favourite twdg villain?
I'm a fond enjoyer of the St. John's as villains. I don't know if they're my favorite just because they're only in one episode, but I love the concept of this family almost immediately jumping into cannibalism toward the start of the outbreak, dealing in human flesh to bandits, and casually feeding this group their friend's legs.
Like... what the hell was this family like before the outbreak that all three of them were like, "Hey now listen... nothing should go to waste, the dead are eating people so why shouldn't we? We gotta survive and in our defense, we only target those who were gonna die anyway... like y'all."
Dude, Mark was shot in this shoulder with an arrow. He wasn't going to die from that injury. It's so fucked that these seemingly friendly people took the group into their home and then fed them Mark's legs.
If we take the idea that everyone is infected and have the capacity within themselves to become walkers, to become monsters, then the St. John's were infected long before the outbreak, y'know? Not literally, but something was wrong with them and the outbreak just further spread that infection and changed them.
But again, are they my favorite? I dunno if I can say that since I have a lot more appreciation for Lily now. Yeah, some of her writing gets a little wonky in ep3 of TFS when she goes on her monologues and shit, but y'know what? I'm into it.
You have to remember who we're talking about and the fact that she's the antagonist; Lily isn't some anti-hero in TFS who secretly has a heart of gold that's brought to light because she reunited with Clementine... she's a fucked up woman who did fucked up things in the name of survival. She's full of rot now. She sees kidnapping children and turning them into soldiers to protect her home as a means to an end, but she doesn't actually give a shit about the people she's taking. They aren't people to her, they're as the episode title suggests, toys in her game. The only one she sees as a person is Clementine, and while that makes her hesitate at first, she sees Clementine's a prize to bring back.
She remembers what happened in S1; her father had a heart attack and as she tried to save him, Kenny smashed his face in with a saltlick and then expected Lily to just stand up and help him get back to his family because "he did what he had to, he made the hard choice." Yes, Larry was a piece of shit. No one liked him, and you can even question Lily on him and she'll tell you that he has a lot of pain. Yes, it makes him an asshole, but he's still her dad and he's all she has. I mean... the simplification is daddy issues, but in all seriousness, I don't doubt for a second that many of Lily's issues stem from Larry being a shitty father to her.
Then everyone thought she was losing it when she insisted there was a traitor in the group, which she was right about, but she was unstable. She was unwell, but how do you help someone like that when you don't have training to go about it? Then Lily ends up killing either Carley or Doug and the group turns on her, and either she's left behind or she steals the van and runs away.
Then we don't know what the hell happened to her until we see her again in TFS, but like... a lone woman with decay festering inside of her joining the delta? Exposing her to their methods? I mean, what else did she have to lose? She had nothing, she lost everything, and she has a lot of issues. Survival is easy when you're numb, when you don't care about the individual; they're all just cogs churning to make the system run, and if a piece doesn't cooperate, you get rid of it and find a new one.
Plus I think there's something to say about Lily not wanting to be perceived as weak again. That whole display she put on in the cells? Telling the story of what happened to Minerva and Sophie? I get the criticism that it feels like Lily did a 180 between episodes but like... yeah dude, because it's a performance. It's not just her and Clementine anymore. It's a display of power and authority. She's playing the part and thriving in it as she ensures everyone else is terrified of her.
But then when Clementine and AJ get the upper hand? Again, she's not afraid to play up the pleading to earn enough sympathy to spare her- hell, just to let their guard down enough to strike and get the upper hand again. I mean, she's got nothing else to lose, right? If she doesn't go for it, she'll be killed and sure, you can kill her anyway but at least she tried.
Honestly, I look at Lily in TFS and still see that scared little girl playing the tough bitch, just like Carley said in S1. It's just now escalated from "tough bitch" to a downright vile person. She's so... lost? I suppose? Lost within herself and the monstrous means she's taken to survive.
I get the criticisms of how she was used in TFS, but for me, it's like when people complain about Minerva not getting the redemption arc she supposedly should've gotten, y'know? There's no saving her. Lily was never on our side, and there was no getting her on our side. She wasn't ever going to redeem herself. Even if you spare her and she drifts away on her raft, can someone like her actually find redemption? Or will she just find another group that'll feed into her rot?
Truly, I say let her be horrid. Let her be the piece of shit villain with a few fleeting moments of humanity. Let her drown in the blood she's spilled.
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who wants zombie au writing. don't answer that ur getting it anyway (1.6k words)
His shoes knock against the old flooring of the house, wood creaking under rubber soles that slide over the woodgrain. He drags them a bit, lifts his limbs up no more than he strictly has to, and they lead him to the nearest sittable surface.
The couch is old and dusty and has likely gone untouched for months, much like everything else nowadays, so he watches the thin cloud of dust billow off the cushions largely with disinterest. He collapses into the fabric heavily, feels the whole thing scoot back an inch and hit the wall behind him. The sound echoes, carried by lifeless rooms, while he unceremoniously drops his backpack to the floor by his feet.
The breath he lets out is slow and methodical and born of pent up muscles, aimed at the ceiling where he rests his neck against the back of the couch and relaxes every limb one by one. It’s a process he forces himself through, if only to rid the constant ache beneath his skin.
Slow, sweeping footsteps meander around the room in front of him, and Ritsu angles his gaze down from his craned back position to look at his brother. He wanders, like he so often does—seemingly aimless, but there’s something procedural about it that he’s convinced he just hasn’t figured out yet.
Shigeo’s empty eyes crawl along the hearth of the fireplace, explosions of ash sprayed out across the red brick. His head tilts up to trace his attention around the angular lines of the television, hung on the wall and screen grey with dust. He flits back and forth between the roundness of the bricked mantle and the sharp edges of the screen, like he’s taking notes.
Shigeo paws the television. Four lines of muck are cleared. The zombie blinks, paws at it again with dusty, curious fingers. Ritsu watches him make a mess of the television screen in silence, blinking tiredly.
He almost closes his eyes, but he fights against the urge and moves his fingers down his lap to reach for his bag. His middle hooks around the loop at the top and he lugs it up and into his lap, where he unzips it and peers into the shadowy contents.
Ritsu fishes out the water bottles. He finds the one with the messy R scribbled along the cap in sharpie and takes a big swig of it. It’s warm going down, constantly insulated in a bag of old, sweaty clothes. He feels like he can taste the odor in it, but it clears the grain in his throat from stomping all over dirt roads today, so he’s still grateful.
He holds out the one labeled S to Shigeo. “Thirsty?”
Shigeo looks at him from where he’s crouched down to the floor now, inspecting the soot along the hearth. Unfortunately, he sees handprints in the black already, and when his brother reaches a hand out to take it, his palm is covered in soot.
He lets him have his fun and settles his own bottle back in the mess of tangled clothes and rolls of bandages. Ritsu rakes his fingers through their stock with no real purpose—he knows exactly what’s in here, and none of it is useful.
They’d been searching all day; Ritsu doesn’t really know how far they’d walked, but it had to be a lot of miles. In and out of stores, up and down empty houses, weaving between warehouses—they didn’t really stop for a break. Not when Ritsu can hear Shigeo’s stomach from here and he himself has shaking hands. They can’t afford a break.
Nothing, though. Not a single goddamn thing worth taking. A settlement must have come through here long ago and swept the highway. They’re in the countryside, where houses are spaced out acres from each other and there’s entire cow pastures between properties. And yet every house they’d seen and entered provided nothing.
Ritsu stares into the negative space in his bag where there should be supplies. His stomach cramps and if he smells another whiff of that godawful sweaty, bloody sweatshirt he still carries, he’s going to throw up bile.
He leans away from the open pouch, eyes wandering to his brother who draws… something into the soot of the hearth. His water bottle sits on the floor, abandoned and still unscrewed. Ritsu leans forward with great effort and a grunt, leaning over his bag to grab at the top of it.
It takes him two tries to get Shigeo’s attention, and one more for an answer on where the cap is. It’s then placed in his palm, covered in soot and also saliva. Ritsu swallows down the nausea that rolls up his throat and wipes it off with his frankly already disgusting sleeve, and screws it back on.
He leans back again, succumbing to the urge to let his eyes rest, and he listens to the very subtle swipe of his brother’s hands across brick. There’s birds outside, chirping, and even though it’s still very much a common occurrence, Ritsu cannot help but feel nostalgic about it.
If he ignores the awful hum of silence, and the distinct lack of an electric thrum throughout the walls, and the fact that this is a stranger’s couch and not his, he can almost imagine normalcy. He can almost say this feels like those quiet moments after school, when he settles on the couch and scrolls through his phone in a house that only holds him and his brother because their parents simply aren’t home yet.
He can almost hear the creak of wood from Shigeo walking around his room upstairs. He can almost tap his fingers on the couch cushions to the pattern of his brother making his way down the steps. He can almost hear the fridge opening, and the sound of milk being poured into glass.
Almost. But Ritsu listens to sharp silence instead, and he tries not to think too hard.
He drifts for a while, feels himself truly sink into the couch and let the cushions claim him, and he thinks about nothings because if he doesn’t, then he’ll lose it. He carefully sifts through the nothingness of his mind, through the passing thoughts that have no bearing, and he focuses on that, on the lack of substance. His head is too full of things that have too much substance.
He misses boredom. He tells himself he misses boredom—the complete insubstantiality of it—because if he lets himself think of what he really misses, it’ll drive him insane.
The cushions move, and Ritsu peels his eyes open and lets himself get pulled from liminal mindspace. The cotton in his head recedes, and he blinks, and then he’s swiveling his head to look at his brother who sits in the cushion right next to him.
His hands and the cuffs of his hoodie are smothered in black. Shigeo sits hunched, gaze still wandering even when there’s not much decoration in this house to look at. He studies the off-white walls, the chips in the paint, the holes drilled in where there maybe used to be photos hung.
Ritsu gazes at him quietly, chest instinctively rising and falling to match his brother’s rhythm. He watches the expansion there, under his hoodie, in the subtlety of the folds and the way they warp over the movement. It’s slightly quicker than what he’s used to, but Ritsu knows his brother’s heart rate is much slower. He’s felt it before. He’s listened to it before, with his ear against a chest.
Ritsu’s attention moves to his eyes, and the heavy bags underneath them, and the paleness of his pupils and the ghostlight of him underneath that. He stares into them, looks for stray, familiar thoughts that might enter his head. Looks for old memories that might shine through in the form of recognition when he sees furniture layouts, and candy wrappers, and ads for soda.
Ritsu looks for it all the time, that glint of familiarity. And he finds it, sometimes. And really, he thinks that’s keeping him going more than food ever will.
Shigeo turns his head, and looks at him. Sometimes, when his brother looks at him, there’s not much there. No substance, no anything. And Ritsu finds it a bit evil that he craves silence in his own head, and yet noise in Shigeo’s, and often times it is the other way around.
His brother looks at him now, though, with that comforting recognition. That growth of the pupils, that softening of the hard edges of his face where unknown stressors have gotten to him. Ritsu wonders what zombies get stressed out. He figures it’s the same deal with humans, considering they’re largely alike.
Ritsu wonders if Shigeo knows he’s sick. He wishes he could ask him. He wishes for a lot of things. Silence in his own head is one of them.
Ritsu swivels his head away and stares at the ceiling, if only to force the thoughts to pause. He studies the popcorn ridges above them, traces the peaks with his gaze. It calms him, gives him something to focus on. He looks for patterns in the shadows they make.
Shigeo shifts next to him. And then he shimmies down, settles into the cushions, and plops his head right down on Ritsu’s shoulder.
Static roars in his mind and his heart stammers. Ritsu swallows the lump in his throat but that just makes it bigger, so he clamps his mouth shut and breathes carefully through his nose.
The tears cut through the grime on his face. He plops his own head down against his brother’s, and lives in the noise.
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can we have submissive Thena and Dominant Gil? (Ten things I hate about you AU) 🫶🏼
Her head was tilted to the side as she laughed at what he said. Her stance was relaxed, leaning against the doorway. Her hand floated in the air, swirling around the last of her fruity low-percentage cooler. He was continuing his story, soaking up her laughter, gesticulating and posing. He flexed his arms in his tight purple t-shirt.
Gil didn't know who the fuck this guy was, but he was way too close to his Thena.
His girl--his woman! And she had even agreed to it! She wasn't calling herself his girlfriend, sure, but they were hanging out together more, she let him pick her up from practise and drive her home. He was allowed to hold her hand sometimes and she'd even kiss him in public if no one was blatantly watching them.
Gil thought that counted as being an official couple! It was pretty big to him, at least. And yet here she was, chatting up some guy he'd never seen before. He was tall, handsome, obviously worked out. Maybe he was older--maybe he was some college jock. If that was the case, Gil was going to march right over there and call him a creep for coming to a high school party.
Thena laughed again, and the guy laughed too, even putting his hand on her shoulder.
That was more than enough. Gil tossed down his empty solo cup. All he'd had in it was soda anyway. He had to drive his princess home, after all. Someone bumped into him in the crowded kitchen but he shoved the younger student out of his way.
"Gil," she smiled at him like everything was peachy. She extended her hand, just about ready to pat her new friend on the chest, "this is-"
"C'mere," Gil rumbled, grabbing her hand before she could feel up the beefcake in front of her. He swept her sharply around the corner and into the bathroom. "Look at me."
"What?" she gave him a look for his manhandling of her. Her eyes were clear though, so she wasn't drunk. "I was trying to-"
He pulled her to him, searing their lips together. She moaned into him, her hands already under his hoodie and squeezing the material of his t-shirt. His tongue demanded entrance, and she granted it.
"Gil," she whimpered as he wrapped his arm around her waist. She fit against him so perfectly, it never ceased to amaze him. She tugged at his shirt, guiding him away from the door.
He put his hand against the wall beside the mirror. Fuck, this was a tiny room! The sink was behind them, him keeping the porcelain edge from digging into her back.
"What are you doing?" she whispered, although she was the one still kissing him.
"What am I doing?" he growled, sliding his hand up her back. "I'm watching some beefcake chat up my girlfriend."
"Oh," she made a cute but also infuriating little sound. "Your girlfriend, am I?"
Little minx--his little shrew, rather. He pressed closer. He was getting a little too worked up over all this, and he didn't give a fuck. "Didn't you say you were mine?"
He felt her shiver in his arms. Their hips kept bumping together from the sheer lack of space. His jeans were getting tight, and she just had on some pretty white skirt and a cardigan she liked.
He had never believed cardigans could be the sexiest article of clothing in the world before this enchantress, and yet here he was dying to get a peek of her bra clasp in the back of it.
"Did I?"
He kept himself close, his breathing was heavy and loud. But it wasn't the only heavy breathing in their little chamber. "Tell me now."
Thena liked getting him a little worked up. She bit into her lower lip, grinning like they were playing a game. Such a wicked woman he'd chosen to fall in love with. "Why should I?"
He breathed out so roughly it made a sound. She pressed closer to him, letting him feel her boobs against his chest and rubbing her thigh against his crotch. He grunted.
"What will you do?"
He reached beside him, fumbling for the door's lock. It clicked, and he held Thena's eyes as he reached down for his belt. "Whose bed were we in last night?"
"Yours," she whispered, her eyes going from their bright green to a dark forest colour. She bit her lip again as she watched him pull himself out.
He moved his hand around her waist and in front of her, only to flip her position, making her brace herself against the sink. "Who do you kiss after practice?"
"You," she repeated, her voice growing higher and thinner as he inched her skirt up her legs.
"Whose girl are you?" he groaned as he finally got her skirt up around her hips. He hooked his finger in the back of her thong and delicately pulled it out of his way.
"Yours," she gasped as he touched himself to her completely bare.
"Whose?" he repeated, running himself along her wetness first. She arched her back and pushed her hips more towards him. He grasped her buttocks, spreading her more.
"Yours, Gil, fuck."
He pushed into her slowly. His head tipped back and his eyes slid closed. This was the most anything he had ever felt ever. He held Thena's hips, barely able to register that he was still living and breathing.
She trembled, but he gripped her tighter, refusing to let her fall. She leaned heavily over the sink, her shoes scraping on the tile floor.
"Shit," he cursed, his hips beginning to move without any need to be told. He had never acted so purely on instinct in his life. He kept his hands on his hips. "Thena."
"Gil, yes, more," she panted as he moved. She wasn't in the best position, but she did what she could to match his thrusts. She kept her head down, not up to the task of seeing her expression in the mirror. He had gotten just a glimpse of it.
Her mouth was dropped open with pleasure.
"Tell me," he grunted, picking up speed. This was not what one did with the girl they loved--fucking in a bathroom at a party. But they would only be young once, and this felt nothing if not...urgent. He gripped one of her thighs and lifted it, letting him get closer (deeper). "Tell me!"
"Yours, I'm all yours," she offered, her body responding completely differently as he held her leg. She made a new sound as he lifted it even higher, holding it close to him. "Shit, Gil, I'm so yours, fuck!"
That was what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear that he was the only man for her, that he was the only one privy to this side of her, this feeling of being with her.
"Fuck," he growled, "I-I'm so close, I gotta--I-I gotta-!"
Thena moaned directly into the bowl of the sink, it even echoed faintly as he came in the blink of an eye. His hips were still moving, and she followed, her muscles tightening around him. Her leg spasmed.
"Okay, okay, I got'cha," he panted for breath as he lowered her leg, gripping her hips against his as she shook. She all but melted into the sink, her hair spilling like the faucet was the one letting her golden curls get everywhere.
He leaned forward, pulling her hair away and nuzzling the back of her neck. "Babe?"
She made some kind of noise in response. He wasn't sure if it was a grunt or a moan or a whimper, but it sounded somewhat displeased.
"Princess?" he tried again, more sweetly. Things might have gone...too far. "You okay?"
She definitely groaned this time, pointing at the towels against the hand rack on the back of the door.
"R-Right," Gil blinked, he grabbed the softest one, pressing it into her hand gently. He stepped away only slightly, worried she would collapse onto the ground. He stuffed himself back into his pants sheepishly. More laundry to do. Gramps was gonna start getting suspicious.
Thena quickly brought the towel between her legs, moaning faintly as she pressed her thighs together. She pulled it away and tugged her skirt down again, finally picking herself up from the edge of the sink.
Gil cleared his throat, "uh, honey?"
She turned, glaring at him, although there was a distinct flush in her cheeks and down her neck. "You are unbelievable."
He really couldn't help but feel a little proud of that, even if she didn't mean it as a good thing. He grinned, although she slapped him on the chest for it. He chuckled, "sorry."
She rolled her eyes at him, fluffing out her hair again and making sure she looked like they hadn't been fucking. She raised her eyebrows at him, asking in not so many words.
He held his thumbs up and smiled at her; back to being a dork, great. "Looks great!"
She jabbed the towel into the center of his chest. "I thought you would be above feelings of possessiveness."
He grasped her hand, refusing to let her pull away. He wrapped his arm around her again, and she did let him. "I don't need to possess you."
She eyed him, but it was a sign to continue.
And she did seem to appreciate when he said things he really meant. So he leaned in close again, hovering just short of a kiss away. "You're the one who possesses me, Thena. All the time, every waking moment."
Her breath caught, and her skin was still flushed a pretty shade of pink.
"I just need to know you're mine," he finished in a whisper before kissing her. It was a proper kiss this time, soft and tender, the way he preferred to kiss her perfect lips.
Her hands slid up his chest, although it reminded him of the beefcake probably still lurking around. She pulled away and put her hands on his cheeks, "then consider it done."
It wasn't a 'I am yours', but he would take it with gratitude. He smiled and she offered a faint one back. She kicked the towel that had fallen to the floor out of the way. "All this over an old friend."
He bristled, all of his pent up frustration rising again in a flash. "Old friend?"
But Thena gave him that smug look that she got any time she was talking circles around someone. He had fallen for that look at the movies the first time he met her. "Kingo dropped out last year to pursue acting. He's in a film coming out next year. That's why he's so pleased with all his personal training results."
That was why he was flexing in her face, she meant.
Gil pursed his lips. "So he's a childhood friend who's all hot and cool?--that's supposed to make me feel better?"
"Gil," she rolled her eyes, laughing.
"You were laughing!"
"Gil," she said a little more affectionately, leaning on him completely now. "Kingo is a dear friend. One who has absolutely no interest in matters of the flesh, or the heart, for that matter."
"Oh," he blinked, taking in the look she had for him. It wasn't even that they were friends, but he didn't consider her like that apparently--he didn't think of anyone like that, rather. "Uh, well, that's-"
She threw her head back in a full and complete belly laugh.
His cheeks burned as the last embers of his jealousy ate themselves to death. "Okay, okay, yeah, get it all out."
She did. She laughed for a long time. Maybe she was having a little too much fun with it, he thought, but she did eventually quiet again. She lifted her head from his chest and kissed him. "You have nothing to fear from him...nor anyone."
She reached through his arms to flick the door unlocked again. This was the end of the conversation for her ladyship. Gil sighed, "if you say so."
"He is a very good friend, Gil," she made a point of telling him again as they both prepared to show their faces again. She pulled the door open a crack, "exemplified by his loyalty."
As soon as the door was open Gil could hear the guy's voice, louder than even the blaring music that would definitely drown them out unless ears were pressed to the door. And even if they had been, as soon as the door was open, all he saw was his back.
"Sorry, my friend isn't feeling well. But there's another bathroom upstairs!"
"Kingo," Thena raised her voice to be heard. It was easy to forget how loud it was in the mix of things. She patted his shoulder, "thanks for guarding the door. I'm feeling better."
"Oh good!" he beamed at her as if nothing at all had taken place. He waved off those he had been holding off. Once without an audience, he leaned down closer to her face again. "What the hell, T?!"
"Sorry, sorry!" she giggled at his exaggerated expression. "But thank you."
He gave Gil a completely unreadable look before turning back to Thena, his thick arms crossed at her. "He was holding back your hair, huh?"
Gil blushed, since he obviously knew what they were doing in there. But Thena just slapped his chest, which he guessed was fine, now that he knew more about the guy.
"Shut it!" she hissed at him, a full scarlet red, now.
But Kingo ruffled her hair, like he would a young sister. She only hissed at him more, but he laughed. "Relax, T, my mouth is shut and I didn't see anything!"
Gil blinked as a heavy - heavy - hand was slapped onto his shoulder. "Uh-"
"I've heard a lot about you, Gil," he said with a smile, but it sounded an awful lot like a threat. When he opened his eyes again, Gil could swear they could glow like a demon's. "Nice to meet T's boyfriend."
He didn't sound like he meant that.
"Leave him alone," Thena defused him, tugging at his t-shirt, only for him to immediately scold her for creasing its expensive material.
It was a t-shirt.
"You go, be with your precious Gilgamesh," Kingo waved her off like he was dismissing a student. "I'll come find you tomorrow."
"Fine," she sighed as if exasperated, but their familiarity and affection for each other shone through. She waved as he made his way into the other room. "Find me after practice!"
"Not right after though, right?" Kingo winked at her. "You'll be busy kissing a certain someone?"
"Kingo!!!"
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