Get Out Your Damn Umbrellas

Chapter 25

Summer faded to autumn, and the leaves on the trees began to change. The radio silence following Dan and Phil's final Internet Takeover show dragged on for months. In the meantime, a great many fans celebrated October 19th on their own and tried to keep the spirit of the season alive amongst themselves. The closer it got to the end of 2016, though, the fewer people were left holding onto hope that they were going to get PINOF 8 this year, or ever.

Then halfway through December, Phil posted a tweet asking for PINOF questions.

The yearly tradition was met with the same explosive excitement as always despite being posted much later than usual. Being mindful of that fact helped Dan to cope a little better with the anxiety he felt about gradually easing back into his online career, but it was still quite frustrating doing everything at a slower pace or on a later schedule. After being mostly absent online for most of the year, there were so many projects and recurring video series, like Undertale on the gaming channel that they'd only filmed one video for back in January, that Dan wanted to get back to as soon as possible. It was easy to feel like he'd lost too much time already. Now and again Dan had to be reminded by his therapist, YouTuber friends, or Phil that it was okay to prioritize his recovery and take as much time as he needed. The internet could wait.

A few months into 2017, Phil posted another video with Dan announcing that they were moving to another apartment. The move came as quite a relief, not necessarily because they were desperate to escape the lingering bad memories, though they were quite eager to escape the cracked ceiling, loud drilling noises, and lack of storage space. Anyways, just like Phil said, they got to take the good memories with them.

Around the same time as this big change, some smaller changes happened, including Dan choosing a different YouTube username as well as choosing to stop straightening his hair and embrace the natural curls. Both of these things seemed like a much bigger deal for the audience than they were for Dan. To him what was a big deal was finally getting to stop taking antidepressants after being on them for a year.

Ultimately, that was the main thing that the audience ended up focusing on, the fact that Dan truly seemed to be feeling much happier lately. The difference was easy to notice in the video Phil made predicting Dan's future. At first glance one of the tarot cards Dan selected appeared rather ominous. Then Phil read the interpretation and lit up like a sparkler with excitement.

"The ending of a cycle of events so new opportunities will arise. Letting go of you past pain, old ways, and associations-"

"Fuck off," Dan interjected, grinning uncontrollably even while scoffing in disbelief. "Where? Let me see-"

Phil pointed to the page and kept reading, "-old ways, and associations, allowing you to embrace the next phase of your life whole-heartedly!" He gleefully slapped the younger boy's knee with the tarot book as his ears filled with Dan's loud screech of joyous bewilderment. "See? I told you it was a good card."

Eventually Dan had to tell Phil to calm down and stop slapping everything in sight, but a bright beam of hopefulness emanated from both of them for the rest of the video.

Soon enough it was time to go to VidCon. It was a bit of a gamble deciding to attend this year, especially when it came to the meet and greet portion of the event. Naturally Dan had his doubts about how well he'd be able to handle standing in front of a huge line of people and having one intense interpersonal interaction after another for over an hour. Even under normal circumstances it was a rather emotionally taxing experience. However, at the same time, it was often a uniquely rewarding experience, and it turned out to be this year as well.

In all honesty, the heartfelt sincerity with which the fans expressed their appreciation was surprisingly sweet. The number of people who broke down in tears or were too nervous to speak a coherent sentence may have been slightly higher than average. Still, being able to focus on consoling and reassuring them helped Dan to manage his own anxiety a little better.