#aydf fic

[voltstone]

A YELLOW DRESS FORGOTTEN | TWDG Retelling (Remastered - 2024) MASTER CONTENT POST

Hello! (And hello again to the TWDG fandom. At least, to anyone who remembers this fic.)

I'm VoltageStone. Still a shit uploader. I'm trying, and yes, this is one of the fics that has been in the works for...way too long, but at the same time..., glad I waited for my writing to get better?

This, quite simply, is my love-letter to the games, and to my Clementine. It's the one story I've wanted to get right, time and time again.

Especially since the comics have come out. Even though I've come to the conclusion that the comics are divorced from the games, because it's only one person's Clementine (and an...interesting interpretation of her at that), the comics did pull me away from the games for a little bit there.

But now I'm back. And I do intend to get to Season 4 this time. To finish this.

It'll take time, but I do feel ready now. I really have wanted to write out my Clementine's story, and have something that I can read back on rather than whatever Skybound's doing.

And honestly? While most of this is a self-indulgence thing, and it's because I'm bleeding my heart out here...

I do want more people to write about their Clementines. Cuz like... Maybe if there's enough people doing it, writing about their experiences, and not just the character as a whole... We'd get more enrichment from TWDG as a whole.

For anyone who wants to add on or talk about this, or follow along without having to subscribe to me, this fic will have its own tag (#aydf fic). So. If you're interested in just this, that'll be the place. :D

Anyway, now, for this specific update, this is a master post like the one I did for LYCOS (Wenclair fic). This isn't marked dead dove, but it is still a very...gritty fic. And it has a lot of very heavy themes.

It's a dark fic for different reasons, but a lot of the same. AYDF is what got me into writing gore, body & psychological horror, and the like. That being said, it's...also just a different beast.

Largely because I'm building off of what's in the games, so dead dove doesn't feel as appropriate for this.

Still. Might as well make a post here about its content. Any updates I do will be linked back to this.

So, for those who read this story before, I hope you enjoy, and thanks for sticking around through the years.

To any newcomers, to TWDG or other readers from other fics, I hope you enjoy. :)

-- -- --

Walkers. Muertos. Deadheads. Lurkers... The dead which roamed, they wore many names. Monster was yet another one. Though, Clementine knew most monsters didn't decay. Their hearts still throbbed. Their eyes, still with color. The monsters, still with words to asphyxiate.  Because she was one herself: a monster with fire in her breath, and eyes that burned her own Hell. She drank for her life. She drank to forget.

A thank-you to Telltale, a love-letter to Clementine as a character, and a passion project writing out my Clementine's story. Made by my blood, sweat, tears, and probably also mucous from the tears, but it's sanitized, I promise.

AO3 | FFnet | Wattpad | Quotev | RoyalRoad

Fic Layout:

Ep1 | Between S2 & S3. Ep2-5 | S3. Ep1.5 (Interlude) | S1, Between S1 & S2, Between S2 & S3. Ep6 | Between S2 & S3, Between S3 & S4. Ep7 | Between S3 & S4, S4. Ep8-15 | S4.

General Warnings:

Catharsis, Gore, Extreme/Graphic Violence, Fights, Murder, Horror, Body Horror, Angst, Trauma, a very Cynically Religious Clementine, Raider!Clementine, TWDG retelling (aka, a lot of the dialogue and canon-events will be here, or rewritten), (some, not a lot) Sexual Content (because it's a "growing up" thing not a horny thing, I promise, …and maybe sorta a little bit of how BPD and attachment issues do things), Violentine, a lot of homoeroticism, they are touch starved, Some fairytale symbolism, Louis will be protected and grow tf up.

Mental Health:

Alcoholism, Gambling Addiction, Addiction, Withdrawal, Relapse, Suicide Attempt(s), PTSD, Guilt, Survivor's Guilt, Rehabilitation, Psychosis, Child abuse, Parentification, and how that basically fucks Clementine in the head like a lot, and then A.J too because cycles and trauma, Borderline Personality Disorder, Trauma Trauma Trauma, and you'll never guess, a Clementine who really really really needs help and at least one (1) actual breathing adult in her life.

Oh which reminds me.

Finding guidance in adults who are already very much dead, and please Clementine, would you just bury the corpse?

…okay that's verging on dead dove, but if the game (almost) has an 8-year-old eat a dude's leg, and then a bigger dude get his head smooshed by a salt lick (which tastes gross, I dunno), I think it's still safe.

In Summary:

...okay I may have written a Carver's Clementine by accident bUT it was an ACCIDENT. My hand slipped. She's not evil, just a little demented some days, and bitter on the better ones.

I am half-joking. My hand didn't slip.

She does make the comic's Clementine look like an angel, though. So. There's that.

Anyway, if it's not clear, the tldr is this is my playthrough, and thusly my canon Clementine, just with the story tailored for indulgence and narrative reasons. Cuz. …alcoholism. …and stuff.

Not a great person. Very troubled. But you know. Tis how addiction works.

Hope you enjoy. :) If you see my blood, sweat and tears stained in the writing, no you didn't.

[voltstone]

NO NO NO NO DO NOT READ AYDF YET I AM REWRITING IT NO NO NO NO NO

But also thank-you. xD I am literally a third of the way rewriting the remastered chapter. Lol. (And I fixed a lot of stuff in season 3.)

hello to the 2 people who Even care about them

[voltstone]

Hey. From what I gather, you wrote a fanfic called A Yellow Dress Forgotten. I read the old version, you have a talent for writing, that's for sure, I especially like how you presented Clem's addiction to alcohol in such a way that it has hands and feet. You are currently "in the process" of writing a new version, but I think you abandoned it, huh?

Nope! I'm just a shit updater. Anyone who's followed along my writing knows, unfortunately. (Especially those with Victorious. Lol.)

Most of the issue stems from ADHD. Whenever my focus fizzles out, I've found it's best for me to not fight it and switch over to another project, because I do know I'll come back to it, and with something like AYDF, that is a guarantee, regardless of how long (and, unfortunately, whether or not I actually post what I do). The draft of the fic has 220k words. The majority of it is just not posted, because those words are throughout.

The other half of it is this year has been very strange. There's been this onslaught of one thing after the other, so I've really been focused on life. And as of late, that means a new job. Which yay, because it's a good one. Just gotta get used to the schedule (which I have been figuring out what to write as of late, and when, so yay).

With AYDF again, I dunno if you've opened up the remaster at all, I did first post that in 2022, and revisited in 2024. I just updated the date because it was an overhaul. Lol.

Months without posting doesn't mean abandonment. Nor even a year. Just means I'll probably rewrite what I do have before returning. :)

[voltstone]

AYDF | progress update 2

Episode 2 & 3: DRAGON'S DEN & DRAGON'S BREATH

More of Ep.2, with some Ep.3 (since I hop around; helps with having everything be consistent and everything). Several updates will be like this, where it won't just be the one episode. No, for the sake of not being spoilery, I won't really give insight to which goes where. …now of course, if you're familiar with the seasons and the abandoned version, it may not be that hard to deduce. Lol.

But, will say, with each of these, the snippets may look very long (I mean, they are), but I don't lie when I say these are snippets. These chapters will spill over 20k words at bare minimum.

Progress Updates (Ep.2): 1 ; TBA

[voltstone]

within me are two wolves.

to inject every ounce of homoerotic and severely mentally ill tension into one character (violet).

to also do that but like a concerning amount.

[voltstone]

AYDF in meme summary

no im not procrastinating shut up.

[voltstone]

AYDF | progress update 1

EPISODE 2: DRAGON'S DEN

Here's some snippets of the fic's next chapter! (All of these are up to edits/polish as well.) Including a look at the doc because…oof, my computer's gonna hate the size of it if it doesn't already. Lol.

For these updates, I don't know how many I'll do. It'll depend on how long the chapters are, and how much I'd like to give away. The chapters are also long, by the by, so what's here is literally a few snippets. But ah well. I'll be chipping away at this chapter for the next couple weeks, so if I'm not as active on here as I have been, that be why.

Cuz like. I'm a fic writer. …so.

(If you're interested, the link to the master post is in the title.)

Progress Updates (Ep.2): 2 ; TBA

[voltstone]

MY CLEMENTINE | vibes

song playlist (top 13)

im not explaining any of this, no.

i just think it'd be neato if we shared each of our clementine's vibe and see what interpretations we were left with even though we played the same games. 🥺🥺

(primarily listen to slowed songs since they're easier to write to and not as distracting, so i have both versions. the links (youtube) to them are below.)

Carver [ANADEL] | Original Better to Sleep [Jared Emerson-Johnson] | Original Killer [Mareux] | Slowed ; Original

.

PERCEPTION [WRXCKMANE] | Slowed ; Original In Essence [Ka$tro] | Slowed ; Original

.

Wonderland [Neoni] | Slowed ; Original Canada [Unlike Pluto] | Slowed ; Original Crazy [Gnarls Barkley] | Slowed ; Original

.

Back from the Dead [AViVA, Besomorph, Neoni] | Slowed ; Original Downfall [Neoni] | Slowed ; Original

.

Dead [Unknown Brain] | Slowed ; Original The Motto [Ava Max, Tiësto] | Slowed ; Original Outlaw [Neoni] | Slowed ; Original

everything marked blue is what i primarily listen to for writing, but whatever. here's some new songs if anything.

[voltstone]

here. a smidge of violentine.

will this not see the light of ao3 for months to come? yes.

did i just up and decide to write this for a scene i have a vague idea about? yes.

but here's some violentine. for my fic (AYDF), intended for a much later chapter than what's published currently.

i could give further context, but i think…the splurge says enough. so enjoy. lol.

[voltstone]

a minor and informal update to aydf

my hand has slipped. there will now be a minor and past brolet happenings

that is all to like the one two three people who care. lol. anyway imma get back to writing

[voltstone]

AYDF | scene comparison

Episode 1: BLOOD-STAINED | Original vs Remaster

So I've decided to release a few posts comparing scenes from the original/abandoned version of AYDF to the remaster for like. Funsies. Namely because I think it's nifty to see how far my writing's come since 2020 (…technically 2021), but also to see how far the fic itself has.

— — —

Original | Last Edit: Aug.28.2021

Remaster | Last Edit: Mar.15.2024

— — —

Yes, the remaster is highly indulgent, hence why it's longer. But. I don't care. So. Yay.

Anyway, I will do this up to the interlude since that's where the original left off. But, rather than 4 total posts (including this one), there will be 6 because instead of avoiding S3, I'm actually trying to address and kinda sorta "fix" the season. Hence why it's now 4 chapters instead of 2.

These also won't be things I necessarily post after the remastered is updated. Some of these will include WIPs too. This one, however, is posted. The chapter's been up for a while now.

Ah well. >:)

[voltstone]

AYDF

how it started: oh wow i made choices, and now i got this fun little dark clementine. :)

how it's going: okay so. um. i may have knocked over a bottle of "demented and unhinged" into the pot. hurt/comfort fixes that right?

[voltstone]

A YELLOW DRESS FORGOTTEN | TWDG Retelling Ep.1 | BLOOD-STAINED

Walkers. Muertos. Deadheads. Lurkers... The dead which roamed, they wore many names. Monster was yet another one. Though, Clementine knew most monsters didn't decay. Their hearts still throbbed. Their eyes, still with color. The monsters, still with words to asphyxiate.  Because she was one herself: a monster with fire in her breath, and eyes that burned her own Hell. She drank for her life. She drank to forget.

A thank-you to Telltale, a love-letter to Clementine as a character, and a passion project writing out my Clementine's story. Made by my blood, sweat, tears, and probably also mucous from the tears, but it's sanitized, I promise.

— — — Fic Layout:

Ep1 | Between S2 & S3. Ep2-5 | S3. Ep1.5 (Interlude) | S1, Between S1 & S2, Between S2 & S3. Ep6 | Between S3 & S4. Ep7 | Between S3 & S4, S4. Ep8-15 | S4.

— — —

Hello! I got sucked back into writing this fic that I've been working on since 2020. Will probably ping-pong back and forth between two fics (this and LYCOS), and make for damn sure these are both finished by the end of the year.

We'll see.

Regardless, this is my retelling of the TWDG games, with my Clementine. And the biggest catch is…she's an alcoholic. So. Yeah. :D

Full transparency, this isn't truthfully a new update. For one, this fic is the remastered of another. Two, I also already posted this chapter before a couple years ago now on the remastered.

But I have rewritten it, and this is a new Tumblr account, and and, I'm assuming some (very few) new people to TWDG have leaked into the fandom.

For those who've read this before (especially the first chapter), I do change some context(s) around. The basic plotline is the same, but there's different implications that help both a) better hone the horror and realities of an apocalypse, and b) symbolism, narrative stuff, blah.(Or, I've made the last scene significantly more violent.)

Anyway, this fic is on several sites (all of which I've linked to), and there is also a master post that goes more in-depth regarding the overall content, and it'll be the one I'll link more updates to in the future.

There's also a snippet of the first chapter (it's the first scene), so if you're interested, there's that.

Hope you enjoy.

:)

Master Post

AO3 | FFnet | Wattpad | Quotev | RoyalRoad

My story of Clementine, after the events of Season Two…

(Where Clementine alone moves on from Howe's Hardware, guilt-ridden, without sleep, only to find a flask.) 4/25/2022 | Last Edit: 3/05/2024 | [14,803]

“L-Lee…? Did you have to kill those men?”

Snow was Hell’s biting plague.

To her skin, such snowfall sank like glass the more it ravaged the horizon. Her shoes scuffed across that biting plague; she felt it gnaw at her, teethe into her heels. Then there was the gore dressed down her body. The smell of blood was rabid off her. It stained her clothes, leeched onto her flesh. The gore did little to warm her, but it was enough of a cloak.

Amidst her fogged mind, a white static, there was little to truly damn the girl. 

Or little to forsake her, at least, beyond what she was.

His eyes were shot by remorse, she remembered—unequivocally strewn by fear. The world seemed to have held its breath for his sake.

Like the dead who roamed the world alongside her, there was nothing that could. Her mind swayed. Her body swung to another rhythm. There were aches. Her feet throbbed for sleep. She was weighed down by the lone pistol secured at her waist—a grave remnant of days past. There was her shoulder too, and her mouth. One scorched to the muse of ice. As for the other…

Her mouth recalled where the barrel had kissed her its intended farewell. A charge haunted her. One not yet ignited.

She remembered, too, how slow his words had been. Thoughtful as always, spoken with care. But, to the world’s held breath, his strummed vowels sunk deeper than he could’ve ever fathomed. They burrowed the weight of the world down her shoulders. Wormed in place to the shell of her ears. And, as the days grew old and weary, and the world fell around them, and its held breath suffocated itself, those words would fade.

Because they were the wise words of a dead man. Because she was still alive, and he was not.

Her shoes abraded across a stride, down a frigid patch of asphalt. Did so to memory’s fleeting tune.

There was only so much she could cling to. Recollection was nothing but a humble tote bag, after all. So, only the better, sweeter memories were kept safe…

The ones at a motel, mainly, where they were stitched together by candlelight, and woven soundly by sheets and embedded cigarette ash.

Those sweeter memories went rotten long ago. All there was left, within that snow, were his wise, dead words. Shards which clipped her strides. Fallen parasites they were just as well, the more snow stole her complexion away.

“Did you have to kill those men?”

Those shards—the parasites—festered to the muse of ice. Her shoulder was an agony, and she didn’t know what was worse, the fact that it was a rifleman’s puncture, or the fact that…the bullet was hardly the Devil of it. The shards ate through the gore, ignored the jacket. They desolated. They dulled her mind’s eye to slow, rattled drawls of conscious thought. All the girl knew, barely, was the road she was on, and the ways she lagged behind herself.

A phantom amongst the dead, roaming wherever her intuition would wrench her.

…of course, there was the life she kept safe in her arms, deep against her chest. He was safe. Secure.

And as warm as she could manage.

There was that, at least. It wasn’t as though the life was enough to soothe her mind, however. So she roamed. The most she could grasp were the whispers of her fractured mentality.

“Did you have to kill those men?”

Over and over and over again.

A ghost of herself. Perhaps. This sounded like a girl not far younger than what she had grown to, anyway. She couldn’t quite recognize her.

“Did you have to kill those men?”

Her recollection… It was waning. Those sour memories revolted her mind’s eye.

“Did you have to kill those men?”

Over and over. And every time, Lee backed away. One step, then two, then three. Four. Further into the shadows. Away from her.

The world was suffocating.

“Did you have to kill…?”

Because he was a dead man. She was alive, he was not.

A sick mantra that hewn his wise words with ease, as it were.

He was a dead man. She was alive. There was dead. Then alive. Dead. Alive. Human. And then not…

“Did you…?”

She was alive. It had been days since that smoking gun was pocketed. Her hands were flecked by his blood. Her face as well.

Did you, Clementine?

The girl tripped. She lurched over the break in asphalt, staggered for balance, before the life in her arms fidgeted.

Her eyes snapped to him where he was, in his blanket. His own peered at her. She saw a vivacity. Those dark eyes of his, they were truly bright. The white static ebbed away. There was no ignoring her maternal instinct.

The world sharpened. There was clarity, and with that clarity came an agonizing harmony:

Her feet ached. Her mouth burned.

Her shoulder writhed of frostbite.

Clementine managed a pained, cracked smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. It barely crossed her cheeks. She choked on a feeble kind of sob, before her cold lips melted onto his warm crown.

“We’ll be okay…” she whispered, ingrained within another mantra, a somber one, that she’d yet to crawl out of. “A.J…, w-we’ll be okay…”

His dark, truly bright, brilliant eyes held her still for a moment. Consoled her. Had Clementine forget.

For that moment, though. A mere lapse in time.

Because snowfall was Hell’s plague. It slashed down her cheeks to remind her of everything again. So she walked.

Did you have to?

The hellscape around her was a vast, dead acreage. Trees were looming. The cars were decaying. And across the horizon, a great shadow. It spurned a dreadful hope.

So Clementine meandered through. Stepped over the bodies, around the abandoned cars. 

The snow upon this land was scarcely white. There were more reds, and darks, and everything between. Some rotted above the surface. Most were a decomposing reality just beneath, and wore snow as twining, raw layers. As raw flesh, marred by the truth of survival:

You don’t. 

There’s fumbling for that last knock into the dead’s jaw. There’s the scrounge whenever a last bullet is lost. The bleating wail in the one hope that somebody, anybody, would just fall from the clouds and be their savior.

It only ever ends one way. Called it survival’s fallacy.

Across that acreage, there were black pillars erected. In the blur, their arms were wide; they did not shed their light for her. They reached far into the winter, above her head. At the base of one, a truck had lunged itself into its pole. The driver’s body was sagged in the chair. The airbag was wilted across.

She snagged her reflection in its broken windshield.

“My baby, my doll. You have the sun in your eyes. Who wouldn’t want to play with you?”

Clementine found not the dead walking, but a ghost roaming. Her ballcap was a fog in color. There was barely the blue she cherished. Her black hair beneath was strewn with ice. Her face, gaunt in hunger and insomnia’s union, and twinged by hypothermia. 

Then…, her eyes.

There wasn’t a trace of life. Dull instead. Winter had stolen its yellow. Left her with a… A bleak hazel.

“You’re the life of everyone’s day!”

A lie. It had been a lie gifted to her from… Who had said that? An uncle, was it? Her father?

…Lee?

She didn’t know. Couldn’t, the longer she rummaged for his face.

Clementine tore herself away. She kept A.J close to her heart, away from her shoulder. The snow, the ice, still festered. Threatened to spread. Down her arm, for her spine, it threatened to claim her whole.

And she thought of the little girl—the one that asked Lee why? Asked how could you? 

It was the little girl who asked the same of Clementine in that hour.

Did you have to kill him? Did you?

Her weary bones ached, and her wounds begged to be licked clean. So, she slowed in her stride. Meandered to a nearby lamppost. The baby struggled in her arms; a last drone of wind clipped them both. Clementine sagged against the pole, only to flinch away from its scalding frost.

She urged her weary bones for a few more strides, before another dozen. They complied. It was agony…

Winter’s haze cleared as she encroached. The bill to her ballcap followed her eyes. Death and its frigid rot swept for the girl’s nose.

HOWES HARDWARE

Clementine never could decide what that sign meant for her. It may have been a blessing, or the Devil in sheep’s clothing.

It was a place where the world held its breath, anyway. Just as it would wherever she wandered.

To the point of suffocation, for Clementine never wanted to answer the little girl.

AO3 | FFnet | Wattpad | Quotev | RoyalRoad

[voltstone]

Volt's Blog Introduction

Hello! I'm Volt, and I write a lot, but I also meme a lot too. And other things.

Anyway, this is a bit of a "master-directory" of mine where all the stuff I do, on and off here, will be linked. I will also add little updates, should anything come up. That kind of thing.

[Blog]

Anything tagged #volt's shit is essentially me meme-ing. I do a lot of edits on canva. Sometimes I'll mess around with video edits.

#volt's library is everything I write. Most of the time, it will be related to my fanfiction projects, or they will be fandom essays I post on here. Once I get into practicing my art, those will also be included.

(Here is the blog archive.)

[Fanfiction] - Current Project(s):

LYCOS (Wednesday; Ao3-only)

A Yellow Dress Forgotten (TWDG; Ao3, FFnet, Wattpad, Quotev, RoyalRoad)

scav·eng·er (TWDG; Ao3, FFnet, Wattpad, Tumblr)

Archive of Our Own | Fanfiction.net | Wattpad

(These are the primary three I use. Not everything is on Wattpad. I started on FF. Ao3 lets me play around with formatting, so certain fics like LYCOS will be Ao3-only.)

Quotev | RoyalRoad

(Don't post on these as often. But they're fun.)

Certain fics will have tags associated with them on Tumblr. These are bigger projects, and I just feel like letting them have their own space on my blog. With these tags, they're also a way to help me find any posts people make related to them. :D

LYCOS | tacet anima mea [#lycos fic] A Yellow Dress Forgotten [#aydf fic]

[Fandom Essays]

I will occasionally write an essay or two, and they are in-depth. The format of my blog is purely so that these are easier to read—if you want to read them, it's best to do that on the blog itself.

Here is a post compiling all the essays together, organized by fandom.

Hope you enjoy those. :)

[Shop/Etc.]

Redbubble

(I'm not consistent about it, but I will post designs that I've edited, and eventually my art will go here as well.)

Ko-Fi

(...you don't have to, but it's here.)

[Update(s)]

Again, still a mess. Don't mind me. LYCOS and AYDF are still priority, but I am using a new fic (scav·eng·er) as a way to hopefully keep me in the writing spirit so I don't get crash and burn. It's formatted similarly to LYCOS, but it's TWDG. A sweet in-between, I think.

With that. Hope you enjoy my stories, and my memes.

:)

[Last Update: May.3.2024]