gang Gang drifts apart a little after ferb dies, although they never stop being friends because that plot point is stupid and sad and i hate it. phineas’ friends all try to be there for him as much as possible, but the emotional trauma makes him feel disconnected from the people around him, and it leads to him not hanging out with his friends as much as he used to [although he periodically either decides to spend the day with them or gets dragged along when isabella hasn’t seen him leave the house in 5 weeks again and manages to enjoy himself at least a little bit]

ferb doesn’t age as a ghost, he’s physically 10 years old forever. he still emotionally matures over time to some degree but he retains a lot of childlike traits even as the years pass, putting him in a weird mental limbo between the teen or adult he technically is and Just Baby

this starts to bother phineas more as time goes on but he doesn’t say anything because he feels bad for being upset over something that ferb can’t really control

ferb knows that perry is a secret agent after deciding to follow him around one day. fortunately owca’s guidelines on host families discovering agents’ identities has some weirdly specific wording about how no living host family member can discover the truth about their apparent pet, and after a bit of kerfuffle and somehow digging out his death certificate without anyone else noticing, ferb is let off on the strict instruction to keep a secret. sometimes he follows perry on missions because it’s cool to watch and doof always gives him a chair to sit on and a juice box

ferb can’t exactly drink the juice [or anything else] but he appreciates the offer and sometimes squeezes some in his mouth so he can at least get the taste. doof doesn’t mind because staining somebody else’s carpet with juice is kinda evil-adjacent so he thinks he’s being a successful bad influence

he already struggled with it when he was alive but ferb is super prone to sensory overload after not touching literally anything for a few years. it won’t stop him from clinging to phineas every chance he gets but suddenly feeling absolutely everything he bumps into or brushes against gets overwhelming quickly

ferb learns to noclip in real life [real death?????]

my brain has been goop all day so that’s all i got at the moment hshhf but i Think About This One quite a bit so if anyone is interested by this feel free to ask follow up questions and i’ll probably remember some really good lore :’0

[livlepretre]

I started watching TVD while season 5 was airing, and I loved it. I was so excited when I caught up, but quickly started losing interest. As a person who despises pregnancy plot lines that should be impossible and make no logical sense in canon, The Originals was always a lost cause for me. I also hated the oocness of the characters. I begrudgingly made my way through season 6 of TVD and honestly couldn’t make it through the first few episodes of season 7. At that point in time, I didn’t like the conflicts, how the show kept breaking its on mythology rules, and how most characters were acting out of character. I think it’s a total shame because I absolutely adore this universe and the characters attached to it. Canon divergent fics like yours allow me to enjoy what could have been. So, did you watch TVD all the way through? Did you watch The Originals? If not, what was the straw that broke the camel’s back and what plot lines and character arcs would you have liked to see on the show/shows? How would you have preferred the show to end? Finally, what kind of thoughts do you have when you hear crazy stuff that happened (ex. Caroline having Ric’s kids and him being in unrequited love with her or Legacies having their characters fight gargoyles, dragons, etc.. throughout Mystic Falls while Damon and Elena’s kids are still in town raising their own kids) Cuz sometimes I read things and I’m like WTF? Who thought this made sense?

Okay, wow, I love that you asked me these questions, because as it turns out I have been bugging my RL friends with my tormented TVD takes for years now. I’m going to put everything under a cut though because this answer promises to be very long. 

Edit: This got sort of stupid long. Read at your own risk haha. 

So, I think to answer this, I have to address the things I love so much about TVD and why I’m still thinking about it/writing fic for it years and years after it lost me. I’m going to take this chronologically because there’s a lot to unpack. 

What I loved

My introduction to TVD was over the summer before season 2 aired; I remember seeing the promotional materials on the CW before I left for college the fall before, and writing it off (which: fair of me, those season 1 promotions were abysmal). But luckily my sister, God bless her, understood me better than I understood myself and made me sit down and marathon the first season with her. I made fun of it pretty hard until the episode where Vicki got turned, and then an episode later got staked, which shut me up and got me paying attention. At some point over the course of the season that show went from haha laugh at it to holding my throat and there are sooo many good reasons for this. I remained hyperfixated throughout seasons 2-4, which I would religiously watch just as soon as I could pirate them. 

The thing about TVD was that it was, for several years, a master class in narrative structure. What I mean by this is that it did two things very very very well: 

1) one thing always led organically to the next -- the thing that actual kicks off the plot in TVD is Damon coming to town to open the tomb. From that point on, he opens the tomb, which leads to the tomb vamps escaping, which leads to Katherine taking notice, so she comes to Mystic Falls, which leads to others discovering Elena, which leads to Elijah, which leads to Klaus, and the other Originals. Very neatly done, and a wonderful, fast way of constantly shifting the action in believable and organic ways 

2) they had this thing where they would announce something cataclysmic, like opening the tomb or sacrificing the main character, or even dropping the veil in season 4/again (?) in season 5, and in most shows, the whole point would be to avert those things-- but TVD has this way of announcing the doom and then forcing us through it. 

There were other things-- stakes were high (ha! pun!) -- Vicki could get staked midway through season 1, Jenna could get killed in the sacrifice, and they could sweep the rug out from under you by having the whole premise of what you THOUGHT you understood about the show turn out to be untrue-- the first big instant of this was the certainty that Katherine was actually in the tomb and if the tomb was opened that Damon would save her-- finding out she was never in there at all was mind-boggling. Another really excellent moment I recall was 2x09-- so, the thing is, one of the biggest mysteries in the show up until that point was “Why does Elena look exactly like Katherine?” We knew/suspected she was a descendent, and the term doppelganger was bandied about, but it felt really shocking to have it LITERALLY be used in the mythology (to see your doppelganger is a sign of certain death, which it IS how CREEPY!) and then in 2x09, everything gets turned on its head AGAIN when we discover “it’s not that Elena looks like Katherine, it’s that Elena and Katherine look like someone else”-- the idea that KATHERINE is a doppelganger was earth shattering. This show. 

Also the way that the show played with audience expectations? Like, in 1x04, the audience expectation would be for Elena to be angry at Stefan and not trust him after Damon (or was it Caroline? It’s been years since I’ve watched) says some stuff intended to set her against Stefan. But instead she figures it out fast and comes back to slap Damon and apologize to Stefan. It was an early sign that the show would jump over the expected hurdles. One of the brilliant things it does too is play with the horror genre. The characters (in the early seasons) were some of the smartest on tv because they were genre savvy, and they thought like a real person would and not like a character so often-- I remember being amazed by how often they jumped over the obvious pitfalls and came to sound conclusions. 2x12 The Descent sticks out to me-- Elena versus the mad dying vampire. Also the entire daggering sequence in 2x16 is God tier, as well as Elena’s bargain with Elijah in 2x11. Hmm and also the way the show would even play with expectations based on the fact that it’s a show? The fact that Katherine and Mason were working together is still one of the greatest plot twists of all time in my opinion, not because of how left field it is or wild or anything, but because it should have been totally obvious but our expectations of season premiers made it totally camouflaged! Like, yes, Mason and Katherine DO show up at the exact same time... in 2x01, which is a season premier, so we as an audience know and expect that new characters will be introduced in that episode. The fact that the show knew that and played us for fools will always go down as a favorite moment for me. 

Well. Needless to say there are countless other amazing things. The darkness of the show and its commitment to exploring vampirism as a curse, and oddly a very human one, was mesmerizing. Damon breaking Jeremy’s neck. “I miss being human. I miss it more than anything in the world.” Elena slow moral decay. The shock and horror when Caroline is turned. The relationships between the brothers. The way that the gang can’t ever sit easy with each other-- that Bonnie sees how Damon and Stefan are a poison, how everyone lies to Tyler and it hurts him so he hurts them-- Katherine’s doomed history? Tragic. Beautiful. Amazing. 

I remember the fandom was a very different space in those early seasons too. The show was just so dreamy and frightening and dark. It was like a very bad dream you couldn’t wake up from and maybe also didn’t want to. The fics were kind of gloomy and frightening and people were much more willing to explore the monstrous side of the show. 

So. The issues that I had. 

The very first thing I remember feeling a twinge of unease about was when they put Katherine in the tomb in 2x07 only to take her out again in 2x09. I remember her getting sealed up in that tomb in 2x07 was HORRIFYING but also??? Brilliant? Justice? Amazing? It was taking out a villain when and how they said they were going to do it and I loved it. I didn’t quite like how she kept being an active role in the story, no matter how much I adore Katherine as a character, because it destroyed the impact of her in that tomb at all. If it were me, I would have put her in that tomb and saved her as a character, only to take her out like seasons down the road when the audience may have mostly forgotten about her and she could have been a secret ace. 

There were other ultimately minor things in season 2-- the sun and moon curse being a fake, for example-- which at the time ruffled me a bit but I was willing to just brush it off because, well, season 2 of The Vampire Diaries is unspeakably good. 

I went into season 3 with the same level of hyperfixation as I had in season 2 (read: immense). And those first 6 episodes were pretty damn near perfect, with 3x05 being like the horrible culmination of everything I, already a klaulena shipper, could ever want. 

My first sign that things were going in a weird direction was 3x07, Ghost World. I remember that episode feeling... weaker. Like, what was the point of Lexi having Elena torture Stefan? That didn’t seem to do anything at all. The Other Side stuff is something I pretty much disliked at the time but at this point I’m so used to it that I accept it as a kind of limbo space mostly for vampires (and also witches? but hopefully more pleasant and less of a wasteland of eternal wandering for witches than it is for vampires). 

3x08 Ordinary People was an abomination and I still hate it and everything built on it. So, at the end of season 2, Elijah says his family comes from Eastern Europe. A nice, normal answer that makes sense. It also dovetailed really well with Slavic vampire folklore, so there was a great tie in that felt right with the meta-awareness of the show (it was for a while very much so a vampire show about vampire shows, and the diaries were part of that meta level writing). The idea that they were VIKINGS in VIRGINIA in this random WEREWOLF SETTLEMENT gives me such a migraine that I don’t think I can go into it here. I hate it with an unflinching fury. I think I used the “Mikaelson” name once or twice in FE and I hate myself for that more than anything else I’ve ever done in my writing. It makes no sense and betrays the writers as not even having a very vague idea of history and it is like fingers on a chalkboard for me. My fingers, feeling all of that horrible chalky friction. ELIJAH THERE WERE NO WILD HORSES IN AMERICA A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. WHY ARE YOUR NAMES HALF VIKING AND HALF HEBREW EXCEPT FOR THE RANDOM GERMAN NAMES. WHY WHY WHY. 

Deep breath. 

The other thing I really hated in that episode was Rebekah’s “it’s a protection spell of course.” 

Honestly I think that was the actual sword plunging into TVD’s heart and the show just slowly bled out from there and I was so shocked and betrayed by that that it just took me years of trying to stop the hemorrhaging before I finally accepted that it was a mortal wound. 

You have to understand that I continued to watch seasons 3 and 4 the way an abandoned dog will wait for its owner to return. I just couldn’t help myself. It had been my favorite favorite show (and sort of still is?)

Well. Why did I hate this protection spell thing so much. TVD had made it very clear in the early seasons of the show that becoming a vampire was BAD. It was a fate worse than death. The whole angst of season 1 relies on us feeling the TRAGEDY when Giuseppe murders his sons and they become vampires. Because vampires in TVD aren’t inhuman, per se; they’re still the same person, they still have their souls, their consciences, their moralities... they’re just also saddled with this insatiable burning thirst for human blood that drives them to commit the very worst deeds, that drives them down these dark paths of horror and soul-scouring guilt as they repeatedly succumb, over and over and over and over again, to their worst impulses, until they finally stop caring and become monsters in truth. Until they forget about the simple warmth of a human connection, of good things like love and friendship and family. TVD made it clear that to be a vampire was to be in hell. It’s why Damon promises Stefan an eternity of misery. It’s why the group responds with HORROR when Caroline is turned in 2x02. It’s why Damon’s confession in 2x12 rips at our hearts, and why the stakes are so high when we wonder whether Elena will be a vampire at the end of season 2. The show is very clear that it’s not actually becoming a vampire that makes us monsters, but the actions we take once we become vampires that make us monsters... but that those actions are also nearly inevitable and precipitous once the transition occurs. It’s really tragic. 

I remember the summer before season 3 aired the fan spaces were all abuzz with speculation about “what could Klaus have done that was so bad that not only was the vampire curse inflicted on him, but also on his entire family?” (that was the prevailing theory for how he could be the “first” Original vampire-- he was the one who had actually done whatever the thing was that had precipitated what was OBVIOUSLY a vengeance curse.)

Ordinary People was like LOL! NOPE! Joke’s on you for thinking we were going to actually discuss self-destructive behavior and the human psyche through the metaphorical lens of vampirism ;) 

There were definitely other things in season 3 that bugged-- the serial killer thing was hard to follow (and I tend to criticize anything that’s hard to follow for any viewer watching week to week, while also paying close attention... because that means it’s probably not well enough explained), the white oak stake bridge was LOL fine, it did lead to some epic stakings by our boy Matt tag-teaming with Elena and Stefan, and I did enjoy the idea that the whole bloodline dies... anyway, I digress. 

The flashbacks started being a problem in season 3. In season 1 & season 2, the flashbacks basically all told a continuous B storyline. In season 1, of course, we have 1864, in that gorgeous blue cast. We get a little additional information of that in season 2, and it’s amazing. But then in season 2, the B story is 1492, in that golden cast, also amazing. 

After that the flashbacks that start in season 3 are pretty random. We don’t have stories being told in the past throughout the season, but instead, random one-offs in random colors telling random stories. Not bad, per se, but definitely less affecting and much less cohesive and meaningful. 

Here’s the big big big issue with season 3: Klaus. 

The whole point of the season was to kill Klaus. It was explicitly stated. 

Every other season, once the motivation was stated, the show went through with it: open the tomb, stake the tomb vamps, take down Katherine, find a way to save Elena during the sacrifice, etc. 

Now, as everyone knows, I love and adore Klaus. But I also sort of hate him because I think the writers loved him too much and they wrecked the show a bit with him. They wanted to create drama with a “kill Klaus!” arc but there was never that much tension in it because I was certain from 3x12 onward that they never would. (well, I was stunned when he got staked at the end of season 3 and I just sort of whispered, “good” to my empty dorm room at the time-- but that was short-lived). It really really really took the wind out of the show’s sails when they didn’t stake him by season’s end, so the MOST major thing I would have done would have been to kill him off somehow at the end of season 3. 

If they didn’t kill him off, they should have devised a way to make peace/have Team Mystic Falls need him and him need them much earlier and much more concretely than they ever did. With the way things played out in actuality, our protagonists failed to do the one thing protagonists MUST do: take defining action. All of their actions in season 3 are completely for nothing, and that makes the whole thing fall apart. 

This also brings me around to something that will surprise absolutely no one: I have a lot of problems with the way that klaus x caroline was handled. I think it COULD have been done convincingly, but the writers were lazy/were very clearly just trying to get Klaus a ship because the actor is hot, and so they gave us the horse drawing, and the prom dress, and the ball gown, and frankly, a list of villain decay moments that I just... don’t know what to do with. And the ship pretty much ruined Caroline’s character because the whole point of her was that she was so much deeper and kinder than anyone gave her credit for, even than she gave herself credit for, but the ship was like LOL! NOPE! (I have a lot more on this written elsewhere in my blog) Also my boy Tyler got cut out of a HUGE amount of this show to make room for this ship, which was lousy. 

My last thought about season 3 is that this is when the characters-- especially Damon-- started to really decay. Rewatching early seasons of the show is WILD because Damon is WEIRD. He is so other and off-putting-- beautiful, but very very strange-- it’s in the way smolderholder held himself, the way he spoke, all the little things that sent little alarm bells ringing. He was delightfully inhuman. 

I vividly remember the stupid chipmunk argument in... 3x16? somewhere around there-- with Stefan in some back alley in Mystic Falls and I was just??? That was the moment I realized that all of those things about Damon’s acting that had appealed to me had vanished. I think the writers were trying to make him more likable/humanize him so he could be the main love interest, but it was very frustrating to me. 

Moving on to season 4. I was actually into the sire bond because it was difficult and problematic and felt to me like a chance to explore more complex issues through the “vampire” metaphor the way the show had done in earlier seasons. (I know this storyline is pretty much hated, but my stance is: if you don’t want dark, problematic, uncomfortable, and toxic storylines, don’t watch vampire genre tv shows. That simple!) 

I don’t mind the idea of the “cure” and I don’t even mind the Hunter thing/that Jeremy could be a Hunter (although I found the coincidence dumb). 

ACTUALLY what I would have liked VERY MUCH would be for Elena to go through most of her season 4 storyline-- becoming a vampire, having Jeremy die and her turning off her emotions, then going on her evil vampire rampage and actually killing and hurting innocents, only THEN for her to have the cure forced on her after like a year of being a vampire. The defining arc of Elena’s character in the early seasons is her moral decay-- Katherine is the warning of what Elena will inevitably become if she continues down the path she’s on-- so it would be fascinating to see her go DOWN that path, very far, and then to have her become human again-- and have her actually have to deal with the horrors she committed. (I have a bit of a theory that vampires have one foot over the veil into the realm of death, and maybe this, if anything, makes it easier for them to forget their humanity/become truly monstrous, but that becoming human again would slam all of that into the front and center again)-- it would be a way for Elena to actually have to confront her story arc-- what path is she going to go down? Is she going to continue her slide into callousness and monstrosity? Or can she turn it around? Must she give up the Salvatores to do that? 

I don’t really mind the season 4 Silas content. Will say that once again the inclusion of any of the Originals in season 4 is pretty useless which is frustrating to me, and their place in the TVD narrative in general is an annoying dead-end. 

However, I do think that Silas introduces a big shift in TVD: their need for a yearly big bad. As I mentioned above, TVD was always “one thing leading to another” -- starting with Silas, they started introducing yearly Big Bads (Silas, the Travelers, Kai) that were arbitrary and frustrating and were the thing that most broke me out of my suspension of in-universe belief. The idea that the show would need a big bad was a fundamental misunderstanding of the narrative structure of the first 3 seasons by the writers in those later seasons. 

You asked what the straw that broke the camel’s back was and I can tell you, it was this: 

I laughed myself sick and that was the last time that TVD was appointment television for me. I call this the Party City Greek costume. 

I did eventually marathon season 5 well after it was over, and even though a lot all of the ways the show retconned itself drove me insane, it was overall fun just to watch for the drama and the pace. 

My biggest problems with season 5... 

This was around the time that Bonnie was dead then alive then dead then alive... I can’t actually keep track any more at this point what’s up with our girl 

Stelena pretty much disappeared. 

I actually think one of the bigger problems in the show was that the show was stronger when it was mostly about Damon, Stefan, and Elena, and at some point they gave more equal screen time to other characters which ended up meaning that I spent a lot of screen time with characters I just didn’t care about (ENZO) 

UGH THE DOPPELGANGER STUFF

So, if you’ve read my fics, you know I spend a huge amount of time parsing the mechanics of the doppelganger, how the magic around it might work, what the implications are, etc. 

I CAN’T STAND what happened to the doppelganger stuff in season 5! UGH. HOW DOES TOM WHAT’S HIS FACE EXIST? DID STEFAN HAVE A BABY WHEN HE WAS 15?!? Seriously!!! HOW!!!! Because it’s real clear in canon that only DIRECT line descendants create doppelgangers! 

ALSO. The Amara thing. Just stop it. 

This actually leads to a pretty major issue: TVD had a bad habit of establishing really exquisite doomed histories and then wrecking them with too much information later. 

The story of Tatia Petrova is a masterpiece in doomed, tragic, romantic mythology. Teenage girl falls in love with two brothers and so their parents decide to use her as the blood sacrifice for their creepy curse “protection spell” and so they murder her-- you get the image of how terrified she must have been, dragged out of her home in the middle of the night, trapped, maybe dying slowly, how she dies for loving too much, for being just a little too wild, a little too trusting-- and how that curse echoes down the ages. The idea that that act of savagery somehow created the doppelganger line. The Amara thing (as well as the Originals revelation that Elijah killed Tatia) gut the impact of that TVD myth-- which was a strong one in the imaginations of the viewers. 

And the idea that vampire doppelganger blood is useful for anything??? I can’t. The WHOLE POINT of season 2 is that Katherine turns herself into a vampire to avoid the sacrifice! We are explicitly told-- you can’t be two things at once, if you become a vampire, you negate your identity as a witch or a doppelganger or whatever-- literally the WHOLE PLOT of season 2 centers on how useless Elena’s blood would be if she were turned! And now Stefan is in on this? NOPE. I’m out. 

Anyway, another myth that got wrecked in season 5 was the Katerina Petrova myth. Part of her tragedy is that she never even gets to hold her baby. Is the idea that her baby grows up and has a normal life and Katerina never even gets to find out anything about her. That she completely loses this one thing that might have humanized her. And then of course the great tragedy in England that ultimately destroys her. I really hated meeting Katherine’s daughter, because it reversed the pathos of Katherine’s past and rendered it emotionally inert. And also Nadia sucked. 

The Travelers were fun enough but also they made no sense (DOPPELGANGER VAMPIRE BLOOD) but most especially I hated the idea that Katherine was a Traveler just WHY 

I got... partway through season 6, although, I couldn’t tell you where exactly I stopped watching for no particular reason. 

I remember really enjoying Tyler x Liv and the way that they made Tyler human again, and brought Alaric back, etc at the end of season 5-- it felt like such a fresh reboot to everything and it’s one of the things that TVD does really well. 

That Thanksgiving episode sticks out to me as a train wreck though because I realized that the central conflict had absolutely nothing to do with any of the characters I actually cared about, and was instead about the twins... whom I liked, but not really any more than I liked the Martins in season 2, you know? 

Also vampire blood being unable to cure cancer sounds arbitrary to me. 

As for how I would have preferred the show to end? 

Hmm. Well. I think it should have ended sooner-- this “the show is really about these two brothers” is just incorrect. The show was about the two brothers and Elena. It was about that triangulated relationship. I think that even if Elena ended up with one or the other at any given point in the show, the other third point in that triangle should have stuck around-- I’ve always disliked Stefan slinking off in season 5 because it tears apart the foundation of the show. 

I have no idea how it should have ended. I guess? the ending? was okay? I’ve never actually seen it. 

On to the Originals... so, the magical pregnancy didn’t really bug me because there are plenty of fandoms where vampires can procreate/I guess if Klaus is part werewolf, he has a foot closer back to the mortal coil, and vampire bodies in TVD have heartbeats, are warm, digest food, etc, so it was like, fine, sure. 

I would say I watched... some of season 1? and I watched most of season 2? I watched whatever I needed to watch for fic research basically, and have a very confused sense of what happened on that show. I’m always skeptical of anything set in New Orleans though because no one ever seems to leave the French Quarter which is so preposterous because the Quarter is probably smaller than Mystic Falls. But anyway. The tribrid thing has never made sense, but I just sort of rolled with what I’ve heard about the Originals? I really love Marcel and think he was actually the protagonist of the show, whereas Klaus was definitely the antagonist. (I just can’t bring myself to side with Klaus on pretty much anything...) 

Okay I think this ties up all of your questions/most of my thoughts except for maybe... what I find absurd. 

To answer that: every time I learn something new I am stunned and my jaw drops in a literal guffaw. For example, today reading your ask was the first time that I found out that Ric was unrequited in love with Caroline (although, former student carrying her former teacher’s children also makes me uncomfortable). As far as I know from seasons 7-8, Damon sleeps with someone named Crystal, Caroline somehow magically carries Alaric’s children with their dead witch mom (and apparently Alaric is in love with Caroline while that happens?), Matt might be a cop, Damon and Stefan fight the literal devil and Katherine is their queen, Bonnie and Enzo??, Caroline and Stefan get married, what’s a Jeremy Gilbert, maybe Damon sets Elena’s fake coffin on fire?, Damon kills Tyler (WHICH IS UNACCEPTABLE), there are witches who are vampires called Heretics, and also there are Sirens and maybe Mama Salvatore is one. The end. Every time I learn something new it’s the most amazing thing I have ever heard and I can’t imagine how it could be so, but I accept it. 

Am I missing anything? 

Legacies is so beyond my comprehension that I just have to roll with everything I hear. God Bless Matt Davis for leading that cast.