#i'm gonna give them some time to rethink first lmao

[mattodore]

whenever someone follows me and i'm like oh they seem cool i always wait a few days before following them back just in case they see me post some more and are like wow. hate that guy actually

[ccrites]

Signal Lost

I've had something happen to me that's so incredible and that I could have never hoped, something so touching and so unbelievable that it made me rethink a whole lot of stuff: a wonderful reader on Ao3 started reading my long-form fic (101k words!!!) and commented basically every chapter after a certain point. And wow, I would have never thought something like this might happen.

And yeah, it is my first fic with plot in it, yeah I will never believe it to be perfect, but it's good enough. And receiving all those emails from Ao3 really was the highlight of my days over the course of which I saw said reader slowly go through all my favorite parts!

And so I wish to give it some spotlight here, while I'm finishing up my school year and work and whatever! I will post this here for now, but I will drop chapters every few days and make a Masterlist for it this weekend. (nvm I don't have the energy to do this any time soon lmao) I have too many loose ideas in my head so this is just to pass the time till the brain worms wiggle all in the same direction

So without further ado:

Link to AO3 here : Signal Lost - a John Price x reader fic

----- here's a blurb to pique your interest!

“I don’t think I’ve ever received a document as classified as this one. What am I supposed to do with it, Kate?” he says, dragging his thumb across the pile of papers, each file filled with more ink than the last.

“You asked for proof, there’s your proof,” Laswell says.

“You said you’ll bring someone competent, and who can help us, this doesn’t tell me shit.” He stares blankly at the screen, tired. She stares back.

“The Captain specifically asked to keep this under wraps.”

He rubs at his face, scratching at his beard. It’s getting long again.

“Who is he, anyway?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

He groans again, picking up the file on top. No photo, no name, no age, no height, weight, no nothing . And he thought Simon was secretive.

“What can you tell me?”

“It’s the closest we’ve ever gotten to him. Did things a particular way.”

He shifts through the papers. “And the discharge?”

“Left after the entire team got wiped out. Messy stuff.”

“That why he doesn’t show his face?” He bends forward, grabbing the cigar from the ashtray and bringing it to his lips.

“John.” Her voice carries a heavy warning.

“Just sayin’,” he says, biting around the cigar with one side of the mouth. “What kinda captain doesn’t go down with his men?”

“Got enough guilt as is. You’re lucky I convinced them.”

They both remain silent. They know the missions would be a slippery slope. One wrong move and a war is started. He puffs a cloud of smoke.

“Anything else?” John asks.

Kate looks to the side, her face illuminated by another screen. He can see her hesitate, her lips are pursed in a thin line as if she’s debating her options.

“You’ve worked together before.”

His face lights up. “Finally! Who?”

Her face immediately hardens back up. “Can’t tell, John, my hands are tied.” She sighs. “You were still a Lieutenant.”

Years ago then. He mentally catalogs everyone he’s ever worked with, but he knows that at that age, he was throwing himself at every available mission, wanting to make a name for himself. “So an old fart then? How’s that gonna help us?” If the guy was a Captain when he was still a Lieutenant, and he felt himself grow old, he can’t imagine who Laswell is bringing back from the dead.

Laswell’s face distorts, he knows he’s pushing her buttons, but he has to know.

“Not older than you John.”

His eyebrows raise. “Oh?”

---

or

returning to the military to hunt Makarov is hard enough, to do it with your past lover is even harder. a "friends to lovers to enemies to friends and back to lovers" story

---

Tags and other CW: will be posted for each chapter containing warnings for more hardcore stuff (i.e., torture and angst namely), but this is a fanfic, with smut, so if you want all the tags feel free to check the ao3 link bc there are a LOT and I am lazy to retype them all here

[mjfsupremacy]

I love AEW but they need an infrastructure change immediately IMO. TK is great and his passion is admirable but he's too focused on trying to best WWE and has lost what AEW was about, its not about ex E guys and 5 minute wonders.

I'm genuinely fearful for AEWs future at this point, Tony's stronghold is gonna end up choking the life out of AEW. He needs to get rid of the dead weight stop hiring wwe legends and go back to basics AEW isn't WWE and it never will be and that's why we love it.

I completely agree.

I still trust Tony to do the right thing. He's made some big fumbles, but he's pretty good, usually at either showing us why or correcting his mistake. He has genuinely become too focused on trying to be a competitor for wwe rather than an alternative and he needs to take a step back and rethink. (Especially the ronda and flair signing cause jfc my guy what the fawk are you doing what do you mean? You don't get to fire people for saying gross shit or call Vince a sex pest and then HIRE ric flair and ronda rousey lmao like what are we doing here bestie this isn't aew)

It's all still there, things that make AEW, in my opinion, the best wrestling program. I also think the Hangman and Swerve match reminded them that this is AEW at its very best and the continental classic as well is very pro wrestling and I think that's going to give them the chance to get back to basics.

We are so lucky that aew is focused on the future of wrestling. Everyone on their roster is young and exciting, but I believe having legends is super important as well. I've never really had a problem with them bringing in old wwe guys because you need them just as much as you need the fresh blood. I've said this before, but that mentor role is critical in wrestling. These wrestlers have an opportunity to sit under the learning tree of people like Sting and Christian and Jake the Snake and Edge and the Hardys and Danielson and Mox and that is HUGE (I refuse to count Jericho because I hate him and he still only goes into business for himself and I find that infuriating. He's literally damaged multiple young careers while he gets to shine. It's a joke) I just think we have to make sure still that they know that's why they are coming in. The way to curb ego like Punks is to remind them who the future is.

I think Tony needs support backstage for sure, I think he needs a better, stronger team, if he ever has one. I think he needs more women in that team and I think he needs problem solvers who aren't afraid to piss off talent and remind them that aew comes first.

Having said all that, we also need to remember that AEW is still so new, this sort of stuff takes a really long time and I think we hold them to a really high standard because wwe has been running a tight ship for 20-25 years now. We forget it took them decades to get to The point that are at now and it feels unfair sometimes that we won't afford AEW the same courtesy because we hold them to such a high standard.

[taylortruther]

I am your relationship anon 🥺 also just want to say that I really love an egg mcmuffin lol my sluttiest flex is to be really hungover and order McDonald’s breakfast which is egg McMuffin + TWO hash browns to eat rigorously in bed lol

Food chat aside 🤣 just wanted to tell you to give yourself some time and cut yourself some slack! You should be allowed to mourn the loss of the relationship etc, and if it took you xyz amount of time before actually breaking up is bc you probably needed that extra time to process but also to feel ready to cut ties! Have you heard from your ex at all btw after the breakup? (Hope you don’t mind me asking)

I’m doing fine and better than last time I sent you an ask.. two weeks ago me and my bf had a HUGE fight, probably the biggest we’ve ever had.. it was horrible, ngl, in Taylor’s words “it was war, it wasn’t fair” but I think after that we both realised we can’t continue the way we were. We sat down and really talked, and I told him I need him to ground me when we’re arguing cause I lose track of things and get anxious and start spiralling down which results in me getting angry and screaming at him, and he told me I need to stop threatening to leave every time we fight cause it’s hurtful for him and also I don’t need to get scared I’m gonna lose him every time we argue. We have still fought after that lol but I feel like there’s been an improvement, and we said that our priority is our relationship and we wanna be together. Fuck me this is not even my first long term relationship but definitely the most serious one and sometimes it’s so much HARD WORK, I feel so silly cause I don’t think I realised how much work it actually entails to make it work!

i'm glad you two are on the same page and you are able to communicate how your fighting is escalating! that's pretty huge and i hope helps y'all figure out the next steps. also LMAO about your sluttiest flex.

i have not heard from my ex but lack of communication was kind of their thing so i didn't expect to. and i'm a big believer in a clean break so i don't want to reach out to them either, or get their hopes up for a reconciliation.

you are the second person to tell me to cut myself some slack about my emotions and it's helping me rethink the narrative i tell myself about how in control i am of my feelings. i feel very rational but maybe i AM being too hard on myself, idk. anyway, i appreciate you :*

[lockhvrts]

Hey Em! How you feeling about tlou2? I'm still sobbing 😭

hi rilee :’) hope you're doing well❤️ i actually wanted to ask you too lmao and same this game wrecked me  

..okay so i have many thoughts n things i want to say id actually just would link you a review that goes more into detail and is more cohesive than my messy essay so i’ll try my best and keep this short as possible tho and i apologize for my english lmfao : 

SPOILERS FOR TLOU2 OBVIOUSLY

also if anyone disagrees with me and is about to send me an essay why i am a h*mophobic,  tr*nsphobic and alt r*ght piece of trash bc i didnt praise the shit out of tlou2

i'm glad that you enjoyed the game so much that its a masterpiece and 10/10 in your eyes , i honestly respect your opinion (and i wanted to love this game too) but maybe rethink what you're about to do and let other people have different opinions without bashing them? it literally doesn't affect you in any way that i didn't enjoy it ( and no it wasn't enjoyable for me bc a character i like died)

postive: 

the gameplay is fluid and responsive (there were some minor issues but its still great), definitely improved compared to the first game, id love to have a little bit of more enemy variety bc it got kind of tiring after the 20th encounter that basically felt the same as the ones before (tho i appreciate the stealth gameplay , sneaking around the map and taking out enemies while being prone like in mgsv was thrilling)

animation, graphics , level design, acting, sound design: ND succeeded in creating another jaw dropping immersive cinematic experience is all i have to say, this is one the best looking games i've ever played (i cant believe a 7 yr old machine can run this game)

music:  i'm glad that gustavo santaolalla is back for the sequel! it wouldn't feel the same without him, his music adds so much to the experience 

negative: the controversial part lmao

story, characters:  I’ll be honest i prefer tlou1 + left behind story wise. i personally don't like the structure of it in the sequel, too many empty side characters, some character / plot decisions generally didn't make sense for me, the dialogue/writing felt out of place and kind of odd sometimes (compared to the scenes from the flashbacks with joel and ellie) and the last hours were dragged out for some reason i just wanted to be done as quickly as possible with it tbh  

jesse was your typical nice guy™ who will definitely be killed off to move the plot forward. the only thing i remember is that he’s dinas ex boyfriend + father of jj dont get me wrong i like and didn't mind him but he has nothing interesting to add to the story. also funny how they literally did not mention him once after his death 

owen and the other WLF members were just kinda there..? i don't have much else to say about them besides that they felt empty i tried to understand them and their stories but i didn't care for them in the end its prob my fault but henry, sam, bill and riley were more compelling to me

lev and yara were great i liked them both , its just that especially lev was just there to make abby seem more humane, i didn't like that ND tried to create a similar dynamic between them like in the first game with ellie and joel it didn't particularly make me like her more speaking of which:

 abby shows barely to no remorse for the things she did. what she did show was that she enjoyed torturing joel, killing seraphites and almost knowingly murdering a pregnant women (dina) and now ND shoves us this forced narrative of her being a good person into our face like how she would've accepted to die for the cure, has friends and a dog that she treats well (which we as ellie were forced to kill to make her seem even more like a villain in contrast to abby) , takes care of yara and lev (granted out of guilt for joel maybe? but i'm not sure) also making her seem more humane bc she has a fear of height? but abby would kill anyone who is not on her good side this time without a problem as we’ve seen plenty while playing as her what i'm surprised about is that i weirdly didn't hate her or anything guess they succeeded in making me feel some pity for her in the end 

yes i also had some issues with the way tommy, ellie and joel were portrayed but i think i'm gonna stop here and give you a 

TLDR:

gameplay ,graphics, animation, acting etc: solid 9/10

story (structure, writing, dialogue,characters etc) : 4-5/10 seems harsh but i am comparing it to the first game, if this was a different ip maybe an 8/10

all in all a its 6-7/10 for me, this game made me feel emotions (not particularly positive ones lmfao) i've never felt in any other medium before, only the first game comes close.

 tlou2 is bleak, hopeless and messy at times with some rare light moments like the flashbacks of joel and ellie that i enjoyed the most and wished we’d gotten more of while also exploring joel and ellie's present relationship on her quest of finding the truth about the hospital incident and maybe also learning more about her immunity  alas this was not the case as seemingly promoted by neil and some misleading trailers.

would i want to play this again? to be honest not really I’ll maybe try clearing the trophies but going back to just casually play it like i did with tlou1 no i don't think so for now.