#Judith Revel

[marcogiovenale]

fondazione baruchello, 31 marzo: l'archivio e la storia, convegno online

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[randomnameless]

I did Crimson Flower first in my Three Houses run and... honestly, Edelgard wasn't even remotely as convincing to me to join her as the fact I'd get to fuck Jeritza.

Beresu I've chosen for the job grew up in Ardesian Empire and I've definitely leaned into Ashen Demon idea as much as possible, so what I've got was a merciless butcher, not a revolutionary firebrand. I expected Edelgard to be this scary red emperor with the grand ideas that justify the means, I expected the vibe of Nine Inch Nails' Survivalism, but instead she's an absolute dork and Hubert does everything morally dubious for her. It reminded me of Corrin in Fates on Nohr path and it definitely did not endear me to her.

Generally speaking the only interesting bits were Jeritza (love this man, best girl) and... maybe Hubert. Honestly speaking, with the way Hubert acts I expected him to be a Flame Emperor after seeing Edelgard. I just genuinely don't get how Crimson Flower Edelgard can be even remotely convincing - she's scary in White Clouds at times, but then it's nothing but dork, dork, dork, Beresu I hate rats, Beresu my path is stained in blood despite the fact I can barely reach any enemy in my automatic promotes and Hubert, Jeritza and you kill most of the enemies instead.

She's idealistic, but it's never really shown how much she's willing to mow down people for her ideals - we don't see destruction, we don't see any particular drama. The only bits closest to it were me deliberately not recruiting any non-BE students aside from Mercedes, Anette, Marianne and Lorenz. Killing these students felt like something, but it isn't really enough and it's entirely optional.

she's scary in White Clouds at times, but then it's nothing but dork, dork, dork, Beresu I hate rats, Beresu my path is stained in blood despite the fact I can barely reach any enemy in my automatic promotes and Hubert, Jeritza and you kill most of the enemies instead

LOL

I don't remember having the same movement issues with Hector when he was promoted, but damn if Supreme Leader's prf class was a nightmare, she was behind people and didn't have enough def to act as a suitable tank - she's supposed to be a player phase unit, but she doesn't have the mov stat to do so...

Granted, it was my first run too, so I missed on the heron festival event and didn't get a dancer :( but I played it before Emile was patched in, and, in a way, I thought it was on purpose - Supreme Leader says she'll explain everything to Billy later on, when they see Emile fighting with them when the BESF attacks the Monastery, and nothing is ever explained post TS - much like how the war was supposed to get rid of Rhea because she has scales, but come the post TS and we're not embarking on the MAGA ride, to conquer Fodlan!

Corn at least, in Conquest, spent more time angsting at the casualties and blood shed - to the point some players found it uncomfortable - Corn notable tried to save people or reacts strongly when Scarlet is Hans'd (just like Sakura's army? I don't remember that well).

It's less artificial than Supreme Leader who only says this in some support lines, or when she's alone with you - her lines feels more like a compulsory thing to say, a box to tick, than a regular reaction. There's nothing similar to Corn's distress or at least gambit to try to spare the defeated soldiers, instead, we have a round of hypocrisy because Rhea BaD when she doesn't let people evacuate the city before turning it in a giant bbq - when we have Emile on our side and when other routes reveal the battle of the Monastery happens so fast after her declaration of war that the CoS doesn't have time to evacuate all of its residents (+Emile saying the grounds around the monastery are battlefields too) in the other routes.

Hubert is still the best part of CF, even if I sort of grew somehow interested at the students insulting Billy when they chop them off - sure my interest later died, but Judith's JP VA lit screaming and crying when Ignatz and Leonie died, Inoue!Rhea's lines delivery, everything bar the BESF itself managed to make the "we must kille people we knew sad uwus" hit closer to the mark than the onion scene, aka the one where Supreme Leader cries after beheading a defeated, and on his knees, Dimitri.

But I agree, it's almost if all the pathos that was supposed to be triggered by the "kill your students :'(" from the game went to the CF enemies, rather than to the other routes casualties.

"We killed Ferdie professor :("

Watch as I gave a fig, Ferdie dies in a map where he is fielded with a Demonic Beast iirc, aka a Feral One. If Ferdie doesn't see anything wrong fighting side by side with a Feral One and doesn't have the same circumstances Lorenz does (granted, even those circumstances are mushy) - especially since it's possible for Ferdie to defect since that's what he does in SS - I legit feel less figs that when we had to kill a retreating Judith, or an Ignatz or Leonie who were defending their homes - hell, even Hilda who, against all of her words and previous behaviour - finally puts her life on the line to protect someone.

[daryltwdixon]

Sucker

Daryl Dixon x Reader One Shot

You're out on a run with the group when you spot a bag of candy. Surely no one in their right mind would leave them behind. Before putting them in your bag, you stick one in your mouth. Daryl is the sharing type.

original idea is from this post by : @dixonzzgirl "eating a lollipop and daryl walks right up and pulls it out of your mouth and puts it in his (or vise versa)"

You weirdly were looking forward to this run into town. The prison life was good, and easy. You loved it there. But once in a while you craved the adrenaline rush that was brought on by being outside the walls and tall gates. 

Today Maggie approached you about joining her on a run to the drug store for baby formula and potentially cold medicine if you were lucky. Judith had come down with a runny nose and they needed to up her formula amount now that she was getting bigger. Of course you agreed, and Daryl sitting next to you at breakfast offered himself as well. So it was you, him, Glenn, and Maggie on this run together. Maybe back when the world was normal you could call this a double date–except for the fact no one knew you and Daryl were a thing. You weren’t exactly sure if you could call it a relationship yet or not, but you two enjoyed each other’s company. Especially in dark corners of the prison…with your clothes off. 

You’re bringing up the back of the group with a knife in hand and assault rifle strapped on your back. 

Daryl turns around, checking to see you’re still keeping up, and when he meets your eyes he gives you a wink. You stick your tongue at him playfully, and he pulls back to walk next to you. When he’s in stride with you, he reaches behind you and pinches your jean clad butt. You yelp and swat him away, making Maggie and Glenn turn around to see what the commotion is from. You and Daryl glance at one another, and when the other two see there's nothing to worry about, you whisper to Daryl, “Don’t, they’ll see,”

“Who cares,” he mutters with a playful smile, “cats gon’ come out the bag one day, sweetheart,” he opens his stride to walk next to Glenn again. You shake your head, trying to make the blush recede from your cheeks as you follow along.

You’re jogging up the strip of stores when you take a halt in front of an old CVS Pharmacy. The windows are hazy and Glenn cups his hand around his eyes against the door to get a look inside. He looks back at the group, nods, and you all hold up your weapons, ready for the attack if needed. Glenn slowly opens the sliding door that was once automatic, and peers inside looking left to right. 

“Clear” he whispers back to the group. You lower your knife and follow inside. You immediately elongate your steps, passing the others and head toward the cold medicine aisle. On your way you pass the candy section and a lone bag on the shelf catches your eye. You smile and take the detour to grab the bag of colorfully wrapped candies. You can’t believe anyone would leave this treasure behind. Before putting it in your bag, you grab one sucker out and unwrap it, sticking it in your mouth. You sigh in ecstasy at the flavor on your tongue. It’s been a long time since you’ve had anything remotely resembling a piece of candy. Your mouth even cramps up at the feeling of how sour the sucker is to your dulled taste buds, but you revel in it as you continue on into the medicine aisle. 

Once you’ve grabbed what you needed plus a few extra things, you return to the front of the store to wait for the others.

“Daryl?” you call, and he comes out from the back room stealthily toward you. He has a small smile on his lips when he approaches you, reaching for your face. You’re hesitant, unsure what he’s going to do since it’s been clear he doesn’t show affection in front of the group back at the prison–you had both kept quiet about your frequent rendezvous in the night. You’re not entirely sure where Glenn and Maggie are at the moment, so you let your guard down for his approach.

Daryl is in front of you, and as he passes you to stand on your left, he pulls the sucker from your mouth, sticking it between his teeth while looking you in the eye. You feel blush heat your cheeks and smile back at him, with teasing eyes. Jesus, this man barely has to touch you for you to be immensely turned on by him. He is playing with the candy in his mouth and sucks deeply on it, then returns it to your mouth and puts it between your lips. The sweetness sticks to your lips and you dip your tongue out to taste it again. Daryl’s eyes are dark and he pulls the sucker away, back to his mouth again.

Maggie then clears her throat, and your blush has turned firetruck red as you glance at her and Glenn, whose eyes are wide on you both. They’re approaching from the other end of the store. Daryl plays with the sucker in his mouth to hold it in his cheek, and follows your line of vision and turns towards them. Both Glenn and Maggie look toward each other, and suddenly burst into laughter.

“Guess that cats out of the bag now,” Daryl grumbles at you, turning to head out of the store. Rolling your eyes, you follow him out. Glenn and Maggie don’t stop laughing til the car is entering the prison gates an hour later.

[gatheringbones]

[“It was only after I came out as a dyke that, for the first time in my life, I felt ready to celebrate being a girl, and I did. Actually, I overdid. Armed with Esther Newton’s Mother Camp, Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, and Joan Nestle’s A Restricted Country, I embraced femme. I dressed up in short flowery dresses, pushup bras, satin panties, and lacy stockings. I paid great attention to my long, curly, perfectly-coiffed hair, my glamorous makeup, and especially my pouty lips. I spritzed Lola’s smell on my skin—Estee Lauder’s Private Collection—and painted my nails. I wore all of it with black combat boots and a brilliant sense of irony. I reveled in my girliness, went over the top, learned how to tweeze my eyebrows and line my lips with a lip pencil.

My gender presentation was unmistakable: blatant female sexuality. I was a proud, in-your-face, take-no-prisoners, uppity, don’t-assume-I’m-straight-because-I-wear-lipstick-and-dresses femme dyke. Because femmes are always assumed to be straight or sleeping with men, and I do sleep with men, I made sure to always have a butch on my arm so I’d be read as femme. Even though I was sure I’d be mistaken for straight, the boys took one look at me and steered clear. It was as if I was too much of a woman for them to handle, like I was a handful, and I was. But butch girls love a handful—a handful of tits, a handful of ass, a girl who needs to be handled, a girl who can handle herself.

How I figured out I was a femme had a lot to do with the women I was attracted to and the dynamic between us. When I was in junior high, I used to mess around with a friend of mine named Angela. Angela was one of those girls who developed early; I remember she had big breasts in like sixth grade. We mostly kissed and touched over clothes, and we played out various boy-girl scenarios. I was always the girl—my early femme roots. My favorite of all our little scenes was the one where she was my male boss and I was the secretary. The boss made me have sex with him and told me if I didn’t I would get fired. Now this was all before Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill and the media awareness/obsession with sexual harassment. I remember she’d tell me to suck her dick and push my face unmercifully into her crotch, which smelled amazing,. The drama of it all—the force, the degradation, the power games—really got me off. After that, there was no going back to simplicity. I was hooked on the power.

Jen really epitomized all the girls I was attracted to then and still am. Being with a butch girl, I was valued for my combination of strength and vulnerability, for dressing up, for wanting an arm to hold onto, hips to wrap my legs around, being able to give my body over to her and say, I trust you, I’m yours. My butch loved me in low-cut dresses, appreciated my sexual voraciousness, worshipped my inner slut. I reveled in the fact that I could be strong and submissive all at once. Surrender and still be a feminist. Being a dyke is not just about who I fuck and love, it’s about being a girl who doesn’t play by the rules.

Butch girls don’t play by the rules either, and I love butch girls. Girls with hair so short you can barely slide it between two fingers to hold on. Girls with slick, shiny, barbershop haircuts and shirts that button the other way. Girls that swagger. Girls who have dicks made of flesh and silicone and latex and magic. Girls who get stared at in the ladies room, girls who shop in the boy’s department, girls who live every moment looking like they weren’t supposed to. Girls with hands that touch me like they have been touching my body their entire lives. Girls who have big cocks, love blow-jobs, and like to fuck girls hard. Every day, it is the girls that get called Sir that make me catch my breath, the girls with strong jaws that buckle my knees, the girls who are a different gender that make me want to lie down for them.

Someone else said it about me recently and it’s right on target: “She gets off on all different sorts of people sexually, but she falls for butches.” Like the poet who bought her first strap-on with me and then wanted to sleep with it on. The shrink-in-training who got harassed every time she drove down South. She did look so much like a fifteen-year-old boy: blue button-down shirts, neatly-combed blond hair. The ad exec who had names for her dildos and used to love for me to spit-shine her wingtips. The photographer whose face was so mannish she could pass almost anywhere. The writer who wanted a body like Loren Cameron’s. The telephone repairwoman who drove a truck. The cook who had a boy’s name. The academic who got cruised by gay men on Castro Street. The cornfed farmboy from the Heartland with arms so hard and strong you swear they’ve been working the land, not the iron at the gym.

And there’s the one who’s got the James Dean stare down, and dresses like a clean-cut fag, and looks at me like she could look at me forever and never blink or grow tired or move from the spot she’s in. She’s a girl who loves girls like me—girls in velvet bras, girls who want to surrender to her mouth. She’s a girl who isn’t afraid to throw a femme down on the bed and fuck her. Possess her. My kind of girl. This girl is different.”]

tristan taormino, from this girl is different, from a woman like that: lesbian and bisexual writers tell their coming out stories, 2000

[allthingsimagines]

State of Grace

“This is a state of grace. This is the worthwhile fight. Love is a ruthless game, unless you play it good and right” - State Of Grace by Taylor Swift

Rick Grimes x Pregnant!Reader

Summary: The group is wary of Aaron, until he reveals information that shocks the group to their core.

Takes place in season five at the start of the Alexandria arc!

Word Count: 5k+

Warnings: Swearing, childbirth, fluff, and ooc Rick

a/n: This has been sitting in my drafts for literal years. It’s not great, but I don’t care!! I hope you enjoy! Also, sorry for the formatting I’m on my phone!

—————————————————————————

The group all stood on high alert as they stared Aaron down as he sat tied to the pole. He was an outsider and knew far too much about them for any of them to be comfortable.

Rick was at the edge. He would either fall off and lose himself or pull himself back. The group was doing their best to keep him stable, but after Terminus, the death of Beth, and his own wife being lost after the Prison he was close to being too far gone. The only reason he hadn’t yet was for Carl and Judith. If he hadn’t had them he would’ve been long gone by now.

Aaron was another threat to the group’s safety.

Rick stalked around him as the group watched on. He seemed like a predator about to go in for the kill. Rick had always been an intimidating guy, but after the loss of his wife and the months on the road he wasn’t sure he’d ever fully return to who he had been when she was alive.

When the Prison fell everyone got scattered. Rick had been in the yard, Carl with Daryl, Judith with the kids, and Y/N had been in the sick wing helping Maggie evacuate people. When everyone got separated she’d just disappeared. No one had seen her since that day and there was no indication she was alive. Rick had lost hope a long time ago. She was tough, but it was difficult enough for them to survive as a big group. There was no way she would have made it months on her own.

Aaron gulped as the group discussed what to do, “My job is to convince you to follow me back home.”

Everyone looked around skeptically at his words. Aaron sighed, he knew it would take a lot of convincing, “I know, if I were you, I wouldn’t go either until I knew exactly what I was getting into.”

Aaron looked around at the big group and took a breath to steady himself. He’d been following them for two weeks and still didn’t know half as much as he would’ve liked to about them. He knew Rick was the leader and had two kids. He knew a few others like Maggie, Sasha, and Glenn, but the rest of them were strangers for now. Yet, he knew they’d keep them alive.

Alexandria needed people who knew how to survive and navigate the world they lived in now. The only people in the community who knew how to was himself, Eric, Deanna, Enid, and Y/N. She was the perfect person to teach them, but she wasn’t much help outside the walls since she was pregnant.

“Sasha, can you hand Rick my pack? Front pocket, there's an envelope,” Aaron asked and Sasha complied as she brought it to him.

“There's no way I could convince you to come with me just by talking about our community. That's why I brought those. I apologize in advance for the picture quality,” Aaron said as Rick pulled them out and looked through them.

“No one gives a shit,” Daryl grumbled out and Aaron nodded quickly.

A few others crowded around Rick to look at the pictures when the baby began crying. The teenager tried his best to calm her, but she just wailed. Rick pinched his brow and sighed, “Carl, will you get Judith the binky in my pack.”

The boy quickly complied as he tried to soothe his sister. Aaron’s eyes widened and he felt his heart jump at his words. He quickly leaned forward, pulling against his binds, “Your son is Carl and your daughter is Judith?”

The group all shared confused looks as Aaron looked like he’d had a world ending revelation. Rick passed the pictures to Glenn as he moved closer to Aaron, “What’s it matter to you?”

He kneeled down in front of Aaron and glared down at him, “Why do you need to know?”

Aaron swallowed, trying to compose himself, before looking up at Rick, “Did you have a wife named Y/N?”

Rick physically recoiled at the question and everyone tensed. How would he know her? Carl stepped closer to them, Judith held firmly at his hip as she was quiet now, “How do you know my mom?”

Aaron looked sympathetically at Carl and Judith before looking back to Rick. He looked as if Aaron had flipped his whole world, “How do you know that name?”

“She’s alive. She’s been living in our community with my husband and I for the past few months. She’s talked about your family endlessly- I just didn’t put it together,” Aaron breathed out and he saw the whole group react to his words.

Rick stumbled back and stood deathly still as he paled. Carl moved forward, his eyes full of hope, “How can we trust you? Where’s my mom!”

Aaron nodded towards his bag, “There’s a picture of her in the inside zipper of my bag.”

Glenn quickly unzipped the pocket before pulling out the picture and passing it to Rick. Rick couldn’t believe his eyes as he stared at it. It was her. She was leaning her head on a man’s shoulder, who he assumed was Aaron’s husband, with a bright smile on her face.

She was alive and happy.

Rick let out a choked sob as Carl tore the picture from his hands and broke down as well as he clutched his sister to him. The whole group was visibly affected by his words as they all had bright looks on their faces. Rick pulled Carl into his side and pressed a kiss to his head, “She’s alive. We’re gonna have your mom back.”

Glenn cut Aaron free and he stood up and rubbed his wrists. Rick released Carl, but when he turned to Aaron to say something he noticed the odd look on his face. Rick moved closer to Aaron and felt his stomach drop, “What’s wrong?”

Aaron looked up at Rick and scratched his neck, “I don’t know how to say it.”

Rick pushed down his fear as he stepped closer to him, “Aaron what’s wrong with my wife?”

Aaron met Rick’s piercing eyes and breathed out, “She’s pregnant.”

Rick swore he’d died. There was no way that she’d lived, but now she was pregnant? She couldn’t be.

Rick grabbed Aaron’s shoulder as leverage as he almost fell over, “What?”

Aaron grabbed Rick’s arm, “My husband and I picked her up on the road five months ago and brought her back. We’ve been taking care of her. The baby is doing great and so is she. She helps our leader, Deanna, out as her advisor so she doesn’t have to leave the walls.”

Rick tried to take in deep breaths, but he could hardly comprehend that his wife was alive and now she was pregnant? Rick grabbed onto Aaron as he fell to his knees. He tried to breathe as everything became too much for him.

His wife was pregnant and she’d been alive this whole time. They were going to have another kid.

Aaron squeezed Rick’s arm and sighed, “Rick, she’s full term now and when I left she was having consistent Braxton Hicks.”

Rick almost fell over from how quickly he shot to his feet. Lori had those during both pregnancies and she’d given birth soon after. He needed to be there for her. Especially considering what had happened to Lori.

“What’s that mean?” Carl asked, quickly wiping any remnants of tears from his face.

“They’re false contractions, but they’re meant to prep your body for labor,” Maggie answered, coming up behind Carl and squeezing his shoulders supportively.

“Take me to her. Please,” Rick pleaded with Aaron and he was quick to nod.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll radio my husband to come get us in our RV. We can all fit, but it’ll be tight,” Aaron said, looking around for approval.

Everyone quickly moved to ready their gear and Aaron took that as his sign to radio Eric. He quickly moved towards his radio that had been tossed out of his bag and picked it up, “Eric, we need you to get us at the barn we scouted. They know Y/N. Her husband and kids are with them.”

“Oh my god. Okay, I’ll be there soon. Be safe,” Eric quickly responded.

Rick held Judith tightly to him as he moved over to Aaron and clapped his hand on his shoulder. Aaron quickly turned to him only to find his demeanor much more relaxed, more like the man Y/N had described. Rick let out a shaky breath and nodded, “Thank you.”

Aaron nodded and sighed, “She’s family to me too now. I’d do anything for her.”

Rick nodded as his nerves began to eat at him. The group packed up quickly and they all anxiously waited in the barn to leave. Twenty minutes passed before Eric pulled up and they all quickly filed in. He seemed stunned by the road hardened people that passed by him to get into the RV. The RV was big, but they had a large group now and they were all crammed in.

They all sat packed into the RV, each having their own quiet conversations for a while until Aaron’s radio went off. The whole group turned to look at him as he quickly fished it out.

“Hey, Aaron, you there?” A female voice said.

“Hey, Denise. What’s up?” Aaron responded.

“Just wanted to check in and give you an update. When are you heading back?” She asked.

Aaron looked around at the group and scratched the back of his neck, “Uh, actually now. I’m bringing back that group I scouted for Deanna. Tell her that we’ll be back in less than an hour and they’ll need to get check ups asap just in case.”

“I’ll let her know, but the doctors office is kinda busy today,” Denise said sounding hesitant.

“What? Did something happen?” Aaron quickly asked, sharing a nervous look with Eric.

“No! No, nothing bad, but we’re about to have a new baby around here soon. She wanted me to let you guys know,” Denise said, with a cheery tone to her voice.

The whole group froze as Aaron looked at Rick in slight horror. Rick kissed Judith’s head and squeezed Carl’s shoulder as he tried to be strong for them. The last time, Carl had to kill Lori after she needed a C-Section. Rick knew Carl wouldn’t survive losing his other mom the same way.

Aaron’s eyes softened as he noticed their family dynamic. He remembered what Y/N had told him about Carl’s mom and he could tell it was causing trauma to resurface for them.

“How is she? Everything going okay?” Aaron asked, nervous himself for his friend.

The radio was silent for a few moments until it crackled again and a new voice came over the radio, “She can speak for herself. I’m in active labor, not dead.”

The whole group shared a look of shock. It was her. Rick quickly moved to the front of the RV to stand next to Aaron, his blue eyes wide and unsure of what to do.

“And yes, I’m fine. I’m almost fully dilated, so not much to do but have terrible contractions till they come. Baby Grimes would like to make an appearance soon, so I’d appreciate if you hurried back. It’d be nice to have someone who I actually care about to hold my hand. You too Eric. How’d scouting that group go? They convinced yet?” She asked breathlessly as Rick and Aaron shared a look.

Baby Grimes. She hadn’t let go either. Rick had a child and wife waiting for him.

Aaron held the radio out to Rick and he looked at it nervously. What was he even supposed to say? Rick turned as Carl came up behind him and took Judith from his arms so he could hold her. Carl’s eyes were filled with a hope Rick hadn’t seen in years. Rick swallowed his fears and took the radio from Aaron’s hand.

“Darlin?” Rick said, his voice wobbling as he choked out the words.

The radio was silent for a moment before her shaky voice said, “Rick? Is that you?”

Rick fell to his knees at the sound of her voice. It was his wife. She was alive.

“Yeah, baby, it’s me. We’re okay. We’re all on our way,” He breathed out as a hand squeezed his shoulder and he looked behind him to see Daryl behind him.

A loud cry came over the radio and the whole group from the prison visibly reacted with relief of their own as they finally had a family member back.

“Oh my god, I swore I’d never hear your voice again. Is everyone there? Carl? Judith? Please, please, tell me they’re okay,” She sputtered out through sobs.

Carl snatched the radio from his dad’s hands and shakily said, “Mom, mom, it’s me. We’re okay. Judith and I are okay. We miss you.”

“Carl, baby, I-I-,” She started but broke down into tears and the radio went silent for a second.

The whole group went dead silent as the radio cut out, but quickly reacted as she cried out over the radio. Rick rushed to Carl’s side as he stared at the radio in horror.

The radio cut back in and Y/N’s groans could be heard in the background, “She’s okay! Just bad contractions. She’s gonna need to push soon, so hurry if you guys can. I’m sorry I’ve got to go to make sure everything goes okay, but Aaron knows where the delivery room is. Deanna knows and she’ll have Spencer open the gates as soon as you get there and let them through.”

The radio then shut off and Rick looked up at Aaron in abject horror. What if he missed his child’s birth? What if something happened to her? Aaron squeezed his shoulder and shook him a bit to bring him back, “We’ll be back soon. She’s gonna be okay. We have good doctors and medical supplies to make sure of it.”

Rick nodded, seeming like he was off in a different place. Aaron moved back to Eric’s side and helped direct him the quickest way to Alexandria. Rick sat against the door of the RV, his mind running over every worse case scenario.

Nothing ever went right for him.

Right now he could have his wife and a new son or daughter when he arrived to Alexandria. Or he could lose them both, and he was sure that he would never survive that loss again of someone he loved so desperately.

Eric pushed the RV as hard as he possibly could without blowing anything mechanical. A half hour passed before Aaron finally announced that they were there. They all rushed to their feet and looked out the window to find a fenced in town with guard towers at the gates.

The group had been in one place with high fences before, but this place looked untouched from the apocalypse. Aaron turned to the group as Eric slowed as they got closer, “When we get in the gates, you will all have to turn over your weapons. We don’t allow people to have them, unless they’re on patrol or cleared by our leader Deanna or Y/N. You will all be interviewed by Deanna and then get a check up by one of our Doctors.

Rick and Carl, you’ll come with me. The rest of you will wait until I come and get you or you’re showed to a house. This community is pretty sheltered, so please take it easy around them for now. Understood?”

They all shared nervous looks before nodding in agreement. The RV came to a stop and Aaron and Rick shared a look.

They needed to go.

Carl passed Judith off to Carol as Eric quickly turned the car off and opened the doors and Aaron, Rick, and Carl quickly moved out.

The group rushed towards the gate as it slid open for them. Rick and Carl hardly had time to admire the community before Aaron waved his hand at them, “Come on. Medical center is over here.”

They hurriedly followed after Aaron and Eric as they ran towards one of the closest buildings and people stared as they sprinted past. Rick couldn’t have given less of a shit as he just ran after them.

Aaron barreled towards a house and quickly threw the door open. Rick’s eyes widened at the sound of his wife crying out. Rick shoved past Aaron and rushed toward the room. The continuing cries became louder from the door at the end of the hallway.

Rick quickly grabbed the handle and threw the door open and there she was. His wife was laying up against a mountain of pillows with her legs propped up.

Dear god.

Her eyes pooled with tears at the sight of her husband alive and in front of her. She released the sheets from her clutched hands and reached out for Rick, “Rick- oh my god.”

Rick went to rush to her when a woman quickly moved in front of him, “Woah! Okay, I know you want to see her, but you’re gonna put her and the baby at risk if you don’t wash everything off of you.”

Rick hadn’t really considered that it’d been months since he’d showered properly. He looked at his hands and found they were covered with blood and walker remains. He hadn’t even thought about it.

“Denise he can- he can stand up by my head and he won’t touch the baby until he’s clean. Right Rick? I can’t do this without him,” She said squeezing her eyes shut and crying out in pain.

Rick nodded frantically, desperate to touch his wife himself after months apart.

Denise looked hesitant, but let out a frustrated sigh, “At least scrub your arms and hands with soap quickly and put on that surgical gown just in case.”

Rick didn’t say another word as he quickly rushed toward the other room where the woman pointed. He moved to the sink and scrubbed at his hands so hard they felt raw. The sink turned red as his hands were washed clean of all the remnants of the outside world. Carl quickly sprinted in, turned on the sink next to him, and did the same.

Once Rick felt like his hands and forearms were clean of blood and filth, he put the surgical gown on and rushed back into the room.

“You have to push! Come on deep breath and bear down,” Denise said as she stood between her legs.

She breathed heavily as she pushed for ten seconds, before she laid back and let out a groan of pain. Rick moved to her side and quickly took one of her hands in his own and pressed it to his lips. Rick tried to force back his tears and the emotions threatening to overcome him as he finally had his wife right in front of him.

She tiredly smiled up at him, her eyes shiny with unshed tears, “Hey Sheriff.”

Rick chuckled before he quickly captured her lips, “Hey darlin.”

Her smile was interrupted as she squeezed her eyes in pain and clutched onto his hand tightly.

“How’s she doin Doc?” Rick asked worriedly, Lori’s death at the front of his mind.

Denise tried to smile comfortingly and said, “She’s doing great, but you’ve got to keep pushing. Baby’s almost here.”

Rick looked down at his wife and squeezed her hand, “You can do it. I’m right here.”

“Me too,” Carl said as he rushed to her other side.

Her eyes brightened at the sight of her son at her side. She took Carl’s hand and nodded as she sat up, “Yeah, I’ve got you two now. I can do this.”

“Fuck yeah you can mom,” Carl said beaming at her.

Rick laughed at his words and she shook her head with a loving smile directed at him, “I missed you, but watch your language baby.”

Carl smirked and he and his dad shared a look as she got ready. Denise smiled at the family before clearing her throat, “Okay, after this next contraction you need to push again. Make it count you’re almost there.”

She nodded and shared a nervous look with Rick. Rick squeezed her hand and quickly kissed her forehead, “You can do this baby. We’re right here.”

She nodded before letting out a shaky breath and squeezing her eyes shut as Denise indicated for her to push. After the seconds of silence she cried out and fell back, but Rick quickly slid his arm around her waist to catch her, “You’re doing great darlin.”

She nodded against his shoulder as she mentally prepared herself to push again.

“I can see the head. One more good push and it’ll be done,” Denise said.

She nodded and she took another deep breath, “That better be a goddamn promise Denise.”

Denise smiled and shook her head, “If it’s not, I’ll give you my bottle of bourbon.”

She let out a shaky laugh and smiled at her, “You’ve got a deal.”

She looked at both of her boys and felt determination swell in her chest. She felt the contraction come on and she pushed with everything she had.

Rick brushed the hair out of her face as she cried out again. Then the room was filled with a sharp cry.

Rick felt his whole body tense as Denise beamed at them as she lifted the baby up, “It’s a girl. She’s beautiful.”

She immediately began to cry as Denise nodded at Rick, “Wanna cut the umbilical cord dad?”

Rick nodded and shared a look with Carl. Carl nodded and quickly moved his arm around his mom to support her sitting up as tears of joy streaked down his face. Rick took the scissors and cut the umbilical cord where she directed as she quickly cleaned his daughter.

Carl helped his mom get more comfortable on the pillows as they waited for Denise. Carl pressed a kiss to her cheek, “I love you mom.”

She smiled up at her oldest boy, “I love you too baby. I’m so glad you’re here. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Rick’s eyes were full of tears as he carefully looked over Denise’s shoulder as she checked over his daughter. He hadn’t really felt this way since Carl was born. He felt like he was teetering on an edge as he waited to see his youngest daughter.

Denise turned around and Rick moved to her side. Denise smiled softly as she carefully passed the small bundle to her outstretched arms, “She’s healthy and looks perfect. You did great Y/N.”

She let out a choked sob as she took her daughter into her arms, “Hey sweetheart.”

Rick finally let his tears fall as he looked down at his beautiful daughter. She leaned into Rick’s embrace and gently stroked her baby’s cheek, “You’re so so loved already.”

Carl sniffled as he leaned closer to his mom to get a better look at his youngest sister. She looked up at him and smiled brightly, “This is your big brother, Carl. He’s gonna be the best big brother ever and he’s always gonna be there for you .”

Carl nodded as she lifted her up closer to him so he could see her for a moment. Then she turned and her eyes met Rick’s that were filled with emotion. She moved her daughter now to Rick’s side so he could see his little girl.

“This is your daddy. He looks mean and grumpy, but he’s a softie I promise. He’ll always keep you safe,” She said with a gentle smile as he got to look at his daughter.

Rick brushed his finger over her small cheeks and choked out sob. He pressed a kiss to his wife’s head, “I love you more than anything. Thank you.”

She pulled away from him before she leaned up and kissed him. She pulled away breathlessly and smiled before moving her gaze to her daughter, “You can thank Hope for getting us here. I would have died a long time ago if I hadn’t been fighting for her.”

Rick raised an eyebrow and smiled, “Hope? That’s her name?”

She nodded resolutely and beamed, “Been calling her Hope since I found out I was pregnant. Hope Willow Grimes.”

Rick nodded and smiled down at his daughter, “Hope’s a great name for her.”

She nodded before turning to give her boys a tired look, “As much as I love you both, you reek of blood and sweat. Aaron can take you to one of the empty houses to get cleaned up. Then you can come back and hold her. Okay?”

Rick felt his whole being begging him to stay, but she was right. He pressed a kiss to her head and looked down at his daughter before stepping away, “Kay, but you send someone for us if you need anything.”

She nodded as Rick and Carl moved towards the door, “Got it Sheriff. Will you bring back Judith and the others?”

Rick nodded and smiled, “Promise. Trust me they’ll be begging to come see you as soon as we get there.”

“Well, tell ‘em I’ll give ‘em a pass for not getting a baby gift in time,” She joked as she rocked their daughter gently.

A knock came from the door and they all turned to find Aaron and Eric standing there. They both stepped into the room and Aaron smiled sheepishly, “Sorry, we didn’t wanna intrude, but I overheard you. I’ll take them to the house Deanna is setting them up in. She’s gonna set your group up in three houses. Some of the residents are moving your stuff into a separate house so you guys will be together.”

Y/N smiled and waved them into the room, “You’d never intrude. Come see her.”

Eric moved to her side and smiled down at the baby. Aaron held out his hand for Rick to shake, “Congratulations.”

Rick paused for a moment before pulling Aaron in for a tight hug. Aaron tensed for a moment before clapping Rick on the back. They pulled apart and Rick nodded in thanks, “This is all cause of you. Thank you.”

Aaron smiled at the sight of his husband and friend cooing over the baby, “Come on. I’ll take you guys to get cleaned up.”

The boys hesitantly followed after him and to the house. An hour passed and Y/N fed her daughter as she talked to Eric.

“When you mentioned your husband he wasn’t quite what I pictured,” Eric said as he rocked back in his chair.

She raised an eyebrow at him, “What’s so different?”

Eric rolled his eyes, “Y’know for being in an apocalypse where you don’t have many options you bagged one of the finest men I have ever seen.”

She burst out laughing as she grinned at him, “Oh, I know. Trust me I was fighting off women left and right when we lived at the prison. You better believe if I see Jessie anywhere near him or my kids I’ll throw her out like a farm cat.”

Eric snorted and beamed, “I believe it. I’d love to see you take her down. She’s had it coming for years.”

A soft knock came from the door and Y/N sat up and adjusted her little girl in her arms, “Come in.”

The door slowly opened and her husband came into view and her eyes lit up. Rick came in and walked over to her. Eric smiled at the pair and stood up, “I’m gonna go make sure you guys have everything set up.”

She smiled softly at him as he moved to the doorway, “Thank you.”

Eric nodded and shut the door behind him. Rick had changed into new clothes and cleaned up his beard now. He came and sat at her side on the bed, “You feelin okay darlin?”

She nodded and leaned against his shoulder, “About as good as you can be after pushing a baby out of you.”

Rick chuckled in response and she met his eyes. Rick cupped her face as her eyes lit up teasingly, “Lookin good Sherriff.”

Rick pulled her in and pressed a firm kiss against her lips. After a moment passed they pulled apart and she muttered, “I love you.”

Rick kissed her quickly again and moved back, “I love you too.”

“Wanna hold her?” She asked gently holding her out to Rick.

Rick swallowed nervously and held out his arms and she passed Hope into his arms. Rick let out a shaky laugh as he finally got to hold her. He shared a look of awe with Y/N as he gently rocked her.

She pressed a kiss to Rick’s jaw with a smile, “You’re a natural.”

Rick smiled, his eyes staying on his youngest, “Comes with practice.”

The pair were silent for awhile as they watched their daughter. Y/N let out a shaky breath and leaned her head on Rick’s shoulder, “Who isn’t here?”

The silence was palpable between them as she pressed a kiss to Rick’s shoulder, “I- I just need to know, please.”

Rick nodded, keeping his eyes on their youngest, “Beth. She escaped with Daryl, but she got kidnapped by a group in Atlanta. We almost got her back, but she got killed before we could leave.”

Y/N swallowed back her tears and pressed her head into his shoulder and squeezed his arm, “Y’know no one would ever blame you for that, right? You tried your best and that’s all you can do sometimes.”

Rick nodded silently before pressing a kiss to her head. Y/N reached out to brush her finger over Hope’s soft cheek. Rick leaned back and wrapped an arm around Y/N’s shoulders and held his daughter with the other, “Anything we need to know about here?”

Y/N sighed heavily, “They’re weak. These people never learned how to survive outside the walls, because they never had to. Deanna understands what the world is and usually lets me call the shots when it comes to anything outside the walls.”

“Any pushback?” Rick said as he gently rocked Hope.

Y/N scoffed at his words, “Yeah, just a bit.”

“Anyone I need to kill?” Rick joked dryly, his arm tightening around her.

“Not yet. Deanna’s son, Spencer, is a liability. He doesn’t appreciate that I completely changed their tactics for runs, even if it was getting people killed. Spencer and his friend Nicholas are pretty much all talk, but they’re not shy about opposing anything I say. Oh, and watch out for Jessie,” She said leaning further into Rick’s chest, annoyance filling her while thinking about the town home wrecker.

Rick narrowed his eyes at her change in demeanor. He gently lifted her chin so she would meet his gaze. Despite having just given birth to their child, she still felt a pang of insecurity claw at her heart. Rick held her chin gently in his hand as his intense blue eyes met hers, “I have killed people to protect you. I would kill anyone to keep this family safe. You are the only woman I will ever want. Tell me you know that.”

Y/N smiled somewhat bashfully at his words. Those words would have terrified her in the world before it fell, but now it was a declaration of the highest love. She nodded and pressed her lips to his. It was almost as if no time had ever passed as they fell back into a routine with one another.

She pulled away breathlessly and met Rick’s expectant gaze. She let out a breath, “I know.”

Rick nodded and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Hope cooed and stretched her arms out with a yawn. A knock sounded out and Rick moved the the door, his youngest cradled securely in his arms. He opened the door and then Carl stepped in with Judith on his hip. Y/N burst into tears at the sight of her daughter. Judith reached out her arms as she saw her, “Momma.”

Carl came over and sat next to his mom and Y/N was quick to take her into her arms. She pressed a kiss to Judith’s head, “Oh, babygirl I missed you so much.”

Judith clutched onto her shirt and snuggled into her mom. Y/N rubbed Judith’s back with one hand and reached over and pulled Carl into a tight hug. Carl sighed and leaned into his mom’s embrace. She pressed a kiss to the side of Carl’s head, “Thank you for keeping him alive.”

She and Carl shared a look of understanding as they pulled away. Rick came over, looking like a true dad with Hope in one arm and his other hand tucked in his jean pocket. Y/N wiped her tears and sat Judith on her lap as Rick came and sat next to her. She looked around at her family and smiled, “I don’t believe in god, but thank whoever the hell is in charge up there that brought y’all back to me.”

Rick smiled and kissed the side of her head, “Damn right.”

Then a knock came from the door and Maggie popped her head in. Maggie rushed over to Y/N as the rest of the group followed in. Y/N swore she’d cried all of her tears, but each hug she gave to the members of the group brought on a new onslaught.

After each member of the group had been properly introduced to their daughter Rick stood off in the corner. He looked around the room, Hope settled safely in the crook of his arm. This was the happiest he’d seen the group in years.

Carl had yet to move from Y/N’ side, as Judith happily sat on his lap playing with her mom’s hand. Rick was certain he had never seen Y/N look so beautiful. She was beaming as she talked to Glenn and Maggie, despite the fact that she’d given birth hours earlier.

“She’s just like Lil Ass Kicker.”

Rick chuckled as Daryl came to his side. He looked down at his daughter lovingly and sighed, “This is what we fight for. Everythin we do is for everyone in this room.”

Daryl made a noise in agreement, “We keep going for shit like this.”

Rick met his wife’s eyes and she was quick to shoot him a wink, before she turned and pulled Carl closer to her into a hug. He sighed, his heart feeling full for the first time in months. Herschel had told him years ago that every day was a choice.

He would choose to keep his family in the room safe everyday for the rest of his life. No matter what it cost.

[starshipsofstarlord]

daryl + doggy style

warnings. smut, unprotected sex, soggy style position, assman!daryl, swearing, cunning inside, slight praise, fluff

MINORS DNI (18+), I DO NOT CONTROL YOUR CONSUMPTION ON THIS BLOG 👻

divider credits. @cafekitsune

Daryl tossed you with lack of effort, meandering your body to his wishes as his wolfish eyes drank in the curve of your ass, rubbing his hand greedily over it. For him, it had been an excruciatingly long day, he had been doing all he could so that you would all be equally accepted in Commonwealth, and whilst his tendencies were working, he was still frustrated.

And to come home to find that you had dropped Judith and RJ off to one of your friendly neighbours for the night, he realised that there was an open opportunity. It was a chance to release the pent up brewing of overwhelming aggravation that bore within his chest, and thus he watched almost malevolently as your cunt hugged his cock tightly, and he had to try and not cum then and there.

He was just a man, he thought, and the curvature of your figure was his greatest weakness, his lower lip was caught between his teeth as his textured palms gravitated to adjust a firm grip on both of your hips. Each fold of your flesh that moved with every thrust that he drove into you kept him transfixed, the various scars that you had earned through the years of battling for your life only made you more beautiful. It showed that you survived through the hardest of times, and that you would continue to do so until life diverted you down an ending path.

“Fuuucckkkk.” His accent drawled out as he pressed his v-line strongly against the round ampleness of your ass, rotating his hips for a moment until he pulled back, striking deeply into your dripping wet pussy, practically revelling from the pleasurable sensations that sparked up through his body. You were lost in bliss, physically fucked out whilst all the while drooling for more. Your face was plush against the cushions, vacant eyes fluttering as shockwaves rendered through your vessel, prompting the fact that you were growing significantly closer to your orgasm.

“C-cum inside of-f me Dar.” The desire to feel full was overpowering, a pitch squeal ricocheted from your parted mouth as the expected high took toll of your body. Groans rumbled out from his broad chest as your body was practically melting into the duvet, Daryl lifted your hips so your backside was above the rest of your ecstasy induced form, as he rammed into you, closing in on his own orgasm.

A few more thrusts and Daryl was spent, he spilled his seed within your clenching walls as he grappled at your ass, needing to feel any inch of skin belonging to you that he could beneath his fingertips. “Good girl.” He muttered, pulling out from your warmth begrudgingly as he felt fulfilled to collapse beside you over the sheets, pulling your exhausted self into his arms as the afterglow of the amorous moment lulled you into a perfect sleep.

[eaden]

some parallels between the og lyctors and their Canaan House counterparts:

• G1deon and Dyas dying in the same unwinnable fight they willingly threw themselves into out of Duty

• 'chickenshits don't get beer' sounds like a Pyrrha aphorism

• Judith served in the Dve Territorials

• the chances of Coronabeth & Ianthe painting nude portraits of each other and gifting them to people are not zero

• we know very little about Cyrus and Valancy but what we do know explains A Lot about the Third House in general

• Ulysses the Fourth launching himself into hell via Resurrection Beast/Isaac welcoming the opportunity to be a human peg board

• Magnus 'my wife practically issues written invitations to breakfast' Quinn vs Augustine 'here is a formal invitation to witness a threesome with God' Quinque

• Augustine waited 10 000 years for a biographer only for the Houses' most renowned historian/lyctor researcher to be murdered by his colleague precisely for having those interests

• Cassiopeia & Nigella being in charge of the Teacher Project where they fit many souls into one body/CamPal fitting 2 souls into one body

• Cassie being a River expert/Sex Pal creating an unprecedented River bubble

• both Sixth House pairs have a 'wedding' just before the climax of their respective emergencies

• Literally everything about Cytherea/Dulcinea

• unloveable Mercymorn, critical Mercymorn...... certainly no one could accuse Silas Octakiseron of being loveable and uncritical

• 'you will be forgiven' / immediately attempts murder: possibly the only thing Silas and Mercy would agree on

• they also both give Gideon Nav explosively vague revelations about her origins before trying to kill her

• Anastasia/Harrow having a complex and potentially horny dynamic with The Body

[whateverisbeautiful]

♥️Reveling in Richonne - TOWL

#45: The Son's Best Friend (1.05)

gif cred: @ricksmarlene

He was in love with his son’s best friend. 😭

I had said there were two big lines in TOWL that would basically need a whole reflective post dedicated to them. And one of those lines was Michonne telling Rick the only time she feels safe is when she’s with him in ep 4. The other is this line here in ep 5 where Rick just makes every Richonne moment in TWD even better by confirming that before Richonne became canon, Rick was well aware that he was in love with Carl’s best friend 🥹...

In any post I have on Richonne's season 6 canon scene I have always expressed that it is so clear Rick is fully aware he’s in love with her before they sit on that couch. He knows. Not subconsciously but consciously knows he’s in love with Michonne before they ever kiss.

And for Rick to confirm this years later was just heavenly and it has given me a lot of new thoughts on Richonne’s TWD journey. So you know we gotta go in-depth and talk about it. 😋

After talking about RJ and Judith, Rick turns the attention back to Michonne when he holds up some toothpaste. And I love the playful way he says, “I got you something.”

gif cred: @riickgrimes

I always love a good callback so it’s great hearing him say this when he also told Michonne, "I got you something” regarding the mints during their season 6 canon episode.

Back then he had to make do with mints since the toothpaste sunk to the bottom of a lake - but now years later, Rick finally got her that toothpaste she wanted. Soon as he got it, she did. 😭

I really do marvel over the way TOWL came and just checked pretty much every possible Richonne thing we could have wanted and didn’t even know we wanted off the list.

And seeing Rick get this toothpaste was such a great full-circle callback to the episode where Richonne became official. Dental hygiene has been blessing the Richonne ship since season 5, y’all. And we’re still getting blessed by it in 2024. 🙌🏽

I’ve also always loved that Rick remembers every detail about Michonne so of course he remembers the exact flavor of toothpaste she likes as he walks over to her and says, “I think it was baking soda and spearmint. As requested.” So cute and Rick is the only man ever, just saying. 😋

gif cred: @ex0rin

I love his little playful flirty energy and that Michonne laughs as she immediately remembers the moment he’s calling back to. Michonne being courted by Rick is one of my favorite things and I love seeing her be so smitten by her handsome man yet again. Rick and Michonne are both a pro at getting each other to laugh and smile. ���🏽

Then I love that she takes the toothpaste and all flirtily says, “Man of his word.” The way she’s smiling at him is so sweet. And then she says, “it only took a couple lifetimes” because they really have lived a whole lot of life since that day in season 6. 

gif cred: @ex0rin

And then next, y’all…I was attacked. I was attacked with a line so good it stayed stuck in my head for weeks. 😊

Because Rick then looks at Michonne and says,

“I was in love with my son’s best friend. I didn’t know what to do.” 🫠

The best. 😭😭😭

gif cred: @ex0rin

I had been hoping that TOWL would give Richonne a reflective moment to talk about and look back on their love story and this was such a great way to do it. It explains so much.

The ‘I was in love with my son's best friend’ line really is informative and got me reflecting back on Richonne's journey in The Walking Dead. And something that hit me was thinking about the tail end of season 4 - which I've always felt Rick was most definitely in love with Michonne by then.

I used to think it was only subconscious for him at that point but honestly...now I like to think he was even more aware he was in love with her than I originally thought at this time. He still was dealing with a lot mentally and externally of course, but he knew the love he had for Michonne was different in 4b.

And here’s where the son’s best friend part factors in - Rick realizes he’s in love with Michonne in 4b and what he also knows full well is that his son adores her and needs her. So at the same time that he’s realizing his feelings for Michonne, Carl is also forming this invaluable bond with Michonne. And Rick very clealry sees that.

gif cred: @tangerineprettygreen

Rick sees the way Carl genuinely laughs and has fun with Michonne over breakfast and on the train tracks. He sees how after the horrific trauma with the Claimers, Carl feels safe enough to fall asleep in Michonne’s lap.  (I like to think that Rick opened the car door to say it was time to head out and he saw his baby restful in her arms)

And while that’s more of a headcanon, we literally see Rick watch Michonne and Carl have a heart-to-heart in the forest that concludes with a hug during the s4 finale.

All of this is part of why this line in TOWL ep 5 is so fitting. Because during that s4 era, Rick had this romantic love for Michonne rising to the surface within him, but he also felt he needed to not act on those feelings because he saw his son needed Michonne just as much.

Every time Rick started looking at Michonne with those ILY eyes, he just had to look slightly to the side and see Carl looking up at Michonne as his best friend and safe space. And so as a caring dad, Rick didn't want to risk getting in the way of Carl and Michonne's bond.

But as Michonne says - Richonne's love can’t be denied - and it also can’t be avoided. So while Rick thought he could fend off or table his feelings - or idk what he thought he could do actually because he didn’t know what to do either - but any denial of their love was always going to be futile because Richonne was inevitable. They were meant to be. 😌

And one of the things that will always make my heart smile is knowing that Carl clearly seemed to feel Rick and Michonne were meant to be too, because he truly was not at all shocked when they finally got together.

When Carl found out about Richonne he fully approved and looked like the only thing that surprised him was that it hadn’t happened already. My boy Carl was looking at both Rick and Michonne with some 'duh, I been knew' energy the day after they got together. 😋

(Also, kids are super perceptive so I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Carl could tell Rick was a lot happier in his relationship with Michonne than in his previous marriage.)

It turned out Rick never had to be worried about his love for Michonne complicating things between Michonne and Carl because not only was Richonne meant to be but so was Grimes Family 2.0.

They were always going to be the family they became because that’s just how destiny works. Beautiful destiny. 😌

(Side note: A few years ago I wrote a RIR post about that season 4 moment when Rick asks Michonne if she needs help cleaning up those walkers. To me, it really felt like Rick might have been intentionally waking up early to see Michonne. And after this “I was in love with my son's best friend” line now I'm just convinced that it’s true. 😋 Rick wanted to spend some alone time with his crush in that s4 scene. 👌🏽 Hence his cute little pouty face when Michonne warmly declined.)

And I love that Rick also admits he didn’t know what to do about the fact that he’d fallen in love with his son's best friend. That implies he thought about what to do and just came up short with an answer because he so badly didn’t want to potentially jeopardize Michonne’s vital role in his family’s life by trying to advance the relationship if it wasn’t something she also wanted.

It's funny how Rick and Michonne are very observant people but were hesitant to know for sure that the other really was into them romantically pre-canon. Even despite all the blatant attraction between them both. 😊

Had Rick or Michonne been observing any other two characters interact in the same way they do, they would have quickly clocked that the two have feelings for each other. But between them, they thought they had to ‘work up to’ finding out if the feeling was mutual when really they’ve been the others for the taking pretty much since season 4.

But it makes perfect sense that what took Rick so long to make his move wasn’t solely the world screaming at them, or the Lori baggage and PTSD he needed to heal from - it was also that he felt he’d need to tread lightly with his son’s best friend and not do anything to get in the way of Michonne and Carl's connection.

With what a loverboy Rick is, it actually would track that when love hit him he’d become aware of it sooner rather than later. Plus, the time between TWD 4.15 when Rick was looking at Michonne like 😍 on those train tracks & TWD 6.10 when Richonne got together on that couch was years for us but it was a much shorter span of time for the characters.

If Rick knew by the end of season 4 that he was in love with Michonne, to me his actions in season 5 really further solidify that he was in love with her and was at least somewhat aware that love was part of why she has so much influence on him and his decisions.

And when I think about it, even if Rick knew he was in love with Michonne at the end of season 4, there was hardly any room or privacy to forwardly act on the realization of those feelings during the majority of season 5.

They were busy escaping the jaws of cannibals, traveling on the road with scarce resources and team family always around, searching for a home base, and then arriving at ASZ, a place that initially put Rick more on edge than when they were roughing it outside the walls.

So that, on top of feeling like he can’t and won’t intervene in his son’s friendship with her by making his feelings known, makes a lot of sense as to why it took Rick the time it did to finally make his move. 

But even at a time where the weight of the world was on Rick's shoulders and so few could reach him in season 5, Michonne always could. She had his heart and there are moments in s5 where Rick could even be hinting that he knows she has his heart too.

I think about the 'Rules Keep Changing' scene in TWD 5.11 when Rick talks to Michonne about the rules changing regarding when to let someone in. After TOWL, I feel like that moment can be interpreted as Rick slowly coming around to maybe changing the rule that he can’t be with Michonne because she’s Carl’s bestie.

And you know what we gotta address next - when team family arrives at Alexandria, even the extremely brief and messy Jessie situation further aligns with Rick being in love with his son’s best friend if I do say so myself.

With Rick entering ASZ in love with a woman he's told himself is off limits because of his son, that would likely make Rick even more eager to divert that existing energy within him elsewhere since he at the time doesn’t feel he can bring that energy to his sons best friend, despite being in love with her.

It's like, on top of being rooted in his PTSD and paranoia, intervening with the Anderson situation gave Rick something to preoccupy that in-love-with-Michonne part of himself that he's trying to deny.

Even tho Rick still very much does bring that 'ILY' energy to Michonne in so many of Richonne's season 5b/6a scenes. Like how he's very adamant about securing the home she wants, how he 'signs the papers' with ASZ after Michonne confides in him about wanting a job and wanting this place to work, and how he directly lets her know that he knows she could've successfully talked him out of his under-the-table plans.

(Side note: The more I see this great Richonne season 5 finale scene, the more I feel like Rick actively wants to hint to Michonne that she's it for him with everything he's saying and doing here. It's just our girl Michonne was not yet translating all these signs from him as romantic interest in her, even tho Slick Rick was real obvious)

Also I noticed how the driving force of that whole thing with Jessie was never really rooted in Rick thinking ‘I want her’ but rather ‘She needs me.’

Rick mainly seemed to be thinking about how he was right for Jessie as a woman in need of protection, and he never really seemed to be assessing if she was right for him too. Never seemed to be considering his compatibility with her or focusing in on her based on anything unique/specific about her beyond surface-level attraction and the fact that she resembled what he was used to with Lori.

He didn’t evaluate any specifics or long-term outcomes with that Anderson situation (like how Carl would feel about all this) and he didn't tell anyone close to him about his dazed pursuit of her. And now I think that part of that is because Rick already knew the woman who was right for him. He knew the woman who had his heart and love already.

But the woman he wants is the woman he thinks he can't have because, being the selfless guy he is, he was not going to interfere with his son's relationship with his favorite person, even if Michonne had become Rick's favorite person too.

Women like Lori and Jessie were the type who would need to rely heavily on Rick’s protection to survive that world. And that's what Rick had been accustomed to. It's how he came to understand his own worth and value - through what he can do to save and rescue others.

However, Michonne doesn’t need Rick to survive in that way - but she does need him to live.

Michonne ushered in a whole new territory for Rick. One that was so refreshing and welcomed because she and him could lean on each other and not have things be one-sided. And I've always appreciated the way two very capable characters like Rick and Michonne so deeply and healthily need each other even with their individual capabilities. And I'm so happy with how that need for each other evolved into the deepest love for each other.

It just has always been so clear that by the time Rick kissed Michonne in s6 he was already fully in love with her. On that couch, they both kissed each other like they'd been wanting to do that a long while. That's part of why once Rick and Michonne kissed, their status didn't feel like gf/bf but husband and wife.

(Side note: I love how in TWD 6.11 Jesus assumed Rick and Michonne were Carl’s parents after walking in on them in the bedroom. That was Richonne’s very first time sleeping together and Jesus still quickly got the vibe that Rick and Michonne were in a committed relationship. ☺️)

(Another side note: it wasn't until this year that I noticed there's a quick wordless moment on that couch in 6.10 where Rick looks at Michonne and subtly gets permission to get on top of her. 😊 As many times as I've seen Richonne scenes there's always something new to catch.)

This immense love Richonne has for each other - it's not just made out to be this romantic and powerful in their spin-off series, it’s what it’s always been.

And when Rick and Michonne finally got together in 6.10 it wasn’t ushering in this wildly new dynamic between them - it was simply acknowledging their existing married dynamic and finally adding physical intimacy to the union.

Also, another one of the million things that I love about Richonne's first kiss in season 6 is that it seems like they immediately know this is right. Them being together romantically felt so right to them. And not only was connecting that way as good as they thought it'd be...it was even better. 😌

And after their canon ep, Rick was definitely of the mindset that he and Michonne were a ‘together forever’ couple in the way he was telling Michonne's bestie Carl 'This is different' the very next morning. 😋 Rick and Michonne were just in bed what a few hours ago? And Rick still already knew for certain what he has with Michonne is different and long-term. ☺️

Knowing he knew for a while that he was in love with his son's best friend, it makes it even more clear why Rick had that nervous energy when finally telling his son about him and Michonne. Behind that RV, Rick felt like he was approaching Carl not just as his son but as Michonne's best friend. Rick wanted to assure Carl that he has good intentions with his best friend since he knows how much Carl loves and is protective of Michonne.

Rick told Carl, "I was gonna tell you about me and Michonne..." and I'm convinced Rick meant that for a while he's been meaning to tell Carl about him and Michonne, not just since the night before.

(Side note: I was thinking about that scene in 6.12 when Rick leads a meeting in the church, telling ASZ about the plan to take out the Saviors. I always noticed how Rick ends the meeting by seemingly just walking out while they’re all still sitting there...and now, no one can tell me Rick didn’t walk out to go straight to moving Michonne’s stuff into his room. 😂

I believe this was their first time back home since his night with Michonne so Rick was like ‘listen community, I have some equally important matters to attend to like moving a bunch of tight pants and tank tops into my bedroom dresser so meeting adjourned.’ 👌🏽😋)

So now that I personally interpret that Rick was aware that he had fallen in love with Michonne earlier than previously thought, it led me to wonder about when I think Michonne was aware she'd fallen in love with him. While Rick and Michonne fell in love around the same time in season 4 to me, I feel Michonne became conscious of her feelings at a later time than Rick.

I'd say Rick knew his feelings for her before they entered ASZ. Like somewhere in between the train tracks scene in 4.15 and when Michonne takes Rick's hand outside the gates of ASZ in 5.11, he knows he's in love. And I think Michonne started to know consciously that she’d fallen in love with Rick after her chat with Deanna about what she wanted for herself.

It makes sense it would take a bit longer for Michonne to process and be aware of her feelings considering the losses and isolation she’d experienced at the start of the end of the world. She had a lot of time to wall up her heart after losing Mike and Andre, whereas Rick, even after he lost Lori, still had kids and a group he had to be present for.

Michonne was aware she felt safe with Rick and that he meant a lot to her for a while, but she just had to come around to fully realizing she was also utterly in love with him all this time too.

And again, it is always a little funny to me that Michonne thought she had to 'work up to' making her feelings known to Rick and seeing if it’s mutual when so many team family and ASZ members could already see that Rick and Michonne had something special between them and were each other's person.

(Another nother side note: I know we've wondered before why the show didn’t explore more men showing interest in Michonne when she’s an absolute catch in every way, but I think I might know why men weren’t more directly approaching her on that type of timing. After season 3 when the group was really small, season 4a when she was keeping herself at a friendly distance from tf, and 4b when she was pretty much only around the Grimes boys, she then had Rick Grimes - and Season 5 'Ain’t Nothing To Play With' Rick Grimes at that - showing clear signs that Michonne was the special woman in his life. I don’t think many men were gonna be bold enough to risk interfering with that when Richonne was basically out here already spoken for and living about as 'married with kids' as could be even before they became an official couple. 😅)

Also just hearing Michonne be referred to as Carl’s best friend again after all these years is so special. 🥹

She really was his best friend from season 4 to the very end, and I love that Rick has always known and appreciated that about Michonne and Carl’s tight-knit bond. 

So then I'm extra elated when Rick adds, “Then you asked for that toothpaste. I was damned if I didn’t find something.” 🫠💕

gif cred: @ex0rin

Every time I’ve watched that domestic opening scene in their canon ep, I’d always think about how clear it is that Rick was going to be adamant to bring home something to give Michonne. And that 'something' he found - those mints - will always hold a special place in their journey. 🥰

That’s another great thing about TOWL too is it allows you to watch Richonne's TWD journey with fresh eyes. Like the TWD Richonne moments already never got old but now not only do they not get old they almost feel a little fresh and new too.

And I love watching their moment on the couch and knowing when Rick reaches for those mints he's well aware that he pocketed those because he’s in love with her and wanted to show he could provide what Michonne wanted.

Like he acts like 'oh yeah I forgot, I have these mints'…but nah that was not an afterthought. That was a move lol. 😋 And honey, the move worked. 👌🏽

Rick was on that run with Daryl like if I do nothing else today I got to find something for her. He’s loved her a long time, y'all. We been knew and now it’s more than confirmed and it’s great. 🙌🏽

I love how, even after all these years, Rick still remembers the details of the day he and Michonne took their relationship to a new level and that he now gets to recall the details with Michonne. Just as his dreams suggested, falling in love with Michonne and Michonne falling in love with him are some of the things Rick is most grateful for in his life, so of course he remembers these things. I'm sure that man could give a play-by-play of that entire 6.10 day, from the morning to night. 😋

And I love that Rick wants Michonne to know he remembers. He wants her to know that everything about her and their love story is important to him. 🥲

Then it’s so sweet how Michonne hears this and pulls Rick in close to let him know, “You found your moment.” He really did, because bringing home those mints set off a canon. 😌

gif cred: @ex0rin

And then I love their flirty energy with Rick asking, “Is this one?” And Michonne all cutely shrugging and being like, look into my eyes, sir... “You tell me.” 😏 The way she’s smiling at him 🥹 - she’s down bad for her man y'all and it makes total sense.

Also, them playing all coy about whether this is a moment always makes me laugh cuz Richonne can turn any and every moment into a moment. 😋

Like they had a whole horny moment when CRM soldiers were just a few feet away and they didn't even try to align behind the bark of that boneless tree. They also had a quick makeout session mere seconds before a giant building collapsed. So they knew good and well this was a moment in the gift shop. It’s always a moment for Richonne, and we love this about them. 😇

gif cred: @nat111love

And because it’s always a moment, Rick leans in as they kiss and it’s just the best yet again. The way they said kissing is going to be embedded in the plot wherever it can is yet another TOWL blessing.

I love the kiss and then I especially love that Rick then kisses her neck. Prior to the show, I had been hoping for a Richonne gesture like this in TOWL and we got it cuz Richonne is the gift that keeps on giving and we’re spoiled.😋 They made me and @ririchonne's wish come true 🙌🏽😌

gif cred: @lousolversons

Also, Richonne has the best grown youthful love in media if you ask me and this moment was giving young energetic love in the best way. They have so many kisses in TOWL and each one is hot and sweet. 💯

So as they’re again getting lost in their blissful Richonne bubble, Michonne spots something and pulls away, and I love how Rick was so immersed in what they had going on that he’s a little caught off guard when she does that. 😋

And it’s so sweet that Michonne knows this and whispers, "sorry," giving him another kiss before checking out the front desk place. I love that little kiss and the way his arms are still around her until the last second.

Michonne notes that there’s a cabin nearby and Rick asks if she saw the sign on the road. Michonne smiles and takes a key, saying, “Looks like we found a place to stay for the night.” Fuel, food, room and board - I’m telling you, the Universe loves providing for Richonne because they know they’re the best soulmates in the land. 💁🏽‍♀️

gif cred: @nat111love

I love that when Richonne are in sync with each other, things just work out. And Rick notes this as he says, “Luck keeps holding up.” Normally those would be famous last words, but for Richonne they really do just win. 👌🏽

Now, I saw that there was originally a little flirty endbeat to this scene in the script that got cut. If that was filmed then I hope they release it as a deleted scene cuz I'm greedy when it comes to Richonne lol.🤞🏽 Either way, what did make the cut was excellent and I love that there was just so much Richonne gold within one scene.🥰

gif cred: @nat111love

Michonne was in love with her best friend's dad. 🥲 Rick was in love with his son's best friend. 🥲 And my heart will always be warmed thinking about how Rick knew he was in love with his son’s best friend and now that very woman has given him a son that he’ll soon get to meet. 🥲

Rick really went from being in love with his son’s best friend to being in love with his sons' and daughter’s mother. What a journey. 👌🏽🥹

[see-arcane]

Examining the Nosfertrio

I must uphold my position as Words Georg and yammer about the Nosferatu Trio (Nosfertrio) that makes up the core of Nosferatu (2024). Specifically in terms of the love triangle and their roles within it.

Spoilers and a massive monolith of text below.

Ellen and Orlok

I’ve already seen a handful of posts going into the metaphors inherent to their relationship. Orlok as Ellen’s id, as the repressed darkness and fey nature she must keep bottled up for the sake of her era and society, as brutality and sensuality, et cetera. And there’s definitely truth in that. Just as it can be found in a lot of horror-attraction (I hesitate to give all of them the blanket of ‘romance’ but attraction is key on one or both sides for hero and antagonist) stories in various degrees from bodice ripper to outright nightmare. There is a definite cathartic itch that’s scratched in everything from Labyrinth’s Jareth to The Phantom of the Opera’s Erik all the way to this, Orlok at his most cadaverous and insidious.

People want to be wanted. On some level, we want to express the repressed depths of ourselves, be they perverse and violent or weird and whimsical. 99 times out of 100, we still restrain ourselves from doing the Immediate Gratification action—anything from snatching the last piece of cake because we know someone else is looking forward to it or taking a hammer to an annoying customer’s skull—because appeasing that kneejerk urge will have consequences. We will feel bad about having done it or else outside forces will punish us. Repression is a fact of life, with some forced to constrict themselves more than others. Not always for good reason. Case in point, poor Ellen stuck in period piece hell.

Ellen was suffering as a young girl. Her clairvoyance and supernatural susceptibility made her an early outcast and the death of her mother left her alone with a father who we learn had a period where he seriously considered sending her to an asylum. A period we also learn came after Orlok began either causing or infinitely worsening her epileptic fits. The one Ellen describes to Von Franz involves her being found naked mid-spasm. Something to do with her flesh.

Was she found orgasming? Had she clawed at herself, perhaps at her breast where Orlok couldn’t yet feed and bleed her? Maybe she was caught in a masturbatory act that Orlok played puppeteer to. We don’t know because we’re only meant to conjure something mortifying for Ellen to be caught at; just as her other public fits have been. Her father is disgusted by it, whatever it is.

Sometime in this miserable window, Thomas enters her life.

Thomas Hutter who is in every way Count Orlok’s antithesis. He loves where Orlok only wants. He wishes only to give to Ellen, to make himself and their life a thing worthy of her—note, she lived in a stunning mansion as a girl and Thomas needed a loan from Friedrich Harding to afford their tiny home; Ellen married down to be with him and he knows it. If Ellen is an owed piece of property in Orlok’s view, Ellen is precious beyond words to Thomas, who even in his terror and ailment, loves her more than he fears anything.

Then comes Orlok in person, slapping Wisborg with plague and murdering friends and children and threatening to go after Thomas if Ellen does not ‘willingly’ submit to him. A big bloodstained temper tantrum is needed before Ellen dons her wedding dress again and gives herself to Orlok for the sake of being the Judith to his Holofernes. When Orlok’s time comes it is an agonizing thing. A final dose of pain for him to suffer in recompense for years of violation inflicted on a girl since puberty.

Ellen kills him. Ellen dies for the sake of killing him and guarding Thomas. In pure emotional math, she is true to what she told Orlok outright:

No. I love Thomas.

I care nothing for your affliction.

I abhor you.

You revel in my torture.

Nothing but truth here. She loves Thomas. She doesn’t give a shit how ‘afflicted’ Orlok is by him wanting her. She abhors him. And, with almost a lifetime of evidence on her side, yes, Orlok appears to get off on casually, repeatedly, flashily subjecting Ellen to her spasms, however pleasurable or painful they might be, to say nothing of her embarrassment and being ‘helped’ by the era’s dehumanizing quackery.

And yet.

Ellen has two visuals and two lines that suggest that buried in her hate and horror at Orlok and all he does, there is still one wisp of…I really hesitate to call it love. Attraction might be in it. ‘Affliction.’ Whatever it is, it is the tiny buried stretch of spiritual ore that I imagine brought Orlok sniffing in the first place. Ore that has been honed by years of abuse and the hopeless inescapability of his attentions into something that Ellen shelves with the rest of her shame and fear, but cannot let go because it is a part of her and part of what kept her from succumbing to total despair in her time before Thomas.

Because Ellen was lonely once upon a time. Did she know Anna as a young girl? Or did that come later, after Thomas? Either way, she prayed for a companion. For comfort. She felt alien and alone and wrong. Which Orlok scented as she called out blindly—a familiar essence he could take advantage of. Because he is a tyrant. A monster. And he is alone too. 

You are not for the living. You are not for humankind.

The visuals:

Ellen meets him in Anna’s room. Comes close close close to kissing him—and reverses (I abhor you).

Ellen stays with him in the bed, lightly cradling Orlok as the sunrise kills him; and he does not claw or tear at her in his death throes, even knowing her betrayal. Only lays a gentle grasp on her shoulder. They recline again as they die, Ellen letting him lay rather than letting him fall off.

The lines:

Before Orlok strikes her mind: He took me for his lover! (Not victim. Lover. She believes it.)

While Orlok has reached out and pressed his influence on her again, her words possibly not wholly her own: You could not please me so well as him. (Is it Orlok goading? Is it Ellen telling a truth or a lie to prod Thomas into sex? Is it a jumble?)

Ellen loves Thomas more than Orlok or her own life. But there is a grain of care for the monster who obsessed over and menaced her for so long. It’s the grim and heady little whisper under all the trappings of horror-attraction, why fiction loves a demonic dom or a pining terror.

I was never alone with them infecting my life. I was the focus of all their attention and passion. I saw so much violence done for the sake of them coercing me to their side. I had these throes forced on me and in being forced to endure their darkness I was absolved of any guilt in moments of pleasure from it. I held hands with Death in a dream and I was so happy when everyone I knew—everyone I smother myself to accommodate—was dead.

It’s there. Of course it’s there.

But what else is there with it?

Ellen and Thomas

Enter the newlyweds who didn’t deserve Any of That Shit.

We don’t really get much time with these two beyond establishing that they are very genuinely in love, have been thoroughly enjoying a too-short honeymoon, and are each prepared to kill and die for each other.

But something I’m seeing around the edges of post-film analyses is a phenomenon that I recognize from certain unfortunate reads of Jonathan Harker’s character, both from Dracula’s book canon and almost 130 years’ worth of trash adaptations. Already this boy is teetering on the precipice of being done dirty the exact same way Jonathan was via sanding down his full role and character in the story. I’ve seen takes that reduce him to the Normal Guy Your Weird Ex Hates, the Guy Who Doesn’t Listen to His Wife, the Useless Guy, the Boring Normie Guy, the Connecticut Clark to Ellen’s Malfina, et cetera et cetera.  

But like. You have to miss a mountain of context clues to land on any of these statuses as Thomas’ deal.

Let’s look at the chief offense: Thomas disregards and/or shuts down Ellen.

First:

Thomas tries to shush Ellen about her nightmare(s). For a moment. But Ellen insists, and so he listens to the dream of wedding Death. He does shush her then, but in the way of soothing. It was just a dream, not a portent. All will be well. What is he supposed to say otherwise? Yes, I believe you. Yes, something horrible is about to happen. Worry, fear, fret. It’s the best course of action.

As for him leaving the bedside and ultimately going out to Orlok’s castle despite Ellen’s pleading? Again, what else is he logically meant to do? This boy does not know what genre he’s in. Ellen does because she’s Ellen. Thomas thinks he’s in a period piece romance with a happy ending and his moneyed best friend repaid for his loan and his beloved back to living in the luxury he knows she left behind to be with him. To do that, he must work for it. He must jump through whatever hoop Herr Knock tells him to. Between the latter and the bait of the commission he and Orlok dangle in front of him—Friedrich paid back, a step toward a plush future to gift to Ellen—and the fact that Ellen’s warning plea comes from dreamt vapor, it’d make no sense for him to just kick off his shoes, endanger his job and roll back in bed with her because his permission slip would read:

‘My wife said no :)’

Even if he wanted to, and it’s hard to think he doesn’t want to going by how uneasy he was the moment Knock put the job in his hands, Thomas had no real room to refuse without putting himself and Ellen in real economic and interpersonal trouble. At best he might have feigned illness, but even that would be a gamble. All the things Ellen wanted him to do—stay longer with her, heed her premonition, don’t go on the journey—Thomas did want to do. But couldn’t.

Second offense:

Thomas ignores Ellen when she says their petite home (and ohhh doesn’t that sting in the 21st century to think that a place like theirs was considered ‘small’ or lower class once upon a time) is fine and Thomas need not push himself to extremes to finance a bigger better household with a maidservant and other bells and whistles to satisfy her. True! No denying it! Just as there is no denying that, out of the entire ensemble, Thomas Hutter is from the lowest class out of everyone.

Friedrich is his friend, a wealthy inheritor to a father’s shipping company who lent Thomas the money needed to pay for the little home and possibly his and Ellen’s wedding. Anna is Ellen’s friend, two girls with a friendly and possibly amorous history from what we can infer is a similarly well-off social level. Thomas is only in their circle by dint of somehow crossing paths with Friedrich and being charming enough to win an otherwise Classically Masculine and Rich Man’s regard.

And Ellen, again, stepped out of the wealthy life to be with him out of love. In her dream her father was there, one of the dead, but he is absent for the entire film. Considering her only other mentions of him were a childhood of his calling her a changeling girl or an unclean thing meant for a madhouse, we can assume the man did not empty his pockets for or applaud her choice of husband. Hence Friedrich’s loan. But for all the discomfort of her family life, Ellen did live a far more polished life than the one Thomas can give her as-is.

(I envy you, said to Friedrich outright.)

This is Thomas’ most standout flaw in my opinion, one that amounts to a single facet of a wider issue: Thomas Hutter feels inadequate on multiple fronts.

He is not wealthy enough to give Ellen the lifestyle he wants to return to her. He has not made up enough savings to repay a man he wishes were only a friend rather than an all-but-in-name sugar daddy. He’s unequivocally not within spitting distance of any other male character’s classic forms of manliness. Just an ongoing mantra of ‘not X enough,’ and that’s before Orlok gets in his head. More on that later.

He’s not shutting out Ellen’s insistence that she’s happy with their simple surroundings because he doesn’t care about her opinion. He’s shutting it out because he can’t get out of his own head about how much lesser he feels compared to her and their friends, feeling as if he has to make up for not coming from where they do and for basically taking his princess away from her metaphorical castle. Fittingly, it’s the complete reverse of Orlok’s treatment.

If Ellen is the prize to be conquered for Orlok, she is the undeserved prize on a pedestal to Thomas. One who needs precious things foisted on her to make him worthy of her loving him despite her saying otherwise. The guy can’t see past his own low view of himself to accept that she is sincere in his insistence that he is enough.

And that brings us to the third issue:

Ellen says she wants to come Orlok-hunting. Thomas shoots her down.

Bit of an echo from Dracula there, with Jonathan and the rest of the Drac Attack Pack unanimously deciding Mina has to be kept out of the villain’s reach while they go a-hunting..! Only for that very move to be what puts her in an unprotected position when said villain comes skulking up to her. It is a very old school Protect the Fair Maiden! move. Fitting for the genre and the time period and so on.

But unlike in Dracula, Thomas and Ellen’s playing of the scene makes much more sense.

They are not dealing with Dracula the Conqueror. They are dealing with Orlok the Repeat Rapist and Tantrum-Murderer Obsessed with Ellen. If there was one person in the entire ensemble not to bring into closer proximity to Orlok, even if she were at maximum anachronistic girlboss badass levels, or even just armed with her own stake and pistol, it would still very much be Ellen. Orlok’s been making her life hell at a distance. Willingly putting her in arm’s reach would make me blue screen too if I were Thomas. This isn’t Jonathan fearing the chance that Dracula might go after Mina out of convenience. This is Thomas rightfully clocking that Orlok will 110% go directly after Ellen. Obviously he says Ellen shouldn’t be on the hunt.

Which was just as obvious to Ellen before she even suggested it.

Because with or without Von Franz promising to lead Thomas and Sievers on the wild goose chase for the sarcophagus, Ellen was already planning to barter herself in exchange for protecting Thomas and Wisborg. Which Thomas would also 110% slam the brakes on if he knew what she was up to. She didn’t suggest her joining the hunt because she had any intention or expectation of them agreeing. It was to make sure that the suggestion was shut down and that Thomas and the others would be far away when she baited Orlok to her.

Both Hutters are terrified for the safety of one another and would rather face Orlok themselves and risk dying than put their beloved in danger. They are too alike in that regard, just as the Harkers are, and that love and desire to protect is abused by both versions of the Count to get what they want. It’s just that Ellen knew exactly how to ensure Thomas would do what she wanted by nettling him with the concept of her coming along and risking proximity to Orlok; perhaps intentionally implying she meant to put herself between him and Thomas as a shield. Cue him declaring absolutely not. Irony of ironies.

But alllll this is just window dressing compared to my main nitpick when it comes to some folks’ view of Thomas paired with Ellen. And that’s that he is the milquetoast nothingburger ignorant could never truly understand or please her! husband.

Shut the hell your mouth. I am a proud monsterfucker. I am all for the dark gothic fuckeduppedness of Orlok and Ellen’s whole dynamic. But as Stoker and Murnau are my witness, You Shall NOT Slander This Lad as Jonathan Harker was Before Him.

Ellen was the one wheedling Thomas to stay home and roll around in bed while he was late for work, wanting more of whatever he was dishing out. They were left unsupervised in someone else’s foyer for 0.5 seconds and immediately started tongue wrestling while sinking to their knees and cutting away to [REDACTED INTIMACY WHILE STILL VERY VISIBLE IN THEIR FRIENDS’ HOUSE]. Thomas jumped into a river, dragged himself from the brink of undeath, and rode half-dead all the way home to reach Ellen and try to get her out of Orlok’s range. Thomas, who was terrified of Orlok, still put that horror aside because he learned of Orlok’s torturing of Ellen and intended to kill the fucker for it to keep her safe.

Before all of that, Thomas earned Ellen’s love in their even greener youth.

Ellen, the girl who was strange and Other and tormented by Orlok’s spells and despondently alone with her monster? That was the Ellen who Thomas met. Who Thomas fell in love with. Who fell in love with him. And it was a love intense enough to blot Orlok’s shadow. When that shadow came back—

I am become a demon! I am unclean!

—Thomas stayed in the dark with her—

I love you! I love you!

—resolving to either kill the thing that had preyed on her or die trying.

Even if we knew none of this, Ellen’s final act is its own proof of what he was to her. We saw what she’s like with someone she clocks as an asshole when she confronts Friedrich for his actual ignorance and actual callousness. If any character is the starched ‘refuses to believe the supernatural reality/adheres to patriarchal bullshit’ figure, it’s him, not Thomas. (Hello echoes of Jonathan Harker versus John Seward, but I digress.) Ellen calls that shit out.

Why do you hate me? How can you be so stupid? So cruel?

She feels what she feels and says what she means and is the most observant character in the entire story.

And in the end, she deems whole fucking murder-suicide as a price she’s willing to pay to protect Thomas. Whatever we could not see before the film began, whatever romance the Hutters shared, it was true and powerful enough for her to do this.

Which leaves Thomas behind, her cold hand in his, all tears and grief at this—his last failure to tally on his internal chalkboard. He was not the Hero, but the Damsel unaware. He could not protect Ellen because she and Von Franz tricked him into safety as the latter schemed and the former gave herself up to the martyr role. Thomas was too trusting and too late and too much himself rather than the Man ™ who should have saved her from throwing herself on Providence’s pyre.

On that note.

We have to address the mess in the castle.

Thomas and Orlok

Eggers added a lot of meat to the very trimmed-down characters of the 1922 Hutters and Count. Original concepts and harvested bits from Dracula were all applied. The way he composed them served to fix what I still consider to be a barely-concealed plot hole.  

In 1922 and 1979, the Count sees a girl in a locket and immediately becomes obsessed with her. That’s it. That is the entire bulk of his awareness of her before Thomas arrives at his castle. An arrival that was very much based in the original Dracula’s desire to move himself and his deadly presence away to a new place. Original 1922 Orlok seems to just be in it for mysterious plague harbinger reasons. 1979 Dracuorlok seems to be genuinely distraught and resigned to some kind of irresistible condition that says He Must Go Bring Death. But Orlok 2024?

According to Von Franz and his reading, Orlok wants to kill the whole world with his plague..! But has just been chilling for a few centuries I guess. No rush. Not until Ellen happens. She and her covenant and—gasp!—marrying another man!? Barely a man at that.

Ellen Hutter and her new marriage is Orlok’s impetus in coming out of the castle and planting himself in Wisborg. Him stealing the locket and being obsessed with her now makes far more sense than it did in any preceding film because we get the new context of him preying on her since she was a teenager…

…which was interrupted because of Thomas.

The other man. The boy. The laughable gentle meek shivering rival who Knock sends to his door and into his power.

Where 1922 Count was rigid and awkward to the point of seeming like he had to fight rigor mortis with every step and 1979 Count was glassy-eyed and frantically grasping with lonesome eagerness, 2024 Count is stewing over jealousy and disbelief and derision and only the flimsiest attempt at playing client to fool the young man into signing his status as Ellen’s husband away. A farce, a farce. But the covenant demands he cannot kill him outright. That would be theft, not Ellen ‘giving herself freely.’

But after? After the signing, surely he could wring the boy’s neck. Could sit and watch as the wolves tear him to pieces. He could fill him up with plague or snap him in half or drown him like the Pied Piper with a rat… All these things he could have done after he tricked Thomas’ signature out of him on the occult document.

And didn’t.

Let’s retreat to that first strange night together.

Thomas gets subjected to Orlok’s trance the second he reaches the crossroads that leads to the castle. He does not walk as much as float into the coach that has no driver, his next scene showing him abruptly on his feet with his eyes shut in sleep. The doors open to him without hands, leaving him to trail after the Count as if on a string. Orlok gives Thomas two orders the moment they reach the dining room.

One, get out the paperwork. Two, Thomas will address Orlok as his Lord.

“Pardon, sir—?”

“Your. Lord.”

“yesmylordforgivememylord”

Thomas takes his seat and gets treated to Orlok very obviously flexing his powers by doing his little teleportation trick around the table, getting right up in Thomas’ space to pour him his wine, his hand nearly brushing Thomas’ face before retreating.

Thomas asks about the vampire hunting scene he saw in the graveyard and—

“SPEAK NOT OF IT AGAIN!”

Thomas speaks not of it again. Orlok tells him to eat. Cue the mishap with the bread knife and the bleeding thumb. Orlok sounds caught between snarling like an animal or climaxing at the table at the sight of the blood and insists Thomas go sit by the fire where Orlok can see to the wound. Thomas blinks and has lost time again: Somehow he’s been moved to the chair by the fire, fully paralyzed and in tears as Orlok closes in on him, locked in a waking nightmare as the innkeeper woman warned him. This is where Eggers cuts away. All we know for certain is that Orlok fed at Thomas’ breast at least once in the night.

And that he went out of his way to leave Thomas laying face down on the floor come daylight.

The reveal shot is posed as almost comical when coming straight after Ellen’s pining comment about him. I heard some people laugh in the theater. But combining this visual with others to come makes it one of the most awful scenes in hindsight. Because I believe it’s the clearest sign that Orlok outright raped Thomas.

No jokes, no implications, no metaphors. I think he performed the literal act. The only way it could stop short of that in my mind is if Orlok abused his trance state to force Thomas to his knees before or after feeding on him for some emasculating puppeteer work. But no. I think it was genuine rape. It may have happened again in the next feeding night, where Orlok is shown wholly naked as he feeds on Thomas’ breast again. Both times Thomas wakes up dressed. Both times Thomas was preyed on in the exact same way Orlok preys on Ellen.  

And notably, not in the same way as Anna Harding, who immediately got whacked with a dose of plague. Her children had their throats torn out. Ditto the ship’s sailors. Everyone else just sickens and rots and blood-vomits to death.

Thomas and Ellen are the only ones Orlok goes out of his way to prey on in an erotically posed way that results in trauma and ailment, but not the plague or raw slaughter Orlok’s throwaway victims get. Ellen makes sense because she’s ‘his enchantress.’ Thomas because..?

Hm. How does jealousy really fit in here as a reason, Count? Why is it that Thomas is the only man in the film you go out of your way to target by mounting and suckling on him? Why is it that you put words in Ellen’s mouth to describe him as a swooning lily of a woman who fell into your arms? Why is it that you still have your feelers in Thomas’ head to airdrop visions of yourself and your last assault on him? And—big big question here—how much influence did you have on Thomas and Ellen during their spontaneous lovemaking scene? Were you watching like Ellen implied? Did you want to?

Last and certainly not least:

You say you couldn’t kill Thomas or it would spoil the covenant. Yet you were surprised that he was still alive. And you reacted Violently+ when Knock suggested he be ordered to go out and kill the young man in your service. Why is that?

(Who made that vampire in the graveyard?)

((Which of those coffins in the crypt was going to be Thomas’?))

This is dancing around the subject, I know. The gist is this: Orlok wasn’t just angry at Thomas for stealing Ellen from him. He was incensed at Thomas being just as out of place as Ellen herself was. Ellen is not a classic fair maiden. Thomas is not a classic manly man. Thomas is, to Orlok’s surprise, making him pissed and horny. And that opens the door to the Count attacking Thomas in a way that seems to be a warmup for his future laying with Ellen. He wants to ‘make a woman’ of Thomas, the lesser, weaker, kinder, prettier, chosen man.

See? See? She has no husband to thwart his conquest! This quailing thing under him can be no man, so it must be a woman. Ha. Ha.

Cue him leaving Thomas on the floor, ass up, for Reasons.

Whether Orlok blithely accepts his attraction to Thomas (he is merely an Appetite, after all) or is grimly wrestling with ye olde compulsory heterosexuality and quietly framing all his weird attentions to Thomas as just him humiliating/emasculating the young man, we also have to turn the lens on Thomas himself.

Theories have been passed around that, given the queer elements of the film, Ellen and Anna, Thomas and Friedrich, all had romantic pasts of their own. Or at least friendships as intimate as they could get away with before they paired up with their respective significant others. Ellen and Thomas especially are heavily bi-coded. Ellen has Anna, naturally (Thank you for loving me), but Thomas has beats with Friedrich, with the unnamed and charismatic leader of the vampire hunting party in the graveyard, and, if only due to Orlok’s trance, Orlok himself.

Even if it was magically induced, Thomas saw a vision of Ellen in Orlok’s place as he was fed on. Seeing it, seemingly experiencing it, Thomas looks to be in a heady stupor as Orlok feeds—blearily welcoming the initial attack and whatever might have followed it.

Cut forward to his breaking from his fever in Ellen’s company, still in traumatized shock, unable to speak on everything that happened to him. She’s seen the bite wounds on him. That isn’t a secret. Something else, something worse—I can’t breathe! Get off me! Get off!—is left unspoken, and he cannot bring himself to admit it to Ellen. Not even after she divulges her history with Orlok. Not even after the fight or the sex or the broken spell and their embrace. Orlok did an awful thing to Thomas that he is too afraid and ashamed to speak aloud, at least on screen. Would it be better or worse if there had not been a memory of pleasure to taint it as it taints Ellen’s assaults? 

Ellen calls Orlok her shame. Now he’s a shame for both of them.

…

With all that said. Yes, ‘love triangle’ is the easiest name to pin on this entire hot mess, if not a perfectly accurate one. Ellen and Thomas are in love, but the right words don’t exist to label the lines that connect Ellen and Thomas to Orlok.

tl; dr: Orlok was never going to make this polycule happen and I will not give him kudos for trying. 

[babyyblues]

just some short and sweet pregnant!reader x daryl dixon (about 900 words)

please feel free to leave me feedback and show your support by reblogging!

warnings: pregnancy, mention of Lori, super sweet soft daryl and protective daryl

era: prison (season 3 episode 4 spoilers!!!!) (set specifically after woodbury joins the prison.)

-

After watching Carl and Rick grieve after the loss of Lori when she gave birth to the youngest Grimes, you and Daryl swore you would be more careful when participating in intimate activities. It hadn’t ever been an issue with you two, and a baby was something you’d thought you never have to worry about. But as they say, one thing led to another, and here you are three months out from your last period, and two undoubtedly expired, yet strongly positive pregnancy tests tucked inside of Daryl’s pillowcase. 

You and Daryl were anxious of course, yet elated at the thought of not only another little one running around the prison, but for them to be yours. Nights upon nights you and Daryl have stayed up far too long discussing baby names, having playful debates over whether it’ll be a boy or a girl, and secret words of love and admiration that fell through the two of your lips. You hadn’t yet told anyone, wanting it to be for just you and come out when you were ready, unlike the choice Lori had, but you had a feeling that your group had started to figure you out. 

Maybe it was the way Daryl would give you his portion of dinner which led into a quiet argument about who needed it more. “Y’re eatin for two.” “And you need energy to keep the two of us safe.” Carol began giving you a bit more than everyone else, and that’s when you were sure she knew. 

Or it could of been the way he was overly protective of you anytime Rick wanted you to go on a run or do anything for that matter. “Y/n will you go-” “Go where? I’ll do it.” “Daryl I’ve got it, I’ll be okay.” “No. Ya ain’t goin’. That’s final.” Rick instead began asking you to tend to the garden, so he might have had a suspicion as well. 

It could have also been the way Daryl’s eyes watched you as you helped with Judith, the overwhelming love and longing in his eyes as you cradled the baby and sang to her softly as Beth watched from the sidelines. “You’re droolin more than the baby Daryl.” “Shut up.” Yeah, Beth definitely had an idea. 

“I think we’re gonna have to tell everyone soon,” you told Daryl, as you slipped your night shirt over your head, turning back around to see his eyes already on you. 

“If you’re ready,” he agreed. 

“When you look at me like that, the whole world knows,” you said, making your way toward him to wrap your arms around his neck. His hands instinctively found your waist, looking down toward your stomach. 

“Can’t help it, you’ve got a little bump too,” he breathed, a smile spreading on his lips. You smiled back, bringing your lips to his before flicking off the lamp and leading him to your makeshift mattress on the floor.

Soft whispers floated in the air, Daryl’s hand resting gently on your stomach, your hand lost in the growing locks that sat at the base of his neck. Your eyes closed as you took a deep breath, reveling in the smell of him that surrounded you.

“Ya alright?” Daryl questioned, his fingers that had found there way under your shirt rubbing small unidentifyable shapes over the tiny bump on your stomach. You nodded, blinking slowly before looking up at his concerned gaze, a sleepy smirk on your lips. 

“More than,” you muttered, scooting over on the mattress so you were impossibly close to him. Digging your head into his chest, he let out a breathy chuckle as he repositioned his arms around you and the leg you had throw over his body, before placing a sweet kiss to your head. He felt the vibrations of your voice against his chest as you spoke but he rolled his eyes as he didn’t catch a single word you were saying. 

“Ya know I can’t hear ya when you do this,” he teased, moving back slightly so your face was exposed. He didn’t miss the whine that left your lips as your contact separated and you looked up at him with a pout.

“Whatcha poutin’ for girl?” he asked, placing his hand on the side of your face. 

“Was jus’ telling you I love you, didn’t mean I wanted you to go away.” 

“ ‘M still right here sunshine, now come on, ya need sleep.” Before you could disagree, a yawn ripped from your throat, a light chuckle following from both you and the man in front of you. You nodded, pushing yourself up from the mattress to reach his lips and kiss him tenderly. 

“Goodnight Dar,” you smiled before rubbing your tummy, “goodnight little guy.”

“Gonna be a girl,” he grumbled. 

“Keep dreamin’ Dixon, ‘s mother’s intuition. We can always have another.” Daryl laughed again a light shake of his head. 

“Let’s get through this one first, goodnight girls. Love ya both.” You rolled your eyes, kissing him once more before laying back down instantly falling asleep in the comfort of his arms. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The art of Daniel Danger

[Image ID: Daniel Danger's art print, 'To all who home to this happy place,' depicting a ruined Disneyland castle in a post-apocalyptic landscape with a statue of Walt and Mickey in the rubble.]

There’s this behavioral economics study that completely changed the way i thought about art, teaching, and critique: it’s a 1993 study called “Introspecting about Reasons can Reduce Post-Choice Satisfaction” by Timothy D Wilson, Douglas J Lisle, Jonathan Schooler, Sara Hodges, Kristen Klaaren and Suzanne LaFleur:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240281868_Introspecting_about_Reasons_can_Reduce_Post-Choice_Satisfaction

The experimenters asked subjects to preference-rank some art posters; half the posters were cute cartoony posters, and the other half were fine art posters. One group of subjects assigned a simple numeric rank to the posters, and the other had to rank them and explain their ranking. Once they were done, they got to keep their posters.

There was a stark difference in the two groups’ preferences: the group that had to explain their choices picked the cartoony images, while the group that basically got to point at their favorite and say, “Ooh, I like that!” chose the fine art posters.

Then, months later, the experimenters followed up and asked the subjects what they’d done with the poster they got to take home. The ones who’d had to explain their choices and had brought home cartoony images had thrown those posters away. The ones who didn’t have to explain what they liked about their choice, who’d chosen fine art, had hung them up at home and kept them there.

The implication is that it’s hard to explain what makes art good, and the better art is, the harder it is to put your finger on what makes it so good. More: the obvious, easy-to-articulate virtues of art are the less important virtues. Art’s virtues are easy to spot and hard to explain.

The reason this stuck with me is that I learned to be a writer through writing workshops where we would go around in a circle and explain what we liked and didn’t like about someone’s story, and suggest ways to make it better. I started as a teenager in workshops organized by Judith Merril in Toronto, then through my high-school workshop (which Judy had actually founded a decade-plus earlier through a writer in the schools grant), and then at the Clarion workshop in 1992. I went on to teach many of these workshops: Clarion, Clarion West and Viable Paradise.

So I’ve spent a lot of time trying to explain what was and wasn’t good about other peoples’ art (and my own!), and how to make it better. There’s a kind of checklist to help with this: when a story is falling short in some way, writers roll out these “rules” for what makes for good and bad prose. There are a bunch of these rulesets (think of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style), including some genre-specific ones like the Turkey City Lexicon:

https://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/18/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for-sf-workshops/

A few years ago, I was teaching on the Writing Excuses cruise and a student said something like, “Hey, I know all these rules for writing good stories, but I keep reading these stories I really like and they break the rules. When can I break the rules?”

There’s a stock answer a writing teacher is supposed to give here: “Well, first you have to master the rules, then you can break them. You can’t improvise a jazz solo without first learning your scales.”

But in that moment, I thought back to the study with the posters and I had a revelation. These weren’t “rules” at all — they were just things that are hard and therefore easy to screw up. No one really knows why a story isn’t working, but they absolutely know when it doesn’t, and so, like the experimental subject called upon to explain their preferences, they reach for simple answers: “there’s too much exposition,” or “you don’t foreshadow the ending enough.”

There are lots of amazing stories that are full of exposition (readers of mine will not be shocked to learn I hold this view). There are lots of twist endings that are incredible — and not despite coming out of left field, but because of it.

The thing is, if you can’t say what’s wrong, but you know something is wrong, it’s perfectly reasonable to say, “Well, why don’t you try to replace or polish the things that are hardest to do right. Whatever it is that isn’t working here, chances are it’s the thing that’s hardest to make work”:

https://locusmag.com/2020/05/cory-doctorow-rules-for-writers/

But if I could change one thing about how we talk about writing and its “rules,” it would be to draw this distinction, characterizing certain literary feats as easier to screw up than others, having the humility to admit that we just don’t know what’s wrong with a story, and then helping the writer create probabilistically ranked lists of the things they could tinker with to try and improve their execution.

Which is all a very, very long-winded way to explain why I bought a giant, gorgeous art-print at Comic-Con this weekend, even though I have nowhere to hang it and had sworn I would absolutely not buy any art at the con.

I was walking the floor, peeking into booths, when I happened on Daniel Danger’s booth (#5034, if you’re at the con today), and I was just fuckin’ poleaxed by his work.

http://www.tinymediaempire.com/

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘It stopped being about the panic,’ depicting a ruined mansion interwoven with the skeletal branches of a tree, with a weeping statue and two human figures]

Now, see above. I can’t tell you why I loved this work so much (and that’s OK!), but boy oh boy did it speak to me. I just kind of stood there with my mouth open, slowly moving from print to print, admiring works like “It stopped being about the panic.”

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/2022-sdcc-it-stopped-being-about-the-panic-v4

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘headlight in the path of,’ depicting a ruined mall with a pair of stags standing at the top of the escalator.]

On the surface, this is moody, post-apocalyptic stuff, heavily influenced by classic monster/haunter tropes, but it’s shot through with hope and renewal and the sense of something beautiful growing out of the ashes of something that has toppled. There’s real “(Nothing But) Flowers” energy in “Headlight in the path of”:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/sdcc2023-headlight-in-the-path-of-v2

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘We are no longer able to protect you,’ depicting a ruined factory with a coming-apart sign reading ‘We can no longer protect you forever,’ and a statue of a sword-bearing angel.]

Danger isn’t just a

very

talented artist, he’s also an

extremely

talented craftsman. As a recovering pre-press geek, I was (nearly) as impressed by the wild use of spot color and foils as I was by the art, like in “We are no longer able to protect you”:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/sdcc-2022-we-can-no-longer-protect-you-forever-v3

[Image  ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘made of smoke and chains,’ depicting a ruined landscape with a pair of derelict subway trains at the foot of a hill on whose peak is a rotting mansion. A pair of human figures, holding hands, are approaching the mansion.]

Danger himself calls this work “weird sad hyper-detailed artwork of dreamy buildings of ghosts and trees,” which is a very apt description of this work, as you can see in “Made of smoke and chains”:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/made-of-smoke-and-chains-mist-preorder

So I looked at this stuff and sternly reminded myself that there was no way I was going to buy any art at the con. Then I walked away. I got about two aisles over when I realized I had to go back and ask permission to take some pictures so I could put a little link to Danger in my blog’s linkdump, which he graciously permitted:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=interestingness-desc&safe_search=1&tags=danieldanger&min_taken_date=1687478400&max_taken_date=1690156799&view_all=1

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s art print, ‘To all who home to this happy place,’ depicting a ruined Disneyland castle in a post-apocalyptic landscape with a statue of Walt and Mickey in the rubble.]

But then I got all the way ass over to the other ass end of the convention center and I realized I had to go back and buy one of these prints. Which I did, “To all who come to this happy place,” because fuckin’ wow:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/sdcc2023-this-happy-place-v6-foil

This was unequivocally the best thing I saw at this year’s SDCC, but I also got some very good news while there, namely, that Emil Ferris’s long, long-awaited My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Vol 2 is finally on the schedule from Fantagraphics:

https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/emil-ferris/products/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-book-two

It’s coming out in April, which gives you plenty of time to read volume one, which I called, “a haunting diary of a young girl as a dazzling graphic novel”:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/06/20/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-a-haunting-diary-of-a-young-girl-as-a-dazzling-graphic-novel/

If you are or were a monster kid or a haunter, this is your goddamned must-read of the summer. It’s a fully queered, stunning memoir for anyone whose erotic imagination intersected with Famous Monsters of Filmland.

(Also, if you’re that kind of person and you’re in the region, you should know about Midsummer Scream, a giant haunter show in Long Beach; I’ll be there on Sunday, July 30, for a panel about the Ghost Post, the legendary Haunted Mansion puzzle-boxes I helped make:

https://midsummerscream.org/

Now Favorite Thing book two was the best news, but the best experience was watching Felicia Day get her Inkpot Award and give a moving speech:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkpot_Award

And then learning that Raina Telgemeier also got an Inkpot; I love Raina’s work so much:

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/10/04/ghosts-raina-telgemeiers-upbeat-tale-of-death-assimilation-and-cystic-fibrosis/

[Image ID: A photo of me with Chuck Tingle, who wears a pink bag over his head on which he has written ‘Love is Real.’]

To cap yesterday off, I also ran into @ChuckTingle, which is as fine a capstone to a successful con as anyone could ask for:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53065500076/in/dateposted/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/23/but-i-know-what-i-like/#daniel-danger

[lemon-natalia]

Nona the Ninth Reaction - Chapter 25

Pyrrha really is committed to mentioning that she found Gideon’s mother attractive in every conversation that she has with her, i admire the dedication 

haha what the fuck is this. Kiriona Gaia Her Divine Highness

MUMFUCKER PRIME ngl the bad jokes are mostly the only reason i’m pretty sure this is actually Gideon and not some doppelganger. idk whether its all the trauma she’s built up over the last two books or just having to be in the general proximity of Ianthe and John for an extended period of time, but something is up with this gal

'Judith Deuteros for some reason’ i relate to this on a fundamental level given i genuinely didn’t realise that Judith was here until this moment

as much as it pains me that two of my favourite characters immediately Do Not Vibe with eachother, Gid being a dick to Nona makes sense given Nona is currently occupying the body of the person Gideon cares the most about in the world, who is themselves god-only-knows-where rn. props to Tamsyn Muir for making the bold creative choice to have her protagonists all just fucking loathe each other at some point

okay there is no way in hell that Gideon actually wants to go back to the ninth for nostalgia. unless it's nostalgia for dunking on Crux

‘it was not a very friendly smile [...] there was something a little bit hungry about it’ haha what the fuck. really said let’s dial up the ‘came back wrong’ trope to eleven here. what in the Jason Todd is this

well miss ‘I am the Emperor’s construct’ has come a long way since ‘Go to hell Pops’, this was NOT what i meant when i said i wanted more of Gideon and John interacting this book 😭😭

tamsyn muir really said ‘oh you want Gideon back? i’m going to give you what you want in the most painful way possible’ huh. this is uh somehow worse than her dying actually :)

Gideon actually knowing anything about necromancy is the most disturbing part of all of this. what happened Gid i thought you and me were on a team of this ‘necromancy is confusing as all hell’ thing. can’t believe you’d betray me like this smh

also given we last saw Gid finding out she was born as a ‘bomb’ to open the tomb, and how much she hated everything about the Ninth other than Harrow, i am very concerned about why she suddenly wants to come with to open the Tomb

the saddest girl in the whole world is Gideon??? GIDEON?? the presence of Noodle in this book lulled me into a false sense of security so that i forgot just how much this series loves breaking my heart over and over again 

i know everyone already knows from the broadcast (and possibly before if Pyrrha told them) but i do wonder how Corona, and Pal & Cam etc. reacted to finding out Gideon was God’s daughter. imagine having to deal with the revelation that the deity you are becoming increasingly disillusioned with has a kid that spent much of the time you knew her making terrible sex jokes

[angelwings-crossbowstrings]

Whumpuary 2025 10

Prompt: Head injury

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Typical TWD violence and gore; blood; injuries; allusions to canonical character death

Everything was happening in blurry fragments, the pain conjuring a deep fog that would pull him under and suffocate him until the next moment when he could see distorted faces, hear their garbled voices. He called Judith’s name; at least, he thought he did. He meant to, needed to know she was safe. The last clear image he could muster was a memory of her on that gurney, unconscious and bleeding. 

“Daryl.” 

Was it an angel? There was absolutely a light, a silhouette leaning over him just before the pain crested and he could no longer hold on to that partial awareness. He clawed away from submission, scraping against the darkness to no avail. He let go. 

“Daryl.”

The angel again. Though his head thrummed in time with his heartbeat, he reveled in the knowledge that he hadn’t died, hadn’t turned. He grasped blindly at recollection, desperately attempting to pull together pieces of the moments before the painful abyss had dragged him away. 

He jerked awake with Judith’s name on his lips, your blurry face the first thing to greet him. You were shushing him, holding him in place by his shoulders, but he wasn’t having it. His hold on your wrists was firm but gentle, and you allowed him to dislodge your grip and move you back as he sat up. He grimaced. The thrumming had shifted to a throbbing behind his eyes, the focal point at the right side of his forehead. 

Before he could say anything, he heard the sobs to his left, saw the women crowding around a figure on another gurney. His heart stuttered and nearly stopped, fearing it was Jude for the briefest of moments before Magna stepped aside just enough to reveal Luke, his face twisted in pain. He was dying and Daryl felt the imminent loss. But where was—

Turning to his right, he hissed, his hands going to the bandage around his head to tear it off almost angrily. “M’fine.” He dismissed both your and Carol’s attempts at keeping him prone, pushing himself to stand with only the slightest sway. There was no time for weakness, not with so many lives at stake. 

When he saw Rick’s daughter lying on that bed, all he could picture was that tiny baby he had held all those years ago, the first to feed her. The birth of Lil’ Asskicker. 

“Daryl, please.” You pleaded, careful not to block his view of Judith. 

“How is she?” He asked, his voice broken. 

“She’s lost a lot of blood.” You told him, rubbing his upper arms gently before stepping out of his way, any hope of convincing him to rest relinquished. He didn’t let you go far, his hand sliding into yours. It wasn’t just Judith he was worried about. He had left you behind with the others. He hadn’t wanted to, but Judith had needed help. You would have never forgiven him if she had died because of his hesitance. He would have never forgiven himself. He had to try with everything he had to save her. 

He couldn’t stop trying. 

“I’m gonna give her blood.”

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

Amazons – Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (detail) // The Lookout – Vasily Polenov // The Revelation (Brünnhilde Discovering Sieglinde and Siegmund) – Gaston Bussière (detail) // The Brigand’s Wife – Anton Romako // The Amazon – Karl Ludwig Hassmann // The Heroine of Peralada – Antoni Caba // Judith and Holofernes – unknown artist // The Accolade – Edmund Leighton // Valkyries – Elisabeth Baumann // The Valkyrie – Servais Joseph Detilleux // Inkpot Gods – The Amazing Devil

[razzledazzlebeach]

I Don't understand the Negan Hype?

After Dead City was announced (which I, for the record, have not seen), many people have argued that if we watch TWD from Negan's perspective, we would think Rick's group were the villains. And that I do understand to an extent. Negan was hurting and guilty over his wife's death, and needed to find a way to survive, so he began to assert himself into the group he was in, eventually declaring himself as leader, just as Rick did in season 2, going as far as saying that it wasn't a democracy anymore.

()

Okay, so they both made themselves leaders for the greater good, I can vibe with that. It's the next bit where this argument gets lost on me. Obviously, they both begin to make calls for the group, and these decisions are where their likeness starts to disappear. Negan would kill and enslave people to show that he was a top dog, and nobody would defy him. Even if he was doing this for survival, it still seems super evil to me. He forced several women to "marry him" (ew) by threatening their lovers. For all Rick said about the group not being a democracy anymore, he still listened to the group and his family, he wasn't forcing them into anything, he just ignored suggestions he knew would get the people he cared about hurt. No matter what, survival in a world like TWD is going to be brutal. One of its biggest themes is that you literally can't avoid killing others (Which we saw with Morgan's entire character arc). But bashing people's skulls in with a baseball bat? really? And we know very well that Negan never actually felt any remorse about Glenn or Abraham, which he practically stated in black and white in S10 EP22. He genuinely thought it had to happen.

()

Another thing that comes up a lot is the mass killing of one of Negan's outposts. "Rick's groups murdered a bunch of people unprovoked just like Negan did." And yeah, those murders were very awful, especially since they had just met the people of Hilltop and had no actual encounters with the dude. They mostly just wanted the stuff Hilltop had to offer, while conveniently taking out a potential threat. Although it obviously wasn't a righteous or correct decision, they way they did it spoke volumes about their characters. They did it quickly and quietly when they were sleeping. But most importantly, even though they were killing those people on the pretext of survival, they still felt sick doing it. They had guilt and regret. They didn't show off or revel in the pain they were causing.

In seasons 10 - 11 he starts to become a likable character, I can see that, I just don't know how people overlook the fact that he hasn't really changed. We saw it when he admitted he felt no regret for Glenn and Abraham, and we saw that when he made Daryl get on his knees and put a gun to his head while admitting he missed the power he had. Of course, he let Daryl go, and saved Judith, and the dog, but a few redeeming acts does not change the contents of a character. That was never supposed to be a turning point for him.

(This next point is slightly out of the blue, sorry for the whiplash, Maggie was just really annoying me in S11)

As much as I dislike Negan, I know that Maggie had no right to expect him to save her on the train in S11. She had literally just told him she would be trying to kill him any chance she got, then was shocked when he didn't try and pull her up. THAT is what survival is, not bashing people's skulls in with glee.

Another point to make real quick, I don't think Negan was ever meant to be a "good" character. Before the apocalypse, he was literally cheating on his wife. Negan is an incredibly complex character and is so interesting to watch, there were many moments when he was loving and cared for others, and maybe he isn't pure evil, but he is still a terrible person, who shouldn't be forgiven.

Anyways, I really want to hear other's opinions on this, I genuinely want to understand him better, please don't take this maliciously or get heated!

Edit: it just occurred to me that Negan used such a classic abuser manipulation technique. Daryl punches Negan, Negan kills Glenn, tells the group they made him do it. "I'm not the bad guy okay?? You made me do this!"

[strangeshoepatrolbandit]

Sunshine follows with Sunfall. Pt. 6

Warnings: Cat?, Jason having a tiny mood swing, mentions of death and bounties.

You guys have no idea how bad I feel for disappearing. Writers block is a bitch. (Short chapter)

Series Masterlist

~☆~

"She's sleeping." You sigh as you hear a window slide open.

Jason climbed through, "I'm sorry..." He apologized before closing the window. "I just had to come see her, even if she's sleeping."

You nod in acknowledgment as you pick up one of Judith's toys.

Jason and you had been talking more and more lately, just trying to become civil and fix the rift in your relationship with each other. But he had mostly been coming around for Judith.

He reached up and took off his helmet, setting it on the couch, keeping his domino mask on. His hands ran through his damp hair, pushing it back from his face as he revels in the feeling of your cool apartment.

"You know I don't like you coming in with all of your gear on." You look at him. "You're a wanted man, Jason. What you're doing right now is dangerous. If a bounty gets put on our daughters head, I will personally kill you again."

Jason knows your paranoia is justified, which is why he nods and looks directly at you as he apologizes again. "I know, Y/N. I'm sorry."

You give him a lingering stare before you turn around, picking up more toys. "Just... stop..." You hesitate as you speak, causing Jason to nod yet again.

He gazes at your back for a few seconds before he decides to go see Judith now. Jason keeps his footsteps quiet, a perk from being an anti-hero who once worked alongside Batman. He approaches the white door to her room, slowly turning the silver handle, for he does not wish to wake her.

The room is dark, illuminated by a small projector nightlight, making artificial stars show on the ceiling. Her room is surprisingly clean for a child, yet still full from the amount of gifts she gets from her family.

Jason cautiously steps closer to Judith's small bed, seeing how she's facing away from him, dark hair sprawled all over her pillow, and her orange sheets up close to her chin.

He crouched down next to her bed, petting her hair. Not running his fingers through it since he does not wish to tug on a hidden tangle and wake her up from the pull. A black cat that is snuggled up next to her stretches, letting out a small meow as he looks up at Jason. A small, soft smile grows on Jason's face as he scratches the cat with his free hand.

~☆~

You hear Judith's door open again, signaling that Jason was walking out.

"I didn't know you guys had a cat." He speaks, voice low and laced his Gothamite accent, something him and Judith share.

"Yep," You sigh, finally done tidying up the living room. "Judith is obsessed with Blues Clues. Specifically, the version with Steve. So when we got him, she immediately named him 'Periwinkle'." You smile at the fond memory.

"Bruce offered to get her a lilac tabby, but she just loved her Periwinkle too much. She didn't want one of the correct breed."

Jason also smiles as he watches you stand in front of your couch, hands on your hips. "She's loyal, loving." He says.

You let out another deep breath and look at him. "So... you going back on patrol?"

He takes a few steps forward. "Actually, I wanted to talk about something."

Your eyebrow raises as you look up at him. "Okay...?"

Jason takes in a breath and closes his eyes for a few seconds. "Look, I've been getting help, and... I can be better now." He tells you. "I can be better for you. I think you and I... should try again..."

You let out an abrupt laugh. "You're kidding?"

There's something about him that just doesn't seem like your Jason anymore. He's so civil and in touch with his emotions.

"I'm not." He shakes his head.

You scoff and look away. "You have some nerve, you know?"

"I know, I know-"

"Jason." Your voice is firm. "You did something that I dont think I can ever forgive you for. What if I allow myself to love you and you end up leaving again, hm?"

Jason looks down at the floor, then the wall behind you. "I'm getting better." He mumbles.

"All you're going to do is fix your relationship with your daughter, don't even think about me like that." You snap.

Jason goes and grabs his helmet, putting it on, his shoulders tense, a way for you to understand that he's annoyed.

The audacity.

You know him well enough to know that his jaw is clenched underneath his mask. You hear a loud breath from underneath the red material he wears on his head.

"Don't even start right now, J-"

You're cut off by a small familiar voice.

"Red Hood?" Judith beams, standing in the entrance of the living room, grinning up at her father, even though she doesn't know it's him.

Jason Red Hood turns to face her. "Hey, kid." His voice is thankfully warped by the voice modulator in his helmet.

"Let me go get my action figure!" She squeals before running off into her room, leaving you and Jason to exchange some tense stares.

~☆~

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