#Joel lives happily ever after and nothing bad will ever happen to him

[hotgirlbedtimescenarios]

You bitches have got to stop making the most depressing, gut wrenching, heart destroying TLOU2 edits on tiktok I’m begging you. My heart can’t handle it.

[alwayslurkinginthebackground]

Turn - A Pedrotober Drabble

Day 11 of Pedrotober: Any Max Pedrotober hosted by @norththelemon and @alyssamariag. View the full prompt list HERE and view my entire Pedrotober drabble catalog HERE.

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

Rating: E because I apparently can't write anything non-explicit with this man. Unprotected p in v, brief mention of oral (f receiving), fingering.

Word Count: 1810

a/n: This is a No Outbreak AU because we like to live happily with Joel Miller as if nothing bad ever happened ever. a/n: I legitimately blacked out with this one. Completely. Originally I was going to write a cute little fic about Mr. Ben and the next thing I know this was on the page. Yes, a Max is involved here. You'll see. I offer this again to the wives of Joel Miller. I hope it holds you over until the wolf thing.

"I do not like horror movies, Joel."

He's been insistent all day. Horror movies, he has so proclaimed, are a Miller family tradition on Halloween, but you'll have nothing of it. They freak you out, with their gore and their jump scares and their monsters. Half the time the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were enough for you to lose sleep, and now he wanted you to watch something with vampires?

"It's not that bad. It's barely horror at all, actually," he assures you, wrapping his arms around your waist from behind. You have to admit that his tactics are starting to wear you down, from the way he'd crawled under the covers the second you'd woken up to the way he was pressed against your back now.

Still, you shook your head. "It's not happening."

"Come on," Sarah moans from her place at the kitchen table. "He's not kidding. It's literally not even scary."

"Scary is a relative term," you insist, trying your best to ignore the way Joel's hands are teasing the skin beneath the t-shirt you're wearing. "I just never understood the hype. Why would I want to watch people get eaten alive?"

Sarah looks over at you both with exasperated eyes. "They're not being eaten alive, they're being turned." Apparently, she's the foremost authority on vampire terminology now.

"She's right," Joel mutters against the back of your head, pressing a kiss to your hair before stepping away to lean against the table, joining his daughter in a united front to convince you.

"It has the actor you like in it," Sarah emphasizes. This causes you to turn to look at her with narrowed eyes. She's smiling widely, ignoring her dad when he asks her what actor she's talking about, his own gaze flickering back and forth between the two of you as he tries to work out the secret you two seemingly share.

You sigh. "It's not scary at all?"

Sarah shakes her head. "Nope. I mean, there's some blood. Okay, a lot of blood. But it isn't scary, I promise."

You continue to contemplate for a moment, weighing your options. You know this is important to them, to Sarah specifically, and you want to be part of the traditions they're sharing with you. And it is just one movie. "Fine," you agree, and you know you've made the right decision when Sarah jumps up to hug you tightly.

Joel, however, remains where he is at the table, still trying to work something out in his head as Sarah rushes to the living room to start up the DVD player. You follow a moment later with your food, pressing a kiss to Joel's cheek as you pass to follow his daughter.

"Wait," he calls after you, "what actor?"

~

You have to admit, they were right. The movie isn't all that bad. Sure, it leaves you questioning why Joel allowed his daughter to watch this, but you also can't complain about the way his arm is wrapped around your shoulders, securing you to his side any time the gore becomes a bit too much. Plus, seeing your favorite actor play a cocky businessman named Max sort of makes it all worth it. He's younger here than you're used to seeing him, and clean-shaven. Still undeniably handsome, but it does make you grateful for the scruff of Joel's jaw when you hide your face against it.

You're somewhere in the middle of the film when you catch Sarah continuously checking her phone. "You gonna put that away?" Joel huffs from beside you because of course he's noticed too.

"My friends are having a sleepover and asked if I wanted to come," she explains, still frantically typing away on the screen. Your eyes fall back to Max, letting the scene between Joel and Sarah play out while you're distracted. Truthfully, you're unsure why you didn't watch this sooner.

"Hey," Joel nuzzles the side of your head, his hand running down to your waist and pulling you from the trance you've fallen into. "You still with me?"

The movie is nearing its climax, and you know already that you're about to watch yet another death scene from the man on screen. "Yeah," you whisper unconvincingly.

He shifts slightly, "I don't believe you." His breath is hot against you ear, and you whimper slightly when his lips trace down to your neck.

"Sarah," you whisper harshly, a warning reminder that his daughter is sitting right next to both of you on the couch.

Joel grins against you, one hand pulling the hair back from your shoulder to give him better access. "Sarah's not here. She left fifteen minutes ago."

You're pulled from your daze and your eyes dart to the last place you saw her on the other side of Joel. Sure enough, the seat was empty. "Where did she go?" you ask, your body reacting a lot faster than your brain as your boyfriend's hand trails along your body. There are screams on the TV, but you don't know from who because your eyes have fallen shut at the sensation of his tongue as he licks a stripe across your skin.

"Friend's house," he informs you. "Gone for the rest of the night."

Oh. Oh.

"Joel." You aren't sure if his name is more of a plea or a question, but you aren't about to stop him as his hand again teases the skin of your stomach, except this time it's reaching lower. "What are you doing?"

"Turning you," he jokes gruffly before latching onto your neck. You wince as he marks you, but you do nothing to push him away. Instead, your hands grip into his curls, searching for something, anything to ground you as he sets you ablaze.

"Gonna tell me about that actor you're so enchanted by?" he grits out, fingers dipping beneath the waistband of your leggings. "Because I'd be willing to bet that I can do a lot better."

You turn so you can catch his lips, teeth clashing as he swallows the proper moan he pulls from your lungs. Your hands are everywhere, and so are his as he encourages you to throw one leg over his lap, holding tight to your thighs as he stands with you in his arms. The movie continues to play as he carries you from the room, leaving Max behind to meet his fate.

"He's got you all transfixed," he drawls out as he tosses you onto the bed, immediately covering you with his body a moment later, lips hovering above yours. "Am I not enough? Joel grinds his hips into yours, his length hard against your center, and you can already feel how slick you are. How much you need whatever he's willing to give you.

How much you need him.

"Yeah? You need me, baby?" Joel questions, reading your mind as his hands make quick work of your shirt so he can latch onto your breast, the other pinched between his fingers in a way that has you arching off the bed. "Gonna come for me?"

God, you want to. You want all of him. Inside you, around you, completely smothering you, and you rake at his back, surely leaving marks on the skin beneath the shirt that still covers him. He lets you pull it off before he does the same with your leggings and underwear, revealing a mess that's solely for him.

He needs no guidance as his fingers circle your clit, back and forth until your whole world is spinning. You think you're begging him, to give you more, but you're mesmerized in an entirely different way now. It causes the world around you to grow hazy.

"Stay with me," he whispers, and you fight against the fog as he slides one finger, then two, then three into you easily. "That's it," he talks you through it, but you're long lost to the sensation. Completely absorbed in the way he drags his fingers along your walls just so. You thrust against him as pleasure sparks behind your eyelids, and then you're gushing against his hand.

It takes a moment for you to regain some sort of consciousness, but when you do, Joel is already sliding his cock along your slit, patiently waiting for you to come back to earth. "Still thinking about him?" he asks you, lips again finding that spot behind your ear, sucking your skin. You can only shake your head, words far from the forefront of your mind. His response is timed perfectly with the push of his length into your welcoming heat, "good."

He rocks against you, setting a brutal pace that almost matches the intensity of the film you'd watched earlier. The frantic need. Here, in his bed, it's not a need for blood, but for something else entirely. It's intoxicating, the way he grinds you into the mattress, driving you higher and higher and higher.

"Taking me so well." And you are, you know you are because he's filling you in a way that only he can. Completely. Thoroughly. Unconditionally. He shifts, hands pressing your legs further apart as you writhe beneath him, pinning you down as he hits something inside you that has you gripping the sheets at your side.

You whine out his name, the high-pitched sound joining the symphony of noises filling the bedroom. The creak of the bedframe beneath you and the slap of his skin against yours as he somehow moves faster. The heavy sound of your breathing, rough as it mingles with the grunt he makes when you shift your hips higher. The way you gasp breathlessly when he takes your hand and guides it to your center.

"Fuck," he mutters. "Come on, come on, come on." It's a chant as he changes the angle again to something devastating. You know he's close, you can tell from the way he's panting, but you know he won't fall without you. Thankfully, you're not far behind.

The room is silent then. That or you've blacked out entirely as pleasure consumes every fiber of your being. You're faintly aware of him spilling into you, heat radiating through your body before he collapses against you, his weight settling you into the bed as his lips once again find a home along your collarbone. You're tugging on his curls when you finally regain some resemblance of your consciousness.

"So," he whispers against your skin, "are you pro horror movie now?"

It's an insane thought, but you love him for the way that that's where his mind is at when his cock is softening inside you. "It wasn't really a horror movie anyway," you return, wrapping a leg around his waist to keep him where he is, "but perhaps I could be convinced if my favorite actor..."

Joel silences the thought with his lips. A convincing argument indeed.

[joelsbloodyhands]

My Dialogue While Playing TLOU Part One 🚀

(Spending a long time in Sarah’s room at the beginning)

Me: *reading the title of her books and cds, looking at her photos, opens bday card for Joel, cries at the giraffe* You know if we just stay here then nothing bad will happen. Right? 🤗

(Ellie meeting Bill for the first time)

Me: Don’t mind him. He’s just a grumpy gay with commitment issues.

(Bill leading Ellie and Joel through the church to the window)

Me: You know “fireflies, this” and “fireflies, that”. How many places have we been to that could be potential homes, Joel? Father that child already! 😤

Bill: Well, if you’ve got anything to confess, this’d be the place to do it.

Me: *knows what’s going to happen later* Joel, we may need to detour back here later 👀

(Getting split up from Henry and Ellie)

Henry: Take care of my brother!

Me: Protect my daughter with your life or you’re toast, buddy! *killing all the Stalkers while wondering if Ellie knows what toast actually is* 🤔

(Ellie lifting her hand for a high five)

Me: *clicks the prompt button so he delivers the high five* Not about to swerve or I’m throwing you in this ravine, old man 🤨

(Looking for Ellie who has stabbed the shit out of David)

Joel: (just woke up from death slumber) Where is she?

Me: Where is my sweet baby child? 😖 (knows very well where she is) 🙄

Joel: *sees the bodies* Oh god, I gotta find her.

Me: We will, babe. I swear! Maybe if we just talk to ‘em, explain the sich, they’ll hand her back *starts crafting Molotovs* ☺️

(Ellie traumatised by what happened with David)

Joel: (has just mentioned teaching her to play guitar) Ellie, I’m talking to you.

Ellie: (experiencing ptsd) Oh yeah, that sounds great.

Me: Joel, I think we need to go back. I forgot to piss on David’s corpse 😑

(Ellie and Joel walking around the bus depot)

Ellie: I dreamt about flying last night.

Joel: Oh yeah? Tell me about it.

Me: 😭😭😭 *cries for the hundredth time*

Joel: *keeps calling her kiddo*

Me: My heart is gonna collapse if you keep doing that.

Joel: Come on, kiddo.

Me: *proceeds to keyboard smash*

(Ellie and Joel finding the giraffes)

Me: (starts crying, no really and proceeds to sit there with the cute music playing to let my faves watch the giraffes together because the world did in fact end but then Joel softened towards Ellie. They retraced their steps went back to Jackson, the fireflies fucked right off and died of natural causes, no surgeons were murdered meaning this action will not have consequences, everyone lived happily ever after and lived to an old age, especially Joel. Ahem. Turns off pc. Sighs happily).

(Joel killing all the fireflies in the hospital)

Me: You know some would call this murder but I call it intent to cause harm and those two things are most definitely not the same *throws 3 nail bombs* 😁

(After killing the main surgeon)

Me: *listens to the other two surgeons plead for their lives* Huh? I wonder *shoots the first one causing the other one to slide down to the ground in fear*

Surgeon: Please. I don’t want to die.

Me: *shoots them as well* I’m not the accessory to murder here. You are. Attempted murder anyway *picking up Ellie* let’s go Babygirl 🥰

[sky-is-the-limit]

People like to pretend that Ellie was happy and healthy at the farm and that’s why they hate on Tommy but there’s genuinely nothing in that 20 minute period that suggests she’s healing. Between what she says, her journal, her panic attack, the empty alcohol bottles. Not to mention the first we see if her she staring at Joel’s watch and then buries it in the draw, clear message there.

I think both Ellie and Tommy are responsible for their own decisions but Tommy’s storyline is just overlooked because we all love Ellie. From his pov, he went to Seattle for HER. He asked Maria to keep Ellie away, he wasn’t going to go until it was clear she wouldn’t drop it and you can actually see the moment he thinks ‘god I’ve got to go to stop this’. And then when he does that, and ends up losing his eye, his mobility and likely his usefulness as a patrolmen, which leads to him losing his wife, he’s basically saying to her ‘I did this for you, you can do this for me’. And it’s kind of heartbreaking really.

But people only see Ellie’s trauma and perspective, not his. And people like to pretend she wasn’t waiting for that bit of into to land at her feet. Dina was clearly lying to herself saying ‘we’re done with all that’ because it’s painfully obvious Ellie isn’t

‼️‼️‼️

If Ellie stayed would Dina she would literally drag both Dina and JJ into the darkness.

I truly do believe that many people see the situation like this: Tommy = bad/selfish for "ruining Ellie's 'happiness'" (Ellie wasn't happy at all, tho she loved Dina and JJ, she wasn't happy, she was pretending to be okay for their sake until the breaking point.) At what point was Tommy selfish? Imagine finding out where your brother's murderer is, knowing that his 'kid' is literally going through the same thing and people wanted him to not tell her?! Because Ellie was living some fantasy that would crash down in the end?

Ellie= selfish/destructive for leaving Dina and their happy family life (Ellie was literally a living corpse holding onto that 1% she thought could heal her when in reality Joel's death was killing her, the guilt, the anger, she watched the man who took care of her and did everything to protect her get brutally murdered with a golf stick and didn't know WHY.

She was mad at him for what went down in the hospital, treated him badly due to her anger and guilt of not 'saving the world' that she forgot how much she needed and loved him and when she finally started forgiving him, she lost him in the worst way possible) She thought that he got killed because he didn't left her in the hospital to "cure the world".

I love Dina as much as everyone else but asking Ellie to stay, saying that they're done when Ellie was clearly depressed, needing to prove to Joel that he wasn't gonna let those who killed him get away, that she wasn't gonna hurt him again by letting them go, Dina was also deluded by her love for Ellie, thinking that she could fix her by magically forgetting about everything that happened or erasing Abby from Ellie's brain.

Her ptsd and panic attacks would get worse, she'd become miserable and bitter, dragging Dina into it and eventually JJ.

Ellie had to go, she had to try to get justice for Joel and not let his death be in vain. Joel was her family, he didn't just pass away. He didn't just get shot or infected. Ellie was there to witness it all and people expected her to go be a farmer and live happily ever after? I understand Dina's reaction, she's the character watching the woman she loves going after her death, I don’t understand fans who played the game or watched the storyline NOT understand Ellie or Tommy for what they did.

[sublimecatgalaxy]

Soft Place To Land- Part 1

Pairing: Fezco (Euphoria) x Reader

Summary: After a few years of abrupt separation, the reader returns to her hometown with a plus one to see her mom. She sees a familiar face all too soon after returning, her secrets coming out, answering all of his unanswered questions.

Song: "Vienna" by Billie Joel

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of drugs and sex, trauma and angst.

A/n: I really like this series so far. I'm glad to finally share it with all of you and I know you've all been very excited! Also I might like do little side parts to this fic but have them be like social media posts... if that makes sense. Let me know if you guys want that?

My mother used to tell me that the best thing that ever happened to her, in her whole life, was when she got pregnant with me. She would tell me stories of how, after my father dipped, it was just me and her. I was her everything and from the moment she laid eyes on me in that hospital room, she was in love. She would take me everywhere with her, even when she could’ve left me with my grandma or a babysitter. She even went as far as bringing me with her to her high school graduation. I loved the pictures from that day, seeing her walking across the stage with me in her arms, a huge smile on her lips. She loved being a young mom more than anything and she always told me that she would’ve never changed a thing about how it all happened. Even the part where my dad decided he didn’t want to be a dad and left us without explanation.

My mom had her whole life together. She had me, a nice place to live in, the support of her parents and friends, a full time job as a nurse. She was a great role model for a younger me and I knew from a young age that I wanted to be exactly like her when I grew up.

But maybe I took that a bit too seriously.

I was a good kid. Well behaved, had lots of friends, I did well in school, all of my teachers had nice things to say about me, and I was always the favorite of my friends' parents. Nothing particularly bad happened to me as a child, no lifelong trauma or fucked up things to taint my mind. My mother and I grew closer the older I got and even now I could consider her one of my best friends.

When I fell in love with my first boyfriend, I was a bit ignorant and innocent. I was a bit distrusting of men because of the stories of my father that my mom would share with me. I just never felt good about men and I was very hesitant to be in a relationship with one. I didn’t need a man, my mom had proven that to me.

But I wanted this one.

We started dating in my sophomore year of high school. Everyone knew who were were, our smiles lighting up the hall as we held hands. He was special to me and I think that his rocky childhood helped validate my own illegitimacy of not knowing my father. He didn’t know much about either of his parents, only knowing the care and guidance of his grandmother. I had known him for a few years before we started dating, seeing him at school functions throughout middle school and elementary school. He was always nice to me, cute, shy, and timid. I think that’s what drew me to him in the first place.

He was sweet, a perfect gentleman and even my best friend Rue at the time could see that I was completely head over heels for him. She was the one to help us get together in the first place, telling him that I had feelings for him when I was too nervous to come clean on my own. When he asked me out, I immediately said yes and then everything else between us happened so quickly. But we were together and I was happy. Even till our senior year, I think we both thought that we were going to be high school sweethearts, that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. We had talked about it plenty of times, dreaming about being together and starting a family, having a comfortable life together and living happily ever after.

Life really screwed me out of that one, huh?

I feel it’s important to specify that I don’t regret what came from mine and his relationship. But I do regret how everything went down and the decisions I made following finding out that I was a bit too much like my mother.

This wasn’t supposed to be how this happens.

We were supposed to have a few more years together, just the two of us. We both wanted to travel, to enjoy each other without school or our personal problems getting in the way. I wanted to go to college, get a successful job, buy a house with him and then settle down enough to have kids, maybe a few animals too. It wasn’t supposed to happen this quickly. I hadn’t even graduated yet and neither had he.

My mom cradles my head to her chest as I cry, the positive pregnancy tests scattered on the cold tile beneath us. My eyes keep flickering back to them, expecting the pluses and the lines to change all of a sudden, for this all to be some type of cruel joke. My mom can feel the fear radiating from me, my whole body racking with sobs as my mind goes in every different direction. Would I keep it? Would I not keep it? Would I give it up for adoption? And what would I tell him… What would I tell my friends, my teachers, doctors? That I was having unprotected sex and that I was careless? That I deserve to feel this weight, this anxiety, because I practically asked for it? Would he even believe me and what if he doesn’t? Would he stay or would he run like my dad?

“Baby, we’ll figure it out.” My mother whispers, her lips pressing against the top of my head as I whimper, my head pulling away from her so I can look up at her through my wet lashes. She just gives me a sorry smile, her hands rubbing over my arms. “I know you’re going to hate me for saying this but I’ve literally been through this, lovebug. You’re not alone.” I knew that I wasn’t alone, I knew that she was going to be there for me no matter what I chose to do. She was the best person to support me in this type of situation. She had been through this exact same situation, at the exact same time in her life. I’m sure she wondered the same things that I’m wondering now. But I just prayed that our story wouldn’t resemble hers. I wouldn’t want my baby to have a father who left like mine did.

So, I did what I could to prevent that.

Instead of giving him the option to leave, I left before he could.

My mom helped me pack my things, she called my grandma in Colorado to let her know that we were coming. I didn’t tell him what had happened, I gave him no warning but just told him that I had to leave and that we couldn’t be together anymore. I was a fucking jackass for that and I will regret it until the day I die.

I just knew that I didn’t want to bother him, to bombard him with this because I was well aware that he had enough going on at home. He didn’t need a knocked up girlfriend to ruin his plans for the future. I didn’t really know if he was ready to be a father, with the type of work that he was doing, I doubted it. We had talked about it but maybe that’s all it was. Maybe all we did was talk, wish and hope.

My mom eventually left Colorado and went back to California, leaving me in the trusted hands of my beloved grandmother. My gran wasn’t judgmental what-so-ever though she did make jokes about me being like my mother. ‘Like mother like daughter’ she’d say, referring to the growing baby in my belly. I would just roll my eyes and laugh, turning my attention to whatever I was doing. My gran did a great job at raising my mom, helping my mom raise me, so I figured that she was the best person to go to when I needed help with my own.

When my little one finally came, I was in a better place mentally and financially. I followed in my mothers footsteps in becoming a nurse, the career suiting me well. My little buddy was born at five pounds on the dot, her perfect little face and smile immediately warmed me to the core. She was already my best friend within two minutes as I held her in my arms. But she had his nose, his fairer complexion, soft freckles sprinkling against her whole face. She was a spitting image of him and I figured that was my karma.

She looked like a Lily, the name making my mom and gran grin from across the room as they watched me with her, their eyes teary and hearts swelling. I decided to keep a part of him with her, making her middle name Marie after his grandmother that he adored so much. It was my grandma though who decided on Lilybug as her nickname, a soft smile stretching over my daughter's lips at the name. She was perfect.

And she was all mine.

I hadn’t gone home to California after that, deciding to live with my grandmother as she continued to get older and older. It was just for the best, with her ongoing health issues, I just wanted to help. It was convenient because I was a nurse, I had the ability to help her, and she was my daughter's grandmother so it worked out if I ever needed to run out for a bit.

Lily was a wonderful baby, only occasional fits of screams when she was tired. She was a very sleepy baby, falling asleep on anyone and everyone that would offer to hold her. She had one minor issue that we found early on, a small heart murmur that they were keen on watching throughout her whole childhood, praying and hoping that it would go away on its own. She was a happy baby, always giggling and smiling, playing with toys and watching programs on TV. She loved to go outside and to play with my grans dog; the moral of the story was that she was beyond simple. Expensive but simple.

As she got older, the more she resembled her father. Her skin darkened a bit from the pale complexion that she had when she was born, but her freckles were more defined, her blue/green eyes twinkling and the strawberry blonde hair on top of her head growing more and more. She was adorable, truly. My friends and family would comment on her cuteness on social media, loving the girl and all the sass that she possessed. She had an obnoxious amount of spunk, holding the world in her hands everywhere she went. She captivated every room we would enter, people immediately fawning over her. The older she got, the more attention she received.

She truly became my favorite person. I had birthed my best friend and fuck did I just adore the shit out of that kid.

“I’m so glad that you came home honey. I was really starting to miss you.” My mom smiles, a soft blush on her cheeks as she takes my hand from across the table. Lily hums quietly next to me as she takes a bite of her pasta, the hustle and bustle of the restaurant around us keeping her entertained.

I hadn’t come home in almost three years, my mom typically coming to see me in Colorado instead. I was worried that I would see someone I knew, that it would get around to Lily’s father and then a huge dispute would be had. I just wanted to enjoy my life in privacy but I figured it was time. My mom was just getting older, money was tight, and it just wasn’t practical for her to travel as much as she normally would. My work made some calls and figured out that I could work in California for the three weeks that I was here, working part-time at a local birthing center. It had truly worked out for the best with it being summer and Lily not in school yet.

“I’m happy to be home, momma. Lily was just happy to go on an adventure, right bug?” I look over to her, her eyes wide as she looks between my mom and I, confused. “She’s in her own little world.” I giggle, reaching over to nudge her playfully as she giggles. She returns her curious glances around the room, her blue eyes trained on those that surround her.

“Have you thought about, I don’t know, calling him?” My mom asks suddenly, her voice low as she tilts her head at me. My heart pounds in my chest at the mention of my ex, images of him popping up in my head as my cheeks warm. “I mean, I just figured since you’re home and it’s been so long…” Trailing off, she gives me a slight shrug of her shoulders, my head shaking quickly.

“He doesn’t need that, mom. We’re good, I promise.” I whisper, squeezing her hand as she throws her hands up in surrender, but her gaze is judgmental. She didn’t want me to be like her. She wanted me to have the help of Lily’s father, that is if he would offer it. She always wanted me to give him a chance, to tell him, confide in him. But her image of me was off. I wasn’t seventeen anymore and I wasn’t in love like I used to be.

Dinner wrapped up quickly after that, my mom's arms wrapping around Lily as she squeals. She loved my mom, always so excited to see her and play with her. She was a big part of her life and I was more than thankful for it. She would get plenty of time with her granddaughter this trip, especially with me working now, I was in need of someone to watch her.

After getting Lily firmly seated in her car seat, a small tune leaving her lips as her eyelids droop, I turn the car on with a huff. The sky was growing darker and darker by the minute as I pull away from the restaurant, my mom sending me a small wave as we go. My eyes look along the street as I drive, realizing things aren’t so different from how they were just a few years ago. The same parks, ice cream shops, schools; nothing really changed. It was only me that changed.

“Momma, milk.” Lily mutters behind me, a small curse leaving my lips as I recall our need for milk back at our motel room. She drank it daily, using it for cereal, her chocolate milk, the hot chocolate she would occasionally talk me into. Giving her a small nod in acknowledgement, I pull into the first corner store that I see. It wasn’t familiar to me, my fingers crossing that I wouldn’t see anyone on our pitstop. “Can I go?” Lily asks, a small smile on my lips as I climb out of the car. Opening the door to the backseat, she grins sleepily as her hands reach out to me. I unbuckle her quickly, her body limp and too tired to walk. I take her into my arms with a deep breath, Lily resting gracefully on my hip as she nods off.

Making my way into the store, the bell above me dinging, Lily groans quietly. I rub her back gently as I hum, hoping that she would just fall asleep in my arms, making it easier on me all together. My eyes flicker through the aisles, finding the cooler section as I look for milk. I feel Lily droop a bit, her whole body relaxing into me as she slips under, her arms still tightly wrapped around my neck as I grab a carton of milk. Deciding to grab some other things to eat, my arms are practically piled with different things by the time I reach the front counter. Dumping my things onto the surface, I don’t bother looking up at the worker as I fish through my wallet for cash.

“Fuck.” The voice in front of me startles me a bit, the familiarity of it making my stomach drop. My gaze flickers up from my wallet, blue eyes so similar to my daughters looking down at me. Fuck. “Uh, hey, Y/n.” He mutters, reaching up to rub the back of his neck anxiously as he stares at the sleeping child in my arms. I look between his eyes, my heart pounding, my wallet thumping against the counter as my stomach lurches.

Just the person I didn’t want to see.

Fezco shifts his weight between his feet nervously as he looks at me, his face soft and eyes sad. He looked more built since the last time I saw him, his shoulders, arms and chest more defined than they were before. His beard is trimmed down a bit, less unruly, and his freckles are way more defined and noticeable. He looks unbelievably handsome, the black shirt he wears hugging him perfectly. He seems to share a similar look, his eyes dragging over me as he smiles nervously. Good, he hasn’t made the connection yet.

“Hi, Fez.” I whisper, my voice coming out shaky as Lily shifts in my arms, the sound of my voice wakes her up. She sits up, her tiny fists rubbing her eyes as she turns to look at Fez and then to me. Realization slaps Fez across the face as I bite my lip nervously, knowing that this was all going to come out now. “Fuck.” I whisper, Lily’s eyes widening as she gasps.

“Mommy! Swear word!” She whispers, her hand slapping against my shoulder as I huff, shaking my head as I set her down. She whines as her feet hit the ground, a small look being sent her way that tells her to behave.

“Sorry baby.” I whisper, feeling her arms wrap around my leg, my eyes flickering up to look at Fez once more. His eyes are now locked on Lily, his plush lips parting in shock and awe. Looks of anger, sadness, betrayal, and shock all passing through his face all at once. “This looks really bad, I know-” I start but he cuts me off with an angry scoff, his eyes rolling in disgust.

“You know?!” He fumes in a hushed whisper, his eyebrows pulled together as he glares at me. My stomach drops at the tone, my whole frame deflating as I place a protective hand on top of Lily’s head. A few beats go by as the information settles in his mind, his eyes fluttering shut in disbelief. His eyelashes rest handsomely against his pale cheeks, the man being so familiar yet so different. “Is she…” He trails off, tears filling my eyes as I sniffle, my stomach swirling uncomfortably. I just give him a simple nod, his chest sinking as he leans against the wall. That was it, the secret was out, he knows Lily’s his. He just looks at me, his head shaking gently as he ponders. “This why you left?” He asks, my eyes shamefully moving away from him as my head bobs in a nod. He lets out a violent breath, his hands running over his face as he sighs. I look down at my daughter who just frowns, confused by the tension that fills the room. Fez has yet to scan any of my items yet and my brain contemplates just taking Lily and going to another store.

“Fez, I-” I cut myself off, the words getting lodged in my throat as I shake my head simply, my eyes fluttering shut in agitation. “She’s three. Her name is Lily Marie.” I add, hearing his breathing get caught in his throat as he pauses. Lily just looks up at me, her hands reaching out to me. I lift her back up into my arms, Fez and Lily making eye contact as she sends him a soft, polite smile. His whole body relaxes a bit, not being able to stay mad with her eyes on him. “Can I just go put her in her seat or something and then we can talk?” I ask quietly, begging and hoping that he’d hear me out. He looks back and forth between us as he sighs, his head bobbing in a quiet nod, his hands working to scan our items.

We check out in silence, his hands carrying the bags out to my car as Lily waddles next to me. Putting the groceries in the car first, I then turn to Lily. I hoist her up into the car with a huff, her hands clapping as I buckle her in. I give her one simple kiss and a brief explanation before shutting the door, taking a deep breath of the cool air. By the time I turn back to Fez, he looks ten times more nervous, his eyes locked on the ground.

“I moved a week after I found out that I was pregnant. I went to live with gran in Colorado.” I explain, his head nodding slowly and silently. “I didn’t know how you’d react so I ran. My dad left when my mom got pregnant with me, you know this. I was scared. I had every right to be scared.” I add, his eyes sad as he looks back up at me, his head shaking gently.

“I woulda stayed.” He whispers with a gentle shrug, his hands shoved into his pockets. “You leavin’ fucked me up.” My heart breaks in my chest at his words, guilt consuming me as I hear Lily singing from inside the vehicle. “It was fuckin’ wrong of you to keep this from me, you know that right?” He asks, my head bobbing in an immediate nod. I knew that he had every right to be mad but if I could understand his side, then he could work to understand mine. “Did you just, like, not care?” He quizzes, a frustrated sigh leaving my lips as I roll my eyes.

“Of course I cared, Fezco, I’m not a complete asshole.” I snap, my eyes squinting at him as he takes an abrupt step away from me. It was enough for him to tell me how upset I made him but claiming that I didn’t care crossed the line. “You dealt drugs, Fez.” I add with a short shrug, a small scoff leaving his lips as he shakes his head. “So, blame me for taking myself and my daughter away from that, that’s fine.”

“Our daughter.” He grits, stepping up to me as I peer up at him, my heart pounding against my ribs. He’s still fuming, his chest rising and falling in aggressive breaths. “Our daughter that you left with without even givin’ me a fucking chance.” My lip tucks in between my teeth to conceal the pout that wants to pop through. My eyes water as I sniffle, looking away from him as he continues. “I woulda done anythin’ for you.” He whispers, a tear slipping from my eye as he watches me carefully, his beautiful blue eyes flickering over every inch of my face..

“Fez, I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want to be fucking accountable to do what you wanted me to. I didn’t know if you wanted kids, if you’d want me to get rid of her- I had no i-fucking-dea.” I cry, my shoulders shrugging as he sighs sadly, rubbing a hand over the top of his head. “I regret not telling you, yes. But I’m not sorry for protecting her and myself.” I conclude, his hand reaching out to take my hand gently in his. My mind swims with thoughts, his proximity driving me mad.

“Protecting yourself from me?” He asks, his voice cracking, the question making me dizzy as I press a hand against his chest. He takes a step back as I suck a deep breath in, my head shaking.

“I can’t talk about this now.” I whisper, shutting down quickly. I reach up to wipe my eyes as I look at Lily through the window, her eyes tightly shut. “It’s past her bedtime, we flew in today, we’ve been out with my mom all day. I just want to go to my motel and cry, okay? Please.” I beg, my eyes searching his as his lips tug down into a frown. Before I can turn around, his hand squeezes mine, gaining my attention.

“Unblock my number, please.” He whispers, his eyes sad as I nod, sniffing loudly as I pull away from his grasp. My heart breaks as I get into my car, watching him as he returns to his spot in the store, sending me one last look. Driving away, tears stream down my cheeks as I try my best to stay as quiet, not wanting to alarm my sleeping girl.

I knew that I wouldn’t sleep that night. I was right because I didn’t get one moment of rest. The lights of passing cars reflected off of the ceiling as I listened to the quiet television. Lily was curled up in my arms as she slept soundly, my quiet sniffles heard the whole night. I knew that Fez would be reaching out to me soon, his contact once again in my phone, waiting to be used. I knew that by the way he was looking at Lily, his words, that he would want to be a part of her life, my life.

I was scared, sure. But the butterflies in my stomach returned, the image of his smile, the feeling of his hand holding mine, it made me nervous but fuck did it make my mind spin in all different directions.

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Taglist: @bubblebuttwade @rafelover2405 @leslienjazzy @sorceresss @grxnde-dwt @alex--awesome--22 @bunnietoof @niyamar1e @serialghost @plantlungs @geniusohn @akaliltimmytim @lilaalouuxx @xshariex @elliotsbeigeguitar @elle4404 @lelieja @srhxpci @joselyn001 @taysirene @spinkspanther @thedivineuphoria @peter-maximoffs @tsukishimawhore @poohkie90 @szlaco @distantsighs @nstyles4299 @wolflover384 @givemefoodandlovesstuff @vane28282 @yeswhatever33 @amirrahfranson @vvaalleennttiinna @f-mu @yaspillz @jeyramarie @skylievin@abbybarnes17 @jointherebellion215 @visiondaddy @steezysimfinds @its-ya-gay-boi-luigi @crunchytoenailsyum@glizzymcguirex @beth123lg @melovesmut @rafecameronswhore @ariianelle @write-from-the-heart @vampviolets@haylee-e

Euphoria Taglist: @bluetreecloud20 @scenesofobx@ssprayberrythings @username-lols @pessimisticbiitch @urmomsangel @rosepetalsparks@bluetreecloud20 @scenesofobx

Series Taglist: @bigpoppajes @namjoonsbuspass

Fezco Taglist:@fudgemesteveharrington @hy-my-name-is-riley @trinbby13 @squishiejiminiee

[theyearoftheking]

Book Eighty-One: Billy Summers

“Maybe a chilly story needs a chilly writing room, he thinks. It’s as good an explanation as any, since the whole process is a mystery to him, anyway.” 

Well hello there, Constant Readers! Have you missed me and my half-assed reviews of Steve books? 

Crickets. 

I know I’ve promised book reviews, television recaps... all the things. But I’m kind of busy living and enjoying life at the moment, without the need to take notes or screen grabs. That being said, I really did enjoy Billy Summers, and it took me almost a hundred pages to remember how this blogging thing worked. I was supposed to take notes? Dark Tower references? DePere, Wisconsin? Should I remember that for some reason? But don’t worry, it was like riding a bike. This blog is full of all the stuff you’ve come to know and love, as well as SPOILERS!!! So, if you have not finished the book yet, stop reading and come back once you’ve turned the last page.

SPOILERS!!! Consider yourselves adequately warned. 

Billy Summers doesn’t really include anything supernatural, and it’s more suspenseful and plot driven than some of Steve’s other books. In other words, it’s another great recommendation for people who don’t claim they don’t like Stephen King. 

Billy is an assassin who has mastered the art of “dumb like a fox”. 

He’s hired for a new assignment, but something seems off. Billy has been in the assassin game long enough to know when something is foul in the state of Denmark. He doesn’t trust the people who hired him, and he has the distinct impression he’s going to end up as the patsy in the end. But, he plays along as Dave Lockridge, single man and writer. He moves onto a charming street in Midwood (I kept reading this as Midworld... thanks, Steve), makes friends with all the neighbors, and beats all the neighborhood kids at Monopoly on the weekends. This part of the book was so tender, it reminded me a lot of Ted Brautigan and the kids from Hearts in Atlantis. Of all the things Billy later regrets, it’s letting these kids down, and having them trust him when he was obviously so untrustworthy. 

During the day, Billy writes  at his office in Gerald Tower. There’s always a tower, isn’t there? And this tower takes on more significance, because it’s the spot from which Billy is supposed to shoot Joel Allen. Joel is due to be transferred to Midwood, and marched up the steps of the courthouse just like in The Outsider. Constant Readers remember how well that worked out... 

Billy has an assassins creed: he only shoots bad guys. On the scale of bad guys, Joel Allen isn’t quite Ted Bundy, but he’s not Mr. Rodgers either. He had something of a “me too” moment when he accidentally mistook a feminist writer for a sex worker; and there was a gun fight outside of a poker game. It’s enough for Billy to work with. 

Billy is waiting for Joel to be transferred to the Midworld Midwood county lock-up; and he bides his time by actually doing some writing. He covers his tragic childhood (his mom worked in a laundry facility, just like Steve’s mom), and his time in the military. This is where Steve really shines. Billy’s book is written in a childish tone that just WORKS. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a simple-minded assassin. But still waters, friends. As the story goes on, Billy’s voice grows and improves. Well done, Steve, it’s like two books for the price of one.

In between writing, Billy assumes another fake identity (Dalton Smith), and secures a bolt hole to hide out in once his job is complete. Believe it or not, the murder of Joel Allen is such an insignificant part of the book. Billy successfully takes him out, and makes it to his bolt hole undetected. And this is really where the second part of the book starts. 

One rainy night, Billy hears random noises outside his apartment. He looks out the window in time to see a van full of guys dump a female body into a gutter. Billy should have just anonymously called the police... but if he had done that, we wouldn’t have a story. Instead, Billy goes full on Captain Save A Ho, and pulls the young woman from the gutter. It’s clear she had been drugged and assaulted, and she manages to puke all over Billy’s place. 

Neat. 

When Alice wakes up in the morning, she recognizes Billy from the police sketches, but promises not to rat him out for the Joel Allen murder. They form an unlikely friendship that includes watering the neighbor’s plants, watching Blacklist, and Alice reading Billy’s book. Basically, they were sheltering in place before that was even a thing; something Steve jokes about. Eventually, Billy knows he needs to get the rest of his money for the Joel Allen hit, and punish the guys who raped Alice. 

Y’all. I’m still having nightmares over the most creative use of a hand mixer I have ever read. I thought the can-opener in Lisey’s Story was bad... this was worse. But the kind of worse you feel good about, if that makes sense. 

After finding out the name of the guy behind the Joel Allen hit, killing a few bad dudes, and pissing off a bitch named Marge (fucking Marge if you’re nasty), Billy and Alice hunker down in Colorado with Billy’s assassin booking agent, Bucky. 

As soon as Billy and Alice entered Colorado and the town of Sidewinder was mentioned, I knew where we were headed. Yeah buddy, Overlook time! 

Billy takes to writing in a little shack behind Bucky’s house, and inside the shack is a Polaroid picture of the topiary animals at the Overlook. Every time Billy looks at the picture, the animals seem to have shifted. It gives him a cold sense of dread. 

There’s a certain parallel I picked up on in Colorado: Jack Torrance and Billy Summers are both haunted men running away from things. The Overlook was where Jack went to dry out, and work on his writing. He wanted to work on his marriage, and become a better father to Danny. We all know he failed spectacularly. Then, we’ve got Billy. Billy actually gets writing accomplished, and becomes an unlikely father-figure to Alice. Despite having just as much, if not more baggage than Jack, Billy doesn’t let it define him. He acknowledges it, and moves past it. It’s almost like Billy accomplishes what Jack couldn’t. And it took the Overlook burning to the ground for that to happen. 

While we’re on the topic of Billy and Alice, one of the things I love about Steve’s characters is he never forces romance where there doesn’t need to be any. While Billy acknowledges the age gap between him and Alice, nothing untoward ever happens between them. There’s obvious love, but never the romantic kind. Steve is one of the few contemporary writers to get this right. 

The story ends with Billy killing the guy behind Joel’s hit, getting shot by Marge as he leaves the crime scene (fucking Marge), Alice nursing him back to health, and getting him back to Colorado where they all live happily ever after.

I wish.

I wish I had stopped reading twenty-three pages before the book ended, because the actual end was more realistic, but heartbreaking. In reality, fucking Marge shot Billy in the stomach, and he died of an infection in the back of a Walmart parking lot. Fucking Marge indeed. But this was the way the book should have ended. Needed to end. Anything else would have been unrealistic. But damn, I hated to see Billy go out like that. 

There was one Wisconsin reference: after Billy kills Joel Allen, he’s supposed to be transferred to a safe house in De Pere. You know... where Steve lived when he was in a kid.

Other than Gerald Tower, we were also graced with “the world has moved on-” just to remind us that we all follow The Beam. 

Total Wisconsin Mentions: 49

Total Dark Tower References: 78

Book Grade: A+

Rebecca’s Definitive Ranking of Stephen King Books

Doctor Sleep: A+

The Talisman: A+

Wizard and Glass: A+

11/22/63: A+

Mr. Mercedes: A+

Billy Summers: A+

End of Watch: A+

Under the Dome: A+

Needful Things: A+

On Writing: A+

The Green Mile: A+

Hearts in Atlantis: A+

Full Dark, No Stars: A+

The Outsider: A+

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: A+

If It Bleeds: A+

Just After Sunset: A+

Rose Madder: A+

Misery: A+

Different Seasons: A+

It: A+

Four Past Midnight: A+

Stephen King Goes to the Movies: A+

The Shining: A-

The Stand: A-

Finders Keepers: A-

Bag of Bones: A-

Duma Key: A-

Black House: A-

The Institute: A-

The Wastelands: A-

The Drawing of the Three: A-

The Dark Tower: A-

Dolores Claiborne: A-

Blaze: B+

Hard Listening: B+

Revival: B+

Nightmares in the Sky: B+

The Dark Half: B+

Joyland: B+

Skeleton Crew: B+

The Dead Zone: B+

Nightmares & Dreamscapes: B+

Wolves of the Calla: B+

‘Salem’s Lot: B+

Song of Susannah: B+

Carrie: B+

Creepshow: B+

Later: B+

From a Buick 8: B

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: B

Sleeping Beauties: B-

The Colorado Kid: B-

Storm of the Century: B-

Everything’s Eventual: B-

Cycle of the Werewolf: B-

The Wind Through the Keyhole: B-

Danse Macabre: B-

The Running Man: C+

Cell: C+

Thinner: C+

Dark Visions: C+

The Eyes of the Dragon: C+

The Long Walk: C+

The Gunslinger: C+

Pet Sematary: C+

Firestarter: C+

Rage: C

Desperation: C-

Insomnia: C-

Cujo: C-

Nightshift: C-

Faithful: D

Gerald’s Game: D

Roadwork: D

Lisey’s Story: D

Christine: D

Dreamcatcher: D

The Regulators: D

The Tommyknockers D

I’m not going to end this with any promises of upcoming posts. That way when I do randomly stumble on here one afternoon, it will be a delight for us all.

Until next time, Long Days & Pleasant Nights,

Rebecca

[lilsunshiny]

Thoughts on The Last Of Us Part II

WRITING (creative process)

the game’s storyline is straight to the point, you can see from the trailer that it’s going to be a timeline about revenge. the whole game happens around joel’s death in the beginning and I guess that’s the whole reason why people are upset. but guess what? neil druckmann’s goal was to make you upset, angry and nostalgic. he accomplished his goal and that’s why you’re feeling the way you are.

you not liking the the way things went down does not mean the game’s writing is awful, it just means you were expecting something and got another. not liking something isn’t a crime and it’s totally ok as long as you respect the creators and don’t use your hate to put others down, it’s a valid opinion and that’s it.

what makes a story good is the writing and the thought put into it to make the player/reader/viewer feel a certain way, and the developers did an incredible job to do that. we feel frustrated, anxious and weird the entire gameplay and that’s exactly what they wanted from us, which means they won. I’ll talk more about my opinion on the storyline far ahead.

the graphic visuals of this game are RIDICULOUS, they’re perfect. every detail is insane to look at, they worked so hard to get it right and it was so worth it. every time I entered a new scenario I would just go into photo mode and appreciate the art because that’s what makes the game unforgettable and groundbreaking. the red lighting scenes were so perfectly made and so badass, the sky when ellie goes outside the farm with JJ is breathtaking just like every other view in the game. by far the most beautiful game I’ve ever had the honor to play.

STORYLINE (joel’s death)

the first game gave us a story about love and hope, making us guide joel into taking ellie to the fireflies looking for a cure based on ellie’s immunity. we spend the whole game thinking we’d get to the fireflies, make a cure and live happily ever after but that never happened in those terms. the gameplay made us slowly fall in love with joel and ellie as characters, joel for his tough personality that would fade under the influence of a little girl and ellie for her nativity and innocence as a young teenager who really wants to help other people by making a cure. that’s the whole situation of it, joel getting attached to ellie while she developed a paternal affection for him but in the end joel ends up doing an unforgivable thing, basically destroying the hope for a cure and ruining all hope for the world to heal from the outbreak, so he decides to lie to ellie blaming the fireflies for everything so he doesn’t lose her trust and love.

I do understand liking and loving joel as a character, myself included, because they made the game thinking about it and they knew the audience would develop a major caring for him and ellie as daughter and father, that’s how it was supposed to go and it worked it.

now let’s talk about joel’s death. I think we were all surprised to watch him die so early in the game but considering the game time and storyline, it would have never happened differently. his death was brutal, violent, merciless and inhuman, abby and her crew tortured him until he couldn’t take it anymore and he obviously suffered with ellie being held to the ground begging them to stop. I agree that it was a horrible death but we can’t just pretend joel was a sweet innocent hero because he wasn’t, the audience portrays him as a hero when he literally stopped the human race from being saved, killing the fireflies and acting out of pure selfishness. joel isn’t the angel some people paint him as, he’s not a good person and if ellie herself could never forgive him for what he did, who are we to do so? she said she would try but she never got the chance to and it took her years to even come to terms with it.

most importantly, it’s obvious that people forget these characters are human beings, not real people but they’re real in that universe and technically speaking, they run and feel the same way we would feel if we were in their shoes. they’re people, every character in the game is a person, with feelings, a background, a past, a personality and thoughts. they’re no different than us except for them living in a post apocalyptic world were morality and ethics aren’t taken into consideration since there is no law or living lifestyle.

for us to understand this storyline, we need to step away from our society’s view of morality and wrong or right, because that does not apply to them, everyone in the game has killed people and/or have done something morally questionable in their life since it’s the apocalypse and there is no wrong or right, there’s only how the characters feel about certain situations and how they act on them, which is basically what guides the entire game to happening the way it did: human feelings.

joel obviously changed after the first game, since he starts living in jackson and having to raise ellie as a daughter in a relatively normal town with other people, he’s not the same person as he was in part I, now he turned into a father and a friend, not a merciless mercenary who doesn’t care about others. we see that when he and tommy decide to help abby, a complete stranger who was about to die in the hands of infected, and maybe that’s what led people into hating abby with their heart. but ending this topic, joel’s death was bound to happen, you can’t just expect someone to destroy the world’s hope for a cure and leave with no people being angry at him and wanting revenge, that cure could’ve saved many people’s loved ones but he chose to save his loved one. if joel is indeed a terrible person or not, that’s up to you to decide, that’s more of an internal turmoil within yourself that is different for everyone depending on their experience from part I and how they view joel in the end. it’s kind of messed up if you think about it, would you let the only person you care about die for a not confirmed chance of a cure in a world that is already doomed? that’s a question for yourself.

joel’s death happened so you could see things from multiple perspectives, which is the whole fucking point of the game. there are multiple sides to every story, it’s the same world we live in except in different circumstances. your actions affect others, people have feelings and if you hurt them they might act a certain way, those characters are no different than us because they were based on genuine human thoughts and actions.

ELLIE (growth and development)

ellie is one of the most well written characters I’ve ever seen in my life. she’s the symbol of badass but fragile woman and that’s so amazing to me. as the game goes by we start seeing many sides of ellie, she slowly starts to turn into a completely different person after joel’s death and her urge for revenge. killing abby becomes her main priority the second she leaves jackson and that’s clear in the way she acts and treats others. I’ll have to play the game again to pay more attention to ellie and abby’s behavior throughout the timeline. ellie is the reflection of how the excessive amount of effort you put into a negative thought, the more it will bring you and your loved ones down. watching ellie during the story is such a nice experience, there are times where you love her to death, others you get annoyed with her or don’t agree with how she acts, and that’s exactly how the creators wanted you to feel. revenge takes ellie’s soul from the inside out, from her not being able to forgive herself for letting joel die to her going after abby for nothing but hate for herself in the end.

ellie’s journey is exciting to play and to witness as her relationship with other people (specially dina) starts to fade away and being consumed by hate and regret. we were manipulated into loving ellie since part I and I don’t think she’s a bad person, she lost everything in the hands of other people and went through a lot, losing joel was a deal breaker for her but she just didn’t realize soon enough that killing abby wasn’t going to make things better. ellie’s gameplay was meant to make you reflect on losing a loved one, grief, mourning and revenge, she’s not the lost kid from part I anymore, she’s a grown woman who just lost her dad and she doesn’t even know exactly why. the funny thing for me, which is what makes the story realistic, is that ellie didn’t fully forgive joel yet she still suffered from losing him and went after abby for revenge, when not even herself could forgive him, that’s pretty realistic in my opinion. it’s the human uncontrollable instinct of still missing someone you’re mad at and not being able to say goodbye.

for me, ellie is the perfect and most detailed reflection of revenge and what it can do to you. the game is much more than “revenge is bad don’t do it”, we all obviously know it’s bad but we still have an urge to fight back against it and make the person who hurt us suffer too because it’s not fair for us and it wasn’t fair for ellie until the very last moment.

ABBY (point of view and perspective)

by far the most controversial character of the game. I’ll star off saying I actually like abby and I think the people who hate her so deeply just didn’t understand how things go. hating abby is no different than hating ellie, they’re in the same situation for almost the entire game. abby lost her father in joel’s hands, she was still a teenager and seeing her own dad die for trying to save humanity isn’t easy, just like ellie watching joel being tortured and killed wasn’t easy. being fully honest ellie would’ve done the same thing abby did if joel was the doctor and we can’t deny that.

on the other hand, I do think the ellie and abby gameplays could’ve been distributed better, maybe switching from ellie to abby and back and forth so it wouldn’t get too tiring or confusing since we don’t know the exact timeline when we first play it. that’s the only slightly negative thing I have to say about the game.

I do think abby is a great character, they built her perfectly to make the audience hate her in the begging, painting her as a sadistic monster only to show her side of the story later on in the game and make you realize that you have been wrong all this time, making you see the bigger picture and understand that ellie isn’t the only person in the world, she isn’t loved by everyone, she’s just a girl in the world and so is abby. they both have fucked up pasts and they both lost a lot, and in terms of personality, they’re actually quite similar. we love ellie because we got to see her grow up and WE know that deep down she’s not a bad person, the first impression we had of abby was of her recklessly killing joel with a golf club when ellie was begging her to stop, since that we tend to think abby is a horrible person and that ellie is an angel, but it’s not like that at all. obviously ellie didn’t do anything wrong up to that moment to justify that happening to her, but ellie isn’t the best person in the world either.

the duality in this game was created on purpose and with a deeper meaning, ellie is ellie, abby is abby and the cycle of revenge goes on until both parts understand that it’s useless to keep going. abby let go before ellie could and let her and dina live because of lev, killing joel didn’t change abby to the better, lev changed her. tommy couldn’t change ellie, jesse couldn’t change ellie and not even dina could do it, ellie had to change and forgive herself alone. the point I’m trying to make is that abby is no better than ellie and ellie is no better than abby, they’re both emotionally drained women who are not wrong or right in the end of things.

DINA (support and reflection)

dina is the only character I will 100% defend because she’s flawless and did absolutely nothing wrong during the whole game. in my head she represents ellie’s good side, dina is the constant reminder that ellie hasn’t lost her humanity and hasn’t completely changed into someone else because of revenge, even when she has her downs (example: calling her a burden when dina says she’s pregnant). dina is the most forgiving and loyal character, she loves ellie more than anything and it shows. the sad part of it is that even with dina’s huge amount of love and affection, that doesn’t stop ellie from going in the wrong direction, which brings us to another life lesson: loving someone is a choice you make everyday and nobody can control your choices when you’re determined to do something.

ellie decided to go after abby, dina followed and supported her the whole way through, then she took that for granted and left dina and JJ behind to go after abby again (after abby let her and dina live) officially breaking dina’s heart. that was a choice, dina obviously cared so much about ellie, loved her so much but she couldn’t change ellie’s mind. but the point here is that dina is a reflection of ellie’s bright side, she keeps ellie sane until the very last moment, saving her life multiple times, going with her in a revenge journey, “you go, I go, end of story”, telling the wolves to fuck off and staying by ellie’s side, constantly putting her life at risk while being pregnant, she has loves ellie for such a long time even before getting with jesse (you can read ellie’s journal where she says cat told her dina is jealous of their relationship) and she probably took ellie back when she came back from santa barbara (a theory that I believe in because it makes sense).

dina is one of the few positive ends in the universe of the last of us, highly optimistic, funny, beautiful and an amazing support system for ellie. if it weren’t for dina, ellie would’ve become a monster.

LGBTQ+ REPRESENTATION (ellie x dina and lev)

it’s 2020 and people are still talking shit about the game just because of queer characters. that’s why I say people who hate the game are people who either didn’t capture the story or just didn’t even try to pay attention because of a closed mindset bigot sandwiches. representation is the best path to general acceptance, making people see different stories and realize that someone’s gender or sexuality does not influence on the quality of art.

ellie is a lesbian, that’s clear in the game when she says she’s “not into jessie’s type” (such a nice dialogue by the way), she talks about her ex girlfriend and clearly has had a crush on dina for the longest time (probably the reason why she broke up with cat).

dina is bisexual, in my opinion she always had a crush on ellie but maybe she lost motivation to to after her when she started to get close to cat and started talking to jessie because of that and it ended up working.

now dina and ellie’s relationship is probably the only thing that keeps us sane throughout the game, when we sit down to think “thank god ellie has dina, that means she’s not alone”, which is basically the whole concept of it, ellie not being alone because dina is there to hold her to the ground and stop her from becoming someone she doesn’t want to be.

lev being trans is something I can‘t have an opinion on, I have seen both sides: people saying it was a good approach and others saying it wasn’t an accurate representation. I’m not trans so my opinion isn’t valid and I can definitely see why many people think it was a bad reach but I also can see the other side, so I won’t comment on that.

the nice thing about representation in this game is that they brought it up as a normal thing, the only moment the focus is sexuality is when seth was being a dick and called dina the d-word, ellie got defensive but dina stopped her from getting into a fight. even then the main focus of that situation was how ellie dealt with joel saying she didn’t need his help. the point was never ellie’s sexuality, never, not even in a single moment, because it was never an issue. in a post apocalyptic society people don’t pay much attention to being homophobes (unless they’re in a fanatic religious cult or just assholes like seth).

the game approached the subject very bluntly but in a normal way, not making it that huge of a deal but it is a big deal for those who seek comfort and/or are dealing with their sexuality in a way. if a character they admire ends up being part of a minority group, they can relate to that and feel more comfortable in their own skin. we’re here, we’re real and we exist even in a fucked up infected world.

ENDING + THOUGHTS (moving on)

the last of us part II is a story about revenge, being completely different than part I which is a story about love and surviving. what happens in the second game are the consequences of the first, the choices joel made reflected upon himself, saving ellie costed everything; the cure, people’s lives and maybe a brighter future. people who are bashing the game for it’s storyline and how things went down need to understand that it’s not because we love joel that his actions didn’t matter to others. joel is a human being, so is abby and those who got harmed by joel’s choice to save ellie. joel killed abby’s dad, abby went after him for revenge, a predictable and reasonable thing to do if you just try to see it from her point of view, keep in mind that ellie would do the same exact thing.

if you can’t get yourself to see things from other people’s point of view, you missed the whole point of the game. the storyline isn’t summed up in “revenge is bad don’t do it kids”, it’s just based on the fact that death can never and will never bring you any sort of relief.

the game is the reflection of the cycle of revenge. abby going after joel for killing her dad, ellie going after abby and killing all of her friends in the process, abby finally breaks the cycle letting ellie and dina live but ellie couldn’t get over the guilt and went after abby again, yet she ended up letting her ago and officially breaking the chain for good.

the whole concept of the game is how seeking someone else’s suffering can lead to full destruction of someone’s character and values.

if ellie had killed abby she would’ve turned into the monster she was fighting against and she would lose literally everything she hadn’t already lost: her humanity. I don’t actually know the exact reason that compelled ellie to let abby go, maybe it was losing her fingers and realizing that she’ll never be able to play guitar again, which was her very last memory of joel and what he taught her. it could also be thinking of lev and how he’s the only thing abby has and vice versa, which is what she had with joel and what was taken from her, therefore she didn’t want to turn into the person who put someone through the same pain she was going through. technically if she killed abby she would have to kill lev to avoid him coming after her and continuing the cycle and doing that would kill ellie even more.

to make this shorter, abby moved on earlier than ellie. mostly because abby actually got her revenge killing joel but you gotta look through things before you put all the blame on her. ellie lost everyone in her life, her parents, riley, tess, sam and then joel, going after abby was a defense mechanism since she couldn’t have done anything to save those she lost before, but losing the one who took care and raised her was something she couldn’t bare, specially when she thought joel was the only person she had even though they weren’t in good terms and she and dina weren’t a thing yet.

ellie needed to revenge joel at all costs because that’s what she thought he would want, but in the end she realizes he would want her to move on and be happy, because that’s what he always tried to give her: the best shot in life that he couldn’t give sarah. ellie thought that by killing abby she would be able to let go, when in reality she would just feel more guilty for leaving lev alone like she was having no emotional relief concerning her PTSD. ellie got to that beach fully aware that killing abby wasn’t going to solve any of her problems, but a single memory of joel made her make the decision that she wasn’t going to let her go without a fight. their final fight was silent, in the middle of nowhere, they had absolutely nothing to say to each other because they were both fighting for nothing but excessive mental emptiness. they both knew that nothing would bring their loved ones back and they were ready to move on.

what the game wants to teach you is that nothing good comes from searching revenge and other’s suffering. ellie gets consumed by her own view of justice and ends up losing herself both inside and outside, when she comes to terms with the fact that killing abby won’t bring joel back from the dead, it’s already too late. she lost jessie, her friendship with tommy, her good memories with joel, her fingers which results in her not being able to play guitar anymore, the love of her life and her son.

in the last of us part one ellie says that her biggest fear is to end up alone, and the saddest part of all is that her actions led her to making that fear come true. the ending is ambiguous, it can mean something different to different people depending on what you choose to interpret things and how you view the characters. for some, ellie could just end up alone looking for a life purpose that doesn’t involve anyone from her past. to others, ellie returned to jackson and proved dina that she loved her and that now she’s ready to fully commit because she let go of her anger and is at peace with herself and her inner struggles. but that’s all up to you to decide what you want to believe in.

at the end of the day, this storyline is beautiful, heartbreaking, breathtaking and emotionally draining. it makes you think and open your mind to new perspectives, which is honestly one of the best things art is able to do, create a new universe for you to deep your thoughts in and take your own conclusions. the last of us didn’t have a bad or good ending, it had a realistic ending. just because they didn’t make this the way you wanted it doesn’t mean the writing is bad, it means you’re probably disappointed and that’s fine, but hating on it isn’t the way to make a point.

I can only thank everyone involved for creating this world and making me so invested in it, connecting me with these amazing characters and emotions that I never experienced playing a game before. there is nothing more to say except: endure and survive.

[aion-rsa]

The Suicide Squad Ending Explained

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This article contains major The Suicide Squad spoilers. But you could tell that from the headline. We have a spoiler-free review here.

Well done! You’ve survived The Suicide Squad! 

James Gunn’s stunning supervillain flick is a brutal ride through DC’s most deep cut characters and now you want to dig deep into what happened. So we’re here to break down that shocking ending, where we leave our heroes, and what’s next for the Suicide Squad in the DCEU. Well, those of them who survived, at least…

The standalone (sort of sequel) movie centers around the Suicide Squad on a top secret mission. So off they go to Corto Maltese. 

We begin with two crews but only one actually survives the opening bloodbath. Those lucky few are led by Bloodsport (Idris Elba) and the crew consists of Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), Nanaue/King Shark (Steve Agee/Sylvester Stallone), and Peacemaker (John Cena). 

Later, they pick up Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), who both somehow manage to survive the trap set by Amanda Waller. After much scheming and fighting, the team kidnaps the Thinker (Peter Capaldi) and make it to Jotunheim, the Nazi prison where the Corto Maltese government have been keeping Project Starfish A.K.A. Starro the Conqueror. But when they get there things begin to spiral out of control and that’s where we’ll begin…

Why Were Peacemaker and Rick Flagg Fighting?

While this is a movie filled with wild unexpected moments, the most shocking–to some viewers–twist comes when the truth about Project Starfish is revealed. And we’re not talking about the fact that it’s actually a giant starfish-like alien called Starro. 

No, the real horror here is that Project Starfish is and has always been run by the US government. Yep, it’s the US who have been testing on and torturing innocent humans, and the Squad wasn’t sent to stop Starro but were in fact there to destroy Jotunheim so that the US government and Amanda Waller’s involvement were kept under wraps. 

It’s not something that Rick Flag can stomach as he states, “I joined to serve my country not to be its puppet.” It’s an honorable moment that finally makes Flag a true hero, but it’s short lived. Amanda Waller always has a backup plan and here that plan wears red, white, blue, and a shiny helmet. 

Gunn’s searing action flick has a lot to say about war, America, and the nature of disposability, and Peacemaker is one of its most brutal statements. He’s a man who believes he “loves peace” but it “doesn’t matter how many people I have to kill to achieve it.” That in itself is the oxymoron of imperialism. 

In that way, Peacemaker and Flag represent two different versions of the patriotic ideal. Rick is the idealistic man who wants to do the right thing in the hopes of making his country live up to what he thinks it can be. But Peacemaker wants to protect his country no matter what horrific crimes they’ve committed. That’s why he agreed to be a mole for Waller within the Squad and why he decides to kill Flag when his former teammate wants to leak the records of America’s Project Starfish to the press. 

Sadly for us and Rick, Peacemaker succeeds, leaving Flag dead and the American ideal shattered.

Bloodsport Makes a Choice

With Peacemaker planning to stop the truth about Jotunheim from coming out at any cost, his next target is Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior). After the explosions incapacitate them, the brilliant young heroine grabs the disk with the damning records, leading Peacemaker to hunt her down. 

Just when it seems like he’s going to add another Squad member to his kill count, we skip backwards eight minutes. Here we see that Bloodsport, King Shark, Polka-Dot Man, Harley, and Milton have been setting the charges, which end up going off too soon. As they start to explode (and after the tragic death of Milton), Bloodsport ends up falling through the building on a large slab of concrete, landing in front of Peacemaker as he’s about to kill Ratcatcher 2. 

As he draws his weapon, Peacemaker does the same, leading to a fatal shootout. And in a hilarious callback to an earlier gag when Peacemaker claimed he could shoot better than Bloodsport thanks to smaller bullets which would shoot through his enemies’ bullets, Bloodsport beats him using exactly that tactic, apparently killing Peacemaker (more on that in a moment) and saving Ratcatcher 2. 

It’s a key moment for Bloodsport, who made a promise to his surrogate daughter that he’d get her out alive, and it’s the perfect way to wrap up Bloodsport’s arc in the film, from estranged father of a young daughter to a man trying his best to form more connections under difficult situations. Yay for the world’s best bad dad! 

The Suicide Squad Takes a Stand 

Now that Jotunheim is destroyed, Waller calls the remaining Squad–Bloodsport, Polka-Dot Man, Harley, King Shark, and Ratcatcher 2–telling them they have to go back to the US. But there’s one big problem: Starro is now freed and the giant alien is on a rampage. 

After decades of being tortured by Gaius Grieves A.K.A. the Thinker, Starro believes the city belongs to them and starts shooting out mini Starros in order to turn the population into mindless zombies. Starro is able to create countless self-replicating copies of itself, so the carnage being wreaked on Corto Maltese is probably only a preview of how quickly Starro could spread their influence throughout the entire world if left unchecked. 

For a moment it seems like the Squad will head back into Waller’s cold and cruel arms, leaving the people of Corto Maltese to their gruesome fate. But at the last moment Bloodsport chooses to go back and is soon joined by the rest of his crew. It’s a massively powerful moment and one that transcends even our core team as before Waller can blow their heads up her colleagues knock her out and begin to help the Squad on their unauthorized but massively heroic new mission to stop Starro and save Corto Maltese.

It’s one of several moments in the film that drives home the harder edges of Amanda Waller, who is played as close to a villain in this film as someone like Thinker or Corto Maltese dictator Silvio Luna.  

The Final Fate of Polka-Dot Man

David Dastmachlian’s performance as Abner Krill AKA Polka-Dot Man is one of the many stunning turns that the film has to offer. And while we’d love to say that the villain turned hero gets a happily ever after that’s not the case. In fact Polka-Dot Man gets an ending as tragic as his origin. After being tortured by his mother who infected him with a parasitic alien virus in the hopes of making him a superhero he became the villain known as Polka-Dot Man.

It’s not a conscious choice but more of a compulsion as he has to expel his deadly polka dot pustules or he’ll die. It’s the grossest power in a movie full of gross powers but as the crew face down Starro Abner finally comes into his superheroic own. 

As Bloodsport becomes the leader Waller always knew he could be, he uses Abner’s fear of his mother and the hallucinations he has of her to help him channel his powers into destroying Starro. Bloodshot yells “It’s your mother” and we see Starro through Abner’s eyes, the creature is transformed into a kaiju-sized version of the woman who ruined his life. His polka dots end up destroying one of Starro’s legs, and Abner celebrates screaming “I’m a real superhero!”

Just as Polka-Dot Man realizes his truly heroic nature, he’s killed by another of Starro’s limbs, crushed but finally happy in his last moments. It’s a fittingly bittersweet end for the unexpected and relatablely depressed hero.

The Final Fate of Starro 

Fighting a huge roaming starfish is no easy feat. It takes everything the Squad has to take down the monstrous creature, including that tragic sacrifice of Polka-Dot Man. When they catch up with Starro in the city, Harley takes the high ground using Javelin’s javelin to burst through Starro’s eye as Bloodsport and Ratcatcher 2 try to incapacitate the huge beast. 

As Harley swims around in Starro’s bloody eye she’s joined by thousands of rats called by Ratcatcher 2. The rodents swarm Starro, overcoming him as Ratcatcher 2 protects Bloodsport from his childhood fear come to life.

And with that, Starro is gone. 

Though Starro might have been a murderous alien kaiju by the end of the movie, they began life as a harmless creature floating through the stars, kidnapped by the American government. To kill him is a tragic but necessary act and one that cements the Squad as very much anti-heroes rather than the villains they began as. 

What’s Next for the Squad?

While we know that Peacemaker will get his own spinoff TV series on HBO Max (more on that below) it’s unclear what the rest of the crew will be doing after this. One thing is clear, though. They all have the freedom that they never thought they’d achieve. 

After killing Starro, Bloodsport blackmails Waller into letting him, Harley, Ratcatcher 2, and King Shark go. It means compromising Rick Flag’s final wish to reveal the truth of what Waller and the government did in Corto Maltese but it also allows Bloodsport and his crew to avoid returning to Belle Reve. It seems like the crew might stick together, especially in the case of Ratcatcher 2 and Bloodsport. 

Plus, once Flag’s friends find out that Peacemaker is still alive, they might have a score to settle. About that…

The Post Credits Scenes

The first of two post credits scenes is the big one. After we think that one good thing happened in this movie A.K.A. Peacemaker being killed by Bloodsport, Gunn has a shock for us. 

See, Peacemaker survived–to star in his upcoming HBO Max series–and Waller has sent two of her best to pick him up from his hospital bed where he’s recuperating in order to do nothing less than “save the fucking world.” After the brutal horrors that Peacemaker committed during the film, it seems strange that he’ll be taking a leading role in a TV series. But after the smart subversiveness of The Suicide Squad we’re cautiously optimistic. 

If you wait until the final moments of the credits once we’re done with all the good stuff like Special Thanks and celebrating all those amazing visual effects artists, then you’ll get to this gnarly and hilarious little stinger. 

If you throw your mind back to the beach-set murder fest at the beginning of the movie, the first character to apparently die is Weasel because no one checked whether ot not he could actually swim. It’s a sad and grotesque way to start the film, but there’s good news for anyone who loves the grody child-killing beast: he’s still alive. After all the drama of the past few days Weasel just popped back up and is totally and utterly alive. That means the people of Corto Maltese should probably watch out as there’s a murderous Weasel in their midst!

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The Suicide Squad is on HBO Max and in theaters now! 

The post The Suicide Squad Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Smugglers and Killers (Favored Ones, Part 18.)

Series description: Many things were surely fucked up in the year 2038, but no-one ever told anyone how all of it went down. What happened before a group of people left for Seattle to handle personal matters? Why did one girl refuse to leave all of it be? And why there were so many dead in the end?

Quote for the chapter: “I'm just a poor, wayfaring stranger... Traveling through this world below.” - Johnny Cash

Part summary: As the whole incident slowly settled down, new problems started to arise. 

A/N:.So, we soon be on a family trip to Seattle, guys, how are we feeling about that?

Warnings: Angst, some more angst and a bit of fluff. 

Word count: 4.8 K

Tagging:   @nemodoren @xxgoldenhour @missdictatorme​​ @peakymarvels​​ @davnwillcome​ @pickleriiick​ @jodiereedus22​ @gladiosamicitias​ @tamkashi​ @eternallyvenus​ @avengerssstuff​ @fangirl-inthe-us​ @avery-miller​ @mikah-writes​ @mad-hatter-98​ @sadiaafrin99​ @flavorishy

Series master list: H E R E

Joel Miller’s playlist for the bonfire occasions: H E R E

Youtube playlists: JACKSON DAYS | SEATTLE DAYS

Early spring of 2038, twenty days from departure to Seattle:

When you'd woken up for the first time, Ellie and everyone else forgot about the hatred inside for a small while. You were drugged and high as a living fuck, talking complete nonsense. Sure, Ellie desired to talk to you about the strangers, but at the moment, she was just laughing happily at your expressions and monotone voice, just like Dina, Diego and Jesse did. Joel wasn't in town to see you awake, but everyone was sure you'll have plenty of time to talk things out later.

Surprisingly enough, Ellie was standing at his doorstep, accompanied by Dina when he got back from the hunt. It made him grin to know that his baby girl had healed enough to talk to him once again - only if he'd know how downhill will the conversation go. But just like the man he was, he invited both ladies in and made them a cup of coffee and tea.

"So, you two hit it off, huh?" - Joel rose his eyebrows teasingly, having Dina chuckle at what he'd said. But both the girls nodded. Ellie was nervous about the whole matter - it was stressing her out enough to sit with Dina as her partner in front of Joel, but the matter she came to talk about was making her even more nervous. - "I'm proud of you, kiddo. You know I am." - Joel smiled at his daughter of sorts heartwarmingly and Ellie felt as her girlfriend's palm held hers a bit tighter.

"We'll put all the politeness aside, for now, Joel. I came to talk about the patrol." - Ellie licked her lips, lifting her look to look at the old man. At this statement, Joel leaned his back into the chair, letting out a long sigh. Sure, he should've seen this coming. While he knew when to stay put and calm, Ellie saw the world from a different perspective. She saw and felt different about the situation, and it was fair to hear what she had to say. So, with that, Joel nodded to let Ellie know he's listening. - "I want to go after them. Dina and I, we are going as soon as Y/N tells us who they were." - And with that, Joel closed his eyes, shaking his head with clear disagreement.

"You think I'll let this slide, Joel? I know you're pissed too, you know I just want the revenge she and Tommy deserve and you want it as well." - Ellie spoke out frantically. - "And you'd do the same fucking thing as soon as something happened to me. You wouldn't stay put and waited for things to play out, come on." - The girl looked into the man's face. His expression was unreadable and stoic. He was just called out because he didn't pack his damn stuff and went after them immediately, as Ellie thought she should've done. This wasn't about fear or about staying put. This was about making sure you were doing good in the first place.

"Kiddo, I think you should calm down in the first place, 'kay?" - The man spoke out after a moment of digesting the information. - "I am not waitin' here, sittin' around to see how it plays out. I get what you're goin' through rite now, trust me, I've been there. But..." - Joel tried to speak with the girl confidently, but she just sprang up on her feet. Dina was just sitting there in silence, afraid of what's yet to come. She told Ellie Joel won't agree to this short-fire plan she came up with, and there is was.

"Calm down? Are you fucking serious? I thought that the fact you've been fucking her for the last few months might make you do something for avenging," - "Ellie, sit down. We can solve this without bein' rude." - Joel answered rather calmly, but it could be heard that he's about to lose his nerve soon as well.

"No, you don't get to tell me when to sit down and shut up, Miller. I'm doing this for her." - "And you think she'd want that? Kiddo, she's a good person, she wouldn't jump straight to violence." - Joel defended you while looking the girl in the eyes. He was playing around with his tongue and teeth, biting on his bottom lip and trying to stay concentrated on the conversation. - "And how can you know, hm?"

"Oh, good Lord, that's what bitin' your ass? I know that girl for quite some time now and her moral compass is oriented differently than mine or yours." - Well, this was getting heated up fast. Dina would swear she hadn't felt this uncomfortable for some time and let her say, she and Jesse had the most awkward conversation ever when they were breaking up. - "Oh, great. You're talking shit about morals, given the fact you've started fucking my best friend? You did it even when you knew what she means to me? She is like my sister, Joel, but you just had to come around and fuck the shit up as you always do." - Ellie threw her hands in the air, staring at the man in silence for a while just like he was staring back at her.

"I am sorry to break it down for you, kiddo, but I have a family to protect 'ere now. And somethin' to get a hold on. All your great plan is goin' to do is make you both killed, mark my words. But I ain't be stoppin' you since I'm just that old fucker who had practically took advantage of your best goddamn friend." - Joel chuckled ironically, leaving to open the door for them. At that moment, Ellie stopped and winked a few times, realizing what she'd just said. These things were just nasty to say out loud, even with the given context. Sure, you were her best friend, but you and Joel had every right to date... If you liked each other and felt something for the other one. Which you surely did.

Sure, Ellie had the right to be angry about the matter, but she in no way had the right to blame Joel or to tell either of you to cut the things off for good. It was a weird situation to be in, but when she looked down on Dina, Ellie knew that no-one had the right to judge someone else's romantic choices. And as long as you two were happy, there was nothing left to say. And the redhaired girl knew that... Yet with the things she already told the man, it was too late to tell him. Dina smoothed her palm and caught it to hers, standing up.

"Listen, I'm sorry," - "Leave my goddamn house." - Joel mumbled when Ellie wanted to apologize as he was leaning into the open door, one of his thumbs was slipped behind his belt. So, she wasn't talking to him for years and now, when she and Joel made up in a way, she pulled a complete 180° stunt. That was just fucking great. Although she knew that Joel isn't her and he'll calm down as the time will pass, she couldn't help but feel bad for the words. She just smiled sadly and nodded, walking out of the house with her head held down.

"I'm sorry, Joel." - Dina told the man quietly, offering him a quick comforting hug before running after Ellie. She bit Joel's ass for a long time after she and Dina left. Did the girl think he wasn't grieving and in pain? Did she think that he's living in this small fortress of comfort that didn't allow him to see the things around? You were a person he deeply cared for, so, of course, he was shaken when Bobby allowed him to see you for the first time after the incident. There were a few days when Joel was forbidden to see you because Maria didn't know what his reaction will be. It was on the wild range of basic randomness. It could be everything from being outraged to saddened. When Joel begged to see you for the tenth time, Maria finally agreed. Even if you got better than when Dina had driven you into the hospital, you were still looking as if the people have beaten the fucking shit out of you. The man reminisced over everything as he concentrated on making a craving of the hind you've seen last year since he thought you may like it.

And ever since he sat down to hold your hand, he couldn't but think it all had something to do with him. He wasn't sure how could any of that involve him, but because of a habit, he was sure that it was somehow connected to him. Joel visited both you and Tommy when he found the courage to, yet he always sat by your side way longer. It was making him calm seeing you slowly getting better, seeing as your skin tone slowly started to resemble the one he remembered. Sometimes, he came overnight to sit by your side the whole night, just watching over you.

Ellie was right. If the things weren't as they were at the moment, he'd go after these fuckers immediately. He had the habit of getting into a rage too quickly - but this time, you needed him there more than he needed to avenge you. Sure, you needed him there just metaphorically, but he needed to be there for you. There was no way around it - he was, indeed, in love. For the first time in the last twenty-four years. And he'd do anything just to keep you safe.

Naturally, people were sure that he'll take you to his house once you'll be able to leave the hospital. Sure, there were the weirded-out stares when he came for you, but honestly? Just like you've said, the people could go themselves. What did they know about you or him, about what you had going on? Maria seemed to be on board with the fact that you were a serious couple, slowly accepting you as a new addition to the family just the way she was adjusting to Dina. You two were always close friends she had in Jackson, but this was a whole new level.

"And here he comes. Howdy, you handsome cowboy." - Was the first thing Joel had heard you say after a few weeks and holy moly, the man was almost on the verge of tears at that moment. You weren't looking healthy, but at least you weren't looking like someone whos dying either. You put down a lot of weight thanks to your prolonged coma, you were sitting in a wheelchair and it could be seen that you're fucking tired. Yet as long as you were sitting there and smiling at the man, none of these mattered to him. - "Youre ready to sing the whole songbook for me, huh?" - You asked and grinned when he leaned down to steal a kiss from you.

"When exactly I said I'll be singin' for you, girl? My memory doesn't seem to be workin' as it used to." - Joel grinned back, looking over to Maria who came to the room to greet her brother-in-law. They shared a short hug before Maria took him aside.

"Listen. You need to be careful with her now, 'kay? She ain't one of the girls to break down under the gentlest blow of the wind, sure, I mean... Her head is probably more fucked up than her body. She had some wild nightmares last night, and she was mumbling some name from her sleep, but I didn't catch it." - Maria told Joel seriously, watching you make some small talk with the nurses, laughing through it. - "Also, you should know that she and Dina are on thin ice... I heard them screaming at each other because of something involving both you and Ellie yesterday and listen..." - The woman caught Joel's shoulder when the man almost turned away from her annoyedly. - "I don't know what it was about, but take the things slow for now, you promise?" - Maria sighed and in the end, she had Joel nodding.

Great. Not only that he and Ellie had some bad blood between them, but now you and Dina started to argue as well... Those were some great fucking news. - "How's my baby brother doin'? Heard he woke up yesterday." - Joel changed the topic and at that, he saw Maria tearing up. First, it was hard to tell if she's happy or sad, but she nodded and smiled in the end.

"It's still your brother my husband inside of that head. His bones are fine now, so give him two weeks and he'll be standing on his feet again." - The blonde woman whispered happily, feeling the stress washing off of her slowly. At that, Joel smiled and nodded, freaking out when your head suddenly appeared next to his palm as you tugged his shirt.  

"Are we going or what?" - You asked, looking at both him and Maria. - "Dude, I haven't smelled the fresh air in weeks and you don't know how eager am I to take a motherfucking bath." - A hum left your mouth as you thought about pouring yourself some water. Joel sure as hell was surprised with your cussing - you didn't cuss as much before the incident, at least not around him.

"I shouldn't leave the girl hanging. See you around Joel, and... Look after her." - Maria teased you with a smile, wiping the tears away. At that, you chuckled with a dry tone, giving her a daring smile back. - "I am not a baby, Maria. And you sure as hell ain't my mother." - You bumped her thigh with a faked drama, having the woman laugh lighthearted.

"But you can't even walk for now. So you're a baby. Jesus, Joel, tame her down." - Maria joked, leaving you two alone for Joel to take you home already. The man gladly pushed the wheelchair to your house to pick some clothes from there while you made him talk about the weeks he spent without you. He was glad to have you poking fun of him again, making jokes, and speculate about things, no matter how much you were swearing.

"Which ones should I take?" - Joel asked while you sat in the doorframe, watching the man packing your stuff. - "The ones you find the sexiest, of course. That makes sense." - You answered him almost immediately, having the man shaking his head. You were impossible at times and it caught him off guard every time. - "You keep on dreamin', girl. I'll take the most comfortable ones for starters." - Joel dismissed the innuendo. With a loud sigh, you rolled your eyes.

"You, Miller, are not fun. I can't wait to get my hands on you." - You mumbled with a dreamy smile on your face. That made Joel sit on the edge of your bed, looking you into the eyes. - "I told you to keep on dreamin' and there's no way you can go around that, young blood. Not until you feel better." - He told you, seeing your expression to soften a bit.

Even if you weren't in a state to acknowledge that, you've missed him dearly. This man was something out of the world. And you almost didn't remember that you two were an official thing in Jackson until Maria had told you what happened that night when he and Seth argued about Ellie. That was probably the wildest realization you had ever since you've woken up. - "Heard you have some trouble with Dina, wanna tell me 'bout that?" - Joel asked you suddenly, having you sigh.

Dina came to ask you about the whole incident thing and God, it pissed you out. The audacity to ask people rude stuff Dina sometimes had was quite unbelievable. You had just woken up, disoriented and with the drugs still wearing off and she was already there, asking you stuff. This matter was the kind you had to solve inside your head first before talking about it with the others. You remembered some pieces from the time you were in limbo - like Abby's face. Not her entire face, but you knew that you'd recognize her eyes anywhere, on any given material. The whole Abby issue was something you weren't ready to talk about with anyone just yet - especially with Joel when he was the one you've endured so much pain for.

"She wanted to ask me things about the cottage, so I told her to fuck off for now. And she took it way more personal than I anticipated her to, given it's Dina who I was talking to. On the other hand, I've heard you had a beef with Ellie too. What was that about?" - You asked back to make him uncomfortable as well. The man looked away for a second, fiddling around with his fingers to figure out some answer. - "The girls wanted to talk about the whole thing with me as well, but... I don't think it's my turn to decide who's goin' to die or not. But if you'd like to visit 'em and you know at least somethin' 'bout these people, baby girl, you can count on me." - Joel whispered, declaring his loyalty in this fucked up situation.

It felt like the safest moment to tell him that Abby was there to look for Joel. She was purposely searching for the man, and given what kind of a person Joel used to be before Jackson, you were willing to believe that he has done some fucked up shit to a person she knew. And she wanted to avenge them... But... Would you be any better if you'd go after them because of what they've done? Would that solve something at all? Or would there be just more blood? So you've just smiled at Joel, looking back to the wardrobe.

"Don't forget to take my granny panties too, I know they're turning you on." - A joke left you, but it didn't come across as funny at all. All it was was a desperate escape from the situation inside your head. Yet your man hummed in agreement, packing some more of your stuff. As soon as you were at home, you've decided to take a bath like the big girl you were - determined that you'll climb the staircase on your own. Joel was doing some stuff around the house, so once you felt like you're ready, you caught the railing and swung yourself standing, just to scream out in pain.

Joel ran after you immediately, checking on the situation - and it was quite funny how quickly his eyes widened in horror as soon as he saw what you were up to. His palm slipped on your waist and he put your arm over his shoulders to make sure you'll be standing on the a-ok foot. - "I was just about to prepare us some bath, you're ruining the surprise." - You chuckled to hide the pain. It was anything overwhelming, yet it didn't feel right to stand up on your own just yet.

Nurses told you to take things slowly because it was kind of expected of them to be the adult ones out of you two, but you were a hotshot at the end of the day. You wanted to feel empowered and independent, but the things didn't quite play out the way you anticipated. - "Jesus, I thought you've hurt yourself. You want to open up the wound again, or what you're after?" - Joel huffed angrily, helping you to climb the stairs up. It didn't feel as bad when you had someone to help you out with walking up. The discomfort was way lesser. So, making sure you're contained, Joel got you a bath of hot water.

The man sat by your side for a fairly long time and chatted with you until it came to undressing. Even with that, he helped, acting like the most polite gentleman around with it. Slowly, you gathered yourself to take the bandages off your thigh, checking on the scab. The skin around it was now pretty weird, but it was more or less turning into a scar. Bobby promised you that you'll be soon enough allowed to walk on your own. Joel was weirded out when you limbed to him, unbuttoning his shirt with a gentle smile.

"Hey there, Texas. How ya doin'?" - You asked with the most overly dramatic Texas accent ever. Joel furrowed when your hands slowly got to his belt, unbuckling it skillfully. - "No sex, I swear. Just a bath." - You made a scout promise before rolling the t-shirt from his torso. When you took in the view of his chest covered in gentle hair, you nuzzled in, taking a deep breath in. You were both alive and safe. What could be better in this awful world?

A subconscious smile appeared on your lips when you felt as he leaned his chin into the top of your head, exhaling slowly as he smoothed your back, entwining his fingers at its small. When you made him step out of the jeans, you both somehow puzzled into the bathtub so closely that there wasn't an inch where you could move around. But that was what made it even better. Soon enough after you both laid down, you heard the man snoring lightly. So you just laid there until the water got really cold, and when it did, you woke him by gently soaping his calves.

"Damn, I've fallen asleep?" - Joel asked you with the typical sleepy-raspy voice. With a chuckle, you nodded, soaping your shoulders and upper arms. - "'s okay. You're an old man." - A tease left your lips when you felt him shifting behind you as he leaned in to kiss the nape of your neck. After a while, when you let the man smoothing the skin on your back and soap your hair, you turned your head at him.

"What?" - Joel chuckled, kissing one of your temples. - "Nothing, you're handsome," - You smiled and kissed him. Once you both put on some clothes, you agreed that you won't the bandage on for the night.

"You up for a movie?" - Joel asked with anticipation, but he knew that answer as soon as you stretched and yawned. Your look traveled to a book in his nightstand, which made you smile as you took it into your hands.

"What is this about? Space for Idiots?" - You asked, putting the book on its place before you sat into the blankets. Joel nodded, walking up to you. - "Ellie likes space, so... I wanted to make her happy with knowing some stuff. Doesn't look like Imma about to use it, though." - The man sighed, watching you laying down. So he just closed the door, tugged you in, and left to his carpentry workshop to work on a few pieces. When he was sneaking into the bed again, you were already dead asleep, yet he couldn't help himself and leaned in to smooth your hair. - "You up?" - Joel asked and kneeled beside the edge of your side, smiling at you.

"Not anymore, you couldn't help yourself, could you?" - You whispered, sending him a crooked, sleepy smile. It didn't take the man too much time to lay down next to you, making sure he has you curled up to his side carefully enough to protect your thigh from any possible impact that would hurt you. - "You still up?" - Joel smoothed your back. Was he about to say it out loud? Oh, dear Lord, he was. Was he ready to say it out loud? No, he fucking wasn't. But things were the way they were. - "What are you after, Miller?" - You hummed into his chest, being half asleep already.

"Uh, just a little somethin' to tell you, baby girl." - The man got out tenderly. There was so much emotion that it made your head sprang up so you were looking at him as your fingers smoothly caressed the small spot under his collarbone. He closed his eyes, exhaling once more. Jesus, you've never seen Joel so nervous about anything in the whole fucking world. - "I love you." - The man licked his lips and continued staring into the ceiling. He was so nervous he could barely look at you - you felt his heart jumping under your fingers as if it was about to have a stroke. At that, you chuckled and kissed his clothed chest, putting your head back there. It was cute that this was officially the first time when his palms got sweaty, and if it would be light in the room, you'd see that he's blushing.

"And I know that. You don't have to tell me... All it takes is to show me you mean it, Miller." - You whispered, hugging his side with your palm carefully, bringing the man even closer. He was petrified of the idea of not hearing it back. You told him just before you encountered the strangers, and now, when he was somehow sure it's safe to put his heart out there, you won't tell him back? - "You know I love you too, stop holding your breath, will you?" - You chuckled and felt as his chest lowered suddenly as he breathed out.

The other night, there was a surprise party for you and Tommy. That 'we're pretty glad you're alive, shitheads' type of party which greatly resembled one of the winter dances. You and Tommy with your partners were sharing one table as the people came in to congratulate you, even if survival was barely considered a thing to congratulate for. While Jesse came to your wheelchair and pushed his body on yours, making you laugh, Ellie has been torn apart between talking to you and not talking. Dina was mad at you and Joel was mad her, no matter how unimportant it seemed to be. Ellie saw your confused gaze flying over to the two girls and she could tell that you're confused why you're not there.

So when ten p.m. came, she walked directly to you, ignoring both Dina and Joel, pushing your wheelchair to the dancefloor. It was funny when she sat on your lap and you both felt the wheelchair practically tearing apart under you. But you just hugged her waist and laughed with her. The girl wasn't the one to cry, but when she looked at you being all happy and healthy, she teared up as she put her forehead onto yours and closed her eyes. Other couples were dancing while you two just sat in the wheelchair, sharing a moment of friendly emotions.

"You scared me back there." - Ellie whispered, looking around and winking in a fast pace to shush the tears away.

"No fucking way. I told Dina they've come late to the party." - A nasty grin assured her that you're taking her interest seriously.

"Do you remember something from the..." - "I remember pretty much everything, thank you for bringing that up." - You shut the girl off. Ellie's eyes widened and her breath hitched. You remembered everything. You remembered the people, you could have a clue about who they were. You could... - "Whatever you're thinking about now, Williams, drop it. At least for today. Can we be just happy I've survived that shit for one evening?" - A sigh left you. You knew the look Ellie was giving you. And you almost didn't trust that shell drop it. - "Dina already told me what you're after. And I need a few days to think about all the shit. Tommy and I agreed that we won't be talking about it with anyone until we feel the right time has come."

"So you wanna go after them?" - Ellie asked mesmerized. You didn't give her a clear answer, but there was a little light of rage and hatred inside your eyes. She didn't know the reason yet, but she already knew that you were pretty much ready to hunt these sons of bitches down one by one.

[godblessthecactusess]

hello and welcome to a reaction post of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. s7 ep...9?

(Warning I might have sworn a lot whoops)

This was such a good episode jeez

As I Have Always Been:

- Couldn’t imagine sleeping in a chamber like that omg chlostrophobia

- SOUSA STAYED ASLEEP NEXT TO HER

- what the heck did Sousa just say

- very marvelly time thing (like it fits the marvel aesthetic nicely)

- honestly babes same (edit: I cannot remember what line this was for?)

- “bugsy”

- BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

- “I’m fine” the heck you are

- time drive is buffering guess it runs on virgin media

- did they just die

- I guess they did huh

- “21st century slang for its working normally” got it

- she’s so SCARED and honestly I would be too

- this is so exciting omg

- notice on rewatch: they did the title card twice, clever

- “oh well that’s fun”

- Simmons is so fucking done

- and here we go again

- it’s like a horrible nightmare

- “i dIeD!!”

- I love Clark Gregg, Coulson is going crazy and is hysterical and I love the way he’s acting it, it’s funny

- jEsUs this is giving me so much stress

- sassy exasperated Coulson is (one of) the best Coulsons

- 10 minutes in and my brain is fried

- I feel like she’s gonna remember something really bad

- she’s dying

- shit

- Dekey baby nO don’t be so sad

- “what a pain in the ass”

- did Coulson do it

- IS THERE A STOWAWAY

- oh look we decided to bring Sousa back in

- she don’t remember what

- IS FITZ ON THE ZEPHYR

- was it may?!!

- THAT LOOK DEKE AND ENOCH OMG

- smart move Mack nice

- “son of a bI-“

- I love Sousa

- WAIT NO

- WTF

- HAPPENED

- I think it’s Coulson

- Maybe he just doesn’t realise it

- This ep is really Coulson and Daisy centered and it reminds me of the good old days

- eNoCh?!

- gasp

- Enoch and his friends I love it

- bloody hell

- I kinda hoped it would be Fitz tbh

- did she just kill Enoch

- nope

- “oh dear” WHAT A MOOD

- how many times do you reckon Chloe hit her head on that thing getting out

- I LOVE SOUSA HOLY SHIT

- “sorry”

- I WANNA KNOW WHAT THEY TOLD HIM WHAT WAS THE IRONY

- this is fucking mental wow

- LOOK AT THEM ALL WITH THEIR SCARY FACES

- notice on rewatch: “deke’s very dead” “very” “do we need to be sad about that?” “we do not” these guys are so FUCKING DONE with This Bullshit (TM)

- how the hell are we going to get to the end of this episode huh

- I have mixed feelings about daisysous and I hate it like I would die for peggysous but the writers are making it really hard to not love daisysous

- JUST KISS HOLY SHIT

- sorry self control

- holy shit this is incredible

- DONT STOP FOR CONVERSATION DAISY

- FUCK THEY DID IT I WASNT READY I SQUEAKED

- oh for fucks sake is nothing ever easy

- IS FITZ DEAD WTF

- what hAs she done?!

- dramatic slightly melancholy music

- Enoch my baby I don’t want him to go but I feel like he won’t hesitate to save the team

- talk faster daisy jeez

- what did I fucking tell you

- he won’t hesitate bitch

- deke just looks so amazed that someone would do something like that

- oh no Enoch

- why does it look like an arc reactor

- Joel Stoffer is so good

- “I am feeling, as you might expect, some anxiety now” me before my exams next year

- Getting philosophical about death and imma cry

- or should I say PHIL-osophical

- I’m sorry it’s the wrong time I’ll use that joke another time

- the team won’t survive?

- someone’s gonna get left behind in the past (i.e. they’ll survive but it’ll split the team)

- I have this feeling it’ll be daisy and daniel and they’ll stay in the past and have beautiful babies

- OR what if Daniel gets left behind and he finds Peggy and they live happily ever after like I always wANTED

- but even if that happened something’s still going to happen to the rest of the team

- tears in my fucking eyes

- AS I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN IT MAKES SENSE FUCK

- THE CUPS LIKE DAISY

- nice parallel lads

[waywardnerd67]

Fast Cars & Bleeding Hearts

Summary: (Y/N) was living her best life. Friends, love and fast cars. Then the one person in the world she never expected to shows up does and throws a wrench into her perfect life. Will she be able to resist what her heart desperately desires, or will she crash and burn. Characters: Charlie (OMC), Jessie (OFC), Kyle (OMC), Joel (OMC), Reader Pairing: Charlie x Reader / Joel x Reader Warnings: Fluff/Angst Word Count: 1826 A/N: A few things about this little one shot. This is all based off a vivid dream I had that I have been thinking about nonstop all day. In my dream the main man looked like Charlie Hunnam (not one of my top celebrity crushes but that is who my brain drummed up). So I used his aesthetic for the board and his name for the character. I am not tagging anyone since this is just for me to try to get this dream off my mind. I am embellishing it for the purpose of good story telling since I have been thinking about it all day. If you like it then awesome, if not I do mind if it gets zero notes as long as I stop thinking about it. Love Nerdy <3

(Y/N) grabbed her bookbag from the side of her desk stuffing her planner and black flats into it. Slipping on her Chucks, she waved to her co-worker in the next cubical as she made her way out the door on a gorgeous fall afternoon. She could not wait to get home and fine tune her beautiful ’72 Chevelle SS for tonight’s race. It was the one night out of the week that she felt more like herself being surrounded by friends and fast cars.

The trip home was quick as she walked inside the large multi-family building her best friend’s family owned. In this building was her two best friends Jessie and Kyle. Next to their unit was (Y/N)’s boyfriend, Joel along with his buddy Corey. Her unit was above his and then an empty unit next to her since Jessie’s friends had found a place nearby. It was nothing for (Y/N)’s apartment door to be open with her friends inside and today was no different as she saw Kyle sitting on her couch.

“How was work hon?” he asked looking over the back of the couch.

(Y/N) flopped down next to him, “Exhausting. People are so ungrateful and mean. One day I’ll find a job I love but for now I’m stuck answering calls from assholes.”

“Well at least now you can go do some real work and make some real money.” (Y/N) looked over at her friend smiling from ear to ear.

“Damn right I can. Hey, speaking of work, did you find a new tenant yet?” she asked getting up walking into her room to change.

Kyle was silent for a moment before he sputtered out, “Uh… y-yeah. Well, um, the new guy will actually be there tonight to meet everyone. So, yeah… hey I’ll see ya downstairs in the garage.”

(Y/N) peeked out from behind her door to see Kyle hurriedly getting up and walking out. She thought that was kind of strange of him but immediately lost all thoughts when she heard her car roar to life behind their building. She quickly put on an old pair of jeans and flannel rolling up the sleeves then slipped back into her Chucks. As she rushed downstairs, (Y/N) nearly knocked Joel over.

“Whoa there baby!” he said chuckling, “Where’s the fire?”

Joel slipped his arms around her waist pulling her in close and kissing her. She sighed happily leaning against him, “Kyle and guys are getting my car ready for tonight. You gonna make it this time?” she asked.

Joel looked down pulling away from her slightly, “Sorry babe. I have to work a double tonight. Text me though to keep me updated.”

She nodded trying not to show her disappointment, “I get it. No worries handsome and I’ll make sure to text you proof of life.”

He smiled leaning down to kiss her again and she made her way to the detached garage behind the building. Her disappointment was washed away when she saw her gorgeous glossy black Chevy shining in the evening light. Kyle was jacking it up while Corey was hovering over the motor. She smiled seeing Kyle’s daughter, Belle, helping him jack the car up into the air.

“Make sure your daddy doesn’t drop my baby.” (Y/N) said as Belle smiled widely at her.

“Got it Auntie (Y/N/N).” she said as Kyle flipped her off.

(Y/N) grabbed a milk crate to stand on next to Corey, “How’s she looking?”

Corey was a computer geek by trade but the only one she ever trusted with the mechanics of her car. He hummed before answering, “She’s looking good. Changing the fluids and a few minor things then she is good to go. Do you know where yet?”

(Y/N) scoffed, “Yeah. Right. Like King would tell us where the race will be before dark. If that ever happens I think I will play the lotto and give up racing.”

Corey laughed, “True. Alright get underneath and let’s change out her oil.”

This was (Y/N)’s favorite part getting down under her car and getting dirty. There was no bigger turn on than the smell of gasoline and car grease. After a couple of hours going over every inch of her Chevelle she went back into her apartment to get cleaned up. When she walked in there was a note pinned to her door.

“Keep your head clear, drive straight and be safe. Love ya babe, J.” she smiled reading it and set it on her kitchen table while she went to take a shower.

Sure enough Sean aka King texted her the location of the race tonight. It was a two hour drive into the country where there would be little chance of getting caught. That meant a major racer was in town and King wanted to see some good matches. Grabbing her lucky black hoodie she held onto the silver chain around her neck holding the only piece she cared about from her past and made her way back down to the garage.

“Where’s Jessie?” she asked only seeing Kyle and Corey loading up everything.

Kyle looked nervous again, “She and the kids are meeting us there. Come on we need to hit the road.”

She climbed into the big pick up truck that pulled her car and trailer with Corey on her left and Kyle on her right. The drive was filled with laughter and headbanging as they blared the music out the open windows. (Y/N) loved nights like tonight with a cold bite to the wind and crisp smell in the air. It reminded her of the good ole days before everything crashed around her.

Pulling up there were already many of the regular drivers and crews apart of King’s group. Most of them driving car half the weight of hers but none more powerful. Once they were parked and unloading, (Y/N) spotted Jessie with Belle and their youngest Rose walking up the main pit area.

She scooped up Rose twirling her around as she giggled, “I missed you Rosie!”

“She missed you too. Sorry we didn’t ride out with you but had to meet the new tenant here to sign the papers.” Jessie said looking anywhere but at (Y/N) and that is when she knew something was up.

“What is going on? Kyle is acting all squirrely and so are you. Who’s the new ten…” her sentence dropped off upon seeing the car driving up the pit road.

(Y/N)’s heart thumped wildly in her chest making it ache. It did not matter how long it had been since she seen that car she would never forget it. She knew it better than her own car and the driver behind the wheel. She looked over to Jessie whose face was bright red and suddenly everything made sense.

“No.” she said as Jessie bit her lip, “Oh hell no.”

(Y/N) handed Rose to Jessie and started to march over to Kyle her fist clenched at her side. Kyle’s eyes went wide when he saw her coming, “Whoa (Y/N), calm down before you…”

Before she knew it her fist was swinging towards Kyle as he dodged it, “You bastard! You knew it was him and didn’t tell me!? How could you?”

“(Y/N), calm down. He called me out of the blue and asked if I knew of a place he could crash at while getting back on his feet. We need the money to keep the building up to snuff so I couldn’t turn him down no matter your past with one another. I-I’m sorry.” He explained as she took a deep, shaky breath.

Turning around she watched as the man she has loved from childhood until the day of her accident got out of the cherry red ’70 Chevelle and started walking towards her. “I can’t do this.” She said walking off to clear her head.

She had been twenty-one, racing to pay her way through college. Charlie had helped her build her car right along his own. Hours of getting greasy and making love in his garage. He was the only man her dad approved of when he saw Charlie working on his car. A few words were exchanged, and her dad smiled at her saying he was a keeper. They grew up together living only a block from one another and in high school they had fallen in love.

That was until the day of her accident. The whole day had been bizarre starting with a classmate trying to pick a fight with her as she walked to home with Jessie. Never once did (Y/N) back down from the girl but she also never laid a finger on her. When she got home, Charlie was waiting for her in her room. He was tall and lean with shaggy blond hair that was usually under a black ball cap. His ocean blue eyes were always shining and his skin always sun-kissed from working on cars outside.

Before a race they always spent time together alone snuggling or talking to just relax. Being with him was as easy as breathing to her but that night he was tense. He asked her not to race but she had played it off as boyfriend nerves. (Y/N) would remember that conversation for the rest of her life since it was the last memory she had before her crash.

“Please sweetheart let’s just stay in tonight. I made enough this month to pay for your tuition. Let’s just lay here all night together.” He said turning on his side looking down at her.

(Y/N) raked her fingers through his thick hair moving it from in front of his crystal eyes, “Pretty boy, I’m not backing out now. Everything is set and it’s the first clear night we’ve had in weeks to race. I promise to be safe and with you there nothing can go wrong.”

His lips pursed before letting out a long sigh, “Alright we’ll go. I don’t know, I just have a bad feeling.”

“Everything will be fine.” She pulled his lips to hers trying to distract him from his thoughts.

Of course everything was not fine. According to all her friends, the car she raced slide sideways clipping the back end of her car sending it flying through the air. (Y/N) remembers nothing of the crash or the next six weeks after. What she did remember was never seeing Charlie when she woke up in the hospital weeks later. Never hearing from him over the next year she was in recovery or the year after that when she started to rebuild her car from the frame up. Nothing for five years until tonight.

“Hey (Y/N).” Charlie’s raspy voice send shivers down her body.

Turning around she found him wearing a black ball cap and hoodie like he always did five years ago. All the resentment and anger melted away as soon as he eyes connected with his blue ones.

“Hi Charlie.”

[hearts-upon-our-sleeves]

Undercover Madness - Spencer Reid

Title: Undercover Madness

Summary: In which Hotch enlists you to go undercover into one of the biggest drug rings in the US, which meant you had to leave behind the team and a special genius.  

Warnings: Drugs, Fighting (lots), Curse words, sexual themes, gangs, drug rings.

Word Count: 4000+

Terms: Y/N = Your name, Y/L/N = your last name.

Masterlist

A/N: THIS IS 100% BASED OFF OF SEASON 1 FINALE OF BROOKLYN NINE NINE, I TRIED TO ADD NEW THINGS AND MAKE IT MY OWN BUT I GOT THE IDEA FROM THEM. pls dont sue x. Also the first part the cast is Hotch, JJ, Morgan, Reid, Rossi, & Garcia. Elle and Gideon are gone and Prentiss comes a bit after you go undercover kk, also I made a lot of the agents and directors up bc i don't pay enough attention to know everyone cast in the show.  ALSO I CAN 100% DO A BACKSTORY AS TO WHY YOU’RE CALLED THE CALVARY IF Y’ALL WANT JUST ASK I’VE GOT IDEAS MY DUDES. This isn’t proof read its late okay. 

It wasn’t everyday that Hotch called you into his office before flying off for a case, yet here you were sat in one of the leather lined seats bouncing your leg up and down. It was obvious that you were nervous, you grew that way more and more as Hotch briefed the team for the newest case. You had no clue why you weren’t in with the rest of the team, but you listened to Hotch and sat in his office waiting on him.

You didn’t have to wait that long for Hotch to walk in and sit at his desk. Hotch flipped through a few files not speaking a word until he found one, to which he threw in front of you. You grabbed the file and looked inside curiously.

“This is the the mayor’s file, the case I tried to make when I thought he was laundering money, Why did you give me this.” You looked up at Hotch in a state of wonder. Looking into this case got you suspended the last time you tried to follow it.

“What I’m about to tell you does not leave this room under any circumstance.” You looked around the room a small bit before nodding. “I need you to get fired, and I need you to use this to get fired.” He tapped the case file, as you looked at him  as if he was mental. You tried everything to read him but you couldn’t figure him out.

“Hotch this is insane, I like my job, I can’t just leave it.” You set the file back down and set your hands on your knees looking back up at Hotch.

“I know, I need to know if you trust me.” You let out a small laugh that made him raise a brow.

“Of course I trust you, but I don’t see why I need to get fired.”  You leaned back into the chair you were sat in and crossed your legs.

“For me to tell you why you need to be fired, you need to agree to it.” Hotch locked his fingers together and met your gaze, you had to take a minute to think about what endless possibilities Hotch could ask you to do, Reid could probably tell you the exact number. Reid. Oh crap what about that pretty boy genius, the genius that would walk you to work and make your coffee with too much sugar, but you never minded because he looked so happy doing it. You knew deep down Hotch came to you because you were the only person for the job. As much as saying yes would kill you, you knew that it needed to be done and if blindlessly following him would help in any way shape or form you’d do it.

“Okay, I’ll get fired, but I need you to do something okay?” He nodded looking to you for your favor. “Watch out for Reid would ya? He’s a sweet guy and I don’t know what I’d do if he got hurt.”

“You know I will, but Y/N, the mission I’m sending you on requires you to infiltrate one of the biggest drug rings in America.” There was no way he’s gonna say that you, a FBI agent is gonna get into a family of incredibly dangerous gangsters. That shit just ain’t gonna happen. “I need you to infiltrate the Romanov family, get to know them, learn their ways and most importantly we have found a bar frequented by one of their sons, he is around your age and I need you to get close to him, have them accept you as one of their own. This is incredibly dangerous and I’m hiding this mission away from everyone. Garcia is going to work with you on creating a means to communicate with us under the radar. I’m going to be honest, there’s a high chance that you will die, but if you can get in it’ll be monumentary. I need you, I need the Cavalry.” As much as you took in you couldn’t help but laugh at the nickname he used, you hadn’t heard it in a long time but then again it was why people had been scared of you.

“What’s the story again? People keep adding onto it.” He smiled a bit showing the smallest ounce of compassion on a gloomy afternoon. You shook your head letting a breath escape you. “So are you in on everything or not?”

“I’m in.”

-

Saying goodbye as the team left to go to their case was the hardest thing you ever had to do, but you did it and over that week they were gone, you investigated the case harder than ever before and pissed off the director of the BAU. Which lead to a two-day suspension, and at your hearing you raised so much hell you were fired on the spot. You left with a hug from Garcia and a vague memory of your team- no your family.

That’s how it started, you got fired and never looked back as you drove along the highway singing Billy Joel with a suitcase in the back. It was getting late and you could use a drink and a nice motel, so you stopped at a bar. As you sat down you already felt eyes burning into your chest but you couldn’t care, you ordered and scrolled through your phone looking and feeling bored.

“What’s a pretty face like yours doing looking so sad? I’m Mickey Romanov nice to meet ya.”

“I’m Y/N Y/L/N, and I just got fired from the FBI.”

-

The past few months were crazy you had successfully gotten into the family, you had no clue but they all loved you. You thought it was because you beat out Nona in a shots contest, apparently no one could do that. You had incredible information and could easily arrest them all but you knew they’d all run and rebuild their empire, you needed an event where they would all be at and couldn’t leave. You needed a marriage, you’d dated Mickey for a while and were extremely happy when he believed that you wanted to wait till marriage for sex. But all round Mickey was sweet to you but cruel to the outside world and you knew that it was for the pure fact of you could kill him without even trying if he treated you wrong.  

You and Garcia spoke once a week through the mail, she figured out a way to send you new recipes that were actually messages, Mickey thought you were getting weekly new recipes but you were really just relaying back and forth with Garcia. You and Mickey lived together and as he would believe happily, yet still inside were raging feelings for Boy Wonder and Garcia knew it which is why she always included a recipe about Reid and the things he did that week. You wrote her back a recipe telling her all of the intel you got this week including your plan to get the family together by a marriage.

-

“Garcia, how’s she doing?” Hotch walked into Garcia’s lair after being informed of a new letter.

“She’s holding up feeling a bit homesick but I would too after eight months of faking who you are.” Garcia typed away on her computers pulling up the recipe. “They smuggled in more of the bad stuff through the ports, there's a lack of security in one spot and so the claimed it as their own. Do we do something about it?”

“No we handle it all after we catch them all, we fix it they will think someone’s giving out their information and I can’t risk Y/N to close off one port.” Hotch thanked Garcia and continued to his office.

-

“Y/N Y/L/N, will you make me the happiest man alive and marry me?” You could have rolled your eyes there but you faked tears and happiness, yet a small hint of relief for it would be over soon.

“Yes, yes I will, I can’t wait to be Mrs.Y/N Romanov!” You squealed trying to feel a single ounce of happiness yet nothing.

-

“Hotch!” Garcia called running into his office in a hurry, she slammed the door finally catching his attention. “Y/N is gonna get married! Hotch this is her plan during the vows when everyone is there and all attention is on the bride and groom is when we hit. She’s gonna get to come home, after a year and a half we can have our girl back!” Garcia practically threw the wedding invite at Hotch.

“We’ve got three weeks, I’ll fill in the director.” Hotch read over the copy of the invite, thinking about the plan.

“But the director of the BAU will never let us go in he hates Y/N!” Garcia exclaimed confused and looking for an answer.

“That's why I’m going to the Director of the FBi. Also Garcia, Y/N has kept up this act for a year, that does a lot to someone.” Hotch sighed and looked down at the photo of Y/N and her fake fiance.

“What are you saying sir?” Garcia looked up with beady eyes.

“Let’s just hope Y/N can come out of this as herself again. I’ll inform the team soon, please keep this quiet.” Garcia shook her head and left Hotch to himself, trying to think positively that Y/N would come back herself.

-

“Team, meet me in the conference room in 5.” Hotch shouted over the team as they wondered why JJ cancelled the new case, in all honestly JJ didn’t know either.

“Anyone know why Hotch called us in here?” Morgan asked around the room of confused agents. Prentiss shrugged as JJ shook her head. Reid mumbled a ‘no clue’ as Garcia bounced into the room. “Hey Baby girl what’s got you so happy today?”

“It’s a secret but you’ll all see soon!” Garcia took her sat and positive energy illuminated the room as everyone looked confused. They were all trying to profile the situation, but were interrupted when Hotch came into the room, Rossi trailing behind him with a smirk on his face.  Morgan furrowed his brows trying to figure out what was happening. But it wouldn’t take him long since Hotch wrote on the board a name most of them were all too familiar with. Y/N Y/L/N. Reading your name again made Spencers heart stop dead in its tracks, he’d spent so long trying to forget that you left without a single goodbye to any of them. Reid was angry, he wanted to be angry at you but he was angry at himself for falling for someone who would leave without a single word. He wanted so badly to understand everything but the puzzle was missing a piece until Hotch finally turned to them and pointed at the board.

“I’ve got some explaining to do about a past agent, a past friend. Many of you may be angry that she left and none of you have known why, and it was my fault. I made Y/N get fired, then go into the Romanov family.” At that moment Morgan realized Spencer’s jaw had clenched and his fist tightened around the uncomfortable desk chair he was sat in. “Over the past year and a half she has infiltrated them, gained their trust, and even succeeded in joining the family, or should I say she will be joining the family. In three weeks she will be getting married to one of the sons, we have three weeks until the wedding to put together a plan of invasion. There has been talk of them storing all of the product at one massive facility the day of the wedding, but we won't know until we speak to Y/N again, she’s been sending Garcia messages in the form of recipes, she’s gone under the radar and it is the perfect way to speak to her. I want you all to find everywhere they are importing the drugs and keep tabs, we are going to bring teams in on the day of the wedding we attack. All of the files are being brought to you, you’re all dismissed.” With that Hotch took his leave and Spence did everything he could to not storm after him and curse his name. He loved you more than anything in the world, where you disappeared it took a toll on him that no one could fix, hell even to this day you were there burning in the back of his mind.

“Garcia, you knew about this?” Spencer was past being angry but now he just felt betrayed by one of his friends. Spence stormed out of the room, he couldn’t handle everything that was just laid on him.

“Spencer.” Garcia called after the boy wonder, turning to Morgan silently asking him to talk to the damaged boy.

-

“Wow.” You choked looking at yourself in the mirror, today was the day you tried your gown on and you looked absolutely stunning. Of course it was a fake wedding but you could at least imagine if it was real, with a different groom of course, maybe one that was smart and sweet and cute and now you were droning on and on, about the love of your life, Spencer Reid.

-

“Hey, hey, hey, the hell’s wrong with you?” Morgan chased after Spencer, stopping him in the hallway. Morgan placed his hands on his on Spencers shoulders, looking him in his already red eyes. Spencer push Morgan off and tried to continue until Morgan grabbed him and wouldn’t let go. “I get it you love her and you’re incredibly angry but don’t it out on other people because you feel like you let her leave, you know in that smart head of yours you couldn’t stop her from doing anything.”

-

“So who exactly was Y/N Y/L/N?” Prentiss asked looking through the boxes of intel. JJ laughed a bit making Prentiss raise a brow in question.

“Ever heard of the calvary?” Garcia piped up her fingers clicking away on her laptop, looking up for a second to see Prentiss putting it together.

“You mean Hotch was able to get the cavalry on his team? Dang I’ve heard all of the stories, she’s just plain terrifying but she looks so nice.” Prentiss looked at an old picture of you and Reid in stupid party hats and a feather boa draped around your neck that clung to Spencer’s shoulder. Smiles illuminated both of your drunken faces and you could sense the love the two of you had for each other in the picture. JJ looked at the picture and smiled too she knew how much you two cared for each other and she was rooting for you two to get together.

“She’s the nicest person I know, don’t believe the stupid stories people make up, yeah she can kick serious butt but it’s only to protect people. We’re lucky to have her, and besides as much as Spence looks angry and hurt, he’s excited to get his girl back.”

“His girl huh?” Prentiss smirked a bit, never knowing Spence could have actual human emotions.

“Totally! They are in love with each other!” Garcia piped up ready to talk about the letters about Reid, that she’d promise she wouldn’t say anything about, so Garcia didn’t say any more but tease them a bit.

-

Today was the day. Today you were going to get married or you could finally be free from this crazy family and kick some bad guy ass, you hoped it was the ladder.  You slipped the bottom part of your dress on over some black leather leggings, thankfully your corset was the top part but it was breathable so you could just take the skirt off to fight. On top of the leggings you had two gun holsters just incase things got bad, you prefered fighting over shooting but this would be one weird and angry day.

Mickey’s father escorted you down the aisle. You knew that Hotch was watching, you could see the small camera set in the bouquet, it was hard to see to the normal eye but you could catch it. Every step you took you felt enlightened for it would be over so soon but you knew there had to be a war before there was silence. You met Mickey’s love sick gaze and gave him the same look, it sickened you but you swallowed it down and took the last step as his father gave you away.

-

You looked absolutely beautiful and it made Spencer sick, he hadn’t looked at a picture of you in so long, so seeing you at your wedding destroyed him, he couldn’t wrap his head around the fact it was fake. But he was there with every single member of every security team, they all split up around the building you were getting married, and Spence was gonna be there when they release the gas that knocks everyone out, he was gonna be there to make sure you were okay. Hotch told him you could hold your breath but Spence prepared for the worse, he didn’t know why he acted this way but his mind just couldn’t focus around you, he loved you.

-

“I  have never loved anyone the way I love you, Mickey.” You lied your ass off. “Standing here with you by my side makes me realise I missed so much the first part of my life, and I’m ready to start it off right with you.” You looked into his eyes with stars in yours. “It’ so hard to describe how much I love you, it’s like trying Baba’s meatballs for the first time over and over again.” Heartfelt laughter erupted as you gazed into each other. You smiled, for the fact part one was over.

-

“That’s the word, release the gas.” Hotch ordered, it was rare for him to be incharge on so many different units and ranks, but this was his case, the director of the FBI made that clear.

-

It took 15 seconds for people the people in the back to pass out cold, and another 5 for everyone else. You held your breath and closed your air ways off. There was a gas mask stashed under the food cart which you grabbed and threw it on fast, finally breathing in and actually feeling how light headed you were. You took a few moments to compose yourself, there were guards you had to take out on the roof, before teams swarmed this place like a beehive. As you walked down the corridor to the roof staircase you slipped your skirt off leaving your pants, as it was easier to fight in pants than a 15 pound skirt.

As you reached the opening you could hear the guards, Hotch told you that he placed an earpiece under on of the shelfs in the room. It didn’t take too long for you to find it, turn it on and place it in your ear. “5 guards on the roof, taken them out then we go in, you still got it?” Hotch’s voice boomed through the ear piece.

“Fuck yeah I do.” You smirked, you were back in business, you were you again. You threw the door open, greeted with 5 very big men. One charged out at you and you jumped over him grabbing his head with your feel and kicking him onto his back. Two snuck behind up so you elbowed both of them in the head using an ‘x’ motion. Another charged in front of you so you did a front aerial with a spin and used him as a landing target. Those four had been knocked out but you still had one more and he charged at you throwing punches, you did the only logical thing you could think of at that time and threw him off of the building, which startled a lot of agents when they saw a girl throw a huge man off a building, eh you shrugged you’d deal with it later. You walked back to the door and used one of the guys as a stepping stone. When you climbed down the ladder you were met with a face you’d dreamt to see for the past year and a half. Spencer. You two looked at each other not knowing what to do only just staring and smiling until you just ran into his arm and hugged him, stuffing your face in his neck.

“I’ve missed you so much.” He said into your hair, you could’ve cried right then and there but you just smiled to yourself and felt at home in his arms. But all good things must come to an end, you two still had a case and Spence knew that so he pulled away first, he never liked touching people or having them touch him but damn were you his only exception. Spencer escorted you out to Hotch and you gave him all of the information he needed to send teams out.

It was over, the year long mission you had, everything came to an end today, and go damn were you happy to see everyone.

-

By the time everyone was in custody and all of the drugs and other illegal things were found it was almost midnight and that was when they let you go home as long as you came back in the morning to give your statements and everything.  Spencer walked you home and you let him stay over, since it was so late and you honestly didn’t wanna watch him go. So that’s how you found yourself on your couch cuddled with Spencer as content as possible.

“Did you ever think about us while you were away?” Spencer broke the silence, looking down at you cuddled into him, you sat up and looked in the eye.

“Of course I did Spence, every single minute of every single day, I missed you so much and I honestly had to fake every single emotion I had because I was so empty without you, I didn’t want to leave you I really didn’t but I had to. Honestly all I wanted to do was say goodbye, but you were on a case and it was such short notice and all I wanted to do was just,” You paused. “I just wanted to kiss you and listen I just god every single time I think about yo-” Spencer cut you off he couldn’t listen after the first statement. He slammed his lips into yours and you kissed him back as if the world was ending, you two fit together like the world’s most perfect puzzle and every single second of that kiss was explosive.

“I’m so sorry I’ve just wanted to do that for so long.” Spencer looked into your eyes as you both broke apart. You just smiled and let out a small breathy laugh.

“I think I liked the kiss hello, better than the kiss goodbye.”

[missmelpcmene]

The Breaking Point —Chapter 4

Originally posted on Fanfiction.net in January of 2009.

DISCLAIMER: The places and characters featured hereinafter are the property of Warner Bros., Joel Shumacher, Janice Fischer, James Jeremias, and Jeffrey Boam and no attempt is being made by the author to claim ownership or profit from the use of the aforementioned characters. The views represented herein do not necessarily represent the views of the original authors and any character names or places mentioned in the original works belong to the copyright holders and are used in this story for nonprofit entertainment purposes by an amateur writer. The original characters used in this story are the creative property of Miss Melpomene and are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

"Someone who thinks death is the scariest thing doesn't know a thing about life."

The boardwalk was spectacular, every bit the perfect place to start her new life. Welcoming committee aside, it was exactly what Missy had hoped it would be when she first decided she was going to go. She wasn't going to let a few bad apples like skunk hair and his friends turn her off Santa Carla's unique charms. Of the others, like the boys in front of the store, she wasn't sure what to think. Something about them had tripped her danger detector, and she was sure something about them was off. But what in Santa Carla wasn't? Everything about the seaside town was strange. At least compared to Seattle it was. Seattle was a large city in its own right, but the Santa Carla boardwalk was a thousand times busier than anything she'd ever seen before. She watched a woman with green hair walk by and felt like she must seem alien to these people, though she could have said the same about any of the Santa Carlans if they were to walk down a street in Seattle.

She pulled her watch out of her pocket again and frowned at the dial. Twelve thirty. Time wasn't showing any signs of slowing for her, and if she wanted to avoid sleeping on a bench, she needed to find a place to stay before the boardwalk closed. She had no idea when that would be, so she mustered her dwindling vestiges of courage and yanked on the handle of the door of the first store that looked like it was still open.

The woman behind the counter was older, a brunette with sun damaged skin that spoke of how long she'd been living by the beach. She looked up at the bell hanging above the door the same time that Missy did, though where Missy's face was curious, hers was scowling. "I hate that thing." She said of the bell before her eyes dropped to Missy and she spoke again. "Need some help, sweetheart?"

Missy took a step or two toward the counter, away from the door, and smiled tentatively. "Loads," she replied, and the woman cracked a small smile. "though I thought I'd start with finding a place to stay. Do you know where I could find a motel? Moderately priced?" She didn't want to blow all the money she had on somewhere swanky and overpriced. She didn't need the luxury, just a bed.

"Motel? Yeah, there's a couple down the road from here. Not far, if you're planning on hoofing it. But if you're looking for something a little closer, I hear the people who own the comic store are looking to rent out the room above their shop."

"Really?" Missy's spirits did that thing that usually happened right before something crushed them, and she continued cautiously. "Do you know how much they're charging?"

The woman shrugged. "That's something you're gonna have to ask them, but if you want to find out tonight, I'd hurry. The boardwalk is closing in a hour, and most of the shops will be closing before then." She said and Missy's eyes shot to clock on the wall behind the woman's head.

"Can you tell me where the comic store is from here?"

"Do you know where the arcade is?" The woman asked, and Missy shook her head.

"No, but I can find it." The woman nodded and pointed at the door.

"Go out and turn left from here. Keep walking until you see the sign for the Giant Dipper."

"Giant Dipper." Missy echoed, and the woman nodded.

"It's the big one, so keep walking until you come to the end of it and on your right you should see the arcade." The woman paused and Missy took the time to create a short, undetailed map in her head. "The comic store is right across from there. Got it?"

"Thank you." Missy crossed the last few feet between them and stuck her hand over the counter. "Thank you so much." There was a lot to be said about how few good people there were in the world, but they were there.

"Be careful out there." The woman let go of her hand and Missy left the store. She glanced to the left and realized, happily, that she could see the Giant Dipper sign from where she was standing. She followed it like north star, and let it lead her to the promised land. The crowd was thinning as the seconds ticked by, and she could see the lights going out in the distance. Her feet moved faster, and her eyes flitted around like a bee trapped in a jar, memorizing the fronts of the shops in case she needed to find her way back. The bright lights reading 'arcade' fizzed out in front of her eyes and she spun, laughing as she read the next sign.

Frog's Comics. The racks of comics were being rolled inside the door by two teenage boys. They couldn't have been more than a few years younger than Missy. They must work in the shop for their parents, she figured. She slipped past one of the boys, the one with the darker hair, and gave the shop a once over. It was empty except for the boys, her, and an older couple in dark glasses sleeping against a rack of comics. They must be the boys parents, she thought, and she took a step toward them. "Excuse me."

"They won't hear you." She turned, startled, to find that the boy with the dark hair was standing beside her.

"I'm sorry, but I-"

"We're closed." The one in the headband growled as he pushed past her carrying a cardboard box filled with comics.

"I can see that, but I wanted to-"

"We're closed." The dark haired one grabbed her elbow and started to pull her toward the door. "Come back tomorrow if you want a comic, don't expect us to stay after hours so you can browse."

"Well, wait just a minute!" She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and backed away from him, into the store. "I don't want a comic! What I want is to ask about the room I was told you're renting out."

The boy with the dark hair stopped trying to force her out and the one with the headband grunted at her. "Well why didn't you say so in the first place?"

"I tried." Missy glared at him, and he glared right back.

"Fine. What's your name?" He walked by the counter and crouched down, disappearing from her line of sight.

"Missy." She replied, watching the dark haired one, who was watching her like he thought she might try to steal something.

"Your name is Missy?" The headband wearing one's face appeared over the countertop and his expression was as incredulous as his voice.

"Do you have a problem with that?" There was nothing wrong with the nickname that her parents had given her, not that she could see, and she wasn't about to let a preteen boy who dressed like Rambo mock her. But Rambo just grunted at her, and disappeared again. "What are your names?" She directed the question at the dark haired one, who raised one corner of his lip and snarled at her.

"Edgar." The one behind the counter said. His hand came up into sight and a finger was jabbed in the direction of the dark haired one. "Alan."

"Edgar and Alan…Frog?" Missy asked, and they grunted in unison. She snorted. "And you don't like my name?"

Edgar popped up from behind the counter with a clipboard in his hands. He pointed to the door. "If you don't want the room, you can go."

"No, I want the room." She insisted, though she shot an uncertain glance at the sleeping couple and back at the boys. "But maybe I should be speaking to your parents instead?"

Edgar glanced at the sleeping adults and grunted. "They're not the ones renting the room, so if you want the room, you need to talk to us. Do you want the room or not?"

"I already told you I do." Missy had trouble for a minute, believing what was happening to her. She was standing in a comic book store, eight hundred miles from her childhood home, renting a room from a couple of teenagers.

"We have to ask you a couple of questions first." Edgar told her. "See if you're the type of person we want to be renting a room to."

"Alright." Missy was becoming less confident by the second, but she accepted the chair Alan dragged out from the back of the store for her, and sat down.

"Question number one, how old are you?" Missy hesitated. It was an easy enough question, but did she really think that these boys would want to rent a room to someone who hadn't even graduated high school yet? Even more worrisome, if they suspected she was a runaway, would they call the police? "Nineteen." She lied, and the Frog brothers glanced at each other, and back at her.

"You don't look nineteen." Alan said, and Missy stared sharply at him.

"Yes, well, I can stand on my head and say the alphabet backwards too, but I bet you can't tell that just by looking at me."

"Whatever, next question." Edgar wrote something down on his clipboard, and when he lifted his eyes to look at her again, his expression was grave. "Are you now or have you ever been a vampire?" For a moment, Missy wasn't sure whether to laugh because she thought it was a joke, or laugh because she thought Edgar was being serious. Seconds passed and when neither Edgar or Alan's stony expressions wavered, she worried it was the latter.

"You're serious?" She asked, and they grunted.

"You think we'd joke about something like that? Answer the question." Missy wasn't sure how she felt about renting a room from people who might break in while she was sleeping and try to stick a stake through her. If her situation hadn't been so desperate, she might have told the Frog brothers that they were crazy and left to go find a bench to sleep on. The fact remained that her situation was desperate and getting more desperate by the second. Edgar and Alan might have been a little off, but how dangerous could a couple of preteens possibly be?

"…no." She said at last, and saw their bodies relax simultaneously. They glanced at each other, and back at her.

"Are you now or have you ever been a werewolf?" The brothers leaned in for her answer, and a little voice in her head told her that these boys had to be out of their minds. That or they'd read way, way too many comic books.

"No." She said, and again the brothers relaxed. "Are all the questions like this?"

"No." Edgar scribbled something down on his clipboard, and his eyes flickered back to her face. "Are you now or have you ever been a witch?" Missy had a sudden vision of what living with the Frogs might be like. It wasn't a pleasant one.

She answered them nonetheless, though she was beginning to find the questions less amusing and more annoying with every new one."No." What would be next, she wondered. Was she now or had she ever been involved with the swamp thing? Did she know Dr. Frankenstein personally? Did she by any chance happen to spend her evenings sacrificing goats and/or young virgins?

Edgar stopped writing and looked up at her again. From his expression, she might have thought he was interrogating a murderer, not interviewing a possible tenant. "Are you a smoker?"

Missy couldn't help herself. She laughed, and once she'd started, she found that it had become impossible to stop. She knew how hysterical she must have sounded, she could certainly see it in Edgar and Alan's faces. She hadn't slept properly in a day, she'd been too afraid the entire ride from Seattle to shut her eyes for long. She was being interviewed by a couple of teenage monster hunters, and they wanted to know if she smoked. The Frog brothers ran around the back of the counter and came back with a big wooden cross. She took one look at it, and lost all ability to breathe. She hid her face in her hands and doubled over, gasping as tears forced out by her laughter streamed down her face. "I'm sorry." She wiped her face with her hands, in turn spreading the moisture on her jeans and trying to compose her expression before the Frog brothers tried to throw holy water on her. "I didn't mean to laugh, I've had a really weird day, and it all just sort of hit me at once." Edgar nodded, but he didn't put the cross away. "And no, I'm not a smoker." Alan reached out for the clipboard that Edgar had dropped and conferred with his brother.

"Do you want to see the room?"

Missy leaned against the counter and watched Edgar and Alan slide the front doors closed and lock them. She helped them put the boxes of comics that they hadn't gotten the chance to put out on the floor yet in the back room, and when they were done, they led her to the side of the store, to a set of stairs she hadn't noticed before. "What about your parents?" She asked, stopping to look back at the couple who hadn't yet realized the sixties were dead…or that the store had closed around them while they were sleeping.

Edgar and Alan looked back at their parents and frowned. "We'll wake them up and chase them upstairs later. Come on." Edgar grabbed her elbow and pulled her behind him. The stairs led them to a short hallway with two doors on the right, and two on the left.

"Bathroom." Alan said, thumping his hand on the first closed doorway on the left. "Keep your girly crap in your room or it'll just get tossed. Don't put anything in the medicine cabinet, and don't touch our toothbrushes." Edgar tugged on her arm again, and Missy pulled it away from him, glaring.

"I can walk by myself, thank you." He glared back at her, but didn't say anything. He walked to the next door and put his hand on it.

"Our parents' room." Missy could almost hear the quotations around the word, she wondered how the boys managed to take care of themselves and the shop without somebody calling the police because their parents were MIA, mentally speaking. She figured it must be for the same reason that there were so many missing persons on the bulletin board. "This is our room." Edgar's voice brought her out of her mind again, and she realized that he had backpedaled, and was standing in front of the first door on the right hand side.

"You're not allowed in here." Alan said. "Ever."

"Under any circumstances, are we clear?" Edgar moved to stand beside his brother, and they glared at her in tandem.

Missy glanced at their doorway, and back at them. Like she wanted to barge in and catch them looking at nudie magazines, anyway. Though it was probably more likely that she'd catch them carving stakes than looking at porn. "Crystal."

The last door was hers, then. Well, if the Frogs weren't too suspicious of her, and as long as they weren't planning on charging her a fortune for it. Edgar turned the knob and pushed the door in, gesturing with one hand for her to walk past him. He flipped a switch on the wall by the door as they followed her in, bathing the insides in artificial light.

The room was small, smaller than hers in Seattle had been. The bed too, was small, and the coverlet that looked like a teenage boy had made it, was covered in a thin layer of dust. No one had touched the room in a long time, she realized. She smacked the bedspread with her hand and a cloud of dust rose into the air. As she coughed, she decided that she wouldn't be sleeping on it until she'd had a chance to beat the dust bunnies out of it. There was a wooden armoire, empty, against one wall. A small table beside the bed with a lamp on it, and against the right wall was a tiny bookshelf, also empty. The last thing in the room was a closed door, a couple of feet from the bookshelf. "Closet?" She asked, nodding at the door.

"No, leads to our room." Edgar explained, though she couldn't see the reason behind the door. "It's locked on our side, so don't try sneaking into our room that way, got it?"

"Got it." She set her bag down on the bed and swiveled to face the Frogs. "So, how much?"

The brothers did their huddling thing again, turning their backs to her and leaning their heads together. Every now and then they would glance in her direction. It was beginning to make her nervous. When at last they seemed to reach a decision, they turned to face her again. "One hundred."

"A month?" She asked, her eyes wide. They nodded. "You're serious?" She asked, though she had a feeling the Frog brothers were always serious.

"You want us to charge you more?" Edgar grunted, and she shook her head fast.

"No, no, no, it's just. I was expecting a lot more, this is my first time renting anything from someone."

"Yeah, well, this is our first time renting anything to anybody. One hundred dollars covers your share of the bills, and so long as you agree to help us out down in the shop when we need you, the place is yours." She knew there had to be a catch, but working in a comic book store in exchange for a cheap place to live didn't sound so bad. Even if Edgar and Alan were a little crazy.

"It's a deal." She held out her hand and Edgar took it first, shook it hard, and let her go.

"We'll let you get settled in." Edgar tapped his brother on the shoulder, and the two of them left, closing the door behind them.

Missy took a careful look around the room after they'd gone, and found that it was hard to see the dusty bed and empty dresser as her home, even if the tiny room was it now. She unbuckled her book bag and upended it, thinking that if she got her things put away, it might help the reality of things sink in. She carried her map over to the bookshelf with her frayed and worn copy of Wilde's Dorian Gray and set them both down on the top shelf. She wouldn't need the map anymore, she realized, but she was reluctant to part with it nonetheless. She supposed she was being silly and sentimental.

Her clothes followed, folded or hung in the dresser, and she lamented the fact that she'd chosen such a sunny place for her new home, and brought nothing suitable. A pair of scissors would remedy that, no problem, at least when it came to her jean pants. She'd figure something out for the rest of her wardrobe.

Her money she hid between the pages of Gray, though she doubted the Frog brothers would bother trying to steal it.

The last thing to leave her bag was a silver framed picture of her parents. The same picture, albeit a smaller print, as the one she wore around her neck. It had been the only picture of her father together with her mother than Renee had allowed in the house, partly because of the fit Missy had pitched when she tried to get rid of it. She had an irrational attachment to the picture, her parents on their wedding day. Mostly, she realized, because beneath her mother's white gown, in her belly, was a baby. A baby Missy. It was too early in her mother's pregnancy for her to be showing, but knowing that she was there on that day with them, that she might be the reason her parents were looking at each other the way they were when the picture was taken, it made all the bad years seem worth it. She didn't realize she was crying until moisture blossomed on the glass in her hands. There was a quiet knock on her door, and she made sure her eyes were dry before she tried speaking. She was surprised when her voice didn't shake. "Come in." The door opened a crack, and Edgar stuck his head in.

"All unpacked?" She nodded. "We got something for you." He came a little farther into the room, and she noticed that Alan was with him. The darker haired Frog brother pulled something from behind his back. It was a stake. One end was sharpened into a point, the other looked like it had once been the leg of a table.

"Here." He dropped the stake into her lap, and she felt the bed shift beneath her as Edgar crawled onto it behind her. A loud, sharp sound made her turn her head, and she discovered that Edgar was standing, hammering a nail through a cross into her wall. "You can't be too careful in Santa Carla." Alan was explaining, and she was sure her jaw must have been brushing the floor. "Keep that under your pillow." He took the stake from her limp hands and slid it behind her, underneath where her head would lay at night. Alan was talking, still, but she wasn't hearing him. She was staring at the picture on the bed beside her. Her parents' smiling faces stared back, and it was hard not to miss them. She wished things were different, but no amount of wishing was going to change things, she knew that. All she could do was change how she looked at things. Her mother was gone, her father was gone, and she was alone in a strange town, more alone than she'd ever been in her life, with a strange boy nailing a cross to the wall above her bed.

Edgar finished with the cross and jumped down from the bed to join his brother. "There, that should make the bloodsuckers think twice." Missy's eyes strayed from the ominous symbol on her wall, to Edgar's stern face.

"Thank you." She said, and Edgar just shrugged.

"We just don't want you coming home one night and slaughtering us in our sleep."

"I'll try to control myself." Missy said, only half as serious as Edgar and Alan looked.

"The store closes at twelve thirty every night, be in before one or you'll get locked out, okay?" She nodded and they walked to the door again. "Oh, and Missy?"

"Yes?" She said, the weariness that she had been fighting off beginning to set in. Edgar had one hand on her door, the other on the frame. They were watching her again, and as the door creaked shut, Edgar and Alan's voices floated across the room, the last thing she heard before the door closing.

"Welcome to Santa Carla."

Thank you for reading.

[yuki-d-raizel-blog]

Hero

Chapter 32/??

Relationship: Todoroki Shouto x Reader (Your/Name), (Full/Name)

Summit: It all begin at the Sports Festival when Shouto’s other half met Endevour by mistake. The student never thought to see his partner fight against his father just to show him that he is wrong. It started from that instant, Shouto’s new path started exactly from that moment thanks to his friends and his beloved one.

---

♩ Can you remember the light that plunged into darkness? Just like values and strong prejudices, I'll break them, throw them away, and change them.

Look, can't you see the things that weren't visible before?" Without limits, just be yourself, there's nothing to be afraid of, there will be blue sky after the rain has fallen. ♩

The more they approach the destination, the more the voice becomes clear and recognizable, it's her, for sure, there are no doubts about it. They exit from the building and start to run around it to reach the garden faster and stealthier, they saw only (Y/N) and a lot of people around her, what happen if someone of the Ryuhi family see them? They'd rather wait a little longer than cause troubles for everyone and for (Y/N). They stop behind the corner and see what's happening; that's why all patients and doctors were mysteriously gone, they are all in the garden to listen to that girl singing. Children sat on the grass, doctors and nurses, parents and visitors, there's everyone! (Y/N) is sit on a bench under the tree and she has the same appeal she had in the fight against Seatiel... The police didn't find the earring yet? Oh, hold on, there's Keiji there too!

<<♩If your heart is full of envy and hatred, I will rescue you.♩>> (Y/N) sings keeping a little child sit on her lap, he holds her fingers and smiles amused like everyone else, <<♩ I'll sing as long as there's life, until it reaches you. Follow the direction of the ringing in your ears and catch a glimpse of the landscape, since music has the power to change all, like that rainbow stretching out...♩>> the girl stops singing as the Hosu's police chief approaches her slowly.

Since the show is over, the doctors bring everyone inside again, the children greet and hug (Y/N) happily and waves at her, hoping to listen to her songs again. The child who is on her lap, raises his head but keeps closed his eyes... Is he blind? Belial and Keiji talk for a second, and the policeman makes a few steps backwards to permit the student to stand up and go to the doctor with the child on her arms. She caresses his little cheeks and says bye to him, then she returns to her seat, inviting the dog-man to do the same.

<<She looks worried... What are they talking about?>> whispers Lenka, while the brother is insulting the dog telling him to go away, he wants to hug (Y/N) and he is in the way.

<<Ah, I forgot to tell you...>> says Hakkai caressing his neck with a troubled smile, <<Actually, we didn't say to her that you’re all safe. From when she is awake, she was thinking about you, and we decided to avoid the topic... She could escape for here just to know if you are ok, so...>>

<<....If she knows that we are fine, she could escape to see us. She already did something like that, but don't you think that you could give her some hints?>> says Joel, <<She must have thought at your behavior as a bad thing...>>

<<They found the earring then!>> Shuu is the calmest one as always, <<Thank you very much but go away. It's our turn now.>> that was unexpected, Shuu that is jealous and impatient, that's new.

Keiji stands up and helps the student to get on her feet, he bows and after a few seconds he leaves while the girl stays with her head low to show the gratitude and respect for that man. Once she wears the earring again, all the flames are suck in inside it and she makes a sigh of relief. Now that her aspect is like before, the others can see how much she changed. All her left arm is covered with bandages, her hair has a big white strip on...

<<(Y/N)!!!>> it was stronger than them, Lenka and Tenka ran as fast as they could towards the girl and hugged her so tight that she was suffocating.

Both kiss her cheeks at the same time and ruffle her hair so hard that now she looks like Bakugou, but the girl doesn't mind it at all, she’s laughing and smiling almost to break her mandible, she's so happy to see that her childhood friends are all safe and healed from their injuries. Joel kneels near them and hugs the girl holding his tears back, and Shuu hugs everyone and kisses her forehead crying happily.

<<(Y/N)-chan!!>> when the group get away from her, Midoriya, Kirishima and Uraraka jump on you and hug you fighting their tears back, Tenya and the others just give you a quick hug and a smile, there's someone who waited for this moment more than anyone.

<<Shouto... I did it... I saved you...>> this time, you are the first one who run towards him crying, <<I saved my light this time! I did it!>> you jump on him throwing him down to the ground.

"Thank you God, for have listen to my prayers! Thank you, thank you, thank you so so much!" he runs his fingers inside your hair and pushes the other hand on your back to keep you as close as possible to him.

His hug is the tightest and strongest he ever done, his breath is the fastest you ever felt, his tears are watering his lips, that smashed on yours, is something that you missed so much... His warmth, his voice, his eyes, his hair, you missed every single thing about him, the only thoughts to have failed to protect your light again, was tearing you apart.

<<....Don't ever disappear (Y/N).>> whispers Shouto to suppress his hiccupping, <<I want you here, always...>>

<<I am here.>> the girl rests her forehead on his and kiss his eyes to wipe away his tears, <<Even when you wake up tomorrow morning, I will be by your side.>>

"The happiness of this moment, I want to always feel it, from here onwards into tomorrow... Always..." he nods because his voice is shaky and it would be uncomfortable to show it to his classmates too.

<<Oi, that's not fair.>> says disappointed Tenka, <<She didn't hug us for so long. Lucky kid.>>

<<Cut it out, Shouto is more precious, let her alone.>> comments Joel, <<And you shouldn't call someone kid, when you behave like a brat.>>

The couple stand up and the girl turns towards the last person that didn't greet her. She regretted her actions a bit, so now that she has a new chance to live, it's better to fix what was wrong.

<<Can I give you a hug, Kacchan?>> you open your arms ready to welcome him.

<<Fuck no! Go away stupid woman!>> he puts his hands on the pockets of his pants and looks away.

<<Eh? Then why are you here?>>

<<If you think that would make me jealous or angry, you are wrong.>> Todoroki stops next to you and speaks with his usual calm voice, <<Come on, it's just a hug.>>

<<Yeah, yeah, he is right!>> say Mina and Ochako, <<(Y/N) is happy to see everyone, so hug her!>>

<<A handshake is better?>> you offer your hand to find a compromise, but the class is making a mess because Katsuki doesn't want to touch you. You try to defend him, but your classmates are determinate to force him at least to do something.

<<Fucking fine!>> he shouts and pulls out a hand from his pocket, <<Are you fucking happy now, nerds?>>

<<Thank you, Kacchan.>> you slowly move your hand to meet his.

<<Don't fucking call me like that!>>

<<Then, Katsuki-kun.>>

<<Screw you!>>

<<How about speaking bomb?>>

<<You little sh->> the moment both hands touch, a strong and hot golden fire explode from the two students, throwing them on the ground, <<What the fuck did you do, dumbass fire woman!? I'll fucking kill you!>>

<<I d-don't know what happened...>> Shouto helps you to stand up, <<I'm sorr->> your body loses his energy and the boy supports you just in time, <<Eh?>>

<<(Y/N), you ok?>> Shuu and the others check if there's something wrong, <<How you feel?>>

<<I can't move anymore... empty...>> you struggle to keep opened your eyes.

<<This is bad. Take her in her room.>> Shouto picks you up and runs towards your room.

Shuu calls Hakkai and forces him to follow the group. Before the student could reach the destination, she starts to scream painfully, she cries trying to endure the pain, she breathes quickly and roughly, grabbing Todoroki's uniform and sinks her face in his chest trying to distract herself with his heartbeat. Once inside, Tenka explains that those stabbing pains are Astraroth's price, not even drugs can reduce the pain, she must stick up with it. Shouto stays by your side holding your hand and uses his ice side to cool you down, hoping that it's working. He's shocked about how strong you are, you’re crushing his bones, but he ignores it and focuses his senses on you. Lenka adds that those attacks last for 15 minutes at least, so a few classmates offer to help Todoroki and Joel with their icy quirks, while the others sit on the floor and wait patiently.

When the pain goes away, you rest your head on the pillow sweating and tired more than before. Izuku brings you some water, while Uraraka wipes the sweat with a little towel. You grab the glass with shaky hands and thank them with a tired smile.

<<I'm sorry Bakugou for before...>> your voice is hoarse, well, after all those screams, fortunately, you’ve this huge hospital room only for yourself, <<It's the first time that happened something like that...>>

<<Shut the hell up and rest, stupid woman.>>

<<Golden...>> Tenka is sure that the flames are seven, what are those gold now? A fusion? A new mode? <<Is it because you fought a Kafka's heir?>>

<<Everyone, get out of the room for a bit.>> wait, those voices... <<Midoriya Izuku, Todoroki Shouto must stay, as the bearer of the beasts.>>

The three chiefs, great. The class obeys at the order and waits outside while Hakkai and Miraje are trying to overhear the conversation.

<<The meeting is settled. In two days come at the estate and bring along your new servants.>> is the woman who speaks first this time, the other two stay silent and composed.

---Continue...

Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 21.5, 22, 22.5, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, Last Chapter

[sneakyhomunculous]

RPT Phoenix Report: Back to Back!

Part 3: Crunch Time

So to recap I finished day 1 6-2

WWL WWLWW

This is a reasonably happy 6-2! 

You have the 

LLWWWWWW  Ecstatic 6-2

WWWWWWLL So tilted you may not even show up for day 2 6-2

Mine fell somewhere in the middle of the extremes.

But of course, 6-2 is 6-2. And my breakers should be pretty strong + the tournament is quite small compared to recent PTs. Multiple X-4s should make T8

Myself Jarvis Allen Knox and Mark have dinner at a nice Thai place. 

Unfortunately we waited like 90 minutes for a table, but in the end it was worth it as we just hung out at a bar next door. and the food ended up being really good.

We don’t get back to the house until pretty late, and we are greeted with Tom Ross laying out the UW Pioneer deck 

“To fix it up for the GP Tomorrow”

Instead of going to sleep I watch Tom cut multiple supreme verdicts, go up to 4 mystical disputes main, add a horribly awry to the main, sneak a tomik in the SB, along with many other hilarious changes.

He ended up registering 4 disputes main loooool IDK what his list was exactly but he ended up playing vs tons of aggro and still going 7-2. 

Not sure how he finished up day 2; some middling finish I think. Turns out mystical dispute is worse than supreme verdict against mono red and black.

I get to bed a bit late but wake up feeling good.

We get over the Breakfast Club earlier today with time to eat. 

I already know I’m in pod 3 with Oli2 Efro Cain Lauphiette Bloody Sadowsky and Murahashi.

We get to the site right at 9 again and I find myself in a decent seat. I have Oli 3 my left and Efro 4 away. I’m being fed by Joel Sadowsky with me feeding Bloody.

I don’t know a ton about these players preferences or limited abilities, but I do know that Oli and Efro are both very good and I am happy to be seated away from them.

This draft was a bit wild; I open Setessan Champion and take it over who cares i forgot.

I 2nd pick Alirios over some weaker cards i don’t remember, a pretty weak pack. I think there may have been like a red omen and something else but it was easy Alirios and I always want to be blue anyway.

3rd pick I happily take Mire’s Grasp over nothing

4th pick I am greeted with a Dryad of the Ilysian Grove. Not the best card or anything, but i have a setessan champion and love drafting 3-4 color UG decks so this got me excited.

I fill out this pack with an icthymorphosis, a satyr grovedancer, a late cling to dust, and i know a nexus wardens tabled. I also have a memory drain a brine giant and an altar of the pantheon to keep an eye on.

Going into pack 2 I’m not really sure if I’ll be UG or GB or some combo inbetween, but I really want to be green bc of Champion.

I open Thassa’s intervention in an otherwise unexciting pack so I take that. I like this card more than most people I imagine; I think it’s very good.

I am passed lots of really good cards, but I ignore them bc there is an illysian carytid.

I’ve drafted this deck enough to know how important carytid is; and my spidey senses just tell me that I need to be base green and stay as wide open as possible to playing the gooooods that I will be receiving much too late.

Unfortunately the rest of this pack is pretty weak. I pickup a nylea’s intervention like 5th and somewhere in here I get a riptide turtle a mystic repeal a relentless pursuit 2 omen of the hunts a hierophant a 2nd altar of the pantheon and a watcher of tomorrows. Nothing exciting but I’m realllllly set up to splash anything ever.

In pack 3 I open Eat to Extinction and nothing, easy pick.

I’m finally rewarded and passed Calix, Destiny’s Hand. I already have a ton of enchantments with a few of them being removal like ichthymorphosis and mire’s grasp.

Unfortunately the rest of the pack sort of fades, I get a late Drag to the underworld and tymaret, as well as a return to nature a 2nd relentless pursuit a Nyleas Huntmaster a 6/7 colossus and another brine giant.

When building my deck I end up waffling between a lot of different configurations, but in the end I realize to make my mana really good I need to cut tymaret and drag and just splash black. 

Bc I’m lacking esape and ways to deal with it I splash the cling to dust, one of my favorite cards in the set.

My final deck is like 7 forests 6 islands 2 swamps 1 plains 1 carytid 1 dryad 2 omens and nyleas intervention for fixing. I have thassas intervention, relentless pursuit, setessan champion, cling, Calix for card advantage, and then i have grasp icthymorphosis eat to extinction mystic repeal for removal. Round it out with alirios dryad wardens turtle and some big dumb creatures; I quite like my deck and I even have lots of playable sb options.

R9 Joel Sadowsky

This match was a real banger and I wish i could remember the details better.

Joel was feeding me and he has a pretty strong RG deck. He has multiple incendiary oracles and is quite aggressive overall.

He draws his Mythic Phoenix in all the games, and he also has Typhon and maybe chimera as well (i think it may have actually been rage hound not chimera) But anyway he is beating down and escaping.

In g1 I think I assemble ichthymorphosis on one of the escape creatures and I get Calix going while eat to extinctioning a different escape creature. I just survive at a low life total and bury him in Calix cards.

In g2 I feel like I am constantly fighting to get on equal footing but if I can just put my foot down I will be ahead. Unfortunately things just keep snowballing with phoenix and then wings of hubris and I ultimately can’t deploy my cards fast enough and am forced to make suboptimal plays and blocks and eventually die to the wings.

G3 was just great. 

There is a ton of back and forth and on the last turn I leave myself dead to phoenix with only a black up, and he has it and pumps it and goes to extend his hand to say GGs lol; but i cling a creature in his yard to stay at 1 life and untap and deal with phoenix. I have to fade wings for a turn or two but then I can cling again and on the last turn he ends up being able to put me to exactly 1 again after I cling for a 3rd time. 

Clinggggggoat

7-2

I’m feeling good and hoping to fade Oli2 and Efro. I find out Efro lost but Oli2 has a busted white pious wayfarer deck, thats bad news.

I see the pairings and am relieved to see it is Lauphiette and not Oli, but that relief is short lived as Lauphiette begins giving me the business.

R10 Lauphiette Kincey

G1 is a really back and forth affair where Lauphiette sticks a commanding presence on a flier for a turn, but I peel the land I need to Nylea’s intervention it away. He then lagona bands the presence back, but I am able to keep his fliers at bay mostly and he seems to be taking things slow. Turns out he has Shatter the Sky and has been sandbagging a bit.

Luckily I have too, and after drawing a card from Shatter and for my turn I rebuild quickly, and I am able to hold off his presence + leftovers.

G2 and 3 are just a lesson in what happens when your opponent knows how to sideboard and u are playing a 22 land deck or whatever.

Lauphiette boards in multiple memory drains to go with his thassas’ intervention/denial/denies and I just struggle to resolve any of my good cards.

I fight my best, but in g2 he has deny for my t3 champion and then I have pretty awkward mana and never really get much going.

In g3 we hilariously play draw go for like 8 turns when he breaks first casting a big thassas intervention, i respond with my own big intervention but he counters it. I untap and go for champion which he counters, but i stick Calix.

Unfortunately Calix is not jace the mind sculptor and he just easily beats it with a bunch of fliers. Ultimately my deck was just too much air and he has all vexing gulls and counterspells and despite me fighting like hell thru all of it; he is going to kill me with damage while I also have 0 cards in my library and nowhere close to killing him. 

7-3

I’m feeling a bit down after this loss as I know I can’t afford to lose again. It sucks that magic tie breakers work this way, but if I would’ve lost in like R12-13 instead I wouldn’t have felt as bad knowing I probably had another loss to give.

I regroup, convincing myself my deck is absolutely busted. (Deep down I know I just need to win this round bc I am not losing in constructed.)

R11 Brenton Murahashi

Brenton is also RG and his deck seems quite good as well, but it is a different kind of good. He is like multiple warbriars blessings and lots of escape creatures and he is just a RG removal plus large creatures deck. 

The lack of aggression helps me in this match as I’m able to win the 2 games I do somewhat trivially.

G1 I just have a really strong start and have Calix going on an empty board for way too long, and feel like i am 100% to win from t6 until I actually win t18.

G2 I feel ahead but I just draw a lot of timely basic lands in a row and succumb to some medium beats after losing my good cards to warbriars blessings.

G3 I feel really ahead, but he has some serious suprise burst damage with Phoenix and I think wings as well; deja vu. 

CLINGGGGOAT does not care.

As a matter of fact he actually has dreamstalker manticore with me at 3 life. Draws from no hand and smiles a bit and says go. I have cling in my hand but am just holding onto it for dear life always leaving up 5 mana and 2 black. In my upkeep he fires off an omen of the forge. I give a wince and he targets me with the dreamstalker trigger.

Trigger resolves, I am at 2. Omen resolves, targetting me. 

one second.......

CLINGGGGGOAT!

I clean up over a couple turns always leaving up cling.

8-3

I am obviously feeling really good here as I know I am just 7 wins away from the trophy and I have 6 teferi’s 3 dig thru times 4 wraths 26 lands and ~20 opts.

I am immediately suprised to see I am paired vs Sebastian Pozzo. He was in Pod 1 and I thought he was 8-0 overnight, but I was mistaken and he was 7-1 then 1-2 the draft.

R12 Sebastian Pozzo on Sultai Delerium

Sebastian’s list looks pretty stock (Similar to Joel Larson’s) and one thing I have going for me is that he cares way more about world’s and probably spent a lot of time testing standard instead of pioneer.

G1 is a real banger as he t2 scavenging ooze and I just chill out and counter lots of things that matter like a grisly salvage and some planeswalkers. But meanwhile he is exiling all my dig food and I am stuck with a dig in my hand and my life total somewhat dwindling down around 10.

I wrestle control of the game but promptly get emrakuled. The unfortunate thing is I timed a T3feri poorly and left him able to bounce his Emrakul. I don’t think I made any obvious mistakes and I was aware of emrakul and my teferi, but I couldn’t help but think I may have fucked it off somewhere as he is taking my turn.

Luckily he can’t devastate me too bad. He does get to spew some of my cards then go for a dig thru time grabbing 2 lands (He almost had to give me a spell! first 6 we flipped were 1 land and 5 bangers). And he bounces his emrakul and says go to my own turn.

I draw a supreme verdict and am able to + teferi and verdict his emrakul away on the way back down.

He can’t really do much with my turn and I am sort of home free. His deck still has 2 URO a Ballista a tracker another JVP and maybe 1-2 other relevant cards.

Over the next few turns I am just blasting castle tokens into play 2 at a time then eventually 3 at a time. I finally find a t5eferi after he has cracked 7 clues and cast 100 uro. I counted his deck at some point and he had 23 cards to my 19; but he was worried (I believe incorrectly) too much about me ultimating my t5eferi and he was just maximizing every clue and URO with no regards for milling. I never came close to ultimating t5eferi bc he resolved a ballista for 4 or so with 12ish lands. But my 15ish castle tokens were doing just fine protecting my already high life total. 

We fight over ballista with my t5eferi and other cards but he was still drawing with uro and trackers, until he finally counts his library and its 9 cards to my 12.

My deck still has 2 verdicts another t5eferi and t3feri (I have both of those in play as well with some reasonable amounts of loyalty but not really threatening ultimate t5feri bc his ballista still around with 3-4 counters)

Upon recounting his deck he gives me a big sense of relief by conceding. He checked the clock and it was getting around 15 minutes, and he knew he would just be wasting time trying to fight thru triple castle and all these tokens with no real good cards left in his deck.

I was pretty sure this was the case, but the way he had been playing really made me think I was missing something. I kept racking my brain for how he was going to get another emrakul or something but the 1 he had was already exiled to lantern and yeah, turns out he was drawing dead.

Open decklists are great, but when u are against a deck with a bunch of 1 ofs like sultai delerium, while also not having played the matchup that much, that 1 minute of review really shrivels up as u sit there wondering why the hell this man is drawing cards with NO REGARDS FOR HUMAN LIFE!

In SBing i try to go quickly as I don’t want Sebastian to feel I got him by wasting time in any way, and also bc if I get beat by a quick TS + Tracker/dispute draw I can fight to win g3 in 10 min or whatever.

G2 is quite interesting as well but the turns are complicated and despite time ticking sebastian is still having to take some time to think. The climax is with only a couple of minutes left he assembles the 4th type with fabled passage thru a lantern and is able to traverse for emrakul threatening to cast it next turn thru a castle garenbrig if he has a land. But i have a cycler plus a teferi in play and with my cycler i find a dig thru time which finds an ashiok and a counterspell and I know it’s over.

I ashiok his graveyard and he concedes (I would likely not be able to kill him in time this game, but I was up 1-0 and he just saved us all some time and conceded)

9-3

No breaks... Next round is up.

R13 Zachary Kiihne Rimrock RED

Zach is great. I don’t actually know him well, but we battled a lot on the ladder of Arena on the Mythic Invy qualifier month. He ended up making it I believe, while I couldn’t close and finished 13th. We played lots of my WW vs his GW tokens where he was inherently favored, but the games were always complex and large board states and he always played quickly and seemed to know where the games were going.

Keeping up that pace at the PT, Zach just fires everything right off!

in G1 I keep a sketchy hand and he has the exact start to punish me. He just plays creature creature creature shock and I do find my 4th land in time but the problem is I don’t have a verdict, and when i draw on t4 it is not verdict and i die. If it was verdict I would also likely die bc I was so low anyway. WTF M8??

Luckily Dream Trawler does not care what happens in g1

in G2 and G3 I use some 2 mana interaction to survive to trawler and I kill him with them. He did have to mulligan and keep a really land heavy hand in one of the games and it hurt him.

There was an interesting spot in g2 where i had both t3feri and t5feri and he had chandra torch of defiance, exiled a card and it was lightning strike. He lightning striked my t5eferi down, then plays another card. A Judge was nearby and came and stopped our game and informed us you can in fact NOT play magic cards exiled with chandra thru T3feri. What a dumb fucking card!

The judge decides we can just back up to the point of exiling, so instead I take 2. Either way I was casting Dig thru time end of turn and going to win trivially but this way I got to keep my t5eferi in play! Thanks Judge and T3feri!!

And yeah again g3 was just him flooding and me playing trawler at a really high life total.

10-3

I finally get a bit of a break as Zach played lightning speed and we got things over with quick. I get some food and get myself amped up for these next few crucial matches.

R14 Connor Cole

Connor is a local Texan who I actually met playing at I believe SCG Dallas recently. He won a PTQ and ended up joining our local Houston guys Slack team and then went on to crush the first 13 rounds of the PT!!!

Unfortunately he ran into the Buzz Saw here; and I had to show him what the last few rounds of a PT are like.

But no jokes aside, Connor is gas and plays really well. He ended up finishing 12-4 and tiebreaker stung into 9th :( But he qued for the final and I expect big things from him in the future.

Our match was a feature, but we were the backup and they had some audio issues.

I actually just threw away the first game being overconfident in my deck. It’s funny when playing a deck like UW control my instincts are to just man up and trust the shit out of my deck. By that I mean I maximize my mana and effeciency even if I am not getting the most out of my cards, bc i trust with all these teferi’s and digs and cyclers I will be able to gain some advantage/find what i need later so long as I am surviving and hitting lands.

My mistake was maximizing mana and a dig thru time where I exiled my elspeth. At the time I was at 9 life and I had already cast a dig hitting some weak sauce, so I figured I would find my absorb or 2 counters and lock the game, but instead i found opt and charm and i fluttered around with my t5eferi as well and could not beat his running burn spells putting me to exactly 0.

If I would’ve just taken 2 seconds to realize I am in no real rush (he was on E or maybe had 1 card) I should’ve just realized I was almost 0% to lose if I just didn’t exile my own Elspeth.

Moral of the story is don’t trust your stupid deck when you already have everything you need!!!

G2 is an absolute nailbiter as I play elspeth and think I’m cruising to Trawler, but chainwhirler eats it promptly.

I then have my 2nd elspeth but 2nd chainwhirler dashes that as well.

I still slam trawler and think It’s mostly very safe, as connor just has chainwhirler kari zev and soul scar mage with me at 9.

But he slams Chandra and minuses on my trawler. I count it up and thank the lord somehow he only has 8 damage. So i give my trawler hexproof keeping a dig thru time, and he puts me to 1. I untap and attack chandra draw and dig before damage, and I have a lot of combo’s that will keep me alive easily. Any  interaction should be good enough and I leave myself 5 mana. I find a verdict and something else gassy so I just go up to 6 from trawler, verdict and then untap with elspeths ready to come back from the yard and I gain 5 and am out of range and clean up shortly after.

G3 is a bit less scary. He does put up a fight but I feel miles ahead at all points having 2 mana interaction and then also hittings lands and playing cards before trawlering on 6 while still quite healthy.

11-3

Now I’m really feeling hyped as I know I have a win and in and I’m just 4 wins from the Trophy!!!

I refocus and am very confident I will win the next round.

R15 Raja Sulaiman WB Gideon Midrange

I don’t know my opponent, but I do know he has a sweet deck. I am looking at the list trying to figure out if I’m extremely happy or a bit sad and can’t really tell. I lean towards happy but could totally see getting annihilated as well.

Luckily the match is mostly uneventful. I lose g1 to double TS Heart History Gideon...

But again, 

Dream Trawler does not care what happens in g1.

12-3

We did it! Back to back PT T8s!! 

Unfortunately the next 20min were very unpleasant instead of happy, but that’s ok. 

The pairings for R16 makeup for it!

I’m at table 1, paired against my teammate Allen Wu who has enough wins to T8 this PT and the next!

I know Allen does not care much for any bullshit, so I am actually a bit worried he is going to want to play me. 

Yes we are teammates, but Allen cares [almost] solely about maximizing his chances of winning the tournaments. I respect him a lot, and I also respect this approach. 

One of 3 things happened; 

-Allen valued his time too much to battle me here for extremely minimal gains.

-Allen thinks there is some chance losing would make him the 2 seed while drawing just locks the 1 seed (I think he was locked 1 seed even if he played me and lost); 

-Allen thinks I/my deck suck and he wants me in the T8

I’m leaning towards some combination of all 3, but who cares he offered to draw and I ACCCCCCEPT!

The final standings shake out with Allen 1 Jacob 2 Me 3. I am playing the 6, Huey, and my teammate Tommy is 7 battling Jacob on my side of the bracket.

My other teammate Corey is battling PETERRR in the 4/5 match.

Our team has 4 people in the T8!!! I know we are like 7% of the tournament, but thats 50%!

Also shoutout to Mark who I believe lost a win and in R15 or so.

Our squad obviously had a really strong showing, with 4 in the T8 and Corey winning it all. But we also just had really solid winrates in limited and constructed despite playing lots of different decks.

This is getting obscenely long. 

This night was actually really annoying bc I spent it telling the same story over and over;

And also on twitter watching lots of people I’ve never met talk about how much of an asshole I am, or how much I cheat, or how bad I am, or whatever is getting the most likes.

I mostly shook it off. I got to tell the story to all the people I care about, and have dinner with a large portion of my team. I had already played my QF matchup post board a bit with Allen before the tournament, so I knew my plans.

Unfortunately it didn’t help me in the games.

I get to bed at a reasonable time and have to be at the site for like 9:15. I’m there before 9 and when I ask if I can go to starbucks I am told yes of course go ahead, but please stay around. And then immediately someone else tells me I won’t be playing until around 11 probably :0

I get starbucks and get back to battle Jacob some in his QF matchup. Mostly to just warmup and help him out, but also to get a feel for he and Tommy’s decks incase I beat Huey. 

We only get a few games in before finding out my match is actually 3rd not 4th, and these BO3 are going quick and I’m about to be up.

While the other match is finishing, we present and draw our hands and get ready to start right when the other match finishes.

I am greeted with 2 censor Opt Farmland Hallowed Fountain Glacial Fortress Supreme Verdict. Not quite the nuts, but a solid A. I’m on the play and Huey mulligans to 5.

We finally start our game and this one hurt. I opt t1 and hit a teferi and keep it, then immediately draw my 4th land so i say go with censor up ready to cycle farmland, huey goes for sylvan scrying before playing land after t1 grazer got him to 2, and i censor it and he says go missing a land drop with 3 cards in his hand.

From here I play teferi to get the jayemdae tomb one every 4 turns going; Huey draws a thespians stage but can’t muster anything else, so he now has 2 UG lands a stage and 3 cards vs my censor cycle land another land and teferi.

Over the next 3-4 turns I draw 2 cards with teferi cycle this farmland and another, opt and charm, and the only playable card I find is a mystical dispute. I draw seal away and all 4 of my verdicts lol.

Huey goes for Granted with 3 mana up, and i have no choice but to dispute and hope to censor after he pays 2 for 1ing myself. I can’t be granted for distortion without a t5eferi in play or any pressure at all.

He responds by cycling vizier to make a mana, and pays for dispute with 1 mana still up. This now means I have to cycle censor looking for a hard counter but i brick. He gets distortion.

The game weirdly goes on for like 8 more turns. He just keeps making more fields with stages but I amass narset elspeth t3feri t5feri. He finally has to go for it despite not having a way to kill me, so he goes for distortion into string strings last card granted for ugin to wipe my planeswalkers; but I’m able to make a 1/1 and chip ugin down to 2. Unfortunately I draw a land, he +s on my token and i make another then draw another land. ANd now I am dead to the fae coming into play, back to hand, finding Jace and having double walker going. I just got beat at my own game!!! He didn’t even breach me!

But yeah, I am feeling a bit frustrated to lose the game despite knowing how bad G1 is. 

When he mulled to 5 and got his scrying censored I believe I was a massive favorite, probably somewhere in the 70s or 80s at least and I just drew only the dead cards.

But now we board in 9-10 cards and regroup!

G2 was really great, and I made like 1 mistake a turn. 

I asked a lot of really good players what they would do on all these turns and almost all of them would make the same mistakes I did. 

Except for Allen; 

and Drunk Tom Ross!

Tom let me know how bad I fucked up, and I really appreciate that. 

Tom said many different things like “awww u really fucked up. U fucked it up bad. Damn u fucked it up”

The games are obviously on camera, but in G2 Huey goes for field + copy it with stage, I field of ruin the stage. 

So his board is forest untapped Lotus Field tapped with 4 cards in hand.

I have T5feri my 4th and 5th land, 2 mystical disputes and absorb.

I untap and draw Elspeth.

The question is should I play it?

Huey has 4 disenchants, 2 disputes, 1 ugin, 1 jace, 1 thought distortion and maybe 1 more card he could bring in.

For the most part his plan is still the same, build up his mana and try to find a window to either thought distortion me, or strings my lands/his lands to make sure he resolves his key card(s).

But I just felt with the 2 disputes and t5eferi I was going to be able to apply meaningful pressure fast enough to not risk tapping out here.

In my head he could just granted for distortion then sort of ignore elspeth for a few turns and fire a distortion then kill me, but that is so unrealistic. First he has to not board the distortion in (I was thinking he like 80% brings it in. Allen brought his in and we felt like that was just correct so I assumed Huey likely would) and then he also has to somehow have perfect mana to get to 6 and then distort me and kill me before dying to this SIX MACHINE elspeth? Its stupid and I shouldve just probably played elspeth.

Not doing so was playing scared/too safe. But it really isn’t that bad or that big of a deal. If huey has a natural 2nd stage into strings I can easily just be dead. But it’s really low % and this is a tough matchup of magic the gathering vs a great player where you can’t just tiptoe around making suboptimal plays bc it makes you feel safe.

Lots of people hesitated and said don’t play it. Tom would have blown like a .40 BAC minimum when I asked him, and he immediately said to play Elspeth.

Anyway Huey untaps and just plays a temple scryland and keeps the card on top, and says go.

So now he has forest lotus field untapped and 4 cards with a banger on top.

My turn.

I draw damping sphere!

I have t5eferi damping sphere elspeth 2 dispute absorb and my 5th land.

Now a a few things go thru my mind here. Huey has 2 disputes but the way he’s played this game make me feel like it’s somewhat unlikely he has one. 

However, if I go for t5feri and he does dispute it’s really ugly. I can go for elspeth with dispute up but that feels too weak.

My options I am actually considering are just jam sphere and counter a disenchant, or jam teferi and have double dispute up if he doesn’t have dispute.

I think it’s somewhat close, but in hindsight it’s actually just an easy T5feri. 

Unfortunately I go for damping sphere which is where Tom says nooooooo u fucked up bad, u really fucked it up.

And Huey immediately floats 3 GREEN? I say ok and he natural states my damping sphere.

Now this is a bit weird to me. I mean he floated 3 green immediately; but he has a forest up. And he has 2 disputes in his deck...

So now I am paranoid that he hasnt a 2nd disenchant. 

But it’s Huey, and it’s a PT T8. I start thinking maybe he is leveling me and trying to get me not to counter it bc he has no dispute and no 2nd disenchant.

Ultimately my plan when playing it was to just fire off a counterspell on disenchant bc if he does have a dispute or 2nd one he will only have 2 cards, and i can just untap t5feri with counterspell. But if he doesn’t successfully kill sphere I am just going to win easily.

So I absorb.

Huey bins the natural state and before he can cast his other one a judge intervenes.

There is a damping sphere in play when i absorb; so obviously I can’t do this bc it should cost 4. I just totally forgot that part of the card even existed. I haven’t cast it in the entire tournament, and in my mind it was just strip mine lotus fields to wastes. 

Even with the speed of everything and huey snap disenchanting I could have seen myself forgetting to count the sphere tax to itself, but I literally just forgot it even had that text for a second there.

Huey also forgot it. The judges stopped us and then asked me what I was thinking, so I just repeated a lot of what I just typed; all the shit I was thinking about him floating green instead of blue etc. then they came back and gave us warnings and said to carry on. Huey apologizes after the game bc he said he totally forgot himself but it looks bad bc he wanted me to absorb bc he had another disenchant.

Anyway, we backup and I have a dead damping sphere and 3 mana up with absorb Huey now knows about. I also have the 2 disputes.

Huey untaps and immediately taps field and forest and plays hidden strings. THen he looks at me lol. I say are you targetting your lands?? He says yes

So yeah, now I am looking at this absorb he knows about. He only has like what 3 cards behind this strings. It’s going to put him to 7 mana. What can he even do? There is no way he’s killing me thru 2 dispute. If he has breach natural i let it resolve, then i dispute strings. If he pays he has 0 mana left and i dispute again untap teferi + and have absorb gg yo

If he has the natural distortion then obviously I need to counter this. But he has ONE and i just showed him absorb. I am thinking to myself, dont be a fool! his hand is probably granteds and pore over the pages and hes trying to bait u into countering this stupid strings!

So I let it resolve, and I get distorted.

This was not a good play!

I could have just disputed the strings. This virtually counters it bc he only had 1 field. So while he couldve paid for dispute, it wouldve tapped him out, and strings resolves untapping only 4 mana. So from there i still have another dispute and he can’t reasonably do anything.

Instead I am empty handed and in dire straights. I do peel t5eferi immediately but i hit land off of it and draw only lands next turn as well, meanwhile huey sets up to kill me over 2 turns and does so.

what a tilting match :(

It really hurts to make such critical mistakes in these high stakes matches, but Magic is really hard and I forgive myself pretty quickly.

I had good reasons for making the plays that I did, but they were just a bit faulty; 

WRONG!

I feel like if I had more time to think things through, or if there were less pressure of the stakes I maybe would have just slammed T5eferi and even Elspeth t4. But i definitely don’t have a good excuse for not disputing strings. Just Huey being Huey and somehow levelling me into punting it all off after i showed him my absorb.

But yeah GG’s YO I ended up 6th for 10k bc Allen lost too :( and 18 points.

I have a really good shot at Rivals now so I am pumped for the PT final and next RPT!

Shoutout again to Corey for winning and all of team 5% for crushing and being gas.

Also shoutout to all the grinders out there still on the outside looking in. 

I see you!

Hopefully I’ll have more reports soon...

PT Finals Victory Report, RPT2 Victory Report...

Let’s get it!!!

[childrenofhypnos]

Chapter 13: Black Eyes

Emery woke up to Wes poking her in the ribs. She’d slid sideways and come to rest with her cheek on his shoulder. She had dreamed of the stuffy room and the VHS tapes and the cigarette carpet, but there were no three men, and the little boy really was Edgar. Waking from it had been relief enough, but another relief was that she and Wes were still at the same place on the edge of the lake. No dream windows had swallowed them while she slept. She righted herself and Wes, looking as if he’d just woken up himself, fell asleep almost instantly. In minutes--or what must have been minutes--he’d slumped into her, their shoulders together, his head resting atop hers. She let him stay there; the weight felt nice.

The breeze rippled the surface of the lake. The trees swayed gently on the opposite shore. The poppy fields, wide and endless, shivered. The hypnotism of it relaxed her and also kept her awake. She tore herself away from the scene only long enough to look up at the lone mountain. The rivers that fed the lake originated from high on the mountain, the top of which was so tall it was almost swallowed by the purple clouds.

Her head had stopped pounding, but exhaustion still weighed her down. After checking to make sure Wes was asleep, she let herself cry. She wanted to be sitting in Grandpa Al’s office, sipping tea and watching leaves fall from the woods to scatter across the sports fields. She wanted to be in her dorm room with Edgar, watching The Good, The Bad, & the Ugly and quoting lines before the characters had a chance to say them.

She really wanted her parents to climb through a gateway and pull her out of the Dream, but they were overseas somewhere, doing some kind of important, covert work for the Hypnos State.

With that last wish conceived, considered, and discarded, Emery wiped the tears from her face and took a deep breath.

Some time later, Wes woke up again. She didn’t know when, exactly, because she didn’t know he was awake until he lifted his head from hers. They sat in silence and watched the lake ripple.

“This place is different than the other parts of the Dream,” Emery said.

“It’s more peaceful.”

“More peaceful? Compared to everything else, this is heaven.”

Wes made a noise.

“Wesley Jager, did you just laugh?”

“I’d call it more of a snort, but whatever you want.”

“I wasn’t even trying to be funny.”

“You try to be funny? I thought you were trying to be annoying.”

“Well I do that, too, but--” Emery caught the smile sneaking across his face. “And cracking jokes, too? Wes, you’re scaring me.”

“Ridley says I’m only funny when I don’t mean to be. Most of my jokes don’t go over very well. I think they come off as harsh.”

“Hey, there’s one thing we have in common. And younger siblings, I guess.”

“I like Edgar. He’s…thoughtful.”

“Yeah, he likes you, too. When have you two ever interacted?”

“There were a few times. I think he gets teased a lot by some other kids in his class. I sat with him at lunch a few times so they would leave him alone. I know I’m not the most popular, either, but generally people don’t mess with a guy who has a giant hammer.”

Wes said it lightly, like it was no big deal. He looked away across the lake.

Everything inside Emery went very still, and in the stillness a single clear note rang out. She had felt the sensation only twice before: the first time when she met Joel; the second when she met Jacqueline.

“He does,” she said. “Thank you.”

Wes shrugged.

“I’m sorry for saying you were useless, and would get in my way.” She busied herself with her bootlaces so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “Actually sorry, not just saying it to get you off my back. I don’t want this to sound like one of those fake apologies. I, um, I’m glad I’m not here alone.”

“Oh.” He paused. “I am, too. Glad I’m not here alone.”

“You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.”

“Yeah, well.”

Another long pause.

“Do you know why people don’t like you?” Wes said. He said it lightly, again, but in a way that made it very clear he was tiptoeing around her. “This is a legitimate question, I’m not trying to make you mad.”

“Because people like to hate people who are good at things?”

“It’s because of your parents.”

“Because my parents are good at things?”

“Because you have parents.”

Emery looked up.

“A lot of them--a lot of us--don’t have one parent, let alone two. A lot of us don’t have grandparents, either, and definitely not grandparents that run the school. I only have Ridley, and I still consider myself lucky. Last year, Isaiah Howard got the statistics for the number of dreamhunters under the North American Ward who pass their Insanity Primes. The percentage was so low they didn’t publicize the numbers.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Your parents were in that percentage. Ours weren’t. You’re going to be in that percentage. We’re not. We weren’t made to be great dreamhunters; we were made to be regular dreamhunters. At some point we all kind of realized we were here so that the Hypnos State has meat shields to throw at the nightmares. If some of us live longer, that’s a plus for them. If we don’t, oh well, there’ll be a new generation to take our place.

“But you--you’re their golden child. We all heard the stories about your parents. The others don’t dislike you because you’re good at things. They dislike you because you were made to be good at things. Because the Ward needs us, but they want you, so you have everything you need to do well. Your family, the best teachers, leniency when you do something wrong.”

Emery balked. “But…none of that is my fault.”

“No, it isn’t. That doesn’t mean it’s not unfair, or that it’s wrong for the others to be angry. I was angry. It was worse because you clearly didn’t know, and you went happily on as if we were all jerks for treating you like that.”

“I didn’t--”

His look silenced her. “It was the way we felt. It’s the way they still feel.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t think so. It’s not…about you. Not really. Most of them don’t know you.”

Emery sat back against the boulder, wanting to scoff but holding it in, because he’d said he wasn’t trying to make her angry, and she believed him. “What about you? Do you know me?”

“Better than I did. Honestly, if I had to be stuck in the Dream with anyone, I’m glad it’s you.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “You’re top of the class. If anyone could figure out how to get us out of here, it’s probably you.”

“Says the kid who can dreamform like he’s already graduated. Speaking of which—” Emery sat up straight. “You never did explain why you get such terrible grades when you can dreamform like you do. You made that ladder—twice—and you tore through that closet door. Where did you learn that? And why am I the only one who knows you can do it? I’m assuming I’m the only one?”

Wes looked away. Looked back. Sighed. “Ridley knows. I practiced a lot when we were younger. I was, um, inspired. I don’t tell anyone because the Ward tends to send particularly good dreamformers on certain kinds of missions. Missions that go into the Dream.”

“And you didn’t want to go?”

“I’d heard that hunters who entered the Dream often were more likely to suffer more serious Insanity Primes. I didn’t want to make things harder on myself than they were already going to be.”

He looked around and put his hands up in the air as if to say, Look at this mess.

“I don’t blame you,” Emery said. “I know everyone thinks I’m going to breeze through my Insanity Prime, but that just makes me feel like I’m not. It’ll be the big joke—Queen Emery couldn’t hack it, right? Everyone thought she’d pass the Prime, turns out she was the one who failed spectacularly. It seems silly to complain about it, though, because you’re right: I have my whole family to get me through it. It must be so much worse for someone who doesn’t. If—if you don’t mind me asking—”

“My parents are dead,” Wes said. “Both of them were hit hard by their Insanity Primes. They were so far gone, the North American Ward sentenced them to dream death before their doppelgängers could come looking for them.”

Emery had heard of dream death in passing, during studies of the Insanity Prime, but she had never seen it performed. That was a ritual left to the dreamkillers. All she knew was that it involved the separation of the subconscious from the conscious, releasing the hunter’s connection to the Dream and forcing their minds to cannibalize until the dreamhunter died. It was only performed once the dreamhunter was too far gone to realize it was happening, but to Emery it still sounded terrible.

“We do it that way,” Grandpa Al had said once, “because there’s nothing we can do to help them, and it stops their doppelgänger from wreaking havoc to get the hunter’s body, then wreaking more havoc once they have it.”

A doppelgänger was another dreamform, but this one developed without the dreamhunter’s permission. It was a manifestation of a hunter’s subconscious that grew as the hunter became more powerful. Doppelgängers were tied tightly to the Insanity Prime, since that was the time that most dreamhunters reached their peaks, and it was because of the doppelgängers that so many hunters succumbed.

“Did your parents ever see their doppelgängers?” Emery asked, quietly.

Wes shook his head. “I don’t know. They were taken to the Ward headquarters in D.C. a long time before I understood what was happening to them. I hope they didn’t. I heard it’s terrifying.”

So had Emery, but she’d heard it from her parents, who had both killed theirs. Doppelgängers wanted only one thing: to live in the waking world. To do that, they needed a real body, and only their dreamhunter’s would work.

Dreamkillers, like Grandpa Al, like her parents, were named for killing their doppelgängers. If they didn’t, the doppelgängers would kill them.

“Did your parents say what it was like?” Wes asked.

“They said it was the hardest thing they’ve ever done.” Emery pulled her knees up to her chest. “You’re destroying a part of your own mind, and it looks like you. That can’t be easy.”

“I know you only survive if you do see it and kill it, but I’ve always wished I wouldn’t have to. I jump every time I look in a mirror.”

“Only if your hair floats.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I think Lenton mentioned it a few times in class,” Emery said. “That’s how you know the doppelgänger from the dreamhunter. The doppelgänger’s hair floats, like they’re in water. My dad says it’s because they’re still part of the Dream, and no matter how much they want to be corporeal, they can’t completely separate themselves.”

“Floating hair.” Wes scrubbed his hand through his brown waves. After so many dream-windows and however much time without a shower, his hair was limp and dull. “They look exactly like us, don’t they? Is that based on our actual forms, or how we think we look? Our current state, or how we should look?”

“How you should look? What does that mean? You look how you look.”

“I mean like…if anything changed between now and when we were born.”

Emery let out a long, exaggerated sigh. “Hypnos’s balls, Wes, I hate riddles. What are you talking about?”

Wes frowned. “I’m talking about my eyes. Isn’t…I thought everyone knew. I thought you’d know, anyway, because of your grandpa.”

“Your eyes?”

His eyes were black, flat black, as always, like they were all pupil. It made him look drugged sometimes. Intense. Emery had always thought they were strange. Sometimes people just looked strange. But people didn’t have black eyes. Very dark brown, maybe, but not black. Emery shifted. His gaze followed her.

“They’re dreamforms?”

He nodded.

Permanent dreamforms took a degree of skill most dreamhunters never mastered. Their weapons were the only permanent dreamform most dreamhunters managed to make, and they were guided carefully through every step of the process for over two years. Other permanent dreamforms took months of molding and shaping, hard focus, and a depth of understanding about what was being created in order to make the dreamform function on its own in the waking world. Dreamhunters in the medical field learned how to do it, but it was impractical for most others.

Emery caught herself staring. “Eyes must be complex as hell,” she said. “Who did them? What for? Did something happen? Were you--I mean--“

“I was born with white sight. It’s rare…people with white sight see the Dream, but not the waking world. Most people who have it don’t live through infancy.”

“I didn’t know they did eye transplants for white sight sufferers.”

“They didn’t, until me.” He smiled a little. “I went from white eyes to black ones. It was your grandpa who made them.”

“Grandpa Al made your eyes?” She’d known Grandpa Al was a great dreamformer, and had been slated to enter the Hypnos State’s medical division instead of their administration, but she’d never imagined him making something as complex as eyes. “No, he didn’t tell me. But--do they see like normal eyes? Do you have X-ray vision or something? Can you see colors no one else can?”

“I think they see like normal eyes. If he’d formed them differently, they may not have worked. I’ve tried to research what went into making them, but at some point it’s not a matter of knowledge, it’s a matter of focus. You have to stay so intent on that one thing. You start thinking about how nice the weather is and suddenly there’s a leaf growing out of your optic nerve. I want to learn how to have that kind of focus someday.”

“Well, you’re already part of the way there. You’re a great dreamformer.”

“Hopefully I don’t lose my mind first.”

Emery snorted. “Same here. Don’t worry, everyone expects me to be stable, so I’m probably actually a giant time bomb. We’ll lose our minds together.”

The poppies swayed. Water lapped at the shore.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Wes said.

Emery began to close her eyes again when something shimmered on the edge of her vision. Past Wes, halfway up the poppy hill they’d come down, a dream-window pulled itself fully into existence. The inside was dark except for the two big, old oaks framing it in.

Emery jabbed Wes in the arm. “Look!”

Wes gaped. “It’s his.”

They scrambled to their feet. Wes turned in a circle, searching the area. “Is he here? Nearby? He must be--do you think he’s been following us this whole time?”

“Who cares? What if that’s not a window? What if it’s his gateway? Wes, we could get out!”

“I don’t think—” Wes started, but Emery was already running.

This time, when she sprinted for the darkness between the oaks, she didn’t have to pull Wes with her.