#These girls deserve a break

[owl127]

Working on chapter 11 for winter bloom! Hoping to post it this weekend :)

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

Helaena having a panic attack after being forced to publicly expose her grief…Rhaenyra as a grown woman admitting that she never completely trusted her groomer/abuser…Alicent accepting that her and her daughter are nothing but pawns to be used by men who benefit from their pain and grief…“I have been a piece that you moved about the board.”

My heart will always be with the women of this show.

[shsy7573]

We’re in This Together - Ch. 13

For more info or chapter index, see overview post

Alright folks, we made it to the end! This is the final chapter of WITT, and I’m happy to be posting it (I say as if I haven’t been spam posting all of these chapters over the last hour). I hope you enjoyed the story, and if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment! This was such a blast to write from start to end, and even tho there were times where I had no clue how to continue the story, I pushed through and am now delighted to share it w/ all of u.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own own Voyager or any of the characters in this fic (except for the aliens. Those were my creation.)

*This story is not beta-read and has not been edited or proof-read in any way! This was just something I threw together over the past three days and decided to post as my first entry on this site!*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A faint noise tugged at the back of her mind as Janeway swam through the darkness. At first, it was just a light buzzing. Barely audible and easy to ignore. But, as she floated there, her mind stuck between one state of being and the other, she was aware of the sound slowly growing louder. The buzz was amplified to a wave of static, and then as she sat even longer, it grew into the muffled sound of voices.

As she focused on the sound, she began to become aware of her other senses too. She could feel the light pressure of something soft pressing against her back and legs. Her nose began to pick up on the scents around her. There was a metallic smell, coupled with the indistinguishable aroma of several people.

Then, finally, audio in her head cleared up enough for her to hear a single word.

“Kathryn.”

Her name.

Her eyelids twitched as more words began to appear in her head. It was difficult for her to surf through the fog, and figure out what was being said, but she tried her best.

“Kathryn. Can you hear me?”

A small, barely audible noise escaped her throat. There wasn’t any nuance to it, just a sound. But it was enough.

“Kathryn, it’s Chakotay. Do you understand me?”

Janeway squeezed her eyes tight for a moment. As her brain adjusted to all the things her senses were picking up, she felt the deep lull of a headache beginning to form in the back of her mind.

The pain, so familiar if not less severe, was what made her remember.

Her eyes flew open, and she shot up upright from where she’d been lying down. Her heart hammered in her chest as she looked around. Scanning the room for any signs of the Arachnomen. As she did so, however, she became aware of the fact that Lieutenant Torres was nowhere in sight.

The Doctor came over, and both he and Chakotay started fighting desperately to force her back into the bed.

“Captain, please lie down! You’re fine!” The Doctor ordered, but she barely heard him.

“It’s alright, Kathryn, you’re safe! Everything’s fine!”

“Where’s B’Elanna?!” She gasped out, looking around the room again frantically.

“She’s—“ whatever the Doctor was going to say was cut off by the sound of Sick Bay’s doors opening. Standing on the other side of those doors, was Voyager’s Chief Engineer.

In an instant, B’Elanna took in the scene, and raced towards the biobed. “Captain!” She exclaimed, feelings of relief overwhelmed both of them as she engulfed Janeway in her arms. 

Kathryn hugged back, finally calming down now that the girl was in her arms. She was safe, she was alive. She was here, and they were together.

As her body finally relaxed, she was aware of the Doctor continuing his sentence beside them. “She’s fine.”

The Captain embraced her Lieutenant for another minute longer, running her arms in circles across the woman’s back. Her brain began to slow down as she did so, and she began to remember a little more about the caverns. She’d been lying in B’Elanna’s lap, holding her hand, and listening to her talk on and off about whatever came to mind. Then… then…

She couldn’t remember anything after that.

Reluctantly, Janeway pulled away, her face etched with confusion as she met the eyes of the people around her.

“What happened?”

Nobody really knew how to respond to that at first. Mainly because they weren’t quite sure how much they had to explain. So, Kathryn elaborated, “I was in the cave with B’Elanna, lying down, but I don’t remember anything after that.”

The engineer’s facial expression dropped. Sorrow coated her expression as she sat down next to Janeway in the bed. She held out her hand, and Kathryn took it gratefully.

“You stopped breathing. Your heart… stopped beating.”

The Captain was silent, taking a moment to process the information. She was able to fill in the unsaid blanks pretty quickly.

“I died?”

“In a medical sense, yes.” The Doctor provided, making sure to keep his tone gentle. “You were dead for almost ten minutes by the time you were beamed to sick bay.”

Kathryn nodded, but she could tell by their expressions there was more to the story. “What else happened… after I died.”

“A group of aliens attacked us.” B’Elanna explained, pressing closer to the Captain to remind herself she was there. “At first I was angry… really angry. I tried to fight them all but… there were just too many. So, at the first opening I could get, I picked you up and ran.”

The Lieutenant’s eyes clouded over as she remembered. Her sheer panic as she booked it down the tunnel, and the moment of despair when she came upon the ledge. Dozens of hands grabbing at her as she clawed desperately to reach the top of the incline.

“I almost didn’t make it… we almost didn’t make it.”

Chakotay decided that was the time for him to take over. “Voyager arrived just in time to beam you both to sick bay.”

“I was able to tend to Lieutenant Torres quite quickly. Although her injuries were numerous, and quite severe, they were nothing I hadn’t seen before. You, on the other hand…” the Doctor explained, trailing off as he looked at Janeway.

The Captain could only imagine. She had been infected by an unknown venom agent with an unknown way of treating it. Her heart had already stopped beating. It was a miracle whatever the Doctor did she worked at all.

She held up her hand, “you don’t… have to get into the details.”

He nodded, and she watched him walk away to grab a medical tricorder. Meanwhile Chakotay continued talking. “You gave all of us quite the scare. Especially B’Elanna. I had to threaten to call security on her just so she’d leave your bedside to rest. You two must have been through… quite a lot down there.”

The Captain and her Chief Engineer exchanged a glance. 

“We did.”

Chakotay stepped out of the way as the Doctor returned. “Well, I’ll leave you guys in peace. With the Captain on bed rest, I’ve got a ship to run. The crew will be happy to know you’re awake.” He turned around, but stopped just as he reached the bay doors. After a moment, he turned around again fondly, “they’re all be… very eager to see you.”

With that, the Commander exited Sidk Bay.

Kathryn turned her attention back to the Doctor. “How long was I… out of commission?”

“Five days.”

“Five days?!” Kathryn exclaimed.

“Here we go,” B’Elanna muttered, knowing full well that Janeway was about to become an extremely difficult patient.

“After a full week of being gone?! That’s way too long for a Captain to be out of service! I’ve gotta get back on top of things?!”

“What you need,” the Doctor insisted, giving the Captain a stern look, “is to rest. By order of your Chief Medical Officer, you are not to do any sort of work until I say you’re feeling better. Even though it’s been five days, your body’s going to take a while to recover from the effect of the venom.”

As he was talking, Janeway could tell what he meant. Her limbs felt heavy, and her eyes threatened to close on her. She was exhausted, and she could feel a small ache making itself known in her affected shoulder.

Kathryn sighed. She knew he was right. She just didn’t like being away for that long.

“The crew has your back, Captain. Everything’s going to be fine. Besides, not a lot has happened since you’ve been away. The locals refuse to let our ship go anywhere until they meet its Captain.” B’Elanna comforted, slowly lowering the Janeway back down onto the biobed.

She brushed her hand across Janeway’s forehead. She still had a mild fever, but for the first time in days, B’Elanna wasn’t concerned about it.

“Rest, Captain. Voyager will still be here when you’ve recovered.

And with one final smile sent towards her Chief Engineer, Kathryn closed her eyes, and let sleep take her.

Everything was going to be okay.

[misandriste]

ELOISE BRIDGERTON + being mistaken for a suitor

[codenamethebird]

God I have so much to say about Melinoe's characterization, and the fasinating implications about her future arc/the overarching plot of hades 2. I want to make a larger think piece with pictures but for the moment I'm just going to focus on this one specific thread.

In the wake of the Prometheus reveal, she has a slew of convos about his motivations for siding with Chronos, and the gods basically all go: this is his vengeance for us punishing him a tad cruelly. And Nemesis is like, yeah the gods 100% deserve it. But Meli's responds that he must have more motivation than just vengeance, it can't just be that. But when Prometheus explicitly goes, 'I'm doing this because the gods are horrible to humanity and I love humans,' she basically goes, no he must be lying. That motivation is both too pure, but also humans kind of suck why would you care about them?

Mel's humanity hot takes deserve it's own essay (Ms I think Humans should have never gotten fire and are better when they are dead), and I just want to focus on the former for now. She can not comprehend that Prometheus is fighting the gods for noble reasons. It just does not make sense to her. Mel's world is so black and white. She doesn't understand the nuance of the situation, and the thought that the gods might be actually in the wrong doesn't even get close to crossing her mind.

It's a fascinating (and horrifying) result of her upbringing. Of the constant state of war and the very convenient big bad that is Chronos, the evil monster who stole her family. If she accepts that his side isn't completely evil, that they might even be right in some (even many) respects, she would have to grapple with her whole life. Everything she believes would be thrown into question, the literal thing she was training her whole life for.

She can't have Prometheus fighting for a noble cause, because he fights for Chronos whose the Bad Guy tm. But he also can't be fighting for something as simple as vengeance, because that would also mean she would need to really think about what he's angry about. If the punishment was truly so unnecessary cruel.

When talking to Odysseus about Prometheus, when Ody's saying how much he respected him for stealing the fire despite knowing the consequences, Mel says that it was the price to be paid for breaking Olympus's decree. To her, Olympus's rules are sacred and ultimately good. Unquestionably. Prometheus broke the rules with intent, so to her, why would he be so angry at the consequences? Especially if he knew because of his power they were going to happen.

So he must have another reason, some secret machiavellian plan that drives him. Except as I already said, it brings her right back to him doing it for humanity, which she also can't accept. Because that would be admiting that the gods did something wrong to humans. She twists herself into knots to justify her worldview, and it's fascinating! She's so messy I adore her.

Please Supergiant please the final surface boss has to be a human pleeeaaasse (preferably a living one). Or at least have one (or more) show up in some other capacity. Mel needs to come face to face with the other side and have it utterly destroy her worldview.

And/or have (Pan)Dora betray her for Prometheus, that would also be very fun haha.

[payidaresque]

*in narrator's voice* she was, indeed, not having it

[watermel0ns-dumb-cringe]

Oh Anya they could never make me hate you ☹️ughshjj bawls

[junotter]

All the jokes about Ken and horses are good but I just wanna say it's such a good parallel to how actual young men get swept into misogyny and the patriarchy.

Like they're told to believe it means men get to be cool and manly and have this power but with that comes extremely rigid commands of what they can be as a man and a cycle of self hatred for never matching those gender roles perfectly. Patriarchy tells men that if they just do exactly what is expected of them, then they get all the "cool stuff" that comes with. That doesn't work though when there's only a small group that actually gets that power, but men will keep trying to fit into those roles in hopes that they can.

In the end there are no horses or the myth men are told, it's just endless cycles of self hatred and ingroup fighting.

[da-cannibal]

sanji but her egg cracked at like 11

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hello! I loved the ghost girls from the comic you drew... a while ago and finally decided that if I don't draw them now, I'll never have time to do it. So. Here they are

Also thank you for your continuous propaganda of tiger tiger!!! I finally sat down to read it yesterday (the tab has been open for weeks? months???) and this was the best way to procrastinate uni homework, I don't even feel guilty. You have great taste

GHOULS NIGHT!!! They look amazing!

[ranticore]

tbh I'll just be sitting here randomly and get the urge to draw estibarith I love HER. the roundest dragon

[altf4d3lete]

Honest to god the WORST thing I see among wenclair antis is them making Enid out to be some kind of side character to push their agendas. Whether you like it or not, Enid is a main character. Her and Wednesday are the main characters. It’s already been said by the writers of the show that their relationship, whether platonic or romantic, is CENTRAL to the show. So please stop making her out to be a side character. Give the girl some credit, I BEG.

[godofstupidsentences]

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Suzanne Collins / Antigone, Sofocles

How do you mourn a brother you wanted dead?

[captainwinterrsoldierr]

Y’all Trials of Apollo is such a good series like please read it I loved it so much. Just get past dark prophecy and I swear you won’t regret it

[weepynymph]

an apology for @stellaluna33

[brosif40]

I like to think he does gigs with the Doot Doot Sisters :3