#my brother who is home for a few weeks is living in the basement while hes here

[writeonwhiskey]

the skz house: ch 3 (18+)

a/n: thank you to all who liked, commented and reblogged. glad to have you on this ride with me.

Summary: Welcome to Sigma Kappa Zeta, the most popular fraternity on campus. When you, down on your luck and looking for a place to live, see their ad for ‘IN-HOUSE STAY’. You're one of the four girls chosen and find that your duties for the rest of the school year will be cooking, cleaning, and pleasing your assigned house members: Hyunjin & Bang Chan.

[ read chapter two here ]

Chapter Three: Of Blowjobs and Birthdays

The house becomes hectic when everyone is back home. With twelve people living here, it’s a house full of extremely different personalities and, honestly, a little overwhelming. You start to wonder how stable things will remain throughout the year. Do the guys ever fight amongst themselves? Do the girls? You’re not very confrontational, so you’ll have to hold on to hope that any disagreements can be resolved quickly. 

After dinner you have a chance to interact with Jeongin in the basement. The two of you are standing next to the bar as Lee Know and Changbin challenge each other in a game of pool. Jeongin is all smiles and dimples as he talks to you about his minor in fashion design and his plan to launch a chic streetwear clothing line after graduating. You can’t think of any other way to describe him besides adorable and pure (Han will later assure you that thought wears off over time).

“If you ever need tips, I’m the one to talk to,” he tells you. 

“I may have to take you up on that because this,” you gesture to the plain jeans and shirt you’re wearing, “is where I tend to stay.”

He steps closer to you, his hands reaching for the bottom of your shirt. 

“May I?” He asks. 

You shrug and nod.

He gathers the fabric from the back and folds it upwards, then uses the excess material in front to twist into a spiral. He wraps the end around the ball that has formed and pushes the end piece through the center. He turns you around to face the mirror against the opposite wall and you nod your approval.

“It accentuates here,” he (very professionally) gestures towards your breast while standing behind you, then moves his hands lower to your waist, “and here without you having to do much.”

“Do mine next, Innie,” you hear Changbin say from the pool table.

“It works best with bigger shirts, hyung, yours are too tight,” Jeongin retorts. 

Lee Know laughs as he calls 8 ball corner pocket and sinks it in. 

The smile on Changbin’s face drops as he tosses the pool cue on the table. He heads up the stairs without saying anything to anyone, causing the three of you to burst out into laughter. 

You all end up following after him to the main floor to see what the others are up to. 

Mostly everyone has dispersed to doing their own thing and you decide to turn in for the night. If you stay down here any longer, you may be tempted to accidentally fall asleep on the couch, if it means avoiding going up to Chan’s room. You imagine that might not play out so well as you head to the second floor to shower.  

You make a stop in Hyunjin’s room on your way to grab a few things you’ll need the next couple days while staying with Chan.

Hyunjin is seated at his desk, fiddling with a camera. 

“Hey,” you say as you enter. 

“Come to say goodbye to me?” He spins in his chair to face you and pouts. 

“Please don’t make this more awkward than it already feels,” you say with a serious look on your face. 

Seeing your expression, he drops the pout. 

“You okay?” 

“It just feels conflicting, spending last night with you, now going to Chan…” you trail off as you sit down on his bed. 

“It will for the first few weeks, I’m sure,” he tells you. “I wish I could tell you how to sort through it but I really don’t know what it’s like from your perspective.”

“What’s it like from yours?” You ask. 

“These guys are my brothers…we’ve been through so much and already share everything, so this isn’t a huge stretch for us believe it or not,” he shrugs. “Everything is transparent so there’s no room for jealousy, we follow the rules of the house and it all just works out.”

“But Chan seems…”

“He’s been that way the last week for some reason. I don’t know what it is but he’ll either get over it or open up to us about it eventually. He just likes to brood. He’s moody like that.”

You nod your head, taking some consolation that maybe it isn’t you that’s the problem after all, and get up from the bed to retrieve your belongings. Hyunjin stands to hug you on your way out and tells you goodnight, placing a kiss on your forehead. You revel in his embrace while you have it.

“You should show your figure more,” he says when you step back, looking at the shirt Jeongin has revamped for you. “It looks good.”

“Thank you,” you reply with a shy smile, covering your midriff with your arm as you slowly back out of the room. You wave one final time before turning around, wanting to retain the happiness you’re feeling right now as you’re so uncertain what awaits on the next floor up. 

Seungmin, Changbin and Han, who also stay on the third floor, warned you about how warm it gets up there. So after your shower, you decide on a pair of silk pajama shorts and top for the night. When you enter Chan’s room, it feels even warmer since he’s just had a shower, too.

He has one towel tied around his hips and is using another to dry his hair when he stops to look at you. His eyes travel from you head to toes, then back up again. He sits down on his bed and watches you as you put your things away. 

“How was your first day in the house?” He asks, breaking the silence.

“Pretty good, actually.” You say turning to face him, trying to keep your gaze on his face and not his exposed chest. Even in his relaxed sitting position you can see the outlines of his abs. 

“You think you’ll be able to stick it out?”

You furrow your brow at his question. 

“Am I allowed to leave if I feel like I can’t?” You ask. 

“You didn’t read the contract?”

Your gaze falls to the floor. Fucking contracts will probably be the death of you.

“It was, like, 37 pages, Chan. I have enough to read with my class assignments,” you tell him. 

“Yes, you can leave,” he answers. “With a proper two week notice so we have time to find a replacement.”

“That disposable, huh?” You move the blankets back on your bed and sit down on it. 

“We don’t force anyone to be here,” he shrugs, leaning back on his hands. 

“Do you want me to leave?” You ask suddenly. 

“You’re already here,” he replies. “Might as well stay.”

Part of you wants to take what he says as him encouraging you to stick around, but the way he says it makes it feel like an afterthought. You also made the mistake of thinking he was being kind to you earlier today. 

“Results are in, by the way,” he announces with his phone in hand.

It takes you a moment to realize what he means—the test you took a few days ago. Your heartbeat quickens as you check your phone and find the email. It’s not the results that are making you nervous. It’s the feel of his eyes on you and what comes next. You stand from your bed and walk towards him, hand outstretched for him to see your results. He nods his approval and shows you his.

“Did you want to…” you trail off, unable to bring yourself to say the words. 

He slowly licks his lips as he looks up at you. You’re not sure if the uneasiness you’re feeling is nerves or some kind of tormented butterflies. It feels drastically different than when you were with Hyunjin, that much you’re sure of.

He takes your phone from you and tosses it behind him on the bed before holding his hand out. You tentatively place yours in his and he pulls you so you’re standing between his legs. His hands drop to the back of your knees and his fingertips begin to lightly caress their way up the back of your thighs.  

“You don’t?” He counters. 

“I—I—“ you stutter. 

His hands creep higher and higher until they’re just barely beneath the hem of the shorts. He stops his movements, grips you and pulls you even closer to him. You place your hands on his shoulders to keep yourself from falling on him.

“It has to be consensual, y/n,” he tells you. “But I do want you first.”

Your eyes lock with his and for the first time you feel like he’s being transparent. Would it ease some of the tension you feel with him if you consent tonight? Hyunjin did mention some of the members view this as a sexual thing and others emotional. Maybe Chan just prefers the physical. 

“I’ve only ever been with one other person,” you say, looking down at the floor. 

“Then you’ll learn a lot here,” he says as his hands resume caressing you. 

Your hands move up towards his neck, fingers lightly stroking at the nape. Eyes still locked on his, you nod your consent. 

“Lesson one, then,” he says, spreading his legs a little further apart. “Get on your knees.”

Your eyebrows come together once again at his words. He doesn’t budge—doesn’t smile, no inference that he’s joking in the slightest. 

You slowly kneel on the floor in front of him. 

“Open my towel,” is his next command. 

You bring your hands to his lap to pull the two ends of the towel apart and cast them aside. He’s completely exposed but shows no sign of being embarrassed or insecure. Your eyes fall down to his cock—he has no reason to, you can see that. 

He hooks a finger under your chin and lifts your head up. His thumb lightly moves across your lips from left to right then slowly drags down the middle, pulling your bottom lip with it. 

He redirects his attention to your pajama top, undoing the buttons with ease one by one. When he moves the silky fabric to the side, you let out a shaky breath as his eyes linger on your exposed breasts. He cups both of them in each hand, gliding his thumbs across your nipples until they harden.

It feels good, you can’t deny that. You have no control over your body’s response to his actions, but there’s some discrepancy between your body and the thoughts racing through your mind. He’s handsome, but are you attracted to him? Given the way he’s been treating you…what does it say about you if you are?

His hands fall from your chest, and you instantly feel cold without his touch. He reaches down for your hand and grabs it, placing it on his cock. You wrap your hand around it, feeling how warm and hard it is. He leans back on the bed, looking down at you. 

“Spit on it,” he tells you. 

You feel your pulse pick up at his words as you move your jaw and tongue to gather up moisture in your mouth. You adjust yourself over him to do as you’re told. He guides your hand once again, helping you move the saliva around and lather until his dick is slippery. 

“It’s not that fragile, you can squeeze a little harder, y/n.” His tone is soft as he looks at you with darkened eyes. 

You tighten your grip and begin moving your hand up and down slowly. He lays back flat on the bed as you continue to stroke him. You feel a little less pressure without him staring at you and focus on what’s in front of you. The hair surrounding the base is dark and curly, yet neatly groomed. His dick is almost the same color as the rest of his body, with a redder tint. You can see, up close, all the veins at work as he becomes harder in the palm of your hand. The tip is cut, pink, and dripping. You rub your thumb around it in circles, smearing the clear fluid around. 

He lets out a soft groan and sits back up on the bed.

He cups your face in his hand and strokes your cheeks. 

“Open your mouth,” he says. 

You slowly drop your jaw. His hands move to the back of your head and guide you forward. You close your eyes and try to remain calm and relaxed as you feel the tip of his dick at your lips.

He moves one of his hands to the base, and slides the tip of his dick around your lips before sliding it inside. With his other hand still behind your head, he pushes you further down. You put your hands on his thighs and start to resist when you feel you can’t take anymore in your mouth. 

He releases the pressure on the back of your head and you breathe out of your nose, adjusting to having so much of him in your mouth. It’s not your first blow job, but he’s a lot bigger than your ex and, you know, you hadn’t even kissed this man yet.

You start to stroke the base as your mouth focuses on the upper half. You move in unison, moving your hand up as your head draws back, then down as you take more of him in again. Your ex did not enjoy ‘sloppy’ blow jobs and all the saliva, but Chan seems to like it. You use the moisture that works up in your mouth to make it easier to glide along him. He groans as you start moving faster, and continues guiding your head with more force each time you descend. 

He grips his hand in your hair and you take that as a sign of encouragement to keep going. When you move your mouth to focus on just the tip as you continue stroking him with your hand, he releases your hair and falls back on the bed again. You suck only the tip, popping it out of your mouth like a lollipop and taking it inside again. 

“Fuck, y/n,” he croaks. 

Another sign of encouragement. You’ll have to take whatever words of acceptance you can get with him. 

You take your mouth off completely and use your tongue to lick upwards from the bottom to the top, gliding across the protruding vein there. When you go back to the base, his hand is on your head again, pushing you lower. Your eyes open wide as you see what he wants you to do. You straighten up to spit on his dick again and add moisture before returning back to his balls. You take one in your mouth, lightly sucking on it, then the other. 

“I knew it,” he breathes, seemingly talking to himself.

Knew what? You wonder. But you don’t stop. 

“Put your mouth back on my cock,” he says. 

You place your mouth back on him, moving up and down in synchronicity with your hand. Both of his hands go to your head, forcefully pushing you down as he bucks his hips up, groaning. 

He doesn’t warn you, so the first shot in your mouth startles you. You feel the warmth and taste the saltiness as he continues to thrust into your mouth. When his hips fall to the bed for the final time, you sit back on your legs. You’re not sure what to do next. You want to get up and run to the bathroom.

He sits back up, breathing heavily. The way he looks at you gives you some pause. He looks satisfied, relieved. He leans forward and kisses you briefly on the lips, apparently oblivious of the load you’re holding inside or something. When he leans back, your face is contorted as you gesture to your mouth. 

He shakes his head, careless of the expression you’re making. He places a finger under your jaw to keep it shut. 

“Swallow.”

You shake your head, but he doesn’t move his finger, he pushes up on your jaw harder, staring at you intently. You concede and move your heard forward slightly to make it easier to go down in one gulp. 

“Open.”

You open your mouth and show him nothing is there. 

“Good girl.” He pats your cheek before moving back on the bed towards his pillows, leaving you on your knees at the foot of the bed. “Get some sleep.”

You feel like you’ve just been punched in the gut. So much for this situation being reciprocal. 

You shakily get to your feet, pick up your phone and retreat to your bed with the buttons of your shirt still undone. There’s no other way to describe how you're feeling—used. You slip underneath the blanket and immediately turn over to face the wall. You hear Chan get up a few minutes later and go to his bathroom. 

You let out a sigh when you believe he’s out of earshot. You signed up for this, but this…was not what you had expected. You imagine how this would have played out with Hyunjin. The two of you would have probably laughed together after your raunchy behavior and he would have held you as you fell asleep. You wish you were with him right now. You squeeze your eyes shut and will yourself to fall asleep.

You wake up the next morning once again to the sound of your alarm going off and frantically silence it. You peek over your shoulder to see Chan still sleeping in his bed. Yesterday when you were bright eyed and optimistic, you set this alarm to get up and cook for him. Even though he said he wasn’t big on eating breakfast—today is his birthday. You wanted to do something nice for him. Of course that was all prior to him blowing his load in your mouth and then sending you off to bed immediately after. You contemplate just staying in bed and not mentioning his birthday to him at all.

The way he’s treating you doesn’t just sting, it fucking hurts. If everyone in the house had the same demeanor, perhaps you could understand it better—that they all are cold. But, no, everyone else has been nothing but nice to you. 

You have to reason with yourself that you can’t take his behavior personal. You’re here to perform certain duties and you can’t force or expect him to be affectionate with you. You shouldn’t take it as an offense. Easier said than done, though. 

You push the covers off and button up your shirt—you’d fallen asleep without ever fixing it—and make your way quietly down stairs. You stop on the second floor to brush your teeth, it’s desperately needed after last night. You feel yourself start to becoming angry at the thought. Did he enjoy knowing you’d spent the night with the taste of him lingering in your mouth? Why hadn’t you spoken up and said something…anything? Perhaps it falls back on being non-confrontational, but you’re also afraid of making him angry. You push the thoughts aside once again and wash your hands and face before heading to the kitchen.

The boys told you Chan really liked spam omelets so you’ll be making that for everyone, with rice. The distraction of prepping and cooking is a nice reprieve for your mind. You can’t focus on anything other than the task at hand. Some of the others file in soon after to keep you company. Or maybe they’re just waiting to eat. 

You’re finished within an hour. You make Chan a plate—rice on one side with furikake sprinkled on top, and the spam omelet on the other. You find a serving tray in the cabinet and place the plate and a glass of watermelon punch (another one of his favorites, you had been told) on it. The other’s start making their own plates and you head back upstairs to deliver Chan his breakfast in bed. The irony in this is not lost on you. Treating him like a goddamn king after he’d made you feel like a fucking harlot. 

When you get back to the room, he’s still sleeping. 

You sit the tray down at the foot of the bed. You had kinda hoped he’d be awake by now, as you’re not sure how he reacts to being woken up. You sit behind him on the bed and lightly shake him. He wakes easily and turns to look at you over his shoulder, eyes half open. 

“Happy Birthday, Chan,” you say to him softly, forcing a smile. 

He takes a moment to adjust to being awake but promptly sits up on the bed, back against the pillows. 

“Thank you,” he replies, as his eyes fall on the tray of food. 

“I know you said you’re not big on breakfast but, I made you a spam omelet,” you say, reaching forward to grab the tray and drag it back towards him. 

He picks up the glass of juice and takes a long drink. 

“The others aren’t planning anything else today are they?” He asks warily, setting the glass back down. 

“Not that I know of…they said you’d kill them,” you shrug. 

“Good,” he nods. “You not eating?”

“There’s more downstairs…I wasn’t sure if you’d want to eat alone or not.” You can’t bring yourself to add ‘with me’ in you response. 

He brings the tray closer to him and cuts a piece of the omelet with the fork. He adds a little bit of rice too, then holds the fork out to you, one hand cupped beneath it to catch anything that falls. 

You shake your head and try to push his hand away but he resists. 

“Open,” he says. 

You find this alarming—the rate at which your mouth drops open at his behest. He puts the fork in your mouth and you close your lips around it, drawing back to take the food from it.

He smiles at you then, a real smile. For the first time that you can remember since you’ve been here. His eyes are puffy from sleep so they get even smaller with his cheeks pressed up and you see he has a deep set of dimples. Before you can stop it, you feel your eyes begin to prickle. 

You recognize the onslaught of the water works and quickly stand from the bed. You don’t want him to see you cry. You don’t want him to know that this small act of kindness felt like so much more to you after how he’s made you feel the past couple of days.

“Please, eat. Enjoy. I’ll see you later,” you say in a rush and head for the door before he can say anything to stop you. 

You don’t know if he calls after you as you speed down the hallway, wiping the lone tear that falls from your eye.

Later, you catch a ride to campus with Felix and Allie for your afternoon class, happy for another distraction to keep your thoughts of Chan at bay. You ride back home with Changbin and Seungmin who are adamant about having pizza for dinner. They advise you of Chan’s favorite place to order from—another birthday treat for him. They make a stop on the way home for beer and alcohol to celebrate. You’re wary of their choice but they tell you since it’s just those in the house in attendance, he won’t be upset about it. 

Back at the house, you lounge on the sofa watching TV with some of the others until Hyunjin arrives home around 3:00pm. He sits next to you and takes your hand in his, giving it a squeeze. You lean your head on his shoulder and place your other hand on his arm. You appreciate his consistency and how easy it is to just be yourself without second guessing anything around him.

“How was last night?” He asks quietly.

“It was fine,” you lie.

“See? You were worried for nothing." He drapes his other arm across your side, pulling you closer to him. 

You’re thankful he can’t see your face. You don’t know if the Chan you’re experiencing is different than the one he knows, or if he fully knows what you’re going through and doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal. Either way, you keep it to yourself. 

As more people start to return home, the birthday festivities begin. One case of beer is taken down to the basement to start beer pong and when Chan gets back, the alcohol bottles are cracked opened.

Everyone gathers in the kitchen to take a shot. Chan’s eyes meet yours for the first time since your awkward encounter this morning and you offer a polite smile. Hyunjin pulls you to stand between him and Chan and hands you a shot. You scrunch up your face and shake your head. 

“If I have to celebrate, everyone has to drink,” Chan says matter-of-factly. 

You grab the shot glass in one hand, and hold a can of Coke in the other. 

Lee Know loudly clears his throat before addressing the room. 

“To our fearless and humble leader,” he begins and Han snorts at his words, “We’re thankful to have spent another year with you as our chapter president. We can’t imagine anyone else in your place.”

“Speak for yourself,” Changbin pipes up, causing everyone to chuckle. 

“To another year, and many more to come.” He raises his glass in the air and everyone else follows suit before tossing back the shot. 

You grimace and groan as the burning liquid slides down your throat. 

“Good girl,” Chan says to you quietly, placing a hand on your side.

Your shirt is also tied up the way Jeongin showed you, so his fingers are able to freely roam over the exposed skin there. You tense up at the feeling—this public display. Has he gotten over whatever was bothering him? Did he really just need to release some sexual tension? Or does he just become happier when he drinks?

You don’t have to wait long to find out the answer to the latter. As the evening carries on and everyone moves down to the basement, there’s simultaneous games of beer pong and pool being played. Chan is laughing, smiling, and hugging his fraternity brothers and it’s kind of blowing your mind. 

As he stands behind Lee Know, hands wrapped around his waist and chin wresting on his shoulder as Jeongin says something that makes him laugh, you feel like you’re seeing something you shouldn’t. Who is this person? This can’t be the same guy that made you want to cry yourself to sleep yesterday.

You’re not sure if you should question it, maybe you should just be thrilled that he seems more carefree, perhaps not as weighed down by the responsibility of being the fraternity president tonight. Maybe he’ll be nicer tonight when it’s just the two of you up in his room.

You have another shot when everyone else takes one and have a mixed drink as you play beer pong with Hyunjin as your partner. The overall mood in the house is positive, everyone is having a good time. At one point you spot I.N. and his assignee, Charlotte, making out in the corner. Your eyebrows shoot up at the sight—Han was right. 

When the pizza arrives, you help Seungmin and Felix carry all the boxes down to the basement. You go through the boxes to find the one you ordered specifically for Chan and take it to him where he’s sitting at the bar. Thankfully, Seungmin and Changbin had been with you when you placed the order so you could make sure to get what he likes.

“For you, birthday boy,” you say with a smile, holding the box out to him. He takes it from your hand with a lazy smile and sits it on the bar counter. 

Chan lifts the box open, stares at the pizza inside for no more than two seconds before shutting the box and pushing it away. All traces of his previous smile completely gone. 

“Pineapple?” He forces the word out with a look of disgust, as though it pains him. 

Changbin and Seungmin burst into laughter behind you. You whip your head around and throw a glare in their direction. They played you. They planned for this moment to happen since this afternoon. As they remain doubled over in laughter you press your lips into a firm line and slowly nod your head. You will remember this.

You turn back to face Chan.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize, “there’s literally every other kind of pizza you can imagine. What can I get you?”

 “Just plain pepperoni is fine,” he says with a shrug. 

You turn to retrieve him a box, but he catches your wrist to stop you, pulling you back towards him. Since he’s sitting down, you’re right at eye level with him. 

“You can’t be so gullible,” he says softly. “That’s gonna cost ya.”

He lightly taps you on the ass before jerking his head in the direction of the other pizza boxes and sending you on your way. 

He’s making pineapple on pizza sound like a cryptic deadly sin. As you plate him up some pepperoni pizza, his last words linger in your mind. You turn to look back at him, his eyes are on you from across the room. A shiver runs down your spine as your eyes meet his and he smirks. What is this innocent mistake going to cost you?

[ read chapter four here ]

a/n: i may be having a little too much fun with this chan. like, comment & reblog to keep fueling my writing fire :)

[letsgetrowdy43]

Luke brings home a girl to meet his family. Gave her a tour the lake house. Didn’t know she a piano prodigy. Just in awe of her. (Inspired by https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z75QuC9TuHY&pp=ygUbTGFkdCBzb25nIG1pbGV5IHBsYXlzIHBpYW5v )

The prodigy ❧

He’d only met her a few weeks prior to inviting her over for dinner with his family.

She had run into him while at the beach, the girl's younger brother threw his beach ball right at Luke’s head while she was trying to teach him how the game of volleyball works. The girl apologized repeatedly, her face flush with embarrassment as he brushed off her sorries, “I’ll accept your apology if you accept my invitation to dinner,” he grinned as the girl agreed to his terms.

That was a little over a month ago after finding out that the girl was a New York native and going to university at Rutgers Luke knew that he could make this work, so he decided what better way to see how well this plays out than to introduce her to the most important people in his life.

She was nervous but excited, she’d heard amazing things about the Hughes’, his entire friend group raved about Ellen and Jim’s kindness and his brother's way of making everyone feel like family, so she wasn’t surprised when they had met her expectations the moment she stepped foot into their lake house.

Ellen was in the kitchen finishing up dinner when Luke ushered her to meet his mom, “it’s lovely to finally put a face to the girl my son has been talking so highly of,” the woman smiled as she pulled the young girl into her arms. “Luke you show her around and I’ll finish up dinner,” she said as she pushed her son out of the kitchen so she could concentrate.

Luke gave her the grand tour, starting the tour in his room which he had finally cleaned, wanting to impress her. They ran into Jack in the basement who seemed a little too excited to meet Luke’s new girl, a smirk on his lips as Luke cut their chat short before his brother could say anything embarrassing. And finally, they ended up in the living room, her eyes lighting up at the antique upright piano in the corner of the room, some random sheet music on the music shelf, a large oil painting sitting on top of it along with a few hanging plants.

“Who can play piano?” “It was my great grandmothers, the best I can do is a lovely rendition of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’,” he mused as she looked up at him with these questioning eyes, almost asking for permission for her to play, “Do you want to play it, mom got it tuned in April.”

She nodded slowly and walked over to it, taking a seat as she ushered for Luke to come closer. She delicately placed her fingers on the keys and started to play ‘Une Barque Sur L’océan’ her brows pulled into a concentrated look as her hands danced over the keys. Luke sat in awe, his heart loudly beating in his chest as he watched the emotions pour out of her into the music.

“Who’s playing that?” Jim asked as he and Quinn entered the living room, he was met with a ‘shush’ from his youngest son who was sitting on the couch watching the girl play beautifully.

As the song came to an end the girl came out of her trance and looked around the room at all of the Hughes family members standing in the entrances of the living room watching her.

“Did I mention I almost went to Julliard?” She asked shyly as she looked to Luke whose lips were slightly parted, eyes full of hearts as he watched the blush on her face start to form from all the attention she was gaining. “No, you didn’t.” “I decided to go the more practical route and studied education instead,” she grinned at the boy who was slowly coming out of his love-infused trance.

“You’re perfect did you know that?” he questioned as his lips met the side of her face.

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i kinda love this!!!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I asked my future brother-in-law to move out?

🏡 so I can find this. Mostly I just want to get this off my chest because I can't tell anyone else in my town.

My fiancé (L) comes from a very large family. His mother (B) is very nice, and in addition to having three biological kids (L and his two brothers), she has adopted a few from bad homes. Namely A, L's adoptive little sister (19) who has been raised with L and his brothers since she was little.

J, L's younger brother (24) has been living with us since we purchased our first home last year. It's been nice, J kept to himself (his room is in our basement) and paid rent and it got him out of his mom's place. But then their mother's house had a fire and so A was displaced.

B was already in the process of moving house so she had a place to stay with L's youngest brother, but A didn't have anywhere besides her abusive grandma's place. I liked A a lot. I'm an only child and I thought having A as a little sister would be cool, so I invited her to stay with us until she could move back in with B. We have a pull-out couch in a den downstairs so we had room for her. She stayed with us for a week while the house was getting set up, but even after she moved back in with B she kept spending a lot of time at our place with J, getting drunk and high with him almost every night.

About a month later my fiancé caught them having sex.

They're not blood-related but I still feel INSANELY creeped out by that!! L wanted to be supportive but he told me he hated it too. A eventually moved to another city, and J confessed to B (his mom) that he and A were in love and he wanted to move out with her so they could act like a couple. We live in a tiny town where basically everyone knows each other, so they couldn't act like that here (except in our house but I'll get to that), but after a week of living in the next town A had a breakdown because she couldn't handle it (she has no work ethic at all, she quits every job she gets and wants to make a career in traveling even though their family is poor). Now they don't have a place.

But we do.

I was over the moon when they both moved out. But then L told me they were moving back in. I was told they would.be here just until.the.end of Feb until.they could afford a new place. I hesitantly agrees, as long as they paid their rent.

Now it's four months. And the rent is less.

I feel like I have to walk on eggshells, I don't feel like my home is mine anymore! I hate the fact that they're having incestuous sex under my own roof. I hate the smell of weed that floats up from their disgusting fucking basement. L thinks that I'm overreacting because I can't come up with a better reason for hating this situation other than "it makes me uncomfortable"

I want to tell J and A to start looking for a.new place but L would never back me up on it. I seriously want to hurt myself over this and I just feel so darn depressed all the time...

AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[popculturebuffet]

Top 20 Animated Episodes of 2023 Part 1

Hello all you happy people! It's now 2024, and with 2023 behind us it's time for my faviorite yearly thing on this blog: my top 20 episodes of the year list!

For those of you new to this tradition or needing a refresher, each year I take 5 episodes each (or less if the show had less), from the various shows I watched that year, and then slowly wittle it down from a massive pile to the 20 best, split into two digestible parts, and let you all enjoy the results. It's one of my favorite things as it gives a nice, personal, wide berth of what happened in that year, gives this blog something unique to do, and allows me to touch on shows I haven't covered yet or may simply not get to for some time, if ever.

2023 was a mixed bag for me, both professionally and personally: It started.. with a kick in the teeth as my cat Stewie died after living a long, fufilling life of looking mildly pissed at everything but still being cute.

He was a good cat and his loss is something I still haven't fully gotten over a year later.

It was a harbringer of change: with Stewie's death we finally moved out of the house I lived in pretty much my whole life, and into a smaller, nicer and far better apartment with my own mini office in my room even and all my children/books/children returned to me. It's taken 6 months but I feel like i've fully settled into my new, wonderful home.

And towards the end of this year as the loss of Stewie still stung all this time later, I got another great change with the addition of Maddie

Maddie was the dog of a close friend of the family who had to go into a retirement home. She needed a home, and now has one in my room looking morose, licking my face and occasionally going under the bed for hours at a time like the cave goblin she is. She was a much needed bolt of sunshine in this storm of a year. I do metaphor good.

So with all these c-changes, how did this blog fair? Suprisingly great but not entirely in tact. Quality wise I do think I did some of my best work this year: I tackled the first apperances of every spider-man, woman and pig in into the spider-verse, the movie itself, finally web swining around a bit thanks to kev with a little more spidey planned for this year, with a tie in for Kraven later this year that's exactly what you think it is. I finally got to do an x-men month, covered rocko's modern life static cling for pride month, and in one of my finest hours, got to do a retrospective on one of my faviroite fairly recent comic strips breaking cat news with the help of my friend emma. Her sponsorship meant I got to cover something great and while few people have read it, i'm happy just to have it out there.

In addition to that I covered Tugs, an osbcure UK series and spirtual brother to thomas the tank engine that involved state mandated death dates for boats, pirates, and eleven minutes of explosions. I finally got to enjoy the madness that was the Telltale Sam and Max Games, with Save the World in the pocket and Beyond Time and Space wrapping up next week. And biggest, best and brightest of all I did a retrospecitve on little shop of horrors, finally seeing both the stage play and original corman film, as well as little shop. And someday i'll have recovered from seeing little shop.

The delay on that though brings me to the other shoe.. this year my productivity was in the basement and my week was at an all time low. Several reviews got delayed, from stewie's death leaving me unable to work for a few days for damn obvious reasons, to the move frequently taking my time or leaving me off balance. Not only that I didn't plan my time off for the move well, so I was left having to rearrange my whole schedule. It's why both pirate month and pride month, proud institutions on this blog, were reduced to a week and a three part special, something I wasn't remotely happy with. Things kept slipping by, and in general it wasn't my best year for getting shit done. I realized i'd simply taken WAY too much on, and thus have scaled back to ten reviews instead of 12 a month, and may scale back further if necessary: i'd rather these reviews be their best and get put through a spellcheck than be glad it's done only to realize I have nother thing that's due yesterday.

Not helping were towards the end of the year, a massively loud noise from my computer fan that made it hard to concentrate, something that's hard for my adhd ass in general let alone with a giant whirring fan that nothing can out loud, and having finally solved tha tproblem thanks to my dad's help.... then having my wrist go out, and while it's recovered now, it meant an extra week off, which sounds nice and was in places.. but was mostly spent in pain or asleep to escpae the pain till I got things to help with that. Then after a nice christmas, a lovely few days after... I got a cold, which spent up a large chunk of my vacation in a sick coma.

I apologize a bit for all the venting as you can tell this year's been a long one. I came out the otherside well with a loveable dog and a great new work/living space, but it was a bitch getting to here.

Thankfully animation wise, the industry wasn't in as MUCH turmoil this year. It still wasn't great: We got more cancelations with Lumberjanes and Phoebe and Her Unicorn announced formally dead before arrival had even started, and cancellations for Inside Job, Star Trek Progidy and Praise Petey, the last two seemingly in limbo as a result, with only one getting saved. While it wasn't the cancelnado of last year that wrecked many a service and nearly ended me, it was still pretty bad and Warner showed zero signs of learning from their lessons: after taking a few months off thinking the heat died down they tried canceling coyote vs acme.. only to then nakedly start a bidding war, making what they were really doing with most projects obvious: making them unaviliable.. and then starting a bidding war for other streamers. I'm not upset many of these shows are on other streamers as their safer from Zaslav there, but it shows just how nakedly greedy, transparently corrupt and blatantly fraudlent Warner Bros Discovery has become.

While the sales of the brilliant Merry Little Batman and sure to be great Batman: Caped Crusader to amazon are GOOD as Amazon has learned what animation means, it unmasks warner as simply doing all this tax writeoff shit to make money.. and then often forgetting to even sell the shows, not carring if no one's buying and just shrugging off someone's heart and soul being cast into the void. The loss of Final Space and Close Enough STILL stings and hasn't gone away even with the maker of the former both having found a way to finish the story and move on with his life.

The cherry on top of this shit sundae is Zaslav, no shit, saying the decision to shelve Batgirl, a movie that was entirely done and could've had the elseworlds label slapped on it if they didn't want it in the DCU, BRAVE. Yes that.. really happened.

It wasn't just Zaslav fucking up this year though, as other execs certainly tried their hardest or were arm and arm with him: The biggest blunder is obviously the strikes which while not affecting animation for the most part, was still a long dark night of the soul that was entirely the fault of executives not wanting to give up the precious theorietical money they could make once AI gets to the point it can create actual things, nor the likenesses of DEAD PEOPLE they should have no right to. Exec behavior was at it's most disgraceful this year... I don't know how that bare somehow got lower but that's the hellscape we're in with both zaslav and iger beign part of the corprate hydra that kept rejecting any deals presented and tended to flip the table and leave in a huff , leaving the negotations for weeks at a time till it became apparent that no amount of veiled threats of starving them out.

That said the strikes... were a net positive: they were long, brutal and threw tv off and delayed a show or two.. but it was well worth it. It helped show just how much actors and writers of all pay levels are needed, got them badly needed pay increases and protections and left the door open to help fiddle with AI protections as while AI isn't remotely good at creating scripts, that's never stopped execs from promoting something anyway. Despite MANY attempts to demonize the strikers, frame them as hollywood elites despite the fact the bulk were just trying to live on and were putting their liveleyhoods at stake to make sure they had one, or paint them as the bad guys.. it never worked. The public held firm, the strikers held firm and deflected most attempts with solidarity, with said big fish they tried to use as propoganda.. instead gladly donating to help the strike keep going. Fran Drescher and co fought hard, and the result is a slightly better hollywood.

And that hope for a brighter future really radiated this year: while Animation is still in flux in places, a lot of the networks hit hard by corprate dumbfuckery last year started to regrow: Netflix, after a year or two of rapid cancellations and baffling decisions, finally regrew it's animation divsions: Outside of Inside Job, most cancelations were shows that really weren't the best idea or execution to start with, and most hits got renewed, with them even picking up Star Trek Prodigy for another season and likely as many as they can carry. They pivoted more to adult animation with hits like Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Pluto, Castlevania Nocturne, Carol and the End of the World and Blue Eyed Samurai, the latter three I wish I got to but i've heard are incredible.

While WBD was still BURNIN DOWN THE HOUSEEEE, it snuck in a few hits with My Adventures with Superman and tons of great stuff I did'nt get too like Scavengers Reign, the beginning of the end for Craig of the Creek, Fired on Mars, and Hair Love, while having a suprise banger in the form of Tiny Toons Loonveristy, proving just how to reboot a classic property once again. Not only that the finale movies for Venture Bros and Metalocalypse came out, which given the last year was a huge fingers crossed thing. But both came out, I got both on blu ray, and got neat posters with them in the bargin and both closed up two of adult swims best series in the way they richly deserved. We also got an Urkel Christmas Movie. I guess.

Amazon continued it's own building: in addition to the dark knight picups mentiond, Invincible and Legend of Vox Machina both had amazing season 2's, with Vox Machina picked up for two more seasons to close it out proper and a Mighty Nein spinoff, with a Belles Helles Spinoff all but guarnateed at some point, and Hazbin Hotel after a truly agonizing year of waiting for someone to announce they had it, finding a perfect home for the happiest place in hell.

Finally, the indie scene, already thriving blew the fuck up. For the first time I nominated six diffrent pilots from various indie creators who all did a fucking great job: Godspeed, Lackadaisy, In Limbo, Atlas and the Stars, and Swift Spark and the Defensive five all had impressive showings and I regret not watching Lackadaisy in time to support it, but I can't wait to see what it brings to the table and to see all of these shows make it to series, not to mention up coming ones like ToonrifiqTariq's "Hey" that are likely going to come out next year.

It's a strange time for animatoin.. but one tha'ts proven you can make your own way, that the big coprations are trying and that in film.. is at one of i'ts brightest: while there ere some stumbles we had masterpieces like Nimona, which also made disney look horribly stupid for homophobically canceling it, Across the Spider verse (which needed to treat it's animators better but still deserves mention), and TMNT Mutant Mayhem.

It was a hell of a year and I can't want to share the best of it with you. And as a result of such a good year there's a few firsts: This is the first year with Anime included and if you want to know why i'ts taken so long it wasn't snobbery.. I just.. plain forgot to watch the ones I DID want to watch the past few years. That's... really it. I usually prefer reading the manga, as it's both faster and less time consuming, and Some of the best often aren't on the streaming platforms I do have. Pluto and Scott Pilgrim got by by being adaptations of something I love with all my heart a piece and thus coudln't bear myself to miss, but I might try to vary up my viewing more next year. I do want to check Zom 100 out at some point.

Anyways the other is that I allowed two dtv movies in here. Now this is with a caveat: It has to be directly linked to an existing animated series, a sequel, a prequel, etc. It's something I never really thought about before, but makes sense: While Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart and Army of the Doomstar were both considered for my film list too and are films.. their the proper conclusion to their stories. Not only that with Pluto's inclusion on this list, we have a series that had episodes only about ten minutes or so shy of both films runtime, so I figured fudging the rules like this was fair. I would've included Craig Before the Creek, but I want to wait to watch it when it comes on HBO Max next month.. and buy it on Physical as I don't remotely trust WBD to keep digtial copies up forever anymore. And really it feels in the spirit of things like operation zero back in the day or in both metalocalypse and venture bros own histories, all this and gargantua 2 and doomstar requieum.

Okay now that's settled this years list is intresting as while there's a decent amount of returning shows most haven't been on this list before. Of the nominees the only returning shows are The Legend of Vox Machina, Invincible, Helluva Boss, The Great North, Miraculous and Big City Greens, with mainstays like Tuca and Bertie and Close Enough sadly gone thanks to WBD being pralines and dicks. Thus our shows competing are an eclectic mix of returning combatants, one for sadly the last times, revivials of old shows, reboots of old shows, two limited series, and a handful of spectacular pilots

These are the shows that I got to see this show and thus entered the running, all sorted by platform since.. there's a lot.

Amazon Prime: The Legend of Vox Machina Invincible

HBO Max: YOLO: Silver Destiny Clone High Tiny Toons Looniversity Adventure Time : Fionna and Cake Aqua Teen Hunger Force My Adventures with Superman Disney+: Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur The Owl House (Final Year) Kiff Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir Big City Greens Hulu: The Great North Futurama Bob's Burgers The Simpsons Netflix: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Limited Series) Pluto (Limited Series) DTV: Venture Bros: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (Special) Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar (Special)

YouTube: Helluva Boss Godspeed Lackadaisy In Limbo The Amazing Digital Circus Atlas and the Stars Swift Spark and the Defensive Five

So with our nominees in clear view, who shined the brightest, who didn't and whose going to yell at me over my choices? find out under the cut!

FULL SPOILERS FOR MOST EPISODES ON THIS LIST. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

20. The First Episode (Atlas and the Stars, Pilot)

"Sorry for dragging you into this man. You don't have to trust me but I promise to make this up to you, I swear."

Coming in just under the wire as the last released episode on this list, it's placing is just a fun concidence, we have The First Episode... the pilot for new series Atlas and the Stars. You can watch it here

So it's come up soon but the reason I put MOST episodes on the spoiler warning.. is this pilot and another on the list, I really DON'T want to spoil much as both rely on you watching it, this one in paticular not revealing what the show's premise will be from here on out, instead telling the parallel tales of Atlas, a human from a dying planet who hyjacks a space ship to acheive her dream of endless freedom in the stars, Atmosphere, a shy loveable alien embarking on his first day regestring ships at a space port, and Quasar, the lord of a mysterious planet who keeps having to sacrifice.. somethign to a portal to keep it alive... and it can't keep up forever and his beligeured assitant nebula. ALl of this comes togeter in a beautifully animated, well active and creative sci fi adventure with one hell of a hook from where it goes form here, awesome character desgin work and some neat sci fi tek in Atlas' googles. Miranda Toomey used every inch of whateve rbudget she had to make this and it turne dout gorgeous, and I can't wait to see the next episode in this and how this story progresses. It's well done, gorgeous, heartfelt and engaging and I recommend you go watch it before we move on to our next entry.

19. Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (Venture Brothers, Finale Movie) "All you need to know is the person who gave birth to you loves you, I promise you that"

From a start to a finish we have Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, the long awaited and thankfully came out with a dvd and everything ending of the Venture Brothers. It's shockingly low on this list, but as much as I love this series.. it came out in a tight year with some even better finales, and had the burdern of having to cram in a season's worth of content, even with the cuts they made, into an 84 minute film.

The results are still excellent: Radiant is a fun, frantic race to the finish line that satisfyingly answers a lot of the series biggest questions: Who the boys mom was, how Monarch and Rusty are related, can HELPER fire a shot gun, will Hank and Dean reconcile... all the closure we needed in a tight 88 minute story that also includes classic hip hop traick it's takes 2, magnetic shenanigans, Hank using giant novelty checks for money, dermott using a piss filled super soaker, dean thinking he's a vampire, a halfway house for supernatural heroes, and Mantilla, one of the series most delightful villians and one I really wish we'd gotten proper time with. It's a joyous reaffermation of what this series is about, has nice moments for most of the best cast members, including Brick Frog my beloved, and ends on a mostly satisfying note. It also gives us a golem made entirely of pants and isn't that the greatest adventure of all?

18. "Lights, Camera, Sparks?!" (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Episode 5)

"You've known him for three f***ing days!" "Is that all it's been?!" Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was an easy faviorite this year and given my longstanding love of the Scott Pilgrim comics and like of the movie, it wasn't a huge shocker i'd love whatever the anime turned out being. I was pumped from the announcement, worried it'd just be "the movie but animated" when the cast was announced.. and then over the moon when it turned out that no, the cast was all coming back but the take on the franchise was all new.

What we got wasn't the straight adaptation that was pitched.. and was all the better for it. If you haven't seen Takes Off.. please do it's fantastic, I did a whole review on it, go, and if you won't then this is your last warning as I can't really talk about the episodes of it on this list without getting into spoilers as it's one of those series where the first episode twist.. defines the rest of the show.

Okay we good. So the first episode progresses as normal, a few tweaks to let you know this is it's own universe, enough character moments to show that even with the film voice actors the main cast is closer to the comics..... then Scott seemingly dies.

From there things go off the rails, and that's where the magic kicks in: While Scott's still key to the story and turns out, naturally, NOT to be dead, instead kidnapped by a mysterious portal, Ramona takes the lead, with us getting to know her better now she's the pov character instead of the guy worshipping the ground she skates on. While Ramona was fleshed out in the comics, the series gives her more to do as she solves this mystery. It's intriguing, it's fun, and it gives Mary Elizabeth Winstead the chance to play a more fleshed out version of the character with more sides to her than "aloof".

What the series also does well.. is go the fuck off the rails. Matthew uses his newfound confidence to punch gideon out of all his companies and fancy suits, Gideon becomes the best worst couple with julie, and Young Neil becomes a spacey moron who assumes the mysterious person writing a script based on how the story originally went is his sleep paralysis demon. The series has a lot of great character, animation and development as Ramona's forced to .. talk with her exes instead of her new boyfriend punching most of them for her.. but it can't be forgotten it's also delightfully nuts, easily the goofiest this franchise has gotten and i'm here for it.

That brings us to "Lights, Camera, Sparks?!", easily the biggest shit post of the entire series, and one of the funniest episodes of the year easily. While the previous ones are a bit melancholy in tone with the goofy stuff as a nice side dish, fitting how scott pilgrim rolls, LCS is just one long farce with Ramona struggling to get any detective shit done while Wallace wrecks envy and todd's relationship, Edgar Wright but voiced by Kevin McDonald slowly looses his mind, and Neil gets into various shenanigans while only being a quarter aware of anything going on, including what was in the script his sleep paralysis ramona from the future wrote.

The setup is simple: Toronotwood is making a film based on how scott's story usually go, again ghost written by a mysterious sleep paralysis demon, and hired Lucas and envy to play scott and ramona. Lucas got can...something for dating a 30 year old who looks like a high schooler, so now i'ts todd clumisly shoved into Scott's clothes. Wallace is also there, having throughly humilited the notoriously straight actor playing him out of a job and letting his ego grow 15 sizes that day.

What follows is a mocumentary masterclass as Envy and Todd can't stop being horny for two seconds, Wallace making out with Todd and being his bi awakening reading them to constantly "run lines in his trailer", Neil is hilaroius and you will repeat everything he says and Ramona is left bobbing around unable to actually get any answers.

This all leads to a delightful explosion as Todd falls in love with Wallace, Wallace is a callous dick, Wallace sicks his stunt doubles on Envy, Ramona is sicked on them, and everyone is confused, all cumilating in todd binge eating poutine and crying, an option I wish americans had but alas we are poutineless while Matt shuts down the production then sputters like a kid who got a lucky punch in on his bully when he finds out Scott is alive. Also Knives and Stephen get a meeting with him leading to the greatest musical of all time.

As you can tell this episode is very stupid and I love it. It's just 100% nonsense the whole way through, letting Wallace do something since the only main character who isn't Ramona he interacts with is in the future right now. There isn't much to disect, i'ts just pure comedy gold with props to both Kirean for really nailing a more douchestastic wallace and especially Brandon Routh who has shockingly deep comedic chops. A great episode and a nice break before we dive full speed into just where Scott went.

17. Lackadaisy (Pilot Episode)

Old Man River! That seems far too austere a name for something made of mirth and rage. O, roiling red-blood river vein. If chief among your traits is age, You're a wily, convoluted sage.

Is "old" the thing to call what rings the vernal heart of wester-lore? What brings us brassy-myth made kings. And a preponderance of bug-type things.  To challenge titans come before!

O, demiurge to a try at Avalon-once-more?

And what august vitality in your wide aorta stream. You must have had to oversee alchemic change of timber beam to iron, brick and engine steam!

Your umber whiskey waters lance the prideful, sober sovereignty of faulty-haloed temperance, and wilt her self-sure countenance; Yes, righteousness is vanity.  But sport's for imps, not elderly.

So if there's a name for migrant mass of veteran frivolity That snakes through seas of prairie grass and groves of summer sassafras; a name that flows as roguishly as wild waters, fast and free, It's your true name: Mississippi.

That beautiful poem opens up Lackadaisy, thank you wiki so I didn't have to transcribe that whole glorious thing, as a roustabout cat in 1927 St. Louis names rocky spends the first few minutes playing fiddle, basking in the glorious moonlight and waxing poetic about the mighty missisipi. It's a beautiful opening that shows off the series deft animation and MIssouri setting, something that makes me want to learn more about my own state's history. It's clear from the word go a LOT of love and research went into this setting, and given creator Tracy Butler had started Lackadaisy as an even MORE lavishly drawn webcomic.

Lackadaisy has a simple setup: three cats working for the titular saloon, Rocky, our dreamy narrator and mild loon, Freckle, his grumpy sidekick whose perhaps a bit TOO good with a gun, and Ivy, a peppy girl who takes jabs at Rocky and flirts with Freckle. I .. I ship the fuck out of it. These two are adorable. The three are robbing a body for canadian hooch but have to deal with the deathly serious and deathly hot, Mordecai Heller and his much more excitable, jokey and bloodthristy associates Serfafine and Nico Savoy.

The short is mostly a tense back and forth between both parties as our heroes barely surivive, we get a lot of good Ivy and Freckle content and Rocky saves the day by hyjacking a goddamn steam shovel and loading it with dynamite while waxing poetic and laughing madly. If that's not enough to get you to check it out if you haven't, I have clearly failed in some way as Lackadasiy is excellent and like Atlas and the Stars, leaves me wanting more of this cast. I'll defintely be reading the comic and plan to at least try to get the print editions coming up soon, as the pilot does a good job of showing who these characters are simply by action.. but leaving you questioning WHO they are and how they all ended up in a failing saloon, and why say Mordecai spares Ivy towards the end. Whatever it is I only want more of this, and am so happy those of you who weren't late adoptres like me helped get us a full season 1. Thank you so much and I can't wait for this show to show up here again. It's gonna be a riot and Micheael Kovach steals the show any time Rocky speaks, while SunWongCho is just... amazing as Mordecai and gives us a great antagonist to work with, a classic mystery man whose side your not sure who he's on, you just know he's a threat when he shows up.

16. Simon Petrikov (Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake, Season 1 Episode 2)

Does somebody jump for joy? Does somebody cry? Now that I'm not part of that sadness? Does somebody want me now? Now that I can’t fly? Now that I'm not part of the madness? Part of the madness?

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake surprised the hell out of me in the best way possible. See while I never stopped caring in SOME way about adventure time, my dropping off mid series after ... THAT happened in Breezy, only coming back occasionally for an episode or two, the orgalorg arc and the finale, I really wasn't interested. I did enjoy the two episodes of Distant Lands I saw, Stakes was excellent and Together Again felt like a more fitting final chapter to the series. Both didn't feel like continuation of the story: Stakes was a coda giving us the Bubbline content CN denied us and Together Again is an Epilogue, set at the very end of Finn's story.

So I was kind of.. Meh on Fionna and Cake's announcment. I wasn't against it but I'd just never really cared about these two, with the series having made two great episodes about them (and two more I hadn't seen at the time), but the whole "created by a creepy old guy" part of it always held me back from fully embracing these two. I was badly hoping they'd throw away the whole fanfic conceit and just move on.

They didn't do that.. but Fionna and Cake not only found a way to revitalize that, but reminded me WHY the original series was so strong. Fionna and Cake grew up with the original audience, a piece about metafiction, fandom, growing up, and depression all made wonderful and really stretching the property as far as it'll go and i'ts unexpected season 2 greenlight makes me all too excited.

The thing I was most excited for though.. was still greatly done. Alongside Fionna and Cake getting a slice of life makeover thanks to Simon going back to "normal", we get some closure for Simon who ended the series seemingly fine: Betty is gone, but he's sane, Marcy gets her real dad back, job done right?

Adam Muto, Adventure Time's ep from season 6 and the archeticht of most things from Rebcca Sugar's leaving till present day, disagreed, planning a simon special for distant lands before rewriting it for this series. And it points out something a lot of fans noticed about this ending: it's.. not okay. Simon lost betty AGAIN, and is now trapped in a world he never made.

And the series makes this into his arc, how does he fit into this world, and what he tries to do to escape it instead of dealing with it. Simon Petrkiov paints a picture of where Simon's been in the 10 year time jump between Come Along With Me and his debut in this series, Simon Petrikov.. and it's a deeply depressing picture.

Simon's a living exhibit on the humans floating island, unable to connect with his fellow humans as he can't relate to them in any way shape or form. He's a 20th Century man and their 24th century men and women. Not helping is an overzealous, or sweet fan girl he keeps shooing away who just CAN'T understand that the man who wrote Fionna and Cake.. ISN'T the same guy making toast in a fake apartment and watching Cheers every day. The Ice King was PART of simon, but they were never the same person and every reminder of the hell the poor man went under, the things he did, the people he hurt just reminds Simon how far away he is from home.

Not helping is something all too common with depression and trauma, something I know all too well... Simon won't open up to people. He doesn't get help (and as we learn via a minerva bot in the finale Therapy was ALWAYS there for him), and he keeps space from the surrogate family he does have. He dosen't want to "ruin" marcy finally being in a good place and thus barely calls her, content to just visit and pretend things are okay. Finn TRIES reaching out.. but while he's older, wiser, and beardier now, and to my delight still with Huntress Wizard (and in headcanon in a throuple with Flame Princess, but that just me. ), but he's still an adrenline junky raised by a loveable manchild who can't quite relate to someone like Simon, who just wants his old life back.

All this is punctuated by the return of Rebecca Sugar, who sings the beautiful and tragic "part of the madness" which sums up where Simon is: he's normal, he's who HE wants to be.. but the world simply feels like it rejects him, when really he's just as much rejecting it. Instead of trying to find some calm in the storm of this life and admit he needs help.. he chases betty, trying badly to get her back even though it just.. isnt' possible.. and causing this series as a result. He just can't let go.. but the series shows him he has to if he wants to truly live.

15. Miraculous World Paris : Tales of Shadybug and Claw Noir (Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir World Special 4) | In the daytime, I'm Gabriel Just a normal man, with a normal life But I have a secret I must keep at any cost Or all hope will be lost. Miraculous! Fear is a cage! Hear the message, answer the call! Miraculous! Yes, you can change! The power of love will free us all! Miraculous!

Yeah after two years of watching it, Miraculous Ladybug actually made this list. I'm shocked i'ts both this high AND this good. See while i'm a fan of Miraculous Ladybug, most of the fandom is more a fan of what it could be, the potetial it'd have if Thomas Astruc hadn't been the one mostly running it for 5 seasons and running it straight into the ground into the molten core of the earth. The Recent film, while far from perfect, felt like more what the series SHOULD'VE been, with the secret id bullshit resolved by the end of what's essentially movie/season 1, Gabe given more depth etc.

So i'ts ironic that in the same year the show itself, via it's spinoff specials gives us ANOTHER universe that's way better than the mess they've made of the main timeline with Miraculous World Paris. Mirror Universes are nothing new, to the point Kev and I have a whole series on mirror universe episodes featuring this very special planned, starting later this month.

With Ladybug's lack of subtley, misuse of good ideas and goofy incompetence, I assumed this special would be at best goofy fun with overblown multiverse and mirror universe tropes. Instead... it's the single best episode of the shows run, a truly moving piece that made me enjoy mirror universes again the same way Fionna and cake has made me enjoy AU's again

Miraculous knows just the right way to make evil counterparts: instead of the earth 3 versions of Marinette, Adrien and Gabriel the complete opposites of our heroes or just "Evil, Evil and less of a prick", Shady Bug, Claw Noir and Betterfly are all the same people we've come to know, simply gone down a diffrent route. Gabe is a better person, having STARTED as his earth 1 shitheal self working with his earth's eviil shadow overlord supreme... the loss of his life somehow changing this course. Instead of using the butterfly miraculous to try and bend the world in shape to get his wife back, he honors her legacy as Betterfly, helping others, something that seems IMPOSSIBLE for our gabe to consider without an ulterior motive.. but all too plausible if he just let go of his ego and his wife and let her die in peace instead of holding her in a dome coma and fighting teens. If he accepted he can't control something

Likewise Shadybug is Mari if Alaya hadn't befriended her, if Chloe just kept bullying Mari and Mari never stood up to her, the bullying just made her worse. If her parents WEREN'T there to support her: the bakery and her room is.. but it's very clear her alternate parents just aren't the loving duo our Mari's are. This is the kind of Mari that would've easily become an akuma.. but instead becomes something WORSE thanks to Supreme, a mysterious entity linked to the guardians, very heavily implied to be earth 3 Master Wu, who gives out the miraculouses to those who can tighten his grip on earth, and selected Mari and an Adrien who never went to school and thus never got out of his shell and is even MORE distant form his dad due to Gabe's new job as his pawns.

It results in a tearful battle as our heroes are both forced to TRUST the best life version of their nemisis, and battle what easily could'e ben them, while their counterparts find out , after Shadybug tries the wish thing, that supreme was using them and their lives are being drained by overusing their powers, explaning why the regular miraculouses limit our heroes to one use of their powers and limited timing. This is what happens otherwise and Monarch is all too happy to take advantage of that. There's more to this special, a lot more I can't wait to explore in april, but needless to say Miraculous World Paris.. is what I wanted from this series: a creative, tightly told, heartbreakingly well done superhero story with tense action, creative uses of the kwamis, and good character stuff for BOTH versions of our protagonists. I'ts a true masterwork and I wish THIS is the show we got more consistently.

14. The Amazing Rudy (Bob's Burgers, Season 14, Episode 2)

"I kinda walked away on dinner with my dad and her boyfriend and dad and his vicky for the first time which I guess how family dinners are gonna be from now on and I guess technically... I ran away"

It's weird but despite my deep love of the Great North (Which for the first time since it's debut missed the list this year, but damn did it have a good one, even if season 4 had to wait for 2024), until this year I wasn't consistently watching it's sister show Bob's Burgers anymore. I liked Bob's, I loved the movie, I had nothing against it. But any time I tried to get back there'd be an episdoe that just took me out. So now while I won't watch every episode, I still watch most, as the show is good as ever, if not on a comeback after a few seasons apparently felt (if TV Tropes is a good indciator) as very hit and miss. Season 14 is fantastic and it's no surprise it's second episode ended up being one of the series best.

The Amazing Rudy is something completely different in tone and staging, with a more melancholy peanuts style soundtrack, a somber tone and more muted humor. It fits perfectly, as the episode isn't centered around the Belchers this time but Louise's best friend, future husband and morality pet Rudy. The show has had secondary character spotlights before, Rudy getting a few himself, but usually the Belchers are still front and center and one of them still plays a major role in following this character around. For instance a few episodes later we get "bully-leive it or not" a zeke spotlight episode, but one where the other three kids are still very present: Zeke and his shameful past are the focus, but Louise and Tina still figure heavily into the plot, louise nearly bullyign Zeke's former bullying victim thinking the guy bullied zeke and that's why zeke freezes up seeing the guy, while Tina guiding the kid around is what kicks things off. The two aren't the focus, but it still feels like a bobs burgers adventure, helped with a bob subplot where he grapples with Jimmy Pesto, now played by Eric Bauza after a long absence thanks to his previous actor being an insurrectionist which lets face it Jimmy totally also was or at the very least thought about before finding the air fair was too much.

Here the focus is on Rudy to the point it feels like an episode of a Rudy spinoff show that does not exist but we now all want it too. It's still in Seymour's Bay (Which I forget is the name of the town this show takes place in as mostly people we know are in wonder wharf or on ocean avenue), just following Rudy as the lead instead. The Belcher's show up, in the middle of a bob's burger's episode we'll never see about Gene getting good grades and thus getting baked potato lasagna, a recipie he made up and assumes "everyone else must enjoy" is part of the reward, with the payoff him realizing he can't force someone to love his abomination, but he CAN have their portions. Being Rudy's closest friends and future wife it makes since there the ones he talks to when he goes to the mall with his dad to get a magic trick for the night and a snappy hat when he crosses them.

The Belcher's presence also hammers home what Rudy's dealing with though and that's.. a loss of family. Rudy's Parents are divorced. This isn't a new fact as it's come up casually in the past: being the kids Teddy, i.e. the person closest to them in their age group to be clear, not the person who defintely has passed by the restraunt at night every night and just.. stares in the window. But being the kids most prominent supporting character, with Jimmy Junior and Zeke a close shared second, we've gotten to know him: his parents divorce is amnicable, he alternates weekends, and they've both moved on. We haven't really seen his mom but Rudy seems just fine with her and with his dad being his primary caregiver, is a bit closer to him, as shown in this ep as the two are adorably in synch and have their rythm.

See Rudy didn't LOOSE his mom or dad, both are still very present.. but he lost the three of them as a family and until recently had their monthly "We're still a family' dinner", what, as we learn in a heartbreaking montage i'll get too shortly, was a monthly family dinner and became a way to show that both his parents still loved him and still liked each other even if they weren't together. The problem is while a well meaning gesture, both parents have started bringing their partners, which is fair but makes it less a family dinner.. and more Rudy stuck with four adults having a hangout who accidently forget he's there. While I never went through one of these as a middle schooler when my parents broke up, I know the type of event Rudy deals with all too well: it's mostly adults, there's no one to talk to and your alone. Granted I was fine with it because I just.. read whatever book I brought anyway, but rudy is a social butterfly, an awkward awkward butterfly, so he has no idea how to handle this, or really deal with it.

His one ace in the hole is a magic trick, from his faviorite shop, the same one we saw in the magic episode way back. See while Rudy's love of being a magician is another character trait that's come up, this episode gives weight to it: Rudy got into magic not just because he dearly loves it and the person at the shop gladly mentors him and supports his talent, but it's seen in a montage of previous dinners that any time his parents started fighting, before and after divorce, a simple trick reentered the night and reminded them what's important.

Naturally the trick, done using a glass of drinking water and some tablets, goes wrong, and while Rudy's parents encourage him to try again and no one really is mad at him or upset it went wrong and spilled everywhere, he feels utterly humiliated, something we all went through as kids: you screw something up and while your parents don't make a deal out of it, you just can't. Hell I still have that problem. So combine that with already not wanting ot be here and Rudy bounces, his parents not aware he's gone.

Naturally, given the earlier setup, he bounces to the Belchers. And it's easy to see why: The Belchers are a loving, wonderful family, and Bob and Linda not only gladly let Rudy join, but engage with him in a way Rudy's parents simply forgot. Rudy's parents aren't callous... adults simply make mistakes and in likely trying ot make sure rudy's okay with both their partners being there, their partners feel good, the million other things they got going on.. they talked over Rudy. It's what makes this work: we feel for rudy, but it stings more that this isn't some problem with an easy fix. There will be plenty more dinners where he's wallpaper and plenty more times they likely forget him without meaning to. The trick COULD'VE helped.. but it failing was a reminder it was just a distraction from the fact his parent's aren't a family anymore, just two people who share a kid, loving him and caring about each other.. but what little bit of what he had before the divorce is just gone.

Brian Huskey's voice as he gives the monologue I used for this episode's quote is just heartbreaking.. you can feel the kid just.. relaizing he can't just run away from it. It's just.. how things are. HIs sad revelation of this just hits, Louise's "Oh boy", and Rudy sounds on the verge of tears.. we've seen him mad, we've seen him kinda sad.. but never like this. Just a child realizing things won't be the same and he has nothing to do but go back to it.

Thankfully as bob and linda mindly panic after realizing "oh god this child just ran and his parents don't know oh god", Louise knows what her best friends need and offers to walk him back. not only is the moment shiptastic.. it's sweet. Louise gets Rudy is having a hard time with all of this and needs some support, needs someone his own age there to talk with and to help deflect attention. And to punch out anyone on the way who tries to hurt them with brass knuckles, which naturally linda gave her as santa. After all he IS from the streets. It provides a pretty morose episode an utterly sweet ending as the two walk back, Bob couldn't be prouder, and Rudy.. for now at least.. isn't alone among his own family anymore. He may never have what he had back.. but he's gained someone pretty good along the way.

13. Watching and Dreaming (The Owl House, Season 3 Episode 3, Series Finale)

"Eda, King, Thank you for Everything" "Right Back atcha kiddo" "Weirdos?" "Weirdos"

The Owl house was the best show of the 2020's and while it had some stiff compettion this year, it still hasn't been surpassed. It was hilarious, had a wonderfully built messed up world with lots of thought, deep character arcs, and was sadly cut short way too soon, but will never leave the hearts of those of us who loved it.

So thankfully they stuck the landing, as Watching and Dreaming was a worthy conclusion to the series. After the decent but easily weakest of the three season 3 specials "For the Future", Watching and Dreaming is a nicely packed finale that wraps up the series wonderfully and while it leaves me wanting only MORE, MORE DAMN YOU MORE, as the series always had, it's a good note to end on while Dana gets the hell out of mouseton for a while.

It was also the last episode of a show I covered as it came out, with an attempt to do so with legend of vox machina adding way too much to my work load this year to really work out, and as a finale to that.. it was just as welcome.

Watching and Dreaming spends it's first third on the Collector, and while there is a bit of disconnect between what he puts our heroes through and where he left off, with Luz once again hving her anxieties reinforced via a horrifying puppet show, the show quickly recovers as the big three are reunited after two long episodes and several long months in and out of universe: Luz has her other mom and little brother back, Eda has her kids back and King has her family back. We also get a quick show of just how far they've come since the pilot as each one easily bodies the collector's games... and leaves him wondering why they won't play fair, why this isn't working. It takes three people who had to learn their lessons the hard way through tears, isolation and learning their life was a lie, to teach the boy god empathy and unveil that at his heart.. he's just a kdi who REALLY didn't know what he was doing was awful.

Unfortunately just as the collector learns friendship, belos POSSESS THE TITAN'S CORPSE ITSELF and plans to do .. something.. genocidey and after an attempt to just forgive him fails, the only thing our heros have is each other, with Luz's friends aka our other heroes busy saving allt he puppets with their new starry pjamaed pal.

Luz gets a last minute somewhat asspully upgrade, but it's all three together that defeats belos. It's an epic finale but one that nicely focuses on who Dana intended as the core of the series: a child who found her place in another world and learned responsibility and to forgive herself, a witch who learned to forigve and let others in, and a titan who learned empathy, all kicking that blobs ass. And then curb stomping it. It's a moving, fast paced, excellently animated finale with a fun time skip epilogue to tie it all together. Owl House may be gone... but it'll never be forgotten.

12. Army of the Doomstar (Metalocalypse, Finale Movie)

"I am a wheel in the gear of the Klok. I feel not my mortality".

The other adult swim finale movie this year and the one that had the harder road. While Venture Bros got it's movie offer at the same time as cancelation, it took Brendon Small a decade, a whole ass album designed to be as close to a finale as he could get without a lisence and a LOT of campaning to finish his story to get here. Metalocalypse ended just as the final verse of blood, metal and stupidity was about to be written, and it was thanks to Small and the Fans themselves that we finally got it with this movie.

Army wraps up 4 seasons and another movie, a movie I dearly loved when it came out and still do, with an epic. It's darker in tone as the metalocalypse that begun at the start of the series is almost here and Nathan Explosion has a full on existential crisis trying to write the song that will save the world, having no idea how and not helped by his disasterous attempted propsoal to abigail while on a lot of wine and xanax (Props to small for ending a pretty disliked subplot exactly the way it shoudl without just.. tossing it out for time or some shit AND making it tie perfectly into the plot). The films dives into the overexpecations we put on creatives to MAKE US MORE DAMMIT, and how hard that actually is.. but also how fans.. are something to treasure and not spit in their face as our heroes have the whole series, seeing them more as parasites than people.

It maintains the series ballance of having an epic story.. but not sugarcoating that these guys are fucking morons with Nathan charging into a funeral on xanax and telling everyone, Pickels having ot literally be everyone's mom, and Pickles ordering a last meal fo rnathan of cool ranch diritos and choclate milk. The shows as goofy as ever, but adds a heart that's been only glimpsed on occasion as our heroes are allergic to feelings, as our heroes must save the world. We also get some kickass metal music as always, with SOS being a standout, giving us one last awesome dethklok performance and song as our heroes rally the world to show them their not alone.. and they never were. An epic, hilarious, and well done film that manages to cover all the bases it needs to and wrap everything up in 96 minutes. Pretty brutal.

11. The World Vs Scott Pilgrim (Scott Pilgrim Takes off Episode 6, Series Finale)

"Hey, because I'll have a lot of trouble saying it later, let me say it now: I love you, Scott. And I run away from the thing that I love. But what I've done in the past doesn't have to define me. Help me keep remembering that, okay?"

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was a thrilling watch but there was one worry I had as it went.. sticking the landing. It set up a compelling mystery, to the point I genuinely wasn't sure who would kidnap scott as while the twins DID have to show up and were likely involved.. it just didn't fit that it was them. It being their robot who being a robot has never eaten anything, thus never eaten meat and would have none of the bilogicial weaknesses of a human, was brilliant as it is hilarious bonkers.

Who sent the robot.. was even better as it turned out to be Scott himself, a twist that told me everything was going to be alright. Specifically this is a scott who lived what this story would've been: Scott beats the exes, gets the girl, and they have a happy relationship and then marriage for 15 years, having become their best selves. The thing the series challenges though .. is if they can STAY better versions of themselves. It's something the other versions didn't really WANT to poke at because it makes the ending less happy: if they don't end up together, what's the point of all this. Yet.. relatoinships break up. Hope Larson, the real life inspriation for Ramona, divorced Brian Lee O Malley. The relationship COULD fail and where would that leave them.

As it turns out.. not great as Ramona bailed when it got hard while being vauge as usual, and Scott spiraled hard into his worst habits, moving in with wallace, again, and rather than figure out where he wen twrong.. wanted to hit undo on what he felt was a sunk cost, a relationship he put his heart into only for it to seemingly fail, even if he still had a chance to save it. Hence the brilliant and only not making this list because this year was paccckkked with good episodes, 2 Scott 2 Pilgrim before this. It also helps the takes off scott spedrun his charater development as future him is everything Scott tries to ignore about himself, his laziness, selfishness, short sightentess and very stupid brain, as a person he really can't ignore because that person kidnapped him because he took a joke Wallace made seriously.

So Scott naturally motors with the help of Future Wallace and Older Ramona, who was indeed the sleep paralysis demon and like her ex husband really sucks at plans, but gives Scott a lift home. So.. everything good? Ramona Grew, Scott Grew, Scott acknowlegeds he never should've dated a literal teenager... we goo dright? Right?

Thing is as this episode reveals midway through... Older Scott REALLY didn't want his past self to take the gamble that he could do it the right way and instead of giving himself tips.. gave himself anti kissing nanites so he and ramona can't kiss, the two naturally thinking it's the exes. We get a great opening here as scott confronts each of them, having only kinda witnessed their changes.. and most don't care. Even Gideon's moved on to Julie, his perfect match and a pariing I can't belivie I love and fits perfectly: their both the worst, and together their awful. Brilliant.

The two seemingly don't solve things.. but thankfully Old Scott is more than willing to show his hand.. as even older scott. Even Older Scott is terrifying, taking some of Scott's good traits.. and making them into something nightmarish. After his failure to change the future, not considering that

Instead looses his mind, training himself in video games and the martial arts for 10 years, all to counter everything his friends and the exes can do... all so he can KILL EVERY LAST ONE. Scott's worst nightmare across all realities has come to past, he's an evil ex.. and the evilest ex of all. Well in terms of power and madness, Gideon still put a bunch of women in jars because they broke up with him who Matt hopefully let out in this timeline.

We get a great fight as the utterly jacked, utterly terrifying even older scott, who nicely resembles evil ryu from street fighter and has pixel effects ala movie!gideon, cleans house, with Ramona wondering if she should just.. leave all this. It's only realizing that's literally all she does that gets her to realize she want sto fight for this, even if it ends poorly, and Scott, already all in, helps her.

Ultimately it's not the duo who win their future this time.. but Ramona's own future, what could be, even older ramona, saving her past self via fusion, a super mode (Just like Sonic 2.. or 3.. or dragon ball.), and some words of encouragment, giving EOS another chance and Scott the beautiful words above.

It's a powerful message and one that's real: it's hard to change.. but it's even harder to get change to stick. You just have to keep remembering it.. and keep trying. No matter how bad things seem.. you can make it better.

This is all helped by the beautiful ending, a pixel version of god only knows as everyone, exes now included, gets to live their best life and we last see Ramona as she dons what we finally find to be her natural hair color, blond (with some highlights because, hey, it looks badass), ready to face the future)... and the best worst couple hyping a sequel that will never happen, but frankly it'd be werider if they didn't, A truly spectacular finale to what may be the best version of this story.

[blowflyfag]

Hi these are my Kane headcannons I wrote a bit a while back. My history of Kane is a bit different than the cannon stuff since the cannon stuff is kinda cringe fail. Also. Only gonna talk about masked Kane. But! Reality is mine to do what I want so here’s my Kane headcannons. I’m more than happy to go in depth on more stuff! Or explain why I think this.

Kane Headcannons

He wore masks even as a kid, it’s a sensory thing.

He grew up in a single parent house, it was both the funeral home and their home, with a mourge in the basement. They lived in a very small town in Death Valley, but they what they lacked in people the area made up with supernatural occurrences

I think he can see ghosts, with how connected his family was the supernatural it’s only natural he can see ghosts.

Kane liked dancing around with his mom as a little Kid. She often would play stuff on the radio while she worked or while cooking or when even just sitting around. Kane liked these moments… standing near her and swaying and humming along.

Kane keeps his hair long cause it reminds him of his mother, he does a lot of things because they remind him of her. He keeps his hair long, looks to deep into his undamaged eye. He listens to music she liked. He just wants to feel close to her. He’s a fuckin Mama’s boy

Kane is mostly burned and scared on his right side, it’s more prominent on his right arm and neck. His right eye is damaged from the fire.

Freckles!!! Kane has a lot of freckles when he gets in the sun. They’re a bit faint since he covers up but if he does loose some of the covering his freckles will really pop out

Bros Autistic guys.

Kane is mostly non verbal. He’d rather communicate with his body language or sign his thoughts. He only speaks if he really must.

He has such a soft spot for animals and kids it’s insane.

When he was younger him and taker found a clutch of snake eggs under their porch. Their mother No whwre in sight so they begged and pleaded for their mom to let them take care of them.

It ended up being a trip to the vets to make sure the eggs were properly taken care of. And a few weeks later their first pet.

It was a corn snake Kane and Taker named Amber.

Amber stayed in Taker's room. Though Mom would let them take Amber out so she could slither around in the living room while they watched movies.

Speaking of Taker’s room. It’s decked out with zombie movie posters. As well as other posters for horor movies and rock/metal bands. There’s Aldo a purple lava lamp. The typical angsty older brother room

Tumbleweed forts! He would beg Taker to play outside with him so the two would make forts and sit in them. Pretending to be bandits hiding out from the law.

He has a fascination with fire. Even though it is the thing that burned him, scared him, traumatized him beyond belief. The sight of someone lighting a cigarette near him brings his eyes instantly to the flame. Watching it flicker and wave with light and warmth. A controllable flame is a huge comfort.

I’d say Kane is Bisexual with a male lean. He’s very inexperienced when it comes to love. Often he finds himself confused with why his heart beats faster around someone he likes. Tilting his head to the side as he watches from afar. The most romance he knows of is watching late night black and white movies from when he was kept hidden in the basement.

A lot of what he knows is from television actually. Most of the time in the cellar hed just watch tv and learn, infomercials, animal documentaries, old cowboy movies. all “boring to most kids” but to kane it was an escape.

At first Kane fucking despised Taker so much with Paul Bearer’s manipulation. (For my reality Paul Bearer is the one who caused the fire) for years his anger festered and bubbled beneath his skin. Originally Taker went missing before the fire. And Kane learning that he became a wrestler, (not knowing Taker was under Paul Bearer’s control) was even more livid at him, for leaving his mother behind, for leaving him behind, for leaving everything behind. He truly hated Taker in those days, of course he’s come around but he struggles sometimes…

Kane has meltdowns very easily, it doesn’t take a lot to set him off. That’s what happens when he curls up and rocks. He’s trying to calm himself down the only way he knows how.

He really likes big cats, tigers, panthers, leopards. He thinks they’re the coolest animals.

So the Katie Vick stuff doesn’t happen in my reality, however Katie Vick is a real person, she was Kane’s childhood friend growing up. They were both kinda weirdo outcasts so they stuck together. They would mess around with ouija boards and try to find supernatural stuff that they shouldn’t have been messing with.

[sappygentlemen]

PART FIVE. to my beloved, basement dweller

you know the drill.

TW: DARK, GORE DESCRIPTIONS, TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS/ATTACHMENTS/BEHAVIORS. PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION ☝️‼️

beep. beep. beep. beep.

".... do you think Sam will wake up today?.."

".......I dont know Quincy... im doing everything I can, but between, all their current injuries, their lack of a leg, the mass amount of VERY old injuries it seems, that never healed right..... i... i dont know Quincy."

".....its been 3 weeks........"

Quincy wanted to ask if Sam would EVER wake up... but he knew he couldnt handle the potential answer to that question. He chose to hold his tongue. even though Nate knew exactly what he wanted to ask.

sigh "i know Quincy. Im sorry.....Your welcome to stay, but i suggest you go hom-"

"Id like to stay.. please.... please nate.."

Quincys voice was wavering, cracked at the end. His previous sobbing evident in his hoarse throat and sniffles. The eye bags proved the lack of sleep hed been getting these past few weeks, but Nate didnt need them to know.. Nate had been Sams doctor since Quincy bravely rushed Sam to his mentor.. their next door neighbor.. Dr. Nate.

As Quincy stood, wobbly, but standing, Nate could do nothing but look at his usually lively and strong assistant, with sympathy, and concern. Hed promised not to look into the situation that caused Sams state, under a promise he made Quincy, that possibly went against everything Nate stood for, but a promise Nate intended to keep ,for Quincys sake nonetheless.

"very well. please have a shower though.. i know this is hard but, im sure your friend wouldn't want to see you suffer like this."

Silence fills the room. Quincy walks to the white, clean, neat hospital bed. Sams hospital bed. The same bed, hed been laying, un-moving, for 3 weeks. Sams condition was stable, and he was healing well, but he had remained in the coma, causing Nate to be concerned... concerned that maybe he would never wake up..

Though, he was interrupted and his attention was stolen, as he got an urgent code, not being able to say a proper goodbye to his former assistant, before he was rushing and running down the halls of the hospital. Quincy was understanding, he knew no matter how much Dr.Nate cared, he still had a job to do.

He calmly pulled a small book of poems out of his bag, as he pulled a chair up next to Sams bed, making sure to avoid all the wires. He had read this book to Sam everyday, since the second day of Sams hospital stay, when Quincy made a trip home, to pack a bag of stuff.

"this was always your favorite book.. you used to read it to me, remember?... i hope you can hear me reading it...im trying my best to do get all the voices right.."

The silence in the room is interrupted, by a cracked, hoarse, sob escaping Quincy's throat, as he chuckled lightly, whipping away his tears with his jacket sleeve.....more specifically.. Sams jacket sleeve...

"everyone knows you were always the best at that...i hope im doing just as good for you."

Quincy sighed, putting the book down. he hated crying while he read the book of poems, afraid to get his tears on the precious pages. Quincy held onto Sams larger hand, before laying his head on s\Sams lap. letting the tears flow silently as his mind recounted these last three weeks.

He had visited his house, and his Brother, once every week. to grab supplies. The first time he went home. he was bombarded by his older brother, though, he couldnt bear to look Declan in the eyes. He fought Declan, proving he could hold his ground, and that he was no longer the little baby brother Declan once knew. Instead, he had grown into a man. A man who promised himself to be better then Declan or his Father could ever hope to be. He loved Sam like a father, and losing Sam gave him all the strength he could never muster, to finally stand up to Declan. When he left Declan, he had made sure to leave his mark on that house, and Declan himself, without even being physically violent. he had destroyed every gift hed ever received from Declan, including, the most valuable, and meaningful... his beloved piano.

Declan was of course, devastated by Quincys absence, and "betrayal", but Quincy could care less. Quincys last piece of pity to his older brother, came in a promise, a promise to never spill Declan and Sams, dark secret. But, the promise came at a cost. Declan could never speak to him or Sam again.

As Quincy laid his head on Sams soft lap, covered in a soft fleece blanket, that Sam had loved dearly. Quincy finally looked up, and out the window. it was dark outside.... he hadnt realized hed been here this long... maybe he would take a shower in the morning.... just a quick one. but for now. he need to sleep. Crying for so long made his body weak and his head heavy. Quickly setting up a little space beside Sam, on the bed, as he did every night, and began squishing his small body, into Sams side, not moving Sam, too afraid to worsen his condition or mess up a wire. Eventually, as Quincy calmed down, next to Sam, he began to slowly drift off.

Not noticing the figure behind the hospital curtain.

I slowly blinked my eyes open, met with an entirely sore body, a weight on my side, and a horrible migraine. There is an extremely annoying in my ear. god damn beeping.

I slowly blinked and looked around to my left, seeing Quincy laying in my side, peacefully curled up, head on my chest. so thats where i was. a hospital. such a smart boy, i leaned my head down, pressing a kiss to his forehead, slowly and painfully moving the hand underneath him, out from under him, and then draping it over his body, instantly relaxing his tense form, as, even in his unconscious state, he began to uncurl and wrap around my side, head snuggled deeper into my chest.

even as a growing young man... hes still my little boy..

After a few seconds of staring at Quincys obviously disheveled and weak body, i turned my head to the right, trying to take in my surroundings. but before I could. I was met with a sight i never expected.

Declan.

Declan was standing about 6 feet away from my bed, no emotion, just a blank stare as we made eye contact. I was un-phased. I did not care if he wanted forgiveness. i did not care if he was was "right" or if i "deserved" this punishment. i was no longer his. he was no longer my soulmate, and im starting to think he never was.....

Declan and me made eye contact as his gaze turned from blank, to one of remorse, opening his mouth. but before he could, i shook my head. turning away from his form. I could hear his hesitant and heavy footsteps as he walked towards me.

"youre still mine. youll get better, and then we can be better again... all of us... we can be a family.."

a deafening silence filled the room

.............

i cleared my dry, hoarse throat as i attempted to whisper. Quietly pressing the "doctor" button, on my hospital bed remote.

"no. I am not yours anymore. I may have been, once upon a time... but that twisted fairytale, has long since ended. Goodbye."

Declan must have heard the hurried footsteps too, as he quickly left the room, but not without one more scowl my way.

very Soon, a very.....handsome? man hurridely stepped into the room, body obviously tense and in a panic as spoke quickly, without looking up....oh.. so this was my angel.. how cute

"QUINCY!! you called?? what hapened??? Are they coding?!?!........oh. um, hello?"

The short, nervous doctor, let out a small chuckle as he came closer to me, at a slower, calmer pace now.

"its good to see you awake.. mr. sam... im sure Quincy will be elated by the news"

"hello... yes, im sure he will be too... thank you.. for saving me that day.....but um.. speaking of days.... what day IS it"

"Its the 30th. youve been in a coma for 3 weeks. its good to have you back."

To my concerned displeasure, Quincy woke up, likely at all the noise. quickly stiffening, when he saw my wide, tired eyes. He quickly sat up before launching himself into my arms, with wide eyed, smiling sobs.

"SAM!!! YOURE AWAKE!! OH GOSH I WAS SO SCARED!!!!"

his voice trailed off, as he laid his lower body, between my legs, and his upper body, on my chest and stomach, arms wrapped around my waist. I slowly stroked his hair, hoping to offer some comfort

"....i thought you might never wake up......i was so scared"

The handsome doctor, pulled up a chair next to me, smiling and began explaining things to me, such as the next steps treatment wise. I would receive a prosthetic leg, and daily walks/physical therapy. but i needed to stay under their care, to monitor all my other injuries.

MONTHS LATER

I had been officially released from the hospital two weeks ago, though i received daily physical therapy sessions. my new prosthetic leg was helping a ton, Quincy had gone back to working as an assistant for Dr- i mean.. Nate,, just Nate :)

Nate had moved, recently, to a bigger space. Allowing me and Quincy to move in with him. He was a kind, gentle man, and he was incredibly sweet to me.... even when i had my strongest PTSD episodes... he and Quincy were always there.

I had been diagnosed with BPD and PTSD, during my time at the hospital, with the help of my amazing therapist and psychologist. Life had been hard to manage with those two together.. the meds.. the physical therapy.. the healing process... it was all incredibly hard.

But it wasnt all bad!! I had gotten closer to Dr.Na- i mean. just.. Nate :)

And i had begun working at a nearby bakery, to help pay the bills and my medical expenses. Quincy deserved a childhood, and i was prepared to give him one, always trying to take him places with my extra money, or give him cute little gifts. he was a sweet kid, he deserved the world. Nate and I had gotten close, and i had developed a mini crush on him, though i wont act on it yet.. my therapist says i need to differentiate fiction from reality, so i dont potentially hurt Nate. so, im gonna do my best.

however.... Declan also hasn't left me alone.... ive been getting weekly letters.. dark letters... letters with pictures of me in different places. it was all concerning.. though id decided to ignore it.. surely he wouldnt try anything again?

......right?

[dadumtss]

Slenderman Headcanons: Lairs

So I’m doing a little funny calling them lairs but It’s basically where each Slenderbeing would call their own ‘home’ in my AU. A place that they call their own that they let few venture into. Keep in mind in this AU cryptids currently rule the world and are out of hiding and even contributing to a human-like society.  

Slenderman 

He lives in The City now, the seat of power. He’s usually in his office close to The Capitol for work, often staying there for days at a time, but he doesn’t consider that his ‘home’. 

He has a huge penthouse suite at one of the best hotels in the city, with the suite taking up the entire top floor. The hotel that holds it is under oath not to reveal where he lives and it’s protected by his own magic, with one simple precaution being that the elevator doesn’t even go to the penthouse suite. Why would it need to when he can teleport inside? 

Any workers that need to get into his suite use the stairs which seem much more labyrinthine than the stairs to the other floors? Yet often they can’t remember even navigating them? Did they just appear in the room? Can’t be, right? They don’t feel like they just walked up that many stairs with so many supplies but maybe they just got into a rhythm? Yeah, that must be it.  

Workers clean his room on a strict schedule and he must to notified of any deliveries before they’re brought up. They’re also on call for anything that he may need.

As for design, it’s surprisingly modern and minimalistic. He doesn’t care much for knick-knacks or home design so most everything has some kind of purpose beyond aesthetic. However, it’s not as white and bright as the traditional ‘modern’ look. Slender favors dark woods the most, but darker materials in general, like dark marbles or metals, also work. 

He has tons of bookshelves filled to the brim with both reference materials for work as well as books for his own interests. 

Lots of the rooms in the suite are unused. He rarely, if ever, invites people over and he has little use for anything except the master bedroom and bathroom as well as his study. Occasionally he’ll use the livingroom or use the dining table to spread out his papers if they can’t all hold on his desk. 

It has a great view of the city and tons of windows.  

 Offenderman 

The hardest slender brother to pin down. He’s almost always out and about on some kind of hedonistic adventure. 

He theoretically has an office that his mail goes to but he’s almost never there.

He also has a few clubs and entertainment spots that he manages himself, with rooms or areas that only he can access and is always the best spot in the house. But those places aren’t really considered ‘home’ even though he’s more likely to be found there than his actual home. 

His actual ‘home’ is a lavish apartment in The City’s Red Light District. It’s where he goes when he needs some down time. 

It has very little in the way of magical protection since it doesn’t really hold much sentimental or important items and he’s there only marginally more than his office. 

It’s built for lounging. Everything that can be is soft, luxurious and plush. There are pillows everywhere. 

The décor is dark but vibrant. Blacks, yes, but also lots of rich reds or magenta and purples. 

All of the few windows it has are covered in blackout curtains. 

He occasionally brings people inside, but only his absolutely favorite people who he doesn’t mind spending a lot of down time with and aren’t trying to impress.

He gets someone to clean it for him, like, once a week but if he’s in there he can create a bit of a mess. He never really cleans up after himself so there are always items scattered around and chores to do. 

Trenderman

His design business’s office takes up several (if not all) floors of one of the best designed skyscrapers in the city (he should know, he designed it himself). 

While he has an office in the building as well as a suite on the top floor but his ‘lair’ is in the basement. 

Out of all the brothers ‘lairs’ it’s one of the most magically protected.

You take the elevator to get down to it, which opens into long, bare walls of corridor. If you’re following Trender it’s a short hallway with a single door at the end. If you’re alone and don’t have permission to enter it’s a never ending maze of featureless corridor, save the occasional door to more corridor. It’s very backrooms-esque or like the employee hallways at a mall. 

Very, very few people have seen what’s on the other side of the door and even fewer have come back out of it alive. 

It’s his sewing room, where he does all of his personal projects. 

The walls and floor are all rich, warm wood. The shelves and tables are simple and made of the same wood. However, in the center of the room there’s a large elaborate desk that’s carved from a slightly darker wood. 

Everything looks like a cluttered mess. There are papers with designs and notes everywhere. Every surface is covered with cloth, needles, spools, sewing machines and all sorts of materials. Trender seems to know where everything is, however, and he tersely asks anyone who enters not to touch anything, which is hard since even the floor is cluttered. 

There’s mannequins everywhere. They are extremely detailed and look hand-made with different body types and facial features though they all have the same dead-eyed stare. They’re all sporting amazing outfits. 

The mannequins are draped in many fine white threads, some even suspended by the threads though they look too thin to be able to hold the weight they do. In fact, the white threads seem to be everywhere, draped delicately across the walls, from the ceiling and even on the tables and chairs. 

You see, the fine white treads are actually severed pieces of his tendrils that he uses as thread in all his favorite projects. The mannequins are people he turned into dolls to dress up because of their unique looks. 

This room means a lot to him as it’s where he does his best work. 

 Splendorman 

Splendor didn’t deal with the changes brought about by The Revolution very well. Out of all his brothers he misses living out in the wilderness the most. 

He’s the only brother that lives outside of The City which means he has the space for a house. He has to expend more energy than his brothers teleporting to The City when he’s needed but it’s a price he’s willing to pay. 

The house is sprawling, with only one level. It has super high ceilings and large windows. 

The décor is has lots of warm colors and is inviting and comfortable. He has all sorts of cute knick-knacks that he displays everywhere. 

It always smells like baked goods inside. 

His house isn’t what he would consider his ‘home’ though, but the house’s surroundings. 

The house is located in a huge meadow, which is bordered on every side by forest. 

There are colorful wildflowers everywhere in the meadow and the trees in the forest are spaced out enough that tons of sunlight gets through. 

Everything is super colorful and lush. 

He has magic keeping other cryptids out, thus allowing animals and the occasional human to wander through safely. Animals love the meadow and the forest and you’ll find many there.

The magic just causes cryptids to just loop around to wherever they came from once they enter the woods. Which is simple magic that doesn’t cause anyone any harm.

Splendor really just loves being out in nature and this space allows him to do that. 

Father / Cabadath

While each brother has his own ‘home’ this is where all of them are most at ease and would truly call their home. 

The Slender Mansion in The Slender Forest (though none of them call it that). 

Cabadath built it through magic with his wife when she was alive, shortly before they had their first child. 

It’s a large mansion, though only two stories high it sprawls for quite a ways. It’s mostly dark wood and stone with climbing ivy and moss covering it. 

The interior is mostly wood and the décor is very dark academia. Cabadath appreciates the arts and actually decorates the walls of his home with art pieces and weaponry (which he also has an interest in). 

The ceilings are high, higher than they look from the outside due to magic and the doorways are the same. It allows the family to ‘stretch out’ more than they usually do as the home can accommodate more extreme heights.

The bottom floor is just common areas while the top floor is just bedrooms. Each son has their own room that they can do whatever they want with. 

Because the entire house is magic it doesn’t really make any sense. The layout on the inside doesn’t seem to match the outside and rooms can be added or removed or shift positions easily. However, only Cabadath has the power to make those changes. 

All the chairs are super comfortable and there are window seatings that are great for lounging and reading.

The surrounding forest is basically a pocket dimension controlled entirely by Cabadath. It is connected to an actual forest on earth but things stop making sense the deeper and closer to the mansion you get. 

Cabadath can tell where everyone is in his forest or in the mansion at any time.  

The forest is an old growth forest. The trees are huge with twisting branches that cover the sky and leave everything dark. There’s often a mist hanging in the air. The forest is huge, with creeks and ponds large enough to swim in and all sorts of natural features. It seems to go on forever. 

The forest is often very quiet, with the few animals that enter it even more on edge than usual. 

The brothers convinced their father to install plumbing but he refuses to add electricity or anything digital to the house. He doesn’t want to have to control his effects on electronics in his own damn home. Therefore, everything is heated or lit with flames. 

Willow

All she can afford is a small one-bedroom apartment for her and Junior in the cheapest part of the city. 

She invites friends over all the time. 

Hates that the living room is carpeted because of how hard it is to clean. 

Off-white walls with off-white floors and only the essential furniture items which are all mis-matched.      

She never learned much in the way of magic so it isn’t magically protected.

[violeth-r04]

Chapter 1: the beginning.

So, it all began like any other day in the Halliwell house.

My brothers, Henry and azari were in the solarium room working on their biophysics science project for their dream school that was coming up in a few weeks.

“So in conclusion,” azari mutters, while typing on his computer.

“Oh, azari, did you put this down?” Henry asks azari.

My other brothers, Parker and Joey, were working on another one of their ‘Parker and Joey’ inventions in the basement with who knows what to call it.

“Uh, Parker? What are you doing with the fire extinguisher?” I asked, stopping dead in my tracks to see Parker holding the fire extinguisher.

“Uh,” he chuckles softly. “Nothing,” Parker said, with a very obvious look on his face that said otherwise.

I looked at him again, as Parker eventually looked away and sped off into the kitchen.

“Oh, sweetie, that is so not your color!” Emma my sister, called out when sitting on the couch reading a fashion nova magazine and looking at their awful outfit choices.

she was clearly not impressed.

Sarah and cooper, my two adorable little siblings, were running around the house laughing and screaming, as sparky our one-hundred- and-fifty-years-old white lighter golden retriever chased them.

“AHH!” Both Sarah and cooper laughed, as they ran past me.

And as I’m heading over towards the parlor room, I then over hear both Max and Tessa, my two other sisters, casually on the front lawn using their water balloon catapult to launch their full-size water balloon into the air, just as they shouted with excitement every time the balloon splashed onto the ground.

“Boo ya!” Both max and Tessa shouted with excitement, as they prepared the next water balloon.

I chuckled.

Meanwhile, my twin sisters, Lexie and Katie, along with my twin brother James, were in the parlor room, minding their own business as Lexie was trying to rehearse some lines for a play she was auditioning for.

“Ugh! Why is this one line so hard!” Lexie grunts, with frustration as she struggles with one of her lines.

Katie just sat in the corner chair, chuckling at Lexie while writing something in her notebook as she listened to music.

James just sat on the left side of the couch watching whatever was on TV, as I walked over and sat on the other side of him, picking up another one of my abandoned and haunted magazines.

Our other older brothers and sisters don’t live with us anymore, since they are either off to college or living independently.

Most of the time whenever we aren’t dealing with demons and or warlocks, that or training for when one does arrive.

We would sometimes get call by a very good old friend of ours, named Mr. nobody.

But other than that, it’s been pretty quiet around here, or so that’s what I thought when both max and Tessa ran into the house with a scared ‘ah oh’ look on their faces.

“Hey! Uh, Whatever you do, don’t answer the door. okay, Cool? Great awesome!” Max and Tessa insisted, as they ran and hid.

“Okay, now why do I have a weird feeling that they did something?” I muttered, when not even a second later Mrs. Henderson. Our nosy loud neighbor starts banging on our front door.

“Halliwell’s!” Mrs. Henderson yells.

“Oh great!” Katie said, taking the words right out of my mouth.

Mrs. Henderson is our very old neighbor who none other than, likes to make our lives a living hell.

There was one time, when she got mad at Lexie, Katie, and I for riding our bikes around the block, so what did she do, you may ask?

Well, she ripped the wheels right off our bikes, and threw them in the bushes, then told us to go and run off home. And all of that was because we were ‘ruining’ her peace and quiet.

I swear that lady has had it out for us kids since birth.

“Halliwell’s!” Mrs. Henderson yelled again, banging on the door harder.

As I rolled my eyes, getting up from the couch, I then started walking over towards the front door very annoyed.

“Mrs. Henderson! Hi, what a nice surprise, what can I do for you?” I sarcastically said, when opening the door to her yelling.

“Halliwell’s, how many times do I have to keep reminding you, to keep things down over here?” Mrs. Henderson complained.

I simply looked at her as if I’d care.

“Is there anything else?”

She then gave me an annoying look. “Yeah, keep your weird things on your side of the fence!” She yelled once more, before walking away.

“Is she gone?” Both max and Tessa asked, as I closed the door behind me and turned around to see their heads popping out from the living room.

“What do you think?” I asked them.

“Okay, we can clearly tell that you’re mad,” tessa was beginning to say.

“Really? You can tell?” I sarcastically replied.

“Okay that didn’t help,” max muttered.

“Really?”

“Okay, look we’re sorry, about the whole Mrs. Henderson thing. But it’s just that our water balloon catapult flung our balloon- ” max was trying to explain.

“Guys, look, I really don’t care about what you two do or build outside, but please for the life of you, just don’t do it over by Mrs. Henderson,” I advised, when returning back to the parlor room.

“Hey, it could be worse,” James muttered.

“Okay, what could possibly be worse than Mrs. Henderson?” Lexie asked James.

And Just as james was beginning to think about what Lexie said, all of a sudden a loud ‘boom’ explosion shook the house.

“Sorry!” Both Parker and Joey yelled.

“That,” james smiles.

“What was that?” Mom questioned, as she ran down the stairs with a panic look on her face.

“Uhh…I think that loud explosion was Parker and Joey; with their weird ‘little’ science experiment gone wrong…again,” Emma said, rolling her eyes not paying any kind of attention to what’s going on.

“Oh? Then who was that at the door?” Mom asked, looking at us weirdly.

“Nobody!” Both max and Tessa said instantly.

“Huh, now why do I get the feeling that you two are lying?” Mom said, looking at the both of them.

“It was just Mrs. Henderson and her usual complaint,” we told mom.

Mom rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Oh, great and what did she want this time?” Mom asked.

As the others, and I turned our attention over towards both max and Tessa who already had a guilty look on their faces, mom took that initiative and sighed.

“Duly noted, girls, How many times do I have to keep telling you two, to stop messing around with Mrs. Henderson?” Mom asked the girls.

“Like fifty times,” James mutters under his breath.

“James!” Mom said, telling him to stop.

“Look, mom we’re sorry, but it’s just that we were trying to test something out with our water balloon catapult, and I guess we may have launched it a bit too high, to the point where it then landed in Mrs. Henderson’s yard,” Tessa explained.

Mom sighed again. “Girls, I love you, I really do but you have to be a bit more careful around Mrs. Henderson, understood?” Mom told the girls.

“Yes mom, we won’t let it happen again, we promise,” both max and Tessa told mom.

“Bullshit!” Both Henry and Azari muttered.

“Henry, Azari” Mom said.

“Sorry mom,” they said instantly.

“Thank you,” mom said looking at both max and Tessa. “Besides I really don’t need to walk down the driveway just have another mean conversation with Mrs. Henderson again, no matter how bitchy she can be for an old lady?” Mom jokes, as we all chuckle. “now- ” mom was just about to say, when the boys shouted.

“Aw man!” The boys yelled.

“What happened now?” Mom yelled.

“Well, it turns out that Joey and I may or may have not blown off our eyebrows…again,” Parker called out.

“Well, isn’t that something,” max jokes, as mom gave her the ‘not right now’ look.

“Emma,” mom says.

“Don’t worry, I’m already on it,” Emma said, as she dropped her fashion nova magazine on the table and got up.

And before mom could finish grabbing whatever else she needed for work, suddenly a blueish-white portal forms in the middle of the hallway, blocking the front door.

“Mom!” We shout.

“Where’s Sarah and Cooper?” Mom questioned, not seeing them anywhere.

“Running around the house with sparky,” I told mom.

And As everyone was getting ready for what might jump out, suddenly, for a moment nothing was happening, but that was until we heard a familiar screaming sound coming from inside the portal.

“AHH!” The familiar sound screamed.

“Wait a minute, that kind of sounds like…” Lexie says, trying to figure out whose it’s screaming it is.

“Uncle?” Henry was about to say, as the screaming got closer.

Within seconds, our uncle Kevin, who is our mom’s youngest brother gets thrown out of the portal and lands hard on the floor.

“Ow!” Uncle Kevin grunts, as we all look at him confused.

And just when this day couldn’t get any better, a warlock who looks oddly familiar then peeks his head out through the portal, just second as the portal begins to close.

With the confusion hitting us like a truck, we all look down at uncle Kevin as if to know what the hell is going on.

“Oh, hey guys!” Uncle Kevin said, looking up at us with a ‘hey, I’m in a bit of trouble’ smile.

Oh, great, well this can’t be good.

“I’ll go and grab the first aid kit,” Tessa said, when running out of the room.

“I’ll go grab the book of shadows,” max adds.

“And I’ll call into work, and let them know that I won’t be making it in,” mom said. “It seems like we have some work to do,” mom adds, just before walking down the hall past the dining room and into the kitchen.

“Sorry guys,” Kevin said, as the others and myself sighed.

Great, well here goes to our fun long getaway from tracking down demons and warlocks, and hello to hunting down a warlock from a different century.

Isn’t this going to be fun.

(Here is the first chapter of many that I’m writing, I hope it sounds good and I hope you like it.)

[pbandjesse]

We are back home now. It was so nice going to see my parents today. It was also a lot of time in the car which made me a bit anxious this evening. But I had a really good day.

I slept alright last night. Though my ear is hurting very bad and I'm going to have to take out my conch hoops. Even though I love how they look because I cannot sleep with it in and now my ear feels bruised from trying. So that woke me up a few times. But I tried my best to get enough rest for our bit day.

When I got up I felt pretty good. I had take a shower at 1130 last night and washed my hair and that made me feel a lot better. My hair felt really good today and I felt very pretty. I love this dress and got lots of compliments on it.

James made us breakfast and had loaded up the car. The construction outside was getting ready to get started again and that was a little annoying. But we would get out of there before it got loud.

James had to run back inside to get their coffee and I ate the omelet they made for me. But we were on the road before 9.

And it was a good drive. Almost no traffic. I worked on my knitting. We listened to Hozier's new album. James clowned on me because I forgot his name and try to describe him by calling him Andrew the sad Irish bog boy. Which is objectify funny. And now how we will refer to him from now on.

It was a good ride even when James made a wrong turn. I was just enjoying being in the car with my husband.

We would arrive at my parents at 11. There had been a little delay but we got there and I was really excited to see my parents.

Hugs all around. And then we just hung out in the living room for a while talking. I gave my parents some little gifts. Some of my birthday beanie babies for their birth months, for my brother too even though we didn't get to see him today. And I gave my dad the blanket I made. I have been trying to keep that secret but I made my 144 square blanket for my dad for his 69th birthday in a few weeks. I really hope he likes it, cause I worked so hard and tried to make it go with his bedroom.

Soon we were heading to a nice lunch at Carlucci's. Dad insisted on driving. Should he be driving without a leg? Who knows. But we did not die and arrived at the restaurant safely.

And it was fun. The people at the restaurant were super nice. I liked the food. The conversation was good. My parents talked about supporting our home buying decisions and I think they were a little impressed that I was actually able to keep numbers in my head for once. My parents are great and made me feel very smart.

It was fun to also just walk James dazzle with sports talk. And we shared a cream brulee which I loved. Soon though we were heading back to the house. Laughing at bad parking and child locks on the door locking me in.

When we got back to the house, and did not die a second time, I made everyone come take a picture with me. The light was so nice and it was tough for dad to stand but I made sure mom and James were holding him up. And I was very happy with the pictures.

After our pictures James worked on getting the camp laundry done while I spent time with mom in the basement taking some camping stuff and then going through a whole bunch of her jewelery. I got to chose a bunch of really neat pieces. Including some fork the 50s and a jade bangle and a few turquoise pieces I love. Just some really neat stuff. I really appreciate my mom sharing these things with me. And telling me stories about it all.

James joined us and chose a few earrings. And finished up the laundry. My parents think I am taking advantage of James. Which I don't think is fair!! James and me are a team!! James just does laundry and I love them for doing it.

Me and mom would sit in the basement and talked for a while. I told her some stuff about camp. Showed her pictures of camp. It was fun.

But soon we had to leave. We would spend a few more minutes talking to dad upstairs. Then it was more hugs. And then we had to go. We wanted to leave around 4 and we did leave a few minutes later then planned. But it would be fine. We would still have to sit in traffic. It was a long ride home.

James made a pit stop at Wawa and then at a rest stop an hour from home. It was a nice drive even if the sun was always in my face. I knit. I played Sudoku, which I just learned how to play this week. And we listened to a very funny podcast and it was fun. Even if traffic was bad I was happy.

When we did finally get home James brought all our stuff inside and I worked on putting stuff away. Mom gave me a new plastic drawer thing and I swapped that with one that wasn't working as well. I moved all my tools in there. And worked on making the space not to overwhelming but it's still bad. I need to make more space but it is hard. I will keep putting effort into making the space less stressful for myself. And just a more workable space.

I would move the living room furniture so I could set up our new tent and see how our mattress fit but it was a little to small. So we will use our big tent in a few weeks. We also would set up both our air mattresses and figured out which on fit in the stand mom gave us. I'm excited to have that now too. Our guests won't have to be on the floor anymore.

James had an interview for their podcast. And once they were done they helped with the tent and beds.

I had a sandwich for dinner. And would hang out with James for a bit. Eventually I took a shower. And have been hanging out in my studio since then. It was a very good day.

I am ready to sleep now. Tomorrow I hope to finish my last lesson plan. And then I have some art I want to do. I hope it's a good day. I hope you all have a great night. I hope you see taking care of yourselves. I love you all. Goodnight!!

[halloweeneveryday]

Spirit in the Stairwell

This is something that has been on my mind for quite a while and after finding this subreddit I thought this would be a great place to share my experience. I would consider myself a skeptic but one particular period of my life has always had me guessing. I simply have no explanation for what I experienced.

I was around 11 years old when my family moved into a house that was built around the year 1910. It was a fairly large house consisting of an unfinished basement, main floor and the attic. The attic had been converted some years earlier into 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. It was decided that my brother (7 years younger) and I would share the 2 bedrooms in the attic.

Starting from the first night in the home I was uneasy and generally uncomfortable. Especially when I was alone upstairs. Part of me wants to attribute this to my new surroundings, but who knows. The upstairs area in particular gave me the creeps. The long staircase up into the hallway was always dimly lit and led straight into a hallway, obscuring any line of sight you would have from the bottom of the stairs. Just thinking about it gives me chills to this day.

The first few months were uneventful. It was probably about 6 months into living in the home when I would get woken up in the middle of the night from what sounded like thumping coming from the stairwell. For some context, my bedroom wall shared a wall with the stairwell. It sounded like someone lightly hitting the stairwell wall with their palm. Not a smack, not a knock, but a distinct thump. It did frighten me but it would not last more than a few thumps and then I would fall back asleep. This would happen about every other night for a week or so and then I would not hear the thumping again for maybe a month. I always dreaded it. In the periods of time I didn't hear the noises I was relieved and optimistic in thinking it had gone away for good. Without fail, it would come back. It gave me a sinking feeling in my chest when I would wake up hearing the thumping on the other side of the wall. Then it would go away again for a few months. No one else in the house was hearing anything and my parents told me it was the house settling, of course. The thudding of the house settling. Extremely normal.

After I had accepted that this was probably not going to stop, I began to become increasingly uneasy in my bedroom and the upstairs in general. I slept with my light on every night. I refused to spend any time in my room unless I was going to bed. By now I was 12 or 13 years old and I began to get a increasingly irritated and stupidly confident about trying to find out what was causing this noise in the stairwell in the early hours of the morning. If I was feeling particularly brave I would get out of bed, open my bedroom door and flip on the hallway light. Nothing was ever there. Everyone in the house was sound asleep. After closing the door and getting back into bed, the thudding would begin again. By this time it had gotten significantly louder but still occurring in the same frequency as before. In hindsight I might have made a mistake in being so confident in "catching" whatever it was making this noise.

Around the same time I started to have a very strange reoccurring dream about being in my bedroom, as if I were awake, and there would be a tall man peeking at me from around the corner of my doorframe. I never saw the man's full body. Only half of his face and his shoulder. I distinctly remember his one eye gazing into my room. I couldn't explain it any other way except it was incredibly unsettling. He would just stand there. Nothing else. I don't believe this was a case of sleep paralysis. I had distinct transitions from being asleep to waking and I knew it was a dream.

By now we had been living in the house for a few years and my younger brother was now around 5 or 6 years old. His reactions to whatever was going on really creeped me out. Up until now I was the only one (from what I knew) having any kind of weird experiences in the house. On one occasion my mom had asked me why I was scaring my little brother at night. I wasn't particularly surprised about the question because I would tease him sometimes. I asked her what she meant and she said that my brother had gone and woken our parents up and said that I kept hiding in his closet with my "scary mask" on. I did have some Halloween masks that he didn't like but I certainly wasn't hiding in his closet in the middle of the night trying to frighten him. Hell, I was too scared to go into his room at night. Let alone hide in his closet in the dark. I am not sure what he was seeing but it certainly was not me.

When I was in middle school I was feeling more comfortable being in the home alone and I would sometimes be at home alone all weekend while my family went on camping trips that I did not want to go to. The thumping in the hallway hadn't happened in a long time and I had all but forgot about it, I had other things on my mind I suppose. It really never came up until I would sometimes have some friends spend the night with me while my parents were out of town. Eventually it came to one of them asking me if my house was haunted. I hadn't really talked with my friends about what I had experienced in the house so I was definitely surprised by them saying that they would be sleeping on the couch and hear what they described as "windows opening and closing" in the middle of the night. After that conversation no one was jumping at the opportunity to stay at my house with me on the weekends when my family was out of town.

Again, a while passed. Nothing out of the ordinary. I had again put it out of my mind. I was sitting on my computer in the downstairs area on a Friday night waiting on my friend and his parents to come pick me up to go to an event. Chatting away on MSN messenger. I heard creaking coming from the upstairs hallway. These were distinct footsteps. Nothing like the thumping on the walls. As I was listening my mind was coming to the realization that I was home alone and these footsteps were not from any of my family members or friends. The footsteps began rapidly coming down the stairs and before I knew it I had jumped out of my seat and bolted out the door to wait outside for my ride. I stood by the street in the middle of winter waiting on them to come pick me up and I had this incredibly unsettling feeling that I was being watched from the upstairs window of my brother's room. I don't know what was causing the noise and honestly I would rather never find out.

That same night I stayed at my friends house and didn't say anything about the footsteps. I wanted to forget about it. The next day I came back home to my family and after a few sleepless nights, waiting on the thudding to begin again, it didn't. Everything stopped. That was the last experience I had.

A few years later my family moved out of the house. A few years after that, the house burnt to the ground. Apparently it was an electrical issue that caused the fire. Every once in a while I'll share things with my brother and he will confirm that even with him being so young he can distinctly remember being creeped out by that house.

I'm 31 years old and I still don't know what I was experiencing. I can't explain any of it away and I am confident that it was very real. I haven't had any similar experiences since I heard the footsteps.

If you've read all of this, thank you for sticking around. I guess what I am looking for is anyone who might have had similar experiences to the thumping and the peeking man.

source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/comments/w2h13t/spirit_in_the_stairwell/

[imonlyusingthisforrp]

I don't talk much about real life around here. So I'll start with talking a bit about Kiddo. Kiddo is almost 12, going on 30 I swear. He's wicked smart, funny as hell, and calls me "Mom" and "Aunt Kelly" by turns. I knew Kiddo's Bio-Mom from work (and when Bio-Mom was pregnant, so I've literally known Kiddo from before birth), and we became tentative friends over our retail hell. Eventually (like almost two years in), Bio-Mom invited Spouse and me to LARP, and hearing that we didn't ever go anywhere or do anything, invited us over to their parents' house. We went over, and there sat this tiny, beautiful child who was 18 months old, and who knew NO fear of strangers, as long as they were brought in by Bio-Parents. Within a few times of meeting them, I was getting hugs and cheek kisses and learning how to translate tiny human words. I was WILD for this kid. Spouse felt the same. We flat out adored him.

Within a few months, Bio-Mom's parents had moved across the country, left the house to the fam, and we had moved in to help with bills and all. Kiddo spent a LOT of time with us, because we were the fun Aunties. Our door was always open (within reason), and he knew he could come in and we would love on him and snuggle him and make him watch TV with us (I was early in my Doctor Who era, and there's a post on FB about him and I going back and forth about "My Tardis!" "NO, MY TARDIS!")

Life is funny. Ours might have stayed that way forever. Auntie Kelly and Auntie Sheep (Spouse would go "BAAAAA" like a sheep and then play a Zombie for kiddo, and literally, kiddo would yell "SHEEP!" and "ZOMBIE" just to see how fast Spouse could switch. It was adorable), living in the basement, with the door open and lots of hugs.

But then Kiddo was five, with infant twin brothers, and Bio-Mom kicked Bio-Dad out. In hindsight, a great plan (he is diagnosed as a sociopath, and has severe narcissistic personality stuff going on). At the time, we panicked, because he was going to take the kids, and all we cared about was keeping the kids safe. So we left with him. And then he got the kids, and we moved into a townhouse, and we took care of Kiddo even more. The four hour hair-brushing incident was when we realized HOW bad it really was. We gave him baths, we fed him, we took care of him, and it all came to a head when I told Kiddo's Bio-Dad to get his shit together (meaning 'oh my god, you asshole, take care of your children', but he took it as 'get your shit together and go'). He moved out within a week, and Kiddo's Bio-Mom took custody of Kiddo and the Twins.

It was around a year later that Bio-Mom decided to move where their parents lived. Spouse and I cried so much when they left that both of us almost got sick. We figured we'd see them rarely, if ever. Travel is expensive, after all.

Summer of 2021, we had Kiddo with us for 4 weeks to give Bio-Family a break. It was awesome. We had fun, we laughed and talked and cuddled and at the end of the visit, we cried as he walked to the plane. But when he got home, things were tense (not because of the trip. The tension had been bad anyway, but the break from each other seems to have made things worse). This is the part I'm not going to go into more than this. Just, it wasn't great for anyone involved, and we offered our home for Kiddo to come to. Like, to his Bio-Mom, not just telling him "oh, come stay with us".

We got him here on January 9, 2022. Within a few months, he started using his new name and pronouns, and while it was a pretty constant struggle for all of us to deal with things, he was doing SO well.

Last summer, he and I went to visit the Bio-Family. It was fun, because I don't get to travel much, but we ALL caught Covid, got the version that makes everyone puke, and I wound up with laryngitis for 4 days in the middle of it. There were also a LOT of fights. A lot lot. When we left, we all agreed we needed more time before the next visit. At least a year (and now we're not sure when, if ever, it will happen again. Things with Bio-Family has not gone great in the not-so-distant past)

The year between then and now has been... outstanding. Kiddo is growing by leaps and bounds. We still argue sometimes (he and I drive each other nuts because I'm with him CONSTANTLY, while Spouse has a life outside of the house and works and has local-ish relationships), but we're all getting better and realizing why it's happening and turning things around. Kiddo has less negative self-talk (A HUGE step). He passed 5th grade and moved up to Middle School! He's learning to be vulnerable and ask for help. He's learning to trust (though sometimes he falls back into his past way of handling things, and it frustrates me to no end), and knows he can talk to us about everything.

We're not a traditional family, obviously. Kiddo has two Aunts/Moms at home, a "Canadian Mom", a Father, lots of Uncles, a Mam who adores him (my mom), an Uncle (my brother) who drives him nuts (My brother is old, and very set in his ways. He refuses to use Kiddo's pronouns and chosen name. it has caused ISSUES.), a Bio-Family (Including twin brothers, of course) that gets lots of updates and pictures, and a Grandpa who has never met him but loves him in his quiet way (Spouse's Dad).

I wish I could have made Kiddo's life better earlier, but I'm SO glad we have the ability to do it now. I'm so glad that he's my sweet kid, who drives me nuts but who I love so much I'd happily hurt anyone who tried to hurt him. We're a weird bunch, but we love each other just as hard as we fight.

I'm the luckiest Mom.

[whythewords]

Sure, You Can Love Me (But Can You Please Take Me Home?)

On and on we go through this messy, sometimes great, sometimes fucking exhausting life, right? Again, I don't know how to summarize the goings-on since the last post, I only know about a few landmarks of the last month and how they made me feel.

I went on that vacation to Nova Scotia....it was breathtaking. My pal Damion and his wife Katie put us up in their absolute unit of a home, it was gorgeous and new and in a quaint, sparsely populated area of the province. A dream. And he planned quite the itinerary for us. We did a night at a fancy, cottagey AirBNB right on the water. We went tidal bore rafting which I agreed to before knowing fully what it was, but look it up, it's wild. We did a winery/cidery tour. We bummed around Halifax, I bought a travel guitar, and we also hit the Halifax waterfront. I ate my fill of lobster and just great seafood in general. I finally got to meet his adorable two year old daughter and experienced the great pleasure of my heart melting each and every time she called me "uncle Joe."

The trip was everything. But it was also what it was supposed to be: a vacation. There was no networking and looking for jobs and opportunities while I was out there. There was none of the "research" I convinced myself I was gonna do. It was, more than anything, a chance to catch up with an old friend, which is exactly what it needed to be.

Over the course of that week and into the intervening weeks...I decided to do another dating app blitz and stunningly, it paid off. I have gotten more traction on these apps than I have ever gotten. I'm up to four different woman I'm talking to and I haven't met a single one of them yet but the conversations are seemingly staying afloat, and I may have a date this coming Saturday. All of this happened to fall on a month that's already wall-to-wall loaded with other plans and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It keeps me distracted, keeps me happy. Another open mic on Wednesday, my friend's hockey game on Thursday, a night at the drive-in on Friday.

And yesterday I was in Fort Erie, an old friend who lives in New Jersey now was out there visiting his parents, and they all used to live in our old neighbourhood in Mississauga. It was nice catching up, and I had forgotten how much his mom "gets it." Without having seen each other in several years, she knew inherently after a brief catch-up session exactly where I was at. The predicament with my folks and wanting to move out...and how that may be effected by where we all are in our lives. "I worry you may have been prematurely thrown into a caretaking scenario." She said that and it was as if she was staring into my soul. A wise oracle assessing my situation with a glance.

My mom had gotten a little sick while I was on my trip. She's much better now, thank goodness, but the whole "moving out East to find a new life" thing sort of flashed before my eyes. My dad is 80. My mom is not too far behind. Their health is okay but they're not without their issues. If I'm not taking them with me I gotta stay close, and that fucking stings. Not because I don't love and appreciate them and want what's best for them, but because it seems like I'm now at the point where it's been decided for me. I have no choice in the matter.

My brother is not up to the task of taking care of my folks if I go away, he can barely take care of himself. To draw at least some inspiration from Nova Scotia, Damion had brought his mom out east to live with him after his dad passed. She's got a walkout basement apartment while he, his wife and his daughter have free reign of the top two levels. Maybe that's solution for me too. Maybe this is just my lot in life now. We have to go in on something together. My dad floated the idea by me before and it's not a bad one really, but it feels in many ways like true independence is always going to elude me. And it's STILL really fucking expensive. Maybe part of me was influenced by the sudden influx of dating prospects that sticking around here wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Unfortunately that doesn't change its price, both emotionally and financially.

There's these two parts of myself that have constantly been at odds these last few weeks: the lonely and longing romantic, looking for love and companionship, and the low-key, introspective recluse, just waiting for the opportunity to seize his independence and finally have a place he can truly call his own. Those came together to form a song as part of my monthly songwriting challenge, late as always but one of my favourite things I've written maybe of the last two or three years. Must be because it's so painfully fucking true.

But writing it, and playing it, and singing it they all make it sting a little less. They calm me down and remind me that while this is a shitty hand I've been dealt, it is not an impossible task. I can and WILL figure this out eventually.

Fuck, thank goodness for music, huh?

Here's a very rough and scratchy demo of the song I mentioned, it inspired the title of this post:

[brittbax]

😤

[backofthebookshelf]

The DMCA and You; or, why Tumblr won’t get sued over Post+

 I keep seeing people saying “doesn’t Tumblr understand they’re inviting an avalanche of lawsuits” and being baffled that people think this, and then I remembered that most of you were not both alive and in fandom in 1998 and therefore probably haven’t spent hours reading through the DMCA trying to figure out exactly how it was going to screw us. (Turns out we were right, but not nearly pessimistic enough.) So gather ‘round, children, it’s time for another bout of fandom history.

You have to understand what the internet looked like in 1998. Most people didn’t have internet access at home, and for those who did, you got a whopping 54 kbps (yes, that’s kilobytes per second) (compare that to 4G wireless, which 14 Mbps, not to mention, you know, wireless) unless you wanted to shell out for ISDN, which was twice the speed and five times the cost. Only 47% of American adults “went online” at all, never mind the two to six hours per day that current internet users are estimated to spend.

And I mean, why would you? There wasn’t that much there. If you wanted to post something online, your first and best option was to pay for web hosting of your own, or mooch off a friend’s. Or you could get a Geocities site, which would be plastered with ads and limited you to such a small amount of storage that you couldn’t have more than a couple dozen low-resolution images at best, or you could post on a message board (which would be essentially mooching off of a friend’s paid web hosting, because most sites that hosted message boards were just some guy who wanted to have a place to chat with his friends that wasn’t a Yahoo! email list), where you might get permission to post three or four images at a time. Music? Rude, takes up too much bandwidth, don’t do that to people. Video? You’re hilarious. (I once left my computer on for a week while I attempted to illegally download a copy of Velvet Goldmine but I finally gave up and got it from the video store instead.)

But still, at the time that was magic, and as more and more stuff found its way online, somebody who held a copyright somewhere (read: music studios and Disney) realized they had to get out in front of things. And into this brave new world came the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was passed in 1998 and was already skewing the shape of the internet of the future when it came into effect in 2000.

It did a lot of dumb things but the one we’re concerned about is the “safe harbor” provision, which basically says that in the case of an online copyright infringement, there are three parties: the infringer, the copyright holder, and the internet host, and the host is not a part of the copyright dispute.

Prior to this, if Sony or Disney or whoever found an illegal copy of their intellectual property (read: an mp3 or an avi) online, they’d go after whoever owned the server it lived on. Which made sense! If you find stolen TVs in someone’s basement, you go after the guy who owns the basement, and “I didn’t know my deadbeat brother in law was stealing TVs” is something you’ll have to prove in a court of law.

But internet companies like Geocities and Yahoo! and anyone else who offered random users the chance to post things on the internet using a free account said wait a minute, this doesn’t make sense. Because the internet is not like a physical basement; we have no reason to see someone carrying stolen mp3s down the basement stairs, and the scale is such that we couldn’t see all of them if we tried (unless we banned all mp3s, which means goodbye, MySpace, and goodbye indie bands). You wouldn’t go after a landlord in New York because their tenant in New Jersey is stealing TVs, would you?

So the DMCA said fine, we understand that the internet as it currently exists, and as it is attempting to exist (remember this is still the height of the dot.com boom and people are making money hand over fist by just owning websites), can’t operate if we try to do this. So instead of letting big companies sue big companies over copyright law, we’ll let big companies sue individual humans over copyright violations. That’s much more fair.

Of course most of what resulted wasn’t lawsuits at all; it was individuals getting threatening letters from Sony and Disney promising them that they were planning to sue but if you, Joe User, will just delete the thing you posted from the internet, we’re willing to make this all go away. And people did, because fuck, who’s going to duke it out with Disney?

The DMCA is the reason tumblr exists in the first place (not to mention twitter, and facebook, and essentially the entire part of the internet that isn’t either an ad or a news website). Technically, if tumblr was responsible for copyright violations, they’re already a prime target for a lawsuit, because they’re running ads on a website where people post copyright violations on a daily basis. Adding the opportunity for you to make money off your copyright violations doesn’t make them any more liable than they already are, which is not at all.

So here’s what predict will happen with Post+ at the beginning: absolutely nothing. A few people will monetize gifsets or fanfiction or vids and no one will pay attention and no one will care. But some small creators, people who post original fiction, people who post craft patterns, people who post insightful analysis, will start using it as part of their actual revenue stream. Sooner or later someone will be making enough money that it pings someone’s radar, and sooner or later someone making money will slip up and post something that could plausibly be a copyright violation, and they won’t get sued. They’ll get a takedown notice, a threatening letter from whoever owns the thing they infringed upon (...so Disney), and they’ll pull the thing. But it’s hard to pull things from the internet, much harder than it used to be, and nearly impossible the way tumblr works. So they get another takedown notice. Or Disney’s lawyers go through their blog with a fine-toothed comb and they start getting more and more unreasonable takedown notices, but now they’re scared and fuck, who’s going to duke it out with Disney? So they take their blog down entirely, and now that person is a little bit poorer and Disney is out the cost of four or five stamps and envelopes and the time their lawyer spent fifteen years ago drafting the takedown notice template.

I guarantee you that the people who decided to implement this know that this is going to happen, and they do not care. We’ve reached the “we could make this website work if we could just get rid of fandom” stage, which never ends well for the website but they never seem to learn that. So please, please don’t try to monetize fandom content on the assumption that tumblr is going to be the one to get slapped with a lawsuit for it, that’s just not how it works. It never has been and it never will be.

[dreaming-in-alicante]

Too Busy Dancing to Get Knocked Off Our Feet

This is a dancing oneshot/drabble that's been in my drafts for ages, and I cleaned it up to post for the end of Gracetopher week! Inspired by this post.

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

Grace Blackthorn wanted desperately to go home. Unfortunately, she was attending Jesse’s engagement party, meaning that she could not take her leave early in the night as she wished to. She had stationed herself in a quiet corner half-hidden beside a potted palm, nursing a glass of lemonade. Jesse had danced with her already and she doubted anyone else would care to approach her. She was content with her situation as a pariah among the London shadowhunters – or so she told herself – but she knew her continued exclusion troubled her brother. Grace was long-accustomed to loneliness, and saw no point in struggling to change status. Jesse was an idealist, however, and he yearned for acceptance and approval for the pair of them.

Grace craned her neck, having lost track of her brother on the dance floor. She located him in the crowd of people, releasing Ariadne Bridgestock’s hand as the music faded to signal the end of the current dance. Grace continued watching as he found Lucie, then pulled his grinning fiancée to the center of the floor to wait for the next song. Jessie bent his head close to speak to Lucie as she straightened his emerald green cravat. Grace was quietly pleased to observe them so comfortable and happy with one another. Things had been tense following Grace’s trial and the revelation of the spell she had maintained on James. Lucie had been understandably upset on her brother’s behalf, and had a rather nasty disagreement with Jesse when he wholeheartedly defended Grace. It had warmed Grace’s heart to have her brother’s protection, but she had worried that she would be the object to cause further unhappiness. Thankfully, a few days gave both a chance to calm their tempers and they made up forthwith. Lucie and Grace maintained a wary but cordial relationship, not too far from what they had shared while trying to resurrect Jesse.

“Miss Blackthorn – may I have this dance?”

Grace startled, snapped out of her private reverie.  It was Christopher Lightwood who had snuck up on her – not for the first time. He was cousin and close friend to James – why on Earth was he approaching her? Grace found herself frustrated; just like the time she had encountered him in the basement of the consul’s house, he was behaving in an irritatingly unexpected manner. “I beg your pardon, I was lost in thought. What did you say, Mr. Lightwood?” she queried coolly.

Christopher did not appear the least bid fazed by her aloof manner. “My apologies for startling you, Miss Blackthorn!” he said cheerfully. “I was wondering if you would care to dance with me?” he asked again, holding out his hand expectantly with a smile.

Grace blinked for a moment at him, before replying with cool formality, “Of course, Mr. Lightwood.” It would be highly impolite to refuse but, oh Raziel, what had she just agreed to? Jesse must have put him up to this, she realized with annoyance, as she took Christopher’s proffered hand. Some sort of cousinly duty no doubt. Jesse had been trying to reconnect with his uncles and their families. Grace had been welcomed to join, but continuously refused. Jesse was her brother and always would be, but Grace felt no kinship with them, viewing them only a reminder of the manic mother she had suffered under.

Grace felt eyes on the pair of them as they took to the floor. She had been hiding in the corner to avoid this attention and now, she realized with panic, Christopher had led her almost to the dead center of the dance floor – close to Jesse, which had likely been the goal. Her brother flashed her a pleased smile that did nothing to ease Grace’s discomfort.

It was even more alarming that the starting notes of the song revealed it as a lively mazurka. Grace was more accustomed to the slower, dignified waltzes and cakewalks. It was difficult enough to keep her appearance polished to her mother’s satisfaction at social events without hopping around on the dance floor. At least the dance was lively enough that there would be little conversation during. Although in this case she would not have minded if Christopher had spoken of science, as he had in the other times they had been together. She had thought him mad when he began speaking of bacteria while taking her on a carriage ride home, but she quickly found herself fascinated by the ideas. Grace wondered if there were any new advancements in bacterial research in the past year.

She was left with no more time to ponder this thought, however, as the dance began in earnest. The first steps were awkward as they tried to find the rhythm together. Grace had kept her head down up to this point, but now she shifted her eyes to meet Christopher’s steady violet gaze. Suddenly, they were in in sync with each other and the beat of the song as they stepped and jumped. Grace had only ever danced with men she beguiled, who were wont to treat her like a china doll, leading her with gentle, careful movements, keeping her close. Dancing with Christopher Lightwood was a wholly different experience. He led her gently but decisively, flinging her outward yet still somehow maintaining a grip on her hand to pull her back in. They gallivanted around the dance floor, narrowly avoiding several collisions with other pairs. It was entirely wild and improperly done – this style of dance wasn’t even supposed to have twirling, for goodness sake! – yet Grace felt freer and lighter than she had in weeks. Whirling around on the dance floor there were no whispers about her, no glares, no pitying glances, no worried looks from her brother. She was just Grace, being led on a lively romp by a man she hadn’t had to charm into dancing with her. She was floating and almost out of her body; it took her several long seconds to register that the music had faded and the pair of them had stilled.

“What, ho!” Christopher said with enthusiasm after they caught their breath. “You are a rather skilled dancer, Miss Blackthorn!”

“Thank you,” Grace replied, appreciating the compliment. “You are – you dance well also, Mr. Lightwood,” she said.

“I am glad you enjoyed yourself,” he said. He appeared pleased indeed, adding bashfully, “I am afraid many ladies would not say the same.”

“Do women often complain of your dancing?” Grace asked with a raised eyebrow. Perhaps the other ladies did not like the added twirls to songs.

“Well, only a bit,” Christopher answered. “I think perhaps because the other boys in our set are better at conversing. Rosamund Wentworth was exceedingly upset when I tried to tell her about this exciting new species of mold one time. She’s avoided me ever since, actually,” he explained mournfully.

What a twit, Grace thought. In Rosamund’s place, Grace would have been delighted to hear about something actually interesting, rather than how lovely or charming or pleasant her partner found her. Grace lifted her chin and told Christopher, “Miss Wentworth clearly does not appreciate science, a deficiency which is certainly not your fault.” She hesitated briefly before remarking, “I would actually be interested in hearing about this mold. Is it grown in little dishes like you told me about during that carriage ride last year?”

“That’s right, I did tell you about the new vitamin discovered to aid bacterial growth!” Christopher exclaimed, smiling now. He looked inordinately pleased that she had remembered. His eyes lit up as he continued, “Do you know, a Dutch microbiologist just found a bacteria that can grow without air?”

“How on earth does it survive without breathing in some fashion?” Grace asked, intrigued.

“Well it seems that –”

“Kit, there you are!” Matthew interrupted as he appeared suddenly and clapped a hand on Christopher’s shoulder. “If you’ll excuse us, Miss Blackthorn,” Matthew nodded to Grace with an overly-polite smile, starting to tug Christopher away.

“Matthew, I was just explaining to Miss Blackthorn about the anaerobic bacteria,” Christopher said, taking a step away from his friend.

“Yes, quite fascinating Kit,” Matthew said quickly, “but I’m sure you don’t wish to bore her and I need your help with James, extremely important, if you can just come with me now.”

“But James is right there,” Christopher said with bewilderment, waving to the side of the room and James and Cordelia swayed in a slow dance, smiles on both their faces.

“Did I say James?” Matthew asked airily. “I meant to say Thomas. Come on, Kit” he said with another tug.

Grace’s unexpected good mood had vanished with Matthew’s arrival, and soured further as she realized Matthew must think she was trying to manipulate his friend in some fashion.

“You ought not keep your friends waiting,” Grace said, fisting her hands in her skirt to hide their trembling. “Thank you for the dance, Mr. Lightwood.” She turned before her calm expression could falter under their gaze and started back to her former hiding place.

“Wait, Miss Blackthorn!” she heard Christopher call after her. Grace continued walking but a moment later heard footsteps behind her. She turned again to face Christopher, ignoring Matthew’s glare from yards away.

“I have to go now, but if you’d like – I don’t know what your schedule is, but, well – I’m in Henry’s lab at Grosvenor Square most days, if you’d ever like to stop by,” Christopher said in a rush. “I have some papers on the bacteria, and some very interesting experiments if you wish to try your hand like with the pithos!”

“I – I would be very interested,” Grace said haltingly, hardly believing the offer.

“Wonderful!” Christopher said with a brilliant grin. “Until then, Miss Blackthorn.”

Grace watched him rush back over to a glowering Matthew, and tried to smother the smile rising on her face at the unexpected opportunity now before her. Christopher was James’s cousin and one of his best friends. There were so many things that could go wrong if Grace was spending time with him. But, she though with a flutter in her stomach, there’s so much that could go right.

[lonely-lost-soul]

Under the Floorboards

(Technoblade x Reader) link to Pt. II :)

Picking up a bundle of wood you let out a soft breath, you watched as it escaped out your lips in front of you in a small cloud. Trudging through the snow you made your way back to your house, well it wasn’t really your house. A few months ago you ran into Technoblade while he was searching for a new home far away from this place called L’manburg; he told you he was in retirement and was surprised to find another person all the way out here. As a wandering adventurer, you eventually won him over with your charm, wit, and humor.

That was a joke of course.

You both started a mutual trade agreement, on your way back from the adventures you’d always take a pit stop at his place so he could see if you had anything worth trading. It started slow, he realized you would come back very late at night, and very weary. He offered you to stay the night once, then once turned into twice and before you knew it you began to stay at his place after every late-night adventure. As you spent more time together he helped you become a better fighter, and farmer and you helped him learn social skills and how to cook food that wasn’t steak.

He never told you about his time in the country of L’manburg or why he was in retirement in the first place but you didn’t mind. Everyone has their secrets and even if both of you were considered friends at this point you never pried. Not even when you’d catch him mumbling to himself about chat, or the bloodthirsty look in his eyes after he killed an animal. You kept your mouth shut out of respect, you could tell he appreciated the gesture.

You earned yourself a friendship emerald after he introduced you to his oldest friend Philza, the man treated you like you were his family. It made you feel wanted and welcome, Techno had a little smile on his face the entire interaction as the both of you bonded. In his mind he was ecstatic his two favorite people were getting along. Techno walked Philza out of the house and returned holding an emerald out to you, you knew how valuable these emerald were to him. You were in such shock and awe you almost started crying which caused him to panic.

“I’ll treasure it with my life.” You told him kissing said emerald gently, blush spread across his pale face to his pointed ears.

“I’m glad.” He rubbed the back of his neck, “Chat- chat stop I’m not simp.” You heard him whisper hiss softly but you ignored it, choosing to smile at him instead. He noticed and his blush only deepened. You took his hand, it was so small intertwined in his own, and squeezed it softly.

Eventually, the both of you grew closer than just friends which understandably scared the half pigman to death. You caught him mumbling to himself more frequently, especially when you both were out fighting monsters and gaining experience.

Things like: “I’m not a simp” and “Calm down I’m gonna protect her” as well as “I can’t just say that!” Were very frequent mumblings of his, your brow furrowed and after fighting a baby zombie you turned towards him,

“Hey Technoblade you doing okay?”

“Yes!” He sputtered out reassuring you that he was just fine by saving you from a Skeleton.

You two watched the sunset that same day from on top of a snowy mountain and he confessed to you. The confession was a bit rough around the edges but then again so was he, so to you, it was perfect. You took his hands to get him to stop rambling and kissed his knuckles. He made an embarrassed sound and looked away from you, you cooed teasingly at him and accepted. From then on you both were attached at the hip, well as attached as he’d let you be there was still that level of awkwardness that came with any new relationships but it was wonderful. You’d both spent hours by the fireside as he read to you, you’d help him care for Carl and get enchanted books all the while you were in awe of this magnificent and mysterious man before you.

Shaking your head smiling to yourself you trudged back to his house, the emerald around your neck bounced in tandem with your steps. Technoblade never liked leaving you alone, you reminded him constantly that you had a life before he was in it but he still seemed to be on edge. You figured it had something to do with his past so you did your best to reassure him that you’d be safe when he was away; Techo seemed to appreciate your efforts at least. Whenever he got back from what you assumed was visiting Phil (after all, Carl was gone), you were going to run him a bath and braid his hair the way he liked. Maybe you’d make him a nice dinner then you’d both fall asleep together while reading. It’d earn you some soft kisses and snuggles later, you giggled to yourself as you put away the wood. If you told anyone else this giant of a man, who you’ve seen wipe out hordes of monsters like it was nothing, loves to be cuddled at night they’d call you insane.

You wandered down into the basement to feed his cow but the sound of a blocks-breaking startled you out of your daydream. You whipped around pulling out your sword in the way Technoblade showed you and came face to face with a blonde child peeking out from the floorboards.

“What the FUCK?!” You both shrieked at one another, he moved to try and scramble back down the hole. You followed him down his ladder, you weren’t going to let this child get away with living under your boyfriends’ house so easily. You backed him into a corner and took note of his beat-up appearance and his attempts to look brave as he held up his hands. Sweat gathered on his brow but you didn’t let your guard down, before you could open your mouth to question him he began to talk so fast and loud you could barely keep up.

“OI, OI, OI, OI! LADY, LADY, LADY, CALM DOWNNNN CALM DOWN! SEE, SEE WE’RE BOTH IN TROUBLE CAUSE WE’RE BOTH STEALING- BORROWING FROM THE BLADE! THE BLADE KNOWS ME! I AM HIS LITTLE BROTHER, TOMMY, I AM SURE YOU’VE HEARD OF ME! THEREFOR I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING WRONG. YOU-YOU, ON THE OTHER HAND, ARE A STRANGER! YOU KNOW HE’S A BLOOD GOD RIGHT? HE’LL ABSOLUTELY KILL YOU, BUT BUT! IF WE KEEP THIS BETWEEN US I WON’T HAVE TO TELL HIM ANYTHING AT ALL FAIR? SEEMS FAIR TO ME-”

You reached your hand out to cover his mouth, your eyes narrowed into slits, “Start again. Softer and slower. Techno never told me he had a brother.” You watched the eyes of the blonde widen in surprise, assumingly at the notion that you already knew Technoblade. Slowly you removed your hand from his mouth but didn’t lower your guard. He cleared his throat, swallowing tentatively.

“I’m Tommy. We’re not related by blood- who ARE you?” he pressed still completely baffled at the appearance of a GIRL who knew Technoblade. Before you could even respond to him he let out another baffled cry. “DOES HE SIMP FOR YOU!?” He shrieked pointing at you as he waved his finger around. “THERE’S NO WAY- HE DOES HOLY SHIT!” Tommy laughed as you blinked rapidly, how was he able to read all that without you even saying anything? You were trying to process who this kid was while also being stuck on the blood god thing. You felt Tommy’s arm around your shoulders suddenly as he pulled you close. “Well, Miss Blade now that we know who you are maybe we can strike a deal-“

“Absolutely Not.”

“HEY! Come on now.” Tommy whined loudly, “I need your help here! Look I’m sure you know why he’s in hiding and all...and well...I might’ve pissed the same people off and-”

“Actually no. I didn’t know that…” You spoke softly deflating a little, “He’s in hiding? From who exactly.”

A look of shock came across Tommy’s face, “You mean...you don’t know? Like about L’manburg and his betrayal.”

“Does it sound like I know? Look Tommy you seem like a nice kid really, but you need to leave-”

“Nonononnonononono. Look it’s fine, I’ve been living here for weeks now-”

“WEEKS?” You snarled a pink flush coming to your cheeks, you grabbed the boy’s arm and began to drag him up the ladders in Techno’s house. Hee was going to kill you like actually this time. You were about to throw open the door but it swung open in front of you. Techno was standing there completely bruised and bloody and you immediately dropped Tommy in favor of him.

“Oh my god Techno what happened?” You breathed out a worried breath he was about to respond before he noticed Tommy. He grabbed you by the arm and pushed you behind him guarding you with his body.

“Tommy.” He snarled as the boy once again shrieked and booked it back down the ladder Techno turned towards you, “Stay here.” Technoblade commanded you softly the look in his eyes could only be described as desperate. “Don’t leave. Please.”

“I won’t…” You murmured watching him disappear after the British boy, you hoped he was going to explain everything to you after he dealt with the raccoon. You could hear them shouting from down below you, you couldn’t push it off any longer you needed to get answers from him.

~~~~~~

Part II maybe? Lmk if there’s an interest! Cause I love this man with my whole heart! Thanks so much for reading 🥺✨ link to Pt. II :)