#beautiful writing

[waitingforthesunrise]

the first moment I realized what friendship was, I was fourteen. I was back from my first of many doctors appointments. I found a picture of twin lava lamps that lit up into brilliant colors when the other one was tapped. I showed the picture to my friend. “I’d buy this for us,” I say. “You’d always know when I was thinking of you.” I don’t want to be alone. “YES!” She said, laughing. “I would grab it at three am and you’d have to stare at it instead of sleeping! Everything would be purple and blue and you wouldn’t have a chance.”

“I haven’t been sleeping at three am,” I said. I had been lying awake, waiting for the panic attack.

“I know,” she said. “I know. That’s why I’d do it.”

we looked at each other. oh, I thought. oh. so that’s what it is. it’s lava lamps. it’s the darkness fading into blue and purple promises. it’s noticing. it’s love under the guise of annoyance.

I don’t want to be alone.

you aren’t. not anymore.

[toointojoelmiller]

Update: I continue to work on all things! Nothing is abandoned! New chapters will come!

The actual, fun and exciting update: I'm going to start recommending a few AMAZING TLOU fics that you might have missed on my blog every Saturday for the next while.

I hope you find some new great reads to keep you going while we wait for season 2 - our fandom is seriously so freaking talented, and there are SO many incredibly written fics out there that I want to yell about a bunch of them! Please reblog!

These fics will vary re: how closely they stick to canon and what themes they explore, but you can expect them all to be wonderfully written and, obviously, heavily feature Joel Miller.

Some of these, including this weeks, may include mature content - make sure to read and heed the trigger warnings listed on ao3!

I have never really been interested in fan fiction with OCs, so I missed out on this week's recommendation for a long time and I bet a lot of you did too. It's both a wonderfully told Joel love story and a fic that, in my opinion, really honours the world and characters of TLOU.

Go Your Own Way by @chronicallyonlinewriter 232,575 words || 31 chapters rating: mature [see ao3 tags for full content warnings] featuring: post season/game 1 life in Jackson, angst, fluff, action, romance, smut, plenty of protective Joel and parent Joel

You can check out a review from @march-flowerr below, describing some of what makes this story so special: (vague general spoilers re: themes and mature content)

“Go Your Own Way stands, in my mind, as one of the most well written piece of fiction on Archive of Our Own. Nandorluna has such an intimate and authentic take on the existing characters that we know and love (on Joel and Ellie and all the Jackson gang) but it’s her ability to create stunning, well fleshed out original characters that drew me to her story initially. Her main character, Benny, moves across the story in such a visceral and realistic way; her arc spans not just the present canon timeline, but transports us through an entire lifetime: from childhood to outbreak, to first love, to first loss, to heartbreak and grief and then finally, to her heart’s final resting place: Joel Miller.

Zee manages to write about and embrace such difficult topics as assault, pregnancy loss, and grief without ever once making a show of it. She handles each moment with quiet dignity and intense self reflection; she draws beauty from the hollow depth of heart ache and despair without ever once losing the thread of hope that The Last of Us is known for.

At the heart of Go Your Own Way is the love story of Joel and Benny. Zee manages to create a compelling story about brokenness and connection and the raw, rare glory that is finding someone with whom you can begin to fit yourself together with again. It’s a story of family - of people who when left to wander, find their hearts drawn to each other. It’s a story about love - each relationship, from Benny and Alexei’s long friendship, to Ellie and Joel’s turbulent first years, to Benny and Joel’s steadfast devotion for each other, caters to the soul. It’s a story that I’ve found myself returning to, again and again, in all moods and places in life. If I could change anything about it, it would only be that it did have to end after all."

If you read and love this, please please show the author some love and leave a kudos and comment!! Happy fandoming y'all.

[crazystonergirl]

“Something in me wants more. I can’t rest.”

— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (1982)

[misskaboom]

🖤🖤

[sulasnsleep]

“Before you came, the world was prose. Now poetry is born.”

Nizar Qabbani

[ardent-reflections]

I feel so intensely the delights of shutting oneself up in a little world of one's own, with pictures and music and everything beautiful.

Virginia Woolf

[bookaddict24-7]

The size of a book will never determine (for me) how much it will break my heart. However, Lie With Me is a snack of a book that held enough heart to feed me as if it were a feast.

[t-ess-e]

I just want to talk about how "The Devil Judge" is one of the best kdrama's ever, the plot? fire! The acting? Top notch! The characters are relatable. The writing is so beautiful I could actually cry, Strong female characters (i support their wrongs and their rights) And yes the sexual tension between the two male leads - its not defined but trust me, friends don't look at friends that way.

It's essentially the Korean version of Hannibal minus the Serial killers and cannibalism.

[patroclusplaylist]

“He received them smiling. Without money in his pocket he rushed to help. With generous excess he rushed to love, to desire, to possess, to lose, to suffer, to die the multiple little deaths everyone dies each day. He would even die and weep and suffer and lose with enthusiasm, with ardor. He was prodigal in poverty, rich and abundant in some invisible chemical equivalent to gold and sun.”

Anaïs Nin, from "The Sealed Room" in "Children of the Albatross", 1959

[asocial-skye]

Manuscripts don't burn.

[sammyroo16]

“Something primal lurks in me, and I suspect it lurks in every woman. For some, it lies dormant. For others, it has been starved by abuse. For me, it grows stronger every day. I could fight to contain it, but why? It is others who chose to provoke it. Others who poke it with sharp sticks and strike it whenever they please. Why should I deny it the chance to strike back?”

— excerpt from a lost diary (1934), unknown author

[thewildmeadowz]

Chapters: 26/26 Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Reader, Kirishima Eijirou/Reader, Kaminari Denki/Reader, Sero Hanta/Reader, Ashido Mina/Reader, Shinsou Hitoshi/Reader, Bakugou Katsuki/Kirishima Eijirou/Kaminari Denki/Sero Hanta/Ashido Mina/Shinsou Hitoshi/Reader, Poly!Bakusquad/Reader, Midoriya Izuku/Reader Characters: Bakugou Katsuki, Kirishima Eijirou, Kaminari Denki, Ashido Mina, Sero Hanta, Shinsou Hitoshi, Jirou Kyouka, Midoriya Izuku, Todoroki Shouto, Reader, Rody Soul, Asui Tsuyu Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - No Quirks (My Hero Academia), everybody love everybody yo, Polyamory, Smut, Blood and Gore, Threesome, Unrequited Love, Tattoos, the readers missing an eye isn’t that cool, Violence, Slow Burn, Eventual Smut, im not writing an orgy but I promise it’s good, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Kirishima Eijirou is a Ray of Sunshine, Top Kirishima Eijirou, Bottom Kaminari Denki, Bottom Ashido Mina, the reader has a really cool dog, Dual Timeline, Polyamorous Character, Unrealistic Sex, Domestic Fluff, Idiots in Love, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Past Character Death, Black Ashido Mina, this is just me pushing my everyones in love agenda, lots of the zombie anatomy is pulled from twd, Gun Violence, Shameless Smut, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, kirishima is a massive fucking man, Latino Sero Hanta, shinsous in the Bakusquad suck my dick Summary:

In a world where the dead have begun to rise again, trust is a very rare commodity. Rarer, perhaps, than saving the lives of six strangers in the woods. But these people are… different, in many ways. Maybe trust isn’t actually that hard to come by.

So you take them in and learn to trust while dealing with things from your past. Can you learn to separate the things that happened to you then from the opportunities for companionship that you have now?

[crazystonergirl]

“The relief of giving in to destruction.”

— Frank Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

[shereadsforpeace]

[wynndigogh]

Another example of beautiful writing. The entire book is like reading an adventure described in poetic grace.

The Darkening by Sunya Mara

[ardent-reflections]

I see the symbolism of our lives. I love on two levels, the human and the poetic.

Anais Nin