#i only stay for the fanon content really

[pumpkinnkidd]

love these gay cats!!!

[galedekarios]

gale as a professor at blackstaff academy

i have to say that at first i wasn't too sold on the (then still fanon) idea of a professor ending because of gale's own prior anecdote about being irked by his previous students and their inadequacies.

i thought it might not be a good fit for him as far as professions go.

but reading the epilogue files, i have come around on it.

i think it's just one more way in which he's really grown into himself, become content with who he was in the past, the mistakes he made and what he has learned from them, and the person he wants to be in the future:

Player: You? A teacher? I'd hardly say you set the best example for impressionable young wizards... Gale: I think it makes perfect sense. devnote: Surprised you wouldn't recognise this, a tiny bit offended you don't trust him to do this Gale: Who better to warn of the perils of misusing magic than someone who was once only a wayward sneeze away from destroying a mid-sized settlement? devnote: playing up to his past a bit, you can imagine this is how he acts with his students Tara the Tressym: Don't remind me of those terrible times, Mr Dekarios. My blood pressure has only just recovered.

a few more cute banters & things we learn about gale and his new teaching position:

tara swipes at students who fall asleep in gale's classes, which he himself doesn't mind. he, too, slept through some of them (like his calishite lessons):

Player: Perhaps that's a good thing. I'm sure they're far better students than I was... Gale: Ah, so you still remember our little lesson? devnote: A little bit bashful, it was a vulnerable moment for him Gale: 'Teaching' you was hardly an effort at all. Not like my present cohort of apprentices. devnote: Complimentary, pulling the thought back to the teaching element after getting lost in the memory of the moment Gale: They try their best, of course - when they can manage to stay awake. devnote: Not upset by this - he slept through his fair share of classes as a student Tara the Tressym: The cheek of them! Nothing a well-placed swipe from Tara can't fix, though.

2. gale offered to teach more subjects than illusion via simulacra:

Player: Only a professor? With your expertise, I'd have thought you could teach every kind of magic going... Gale: I did offer, as a matter of fact. devnote: Secretly glad the player thinks so highly of him Gale: However, the Blackstaff insisted I couldn't teach every subject, nor could the simulacra of myself I offered to create for that purpose. devnote: Reluctantly accepts that this was the right decision Gale: So, I've settled for teaching the art of illusion. Magic to confound the senses, to render the impossible into reality, and to allow expression of that most magical attribute of all - imagination. devnote: Selling it a bit - he wants to make sure you appreciate how cool this is

3. gale has told his students about the player's adventures and will invite a player to be a guest lecturer:

Player: I found the love of my life. I'd say I'm pretty happy. Gale: And I couldn't be happier for you. A fitting reward for the sacrifices you made in getting here. Gale: I've told my students plenty of tales about our escapades. You're something of a hero to them, you know. Gale: I'd be delighted to introduce you to my current cohort - as a guest lecturer, perhaps? I'm sure they'd have plenty of questions for you. Player: It would be my pleasure. Gale: Excellent. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist the allure of sharing your expertise. Gale: Of course you'll be most welcome to stay with me in my tower- Tara the Tressym: Ahem. Gale: My apologies, Tara. That would be our tower.

4. his students find him somewhat intimidating due to his backstory with mystra and the orb:

Gale: Well, that was quite lovely. I'm glad you're as pleased to see me as I am you. Gale: I have to say, I'm quite grateful to just be 'Gale' for the evening. Gale: I fear my students find me somewhat intimidating, due to my erm, explosive former reputation. I seem to put the fear of the gods into them. devnote: He plays up to his reputations a bit, so he isn't overly surprised Gale: Or the fear of Mystra, to be more specific. Gale: I surrendered the Crown of Karsus to her, as I told you I would. And in return, she cured me of the orb at last. Gale: Even now, I struggle to put the feeling into words. It was like exhaling for the first time, after holding my breath for so very long. Gale: Of course, I haven't clarified with my students that the orb is no longer a threat. The legend of my explosive capabilities is an excellent means of controlling a classroom. Too good, if anything.

5. he wants to teach his students that there is fun in studying magic:

Gale: I spend most of my time trying to convince them how much fun the study of magic can be, but it'd be easier to crack a smile on an intellect devourer than some of my pupils... devnote: Despairing a little, doesn't understand why they aren't all as passionate as he was Player: Or on a mind flayer, perhaps... Gale: Smiling may no longer come easy to you, but I've seen how your tentacles twitch at my jokes. Even the ones I'm not entirely certain I was trying to make... devnote: Last sentence a tiny bit self-conscious, aware that people sometimes find him ridiculous. Gale: Still, I hoped my students might be a little more open to the playful side of such magic.

anyhow, i hope this was insightful to someone! 🖤

[crushedsweets]

I'm the sweetest girl in town; so why are you so mean? Nina 'the Killer' Hopkins in Creeped PT 3: NEW MESSAGE

PT. 1: K-12 — PT. 2: PURPOSE — PT. 4: MISSED CALL (TO BE UPLOADED)

General disclaimer: This AU is an amalgamation of headcanons, fanon, canon, and the occasional rewrite. There is an overarching story that HEAVILY strays from their canon stories. TW for toxic relationships, murder, and violence. Please take care of yourself and only engage in content you can handle.

NEW MESSAGE

❥Nina’s nails anxiously tapped against the front desk of a shoddy motel. It was one of the first she stayed at when she moved to Tuscaloosa, so when ‘Mark’ asked to meet her somewhere discreet, she immediately thought back to her miserable nights here.

❥She paid for the night and awkwardly made her way to the room, long acrylics fidgeting with the key. She felt eyes burning into her. The receptionist glaring at her down the hall, the truckers peering through the blinds, roomkeepers casting judgmental glances. She kept texting Mark, asking when he’d show up. 

❥By time Nina entered the room, he stopped replying entirely. She deadbolted the door and sat on the dusty mattress, quietly running her hands along her thighs to self-soothe. She kicked off her baggy sweatpants, revealing a mini skirt and torn tights. Nina just wanted Mark to reply. She didn’t want to get stood up. She wanted to see him so badly. She dressed up for him in uncomfortable clothes, did her makeup especially pretty, washed her hair and shaved her legs.

❥An hour went by with nothing. She would pace around the room and send him a text every few minutes. Peek through the blinds, scanning over the dark parking lot. Rain poured hard onto the asphalt and the street lamps flickered. A few busted up cars were littered about the lot. She’d text him a photo of it, making a comment about how pretty it looked. Then, Nina would return to the bathroom. Reapply her lipstick, fix her mascara, re-do her ponytail. Then text him again. Then flip through channels. Then text him again. She eventually laid down on the bed, staring blankly at their messages. Her hopes were dissipating, until-

❥New Message! ❥”im outside, open the door. its cold”

❥Nina was quick. She shot right up out of bed, her head snapping towards the door and its peeling paint. She smoothed her hair back down, fixed her skirt, cleared her voice, and stood at the peephole. Standing on her toes, she could see a man through it. Maybe 5’6, in a white, rain-soaked hoodie. He had shaggy black hair and a black face mask. His eyes were piercing. 

❥”Mark?” Nina’s voice cracked through the door, more high-pitched than she intended. ❥”Open the door, Nina.” He rasped. Nina’s heart skipped out of her chest. She fumbled with the deadbolt, earning a sigh from the other side of the door. Finally, she cracked it open. He simply pushed it, nudging her to the side and slamming it behind them. Nina’s pulse shot through the roof, eyes darting over his entire figure. 

❥But he just let out a groan, pulling his hood down and walking to a chair. He plopped down, getting comfortable and leaning into it. His head tilted back against the chair, visibly exhausted. She watched his Adam's apple bob for a moment. Everything was silent. Just his slow breaths and her tapping against her phone. 

❥He sliced through the tension with ease. “How long did I have you waiting?” 

❥Nina laughed first, waving her hands and settling back onto the bed. She insisted it wasn’t long, she was just so excited. He nodded, finally craning his head back to look her in the eye. She couldn’t really handle it. He asked her a few more questions, mostly about the motel. How much it cost, how often she came here. He seemed to be accusing her of frequenting motels to meet guys online.

❥It proved too much for Nina. She began to stand, anxiously dismissing herself to the bathroom. She thought she was going to throw up. His head rolled to the side as she hurried to the bathroom, watching her curiously.

❥She stood at the sink for a moment, chest heaving. She wiped at her eyes, careful not to smudge her makeup. Why was she so nervous? She was so comfortable with him online. She told him so much, and she thought he listened intently. Maybe it was the face mask? Could she ask him to take it off? Maybe he had a cold. Would that be rude? He could just be awkward. Not everyone is the exact same over text and in person. Or she caught him on a bad day. It was late and he seemed like he walked in the rain. She needs to calm down, give him a chance. He wasn't doing anything wrong. This was Mark, her friend.

❥There was a firm knock at the door.

❥”Why’re you hiding in there, Nina?” She didn’t even know how to respond. She didn’t lock the door, which they both noticed at the same time. He pushed it open, and Nina simply stepped back. She wasn’t thinking, just letting him put her where he wanted.

❥He wasn’t wearing the mask anymore. He was pretty pale, skin resembling an old classmate she knew with vitiligo. He had a few piercings, including eyebrows, a triple bridge, and snake bites. But these details were miniscule in comparison to the torn flesh of his cheeks. Violent, jagged scars from the corner of his lips to his ears. Mark really was a Jeff fanboy, huh?

❥Nina choked on a gasp at first, but the gasp turned to a cry when he violently shoved her back, forcing her into the tub and climbing in after her. His knee pressed into her gut and his forearm pinned her wrists above her head, uncomfortably grinding her bones into the tile walls. She was about to scream, but his palm fit harshly against her mouth. Nina’s legs were hooked over the edge of the tub, due to him shoving her in the short way.

❥He began whispering to her. It started with mindless rambles that were difficult to comprehend. Nina began to cry, muffled against his calloused hand. He leaned down, licking her tears and spitting to the left, now grumbling about her makeup. He kept it up for a bit, until he made a remark about her appearance. Something about a pretty girl like her liking a guy like him, how odd that was. Her struggling weakened by this point, eyes going wide as his head tilted into her shoulder. 

❥He kept going on and on. Bringing up how much Nina liked him, how obsessed she was. Bringing up posts she made in the past or mentioning his favorite photos of her. How he killed people just like she described. He'd ask her for ideas, and he'd share them all with her. It wasn't hypothetical, it wasn't a fantasy, it wasn't a story.

❥It was funny, actually. Despite her fixation, Nina didn’t even realize who he was. She thought this was Mark, a random Jeff fanboy ready to make Nina his first copycat victim. But the more he spoke and the more she frantically studied his face, everything set in.

❥This was her idol.

❥Seated on top of her, touching her, speaking to her, going on and on about how pretty she is. He stalked her page for hours on end, too, reciting all the posts that she’d made on him. To anyone else, they’d have understood it was from his own ego. To Nina, it was for her. Just like she dedicated the last three years to Jeff, he had dedicated one to her. He had been texting her. He asks her for photos. He tells her how creative and beautiful she is. He sends her images of Jeff’s crime scenes before she could even find them online. His crime scenes. 

❥He didn’t make sense half the time. He’d bring in random names and information totally irrelevant to her, or so she thought. He kept talking about a girl named ‘Clocky’ and how annoyed he was that ‘Clocky’ was hiding Nina from him. Something about her being a shitty wingman.

❥He eventually relaxed on top of her, removing the forearm that pinned her wrists to the bathtub wall. Instead of his knee pressed into her stomach, he placed them on each side of her. Her legs remained hooked over the tub, but she had long stopped kicking. She was sniffling a little, letting her sore arms drop to her sides. He made her agree not to scream if he let go of her face. She nodded desperately.

❥He removed his hand carefully, eyes scanning over her expression, watching her throat to see if she’s about to scream. 

❥”I love you,” was an insane thing to say. He stared at her for a moment, before throwing his head back and barking out laughter. His rough hands grabbed at her face, nodding along as he confirmed that he was well aware. Just like he spent the last few minutes going on his mindless rambles, she did the same. Whispering about what he meant to her, how strong he was, how much she wanted to be like him. How she’d do anything to fuck that bitch Claudia up the way he mutilated Randy. She shared what she did that one day, but began crying when he laughed. He joked about how weak she was, but she agreed with him. 

❥She clung to his hoodie. They sat like that for a while, having an uncomfortable, bizarre conversation in the bathtub. It largely centered Nina’s webpages, blogs, and forums. How it fed his ego. He kept making backhanded comments about her, but she warped them all into compliments. Eventually, he stood, yanking her out and making her wash her face. He liked her, unfortunately.

PUPPY LOVE

❥Nina was truly living out a long-time fantasy. Her and Jeff began to frequently see each other. Much to Natalie’s horror, Nina pulled her aside at work one day and shared this news. Brought up the ‘Clocky’ comments, and Natalie dragged Nina outside by the dumpsters and quietly scolded her. She tried to warn Nina, saying that regardless of her own friendship with Jeff, Nina was making a stupid choice. And it scared Natalie, too. Nina didn’t seem too stable. What if she started to run her mouth? Get Jeff in trouble, dragging cops along to her farmhouse?

❥Well, Clocky got an apartment that year. She kept in touch with everyone all the same, but she switched into a new career and housing situation. Leaving Jeff and Nina alone.

❥It started with Jeff tugging Nina along, bringing her to the forest and laying her down on his dirty mattress. They’d fool around, talk, he’d go through her blog right in front of her and laugh at her. Even if it made her nervous, she did a good job at convincing herself they were laughing together. They were bonding. 

❥Eventually, he began tagging along to her apartment. It was a cute, comfortable little place. It had heating and cooling, a stocked fridge, washer and dryer, a fucking kitchen for once. A TV, too. He began staying night after night. Nina always made him dinner, always washed his clothes, always let him relax. He’d bring her to lay down with him and she’d melt into his touch.

❥It seemed soft, at first. Jeff began introducing her to the messier parts of his life. She met BEN, she met Toby, she met Jack. They all scared her a little, but when Jeff threw his arm around Nina and made a comment about ‘his girl,’ she was over the moon. The group liked her a decent bit, and she clicked quite well with Toby. It helped that Toby was close friends with Natalie, a beautiful coincidence that made the three a solid trio. 

❥Nina wanted to integrate fully into Jeff’s life. She kept up her obsessive research on his friends, or whatever she could find. Apparently, BEN did a great job at wiping information online, which explained why Nina had such a hard time finding information on such an infamous killer. However, BEN didn’t wipe anything with Liu. Liu wasn’t an ally or friend to any of them. But he was Jeff’s brother, and Nina learned some fantastic news about him. He had moved to Alabama recently. Nina wanted to grow close with him, too. 

LAKE WATER

❥Outside of Nina’s blossoming friendships with Jeff’s crowd, the two began to get into some trouble together. Jeff would have Nina help steal alcohol, as they were only 19 and 20. He’d send her to talk to plugs for him, saying that Nina gets weed cheaper on account of her pretty face. 

❥One day, they were doing exactly that. They were hanging around a relatively empty parking lot in a dead shopping center, waiting for some guy to show up and sell Nina some weed. Jeff was in the distance, observing as the man pulled up to Nina leaning against one of the lot’s lamps. The guy parked, got out of the car, and chatted Nina up for a while. Jeff watched as the man pushed Nina’s hair back, leaning too close and saying God knows what. 

❥Jeff stalked up to the situation, pretending he was on his way to a nearby car. The guy didn’t even look his way, not until Jeff suddenly slipped into the picture. It was sudden and sloppy, but Jeff never needed to practice his violence. He pushed Nina out of the way and began to crash the guys’ head into the metal pole, repeating it until Nina was frantically crying and begging him to stop. The guy crumpled to the floor afterwards, blood pooling beneath him. The sight was too familiar for Nina. Images of 16 year old Claudia beneath her flashed before her eyes.

❥Suddenly, Jeff started rummaging through the man’s pockets. Yanking out his wallet, phone, some weed, a lighter, and his keys. He told Nina to get in the car.

❥Nina protested, but Jeff shouted it this time. So like the sweet girl Nina is, she listened. Jeff dragged the man into the trunk and climbed into the driver's seat. 

❥Jeff was reckless in every way. He was impulsive, brash, and unpredictable. In this random dude’s car, he began barrelling down the streets. It was night time in their fairly small town, leaving the roads quite empty. He had all the windows rolled down, laughing as their hair whipped around them. Jeff’s adrenaline was pumping violently, while Nina was crying and begging him to slow down. He was going 110mph down a random highway, doubling the speed limit. 

❥Nothing Nina said could stop him. He was at an all time high once again, a victim in the trunk of a stolen car and pretty Nina beside him, wailing and afraid. 

❥Nina didn’t know what to think when she saw him driving towards the biggest lake in the county. There was a poorly made pier leading far into the lake, but Nina swore Jeff was going to slow down. Please slow down. She panicked more when he reached over with one hand, unbuckling her seatbelt. What the fuck was he doing?

❥It surprised them both when the car actually flew into the water. Nina’s screams were cut off as she inhaled that dirty lake. Water immediately flooded the vehicle and moonlight reflected through the murky water. She desperately fought her way through the open window, swimming to the surface. She choked up the water and sucked in as much air as her lungs would allow. Fuck, she was so scared. She sobbed, trying to regain enough composure to keep her afloat, weak kicking and splashing. She barely made out the shoreline, desperately swimming her way there with chunky platforms and soaked clothes. Jeff got to the shore first, but returned to the water to help drag Nina out of it.

❥Before she could cry at how cruel that was, he lifted her up and crashed his lips into hers. His arms moved tightly around her waist, lifting her feet above water and laughing loudly as he spun her around. The muddy water splashed all over as he cackled, still pulling her further away from the lake in his arms.

❥”I fuckin’ love you, Nina!” He barked, still on a high as he dropped them both to the ground, smothering her in his excitement. That was the first time he said that to her. 

PT. 4: MISSED CALL (TO BE UPLOADED)

[lai-mar]

I think. For me L+M is another example of a male+female pairing that seems a little too straightforward to ship in canon and hence some fans view it as “boring” and “low hanging fruit”, and as a result the ship is less popular despite having canon crumbs that you can interpret in a shippy way. So the ship being low hanging fruit turns around? In canon they have a strong friendship and lots of moments, and that’s what I like them as, friends (and they are canonically friends). Shipping these “straightforward straight pairings” can be a bit squicky (because I tend to think they are more interesting nonromantically) but it turns out in the end I will blatantly blaze through my squicks because I am desperate for content. And also because shippers actually care about them and their bond.

However, for these pairings people SOMEHOW usually impose a familial interpretation (siblings, in-laws) even though they are not related in canon either by blood or marriage. It’s more acceptable in DM because F/M certainly gets a lot of crumbs but it also kinda makes me salty to see people reduce L+M to being in laws only, like their only connection is through Falin, and that is just plain wrong. I have seen so many male+female pairings that get stuck in the fanon “sibling-coded” area and it’s like… guys it’s okay to not like them as a ship and not make them siblings. Guys. Not every kind of love has to be romantic or familial. I think sibling coding is fun and all that but sometimes it does feel like a “gotcha! I totally do not ship them because they’re like SIBLINGS to me and if you ship them you’re WEIRD”.

L+M would still be funny if it’s the fanon “lesbian elf teams up with her gf’s autistic brother and they squabble but work together to save the day” but canon L+M just drives me crazy because they obviously develop a bond outside of the other people they love, and they’ve basically known each other for two years only which is short even for a tallman lifespan, let alone Marcille’s. Actually I think what really gets me about L+M is that every time they get a moment that can be interpreted as shippy (eg. succubus, M wearing the dress in the Golden Country, even M knitting in the room with L in the Kensuke extra just like her mom used to do with her dad), there might be a few blushes and nervousness, but they quickly return to the status quo of being comfortable and physically affectionate with each other. Which you can interpret them as not seeing each other romantically, in deep denial, or they’re just so comfortable with each other that they don’t need to define their relationship, they just are.

Tbh the widespread DM fanon did mislead me a bunch, I thought we would get obvious F/M shipping or even confirmation after the bath scene but nope. I thought L+M would kinda stay the way they were pre Ep 11 and have a fun back and forth bit noooo they had to go and save each other and learn about each other’s deepest desires. I was shocked that they weren’t being discussed on such a widespread level considering how much screentime and importance they both get. Saw someone say “the romance between F/M is the catalyst and main plot driver” and I want to bang my head against the wall. DM has ship crumbs for a ton of ships but nothing has ever been confirmed canon and I’m happier because of it and it’s fun to explore.

I would say L+M needs better PR but honestly just read the manga, it does all the PR lmao. I can forgive anime onlies but if you read the manga you surely cannot ignore the elephant in the room.

[celaenaeiln]

C: Hi there! Even if I've been reading dick Grayson(and in turn batfamily) fics for a few weeks now, I've never actually watched/read DC stuff because even if I liked superheroes, I'm not invested enough to read the actual comics. The most I watched was the Teen Titans 2003 cartoon(which I love). I was brought into interest cause I was brought in through crossovers of other fandoms (which may be hated by some/many😅)

To give myself context, I tried to read around for Robin, and imagine my surprise there's more than one? Which, okay mantle thing I guess. But in the end, Dick Grayson caught my attention(not rlly for his looks and design, but more of his heroism and entire personality and affect in the DC world). Which leads to looking at other tumblrs and I love reading yours and when you answer the asks cause it's so much easier for me to understand the kind of person Dick is and how he interacts with the world.

Sorry for this long context, but I just want maybe your opinion, what if your opinion in the combination of how Dick Grayson should be written for him to Thrive

- Should he stay in Gotham, being in with the batfamily more? Soloing in Bludhaven? Staying with the titans? Or others?

- what about his romantic relationships? Who should be is one true one(based on canon gfs), or maybe stay single? (Just gonna be biased, but I've only knew about dickbabs and dickkory (but I heard he has other girlfriends and I've remember reading he was almost married...a few times??) but dickkory had always been for me)

- What about mentally wise? (Of course, I do think Dick needs a long vacation because of all the trauma that he has to go through), but even if I like the idea of Dick being admired for his looks because he deserves it, but I do rmbr posts that he is uncomfy with this(sexualisation, Def only staying true to the person he loves (then there's the whole...Tarantula and more thing)

Tbf, I do think is a little bit of all is what makes Dick, Dick. Haha

Sorry for the long ask, feel free to not answer because i just needed to get this out😅. I know it's actually bad I'm reading fics without canon knowledge for personality, but your posts makes me understand him more that I understand what's real and what's fanon in fics (that makes me..ugh.. but I read anyway for plot cause i don't know better)

But thank you anyway for reading this and I love your content!

(last one for this ask I swear: I've been seeing stuff where Robin name is actually Dick's mom calling Dick that. Then it's passed down as a mantle starting from Jason without Dick consenting. I tried to read at wiki, maybe I missed out but I can't find anything. Is it true? Does the other bats (except Bruce and Alfred?) know the actual meaning? Because as much as I love Dami, the whole bloodson, birthright to take the mantle of Robin beside Batman give me ugh feelings if it's true) :C

First of all, thank you so much!! I'm so happy to hear you like my stuff <333!!

I think it's fine that you started in the fandom since I sort of started out that way too lol. I had only watched Teen Titans Animated show and Young Justice before I got into fanfics and my first comic I ever read was actually Teen Titans (2011) which was Tim's run. It's been a journey.

Dick's personality was also what captivated me so here I am!

"Should he stay in Gotham, being in with the batfamily more? Soloing in Bludhaven? Staying with the titans? Or others?"

That's a really good question and a complex one. Ironically, for being such a people person, Dick seems to be doing best when he's by himself. When he's soloing, he has a sense of freedom and independence that he's been craving for a long time. The whole reason he left Bruce was because he felt like Bruce was suddenly treating him like a kid, like someone to look after, when he had been treating Dick like a partner the whole time. When Dick feels like his independence is being stepped on, it unsettles him. This is another reason why the Tom Taylor run and Dick's relationship pisses me off but that's for another time. As much as he likes Gotham, he loves Bludhaven. He thinks it's a dirty, crime-filled city, sure, but he loves it there.

He's a little crazy like that.

He doesn't have the same attachment to Gotham that Bruce does. Instead he feels that for Bludhaven.

The only reason I'm saying Dick is better off staying alone than with the Titans is because of his leadership mentality. There's a comic that I forgot the name of but Dick teams up with members of the Justice League and they trapeze through a jungle under the orders of this corrupt military general. He teams up with Arthur and automatically starts commanding people to which Aquaman tells him off, saying this isn't the Titans. Dick is genuinely sorry and backs off. For a minute. But immediately goes right back into command mode but Arthur lets it go, realizing that Dick's not conscious of it and that his behaviour is automatic. "Too many leaders" he calls the situation in his head. For Dick, the Titans have become a responsibility now. He loves them like crazy but they look up at him automatically for directions and order and he's gotten so used to leading them that it's his go to mode.

He just likes doing stuff without someone hovering over his shoulder or having to take care of others.

"what about his romantic relationships? Who should be is one true one(based on canon gfs), or maybe stay single? (Just gonna be biased, but I've only knew about dickbabs and dickkory (but I heard he has other girlfriends and I've remember reading he was almost married…a few times??) but dickkory had always been for me)"

Yeah, I've actually loved almost all of his romantic relationships. I hate Dickbabs but every other one has been fantastic. Kori was great for him.

Action Comics (1938) Issue #618

Dick says it again here. He used to envy Roy's freedom. He's also said in another comic that he fell in love with Kori for her freedom.

Secret Origins (1986) Issue #13

You're right, he has gotten almost married a few times

The first time was with Kori

The New Titans (1988) Issue #100

But then

The New Titans (1988) Issue #100

their pastor gets vaporised and body-controlled Raven feeds the soul of one of Trigon's children into Kori and she goes crazy but she recovers but it's a whole ordeal. In the end they don't get a chance to complete their marriage. They were spectacular together though. The only reason their wedding didn't go through is because the Batfam writers wanted Dick back so they took him from the Titans' writers and they needed a big dramatic scene to cut him off from the Titans. Another reason why Barbara was deaged and created as a love interest- to gatekeep him in the family.

He's also gotten married to Barbara before the retcon though.

Batman Family Issue #11

But here they were forced to by Maze and they went along with it and tricked him. At the end though, they just grab a bite to eat.

Ngl I actually would've supported this marriage. I really love this Barbara. Yes the age difference is a bit much but whatever, I still like them.

Dick and Barbara have gotten married in an alternate timeline.

Convergence: Nightwing/Oracle Issue #2

yeah, definitely didn't like this one.

Dick's also gotten fake married to a woman because Batman and Dick thought she was killing her husbands after marrying them so Dick married her to see if it was true.

Nightwing (1996) Annual #1

I liked her. She wasn't the killer and Dick did a fantastic job raising her son but even though she loved him, he didn't love her and they divorced amicably. I wish I could see more of her and her son though.

To be completely honest, my favorites for Dick are Kori and Bea.

Bea was a fantastic partner. She was understanding, loving, caring, and responsible. She was there when he was Ric Grayson and just loved him for who he was.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #53

If Kori's truly out of the picture, then Dick really should've settled down with her.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #57

She and Kori, they don't tell Dick what to do or who to be. They let him be free which is why I loved them an extraordinary amount. I'm a sucker for soft moments and Bea and Dick are couple goals.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #62

They give him the freedom he craves.

"What about mentally wise? (Of course, I do think Dick needs a long vacation because of all the trauma that he has to go through), but even if I like the idea of Dick being admired for his looks because he deserves it, but I do rmbr posts that he is uncomfy with this(sexualisation, Def only staying true to the person he loves (then there's the whole...Tarantula and more thing)"

I think Dick does need a break. His life has been a series of unfortunate events but despite all that, I think he loves it that way. Dick loves the thrill of adventure. It's the heart of who he is and why he became robin. The excitement he gets when fighting or doing crazy stunts - he loves all of it and that is his coping mechanism. I guess in order for him to thrive, Bruce needs to stop dumping all his trauma and stop expecting him to be there for him at all times of the day. Dick keeps getting dragged back to Gotham to take care of Bruce and his problems and he would go in a heartbeat but he's much happier wacking his own goons in Bludhaven. But since Bruce is so codependent on Dick, this pattern's not gonna stop anytime soon.

Truth be told I also like Dick being admired for his looks. I don't like him being called out by it though. First of all why would you comment "hot booty" to someone? It's degrading and humiliating even if you think it's a compliment. Some things are better left untold. But regardless of what people think, Dick will always be pretty and everyone in the DC universe knows this. Heroes, civilians, villains - they're all attracted to him on some level because he's so beautiful. And honestly? I'm all for it! Because that boy is the prettiest human in existence and he deserves that recognition. Just not vocally or physically.

The best thing is that Dick's beauty has no bearing on his mentality toward people. This man will choose one person and stick with them forever. He values intimacy and trust and love in his relationships which is why he's so attached to each one. This plays a massive role in his relationship with Kori. He would never cheat. Actually in all the future comics, after his spouse passes away or leaves, he never remarries. The only one exception was Batman Beyond (2016). The only one and he remarries Barbara after his wife passes away. Aside from that he remains a single parent. That's how dedicated he is.

"I've been seeing stuff where Robin name is actually Dick's mom calling Dick that. Then it's passed down as a mantle starting from Jason without Dick consenting. I tried to read at wiki, maybe I missed out but I can't find anything. Is it true? Does the other bats (except Bruce and Alfred?) know the actual meaning? Because as much as I love Dami, the whole bloodson, birthright to take the mantle of Robin beside Batman give me ugh feelings if it's true)"

Yup Dick's mother called Dick Robin.

Nightwing (2011) Issue #0

Robin (1993) Annual #4

Here's a couple but there are more instances of his mom calling him Robin.

Dick had no idea Bruce passed on the Robin costume. He finds out through the newspaper because Bruce is pissed at Dick. Like he's so mad that when he told Dick to leave, Dick actually left.

You know how there's a saying about not being able to take back words of anger? Bruce is feeling that heavily. He already had suspicions that Dick wanted to leave but before Dick could tell him, he fired him so he wouldn't have to hear those words. But Bruce is super mad that Dick left anyway. So what does he do? He makes the first boy he sees Robin.

And Jason finds out Dick was Robin when he confronts Bruce why Nightwing knows Bruce's identity. And that gets Bruce more mad because he's now feeling guilty which is when Dick comes to confront Bruce.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

But instead of meeting anger for anger, Dick expresses his hurt. About how they were partners and then talks about his life after leaving Bruce.

And Bruce loves Dick. His best friend, son, brother, and partner for nearly 11 years. They raised each other and despite his anger, he smiles in pride and love.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

Look at his smile!! He's so proud of his son.

And that's when Dick stops pulling his punches.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

Bruce looks so wrecked. The guilt and sorrow is tantamount to his pain.

Then Dick asks Bruce why he choose someone new.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

So Bruce tells him. But Dick and Bruce's relationship go way deeper than just friends or family. They know each other. They revolve around each other so Dick calls him out.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

And out comes the truth

Batman (1940) Issue #416

But Dick has always been the bigger man and instead of letting Jason become some sort of spite move, he turns Robin into a legacy.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

He passes it down like it was meant to be passed down. Because let's be honest here. The Robin name and costume is Dick's. If he wanted to, he could've taken it back, Bruce be damned. And that was one of Jason's fears.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

But despite Bruce's words to Jason

Batman (1940) Issue #416

He's not sure himself.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

But it's only with Dick's approval that he becomes Robin which is what Bruce is thanking at the end.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

And this has been a sort of tradition.

Dick approved of Jason being Robin, he endorsed Tim, and he made Damian Robin. The only exception being Stephanie. This is why Dick feels a heavy sense of responsibility over the robin predicament. He created the tradition. He approved, supported, and mentored every robin that walked in his colors and name. That's why he feels the burden of it.

I don't think any of the other robins know the meaning behind the name. Maybe they do. But ironically, the one who wasn't robin is the one who knows the meaning of it.

Duke.

[sabertoothwalrus]

I am SO excited for your clowns, but I know you got the whole non disclosure thing going on so I'm just sitting here patiently waiting like 🤡👀👀👀👀👀👀 y'know? Take care of yourself lol!

I think I mentioned in some tags somewhere that I talked with my professor (van partible 🤭) about my pitch (I made a pitch bible) and it wasn’t quite Getting The Point Across, and that it’d be good to make a proof-of-concept. And the more we talked, the more I realized maybe I shouldn’t keep them secret, after all. Cause like, nowadays, studios have only really been picking up pitches with established fanbases. And… I think I know how to build a fanbase? Literally four days after I talked to him about this, I did the whole mole interest thing. I’ve also made Nico the Catboy. This ain’t my first rodeo, yknow?

So..! I might start working on a pilot soon! this semester I’m animating my short film and also helping a friend with his personal animated project, so I might not even start boarding until winter break. So you might not hear anything about this for at least a year.

I still want to keep it relatively ,, Separated? from fandom culture, if possible. I realized the source of lot of my hesitancy actually came from the fear of lines between canon and fanon getting blurred. Because, with online indie content, the “canon” media does look a lot like fandom content. And so I’m going to try to be a bit more formal with this than how I typically post. Maybe less approachable about it. We’ll see.

Stay tuned! 🤭🎪

[skemford]

Decided to refresh my knowledge of bendy protagonists personalities/quirks and i can say that i forget how distant canon Audrey is from fanon one sometimes

Here's relatively short list with Audrey character analysis+random tibbits (environmental/gameplay/voice lines)

(I'll appreciate if someone will interact+most of it is under the cut!)

1. Her workplace is an unorganized mess

On the right side: a couple of empty teacups, empty paper sheets, unopened envelope, books/notebooks, a toy ball and keys in the middle of the desk, storyboards that are UNRELATED to what she was working on;

On the left side: donut that she kept close to her elbow & storyboards while she was drawing + to-do list for a day

There's no WAY she'll be able to keep anything tidy. If you hc her and Bendy to have a familiar bond post game, she'll be as messy if not messier. Her home might be a wreck.

2. She easily distracts

- Audrey is working overtime and claims that she has "only eight hundred more frames to go" until the next deadline

But was she actually *actively* working?

She has unrelated items on her desk (listed above) and jumps on the first opportunity to get a coffee.

If she really did wanted to have a drink, she literally has a soda machine close to her office doors.

Some brands of soda do have caffeine in them, right? Getting a coffee looks more like an excuse for a walk.

Bonus point: if you'll stay in her office without getting up (for 15 minutes), she'll acknowledge that she has no time to waste and will return to work instead.

- "Well, the coffee's good and all. But this work's gotta get done"

Worth to acknowledge: this girl has "employee of the month" award and some kind of animation award (boris statue) in her office .

Does she stays overtime everyday to finish something? Or other Archgate employees are even worse at their jobs, somehow?

3. She uses dry sarcasm or makes jokes a lot

Honestly, it happens really often and should be brought up in fan content more imo.

Due to the images limit i can't put a lot of examples with screnshoots but I'll quote some of them.

- "i think you and i have very different definitions of alright" (toward Allison)

- "Looks like he's having a bad day" (about dead lost one with the gent pipe)

- "Ok! Yeah! And that totally makes sense" (reaction to an easter egg)

- "That's one leap of faith i definitely won't make" (about the pit in animation alley)

4. Audrey gets defensive when someone starts to talk over her or when she feels overwhelmed

Audrey either will deny what was said or will acknowledge it by being sarcastic

Prominent example of this is her reaction to Memory!Joey at the hotel:

- "Oh,now you knew my father. Well, newsflash! I didn't even knew my father...or my mother. Or anyone else in my family" (after Joey says that she has "adventurous spirit of her father")

- "What? Are you crazy?... Who do you think you are?" (after the reveal of her being created by the ink machine)

+ Similar behaviour can be seen in her short interaction with Twisted Alice (Susie).

Audrey prefers to keep conversation equal between both sides and when it fails to work, she'll either stay silent or will express frustration (which can be seen with her replying "no" to Twisted Alice and not saying anything afterwards)

5. She seems to trust Allison enough to be vulnerable around her

After leaving the spider lair, she'll try to reach to Allison through the speakers

- "Alice? Are... you there?... Alice!"

She'll acknowledge that she feels scared and after Allison won't sound reassuring enough, Audrey's hand will be visibly shaking.

Allison is the only character Audrey has opened to; you'll never see her being that vulnerable with anyone else

(She is honest with Henry but not on this level)

It makes me wish they had more interactions; Allison for sure was really important in early development of the game.

6. She's blunt

Through the game Audrey is a type of person who says whatever is on her mind without hiding her intentions too much.

She's emotional and rarely thinks twice (most of her decisions are impulsive or sometimes irrational) which reflects on the way she talks.

It's often slips out through sarcasm when she gets defensive/tries to cope but it's also happens in relatively safe environment (for example, when she talks with Betty):

- "Are you...very old?" (Wilson's mansion, bedroom)

This one liner is the most random question you can say to a stranger; I doubt it was very well thought out from her side

7. Audrey easily trusts people which makes her easy to manipulate

I couldn't skip this one.

When Wilson has created a story about his "poor lost father" as a bait and Audrey did believed in this, there are multiple reasons for "why"

This either could come from her being "goodhearted" or the circumstances being used against her

- She went through whole "father trauma" in one day without being able to process anything & get proper answers:

An idea of "saving" another father (Nathan Arch) who she could've knew more than her own father (Nathan says in one tape that he meet young animators at least once) could've hit her really close to home

- Audrey never actually got a real answer on how to leave the cycle, teaming up with Wilson (who was able to enter and leave) could've looked like the only one way back

(I do acknowledge that writing in DR could've been better at places but if you do think about it in this way,it makes sense)

7.1. She is empathetic

I think that this part says everything for itself and it doesn't need to be explained. Thought, she's the one who decide if someone deserves it.

- She felt bad for hurting Bendy on accident & apologized when she was able to

- When she met Allison for the last time, she "gave" her this name, remembering that she doesn't like to be called 'Alice'

- At the end of the game she wants to try to make the cycle better for everyone.

Twisted Alice (Susie) was included which means that Audrey doesn't hold grudges against her (even with the latest one wanting to kill her previously)

8. Audrey puts her arm through an ink container without hesitation or any side thoughts

IT IS a game mechanic and lore wise you can relate it to her being an ink creature

But honestly? It's in character for Audrey.

We're talking about someone who decided to go to great lengths to catch an aquarium fish (that's kept as a pet) and wanted to use it...for a recipe.

8.1. She doesn't mind eating out of trashcans

If you think that wanting to use someone's pet for a recipe is too weird, you're actually wrong. But eating out of trashcan (when you have other options) may be.

Thought, she drives a line on a food that has flies or other insects on it (like "chocolate cake")...i guess in other cases, it's fine to her.

~~~~~~~

Trivial things:

- Bendy seems to be her favourite cartoon character.

She calls him "little guy" in prologue and keeps close to her storyboards where he's the main character:

In the cycle, she acts joyful when she first stumbles upon the real deal.

- She loves chocolate donuts

- Audrey uses dark eyeshadows (can be seen only in prologue custscene. It's hard to notice at first)

- Her breakfast from to-do list are toasts

- She has abstract Bendy painting in her office

- It can be speculated that she's uncomfortable with being touched (or with someone being physically close), unless, she's the one who initiates it

~~~~~~~~~

[kiragecko]

cherrystainedknuckles

I guess the only problem with being asked to take a “marie kondo approach” is that in order to find any fanfic that appears to be based in actual canon timeline and plot points and characterization (which does exist, and I’m not sure why fanon fans seem insistent that it doesn’t), I literally have to search for hours. I’m not joking, I consistently make fic rec lists, and I have to search for hours and hours for actual canonical basis. same thing with character tags on tumblr.

I’m not saying fanon fans have to stop enjoying fanon or making up their own content. I’m just saying that when the tags used for both fanon tim drake and canon tim drake are the same tag it just becomes incredibly annoying sometimes, and I understand why people who like to engage with canon (me, often) become frustrated

-

I have definitely had periods where I got incredibly frustrated with fanon! Around 2019, I was wondering if I needed to leave the Batfandom, because it had been so long since I read a new fic where the characters felt 'right'.

-

But, if you're willing to, I'd like you to consider what you mean when you divide 'fanon' from 'canon'. Because I struggle to find a hard line between the two, for several reasons:

1. Fandom is transformative. Every fanfic is going to have some interpretation of the source material. The line between what is too much interpretation and what is acceptable is different for every person. For me, I find it can even vary based on writing style or other odd things - lighthearted fic can have more noncanonical stuff in it than heavier fic, and still seem true to canon.

2. 'Canon' is subjective. I do not consider the movies or video games to be 'canon', and it annoys me when things from those creep into the fic I'm reading. (I'm okay with SOME Battinson.) Some aspects of the cartoons are okay. I consider precrisis Jason Todd to be an alternate reality version, but Donna's precrisis origins are more canonical than the dumb retcons. Wayne Family Adventures isn't my main version of the characters, but I'm not bothered if some elements show up in my stories. I'm ignoring most of the nu52, but I like Duke and I'm still watching this new Lian to see what happens. I doubt your divisions are identical to mine.

(Also, some things that I think of as 'fanon' have shown up in nu52 canon! I do not accept them as any more canon because of this.)

3. Most 'fanon' is based on canon. Canon Tim has weird sleep habits. 90s Dick is really lighthearted and joking around some characters in ways similar to fanon. Dick can canonically not be trusted to take care of himself if his mental health gets low enough. Jason likes classical literature. Etc.

These are exaggerated and/or twisted in a lot of fic, but where is the line where they stop being canon? I wouldn't bat an eye at a lot of this stuff, if it didn't show up SO OFTEN.

4. Most 'fanon fans' do know some canon. What line are you going to set where it will be 'enough'. And are they allowed to mention parts of the canon they haven't read yet? Is anyone allowed to talk about Dick's early Robin days, or only the tiny amount of people who have read the golden age stuff? A lot of the 'mistakes' I see are obviously made by people who have read ABOUT canon, but don't know quite how it fits together.

5. 'Canon' is FULL of contradictions. Yes, there are canon events. Yes, there is characterization that is consistent across 3/4s of comics. But. I'm still working on my sidekick timeline. I've devoted days to figuring out ages and passage of time. I've spent over a decade trying to figure out Jason Todd's motivations, and why Tim treats him the way he does. I've read all the 90s and early 2000s CANONICAL character assassination of Jason.

I spent years thinking that Donna's death was almost as foundational as Jason's, only to later discover that I had just happened to read the specific comics that focused on the fallout, and she only stayed dead for a short time. That happens to fans ALL THE TIME! We read a character summarizing an event we haven't directly read, and just accept it as what happened. But characters have biases, and not all writers care about accuracy.

-

I've read some Tim Drakes that I consider to be almost entirely 'fanon'. And quite a few that were so scarily 'canon' that I got chills. (Not all of which were similar to each other.) But the vast, vast majority have fallen somewhere in the middle.

I definitely do not want the responsibility of deciding which ones count as 'canon'! And I think I would strongly dislike anyone who tried to decide for me.

Being frustrated is logical, and I empathize. But the original post was about the impossible expectations some fans feel. The expectation to read thousands of comics, synthesize all the contradictions, and come to conclusions that match the 'true fans'. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to be complaining about.

If that's what some fans are experiencing, of course they're not going to want to engage with canon! There's no way for them to succeed, so why should they even try?

When you join THAT conversation to discuss your frustration about fanon, it strengthens that perception. When you call them 'fanon fans' it emphasizes their belief that you don't think they belong. And rather than trying to change, it's more likely that they'll double down. Canon is full of gatekeepers, so they'll avoid it.

[fatuismooches]

Random Dot analysis:

The interesting thing about Dottore is that while the most popular fanon about him is that his underlings fear him, canonically it's the complete opposite.

He deadass has an army of simps working for him, I had never ran into a Fatui NPC that has expressed fear about him, and instead they speak about him in reverence.

The most obvious one is during the AQ where a fatui agent expressed disappointment upon realising that Dottore would be leaving Sumeru soon, saying that he had only seen the lord once.

And it seems that Dottore actually talks to his subordinates often, especially when in the same conversation, the agents (who didn't know about the segment's existence thus not realising that they spoke to different versions of the Doctor) casually compared how their conversations went, one said that Dottore was dismissive while the other said he was all smiles.

The people who work for him are ridiculously dedicated, the fungi event with that one guy who for some reason - thought that a device that controls fungi would impress Dottore, he did all that to earn his recognition. (It would have been more impressive if the device controlled literally ANYTHING besides fungi, but eh whatever) Note: The guy has said in CN expressively something along the lines of "beloved/dear" lord, not the direct translation but it was affectionate.

Then there's that one dude who stayed behind after the (failed) aranara lure experiments, I don't remember much about him but I don't think he said anything bad about Dottore, other than saying that he had stayed behind because he felt responsibility to take care of the kids after subjecting them into a mission like that.

Cut to the two Fatui peeps on Mondstadt who gush about him after the Sumeru quest, and I'm pretty sure we met another fatui dude in the desert who decided to go against orders and go the extra mile of attempting to kidnap desert dwellers to present as test subjects to again - impress Dottore. I think this was a Jeht quest?

Oh, and in the manwha, it's briefly mentioned that Dottore does reward efforts handsomely.

Tldr:

Fanon - Dottore is cruel, he terrifies everyone who works under him and they always walk around eggshells with him.

Canon: Dottore gives high reward for efforts, he has too many simps that sings him praises and they're literally scrambling to be in the same room as him.

Conclusion, we need more dottore simps in fan content. Because not only is it more accurate, but its also funnier for Dottore to be followed by a hoard of fans.

ALRIGHT YOU HAVE ME THERE... I went back and reread the dialogue for the agents for when Dottore was leaving and phew you're right, lol now that i realize it's pretty entertaining!!

But now i have questions. How many agents know that Dottore has segments? The ones that do know, are they not allowed to spread this...? I'd think the news would be all over the recruits but I guess not. And I guess these segments are ridiculously similar physically/appearance wise too. 😭 And the ones that don't know, do they just think their Harbinger has multiple different personalities or something?? I need more NPCs talking about Dottore.

ELCHIGEN. THE FUNGI NPC GUY WAS SO FUNNY. I still have screenshots of when he spoke about Dottore omg, bro was DEDICATED. Literally created a whole scheme and put his life on the line just to get Dottore to notice him... i respect the energy tbh. I do wonder why he loved Dottore so much in the first place, i really think there's a lot more to his character than we've seen firsthand. I also went back and reread the other stuff you mentioned on the wiki and omg 😭😭 i cant believe i forgot this stuff happened, it's been so long since Sumeru 😭 it's so funny to think about how they're piling more crimes on themselves just for Dottore 😭 i wonder if he's aware of how favorable these agents view him?

Though I do think it may differ from segment to segment. Krupp was pretty scared of Webttore. It's also kind of funny to think people were more scared of Scaramouche than Dottore. 💀

You have me thinking many thoughts, and this has given me much brainrot, will keep in mind for future fics, i have been enlightened.

[ectonurites]

Are Tim and Cass Cain actually close in canon? Or is that more of a fanon thing that gained canon status?

Alright, so the tldr answer is that yes pre-reboot they were close—but it wasn't something that happened immediately/right off the bat, it took time, and they didn't always perfectly see eye-to-eye. But like, it's not just some totally fanon thing, they were absolutely close.

I'm using past-tense in the above though because it's like... all the actual content with them becoming/being close is pre-reboot. Anything post-reboot with them either had them back at square one (during N52 stuff) or like, just sort of handwavey 'oh they're close again' without much actual elaboration/explanation. Theoretically nowadays everything's canon again so all the old stuff applies, but as far as I'm aware nothing has really dug all that deep back into the two of them/their dynamic.

Now, to give a brief crash course on Tim & Cass's relationship in canon...

Early on they weren’t all that close because Tim was absolutely intimidated by her & her background and like, in general seemed to just find her kinda off-putting:

(Robin (1993) #73)

However Tim eventually gets over himself & after working side-by-side with her a little bit realizes he shouldn't let being intimidated by her stop them from being friends and working together:

(Batgirl (2000) #18)

After this point they work together on several occasions, definitely communicating much better than in their initial appearances together and clearly getting along well. They're a fun lil duo:

(Superman/Batman Vol. 1 #5, Superboy Vol. 4 #85)

Then… after a while, War Games happens. Gotham goes to shit, Steph dies (well, we nowadays know she didn't really, but they sure were both grieving) and so they both independently move to Blüdhaven, which leads us to the Robin/Batgirl: Fresh Blood crossover. Which has some fun little moments with them:

(Batgirl (2000) #58)

As well as some on the more tense side, as they both navigate mourning Steph and the clashes in their ideologies/approaches to hero work—the fact that Cass wants to be & be like Batman, and the fact that Tim absolutely does not:

(Batgirl (2000) #59)

After the crossover they mostly do their own thing staying out of each other's ways in Blüdhaven—though they do get another little story together in this timeframe in Batman Allies: Secret Files & Origins that sort of rehashes the above conflict during some training together & a team-up.

And we DO also get the cute (and oft-mentioned by the fandom) moment where Tim mentions she frequently breaks into his house to shower & steal rice krispies (just for clarity sake, while fandom almost exclusively calls her 'Cass' largely to avoid confusion with Cassandra 'Cassie' Sandsmark, within the comics themselves both Cassandras get called 'Cass' and 'Cassie' at various points—considering Cass is the one who lives in the same city as Tim at this point in canon, that's definitely who he's talking about here)

(Robin (1993) #138)

So like, at this point they are absolutely comfortable with one another and pretty close, but just, they don't see eye-to-eye on everything so it's not some flawless friendship (and I say friendship specifically because at this point we're still a few years out from them actually becoming siblings). But it's absolutely an interesting dynamic!

Then… after Infinite Crisis we get to the One Year Later/OYL era which is... bad for Cass. Terrible horrible character assassination we all refer to as the 'Evil Cass arc' which began in Tim's book. I don't wanna pull panels from it because it's just... it's bad!!!!!!!!!!!! There's a reason it got retconned into Cass having been brainwashed—because it was bad.

I guess the only thing worth bringing up here in relation to Tim & Cass's relationship though (because as mentioned, Cass gets retconned into it having been brainwashing so anything from her in this era is irrelevant/moot) is the fact that Tim was obviously very upset about the whole situation because Cass is someone he cares about and he even says he considers family.

To fast forward through that mess, when we get to the end of it and the 'oh it was brainwashing haha!' retcon, Tim was the one to have on hand a counter-serum that could free her from Deathstroke's control:

(Teen Titans Vol. 3 #44)

Once Cass is no longer forced to be evil and ooc, she gets a little mini at the end of which Bruce formally offers to adopt her (and Tim, who had earlier been adopted by Bruce, is present for this—so from this point on they go from a more general 'we're like family' to actually 'we are adopted siblings').

Buuuut then Final Crisis & Battle for the Cowl both occur and Cass gets extremely pushed aside by DC, giving up the Batgirl mantle to Steph and heading off to Hong Kong.

At which point we find out that Tim & Cass have actually kept in contact (just... off-panel) during this time when she's been out of Gotham and he's been off doing all sorts of stuff:

(Red Robin #17)

When they see each other in person again, Tim urges her to be a Bat again. Maybe not Batgirl if that's not what she wants, but to wear the symbol and be part of the family. (Which she does take him up on, keeping the suit he brought her and becoming Black Bat).

She pops up again at the end of Red Robin to save Tim & also help him pull off a fake assassination attempt on himself—ya know standard stuff.

And then right before the reboot we get to see them working alongside Damian and Dick in Gates of Gotham, and see one final time that yeah—these two have kept in touch after everything, and are definitely far more on one another's wavelength nowadays than they were back in the 'fresh out of War Games' era:

(Batman: Gates of Gotham #2, #5)

So like, does fanon over exaggerate them and their relationship? Aaaaabsolutely—that’s what fanon does. But they did definitely become close after everything they went through and had a fun dynamic together!

Sadly though, as I mentioned at the start of the post, the n52 wiped everything back to a clean slate. And while nowadays post-Infinite Frontier everyone’s histories have been restored their dynamic has never really been the same again.

[longing-for-rain]

I know you said no bait asks, and I promise this isn't, I'm genuinely curious to hear an opinion from a Zutara shipper who seems pretty rational. (I am not a kataang fan either by the way so I'm not trying to argue that or anything.). Do you believe that Zutara is a feminist relationship in comparison to Kataang? And what are your reasons for being so strongly invested in Zutara?

Hi, thanks for the ask. I’ll do my best to explain my feelings on this, but to summarize, I think there are two questions here that aren’t inherently related: a) is Zutara feminist and b) why do I like it so much. I know this might surprise you, but even though Zutara is my OTP, I don’t consider it inherently feminist. Let me explain though because that doesn’t mean it’s a bad ship at all.

Obviously, I really like the characters together. However, I won’t go ahead and say it’s the “feminist” choice over kataang, because personally I think that discussing whether a female character has a feminist narrative should not center around which man she ends up with. The primary focus should be on her narrative independently. And if she doesn’t have an independent narrative, well…that’s not feminist at all.

But I’ll answer in more detail below because I think this is an interesting distinction.

a) Is Zutara feminist over Kataang?

Like I said above…no, not inherently. I think what this question is getting at is which relationship gives Katara as a character a feminist narrative, which is a tricky question. Only one of these ships is canon, so we only know how one relationship would have played out in the eyes of the creators. Everything else is up to the interpretation of fans.

First things first, I absolutely do not think kataang, as portrayed in canon, adds to Katara’s independent narrative as a character, and certainly doesn’t contribute to any potential feminist narrative of her character. There are many instances of Katara being damseled and/or generally reduced in complexity whenever she’s placed in a “romantic” situation involving Aang. Despite Katara also being a main character, the “crush” is portrayed entirely through Aang’s POV. And post canon, Katara ends up being relegated to the role of a healer who stays home at the South Pole (this is why I could never get invested in LoK). Which, if you paid attention to her character at all, was something she explicitly stated she didn’t want to be and fought to escape. Ending her story that way reversed any “feminist” narrative set up in ATLA. So no, this is not a narrative that centers Katara and her ambitions at all.

Now onto fanon content.

The beauty of fanon is that it’s completely up to interpretation. Fans can give the characters whichever narratives they want. This goes for both Zutara and kataang. Just because your ship is canon doesn’t mean you have to adhere to canon; many canon shippers write “fix it” type content or otherwise make changes to the canon relationship to make it more appealing to them. I’m sure there are kataang shippers who rewrite their canon relationship to give Katara a feminist narrative, but to be honest the ship just doesn’t appeal to me at all so I haven’t seen those, but I’m not saying they don’t exist.

Now, Zutara. Even though there are definitely some hints in the series, there was nothing explicitly romantic between these characters in canon. So, fans are free to interpret how a relationship between Zuko and Katara would play out, and therefore Katara’s narrative within that relationship. Some people do make a strong effort to give Katara a feminist story, and in my experience, this is often a direct response to canon. But on the other side of the coin, some people absolutely…do not. It’s a big ship with lots of content. Some of it gives Katara’s character a feminist narrative, some of it…does the exact opposite of that. I think anyone familiar with the ship is probably well aware of some of the unsavory tropes associated with it so I won’t get into that.

But anyways, for any ship, there is a variety of content featuring Katara. Sometimes she’s a great warrior, sometimes she plays an important political role, and sometimes she’s just treated like a slave. Sometimes she has her own wants and ambitions and sometimes her story revolves entirely around whichever male character the author is thirsty for. Sometimes she’s treated as a complex human being and sometimes she just exists to be a fetish. Which again, goes for literally any ship and character you can think of.

So when asking yourself if Katara is given a feminist narrative, asking which man she’s paired with is asking the wrong question. Instead the focus should be on Katara herself and what the message of the story says about her.

b) Why do you like Zutara?

Although you can probably tell from the above, I do consider myself a feminist and enjoy analyzing media from that perspective. But honestly, that has little to do with why I like this relationship so much.

Sorry if this answer is boring, but I just…like them. Everyone has different tastes. For me, I was immediately drawn to them watching the show as a kid, because I’m a sucker for that sort of hurt/comfort dynamic they had going on in books 2-3. Growing up and taking a closer look, I also found that I see Zuko and Katara as having a lot of similar values and personality traits that I feel would make them compatible in a relationship. Also, there’s the fact that I just really like Katara and Zuko as individual characters so I like the fact that Zutara allows me to explore both characters by themselves, as well as how they interact together.

But if I’m being real, the final Agni Kai scene is what sold me. The emotional intensity of that scene just had me hooked for life. It’s really not much deeper than that, but yes, I’m extremely obsessed and emotionally invested in this ship.

And yes, I do write a lot of Zutara fic and do my best to give Katara independent goals and ambitions and agency as a character. I do my best to write her in a way that portrays a feminist narrative because I personally find that important. But that’s something I could apply to any ship. I don’t think it’s inherently feminist to ship Zutara, because like I said earlier, it completely depends on the individual fans and how they interpret it. I like interpreting it in a way that gives Katara individual power and goals, but that’s just me. Not everyone writes Zutara the same way.

Hope that answers your question ❄️

[lixxen]

Danny Phantom Headcanons/World Building (Masterpost)

So I rewatched Danny Phantom within the last week (of the time of creating this) and forgot how much I love it. I'm falling back down the rabbit hole and have started to collect my own HC/world building. This is just a collection of me putting ideas together that my brain was rattling off while watching and a few wiki deep dives. This will probably change as I get more into things and read more fanon. But like. This isn't canon stuff at all and is meant more as a base of operations for any fics I'm gonna write for AO3/drabbles for Tumblr.

Content warnings: mentioned of childhood trauma, minor graphic descriptions, talk about death

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I was into DP as a kid but was never into the fanbase and online spaces. So some of this is from me as a kid/teenager interpreting the show on my own. And sorry if it contradicts canon or is similar to what other people have said before. Genuinely most of this is from me as a kid or just me rewatching the show. I've noticed some of the things I already was thinking about in fics or in a few posts I've seen floating around.

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Danny specific

Danny did die in The Accident, but was practically zapped back to life at the same time due to the Ghost Zone choosing him. It rewrote his DNA, so he was still a functioning human but with Ghost DNA. Unlike Vlad, whose DNA was just rewritten since he was hit with a pure blast of eco-energy. So think of it as like dying in the hospital but automatically being resuscitated but the resuscitation alters your DNA.

Danny doesn't need to sleep or eat a lot of human food often if he doesn't exhaust his human form. Human functions only apply to his human half, so if he stays in his Ghost half then he will not get tired or hungry in that form. But when he transforms back, he will feel it and need to eat or sleep off what he's done as a human.

He needs to consume/absorb ectoplasm just as much as he needs to eat food. It is more of a balance in his system between Ghost and human. So he will eat ectoplasm (normally while in ghost form but he will do it in his human form since it doesn't matter which form, unlike human food).

Danny's Haunt is Amity Park (see Ghost Haunts)

He is the Ghost Zone's core, as he was chosen by the Ghost Zone (see Ghost Cores).

His own core is an ice core.

Jazz and Danny are very close from a young age since their parents are more or less absent. She raises Danny practically, and once he gets into high school and The Accident happens he drifts because of the secret. This is why Jazz throws herself into psychology.

Danny gained Jazz's music taste over the years from exposure, so he likes different genres and doesn't really have a favorite. Jazz recently has an emo phase before The Accident, so he currently enjoys rock, alt rock, and general alt music ATM. He likes pop because that's the genre his peers are into (like Ember). He's never really had a big opinion about music, so he just listens to what is around him

Out of some of the alt rock bands, he listens to what's popular. Jazz showed him Fall Out Boy and Set It Off first to ease him into it, and he likes them.

Danny's ghostly tied item is a small rocket ship toy his parents bought him (see Ghostly tied items. Also called Ghost objects)

Danny is a trans man, but in Reality Trip he may have changed this. I might expand on this, but as a trans person I automatically saw the opportunity and after that we see him without a shirt so I made jokes about how he changed himself to be cis.

I also see him as bisexual, female preference. But he doesn't really think it's important to label his sexuality and has only really had three crushes and he's 14 when he realizes it because he gets a crush on a random guy for two seconds then moves on. He's 14 he doesn't need to have it figured out, y'know? I didn't when I was his age so it doesn't actually matter to him. He just knows he's fruity

Danny has nightmares. Bad nightmares. Nightmares of being dissected by his parents, Amity Park mobbing him for a witch hunt, his friends dying, of Dan (TUE evil Danny will be referred to as Dan) coming back. Stuff like that.

Danny is touch starved from an absent parent childhood. Don't get him wrong, they were there and showed him love and they're so proud of him. But they weren't... there. Y'know? They would give him hugs here and there but he doesn't have positive physical contact memories. So whenever his friends hug him he loves it. When they hold hands he loves it.

Danny and Tucker are close. In the way that when they were younger they'd take naps next to each other. They're platonic and people thought they were dating in middle school before Sam joined them. Sam wasn't always goth and was more opened up in middle school. But 8th grade hit and she saw Jazz go into her emo phase and she found goth and that scene understood how she felt inside (insert Sam's trauma from being in a picture perfect family and the pressure coupled up with her parents controlling her every move. And she just doesn't like pink and light colored stuff y'know). Sam also enjoys the contact, but only from her friends and mom. She loves her mom. I got off topic, but she would never actually use the photo against them. Besides, she partook in the sleep pile and still does. They just never talk about it.

He's called Daniel (aka full named) by Vlad and Lancer because it's them genuinely respecting his identity. Lancer did it to reinforce the name. The town is actually very pro-trans and accepted Danny with ease. But some people still messed up, y'know. So Lancer does his best (he cares deeply about his students)

Talking about Lancer; he noticed Danny's changes in behavior. After Danny spent a few days in the hospital for The Accident, Danny changed. He is constantly worried for Danny.

Dash and the popular kids also noticed and let up for a bit and did feel bad for him. On days he's visibly not feeling good, they don't bully him. They're not heartless. Just bullies.

The class knows he was in an ecto based accident, so they think that's why he's a bit weird and the ghosts are attracted to him. Even if others don't believe it, they just go along with it for the sake of Danny

Danny is also the Ghost King. After defeating Pariah Dark, the recrowning process starts and months later he ends up being King. Clockwork hints that this was planned from before he was born since he knows how time will go. Clockwork had made sure he got to this point.

Danny begrudgingly became king and is actually quite happy with it. The ghosts treat him slightly better and they've come to a mutual understanding with Danny.

Danny really likes space and he has a collection of space books and rocket ship models. He's been to Cape Canaveral multiple times with his family and he used to spend nights on his roof with Jazz looking at constellations. That's why when they went to camp that Sam made them watch the stars. She knew that he wanted to be an astronaut and admired the stars

Danny's ghostly obsession is protection (see Ghostly obsessions). Since he is half ghost, he isn't always having to obey his ghostly obsession. But he doesn't have a say in it. Some days he is strongly attached to it, when something triggers it or it's just one of those days. Then sometimes he has almost no connection to it. It's why sometimes he would rather not deal with everything and wants to give up his powers (or doesn't care) then turns around and is over protective. But in the end, it's protection because his subconscious recognizes he should have been protected from the accident and that no one looked after him to stop it.

Danny also never gets sick. If something's up, it's ghost related.

Being Ghost King means that he is one of the most powerful ghosts. He just is too young and inexperienced to understand and be able to use his power. We already know Dan was the most powerful, so its possible.

Have I mentioned that he is begrudgingly King, so whenever he is interrupted in his daily life for King duties, he is openly annoyed.

The ghosts fetching him will overshadow his classmates to talk to him, or Sam and Tucker, since he made it clear his human life cannot cross paths. They respect their king so after the first time of him enforcing it they just stuck to overshadowing.

Danny is 100% repelled by blood blossoms as a ghost and is only allergic as human. He will sneeze if he smells them, get rashes and hives if he touches them. If he ingests small amounts he will just get sick and poisoned, throat will swell slightly and tongue goes numb. He may have bad stomach problems. But if he eats a lot it can possibly send him into anaphylactic shock. (I have more on blood blossoms later)

Danny does have gnarly scarring on his chest and back from the Accident. It disappears into his skin as a ghost, since ghosts seem to not show injuries or death related scars on them. But as a human they're raised; some parts pink and some white. They spiderweb across his chest and back, blossoming out of his right (our left) side. He has some on the back of his neck and there's a few underneath his hair (which is thick enough to cover). There's a few scarring on his arms and hands, but they're small enough to not be noticed.

His eyes used to be fully blue, like an icey lighter blue with dark blue edges, but around the edges are little spikes of green that you can't see unless you're close and looking into them. Dash noticed it one day when he pushed Danny against a wall and commented on it. Danny called him a weirdo for looking into his eyes enough to notice.

He will get phantom pains randomly in his chest. They're from his organs being damaged from the Accident and his core sits near where his heart is when he's a ghost, so if his core is hurt then his heart aches. Vice versa.

Danny's death was horrible and every once in a while he gets flashes of it. His ghost and human half will try to fully take over and he will have the feeling shoot through him and he kinda jolts. His eyes will change slightly, just a moment of flickering.

Danny always has a pull or need to go into the Ghost Zone. It's like his DNA is calling to go home and absorb the natural energy. It is also because he is the core of the Ghost Zone (will be explained later)

I feel like Danny would have trust issues and PTSD. He'd hate sudden loud noises and sudden blinding light. It will shake him to the core because of the accident. He doesn't like thunder and lightning (the type that lights up the room and is really close and blinding. Not the distant little line in the sky ones)

I feel like he would also not have a good sense of self identity. He would feel alienated from humans AND ghosts because of how Ghosts don't treat him like normal, and how humans just aren't the same anymore and the ones who know treat him differently. Even if the ones who don't know, he just can't fully relate anymore. He also can't be close to the only two (technically) who can relate since Dani isn't around and he doesn't trust Vlad. Makes him uneasy and feel like shit constantly. (Also the fact that he doesn't feel like a guy fully and can't relate to girls anymore but has the lingering connection. Y'know, trans stuff).

Human world

A lot of this is set Post-S2 and Pre-Phanton Planet and most of S3, so Vlad is mayor but no one besides Sam, Tucker, and Jazz know for (canon) humans. Thought I'd give a timeline.

The town LOVES Phantom. After a year or two of him openly saving people, they treat him differently. The Fentons still don't like him but barely tolerate him. They'll try to capture him still and want to dissect him.

The town as a whole think the Fentons are crackjobs that shouldn't have the funding they do, but if they're managing ghost levels with Phantom then they're okay to stay. They also acknowledge that as destructive as the two parents are, they do actually help and know what they're doing

There's different types of ghost hunters in the world; theology based and science based. It depends what region you're from and your roots.

There are people like the Fentons, Men in White, and the various others we see who are science based and somewhat understand very basic ghost biology and rules because they studied it and went to school for it (or have scientist families).

Then there's theology based hunters (who would best be compared to the Winchesters in SPN) who come from lines of old school hunters. The theology hunters are just as valid because their system works (salt and iron work, holy water depends on the type). But the scientific world laughs at them because they're seen as archaic and outdated.

Blood blossoms were bred centuries ago by the original theology hunters. The legend states that a hunter received seeds from their god and was told to burry it in salt and iron inside of a graveyard. The flowers grew into blood red flowers and kept ghosts away. They were bred with a few other flowers to have them in different regions. There are no cases of allergies or being harmful to humans, even for ones that were centuries ago crossbred with flowers that are known to not be good for consumption. They seem to always be edible to humans and are grown in churches and graveyards specifically. They taste like rose and sweet, according to people who have access to them.

The town didn't believe in ghosts at first, but did halfway through S1.

Wes exists in this. I know enough about Wes to say that he just happens to be a ginger look alike to Danny and they were friends in middle school. His parents told him to stop being friends with Danny, especially post-accident. He is one of the first to realize Danny is Phantom and isn't fixed in Reality Trip since Danny thinks it's HILARIOUS. And nobody believes Wes.

Word travels quickly in this small town, like normal. So there's a giant gossip mill; being anywhere near the popular kids will give you a chance to hear just about anything and you can get about anything in there if you talk loud about. Tucker and Sam use this to their advantage sometimes. So do other students. It's great

The town loves Vlad, but think he's weird as hell. They can tell he beefs with Danny but doesn't know why.

Talking bout Vlad, his ghostly obsession is being loved. That's why he is so obsessed with Maddie Fenton. When he found out Danny was half ghost like him, he was added to the need for love. He wants Danny to love him like a father just as much as Maddie to love him as a husband. But as Maddie rejects him, he starts to shift his focus more on Danny becoming his son. He acknowledges that Danny will never want to be his kid, so that's why he creates the clones. He's a really lonely dude and his obsession is what basically corrupted him and turned him evil, from being unchecked and never balanced. If he was regulated like Danny, he would be just like Danny and less effected by it.

For the clones, Dani was actually the perfect clone because she was the only female clone. Vlad just didn't like that and so he wanted to have a perfect male one to be respectful to Danny. But he realized it later on and that's why he wanted Dani to come back and stabilize her after he lost the Perfect Clone.

The other clones weren't perfect, which led to them being barely sentient. They were ghost alive. But... they were practically hive minded.

Anyways, Dani is just out in the world stabilized now. She came back and got Dani to use his cool King powers to fix her. She still met Valerie and D-Stabalized events kinda happened but not at that time and exact. So Valerie knows about Dani and likes her. Y'know? You do.

Valerie figures out Vlad isn't a great dude, but she's gonna use his resources and just go along with his shit and kinda comes to an agreement with Vlad. Vlad does slightly care about her through proxy because of Danny.

Vlad doesn't personally care about people in Danny's life, but goddamn is he gonna by proxy care because he wants Danny to be happy. Vlad also does care about Jazz. Just not as much sadly.

Jazz is liked by the popular kids by the way. She's a bit weird, she's a Fenton. But they think she's very pretty and Jazz helps them pass classes. So who cares if she's related to the loser kid? She's older and cool in their eyes.

Jazz knows this. She's very smart. But she takes any friendship she can get.

I think I genuinely need to talk about Jack and Maddie for a second. They're not bad parents... they're just... they're not good parents. They genuinely love their kids. Jazz and Danny are the highlights of their life and they'd do anything to protect them. They just get carried away and are just too focused on their work so they became very absent and just not good parents. They never meant to be like this and they just never realized how badly it has gone. They don't realize the implications of growing up around aggressive environments are. They're not aggressive to the children, but seeing parents be aggressive in that degree to the point of making weapons will do something to kids. Even if the kids are just annoyed at this point. Jazz recognizes this and that's why she spent so much time trying to support Danny in the way she never got.

Also, the world does view Amity Park as one of the most haunted places. But they think it's more gimmick like. And since they don't have any hotels or Airbnb, no one really visits. The town made sure to not let hotels build in their town for this reason. The only thing you'll get is an Inn fifteen miles outside town limits. People do visit for ghosts. But it's not like people do for Salem or Point Pleasant.

His class over time realizes Danny is actually important to the ghosts because of small occurrences. But they don't know who he is. Eventually, they will find out one by one and be relatively chill about it in front of Danny. Only in front of Danny. Behind his back they're like oh my god he's phantom, king of ghosts. Guys what the fuc-

Ghost Zone/Ghosts

To start it off, there are different levels of ghosts. There's a hierarchy based off of power and respect. The more powerful you are, the higher you are and respected. There can be higher ghosts who aren't powerful due to respect.

There's the regular ones that we see, the Ancient ones that are canon, then there's the ghoul looking ones that are just generic and their obsession/items are fairly simple so they aren't too out there and can be controlled by others, then blob ones that are barely sentient. The blobs are usually animal souls that don't end up like Wulf or the other animal ones we've had episodes around.

Ghosts are created by extreme emotion and are fueled by human emotion and ectoplasm. Either they died with a ton of emotion or someone had too much emotion surrounding their death (that's why blobs tend to be pets that died. Or ghoul like ones had enough people shocked and upset over their death).

Their bodies run off of ectoplasm and ecto energy, which holds them together and fuels them. It allows them to conjure themselves and exist because the Ghost Zone gives it to them.

They are drawn to people who have been exposed to major ecto energy (which would be why they're drawn to Amity Park. So much exposure everywhere. So much) or heavy emotions. Which is why a lot of them feed off of them too

Ghost Cores are the metaphorical hearts and souls of ghosts. It hold their emotion and energy together. It fuels them and keeps them pulled together. If you get rid of the core/destroy it, the Ghost is completely gone. It cannot move on. It cannot reform. It's deader than dead. If you harm the core simply, they can barely keep form. They kinda become goopy and become extremely tangible. It causes their being to not keep.

There are different types of cores, as such in canon. You can have mixed cores or normal cores. Depends on your powers and your color is based off of your alignment and core.

Ghostly obsessions is what raw emotion effected the ghost. They could have had this obsession all their life, like Box Ghost loving boxes, or having to surround their death, like Danny's being protection. They are compelled by their obsession. They must follow it and are obsessed. They can be normal sometimes, but it's only when their obsession is not being challenged. That is your very being because it fuels your core with that very emotion and can give you powers.

Your ghostly tied item/ghost item is what you are tied to in the real world and you are tethered to. If it is destroyed, you are forced to move on. It isn't like the core, as that is the heart/soul. This is more like a leash that allows them to be connected to the human world and not just the Ghost Zone. Some ghosts don't know what it is or where it is. But Johnny 13 has his bike, Pandora's is her box. Danny's is a rocket replica because his parents gave it to him and he protects it. But some of them simply don't know where it is and don't care. Some have things that were buried with them or clothing they loved. They're still around because someone just hasn't destroyed or found it yet.

A blob's ghost item could be a collar or favorite toy if it was a pet. Things that are kept as memories.

A ghost haunt applies to a ghost that mainly resides in the human world, like Danny. They own that area and it is theirs. They usually do not have a lair in the Ghost Zone because they're the same thing, but on the human plane. But ghosts tend to get aggressive towards other ghosts who enter their haunt, so that's why Danny is a bit aggressive. Especially as he gets older and more in tune with being half ghost.

A ghost lair is simply just the ghost's claimed area in the Ghost Zone. Most have them and blobs and more ghoul looking ones will freely roam since they aren't powerful or "important"/high enough. They will tho, if they have a master to serve, stay with them. Laira are usually guarded and keep territorial ties to their owner, but not as strong as a haunt.

Ghosts with haunts will routinely go back into the Ghost Zone. This is for health, survival instincts, or for other reasons. Portals tend to appear more often in haunts because of this.

Ghosts need ectoplasm to survive. Simple. That's why they go in and out of the Ghost Zone a lot of they're in the human realm

The ecto weapons use ectoplasm and reverse engineers it to harm them. Reverse polarity and all. And the reason why salt/iron/holy water works on them is because it purifies and can control the energy. Plus, since they're based off of emotion, if enough people will it to work it will.

Blood blossoms effect them so well because of this. The salt and iron in the breeding mixed with the pure belief. And at some point someone started to soak the seeds in the reversed ectoplasm. But humans don't know that. They're just hardcore believers.

The Ghost zone is partially sentient. That's how it opens up portals and controls ectoplasmic levels. It is a realm made of ecto energy and ectoplasm in the end, so it makes sense. It was crated because human souls needed a limbo between reincarnation (hell/heaven doesn't actually exist in my version. Just a limbo and a few other realms that will be mentioned later). The Ghost Zone needs a core to keep it all together, and it tends to choose a ghost to be it's core. But it chooses very carefully and can move the core to a new ghost if it senses danger. Self preservation.

The Zone chose Danny because it knew it could trust Danny. Which is why Danny is destined to be inherently the most powerful. And the Ghost Zone can loosely be understood by the ancient ones, like Clockwork and Observers. And now Danny.

Every Ghost can speak Ghost Speak. It is an old language that Latin is based off of loosely. Humans cannot understand it. Some have loosely learned it and have trained to understand it. But it's very difficult since they don't have the right vocal chords. Or... have them. Ghosts don't actually have them.

Ghosts can switch freely between whatever human language they speak and then ghost. While speaking to other ghosts, especially in the Ghost zone, they speak in ghost speak. That's how they all understand each other and not have to learn a new human language. It's quite literally in their brain hardwired. It's the ectoplasm and ghost zone doing it. Plus the Ghost zone likes to slightly give mind them so it needs them to know it.

Death day is when they died. It's normally not that pleasant of a day because they can feel how they died throughout the day. Some relive it as a death echo if they're on the human plane, then some just have flashbacks. Some just relive the pain. Normally they like to be alone. But some will be with others. They are literally reliving their deaths because their energy is all jazzed and upset. It's a horrible reminder.

Death days are treated like sad birthdays. So it'll be a truce for that specific ghost and normally the others will give them things to make them feel better. Like... small gifts or words of encouragement. Or if they know their obsession, something to do with it.

Death echoes are not fun. There are a few ghosts who are always trapped in them and have to be released, those are normally weaker ghosts who don't have enough energy to move to the zone so they're trapped. But the stronger ones will leave an echo of energy at their death; which means that if they're on the human plane when death day comes they will reunite with the echo and be stuck in it until the time of death. They will not be themselves, but the fragment of the bit leading up to their death. A literal ghost of themselves being forced in a loop of their death. Think about yelling down a large tunnel and it echoes forever, except when you go back a year later you're forced to keep doing it until the original one is due at the same time.

The final echo will actually physically effect them as they're let go of the echo (for that year). The effects will disappear. (So for example, Danny for the whole day if he's in Amity Park will be stuck as a translucent almost non sentient, not knowing what's going on around him, replay of the Accident. Whoever is there will watch it happen again and again, but only him and not the others, until it comes time for his death and he comes out looking burn and electrocuted. Then it'll disappear and he'll be normal. No memory of the day besides the pain of the last one)

The Ghost zone can't really stop the echo unless they're inside the ghost zone. It contains them and protects them, so that's why they will leave their haunts or just go back for the day.

There is actual royalty, which is the Ghost King and and his court. The king can marry and have a queen. There can be ghost queen as rulers if a girl wings the crown. It just so happens the last two/three have been guys. Whoever rule's full title is king/queen ruler then their partner is king/queen consort. There can be two kings or two queens this way, and it's even gender wise. Yippee. Princes/princesses are children and do not actually hold any right to the thrown unless their ruler turns it over or they overthrow. It's a formality and political status out of respect. It barely happens.

The Ghost King is earned by right of conquest. So Danny challenging Pariah Dark and winning meant that he stripped Pariah of his crown and title. Everyone involved could lay claim if Danny does not take the crown and challenge Danny. And if someone does challenge Danny, then the ghosts will be able to access whether or not they actually do have the right or should be allowed.

Vlad actually challenged the right, but most of the ghosts knew Vlad was a bad option and vetoed him before Danny even knew what was going on. Vlad knew exactly what was happening and that's why he wanted to awaken him. He just... didn't plan out the events that unfolded.

But how normally the crowning works is that the crown would return to the Ghost Zone, and the Zone would present it to one of the Ancients. Whoever defeated the previous king will automatically receive title of Prince (which Danny didn't know but the others knew). The Ancient will then send out lesser ghosts or allies of the newly titled Prince to announce their new right. They will be brought to a coronation ceremony where they will accept or decline.

If they accept, they will be bound to the title and they will gain new powers literally and metaphorically. They will gain the King's Keep as a new lair. And they will be diplomatically/politically responsible for the new era

The King's court is mostly appointed with the exception of the higher ranking ghosts. They have a right to be on there.

The Ghost King is what people precieve as Satan/Lucifer/the Devil actually. But in the sake of continuity, they're just summoning the Ghost King by that name. Y'know. Only the religious folk call him by religious titles. Same dude.

This ties into the fact that the Ghost King and other ghosts can be summoned. Anything having to do with king/Satan/devil summonings the Ghost Zone will literally route to the Ghost King. Most "powerful ghost/demon" ones will more than likely be a powerful ghost, but the ghost zone will put the king in there also. If someone isn't specific in the summoning, they'll get someone with a related obsession to their goal or just a lower level generic ghost (probably a ghoul like one).

Which means Danny will be summoned from time to time. He can easily get back since it's a portal that can't be seen besides the summoned. Silly stuff tbh. People don't do it too much, but it's often enough to make him have a system for it.

Half Ghosts only have two natural cases and one unnatural. Dani isn't considered a true half ghost by the ghosts since she is a clone. They don't see her as anything other than a clone of Danny who is now her own person. They treat Danny and Vlad the same.

The term Halfa is the term for being half ghost, and most ghosts don't necessarily mean it in a mean way since it's just their slang term for half ghost. But some do use it in a mean way (the ones who don't like humans and hate the idea that two powerful ghosts are half human. Some ghosts are just dicks and use the term blob in the same way)

Since Danny doesn't talk about half ghosts to other ghosts a lot, he doesn't use the term. Sam and Tucker were confused when he first said it and looked a bit concerned. He explained what it means and they just nodded slowly. His friends personally don't like it, but just don't use it unless talking to ghosts.

A lot of the more powerful ghosts don't like it when the humans call them anything besides ghost or ectos, especially when they're called ghoulies. When they're called ghoulies they see it as being deemed the same as lower powered and they get offended.

Don't ask a ghost how they died. You don't need to ask exactly what their obsession is; if you can figure it out you can be like "oh this is it." But asking directly is a bit weird and rude. And don't ask them directly what their ghostly tied item is. Usually it's personal. C'mon guys. You wouldn't ask someone their deepest personal trauma. Why would you do that to them??

Also, it should be obvious that not all ghosts are evil. But a lot of them are just mean spirited or the emotions that made them aren't nice so they just... yeah. They can be good and nice people obviously. They just don't tend to be all the time

Also, Christmas truce came from three kings ago. Pariah Dark's full reign when he wasn't locked up caused a pause, but when he was locked up it continued.

Other

There's other realms, like the dream realm and the area outside of time that Clockwork lives in.

The Observers also live in the area outside of time, but do follow the main continuity of time. They do not care about the other continuities or timelines. The timelines exist but aren't the main one, so they don't really matter. Just branches that fizzle out after a bit. The Observers' job, along with Clockwork, is to protect the main one. Think kinda like TVA except like... you obey a realm and not some man playing god. And they don't just cut off the timelines. They just redirect the main one and let the others naturally fizzle out

There are Ghosts of __, like how we have the ghost of time and dreams. They're powerful and are important for the Infinite Realms to exist. Clockwork knows where to find them if needed, as he is one. Nocturn is kinda just an asshole and Clockwork keeps him in check. He knew Nocturn wouldn't win so he let the guy have his fun and then kinda reprimanded him on the side

Dan also exists outside of time now. Clockwork lets him outside the thermos sometimes and has put a blocker on his powers so he can't use them. Dan says it's inhumane and Clockwork hits him with a "maybe don't kill a ton of people and ruin the timeline. Ever thought of that?" (Obviously not exact words). It works. Dan is just glad to be out of that thermos.

Dan also really wants to meet Dani. Clockwork shows her story to him, and even though Dan doesn't have his human side he is interested in her and want to know more.

I just really want Dan to eventually get some humanity back and Clockwork is a manipulative ass, so he would use Dani as a tactic.

[cookii-moon]

I think post DOTD Cole still deserves to be at least a tiny bit affected by his time as a ghost yk

Explanations!!

Ngl the fact that Cole literally defied life and death and we never talk about it makes me sad like cmon it’s so interesting we give Lloyd Oni dragon features and Nya water features but we NEVER talk about when Cole literally transcended the barrier of ACTUAL DEATH. He should get more than a scar that vanishes afterwards and some cool powers SO IM GIVING HIM IT because this fandom has a criminal lack of ghost Cole content

So yeah here’s my explanations for each thingy plus my headcanons slash fanon

You can find the exact lines and contents in the ID if you can’t read my messy handwriting or tell what my messy sketches are supposed to be dndfjhgfdhgi know I know it’s very bad anyways

first one is self explanatory, Kai’s worried about Cole because the guy was dead and came back to life, Cole denies it (no it’s not ship but idm if ur a lavashipper and want it to be ship you can tag it if you wanna) because he’s Cole ofc he’s gonna deny it he’s an idiot. Meanwhile we go on to list alll the ways it’s most definitely 100% affecting him.

first one. the Cole vision. BASICALLY I follow the theory ghosts have different eyes, and when designing those eye, I take inspiration from lizard eyes. A lot of lizards, particularly nocturnal ones, not only have good night vision but can also see many more colors than humans, so I applied that to ghost eyes as well, essentially sight is one of their few senses that aren’t muted. They have night vision and can also see a much broader spectrum of color than humans can.

Since Cole has his scar on the left side, he also gets a ghost eye on the left side, which still has all the advantages he did as a ghost. On the other hand, his right eye is back to usual, meaning it doesn’t get those advantages and he’s still red/green colorblind in it. That means his left and right vision is pretty different now, which takes quite a lot of getting used to. Obviously this would be easier to show with a colored thing but it was. Hard to color for obvious reasons (you can’t demonstrate someone being able to see more colors than humans because we will always interpret it as a color we can see due to how we filter it) the ghost eye stays his entire life and there’s not really anything he can do about it.

Onto the arm - the markings are essentially burn marks / scars from his lava arms, and his nails are claws. I see ghosts as getting less and less human as time goes on because they forget who they were and what they looked like, therefore being incapable of mimicking a human form. Because Cole was around the ninja he never got far, but he did end up with some intrinsic ghost traits that carried over, like the claws. He has tried cutting them but it basically requires a massive claw clipper and even then they grow back very quickly and you can still see that they’re claws, they’re just less obnoxiously sharp. He usually opts to hide them with gloves a lot of the time. The claws are also permanent, but he can regularly trim them to be less obvious and also less annoying and more manageable.

The one where he’s scared of water is. Self explanatory. Obviously he has a big fear of water after coming back from the dead. Even just a few drops can send him into a panic attack. It gets better eventually with exposure therapy, though it may still cause him to be anxious around it at times.

most people have already done the “Cole runs into doors and walls after coming back from being a ghost lol” but like. It makes sense. So.

Right. Onto the ANGSTTTT.

“Everything is too much” refers to his sensory issues. Now obviously Cole is autistic /lh so he’s always had some sensory issues, but oh boy. Getting the ability to feel literally everything instantly after so long of not having it whatsoever?? Yikes. Pretty much everything is obnoxiously and incredibly overwhelming to him. it goes back to the usual after a lot of help from his family, though! :)

“But also”. Aka the image of him looking out at the stars. Lot more vague. Interpret it as you wish. There’s a few intended meanings to it but go ahead and figure them out for yourself. I will say that going with the idea that it’s dissociation related, he has a tendency to dissociate a lot after coming back (which is strange since he used to be pretty grounded). It never really goes away.

”Too little” ok so this one DEFINITELY needs explanation. I talked about how he’s overwhelmed. Well. Sometimes he’ll have bouts where it’s the exact opposite. He’ll suddenly feel a cold chill followed by a spreading numbness. Sometimes it’s just his hand, or his arm, other times it’s his entire body. It’s basically a psychological thing, sort of like phantom limbs except instead of a feeling where there is an absence, it’s more of an absence where there should be a feeling. Of course it’s absolutely terrifying for him, but the others eventually learn how to help ground him when it happens. Over time It gets less frequent but it doesn’t go away.

Anyways yeah that’s all I just. Think there should not only be more ghost Cole content but also. More post ghost Cole. He’s gotta be impacted SOMEHOW. Right.

Anyways yeah this is that so like

[sherifftillman]

busy streets and busy lives • ralph penbury x reader

A strange day at work gets even stranger when you meet a man who claims he's from 1926. With no certainty as to when he can get back, you decide to take him in until that time arrives.

masterlist | prev. | next

Tags: Timewasters (series), modern!au, slow burn, mutual pining, idiots in love™, fluff, some angst, swearing and mentions of adult themes throughout, eventual adult content, alcohol content, drug content, penbury is a fanon surname

Word count: 14.2k

A/N: Jesus. H. Christ. Thank you for your patience. This chapter broke me. Goodnight.

(Also please note there is a new content warning in the tags! There is slight drug use in this chapter.)

PS i know, it's a lot of angst, and you guys are here for the cute fluffy timey-wimey boy. i promise next chapter is far nicer, i just didn't want it to get boring, is all. &lt;3

It had been so long. He’d been doing so well. You thought you could just happily leave Ralph at home and he could stay out of trouble. But several missed calls from your friends alerts you to the incident that the group chat were talking about:

With a heavy sigh, you text your co-manager, asking them to cover for you so you could leave for what you call a “family emergency”. Thankfully, you’ve had to do it often enough in the past that they just assume you’ve got a really chaotic younger sibling or something, but it still gets a little frustrating that it’s his third month of living with you and you’re still having to be on call 24/7 for him. Surely by now, he could have googled whether it was safe to microwave a whole egg. And how on earth do you accidentally go live?! There are steps to it, it’s not as though it’s a button he can accidentally press. Only Ralph, honestly.

Still, you can’t stay mad at him. Not when he’s sat on the kitchen floor, muttering to himself in exponential anguish as he reads every cleaning product label to try and determine which one is best for the task at hand.              

You spot his phone still resting on the counter and look at the screen in confusion. “How are there still three and a half thousand of you watching my wall?!” You ask into the camera.

Ralph sits up on his knees to look at his phone, too, and you hold back laughter at the camera’s shot of just his hair and eyes above your kitchen counter. “What do you mean, watching?”

“You’ve been broadcasting for hours, mate. Say goodbye to your followers!” You chirp as you hover over the button to end the feed.

Ralph sinks back to the floor with a defeated, “Oh, fiddlesticks,” and you stop the livestream.

You look at the bottles he has surrounding him and hold your hand out, “Here, gimme the green one.”

He hands it over to you, and gets up quickly, moving over to sit on the sofa in silence. You sigh in resignation, looking over at him as he hugs a cushion to his chest. Quickly wiping down the inside of your microwave, you tidy up the rest of the kitchen after him and sit on the other end of the couch, cross-legged. “Hey.” You crane your neck to try and catch his gaze, but he refuses to. “Hey. You know I’m not mad at you, right? It’s just all the stuff I’ve had going on today all balled up into one big outburst. I’m sorry if I made you feel that way.”

“I suppose you shall be on your way back to work now,” he mutters into the cushion.

You shake your head, “Nah, already forfeited the rest of the day as unpaid because the other manager’s covering. Usually I’d swap it for another shift, but we’re going away next week, so…” You shrug. “No chance there.”

Ralph looks up, the pillow obscuring everything but his sad puppy-dog eyes. “G-going away? Wher- who wi- how lo-”

“Where, Brighton,” you tap one finger. “Ever been?” He shakes his head. “Ah, you’ll love it.” You tap another finger, “Who with, please, like I have any other friends,” you scoff, “so don’t worry, you won’t be meeting anybody new -”

Ralph’s eyes widen in a double take. “Wh- I’m going, too?”

“Well, I clearly can’t leave you here with me, can I?” You ask pointedly, jerking your head behind you towards the now clean microwave. “At least the sofa in the Brighton house pulls out into a proper bed size. How long,” you tap a third finger, “we leave here tomorrow afternoon, leave Brighton next Saturday morning.”

Ralph suddenly finds all his energy, “And just when were you planning on letting me know to start packing?!”

“Well, tomorrow morning, I thought, it’s just a case of shoving some clothes in a bag for a week. It’s not like we’re going to the Ritz or anything,” you shrug. “But we’ve got time to get a head start now if you really need it.”

“If I need -” Ralph scoffs at you as he leaps off the sofa and into the bedroom. All you can do is sigh as you watch him sprint across the room.

~~~

You probably should have figured out, with six of you taking three cars, that it wasn’t going to just be six of you. Grace’s new boyfriend - who you barely recognise yourself until Ralph, of all people, informs you that they’d met on his first night out with you all - and Scott’s partner, who Ralph is thrilled to be reunited with.

It does raise some questions to you about everyone’s sleeping arrangements, since usually Grace and Anna share the biggest room, leaving the three other bedrooms in the house for the rest of you. You’re about to suggest that you sleep on the sofa here, too, to give Ralph the bedroom, when instead you watch Connor throw his bag down on it.

You frown, “Oh, I was gonna stay down here to give Ralph a-”

“No, no, absolutely not,” Anna interjects, shaking her head. “I already worked out, it’s better if you two take the biggest bedroom, the two couples share a bedroom each, and then I tried to fight my case for the sofa, but Connor insisted on it.”

“What a gent,” you comment jokingly. You wonder if Ralph saw it that way, but daren’t look in his direction, in case he takes that the wrong way and assumes you want him to react. 

“So - so this bedroom that we’re staying in, is - is there -?” Ralph stammers, his eyes squeezing shut and opening at a rapid pace. You’ve been able to recognise that as a nervous reaction of his.

“Pretty sure there’s one bed, yeah. But if that’s too scandalous for you, I’m sure I can get a fold-out or something,” you explain, but Ralph’s eyes quickly look around the room before he shakes his head. He can’t quite make eye contact with you.

“No, no, it’s quite… Nothing wrong with being bedfellows, right?”

You shake your head, “Sure, whatever you say. Let me take our bags up - Connor, since yours are there, why don’t you show the newbies around the house and the rest of us can get our rooms set up?”

Connor agrees and you sling the strap of your duffel bag over your shoulder and pick up the suitcase Ralph’s using to take them both up the two flights of stairs to the biggest bedroom in the house.

You really should make work on unpacking yours and Ralph’s clothes for the week, or at least getting your toiletries out, but the bed calls to you like a siren from the deep seas. Throwing the bags on the floor, you launch yourself onto the bed. Oh, sweet spongy mattress! An actual duvet that covers all of you and then some! Pillows without an armrest digging into the back of your head!

The drive down was tiring enough that you can feel your eyes getting heavy. You try to get up again, to fight the urge to sleep too early and miss out on your first night traditions.

You’re awoken by a gentle pressure shoving your wrist down into the bed. And then your elbow. And then your shoulder. You eventually figure out that the sound that accompanies it is Ralph calling your name. “Ah, you’ve awoken! Welcome back.”

You sit up suddenly, “Oh Christ, I’m so sorry! I didn’t want to do that, oh god, what time is it?!”

“Not to worry! Everybody is waiting to go to dinner, they said this is the time you all go anyway,” Ralph assures you. You notice that he’s stood bolt upright, but with his head turned almost upside down to look at you. You let out a sleepy chuckle as you start moving out of the bed, and Ralph quickly darts out of the room. You try not to read into that too much.

You’re greeted with a chorus of, “Alright, sleepyhead?” “It lives!” “What time d’you call this?!” You flip your friends off and fake going back up the stairs before running ahead to the front door.

Once you’ve all got your food, you sit where you always do - a bench that overlooks the pier, all its illuminations making it obvious against the dark sea beneath it. Knowing you’re finally on holiday, surrounded by the people you love most in the world, in your most favourite place, enjoying one of your favourite traditions as your lap cradles the bundle of warmth that is your portion of fish and chips as you hear the gentle crashing of waves. Knowing that all your troubles are currently almost a hundred miles away. You feel a sense of contentment, a rare zen moment. You can’t remember the last time you felt this calm.

And then, ironically, a voice laced with disgruntlement interrupts your train of thought. “Is this really any way to spend a night? You can barely see anything, this is by far the least dignified way to eat, and I fear I may come down with pneumonia before the night is through,” Ralph complains.

“Eat quicker, you’ll warm up quicker,” you prompt him. “This is why I wanted to get you a hat, but you didn’t ‘trust me’,” you mock with a smirk.

“That’s ’cause I’m your favourite to shop with, innit, Ralphie?” Connor calls from further down the bench.

“The guy who bought him clothes that feature an Angry Birds and Star Wars crossover does not deserve bragging rights,” you scoff, to laughter from most of the others.

“Ignore that lot, mate, here, have mine for now!” Connor takes his hat off and puts it on Ralph’s head. There’s something rather endearing about Ralph wearing a hat with ear flaps, but even more so when they’ve folded back on each other enough that they stick out to the sides.

“Are you quite sure?” Ralph asks, eyes wide and pleading.

“Yeah, shoved my hand in my pocket earlier and realised I had a beanie in here, too,” Connor grins as he puts another hat on his head. 

“You’re such a twat,” Grace laughs, and Connor acts offended.

“Excuse you! I was merely looking out for my best mate here!” Ralph’s face lights up at those words.

Trying not to focus on how cute that is, you grin, “Did you wanna share the bed with Ralph, then?”

Connor’s mood shifts at that. He suddenly shakes his head and goes quiet as the others hurriedly change the subject. They tell Ralph about how you’ve all hired out the same house from Airbnb for years now, how the tradition of visiting every year came to be, asking Ralph if he’d ever been to a beach before. He vaguely recalls going to “a sandy beach” when he and his sister were very young, for a few years. You’ve had a few heart-to-hearts with Ralph about his father’s death and his mother’s admission to rehabilitation, but he doesn’t bring it up to the group. You still give his hand a gentle squeeze, to let him know that you understand if he’s getting upset. He wriggles his hand against yours until your fingers interlock, and he squeezes back, using his free hand to pull the ear flaps of his new hat down to cover his.

You keep hold of Ralph’s hand as you walk back to the house, just to let him know that you’re still there for him - though you’d be lying if you weren’t also letting yourself indulge in the idea of you both taking a romantic late-evening stroll along the beachfront, just a little. Of course, usually when you allow yourself these small delusions, it ends up warping the little grievances the two of you have into something far more infuriating than they probably actually are - something’s got to bring you back to reality, after all. But you can’t see any reason why you’d possibly get far enough to snap while you’re on holiday.

Once you’re back to the house, and you and Ralph are making your way upstairs, you tell him to get himself changed in the bedroom while you do so in the bathroom. You grab some pyjamas from your bag, as well as your washbag, and head in to get yourself ready for the night. A quick silent pep talk with your own reflection to remind yourself that your walk back with Ralph was strictly platonic, and you’re ready to go back out to the living room for some games with your friends before bed.

As you step out of the bathroom, you hear a short, shrill shriek. Your eyes dart immediately to Ralph sat on the side of the bed who, despite the fact that he is wearing an undershirt, still censors his chest from view with his pyjama shirt, staring at you with wide eyes.The shade of his ears is unusually deep compared to when he’s usually surprised. Assuming you’re paying far too close attention to such a minor detail for no reason, you snort out a laugh, tell him to meet you downstairs and go to meet the others.

Though Ralph doesn’t understand a lot of the games you all play that rely heavily on pop culture knowledge, he’s a big fan of those that rely on skill and/or general hilarity, since his cluelessness usually helps him there. You advise that he take a backseat upon the suggestion of Jackbox, much to the others’ chagrin - you just feel as though he isn’t quite ready for that, yet. You’re proven right when he constantly asks you for clarification on just what makes a particular answer funny, or when his ears burn up at a particularly racy answer. Connor had expressed interest in showing Ralph the ropes when it came to some games, and you tried to encourage him to go over there, but Ralph insisted on you being his teacher. You assume it’s because you know better than anyone how to explain things to him, but internally your imagination is  playing a very dangerous game.

When you awaken in the bed the next morning, Ralph is still sleeping soundly next to you. He’s almost at the edge of his side of the bed, back turned to you. You slowly make your way out of your side and sneak past him, out of the room and down to the kitchen.

“No Ralph?” Scott asks as you walk in.

“Hello to you, too,” you jokingly flip your friend off and he smiles sweetly in return. “Nah, he’s still sparko. Dunno why.”

“Didn’t he sleep well?” Anna frowns.

You shrug. “Couldn’t tell you, I slept like a log!”

Ralph stirs from all the way upstairs, assuming from the open door that you’d already left the room but still staying still just in case. He slowly starts to roll around to look, allowing himself a sigh of relief as he sprawls out on the bed. He’d only slept once he’d finally exhausted himself from trying to stay as deliberately far away from you as possible. 

His mind would wander, of course. How peaceful you must look when you sleep. How wonderful it would be to awaken with his face a mere touching distance from yours. On occasion, he’d hear you take an extra deep breath and he’d get giddy at the realisation that he was breathing the same air as you!

That’s when he’d rein it in. Stupid Ralph. That’s exactly what scared Lauren off. It’s been months since that week, and still he hasn’t learned. In the present moment, Ralph pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes and bares his teeth in frustration at himself. Desperate to think of anything other than the thought of waking up next to you just as the sun shone against you in the most perfect of ways, making you appear even more radiant than usual. Of your eyes slowly opening as you wake. Ralph finally gives into temptation and indulges himself in the idea of your sleepy smile, in this dream universe where you’d be happy to wake up to see him. And what a perfect sight that would be.

He takes himself to the bathroom, picking up his razor and twirling the handle around between his fingers and thumb, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. He’s already shaved his facial hair clean off on several occasions. It keeps him remembering who the real Ralph Penbury is. You and your friends always complain when he does it, though. They tell him that he’s not Our Ralph when he looks like that. He’d love nothing more than to be Their Ralph. Especially to you. What was the point of being the other Ralph? Going back to a penniless, friendless, loveless, overall fruitless life?

But you’re always reminding him, this isn’t his era. This isn’t permanent. You’re always preparing him to go back to his own time at any point. A part of Ralph - the stupidly optimistic, nay, deluded part - hopes that it’s simply a fear of the unknown, that messing with time in such a way could cause devastating effect. Though what a stupid thing to think, in what universe would Ralph have such a massive impact?! 

With a heaving sigh, he tidies his facial hair up to a minimum while keeping it intact. A part of him still hesitates, still debates going further. It's what you'd want. Except also it isn't, because you always tell him he looks better with it. Ye gods, you're a confusing one.

Ralph gets himself dressed and makes it downstairs in just enough time to catch breakfast being dished up. You whisper something to Scott as soon as Ralph approaches, and Scott hands him a plate with a warm smile alongside everyone else eating, before setting everything up to make another portion for you. Ralph wants to frown, but he doesn't want to draw attention to himself, either. Why would you immediately sacrifice your breakfast for him, when he's the one who came downstairs later? Why would you see him being fed first as more important? Why not let him make that decision? He would have been happy to wait.

You feel Ralph's eyes boring into you as he scarfs his eggs down, but the one time you try and look back at him he acts as though he's trying not to get caught. You wonder what he could possibly be thinking, until Anna starts talking about the day's itinerary. This is good, this is distracting from the awkwardness, this is what the holiday is all about.

All wrapped up for a brisk November morning, you all head out to the pier, as per tradition. As Ralph gets face to face with the rides, he looks up at them, horrified, and you frown. "Are you scared of rides, or something?" He looks back down at the pier floor, watching the waves crash beneath a gap in the planks, with more fear in his eyes. "Hey, hey," you soothe, "eyes up." Ralph eventually tears his gaze away to look at you. "I promise it's all safe. It's not like those travelling funfairs where everything gets wheeled in and out, everything's built to stay here. Alright?" He still seems distracted, and before you can stop yourself, you blurt out, "Wanna hold my hand again?"

Stupid. What happened to not feeding the delusion? What happened to distancing yourself? What happened to being realistic? You know exactly what happened. Those damn baby-cow eyes. Hopefully Ralph'll say no. It'll be too scandalous for him to hold hands in public with people all around, surely.

But no. His fingers very carefully slide between yours yet again as he squeezes your hand gratefully. You keep both of your hands relatively tucked away from the others' view - they've already got you two sharing a bed, the last thing you need is having to constantly try to convince them all that you and Ralph aren't an item. Despite the fact that it would certainly be a good thing for you, a constant reminder to you that it can never happen, you know your friends well enough by now to know that they’d only take it as denial. That they’d keep pressing to ‘uncover’ whatever they believe you’re hiding. And you’ve gone this long keeping your one big secret from them, what if they keep digging until they find that out?!

Your train of thought is interrupted by a loud giggle from Ralph. He sees the photo op cutout of a cop and robber chase scene and he’s delighted by it. “Wanna pose?” You let go of Ralph’s hand to take your phone out and hand it to one of your friends as you both run behind the photo stand. Ralph finds the resulting picture absolutely hilarious. 

“I always wanted to do one of those,” he muses as the pair of you hang back for him to once again hold your hand, to your own chagrin. Why couldn’t you have offered to link arms? That’s friendly enough. Can’t really be misconstrued. His smile, small but contented, melts your frustrations away, if only to add to them later on as you’re walking with him.

“Did they not have people taking your photo for you, even, in those days, then?” you ask quietly, so as not to be overheard.

Ralph half-shrugs, “There were cameras, you know. Far bigger than those little pocket ones everyone has now!”

“Yeah, I think I know of them. Big box things, someone would have to stand under a curtain and hold out a thing to press to take it, right?” you ask.

Ralph holds back his laughter as he replies with amusement, “By a thing to press, do you mean a button, by any chance?”

You pull a sarcastic face at him. “I’m leaving you stranded here,” you joke, tugging him in a particular direction to show him you’re not serious. “You’re spending too much time around me, I think. Starting to sound like me and everything,” you shake your head.

“Is that such a bad thing?” Ralph asks in a small voice.

Trying not to overthink what else that could mean, you shrug, “Well, I s’pose if I’ve a part to play in you being able to tell your sister to shove it, then not really. But using my own brand of sarcasm against me?” You tut, again shaking your head. “I’ve created a monster.” Ralph laughs gently at you as everyone stops at their first ride: the Turbo roller coaster. 

Everyone laughs at the shade of green Ralph turns. “I promise you, mate, it’s far scarier down here than it is up there,” Connor tries to reassure him, but Ralph is fixated on the loop in the track.

“Honestly, Ralphie babe, that is the tiniest loop you’ll ever go on. It’ll be over before you even know it, and by the time it is over, you’ll love it, promise!” Grace holds her little finger out to Ralph, who stares at it with fearful eyes for a few beats before linking his own, to everyone’s cheers.

You allow your hands to be a little less obscured, under the guise that Ralph is only scared of the ride and so you are providing a temporary comfort. Anna also rests her head against Ralph’s arm, and Scott places a comforting hand on his shoulder, at your invitation. “The more of us that comfort him, the better, right?” you explain. “Plus, if there’s any… Prying eyes…” You look around anxiously. “At least they can’t assume that Ralph and I are dating just ’cause we’re stood together,” you roll your eyes exaggeratedly. “I don’t need that sort of attention, it’s bad enough on socials.”

You don’t see Ralph’s change in demeanour. What was a quiet excitement mellowed amongst the fear of the ride, turns to full-blown dejection. Of course you’d be embarrassed to be associated with him. Who wouldn’t be? No matter what era he’s in, he’s still Ralph.

Anna interrupts his train of thought by rubbing his arm, “You alright, Ralph?” He nods, pushing a smile up his cheeks. “Nervous?” She asks, and he nods silently. She hugs his arm tight. “Honestly, there’s nothing to it.”

“Yeah, you’ll be a thrill-seeker like the rest of us in no time!” Scott grins before nudging you and Ralph each. “You two should get a photo on the Crazy Mouse for the flat!”

You shake your head, “Come off it, like either of us would want a photo of us being flung around like that! Right, Ralph?” Again, he nods without saying a word. Your brow furrows, “Are you okay? Did you want to sit this one out?” He shakes his head. “Sure? We can just go get food if you would rather watch this lot go round first and then we can go later,” you offer, but he shakes his head again.

“Besides, it’s not like it’d be the worst photo of him out there,” a completely strange voice from the other side of the queue barrier makes you jump.

“Excuse me?!” Scott exclaims.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you all! We just saw Ralph, and then you, and really wanted to get a photo, if that’s okay?” They ask you. They seem innocent enough, just asking for a picture, but you still can’t help but stand there awkwardly.

“Oh, I’m not really into that side of things, I only got my socials to make sure people are being normal about him,” you shrug them off before adding, “and to reward you all with some extra content if you’re all behaving!” They laugh, and you turn to Ralph. “What do you say, do you wanna take a photo with some of your fans?”

Ralph approaches the barrier and leans over it to pose for the photo, pressing his lips together into a smile as he holds an arm around his first in-person fan. “My friends and I just think you’re absolutely hilarious!” They smile up at him.

“Oh, please,” he laughs, flustered. Though he has his new hat on, you can guess what’s happening beneath it. “My lack of knowledge of technology doesn’t necessarily make me hilarious, anyone could do that.”

“Nah, there’s a sort of… Natural charm about you. Plus, I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, but you’re really cute. Even in that photo that’s going around.”

Ralph sputters nervously as the rest of you exchange glances. You manage to hide your seething rage from your friends, though you feel it boring through your eyes as they fixate on this person. “Ah, don’t be so silly! You’re far too kind. Um, is that your friend over there waving you away?” He asks as someone approaches, thankfully dragging their friend away while talking about spotting a Twitch streamer as they head in the direction of some poor sod wearing a black and white face covering. You wonder whether that’s their ‘thing’ or if they’re doing it to avoid detection. You wonder if you’ll have to do that with Ralph at some point. His internet fame is becoming less and less of the laugh it first seemed to be with every day.

“You alright?” Anna again checks in with Ralph, who looks slightly bewildered still.

“Should I have responded differently there?” He asks.

You’re quick to answer, “No! No, I think you did the right thing, there.” You then hurriedly follow it up with a, “I mean, dating fans is never a good idea, right?”

“Yeah, not gonna lie, that made me uncomfortable,” Connor cringes. “You handled it way better than me, mate.” Ralph feels a sense of pride at his words. The line starts to move and soon enough, you’re all getting into carriages yourself. 

You make sure you and Ralph are in one near the middle, so he feels safer. Once you’re all strapped in, and the attendant is sure Ralph is, too, you see him already squeezing his eyes half-shut in anticipation. You poke him gently and hold your hand out again. “It’ll be here if you need it, okay?”

“Oh, it’s quite alright, I wouldn’t want to be a -” Ralph starts, but as the coaster jolts into motion he quickly grasps your hand tightly.

Ralph’s half-laugh/half-scream serenades you throughout the whole ride, especially at the loop. Once the ride brings you back upright again, you look over at him. “Was that so bad?”

“Boy, that was exhilarating, wasn’t it?!” He beams, and everyone else cheers for him from their own seats.

“You did it, Ralphie!” “We’re so proud of you, babe!” “Reckon we’ve awoken the thrillseeker in you?” Ralph’s too giddy to answer any of those. 

You can barely get him to stand upright without his legs turning to jelly, unless you get him to hold your arms while you hold his. He falls into your arms with a giddy laugh, and you gently shove him onto his own gait. “Easy, tiger!” You giggle. “God knows what you’re gonna be like on the other rides.”

Once he sees the Crazy Mouse coaster in action, that green hue in his skin returns, so you decide to build his courage up a little more. His face simply turns white when he sees the ghost train. Scott notices and rolls his eyes, “Oh my god, Ralph, don’t even worry about it, this is literally the least scary ride on here.”

His partner pipes up, “Yeah, there’s scarier creatures on the merry-go-round than there are in there!”

“I wonder if they’ve put the face back on that animatronic from last year or not?” You ask, before looking over to Ralph, who looks horrified. “It’s unintentionally the scariest thing there, and it’s not even that bad. Trust me. Remember?” You hold your hand out, wiggling your fingers. “If you need it.”

“What if… People assume?” Ralph asks, trying not to spit the word out with the venom that wants to follow it.

You shrug, “I think your face justifies your need to have someone hold your hand. If you’d rather, you can sit with Connor or Anna, I was just suggesting -” He takes your hand again in silence, and you walk him over to queue up at the ghost train.

The moment the ride takes you into a dark hallway, Ralph buries his face in your shoulder, and you pat his cheek comfortingly. However, as he starts to see the quality of the animatronics (“Was that one being held up by -” “Duct tape, yes.”) and experience how poorly timed the “jump scares” are, he relaxes far more. 

You take him on the twister next, which only ends up throwing your body into his at every convenience, a consequence you’d forgotten in the year since you’d last been on it. Still, he seemed too invested in the adrenaline rush that came with being thrown around in circles to notice your proximity.

After a quick pit stop to eat, and reassurance to Ralph that you weren’t going straight back onto any rides, you go into the arcade. Ralph’s face lights up along with all the games as you explain what ones are. He excitedly tells you that he recognised the fortune teller machine and a strength tester game from his own youth. 

You let the others go on ahead as you and Ralph pay for a go on the fortune teller. It tells you, “A smile is worth a hundred frowns in any market!” You look at Ralph with the biggest smile you can muster, and he returns with one of your favourite expressions of his, the big fake animatronic-style smile that could rival the fortune teller. “And lucky for you, the great Zoltar sees much happiness ahead for you!” You bite your lip at the irony. Does that mean Ralph's happiness, that he’ll be returning home soon? Your happiness, that he’ll be staying? Or is it just a randomly generating machine?

It prints off a fortune and you read it together: You may be riding the winds of change. Things may at times seem to be out of touch. Soon they will come to a better order. As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning, so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall. To make sense of all this, you will find the answer is to be found in how well you relate to people. Looking at the big picture will help shape your long range plans. If things are not always smooth remember that he who could foresee affairs but three days in advance would be rich for thousands of years.

You blow out a long breath of disbelief at how weirdly on the nose that seems to be for you both and quickly pocket it to find the others. Grace is trying to get her new boyfriend to win her a stuffed toy on the cranes. Scott is trying to finesse a coin-pusher game while his partner and Connor play a dance mat game behind him, and Ralph leaves you to watch in awe as Anna plays a pinball machine. She tries to explain the mechanics of it all to him, but it seems to be going entirely over his head.

You play your favourite game for a while, trying to win as many tickets as possible, when Ralph soon joins you as well. “Any luck with pinball?” You ask, and Ralph shakes his head.

“I wasn’t sure how to play it, I didn’t really seem to be doing anything, rather just pushing an awful lot of buttons for the sake of it,” he answers. 

“Sounds like you were playing it right to me!” You laugh. “What do you wanna do now?”

“Well,” he says, excitement obvious in his voice. “I saw one of those photo booths around there…”

You gasp, “Yes! Let’s do it!” before looking around with disappointment. “Ugh, how are we gonna fit everyone in, though?”

“Perhaps we can get individual ones with people across the week?” Ralph suggests.

“Alright,” you nod. “Wanna get some practice in, just us?” Ralph nods back at you, and you both head into the booth.

Once you’ve paid for it, Ralph asks, “Now how does it all work, again?”

“Right, it’ll tell you when - oh, for fuck’s sake,” you groan as it takes a photo of you mid-sentence, and Ralph stifles a laugh. “Okay, quick, when’s it taking anoth- ahh!” Another snap takes you by surprise, and Ralph doesn’t attempt to hide his amusement this time. You throw your hands up in disbelief, “Well, this is a waste now, isn’t it,” before collapsing into laughter yourself.

“I am sorry,” Ralph frowns at you once all four are taken, and you wave him off. 

“Don’t be! I should have set us a game plan from the beginning.” You decide on your poses: a normal, smiley one; a goofy-grinning one; one with both your tongues sticking out; and one where you kiss his cheek. You promise him that it’s not at all scandalous to pose in this way, and that between Grace and Scott, at least one of them would want a photo with him like it anyway so you’re simply getting him geared up for that. You’re promising yourself that more than him, if you’re being honest with yourself.

You end up posing for the first one with your heads touching as you smile gently into the camera. He’s not giving his usual uncomfortable smile, or his disappearing-lip act. It’s just a nice, natural smile. Which is immediately replaced with a fake smile so big, he has to hold himself up on the bench with both of his hands to hold himself at an angle worthy of the grin on his face, which you mirror. When you tell him, “Tongues out!” yours pokes straight out towards the camera, but he lets his loll out to show off the flat of his tongue to the camera instead. You remind him to look ahead for the last one by pointing at the screen, and then holding the cheek furthest from you to push it closer to you, feeling his freshly trimmed down stubble scratch at your lips as you feel them press against the warm flesh of his cheek beneath.

Once all four are done, you quickly get out to make sure both strips are still there to collect. Thankfully, nobody else has seen them, and you pick them both up to study them. You try not to focus on the bottom photo of the second strip, instead looking at the total disaster that is the first strip. Most of them are blurry and far from flattering, but the final one. What is it with the last photo with you two?! You’re laughing, as is Ralph, but the way Ralph is angled, you could just as easily fool yourself into believing that he’s looking at you as though he’s madly in love with you.

As he emerges, he asks, “So, were those first ones completely unusable?”

Quickly tearing off the bottom photo to pocket it, you crumpled up the remaining three and throw them in the bin. “Yeah, pretty much! Here, hold onto these ones, though, and we can put them on the fridge when we get back home.”

Home. Do you mean that to mean your home is Ralph’s, too, or are you speaking on your own terms? Neither of you know, to be honest.

Your friends reconvene around you, and you tell them of yours and Ralph’s plan for each of them to get a mini photoshoot with him, what with it being his first time on this holiday with you all. Everyone happily accepts getting their own photo ops in with Ralph, and you love watching how everyone poses with him. Your personal favourites are Anna teaching him how to throw up deuces as they pull funny faces, Connor teaching him how to make hand horns as they stick their tongues out, Scott and his partner both kissing each of Ralph’s cheeks, and Ralph’s feigned disgust as Grace drapes herself over her boyfriend.

After all that excitement, you decide you’ll return to the rides another day. Instead, you find a nice little Italian place to eat that’s taken over an old cafe you had used to love coming to, but this new restaurant has an even better vibe than its predecessor. That, and Ralph learning how to eat spaghetti through trial and error is hilarious, especially when he decides that the best way is to simply find the ends of as many strands as possible and slurp them all up. The rest of you make a game of picking a strand each and seeing which one lasts the longest.

On the way back, Ralph gets recognised again. Thankfully, this person knows better than to flirt with a total stranger, though Ralph still seems astounded at the whole experience. This fan says something about being able to replace their icon from “the explosion photo”, and so, remembering the one from earlier mentioning an unflattering picture, once you’re all back at the house you look through Ralph’s follower list and burst into laughter. 

It seems as though his fans have taken a screenshot of his disdain after microwaving the egg and made it their profile pictures. Some have left it as is, with your kitchen in the background. Some have added further explosions and other phenomena in the background. Ralph is the only one who doesn’t see the funny side, the disappointment returning to his expression.

With a sigh, you promise him, yet again, that there is no need to be upset. You’re not upset with him, the flat was easily cleaned, the microwave remains functional. You understand that this comes from years of being raised poorly, but having to constantly remind Ralph that you aren’t mad at him, is ironically the thing that frustrates you the most about him.

The next day, after again waking up to Ralph practically on the edge of his side of the bed, you decide to go to the Lanes to explore some of the vintage shops. Mostly, for your own amusement, you want to watch Ralph react to what is considered “vintage”, but you know you’re going to have to rein it in around everyone else. The day flies by in a montage of trying on ridiculously old clothes, ones that even Ralph turns his nose up at, trying to find the most cursed old toys in every shop, and Ralph trying desperately to stifle his excitement every time he recognises something from his own time period. Ralph gets recognised again by a young, tall blonde boy and his shorter brunette friend, though those two soon get accosted themselves, which allows you to get Ralph away to the safety of a quieter shop.

After your shopping excursion, you return to the pier to play some more games, this time from the attractions around the pier. Thankfully, Ralph seems far more confident walking on it, so there’s no need for you to offer any hand-holding services - although it does already feel strange walking around with both hands empty. You manage to win a stuffed animal on a throwing game, and Ralph decides his skill set is best utilised playing hook-a-duck - though he throws the person running the game off of their rhythm when the prize he asks for is to keep the duck itself, as Ralph personally has no use for stuffed animals. The person running the game, totally baffled, ends up letting Ralph keep the rubber duck, which he seems thrilled about, placing the hook over his finger and letting the duck swing from it with great delight.

“I think I get why cats like him so much,” Connor comments from where he’s stood just behind you as you watch Ralph. “You know how you can buy them all the expensive toys they want but they just wanna play in the box?” You snort with laughter in agreement. “He’s just one of them.”

While Ralph insists on everyone referring to the duck by its name, Clarence, he apparently draws the line at your joke of offering to pay for him to shoot a photo booth reel with his new friend. He looks at you with disapproval at that one.

You still utilise Clarence in his own way, though. Everywhere you go from that point onwards, you take a photo of the duck in that area, and then post it to Ralph’s Instagram story for him, though you only do so once you’re no longer in that place, for obvious reasons.

That evening, at the house, Connor tells Ralph he’s got a surprise for him, and to close his eyes and hold his hands out. Your heart swells when you see that Connor, who had excitedly spent the best portion of an hour in a music shop, has bought Ralph his own ukulele. Ralph looks close to tears at the gift. “Oh, Connor, I couldn’t possibly -”

“None of that, you can and you will,” Connor states simply while pointing at him, and Ralph shrinks down in defeat, opting instead to look at the ukulele with marvel. You all spend the night listening to Ralph play his chords, everyone occasionally offering lyrics to the tunes he was playing. God, he fits in so well with you all. It’s going to be so heartbreaking to tell them all when it’s his time to leave.

You wonder if the window of opportunity will only be open while you’re away. It’s a risk you’ve had to take to make sure he stays safe, since he literally only proved days ago that he still can’t be trusted unsupervised. What if you miss it? Would he resent you? Would it cause some insane rip in the time-space continuum? There’s really not a lot of solid research into this whole time travel business.

The next morning, you’re shocked to awaken to Ralph’s face dangerously close to yours as it rests on the inner half of his pillow. You could count his eyelashes, they were that close. You could connect his freckles, they were that close. His lips twitch ever so slightly in his sleep as you’re studying his face. His face that’s so close to yours. His lips that are -

You quickly take yourself out of that trance and practically throw yourself down the stairs, you’re that quick to leave the room, and those thoughts.

Ralph awakens, sadly, from a dream where you’re happy to have him in your arms to find himself near enough in the middle of the bed. He wonders exactly how he got there. You’re already awake, because of course, you always are. You don’t lie awake for almost an hour every night trying desperately to stay as rigidly far away from the centre of the bed as possible.

When Ralph arrives for breakfast, the group have already decided that today is more of a lazy day. They’ll go out later, of course, but there’s no rush. Just a day spent at the house, playing more board games and listening to both Connor and Ralph playing the ukulele as Connor teaches him how to teach himself actual songs. You even post Ralph’s first photo dump to his Instagram account:

As fun as it is to get out and experience another city, especially getting to do so with Ralph for the first time, you make just as many memories on this rest day. Memories like Ralph not only playing Jackbox for the first time, but somehow winning several games. Memories like watching Grace and her boyfriend playing board games as if they’d been married for years, even though she wrongfully accuses you and Ralph of playing the same way.

In the last hour of sunlight, you realise something. “I haven’t found my rock for this year, yet!”

Ralph looks at you strangely. “Your what?” Before answering his own question. “Do you mean that shelf full of stones in the bedroom has a purpose?”

“Yes! Every year, I find myself a cool-looking rock to take back. It’s tradition,” you explain with a gesture. “Plus, it gets us all out of the house at least once.”

“W’re all goin’ out la’er,” Connor groans from where he lays across the sofa he’s been sleeping on, beneath a mountain of crisps he’s been making his way through.

“At least twice then, lazybones,” you comment, but almost everyone else is happy to stay home.

Everyone except Ralph, who hurriedly gets his shoes on. Of course, it’s just you and Ralph. Alone. Far away from home. Nothing could possibly go wrong, here.

Thankfully, you’re on a mission, here. You can distract yourself with the task of finding the best looking rock on the beach. It can’t just be the first cool rock you see, oh no. It has to be the best one. That’s always been your rule.

Ralph tries to help, but honestly, a puppy would be less excitable. He keeps grabbing the first rock he can, running up to you to ask, “Is this useful?” to which the answer is almost always “no”, and so he simply throws it back to the ground and looks again. There are three separate occasions where he shows you ones he’s already asked you about. But he’s having fun, and he looks adorable, and maybe tonight you’ll be able to delude yourself into a happy little dream where Ralph’d be happy to do anything for you. Though perhaps not quite anything, that sort of dream would have to be reserved for a time when you’re not sharing a bed with him.

You thump the side of your head with the heel of your hand, as though you’re trying to knock the idea out of your brain. There is absolutely no time and place for those kind of thoughts.

At one point, Ralph sees a young child throwing rocks one at a time into the sea, with great delight. Ralph also seems highly entertained by it, and when the kid looks over at him, he decides to join in by grabbing a whole handful of rocks and throwing them all into the water at once. The kid thinks this is the most hilarious thing they’ve ever seen before. Ralph seems happy enough to keep doing it until the kid’s parents take them away. You’re happy to just sit back on the ground and watch Ralph, taking photos and videos of this moment. 

 Ralph soon joins you where you sit, laughing breathlessly. “Oh, what a joy that was!”

“You certainly looked as though you were having a blast,” you simper. “Though if you threw away the ultimate rock amongst all of that, I may never forgive you,” you add in a sarcastic deadpan.

“I would completely understand,” Ralph nods back, unable to keep up any monotony for any amount of time before snorting with laughter. He looks out at the horizon, pointing out how the sky looks now that the sun is starting to set. “Don’t see that very often in London,” he frowns.

You shake your head, “Nah, it’s usually too cloudy. Not that different here, we’ve just caught a good moment. Looks nice, doesn’t it, all reflecting on the water and that?” You cock your head to the side and sigh happily. “Could sit here for hours watching it.”

Ralph tenses up, trying desperately not to think of how your head just rests against his arm, the weight of it still pressing down on the padded sleeve of his coat enough for him to feel it. He swallows hard, “Yes, it’s too bad that the sunset doesn’t last long at all, isn’t it?”

“You’re telling me,” you add with a soft smile before sitting up. “That’s why I wanted to try and get to the beach now, to get to see it at least once. ’m glad you came with me,” you muse before suddenly realising you’re treading into dangerous territory here. To save yourself, you quickly add, “Y’know, so that you get to see it too, while you’re still here. Since you were saying you haven’t been on a holiday like this since you were a kid. Maybe you can go on more of them once you’re back.”

“Maybe,” Ralph replies emotionlessly.

You sit in relative silence as you watch the sky together. You get a “golden hour” selfie with Ralph, mostly to teach him about it, though he says that he doesn’t see much difference between that photo and most of the others you’ve taken in the past. After realising that he’s brought it with him in his pocket, too, you spend a good few minutes laughing along with Ralph as you try to find the most photogenic angle of Clarence the duck to add to his photo collection.

Once the view stops being quite so aesthetically pleasing, you stop off at the pier again to buy some sugared doughnuts to share with Ralph as you make your way over to the pub that you plan to meet your friends at. You love this pub as another of your holiday traditions, because Wednesday nights are karaoke nights. You wonder whether Ralph’ll feel confident enough to sing along to any modern songs. The mental image of Ralph taking to the mic to sing along to Taylor Swift with his entire chest is enough to make you laugh out loud, which confuses Ralph, but you opt to not tell him, merely shaking your head and covering your mouth instead.

To your disappointment when you get there, the pub no longer does karaoke, but Wednesdays are now pub quiz nights. You still stick around for dinner, and after a couple of drinks, you end up signing up for the quiz, for a laugh. None of you expect to get very far, but Grace’s boyfriend really pulls through with sports questions, and even Ralph ends up answering the question that ultimately wins the whole quiz for you, one about a specific style of shoes that had rendered the rest of you clueless.

Everyone ends up watching your group celebrating Ralph. The leaders of the second-place team, an older blonde man and a dark-haired woman he refers to as his wife, even join in with their own congratulations.

 A pair of young women offer to buy Ralph a drink, to which Connor starts encouraging Ralph to go with them. You very quickly make conversation about the rest of the week’s plans with Anna and Grace to distract yourself, but Ralph doesn’t seem interested, much to your confusion. You look around at your friends, who all seem to be exchanging their own looks to each other, but none of them seem to want to look at you. You shake your head and make your way to the bathroom, scoffing indignantly at the two men who barge past you to get to the door next to you.

After a few minutes of silent pep talk to remind yourself that you have no right to feel bad if Ralph expresses interest in someone else, Anna comes in specifically to find her. After promising her a full eight times that you’re absolutely fine, you both head back out to the group, where Scott had brought along a game from the house that you can all play together. You notice Ralph isn’t there, but you don’t bring it up. You’re not his keeper, after all.

~~~

“Ah, ladies, this is quite an honour, obviously, but I am out with friends and it would be rather impolite to just leave them!” Ralph explains hurriedly to the two women who have approached him to congratulate him on his efforts.

“I dunno, your mate there seems pretty keen for you to come over,” one smirks in Connor’s direction.

“I must insist, I could never live with myself for taking advantage of such generous women as yourselves, though I am deeply grateful that you should wish to spend your night in my company! I’m afraid I’m very much not from around here, and so I would get frightfully lost without my friends to guide me home,” Ralph blabbers, getting more and more flustered.

“Maybe you can come back to mine, then?” The other asks, looking suggestively at him as she touches his arm. It’s a gentle contact, but it electrifies Ralph at high voltage as he yelps, pulling it away.

“Truly flattered, but I am a gentleman first and foremost and so I simply must decline such an offer, and I shan’t be staying long enough to court you appropriately, but I wish you both very well in your endeavours!” Ralph practically shouts as he turns on his heel and quickly makes his way to the toilets. 

Ralph walks in on quite a sight. Two men, reasonably bigger than himself, bent double over the sinks. “Pardon me,” Ralph calls out, with the intention on simply throwing some water on his face as a wake-up call of sorts, but the men jump up in surprise at the sound of his voice.

“Ain’t nothing to see here, mate, jog on,” one says, trying to square up against Ralph.

“Sorry, gents, just wanted a quick go at the sink, and then I’ll be out of your hair, I promise!” He smiles brightly, completely oblivious. He catches sight of a line of white powder along the counter and chuckles to himself as he recognises it as cocaine, thinking back to previous parties he’d held at Penbury House.

The first man growls, “Find something funny?”

“Oh, just reminiscing. It’s been a while since I’ve seen… You know,” his eyes flash over to the substance on the counter. “Just fondly remembering old times.”

“Oi, ain’t no way this toff’s a user,” the second man shakes his head.

The first one snarls with a smile, "You a copper?"

"Heavens, no!" Ralph laughs. "Not to worry, gentleman, I'm no telltale, your secret is safe with me!"

"I'm not buying it," the second one looks at Ralph with an upturned nose. "I reckon he's a snitch."

"Well, only one way to prove it, innit," the first one grins uncomfortably at Ralph as he gestures towards the counter. "Care to join us?" he asks in a voice that mocks Ralph's.

“Well, if you insist, I - straight from the counter?” Ralph asks in disgust, but the chorusing snarl answers him quite adequately. “I suppose beggars can’t be choosers!”

Just as he finishes the first line, he’s interrupted by a loud, “RALPH! Fucking hell, get your head out of there! What the fuck is wrong with you two dickheads?!” Connor grabs Ralph by the back of his jumper and throws him back. “You alright? How much have you had?”

“Oh please, it was barely even a full line, it’s nothing,” Ralph insists, to both Connor and Scott’s baffled expressions.

“We don’t have time to unpack that right now,” Connor throws Ralph in Scott’s direction at the emphasis, causing Ralph to trip over his own feet through both of the steps it takes to get there, and Scott catches him, trying to get a good look at his eyes. Connor turns to the two men. “Alright, look.”

“Don’t know that I feel up to much talking,” one snarls.

Connor pulls a sarcastic expression. “Oh yeah, beat a guy up in the same room your coke’s still out for the world to see, good one(!) Shut the fuck up, yeah? We didn’t see anything, neither did you. Just - I mean, what the fuck were you thinking, giving your shit away for free, to him?!”

The man shrugs, “Had to call his bluff, innit? Thought he was a narc.”

“Well, you thought wrong, didn’t you,” Connor sneers, remaining sarcastic as ever. “Just… Clean up and get the fuck out of here, yeah? C’mon,” he gestures for Scott and Ralph, who’s already starting to bounce on the balls of his feet, to get out.

~~~

Once you finally see all three boys re-emerge from the bathroom, as you’d asked the other two to check on Ralph, you notice something off amongst them. Ralph seems in far higher spirits than the others. You get up to meet them halfway and notice something white and powder-y on the edge of Ralph’s nostril. “The fuck is that?!” You ask incredulously.

Scott looks over and quickly pulls his shirt sleeve down to wipe at Ralph’s nose with it. “Nothing!” He lilts, though his expression as he flashes his eyes at you confirms your worst fears about it. Scott mutters, “We need to get him to a hospital.”

“No!” You and Ralph chorus loudly. You shush the man and hurriedly lie, “No, you’ve not seem him in a hospital, he’s fucking useless, faints the second he gets in, he hates it all, honestly. Give him here, just - I’ll take him back to the house, I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“I promise you all, I am fine, I’ve done far more than that in my years!” Ralph states. “Can we please just return to our night?”

“Respectfully, mate, you don’t know what this shit’s been laced with,” Connor warns. “I’m with Scott, I think hospital’s the best place.”

“And I’m telling you, it really fucking isn’t,” you hiss back at them. “He just needs to get back home so he can’t make any more bad decisions.” Ralph frowns at your words, but you ignore him.

“Alright, we’ll pack up,” Scott starts, but you stop him.

“No, no.” You sigh, “Look, it’s still your holiday, too. I’ll take him back, I’ll keep you guys updated, but you lot just enjoy the night without us, okay?”

“We really don’t mind,” Connor shakes his head, but you persist.

“Honestly. Just…Hang on a second.” You return to the table, spinning a tale of how Ralph’s got a migraine and so you’re going to take him home as you put your outdoor clothes on. Everyone still at the table calls out well-wishes for Ralph as you make your way back to him, informing the boys of what you’ve said, and you lead Ralph out of the door into the brisk evening air.

You walk in silence, not knowing what to say. You’re concerned about Ralph, obviously, but you’re also just so mad at him for doing something so stupid. Who accepts some rando’s offer of coke off a random pub sink?! What the fuck was he thinking?! And now, everyone else is enjoying their holiday while you spend it the way you spend every single day - babysitting a 25 year old man who acts without consequence because he doesn’t bear them, you do. You may as well be at home with him.

“You know,” Ralph finally breaks the silence as you walk up the street that the house is on, “I’m not a child. I knew what I was doing.”

You sigh, “Free drugs is a massive red flag, Ralph. You could have gotten into some serious shit.”

“Well clearly not if we’re just going straight back to the house,” he points out.

“Okay, Ralph, what do you want me to say when we get to the hospital? ‘Hi, I’ve got a man here who needs drugs pumped out of his system. Name? Ralph Penbury. Date of birth? February 1st 1901. Oh, what’s that? You’ve got him marked as being dead for the last 96 years? Then what’s he doing stood here?!’” Ralph goes quiet up until you get to the front door, where you press your hands into your face and groan. “Ugh, I’m sorry, Ralph. I shouldn’t have snapped like that, that wasn’t fair. I know you can’t help… That bit. But you can say no to drugs, surely?!” More silence. With a sad sigh, you unlock the door and let Ralph go ahead. “Want me to make you a cup of tea?” You ask, and he nods before running up the stairs.

You kick yourself internally for upsetting Ralph before then arguing with yourself. Why should you be apologising? You were right. It’s your holiday, too, and he should have thought more carefully. You have every right to be upset, yourself. But you’ll forgive Ralph for that, the way you always do, because you already know you’re going to lose him at some point, and that’s going to be painful enough, and if you can put it off for as long as possible, you’re going to. 

He pads back into the kitchen in his pyjamas, looking at you with his big doe eyes as you hand him a hot mug full of tea. “It seems to be the ordinary stuff,” he states, “because it’s only just about affecting me. Same way it always does.”

“Did you… Do it often?” You ask slowly. “To cope with stuff?”

“Heavens, no, it’s no coping mechanism!” He shakes his head. “Cocaine’s always been a staple at Penbury socials. It’s… Acquiring and using it was always the thing people liked having me around for,” he explains quietly as he takes a big sip from his mug. “It barely affects me these days, just makes me… More likeable, I suppose.”

Of course there’s a dreadfully sad story to go along with this. Just more fuel for you to feel bad about snapping at him. You walk over to him and wrap your arms around his shoulders as he continues drinking. “You know how much we all like having you around the way you are, Ralph. I mean, we might be able to make a citizen out of you yet if we just claim you as Scott and his partner’s adopted child!” You joke, and Ralph lets out a small, breathy laugh. 

“It’s… Hard to believe, still. Sometimes. Sorry,” he mutters, leaning down to rest his head against yours.

“You have to trust us, Ralphie,” you squeeze him gently, “that’s part of having friends. You like having us around, right?” He nods violently. “Right! So part of making sure we stay around is knowing we want to. If you don’t trust that people wanna be your friend, they’re gonna assume you don’t want them to be.”

“Is that what Scott and Connor will think of me, now?” he asks sadly.

“Well no, because they don’t know… That, what you’ve just told me.”

Even more quietly, he asks, “…Do you -?”

“Are you really asking me if I want you around?” You ask, raising your eyebrows at him. “Have I not done enough to prove my case there?!”

“More than,” he admits, still quiet. He takes another long sip and asks, “Does the TV here have all the films that we would have back at home?”

“Wanna watch Little Shop of Horrors while you come down?” You ask, amused, as Ralph nods in response. You let him curl up to lay his head on your lap as you both watch the film from the sofa Connor’s been sleeping on, Ralph’s foot tapping against the arm of it along with each song.

The rest of the gang return just before the movie ends, and they’re all happy to see that Ralph looks in relatively good condition. The pair of you retire to the bed soon after. Too tired to change out of your day clothes, you simply crawl into your side and sleep, forgetting to wish Ralph goodnight in your exhaustion.

You all decide that Thursday shall be another day on the pier, with Friday being a packing-up day due to the night out you have planned, so that you don’t have to worry about packing with a hangover and can head back as soon as you’re feeling well enough to on Saturday.

You start the day out in the arcade again, firstly making sure that you, Anna, Grace, Scott and Connor get your annual photos in the booth as per every year for as long as you can remember. You show Ralph and the others photos you have on your phone of reels from years past, to which they take great delight in seeing you all in younger years. “It’s nice to have friends that last,” Ralph smiles, and it makes your heart sink. Comments like that help your brain to justify keeping Ralph around regardless. He needs to be here, with his friends, with the people he loves and who love him. There’s been no major consequence so far. You start to wonder if there ever would be.

You quickly pull yourself from that train of thought, instead opting for the certainty of being out with your friends. Grace pulls Ralph towards the dance mats, itching to teach him, and you allow yourself to stand back with Grace’s boyfriend to watch them. Ralph may stomp on each arrow with such force that the ground shakes beneath you, but there’s no way you can comment on that when his face is lit up that much.

You lose track of him when Connor pulls him away to show him a shooting game, instead opting to go for one of the coin-pushers yourself. It seems as though Ralph also didn’t last long with that particular game, nor does he have the patience to wait for your tactical plays as he starts grabbing coins from your pot and placing them in the slots from behind you excitedly. You giggle uncontrollably as he keeps putting coins in and smugly adding the occasional, “See?” when a whole pile drops.

It’s only when you feel your back collide against his chest that you’re brought back to your senses, and you tug at his arm until you’re standing beside him instead, trying to keep your tone playful with an, “Alright, then, if you wanna play that way, don’t let me stop you!” as you find another game that’s easy ticket fodder.

Eventually, you tell Ralph that it’s time for him to face his ultimate fear, that you’re all going to ride the Crazy Mouse roller coaster. He nods, still agreeing to go on it with you all, though he remains quiet. Once you’re in the line for it, you try and brush your hand against his again to let him know you’re there for him, but he makes no attempt to hold it. You hope it’s because he’s getting braver, but his stoic expression doesn’t exactly give you that impression.

Since today is warmer than the others, none of you had really decided to wear hats today, which makes the state you all end up in after being spun and thrown around the roller coaster track all the more hilarious. Ralph’s curls especially are in full force, sticking up in all directions, which the fans who recognise him today point out a lot. You notice there are more today than ever before and check his name on Twitter to see your suspicions confirmed - people are starting to publicly announce sightings of Ralph in the wild, which is leading to people congregating with the sheer hopes of seeing him out in the wild. You’re not sure how many more of these appearances you can take.

You return to the hook-a-duck stall so that Ralph can proudly show off Clarence to the man running the stall. A young man with a mullet pouts about how he was told that he wasn’t “allowed” to keep a duck, even though it matched the red beanie his friend is wearing even today. The man behind the stall simply explains that Ralph was more charming, to the hat-wearer’s amusement.

You go back to playing more games until the people working the arcade inform you that it’s nearly closing time. All of you band your tickets together and divide them fairly to redeem a prize each, though Ralph insists that he doesn’t get a share. He is more than happy with Clarence alone. If only you’d known sooner that the best way to placate Ralph would be to stick a hook in a rubber duck’s head.

Connor picks a box that contains fuzzy car dice, “for a laugh”. It certainly does raise a lot of laughs when he opens the box to find that the ones he’s ended up with are pink, but he shrugs it off. Scott and his partner pick out as many Pokémon cards as their tickets will allow them to, Grace gets a toy monkey with magnets in its hands and feet while her boyfriend picks out an inflatable guitar. Despite having already won a rather large teddy at the can game the other day, you take pity on another soft toy that clearly looks like it got into a fight with the manufacturer and came out losing, opting to take it home with you. Ralph looks at it fearfully, and you shake it at him jokingly.

Friday holds the weight of being the last full day away. Everything feels as though it's happening in slow motion, that it isn't in real time. It doesn’t entirely help that the day is filled with the mundane act of packing until the real thing to look forward to later tonight, which now feels eons away.

 When it finally reaches lunchtime, you talk the others into getting delivery. “Whatever happened to the ‘we should get out of the house, lazybones’ mentality, eh?” Connor teases.

“Do you feel up to being there while Ralph gets accosted by fans again?” you ask bluntly. “Besides, you should see Twitter today, it’s obsessive,” you pull a face of disgust as you scroll through posts to show your friends.

“These people need Jesus,” pipes up Grace’s boyfriend.

“You said it, babe,” Grace herself adds. “Surprised they haven’t realised he’s staying here and started camping out.” Scott tentatively looks out of the window, but nods in relief to confirm that nobody’s waiting out there.

You decide to make it the feast to end all feasts, each of you ordering food from different places and all sitting amongst your plethora of food to talk about your highlights of the whole trip, compare photos and overall just enjoy each others’ company. Even Ralph seems to perk up, which you’re glad about. He’d been pretty reserved all morning, which makes sense given how dull the day’s events have been, but you’re glad to see that there isn’t something else keeping him quiet.

Finally, the night is upon you. Everyone’s promised that they’ll all be on watch in case anyone tries to approach Ralph, either weird fanatic or potential danger, so that you can just switch off and enjoy your last night before returning to London.

You feel as though you may get to really enjoy it when you catch the attention of a man who’s far from unattractive. He keeps making eye contact with you from where he’s stood at the bar and flashing his eyes in invitation. After a few pep talks with the girls, who seem a little hesitant at first but soon warm to the idea of you having a night where you finally get to flirt and be flirted with, and just get to feel special for a night. And who knows, maybe that’ll be all it is. Maybe you won’t even spend your last night back at the house. After all, what’s a holiday for if not to live totally differently to how you would at home?

When you finally approach the bar, he smirks, “Look who finally made a decision!”

“Look who’s already blowing their shot!” you reply in the same lilted tone, making him laugh. You exchange names and he offers to buy you a drink. This is everything you’ve been needing to fill your confidence gauge - mostly banter, with the occasional ice-breaker question and the more than occasional compliment thrown your way. And honestly, the way he already matches your wit without you constantly needing to explain yourself, or reassure that you’re joking, just makes him even more attractive in the moment.

Ralph watches on from a distance, absolutely seething. Of course, you deserve to be happy. He knows that. He knows that you clearly wouldn’t be happy with him, and that’s why you’ve been keeping him at arm’s length, constantly putting the time travelling situation between you and him. But Ralph absolutely cannot stand to see it happening in front of his eyes. And so, with nothing stopping him, he marches over to you and taps your arm. “Hello!”

Not expecting any interruptions, you jolt, “Jesus, Ralph, you scared the shit out of me! Uh, yeah, this is Ralph, my - flatmate,” you explain.

“That’s right, we live together back at home as well as here!” Ralph beams falsely at the other man. “So, what are we talking about?”

The man laughs awkwardly under his breath as he shuffles in place and you say through gritted teeth, “Uh, Ralph, do you think maybe Connor wants to talk to you?”

“Oh, heavens, no, he’s got a pair of young women on the go himself, the dog!” Ralph scoffs.

“Seems as though two is an awful lot of people for just one of him to manage. Think you could take one off his hands?” you ask, again trying to make it very obvious that you want him to leave.

He doesn’t seem to be taking the hint, though. “Oh, I’d only interrupt them!”

“How terrible that would be.” You deadpan, before addressing the man you’d been talking to. “I’m so sorry, I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be here,” he tips his glass to you. “Don’t forget, it’s your turn to buy the next round!”

You shoot him a flirtatious smile and grab Ralph’s wrist to tug him away. “Listen, Ralph, mate, I think maybe… You should spend tonight more around one of the others, than with me. Yeah?”

“But what if I slip up and mention something about… The situation at hand?” he asks, gesturing at himself.

You tut exasperatedly, “I dunno, then maybe… Just really try not to bring it up? It’s not that hard, you haven’t done it yet. I just… I really needed this, Ralph. Please?”

“Are you going to leave me in the bed alone tonight?” he asks quietly. Sadly.

You sigh. “I dunno. Maybe? We’re all adults here, Ralph, you’ve spent long enough being able to sleep in my bed by yourself, I’m sure someone else’s won’t be too different.” You find Grace, who’s with her boyfriend and Anna, and park Ralph with all of them before returning to your date for the evening.

Ralph’s only half-listening to whatever everyone else is talking about. His attention is laser-focused on that man. His hair is the same colour as Ralph’s, and it’s curly just like his, but there’s more of it. His eyes are the same colour as Ralph’s, but they’re obscured with glasses. He’s taller than Ralph, and he makes you laugh more than Ralph does, and if the cup he’s holding was made of anything other than glass, Ralph would have certainly squeezed it out of shape by now, if not broken it entirely.

While the girls take a momentary bathroom break, Grace’s boyfriend nudges Ralph. “You alright, mate? You look like the nerves are taking over. Wanna do a couple shots with me? It’ll take the edge off.”

Ralph agrees, hoping that perhaps the blanket of numbness over his brain that only alcohol causes will keep it quiet. Grace’s boyfriend has already paid for the shots when Ralph looks at them in horror. The last time he saw a shot glass filled with clear liquid, it resulted in all kinds of emotions. Still, perhaps it’s another clear spirit. Perhaps it won’t make Ralph feel the way he did that night.

Or maybe this is also vodka, and once both the shots that Ralph takes hit, perhaps he’s on his way back over to you. “Hello, again!”

You look at your date with resignation. He looks back at you with sympathy. It’s him who regards the new third wheel in the conversation, “Alright, mate? Ralph, isn’t it? How you doing?”

Ralph pays him no attention at all. “I fear I have once again gotten myself into a predicament,” he tells you.

“You’re a big boy, I’m sure you can get yourself out of it,” you flash warning eyes at Ralph to get back to literally anyone else.

He shakes his head, “No, no, it’s, um. It’s something you had explained to me. What are the different drinks that make me feel different things, again?”

You hold your hand to your head. “Ralph, mate… Do you feel as if something’s been put in your drink, or…?”

“I’m not sure what that would feel like,” he frowns, “but you know these things better than I do!”

“Here, look,” the man you’d been talking to stands up straight. So tall. “This has been great. Really great. But I think your flatmate needs you tonight, so… I’ll see you around, yeah?”

You shake your head dejectedly. “We literally go back to London first thing in the morning.”

He frowns at you sympathetically. “You’ve got a phone though, right?” You take it out to find that it’s out of battery.

You curse internally, “Knew there was something I forgot to do tonight. I’m so sorry.”

“Well. Perhaps in another time. It was lovely meeting you.” He looks Ralph up and down with a slight look of jealous defeat. “You too, mate,” he adds to Ralph through gritted teeth before stroking your arm once more, letting it linger for as long as possible until he walks away.

Something in you finally snaps. Every part of you is just… So done with Ralph right now. And he has the audacity to perk up again once it’s just the two of you?! “What the fuck was that about, Ralph?!”

“Well, I was just going to say that Grace’s… Gentleman friend had bought me some of those shots and I think they’re the sort that have the effect on me that you remember better than I,” Ralph explains with a slight shrug.

You shake your head. “Nah, nah, there’s more to it than that. I made it very clear that I was hitting it off with him, and I just wanted a night where I could -” You cut yourself off, but Ralph feels the tension, soaking it in himself.

“Oh, go on and get it over with, won’t you?” Ralph asks, once again playing the sad card. “It’s obvious there’s things you want to say to me, just say them to my face, please.”

“Okay, you know that’s not fair when you pull that shit, because then it makes me feel bad when I am allowed to be pissed off at you!” you snap. “You want me to say it to your face?! Alright, how’s about this, then. Having you at my ankles 24/7 is fucking exhausting, Ralph. I can’t even go on one night out and talk to one person that isn’t you, I - I didn’t sign up to be some random guy’s mother -”

“I do not see you like I would Mother!” Ralph defends, offence very obvious in his expression.

“Then why am I the one always cooking for you, always cleaning for you, always fucking working overtime because I’m paying for your bills and your food and your clothes -”

“Because, as you keep telling me, I’m not a real person here!” Ralph hisses through his teeth.

“It’s not just that, though, it’s the attitude that comes with it. You are so used to your little rich boy life that you don’t see how much I’m going through. My back is in constant fucking agony from months on that godawful sofa. I don’t get a single day off to myself anymore. I mean, fuck, you’ve had more dates than I have since you got here! I supported you putting yourself out there, even though it was one of the stupidest risks you could have taken -”

“Well, it’s a good job that didn’t work out then, isn’t it? Because once again, nobody wants anything to do with Ral-”

“Here it is again. I can’t just feel something, you have to also be feeling it twice as hard so that you’re the focus here, I - I can’t have anything for myself anymore!” you shout exasperatedly. “Not even one night where for once, I get to feel wanted. I - y’know, everyone fucking falls at their feet for you, you’ve even had people ask you out while we’re here! And nothing was stopping you if you wanted to! But the moment I want to indulge in the idea that maybe someone out there would show an interest in me -”

Ralph scoffs, “That man was only interested in one thing to do with you, and it’s much too vulgar. You deserve to be courted in the appropriate -”

“We’re not in the 1920s anymore, Ralph!” You press your fingers to your temples. “It’s not a bad thing for someone to just… Want you like that. And even then, let’s hash this out. Let’s say I could have been courted by him. You think someone like that is gonna think I’m worth sticking around for when I’ve got another man constantly in my shadow, fighting for my attention? I mean, fuck, what are you gonna do without me when you go back, eh?”

“Ah, again with the going home!” Ralph’s voice is audibly slurring by now. “It’s all you ever want to talk about with me, just tell me the truth already, it’ll hurt less. Tell me you can’t wait to be rid of me.”

“For fuck’s sake, Ralph, I don’t want you gone! Far fucking from it! But I’m not gonna mess with shit we know nothing about, and putting everything back where it was is logically the best thing to do.”

Ralph looks on the verge of crying. “So, that’s it, then. I’m not even worth a -one, I’m just a -thing now.”

“No, that’s not -” You take a deep breath. “Look. We’re going off on tangents that don’t even make fucking sense now. I’m going back to the house. To the bed, don’t worry your fragile little head, I’m not gonna go stand on a street corner like the harlot I am,” you pull a face, blinking back your own tears. “Thank you for ruining the one week a year I actually look forward to.”

You storm away from Ralph, though you find most of the group congregated together at the bar. You stop by them to explain that you and Ralph got into a fight, that you don’t want to talk about it but could they please just make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. They promise that they will, and so you head out of the bar, straight into one of the parked taxis and finally let yourself cry as it drives you back to the house.

next chapter

[tgcf-fanon-exposed]

Exposing TGCF Fanon: 2/∞

XIE LIAN DOESN'T KNOW HIS FOOD IS BAD

Rating: FANON - UNSUPPORTED

Xie Lian's food is known to be inedible to most. So does Xie Lian know this? It is show in the novel that Xie Lian believes his cooking to be ok, and he believes that he has gotten better at cooking. However, each time he opens the pot lid, he becomes aware that the result could kill.

At one point, Xie Lian wants to treat Hua Cheng to a meal, and show off his cooking skills:

"Xie Lian had spent the last few days studying up on cooking and felt he had perhaps gained considerable insight; his heart was full of confidence." Seven Seas book 3, page 301

However, it doesn't go so well for him:

"The moment the pot cover opened and the smell of its contents wafted outside Puqi Shrine, Qi Rong started screaming curses ... Before opening the pot cover, Xie Lian had been full of confidence. Now he doubted himself again -- he had tried his best and exerted so much effort, but it had resulted in this...entrée. Hua Cheng was watching; whatever should he do? Was he really going to make Hua Cheng eat something like this?" Seven Seas book 3, page 304-305

Xie Lian believed he had improved, but then realized that it was still inedible. This quote shows that Xie Lian not only knows his past cooking is bad, but is able to recognize it still is bad. He then uses the food as a threat, telling Qi Rong he would feed it to him if he didn't leave the body (He feeds it to Qi Rong and Qi Rong still stays). This shows that Xie Lian is aware his food could hurt somebody.

Xie Lian attempts to cook again, when Hua Cheng took the form of Lang Ying.

"Not even Xie Lian himself could bear the sight of [his food], and he turned to wash the pot, rubbing his forehead. 'Forget it, don't eat it. Throw it away' Yet after he finished washing the pot and turned around, he saw that Lang Ying had taken a plate and silently eaten the food. ... '...Heavens, are you alright? ... 'Do you feel bad anywhere?' ... Even Qi Rong and Black Water had lost their minds when they ate his cooking, but Lang Ying could actually handle it...Had he been that starving, or had he received an unexpected increase in strength and power?" Seven Seas book 4, page 221

Xie Lian acknowledges that his cooking could make somebody feel sick, but he also occasionally acts as though he isn't aware. I see this as him trying to feign ignorance so as to not embarrass himself. When he's with Qi Rong (who he wouldn't be embarrassed in front of), he uses his food as a threat. When he's with Hua Cheng, at least at the beginning, he feels as though his cooking is something to be ashamed of. Overall, while the book itself seems to contradict and support this idea, I think that Xie Lian is aware his cooking is bad

[wordgirl-rebooted]

welcome one and all!

this au is a rewrite of wordgirl fooling headcanons I've had for a few years. It focuses on the following characters and exploring backstories more. Will do a bit of back tracking and merging of some episodes. Really excited to share whatever lore I came up with :333

Becky botsford

Steven boxleitner

• Amazo guy (fanon character)

• Carrie Catswell (oc)

• Roxanne Fowler (also oc)

(might update this as time goes)

This au does also contain ships

-supernews (Amazo guy x oc)

-experimental cheese (Steven boxleitner x oc)

-tobecky

-bigslie

-plasmarope

-whatever the ship between dupey and the butcher is

-quesibrent

-sciolet

RULES/boundaries

Not every ask will have a drawn response. Depends on if I’m Uber busy or not.

NO NSFW/proships, problematic etc

No bullying, hate, proshippers, offensive, egc. asks. If you’re someone problematic, dni please.

Keep in mind this is an au! I'm not affiliated with the creator of wordgirl in any way

Don’t use this blog to vent. Sorry if this rule sounds harsh but as someone who struggles with irl problems Ik how difficult it can be. But this blog isn’t for that.

yes I am fine with rps. I will count rps as crossovers automatically

given that this is an au, do remember that these are my headcanons and version of wordgirl. So don't send any complaints. I only take CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.

try not to troll in the asks or comments. :/

Ig if any of you wanted to make fan content of this au that’s fine just don’t be weird about it or break any of the above boundaries.

-This blog does heavily relies on asks to stay active-

That being said ask are open!