#and then there were people who cared about him and they were fucking killed off!

[justagalwhowrites]

Can't Stay Away - A QZ!Joel Miller Fic

Years after you turned to Joel for help getting out of a bad relationship, he can't seem to stop coming back to you.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

CW: Angst (duh), Joel is a bit of an asshole (that's the point and it makes him even hotter, I fear), mention of past domestic violence (not described), injury from past domestic violence, threat of continued domestic violence. unprotected P in V sex, breeding kink, fantasizing about pregnancy (doesn't actually happen.) Minors DNI 18+ only, no use of Y/N.

Length: 4.1k

A/N: Shared for the Joel Miller Birthday Celebration found on Tumblr here. This is QZ!Joel with Secret Relationship and Breeding Kink. I hope you enjoy!

Masterlist | AO3

“Where the fuck else is there to go?” Tommy asked, shucking his mud-covered boots and leaving them in a pile by the door. 

“Just got business to take care of,” Joel said, voice rough. 

“It’s pourin’ rain, man,” his brother said, dropping his drenched pack to the table as if to make a point. “We didn’t even know we were makin’ it back tonight until fuckin’ tonight. Just stay home.” 

“Wanna get this done,” Joel said, taking his portion of their haul from his pack and piling it on the table. He left just one thing inside the pack. “Probably won’t be back ’til morning.” 

Tommy just pursed his lips, shaking his head a little. 

“Just don’t do anything stupid, Joel.” 

Joel didn’t say anything back. What did he have to say? 

Tommy had every reason to worry about him being stupid. Every reason to believe that Joel was going to do something that would hurt their smuggling operation. Every reason to believe that Joel was going to do something that would hurt himself. 

Which, he supposed, wasn’t particularly far off. 

You were, indeed, something stupid and something that would hurt him. 

You were his biggest indulgence and his biggest risk, the thing that was the largest threat to him here in the Boston QZ. 

Ex-wife of a FEDRA guard, Joel should avoid you. 

His work was dangerous enough as it was, he shouldn’t make it more dangerous by messing around that close to the people who could execute him if they really wanted, especially not with someone they seemed to take pleasure in tormenting.

But he couldn’t seem to stay away from you. 

He couldn’t put his finger on what it was. It wasn’t that he loved you. Not that he’d ever really loved a woman - he’d tried with Sarah’s mom and was sure he’d come up short - but he knew he didn’t have it in him to love anything now. The aching wound of loss took up too much of him, there wasn’t space for anything else.

But he did care. Whether that was because he was attached to you as a person or because you made him come so hard he forgot the world ended for a moment, he didn’t know. 

He supposed the why didn’t matter. He cared. He cared enough that he couldn’t lose you without it adding to that wound, one that had damn near killed him and had seemed to have only grown worse with time. 

That should be enough of a reason to stay away from you. Hadn’t he learned his lesson by now? That giving a shit only led to pain? That if he was going to keep surviving any of this, he had to be far, far away from something like you? 

Still, he made his way through the QZ, the pouring, cold rain fitting the grim environs. Everything here was slightly wrong. It looked something like a city from before but not. It appeared as though things could be normal, somewhere, except they weren’t. It seemed as though Joel had been tailor made for this place, this time. Living some kind of half life where everything was shades of gray, nothing left to live for but - apparently - not able to die. The last gasp of humanity left in him clinging to this world. 

That made you a shade of gray, too, one he wasn’t sure what to do with. 

It had started years earlier, when you were desperate and willing to trade sex for a gun. 

Joel hadn’t taken you up on the offer then, frowning as you watched him with wide, desperate eyes. 

“The hell do you need a gun for?” He’d asked. “If you don’t already got one, hard pressed to see someone like you startin’ in on a business that needed one.” 

“Does it matter?” You asked. “I’ll give you what ever you want, please.” 

“Matters to me,” Joel said. “Not about to arm someone looking to move in on my business.” 

“It’s not for that.” 

“Then you shouldn’t have a problem tellin’ me what it is for,” he replied. 

You looked around, cagey, before lowering your voice further. As though talking about an illegal weapons trade wasn’t enough of a reason to keep quiet. 

“I’m leaving my husband,” you said, those wide, soft eyes watching him so closely. “He’s FEDRA and he’s made it clear that he won’t let me go without a fight. I need to be able to protect myself, please, I can give you ration cards as I earn them, I can… I’ll do anything else you might want, I…” 

“Stop,” Joel cut you off, tears starting at the edges of your eyes. He took his hand gun from its place tucked in the small of his back and passed it to you as discreetly as he could. “There, now you got somethin’. Meet me here tomorrow, same time, I’ll get you more ammo. Know how to use it?” 

“Don’t I just point it and pull the trigger?” You asked, brows raised. 

He just sighed. 

“Think you can keep from usin’ it until tomorrow?” He asked. You nodded quickly. “Good. I’ll show you.” 

“Thank you,” you said, stashing the weapon quickly. “What… what do I owe you?” 

The fear in your voice made his stomach turn.

“Nothin’,” Joel said. “Fine on ration cards at the moment. Don’t trade in the other shit. Tomorrow. Don’t be late.” 

 You just nodded quickly, thanking him with too much earnest hope in your voice for something being spoken to him.

Joel spent the afternoon the next day teaching you how to shoot as best he could inside the QZ. Turns out, the reason you didn’t already know how is that you’d been in Boston during the outbreak. You’d just moved there with your shitbag of a husband a few weeks before it all came crashing down. You’d never really needed to fight, let alone shoot or kill. You never needed a gun. 

Until your husband started hitting you. 

Joel learned quickly exactly why you felt like you needed to be armed. He’d put a hand on your ribs to adjust your stance and you hissed in pain. Joel pulled away quickly, frowning as you tried to hide your pained expression but it didn’t work. 

“You gonna tell me what that was?” He asked, brows raised. You clenched your jaw and stared at the ground. 

“It’s not your business.”

“I’m helpin’ you, your husband is a fucking FEDRA officer, if you’re about to haul off and kill him I should know why,” he said, voice heated. “So tell me, he do that?” 

Your eyes finally met his and he didn’t need to ask again. 

“Lemme see.” 

“Joel…” 

“Show me,” he said, voice sharp. 

You sighed and lifted your sweatshirt, revealing discolored and swollen skin along one side. 

Joel clenched his jaw. 

“It’s gotten worse,” you said quietly. “I can’t keep pretending it’ll be OK if we just get through this, I can’t pretend like he hasn’t been building toward this for years. I need to get out before he kills me.” 

Joel stepped back and you lowered your shirt, your eyes on his. 

“He bigger than you?” He asked. You nodded. “Alright, gonna teach you a few more things, too…” 

He showed you how to protect yourself without a gun and how to end a conflict with one. He hoped you wouldn’t need to use either. After a few days of showing you how to do the things he’d assumed just came with the territory of surviving the end of the world, you went your separate ways. 

But Joel still thought of you, an odd twinge in his chest when he did, something like concern. He wanted you to be OK. He couldn’t put his finger on why that would matter to him but he wanted that, he wanted you to be safe and happy. 

So when he ran into you on the street a few months later, he couldn’t help but ask. And you smiled at him, brighter than he’d ever seen you look, when you told him that you had your own place now, that the gun he’d given you had never been fired. It was hard, but you’d survived. 

The two of you went to the speakeasy and you bought Joel a drink, saying you owed him for helping you get out of your situation. He let you buy the first round. He bought the second. Before too long, he was in your apartment, pulling off your clothes and touching your body without you flinching away from him. 

You became like a drug to him then. Every few nights he found himself outside your door, desperate for the reprieve you and your sex gave him. Some sense of normalcy, the ability to feel something beyond the crushing weight of loss, that brief moment when he was buried inside you and reaching his peak that the rest of the world fell away and he existed on a plane where nothing bad had ever happened to him and he’d never done anything to deserve it. 

He tried to pretend like that release is all it was. But then there were moments where he couldn’t deny that it was more. The time where he passed you on the street and your eyes met his and he wanted to go talk to you, to see why your eyes seemed dark and sad, but there was a FEDRA guard watching you from the corner and he couldn’t risk it, not for either of you. The time he showed up at your door and heard yelling and he pretended to be a neighbor to intervene. All the times he held you as you fell asleep nestled against his skin, soft and beautiful and trusting, all things that should have been driven out of you in the QZ. All things you should never have been with him in the first place. 

He swallowed those moments, tried to not let the fear and panic they sparked inside of him take over. The last time he loved someone, they died. The last time he loved someone, it almost killed him. He couldn’t love you. He couldn’t risk it. 

But here he was, at your door again, anyway.

He tried to stop himself from knocking but all it did was make his hand stutter before he did what he always did: wait for you to let him in. 

“Joel?” You opened the door in an oversized t-shirt and boxers, looking groggy. “You’re back.” 

You threw your arms around his neck and pulled him inside, pressing your body against his, burying your face in the hollow of his throat and he let himself breathe you in, remind himself that you were safe. 

“I was so worried about you,” your voice was muffled in the wet fabric of his shirt. “I heard some things from people at the gate and…” 

“The gate?” He frowned, pulling back from you. “The hell were you doin’ down there?” 

You looked at him, your lower lip going between your teeth, fingers twisting on themselves. 

“What. Were you doin’. At the gate.” 

“I heard something at work,” you said quietly. “About a patrol getting overrun by infected and… I wanted to see if there were signs of other people getting hurt, I’m sorry, I couldn’t just sit here and wait for you and not know…” 

“You can’t do shit like that,” he said roughly. “It ain’t safe, your fuckin’ husband is always looking for a reason to make your life hell, he would have me and Tommy killed if he knew about us, you can’t just…” 

“I know.” 

“Then why’d you do it?” He smacked his hand against the tabletop, making you flinch, hating himself for scaring you even for a moment. “I know you fuckin’ know better!” 

“Because I care about you!” You yelled, your voice thick. “Is that such a crime?” 

Joel crumpled at that, shoulders slouching. 

“That’s…” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That ain’t what this is, honey, you know that.” 

“I know,” you said again, voice soft. “I’m not expecting anything from you, Joel, I know better than that. I just… I’m not just going to pretend that you’re nothing to me. Life is too short for that.” 

His heart thudded against his ribs, so hard it felt like a bruise. 

“I can’t…” 

“I know,” you whispered, reaching up and cupping his cheek. “It’s OK. I know.” 

He should have turned to leave then, he was smart enough to know that. But your hand was soft on his skin, your body was warm next to his, your eyes were welcoming and understanding in a way that nothing else had been since he’d lost the only thing that mattered. 

So he kissed you.

It wasn’t something that was soft and romantic, nothing like what you deserved, nothing like how he would have kissed you if he’d known you before. Instead it was fierce, devouring, harsh enough that he knew his stubble must be scratching your skin and he didn’t care. All he cared about was getting more of you. 

You tugged him back toward your bedroom, Joel stepping out of his boots as he went. He dropped his pack on the floor and tugged your shirt up and over your head, casting it aside. He ran his hands over your bared skin, your flesh pebbled where the cold, wet of his shirt touched you. He pulled that off, too, before he could do anything that hurt you, even for a moment. Christ knew you had enough of that behind you, the look on your face when he’d lost control just a minute before already a scar in his mind, adding to the scars on your skin from your marriage he wished he could go back and stop. 

You undressed each other quickly, desperately, and he all but threw you on the bed once you were naked. He followed you there, shedding the last of his clothes before crawling up your body, his finger tracing your slit to spread you open just enough that he could get his thick, hard cock inside. 

He should be more careful with you, he knew that. But he didn’t have the patience and you’d never, even once, asked him to slow down or be gentle. So he pushed himself inside with one sharp, hard stroke, making you gasp and arch beneath him as he groaned at the feeling of your tight cunt. You whimpered as he stilled deep inside, adjusting to how you held him, fighting to keep from coming too quick because you felt too goddamn good but he couldn’t waste it, not this fast. 

“You’re OK,” he panted, his mouth against your shoulder. “You can take it, baby, know you can, take it so well.” 

He felt you nod against him, your hands trembling as they went to his back, holding him close. 

“Just take it,” he said as he started to fuck into you, caving to his baser instincts and letting himself have you the way you seemed so willing to give yourself to him. “Just take it, honey, just let me… let me…” 

Your hips rolled to meet his, your nails digging into his skin. 

“Feels so good, Joel,” you whined against him. “Fuck, I missed you, you feel, you feel, I…” 

He kissed you, swallowing your babbling before you had a chance to complete your thought. He couldn’t hear what he was afraid was coming, a line he couldn’t bring himself to cross. There was so much he couldn’t give to you, so much that he knew you deserved but was too selfish to give you up so you could find it. 

But fuck, did he wish he could give you that. In another time, another place, another reality entirely, he could. He knew that. In some other world, one where humanity wasn’t gone and his daughter was still breathing, he would give you everything. In that world, he would love you. He would open your car door and share inside jokes and care for you in a way no one else could. In that impossible world, you and him lived in a little house with a garden out front and a spare bedroom where Sarah stayed when she came for a visit because she would be an adult now, with a life of her own instead of forever frozen at 14. In that reality, you were his in every way. His ring was on your finger, his roof over your head, his baby in your womb. He wouldn’t need to hide it then, wouldn’t need to tiptoe around FEDRA, wouldn’t need to be afraid of what loving you might mean. He could fuck you until you were full of him, so full that you carried part of him inside of you for months, your body growing and changing with it and then no one would ever question that you were his, fucking his. 

Your pussy drew tight around him as your fingers wound tight in his hair. Your nipples were hard against his chest, the plush of your breasts pressed to his front as your thighs tightened around his hips. 

He pulled his mouth from yours to kiss and suck his way down your neck to your chest, pressing himself deep inside you and letting himself pretend - just for a moment - that the reality he occupied was one where he could have you, really have you. That the two of you were in a cozy bedroom with furniture he built for you with a room a few doors down that you’d already started looking at cribs and changing tables to fill it with. 

“Gonna come,” you panted, your hips stuttering against him as he pressed inside, forcing the head of his cock against the soft, tender place deep within you. “Fuck, don’t stop, don’t stop, I’m gonna… I… I…” 

He was so close to his peak that he almost wanted you to say it. He wanted you to say it while he came deep inside you, leaving himself there so it could take, so he could watch you grow his child and take care of you through it, so he could take care of both of you after. Claim you so thoroughly that when you were in the QZ there was no question that you were his, not with his baby inside you and his arm around your shoulders. 

He wanted it. He wanted it so bad that, in that moment with his cock buried inside you as you keened below him, he didn’t care if it fucking killed him. 

Joel came apart when you did, the fluttering of your tight little hole sending him over the edge, the high of nothing else in the world mattering outside of you and the hot clutch of your body swallowing him whole for one glorious moment. 

But, as always happened, he came back down to earth, still held in the cradle of your hips, still breathing the scent of your skin, still lost in the wasteland that was once the world. 

He didn’t kiss you as he pulled out of you, collapsing on the bed next to you, closing his eyes for a moment to keep from looking at you too long. 

“You gotta be more careful,” he said after a moment. 

You were silent long enough that he looked over at you, finding you on your side facing him but staring down at the mattress. 

“I know,” you said eventually. 

“I’m not trying to be an asshole,” he said, his voice gentle. Or as gentle as he seemed to be able to make it now, anyway. “But you know what happened the last time he thought you were seein’ someone. If killing him would fix it, I would, but I can’t kill every fucking FEDRA guard who’d take it out on you and I’m not gonna be the reason you get hurt.” 

“I know,” you said again, looking at him this time. “But I… I just…” 

“I know,” he said it this time, his stomach twisting. 

You just nodded. 

“You deserve better,” he said eventually. “Shouldn’t let me treat you the way I do.” 

“I don’t mind.” 

“You should,” he snapped and then sighed, staring at the ceiling again. “Sorry for scarin’ you before. When I hit the table. I… I would never…” 

“I know,” you said, more confidently then. He looked back to you, frowning. “I’m not afraid of you, Joel. I know better about that, too.” 

He was silent again, going back to staring at your water-stained ceiling. 

“Should probably take a break,” he said eventually. “Not see each other for a bit.” 

“It wouldn’t change anything,” you said quietly. He frowned, watching you again. “I know myself. I know how I feel. It’s OK. I don’t expect anything from you. Not even this.” 

His eyes searched yours and he let himself try to reach some other version of him on some other plane, one where things were safe and he was in the bed you shared with him in the home you made together. A version where he could be honest with you and it wouldn’t destroy him. 

“I’d give you more if I could,” he said instead. 

You smiled ever so slightly, a gentle curve to your lips. 

“I know,” you said softly. “Believe it or not, I know you, too, Joel.” 

He let himself look at you for a moment, let that terrifying wound at the center of him hurt where he could really feel it, to feel the horror of what letting himself love you would be. 

“It’s OK,” you whispered as you reached out and brushed his curls back, your fingertip grazing the scar at his temple. “I’ll just love you, anyway.” 

He stayed in your bed that night, lying awake as you slept against him, ignoring the scream of panic at the core of him to run while he still could. He knew it couldn’t last. He knew he couldn’t rest like this, not with you this close, not in this awful place with that awful hurt. But he couldn’t leave you either. Not like this. 

“Oh,” he said the next morning when it was still dark so he could slip back to his own apartment before some FEDRA prick was awake to see him leaving your place. “Almost forgot.” 

He pulled a scarf from his pack, the one thing he hadn’t left at home after this run. It was thick, the knit heavy, a color that made your eyes shine. Not that he had pictured you wearing it with those eyes of yours when he’d picked it up. He held it out to you and you frowned, confused, as you took it. 

“Winter is around the corner and you were cold all the time last year,” he said gruffly. “Don’t want you freezin’ to death.” 

You smiled a little, running your fingers over the pattern knit into the yarn. 

“Thank you,” you said, holding it to your chest and looking back to him. “I really needed this, Joel.” 

He just grunted, pulling his pack on and heading for the door. 

“I’m gonna stay away from you for a while,” he said, trying to ignore the pain in his chest at that. “Don’t want anyone catching on.” 

“OK,” you said, eyes searching his before you stepped close to him and slowly, cautiously, pressed your soft, warm lips to his own. “Take care of yourself for me, OK?” 

You said it like you would say I love you. 

“You, too,” he said. He wondered if it sounded the same to you, too. 

 Staying away from you took work. He wanted to see you, be next to you, get lost in you. But he knew where that would lead and he couldn’t let it, not now, not like this. 

So he stayed away for weeks. He stayed away until the first snowfall of the season in Boston and he made an excuse to go stand outside your job. He couldn’t help it. He needed to make sure you were warm and safe so he stood there and watched you leave, his scarf around your neck, You caught his eye with a small smile as you passed a FEDRA guard and he knew, with sinking certainty, he’d be back at your door that night. 

He just couldn’t seem to stay away from you. 

[ladyisabelsblade]

My Live Reactions to X-Men Origins: Wolverine

A text thread between me and my friend.

---

Just watched the opening sequence and it’s so fucking funny when you’re high

Dude that guy with the two guns, his sequence kind of slapped

And then the other guy punched a tank. Yo….

This Deadpool looks like an idiot with the swords but he’s still pretty funny lol

Why does he know Swahili?????

Oh no! They’re colonizers!!???

But not Wolverine, he cares about black people, that’s how you can tell he’s the good guy

Little brother, breaking cycles of abuse

JIMMY

--wolverine says racism is wrong! --have u seen his cartoon claws yet?

They didn’t look that bad but I am high so I don’t care

The action sequences aren’t half as bad as in last stand

Or at least I’m too high to notice if they are lol

WOAH SGIRT OFF

--u see a lot of hugh jackman nipples

Lumberjack Wolverine, wow

Just wow he’s wow

"Your country needs you” “I’m Canadian”

Aw, I like this girl. She’s so gonna die

What the fuck is this stupid story?

Even Logan thinks it’s stupid.

Most clumsily overt foreshadowing ever

Oop, yep she dying

--lmao --yea she lasts under 10 mins thats hilarious

Damn fucking eviscerated

Manly man scream

He ruthless

LMFAOOOO AND THEN HE GETS HIT BY A TRUCK

--relatable tbh

He’s so oiled up

Damn the dramatic irony is dramatic irony-ing

The Adamantium looks like the aftermath of a lush bath bomb

--ooooh ur not at the cartoon claws yet --he’s still all boney

Yee

LMAOOOO THEY LOOK PLASTIC

HIS ASS OUT

--ASS ASS ASS

Cover up your tits you preening slut precursor

They look so stupid just do practical effects you idiots

YES THE JACKET

WHAAAAATTTT HOW COULD YOU KILL THAT OLD LADY WTF

I should have seen that coming

EXPLOSIONS SLAY QUEEN

--who exploded things?

Everyone but Logan exploding the helicopter was slay queen

--lol this movie is such a blur for me, i love reexperiencing in real time

Oh this is the bad part

Fucking blob omg

--ah yes --and will i am

I like will I am he ain’t bad

And boxer Logan, boxer Logan is saving this scene for me

--idr him good or bad, i just remember he's will i am

He is

I laughed so hard when his name came up during the opening credits

--its a great jumpscare

Local man discovers his girlfriend was fridged for his character development

REMY LA BOU

OH NO HES HOT

--is this the first time uv seen gambit in something? like have u seen him in the cartoons or stuff?

and poker? This is like combining every old lady white woman’s wet dream together: lumberjack, boxer, poker player

No I’ve never seen the cartoons man

--by far the most loved x-man

GRABBED HIM BY THE SPINE WHAT THE DUCK

gambit slays here dude

Will I am dead

--u have the best one liners omg

I’m over an hour in and I’m really enjoying this movie, being high is really elevating my experience

--its probably greaat high ngl

It’s just like fun moment after fun moment, I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense

--its my dad's favorite hated movie --its so fun

He’s right, I can’t believe you told me this was worse than last stand

--idr last stand at all ngl

Oh, well it was really bad

My man is more okay with jumping out of a plane than flying in one

SCOTT

YOUR EYES SCOTT

sir this is an operating room you can’t be here

Damn, this is freaky, I thought Stryker was a creep in x2

KAYLAS BACK

WHAT THE FUCK

oh it’s mystique isn’t it

NO ITS NOT WHAT THE FUCK

Damn that’s cold

No, poor baby he’s so sad

They were together for 6 years damn

Yo this is so dope

This fight

--have u gotten to deadpool

Kayla, now is not the time

Not yet

--thats THE thing

I know

But here he comes

HE LOOKS SO STUPID

XAVIER MY MAN

Yo the black around the eyes thing kind of slayed tho

Damn fucking sliced his head off

Oh shit damn

Do they look out for eachother because you kind of suck ass victor

YESSSSS GAMBIT

Kayla come on don’t die

Again

HOLY SHIT STRYJER

AYO WHAT THE FUCK

girl this movies good I don’t know what you’re talking about

That was so slay Kayla

But you’re still probably dying

PROFESSOR

I LOVE YOU EVEN THIUGH YOURE BADLY CGIED

LNAO THE MUTANTS RUNNING AWAY

he don’t even remember her that’s so fucking sad dude

damn wtf tear my heart out why don’t ya

This movies cheesy but it’s hitting all the right beats

Like this is a pretty good origin story movie

Probably a horrible stand alone movie, but if I pretend like I’m watching a bunch of flashbacks stitched together it’s pretty good

Oooo two post credits scenes

LMAO TEASING A DEADPOOL COMEBAJX BUT HE NEVER DOES

--he kiinda does

In Deadpool 2?

--yea lol

Comes back just to die

--good

lol he wasn’t too bad but I think I’d have a different opinion if he was sober and there weren’t already two other great Deadpool movies

[acefictionwriting]

Scout’s Med Bay Stay (TF2 Bang)

-Hi! This is my contribution to the TF2 Big Bang Event! Scout wakes up after being injured to find some new strange people he’s going to get to know.

Made with Artists

@ermg33 - here is their Art Post

@sicc-nasti - here is their Art Post

As the man awoke, he had no idea what was happening. He had no idea where he was, no idea what was going on, or why he was here. It started coming back to him, but before he could put everything together, the pain shot up his legs.

Ow. Right, the enemy grenades. Shit, I hate enemy Demolition bombers. What did you get yourself into, Jeremy? 

Jeremy opened his eyes and looked around, discovering he was in a med bay. The Scouting mission must have gone wrong, really wrong, since the other scout wasn’t there. He didn’t recognize anyone in the room.

“Ah! You are awake! I was hoping to harvest your organs, but at least the replacements worked!”

“What?” 

The Scout looked at the man, and he nearly pissed himself. 

Oh no, not the medic guy again. 

“Uh, I don’t—” Jeremy tried to make an excuse for the man not to get too close, but before he could, the Medic was pulling him up from the bed to sit him up. 

“You stay here Späher, I will get you the new medicine. You will make a great first test!!”

Jeremy didn’t have time to stop the man, nor did he really want to. He also didn’t ask why the American medic was German. 

His legs were still killing him, and despite the dread he felt thinking about everything that could have happened to him, he ripped off the sheets anyway out of impulsive curiosity. They looked perfectly fine, besides the fact they had been cut off and reattached and left a giant scar. That’s probably OK. He moved his foot to find out if they still worked and jumped up in pain. 

“He is brutal, but he always succeeds. Your legs work alright, Erreur?” 

Scout looked to his right, and a man he hadn’t noticed before was there. The man had a bandage covering most of his face and was standing in the shadows enough that the rest wasn’t showing. It sounded like he smoked enough to kill him twice a day. 

“Jesus, man, didn’t see ya there. Yeah, they work. If they didn’t, I dunno what I’d do. I’m a runner. I do the Scout work, finding out where the Germans are gonna be and making sure there’s no trouble. And if there was trouble, well, I took care of it.”

“You aren’t supposed to do that on scouting missions.”

“Well, I did. And that’s gonna make me a hero or something when it works out. Then I’ll go home to my girl, and she won’t be able to resist me!” 

“WE WILL GO HOME TO OUR WOMEN WHEN WE WIN THIS BLASTED WAR. KEEP AT IT SOLDIER. WE’LL KEEP THOSE GERMANS AT BAY AND—” 

Scout turned his head to see a man in full restraints on a bed, wearing an oversized helmet over his eyes. The Medic seemed to know this man and definitely didn't like him.

“Nein… not again. You are not a soldier. How do you get in here…” 

“I AM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER THROUGH AND THROUGH—” 

“You have a head injury, du verdammter Idiot.” 

Scout turned his head away from the half-shouting match, half-desperate argument. The bandaged man in the shadows had disappeared, which Jeremy thought was fucking weird. 

With nothing else to do, he pulled out his locket with a blurry picture of Pauline F. Pauling. 

She’ll like me for sure now that I’ve got manly scars and stuff. I’ll come home her hero, and we’ll get to kiss and— 

“MMMFF MMMH MMM.” 

“GAH— WHY ARE YOU ALL SO QUIET UNTIL I’M TRYING TO FOCUS?” 

Scout turned to the bed on his left, seeing the not-a-soldier and the medic fight in the background, and someone entirely wrapped in bandages in the bed close to his. 

“Jesus, what happened to you?” 

“Mmmhff mmmhb mffhh mmmmffhhhh mmm MMMFF mmmh.” 

“Ja, we don’t know who that is. Don’t even know what side they’re on. I’ve just been using them for my experimental injections. Beyond that?” The medic shrugged and resumed his argument with the American. 

“I gotta get out of here. We gotta get out of here; you gotta be real messed up from that.” 

The burned patient muttered a muffled something that sounded like a verbal shrug. They then pointed to the locket. 

“My girl? Yeah, she’s a real beaut, huh?” 

“Is that ‘your girl’ mon étrange collègue enfantin?” 

“OK, we’re getting you a bell.”

The French man sighed and stepped away from the shadow of the door. He stuck to the shadows and the wall, but stood next to the scout. Despite not knowing the man, Jeremy felt like a stray cat had sat next to him while not getting close to anyone else. It would be some sort of honor if the stench of cigarettes wasn’t so overpowering. 

“Écoute, mon ami, you have been injured. Is there anyone you would like to inform? This girl? Perhaps your mother?”

“Well, I gotta tell Ma about this. I bet Pauling would love to hear about me and my cool battle wounds now.”

“Right… I’m sure. I will get the communications officer.”

Even Scout could see the man just wanted to leave the conversation.

Why’d he look so uncomfortable? 

There was silence then, or as much of a silence as there could be in the overcrowded room. Scout never liked not being part of a conversation in a group of people. He felt left out. His brothers always seemed closer to each other than to him, so he was pushed out of conversations often, even when they did not mean to exclude him. Scout looked around the room. He supposed the same thing had kept happening in the army. He had had brief conversations with everyone in the medical area, but they all ended suddenly. He preferred the chaos of everyone popping up suddenly to the emptiness of everyone ignoring him. Jeremy looked over to the burn victim to his left, but they had fallen asleep, it seemed, as they made a cartoonish mimimimimi sound from under the seemingly infinite bandages. The silence was uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough for Jeremy to wake up someone with severe injuries.

“Ah. You’re no help.” 

The Scout briefly considered talking to himself, but remembered when he was caught and teased by his brothers for that. Ma had said they meant well, but even so, Jeremy never wanted to seem crazy. At least not in a nonviolent way. Instead of talking to himself, he decided to do what he usually did when he was nervous or unsure. He counted all the ways he was the coolest person alive who would totally live the most incredible life anyone ever had. He was on reason number seven (he had miscounted severely. It was the 16th reason) when the door opened again. 

“Hey, face guy! You’re back! Is this that letter guy? Make my injury sound really bad so it looks better when I go home. Hey, wait, there's two guys.”

The first man was tall and had an eyepatch. Scout thought that was awesome. He had a bottle of… what smelled like 100% alcohol in his hand and was leaning against the doorway, half asleep, half on high alert. Scout thought it best not to disturb this man until he became more aware of his surroundings. Instead, the scout turned his attention to the other man, with papers in his hands.

The second man was short and had other features that Scout immediately ignored in favor of the robotic arm the man had. 

“WOAH, ARE YOU A ROBOT?”

The man laughed warmly, as if he’d heard it before from others. 

“Well, I’m technically a cyborg,” said the man, with a warm smile, “and I’m also the correspondence officer until we find another guy who isn’t dead to do it. I’m Dell, but they call me Engineer most of the time.”

“Can I ask, like, a bajillion questions about the—” 

“No, you may not! But my friend here is gonna ask you a few questions before we get this letter written. Tavish, I think you’d better do the talking.” 

Scout had thought Dell was friendly, and he generally seemed to be, but there was a tone to the man’s voice that said another question about his arm would make him far less friendly. So Jeremy decided to do the most difficult thing he’d ever done, and be quiet as the Engineer stepped aside to make room for the hulking man with the eyepatch. 

“My name is Tavish. I’m a demolitions expert addicted to alcohol and explosives—” 

“Wrong speech, buddy,” said the Engineer encouragingly, as though this had happened many times before. 

“Aye, right. Ahem.” 

Tavish took out a piece of paper from his back pocket that was surprisingly pristine. He took a stick of dynamite out from the other, put it back, and looked around for something else. The French guy handed him a small gun as though knowing what he was looking for. 

“Right, thanks.” The demolitions expert shot the ceiling twice to gather everyone’s attention. He handed the gun back and took reading glasses out of another pocket. 

“You are all hereby requested for a special secret mission. The people hiring you will not reveal their names or the mission’s purpose, but we assure you that it is of utmost importance. You will be relocated to a strategic and secret area that may turn the tide in this war. Each of you has been selected due to the special skills you possess, as well as a general lack of morality. Also, we will pay you. We know some of you are here to be paid. We implore you to consider this opportunity and join our team.”

“Hey, where did your British accent come from there, weren’t you Irish or Scottish or somethin’? Also, yeah, I’m gonna do that. Can I tell my Ma?” 

“Aye. Any other questions?”

“Ja, will there be room for my experiments there? Also, mein vögel, can they come? I can go with du all if I’m not taken from my work.”

“Aye, your experiments are why you're here, and experimenting with test subjects is encouraged.” 

“Oh, then Ja!” 

Each person asked questions, but since Scout had already accepted, the Engineer gave him one of the papers to sign and started writing Jeremy’s letter on another paper that was not a contract. Jeremy let everyone else fade into the background as he told his mom and his girl all about his injuries and how much he missed them in the letters. He took a while to sign his name, struggling with the letters, but Dell was quite understanding. Jeremy decided that he enjoyed the Engineer’s company. 

The only thing that seemed off was the Spy. He did not seem excited about the contract, but he did sign the papers. 

Each of the men, now called The Teufort Mercenaries, were helped out to the vehicle, except for the burned one, who was driven in a personal ambulance since they couldn’t move. 

Scout wondered how they signed the paperwork. He wondered how his Ma would take it, with him being gone even longer than planned, but how much longer would it be? A week? Probably a week. Ma would be alright, he explained everything in his letter. She had his brothers to take care of her. He smiled, excited to drive off to a new, exciting, and important life. 

The Spy, Demo, and Engineer stayed behind longer than the others. 

“These letters, they will not be sent, non?” 

“No, unfortunately, we have to burn ‘em. Gonna tell everyone these guys died in battle.”

“What about ze medic?” 

“Oh, we don’t know where he came from. He just started saving lives by making abominations to god, and we let him.”

“What ze fuck is wrong with you all?” 

“Ask the higher-ups.” 

Meanwhile, Tavish was getting paid by a woman who addressed herself as P. He assumed that was because of her purple attire. 

“So you’ll take them all to the desert location, right?”

“Aye.” 

“And you won’t ask questions?”

“Aye. Not my job.”

“You’ll be perfect. Here’s the hundred. Go take them to Teufort.” 

The woman then started calling her boss and walking away, and Tavish walked away as well. He thought he had heard, “They’re out of our hair now,” but he did not question it because it was his job now not to ask questions.

They all rejoined the group in the van, everyone having been ignorant of their absence. The lively chatter continued as everyone awaited their trip to a new life. A life that was not the heroic one they had expected, but simply a way to rid the world of these strange people. 

[ratsetflummi]

me, at the start of the dark elf trilogy: ugh, what is this pretentious bullshit, why would anyone ever like this guy

me, three months later, at the end of the dark elf trilogy: *unintelligible sobbing*

[pendinganchor]

“we never see billy change his ways in canon”

because he dies saving all their lives?????????

[summer-sapphic]

Hi I'm mad

[primordial0riginator]

Me, the only Ares and Nyx shipper on planet earth: 😏

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

i read part of the first chapter of sea glass gardens a while ago but decided to come back once I knew more about the characters and world building of jjk. Anyways and I watched jjk 0 and your telling me he actually blew up the school with the power of love??? Like full on textually the power of love??? He straight up used the power of love to nuke Geto and subsequently the school??? Are you kidding me?? I'm losing my mind. What the fuck

my boy has powerful love within him and also incredible and indiscriminate violence. what more could you want from a character.

[randomnameless]

Something that really bothers me about the rose coloured glasses vis a vis tellius and fe fans (ESPECIALLY from 3h fans who learned about tellius later) is that many like soren purely because of his main ship (i mean i like ikesoren too but come the fuck on) and jokingly characterise soren as a stereotypical nasty mean limp wristed sarcastic gay man instead of a deeply flawed branded angry at the world and definitely trauma bonded to ike, but micaiah is still absolutely getting raked over the coals over the blood pact and not being ike’s fangirl

Well,

Jokes often involve flanderisation, so Soren being flanderised to oblivion when people joke about him isn't something I really care about, but maybe that's because I'm not really fond of Soren to begin with lol

What annoys me more is when some people try to rationalise Soren's anger and backstory by either pointing at Almedha or Deghinsea being responsible for everything, and I'm like, what.the.fuck?

Almedha's just, idk, I won't call it sexism, but damn - that woman loves her son who is the only reason why she hasn't completely lost her mind over 1/losing her powers 2/being casted away like trash by her "BF" 3/being rejected by her dad 4/thinking her brother was tortured and abused to death because of her actions 5/being separated from her beloved child.

Deghinsea being "uwu bad bcs he's the reason why brandeds are rejected by both beorcs and laguz" is another take I really am not fond of, and iirc I wrote a post earlier this year about it? But to some people who buy the "Crusts BaD" as the reason why Fodlan sucks, I guess they need to have someone to name and pill all of the world's nonsense rather than, well, in Tellius' case, realise that the worldbulding and the lore really sucks, to the point where the duology touted as the most "against racism" of the franchise, is pretty much way more racist than anything Tru Piss can throw us (yes, because in Tru Piss we have characters rejecting coexistence, in Tellius, it's the world mechanics - whenever a Beorc and a Laguz coexist too much, the Laguz dies...).

As for Miccy,

Just like, imo, Soren gains some "new" attention and "uwu excuses for why he's being a snarky jerk at times", Miccy used to be bashed when FE10 was released (with all the Mary Sue accusation being thrown around!) because she was written to be a sort of foil/antagonist to Ike, and when the party reunited, she was demoted to a "soul-jar" role, let it be regarding the greater plot, or, even, her own backstory!

TBH, for people who didn't play FE10, if Ike is the bestest thing since melted cheese, Miccy, who opposes him, must be BaD and so you can pile everything you don't like on her, hoping to see it stick.

Or even worse, I've seen posts here and there comparing Miccy to Supreme Leader and how misunderstood uwu she is, which is the worst insult poor Miccy ever received since FE10 came out rofl

[mekanikaltrifle]

Mage game yesterday was fucking nuts but not in the 'Laine fell into Quiet and skinned theirself with a knife while nobody was watching them' way from a few sessions before. This time Malcolm's ex boyfriend Kenny seems to have got himself fucking embraced as a Nosferatu, the fucking idiot, everyone ended up having to defend him from another nossie which they successfully destroyed (and now have had their first real encounter with vampires. Much to everyone's unhappiness), and then once again Malcolm had paradox burn and this time... he collapsed afterwards.

There was something on the other side, which says it gave him a blessing and may have been responsible for allowing him to return to the world of the living after his accident killed him.

This, of course, is a big deal for a depressed atheist to suddenly have credible evidence of a higher power taking an interest...

[devotedlystrangewizard]

thinking gabriel thoughts (again)

[notsobeautifuldisaester]

CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW FUCKED THIS IS?!

[trans-li-ling]

I think we should give Zora a gun and whatever happens to the Shadow Decree happens

[trans-leek-cookie]

Hm I'm not putting this in yhe main tags bc. Yeah but I'm blocking ppl who call the step mother hot

[cleolinda]

AITA for banning my husband and father in law from the delivery room due to their intensely stressful/creepy behavior during my pregnancy?

There’s a famous Reddit post from 2020 where a pregnant woman wrote that her husband and father-in-law were a little too comfortable with their certainty that she was absolutely going to die in childbirth just like her husband’s late mother. It was to the point where her FIL was insisting that she go ahead and put all her clothes into storage, because she was obviously going to die in the hospital and it would save them the grief of packing up her things afterwards. Like. It was WILD.

When I tell my husband [that she feels suspicious of her FIL], he calls me paranoid, but I feel like my FIL WANTS me to die; his whole life identity for the past 35 years has been “amazing single dad” (never dated or had close friends or even hobbies really), and it seems like he’s looking forward to being able to guide my husband through what he went through. At this point, I’d honestly be happy to never see my FIL again, and I certainly don’t want him in the delivery room, especially since he told me he was “putting [his] foot down” about me not being “allowed” to have an epidural…. My husband, in addition to backing his dad on everything, acts like my due date is my death date, and has completely pulled away from me.

The commenters (and me, honestly) were convinced that the husband and FIL were either going to kill her outright to fulfill this expectation, or just make decisions about her care that might conveniently let her die.

And then she never posted again.

Over the last four years, people have frequently mentioned that post, always leading to a thread of people saying, “Oh god, I still worry about that woman.” I did too. It became one of those famous unresolved posts that people always wondered about.

Until yesterday, when someone on r/BestOfRedditorUpdates dug up a 2022 update she had posted on a different account:

TLDR; I had a beautiful and healthy baby girl, and I divorced my ex-husband. I lived, obviously.

She writes that she put her foot down about having her own mother in the delivery room rather than her FIL (!), and she WOULD be getting an epidural. Her husband lost his shit. And in his outburst, he let slip--

I admittedly lost my temper, and told him that I wasn’t going to die- it wasn’t my fault his father’s trauma wormed it’s way into his head, and that he needed to fix it without taking it out on me. He yelled at me that he didn’t need therapy. That caught me a little off guard; I asked him why he went to his therapist and was given advice about my death if he felt he didn’t need it. His expression gave it away, and he caved not long after. It turns out there was no therapist. It was just his dad. During the times he was supposed to be at therapy, he was with his dad. I’m still fuming.

And that was when she got the fuck out.

I’ll wrap this up- I’ve got an adorable little toddler tugging at my leg atm. I’m alive, I’m happy, and I’ve got my baby in my arms. Life is good.

I truly never thought we'd see a resolution to this, and I feel like there's probably a good number of people who remember it, so I thought you might want to know.

ETA: Brilliantly, I put the link in at the top; here it is again for convenience.

[jytan2018]

I read the comic in one sitting less than an hour after finishing the movie, and wow I have many Thoughts™.

- It's very obvious the two versions were meant to cater to different audiences AND tell different messages. I don't get why people are going "But the comic was better! It had more nuance!" just because Nimona was easier to root for in the movie.

- The comic was written back when ND Stevenson was still trying to process a lot of stuff, so all the characters are morally grey/straight up evil and the climactic battle is between a Ballister who regrets turning against Nimona, even if it was to save others vs. a Nimona who's too hurt to care if her lashing out was going to hurt innocent people.

- By the time Nimona got a movie adaptation, ND was a lot more secure in his sexuality, so the climactic battle was Nimona vs. the Director, the symbol of religious oppression and bigotry. It's not just about your friends turning on you because you're "too much" for them anymore, it's also about a society that would rather bring itself to the brink of ruin than coexist with you.

- (I totally get why people were upset about Ballister's surname change, though. Like come on, the media dubbing him Blackheart just to be mean was RIGHT THERE).

- Nimona's metaphor for not shifting is such a neurodivergent thing. Even in the comic, Nimona's parents insisting she's a monster who replaced their daughter is reminiscent of the changeling myth, which is what many parents thought their neurodivergent kids were—changelings who replaced their "real" children.

- Ambrosius being trained to cut off HIS BOYFRIEND'S WHOLE FUCKING ARM instead of merely disarming him is a very cop thing to do. As much as cops claim they're trained to de-escalate situations, their training still teaches them to treat everyone as a potential threat, and that level of constant vigilance can turn anyone into a trigger-happy/arm-choppy bastard. Even the Director, who can use a sword but probably hasn't actually fought someone in ages, STILL can't see Ballister reaching for the squire's phone without assuming he has a weapon.

- And on that note, the Queen getting killed simply because she was trying to reform the Institution and allow commoners to become knights? That's the best "no such thing as a good cop" metaphor I've seen. Because even if there ARE good cops and they ARE in leadership positions, the system will crush them before they make any meaningful change. It's not a good institution that turned rotten, it's an institution that only exists to spread its rot and refuses to be good.

- That's why Ballister's characterisation is so different in the movie vs. the comic. Comic Ballister had 15 years to come to terms with his trauma and the Institution's evildoing, while Movie Ballister is still freshly traumatised and hasn't found a way to define himself beyond the role he was assigned by the Institution.

- Not to mention Comic Ambrosius was not very noble to begin with and genuinely believed Ballister was better suited to villainy than heroism, while Movie Ambrosius never wanted the glory that came with his lineage in the first place and only antagonised Ballister because of indoctrination he needed to unlearn (which he did, all by himself, after witnessing the lengths the Director will go to just to kill Nimona).

- It really shows how important it is to surround yourself with loved ones who are open to change. Comic Ambrosius can love Ballister all he wants, but he'll still blast his arm off because he thinks Ballister deserved it anyway. Movie Ambrosius will stop to question what "the right thing" even means, even if he didn't love Ballister enough to defend him unconditionally.

I have so many more thoughts bubbling beneath the surface, but I'll probably address them some other day. In conclusion:

[ID: A pink-haired Nimona grinning evilly while holding up a knife.]

Watch Nimona. This is not a request.

Edit: Added more thoughts!