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dixons-sunshine · 8 months ago

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Pregnant Pause | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Summary: Your life was the epitome of a mess. You had just witnessed two of your friends get brutally murdered, your community was forced to serve an antagonistic group called the Saviours and your partner was taken by the same group, undoubtedly being tortured to try and force him into submission. It wasn't the best moment of your life, and it definitely wasn't the best time to start suspecting that you were pregnant.

Genre: Angst to a little bit of fluff.

Era: Alexandria, Saviour arc.

Warnings: Swearing, blood, mentions of death, typical TWD warnings

Word count: 6.9k

A/n: I had so much fun writing this! To the person who requested this (they asked to remain anonymous), thank you so much. I really hope you like this and I really enjoyed swapping ideas with you for this fic.

As always, my requests are open for any TWD requests, as well as Scud Frohmeyer requests.

—

Tears were streaming down your face with no sign of stopping anytime in the near future. In front of you, you could see the disfigured bodies of two members of your group, two of your friends. Glenn Rhee and Abraham Ford, brutally beat to death with a wired baseball bat. It was a fate that nobody deserved, especially not somebody as kind and pure as Glenn, or somebody as caring and courageous as Abraham. But they were gone, and with them, the remaining group's goodwill and hope.

Their deaths weren't the only things that weighed on your shoulders. Negan, the leader of the so-called 'Saviours', had taken Daryl, your partner and love of your life, hostage. You had pleaded to them to let him go, but your pleas had fallen on deaf ears, and with one last tearful look at your archer, the doors to the truck had closed and taken off, taking a huge chunk of your heart with the retreating vehicle.

You could vaguely hear the sound of voices conversing and the shuffle of footsteps around you, but your attention remained fixated on the dirt beneath you. Your mind was racing at the speed of light at that moment, and yet simultaneously, you struggled to think of anything at all. It seemed that with your partner's involuntary departure, your ability to function evaporated into thin air. You had no idea what to do.

You barely registered when Rick shook your shoulder, desperately trying to snap you out of your daze. “Y/N, look at me.”

You hesitantly looked up to meet the striking blue eyes of Rick Grimes, his eyes bloodshot from the tears he had shed earlier. He was tired, that much you could tell, and he seemed to be consumed by grief, the prior events to that moment taking an obvious toll on everyone, including your fearless leader.

“We have to go. It's not safe here,” he whispered, gently urging you to stand. He was patient and caring, knowing full well that the events that had just transpired bore down into your soul. This would traumatize each and every one of the people present, of that much he was sure.

You remained silent, refusing to say anything until you'd had time to fully process everything. The remaining people in your group wordlessly split, Maggie and Sasha heading to the Hilltop and the rest of you heading towards the Alexandria safe zone. Aaron dutifully walked beside you, glancing over at you in concern every few seconds. He opened his mouth to say something, but you cut him off before he could utter anything.

“Please, don't,” you whispered weakly, furiously wiping at the tears in your eyes.

Aaron frowned. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly, careful not to alert the others who were walking in front of you.

You shook your head and let out a bitter laugh. “No,” you admitted, pursing your lips. “I'm pretty sure none of us are.”

Aaron's frown deepened, but he ultimately left it at that. The rest of the trek back to Alexandria was spent in a deathly silence, the only audible sounds being footsteps and animals scurrying around in the forest. When you all finally reached the safe zone, dread filled in your heart, because with the Saviours now fit to come knocking at the gates whenever they pleased, the safe zone would never truly be safe ever again.

—

Four days had passed. Four days since Glenn and Abraham had been brutally murdered in front of you. Four days since your partner had been taken hostage by the hostile group who claimed to be saviours. Four days since your world turned upside down.

The fellow survivors in the community had not taken well to the news of the Saviours' deal with Alexandria, but you had expected that much. They weren't there, they didn't know what could happen if you rubbed the Saviours the wrong way, but you did, and they would figure it out soon enough.

You sighed as you layed on the bed in the basement you shared with Daryl, staring up at the ceiling with a frown on your features. For four days you had tried to think of a solution to the problem at hand, but you had shot point-blank each time. And anytime you had even attempted to talk to Rick about retaliating, about fighting back, he had shut you down in an instant. You couldn't blame him, however. You had witnessed the brutality that Negan possessed and didn't wish to anger him again. You just wanted to find a way to get Daryl out of his clutches and back home, safe. You needed him there with you, especially if your suspicions about something proved to be correct.

For the last two weeks, you'd been way more tired than usual. Your body had grown accustomed to short hours of sleep or no sleep at all, but now it seemed as if you couldn't function even if you'd slept ten hours. You'd been getting nauseous quite frequently and although you had no way of keeping track between your periods, you were pretty sure it was late.

You weren't stupid. You knew what those implications meant and what they were leaning towards, but the possibility of it being true scared you. You and Daryl were as careful as you could be, but there were times when you weren't careful, when you were reckless, so the possibility of motherhood could be an impending thing.

You and Daryl hadn't ever really discussed having kids before. The topic came up once or twice, but that was during the earlier stages of your relationship back at the prison when neither of you were ready for that kind of commitment just yet. And with the whirlwind of chaos that ensued, from the Governor's wrath in Woodbury, to the Governor's annihilation of the prison, to Terminus and then to the fall of Alexandria when the walkers infiltrated, the topic never got the chance to come up again.

And now the possibility of you being pregnant was high, and there was a chance that you'd have to raise the baby without its father.

You quickly shook your head to rid the thoughts from your mind. Groaning in frustration, you got up from the bed and headed up the stairs towards the kitchen. There you found Rosita who was seated at the dining table, her features contorted into a frown while she was fiddling with a gun in her lap. She glanced up at you when she heard your footsteps and offered a silent nod of acknowledgement.

You gave her a nod back and headed towards the kitchen. You retrieved a glass from one of the cabinets and headed over to the sink, filling the glass with water. You leaned back against the kitchen island and slowly sipped at the water, your eyes trailed on one of little Judith's drawings that were stuck to the fridge. It was a picture of stick figures meant to represent everyone in the group, and your heart sank when your eyes trailed over the figure meant to represent the archer.

“What're you looking at?” Rosita asked, grabbing your attention.

“Just this picture that Judith drew of all of us,” you responded, half-heartedly motioning at the drawing stuck to the fridge.

Rosita walked over to you and positioned herself on your right, leaning back against the kitchen island as well. She smiled weakly at the drawing.

“Back when we were happy.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, averting your eyes from the drawing to the woman next to you. “Now everything's just gone to shit.”

“All thanks to that Negan puto,” she spat, her tone holding resentment and anger. Her anger was justified—she had witnessed Abraham getting beaten to death, and afterwards Negan had taunted her about it. He found what he did justified. You knew that Rosita wanted him dead, and you did too.

“Yeah,” you replied with a heavy sigh, placing the empty glass down on the countertop. The two of you stood side by side in silence for a few moments, before Rosita broke the silence again.

“What's up? It seems like something has you down.”

“Yeah, Daryl is being held hostage only god knows where and we have three days to find shit for those assholes or one of us dies,” you stated matter-of-factly, crossing your arms over your chest.

Rosita sighed. “I know, but that wasn't what I meant. It's something else, I can tell.”

You fixated your gaze on the ground, suddenly finding the tiles more interesting than anything else. “No, I mean... I don't know. It might be nothing, but...” You trailed off awkwardly.

Sensing your awkwardness, Rosita quickly tried to reassure you. "It's okay, you don't have to talk about it."

You shot her a grateful look and she gave you a small smile. You brought your hand up and lightly patted her on her shoulder before pushing away from the counter.

“Where are you going?” Rosita inquired, raising her eyebrows in question as she watched your retreating figure.

“I need some air.”

Without waiting for a reply from the woman, you closed the door behind you and leaned back against it momentarily, before pushing away and setting off towards the infirmary.

After a short walk, you arrived at the infirmary. After opening the door and seeing that nobody was inside, you breathed a sigh of relief. You wanted to get this done without anybody knowing. You didn't want people kicking up a fuss when there were bigger problems at hand.

Moving towards the cabinet you knew held the object you were looking for, you could feel your heart racing. When you retrieved the small box with the test that could literally change your life, you felt overwhelmed. You never thought that a small box would intimidate you, but that particular box did.

Wanting to be extra sure of the results, you grabbed another test from the cabinet. Slipping both tests out of the boxes and into your waistband and letting your shirt fall over them to cover them from prying eyes, you quietly slipped from the infirmary before anyone could notice that you were there. You walked with a haste in your step back towards the house, but the sight that awaited you at the gates quickly drew your attention. You quickly made your way over, where you saw none other than Negan beyond the gates, taking out an approaching walker.

You walked up next to Rosita, who looked over at you, anger dancing in her eyes. You were sure that your eyes mirrored the same emotion.

“Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy!” Negan laughed. His eyes strayed to his right, and you could see Rick following his gaze. From your point of view, you could see surprise spread across his face.

“Alright, everybody. Let's get started. Big day,” Negan started, talking to people who were out of your line of sight. “Hey, Rick. You see that? What I just did? That is some service! I mean, we almost get turned away at the gate. Who is that guy, anyway? Do I get mad? Do I throw a fit? Do I bash some ginger's dome in? Nope! I just take care of one of these dead pricks that could've killed one of y'all. Service.”

Your gaze strayed downwards when Negan locked eyes with you. He chuckled before walking through the gates, handing Rick his baseball bat. “Hold this.”

As Negan walked in, the rest of the people he brought with him followed after him. However, you looked up when Rosita let out an almost inaudible gasp. You followed her line of sight and locked eyes with Daryl, and your heart both soared with relief and filled with dread. You were relieved that Negan hadn't killed him, but you could see that he wasn't being treated fairly, either. He was dirty and his face was cut and bruised, and he wasn't wearing any shoes with his "uniform".

You frowned, your eyes not straying from Daryl. Your partner kept his eyes locked on you until Negan spoke up again.

“Hot digidy dog!” Negan exclaimed, his eyes sweeping over the community. “This place is magnificent. An embarrassment of riches, as they say. Yes, sir, I do believe you are gonna have plenty to offer up.”

You looked away from Negan and took a step towards Daryl, hoping to give him a short hug. “Daryl—”

“No. Nope. He's the help. You don't look at him, you don't talk to him, and I don't make Rick chop anything off of him,” Negan cut you off, his eyes shifting to Rick.

When Rick averted his gaze, Negan turned to you, his eyes holding a certain malevolence as he gazed down at you. “Do I make myself clear, darling?”

“Yeah, you've made yourself transparent. I can see right through you,” you spat bitterly, refusing to meet his mocking gaze.

Negan chuckled wickedly. “Careful. We don't want anything to happen to your little lover over there.”

You slowly looked up at the man, your jaw clenched as you glared at him. A few beats of silence passed until you broke the stare first, angrily walking away from him, back towards the house. Tears of frustration welled up in your eyes, but you willed them away, refusing to let them fall. You wouldn't give him the satisfaction of your tears, no matter if he saw it or not.

When you reached the house, you practically flung the door open, storming into the house. Carl, who had been sitting at the dining room table, looked up at your sudden appearance and gave you a concerned look.

You mustered up what you hoped was a reassuring smile and sat down on the chair opposite him. He gave you a questioning look, silently asking what was wrong.

“Negan's here,” you plainly stated, not missing the clenching of his jaw in anger.

“He said a week. He's early,” Carl stated angrily, curling his hands into fists.

“Yeah, but he's here anyway. And he brought Daryl.”

Carl perked up at the mention of the archer's name. “He's here?” When you nodded, he continued. “Is he gonna stay?”

“I doubt it. Negan said that Daryl's here as the help, so I'm pretty sure that Negan's taking him back as soon as he's done here.”

Carl's mood visibly deflated. He sighed and shook his head. “We can't live like this. We should just kill Negan.”

You shook your head. “Believe me, I want Negan dead, too, but even if we kill him, one of his other goons will step up and take his place. We have to kill all of them, not just Negan.”

“How? There's too many of them.”

“I don't know.”

Carl shook his head before standing up, pushing the chair back. “I'm gonna go check on Judith, make sure she's alright.”

At the mention of the small child's name, you suddenly remembered about the two tests that were stuck in your waistband. You got up, too, and nodded at the teenager. “Okay. I have to take care of something real quick.”

With a parting nod, you headed up the stairs and into the bathroom. Quietly locking the door behind you, you inhaled deeply, trying to ease the anxiety that had started to build. You took the two tests from your waistband and held it in front of you, knowing that the results that would show in a few minutes were going to change your life.

Shaking your head and inhaling deeply, you went over to the toilet, two tests in hand. You quickly did your business and placed the two tests on the countertop. You paced around in the bathroom, trying to work up the nerve to see what results awaited you. However, just as you were about to look at the results, a loud banging on the door startled you.

“Hey, hurry up in there! We don't have all day to wait on you!” A voice you didn't recognise bellowed from beyond the door, and you could only assume that it was one of Negan's men. Sighing, you grabbed the tests without so much as peeking at them and slipped them back into the waistband of your jeans. You walked over to the door and opened it, coming face to face with a Saviour.

“What were you doing in there that took you so long, huh, pretty lady?” The man asked, eyeing you up and down with a primal intrigue. You shivered in disgust, shooting him a glare.

Without a word at the man, you walked off, needing to clear your head. The pregnancy tests in your waistband pressed against your skin and reminded you that you had to look at them, but you decided that would have to wait. You weren't about to look at them around prying eyes.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang through the house. Startled, you sprinted towards where you heard the sound and saw Carl holding two Saviours at gunpoint, the Saviours in question holding crates with all of your medication.

“Put some back,” Carl started, pointing the gun at one of the men. “Or the next one goes in you.”

“Carl, what's going on?” You questioned, moving to stand next to the teenager.

“They said that they were only taking half, but now they're taking everything,” Carl explained, keeping his gun trained on the man in front of him.

The man simply laughed, wickedly smiling at the boy. “Kid, what do you think happens next?”

“You die,” Carl stated plainly, glaring at the man.

You looked over at the sound of approaching footsteps and saw Rick, his eyes meeting yours questioningly. You simply shrugged nonchalantly and put a gentle hand on Carl's shoulder. He looked over at you and you gave him a small, tight-lipped smile.

“Don't do anything stupid,” you advised, before leaving Rick to calm his son down. You passed by Negan, who shot you a teasing smile, but you ignored him, moving out onto the porch.

You leaned over the railing, observing the people quietly. You could vaguely hear the voices from inside, but you paid it no mind. After a couple of minutes of just standing there, you saw Aaron walking alone, a frown on his face. You walked down the porch stairs and hurried to catch up to him.

“Aaron, hey!” you called, stopping the man in his tracks. He turned around and saw you approaching, and he offered you a weak smile.

“Hey.”

“Let me guess, the Saviours are ransacking your house right now,” you stated matter-of-factly.

“They took our mattresses. Why the hell would they need that? And our coffee tables? What could they possibly need those for?” Aaron asked, exasperated. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration, his form slumped.

“I think they're just taking them because they can,” you started. “They're trying to prove that what they say is law. They're trying to prove that we have no say, that they can take whatever they want simply because.”

Aaron sighed deeply, his shoulders slumping. “I hate this.”

“Me too,” you agreed, nodding sagely. “But what can we possibly do about it now? We're outnumbered and outgunned. We can't take them on even if we wanted to.”

Aaron shook his head. Silently motioning for you to walk with him, the two of you set off, walking to nowhere in particular. “I'm glad to see that Daryl's okay.”

You slightly flinched at the mention of the archer's name and visions of his current state flooded your mind. He looked awful, not just from the filth on him but from the bruises as well. He was being tortured and you wanted to do nothing more than to kill Negan for making him suffer.

“Define "okay",” you sighed, walking up to Aaron's house with him.

“Alive,” he stated simply. The two of you sat down on the porch steps, keeping your gazes ahead on the Saviours who bustled around the community, taking whatever they pleased.

“Yeah, well, let's hope it stays that way,” you whispered, feeling tears well up in your eyes. You wiped them away in frustration.

Aaron placed a gentle hand on your shoulder, giving you a small smile. The two of you quietly sat side by side for a while, simply looking at the chaos of the afternoon. You'd catch glimpses of Daryl from time to time, and he'd shoot you nervous glances before returning to whatever task he was meant to do. Your heart shattered at the thought of what Negan was doing to the love of your life. You silently vowed to yourself that you would find a way to get Daryl away from them, one way or another.

“Aaron, Y/N, meeting in Gabriel's church in five,” Rick's voice called, snapping you from your thoughts. He appeared at the bottom of the steps, his tone holding a frantic urgency.

“Rick? What's wrong?” You asked, getting up from the steps, Aaron following your lead.

“The Saviours, they're taking all of our guns, but we're two handguns short. They're threatening to kill Olivia if we don't find them.”

“Who would have them?” Aaron asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

“I don't know. That's what we're trying to figure out. Like I said, meeting in the church.”

“Nuh uh. Not so fast.”

You clenched your jaw at the voice that resounded behind you. Turning around, you came face to face with Dwight, his mouth upturned in a mocking grin. He was nonchalantly leaning against the wall of the house.

“The missus over here is gonna take me back to whatever hole she and Daryl calls home and give me his shit,” he stated, pushing away from the wall and walking over to you.

You stepped back, glaring angrily at the man. “You already have his crossbow and his vest. What else could you possibly want?”

“His bike, but Rosita's already taking care of that,” Dwight said, crossing his arms over his chest. He turned back towards Rick and waved him off. “Go on, go find out where those guns are.”

Dwight moved forward and gripped your wrist tightly, wordlessly tugging you behind him. You exchanged a nervous glance with Aaron before turning your attention back to Dwight. You ripped your wrist from his grip and glared at him.

“Touch me again and I'll fucking chop your fingers off one by one.”

Dwight chuckled and walked ahead, expecting you to follow him. When he realised that you remained still, he turned to you with a warning glare. “Just so you know, I'm basically Daryl's primary caretaker at the moment. So your behaviour today can either persuade me to make his stay with us better or so much worse. Your choice.”

You hesitated for a moment, before sighing and walking ahead. Dwight's footsteps could be heard from behind you as you silently lead him back to the house, your jaw clenched in anger as you stared ahead.

After a short walk, you lead Dwight up the porch stairs and into the house. You opened the door and stepped inside, the man following closely behind you.

“This is your home?” Dwight questioned, slowly closing the door behind him as he looked about the house in slight awe.

“Mine, Daryl's, Rick's, Michonne's. We all live here,” you stated in a bored tone, walking forward until you reached the door that lead down to the basement. “Our room's down there.”

“You live in the basement?” Dwight asked dubiously, staring down the stairs in question.

“Daryl and I do. We wanted our own space away from everyone where we wouldn't be bothered, hence why we chose the basement.

“Well, then,” Dwight started, lowering his upper body down in a mocking bow. “Lead the way, m'lady.”

You rolled your eyes at him and descended down the stairs. You opened the second door at the bottom of the stairs and pushed inside, the warm air of your shared space with the archer suddenly feeling overwhelming. You disregarded the feeling, focusing instead on the man that followed you down.

You motioned over to the dresser that held most of Daryl's things. “There. You'll find it all there.”

Dwight raised his eyebrows. “All of it? In that one measly dresser?” When you nodded, he continued. “That can't possibly be it.”

“Daryl doesn't own a lot of things that hold sentimental value to him,” you shrugged, sitting down on the bed as you watched the Saviour rummage through the dresser, carelessly tossing pieces of clothing over his shoulder. “Jesus, can you stop? He doesn't have anything else you could want.”

Huffing in frustration, Dwight turned around to face you. However, just as he was about to let out a string of crude remarks, he stopped, spotting something poke out of your waistband. “Stand up.”

“What?”

“Stand up, before I make you,” he threatened.

You hesitantly stood up. However, you nearly stumbled back when he lunged at you. “What the hell are you doing?!” you exclaimed, trying to push him away.

Dwight ignored you. Before you could stop him, he pulled the two pregnancy tests from your waistband, taking a few steps away from you. He eyed the tests, and a look of surprise spread over his face.

“You're pregnant?”

Time stopped. Your heart started pounding against your ribcage, and your eyes widened. You were pregnant. Both tests came back positive. Words eluded you as you simply stared at Dwight.

Dwight shook his head and threw one of the pregnancy tests back in your direction, and you hastily caught it. He pocketed the other one. “Congratulations. I'll be sure to tell Daryl the good news.”

Before you could deny or force him to hand it over, Dwight hurriedly left the room. You sank to your knees on the ground, tears starting to well up in your eyes. You felt helpless, completely and utterly helpless. Sobs wracked through your body as you clutched the pregnancy test in your hand, wishing more than ever that Daryl was there to comfort you, to reassure you that everything would be okay.

But with him being in Negan's clutches, that wouldn't be a reality.

—

“Hell of a place you got here, Rick,” Negan told Rick, turning around to face him as you all walked towards the gates.

Roughly two hours later, the Saviours were done ransacking your homes and taking whatever they pleased. You had gotten your feelings under control and walked with your leader towards the gates, hoping above all else that you could persuade Negan into letting you at least give the archer a hug.

“Give me a second,” Rick replied, his eyes shifting between the hostile leader of the Saviours and the building beyond the gates.

Negan followed his gaze, before turning back to him. “No.”

“Please, can you just... Give me a second,” Rick pleaded, looking up at Negan.

Negan finally agreed, giving him a nod, a malicious smirk on his face. When Rick jogged over to the building, that left you in Negan's sights, and the man let out a chuckle.

“Well, darling. I see you've actually listened to me. No interactions with your loverboy whatsoever. I'm impressed,” he began, taking a step towards you.

Standing your ground, you simply glared up at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a sarcastic retort. That simply elicited another chuckle from the man.

“You know, there is a way the two of you could be together again. You could always come work for me. Be one of my soldiers, so to speak,” he began, eyeing you up and down. “Usually I wouldn't offer that straight away, but for a looker like yourself, I'd make an exception. Or you could make Daryl's life a whole lot easier if you want. You could become one of my wives.”

Unable to resist the urge, you drew your hand back and slapped Negan across his face. Taken aback, he stumbled, but that grin of his soon returned. His eyes raked over your form hungrily. “Just so you know, I'm so much more attracted to you now.”

You could hear a scuffle behind you. Glancing over your shoulder, you spotted an angry looking Daryl being held in place by Dwight. The archer glared daggers in Negan's direction, the urge to hit him evident on his face.

However, before anything could happen, Michonne came marching through the gates with a small deer over her shoulders, Rick hot on her tail. She wore a blank expression, refusing to meet Negan's stare.

“Look at this!” Negan exclaimed, eyeing the deer on her shoulders.

“I thought she was scavenging. She was hunting,” Rick explained to Negan, handing him a gun. “This one never came inside.”

Negan took the gun and smirked. “Look at this. This is something to build a relationship on. Good for you, Rick. This is reading the room and getting the message. I said it before, Imma say it again. You, sir, are special.”

Rick looked at you, sympathy clear in his eyes. “Now that you know we can follow your rules...”

“Yes?” Negan drawled.

“I'd like to ask you if Daryl could stay.”

“Not happening,” Negan refused. He turned around to look at you, a smirk on his face. “You know what, just to make the missus happy, maybe he can stay. Maybe Daryl can plead his case. Maybe Daryl can sway me.”

Negan turned to Daryl. The archer remained quiet, his eyes shifting between you and Negan. It was evident that he wouldn't beg to stay; Daryl's pride would never allow him to do that. Although a part of you wanted Daryl to just drop his pride this once, you were proud of him. Despite what he was going through, he remained steadfast in his beliefs. He would never bow to the likes of Negan, no matter what pain it could inflict on him.

“Daryl?” Negan pressed, amused by the archer's silence. When Daryl remained silent, Negan turned back to you. “Well, Rick tried. Sorry, darling.”

You looked down, missing the apologetic look Daryl sent your way. Unbeknownst to you, Daryl had wanted to do nothing more than beg Negan to leave him here with you, but he couldn't. Not when Negan had threatened to hurt you if he tried to return to Alexandria. Not when his hostage situation could ensure your safety.

“Now what you gotta do, is get over that tall wall of yours and try harder out there,” Negan began, looking at Rick. “Earn for me, because we're coming back soon. And when we do, you better have something interesting for us, or Lucille? She's gonna have her way. I want you to hear that again. If you don't have something interesting for us, somebody's gonna die. And no more magic guns. Arat, grab that deer. It's getting late. Let's go home.”

Michonne angrily dropped the deer and turned around. You shot one final lingering glance at the archer, your partner and love of your life, before following suite. Michonne put her arm around your shoulder and together the two of you walked back to your shared home, ignoring Negan's mocking laughter.

“Something's wrong, I can tell,” she whispered quietly.

You shook your head. “I wouldn't necessarily say something is wrong,” you denied. “I just really need Daryl more than ever right now.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“Yeah,” you confirmed. “But not without Rick. I need his opinion too.”

—

“You're pregnant?”

You physically winced at the incredulous sound of your leader's voice. For the second time that day, someone had asked you that pivotal question, but this one finally made it register in your mind. You were pregnant. And Daryl wasn't there to help you through it.

Michonne wrapped an arm around you, allowing you to lean into her side for support. She rubbed your arm, hoping to bring you some form of comfort under Rick's disbelieving stare.

“Rick,” she scolded, sending her partner a pointed look, as if telling him to read the room.

“Sorry,” he apologized, shifting his attention back to you. “When did you find out?”

“Today,” you whispered, your voice hoarse all of a sudden. “Right after Dwight took me down to the basement to rummage through Daryl's things. He saw the tests and took one. I think he's gonna use it to torture Daryl mentally. How could I let that happen?”

Michonne pulled you tighter against her side, allowing you to cry into her shoulder as she whispered reassuring words into your ear. “It's not your fault. Hey, it's okay. We'll figure it out, I promise.”

You hesitantly nodded against her shoulder, withdrawing from her hold and standing up. You began to pace the room, anxiously fiddling with your fingers.

“What should I do?”

“Go to the Hilltop,” Rick advised, effectively stopping your pacing. “They have a doctor there who can ensure that you and the baby are okay. And you'll have Maggie and Sasha by your side. It'll be safer for you there.”

“I can't just leave,” you shut him down, shaking your head. “Negan is fit to come knocking at the gates whenever he pleases. We need more supplies, and soon. We need more people going out there.”

“Like hell I'm letting you out there,” Rick argued. “Daryl would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you or the baby, whether he knows about it now or not. The best thing you can do now for yourself and your baby is to go to the Hilltop. It's safer and it's out of harm's way. Please, if not for yourself, for Daryl. For your baby.”

Sensing your hesitation, Michonne stood up, facing you head-on. “Rick's right,” she began, capturing your undivided attention. “Go. We'll be okay here. Your primary focus should be your wellbeing right now. Once things cool down around here, I'll come get you myself. I promise.”

You remained quiet for a few moments, pondering over their words before nodding. “Okay,” you whispered. “I'll go.”

“We'll have a car ready for you in the morning,” Rick responded, placing a comforting hand on your shoulder. “You're doing the right thing. Daryl would've wanted this.”

“I know,” you sighed. “It doesn't make it any easier, though.”

The next morning came way too soon for your liking. Packed up and ready to go, you exchanged goodbyes with everyone. You were busy hugging Carl, the teenager clutching to your shirt tightly.

“Don't die,” he told you when he pulled back from the hug.

“Don't do anything stupid,” you retorted, playfully pushing his hat down over his face, successfully coaxing a laugh from him.

After a few more exchanges, and another hug from Carl, you got into the car and drove off, heading towards the Hilltop Colony. The drive was spent in an anxious silence. You were wondering if you'd made the right choice, if leaving Alexandria for a while was really the best decision, but as your hand drifted to your flat abdomen that would soon grow, to the life that fluttered there, you knew that Rick and Michonne were right. Your primary focus should be your baby right now, and you'd be damned if you let anything happen to them.

After a while, the gates to the Hilltop came into view. You got out of the car as the gates opened, soon being engulfed in hugs by Sasha and Maggie. Jesus stood off to the side with a smile on his face.

“What are you doing here?” Maggie asked, pulling back from the hug.

“It's a lot to explain,” you said, giving her a tight-lipped smile.

“Come inside. We'll get you something to eat,” Jesus offered.

You smiled at him and nodded. “Sure. That sounds great.”

—

“That Gregory guy is such an asshole,” you spat angrily, sitting on the bench outside of Jesus' trailer.

Sasha rolled her eyes. “Welcome to my world. We've been dealing with this prick for two weeks now and he still hasn't gotten better.”

You shook your head, your hand absentmindedly rubbing over your stomach. One week with the Hilltop's leader breathing down your neck and you were just about ready to shoot him. He kept on sending crude remarks in your direction, voicing his obvious disdain that he had yet another Alexandrian he had to keep hidden from the Saviours. Thankfully Jesus was there to put him in his place whenever you were the object of his distasteful glares, and since the day before, Enid as well.

Suddenly, shouts could be heard from the gates, before they were opened. You perked up at the rumble of a motorcycle, standing up to move closer and get a better view, instantly spotting the familiar glint of a familiar motorcycle coming to a halt, and an even more familiar man getting off of it. Your heart started pounding against your ribcage, and before anyone could stop you, you started running.

“Daryl!” you called, running as fast as your legs could carry you.

Daryl turned around at the sound of your voice. As soon as he saw you, he started running as well, meeting you halfway. You practically flung yourself into Daryl's arms, and he instantly reciprocated the hug, burying his face into your shoulder. You hugged him to you tightly, holding the back of his head as you tried to withhold the tears flooding in your eyes.

“C'mon,” Jesus urged gently, prompting you and Daryl to pull apart. “There's a room in the Barrington house. You can use it to get cleaned up and changed into something else.”

Daryl hesitated, but you nodded. “It's okay. I'll be there with you.”

You took Daryl's hand in your own and followed behind Jesus. The two of you were soon in the aforementioned room, Daryl sitting down on the bed while you cleaned up one of the cuts on his face. He remained silent, his eyes locked on your face. He lifted his hand and cupped your cheek, halting your movements.

“What's wrong?” you asked, placing a hand over his one that rested on your cheek.

“M'jus' remindin' myself tha' this is real. Tha' this ain't some trick my mind is playin' on me. Tha' this ain't another dream.”

You gently took his hand and lead it to your heart, placing his hand over it to feel the steady beating of it. “I'm here,” you whispered. “You're here. This isn't a dream. It's real.”

Daryl swallowed and nodded, before letting his hand trail down to your stomach. “Is... Is this real? Are ya pregnant?”

Your heart dropped. The only way he could know was if Dwight did what you suspected—he mentally tortured the love of your life with the knowledge that you could've been pregnant.

Your silence confirmed it for the archer. He sighed and swallowed heavily. “Ya are. Yer pregnant.”

You nodded slowly, guilt creeping up in you. “I am. Did Dwight tell you?”

“He showed me the test. Said it was yers, tha' he found it with ya tha' day we were at Alexandria. I didn't wanna believe him at first, but the more I thought 'bout it, the more I started believin' him,” Daryl replied. “When did ya find out?”

“The first time Negan showed up with all of you,” you admitted. “Dwight took one of the tests from me before I could stop him. I'm sorry, I should've tried harder. You were already going through so much shit with the Saviours, and then he had to go put more shit on you because of me.”

Daryl pulled you into his arms, hugging you tightly. “Dun' blame yerself. Wha' do ya have to be sorry fer? Findin' out yer pregnant?”

“For allowing him to take the test and use it against you.”

“Dun' be sorry. S'okay,” he whispered into your hair, stroking your back softly. Once you had calmed down, Daryl allowed one of his hands to travel back down to your stomach.

“Yer really pregnant?” he asked with a slight laugh, rubbing your stomach affectionately.

You laughed in wonder and nodded. “Yeah. There's a tiny you in there.”

“Nah, they're gon' be a tiny ya. Sweet, kind and a badass, jus' like their mama,” Daryl countered, placing a kiss against your forehead. “Our baby. Our lil' peanut.”

“You really wanna do this? Are you ready to start your own family?” you questioned, leaning your head against his shoulder.

“With ya?” Daryl began, pulling you closer to him. “M'ready fer anythin'.”

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annabelle--cane · 1 year ago

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we're now far enough past the major 2016-18 tumblr Discourse Era that I fairly often see people posting retrospectively about branches of it, both in a poking-fun way ("if you're seriously still mad about asexuals in queer spaces then I mean this deeply: get a life") and a more serious way ("the 'su critical' community was an astounding display of ridiculous double-standards for diverse media"), but I rarely see people step back and address what I think was the root of it: these harassment movements weren't just silly teen leftist infighting, for basically every big weird tumblr discourse back then that made you go "hang on this sounds like a basic conservative talking point with some vocab swapped out," you could almost always trace it back to a source from the 2014-16 online fascism boom. prominent transmed youtubers were consistently vocal republicans, "q slur" discourse came to us by way of terfs, the first crop of popular "su critical" videos were explicitly fascistic, etc., and all those discourse cycles can still be clearly felt in the today's topical tumblr tussles.

#marina marvels at life

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gladiatorcunt · 6 months ago

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pwetty please more dom art, switch patrick, sub reader. that blurb was so so good i think “Go ahead and make daddy cum while I give him kisses, ‘kay?” may be the hottest thing anyone has ever said ever actually

# 🫀HONEST HEARTS 🪤 !!

cw: WEIRD VIBES, dom art switch patrick sub reader coded, heavy on the art x patrick, breeding kink/pregnancy/ambiguous baby trapping (???), art’s lowkey mean, daddy kink (referring to patrick), patrick calls you a slut, oral (afab reader receiving), patrick’s sandwiched in between you & art, anal sex (m receiving), summer heat will have you displaying behaviors and acting in ways, ambiguous era, feminization (one use of “mama” not in a mommy kink way), stream of consciousness style writing, they’re gross but so are you, reader having a hamlet holding up the skull moment

Art fucks Patrick like a bat out of hell, you lie beneath them wet and wanting as you watch patrick’s sweaty body flail around like a ragdoll. Art squishes your bodies together, pressing his weight against Patrick's back. There’s so much pressure on your lungs, you’re scared you’ll pop. The humid July air is so thick around you that the plush bedding feels swathed in a soft old film yellow tint, you and Patrick swap glassy eyes when his tip finally sinks into your tight ass. No lube in sight, you want pain that only skinny dipping in a private river after dark will fix. Reminders of youth, the sting from the current as it travels through the indents of teeth.

You would think Art had become a ferocious shark, inky pupils dripping onto Patrick's shoulder blades and toothy grins, feral and lead only by his cock at the first scent of blood he could catch. yours, Patrick’s, his. Patrick fucks your ass to the point of no return, his pace never ceasing until all you is the word “Daddy” howled out over and over. Every thrust earns art deeper inside of him, Patrick greedily rolls his hips back. In appreciation Art leans down and watches his spit highlight how cock drunk the two of you are, a see through trail trickling down both of your faces onto the pillow.

It’s like Art doesn’t have any worth until he’s fucking you and Patrick out of your minds at the same time. He hooks his chin in Patrick’s shoulder, winking down at you as he ramps up the speed of his thrusts. Patrick’s eyes tighten in pleasure-pain but any sounds he has to offer are muffled in the seams of your slick lips, you open your mouth to catch them and hoard them all. Breathy pants and whines and growls becuase Patrick may be the one getting fucked the most, but you should never forget who’s next in line to benefit from this little symbiotic expression of your relationship. You’re the atlar, solid foundation and the center of life’s devotion. Art and Patrick are the attendants, bringing you animal sacrifices in the form of their flesh and soul and hearts. In their bones and in the nerves connecting to their brain, where you all exist in an undefiled state even as fluids are spilt in between the cracks in the marble. A poor man’s kintsugi.

Patrick begs Art to cum, but you defer to Patrick when it’s your time to be a babbling brook around his thick length. Art always says yes when the other man’s balls deep in you, plus he has dibs on your pussy this week. It’s in their nature, to desire each other carnally and still keep each other entangled in steep competition even when those desires are fulfilled in excess. Art really wants a baby, you’ve been too gung ho to bounce all over the world as if it were your very own tennis court. Explaining it by using their busy careers as an opportunity, you must not know that you’re best when you’re right where they can see you. Even if they’re not there, jerking each other off to grainy security cam footage is their own bonding time. Sometimes you put on shows for them, modeling expensive lingerie that you think is going to be a surprise for their welcome home. Art always has an eye and a hold on Patrick, they both want that with you too.

“Go on,” He whispers for only Patrick’s uniquely shaped ears to hear, sorry angel. “The sooner you give our baby that nice big tangy load I know you’ve got for us, the sooner I can get their tummy swollen.”

Daddy gets his favorite kind of kisses when he floods your ass with cum, and he licks the remaining drops off your stretched rim with Art’s hand heavy on his head. You get your kisses too, from each of them until you’re sinking so far into that dreamy kind of headspace that affection from you means you lazily smack your lips together and call it a job well done. Fuzzy voices coo at you that it was indeed a job well done, squelching noises accompany Patrick reluctantly pulling out. You both whine the exact same way, Art beams and shushes you, using Patrick’s bruised ass to get rock hard and wet again for your puffy pussy.

“Just like that, fuck! Should have taken a picture, don’t you think? Make it last longer, keep you useful.”

All talk, as long as he’s alive he’ll have use. Existence breeds obsession, split three ways, the way some god intended. Like calls to like, moths to flame, water to silent desert rock, bleeding knuckles to piping hot iron, copper to silver, bones to soil, ball to grass-clay-concrete court.

Patrick hates it when you and art fight, turning him into a scared puppy. He doesn’t say to your face that he agrees with Art, that you shouldn’t leave the house amidst all the stress that a possible pregnancy can bring. Stress that’s easily worked off under their touch, stuffed full of so much cum that it might as well replace your gray matter. You can’t run laps around the house despite it being what your anxiety is telling you to do. You have to wait there on the toilet, holding each of their hands as you wait for the test results. Once the necessary time has passed, you can’t overcome your nervousness and instead wait for Art to look at one of the sticks.

You barely catch a glimpse of the test result when you’re tackled. Patrick’s on you first, sucking your tongue into his mouth while cradling your head in his hands so you don’t feel it when you bump into the wall. Art chastises him of course, pulling him back by his ear to give you some space. They’re both smiling, wide and blinding white grins so dazzling that you’re worried you’ll go blind. Their reactions alone tell you more than you could ever need to know, the monarch butterflies scurry from stomach to stomach. Those teeming with life and those forever starving. Art gives you a slow kiss and hums into you, the vibrations travel down to your flexing toes. Bubbly laughter drowns out the cracks of lightning outside, baby blanket blue on fire white.

You want to be loved in a way that’s wrong and out of sorts, your arousal is heightened by what your paranoia tells you will be someone’s undoing. Yours or theirs. Both. No one really needs pure intentions to love or be loved at the end of the day, and maybe that’s something to be grateful for. There are people who can love the sin as well as the sinner. Your hormones are doing a number on you, that much is clear, if you’re philosophizing about the morals of being in love when there more than likely are none. There’s just that so much time to think, that initial fear of being left when you yourself would be too overencumbered to. Art picks up on these kinds of thoughts more often than Patrick, who’s just happy to belong somewhere and to someone. The former busies himself with the heft of your tits. Sucks the life out of your hard nipples and then some, he adores when you come begging with a dripping cunt after a late afternoon nap because you had a very good dream.

“Lie back angel, working so hard right now… you need a break, mama.” Art giggles, engaging in a riveting one on one conversation with your throbbing clit, rapidly flicking it with his tongue as he locks clear eyes with your sleepy blinks. “Pussy’s gushing like a fountain now, ‘s so chubby too, I hope you never fucking work off the baby weight.”

Later they’ll wipe you down from the shower with their tongues, slurping up the water droplets like they’re bugs hovering around an in bloom blush pink flower because they’re freaks like that. Patrick’s out on the now usual run to the nearest convenience store for your latest cravings, he’ll try it with you too no matter what it is. Art does his best, but you’re too sensitive to others being nauseous to handle seeing his skin almost cartoonishly flood with a light mossy green undertone. Fall brings a whole new array of food combinations and flavors of snack cakes just waiting for you to inhale them worryingly quickly. Art brings your focus back to him with a teasing nip to your bud, closing his lips around it and giving it a firm suck as the front door unlatches. The crinkling of plastic grocery bags reach your ears before Patrick’s corny “Honey, I’m home!” does. More single minded than a dog with his bone, the bags clatter to the floor and his shoes pound the floor on the way to where you’re cumming on Art’s face in a flash of white.

Patrick frowns, “You know I don't like you being a slut when I'm not there, now you owe me two rounds.”

Art reminds the other man that you might not have the energy for the two rounds he’s imagining, full of slapping skin and ghoulish howls, Patrick simply says that you can drift off while he ruts away. Into you or on you, so long as his puffy tip is touching some sort of skin, makes him wish he could burrow and dig a tunnel inside you. Live in one of the chambers in your heart, Art in the other, your kids in the next, a no vacancy sign boarding the last of them shut. You tilt your head to the side so he runs his nose along the faint line of your pulse. He should record the echoing rhythmic thumps for when they’re traveling and can’t sleep without their missing piece. His chest burns when the words well up and won’t come out how he needs them too, how can you express that you need to live in someone’s very dna without letting your huge dick do the talking for you? He’ll quite possibly never know, maybe a rare showing of Art riding Patrick into the center of the earth as he gasps for life saving breath will be enough for you.

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gallifreyanhotfive · 7 months ago

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What Stories Are About the Academy Era? A Guide

@zombies-sold-cheap

Context:

Stories set in the Academy Era/Otherwise Early Days are sparse to say the least (even Divided Loyalties only shows you the Academy through a dream), but you can actually piece together a pretty decent chunk of the Doctor’s early life (while it still remaining very mysterious) using the Expanded Universe. I've done a lot of infodumping in my time, so I'll do my best here by typing up my personal reference guide to this era. Anyway:

Theta Sigma and his friends would attempt to climb Mount Cadon. At the peak, you could apparently see all of time, but they never got to the top because of hallucinogenic snow. While attempting such a climb, Vansell broke his leg, and Theta Sigma fixed it with a time bubble he made from a sonic wrench and some twine. (Audio: Devil in the Mist)

Theta Sigma and Koschei traveled into the past of Gallifrey in search of Valdemar. Theta was horrified by the power that Valdemar represented, but Koschei was intrigued. (Novel: Tomb of Valdemar)

Theta Sigma time-locked his dorm room so thoroughly that even centuries after he graduated they hadn't managed to undo it. (Audio: Time in Office)

Theta Sigma also once used the food machine to get mercury for his own science projects and in doing so almost caused his professor to regenerate. (Audio: Time in Office)

At some point, Theta Sigma and Koschei traveled to the planet Machasma and used sonic agitation to get them out of trouble. (Audio: Darkness and Light)

Theta Sigma, Koschei, and three others were part of a band called the Gallifrey Academy Hot Five (see: my username). Theta Sigma played the perigosto sticks, and Koschei played the drums. (Novel: Deadly Reunion)

Millennia came from a wealthy family and was gifted in temporal engineering. She and Rallon had a "thing" for each other (wink wink) (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

Theta Sigma once made High Tutor Albrecht regenerate in an incident involving a perigosto stick and a temporal feedback loop. He was reprimanded by Borusa for this. (Novel: The Time Lord Letters)

Koschei was obsessed with the Necronomicon. (Short story: The Nameless City)

Runcible was the hall monitor at the Academy and regularly got into conflicts with the Deca because it was his job to make sure students were in bed after dark. They have mutual hatred of each other. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

Indeed, the Master would one day stab him in the back and kill him. (Television: The Deadly Assassin)

Drax built a skimmer and would sometimes use it to take Jelpax home because they lived close to each other. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

Theta Sigma attended Ushas's 94th birthday party. (Novel: The Death of Art)

Theta Sigma engineered a dangerous bacteria that rendered all multicellular life that came in contact with it comatose. This was a huge scandal on Gallifrey, and the Academy thoroughly hushed it up and had all samples destroyed. However, Ushas kept a sample and would one day use it in a scheme as the Rani. (Audio: Planet of the Rani)

Koschei taught Theta Sigma hypnosis. He'd also hypnotize others a lot because he thought it was amusing. (Novel: The Dark Path)

Mortimus once asked Ushas out but was so thoroughly rejected that he thought she wasn't interested in dating at all. Unbeknownst to him, Ushas later had a relationship with Magnus. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

Theta Sigma and Koschei were bullied by Torvic. Theta was eventually forced to kill Torvic to save Koschei's life, but when Death came to offer Theta to be their disciple, he had Koschei take his place. He forgot about this deal and lived for centuries under the impression that their places had been swapped and that it had been Koschei to kill Torvic. (Audio: Master)

Despite this, he apparently drew pictures of Torvic in his diary. (Short story: The Three Paths)

Theta Sigma was also bullied by Anzor at the Academy. Anzor would use a galvanizer to make Theta do his navigational homework. He also turned another student named Cheevah into a crystal and threw him off a bell tower. (Audio/Novel: Mission to Magnus)

Koschei was in charge of organizing the end of term parties, but the Eighth Doctor recalled that they weren’t good. (Comic: The Glorious Dead)

Theta Sigma and Koschei would sneak out of the Capitol and go drinking with the Shobogans. (Novel: The Eight Doctors)

Theta Sigma was given an avatroid named Badger as a young child to act as his friend, protector, and tutor. He apparently gives bone crushing hugs. (Novel: Lungbarrow)

Theta Sigma did not have a good relationship with most of the House of Lungbarrow. Indeed, his first memory is of Satthralope smacking him so hard he could not walk afterwards. (Audio/Novel: Cold Fusion)

Satthralope would also let the drudges attack Theta if he refused to come to dinner. Drudges are basically servants of the Houses, about two and a half meters tall, and strong enough to hold a fully grown Time Lord in one arm. (Novel: Lungbarrow)

One time, those at the House of Lungbarrow wanted Theta Sigma to return home for Otherstide and even sent Badger to collect him. Theta refused, so they contacted his professor Delox, who proceeded to expel him from her classroom after chastising him on his family in front of the entire class. After this, Theta appeared to exhibit many of the signs I associate with a nervous breakdown. Distressed, Theta came up with an idea that would prove he wasn't what they all said he was - he would go after the Toymaker. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

Millennia and Rallon were the only two to join him on this trip, the rest of the Deca thinking them mad. They stole a Type 18 TARDIS, and after making it to the Toyroom, Rallon's body was basically immediately taken over by the Toymaker. The Toymaker had Theta play a game of Capture the Flag. He turned Millennia into one of his dolls, and Theta returned to Gallifrey, the only survivor. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

Because of these events, Theta was put on trial. The only two to attend this trial to support Theta were Jelpax and Magnus. Vansell showed up but only to reveal that he had been working with the CIA, having been tasked with watching Theta. Koschei and Ushas had been off working on a research project at the time. (Novel: Divided Loyalties)

While Theta, Rallon, and Millennia were gone, Mortimus ran away from Gallifrey, which made many think he had gone with them, and eventually also ended up in the Toyroom. (Novel: Divided Loyalties) Other accounts suggest Mortimus left Gallifrey later, so perhaps he returned after this trip.

Theta Sigma was on the same zero-grav hyperball team as Padrac, who he called "Paddy." (Audio: The Eleven)

Theta and Koschei's "kindergarten spat" apparently almost destroyed the planet. During this time, Theta used to call Koschei "Scabby Knees." (Audio: Blood of the Time Lords)

Theta Sigma had no friends in his very early life. Instead of creating imaginary friends, he had an imaginary enemy called Mandrake. Mandrake was actually a dead lizard he pinned to an engine part that Theta would defeat using a stick. (Audio: The Widow's Assassin)

There was a Hermit who lived behind the House of Lungbarrow on the mountain. Theta Sigma once went to him, depressed and full of despair, and the Hermit showed him hope in yellow flowers. (Television: The Time Monster)

Shimmerlings live in the time vortex, but after a storm, they were stranded on Gallifrey and dying. A very young Theta Sigma saw the Hermit throwing them into the Untempered Schism to save them. Theta asked him what was the point because he wouldn't be able to save them all before they died, and the Hermit taught him the value in saving who he could, despite not being able to save everyone. (Audio: Crossed Lines)

Theta Sigma was the Time Tot Hide And Seek Champion for 42 years in a row, which apparently drove Ushas nuts. (Comic: Weapons of Past Destruction)

When Maris - a retired CIA agent - was hired to find out where Theta Sigma, now probably the Doctor, had run off to in the TARDIS, Ushas and Koschei kidnapped her, interrogated her in an attempt to find where the Doctor had gone, and eventually almost killed her when she knew nothing (she was extracted from the situation before she could be murdered). (Short story: Celestial Intervention - A Gallifreyan Noir)

After graduating, Magnus rose quickly in Time Lord society, which Borusa felt threatened by. Borusa had the CIA manufacture evidence implicating Magnus in treason, leading to him fleeing Gallifrey and becoming a renegade. (Novel: Timewyrm: Exodus)

Koschei befriended a professor at the Academy named Salyavin because he wanted access to the restricted libraries. He wanted to find The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey, an act which was illegal. Salyavin took the blame for this, was sent to Shada, and stole the book (since he was condemned anyway, he might as well). (Short story: The Legacy of Gallifrey)

Theta Sigma and Ruath, another student at the Academy who was obsessed with vampires, once electrified Borusa's perigosto stick. (Novel: Goth Opera)

After the Academy, Koschei attended a ritual with Theta Sigma and Susan, then likely called Arkytior, in Arcadia. Here, he gave her a toy, which was actually a communication node that he planned to use to find Theta and her if they ever left Gallifrey. (Audio: The Toy)

According to one account, Koschei led students at the Academy in a coup against Lord President Pundat the Third and tried to convince Theta Sigma to join. Pundat died of stress soon after the revolt and was replaced with Chancellor Slann. There was a second coup, but they were overheard by the authorities trying to yet again convince Theta to help. After each coup, there were bloody reprisals against the students, but Theta, who was not involved, had his memory wiped. Koschei assassinated Slann, but the students weren't ready for another go. He ended up fleeing Gallifrey. (Short story: Birth of a Renegade) There are, however, many other accounts of him fleeing Gallifrey.

Koschei and a "friend" were locked in a bathroom of a bar in the Tower by the Time Lords after a prank gone wrong. The two fought, and the friend left Koschei behind in the Tower, where he remained locked in for centuries. (Short story: Rebel Rebel)

Theta called Vansell "Nosebung" and continued to do so for centuries. (Audio: Neverland)

Theta Sigma came in fourth place in the Time Lord Academy Sprint Championship. (Comic: Space in Dimension Relative in Time)

Theta Sigma fed a snapping wart fowl to Valyes's summer project, and Valyes still holds a grudge over this. (Audio: The Next Life)

Flubbles are koala-like animals with six legs. Theta Sigma used to keep one under his bed at the Academy as an illegal pet. He almost got caught when she went into heat and started performing her mating call. (Novel: Island of Death)

Theta Sigma used to chase tafelshrews - a species almost like rodents - through the snow of Mount Cadon. (Short story: The Three Paths)

By some accounts, Theta Sigma was loomed, and by some, he had parents. In a version where he had parents, his father and Mr. Saldaamir were once working in the House and were therefore ignoring Theta. Because of this, Theta, at this point a small child, caught a cobblemouse and set it loose in the House, interrupting their plans. (Novel: Unnatural History)

A cousin of Theta's - Glospin - used to bully him quite a lot. He once claimed to find evidence in the Loom pointing to the fact that Theta did not belong in the House of Lungbarrow. If this was believed, Theta Sigma would have been executed. This caused the two to have a physical altercation. (Novel: Lungbarrow)

During this fight, Glospin got a genetic sample from Theta, allowing him to force a regeneration into a Theta lookalike. Then, Glospin murdered Quences, the Kithriarch of the House of Lungbarrow (basically the head of the family), before regenerating again, thus framing Theta for the murder. This was because Glospin wanted to become the next Kithriarch instead of Theta, but because of this, the House of Lungbarrow buried themself (the Houses are sentient, did I mention that?) for centuries. (Novel: Lungbarrow)

Despite doting on Theta (and Theta generally being his favorite), Quences had been convinced by Satthralope to disown him when he announced he didn't want to be a Lord Cardinal. (Novel: Lungbarrow)

Some of Theta's cousins include Quences, Satthralope, Glospin, Innocet, Arkhew, Owis, Salpash, Luton, Rynde, Jobiska, Maljamin, Farg, Celesia, Chovor, DeRoosifa, and Almund. (Novel: Lungbarrow)

Grandfather Paradox was also of the House of Lungbarrow from the same generation as Theta, but of course, he never actually existed. (Novel: Christmas on a Rational Planet)

Pandad VII issued a Burn Edict on Braxiatel, but Braxiatel killed his would be assassin. As punishment, Braxiatel was forced to take up the mantle of Lord Burner for some time, the personal assassin for Lord President Pandad VII. He was ordered to erase an old man and his granddaughter (wink wink) who were fleeing Gallifrey from history but refused to do so and let them go free. That very same day, Pandad died when a power relay that was in his office overloaded, but an inquiry led by Braxiatel found that this was an accident. Just an accident. Nothing shady going on here. (Audio: Disassembled)

Magnus tried to drain the Artron energy from a giant sphere from the time vortex. Theta Sigma opposed him and used the gun of a member of the Chancellery Guard to stop him from draining the energy because he had learned that the energy was alive. This set the energy free. Magnus never forgave him for this, and their friendship ended. (Comic: Flashback)

Theta Sigma had a great aunt lived in a house high in the mountains. She would sing him lullabies. The Eighth Doctor said she was "terrible." (Audio: Together in Eclectic Dreams)

Anyhow, I'm spent, so I'll post this now. Might add on some more later lmaoooo

Don't forget to check out the next part in the reblogs!

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gay-jesus-probably · 10 months ago

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I like the general fandom trend to just take the plot of Hyrule Warriors as a loose guideline at best and just use the whole concept as a good excuse to get blorbos to interact across timelines, BUT I'm very disappointed that everyone is missing the comedic potential of a very specific squad of characters:

Young Link (aka Mask), who walks out of the nightmare of Majora's Mask and immediately gets portal kidnapped into a temporal war, takes one look at the whole mess and decides that you could not fucking pay him to admit to being the resident expert on Time Shenanigans. He introduces himself with the title of Hero of Termina, and definitely doesn't have any other ones, that would be crazy. Hero of Time? Never heard of him.

Tetra, who is a kickass pirate captain with zero patience for people trying to shove her into the Designated Princess role, and realizes immediately that Oh Fuck, this Hyrule has a lot of Ideas about how the Hero and the Princess are supposed to properly play their parts, the second they realize she's technically a Zelda they're gonna shove her in a goddamn dress and damsel her again, that's not happening. So she's definitely just a really cool pirate captain, nothing else going on here at all, definitely not the heir of the Hylian royal family in her time, that'd be crazy.

Ravio, who is literally just a palette swapped Link, meaning that the second his hood comes off, things are gonna get Awkward. There's no way in hell he's dealing with all that Hero baggage, that's Link work, so that giant bunny hood/mask is practically superglued to his head, and he's not taking it off for love or money.

Spirit Tracks Zelda, who is just in the Phantom Armour the whole time, and passing herself off as just a friendly ghost posessing a suit of armour to help the Hero of Spirits. Of course she isn't Princess Zelda, that's ridiculous, if she were a Zelda then people would start getting really weird about her technically being dead, and boy does that ever sound like a whole Thing she doesn't want to deal with, so she can't possibly be Zelda, she's just a nice ghost knight. Also, her teenage grandma is here, and that's kinda weird, so it's easier to just not admit to being royalty and avoid that awkward conversation.

Finally there's Sheik, who is not the Princess Zelda of the era straight up abandoning her war torn country for months at a time so she can risk her life in extreme cosplay for no clear reason, but is instead the actual Sheik from Ocarina of Time, who just beat Ganondorf like a month ago and is still trying to process what the fuck to do now. Also, he's been pretending to be a boy since he was ten, and is realizing there's a pretty good chance that he isn't pretending anymore, so that's a whole other can of worms. But for the last seven years of his life, being Princess Zelda meant certain death, so he's not really inclined to introduce himself like when in a new and stressful situation (not to mention he might actually just not be a girl named Zelda anymore), so he automatically introduces himself as just Sheik the spooky ninja man, and fuck he's in too deep to back out now, looks like he's committing to the bit. If you think you sense the Triforce of Wisdom on him, no you don't.

Cue shenanigans as the five of them attempt to hide that they're all actually kind of A Big Deal. The group motto is "Nobody says shit", which is usually delivered as a frantic hiss whenever someone slips up. Just the reunion between Sheik and Mask alone would be absolutely buckwild given how they parted, and how they're both frantically pretending to Not be involved with each other. For added hilarity and/or drama, Sheik gives his semi-bullshit cover story of having just been a friend of the Hero of Time, then runs into said Hero of Time and they both have to desperately pretend not to know each other, because if anyone picks up on the mountain of baggage between them then Mask is busted, and he won't hesitate to drag Sheik down with him out of sheer spite. Not to mention the weird balance of Sheik being used to this Link being a teenager that's actually a small child, and now has to adjust to Link who is a small child that's actually a teenager.

Also, i really feel like we're all missing out on the comedy potential of Ganondorf recognizing Young Link on sight and the two of them immediately launching into a grudge match with some extremely personal and specific insults on both sides. Meanwhile literally everybody else is just standing there watching, trying to process the fact that out of every single person that's been pulled out of time, Ganondorf only has personal beef with a literal nine year old.

I just feel like we're all really sleeping on the potential for Shenanigans here. The whole thing is an absurd mess, why not have some fun with it?

#legend of zelda #hyrule warriors #for the record im picturing the sheik-mask reunion as being the spiderman pointing meme for like five minutes #also my mental image of sheik is extremely Bad haircut (he does it himself with a knife and doesnt care about making it even)#and a ridiculous tanline across his face from wearing a mask all day #OOT magiaclly growing out zelda's hair and manifesting a Royal Gown was some top tier bullshit and i'm always angry about it #like dude. literally all of princess zelda's finery was made for a ten year old #she's like eighteen now. nobody's making royal finery for teenage zelda. where was she supposed to get that dress.#i am eternally on my agenda to let zelda wear some goddamn pants without an immediate magic makeover to *fix* it #anyways nintendo's sexism aside i like sheik being trans its very fun and sexy of him #tfw you go into hiding to escape political assassination and accidentally trans your gender in the process

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mostlysignssomeportents · 10 months ago

Text

Kickstarting “The Bezzle” audiobook, sequel to Red Team Blues

I'm heading to Berlin! On January 29, I'll be delivering Transmediale's Marshall McLuhan Lecture, and on January 30, I'll be at Otherland Books (tickets are limited! They'll have exclusive early access to the English edition of The Bezzle and the German edition of Red Team Blues!).

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to last year's Red Team Blues, featuring Marty Hench, a hard-charging, two-fisted forensic accountant who spent 40 years in Silicon Valley, busting every finance scam hatched by tech bros' feverish imaginations:

http://thebezzle.org

Marty Hench is a great character to write. His career in high-tech scambusting starts in the early 1980s with the first PCs and stretches all the way to the cryptocurrency era, the most target-rich environment for scamhunting tech has ever seen. Hench is the Zelig of tech scams, and I'm having so much fun using him to probe the seamy underbelly of the tech economy.

Enter The Bezzle, which will be published by Tor Books and Head of Zeus on Feb 20: this adventure finds Marty in the company of Scott Warms, one of the many bright technologists whose great startup was bought and destroyed by Yahoo! (yes, they really used that asinine exclamation mark). Scott is shackled to the Punctuation Factory by golden handcuffs, and he's determined to get fired without cause, so he can collect his shares and move onto the next thing.

That's how Scott and Marty find themselves on Catalina island, the redoubt of the Wrigley family, where bison roam the hills, yachts bob in the habor and fast food is banned. Scott invites Marty on a series of luxury vacations on Catalina, which end abruptly when they discover – and implode – a hamburger-related Ponzi scheme run by a real-estate millionaire who is destroying the personal finances of the Island's working-class townies out of sheer sadism.

Scott's victory is bittersweet: sure, he blew up the Ponzi scheme, but he's also made powerful enemies – the kinds of enemies who can pull strings with the notoriously corrupt LA County Sheriff's Deputies who are the only law on Catalina, and after taking a pair of felony plea deals, Scott gets the message and never visits Catalina Island again.

That could have been the end of it, but California's three-strikes law – since rescinded – means that when Scott picks up one more felony conviction for some drugs discovered during a traffic stop, he's facing life in prison.

That's where The Bezzle really gets into gear.

At its core, The Bezzle is a novel about the "shitty technology adoption curve": the idea that our worst technological schemes are sanded smooth on the bodies of prisoners, mental patients, kids and refugees before they work their way up the privilege gradient and are inflicted on all of us:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

America's prisons are vicious, brutal places, and technology has only made them worse. When Scott's prison swaps out in-person visits, the prison library, and phone calls for a "free" tablet that offers all these services as janky apps that cost ten times more than they would on the outside, the cruelty finds a business model.

Working inside and outside the prison Marty Hench and Scott Warms figure out the full nature of the scam that the captive audience of prisoners are involuntary beta-testers for, and they discover a sprawling web of real-estate fraud, tech scams, and offshore finance that is extracting fortunes from the hides of America's prisoners and their families. The criminals who run that kind of enterprise aren't shy about fighting for what they've got, and they're more than happy to cut some of LA County's notorious deputy gangs in for a cut in exchange for providing some kinetic support for the project.

The Bezzle is exactly the kind of book I was hoping I'd get to write when I kicked off the Hench series – one that decodes the scam economy, from music royalties to prison videoconferencing, real estate investment trusts to Big Four accounting firm bogus audits. It's both a fast-moving, two-fisted crime novel and a masterclass on how the rich and powerful get away with both literal and figurative murder.

It's getting a big push from both my publishers and I'll be touring western Canada and the US with it. The early reviews are spectacular. But despite all of this, I had to make my own audiobook for it, which I'm pre-selling on Kickstarter:

http://thebezzle.org

Why? Because Audible – Amazon's monopoly gatekeeper to the audiobook world, with more than 90% of the market – refuses to carry my work.

Audible uses Digital Rights Management to lock every audiobook they sell to their platform. Legally, only an Audible-authorized app can decrypt and play the audiobooks they sell you. Distributing a tool that removes Audible DRM is a felony under Section 1201 of the 1998 DMCA.

That means that if you break up with Audible – delete your Audible apps – you will lose your entire audiobook library. And the fact that you're Audible's hostage makes the writers you love into their hostages, too. Writers understand that if they leave the Audible platform, their audience will have to choose between following them, or losing all their audiobooks.

That's how Audible gets away with abusing its performers and writers, up to and including the $100m Audiblegate wage-theft scandal:

https://www.audiblegate.com/

Audible can steal $100m from its writers…and the writers still continue to sell on the platform, because leaving will cost them their audience.

This is canonical enshittification: lock in users, then screw suppliers. Lots of companies abuse DRM to do this, but none can hold a candle to Amazon, who understand that the DMCA is a copyright law that protects corporations at the expense of creators.

Under DMCA 1201 commercial distribution of a "circumvention device" carries a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine. That means that if I write a book, pay to have it recorded, and then sell it to you through Audible, I am criminally prohibited from giving you the tool to take it from Audible to another platform. Even though I hold the copyright to that work, I would face a harsher sentence than you would if you simply pirated the audiobook from some darknet site. Not only that: if you shoplifted the audiobook in CD form, you'd get a lighter sentence than I, the copyright holder, would receive for giving you a tool to unlock it from Amazon's platform! Hell, if you hijacked the truck that delivered the CD, you'd get off lighter than I would. This is a scam straight out of a Marty Hench novel.

This is batshit. I won't allow it. My books are licensed on the condition that they must not be sold with DRM. Which means that Audible won't sell my books, which means that my publishers are thoroughly disinterested in paying thousands of dollars to produce audiobooks of my titles. A book that isn't sold in the one store than accounts for 90% of all sales is unlikely to do well.

That's where you come in. Since 2020, I've used Kickstarter to pre-sell five of my audiobooks (I wrote nine books during lockdown!). All told, I've raised over $750,000 (gross! but still!) on these crowdfunders. More than 20,000 backers have pitched in! The last two of these books – The Internet Con and The Lost Cause – were national bestsellers.

This isn't just a way for me to pay off a lot of bills and put away something for retirement – it's proof that readers care about supporting writers and don't want to be locked in by a giant monopolist that depends on its drivers pissing in bottles to make quota.

It's a powerful message about the desire for something better than Amazon. It's part of the current that is driving the FTC to haul Amazon into court for being a monopolist, and also part of the inspiration for other authors to try treating Amazon as damage and routing around it, with spectacular results:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dragonsteel/surprise-four-secret-novels-by-brandon-sanderson

And I'm doing it again. Last December, I went into Skyboat Media's studios where Gabrielle De Cuir directed @wilwheaton, who reprised his role as Marty Hench for the audiobook of The Bezzle. It came out amazing:

https://archive.org/details/bezzle-sample

Now I'm pre-selling this audiobook, as well as the ebook and hardcover for The Bezzle. I'm also offering bundles with the ebook and audiobook for Red Team Blues (naturally these are all DRM-free). You can get your books signed and personalized and shipped anywhere in the world, courtesy of Book Soup, and I've partnered with Libro.fm to deliver DRM-free audiobooks with an app for people who don't want to mess around with sideloading.

I've also got some spendy options for high rollers. There's three chances to name a character in the next Hench novel (Picks and Shovels, Feb 2025). There's also five chances to commission a Hench short story about your favorite tech scam, and get credited when the story is published.

The Kickstarter runs for the next three weeks, which should give me time to get the hardcopy books signed and shipped to arrive around the on-sale date. What's more, I've finally worked out all the post-Brexit kinks with shipping my UK publisher's books to EU backers. I'm working with Otherland Books to fulfill those EU orders, and it looks like I'm going to be able to sign a giant stack of those when I'm in Berlin later this month to give the annual Marshall McLuhan lecture at the Canadian embassy:

https://transmediale.de/en/2024/event/mcluhan-2024

Red Team Blues and its sequels are some of the most fun – and informative – work I've done in my quarter-century career. I love how they blend technical explanations of the scam economy with high-intensity technothrillers. That's the the same mix as my bestselling YA series Little Brother series – but these are firmly adult novels.

The Bezzle came out great. I hope you'll give it a try – and that you'll come out to see me in late February when I hit the road with the book! Here's that Kickstarter link again:

http://thebezzle.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/10/the-bezzle/#marty-hench

#pluralistic #kickstarter #audible #the bezzle #bezzles #prison tech #disciplinary technology #crowdfunding #wilw #wil wheaton #audiobooks #publishing #science fiction #marty hench #martin hench #red team blues #shitty technology adoption curve #reits

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