#i've been rereading this shit so much i figured i should just post it

[claire-starsword]

Status Update On The Final Conflict Sprite Hack, alternatively titled, The Thrilling Saga of Promoted Julia, or even, Claire, Give Fucking Context To The Dumb Shit You've Been Posting Already

don't worry besties, i keep the world's most ridiculous hacking notes for this stuff, and i'd really like to share some of them now. Ever wanted to know how messy a Game Gear ROM can be? Ever wanted to read a mad scientist's ramblings about it? come on a journey with me.

(note that i'm not gonna explain much of the technical stuff for now, i'd love to document everything about this game eventually but that's a big task, tonight is for funsies only. so just stare at these bytes like they're eldritch abonimations for now because frankly, they are)

Anyway it all began more than a year ago, when I started digging data on this game. I started with palettes because those are kinda easy to understand, and i honestly don't recall how i got to the map sprites from there, but i did, and thus registered it was in my mad scientist ramblings.

and on that beautiful note, i kinda put aside this project for a whole year, until going back somewhere around last october to try to make a script to imitate the game's compression and thus finally be able to insert sprites. As you might know, it took a christmas miracle to finish it. And because I was and am still afraid of how many extra bytes my battle sprites are gonna take, i shifted my attention to map sprites first, since those were obviously going to be much simpler. *ominous silence* I mean, I already had all these addresses above, right? I'd just have to replace them all, and then go find Julia.

and yeah! that's the last post I made about it on New Year's Eve, I had fun, I bragged about the compression working well only to regret my hubris later because it very much ISN'T, we're desperate for extra space in this land, I championed centaur rights only to again regret my hubris because they're currently the only ones with no promotion sprite, I'M SORRY OKAY i'm trying to fix it we're really lacking bytes in this land

but anyway, it was still going great. Not like the centaurs change much after promotion anyway, the art was still an improvement, and thus I filled the whole memory block. Everyone was there. Except Julia.

It feels clear to me that the devs just ran into the same problem, ran out of space right at the last character. Still sucks that they didn't place her at the next block, but hey, whatever, I easily coded a sprite ripper now that I knew how to deal with the compression, she couldn't be that far, right?

of course she was i'm making a post about it

(note: "hooded" mishaela was me misremembering things. i meant this simpler sprite of her, as opposed to the one with a visible face that shows up for most of the game. The fact that this one is the one stored in a coherent way makes me think it was the first one they made, and only later they decided to give her a better face as someone who was gonna have so many scenes)

this is the mess I was looking at, and here's the full sprite for comparison. I have nothing else to add, I understand having separate eye tiles for the animation and I accept that some stuff just got thrown in the end of unrelated block to use the space. But the chair tiles??? no idea what's up with those. For all I know the entire image is just spread around like this.

I haven't looked though, because I had other priorities at the time.

to summarize the next ten billion annotations, this block had a bunch of out of order pointers for every spell effect in the game, including some blank pointers god knows why. Because my script for ripping stuff is amateurish and jank as fuck, i also couldn't tell how many tiles exactly each image has, so this took a lot of trial and error.

There were way smarter ways to find Julia btw, and i'll get to them soon. Still, do i regret this? Of course not. I was gonna want to scrub the whole ROM for unused data one way or another, and knowing all these addresses paves the way for a lot of future changes should I decide to make them. It's pretty nice to know this much about the game. Now, do I regret doing all of this in a single sitting, in a single sunday, ten or so hours of looking non-stop at some garbage bytes?

yeah

i have a few regrets, yeah

remember kids, sometimes it's good to step away from your complicated project a bit.

Anyway, the smarter way of doing this that I mentioned earlier is to use a goddamn debugger to track where the game is reading stuff from, especially since I already knew where the function that reads and decompresses images is located. I'm not very experienced with using the debugger, and even so it wasn't too hard to find it. The pointer led to block $38000. If you're keeping track of these numbers, you might realize this is before the place I started, not after. Despite that starting block.. really looking like a starting block. You know, with all the first characters. Why is there stuff before it? The likely answer is that things got messy the more stuff the devs had to put in, but I also like the answer that they just hated my guts personally.

Anyway! I put my little scripts to the test. Attempted to rip all the offset in the block. First ones did not work, and are likely not even graphics, because again, this is a mess. The 23th came out broken, and eventually I figured out it was a tileset for Galam Castle, see I told you there was a reason I was messing with maps all of a sudden. The reason was, a tileset can be in the middle of the characters. Actually, I have already found way two tilesets, both in the middle of unrelated stuff. I have yet to see a block consisting of mostly tilesets. They're just, around.

Who cares though. After this tileset, finally the clouds parted. There it was. The joy of my life, the light of my eyes.

i was so stressed between searching for Julia and dreading the upcoming task of redrawing 50 or so enemies that I don't care much for, that it completely slipped my mind that eventually I would get to redraw Adam for this game. I legit screamed his name when I saw him, absolute joyful moment, you had to be there.

So yeah, stole Julia's thunder a little, sorry woman. She was there though, very last character on the block, after a bunch of NPCs. Not wanting to mess up this far, I was a bit more careful than I was with the previous block, taking the time to count how many bytes I would need before inserting stuff.

the byte economy is harsh and unforgiving.

anyway, it was always obvious that i would have to learn how to reallocate sprites to other blocks, but this made it clear that i would have to start looking into that like, now. And I would have to find a block with enough space to receive new stuff too, which was looking unlikely with how many things were shoved around in all of them. I tried to save space on this block by messing around with the castle tileset first though.

I saved a total of 50 bytes.

Yeah.

Without much idea on what to do, I just went looking for Mishaela's sprite since it was one of the few missing at that point. Hilariously, she's all alone in a certain block that contains no other graphical data as far as I can tell. It's just her there. I really don't understand why they gave her two sprites, and I would guess it wasn't a very organized decision.

And that's when it hit me, like, yeah, society really has no use for two Mishaelas. It wouldn't hurt much if I reassigned her to use a single sprite, and used this space for Julia instead, right?

So uh, Mishaela's sprites are 557 bytes.

You see Julia's sprites above? Sum up all their sizes together.

The byte economy is harsh and unforgiving.

Small setback though, I could reallocate one of NPCs in her place, as some of them had compressed better.

And that was it, I found the table that points each character to their respective memory block and index, I tested it by bullying Max because of course, and then I assigned the thief NPCs to Mishaela's address. See it all makes sense in context.

And at long last, several weeks after doing the whole rest of the team, I could finally see the final force member.

And my beloved Adam.

And even other NPCs, like Cynthia's grandpa abo-

...

anyway, yeah, it's still a work in progress.

[subway-boss-jericho]

Every time I make a tumblr post I get an intense itch to continue making tumblr posts and liveblog into the void. Dangerous. Addicting. Kind of funny. I try not to post too many rambles in a row but man. if it'll help me post more maybe that doesn't matter actually

Current random thoughts and experiences writing steady tracks chapter 2:

Today I went back and reread everything I've written in the last two years. I am pleased to report that almost nothing needed changed or fixed except for more recent things that hadn't been edited.

Apparently the thing that motivates me to write the most is creating a random, arbitrary side character with something wrong with their gender (affectionate) and giving them a sentence or two's worth of dialogue to transition the plot between parts I'm struggling with. So anyways keep an eye out for the new freak (affectionate) in chapter two to go along with frizzle from chapter one in the "i gave them a name and a gender and a single personality trait and now I'm emotionally attached" club. (2.5) ^ said new character doesn't use pronouns and only goes by name and jesus thats hard to write, but I feel like I've done a pretty solid job at making it not confusing

Speaking of pronouns. I can't go a day without a headcanon, apparently. So the next chapter is going to start off with a note explaining which nicknames I've given Ingo's and Emmet's pokemon plus which pronouns they use because damn man i guess weird genders and neo pronouns are just fun to write. These creatures are not confined by humans' societal gender expectations even slightly and i'm tired of pretending they should be. Biggest worry is that it will distract from the experience, but I'm doing my best to write it in a way that is as minimally intrusive as I can make it while still doing what i wanna do.

The formatting in this chapter has been like the funnest thing on the whole planet. I really hope someone enjoys this as much as I do, I'm having a blast. I had to figure out what ingo and emmet's last name is because I wanted emmet to write a follow up email to juniper. it's 1 word in a 300 word, single exchange email chain, but i sure did spend 45 minutes trying to find a name i liked.

jesus christ there are so many side characters in this chapter!! shit dude! the hardest thing for me to write is more than three characters in one place at one time. Not only am I characterizing Emmet's entire team, I've also got a whole goddamn battalion of named depot agents with distinct personalities and pokemon teams.

jirachi's fuckin tanzaku i am 9k words in and ingo hasn't even shown up yet! i feel like this chapter is going to need to be a minimum of 15k words. surely. and by need to be I mean it needs to be that long in order for it to stop where I want it to, narratively.

Could this have been multiple posts? yeah! but as I just said and as anyone who's ever read steady tracks should know from experience I just need the thought to keep going until it gets to a place I'm satisfied, and today that's one Real Long Post about how steady tracks is goin

anyway man if anyone ever wondered if i was still writing steady tracks and how that's been, yeah, I sure have. It hasn't been fast and it hasn't been easy but jirachi alive tehy live in my brain. You can really tell how starting college affected my energy and burnout levels by examining my progress on chapter 2. the relationship is Linear

[semantics-error]

I hope that this doesn't sound weird now but I wanted to thank you for last year. Your writing is everything. I struggled a lot in the past year. Your writing always made me happy though like damn "for having loved a little while" is a masterpiece. Even though I am certain you hate me, bc you aren't not giving me and the boys happiness.. and I finish "I could never deny you" in one setting. It's my comfort fic. I reread certain chapters every night. Just wanted to say thank you. ❤️

Thank you for spending your precious time reading my stories! I'm sorry you struggled last year, and I'm so glad my stories could help make things a little bit brighter for you :) Your incredibly sweet message doesn't sound weird by the way! I'm generally open to asks but one this kind is definitely okay. It also came at a perfect time, since I've been feeling disheartened about my writing lately. Thank you for this encouragement and the reminder that my words have the power to touch people's hearts <3

I am sorry about For Having Loved a Little While... I definitely did not mean to have a delay right when things finally turn toward angst T.T I had a hectic holiday so I won't post this week, but next week things should be back to normal! As an apology for the delay and a thank you for this kind message, here's a snippet of Chapter 15 of For Having Loved a Little While (subject to change in editing of course):

~~~

Sand was wasted. That much was clear, as he stumbled his way up the steps to his apartment.

He figured it out from the way the world spun as he got on the courier bike home. Or maybe he knew all the way back in the third shitty bar, where he had drunk two more awful shots and a beer. For how seedy the place was, the bill had been astronomical. At least, if he’d read the numbers correctly. Which, now that he tried to remember how math worked, seemed unlikely. 

At least he was almost home. 

Instead of heading inside after he climbed the stairs, Sand leaned against the cool wall of the hallway and texted Nick.

> coe outside

Sand’s phone lit up as Nick called instead of texting back. Sand declined the call with a jab of his finger. 

> where are you 

“Shhh,” Sand chided his phone when it chimed. He took his time, using autocorrect to get all the letters correct. 

> come outside. don’t tell ray

A minute later, he heard a quiet shuffling and then the door opened. 

Sand stepped back, wobbling to keep his balance, but intent on drawing Nick out of the apartment.

“What-”

“Shhh. Don't tell Ray.”

Nick rolled his eyes but gently closed the door behind him and followed Sand around to the stairwell. 

“Why can’t you just come inside?”

Sand thought that was rather obvious. “’M drunk.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Nick looked him up and down, eyebrows raised incredulously. “What the fuck, Sand? We’ve been so worried.”

Sand leaned his cheek against the cool plaster of the wall. Why was he here? He should have just stayed somewhere else until he sobered up. There was always his mom but-

“Sorry,” he mumbled. 

Nick sighed and opened his phone. 

Sand made a grab for it. “Don't tell him.” 

Nick swung the phone easily out of the way of his clumsy hands. “I’m just letting him know that you're safe and I'm with you. Sand—he's really worried.”

Sand blinked owlishly for a moment, processing Nick’s words. Worried about me? Why? “Don't tell him I’m drunk.”

“You should trust him more.”

“Do trust him.” I'm the problem. “Drank whiskey. Hibiki.”

“Shit,” Nick cursed under his breath. 

Ray’s favorite whiskey. Sand didn't even know why he'd picked it—he hated whiskey. Never drank it willingly, especially not the high-end Japanese stuff. But he couldn't see Ray with the smell of whiskey on his breath. Any alcohol was bad, but whiskey—he could never do that to Ray.

He had known that when he started drinking—he had wanted this conclusion. Wanted to punish himself without the option for Ray to smooth it all away.

But now, maudlin and without the recourse of Ray’s effusive affection, he regretted it deeply. 

“Wanna see Ray.”

Nick rolled his eyes as he propped his shoulder under one of Sand’s arms. “You literally just said you can’t.”

“Oh. S’right. I miss him.”

“Come on,” Nick said with a sigh.

Sand dug his heels in against Nick’s pull and made a questioning noise. Even if he couldn’t go into the apartment like this, he wanted to be here. As close to Ray as he was allowed. 

But Nick kept tugging. “I’m not waiting around in our stairwell for you to sober up. Let’s get coffee or something, that’ll help.”

Sand groaned but Nick made a good argument. And if they were out getting coffee there was less chance he would buckle and just stagger inside, clinging to his poor boyfriend with the smell of poison on his breath.

[mellancholy-morose]

🥤🍄🍬☁️

i will restrain myself i wanna ask at least half of these XD'

🥤 recommend an author or fanfic you love

Hmm hard to choose so I'll leave a couple

Pretty much anything by Sleepmarshes @marshofsleep is good shit, most people that have been in the fandom for awhile will probably already know their stuff, most of what's up is soma stuff. They're a master of emotional whiplash and can go from comedy to serious in 5 seconds flat in a way that is both satisfying and devastating.

The Moments We Touch by tastewithouttalent

A really good Stein/Spirit longfic that has them as kids, and then later as adults going through the events of the anime while dealing with their complicated relationship. It's also one of the few times I've read a fic that shows anime scenes that hasn't bored me because it was just restating what we've already seen. The scenes we see replayed in this show new context to what's happening and reframes what we've all seen before in different light.

Pray for the Wicked on the Weekend by thought

@thought-42

Stein/Spirit again. A rare second person fic, and one that uses second person in a really effective way. I'm a sucker for second person fics after Marsh subjected me to it, and they are very rare to see. I love Spirit's characterization and thoughts in this, it's very good and honestly I should reread it again.

def pacts by LikeAFish

Stein/Spirit, one of my favorites, it's from Spirits pov and has him dealing with his relationship with Maka as well as figuring out his feelings about Stein, and their past. It sadly hasn't been updated in awhile, but its still worth a read for how good it is.

I have a bunch more I could recommend probably but this is already a lot lol

🍄 share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

This is a little hard for me cause there are very few head canons that are consistent for me, I tend to change my mind on things depending on the fic I'm writing. And most of what stays consistent my brain has grouped under characterization, not head canons.

That being said after digging through my brain a bit heres what I've got that does stay consistent. Stein is a very introspective person and so is very aware of boundaries with Spirit. While he loves pushing buttons and seeing how far he can go with something, he's also very conscious of how what he did in the past affected Spirit and attempts to not further damage their relationship/make Spirit seriously uncomfortable. (Like a lower level of uncomfortable for a joke he'd be okay with, the kind that isn't wholly negative. but if it was something more than that he'd be very aware and cautious about it.)

As for Spirit I see him as being very confident with women, but the moment it comes to Stein there's always a lack of it, some form of nervousness. Which tends to change depending on the situation I throw them in, but there's always something, sometimes its because it's men, and he has less experience/is just realizing he's gay. Sometimes it's because it's Stein and their past is so complicated how does one navigate that amidst developing feelings. Sometimes it's because of what happened in the past leaves him with complicated feelings in the present. And sometimes it's cause he has no idea what Stein's feelings might be towards him.

🍬 post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

Man idk I mainly have opinions on unpopular characters I can't really think of anything for the popular characters, so I guess I'll give you something that I think is unpopular for my usual idiots.

First thought was my perception on Stein saying he doesn't understand love when fighting medusa, that he's not being very truthful with that comment. But I've already kinda voiced my thoughts about that here, while the post isn't directly related to that comment I said anything I would have touched on for it.

The only other one I can think of is that Stein and Spirit are both switches, neither one of them are purely a top or bottom. Which I only assume is unpopular based on fics always picking one or the other. But Spirit's a hedonist and Stein would want to experience anything he could just to know what it's like. And they'd both like both roles for different reasons. Spirit would like being more of a top/dominate cause making Stein who's usually so stoic into a mess of pleasure or teasing him till he's practically begging for it would make Spirit giddy, and uniquely proud of himself.

Spirit would like being more of a sub/bottom cause he's more of a sensory based guy. (like he's more on the sensing side of the perceiving axis of myers briggs typing if you get my drift, but I digress I could make a whole in depth post about both of their myers briggs types) And Spirit is the hardworking type, I don't think he remembers how to relax sometimes, so being "forced" to relax on occasion by his partner being more dominate and taking the lead is something he'd really appreciate.

Stein is used to being more dominate/leading things (meister, teacher, ect) it's a role he's used to and comfortable in outside of the bedroom, so inside would likely be no different. (Even if the universe in question he had little experience with this stuff, the moment he does he'd be comfortable with leading things) He also seems the type to me to know and remember the little things about a partners body (like an arrangement of freckles on a shoulder or something) and being in a dom role gives him a good position to observe his partner and memorize them, and their reactions to things.

As a sub/bottom Stein would like actually being in touch with his body for once, and not having to be in charge of things. He'd be happy just to bask in the sensations for awhile, or he'd have fun pushing Spirit's buttons by being a brat (if we're talking more bdsm flavored dom/sub style)

☁️ what made you choose your username?

At some point when I was a kid I was flipping through TV channels and caught a glimpse of a Shakespeare adaptation (which to this day i cannot figure out which one it was) where a character was monologing in the woods, which was first where I heard the word melancholy. I looked up what it meant, and being a bit of an edgy teen went 'yep sounds like me' I started using it for mmo's and such shortly after, which is where the double L and the Morose came from, i added the extra L as melancholy was taken a lot, and then decided I like the aesthetic's of, and the Morose came from MMO's that required a last name for your character. Idr why Morose is what i went with besides i liked the alliteration, and it sounded better than macabre.

[dashielldeveron]

hello!! i cannot put into words how obsessed with your writing i am! i’m sure you get this all the time but everything from the dialogue to the plot development to the character dynamics is absolutely insane. Seriously if i could write even half as well my ego would be so high it’s a miracle that you are so humble. Your soulmate series is genuinely the best series i’ve ever read on any site! I don’t know if this is odd to say but you write every character like they genuinely are your soulmate. If you said that you know them personally and intimately i would fully believe you. Obviously i have no clue what you do for a living but if it’s not writing you should 100% consider it because the world would be so much better off with more of your work.

I am so devastatingly interested in the shigarki route that you’re writing. His character arc is so interesting and he’s so complex that i’m buzzing with excitement to see what angle you approach while writing for him. Actually with the latest manga chapters, it’s so interesting how the core villains of the series have been denied humanity in some way by the general public and how that’s contributed to how they view themselves and the world (Shigarki especially). You captured that turmoil soo fucking well with Dabi’s route. I just know Shigarki’s chapter is gonna be what kills me.

Please take care of yourself!

!!!!!

>/////< ohhhhhh you are so very kind!!! it really means a lot to me that you would type all of this out to let me know!!!! especially that enormous compliment that it feels like i know the characters, geez!!! i am weaving all of your kind words into a tapestry to hang on my wall so that i can see it and feel all warm.

shigaraki rambling under the cut :)

goddd yes shigaraki is such a little weirdo and i've been so conflicted about where to go with him!!! he's difficult to write, esp. bc fanon and canon are very different; a lot of fanon grounds his behaviour when he's still incel-blue-hair-immature-gamer guy, and he's.............not even really mean? esp. not to the league??? rude, yes, but AFO has trained him to think of himself as an authoritative figure of respect, so of course when dabi is shit-talking tomura like he's just some guy, tomura is gonna get upset about that. he's mostly........pretty polite. eerily calm. not easily scared or startled.

but like. if you read a shigaraki fic, it's expected that he's gonna throw you around or steal your underwear, or something. so i'm nervous that some people are gonna read his route and think he doesn't sound like himself!!! and maybe he doesn't, but i tried v hard; i've reread a bunch of the manga and rewatched some of the anime to take notes about his dialogue and inflection, but i get nervous that bc he's not matching with popular fanon stuff that people are gonna be like "this is just [other character] in a shigaraki hat." but i try. shigaraki is a tough dude to write.

i've been reading shigaraki as being objectified (not in a sexy sense but in a literal sense) in the manga for a long time, so it's validating and awful to see all of these characters just fucking announce that shigaraki is a thing. feels weird, especially bc so much of the manga has been moving towards a message of a kinder humanity, even though i'm not certain hori is pulling that off as clearly as it could be. i worry, but shig is gonna come back to being tenko at the end, i think. i hope this comes across in his route!!!!

and ohhhhhh you had better take care of yourself!!! bc if shigaraki's route is gonna kill you, your funeral will be tonight!!!! (bad metaphor aside: shig's route is gonna be posted tonight, provided my beta reader gets back to me soon.)

thaaaaaaaaank you so much for enjoying my silly fic!!!! i hope the rest of it meets your expectations!!!!! xx.

[moralalee]

22/08/2024

It's a Thursday. I don't know if I have some sort of summoning or manifestation capabilities, but AT has messaged me today (as per previous entries, the crush from when I was in secondary school). She had messaged me last month to wish me a happy birthday, which was nice of her since we haven't spoken in a long time. We used to talk on and off, but things just fizzled out.

Maybe it's just cause I reread my old entries, or maybe it's because she seems to be living this amazing life now, but I feel weirdly nervous about responding. She asked how I'm doing and it's like, yeah, I'm fine. But what am I even doing? She's posting pictures at award ceremonies and graduating. What have I achieved? "Well, I got a cat and I love him even though he's a nightmare." Weird. I guess 17-year-old BF and I had it cracked, some people you do just repeat with. Same shit, different year.

Went for a piss and was just thinking about what a disaster case I am. Loved Mae from Night in the Woods when I was younger, now I AM Mae. A university drop-out who just kicks about. I have a job at least, but one with no room for growth and that pays decently but still leaves me tight at the end of each month.

Right, got a bit doom and gloom there. I'm feeling crap but trying to get my head in the game. It's weird how my mood can just shift. I've been feeling pretty good today but in the past hour or so, it's like a dark cloud comes over.

I wrote the start of the entry while at work, I’m in bed now. Work was okay, uneventful again. It feels weird how quiet (touch wood) it’s been in the past week. BR has been off the whole time, so I expected us to be drowning. I do miss her and I hope she’s doing okay. I think she’s been pushed too far and we all have a breaking point. I understand the place she’s in. The quiet of work has been highlighting for me how unchallenged I feel. When work is tough, it isn’t because it’s stimulating, it’s just too much of a workload of inane shit. There’s nothing wrong with having a job that isn’t a passion, but it leaves me feeling unfulfilled. I don’t even know what I’m passionate about anymore. Weirdly, I think I had a stronger sense of self as a teenager. It felt easier to write, to be kind, to be real. I’m trying so hard to be authentic now but it’s a battle when I don’t like who I am anymore.

My self-hatred has grown and matured with me. When I was younger, I thought “I’m ugly, everyone secretly hates me, I’m broken and I don’t know why.” Now I feel like I’m a bitter, useless person. I have no drive, I just float about, existing. I know people say your twenties are the years to figure shit out, but I think they’re used to that just being getting hammered or a regrettable tattoo. People don’t seem to get me and my nothing life. I’m figuring things out while spending all my time sitting in the same 2 chairs. Desk chair at work, desk chair at home.

CW tells me I can find something I’m passionate about, tells me I should do something creative because it’s what I thrive in. BF tells me I can use the skills from my current job, pursue business or management, something with a support system in place. I just don’t see a way to either. It’s crazy to me that some people just quit their jobs and go do what they want with no plan. The closest I’ve been to that was quitting working at the cafe when I was 19, but I lived at home and couldn’t handle that place any longer.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to find my way. I’m just stuck in an endless loop of day to day. That’s why I started doing things like baking or going to the gym to try to improve myself in some small way. I want to explore some options for an actual career, not just a job. Maybe I can find some way to dig myself out of the hole.

I responded to AT. It sent me on a bit of a self-doubt spiral. I told BF about her message and she said she’s “clinging on” to me, which is a crazy notion. AT has zero reason to hold onto the past and I can’t even remember the majority of mine. I realised as I was driving home that AT is the only person I’ve ever felt that comfortable or close to. How sad is that? I found the person I clicked most with when I was 12 and I haven’t met anyone like that since. Maybe I have rose-tinted glasses and maybe I’m just a commitment-phobe now, but when I was a kid I genuinely believed she was my soulmate. In the years since I’ve just been telling myself I was a kid and ridiculous and didn’t know what love was, but I loved more truly then than I ever have since or could ever dream of now. I wish I could capture even an ounce of that feeling again. Whenever I’ve chased a relationship, what I’ve wanted most was that feeling of being in someone’s arms and being home.

I highly doubt AT and I will pick things up again and become best friends, but it could be nice to even speak a little, to know she’s doing well. It makes me happy when I open her Instagram story and see another picture where she seems to be thriving. I hadn’t thought properly about her in a long time. I wonder if she thinks about me.

Anyway, that was a pretty pathetic monologue but this has been what I’ve been thinking on. I can’t really say any of that to my friends. I know they wouldn’t get it or that they’d think it’s silly. It was just a hard realisation when I figured out that nothing else has come close since. I wonder if that’s part of why I’ve struggled romantically? A little unconscious part of myself always felt like it wasn’t enough and planted that seed of doubt.

I’m planning on this weekend’s bake to be brownies, DJ was asking for them. And BF is ready for us to get the flat in order this weekend. I’ll feel a lot better when things are clean and tidy. Maybe a little more sane and I can focus more on figuring shit out.

I’m also wondering if my sudden clarity of mind is anything to do with the pill. I always hit rock bottom right as I’m due my period and that’s where I was. Now I’m a few days in and today I’ve felt a lot more balanced. Maybe it’s a coincidence. I don’t know how this shit works.

Goodnight. Looking forward to us finally reaching the weekend tomorrow and BF and I are going to go to the cinema and shops tomorrow. That should be fun.

Edit: Fucks sake, forgot my gif!

[an-inbetween-place]

17. Nostalgic Freeflow

1:15 AM

And just like that.. another year has gone and it's time for my annual updates to the blog. This blog -- as cringey and cheesy as the posts are .. is so invaluable to me. Sitting here, on my (new!) couch, illuminated by christmas decorations and listening to the Bahamas croon in the background, rereading my posts from last year .. transport me back.

And what a bittersweet trip down memory lane that is.

It's so shocking to reread those posts. DRZ said he 'wants us to be in each other's lives for our entire lives'? A bich does NOT remember that...

Now... after nearly an entire year... it makes me think of him. And think not negative thoughts! Think about how our break up must have affected him. Think about whether or not he really meant those words. Think about whether or not what we had was really something special. Think about what he really thought about me .. and his perspective overall.

I know the rhetoric on this blog has always been that he's wronged me and he ain't shit -- and don't get me wrong, I do think he took some advantage of my good nature. But now.. nearly a year after the fallout ... I recognize that he never lied to me, never misled me. I simply settled for less than any person should accept and did not take his actions for what they were.

However, I refuse to feel badly about that. I read back through this blog -- all the way back to the Shanghai times... the Senior Diaz times... the Spencer/MS/SL/various other prospects times... the DRZ journey... and think about how each time, I leveled up.

I didn't know! Back in Shanghai, I didn't know what a proper date was. During Senior Diaz, I didn't know what dating looked like. During the prospects, I didn't know what I was looking for in a partner. During the DRZ times, I didn't know what was necessary for me in a relationship... and that's all led me to where i am. Every step has been hard earned knowledge.

And I am definitely not saying that I've figured it all out now.

There's simply too much to update on.

I said it in a previous blog post last year -- situationships simply prepare you for your relationship. And in so many ways, BL is a direct contrast to DRZ.

He's overly communicative of his feelings for me (which is a problem of it's own because it causes me to believe him less... or at least get used to hearing it), he's overly committed, he's willing to do anything that I request (kinda... I'm working on my boundaries).

It's really a mind f*ck to read my previous posts and compare where I'm at now vs where I was at this time last year. It's wild to me that one small tiny year could make such a huge difference.

And... I am happy. I have my reservations and I'm recognizing how my dating journey/situationship/general insecurities are affecting me and my relationship (wow that's crazy)... but he does make me happy .. and I'm happy!

I want to fully submerge myself -- I want to fall so deeply in love, I want to jump into the ocean, I want to let it just envelope me with zero apprehension.

But I can't.

I feel myself holding myself back -- I feel myself holding onto self doubt and insecurities.

Sure, maybe partially it's us and our communication and our struggles of 'medium' distance and transportation and etc.

But really, I think it's me. I think it's my indecision about whether or not I want this to be IT and for this to be my PERSON. I think it's my insecurities of never being loved before. I think it's my people-pleaser tendencies rearing their ugly head again -- which is really just a nice way to say that I don't want to give people a reason to leave me.

Not to be an overly optimistic b*tch but .. he is actually somewhat helping with the laundry list of items that I have discovered are right under the surface.

I know he loves me. I know he's ready for the commitment. I know he'll do what it takes. I know he wants this.

And that lends the ability to have disagreements. To know that every disagreement isn't going to be the end of our relationship. To know that our tenuous tie.. really isn't all that tenuous. As long as we both agree it to be so.

I think that's really the core of it.

I'm so afraid of people leaving me that disagreements and tiffs lead to me just brushing it under the rug and that leads to me feeling like my voice isn't being heard or that I'm being a doormat. And then that leads to fights down the line because I don't want my voice not to be heard.

And really, that fear is really from the countless (lol) men I've cycled through re: dating and the way .. DRZ was such a integral part of my life .. to the way he simply wasn't one day. It's still hard for me to wrap my head around.

I suppose that's the way it goes though.

I don't really have a point tonight.

I'm just reminiscing.

It's been a crazy year.

It's been a crazy 29 years.

I'm now just sitting here.. thinking about if I'm happy.

And really, I don't even want to think about it.

I want to just let myself fall freely in.

For all of my late night pondering and heavily discussed "moves".. it's not like it's protected me from heartache before, right?

No way out but through...

1:50 AM

P.S.: I just need to note this here.. that body dysmorphia is CRAZY!! There have been so many times this year (or recently?) where I've been hit on or had mutuals ask about my availability ... even when I was feeling like shit about my body! PP (@ a Slalom HH lol), the two unmentionables (lol) from FH+SP's wedding, technically DRZ... wow the brain really is so crazy... it simply won't let me see the facts...

[stormcrow513]

Yeah it really wasn't at all directed at you, I only learned about gaiman like a week ago and poking into it on and off cause it is pretty personally triggering for me, so I'd been wanting to write down some thoughts I'd been having from what I'd been picking up and I saw your reblog it brought to mind some things I wanted to talk out and I just did, and didn't really think it through to much, I also typically reread what I write but this time I just posted, so thanks for giving me a chance to opps my bad, I really love your blog you always bring attention to things I might not have heard about,

I definitely get what you're saying, people can get a little weird about things they love in a way I too find baffling,

Though I am a little weird here because I don't have a favorite book/movie/ect I have a current obsession and past obsessions I will cycle back to at some, so I don't hold anything up as this is the pinnacle of literature/cinema and find it confusing when people do,

I also didn't read harry when everyone else did, reading was not easy for me and I wasn't helped like at all, as an adult I think I likely have some form of learning disability or maybe lasting head trauma, so I'd look at the thickness of those books even the smallest and resented the hell out of them I thought I'd never be able to read them, fast forward to when I was like 19 and watching the movies with my ma and I was like you know what I should read the books,

And I did and I enjoyed them a lot, i caught some shit that was not great but quite a bit flew over my head, I didn't know at that time about antisemitism outside the Holocaust so Goblins as bankers didn't ping anything for me I thought the way Goblins were treated in the world of the story was completely fucked up and was pissed that it was never addressed but didn't see the underlying antisemitism until someone on here outlined it and I did further research,

And fat phobia was so common in my house that it didn't click either, I was always chubbier then my sister's and mocked for it by them and the sperm donor and told I couldn't take a joke if I cried, so yeah I didn't see it as messed up it was just normal to me,

I mostly locked on to harry because I got him, the first book when he talks about not being allowed to ask questions I went oh you too? When he'd do things without and around adults I was like yes I get it adults that aren't ma are useless,

Cue me reading fanfiction that calls out the abuse harry goes through and I was like

Oh

And for then on I read more harry fanfiction and I'm not sure I even reread the books again afterwards so my attachment was probably more for the fanfiction and watching the movies with my ma then the books themselves

So I kinda come at all of this at a weird angle,

And I'd dig through the HP tags on here and I stumbled a lot on people specifically being nasty about people like this kids book and saying so while for one example having like every transformers action figure and show/movie ever invented

And it's something I repeatedly see people who bring up that 'how can you stand that shitty book it's for children' while they themselves have something they love that was made for kids and saying out right that there is nothing wrong with still enjoying kids stuff into adulthood,

Like I totally get saying HP is bad because XYZ harmful thing and therefore no one should give jk support or attention

Or I didn't enjoy it because XYZ writing choices are objectively bad

But I don't get saying HP is bad cause it's a kids book

Especially if you in fact like other kids books you prefer the writing style of

Like it just literally confuses the hell out of me

And I've been wondering in a more analytical way if it plays into the current situation with gaiman and the reactions people are having at all

Because his books are for adults

So there isn't that 'well what are you doing still enjoying his work at your age' angle that was brought up a lot with jk

I see a lot of parallels between these situations

I am seeing people once again bringing up the can you death of the author an author that's still alive

And last time people rightly said 'what?! no, not when the author is alive and using their money to actively harm people'

And gaiman is also alive and using his money to hurt people

Yes there is 'only' so many people one man and personally rape, compared to the amount of people that are being hurt by jks funding of bills

But every time a rapist gets away with zero consequences it hurts every survivor of rape

the women he raped being called liars

and every one of us that lives every single day knowing the person that hurt us is still out there still hurting people living their best fucking life while we struggle and struggle.

And I wanted to talk about that,

Especially because I've also seen terfs grabbing at this as another opportunity for a recruitment drive 'see all men are evil'

And boy does that piss me off I am very very protective of my fellow rape survivors women, men, cis, transgender, gender non-conforming ect.

With jk I shut up and listened because I wasn't one of her victims

This time is different

And as to your last part about trying to decide if you want to get rid of his books

that's a thing I think people need to butt out of, that's your decision

the books are already bought getting rid of them won't take the money back

It's down to your comfort because owning them in the privacy of your own home doesn't't cause anybody else any hurt,

We each have to decide what to do with our already purchased things, that's an individual choice that nobody should shame anybody else over

Neil Gaiman is still following the PR playbook

I'm so sick of how Neil Gaiman is continuing to manipulate the conversation while displaying ZERO accountability or remorse.

Do you think him leaking that he's apparently offering to step back from Good Omens Season 3 is a sign that he realizes he fucked up and is trying to make it right? Absolutely not.

What he's doing is making the first moves to launder his reputation so that he can keep making money off of his IP and, eventually, return to the spotlight. All of the overjoyed reactions here and elsewhere are part of that plan.

One part of that Deadline article really stuck out to me.

[Highlighted Text: Deadline understands Gaiman’s offer is not an admission of wrongdoing...

Gaiman’s position is that he denies the allegations and is said to be disturbed by them.]

This is what makes me think that it is actively irresponsible to publicly celebrate or advocate for the continuation of any media project that involves or enriches Gaiman. The fact that Amazon has even announced that Good Omens is on hold shows the credibility of the accusations. And yet Gaiman leaking this information suddenly puts them on the backfoot. "Just take the deal!" cries the fandom. Neil is no longer the bad guy, it's Amazon who are now denying you your comfort show. It's blatant manipulation and it sickens me that it might actually work.

Boosting Good Omens or Sandman or Coraline at this time is not a victimless crime. True, no one person is going to be the difference between Gaiman facing consequences or not. But it's public opinion that will truly determine whether his legacy will be impacted. That's why he's spent a considerable amount of money on the same PR firm as Russell Brand, Prince Andrew, Danny Masterson, and Marilyn Manson. Their specialty is helping rapists get their lives back.

So please think of the long-term implications of breathing a sigh of relief and going back to posting about Good Omens, or signing a petition that gives Gaiman a way out of finally facing the consequences of his own actions.

Yes, none of these shows were 100% made by Gaiman. It sucks that this is going to affect people other than him. But maybe he shouldn't have chosen to sexually abuse at least 5 women and very likely more. In a just world, you fuck around and find out.

[miscelunaaa]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💗

HELLO SUNNYYYYY

Ah, I was just wondering about this last night while I was organizing some of my notes, tbh. In a way, all of them are my favorite, because they've all got something I love in them, butttt I do have my favorites 😅 let's dive in!

Sodium Vapor: Ah, wow. I know I literally just wrote this last weekend, but I've never written anything like it. And I finally got to express some really deeply felt shit in a way that made it feel like it was worth feeling. I love this fic. I've reread it maybe five times already. And I'm floored and emotional every single time. In a lot of ways, it feels like a long poem. I'm trash at poetry, to be honest, but this felt so so close to chasing this fleeting emotion and loneliness that's sort of followed me for so long. I'm going to be thinking about this piece of writing for a really long time.

Flat Sprite and Saltine Crackers: I think about this fic all the time. It's another one of those that just hit out of nowhere, and suddenly I was writing and couldn't stop. It's the first example of writing I had where I felt genuinely confident that it did what I wanted it to do. And well, it's Dad!Joon. It almost never misses.

Give Yourself a Try: This fic held my hand when I needed it most. I'm still shocked it happened at all sometimes, and posting it was really kind of stressful. When you really really pour your heart into something like this, you get concerned that all of the feelings you've built into it are going to be overlooked for the 3k of smut at the end. I genuinely had that concern, because it often feels like folks on Tumblr are just after p0rn. This simple fact has been an enormous stressor over the past several weeks and it's irritating as fuck, especially if you're writing for the reasons I am. Instead, this fic became so much more than that for so many people. It's the best gift and love letter I could have written for myself, and so many other people felt the same and felt seen in a way I never expected them to. I cannot thank them enough for sharing their vulnerability with me. It was an amazing experience.

Three Minutes: I shit y'all not, I wrote this in the span of like, three or four hours. The note's creation time is 10:31 am, and the posting time is 3:22. I ate somewhere in there, and did some editing. Sometimes something just comes over you. This one made me so soft. Writing is often an emotional experience but this one was a little closer to home than the rest. That feeling of helplessness that one often feels when a faraway friend needs care and you're not there? That's something I feel regularly and deeply. So this was cathartic in away. It's also another example of a piece of writing that felt like it did what I intended it to do, and that's a feeling I deeply cherish.

Things Left Unsaid: I .... really have no other reason for picking this other than Rancher!Joon make brain go BRRRRRRRR and I really really love the fact that I got to be a little nitpicky about period costuming. I also really love the dynamic that these two have. I should have waited to make this something bigger but at the time I just needed something quick and hot and smutty and a little angry and just something about two people figuring their shit out together. I’m hoping I can get myself to revisit these two some time soon. They deserve it!

Alright, well that’s enough feelings for the day. The ups and downs of the past month are being keenly felt on the heels of the ongoing shit show that is being a human in this place and at this time so I’m going to go throw myself into working on something, and hope for the best. If you’ve made it this far, thank you! This was fun, albeit a little wobbly, to write :)

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

Fic Writer Questions! (you can find me here on AO3 if you're interested!)

tagged by dear @theburialofstrawberries mwah!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

112 yowza!

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

750,421 kinda tempted to go delete one word so it can be 750420 which is a far more Pleasing number

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

12ish but some of them overlap: BBCS/Sherlock Holmes/ACD (these are all different bc my bbcs fics are not the same as my own modern fem Sherlock Holmes adaptation are not the same as my ACD Holmes fic; Good Omens; Harry Potter/The Werewolf Draco Malfoy Cinematic Universe; Captive Prince; The Hobbit; Fleabag (it was a crossover with BBCS but Fleabag is the perspective character so it still counts as a separate fandom imo); Doctor Who; The Office; Parks and Rec; Broad City (one a piece for those last 5 but I AM going to write a Parks and Rec polycule fic for @gaykagome)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

They're all Good Omens fics from the 2019 Summer of Good Omens! Susceptible to Summer, Fragments Shored Against My Ruin, Something So Magic, Enter Serpent, and Anything We Like

All of those have over 2k except the last one, but average engagement for me is like 400 kudos or so

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try! It depends on what's going on with me. Sometimes I just don't have the energy, and I figure people would rather I spend my brain power on writing new fics than on writing replies to comments. Wish I had a fave button tho so I could let people know I read and reread comments, because I do!

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Oh I wrote this ficlet series called A Chemical Defect about John and Sherlock's relationship in s3 of BBCS, and it's WILDLY unpopular. People don't read my fic to cry sad tears I guess! John and Sherlock are having an affair in the story, and it ends with the implication that their relationship is unsustainable and that Mary knows about it anyway. I intended to come back to it after s4 and write a more optimistic ending but LOL! Didn't have the heart.

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I know this answer is kinda up my own ass, but like. I think stories that feel true to life sort of feel like they end on a beginning if you know what I mean? You don't really consider a chapter of your life closed until you look back on it from the next? SO that said, I think I'd have to say that it's my big BBCS serial The Only One in the World. I spent 2 years writing it, and it ends with John retiring from medicine to solve crimes and write books full time.

Could also be my WDMCU (werewolf Draco Malfoy cinematic universe) series Moonrise, which starts with Draco isolated in his abusive mother's house, trying to cope with lycanthropy essentially alone and ends with him in love and surrounded by found family in a cozy cottage in Hogsmeade, having gotten some lycanthrope rights legislation passed after working at it for years and talking to Harry about whether they want to have kids. Oh man I feel warm and fuzzy just thinking about it

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I have written one crossover. It's BBCS/Fleabag, because me and @loudest-subtext-in-tv were laughing about how John seems like one of the horrible guys Fleabag sleeps with basically out of self loathing, so I wrote this fic to make Nattie laugh, and you should read it bc it's so good and so underrated.

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not really, but people don't seem to know that authors can read bookmark tags unless you private the bookmark, and someone once put in the bookmark tag on one of my fics 'writing was meh but it was okay.' Okay so why bookmark it then??

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Fuck yes! I'm not sure what 'what kind?' means? People fucking? Sloppy, silly, and awkward, with lots of laughing. I also really like writing afterglow scenes which are even sillier and gigglier and often involve one character cooking for another. Food as love language is a very distinct pattern of mine tbh

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of, but occasionally I'll write a post on here where I make some elaborate head canon, and I'll see people in the tags talking about how they want to write fic of it, and it makes me breathe fire out of my nose like a dragon like PLEASE DON'T. The WDMCU came out of a ficlet post I made on here like a year before I actually wrote the 60k series so like!!! Please don't do that!

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! To Russian and I believe Chinese. Not my entire oeuvre but a handful of BBCS and Good Omens fics

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I wrote a fic inspired by an RP I did with my gf right around when we met (actually now that I think about it, it's two fics), and I waaaaaaanna do a WDMCU collab with my beloved Sally @clytemenestras at some point if he has time bc he inspired me to even write werewolf draco with his original lesbian werewolf story

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

favorites are hard for me? I always think I'm currently doing my best writing lol so I'll say drarry

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I don't post fics unless theyre finished, so I don't have any WIP up on AO3, but I did intend to continue with my fem Sherlock Holmes series, Your Many Tendencies. I just haven't been in a Holmes mood for a long time. Maybe I'll come back to it idk. This particular series is honestly very unpopular? People will just straight up say they don't read femslash, and it hurts a lot. This series feels really personal too, bc it's about a Black autistic nonbinary lesbian, so it does hurt my feelings that no one seems to care, yknow? I mean the people who read it are extremely kind and thoughtful in their engagement with it, but it has vastly less engagement than my m/m fic, and that's painful. It gets literally 1/10 the attention my fics usually get.

16) What are your writing strengths?

Almost all of my writing is romance, but I tend to write concurrently about recovery and found family, and I think I'm very good at doing that in a way that connects with my audience. I once had someone ask if they could use my words in their wedding vows, and I've had people tell me they started doing things with their spouse that my characters do with their partners in order to express love. I think about that all the time. My Impact. It makes me feel like I have a real duty to my audience yknow?

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

This question is hard for me like I've been writing so long and so much that I'm literally always happy with my final draft! It's always exactly to my taste, yknow? I suppose I could say that my fics tend not to be terribly plotty but so WHAT? That's beside the fuckn point for me. Plot who? I don't know Her. Also honestly like. Stories feel more True to me when they aren't ruthlessly devoted to plot bc like life isn't like that yknow?

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

If you're not fluent in that language, get a beta who is!!!!! That said, I have written scraps of very simple dialogue in French using mostly Google Translate (sometimes I check w Sally bc he speaks French but I am usually too impatient), and I am perfectly well aware that I take my life in my hands each time!!! Also don't do that bullshit thing where it's in italics? That shit is weird and exoticizing. Just write it in quotation marks like normal dialogue.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

BBCS babey back in 2012. Ended a 5 year dry spell for me after I got my writing degree.

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Hmmmm I think it's probably gonna be the fic I'm working on now that I haven't posted yet, but I know it's called Names for a House, and here's a tiny bit of it

Thanks again Shreya for asking me to do this bc I really love talking about myself. I tag @the-moon-loves-the-sea, @clytemenestras, @tomiano, @gaykagome and @totallysilvergirl

No pressure <3

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Hahaha. So. Uh. *rocking back and forth like I'm waiting outside the principal's office* Yeeeah. Finish the queue and plug the thing, and I'm reblogging this one to plug it because... I have made a poor decision. But I explain too much, so first off:

I write this. I broke my website to fix it, and it's not quite fixed but it's legible. I think someone's reading or rereading right now, but I am super obscure and looking for more!

Known readers: 3 (hi!) 1st Goalpost: 10?

Known Supporters: I'm set up on Ko-fi but I'm not asking for money until I post more stuff!! 1st Goalpost: 5?

And let me tell you about my maladaptive coping skills...

So, I've learned to dissociate like a boss (no details, just accept that this happened to me for reasons!) and I like to tell myself stories. Not just like daydreams, I wanna get the language down and edit and everything. And, ya know, now that I'm older, with better writing shit that nobody will take away from me, I often write this stuff down. Tin Soldier has provided an outlet for that. I usually stick to it, and now Soldier On fills that niche pretty well...

But, oh no, I had to phrase the impossible (because it would be apocalyptic or boring) crossover fic, above, as a plot problem. And I've been having a very stressful week (eye shit and doctor shit) and I became trapped at a restaurant with the US news playing muted in the background while I ate. To paraphrase Alastor: Haha, so many bombings!

So, yeah, I solved it. I figured out how to get David situated at the Hazbin Hotel without getting him killed (and/or ruling Hell from a radio broadcast). And could I just go "OK, cool" and leave it alone like I should? NO!

I do not have the social skills to be active in fan spaces, folks. I read and shut up, when I read at all. Because I'm not going to be invested enough to know why the fandom has decided this is fanon and this isn't and I will cross lines I don't even see. And I'm too old to be running around on the internet, pissing in people's Wheaties over something I like. And, although David dates to 2017 and I am staying true to the skills he had at the time (plus the Compelling Voice, which is standard for his current situation), it sure as hell LOOKS like I made up a Mary Sue just to drag Alastor. And he does! Boy, does he!

Some folks say the Muses inspire. Stephen King says it's little elves who live in your keyboard. I say SATAN HIMSELF crawled into my ear and whispered, "You know, Barnaby is in hiding and Alastor is a perfect replacement goldfish. They're both aromantic and you know David needs (and hates) boundaries like that!" And I could not refute this!

I should embrace it. I should be shameless. I should say, "I am now involved in writing a verbal chess match between two incredibly skilled opponents, one of whom has just stuffed the other into a maid outfit, and the other of whom is still wearing said maid outfit while trying to maintain every scrap of dignity and dominance available - and Alastor is winning! Alastor in a maid outfit is winning! I can't believe it!" But I can't because I think it makes me sound like a clueless dork. (Well, the spouse hears me, I trust him.)

I have a file titled "I should NOT be writing this!" and I'm still writing it. I usually finish that stuff - I have files with titles like "Anything to Keep the Anxiety Down!" but it's all my own characters so I don't feel as bad about it. My stress levels are still through the roof (feeling hopeless about lack of ability to maintain focus on fine details, and sensory overload from unfortunate food) and I'll probably keep writing this one, like I keep eating a Cup Noodle even when I know it's real bad for me and I need fruits and veggies. I need to write the NDA dealing with the spy and completing their escape. I'm gonna write my OC sparring with a certified Tumblr sexyman until my neurons fall out from brain scurvy.

But will I show it to anyone other than my long-suffering spouse? I dunno. If you actually know David, you'll probably die laughing, but that's only a couple people. Everyone else'll be like "lol why u so angry?" And I wanna sit 'em all down and explain at length, "No! I'm not angry! I'm having fun! They're PERFECT for each other! I want them to experience CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT together! I HAVE THEMES TO EXPLORE!" I'm actually, finally getting one of David's three backstories written out! I'm gonna try my hand at writing original lyrics to instrumental ragtime - potentially creating music that would not get smacked with the copyright stick if I wanted to record or perform it! But these do not seem like the words of an author honing their craft, I just sound unhinged.

I'd be having way more fun if I really were unhinged, but I don't like to hurt people or even annoy them, ya know? I'm out looking for approval on the internet and that's precarious as fuck. I'm not cool. I can't just hold my head up and do whatever I want. You people will eat me. (Waaay more like Alastor than David in that way.)

But I'm writing it. I don't feel good about it. I'll probably get over myself and put it up somewhere eventually, even if it's just another Author Egg at the site. Alastor is IN the maid outfit and we'll see if David gets him to mop the floor. And it's got themes and poignancy and shit because apparently I can't help myself.

It's practice if nothing else but goddamn look at all these paragraphs over how conflicted I feel.

tl;dr? I'M SO GOOD AT ANXIETY, EVEN MY COPING MECHANISMS GIVE ME ANXIETY!

Oh God. David Heard There's Room Service In Hell!!

Once again, I am testing my drawing ability by NOT doing any of the MANY illustrations I need, but I would've been sad if I couldn't finish an illustration. And look! I made it! I CAN DRAW! (And collage, obvs not my suitcase or BG, but all Public Domain)!! Well, my stylus needs a new battery, BUT, IN THEORY, I CAN DRAW! It's low res like all my test images, and I don't think I'm gonna put Vivziepop out of business anytime soon, but I'm fond of it.

That's why I'm so sad that it'll NEVER EVER HAPPEN. As a storyteller (albeit an obscure one) let me elucidate...

Strictly in terms of narrative viability, David hails from an incompatible universe. For an Invisible, he's middling. The Compelling Voice he's so fond of seems to be standard-issue, he's just more of an asshole about using it. In Tin Soldier and Soldier On, he's not all that hard to beat. Some people even have a natural immunity! He's only a threat in the first place because nobody knows what he can do.

But the minute he rolls up to the Hazbin Hotel, not only does nobody know what he can do, nobody has that natural immunity, and it would be hard as hell (haha) to beat him with their combat-friendly magic system. David isn't doing that Capcom-esque "freeze the enemy for a few seconds while they're looking at it" hypnosis. He's issuing unbreakable commands. If you're not deaf, the only way to beat him is to forget what he said. And that seems like it would be difficult, if not impossible, for most of the cast. Alastor certainly won't stoop to inflicting head trauma or hypnosis or amnesiac-levels of liquor on himself.

And that MIGHT not be a problem, except as soon as Dave meets Al he's gonna go from zero to nemesis in about three seconds flat. "Hmm, let's see. Neat freak, carefully-curated personality, perma-smile, never a moment's weakness... That's a pathetic little traumatized man-baby and I'm going to pull him out of his shell if I need to use a crab fork!" And, canonically, Alastor is also willing to make enemies that quickly. David has a sense of humour and no sense of self preservation, combat tentacles and veiled threats ain't gonna do it. Round one, David's gonna mop the floor with the Radio Demon.

...And by that, I mean he'd stuff Alastor into one of Niffty's frilliest little outfits and literally make him mop the floor, and even Charlie encouraging him to be a better person wouldn't get him to quit. Also, he'd be ignoring her and bending over backwards to get Angel's attention.

"Oh, listen. The man is over one hundred years old with zero interest in one-night stands or whirlwind romances. Prohibition isn't a thing anymore, drinking and dancing just doesn't cut it. Give him a chance to develop a fetish for something a little bit taboo..."

"I̸̠̤̐̄̄ ̸͕̝͙̌A̸̪̅M̴̭̰̙̎̓ ̶͓̻̐̉L̷̹͕̍I̷̯͗T̷̫̄Ȩ̶̾̋R̴̝̥͒A̷͔̩͋̃̕Ļ̵͗͜L̶̘̈́Y̵͇̓͗̂ ̴̼̪̘͠Ā̷̠̽̆ ̶͍͓̊̉C̷̣͕̺͆̃͝A̵͙̾̅N̶̥̬̮̄N̴̤̯̬̒̉̚I̴̩̜̍B̷͈̪̩̄À̴̝̦L̶̪͂͛͗!̶̟̆"

"That's not a fun night out. It's barely even a meal, what with the garbage they're feeding people these days. I imagine everyone tastes like a fucking 'Cool Ranch Dorito.'" [while making quote marks with both hands] "Isn't he from Louisiana? They invented spicy! Tell me, my deer fellow, is the cross-dressing and domination lighting up any dials?"

"Ì̴̗ ̶̧̫͓͋W̵͜͝Í̸̗͋L̴͔͆̊̌L̴̨̜͚͂ ̸͈̤́Ḱ̵̳̩͜Í̷̘̾L̶̨̫̬̉͋̌Ļ̵̱̗͐͊ ̴̧̣͊̄̈́Y̴̛͖̺͓̓̐O̶̢̦̍̀U̷̠̞͇̎ ̷̨̛̮̭I̷̙̜̽N̸̘̣͙̆ ̵̞͑͝Y̷̰̭̽O̷̟̘̹̓Ủ̶̢̏R̷͉͑̄̀ ̷̧̧̤̎Ŝ̶̱͈̃L̵̰͋Ȅ̸̜̗̙̊̍E̷͇̦̒P̷͈̝̅̆͌.̴̡͈̅͑̓͜"

"My good man, I have unlimited access to drugs and a fun new activity, WHY WOULD I SLEEP? What shall we try next? Do you have any drugs, Angel? Oh, of course you do! Do you think he's more of an upper or a downer person? I think a few muscle relaxants might loosen up that permanent rictus of social anxiety, but God only knows. You must be smoking a crate of cigarettes a day! Do you even brush? Your teeth, I mean. Do you suppose those lovely people at Lourdes make a mouthwash...?"

And Charlie would say, clasping her little hands, "Okay! What if we make some popcorn and talk about our childhood traumas? Yaaaay!"

But David would, inevitably, pass out. Most likely after binging and doing untold damage with Angel. And Alastor would kill him... And that's where we have the biggest fucking plot problem of all. Alastor's go-to method of disposal is tearing people to pieces while broadcasting it on the radio. And it seems like their screaming continues for quite some time, perhaps eternally.

I have expressed this in song form, because I have a weird brain and I couldn't resist.

Wait, wait, nevermind the eternal torment. Can these little hellions hear me? Test, test, is this thing on? Pardon me, could you quiet down a bit? I have a few things I’d like to… Will you stop screaming? Ugh. EVERYBODY SHUT UP AND LISTEN RIGHT NOW! That’s better. I have a little message for my executive producer. Well! I say! Colour me startled, you fulfilled your vow Think you’ve won? But I’ve barely begun! I’m always looking for new fans to wow Can you hear me NOW? [aside] Will you screamers sing backup if I command it? Can I get a little harmony? (We… can’t help ourselves?) I am eternal, and guess who’s just boosted my signal So I can reach all of you lovely new people? (We can’t help ourselves!) It’s your own Radio Demon! What was he thinking? (We can’t help ourselves!) What was he drinking? Ha! His dial must be twisted! Now I’m serenading the damned for my infinite span All according to plan! Am I a madman or a genius? I’m a pianist! Take that, FCC I’m a wonder, your saviour Please excuse my rude behaviour, (but the demon sure done fucked up!) Think he did me a favour? Silence my vocals? A failure! I’m louder and I’m certainly braver So crank the signal to the noise, and enjoy my compelling voice It’s nice to have all these new toys, (but our deer friend is annoyed) A Spirit of Radio beats a demon blow for blow This Invisible is crackling on the air! Well, one does like to believe Though you’re stuck, I’m almost free! That’s what you think! Your weak signal can’t compare Though you’ve had a little fun Your broadcast is done, and it’s time for your payback I’m in control Too bad you atomized my soul! … Not this attention-starved, brandy-addled, overgrown twink Guilty! What could be more absurd? A plagiarist bird Tweety-pie can’t even sing, his theft is pitchy You call that bitchy? I’m afraid that’s not entertainment! You're looking for a new twist? Then let’s remix the arrangement! Is Al as stiff as he projects? What sorts of kinks do you suspect? I’ve seen lacy details with my very eyes! He lies! And if I Tiked a Tok or two Well, there’s nothing he can do! A V̷̰͖̉̂͝İ̶̙D̵̛̻̮̙͛̕E̴̼̱̕Ŏ̷͆ͅ?̷̗͎̞̏̅! If I did, you can’t delete it That's the truth! When I find you in here, Ÿ̴͕̚Õ̸̠̝̕Ů̵̩̹Ŕ̸͔ ̸̬̋̂̔͜T̸̮̙͌̕Ő̵͔͕̑̄R̵̩̣̅͌̌͜M̷̝̹̾̏Ĕ̶̦͕̟Ň̶̮͊Ṱ̷̲̈̔̈ ̵̡̹̟̑Ẅ̷̝́͝I̷͉͋ͅL̴͎̞̎L̶̯͓͑ ̵̬͐͐͝Ḅ̸͚̬̅Ẹ̴̎̿͠ ̴̻͉̲̐̈́͠N̵̖̟̤͑̽E̴͙͎͘V̸̡͕̦̾̕Ė̵̝͈̀Ŕ̴̺-̸̡̱̇̾̉E̴̠̣̊̐̋Ń̵͔̬̝̑D̴̡̬͙̓İ̴͔͋͊N̸̞̙͐̒Ĝ̷̼̺̐͆.̸̤̭́̐̅.̸̰̓͝.̷̤̬̌ #MaidioDemon is trending! Y̴̼̿͆O̶̟͇͊̏͜Ǔ̸͈ ̴̨̫͘I̷̡͓̜̍̈́̽N̸̜̩̉̄͝S̵͚͈̭̅̓Ĩ̸̢̯͇͘Ṗ̶̩̭̦I̴̱͑D̷̨͖̚ͅ,̴̥͕̌̈̾ ̸̛̳̈́Ṭ̶̢̠͒Ė̸̱̼̕C̸̙̥̈́H̵͓̠̔̀N̷̖͝Ǒ̶̬Ć̶͔̃͘Ř̶͙͍͠Ä̴̟́̊T̴̳̉̊͜I̶̞̓͝C̵̢̨̲͐̇̎.̵̼̏͋.̷͎̆ͅ.̸̘̜̒ Darling, please, you’re lost in static One thing’s clear! You must be wishing that you took the L, you poor deer Say farewell. I’m very grateful that you gave me Hell Oh, this will be swell! [Vivziepop, distantly:] Fuck!

"Stayed Gone" is a patter song and I can't keep up with it as I read it, but I think the lyrical parts scan, at least. A-heh. Please excuse my hubris, but it's doubtful anyone will see this.

Of course, I would never torment someone with arguably GNC-phobic revenge porn, but that guy IS NOT ME. Your only hope for dealing with David is if Vaggie decides he's more of a threat than an amusement and straight up kills him, and that's not a plot, that's a cul-de-sac. So this little not-a-fic is all you'll get from me about this unsustainable situation.

...Alright, I might put Alastor in a maid outfit if anyone cares, but I really should be illustrating. I have precisely 13 to do before I can post more story! Unless I decide to post it anyway!

All apologies to Vivziepop, whom I've name-checked as one of a few creators I'd sell out or saw off my leg to work with. But - although I am tempting fate - prrrobably no one will see this. I'm just doin' a little practice and amusing myself.

Right, Tumblr?

[andypantsx3]

hi there !! i hope you're doing well :) ever since i started reading ur fics i've just been really impressed with how u keep the quality of ur content very consistent. do u take breaks in between writing each fic? i think u mentioned this in a previous post when u talked about editing fics, but i guess i'm wondering how u keep urself from being burnt out/if u get burnt out! i'm going thru a slump rn so i'd be curious to hear about ur experience!

Omg thank you so much!! That is literally so sweet of you to say, much as I doubt the quality is all actually consistent—I'm looking at you, in cinders chapter two.🖕🖕🖕

Also please excuse how long this got, I have a lot of thoughts on this subject in particular!!

Personally yes, I do get burnt out, and I do find it very necessary to take breaks—from writing overall and from a fic if I'm having difficulties with it. In general, I try to write a little bit every day, but that’s not always possible, and there are times when that’s not the right thing to be doing.

If you were following me late last year, you may vaguely be aware that I disappeared for two months straight between December and February. Like, just let the queue run through and did not answer a single ask, post a single original thought, or even look at my ao3 comments. While I was gone I barely wrote a thing. I think at like 1.5 months into it, I started drafting the outline for subtle, but before that, I didn't do shit except focus on my personal life and hang out with my dog.

At that point I was just tired and I thought I could use a little recharging to get excited about writing again. I read a bunch of books and other people's fics, and reread a bunch of my old fave comfort ship fics. That break from my own work really helped me get inspired again. Since then I've been consciously trying to strike a balance between writing all the time and chilling/consuming the things that keep me inspired to write.

When it comes to taking a break from fics, I do that too. My Hawks fic lay low has been ongoing since December of last year, when I normally finish fics in under a month. I actually really love this fic, but I got a little frustrated with some plot holes and then again with the pressure I was putting on myself to characterize him (like, relax, Andie it's a fuckin fanfic) so that's been on hiatus like multiple times even though we're only three chapters in.

I think it was important, though, for me personally to take a step back from it until I had the energy to address the things that I wanted to, and until I was excited to write it again. I'm actually finally working on chapter 4 (!!!), but it really took a long time to let that bad boy marinate, and I hope the fic will be better for it.

And I did that with statistically significant as well. This was more due to my workload at my job at the time, and I worked on this one over the course of five months when prior to that, I had been finishing fics in 1-2 weeks. But slowing down and writing this fic over like ten times the amount of time it took me to write other fics was a really good learning experience for me. It taught me that it's totally fine to step away from a fic for multiple months, and that you can always come back and finish it later.

I think that's also going to be the case with the new Deku fic, and I'm happy I already know it's completely okay to take my time. I'm sure there will be new wrenches that life throws into my path, and I'll have to get hit by those and figure out how to get back up and learn to duck next time lol.

Anyway, I definitely get where you are coming from, and if I've learned anything in the year and a half I have been writing it’s that it's totally normal to hit slumps, be they long or short, fic-specific or related to writing overall. Burn-out/slumps are actually not a big deal at all if you don't psych yourself out about them.

I feel like every time I'm asked advice on anything I say this (but I mean it!!): listen to yourself. You know best what you need. If you don't feel like you have the brain power for writing right now?? You're definitely right, and you should take some time away to chill, just consume things without producing, or do other stuff in life that makes you feel good.

If you're two months into not writing and you get excited about a project outside of the one you abandoned?? There's probably a reason. Work on that instead, and maybe let your enthusiasm for that project remind you of what you liked about the other one you put down.

And if that enthusiasm doesn't return? Then let the damn thing sit until it does. There are literally writers I follow who stepped away from fics for YEARS, only to come back and post a new chapter like half a decade later. They are always, always better for it.

So literally just listen to what you are telling yourself, and ride out the slump however you need to. Please try your best not to feel guilty for it, or think that it is any reflection on you or your work. They're just a natural part of the process, and honestly you will be the better for having had this experience.

[fromheroestodust]

Be Alright

Summary: Stanley goes through the mind breaking experience of someone he loves dying at the hands of his worst fear.

Warnings: cussing (duh), dead body?, Much sadness

Word count: 1,471

Pairing: Stanley Uris x reader

A/N: this is based off of the song Be Alright by Dean Lewis! This is also my first It fic! (Sorry if it's shit, I didn't edit) also this is the first fic I've posted in a while, I have a lot but I haven't really been motivated to post them. I promise I'll be posting more soon ! (Also I know that this isn't really what the song is about but I wanted to change it a lil)

I look up from the ground

To see your sad and teary eyes

You look away from me

And I see there's something you're trying to hide

And I reach for your hand but it's cold

You pull away again

And I wonder what's on your mind

"Y/n? What's wrong?" I ask, concern quickly spreading to my voice. She never acted like this.

And then you say to me you made a dumb mistake

You start to tremble and your voice begins to break

"I made a dumb mistake, Stanny." Y/n mumbles, her voice cracking with her words. The blood drains from my face as I see her suddenly turn around, her eyes void of life as tears stream from them.

I bolt upright in my bed, my chest heaving for breath and my skin covered in cold sweat. The memories of everything that'd been going on the past few weeks suddenly washes over me, nearly pulling me under the waves as a hybrid of a sob and a cry escapes my throat and I bury my face in my hands.

So I still look back at all the messages you'd sent

And I know it wasn't right, but it was fucking with my head

I stand after ten minutes of sobbing and rubbing my eyes raw and walk towards my desk. I open one drawer that was flooded with notes and letters and remove one, a sad smile grazing my face as I read the messy hand writing.

Dear Stanny,

I'm coming back in a week! I'll be sure to bring you plenty of shells from the beach. I love you, more letters soon!

Lovingly, Y/n

The others keep telling me I shouldn't keep rereading the letters because every time I did I would end up crying again but I couldn't stop myself. It was one of the only things I had left of her.

I gently place the letter back down in the drawer before moving on to the things on top of the desk. A few dead flowers and a jar filled with seashells sits in the corner. I gingerly pick up one of the flowers with dry purple petals before setting it down again.

My mind starts running to the week before the incident no matter how much I beg it not too.

But it's not the fact that you kissed him yesterday

It's the feeling of betrayal, that I just can't seem to shake

"Y/n, truth or dare?" Richie asks, a mischievous shine in his eyes. I look to Y/n who sits next to me, a grin grazing her face.

"Dare."

"I dare you too... Kiss Bill." Richie states.

My face falls as does hers but she crawls across the circle, quickly pecks the corner of Bill's mouth, flicks off Richie, and returns to my side. Though everyone else stares in shock I start seeing red.

"I think I'm going to go home." I say through gritted teeth before standing and walking towards the basement door.

I hear footsteps behind mine up the stairs but ignore them until someone pulls my shoulder and forces me to turn around.

"Stan? What's wrong?" Y/n asks, concern and curiosity displayed in her eyes. A humourless laugh escapes my mouth.

"What's wrong? What's wrong is that you kissed Bill, Y/n." I respond with bitterness I never even imagined I could use towards her.

"It was a dare. There's nothing else than that." She says, clearly confused to my reaction.

Betrayal pangs in my heart as I stare down at her. "Just because it was a dare doesn't mean that it's okay! You kissed someone else in front of me! We're dating not you and Bill!"

"Stan, I'm sorry I didn't think-"

"No, you're not sorry. You don't care because I'm just always supposed to forgive you." I quip, no emotion but anger and betrayal quickly rising in my voice. "I need to take a break from you all."

"Wait, Stanny!" I hear Y/n call out as I walk towards the door. I ignore her calls and walk outside, steam practically pouring out of my ears as I walk down the sidewalk.

I shake my head and push away the memory, sniffing before getting dressed. I pull on a marroon dress shirt and black suit pants. I trudge down the stairs, saying a quick bye to my parents before walking outside.

Another fifteen minutes later I stand outside a gloomy building and reluctantly pull open the door. I walk down the dimly lit hall and into a small room, my feet stopping in their tracks. In the front of the room there she lays. Y/n lays in a casket that seems way too small to be remotely okay to have been made - how could someone so small be gone? She looks so peaceful. Her eyes are gently lidded and her hands rest on her stomach as if she's sleeping. I walk towards her until I'm right in front of her. My hand reaches up to cup her cheek, a tear falling over my cheek when I no longer feel the warmth I'm used to; just cold skin.

I think it was an hour before the other Losers arrived. They all gathered around me and Y/n, giving sorrowful glances to us both. Everyone's cheeks are stained with tears.

And everything I know tells me that I should walk away

But I just want to stay

I know standing here was not helping me. I know standing there was ripping down everything I'd rebuilt after her death and more but I couldn't will myself to walk away, I just wanted to keep seeing her.

And my friend said

"I know you love her, but it's over, mate

It doesn't matter, put the phone away

It's never easy to walk away, let her go

It'll be okay

It's gonna hurt for a bit of time

"Stan, how long have you been up here?" Mike asks gently.

"I don't know. An hour at the least." I answer barely above a whisper with my voice cracking.

"We should maybe go sit down." Eddie says.

I shake my head, not bothering to pull away the hair that fell in my eyes.

"I know you love her but we need to let other people see her." Beverly adds, biting her lip to hold back tears.

"I can't. She needs me." I croak, taking her still hand in mine.

"I-I know it's not e-e-easy but yuh-you need to let go." Bill says, placing a hand on my shoulder.

Reluctantly I let them lead me to the front row of seats. Almost as soon as they all sit down in a small circle of chairs I let out a sob and hold up my head with my hands.

"It'll be okay Stan." Richie whispers, giving me a look of concern. I can hear his own crack in his voice.

"Bill?" I call out, looking up. "D-does it ever get better?"

"I-i-its gonna hurt f-for a while b-b-but yeah. It w-w-will eventually." He answers.

We spend the rest of the day at Y/ns funeral, tears never leaving the scene as we share our happiest memories of her. It hurts. It hurts so much to know we were all so, so close to escaping this whole mess alive but the fucking clown had to kill her in the last week. It hurt so much to have her lying right there but to not hear her laugh and not see her smile and not hear her call me by her nickname Stanny. Everything hurt; literally and figuratively. I think back to every moment I could've made better but didn't and regret it. But, with the others there everything was slightly more bearable. It was slightly easier to breathe - to exist in a world without the girl I loved so much.

The funeral comes to an end and I walk back to the casket after asking for some time alone. I dig into my pocket and pull out a letter, a seashell, and a flower along with one of the many shirts of mine that she loved to wear. I gently set them all down around her before leaning down and placing a feathery kiss to her almost blue lips. A pang of hurt hits my heart when hers don't move in response but I ignore it, give her one last look of longing love, and walk back towards the others. It definitely hurt to know that was the last time I'd see her in person. Every thing that slightly mentioned her did. But, I had no choice but to pull through it. I had to.

It's never easy to walk away, let her go

It'll be okay

It'll be alright

It'll be alright

It'll be alright

It'll be alright

It'll be alright

[mittensmorgul]

Hey! First off, love your blog... normally I just read everyone's meta but I've decided to join the party! Haven't seen much chatting yet about the ghost being a little boy, and trapped in a knife to boot. It seems like a pretty direct metaphor for Dean being trapped in a violent life and never really getting to be a kid, and that got set free a bit by living out a childhood dream with his heroes. For a sec I even thought the kid was a magical projection of Dean! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Hey hi there! *pours cookies and plates up some tea for you*

*rereads*

*sorry for the mess, it’s early and I need more coffee*

I haven’t even looked at my dash since last night yet, so I don’t know if there’ve been multiple posts about this or not, but yes. Dean was weaponized (like the little boy’s ghost being trapped in that knife) from the time he was small. Like so many of the things that Dean is emotionally attached to-- Scooby Doo, his music that he grew up listening to in the car with his family, the things he clung to that WEREN’T hunting, and WEREN’T about just taking care of Sam-- those things were untainted by the horrors of hunting.

During the course of the series, a lot of the flashbacks we saw to his childhood involved those “moments of childhood happiness” being destroyed for him. Christmas (3.09) became a horrible memory of Sam learning about the supernatural and the truth about John. High school romance (4.13, 9.07) ended in pain and heartbreak. Even taking a break and doing something as simple and childlike as playing a video game for a few minutes nearly cost Sam his life and he was blamed for it by John (1.18). Scooby Doo, the fact it was always on wherever they ended up and the fact that the monsters they hunted always turned out to be (borderline incompetent) greedy humans in rubber masks... I mean for young Dean who lived in constant fear of REAL monsters, this was an oasis of escape like no other. He could pretend that it was all fake, that cheerful Fred’s terrible plans always ended up working out but in the most unexpected way, that he could swoop in and be the hero and save Daphne, that Velma was always right that it wasn’t a real ghost, that he could celebrate the win eating an impossible sandwich with Scooby and Shaggy...

But then the episode would end, everyone would live, the bad guys were in jail, and the Scooby gang drove away... and Dean would be the knife again.

This was what I wrote to Dori last night in the chat, but I think it (in a roundabout sort of way) goes to show this:

mittensmorgulI just want to write long meta on Dean's cursing, that goes from refusing to even say "ass" in the vicinity of the scooby gang, to blurting out sonofabitch when their innocence seems to be shattering, to telling Fred "Fucking right you can" that gets bleeped after the gang learns the truthand then Dean bothers to rebuild all their initial beliefs about their own reality that ghosts aren't real, and THEY BUY INTO IT DESPITE ALL OF THIS.

obsessionisaperfumeHe's able to recapture some of his childhood innocence.

mittensmorgulIt's like.. all the humans in the SPN universe who don't remember the weird stuff, like the apocalypse or anything, because they just... convince themselves it's not real and go back to their lives

obsessionisaperfumeYeah.

mittensmorgulthis episode is brilliantAnd self-aware Shaggy... the fact he broke his arm was what broke his suspension of disbelief

mittensmorgulFred's terrible trap that doesn't work, because they never work,

obsessionisaperfumeI want to look at Dean and Daphne, because that wasn't grown-up Dean, it was 14-yo Dean's idea of charming and shit.

mittensmorgulThis whole episode is fantastic

Because Dean DID try so hard to “play along” with the Scoobyverse rules. He was THRILLED to play along, even when Sam was initially tugging him back toward reality, pointing out there were no words in the newspaper, and immediately suggesting they try to find a way back to the real world. And I mean, Sam wasn’t wrong here, and he was pointing out legitimate clues that eventually DID help them figure out the truth of what was happening, but Dean just wanted to play along with the story as he’d known it.

He even recognized the episode they were in, knew the whole plot, knew what he thought SHOULD be happening, and did his best to play along. I mean, that had worked for them the last time they’d been trapped in a tv, right?

But unbeknownst to Sam and Dean, something of THEIR reality had been brought into the Scoobyverse with them. A real supernatural threat, in the form of a child’s ghost haunting a pocket knife.

(or... almost like the parts of Dean’s childhood he tried to leave behind every time he settled in to watch a half hour of Scooby Doo... this reality he’d always dreamed as a kid he could just escape into and leave his reality behind for a while, when he finally got a chance to do just that, he couldn’t escape entirely)

It’s as if no matter how hard he tried to keep the Scooby gang “pure and innocent” by keeping the truth from them, the truth arrived to smack everyone in the face anyway.

It’s fascinating to watch the Scoobys go from dancing at a malt shop with perfect hair, to slowly becoming more and more frazzled and “tainted” by Dean’s reality. It peaks at the Scoobys’ existential crisis moment, where TFW has to step in and literally equip them to handle this new twist in their reality. Dean STILL lets Fred enact his plan even though he knows (by the typical script of a scooby episode) will fail, but TFW have a backup plan to trap the real ghost-- away from the Scoobys.

And that’s where we first see the ghost’s real face. It’s not a huge, terrifying phantom, or even a bad guy in a rubber mask and tattered robe. The ghost is a small, green-eyed boy who’s scared and angry, who doesn’t want to be used as a weapon anymore.

Yeah... sounds an awful lot like Dean.

They promise to help the little boy’s ghost, but their last act in Scoobyland is to “put everything to rights.” The Scoobys are still terrified, frazzled, and broken by what they’ve learned and experienced. TFW, with the help of the little boy’s ghost, convince the Scoobys that they’d been right all along, it was just what they’d initially expected it to be, and there was no such thing as the supernatural.

They even visually represent this with the Scoobys “reassembling” themselves, Fred smoothing out his perfect hair and going right back to his cheerful positivity and Daphne going right back to chasing after Fred. Almost like as soon as they walked away from the Winchesters even the memory of their entire ordeal just ~faded away~.

Dean might be an adult now, who carries this knowledge of reality with him all the time, but he can now use knife as his own, how he chooses to, instead of being manipulated by outside forces for their own ends. He’s not trapped by it anymore the way the little boy is. Dean can use that knowledge to protect others, to keep others “innocent,” and to preserve this one small piece of his own childhood escapism just the way he remembered it.

But back in the real world, Dean can also help that little boy find peace. He might not be able to reunite him with his father, but he can free him from the evil guy who’d used him so horribly, and then with Sam and Cas’s help made sure the guy would be punished-- if not for the abuse of the little boy’s ghost, then at least for some of his more mundane crimes.

But DEAN will always be able to take the memory of their encounter with him. He had the experience of a lifetime, and the Scooby Gang might not ever realize it, but wow.

Sam incinerated the knife, freed the little ghost boy, and then Cas carried the burnt remnant of the boy’s suffering in his pocket. And Dean put on Fred’s ascot and got to act out that bit... 

(and then Cas reminded Dean he’s not a talking dog...)

Oh my god this episode has everything.

[looselucy]

1. um? you super didn't need to post that bb harry pov of the night he called. rude and uncalled for. blocked and reported. that hurt. 2. i keep rereading the last chapter over and over because it's just the most sickeningly sweet and heart-wrenching thing i've ever read. can't wait for harry to give minnie the book, what a fucking relief (i bet it's not that simple though....you are lucy after all...)

LETS HAVE HARRY POV FROM THE NIGHT PIPPA FIRST TOLD HIM SHE LOVED HIM, SHALL WE???????

“Whydon’t you like her?” Ihissed.“I don’tnot like her.”She tried, her voice breaking.“WHY DON’TYOU LIKE HER, PIPPA?” “BECAUSE I’MIN LOVE WITH YOU, OKAY?”My anger disappeared immediately.But the feeling that was twisting around in my gut in that moment, was rippingme apart. It was torturing me and killing me within the first damn second ofhearing her say it. I could feel this physical ache on my heart, clutching andscratching and pulsing the agony around my body with each beat.This was worse than anger.Fuck, this was worse than anything I’dever felt.“What did you just say?” My voice was quiet as I asked to hear her sayit again.

I didn’t really know why I’d asked for a repeat, when all it had done washurt me so deeply. I guess it just didn’tseem real. She couldn’thave possibly just said the words I had been hoping to hear from her a fewshort months ago.Why was she saying them now?“Nothing. Please, just… Please ignore me.”She gulped.“Pippa, are you kidding?”Nothing could break our gaze in that moment. I was looking into her eyes as Iwaited for her to speak, and she was looking right back into mine. There couldhave been a damn war going on outside and I would still be staring at her,fascinated and confused and hurt.“I’m… I’min love with you.”She said again, this time clear, quiet. “And… it hurts me… tosee you with her. It… Itmakes me sad.” “You can’tbe in love with me.”She couldn’tbe. Because if she was, it would have been more obvious.If she was, we would have figured out this mess months ago, when I was cradlingher to sleep every night, when I was kissing her, when I had made love to her.If she was, she would have answered the fucking phone over the summer when Irang her.She wasn’t in love with me.She couldn’tbe.“I’msorry. I didn’twant to tell you, because I didn’twant to put you in this position but… Ican’t help it. I can’tkeep it in anymore. I’msorry.”She was moving closer to me, and suddenly I could feel that anger creepingback.What did she want me to do? Throw my months of progress away by falling for heragain? To close the gap and cheat on my girlfriend? A girl I had let myselffall for because I knew there wasn’t a chance that Pippa loved me.I knew.I was sure of it.I was still fucking sure of it because it couldn’tbe real. It just couldn’t.“No.” Ishuddered. “No,this isn’t right.” Nothing was working out how it should have done.It wasn’t right.It wasn’t simple and it wasn’t predictable and it wasn’t special and it wasn’t how I knew love should be.“Harry-”“No, this is not what’s supposed to happen.” It wasn’t supposed to be like that.I should have asked her to be my girlfriend at the festival. I should have justsaid how I felt, but she’dshot me down before I’deven had the chance, told me she didn’teven want to talk to me.It should have been like that. That was what was supposed to happen.If she loved me, if she really loved me, then it shouldn’t have fucking happened like that.Fuck fuck fuck.This isn’treal.This cannot be real.“Please don’thate me.” She started to cry. “But… I’m with Minnie. I love Minnie. I’m supposedto be with Minnie.” She’d missed her chance. She’d fucked with my head for months, and I’d finally reached the stage where I didn’t crave her. I’dfinally gotten to a place in my life where I was happy with someone else and Ididn’t feel that nauseating love for her that I haddone for so long.And that was when she decided to be honest about the way she felt.“But-”“NO, PIPPA! She’smy girlfriend. I… I have history with her.”“You have history with her?” She was getting angry alongside me.“Yeah!” “Shagging someone once and having a crush is nothistory, Harry! What we have…That’s history.” “What?”“Me and you, we have real history. And… We-we have a real connection. We do. And I knowyou know we do. Please Harry-” Of course I knew that. I was just as aware as she was about our history, aboutthe undeniable connection that we shared. Of course I knew. It was thestrongest things that had ever tranced me in my life, of course I knew.But I’d tried so hard to forget it, to ignore thatnatural bond we shared. I didn’tfeel like I wanted to remind myself of it, to reiterate and fuel that linkagain. I’d spent so long putting those emotions into aplace that couldn’tbe reached.She was too late.“I can’tdo this.” I shook my head. “Iwon’t do this.”I couldn’t doit. I physically couldn’t.Because there was a part of me that really just wanted to kiss her.I really fucking wanted to kiss her.But kissing her invited back those feelings that had been near impossible todiminish. Kissing her would obliterate months of hard work, months of beatingmyself up and telling myself over and over again that she didn’t love me.I’d moved on, and I was happy.Wasn’t I?I stormed into my bedroom and slammed the door, running my fingers through myhair and then ripping at the roots, my chest pulsing at an alarming rate.I could feel something stirring in me, something I hadn’t felt for years.Don’tcry.Don’t cry.Do not fucking cry.I wouldn’t let myself. I wouldn’t let myself be that weak. I had kept my shittogether for as long as I could remember and I wasn’t going to let her break me.I knew she’dattempt to talk to me again. I knew she wasn’tdone, so I moved to the door, ready to end this conversation properly so shewould just leave me alone. I really needed to be left alone.“Please Harry, open the door. I need to talk toyou.” I swung the door open, trying my best to calm down but I was struggling.My head was pounding just as hard as my heart was.“What?” Iseethed. “I didn’twant it to be like this. I’mso sorry. But I just can’t… I don’t… I’mjust so in lov-”What did she want it to be like?If she wanted it to go well, why hadn’tshe said something before? Why hadn’tshe said something when I was single? Why hadn’tshe told me when she’dbeen in my arms, when I’dbeen kissing her and showing my adoration for her.If she didn’twant it to be like this, why had she let it be like this?This was on her head. Not mine.“DON’T!” I stopped her. “Idon’t want to hear you say it again, I can’t.” I couldn’t hear her say it again.It was too painful.It was too much.“Listen-”“NO! Do not say that to me again! I’m finally working things out with a girl I’ve liked for years, and I won’t let you ruin it.” “I’mnot trying to ruin it!”“YES YOU ARE!” Iscreamed. “AndI won’t let you. So you just shut the fuck up, okay? Keepyour fucking mouth shut! You never say that again, and we can justforget this happened.” She was trying to ruin it.She only wanted me now because she couldn’thave me. She’donly said those things because I was out of reach.I’d been well within her reach for months, and she’d never done anything about it.She had decided she wanted me now, like I was some kind of trophy, somethingshe’d earnt.She hadn’t needed to earn me. I had been hers, for solong, and in every single sense.She’stoo late.Don’t kiss her.Do not fucking kiss her.She’s too late.“You want me to just forget this?” She gasped.“Yes.”“You won’tforget this.”She shuddered.Of course I wouldn’t.I’d never forget the pain that shocked me in the secondshe professed her true feelings. I’dnever forget about the love I felt for her. But I’ddone a really good job at burying my own feelings for her, and I was sure Icould at least try and put those words she had stabbed me with in the sameplace.“I’llfucking try.” Ispat.I slammed the door, and that time, I wasn’tgoing to open it again.I wasn’t going to open my door, and I wasn’t going to open up my feelings again.I sat on the edge of my bed, my face in my hands, my legs shaking, and Ipictured Pippa.I pictured the girl I had become infatuated with, drunk out of her mind, sat onher bathroom floor, blood on her knees and wit in her mouth. I remembered howshe felt between my legs, her head lolled on my shoulder, goose-bumps ticklingacross her skin.I had loved her then.I hated her, but fuck, I loved her.I loved how she was so witty and confident, even with vomit around her mouthand the inability to keep her head up.It had been almost a year, since that night.It was too late.She had waited until it was as complicated as it could possibly get to tell mehow she felt, and I was furious. I was so, so angry.That was the only thing I could feel in that moment.Because things would have been so different, things could have been and shouldhave been so different…If she had just answered the damn phone when I rang her.If she’d have just answered the fucking phone.Because I knew I was just as angry with myself as I was with her, and it madeit so much worse, because I’dnever said anything either.Those feelings, the ones that had started to control me, to take over my lifeand change the way I was seeing things. The feelings that had enraptured me andchanged me and made me feel so alive, had been returned.But more than that, they had been wasted.And I was so angry.

[yvesdot]

May 28: In which I make reassurances.

Every time Dracula introduces another overt, obvious bigotry, I always think to myself, oh, fucking hell. So, here it is:

Oh, fucking hell.

I remember I actually read an abridgment of Dracula first, and was shocked that they used the same language for the Rromani people and essentially the same perspective. I suppose to do otherwise would have been dishonest. I do still own this abridgment, and quite enjoyed it, so here's the link. The art is absolutely gorgeous and well worth the look. Also interesting that Dracula is a blondie! I should really reread it now that I've read the full Dracula, to see how race works in the adaptation.

EDIT: I totally misremembered this! The same language is used, but 1) the author is Rromani and 2) they changed the Rromani people to be against Dracula, not with him. Clearly I really do have to reread it!

Anyway, let's cut to something less full of slurs. If you need me to explain how saying Rromani people are "fearless and without religion, save superstition" is racist and antiziganist, again, you are too far gone for paragraphs on the subject to help. I do find that this is another touchpoint for the novel's overall insistence on everything fitting into the "logic" and "science" of white Christian British society of the time–this time demanding a white Christian British society-recognized "religion," no doubt codified and standardized, because anything else is simply "superstition."

Also, these figures essentially serve only as accomplices to Dracula, so, you know, there's that. Jewish/Rromani solidarity? I don't know what to tell you at this point. I am locked in this book like Harker is locked in the castle, except I didn't even commit racism about trains to get locked up there.

To [Mina] I have explained my situation, but without the horrors which I may only surmise. It would shock and frighten her to death were I to expose my heart to her.

Throws my hands in the air. Stoker asks constantly if anybody is going to write a misogynist male protagonist and never waits for an answer. I, again, would love to say that Harker is supposed to be wrong here...? I just don't know that that's what I'm supposed to take away. So I won't judge in either direction.

This episode with the Count really does have such an air of cheesy horror to it. It's fun to watch the Count be "evil," I say, as, of course, I am rooting for him to destroy all of white Christian society and turn everyone into vampires, the ultimate oppressed class. Will he make us all bisexual, while he's at it? Transgender, maybe? I read this book as if the ending might be different this time.

I passed to my room and went to bed, and, strange to say, slept without dreaming. Despair has its own calms.

Again, lovely prose which I wish came in a different package. Despair has its own calms! Post that on Tumblr in swirling cursive.

General commentary:

It also occured to me (mid-nap, if I'm honest) that maybe it's not clear that I think Dracula Daily itself is a cool and worthwhile project. It is! I actually feel a little bad about being such a Dracula hater because there are lots of extremely normal Dracula lovers who have to watch me commentate from a perspective of not even liking the book to begin with. Again, if you know of other liveblogs from normal people who like Dracula, PLEASE send them my way!

It's kind of funny–I did this due to popular demand (not for the commentary so much as people just wanting me to sign up), and I'm really enjoying it from the perspective of a community book club. I just don't like the book. Am I deranged? I've enjoyed doing this with Twilight as well. I wanted to do it with Harry Potter, and might even get the chance to soon. (Will probably not reread All That Shit By Her, though.)

Would be very funny, actually, if someone tried to run a Twilight Whateverly and completely violated all copyright on the text. Not suggesting anyone does it; I'm just saying it would be hilarious.

'Til next time!

Alright fine after FOUR PEOPLE asked me about Dracula Daily I will in fact be participating if only to satisfy the masses. Instead of memes I am going to be talking about what’s going on subtextually and my varied vampire-as-metaphor thoughts. Also, I really do not like Dracula. Alright? Alright. See reblogs for later additions.

May 7: In which Jonathan Harker is racist about books, and the Count declares his intent to fondle England.

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