jolapeno - Tumblr blog

[jolapeno]

with no strings attached homies, expect a nice new chapter tonight courtesy of @luxurychristmaspudding helping me out and editing it last night. ily ily ily!

some hints at it below 😏

[jolapeno]

this was so moving, beefro!!! 🥹🥹 god I felt the weight of it!

Purpose feat. Joel Miller & Hel my contribution for @perotovar's FRITH Celebration

Summary: Everyone has a purpose, but Joel is running from his. Read the prompt here.

Jackson!Joel Miller + Hel | Rating: 18+ (MDNI) | Word Count: 1,972

Content Warnings: multiple mentions of death, mourning, grief, loss, mention of suicide attempt

Author's Notes: Thank you @perotovar for the gift of this pairing - you're a true gem in this community 💜🥩💜 read all the Frith Fics here.

Thank you to @strang3lov3, @noxturnalpascal, @bitchesuntitled & @weregirlbyknight for their eyes and love. dividers made by @saradika-graphics

No more tag lists - follow @beefnotes + turn on notifications for fic updates!

Sitting on an old rocking chair on his front porch, Joel watched the procession go by his home towards the graveyard at the end of the main road. 

Jackson mourns another, he thought to himself.

He sees the family of the departed, holding each other as they walk slowly behind the horse-drawn wagon carrying their beloved person in a pine box, and he knows the sorrow that robs them of a full breath and a full night’s sleep. He watched the two children, clutching to their weeping mother and then he looked down, unable to watch them. 

He knows they’re permanently changed because of grief, and that has given him a purpose.

She had come to him in a dream as he lay with his head bandaged and pride wounded in a FEDRA camp; Sarah was gone and his botched self-inflicted wound hadn’t let him join her. The first time she visited him, it was just a feverish nightmare of teeth and rot, struggling ineffectively against a black abyss slowly pulling him under. This dream became a regular occurrence for months, waking him drenched in sweat with panting breaths, his eyes darting wildly around in the darkness.

It wasn’t until one still and quiet night as he slept on the forest floor, his head on his backpack and his gun gripped in his hand, that she finally showed Her face. Serene and chaotic, sublime and intolerable, She stood preternaturally still above him. The scent of Her wafted over him as he rubbed his eyes, attempting to shake off the clutch of sleep. She reeked of damp earth and decay. When She finally stirred, Her every minute movement seemed to echo in antiquity, sounding of trees in the distance being forced to bow and break from a hurricane. She smelled of damp earth and decay. 

He forced himself fully awake before She was able to speak, and he refused to allow Her to ever get a word out to him. In a few blinks of his eyes She was gone.

She attempted to visit him more and more so he started drinking to relieve him of the hauntings. The alcohol helped for a while, but then Her gnarled bone hands pulled his unconscious mind open and began to let Her decayed flora seep in. But the pills… the pills are what finally stopped Her.

Nearly two decades of all of the pills and alcohol he could get his hands on kept Her out of his dreams and out of his head. There would be echoes with no origin and fleeting shadows telling him She was never far, but he remained out of reach. Internally, he blamed Her for plaguing his mind with Sarah’s last moments, reliving the moment on repeat, having to hear her begging and crying out to him as he held her for the last time. Some nights, he could still smell the gunpowder and blood that clung to his memories as he slipped into an inebriated slumber. 

He blamed the terrible thing She was - the decayed abomination that haunted him - for making him relive the darkest moments of his life, plying himself with drink and drugs to keep Her away. And it worked; it worked for so long that any indication that She was around, Joel learned to dismiss as foundations settling or leaves blowing in the trees. 

All of that changed when he lost Tess and gained Ellie. An uncanny switch in his partner, forcing him into a role he’d long since abandoned - father. Ellie held a mirror up to him, forcing him to see what he’d become and face what he was running from. The honest horrors of time and grief had etched and eroded him, and he saw shards of Her woven into the old man he was becoming, and gradually, he came around to Her.

Joel hadn’t touched a drink or drug since returning to Jackson with Ellie. They hadn’t found anything at the university beyond the evidence of the Fireflies having been there at one point, and with no indication of where they went they returned to Tommy’s new community.

Two years of sobriety had landed Joel with a clearer mind and a better temperament. She had stayed away as if to say you had your chance, and it was a bittersweet relief to him. 

Until Tommy died. 

He’d led a reconnaissance party out to secure the area surrounding the town, and Tommy’s horse got spooked, making a wrong step and falling off an embankment. While his grief swelled in him like a balloon, Joel took solace that he’d had two years with him before losing his brother again, and that at least Tommy’s death was quick. He knew he couldn’t fall apart like he had with Sarah, and that he had to be strong for Ellie, for Maria and Tommy’s child, and for the town. The funeral took place as soon as his body had returned to Jackson and that night, Joel laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. 

His eyes were wide open and he was awake when Her sweet and putrid smell washed over him in a cold, dark mist. His grief allowed no room for further pain, so Joel found that he did not feel fear. He felt at peace.

The sounds that crawled out from Her gaping maw swirled around him and words formed from them in his mind.

My beloved child - you are returned. You are needed. Tragedy and renewal bind you to me. The sun has his moon and the moon has her sun. Life turns to death and death bores life. Decay gives way to rebirth.

He woke with a startled hacking cough to find his room lit by the pale morning sun shining weakly through his bedroom window. It took him a moment to get his bearings and remember where he was. It felt like only seconds before that She was speaking to him; he could still smell the rot that heralded Her, and once he calmed down, he was surprised that he felt comforted by it. 

It was from there that the ravens began to hang round the front of his house on the fence and trees. When he sat on the front porch, they even dared to come right up and sit on the railing, quirking their heads as they made eye contact and small clucks at him. 

The ravens carried on visiting him with a cautious curiosity for a few weeks until She visited him again in the night. He was wide awake during an intense spring storm that had knocked out the power. He was trying to light the storm lamp when he felt the air in the room grow stale and damp and the sounds the the winds outside faded into dulled white noise. The flame that he’d managed to light flickered and sank low, barely casting a light beyond a faint amber and his breathing echoed in his living room, and She moved from the shadows, and her terrible and beautiful voice crept out into the room. 

My beloved child - grown in grief.

Joel looked at her, feeling his heartbeat slow and his mind quiet, and he nodded to Her. They watched one another as Joel tried to summon the courage to ask something - anything. 

“Who are y-”. His words caught in his throat before he finished as the realization that he already knew Her and Her name. It was etched in his soul and echoed in his heart. 

Hel. Goddess of death and guide to the underworld. Her name was one that should have struck terror into him from years of his Catholic grandmother forcing him and his brother to mass, and given the amount of death that he’d experienced and partaken in, part of his thought that fear should have come from seeing this as his reckoning. But instead, he felt peace in her terrible presence. He dropped to his knees and the start of tears burned his eyes. He felt the grief of everyone he had lost wash over him in waves, coming to the surface and gasping for air. Joel had spent so long trying to choke that grief and suffocate it where it sat in him, but on his knees before Her broke him wide open and gave air to the parts of his soul that he’d worked so hard to kill.

Joel woke up the next day and it was different. He moved through the day as he normally did, but inside he felt more assured of himself, feeling a peace he hadn’t known since before Sarah was born. There was a slight change in him, a light flickering in his eyes that others picked up on but said nothing about. That and the ravens.

No matter where Joel went, there was a raven nearby. If he stayed in place - at a town meeting or at home -  the ravens would slowly settle one by one until their entire unkindness was perched on the trees and eaves, waiting for him to move again. Day by day, it became more apparent to the other residents of Jackson that Joel wasn’t the same; the silent and harsh somberness that had left them wary of interacting with him had turned to a quiet warmth that radiated from within. 

At first, Joel thought this change in him was for the dead - or those that were making the transition. He sat with the sick and elderly in the medical clinic, ensuring they weren’t alone as they moved on, taking up the mantle of guide. 

But it didn’t feel right. His heart would ache in the morning from the looks of those left behind by their loved one’s departure. Joel would watch as families and friends would be thrown into their mourning, and he’d feel the familiar sting in his throat. He would leave the clinic, chest ripped open and wound burning, and he’d be right back in the throws of his own loss. Sarah, Tess, Tommy… Sarah, Tess, Tommy… Sarah, Tess, Tommy… Sarah, Tess, Tommy… Sarah, Tess, Tommy… Sarah, Tess, Tommy… 

But he would return, suffering for his perceived purpose, and repeat the cycle over and over again. 

It wasn’t until one night as he sat next to Charles, the 80-something year old who’d fallen and broke his hip, that Joel finally made the connection. 

“I mourn for what they will become…”, Charlie murmured softly, causing Joel to turn his head from counting the ravens through the window.

“Hmm? What’re you talkin’ about, Charlie?”

“My children. My Grandchildren. My friends… when I leave…”, he spoke wearily, then looked at Joel. “You know how grief changes people. Especially now. Look around. We shouldn’t mourn the dead, we should mourn who the living become because of it.”

Joel swallowed thickly. It was as though Charlie had set off a chain reaction in his head, connecting dots and seeing the truth of it. He looked into the old man’s eyes and saw Her there already, ready to guide him herself. 

He is for the living.  Again, that change in him seemed to glow brighter.

Charlie adjusted himself slowly in the bed and took in Joel with a crackled smile. “Ah. Now there’s a man with a purpose.”

The old man passed on as the pale morning crept over the mountains, and Joel wept by his side, thankful for the last bit of wisdom the old man gave.

Joel thinks back about his journey as he sees the last of the funeral procession pass his porch and he stands up, looking at the ravens. He gives them a curt nod and sighs, “Let’s go.”

He steps out onto the road and walks towards the home of the recently departed, ready and waiting to guide them through their grief so their own transition is peaceful. 

No more tag lists - follow @beefnotes + turn on notifications for fic updates!

[jolapeno]

omg I’m creasing at some of these @guiltyasdave @schnarfer @whocaresstillthelouvre @lotusbxtch @perotovar @yourcoolauntie @almostfoxglove @sweetpascal @sawymredfox @iamasaddie

tagging: @covetyou @thetriumphantpanda @flightlessangelwings @javier-pena @javierpena-inatacvest @msjarvis @moralesispunk @morallyinept (sorry if you lovely lot have done this already I was off the grid yesterday)

[jolapeno]

Dirty Dancing (1987) dir. Emile Ardolino

[jolapeno]

thank you to everyone who submitted something to jo: is not studying! I hope you loved all of the love!! 🩷🫂

*do people want one in two weeks time…? don’t want to piss anyone off. let me know

[jolapeno]

I hope lgbtq+ stories are okay but I really enjoyed Romanarose story About a Girl. Lots of in-depth characters and just people trying to be good to each other. Joel doesn’t know the first thing about transgenderism but he’s open minded. I’m not trans so I was not gonna read it at first but it drew me in. I think it was a fun read especially if you like dad Joel and Tommy being an uncle. Tommy in the story was interesting because he was trying to be good but needed mental health help. I liked watching Tommy and Joel grow.

omg of courseeee they're okay! this space is a safe spaceeee!

ohh @romanarose look at this lovely comment from anon!!! 🩷 my heart rn is so full!

[jolapeno]

For Jo is not studying: My fic rec is for sixhours' happy birthday baby girl. It's been a minute since I really enjoyed a fic focusing on Joel and Ellie's family dynamic. I love it because it really feels like them. https://sixhours.blog/post/756204428315525120/happy-birthday-baby-girl

oh @sixhours look at this lovely bit of love from @bluestar22x !!! thank you for submitting 🫂🩷

[jolapeno]

Jo! OMG!! I almost forgot about your not studying idea!

This time I’m going with two movies I’ve seen recently.

A quiet place: day one. I loved it. I ended up crying with how beautifully and amazingly human nature, emotions, and relationships are portrayed, becoming the focus instead of the aliens. And the actor’s performances were outstanding.

Twisters. I grew up watching the first one, and a part of me worried about being disappointed with this new movie, but I liked it a lot. I found it fun and engaging. It also has Glen Powell… that has turned into a new obsession🤣🤣

Thanks for organizing this! Love you!❤️❤️

I adoreeeee this, and also big up a quiet place getting two shoutouts this week! I love that. feel like it’s the J-oscars 😂😏 no? that not going to catch on. oh fineeee 😂

also I cannot wait to watch twisters, I think it’ll be a movie we rent at home with a pizza and as someone who likes glen powell I know I’m going to lose my mind!!!

thank you for the rec! 🩷

[jolapeno]

I would like to participate in spreading the love for Jo's not studying! I haven't read much fic recently, but I did read an absolutely fantastic smutty cowboy romance called Chasing the Wild by Elliot Rose! It's on Kindle Unlimited and it has ALL the tropes I love... age gap, forbidden romance, forced proximity, THE SMUT? I cannot recommend it enough!

I love this! thank you so much for the rec, I think lots of people are going to see cowboy and smutty romance and go YEEHAW (too much? maybe. but I have had some sweets hahah)

I have been giving recs out, and I raise you “My Killer Vacation” by Tessa Bailey. it’s fun, a little enemies to lovers kinda thing but soft, and a little bit smutty too.

love you billions!

[jolapeno]

Hi Jo!

I’m back again but with a fic rec this time!

I have read so so so many wonderful fics recently but there is one in particular that has done a proper number on me!

obscenery by @sin-djarin is a Tim Rockford x Dave York and I genuinely haven’t stopped thinking about it since I read it? It made me think about Dave in a whole new way and the softness between him and Tim? Oh good lord. I loved it and it was so beautifully written by the wonderful Becca.

It’s actually what’s inspired me to try my hand at writing a Dave! (Which I have bent your ear about Jo, lol)

I haven’t read the other instalments yet, but the fic is part of in the shadows of others, we grow series and I can’t wait to read them, I’ve genuinely been saving them up as a treat!

Much love,

Al 🖤

ohhhh @sin-djarin please see this absolutely gorgeous message from @schnarfer (and also thanks for inspiring her to write din because now I’m reaping the benefits!) 🩷🫂

[jolapeno]

@inept-the-magnificent has a great Dieter Bravo x OFC story where he is a demon and his best friend is angel Marcus Pike who helps him find a way back to his love (OFC Emma). It's a warm, fun, yearnful story and I highly recommend!

https://www.tumblr.com/inept-the-magnificent/751137995318558720/heaven-is-hell?source=share

ohhh @inept-the-magnificent ! look at this lovely message from anon!!! 🩷🫂

[jolapeno]

Some amazing digital fan art by @artsy-girl-76 ! Hard to choose between her Javi and her Frankie, but I think Frankie gets my vote for the beautiful way she captured his profile.

https://www.tumblr.com/artsy-girl-76/753303241863921664/finally-got-my-broken-apple-pencil-replaced-so-i?source=share

omg @artsy-girl-76 look at this lovely message from anon!

(all your work is good, but I’d like Frankie to be hung up behind my eyes pleaseeeeee)

[jolapeno]

Hey my lovely Jo!! We’re going to start with a writing question before we get to 🤡.

When you’re writing a multi-chapter fic, are you writing it chapter by chapter or do you write a large chunk (or the entire fic) before posting the individual chapters?

Love you 💜💜

lovely lovely jenn! what a fabulous question, okay, I may ramble here, forgive meeeee.

previously, I have written a huge chunk of the fic to an outline I have (a skeleton, as I call it) and then begin posting when I’ve banked what I suspect is 30-40% of the fic, to allow for buffer time. this is mainly because I upload weekly and life can happen/sickness/etc.

late night texts was one I wrote three chapters of (thinking it would be five) and began posting and then spent every week writing the next and it was AMAZING! but I also didn’t have assignments then, one shots coming out of my ears (both my fault) or fandom friends to talk to. I just had writing. but with do me yourself, I had a chunk of that written and then I dedicated time aside to do as much of it as I could as i was posting but noticed near the end that I almost lost a thread 😂 like I didn’t close it up. I managed to sort but it kinda made me realise that when I do a slightly bigger plot (for me) my brain can forget little threads.

so I realised for actual series, I need to change it up.

HOWEVER, more recently, blue x frankie WAS supposed to be a collection of one shots that have somehow become a story? (let’s not even ask 😂) so, for this I’ve made a hard plan and made sure it has bullet points so I know what I’m doing.

but with new things, i am trying to write in full at least a draft. there’s something I’m working on that I’ve worked out could be around 12 chapters, and while I could get to four or five and begin posting, I really want to make sure for myself that I’m happy with elements before posting. so I won’t even be teasing that out into the universe because I’ll get excited and post 😂. (I succumb to peer pressure very easily).

now I’ve rambled a lot and I know you asked me for what I do, but I do want to stress there’s no right or wrong way, as long as you can be confident in what youve done. that’s all that matters.

I never used to be a planner, but I’ve found a tactic that works well for me. It’s good for my brain and how i work, and it’s taken years to craft and tweak it to be how i want. so if anyone is after advice: just try things.

and I think because I am now a planner who pants, that has changed me as an uploader, and I think I’ve learnt that I’d like to enjoy the process of posting it more if I know I’m completely done. its especially important as I’m trying to weave more things in and also make the readers lean a bit closer to OCs so people can really sink into them.

anyway, that’s a lot of ramble. but I hope I answered your question! thank you for it, it really made me think!

ily, jo

[jolapeno]

Some TV shows that I recommend (for your not studying series!):

Kevin Can F*** Himself (2021 - 2022)

Follows a woman (Allison) who is married to the kind of man you saw in every 2000s sitcom - an ignorant, bumbling idiot whose dismissive and malicious behavior is played for laughs. What starts out as a single-camera sitcom with a laugh track when Kevin (her husband) is in the room changes when he's not on screen - then the show is shot on a multiple camera set up like a drama, and follows Allison's real & often terrifying journey to leave her abusive marriage. SO fucking smart, so good. Funny and terrifying and the finale of this show is gonna stick with me FOREVER the pay of was fucking killer.

Please Like Me (2013 - 2016)

This is an Australian show that pretty much no one I know has watched where I live but it is SO GOOD. Someone please watch this so I'm not alone in loving it. Also the theme song is such a bop.

Miracle Workers (2019 - 2023)

An anthology series starring Daniel Radcliffe, Steve Buscemi, and Geraldine Viswanathan. The first and last seasons are my personal favorite, but Daniel Radcliffe is a masterpiece in all four.

yay! thank you so much for this!!

I have heard nothing but good things about Kevin Can F Himself and I love the lead actress a lot from other work so I will deffo be giving this a go!!

The others I will deffo also watch a trailer for! 🩷

as a gift back, I recently (late to the party) watched the night agent and couldn’t recommend that enough. it’s on Netflix, and season two will be out soon!! 🩷🫂

[jolapeno]

Hi Jo!

For this inaugural jo is not studying, I would love to give a shout out to @kedsandtubesocks’s Go Play Your Video Games.

It’s a just-over-10k oneshot where Dieter and a gaming streamer start a flirty online friendship that we get to see bloom into a relationship.

Erika’s Dieter is chaotic and sweet, silly and enthusiastic, and the reader is a wonderful match. There's some interesting reflections on what it means to meet and know people online, incredibly cute chat and spoken dialogue between our main duo, and wonderful nods to the streaming/YouTube community and online culture in general.

Overall, it's a warm, funny, and cozy romance that made me giggle and smile and stare dreamily up at the ceiling. Reading it feels like being wrapped in a soft blanket made of joy and love that's got a delightfully wacky border (and a little thread of spice) to boot. I cannot recommend it enough!

🌸 M @toomanytookas

ohhh @kedsandtubesocks !! look at this lovely message from @toomanytookas 🩷🫂

(“Wrapped in a soft blanket made of joy” is the cutest omg)

[jolapeno]

WW2 fighter pilot Frankie, anyone? With the other TF boys, too? And some cherry blossoms?

This beautifully written historic fiction AU story from @schnarfer deserves all the love.

https://www.tumblr.com/schnarfer/741864046360510464/endurance-a-frankie-morales-story?source=share

eeeep, @schnarfer look at this lovely message from anon!! shoutout historic fictionnnnn 🫂🩷

[jolapeno]

To Mya @cavillscurls for her older boyfriend!joel series/headcannons - every installment is so hot and cute and funny and so well thought out. And it collectively knocked us all on our asses the first time, I think we all experienced the same insane reaction from it and it felt like we were all in on the same thing together as a fandom. It might sound a little dramatic but it felt nice to feel so connected to the fandom again ❤️

So, thank you Mya, for sharing older boyfriend Joel with us all (and cranking out like, two or three installments in a week because we were all so feral for him). Love you!

@cavillscurls look at this lovely message from @punkshort !! 🩷🫂