#actually that's maybe what whole apocalypse thing is about

[tritoch]

one thing I find neat about Emet-Selch is that his chauvinism is so intense that it actually prevents him from making the strongest possible case for the unique moral goodness of the ancients, and that this same mental distortion ties into his classic final fantasy need to turn into a Horrible Final Form Monstrosity for your final fight

(for my part I think any minor unique moral goodness the ancients possess they have due to their status as demigods living in eden before the fall. even if they really are morally/intellectually/spiritually/magically/etc. superior to every modern eorzean on a 1:1 level it still doesn't change anything because 1) they are mythical and impossible, that's the whole point and 2) even if they weren't, they still have no particular claim to existence that is superior to anyone else's, no matter how good they are. but the point here is the case Emet-Selch is trying to make, which is that they are more "worthy" of life.)

when he's setting you up for the final amaurot sequence, Emet-Selch hits you with this one:

it's a solid line! stops the party cold for a second.

it's also...not that impressive. do I think if we called a big world meeting that half of everyone would just jump up to be chosen? maybe, maybe not. but, sorry: we're having a big world meeting? are we also demigods with their every material need fulfilled in this version? do we have a one world government that almost everyone seems to fully trust telling us that it knows for real a way to stop the meteor heading towards earth? because honestly i think as soon as we start creating structural similarities like that, it becomes a lot more likely. and every step you take towards making the comparison happen on level ground makes the idea that the ancients were possessed of some unique moral fiber that made them capable of this sacrifice (as opposed to the undeniable abilities in magic and global governance that actually enabled it) seem less and less likely.

and especially if you consider it in the context of what actual people are like. human (and presumably eorzean) history is replete with examples of people sacrificing themselves to save others, even though none of us are immortal wizard philosophers. i don't know how the white-room thought-experiment "will half of you die to save the others???" turns out. but do i think, across a grand rolling catastrophe, that half our population would sacrifice itself to save the other half in a million individual acts of sacrifice to save a parent, a child, a lover, a friend, a stranger? that seems significantly more plausible. altruism and sacrifice for others is even pretty frequent in animals! it's not a very unique moral behavior!

(stanford encyclopedia of philosophy on biological altruism)

but that's not the only sacrifice the ancients made. roll the tape, hythlodaeus!

...Yet oh how the star had suffered. So many species lost. The land was blighted, the waters poisoned, and even the wind had ceased to blow. Once more did our people give of themselves to Zodiark. Another half of our race sacrificed to cleanse the world; to ensure that trees and grasses and myriad tiny lives would sprout and grow and flourish.

(every time I read this speech and hit the ff1/3/5 ref about the land and waters and wind i become mylongestyeahboyever.avi)

this is the step beyond, and it's what separates the ancients from modern humans. they viewed themselves as stewards of the star and really meant it; whatever other criticisms you might level, you can't doubt the depths of their commitment. and this i think really does make them morally distinct from modern people, or at least raises that possibility in a much more compelling way than the first sacrifice. half of the living population sacrificing itself not in a moment of duress and apocalypse but in a moment of calm? when the sacrifice isn't for anything but plants and animals and some tiny proto-eorzeans? that kind of cold, calculated, long-term altruism, aimed at people and living beings that are nothing like you...that does feel like something a little more unique, more worth preserving. even in just the text of the game, we can say with real certainty that the ancients were at least more capable of facing their problems and had greater moral integrity and care for the world than, say, the people who made ra-la.

but emet-selch can't ever say that because rejecting and dishonoring the decision the ancients made as stewards of the star is his primary goal.

like, "my people were uniquely morally good. half the living population sacrificed themselves not for their loved ones or for the survival of their people but simply for the world. for the trees and grasses and the wind and the water. for the humblest insects and for the summer breeze and the tides." that fucks! damn, you got me there! i watch enough people throw aluminum cans in the trash on a weekly basis that i find this sincerely moving and beyond the seeming abilities of my own brethren! oh no, i'm being persuaded by the fascist immortal space wizard!

"and therefore, because they are uniquely morally good, we are going to sacrifice and kill the very things they gave their lives to save, so we can have them back :)" well, shit. i'm experiencing some dissonance here.

but you can't actually lie to yourself as long as emet-selch without distorting your understanding of the truth. you cannot choose to see the world falsely half the time and clearly the other half. in committing to self-deceit and willful ignorance regarding the value of the modern world, emet-selch blinds himself not just to the world as it is but to the ancients as they were. if he could describe accurately the ways in which the ancients were genuinely noble and benevolent, he would also have to able to see clearly how he has entirely deviated from that ideal. and he cannot do that and stay on the path he has chosen, so he simply chooses not to see things accurately.

i cannot help but link this blindness of his to his trial. here, at what seems to emet-selch to be the last stand of the ancients, he says to you "to be clear this fight IS a metaphor, and in that metaphor i stand in for the Entire Unsundered World."

and yet, in standing against you, he betrays both the customs of the ancients and his very title, itself a direct signifier of the mission he was charged with as one of the convocation of fourteen: "to ensure that all is right in creation, that our star may know a brighter future." contra elidibus, for whom remembering his duty to the ancients is one and the same act as remembering his name, emet-selch declares his own to be mere pretense. and that's before we even reach the matter of his transformation.

emet-selch believes the only way he can save the ancients is to betray their principles, forget their greatest triumphs, and abandon their trappings. he renounces almost everything of the ancients, save for his pale and sad and faceless amaurot, in the hopes of bringing them back.

i am reminded a little of borges's three versions of judas, a short story which uses the lens of fictional literary criticism (appropriate for a story as interested in competing narrative interpretations as shadowbringers is) to recast the betrayal of christ by judas not as the greatest of sins but as the greatest of sacrifices.

The ascetic, for the greater glory of God, vilifies and mortifies his flesh; Judas did the same with his spirit. He renounced honor, morality, peace and the kingdom of heaven, just as others, less heroically, renounce pleasure. With terrible lucidity he premeditated his sins.

and, in turn, the sardonic footnote to that very same line, which unsettles that sentiment as soon as it has been presented:

Borelius inquires mockingly: “Why didn’t he renounce his renunciation? Or renounce the idea of renouncing his renunciation?”

[alkaline-wtr]

WE WILL SURVIVE

- - CHAPTER 6 - -

Ghost x reader Description: Ghost searches for Reader after their argument. Genre/Warnings: zombie apocalypse AU, Ghost x fem!reader, survivor!reader, angst, POV change, filler chapter WC: 1k

My Masterlist

** Oh? What is this you ask? Could it finally be?? a new chapter?! Yes. Yes, it is. Finally, I got Chapter 6 complete! Still iffy about how this one turned out but I NEEDED a Ghost POV chapter so bad. Please forgive my hiatus I actually had a chapter almost done when I came up with this one and I've been working on 6, 7, and 8 for some time... Just completely out of order and flopping between the three... So, anyway here is this, next one might be short as well but 8 will be HECTIC and looong so hopefully it makes it up to y'all. Also, yay!!(or not?) Ghost is back!! Teehee. Enjoy. (BTW My taglist somehow ended up a whole mess. So, if you are on there by mistake OR missing, please let me know thanks.) If you'd like to be added/removed from the taglist please, let me know.

<< PART 1 / << PART 5

*GHOST POV*

“Bloody hell.”

Ghost murmurs under his breath, standing in the middle of the empty master bedroom he’d left you in just a short while ago.

She couldn’t have stuck around a few more bloody minutes?

He thought to himself. He dragged a hand down the rough material of his mask. You as well as your things had vanished.

It's been less than an hour since I left her behind. She couldn't have gotten far.

Ghost searched the neighboring houses for you. His heavy boots flattened the unkempt grass.

Clearly, she didn’t need me if she took off so soon.

When he'd left, he had some time to reflect on your argument and how he’d stormed out. Thinking that maybe he had been a bit harsh. Which is what led him to turn around, backtracking to the house you’d been searching together. But now you were gone.

Why am I wasting my time? Not like she’s my responsibility. Besides, she can survive on her own. If she doesn’t… that’s not my problem.

Ghost knew the cost of caring for people, he didn't need attachments. Not anymore. He made that mistake before and wasn't going to shoulder that burden again.

He continued back into town, the mantra repeating in his mind, hoping to squash the guilt that pooled in his gut.

It’s fine. It’s fine… She’s fine.

The sun had set by the time Ghost reached the roof of a shopping center. He’d swept the shops clearing each corner before laying out all his gear to repack, minimizing the load and ensuring he only had necessities.

As he finished organizing his supplies Ghost took a much-needed smoke break.

The stale cigarette burned his lungs as he inhaled the smoke, leaning on his elbows over the ledge of the building.

The night was quiet. Trees rustled softly in the wind. The swirling smoke dispersed quickly as he blew it out into the night. The metallic tang lingered on his tongue.

For a moment he had no thoughts on his mind, successfully ignoring the gnawing guilt he’d been feeling all evening.

Until a distant car alarm caught his attention. It was faint, almost inaudible. Ghost chopped it up to one of the infected bumping a car on the freeway.

But then, a gunshot shattered the silence. Echoing across the empty streets.

“What the…”

He muttered, His scowl deepening as he scanned the dark road below. The night consumed the sky, leaving no light save for the cherry end of the cig burning away between his fingers.

Can’t be her. She only has a pistol—it wouldn’t sound like that.

He took another drag, forcing away the thought.

The second shot came quickly. Then a third.

The gnawing guilt crept back in stronger than before.

What if it is her? What if she’s in trouble?

He paused listening for another shot, but it never came. Finally, as the faint sound of the car alarm ceased, the worry poking at the back of his mind became too much.

“Damnit.”

He grumbles. He flicks the cigarette butt on the ground and snuffs it out with the toe of his boot. He pushed off the ledge Before gathering his things, abandoning his plans to camp there for the night, and headed towards the road again to investigate the shots.

Ghost is on the freeway when he spots you, perched on top of a truck, legs tucked under you, looking bored.

Immediately the tightness in his chest is replaced by relief and His grip on his bag loosens. Though he’d never admit it he was relieved to see you alive.

Your features were illuminated by a faint light as he looked you over. To his surprise, you seemed lighter somehow, not anxious or scared like he’d expected… as you had been before.

At least now he could follow through on his plan. Bring you through the city, get some supplies, find a safe place for you to settle in, and he’d be on his way.

He took a few more steps forward and opened his mouth to call your name but, froze when the figure of a man appeared beside you. Hands on his hips in a casual manner.

Ghost sunk low behind a nearby car taking cover in the darkness. His knees brushed the cracked asphalt.

His relief changed to irritation as he watched your interaction. You slid down off the roof of the truck and the man’s hand found its way to your back in a comforting gesture of familiarity.

The man turned, closed the door, and rounded to the back end of the truck. When he pulled himself to sit on the tailgate, that’s when Ghost got a glimpse of the man’s face.

“Graves.”

He growled. The name fell from his lips like a curse. It had been what felt like ages since he’d seen him. Ghost was in disbelief; he hadn't expected Graves to still be alive let alone have stuck around here.

Ghost couldn’t deny his anger; he’d lost daylight searching for you. He’d come all the way out here, in the dark, following gunshots because he was worried about you.

You were the problem.

He was losing his head because of you. Helping you on that road made you an obligation. You begged and cried, pleading with him to stick together, And for what?

He was torn with what to do now. On one hand, it bothered him, you being with Graves. But, at the same time, you were no longer his to care for. Although he didn’t exactly trust him, Graves was a capable man, and you’d have better odds sticking with him than going it alone.

And Ghost is too prideful to come crawling back with an apology, groveling at your feet to come back with him. Why drag you along with him when obviously you were more comfortable with Graves? As far as he was concerned you had gotten exactly what you wanted.

He watched for a few more moments. The wind carried the sounds of your light-hearted chatter.

What was it about Graves that left you in such a relaxed state? How did you not feel this safe with him? Ghost was always about caution and precision, but here Graves was hardly paying attention to your surroundings, and you seemed fine with it.

As you and Graves settled into the bed of the truck, likely to camp out for the night, Ghost sighed. You didn’t need him anymore, and he no longer needed to feel guilty.

Now, he too had what he wanted… He was alone.

PART 7 >>

Tag list

@yourfavbabigirl @keiraslayz @dcnocap207 @dustycrusty09 @jupiternighties @misspendragonsworld @etherealinthewoods @shadowcompanygirl @one-really-annoying-tree-rat @ghostieghoul711

[mairyuu]

Kamui's dumb 🥺 twink self: *exists*

Every bi, gay or straight man in X:

[absolutedestinyapocalypsse]

i love how as you read more into tlt, the ninth house seems more and more normal. Like if i'm at an immoral evil government competition, and i use human fat as soap and animate skeletons to do menial labor, i'm gonna LOSE if my competition is the third house, represented by ianthe "who HASN'T eaten human flesh and fucked a corpse" tridentarius. My weird skeleton thing seems normal, suddenly. Well-adjusted, even. It's recycling. They're using resources in a sustainable way. Normal and regular and productive for a post-climate change apocalypse universe.

People go on and on about how Muir drops you into gtn hearing from the person who knows the least about whats happening, and does not hand hold the reader through the crazy shit that occurs, and that's all true. It truly is a crazy writing decision to make your first pov character come from the universe's equivalent of amish fundamentalists. But the reader is actually done a huge favor being dropped into the ninth house first, because we already understand that space is cold and what catholic nuns are, and what goths look like, and what lesbians are. Very little time is wasted in the first chunk of gtn ripping hair out of your head wondering what the fuck is going on, because for all of its strangeness, the ninth house is already the most familiar thing we're gonna get.

Because THEN we learn that this whole universe's medieval chivalry system is designed to groom people from CHILDREN to not only be exploited and used as human batteries for necromancers, but to LIKE it. to wax poetic about it. to confuse it for love, to write fucking academic papers about it! Then we learn about planet flipping, an act so horrific and violent it turns the planet's soul into a massive vengeful monster capable of killing GOD. Like what do you MEAN the animals "change"? Is this why noodle has six legs? I would MUCH prefer to wear skeleton makeup and repent forever if the alternative was to witness my family dog grow TWO EXTRA LIMBS because the planet he lived on fucking died. Suddenly, living in the asscrack of a planet where no light gets in seems like a sweet deal when the whole solar system is lit by a sun that MAKES YOU GO CRAZY. The ninth house's WORST sin, killing 200 babies to make Harrow, a waste of resources and an act so terrible it haunts Harrow for the entire span of her life, is like a BLIP compared to the death count Jod's empire. God even hears about it and he's like, no big deal! The cohort probably kills that amount of people in a DAY.

And its ALSO tragic because you realize that all of this trauma and abuse that Gideon goes through is not really because of the ninth house at all. It's really just an individual skill issue that she wasn't treated with compassion. Nobody hated her because she's jesus or a bomb, nobody even KNOWS she's a bomb. It's just Priamhark and Pelleamena being deeply guilty and scared people that motivates her treatment, and absolutely nothing else.

They did something bad, and they know it, and Gideon survived it, and they can't kill her to cover it up, and that's IT. They killed themselves for pride, because they were afraid of the consequences of their actions (both the baby killing and Harrow opening the tomb) coming back to bite them. You can argue this is the catholicism of it all, and I wouldn't say you're wrong, but compared to the cavalier system, where exploitation is in the very lining of the house's institutions, the ninth house is really removed from the space empire's blood factory. This is compared to the fourth house where they have tons of children to be CANNON FODDER to join the cohort at fucking 14, compared to the eight house uncle nephew fuckery, even the fifth house which actually does seems nice to live on but also seems to have the fourth house in some sort of fucked up political bear hug??? (maybe the fourth house has so many kids in order to fight the fifth's battles? which is EXACTLY what jod's whole empire is about; politely stirring your tea and acting nice while you destroy everything) compared to ALL OF THAT, the cruelty that Gideon faces is really more a bug of the ninth's system than a feature.

There's nothing baked into the culture and everyday life of the ninth house that necessitated that cruelty; in fact, for such a pragmatic and resource-scarce place, it's WEIRD that a strong able-bodied young person was treated like a waste of space and resources. It could just have easily not happened, if Harrow's parents had been different people. Maybe they were products of their environment, but so was Harrow, and she values Gideon's life SO MUCH that she'd literally rather carve out parts of her own brain than exploit her. Gideon grows up knowing really NOTHING about cavaliers, so remote from the horrors of the empire that she develops an idea of what the cohort is from porn magazines. And in a lot of ways, that upbringing was desolate and terrible, and in a lot of other ways it literally DID NOT HAVE TO BE.

Gideon's MAIN THING is that she wants to be useful, to be needed, to be loved and it SUCKS that she couldn't even get it in the one place where she was actually an invaluable resource, where the death empire had the weakest reach. Gideon can't even blame her lack of love on the fucked up chivalry system like everyone else can because it JUST WASNT REALLY RELEVENT!?!?! This is like if i rolled up to the trauma competition and everyone else was raised in a nuclear warzone by wolves or something and i grew up in like, the suburbs and was raised by teachers and i somehow STILL WON. truly what the fuck guys.

[warandpeas]

So, here’s the deal: after we dropped this comic and it turned out to be a success, we felt this itch—an almost physical urge—to revisit it. Not to remake it per se, but to refine, to tweak, to smooth out those minor imperfections that only become visible in hindsight, like hairline cracks in a mirror that otherwise reflects something whole.

Then, along comes this offer from a print studio, and not just any print studio but one with three locations across the globe, which is kind of a big deal if you think about it. Their whole operation is basically the dream scenario for anyone who cares about what they're producing: colors that aren’t just bright but seem to vibrate on some kind of metaphysical level, like they’ve bypassed your retina and gone straight to the part of your brain responsible for wonder. And let’s not forget the paper. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill, office supply store stuff. We’re talking thick, textured, almost sinfully durable paper. Like, you could probably frame this without glass, and it would still hold up against the minor apocalypses that tend to occur in your living room.

Selected Funnies

Speaking of frames—another thing. They’ve got this black one that’s absurdly high-end, so good that they don’t just frame the print, they frame you, like they re-contextualize your entire existence as someone who actually cares about aesthetics. Which, if we’re being brutally honest, is part of the reason for the price, and we get it: some of you have raised an eyebrow or two about the cost, and we don’t blame you. But here’s the thing: The price isn’t arbitrary. It’s a function of the quality and the ethically sound supply chain. Yes, it’s on the higher end of the spectrum. Yes, it’s an investment. But imagine this: your artistically disaffected friends and the snobbish dinner guests whose approval you secretly crave? They’re going to stand in front of this print, struck dumb, maybe for the first time in their lives, because they’re faced with something they can’t cynically deconstruct. And isn’t that worth it?

Selected Funnies

[shanastoryteller]

look, we all know the truth

if dean had come back as a demon in season 4 the bloodsucking thing simply wouldn't have been an issue. he would not have been such a bitch about it if sammy was getting it at home

in fact! dean's a freak and he would LOVE that sam is physically dependent on him

"being addicted to demon blood is bad-"

ok but what if dean could literally give sam the blood pumping from his heart and give sam the power to vanquish demons, start the apocalypse, whatever, and it was all sam but it was also dean. what if this thing of sam's was directly because of dean and was another way dean could tie sammy to him, could make sure he'd never leave him

sam would be the one conflicted about this, going maybe the act of consuming my brother is bad actually. meanwhile dean is like nah sammy, last bowl of lucky charms, the blood under my skin, what's the difference? all i've ever done my whole life is look at you and open a vein anyway

[ivymarquis]

Say You Won't Let Go

Last House on the Right

Pairing| John Price x F!Single Mom!Reader Rating| E Word Count| 1.1k Kinks/Content/Warnings| Post Apocalypse!AU, Single Mom!verse, pregnant reader, mentions of pregnancy related eating issues + vomiting, Reader's got some separation issues. Fair warning this is so half baked I haven't even decided what kind of apocalypse it is, but somehow Ive got a whole plotline regardless.Same pairing as my fic Blind Date

Next Chapter

You can’t believe your luck. 

You’re not sure what exactly it was about this house in the dead of night that had you so transfixed, but your intuition has paid off in spades. 

The area’s been abandoned, to your knowledge leaving you the sole inhabitant meandering around. 

Or maybe waddling would be a more apt description.

Fear and uncertainty of the outside hurry you along into the house. Most everyone- the survivors- has splintered off into groups. There’s no evidence of anyone still living here (admittedly it’s not like you’ve taken the time to check every room, but there are signs when a house is inhabited), but you luck out that the cabinets haven’t been picked over. 

It’s been entirely too long since your last meal, and it takes a good amount of restraint to not devour the can of ravioli too quickly. 

As much as you’re tempted, you know there’s a fine line between what will and won’t have you immediately throwing up in the sink- grazing seems to keep the worst of the upset down.

There’s no hospitals to jaunt off to if you end up dehydrated. Excessive vomiting is not ideal post end of days.

If you were in your right mind- not frightened, isolated, starving, cold- and not focusing on how the unheated chef boyardee might as well be a five star michelin meal for all you can think right now, you might have been paying more attention.

The sound of a safety clicking off behind you freezes your blood far more than the cold. That sound is deliberate. Whoever’s behind you- gun pointed at you- wants you to know they got the jump on you.

“Hands where I can see them,” the order is gruffly barked at you.

You feel stupid. Of course all of this was too convenient for you to simply be catching a break. It wasn’t exactly well lit and designed to draw you in- but you’re an animal caught in a trap regardless.

The fork clatters against the counter next to the can as you go to comply.

“Turn around. Slowly.”

You’re not much of a threat in your current condition. That much is obvious.

Time stopped having any sort of tangible meaning a while ago. You should know how many weeks you are, but the days run together fending for yourself and you just know that you’re close. There’s no hiding the swell of your belly.

The man at the doorway looks as gruff as he sounds. Your mind spins like a tire in mud to process everything in front of you in the poor moonlight. Military, that much is obvious. You’re not actually sure if that’s a good thing. Handsome from what you can see, though historically your type has been men who don’t have a weapon leveled at you.

The taciturn expression on his face falters when he spots your bump, but you’ve learned by now to not expect any sort of special treatment.

“I’m sorry,” you apologize immediately. “I-I didn’t know anyone was here. I’ll leave, I swear.” 

He looks at you another moment before a look of resignation washes over him.

“Turn back around. Keep your hands up.” Oh God. Your mind immediately goes to the worst- That this man, for whatever reason, has decided that your infraction has signed your death warrant. That he can’t quite bring himself to fire on a pregnant woman staring him in the eyes, so the last thing you’re ever going to see is some tacky wallpaper and ugly cabinets.

You yelp when one of his hands finds the pistol on your hip. Holy shit you didn’t even hear him cross the room.

“Easy, love,” he soothes as he starts to frisk you for more weapons. “Not gonna hurt you. You have anything else on you?”

“A knife in my back pocket.” It doesn’t even occur to you to lie; putting yourself in his good graces is your only option and you can’t do that by lying.

His hands slip under your jacket, the hem oversized and hanging even with your arms up, making a wrong guess at the first pocket he checks before grabbing the knife out of the second one.

“Anyone going to come sniffing around looking for you?” A fair question, but one that sticks like a knife between your ribs.

The “No,” that escapes you is softer than you meant it to be, voice warbling as you try not to cry.

Hormones would have had you on the verge of tears at any given point, and that would have been before the end of the world and before your group abandoned you. You’re well entitled to your tears, you think, but try to stuff them back down anyway.

“You’re out here alone,” he grouses, sounding like he doesn’t believe you. The like this? is implied.

Your arms are still up, and they’re getting tired. Everything tires you out these days.

Like he can read your mind, he releases you with a “you can set your arms down now, love.”

“Thank you,” you’re in full fawn mode, turning to face him. While he’s clearly decided against killing you, you’ve been scared and alone for the past few days and you really don’t want to be separated from the only person who will give you the time of day right now. 

“Is there anyone else here? Other soldiers?” Your fate is sealed and lies in the soldier’s hands regardless of his answer.

Nothing with change, no matter what he says, but you think you’re less intimidated if it’s just the two of you. 

The world’s gone to hell in a handbasket, and yet you’ll never forget watching 28 days later when the line I promised them women was dropped.

“Got separated from my team.”

He turns away from you, gesturing to follow him out of the kitchen and towards the living room.

He’s limping.

You haven’t seen him move until now. You’re more an expert on busted hardware than busted body parts, you can’t tell if it’s a fresh injury that’s still healing, or an old one that’s set in place.

“They left you.” They left me, too.

“They didn’t leave me for dead, they think I am dead. Gonna take a bit more than that to get the job done, though.” 

You have no reason not to believe him. Despite having just met him, the man is like a living manifestation of everything masculinity is supposed to be- down to the surly attitude despite him herding you further into the house. It doesn’t take much to figure out that he’s tough as nails and sure why not flirt in death’s face that her last attempt wasn’t good enough?

You sit on the couch he points to, as he settles into the leather chair across from you.

“Christ what’d I’d do for a fucking smoke right now,” he mumbles, pawing at his chest absent mindedly on reflex.

You mean to sit stiff as a board, but your body is tired and the couch is surprisingly comfortable.

The soldier, however, sits like he owns the house. “And now for the question of what to do with you.”

[often-daydreaming]

Time Out

If you've seen The Sandman episode A Hope in Hell then you already know what I'm talking about but what if when the Justice League tries to summon the Ghost King for any number of reasons only they get Clockwork instead who forces them (or any hero really but I'm thinking of one of the Flashes or maybe Wonder Woman since Constantine has his own game planned for him) to play his favorite game, the oldest game and they have to win or else. He could genuinely be angry, I actually want to see a furious Clockwork more than ready to undo the very existence of the planet for daring to summon his protege but I can kind of see him messing around a little and playing up the whole titan of time, father of Zeus thing with the heroes as payback for messing around with the timelines so much.

It doesn't matter either way. What the Justice League wants isn't worth mentioning since Clockwork erased it from existence with barely a fraction of effort.

The biggest concern that has the entirety of Young Justice worried is the fact that the only person who got a free pass during that mess of a summoning was Bart and nobody can figure out why. Clockwork was more than willing to end the man of steel. He despised the other heroes and seemed annoyed at the sight of so many speedsters gathered together but after surveying the meeting room they used for the summoning he looked surprised then a little amused at the sight of Young Justice, smiling at Bart like he was genuinely happy to see him back there with the rest of his team. There wasn't even any mention of erasing his existence or anything as colorful as the threat against Constantine which was just rude. He could be a threat if he wanted (even if he kind of puffed up like an angry kitten when Clockwork started treating him like he was one of his grandsons) but he doesn't know (can't remember) that all of the Ancients and at least a dozen different pantheons have him on a very short list of people the Ghost King would gladly end the multiverse for after everything his past self/alternate did during the whole Dan problem. In Clockwork's eyes Bart has more than earned a free pass across the wider multiverse.

Cause, the thing is, the rest of the heroes might have died fighting for the world but the Bart from the darker timeline, the one who helped Danny traverse a literal apocalypse and pointed out way too many holes in Vlad's little monologue died saving Danny's life when Dan was trying to mess with the timeline which meant he unknowingly has the Ghost King's blessing and anything and everything on the more darker side of the supernatural can see the enormous 'Do Not Approach' sign that was basically Danny's mark (a necklace, pen, invisible magic whatever or something small he keeps on him without knowing why) claiming Bart as off limits.

Go mess with any other hero if you want, but this speedster, this little guy right here who has Clockwork treating him like a grandson has the Ghost King's blessing, the only blessing he's ever given out, permission to race across the crossroads of Infinity and the protection of a lot of powerful eldritch gods.

[not-neverland06]

How About a Nuke?

Part I / Part II / Part III

The ghoul x fem!reader A/N: Part three is going to be when it gets juicy, this is just them becoming reacquainted. You’ll get the good angst in the next parts. Summary: Your dreams of stardom and fame have been blown away. Your old life is lost to the sands of this new world and you find yourself utterly confused. There’s a man who looks an awful lot like Cooper yelling at you, but it’s not the man you remember loving. Not anymore.

For two days he’s been following the sound of sirens. With no new bounties, he hasn’t got much else to do with his time. Plus, he’s hoping that maybe if he figures out what’s been causing all this noise he can shut it the fuck up. Didn’t matter how far he walked, the blaring wail was echoing across the whole damn wasteland. 

A cough started up in his chest, itching into his throat and rattling his whole body as it ripped its way out of him. He tried to walk through the discomfort but it wouldn’t let him. He leaned over, hands braced on his knees, and coughed so hard he could feel ass jerky coming back up from his “dinner” last night. He clamped a hand over his mouth and forced the bile down. Frantic hands dug through the bag on his side, shaking as he ripped the box open and grabbed his inhaler. 

It took a minute before the drugs had the desired effect, and even then he was still fighting back nausea. He’s got to find a new dealer, that bitch in Filly was watering down her supply and he knew it. Not just that, she was overcharging too, on account of his being a ghoul. 

Even in the apocalypse money still managed to rule the world. Even if it was in the form of Nuka caps. He walked a little further before leaning against a boulder for a break. He wiped spittle off his lips and surveyed his surroundings. 

There was a faded old billboard sunken into the sand, only half of it sticking out. The paper was curled and browned from age and the sun, but he could make it out well enough. Quench Your Thirst, it wasn’t one of hers, though. It was the girl they’d replaced her with. He contemplated shooting it, just so he wouldn’t have to stare at the girl anymore, but it was a waste of bullets. 

Instead, he pushed off the rock and forced himself to keep going. The noise was unbearable now, rattling around his brain and making his ears bleed the closer he got. He must be right on it, only a little while longer and he’d finally turn the damn thing off. 

He lifted a leathered hand to block the sun out of his eyes. He kept squinting, disbelieving in the sight before him. Vault 111 was sitting pretty among the skeletons and dunes of sand. It’s big white numbers upside down as the door was slid open, alarms ringing out and red flashing lights dancing around within the vault. 

He couldn’t believe it. Vault dwellers were practically extinct in the Wastelands, nevermind actually getting into their vaults. But here this one sat, open and ready for the taking. Normally, he wouldn’t risk it, even just to turn off those fucking alarms. But he had just used his last vial and if he didn’t get his hands on some good shit soon, well, best not to imagine it. 

Hand on his holster he started forward, eyes darting back and forth to make sure this wasn’t some sort of trap set by raiders. He didn’t imagine they were smart enough to do that, but apparently Muldaver’s been on the move, this could be her people’s doing. He’d rather not have to listen to someone whining on about a better life and a kind society. 

He’d believe it when he saw it. All people were capable of was greed and lust, it’s been the same before the bombs and it will be the same after. 

He stepped inside, eyes pained as they adjusted to the stark contrast of the glaring sun outside and the soft fluorescent lights within the vault. He spotted a big red button and slammed his palm down on it. The sirens, thank fuck, shut off, but the lights kept going. 

There was a gap between his platform and the next. The control panel clearly needed a Pip-Boy to be operated but he didn’t see any nearby. He sighed and took a running leap, just barely making it to the other side.  

He took another suspicious look around, still not quite sure he was completely safe. His chest tightened with the irritating feeling of an oncoming coughing fit. “Fuck it,” he muttered, starting through the open doorway without a glance back. 

Whatever had happened in here had been messy and recent. He kneeled down next to a puddle of blood and dipped an ungloved finger in, still warm. He popped open his holster and tugged out the gun, better to be safe than dead. 

He had been following the direction the lights had been pointing this whole time, hoping maybe he’d stumble across an infirmary. These vault fucks had to have left at least one bag of radaway behind. So far, though, he didn’t have high hopes. Everything was ransacked. The bodies that were left behind had been stripped naked and beaten to unidentifiable pulps.

So far, the vaults had at least been air conditioned. If nothing else he was getting a break from the sweltering heat that trailed him on the surface. He’d already tested out one of the sinks down here, their water was still functioning. Maybe he could get some of the blood caked under his nails cleaned out. 

While the air conditioning had been nice, the breeze that was coming from the door across the way would have had goosebumps rising on him if he was still capable of that. His head tilted in contemplation as he stared at it. Above every door was meant to be an indicator of what went on in there. 

There wasn’t for this one, though. And despite knowing better, he had to admit, he was pretty curious. He strode forward, tucking the gun back in his holster and slamming the button on the right side of the door. The second it slid open, whatever had been sealing the noise inside broke. 

He flinched away from the sounds of sirens and covered his ears, cussing up a storm as he slammed the button once more. It clicked uselessly but didn’t send the door down again. “Fuck,” he hissed, stepping inside and grunting as the cold bore down on him ten times worse than before. 

Cryogenics, well, the temperature made sense now. 

He stared at each of the pods, the windows frosted over with cold and making it impossible to see the people within. He took his time examining them, trying his best to see if anyone he knew was in one of them. Despite it all, he held a little hope that he might see Janey, maybe even Barb. 

Without any luck he headed towards the terminal, he could probably get the sirens to shut the fuck up this way. Or maybe just get this door closed again. 

In neon green a warning sign flashed over and over across the screen. 

LIFE SUPPORT: CRITICAL FAILURE.  

He glanced back over his shoulder and scoffed. Rich fucks hadn’t thought to have a back up, or did they really think their buddy Vault-Tec would keep them safe? He shook his head and clicked away the warning. He peered through the list of commands but couldn’t find anything except a list of who was in the pods. 

He figured he might as well see if he spotted a familiar name. If they were alive he might be able to get some information off of them. It wasn’t until the bottom of the list that he saw anything helpful. Your name stood out bright and bold and beside it the message:

LIFE SUPPORT FAILING

RISK OF ASPHYXIATION: 

The colon blinked a few times and he drummed his finger impatiently on the sides of the terminal. Finally the risk analysis loaded and he let out a rough exhale. 

RISK OF ASPHYXIATION: IMMINENT 

REMOVE SUBJECT IMMEDIATELY 

His eyes widened and without thinking he clicked the little button. A moment later he heard something creak open, the seal of the pod broken as air rushed out. He turned around and faced your pod, of course it was the one right beside him. 

He ran forward, catching you just as you slumped out of the seat. Your skin was like ice, your lips blue and face purple from choking. It was all swollen, like you’d been struggling to get air in for a while before he came. He frowned down at your limp form, shaking you slightly as he waited for you to take in a breath. 

“Hey,” he brought a rough hand down on your cheek, the leather striking loudly against your skin.

Your lips parted and you took in a deep breath, gasping as your hands flew up to your throat. You turned over, falling out of his arms and landing roughly on the metal grates of the floor. He took a step back, watching as you hacked yourself back to life, your lungs nearly coming out with how hard you were coughing. 

His head tilted as he observed you. You looked damn near the same as the last time he saw you. The only real difference being the slutty little black slip you had on. He scoffed and shook his head. So that’s where you’d disappeared to, sold yourself out to Vault-Tec for some apocalyptic protection. 

Lot of good that did you. 

You clawed at your throat, air feeling like razor blades as you greedily inhaled. You’re not sure where you are, you can barely feel your extremities, you’ve got an uncomfortable draft on your backside. You wince as you sit up, wiping your blurry eyes in the hopes they’ll clear up, metal digs into your skin as you do. 

It’s like when you get too cold during winter and your eyes frost over a little bit. Except, this doesn’t feel like a little bit. You can’t even see your own hand right now. All you can make out is faint outlines of everything, blurry little clouds of color. 

“Hello?” Someone was here, you could tell that much. You just didn’t know who. Metal creaked in front of you and you scrambled back. They weren’t saying anything. Why weren’t they saying anything? 

You wracked your brain for the last thing you could remember and felt tears building along your lashes. Oh god. “Tom?” You called out hesitantly. Maybe they’d changed their minds. Maybe the men who’d grabbed you had dumped you off somewhere. 

You didn’t want to think about what they’d done while you were asleep. You were slowly becoming more aware of your surroundings and very aware of the skimpy slip you had on right now. Not even close to what you’d been wearing when they grabbed you. You wrapped your arms around yourself in a meager attempt at comfort. 

“That who you fucked, sweetheart?”

Your brows turned down. “Cooper?” He sounded a little rough, his accent more pronounced, but you’d know his voice anywhere. It was as familiar to you as your own. “Cooper, where am I?” The tears were spilling freely now the longer he stared at you in silence. At least crying was starting to thaw out your eyes. 

You could more clearly make out his form now, looming overtop of you like some sort of dark omen. You always felt safe with Coop. When someone pushed you too much or got a little too aggressive, you could go to him. 

Right now, though, you felt like prey in front of a wolf. There was no kindness in his words and only a cruel accusation in his tone. Dear god, where were you? And why would he think you would ever fool around with any of these sick fucks behind his back? 

“Cooper, please, what happened?”

He barked out a laugh and you flinched back, “What happened? Well, lets see what the fuck happened.” You heard more than saw him pace across the metal floors, the spurs on his boots clanking loudly. Had he been at a party and come looking for you?

“You told me you’d be back for lunch and I didn’t see you for another two hundred years.”

Your stomach dropped to the floor, “What?” You whispered. 

He knelt down in front of you. “Your eyes still foggy?” You nodded your head mutely. “Well,” he chuckled but it wasn’t the one you knew. This was something mean and sharp. “When those clear up, I’m not gonna look like you remember me, darling. Should probably get out of here before you realize what you’re talking to.”

He made to get up but you shot forward, blindly groping at the dark form of his torso until you latched onto his duster. “Cooper, please, I’m confused. I-” you looked around blindly, hoping to find something to explain how the last thing you remembered was eating pancakes with him. There’s no way in hell it’s been two hundred years. 

“I went to Tom’s to get the script. He made me come in for drinks. There- there were all these men there, they grabbed me and I don’t remember anything after that. Cooper, please, I wasn’t wearing this when they snatched me. What the hell happened to me?”

There was a moment of silence before he let out a sigh. “You didn’t leave to find some safety in Vault-Tec?”

You frowned and let him go, shoving him away from you with as much force as your frozen muscles could muster up. “Fuck you, you think I’d do that to you? How little do you think of me?”

You reached out for the pod beside you, using it to get to your feet. You felt about as graceful as a newborn foal right now, all gangly limbs and stilted movements. You leaned over, catching your breath as you tried to walk forward. 

“If I were you, I’d get back in that pod and let the world rot away. You’re not gonna do well on your own out here, honey.”

You heard his spurs moving past you and then made out his form as he walked through the doors of the room. “Cooper?” You called out, but you knew it was pointless. He was gone. The man you knew was gone and you had no clue what the fuck had happened. 

He managed to finally find the infirmary, lucky enough that a few bags of Rad-Away had been left behind. They’d only had IV bags, so he’d spent a while trying to find a spot where his skin wasn’t so tough a needle could actually get through. 

She had to be lying. 

He felt himself trying to look at the door, like she’d step through, and forced his head down. He flicked at the IV bag, hoping that maybe it would speed it the fuck up. He needed to get out of here. The longer he stayed, the more he wanted to talk to her. 

He’d changed a lot since they’d last seen each other. Whatever he had once felt for her was gone. The man he had once been was dead. There was no point in hurting the girl by giving her false hope. He sighed and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes and trying to relax some. 

He’d finish this bag, pack the others, and then he’d leave this vault behind. She could figure out what she wanted to do on her own. He didn’t have time for strays or old flames. 

You stumbled around for a while before you finally got your bearings. You managed to make your way into what looked like an office and sat behind a curved desk. A terminal on top sat blinking bright green letters at you. You went through each of the logs, your dread only getting worse the longer you read. 

Tom wasn’t in this vault, that’s for sure. The other names you only recognized from the credits of some movies you’d watched a while back. The men who had taken you from Tom’s house. 

According to the scientist using this terminal, they’d wanted to ensure they had some fun before they went underground. 

You weren’t the only one Tom had sold out. Your entire cryogenic chamber had been filled with other women, each of them dead because of a life support failure. You were meant to be their entertainment while they waited for the world to be ready for the taking. 

You took a break, forcing your eyes away from the screen and staring down at your hands. 

Well, Cooper hadn’t been lying at least. Two hundred years you’d been frozen, you hadn’t even known it. It was bizarre, what felt like only a few hours ago was over two millennia. You’d only just kissed Cooper goodbye and now he was acting like some asshole who wouldn’t even stay to help you to your feet. 

Feeling yourself getting angry and panicked you went back to reading. There was nothing you could do. You’d been screwed over by someone you trusted, you were stuck here. No point in pouting about it. 

The scientist wrote more about the men’s intentions and you forced the bile down as you read. Then he got to what Vault-Tec’s real intentions were. Something about experimenting with cryogenics, seeing how long a body could last, what all it could preserve. You didn’t understand most of it, the language far above your education. 

The men were just guinea pigs, same as you. It brought you a modicum of satisfaction. Barely, though. 

The lead of the whole project gets more cryptic and paranoid the further he writes. Something about Vault-Tec never sending the all clear signal to get the fuck out of here. Security was getting antsy the longer they stayed and supplies were running low. 

It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together when you looked at the blood splattered walls and the white coated corpse across the room.  

Underneath the last entry was a fail safe. In case the experiment was going wrong and there were no other options but to abandon it. 

TERMINATE?

The green pointer blinked as you stared at the question. Your mind traveled to the way they’d swarmed you. How ruthlessly they’d taken you like you were nothing more than cattle. The other women they did it to. You could only imagine what had happened while you’d been knocked out. 

That familiar feeling of anger, disgust, and shame welled up in you. You had always been typecast. The sexy bombshell with nothing else going for her. It bled into other aspects of your life, people treating you like you were nothing more than a walking doll, for their enjoyment and nothing else. 

You’d be damned if you let these men survive what the other women couldn’t. 

You hit the button and listened as the sirens quieted down the hall, the hiss of oxygen as the pods killed their inhabitants. You didn’t allow yourself to linger on what you’d just done for very long, you went clicking through the rest of the terminal. 

Most of it was password locked, you only gleamed enough information to figure out what had been going on while you slept. Bombs dropped, the world went to shit, just like you always thought it would. You’d never considered that you might survive it. 

Maybe those men had done you a slight favor, just barely. 

He sighed as he ripped the needle out of his arm, pulling his sleeve down he moved away from the wall he’d been leaning on. He’d definitely been getting cheated out of his caps. Next time he saw that bitch Ma June, he’d show her what he thought about her watered down bullshit. 

A shadow passed by the doorway and his hand drifted down to his holster. He slipped out of the room and took a peek around the corner. She had her back to him, but he’d recognize her anywhere, even with that ridiculous vault suit on. 

“Hey!”

She jumped and whirled around on him. For a moment he forgot that this was a completely new reality for her. She didn’t know what a ghoul was, she’d never seen one before. Her last memory of him had been his prime. When he’d had a fucking nose. 

Her eyes widened and his grew cold while he waited for the inevitable disgust. He was used to it by now, but he was pretty sick and tired of hearing about it. Especially when the few people who managed to get their hands on his old movies would recognize him. 

The disgust never came, just obvious shock and disbelief. She took a few hesitant steps closer, her eyes darting across his face while she did. He nearly missed her hand coming up, like she wanted to touch him. He caught it at the last second, bringing his hand up to swat hers down. 

She winced and backed up a step, the wonder on her face gone and replaced with hurt. “Cooper-”

He darted forward and snatched her chin in between his gloved fingers. “Now, darling, I’m gonna need you to get this through your fucking head,” he hissed, eyes boring into her terrified ones. “That’s not my name anymore, I’m nothing but a ghoul. I’m not the man you know and I’m never going to be. Let it go and if you know what’s good for you, move the fuck on.”

He could see the tears welling up in her eyes and grinned, she had always been pretty when she cried. “Understand?” When she didn’t respond fast enough for his liking he shook her roughly, “Speak!”

“Yes,” she shouted, clawing at his arm and wincing when her nails scraped across the leather of his skin. “I understand.” He took a moment, looking into her eyes, before he nodded and released her. 

She stumbled back, choking on a sob and glaring up at him. “So, what? Am I just supposed to call you an asshole?” He scoffed, barely laughing. Everything that happened to her today and she could still get a fucking attitude. It was nearly impressive, if not stupid. She didn’t watch who she spoke to and she was going to get killed before the day was up. 

“You’re not gonna call me anything. We’re not working together, you’re on your own.”

She glared at him and rubbed her jaw where he’d grabbed her. Her cheeks were already changing colors, bruises blooming where he’d snatched her. His eyes darted away from her hands and back to her. “Why’d you stop me then?”

He looked her up and down and grinned at the way she shivered, seemed he hadn’t lost all his charm just yet. “That tight little suit of yours is gonna get you killed. People up there don’t take too kindly to people from down here.”

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, glaring at him. “So, what? I’d be safer walking around in what they had me in?”

He shook his head and started walking back towards the door of the vault. “No.”

He heard her huff and race after him. “You’re fucking infuriating, you know that? What the hell am I supposed to do, Co-” He shot her a warning glare but she’d clamped her mouth shut before she could finish the sentence. She still had that stupid hurt look on her face, like he’d kicked her puppy. It kind of made him want to just shoot her. 

“I don’t have any supplies, all I have is this stupid suit. Please, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

He sighed and stopped. She stumbled forward, nearly ramming into his back in the process. “Go to Filly, I’m sure you’ll find something there.”

“I’m supposed to just know where that is?”

He didn’t bother responding to her, there was no point in it. She would be dead soon, anyway. This world wasn’t made for pretty girls like her, especially not on her own. If she was smart she’d just starve herself down here, at least she’d have running water. 

You watched him walk off and felt like your chest was going to cave in. You couldn’t handle this, he was just Cooper an hour ago. Making you breakfast and kissing you goodbye. And despite the odd deformities, you could still see him. Sure, he was missing a nose, but he was still there. Your Cooper. 

Except he wasn’t. 

You couldn’t quite believe he would be so cruel earlier. He was always mean when he was hurt. You figured maybe he was still sitting with the fact that you hadn’t actually left him behind for Vault-Tec. But his eyes gave him away. 

They were cold, devoid of anything you used to know. The man you had known was no longer there. And if he was, he was buried far deeper than you were interested in digging. You watched him walk away and felt your chest squeezing painfully. 

This was not the fucking time to start panicking. If the carnage around you was anything to go by, then the surface had to be so much fucking worse. Cooper seemed to think vaults were safer, but right now you were staring into the gouged eyes of a corpse who’d been killed by a friend. Clearly, nowhere was safe. 

You couldn’t afford to pity yourself or cry. You’d have to keep moving, process it all later. You pushed off the wall and leapt over the corpses blocking your path. Cooper must’ve stepped in a pile of blood because you could clearly make out his footprints. He seemed like he was going to leave, you bet if you followed him you would find the way out. 

You followed the prints up a set of stairs, but they had faded out completely by the time you got up to the vault door. You winced, blocking your eyes from the bright glare of the sun. Barely a second out of the vault and you felt like your skin might already be peeling. 

Whatever had happened while you were out, this was not the world you remembered. The sun seemed bigger, brighter, more violent. If the skeletons littered throughout the sand were anything to go by, everything was more violent now. 

You tripped over a particularly deformed skull of a beast and scrambled up to your feet. You glanced around, spotting a figure in the distance and ran after it. You hoped it was Cooper you were following, but he was already so far ahead of you that he was barely a dot on the horizon. 

You followed the footsteps he left in the sand and prayed he didn’t notice you trailing him. You couldn’t very well stay down there with all of those corpses. There had been no supplies to protect yourself with except a bloodied scalpel. You wouldn’t make it down there on your own and you certainly wouldn’t make it up here. 

You planned to just follow Cooper until you found something resembling civilization. He didn’t want you around him and you got the message, you’re not exactly eager to share his company. He’s a stranger, the only part of him you recognize is his name, and you’re not even allowed to use that. 

You kept your distance as long as you could. Keeping him as far away as possible so if he turned around he wouldn’t be able to realize he was being followed. But you’re already struggling. He’s not showing any signs of slowing anytime soon and you can barely see anymore. 

Your lips are peeling, throat raw and aching for water. Your eyes are completely coated in sand and being damaged by the sun. You wished you had been better prepared for this but it’s been at least four hours and you’re about to keel over. 

You wheeze, dragging yourself over to a fallen billboard and slumping against it. You’re not paying enough attention to your surroundings, or you just don’t care anymore. You find yourself drifting off and you don’t stop it. You’d prefer if the heat stroke took you while you were asleep, at least then you wouldn’t be aware of it. 

Your eyes drift closed and your head slumps forward, the sun bearing down on your neck and burning away at the skin there. 

You cough and splutter, frantically brushing sand off your face and spitting it out of your mouth. Cooper’s standing over you, frowning and glaring, which seems to be his go to expression now. You glance down at his outstretched foot and realize he kicked the sand in your face. “What the fuck?”

“You know,” he tilts his head and rests a hand on his holster, grinning at the way you shrink away from his gun. “I thought you would have lasted at least another hour.”

You wipe your face off and struggle back onto your feet, nearly teetering over as you did. “You knew I was following you?” You groused, glaring up at him. You’re not sure your anger translates well, though. You can barely hear your own voice, your throat too dry to produce any proper words.  

“‘Course I did, sweetheart. I’d be a pretty shit bounty hunter if I didn’t recognize when someone was trailing me.”

You finally manage to get to your feet and glare at him. “Congratulations, you want a prize?”

His smile drops and he darts forward before you can move away. His hand clamps around your arm and he drags you behind him. You’re stumbling, barely able to keep in stride with him. Mercifully, you notice the sky is starting to turn pink in the distance. Soon, the sun will be down and you’ll get a moment's reprieve. 

“Where are you taking me?” You demand, tripping over a rock and wincing as he jerks you back to your feet. He turns around to glare at you like he isn’t the one dragging you around. 

“Filly,” he grunts. He finally comes to a stop, you ram into his back wincing as your nose slams into him painfully. He doesn’t even flinch and you wonder if he felt it. If he can feel anything with how crisped his skin is. 

“I thought you weren’t going to help me.” Maybe you shouldn’t be pushing your luck. If he is helping you, and that’s a pretty hesitant if, you’re sure he’ll be quick to change his mind. Still, you can’t help but push him. You’ve always had that problem, except before he took it in stride and teased you right back. 

Now, your eyes dart down to his gun, you’re not sure he wouldn’t just put a new hole in you. 

“Changed my mind.”

You huffed and rolled your eyes, “Yeah, I’m aware. I’m asking why,” you cut yourself off sharply, mouth clamping shut because you almost called him Coop again. Your jaw is still aching from the last “warning” he gave you. You’re not looking for another. 

He whirled around on you and you didn’t even realize his gun was in his hand until it was digging into your throat. “Why don’t you stop asking me so many fucking questions, hm.” He sneered and you winced at the sight of his yellowed teeth. Finally you nodded and backed away from him, he kept his eyes on yours for a moment before he holstered his gun again. “Let’s go,” he started walking and you couldn’t do anything but follow him. 

At least this time you weren’t trying to track a dot in the distance. 

The sky was getting dark quick and the temperature was dropping even faster. You hunched into yourself and ran your hands up and down your arms to try and keep warm. It seemed everything was done in the extremes now, even the damn weather. 

Cooper whistled and you hurried to catch up with him. He stood in front of a decaying old house, nearly all of the roof gone. The walls looked like they might cave in soon and it had clearly been unoccupied for a very long time. He opened up the door and walked inside, letting it slam back into your face. 

You caught it and huffed. You followed after him and saw that he was already setting up his spot for the night. He leaned against the half-rotted couch, his hat over his eyes and his arms tucked under his coat. You glanced around for a clean spot to curl up and laid down on the ground. You winced at all the dirt on the floor but figured it was better than sleeping out in the sand. 

Despite your oh-so comfortable sleeping arrangement, you found it hard to pass out. Maybe it’s because you’d just taken a two hundred year nap or the man across from you. Your eyes refused to stay shut and you couldn’t stop staring at him. 

You told yourself you would process your emotions later but apparently your mind had decided now would be the best time. You could feel the tears trickling down your cheeks again and you tried to wipe them away.

Too much had happened for them to be so easily dismissed. You were struggling with the thoughts of what those men did to you. You’re certain your imagination is worse than anything that happened, but not knowing was killing you. You felt violated, just being knocked out like that and being left vulnerable to them. 

And Cooper. 

Cooper was practically dead as far as you both were concerned. You felt like you were grieving for someone who was lying right across from you. You were staring right at him and he was just out of your reach. 

You sniffled and wiped your nose. A loud sigh came from the man in front of you and he spoke without bothering to tilt his hat back up. “I’m gonna take you to Filly and you’re gonna help me with some business there and then we’ll go our separate ways.”

“What?” Your voice was an embarrassing croak and you winced. 

“They don’t take too kindly to my folk down there-”

“You mean zombies,” you interrupted, propping your head up on your hand. 

He finally lifted his hat up and glared, though it was half-hearted at best. “It’s ‘ghouls,’ sweetheart. Never knew you to be racist.” You rolled your eyes and he dropped his hat back down again. “You’ll get me what I need and I’ll have delivered you to, well, not safety, but as close as you can get out here.” He leaned forward, arm outstretched and grinning at you. “Deal?”

Well, it wasn't like you had any other options. You leaned forward, grasping his gloved hand in yours and shaking, “Deal.”

SERIES TAGLIST: @pixelatedprofilepic @o0mellowdramatic0o @bisasterbisexual @julianmarie @v3n1x @weakling-grace

end. — I do not own the characters or the game/show Fallout, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

[ew-selfish-art]

Demon Twin AU 

Tim Drake comes across a LOA manuscript detailing the sacrifice of a Demon Heir that’s dated around the time Damian is born and brings it to the cave. There’s no other mention of what went down, but it looks like Damian was a twin and the twin was thrown into the Lazaras Pits- Tim kind of forgets about it but shows it to Damian cause he figures that the guy deserves to know, and leaves it out for Bruce to see (basically the same thing as telling him). It doesn’t really change much but there is an obscured name in the corner so they can presume that the kid’s name would have been something starting with D A N. 

Well here’s the thing: Names carry power. Damian reaches out to John Constantine to ensure that the child is actually dead, because presumably John can do that. John wants to give the kid some closure, so he does what is supposed to be a super chill seance to an infant. He pricks Robin’s finger, chants a little and the air... turns violent.

Uh oh. Dan appears, unshackled from his prison in the Infinite Realms now that John has called upon them by someone with Familial blood. He cackles madly about the fact that it’ll be a good time to bring about the apocalypse again, promising to spare the bird for now, since he would have to get answers later. 

The alarms are blaring, the whole JL is hands on deck to try and stop Dan as he attacks across the globe. They’re saving as many civilian lives as possible but its getting very HAIRY in less than 2 hrs. Robin is out in the chaos, trying to track him down with John and Zatanna trying to recapture him and banish him back to the realms. 

Phantom touches down just as the three of them reach Dan- Danny has some choice words for his older alternate timeline self, including “This is why you have no friends.” and “Seriously, you didn’t even stop to say hi to my timeline’s Jazz this time.” and “Soup time for 1,000 years and then we can talk remediation.” 

After a short but brutal fight, Danny floats over to Damian, John and Z. After making sure they’re all right he’s like “Maybe you can never do that again? Also tell me how and why you did that so I can banish that spell?” And Damian explains that it was meant to ensure that the infant twin he never knew had passed peacefully and clearly that was not the case. Danny blinks a few times, uh, a twin?

Damian goes through the shit, John explains that it was a familial summoning meant to be an advanced seance (hence the lack of safe guards to keep the entity in) and Z confirms that there was nothing special to it beyond that. 

Danny then explains, that uh, “I guess my parents weren’t kidding when they told me I was adopted. Hi? I’m your brother. Uh, I go by Danny though. Dan was me in a different timeline and he’s normally under super strict lockdown.” 

[hup123hup123slapslap]

So a thought has been kicking around my head for a bit...what if Helio knew exactly what he was signing up for by making Kristen his chosen one?

It has always struck me as odd that when describing Doreen in Helioic heaven, Brennan mentioned her flirting with men and women. It also strikes me as odd that Kristen never got any pushback from Helio about turning her back on him. Even if he was similarly 'out of the picture' like sol was while Arthur was wrecking havoc, Kristen's powers should have faded when she fully committed to not worshipping him. You need to worship a god to get powers, and this is emphasized heavily in the latest episode. Kristen worshipping the vague idea of religion but Definitely Not Helio just doesn't cut it. Sure, taking away a PCs powers wasn't really in the cards in season one, but Brennan works very well and very caringly with what he has to establish as canon.

Kristen was looking for a reason to drop Helio from the get-go. His frat boy appearance and non-answer to a nearly impossible question didn't truly matter at the core of her feelings. She wanted an out from the prison she was trapped in with the Helioic faith, even if she didn't realize it fully. She had tension with her mom and her ideals from the scene one! She wanted to connect with people the church actively shunned. Helio was never the true problem.

Now, gods are shaped by their worshippers. So on some level Helio is shaped by people with shitty ideals. But there's still a foothold of good, especially if there are out and proud gays in heaven. Especially if Kristen Applebees of all people is the chosen one.

When you have worshippers misinterpreting your whole deal, going with Sol's shitty messaging and transferring it onto you and using it for bad things, what can you do as a god? Because you ARE what they say you are. So how can you fight back?

Well. You make your chosen one someone that embodies your true heart. Someone that can actually turn the tides of your worship.

There is an emphasis on tracker reinventing and revitalizing her religion. Changing it for the better. Taking the old and not tossing it out, but making it better.

Isn't that what Kristen struggles with the most? That's what she needs to learn how to do.

Tracker also established that she can worship multiple gods when she helped with Yes?. Kristen doesn't need to settle for one even if she (fingers crossed) brings Kassandra back.

Because the season opened with the slow apocalypse of endless night. Endless daytime would end similarly. There has to be a balance. They are two sides of the same coin. Day and night. The surety of the sun and the doubt of the shadows.

Kristen wants both. And she can fucking have it if she decides to.

Ally once said they appreciate that the enemy is always the church. Organized religion. Kristen is perfect for disorganized religion though. Chill frat boy vibes and anxious doubts and the ultimate message of 'just do your best'.

I think religious trauma is a compelling, close to the heart topic for a lot of people. And some turn away from religion entirely and wash their hands of it. But some people don't. Kristen is a cleric. She can't. She wants a god, she wants answers, and she just can't find them in the established community she was raised in. That doesn't mean the core of her religion was wrong. The church was. So you take the religion and you harness it in a way that means something to you.

Maybe Kristen being desperate enough to invite Helio back into her life is what this has all been leading to.

She can remake a god. She's done it before. Because Kassandra was good at the core. Maybe Helio can be too.

[inlovewithquestionablecharacters]

Joel Miller X Reader: A way to quiet the mind

Warnings: Smut, blowjob, dirty talk, use of pet names, sexual content, masturbation, description of sexual relations, cum eating, Oral(Female and Male receiving), creampie, penetration (p in v ), unprotected sex, swearing, rough sex, after care, fluff.

Summary: You are having trouble sleeping and Joel decides to help you out.

Word count: 2,8K

This was beyond stupid.

You shouldn’t be feeling like this, not with everything that was going on. What type of fucking person gets horny in the middle of an outbreak? It was a natural feeling, you knew that but you couldn’t help cursing your body for being so good damn needy. This is what happens when you have time to start thinking about things in peace, you start feeling things. 

Ever since the outbreak you hadn’t really had enough calm to think about your “bodies needs” your mind was too busy wondering if you’d survive until the next day to worry about something like that. But since last week you and Joel had found yourselves in a less infectaed area which meant you could relax a bit. You’d found a house that actually had beds that weren’t completely broken and covered in dirt and dust and decided it was safe enough to get a night's sleep. Bad idea. The whole “homey” atmosphere was what was igniting the burning in between your legs. You were sure if you were lying in a ditch instead your brain would be filled with other thoughts. Or maybe not. It didn’t matter in the end, after all this was your reality. Horny in and apocalypse, who would have fucking guessed. 

You let out a sigh of discomfort, turning to lay on your back. You could hear Joel's breathing a couple of steps away, causing you to look over at him. You admired his frame move as he breathed, his muscles shifting with the action. Dammit why did he have to take his shirt off to sleep. The sight of him bare wasn’t helping you situation. You let out a grunt trying to think of your options. You could try to get some sleep but you knew that would be impossible. And faking that you’d slept through the night would be a waste of a good mattress. The first good mattress you’d had available for a good while and maybe the last good mattress you’d have for a long time. You glanced at Joel one last time. Despite everything, that man slept like a rock. You made up your mind, you'd make it quick and once you were satisfied you’d go to sleep. Easy peasy. 

You pushed your hand inside your shots, slipping a finger between your folds and playing with your wetness before pushing a finger inside. You let out a sigh of relief as your body got what it had been wanting. Your eyes went over to where Joel was, trying to see if he’d moved at your noise. The man was in deep sleep so you continued your actions, your eyes closing as your mind conjured a little fantasy for yourself. Images of Joel flashed through your brain. The sound of his voice against your ear, the feeling of his body pressed against yours, his gorgeous smile, the way his muscles flexed when he shot a gun. All of these images combined only helped your arousal, your lips leaving a small gasp of Joels name as you moved your fingers faster. You didn’t think it was an issue, you were being quiet and Joel was asleep. 

Or so you thought.

Across the room Joel was wide awake, his body rigid as he tried not to move. He’d woken up at the sound of you sturing in bed. He had been about to turn and call you when you let out a moan of his name. His eyes had widened at the sound, realisation hitting him like a stone. You were getting off. At the thought of him no less. Joel had always found you attractive and he knew that you weren’t opposed to the sight of him. He’d often flush at you calling him a ‘pretty boy’ whenever he scored a shot. He flirted with you and you flirted back but he always assumed it was friendly. You only had each other and Joel doubted you’d see him in a more romantic manner. Neither of you had time for that but humans will be humans. And, whether he’d admit it or not, humans developed feelings for people they found themselves around constantly. So it shouldn’t have surprised him to hear you moaning his name as you tried to get yourself some release but nevertheless it did. Joel could feel the boner forming in his pants, the jean material making it quite uncomfortable. You let out a louder moan and Joel felt himself twitch.

“God damn.”

He’d often wondered what you would sound like. His imagination had nothing on the noises you were making. Joel knew it was risky but he wanted to look at you. A quick glance would do it. Oh was he wrong. The moment he turned to face you, his eyes being greeted by the sight of your body sprawled on the bed, your hand inside your shorts as the other played with your breasts he knew that looking wasn’t going to cut it anymore, he needed to feel you. Needed to make you scream. And that is exactly what he planned to do. 

You didn't hear him get up, had no idea Joel was awake, your mind so foggy with your oncoming orgasm you didn’t even register the presence beside you until Joel's hands made their way onto your wrist. Your eyes snapped open at the feeling of skin on yours. The moment you saw Joel's face you turned crimson red, your hand hulting its movements.

“Joel when did-”

“Shh. Keep going.”

You had to be dreaming, this couldn’t be happening.

“Here let me help.”

You let Joel tug at your arm, removing your hand from its position and replacing it with his own. Joel let out a moan at the feeling of how wet you were.

“God damn babygirl you're soaked.”

“Uhh Joel.”

Joel's ears perked up at the sound of you moaning his name, his fingers sliding into your hole in an attempt to make you let out another moan. To his delight you squealed at the motion, your hand latching onto his arm. 

“Jesus Joel right there!”

“You like that baby?”

“Uhuhmmm”

Your hips bucked up to meet Joel's movements, your body searching desperately for release. You could feel the coil tightening inside your stomach. Joel could tell you were close by how hard you were clamping down on his fingers and as much as he’d love to see you fall apart there was something he needed to do. You whined as Joel stopped moving his fingers before removing them completely. You stared angrily at the older man, your mouth opening to complain but closing upon his words.

“Take your shorts off.”

You looked at him in confusion.

“Take them off. Now.”

You did as you were told, removing your shorts which left you only in your underwear. It wasn’t anything special but the sight of your bare skin was enough to drive Joel wild. He hooked his fingers on your panties tugging them down in a quick motion before kneeling down and tugging your body closer to the edge of the bed. It was then that you realised what he was about to do. Joel, this big hunk of a man, was about to eat you out like a starved man and god you could have cum just at the thought. Not that you needed to think for too long because a second later Joel had delved into your pussy, his tongue lapping at your folds as you screamed out.

“Shit! Joel-uhh- fuck.”

Joel's hands gripped onto your thighs for dear life. It had been so long since he’d had the pleasure of eating someone out and the fact that it was you only made it better. His dick pulsed in his pants but he’d deal with that later, right now he needed to make you cum. You weaved your hands into his hair eliciting a groan from him. Ah, so he likes it rough. You could deal with rough. Joel's nose bumped into your clit as he moved his head making your eyes roll to the back of your head.

“Joel, do that again.”

You didn't have to ask him twice. Joel repeated the action and just like that your orgasm ripped through your body.

“Ahh Joel!”

As you recovered from your orgasm Joel kept lapping at your cunt, small moans leaving his lips as he did so. You had to tug him off of you, the overstimulation making you sensitive. Joel closed his eyes as you tugged at his hair a groan of pleasure leaving his mouth. He looked fucking wreaked. Your cum was all over his chin covering his beard. You’d be lying if the sight didn’t make you even wetter. Before you could think properly you were dragging him up by the chin, your free hand looping into this pant buckle as you dragged him on top of you. You lips crashed into his, the taste of your juices filling your mouth as the two of you shared a sloppy kiss. Joel couldn’t help but grind against your thigh, his hard on making it difficult to think straight. You got the message your hand finding its way to grope him through his jeans.

“Your turn, pretty boy.”

Joel shivered as you whispered in his ear, his dick twitching in anticipation. You pushed Joel off of you with a shove of your foot. He looked at you as he took him in. Gosh he was beautiful.

“Stip.”

Joel rushed to get his jeans off, his despair causing him to tug his boxers down along with them. His dick sprung free, the tip dripping pre-cum. You looked at his member bob, your mouth salivating at the size. You pushed yourself up from the bed, your hands grabbing the hem of your shirt and tugging it off before making your way to Joel. You watched Joel take a deep breath in as he watched you, his hands clenching and unclenching at his side. You gave him a sly smile, your hands going onto his chest as you explored his bare skin. Joel watched as you sank to your knees in front of him, his hands instinctively grabbing your hair into a ponytail. You smirked up at him enjoying the way his adams apple bobbed in anticipation.

“Don’t hold back on me big boy. Be as rough as you’d like.”

You paused for a moment to kitten lick the head of Joel's shaft.

“I can take it.”

Upon your words Joel wasted no time pushing his dick into your open mouth, a moan leaving his mouth as your warm lips engulfed his pulsing cock. You relaxed your jaw trying to take as much of him as you could. Joel looked down at you as you gaged lightly, the sight of you making his hips buck faster. Your hands found his balls and began to toy with them.

“Shit baby.”

Joel threw his head back with a groan. He wasn’t going to last long if you kept going. You took a deep breath in as Joel pulled you off his shaft.

“Everything okay, pretty boy?”

“Won’t last if you keep going baby. Your mouth feels too good.”

“But isn’t that the point?”

“Yeah but i wanna fuck that pussy of yours, darling.”

Your thighs pressed together as Joel's words. As much as you’d love to have Joel buried inside of you it didn’t seem fair to you that he’d brought you to heaven using his mouth and you weren’t going to do the same for him.

“I’m not in a rush.”

Before Joel could retort you latched your mouth onto his dick bobbing your head at a rapid pace as your hands fondled his balls. 

“Ahh-fuck-just like that baby. Such a good girl-shit!”

You smirked at Joel's praise, your tongue searching for the bulging vein you knew had to be nearby. Once you found it you gave him a good lick and just as you did Joel came. You kept your mouth on his dick as his seed slipped out making sure to swallow every drop. Joel dragged you up by the chin, his hands weaving into your hair as he pulled you into a steamy kiss. His tongue prodded at your lips and you opened your mouth for him, your tongues dancing in tandem. Joel pulled your head to the side, his lips latching onto your neck. You were sure there would be hickeys the next morning but you couldn't give a shit. You took Joel's hands into your own, guiding them to cup your breasts. Joel got the message, his fingers tweaking at your nipples which elicited a moan out of you. You didn’t even notice Joel had been guiding you closer to the bed until the back of your knees hit the mattress. You licked a stip down Joels chest before laying down on the bed your legs opening wide. Joel started at your bare cunt a boner forming once again.

“So wet already?”

“It's not my fault you’re so hot.”

Joel laughed at your compliment before crawling on top of your body. His hands caressed your body in search of the parts that made you let out those pretty noises he adored so much. You wrapped your legs around Joel's hips pulling him closer to you. You both let out a moan as his dick pushed against you folds.

“Eager are we?”

“I thought you were the one who wanted to fuck me.”

“I do. But I thought you weren’t in a rush.”

You groaned at Joel's words trying to pull his body more flush to yours.

“That was back when I wanted to give you head. Right now i want you to fuck me so hard i can’t walk.”

You watched as the lust entered Joel's eyes at your words.

“You asked for it. Don't complain later.”

Just as you opened your mouth to speak Joel pushed into you cutting your words off with a moan.

“Ah shit baby. So warm.”

“Ahugh Joel!”

You listened to your pussy squelch as Joel thrusted into you, the heels of your feet pushing against his ass so that he’d go deeper. Joel understood  your request, fastening his thrusts.

“So fucking wet for me. Could live inside this pussy.”

“Who’s stopping you?”

“Ah fuck.”

Your hands yanked at Joel's hair causing the man to moan. He placed one of his hands on the wall for support as he tugged your leg over his shoulder. The new angle hitting a spot inside of you that had you moaning.

“I’m…I’m close!”

“I know, baby I know. Just a little longer.”

Joel latched a hand onto your breast tweaking at your nipple and you were done for. You let out a scream as you came. Joel grunted as he felt your juices cover his cock. 

Your body moved as Joel kept thrusting into you in search of his own high. He glanced down to look at your face. You were so cockdrunk you were practically drooling. His eyes trailed down your body to watch his dick going in and out of your pussy.

“Joel…”

Your moan made him look back up at your face.

“Yeah baby?”

“Hand.”

Joel let you pull his hand away from your breast and drag it closer to your mouth, his eyes looking at you questionly. You pulled two of his fingers into your mouth and sucked. The image brought back the memory of you kneeling between his legs, drool coming out the side of your mouth as you gaged aground his cock. And in that moment Joel was a gone man. He came with a groan, his seed filling you up.

The two of you stayed wrapped around each other's embrace for a moment before Joel got up and made his way to his bag. You pushed yourself onto your elbows to see what he was doing. You watched as Joel pulled out a shirt and water from his bag dunking the cloth in the liquid before coming back to you. 

“Let’s clean you up babygirl.”

You smiled at Joel, opening your legs for him and allowing him to clean the cum off your thighs. He cleaned himself up and joined you on the bed once more, his hands wrapping around your waist. Your eyes closed sleepily, the pent up energy you had finally having been spent. Joel could tell you were about to fall asleep.

“Baby?”

“Hum.”

“Next time you can’t sleep, call me.”

You smiled at the suggestion hidden beneath Joel's kind words.

“I might just have to take you up on that big boy.”

Joel placed a kiss on your head nuzzling into you.

“Night babygirl.”

“Goodnight.”

For what felt like ages you got a full night of sleep. Maybe it hadn’t been a waste of a  good mattress in the end. When you woke the next morning you were delighted to find Joel sleeping next to you. It hadn’t been a dream after all.

[ccieatchildren]

I’m sure we’ve all seen by now Steve Blackman’s reasoning for Five/Lila stating:

“I felt that Five had to have a love story.”

And how it shows how this man somehow has such a deep fundamental misunderstanding about his own characters. How he helped create the first three seasons of this show and doesn’t realize that

This is Five’s love story.

Umbrella Academy the show wouldn’t exist without Five’s love. The whole plot and story is it.

He is the catalyst of all the plot lines while his family is the center of all the story beats. His love is the instigator for all the events of the show simply because he chooses to do everything possible in the hope that it will save his loves.

It’s not like this was even a subtle idea because Five literally states it himself multiple times over the series!

I just don’t understand how you can get it so wrong.

He creates the Commission in hopes of regulating the timeline so his family won’t get obliterated from existence, tattooing himself with the potential solution to rewriting the universe so they can all live happily one day.

He survives the apocalypse all on his own, when there was no real reason to, just because he believed he could get back to his family, spending 50+ years developing the math to one day do so.

He joins the Commission and murders and maims and manipulates in the desperate attempt that he might have a chance to go back and see/save his family.

He spends the first time he sees his family after over six decades not with them, but rather searching for a way to stop their deaths, sending them all through time when it doesn’t work.

He runs himself ragged stopping apocalypse after apocalypse just for them.

And when he loses all hope, accepting the kugelblitz, he is content to know he is doing so with his family.

As much as this show is about the whole family, ultimately, imo, this is Five’s story about his grueling quest to save the family he loves.

Because otherwise this show wouldn’t exist without him and the rest of the characters would just be decorations in the rubble of a world long gone.

So to say bro needed a love story— he doesn't say romance, but love story— is so durna, like what??? I guess if you really wanted him to have a romance you could do that, but there were many better options than the wife of someone he deeply loves, something he would never do.

(Not to mention all the real world implications of the romance with the actors, production really was waiting for him to be legal ಠ_ಠ)

Also I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many fans view Five somewhere under the aro/ace umbrella (pun intended).

Now, because of this misconstruction the ending of the show also suffers.

Brushing over all the mind boggling things the real ending says about abuse, its victims, and growing from it (which is actually like how did no one look at that and think hmm maybe this isn’t right for the story we’ve been telling), it also misunderstands love. It tells the audience that love isn’t worth it, in a show… about love. Not just Five’s but Hazel/Agnes, Viktor/Sissy, Allison+Claire, and more. How all your pain and suffering and tribulations for those you love are stupid and useless and cringe.

But y’know what, Mr. Blackman, I think you’re cringe for that absolute bonkers bananas ending.

And that’s why having the solution to the series being that Five should have never jumped in the first place would have been the best ending.

Making it so that the only solution to save the whole universe be that Five stay with his family, with those he loved— what he had been trying to do for the whole show— would have been the perfect conclusion to the story. It would show that all he had to do was stay, because that’s all they ever needed, that’s all he ever needed.

AND IT WOULD MAKE LOGISTICAL SENSE.

Five and Viktor are well confirmed to have been the closest ever since they were young. And Five (doesn’t matter if he’s the now Five who lived through the shows events or the young one who ran off) would most certainly be a supportive figure in Viktor’s life. He’s smart, for one, and it wouldn’t be a stretch for him to figure out what was really going on (especially with his hatred of Reginald) and help Viktor that way. But even if he doesn’t, when they grow to adults and Viktor naturally doesn’t take his pills or his power starts showing, Five’s love and care for his (closest) brother would most certainly help prevent the apocalypse. Especially since if Five and Viktor are close, as they grow older, I feel like the others would grow closer as well, maybe not the same degree, but they would be more willing and supportive of Viktor in the end (I feel like Season 1 shows us how at the end of the day the siblings do care for Viktor, but they were just too late, so this time they wouldn’t be).

Through the subway we see the timeline where he jumps still exists, so that should mean there is a way for him not to do that. His jumping (and the siblings he brings along) is what creates the paradoxes and the "need" for the Commission. So by him not jumping, problem solved.

This might come at the cost of the current versions of the characters, but I think if they can make the developmental journeys they did once, I think they can do it again, and have a happy ending.

(Also the Jennifer incident wouldn’t happen either bcs of Five or just bcs that plot line was so fluffin stupid, so yay alive Ben)

(And Diego and Luther meet Lila and Sloane respectively cuz they are also part of the marigold brood so they still do exist at the same time, so yay happy couples)

It is somewhat simple, but I think that works as well, especially for a character like Five. He spends so much time looking at all the different equations, trying to find some complex solution to everything, trying permutation after permutation (as evidenced by our and the diner Five's), when it was right in front of him. Idk, I just think it would be nice if he just decided to stay with his siblings instead of running off.

Sure it may not be completely perfect, maybe Ben still does die, or Klaus can’t meet Dave again, or characters still find themselves prey to their arrogance but I don’t think it needs to be, because real life isn’t perfect. But the bonds we make and the love we share makes it so, a major theme the Umbrella Academy isn't unfamiliar with.

And it just makes me so deeply sad that this isn’t the ending we got. That this isn’t the ending the characters got.

They deserve so much better than Blackman gave them, and it’s a disgrace that he didn’t.

[i-dont-wanna-be-me-anymore]

Friends | Five H. x male!reader | Part 1!

Five Hargreeves x male reader

SPOILER WARNING FOR SEASON 4 UNDER CUT!!!!!

Summary: Five, after gaining a job at the CIA, has found himself falling in love with his coworker, for whom which he both hates and admires. But after his brother gets kidnapped, Five has to resort to, for the first time in 50 years, trusting someone other than his family to help him. THIS IS KIND OF LONG SO BEAR WITH ME.

Warnings: fluff?, Cursing, mention of gun, frenemies SPOILERS FOR SEASON 4 ‼️

A/n: I just really hated the whole relationship between Five and Lila, so I’m erasing it, erasing their 7 years together, and making an ACTUAL uninvolved and un-family love interest for Five. This is also based off of the fact that Steve Blackman said he wanted to give Five a love interest whether it be a guy or a girl. I AM NOW A HEAVY BISEXUAL FIVE BELIEVER.

Part 2

• • • • •

It’s been 5 years since Five and his family reset the universe and brought about this new timeline. 5 years of trying to make his life worth living and actually trying to enjoy the peacefulness of this new life. But he couldn’t help but feel like something was missing. Something that he needed in order to keep him stable or at least just keep him from losing it. Maybe that something was actually a someone….

He always hated the thought of being completely alone. Ever since the apocalypse, losing his family and people that he loved or cared about was his number one fear. He didn’t want to ever be alone again.

In his new job with the CIA, he’s been able to observe and oversee what things could attempt to hurt those people that he cares about. Helped him have control over his life for once.

The only downside of the job was having to deal with stubborn coworkers and the terrible work hours. However, there was one person in particular that he was thinking of.

Y/n. He was a royal pain in the ass to Five. He was a talkative person. Always wanting to know how Five’s day was, always asking about his cases. And when Five would interact with him, he would sometimes leave mid conversation just to piss him off.

He thrived off making him annoyed, like it was his reason for being there in the first place.

And although Five would never admit it, but Y/n did have some redeemable qualities.

He was intelligent. One of the most intelligent people Five knew, all things considered. In his eyes, he was smart and knowledgable when it came to his job, he took it seriously, but in other cases he would always act rather stupid.

Another thing, that Five again would never admit to others or himself, was that Y/n was undeniably hot. And Five was honestly somewhat attracted to him because of that.

Not attracted to him in the way where he wanted to be with him, no…

Never in the way where he wanted to have a life with him…

Get Past being coworkers and actually learn more about him…

Have longer conversation rather than the short and sweet ones that they already had…

No, not in those ways at all.

When it came to work, Five would always try to find a way to swerve around him, try not to get caught up in whatever stupid conversation he wanted to have with him. But when he did get caught up, there would be times where he would leave an implicit comment and then rush off, ending their conversation.

Despite interacting with him, Five preferred to work alone in the office. Allowed him to know everything that he needed to know without having to ask anyone, or communicate with anyone…unless it was his boss, Lance, whose office he was currently sitting in.

Lance sat in his chair, staring at the “teen” for a bit before speaking.

“How are you handling your job? You enjoying the experience?”

“Yes, sir, I’m very grateful for this job and I intend to do everything I can to be efficient and productive with it.” Five answered, his fingers pinching the skin of his fingers as he watches his every movement, not understanding why he was here in the first place.

“Mm, I like to hear that. You can send him in,” Lance says to his assistant, who quickly nods sending in the man himself, Y/n.

“You summoned me, boss?” He asked, glancing at Five for a quick second as his eyebrows twitch up at the sight of him.

“Yes, I did. Because I have taken it upon myself to assign you two as partners,” he points to both of them.

“What?” “Come again?” The pair say, both now standing as they look at each other.

“With all due respect, sir, I don’t think Five and I would make good partners-“

“That’s exactly the reason I’m doing it. Look,” Y/n and Five both sit back down.

“I know you two don’t like each other that much, maybe even at all, but I’ve seen you, Five, you don’t talk to anyone else in the office. And Y/n, you talk to everyone in this office-in this building really, and you rarely talk to him. I think with this opportunity, you two can actually get along and succeed in working with each other. And, maybe this will take your mind away from the Keeper case,” he says to Five, who leans back into his seat, a deep sigh emitting from him.

Y/n groans quietly, slumping into his chair. Five rolls his eyes at him, making Lance speak up again.

“I’ll make a deal with you two,” they perk up, “solve one case together and maybe I’ll reconsider allowing you two to work separately again, all right?” Y/n looks at Five, who does the same, and they both nod.

“Good, now leave,” the assistant opens the door for the two, allowing(forcing) them to leave.

Y/n sighs, “do you have any open and easy to solve cases?”

“Oh a shit ton, but I’m not gonna let you get in the way of my job,” Five spits, Y/n now looking at him with an unamused face.

“Well, that’s good, because I won’t let you get in the way of mine, either.” With that, the two walk out of the building, heading in separate directions from each other.

• • • • •

Weeks had gone by since then, and they still had not solved one case together. They attempted to lie and have one of them solve a case and the other also have credit, but that ended up backfiring because they didn’t get their processes of working on it completely in sync with one another. There were details either missing or added in each other their reports. Granted the case was solved, but not for their own benefit.

Y/n was starting to grow annoyed, wanting nothing more than to go back to how things were. Where Five was just a simple guy in the office that he would annoy just for the hell of it, and there wouldn’t be any consequences to their work ethic and values.

Later that night, however, Y/n got a call.

“What? What is it?” He answers, groggy from the fact that he just woke up.

“Hey, I need your help,” the person on the other line says, seeming like he struggled to get that out.

“Wha-Five?” He looks over at the clock on the wall, “why the hell are you calling me at 12 in the morning?”

“Just-I need you to help me, okay? My brother’s been kidnapped and…” he sighs, his siblings listening at him talk to the unknown person.

“It would be nice to have some backup,” Y/n grins, already getting up to get dressed.

“Aw, Five, I never knew you had it in you to actually ask for hel-“

“Are you going to or not?”

“Okay, okay, fine, yes, I’ll help, where do you want me to meet you?”

“I think it’ll just be easier if I-“

“YOU’RE NOT DRIVING WANDA!”

“-If we pick you up. Jesus, Diego,” Y/n pulled the phone away from his ear as he heard someone yell, he assumed it was one of the many siblings Five had told him about.

“Okay, I’ll meet you in..five minutes?”

“Make it three.” The phone goes silent as Y/n grabs his gun and his badge, making sure it was loaded before heading down the stairs to his apartment building.

The family picks him up, in what he learned to be Wanda, and they head to the laundry mat.

There, him and Five go in front of the group as they hold their guns and a flashlight in front of them, checking in every area to make sure that they are safe and not at risk of getting hurt.

When they see Viktor, he’s loosely tied to a chair and not even looking as if he’s in pain.

Five helps his brother as Y/n makes sure his gun is still up, making sure Five’s family and him are safe.

A man then appears from the back, shakily holding a gun as he asks for their help.

Y/n eventually drops his hands and puts away his gone when he realizes that the man was asking for help to find his daughter, Jennifer.

After some explaining, Five tells the man that he’ll get her back to him in at least 24 hours.

“Five, what the hell, why are we helping that guy, what if he’s lying? And what the fuck is the ‘Umbrella Academy’?” Y/n had a million thoughts racing through his head after that conversation.

They weren’t stopped, in fact they grew into ones of more confusion as Five responded to him, and his siblings confusion, by holding up a jar of glowing particles.

They all ended up in an asian restaurant, watching the man entertain them with knife tricks.

“So, what? You guys all used to have powers?” Five nods.

“And now you don’t because your dad, who’s an alien, reset the universe and made this timeline?”

“Look, I know it’s hard to understand, and I would prove it to you if I could, but-“

“Well, you can prove it to him, Five, with this!” Ben holds up the Marigold as Five quickly shuts him down.

They all argue and banter as they all, except Ben, agree to not regain their powers.

Ben then heads to the bathroom and Y/n drinks a shot of whatever liquor they had there.

“Look, maybe this can be the case that we solve together? And then you don’t have to see me working with you again, hm?” Five proposes, making Y/n tilt his head to the side, agreeing with him, for once.

Ben returns and they all have shots, including Y/n who was just about to leave.

“Alright, I’m leaving,” Y/n stands up and starts to leave.

Five looks at him and then back at his siblings.

“I’m gonna walk him out,” he follows Y/n, silently walking as they head outside.

“My apartment’s not too far from here, so you don’t have to drive me. But, I’ll, uh, follow up with you tomorrow I guess,” he chuckles, looking at Five for a second longer than he meant to.

“Yeah, I’ll…see you tomorrow,” they stare at each other, their bodies starting to take control as they go closer to one another with each moment of silence.

They step back once they hear the rest of Five’s siblings come outside.

“Uh-bye,” Five rushes off, hopping in the van as he silently curses at himself.

“What are you doing? You hate him…right?” Five thinks, staring at the back of his head.

He watches as the guy he’s started to hate walks away, unknowingly getting wrapped up in whatever crazy family shenanigans are about to happen.

• • • • •

A/n: I kinda fuck with where this is going, so if you guys liked this, let me know!

[suzukiblu]

"🍻❓" poll winner, "your honor uncuff me so I can high-five my life", aka "Billy and Damian and the whole soulmate thing". (( chrono || non-chrono ))

“You still can’t take me in,” Billy retorts, folding his arms and scowling at Batman again. He doesn’t care how many stupid bedrooms Batman has, because–“You’ve got a ton of kids and all of Gotham to worry about. You don’t even have time to do the paperwork, much less actually figure out how to keep me from just walking out the stupid door. And Fawcett needs me, plus our social services wouldn’t send me all the way to Gotham anyway!”

And Robin was already worried about his dad getting rid of him; there’s no way he’s gonna feel any better about his dad spending all that time on getting custody of another kid, his soulmate or not. Plus it’d be weird! It’d be super-weird, getting fostered by his soulmate’s dad! 

“You’re twelve,” Batman says like that is even slightly relevant to literally a single thing that they’re talking about. 

“I’m leaving. I’ll come back when I’m eighteen and can marry Robin,” Billy announces, glowering at him. “Good luck next time the apocalypse is magic or Superman gets mind-controlled or all the adults get kicked off the planet, ‘cuz everybody in Young Justice is too old to fix that for you now and I'm not gonna be around to.” 

“Technically the speedster and the clone are both under the age of ten,” Robin says. “They might manage a loophole.” 

“Oh, maybe,” Billy says, frowning in consideration. “I guess it depends on the spell, in that case? Well, or if it’s even a spell again at all, that’s–”

“Wait, you did get kicked off the planet then!” Flash protests indignantly. Billy gives him a withering look. He and Robin were talking. Also, isn’t it obvious what happened anyway? 

“Captain Marvel got kicked off the plant,” he retorts dubiously. “I just went back and forth whenever I transformed. Duh.” 

“How is that even possible?” Superman asks, looking stressed. “You were still twelve.” 

“Actually I was like eight then,” Billy says, because again, his age has literally nothing to do with anything, but whatever. “Well, eight and a half.” 

Superman puts his face in his hands, for some reason, which makes about as much sense as everyone keeping on bringing up that he’s twelve. Billy literally does not even care, at this point. Superman thinks he can’t even do his job. 

[slackerlifewhere]

Cale Henituse and Kim Rok Soo

After I posted yesterday, I saw an opinion that I kind of agree with about the difference between Cale Henituse and Kim Rok Soo.

I'm gonna say my opinion without trying to offend the whole fandom. Again, you can read fics about OG Cale as MC. I will not stop you just because I have my own opinion. You are free to read whatever you want. If you don't agree with this, it's fine and if you do, don't antagonize or attack the fanfiction authors who made these fics. Let them do their own thing, okay?

This post is not a rant but me sharing my own thoughts and opinions about this topic.

To make this easier, I'll call OG Cale as Cale and OG KRS as KRS.

[✋SPOILERS for the first part of the novel✋]

Some say that Cale Henituse and Kim Rok Soo are the same person. While I don't know if this is true because I haven't read the second part of the novel yet, in my opinion, they are not the same.

Again, I repeat, I like Cale Henituse. He's very intelligent and kind to Basen to the point of destroying his own reputation, he targets thugs and scammers whenever he's "drunk", he's willing to sacrifice his whole identity in order to save his world after surviving for twenty years by himself. He's a complex character and in another world, if given the chance, he would've been a great MC.

But that's the thing, he is not the MC of TCF, Kim Rok Soo is. And I think some fans forget the reason why Kim Rok Soo became the MC and not Cale Henituse. Because in some fics that I see whenever I scroll down to look for something to read, Cale completely replaces KRS' presence in the story, to the point that he doesn't exist anymore.

Let me explain.

Kim Rok Soo

Kim Rok Soo is a very integral part of the story. You can't easily replace him with another person, normal or otherwise, and expect the story to go the same way it did in the novel. He did things his way because he's a chaotic little shit. He's a different person from Cale, no matter how many or few similarities they both have.

It's not because he's simply smart or OP (as some would say) that he won a war that ended in only two years, but it's also because of his past and the bonds he made as himself.

He's a person full of empathy for these people that he meets wherever he goes, regardless whether he knows them from a book or not, because he understands them and their pain. He does not hide his personality and in a way, his charisma attracts these people who see him for who he is, a kind person.

Kim Rok Soo is different because he survived in an apocalypse by himself until he meets Lee Soo Hyuk and Choi Jung Soo. Plus, he did not have a great childhood. He was abused and lived by himself for the rest of his childhood and teenage years because of a curse (or maybe because his uncle is just a shitty person, who knows).

The opinions he has and the way he thinks are shaped by his own experiences. He is the Kim Rok Soo we see in the novel because he grew up under these circumstances.

To say that he's easily replaceable would be too disrespectful to the sacrifices he made as both Kim Rok Soo and Cale Henituse.

Cale Henituse

Cale, on the other hand, is different. He lived alone for how many years because he deliberately pushed everyone away because of his grief and after what Jour told him. It's not because of a curse that he became this way but because he chose to.

Yes, everyone he knows should've tried to make an effort by comforting him or talking with him (his family, the nobles he's close to, Ron and Beacrox) but that did not happen because he's the one who chose to live like this. I've mentioned it in my post about Deruth but if a person doesn't want comfort or doesn't want to talk, they will not talk, especially someone as stubborn as Cale. To blame all these people (including the kids) and the rest of the world because of his own choice is simply not right or fair since the only one responsible to actually help him is Deruth. Violan is not given this chance nor did she try as his stepmother but it all comes down to Deruth. But of course, he did not get any help nor did he seek any.

He lived his years shrouded in grief until the very end. He's a kind person but unfortunately, life is not kind to him.

Later, he survives in the war until the White Star kills him. What did he choose to do in the end when he made that deal with the God of Death? To return to the past so he can save everyone? No. Instead, he chose to go to KRS' world to find his mother. If CJS were given the chance to decline a proposal, why didn't Cale? He could've said he'll do it himself but instead, he left it to KRS. We all know he's stubborn enough to ruin his reputation, is he not stubborn enough to make a deal to save his world as himself?

You can argue it's maybe because the God of Death didn't give him the chance to argue with it but there are other ways the god could've sent KRS to this world. Like Choi Han or Choi Jung Soo.

Choi Jung Soo

Choi Jung Soo is a prime example of what could've and couldn't have happened if he agreed with the God of Death's proposal. He is not KRS. He has his own opinions and experiences that make him unique. He is not like Choi Han who drowned in his despair in TBoaH but instead, is a man who wants to survive with his friends (brothers) and smile with them despite the pain he suffers in.

If he were to replace KRS, the story would've gone differently. He might find Choi Han and they would do their best to survive in this new world together. He may or may not find Raon and the kittens, depending on the time and location when he arrives in this world. Alberu may or may not completely trust him like how he didn't completely trust Choi Han in TBoaH because unlike KRS who is too similar with Alberu, CJS is different. He might not look for the ancient powers since he has his own ability, leaving some that the White Star could've taken like the Sky Eating Water and Super Rock. In fact, the shield could've been left at the tree unless CJS knows about it and takes it. (Let me remind you that no one in this world knows there's an ancient power in that tree in the Henituse territory.)

I can list down things he could've or couldn't have done but it might be too long.

But my point is, it could've been Cale, Alberu, or Choi Han who were sent to the past but the story would've gone differently because these people are all different in their own ways. Heck, if the God of Death truly wants to save this world, he could've sent back Choi Han or Alberu instead of Cale. Because these two are also powerful in their own ways that do not need the help of ancient powers. Just give them enough information and they could've ended the war faster than twenty years.

Conclusion

So, yeah. Kim Rok Soo became the main character for several reasons. He was an ability user and team leader back in his world, he has the curse attached to him because of the White Star, he was an abused kid who had a sad childhood.

And I think there are other reasons why, if KRS is not the MC, that the story could've ended differently. Put aside Raon who is powerful and has a connection to Sheritt and the Dragon Slayers and would be integral to the story, On and Hong could've died with no one knowing about them because they were barely mentioned in the books. Mary could've stayed in the City of Life because no one would need her to help Ron. Hannah and Jack could've died because no one would've known that they were killed. Paseton has a chance to live but no one knows where he is.

Some characters would live and some would die if Kim Rok Soo is not the main character. That's basically what I think about all of this.

The reason why they survived, aside from the books, is because Kim Rok Soo's heart is so big that he wants to help people or give them the chance to survive. Some people would ignore or not notice these people because they have their own problems to deal with.

But Kim Rok Soo just wants to live. And I think that's why the story went the way it did.

Kim Rok Soo, the man who became Cale. His life motto was pretty simple.

Living long without pain. Enjoying the small joys of life.

Living a peaceful life.

- Chapter 2: When I Opened My Eyes

Again, I'm not stopping you from reading these fics nor am I telling you to attack fanfic authors because of what they write. This whole post is just me sharing my opinion.

You don't have to agree with anything I said. You can ignore this and read whatever you want to read.

This is not a post undermining or disrespecting what Cale sacrificed and felt as a person. This is a post to share my opinion that Cale and Kim Rok Soo both deserve the respect that they should get for everything they did and to not completely erase a character for the other. But if someone does it, then I can't do anything about it.

As a Mob Psycho 100 fan, I will end this with one line that perfectly summarizes what I think about this topic.

Your life is your own.