#any story that goes 'the gods are dying/dead'

[pocketramblr]

thinking about stories where worship and devotion are the impetus of gods, and what that means for love between people- lovers, parents and children, dearest friends. thinking about gods each born from love between people. thinking about lares familiares and hobgoblins-kobolds-brownies and house spirits 

[ellieluvr420]

Friends? Never. Pt.15 (Ellie Williams x reader)

SYNOPSIS: You and Ellie had been bitter enemies for years now but before that you were best friends. You had always planned to be roommates one day but when that becomes a reality the situation isn't exactly how you both imagined it.

Story-typical violence, brief mention of attempted SA and SMUT so mdni pls and thanks xoxo

Wow this is a long one, sorry it took me a couple days but I hope it was worth it for you angels, thank you so much for all the love on this series!! Also only ten more chapters left omg! I'm so excited for you guys to read the next chapter, hopefully you will love it as much as I do already <3

As Ellie approached the cabin, a sickness erupted in her stomach as she struggled to swallow the lump in her throat, it had to be you in there, she didn’t know what she would do if it wasn’t. She inched open the door and called out your name, bile rising to her mouth when the only response is silence. “Fuck.” She calls out your name again and when there’s no response she feels her body crumbling as her heart shatters but just before she goes to turn and leave completely defeated, something catches her eye, a shiny metallic glint poking out from behind the sofa. She rushes over to it and as she yanks it from its position on the floor she gasps. Your cross-body bag you had had on you when you left that morning. “Oh my god you were here.” She mutters to herself before slinging the bag over her body and searching the house just in case, she notes two infected dead in one of the bedrooms but she knows they aren’t you just from their size and clothing, so she moves on without a second thought. When she knows the house is empty she rushes outside and notices the hoof tracks leading towards the shed, the door hanging off its hinges allowing her to see its empty inside also. She can feel the panic driving her to insanity but she concentrates on her breathing as she tries to think rationally about what could’ve happened. Maybe you had just left it because it had no use to you, she ripped it open and when she saw what was inside her stomach only sank further, band-aids, a small bottle of water, a lighter and some other things but each of them would’ve been of some use to you. She had always made fun of you for bringing so many random things in that tiny bag wherever you went but now she understood, so why hadn’t you taken it with you? 

She rushed back to Shimmer as she realised you could be in trouble and immediately starts off again despite the blanket of darkness making her journey all the more dangerous. She had already emptied multiple magazines as she shot at any infected that jumped out of the darkness at her, if she wasn’t in such a rush she would’ve stopped and taken some out with her switchblade but she couldn’t waste any time, she needed to get to you. She was beginning to lose hope, the flame inside her slowly dying as she continued searching with no success until she heard voices, men, chatting and laughing. She hopped off of Shimmer and crept towards the sounds. 

“Did you see the catch we brought in earlier? God she was a fighter but fuck is she gonna be worth it.” 

“She that pretty huh?” 

“Oh yeah, you’re gonna love her.” The rage inside her boils, even if they aren’t talking about you the conversation between the two men still made her want to rip their throats out, she tried to ignore the twisted hope inside of her that they were talking about you because it means you could be getting hurt and abused but all she could think about is if it is you, that means she’s close to getting you back. She emerges from the bushes where she had been crouched listening with her gun trained on them as they both freeze at her sudden appearance. 

“Get on your knees, put your hands behind your heads.” Neither of them move, still frozen in shock. “Did I fucking stutter? NOW!” She cocks her gun and they both immediately drop to their knees, putting their hands on their heads, she rushes over to them and removes each of their guns and a knife from one before throwing them out of reach. She stands before them and as she makes eye contact with one she rapidly aims her gun at the others knee and shoots, he falls down with a shriek of agony and as the other leans forward to look at his friend she slams her foot into his face sending him flying backwards. She crouches over the one she had kicked, completely ignoring the one writhing around in pain from the bullet wound. “Listen to me very carefully, describe the girl you were just talking about.” He groans in pain as he clutches his nose that was bleeding profusely, she grows impatient and stomps down onto his face once again. “I’m not gonna ask you again, describe her.” He lets out a shaky breath and begins describing you in perfect detail and her heart flips knowing you’d be with her soon. “Good, now whisper so that your friend can’t hear, where is she being held?” 

“A-at our base, keep going northeast from here and you’ll find it, it’s not far, please I’ll- I’ll take you there, you can have her back, we can make a deal.” He pleads still in a whisper, she sneers at him and brandishes her switch blade before diving it into the man’s fore arm until she feels it sink into the ground, pinning him in place, he wails and curses her but she pays no mind as she walks over to the other man that had gone grey from blood loss and pain.  

“Where’s your base? Your story better match his.” 

“N-northeast from here, ‘bout a fifteen-minute walk so won’t take you long.” 

“Good, you’re not as stupid as you look.” She raises her gun and without a second thought shoots him straight between the eyes before walking over to the other man who was writhing around desperately trying to free himself from the switch blade dug into his arm, she raises her gun and delivers a shot to match his friends before ripping her knife from his arm, wiping it on her jeans and replacing it in her jeans pocket. She rushes back to Shimmer and heads in the direction of the base until she sees the light of multiple campfires surrounded by tents that varied in size. There was a quiet bustle of people moving around and as she watched she tried to figure out how many she was dealing with and where you could be. She had planned to move quietly and try to get to you with the least confrontation as possible but when she makes eye contact with a man standing by one of the fires she throws the plan out the window and begins shooting at every person in sight. 

She watched them drop to the ground like flies and there was not a hint of remorse in her, most of them were unarmed, arrogant she thought, but it only helped her cause as she moved through the base, searching each tent and massacring anyone that crossed her path. The ground beneath her feet was painted red and the sight only exhilarated her. She was so close, she could feel it, the magnetic pull between you tugging her closer and closer to you. Gun shots began to ring out around her as the few men that had escaped her grasp had armed themselves and were closing in on her where she was crouched behind one of the many tents you weren’t in. She checked the ammo she had left and catalogued it against the number of men she could count, and she was low, really low. As she heard their steps getting closer, she prepared herself for what was likely to be her last fight but as the sound of gunshots is accompanied by the repetitive thudding of bodies dropping to the ground, she pokes her head round the corner to see the men that were creeping up on her, dead in a pile on the floor. She looked around in awe and as her eyes fell on you emerging from round a corner cautiously, she feels her body relax as she exhales a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding in, she jumps up and out from the corner where she was hiding and immediately raises her hands in panic as you raise your gun at her. “Hey it’s me, it’s okay.” You lower your gun hesitantly before running over to her and body slamming her to the ground in as you press kisses all over her flushed face. 

“Oh my god, you’re here. I’m so sorry I ran, are you okay?” 

“I’m fine, are you?” 

“Yeah, yeah I’m good but there’s more coming so we gotta go.” You rush out as you clamber off of her, pulling her up with yourself. “You ready?” 

“Always.” You hand your gun to her before going over to one of the men and grabbing the rifle from him and checking the chamber for bullets. You both run through the base, shooting at anyone that even crossed your path before you gasp and stop, Ellie running straight into you. “What’s up babe?” 

“They have Greg, we have to find him.” 

“Seriously? Shimmer’s tied up just outside, we’ve got a horse.” 

“I know but Ellie he’s my baby, I can’t leave him.” She shoots at a man running at you from behind before sighing and nodding. 

“Fine, come on.” You both sneak away from the main path and begin searching the perimeter until you see the shiny grey speckled coat of Greg. 

“Oh my god, look there he is, watch my back I’m gonna go get him.” You run off before Ellie can reply before slowing down and approaching him gently as to not spook him while you untie his reins from the post he was attached to before climbing onto his saddle and holding a hand out to Ellie, she takes it with no hesitation and you both speed away from the base until you reach Shimmer where Ellie quickly jumps onto her back so you can continue fleeing the scene of your massacre. 

Once you were sure you weren’t being followed you let the horses slow down to a trot to let them catch their breath as you made your way through the dense forest, both on full alert as you’re sure there’s infected that would’ve been drawn to the area from all the commotion. 

“If you wanna keep looking for your parents we can, I’m sorry I was such an asshole about it earlier.” 

“It’s okay, you were trying to keep me safe and they’re probably long gone by now anyway. Let’s just go home.” There was a hint of sadness in your voice but she decides not to press further for now as you both continue on in silence, processing all that had happened in the past few hours. 

4 HOURS BEFORE 

As you walked through the door you let out a choked cry as you immediately recognised the turning-infected standing before you. 

“Mommy.” Your voice is strained as tears begin to fall down your cheeks, you were too late. You don’t even have a chance to grieve them as your father, though not really your father anymore, comes lunging at you. “No, no, please don’t make me do this.” You cry as if they have any control over their actions, you hold him away from you as he snaps his teeth at you and before you can second guess yourself you dive your knife into his neck, his blood splattering over you and the floor as he drops letting choked groans out of his mouth. Your mother screeches and lunges at you and you sob more as you hold her away from you. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I love you, I’m sorry.” You repeat as you take her down too until they are both unmoving on the floor. You walk out of the room, closing the door behind you as the sobs shake your body. As you make it to the living room, you collapse onto the floor as the sobs don’t stop even for a second, your parents were dead, you had killed them. 

You stay curled in a ball, holding yourself as you cry until you fall into a restless sleep. 

You’re woken as you feel your body being shuffled and shaken and as your eyes meet those of the man binding your wrists together your breathing quickens and your eyes widen in fear. “AGH GET OFF ME YOU PRICK!” You scream as you thrash around in his arms, you managed to kick him hard enough to jump up with difficulty due to your wrists being tied and as you make a run for the door, he grabs onto your ankle and yanks sending you crashing to the floor, hitting your jaw hard enough you felt like you had broken it, you groan and kick at him but his grip around you was tight enough you were having trouble breathing.  

“Guys get in here! She’s fucking fighting.” 

“GET OFF ME I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU’RE ALL GONNA DIE. GET OFF ME!” You shriek as two of his friends walk in with equally excited looks on their faces that make you sick to your stomach.  

The rest of the journey to their base was a blur but as you’re thrown into a tent by two men who then stand at the entrance, guns in their hands you sigh realising the gravity of your situation. You guess a couple hours had passed, though you had no actual idea, before a man you hadn’t seen before walks into the tent with a menacing grin plastered over his features. 

“Wow they didn’t say just how pretty you are.” His voice is gravelly and it sends a shiver down your spine as he inches closer to you. “Hey if you beg I might go easy on you.” He chuckles as he reaches for his belt buckle. 

“Fuck you, I’m not begging for shit.” You deliver a hard kick to his shin and he keels over with a hiss before back handing you hard enough you fall onto your front. 

“You’re gonna fucking regret that.” He sneers at you as he pins you down despite your thrashing, you clamped your eyes shut and prepared for the worst but it never came because gunshots started thundering down just outside the tent causing him to halt his movements and clamber out of the tent. The shrieks and cries are almost drowned out by the consistent gunfire and you realise this is your chance to run, you sneak to the entrance and look through the tiny gap, there’s only one man guarding the tent now which makes your life all the more easier. You burst out of the tent, snatching the gun from the man’s hands and shooting three times, overkill, you thought, but you were pissed. He drops to the ground and you immediately survey your surroundings, there are people scattering in all directions but you watch as so many of them fall to the ground in their fleeing. You creep throughout the base and swap your gun for one lying by one of the many dead bodies, checking the magazine and pushing forward. You’re hidden round the corner of one of the larger tents in the base and you see a group of men, all armed, enclosing on a tent a few metres away and you take your aim and eliminate each one before they even know where the shots are coming from. You wait for a second to check it’s clear before emerging from round the corner where you were hidden to check you had shot them all fatally.  

“Told you you’d all die.” As you’re looking over the bodies with a sick sense of satisfaction you hear a shuffle and immediately raise the gun only to hear the only voice you wanted to hear in that moment. 

“Hey it’s me, it’s okay.” It’s Ellie, she’s here, she found you and she saved you.  

“Ellie.” You whisper to yourself as you leap at her sending you both falling to the ground as relief floods through your veins like gold. 

“So how did you find me?” 

“I found the cabin and your bag and then when I was searching the area for you, I found these two guys from that group... I made them talk.” Ellie mutters the last part of her sentence in shame, she would’ve done anything to find you, but she doesn’t like the thought of you knowing the extent of it for fear you’d see her as the monster that she believes she is. 

“Thank you Ellie. If you hadn’t saved me when you did...” Your sentence trails off as you can’t bring yourself to say the words you’re sure would hurt her more than you, you don’t meet her eyes that are staring intently at yours and she decides not to press further. 

“So errr I think we’re really fucking lost.” She admits as she scratches at the back of her neck as she tries to make sense of any of her surroundings, failing miserably. 

“Yeah I’ve got no fucking clue where we are. Maybe we should find a place to stay and figure it out in the morning when we can actually see more than a few feet in front of us.” 

“Mmm this is why you’re the brains of the operation babe.” 

“Yeah we’d be fucked if it was you.” 

“I was being nice and this is what I get it.” You chuckle at her as you both continue making your way through the dense forest, now looking for somewhere, anywhere, to stay the night. As a comfortable silence falls over you both your mind casts back to the memories of the cabin and your eyes sting as tears prick at them, you’re so trapped in your mind, falling victim to the never-ending voices telling you that it’s your fault your parents are dead, that you’re a monster for killing them, that you don’t deserve anything good, that you don’t notice Ellie’s repeated, muffled calls of your name until her hand is squeezing your shoulder causing you to jump abruptly and spin your head to meet Ellie’s worried expression at your glassy eyes and quivering lip. 

“Babe, what’s up?” 

“Nothing, nothing, just a long day, what were you saying?” 

“I think I see something, look through those trees and up.” She says as she turns your head with a gentle grip to see what she had seen, you can barely make it out because it’s so dark but it is there, a house, a big one at that, in the distance. 

“Oh my god finally.” You smile genuinely for the first time today and Ellie reciprocates it as you both pick up the pace towards the house. 

As you near it you see a barn just behind it and the fence that enclosed the large property, you worry that you won’t be able to get in but as Ellie dismounts Shimmer and approaches in front of you and pushes on the gate, you relax because the door swings open with ease. “Damn I was not expecting that.” Ellie says as she holds the gate open for you, you jump down from Greg and lead him inside, shutting it behind you and pulling the large metal deadbolt across the gate shut. 

“Working lock and everything, seems too good to be true.” 

“Oh come on, you’re supposed to be the optimistic one out of us.” 

“Yeah.” You chuckle unconvincingly as Ellie shoots you a look at your tone. You both walk up the hill through the long overgrown grass, letting it tickle your palms as you glide them over it, until you reach the porch of the house. “Why don’t we put the horses in the barn before we go in?” 

“Yeah good idea.” Ellie begins walking round the house until she hears your footsteps thumping up the porch, she turns to see you looking out into the distance with awe painted all over your face.  

“Ellie, that mountain in the distance, that looks like the mountain on the east side of Jackson, I think it’s right behind it, reckon it would take us a couple hours to get back tomorrow, if that.” 

“Shit really? Lemme look.” 

“Oh what you don’t trust me?” You snark at her as she rolls her eyes before joining you on the porch. 

“Holy fuck babe you’re a genius.” She grabs your cheeks and pecks at your whole face as you giggle, you pull her into a bone-crushing hug and breathe her scent in like it’s oxygen, you both stay frozen like that until Greg neighs reminding you of the task at hand. 

“Come on, they need their beauty sleep just as much as us.” You grab her hand and squeeze as you drag her down the porch and towards the barn once again. 

“You stay with the horses, I’ll go check it’s clear.” Ellie asserts as you reach the large double doors. 

“Yes ma’am.” You do an exaggerated salute at her and she smiles at you seeming like yourself for the first time since she had found you before inching the door open and slipping inside, she stays still for a second just listening for any sign of movement but when it seems completely quiet she moves around the barn trying her best to make out the surroundings despite the darkness. She checks everywhere twice before telling you it’s clear and walking to meet you as you bring both the horses into the barn, you say goodnight to both horses before walking out hand in hand and shutting the doors behind you. As you’re walking back towards the house you stop for a second to look out over the landscape before you, it was breathtaking, it made you feel warm and calm for the first time since you had left Jackson as you lean your head on her shoulder, nuzzling into her. “You ever seen a view that pretty?” 

“Only when I’m looking at you.” You smile and peck her nose before giggling. 

“You’re so corny.” 

“You’re really mean you know that?” 

“Yeah I’ve been told once or twice.” You chuckle as you lead her towards the house desperate for some sleep. You both put your guards up once again as you enter the house quietly and check every room to make sure it’s clear. You couldn’t believe it when the entire house was empty, left in almost pristine condition, all the furniture is clean despite a little dust, there doesn’t seem to be an item out of place as you survey the home and you can’t help but imagine yourself here, cooking dinner with Ellie in the spacious kitchen, watching films on the squishy sofa, sleeping in the large bed together, doing other things in the large bed together, you could picture yourself here, with Ellie, the images warmed you. Even as you looked at the baby crib set at the end of the bed against the opposite wall you felt warm and as you look at Ellie, leaning on the doorframe observing you with a giddy smile, you know she feels it too. “It’s so beautiful here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a house in this good condition, even the fence is fine, I can’t believe it.” 

“I know, it’s perfect right?” She doesn’t say the words but you’re both thinking it. Perfect for us. 

“What would make it perfect is if there was any food in that pretty kitchen, I’m fucking starving.” 

“Me too. Let’s go look.” She holds out her hand to you and you take it as you walk side by side back downstairs to the kitchen before routing through the cupboards for anything that could quell the thundering in your stomach that was causing it to twist and ache. 

“Shit, fucking score!” 

“I’m starting a swear jar when we get back home.” 

“Okay you’ll fill it up just as much as me.” She retorts. 

“Not possible.” You grin at the frown on her face. 

“What would we even fill it with? Joel said they used to put money in ‘em.” 

“I don’t know, I’ll think of something.” 

“Whatever, just come look.” You walk over to the cupboard she was holding open and your mouth waters at the sight, a whole cupboard full of tinned pasta, tinned fruit, anything you can think of you swear is in that cupboard. 

“Fuck yeah!” 

“How much are we putting in that swear jar for each word?” She says smugly. 

“Shut up.” 

“You pick the food and I’ll find something to cook it with.” Ellie says already rummaging through the other cupboards and drawers, you read all of the tins, moving some around to get a better look at everything and decide on some leak and potato soup to share, something you had a lot as a kid, and some cheese ravioli in a tomato sauce, both look so good already and as you spin round to show the options she nods in approval. 

“El we can literally have a three-course meal, there’s tinned peaches in here too. They could use some better organisational skills, but this is fucking amazing.”  

“Hey, be nice, whoever was here before us is my favourite person right now.” 

“Gonna pretend I’m not offended by your statement.” 

“Oh you know what I meant.” She rolls her eyes as she pulls you into a hug after placing two saucepans down on the stove. “Just gotta hope they’ve got gas.” 

“Well I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” You say as you tear open each can and pour the contents into their respective saucepans. You each cross your fingers as you both turn the dials to set the stove a light and as fires light up underneath the pans you both exclaim in relief. While the food cooks you continue looking around the house, this time observing all the little trinkets and picture frames that told the story of the previous inhabitants. You hope whoever lived here before is alive and well as you read the story of their lives all around you. The sound of clattering sends you straight back to the kitchen where you see Ellie serving up the pasta and soup and you each take two dishes as you walk over to the long dining table, you sitting on the end and Ellie sitting to the right of you. Neither of you speak as you both wolf down your meals until you’re both slouched in your chairs holding your full stomachs. “I needed that.” 

“Yeah I can imagine you worked up quite the appetite running away.” Ellie raises her eyebrows accusingly at you as you smile sheepishly back at her. 

“Sorry again about that.” 

“It’s okay, I get it, are you sure you don’t want to keep looking? We know roughly where we are now at least so we don’t have to rush back if you don’t want to.” 

“Thank you but honestly it’s okay, I don’t think they’d want to see me even if we did find them.” You bow your head, avoiding Ellie’s eyes that were staring at you as if trying to read your thoughts. 

“You know none of this is your fault right?” She places her hand over your shaky one to calm the obvious trembling. You don’t reply, simply flashing a smile that didn’t reach your eyes before you stand, piling the dishes up and taking them to the sink to deal with later before returning to Ellie and squeezing her shoulders. 

“Come on, let’s go to bed.” As she stands you walk to the front door and lock it before following her up the stairs back to the bedroom with the cot in. You both strip your dirty clothes until you’re both in your underwear, not wanting to leave any windows open just to be safe. As you climb under the covers you sigh at the softness of the mattress and pillows that feel like they’re enveloping you in their embrace. You feel Ellie’s hand snake over your stomach as she pulls you into her, so your back is flush against her front as she presses kisses all over your shoulder up to your neck and jaw, at the same time, her hand that was pressed behind your back lifts your head gently to slip underneath it and grab a handful of your boob and squeeze playfully. Her right hand moves from your waist down your stomach, tracing little circles that cause goosebumps to appear on your skin as her left hand’s index finger circles around your nipple. Her little kisses never stop as her hand keeps snaking lower until it reaches the waistband of your underwear where she slips her pinkie inside and waits for a signal to continue. Your small groan accompanied with your hand snaking its way into her hair and tugging a little is enough confirmation for her to delve into your folds, searching and finding your throbbing clit expertly. She knew your body like the back of her hand and that is only proved when she starts circling the sensitive bud with careful precision causing fireworks to erupt in your stomach. You moan as the stimulation from both her hands was causing your body to melt which only furthered when she whispered. “Look at me,” before consuming you with a kiss that causes everything else around you both to fade away into fuzzy nothingness. 

The room is filled with your muffled groans and the subtle smacking of your lips against one another. Your whole body felt like it was burning, like Ellie’s fingertips were being singed as they continued their dance over you. All the heartache and fear that you had felt throughout the day was wiped away as the love you felt for the beautiful girl coursed through your veins and caused your body to hum. The coil is tightening within you as her circles around your clit speed up continuously until your mouth is hanging open, barely able to kiss her back as your body tenses and trembles with the rush of your orgasm. You cry out as your toes curl and your head falls back onto her shoulder as you ride your high until your body stills and the only sound is your heavy breaths. 

You take a second to catch your breath before turning round and kissing her sweetly on the lips. “God you’re good at that.” She giggles at your dazed smile as you both stare into each other’s eyes conveying the love that kept you both pressed together as if there was an invisible string tied round each of your hearts. Ellie scrunches her face in confusion as she feels you shuffling around before she sees your hand emerge with your balled-up underwear in it as you bite your lip and chuck them behind you. She raises her eyebrows as you bite back a grin before she also shuffles her briefs off, mimicking your actions and as she goes to climb on top of you, you push her back down flush to the bed as you straddle one of her thighs and lift the other to wrap around your waist. 

“Well this is different.” She comments with a giggle. 

“Good different?” You question, your voice laced with anxiety. She smiles at the worried look on your face as she leans up and pecks your nose. 

“So good baby.” Your worried face immediately twists into joy as you focus on fitting your hips together the same way she had done so many times before, it takes you a little longer to get the position just right but you know you’ve succeeded when Ellie sucks in a sharp breath as her hands fly to your hips and squeeze. She begins grinding your hips into her as you lean down, pressing your lips to her neck and sucking small bruises as she groans and grunts from the slide of your wet cunt against hers. You match the movements of her hands as they become rougher, you’re sure there will be little bruises in the place of her fingertips tomorrow. She nudges your face with her nose to get you to meet her eyes as you connect your lips, plunging your tongue into the wet, softness of her mouth. You felt like you were both stars colliding with each other as the pressure in your core built to its limit sending you both toppling over the edge as you cling onto each other. You collapse onto her chest as you both heave and bask in the warm afterglow of your releases.  

You can feel the depths of your tiredness causing your body to weigh ten times more than it ever did but before you can fall asleep you sit up and bite at your cheek as you gaze at Ellie’s lop-sided smile. 

“Wanna go look at the stars? Even Jackson doesn’t have as good a view as here.” 

“How are you not already asleep?” You shrug at her question as you climb off of her and walk over to the wardrobe hoping to find some clean clothes. When you open it, you see two fuzzy robes, a pink one and a black one, you pull them out and turn to her with a mischievous grin as you throw the pink robe at her and wrap the black one around yourself. “No fucking way, swap with me.” 

“Can’t hear you, what was that babe?” You rush past her and out of the bedroom leaving her no choice but to wrap the pink one around herself and follow you out to the yard where you’re already walking towards a tractor that was sat in the middle of the long-grassed field. She jogs to catch up with you and as you climb up onto the ladder, she grabs your hips and pulls you back down causing a laugh to erupt from inside you. She climbs up in your place then holds a hand out to you and helps you situate yourself on her lap as you both look up at the inky sky dotted with silvery sparkles of constellations you had never seen so clearly. You sigh contently as you lean back into her, resting your head on her shoulder and holding onto her hands, interlinking your fingers with hers that were clasped together at your waist. 

You take a deep breath and prepare yourself to utter the words you thought you’d never be able to say but in the comfort and warmth of Ellie’s embrace you know you can’t shut down like you had always preferred to do. “My parents are dead.” 

“What?” You feel the shuffle of her turning to look at you but you don’t meet her eyes, choosing to keep looking at the stars that mirrored the freckles dotted over Ellie’s cheeks. 

“I found them but I was too late, they had been bitten and were turning. I killed them. Sorry I lied, I just didn’t think I could actually ever say it out loud.” Your voice doesn’t crack, or tremble, you feel strong enough to deal with the reality you were now faced with in her presence, and you had never been more grateful for her than in this moment. 

“I’m so sorry babe, are you okay?” 

“No, but I will be, you make everything better, I’ll be okay with you.” She leans her head on yours and wraps her arms around you tighter. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you more... and I love this farm.” 

“Yeah?”  

“Yeah.” You hum as you smile. Tomorrow was another day, and you could handle that, because Ellie would be there with you. 

tags: @emiliabby @readbydayana @radioheadfan699 @lil-elliesgf @isitadinosaur @amberputh

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

ok so like objectively yes ed did things wrong but not only do i personally feel no negative emotions about any of that, i swear it would make more sense tonally with the rest of the show to NOT make a huge chunk of s2 be about ed facing the consequences for and redeeming himself from the marooning/pushing lucius overboard/izzy toe thing. like if im wrong i’m wrong and it’s whatever but i really really think the focus will be more on ed’s internal emotional state and how his choices were informed by trauma and how he’s going to learn to heal more than it’s gonna be like, Ed Learns It’s Wrong To Maroon People And Force Feed People Their Own Toes. like if anything i think it’ll be Ed Learns That He Deserves To Be Happy And He Also Realizes That Marooning People And Force Feeding People Their Own Toes Is An Unhealthy Coping Skill That Negatively Affects His Mental Health And He Learns New, Healthier Coping Strategies. like i think the focus of coming out of the kraken era is going to be almost entirely on ed’s feelings, and any mention of how his actions harmed the rest of the cast will be brief and/or it’ll primarily be played for comedy

which yes irl this would kinda suck to have some guy respond to getting his heart broken (and other stuff) by killing and maiming people and then have his whole journey of self-discovery be solely abt him and not any of the people he’s hurt. HOWEVER a biiiiiig part of the humor of the show is that the characters are experiencing some very real and very relatable self-esteem issues and insecurities and vulnerabilities, and all of that is placed on a backdrop of comedically gratuitous pirate violence. like this is a romcom and ed is basically going through the classic emotional beats of the romcom heroine getting her heart broken and eating a whole tub of ice cream and crying in her room for days before becoming cold and distant and “love is dead” edgy, only the joke is that bc he’s a pirate his “love is dead” romcom era includes some people actually literally dying. izzy and the crew all just happen to be in the blast radius for this joke, and while we as fans might love and care abt those characters too, the plain fact is that ed and stede are the main characters and the other characters’s feelings or storylines or internal motivations simply do not matter nearly as much to the show as theirs (with the exception of maybe jim, and also maybe olu depending on how s2 goes). and that’s literally just how romcoms work. this sort of “protagonist bias” is like, a core part of this kind of story.

and there’s nothing wrong with not vibing with the story because of that. if season two comes and goes and you aren’t happy with how the show handled the consequences of ed’s actions in e10 that’s fine, nobody has to feel any specific way about this show. but if i’m right and this is how s2 plays out and some of y’all don’t like this, the problem is not that ofmd is bad. the problem is just that this is not the story you wanted or expected to be told.

i DO think, tho, that there’s something very powerful abt a character like this being a queer indigenous man. he’s a gay romcom protagonist and narratively speaking his feelings trump all. this is a queer romcom that uses gratuitous slapstick violence as a punchline and where the queer main characters are allowed to get violent and unhinged about their feelings, and at the end of the day they ultimately get a pass bc it’s a gay romcom and the show is about them. like literally that description itself is more than i could’ve ever dreamed of from any tv show ever, and THEN you’re telling me that one of the main characters is indigenous???? it’s been a year and a half and s2 is right around the corner and i swear to god i still can’t believe this show actually exists. we don’t GET shows like this, we don’t GET characters like this. ed teach is such a fucking blessing of a character and i love him with all my heart.

[theladyfulcrum]

Come here children. Come here. Sit down. Take my hands. Listen.

Here’s what we are not going to do. We are not going to let them unravel us and leave us in a heap of bawling bodies. They want us to sob until our eyes fall out and we rupture our abdominal organs because they’re heartless and sadistic and part of STAR WARS—shhh, steady—but we are going to remain CALM. Call it denial, call it call it bargaining, call it what you will, but he’s not gone.

Deep breaths, all together now. Crying is cathartic and necessary for coping with the emotional abuse we endure at the hands of Filoni et al., but don’t cry from lost hope. I’m serious. Was it among the worst things we could have possibly been forced to watch? Has a good majority of the fandom been mulling where the hell we are supposed to find the will to go on after that? Of course. But they’ll be back. And Tech will be, too.

Hush, child. Listen to me.

There was a reason he fell into cloud-cover. He could have been falling into anything. Water can be lethal from that height, yes, but let’s all just remember what Hunter pulled in War-Mantle with falling OUT OF A SHIP and down a LITERAL MOUNTAIN and surviving that with JUST HIS KNIFE. HIS KNIFE, KIDS. Tech accepted what he was doing, and he was okay with dying if that was what this meant, but he’s Tech. Once he fell from view he did whatever he could to increase his odds of getting out of it alive. Trust.

Speaking of falling from view— we know the Clone Wars rules. No body, no confirmed death. Forget that— we know the STAR WARS rules. Even if someone gets SLICED IN HALF before your VERY EYES and FALLS AN INDETERMINABLE-BUT-DEFINITELY-NOT-SURVIVABLE DISTANCE, they STILL aren’t dead. Further still, if you had put the two scenes in front of me with no context, I would have said Echo’s death in an EXPLOSION of FIRE seemed more final and certain that Tech falling away from us. And no, I don’t care about the argument that it’s a kId’S ShOW so they wouldn’t show us the body. Go watch Colt’s death and get back to me. Or you know, pretty much any Clone Wars episode.

BUT THE GOGGLES, you wail. I know, dear heart, I know. I see the cracks in them every time I close my eyes. But Hemlock getting his hands on those isn’t confirmation of anything other than what we already know— no matter where he wound up, Tech is having a Very Bad Time™️. Whether he lost them on the extremely unpleasant way down or whether he’s being experimented on in critical condition is hardly a nicer thing to know, but we’ll take just about anything right now if it means we’ll see our boy again, won’t we?

Shhh, I’m not through. We also have that scene with Phee. If it had been a true goodbye, if Tech had shown an ounce of the development he had with Omega about differences in emotional processing and communication, you’d have seen my soul depart through the atmosphere. But no. That scene’s entire purpose was to be unresolved. Was it just to make us incurably sad in retrospect? Maybe. But my gut says no— there’s more he needs to say to her.

On that note, the same goes for Tech and Crosshair. I refuse to believe we’ll never see them together again. I don’t have anything stronger than my refusal, but my feelings on this are rock solid. There’s also the important issue of THE Bad Batch theme— you know how they’ve established a precedent of not using it unless the whole Batch is together? Collectively, we’re going to refuse to believe they’re going to break that now. And there’s too much love for that theme to never hear it again.

Finally, beloveds, we come to our old favorite: story analysis. You know I’m insufferable about this, but listen. If we look at screenwriting, if we look at story structure, if we look at BEATS, this is the old “DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL” for the Batch (and us obviously). It’s the ALL IS LOST. The EVERYTHING IS AWFUL AND THE HEROES ARE AT THEIR LOWEST LOW. It’s the classic “oh my god this second installment is EMOTIONAL TORTURE HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO ME” that we can point to in novels, shows, and film series again and again. It’s the ESB ending, it’s the Catching Fire ending, it’s the Rebels S2 AHSOKA IS D E A D AND ANAKIN KILLED HER ending. S3 will open as they enter Act III, where they use what they’ve learned to move upwards toward the finale of this particular story arc. Doesn’t that sound like something nice to cling to?

There now. If I’m wrong, I’ll give you all the choice of k!lling me first or tossing me alive out of a plane with no *hard swallow* parachute, jet pack, or functional grappling gun. But I truly believe you won’t have to.

In the year or two we have to wait, cry for his absence, cry for the Batch being more fractured and farther apart than they ever have been, cry for Hunter feeling like he’s failed everyone he loves, cry for all of it, but not because you’ve lost hope that all might not be lost.

Tech will be back.

[esta-elavaris]

OKAY so I genuinely cannot start writing this in earnest without a hell of a lot of planning, buuuuut...I wrote part one in the meantime. Just to get a feel of the thing (🤡🤡🤡) so bone apple tea! Only posting it on here, I won't post it on AO3 until I'm fully ready to go.

Credit goes to @bumblingbriars for giving me the idea of "wait, what if James was the modern one and Theodora was the character in the movies?" -- thank you for this but also how dare you.

Dividers by cafekitsune.

As It Was

None of the tales ever spoke of the fear. Why did they never speak of the fear?

It was a stupid question. Theodora knew why. Because it didn’t make for a very good story, did it? People wanted to hear of the bold heroes who defeated the monsters with little more than a smile and the strength of their own two arms. Who wanted to be regaled with stories of stupid women on suicide missions for philandering pirates? No, she wasn’t the hero of this story. She was a cautionary tale. That was all her death would amount to.

Clenching her teeth against furious tears, she doused Jack’s hands in the oil from the lamp, and then held firm to the shackles as he slid his hands free of them. They were the only two left aboard the Pearl…and it was looking like they’d be going down with it.

“You shouldn’t have stayed, darlin’,” he said.

There was a mournfulness to his dark eyes that she’d never seen before. Even now, here, at the end, he couldn’t pretend any more than she could that her death mightn’t be a waste. That it was anything more than an idiot dying for the sake of an unrequited crush.

“Too late now,” she ground out, following it up with a very forced, very strained laugh.

Because if she stopped clenching her jaw, she would definitely begin to sob. And that was the only thing here that could be more pathetic.

“Too late now,” Jack agreed, a bitter smile on his face.

Each second seemed to stretch into an eternity – was that natural, when death was certain and unavoidable? It was supposed to come with a sense of peace, was it not? Of calm? Her father had always said…god, her father. How would he even find out, back in Port Royal? He’d never forgive her for this. It was that thought that had her vision blurring.

Around them, deceptively soft splashes sounded here and there, out of place with how the water usually lapped at the sides of the ship, followed by stomach-churning slick noises…that of the kraken’s appendages. Theo took a deep, shuddering breath in. Too late now.

When she looked at Jack again, searching for words – although she knew not which ones, exactly – she found him forcing a smile. Then, instead of stepping back as she’d expected, he stepped forward. Her eyes closed on instinct as he kissed her, time slowed further still, and she felt…she felt nothing. No breathlessness, no swelling in her chest, no weakness in her knees. Nothing like Elizabeth ever described when it came to Will. Only the scratch of his moustache, the way the beads in his beard clacked against her chin, and the discomfort at the awkward angle of how she’d leaned in.

They parted, and when she opened her eyes, she found Jack watching her, that sadness back on his face again. No joking admonishments at her lack of any reaction, no over-the-top exaggerations at how his prowess had just gone clearly unappreciated. Nothing. Just sorrow. But it was quickly covered by yet another forced smile.

“Come on, darlin,” he drew his sword. “Best have a bit of flair about it, eh?”

Well. She could agree with that, at least. Theo drew her own sword, and took a deep breath in.

There were many things that James actually enjoyed about living with his younger sister…although admitting that to her would be nothing short of a fatality. But Phoebe was a rather good flatmate. She picked up after herself, she didn’t throw parties, and she added life to a flat that would otherwise be rather dead during the times when he was actually in it.

One habit of hers, however, that he could do without was her burning desire to watch the same films over and over again, with scarcely an hour between repeats. It was cyclical, more often than not. Winter belonged to Middle-earth, spring to whatever was newly landed on her radar, and summer – which they were suffering through now – was Pirates of the Caribbean territory. One month in, and he was just about ready to set about his eyeballs with a spoon. Anything to make it stop.

At present, she sat on the sofa across the other side of the room while he pottered about the kitchen, watching enraptured as the redhead on screen turned with teary eyes, side-by-side with Jack Sparrow, to face the kraken that would soon devour them both, the music swelling dramatically as they lifted their swords.

“What I don’t understand is why she had to die,” he said unthinkingly.

And instantly regretted it when Phoebe turned with a grin.

“Ha! You’re getting into it now!”

“If you’re going to insist on watching the damn things ten times a week, I can’t be blamed for noticing bits of them,” he replied sourly, leaning on the countertop. “But they bring him back in the next film, don’t they? Why not her, too?”

“The movie-verse explanation is that she was at peace.”

“Dying for a man who could barely pat her on the head in thanks? Oh, yes, very peaceful. Positively euphoric.”

Curiosity sated, albeit not in a particularly satisfying manner, he straightened and resumed the arduous process of deciding whether he’d be having cereal or real food for dinner.

“Yes. Well,” Phoebe turned her face back to the television, distractedly watching as the kraken devoured the Black Pearl, “the boring explanation is that the actress had a nasty accident just before filming started for the next one, and her bones wouldn’t heal in time for all of the stunts and so on. They had to write her out.”

That made marginally more sense, at least.

“…Much to your disappointment, I suspect,” she added smugly.

“Excuse me?” he raised an eyebrow at her.

“I saw you googling her earlier.”

“I thought I recognised her from something else.”

The fact that his cheeks blazed almost immediately did little to help his argument, but he took some comfort in knowing she was one of the few who could wrench such a reaction from him. If any of his brothers-in-arms could see it, they’d never let him hear the end of it.

“If you say so,” came her smug response.

“And she…emotes rather impressively,” he added.

“Is that what they call it these days?”

James scoffed his disgust…and then he settled on cereal. That would get him out from his sister’s far too knowing gaze much more quickly. But he’d miss it, he knew, next time he deployed.

[pedrito-friskito]

strawberry wine - joel miller x fem!reader

during - part six

series masterlist | main masterlist | read on ao3

just when you think it couldn’t get any worse.

a/n: fair warning - this part is violent/dark as hell. we’re in the full blown apocalypse now, trying to survive. not much Joel in this part; we’re building reader’s survival story.

word count: 3.3k

warnings: MY BLOG IS 18+, MINORS DNI, angst, canon-typical violence and injuries, death, explosions, blood, some general badassery.

✨follow @friskito-library for updates on new works/chapters✨

Everything seems to blur together, after.

You patch yourself up, cover your shoulder in antiseptic and gauze, ignoring the way your mind whirls as you clean it. Would that…turn you? Make you like…whatever Dean had become? Were you sick already? How long would it—

You slap yourself. Hard. Hard enough that your teeth rattle a little, and you’re sure there’s a welt rising on your cheek. You’re in shock. The adrenaline has kicked in, but you need to let it take over. You need to listen to what Joel said. Take what you can and run.

Get the hell out of Boston.

Dean liked to camp, by some stroke of luck. There’s a backpack in the hall closet, a hunting knife tucked inside, along with a length of rope, a flashlight, a bunch of other camping supplies you’d never think to buy. You fill the bag with food, the first aid kit, some clothing.

After cleaning the blood from your arm as best you can, you wrap yourself in Joel’s flannel. You pull the polaroid out of the box you’ve kept in all this time, stuff it in the chest pocket. You put on whatever shoes have the best soles, grab the bat, and leave, without looking back.

Your car is not an option. As soon as you step out of your apartment, the power goes out, plunging the hall into darkness. Which means you won’t be able to get out of the underground lot. You pull the flashlight out, head for the stairwell, keep the bat hefted over your shoulder. Your hands shake on the grip, but you ignore it.

The city has been plunged into chaos. The lobby of your building is a disaster, shattered glass and debris scattered across the floor. The security guard lies in a heap beside his post, his throat torn out, blood pooled beneath his body. You bite back the urge to scream, the urge to vomit, the urge to turn tail and go straight back to your apartment and stay there until something else—

Planes zip past over head. Not regular planes; fighter jets. The army. You pick your way across the lobby, stowing your flashlight, and as you step through the remains of the door, an armoured truck speeds down the road in front of you, the sound of gunfire echoing up the street. 

Everywhere you look, there are people; some screaming, some shouting, some dead on the ground. Horror zips down your spine when you see more like Dean, sprinting down the road, lunging and jumping at people, pinning them to the ground, teeth tearing into flesh, blood pouring onto the sidewalks. Everywhere, people screaming, people dying, soldiers with guns.

Your breath seizes in your chest, turning your head left and right. Where do you go? Your heartbeat is in your ears, your blood thumping beneath your skin.

Glass crunches beneath your foot as you step onto the sidewalk, keeping your back pressed to the building as people sprint past. What do you do? Soldiers are stopping people, barking orders into walkies, and you watch in horror as right in front of you, a woman no older than you is thrown to the ground. “Please, no!” she shouts, grabbing at the soldier’s legs. “I cut myself on glass, I swear! Please!”

The soldier puts a bullet in her head, and your heart sinks into your toes. Your shoulder buzzes, the pain dulled slightly but a sudden reminder, a thick thump beneath your skin. Oh, god. Her blood seeps across the asphalt, inching towards the toes of your shoes, and before the soldier can turn to you, you bolt.

Every corner you turn is the same: bodies, bullets, fire. They’re mowing people down, more armoured trucks rolling down the city blocks. You just keep going, ignoring the glass and brick and blood that crunches beneath your feet as you do. You point yourself West, and you just keep walking.

Gunfire makes your spine prickle, and a bullet rings off the end of the bat, not two inches from your thigh. You bite back your shriek, sliding down the next alleyway you see. More people barrel down the sidewalk, more bullets rain, and you clap your hand over your mouth to stifle your cries.

What the fuck are you gonna do?

Your shoulders shake against the bricks as you slide down to the ground, a dumpster blocking you from view of the street. You squeeze your eyes shut, cover your ears with your hands, try to drown out the screaming and the sound of bullets hitting bodies, hitting people.

Hitting those…things.

Your ribs shake with every breath you try to take. You’re hyperventilating, your limbs shaking harder with every passing second. What are you gonna do? Where are you gonna go? You can’t—

You don’t wait, you don’t stop, Joel’s voice nearly shouts in your head. You just keep going.

Slowly, you open your eyes. The bat sits on the pavement beside you. The metal is dented where the bullet pinged off, and there’s a splatter of dried blood on one side. From Dean, you realize. Overhead, helicopters whir through the city, fighter jets soaring higher. You can hear the screech of tires, cars colliding with each other, more screams, more glass shattering.

You dig in the backpack for the hunting knife, strap the holder to your belt as best you can. You curl your fingers around the handle of the baseball bat and get to your feet, creeping up slowly, peering over the top of the dumpster.

If you had waited just one more minute.

The man spots you as soon as your head lifts, and something akin to recognition sweeps through his dead features. His jaw looks unhinged, blood dripping from his hands, those same strange marks you’d seen on Dean webbing across his face. A high-pitched wail echoes through the alley, and when he lunges, whatever instincts have awakened within you take over, and you swing. You hit his shoulder on the first one, the same you had with Dean, but the second connects, harder than the first, a sickening crunch as it meets his skull. He topples over, and you don’t hesitate, lifting the bat above your head before bringing it down hard, the ring of metal sounding almost wet.

You wipe the blood on the man’s jacket. There’s a knife sticking out of his back pocket, and you grab it, shove it in the side pocket of your backpack. You tighten your grip on the bat, heading deeper into the alley, eyes darting through the dark, ready.

You just keep going.

+

It’s days, of hiding. The sun never seems to come up, the sky filled with smoke and ash that burns thickly in the back of your throat. The people never stop screaming, and it’s gotten to the point where you don’t remember the last time you slept. You’ve tried not to waste the food or the water in your bag, and hunger gnaws at your stomach, the adrenaline still flowing having taken over every part of your body. You’re still shaking, but it’s not quite as bad.

You just keep going. 

Every step you take brings the sound of crunching glass, and your shoes don’t last as long as you’d hoped. The rubber splits after a few days of sprinting down alleys, hiding in empty storefronts, sitting in the dark. You sleep in short spurts, a rare moment of silence, the bat held in your lap with an iron grip. You stay out of sight as much as possible, steering yourself towards the city limits. Helicopters whir overhead near constantly, searchlights sweeping the pavement. Part of you wonders what they’re looking for.

You hear more people get attacked. The screaming never stops, but your brain seems to tune it out. You stumble into a UPS store and find a roll of duct tape, a few pairs of scissors, one of those ugly brown jackets. You wrap your shoes with the tape; it’s not ideal, but it’ll work for now. It has to.

It’s a waiting game, you learn quickly. Wait for the quiet, but not too quiet. Wait for an opening, where those things are distracted enough that you won’t draw attention. Keep the bat level, don’t let it hit anything. Don’t make a sound. Get where you’re going quickly and stay fucking quiet.

You’re thankful, for the fact that this…whatever the fuck this is that’s happened to the world has kicked your survival instincts into high-gear. It feels like you blink, and it’s been a week, seven whole days since you killed your boyfriend with a damn baseball bat. Seven whole days since Joel called, wished you happy birthday, told you to get out of Boston.

I’ll find you, baby.

Most nights, you cry yourself to sleep. Silently, no sobs wracking your throat, just hot tears that come away black when you wipe your cheek with the back of your hand. Your mind is a blur; your family, Joel, their faces, their fates. Dean. The guilt, the fear; you were protecting yourself, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. You bury your face in the collar of Joel’s flannel, stare at the polaroid in your pocket until your vision blurs. You blockade yourself in cafe bathrooms, boutique change rooms, storage closets, whatever you can find. Whatever feels safe, not that anything truly does.

The army doesn’t let up, not that you expect them to. Not an hour goes by without the sound of gunfire, shouted orders, the crunch of debris under truck tires. You’ve been listening, as you move, eavesdropping on soldiers’ conversations. There’s talk of a wall, a gate around the city, to keep it contained, a quarantine zone. You hear whispers about guard towers, murmurs about the shopping mall becoming a shelter for uninfected people.

“Yeah,” one soldier comments, holding the biggest gun you’ve ever seen, “if any of them survive what’s coming.”

How fucking comforting.

You hear a few more talking about it, distances and weights that mean nothing to you, but when you hear blast radius, it starts to make sense. The dread sinks deep into your gut, your bag suddenly too heavy for your shoulders, the world slipping out from beneath your feet.

You have to get out.

Joel’s voice echoes in your ear. You tighten your grip on the bat. 

You just keep going.

There’s no warning, when they start the bombings. You’ve been on edge ever since you put two and two together, tiptoeing through the city, still keeping to the shadows. 

Your shoulder still throbs occasionally; you’ve changed the bandages a few times since the first, tried to keep it as clean as possible, but every time you feel it ache, all you can think of is that woman outside your apartment, pleading for her life, the echo of the bullet ringing through her skull. If they caught you, if they saw you were injured, that would be it, you know that. So you keep going, no matter what you hear, what you see.

And then, in the blink of an eye, the world is ending all over again.

The noise yanks you out of sleep, the bookstore you’d been sleeping in shaking as another explosion echoes through the city. The shelves start to shake, the few books that haven’t already been pulled from the shelves toppling to the floor. Outside, the sky is dark, and the air turns to flame before your eyes, building across the city starting to topple, fire crawling up the broken frames, bursting more windows, sending showers of glass shards to the ground below.

And the people…screaming.

The infected, howling.

Your heart is beating so hard you can feel it in your throat, scrambling to your feet as you rush towards the door. Before you can pull it open, another bomb drops, the door blasts inward, and you’re thrown off your feet, colliding hard with one of the shelves, falling to the floor beneath it. Your head hits the ground hard, pain radiating through your skull, and almost like an echo, you hear more of the shelves fall.

The last thing you see is one falling in front of the door, miraculously not torn from it’s hinge, pushing it shut, blocking out the world outside.

+

You dream about Joel.

Well, maybe a memory, more than a dream. The line seems to blur between.

Those two weeks, in the summer, the Fourth of July, every night spent wrapped in Joel’s arms, in his bed. You talked for hours, filling each other in on what you’d missed, what had happened since you left Austin. You only left his bed when you had to, when the sun had come up again and you knew Tommy would be back with Sarah, knew Joel had to go to work, knew you had to find a way to fill your day until he came home again.

He wouldn’t let you leave the circle of his arms, keeping your body pressed to his, a knee slotted between your own, bicep flexed beneath your head. His other hand roamed, starting at the base of your neck, trailing down your spine, all the way to the small of your back, the curve of your ass, before trailing back up again. You kissed him like you had on the day you left, until you weren’t sure where you ended and he began, until he was breathing your air, drinking it from your lungs.

The memory is fuzzy, faded around the edges, but it’s still him. It feels like it goes on for hours, the slow trek of his hands across your body, his mouth along every curve of your face, his body pressed into you so deeply you know you’ll never be the same.

It wasn’t, even when you left. Dean was great, he really was. He loved you, made you happy, made you laugh. You loved him, too. But he wasn’t Joel. No one ever would be. No one ever could.

“I love you,” you hear your own voice say, an echo in your head. Dream Joel smiles, pulls you close.

His mouth doesn’t move, but you hear his voice all the same.

I’ll find you, baby.

It feels less and less like a promise, more and more like a dream.

The dream fades, darkness taking over, and your head throbs. You slide slowly back into consciousness, your limbs screaming in protest, your throat thick with the sour taste of soot and ash and flame. The waking world is just as terrible as you’d left it, and you blink away the dust that’s settled along your lashes, cough so hard your chest sings with pain. You move slowly, not getting to your feet, just propping yourself against the bookshelf you’d been thrown into, resting your aching head against the wood. You’d collided with the shelves and brought them all down, but the main housing of the shelf is still intact, and you fit yourself inside it, grabbing the bat from where it had fallen and pulling it into your lap.

Fuck.

It’s dark outside, the sky inky and black, but still threaded with smoke, flutters of ash, flickers of fire. You wait, anxiety a tight ball in your stomach, for another bomb to fall, another explosion to rip through the city. As you wait, you take stock. Your arms are a mess of cuts and bruises, blood streaking your skin, a few pieces of splintered wood poking out from the sleeves of your flannel. You clean yourself up best you can, loathe to use more of your first aid supplies, but there’s a nasty cut on your forearm, and you know you can’t leave it unattended.

Slowly, you get to your feet, testing the weight on your legs, careful that your knees won’t give out beneath you. You leave your bag near the shelf, heft the bat over your shoulder, and head for the window.

The bookstore only has two small windows, either side of the door. The glass is long broken, leaving behind only the criss-crossed wires that once held it in place. The shelf that had fallen in front of the door creaks beneath your weight as you step up onto it to peer through the opening. 

You barely recognize the city. Everywhere you look, there’s just darkness. Piles of ash and charred remains, fractured cars and toppled streetlights. Twisted heaps of metal, cracked chunks of asphalt, some spots still smouldering, still burning. There are holes in the earth, pits in the ground where the bombs had hit.

And still, the screaming.

Not screaming, you realize after a moment, clutching the bat tighter. The howling. The inhuman shrieking of those…things.

The Infected.

Not knowing what else to do, you wait it out. You sift through some of the books, hoping for an atlas or map, something that could help you plot a path out of the city. If they haven’t put the gates up yet, like you hear the soldiers talking about. It’s hard to know how long you’ve been out for; minutes, hours, days.

You eat something, some kind of protein granola bar that sits like lead in your stomach, and sip your water sparingly. Your throat feels raw, no doubt from the amount of ash you’d inhaled laying there on the ground, but you know you can’t waste the water. The flannel’s been mostly shredded, the fabric torn all over your arms, a large tear across your chest, and you shrug out of it, blinking back the tears that form when you realize it’s unsalvageable. You stuff it into the bag all the same, and pull out the other, about to slip it around your shoulders, but opt for a hoodie you’d grabbed instead.

The polaroid is still intact, a little torn at one corner but the picture is still clear. Worry gnaws at your gut, and you slide it into one of the inner pockets of the bag, where it’ll hopefully be safe. You pull out the roll of duct tape, rewrap your shoes, toss back a few ibuprofen you find in the first aid kit.

You wait for the next morning, when more of the smoke has cleared, the sky not as dark, the screams quieted. Most of the fires have burned themselves out, leaving nothing but charred embers that crunch under your feet as you slip out of the bookstore. You don’t bother pulling the door shut behind you.

For a moment, everything is just…still.

You got lucky; there was a map book still on the shelves, all the pages still intact. It took a while, waiting for decent light, using a pencil you’d pilfered from behind the register, but you had a route, a plan. You had no idea how long it would take you. A car would definitely help, but the state of the streets of Boston didn’t exactly give you hope the roads outside the city would be any better.

Joel’s voice lingered in your mind: it’s everywhere. How many more of those things would you encounter on the road to Austin? Had they bombed other cities? Was this actually everywhere, worldwide? Did you really have a snowball’s chance in hell?

You tighten your grip on the bat, turn down the alley beside the bookstore. It didn’t matter. You have to get out of Boston, and you have to get to Joel. It’s that simple.

Right?

You get to the edge of the city, and every ounce of hope you had left disappears. Your heart hammers in your chest, the bat shaking in your grip, the pain in your shoulder thumping loudly with every step, even as you slow to a storm.

There’s a ten-foot fence around the perimeter of the city. Metal chain link stretching out as far as you can see in every direction, soldiers everywhere you look, tanks and trucks and gigantic guns manned atop guard towers. You can just barely make out the sign pinned to the metal: TEMPORARY BOUNDARY.

It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself; you have to get out of Boston.

PREV | NEXT

[cosmicdeaths]

i'm writing this because i don't know else to do to stop crying. and because there is little else my helpless hands can do to change this horrifying reality we're living in. i am sudanese. and my mother just told me that we've lost yet another relative in the ongoing civil war in sudan. i've also learned that the small lovely town i grew up in, Shambat, in Khartoum Bahri, is currently plagued by this fever the origin of which is yet to be identified. from what little we know whoever gets this fever just does not wake up to see the sun of another day. it might be because the dead bodies people buried in their backyards in a desperate attempt to grieve and honor them are unearthed by the rain. it might be because the entire health system has collapsed months ago and there is no way for these people to attain any form of medical help. we've lost family members with chronic conditions simply because they couldn't get medical attention until it was too late. my own grandfather died of complications that could've easily been managed had they gotten him the proper treatment. we've lost people to this fever, too. a brother and the very next day, his sister. and more keep dying. it hurts and angers me that no one's talking about this. and just as equally my heart breaks for each and every palestinian out there, and i keep praying for them and hoping to be half as patient as they are. i know what it's like to be so scared your entire body goes numb, i know what it's like to be displaced and leave behind everything you've ever known with little hope of ever coming back. to survive and not really feel like you did. i saw this video of a palestinian woman holding her dead baby and just begging to nurse him one more time. i see palestinian men breaking down into tears while trying to comfort children, literal babies, whom they pulled out of the rubble. a little girl who's saying god why didn't you take me along with my mother, god, you know i can't live without her. and i suddenly remember that i know of a friend of my family who just sits there crying helplessly every night because she doesn't know what to tell her starving nieces who are too young to understand that they can't get food because of all the shooting outside. i keep seeing entire villages in the west being completely wiped off the map, reduced to nothing but a black dot of ashes and ruin. and this isn't even a first; ethnical cleansing in the western areas of sudan went on for decades and no one even bat an eye. my heart will never stop bleeding for Darfur. i know of a group of boys who were stuck for days in the very university i went to, waiting for a ceasefire for days on end until one of them died of fear or starvation or illness or whatever it is that we still don't know to this very day, and they had to bury him in the very field they used to play football matches in. a field every student in that university knows and has been to and laughed and cried in. girls are raped and sexually enslaved in terrifying numbers. the biggest maternity hospital in the country, the one i was born in, was looted and patients kicked out. these are all stories that will never leave my memory til the day i die. they're all deaths i will never forgive nor stop mourning. i won't despair and i won't give up, but the heart aches and cracks, and the tears run and run and leave crevices behind. the world is an ugly, ugly place. only hope and solidarity can save us. my sudanese and palestinian brothers and sisters, you are not alone. and you never will be.

[cottondo]

Hey babes! First of all, let me just say that I ADORE your writing <3333 I can tell you have a lot of passion for what you do!

If it’s alright with you, I’d like to request a Blitzø x fem! reader story. Preferably how he navigates a shy, sweet imp. I was thinking that they could have been childhood friends or something like that. Whatever you decide to do I’ll read (and love) it <3333

Thank you so much!!

aahww thank you sm lovebug🥹💞 I appreciate the kindness !

also,, really hope I got your request right?? I lowkey wasn’t exactly sure on what you wanted LMAO but I hope you like it regardless <3

Blitzo x fem! imp reader | navigate

The sound of your breath in a humid environment was all you could really focus on. Or, more so, trying to control it.

Blitzo insisted taking you on some stupid 'adventure', —if thats what he called it— and of course, it turned into a mission.

Why the hell wouldn't it! You didn't expect much less from him.

You particularly didn't care much for his mission work. Sure, okay, it seemed kinda cool sometimes- - but the,, almost double-dying part, was intimidating as fuck.

Keeping all your limbs attached to your body was really your biggest goal living down in Hell. It was easy enough to end up getting stabbed, maybe break a horn or two, or even end up in a shitty situation with some demon lords that rule rings trying to chase you down. Especially as an imp!

Maybe it was because you actually valued your death-life, and Blitz,, .. just didnt? But, regardless, you didn't wanna be here, doing this today.

A heavy hand rests on your shoulder abruptly, causing a small flinch to react from your figure.

Blitz leans in close, a crazy little smirky smile on his face. If the space between you got any smaller, you thought your oxygen levels would've been completely cut.

He managed to drag you into some hide out, a gun in his hand, army crawl position beside you in a long vent you two crawled inside of together. Shoulders harshly bumping against each other's to prover just how little space there actually was inside.

It was hot in here, and he was hotter, which only added to the uneasiness you felt in your chest.

"Don't tell me you're bitchin' out on me, y/n." He whispers to you, eyes focusing on your nerves. Blitz knew you better than just about anyone. And to be fair, he should. You two have been friends since childhood, so nothing goes unseen around him.

Your frown lightens, vision trailing to look back at him. "Nooo? I'm totally fine," you flash a cheesy smile back.

Blitzo's eyes roll, "Yea- ok, I'm teaching you combat, whether you like it or not, bitch. If youre gonna be working with us, you can't just sit around at the desk looking all cute and shit, everyday." He reminds you, "I need you to learn how to be more assertive!"

He thought you were cute? Ayee, score for you.

Your lips curl into a smirk over at him.

"As cute as I am, I can still be assertive." Now it was your turn to remind him.

It didnt look like he believed that statement. Actually, you knew he didnt.

"What happens when some dick fucker tries being an asshole to you? Pulls out a gun? One day I'm not gonna be able to get there quick enough to save your sorry ass." He frowns, some annoyance clear in his tone.

Your eyes widen, and your lips sound a gasp as you face him. "Oh my god- - is that the sound of you caring about someone other than yourself~?" You tease sarcastically, eyelids lowering casually again. Blitz turns away with a scoff.

"I didn't know that was even possible," you add onto the teasing, obviously getting some sort of rise out of him.

"Listen!" He narrows his vision. "Oka- you know damn well that I—"

His words get cut off. The sound of a door opening, and footsteps entering the room catch both of your attentions. You flinch when the door slams shut behind the figure. It was a short demon. Big horns, and an even bigger snout. He sort of looked like a dead pig. You cringe.

"Oh, fuck." Blitz smirks, raising up his gun. "This is too easy. You comin' or what?" His shoulder nudges yours. You give a dull look in reply. "Do I have a choice?"

"No, you don't." He smirks over his shoulder at you.

You follow close behind his army crawl towards the end of the vent. It wasn't far away at all, just totally felt uncomfortable being on your hands and knees in such a small space for so long.

Blitz quickly kicks out the vent door, and jumps down to the floor with his gun tightly in hand. Your eyes watch his figure as he lands perfectly in the room, alerting the demon who was on Blitz' kill list.

Damn.

It was kind of crazy how good his combat is. You know he has a lot of practice- - which does make you slightly worry from time to time about just how much trouble this job really gets him into. (And how much more it'll get you into if he continues to drag you along for the ride.)

With a small push, you slip yourself out of the vent, and land on two feet with a practiced swiftness. You've gotten enough rehearsal time to do small, crafty things, but you weren't perfect- - nothing like how Blitz was, anyway.

But at least you still looked good doing it.

The listed demon looks quickly between the both of you, Blitz ready with a crazed grin on his face while holding the gun, and you, with your knife strapped to your side, looking nothing as intimidating.

"Y/N! Grab him!" Blitz commands from you.

You hesitate for a second, "Blitz, do we really hav—"

"Cmon!" Blitz tosses his head back and groans, quickly rebounding and aiming the gun to the guys head before he got any bright ideas. "Lets dance, bitch!"

The demon, though all three of you were trapped in a very small room, does his absolute best to dodge each and every bullet. For a porky lookin dude, he was quick on his hooves. He managed to miss most if not all, bullets aimed his way.

You lunge forward, and tackle him to the ground like a tiger pouncing its prey. Blitz cheers you on, fist pumped up in the air as he watches with excitement down at you. "Thats what im talkin about, y/n! Now tie his ass up, we gotta use him as bait for the rest of them."

"The rest of them?" You glare in question.

His hand tosses you down a rope, which you had no idea where he kept it hidden all this time, but look up to Blitz anyway, as you struggled a little, straddling to keep the demon down beneath you.

Your hands desperately grab the rope, and you begin tying. Blitz insisted no helping, as this was his way of teaching you proper ways to hustle- - but you'd gladly accept it if he offered any.

First, you wrap up the struggling mans hands, then, you move down to his kicking feet. He managed to give your shoulder a good hit with his foot, but that only resulted in Blitz raising his own foot, and forcefully bringing the tip of his boot into the guys side. The demon lets out a groan.

"Damn, what the hell, asshole." You glare down at the demon who only glares back up at you through his groans. Your hands take the bandana from around his neck, and retie it around his mouth to prevent any sounds coming out of him.

"Great, now lets get the fuck out of here!" Blitz grins, picking up the hostage and throwing him over his shoulder with a small struggle. You follow along close behind, eyes checking both sides of you with some slight paranoia. It already came to the point in the day where you were very much over this job. Why the fuck couldn't you guys have just stayed in the circus business?

"Y/N! Take out those assholes up on the catwalks!" Blitz points to a few more demons that were going to be next on your list for the day.

While the two of you ran for the far exit, your eyes follow up to where Blitz was looking.

You spot them. "Got it!" Your voice beams, and pulling out your gun, you aim for the straps that kept the walk attached to the ceiling. One shot, you took the one side of the catwalks down, which results in the demons falling and tumbling down to the floor of the warehouse.

"Fuck yeah!" Blitz laughs as he uses the tied hostage as a punching bag for other demons that try to stop the two of you. He swings the hostage demon around, using him as his own personal weapon, causing some slight laughter out of you, to which both you and blitz were surprised about.

The demons you caused to fall, start charging your way. With a quick thought, you take out the knife strapped to your side, and get ready to use it. Blitz grins over at you. "Remember to aim for the neck!" He calls out from ahead of you.

Your smile brightens at the teamwork you both have. "Thanks!"

A hand reaches for you, but with a stealthy slide to the side, you duck under the arms and push the torso of a demon down to the ground.

This was getting . . oddly easy.

You hop over the demon on the floor, and smile brightly over at Blitz.

With you catching up to his side, your lips stretch into a grin as you open the door to the warehouse for him. “Did you see?” Your question was almost eager sounding. Breaking out of the shyness of the situation, you’ve actually gained a bit more combat knowledge.

Blitz grins over at you, throwing the hostage to the ground as the both of you make it out, and find a safer area to catch your breaths.

“Hell yeah bitch!” Blitz looked so happy, giddy, even. It was so freaking cute.

“I knew teaching you my way would pay off.” He crosses his arms, a soft smirk on his face.

Your face flushed lightly, the shyness beginning to take over just a bit. Your shoulders shrug upward, and the smile on your face was light. “Thanks,”

“I’m proud of you.” Blitz’s voice is quieter than his usual loud and obnoxious form, but you still catch it. Your eyes widen a bit, and staring at him in a small shock is all you could do for a second. “Really?”

Blitz looks flustered, so you decide to let any teasing go. It wasn’t often he would give real compliments. Even if he did know you long enough, to.

“Of course, fuck face.” He replies, rolling his eyes with a smile still stuck to his face.

You bump his shoulder, grinning just a little harder than before. “Learned from the best.”

______________________

really sorry its not my best work,, just allot goin on in life rn but I still hope you liked it anyway ! <3

[lemon-natalia]

Harrow the Ninth Reaction - Chapter 50

thirty minutes before the Emperor’s murder and i still have no idea who’s gonna do it or why

Commander Wake. the commander who is Gideon's mother. who is Awake, the Sleeper. Who is in Cytherea’s dead body. Cytherea being the one Gideon had a crush on. WHO IS BEING POSSESSED BY GIDEON’S DEAD MOTHER. WHO IS THE BOE LEADER, COMMANDER WAKE. i’m fucking speechless what is this

also she’s calling the Emperor ‘Gaius’, do they fucking know each other??

omfg her full name includes ‘Snap me back to reality oops there goes Gravity’ wtf. weirdly i feel like thats such a Gideon (Nav) name to have, except she’s taking it so seriously 

‘did the ten billion give you that too.’ ‘how many babies died in the bomb Gaius’ oh this guy really did cause the apocalypse somehow didn’t he, fuuuck

scratch the others, this is the most tense tea party there’s been so far

‘it’s all come out’ what in the world’s most dramatic intervention is this

COMMANDER WAKE ME UP INSIDE 

both Mercymorn and Augustine were conspiring with the BoE?? i didn’t see that coming, especially not Mercymorn

the eggs from the first message weren’t a metaphor????? they were literal goddamn eggs wtf

she was gonna kill said baby in order to enter the Locked Tomb, and nicknamed it the ‘Bomb’. um wow. why is everyone’s immediate plan in these books to jump straight to the baby murder. 

GIDEON (1.0) JUST KILLED HER?? again? can you even say you killed a ghost. what. what. i thought they were a thing what is going on. Gideon just saw her mother for the very first time in her life, talking about how she was planning to murder Gid as a baby, possessing the body of someone she had a crush on who also tried to kill her, get murdered. oh she’s gonna need so much counselling after this. 

speaking of, how the fuck did the relationship between Gideon 1.0 and Wake start, that feels very complicated 

and he thought the baby was his. key word being thought. not was. then who the fuck is the baby daddy. this whole shebang would make for a very entertaining episode of Dr Phil. or whatever tv shows it is that do dna tests, i don’t watch a lot of reality tv

i really didn’t think a conception story could get more fucked up than Harrow’s, but Gideon’s giving her a very strong run for her money

‘Hi, not fucking dead. I’m Dad’ YOU JUST FOUND OUT YOU HAVE A SECRET BABY WHY WOULD YOU SAY THIS. its been about a minute and he’s already cracking dad jokes. is making bad puns genetic in the Locked Tomb world or something, because that would say a lot about Gideon quite frankly 

i cannot believe the fact that these guys were in a threesome has been plot relevant two times over now

also Gideon is the fucking. daughter of the GOD of this world i guess. well there’s an explanation for why she’s so resistant to not dying then. if he wasn’t super dead, i think Silas’s reaction to this info would be so fucking funny

also. given Ianthe presumably doesn’t know about any of the details of Gideon’s birth, childhood, etc. she’s gotta be even more confused than Gideon right now

also also remember when i had that dream about the Locked Tomb? my subconscious is a prophet, apparently:

[menelaiad]

can I prompt you to talk about Menelaus sparing Helen I'm just like :chinhands: about everything u say about the house of atreus

hey, if you're willing to listen, i'm more than happy to talk - thank you!

so. again. we got Big Three versions.

menelaus says 'guys it's chill i'll kill her at home. let's all cool our jets' (this is the version in euripides)

menelaus goes to kill her himself. helen shows her boobs. menelaus suddenly very chill (this is also implied by euripides)

menelaus gets men to kill her. helen shows her boobs. men suddenly very chill (stesichorus)

CAN YOU GUESS WHICH TWO I DESPISE? no. fr. the last two (the boob two) are far too dependent on helen being vain. and helen .... almost not feeling any guilt or shame from what's happened. and we know that's not true from the iliad. these two, to me, are classic. THIS IS JUST HOW HOT HELEN WAS propaganda. cause yknow. ur a greek/roman/ancient dude and you hear that helen of sparta showed you her boobs like 'damn bro i wouldn't kill her either ahahahaha pass the wine, maximus'.

but helen was never vain. she was never arrogant. she was confident and self-assured. but it's pretty much everyone AROUND helen that comments on her beauty and stuff. she never really does herself? which is another fascinating element of her character tbh. so her doing THIS as a means to be spared? doesn't suit me. do i think helen wanted to die/was willing to die? no. but i think she would have gone about pleading for her life a different way, y'know? also i hate the whole 'her tits got her into this mess they'll get her out of it' like shut UP. menelaus is not 12. he's fucking 60 odd at this point. he is tired. he is wounded. he is so beyond mentally well. give him some respect. he wouldn't have been blind sided by this.

but i don't think menelaus EVER planned to kill her. i can accept euripudes' version cause i think there would have been a lot of greek men that would have wanted to see helen dead. it makes sense yknow? they dont see the full narrative. the big picture. as far as they're concerned helen ran away. loads of people died. and now she's gonna get away with it. they're not narrative aware enough to see all the cogs of fate and the gods and all this. so i can respect that some greeks would have wanted her to suffer and menelaus would have risked a fuckin riot if he outright said 'nah lads she's fine lets crack on' so the whole 'wait til we get home' narrative is a good way for him to save time. to buy him and helen some time to come up with a plan, a story. to hear each other out. to work through stuff. they don't get back to sparta for like. 10 more years. they can EASILY have come up with some reason why she's not been killed yet. or why he's not gonna go through with it/why it's all worked out.

in regards to menelaus never wanting to kill her, i believe that because of how menelaus behaves in the iliad. menelaus is constantly lamenting the deaths of the greeks. the needless death and suffering. how these men are working and sacrificing to get helen back. to bring her HOME. what would killing her do? another senseless death. all the sacrifice for naught because menelaus doesnt get his wife back. he goes back to sparta alone. as if he never even went to fucking troy and tried to get her back?????

and also because menelaus loves her. despite everything he loves her and he never stopped. it's why i really like his portrayal in IOA even if he is a giant ass clown. he's a man desperate to get his wife back. and he's under the impression they're just gonna go to troy and get her back. simple as. two months tops. he's frantic and desperate and willing to try anything to get her back (yo bro kill ur daughter for me kthx). and i don't think that desire to get her back changes. menelaus grows more subdued and quiet. and has less fire. but he's still trying. he goes toe to toe with paris, is willing to take on hektor. menelaus is very much: 'i am dying at troy or i am leaving with my wife' and how is that not love? it's literally. he is going to get her back or die trying.

(also idk how much people value to fall of troy texts that are around but like. menelaus kills deiphobus in those. when dei is with helen. the man is insane in those moments he could easily have took helen out too in his madness. but he doesn't. also also. when he's in the horse and he hears helen, he's said to 'groan' when he remembers her and given the context of the other men weeping and stuff. this is like. a groan of pain. hearing helen's voice after so long and remembering her. HURTS him. he's missed her so much.)

menelaus and helen loved each other. you see it in odyssey 4. the healing they must have gone through in those 10 years. is so admirable and powerful. and they did it because they wanted to. because they were gonna see this out. they were gonna make this work. and even zeus acknowledges it. because he lets menelaus into elysium just to be with helen (his own DAUGHTER) for eternity. even though menelaus has LITERALLY no elysium qualities. not even zeus cant bear to separate these two.

they're just so fucking powerful.

[atopvisenyashill]

I swear if I see one more mind numbing stan post about 'active' and 'passive' women in asoiaf fandom I am going to scream. Like all the 'active' favorites *cough SIs coughs* only get that privilege through the indulgence of a powerful male relative (See Arya or Lyanna learning swordplay) or straight having access to a deus ex machina (see Rhaenyra or Dany), but without one or the other the patriarchy still catches you (see Helaena or any of Jaehaerys's daughters) or it kills you (see every violent death by childbirth like Alyssa, Aemma, or Lyanna).

FRIEND. YES. MY GOD. ITS THE DUMBEST SHIT.

For one thing, a character can fall from active to passive or move from passive to active on the flip of a dime. Lyanna goes from being an active participant in her life to dying alone in a tower of sepsis. Cersei goes from actively politicking in King's Landing and being one of the faces of the War of Five Kings to beaten down and passively accepting what's happening to her (...for now) after her walk of atonement. Arya sends quite a bit of her time at Harrenhal very passive, simply trying to live from day to day before taking action to get herself, Gendry, and Hot Pie out of Harrenhal. Sometimes, a woman is simply put in a dangerous situation where the best thing for her to do is essentially play dead - if she's not actively and literally dying, that is.

Beyond that, the definitions people have of "active" and "passive" is like, just the dumbest shit imaginable. Helaena is often called a "passive" character despite having a relatively active role in keeping King's Landing calm and under control while Aegon is king until B&C, where she becomes quite passive due to, you know, extreme trauma. Sansa is seen as "passive" despite taking an active role in her own escape from King's Landing, from plotting with Dontos to making an alliance with the Tyrells. She is "actively" trying to sabatoge Littlefinger and Joffrey by undercutting their comments, saving people they don't want saved, and drawing attention to herself and her identity but none of that is seen as active because [incomprehensible gibberish]. Similarly, Rhaenyra is seen as an "active" character despite her "active" actions being...really similar to both Cersei and Sansa ie being in charge of "passive" activities like ruling on the Small Council, sending messages instead of fighting herself, planning her own escape, fighting for her own ability to marry who she chooses, etc. Like, people will look at Rhaenyra fighting against her marriage to Laenor and call that "active" but when Sansa refuses to kneel for Tyrion that's "passive" because...*cue fandom wank* Rhaenyra never not once fights in the books nor do we see her actually physically fighting in the show yet she's an active character while other women who rely on playing politics over commanding armies are considered "passive."

It's just the dumbest sort of discourse that is applied in the most lopsided, clearly angling to keep fandom wank going instead of actually engaging with the text imaginable. I am once again directing people to Brienne and Catelyn and asking why only certain types of power are celebrated, why only certain actions are considered "active", and why only certain types of women's stories are allowed to be told, in a series teaming with all sorts of varied women's stories.

"Brienne, I have taken many wellborn ladies into my service over the years, but never one like you. I am no battle commander.” “No, but you have courage. Not battle courage perhaps but … I don’t know … a kind of woman’s courage."

"Fighting is better than this waiting," Brienne said. "You don't feel so helpless when you fight. You have a sword and a horse, sometimes an axe. When you're armored it's hard for anyone to hurt you. "Knights die in battle," Catelyn reminded her. Brienne looked at her with those blue and beautiful eyes. "As ladies die in childbed. No one sings songs about them."

[amidnight--dreary]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thanks so much for the tag @zsparz !!!💖

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

166!

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

2.013.111. I write when I‘m stressed, can you tell?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly the MCU. Frostiron my beloved 💕 I recently posted a Huskerdust fic, though, and a couple years ago I posted some Good Omens stuff! I have another Good Omens wip brewing, but I haven‘t worked on it in a while.

4. Top five fics by kudos

First one up would be Your Call, a multi-chaptered ABO Frostiron thing that‘s sadly unfinished because I‘m not happy with where it was going somehow. Then Corners of Reality, my baby, Yes or No, Dereliktion and last but not least Vita Nova!

5. Do you respond to comments?

God I try. I’m so bad at it though. On long fics I always answer comments on the last chapter when I post the new one, but I keep forgetting to reply to comments on older chapters or oneshots😭 They all mean the world to me though.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Ohh I wrote a few angsty oneshots but it‘s been a while. Maybe Here, that‘s the most recent one. Of the older ones I remember all my light most clearly. Tony is dead or dying in both of these lol, poor Loki.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I like to think the happiest endings in stories are ones you had to fight for a little bit, so maybe Dereliktion. That was a long ride filled with angst and messed up relationships lol. I think Haywire (my first and so far only Sentinel/Guide fic, I love that trope a lot akfj) also has a pretty fluffy ending, and I have some oneshots that are pretty much all fluff!!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Occasionally? Just the other day I got another anon ask on here complaining about my recent stories. Makes me extra thankful for everyone who takes the time to tell me they enjoy my stuff!!💖

9. Do you write smut?

I do! Pretty much all the time lol. I love writing Dom/sub relationships!

10. Craziest crossover?

I don‘t think I‘ve ever written one before?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yesss. I‘m not sure if they just didn’t know any better though, they deleted the copied parts as soon as I told them.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes!! I‘m always so happy when that happens!!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Also yes. One year I did a whole Frostiron Advent calendar with @rabentochter (do you remember this????? How did we have the time??????? Insane) and we wrote a few more collabs beyond that.

14. All time favorite ship?

Frostiron!!!!!!!!!!!! I love my sassy messed up geniuses lol

15. What’s a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Uhhh I‘ve got a few. I‘d like to finish/rewrite Your Call. Once I also had the cracky fever dream of Loki doing random standup comedy shows in New York because he‘d KILL that. Can you imagine the sarcasm. The gallow‘s humor. Anyway I started that and then realized I Cannot Write Standup Routines at all. So there‘s that.

16. What are your writing strengths?

What I like to write the most is character and relationship development, so hopefully I‘m decent at that? Also dialogue, I hope, but that kinda comes and goes depending on the conversation.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I kinda suck thinking of longish plot that goes beyond “will they kiss?? Will they FUCK???” so I’ve been trying to practice that. Also scenes with lots of action😭

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I like it. I’ve been wanting to write a fic where Tony can properly show off his language skills but I don’t know enough languages to pull that off lol

19. First fandom you wrote in?

The VERY first was Dracula, back when I was 13 or so. I had a big thing for van Helsing back then. My first fandom on ao3 was Once Upon a Time!!

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Ooohhh. That would be Corners of Reality, because I worked on it for years before I even started posting it and I love how it turned out. It’s a slow burn time travel enemies to friends to almost lovers to enemies to friends to lovers to enemies to allies to lovers fic. I had SO much fun writing it I still think about it all the time😭😭

I’m just gonna tag some writers I know are on here: @endlessstairway @xottan @izhunny @arabesqueangel @bouncydragon no pressure though!! And if you see this and you’re a writer please consider yourself tagged!!💖

[bangtan7butnotonly]

ACOTAR Completely Fell Off After Book Two

- A popular opinion

I've said it before and I'll say it again, book five is unmitigated bullshit. Everyone's personality got fucked except Nes and Cas. Like, come on, Feyre becomes a nobody, Rhys becomes an asshole, Amren attempts to convince Rhys to take over the fucking world, and Mor in implied to be jealous of Nesta. What??? She's jealous that Nes is hooking up with Cassian??? Why? On so many levels that makes no sense, and Maas never goes anywhere with it.

Book one was strong, book one could function as a stand-alone. Book two was also strong, if and only if book three was strong too and delivered on the expectations, loose ends, and unanswered questions book two had left us with. Spoiler alert, it didn't.

The King of Hybern is a shallow, one-dimensional antagonist. I've met Disney villains with more justification, Marvel villains with more backstory. Naruto gave me better antagonists than ACOTAR. Rhys does some questionable shit in this book. Amren dying and then undying with no explanation takes all the meaning and weight out of her sacrifice (and look what she went on to do in book five, get her personality completely overlooked for five minutes of tension. Stay dead, girlie) The list could go on forever.

I think we all know what happened here. Maas had no idea what to do with her story beyond book two. Book one, solid. Book two, solid, but leaves book three with some work to do. Book three, does none of that work, bs. Book four, it's 200 pages and doesn't count, filler. Book five, unmitigated directionless bullshit. Wtf was happening with that human queen??? Nothing that happened in the “main plot” of that book made any sense (whether we're diving in and taking this as their lives that they're living or as Maas's fictional narrative) the only good part was Nesta and the girls.

Anyway, so concludes my rant. I love the Court of Dreams to death, but they deserved a better author and a better story.

OH! And wt actual f is going to happen in this alleged book six???? Like, book five's ending felt like closure. Please god tell me this is not going to be an Elaine x Azriel switching POV like book five🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 The only thing worse would be if it was a timeskip and Nyx is our MC. I would actually burn the book.

OHHH! I also hate that Nesta and Cassian are mates. I really thought Feyre and Rhys would be destined love, soulmates, an example of how beautiful it is when the bond works out, Nes and Cas would be love without the mating bond, and no less valid or beautiful, and Elaine would be finding her mate and choosing not to take him, and also choosing not to take the other suiter. I thought Elaine would end up either with Greysen or with some rando from Velaris (if rando, then off page. The series would end with her single and happy)

Anyway, yeah✌🏼

[wynnyfryd]

re: the ask where another anon said they felt the fandom dying

hi! i watched the entire show for the first time about 2 weeks ago (at the ripe age of 19, sue me) and ohhhhhh my god. oh my GOD. im obsessed and this is the first fandom ive ever been interested that wasnt totally dead and im SO glad there are authors and artists active and making things!! im probably abt to binge read all of your stuff after reading the trailer park au (which i adore btw. please tell me there will be more.) idk what the fandom was like before, but i just started writing my first steddie fic and im so happy theres a community that seems nice and fairly active <33

YOU PRECIOUS LITTLE BEAN THIS IS SO CHARMING I’M SO CHARMED.

ahem.

if you’ll allow me to be one of those annoying old people having a crisis about the passage of time for a hot second, this message just got me thinking about the 14yo version of me who was first discovering fandom and fanfic on ff.net, and what a fucking revelation that was to a lonely bookish young dweeb. to realize that you could just… add? whatever you want?? any story you love, you can just take it and make it your own personal barbie doll and no one can tell you what not to do??? incredible. absolutely delightful. and you’re so much closer to that girl than i am now on the timeline and i’m- i’m—! 😭😭

i’m being so aggressively 30 about this lmao i’m sorry. local woman is spoken to by a youth and has an all lowercase meltdown about it. more at 9.

anyway, welcome. there’s definitely a thriving group of clever, passionate, and talented creators in this fandom; honestly there are too many writers and artists i admire on this site to even begin to name them all, but here’s a couple you can check out to start (my blog is also full of art and fic recs, and you can find some fantastic writers through the @steddiemicrofic challenge): @aidaronan @thefreakandthehair @palmviolet @eddywoww @maikaartwork @inklessletter @cranberrymoons @bpillustrated

(to answer your question, yes, there will be more of the trailer park au. current plan is to write a new part each day until i have enough for a chapter, then publish the chapter on ao3; rinse and repeat through the end of nanowrimo and see where that gets me. so far i’m finding it a lot easier to stay focused on a single continuous story when i write in little daily snack bites like this, but we’ll see how the rest of the experiment goes 🤷‍♀️ i’m having fun with the story for now, so that’s really all that matters.)

…jesus christ, i wrote you a novella my absolute bad

- wynn 🦇

[shadowbrightshine]

Thinking about alternate timeline Tim's dying in different ways.

A failed Pokotho invasion before Tgwdlm proper, a young, 12 year old Tim crawls across the island on all fours, blue slime dripping from his face. His limbs have long since given out in terms of walking from overuse in the dance numbers. The singular voice has left them. It moved on, they were a rehearsal, not even the dress rehearsal of the story. Tim is losing the last shred of a mind he could have without the hive singing to him. He can't get out any notes himself, his voice doesn't belong to him anymore. The silence is killing him. He will starve.

An older Tim, an adult, who learned to dance and prrform onstage. He's in love, and he and his girlfriend decided that when he goes to participate in the Nectar King contest, she would go with him. He just wants to make his parents, Tom and Becky, proud. They love him, but he doesn't feel like they've seen just how good at performing he can be. They come to the place of the sacrifice. Nibbly consumed her first, and Tim bites down on Nibbly to free himself and reach for her, jumping into the maw. The bite of the God instantly absorbs into his body, but it doesn't have time to do anything. Nibbly has thousands of needle, shark, and grinding down teeth stretching into the black abyss. Tim's last moment is spent watching his girlfriend be crushed and stabbed through by the constricting jaw/throat snapping shut. Just before it does the same to him. He dies reaching for someone he loved. Someone he brought along to make sure they would be together. Who he led to die with him on accident.

In Watcher world eventually the island is abandoned, everyone is dead, has fled, or is part of the theme park. It's time to expand to the mainland. Tim has walked back and forth on his path for years. He watches the people, every day, every night. His mouth has been stitched shut. He killed his father. Blinky loves family dramas the best, Alice was not a unique case. The others are deconstructing parts of the park to bring with them. Tim wasn't even a sniggle. He's a background element. He's a set piece for a game that already ended. He looks at the engagement ring he stole from his father's body.

He leaves the park for the first time in years, and decides that the ring will be the last thing he ever sees. He goes to his knees, feeling the dirt in one hand. The other is held to the light. It sparkles. He closes his always open eyes. Five seconds pass and the Lord in Black tells him to open them. He feels bugs crawling across his face. He feels breaths of air against his cheek. He feels fingers and tiny bug mouths pulling on his eyelashes. Wordlessly he tells Blinky that he is done, and he will not look at anything else in his life. Blinky decides he no longer needs to see. The bugs are immediately burrowing through the soft flesh of his eyes. Severing the optic nerves. Through a stitched mouth Tim screams, eyes open. But it doesn't matter, they can't see. They're gone. Purple blood drips from his sockets and he is dying, bugs crawling into his brain. Or maybe not bugs. Whatever they are he is already dead.

There are worse ways than dying alone in a car.

[ganondoodle]

the way i think about my stories can be so annoying bc there will be a point when i reach a certain story beat after which i dont know how to continue, and the way i do find are usually ... not good .. or i imagine it is not so i think man i cant do that thats so dumb and annoying i gotta think of something better, but then i cant come up with anything better bc once i got a solution to soemthign i cant think of anything smarter- and then i get bored of it as a whole bc man, this really was stupid from the start wasnt it

(this is all some stupid rambling and does NOT represent anythign that will happen in destiny, i swear the actual story with a proper end makes much more sense)

listen to me rambling but this morning i thought about the essentialyl non-canon good "ending" of destiny, a kind of self indulgent dumb lil alternative where everyone lives blah blah, but then of course it cant just end there, bc the end goal of the both of them is to find out the gods plan and secrets and also kill the gods, as you do, then i got a certain point that i found cool (which initially came from the whole thoguht of what if zelda game but you could play demise and it took place after the alternative ending in which the goal is to get rid of the gods) where the fight one of the gods but are kinda losing and as the god is trying to devour demise, as gods do, he abandons his body and his spirit/core, who cant exist without his body so hes still connected through the spirits tail , and climbs through the gods interdimensional weird 'mouth' while its trying to rip him apart to reach the core of the god in a last attempt to take them down with him, while hylia is fighting to keep the god from severing the thin connection he still has to his body but fails just as he reaches the core so the god is killed but his core is immediatelly starting to dissolve and hylia manages to grab his core and put it back into his body and flee from whatever is happeing to that dead god back into hyrule

he survives but is incredibly weak as his spirit has lost half of itself (blade spirits are also forged throguh sacrificing part of their spirit/core permantently but this is besides the point, none of this makes sense anyway), something he obviously hates but cant do anything about really, once a part of their core is gone its gone (not like lost energy but gone gone) but the core is also slowly dissolving further which is a death sentence with no way to act against- then theres a whole quest to .. well, stop that, while hes falling back into self hatred and fear bc hes now so weak that hylia can break his bones without any effort if she were to treat him in any way similar to before and to a deity that all their life was never so fragile, one whos most defining feature IS his power and strength to keep going no matter what, thats gotta be pretty existentially dreadful (and also its a set back to know that they cant just go fight the gods together like that, theres still two more and he cant fight like that)

then i wondered ok what if then, even if the time doesnt quite line up but at this point the entire prophecy cant be done anymore either so everythings out of order, the cloud barrier weakens and zelda is abducted (not by ghirahim) and link goes and tries to find her, but since everythigns not as it should have been he meets hylia and demise (disguised tho) and they immediately know who he is and then go along and try to help link find his friend (hylia does it bc she got the idea to make him find the triforce and wish demises spirit to be restored, since only a mortal can do that and links the most likely candidate to be able to go through the trials of it since he was supposed to already, even if the circumstances are different- demise goes along with it bc hes still trying to deal with essentially slowly dying and not knowing what to do with himself since hes afraid to get into fights or similar, much to his disdain, so hes acting like a companion of sorts, a mentor figure in a way, not knowing what hylias plan is)

i found the idea kinda interesting to have them be like a lil group that goes on links adventured with him, but with strangely intricate knowledge of how the dungeons work, link still doing the heavy lifting but them being there like parents cheering on their kid in a competetion, all the while putting the whole puzzle and dungeon aspect in a way different light bc half of them were never completed (they wanted to escape the prophecy after all) so they all work completely differently, some bosses being maybe some of the gods creatures instead (like the skysw guardians)- the mid journey point being that they find zelda, and who kidnapped her, it being one of the shiekah having most closely worked with hylia before the whole -break the prophecy- thing started (idk if it would be impa .. idea is neat) and is hellbent on making the gods plan work out like it was supposed to, kinda like the inverse of the games plot, so they got ahold of zelda as part of making her into the new hylia (despite hylia being .. right there, but they dont believe it is her truly since the true tm hylia would never betray the gods- ALSO a paralel to how the downfall of demises world worked bc his mortals turned on him after he started destroying their version of the triforce in the belief destroying it would be the only way to save mortals from going to war agaisnt each other for it over and over, mortals believing that their true deity was gone and replaced by a demon despite demise being ..right there)

after link wins the fight and frees zelda from them they in a kind of last effort to do anything against their group they stab demise, normally that wouldnt do shit against him but in his already fading away situation it basically puts him from very slowly dying to actually dying, as a reaction to it hylia kills the mortal (maybe impa idk), which is the first time she does anything like that to a mortal but i like the idea of her being actually super ruthless when it comes to things she cares about

now with a much more dire time limit hylia sends demise back to essentialyl go hide in her temple and try to not die and to trust her having a plan to make this all still work out- he does and once he is away she reveals pretyt much the entire story around why and what is happenign to link and zelda, hylia herself cant go above the clouds as the barrier is still partially up and she cant do anything to reach the triforce either - so she sends link and zelda to go do that, and it works out in the end bc even knowing the truth know, demise was with them on half of their journey so they know and care, he WILL be mad about them wasting their wish on him (even if he is still happy to be alive- i imagined scene where hes watching himself fall apart and die, alone in hylias temple, having to come to terms with the fact that after everything they had went through hed still die alone- it made me cry while thinking about it, yes, yes you are allowed to laugh)

i didnt get that much further but his spirit was essentially reset to when he was in his prime back in the day through the triforces power- something he both likes and despises, it being the gods power of all things that lets him live again, but also lol to use it agaisnt them by giving another chance to the gods greatest enemy- the next plan is of course to kill the next one of the gods but much better prepared, as they cant just go and do the same thign again (neither wants that), one idea was that hylia goes on a secret quest to try and bring back courage (the third deity that demise killed when his world was still thriving) but it involves diving back into the realm of the gods so she doesnt tell him at first, i do think theyd go together in the end, not to fight but to release courage; the whole thing is also an elaborate revenge plot of hylia, how dare the gods do that to him!!

anyway thats most of what i got from that thinking session but its so frustrating bc none of this is even in the actual comic (since it ends in a way that leads into canon skysw, this is some brain fart nooo i want blorbo to live and succeed!!) and its also convoluted and kinda dumb, the idea to inverse the games plot in a way (instead of it being ghirahim trying to bring demise back its someones plan to make the gods prophecy happen no matter what) is neat but i cant have demise almost dying be the thing THREE TIMES, it kinda undercuts his character and is way too much centered around him, all three times also more or less involving it needing help from others to get him back, when his whole thing should be being unkillable bc he jsut keeps refusing to die, also hylia is, as of now in this spaghetti derailment of random thoughts, way too much of a side character, which i dont like, and it all would make people not like demise when im trying to do the exact opposite of that in the main actual comic

i know being super self indulgent and jsut doing what you want is good for the most part but theres a point where it becomes stale cringy fantasies about my blorbo tm and i wanna write at least decent stories- in the end none of this matters anyway as the actual REAL story of destiny is already pretty long and i got no plan to write that alternative 'good ending' anyway and i mostly just thought about it bc "i dont want blorbo to die :(" and "wouldnt it be fun if the entire plot of the game would get messed up and now demise link hylia and zelda etc can all just drink tea together and make plans to get rid of the gods that wanted them all to suffer needlessly"

i probably shouldnt post this as it was really only a vent to get out dumb thoughts from my brain before they poison me into losing interest of the biggest comic project i have worked on so far but i am unable to keep these things to myself so

if you read all of this, im sorry (´。＿。｀)