#bc i wanted to read the novel again but only specific part

[from-the-clouds]

texas sun - joel miller x f!reader - vol. xiv

series masterlist | series playlist | writing masterlist | previous chapter | chapter summary: The final chapter pairing: joel miller x f!reader words: 9.2k (I love being insane) chapter warnings: SMUT (18+only) - unprotected sex. Insecurity/Jealousy. Angst/arguments. Discussions of death, blood and injuries. Alcohol & Marijuana use. Fluff. Bisexual reader (happy pride ya'll!). As always please dm for more specifics. a/n: This could probs use another round of proofreading but it would've delayed this even longer sooooo.... Here we go! I feel pretty emo right now and I might make a more in-depth post about my thoughts at a later date bc I just finished writing this in a hot daze so I can't put all my thoughts coherently together. But I just wanna say thank you to everyone who supported and gave love to this story. This is by far the most popular fic I've ever written, and I don't really know how? Or what I did to deserve all the love but I just want you to know how much I appreciate it. Thank you for sticking with me through all the angst and delayed updates and everything. I'll never forget you and I'll never forget Joel x Reader!! Thank you so much, I hope the finale lives up to your expectations! ❤️

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I’m not the kind of man who tends to socialize I seem to lean on old familiar ways….

-May 16, 2024-

“Are you sure you’re okay if I leave you here alone?” 

Ethan’s voice jolts you out of a daze, and you blink your eyes open, realizing that you’d dozed off while sitting upright in a patio chair, the cheesy romance novel you’d been reading still lying open on your lap. Turning to look over your shoulder, you find him standing with one foot on the deck, and one foot still inside, cut in half by the sliding glass door.

Clearing your throat, you straighten up and nod. “Of course. I’ll be fine.”

Ethan studies you carefully, like he’s not entirely convinced. He’s been hesitant to leave you alone unless it’s absolutely necessary – only stepping away from the house to go on patrol shifts and to bring home meals from the mess hall. Recovery has made you feel like a burden to him – to all your friends in the community, really. Everyone….well, almost everyone, has been supportive, but you’ve never been comfortable being openly vulnerable.

Unfortunately, it’s too hard to deny the pain that you’ve been in since the accident, the trouble you have getting around, the exhaustion that clings no matter how many long naps and twelve-hour nights of sleep you get. According to the doctors, being so tired is just part of recovery – rest is important, but the concoction of pain medication you’ve been prescribed only makes your drowsiness and confusion worse. It had been a big deal that tonight you’d mustered the energy to drag yourself outside to sit in the fresh air. 

“I’m fine,” you assure Ethan, once again. “Have fun on your date.”

“It’s not really a date,” he says, almost a little too quickly. “We’re just hanging out.”

“Right,” you say, matter-of-factly. “Do I know who this person is?”

Ethan looks at his feet. “You remember the day this shit happened?” he asks, gesturing towards you. “Before you left on patrol, the girl that said hi to me? It’s her. Her name is Alex.”

“Oh?” you tilt your head, give him a small smile. “She was cute. How’d you ask her out?”

“Well,” he begins, scratching the back of his neck. “I may have…uh, gotten some advice.”

“You didn’t think to ask me?” you’re able to muster up a small smile.

“I would’ve, I just…..” he shakes his head. “It seemed stupid…with everything you have going on.”

“It’s not stupid,” you say, feeling a wave of guilt. Even though he’s the one looking after you, you haven’t spoken to him much about anything going on in his life. In fact, you haven’t really spoken to anyone in a long time, beyond thank you’s and blanket statements like I’m doing better. You feel disconnected, and more lonely than ever. If you ever get enough energy to leave your house, you expect most of the people in the community to have forgotten you exist. “Who’d you ask?”

“Uhm….” Ethan runs a hand through his long dark hair, shifts his weight. “….I’ve been assigned on patrol with Joel Miller a lot lately….so….”

You almost laugh when he uses Joel’s full name. Joel has been such a huge part of your life – sometimes the hero, sometimes the villain – that you don’t need to hear his last name to know who Ethan’s talking about. You could know a thousand Joel’s, and he’d still be the first person that came to mind. But Joel is still a sore subject, and Ethan knows it, which is why you suspect he’s avoided telling you this in the first place. You feel your eyebrows knit together, only able to let out an unenthused. “Oh.”

“I just, you know….he’s a guy. And it sounds like you even liked him at one point so….he must know something, right?” 

“That was a long time ago,” you say quickly, regardless of the fact that he’s right.

It’s probably not fair to blame Joel for everything that has happened to you. You know this, deep down. But you’ve been so helpless and isolated since you’ve woken up in that hospital bed that you’re desperate to find someone to hold accountable. And Joel hadn’t visited you in the hospital once. By this point, he’s abandoned you so many times that your resentment feels justified, even if your current state is not directly his fault. Because it was you, after all, who had walked into the path of those men, too angry to think clearly, too weak to take them down alone. The only person you can blame is yourself, and you really don’t want to.

“Did he tell you to take her out on patrol, make her cry, and almost get her killed?”

Ethan clicks his tongue, looks down, almost ashamed. “No. He did not.”

“You should be careful with Joel,” you warn.

“I was…” Ethan says. “But I don’t think it’s that simple. I think he’s actually alright.” 

“So you’re friends with him now,” you state, hoping he refutes. But instead, he looks up at you, frowns, and lifts his chin.

“What happened to you was horrible. It shouldn’t have happened. And yeah, maybe you think he’s the reason you almost died…. I don’t know the specifics so you can believe whatever you want. But I know that he’s the reason you’re still alive.” Ethan’s voice breaks, and you feel tears brimming your eyes before he continues. “He brought you back here, he donated his blood, he-”

“What?” you cut him off.

“What do you mean, what?” Ethan asks. “He was the only person there who had your blood type. You would’ve died if he didn’t. They didn’t tell you this?” 

“Whatever it took to make him feel less guilty, sounds like,” you say, dismissively.

Something hot burns in your veins, something that must have always been there since you woke up, but you’re only feeling it now. It’s unsettling, Joel being a part of you that way. Your lives had already seemed intertwined enough already. But now, he’s inescapable.

“Well, he stayed by your side every night while you were asleep. Fuck, I mean, he was probably there just as often as I was. He made sure I ate, and slept and showered and… and he never once asked for anything in return. He cares about you as much as I do, clearly, so I don’t think it’s wrong to think he’s a good guy….”

You must not care about me that much, you want to say, but you stop yourself. Because it’s not true, and you’d only be saying it to hurt him. You have nothing to defend yourself with, no way to convince him otherwise, and so you just stare at him until he shakes his head and slips back inside.

Ethan is stubborn, he always has been. And it’s a special kind of stubbornness, fueled by anger – so common in most of the young people you meet these days. You understand why they’re all like this. When you’re robbed of your childhood – you get stuck there….waiting….. Like someday you’ll have a chance to do it all over again, regardless of how obvious it is that you won’t. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

-May 25, 2024-

Things get better, albeit slowly. You begin to wean off the pain medication, which makes you more alert. It’s still difficult to leave your house, but you can move around it more easily, and you don’t spend all your days sleeping. Luckily, you aren’t as stir-crazy as you’d been expecting. 

One afternoon, Ellie Williams shows up on your doorstep with a bag full of groceries. 

“Maria wanted me to bring these to you,” she says when you open the door. “She told me to tell you she’ll be over tomorrow, but she wanted me to give you these to tide you over.”

“That’s very nice. Thank you for bringing them to me,” you try to take the bag from her hands, but she steps back just a little, like she’s unsure if you should be carrying anything. You let your hands drop to your sides. “Would you like to come in?” 

Ellie hesitates for a split second, adjusting the bag in her arms, and then nods. “Sure.” 

Stepping to the side, you allow her into the home. Because of how warm it is outside, you’ve opened all the windows to let the breeze through. 

“Sorry for the mess,” you say, Ellie following you into the living room. There are stacks of books and pill bottles with instructions scattered on your countertop. You haven’t swept the floors in awhile and all the hard surfaces are covered in a thin layer of dust. It’s not really that bad, but you don’t have the energy or strength to be on your feet for long – let alone to clean the house. 

“I don’t mind,” Ellie says. “It’s not even that bad. I don’t know why older people worry about leaving your house messy and shit….no offense.”

“There was a time it used to matter,” you tell her. “And I see where you’re coming from, but my thing is – if you’re going to live somewhere, you should do what you can to make yourself feel comfortable.” 

Ellie purses her lips, as if you’ve made a good point but she doesn’t know how to answer. Instead, you continue. “Can I get you anything? Water?” 

“No, I’m okay,” she puts the bag on your kitchen counter.

“You can sit if you’d like,” you tell her. “I just need a moment to put these away.”

When you walk into your living room a few minutes later, she’s hovering near your record player, looking through the vinyls. The turntable was already in the house when you’d arrived years ago, but it was buried in the closet and broken. Ethan had managed to fix it after a little troubleshooting and scavenging for parts. Now, you both were always looking for records to bring home, and had amassed quite the eclectic collection – jazz, funk, hip-hop, and everything in between. 

“Wow,” Ellie says, running her fingers along the shelved records. “You found all these?”

“Some of them were already here. But yeah. Ethan and I are always on the lookout on patrol. I can play you something. What do you like?”

“Eighties, I think,” she says. “But…I also haven’t heard as much.” 

“Well here,” you thumb through the records, pull out a worn copy of Speaking In Tongues. “How about some Talking Heads?” 

You pass the record over to her, and she stares at you blankly. It’s only then that you realize — she’s never used a record player before. There’s a familiar pang of sadness before you show her how. 

“Are you feeling better?” Ellie eyes you wearily once the music starts, and you settle onto the couch, feeling a little worn out after being on your feet.

“Yes,” you say. “I’m older now, so it seems like healing takes a lot more time.”

Ellie nods, then bobs her head to the music a little. “This is better than most of the stuff Joel likes.” 

“Oh yeah,” you smirk, and instinctually, you recall his enthusiasm for all things old-school country. “I remember that,” you say softly.

With so much time on your hands lately, you’ve found yourself thinking of Joel a lot, reminiscing on the time you’d spent with him and Sarah. What Ethan had told you about him staying by your side was definitely making you reconsider your assessment of him, even if you were still hesitant. It was probably a trap to think you’d ever be able to feel those things with him again, but if remembering them brought you comfort, you weren’t going to resist it. 

“You’re more than welcome to come over to listen anytime,” you offer, and she nods excitedly. 

Ellie stays for longer than you expect. You talk a fair bit. She tells you about what she’s learning in school – but mostly how ‘fucking useless’ it is. She wanders around your living room and pokes through your stuff without asking, but you don’t think to stop her – you just answer her questions and let her be curious.

Eventually, the sun dips below the horizon, and she excuses herself to go home, insisting that Joel will ‘fucking kill her’ if she’s out too late. Even though you’re exhausted after entertaining her for a few hours, you find it feels nice. Being on house arrest, essentially, had left your starved for connection outside Maria and Ethan.

You see her out the door before returning to your refrigerator to look for something to eat. Ethan will be back from patrol any minute, so it may be nice to make him something even if you have almost no energy.

But when there’s another knock on your front door, you’re shocked to see who you find staring on your porch. 

Joel.

You almost forget to speak at the sight of him. It’s been weeks since your accident and he might as well have moved away from Jackson since you hadn’t seen him at all. 

“Hey,” you say, tentatively, taking him in. He seems preoccupied – cheeks flushed, hair rumpled, and out of breath, like he had run all the way to get here.

“Have you seen Ellie?” he asks, not even greeting you in return. “I’ve looked everywhere and I-

“You just missed her,” you cut him off, not because you’re trying to dismiss him, but because he's clearly distressed. “I’m surprised you didn’t see her on your way over.”

Joel sighs, eyes closing in relief. “Thank God.” For a second, you glimpse the frazzled and overworked father you used to know. “She stayed out too late, had me worried sick.” 

“She’s fine,” you say. “Although she did say you might kill her if she didn’t get home soon.” 

Joel gives you an almost imperceptible smile, but seems mostly irritated by Ellie’s suggestion. “I would do no such thing.” He shakes his head and takes two steps backwards. “Thank you. Didn’t mean to be a bother.” 

Your mind floats to a memory of Joel on your front porch, late getting home from work and looking for Sarah, and you can’t help but feel a bit of sadness and longing for a simpler time, a surge of affection. 

Joel is halfway down your front porch steps when you speak again. “You aren’t bothering me.”

He pauses, turns to look over his shoulder. There’s something he wants to say, you can feel it, and you step outside, letting the door fall shut behind you and remaining huddled against the siding, and he turns to face you fully, sighing. “I’ve been meaning to stop by, actually….” 

“Oh…really?” you can’t keep the surprise from your voice, and he notices.

“Yeah,” Joel rubs his fingers together, a nervous habit of his you know all too well. “Yeah. I- well, I wanted to apologize to you.”

You’re so startled by the words you can’t answer right away. But the split second of hesitation causes Joel to continue, looking to fill the empty space. 

“I’ve been waiting to find the right thing to say….but it doesn’t seem like that’ll ever happen. I’m not even sure I know where to start.” 

“Oh,” is all you can manage, still taken aback. The only thing that doesn’t surprise you about his admission is the sincerity. You could say a lot of things about Joel, but he isn’t a liar. He always tells the truth. Maybe it’s why he pulled away from you to begin with. It’s easier than the alternative – spending time with you, which would force him to be honest. For how much you’ve changed, you’d probably do the same. 

But the thing with Joel is that you’re exhausted. You’re tired of the back and forth, of the push and pull, of the constant struggle to hold your care over each other's head, hoping the other will break first. Maybe this is a fresh start. 

You step closer to him, and you see him study the way you move. Of course, you’re trying to look strong, but he can surely sense the weakness. He’d always been good at that, better than any of the others. Your hand comes to rest on the porch railing for support. 

But…..

There’s that voice in the back of your head, the one that tells you this is a mistake. The one that reminds of the pain you’ve often earned through vulnerability. It likes to think it’s served you, protected you, and it has. But it’s not always right.

“I suppose I owe you an apology, too,” you say. “At the very least I should thank you for what you did.”

Joel shakes his head, dismissively, but looks to where your hand rests on the porch railing, looks back up to you as he reaches out. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” 

His hand clasps over yours, and to anyone else, this might be nothing. It’s so innocent, unassuming. But the effect it has on you is palpable. He squeezes once, and you flip your hand over, squeezing his back, giving him a gentle smile. “I am too.” 

Joel’s eyes fill with a warmth you haven’t seen in twenty years, and your stomach flutters, your heart races. A part of yourself that you’d considered long dead seems to rouse.“Would you like to stay for dinner?”

“I told Ellie we’d go to the mess hall together,” Joel says. “Otherwise I would.”

You blink once, and Joel sees it, immediately continuing on. “But maybe Ellie and I can come another time, join you and Ethan?”

“Yeah. He’d like that,” you say. “That might be nice.” ─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

-June 20, 2024-

You think that at the end of a long winter, bears must hate coming out of hibernation. 

It must suck. They spend months sleeping, doing almost nothing, and then suddenly they’re forced to function again – to hunt, to eat, to roam, to survive and socialize. You imagine there has to be a learning curve, a desire to crawl back into their den and never leave again. 

Or maybe you could be wrong, and they love it. And you’re just a wimp who hates feeling uncomfortable.

All you know is that you’re huddled in the back corner of the Tipsy Bison, nursing a whiskey – and it’s the last place you want to be. 

You’re overwhelmed. 

And despite the fact that you regularly used to attend community events, it’s been so long since you've been out in Jackson that you feel like you don’t belong. To some extent, you’ve always felt this – too hardened by the outside world to fully assimilate, especially when the town throws dances. But in the past, you at least attempted to convince yourself otherwise. 

Two weeks back, the doctors had cleared you to go about your daily activities as normal  – within reason, of course – but you hadn’t exactly jumped at the opportunity. Tonight, Ethan had accused you of becoming ‘antisocial’ and ‘reclusive’. You had agreed to attend – but only to beat those allegations. So far, you are definitely not. 

You scan the crowd, taking in the people spinning around the dance floor. Some of the women are wearing dresses. You can’t help but feel a little envious of how easily they’re able to perform femininity, which is something you’d given up on a while ago. It hadn’t exactly served you before arriving in Jackson, and you predict it would be humiliating to start trying now. After all the things you’d experienced, you were left marred with scars and wrinkles, stretch marks and loose skin. Since then, you’ve remained loyal to the combination of men’s denim and tank tops with flannel-button downs overtop. 

It doesn’t always stop the men in the community from descending like vultures. You might be the last pick – there are plenty others who are younger and prettier – but you’re still an option. Bea, your old partner, had always theorized that some men were particularly drawn to sapphic women, that it was ‘the ultimate challenge’. Maybe there is some truth to her theory, but you like men….sometimes. So there is always a part of you that yearns for their validation, for as many times as you tell yourself you don’t want it. But it never feels good to get it after you’ve watched them exhaust all their other options.

It’s pathetic, but it makes you think of Joel. He and Ellie had been over to yours and Ethans last week for a nice dinner, and you had tried to gauge whether there was any romantic connection between you still. Occasionally, you’d caught him looking at you with a wistful smile, but he could have been lost in thought. It’s not like you needed that from him or anything, but it might be useful information. After all this time, Joel is still so handsome, and probably has an impressive selection of potential partners here in Jackson – women of all ages. You hope he’s not here tonight – you can’t see much besides the dance floor at this point – because the thought of him cozied up to anyone here, combined with the acrid taste of the drink in your hand, makes you want to gag. 

You take another look around the room. Eugene, your partner in crime – quite literally – is walking towards you, which helps quell your spiraling mind . If you talk to him, say hello to Tommy and Maria, maybe Ethan will see the effort you’re making and you can sneak out without having to deal with anyone. It’s wishful thinking, but it’s worth a shot. The sooner you can get home tonight, the better.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Joel can’t stop staring. 

He knows it’s impolite. He knows that he’s not being subtle. He knows that if any other person in this bar followed his eyeline, they’d pick up on what he was doing in an instant. But every minute he doesn’t get called out for it, he becomes more and more emboldened. 

It’s the first dance he’s ever been to in Jackson, and the only reason he’s here is to placate Ellie and Tommy. But even they have abandoned him in favor of better companions – his brother is deep in conversation with Maria, sitting across from him in a booth, and Ellie is out on the dance floor dancing with one of her new friends, Dina.

Joel just can’t help himself. He still feels guilty for what he’s done, but he can’t shake the feeling of a soft hand clasped within his own – the first time he’d felt any semblance of hope since arriving here. Tommy and Maria had already slyly let him know about all the women who were interested, but he couldn’t bring himself to entertain their advances. There’s only one he wants, and she won’t even look in his direction.

When he’d first noticed you, you were whispering with Eugene on the opposite side of the dance floor. According to Tommy, you spend a fair bit of your time with the old man, which Joel initially thought to mean that you had some sort of entanglement. At first, Joel thought that couldn’t be possible. But you were deep in focus as you listened to Eugene’s words, nodding and leaning in closer and closer, and Joel thinks Tommy might be right. He wants to understand what you see in this man – tall and unkempt, covered in tattoos with long, graying hair and a beard to match. But Joel catches himself in his judgment, he’s probably just as unappealing – not just because of how he’s aged, but because of how horrible he’s been to you in general. 

The next time Joel sees you, you’re at the bar, chatting with a man who Maria had introduced him to not long ago, a resident who is new in town. Joel had been too busy focusing on the fact that he’d been in Jackson long enough to not be its newest resident that he couldn’t remember his name. He wishes he had, so he could keep tabs on him. Of course, he can’t blame the man for being drawn to you – Joel knows very well that you’re hard to miss in a crowd. 

Still, Joel bristles when you both step away from the bar, and the man’s hand lands just above your sacrum. He actually finds himself tensing up, resisting the urge to intervene, because it’d likely only make you angry. Plus, maybe you are interested. That question is answered quickly when you reach behind your to clasp the man's hand and place it back at his side. Where it belongs, he thinks.

“Joel!”

He snaps his attention to what’s in front of him – interrupted, and probably for good measure, lest he get himself too worked up. Ethan approaches with a girl his age, her arm linked through his. Joel stands to greet them. 

The terse understanding between himself and Ethan while you were still in the hospital had somehow turned into a friendship, especially after they’d begun getting paired up on patrol. Ethan reaches out for Joel’s hand to dap him up, slinging an arm briefly over his shoulder.

“How’s it going, kid?” 

“Good, good,” Ethan nods, pulling back, and gestures to the girl next to him. “Joel, this is Alex.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” she says. “Ethan’s told me all about you.” 

“Really?” Joel asks, feeling a little bewildered. 

“Only good things,” Alex says quickly, as if she senses his apprehension. Ethan puts his arm around her waist. Joel recalls a few weeks back when he’d asked for advice on how to ask out a girl. Joel hadn’t pried at the time, but now he seems to understand, and is surprised by the swell of pride he feels. “Ethan says you’re a fucking badass,”she giggles after she swears.

Joel looks over at Ethan. “I don’t know about that.” 

He shrugs, changes the subject. “Since when do you come to these things?” Ethan asks.

“Ellie dragged me out,” Joel answers.

“I did the same with my aunt,” Ethan chuckles. “But now I can’t find her, and I’m pretty sure she’s escaped.”

“Oh, is she here?” Joel plays dumb, like he hasn’t been aware of exactly where you have been all night. “I haven’t seen her.”

“I think she was with Eugene earlier,” Alex has to stand on her toes to speak into Ethan’s ear. Joel watches Ethan’s nose wrinkle. 

“Do you know Eugene at all?” Ethan turns to Joel. “I’m trying to figure out what’s going on there, but she won’t say anything.” 

Joel wishes that he had more information. “Tommy says they seem close.”

“I know that,” Ethan says. “I wish she would just be honest with me. It’s not like I would be mad. Whatever,” he shakes his head. “We can talk about it another time. I just want to find her so I can introduce her to Alex.”

“We should say hi to Tommy and Maria first,” Alex says, and Ethan nods in agreement before saying goodbye to him. Joel claps a hand on Ethan’s shoulder as he moves past him, and Alex gives him a shy smile in acknowledgement. 

Focusing back on the crowd, Joel realizes that you’ve vanished in the short span of his last interaction. Maybe you’d rejected that guy, and then he’d retaliated. Maybe you’d gone home with Eugene. Joel shakes his hand. It’s none of his business. He doesn’t need to get involved. It’s not his job to look after you, regardless of how much better he feels when he does. Old instincts. He can’t help himself.

He settles on watching Ellie and Dina spin each other around on the dance floor. Eventually, Tommy and Maria, then Ethan and Alex all trickle out of the booth to go get another round or head to dance. Joel stands to release the booth to someone who actually needs it – and is left in the corner, nursing a nearly empty beer that’s now flat and warm. He looks towards his family and friends, but for some reason, he still feels alone. 

Joel isn’t sure how long he stands sulking, but he starts when someone approaches from behind.

“Having fun?”

You’re a pace or two back, one thumb hooked through a belt loop, a whiskey in your opposite hand. Joel looks back at the crowd a moment, then at the ground. “No.” 

“Neither am I,” you commiserate, stepping alongside him. 

Joel considers offering that Ethan was looking for you, but selfishly does not want to give you a reason to leave, so he stays quiet. You observe the dance floor like he is, smiling slightly at the sight of Ethan and Alex dancing. The flannel you’re wearing over a gray tank hangs loosely off one shoulder, and Joel wants to reach out and touch the exposed skin. You take your last sip of whiskey, bring a finger to swipe under your bottom lip, and Joel wishes he knew what you might taste like right now. He scolds himself for fantasizing.

You don’t speak either, and you stand in silence for a while, until you eventually pop your hip, shifting closer to him. Maybe you don’t realize it, but you’re already standing so close that your arm gets pressed up against his. Neither of you acknowledge the contact, but Joel is acutely aware of how your skin burns hot against his own. He feels comforted by the affection, even if it’s unintentional.

“Want to leave?” Joel asks, and can hardly believe that the words came out of his mouth, even if he wanted them to. 

You look over at him, not bothering to hide your surprise, but your expression evens out quickly, and you give him a single nod. “Yeah.” 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Joel’s still not convinced this is real. It feels too much like a dream, the weather outside is so pleasantly warm it feels like he’s floating as you walk down the street. He had never expected you to agree to leave with him, and now he doesn’t know what to do, or what to say.

The greater distance you put between yourselves and the bar, the quieter the town is. Most of Jackson’s residents are at the dance, save for the guards at the front gate and the handful of people that had been mingling just outside.

He heads in the general direction of the neighborhood, even though he lives on a different street. 

“What are we supposed to do now?” you wonder out loud, and you sound a little incredulous, like you’re equally as shocked to find yourself beside him. The question carries a bit more weight than it would have coming from anyone else.

Joel contemplates. He’s not sure what he wants from you – there are a lot of things, actually – but he doesn’t know if he really deserves any of them. For now, your companionship is more than enough.

“You’re welcome to come back to mine,” he offers.  “But if you’re looking to keep drinking, all the booze is back at the bar.”

“I’m good.” You shake your head like you’re uninterested, but look over at him with a sparkle in your eye. “I have something better….” 

You reach into the pocket of your flannel and produce a rolled joint between two fingers, looking over your shoulder. “Those dances are usually terrible, so I always come prepared.” 

Joel can’t help the chuckle that escapes him, and the sheepish grin he gets in return makes his cheeks feel warm. “Where’d you even get that?”

“You’ve never been on patrol with Eugene, have you?” you ask. “He has a place just out of town where he grows it. I’ve been helping him since we first got paired up, and in exchange, I get to sample the supply.”  

Of course. Joel would’ve never imagined that was the reason you were so close with Eugene, but it suddenly makes incredible sense. He shakes his head in a combination of relief and amusement. “You really haven’t changed.” 

“Oh, I’m sure I have,” you answer, smiling to yourself and looking at the ground. “But of course I haven’t shaken all my bad habits.”

“That’s not true,” Joel mutters.

“Well, you haven’t changed either, for as much as you’ve tried to convince me,” you nudge him gently, offering him the joint. “What do you think?” 

Joel plucks it from between your fingers and puts it between his lips. “I think I have a lighter at home.”

“Sounds perfect.” 

In the front hallway of his house, you slip out of your tennis shoes, shuffling behind him in your socks, pausing occasionally to study some of the doodles that Ellie had drawn and hung on the walls – it wasn’t exactly a priority to decorate these days, but they certainly livened up the place. He knows how much Ellie likes you, despite the fact that she doesn’t gush, but the odd comment here and there says as much. Joel remembers how difficult it had been to keep Sarah away, and Ellie now is no different. He doesn’t seem to be able to help himself, either. 

You sit next to Joel on his wicker couch, curling your feet up under you as he lights the joint and study him while he takes the first few puffs. He does it without thinking. That’s how soft Jackson has made him. Normally, he’d be too stressed about being out of his wits. But he can’t see how hypervigilance has served him since settling down. He feels safe here, and somehow especially because he’s with you. 

When he passes the joint your way, you look at him wistfully. “Old times,” you say with a grin. 

Joel nods as he exhales, coughing. “Old times.” 

“Oh yeah,” you say, as if you just remembered something. “You can’t tell Ethan about this. He doesn’t know, and he will give me shit about it. I need him to take me seriously.” 

Joel shakes his head. “Well, you know, it sounds like he and Tommy both think you and Eugene are together.”

“What?” your head jerks forward in shock, eyes going wide. “Oh my god, no. Do people think that?”

“I’m just sayin’,” Joel wants to mention how he had seen you whispering to each other at the bar earlier, but then realizes it’d give a bit too much away. “That’s what they think.”

“Well....historically speaking I might’ve liked older men…. but not that old.”

Joel purses his lips. “You’ve lived here awhile, huh?” When you nod, he continues. “Has no one caught your eye?” 

“Uhm….not really. But….” you trail off, looking into Joel’s backyard. “To be completely honest, I  don't think about that much these days. I guess I feel like I have a lot to be grateful for. I don’t want to push it.”

Joel understands, and nods pensively.

“What about you?” you ask. 

“I guess I feel the same.”

That causes you to smile a little bit, look over at him. “I bet you already know this. But the women here would line up down the block for you.”

Joel can’t help but roll his eyes, though he wonders if you would, too. Even if you did like him, that didn’t seem like your style. 

“I’m serious. I’ve heard the things they whisper behind your back. All their fantasies about you are pretty creative...”

“Fantasies?” He grimaces. He imagines none of them know anything about who he really is. You’re the closest thing, and all he’s done is hurt you. “I’m sure you were quick to set them straight.” 

“I don’t say anything,” you say, then continue on, a little quieter, looking at him from under your lashes. “I like to keep you to myself.” 

Joel isn’t sure how to respond to that. You have every right to tell all of them that you were once together, and all the ways he’s hurt you since. Yet for some reason, you’ve chosen to protect him. 

“So….all this time….” you wonder. “You had to have been with other people, right?”

Joel doesn’t think to hold back. “I had a partner for a long time. Tess. First, it was all business, I helped her smuggle things in and out of the Boston QZ…and then, I don’t know….we got along, we trusted each other and…” Joel trails off, hoping you’d put together the rest before he has to go into too much detail. “She was real fuckin’ tough. Scared me a little at first. You would’ve liked her.”

“Well, we already have one thing in common. What happened?”

“She’s the whole reason I ended up out here….with Ellie,” Joel explains. “But I lost her a little over a year ago.”

He hopes you don’t ask how. Maybe someday he’d be willing to go into detail, but talking about it generally is hard enough as it is. But fortunately, you seem to pick up on his hesitance. “I’m sorry, Joel,” you say softly.

He shakes his head. “I was an asshole. To her. I should've....after Sarah died I didn’t want to get attached, so I kept her at arms length and I... I wished I hadn’t in the end. It only made things worse.”

“Yeah,” you nod, look down. “I’ve made that mistake before.”

Joel doesn’t want to linger any longer on the memory. “What about you? Were you with anyone?”

“Uhm, yeah,” you fidget, looking uncomfortable. “I had a partner….for like ten years."

Ten years? He had been with Tess for more, but something about that information feels jarring. He’s shocked Tommy never told him this. Did Tommy even know? Suddenly, it dawns on Joel everything that could’ve happened to you since you’ve been apart. Entire lifetimes. And he’d said such horrible things when you’d fought. He remembers your face when he’d told you that you didn’t know what it was like to lose a child. Maybe you had. He’d been so cruel and inconsiderate just because he was uncomfortable. 

His throat feels tight, almost scared to learn anymore. “What…what was his name?”

“Well, Bea….was her name.” 

Joel is sure he doesn't hide the shock well. “Sorry, I didn’t know…”

“Yeah,” you say. “I don’t think I did either. Well, I sort of did, but I was too young I think when I first realized to make any sense of it, but…. I met her and…yeah,” then, you smirk. “I mean, I went to an all-girls school and I had a really bad relationship with my dad so…it definitely makes sense. ” 

Joel considers this, smiles along with you. “But anyways. Her and I met shortly after my brother died and it was kind of the same. We kept each other alive, things developed from there. We ended up getting involved with this group who lived in the middle of nowhere. That’s a whole other story, but…” you wave your hand. “I loved her, and I lost her right before Ethan and I got here.” 

Joel sees all the pain in your eyes, and wishes he could say something to take it all away. He knows he can’t. You look back out into the woods in his backyard, take a deep breath, and reach back towards the joint that you had put out not long before, lighting it again. Joel gets the sense that both of you had done the most amount of sharing possible for the time being. 

“Look at us,” you take another drag before passing it over. “Old times.”

“Old times,” he repeats, a smile working its way onto his face. 

“This used to be my favorite thing to do with you.” 

“It was nice,” Joel agrees….hesitates before continuing. “But I can think of some things I liked better.” He gives you a knowing look, and you roll your eyes, laughing easily at his joke. It feels so good to make you laugh, to see you smile. Why had he spent so much time resisting?

“Touche.” 

What happens next spills out of Joel so quickly he doesn’t think to stop it. “I tried to look for you….after all this happened. I didn’t have Sarah anymore, and I thought maybe….I don’t know. It was the only thing that kept me going for a while.”

“I did too,” you confess. “But…I was with Vincent and Ethan, and I felt like I couldn’t leave them alone for something that might just be…. I always hoped you both made it. And I’m so sorry she’s gone. I really did love her.” 

“I know you did,” Joel reaches out to take your hand. “I know. And I shouldn’t have said those things I did. I’m still not sure why you’ve been so patient with me.”

“Hmm,” you shift so that you’re closer to him. “You waited around for me back then. It’s only fair that I’d wait around for you now. I want you in my life. I don’t care what that looks like. But it’s too hard to forget about a person that you loved.” 

Joel wants as much from you as you’re willing to give, and he can’t tear his gaze away from you. But he wants you to see him, all of him, before he takes it. 

“I’ve let a lot of people down. I’ve done a lot of h-horrible things,” his voice cracks, and tears well in his eyes. 

“I have, too, you know? Those things still live with me. But I think what matters is who we are now,” you reach out, fingertips brushing the scar on his temple, and Joel swears that even if you don’t know the story behind it, you can see right through him. “And I know who you are.” 

“I don’t want to hurt you anymore than I already have.” 

“You won’t,” you say. “No more than anyone else has. And if it makes you feel better…when people hurt me, I’ve gotten pretty good at hurting them back.” 

“If I do, I’d hope you would.”

“I will. I promise,” your thumb strokes his cheek, marveling at him. “I would suggest a blood oath or something but….I heard we kind of already did that…”

He’s given you every warning, every barrier, and you’re still here. He can’t believe it, and he doesn’t think he can hold back any longer. “Come here.”

He kisses you. He wishes that he could be slow and tender and gentle like he used to be – and certainly he’s still capable, but he realizes that he’s been depriving himself of something he wanted for so long, and can’t seem to control himself. 

Your hands land on the side of his face, and he wraps his arms around your waist, pulling you onto his lap. Maybe you’re somewhat taken aback by his urgency, you hum against his lips, but you don’t resist at all. Joel maneuvers you so you’re straddling his thighs, and he grips your hips, your ass, coasts his hands up your side. Your lips part in a moan, and he slips his tongue into your mouth. 

For a while, he stays there, savors the taste of you, whiskey and smoke still lingering on your lips. His hands cup your jaw, feel your body, grip and squeeze and stroke and you let him, continue to let him. He tries everything, wondering if you’ll tell him to stop, if you’ll decide you’ve had too much, but you don’t. Then again, he should know by now that you’re a woman who knows what she wants. He just finds it’s hard to believe that he’s the thing you want.

You break away from him, just a little, and Joel presses his nose to your neck, kisses your pulse point. 

“Should we go upstairs?” your voice is raspy and breathless. “Will Ellie be home soon?” 

“Probably not for a while. We can be quick.”

“Hopefully not too quick,” you raise your eyebrows. Joel can’t help but laugh a little. He relishes in the way your hands rake up and down his arms, exploring him, touching him. Of course he wants you, but even just this would be enough. He’d be content with less, he hadn’t realized how starved of affection he’d been.

You’re able to pry yourselves off one another to make it up the stairs, and Joel guides you with a hand to the small of your back. When you get to his bedroom, he opens the door, but stops you before you go inside. 

“Hold on,” Joel mutters, winding one arm around your waist, the other behind your knee.

“Joel, what-no, you’ll–” he pulls you into his arms. 

“Do you really think I’m not strong enough?”

“I didn’t say that,” you chuckle as he carries you over the threshold and into the bedroom, breath puffing against him before he lays you down on the bed. 

When he hovers over you, your fingers wind into his hair, nails raking against his scalp. He savors every sweet sigh he’s able to pull from you, hands cupping your breasts and squeezing your hips. You’re so pliant and open beneath his body, it makes it easier to not feel guilty about what he’s doing. He knows he shouldn’t feel guilty, you’ve said as much, but it might take some time before the feeling will die completely. Hopefully, he has enough time with you to see it off completely.

Clothes are removed quickly, intentionally, as you both bare more and more of yourself to each other. And while he wishes he could’ve been there to see the ways in which your body has changed, you’re still as beautiful as ever. 

Joel, however, is hesitant to give himself away completely. When you tug at the hem of his shirt, he hesitates. 

“I don’t know if-” he pauses. “If you want to see all that.”

“Joel,” you stare at him knowingly, kneeling across from him as he stands at the edge of the bed. “I do.” 

So he releases your hand, and lets you pull it over his head. Carefully, you study him, his body littered with scars. He knows he’s not as in shape as you remember. These days, he hardly can look at himself in the mirror after a shower. He expects you to be disgusted, or at least see it flit across your face before you compose yourself, but you don’t. Your fingertips drag through the smattering of hair on his chest and down his torso, tracing several prominent scars – each one with a story – but you linger on the one at his abdomen, frowning. 

He sees the question on your face, but you don’t ask it. Instead, you return to press yourself against him. “I’m so glad you’re still here….”

You kiss him, then, and Joel can only kiss you back. 

Joel isn’t the only one with battle scars. Some of them he feels are his fault, but you seem less self-concious about them, which gives him a surprising amount of confidence. Maybe it’s just a reality of what happens when you make it this long. 

When you’re finally bare beneath him, he admires how you look, stretched out and waiting, chest heaving and shivering with anticipation. He slides his hand between your legs – feels you already wet and warm, sinking two fingers inside. Your walls flutter around the intrusion, back arcing off the bed when you sigh out his name. Joel.

He’d forgotten how nice it felt to hear that. 

Joel is already thinking about what he’d like to do to you next time. He’d be more careful, more patient. He’d bury his face between your thighs to see if you tasted as good as he remembers, he’d let your fingers curl into his hair. But right now you both seem desperate for the same thing. 

He pumps his cock a few times with his hand, he can’t remember the last time he’d been this hard – the last time he’s wanted anyone this badly. Even with Tess, it had always felt like the both of them were hurrying to scratch an itch, her eyes would wander like she was thinking of other people, and maybe he was, too. 

Joel lines himself up with your slick cunt, teases you a little, and you roll your body down to meet him, gasping when his blunt head slides in – just a little. 

He can’t hold back. You practically suck him in, so tight and hot around him he finds it immediately overwhelming, but he doesn’t even think to pull out. Only when he’s fully seated inside you, and given you a chance to adjust, does he start to move. 

It’s euphoric. You’re both older now, more mature, but he still remembers all the things you liked, even if it takes a moment for him to find the spot inside you that makes you cry out, legs wrapping around his hips. 

Unlike before, you don’t bother trying to hide from him. You kiss him, hold him, touch him, look him in the eyes, tell him how good he feels – you don’t hold back. Joel relishes every word you say, clings to the praise and gives it back. Your lashes flutter when he tells you how pretty you look.

He can think of nothing else other than bringing you pleasure, can tell you’re getting close when you begin to rut against him, and he reaches down to let the pads of his fingers slide over your clit.

When you come, you whine his name, lock your lips with his own and he swallows your moans. The feeling of you so impossibly tight and wet and pulsing and squeezing him so tightly has him following closely after. 

His head is still buried in the crook of your neck when you speak again. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too.”

The second Joel pulls out, he starts missing how close he felt to you. But you fix that by rolling over onto your stomach, curling up at his side, head on his chest, and arm across his stomach. 

“Joel. Fuck, you’re so perfect.”

He’s far from it. But he’s starting to think if you say it enough, maybe he’ll start to believe it. He turns his head to kiss you gently, slowly. “So are you.” 

“We can do this again, right?” you ask. 

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, we can.”

“Good,” you settle back against him, and very slowly, he dozes off with you right beside him. He doesn’t want to sleep alone again, and luckily, he doesn’t have to. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

-December 4th, 2026-

When you return home from patrol, you find Joel in his living room – boots off and socked feet propped on the arm of the couch. You don’t notice his eyes are closed, that he’s asleep, until you get closer, see the book he’d been reading resting on his chest as he snores lightly. You can’t help but feel for him – he’s probably exhausted from constant patrols, so he must be tired. 

But mostly, you’re just overwhelmed by the love you feel for him, catching him in a quiet moment of vulnerability. Hesitantly, you reach out and squeeze his foot. It’s gentle and tender enough that he blinks his eyes open and looks around, taking in his surroundings, rather than jolting awake like he often does. When he sees you on the opposite end of the couch, he melts back into the pillow he’s propped against. 

“Hey, stud,” you lean against the arm of the couch. 

“Hey,” Joel answers, voice still gruff with sleep. “How long was I out?”

“I don’t know,” you shrug. “I just got in.”

“Hmm,” Joel closes his eyes again, folds his hands across his stomach.

“You’re wearing the glasses I got you,” you point out. They’re simple. Rectangular black frames. You’d found them on patrol, and brought them home after Joel had been complaining that he could barely see when he read before bed. But he’d tried them on and insisted he hated the way they looked, so you’d ended up using them most of the time.

“They do work,” he grumbles, like he’s ashamed to admit it. “But I still think they look stupid.”

“You look like a sexy librarian,” Joel rolls his eyes, but you can tell he’s suppressing a grin. There’s always a bit of defiance about him, he can’t fully admit how you get him so flustered even after you’ve spent so much time together. You press your thumb into the arch of his foot and he groans. “That feel good?” you ask. 

“Yes.”

“Whatcha reading?” You gesture towards the book. 

“Some book about the moon landing,” Joel lifts it off of his chest, where it lay face down and open, looks at the back cover. “For Ellie.”

“How sweet.”

“It’s a little dry,” he deadpans. “But she likes this stuff.” 

You shift your massage to his other foot. Joel stretches, his arms lifting above his head, the shirt he’s wearing rides up just so, so you see a sliver of his lower belly before it disappears again, throwing an arm over his eyes. 

“Are you tired?” you ask. 

“Always,” he says through a yawn. 

“Me too,” you yawn along with him, since they’re contagious. He pulls the glasses from their perch on the bridge of his nose and shuts the book, placing them both on the coffee table in front of him. You take your hands off his feet and he sits up a little straighter, holding out his hand. 

“Come ‘ere,” he says, and you do. 

He grunts as you settle into his arms, head nestled against his chest, sprawling out almost on top of him, the only way you both can fit like this on the couch.

“You’re so warm,” you say softly, letting him wrap his arms around you. 

“You’re cold. Your hands are freezing,” he holds them in his own.

“It’s cold out.”

“Don’t know why you left today.”

“Obligations. Patrol.”

“Fuck that.”

You laugh into his chest, pausing for a moment before speaking again. “You know, I think we might be boring.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, we don’t really leave the house. We spend all day reading. And we’re old.”

“We’re not that old.”

“But we’re getting up there.”

“Sure, but…” Joel trails off. 

“Everything’s so quiet, so calm.”

“I think that’s what most people would describe as content.” 

“Are you content?” you ask, lifting your head to look him in the eyes. 

“I’m happy,” he says softly, tucking a piece of hair behind your ears. “Are you?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Then don’t worry about the rest.”

“Okay,” you settle back against your husband's chest, feel his lips brush your forehead.

His fingers search absentmindedly for the ring on your finger he’d found while clearing out a pawn shop not too long ago. The one he wore looked nothing like your own. But the marriage had been long overdue, and neither of you cared what the rings actually looked like. 

Nowadays, you split your time between his place with Ellie, and your own with Ethan, but end up in his bed every night. At this point, you don’t think you could sleep without him. 

Years ago, another lifetime, you’d had a conversation underneath a sky full of stars. You’d told him that for you, good things had never lasted. Joel had made a promise. 

This will.

It took time. There was a lot of pain. But in the end, he had told you the truth.

-

-

-

[slaygentford]

just kind of put together that Lestat probably sees all of the intense reading of piles of literature the way an older lover views a younger lover scrolling on their phone for hours in a little velvet track suit, because they’re pouting. I thought it was like, oh Louis’s feeding his mind and Lestat’s like “the only thing you should be feeding on is~”

oh absolutely absolutely but also in my brain in addition to this it is specifically about the panic about novels in the 18th-19th c or whenever which he lived through and likely agreed with (source when Gabrielle is like I'm fucking miserable and lestat verbatim thinks WOMEN HAVE HIGHER COGNITIVE FUNCTION??? but he doesn't know the word cognitive because he quite literally can't read an thats also part of his damage bc he both loves and hates that he married his ideal maman and then found out the ideal maman will actually unfortunately have internality that isn't always the internality he initially perceived/wants but thats beside this particular point). so first he was like novels are a source of secret knowledge that is being gatekept from me and then he went out in the world and heard that novels were giving women ideas and he (recently abandoned by Gabrielle again) was like yeah novels are giving women ideas and then he saw Louis pick up one single solitary book and sneered hissing oh je remember this. les idées

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 6/25/2024

i played a game that is not genshin impact!

listening

paige kennedy's lingerie model. the line "cause i'm a little rat boy in the body of a lingerie model" startled a laugh out of me. off the discover weekly playlist.

-

reading

thank you philip.

Johnny Guitar by Roy Chanslor, on interlibrary loan bc i was hoping reading the book would kickstart my long-planned fic based on the movie. surprise! wildly different book i read in one sitting! the locations, most of the characters (except most of them are much younger) and who's on what sides are essentially the same, but everything else is different!

there are five whole women in this thing, which is a staggering number for a western. i don't know that i have a clear idea of what this book is trying to say about Women in general or specific. i've just been kind of rolling it around in my head for a while. once i figure out what i want to say about this book everyone better watch out

-

watching

borrowed my best friend's husband and their disney plus account to watch a lot of star wars. we certainly had a lot of thoughts about the show Ahsoka but none of them were particularly complimentary. it's dave filoni playing the fucking hits. would you like some wolves and some owls and people having bad feelings and recreating the training session on the millennium falcon from ANH? would you like some fairly lackluster lightsaber battles? would you like the least interesting concept of a waiting room/purgatory/underworld you've ever seen? this is a show where we meet Anakin again and TRAVEL TO A DIFFERENT FUCKING GALAXY, the BIRTHPLACE of some WITCHES. can we be a little bit excited about new things please??? please?????? we are so very bogged down in cutting back and forth, bc god forbid everyone be in the same place at the same time, that we get only the tiniest glimpses of fun new places. show me the places. stop giving me medium shots of people yapping. easily three quarters of this show is filmed from the waist up or closer. what fucking gives. if i really really wanted to scratch the itch of a worrisome legacy and lost love and slightly weird student/teacher dynamics i would go read a contemporary literary novel. show me the interesting parts of star wars and not just the fanservicey callback parts please thanks

we did have a lot of fun with The Acolyte, which genuinely does feel like a breath of fresh air. most of the dialogue is extremely bad, which is sort of par for the course for a star war, but the gleeful jumping with both feet into some real melodramatic weekly serial/space opera tropes!!! much more interested in playing with a heightened narrative/playing with narrative at all, unlike ahsoka which is more focused on filling in a little blank spot!!! witches here also!!! the GOOD TWIN and the EVIL TWIN, several inventive assassinations, the CLEARING of one's NAME, a cursed planet, some fights that feel like they're playing with samurai movies and westerns in a fun new way instead of reminding me of a better thing i could be watching. thank you im eating this with a spoon. many people are very mad about it bc the protagonist is black and perhaps not perfectly straight. the public says this star wars is bad, bc of woke and bc of cliffhangers. i think this one is fun actually so far!!!

-

playing

Freshly Frosted (2022, Quantum Astrophysics Guild). free on Epic rn and quite honestly this should be a self-care/old people brain plasticity phone game. why it is NOT on mobile is beyond me. why it is on SWITCH is also beyond me.

it did make me miss a novelty doughnut and coffee mini local chain in the five college area that has long since gone under. one of my therapists used to have an office above one of their stores and i used to go to a class at smith on wednesdays, go to therapy, and then jog for the half hour bus back to umass, reward doughnut in hand.

it opens with a soft-voiced woman telling you about how she likes to decompress by laying in a field and imagining a donut factory in the sky. she gives encouraging little tips and "hey! be nice to yourself!" throughout the game, but mostly at the beginnings of levels and introducing new mechanics. there are, perhaps, overly plentiful achievements.

there are a dozen dozen levels and i played through the first three dozen, or the first three boxes (normie don't draw over your line, multi track drifting, merging paths). i once had a level correct and then hit undo out of indecision and the tutorial lady told me "“You had it, click the undo button in the top right to undo”. which i don't believe i've ever seen in a game.

i stopped at the third box bc there’s a universal order to ingredients (always frosting then sprinkles then whipped cream then etc) but it does not ever tutorialize that it will only put the next ingredient on if the previous ones are fulfilled. like this was the level i figured this out on.

on further levels in this box i was not thinking super hard about what the actual order was and i couldn't really tell you how i solved a particular level except for making sure every possible path existed. maybe this gets super wild in later levels idk but three dozen levels was enough of a novelty for me. if i may be a little mean to a perfectly fine game, it feels like a coding bootcamp project in the way it steps through its logic and introduces new mechanics.

-

making

cross stitch update. i don't believe this will be done by my brother's birthday

[saphushia]

DEUCE TRIED TO BEAT ACE WITH A LARGE STICK WHEN THEY MET????????????????

oh my god i get to tell you this i'm so happy. this is going to get long because i just. adore how fucking cringefail deuce is at the start of the novel. the manga is great but it's so important to me how badly this man can fuck up within 10 minutes of meeting a stranger. his ass does NOT know how to keep his foot out of his mouth

going behind a read more bc long and spoiler filled (specifically heavy spoilers (essentially an abridged play-by-play of the first chapter) for Ace's Story book 1 and a little bit of the first chapter of the Episode A manga adaption)

if you don't want spoilers but are curious uhhhh basically deuce got a lil hangry ^-^ thats all ^-^

so, in the manga adaption, deuce pretty immediately warms up to ace, yeah?

yeah. deuce is pretty fuckin easy in the manga. meanwhile, in the novel, when ace immediately asks for help...

(if it's unclear, all first person is referring to deuce, the book is written from his POV)

in fact, deuce manages to fail basically every speech check in the first conversation they have together. i'm not kidding look at how fucking bad he is at this.

my man falls ass first into a rant to a guy he just met and manages to find himself saying 'wow why don't you go cry to your mom and leave me alone to be depressed' to a man who's mom literally died in childbirth. less than 5 minutes after meeting the guy. and the best part? HE KEEPS GOING.

he's gotta stop there, right? surely? surely even a man who's been stranded on an island alone for 3 days can tell when he's got his foot so wedged in his mouth he's practically deepthroating it? NOPE!

at this point, you'd think there's literally nothing worse that he can say. you would be so, so wrong.

MY MAN. MY GUY. i want to hammer in the fact that deuce managed to fuck up a conversation this badly with a man he's literally never met within like, 15 minutes at most. deuce then proceeds to recover from this utter failure at conversation by just. walking away into the woods and proceeding to continue slowly starving to death for several days whilst avoiding ace. he also eats ants on at least one occasion. this isn't really relevant to the hitting ace with a stick thing but it's important to me that you know that. he also despite all of this has this gayass moment

again, not relevant, but important to me that you know he saw ace failing to sail on the worst raft you've ever seen and still called him 'dashing'. now, at this point, deuce has been without food and with only minimal water for days- probably close to a week, though it's a bit ambiguous. and my guy, brilliantly, thinks to himself 'well. ace doesn't look like he's starving to death. what if he has food?' and sneaks behind ace, following him until he sees ace with a huge fruit (the mera mera no mi).

all of this... deuce sneaking up on ace planning to fight him for the fruit, kill him if he needs to, because he's the son of roger... and you know what ace fucking does??? you wanna know what this giant depressed puppy of a man fucking says to a guy who was abt to bash his brains out??

"nice stick!" and deuce just fucking. starts sobbing on the spot out of guilt while they argue both trying to get the other to eat the fruit. they are. so stupid and i love them so much.

so yeah. deuce's first ever interaction with ace is loudly announcing that he'd want to kill himself if he was the son of roger, and his SECOND interaction is him attempting to kill ace with a stick because he's hangry. i love him so much he's so fucking shit.

tldr you're not you when you're hungry and also you should all read the ace novels. because of this and also because ace and deuce get cockblocked on a gay ferris wheel ride by a marine just deciding to jump in the gondola with them and sit there menacingly until ace breaks the door and just jumps out to escape her monologuing abt her traumatic backstory

[deadwrites]

Well I was set to keep going on in the tags of the prev post but I think what I need to do is just make a seperate post.

The Tales of Nocturna-Illume (through the shadow of the sun) will be a pretty short cut and dry slavefic story, definitely self indulgent and the court of the gods origin story that is referenced in FNV and all other fics in my what, deadverse? how edge, I like it. It's about a secret prince slave, greco-roman-persian-egyptianesque inspired. Very self indulgent and cliche. I live for trying to make the cliche feel fresh. We see Emryth, the mc, in FNV a couple times, Book I and Book II. TTSOTS is going to be novella to novel length. I hope.

Even fire will burn itself out is euro-medieval era-ish, having Étienne--a dragon-burnt slave--going on a bit of an adventure (I HAD been considering following the hero's journey template but boy does that stress me out) that ends with him and a dragonshifter together. There are dragon hoards. There are wars. There are lots of godstouched creatures in it. Weird dragon sex. You name it. It's gonna probably be a trilogy.

Lead Bodies is what's going on on the human side of the dragonic war, specifically in the warring nation's court. It's court politics and forced relationship, with the mc, Aris, being the royal favorite/obsession. He had kids and a bad case of OCD and runs off with a knight (will not spoiler besides for saying it ends badly). I like this one because it isn't going to be an epic insomuch as the story of the grand battles etc go to Étienne in even fire will burn itself out. For Aris, I am thinking of less of what's the most epic thing happening in the world rn, and more of "why is THIS the part of Aris' life that deserves to be told". There's a fun little incubus-imp critter that he ends up with in there. It should just be a novel. A long novel.

(Man I would love to write a baroque/age of enlightenment/maybe french revolution? inspired story. I have a lot of french and euro art history under my belt so I tend to draw a lot of inspiration from that. But I need to chill with the stories until I FINISH something. Hmm. Plague, philosophers or alchemists, beheadings, powdered faces, maximalism...).

Next is The Lighthouse, which I started publishing then took down when I got serious about FNV, because it's not gonna get written anytime soon even though it's meant to be quite short (50-60k?) and is noncon FREE (?!) and about a pretentious existentialist gay guy who, in a lenin-era-russocommunist world, fucks a siren. Very fun, very much an introspective piece about loneliness and PTSD.

And then we have the siren and under the earth, which are modern era and may or may not ever see the light of day again.

Lastly, modern era, is Booters (working title), that is a novella tragedy pet whump story because I dislike pet whump as a whole and hate bad endings. But! I read a compelling essay by Arthur Miller (after reading death of a salesman) and found the idea that he proposed of a tragedy being great because it shows the tenacity of the human spirit in spite of impossible odds to be quite inspiring. We do live in an era of impossible odds, don't we? So anyway, pet Daisy works at bussy Hooters and had a bad ending. But at least he tried. I want to post an excerpt sometime. It's a novella, maybe short story, only has 3-4 chapters.

I am pretty terrible so I have about 20-60k written for each of these stories, sans Booters, but certainly most of it will get tossed by the time I am ready to get serious about them. Anyway that's the tour of my rough drafts. Don't get too excited (congrats if you read to the end of this) because it'll be ages before they get posted bc I am unfortunately a slow long format author.

[ikoarts]

October 2023 Art

for some reason i wrote a novel under the cut, for those of u actually reading, thank u for being so patient x

vvv dates + info under the cut vvv

1 - 03/10/2023 : another of my faves of last year, was trying to get better at drawing trainz, so just Edward and Toby hanging out, displaying the duality of old men x

2 - 04/10/2023 : got a new puter! one of the first things i set to doing after getting set up was to draw a Ru, of course, it was also just me trying to get used to the new MS paint..... it feels very odd

3, 4, 5 - 06/10/2023 : part 1 of redrawing random pics i have of Edward on my phone with my human version of him, this was really fun tbh, and the third here is one of my fave drawings of the year probs.. like sir.. those look heavy... what big uhh.. Glasses.. you have

6, 7, 8 - 07/10/2023 : part 2! i think i just like drawing his face... dare i say this train is cunty or will that get me exiled

9 - 08/10/2023 : something stupid i thought of and couldn't get out of my head for days so had to draw it..... little johnny from oingo boingo's only a lad, doing what he does best, fantasising about radios he wants oh so bad and running people down with a boyish craving for blood.. based on that 1 meme of the guy driving and thinking of a thing then making that insane face

10 - 09/10/2023 : based on that 1 silly vargskelethor song (that could not be less specific), had Shed 17 on the brain and was reminded of the milk song where the skeleton comes out.. thomarse dank 2 much milk and died..

11, 12 - 10/10/2023 : chooshada again :333 first a little doodle on my phone bc i was wondering about her livery, i do think she'd have originally been NER apple green but then painted NWR colours, butttt with a twist... coz i can do whatever i like... the twist is just that she's painted dark blue rather than a sky blue, coz its more her colour x

ALSO MS paint shada, wanted to draw her more uh, idk, detailed ig, idk i love this one, it also served as more train practice

13 - 13/10/2023 : previous one, but with COLOUR!! not much 2 say other than that shes very cute

14 - 18/10/2023 : saw a tweet abt old photos of engine crews posing with their crashed locos and how the NWR crews would do that, made me think of how, if Toni was (choo)shada's driver, she'd do that.. probably x .. very like her to slay in the midst of a terrible accident

15 - 22/10/2023 : predictably, i have some playlists for the ttte engines, one for Diesel which is notable here, so uhh, i have the scrapped song from the lorax "biggering" in there, bc i see it as like a Duck vs Diesel song, ik im surpassing several layers of cringe here but hear me out ok... i drew this at 2am coz i couldn't stop thinking of Duck lecturing Diesel

16, 17, 18 - 25/10/2023 : speaking of playlists, think i was listening to my Robin one here, and felt like drawing him, i have "the land of make believe" in there, which ive always found to be an oddly haunting song, so this is semi based on that, though that wouldn't be apparent if i hadn't just told u x .. this looks like vent art but tis not i was just having fun

also tiny chooshada, i was in the middle of writing something which i have literally Just remembered now and i was writing a scene where Ru is stuck between some characters who shes not looking forward to working with bc they're about to bicker the whole fuckin time and one of them thinks shes a dick, so i drew her being sad that shes forced to work with morons..... and speak of the devil, 3rd drawing is here with 2 of the aforementioned morons :D i think D+D take a liking to her, they're just a little obnoxious (love them for that)

19 - 27/10/2023 : a quick(ish) digital thing of Chooshada again that i did on the side of another project, more engine drawing practice he he, she'll be out of proportion and lacking detail but really it was just to not be too hard on myself about that, it did help i think to understand how to draw her more, plus just look at her lil face... also she has a number here, doesn't mean much other than 8 being her lucky number, other than 11, like those are just her numbers, suppose i could have it be 1188 to ref her bday, idfk x

[bytedykes]

Nie mingjue and liu qingge for the character ask game?

Sexuality Headcanon: im a nieyao/3zun truther so like he likes men... lqg is my beautiful aroace swordguy <333

Gender Headcanon: I LOVE BUTCH WOMEN!!!! ok both of them are men to me as canon, but like. take my hand. butch nmj and he/him butch lqg okay?

A ship I have with said character: i guess i already said but Big fan of nieyao i like it when weird assholes tear each other into pieces ^-^ 3zun is also good. for lqg i like him in bingliushen but only the way i personally like it and not the way people usually do it. hes a part of their marriage in the sense that he's their nonsexual nonromantic chew toy that they like sooo much. also lqg/tlj can be really good sometimes (thinking of raitala's 'the reluctant suitor' series - very nice tianliu series but also one of my fave lqg characterizations i've seen lol he's such a weirdo in this one)

A BROTP I have with said character: nmj and nhs!!! i love you nie siblings you rock. also i like nielan childhood friends i think its very fun especially when they start falling apart in the later years <3 an interesting take ive seen before also is nmj&wq which is pretty fun. LQG&SQQ THE BESTIES <3 theyre everything !!! i really like them i like how much they genuinely enjoy each others company and how fucking Bad they are at like. being in a friendship its awesome. also as a treat for myself lqg&yqy is sooo tasty i love it when lqg genuinely likes and looks up to him and yqy is fond of him in turn. could a sect leader and his coworker-subordinate really be... friends?

A NOTP I have with said character: obviously ew incest ships but aside from that i cant really think of anything? lqg x romance my notp i think he's so aro. also okay. okay honestly. liushen sometimes NOT all the time but sometimes the way ppl act about it irks me and i automatically look away. like the blatantly ooc fandomized liushen. bye </3

A random headcanon: lqg forest puddle water drinkerrrr dkjaskdss no im kidding im kidding. my random headcanon ("random headcanon" lol) is that he has good dad energy. he could pull thru. give that man a baby :] can i plug spring in bloom here again does anyone want to read spring in bloom by kay my friend kay <3 also i think he's immune to sex pollen bc he's an aroace jock who just exercises it out of his system. no basis for this one other than it's hilarious

for nmj... i think he secretly has a very annoying sense of humor that many people don't know about but he terrorizes nhs with. dad jokes type of beat... da-ge jokes <3

General Opinion over said character: I FUCKING LOVE THESE GUYS!!!!! i love it when there is a guy with a big fucking sword who has sooo many problems. lol! anyway ok more specifically:

i thought nmj was very interesting while reading the novel and definitely had a "hey wtf dude" initial reaction to him, but he's reallyyy grown on me <3 partially bc he's been on my mind a lot and partially bc of his presence in cql! (cql nmj is my type also so that definitely did smth to me as well lol) i think he's a really interesting character to explore both bc of his general backstory and bc of his relationships w other characters, as well as the fact that (in the novel) we never really see him of completely sound mind, so there's lots of room to play w how you portray him. he's fun!

lqg i love soooo much i loved him from day ONE i loved him as soon as he showed up. he's so good. i think his appearance was a very funny surprise (?), esp the way sqq narrated it lmao, and i really like him in general. i loveee the loyal sword character trope and i like how lqg does it (so well <3). his general awkwardness and extreme talent to put his foot in his mouth is also really charming ("its ok you can just get a new disciple" what is wrong with him). i also think there's room to explore w him, especially his family + relationships w other sect members, i love you liu siblings... lqg is a character who goes through a lot of growth imo and it's very satisfying to see that + how his rs with sqq changes through the novel. lqg is also a character that is so fun to put into situations and also make fun of. bc he's so sucks <3 ANYWAY I FUCKING LOVE LQG if there is no lqg lovers on this earth i am dead etc

TYSM FOR THE ASK KAY <333 sorry it took me so long to answer LMAO it was really fun though

[celestie0]

Ellie heyy!!

It's true, some people have smut brainrot and only read stuff with smut to the point they will read about literal rapists and minors as long as there's ✨smut✨

I guess people don't really understand the meaning of slow-burn - there are books with 100k to 150k of just story building and slow burn before the smut happens.

Also, there could be a misunderstanding but I think I saw a post by you, I think, saying how writing smut feels weird and different, if I remember correctly. But unfortunately, people don't go through all these stuff before sending in rude asks and comments.

We love the story, irrespective of whether there's smut or not. Please write what you are comfortable with and want to include in the story and I hope these comments don't affect you!

Patiently waiting for the next chapter (no pressure though, release it whenever you are happy with it)

hiii my dear <3

yea i really just cannot. like i am a horny gal too, but i would never pressure an author to write smut. it's even in my rules that i don't accept requests of any kind, so idk where the entitlement or even the expectations are coming from. (again, ik most of my readers are lovely n respectful. just venting rn cause i think it's healthy lol)

yeahh and i think that's maybe where the disconnect is? most of my reading background is from novels n not so much fanfiction, and when i DO read fanfiction, it's almost exclusively long fics. i'm used to reading 200k+ words without any sex, and even if there IS sex, it's usually implicit n not explicit. so to me, with kickoff at about 90k words w the addition of ch10, it doesn't even feel that slow to me?? like in my eyes the pacing was just fine? but then now i'm like second guessing myself lol.

Also, there could be a misunderstanding but I think I saw a post by you, I think, saying how writing smut feels weird and different, if I remember correctly. But unfortunately, people don't go through all these stuff before sending in rude asks and comments.

yes i think i did mention that once! tbh, it's true, i need to be in a very specific headspace to write smut bc i find it challenging at times. i am very inexperienced w writing smut, and i just think it's easier to write the other parts of a story. i totally understand i get new followers all the time, and they're not always aware of my rules, but i do wish there was just better common courtesy when sending writers asks? like i know i'm not the only writer struggling w these pressuring requests from readers since i've talked to a couple of my other mutuals ab this that share similar feelings

BUT that being said, i'm still very excited to incorporate smut into kickoff and my other series. sex is a part of a relationship, not just for pleasure, but it builds trust and solidifies bonds and can create conflict etc. all while having a lil bit of sexy fun w it and i'm all about that in my writing. so anyway, i hope this puts an end to people being weird about "subtly" requesting smut. there is no shortage of incredibly well-written smut in this fandom, please go support those authors if you are looking for that content.

[bodies-needs-a-fandom]

Some headcanons abt the detectives bc I'm bored.

(disclaimer: i have not read the comic and don't intend to so if there are any OG bodies stans that know canon facts which dispute any of these headcanons, I want to note that I am only talking about the show here, not the book)

Karl:

Definitely a bi disaster. He has a preference for women, but he's very aware of his attraction to men as well and doesn't see anything wrong with it.

Secretly has a massive sweet tooth, but it doesn't fit his cool-guy vibe so nobody knows about it

If he could wear fishnets and multiple piercings, he would.

He has never liked reading. It isn't his thing, at all - he's always been a very modern person and movies are just so much better. He avoids paperwork like the plague and every time a case requires a lot of reading he considers giving up and cold-casing it just so he can skip the boring research.

If he was ever transported to 2023, he would despise most of it. Mostly the no-smoking rules. But one thing he would like is the rom-coms and the reality tv shows - specifically the awful ones. He likes laughing at people.

Shahara:

Judging by the colorful middle-school-art-teacher outfit vibes, she was very into art - specifically floral impressionistic styles - but had to drop it when she became a mother and a cop. Just didn't have the time

Has been to every pride parade she ever had time for. Probably unlabeled and no gender preference

Was a massive rebel as a teenager. Snuck out to house parties, drank underage, probably faked an ID once or twice. Or three times.

Hates crime mystery novels - not because they're bad, just because she's good enough at her job to be able to easily nitpick the plotholes and immediately guess the killer.

If bodies was a show in her world, she would be a stan. Like she'd have made a whole fan acc and everything.

Alfred:

If he could wear piercings, he definitely would. Not many. He's not that extravagant. But he'd probably have a couple earlobe piercings and he'd usually wear studs or very small hoops, mostly in silver or bronze.

stole his mum's dress as a kid once when she wasn't home. He liked it, but when she found out she was furious and he never did it again.

I think he had a decent relationship with his father at first, but as he grew older and continued to suck at lying his parents Figured Things Out the relationship sort of dwindled. They don't speak now. There was no dramatic moment, but eventually the periods of silence grew longer until they never stopped.

He's very interested in fashion. Goes out of his way to keep up with trends and so on.

Work comes first for him because even though he loves Charlotte and Polly with all his heart, it becomes difficult to pretend around them all the time, and a good case is also good escapism.

During his time deducing The Shake, he accidentally stumbled along a different Shake which meant something else entirely and it all got rather embarrassing from there.

Iris:

had an emo phase, which heavy quotations around 'phase'. The fashion style changed, obviously, but she's still emo in spirit. We all know it.

She probably played the cruellest pranks on Alby known to man. To be fair, Alby fought back just as hard - especially after that one time that Iris accidentally spilled water on his new fancy tech during a prank gone wrong when they were teenagers. THAT did not end well for her and there were definitely a shitton of slugs involved or something equally disgusting

Hates sweets. or sugar in general. Shes a fan of bitter, strong things. Like vodka, probably. Or that 'six-shots-of-espresso-nothing-else' monstrosity Crowley ordered in good omens

Tried to hit on Lorna a couple times early on and when Lorna remained totally oblivious she gave up.

Was really into true-crime stuff as a teenager, but nothing involving terrorists. Ever. For obvious reasons.

She saw Mannix as a sort of father figure for a breif period of time, which is part of the reason she was so loyal to him. Immediately after the incident at the throat in episode 5, she turned her parental figure attention to Shahara.

[oliviermiraarmstrongs]

mid-year book freak out tag

@bloody-wonder tagged me so now I have an excuse to talk about books I read

1. Best Book You’ve Read So Far in 2023? probably her body and other parties by carmen maria machado, my favorites stories from it being “the husband stitch” and “especially heinous”. I love how the former weaves together urban legends as a backdrop and the latter is a surrealist meta version of law and order svu, which is much better than it sounds.

2. Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far in 2023?

3. New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To? I’m curious about juniper and thorn by ava reid, and I can’t say the amount of pearl-clutching over it hasn’t played a part in bringing it to my attention. but really, I just like gothic horror and dark fairy tales!

4. Most Anticipated Release For Second Half of 2023? I dunno, I’m not up-to-date on these things

5. Biggest Disappointment? I’d say world war z and the southern book club’s guide to slaying vampires, but I had to read those for class so it’s not like I had any expectations anyway (for the record, WWZ I never finished bc all the militarism and boring technical stuff turned me off; southern book club kept my attention but its themes were delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, the characters were thinly sketched, the ending was anticlimactic, and the broad and wacky tone did not mesh well with the grotesque (often sexual) violence), so a better example would be a thousand ships; admittedly my standards also weren’t very high; I have a sort of “I can fix her” attitude towards mythological retellings; I know a lot of them fall short, but they’re like comfort food to me, and when one hits, it fucking hits. natalie haynes, you did not hit! nothing the book did justified it as a retelling, there wasn’t any sort of unique spin or exploration into the female characters’ interiority; it just did the trojan cycle again but sometimes we’re reminded that women…were there. Whoever said this was a better version of TSOA was telling straight lies!

6. Biggest Surprise? I didn’t have high hopes for mexican gothic, mostly out of a pretentious impulse I have to expect popular new-ish releases to be mid. Still, I love a gothic novel, so I decided to check it out. I was pleasantly surprised to find it to be not only very engrossing, but also a clever reworking of gothic tropes tied to a specific cultural setting. It really understood gothic horror not just aesthetically, but also a vehicle for themes of corrupt aristocracy, and the overlap between desire and disgust, and fucked-up families in an incestuous cycle of abuse. It’s still pretty flawed - I think the dialogue could be a bit clunky, especially in the case of the old village woman who feels less like a person and more like an exposition machine - but overall a great read, and I’d love to see more from Moreno-Garcia.

7. Favorite New Author? I already loved angela carter’s work in the bloody chamber, but nights at the circus is the first full-length novel I’ve read from her, and it really cements her as one of the greats.

8. Newest Favorite Character? sophia fevvers from nights at the circus, a bawdy, cockney, rubenesque trapeze artist famed across turn-of-the-century europe for her wings. Also enjoys proto-feminism, gold-digging, and hanging out with her tiny, feisty, anarchist-leaning foster-mother. There’s maybe meant to be some tension throughout the story over whether or not her insanely eventful life story is exaggerated or not, but I never doubted her. Believe women.

9. Newest Fictional Crush? Lady Jessica, the coolest milf the bene gesserit ever produced

💕Best Ship?💕 I didn’t read much with good shipping material, but shout out to noémi from mexican gothic and her boy version of a fragile and sheltered victorian waif love interest whose name escapes me. She’s always describing him like “He was so pale and iron-deficient and frail like a little baby bird and NOT HOT. I desire him carnally.” and meanwhile he’s just showing her his many different types of fungi. Less alpha males, more guys like this.

10. Book That Made You Cry? “eight bites” from her body and other parties hit a little too close to home; it captured really well how dysphoria drives you to abuse your own body, and how that hurts not just yourself but the people around you. “my mother and I” by lucy dacus-coded

11. Book That Made You Happy? I don’t read happy books! But probably nights at the circus, there be whimsy in these pages.

12. Favorite Book Adaptations You Saw This Year? andrea arnold’s 2011 adaptation of wuthering heights nearly made me feral. there’s not really a definitive film version, but the one from 2011, - while not perfect as an adaptation since, like most of them, it only covers the first half of the book - I’d say does the best job of capturing the spirit of the original. the thing that really impressed me was its portrayal of heathcliff - not as a brooding romantic hero nor an inhuman psychopath, but a boy who became something terrible because society never saw him as anything else. It’s film very subjectively, with shaky cam, no score, and nearly every scene being from heathcliff’s perspective - the iconic “I am Heathcliff!” speech is never shown in full, since he left before hearing the rest of it. It’s a really strong artistic choice to place the story firmly in heathcliff’s perspective, and it’s made more interesting by being one of the few adaptations to play into the book’s racial subtext.

13. Favorite Review You’ve Written This Year?

14. Most Beautiful Cover? The barnes and noble special edition of dune I have, which is gorgeous but also really impractical to carry around (pic from google images, I’m not at home rn)

15. What Books Do You Need To Read By The End Of The Year? I gotta finish dune since I started at the beginning of the year and paused since I was so busy with school (and later paused again bc I was bored 🫣).

tagging @antema, @stolehisdog, @betweenironyandsilver, @vampire-juicebox, @chdarling, @excuseforadrink, @danielarlingtongf, @borispavlikovskys, and @altraviolence, if u wanna!

[lizardsfromspace]

tl;dr I actually tried reading her book, you'll find that a few paragraphs down etc etc

I've always been baffled by her claim that The Terminator and The Matrix were plagiarized from one story by her.

Like, on a practical level, there's little overlap between them. The Terminator was produced by Gale Anne Hurd for Orion (a studio that didn't even exist by 1999), The Matrix was produced by Joel Silver for Warner Bros, I obviously didn't check every minor crew member but there's no one above-the-line who could've leaked shared details from her story to both crews. Also, Terminator came out two years before the contest, so I guess she meant Terminator 2, which was produced by Gale Anne Hurd again and released by Columbia.

But like. There's not much overlap between Terminator and The Matrix? I can think of two things:

Both revolve around a future Earth ruined by a robot uprising, and a human resistance

Both spend the bulk of their plots in contemporary Earth

But both of those are fairly broad, and the presentation and nature of the tropes are wildly different in each film, as I mentioned in the OP.

My best assumption is that she wrote a robot apocalypse story, and claims she owns the idea of the robot apocalypse.

We can't tell though - and here's a fact I left out of the OP, even though it's the part that haunts me most - bc Sophia Stewart has never really written anything. She's spent decades trying to get legal recognition for herself as the ur-creator behind all of modern science fiction, but going off reviews, it appears the story that was plagiarized exists just as an outline, and her published book of it is primarily documents about her case.

Her other books include one purely about the legal case, and...her fanfic version of The Matrix 4, which has a lot of glowing one-line reviews, and some longer one-star reviews that claim she constantly misspells character names. In all her time spent losing lawsuits and telling the press how she's a genius writer, near as I can tell, that's the only fiction project she's written as more than a outline. Her bio lists script work, but her only IMDB credit is appearing as herself in a documentary about herself.

I had to find out in what way both Terminator and The Matrix were plagiarized from her work.

So I downloaded a PDF of her magnum opus, The Third Eye to find out myself. The first 18 pages are her bio, then we get into the work, which she's described as a novel, a comic, and a script, which is...a movie treatment. It's a thirty page long outline...followed by the same outline, but as a scan of the original manuscript. So just thirty pages of this 250 page long book are actual story

In the Terminator, the world was destroyed by a military computer. In the Matrix, it was oppressed robots rising up against their human masters, and it was the humans who wrecked the world, by blacking out the sky. Let's see who's responsible for the robot uprising in her original pitch!

Globalist bankers who control the media.

Hmm.

So there's a huge culture war component to all of this. Sophia Stewart is Very Christian, and says her movie was stolen specifically bc it was Too Christian for Hollywood, because she believes there's some group that controls Hollywood, and the media, and the banks, and that wants to oppress Christianity

And also the sigil of the villains in the movie - a villain whose goal is to kill a hybrid child born unto a mortal woman via a god-like alien - is two pyramids forming a six-pointed star

Wow, wonder what she's implying! I guess we'll never know!!!

I'll be honest: I can't read the whole thing. She includes a whole file of rejection letters the treatment got, mainly boilerplate, and reading it? Yes. This film is not just incomprehensible dogshit full of LORE LORE LORE LORE, and an extremely unsubtle conspiratorial antisemitic subtext, as well as a healthy slathering of Ancient Aliens Hotep nonsense about the pyramids, but also it's full of plot. It would be a dozen hours long and cost billions of dollars today, and she wanted to do it pre-CGI in 1981. It's absolutely unfilmable. And her treatment missed the assignment; it goes on at length about "pyramid imagery" and then will just gloss over huge amounts of plot developments in a paragraph.

And it has NOTHING in common with The Matrix or The Terminator. It's more Star Wars than anything: a planet-hopping space opera. Hell, it's even split into a trilogy with three parts. The plot is driven by, like, Ancient Aliens stuff. The similarities are that Earth is post-apocalyptic, and there is a chosen one with Messianic overtones, but like. Sophia Stewart, you don't own the concept of robot wars or Jesus figures.

SHE CONSISTENTLY MISSPELLS "GALACTIC" AS "GALATIC". Am I the only person to ever try actually reading her manuscript??? I know I'm not, but I've read negative reviews and none of them mentioned the constant rants about "bankers" or the pyramid power stuff

She includes a list of "similarities" that includes that her pyramid-shaped Spacestar is a spaceship, and The Matrix has non-space ships, so it's the same

But my fave is that she claims Switch is a ripoff of one of her characters, bc both are...underdeveloped with no real part. Sophia Stewart owns the concept of underdeveloped characters now. Well, she can have that one I guess

The queen of dubious Hollywood plagiarism cases is Sophia Stewart. She's the woman who The Matrix and The Terminator were stolen from, if you've heard that legend; she won a billion dollars and her victory over the studios was so big it was only ever reported by...the college paper of Salt Lake Community College. In truth she didn't win the case, she won the right to not have it dismissed, which it eventually was when she failed to show up.

Like, she wasn't claiming The Matrix and The Terminator were stolen from her work as a whole; she claimed they were stolen from the same story, even though the only real similarity they have is "robots destroyed the Earth and there's human rebels". How can this be? Well the story was unpublished in the 80s. But you can buy it now! ...but that version's from after she made her case, so who knows if it looks like the original. The Amazon reviews include a lot of glowing ones from people without avatars, and a lot of one star ones from people who seem to exist saying that it's more or less a plot outline and the majority of the book is just legal documents

But you don't have to dig into that bc she claims she sent it to a contest for story ideas run by the Wachowskis. In 1986. When they were not only not filmmakers, but a teenager and in college respectively. That's ten years before they made their first feature film, and she claims they were running a contest for story ideas in a national magazine she cannot name, even though she obsessively documents every other aspect of the plagiarism case. You literally don't have to look up any other facet of her argument: this one basic fact making no sense chronologically, and being the only element she can't produce, lets you dismiss the rest. The Wachowskis simply were not running national filmmaking competitions when they were in college

And yet! It spreads. It still spreads. When the fourth Matrix movie came out there were "Actually, the Wachowskis stole The Matrix from an African-American woman" reminders everywhere. It spreads on TikTok, Twitter, and even Tumblr. All from people who haven't actually tried looking up her story, and who are going off a Utah community college paper's misinterpretation that her slightly delaying losing her case was somehow her winning billions. It sounds good, and that's all that matters

[deadpoets]

hi hiii my love!!! for the ask game would love to know nutmeg and taro :))) <333 MWAH xx

nutmeg ⇢ how’s your room/home decorated? do you have a specific theme or style going on?

i don't think i have a specific theme going on when it comes to my room, it's pretty eclectic ? i actually share my room with my sister, so only half of the room is decorated the way i want it to. my walls are decorated with some posters (two olivia rodrigo posters and two dodie posters and one across the spiderverse poster) and prints (some of them are regular art prints while others are more fandom related like the raven cycle and infinity train) and my corkboard (which basically is just pictures of my favorite characters + two muppets and one snoopy pin), but one of the walls is pretty sparse bc i wanted to redo it but i haven't yet. and then i have a two bookshelves, one's a standard one with three shelves and the other one is a floating one. and on the basic bookshelf, i have this very cute sunflower trinket bowl from color me mine and i have part of this miniature snoopy bakery and it's a mixture of books and my movie collection. and on the floating bookshelf, i've been hanging keychains off of it, and i've got my peanuts day to day calendar and little figures sitting on it as well (my favorite at the moment is this little toad figurine bc toad is one of my favorite video game characters).

taro ⇢ if someone called you right now to catch up, what’re the things you’d tell them about?

i'd tell them about the movies and shows i've been getting up to. so, for movies, i just recently watched anatomy of a fall, and it's so so good. like i was excited to watch it and it certainly lived up to my expectations. and now i'm watching brats, a documentary about the brat pack, and next up on the queue is empire records but i still need to watch the dvds i got recently (muppets in space and the outsiders:the complete novel). as for shows, i'm still rewatching gilmore girls (currently on the fourth season) and i started watching monk and i love the relationship between monk and sharona so much, it's so fun. and i really need to get back into house and the x-files and i was thinking about getting back into the oc and veronica mars but it doesn't seem right to start those shows when i'm already watching all these other shows, but then again i started monk out of the blue so i don't know. and i really want to get back into reading, so i'm going to start modern divination soon ! and to complain about work, there's a really annoying customer that gets on my nerves and he doesn't even come that often but he comes often enough that i'm pissed off every time he's there bc he's impatient and ugh ! but dr. pepper is finally back next door at the grill, thank god or perhaps whoever bothered to order in dr. pepper :)

[this-was-a-terrible-idea]

hey bean!! could you do 1, 29, 50, 73, and 95 from the book recs ask game pls <33

mayaaaaa thank you for asking!!! i love you <3 also mood about wishing to have a million years to read whatever you want 😩 my TBR is so long hahaha. (the answers to this rec list happen to be very childhood-reads heavy, so grain of salt this! i might have some rose tinted glasses haha)

1) a book that is close to your heart: i answered this one here, but i will answer it again!!! Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. rhetorical question, but are you even Alaskan if you don't read Hatchet in elementary school and come out of it with a highly unfounded sense of confidence that you could survive in the wilderness for two months on your own? it's a common denominator with the majority of my friends who also grew up here and read that book in elementary school lmao

29) your favorite YA novel: okay i'm definitely cheating here bc i'm answering with a series and not a single novel, but the Darkest Powers trilogy by Kelley Armstrong. i LOVE that series. i read and reread it a lot in middle school

50) a book that made you cry a LOT: the first and only time i have ever launched a book across the room because it made me cry SO hard was when i read Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson for school 😭

73) a good book with an awful cover: okay. okay so the real answer is subjective and i'm saying any of the books in the Game Changers series by Rachel Reid because they're good books but the covers are all just half naked very abs'ed up men BUT i'm actually going to talk about the newest printings of the Twilight series which is. not really a great series for how much it had a grip on me and everyone else in the late 2000s BUT look at what they did to these covers. i HATE it. i hate it!!! WHY DID THEY DO THIS????? WHY ARE THEY CUTTING UP LETTERS??? AND LEAVING THE SERIFS ON THE PREVIOUS LINE????? WHAT IS THIS I HATE IT THESE ARE AWFUL.

95) your favorite coming of age novel: Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen. i read this one as a kid and since it's been while i don't quite remember all the specifics but i remember some big parts and the way it really impacted me. i should really reread it tbh

book recs ask game!

[helium-fox]

I'm not a book blog by any means, but I just finished reading A Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li, and want somewhere to put my thoughts, so here tumblr, have a random book review (with surprisingly little spoilers bc i'm used to talking in vague terms)

This book was advertised to me as a heist movie/show in novel form and while I get where it was coming from, I found it oddly paced from the heist format I usually come across. Most of the book was devoted to character development, which is not a bad thing! (In fact, it's my personal preference for novels) I love diving into character's motivations and exploring the relations between each of the team members. It was great and I felt all five of the main characters come alive, and I feel a lot of people couldn't have handled that many characters well, but Grace D. Li did amazing.

Each character had their own distinct background and relationship with their identity of Chinese American, and this affected the way they communicated with each other. While some character may have gotten a little more screen time than others, it was well balanced and I don't think any character got left behind.

However, I found the action scenes were quick and took up a small portion of the book in comparison. I could have used them a little bit stretched out to feel the action. I feel like the author was going for replicating the heist movie format of all these different camera angles, coming together to perform the heist. It had a nice quick, choppy feeling to the read, but when you spend 100s of pages developing these characters and building up the heists, and then the heist is over in three pages, it can be a bit anti-climactic for me.

But then again, there is more than one heist so I get where you don't want to drag each one out. There were definitely a couple of turns in there I enjoyed and the lead up to the final heist & the final heist itself were the highlight of the book.

The only thing I did not enjoy about the ending was the romance. (Probably the most specific spoilers in this part, if anyone cares) Was it really necessary to have every one of the five main characters end with a romantic interest? I get that one of them didn't end up in a relationship, but was still implied to have a romantic relationship budding in the future. Also, I found the romance to be a bit uncompelling. I get two of the characters ending up as they did, with their flirtation from the beginning, and they're young and ready to take chances. But I found the queer romance...rushed, I guess?

Like, there was a great build up, from the distrust, to the learning to work together and seeing each other in different light, but I just expected there to be a little bit more build up in their friendship before they jumped to romance.

There are moments implied off-screen. Plenty of time skipped in which they worked together one on one, but it was near the end of the book and wasn't a focus. I feel like the focus on this book was on the characters discovering themselves and healing, so I don't think the romance had to be at the forefront, but it also felt a bit unnecessary. Though, I really shouldn't complain about any queer romance I get, right? There is still a decent enough foundation there that I understand where it came from, even if I wanted more from it.

The fifth team member having a love interest thrown in was a bit much for me. I get that it was probably to show the character healing and moving past the person they've been hung up on, but I felt that character had already had a great arc exploring the relationship with their parent, and the love interest angle was just off-putting to me. It reminded me of books I read as a child where the only happy ending is ending up in a relationship even when the book wasn't a romance novel at all.

Anyway, I'll be interested to see the Netflix adaptation, and I will have to be on the lookout for more heist novels

[inkovert]

Hey it's 🌌🧭! [Side note: Do you say the emojis when you read or do you skip over them as like a name?]

I just want to start by saying your writing holds such a good emotional weight to it, I really love the way you string together dialogue the part were Jeremy said "You’re grieving. We both are. We just do it in different ways.” actually made me begin to tear up a bit. I just wanted to let you know since I know how important hearing from readers is.

I also really want to know what podcast it is, I personally have been listening to Unresolved Textual Tension a lot recently. Seeing others talk about things that bother them in writing makes me want to write.

To answer your question Alchemist are part of The Society of Scholars and could lose their right to preform magic if found out to be going against the rules. However they can repent in a way by washing in cold water and taking an extra hour of studying.

This was a smaller project I was working on with a friend and in it the main alchemist character has spent months in a foreign land learning all about the different ways they handle magic as well as collecting books to bring back. In one moment he brushes hands with someone and shivers really badly so I'd say that is the main reaction. Though by the time he goes to leave he's made great friends with someone, and knows he probably wont see her again so he gives her a goodbye hug for the first and last time.

Random and completely unrelated however, I got a fortune cookie and it made me think of you. Not the fortune itself but I guess the idea that even the littlest of things could be a story.

Have a good day 📎

Hello again ☺️ (I skip over the emojis as I read them as if they're a singular symbol representing a name haha....I don't even think I know what that first emoji is. stars? all this time I thought it was a heart rate monitor oops).

Anon. I just want to say I am deeply deeply grateful for you coming into my ask box and sharing your thoughts on that excerpt I posted - I wasn't expecting that at all! Because you are right, hearing from readers is super important. But it is especially meaningful to me bc I've been considering lately whether or not I want to stay on writeblr for various reasons. Lack of feedback is really only like 5% of the reason, if that, but receiving any kind of interaction or thought about my story makes me tip back toward hanging on a bit longer.

That said, I'm glad - not that I made you tear up per se haha - but that the excerpt moved something within you. That's really my main goal with my writing since many authors have had that same impact on me with their writing. And so to see that I'm succeeding with that is always great to hear ☺️ (also I feel dialogue is my strongest writing skill so your compliment of that made me especially smile).

Oh! Haha. Re the podcast it wasn't one talking about writing in any way (although now I have to check out that podcast you just plugged 👀). It's just two black women talking about their personal life/opinions on things that affect them as black women. And around the same time as I was listening to that podcast I was reading a black romance novel that just...severely disappointed me, which has been the case with a lot of books in that specific genre for me. Romance is not my go-to genre by any means in terms of reading or writing, I typically just read it if I want something light or am in a slump (as I currently am). And so, in the vein of what you brought up last time of being able to find stories anywhere, the combined experience of hearing black girls (specifically a dark-skinned black woman) talk about their struggles with romance/finding partners and this disappointing book just drove me to write a black love story out of spite, specifically one centered around a dark-skinned black woman. So that's what I'm working on now unfortunately (I say unfortunately as a joke bc I really never thought this would actually manifest into something. I've never been able to write or think up a true story outside of my wip SCIF. But apparently this is happening so. Yeah. Truly tragic).

Aw that poor Alchemist ): I can't imagine not being able to show physical affection to a friend who I love dearly. Also their lifestyle sounds very monastic, makes me wonder if there's a religious element infused in there or that you draw inspiration from.

[lifesver]

oomf did ask why i picked pisces so buckle in im about to yap-

so his canon is that he's a taurus, which is like, fine, i can see it. typically described as loyal, down-to-earth, reliable, honest and kinda hard-headed. like i can totally see that interpretation and i also think leland can be described as most of those things, but taurus are also sometimes described as jealous, aggressive, selfish, and controlling. which i simply do not vibe with for leland.

but i also kind of know that they picked taurus bc of his power. yk... bull... knocking people over... i was like don't pmo gun i know you didn't think about their personalities like that LMAOO so i will admit part of it was a spite change.

but anyway i decided to go with pisces for leland bc i think it's a little bit of a subversion from what gun sometimes seems like they're trying to do w him. i feel like they didn't really explore subverting the whole tough guy jock/Boyfriend Character Standin trope much. or they got very close to it, but can never stick the landing with what we've seen from their lore. i think that honestly the voice actor gave the potential/gave me the idea that leland is just, super sensitive and emotional. he is so sweet to everyone in a way you would maybe not expect from his character archetype normally, and he's also like. ok listen he's kind of babygirl when he sounds like he's 2 seconds from tears in every other voiceline. as a pisces myself, i am also always 2 seconds from tears-

pisces are generally loyal, intuitive, compassionate, wear their hearts on their sleeves, and throw themselves into caring for others, often at the expense of themselves. pisces can also be overthinkers, people-pleasers, self-depreciating, and pushovers to avoid inconveniencing others. forgive too easily, have a martyr complex, and are overly emotional/oversensitive. i'd say the only usual major trait he isn't so much is like creative. though he is imaginative. i hc him being into all kinds of fiction and reading. another one of those 'you might not have expected it from him' type things.

the more i explored writing him, the more i tapped into his sensitivity and idk, the idea that he has a lot of emotional intelligence. a golden popular boy, who might be sort of cringe and pathetic in reality, but also giving him the range to have this unexpected depth and idk, sympathy? i personally love when characters are empathetic and soft but also the protector, yk? to me his core character is a kindhearted boy next door, who will do anything for his friends, and who is disentangling himself from the expectations of others and his own insecurities.

ig in short i was sort of ): about how gun talked about him just, being some guy who's not even good enough at anything to do it in college and his whole thing seemed to revolve around being strung along by a pretty girl. and i just thought that was mean spirited in a way? (for both characters fwiw). so i wanted to take some of that 'just ken' type bullshit and give it a little more love. the narrative themes i look at with him are love, devotion, sacrifice, and "doing the right thing".

as for the starsign of it all, i don't think that starsigns always indicate the kind of person you are, it is in fact pseudo science LMAO but i like to select them very specifically for my muses, because it helps me build out their personalities in more depth. it's a fun little writing exercise. anyway sorry for the novel it will happen again

me every time i remember i made leland a pisces instead of a taurus: i'm so fucking right and smart