Hey guys! As a writer myself, it’s hard to have a lot of resources for writing in one place. That’s why I decided to create this masterpost, and maybe make more if I find future resources. I hope you like it, and expect to see more masterposts like this in the future!
ZenPen: A minimalist writing website to keep you free of distractions and in the flow.
The Most Dangerous Writing App: A website where you have to keep typing or all of your writing will be lost. It helps you keep writing…kind of. You can choose between a time or word count limit!
Evernote: An online website where you can take notes and save the product to your laptop and/or smartphone!
Writer, the Internet Typewriter: It’s just you and your writing, and you can save your product on the website if you create an account.
Wordcounter: A website to help check your word and character count, and shows words you’re using frequently.
Monospace: An Android app for writing on the go when you feel the inspiration, but you don’t have your laptop on you!
For Productivity
Tide: An app that combines a pomodoro-esque timer with nature sounds and other noises! (Google Play / Apple Store)
ClearFocus: An Android app with a pomodoro-type time counter to let you concentrate easier and stay productive.
Forest: An app with a time counter to keep you focused and off your phone, and when you complete the time limit, a tree grows in your garden! (Google Play / Apple Store)
SelfControl: A Mac downloadable app that blocks you from distracting mail servers, websites, and other things!
“In my personal experience, women raise their voices because they feel like they aren’t being listened to. Men raise their voices because they feel like they aren’t being obeyed”
This is Arwen, she’s a Husky/Kelpie mix and a little Asshole:
“I wonder if she can jump?” my dad asks the first five minutes we have her. She perks up at the word, and clears a six-foot fence form sitting on the ground. “Oh.” Says dad. “Shit.”
Later that night she got up on the counter and ate three pounds of corned beef in roughtly 68 seconds but this was considered part of the learning curve of having a new dog.
I wake up at 4 AM to the sound of the toilet being flushed repeatedly in the hall bathroom, and assume plumbing is now posessed by angry and wasteful ghosts. I get up to disconnet it and find her in the Bathroom, standing to flush the bowl, then shoving her head in to drink the running water. I’m not totally awake, so I stand there like an idiot trying to understand this, and my sister gets up to see what the noise is, sees the same thing and also stands there. Fiance notices my absence and does the same. Mom eventually wakes up and finds us standing around like very confused zombies and almost joins the parade of baffled zombies before shreiking “THE WATER BILL!” We got her a circulating water bowl after that.
My parent’s don’t have AC, but they haveone of those “fridge on top, pull-out-freezer below” fridges. Last summer, we were remarking that we might need to shave her so she didn’t get heatstroke, to which she looked up and made a disgusted noise at us. …Then got up, used the dishrag to pull open the freezer and climbed on top of the frozen vegetables, stretching out and sighing contentedly. “Arwen,” Mom began, but was interrupted by a loud ‘WHAAAaaaaarrr?” from Arwen. “Ok you can stay there for now but we’re getting you a kiddie pool so you have to get out when we get back. Don’t eat anything.” She ate a bag of frozen green beans and farted for three days straight.
Took her walking along the lake with the long lead so she could sniff things to her hearts content. She went about shoving her head in the undergrowth, usually coming up with her head covered in leaves and pollen.
Except for the bush where she came back out with a 7-foot Bull Snake wrapping itself around her ehad and neck, trying it’s best to strangle her before she can eat it. She immediately ran back to me, the parts of her face not occupied with the snake arranged in a gleeful expression of “Look! I found Snacks!”
I screamed, not immediately regognizing that it wasn’t a rattler, and fell, splitting my knee on a rock. The screaming made her let go of the snake, but I still had to grab her and wrestle the snake off her because it lacked the sense to just scuttle away. I finaly got it lose from her (Despite her best effort to continue trying to eat it and turned around to fling it off the trail-
-And directly into the face of one of my 90-year-old neighbors who’d come out to see what the screaming and profanity was, making her collapse.
I’m pretty sure being told “I accidentally threw a snake at my neighbor.” was the highlight of that EMT’s day. Dottie was unharmed but she still doesn’t speak to me.
One day, we left her in a Harness and overhead tether in the (at the time) unfanced back yard so she could enjoy some relatively free-range outdoors time. I walked by the window not a minute later to find her completely GONE, and race out to the yard to find her. It took me a good heart-pounding five minutes to realize the overhead tether was goign UP into the ancient silver maple and realized that 1. Arwen can apparently do something really weird with her shoulders where they pop out sideways, allowing her to bear-hug the tree and 2. climb a good 40 feet into the three to fight 3. A porcupine, which i didn’t even know LIVED out here.
Fortunately, Porcupines weigh considerably less than Awen and she couldn’t get a good enough foothold to get all the way up to it, but I still had to climb up there and lower her down, barking dog profanities at the porcupine the whole way.
My parents recently acquired a mechanized recliner which has been instumental inmom’s hip surgery recovery. Execpt that Awen Also likes lounging on the furniture, and is more than capable of hitting a large, elder-friendly button with her paw. So now when she gets back from a walk or the dog park she makes a beeline for the living room, get in the recliner and pushes the button until it’s flat and stretches out in it.
My parents didn’t have a problem with this because she gets out of the chair when they ask her (Mom even tells her “Go get my chair ready” in winter because she does a good job pre-warming it), until last winter when Arwen taught my dog Charlie, another devoted couch animal how to do this.
One afternoon there was a tremendous outburst fo barkign and snarling from the living room and we rished in to find both dogs in the recliner, Charlie on the fully-reclined back and Arwen on the elevated seat and foot rest, bellowing at eachother for control of the recliner, thier movments having pitched it back to it’s two hind feet, the device swaying to and fro like a leather covered boat upon the high seas, a furry mutiny on board. Neither dog was willing to yeild the plush throne, nor to listen to the humans yelling at them to knock it the hell off, until Arwen tackled the usurper, kocking him off and managing to cantaleiver the recliner clean over, flipping it into the hall, both dogs and all humand miraculously unharmed.
She still doesn’t let him sit in it.
I love her so much.
(If you got a laugh out of this, please consider donating to my Tip Jar or Paypal to get Arwen (and Charlie!) nice treats)
Evening reblog with an additional Shenanigan I just remembered:
One of the regulars at the dog park was an unfixed basset hound with an obnoxiously indifferent owner. “Brad” shows up pretty much to smoke weed and let “Bojangles” harass the other dogs, in spite of regular complaints about Bo starting fights and trying to mount every dog, leg, and toddler in sight.
One evening, Bo was particularly interested in Arwen, aggressively following her, nipping her heels and trying to mount her, even after her usual wolverine-like Snap’n’Snarl, which has tended to discourage unwanted suitors before. Brad was Too Damn High to notice, as usual, but mom knew that if Arwen actually bit Bo, Arwen would be the one in trouble and was trying to call her when Bo made yet another attempt and Arwen finally had it.
Instead of rightfully tearing his face off, Arwen instead did what Mom described as “A Judo-style front-flip” that pulled Bo clean off the ground and threw him on his back, Arwen landing on her feet like a cat. Bo’s stubby little legs didn’t allow him to right himself before Arwen jumped on him, front paws slamming into his saggy basset balls, squatted over his face, and peed on him.
“ARWEN NO!!” howled my mother as nearly everyone else present laughed, but having made her point, Arwen daintily got off Bo, and trotted to the gate, ready to go home. Bo yelped but got up and skulked away, only moderately bruised, cowering under the bench by Brad, who finally noticed something might be amiss.
Mom remembers hearing “Dude, why is my dog all wet?” right as they were leaving. Apparently nobody told him what happened, becuase Brad still brings Bo to the park, but Bo has much better manners now.
I read this whole thing to my mom and upon reading the end part she was like “OH MY GOD! Our dog Lady once flipped another dog and I didn’t know it was a thing dogs could do!!”
So there’s that.
Update: Arwen was at the vet’s office for a check-up and daycare, and decided partway through the afternoon that the other two kelpies were annoying her, but she didn’t want to go inside to be kenneled for a nap, so she instead…
…ninja’d her way onto the vet’s roof despite there being three people in the yard watching the dogs and no clear way up there. She had a pleasant hour of watching the vet staff try to figure out how she did that and how they were going to get her down before mom came to pick her up.
“Arwen, get your furry butt down here!”
At which point Arwen obidently got down by jumping into a nearby tree that’s technically inside a neighboring house’s yard, shimmied down that like a bear, then walked out of their side yard and back around the block to come sit at Mom’s feet, putting her paws up like she expected a treat.
That tree is not accessible from the daycare yard. We still have no idea how she got up there.
Shine on you beautiful bitch.
This just gets better and better every time i see it
I…
I have fostered doggos for a good majority of my life and my brain simply cannot process half of the bullshit in this post…
1. She’s a mix of two extremely smart breeds 2. She’s a mix of two extremely energetic breeds 3. The inmates trained her to do lots of “Extracirriculars” like veritcal leaps, how to climb chain-link fence, agility courses, physical-comedy type tricks becuase they finished teaching her the regular Service Dog Cirriculum and wanted to keep working with her. 4. Due to said Extrcirriculars, she doesn’t have any fear of heights, strangers, animals, or the nonsense of other dogs.
She does do the Professional Service Animal thing when we put her vest on, but then she’s working and has things to do like teaching social skills to people or being a living stress ball to someone having a bad time, so all that brains, energy and training can be put towards a productive end, but if she hasn’t got an active job, Shenanigans Ensue.
anyways……. shout out to all the ace people this pride month. ur sexuality deserves to be accepted alongside the rest of us. i love yall so much, and i want yall to know that there’s a whole community here who loves you too.
where are those startups that are disrupting the glasses industry
zenni and it’s amazing and i love it 40 dollar bifocals fuck yeah
Hey I’m reblogging this again because if you need glasses here’s what I do:
Go to Costco/Sams Club/WalMart - wherever they’ve got that $58 eye exam. That’s with no insurance, btw. Just $58 cash on the counter, you get your eyes examined.
They’ll give you a copy of your prescription. ASK THE DOCTOR TO MEASURE YOUR PUPIL DISTANCE. If they don’t it’s not a huge deal, you just have to have a ruler around that has millimeters so you can measure it yourself and it won’t be as accurate but being off by as much as a centimeter isn’t a problem.
Make them give you a copy of your prescription - you are allowed to have this, they have to give you it, you don’t have to buy glasses there. If anyone challenges you say you need a copy for your records and you’re not going to buy glasses today.
Go to https://www.zennioptical.com/ and start looking at frames/glasses that you like. If you create an account it’ll let you upload a photo and based on your pupil distance the site will estimate how well various frames will fit you.
Add the frames you like to cart and start checking out - the checkout process will ask you for your RX details that will be written in the boxes on your RX page. It’s pretty intuitive to copy it over but if you get lost use the livechat feature on the zenni page.
Start selecting your glasses details. Your RX will determine what kind of lens you get (go with the one zenni recommends for materials and thickness) but your needs will determine the other stuff. I make sure to get the fancy oleophobic coating because I’m a slimy bog monster. I also get the cheapest pair of sunglasses possible because bog monsters hate the sun. You can get transitions lenses or anti-scratch coating or super lightweight lenses or whatever works best for you. The extras will add up in cost but you gotta do what you gotta do - my life is much better with a pair of sunglasses than it is with some clip-ons for my regular glasses; your life may be better with transitions lenses instead of carrying a second set of glasses. DO WHAT WORKS BEST FOR YOU.
Don’t bother paying the rush shipping, this is going to take two weeks regardless.
GLASSES ARRIVE. WEAR GLASSES.
If the fit isn’t perfect see if the place that did your eye exam will adjust the fit for you. They often will free of charge.
GLASSES. GLASSES. I CAN SEE.
PROGRESSIVE BIFOCALS THAT COST $40 WITH CUTE FRAMES AND NICE COATING.
SUNGLASSES.
FUCK
It costs less for me to get two pairs of bifocals, one tinted and one clear, with special coatings and nice frames than it would cost me to get one pair of single-vision glasses from Warby Parker.
The cheapest frames available for adults on Lenscrafter’s site is $69.95. That is JUST the frames, not the lenses. The lenses are like $200. The anti-glare coating is like $70. THE ANTI GLARE COATING IS FREE AND INCLUDED WITH YOUR PURCHASE AT ZENNI. Just the frames and the coating at lenscrafters costs more than my two pairs of glasses AND my eye exam.
I can’t articulate how many literal headaches Zenni has saved me because I just used to wear my old prescription until I had trouble keeping my eyes open from the strain. Now at the first hint of eye strain it’s like “Not today, Satan!” and I can plan for the $100 expense that’s going to last me potentially years.
Obligatory reminder that a ton of people have added but still, Zenni and other likewise sites (1-800-Contacts) require the prescription be up to date within a year. So yeah plan that in, any time you shop, that script has to be from within the last year.
I would also like to submit glassesshop.com because, though I shopped Zenni exclusively from 2012-2017, in the last six months I have gotten four pairs of glasses from GlassesShop, and still paid less than a hundred dollars.
The key difference for me was that while Zenni was utterly eye opening (ha, eye pun), they rarely do sales, and GlassesShop is constantly rolling through a variety of sales. There is almost always a wide selection of glasses on Buy One Get One Free promotion, and the free pair includes the lenses, no matter what add ons are on there or whatever kinda prescription you got, as long as its the less expensive pair.
They also do weekly specials where rotating selections of frames go on clearance-rate pricing, from $6.95-12.95. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the constant variety of sales, promotions, and discounts they offer, and doesn’t include that, also unlike Zenni, if you have an account every purcahse you make accrues points which can be applied in dollar amount to future purchases, even with discounts/sales/promos also applied.
Like Zenni, GlassesShop lets you upload a selfie to “try on” frames you’re interested in, but they have a much wider selection and variety. They take about the same amount of time as Zenni to craft and ship your glasses, and they’re on par as far as quality and accuracy of prescription goes.
I will always be grateful to Zenni for opening the door for me on the online glasses market, because as someone netting less than 20k a year after taxes glasses used to be a “upon pain of death/causing a car accident from blindness” purchase but have become a “well that’s a great sale and I LOVE those frames… I guess I could do with another pair of glasses, there’s $30-50 in my budget!” kind of thing, and that’s incredible.
But I probably won’t be switching back, as after having made multiple purchases, the only thing I like better about Zenni compared to GlassesShop is Zenni has better cleaning cloths.
Regardless, they’re two excellent, amazingly affordable alternatives to spending minimum of $100 at a brick and mortar glasses store, and I’ve turned into something of a proselytizer for both, because people deserve to know they have these options.
It’s bad enough we’re out here paying to see, but too many of us don’t realize we could be paying a lot less to see, and in the cutest glasses best suited to our tastes, instead of whatever’s “cheap” at WalMart.
also gonna throw out eyebuydirect, which does some great sales. I’ve gotten prescription glasses as cheap as $6 and prescription sunglasses for $20.
Ordered from both Zenni and Eyebuydirect before and a great experience every time. I just bought two new pairs from Eyebuydirect. I upgraded to their blue filtering lenses (didn’t expect a huge difference but woah, it was definitely worth the upgrade) and with the sale going on, I paid less than $60.
eyebuydirect is legit
though I still remember the chuckle I got when that resident asked if I had warby parkers and I told him where they really came from
An old and homely grandmother accidentally summons a demon. She mistakes him for her gothic-phase teenage grandson and takes care of him. The demon decides to stay at his new home.
It isn’t uncommon for this particular demon to be summoned—from
exhausting Halloween party pranks in abandoned barns to more legitimate (more
exhausting) ceremonies in forests—but it has to admit, this is the first time
it’s been called forth from its realm into a claustrophobic living room bathed
in the dull orange-pink glow of old glass lamps and a multitude of wide-eyed,
creepy antique porcelain dolls that could give Chucky a run for his money with
all of their silent, seething stares combined. Accompanying those oddities are
tea cup and saucer sets on shelves atop frilly doilies crocheted with the
utmost care, and cross-stitched, colorful ‘Home Sweet Home’s hung across the wood-paneled
walls.
It’s a mistake—a wrong number, per se. No witch it’s ever
known has lived in such an, ah, dated,
home. Furthermore, no practitioner that ever summoned it has been absent, as if
they’d up and ding-dong ditched it. No, it didn’t work that way. Not at all.
Not if they want to survive the encounter.
It hears the clinking of movement in the room adjacent—the kitchen,
going by the pungent, bitter scent of cooled coffee and soggy, sweet sponge
cakes, but more jarring is the smell of blood. It moves—feels something slip
beneath its clawed foot as it does, and sees a crocheted blanket of whites and greys
and deep black yarn, wound intricately, perfectly, into a summoning circle. Its summoning circle. There is a small splash
of bright scarlet and sharp, jagged bits of a broken curio scattered on top,
as if someone had dropped it, attempted to pick it up the pieces and pricked their finger.
It would explain the blood. And it would explain the demon being brought into
this strange place.
As it connects these pieces in its mind, the inhabitant of
the house rounds the corner and exits the kitchen, holding a damp, white dish
towel close to her hand and fumbling with the beaded bifocals hanging from her
neck by a crocheted lanyard before stopping dead in her tracks.
Now, to be fair, the demon wouldn’t ordinarily second guess
being face-to-face with a hunchbacked crone with a beaked nose, beady eyes and
a peculiar lack of teeth, or a spidery shawl and ankle-length black dress, but
there is definitely something amiss here. Especially when the old biddy lets
her spectacles fall slack on her bosom and erupts into a wide, toothy (toothless)
grin, eyes squinting and crinkling from the sheer effort of it.
“Todd! Todd, dear, I didn’t know you were visiting this year!
You didn’t call, you didn’t write—but, oh, I’m so happy you’re here, dear!
Would it have been too much to ask you to ring the doorbell? I almost had a
heart attack. And don’t worry about the blood, here—I had an accident. My favorite
figure toppled off of the table and cleanup didn’t go as expected. But I seem
to recall you are quite into the bloodshed and ‘edgy’ stuff these days, so I
don’t suppose you mind.” She releases a hearty, kind laugh, but it isn’t
mocking, it’s sweet. Grandmotherly. The demon is by no means sentimental or
maudlin, but the kindness, the familiarity, the genuine fondness, does pull a
few dusty old nostalgic heartstrings. “Imagine if it leaves a scar! It’d be a
bit ‘badass,’ as you teenagers say, wouldn’t it?”
She is as blind as a bat without her glasses, it would appear,
because the demon is by no means a ‘Todd’ or a human at all, though humanoid, shrouded
in sleek, black skin and hard spikes and sharp claws. But the demon humors her, if only
because it had been caught off guard.
The old woman smiles still, before turning on her heel and
shuffling into the hallway with a stiff gait revealing a poor hip. “Be a dear
and make some more coffee, would you please? I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Yes, this is most definitely a mistake. One for the record
books, for certain. For late-night trips to bars and conversations with colleagues,
while others discuss how many souls they’d swindled in exchange for peanuts, or
how many first-borns they’d been pledged for things idiot humans could have
gained without divine intervention. Ugh. Sometimes it all just became so pedantic
that little detours like this were a blessing—happy accidents, as the humans
would say.
That’s why the demon does as asked, and plods slowly into
the kitchen, careful to duck low and avoid the top of the doorframe. That’s why
it gingerly takes the small glass pot and empties it of old, stale coffee and carefully,
so carefully, takes a measuring scoop between its claws and fills the machine
with fresh grounds. It’s as the hot water is percolating that the old woman
returns, her index finger wrapped tight in a series of beige bandages.
“I’m surprised you’re so tall, Todd! I haven’t seen you
since you were at my hip! But your mother mails photos all the time—you do love
wearing all black, don’t you?” She takes a seat at the small round table in the
corner and taps the glass lid of the cake plate with quaking, unsteady, aged hands. “I was starting to think you’d
never visit. Your father and I have
had our disagreements, but…I am glad you’re here, dear. Would you like some
cake?” Before the demon has a chance to decline, she lifts the lid and cuts a
generous slice from the near-complete circle that has scarcely been touched. It
smells of citrus and cream and is, as assumed earlier, soggy, oversaturated
with icing.
It was made for a special occasion, for guests, but it doesn’t
seem this old woman receives much company in this musty, stagnant house that
smells like an antique garage that hadn’t had its dust stirred in years.
Especially not from her absentee grandson, Todd.
The demon waits until the coffee pot is full, and takes two
small mugs from the counter, filling them until steam is frothing over the
rims. Then, and only then, does it accept the cake and sit, with some
difficulty, in a small chair at the small table. It warbles out a polite ‘thank
you,’ but it doesn’t suppose the woman understands. Manners are manners
regardless.
“Oh, dear, I can hardly understand. Your voice has gotten so
deep, just like your grandfather’s was. That, and I do recall you have an affinity
for that gravelly, screaming music. Did your voice get strained? It’s alright,
dear, I’ll do the talking. You just rest up. The coffee will help soothe.”
The demon merely nods—some communication can be understood
without fail—and drinks the coffee and eats the cake with a too-small fork. It’s
ordinary, mushy, but delicious because of the intent behind it and the love
that must have gone into its creation.
“I hope you enjoyed all of the presents I sent you. You
never write back—but I am aware most people use that fancy E-mail these days. I
just can’t wrap my head around it. I do wish your mom and dad would visit sometime.
I know of a wonderful little café down the street we can go to. I haven’t been; I wanted to visit it with Charles, before he…well.” She falls silent in her
rambling, staring into her coffee with a small, melancholy smile. “I can’t
believe it’s been ten years. You never had the chance to meet him. But never mind
that.” Suddenly, and with surprising speed that has the demon concerned for her well being, she moves to her feet, bracing her hands on the edge of the table. “I may as
well give you your birthday present, since you’re here. What timing! I only
finished it this morning. I’ll be right back.”
When she returns, the white, grey and black crocheted work with the summoning
circle is bundled in her arms.
“I found these designs in an occult book I borrowed from the
library. I thought you’d like them on a nice, warm blanket to fight off the
winter chill—I hope you do like it.” With gentle hands, she spreads the blanket
over the demon’s broad, spiky back like a shawl, smoothing it over craggy shoulders
and patting its arms affectionately. “Happy birthday, Todd, dear.”
Well, that settles it. Whoever, wherever, Todd is, he’s
clearly missing out. The demon will just have to be her grandson from now on.
this is so sweet. it made me want to hug someone.
i had to
I WOULD WATCH SIX SEASONS AND A MOVIE
Okay but she takes him to the little cafe and all of the people in her town are like “What is that thing, what the hell, Anette?” and she’s like “Don’t you remember my grandson Todd?” and the entire town just has to play along because no one will tell little old Nettie that her grandson is an actual demon because this is the happiest she’s been since her husband died.
Bonus: In season 4 she makes him run for mayor and he wins
I just want to watch ‘Todd’ help her with groceries, and help her with cooking, and help her clean up the dust around the house and air it out, and fill it with spring flowers because Anette mentioned she loved hyacinth and daffodils.
Over the seasons her eyesight worsens, so ‘Todd’ brings a hellhound into the house to act as her seeing eye dog, and people in town are kinda terrified of this massive black brute with fur that drips like thick oil, and a mouth that can open all the way back to its chest, but ‘Honey’ likes her hard candies, and doesn’t get oil on the carpet, and when ‘Todd’ has to go back to Hell for errands, Honey will snuggle up to Anette and rest his giant head on her lap, and whuff at her pockets for butterscotch.
Anette never gives ‘Todd’ her soul, but she gives him her heart
In season six, Anette gets sick. She spends most of the season bedridden and it becomes obvious by about midway through the season that she’s not going to make it to the end of the season. Todd spends the season travelling back and forth between the human realm and his home plane, trying hard to find something, anything that will help Anette get better, to prolong her life. He’s tried getting her to sell him her soul, but she’s just laughed, told him that he shouldn’t talk like that.
With only a few episodes left in the season Anette passes away, Todd is by her side. When the reaper comes for her Todd asks about the fate of her soul. In a dispassionate voice the reaper informs Todd that Anette spent the last few years of her life cavorting with creatures of darkness, that there can be only one fate for her. Todd refuses to accept this and he fights the reaper, eventually injuring the creature and driving it off. Knowing that Anette cannot stay in the Human Realm, and refusing to allow her spirit to be taken by another reaper, so he takes her soul in his arms. He’s done this before, when mortals have sold themselves to him. This time the soul cradled against his chest does not snuggle and fight. This time the soul held tight against him reaches out, pats him on the cheek tells him he was a good boy, and so handsome, just like his grandfather.
Todd takes Anette back to the demon realm, holding her tight against him as he travels across the bleak and forebidding landscape; such a sharp contrast to the rosy warmth of Anette’s home. Eventually, in a far corner of his home plane, Todd finds what he is looking for. It is a place where other demons do not tread; a large boulder cracked and broken, with a gap just barely large enough for Todd to fit through. This crack, of all things, gives him pause, but Anette’s soul makes a comment about needing to get home in time to feed Honey, and Todd forces himself to pass through it. He travels in darkness for a while, before he emerges into into a light so bright that it’s blinding. His eyes adjust slowly, and he finds himself face to face with two creatures, each of them at least twice his size one of them has six wings and the head of a lion, one of them is an amorphous creature within several rings. The lion-headed one snarls at Todd, and demands that he turn back, that he has no business here.
Todd looks down, holding Anette’s soul against his chest, he takes a deep breath, and speaks a single word, “Please.”
The two larger beings are taken aback by this. They are too used to Todd’s kind being belligerent, they consult with each other, they argue. The amorphous one seems to want to be lenient, the lion-headed one insists on being stricter. While they’re arguing Todd sneaks by them and runs as fast as he can, deeper into the brightly lit expanse. The path on which he travels begins to slope upwards, and eventually becomes a staircase. It becomes evident that each step further up the stair is more and more difficult for Todd, that it’s physically paining him to climb these stairs, but he keeps going.
They dedicate a full episode to this climb; interspersing the climb with scenes they weren’t able to show in previous seasons, Anette and Honey coming to visit Todd in the Mayor’s office, Anette and Todd playing bingo together for the first time, Anette and Todd watching their stories together in the mid afternoon, Anette falling asleep in her chair and Todd gently carrying her to bed. Anette making Todd lemonade in the summer while he’s up on the roof fixing that leak and cleaning out the rain gutters. Eventually Todd reaches the top, and all but collapses, he falls to a knee and for the first time his grip on Anette’s soul slips, and she falls away from him. Landing on the ground.
He reaches out for her, but someone gets there first. Another hand reaches out, and helps this elderly woman off the ground, helps her get to her feet. Anette gasps, it’s Charles. The pair of them throw their arms around each other. Anette tells Charles that she’s missed him so much, and she has so much to tell him. Charles nods. Todd watches a soft smile on his face. A delicate hand touches Todd’s shoulder, and pulls him easily to his feet. A figure; we never see exactly what it looks like, leans down, whispering in Todd’s ear that he’s done well, and that Anette will be well taken care of here. That she will spend an eternity with her loved ones. Todd looks back over to her, she’s surrounded by a sea of people. Todd nods, and smiles. The figure behind him tells him that while he has done good in bringing Anette here, this is not his place, and he must leave. Todd nods, he knew this would be the case.
Todd gets about six steps down the stairway before he is stopped by someone grabbing his shoulder again. He turns around, and Anette is standing behind him. She gives him a big hug and leads him back up the stairs, he should stay, she says. Get to know the family. Todd tries to tell her that he can’t stay, but she won’t hear it. She leads him up into the crowd of people and begins introducing him to long dead relatives of hers, all of whom give him skeptical looks when she introduces him as her grandson.
The mysterious figure appears next to Todd again and tells him once more he must leave, Todd opens his mouth to answer but Anette cuts him off. Nonsense, she tells the figure. IF she’s gonna stay here forever her grandson will be welcome to visit her. She and the figure stare at each other for a moment. The figure eventually sighs and looks away, the figure asks Todd if she’s always like this. Todd just shrugs and smiles, allowing Anette to lead him through a pair of pearly gates, she’s already talking about how much cake they’ll need to feed all of these relatives.
demon: you’re not blind here – but you’re not surprised. when…?
anette: oh, toddy, don’t be silly, my biological grandson’s not twelve feet tall and doesn’t scorch the furniture when he sneezes. i’ve known for ages.
demon: then why?
anette: you wouldn’t have stayed if you weren’t lonely too.
demon: you… you don’t have to keep calling me your grandson.
anette: nonsense! adopted children are just as real. now quit sniffling, you silly boy, and let’s go bake a cake. honey, heel!
honey: W̝̽̂̿͂͝Ọ̮̹̲̪̋ͦͅO̸̘͔̬͊F̜̫͙̟͕͖̙̋ͫ͌͗
that addition is a+ :)
THE ONLY ENDING I WILL EVER ACCEPT FOR THIS
Every time this post shows up on my dash, it gets better (and more heart wrenching. Y’all! Stop cutting the onions okay?!).
If ever don’t reblogging this, I’m either dead, dying, or buried under cat.
This is why I love Tumblr so much! Thank you all for collaborating on this prompt and turning it into something beautiful <3
