It's wild because I have exactly one episode of Vampire Diaries left and I've been saving it since *checks blog* a little over a week ago (versus the six episodes a night I was watching back in season 1) and I keep telling myself I have to watch the ending if only so I know what I'm working with in fic but also I do want to see the return of Elena (and Katherine) but also I don't want to see Stefan die (or Damon and Elena in a flashforward apparently? How will they have time for all this, honestly?) but I do want to see how they manage to break the curse with Bonnie still alive (but maybe it wouldn't be so bad to write my fic without knowing) but I don't know. I'm notorious for not watching the last few episodes of shows I love (White Collar, Psych, Once Upon a Time, although that last I ragequit over many minor grievances with multiple seasons left so it's not really the same thing) but I keep telling myself that if you don't watch the end of a thing then you just have less of the thing that you love but like I turned the TV on to watch it just now and I'm actually so nervous? I both do and don't want to watch it so intensely, so I had to open up tumblr and blog about it. I could save it another week but I want to watch it before the intensity of my obsession starts to fade but I know this is going to hurt me, emotionally and profoundly. Maybe I can stretch it out to two episodes by stopping in the middle or something idk. But aaaaaaaaa I don't know I'm not ready but I feel like I have to watch it. Help me I don't know. I need some of you internet people to come over and watch this with me or something lol I don't know. I'm so nervous I'm not prepared but I don't want to put this off forever either. And once it's done I could start rewatching. But like, aaaaaaaaa!!

ik ur in ur reo phase BUT HEAR ME OUT EARTH ONLY YOU CAN DO THIS

rin ACCIDENTALLY publicizing ur relationship bec mf got jealous as hell when ur face appeared in the kiss cam IN HIS GAME??????? WITH A RANDOM GUY AND WAS HE FUMING??? YOU AND I KNOW HE WAS THROWIN HANDS

thats all

I'M HEARING YOU OUT. warning for unrealistic scenario, i wrote this in like 20 minutes so it's unedited :p apologies for any mistakes.

imagine being rin's secret partner, the one he keeps behind closed doors because he values you too much to let the invasive eyes of the internet see. he values your relationship too much to let it get tarnished by social media, so he hides any affiliation with you like his life depends on it, only to come home and shower you with the adoration and affection he wishes he could show to the rest of the world.

in the spotlight, he is itoshi rin, japan's prized striker, their golden player, but when he's out of the spotlight, he is your lover. the man who drapes himself over you when things get too rough and he needs a breather. he is yours to cherish, where you have to change your phone wallpaper every other week because there's so many good photos of you two. he is yours to love, he is yours to go to when you feel too lonely, he is yours.

but also imagine, itoshi rin's jealousy and possessiveness no longer being able to rest at bay. it'd been accumulating for the past few weeks, this desire to show you off and boast that it's him who gets to know you like no other.

then the cup overfills, his jealousy tearing him by the seams that he loosely stitched together to withhold this carnal beast resting within him.

all because of a damn kiss cam.

you had been sitting in the vip section of the stadium- where special members are granted tickets, and even though you tell rin that it's fine for you to just sit in the general area, he refuses and tells you that he's bought you the ticket anyway. leaving you with no room for arguments. well. not that there was any to begin with.

anyways, you'd just so happen to sit next to someone who bought vip tickets with no affiliation with any blue lock members. you think he's just a die hard fan, so when he asks you if you like them, you lie and say that you won these tickets at a raffle.

the guy wasn't the most favourable person ever, in fact, you found yourself awkwardly responding to what he was saying, sometimes giving him short and succinct replies because of how... weird... he was. not to be disrespectful but you did not like his vibes. you just hope these 90 minutes can be over quickly.

yeah well, how funny is it that the kiss cam lands on you and the insufferable guy beside you?

you're mortified when you see it on the screen but the person beside you doesn't warrant the same reaction. immediately, he turns to face you, anticipation heavy on his features. in fact, he looks rather... excited...

"no, no, i have a boyfriend, i-" you begin abruptly as he leans in and you have no choice but to helplessly lean back, evading his lips and delaying it as much as you can. you even try rejecting him by frantically waving your hands, panicked and unsure of what to do.

until you hear him.

"back. the. fuck. off!" comes a shout from the pitch; the voice very familiar to your ears that you can't help but instantly relax from hearing it.

your seat was relatively close to the field which meant that those around you could hear the distinct voice of itoshi rin ripping through the air, fury evident and baring its fangs as he all but punches the barrier with each word.

however, everyone in the stadium could see itoshi rin as all cameras pan to him, witnessing his wrath as he shouts from the top of his voice. everyone around you is silent and you don't know whether you want to shrivel up into the ground or run to him and embrace him as tightly as you can. to find sanctuary in his warmth, away from the pushy guy who can't wrap his head around the idea that no means no.

itoshi rin decides for you, effortlessly jumping over the (considerably high???) barrier and making a beeline for you, skipping some stairs. thank goodness for a side seat because he comes to a stop before you, adrenaline still coursing through his veins as he looks at you with heated passion, huffing and puffing.

"rin?" you whisper. he doesn't hear it, looking up at the various stadium screens to see if the kiss cams were still on you. smirking in satisfaction when he realises they are, rin all but pulls you up from your seat and kisses you with so much intensity and fervour that you feel lightheaded. very much so.

the stadium is cheering but you can't focus on it, not when rin's holding you to him so closely, practically trying to meld you to him. not even trying to push him away is enough to snap him out of whatever primal instinct has taken over him, so you grab his face and jerk away from him, not wanting to get too carried away.

before you can utter a word, rin looks behind you, and the coldness in his expression says everything you need to know.

he doesn’t care about dignity at this point. he just needed the world to know that you were his.

"you're dead if you try that again, you lukewarm fuckface," he then turns to you. you shiver from the intensity of his gaze. "i'll kill him next time," he promises before hugging you close to him once again, practically glaring at the cameras. "i'll kill anyone who tries to get to close."

THANK YOU FOR THIS ANON would u believe me if i said i'd been waiting for an opportunity like this? well i'm speaking the truth and i'm so glad u gave me the opportunity i've been waiting for AYEEEEEEE COME BACK ANY TIME YOU ARE SO WELCOME ON THE EARTHTOOZ BLOG, PRETTY <33

—

© EARTHTOOZ 2023, do not steal, translate, repost my fics and do not recommend my fics onto any other site.

the juppet !! i just realised he is jerma posing i swear that was unintentional...... i spent so long digging thru muppet concept art and looking at old puppet designs just to end up doing a rly simple drawing but. i love joehills!! i have only been watching them for like 4 years but their videos r so special to me :3

Laughing Jack spent 13 years locked away, never knowing if he was going to escape. As each day went by he was forced to become familiar with the concept of eternity, the idea that this might last forever. It was quite possible he would spend forever trapped inside that box.

I think Jack has never spoken about his past to anyone. Why would he? Who would he tell his story to? Jack looks back on his former self with disgust, with hatred for a creature innocent and naive and loving enough it would willingly let itself be trapped.

Jack wraps himself in the chains of his past and drags it with him everywhere he goes. He thinks it's a necessary precaution. He can't afford to forget or forgive what happened, because he's terrified of getting hurt again. Jack has to hate humans because what if love makes him naive again?

Jack doesn't tell anyone about Isaac. But there is not a day that goes by he doesn't think about the boy he was built to love.

Because if he stops thinking about Isaac, if he stops remembering Isaac, then no one else will. Jack is the only person left alive who knows of Isaac Grossman. And if no one is left to remember him, did he ever really exist? Does a man die when his last breath leaves his lungs or when his name is uttered for the last time?

He was with Isaac for 3 months, and the grief lasted 200 years. Jack is no longer in his box, but he's still trapped by his self-imposed suffering

Jack was built to love Isaac. He was built to love humanity. And he learned to hate it instead. Or maybe he learned that suffering is good, that pain is happiness. Isaac taught him that. Isaac was taught that, by his father and his mother.

Maybe when Jack killed Isaac, it was his last love letter to his dear friend.

Or maybe he just hated the fucking guy, I don't know. I don't think Jack knows sometimes, either.

Hero!Ghoap x God!Reader brainrot

Had some insane brainrot while listening to music, this is going to be word vomit but like, i have to share it w/ yall and i didnt read this back so it may be a lil wonky (first cod post too wow) idk man its bad but whatever

Reader being a lesser known god who only has a few shrines and a tiny group of worshippers and hero!ghoap being incredibly well known and strong fighters who stumble across one of your shrine while looking for a place to rest. maybe it's abandoned or something but while theyre resting they investigate you and your history and end up leaving you some offerings for letting them have safety while healing up. Maybe you get a little excited cuz the heros all the gods are talking about are leaving you gifts!! just for being kind!! hehe you send them a sign that you are watching over you and helping them as much as you can even after they leave your shrine to continue their journey <33 you only have a few followers so you can actively pay attention to ghost and soap unlike the other gods who are so so busy. Ghost notices first that youre always watching over them when he starts seeing your associated animals and plants everywhere they go (can be whatever you want but im picturing a type of bird) and ghost feels unsure if its actually you but after it becomes a pattern he points it out to Soap who had a feeling they were being tailed as well. Now they start gathering little trinkets after their battles and leaving them in places that remind them of you like flower fields or by rivers. I feel like soap would become such a devoted follower so quickly while ghost is still a little wary, he doesnt know your intentions and there is barely any information about you out in the world. I think a few weeks or months later ghost would join soap in being one of your most devoted followers. I feel like they would create you an altar near where you live or move closer to the original shrine they discovered you at <33

also thinking about how they would react if you disappeared, specifically a war broke out between the gods and you get gravely injured and in a panic descend to earth by the boys' shrine before passing the fuck out. just the boys showing up to leave offerings but seeing you bleeding out on the altar, they both rush to you can try to stabilize you the best they can from experiences when patching each other up,,, once they clean you up they bring you back to their home and placing you in their bed, they sit next to you discussing what the fuck happened and who they have to hurt to get you justice.

maybe ill write more later but yeah hope yall liked my mess of an idea

i feel like everyone and their mother has spoken about this before but james potter is 100% the biggest puppy bf i've ever witnessed in literature !! like bro has MAXIMUM puppy dog stats

he's the kind of bf to INSIST UPON carrying your textbooks/bags for you and escort you to your classes class,,, like he would literally REFUSE to not do either of them,,, he gets so worked up about it that it's actually kind of pathetic (in a cute way),,,

you wouldnt even be able to carry them for 5 mins in his presence before he's scooping them out of your arms ("james i quite obviously have two perfectly functioning hands just let me hold my books pls" and his completely serious response would be "but im your bf??? and my hands are also free rn??? it's literally my job to hold your books just stfu and let me")

continuing the escorting headcanon he always ends up having to sprint to off to try and make it to his own class in time BDAHBFDH as soon as you retreive your books and walk into the classroom you try to look back and thank him,,, but there's literally just a cartoonish cloud of smoke where he stood not even 5 seconds prior (he insists that it's a good warmup for his quiddich practice)

he's also the kinda bf to literally SHOVE himself in front of you to beat you to the door, just so he can open it, dramatically wave his hand, bow, and say something cringey like "for you, my lady/liege" (BARF THATS SO CUTE IM LITERALLY GOING TO THROW UP)

OMG ALSO HE'S JUST INSANELY OBSERVANT WHEN IT COMES TO YOU????? to the point where it would be considered creepy if it wasnt james,, yknow?? there was definitely a time where upon meeting you at the door of the potions class you just finished (yes he is flushed, out of breath and sweating,,, no, he isnt going to admit that he sprinted from his C.F.M.C class 5mins early to make sure he met you at the door in time) and he does a double take and looks genuinely concerned before saying "???? pookie??? what happened to your hair???? did you do something different?? it looks different from when i saw you this morning !! D:" queue you responding with "?? wtf? i cut off a singular strand of hair for one of the potions how the actual fuck did you notice that??"

he is so babygirl i love it

i swear im not even a james stan but i can't help but ramble abt his bbygirlness

hes such a puppy dog bf

he just has the biggest heart eyes for you bro ( -3-) follows you around like a lost puppyyyyy

you dont just have him wrapped around your finger - you have him tattooed and superglued onto you istg

could you write a 20 page essay for me about the complicated dynamic between bruce wayne and dick grayson over the past 40 years of modern comics with cited comic panels

in hindsight I should have seen this coming

I mean the real thing about being flippant in a joke post is that I do not, currently, want to write 20 cited pages about anything, even the things I am deeply passionate about. I love the benefits of no longer being in school and refuse to give them up.

BUT Bruce and Dick oooof..... It's about not defining the relationship initially, because Bruce really didn't think of himself as a father and didn't understand what taking in a kid meant, and Dick was a kid who had no interest in a "replacement" father and thought it was normal to see himself as a peer to adults. It's about things you said when you were eleven haunting you a decade later because now your dad is never really going to be your dad even when he is.

It's about dancing around the words, "that's what it's like between fathers and sons" "you know exactly who i'm the son of" and "he's like a father to me" "he's like a son to me" and "your father talks about you" "you're raising that boy in your home / you're his father" but you can't actually SAY IT not directly.

It's about how your not-father is stoic and emotionally inexpressive and refuses to say how he feels, and you're ten years old and it's funny to say hello! I am Bruce's regular person translator! and hop around him with jokes while he grunts, and make yourself the light to his dark.

And then you're eighteen and your father is stoic and emotionally inexpressive and refuses to say how he feels, and it's not really funny anymore and he will never tell you he loves you.

It's about loving this new kid, and being jealous every time he just gets to be a kid. He just gets to be a kid. He just gets to be a kid. He doesn't have to be translator partner parent caretaker brother friend pal emotional-support.

You love your dad and you never want to see him again and you want your siblings to have better and you detest him.

You hate your dad and you throw all his flaws in his face and you would defend him to your dying breath and not regret it and never once doubt he was worth it.

He made you who you are. You are going to strangle him. Your friends would support you. Everyone would support you, except your little siblings, who are unfortunately not far behind you in mixed feelings. You just know him better than anyone.

It's about being the adult child of a parent, and how that's an adjustment in the most normal of circumstances, suddenly finding yourself on more even ground with someone who was once larger than life. Except you never really got to be a kid.

You love him. He should stop hurting you. He's more proud of you than anything else he's ever done. You should really take the advice you yourself gave to your most similar younger brother and stop considering him your responsibility.

He's your dad.

(anyway i've been trying to add tags for the relationships I am most interested in, and while it only goes back a little ways, that absolutely includes bruce & dick)

its too late at night im having too many gay thoughts about these idiots so. here we are i guess.

It's Ian. No one else is going to fucking caress him. For all the informality of the company's content and general atmosphere, with this video concept especially, he's still their boss. And no one is going to want to, or have the guts to just fucking stroke his face like that. Even as he laughs and asks 'What is this?' he knows what's happening, knows who those hands belong to.

Two fingers drag down the right side of his face, and he feels the chalk that's left behind. It's going to stay for the rest of the video, and there's something to be said about that, he thinks. Something symbolic, something romantic, or even something funny, the last thought being slapped into his head when Ian's hand collides with his face.

It doesn't hurt that much, and immediately after he cracks a joke.

"This person thinks they're hilarious."

And they are, he wants to add. They're ridiculously funny, with a dark, somewhat skewed sense of humour to match his own, and they're brilliant and kind and so many other things, but right now they're making it easy for him.

"Who would caress my face and slap me outta nowhere?"

He, and everyone else in the room, and everyone who's going to watch the video, knows.

"Feels like an Ian move to me- Did you just boop me?"

Ian's locking it in, making sure that it's clear that, yeah, in case you couldn't figure it out already, it's me motherfucker.

"That's the only one you truly needed to get right."

Anthony laughs. He's not wrong - It wouldn't matter if he got everyone else dead wrong [even Angela, after hearing her speak and feeling her entire cast]. So long as he got Ian right, then it would be fine. There's probably also something to be said about how sweet that would be, but after having all the fucking braincells knocked out of his skull from the second person, he's not very poetic.

All that matters is that he guessed Ian correctly, and can still feel the two stripes of chalk on his cheek. [All that matters is that now there's a phantom warmth ghosting across his face, a replication of the gentle, almost loving strokes a distraction from the slight sting from everyone else's hands.]

Okok so I have an idea that just came to mind and I wanna know what you think about this

So I was thinking about darling in subordinate au what if they had a crush on dazai/chuuya (or both) at the beginning? I'd imagine they'd get bullied so badly for this

Tbh this is kinda like one of your posts with the yanderes going after a darling they previously rejected

Im gonna do chuuya for this because…i have a feeling i’ve discussed something about liking dazai for this au before…?

it’s easy to be fooled by chuuya at first sight, when you only notice his soft smile from a far distance away. and maybe, because of all the time you spent being crushed under dazai’s heel, it’s even easier to create a fantasy version of him in your head, and fall for him—hard. you tell yourself that if you worked hard enough, dazai would eventually have to let you go, or maybe if he gets tired of you, he’ll shift you over to someone else, maybe even chuuya. you liked to believe that he wouldn’t be so cruel and condescending, just for the little solace your imagination brought you. you liked to believe he would be a better boss, and an even better friend. 

of course, all your hopes are dashed when you actually meet him. for starters, chuuya rarely let go of his deep scowl, especially around you and dazai. suddenly, he was so much more intimidating, and the callous way he treated you, whether out of irritation or just because he knew kind treatment would only get dazai angry, only served to make you more terrified. he glares at you, and his words are sharp, painful; like he knows exactly how to get to you. this was far from the chuuya you saw all those days ago. dazai’s perceptive enough to catch on to your longing looks and the droop in your shoulders, and he’s simultaneously amused and annoyed by it. was he giving you so little work that you had time to be catching feelings?

regardless, you suffer. you bury yourself in the work dazai gives you in a pathetic attempt at trying to ignore the heartbreak, and the less you see chuuya, the easier it gets. you foolishly believe that that would be the end of it.

while you’re busy trying to make sure you don’t die while completing the tasks assigned to dazai, you fail to realize that someone else has noticed the lack of your presence. perhaps it’s because chuuya has begun to see you like an extension of dazai; the tail of his shadow, but it felt unnatural to see the taller man prance around the building without you dragging your feet behind him. he would have been stupid to not notice you gawking over him, and chuuya was far too perceptive to miss the dejected expression on your face every time you got remotely close to him, but he just didn’t care. it didn’t matter to him that you probably just wanted a friend—everyone here were barely managing to look out for themselves, let alone make friends, but the part that bothered him the most was how small you looked beside dazai. chuuya was no stranger to witnessing dazai’s more sadistic side, but somehow, he was infuriated by the thought that you could only ever obey the fool’s orders if you wanted to live. it bothered him even more that he couldn’t involve himself in any way, but he wouldn’t be caught dead pitying you. you deserved better than his pity. admiration, maybe for making it this far despite the cruel circumstances. sympathy, because he knew how hard it could be to deal with dazai, but not pity.

somewhere along the way, his feelings of admiration and sympathy and something else turns into a strange fascination, shows as an unexpected interest. he has an eye out for you all the time, just to make sure you aren’t dead in a ditch somewhere. his angry cursing focuses more on dazai and not on you. instead you’re graced with a strange half-smile, if only for a moment. some of the black lizard member, the ones who pick on you—dazai’s pet, as they like to call you, jeering—are found brutally beaten, half-dead and silent despite all demands to know who the attacker was. dazai giggles as he tells you this, like he knows something you don’t. then his voice goes cold and he reminds you that you’re only safe by his side, as his pet. better the devil you know, right? (not that you’d ever claim to know dazai). even mori regards you with slight apprehension, as if in disbelief over something. 

the question remains unasked; how did you, measly little thing, cause so much trouble?

chuuya’s acts go unnoticed by you, in fact, you don’t spare him the light of day, more on edge by dazai’s warnings and the strange way everyone seems to watch you. his attempts at conversation register to you as veiled threats, and you’re far too frightened by him to spend even a moment more lingering around him once you sense his presence. maybe the distance should disappoint him, but chuuya’s vague interest in you hasn’t developed that far yet. besides, it’s not too bad to watch over you from afar. 

once it does get worse, though, chuuya will try to clear up the misunderstandings. he demands for more of your time, insists that dazai can’t make use of you, stands up for you publicly and makes it clear that he disapproves of dazai’s treatment of you. anything to make you realize his intentions. 

I got thinking about pervert panty-sniffing Copia and it turned into two little ficlets. Minors, mind your business and don't interact. I block teenagers real quick.

Contains masturbation, non-consensual touching, non-con (only mentioned briefly), panty-sniffing, and breaking into reader's room. Reader has a cunt. Copia is a nasty pervert. 🫠

--

The thing about Cardinal Copia is that he's a chronic pervert. Just an absolute freak. Whether he's a nervous sub or a depraved dom, he's a hypersexual slut.

Your dirty panties? He needs those in his face, it's practically an addiction. You can lock your room if you want, but still, your underclothes would keep vanishing! Copia had a key cut long ago. Your pussy is his obsession, don't you know?

--

Submissive, nervy Copia does it surreptitiously. Furtively looking both ways down the hall before he produces his key and scurries inside before anyone can see him. He gets overcome with the scent of your room right away, immediately a little bit drunk on you; he forgets the time pressure right away. He definitely checked to make sure you were busy, and wouldn't be back for a little while, but he still told himself he'd be in and out. Not so. Now that he's in here? Ugh, he's completely enraptured again. After a long moment with his eyes closed, just breathing deeply, he bee-lines for your freshest pair of used undies. Maybe you left them in the bathroom after your shower in the morning, maybe he has to dig a little through your dirty laundry pile. He doesn't mind either way. So long as you've at least worn them recently — he wants them to still smell vividly of you.

Once that little pervert has his prize, he presses them to his nose with a deep sigh. Dear Satan, how he wishes he could have the real thing. He'd be palming himself at the thought, hard over just the smell of you. He'd be too far gone to have the sense to shove them in his pocket and run away — no. In this room, his mind is so clouded with thoughts of you, he doesn't even realise he's found his way to your bed until his knees are back against it, and he tumbles back into your sheets. He's frantically undoing his cassock to release his straining cock, and his head is utterly swirling with thoughts of you. Thoughts of being brave enough to draw you into his arms like he so yearns to. Thoughts of kissing you frantically in a shadowed alcove in the hall, squeezing every part of you he can get his hands at. Thoughts of you slipping into his side of the confessional booth to wrap your lips around his erection — he gets so hard when you tell him your salacious little stories! He wonders if you do it on purpose, if you know the effect you have on him (of course you do).

So he's in your bed, huffing away at your pretty little panties while he fists himself. He probably came in the morning, while you were still at breakfast, so these panties still have a delicious little spot of wetness on them, and when it touches his lips he groans and can't help but taste your essence, wishing he had the real thing over his face. You, sitting on him, drowning him in your juices...

It's enough to make his hips snap against his own fist, erratic now, jutting up urgently for his release. All his thoughts are of you, of finally having you, of lapping at your wetness that is all for him, savouring each drop of you while you're cumming on his face, grinding against him like a toy to be used.

Whining into your dirty panties, he spills himself over his undershirt, punctuated with a stuttered cry of your name. He'd lay there for a long moment, shuddering against your sheets, head in your pillow, just catching his breath, staring blankly up at the ceiling. Until reality started to sink back in. Ah, shit. He's yanking tissues out of a box on your nightstand, mopping up the worst of his spunk; that undershirt is definitely going to be stained. He scrunches up the tissues and stuffs them in his pocket — he won't leave that here, he doesn't want to leave obvious evidence of his obsession.

This isn't the first time he's gotten carried away — but he keeps telling himself he has to stop doing this! You'll catch him eventually, and then what? Then you'll never want him. He tells himself he has to stop. Maybe he can treat himself to a pair of your knickers, once or twice a week... but this is getting out of control.

He takes one last deep whiff of your panties before he shoves them into his pocket, and buttons his cassock back up. He clumsily tries to smooth out your bedding to make it look like it did before he masturbated on it like the filthy pervert he is. As he slips back out, grateful to find the hallway still empty, he muses that if he actually had you, he might actually go mad with lust. Just the scent of your cunt makes him wild enough.

--

Dominant, suave Copia, though? He doesn't need to sneak around to steal your used underclothes. He could have you if he wanted to, he's quite sure of that; he's seen the way you look at him, noted the way you flush red when he speaks to you. He could easily steal the sodden panties from your dripping cunt in a dark enough alcove — and he will, one day.

But it just gives him such a kick to rummage through your things without your knowledge. Sometimes he even does it in the dead of night on his way back to his own quarters, after you've already long retired for the night.

That's part of the thrill, seeing you fast asleep and so deliciously vulnerable. Maybe you'd invite him in if he knocked, but where's the fun in that?

The lock clicks so quietly, you wouldn't even stir. He'd pad in silently, and gently shut the door behind him before taking in the scene around him. Your room, your things, all swirling with the scent of you. He'd take a deep, appreciative breath through his nose, pausing to enjoy the aromas that are intrinsically you — he's in no rush, after all, and your room has a nearly intoxicating effect on him, moreso with you in it.

You, nestled in under your blankets. Your sleeping face so soft, so oblivious in the rays of gossamer moonlight that drape over you. The moonlight was made for you, he'd think, slinking towards your bed.

Copia is not a nervous man. His hands do not tremble when he reaches out and brush your hair behind your ear, just to reveal your throat to him. He would bring his lips so close to your neck, just hovering there to take you in, breathing slow and deep against you, marvelling at your sweet scent, the way it would fog up his mind just a little. He would just graze his moustache against you, so light you would barely feel it, but it would draw out the softest little moan from your lips. The sound of you would stoke the embers of his arousal — he wouldn't be able to help the way his palm would come against those sinfully, almost painfully tight pants of his.

He'll lose control one day, he thinks. Perhaps that is how you'll find out who nicks your knickers — you'll wake up to him stuffing a pair in your mouth before he wrenches your legs open to taste the real thing. You'd be terrified at first, he knows that, but he'd have you rutting on his face in no time at all.

But not tonight.

Copia would draw away from your sweet throat. He would even pull the blankets up over your shoulder, tucking you in so nicely — he cares for you, in his way, after all.

His prize would be hanging over the edge of your laundry basket. A red pair, how thoughtful of you to wear his favourite colour (and you did wear it for him, in the hopes that maybe, one day, he would rip them right off your body). Maybe they're still a little damp — he'd seen you wriggling in your pew during his evening mass. Had you still been wearing them when you had touched yourself afterwards?

He'd take that first delicious whiff, and he'd have to stop the guttural groan that would threaten to break the silence.

That was enough, he would decide, slipping your panties into his pocket. He didn't fancy you waking to him wanking in your laundry basket — no, when he woke you, it would be for your own exquisite pleasures.

Silently, he would creep back to your door, and back out into the hall.

Your name would be on his lips that night, your panties draped over his nose.

Asking because I’m extremely curious about this, how did MonProm’s writing get different over time? I remember you saying that the lore and characters feel different, and that it's missing sincere character interactions, too. I know almost nothing about the lore and I’ve only seen a few people mention the characters, so I’d be interested in a rundown of what aspects you think got worse in the series

I wouldn’t mind a very long response since I’m not that active in the fandom, I need to catch up on what happened

sorry for taking so long to answer this! i kinda waffled on it for a long bit, mainly because i started doubting myself again, and whether or not this was me simply overreacting or being tinted by nostalgia or simply being extremely picky and choosy in what i like (the last of which is true, i seldom get into fandoms at all for this reason and stay away from most popular media, but i wasn't sure if it applied here). i've posted about it already, but i'm in the middle of a psychotic episode where i can't feel a lot of pleasure to begin with + most things i do experience ending up solidly in the "very bad" category, so as you can imagine, i really didn't want to mislead and check that i was actually in objective reality.

as it is, this is also when a lot more screenshots started to be posted in the monster prom tag, and that helped me bridge the gap back into returning to the games themselves and feel like i was making a more accurate judgement. if you're one of those people who have been posting screenshots, i sincerely thank you, and i appreciated seeing you in the tag greatly.

for those not in the know — i've been in the monster prom fandom since it first released, prior to even the first additional ending to be added (the "Punch the sun" ending, and i recall the minor fandom drama that happened at that time due to it). my impression of monster prom is very much influenced by this, as what got me into the first game was the fact that the characters genuinely seemed to care for each other and were friends with each other (not merely tolerating each other's presences nor dressing it up, they sincerely thought of each other as friends and were open about that fact), on top of the wide variety of small details and statements that, if taken at face value, could create compounding complexity in the lives of each and every character and had wider implications for their lives.

no, they were not necessarily explored nor even necessarily "real", with so many conflicting events and statements, but i liked this too, because it meant a wider flexibility in what you could imagine, helping to create a more tailored experience for everyone who thought about these characters. this was what i liked about the early fandom too. what was baseline "canon" was so vague and minimal that you could have wildly different interpretations of the same characters' histories and relationships with each other. you would have radically different perspectives on what the world itself looked like, what it was like, that there wasn't really any wrong answers so long as their personalities remained the same. this is where you got the old headcanon of polly and liam being childhood friends who knew each other as humans, or that the world of monster prom was post-apocalypse where humanity itself had gone extinct or only existed in tiny pockets, or my personal headcanon that both monster and human society existed right next to each other and had minimal crossover for petty cultural reasons. this was also prior zoe-as-ro, and there were wildly different interpretations of zoe's personality, with most going for a far more disquieting creepy-cute than the deep nerd we got.

this is why you get stuff like the timeloop theory, where everyone is repeating the same weeks leading up to prom over and over, and are perhaps vaguely aware of it but broadly unconcerned. this is also why it felt like the joke that, the characters were still in high school but were all fully legal adults with most in their 20's, best landed, because it was absurd and strange and didn't quite make sense, but the world itself was inherently absurd and semi-malleable to begin with. realistically, i felt like everyone understood it was making fun of the trope of having adults play teenagers in american sitcoms and wildly casting outside the age range, but for more in-universe explanations it wasn't any different from the way that you would have a large, dramatic ending in which everything changed, but then you'd restart and everyone would be right back at the beginning with nothing different, or even having conflicting events in the same run. it was a dream-logic that fit with the tropes and, thus, diagetically made sense.

to be clear, i don't mind canon having a set, well, canon on which it refers back to itself. i don't mind expanding that or including more things which are set in stone. but there was a perceivable shift in how the games handled this over time, becoming a lot more... bitter, it felt, towards all of these different branching ideas and concepts that, yeah, the people making them knew wouldn't necessarily be "canon" because "canon" already liked to contradict itself so much. most people weren't even sold on any one idea, and there was a much greater sense of enjoying and appreciating all the varying ideas people would come up with even if you personally didn't share them. making the characters be out of character was the real crime, because then it didn't diagetically make sense in the same way, didn't wholly fit.

(again, this is not to say fanon didn't happen and characters weren't smoothed down into a simplified personality that fit these varying fan-interpretations instead of the game itself. certainly damien love/lust was just as bad as it had ever been, and everyone loved to mangle his character into a more stereotypical "bad boy with a heart of hold" all the time. but it certainly felt less set-in-stone about it than it does now, with any deviation from the norm being considered strange and odd and even broadly shunned from the wider fandom.)

all of this is setup for establishing what the writing, lore, and characters felt like in the earlier days. the characters were the strongest part, with their relationships to each other being equally as important. the lore played it fast and loose and was far less interested in setting anything in concrete because that wasn't the important part. the lore wasn't the important part, which was what made it all the more intoxicating to think about, all the more fun to play with.

montrip is easily the biggest offender when it comes to setting everything in all-or-nothing terms and demanding absolutism from the world. broadly i blame the hitchhiker conversations for the worst of it, but i think ultimately the way they handled the entire premise of the game is where this problem stems from. it's not really an exploration in the same sense that you might explore the first game, discovering different perspectives and different people with different relationships to each other. it's an exploration in the sense of a sequel that over-explains the monster, that takes the most boring option out of all those that were possible and floating around and settles on something that was blatant, obvious, typically rejected not because of how novel it is but how trite and par for the course it is in the rest of the genre.

yeah, okay. humans know nothing about monsters and there's a "monster dimension" that exists separately from the human dimension. there's no crossover between the two of them. of course there's a big grand-scale fight between the eldritch powers that zoe used to be a part of, from which not only are slayers the main organization against them, but also the merkingdom has some horse in this race too. it's an urge to make things so universal in explaining them, in revealing connecting threads which unite everything that's ever happened in here, that makes the worldbuilding and lore immediately much more boring than it ever was before.

and it didn't have to be this way! nothing in the first game contradicts any of this too explicitly (see the above, the first game loves to contradict itself), and i would even be happy if this was basically canon but never stated or confirmed to be the big overarching everything going on underneath it all. i believe you should probably know these things about any world that you create and have them in the back of your mind. the difference is that you can know these things and keep them in mind, even focusing on things where its very relevant, and still not reveal them. this is why you have lore bibles, after all. every horror writer knows exactly how their monster works and the full underlying reason for everything that happens, but that doesn't mean the audience will see it or possess this same information too, and leaving it intentionally obscure will make far better stories.

which, this is bad enough, but it wouldn't be the breaking point for me if this was all there was.

but the worst thing of all has to be the slow decay of the very same characters that sold me on this world, this lore, this game in the first place. monster prom is nothing without the characters in it. it's a dating sim, it has nothing but characters to get you to play, and liking these characters are the entire reason anyone would pick up monster prom in the first place.

and the first game pulls this off extremely well. it's all in the tagline: be your worst self. they are, indeed, all terrible people. yes, even that character that you just thought of right now. they all have points in the game where they commit atrocities, where they kill or hurt people, where they do inexcusable things that could not be ignored in a more serious setting.

but that's the point. i think there's something very powerful in creating a character who not only do you love and love their personality and the way they interact with the world, but who also are inapologetically terrible, and to have the humor and the charisma be so good that you don't get bogged down in the "this is awful". likewise, it never feels the urge to really go out of its way to justify what's going on. this is not to say theres no discussion of if someone "deserved it", but usually there's still the sense that the joke is on them, that this is still an extreme reaction specifically for comedy and not necessarily something that can be justified. you can have damien set leonard on fire and have it feel earned, without prompting the needed reaction of what it's actually like to watch someone burn to death.

this is what sets the prank masterz ending apart from the rest of the game, and really establishes it as the first real "bad ending". because nothing that you do or happens in the prank masterz ending is any different from anything else that happens in any other run. you summon evil beings from other dimensions as a throwaway gag on how visiting one location raises your stats. you kill other people and damn them to terrible fates. you watch as body horror happens. the only difference is that, in the prank masterz ending, the laugh track doesn't play.

the rest of the game and the writing echoes this philosophy, this careful interplay of tropes that keeps everything tongue in cheek and yet sincere enough to make sure emotional beats still land when they're needed. the characters feel true to themselves and their own emotions, even when the world is extreme and excessive, when everything else runs on comedy logic.

this is also what i noticed failing first as time went on.

like i said, fanon has always existed and there's always been very specific ideas as to what characters are like in the same way fanon always flattens down characters into the same tropes over and over. scott is stupid and innocent and doesn't know what sex is. damien is violent and hot and too cool for anyone else. miranda is the idiot girl character. repeat over and over and over until you get sick of it.

but it's been an issue as time has crept on that canon has started to approach fanon and began to merge with it. now, scott is so innocent that he can't even curse. polly starts being mean to her friends and saying things that would be very hurtful to hear. the merkingdom isn't really super evil and fucked up, it's just miranda that's like that. they become simpler, easier to digest, streamlined for social media posts and mass-sharing. they become less and less subversions of existing tropes and moreso just another example of them, something else to add to the collection, not their own individual stories.

even further from this, what more complex traits they had are now stated and not shown. polly is stated to be smart and clever in a way that her party girl persona doesn't imply and to be sincerely rather down to earth with the people she cares about, but we seldom ever see this anymore unless its the game specifically trying to make a point about it, in which case it won't let her do anything that implies cleverness and moreso will just outline it in the narration. vera is stated to care for people in a very genuine and heartfelt way, but seldom will get a chance to do so, and every opportunity for her to do so to their faces is missed while she will just outright state it later. it does not feel consistent, it does not feel like any of these are intended reads of their actions. it feels like the devs have something they want to do but no idea on how to actually do so. and forget it if you want these traits to manifest in small ways that show up in unrelated moments and scenes.

the dialogue becomes harder and harder to tell between each speaker, if you are just looking at what's said and not at the pictures attached to it. the characters' distinct voices have been eroded away, so that they speak more and more like each other, relaying the same terms and ideas in the same words. perspective becomes a suggestion, instead of a must.

this is something that started back in monster camp too, as all of the endings in that game felt ultimately the same as every other ending. it's very hard to place or define the full reason why, why there feels like there's no emotional stakes nor investment, why everything feels moreso like selecting different coats of paint and trying to find all the different ending pictures rather than being interested in exploring the characters as characters.

stranger yet, the series that started with the tagline of "be your worst self" has experienced a kind of... softening, for lack of a better word? what i mentioned about being able to handle the balance between terrible people who do terrible things and the light tone of the game starts to change, as abruptly the same characters who were down with violent murder in the first game start to lose their nerve, acting more and more on more typical morality. it's one of those things that feels like it's starting to damage the tone, as abruptly it's not as absurd as it used to be, demands less suspension of disbelief which could buffer and support the rest of the setting on it. there's even a part in one of the endings in montrip which involves current-polly and current-scott looking back on their monprom selves and reacting in horror at how violent and careless their pranks are, in a way that fundamentally felt like it was undercutting and disparaging all the things that felt fun and made monprom what it was.

which is odd, really, because more and more i feel like the characters in these games like each other less and less. the friendships and genuine enjoyment of each others company that brought me to this game in the first place has gone. now they don't mention each other as much, don't care for each other's feelings and reactions as much, aren't as willing to support each other. they are more and more found on their own, relied on their own, seem to seek out contact and interaction with their own friends less and less. it feels like they're all separating out into their own worlds, but also feels like they wouldn't willingly want to interact with each other if they weren't already forced together by some other outside contrivance.

if anything, i'd compare it to every other dating sim out there, where you, the player, are the most important person in these characters' lives, and they only feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards every other character. which, again, is not why i picked up monster prom or why i liked it so much in the first place.

and it's because of this that it feels like the current state of the series has to focus on its increasingly weak worldbuilding and lore, trying to form a more serious foundation without character relationships being so tightly bound together, without the characters themselves being more developed and rich, without an aspect of absurd humor to rely on.

more and more i've noticed monprom has to rely on referencing other series to make itself funny and create humor, which, again, it's always done. it was just easier to ignore back then, if you didn't know what was being referenced, because there was always more going on in the exact same scene to bolster it and give context clues as to the setup and punchline at play. it feels like the current games are much more dependent on you knowing pop culture references in order to have any fun with it, and i'm someone who, again, is very picky in what i like or what i'll seek out. i'm not interested in a stream of references about other things that i would much rather be doing than playing through a game that feels like it hates that i like it at all, when i could, again, just be engaging with the thing that takes itself seriously and knows what it wants.

present and young helena (aleksey's great aunt)

watching a thing that's going through why someone enjoys doctor who, and it's gone on a little tangent about why romance on doctor who doesn't work (in their opinion, and in mine), and how it made s2 and s7b the creator's least favourite -- and while I would need to rewatch s7b to remember that, I do think that the-doctor-and-rose at least doesn't have to be read as romantic if one doesn't want to

which isn't to say it wasn't intended as such, and also that it was somewhat based in dtennant and billie piper and jenna coleman and (to some) matt smith being hot (sorry matt smith, he looks like a teenage boy, the dichotomy is not hot or ugly, it's does-or-does-not-look-like-a-teenager), which is kind of *sigh yeah okay you're appealing to the people who think people are hot so they wanted a bit of that sexy sexy romance (I guess)*

however I don't think that things that are romance-coded need to be engaged with on that level, as someone who's had to make that translation many many times, and I think especially with the doctor-as-character, including and especially ten when one reads ten as being projected onto, it's actually incredibly fun not to/not even really a translation so much as a textually supported read

what's especially good about the doctor and rose dynamic is specifically that the doctor never gives rose the exact thing she's looking for, and that part of the doctor's heartbreak is that he can't -- take that as a "because I'm immortal and you're not," if you want (and that's also a textually supported read), but it's also very very easily read as "because what you want and what I can give is not compatible so that I will always end up letting you down like I do everyone, and I would rather you be happy than assert what I might want, and in the end everyone leaves for one reason or another"

which... the doctor basically says to wilf. they leave. they find someone else and fall in love. they forget. they break the doctor's heart. not just rose, but everyone. rose is simply the first to remind the doctor of this fact after bringing him back after a massive traumatic event

and I think it elevates s2, which I've now seen a couple of people go "oh because of the romance it's one of my least favourite seasons," which is so fascinating to me, because s2 isn't at all about a romance through my eyes. it is for rose, because she's in love with the doctor, romantically, and that's part of her tragedy, as a mortal, as someone who's in love with her doctor and doesn't want that doctor to go or to change or to... be alien, perhaps (now I do reach, but it's open to reaching) -- and who is growing up throughout, as the first person one sees grow up in nu!who

and the doctor is constantly struggling for words: tell rose... oh she knows. and i suppose. if it's my last chance to say it. rose tyler...

rose tyler essentially brought the doctor back, made the doctor fall in love with the universe again, and brought back a childlike wonder that the doctor had had before the timewar, and how do you encompass that into simple human concepts of "romantic" or "platonic" and know

that this person is romantically in love with you in a very human way

that there is an end-point to this, which is something this person will never fully grasp until it's happened (or that person is dead)

that you do not age. that you change. that you are aliene

that you are fundamentally, always, left on your own in the end

that you have put all of your sense of your new self onto this person and it will eventually fuck everything up

so yeah, there's some heavy-duty emotional subtext in s2, but because of the deliberate lack of clarity given to that subtext, it's very very easy to take it in various kinds of directions. of course rose and the doctor are Like That in s2, they're living a little fairytale life that's about to fall to pieces (something the doctor knows, but won't admit, and rose doesn't fully understand or believe)

when rose asks the doctor how long they'll travel and the doctor says "forever," it's absolutely 100% a lie, and that is... very tragic... thinking back to their first scenes together, which were incredibly simply sweet, and you know it's stretching thinner and thinner in ways I don't think you see with any other companion

the thing is I do personally think that rose as the romantic arc makes rose less interesting than she is, and that's a flaw in the show, but I think giving hers and the doctor's run a slightly different eye, that is absolutely supported by the canon, also opens up all of her other traits, that make her so iconic -- only seeing rose through the lens of romance does her a disservice, there is a bunch more going on there in s2...

but like yeah, I get that there was some david tennant so-called sex appeal, which, yeah whatever, and billie piper was a former famous popstar, and people also do ship them romantically (and that's fine), but I think to focus on that aspect in order to say why rose isn't appealing kind of ignores everything else she is and represents on the show for something you can just read in another way easily and more interestingly and supported by the text

like people will throw around "asexual doctor" but I don't think they know enough about aromanticism (which is what they really mean) to understand how to read that in a text. deeply symbiotic relationships can be aromantic, can be platonic, and can be one-sided or messed up or or...

embrace the symbiosis of the doctor and rose in s2 that is inherently also kind of fucked up and doomed because of their deliberate blinkered perspective of the future even after the sarah-jane episode and the madame du pompadour episode which are screaming at them that things are ending soon!!! It's compelling stuff. it's not necessary to read it as romantic

give rose tyler her due as the ghost that haunts the narrative

Thinking about an AU featuring Incubus Steve who feeds off the sexual pleasure of others (he doesn't technically have to be the source of said pleasure, just nearby, but the meal is more filling and satisfying if he's the one causing it)

and idk how it would come up/how they'd find out but somehow people in the know about upside down stuff are also in the know about Steve and eventually that includes Billy

and Billy notices that Steve isn't doing well after the events of s2 and eventually confronts him about it

and it turns out that Steve has been having a hard time keeping himself fed since his break up with Nancy because maybe she said some stuff to him in the bathroom scene that is making him feel like, idk guilty or whatever for feeding on people that dont know what he is/what he's doing

and Billy tries to convince him that that's bullshit, because its not like Steve's making anyone sleep with him and its not like anyone gets hurt by being fed on by him but Steve's just can't really get out of this negative headspace about it.

So Billy basically says Steve can feed on him, and since he knows what Steve is and is agreeing to all that it should be fine.

But Billy thinks that this is all just a survival need thing for Steve, so he winds up trying to "but no homo" the situation bc he's scared.

And Steve believes Billy's just trying to keep him from starving and that no way he actually is interested in anything more than that with him.

So for a while its just this stupid mutual pining situation where they have regular sessions where Billy gets himself off near Steve and they both want more from each other but think this is all that the other one wants and dont want to risk scaring each other off by asking for any more.

Steve has never been so simultaneously well fed and sexually/romantically frustrated in his life. Its a very confusing combo for him.

also idk what other powers incubus are associated with but itd be cool if he had some fun abilities and/or monster features

Nah okay I’ve been playing bg3 and it’s good, but I’ve kinda been like. :/ because a lot of the games feels unfinished to me, but seeing posts about wyll and Karlach (my two main characters I have in my party aside from Shadowheart, who i thought her story was just progressing really fast?) and realizing that oh, this isn’t a broader pacing speed in the game or a broader level of the game not being finished, it’s a wyll (and somewhat karlach) thing. Ah. Like Mercury kissed Wyll at the tiefling party, but Wyll hasn’t had any new dialogue options since, and I’m halfway through the underdark??? Also I completely missed his side quest with his father, companion quests should not be that easily missed!!

I was rlly surprised with how fast the dialogue trees are exhausted in this game in general tbh, it’s quite limited so far compared to its peers in the genre. Also this is a personal gripe but i hate that they don’t have clearly labeled when a dialogue has a “flirt” tag, i got to the tiefling party scene and literally everyone propositioned my character, despite the fact i was only flirting with astarion and wyll. Adding a little heart at the end of flirtatious dialogue options doesn’t break immersion it literally just clarifies the tone the line is written in 😭

Also the character creator got so much hype, but legit it was the most disappointing customization I’ve seen in a hot sec. Like dai (a game from a decade ago) and Elden ring (a game where you don’t even see ur characters face nearly ever) both had far more advanced customization, and like. Even that wasn’t enough when it comes to representation. Also like dhgjkg for a game that advertised its ~risqué~ content, a) it’s quite tame, and b) you can’t even pick your chest size? 🤨 (which again, is not even getting into the extreme limitations w different body sizes and shapes)

Like it’s a fun game and I’m enjoying myself, but like. For a game that swept at the award season and costed me eighty bucks, I kinda feel like the game should feel finished, let alone have some level of polish. (Also also im glad it’s getting the content updates it clearly needs, but it’s insane that it won GAME OF THE YEAR! and is still getting base game content updates???!??? I really hate the trend it’s emblematic of in the industry tbhhh)

There is a frog under your bed.

“You’re not a very good monster,” you tell it. You’re lying on your belly on the dark floor. The carpet scratches at your chin. “Monsters have teeth, and they eat little kids right up!” Your dad always said so anyway.

“Why should I be a monster?” asked the frog. “Other things can be under the bed. Like that Lego.” It’s true, there is a Lego brick hiding behind the bedpost. But you already knew that Lego was there. You hadn’t known about the frog.

“Monsters are things that live under the bed uninvited,” you tell the frog. The frog’s eyes twitch in your direction, his throat puffing doubtfully.

“So the dust bunnies are monsters?” The frog asks. “They don’t have teeth either.”

“No!” You smack the flat of your hand against the floor in frustration. “Monsters don’t belong under the bed! Monsters don’t belong anywhere!”

“Then why are you looking under the bed for them?” The frog asks.

You don’t know the answer. You start to cry. There are footsteps in the hallway. “Kiddo?” It’s your mom’s voice. She opens the door. “What are you doing out of bed? Are you ok?”

“There’s a frog under the bed!” you tell her through your tears.

“A frog!” She picks you up, and sits down on the edge of the bed with you in her arms. “But frogs are nice! They catch insects and say, ‘Ribbit ribbit!’. A frog under the bed is a friend!”

“This one doesn’t say ribbit ribbit,” you say sullenly, though your tears are drying. “It just asks questions.”

“What kind of questions?” your mom asks.

“I don’t know,” you mumble, “About monsters.”

“Well if the frog is asking you about monsters it must not have found any under the bed,” your mother says. “I’ll bet it keeps good watch for you.”

You don’t know if that’s a very satisfying answer, but you can tell your mom wants it to be. You nod.

“Ready to go back to bed?” your mom asks.

“Yeah,” you say. You climb out of her lap and she tucks you in and kisses your forehead and tells you to sleep tight. After she’s left the room and closed the door, you hang your head off the edge of the bed and look underneath. The frog is still there.

“You should go live under Mom’s bed,” you tell it, “She needs a friend.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t a very good monster,” the frog says.

“It’s ok,” you say. “Did you eat any bugs?”

“Just some gnats,” says the frog.

“Oh.”

There’s a brief, companionable silence. The blood is rushing into your head and making your face feel too full.

“You know,” the frog says eventually, “You have a mouthful of good strong teeth. And you don’t belong under the bed.”

You consider this. Slowly, you let your body slither out from under the sheets and onto the floor. Careful to land lightly so your mom doesn’t know you’re up to something.

“Do I have to eat little kids right up?” You ask softly.

“I think that’s optional,” says the frog. “The important thing is to make fearsome noises and snatch at ankles.” The frog holds up a webbed foot. “I’m not good at that last one.”

“Can I help then?” you ask. The frog nods solemnly. “And you’ll eat the bugs? And the spiders?” you ask. The frog nods again.

“It’s in my nature,” it says.

Very, very quietly, you reach up onto the bed and take down your teddy and your blanket. And then you crawl under your bed on your belly. It’s dark.

“Welcome, little monster,” says the frog. You smile. And hiss. And curl up in your blanket. And sleep.