#they're so scooby gang to me

[cheeseeatinggoblin]

magnus archives crew season 1 vs season 2 where absolutely nothing changed other than jon getting his emotional support axe (that was surprisingly easy to buy in central london)

[camellcat]

reading a post s7 fic and it's got me thinking... like, y'know, maybe the reason wil and xand struggle with their partners is because no one really comes above buffy. they're part of the slayer's arsenal, her best weapons, her biggest supports. and why buffy has such people troubles in general is because she will always always save wil and xand before anybody else. cause it's them three against the world

[libraryofgage]

Addams Family B-Side (3)

Part of: Steve Deserves Good Parents, Actually Debbie and Fester Addams One | Two | Three (you're here!) Rick and Evelyn O'Connell One | Two (on the way!) Harley Quinn One 10th Doctor and Rose One | Two (on the way!) Scooby Gang (there are plans for this one lmao, so plz be patient with me orz)

Did I already post today? Yes. Did I also post two chapters of Modern Steve in 80s Hawkins today? Yes. I am just incredibly productive today, who knows when it's gonna happen again lol

Anyway, finally! The next B-Side! This bitch has been stewing my guys, so I hope you enjoy it lol

There are two memes at the very end of this one, so definitely stick around

As always, if you see any typos, no you didn't 😘

--------

For four weeks, Eddie feels himself losing his mind. He finds gifts in his locker every other day, and he's convinced they're from Steve Harrington. He now has a taxidermied bat, a fancy-looking vial with a skull and crossbones embossed in the glass and filled with mysterious liquid, an actual human skull that Eddie immediately incorporates into his next campaign, and a spider. An actual spider. A live spider that, after a little research, he learns is a fucking Black Widow that seems unnaturally friendly.

Eddie can't stress that part enough. Multiple people have mistaken the spider for an intricate vest patch because it just sits perfectly still over his chest pocket. It only moves to rub its head against Eddie's fingers whenever his hand passes over it, and even then it's careful to avoid hurting him with its pincers.

He names her Nox.

Those aren't the only gifts he's received, but they're the most notable, and Eddie is overwhelmed and flustered by the positive attention he's suddenly receiving.

The other thing driving him crazy is Pubert Addams, a guy Eddie had never paid much attention to before but now considers his mortal enemy. He's convinced Pubert is, at worst, potentially abusive or, at best, delusional and taking advantage of Steve's kindness and inability to brutally turn him down. Or maybe Eddie is the crazy one; he doesn't actually know. Whichever it is, Eddie is ready to take the very nice dagger he now has (gift number 15; yes, Eddie has been counting) and stab him with it.

Because he can't get more than two minutes alone with Steve before Pubert appears out of nowhere. Eddie runs into Steve in the hall while everyone else is in class? Pubert shows up with a hall pass two seconds later and literally waltzes Steve away from him. Eddie finds Steve camped out in the library during study hall? Pubert materializes in the chair next to Steve before Eddie can sit down, leaning far too close as he asks Steve to explain something from their shared Gothic Literature class. Eddie, by some miracle, is behind Steve in the lunch line (and he calls this a miracle because Steve always brings his lunch in a pink box with black skulls, which Eddie considers incredibly brave of him to carry around like it's nothing)? Before Eddie can do more than say hi and get a blinding smile in return, Pubert fucking Addams shows up and drags Steve away while promising to share his lunch.

Eddie is just about to lose the last shred of patience he's struggling to maintain when Steve finds him. Ironically, it's the same bathroom where they first talked, the one with mysterious mold growing in the corner that Eddie is convinced is some new species. It's the only bathroom with a busted smoke detector, and Eddie goes there to get high during his free period.

He's halfway through a joint, smoke curling around him as he sits on the sink counter and tries not to think about what else has been there, when the door swings open, Steve walks in, and Eddie chokes on his inhale.

"Don't die like this," Steve says, stepping closer and patting Eddie's back like they know each other, "It's no fun."

Eddie finally gets himself under control, taking a deep breath and wincing at the way his lungs burn. "No worries," he croaks out, regretting the departure of Steve's hand on his back. "What are you doing here? Please don't tell me you plan to use this bathroom."

"As curious as I am about the bacteria teeming on these toilet seats, no." Steve sounds genuine, like he really does want to swab the toilet seats and see what grows. Instead, he places his bag on the sink and pulls out a familiar vial with a familiar skull and crossbones. "I just came to drink."

"Oh?" Eddie says, leaning forward with a grin. He looks Steve up and down, taking in the pale blue sweater vest and immaculately pressed jeans. "You don't look the drinking type, Stevie."

Steve hums, popping the cork out of the vial and taking a swig from it. "This isn't exactly hard stuff," he says after he swallows, distracted enough that Eddie thinks he misses his eyes lingering on Steve's throat as it bobs.

"Just beer then?"

"What?" Steve asks, looking at Eddie like he's delusional. "No, it's cyanide and vinegar."

He says it with such conviction that Eddie believes him despite knowing cyanide is poison. "Metal," he says, looking away to take another drag of his joint as he struggles to break through his own awkwardness and hold a conversation that will somehow sweep Steve off his feet and make him forget all about Pubert Addams.

Before he can think of something clever and smooth and funny, Steve leans close and raises a hand to his chest. Eddie is about to warn him that Nox is, in fact, real when the spider scuttles onto Steve's fingers and settles in his palm. She does a little up-and-down motion, circles in his hand twice, and rubs her head against his wrist. "You've been taking good care of her," Steve says.

"Uh, yeah. How is she not biting you right now?" Eddie asks, remembering all the times Nox has warningly snapped at others who tried to touch her.

Steve snorts and allows Nox to return to her spot on Eddie's vest. "I raised her," he says, his tone casual like he isn't admitting to showering Eddie with inexplicable gifts for the past four weeks, "of course, she won't bite me."

"So, it has been you," Eddie replies, wanting to hear it from Steve himself.

With a soft hum, Steve takes another sip from his bottle. "Who else would it have been?"

Eddie licks his lips, takes another drag of his joint to brace himself, and hops off the counter. "So, uh, does that mean you li--"

Before the rest of the question can be asked, the bathroom door swings open again, and Eddie feels his eye twitch as Pubert Addams frowns at them. "So, this is where you were," he says, walking over to Steve and putting an arm around his shoulders.

"I told you I was going to the bathroom," Steve says, rolling his eyes as he stuffs the vial back into his bag.

Pubert looks Eddie over, a derisive huff escaping him as he dismisses Eddie and looks at Steve. "On the other side of the school? Really?" he asks, and Eddie would be overthinking what that means if he weren't sure his veins were about to burst.

"We were talking, you know," Eddie says, gaining Pubert's attention again. Steve looks at him, too, his eyes a little brighter.

"I'm sure," Pubert replies, rolling his eyes as he takes Steve's bag. "And now we're leaving." With that, he leads Steve out of the bathroom, the door swinging shut before Steve can do more than smile apologetically and wave.

Anger surges through Eddie, and the shaky drag he takes to finish off his joint does absolutely nothing to soothe it.

He's going to kill Pubert Addams.

--------

Funnily enough, Steve's mother doesn't learn about his crush until he's five weeks into it. When Debbie finally does discover the crush, it's because she walks in on Fester and Steve decorating homemade cookies shaped like anatomically correct hearts. She pauses in the doorway, looking between the two covered in flour and raspberry jam, and asks, "What on earth is going on here?"

Steve looks up, sees this as his chance to finally tell Debbie, and smiles brightly at her. "I'm in love, Mother. He's allergic to raspberry, and Father agreed to help me make him cookies with raspberry filling, so he can feel the same breathlessness I do when I see him," he explains, using his thumb to wipe raspberry jam off his cheek.

Debbie stares at him for a few seconds before looking at Fester. "How long have you known?" she asks.

"Five weeks," Fester admits, looking apologetic. "I wanted to tell you, Pumpkin! But Steve asked me not to so he could tell you himself."

She sighs and walks over to the island, sitting on the edge of a stool and taking one of the cookies for herself. She bites off a pulmonary vein, looking thoughtful as she chews. "I must admit, these are damn good cookies," she finally says, taking one more bite before passing it to Fester to finish. "Tell me about him."

And Steve does. He gushes about Eddie for a solid hour without taking a single breath, spilling everything he's seen Eddie do and how he's reacted to all of Steve's gifts and how he gets so obviously jealous when Pubert butts into their conversations. He tells Debbie about Eddie not screaming when he saw Nox, about him selling drugs, and about his interest in music. Steve laments his hair but eagerly describes the treatment routine he already has in mind.

By the time he's done, the cookies are decorated and his mother's expression has grown a little pained. "Steve, darling, come with me," she says, getting up from the chair and leading him out of the kitchen while Fester starts to clean up.

Steve waits until Debbie has brought him to her spare room to ask, "Did I do something wrong?"

"Well, did you remember my rules about crushes?"

"Yeah. I've talked to him a lot."

Debbie smiles and brings Steve over to the bed, sitting him down and straightening his hair before perching next to him. "Then, you're not in trouble, but you've been going about this all wrong, dear."

"Should I tell Pubert to stop making Eddie jealous?"

"Absolutely not," Debbie says, shaking her head firmly. "In fact, he could try harder. Nothing gets to a man like someone he can't have, especially if he thinks they're in distress."

Steve blinks, frowning slightly as he tries to figure out where, exactly, he's gone wrong. Eddie seems perfectly enamored with him, after all, and Pubert's goading is encouraging his affections, which is the only reason Steve has allowed it to continue. "Did I give him a live spider too soon?" Steve asks, figuring that's the problem here.

"No, that's not...," Debbie trails off, mutters something about Fester being an idiot, and clears her throat. "Steve, your father is the last person you should approach for love advice."

"But...you agreed to marry him, so he must have done something right," Steve says.

Debbie barks a laugh, waving her hand dismissively. "I married your father for his money. I attempted to kill his entire family and only stopped when he promised to give me everything I asked for. I would hardly call him a casanova."

Steve nods along, smiling a little as she speaks. He's heard their great love affair many times, but he doesn't get tired of it. "But you actually love him anyway, right? Father says it's because he showered you with gifts. So, that's what I'm doing."

"I...do love your father," Debbie admits, sighing as though she doesn't know how that happened either. "But it's less because of his gifts and more because...he gave me the devotion I wanted. Anyway, if you learn anything from us, it should be that love comes second."

"What comes first?"

Debbie smiles, the expression positively devious, and Steve can't help returning it. "Obsession," she says, her shoulders rolling back some as pride fills her. "Occupy his every waking thought. Make yourself irresistible. Make him dream of you at night. Overwhelm him with desire until he simply must act on it."

"Oh," Steve says, thinking of how his father acts around Debbie and realizing that obsession never quite went away. But it's worked out well for them, and he knows his mother has experience with luring men into her arms. He nods once and asks, "So, what should I do?"

"I'm so glad you asked," Debbie says, her smile bright and her eyes filled with excitement. "You'll have Eddie falling to his knees before you in no time."

--------

Eddie didn't think it could get worse. He was already attracted to Steve, already distracted by every little movement.

He was wrong. So incredibly wrong.

Because here he is, his mouth dry and his palms sweaty and his cheeks warm because of Steve. He's not even doing anything. Well, that's not true. Steve is curling his tongue around a lollipop before sucking it into his mouth like he'll die without it. But it's more than that. It's the painted-on jeans that hug his legs; it's the pastel pink hoodie (with little bats on the cuffs) that rides up whenever Steve moves to show off a strip of skin just above his waistband; it's the way he finishes the lollipop and pulls out lipgloss, casually telling Pubert it's raspberry flavored as he puts it on.

Eddie swallows around the dryness in his mouth, gripping his locker door so tight that his knuckles turn white as he looks inside it. Sitting innocently on top of everything is a Tupperware container of cookies with raspberry filling (according to the label), and Eddie is ready to eat one just so he can die knowing what Steve's lips taste like.

That's not even the worst of it. The worst is that Steve transfers into Eddie's Music Theory class, smiling innocently while the teacher introduces him and then directs him to sit at the empty desk next to Eddie. When he's close, Eddie realizes Steve smells like cookies and cream ice cream, and he's tempted to ask if Steve smells like his favorite flavor on purpose.

The teacher saves him from the embarrassment of blurting out the question by announcing a project. The teacher then dooms him by telling everyone they're required to work with their desk neighbor. Eddie grips his pen tightly when the teacher tells them to spend the rest of their class time discussing the project.

"So," Steve says, getting Eddie's attention. When he looks over, Steve is leaning forward on his desk, chin propped in his hand as he looks at Eddie. "Want to come over to my place after school? To work on the project, I mean."

Eddie stares at Steve for a few seconds, his tongue stuck in his throat. To his credit, Steve doesn't say anything or call Eddie out for staring at him. He just waits patiently with a little smile curling his lips. Eddie finally clears his throat, his voice coming out a little strained when he says, "Yeah, sure, sounds good. After school. Your place. Project."

Smooth. Real smooth.

When Steve just smiles wider and stretches his arms above his head, pulling his hoodie up, while suggesting they do the project on the evolution of heavy metal music, Eddie realizes he's probably going to die after school.

He can't wait.

-------

Tag List (I think there's still room for a few more people ^_^)

@estrellami-1, @itsall-taken, @mugloversonly, @fandomcartographer, @hippielittlemetalhead, @agree2disagre-kicks, @ledleaf, @just-a-tiny-void, @goodolefashionedloverboi, @ink1177, @maya-custodios-dionach, @littlebluejane, @steddieonbigboy, @ravenpainter, @read-write-thrive, @deadontheinside20, @yeahhhh-suga, @nectandra, @mogami13, @mx-jinxous, @thoughtfulbreadpolice, @anne-bennett-cosplayer, @xoxoladyclara

@zaddipax, @dycte, @breealtair, @geekymagicalpotato, @janea-grill, @juliasthename-adhdismygame, @yikes-a-bee, @wayward-people, @st-fics, @disrespectedgoatman, @bipusssy, @cottagecorebutnaturescaresme, @nightowl14028018, @that-binchh, @your-confused-friend, @irethsune, @goosesister, @strawberryyyenthusiast, @irregular-child, @theverywest

And, finally, a two-for-one meme special because I couldn't decide which was funnier:

[coraniaid]

Speaking of Faith, Hope & Trick: that first conversation between Buffy and Faith must be so different from Faith's point of view.

I mean, the episode itself is very much told from Buffy's perspective. She's only recently reclaimed her identity as "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" and she just started to reconnect with her friends as of the end of last episode. Of course she feels challenged by Faith's arrival; of course she feels like Faith's deliberately trying to upstage her. Of course she feels Faith is trying to intrude on her life. She reacted much the same way when she met Kendra, and that was when she was a lot less keen on being "the Vampire Slayer" and much more comfortable with her place in Sunnydale. As she tells her mother later, she's "just getting her life back […] not looking to go halfsies on it".

But think about it from Faith's side. Even while she's lying about where her Watcher is, she admits that she came all the way from Boston looking to meet "the infamous" Buffy Summers. She presumably set up the earlier encounter with the vampire deliberately to try to lure Buffy out (she's the one to lead him outside and she only starts fighting him seriously once Buffy and the Scooby Gang have arrived looking for her). She must have picked out her never-to-be-seen-again outfit and practiced her slightly too casual introduction of "I've got it. You're, uh, Buffy, right?" (as if she came all the way to California to meet some girl whose name she didn't quite remember) well in advance. She's already calling her 'B' while the vamp's dust is still cooling. You think she hadn't planned that too?

And Faith is trying to so hard to connect with Buffy in this scene. Yes, she tells a lot of "tall tales" (as Scott Hope will later put it) -- she wants to seem impressive! she wants Buffy to view her as an equal! -- but she's also the only person in the group who keeps trying to get Buffy to share things. It's not her fault that the rest of the gang talk over Buffy's attempts to talk about her own past battles or that they undermine her attempts to tell equally impressive stories. It's not even really her fault that she ends up sharing things about being a Slayer that Buffy as obviously been trying to keep secret from her friends (I mean, it's her fault a little, sure, but I don't think it would even occur to Faith to be embarrassed by anything she says).

"Did you really use a rocket launcher one time?" Faith asks, having already heard the story from somewhere and so done her best to convince Buffy that she too has done equally cool things (she hasn't). "What was your toughest kill?" she asks, having fled most of the way across a continent to escape a vampire she couldn't kill herself. "Isn't it crazy how Slaying always makes you hungry and horny?" she asks and "You and I are gonna have fun," she promises. What can that mean but: don't you feel the same way I do? Aren't you just the same as me? Aren't you glad I'm here?

Yes, Faith is jealous of Buffy's friends and her Watcher and her Mom, right from the start, but she didn't arrive in town looking to meet them. She came looking for Buffy; and look at how quick she is to accept Scott's description of her as "Buffy's friend" the next day. But Buffy (very understandably, from her point of view, because of experiences Faith has no knowledge of) just keeps trying to shut her out. The harder Faith tries to impress her -- by trying to win over Buffy's friends, and her Watcher, and her possible boyfriend, and her Mom -- the more aloof the other Slayer seems to get.

No wonder Faith gets annoyed by the rejection. No wonder she starts to get angry. No wonder she's ready to start exchanging threats once they're alone on patrols and the vampires aren't even showing up the way they're supposed to. Like she'll complain later in the season: she came to Sunnydale, she slayed, she did the good little girl routine, and what did she get? Not Buffy, that's for sure.

[beautyinsteadofashes]

let me explain, they're the same person:

mostly shown to care about one sister of a similar age

complicated relationship with said sister

tries to kill said sister (multiple times?)

hates her idiot normie boyfriend/fiance

enemies with a black woman who has every right to hate him

betrayed by black woman who leaves him for dead.

shipped with said black woman in canon and AUs to varying degrees and pretty vocally to the point where actors are asked about it

murderous and somewhere on the sociopathic scale but the writers get attached to the character/actor and tone him down

wildly different interpretations within the fandom.

overstays their natural end on the show

hates on the male leads

mocks the scooby gang but also hangs around the periphery

daddy issues

wants to take over the family legacy but can't really handle the responsibility

attractive actors who are nice in real life and great friends with the cast but just enjoy the chaos of the character for the lols. that charm and fun comes through on screen and so people like the character.

fan favourite. some fans are lowkey obsessed.

underutilized relationship with younger sister.

entitled and arrogant

hold massive grudges

A KNIFE!

should lowkey actually be shipped with their co-villain.

the crossover potential is strong.

look at that s1 Shawn Hunter esque 90s haircut and tell me Rafe wouldn't fit right in in the prison world.

difference is rafe is sulky and kai is chatty

pretty sure kai would piss him off but kai would definitely win in a fight????

unless he lost his powers and then maybe older bulkier rafe could take him???

[see-arcane]

I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. [...] I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such confidence as ours; but I must be resolute, and to-morrow I shall keep dark over to-night's doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened.

Jonathan, no, don't give into the guys' peer pressure noooo

It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am to-day; after Jonathan's full confidence for so many years, to see him manifestly avoid certain matters, and those the most vital of all. This morning I slept late after the fatigues of yesterday, and though Jonathan was late too, he was the earlier. He spoke to me before he went out, never more sweetly or tenderly, but he never mentioned a word of what had happened in the visit to the Count's house. And yet he must have known how terribly anxious I was. Poor dear fellow! I suppose it must have distressed him even more than it did me. They all agreed that it was best that I should not be drawn further into this awful work, and I acquiesced. But to think that he keeps anything from me! And now I am crying like a silly fool, when I know it comes from my husband's great love and from the good, good wishes of those other strong men.

[...] Well, some day Jonathan will tell me all; and lest it should ever be that he should think for a moment that I kept anything from him, I still keep my journal as usual. Then if he has feared of my trust I shall show it to him, with every thought of my heart put down for his dear eyes to read.

Mina, no, you have to communicate now, in the present, you're you, you can un-acquiesce, you can break the curse, just talk to Jonathan now, noooooo

GOD this is masterfully infuriating work, Bramward Stokerbroker. Here we have on paper just how much this new status quo--the 'proper' status quo--grates against both of them. You can almost hear them grinding their teeth with the effort to keep smiling and nodding through this unanimous* decision. They know it is For Mina's Sake that they are doing this. Sure, they both hate every second of it and it breaks a loving rhythm they've shared for years together, BUT THEY KNOW BETTER NOW :)))

(Lucy is screaming in the afterlife. Renfield has his head in his hands.)

But all that aside, a thing I'm hooked on this read-around is the fact that, hey. We are reading this. Spoiler, but the entirety of Dracula is actually compiled together by Mina after the story closes. These are all written documents we're reading that the entire group has laid eyes on already. With everyone (bar Art and Quincey for some reason, thanks Mr. 3 Lines Allowed and Mr. Laconic :/, Jack is just talking and waiting for Mina to transcribe now, augh) on duty in some way to record the progress of things so that they can be read later as reference...I have to wonder now.

How honest are these pages the Harkers are putting down now versus what they wrote before joining Van Helsing's Scooby gang? Neither one is writing in shorthand. It's all plain English.

I had a class once where one of the assignments was to keep a daily journal. One page filled out every single day, about anything. Anyone want to guess how many personal secrets or honest feelings I put in those pages for the guy grading my class to read? If you said anything higher than 0 you're wrong.

The Harkers have an audience to worry about right now. An audience of Prof. Et Cetera, Dr. Asylum Director (whose asylum they're currently living in! the kind of place where Jonathan could've ended up and innumerable women have been imprisoned for being women the Wrong Way! whee!), Incredibly Wealthy and Empowered Lord, and Mr. Likewise Rich 'We Should Do Guns About It' American. Who all seem to like them, fresh-from-the-lower class, industrious and Dracula-confronting sorts that they are. Fast friends, all of them.

(Jonathan is still only Harker to them. Simultaneously the Man Who Survived Castle Dracula and the gofer guy doing the footwork and the paperwork/property hunt while Van Helsing hits the library and the others...well, I'm sure they're doing something. Other than re-reading the first half of Dracula.)

(...Which was compiled and transcribed by Mina. Who faced down Dracula in her jammies. Unarmed. At night. For Lucy. But she can't handle your scary stories about the houses full of dirt boxes, let alone join you on the hunt she was explicitly prepared and eager to help with. Can't risk it, little lady, off to bed now.)

This is where they are now that they've ~joined forces~ with Van Helsing and the Suitor Squad. After all they've done, all they're still relied on to do, the Harkers are with allies who have had their acquaintance for less than three days. And now, to appease those allies and their opinions and to keep everything placid with these nice, outnumbering, socially and monetarily endowed parties, they do what they've always done when faced with the fact of their being perpetually on the low rung of the ladder.

The Harkers accommodate. Including in their own diaries, as these too are now deemed forfeit important to the Cause, should the gang need to comb back through it all for clues.

That's why the Harkers are the only ones writing it down--because they already were. They're the kids in the group project who can be trusted to do the work. So just let them keep doing it. Keep an accurate record now, kids! You do such a good job of it, we'd only be getting in the way, ha ha. Remember that we can and will read everything you put down in the future.

Hence: All of what we read today. And will read in the dates to come.

The Harkers are writing under a (friendly) gun right now. They can purge some feelings, but not all of them. And not completely. And not in any way that certain doctors and upper class people of power they barely know might misconstrue as ungrateful or mad in any sense. The Harkers are good people. The Harkers are helpful. The Harkers are team players even if that means no longer being a team themselves. They chafe a little at this, but it's all so new to them! It's alright. God's will and Van Helsing's be done. They know better now.

With all this in mind, it makes much more sense why Jonathan chooses to use shorthand for a Very Particular Entry we see coming up. An entry that Mina alone could read and decide to enter in the distant future, after the storm had passed.

And why, in light of all that happens, he cannot trust himself to put more than a vignette's worth of lines down as time goes on. Not if he wants to keep himself from laying out some actual honesty for everyone to read. Mina's entries will be weightier things, while she still has the capacity to write--carefully. Always carefully.

[captainsophiestark]

The Richmond Vampire

Damon Salvatore x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for my personal fic writing challenge for 2024, Sophie's Year of Fic! Featuring a new fic being posted every Friday, all year long :)

Fandom: TVD/TO

Summary: Damon's come to retrieve his SO for involvement in some Mystic Falls drama, but unfortunately for him, they're not willing to miss their favorite class at Whitmore, which just so happens to be covering vampires.

Word Count: 1,699

Category: Fluff, Humor

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

"Hey! Babe!"

I stopped short of the door to my lecture hall, letting my classmates go ahead at the sound of my boyfriend's voice from behind me. I turned to find none other than Damon Salvatore heading towards me, weaving through the undergrads with incredible impatience.

"Hey yourself!" I called out to him with a smile. "What are you doing here?"

Damon huffed at the last college student in his way as they wandered past, before turning his attention to me.

"I need your help. We've got... business we need to take care of."

The smile immediately dropped off my face. I'd been dating Damon long enough to know that 'business' was code for some supernatural problem that had somehow managed to follow us out of Mystic Falls. I shook my head.

"No. No way, Day. I have class."

"Oh, come on," he said, rolling his eyes a little before taking a step closer to me, into my space. One of his hands came up to play with the ends of my hair. "Don't tell me I'm gonna have to convince you to cut class with me."

He lowered his voice, teasing and flirting at the same time, but I just put a hand on his chest to stop him moving any further.

"You know I love you, and if it was you in trouble, I'd drop everything to help you in a second. But I'm not missing my favorite class, especially not the lecture I've been waiting for this whole semester, just to involve myself in the latest Scooby Gang drama. Whatever it is, it can wait, like, two hours."

Damon opened his mouth to continue making his case, but I just gave him a smile and a wink, then pulled out of his grasp. I slipped through the door of the classroom before he could stop me and headed for a seat near the front. When I sat down, I wasn't surprised to see Damon following right behind me, settling a moment later in the seat next to mine. I turned to him with a grin.

"Last chance to leave before class starts. I can call you when it's over."

He turned to me with a fake smile I knew well.

"Nope. If you won't leave, I might as well stay here with you. Then we can leave even faster once it's over."

My smile only widened. "Alright. But don't say I didn't warn you."

Damon raised an eyebrow at me, but I was able to avoid answering him as our instructor began class, drawing my attention back to the front. Still, Damon didn't have to wait long to see what I was talking about.

"Alright, everybody, it's time for our much-awaited, headlining lecture for myths and folklore. Today... we're talking about vampires."

Damon didn't even bother to hide a snort, but I just grinned. Despite dating a real vampire, their place in mythology, folklore, and other storytelling had never lost its appeal for me. I loved reading and studying about them in all forms, and I'd taken this class largely for this part of the course. Having a real life vampire sitting next to me for the whole thing could only enhance the experience, as far as I was concerned.

"Everyone's heard a vampire story at least once in their life," the professor continued at the front of the class. "Whether it was Dracula, Anne Rice, or just second-hand knowledge of Twilight, as creatures, they're ingrained in our cultural conscious.

"However, not all vampires are the same. Stakes, crosses, cutting off the heads, garlic. Even whether or not sunlight will kill them, although sparkling is a bit of an outlier. Each myth of the vampire, or a vamprie-adjacent creature, has a slightly different description of exactly what makes a vampire. We even have our own local variety, with the myth of the Richmond Vampire existing for just over a hundred years now."

I leaned over to Damon, getting close enough to whisper in his ear.

"How many of these myths do you think you're responsible for?" I asked.

"All of them," he deadpanned, without even glancing over at me. "Except Edward."

Now it was my turn to snort. Luckily, my professor didn't notice.

"Today begins the unit of our class where we look at the permiation of the folklore not just of vampires, but of all the undead creatures that stalk the night. Is it simply a fascination with death that has led to most cultures telling a tale about some kind of undead creature, or is there something more? Something beyond the legends?"

"What do you think she'd do if you turned in a paper theorizing the vampire myths were mostly created and spread by this group of really old assholes we know?"

"Shh."

"Oh, so you're allowed to make little comments to me but I'm not allowed to make them to you?"

"Yes. That way I can make sure I don't miss anything I want to hear."

I didn't need to look at Damon to know he was rolling his eyes.

My professor continued her lecture, digging in a little on some specific examples of the vampire myth. I took dutiful notes, mostly blocking out the comments from my boyfriend, and eventually he settled for just doodling his own, much more sarcastic notes in the margins of mine. I smiled as he drew a particularly cartoonish fanged vampire. That'd make studying a little more fun in a couple weeks.

Damon managed to sit through the whole hour and a half class with me, all in all with much more patience than I'd been expecting. I should've known he was just waiting for his moment.

After class was dismissed, I quickly packed up, ready to head off with Damon to handle whatever ridiculous drama he'd wanted me to get involved with in the first place. When I stood with my bag, however, I found him heading for my professor at the front of the room. I frowned.

I walked quickly to catch up to Damon, hearing the tail end of his sentence as he shook my professor's hand.

"...incredibly interesting lecture to get to sit in on," Damon said, his voice dripping with charm and a fake smile plastered on his face. "Really, it was outstanding. The vampire myth is just so interesting."

I barely managed to stop myself from laughing out loud. For anyone who didn't know Damon, they'd likely be swayed by his apparently genuine interest, rapt attention, and dazzling smile. I'd seen him flip the switch to manipulative people-person enough that it didn't convince me anymore, although my teacher sure seemed to be falling for it.

"I'm glad you agree. It really is a most fascinating topic. You'd be welcome to sit in on future lectures, if you'd like."

"Thank you! I just might have to take you up on that. You know, I had a friend once who swore she saw a vampire in some small town bar around here."

My professor laughed. "I've heard of small town Bigfoot and Mothman sightings, but small town vampire sightings might be a new one."

"Right? I mean, I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but it's a little unbelievable to think a vamprie could be standing right in front of you, isn't it?"

I stepped up to Damon's side and discreetly elbowed him as my professor laughed. He just grinned at me in response.

"Well, it was almost as much of a pleasure talking to you as it was listening to your lecture," Damon said, holding out his hand again for a fairwell shake. My professor took it, and I caught the glint in Damon's eye as he shot the man a wolfish smile. "Take care. Don't let the vampires get you."

He chuckled again, giving both of us a smile as Damon finally dropped his hand.

"I promise, I won't."

Damon hummed and smirked while I fought through the most forced smile of my life as I hustled Damon out of the room, just barely managing to maintain a casual facade. The minute we cleared the classroom door, I turned to my boyfriend with a scowl.

"You laid that on a little thick," I said. Damon just scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"I don't know what you're talking about. You're the one who insisted on sitting through that class. I just decided to engage with the lecturer and the content a little more."

I snorted. "Yeah, sure. I take it you enjoyed yourself then?"

Damon grinned. "Very much."

"Should I be changing your name in my contacts to 'The Richmond Vampire'?"

Damon smirked. "That wasn't very subtle."

"Neither was a single word you said to my professor."

He huffed a laugh. "True. Then sure, if you really want to. Just don't ask me to help you test which vampire myths are true and which aren't. You already know real vampires burn in the sun."

"I promise not to use you as a vampire lab rat as long as you promise not to take a bite out of my folklore professor."

"Hmm..."

"Damon."

"Fine. I promise not to bite your folklore professor. At least not this semester."

I rolled my eyes, but decided to let that one pass without comment, at least for now. Damon gave me his real smile as he took my hand, and I sighed as I leaned into him, the two of us heading for the doors to the building together.

"So am I going to be hearing about your vampire mythology theories for the next few weeks?" he mused as we walked. I hummed.

"Probably, yeah. It's part of being there for each other, right? I get involved in your little brother's teen drama, you listen to me talk about vampires like they're not real, and like the Mikaelsons had nothing to do with the global spread of the myth."

"Sounds like a match made in heaven."

"I'll say."

Damon and I shared a smile, and as we reached the doors, he paused long enough to pull me to him for a long kiss. I smiled into it as one of his hands tangled in my hair. Damon could be absolutely ridiculous sometimes, but so could I. At the end of the day, we made a pretty damn good couple as a result of it.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989 @space-helen

TVD/TO Taglist: @elenavampire21

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Now that there's an animated adaptation of Midnight Sun coming, and given the industry's recent track record (see: Minecraft Movie), what's the worst, bad faith, cash grab adaptation idea you can imagine? I figure if we inoculate ourselves then the reality won't suck so much.

My nightmare: Streaming has a long history of making shitty attempts at "adult animation", so we'll get an Edward who constantly cusses and does lewd jokes. It'll be like the HBO adult animated Velma (Scooby Doo) show where the writers' disdain for the characters fills every scene. The first episode will focus on how Carlisle helps plan a murder of some overly suspicious deputy so they can keep living in Forks.

Anyways, worst case theories? So we can feel better when it's not THAT bad? Or else use the apollo prophecy meme on your post a year or two from now.

My 'realistic' prediction

Twilight: The Edgy Animated Adult Series with Twelve Times More Drugs and Swearing

Oh man, yours is worse than mine. I mean this guessing the future business is a little silly in general, but I think that wouldn't happen as Twilight's not...

How do I put this?

Scooby Doo is a beloved, vintage, IP that's so well-known it's a part of American culture/Americana. It's in that weird place where it's acceptable to do edgy reboots of it because everyone already knows the premise of the Scooby gang, each individual character, the bad guys, and their mysteries.

You don't have to explain who any of the characters are supposed to be, so you get a "ah ha ha ha isn't it funny that Velma swears now?" because you know she's from a 1960's cartoon.

Twilight's not quite old enough for that and, at least in my opinion, not pervasive enough for that. It was a huge sensation, but was never as big as HP, and dominated only a subset of the YA audience (female-targeted YA romance). Ask a person off the street and the most they can probably, maybe, tell you is "sparkly vampires and Team Edward and Team Jacob". So, at best you get riffs like we saw when Twilight came out with the Simpsons and various other parodies where the parodies... really didn't know what to do with the characters or what it was even about. "Milhouse turns into a poodle, I guess? Is that funny? It's funny, right?"

Twilight just isn't old enough and as big as it was, I don't think was widespread enough.

So, I think we're going to get an earnest reboot.

But you do now have me concerned. And I may be eating my words later on this post and reblogging with a clown face.

Other Theories

Alright, let's see what we've got/what we can come up with:

Yours: HBO adult comedy horror fest

Mine: Boring, Snoozeville, Tame, Generically Arted Palatable Twilight that is Designed to Be as Appealing as Possible

Other options I can think of are...

Interview with a Vampirepalooza/Oh God I Don't Know What's Popular: given the recent success of Interview with a Vampire, an edgier adult story with adult characters, Netflix will look to make Twilight their exact own version of that. Except they won't understand what made it work there. We sexy it up but in a CW way, the kids are all still in high school but the fact that the Cullens are fucking each other is brought up relentlessly in an edgy way. The vampires all look hot, hot, hot but in a normal human way where you're not terrified they're some crystal robot out to eat your limbs. We'll keep some of the artsy weird dialogue, but Edward will be both somehow made more sympathetic (as he is the lead we end up with) and 'dark' where he's dangerous in a sexy way and not in a "you smell like my personal heroin way".

The Buffy Route: remember that one teen show from the 90's that was so good it spun off an entire genre of television that essentially hadn't existed before? Twilight becomes a fun teen oriented show where the characters say witty, fun, teenage-like things and get into episodic mysteries while somehow trying to remain in the realm of Twilight. Edward loses his edge, Bella loses her unrelatable nature, and we really play up every time a character has a funny line and write a lot more in there. Unfortunately, it's not a well written teen comedy show and so the lines are just generally bad and the plot never seems to go anywhere and it's just boring.

Hannibal the Twilight: some really artsy director gets involved and we now have a show where the symbolism of Edward walking around as a man-deer takes over the entire fucking thing. Nothing ever happens, Edward just shows up in Bella's dreams as a snarling man deer. When characters talk to each other, it's in artsy nonsense dialogue where it feels like both are reading 2000's era chatbot scripts to one another as they mix metaphors about ponies, china pottery, and dust motes. The plot is so non-existant the only important episodes to watch in a season are the premier and finale, except even then it's unclear what happened.

Audience Input

Anyone else got any wild guesses here?

[disgruntleddemon]

since i did the mystery gang for pride month last year, Scooby and Scrappy get a turn. i am such a trans scooby and scrappy truther. real and cannon to me

love drawing these guys! they're so cute <33. one of these day's we'll get a proper scrappy revival 😔✊

[tubapun]

Hello All!! As you might have seen, I have spent this last week compiling all the monsters listed in the Scooby-Doo Encyclopedia (which covers every series from Where Are You through 13 Ghosts) into a spreadsheet, categorizing them by type, realness, and series. This is an ongoing project, but I wanted to be able to share what I have so far in terms of data!! Let's begin with a breakdown of Monster Types!!

This first pie chart details the breakdown by pure monster type, meaning monsters that are only one sort of monster. This may seem arbitrary, but as you can see, a whopping 25.98% of all monsters across the series included are some sort of combination monster. That's the largest category overall, but the largest specific category is Ghosts, with 19.61% of the 204 listed monsters being just a pure ghost. Some are sheets and some are just glowing translucent dudes, but either way they're haunting the gang intensely.

The only sort of monster that never appears outside of a combination is the Pirate. I almost excluded that category for this reason, but enough pirates existed in combination (always with ghostliness) that i didn't feel right dropping them.

This chart is much like the first one, but counts the combination monsters in with each type they contain. Because of this overlap, the percentages technically add up to 138.92%. but that's fine, cause they're still taken out of the 204 monsters. Now we can see that 37.44% of these monsters are some sort of Ghost, with Magic Users and non-anthro Animals being the next largest categories. For those counting, that's 76 instances of a Ghost type monster, most of which are combined with some other monster type!! Speaking of which...

These two charts detail the combinations, with the first one being about the sort of combos we get and how often they occur, and the second being about the instances of each type in the totality of the "multiple" category (total of 53 monsters for those of you who want the numbers from the percentages).

Notably, 69% of combination monsters are Ghosts. Nice.

Some monster types never get combined, however, with Skeletons, Robots, Cavemen, Greek Myths, Mummies, European Legends, Dragons, and Evil Humans always occurring as just themselves with no extra modifiers. But now you get to imagine a Dragon Skeleton Mummy, or any such combination and boom. Scooby-Doo Monster OC. You're welcome.

This concludes the data I currently have analyzed/available. I hope to have more soon, either a dive into which sort of monster is most often real or a dive into type percentages per Series (most of the real ones seems to be the ones from the Scrappy series, so I bet that will overlap the two categories). If you have any requests on data or even just want to see the actual main sheet these charts are pulling data from, please let me know, this has become a passion project in a very real sense.

Edit on 9/8: Here is the Breakdown of Monster Definitions with bonus stats on common Motives and Realness

Edit on 9/7: Fixed the first two charts to reflect an update in the data. I had initially placed Greek onster in the general European section, which caused their percentages to be flipped.

Another Edit on 9/7: Somehow missed that a character named "Ghost of" was in fact a ghost/magic user and not just a ghost. this has been fixed and the charts updated (thankfully the % of combos that are ghosts is still 69. nice)

Edit 9/8: I missed a monster somehow. This has been fixed in the charts and percents and numbers listed.

[ruz-of-fate]

(ok first ever post but i wanna help flood the scar tags sooooo here we go!)

I've been on a Grian Phasmo binge recently and i absolutely adore the GIGGS dynamics, they are actually so so so much fun! (If you havent watched any of their phasmo vids i highly recommend even the older ones cause there is a certain hilarity in cluelessness)

watching the videos i have come to the conclusion that GIGGS is just the Scooby Gang/Mystery Inc., BUT I think their roles change as each of them gets more experienced and they figure out the phasmo specific dynamic so here is my opinion of their equivalent characters (i know its probs been done before)

Impulse: 100% Fred, hes the planner, level-headed, knows what hes doing leader, hes also the one with all the gear

Gem: now im not super familiar with her but she gives off Daphne to me, cause shes a quick learner, very competent on her own but still a big team player and often brings levity to the situations (I could also see her as Velma)

Scar: He is Shaggy to me, hes always a target of the ghosts, he provides comedic relief and brightens the mood, but hes also ready to provide a different perspective when needed

Skizz: for me at the beginning he was Velma because he was the second most experienced, but now that they all know what they're doing he feels way more like Scooby, keeping the gang together, hunting for clues, and pointing out the small things in light-hearted ways

Grian: hes the reverse of Skizz where he started as Scooby, running from the ghosts and joking in every situation, but now he is very much Velma where he is there to catch the ghost and get out, very little funny business (w/ Velma!Gem he also works as Daphne)

But yeah so thats my assignments, might do some fanart for it at some point but won't make any promises!

[strangercarla]

Christmas With The Scooby Gang

Genre: Fluff 🩷

Warnings: Non!

Fem! Reader & NB! Reader for everyone as Velma is a lesbian canonly! I'll write platonic versions soon!

Shaggy

Christmas with Shaggy is unlike any Christmas Y/N has ever had. Instead of a classic Christmas dinner, the pair opted for a platter of burgers, hot dogs & sandwiches. Do the sandwiches still count as Christmas dinner if filled with stuffing & turkey?

The tree is 6 foot tall, with classic coloured ornaments hanging on each branch. But instead of an angel or a star on top of the tree, it's a photograph of Y/N, Scooby & Shaggy from their first Christmas together.

Y/N looks up to the tree, smiling. Shaggy walks up behind them/her, embracing them/her into a hug. He kisses Y/N on the back of their head.

"Our second Christmas together. I can't wait to spend more with you."

Velma

Christmas with Velma is such a treat for Y/N. It's their/her first Christmas out as sapphic to their/her family & they/she could finally introduce Velma as their/her girlfriend.

The two braced the snow & prepared for a long drive through the town. But with Christmas songs & pitstops to coffee shops, they'll be fine.

"I'm so nervous." Velma plays with the end of her orange dress. Y/N turns to her & grins. "They're going to love you." They/she says placing a hand on her knee.

Y/N exited the car, opening the door for Velma on the opposite side. They approached Y/N's house, hand in hand.

And the family welcomed Velma in with open arms & with one heck of a dinner.

Fred

Christmas in Coolsville wasn't cutting it this year, especially after the ghouls, monsters & villains ruining the place. The gang are tired & vacated to their families.

Fred however wanted to do something special for Y/N. So, he packed his bags, his partners/girlfriends bags & headed to the airport.

"Fred, why are we at the airport, where could we be possibly going three days before Christmas?" Fred just grins. "It's a surprise."

Once they arrived to their destination, Y/N was greeted with a blanket of snow. It was magical.

They left the airport, taking a car to the final place. It was a cabin covered in Christmas lights, snow & Christmas trees surrounding the area.

"Merry Christmas Y/N."

Daphne

Y/N & Daphne love Christmas & everything about it. After decorating the house in purple & pink decorations, they decided to go into town for a festive drink & a walk along the streets to look at the Christmas lights.

With a hot chocolate in one hand & arms interlinked, the two enjoy the moment between them.

"Daphne, do you think we can do this every year?" Daphne smiles shyly. "This, what we're doing right now?" "Yes."

As Daphne is about to speak, she looks up at the sky. "Y/N, it's snowing!" "Oh my gosh it it!" Daphne turns to her partner/girlfriend. "Merry Christmas Y/N." Then she places a gentle kiss on her lips.

Author Note: I hope you guys enjoy! Also please tell me if this is okay in terms of pronouns. Shall I change them so it's a mix or shall I keep this the same? (I'm a biromantic bio woman so I mean no harm & don't want to misrepresent non binary sapphics!)

[vibinginthedreamlands]

People who should hold hands (In a gay way? Maybe)

Perimedes and Elpenor (I am a crackshipper in this instance)

Dirk and Todd (I am a shipper of men who are on crack)

Crystal and Niko (I genuinely thought they were going to be the badassest of couples when Crystal saw Niko surrounded in pastels and butterflies. Friendos though, also deserve to hold hands)

John and Arthur (Harlan Guthrie was right in Benevolent, if they held hands I *would* die)

The entire Mystery Gang (I haven't watched Scooby Doo in years. I did watch it near religiously in my youth though and still love it dearly. I think the gang would be at their best when in chain mode. Five stoner teens and their dog moving through crowds as a line.

A set of OCs from a dnd game I played (I won't get into detail. They're a mess. I love them. They're stupid. I don't need anyone else to know the context. Just that if they just held hands things would be better good God).

Jonathan Sims and Tim Stoker (But in a like. Handcuffed to each other Superhero episode kind of way. Maybe it could have fixed them. Maybe they would have blinded each other early on and roundabout fixed things. I don't know. They make me sick).

The Office Love Trapezoid in TMP (Just all the OIAR employees. Bond now everyone, it might just save you. They're doing pretty good? Teaming up, backing each other up, supporting one another and recognizing the danger of their work. I have hope. Which means they absolutely *need* to hold hands because if they seem like they'll be fine that means they're fucked and the only thing that can save them now is some good old fashioned MLP style friendship death rays).

Leif and Bert Bert (I just listened to the new Midnight Burger episode *and* finished Young Leif and like. Guys. They loved each other. They love each other. They're so. Important).

Casper and the Mucklewaynes (or however you spell their last name? I just think it would be good for them. He's a stressed dad and their his oldest friends and they have never actually met face to face so like, the opportunity to hold hands would be peak).

[libraryofgage]

A Hop, a Skip, and a TARDIS Jump

Part of: Steve Deserves Good Parents, Actually Debbie and Fester Addams One | Two Rick and Evelyn O'Connell One | Two (on the way!) Harley Quinn One 10th Doctor and Rose One (you're here!) Scooby Gang (there are plans for this one lmao, so plz be patient with me orz)

I know it says 10Rose up there, but this series starts with 9Rose, because 9 is also special blorbo in my heart hfjdks Christopher Eccleston didn't have to put his whole chest into the role but he did and I love that for him

Anyway, have fun with this one! We're getting time travel shenanigans coming up (and angst, def some angst, but it'll end sweet I promise), and a little meme at the end

As always, if you see any typos, no you didn't :)

Satellite Five 200,000

Running into the woman was an accident created by the chaos of something changing on Satellite Five. Steve doesn't know what that is, exactly, but he can feel it in the air, in the way the humans around him have started rushing, in how the food stands have suddenly ground to a halt. And he comes to a halt with them, his hearts speeding up in his chest as the frenzy reminds him of another time, another planet, another chaotic scene that ended with him being launched across time and space while his home died.

When he finally gathers his wits enough to move, he turns right into a woman's leg, bumping his nose hard against her and falling to the ground with a startled cry. He holds his nose, the bridge smarting and causing his eyes to water as he looks up at a pretty young blonde woman who immediately crouches in front of him.

"Sorry about that. You all right?" she asks, her hands hovering in the air like she wants to check him for injuries but doesn't want to make him uncomfortable.

The funny thing is, Steve has seen this woman before. He saw her earlier in the day, getting into the elevator with a journalist and a man, and he assumed he'd never see her again. Nobody who got in the elevator came back. He's so overwhelmed by the shock of seeing her again that he almost misses the familiar aura around her, the lingering traces of golden space dust and passing time.

Almost.

He stares at her with wide eyes, his tears actually falling now, and then throws himself into her arms. "What took so long?!" he cries, clinging to her shirt like he'll be thrown across time and space one more time if he lets go.

"Woah, hey now, no need for crying," she says, utterly confused but gently smoothing down his hair anyway. "What's wrong?"

After taking a few moments to calm down, Steve starts to answer when he realizes something. The woman only has one heart. He can only hear one set of beats in her chest. He jerks away, his hands trembling as he stares at her. She's still covered in that familiar aura, practically swimming in it, but she's not like him.

It hurts. Steve can feel the bitter cold of disappointment replacing the hope that had started to grow between his hearts. He thought...he thought he'd get to be with someone like him again. Maybe not his original family---they're dead, long gone, and Steve is never getting them back---but a new one that wouldn't let him feel quite so alone anymore.

Maybe she was just injured. That would explain it well enough.

"Where....where's your second heart?" he asks, his voice small as he grips the hem of his shirt to steady himself. "Y-you...why do you--"

Before Steve can get the rest of the question, a man in a leather jacket, looking slightly annoyed as he checks his pockets, appears next to the woman. "Right then. C'mon, Rose, we got dead weight to drop off," he says, his tone hard.

The woman, Rose, looks up at him. "Hold on a minute, Doctor," she says, "we've got to help him find his parents first."

Steve opens his mouth, wanting to say that won't be possible, as he looks up at the man. Their eyes meet, and the words get stuck in his throat. If Rose carried lingering space dust and passing time, this man is made of it. Steve can see the gold around him, swirling and calling, singing in a way he'd forgotten about. Even the name is familiar---not that Steve knows this particular Time Lord, of course, but he knows the conventions and traditions.

"I'm afraid that'll be impossible, Rose," the Doctor says, his voice softer and full of disbelief as he crouches next to her on the ground.

"What? How do you know?"

The Doctor doesn't answer her. He just holds a hand out to Steve, waiting patiently. When Steve takes it, the world finally rights itself. He can feel the blood pumping through the Doctor's veins, fast and powerful in a way only two hearts can manage. He can practically taste time and space coating his tongue as he steps closer. When Steve places his hand on the left side of the man's chest, feeling the beating of one heart before sliding his hand over to feel the other, he cries even harder than before.

And the Doctor cries, too.

It's not a loud crying, but he pulls Steve into his arms and holds him with the same desperation and fear that he'll disappear if he loosens his grip that Steve felt when he hugged Rose. "I thought...I thought I was the only one left," the Doctor says, moving his hand to cradle the back of Steve's head.

"Doctor, what's going on here?" Rose asks.

Steve peeks out at her, and then he's lifted into the air, still held in the Doctor's arms. His jacket smells like the past and future, a soothing scent that gets Steve to relax like he hasn't in a long time. "Long story short," the Doctor says, his voice still rough from crying but recovering, "you somehow bumped into the only Time Lord child in existence." A few moments pass before he speaks again, the smile and awe clear in his voice as he says, "You're just fantastic, Rose. Fantastic."

Despite his best efforts, Steve can't keep his eyes open long enough to see how she reacts or what the Doctor does next. The exhaustion of fending for himself and pushing away the despair of losing everything sweeps over him. This could all be a dream, and the Doctor might be a figment of his imagination that disappears when he wakes up, but Steve lets himself dream for now.

--------

Hawkins, Indiana, 1971

"Okay, Steve, go ahead."

Steve glances up at his father, shifts his gaze to his mother, and then approaches the console. He reaches up and starts turning a dial, ignoring his mother's excited noise and his father's interested hum. Once he's turned it enough, he walks around the console and pulls a lever, flips a switch, and yanks another dial two notches to the right. Then, when he's sure his parents can't hear him, he leans in close and whispers, "Take me wherever you'd like me to be, TARDIS."

He feels something warm and happy surge under his fingers where he's holding the console. Not a second later, the familiar whooshing sound of the TARDIS fills the room, and Steve hang on for dear life as his father shouts, "Fantastic! Where do you think we'll land, Rose?"

"Somewhere child-friendly, hopefully," his mother replies, grabbing his father's arm and holding on for dear life.

Steve grins, his hearts beating fast and hard behind his ribs as the TARDIS slowly comes to a stop, its engine quieting to a gentle whirring as it parks. "Go on then," his father says, appearing behind Steve and nudging him to the doors. "See where you've brought us."

With his breath stuck in his throat, Steve slowly pulls the left door open. Sunlight streams into the TARDIS along with the delighted shrieks of other children and a warm wind that can only mean summer. Steve blinks, staring at the playground a few feet away.

"Oh," his father says, his tone duller than before, "seems boring."

This statement is followed by both the TARDIS making an offended noise and Steve's mother smacking his father in the chest. "Don't be rude! Boring is safe, which is good for Steve's first drive."

"Can...can I go play?" Steve asks, his voice soft as he feels a sudden longing sweeping through him. He hasn't played with people his age after leaving Gallifrey. In fact, he hasn't been around them. On Satellite Five, Steve didn't see other children. They were cared for on a different floor, and he never risked getting into the elevator.

Since leaving Satellite Five (since finding another Time Lord and basking in the TARDIS and crying together when Steve accidentally called the Doctor "Dad" and Rose "Mom"), Steve has been surrounded by Daleks and nanogenes and older humans and every alien under the sun, but he's never been around children.

The thought is exhilarating and terrifying and alluring all at once.

"Of course, Steve," his mother says, placing her hand on his head and brushing a few stray hairs from his face. "You go play, and we'll call you back in a few hours for some ice cream, yeah?"

Steve grins and nods eagerly, throwing a quick goodbye to his parents before running out of the TARDIS. He dashes across the street, coming to the edge of the playground before stopping. The grass turns into tiny rocks and pebbles beneath slides and swings and monkey bars and a merry-go-round. And kids. More kids than Steve really knows what to do with, which gives him an unfamiliar feeling of anxiety that makes him wipe his palms on his shirt.

"Hey, why are you just standing there?"

The question is asked by another boy Steve's age. His hair is a little frizzy and curls around his ears, and he's got band-aids covering his arms and stretching across the bridge of his nose. He's standing to Steve's left, holding a red rubber ball and ignoring the other kids around them.

"I've...never been here before," Steve says, meaning that he's never been in this situation.

The boy doesn't understand that, though. But when he says, "Oh, so you're new around here," Steve doesn't disagree. "Well, nice to meetcha. I'm Eddie."

He shifts to hold the ball against his chest with one arm and holds out his other hand. Taking it and shaking once, Steve introduces himself and asks, "Can we be friends?"

Eddie's eyes brighten, and he nods. "Yeah! Let's be bestest friends. Can I call you Stevie? Mom says you can give nicknames to friends."

"Sure! So, uh, what do we do now?"

Eddie pauses, looking at the playground with a slight frown. "We could play games," he says slowly.

"Oh! How about Weeping Angel?"

"What's that?"

Steve thinks for a moment. "Weeping Angels are these statues that move when you don't look at them. In the game, someone will face away, and the other person will start sneaking up on them. If the first person turns, the second has to freeze in place. If the first person sees them move, they lose. If the second person reaches the first and touches them, they win."

"It sounds like Rad Light, Green Light," Eddie says, tilting his head slightly. "But, sure! Let's play it."

Steve smiles brightly and follows Eddie to a clear patch of playground. "I'll be the Angel in this round," he offers, waiting for Eddie to agree before walking a few feet away. "Let me know when you're ready!"

Eddie turns around, still holding the rubber ball, and glances over his shoulder. He stares at Steve for a few seconds before looking away and saying, "Ready!"

As lightly as he can, Steve takes a few steps forward, doing his best to make no sounds like the Weeping Angels he's seen before. When he notices Eddie moving, he freezes, quickly placing his hands over his eyes but leaving enough room to peek between his fingers.

When Eddie turns, he's frozen in a classic Weeping Angel pose. Eddie studies him for a few seconds, eyes narrowed before slowly turning around again. Steve exhales softly, and the game continues.

Steve wins exactly three times, Eddie wins twice, and there's one round in which they both dissolve into laughter because of the position Steve freezes in, so they don't count it. When Eddie gets bored of playing, he introduces Steve to foursquare, which is why he has the rubber ball. When he gets bored of that he drags Steve around the playground, introducing him to each piece of equipment with pride.

By the time the sun has started to dip low on the horizon, Steve is sweaty and dirty and happier than he's ever felt as he hides under the slide with Eddie. They're pressed close together, sharing a popsicle Eddie's mother had given them, purple juice making their hands sticky.

"You're really cool, Stevie," Eddie suddenly says, his lips and tongue purple as he offers the last bit of popsicle to Steve.

After taking it and letting the cold ice melt on his tongue, Steve asks, "Hey, do bestest friends keep secrets that only they know?"

"Of course! Nothing is stronger than a bestest friend secret."

"But you gotta promise not to tell anyone. Not even your mom."

Eddie seems to realize this is serious now, and he straightens up a bit. "I won't," he promises, "cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye."

That seems a bit extreme to Steve, but what does he know of human customs? He leans in close, his mouth almost pressing against Eddie's ear, and whispers, "I'm an alien."

He pulls away in time to see Eddie's disbelieving look. "What? You look human. No way you're an alien."

"I am!" Steve says. "How many hearts have you got?"

"One. Duh."

"I've got two."

Eddie snorts. "Yeah. Right. Nobody has two hearts."

"Here, you can feel them," Steve says before grabbing Eddie's hand and placing it over the left side of his chest. He waits a few seconds, making sure Eddie can feel that heart, before sliding his hand to the right side. He watches Eddie's face turn bright red, and Steve figures it's from excitement or shock at realizing Steve is, in fact, an alien.

Before Eddie can say anything, Steve hears his mother calling, "Steve! It's time to go!"

He pouts, letting go of Eddie's hand. "Aw, man," he mumbles, crawling out from beneath the slide. Eddie scrambles after him, his cheeks still flushed and his eyes wide. "I gotta go now, but I'll see you again soon, Eddie."

"Yeah, soon," Eddie mumbles, seeming dazed until he shakes his head. "Your, um, secret is safe with me, Stevie."

Steve blinks and flashes a blinding smile. "Of course it is," he says, "You're my bestest friend."

With that, he hugs Eddie and then runs to his mother, brimming with excitement at getting to tell her all about the park and Eddie.

------

If you'd like to be tagged for this series, let me know!

And, finally, a meme for your viewing pleasure:

[theromanticscrooge]

Rob, Gumball, and the Villain Rivalries That Belong on a Sitcom Set and in Couples' Therapy

So, the episode "Glory Hog" of the 2009 cartoon League of Super Evil follows the attempts of a lame supervillain team to net a big-time hero rival. They manage to draw the attention of Captain Glory, an even more extreme boy-scout parody take on Superman. L.O.S.E. are known for playing Ding, Dong, Ditch and jaywalking. They're a better fit as the opposite of an aspiring Scooby Doo gang vs a guy with super strength, flight, and laser vision. Captain Glory's usual nemesis is Skullosus, a skull in a jar atop a mech suit. He has a full flank of minions, a space ship, and a planet-decimating death ray.

Skullosus almost destroys Earth in Captain Glory's absence, but gives up when his beloved hero rival fails to make his timely appearance. When the two finally reunite, Captain Glory and Skullosus' rivalry carries the subtext of a romantic couple making up after one of them was caught exploring their options or emotionally cheating. They're a Rupert Holmes Pina Colada situation where Skullosus reminds Captain Glory about the mutual excitement they glean from fighting each other. Skullosus is an even match for Glory Guy's powers, might, and tenacity; just like the jaded man's wife in the aforementioned Pina Colada song hates yoga and loves getting caught in the rain as much as he does.

Another fun and more well-known take on this goofy hero-villain dynamic are Batman and the Joker in the 2017 Lego Batman movie. The Joker considers Batman a centerpiece of every villainous scheme and exploit. How the Bat will react or interact with various parts and pieces of his plan, as well as the Joker himself, are elements he actively anticipates and consciously thinks about. It's a highly personal and devastating blow when Batman asserts the Joker's rivalry is one-sided.

As Batman learns to appreciate and better understand the importance of having other people in his life, one of his penultimate "I'm learning" moments is when he finally delivers a heartfelt, genuine "I hate you" to his rival. That's all the Joker wanted. It's his equivalent to a rough, stoic sitcom husband telling his taken-for-granted housewife "I love you." That first confession opens the floodgates. From now on, the Joker can have the meaningful banter and earnest effort he deserves from his heroic rival.

More serious hero vs villain conflicts in comic books present the hero and villain respectively as opposite sides of opposing themes. In the specific case of Batman and the Joker, they can be generalized as order vs chaos. They're both the most extreme ends of a very black and white sense of morality. Both are deeply traumatized men with enough presence and power that whatever actions they take can shape Gotham for the worse or the better. Most stories focusing on the Batman vs Joker dynamic are interested in exploring the consequences of two clashing extremes in regards to social issues or exploring the psychological impact of this all-consuming obsession with each other on Batman or Joker respectively.

A huge part of what makes Lego Batman work as a satirical lens is that Batman becomes a self-obsessed narcissist and the Joker becomes an "I'm evil for the fun of being evil" villain that exists more in the realm of Saturday morning cartoons than otherwise. The Batman caricature is a subversion of the generally gloomy, dark, and severe character most modern takes are. This combines the camp of the 60's Adam West series or even the 90's live action bat credit card antics with the fixation and obsession superhero pop culture has with Batman at large. When Batman is such a self-interested figure, it makes sense to paint this variant of the Joker as more sensitive than he would be otherwise. Gotham is at the mercy of a "notice me, senpai" Joker instead of someone that wants to watch the world burn.

In a nutshell, the rivals with romantic subtext framing works beautifully in a more satirical work. If these characters can pull from a more serious framework where the characters are so fundamentally at odds they have to seriously consider whether or not they should kill each other, it's that much funnier to place them in a strained sitcom couple dynamic. The more extreme debate of this fictitious world would be a dramatically different place without this hero or villain becomes a simmering argument about whether the hero or villain is sleeping on the couch tonight.

Keep this in mind and then look at The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Ex." Both previous examples rely on the existing library of comic books and characters as a foundation for their goofier hero and villain. The Amazing World of Gumball can similarly pull from this library but builds up the characters and story involved to the point they can and do stand alone. They present a new and deliciously bizarre template that other future stories could borrow from for setting up further hero and villain rivalries with a frustrated set of not quite sitcom spouses.

In general, TAWOG is a delightfully subversive series, whether it's poking fun at a wide breadth and depth of pop culture, delivering fantastic social commentary, or sneaking in surprisingly insightful and heart-wrenching character writing.

To set the stage, the wacky and colorful world of TAWOG relies on characters remaining unaware that they live in a syndicated TV cartoon outside of very limited, special circumstances. Its a couple of steps above how the 90's Animaniacs casually leaned on the fourth wall for jokes and comments vs the very active, deliberate part the fourth wall holds in TAWOG's world-building. The fourth wall becomes the static-filled void just on the outskirts of Gumball's reality. Characters are aware enough of the seams in their world that episodes like "The Money" use storyboards and unfinished CG rigs as parts of jokes about the world falling apart without a healthy budget.

Though, the physics and overall stability of this world rely on characters staying blissfully ignorant or outright forgetting parts of their reality that an amorphous creator, an unseen entity, or what is referred to as 'The Universe' itself deemed as unimportant. Usually, these forgotten 'parts' are jokes about how unanimously unlikeable disco music is, how unfashionable mullet hairstyles are, or bad ideas like the general construction of the Hindenberg blimp. Then, TAWOG takes this one step further and invents the tragedy behind the character Rob as a more existential dread-flavored look at the cartoon's overall relationship with its fourth wall.

Originally, Rob was just a playful background character. The Universe decides that he's a negligible part for whatever reason alongside the tertiary character Molly and mercilessly ejects both of them into this static-filled void. In show buildup to the discovery of the void follows Gumball and Darwin progressing from seeing its existence as a tin-foil hat conspiracy theory to diving into the void itself to save their friend before she's completely erased. In-cartoon logic of scrubbing any part of the world clean is a gradual process. The process can be stopped if its caught soon enough or a particular item is retrieved and reinstalled into the world at large before it dissolves or however else deletion/dissolving occurs within the limbo of the void.

Gumball and Darwin go to rescue Molly from the clutches of the static, but ignore Rob's desperate attempts to draw their attention and get their help to escape. He was already an unnamed background character, but now he's been knocked down one level below that already dubious narrative hierarchical position and doomed to oblivion. He literally clings to the back of Mr. Small's van on the tail end of the Molly rescue attempt, unseen by Gumball and Darwin, and forces the Universe to acknowledge him. When Rob does return to the 'normal' world, he's in an incomplete state. He doesn't remember who he was or what his original connection to this world was. Most of his body are rough polygons with patchy, glitched-out textures and TV static. One of his feet is an incomplete CG wire frame.

Because TAWOG is a satire series, Gumball establishes that all of the recognizable on-screen characters fill some sort of established character archetype. All of the other 'good' archetypes have been filled. Rob is assigned The Villain role and starts to fill said role in large part because he was forced into this. Depending on the episode, Rob is playing a required narrative part as much as any other character in the cartoon, but he also has moments addressing his unique frustration and fight with the construct around TAWOG as a whole. Rob is definitely a sympathetic character.

His worse actions aren't excused but his tendency towards more extreme and forceful solutions or behavior is understandable. He had to claw his way back into the world and more or less fight to maintain his right to exist. He feels unseen and unheard; this isn't helped by Gumball immediately jumping towards "what's Dr. Wrecker's evil scheme today?" vs any kind of more thoughtful and substantive discussion with Rob. There's never a moment of "How are you?" unless Rob literally steals the spotlight and tells Gumball, as well as the watching audience, where his thoughts and feelings are.

After the events of "The Disaster" and "The Rerun," Rob has successfully achieved his goal of destroying everyone Gumball loves. He destroyed Gumball's life by tearing apart his family through the right set of wrong loaded phrases or emotional manipulation and even temporarily erasing all of said family from existence. He backpedaled on and ultimately corrected these actions; as he's said, he never wanted to be the villain but he feels so forced that he has fully become the role where he was just playing at it before. After such an intense scrap with his nemesis, Rob wants something more casual and low-key. He's so locked into villainry, he's downgrading from a Level 10 threat to the more manageable Wile E. Coyote ventures he started with.

"The Ex" also immediately follows the awkward tension between Rob and Gumball at the end of "The Rerun." He isn't sure if he can hate Gumball with the same intensity as he did before and those fierce, bitter feelings were a significant motivator in his interpersonal relationship as Gumball's nemesis. Because of these more lukewarm feelings, he "breaks up" with Gumball and shifts his attention to Banana Joe. Joe is more compatible with Rob's Wile E. ventures as a promising Roadrunner. He's annoying and dim, but the lack of wit is offset by enough sheer dumb luck that helps him avoid Rob's complicated traps. There's strong potential to maintain an ongoing, evergreen unseen nemesis role that Rob had with Gumball before Gumball finally acknowledged him and strong-armed him towards something worse and more sinister.

Gumball is devastated by the breakup. He's been bragging and gushing about Rob to his girlfriend Penny ever since Rob became his official nemesis. There's personal attachment. Gumball is partly responsible for goading Rob towards the horrible, evil depths he's achieved. He was Gumball's project. This new nemesis doesn't know or deserve the results behind the fruits of his labor. As far as Gumball is concerned, there's no Rob without his lovable, rapscallion nemesis Gumball Watterson.

It's especially ridiculous how active a role Penny plays as Gumball's emotional support and advice in his misguided ploys to win Rob back. In other setups like this, such as 2017 Lego Batman, Batman does have a female love interest. The hero-villain rivalry can exist alongside an established heterosexual love interest or love story. If anything, having this dynamic exist next to a blatant, straightforward romance further drives home that the sitcom couple subtext is a comedic framing device. Penny's relationship with Gumball is a separate and distinctive thing from the unique, intimate bond that Gumball shares with Rob as his nemesis.

What's really fun about Gumball expressing such strong jealousy towards Banana Joe is that he brings the same grand gestures and harebrained desperation towards winning Rob back as he would to romance Penny. Rob has carved out a special place in Gumball's life that nobody else could fill. Gumball follows the conventions of a classic "make my ex-boyfriend jealous" story up to the mature move of trying to move on and be just friends instead.

But then he inadvertently reignites the fire of Rob's hatred towards him and gets his own shoujo-romance fireworks and goopy-eyed "I hate you!" declaration. These two have the same kind of chemistry that makes more grounded takes on the Batman-Joker rivalry work mixed with the framing that makes the more satirical takes work as well. It's a weird tight rope walk, but TAWOG has firmly established itself as a story that can swing between genuinely gripping drama and more absurd, outlandish situations. Granted, Rob and Gumball have enough of a genuine connection that there's room for Rob to segue from a nemesis to a real friend. There could be a redemption arc. Every major scene Rob has reinforces the idea that he is on the teetering edge between maintaining his villain role and an honest desire to be allowed to just exist.

Outside of the nemesis story, Rob presents interesting commentary that fits a wide variety of people considered 'other' by society that get brutally demonized, ostracized, and ridiculed. Rob is a case of someone that was pushed so hard that he becomes exactly what society expected and feels so lonely and unsupported that he doesn't see a realistic alternative. Being the Villain is his only means to survive, to protect himself, and is the only tool set he knows of to achieve any kind of results. This is why Rob resorts to kidnapping Banana Barbara and posing as Superintendent Evil in late season 6 episodes rather than trying to launch a meaningful dialogue with anyone else. He's convinced that force is the best method and has no proof of otherwise.

I'm still hoping for some kind of closure for Rob's overall character in a yet-to-happen Amazing World of Gumball series finale. He deserves it. And viewers deserve one final bro hug between Gumball and his closest interpersonal relationship outside of his family and his girlfriend Penny.

[bubblybumblebee1]

Scooby Doo time!

So y'all know how Everyone says that Shaggy's like, the fastest human alive to be able to keep up with Scooby when they're running, right?

How come no one ever acknowledges the rest of the gang for doing the same thing? They can literally all keep up with Scooby as he runs as well, like when they're running in a unit

It's not just Shaggy

Though honestly, the more likely and far more wholesome scenario is that Scooby is purposely not running at max speed

Scooby never runs at max speed unless he needs to, like if he's carrying someone

So, it's less likely that the gang can just keep up with a Great Dane at running speed and more likely that Scooby-Doo is purposely running much slower to make sure his humans are safe and can get away from whatever is chasing them and that's sweet

Cause think about it, even though Scooby (and Shaggy) is scared of everything they do for a living (hobby???) Where is he whenever they move as a unit? He's always at the back, bringing up the rear

Fear or not, his humans safety is always a priority

And that to me is so sweet

This is why he and Courage the Cowardly Dog are the greatest dogs in cartoon history

They're terrified all the time but will always rise to the occasion for their people

Best boys