#The History of Zombie Road

[myhauntedsalem]

The History of Zombie Road

Zombie Road has quite a reputation as a place where shadowy figures and other non human entities have long been reported.

Gregory Myers of the Paranormal Task Force presents this piece on the history and deaths of one of the most haunted locations in the United States.

Within the urban sprawl of St. Louis lies a remote area called “Zombie Road”. Urban Legend tells a variety of eerie tales which include being host to ritualistic and occult practices which spawned inhuman and demonic entities while other tales tell of those who met their peculiar demise and still roam this desolate road in the afterlife.

“Zombie Road”, real name “Lawler Ford Road” is about 2 miles long through a valley of forest oak land hills and ends near the Meramec River in the Glencoe, MO area where it meets the newly established “Al Foster” trail.

The history of this area goes back to ancient Native American times where this was one of the few pathways cut by nature over the centuries through the bluffs to the Meramec River area just beyond them. It is believed that travelling ancient Native Americans used this pathway for foot travel and also quarried flint here for the making of various tools and weapons.

In the early 1800’s a Ferry (boat) was operated at the bottom area of this passage at times where a ford was located in the river for settlers and travellers to cross the Meramec River to the other side where the Lewis family owned much of the land. The origin of the road name is unknown to historians even today.

Ninian Hamilton a settler from Kentucky was the first settler to occupy and own land in this area in 1803. After his death in 1856, James E. Yeatman a prominent St. Louis citizen, a founder of the Mercantile Library and president of the Merchants Bank acquired the large parcel of land that Mr. Hamilton settled and owned.

The Pacific Railroad completed their railroad line from St. Louis to Pacific along the Meramec River in this area in the 1850’s. Della Hamilton the wife of Henry McCullough, who was Justice of the Peace for about thirty years and Judge of the County Court from 1849 to 1852, was struck and killed by a train in this area in 1876.

The first large scale gravel operations on the Meramec River began at what would become Yeatman junction in this area. Gravel was taken from the Meramec River and moved on rail cars into St. Louis. The first record of this operation is in the mid-1850’s. Later, steam dredges were used, to be supplanted by diesel or gasoline dredges in extracting gravel from the channel and from artificial lakes dug into the banks. This continued until the 1970’s.

From about 1900 until about 1945, Glencoe and this area was one of the resort communities of the Meramec River’s clubhouse era. Many of the homes were summer clubhouses, later converted to year round residences then lost to the great local floods of the 1990’s.

Some say this is called Zombie Road because the railroad workers who once worked here rise from their graves at times to roam about. Some insist that they have heard old time music, seen anomalous moving lights and other ghostly sightings from that forgotten era. Another tale tells of a patient nicknamed “Zombie” who escaped from a nearby mental facility never to be seen again. His blood soaked gown was later found lying upon the old road later named after him.

Other tales include one of an original settler who met their demise upon the railroad tracks. Another includes a pioneer who lost his wife in a poker game then went back to his homestead and took his own life. Many still report seeing these lonely spirits even today.

During the age of Prohibition a nearby town housed speak-easies and the summer homes of well known gangsters. Tales tell of individuals who were dealt a bad hand by such public enemies resulting in their permanent placement within the ground or bordering river to never be seen again.

The bordering river has tragically delivered many to the other side through the years. Children and adults alike have taken their last living breath within its dangerous waters before being found washed up on its shores. Even during this new millennium, several children met their demise one day within its banks.

The railroad still shows “Death hath no mercy” as many have met their final fate upon its tracks. Local lifelong residents can still remember multitudes of tragic occurrences dating back to the 1950’s. One of these occurred in the 1970’s when two teens were struck by an oncoming train. Some of the local residents were used in search parties to find the body parts scattered about the area.

During the 1990’s a mother and her five year old child were crossing a bridge when an oncoming train met them. The mother’s last action was pushing her five year old child off the bridge. The engineer was able to stop the train and save the child. Although the mother died, this is still one of the happiest endings to a story this area will provide.

More recent past has seen this area become refuge for those wanting privacy to practice the occult and other rituals. Who can really know what true doorways to the darkness or unknown were opened here.

During the 1960’s a couple in their late teens were on top of the bluffs overlooking the road below. The male somehow lost footing and during the fall caught his face in a fork of a small tree growing out from the side of the bluff. His face and scalp remained while the rest of him fell to his death upon the road below. Others have also met their demise from the high bluffs above.

The area has also seen its share of suicides and murders. In the 1970’s a hunter stumbled across a car still running at the end the road. Closer inspection revealed a hose running from the exhaust pipe to the inside of the car with the driver slumped over the steering wheel.

One can agree that there is no lack of legends or tragedies surrounding this area which can explain the bizarre and eerie encounters of those who visit. I was one who became truly intrigued and attracted by such lore and was determined to either prove or disprove the Urban Legends surrounding it.

Missouri Paranormal Research (now a division of Paranormal Task Force, Inc.), the paranormal investigative team I belong to, investigated this area on several occasions. Our visits converted many true skeptics into true believers of the paranormal. I was one of those the first time and even remarked “This was going to be like Winnie the Pooh looking for a ghost in 100 Acre Woods” prior to descending onto the old road.

Within an hour several people observed a human sized shadow figure as it descended upon them from a small bluff nearby. It then ran onto the road, stopped, then disappeared into the darkness of the night. Throughout the night others heard unexplained voices, were touched by the unseen and witnessed the unexplained. This was one night that everyone could conclude that indeed some Urban Legends actually are real!

[foxmulderautism]

i need to finish cleanness today

[deconstructthesoup]

I think the reason that Dimension 20 really scratches all those itches in my brain is that it really shows what you can do with D&D---and TTRPGs as a whole.

Fantasy High, by itself, is an incredibly compelling concept. What would D&D look like in a semi-modern setting? What would a high school that's all about teaching teens how to be adventurers look like? And the way it's done is beyond inventive, especially if you look at all the encounters in the first season---we've got a literal food fight, a high-speed road chase with tiefling greasers, a nightclub brawl with zombies, vampires, and werewolves, a skating match with a bunch of dwarven middle schoolers and a concrete golem, a high-stakes game of football (ish) with undead jocks that give off major teen slasher vibes, a fight done in an arcade where characters can get trapped in the consoles, and the final battle is done at prom. PROM! How cool is that?

And then we get to the Unsleeping City, which takes the urban fantasy elements that Fantasy High already had and elevates it. The way the D&D lore and magic is interpreted in a modern New York setting is excellent, as is the whole take on the "American Dream," magic literally coming from dreams, ideas, and the imagination. I know that I need to actually finish the UC saga, but from what I've seen and experienced, it is truly fantastic.

And the same energy carries through to the other seasons---my personal favorite outside of Fantasy High being A Court of Fey and Flowers, just because I'm a sucker for any Fey Realm content and I've been raised on Jane Austen---where the genre mashups shine through in the best way possible. I'll admit, I haven't seen A Crown of Candy, purely because I know how heartbreaking and devastating it is and I don't think I can physically handle it, but the concept of Candyland Game of Thrones is so beautifully bizarre that I totally get why people love it so much. Escape from the Bloodkeep hitting that workplace comedy vibe that we love to see in villains. Misfits & Magic being a love letter to the "magical boarding school" genre while also calling out all the weird contradictions inherent in it. A Starstruck Odyssey literally being an homage to Brennan's mom and exactly the kind of madcap and unhinged energy I need from my sci-fi. Neverafter perfectly encapsulating the true horror of fairy tales. Mentopolis hitting my noir-loving heart and personifying hyperfixation in the best way possible.

I'm not even kidding when I say that, if it weren't for Dimension 20... I probably wouldn't have even started my own campaign. I'd had snippets and ideas ever since officially getting into D&D and joining a game with some old friends (and getting back in touch with them in the process), but after I saw the Mentopolis trailer, I realized just how much variety TTRGPs had to offer. I could do a time-blending, history-meets-future campaign. I could go out-of-the-box. I could have endless amounts of options available to my friends and still tell the story that I wanted to tell. And when I sat down and watched Fantasy High---and when I got that Dropout subscription so I could consume whatever I wanted---it felt like the show was actually giving me advice. It's fantastic.

Also it helps that the episodes are usually only roughly a couple hours instead of being, like, an entire afternoon long. And that each season is 20 episodes, tops. No offense to Critical Role, but the sheer amount of content literally makes it impossible for me to get into it.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 4: Read Between The Lines]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.6k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

It is your first week of basic training at Great Lakes on the north side of Chicago, and as you lie in the top bunk of your assigned bed you wonder what the hell you’ve done. You enlisted right out of high school, eighteen, no driver’s license, no work history, never been more than fifty miles outside of Soft Shell, Kentucky. The drill sergeants are always yelling and you’re bad at push-ups; you can’t understand the recruits from big cities like Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas, Detroit, Houston, and they don’t seem to get you either, and aren’t interested enough to try. Sometimes you wish you hadn’t signed that five-year contract, but where would you be if you weren’t here? Home is not words but textures, colors, fumes that still burn in your sinuses: cigarette ash on rose pink carpets, red embers glowing in the wood stove, Hamburger Helper and Mountain Dew, coffee creamer in Hungry Jack potatoes, laughter and heavy footsteps and slamming doors, scratch-off games, dogs barking, collecting coins from couch cushions for gas money, scrubbing clothes in the bathtub when the washer quits, Mama taking gulps from her favorite cup—plastic, Virginia Beach, filled with equal parts Hawaiian Punch and vodka—when she thinks no one is looking, blue shows flickering on the television, Family Feud, Maury, Good Morning America, WWE SmackDown. For as long as you can remember you’ve known you couldn’t stay. Now you’re getting out, but nothing in life is free.

You are at Class A Technical School in Gulfport, Mississippi, and even though it’s hotter than some noxious, volcanic hellscape—Mercury, Venus, Io—you are beginning to like it. You taste the salt of sweat when you lick your lips, sugar in the sweet tea they serve in the chow hall. There’s a magic in building something where there was only empty space before, in patching roofs and painting walls. Here being quiet and watchful is exactly what they want from you: head down, hammer striking nails, measurements and angles and long hours under the sun with no complaints. You’re not just running away anymore. You are creating something new.

You are sitting beneath swaying palm trees and a full moon on Diego Garcia, draining cans of Guinness with Rio, and he’s telling you things he shouldn’t, too personal, too honest: Sophie wants to try for a baby next time he’s home on leave, and part of him wants that too but he’s terrified. As thunder rumbles in the distance and raindrops begin to patter on the waves of the Indian Ocean, you tell Rio you think he’d be a good father. He wonders how you figure that, and you say because he’s not like any of the men from home. He gives you one of his crooked smiles—a flash of teeth, knowing dark eyes—and doesn’t ask what you mean.

But of course, when you swim up from the inky currents of sleep you are in none of these places. You are curled up on the floor of a bowling alley in Shenandoah, Ohio, cheap worn black carpet peppered with stars and swirls in neon green, pink, blue. You stretch out with a yawn. Someone has left a Lemon Tea Snapple within reach; you twist it open and guzzle it, hoping to extinguish the pounding in your skull, a rhythmic thudding of warm maroon, half Captain Morgan and half misery. The music isn’t helping. From the green Toshiba CD player, a man is singing in Spanish. Aegon and Rio are sitting at the nearest table and playing Uno.

Aegon says as he ponders his cards: “You know Enrique Iglesias, right Rio?”

“You are so racist.” Rio puts down a wild. “And the new color is red. Racist.”

“So what’s he saying?”

“Aegon, buddy, I told you, I was born here. My grandparents came over in the 60s. I don’t speak Spanish.”

“You can’t understand any of it?” Aegon is skeptical. He plays a skip, a reverse, and a seven. “My dad never taught me a word of Greek but I can recognize plenty of phrases. Vlákas means idiot. Spatáli chórou is a waste of space.”

Rio sighs, relenting. He puts down a two. “The song is called Súbeme La Radio, Turn Up The Radio For Me. Bring me the alcohol that numbs the pain… I don’t care about anything anymore…You’ve left me in the shadows…”

“Damn, now I’m sad. Draw four, bitch.”

“When the night comes and you don’t answer, I swear to you I’ll stay waiting at your door…” Rio studies his cards. “What’s the new color?”

“Green.”

“Yes!” Rio slams down a skip. “Fleeing from the past in every dawn, I can’t find any way to erase our history…”

Everyone else is awake already. As muted late-morning daylight streams in through the small tinted windows, Aemond is weaving between tables, pointedly checking on each person. He glances at you, says nothing, turns around and walks the other way.

“That’s tough,” Rio says sympathetically, popping open the tab on a can of Chef Boyardee and shoveling ravioli into his mouth with a plastic fork.

Aegon gives you a smirk. “You want to fake date now?”

“I’ll think about it.” No you won’t.

Helaena appears, a prairie girl vision in a modest blue sundress and with her hair tied back with a matching scarf. She reaches into her burlap messenger bag and offers you a choice between a ranch-flavored tuna pouch or a silvery pack of Pop-Tarts. “Strawberry,” she tells you.

“I’ll take the Pop-Tarts.”

Helaena gives them to you and then shakes a bottle of Advil. You’re so groggy it takes you a few seconds to figure out what she wants, then you obediently hold out a hand. Helaena lays two tablets in the center of your palm and moves on, soundlessly like a rabbit or a spider.

You wash the pills down with Snapple. As you nibble half-heartedly on a Pop-Tart—trying not to look at Aemond, multicolored sprinkles falling down onto the carpet—your eyes drift to the tattoo on the underside of Aegon’s forearm. It’s not over ‘til you’re underground. You’ve spotted it before. Only now do you remember where you recognize the lyric from. “Is that Green Day?”

“Yeah,” Aegon says, enthused that you noticed. “Letterbomb.”

“I love that whole album.”

“Me too. I could sing it front to back if you asked me to.”

“I’m not asking.”

Aegon cackles and resumes his Uno game with Rio. Baela is wearing denim shorts and a crop top, slathering her belly with Palmer’s cocoa butter from Walmart as she chats with Rhaena and eats Teddy Grahams. Daeron is waxing the string of his compound bow. Jace is gnawing on a Twizzler as he scrutinizes Aegon’s map, annotated with Xs and circles and arrows in sparkling gel pen green.

“I’m going to be a thousand years old by the time we get there,” Jace mutters.

Aegon hits the table with his fist. The discard pile collapses and cascades, an avalanche of Uno cards. Rio, undisturbed, continues contemplating his next move. “You know what, Jace? The cities are full of zombies, the interstates are blocked by fifty-car pileups, if we bump into anyone else who’s still alive they’re just as likely to rob and murder us as want to be friends, and on top of all that I’m trying to do you the favor of preventing you from getting so irradiated you turn into Spider-Man. If you have a better route in mind, I’d love to hear it.”

“Spider-Man…? You’re such a dumbass, what are you talking about?!”

Luke says from where he stands by a window: “Aemond, someone’s outside.”

“What?” Aemond stares at him. “Zombies?”

“No. People.”

Aemond bolts to the doors, the rest of you close behind him. Rhaena turns off the CD player. You, Rio, and Aegon squeeze together to peer out of one of the windows. There are men—three of them, no, four, all appearing to be in their forties—passing by on the main road through town. They are armed with what are either AR-15s or M16s, you can’t tell which.

Rio whistles. “If you get shot by one of those, the exit wound will be the size of an orange.” Everyone looks at him. This was not an encouraging thing to say.

You elaborate: “Thirty-round magazines. Semiautomatic, assuming they’re AR-15s for civilian use. I guess they could have gotten ahold of M16s somehow. Those have a fully automatic setting.”

“So regardless, we’re out-gunned,” Jace says.

“If they know how to use them. Some men think guns are wall decorations, like deer heads or fish.”

Aegon recoils. “Fish?! What the fuck. I’m glad the colonies left.”

“Maybe they’ll keep walking,” Daeron says hopefully. One of the men stops and points at the bowling alley, saying something to his companions. They laugh and begin crossing the small parking lot. They are less than two minutes from the door. “Oh, great…”

“There’s an emergency exit in the back,” Baela says.

Aegon snorts. “Yeah, that we stacked about twenty boxes of bowling pins in front of to zombie-proof.”

“We won’t be able to get out before they hear us,” Aemond says. Then he abruptly orders: “Grab your guns, let’s go. Helaena, Baela, Rhaena, you’re staying here.” Aemond’s remaining eye—briefly, reluctantly—skates over you as Rio, Aegon, Jace, Luke, and Daeron scatter to obey him. “You too.”

“But I’m the best shot.”

“I don’t want them to know we have women with us.”

“I’m of more use to you outside.”

Aemond rips his Glock out of its holster, pointing it at the floor. His frustration is palpable, an electric shock, heat that refracts light rays until they become mirages on the horizon. “You’re going to stay here, and if a stranger comes through those doors you’re going to kill them. Okay?”

His urgency stuns you; his eye is blue-white summer storm lightning. “Okay.”

“Now get back.”

You soar to the nearest table, duck under it, reach for your Beretta M9 and double-check the clip, fully loaded. You click off the safety.

“Aemond, wait, let me go first,” Aegon is saying by the door. “I’m better at de-escalation, I’m less…uh…intimidating.”

“Less socially incompetent, you mean,” Jace quips.

“I’ll lead,” Aemond insists. “Aegon can talk. Rio, you’re up front with me.”

Rio pumps his Remington 12 gauge. “I’d be delighted.”

Jace is amused. “I’ve been demoted, huh?”

“He’s bigger,” Aemond replies simply, then opens the door and vanishes through a blinding curtain of daylight. The others follow closely; Daeron, the last one out—his compound bow in hand, the strap of his Marlin .22 slung over his shoulder—shuts the door behind him.

Very faintly, you can hear Aegon: “Hey, guys! What’s happening? How’s the apocalypse treating you…?”

Baela, Rhaena, and Helaena are under the table with you. They deserve to have options. You tell them: “If you want to go hide behind the lanes or try to get out the back door, now’s your chance.”

Helaena shakes her head, clutching your t-shirt: black, Star Wars, pawed off a shelf at the Walmart. “I want to stay with you.”

“Same,” Baela says determinedly, gripping her Ruger. She barely knows how to use it, but she’ll try. Rhaena is shaking, her eyes filling up her face, small fragile bones like a bird’s.

You can’t hear voices from outside anymore, but there are no gunshots either. You keep your M9 aimed at the doors, your breathing slow and deep, your heart rate low. Your hands are steady. Your eyes hunt for the slightest movement, for the momentary shadow of someone passing by a window. Against your will, your thoughts wander to Aemond. I hope Aegon is on his left side. Aemond can’t see there.

“Rhaena, get your gun out,” Baela says sharply. “Come on. Turn the safety off. What if you were alone right now? What if we weren’t here to protect you?”

Rhaena nods, fumbling to free her revolver from its holster. “I’m sorry…I’m trying…”

Now there is a stranger’s voice, gruff and deep. He must be just beyond the door, the farthest one to the right. There is a creak of hinges, a sliver of sunlight. “That’s just too damn bad, fellas. You got a nice little hideout here, and you’re gonna have to share it—”

The door opens. Two unfamiliar faces, too shellshocked to raise their rifles in time. You close an eye, line up your sights, fire twice, and that’s all it takes: one headshot, one in the throat, blood like a fountain, spurting scarlet ruin, thuds against the carpet strewn with neon stars, gurgling and spasms as their brains send out those final electrical impulses: danger, catastrophe, apocalypse. Rhaena is screaming. Helaena is covering her ears with both hands.

You run to the doorway; there are more booms of gunfire out in the parking lot. You cross into the late-morning light to see the other two men on the pavement: one with an arrow through the eye, the other with a gaping, hemorrhaging hole where his heart once was. Rio is admiring his work, holding his shotgun aloft. He scoops a handful of Cheddar Whales out of his shorts pocket and shovels them into his mouth.

“Goddamn, I love Remington Arms Company.”

“Oh, that was awesome,” Aegon says, wan and panting, hands on his waist. “Yeah, that was…that was…” He bends over and vomits Snapple and Cool Ranch Doritos onto the asphalt.

“Everyone okay in there?” Rio asks you.

“Yeah.” Behind you, Baela, Rhaena, and Helaena are stepping through the doorway. Your thoughts are whirling sickly: I killed someone. I killed someone. “They wouldn’t leave?”

“We told them the bowling alley was ours,” Aemond says, not looking at you. “We asked them very politely to keep moving. They chose to try to intimidate us into letting them stay. They weren’t good people, and these are the consequences.”

You click on the safety and re-holster your M9. You’re wearing Rio’s on your other hip. They seem to weigh so much more than they did ten minutes ago. I’m not supposed to be a killer. I’m a builder.

“Aegon, are you okay?” Daeron asks, a palm on his brother’s back.

Aegon retches again. “Shut up. You can’t even buy fireworks.”

“Zombies.” Luke is peering through his binoculars. “Not many, just two. Way up the road.”

“There will be more.” Baela’s cradling her belly; you don’t even think she’s aware of it. “They heard the gunshots, the sound carries for miles.”

“We’re leaving,” Aemond says. “Right now. Everyone get your things.”

As backpacks are hastily zipped and Daeron and Aegon stand guard in the parking lot, you kneel down beside the men you murdered and check their rifles. They are M16s, either stolen or illegally purchased: there’s a little switch by the trigger to choose between semi-automatic or the so-called machine gun mode.

“They barely had any bullets left,” you tell Rio. Just like us when we were trapped on that transmission tower.

“Yeah, same story for the other two guys. Four bullets in one magazine, a half dozen in the other. But it only takes once. We don’t have any ammo that will work with M16s, do we?”

“No, we definitely don’t.”

“Fantastic. Well, we’ll throw them in a Walmart cart and take them with us just in case.”

You’re staring down at the man you shot through the head. His eternal resting place is a puddle of blood and brains in a bowling alley in rural Ohio; surely no one deserves that. “He was a real person,” you say, dazed. “Not a zombie. Just a person.”

“Hey.” Rio grabs your shoulders and spins you towards him. From where he is helping Luke gather up the remaining food, Aemond’s head snaps up to watch. “You hurt him before he could hurt us. You did the right thing.”

“Sure.”

“I killed a dude too. I blew his heart right out of his chest. You think I’m going to hell for that?”

“No,” you admit, smiling. “And if you’d be there with me, I guess I wouldn’t mind so much.”

Rio grins, wide and toothy. “Well alright then. Let’s finish packing.”

The ten of you depart from Shenandoah, Ohio heading northwest on Route 603 just like Aegon marked on his map, Jace chauffeuring Baela in one shopping cart, Rio pushing another loaded high with food and M16s.

“It looks like rain,” Helaena says.

Everyone else peers up into a clear, cerulean sky, wondering what she means.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re a few miles north of Shiloh when the storm rolls in, cold rain and furious wind, daylight that vanishes behind dark churning thunderheads, jagged scars of lightning in an opaque sky. The road is only two lanes, surrounded by fields of wildflowers and ravaged crops and untilled earth; it would look like the patchwork of a quilt if you were gazing down from an airplane, but of course the FAA grounded all flights over a month ago when the world went mad: Revelations, Ragnarök, the fabric of the universe unweaving as death burned through families, cities, nations like a fever, like plague.

“Maybe we should cut across one of these fields,” Jace says, pointing. He is soaked with rain; it drips from his curls, runs into his eyes. Baela is in her cart again; each time she tries to get out and walk, she’s gasping and can’t keep up within half an hour. You’ve all taken turns pushing her, much to Baela’s dismay. She’d be humiliated if she wasn’t too exhausted to keep her eyes open.

“Here, let me do it,” you offer, and Jace gratefully relinquishes the cart. Baela gives you a frail wave of appreciation.

“We stay on the road,” Aemond insists, flinching as rain pelts his scarred face. “Farmhouses have driveways and mailboxes, we’ll pass one eventually. If we lose the road, we might not be able to find it again. We’ll end up wandering around in circles in the woods.”

“Just like the Blair Witch Project,” Aegon says glumly, his Sperry Bahama sneakers audibly soggy.

“There!” Luke announces, spotting something with his binoculars. “Up ahead on the left. Past the bridge.”

You can’t see what Luke does until there is an especially brilliant flash of lightning: a farmhouse, old but seemingly not derelict, and with a number of accompanying buildings, guest houses and stables and barns and towering silos.

“Home sweet home!” Rio says. “And I don’t care if I have to kill a hundred of those undead bastards to get in, it’s mine.”

“Well, hopefully not a hundred,” you reply, in better spirits now that a sanctuary has been found. Aemond keeps glancing back at you as you push Baela’s cart. If he wants to say something, he’s doing a good job of resisting the temptation. “We don’t have that much ammo.”

There is a concrete bridge over a river, probably unremarkable and only five or ten feet deep normally but now torrential with rain. Water rushes by beneath, a muddy incline on each side as the earth rises back up to meet the road. A reflective green sign proclaims that you are only two miles from Plymouth, which Aegon plans to skirt along the edges of. It’s a decent-sized town; he thinks you might be able to find a car to steal there, something with gas in the tank and keys on a hook just inside the house.

“I call the master bedroom,” Jace says craftily, rubbing his palms together. You’re near the center of the bridge now, another ten yards to go. “Nice big bed, warm cozy blankets, and I was up for half of last night keeping watch so tonight I am off duty, I am a free man, it’s going to just be me and my girl and eight glorious uninterrupted hours of sleep—”

Rhaena shrieks, and then you hear it over the noise of the storm, pounding rain and rumbling thunder: moans, growls, hisses like snakes. Not one zombie. A lot more than one. They’re crawling up from under the bridge, from the filthy quagmire at both ends. There was a hoard of them waiting, aimless, dormant, almost hibernating. But now they are awake. They are grasping for you with bony, dirt-covered claws. They are snapping with jaws that leak blood and pus and bile as their organs curdle to a putrid soup.

“Get off the bridge!” Aemond is shouting. He has his Glock in his right hand, a baseball bat in his left. He’ll shoot until he’s out of bullets, and then, and then…

Rio helps you get Baela out of the cart, then opens fire. His Remington doesn’t just pierce skulls, it vaporizes them. When he’s out of shells—there are more in his backpack, but no time to reload—he yanks the M16s out of the other Walmart cart and empties each of them, mowing down zombies as the rest of you scramble across the bridge. All around you are explosions of gunshots, thunder, lightning, zombie skulls crushed by bullets and blunt force trauma. Baela is firing her Ruger as you half-drag her, one arm hooked beneath hers and around her back. When the last M16 is empty, Rio starts clubbing zombies with the butt of it. You’ve all reached the north side of the bridge, except…

“Fuck off, you freaks!” Jace is screaming. They’ve backed him up against the guardrail, a swarm of ten or more. His Remington shotgun is out of ammo; he’s swinging it wildly, but he doesn’t even have enough room to maneuver. There are still more zombies emerging from under the bridge. You can hear them snarling and groaning. You swipe an M9 off your belt and put a bullet in the brain of a zombie as its fingers close around your ankle, then you start picking off the ones mobbing Jace. You aren’t fast enough. As they lean in to bite him, teeth gnashing at the delicious throbbing heat of his jugular, Jace throws himself over the barrier and into the surging water below.

“No!” Baela cries. She careens off the road and into the field, running parallel to the river as swiftly as she can. You are helping her, steadying her, firing at any zombies you have a clear line of sight on. The others are here too: slipping in the muck of the flooding earth, shouting for Jace. He surfaces through the frothing current, flails pitifully, disappears beneath the water again. You glimpse a white hand, a shadow of his dark hair, a kicking shoe. There are more zombies on the opposite side of the river, trailing after Jace, lurching and slobbering viscous, gory saliva. They cannot swim, but they can follow him until he washes ashore.

Jace bursts up through the waves, gasping. “Help! Aemond…Aemond, for the love of God, help me…” He blubbers and then is dragged under. Aemond and Luke are continuing frantically after him. Baela is hysterical, sobbing, trembling with adrenaline. Aegon is yowling as he swings at zombies with his bloodied golf club. Helaena is darting around almost invisibly, always cowering behind Daeron or Aegon or Rio.

You glance north towards the farmhouse, growing not closer but farther away. We can’t leave shelter. We can’t leave the road. You lock eyes with Rio. He’s thinking the same thing.

“Aemond, we have to go,” Rio says, but in the midst of the rain and the turmoil it barely registers.

“Jace, we’re coming to get you!” Aemond swears. The ground is increasingly sodden, deep, difficult to trudge through. Jace resurfaces, coughing and sputtering.

“Jace!” Aegon wails. He caves in the skull of a zombie who was once a registered nurse as Helaena crouches behind him. “Jace, I’m sorry! I’m gonna miss you, man!”

Jace splashes in the rising river, his arms flailing helplessly. He is being swept away far faster than any of you can move on foot. “Aegon, you dumb bitch!” Jace manages, then slips beneath the water and doesn’t reappear.

“Where is he?!” Baela is saying. “Aemond, where…?”

You are trying to soothe her, to bring her back to reality. She was always so pragmatic before; you have to wake her up. “Baela, listen, we can’t stay here, he would want you and the baby to be safe—”

“Aemond! Aemond, we have to go!” Rio catches him, wrenches him around, roars into his face as driving rain pummels them both: “We have to go, or we’re going to die here too!”

It hits Aemond all at once; he understands, horror and agony in his sole blue eye. “We have to go,” he agrees. And then louder, to everyone: “Get to the farmhouse!”

Baela collapses into the mud, howling, tears flooding down her face. “No, he’s still alive, he’s still alive, we can’t leave him!”

You and Rhaena are trying to haul Baela to her feet. Now Aemond is here, pulling you away from her—his fingers tight and urgent around your wrist—as he and Luke take your place. “Go,” he commands. “You run. Don’t wait for us. Rio?”

“I got her,” Rio replies, grabbing your free hand with an iron grip. Gales of wind rip at you; every millimeter of your skin is soaked with rain. As you flee across the fields towards the farmhouse, dozens of zombies pursue you. More are still staggering along the banks of the river, swept up in the hoards chasing Jace and the promise of his waterlogged corpse when it reaches its final destination. Daeron has run out of arrows and is shooting with his .22, which is very much not his preference. Aegon trips, getting covered in mud as he rolls, and Rio stops to help him. While he is distracted, you look back at Aemond. He, Luke, and Baela are moving quickly, but not quickly enough. A drove of zombies is closing in on them. You have a spare few seconds at last. You yank your backpack off, grab a box of ammo inside, and reload your M9.

“Chips?!” Rio calls over his shoulder.

“I’m fine.”

He knows you well enough to listen. The world goes quiet as your finger settles on the trigger. There’s a rhythm one slips into, an impassionate lethal efficiency. It’s easier to keep going than to stop and have to find it again. You fire over and over, dropping eight zombies. You sheath your M9 and whip Rio’s out of your other holster, the sights finding grotesque decaying faces illuminated by lightning. You pull the trigger: blood, bones, brains, corpses jerking and convulsing as they fall harmlessly to the mud. Aemond is here; when did he get here?

“I told you to run!” he’s shouting through the storm, furious. He’s shoving you towards the farmhouse. You resist him.

“Let me kill as many as I can—”

“Go! Now!” Aemond orders over the clashing thunder, and then sprints with you all the way to the front porch to make sure you listen. Everyone else is already there. Helaena has fetched a spare key from under the doormat and is turning it in the lock.

Daeron observes her anxiously. “We don’t know if it’s safe in there, Helaena.”

“Not in,” she says, insistent. “Through.” Through this building, and maybe through the next one too. The average zombie is not terribly clever. If they lose sight of you, without the benefit of the momentum of a hoard they are lost. Helaena opens the door. The living rush inside, and she locks it behind you. As you are bursting out the back door, you can hear zombies pounding their rotting palms against the front one. You soar through a stable full of dead horses and donkeys, leaving the doors open; this should keep the zombies distracted if they make it this far. Then you race to the farthest guest house. Luke, swiveling with his binoculars, spies no zombies approaching as you steal inside. There is no spare key this time; Rio punches out a first-floor window for you to climb through. Once everyone is inside, he and Aegon move a bookshelf to cover the opening.

You all stand in the living room, gasping and shivering, dripping rain down onto the rug and the hardwood floor. The air is dusty but clean of any trace of vile, swampy decay. Outside, thunder booms and lightning flashes bright enough to illuminate the lightless house. The sky is so dark it might as well be nightfall. Baela sinks to her knees, clamping both hands over her mouth so she won’t sob loudly enough for a zombie to hear. Rhaena and Luke are beside her, both weeping quiet rivulets of tears, trying to comfort her in whispers. Helaena is rummaging around searching for candles; she has already taken a lighter out of her soaked burlap messenger bag.

“Daeron, bro, come over here,” Aegon chokes out. He embraces Daeron, clutches him tightly and desperately, doesn’t let go. Rio is reloading his Remington 12 gauge.

Jace is dead. Jace is dead.

Aemond says to you, his voice low but seething: “What the fuck was that?”

You blink the raindrops out of your eyes as you stare at him, bewildered. “You needed help.”

“I told you to run.”

“I’m an asset, I have skills that can keep you alive, why am I here if I’m not going to be useful—?”

“You’re not in the fucking Navy anymore!” he hisses. “When I tell you to run, you run, you don’t stop, you don’t look back, because I can’t worry about you and take care of everyone else.”

“Nobody asked you to worry about me.”

“But I do.”

“Aemond,” Aegon pleads, waving him over. Aegon’s plump sunburned cheeks are glistening with rain and tears. “Man, it doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters now. Please come here.”

“I’m going to clear the house,” Aemond says instead.

Rio raises an eyebrow at you—this is one fucked up guy, Chips—and then pumps his shotgun. “Me too.” He sweeps with Aemond through the main floor and then vanishes up the staircase.

Helaena is lightning candles she found in the kitchen and arranging them around the living room. Daeron starts gathering food from the pantry. Rhaena and Baela are murmuring to each other softly, mournfully. It doesn’t feel like something you should intrude on. Luke is peeking out of a window with his binoculars, vigilant for threats. Aegon sniffles, wanders over to you with large, sad, shimmering eyes, pats your shoulder awkwardly.

“Hey, Chocolate Chip. You doing okay?”

“No,” you answer honestly.

“Yeah. Me either.” Then he flops down on the hideous burnt orange couch and lies there motionless until Daeron brings him a can of Dr. Pepper. Aegon pops the tab, slurps up foam, and then begins singing to himself very quietly, a song so old you can remember your grandfather saying it was one of his favorites as a boy: A Tombstone Every Mile.

When Rio comes back downstairs—heavy footsteps, he can’t help that—you meet him at the bottom of the steps. “The house is good,” Rio says. “And Aemond’s in the big bedroom on the right if you’d like to go up there and talk to him.”

“I don’t think he wants to see me right now.”

“I could not disagree more,” Rio says with a miserable, exhausted smile. Then he goes to the couch to check on Aegon.

You pick up one of the flickering candles, white and scentless, and ascend the staircase. You find Aemond in the master bedroom, the same accommodations that Jace laid claim to when he was still alive. He is sitting at the edge of the bed and staring at the wall, at nothing. Tentatively, you sit down beside him, placing the candle on the nightstand.

“Aemond…what happened to Jace…it wasn’t your fault.”

“Criston said I was in charge, that’s the very last thing he told me. They might be the last words I ever hear from him, and I just…” His voice breaks; he wipes the rain and tears from his face with open palms. “I really wanted to get everyone home.”

“I’m so sorry about what I said at the bowling alley,” you confess, like it’s a dire secret. “I don’t want to fight with you, Aemond, I…I want to help you. I can see what you’ve done for everyone here, me and Rio included, and I believe in you. I want to be a part of this.”

He nods, an acceptance of peace, but he still doesn’t look at you.

“Can we start over? I’ll never bring it up again, okay? I wasn’t trying to guilt you or upset you or anything. I should have just dropped it. I overreacted. And I understand why being with someone like me maybe wouldn’t be…super appealing.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Then what’s it about?”

Aemond wrings his hands, shakes his head, at last turns to you, golden candlelight reflected in his eye, his scar cloaked in shadows. His words are hushed, clandestine, soft powerless surrender. “I’m already so afraid of losing you.”

He cares, he hopes, he wants me too? “I’m here right now, Aemond. I don’t know what else I can say. I’d promise you more if I could.”

He reaches out to touch you, to ghost his thumb across your cheekbone, wet with rain. Then he kisses you, so gently you cannot help but imagine the wispy borders of calm white summer clouds, the rustle of leaves as wind blows down the Appalachian Mountains. You don’t have to ask him what he’s thinking, what it feels like. You can read it in the startled, firelit wonder on his face.

You taste like the beginning of something, here at the end of the world.

[thoughtfulchaos773]

The Art of a Slowburn

Besides the commonality of Jon Bernthal playing a partner/brother, there's also the art of the slow burn happening in Twd and the Bear- and yes, I know, different writers can't quite compare. But the art of foreshadowing is always the same. If you didn't see the show spoilers ahead I'll provide a recap if you don't care to watch Twd.

Here's the gist of the show: Rick wakes up from a coma and finds his wife and son. He is fighting off the end of the world and zombies and reunites with his family along the way- his wife dies during childbirth, and literally 3 episodes later, amid Rick's grieving, Michonne arrives.

The matching! They're showing and hinting at the audience early on; these two are a great match.

More matching:

Was it the stares, I wondered? It's something richonners loved to analyze while the burn was slow. Particulary, Rick stares at Michonne like Carmy. They focus on this so you can get a feel of the main character's reaction to their love interest. For me, it's the preceding scenes that hinted at Richonne, and I'll compare them with Sydcarmy in a second:

But check out his flirting- there was much gaslighting on the ship. People said we were overthinking; they were just friends, and she was like a brother to Rick and a partner he lost in Shane. But Michonne fulfilled both for RIck- she was a partner and wife. Just as Sydney is a partner to Carmy.

Now let's talk about the dialogue and preceding scenes. In season 4, the prison is calm- domesticated. Rick is taking a break from the violence and is almost making peace with his wife's death. At this point, we don't know about Michonne's history, but Hershel- Rick's advisor- says this before Michonne arrives from being on the road.

(Things break, but they can still grow- a new plant, a new family tree. They hint at the Grimes 2.0 family after Lori's death. Right after Hershel says this- Michonne arrives.)

Plants? Family tree? Things growing you say?

Sydcarmy's preceding scenes hint at a ship:

Also, can I mention the tension? Here’s the thing: Rick treated Michonne differently than the rest of his found family. Just like Carmy. He listened to Michonne's advice early on—what Michonne wants goes. Sound familiar?

Even amid Michonne Challenging him as Sydney challenges Carmy- you can feel the closeness- the partnership and trust growing between them.

Jessie/ Claire, a blast from the past.

In TWD, Jessie represents Lori (Rick's dead wife) before Richonne happens. We got the Jessie storyline- a big session of major gaslighting here; some WD fans figured Jessie would replace Andrea, Rick's love/partner in the comics. But it didn't make any sense to us- they built all this tension and closeness between Rick and Michonne, and suddenly, Jessie happens?

Then they point to the signs visually- such as Jessie wearing a plaid shirt, the same style his wife Lori wore when he last saw her alive.

Lori's ghost:

Jessie & Claire, and nothing thereafter.

Rick doesn't sleep with Jessie, but after their kiss the night before, Jessie touches Rick's face, and he feels nothing for her- even after he stares at his wedding ring. When Richonne becomes Cannon in the very next episode, the first shot we see is Rick's wedding ring on the dresser- showing us he's past his grief and is in a new place to be with Michonne, his soulmate.

Comparing to Carmy and Claire. After he declares Claire his girlfriend they sleep together he feels nothing because dating her was all about getting past his grief with Mikey.

In this same episode, they do more proceeding scenes hinting at Richonne happening. When Deanna, the town leader, asks Michonne to look into what she wants after they get through the herd. They cut to scenes of Michonne caring for Carl- Rick's son.

But all this foreshadowing- I should get into the cinematography parallels that honored Lori's role and show Michonne fulfilling the matriarch of the family just as Sydney honors Mikey. But this is enough for now. Maybe a part 2 I got plenty more comparisons.

The same will happen with Carmy and Sydney- the show gives us clear obstacles that stop Sydney and Carmy from slowing down, taking a look, and realizing their feelings for each other. For carmy to get to that place, he has to get past his grief.

I think, if anything, if this is the last season and they don't end with a kiss, Storer is hinting at it. Like the bear, the pairing was planned from the beginning and you. Tell by the foreshadowing and if people really watched, they could see the signs.

One last thing, this was a comment once richonne became cannon and it's so similar to sydcarmy. Tells you all about how misdirection in slow burns work with most audience. When a ship becomes cannon some say wow! I didn't see that comingʻ where there's been hints from the start..when it's planned.

I saw their relationship develop in a platonic kind of way, and it was a complete surprise for me when they got together. Now, looking back, I'm so embarrassed because it was so obvious all along.

Be safe, and Happy Holidays, Folks!

[ceo-of-sloppy-women]

No grave can hold my body down; I'll crawl home to her

Chapter 11

trigger warning: this chapter heavily mentions a zombie/infected kid from Reader's past.

Chapter 12

With her wound healed, Sevika turned a deaf ear to any reasonable argument that the muscle was still healing and she should continue to rest. She paces around the house, with three days still left on her leave, knowing that Vander would tan her hide if she got caught tending her bees – which, in her opinion, was a perfectly reasonable activity for her to do now that she’s healed. Not wanting to see her pace the house all afternoon – having been dismissed early by Singed, who was too tired to open the clinic today – you hoist one of the boxes of bottles in the kitchen onto your hip.

“How about we take these to Jayce, then? It’ll get you out of the house, at least,” you suggest, gesturing to the other boxes. You had added a few of your own that you’d collected over the years, yet the staggering amount of Sevika’s bottles still vastly outnumbered your own. Her recent injury didn’t help matters.

Sevika squints at you, pressing her lips together. Fear trickles down your spine as you will yourself not to shrink under her scrutiny. For a moment, you truly fear she’s about to defend her bottle collection, or worse, argue that she should be able to go back to work if she’s able to take bottles down. Then she picks up two of the boxes effortlessly and grunts out a “Fine.”

You breathe a shaky sigh of relief and follow her out the door.

She walks considerably slower than usual – which only reinforces your point that she can’t go back to work yet, but you don’t dare bring that up right now. She looked ready to bite your head off earlier. So, instead, the two of you walk in uncomfortable silence across town to Jayce’s forge. You have yet to be in this part of Zaun, having mostly kept to the main street, Singed’s office, and Sevika’s house. The forge isn’t far off from your usual route, as it’s a small town; however, as you round the corner you feel as if you’re transported back in time to the 1800s. There’s a literal saloon with a sign made of big bold letters, a general store, a sheriff’s office, a gunsmith (you kick yourself for not realizing there might be a gunsmith in town – you should bring your rifle around one of these days, it could use some TLC), and, of course, the “blacksmith,” Jayce’s forge. All of the buildings are new, constructed in a way reminiscent of the 1800s – with porches and walkways running across the sides of buildings, and dirt roads for horses. These walkways and rounds are found throughout Zaun, but this is the first time your brain has drawn the dots together to really register this information.

 You stop for a moment, staring out across the new, yet old, town, memories of visiting living history museums crash into you. You had gone several times as a child, recalling the experiences with fondness, until a cold chill runs down your spine and you are reminded of your most recent encounter with one. After the world ended. It had been a cold winter – your supplies were dwindling, and you needed shelter as a blizzard was coming down around you. When buildings faded into view on the horizon, you had rushed to them, hiding away in an old movie theatre. Up until then, you had tried to avoid any areas that might have been heavily populated when Shimmer started running rampant, lest you encounter infected or scavengers. Yet, you hadn’t even thought twice as you set out to find the warmest spot in the building. It was quiet for hours, leaving you undisturbed in one of the booths, wrapped in your coat and sleeping bag. You had even managed to eat a cold can of beans (not your finest moment)! Until you heard it – a scratching and scrambling coming from the hallway. Lulled into complacency from the quiet building, you had gone to investigate the noise, only to come across a goner in the shape of a child gorging on a long dead carcass. You had gasped involuntarily, completely new to the apocalypse, and it had whipped around, snarling at you. Stumbling backwards, you raced to gather your belongings as it advanced toward you, hunger in its eyes. Out of sheer panic, you continued to back up until your shins hit the edge of the booth, and the theatre groaned. There wasn’t a moment to react as the booth crumbled, sending you flying into the seats below. The fall gave you a broken arm, which you didn’t notice until you’d fled the theatre, but the goner followed you anyway and you could hear more on the way. You had run from that theatre faster than your tired legs could carry you, eventually hiding out in the sheriff’s office until the blizzard broke. Knowing your odds better, you were able to scavenge various materials from the buildings and turned the fort into a homebase while your arm healed, until a group of raiders forced you to abandon it.

In all that time, you never did go back to the theatre – too afraid to face what you had found there. Sometimes, when you close your eyes, you still see her little yellow sundress covered in bloody handprints.

A hand lands on your shoulder, and you yelp, jumping almost high enough to hit your head on the sign above you.

“Hey, you good? I’ve been trying to get your attention for five fuckin’ minutes now.” Sevika questions, fixing you with a look of equal parts frustration and concern.

“Yeah – sorry, I just… the architecture brought back some bad memories. I’m fine,” you attempt to shrug it off, starting to walk down the street.

“You want to talk about it?” Sevika presses, trudging after you.

“Ask me later,” you fluff her off, trying to throw the whole interaction under the bed.

Thankfully, Sevika takes the hint and drops it.

The walk to Jayce’s forge is silent – apart from the usual noise of Zaun. You can feel tension in the air; despite Sevika’s willingness to drop the topic, she still eyed you with concern. It made your stomach twist – you should be the one worrying about her and her leg that she insisted was ready the moment the scabs peeled away! Yet, she’s watching you like you’re one of her bee hives that she doesn’t know will make it through the winter or not. By the time you arrive at Jayce’s you have had entirely too much of her pity and slam the crate on the counter harder than intended. Jayce, who had been sitting on a bench and taking a water break, jumps at the sudden sound, his head whipping over to you.

“Oh! Hey, you too, it’s about time you brought me all of those bottles. I was starting to think you’d forgotten,” Jayce says, getting up with a grin that only twinges slightly at his aching back.

“Got busy,” Sevika grunts, setting her crate on the counter gently.

“I bet! I heard from Ekko that you two brought back a kid while out on patrols. So, I figured you were too busy with the little one running around underfoot to come see me,” Jayce rambles, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen.

“The kid’s Jinx’s problem,” Sevika grunts, an unamused look on her face.

“Oh, sorry, I just thought –“ Jayce starts, blinking at the two of you owlishly.

“Don’t worry about it. Isha and Jinx have been over quite a few times, but we’re more of… aunts. She’s gotten very attached to Jinx, it’s quite adorable,” you jump in, stopping Sevika from responding with another monotone, grumpy answer.

Jayce smiles and nods, his head bobbing with enthusiasm. “Good to know – I’ll have to let Mel know, she’s got a supply box ready for Isha’s new caretaker. It took her a few weeks to get it organized; she even put in a rush order with Grayson for some toys.”

A bubbly, sentimental smile quivers its way onto your lips at Jayce’s words. Zaun’s community never fails to surprise you in all the best ways. The warm, solid weight of Sevika’s hand settles on your waist, pulling your sides flush. She leans her weight slightly onto your side, her leg clearly giving her trouble – but the slow stroke of her thumb on your ribs makes your heart flip in your chest. Sevika may be using you for support, yet the gentle way she holds onto you is far past utilitarian. 

“Good. That kid needs all the support she can get. Now, the bottles?” Sevika prompts him, nodding her head to the crates.

“Alright,” Jayce chuckles, clicking the pen. “What do you want me to do with the bottles? I can make something decorative or recycle them. Your choice.”

“Something pretty. This one doesn’t have much other than survival gear,” Sevika says, making you blush.

“You don’t have to –“

Sevika tilts her head and levels you with an eye roll that could stop earthquakes. There’s an edge of pain in her eyes, another sign of her injury flaring up. Privately, you wonder if she gets pains in her arm as well… it might account partially for her short temper and grumpy attitude. Possibly also the drinking. Though, you definitely shouldn’t be trying to diagnose your friend when you have only a few week’s worth of mediocre medical training from Singed’s clinic. Instead, you stare at the counter and resolve to take her home after this, even if you have to make up some bullshit excuse to get her there.

“Right… anything in particular?” Jayce asks, eyeing the two of you with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re the artist. Surprise me,” Sevika shrugs, as if it suddenly doesn’t matter to her. You open your mouth to argue that she is also an artist, as she crochets, but clamp your mouth shut, deciding not to argue with her. You did not need to embarrass yourself further in front of Jayce and make this trip take longer with a compliment she could easily turn into a petty argument.

Jayce merely nods his head and jots down a note, before ripping off the paper and sticking it amongst the bottles. “You won’t regret putting your trust in me. I am great at surprises! I’ll get this to you when it’s finished – apparently, a couple of the people we found in Piltover recently have started running a postal service. They have been delivering my orders with a surprising amount of accuracy and care.”

“Well, we patiently await your next masterpiece,” you say, smiling brightly in an attempt to seem composed while you rush this conversation along. “Sevika and I have a few more errands to run, so we will leave you to your work.”

“Thank you for stopping by. Have a good day, both of you,” Jayce chirps before retreating into the forge proper.

You turn to Sevika, who is taking heavy, slow breaths in through her nose and out through her clenched teeth. Gently, you squeeze her side, providing her something other to focus on, rather than the pain. Your mind recounts the location of your last joint, primed and ready for smoking. Just enough to take the edge off Sevika’s pain so she wasn’t two seconds away from outright trembling in your arms. “You know, I’m kind of tired – it’s been a long week, and I am dying to just stretch out on the porch for a cat nap in the sun.”

Sevika turns her gaze to you, blinking her eyes at an almost glacial pace. The air tastes of exhaustion and pain as she slumps a little more against you. For a moment, you worry she’s about to grumble that you’re only making excuses to get her to go home. Or, worse, that she’d try and find a way to stay out longer while she is clearly in pain.

“Yeah. Let’s go home.”  

Quietly breathing a sigh of relief, you nod your head and guide her back the way you had come. “How does a joint and some lazy pizza sound? I think we’ve got some pitas lying about from a couple days ago, and we definitely have everything else left over from when we made pizza subs.”

“Sounds good, sweet thing,” Sevika mumbles, limping despite herself.

You smile gently, too worried about her to let the nickname go to your head. Instead, you guide her down the streets, taking the shortest path with practiced perfection after having to be self-sufficient for the past few weeks. She’s leaning so hard against your side that you’re practically carrying her – you can’t find it in yourself to complain despite her weighing far more than your carrying capacity.

Finally reaching home, you help her to the back porch and get her to promise to stay put. She barely puts up a fight, waving you off to go do what you need to do. Stepping inside for a moment, you grab a blanket, the promised joint and a half-eaten bag of homemade chips you’d bought last week. Dinner can wait until later. Sevika is exactly where you left her, eyes screwed shut in pain and leaning back against the swinging bench, nails dug into her leg. You sit on her right side, turned toward her with one leg tucked under the other, throwing the blanket over the two of you. She blindly gropes until she can pull the blanket closer to herself. A dull ache fills your chest as you watch her, wishing you could do more to help her. For now, you do what you can, lighting the joint and taking two puffs before passing it over to her. She takes a shaky drag, having to remove her hand from her leg.

Refusing to allow yourself to hesitate, you place your hands over her leg where you knew the bite had been. Her eyes flicker open, watching you but not protesting. You take it as a sign to continue, slowly kneading your fingers into her thigh. She sighs softly, leaning back so hard her head knocks against the metal bar of the porch swing. Instead of passing the joint back, she places it between your lips and tells you to inhale. You obey, letting the smoke curl out from between your lips when she pulls it away. Every few moments, she repeats the action rather than passing the joint back to you properly, and you continue to massage her thigh, helping her as best you can. Her eyes linger on your lips with each inhale, and you cling to each contented sigh that escapes hers, prompted by your ministrations.

Sevika puts the joint out on the metal frame of the porch swing and flicks it into the ashtray sitting precariously on the porch railing. For a brief moment, you wish she’d put it out on you and flush in embarrassment at your own thoughts. Sevika barely notices, wrapping her arm around your shoulders and rearranging the two of you far more effectively than should have been possible. The blanket is tossed over your legs as she lays out on the porch swing, having pulled you down to lay on her chest, your legs resting between hers. Your face flushes harder as your head lands between her breasts. With her hand between your shoulder blades, you are effectively pinned down, right where she wants you. Hesitantly, you wrap your arms around her torso; hands splayed on the small sliver of her back that isn’t pressed into the cushion of the porch swing. You will take what you can get, like a starved dog given scraps from the table – hungrily and eagerly, lapping up them far too quickly until there’s nothing left but the bitter taste of the floor.

“So… what made you freeze earlier?” Sevika asks tentatively after an eternity has passed.

With a heavy sigh, you finally explain to her the bitter memory that had stuck to your consciousness like glue until Sevika had pried you away. “A couple years ago, I got caught in a blizzard and took shelter in the first building I found…”

She listens intently, rubbing circles into your back as one of your hands snakes up to rub her shoulder. She stiffens for a moment when you do so yet makes no move to bat it away. The tension in her shoulder slowly subsides as you continue, digging your thumb into the meat of her shoulder to ease away the knots that have coiled there. Sevika melts further into the porch swing with each flex of your hand, her head leaning forward and tucking into the crook of your shoulder.

Once you finish, she has no words to say that could justifiably pass as comforting. Instead, she pulls you closer and wraps her arm around your shoulders. You hadn’t even noticed you had started crying until she starts to shoosh you gently – with no intention to force you to stop crying, only to comfort you. An eternity passes you by as you cry into Sevika’s shirt, feeling utterly pathetic and entirely validated as she murmurs gentle words of kindness into your skin. You struggle to calm down, the sorrow bubbling up in your throat as you cling to her. Each sob slowly lowers your mind down to a simmer until you’re snuffling softly against her shirt. She passes you a handkerchief so you can blow your nose and rakes her fingers through your hair.

“Feel better?” she asks, rocking the swing with a gentle push against the wall.

“No… yes,” you mumble, trying to clear your nose. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have –“

A large, calloused hand covers your mouth as Sevika sighs, shaking her head at you: “No. Don’t go apologizing to me for that. You don’t ever have to apologize for being human. Especially not to me.”

“Okay,” you whisper against her hand, letting your hot breath lick against her palm. She pulls it away, tucking a loose strand of your hair behind your ear. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, sugar plum,” Sevika yawns, stretching out a little on the porch swing before shuffling back into a comfortable position. “Let’s have dinner later; I don’t feel like gettin’ up right now. And you ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Her hand rests firmly between your shoulder blades as if you’d dare to try. Instead, you deflate against her, making sure not to rest your head in the damp spot on her shirt. Unfortunately, that means your face is right next to her breast – though Sevika doesn’t seem to mind. She hums contently, going back to stroking her hand through your hair when she’s sure you’re not going to get up.

“Five more minutes,” you mumble contently, smiling against the soft flesh of her breast unintentionally pressed against your face.

“Fifteen,” Sevika argues.

“Ten,” you argue back.

“Fine.”

The two of you accidentally fall asleep as the porch swing rocks back and forth. When you awake, night has started to overtake the sky, and you’re starving. You glance up to see Sevika’s face cast in the warm glow of the setting sun. She’s still fast asleep, the most peaceful you have ever seen her. There’s a soft smile on her lips and her hand is tangled in your hair, and for a moment, you want nothing more than to be able to lean forward so you can slowly kiss her awake. But this isn’t about what you want. This is about survival and friendship, and all that you cannot have yet give to others freely. So, you extract yourself from her hold, flinching at the tiny whimper that escapes her, and escape to the kitchen.

By the time the pita pizzas are almost done, Sevika stumbles into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Neither of you brings it up. That night, you sleep in your own bed, cold and alone, wanting to give Sevika her space before you fuck up the one good thing you have in this world.

[artbyblastweave]

Happy New Year! Looking for comic recommendations, which are your favorites? Genre doesn't matter very much, I was raised on the original run of Amazing Spider-Man

Happy new year! Some fun ones from the last couple years-

Rock Candy Mountain by Kyle Starks and Chris Schweizer- Fantasy-americana post-WW2 madcap about an unbeatable hobo on a quest to find the titular Big Rock Candy Mountain, and the washed-up screenwriter he drags along for the ride. Two volumes.

We Only Find Them When They're Dead by Al Ewing and Simone Di Meo- space opera about mining crews who work harvesting tissues from dead galactus-like entities. Unlike most of these it was an ongoing I haven't caught up with and thus the only one I can't vouch to have stuck the landing. Great imagery though. Galactus Whalefall

Dead Body Road by Justin Jordan and Matteo Scalera- Elmore Leonard/Donald Westlake inspired crime-revenge-rampage/maguffin hunt thing. Actually anything Justin Jordan writes but I took some effort to prevent this entire list becoming Kyle Starks and Justin Jordan books 20th Century Men by Deniz Camp and Stipan Moran- Alternate history where the USA and USSR deploy nationalized superhumans to Afghanistan during the 1980s.

Daybreak by Brian Ralph. Zombie apocalypse story with the gimmick of being told entirely from a first-person perspective.

Frontiersman by Patrick Kindlon and Marco Ferrari- a 60-something Green-Arrow analogous superhero who's gone bush is coaxed out of hiding by environmentalists to do a tree sit protest, only for all hell to break loose as all the superhuman contacts he left hanging track him down to settle their accounts. He Will Not Leave The Tree. This was supposed to be an ongoing but I think it only managed one volume.

Hard Boiled by Frank Miller and Geoff Darrow- Gonzo retrofuturistic self-parody of Miller's usual fare, about a hard-as-nails guntoting unstoppable IRS agent whose choppy Noir narration reads like a stroke-in-progress. Rife with Miller's typical derangements about women, and carried in many respects by the visual buffet of Darrow's interiors, it nonetheless convinced me that All-Star Batman and Robin might have been written that way as a deliberate gag instead of out of a complete lack of self-awareness.

Ultimate Spider-Man by Bendis and Bagley- the progenitor of the original Ultimate Marvel Line, and also the progenitor of the Bendisian house style that would eventually eat the rest of Marvel's output for the 2000s and 2010s due to how popular it was. I got about 110 issues in until I got wrenched away from it by life developments a couple months back, but throughout that run it cemented itself as basically the cohesive take on Spider-Man for me.

[most-normal-eccles-cake-ignorer]

celestial surveillance + some garden of eden parallels

For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. - Luke 8:17 (NIV)

Over and over, we see how the bookshop feels safe/private while simultaneously being sort of a fishbowl, leaving its inhabitants quite exposed to onlookers. *garden of eden vibes*

Similarly, Aziraphale and Crowley tried to conduct a class-A surreptitious 6000+ year agreement/slowburn romance and yet their 25 Lazarii relationship is fairly obvious to others.

Reminiscent of how Crowley is painfully aware that nothing is certain and time is horribly finite, Aziraphale lives with the knowledge that anything he does or says can be used against him—or much worse, used against Crowley or others our little guardian cares about. Unlike his emotional support demon, however, Aziraphale was afraid Before the Beginning, before The Fall.

While Upstairs aren't the only ones watching, they have the potential to be the most dangerous threat (emphasis on potential bc they have to take an interest and also maybe stumble into important clues): The heavenly office overlooks the entire world. Where Hell had to send Furfur to the theatre with a camera, Heaven's got Earth Observation Files they can pull up to see what someone was doing at any point in history—not even St. James Park can keep you anonymous in the face of thirty-seven classes of scriveners/recording angels!

Aziraphale may tend to underestimate danger in general because of his misplaced hope that Heaven is truly Good, but in the same way that he can be both clever and stupid, I think he trusts Heaven and fears it at the same time. Why else would he be so worried about breaking their rules even when he knows they are wrong?

Of course, Aziraphale is also a courageous little bastard with a deity-defying protective streak! Despite Heaven's indoctrination, we see him navigating all sorts of grey area as he learns to 'blur the edges'. But he knows it isn’t safe to do that openly. He keeps this more human side hidden and tries not to think too hard about why doing good is wrong in heavens eyes. (lol other people's aziraphale metas are my main food group rn)

At the end of S2, we see him leave A.Z. Garden & Co. after tasting the forbidden fruit large oat milk latte, armed with his naïve/misguided 'knowledge of Good and Evil'. (and perhaps he knows he can't 'let the sun can’t go down' on him in Soho lest the the Metatron mete out death instead of coffees?) When Adam and Eve left Eden, Aziraphale and Crowley observed from above. When the angel and demon leave their own garden, we get the sense that they are also being watched.

(also idk if this is anything but Adam facing off against the lion while Eve looks on in the bg seemed a bit like Crowley watching Aziraphale walk into danger w the Metatron. could be a good sign since the lion gets turned into salami)

There are hints at the end of S2 that the watching is getting a little a spicier (at least I think they are hints haha): the bookshop windows are still broken during the last part of E6, further decreasing privacy; the zombies used binoculars to watch A&C from the Dirty Donkey under cover of darkness in 1941 but the Metatron just looks across the road in the light of day. And then there's the whole 'hefty jigger of almond syrup'.

[raeynbowboi]

Playing a Heroic Necromancer in DnD 5e

Necromancy is one of the most evil-skewed powers in just about any fantasy setting. However, unless you're running a villain campaign, most DnD parties are made up of heroes who won't like having an evil character in their midst. You want to play a necromancer, but you also realize that DnD is a very collaborative game. So, how do you make your party more amicable towards the thought of you raising a family? Here's some possible backstory ideas that can fuel a heroic necromancer for your next campaign.

The Scholar

The taboo, illegal, or forbidden nature of studying necromancy drew your interest. Whether you studied with a secret sect, uncovered a grimoire of necromantic magic, or made a deal with a devil for profane knowledge, you were driven by a desire to study magic. The sparse availability of necromancy forces you to remain mobile, making party formation easy. You may be hunted by law enforcement, clerics of Kelemvor, or other necromancers angry at you for stealing their arcane secrets. And now that you know what so many tried to hide from you, it's your choice how to use it.

The Chronicaller

History is written by the victors, the rich, and the powerful. But every life holds valuable knowledge and secrets. Ancient bones know things lost to time. Knowledge that was never written down. Stories which have not been spoken in centuries. Opinions of the common people during a historical event. Experience with phenomenon that can no longer be encountered. The Chronicaller wishes to unearth the secrets of the past already laid to rest.

The Physician

The Frankenstein of Necromancers wishes to understand the medical and scientific elements of life and death itself. To understand the body by inspecting it and digging into it. They may study how to cure diseases or how to spread them. Try to find a way to slow or even halt the slow decomposition that turns the body elderly and frail.

The Thayan Rebel

Once a Red Wizard of Thay, you have left Thay and the Red Wizards, letting your hair grow back slowly as you seek to expand your arcane talents beyond the limitations of Thayan conquest and oppression. The Red Wizards and Szas Tam become personal antagonists for your character and party as a result.

The Undead

Be they a Revenant, a Dhampir, a Vampire, a Lich, or something else, they are already imbued with undead power. They simply embrace their anti-life energy already flowing through them, channeling a power most others would avoid. You may be undead, but you desire to staunchly defend the living from other undead who are less compassionate.

The General

A wizard with a soldier background and optional martial multiclassing, your undead horde is your army of loyal soldiers, putting their lives on the line again and again to serve their general. An Oathbreaker 7/wizard 6 adds your CHA mod to undead within 10 ft, and proficiency bonus to all undead you control. But the steep dip into paladin locks you out from higher level spell slots for stronger undead minions.

The Noble

Similar to the general, the undead serve you out of loyalty, not fear or force. But where the general commands their soldiers, the Noble may command their staff of servants, their commoner citizens, their knights and soldiers, or their own noble ancestors. The Noble utilizes their horde to fulfil the services and duties of their noble house. They're just as likely to conscript skeletons to pave a road or build a bridge as they are to form a wave of zombies to break up a smuggling ring in their city.

The Immortal Guardian

You have or want to become immortal not out of power hunger or greed, but to protect the innocent forever as an unwavering guardian against evil. Everyday people can't protect themselves, and even legendary heroes die eventually. Only an immortal protector can be an eternal defender of the people.

I hope if nothing else, this gave you some ideas for some good and noble necromancers you could bring to your next table. Did I miss any Heroic concepts that you thought of? Let me know, and help make the world a more morbid place.

[gorbalsvampire]

we only come out at night (v:tm city meta, 3/?)

Published World of Darkness material is of... varying usefulness, when you put your city together. Sometimes, your city will have a By Night sourcebook, and a lot of top down design will be done for you, but you'll have to build up from your PCs to do that. Sometimes, your city will have a paragraph or page in something else: you'll know that the Prince of Manchester is named Charles Shawlands, is a seventh generation Ventrue, and rules over a damp and gloomy domain that gets more attention from Changeling writers than Vampire ones.

And that's the way, uh huh, uh huh, I like it.

worked example: building your Prince

I usually start by rattling through the history of the city at surface level. looking for hooks. In this case: Manchester wasn't really a city that warranted a Prince or a Kindred population until the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century, so it's likely that the first Kindred to have settled there ended up Prince by default.

I wanted to roll with an older Prince than I had last time, due to game circumstances. I'm building Manchester for a one or at most two shot game for my sister-in-law and her husbando, and a chronicle for my D&D group, which includes a complete newcomer who's drifted in off LAbN. As such, I want a classic Prince; Ventrue, conservative, and old/powerful/authoritative enough to be scary, but not older than the Camarilla.

When I was looking around on the ol' Wikipedium, I found that Manchester had been a manorial township and, during the Interregnum, was seat to a major-general (a military governor) who achieved a lot for the Parliamentarian cause... but died young. And his name was Charles. He'll do.

So. Embraced 1656, possibly in London. Probably returned home after the Restoration, and squirrelled himself away as an isolated neonate in a backwater domain that abruptly grew a hundred years later, when our man was catapulted to praxis and did well enough at it.

worked example: choosing your Rack

When I studied in Manchester, on and off for three years, I spent a lot of time on Oxford Road. The top end of that fine, bustling, deathtrap-for-cyclists thoroughfare is home to the Gothic Victorian heartland of the University of Manchester, the sprawling postmodern village of Manchester Metropolitan, and the plate-glass elegance of the Royal Northern College of Music.

Where there are students, there is drinking, and underneath the elevated tracks and platform of Oxford Road station, you will find four boozers: the Thirsty Scholar, the Zombie Shack, the Salisbury and the Grand Central. It's an ideal spot for a thirsty Kindred to hang out at the start of a night.

Dead opposite, however, there's the magnificent Refuge Assurance Building, now home to a gallery, restaurant, florist, hotel (in the clocktower). Brick and terracotta, red as a scar, early Victorian grandeur. Architecture of heft and presence. Grade II listed. Room 261 and a back stairway of the hotel are said to be haunted (child ghosts and a suicidal widow). Screams Ventrue.

So, that's the Rack. I don't know if Shawlands resides up there himself, but his Keeper or Sheriff certainly do: some public official who's as high-and-mighty as the hoi polloi playables are ever likely to meet. Someone who needs to keep an eye on the feeding grounds over the road, and pull the occasional wayward little Kindred up for a chat. Maybe this Ventrue has a feeding restriction to do with scholars; maybe it's all a red herring.

Oxford Road doesn't appear on the map I assembled last week; it sits between the Gay Village and Castlefield, not a formal domain that's been granted to anyone, just there.

If I hadn't known about Manchester from first hand experience, I'd probably have started by looking at listed buildings, concentrations of night life, or specifically looking up the districts. Like, say...

worked example: making a domain

NOMA? Never heard of it. Oh, North Manchester. This is like BoJo or RiRi, isn't it? Something annoying invented by journalists, or something-in-marketings. The former Co-Operative buildings sit at the heart of a massive new development, centred on Angel Square, and its No. 1 building - a giant sliced egg shape in glass and steel.

There's a lot of money being ploughed into what was, when I first lived in Manchester, a run-down area (and I've stayed in some right shiteholes further north still). A few ideas suggest themselves for this area.

Second Inquisition (the sourcebook) pitches Gentrifiers as a hunter archetype, using redevelopments like this to undermine the general state of decay favoured by the Kindred. If my players want to go Anarch, it's tempting to site them on the top side of the city, and have their extant domains be whittled away by these Projects with Money behind them that are outside context problems for the Kindred as a whole.

Alternatively, we could give the Anarchs a leg up for a change; give them Angel Square as their crown jewel, a new domain for the new power, contrasting against the weathered Victorian establishment of the Camarilla in the south. They'd need a bankroll, of course. A Kindred of extraordinary wealth and dynamic vision. What has the Anarch movement recently gained that's lending these qualities as vital infrastructure? The Ministry. And a property developer Setite would be a nice change from the usual smut peddler nightclub owner writhing pliant yearning bodies blah blah blah get an imagination. Hubris, ambition, greed, even an element of the gambler's fallacy in investment. Angel Square - a new Eden, with the Serpents at its heart.

Do that for every district on the Central map, come up with either a single Kindred or a Coterie Type who's doing their thing in that domain, remember to leave space for the players...

... oh yeah, space for the players. Next time, we'll break out my handouts: the player packet and domain guides I like to assemble at the start of a chronicle.

[hueningsloverr]

౨ৎ 1,862 days !

pairing: yeonjun x reader summary: being able to love yeonjun, and the road that lead you to him word count: 1.3k extra: happy five years to our oldest member!! 4th gen it boy yeonjun!! apart of my anniversary series!

yeonjun was like a breath of fresh air, a saving grace. moving to korea at eighteen was rough, but running into the boy on the streets suddenly made it all worth it. you had bumped into him early in the spring - you were still bundled up in a jacket wandering aimlessly around seoul. instead of finding your friend at the coffee shop she had promised to wait for you in, you quite literally ran into yeonjun.

'excuse me, can you help me?' you pleaded through broken korean, and he laughed slightly, understanding the gist of what you were asking him.

needless to say, he gave you directions, even walked you to the shop and sat down with you after you realised your friend had set out on her own to find you. he even went a step above the rest and walked you back to your apartment after learning just how new to the area you were.

the rest was (basically) history. all it took was one day for him to ask you out, and those dates quickly turned into weekends tucked away from the rest of the world hiding out in your apartment. your roommate was rarely home - she worked odd hours and had her own girlfriend to visit.

before you knew it, five months by yeonjun's side became five years.

"all i'm saying," you began, your boyfriend humming mindlessly on the couch as he half watched tv, half played on his phone. "is we should go out for our anniversary."

yeonjun nodded absentmindedly, your words not truly sinking in. "yeah, yeah." he mumbled, eyes glued to his phone. kai had got him hooked on some two player game, and now the duo were both constantly on their phones, fighting monsters or something.

"it's too bad taehyun asked me out too." you giggled, leaning over the couch to watch his reaction.

nothing.

"i mean, is it bad i said yes? we don't technically have plans, so it's not a big deal."

he didn't even acknowledge your presence.

"but i felt bad, because i had to turn down wooyoung, and dino, and changbin - yeonjun could you at least blink to let me know you're not some zombie?" you groaned, moving around the sofa to sit next to him.

now it was his turn to laugh and he wrapped his arm around you, his phone discarded next to him. "i was listening," he teased, eyes glistening with mischief as he smiled, clearly proud of himself. "i just wanted to see how ridiculous you'd get."

you chose to ignore his statement, moving past the ordeal. it was sort of childish. "so, dinner? tomorrow night?" you posed, moving to sit on your knees. it was almost as if you were ready to beg. anniversaries meant a lot to you - especially as this one marked five years since moving to korea.

it was hard, leaving your life behind. but, you had to. and things had worked out. really well.

"i've got practice. why don't we go out tonight? today marks five years of us meeting." he offered, frowning when he noticed just how disappointed you were.

"yeah, sure." you smiled, pushing yourself up off the couch. "i was hoping you'd be able to get off work tomorrow, but i get it. i promise i do."

he nodded, sighing. "have you talked to your parents recently?" the question caught you off guard - no matter how good or bad of a relationship you had with your parents, calling them rarely crossed your mind. when was the last time you spoke to either of them?

"no," you huffed, though more out of annoyance with yourself than with him. if you were to call them, they would chew you out for ghosting them. but life was busy, and the time difference did not help. "they weren't the biggest fans of me moving out here, you know."

his eyebrows furrowed as his head tilted slightly to the side, "they weren't? but - when i met them a bit back, they seemed so happy for you."

you tried to suppress the growing grin on your face at the idea. "my parents were so far from happy for me, jjunie. they just didn't want to upset either of us."

he nodded slowly, letting the information seep in. "well, that's too bad. i hoped to talk to them. but i guess i could see how they probably weren't the biggest fans of their eighteen year old deciding to just move out and into a foreign city."

"why would you want to talk to my parents?" you snorted, the idea so completely absurd it didn't even seem real. "didn't you say something along the lines of, 'i'm sorry you're related.' when you met them?"

he shrugged, clearly unable to form the proper sentence. you took his silence as a cue to leave and get ready for dinner. by the time you were done he'd probably have made a reservation somewhere, or called some sort of favour in. perks of being famous.

and of course, by the time you emerged from your bedroom, grabbing a hold of your wallet from your dresser, yeonjun himself was already waiting for you by the door, holding your shoes in his hands.

"took you long enough." he smiled, though you could see the faint spread of pink across his cheeks. he was never good at hiding the fact that he was blushing. over the years he had learn't you were simply too good at spotting it, and accepted the fact that you thought it was cute.

"so where are we going out tonight, mr. choi?" you grinned, slipping your shoes on and interlocking your arm with his as you made your way out the front door. sometimes having a first floor apartment was a blessing.

"it's a surprise." was all he said, and you understood that his words truly meant surprise. as in, he was not going to be telling you. but still, you quickly recognised the change of scenery. something about it was familiar.

you were close to your first apartment - the one you lived in when you met yeonjun. you could see the park you spent many afternoons together in. and up in the distance you could faintly see the coffee shop you went to when you first met yeonjun.

and it all made sense.

"coffee for dinner? don't you have practice tomorrow?" you questioned, nudging his shoulder with your own.

he nodded, taking a moment to look at you.

it felt like his breath had been knocked straight out of him.

you were everything to him.

"you know what?" he smiled, pausing.

"hm?" you hummed, stopping just a few feet in front of him. "what is it?"

"i've been in love with you for five years." you felt your heart stop in your chest. "i've spent these last five years doing what i love, while getting to be with the person i love. you don't know how crazily lucky i feel just waking up next to you."

he began to lower himself to the ground.

now it was your turn to have the breath knocked out of you. "jjunie?"

"it would be a lie to say these past five years have been easy, but hey, i love you. so they've all been worth it." he was pulling something out of his pocket.

a ring.

he didn't even need to ask the question for you to begin to tear up (i would.), your answer already so clear to him. "you don't need to even say yes, just let me know i'll be able to love you for et-"

"yes." you smiled, rushing quickly to pull him into a hug. "i've been in love with you since i met you, jjunie. and i plan on loving you for the rest of my life. the past 1,862 days have meant the world to me."

"not like anyones counting or anything." he teased, placing a soft kiss on your forehead.

yeah, moving to korea at eighteen was worth it.

a/n: i've never??? written??? a marriage??? proposal???? ive never???? witnessed???? true love????

©2024 - all rights reserved to hueningsloverr, please do not plagiarise or translate any of my work

[crappymixtape]

crappymixtape recos

going to try and do this at least once a month – sharing fics that have just blown me away ❤ so many talented writers on here omg 🥺 show them some love and BE KIND, REBLOG! xoxo, 💿

❤ “project sunshine” series +18 only – @a-dealwith-god ( TW: typical violence, child abuse, horror, gore, and depictions of mental illness // when another product of Hawkins National Laboratory escaped a long-survived nightmare alongside her sister, she crashed into one unsuspecting teenage boy and dragged him deeper into the dark mysteries that made up their hometown • steve x reader )

❤ “simmer” series +18 only – @upsidedownwithsteve ( welcome to hawkins’ number one diner! where the staff don’t wanna be there and the linecook is a grumpy metal head who likes to argue with his boss and ignore everyone else. but the new waitress can’t hack the rude customers and the regulars can be a little… much • linecook!eddie x waitress!reader )

❤ "from bug’s summer fic fest" – @lovebugism ( reader is clingy but doesn’t wanna come off as clingy so she asks eddie if he wants to be alone and he reassures her he couldn’t go anywhere without her • eddie x reader )

❤ “a quest for bed” – @luveline ( eddie fights to get his usually shy and moderately intoxicated girlfriend to bed when you insist on clinging to him at every turn • eddie x reader )

❤ "lyric request" – @familyvideostevie ( lyrics: “i didn't know you then and i'll never understand why it feels like i did” • steve x reader )

❤ “i can see you” +18 only – @fairyysoup ( TW: read at the link // the secret history of your long and arduous relationship with steve harrington aka the 5 times you pined over each other, and the time you actually did something about it • steve x reader )

❤ "post-game james" +18 only – @theemporium ( james potter post quidditch game shower smut – thinking about his sweaty pecs and big hands and thick thighs • james potter x reader )

❤ "public kisses" – @starryeyedstories ( you know steve would be the mom to kiss his girl in front of the gang because he knows they hate it • steve x reader )

❤ "all i really want is you" series +18 only – @loveshotzz ( a series of slow burn blurbs between older!neighbor!widower! steve x fem!reader – updated every wednesday • steve x reader )

❤ "zombie au" series +18 only – @luveline ( TW: various, read at the links // stranger things AU – reluctant allies to friends to lovers, takes place during the apocalypse • steve x reader )

❤ "injured with eddie" – @eddiemunsons-missingnipple ( stubbing your toe in front of eddie and he acts like you’re dying • eddie x reader )

❤ "the summer of '89" series +18 only – @delphispoeticals ( this is truly going to be a fantastic stranger things meets dirty dancing series and omg just wait til we can read it • dancer!steve x reader )

❤ "dependency problem" +18 only – @writersblockedx  ( TW: drugs, substance abuse, alcohol // when you return to cousins this year, you find that conrad has picked up similar bad habits you once had • conrad fisher x reader )

❤ "a lesson in romantics" series – @stvharrngton ( a multi-part series where reader is the new art teacher at hawkins high and the history teacher, mr. harrington, takes a shine to the new girl. mutual pining ensues on their road to love • steve x reader )

❤ "learning in public" +18 only – @ohcaptains ( you didn’t think he’d enjoy it that much...didn’t think he’d want more, too • carmen ‘carmy’ berzatto x female! reader )

[elliott-the-creature]

random things that give me species euphoria:

stew

dry cereal (or cereal with not a lot of milk)

swimming/scuba diving

hiking in the woods

sticking my head out of the window when driving

being asked to get something

going on those swing amusement park rides

dried fruits

spelling tests

showers

climbing up the stairs on all fours

going to pet stores

farms

tearing meat off the bone

museums (especially natural history museums)

night walks

road trips

piling a crap ton of pillows and blankets together to make a nest

watching those satisfying videos of water

thunderstorms

watching old disney movies (especially old animal movies like bambi, 101 dalmatians, lady and the tramp, fox and the hound, aristocats, etc.)

playing mantracker/zombie tag

playing hide and seek

[theology101]

I love Dead Island 2’s representation of a Federal/Military response to a zombie apocalypse cause it perfectly shows the extreme competence and incompetence of the American Government.

Like okay, the US Military is the most powerful institution in the History of Mankind, it’s been the only thing our country has cared about for 80+ years. Against Zombies - which just use even *less* effective version of wwI strategies - the Military can and should easily steamroll the zombies. Shit, even the strongest Apex Zombies go down with a few clips from a rifle - btw, standard issue for the US Army is the 5.56x45 M4 Carbine, or another words, your standard soldier is more then capable of taking down the most elite Zombies around, especially if they are operating in squads/units.

Like this is something a lot of Zombie Media gets wrong - I have a M61 Vulcan, it does not MATTER if I get a head shot. Hell, it doesn’t matter if I’m using a M134 - the sheer amount of concussive force delivered can, should, and will pulverize bone, tissue and organs across the entire body as your mortal flesh tries to contain the impact. Even if you need to break the brain to kill the zombie, concussive force traveling through the body will handle that. Even if it doesn’t, a zombie that’s made up of teo hundred random component shreds aint a threat, is it?

On paper - the US Military could and should have been able to handle the Zombie Apocalypse. But militaries don’t just exist on paper and when rubber meats the road, the two predictable enemies of Capitalistic Military Might rear their heads: Corporate Interests and overconfidence.

The Military intentionally released the virus onto Hell-A in Dead Island 2, with the goal of finding a cure to the Zombie Virus. The Virus would pop up inevitably, and so sacrificing the city of LA (But not the children, over 99% are evacuated before the opening cinematic) to get the 1 in a Million people who were immune to then make a cure is, to the military, reasonable. The problem is that the Military didn’t know what they were dealing with and didn’t have time to learn, and they trusted a Tech Billionaire.

The military could’ve had everything handled, but they didn’t know how to despose of Infected. So, they melted them with Acid and flushed them down the drains. Big problem - the Acid didnt kill the Autophage cells. Instead of having a few million Zombies each running as an autonomous machine, so much biomass is depositted in the Sewer that it begins to grow. The Flesh eats the fat, the waste, the garbage in the sewer to make massive tendrils and whole walls of living, thinking flesh.

In the opening cinematic, 3 days after the infection starts, the military has things pretty organized. Of course, there will be an attack against the border every thirty minutes, and at least one refugee turns out to be bit once every three hours, but things are generally hunky dorey. And then all of a sudden, a dozen earthquaks form around LA that are perfectly in line to breach all of the Military’s defenses

Dumbasses actually invented a Super Intelligent Hive Mind able to command the zombies and burrow into the earth to form artificial earthquakes

[deadgirlwalked]

Worst driver in history award goes to Lori Grimes, driving in the middle of a zombie apocalypse on an empty road and yet still managed to hit someone and get into a car accident

[celestialastronmy]

Here we go, I wanted to speak about one of my favorite redemption arcs in video game history

This is one of the most compelling games, where we get to witness an extraordinary transformation that's as heart-tugging as it is inspiring. Let's delve into the life of Lee Everett - the convicted murderer who rose like a phoenix from the ashes of his past to become a father figure to young Clementine. This is the story of a man who found redemption in the unlikeliest of places, making us feel for him, root for him, and connect with him in a way few characters have managed to do before.

In the dystopian world that is now Lee and Clementine's home, redemption isn't as simple as saying sorry. It's a long, winding road of self-discovery and growth. Our journey starts with Lee in the back of a police car, his past marred by a crime of passion and his future looking anything but bright. But hold on, here's where things take an exciting turn. The zombie apocalypse, terrifying as it may be, offers Lee a chance to start afresh, to build a new identity that's more than his past mistakes.

The crux of Lee's redemption arc is his relationship with Clementine. This isn't a forced bond but one that grows and evolves naturally, giving us a heart-rending look into guilt, responsibility, and the potential for change. From the moment he meets Clementine, Lee becomes her guardian angel. Guided by her innocence and her faith in him, he vows to protect her, a promise that helps him make amends for his past in a way nothing else could.

As we move further into the story, we see Lee's paternal instincts come to the fore. He teaches Clementine how to survive in this harsh new world, helping her become a fighter, and in doing so, he proves his commitment to her well-being. These moments mark his transformation from a convicted criminal to a protective guardian.

Lee's redemption is a masterful narrative device. It's not flashy or over-the-top. It's subtle, profound, and incredibly moving. His redemption comes not from a grand declaration of change, but from small, everyday actions that demonstrate his evolution. It's not about forgetting his past but about his dedication to Clementine's survival.

The real genius in Lee's redemption arc is its setting. The zombie apocalypse, for all its horror, offers Lee a chance at redemption that he could never find in the pre-apocalyptic world. It frees him from the labels society had slapped on him, allowing him to redefine himself as a protector, a mentor, and a father figure.

The final episode of the game is the perfect culmination of Lee's redemption arc. On the brink of turning into a zombie, his last act is to ensure Clementine's safety. He guides her through handcuffing him, ensuring he won't be a threat once he turns. It's his ultimate act of redemption - a man once punished for taking a life now willingly gives up his own to save another.

So there you have it - the redemption arc of Lee in Twdg, a narrative so immersive it sucks you right in. It's a testament to the transformative power of relationships and the potential for change, even in the direst of situations. Lee's bond with Clementine redeems him, not by erasing his past but by allowing him to shape a different future. In the end, Lee Everett is remembered not as a convicted criminal but as a father, a protector, and a teacher. His redemption arc is a beacon of hope - a reminder that even in a world overrun by the dead, there's room for humanity and goodness to flourish.