#but this disease is no joke and it is taking A LOT of people even young people this month

[avelera]

Something something… through Viktor’s actions we see his possible linear mental checklist of his goals in life, and those goals included eventually confessing his feelings to Jayce, but before he did he felt he needed to do other things first. Namely:

1) Make Hextech a reality - Check. Viktor and Jayce actually achieved this one by 1.04. They could continue to refine forever but you can tell they both felt a sense of accomplishment in this.

2) Give Hextech to the people - Incomplete. At the end of S1 they had the refined Hextech crystals but the full benefits of their work had not reached the masses. Nor would it/should it ever.

3) Help the Undercity - incomplete, arguably completely unaddressed or even undermined by their work. The Hexgates drew Piltover’s attention away from the Undercity, which is why it languished while Piltover looked to distant markets. Hextech materially made life worse for the Undercity, as the alternate timeline showed us.

4) Hextech innovations lead to a cure for Viktor’s disease and disability - Successful but in the most horrifying way possible, including a body count.

5) Profit - Confess his feelings to Jayce.

(Don’t get too hung up on the order here because obviously a lot of these things could happen concurrently and I don’t think Viktor is stupid he would know that Hextech innovation could take a lifetime and probably wouldn’t wait to confess to Jayce just for that endlessly moving finish line.)

BUT, joking aide, I truly DO think that Viktor is kind and empathetic at his core and he really didn’t plan to confess his feelings to Jayce until he found a cure for his disease, which would require a lot of Hextech innovation to have any hope of reaching. Literally it would take a miracle.

I think Viktor’s belief in his own inadequacy could have festered in the painful doldrums of his own rapidly advancing illness after the initial glow of making the Hexgates happen.

Any hope of finding a cure was always remote, but as his illness advanced, this is when he may have even begun to push Jayce away, knowing the inevitable was coming. He certainly wouldn’t confess feelings to someone he loved with his days so numbered.

And that’s where I think a thread of actual resentment towards Mel might have crept in. To be fair, I don’t think Viktor hated her as a person, as such, nor was he a swooning teenager wracked by petty jealousy. But I think it must have stung to have his days so numbered and have this woman who represented everything he couldn’t offer to Jayce: health, wealth, beauty, position, prestige, etc distracting his attention away during what might be Viktor’s final days.

The thing is, I think rationally Viktor didn’t say anything because again, his days were numbered and Jayce and Mel were happy and well suited and beautiful and perfect together. He had nothing to offer. And it would be cruel to drag Jayce back just so Jayce would have to mourn him even more. Then as a result, Viktor was even more consumed by trying to save his own life by a miracle, though he now had to do it more alone than he ever predicted he would have to.

But there’s that horrible catch 22. He can’t tell Jayce how he feels because he might fail and die anyway and that would be cruel to someone he loves. But if he doesn’t tell Jayce, Jayce won’t come back to his side to help him out with the research needed to maybe save it.

Then Sky dies to the Hexcore and Viktor realizes just how much he’d lost of the parts of himself he liked, the parts that cared about helping others as PART of the cure for himself, and truly just gave up on any of it. He made his peace, decided to support Jayce during the emancipation of Zaun as a sort of ambassador, and resigned himself to the fact this would be the end for him.

Well, we know what happened next. Jayce saved his life, against Viktor’s wishes, using Viktor’s now-hates innovation.

Ok so now for the part that I was trying to get to:

A newly healed Viktor now has to reevaluate his life’s work checklist. It’s a much shorter list now.

1) Save his own life - check.

2) Figure out a way to make the world a better place - check.

3) Confess to Jayce now that you’re proud of who you are both inside and outside. You are finally worthy of him. You will finally live long enough that confessing isn’t an act of cruelty. You finally have achievements that make you worthy to proposition the creator of Hextech and the man you love, who is as far as you know, currently dating the physical embodiment of perfection.

And that explains Viktor’s catwalk into the Council Chamber in 2.08. He’s decked out in Mel’s colors. He’s ready to compete. He’s perfect now. He’s found a way to save humanity from itself. He is now worthy of Jayce and in a place where he can actually offer a lifetime together.

And Jayce rejects him.

This stuns Viktor. Actually, it fully knocks him into a villain arc, because Jayce has never refused him anything before. And Viktor can’t comprehend why his checklist didn’t work. Why did becoming perfect not work?

Because Jayce didn’t need the checklist. He’d already broken up with Mel. He didn’t need Viktor to be healed or to have already saved the world or to be anything else but Jayce’s partner. Jayce would have been happier if Viktor proposed at Step 0, but Viktor thought that would be a cruelty if he didn’t have a cure yet.

But I truly think Jayce would have preferred even just a day as Viktor’s official partner if that was all they got over a decade of being held at arm’s length until “everything was perfect”.

And that’s what Viktor doesn’t understand.

And that’s what Jayce had to show him in that final act of love.

[libraford]

Okay so here's what's going on with the bird crimes.

On thursday I was going to Powers Park when I saw what I thought were 2 chickens hanging out in the parking lot, and a lady watching them from the fence. I thought... they could belong to the lady, but chickens aren't the kind of pet that you just let hang out loose.

I approach.

Lady: "These aren't mine."

I look closer. Its actually 2 roosters, one of which is a very small breed and is missing his tail feathers. Both of them have an injury to their backside- like its been plucked.

So we talk about what to do, I end up calling Animal Control. The actual Animal Control officer doesn't get there until noon, I get a police dispatcher. She says she can send one of the cops to grab them until the actual professional gets there.

I tell her that the roosters are being kept by the woman I met, she's coaxing them into her house.

I post about it on the facebook group in case someone knows who they belong to. The comments are full of jokes, obviously. But no leads. Eventually the big rooster gets caught by someone running a sanctuary for abandoned and abused livestock, but they're still looking for the little black one. Evidently they got out of the lady's backyard and were loose again.

I figure he's going to be a coyote snack and don't think about it for the rest of the week.

So now it is Sunday and I'm opening up the bathrooms. I'm at Summit Grove park and as I'm about to reserve the shelter for a birthday party I see...

A black pigeon.

Pigeons are not a common animal in this area- you're more likely to see house sparrows, crows, and mourning doves. So that's odd. What's more, she doesn't seem to be skittish and is definitely accustomed to humans. And she keeps trying to bite my fingers, so she associates hands with food and she's skinny as a rail so she's been abandoned for a minute.

Why does this keep happening to me? Is this the Morrigan come to teach me a lesson in pigeon form?

So I remember the number of the woman running the sanctuary and I give her a call. I tell her I've got a pigeon here that can't fly, is super hungry, and doesn't seem to have any issues biting fingers. She says she can't take her, but she can find a home for her because pigeons have specific needs. But she won't be able to get there until 12:30. We (my work partner and I) have to deal with the bird in the meantime.

We absolutely cannot take this bird with us on our route because we are in a tiny truck cab and don't have a cat carrier to put her in. So our solution is to lock her in the janitor's closet until the rep can get here.

Around 12:15, we head back to the shelter to make sure she's still there and hasn't been disturbed... and I realize that the reason I even saw her in the first place...

...was because there was supposed to be a birthday party at the shelter at noon.

The party is strongly underway and they have shoved a table against the door of the closet.

The sanctuary lady comes by and waves, we ask the party people politely to move the table slightly because we're trying to rehome a pigeon that's inside that closet.

They move the table, but not all guests see this interaction- because it looks like a bunch of maintenance people are just here to boss folks around during a little girl's birthday party and this draws a crowd.

The sanctuary rep arrives and we open the door just a little bit to let the bird out. She bobbles towards us, hoping for food, when one of the older ladies at the party exclaims:

"Does that ANIMAL just LIVE in there?!"

I mean... sure. For the past few hours, she did live in there.

"Do you have any IDEA how many DISEASES pigeons carry?"

The rep scoops the pigeon into her arms and takes her out of the shelter area to inspect her wings, feet, and back. She shows us her breastbone and explains that its been several days since the bird ate anything, which was why it was going for fingers.

Meanwhile, Aunt Ornithophobia over here: "I can't BELIEVE you would just TOUCH a BIRD like that in front of CHILDREN!"

We take the bird away to the van so the rep can thank us and explain what likely happened- which is that someone abandoned the bird when they couldn't take care of her anymore they just let her loose.

"I understand you got one of the roosters," I said.

"Yes, the big one. But the little bantam rooster is very fast- he darted into someone's backyard and I never found him again. If you see him, give me a call."

"I've been told that chickens are legal to own here, but roosters are not."

She gets an exasperated look on her face. "If you're going to allow backyard chickens, you're going to have to allow roosters. It's impossible to sex an avian chick and they don't get their dimorphic traits until they've reached the young adult stage and chick sellers don't care about whether they're a hen or a rooster. They care about the sale. We get roosters more often than egg-layers because someone sold them a male as a female and they don't want to pay the fine. I'd rather have the laws allow both, or neither. But disallowing roosters is patently stupid."

"Hm. Well. Note to self."

"Anyways, you're heroes to this little rock dove and I want you two to know that. She's going on a trip to a bird sanctuary in Toledo where she'll have lots and lots of snacks to eat that aren't fingers."

[meowshinjiro]

people like to act like newt’s constantly depressed with death on the mind, but honestly to me, he seems like the type of guy to hide all of his pain deep down and only showcase his best side to the world. he’s the group caretaker, the glue, and the gladers with an emotionally void newt is like a paper project with an empty bottle of glue.

it’s going to fall apart.

so, he smiles, he makes jokes, he comforts everyone in their time of need.

he’s learnt a lot about life since his attempt, so he puts his effort towards aiding the survival of those around him. he keeps on fighting to give his friends a chance at a better life.

but he also keeps his own emotions locked away, not even telling the group when he’s caught a disease that basically eats him alive because he didn’t want them to worry about him.

and even in his final moments, he takes his own life to stop the suffering of the boy closest to him. because if he can’t follow him to the end, he’s going to at least make sure thomas can still cross that finish line. he’s going to give him a fighting chance, even if he won’t be there to see the final blow.

selfless until his last breath.

[fungus-no69]

Little things on defiant pc (you/your pronouns) ft. Gn Bailey, Harper, Remy and Wren

pc bites a lot, Bailey typical human trafficking, pc is implied to have been attacked by/visited the wolves, mentions of Harper's medical malpractice, amab Harper???? (dick jokes), mention of the wolf tf in Remy's, mention of pc in prison in Wren's, pc is joked to (possibly) have rabies, pc is feral in general

Bailey

You're a little terror.

You're fucking impossible to wrangle. If Bailey does manage to force you into restraints and sell you somehow while you're still kicking and screaming like you're being murdered you show up again within an hour or two.

They sold you to a party of rich people why are you covered in twigs and fur??? Why do you have (wolf)shrooms?????

Half considers putting a bounty on your head. Might.

Daydreams about the day you finally pay them

Harper

Harper is fighting for their life over here- you're showing up after passing out, being sent to the asylum every now and again, get them riled up and just escape???? Kissing them while your hands wander to their-

Oh.

Oh.

You sneaky little shit.

Yeah sure, Harper can just..... not creep on you but they can't help it! :( you're so cute!!!!! So what if they get a bit close or stick their fingers in your mouth to test your gag reflex? (you bite them so hard it breaks the skin and they have to get their rabies shots)

They are not a masochist. Ignore the boner.

Always half hard and ready to go with you I'm sorry.

Remy

You get taken to the Underground farm and tell Remy to go suck a fat one

You get muzzled for that. Also the whole biting thing you've got going on I guess.

With the wolf tf they are going to try and turn you into cattle without letting you out with the others. They know you probably won't eat the cows but they're not taking any more chances here. You've already made sure that half of the staff needs vaccinations against several infections and diseases (advised by Harper, who seems all too acquainted with you and your 'habits')

Why can't you eat grass normally....

What the fuck do you mean you befriended the horses. You can't even get along with people- oh you escaped.

When they see you working with Alex they damn near have an aneurysm. They just smile at you, strained. Why must you torment them like this.

Wren

Please stop eating the blackjack cards

It's literally that image like 'the smart kid wondering how he's losing to me : me eating the pieces when he's not looking' yk the one except neither of you are winning because you're fucking eating the cards.

You guys meet up in the prison so much to the point that they're not even surprised anymore.

More shocked you got caught.

It would USUALLY be concerning how horny they get over you but it's Wren so yeah.

Expect to be teased and egged on

[scientia-rex]

I also spend a lot of time trying to convince people to prevent problems, because prevention still works better than cures. Don't fucking smoke! I would instantly become the best doctor who ever lived if I could just convince all my patients to quit smoking. Avoid alcohol! Don't do meth! Don't do fentanyl! Things that are poisons will poison you in ways you understand, in the short term, but also ways you can't really understand until you've watched dozens of people die from it thirty years later, struggling to breathe from their COPD or weak and nauseated beyond bearing from their end-stage liver disease. I watched a man take 3 weeks in the ICU to die from what meth did to his heart. Your heart isn't meant to beat 145 times a minute for weeks on end. Your liver isn't meant to metabolize 5 shots of gin a day. You aren't going to be able to use denial and willpower to repair the damage your own habits did.

I drink a lot less now than I did before I went into medicine. Lot of different reasons, including that I'm older and more settled. But I can't look at it the same way I used to; I can't brush off as a "fun quirk" what I know is alcohol use on a level that risks withdrawal seizures if they were to suddenly stop, like some of my family members do, nervously asking me about their loved one's drinking when we're alone because beneath the jokes they know it's a problem.

If you're having more than one, maybe two drinks a day on average, over a long period of time, you are damaging your body in ways you don't understand. You're setting up a permanent heightened inflammatory state. Your heart cells don't like alcohol; Google "alcohol-induced cardiomyopathy." Your esophagus and stomach respond to incessant bathing in poison by first developing wounds and then cancer. Your liver, of course, doesn't like it. Your liver not only converts poisons to harmless substances you can excrete, it also makes your platelets, so your blood can clot. It makes albumin, a protein that's essentially for keeping water in your blood vessels and not letting it leach into your tissues. So people who are dying of liver failure are in pain and weak and tired and sad the whole fucking time! And the only solution, a liver transplant, will come with a lifetime of medication and specialist check-ups and the knowledge that if you fuck up and kill this liver, too, no one is going to be eager to give you another try.

I don't guilt-trip my alcoholic patients with liver disease. I don't guilt-trip my smokers with COPD. They chose to cope with substances for reasons, even if I disagree with their reasons, even if those reasons are opaque to me. They will suffer the natural consequences of those actions whether I guilt-trip them or not. I want them to continue to see me, I want them to be honest with me. Other people will lay enough guilt on them. And nothing I can say or do would ever compare to the physical and mental suffering that goes with those diseases.

But if you can prevent these diseases in yourself, prevent them. Quit smoking. Do it now. Your lungs are going to look better starting almost immediately, with positive changes continuing for many years. Drink less alcohol. Sure, it's fun, sure, it's a longstanding human tradition, but it is also unfortunately a straight up poison and your body knows that no matter how persuasively you argue about the obvious failure of Prohibition. You can't argue with a cell. You can't convince your kidneys that high blood pressure shouldn't damage them. They are a system; they do what they do; they existed long before prefrontal cortex existed to justify what we want to do but know to be harmful.



[cherry-pop-elf]

Sweet As Sweets

Fred Weasley x Chubby! Reader x George Weasley

(Can be read as platonic, because we all wish we had someone to comfort us on a sensitive topic like this)

Summary: You were being bullied by a gaggle of students for your weight. You were just enjoying a trip to Honeydukes with your friends. Made you self conscious, and that didn’t fly over the twins heads. They are going to fix your problems. Every last one of em

Warnings: Eating disorders, topics of weight, bullying, lots of weight talk, insecurity’s, the twins getting violent because no one hurts their loved ones

“Well if it isn’t my favorite trio-“ Mrs. Flume would beam, as she saw you three. You and the Weasley twins. All smiles. Every time it was time for Hogsmeade, you three had to come to the candy shop. Who can resist Honeydukes? Certainly not you three. Not to mention she adored the twins. They were always happy to help her, and gave her such wonderful ideas for new treats. She knew that the day they made their shop a reality that she would be more than happy to offer to stock their shelves with sweets. Honeydukes in Diagon alley. A perfect business prosper!

“Hey Mrs. Flume!” You waved, as the twins were already quick to help her with the bag in her hands. Fred with holding it, while George with putting what was needed on the shelves. Some things just needed a human touch, after all. Had you giggle. They were tricksters, sure, but no one can argue that they were business savvy. It’s what made you respect them so much. Jokes, but knowing there was a time and place.

“I was hoping to see you lot again soon. Oh there is this new candy my husband and I created. You three always have such wonderful opinions. Who better to know what kids like than kids themselves?” She would beam to you, and you had to smile. Such a sweet woman. Suppose you three really rubbed off on her.

“I’ll be right back. Boys, can you help me a moment?” She would ask, as the twins gave mock salutes to her. Had her chuckle at their Go Gettem attitude. Had her ruffle their beanies, that kept that vivid orange hair safe and warm. Off to work they went, as you stayed behind. Just admiring the beautiful shop.

“No surprise you are in here again.” Someone would call out to you. Your heart dropped, as you knew that voice. Was one of those prefects. Not the ones like Percy. Those who drank on power, and liked to abuse it. You couldn’t argue with them, or they would take house points from you. Even if you were in the same house. Made it sting more that your own house could wish such pain.

“Leave me alone.” You grumbled, as you tried not to face the gang. You didn’t want to. That gang of prefects was always bullying people like you. People who didn’t starve themselves to the point those high cheek bones were a product of starvation. They felt better than you because they were on the opposite end of the spectrum of hunger. They had their own battles, but they were taking it out on people. Spreading the toxic disease.

“What? Mouth already stuffed full?” Another one of prefects mocked, as they made a pig snout pull at their nose. Followed by oinking, as the gang echoed it. Had your eyes water, as you tried to cover your ears with your hat. Anything to make them shut up.

“Stop hogging all the sweets. We know you are one, but move-!” And a sharp push was given to your side. Had you squeak, as you plopped on your butt. The chain reaction causes you to hit the side of a counter, and pumpkin fizz soak your clothes.

“Now you STINK like one to-!” They continued to mock, as your eyes water. You just couldn’t take it. They were always following you into whatever shop you went. If it had food in it, even though you didn’t go to eat, they haunted you. They were probably jealous you were such good friends with the twins. More like had friends in general, that weren’t surface level. Regardless you would stumble upwards. Slipping on the soda, as you ran out into the snow. Sobbing, as the twins returned.

“Hey, where did-?” Fred puzzled, before the gaggles of prefects quickly hushed. Playing dumb, as they all looked around. Pretending to be curious of what the shop had to offer, while George noticed the fizzy footprints. That made him nudge Fred, and he took the hint. The duo soon outside, to see you sniffling in a frosty bench.

“What happened?!” The twins asked, as they hurried over. George was quick with a hot air charm, just like Molly taught him, as Fred looked over the scene. The orange soda unable to hide your tear stained cheeks.

“I eat alot, that’s what happened!” You hiccuped, as you rubbed your eyes. That had the twins sigh. Not in annoyance, or bother. But in empathy. Not the first time those prefects bullied someone your shape.

“And? We eat alot to!” George tried to defend, but you just sniffled more. “But you two don’t get fat-!” You hiccuped again, as Fred was sitting next to you.

“Oh come off it. Mum’s fat!” And that had George smack his shoulder. “SHE IS-! But that doesn’t mean she isn’t our mum. She’s big, and big ain’t bad. She and we don’t get along that well, but she’s still a wonderful mum.” Fred tried to clarify.

“Yeah. Also the best hugs. Our hugs suck because we’re sticks and bones.” George tried to tease. It was nice, though. They said Fat but not with that negative energy. Was just another word. Wasn’t sugar coating things at all. They were being honest, and not trying to make you feel better to stop your crying. Their words were real. Had you calm down, a little.

“Also, like look-“ George added, as he finished the charm. “You know how us Weasley’s are. Food is like a language. We like food. Food brings people together. And when we become business men, it’s gonna be the best way to say we care.”

You were understanding what he was trying to say. The Weasleys were a poor family, but they tried to feed. Hence why the older siblings were thinner than the younger. To try and make sure the younger ate. But with siblings moving out, getting jobs, food is able to not be so sparse. Food was now a enjoyment, compared to survival.

"When we make it big, I hope we can get fat id anythkng-!" That had you roll your eyes, but you were grasping what they meant. Still, you couldn’t help but pinch at a roll on your stomach.

“Oh stop that.” Fred would soon trap you in a hug. Made you unable to move your arms, as George joined in. Trapped between them too. Forced to listen, and unable to degrade yourself more.

“Charlie is also fat. Like he can’t keep flexing twenty four seven.” George added, as you recalled meeting him before. He was an extremely well built man. Excess mass is still excess mass. He’s right. You can’t just flex all the time. Even muscular guys are squishy.

“But-“ You couldn’t finish your thought, as Fred poked your nose. “Don’t say ‘but he actually has muscles’ you baby. We would love you if you were built like a train, or as skinny as a wooden one. So shut up about that.” Fred would lecture you.

“Not to mention you aren’t even that big. Like come on. Like COME ONNNNN-“ George would whine, as he plopped his head on your shoulder. “Like come on. So what if you eat a little more. You actually ENJOY food. Like come on.” He grumbled on.

“We rather be friends with someone who enjoys our cooking, and experiments to eat, than a skinny asshole who thinks just eating a slice of bread is going to murder you. Like this whole thing is dumb. Skinny this, fat that. Lame.” Fred would huff, as their own bodies were suffering issues.

The twins were very skinny, and that was a fact. They had developed muscle, from quidditch, sure. But they also were still underweight. It was so hard to keep on weight, given how much work they did. Suppose it can be exhausting being told you had a body to die for, when you hated it to begin with. Helped you see that maybe there were just as much perks to being plus size, as there were to being skinny. It’s your body. What’s with everyone wanting to be in your business?

“Come on. You deserve to edulge a little. Come on.” The twins would flutter their eye lashes, in that Halo Wearing way, and you snorted. They would call that a victory, as they smooshed their cheeks with yours. Warmth, love, and affection. What you needed.

“We will be right back. Trust us. Just enjoy the snow-“ They winked, before running back inside. You were a bit confused, but figured better not to question it. They were the twins after all. You made a guess someone’s going to be set on fire.

Seems you were right. It was a little while, but you soon saw the gaggle of school yard bully’s run outside. Their hair indeed on fire, and faces flushed heavily. As if they ate some kind of spicy candy.

They were all so desperate to stop the heat, and were soon all jumping into snow banks. Desperate to stop the burning. Just rolling around, and making a scene. Was such a sight, as they melted the snow. Reached the earth under it, and they were soon covered in mud. Cooled off, but a mess.

“Oink oink, wankers-!” The twins shouted, and laughed. Many of the fellow students pointed as well. Those prefects were in their own little mud baths. All to be pointed at, with laughter and mockery.

“Hey, we got some cool candy that Mrs. Flume wants us to test out. Let’s hit up The Three Broomsticks to try it out-!” George would cheer, as he held up the large bag of sweets. A mixture of bought, gifted, and experimental.

With Fred helping you stand up, to give you some pride and dignity, you would look through the open doorway. There was Mrs. Flume. She seemed to be closing the lid to a candy jar full of red little balls of sweets. When you two met eyes, she gave a hush. With a wink. You would nod your head to her, with a smile, before the twins yanked you off to your next adventure.

“I see someone took up your advice on prank candy.” You giggled, as those twins gave gasps. Making ‘who, us?!’ And fake looks of disbelief. That just had you all laughing even more, as they kept up the dramatic little scene of pretend innocents.

The day could have gone better, but then again the twins found a way to indeed make it better anyway. Such as snuggling with you in a booth. No shame between you three, as you enjoyed a nice hot meal. With butterbeer, and your favorite sweets. A day to just enjoy yourself. Cheat days were needed in life anyway.

You still were a little self conscious, but the twins were happy to help you in whatever direction you went. To be your biggest cheerleader for if you wanted to lose weight, or be your knights in shining armor for if you were contented with just the way you are.

Either way, you’ll never say no to the pure comfort of sharing sweets with the people you found sweet.

[luveline]

Would you be willing to write a little blurb of Steve comforting reader who is in recovery from self harm? I know this is a very no no subject for some writers so I understand if this is a no!

fem!reader !! cw self harm (mention of the self injury, no active graphic imagery, but some details that could be evocative)

You’ve taken to curling up in whatever space he leaves. In bed, you sidle close to his side with your ear to his stomach. On the couch, you’re laying on his lap, every breath a press of ribs against his thighs. If Steve’s on a sun lounger in the backyard, you’re sitting on the ground next to him with an arm hooked over his leg and your cheek bitten by metal.  

It’s sort of odd to see your arms without red cuts and welts. Curled again, you and Steve are sitting on the porch watching the sun dropping lazily to the horizon, the sky a funny shade of blue. You’re actually turned away from the sun and toward the house, Steve to the sun, like inverted commas interlinked. Your hand is on his leg, and your arm is bare and starkly uninjured. 

That’s too generous, maybe. Evidence of a bad habit long to kick tracks the length of you, white and purple and red scars criss-crossed through your skin. 

He’s seen them thick with dried blood and sore to the touch. Your skin aflame. Not because you’ve ever showed him of your own volition, you wouldn’t. You’ve always likened your self-injury to a contagion. “I don’t wanna put thoughts in your head,” you whispered. 

It was a nice concern for you to have, but Steve isn’t at any risk of hurting himself (purposefully, at least). He has no urges. He didn’t even know people did stuff like that until he met you. Maybe that’s why it breaks his heart so much. You hurt so much. You feel terrible and you take it out on yourself and Steve just doesn’t get it, ‘cos you’re aces. 

He never shied away from it, even if he didn’t like that you were doing it. He still remembers the first time he realised what you were doing, his confusion, the immediate internal recoil. How could you do that to yourself? Why would you? You’ve always been prone to that awful persisting sadness under the skin, but Steve knows a lot of sad people. He knows what it’s like to wish vehemently that you were a better version of yourself, or somebody else, or just gone. 

But you’re doing better now. He resists the urge to kiss your hands whenever he sees you and you act like you aren’t doing a brave thing. 

Steve’s stupid but he’s not stupid. (Or, at least he feels that way.) He knows you’re finding it hard to stop, like an addict. It’s a habit. A behaviour that takes conscious effort to break until it doesn’t. The worst bit is that you never even asked for help. 

Your hand twitches on his leg. 

Steve curls a hand behind your neck, kissing you softly, the silky press of your lips to his. You inhale and cut the quiet buzz of cicadas, your breath surprised but not tight. 

“Sorry,” he says, “was that okay? I was just thinking about you.” 

“It’s fine.” You laugh against his lips and take a kiss, evening the score. “It’s always okay. Kiss me whenever you want.” 

“You looked mopey,” he says. Foot in mouth disease forever. 

“I’m not mopey, just distracted.” 

“I know, it’s offensive. You come over here to hang out and spend the last hour in deep thought.” He makes it clear he’s joking through his light tone and his smile, your eyes met, his hand sliding down your shoulder and your arm. He’s especially careful as his fingers run down your forearm. You watch the path of his hand as it falls, twining your fingers weakly with his. “You can tell me anything.” 

“I do tell you anything.” 

“Well, just telling you again.” He kisses your cheek, then, less gentle, your lips. 

You have this aversion to saying the worst part out loud. There’s always a metaphor or an omission. You can’t say cut, it’s too much, but you’ve said hurt. You’ll admit to self injury but not the action. “It’s fine,” you say now. 

“I think you’re doing a good job.” 

You laugh softly through your nose. “Thank you.” 

“I’m not kidding.” He blows a breath up his face. “Look, can I just be honest with you?” 

Your smile turns uneasy at his bluntness. “Um. Are you breaking up with me?” 

Steve shakes his head. “Never,” he says, pushing your sleeve up your arm slowly, and then faster when you don’t resist. “I can’t remember the last time I saw you without them.” He doesn’t say cuts either, mostly for your sake. 

“Sorry.” 

He shakes his head again. “For what? I’m just saying. You’ve had them this whole time and I’ve never– they’ve never stopped me from wanting to kiss your face off.” He probably shouldn’t make jokes. He backtracks. “I mean, they don’t make a difference to me, I like you even if you can’t, uh… Even if the impulse is too much. But I’m thrilled you’re, you know, not doing it.” 

“I know,” you murmur. 

“I love you.” 

“I know.” Your voice is nearly inaudible, “That’s why it’s easier now.” 

His heart swells with pride and love and an unfightable want to hug you. He slides his arms around you from under your armpits, forcing you to hug his neck, stealing a kiss to the cheek as he squeezes you forward. “I just want you to know that I get it. Like, how hard you’re working to not do it.”

“Steve,” you admonish quietly. 

“Sorry, I’ll stop talking about it if you want.” 

“I mean… It's kinda nice to talk about it. It’s not in my head.” 

“It’s not in your head.” 

“But it feels weird ‘cos it’s like, something I should be doing anyways. It’s like getting praise for washing your hands.” 

Steve thinks there’s a pretty big difference between wanting to hurt yourself but resisting it and washing your hands, but he knows what you’re saying. Doesn’t agree, but doesn’t want to invalidate you either. However you need to think about it to get through it is up to you. “I can praise you for washing your hands. I want to.” 

Steve encourages you to turn into the sunshine. You lay your cheek against his shoulder. “Love you,” you say, your hand on his leg. 

He stares right at the sun and blinks hurriedly. “I love you too.” 

[max1461]

I didn't know rationalism of the online rationalists was not the same as the one that has the Wikipedia article. When I first saw the term on Tumblr I went to that article and skimmed it and decided I don't really get what those bloggers' perspectives are. After your post I now have even less knowledge than I did before.

The following is an oversimplification, so for those who have quibbles with the history here, well, forgive me.

Online rationalism was founded by two guys named Eliezer Yudkowsky and Robin Hanson on the blog LessWrong. Of these two figures Yudkowsky has been much more influential. The ideology that Yudkowsky promoted is roughly as follows:

humans are, relatively soon, likely to develop a superintelligent AI which has the capacity to self-improve by rewriting its own code. This will cause the AI's intelligence to rapidly explode beyond anything we can imagine, a process which rationalists onomatopoetically call "FOOM".

This superintelligent AI, if it could be harnessed and controlled, could cure death, and possibly revive all already-dead humans in a simulated world, leading to a technological utopia in which humans have merged with machines; this is called "the singularity" (the idea of the singularity predates the rationalists, and is a broader transhumanist trope).

However, it is almost certain that a superintelligent AI could not be harnessed and controlled; in fact, if such an AI was created, there is a very high probability that it would end the world (in rationalist jargon this is called an "x-risk"), perhaps usurping all of the accessible matter and energy on earth, then in the solar system, then in the galaxy and beyond in pursuit of its inscrutable goals. Thus, humans have a responsibility to make sure we never create such a superintelligent AI (in a recent op-ed in Time, Yudkowsky went so far as to say that the US should use drone strikes to destroy any datacenter found to be training a large AI model).

The reason that people do not recognize the truths above is because people are too irrational to see them. Therefore, people need to be taught to be more rational, by Yudkowsky via the blog LessWrong. The tenets of being more rational are laid out largely in a series of blog posts known as "The Sequences", later published as a book. The main take-aways are: (1) use Bayes' Theorem all the time to estimate the probability of things, and (2) to eliminate one's various cognitive biases, as outlined in The Sequences.

LessWrong attracted a lot of people who did not agree with Yudkowsky about AI, but who liked the Bayes' Theorem stuff and the commentary on cognitive biases. There is a joke that "anyone who has ever disagreed with Yudkowsky is a rationalist". The people who settled on LessWrong were largely drawn from the milieu of Bay Area tech workers, economics blog enthusiasts, and sci-fi fans. They would come to be known as LessWrongers, rationalists, or aspiring rationals. From this group, two major subgroups worth mentioning were spawned:

First is the Effective Altruists. Effective Altruism, to my knowledge, isn't a strictly LessWronger phenomenon, and has also been influenced majorly by philosophers like Peter Singer. However, they have been so intertwined with LessWrongers throughout their history that I think they are worth mentioning as essentially an offshoot of rationalism.

Effective Altruists believe that, in order to do the most good in the world, one should use one's money in a way that does the maximum amount of good per dollar. Rather than e.g. donating to charities willy-nilly based on what feels important, one should use quantitative methods to estimate how much impact each dollar is making, and donate in a way which maximizes that. The Effective Altruists are split along one main ideological line: neartermism vs. longtermism. The neartermists are basically focused on what we would traditionally think of as charitable activities: fighting disease, giving people clean water, that kind of stuff. I think neartermist Effective Altruism is pretty sensible, and I think they've done a lot of good work evaluating charities and so on. GiveWill is an essentially neartermist Effective Altruist organization, and I think their activities are very worth supporting.

The longtermists, on the other hand, are focused on "the long-term interests of humanity". They are, well, in my opinion, basically a bunch of people trying to turn their sci-fi fantasies into a reality. They are often very worried about AI x-risk, like Yudkowsky, and they're often pro-singularity, and sometimes pro-eugenics, and a bunch of other stuff. Remember Sam Bankman-Fried, the guy who committed the largest act of financial fraud in human history? Well, he was an Effective Altruist with some longertermist sympathies. Some of the money that he stole he actually gave to worthwhile charities, but some of it he used on stupid longtermist sci-fi fantasy shit. His girlfriend Caroline Ellison, who helped him do a bunch of that fraud, was a member of rationalist tumblr. Some of my mutuals were mutuals with her.

The other major group spawned out of LessWrong were the Neoreactionaries, or NRx. These guys, too, weren't a purely LessWronger phenomenon; they were also majorly influenced by people such as the philosopher Nick Land (former student of Baudrillard, who took a far-right turn in the 2000s and started advocating for "hyper-racism") and blogger Curtis Yarvin a.k.a. "Mencius Moldbug". These guys are a rag-tag group of authoritarians, eugenicists, and racists, who are interested in rationality insofar as they view it as a path that leads to their desired sci-fi-inflected far-right future.

Oh, right, last but not least I should define the term "rat-adj". It means "rationalist-adjacent". Uh. So, I was never a LessWronger, and as I think my description makes clear, I find like 90% of this rationalist stuff either goofy or actively harmful. But I have, somehow, ended up basically acquainted with a bunch of people formerly or presently part of the LessWrong milieu, and in light of this I am what one calls "rationalist-adjacent". I talk to various rationalist bloggers somewhat often. And most of them are much more normal than all this would suggest, part of the rationalist discursive sphere but not really believers in the imminent AI apocalypse. Uh. So, there you go.

[j-eryewrites]

Please Hold to My Hand

Part Four of A Sinner's Redemption

SERIES MASTER LIST | MAIN MASTER LIST

Previous | Next

Word Count: 11.4k

Warnings: Canon typical violence, gun violence, people, death, gore and injuries, lots of feelings, horrible jokes (that I even laughed at), language. (Let me know if I have missed anything)

Author's Note: Finally! It’s out. I’ve been writing this between classes and really haven’t had time to review the work. Piper is finally letting down some walls and so is Joel! Yay! We get some more flashbacks and, of course, Ellie and Piper's shenanigans. I hope you enjoy this chapter. If you liked it, I’d love to hear from you either with comments or reposts! Thanks!

Dirty. Piper felt dirty as she stood in the moldy gas station bathroom. Moss grew from the cracks in the ceiling and she was sure the black substance behing the sinks was something otherworldly. Shivering, Piper squeezed her limbs as close as she could to her body making herself as narrow as possible. Behind one of the bathroom stalls was Ellie, taking a bathroom break. 

Piper couldn’t understand how her sister could relax herself enough to use the restroom in a place like this. With the creak and slam of the bathroom stall door, Ellie appeared with a care in the world. Again, Piper shivered and took a step away from her sister as Ellie stepped in front the the broken mirror. 

“Jesus Ellie let’s go,” Piper said before turning around to face her sister. “What are you–” Piper laughed and for a moment she forgot about the disease infested place she was in. 

“Pew, pew. Pew,” Ellie whispered. In her hand was the gun Piper had given from her. 

Piper shook her head at her sister’s antics. “No, no, no. Here’s how you do it.” Stepping forward, Piper reached out a hand to grab hold of the gun, but Ellie pulled away.  

“Hey, let me do my thing,” Ellie begged. 

Rolling her eyes, Piper crossed her arms and sighed. “Well you’ll shoots someone’s eye out. At least take out the bullets.” 

“Hmm,” Ellie hummed not realizing that was an options. She turned the gun around looking for a way to remove the tiny deathly objects in the gun. 

“Here,” Piper muttered as she showed Ellie how to remove them. The young girl watched and took note of everything that her sister did. The dull metallic bullets fell out the cartridge and into Piper’s hand. “See?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah,” Ellie said and she retrieved the gun from her sister’s hand. Once again Ellie raised the gun at the mirror and put on her best menacing face. It was practice for when she actually got to shoot the weapon. In her mind, Ellie wondered if she would be as good of a shot like Piper was. 

“Can we go now?” Piper asked. Her shivers got worse and Piper began to believe she could turn infected from just standing in the bathroom any longer. 

Cocking the gun back, then shoving it deep into her backpack, Ellie nodded and the two girls trudged through the mess and out the doors to the fresh dry air. 

Coming around the corner, they saw Joel just as they had left him; On the ground with one knee raised as support as he blew into a long straw like thing. 

“We have to do this every hour?” Ellie sighed. 

Piper could see Joel was just as annoyed as Ellie when it came to stopping every hour. “Gas breaks down over time. This stuff’s almost water. Back in the day, we’d drive 10, 12 hours on one tank. You could go anywhere,” Joel said. 

“So,” Piper asked, “where’d you go?”

Joel looked up at the two girls. His eyes squinted underneath the bright light of the summer sun. “Pretty much nowhere.” 

“Boring,” Piper muttered before finding a rock to kick around. 

Joel continued blowing into the big straw. 

“Nice!” Ellie leaned in close. “How does that work?”

“It’s a siphon. It’s when liquid…” Joel paused thinking about his words. “travels against gravity because pressure…”

Ellie smirked and chuckled. “You don’t know.”

“I know it works,” Joel quipped back making Ellie laugh even more. 

Once the laughter was over, the young girl soon sought other sources to still her boredom. Lifting her legs up comically into the air, Ellie began to peruse around the rusted cars that Joel was searching for gas from. 

As her eyes followed the rock on the ground as it rolled back and forth, Piper called out to Ellie. “No wandering”

With the biggest sigh she could conjure, Ellie replied. “Okay. This is your fault then.” She warned. Then dropping her backpack to the ground she pulled out a small book. Flipping it open she began to read. “It doesn’t matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.” Briefly, Ellie looked up to gage Joel’s and Piper’s reaction. Laughing, Ellie revealed the cover of the book. “No Pun Intended, Volume Too” by Will Livingston. “Volume Too.” Look. You get it? “Too”? Like, T-o-o.

“Jesus,” Joel grumbled. 

“What did the mermaid wear to her math class?” Ellie paused. “An algae bra. Like, algae bra. Okay, I stayed up all night…”

“No.” Joel tried to interrupt Ellie, stopping her from telling the next horrible joke. 

“wondering where the sun went…,” Ellie continued. “...and then it dawned on me.” 

This joke made Piper laugh. It wasn’t so much the joke, but how much Joel despised them. His face contort with each failed attempt at a joke and it made both of the young girls laugh. 

Joel sat up and glared at the two of them. “Feel free to wait in the truck.”

Piper’s eyes widened at the warning. “Going now,” She mumbled before leaving her rock on the ground for the safety of the boiling hot car. 

“Ugh, okay,” Ellie sighed. “but just know,” the young girl warned, “you can’t escape Will Livingston. He’ll be back. There’s nothing you can do to stop him.” 

As the girls hopped back into the car, Joel returned his mind back to retrieving gas. It was only a few more minutes for the dark liquid shot thorugh the hose into the gas canister and Joel was ever grateful for those few minutes of silence and solace from Will Livingston and his terrible jokes. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

Everything was the color of rust. Rust was the color of time and those forgotten and neglected, left to the mercy of nature. It was boiling and there was noting the air conditioning in the car could do. There wasn’t anything in sight except for dirt, sand, and crumbling cars. Even the normally blue sky was tinted a shade of brown. Piper felt like she was stuck in a valley of emptiness, not a living thing around. 

As the car drove further and further down the road, Piper moved her gaze away from the window and instead to the rear-view mirror. There in the mirror she saw something alive, something that kept her alive and going, Ellie. The younger girl sat lazily in the back of the truck using her bag as a head rest. Meanwhile, her hand gripped a pencil dragging it back and forth across a notebook. At least someone was entertained. 

Eventually, Piper brought her sight back onto the endless road in front of her. Cars were pilled high to the sides as if something huge parted the sea of metal carcasses. 

“Must’ve been some truck,” Piper mumbled. 

Joel glanced over the side at the girl. “Yeah, they used to stick big-ass plows on them, and clear the roads for their tanks and such.”

Piper nodded her head in response. It seemed like Ellie had tuned into the conversation, her sketch book forgotten beside her. “I wanna see a tank,” Ellie chirpped as she scanned the sea of vehicles.

“You will,” Joel assured Ellie. “Tanks, choppers, all that stuff. But they’ll fight the wrong enemy. Just scattered around now.”

Bitting the inside of her cheek Ellie pretended to listen beyond the words “You will” before changing the topic. 

“I got somethin’. Here,” Ellie passed up a small tape. Joel, curious, snatched it from her hands. “This make you all nostalgic?”

He had to pull the tape farther away from his face to read the fine print. His eyes pulled into a thin line finally making the words readable. Damn he was getting old. “This is actually before my time,” Joel corrected. 

Ellie’s smile faltered. “Great,” she mumbled. 

A strange tightening in his chest formed at the disappointment in Ellie’s voice and Joel couldn’t help but want to salvage the situation. “It’s a winner, though.” Ellie’s smile was back on her face. Upon seeing her smile, Joel placed the tape into the slot and hit play. 

♪ We met in the springtime when blossoms unfold ♪

Tapping her finger on Piper’s shoulder to the melody of the song, Ellie’s flashed with a wicked glint. Withdrawing her hand and shoving it into her bag she pulled out something new. “Oh, man. Got somethin’ else,” Ellie said. Joel and Piper mindless nodded at her words. “It’s, uh… light on the reading, but it has some interesting pictures.”

As Piper and Joel whipped around Ellie’s smirk grew. 

Gotcha! She thought.

“Oh. No, no, no. Put that back. That’s not for kids. Ellie!” Joel’s and Piper’s voices seemed to blend together as they tired to discourage Ellie from looking further. 

Playing align with the ruse, Ellie buried her face between the pages, getting a good look at the images upon them. “How would he even walk around with that thing?”

“Fuuuckkk,” Piper groaned as she placed her head between her knees.  

“Please get rid of it,” Joel begged. His hand reached back to take the magazine away from her. 

Ellie swatted his hand away. “Hold your horses. I wanna see what all the fuss is about.” She quickly perused the rest of the magazine, except for a few pages. “Why are all these pages stuck together?”

Piper gaged like she was about to throw up. 

“Uhh… the…” Joel was speechless. 

Then Ellie burst out laughing. Her head thrown back as the giggles overcame her small figure. “I’m just fuckin’ with ya.” A window rolled down. Dusty wind blew around the car. “Bye-bye, dude!” Ellie had thrown the magazine to the wind. 

♪ Alone and forsaken by fate and by man ♪ Oh Lord, if you hear me, please hold to my hand ♪ Oh, please understand ♪ Oh, where has she gone to ♪ Oh, where can she be ♪ She may have forsaken some other like me ♪ She promised to honor, to love, and obey ♪ Each vow was a plaything that she threw away ♪ The darkness is fallin’, the sky has turned gray ♪ A hound in the distance is starting to bay ♪ I wonder, I wonder what she’s thinkin’ of ♪ Forsaken, forgotten without any love ♪

꧁_____________꧂ 

The scene had changed now. It was green. There were trees and fields of grass. It was a welcomed changed to the drylands they had just drove through. The air was cooler now and the car wasn’t as hot. Piper could even imagine she was on a real roadtrip driving through the world before the outbreak. She felt normal. 

She pressed a button and the passenger window opened. A brisk air kissed Piper’s face blowing the freed stands of her hair behind her. Yet she wanted more, so she slowly pulled out the hairtie. Her scalp groaned as the pressure was released. Then came the bliss as the wind weaved between the strands of her hair massaging her scalp. Her eyes close shut opening her arms to the comfort the wind gave her. 

A shiver creeped up Joel’s shoulders and he turned his head to Piper. His mouth hung open with his forgotten wish to close the window. She seemed at peace as the music played and wind blew through her hair. She looked like what a kid like her should look like: Brow not filled with the worry of survival, hair not tied up and closed off to the world, happy, calm, and content. A thought of pity grew in Joel’s chest. This is how Piper should be living. Both her and Ellie. Afterall, they’re just kids. Kids with the future of the world on their shoulders. It was a weight they shouldn’t have, that no one should have. Joel knew that better than anyone. 

“All right,” Joel sighed. “That’s enough for today.” 

The wind release Piper’s hair from it’s hold as the window rolled back up. Rocking side to side, the truck turned away from the road into a grassy field. They were headed to the forest up ahead. A forest that would give them shelter for the long night. 

Together, they did their part to unpack and get food started for dinner. Sitting down on the ground, the three of them ate. Piper wasn’t quite sure what they were eating, but it was cold and good. The square like noodles just slide down her throat easing her stomach’s plea for food. It was delicious. 

A slurping noise came from beside her. “Jesus, Ellie. Slow down,” Piper said. 

Ellie was slouched over her bowl devouring the food. Red sauce encased the skin around her mouth. “This is slow,” She mumbled with her mouth full of food. “What am I even eating?” Ellie asked. 

Joel using his fork to point to the food inside his bowl answered. “That is 20-year-old Chef Boyardee ravioli.” His tone made the two girls think that this was the best food ever created on planet earth. 

Ellie shoved another fork full of food into her mouth. “That guy was good.”

“I actually agree,” Joel added. 

“Hmm…” Piper hummed. “How long we staying out here?”

Placing his bowl down into his lap, Joel replied. “I figure I sleep tonight… and drive tomorrow all day, all night, get us to Wyoming by next mornin’.”

Ellie sighed and rubbed her now fully belly. “So can we start a fire? I’m freezing.”

“No.” There was no hesitation in Piper’s answer. 

Ellie rolled her eyes. “Well, you’re not in charge, now are you Piper?”

“Hey, hey,” Joel interrupted and waited for the two girls attention to be on him. “Now, why am I gonna tell you no?”

Sinking into the ground with disappointment Ellie answered, her voice as monotonous as they come. “Because Infected will see the smoke.” 

Joel shook his head. “No. Fungus isn’t that smart. This is too remote for Infected, anyway.”

“People?” Ellie guessed. “So what are they gonna do? Rob us?” There was a hint of sarcasm in her voice as if being robbed was so horrible. 

It was Piper who spoke next. There was no emotion as she spoke. The peace Joel had seen her face earlier evaprotated and he could almost see the ghosts hiding behind Piper’s brown eyes. “They’ll have way more in mind than that.”

“Okay.” Joel softly said as he observed Piper. There it was again, that same tightness his chest, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything to her. Instead he told the girls to hurry up and eat then get ready for bed. 

“Actually smells kinda good,” Ellie commented as she flung her sleeping bag out, laying it onto the ground. 

“Well, that would be Frank’s then,” Joel replied doing the same with his sleeping bag until a shuffling nearby caught his eye. “What are you doing?” Joel asked Piper. 

Her sleeping bag was still bound. Instead, she stood by the truck grabbing something from her bag. It was a gun. 

“Getting ready for watch,” Piper said. Her focus on checking her gun. 

Joel pushed himself off the ground and approached the girl. “No. We’re all sleeping.” 

Piper ignored Joel as she checked the bullets, counting them out. Joel did the only thing he thought would work. Placing his hand on the gun, her forced Piper to lower the weapon and look at him. 

“Trust me,” Joel said. “No one is gonna find us.” His voice was clear and full of comfort. It was the same voice he’d use whenever Sarah cried to him at night about the monsters in her closet. 

The teenager scoffed. “Bullshit…” Yet the longer she looked at Joel, the more she felt like letting go of that gun and letting the walls fall just this once. Her eyes fell to the ground. “jesus fuck…fine.”  

Removing his hand, Joel returned to his sleeping bag. He watched as Piper placed the gun next to her sleeping bag, which now laid out on the ground next to Ellie’s. Eventually the girl did lay down, pulling the covers over her shoulders. Satified Joel followed suit and the lamp light dimmed until it was dark. 

“Joel,” a small voice whispered. “Joel.”

Joel groaned. “What?”

“Can I ask you a serious question?” It was Ellie. 

“Ellie…” Piper warned with a tiredness in her voice. 

“I’m serious!” Ellie said. 

“Yeah,” Joel said giving her the go ahead. 

“Why did the scarecrow get an award?” 

Joel was silent for a moment before he answered. “Because he was outstanding in his field.”

A whispered wave of giggles escaped the two girls. Both of whom didn’t expect the answer. 

“You dick! Did you read this?” Ellie asked a bit louder. 

“No. Now go to sleep.” Joel commanded. 

“Hm,” Ellie mumbled before settling back down. “...Those people you said… there’s no way anyone knows we’re here, right? No one’s gonna find us.”

With those words, Joel was thrown back into his past and all he could hear was his daughter crying in the dark of her room. All sign of sleep and exhaustion evaded him now. “No one’s gonna find us.”

“Okay. Goodnight Pipes” Ellie whispered. 

“Night Els…,” Piper replied. “...night Joel.” 

꧁_____________꧂ 

There was no way Piper could ever sleep. Her sister’s words floated around her head and Piper had to be sure. Ellie had to be safe. It felt like eternity waiting to hear Joel’s breathing slow. Once the old man had fallen asleep, Piper peeled herself free from her sleeping bag. Each movement was carefully calculated to achieve the least amount of noise as possible. With her gun in hand and jacket zipped up to the top, Piper climbed on top of the truck, finding a seat on the roof of the car. 

She had to admit, the forest was beautiful at night. There was a low chirping noise rumbling throughout the trees. Crickets, Piper guessed and she prayed it wasn’t something more. After a moments, contemplation the teen concluded her original hypothesis was correct and she soon tunned her ear into the other sounds of the night. 

Piper was glad that they had the truck. It proved to be a useful vantage point. Even in the dark, Piper felt as if she could see more of the forest, than she would on the ground bringing the teen comfort. 

The girl and the woods fell into a rhythmic cycle as the minutes passed. There was the cricket’s song, the breeze tickling the trees, and her own breathing. Again, and again this cycle came. Crickets, breeze, breath. Crickets, breeze, breath Crickets, breeze, breath, shuffling. Piper froze. Her head whipped around, and her gun raised defensively. She was ready to shoot. 

“Kid?” A gruff voice spoke. It was Joel. Piper’s shoulders lowered at the sight of the man. “What are you doing?”

Piper didn’t answer for a moment. “On guard.” Not wanting any more conversation, she whirled back around, her sight on the forest once again. 

Joel stood up and his hands found their place on his hips. He looked at Piper as she sat defiantly on the truck. Her back turned to him. The sight almost made him chuckle as he saw himself reflected in her figure. Almost. Instead, a worry fell over him. She was a kid. A kid who deemed sleep just as pointless as him. Releasing his hands from his hips, Joel pinched the bridge of his nose. Piper needed to sleep, but she was stubborn. Just like him and if he guessed now, Piper wouldn’t go to sleep without a fight. 

He was too tired for this and too old to fight a headstrong teenage girl. Instead, Joel kept his mouth shut, picked up his rifle and turned his back to her, guarding the other half of the forest. 

The two held their ground in silence and the forest fell back into the rhythm again. As the pattern repeated, the more Piper felt unease. Sighing, she turned around to find Joel. 

“I’m sorry,” Piper said. She wasn’t even sure why she said it, but she knew she needed to. 

Joel turned his head around at her voice. He wasn’t sure why she apologized yet still he replied. “It’s fine.”

Silence fell over them again and Piper bit the inside of her cheek. It was awkward to say the least. She waited, but then realized Joel wasn’t going to say anymore, so she turned back around. 

“...the stars…are nice,” Joel noted.

Piper looked up for the first time that night. There they were. The stars were breathtaking. She hadn’t ever seen them that clear. “Yeah,” she agreed. Together, Joel and Piper withdrew their attention from the forest to the sky. “You know, Ellie is a fanatic for the stars, space, whatever else is up there.”

Joel glanced at Piper and there he saw it once more. The very expression in the car he saw on her face, now bloomed under the night sky. There was the kid she should be. 

“...that one, the one that looks like a demented spider. Apparently its called Hercules.” Piper pointed up into the sky.

“Huh,” Joel hummed. 

“Yeah, that’s about all I know. Ellie, I swear, knows them all.”

Joel tore his eyes away from the demented spider constellation. “Kid, you should get some sleep,” Joel suggested. 

“In your dreams, Joel.” 

꧁_____________꧂ 

It was official. Ellie hated sleeping outdoors. This was the second time she woke up with a knot in her back. Groaning she pushed herself off the cold ground of the forest. Looking around, she saw the rolled up sleeping bags nearby. 

“Look who’s finally awake,” Piper commented as she walked by Ellie carrying her supplies to the truck of the car. 

Ellie waved her middle finger in the air for Piper to see earning a laugh from her sister. Soon the young girl’s stomach began to rumble. Fueled by her hunger, Ellie crawled over to the pots and dishes piled together hoping to find something to munch on. 

Lifting a lid, she found a boiling liquid. Taking a brief sniff, she pulled back and slammed the lid back on. “Ugh! The fuck is that?”

“You don’t like coffee?” Joel asked.

Whipping her head around to face him, Ellie replied. “If it smells like that, no.” Piper walked up beside her sister and crouched down, lifting up the lid to the coffee pot. Ellie saw the darkened circles underneath her sister’s eyes. “How’d you sleep?” Ellie asked Piper. 

“Like shit,” Piper replied. She eyed the coffee. “Can I have some?” Joel nodded and Piper grabbed a cup and poured the black liquid into it. She raised the cup to her lips and drank. 

Ellie gagged. “You are no longer my sister.”

Piper chuckled. “You’ll get it one day.” Ruffling Ellie’s hair, Piper stood back up to help Joel finish packing the truck. 

“Is that seriously what those Starbucks in the QZ used to sell?” Ellie questioned. 

“Well, theirs was a lot fresher than what Bill saved up, but, yeah, this is what they sold,” Joel explained.

Ellie shook her head. “Smells like burnt shit.”

Piper laughed once more. “Alright, hurry up and eat. We’ve gotta leave soon.” Leaving Ellie, to scavenge once more for food amongst the pile of  dishes, Piper sipped her coffee. She hoped that maybe the caffeinated liquid would keep her sinking eyes awake and the exhaustion in her bones far away.  

꧁_____________꧂ 

“Eyes on the map,” Joel instructed. His voice clear and firm.  

Piper shot up in her seat. Her eyes wide open. She observed she was in the car. The vehicle hummed as it traveled along the road and Piper couldn’t recall how she even got into the car in the first place.

“Alright,” Joel said as the car pulled off to the side of the road, coming to a stop. When the shift stick was in park, Joel turned to the back seat. “Ellie, switch with Piper.”

Shaking her head, Piper replied. “No, I’m fine, just–”

“In the back,” Joel said and Piper knew she couldn’t fight him on this. 

Unbuckling her seat belt, Piper reluctantly opened the passenger side door and crawled into the back. On the other hand, Ellie was esctatic to sit up in the front next to Joel. Jumping in her seat and getting a feel for the cushioned leather, Ellie beamed. 

“Wow, it’s so much nicer up here. I’m never sitting in the back again!” 

Just as Ellie was about to fiddle with the stereo, Joel shoved the map into her hands. 

“Here.” Joel pointed to the map. “We’re here and need to go here. Remember.”

Ellie’s eyes narrowed, following Joel’s thick finger as it danced across the map. “76 west and then… 70 west for, like, ever.”

“Yep. Now eyes on the map.”

Rolling her eyes, Ellie glanced back down at the map. Her small fingers ran along the path that Joel had shown her moments before. Each time she got to the end, the image in her mind only grew more potent until Ellie was confident she could recite the map from memory. However, there was only so much of “eye on the map” she could take and soon Ellie diverged her attention elsewhere. 

First, she experimented with the rearview mirror. It wasn’t something Joel particularly needed, so Ellie had free rein, so long as she didn’t annoy the old man. The small rectangular mirror, let her see the dusty road behind her. She ogled as the cloud of dust rippled out behind the truck clouding the green scenery behind her. Soon Ellie discovered that the mirror could move, tilting up and down and side to side. She tilted the mirror to look at Joel for a brief moment before she caught his glare. Quickly, she turned the mirror to herself. She extended her legs, leaned in close, and chuckled. Her face looked more stretched out than it normally did, and her eyes looked funky. 

Ellie could have looked at herself for god knows how long if it weren’t for the pothole the truck conveniently rolled over. Thumping down in her seat with a huff, Ellie found a new target in the rearview mirror. Piper was fast asleep. Her body limp as her head rested on the stacked up sleeping bags in the back seat. Ellie thought Piper looked weird sleeping. It seemed against her older sister’s nature to relax and be at peace. Afterall, Piper was always on guard with a battle happening deep in the pit of her eyes. Yet, the sight of her sister asleep in the back seat created a warm feeling in Ellie’s chest. Even if the sight of Piper in a dormant state was bizarre, Ellie knew it’s what her sister need. It’s what Piper deserved. 

“Where in Wyoming did you say your brother was?” Ellie found herself asking now that the mirror was back in place after Joel corrected the tilt. 

“Last contact came through a radio tower close to Cody,” Joel replied. 

Nodding Ellie peered down at the map scanning the tiny words and roads for Cody. “Cody, Cody. Ah, man. That is deep up in there.” 

“Yeah,” Joel said. 

“...And if he’s not there?”

“Then odds are he’ll be near a settlement, probably close to another city out there. Ain’t too many of ’em in Wyoming,” Joel explained. 

Soon, Ellie found herself finding the other cities in Wyoming. “Chee-Yen,” she read aloud. 

“Cheyenne,” Joel corrected. 

Ellie’s eyes widened at Joel’s correction. It couldn’t be right. “Che… really?”  Joel nodded. Ellie continued to look for cities. “Cheyenne… Laramie… Casper? What’s his name?”

“Whose name?” Joel wondered. 

“Your brother,” Ellie clarified. 

Joel breathed in deeply before answering the curious girl. “Tommy.”

“Younger or older?” Ellie curiously asked. 

“Younger.”

Peering back at Piper, Ellie asked yet another question. “Why isn’t he with you?” Afterall, her and her sister were always side by side. Never apart and always together. 

“A long story,’ Joel said hoping that it would satisfy Ellie. It did not. 

Ellie scanned the map once more. “Is it longer than 25 hours? ‘Cause I think that’s what we got.”  She peered up at Joel with the most convincing eyes she could conjure.

Joel could feel her expectant gaze on him. Biting his tongue, he continued to drive in silence until Ellie’s stare grew too much.  Finally, Joel “Tommy’s what we used to call a ‘joiner.’ Dreams of becomin’ a hero. So he enlisted in the Army right outta high school. A few months later, they ship him off to Desert Storm. It’s what they called that war. It doesn’t matter. Point is, bein’ in the Army didn’t make him feel much like a hero. Cut to 12 years later, outbreak happens. He convinces me to join a group makin’ their way up to Boston, which I did… mostly to keep an eye on him, keep him alive. It’s where we met Tess. And that whole crew, we, uh… Well, for what it was, it worked. And then Tommy meets Marlene. She talks him into joinin’ the Fireflies. Same mistake he made when he was 18. Wants to save the world. Pipe dream. Him, Fireflies, all of ’em… delusional. ‘Course, last I heard, he quit the Fireflies, too. So now he’s on his own out there, and… I gotta go get him.”

“If you don’t think there’s hope for the world, why bother going on?” Ellie asked. Joel glanced at her with his brows raised. “I mean, you gotta try, right?”

He shook his head. “You haven’t seen the world, so you don’t know. You keep goin’ for family. That’s about it.”

“I’m not family,” Ellie blurted.

“No…,” Joel paused to look at the young girl next to him. “You’re cargo. And I made a promise to Tess. And she was like family.” There was a flash of change in Ellie’s expression. “But you have Piper. Piper’s your family.”

“Yeah she is,” Ellie said with a dejected tone. “You know she reminds me of you.”

“How so?” Joel wondered as his eyes glanced into the mirror to catch sight of the sleeping teen. 

“You’re going for Tommy. Piper goes for me.” Ellie said. “What if you don’t find him?”

“I will.”

“How do you know?” There was a challenge in the young girls voice.

“I’m persistent,” Joel answered. 

Ellie smiled. “Yep, exactly like Piper.”

There was an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of Joel’s stomach at Ellie’s conclusion. It was to similar to the thought he buried deep in the back of his head. Piper was like Joel. It was something he didn’t want. Piper shouldn’t be like him. Joel was damaged, old, broken, and cruel with walls built as high as some of the skyscrapers that existed before the Outbreak. Piper was a teenage girl. She was still a kid. She shouldn’t be like him at all. 

“Ya got up pretty early,” Joel mentioned. “If you wanna grab more sleep like Piper…”

Ellie waved Joel off. “Pfft. I’m not even tired.”

“Sure,” Joel said trying to fight of a smirk. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

A quiet snore escaped the young girls mouth as she dozed off in the passenger seat. The smirk on Joel’s face finally won when Ellie had closed her heavy eyes. It was now peaceful in the car with the two girls sleeping. Their inhales and exhales were in tandem. Both of their faces were calm as the mid-day dreams over came them. 

Joel’s momentary peace and quiet was never meant to last. Soon, there was a stirring in the back seat and a head of dark brown hair sat up. Piper’s hair had frizzed up in her slumber and the young teen tried to soothe the mess with her hands before giving up. 

“How long I was out?” Piper asked as the sleep slowly left her voice. Her eyes scanned the scenes passing by the car windows. 

Turning his head back to face her, Joel replied, “A few hours.”

Piper nodded before carefully peering over the front seat to find her sister fast asleep. “How long has she been out?” 

“Not very long,” Joel said. 

“Hmm…,” Piper couldn’t help but softly smile at Ellie as she brushed some stray hairs from her sister’s face. “Where are we now?” Piper grabbed the map from Ellie’s hands. 

“Not far from Kanas City,” Joel explained. 

She scanned the map and her surroundings for any signs to signify where they were. It didn’t take long for the teen to estimate their spot along the highway. Joel was right. They weren’t far from Kanas City. “We should go around,” Piper whispered. 

Joel’s brows raised as his ears caught Piper’s words. “What do you mean?”

Piper solemnly glanced out the window. Her eyes darted back and forth as the sight flew by them. “Heard the QZ is horrible. Definitely not a place we want to be.” Once she had finished speaking, Piper had grown eerily quiet.  

Joel wanted to say something. To ask if she was okay, but his vocal chords refused to make a sound. Soon the shuffling of the girl in the passenger seat drew everyone’s attention.

Piper smiled. “Hey there sleepy head.”

Ellie’s eyes closed and opened as they adjust to the harsh light of the day. “Fuck you,” she groaned. Her response made Piper laugh, but her laugh was cut short by the slowing of the truck. 

The teen hadn’t been aware of how close they actually were to Kanas City. The road between all the cars and trucks was significantly more narrow than before. In front of them was an obvious barricade. They weren’t able to drive through this. Piper’s jaw clenched as she watched Joel unbuckle his seat. She wanted to tell him to drive back and go around the city. She was sure she saw a route they could take, but it was Joel’s voice that spoke instead. 

“Stay put,” Joel told the girls. 

Piper and Ellie watched the man look around the cars and underneath the larger trucks before he trekked back with a scowl on his face. 

Fuck, the girls thought. 

“Where are we?” Ellie asked as soon as Joel got back into the car. 

“Kansas City,” Joel grumbled. He motioned for the map and Piper placed it in his hands. 

“How far back do we have to go to get around this?” Ellie peered over Joel’s shoulder as worry spread across her face. 

Joel sighed looking at the map. They’d have to turn around and drive a few hours just to get around the barricade. To Joel, it wasn’t worth it. Tommy was waiting. Time was precious. “Screw it.” Without another word, Joel pulled away from the barricade and drove the car onto the exit ramp. The road led straight to Kanas City. 

Panic filled Piper’s being. “What are you doing?!” She yelled at Joel, “No, no, Joel. Away from the city. I’ve heard some things back in Boston QZ, we don’t–”

He knew the fear in Piper’s expression well, but a teenager’s fears weren’t going to add more time onto their trip than needed. “We can jog right around this tunnel… take the next ramp… and we’re back on the road. Minute tops,” he hurriedly explained to calm the girl. 

Piper glared at Joel as she bit her lip. Tears began to well up in her eyes from the pain. The disturbing turning in her gut only got worse as they drove deeper and deeper into the city and the only comfort she could find was gripping the handle of her gun. 

“Where the fuck is the highway?!” Joel fumed. His eye frantically over the map and then the road in front of him. 

Ellie did her best to help. “I can’t tell from this. I’m all turned around!” 

“Don’t look at the state map, Ellie. Look at the inset.” Piper was on the verge of snapping. “That there!”

The younger girl’s voice began to break. “Well, I don’t know where we are in that either! This is my second day in a fucking car. I mean, I think we’re heading north?”

“It’s gotta be the right,” Joel muttered, before swerving the car to the right. 

The car jolted everyone as Joel tried find a way out of the labyrinth like city. 

“Stop!” Ellie hollered. 

The car came to a halt. Tires screeched and Piper barely had time to brace herself on Ellie’s seat. “What the fuck?” She asked her sister. Ellie just stared at pointed out the window. 

“Is that the QZ?” Ellie asked. Everyone was now looking at the burned down gate. Smoke was still in the air. “Where the fuck is FEDRA?”

Piper wanted to spew. “Joel–” 

“Hey! Please help!” The voice came from outside the car. It was a man. His right leg hung limp behind him and his arms waved in the air. 

Her eyes widened and, using her free hand, she grabbed Joel’s shoulder with a painful grip. “Joel, we need to get the fuck out of here!”

Joel’s eyes darkened. “Put your seatbelt on,” he said with a low voice. 

Ellie searched his eyes. “Aren’t we gonna help him?”

“No,” Piper and Joel said simultaneously. 

There was a click. Then a stomp. Soon the car jumped forward as Joel pressed his foot down on the gas. The truck was headed straight for the man. 

“Joel! Reverse!” Piper screamed.

“Fuck!” the man yelled as he jumped out of the way. “Go, go, go!”

In an instance, there was a deafening thud. The car slid. Joel turned the wheel to a nearby building’s glass doors. Gun shots fired. Their heads ducked down as they braced for impact. With a crash, the car came to a halt. 

“Fuck,” Joel groaned. He turned to Ellie. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Ellie wheezed. 

Quickly, he turned to Piper. “You’re not hurt? Nothin’?”

Piper shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Their momentary relief was destroyed by bullets firing. They had hit the truck’s windows. 

“Belts off. Fast!” Joel shouted. 

The girls did not waste time unbuckling the seat belts and opening the doors of the truck. 

“Let’s see you, motherfucker! Give us your shit, you make it through this! I promise!” One of the raiders yelled. 

Once all of them had left the truck and found brief cover, Joel looked around the room. “Hey, you see that hole?” He pointed to a small hole in the drywall. “Can you two squeeze through?”

Ellie and Piper followed Joel’s hand. With one scan of the hole, they knew they could fit. 

“Last chance!” the raider snarled. 

“When I say go, you crawl to that wall, and you squeeze through, and you don’t come out until I say, okay?” Joel instructed the teens. 

Ellie nodded her head. The shock evident in her eyes. 

Piper shook hers. “No, let me help.” She raised her gun up for Joel to see. 

Joel growled and his jaw clenched. “This is not a negotiation. You’re going.”

A gun shot echoed around the room. They seemed to be getting louder and louder with each fire. Ellie felt her legs go limp and a cold sweat over come her body. 

“they’re not gonna hit you. Look at me!” Joel told Ellie, “They’re not gonna hit you.”

Bang!

“You stay down, you stay low, you stay quiet,” Joel explained and Ellie absently nodded her head. 

“I’ve got you Els,” Piper whispered to her sister. 

“Mm-hmm,” Ellie hummed back with tears in her eyes. 

“Okay,” Piper said before turning to Joel and nodding. 

“Okay,” Joel commanded. “Go!”

Immediately, Piper shot off the ground and grabbed Ellie’s jacket collar dragging her along. They stayed low to the ground until they reached the hole. “Come on, go!” Piper yelled before shoving Ellie through the hole.

Bang! 

Piper cried out in pain as she examined her shoulder. She was shot. The bullet had grazed her arm. “Fuck!” She cried before crawling through the hole. 

Another shot was fired. 

“Fuck! You motherfucker!” One of the raiders screamed. 

There was another shot and Piper could hear the sounds of guns falter. Joel was doing it. He was taking them out one by one. 

Crunch. 

Glass had been broken and there was heavy breathing. It was breathing that did not belong to the old man. A shadow covered the hole. Ellie’s eyes widened and Piper pulled her back against the wall. 

There was a grunt. “Now you’re gonna fuckin’ pay! What you fuckin’ did, you fuckin’ killed yourself, motherfucker!” A raider yelled. The girls could hear the voice so clearly. 

Bang.  

Something had run into the wall. Piper flinched and Ellie was no longer by her side. Turning her head, she saw her sister at the hole. Her gun in hand. 

“Ellie, no,” Piper pleaded as Joel struggle with the raider. 

Ignoring her sister, Ellie crawled through the wall. 

“Fuck,” Piper groaned before following her sister out the hole. 

The sight in front of her was pure chaos. Joel had his head tilted back with a long rifle underneath his chin. Behind him stood a raider. Piper didn’t care to note the specifics about him except for the fact he was choking Joel. It wouldn’t have been long before Joel would lay unconscious on the floor of the abandoned laundromat. 

A clear shot rang through the air. The raider fell to his knees. The rifle choking Joel was gone. Ellie had shot the man. Her shoulders were stiff and her eyes were cold. Her skin was paler than white as the gun followed the man as he dragged himself across the floor. 

The demeanor in the raider had flipped. Tears screamed down his eyes as the violence in his voice fled. It was replaced by terror as he pleaded with Ellie. 

“No, no, no, no, no! It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s over. We’re not fighting anymore. I’m gonna go home. I’ll tell everyone you’re good,” his voice broke as a cry escaped his lips. “I don’t know what to do. My legs don’t work. My mom isn’t far, if you could get me to her. We could trade with you guys. We could be friends. I didn’t know.” Ellie stood unwavering. “I’m Bryan. I’m Bryan. What’s your name?” Bryan whimpered. 

Joel stepped forward. “Wait, wait, wait!” Bryan pleaded, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife. “You can have it… It’s a good knife.” He tossed the knife to Ellie. It fell to the ground beside her feet. 

“Get back behind the wall,” Joel muttered to Ellie. He was still out of breath. His hand came to her shoulder, breaking her from her trance. Lowering the gun, Ellie turned her back to Bryan and crawled back through the wall. “Kid,” Joel said to Piper. 

“I’m not a kid,” Piper whispered. With Ellie’s gun was quickly replaced by Piper’s. Joel’s eyes widened. 

Bryan’s cried got louder. It annoyed Piper. Someone who moments before seemed to strong, now was at her feet begging for mercy. Something she didn’t have. Not anymore. “No, no, no, no! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please, please. We could just talk. I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please, please. No, no, no! Please! No, please! Please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please! You don’t have to! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please! No, no, no! We can just talk! Mom! Mom! Mom!” 

Piper’s heart clenched at Bryan’s call for his mother. It was a brief moment, before her finger squeezed. A shot thundered around the room. Then there was silence and a small hole in the forehead of what used to be Bryan. Piper wanted to revel in it, but instead she felt sick. Swallowing down the rising bile, she lowered her gun. In the silence, adjusted the straps of her backpack and moved to the hole in the wall. 

“Let’s go,” she mumbled. 

“I can’t fit through,” Joel said. 

Piper sighed and grabbed her shoulder massaging the pain. “There’s a door to the next room just around the corner.”

Joel nodded as he shuffled around to the door before turning the knob. The door didn’t open. It wasn’t locked, but it just didn’t open. 

“There’s some stuff against the door,” Ellie voiced. 

“Well, can you move it?” Joel asked. 

“Uh…yeah.”

It didn’t take long for Joel to hear scrapping and shuffling behind the door. Soon the blockage was free and the door swung open. Joel stepped inside and closed the door behind him and darkness flooded the room. 

“You okay?” Joel asked to either girl.

Piper didn’t answer. Ellie did. “I’m okay… I’m good. I, uh, got some food in here still, and I got your light still.” Ellie handed Joel the light. “What now?”

“We go up,” Joel answered. 

Ellie looked up at Joel. “To get a better look?”

Joel nodded. “Hopefully, we spot a clear route out.” Leaning back, Joel peered out the door, briefly shutting it. His eyes flitted between the girls. 

“Ready?” He asked. 

Ellie nodded. The two of them turned to Piper. The elder teen gripped her gun close and raised her head up an down. 

Light spilled into the room. The bright light momentarily blinded the three of them as they rushed outside. Their bodies crouched down low as they ran. One fact rang clear in their minds. They had to get far away from here. Some place safe, although it seemed as if they’d never be safe again.

꧁_____________꧂ 

“You fingers go here and then…Piper are you listening to me?” Levi asked with a knowing smile on his face. 

“Huh? Oh yeah. Totally,” Piper chirped back. 

“Right. How was I telling you to hold the gun?” Levi knew Piper’s reaction before the guilt on her face could manifest. 

“Like…this?” Piper fiddled with the gun in her hand and Levi shook his head. 

“No. Here,” Levi said as he reached over to fix Piper’s grip on the gun. Fingers go here and use both hands.”

“But that’s not how–,” Piper muttered. 

“I know that’s how you were taught by FEDRA. It’s wrong. Now listen to me sweetheart,” Levi continued on with his demonstration. “...Soon enough you’ll be able to shoot.” 

After some adjustments, Piper finally mastered her grip on the gun. Levi beamed. “See, now. I want you to try your hand at shooting. Don’t be afraid to miss.” 

Piper huffed and moved her feet to a better stance, the very one she saw Levi take when he used his gun. Her small eyes narrowed to the targets on the other end of the room. They were old beer bottles, but viable targets nonetheless. Taking a slow breath in, Piper pulled her finger back, trigger the gun to fire. She missed. 

“Fuck,” Piper hissed. 

Levi chuckled. “Hey, what did I say? You can miss. You’re safe here. You miss here so that when your shot counts, you don’t miss. Got it?”

The young girl nodded before turning to look back at the targets. Piper puffed her cheeks with disappointment. She wanted to hit the target. She wanted to never miss again. She wouldn’t make a shot that night. She wouldn’t make a shot until it counted. Yet, time and time again, she heard Levi’s voice saying, “Try again,” and she’d get back up to fire once more. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

Refuge was found in a broken down bar. The windows were sealed with old newspapers. To pass the time, Ellie tried to read the clippings. Some were stories about dead people. Boring. Then there were some stories about what the local school board was doing. Also boring. As she jumped from story to story, Ellie concluded that the news was boring. Instead she took to peeking out the window in the cracks where the news didn’t cover. 

“They’re not FEDRA, and they’re not Fireflies, so who are they?” Ellie asked. She peered up at Joel who was also looking out the window. 

“People,” Joel grumbled. 

Ellie nodded and drew her knees in close. Her tiny body crumpled together on the wooden floor. “Are we okay in here?” Ellie’s voice was small. 

Joel’s ear’s perked at the sound of uncertainty in Ellie’s voice. He withdrew from the window and sat down on an abandoned chair. “For a little bit, maybe. Looks like they’re checkin’ out apartment buildings first. But they’ll be coming through these places soon enough.”

There was a sigh from the corner of the room. Piper’s head fell back against the wall. “There’s a really tall building, like, four blocks away,” she noted. Her long dark hair fell to the side as her eyes cast down. She had lost her hair tie a while back during the chaos of running from building to building. 

"Yeah. Saw it,” Joel said. 

Ellie sat up and peeked out the window once more. Her brown eyes darted around until they landed on the building, she believed Joel and Piper were discussing. “So that’s the one?” She pointed to the building. 

“As soon as we don’t hear a truck, we move,” Joel instructed. “Fast as we can.” There was a loud hum as an armoured truck drove by and Ellie ducked down. The group froze as they listened. Their shoulders were tensed and backs stiff. 

The rumbling of the trucks dispersed and a laboured groan escaped Piper’s mouth. 

“Are you okay?” Joel asked. He was now standing up and moving towards the young teen. 

Piper made a noise that was a mix of a scoff and a snicker. “I’m not the one you should be asking.”

Joel groaned at Piper’s stubbornness. “You were shot, weren’t you?”

“No.” Piper shook her head. 

“I saw you got s–,” Joel rebutted. 

“The bullet grazed me!” Piper heaved. “It’s not the end of the fucking world. I’m fine.” She squeezed her arm in hopes to divert the pain. “Ellie, how are you doing?” Piper tensely asked. 

“I’m alright,” Ellie replied. “Joel?”

Roughly running his hands through his peppered hair, Joel answered Ellie. “Yeah.” Taking a few more steps closer to Piper, Joel crouched down. His body only a few feet away from the girl. “Thing is, is I didn’t hear that guy comin’, and… you shouldn’t have had to… both of you shouldn’t have had to…you know?”

“Well, you’re glad we did,” Piper concluded. 

Joel shook his head. He was glad to be alive, but not at the expense of child. “You’re just a kid,” Joel pinched his nose. “You shouldn’t know what it means to… But… shootin’ or… I know what it’s like… first time that you, uh, hurt… someone like that. If you, uh… w… uh…I’m not good at this,” Joel confessed. 

“Yeah, you really aren’t,” Ellie commented. 

“I mean, it was my fault,” Joel apologized. You shouldn’t have had to. And I’m sorry.”

Those two words echoed in Piper’s head. They were such simple and unthreatening words, yet their delivery broke down her walls. I’m sorry. Piper gulped and dug her nails into the palms of her hands. I’m sorry. A new ache formed in her body at the sound of the words and the pain from her shoulder only dulled in comparison to the pain of her heart. I’m sorry. Instantly, her vision grew blurry, and against her will, a few tears escaped and trailed down her dirtied cheeks. 

“It wasn’t my first time,” Piper sniffled . She looked up forcing the tears away. 

“Right. Show me your grip,” Joel looked at Piper and never for a moment did he dwell on her tears. Piper was grateful for that as she pulled out her gun and showed Joel her grip. He took a step closer to check. “Good.” Then Joel turned to Ellie asking her to do the same. “Finger off the trigger. Now, who taught you that?” Joel asked Ellie. 

“FEDRA school,” Ellie mumbled. 

“Figures. Your thumb…over your thumb. Left hand… squeezes down on the right. You got it?”  Ellie nodded. Suddenly, Joel’s hand reached out and tried to yank away Ellie’s gun. Her grip stayed unwavering. “There ya go. Look,” Joel noted. 

Piper smiled as Ellie’s grin grew from Joel’s praise. 

“How come you didn’t check Piper’s grip?” Ellie asked Joel. 

Piper chirped up before Joel could reply. “FEDRA didn’t teach me to shoot,” She said and all elements of a smile has vanished. 

Joel looked back at Piper before standing up. The joints in his knees and hips were displeased at this sudden movement. His movement created a wave of action from the other girls. Piper stood up and Ellie placed her gun in her hand. 

Tapping Ellie on the shoulder, Joel shook his head. “Uh-uh. You’ll shoot your damn ass off.”

Piper snickered. “Be fucking hilarious.” 

Ellie whipped her head around to face her sister. “You fucker.” 

“Hurry it up, girls,” Joel grumbled as he retrieved his things. The girls quit their bickering to do just as Joel had. 

Soon enough, the three of them were standing at the door. They shared a cautious breath as they awaited Joel’s cue. 

“We’ll get through this,” Joel found himself saying. His eyes flashed with worry as he glanced at the weary expressions on the girl’s faces. 

Ellie shrugged her backpack and looked up at Joel. “We know.” 

For a moment, they waited. All their ears tunned into the sounds of the world outside the degenerating bar. With bated breathes they stood. Ellie gripped the straps of her bag tightly finding comfort in the constriction. Piper stood low behind Joel. The pain in her arm was now blaring at her. She clenched her eyes shut, waiting for the pain to subside. All Piper had to do was wait it out. Soon they’d be safe. Soon they’d be out of this god forsaken city. 

“Go,” Joel commanded. The door shut behind them and a bar was left empty once more. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

Joel was old. It was a fact that he knew quite well. It seemed to be Joel’s downfall that he was old in a world that favored the young. Especially when it came to survival. Except now, Joel had youth on his side, except this youth seemed…well, partially incompetent. 

“You’re just gonna put your foot here,” Joel explained. “One, two…” With all his strength he raised Ellie into the air. The young girl’s arms flailed around trying to find stability. 

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Ellie cursed. 

Piper couldn’t contained her laughter as she watched Joel and Ellie struggle. 

Joel huffed and rolled his eyes at Piper’s reaction. “You could always help.”

“Nah, you’ve got it,” Piper replied. 

Ellie cried out as Joel’s muscles struggled to keep her up. “Straighten up. I got you,” Joel said. 

It took a moment, but then Ellie followed Joel’s advice. Her hands reached the opening and her fingers scrounged around for a grip. It didn’t take long for the weight on Joel’s shoulders and arms to lessen. 

“Okay, I’m in.” Ellie’s voice echoed around the opening. 

“Take a look around first. Ellie.” Joel instructed. There was silence from the other side. “God damn it,” Joel muttered. 

“Hey, that's my sister,” Piper reprimanded the old man. 

As if on cue, a nearby steel door swung open and Ellie’s head appeared. “Where would you be without me, huh?” Ellie smiled. 

“By now, Wyoming,” Joel responded as he walked passed Ellie into the building. 

Ellie’s shoulder’s dropped. “Oh, yeah. Walked into that one.”

Once they were all in the stairwell, Joel at the two girls. “All right. We’ll make our way up, and come morning, I’ll take a look at the city, and find our way out.”

A large white sign flared in the dark of the stairwell, illuminated by the flashlights of the group. Ellie groaned upon reading the mixture of numbers and words on the metallic surface. “We’re goin’ up 42 flights?”

“Forty-five,” Joel corrected and then shook his head. “But no… not all the way.”

Piper slumped against the concrete wall with a bang. The contents of her backpack were squished between her and the unmoving force of the wall. “Jesus. How far?”

The man’s brow furrowed with thought as he calculated an answer for the girls. “As far as I can make it.” 

And so their ascent up the stairs began. Their footsteps clambered along the thick walls echoing to and fro. The stair case had a supreme level of acoustics. It was a fact acknowledged by all three of them, especially Ellie. By floor ten, the young girl’s thigh muscles contracted and with each step the burning sensation only grew stronger. In her mind she prayed Joel could only take so many more. Afterall, he was old. However, Ellie realized she had misjudged Joel’s determination and strength by floor seventeen. Her body was heating up and sweat oozed out of her skin. She was suffering, and it seemed like no one else was. Piper stood stoically as she climbed each step. The only hint of their physical stress was a slight shade of pink that tinted her cheeks. On the other hand, Joel’s brow shimmered under the light of his flashlight. He was sweating. He was feeling the effects of their activities. He was suffering, but not enough. 

“What did the policeman say to his belly button?” Ellie asked with a devious smile as she watched Joel’s shoulder’s slump with defeat. 

Piper snorted before rolling her eyes at Ellie. “I don’t know…um…hi?”

“Nope,” Ellie bit her lip trying to contain her laughter. “You’re under a vest!” 

“Jesus,” Joel mumbled and Piper wasn’t sure if it was a prayer or a curse. 

The stairs now echoed a new sound, Ellie’s giggles. “Okay, okay. Next one.” She cleared her throat. “What’s the difference between a well-dressed person on a unicycle and a poorly dressed person on a bike?” Dark brown eyes darted to Piper and Joel for any hint of an answer. “No one? Okay,” and throwing on her best posh accent, Ellie drove the punch line home. “Attire.”

Again, the young girl was thrown into a fit of giggles as Joel grumbled to himself occasionally sending her a warning glare when he broke free from his elderly annoyance of the youth present. 

With each joke Ellie delivered, the laboured and steadfast demeanor Piper held up slowly chipped away. She wasn’t sure if it was the fact her body no longer had the will to fight against the abominable two-liner jokes, or if it was the sight of Ellie at such ease and joy from tormenting her and Joel. Although, Piper had to admit seeing Joel at such loose level of discomfort was quite funny. It was moments like these she had to remember when Joel would eventually discard her and Ellie just like everyone else. 

“Ooo! This one. Okay,” Ellie cleared her throat. “What did the fisherman say to the magician?” She paused waiting for the internal drum roll to conclude. “Pick a cod, any cod.” 

Piper sinched her lips together to contain the outburst waiting to pop. She was so focused on not laughing that she almost ran into Joel. The man had stilled and with his hands on his hips he glowered down at the girls with an unknown look in his gaze. 

“No more jokes,” Joel said. 

“Okay, just trying to lighten the mood,” Ellie mumbled as she shoved her joke book into her back pocket. 

Upon seeing the book placed away, Joel collected his breath and the marched up the stairs continued. 

They had passed four more floors when Ellie spoke again. “Hey, you know that guy who said he was hurt?” She waited for Joel’s acknowledgement. “How did you know it was an ambush?”

Joel’s chest rose pushing his shoulder close to his ears. “I’ve been on both sides.” He glanced back at caught Piper’s knowing stare. “It was a long time ago. We did what we needed to survive.”

“You and Tess?” Ellie asked. It was strange to think of Joel and Tess like the man who attacked them. They were protectors and that’s all Ellie had known them to be. She didn’t think she could imagine Tess hurting anyone. Joel on the other hand, she could see it…sort of. 

“And the people we were with,” Joel explained. “My brother, too.”

Ellie took in a shaking breath, which she blamed on the physical exertion. “Did you kill innocent people?” Her voice faltered. 

Joel was silent. 

“Ellie,” Piper interjected. “Save your breath for the stairs.”

Joel’s jaw unclenched at Piper’s words. He was grateful for her interruption. He knew the answer and it was not an answer he wanted to tell Ellie. In a world full of death and decay around everyone corner, sometimes all you could do was kill. So, yes. Yes, Joel had killed innocents. Back then he wasn’t ashamed. He did it to survive. He had to. Now…now Joel just wanted to lie. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

The stairwell door slammed open and Ellie toppled inside. Her knees hit the carpeted floor as breath hit her lungs like a tidal wave. “Holy shit,” she tiredly said. 

Piper plopped down next to her throwing her head between her knees. “Yeah,” she agreed. 

“Thirty-three floors ,” Ellie barely voiced. “That’s good.”

“It’s gonna have to be,” Joel panted. He placed his coarse hand on the wall for stability. Everything burned: his lungs, his calves, his thighs, hell, even muscles he didn’t know existed burned in a frenzy. 

Pushing herself off the floor, Piper crawled to a standing position. “Come on,” she huffed. 

Ellie shuffled around before reaching her hand out to Piper. Together the two of them got Ellie to a stand. 

Joel looked at the two girls with a puzzled expression. The power of the recovery in the youth astounded him. “Gimme a minute,” Joel begged. 

Ellie chuckled. “Get up, you lazy ass.”

“Lazy ass,” Joel grunted as he stood up. “Fifty-six years old, you little shit.”

Piper and Ellie laughed at his response as they watched Joel waddle down the maze of hallways on the floor before entering a large office. The office was in a pristine condition considering the start of the apocalypse two decades prior. The carpet was free of dirt and Piper could still see the design within the fabric. Ellie was in awe at the fluffiness of the couch cushions in the seating area. They were a little stiff but practically new. She smiled to herself as she laid a few of the cushions out on the floor for the three of them. 

“Better than any bed I’ve ever slept–Joel?” Ellie turned her attention to Joel who had just shattered the glass door. “Joel.” He didn’t respond. Ellie looked at Piper with a worried shine in her eyes. “Joel!” Ellie yelled. 

The man in question turned around with a quizzical look. “What?”

“What are you doing?” She pointed to the glass now on the floor. Not the best sleeping conditions, if she was saying anything. 

Joel furrowed his brow as if his actions are obvious. Piper sighed and dropped her bag onto the floor before laying down next to Ellie. “He doesn’t want someone sneakin’ up on us while we’re sleeping.”

“Ohh, I get it. Crunch, crunch, crunch,” Ellie animately said. Her hands marched around in the air like feet ‘smashing’ the shattered glass. “Are you sure you’re gonna hear it?” The young girl asked Joel. 

“Of course, I’ll hear it,” Joel said. “That’s the damn point.” He glanced down at the ground. The glass was evenly spread out. It’d be difficult to not step on the makeshift alarm. Satisfied, he shuffled over to the girls and sat down on the open cushion next to Piper. 

“If he doesn’t,” Piper added, “I will.”

“Okay. Well, good night,” Ellie said. She snuggled into the couch cushions and drew her jacket tightly around her body. 

“Yeah, good night,” Joel whispered back as he laid down settling in for the night. 

“Night,” Piper mumbled. 

A darkened shade of blue encased the room. Everything was a different shade and Piper could make out each of the objects in the room. The desk was a darker blue than the chair behind it. The ceiling was a light blue, and the young girl was sure she could hear the buzzing of the fluorescent lights, even though they were turned off. Shifting around on the cushion, Piper let out a disappointed sigh. Sleep evaded her. 

“Hey,” Joel spoke. 

“Yeah?” Piper hesitantly responded. Behind her, a small snore escaped Ellie’s mouth. Piper could hear Joel let out a heavy breath. 

“When we were talkin’ about hurtin’ people…,” Joel paused. “What did you mean it wasn’t your first time?”

Piper rolled around onto her side. Her eyes glued to Joel’s back. “…I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“All right,” Joel quietly said.  “…You don’t have to. I’m just sayin’… it isn’t fair, your age… havin’ to deal with all of this…”

Piper’s nose scrunched up and a line between her brows formed. “There’s a lot I’ve had to deal with…” Tears built up in the corner of her eyes. Piper wasn’t going to cry. She didn’t want to cry, but why was it so easy to cry at night? “The first time I…I was twelve…does it gets easier when you get older?” Piper sniffled. 

“No, not really.” Joel rolled over and found lips pulling into a tight line. Piper was crying. The dark hid her tears well, but Joel was a father. He knew when a child was crying. “But still.”

Piper gulped and took in a shaky breath. She wasn’t crying. She refused to cry, but it was a lie. She knew and she knew Joel knew. Yet, there was an ease that filled her being as she cried on the floor of that office with Joel laying across from her. Even as war and torment surged outside, as people searched for them, Piper felt safe. She was safe under the shadow of Joel’s figure. Piper was safe, so she could cry. 

“The reason Ellie asked whether you’d hear the glass or not is ’cause both of us have noticed you don’t hear too well from your right side… Is it ’cause you were shot there?” Piper pondered once her tears had subsided. 

“Probably more from shootin’,” Joel honestly replied. “So if you wanna keep your hearin’, you stick to that knife.”

Piper chuckled and a small smile crept onto her face. “Too late.” Piper asked, “Joel?” 

“Hm?” Joel raised his brow. 

“Did you know diarrhea is hereditary?” Piper smirked. 

“What?” Joel’s head turned to look over his shoulder. Utter confusion was placed on his face at Piper’s words. 

“Yeah,” Piper whispered. “It runs in your jeans.” Then she laughed. It was a quiet laugh given the circumstances, but a laugh nonetheless. 

Joel rolled back over. “Jesus,” he said before laughing along. “That is so goddamn stupid.” He shook his head at himself for laughing at the joke, yet he couldn’t stop. He laughed and then Piper laughed. He feared it be an on going cycle that would awaken Ellie. 

“You laughed, motherfucker,” Piper noted. “Just wait till I tell Ellie.”

“I didn’t laugh,” Joel gruffly said. There was still a hint of laughter in his face. 

“Yes, you did,” Piper said. She wouldn’t let him deny it. 

“Jesus, I’m losin’ it,” Joel smiled. His face felt funny and alien as the smile stretched across his features. His cheeks hurt and his eyes crinkled in a way that they hadn’t in years. Piper had made Joel smile. 

“You’re losin’ it big time,” Piper giggled and Joel laughed once more. 

“Go to sleep,” Joel gently said. 

Piper fondly smiled. “You too, Joel. You too.” 

꧁_____________꧂ 

Sleep found Joel quickly that night. It must have been the thirty-three floors of stairs, the fight for his life, and driving consistently for days that finally brought him some rest. His mind was blank. He didn’t dream and didn’t think of Sarah, of Tess, or of Tommy. He felt at ease. Soon the pleasantry of slumber escaped him. The room was lighter and faded color crept into his view. 

“Joel?” A muffled voice was calling out to him. It sounded worried. It sounded scared. Joel’s eyes widened. “Joel!”

He grunted as he lifted his head. There was Ellie and Piper. Ellie was looking down at him. Her dark eyes reflected the fear and confusion in Joel’s. Piper sat with her jaw clenched. Her shoulder were held back and an inferno was a lit in her eyes. The thing that scared Joel the most was where Piper was looking. She wasn’t looking at him. No, Piper was glaring down the barrel of a gun. 

Something cold touched the back of Joel’s head. He whipped around. There in front of him was a child with paint around his eyes. In his hand was a gun. 

Well, fuck. 

꧁_____________꧂ 

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[all-pacas]

I saw some of your posts saying how observant and clever Chase is,while also being a "dumb whore". I feel like this is the right place to say that I don't find his "ditzy slut" moments funny in isolation,without taking his cunning,calculating traits into account. If Chase is just a "himbo",it takes away the shock value(not to mention I've seen way funnier "simple dumbasses" than "isolated Chase moments"). On the other hand,a guy who can clearly think on his feet making terrible mistakes that could be avoided by a bit of common sense is a recipe for hilarious "wtf?" moments. Like,I've seen you deduce stuff with striking accuracy with minimal information,how did you come with such an inane conclusion? It's what they call "high intelligence,low wisdom".

Also,I saw a post of you saying Foreman is "book-smarter" than Chase,while the latter is more observant and a "people-person",besides having more "improvising" skills. This is certainly interesting,considering their backgrounds(Foreman was raised in the hood,had some involvement with gangs;whereas Chase was a rich brat with many opportunities. One would think their skillsets would be inverted,lol)

Even before I finished reading this comment, I was planning on making a "he's a high in/low wisdom," so thanks for making that joke for me, lol.

The thing is, Chase is legitimately very lazy. Or like. He works hard and he's very good at his job, but I think it's interesting that both his specialties are… obviously to be a doctor you have to be smart, but he has very hands on specialties. His job isn't to memorize and know everything about auto-immune diseases, his job is to be great at cutting people open and fixing them. Again, I am well aware surgeons and intensive care takes a lot of knowledge! But it's interesting to me, you know? He definitely comes off as less cerebral.

And he's deeply unambitious. He spends half the show in a fellowship, a training program, because he's more comfortable there. Cameron and Foreman have a subplot about writing articles; we never hear anything about Chase doing the same. House literally has to fire Chase to get him off the team. Where Foreman is always desperately trying to prove himself and be the best doctor in the room, and where Cameron is honestly also deeply competitive and demands respect, Chase… we joke about him being spineless, he is spineless, but also he never really seems to mind it. He doesn't care. He does not seem offended Foreman keeps getting put in charge, nor does he really want it for himself. He has the most seniority of the fellows, but never plays it up; he's fine where he is. And I think that's where his 'laziness' comes in. He just… doesn't try very hard. Very rich kid of him, tbh. He coasts whenever possible.

Meanwhile Foreman is a huge perfectionist, and has a huge inferiority complex. He is the first to tell everyone he had perfect grades (he tells Chase a time or two), went to top schools, has a perfect resume, because Foreman derives a lot of his self worth from being able to say that: if he's the best, no one can say he doesn't belong. I think it's because of his background that he's like this: he's a Black man from a Bad Neighborhood and has a Record and he's absolutely aware what that makes him in the eyes of others. He can't afford to be like Chase — Chase can get away with being lazy and unambitious because he's a rich, good looking, white guy (and foreign, at that — but the good kind of foreign, who speaks English as a first language and comes from a rich and successful family). If Foreman acted like Chase — like he didn't give a shit about his career, like he was just working for House for the hell of it — it would look different. It would feel different. Foreman is a perfectionist and has an inferiority complex because his whole life the world has told him he's not as good, he's doomed to "turn out" bad, he won't and can't amount to anything because of who he is. Cameron is assertive and ambitious and gets really touchy when people underestimate or overlook her, because she's sensitive and kind and weak (Foreman himself tells Cameron he thinks she needs to "toughen up"), and so she also constantly has to prove herself, and that she can be a Good Doctor And Leader while still being compassionate and soft. Again, Chase doesn't have to worry about any of this. He can be unambitious and easy-going about his career, because it doesn't really matter to him in the same way. He doesn't have to be the best student or get the best marks and have the best record. He has very little to prove.

And in a way, Chase is in the same kind of perception trap as the others. Not to suggest he has it soooo much worse than Foreman, but because he's a Rich Good Looking Dude, you kind of expect him to be a nepobaby. You kind of expect him to be useless and underqualified and shallow. To coast on his looks and to not have brains and have no idea how to manage in the Real World. It's definitely how Foreman sees Chase — he says as much, and lowkey hates him for it, and fair enough — but again what's interesting to me is where it isn't quite true. Chase is brilliant, when he cares enough to try. His apathy is learned, not born from an easy life; he comes off as cool and easy-going but holds grudges and resentments and trauma about two inches down. He's afraid of rejection and trying and failing, and so stays in his comfort zones. But where Foreman spends all his time and energy trying to prove the entire world wrong, to fight every automatic perception of who he is as a person, Chase leans in to his own facade. I actually think that S8 Foreman is a pretty happy person. I think S8 Chase, Chase MD in House's office, is at least 70% miserable.

[cozzzynook]

Thoughts on a Decepticon Hotlock Established couple deciding to woo Ratchet across the battlefield after Deadlock confesses to a long-term crush and Hot Rod decides to get injured to vet Ratchet and spends the entire time flirting with him while getting the best medical treatment of his life only to speed off back to Deadlock and go "Babe I approve, let's do this."

Now, Ratchet (and the Autobots) have to deal with Megatron’s top two assassins and known favorites chasing after Ratchet.

Pure chaos and a blend of things!

I love this!

Deadlock breaks in often claiming he has an incurable disease that only Ratchet’s time, love & affection can cure. He melts the door panels so no one can get out or in and spends his time bothering Ratchet with jokes, touches, flirty gestures and coy words while actually getting Ratchet to eat and take care of himself since medics are shit at doing that for themselves.

Ratchet has and will continue to break something on Deadlocks frame to fix an injury the con didn’t get checked or needs more attention. He will complain about this while also being so tender in his care.

Ratchet may or may not have found it easier to connect with Deadlock since they’re both older and express their emotions in a similar fashion.

Deadlock claimed Ratchet with a typical decepticon mating claim in the form of a vicious bite and claw marks while Hot rod used his flames.

Ratchet was a little more sly in courting Deadlock. He gifted the mech crystals, something he learned Deadlock loved because of Hot Rod. Hot rod could tell Ratchet wanted to display his own courting and so he told him one of Deadlocks secret joys.

Ratchet gifted Deadlock a space in his home for crystals and Hot rod enjoyed watching them seal their courting.

Now Deadlock and Hot rod already claimed each other with claw marks and bites and Hot rod’s flames but Hot rod and Ratchet have yet to go beyond the surface and this was due to Ratchet not believing someone as young and so full of energy like Hot Rod could want him.

It was Deadlock who put in perspective for Ratchet that Hot Rod was very much in fact interested in him. It was Hot rod who motivated deadlock to open up and be vulnerable with Ratchet and helped move things along its just Hot Rod wasn’t good at doing the same.

For all Hot rod’s charisma and cheer and personality he wasn’t a very happy mech deep down. It wasn’t something he liked to share with even Deadlock who he was closest to and learning that it was indeed Hot Rod who destroyed his own planet so Zeta could not make them weapons, at the acceptance of Hot Rods own people who shared the same sentiment as him, Ratchet found himself seeing the younger in a new light.

Especially when he learned Hot Rod was willing at one point to become an autobot before being rejected and almost offlined.

Ratchet started to notice then that Deadlock was correct and Hot rod did keep him at arms length while making him feel welcome.

He noticed the lower class mannerisms Hot rod couldn’t always hide and how the bot wasn’t always present not out need to move as he played off but because of insecurity and fear.

So Ratchet took a different approach and cornered the little speedster by trapping him in a blanket under his weight and keeping the little mech wrapped between his legs and arms.

Ratchet did it often enough that Hot Rod just came with his own blanket and sat on the medics lap who nodded with a smug appreciative smirk.

The three spent a lot of time like that and learned Hot Rod’s love language was touch just like theirs.

Ratchet made his courting gift to Hot Rod something personal. A knitted blanket with the courting dance of Nyon etched throughout the entire space.

Hot Rod cried for the first time in front of both Ratchet and Deadlock, the latter admitted to never seeing Hot Rod cry not even after his planets demise by his own servos, and Hot Rod immediately accepted the courting the same joor.

Making their union complete with a spark merge.

-

I hope this was to your liking. I love this ask, feel free to ask or rant about any transformers ships if you like. 💞🌙

[antispopausandstuff]

this is a habit i'm beginning the process of breaking, but i was never a fan of a lot of insults or heavy language used as banter in relationships, romantic or not.

i was raised in a household where it was really common, whether or not you reciprocated or wanted it ( and verbal abuse, with or without prompting ), and i dealt with a bit of it in school before going virtual. even now, my family and i still engage with it. it's not nearly as bad as it was before, but i realize that i don't want to directly or indirectly be the cause of someone's insecurities, especially not with the people i care about.

yes, i know banter is normal, even with language, but... i dunno.

for years, i was hurt by being called things like 'annoying', 'crybaby', 'copycat', grew up with my family talking about me behind my back, was labeled as a disease by people i thought were my friends as a 'joke', amongst other things.

and i have hurt people by the words i've said, multiple times, no matter if it was unintentional. most of the time, it was. but it doesn't take away the fact that i hurt someone.

it's another reason why i don't like c//a and, maybe a little bit of a hot take(?) amongst this community, i don't mind amity's 180. catra's verbal abuse and amity's bullying give me memories i'd rather not remember, but have to deal with. it's why i don't often write relationships the way that might be typically expected.

this isn't to say i will never expect other people to act differently, of course. i know there will be others who disagree, who are completely fine and healthy with their banter with someone else, however vulgar, and that's perfectly fine.

i may be fragile or soft for this, but i'm okay with that. i want to be someone who my younger self needed. someone who would encourage me, support me, and love me without hurting me.

and, no, i don't believe it's impossible to love someone without pain. it just takes work, like everything else.

[hsangel64]

what about the plans we made?

pairings: ellie williams x bsf!reader

summary: hanahaki disease is no joke

warnings: angst angst angst, use of y/n, no happy ending whoops, suicide and death

a/n: if you don’t know what hanahaki disease is it’s a japanese fictional disease people suffer from when they experience unrequited love. i tried to do a lot of my research so i hope i don’t butcher this completely! sorry i didn’t have this out sooner i just kinda went crazy with this-

you didn’t even know when it started it’s been so long. you’ve know ellie ever since she came to jackson, you both were 14 and you had been found after your mother had been bitten. you were alone and afraid so maria and tommy took you in. it had only been a couple of months after that ellie arrived with joel. you two had instantly hit it off and were attached at the hip after that day. you two would spend every second together and you slowly grew feelings for her.

you two were almost 18 when you met dina. that’s when you and ellie stopped seeing each other all the time. while she got closer to dina she got farther away from you. she stopped spending the night every day, she stopped having dinner with you, she stopped coming to friday night movies with you. she stopped being there completely. that’s around the time you started to feel sick. you felt the growth in your body slowly taking over. you started coughing up blood and felt your throat slowly start to close as the vines grew more and more each time you saw ellie laughing with someone who wasn't you. it got even worse when you finally got the guts to ask ellie for a movie night.

you had seen her by the stables surprisingly not with dina so you approached and decided to ask her about a movie night.

"hey els."

"hey what's up!" you internally rolled your eyes at her, how could she be so nonchalant about seeing me after weeks.

"so we haven't had a movie night in a bit i was thinking-"

"hey babe." you were cut off with dina coming up behind ellie kissing her on the cheek. you throat felt so itchy, it was slowly starting to get harder to breathe.

"hey you ready to go?"

"as ready as i'll ever be!" you felt sick you couldn't stand here and watch this anymore so you didn't say a word and left them behind. you looked back when you were far enough and it didn't even look like ellie noticed you left. you felt heavy your throat burning, the urge to cough. you sped up back to your house but bumped into someone.

"woah hey kiddo you okay?" shit it's joel.

"yeah yeah i'm okay." you scrambled to get up and try to walk past joel to get home, but he stopped you.

"hey hey what's up kiddo?" you couldn't hold it in any longer and you coughed up into your hand. you tried to wipe your hand before joel saw any blood but he was quicker than you.

"what the...y/n we gotta get you to the infirmary now."

"no no i'm okay i promise." you managed to slip out of his hold and you ran as quickly as you could to your house. once you got in you slid down the door and realized what had happened. dina called her babe, why didn't she tell me they were together? why am i feeling this way and what do i do about it? you stayed in that position for what felt like forever, staring at the wall. maybe you should go to see a doctor.

i don't wanna talk right now

i just wanna watch TV

i'll stay in the pool and drown

so I don't have to watch you leave

i put on Survivor just to watch somebody suffer

maybe I should get some sleep

sinking in the sofa while they all betray each other

what's the point of anything?

...

you stayed in your home the rest of the night ignoring the knocks from, who you assumed was joel. you spent the night on your couch with tons of bloody tissues around you. you sat and watched all the movies you and ellie loved. you didn't want to sulk for the rest of the night and wanted to figure out what was going on, so you got up and threw on a light jacket and your sneakers. you threw your hoodie on and made your way to the infirmary. you made sure that someone was in there and thankfully julien the head nurse was in the small office. you made your way inside and greeted her.

"hi julien."

"oh hey y/n, is there something wrong?"

"yeah i need some help."

ellie was at the tipsy bison with dina and jesse not having a care in the world. she couldn't stop thinking about how good her life felt right now. she watched dina dance with jesse with everyone else and couldn't get over how perfect this felt. her thoughts got interrupted by joel touching her shoulder.

"oh jesus joel you scared me." she jumped a little.

"hey kiddo i need to talk to you. it's important."

"uhh yeah what's up?"

"can we talk outside?" she nodded and he led her outside. the door opened and the small gust of wind sent a shiver down her spine, the cold air making her shiver as she only wore a flannel and didn't bring a jacket.

"so...?"

"it's about y/n." she gave him a small look of confusion.

"what about her?"

"ellie she's sick...."

"okay maybe you can give her some medicine and maria can make her that soup! you know it always helps and feels so good when you eat it-" he stopped her and put a hand on her shoulder.

"ellie this is serious not just some cold do you know anything she ran away from me today after i asked."

"um no i don't it's only been a couple of days since we last hung out."

"it's been more than a couple of days kiddo." she let out a small laugh and looked at him confused once again.

"what do you mean we just hung out..." she thought for a second, when was the last time they'd hung out? they fell into silence for what felt like forever until joel spoke up.

"it's been months kiddo, at least from what i've seen."

"has it really..." he nodded and her head stayed towards the ground. she really couldn't believe it was that long. you two had been best friends for years and never spent a day apart, what happened?

"when i saw her today she coughed up blood...i didn't know what to do and then she ran away on me. I knocked at her door multiple times but she locked the door so i couldn't go in and check on her."

"sh-she was coughing up blood?" she was horrified and felt frantic.

"she looked really sick, her skin was pale and she looked like she had gotten a little bit skinnier."

"joel i-i gotta go" she was shaking and needed to go see you. she pushed past joel and ran towards your house. she didn't feel cold anymore, her body was hot and she felt like she was going to explode. she knocked and knocked at your door and got no response, she was getting even more worried and tried to open your door.

"damn it." she remembered she had a spare key to your house so she ran over to her house and scrambled with her own keys. she was shaking so much that she dropped the keys on the ground cursing at herself to pull it together. she finally got it open and ran to search for the spare keys, she couldn't remember where she had placed them. ellie had a key holder that joel made her but she never used it, usually she would throw her keys anywhere when she would get home.

ellie felt herself start to breathe a little heavier as she searched and searched. she went to her desk and scanned all her drawers. as she was searching she came across some polaroid's of you she had taken. she stopped herself and scanned over the photos. it was a picture of you she had taken one day when you two had gone out during spring to a small meadow to have a picnic.

…

“hey look at those birds.” you pointed at the majestic bird in front of you guys. ellie genuinely couldn’t take her eyes off of you, you had this beautiful sun dress on that ellie found for you.

“he’s massive ellie take a picture !!” you shook her and she laughed at you as she took the polaroid of the bird. you stared at her whilst she took the picture, she wore a black tank top and some blue jeans with a flannel a top. she looked so good you couldn’t get over it. you wanted to kiss her.

“here look.” ellie showed you the picture she had taken.

“woah wait look!” ellie made you look towards the water to look at a couple of birds so she could get a picture of you. she loved taking pictures of you, she had a whole collection in a box inside of her drawer.

“hey don’t do that!” you swatted ellie’s hand after you heard the click of the camera.

“what ! i didn’t do anything!” she laughed and you snatched the camera out of her hands. she stopped you and grabbed you to pull you under her on the blanket. you both stopped and stared at each other, your breathing started to quicken as you felt ellie just above you inches away from your face. you felt her breathe on your lips, with her being this close you were able to fill examen her face. her freckles were your favorite part of her face. her eyes were a perfect shade of green, bright as is but even brighter in the sun. for what felt like forever being in this position ellie got up and moved away from you.

“oh! i made you something!” ellie exclaimed and grabbed a small box out of the basket you guys brought. she opened it and you gasped.

“chocolate covered strawberries?! how’d you even get the chocolate!”

“it took a lot of trading but it was worth it.” she smiled at you and and went to grab one out for you. you opened your mouth and she shook her head and laughed. her hand reached up to feed you said strawberry.

“mmm omg these are so good els try it!!” she smiled at you and took a bite.

“i did pretty good.” you both smiled at each other and spent the rest of the day in each other presence talking about anything and everything.

…

you had just came back from seeing julien and we’re in shock. you felt so much different after what she had found. she took some manual x-rays of you and found flowers growing inside of you. she knew exactly what it was and was concerned for you. hanahaki disease is what you had. it made sense, how you felt every time you saw ellie with dina. your throat closed slowly over the course of a couple of years. what concerned you most was what she had told you.

“you only have a couple of months y/n you either have us do this surgery and forget anything about ellie or get her to love you back those are your only options.”

you couldn’t believe it. you had a couple of months, two months left to either forget ellie forever or….well die. you had gotten back into your house and took your shoes off. you froze in front of the door not fully knowing what to do, you were going to die in two months how would anyone react to that?

you decided you weren’t going to spend it this way and you were going to write everyone a letter and spend your last two months with everyone you loved. once in your room you got to work.

…

it had been exactly a month since that night and ellie never got the courage to come see you again. she was worried about you but never saw you outside of your house. she would even stalk your door sometimes by her own to see if you come out. she tried to watch the gates at times to see if you were leaving on patrol when she wasn't assigned. she had gone to check the patrol sheets after a couple of weeks and you weren't even on it. ellie had gone to ask joel but all he told her was that she had asked for a different job. so her next best option was to ask maria.

"hey maria."

"oh hey ellie, want to help me feed the horses?"

"yeah of course i just need to ask you a question really quickly."

"shoot!"

"so i was wondering what job y/n had now? i just hadn't seen her on patrols..."

"she didn't tell you?"

"tell me what?"

"she's been on bed rest for the past few weeks."

"what? what happened?" she put her hand on her shoulder and led them away from everyone by the stables.

"maria what's wrong?" ellie's voice was shaky.

"she's really sick, she won't tell us what's wrong but we don't know how long she can keep this up." ellie was terrified she didn't know what to say, she had to go see you immediately. she thanked maria and ran straight for your house. she was breathing hard and the breeze was cold on her face as she ran. she felt tears running down her face. for what felt like forever she got to your house and saw joel and tommy talking outside.

"woah hey kiddo- calm down what's wrong?"

"i need to see her now." joel nodded and moved out of the way of the door.

"she's sleeping so you have to be quiet." she nodded and walked upstairs to your room. her heart was beating it felt like it was going to come out of her chest. she walked slowly up the familiar stairs she used to walk up and down everyday. her hands were shaky as she walked up the steps, nervous to see what you had looked like now. she made it towards your room and her hand was hovering over the door knob. there's no stopping now.

ellie opened the door and saw you laying on the bed, she threw her hand over her mouth, you looked almost lifeless laying there in bed. the tears in her eyes streaming down her face. she slowly made her way towards the chair at your bedside and gently grabbed your hand.

"hi honey." she paused for a second trying to keep herself together.

...

ellie was in love with you but couldn't come to terms with telling you. like every love story between two best friends, they both were scared and couldn't bare to lose each other. she took pictures of you, she took care of you when you were sick or when you had gotten hurt during patrol. she would talk about you all the time to joel and joel would proceed to tell her to just tell you that she was in love with you.

it all changed when she met dina. ellie didn't know the harm she caused you, she didn't know the damage she would cause after months. her and dina would hang out the same way you two would, except she and dina became official and you stayed on the sidelines. ellie was in love with dina and fell out of love with you. ellie still had love for you, just not enough.

she stayed with you everyday and every night after that day. you two weren't all the way back to normal but ellie was trying. she still hadn't gotten you to open up fully about what was going on but you seemed to get a little better. that was until ellie came back with dina one time to visit you, you started to feel worse and stayed in the bathroom most of the time as you threw up full flowers now and small branches. you could hear them talking about you outside and it made you feel even more sick.

"dina i'm just so worried about her."

"i know babe i'm sure she will be okay soon."

"she was just getting better....what if- fuck what if she dies dina."

"hey hey lets not think like that okay?" you could hear ellie start to softly sob and you felt terrible. how the hell were you going to tell her? you had to tell her soon.

you got up from the bathroom floor and made your way out the door. you felt so weak your legs could barely hold you up. you tried to walk back to the bed but your legs gave up on you and you fell. ellie and dina stood up immediately to attend to you. ellie grabbed you and pulled you up into her lap. you felt sleepy and delirious.

"hey hey you're okay honey." she soothed you. you felt tired.

“els…”

“i’m here it’s okay.” she sounds scared, i don’t like making her scared.

“i don’t feel good ellie.”

“i know i know dina’s getting julien stay with me okay?” you could barely see her, your eyes felt heavy. you could hear the strain in her voice. she was crying.

“it’s okay i love you so much.” was the last thing you heard before you saw all black.

…

when you passed out ellie was terrified. she was screaming for dina and joel. joel heard her from next door and ran as quick as he could. he saw her holding you and he was horrified with the scene in front of him. he helped ellie pick you up and set you on the bed after he did that julien and a couple other doctors ran into the house with dina. they rushed to your bedside and told ellie and joel to step out of the room for space.

“no no i won’t leave her alone.”

“please ellie we need space.”

“no let me stay please!” she stayed put in her chair next to you. she saw julien look up at joel and nod. joel then grabbed ellie to drag her out of the room.

“NO NO PLEASE!! LET ME STAY PLEASE!!” she screamed as joel dragged her out, as the doctors closed the door ellie stopped scrambling in his arms and turned to hug him.

“joel i can’t”

“i know i know kiddo she’ll be okay.” he soothed her as she cried. he felt his own tears form in his eyes. he loved you as his own, he didn’t want to see you go. he was so scared. they both stayed like that for what felt like forever and ellie seemed to calm down a bit so he took her downstairs and had her lay down on the couch. he knew she hadn’t gotten much sleep so he made her some tea and had her drink it to help her fall asleep. dina had come down to lay with ellie on the couch.

no words were exchanged between the three of them. just silence. until it was soft snores between all three.

…

ellie didn’t sleep much. her body wouldn’t allow her to because of the awful feeling she had in her stomach. she waited for a couple of hours till they were done. julien stayed in the room but the others sent her up to see you. she walked in and you were awake but you looked dead almost.

“hey ellie.”

“hi honey.” she was pained to see you like this.

“ellie have a seat we need to talk to you.” julien sent a small smile to ellie and pointed to the seat next to your bed. she nodded and sat down.

“is everything okay?”

“y/n has a disease called hanahaki disease. it’s a disease that is caused by unrequited love, i know it sounds silly but that’s what it is.”

“okay…” ellie looked confused she didn’t understand what julien was saying.

“the only two options she has is to get a surgery but it will make her forget all about this person, or she gets this person to fall in love with her but she doesn’t have much time. what’s going on in her body is these flowers that are growing inside of her that’s why she’s coughing up blood and she’s gotten to the point that she’s coughing up full flowers. y/n doesn’t have much time left”

ellie was shocked to say the least she didn’t know how to react and felt sick.

“so we need to get this person. who is it honey?” you and julien looked at each other and she nodded at you.

“it’s you ellie.” she felt her world come crashing down. she was the cause of this, she made you sick just because she couldn’t come to terms with being with you and fell in love with dina instead.

“get the surgery.”

“no.”

“why not! i don’t care if you forget me you aren’t dying.” you felt so sick. listening to her tell you to get the surgery instead of some miracle that she loves you was enough to get your heart racing more than it should be.

“i’m not getting the surgery ellie.”

“please you have to.” you two were sobbing together.

“i’m not ellie. im sorry.”

“no no please you can’t die i won’t let you.”

“you don’t love me ellie.” she didn’t know what to say, julien left to give you guys some space but it stayed silent. ellie didn’t say anything which made you feel worse. you weren’t going to live to see tomorrow you knew that. you were dying today and you were okay with that.

“els i don’t feel good.”

“no please you can’t be leaving me.” she yelled for julien to come back and told her to bring everyone in.

“ellie i have a letter for you. i have one for everyone.” she nodded and you told her it was on your desk.

everyone was in tears in the room. as they read their letters. you knew you wouldn’t live this one through. ellie didn’t read her letter yet she didn’t want to believe you weren’t going to be here anymore. julien took checked your heart and it was very slow you were slowly dying.

“i hate to say this but you need to say your goodbyes now.” ellie’s heart was beating a million miles a minute. they all said their goodbyes but tommy’s goodbye was one of the hardest things she’s had to see.

“hey pumpkin…i wish we had more time together i really do. i love you so much since the day we found you. you were a blessing to our family and i’m sorry we couldn’t help you. i’m sorry it had to be like this.” he had to pause because he got choked up. he kissed you on your forehead and stayed there for a little as you both cried with each other. joel had to turn the other way he couldn’t bare see this. ellie was sitting down with her hands in her hair as dina was comforting her. maria was behind tommy crying with you two.

“we love you so much and we are so proud of everything you have done. you have blessed this earth with your presence and we’re truly sorry you couldn’t keep you beautiful presence here. you truly outshined people and was a big ball of sunshine in a crowded dark room. we will miss you so much we love you pumpkin.” tommy was holding your face whole time wiping all your tears away. they both gave you a kiss on the forehead and moved over so ellie could come back.

ellie said so much without actually saying anything. you knew what she meant when she looked at you. you felt at peace and you were ready.

“i’m sorry i’m so sorry honey i love you so much and i’ll see you when i see you. i wish it didn’t have to be like this you’re my everything we have been through so much and i don’t even know what to say. i cant think of living without you. i’m sorry.” she broke down and knew it was time.

“i love you ellie please take care of yourself.” you felt your heart rate drop more and more with each word. ellie didn’t say anything but everyone knew it was time. your chest slowly stopped moving up and down. you smiled at ellie and stopped moving. julien slowly closed your eyes.

“no please. PLEASE NO!!” hearing ellie’s screams were haunting. she screamed for you to come back as she grabbed you and hugged you close to her chest. you felt so cold already and she hated how lifeless you felt as she held you. she screamed so much everyone that had left the room could still hear her and we’re devastated.

…

they had buried you with a beautiful headstone. ellie chose it. they had a candle lit for you and everyone in town came. everyone was crying as ellie, tommy and joel gave speeches about you. it was the most emotional night for everyone.

don’t know where you are right now

did you see me on TV?

i'll try not to starve myself

just because you're mad at me

and I'll be in denial for at least a little while

what about the plans we made?

…

“if we don’t find anyone when we’re older let’s just marry each other.” you told ellie. you two were sitting on the roof watching the stars.

“i like that idea i think we would be a cute old couple.” you both smiled at each other and shook on it.

“you better keep to this promise.”

“i will i don’t think anyone would be able to handle me anyways.”

…

it’s been a month since and ellie visited your grave everyday. her and dina broke up but it was mutual and dina stayed by her side for everything. ellie just wasn’t okay to stay in a relationship. she never read your letter until tonight. she was in her bed watching some movie she wasn’t fully interested in. she looked at her bedside table at the letter you gave her and she decided to read it. she opened it and unfolded the paper slowly preparing herself for what’s to come.

ellie was sobbing by the end of the letter. she can’t stand to not be with you anymore. she didn’t want to listen to you in the letter but she knows you would hate her if she didn’t. ellie had so much love you for and it was too late. she hated herself for it. ellie was still madly in love with you and she didn’t do anything about it. she felt terrible and apologized to you a million times. she didn’t want to be here anymore. she wanted to be with you. so she did.

on that day at 8:46pm the world lost another beautiful soul, but she was finally with you again.

…

a/n: WOAH this took forever because of work and i apologize but i just kinda kept going with this and i actually really love the outcome of it- i won’t lie i cried while listening to the song and writing this so hope you guys enjoy-

[fae-scientist]

Something I've been thinking about for a while.

So I talk about being fae quite a bit (I mean it's in the name) but something I don't talk about quite as often is my archaic human identity. For the longest time, fae has been my primary species identity with Neanderthal* being in second place

*Just as a note, I may use the term Neanderthal for conveniences sake, but that doesn't mean it can't extend to other hominids as well

The reason this is the case is because it was difficult to determine exactly how to fit these two identities together. After all, they seem so different. What could fae and Neanderthals possibly have in common with each other?

Now this is going to get into noemata and personal belief territory, and there will be a lot of speculation from this point on.

I've been thinking a lot about the uncanny valley, the reason that humans are so unsettled by it, and also why we evolved to have it. Now to be clear, I'm not claiming there's one singular reason it became a thing. It's a complicated subject, and I feel it's more likely that multiple different factors came together to create the uncanny valley, but there's one theory in particular that really resonates with me.

It also led me to a question I hadn't considered: How far back do fae go?

Picture this:

You are an archaic human living with others of your kind, and the threat of danger is present at all times. You have to be prepared to take on anything that might harm you or the group, whether that be a predator, disease, etc.

But what you may not necessarily expect is that the monster you're afraid of is hidden in your very group, disguised as one of you. It may be someone you know. Maybe you even notice signs that they're a little off but can't place why. If they have malicious intentions, then that could spell danger for the whole group. The idea that the call is coming from inside the house is a frightening one.

It's my belief that this scenario did happen at points in prehistory (though I don't imagine it was necessarily common) even if I can't prove it, but I don't belive these nonhuman beings were all malevolent. I feel that some of them had to be benevolent and helpful.

Now here's the thing. I'm deeply terrified of the uncanny valley. But at the same time, I'm also fascinated and drawn to it. On the one hand, I feel the primal urge to be on edge just in case there's something lurking in the dark, and scenarios where creatures spawn into my house plague me often. But on the flip side, I am the creature who lurks in the dark. I do have the urge to be out in the forest at night.

It may be possible that in a past life, I was one of these benevolent beings who blended into a group of Neanderthals and helped them survive. I imagine that even if they knew there was something different about me, they still accepted me as their own. I was simultaneously one of them, yet not. Because having an ally like that in a world so dangerous can be very beneficial.

People tend to be wary of fae, and I understand why that is, but I think it's also important to acknowledge that humans and fae have had very positive relationships, including platonic, romantic, and sexual. It's not true that all fae seek to harm.

I consider myself human-aligned fae. There are plenty of stories of fairies who live among and/or help humans (changelings, brownies, etc.) It's one of the reasons I feel a bit disconnected from other fae, because I can't really divorce humanity from my fae identity. In fact, my human and fae species euphoria sometimes feeds into each other.

I feel like my fae instincts are pretty telling. A lot of people associate fae with tricksters who are only out to get humans, but my fae instincts actually include being nice to them. They also include politeness/manners and promoting fairness. These instincts can absolutely be experienced by humans, too, but they feel distinctly fae to me. And yes, tricking and playing jokes on humans is included in that, but nothing harmful (unless they're a politician I guess :/ I do have more "negative" fae urges, but those are for people who piss me off, not humans in general)

It's just difficult for me to believe that archaic humans had no interaction with nonhuman entities or that none ever tried blending in with them, when even today, we have plenty of nonhumans disguised as/living among humans, whether by choice or not (I mean, hello) and some of them are even human to varying degrees.

I imagine that once Neanderthals and other hominids all died out, I moved on to their closest living relatives who survived to the modern day, and thus, here I am. Playing Minecraft and typing out a Tumblr post or whatever (😐)

And that's where I'm at in piecing my identities together. Bonus noemata I have is that other hominids definitely did magic (though again, I can't prove it.) I also find it fascinating that part of the reason the uncanny valley developed may be due to existing near other hominid species. Literally people who are Like You But Not. (Also also day people/night owls exist because some hominids would watch for predators in shifts. I've always been a night owl and I'm literally night fae. I definitely would have worked the night shift)

[thedisablednaturalist]

Tw for weight loss mention

The whole exercise will cure your disability thing is a fucking joke. Yes exercise is beneficial for your health, but only if you aren't already on shaky foundations. You need to be on a treatment plan that WORKS before going into the maintenance phase. You wouldn't do regular maintenance on a broken item, you'd work on getting it up and running first. And maybe it would even need specialized maintenance afterwards if it's especially fragile.

I have fibromyalgia and acute degenerative disc disease. My immune system attacks my nerves and discs in my spine are slowly calcifying and causing the bones to constrict and damage my nerves (i think thats how it works). I have days where it feels like my body is on fire from nerve pain and days where it feels like my spine is about to rip from my back. And days where I have both (like today!). I get numbness in my hands and feet. I have horrible migraines. I can no longer walk unaided more than maybe 5 minutes without severe pain. I have something wrong with my knees and hips but the doctors don't know what yet.

You'd think I live an obviously seditary lifestyle correct?

Hell no.

I walk aided on average 6 miles a day over difficult terrain OUTSIDE of regular activity almost everyday. My legs are muscular and strong. I get my heart rate up and a good sweat, like all the gym rats swear on. I am often doing physical labor such as weeding, digging, sample collecting, pruning trees etc.

I'm not saying this to make other disabled people feel bad or prove that they can do anything if they just tried harder. This is an extremely painful lifestyle I've chosen that takes a lot of lifestyle management AND BOUNDARIES to keep up with the work. I also have an extremely forgiving boss who is also physically disabled and knows what I'm going through (deciding between your passion and your health and having to do so each and every day) No one should ever be expected to do what I do. I'm not even sure if I should be doing this myself.

This is to prove that exercise? Has not cured me. My muscles are strong but still hurt as if they're broken and I have to take more breaks than my coworker. I am constantly getting out of breath and I flare up regularly if I'm not careful. I am in excellent physical condition outside of my disabilities. I go to different doctors several times a month to get checked out.

I previously went through a diet program and lost a lot of weight (basically starving myself and got off my depression meds which cause weight gain but are also the only ones that work) and guess what? That didn't do shit either!!! I still felt horrible!!! I've since gained back the weight anyway after switching to focusing on adding more nutrient dense foods than taking stuff away from my diet (also muscle weighs more than fat, and fat helps cushion my aching joints and spine).

The muscle doesn't do shit for my disabilities outside of maybe some stability. Exercising everyday doesn't make the pain go away. Without my medications and aids and nutrition plans and steroid injections and spinal adjustments and physical therapy (that takes my fibro and spine into account) and alternative work methods I WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO WHAT I DO. Exercise alone is like trying to make a car run with no oil. Yes it'll go but it'll get more and more damaged till it can't and will need its entire engine replaced!

And yet I see new doctors and they look at me and the first thing out of their mouths is do I exercise? I should try doing a little every day :) and then i fucking blow their minds when I tell them about my job. No longer can they use that fucking cop out on me. I've been through this rodeo. Ive tried their suggestions. If you are in pain and nothing is helping? Exercise ain't going to do SHIT. You need to get to a point where you can move without severe pain first (if that's even possible). Then and only then should you consider implementing regular exercise if you can. Also weight loss talk is a red flag and a cop out. They made me lose 50+ lbs before they would look into the reasons behind my pain. Weight loss did nothing for me and exacerbated my pain.

I am living proof that all that shit is a lie and a cop out. That is the point of this post. I cannot believe people with serious medical conditions are being forced to put their bodies through extreme duress just to be believed. You are not disabled because of laziness or because you sit a lot. Plenty of people live seditary lifestyles and do not live in constant excruciating pain (they may develop disabilities later in life due to this however, and should be doing preventative exercises to maintain their health)

Please, share my story with doctors. Use me as an example. I am proof that "exercise first treat later" does not work. I should not have had to wait years to have my pain validated. I'd rather hundreds of fakers get (what? A blood test? An MRI?) than one chronically ill person get told to try yoga and go away by a doctor.

[yuri-is-online]

This is probably going to be my last big ask for a while, so let’s make it count. What I really wanted to talk about is Yuu and disease. It’s probably just me, but while the cute caretaker sick fics are nice and all, I just sit there worrying about Yuu’s heath.

As a completely different world, realistically Twisted Wonderland would not have the same diseases as Earth. Poor Yuu must have gone down like a sack of bricks the first time they got sick, at the very least. I’m not exactly knowledgeable about the medical field or anything, but even babies have some kind of an immune system thanks to receiving temporary antibodies from their mothers that hold them over until they can receive vaccines. Yuu doesn’t have that.

To make this worse, Ramshackle is well… ramshackle. Before it got rebuilt I guarantee that building was having untold issues even after being cleaned up. I mean, I highly doubt Ramshackle is temperature regulated via magic like the rest of the school due to it being abandoned. Yuu spent all of fall and part of winter in a run-down dorm. And ‘part of winter’ thing is me being generous given the iffy timeline of the game’s story.

I know it’s a running joke to dunk on Crowley for being an irresponsible guardian, but this is a terrifying level of oversight if none of the adults considered this about Yuu’s medical vulnerability. Another strike in favor of Yuu just running away.

- 🦐

I am so sorry I took forever to get around to this my dear Shrimp, I'm also not a medical expert so I had to really think about this. Disease in worlds with magic tends to be an underdeveloped part of most settings world building.

... also if you saw me post this before I was done cooking no you didn't ￢o(￣-￣ﾒ)

I want to start off by saying that I disagree about Ramshackle not being temperature regulated... sort of. Ramshackle is more or less a Victorian era mansion, so if we assume that it has the same general architecture then while it does lack a central heating system, it is more or less capable of maintaining heat in individual rooms. If you look at the in game artwork for the dorm, there are visible fireplaces in both of the main rooms where we spend time, the Lounge:

And our room:

As long as that fire is kept going, those individual rooms will have heat, and while that falls under the purview of the fire faeries that work for the school I can see Yuu being able to take care of themselves enough to keep their dorm warm. There is even a stack of wood next to the lounge fireplace, so we can assume they can get a fire going to heat the place. The real issues (from Grim's complaints) seems to be a lack of hot water and holes in the roof, both of which they would have had to live through most of winter with that could have caused things like a bad cold or pneumonia before we even get to potential magical diseases.

When it comes to magical diseases and vaccines... my understanding of disease is that a lot of them start in animal populations before they make their way into humans. So while Twisted Wonderland is a different world, the animals are more or less the same so I can see them having the same general diseases as our world... but as people use magic to treat the disease that introduces the potential exists for diseases to evolve to combat the magic treatments. I think it's those treatments Yuu would be more vulnerable to than the twst variants of the diseases they have back home; there's a whole host of new potential allergens in the potential cures they haven't been tested for and there is no guarantee using magic on Yuu won't hurt them.

If there are magic based diseases that come from the monster population, then Yuu would absolutely need vaccines for those but I could also see things like that as not being thought of as illnesses but rather a form of a curse, and therefore something that requires a different type of treatment. And I agree this does seem like a terrible level of negligence and oversight from the adults at NRC... but I can also see why it happens. Yuu shows no outward sign of being anything other than a normal, magicless human so I can see them sort of just assuming Yuu would function the same as anyone else and then go from there.

What really got me thinking in this ask was the potential for Yuu to need something like an inhaler, or an ssri, or hell even my iron supplements and how that would get handled. Especially ssris, I have a bit of experience with getting medicated and it can take forever to get on a combo that gives you your life back as opposed to fucking things up further. Getting snapped into another world without those meds and having to go through the process again in a world with a different concept of chemistry would suck so much. Poor neurodivergent Yuu's, as if life didn't suck enough already.