#i'm not going to mess with the actual running of the bracket

[yayakoishii]

Good evening, how are you? I hope you are well. I really loved your fics with chubby reader (I laughed so hard with Sanji "whoever you're talking about, I agree with Nami. no one is worthy of you") and I wanted to know if your asks are still open? I don't know if you're comfortable writing comedy, but I think it would be funny if Reader was a fighter and Sanji saw her applying the move from this link on some random enemy (https://youtu.be/JgnUVcFx_Tg?si=KY3nrRhF86C91fOV), and asked her to apply it to him (kind of nfsw-ish but no big deal)

Move | Sanji x Reader

Fandom: One Piece

Pairing: Vinsmoke Sanji x Reader

Word Count: 500~

Genre: Fluff?? Silly?? Drabble

A/n: Hey there anon! I'm doing great, thank you for asking <3 First of all, I'm so happy to hear you enjoyed my fics and I'm sorry for being so late ;-; Do I like comedy? Very much. Am I good at it? ...no. So the best I could manage was this small quick thing which isn't much or even all that funny tbh, but I hope it atleast is enough to bring a smile on your face. That's enough for me ♡

also available on ao3!

"You messed with the wrong bitch!!" You shouted as you swung your leg right into the side of the man. He doubled over and you swung it once more to go right over his head, effectively knocking him out. Behind him, you could see another one of his comrades running towards you.

Using the first guy as a springboard, you jumped on the man, your thighs coming to close around his head. The force and weight forced him to topple backwards and you took the moment to quickly snap his neck and clambered off him. When you turned around, you found that the others were down already thanks to Sanji, who was fighting alongside you.

But right now, the chef was staring at you with an open mouth. You self-consciously patted at your hair and clothes, wondering if something got askew because of the fighting.

"Uh, Sanji?" Your careful murmur of his name jolted the said man out of his thoughts. Sanji immediately leaned in close, just enough to not get into your personal bubble and picked up your hands.

With hearts in his eyes, he requested, "Do it to me."

Huh? You were confused, looking at him in concern.

"Do what?" You asked.

"The move you just did on that guy!"

That was an odd request. Sanji never wanted to fight or even spar with you, despite your insistence so for him to suddenly ask this...

"Are you sure?" You tried to confirm he was serious and if the way he was about to snap his neck with how hard he was nodding was not a confirmation, then you didn't know what was. Still, you didn't want to actually hurt him. "Alright, but I'm not going to hurt you. Let me know if something goes wrong, because you know I'm shit at patching up wounds and I will have to go get Chopper."

"Of course, my sweet," he swooned, swaying on his spot. Still confused, but not wanting to refuse without a valid reason, you backed up a bit to jump on him, smoothly bracketing Sanji's head between your thighs such that his face pressed against your stomach– and oh.

You suddenly realised why he wanted you to pull that move on him.

The blonde chef toppled backwards from the force too and now you were pretty much sitting on his face, both of you blushing heavily. Before you could say anything or move away though, blood spurt out of Sanji's nose and he fainted. You paused and stared at his blissed out face with a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment for a few seconds.

"Just for that, I'm not going to call Chopper. Stay conked out, hmph!"

You looked away, cheeks growing redder. He really had the nerve to ask that– shameless! But really, the worst part was that you didn't really mind it. It just felt like Sanji has unknowingly taken advantage of your huge crush on him. The only solace you had was that atleast no one was around to see this. Thinking so, you made to get off when Nami's voice made you freeze.

"Get a room, please, and don't forget to pay me for the bleach my eyes need."

°•❀•°

[oc-siblings-bracket]

OC-Siblings-Bracket 1.12

info down there because these posts are long ↓

Bartholomew "Barty & Emma Cole by @kjmellow

Info:

They're twins! When they turned 13 they discovered some things: 1) they have superpowers: Barty can teleport himself within certain range, Emma can waterbend as long as she touches the water 2) they can also see, feel and travel through portals into four different worlds; said portals open and close randomly 3) this whole thing with getting powers at 13 is characteristic specifically of gingers because of their ancient ancestry from a different world and this whole thing is the origin of superstitions about the number 13, witches and ginger people 4) they're not the only ones who are aware of that and there are people who want to capture and study them to figure out how this whole thing works and how to get into a different world when you can't interact with portals in any way Soooo they basically had to go on the run with a classmate of theirs, who is also ginger and turned out to be an elve (local equivalent of elf) from a different world! Barty is a history buff and very serious and responsible, and Emma is more chaotic and likes to make a hero out of herself, which ends up being a very big problem… (I don't have a good drawing of them yet and I'm afraid of missing the submissions so I hope the picrew I'm providing will suffice for now…)

Lucifer, Kaden, & Piper by @insertsona and @radiowlet

Info:

they actually have two other siblings but those two arent relevant and the cap is three so . anyway ! their family is a mess but also theyre strongest together . piper loves her brothers and theyre so afraid because luci shut everyone out and her relationship with kaden is being strained . kaden hates lucifer and luci just wants the best for all of his siblings . lucifer is falling apart emotionally kaden is trying to be Someone and piper is trying soso hard to keep her family together and. waa,,, kaden has self esteem issues since piper and lucifer are both incredibly successful and he wasnt and. there is so much going on these three are so heavily intertwined with each other . piper wants lucifer back piper wants kaden to be safe lucifer is afraid and doesnt want the others hurt and kaden feels isolated and wants to just be treated like an Adult (which. he is) and they are still so deeply connected and. they get to be happy eventually !!!!!!

they all have toyhouse profiles with more info about each of them individually: https://toyhou.se/17736012.lucifer https://toyhou.se/17736735.kaden https://toyhou.se/17737170.piper

[ultimatepokemontournament]

I’m sorry to bother you with a question like this, but may I ask how you went about putting this bracket together? I’m trying to figure out my own addition to this showdown bandwagon and am also working with a large roster of characters. Jumping in blind would be a disaster, so I thought it best to seek guidance from someone who’s got a solid approach going.

I can definitely summarize what I did! Though without knowing what you're working with, I'm not sure how much this will map onto anything else!

1) Organizing Matches by the Numbers

So I split up the 1000+ Pokemon into more manageable groups by doing them by Generation, which technically means that I'm just running 9 100+ competitor brackets.

Then, for each generation, I targeted ~high 20s, low 30s for my number of matches with 3-5 Pokemon in each match. I wouldn't exceed 5 in a match, and lower is ideal, when you're trying to figure out how this works for your numbers.

Now, I targeted that number of matches because I wanted to use the next round to force-fit it into better tournament numbers— A nice proper 1v1 tournament has power of 2 competitors, so 2, 4, 8, 16, etc... It simplifies the math and makes it easier, and that's something that I chose for my tournament to avoid Pokemon "skipping" rounds, but you don't have to follow that.

So I will be targeting 8 Pokemon going to round 3 out of round 2, so if we take the number of round 1 winners from Gen 1 for example, there are 31 of them. 31/8=3.875 which means 7 4-Pokemoj matches and 1 3-Pokemon match. Perfect. Run those matches, get your 8 winners, pit your 8 winners against each other in the typical 1v1 tournament style (4 matches), get your 4 winners, etc.

2) Organizing Competitors into Matches

This part is super messy and the actual proper way to do seeding is probably via pre-tournament polling and also by having 1v1 matches, so what I did was the nearest reasonable approximation, given time and effort requirements.

The process: Put all your competitors in a spreadsheet column. Go through the list and bold all the fan favorites, all of the ones you expect to win, etc. Shuffle the column. If the top n(*) competitors look okay for a matchup (ideally, only one bolded name), mark it as (probably) acceptable (I changed the cell colors), and move to the next match. If not, shuffle again. (You'll probably have to do this a lot. However, if just a few of of them are messing up the match, you can move them to the bottom of the match stack and just shuffle them into the remaining competitors.) By the time you get to the bottom, you will very likely have to move things around or break up previously acceptable matches to get the last ones fitting.

(*) n is the target number of competitors in a match.

Note I chose this method specifically because I wanted my own biases to impact the match sorting as little as possible. It's worked out most of the time, sometimes there were fan favorites I completely didn't anticipate. Again, not a perfect system, but it prevents stuff like having Bulbasaur and Eevee in the same round 1 match.

(And sometimes you can't avoid having more than one fan favorite in the same match. In those cases, you want to try your best to pair most-fan-favorites with considerably less fan favorites, but this is also where smaller match sizes do come in handy. 1 5-competitor match allows for 1 fan favorite in 5 competitors, while 2 3-competitor matches allow for 2 fan favorites in 6 competitors... But again it's messy and you can't anticipate everything and sometimes there are a lot of fan favorites.)

(One more thing, Google Sheets does let you randomize a selected range if you right click on it, which can save you time running back and forth between random.org.)

3) Rematches

Personally I think if you want good data in a 3+ competitor winner-take-all kind of situation, you have to run rematches. Say 40% of people like competitor A, 30% of people like competitor B, and the remaining 30% are spread out among competitors C, D, and E. competitor A would win without rematches, but it could very much be the case that of the latter 30% of voters, if their picks were eliminated, only 5% would vote for competitor A, and the remaining 25% would vote for competitor B. That would leave us with 45/55 in B's favor.

Anyway, you can do whatever suits you because running rematches is a little tricky and it requires keeping track of all these extra scattered little polls, but the rules I have for rematches are as follows:

If the winner wins by 50% or more, no rematch.

If the winner is in the lead by 20%, no rematch.

If there are two leading competitor, single rematch.

If there's one leading competitor and two close runner ups, double rematch.

If it looks like it could be a double rematch, but the 2nd place competitor is closer to the first place competitor, it should be a single rematch (and vice versa).

If it looks like it could be a double rematch, the 3rd + 4th + etc place competitors results must be greater than or equal to the 1st place competitor for a double rematch to be held.

4) Scheduling

This one is rather unique to my situation, so I can't really offer too much advice here. Really depending on your voter-base and your access to them, you need to determine if you want to do this long term (slowly releasing the polls) or short term (release them more or less all at once) and if you want to do 1 week polls (requires some extra coordination, especially so that you don't have 1 week gaps between poll drops as you wait for previous round's data to come in) or 1 day polls (easier, but requires your voter base to be more readily available to you).

My very long term approach is based mostly on the fact that the Pokemon community here is very very large and scattered and, starting off, I effectively had 0 way to spread news about the tournament to anyone other than via Blaze. I think if you search scheduling on this blog, you can find the posts that were made when I decided to change the poll schedule, and I did so fairly publicly, so it should be pretty easy to see the structure of this tournament from that.

5) Tournament Summaries/Brackets

Wasn't sure what to call this one but it's basically a, oh no this thing is huge and constantly shifting but people want to kind of get an idea of where we've been and what's coming next, but because it's not a typical 1v1 tournament and also there are hundreds of these guys, I have no idea how to do that.

Which doesn't fit so well in a title lol.

Anyway there are probably a lot better ways of doing this than I did, but I basically just set up a free Neocities site to help keep track of anything. It took me a very long evening to do it, especially since my web dev is super rusty, but it's working out great because it also helps me keep track of everything, because the way I had it set up in my spreadsheet was not super intuitive or easy to see. I doubt anyone wants it, but I am totally willing to share the code behind the site if you all don't know how to get it from just inspecting the page and all. It's pretty clunky though so I'm not advertising it lol.

If I was really smart I'd have all the data in a JSON file and have a JS script just make all the cards that I have in there for me instead of using a separate C++ script (yes, sorry, I use C++ for things like this but that's because I know it better than like Python which would actually probably be the better choice) to generate the cards in HTML which I then paste into the HTML file, but also that would take a lot of time to figure out how to do, and time is not on my side. So.

Anyway. That's most of what I've got organization-wise. I typed this all up on my phone away from my computer so hopefully it's not too messy. I'm not sure if I've provided the info you're looking for or if I've included too much of the information you're not looking for, but I've rarely been accused of not being thorough at least 😭

If you have more questions, feel free to drop me an ask off anon and I'll send you a DM from my main! Otherwise, best of luck!!

[original-character-championship]

Bracket F Round 1

Poll 31

Mischief (@kjmellow) vs. Septimus (@theselflovetoad)

381. Mischief (@kjmellow)

they/them

They're a poor little meow meow. They're morally gray. They are very keen on helping the good people and fighting the bad people, but they always mess up in the process. They would kill a bad person without hesitation, sure, but they also are not very good at considering the smaller aspects and consequences of their actions.

They once wanted to crash a spaceship with "bad guys" into a planet in what seems to them an efficient way of killing those on board... But they didn't really consider that those on the planet's surface would, very much likely, suffer the fate of our dinosaurs (they were stopped just in time though).

Then there was this other time they helped an alien who crashed on a planet fix their spaceship, which sounds like a very good thing to do, except the spaceship turned out to have a very dangerously volatile engine and the take-off would very much mess up literally every living thing around, plus the alien in question turned out to be a criminal not really caring about what happens when he takes off.

And, well, yeah, they're a huge mess and need serious adjustments to their moral compass. And maybe a bit more brain cells and critical thinking. Oh, and they're also being overly heroic for the sole reason of slowly dying, actually.

They're otherwise a coward and very much look out for their own skin, which turns out to be the case when they're finally healed from what's killing them (they still want to help people and are ready to kill tho so that much doesn't change so easily hehe)

Bonus quote I really like (they said this very firmly when someone they've just met called them a guy): "Alright, listen up. I'm not a guy or a gal, and I sure ain't nobody's pal. I go by Mischief these days, and I'd like to ask you to respect that, sir."

They're actually a shape-shifter! They can take on any more or less organic form, and have a sad history of other people abusing that, which is most of the reason they, turned out to be like this... Anyway, they mainly go as an androgynous person with the top of their hair being minty and the back of the head - pink. Slightly pointy ears just to stand out a little, blue eyes and sometimes, if they're feeling a bit more like themselves, they might add their natural third eye, which is light-pink. But they really often tweak something in their appearance, it's really a bit like changing clothes to them. Their other favourite form turned out to be a fluffy cat (they found that it's actually really nice when someone they can trust not to hurt them cuddles them and scratches behind their ear)

382. Septimus (@theselflovetoad)

They/them (masc)

They are the love of my queer little heart.  They are a changeling/shapeshifter with daddy issues who runs away with their little sister and the MCs siblings and becomes a pretty fruity pirate captain who in the end marries the MC. They are also the character who starts off a major asshole but gets better via acceptance and becomes the loveable asshole. The meme in my heart for them is the "you don't have all the facts!" "which are?" "I love them."         

They look like if you mixed Soren from the dragon prince and captain hook from once upon a time together. Wears light makeup (eyeliner, nail polish, ect).  They and the whole crew are hot pirates.

(the picture is ouat hook i am so sorry but i only noticed i didn’t have a picture ~half an hour before making the polls i am again very sorry)

poll mod didn’t reach out in time 54 dead 682 injured ;-;

[fallout-lou-begas]

ok so something i actually am really excited for with the @fnvminorcharacterpoll that's gonna make running such a big bracket worth it is that even just as i put together the prelim graphics and posts, I'm providing basic info and a quote from each of the candidates, and so many of these characters are so easy to miss or forget or talk to only once but they still have so much character and interest in such small roles. like, does anyone remember farber, corporal william farber, the mess officer from camp mccarran? that place is already a nightmare to navigate. anyway he got scammed by a fake health inspector and is still mad about it. he's trying desperately to keep morale up but all he has is corn, beans, and onions. everybody's sick of eating it, he's sick of cooking it, but he's trying to keep a good mood. you can really help him out by arranging trade deals with any one of a couple different merchants in the area to sell meat to the camp in bulk, you can give him some flavor additives scavenged from the area vaults to give some actual spice to his meals, and you can find the parts or provide the manpower to fix his broken food processor. literally all of this is a completely unmarked quest, there's no pop-up or quest log or anything, it's all just dialogue and action. i'm such a mark for farber now. and i expect this is going to happen for so many people for so many characters throughout this tournament as everybody has their "ohhh, that guy!" moment, or as everybody shows up to root for their half-dozen or so favorite bit parts that earn seeds. so many characters to get excited for in a tournament of this size. the designated cheerleading is going to be a blast. god i need to play this game again

[shortstorytournament]

🥪 - Who didn't you know before it all started but now you root for them in every poll?

Also some own questions (answer as much as you like and leave the rest):

Is there any story you like very much but for whatever reason you couldn't include?

Did the preliminaries went as you imagined and/or hoped?

What was the most surprising thing so far in the tournament? Either regarding the submissions or the polls?

Thanks for the questions omg!

there have been quite a few stories ive fallen in love with through this tournament! Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather was one of my favorites, as well as A Guide For Working Breeds (rip). For upcoming stories, I like --And He Built A Crooked House--.

a few submissions were just too long for me to include, especially as i tried to be stricter about length at the start of submissions - The Ugly Little Boy by Isaac Asimov almost made me cry but it was just too long. also someone submitted 17776 and thats a kinda very long story but also... i should reread it, its great.

oh my god. preliminaries. the entire time i kept calling them pre-brackets. and the word preliminaries was right there. i was a fool. hehe omg. uuuh they went pretty much as i imagined! it was interesting to see people in my notes who were familiar with these works in ways im not (i actually havent read many Classics). maybe someone should run a tournament for every sherlock holmes story...

the need for preliminaries at all! i'll be honest i messed up a lot during the submissions period - i kinda assumed no one would be interested in this so i never limited submissions per person or author or decided on a word limit or capped the number of stories, and then i had to make do with the wild submissions ive gotten (though i'm happy with how it turned out). also - im surprised scandal in bohemia beat the end poem that handily, i wouldve thought the minecraft fandom would have posed a stronger threat. maybe if i'd called it the Minecraft End Poem instead of just the End Poem? oh, im also amazed at Man Door Hand Hook Car Door sweeping. its up against Cask of Amontillado next round, which is going to be insane. one last thing - its been fun to see the same people cropping up in my notes! feels like we've got a nice little community of bookworms here :3 i appreciate you all <3

[angelhummel]

Wow - that's a very impressive list of songs. i was looking at it in detail, and i'm sure you have, and i wont bore the pants off your mutuals, but it's very interesting!!

I counted the group numbers - ie 3 or more characters or more and this is how it broke down:

season 1 - 19 numbers season 2 - 13 numbers season 3 - 16 numbers season 4 - 15 numbers season 5 - 11 numbers season 6 - 4 numbers

18 characters had solos still on list.

I think about 38 different duet partnerships.

oooh that is interesting!! thank you for taking all that down for me. I do like breaking stuff down like that but tbh no i haven't looked quite so intently myself bc it's work enough as it is just doing everything else lmao

which, fun fact, i've given myself more work than i need bc even tho i could go ahead and write out a full bracket, i haven't. i keep randomizing the matchups every time lmao so i and the voters have no idea what's coming! more work but more fun imo (if you dont agree sorryyy but its my poll uwu) but yeah ive been staring at the names of all these songs that i start to feel like ive accidentally done doubles and messed something up but nope, everything is just stuck that firmly in my brain rn lol

Alright since you mentioned solos I'm gonna go thru and list all the characters that still have solos in the running, and how many there are...

Elliott: 1

Emma: 1

Holly: 1

Jake: 1

Jane: 1

Sunshine: 1

Jesse: 2

Quinn: 2

Brittany: 3

Unique: 3

Artie: 4

Finn: 4

Tina: 4

Santana: 8

Kurt: 9

Rachel: 9

Mercedes: 15

Blaine: 24

Now it's kind of null bc it's not like I included how many solos they had from the start BUT we all know Rachel had the most (42) and Blaine managed to come second (29), despite being in a full less season than her

BUT as I always say Mercedes has the next most out of anyone lmao (24) so it always irks me when people act like she was starving for solos and needed more alongside like Kurt (13) or Santana (14) or god forbid Tina and Quinn with their pathetic little 6 each

and everyone can talk til they're blue in the face about how it has nothing to do with the actor or character and they just like what they like and that they just don't like rachel's solos bc there's so many they all start to run together which is totally valid criticism but are we going to pretend like mercedes and blaine don't also have that problem too???

i mean truth be told there are so many rachel solos that i forget about bc they just mean absolutely nothing to me or the plot lmao but honestly i feel like mercedes's solos run together more?? honestly im mostly just a fan of her early s1 ones but then everything after sectionals is like ...yep. (except for sweet transvestite, love rhps). i mean she has way fewer than rachel but they still manage to feel exhausting for me lol

and i kind of feel the same with blaine but to a lesser extent bc like the warblers are one thing but i really love all his songs but some of his from s3 onward are like... eh.

I think Kurt and Santana are the ones I have the least problems with, musical catalogue wise, bc at least their songs were fewer and further between so they hit harder. Plus there's actually like a lot of variety in their styles. which again could just seem like a personal matter bc like someone else could say that all kurt's songs are just old broadway standards that blend together but like that's what i like and what i know lmao so they stand out more to me from song to song. yknow???

so like it is all personal preference but also i do feel like some people are biased aklsjfdskl the end <3

[moths-in-the-attic]

'Tis the Season by Andrea Readwolf and Kate Butler

Introduction

I would like to thank all those brave souls out there who ventured to read something else by Andrea Readwolf ::smiles and blinks prettily:: even if you are only reading because you saw Kate's name thrown around here or there, somewhere.

Starting back near Thanksgiving, I decided to write a couple of Christmas stories that would go along with I'll Be There For You. I wound up with eight stories, only four of which really went along with my series.

My wonderful and very talented fellow author, Kate, teasingly suggested twelve stories...a sort of parody to the twelve days of Christmas. For some strange, crazy, and completely demented reason...I liked the idea. And so I set out to create four more stories... however, realizing that I still had a "short" ::grins:: story to finish, four term papers to complete, and three finals to prepare for, I came to the conclusion there was no way in he--heaven (what cha think I was going to say?) I was going to get half of them done...

So I dragged the culprit into the mess -- and haven't regretted it once. So I would like to thank you, Kate, for

1.) supporting me through my first year at the University, when, for the first time I left my parents and was stuck living on my own with sorority girls for roommates ::shudders:: (not that I have anything against sororities!). You are one of the main reasons I was not lonely.

2.) supporting me through my first ever fanfiction (gosh darnnit! I STILL don't know how it got to be over 200 pages!) and

3.) supporting me through this melee of Christmas Cheer -- when things at home could be called anything BUT cheerful.

So here's the run-up: the first four stories (Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Winter Wonderland, The Fire is So Delightful, and Deck the Mehorah With Rows of Cranberries) all take place during the Silver Millennium and can be considered a part of the I'll Be There For You series and were written by yours truly, me, Andrea Readwolf.

Silver Bells and Christmas Time Blues can both be considered "present" stories, meaning they take place, well, really anytime between S and Stars. The last of my stories is Every Rose has Thorns. This takes place sometime closely following Stars. Now I shall turn this Intro over to my co-author, SuperKate. Darling, the Notepad's all yours!

SUPERKATE: Heh heh heh....The power...the absolute power... ::grin:: Do you all realize that I can say WHATEVER I want to say and no one can do anything about it? Heh heh heh... The first one I wrote -- The Nightmare Before Christmas (isn't that a Disney Movie?) -- takes place when the girls are about...oh...17. That puts it all right after Stars. Good, good. Andrea, by the way, came up with every idea in this story. It's basically HER story. However I--Kate--am actually writing it. ::Sigh:: I'm getting slowly sick of Christmas. I used Japanese names for the outers, who are mentioned, but not IN the story. Just as a warning. A few more notes, Serenity help us... During Chad's speech, he mentions seeing Raye with Haruka and then seeing Michiru and Haruka together, blahblahblah. That's from a real episode (I don't know the number). According to Andrea, who has ::sniff:: seen the whole 3rd season: [anything in this sort of bracket is something I added so you can understand Andrea's shorthand] "Chad sees Rei with Haruka (and of course thinks she's [Haruka's] a he) and thinks that Rei is in love with 'him'. But, then Chad sees [Ha]Ruka with Michi[ru] and thinks [Ha]Ruka is cheating on Rei and he tries to fight her... and then Chad tries to leave the temple..." That's also the episode with the rope/ribbon thing, which I don't fully understand but did write about. - I have no clue what the Juuban Community Pool actually looks like. I saw one 3rd Season episode where Amy and Michiru race twice and -- sadly -- Amy loses the first time and ties the second (I think), and I kinda based my attempted pool idea off that. All you really need to know is that it's got water. Thank you. - Why not give Mina roses? Because

(a) I am fudging sick of roses being the only flower ever presented in SM--and

(b) I have a picture of Mina and Lita in Princess form and it looks like Mina has tulips in front of her. Don't believe me? [Ask the dishes!] Uhh, I meant to say that I'll send any curious [or obsessed] peeps the picture. Well, that wraps in up. Ja-ne, bai bai... See ya!

Let's pretend that the "guys" (Greg, Chad, Ken, and Andrew) know about the Scout's powers. For the sake of argument? Oh, and...what else? Dub names apply.

Then, there's Santa's Little Helpers, which is during the Darien/Serena break up portion of SMR. That's right -- Reeny (and it is NOT spelled Rini) is in this one. (Deck the Halls Plays) Merry Christmas everybody! This is part of Andrea Readwolf's "'Tis the Season", and it's also her story idea. I have been...commissioned...to write it. Not stealing. Got it? This will switch POVs more than I change socks, so prepared, alright? I think you'll figure it out. Mina's "Ho ho, freaking ho" song is from a little movie my mother has, but I toned down the words to it. Merry Christmas!

Disclaimer: Not stealing -- borrowing with intent to butcher and later return... Oooh, sorry, that's DiC's disclaimer, not mine! SM belongs to a whole list of people, and if my name is somewhere on it, THANK YOU GOD!

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus and An Extra Dose take place when Hotaru is relatively young, still -- probably right before Stars (pretending, of course, that the little Neherinia carry-over really doesn't exist and that the time between seasons is all hunky-dory fine).

And, lastly... Home Before Midnight. It takes place after Stars, and—for the sake of the story -- Ami went to Germany to study right after the Starlights left. All the Inners (namely Ami and Usagi) are twenty.

Oh, Andrea, if you're actually reading this far -- ::sniffle:: I should be the one thanking you, and ::sniff:: Geeze, you always have the nicest of nice things to say to me! ::sniffle, sniff:: Look! You've got me all ::sniff:: chocked up!

Well, that about wraps it up. I just want to say how sorry I am — Galactic Sailors 8 isn't up this week (though 7 is), and.. I'm the one who got Andrea started on all this! ::ducks the rotten fruit:: I meant it as a joke! A silly joke! ::smile:: But, hey, it's fun, isn't it?

Alrighty, then...umm...Enjoy? Oh, and happy holidays...New Year, too!

Originally on www.moonromance.com

[robertdowneyjjr]

Heyy, if you're still taking the kiss prompts can I ask for 62 and/or 63! :)

hi, sorry for the late response! i'm gonna go with 63:

"people kiss each other all the time, doesn't mean there's feelings involved."

---

They're spooned up together in bed after cleaning up and getting ready for bed when Steve breaks the silence by mumbling unintelligibly into Tony's neck.

"Hmm? What was that?" Tony asks, turning around in Steve's arms to face him.

"I said, the rest of the team is going to be completely insufferable about this."

Tony furrows his brows, unsure where Steve is going with this.

"What do you mean? Why?"

"Come on," Steve sighs, exasperated. "You have to know that they've been betting on how long it would take for us to get together."

"Oh, yeah, that." Tony shrugs. "Well we can't really do much about it, can we? We're finally together now. I'm really, really happy about this," he says, running a hand through Steve's hair.

Steve closes his eyes at the gentle tugging, humming softly in agreement.

"So am I. But don't you think it'll be funny to mess with them just for a little bit?"

Tony pulls back, intrigued by Steve's tone that he's secretly patented as the Steve-Rogers-is-a-little-shit voice.

"Alright, I'm game. What did you have in mind?"

---

The next morning, they arrive at breakfast separately. Steve gets there first as usual after a run and a shower, with Tony showing up twenty minutes later just after Clint has taken a seat at the island with a bowl of cereal in hand. He sits down next to Bruce, wrinkling his nose at his science bro's cup of camomile tea as he goes. Steve sets down Tony's favorite mug filled with his favorite brew in front of him and smiles at him sweetly, softly stroking his cheek just once before turning back to the burner.

This does not go unnoticed by the rest of the team.

Throughout the rest of breakfast, the two share soft smiles between their bites of food, feet brushing against each other under the table.

At one point Steve's toes accidentally (on purpose) brush against Natasha's leg, but she doesn't comment on it.

---

For the rest of the week, Steve and Tony mess with the team by blatantly acting like a couple while never confirming the actual status of their relationship. As far as the team can tell without either of them saying anything, they've just suddenly become a lot more physical with their affection while still living in denial. They know that the betting pool is worth at least a thousand bucks, and they're not going to make it easy for any of them to win that money.

They show up to team meetings hand in hand and sit side by side, Steve doodling on Tony’s arm and Tony whispering in Steve’s ear, the two of them giggling softly amongst themselves. They hog the loveseat during movie night, but are snuggled so close together that another person could fit in there easily. They say goodbye in the mornings with soft kisses on the cheek or forehead, followed with “I’ll see you tonight, gorgeous” and spend the rest of their days smiling cheek to cheek.

Through it all, it’s clear that their teammates are vibrating out of their skin with the need to ask and confirm whether they’ve started dating, but hilariously enough, no one dares to actually come right out with their questions.

It all comes to a head late on Saturday night, when Steve and Tony are returning home from a date. They’re wrapped up in each other, Steve bracketing Tony against the corner of the elevator, enthusiastically making out without a care for anything else in the world. The elevator comes to a stop on the communal floor without either of them noticing, and it isn’t until they hear someone clear their throat that they stop to take a look at the person who’s so rudely disturbed them.

Clint and Natasha stare back at them with matching smirks on their faces.

“Finally!” Clint exclaims, raising both ands up in celebration. “About time you guys finally start dating!”

Steve turns towards them fully, putting on the most innocent expression he can muster, and asks, “What makes you think we’re dating?”

Clint is gobsmacked by this question, evidently confused that it’s even something that Steve had to ask. “Isn’t it obvious? You guys have been all over each other all week. All the handholding and goodbye kisses and cuddling and smiling. You were literally just making out in the elevator!”

At that, Steve’s face morphs into an expressionless mask and he says, deadpan, “People kiss each other all the time, doesn’t mean there’s feelings involved.”

He presses the door close button on the panel and just as the elevator doors slide completely shut on Clint’s dumbfounded gaping and Natasha’s narrowed eyes, Steve turns back to Tony and presses their lips together hard, drawing a moan from the other man.

---

Clint stares at the closed elevator doors. “They’re fucking with us. They have to be, right?”

“Definitely.”

“You gotta help me think of a way to get them to admit it, Nat. We need this for the bet.”

“Hmm.” Natasha turns towards the stairwell to head up to her room. “I think we’re just gonna have to let this one go.”

[pillage-and-lute]

If you're still open to prompts or ideas what about Geralt with curly hair, not wavy I'm talking full curls that only get worse near the ends. (Badly) Straightening it so it's easier tie up and ignore feels like a Geralt thing to do but the one time he forgets Jaskier can't get over how it looks. Also fuck all those mean asks you've been getting I vibe with your schedule and fics, being patient with expectation is part of the fun and if anybody says different they're wrong

Hi Anon!

This is cute af.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Geralt hadn’t realized that moving in with Jaskier would mean so little privacy.

Sure, the apartment was tiny and Jaskier was so casually absentminded it meant him drifting between rooms like a musical ghost. But somehow Geralt hadn’t expected it. 

Really most of the time it wasn’t even bad, and Jaskier knew when Geralt really needed space. But still...

“Geralt,” Jaskier said through the door. “Are you on the toilet or in the shower?”

“Uh, no?”

“Can you let me in? I tried this face mask but it feels like it’s burning.”

Geralt sighed and opened the bathroom door. 

Jaskier’s experiments with skin care, specifically face masks were often amusing, sometimes tasty (the cocoa and oatmeal homemade one), and sometimes disastrous. Jaskier was apparently slightly allergic to a large number of perfumes and dyes. At least once a month some cheap, two dollar facemask turned his face shiny and pink. He never gave them up though, keeping instead a careful list of the bad ones. 

He’d convinced Geralt to try a couple, thankfully picking less vibrant colors, and they were rather nice.

This time, however, Jaskier bustled in gratefully and began to desperately scrub something obnoxiously purple off his face. 

“I could feel it start to sting,” Jaskier said around the frantic face splashing. “It sounded so nice, lavender and peony with ‘calming cooling cucumber’.” Jaskier used his advertisement voice for the last part. It was a good voice, and it made him a fair amount of money, the only reason they could afford their apartment. Two grad students in a big city would generally be sharing a bedroom the side of a matchbox by now, and Geralt’s various bartending and bouncer jobs didn’t pick up that much money. 

“How do I look?”

Jaskier had surfaced, face only slightly chemical-pink, with a hint of purple goop by his ear. Geralt removed it absentmindedly.

“How do you look?! Geralt, your hair is curly!”

“Yes?”

Did Jaskier really not know? He always straightened it, sure, it was just easier that way, but had Jaskier never seen....? Apparently not, because he was hurriedly unplugging Geralt’s straightener.

“Why would you hide this? Geralt it’s beautiful!” Jaskier was running his hands through the curls, short nails scratching nicely along his scalp. 

“Oh but it could use a little work too,” Jaskier said, lifting a frizzy strand. “Dear heart it’s damaged all to hell, do you even use heat protectant spray?”

Heat protectant spray?

Jaskier snorted, although Geralt had said nothing aloud, his face must have said it all. Jaskier placed both hands on Geralt’s shoulders and sat him firmly down on top of the toilet lid. 

“Stay,” he said. Then he disappeared.

Geralt huffed. Roach, the grumpy tabby he’d found behind a dumpster one night when he was moonlighting as a bouncer leapt up onto the counter and stared down at him judgmentally. He rolled his eyes at her. She blinked back at him, slowly.

You like when he fusses over you. He imagined her saying. It was the way cats look at you, like they know all about you and are actually staring straight through you. 

I do not. He thought for her benefit. 

She blinked at him again, quite judgmentally, then stood and turned a tight circle on the corner of the sink. She sat down again facing directly away from him, very clearly giving him a cold shoulder. Lie to yourself all you like.

Jaskier bustled back in with an armful of...stuff. “I don’t have all the things I’d really need for your hair of course,” he was saying. “There’s a little bit of wave to my hair, sure, but I don’t have full curls like you.”

Jaskier climbed up onto the counter corner, moving Roach gently to the floor. “Hello pretty girl.” He set his knees around Geralt, and began to pour something into his hand. 

Geralt sniffed. “Is that sandalwood?”

“Very good, it’s a hair cream, good for restoring, I texted Triss and it should be okay for your hair.” He massaged it into Geralt’s head with strange scrunching motions that caught all of Geralt’s curls. 

He’d rarely really thought of them as curls. He knew that’s what his hair was, of course, but he always straightened it and he had a three-in-one shampoo conditioner and body wash, which had been the cause of a conniption fit when Jaskier had first moved in. 

Whatever Jaskier was doing felt good, though. Like a scalp massage.

“Mrrrhp.” said Roach. It sounded smug.

“Okay,” Jaskier said. “I’m gonna scrunch your hair with this.” He waved a washcloth. “To remove a little of the product and,” he checked his phone. “Define the curl.”

Jaskier set about playing with Geralt’s hair. He knew that wasn’t what the man was doing, but it felt like it. When Jaskier finally put down the washcloth he gave Geralt a quick spritz of something.

“Okay, I think I did it, take a look.”

Geralt was reluctant to stand from where he’d been bracketed by Jaskier’s knees, but he went to the mirror.

“It looks kind of...”

Weird. It looked weird. Geralt never just wore his curls and these weren’t even the horrible mess of having just woke up. They were actual curls.

“Sissy,” he said. 

“Oh,” Jaskier looked put out. “I think they look very nice.”

Sitting on the edge of the tub, Roach blinked at Geralt judgementally. 

“I’m not used to it,” Geralt said, tugging at a curl, which bounced. “But I guess it does look...nice.”

“I have an idea,” Jaskier said. He took a little packet of bobby pins that Geralt thought he recognized from the last time Yen had been over. There was some twisting and in the mirror he couldn’t really see what was going on. A couple little digs into his scalp and then...

“Voila,” Jaskier said. 

It was a bun.

A man bun. 

Except, man bun implied tiny and sort of inconsequential. This was quite a lot of hair and the curls looked good, adding texture.

It looked manly, for sure, but it felt secure. Geralt bobbled his head a little to check.

“I like it,” he said.

Jaskier beamed.

From the tub’s edge, Roach “mmmphrp”-ed approvingly.

[theboombutton]

Please say more about aspirated medial stops, I was talking with my brother in law the other day about how we (Californians) don't say t's in the middle of words and I'm really curious about why that is and if this is a universal thing in all accents of English now

Disclaimer: I do have a Bachelor's in linguistics, but I got it more than a decade ago so it is possible that some of the information in this post will be misremembered or out of date.

tl;dr

Knowing how to pronounce t in different locations in different dialects is a nightmare. Old-fashioned British Received Pronunciation pronounced t in the middle of words, but there's a UK language drift called T-glottalization in which ts except at the start of words are often being replaced with glottal stops? It's really obvious in lower-status dialects but it's been creeping into RP as well.

American English usually does a weird muscle flex called a "flap" or a "tap" that's something like a really short d, or a single roll of a rolled r. I think there are some UK dialects that use this tap as well.

I belieeeeeve that Indian English usually pronounces word-medial ts, but I haven't run an actual analysis on the applicable coworkers' speech because that'd be kind of creepy?

No idea about Australia or New Zealand.

As far as I know, there's no special reason why these particular drifts are happening. Linguistic drift and accent shifts are just something that happens with living languages. If anything, we have immensely slowed the natural process of language change through the invention and widespread teaching of standardized writing.

Glossary

Sorry, I tried doing this without a glossary but I kept having to do weird info cul-de-sacs to explain myself. I've ordered them according to approximately when they'll come up?

lol I failed so hard at this, about halfway through the post I started using words without putting them in the glossary first and man idk I've been working on this post for 4 hours now and I don't want to go back through and put definitions for some of this shit, sorry

Phoneme - A single language sound, as it is stored in your brain. Represented with slashes around it, e.g. /t/.

Phone - A language sound as it actually comes out of your mouth. Represented with square brackets around it, e.g. [t].

Phonology - The study of speech sounds, from internal representation to external expression, but not including the study of how they are physically created in the mouth (that's phonetics). Not to be confused with phrenology, the racist pseudoscience of head shape.

Word - Can have a few different meanings in a linguistic context. In this post, will usually refer to either a lexeme or a phonological word. You should be able to tell from the context.

Phonological Word - What you probably think of when you think of a "word." A unit of speech that you could naturally pause on either side of, but could not naturally pause inside.

Lexeme/Semantic Word - A single phonological word and its attached meaning; or, phrase of multiple phonological words, which holds a meaning which is different than the sum of its parts. For example, "Carry the bucket" is not a single lexeme; but "Kick the bucket" is.

Voiced/Voiceless - A sound is voiced if you use your vocal cords to make it, and voiceless if you don't.

Stop - Also called a plosive. A stop is a kind of consonant you make by stopping all air flow. The stops English uses are p, b, t, d, k, g, and the glottal stop.

Aspiration - A puff of air following a sound, usually a voiceless stop. In phonetic notation, it is indicated by a superscript h following the consonant, like [pʰ].

IPA - International Phonetic Alphabet. A standard set of symbols based on the Roman alphabet and used to refer to roughly the same sounds regardless of language.

Glottal stop - A stop which is performed not by your tongue, as in most stops, but by your vocal cords. Think of the word "Uh-oh" - the way you completely stop airflow after the "Uh" instead of just letting it flow into the "oh." That's a glottal stop.

Praat - An audio analysis program tailored specifically for viewing waveforms of speech sounds.

INFODUMP TIME

So the thing about saying words is that the ideas of sounds that you have in your head ("phonemes") don't translate one-to-one to the sounds that come out of your mouth ("phones"); and the ways that these sounds get modified vary between different dialects.

Please keep in mind that when you try to speak slowly or clearly, the sounds that you make change. Linguists are primarily interested in natural speech patterns, not what we do when we're trying to enunciate.

Tater-Tot

Let's take the lexeme tater-tot, because it's the first word I can think of that has all 3 of the major weird things that /t/ does that vary by dialect.

Let's start with the word-initial t. Phonologically there are actually two word-initial t's in tater-tot, the one at the beginning of 'tater,' and the one at the beginning of 'tot.' This is because "tater-tot" is two phonological words despite being one semantic word.

In American and British English, we aspirate our word-initial voiceless stops if they're immediately followed by a vowel, which means we pronounce /p/, /t/, and /k/ as [pʰ], [tʰ] and [kʰ] respectively if they're the first sound in a word (and immediately followed by a vowel). This means we add in a little puff of air following the consonant if it's the first sound in the word. In Indian English, they don't do this - a word-initial /t/ is pronounced [t], without the extra puff of air. To American & British English speakers it can almost sound like they're saying [d], because we're not used to hearing a word-initial /t/ without aspiration.

Next we've got a word-medial t, the second t of "tater." Here, Indian and British RP English speakers pronounce it as a plain [t], with no aspiration. American English speakers pronounce it as what's called a tap or a flap, which is sort of like a half-formed [d] but is actually more like a single roll of a rolled r - and so its IPA symbol is [ɾ]. And many less prestigious British dialects, including Cockney and I believe Scouse, replace it with a glottal stop, with IPA symbol [ʔ].

And our final t is the word-final t of tot. This is a tricky one to peel apart. English generally doesn't release word-final stops - that is, you put your tongue in the correct place to stop airflow to create the stop, but you never actually move your tongue out of the way to "release" the airflow you stopped. So the easy read on the word-final t's pronunciation is that it's [t̚], an unreleased t. However, in many dialects and situations /t/ is replaced with or co-articulated with a glottal stop - for example, after an [n] or an [m], /t/ is almost always pronounced as [ʔ] in English. But unreleased stops after an oral vowel are difficult to tell apart, and if the tongue is in t position while the glottis cuts off airflow - I genuinely don't know.

Tuck/Stuck

These are good for a comparison between an aspirated [tʰ] and an unaspirated [t]. In American English, tuck is [tʰʌk] and stuck is [stʌk].

Truck

American English does weird things with syllable-initial /tr/.

I want to introduce you to the "sh" symbol, ʃ. ʃ is a voiceless postalveolar fricative, which means it's created by air rushing through a narrow space when your tongue is behind the alveolar ridge. Incidentally, when you move your tongue from [t] position to [ɹ̠] position (ɹ̠ being the symbol for the version of non-rolled r that most English dialects use), it will naturally create the ʃ sound as it moves.

We have a special letter combination to the phonemic /tʃ/ in English. It's "ch". As in "change."

You almost certainly pronounce "truck" as [tʃɹ̠ʌk] "chruck" and just don't notice.

So what's going on with Martin?

So first off, Jonny is probably wrong about how the Archivist says "Martin." Complete deletion of the r in that position is standard in RP. I haven't fed The Magnus Archives into Praat or anything, so it's possible he's letting a hint of a rhotic accent bleed in to the Archivist's RP - but I really doubt it.

This isn't unusual! It's very common for people's internal concept of what sounds they mean to make, to get in the way of them accurately identifying what sounds they're actually making. No one thinks they've ever said "chruck" until you point it out to them.

I would probably transcribe the Archivist saying "Martin" as [mɑ:tɪn].

Jonny's attempt at saying "Martin" in an American accent was something more like [mɑ˞ɹ̠tʰɪn]. He did a good job of rhoticizing the vowel, but in his focus on the r completely messed up the second syllable.

I'd transcribe my own pronunciation of "Martin" as something like [mɑ˞ɹ̠ʔn]. It's been my observation that t-glottalization in American English is especially common when adjacent to nasals - and if there's one thing American English likes, it's syllabifying liquids in word-final syllables.

OK I've run out of steam now

This was fun. Sorry about the declining quality of explanation. Please feel free to ask more if you dare to reignite the flames of infodump

[thedemisedroyal]

Dangerous Betrayal | TVD/TO

The Vampire Diaries & The Originals

AU Story

𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 | 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓

𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝙰𝚁𝙴 𝙾𝙽 𝙿𝙰𝚁𝚃 𝙵𝙸𝚅𝙴!

• E S M E •

"Please, just make it stop!" The princess yelled in agony as she held her head. All the memories rushing through her mind, all the pain, all the hurt, everything bad she had done in her life ran through her head. But it was intensified by a trillion, this was on purpose, they wanted her in be pain.

Adara and Eila laughed manically, "Oh poor little baby, is something wrong?" Adara baby talked, chuckling in between. The princess yelled out, closing her eyes, trying to fight it, but she can't, she couldn't. The girl was consumed with guilt, making her walls around her mind tremble, they were weak, ready to fall down at the slightest of touch.

She had been tortured for years and years, after her mother banished her from the Void, they had sent her to Heaven. Her parents left her there as they hadn't finished their final punishment for their youngest daughter and child for her crimes. Until then, she would be tortured, just for laughs, just for entertainment.

"You know, for the Goddess of All Creation, you are weaker then I thought you would b-"

"Esme!" The Gilbert broke out of her thoughts, she fell into her head and she looked at the mirror in a weird angle, making her eyes shine like a golden-yellow. Making her the olden days, the years that started all of this. "Esme come on, we're gonna be late!" Elena shouted once more, the two, had school, as always, and were back into cheerleading, the younger twin seemed more willing to go then the oldest. But it made sense, things were different now.

Esme grabbed her bag and water,"Coming!" The middle child yelled, running out of her room and downstairs. "Let's get this show on the road." Esme mumbled under her breath, seeing her sister, not in her cheerleading costume.

• A U T H O R •

As time went on, Elena and Stefan had gotten much closer, dating now, which led to Esme of course threatening him if he didn't anything back to her sister. But all in all, Esme liked Stefan, trying to get close to figure out what he wanted in the end.

But days went by and she had met Damon as well, sensing he was also a vampire. But Jordan also noticed Damon looked at her with some sort of admiration, or maybe some sort of love. She had no idea was this was about, but she would definitely find out soon. As it was all too weird, now that her best friend, Caroline Forbes, was dating this Damon, who was eyeing her.

Right away she didn't exactly like him, he was a cocky and arrogant man who liked to stir up trouble. For instance, when Elena had a little dinner party with Bonnie and Stefan, Caroline and Damon had arrive unannounced, soon the blonde pulled the younger twin downstairs to join the fun. Which was a very awkward introduction between the raven haired and brunette.

It was even more awkward when the oldest Salvatore brother talked about their past live affair. Who was named Katherine, Elena had informed her sister on the love triangle, whilst the two watched and dried dishes when everyone else was in the living room. Then he walked in, and then Elena left the two alone, awkwardly.

During the time, Damon and Esme got to talk a bit, trying to get to know each other, but the girl felt very uncomfortable as Damon had this weird look in his eyes, a softness, with a genuine smile on his face which was rare for him in his case. Luckily, Bonnie had came in to ask if she needed more help, as Esme was taking quite a bit of time in the kitchen.

But that was awhile ago, and now it is the day of the football game. And the girl needed to be on her game for the cheerleaders and her best friends. Though it didn't help with the Tyler and Jeremy fight, and Stefans cover nearly blown with the cut on his hand, with Elena as witness.

• E S M E •

"God guys, I'll be back, I left my jacket and water in the car." Esme rubbed her forehead, Caroline and Bonnie nodded, the Gilbert quickly ran out the field and into the parking lot. The game was to start soon, and if she wasn't present soon the Forbes girl would have her ass. Esme quickly opened up the trunk, grabbing her maroon colored jacket and her big water bottle, that's as surprisingly still cool after being left in the car.

She swiftly turned around, gasping as she was face to face with Damon Salvatore. "You scared me. W-What are you doing here?" The Gilbert questioned, Damon looked over his shoulder quickly, then putting his hand to the side of his mouth,"I'm hiding from Caroline." He whispered. Esme quirked a brow,"And why is that?" She playfully whispered as well.

"I needed a break. She talks more then I can listen." Damon widened his eyes for a second. "That could be a sign." Esme nodded her head, kind of uncomfortable. "Well, she's awfully young".

Esme narrowed her eyes at the Salvatore,"Not much younger than you are." She responded back, Damon chuckled a bit. "I don't see it going anywhere in the bigger picture. I think she's drive me crazy." Damon spoke, Esme rose her brows and tilted her head a bit. "Caroline does have some really annoying traits, but we've been best friend since the first grade and that means something to me." The Gilbert defensively spoke, sternness in her manner.

The girl watched as something switched in the raven haired man,"Duly noted. I'm sorry if I make you uncomfortable. That's not my intention." Damon talked in the soothing voice, as if he was trying to persuade her. But the girl didn't fall for it, Damon was already on her bad side,"Yes, it is. Otherwise you wouldn't put an alternate meaning behind everything you say."

Damon smiled, shaking his head,"You're right. I do have other intentions, but so do you." Esme folded her arms across chest,"Really?" She questioned, wanting to see where he was going with this. Damon hummed as a response,"I seem 'em. You want me." Esme scoffed, feeling offended,"Excuse me?"

"I get to you. You find yourself drawn to me. You think about me when you don't want to think about me. I bet you even dreamed about me." Damon looked straight into Esme's eyes, the girl immediately knew what he was trying to do. "Compulsion." The voice in the back of her head reappeared for her once again. The girl was confused, what was this little voice, and most importantly, what the hell was Damon trying to play at here.

She snapped back into reality when she heard his voice once again speak,"And right now.. You want to kiss me." Esme had this emotionless look on her face, though it was pure anger, Damon smiled as he succeeded or he thought. He slowly leaned in with a smirk, Esme looked at his lip, before her face was painted with a scowl, and without thinking, Esme raised her hand and slapped him hard.

"What the hell?" Esme scoffed, glaring at him,"I don't know what game your trying to play here. Maybe trying to mess with Stefan, I don't know. But I don't want to be a part of it. And I don't know what happened in the past, but let's get one thing straight." Damon was in complete shock, Esme locked eyes with the man, who was holding his cheek,"I am not a pawn." Esme glared once more before tightly holding her water and jacket and walking away.

She didn't even realize what she had just done, she had blown her own cover...

• S T E F A N •

The blonde haired vampire watched as Matt walked away, feeling slightly more happy and comfortable with the complicated situation between him, Elena and Matt, but it was short-lived as he heard someone clapping behind him. He swiftly turned around, to see his older brother leaning against the brick wall.

"Isn't that nice? Stefan joins the team, makes a friend." Damon announced, pure sarcasm out of his tone of voice. "It's all so,'Rah, Rah, Go Team, Yeah'!" Damon raised his arm in a fist bump, clearly mocking his brother. Stefan shook his head, turning his body to leave,"Not tonight. I'm done with you." As he turned he was met face to face with Damon, who used his vampire-speed. Damon tilted his head, "Nice trick with Esme. Let me guess— vervain in her bracket? Necklace or ring maybe?"

Stefan was confused, he never gave the girl any vervain, only Elena. But he made sure to not show any unsureness, as he didn't even know why he couldn't compel her. "I admit, I was a bit surprised. It been a while since anyone could resist my compulsion." Damon lifted his eyes, throwing a innuendo in there. Stefan kept a cold, and stern face, unfazed,"Where'd you get it?" The older brother asked, "Does it matter?" Stefan started to walk away, going around his brother.

"Guess I could just seduce her the old-fashioned way. Or I could just..eat her." Damon cockily spoke, knowing that caught his brothers attention. Stefan stopped, turning around, confidence in his body,"No, you're not gonna hurt her." He slowly walked towards him as Damon turned around to face him.

"No?" Damon arrogantly asked,"Because deep down inside there is a part of you that feels for her. I was worried that you had no humanity left inside of you; that you may have actually become the monster that you pretend to be." Stefan with confidence, knowing he wouldn't hurt her, not if she looks the way she is.

Damon squinted his eyes,"Who's pretending?" Stefan looking him in the eyes,"Then kill me." Damon smiled,"Well I'm— I'm tempted." He looked up, shaking his head as he looked as if he was deciding. "No, you're of. You've had lifetimes to do it, and yet, here I am. I'm still alive. And there you are. You're still haunting me. After one hundred and forty five years. Katherine is dead, and so is Natasha. And you hate me because you love her, and you torture me because you still do. And that, my brother, is your humanity." The two had a tense stare off, but it was quickly interrupted by the annoying douche, Mr. Tanner.

"Salvatore!" The blonde haired man turned around with a stern expression, the teacher walked towards him with open arms,"What the hell? We've got a game to play!" He yelled, frustrated, Damon looked at the teacher with an idea popping in her head. "If that's my humanity..the. What's this?" He gulped, flashing a quick and sarcastic smile towards Stefan.

Then using his vampire-speed to Mr. Tanner, his vampire fad slowly unraveling, his fangs then digging themself into Mr. Tanner's neck. He yelled in pain,"No!" Stefan yelled, seeing as his brother slowly drained the teacher for all he was worth. Then just like that, he was dead, Damon turned around, blood all over his mouth, dripping to his chin, his vampire face still out,"Anyone, any time, any place." Stefan blinked in shock, this was going to be a lot more tougher.

• E S M E •

Dread...that's what filled the Gilbert body as she was in the field with the rest of the cheerleader, practicing. Until that emotion she knew all to well filled her body, it nearly paralyzed her when she felt the sense of death. She could smell it in the air, feel it in her finger tips, taste it on her tongue.

She held her head as a pain rushed through her body, she walked away from the group, though no one noticed, luckily. Then aloud ringing filled her head, making her groan, she opened her eyes, but shut them immediately when the lights hit her. "Fuck!" Jordan clenched her eyes in pain, she then moved further away from her group, feeling a sudden breeze of wind hit her face and body. She opened her eyes as she heard no one, and felt no light on her.

"What in the?" Jordan looked around her new surrounding, seeing she wasn't even on school soil anymore. No, she was in the empty park of Mystic Falls, far away from the school. She then felt a rush of power surge through her veins, Jordan gasped as she lifted up her hands to see scarlet red flares dancing around her hand.

"What's happening to me?"

[ingravinoveritas]

Hey there. I'm glad I'm not the only one who ships David and Michael. I want to ask... Since you ship them too, what are your favorite moments between them and why? And when did you start thinking there actually might something happen between them?

Hi Anon! I apologize that it’s taken me time to respond to your question. I needed to really think about my answer to this, as it is so difficult to choose a favorite moment between Michael and David. I’ve also been talking about so many of those moments lately, so I wanted to think of something that hadn’t already been discussed.

So I would say that, yes, many of my favorites are ones I’ve mentioned previously on my blog, but two that come to mind right now are when David and Michael were on Graham Norton last year, and then David interviewing Michael for his podcast.

Now, there was a lot going on during this interview, with Graham Norton busy Graham Norton-ing and of course the eggplant emoji incident, but what gets me is the sustained look of pure, unadulterated adoration that Michael was giving David:

...That. Nonstop. For almost the entire interview. Amazing.

Their bodies were also oriented toward each other the whole time, again falling into that pattern of always ending up in their own little world. Michael and David were ever the professionals, of course, interacting gamely with Graham and Chris Hemsworth and the audience, but they clearly only had eyes for each other. I also loved the moment where David recited the very long name of the place in Wales. He didn’t learn it specifically to impress Michael, as we know (he learned it from a Welsh actress while doing a Shakespeare play, to mess with the sign language interpreter), but on some level, he had to know what that would do to Michael. And we got Michael’s wonderful, giddy reaction--which was to look like he was barely restraining himself from dropping to one knee and proposing right there--and David just utterly basking in the warm glow of Michael’s attention.

The second moment I mentioned was David interviewing Michael on his podcast. It’s one of the most delightful interviews I’ve ever heard precisely for the reason that it doesn’t at all sound like an interview, but rather like two close friends just having a conversation (which is at least partly due to David’s talent as an interviewer). But right from the outset, one of the first things David says as they’re talking about a GO photo shoot they had just done is, “You're an honest version of how I'm feeling." Which confirmed something that I’ve been observing for a long while now, which is that Michael says the things that David only thinks. There’s a thread of that in so many of their interactions and interviews, which is subtle, but after a while you start to see it, and it’s fascinating.

To go back to the conversational quality of the interview, even though there was no video, the way Michael and David interacted made it easy to imagine what that conversation might look like. My mental image is basically of a sleepover, of them sitting on the floor together in their pyjamas, David behind Michael, knees bent and his long legs bracketing either side of Michael’s body, both of them sharing popcorn out of a bowl beside them and drinking glasses of red wine. David idly plays with Michael’s hair as he asks questions and giggles at Michael’s answers, and then he slowly starts to grip his curls just a tiny bit harder, massaging his head, making Michael’s breath hitch in his throat, but he keeps the conversation going. By the end, they’re both a bit tipsy and Michael is leaning back against David’s chest, warm and flushed and eyes fluttering closed as David rubs the back of his neck, debating whether to laugh or to turn his head and kiss David to break the growing tension...

(...I realize that was rather elaborate, but that whole scenario just blossomed in my mind as I re-listened to the podcast. Also, the fact that there’s a deleted clip of Michael saying “I almost came” and David giggling in response is another reason it’s one of my favorite MS/DT moments and really, really makes me wish we had video of this interview...)

Anyway, to the second part of your question, Anon, which is when did I think there might be something happening between Michael and David. I actually went back into my Tumblr archive to see when I started getting into Good Omens (June 2019) and how the timeline progressed from there. I can see that from the beginning, as I was diving headfirst into Aziraphale/Crowley fanfic and fanart, that I kept gravitating to the more ‘realistic’ art--illustrations, paintings, drawings, etc. that looked like the actors, rather than an artistic interpretation of the characters (which is not to say that other forms are bad, just that it’s my personal preference for fanart).

Right away, I was shipping Aziraphale and Crowley, but I think I was unconsciously drawn to that chemistry between Michael and David, even though I wasn’t outright shipping them then. The shift started to happen not long after that, as I began watching more and more of Michael and David’s interviews and all the GO press tour stuff I could get my hands on. But I am pretty sure that what made the switch finally flip was two things: Michael calling David his “lover,” and this moment, from earlier this year:

Over and over again, Michael has talked about how he was initially excited to be in Good Omens because he’s such a huge fan of the book, he’s known Neil forever, he’s mainlined Ineffable Husbands fanfic like Turkish black mule heroin, and so on. But then here, Michael is talking about what made filming the show so special...and it’s David. He’s remembering this experience--this incredible, life-altering journey of filming this show--and it’s not the book or shipping Aziraphale and Crowley that he speaks about with the most tender affection. It’s David. I just thought that was utterly lovely and very telling.

But the thing is, Anon, is that there really isn’t one specific moment that made me think something might have happened between Michael and David. It’s just been the gradual accumulation of all these moments put together--both the ones I mentioned in this post and the ones I’ve talked about previously. It’s how Michael and David talk about each other when they’re together and when they are apart. And it’s how, despite having numerous opportunities to put out the flames of suggestion, Michael instead runs toward them cackling maniacally, a can of kerosene in hand. (I also like to imagine an amused David just standing there calmly and holding up a Zippo lighter for his part.)

So I hope that helps to answer your question, Anon, and I’m always glad to hear from another shipper. Thanks for writing in and for being here! x

[dungeonqueering]

Let's talk about knives!

I have a fairly standard Knife Block, which contains every kind of knife I will reasonably need. I can and do use each one regularly. Later in this post I'll go over what you need as an absolute minimum (You can get by with 2: Big And Small)

I recommend getting a knife block like this. It has almost everything you could possibly need. This one normally retails for $24, but I picked it because it was half off at the time.

I found this one for $20 which is very similar.

Are they going to be nice knives? No. Will they be good enough for everyone except a professional? Yeah, for the most part. I use them for nearly everything.

You can get ceramic knives which are INCREDIBLY sharp. However, you can't sharpen them at home, so they aren't worth it. I was gifted a set, and now that they've started to chip, they're darn near worthless, which is a shame.

I do also have two VERY nice knives, I received as gifts.

This Chef's Knife:

And this Santoku:

Are the nicer ones worth it? Personally, no. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE having them. I'm thinking about getting a whetstone for when it's time to sharpen them (they are used less and hold an edge longer) rather than taking them in to have them sharpened. They are amazing, well balanced, incredibly sharp, and also $30 each. Idk about you, but I am not in the "I spent $30 on a single knife" income bracket.

So! What are your knives used for?

The Chef's Knife is an all-purpose knife. There is a reason it is the go-to knife seen a chef wielding in media. You can use it to cut, chop, or dice nearly ingredient. This is your most important knife. Rapid chopping uses kind of a rocking motion, but if you are reading this post you probably don't need to worry about that. I sure don't. We aren't on Chopped, we can take our time.

Use the very tip of your knives for small and precise work, and the middle all the way down to the grip end for cutting, slicing, chopping, etc.

How do you grip a Chef's Knife? For maximum control, it is recommended you pinch the blade right about here

Such that most of your hand is on the handle proper, but you are in fact pinching down on the blade. If that makes you uncomfortable, I used to do this grip:

Which still gives you a fair degree of control and strength, but not quite as much control. It feels less scary, though.

The Santoku is another general purpose knife. Instead of a rocking motion, it uses more of a chopping motion. I use it mostly when I only need to cut vegetables. Less pointy.

The Bread Knife has it in the name. The reason you want one of these is for bread is because the gentle serration allows you to cut through tougher crust without mushing the soft bread. I use it for Ciabatta pretty often, but unless you cut a lot of bread, you really honestly don't need one of these. Least used knife in my block.

The Utility Knife used to be my most used knife when I was intimidated by the Chef's knife and it felt like a waste to use such a big knife for small things. It is another all-purpose knife, and is my second most used knife. It's excellent for anything fiat-sized and smaller. Because you can't grip the blade, you have less control than a Chef's knife, so I don't recommend it for precision cuts on tough materials, I.e. if you are trying to cut a carrot in half lengthwise.

The Paring Knife seems like a smaller utility knife, and it more or less is. Best used for small delicate cuts on things like garlic cloves, fresh herbs, shallots, etc.

Kitchen shears are mostly used to open packages, let's be real. They can be used to cut through tough bits, like if you have to separate bones from each other. I only use it for packaging though. And tape sometimes. I am not nice to my shears. The opposite of Fabric Scissors.

But what about that weird metal rod, Liz? We'll get to that when we cover--

Maintenance

How do you take care of these things, you may ask. The answer is a little bit variable, but I'll assume you have the cheaper knives.

First things first, if you DO have the nicer knives, do not sharpen them with anything but a whetstone, please I beg you.

You should sharpen your knives whenever you think they are getting dull. Have you ever seen that thing people do where they try to cut a piece of paper with a knife while the paper is not laying on a surface, or just by pulling the paper into the knife? Give her a go. You can learn to tell be looking at the blade up close or by feel, but I have absolutely no idea how to explain that. Consider doing it once a month or once every two weeks or something.

You should Hone the knife every 1-3 times you use it.

So, for sharpening, first thing you're going to want to do is get one of these bad bois:

Hold it like this on the corner of your countertop or a table (I am using the stove because my counters have rounded edges). Place the back/bottom of the blade in the section that reads coarse, and pull it towards you. This is not cutting towards you, but please be careful. Do this 5 times, then do it 5 more times on the side that says Fine. The knife should be parallel to the flat surface, and please please please do not cut yourself.

When you are done, clean the blade because there will be some metal filings on it and you don't want that in your Tikka Masala. You should instantly notice it cuts smoother. Sharper knives are actually safer, because you are less likely to cut yourself. Oh, also, consider reading on what to do if you cut yourself now instead of googling it when it happens like I did. (Tw: blood, cuts, etc)

On to Honing!

You see a lot of flashy honing methods on cooking shows, but here is how you should actually do it at home.

Press the tip of your honing rod (no jokes allowed) against a flat surface. I use my cutting board so that if I fuck it up, I only cut the cutting board. Place the rear of the knife towards the top of the honing rod, and bring it downwards while also pulling back. It was a weird motion to get used to, but there are tons of videos on it if my .gif isn't sufficient.

The angle here is very important. My cheaper knives need a 30° angle, but my nicer ones need a 15°. You will get a sense for it. What this is basically doing is straightening out the tiny warps and abrasions a knife gets from use. (You can double the life of a razor by running it backwards across a towel or jeans, which does the same thing to your 5 razor blades as this honing rod does to the knife).

Washing

Ideally, hand wash your knives the same day you use them. I use a sponge, hot water, and Dawn. Do not put it in the dishwasher. Yes, the serrated ones will fuck up your sponge. It's OK. The dishwasher can ruin your knives.

When you wash them, make sure to keep the sharp edge facing away from your body. I place the spine of the knife on the sponge, and fold the sponge over, so that the actual cutting edge isn't slicing the sponge.

Final Note: Cutting Boards. Don't get glass, that messes up your knives. You want plastic or wood. Plastic has to be replaced more often, but cheaper and can be machine washed. Wood looks nicer, but is more expensive and you can't cut meat on it (Bacteria can get all up in it more so than with plastic. Plus, wood can't be machine washed.

Ideally, you want to get the biggest cutting board your counter tops will fit. I promise that a bigger board is better.

I hope this helps. Go forth and cut well. Be safe, have fun, eat good food, impress your friends and loved ones.

[elizabethrobertajones]

If you feel like it, I'd be interested in your opinion.... personally I'm getting really tired and hopeless about the way Dean gets angry, blaming and aggressive towards Cas and Sam.... yes, he's worried, he feels abandoned or betrayed - but I feel like I've been making excuses for him for so long.... IDK if it's out of character, it seems so so different from past characterization, where I feel it was more understanding and came with more sweetness and care.... am I wrong?

Answering this properly would probably take an entire walk through Dean’s life history, along with rewatching everything just to form an opinion… Bearing in mind you’re asking someone who would still default to being a Dean girl if I had to pick, even though I think those categories are monstrously unfair to my TFW-loving heart :P

I do think each successive trauma Dean’s had since season 2 has each time made him more depressed, angry and withdrawn, which is the root cause of all this (as usual, start with blaming John when discussing Dean’s personality defects :P) 

He also is usually right about things and has a moral high ground even when the show is making him a demon, so that can’t help :P He’s positioned as the emotional POV and moral centre of the story, and as Mittens keeps calling him, a human lie detector, and that puts him in a LOT of situations where he has to protect his family, or their lies and betrayal and losses all are about his reaction. 

(It’s this that makes me think he has a lawful good D&D alignment, mostly because these are extremely irritating traits in a character if not done right, and clearly irritate people about Dean when he rubs them the wrong way, and like… yeah, it’s a gut feeling about how irritatingly right he is but that’s essentially why. :P)

But yeah, he’s very sympathetic to me without me having to try and these same actions don’t feel that way to me because I’m clinging to Dean and sobbing about how miserable he is, and have been for pretty much my entire adult life >.> Oops. 

I understand though, because it was partially this that made me really fall out of love with him over season 10 (also how gross he was being) and it took a big rewatch intentionally reminding myself of Dean being sweeter that helped ease me back in. I was more concerned about falling back in love with Sam after season 10 though, because Dean not being Mark of Cain Dean was all I needed to like him again. And in season 11, that also was true - without the Mark I found that he was much easier to get on with emotionally, and I was thankfully ready to like him again after watching a great deal of the show over again to remind myself. 

I think he has changed though since then, and in many ways positively, but also he has in a weird way developed ahead of Sam and Cas in positive development but since he hasn’t in other ways, he’s getting narky with them from his IMPROVED moral high ground and they’re not meeting his standards of new character growth and he’s not like, perfect, so he gets snappy with them. :P 

The show ALWAYS give him a moral high ground though - even when he was demon!Dean. In this episode’s case, Cas is gonna steal the Colt and IS acting shifty, and in a way it’s totally Dean’s right to call him out if he knew this, but he just has a gut feeling something’s shifty and is pre-angry about what he’s angry about later in the episode, so he seems not to change, in a way, being angry about Cas for one thing then the other, but really he’s been angry about the same thing all episode, only getting more clarity on WHY and what Cas did later. 

I’m not saying he was right to act the way he did, especially on making Cas feel unwelcome immediately (it reminded me of him lashing out in 8x22 and that really hurts my heart as it was coming from the same place but now 4 years ago - Cas made off with the angel tablet to protect Dean in the abstract (and protect the tablet from Dean because again he was being kind of controlled by it in a way where it messed with his basic programming), instead of sticking with him and them risking all the trouble together as a team)… but between his worry and his suspicion, he tried to call Cas out about it because - and he knows he does this but I guess can’t help himself in the moment - he reverts to anger when he’s worried, and Cas is really really worrying him. Explaining he does it but then carries on doing it doesn’t mean he CAN all the time and ideally he’d try and talk it out before storming off or lashing out, but this is where we are >.> 

But yeah, he does this same thing way back… I can’t think of smaller examples though there’s bound to be some because right from the start he and Sam grated on each other but Dean’s secret in season 1 was he was just so scared for his family and wanted to put it all back together and not be alone and to protect them all - that’s the darkest thing Dean discovers in season 1, how much he’d do to protect his family. So this is still playing off a core trait that was Dean’s darkness in season ONE. But in practice back then that looks like constantly pissing Sam off to the verge of leaving to find John on his own half the time :P 

In 4x04 Dean has a chance for a huge sanctimonious narrative-will-prove-him-right argument with Sam at the start when he finds out he’s still been working with Ruby… He really lets Sam have it but he IS right and his approach really didn’t help anything especially as Ruby WANTED a rift between them, and Dean digs himself a great big hole over, like, everything… Same could be said for Cas, once he’s in the family bracket for sure, with 6x20 and everything Dean says there, especially as Cas going to Dean doesn’t actually seem like it could have helped all that much in averting Apocalypse 2.0 except for dying in the moral high ground together as family, so, yay :P In 4x21 Dean also says he’d rather Sam dies human and is technically right, with the narrative again, that Sam shouldn’t have been drinking more demon blood, or that they should use him as a weapon for the greater good, or let him go kill Lilith, since what seems like the ideal end goal is just how Lucifer gets free and causes even greater evil. (He also yells at and hits Cas in 4x22 but idk if Dean is even sure they’re friends yet until 5x01 when he definitely calls Cas his friend, although of course it IS the same type of argument where Dean is right, knows he’s being lied to and manipulated, and is pissed off and terrified.)

So anyway in show terms it’s old as dirt (aka anything that happened in Kripke era) and Dean’s always been angry-concerned and it’s so much a part of his character it doesn’t bother me in a way, even if I think he should change long term and not yell at and upset his family like that, it doesn’t upset or grind me down. 

I can see how season 10 could break you on that point though because it NEARLY did me, and kind of did for a little while (like… a couple of weeks. Which is a very long time to not like Dean in my personal timeline :P) - these days Dean is comparatively happier and in a better place than he was in season 10 and so every day he’s not Mark of Cain Dean is a little victory to me, and his behaviour and treatment of his family is accordingly more balanced and mature than it obviously would have been then, but I also think he has been working hard on trying to talk things out and addressing feelings. 

So in 12x19 he yells at Cas in one scene, but when Cas comes to talk to him again, Dean is open and calmer. He only gets angry again later when Cas betrays his trust, and I think that would be in part BECAUSE he opened up so much to Cas so it’s not just a general trust, it was a “I thought we were working on things and communicating better” trust of the immediate conversation he’d just had with Cas. I think he HAS been more well-rounded with emotional stuff and trying to get it right and not fuck up like he has in the past since season 11, and he genuinely had character development over that season that’s been very obviously applied THIS season. But he’s not magically become someone else other than Dean, and this is a core reaction for him and a core character trait when WRITING him, so it’s going to be a slow process to demolish it even though he’s addressed back in 12x10 that he does it and he knows it can be harsh, especially when he only really means to show his concern. 

I definitely don’t think it’s a thing to be hopeless about, especially when the story called Dean out for doing it - it’s called him out a few times over stuff, like in 11x23 making him say he put Sam and his own troubles ahead of everything including Cas, as well as 12x10 and apologising to Cas that he is too harsh because he’s concerned, not angry. Having Dean express these things out loud is not just Dean running his mouth, it’s dialogue that’s put in for the reason of SHOWING they know he has character flaws, and Dean genuinely has been trying to be aware he does it and to make up for it when he does. He can’t say, this time, that he forgot about Cas, because rather than wait for the ominous news, like it took until “Dean, that’s not Cas!!” for him to express more than passing concern, as soon as Cas stops picking up, Dean starts bombarding his phone and searching to see if he turned up dead in a ditch. He even got concerned and annoyed when Cas was working with Crowley at the start of the season and was keeping a grumpy eye on that scenario. He knew something was up before it even was this episode, and he might not have approached it well because he’s working on “concerned not angry”, but forgetting Cas is something he never wants to do again and the wake up call about it with Casifer has clearly had a profound effect on how he behaves about Cas - again it might seem like he’s being over-concerned and it might even be controlling behaviour but the narrative is determined to prove him right, and he has a strong basis for his gut feeling, because his gut feeling is very very accurate in many cases. 

But it has been 12 years and change is slow, so I can see why and understand it might not feel like enough, or that he’s getting worse… I don’t think you’d be wrong for thinking it, even if I don’t see it that way, because it’s so subtle and usually only shows up as positive development BY showing us the negative side of his behaviour so seeming to reinforce that it’s still there while we’re waiting for the change, and if you start to feel like you’re apologising rather than seeing those excuses as explanations for change, because it keeps on coming without seeming to change to you… It’s just a viewpoint and interpretation and  especially while we don’t have any big pay off, all it really is is that I have a more positive interpretation that’s making me much happier about where Dean is and how the show’s treating him that makes me really chill to see him angry at his family.

I think the point is that it feels to me at the moment that it IS in focus and they’re addressing it, we get MORE scenarios where this sort of thing happens because Dean is being tested on his character development over and over again - like how he had to deal with consecutive discoveries in only a few episodes of Mary and Sam and Cas working with the BMoL and then Heaven. Did he handle them perfectly? No, but he showed his development in different ways each time by expressing how he feels, or trying to go along with things instead of falling out, or to try and bridge gaps after falling out, and it shows each time that Dean is a work in progress and they’re slowly affecting him and helping him to grow as a person. But it means lots of scenes where Dean is pissy with the people around him, and falling into the traits the show feels like addressing, which is maybe why you’re now seeing them a lot and getting upset by it and thinking he’s never changed. They might not HAVE a moment where anyone ever points out he’s actually changed, and it becomes something that’s changed in him by omission that we don’t see it again after a while, and we have to remember he used to be this way.

I feel like a lot of his change, at least escalating to the Mark of Cain stuff, has been for the worse (as in, like I said, making him more and more depressed and angry and withdrawn), season 5 aside (season 5 fixed him and Sam somewhat before they unravelled the sweater again for another take at it all :P) and only in season 11 does he start getting positive character development, so we’re also in the middle of Dean’s positive change, and the show has all the time in the world, with a season 13 waiting and all these promises of it ends when we want it to end, that they don’t have to rush it, frustrating as that may be while WE wait for pay off on any of these long character arcs.

As an example of a finished one, though, Sam also has had lasting character development that had a profound change on the way he reacts/is written between season 5-7, and part of why he’s now more of a peaceful mediator in these things (although tending towards being too passive sometimes, and obviously has a lot of work he still needs doing especially as he still knee-jerk over-corrects and bottles things up) but in season 7 he really genuinely seemed to have grown and become more zen and peaceful with himself, and loses a LOT of his anger and over-confidence (… to the point of lack of confidence, which is where season 8 onwards escalated it >.>) which is a process he’s been on since season 5 but becomes more and more obvious through that chunk of the show, until Carver era starts messing with him badly, in a way where he also accumulates more trauma and changes his behaviour notably and over an extended period of time with lasting effects away from that and into seriously messing him up - but from a baseline of the zen Sam who emerged in season 5, not the angry Sam from season 1-4. 

We see them on screen so much sometimes you need a rewatch and to watch them evolve as if you hit the fast forward button on their lives, because going a season at a time and not looking back, it’s hard to keep a picture of how they were and how they’ve changed in our minds, especially when some behavioural changes are quite organic or not called out until they’re a long way down the line… It takes the start of season 7 to change and grow before Dean and Bobby start giving him “who are you and what have you done with Sam” faces as they realise, and tbh I only really noticed that after a rewatch where I already knew Dean and Bobby had called it out in the middle of season 7, to really appreciate this arc where Sam changes in season 5, 6 and 7…

… I think that is about as concise as I can get my very lengthy opinion, having deleted large tangents which probably were 3 times the length of this, all added up XD