#fine whatever it's going on a post-canon sequel

[nanabanonana]

me: can i actually get away with not writing this part of the chapter…

me already thinking of adding it in as a sequel story and reasoning that it's not so important to the current plot: well…

[waywardsalt]

anyways. holding linebeck gently

[rise-my-angel]

Perilous Companions

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Length: 24.7k

Warnings: Depictions of violence, mention of suicide, non graphic torture, hostage situations, heavy angst, angst/hurt comfort, trama related flashbacks, smut, oral (m and f receiving), p in v, canon divergence

Notes: This ones a big boy with some big things happening. Not everything will make sense yet as its part of a bigger unfolding narrative, and certain moments are intentionally skipped over for the same reason. Knowledge of the 2nd game not needed as its not canon. A lot of nerves went into making and posting this one, so I hope it doesn't disappoint you. Sequel to Melancholy Interlude, part of the Confused Warmth series.

It was a cruel joke that you were this ill. If you had to trace it back, you think you may have been bitten by a mosquito at some point. Of all the things you could catch, you were falling apart from something as small as a bug bite. You were always scared of being bitten by any sort of insect as a kid after your neighbour had come home from school talking about how you could get sick and die from one bite.

Your only saving grace being that a cordyceps infection didn’t incubate for this long, and as far as you were aware, didn’t result in how bloodshot and feverish you were nor did it result in vomiting a liquid disgustingly close to black. You had guessed for a while that in the old world the man in front of you had either was a scientist or worked somewhere in that field. 

Whatever research your current companion had done though clearly didn’t encompass all illnesses, but at least you finally were sick long enough he wasn’t constantly terrified you’d turn. Neither you or the rambling man pacing above you had any clue what to do about it, but he somehow seemed more worried then you. Looking at the map in his hands as he ran his mouth non stop. 

You had insisted you were fine until about ten minutes ago when you felt dizzy and would have completely collapsed onto the ground if Seth wasn’t there to fail to catch you in time, at least before you hit your head. Travelling with someone wasn’t what you wanted, you had been alone for months but you felt awful when a bumbling, older, tearful man came across you asking for help getting to his wife near Salem. Only to have him confess when you got sick that he was just lonely and wanted company. 

Now you were just too exhausted to get angry. Letting him travel with you as he desperately tried to make you like him despite your very purposeful choice to stay away from any people. Briefly you had wondered if he was a plant, tricking you to walk you into a trap right back to the place you were running from. Part of you still wondered that, but now you were too sick to do anything about it. 

“We’d have to go to every clinic just to see whose there, but that’s way too big to check.” Seth’s messy hair was flopping around with every spin in place he did, the rhythmic movement distracting your already fuzzy brain. “You said no to everything else I suggested, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” 

Your head smacking back against the tree you were currently sat up against shook your spinning vision even more. Squeezing your eyes shut you let out a shaky breathe that burned your esophagus as it flowed upwards.  There was an extremely expired pack of gum a few kilometres back when you were sifting through an old abandoned store front. The bile still coating your mouth had you hating yourself for passing that up now. 

“You sure we can’t go to Boston?” One eye blinked open, a kaleidoscope of orbs floating in your vision as Seth’s figure stood right in the suns path. He was standing with the map crinkling in his hold as he looked hopeful at you. “They have doctors, it’s an actual city they’ll have medicine won’t they? We can get you a bed and everything. We’re practically right there, you can see the walls from the top of one of those hills for god sakes.”

Your fingertips tapped against the grass beneath you as your jaw clenched. Forcing yourself up, the tree worked as a main support for your legs that trembled from the exertion. The man seemingly perked up at your slowly approaching self. He stared at you, your name coming out as a question when you got within a few feet. “Is that a-” 

Jumping back, Seth gasped as you ripped the map out of his hands. Your face flat as your eyes shifted to the side to stop yourself from glaring. “A no...I’m guessing it’s still a no.” 

Your legs wobbled as your vision spun trying to read it. Kneeling down you rested it over a bent knee as your finger followed a path you already were dabbling in planning out. “You ever been in a QZ before?” 

Looking up at him, Seth had a shifting and sheepish face akin to something like guilt. “I spent some time in one for a while, a little bit in Boston.” Your heart skipped a beat, forcing your gaze down to the destination you had in mind willing away the swirling anxiety. “That’s why we need to go though. I have friends there, they can help you- wait where are you going?” 

The beating of your heart pounded erratically. You wanted to be alone for this very reason, you had no idea what kind of friends were waiting for him, or you, in Boston of all places. There was no one you knew anywhere near such an area, so you walked away. In the opposite direction of his suggestion. 

Seth called you again, “I thought you needed to rest.” 

Pace picking up you pulled the other strap of your bag on both your shoulders properly. “I’m going west.” Pairing up with this man was foolish, heading in the complete opposite direction of where you were headed was even more foolish. 

His voice was getting more and more grating. “We just came that way, didn’t we go to Massachusetts for a reason?” 

Heading down a slight hill full of ragged dirt clumps and drop offs only bang around the blurring migraine in your head more. It wasn’t killing you yet, so you just didn’t bother stopping for it. “No, you wanted to go to Salem, I wanted to be alone.” 

Sputtering, Seth wailed his arms as he slipped and tripped over his feet down the hill with a grace that only assured you that he’s likely spent his entire life in and out of some halfway sizable apartment Fedra probably threw his way. “I was just trying to help.” 

Your mind was already made up. You’ve been trying to get out of this state for months and everything kept pulling you back in. But their unwillingness to let you go spoke a different story, the people you’ve encountered since that have tried to trick or lead back to that room you ran from. 

Seth was saying something, but you tried to tune it out until he was too loud. The sun was setting in a gold that shined off of the decay around you. Travelling the outskirts was longer, a much longer path but if you were being honest with yourself? Just because you were more scared of what other people were capable of, doesn’t mean the shrieks didn’t haunt you every time they echoed through the emptiness. 

It didn’t take long for Seth to overtake your strides. Longer legs and too much energy compared to your muscles begging to sit once more. You so desperately wanted to believe it wasn’t true, that maybe just once since that day you could meet one person who you didn’t have to leave your guard up for. But you couldn’t. 

You were the only of your kind they ever seen, and it didn’t matter who told them what. He had his sights set on you and so did everyone else. Were they hoping to pull you back because they were too stubborn to give up? Or were they truly so delusional that they just didn’t care. The arguments you spied on seemed to tell you something divided them greatly but at this point you didn’t have anything to go off of. 

You had enough scuffles with them to know they were willing to be violent to get you. You knew why they wanted you and it was a fate that terrified you. You saw the remnants of what they had before you, and now? It was a fate you knew would be worse. Their willingness to beat the air out of your lungs had you supposing that having you in one piece wasn’t required.

It was only months ago when a few men came across you as you realized that it wasn’t just a small group that were involved. Somewhere along the lines, three men in the fireflies approached you and when you refused to even hear them out? That’s when they left you with a fair few more scratches then you gifted to them. 

Bruised and covered in mud from being kicked down a steep forest hill, you could hear the small group of men on a radio, but their words overpowered in your head from noise. The only words made out from what you could hear past the ringing the fall had smashed into your head. “....I don’t care, just tell say it’s Owen...” 

More static noise blasting out as you sunk your nails into the muddy hillside pulling you upwards onto your knees at least. Biting your lip so forcefully it had cracked and drawn blood by the next morning, you held the cries of pain back as your muscles strained to drag your body behind a tree. 

Tears streaming down your cheeks, you cradled your side now dripping blood from the ripped open fabric once covering you. The other occupied with gripping your shoulder tight as each twitch of your body shot a current of pain through what might be a strain.

Finally a response over their radio rung out, your jaw tensed as you breathed deeply in and out your nose. “..can make it in a few days...yes ma’am....Gran-” Was it the distance cutting his voice off, or was it your own heavy breathing invading your senses? You didn’t know. It was hard to focus. 

You didn’t know if you wanted to go back for real answers, or if a part of you still clung to seeing the man who had his hired thugs strap you to a chair as soon as they got their hands on you. He barley even looked at you like his own, and neither did his partner look at you anything but a specimen. 

You being this sick wasn’t the plan, and you knew making it wherever they were headed in one piece wouldn’t be easy. Not even sure if any of them would be there anymore by the time you got there. They had working cars afterall, and you only had two feet. Already your head was dizzy, but it felt wrong to turn away, leave it alone. You could just run from them, head far North until you reach the border and forget all of this. 

But you couldn't. They should have gotten what they wanted, so why wasn’t it enough? 

Now though, in the early hours of the morning, it was impossible ignore what you had heard the next few subsequent nights. Listening to this man ramble on what was no doubt some kind of radio. Foolish enough to think that you’d feel comfortable sleeping anywhere near him now he assumed he wouldn’t be heard or caught. Sprinkling hints of a deception that became harder to push away. Someone far more collected and confident then the bumbling coward presented to you. It chewed and gnawed in your mind throughout that night. 

He didn’t see you coming, knelt down faced away before having his body grabbed by the back of his shirt and tossed a few feet to the ground. Flipping onto his back, he stood up slowly to see you feet away from him. Exhausted and pushed to an edge. He tried placating it but only got as far as your name before you cut him off. 

“Why do you want me to go to Boston so badly?” You pulled from something attached to your belt, a thick yellow rope long and flopped down to the side. 

Seth’s face slowly melting off it’s aloof bravado. Something deeper inside brewing that you only felt your body tense at. “I don’t know what-” 

The voice waver made you a lot less brave but the force which you shoved it out masked it. “You led me there even after I told you no. What’s in Boston you’re so eager to get to?” 

There was an entirely new man in front of you, someone more poised with sunken eyes. As if whatever this facade was became too useless to keep up. This wasn’t a stumbling fool, but someone hiding too much. “We don’t need to do things this way-” 

You weren’t buying it though. Wrapping both ends of the rope around your hands, but kept low enough to give him hope to talk first. “Don’t make me ask you again, Seth.” 

His voice grew softer, as if to entice the part of you that wanted to grant sympathy. “It’s about you.” His gaze on your covered arm, and your heart beat harder. “I knew your Jerry and your father from the old days. They discovered a problem during testing, but you already had gotten out before he could look into it for himself.” 

You didn’t even need to ask about ‘they’. He knew them, and apparently your guess of some kind of scientist was correct. Both of them treated you like cattle once they had found you. The ghosts hovering over your life. “What problem?” 

“He never told me, and when your father died I didn’t think it mattered anymore. Left Jerry to pick up the pieces without his expertise. He’s replicated the work as much as he can, but the only thing your father told him only made him that much more desperate to find you. He’s a doctor not a scientist.” 

Maybe you should have been angry, upset. Dropping that on you as if you should already have known, but on the other hand it might be for the better. Jerry was cold, and uncaring. Your father was entirely too emotional, perhaps closer to disturbed than anything. “I gave them everything they wanted, what’s he desperate for?” 

The lack of blinking put you on edge even further. A look as if trying to figure out the very thing he was describing. “That I don’t know. Research has been kept under very tight watch, especially now.”

“And my father, what did he say?”

Seth’s eyes glazed with a troubled conflict, and a sorrow in his voice that told you he knew far more then he was telling you. Flashes in his eyes that spoke of a truth that sat unsettled within him. 

“He said this is the end. He said that we are all finished, and he took his own life.” 

The trickery, the trouble in his eyes, how this all kept relating back to that day. Your father taking his own life though? Something inside of you shifted unsettlingly, and not quite a loss for family. If you had even a modicum of faith in your father, you had none in his partner. “What I still don’t get is what you were planning to do with me. I mean what use would someone like me be to a lying con like you?” 

A debate flourished in his head, saying no words as he almost looked through you. The now calmness in the air, quiet and dulcet tones between you echoed eerily in your voice. You needed him to speak, you needed to know. “What do you think your last breath will feel like, Seth?” 

Eyes shutting for the briefest of moments, he let something echo in his veins. Words slipping from him in a level of defeat. “There’s a woman. A firefly-” 

“I’m already running from the fireflies-” Nothing but a bunch of make shift mercenaries playing at a war they’ve never even started to win. 

Seth shook his head, “Not this one. She’s a leader, has real goals she wants We can trust her, she can help.” You instinctively gnawed at your bottom lip, unwilling to believe in him. “Now if you come with me to Boston, I can get you to her.” 

Shaking your head, you bled distrust from every pore. “What’s her name?” 

His shoulders sagged as he sighed. “Please don’t make me tell you that,” the tightening of the rope between your hands squeezed as his eyes flickered from you to it and back again. “Marlene. Her name’s Marlene. She’s a good woman, your father trusted her.”

More then a few seconds passed. The wind flowing through the luscious trees nearby, and the grass grazing along the empty land. The peace nowhere near the small bubble you stood. “Why wouldn’t they have just told you what the problem was. If you worked with them, I mean. Bit odd.” 

Seth’s head tilted, a softness pleading with you as your name murmured from his mouth, “I’m on your side. I’m one of the-” 

Something snapped inside of you. Almost a scream inside your heart shouting at your survival and it consumed your vision within seconds. He wasn’t a fighter, you wrapped the rope around his neck with little defence. 

Within a second you kicked him to the ground, a struggle tumbling in the quiet grass as you flipped onto your back. The pull burning your wrists and your own legs trying to keep him down. His struggles and groans eating away at your hearing. 

You could only look down at your hold for seconds, nothing close to a fight back from a man who didn’t know how seek out for a real fight. Your breathe was forcibly rhythmic, in and out deeply as your head tilted back as you pulled. Breathing the sounds of struggle away as your eyes fell upon the nature.  

The leaves blowing on a tree, large and flourishing in the emptiness that ravaged around it standing tall and bright. The wind flowing like a calm around it like it was wishing to entrance you. Your breathing desperate to keep a deep even as your mind pushed away the burning pull on your wrists. The sight of the trees colours striking against the rest of the field hiding the groans below. 

You took your mind elsewhere, you weren’t strong enough to keep yourself in the moment. A life on the outside didn’t make you capable. It just made the struggling figures on an open ground dragging the life out of a man who knew more then you’d ever know, feel like a kind of memory you couldn’t live with if the trees didn’t exist.

Nothing like that existed here and now though. The barrel sights down to a man who helped play his part in many fights that these people didn’t deserve to be a part of. 

Once someone too sure of his own bravado, now faced you wide eyed and swallowing panic. His hands at first positioned in front of his torso as Joel approached you both, his knuckles turning white from how tightly he was pulling and twisting the coarse rope in his hands. You wanted to see the trees in that rope but you only saw the purple imprints on your wrists that had stayed with you for days. 

But it wasn’t someone tricking you to your death at the other end. It was people you wrapped a new life around, and the only ones who cared about you in return. Owen pleaded. “Come on, please. I’m not going to do anything, do you really need all this?” 

Your hands hesitated, grip on the shotgun so harsh for so long it your arms had started to shake. “I’ll behave, let’s all be reasonable here.” Barrel only lowering enough that it’s aim left the eye line of Owens head. Low enough that he had the gall to leap towards you as if having any chance. Before you could even register how startled you jumped, Joel had grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him face first into the bar counter beside you. 

Owen’s head up enough to growl in anger, “Fuck you-” only to be slammed down into the wood with a crack of a bone splintering in the air. 

Yanking his arms behind his back, Joel tightened the mans own ropes around his wrists, leaving him just enough room before his circulation, or lacktherof, would turn his hands blue. The mans head yanked back with blood dripping from his nose and smeared down his face and painted the dark surface. Your fingers twitching on the shotgun aimed uselessly to the ground as your shaking breathe vibrated into your very chest as Joel hissed into his ear. “You try anything like that again, I’ll break a lot more then your nose.” 

Owen groaned but said no more. Shoving him towards Tommy, Joel only looked a his bloody face for a second longer before taking four strides over and all but shoving the chair out the mans reach. Stumbling onto his knees, grumbling unintelligible swearing as Joel burned a deep anger into his face and slinking it up to Tommy in unspoken words. 

Tommy himself seemed more hesitant. Taken back by something he had no way of seeing coming. You didn’t know how much of the other week Joel had even told him about. He at the least didn’t particularly care enough for the strangers well being to let him sit anywhere but the cold floor. He was more on the edge of confused, Joel saw you trying and failing to mask the shaking feeling of silent fear and that look washing over your eyes only had his blood run hot. 

Tilting his face to the side, Joel caught your gaze the hard set steel of his expression still peeking a deep concern for you behind it. His brown eyes gestured downwards to the shotgun in your grip, covering one of your hands with his own, the way it overtook your small ones with such warmth had you wanted to flip your palm to hold onto it, but you just let him slide the gun into his own possession. Holding it upright around the short cut barrel. 

Ever the vocal one, Ellie spoke up first. “Who are you?” She was stood still, arms crossed over her chest with a stare that could sear a hole in the floor. Her body now against the table, blocking any view of the towns layout from the strangers prying eyes. Tommy stood to his side, back to the wall and eyes to the door while Joel stepped away from your side. 

Watching him crouch down in front of the man, you yearned for the grace of someone more worthy. A gun to a mans surprised back peering right through whatever facade he would spit out were you not there. You had felt brave until he turned to face you. Owen’s face painted with fearful shock but yours only seethed with undiscovered ire. Whatever in your body that didn’t shake, a tingling flooded where ever nerves were attached. 

Owen’s stare towards Ellie was suspicious. Dots connecting in his head, he raised an eyebrow as he returned her stare. “How about you go first, then I have my turn?” 

“Hey,” Joel’s voice rumbled out tight and controlled, just like his unwavering posture. “You look at me, not her. Got it?” Owen didn’t answer quick enough, meaning not instantly, which only got him grabbed by the jaw, Joel’s fingers squishing parts of his cheeks in like a blooded up fish. “I said got it?” 

Owens brows furrowed in a grumble but he nodded. “Good. Now answer the question.” His kept his promise, he didn’t look back at Ellie. Just you. Empty eyes with a smile that had been smeared onto his skin like a goo. 

“Or you could just tell them, you already know my name afterall.” 

Your nails dug into the skin of your palms, scratching and clawing to keep them from shaking. In a world where you knew how to stand your ground, maybe the words would come up out of your mouth. Only they didn’t and you weren’t standing your ground, you weren’t sure your heart would calm enough to give that chance. 

Joel yanked his head back over to face him, face even sterner then before. “I asked you.” 

No one was impressed with the eye roll. A childish act for a tied up man, “Owen. Like she said.” When Joel didn’t let go of him, only gripped tighter did he remember to act like a grown up. “We used to know each other, had a couple run ins didn’t we?” 

You couldn’t see Joels eyes flit back as if he could see you behind him, but that yearning never left his heart. You were supposed to be at his side, not trapped in place by whatever memory this man dragged into town with him. “This is not-”

“He’s a firefly, or was.” Part of you was happy Owen hadn’t seen you in over a year, missing the slight waver in your voice as you forced it to come out in one go. All three of them had completely different reactions. 

Ellie was confused. A group in her life held a complicated relationship with her, one that she suspected wasn’t wholey truthful with her, but never had the chance to put her finger on it. Tommy was braced for either side of things. His eyes never straying from the sight in front of him but one foot of his stood out towards Ellie, as if to intervene. 

You didn’t need to see Joel’s face to know what he was feeling. Crouched down, his shoulders and back were set and so tense you could see it through his jacket. His hand dropped to his thigh with a thud curled into a fist. Those brown eyes washing over to a black as his nostrils flared as he kept a wild within him. 

No doubt lost in what you have found yourself in many times, flashes of light passing your eyes as images that keep you up at night taunt you. You found yourself pacing towards him, hand reaching out to him, but hovering in place at the prospect of sneaking up on him. But just like you felt with him, Joel didn’t need to hear or see to know you were near him. 

He just felt you already, taking a deep breathe as his back stretched back, giving your hand the chance to simply push forward and grasp onto the back of his collar like he knew you would. “What’s a firefly doing in our town, sneaking up on my own.” Joel was seconds away from bearing his teeth, if he remained just a strange intruder that was one thing. But none of you had any delusions about what having someone like this here could mean. 

“Just looking for a friend is all. Big state you know? Gotta check all the corners.” Joels fist curled in more as you curled your fingers into his collar. The two men eyed one another before Joel made to stand back upright. Letting go to give him space, it was only snatched back by Joel’s empty hand. Keeping it tucked to his chest, to turned so both your sides leaned against the bar. His warm breathe heating the skin of you face still doused from the cold outside. 

Eyebrows raised, you could read the question unsaid. Nodding yes, you bit the inside of your cheek. “Don.” Your eyes on his chest, Joel turned his body partway to gesture Ellie to take the shotgun from him. Sometime later, Joel would feel pride of how confidently she took it into her hold and held it to Owen. Perfect form like he taught her. But now that wasn’t anywhere near his mind. 

His now free grasp held onto your hip and pulled you at an angle, hiding your gazes from the man flickering his eyes around the room. Fingers stretching from under his, you wrapped them into the top of his shirt peeking through. Unable to decide if you could handle being the subject of this kind of intensity from Joel. “Don mentioned travelling with them for a while, I didn’t know he stayed with them after..” 

Joel cupped the side of your cheek, turning you up to his face. He meant to say something, meant to comfort or suggest but your own genuine unease pressed against the heart under his chest. A vulnerability that he spent weeks trying to coax from you from the quiet safety of your room together, but now on display for someone that Joel felt the growing urge to slam face first into a wall, leaving a mark he wouldn’t come back from. 

For only a moment you let yourself feel it. Shutting you eyes, Joels hand warm and soothing in your heart as you let the uncertainty flow over. Letting it drip from you head to your toes, melting off as it reaches the floor. Finally you flickered your eyes up to Joels. “I’ll talk to her.” Joels head whipped around, eyes blazing at the mans suggestion. “I’m not gonna kneel here and spill my guts to all you bozos-” 

The other two pairs of feet in the room both shifted a foot forward. A “Watch yourself” sounding from Tommy at the same time as Ellie’s far less decorum of “Shut the fuck up.” 

Shuffling in place, you could tell Joel was grappling with the idea. A deep protective instinct that threatened to overtake him should anything happen to you. “I’m not leaving you alone in a room with one of them.” 

Your cheek pinched between your teeth just a tad to sharp, your mind salvaging for any hint you have a plan in mind. But you don’t, and Joel knows you don’t. Because he doesn’t have one either. Your eyes drifted to Owens tied up frame, gesturing your chin over in debate, Joel doubled down.

“They’re better talkers then they are fighters out here. I’m not worried what he’s going to do, I’ll chain him to the wall if I have to. It’s what comes out of his mouth I don’t trust.” Something within you sensed something coming. Like the polarizing fear sweeping through you when Don had walked into town was a child’s bad dream compared to what your anxiety begun to brace for. But you agreed. 

That part of you which could no longer pretend as if you felt anything but racing nerves in your veins wouldn’t admit it, but you were eternally relieved to have Joel. You faced people like Owen, the fireflies always them versus you. Always running, stealing and sabotaging behind their backs it would weigh less on your chest to have someone in your corner, helping you up onto equal landing. 

Jaw clenching, Joel’s eyes pleaded a different story. One of a man dreaming of finding a small life with you and Ellie, and having to shove down the urge to burn everything to the ground just to keep you three in that harmony. But the fireflies played a different game. One that burned into Joel’s core, and one that froze yours over. 

Sending a shiver down the length of your spine as his thumb gently rubbed over your bottom lip, he was holding himself back from kissing you. Brown eyes flickering to your lips as his fingertips flexed where they sat on your body as if resisting pulling you into him. 

Sarah echoed in his head. Holding you in his arms on the porch as you told him unequivocally that she would be proud of who he is, but he didn’t feel proud now. Joel felt like control was slipping away from him and the last time that happened it ended in a bloodbath. 

You didn’t like this look on Joel. His handsome features warped by a painful conflict behind, firm and set as if nothing he was preparing to let nothing to get past the stone walls. You wanted him relaxed, soft. The kind of look he gave you that very morning. A smile that you’re not sure you’d ever seen yet. A soft one, a sleepy glaze in his eye and that very thumb rubbing over your bottom lip only then he moved it to help pull you out of sleep with his own lips. 

Anxiety shocking your limbs, jolting them like electricity while Joel was reliving the nightmares the people just like Owen brought on him. That quiet bubble of lips and skin against each other under the sheets Joel wanted you to call your own? That morning seems to not exist anymore. 

One of your hands drifted around, trailing on the inside of his jacket along the thin layer of his shirt, nails tracing towards his stomach as both of your eyes begged for even one kiss. Something to keep you both here and grounded. You weren’t going to give the satisfaction to Owen though. 

So you let yourself out of Joel’s hold. His hand sliding from your waist only until you were to far to stretch out to. Owen’s eyes were far less confident as you approached him. His laboured breathing the only thing in the air as you crouched in front of him. 

“You talk to both of us. Or no deal.” If you were someone else, you would have sounded firm. Sure of your conviction and unafraid of the coward in front of you. Not the weaker almost out of breathe hesitancy it came off as. 

Owen narrowed his eyes at you. “And if I say no?” 

Joel was what you tried to sound like. Deep and threatening, no room for doubt or barter as he came up behind you. “I dump you outside of town face first, hog tied in the snow.” 

Warm large hands pulled you up with one of them now refusing to leave your side. Owen conceded just as Tommy called Joel. Gesturing over to the sight of people beginning to mill about like nothing ever occurred inside the building. The man wasting no time as he hauled Owen up uncaring of the stumble he felt from the aggressive jostle. 

Owen stood crookedly against the bar, as Tommy circled his finger for him to turn around. “Ellie.” Joel beckoned her, a hand out for her to hand the shotgun over. Glancing between it and you, her face fell flat as she rolled her eyes giving it to a tiny smirking Joel at her petulance. 

No sense of personal space as he dove right into the small bag at your side for the ammo he assumed was in there. Loading it for you, he draped the strap over your shoulder. “Me and Tommy’ll handle getting him out of here. You two head back to the house, it’ll take us a while to move him.” 

Owen’s wrists rubbing together at the redness already scratching into them, Tommy added “I got a feeling he’s not against making a scene if we walk him through the middle of the street.” 

Neither you or Ellie were keen on leaving the two of them to handle it on their own, but you gently pushed her forward to grab her jacket. Joel turning you to face him as he cupped your cheek once more. There was something at the tip of his tongue, but it wouldn’t let itself out. A disruption you both felt in your bones just when he was finally putting a life together. 

Gently grasping his wrist, you turned his hand, pressing a kiss to his palm and watching him stiffen and breathe force itself from his lungs harder. A rage inside him that you knew he didn’t want to relive, or even expose you too. You couldn’t form the words, you knew what you felt but your tongue wouldn’t take them in. You just wanted him to know that it was alright.

The disgusting turmoil you brought upon his family hadn’t made him turn you away. His own would never do the same to you. There wasn’t anything Joel could do that would destroy what you were trying to pretend wasn’t a stem of blossoms flourishing into unconstrained winding petals.

But now? Watching Joel share muted words with an agitated Ellie, both struggling to let the other walk away? Wondering if it was mere coincidence that it was Owen who was here, or if you dragged them to your doorstep. 

Your mind far off, preoccupied in the possibilities going unconfessed. If this was your fault, if you brought this on them, then Joel should hate you. You deserved it. No reason could form in your head as to why he should support you, he’d done enough. 

You didn’t know what to bring to this relationship, and now all you have started bringing is burden upon burdens. Nothing to go on, all you could assume was that love wasn’t supposed to be sharing the brunt of the others problems. 

You were selfish for letting him bring you home that day, and he was stupid for going after you in the first place. The gruesome mark on your side should have stayed there. Ripped open and bleed out until you wouldn’t get back up from that blood soaked room anymore. 

Fed up, Ellie grabbed your arm with a shout of your name. Turning you towards her, eyes narrowed in exasperation. “Where are we going? Joel said-” 

Mouth opening then closing, your peeked at the people around you some glancing at the Ellie’s sudden outburst. It didn’t even dawn on you until now how far into town the pair of you had gotten. You couldn’t do this here, not in front of all these people. You couldn’t breathe around a crowd closing in on you. Swallowing the swarming cloud threatening to engulf you. “I need to get something, okay?” You grabbed her hand on your arm, squeezing it for a moment. “It’s important.” 

She didn’t say much as you both walked into the now mostly empty house. You wasted no time, making a bee line to your bedroom as Ellie paced around. Taking in the lack of any feeling home. You had brought hardly anything over. A bag or two at most. Neither she or Joel had much when they arrived, but they finally had started to feel like a home, like a place in the world once long forgotten. You arrived with nothing, and you still had next to nothing. 

Ellie couldn’t help but wonder. Is that what life on the outside was like for you? To truly have nothing to find joy in? The clang of wood caught her attention, dragging her over to your old bedroom. Your body knelt on the ground tearing out part of the floor only to reach in and rag out a small box. “So what are we doing back here?” 

Hands pausing mid movement what would you even say? What Joel was keeping from here was nowhere near the kind of lie you were keeping from both of them. The lie you tried to throw away the day you set foot in this town. Fingers slowly wrapping around loose drawings scattered at the bottom, you shuffled them together, throat tight as you tired to find careful words. 

“Something he might be after.” Head lifting up you saw the question form on her tongue. “It’s complicated. I’m not- I don’t know how to explain it.” Right now at least. 

“You could try. I mean I’m complicated.” Your head dropped again but in a breathy laugh, Ellie always managing to let that bemused attitude slip through no matter what. 

Tilting your head to the side a smirk played on your lips. “Yeah, we seem to be a house full of that.” Slipping the drawings into part of the journal, you sucked in a breathe with your eyes blinking shut for as long as you exhaled. Chucking the box back into the hole you lazily threw the wood down. Nothing left in there to hide under hammer and nails. 

Ellie’s face was stuck in hesitation when you stood back up. Her eyes looking to the journal you pressed tight to your chest then back to your own face trying to appear neutral. “Is that what he wants?” 

Lungs constricted and coiled more in your chest. Best case scenario likely being this was all he travelled here for. “Stay in your room, when we get back.” Your head shaking just once as your face tightened and scrunched up. “I’m not asking Ellie. You’re not going anywhere near him.” 

Her arms waved in the air, voice raising just like outside. “I’m not just gonna hide in my room like a-” 

“You don’t think Joel’s going to tell you the exact same thing?” Inside hoping you weren’t coming across as harsh. But you didn’t know what Owen was going to say, or what was going to happen to get him to say it. Ellie deserved a normal life, and none of this was apart of that. 

The house was silent when you both got back. Not a creak or muffle as Ellie charged in first. An annoyed attitude to match such a flat expression unwilling to even keep the door mostly open. Your grip on the journal adjusting and reajusuting multiple times as if letting for a fleeting moment would sweep it out of your possession. 

Opening the door the rest of the way, you were silent as you watched Ellie stand in the middle of the room. Her body turned towards the only closed door, eyes wider and sunken in with a deeper hesitation then before. You could see Joel leaning back against the counter, arms crossed with eyes harsh and narrow at the same direction. 

“He’s in there?” Half her torso twisting to watch Joel nod once. “Is he-” 

“Still tied up. He’s not going anywhere.” An edge cut through his voice, restraining an emotional you knew was a battle to bury back down. “As long as he’s here you’re going to-” 

Head dropping as did her eyes. “Stay in my room. I know.” She didn’t bother taking her jacket off out here, just step by step towards the hallway there wasn’t even a blink. Suddenly the prospect of staying as far away from him as possible didn’t sound like a punishment. Stopping in front of the door, she looked back to Joel with her teeth gritting in an anxiousness. “What are we going to do with him?” 

There was no response. Joel’s shoulders squared as he exhaled through his nose harshly. Brown eyes just glued between her and the door as his head brewed with thoughts you couldn’t possibly imagine. 

Neither of them said anymore. Ellie turned to open her door before taking one last peek at the shut one not far from her own. Keeping her in the dark wouldn’t last, but right now wasn’t time. Not for Joel, not for you. 

The quiet air didn’t dissipate with her departure. An uncertainty floating between you and Joel, his eyes now following the way yours stared at the door. Unlike Ellie though, your own blazed with a knowing fear. Murmuring your name, Joel gestured for you to come over to him. 

You didn’t reach out for him the way his hand did for your waist. Pulling you closer, Joel stood up straight with a deep breathe. Eyes flickering to the door and back, brows narrowed still. “The hell does he want with you that he tracked you all the way here for?” 

It felt like a blame, even if it wasn’t one. What did you to do drag something else into his life? Your grip on the journal in your hand didn’t go amiss. Nor did your casual shrug fool him. “If he’s still a firefly he either only wants me..” 

“Or that?” Joel raised an eyebrow towards your hands as his own pulled your retreating body back into him. “Hey. I’m not prying, but if you’re in danger I need to know about it. Now.” The sternness in Joel’s voice carved something deep inside you as did the fierceness in his bright eyes.

Your jaw clenched as the defeat just piled up. His eyes followed as your hands dropped to your sides before you tossed the journal aggressively onto the counter behind him, but your arms returned to cross your chest protectively. “They know about me. Like-” 

His large hand squeezing just above where the mark sat on your side. His eyes squinted in confusion at what was in your hands. “What does a book have to do with it?” Heart lurching in your chest, you pried yourself from his hand but found yourself unable to move entirely from his warmth. One palm pressing into your forehead as the other sat on your hip. 

“It belongs to them.” Your chin cutting over to it. Jackson was supposed to heal over those memories, but that wasn’t the plan of whoever watched your life over. “I stole it from them, Owen took it back from me, I stole it from him so on.” Head raising into the air to push the sting in your eyes down even when your shaky breathe gave it away just as much. “Either they only got their hands on the book, or lucky enough to try and drag me to Boston because Marlene just can’t give anything up.” 

“Marlene?” Joel leaned into you, pulling your face to look at him by your chin. Your own lost ones stark against his heating fire as he said your name. “She was the one looking for you?” 

You stammered, watching Joel run a hand over his face. Dots connecting in your mind, your mouth fell open slightly as a tangle of disjointed words tumbled out. “Yeah she wanted me.... and you were in Boston. With Ellie.” A story you knew the details to but didn’t stop to wonder how deeply intertwined it’s words were.

This time it was Joel who fidgeted his body back and forth, jaw so clenched it might snap as both his hands found his hips. “Ellie grew up in there, and that’s where I lived when Marlene got me to take her, or forced my hand was more like it. She was adamant someone needed to get her to one of their stations out west when she couldn’t.”

Joel’s head snapped to you as you started putting it together. “I’m assuming she didn’t specify west meant a hospital in Salt Lake?” 

Running his hand down his face again, Joel finally leaned back against the counter. “I didn’t know the extend of where I was taking her until Ellie mentioned a cure. By the time I got her there, it was almost to late when I found out what the fuck they were about to do.” 

Blood racing in your veins you hated where this was going more and more. “Because she knew you’d never do otherwise. She seem desperate?” 

All you needed was his nod of yes. You felt incredibly stupid. The details Joel had already shared, what Don told you, what had happened what was in the journal itself. That’s why they left you alone after all that time. She found Ellie, and dumped her off with people who couldn’t possibly know what Marlene was handing her off for. 

You weren’t sure how long you had been silent, but Joel cupped the side of your neck urging you to come back to him. You were quicker on the draw then he was. “We need to find out what he’s doing here. Now.” 

Soothing you, his breathe grazed your face as he leaned his forehead onto yours. “I can do this alone, you don’t need to see this.” 

Sliding your fingers up to hold his wrist gently, your eyes as soft as your touch felt opposite of how much Joel’s nerves sat in his fingertips. “You said we’re in this together. So we do this, together.” He took one last moment to hold you against him still with a hand at the back of your head. 

Pulling back he grabbed something you couldn’t quite see from behind him, sliding it into pocket inside his jacket before you could make it out. His hand stayed in the middle of your lower back as you both approached the door. The journal left alone on the counter the reasons to keep it in the shadows leaving you moment by moment. 

It should have satisfied you to see fresh blood now on his face. Two distinct cuts clotting over on his cheek, drifting down to see his frame tied to a chair looped with more then one restraint. Hands bound to the arms of the seat, a redness that too was blood on his fists. You wanted to feel smug at how rough he looked, but it did nothing to soothe the racing of your heart. 

Owen barley looked your way when he saw Joel follow in. The harsh shut of the door behind him making the bound man jump. A rag drenched in droplets of blood and sweat tied around his mouth explained the no noise as you walked in. A sprinkle of suspicion that his newfound red paint was a result of putting far more of a struggle up then he could handle the consequences too. 

The air around the three was charged with such a heavy weight you felt as if it could crush you flat. Your vision as it turning white flashed, the slamming pain skyrocketing from your body to your head as it rattled against the cliff side. The blood on your face felt as if it had never been washed off as you looked at the still red stained ones on Owen. 

Yours weren’t bound to the arms of the chair. No yours were wrapped behind you, phantom sensations of the metal digging into your skin as it gave way to a snapping bone. Memories you’ve never spoken of,  ones you wanted to bury deep. 

Joel had spoken, and you didn’t even catch it. Muffled voices quiet and rumbling as your brain forced itself into the present. You had barley moved from just feet inside the room. Joel stood tall over him with the rag now dragged down from his mouth spitting as the words came out. “What? I can’t just pop by to visit a friend? See an old pal? Isn’t that right? Good ole Don?” 

Snatching his jaw, Owens cheeks smushed together as Joel forced it to lurch forward to his knelt over figure. “Hey, you’re not talking to her. Just me.” His voice was even, but unseen to your place behind him, Joel’s features stood sharp, a dark in his eyes that worked it’s way into his bones from weeks of torment on the people he loves. “Start with what Don was here for.” 

Joel’s hand dropped as he stayed at his eye level Keeping the mans only view of him. The condescension in Owen’s voice circulating Joel’s bloodstream in an angering trail. “Small town living.” 

He gave him no response. A stone walled stare leaving the pure nothingness in the air force someone to fill it, only neither you or Joel would do so. 

“He’s an idiot, who knows what he was doing here. I just haven’t heard from him is all, a guy can’t worry for his friend apparently.” You knew Owen wasn’t stupid enough to believe that. Part of you wondered if he just didn’t realize why Don was nowhere to be found, or if he was dumb at playing dumb. 

Joel’s hand flexed as he turned his head. Barley enough to even look beside him until moving back trying to not shift focus to you. Keeping Owens focus or Joels focus away he wasn’t quite sure of. “This can end right now. But if you keep bullshitting me, I promise you’ll wish it did.” 

Owen opened his mouth and closed it more than once. He was a footman. Strong, not pragmatic. A fear not unlike one you’ve felt countless times in your own eyes doubting himself as Joel stared at him. Only letting a few more seconds pass before Joel’s face twisted in anger. Bracing his palms on his thighs Joel pushed back upright. 

Stepping uncomfortably close into his space, Joel tugged the gag back over his mouth, but was nowhere near done. You couldn’t tell what Joel had pulled from his jacket until rusting pliers braced themselves onto the nail of Owens index finger. 

Tilting his head with an eyebrow raised, Joel was giving him a warning that Owen didn’t take. Just shaking his head with a muffled string of what sounded like petulant swearing. Joel held it to him, breathing heavy as whatever conflict in his head won out, forcing himself to act on that conclusion before a softer part of his subconscious wanted to talk him out of. 

A few years into the outbreak you had watched a number of members from your group screaming not dissimilar to the muffled ones before you. You had been pressed inside the back of a desk. Your only sight the dilapitating square of wall in front of you, but the wood surrounding you felt as it it made it echo. Warped, distorted screams as it was followed by a cracking. One by one the cracks followed screams that rasped into sobs. 

It was a sound and sight that for a while, was the scariest thing you’d ever seen. A body unconscious from either shock or blood loss as scattered puddles of blood and teeth lay strung about. You didn’t dare look how many were left. There were enough teeth on the ground to know not enough to matter. 

You had thought to yourself, never again did you want to be anywhere near something like this. But that was before you were tormented with screams, screeches and searing rips into your skin and clicks that stabbed into your brain until you felt numb to the fear. 

Owen didn’t sound quite like any of it. More like a strained groan trying to push down the agony. Your nails digging into your palm with each silence between Joel’s growling voice. Blood asking to drip down from the nails you still had, unlike the man who took his only chance to speak with his gag off, to try and spit at Joel. Much more swearing came from that rip then whatever your nails scratched into your palm. 

The red made it look worse then it did. Comparing to what the world outside proved it was capable of, Owen would live. Live without having to change who he was entirely. Your side told you not to feel bad and it was a hard voice to ignore. Your forearm throbbing in rhythm. Neither of those were a fate anyone should feel, but you had. And so did she. Those were far worse.

Owen wasn’t just connected to Don, it didn’t just trace back to you, and Joel had enough of keeping that thought out of it. “Look at me. Hey-” He yelled more this time, nostrils flared as he grabbed Owen by the throat to force him to look. 

Owen looked dazed, swallowing hard as his eyes fluttered in and out of pain. “You this embarrassed someone got the jump on you in front of your girl?” 

A roaring current zapped through Joels nerves, his hand tightening his hold on the mans throat. “Fine, you’re in my position. Someone breaking into your home? Rope in his hands, sneaking up on you and your daughter behind your backs?” His voice snarling at the edge of breaking into something Joel could lose control over. 

But you didn’t give either of them a chance. Your footsteps banged into the floor, heart pounding but unwilling to break eyes with Owens attention, now on you as he heaved in pain. Joel didn’t move, forcing his snarling heaves back down.

Hand curling into a fist around the pliers. It didn’t matter what Owen’s plan was. Joel covered all of Ellie’s sides, and so you would cover his back. You didn’t bend down to their place near the ground. You wanted Owen to strain up in the pain to look at you. “You read the journal, right?” 

Joel’s heart tempered down, but didn’t have the willingness to look anywhere but the man bleeding in front of him. Nothing had happened, but the threat was enough. Men like this, people like them? Joel would make sure they had no right to even look at Ellie. They get to keep their lives, their families and there was no comprehension in Joel’s mind to ever appease that they tried to tear apart his for their own gain. Tear his family back to shreds, keep their own when they had no heart or soul as they tried to do it to his. 

Unlike him, you didn’t bother with the intimidation, it was never a word given to you anyways. Letting it your hand brush the wrist attached to where Joel’s was, brushing your thumb over the vein you could reach, Joel finally let the mans airway free. Desperate to keep himself here, it only switched places. You felt his hand, large and close to bruising as he held part of your calf. 

Owen heaved and you let him. He wasn’t a solider, he had no obligation to withstand this, and both you and Joel knew that. You let Joel push Owen to the edge as long as you held him back from the cliff when Joel himself got to close to falling alongside. Broken at the bottom, splayed on jagged rocks you spoke softly to him. 

“Owen. I asked you a question.” He glanced from Joel to you, but finally kept it mostly on you when Joel didn’t move a muscle. “How much of the journal did you read?”

And there it was, his bloodshot eyes jumping to your forearm. In another world, maybe you’d smile, smirk, enjoy the torment. But neither you or Joel did. This was his family, and he was protecting it regardless of the cost. 

Nodding, you didn’t really even register doing, but your eyes sat wide. “It didn’t say anything about this,  I imagine.” One hand slip the side of your shirt up. 

Forearms heal better then the sides of a torso, and yours still looked like a horror. The colour, the scarring still healing with skin bitten and torn into and no disillusion as to what it was from. “Do you think you’re bite will look like this? Or rot to something else entirely.”

Would you do it? No. Humans deserved the fate of other humans. No one deserved what you and Ellie had barley survived. It was more then teeth, it was a blood curling terror like a radiation poured into your body along with it. But Owen didn’t know that, all he knew is someone in the fireflies inflated your reputation to dangerous. And that certainly wasn’t the image of hope Marlene tried to frame it in, no only one other person would have given Owen that idea. 

You wanted to crouch to look him properly in the eye, but you dared not interrupt the iron grip Joel had on your calf. So your fingers curled into the side of his jacket collar, one the front of his shirts were familiar with on quiet, peaceful nights. “Don could have told you if his own bite didn’t tear into his neck. Bring you to him if you don’t believe me.” 

“No, n-no,” There was the crack Joel had broken in. 

“Then tell us the truth. If you’re here for the journal, we can talk about that. But of you’re here for me then that’s a new problem.” 

You could feel Joel’s hand slid up your calf, less desperate and tight but now more all encompassing. A need to feel you there without risking his attention elsewhere. But that didn’t matter. The attention wasn’t about you at all. Owen looked defeated at you before sliding his eyes to the thing you feared putting at risk the most.   

“We weren’t looking for you. We were sent to look for him.” Your fingers curled into his jacket more as your heart beat so fast you felt it in your throat. A penetrating cold shivering from your heart and outward. “Fuck, no one even knew where you were until now I guess. A few of us have been scouting different nowhere towns looking for a Joel Miller. Just a wild fucking coincidence I guess.” 

Joel’s voice was controlled, forcing words out slowly and clearly. Low almost like a whisper. His eyes the opposite as they fell dark and falling down a hole of realization. “Whose us?” 

Owen gnawed at his lip before relenting. “Anderson,” Joel tilted his head needing him to elaborate, but you knew. You knew it was a divine force that kept you from falling back. “You know the doctor, the fucking hospital? We’re not with the fucking fireflies anymore, just got a few of us together when she finally learned your name. You killed her dad, so? Fair’s fair.” 

Joel stood up, the room silent as your head spun it’s contents. Turning to you, his face was lost in an overwhelming blast of emotions. Yours was flushed, a shiver running your entire body as you looked at him.  This wasn’t even about you, and that scared you even more. You couldn’t just walk away to get rid of this for them.

Joel grabbed your wrist on his jacket, holding to keep you close. He seemed to grapple with something before turning to shove the gag back in Owens protesting mouth and dragging you out of the room. 

He pulled you closer to the main room cupping the sides of your face urgently, pulling you into his space as you tried to rationalize it. “She can’t, you..I won’t let her.” 

Joel muttering your name almost commandingly as he almost smoothed over your skin to quell the panic. “Hey, hey- it’s okay eyes on me.” Your nails almost dug into his chest as you shook in his hold with a skin prickling combination of distraught and a back blowing whoosh of determinating protectiveness. “Nothing is going to happen. Nothing’s going to happen to me, not me, not any of us.” 

Your soul felt like screaming on the inside. “I’m not going to lose you, not for this. I won’t leave anyone to-” 

Joel pulled your lips into his, a harsh and rough collision that took not just your breathe out of your lungs but his. His own brushing against yours aggressively, pulling back only enough to have you hear him.

“Together. Anything we do, we’re doing it together. You don’t want to leave me? Good ‘cus I’m certainly not leaving you or her. I didn’t do what I did, only to get ripped away from her as soon as we finally started becoming something.” 

Joel kissed you another time, telling you to stay out here. Just for a minute before turning on the spot and slamming the door back behind him. A sharp anger on his face that you decided wasn’t worth holding him back from. 

Your back pressed against the wall, palms shoving pressure onto your forehead as you realized just who was looking for Joel. If it was her, then she’d come looking for Owen. If Joel didn’t hesitate to go find you the day you took off, then she would come looking for Owen the second it was too late for him to reasonably not come back. 

At some point you had slid onto the floor right next to Ellie’s door. This was it. She needed to know about that day. But it wasn’t what Joel did that was the lie going to hurt, it was the truth you had to come to terms with too. The truth all Joel did, was save her from and the pain he thought he was keeping from her was nothing. 

You could see the journal still sat on the counter at the other end of the room. He’d tell her, then you’d tell them. Somewhere in the back of your head you registered a thud, but it was too faint to drag you back into the light. 

The quiet creak of Ellie’s door however, was just that. She had heard enough to know what was happening in that room, but none of you were disturbed by it. Ellie had been through more then what Joel had done in those last ten minutes with Joel himself. Her eyes were tensely trained on the door when she almost jumped at the sight of you. 

“Fuck, make a sound or something next time.” Laugh, smile give her something but you couldn’t. Everything was about to be laid out on the table, and your nerves were crippled with the nightmare of losing Joel, losing her, for it all. “What happened?” 

Both of your heads shot up as Joel finally came back out. A redness on his hands that you knew were smears of the mans already dripping blood inside, it didn’t look bruised so at least it wasn’t that. You could only see inside the room enough to see the chair awkwardly moved over with Owen muttering to himself along with it as the door shut. 

All three of you looked at one another before Joel looked at Ellie with a seeping guilt in his eyes, “We need to talk.” Ellie’s eyebrows raised in worry but nodded. 

“Not just you. I mean, she needs to know.” Ellie’s face darting between you both now confused, “But you both need to know something else. You talk to her first though.” 

Ellie looked lost and anxious, “What the fuck is going on?” 

Joel’s hand smoothed over the side of Ellie’s head, his heart melting at how instinctively now she leaned into his embrace without realizing. Any of you losing this would be catastrophic. “Give us a minute,” his head gesturing to you. “Then we’ll talk.” Looking between you both, she finally conceded. Joel unable to take his eyes off of her until the door shut completely once more. 

Holding his hand out, he pulled you up onto your feet and gestured to the main room before either of you said a word. Wavering looks swimming in both of your eyes and hearts beating just as loudly as the other. “She-” Joel cut himself off with a sigh, handing his head with his hands on his hips. “I wanted to find the right words first. Not spring it on her like it doesn’t matter how I say it.” A strain in his voice you wanted to honey over.

Though you weren’t sure he was really telling you, not past your nerves. Running a hand down the length of his face as his eyes stayed shut. You were in the same boat, how were you supposed to tell the only family you had how much of a lie they were both sold on. How would they feel knowing you were a sliver of that story? 

Maybe you shouldn’t have unpacked that bag, your old empty house feeling more and more like the isolation you belonged in, but Joel didn’t deserve this feeling. He’d been through enough, he’s done enough. Softly muttering his name, he dropped his hand back to his hip but still was trapped behind his eyes.

This time whispering his name, hands very gently reaching out to cup the side of his face, thumb tracing against the coarse facial hair. His larger hand circled your wrist. “Give me your worst case scenario.” His eyes darting up in narrowing, an incredulous look but you kept your hand softly on him. “What would be the worst reaction she could have?” 

It was clear he’d thought too much of just that, because his answer was instantaneous. “She hates me. I lied to her about all of it, and she resents me for what I did, and for lying to her.” A part of your heart cried at hints of agony his eyes looked at you. “I don’t know if I could handle that. Not now.” 

Joel deserved to hear one thing, but right now you think he needed something else more. It was surprisingly easy to pull such a tall giant man to lean down into you. His hands both squeezing you waist as his forehead rested on your shoulder. Winding one arm past his neck you kept him there as you raked your hands through his hair as the other ran your palm shallowly against his torso down closer to his stomach. His deep breaths the only thing in your ear as you let him feel the worry for just a moment. 

Let him process what’s being forced onto him so suddenly. You didn’t let go of him as you softly spoke into his ear minutes later as his breathing steadied against your skin. “Do you know why that will never happen?” Hands gripped you tighter, you were starting to speak his silence. “That kid loves you. You’re her whole goddamn world even if you can’t see it. She was sold on a lie that got sold onto you. You were the only person who did the right thing, probably one of the only people who ever put her well being before someone else.” 

Joel found enough of a calm to lift his head, steady movements in his chest as he rested his head against yours. Face still twisted and tearing apart with nerves. “I still lied to her.” 

When you first met him, you’d never have said anything close to what came out of your mouth in the firm meaning you spoke. “You lied to yourself, Joel.” His eyes widening, a hurt treading on them that needed to be satiated fast. “When you think about that day, do you see what you did or why you did it- no don’t try to tell me otherwise. Because that’s exactly what I see.” 

Your hands sliding down to his own waist, “There’s not a single time I’ve heard Ellie talk about everything that happened that doesn’t end in her finding a way to tie it back to something you did for her. Marlene wanted to dump her life off on lies, and you kept her from it because you love her. What lie do you think’s going to hurt more? The one you couldn’t even admit to yourself, or the one people like them just for a chance to get her into a slaughterhouse.”  

Pulling your arms away from him, you gave Joel the chance to stand on two feet. The thoughts clearly mixing and repelling against one another as he followed your lead. Giving his body a chance to breathe on his own, his eyes on nothing while the mind behind brewed and boiled. Slowly you stepped away, the time it took getting to where the journal had been tossed feeling like a lifetime. 

Your hand paused as you slid it towards you. Eyes flying over the well used pages stuffed with fresher notes in your own once manic scratchings. Heart felt beating in your chest, you had to do it, but it wasn’t your place to say it. You had to let them be together. They could call you whatever they wanted, but you were still just on your own. Joel was her father now, and that’s the love she’s going to desperately need the most. 

Biting the inside of your cheek, you quickly moved things. Putting your own notes in one pile and storing it right at the front. It had to be done before regret slipped in. Snatching it off the table you didn’t hide it on your person this time. It hung in the hand at your side, as you looked at his face once more. 

No lies between you. Even if it sacrificed the adoration he watched you with. Both of you moved slowly as you handed it over to him, grateful he didn’t open it right away. “There’s nothing I could say that isn’t already in there.” 

Joel’s head tilted as he looked at you with doubt. “Neither of us is trying to exclude you.” 

Nerves burning on fire, you shrugged. “It’s still your life before me. Don’t open it until after. She needs you first, not this.” Watching his eyes bounce between the journal and you, the defeat crawling over sitting heavy in Joel’s stomach. “I think I pretty much summed it up, my notes in the front.” You pointed to the obvious white sheets contrasted against the stained darker ones. “But it’s still all in there.” 

Neither you nor Joel said the words. The grief of losing it before becoming real a fear you needed to steel yourself with once more against as Joel stood before you. Himself holding it back from spilling out of his mouth, especially with that dissonant look in your eyes. 

Selfishly, you have yourself what could be a final indulgence of his warmth. Your hands pressing flat onto his chest wishing those warm brown colour of his eyes would stay with you forever. “You’re not a bad person, Joel. Ellie knows that, so stop thinking that she will.” 

His eyes skipped down to your lips, choosing to pull you in with his fingers under your chin. Small and chaste with the taste of restraint from losing yourself in the other. Pulling back only enough to give you air, “Didn’t realize this is what it would take to get this much out of you.” 

Your heart leaping into a breathy laugh as he too lightly laughed into another kiss. Everyone always had something to say the second you ran your mouth for more than a few minutes didn’t they? 

Control slipping, you had to gently push him back before he let go of it entirely. You didn’t watch as he walked away, didn’t watch as he went into her room. The click of the door was a trigger. The air in the room heavy and constricting, as the walls surrounded you. You couldn’t be in here, you couldn’t listen to whatever would happen it was suffocating you. You didn’t deserve to be anywhere near them, not now, not for this. 

Not sure if either of them heard the front door shut, you walked out into the now significantly darker sky. Lungs filling with air you could stand as if the house was drowning in water. You didn’t get too far, just far enough to throw your back against a brick wall, sliding down as you lifted your head into the late winter sky.

It was a strange thought that passed through you, wondering what she’s heard about you since. If she was still with the fireflies then she knows all to well the man power wasted at trying to get you back.

Like the faces that followed you with every stabbing pain, she no doubt remembers your face perfectly. One of the hands now resting on your knees twitching as it relived a pain. 

The blood dripping down your bottom lip from how hard you bit into it, holding back your voice as the bones in your hand snapped, slipping from the metal handcuffs forcing your arms behind the chair. The chain clanging together as you retched them in front of you, barley making it off the chair as your upper body leaned in on itself, shaking as you snapped the bone back barley staving off a cry.

The darker the sky grew the further down the dilapidated, dripping hall your memory travelled. You had caught her coming around the corner, nearly jumping as she turned to see you. It was easy to see the blood on you was your own, but it was even easier to see what sat on the forearm with the fractured hand. Red skin and stiff hanging at your torso, you had it unknowingly tilted where the ripples of an infection she couldn’t possibly guess was long past it’s prime. 

You didn’t know if all of them here knew, a pathetic excuse of a firefly mid stop with too much empty space for them to even think of how to use it. Hell, at the time, you didn’t know a single of them were fireflies. You just knew him, your father, and now her. Judging by her face, wide eyes stepping back as an urgency fell over her face, she didn’t know the person here was you. The familiarity between you didn’t mean anything close to it’s beginning.

It all took no more than a few seconds. One of her hands reached behind her for what you had seen from the side was a gun as she begun to shout out someone’s name that you didn’t give her a chance to spell out. You had done it before you even heard it, arm stretched as the sound of the shot hit your ears after it already casted blood into her stomach. Something inside you wanted to stay, by the time someone else reached her it could already be too late. 

But that would’ve been your fate if you didn’t leave. You fell into their laps by accident, but wasted no time in trying to find a use for you that didn’t involve keeping you around. It was the first time you stole the only resources they had, you. And the first time having you get away, ate at Marlene’s desperation to force you back from that day onward. You didn’t even know Marlene’s name until that day in the field, but you new who she was all too well now.

Front door slowly shutting was followed by the slight thud of boots against the wood of the porch. Head snapping up you saw Joel looking out with a squint, his shoulders looking less risen and tense then he had all day. You however, shot up so quickly your feet almost stumbled you back over if not for your hand braced against the brick beside you. 

It was too far to see his expression, but it wasn’t always the best way to determine what was going on inside Joel’s head. Let him come to you, you told yourself. Constantly going to him, invading his life, disturbing their privacy was all you provided. 

He had on a different shirt then before, this one looking much warmer then what was on you. Part of you wondered just how long you had been out here alone. If the sky had anything to say about it, it might have been far longer then you knew. 

Now though, being out in the snow? A lack of anything substantial for winter weather having Joel’s eyes look at you, not knowing if in simple concern or judgment. Standing a foot or two away from you, Joel answered the question he saw you open your mouth to ask. 

“You were right.” Your back sagged against the brick, this time though your legs finding the strength to hold you up. “Turns out having your whole life upended hurts a whole lot more then being lied to about getting her out of it.” His voice was shoved out in a gruff kind of pain, his eyes fared no better.  Bright but not in a shine you yearned for, a pain, an upset that sat heavy in his heart. Just because it didn’t devastate their relationship, doesn’t mean it wasn’t devastating in every other sense. 

You swallowed harshly as you nodded. Nothing even in your throat to say, scared to look to long at him, missing the needing stare he gave you that shined in the growing moonlight. Your voice just weak and cracked, “And you?” 

The sigh he let out was loud. Arms crossing his chest he paced to put rest his back against a close by tree. The increased distance between you growing larger, you didn’t know how intentional it was. “I said something when she first told me what Marlene wanted with her. They’ve talked about cures all the time and none of them worked. Everyone wanted me to believe in it, in her so badly.” 

Clenching his jaw you could see the frustration build and build. Making you feel like you understood without any idea of how to comfort it in a meaningful way. “But she’s a kid, not an answer.” 

You yearned to reach out to him, his eyes glazing somewhat as he looked from the night sky, to the ground and back to you as a darker tone resurfaced in his voice. “She didn’t deserve to be treated like some miracle. She needed someone, anyone, to give a shit enough to protect her. Even from them.” 

For once you stood still like a stature while Joel kept shifting his stance or his shoulders. “I don’t know if I even believed it when I went back for her. All I knew is it didn’t matter what they wanted, she didn’t deserve that and I couldn’t live with it.”

Your fingernails chipped away at the brick behind you, “Sometimes desperation makes you dumb. Doing bad things because they deluded themselves into thinking as long as they accomplish something then they can keep feeling as if they’re winning.” Sighing out raspily you hoped he couldn’t hear it. “Couldn’t get me anymore, so the second she found a new one? Getting her on that table was all they a cared about.”

“Even though they knew it wouldn’t work.” Joel pushed up from the tree, letting his hands fall to his belt loops trying to close the distance. “Didn’t matter what the truth was, everyone wanted her to be the one to set all of this right. All I could see was a girl who wanted to have a life. Didn’t matter to me what anyone else wanted, I’m not sure it ever did when it came to Ellie.” 

Silence fell between you, that feeling in your throat coming back up like it wasn’t able to stop. Your heart falling over at the pain filling his features. “I’m sorry.” 

Joel scrunched his face at you. “You’re sorry? For what?” 

Throwing your hands out, you for once found yourself starting any kind of argument. “What do you mean what? How about everything I do somehow keeps coming back to fuck you and Ellie’s lives up.” 

Joel’s own voice started to match in a frustration level. “Wait- you haven’t done anything.” 

Rolling your eyes to the side you struggled to understand what he was even trying to do. “Right, because you’re lives have been so much more peaceful since I showed up and for some reason you just let me hang around no matter what I’ve done.” 

Joel tried to come towards you but you just pushed off the wall and circled around to stay away. “I-”

At least it was growing dark enough that Joel couldn’t see the redness in your eyes. “He came looking for Don, Joel. Don never checked in because I killed him, he never even mentioned them. If he was here looking for you, he stopped giving a shit about you the second he saw me. Maybe if I just let him-” 

Joel’s anger wasn’t at you but it sat visibly steaming on his face as he tried stepping towards you, but you just stepped away again. “No. I’m not even going to fucking entertain that idea-” 

Your head pounded, every modicum of sound screaming as it flowed into your ears. “Well I am, so maybe you should for once, Joel.”

Running a hand over his mouth, you knew he was either going to yell or going to try and come closer, but at the moment you couldn’t tell which one you wanted less. “What do you want from me? Blame you for everything that ever goes wrong? Pretend I don’t want you in my life?” 

If he was growing angry, you deflated it by turning to face him. Not quite yelling, but certainly not quiet either. “No, you’re just supposed to not want me in general.”

His volume grew with yours, as did the sharp features on his face grew twisted and stiff. “Well I’m sorry, sweetheart. You don’t get to just stand there and tell me I’m not allowed to love you just because that’s what you expect out of me.” 

He didn’t realize what he had just said. And neither did you. The only ones who realized what Joel had just said, were the half awake birds on the treetops and the single pair of ears quietly listening from a far off window. 

You pressed your palm to your forehead, trying to will the headache away with the pressure. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Joel. I just-” 

Joel tried to come closer. His heart was turned up tonight, and between earlier, sitting on a way too low to the ground bed for his frame, running his hand soothingly over his what loose strands of hair splayed out from their ponytail as his little girl finally let that insufferably stubborn wall of hers fall down for once and cried into his lap. That everything that had finally brought them together was all based on a horrific lie that duped them both. Neither he nor her having any idea what to feel about it. 

It was too much for him, but nothing compared to the endless turmoil spinning behind Ellie’s eyes as they were laid out what this all truly was. Ellie had been through a lot, too much with him, but for once she let herself react the way she needed. She didn’t do anything, she shouldn’t be brave about it. 

Now he’s standing out in his front yard, watching you float around too many emotions for you to figure out what you even felt. Your voice wavering and how you kept stepping away if he came forward. To Joel, it was his own actions that brought this down on them, yet here you stood trying to force him to put every blame on you for just existing. 

“Can you just listen to me?” 

You wanted everything to stop, your lungs yelling at you and your vision feeling like it wanted to start spinning. “No, Joel-” 

His hands gestured uselessly in the air, “Why not?” hoping he didn’t sound angry, but sometimes he wasn’t quite aware enough to know how he was coming off to people. Especially if airing on the side of losing his temper. 

You told yourself not to cry, feeling a vile embarrassment if you cried in front of him right now. But your throat felt choked up, and barley managed to spit it out. “Because I don’t get it, Joel.” Everything in his face paused, taken back by what was about to spill out of your heart. 

“I don’t understand why you care. I’ve never understood it. I’ve done nothing but get in the way, and you keep just bringing me back when we both know your life would be a hell of a lot easier without me in it. I don’t understand why you keep me around or why you even like me. I just...I don’t get you.” 

Pressure build behind your eyes while the rest of you burned with humiliation. Being with Joel exposed parts of your soul that you never even thought to share with another, but the undeniable shake in your voice as you trailed off was twister of panic and tears that you tried to push down. Pretending it was anger. 

In anyone else, Joel would have taken it in a worse light. But the silence in him as he grappled with just how little you could see how he felt didn’t sit right inside him. He knew part of this between you both was somewhat new to you. What he didn’t know, is that in fact all of it was new to you. 

He was new in every way and now it all swirled on terrifying, your eyes staring at each other until you turned to go back in the house. In your frazzled mind, you hoped maybe Joel wouldn’t yell at you if you were inside. It felt different once you got there though. Countless houses you’ve walked into, abandoned, dilapidated, some in surprisingly good condition. Even your own small one in this very town. But something about being in Joel’s house felt different. Like a warmth spreading through your bones as you walked into the front door. 

Your palms sat flat against the back of the couch, trying to count how long your inhales were and focusing on the exhales. Slowly your heart tapered down, the walls around you stopped shrinking in as you hoped when your eyes opened once more the world would stop feeling like it was tumbling around you. 

Just seconds ago you felt like if Joel came anywhere close to you, that the weight of your emotions would implode on you. Yet as you heard Joel quietly following you into the house, you couldn’t help but follow where he was by the sounds he made as he walked in. 

It all just hit you too fast. Giving yourself no time to process so you chose the worst possible way to react. Too much of your lives were converging together and it kept brewing a storm that you once only had to deal with alone. Now there were actual people in your life who leaving would tear parts of you across the distances between them. The only life that had been in danger since you arrived was your own. Having the forces from yours come down to Joel wasn’t fair. He had no stake in this fight. 

He only did the one thing none of those people had the heart or the guts to do for another. And people like her had no right seeking out revenge for someone who wasn’t anywhere near close to what was toted around. Truly thinking about it, there was another person in this house who you know has his back too. 

Eyes opening you looked over to her closed door, this time at least knowing she asleep. Only time would heal what you finally had to expose her too. 

It was hypocritical of you, how the second two strong arms caged you in against the back of the couch, you leaned back into what you knew was Joel’s warm torso. He stepped in to press you closer to the couch so he could cover your hands with his, fingers linked as much as he could manage in this position. 

His chin rests on your shoulder as you both stand with the other against you, a quiet that is far more familiar and soothing then any kind of arguing. Joel must have been watching you, because as soon as you opened your eyes to speak, he leaned his mouth closer to your ear. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry again.” 

Letting you go, Joel pressed himself more into your back as his hands decide to rest more comfortably on your hips. His nose pressed to your hair you nod in agreement. “Guess I’ve scared you enough, only a matter of time until it was my turn to get it.” 

Your fingers dug into the couch more, but you still leaned into his touch head tilting back at his every move, even though he always found his way back. “I’m not going to bother telling you not to be. We both know listening to me isn’t exactly your forte.” Joel smirking against the side of your head at your face instantly falling in a playful offence. “I need you to listen to me this time, though.” 

One arm slid across your stomach, almost as if he knew your hands were itching to hold onto him in some way. His hold pressing you against him further at the feeling of your nails scratching along his arm slightly. Your nod not enough for him, “Out loud.” 

His heartbeat was so much calmer then yours, clearly having taken his jacket off while your back was turned the single thin layers between you meant you could feel him with every breathe. “I’m listening.” 

Joel’s own eyes were off in the distance, staring at the table he could see through the door frame. The kind of nerves he saw on you felt like an echo of that night. So wrapped up in how sure he felt, that he forgot how unused to all this you were. Not used to the feelings that came with finding yourself so close to someone you didn’t expect too. 

He knew all to well what that was like. The girl he felt in his heart like a father to, laying everything out on the line for. Ellie could look back on that day and joke about it. Trying to make a scene over how mistreated she was anytime he made her do a chore she’d turn back with a hand over her head lambasting the time he so callously threw her entire body into a wall. “Like a piece of meat,” she’d go on like.

Being told she’s nothing but cargo to him, not knowing the pure terror the day he could have truly lost her in more vile ways then he wanted to ever imagine. How it wasn’t the only day either.  A small name he only ever felt pain even thinking about slipping from his lips as he looked at Ellie, unable to deny what they had become and just how deeply both of them wanted to hold onto the other.

It was different for you, but he knew whatever family you had wasn’t even present enough for you to care to share. Spending a lifetime outside any kind of walls or city with any form of order, not until you walked into town that day. You were still getting used to him, just as he had to do with Ellie. 

“Maybe in another life, this might go down differently. Ellie decides she doesn’t trust me, I get caught off guard, or by some miracle that doctor even had a fucking clue what he was doing.” Both his arm around you and hand on your hip squeezed tighter. “But that’s not going to happen. We have each other, sweetheart. All three of us. You don’t deserve to be dragged back into this shit. And I’m sure as hell not leaving this world for that son of a bitch thinking he had any right to cut her open for some cure that doesn’t fucking exist. Who didn’t give a second thought about murdering the one other kid in my life who has ever felt like a daughter to me.” 

You could feel the tensity in his muscles, wanting to turn around you tried to twist but Joel kept you in place. Pressing his lips to the back of your head. “He deserved exactly what you gave him, Joel.” Pausing your minds were both torn between two growing factions, one of which had to be dealt with before the other. “She’ll try to get the jump on us. Think I accidentally taught her the advantage of actually sneaking up on people.” 

Joel’s voice was such a deep and bassy rumble in your ear that you couldn’t help your eyes flutter at the sensation. “Then she tries sneaking up on us. You with me?” Nodding in his hold, he muttered “Good girl.” 

Oh he did that on purpose. As soon as your thighs tensed, Joel smirked into your hair. “Joel, we’re supposed to be making a plan- this isn’t fair.” 

His chuckle was closer to your neck as he traced his nose down your cheek and jaw. “You saying I can’t do both?” The hand around your stomach started tracing over you, the way you’d run your hands through his air he traced over your front. When you didn’t respond right away, Joel’s lips pressed one more kiss right under your ear before nudging you with his nose. “We don’t have to do anything, sweetheart. It’s hasn’t been an easy day. I just want to pull you out of that head of yours.” 

This time as you went to turn in his grip he let you. Your hands finding a home on his waist as he kept his back on your hips. His hair somehow just as light and fluffy now as it was when you woke up that morning. Coaxing you awake with his kiss as your hands found his still messy sleeping hair. 

It was just as lovely now, the yellow tinged lights making the greys highlight the rest of the colour that suited him so beautifully. His eyes treading on a darker lust, but instead of a greedy tinge there sat almost a need. Something softer that not even a year ago he thought he’d never even consider wanting anymore. “What is it you want, Joel?” 

Just like he didn’t expect this to be something he ever would want, he almost would never have guessed how easily you got him to open up to you. He’s not sure he’s ever been like this with a woman, even in his old life. 

But you held nothing but an innocent generosity in your eyes, and Joel wasn’t about to part ways with that either. “Call me needy,” leaning to your face his nose trailed along yours as your eyes slid shut. “But what I want, is to feel how warm and tight you are for a little while.” 

Joel read your body like a book, could feel in the smallest actions, the certain pitch of a tiny gasp or the way your body seemed to tense up and shiver at the same time. You always struggled to tell him what you wanted, but he was working you through that. Joel was perfectly happy to take care of you, typically because what he needed matched what you needed perfectly. 

And talking wasn’t always the easiest way to get either of you out of your heads. Joel trying to lull you into his touch when you still hadn’t let go yet. “But if she-” 

One hand tilting you up to his eyes again,”How many does she have with her, if you were to guess?”

If this was about Ellie, there was no way she’d be involved. She wasn’t apart of the group, and there weren’t many people who would follow her on a revenge quest for the father instead of towards the girl they thought they finally had in their possession. “Maybe one or two others, besides him.” Your head nodded in the general direction. “Probably looked at a few different areas. Couple other smaller communities in the state that they would have looked at first. Likely didn’t realize anything was wrong until Owen didn’t check back in. Maybe a day away from here or so.” 

Joel looked through you as he went over something in his head, you guess you still weren’t that good at reading him. Not knowing what plan he was going over. His eyes met yours finally, dipping down to your lips before slowly dragging them back up. “We’re bigger, means she’s got to be more careful. In other words, you can afford to let me have you for a couple hours. Dead man’s final request and all.” 

Your face fell flat along with a weight settling back down in your stomach. “That’s not funny.” 

He shrugged one shoulder, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Is it?” The unamused look on your face still tinged in anxiety had Joel switch gears again. He didn’t find anything funny in joking about you or Ellie that way, so maybe it was fair you didn’t find jokes about him funny either. “Hey, I already told you. I’m not going anywhere. None of us are.” 

Biting the inside of your cheek you shifted your eyes off to the side before nodding. Feeling Joel press another kiss to the side of your head as he shoved you towards the hall. “Go, I’ll be right there.” 

In his room and in the hall you both lingered on something. Your fingertips trailing over the almost insignificant things on his dresser. Tiny pieces of Joel that if he were gone, wouldn’t really belong there anymore. A thought making you sick to your stomach. You’d rather she come for you, at least they could go back to their regular lives. 

Joels own fingers flipping through the pages. Knelt down he quietly had pulled the journal from where it sat close on Ellie’s bed. He let her discover it, he already knew what it would say, just in details that actually mattered. 

She went through most of the reactions she could, denial, anger, lashing out before she exhausted herself leaving tears the only energy she had left in her. It tore his chest right open exposing his heart to the cold air. They were the monsters and not only did they want to kill him all for a man who tried to take his own girl’s life but now the delusional lies they told themselves left her feeling betrayed and used. 

But it wasn’t just her was it? By some miracle some higher power gave Joel not one, but two things in this nightmare to hold onto. Sometimes it was frustrating, watching you unable to believe what he wanted to give you, but then again he wasn’t much different with Ellie was he? 

Ellie pulled him out of a darkness, and Joel had no intention of not doing the same to you. And he knew damn well Ellie felt the same. 

Standing in his room, it occurred to you that maybe you should try to be sexy, allure Joel to you or anything like that. You felt stupid though even thinking about where to start or if he would just roll his eyes at you for trying.

The door closing knocked a sense into you, realizing maybe he wanted you to be ready by now you almost flinched back before starting to pull your shirt up. Two large hands however covered yours as he pressed himself behind you. “Doing my job for me.” 

Your arms went willingly Joel stopped to pull your bra up over you along with the shirt, dropping it down into a messy pile. He wasted no time in filling his hands up with your breasts, almost kneading the plush skin as your back arched into his chest with a breathless gasp. He didn’t want you like this though, he wanted all of you. 

Using his thumb and index finger he tugged slightly at both your nipples letting you choke a moan back as he moved onto the rest of you. His taller figure leaned over you, the once presumed glare narrowing his features now rung in your head as an introspective train of thought, determined in whatever task even with his arms wrapped around your front skillfully undoing the button on your pants. 

A shiver ran down your spine as his mouth bent to press a feather light kiss to your neck so he could reach lower, dragging the zipper down and grasp the waistline. Your shivering from the winters cold air still floating through the room, you felt your limbs tingle as he mumbled into your neck, “Be good for me.” 

Slowly starting to pull both your pants and underwear down, Joel couldn’t help his greed, pausing to squeeze fistfuls of your ass almost too roughly before continuing to pull them off of you. Before he could do anything else, once you stood bare in front of him, you turned in his hold quickly. 

Sudden movement catching him by surprise, it gave you enough time to already start undoing his belt and zipper. Joel’s own plans caught in his mouth at just how easily you made him so unbearably hard just at your small careful hands trying to pull out his cock before he even has properly touched you yet. 

He didn’t let you get as far as the faint beginning of you moving your fingers to grasp at his own pants before snatching your hands. Your eyes wide as he held them in the air, his eyes dark with a mocking disapproval. “Now what did I say about being good for me?” 

That tingle in your limbs spreading through your heart out into your veins as you bit slightly at your bottom lip at his tone. Your hands fell loose in his grip causing him to switch to approval. Maneuvering you so he now was the one with his back to the bed, he held you at your hips walking you over to the bed. 

“Now, are you going to let me do something for you? Something new?” Your eyebrows raised in question, unsure to what he meant. You thought at this point you had done mostly everything or at least knew everything. 

Living outside of the walls didn’t exactly foster an environment eager to share or teach the fun side of sex, or you know, it in general in your case. “I-yeah.” Boy, how enthusiastic of you. 

Joel only smiled softly though, pulling your chin in to press a soft kiss before pulling you onto the bed with him. Joel the one laying with his back on the sheets, he guided you so your core sat pressed right against the bumpiness that blocked his cock under the open belt. Large warm hands running over and squeezing the plush skin he could grab at watching you slip your fingers to smooth over his stomach under his shirt. 

“Come up here, sweetheart.” 

You both had two different intentions. One being you assuming he means for a kiss, the other using his strong arms to pull your hips off his clothed cock and up his body. Suddenly your soft touch against his skin turned into a much more urgent press against his chest, “Wait, wait-” Joel kept you in place, but his eyes narrowed in concern at your tone. Your question confusing him somewhat. “What are you doing?” 

His tone slow and clear as he worry turned to a bit of confusion. “I’m just trying to taste you, sweetheart. Just like always,” 

Your fingers pressed into him more, causing him to sit up slightly as you looked hesitant and even somewhat embarrassed. “But why would I-” Your eyes casted down at anywhere but his face as you put the not so complicated clues together. “Why would you want it that way? Instead of you know, like we usually...” Christ you couldn’t possibly feel less attractive currently.

Joel raised an eyebrow, letting your hips back down without moving you away, his hands now smoothing over your thighs. “Because I really want my mouth on this pussy, sweetheart.” 

Your body tensed which he didn’t like at all. “Why would you, I mean wouldn’t you find that...” You hesitated on saying gross, having a feeling that wouldn’t be a word to go over well. “...uncomfortable?”

Joel’s hands squeezed your thighs as his head flopped back down onto the pillow. Unable to stop wondering what kind of encounters you had out there. You genuinely just didn’t know what he was trying to do, looking at him in the most confused innocent way he’s ever seen on you. “Jesus fucking christ, you’re going to kill me.” Barely mumbling under his breathe. Sitting up properly, he maneuvered you into his lap. “We don’t have to do it, but I really fucking want to.” 

Your hands tapping at his shoulders, you seemed to drop some of the embarrassment leaving just an uncertainty. “I just don’t get why you’d want to..can’t I just suck your cock?” 

Joel’s head dropping down onto your shoulder as he mumbled even more. Sliding his hand between your bodies, he felt a trace of your wetness, using what he could touch to slide up and rub into your clit. “We can do that if you want. Or we can do both at the same time.” 

This time you smiled, pulling back with a laugh as he joined keeping you from going too far off in his hold. “Okay that sounds even worse for you.” 

He let you get away with it this time. Joel pulled you into his lips, sighing as you let his tongue tease and slide into your mouth as he kissed you. The push and pull of his tongue against yours sending shock waves between your legs adding to what you already knew was making a mess. His kiss and his tongue always making you so lightheaded. 

Taking advantage of how lost you got in his kiss, Joel suddenly lurched forward, sending your back to fall against the rest of the bed as he crawled over top of you. Your hands finding their way to rake through his hair as he kissed you more. 

Joels hands unable to choose a spot to touch you, from your hips to thighs and back to to teasing your nipples, he tucked his head into your neck once more as he kissed the skin there. 

One hand of your leaving his hair, trailing down his broad back to his narrower lower side before sliding under to gently take his cock into your hand. His hands gripping his preexisting hold on your nipples tighter as he groaned. Joel covering your body so much made the angle not easy, but you ran your thumb over hips tip already leaking onto your hand. 

In a move that actually caused Joel’s body to jump, you suddenly smoothed your palm all over the tip of his cock, smearing the precum over it before sliding it down the length you could reach. Enough precum on you to fill the air with the slick sounds of his skin with each stroke. Joel moaned into your neck before trying to smother it with biting a mark into it. He was too long and too thick to cover enough even half of his cock, but your grip was tight and strokes fast but steady. 

Yanking your head to angle for his mouth, you gripped him tighter in pleasure at how his hold on your hair was so commanding.  Biting against your lips this time until you whined in need of a breathe. The feeling of his lips sliding across your cheek to right against your ear. “I want this pussy, not your hand.” 

Sliding own he pushed your thighs out to spread enough for his size. Giving you no warning for how quickly he moved his mouth over your clit. His hands never letting go of your spread legs with a bruising strength, his was shameless in how sloppy he was. Licking at your clit only to almost kiss it as he would your actual lips. The same soaked licks moving down to tease at your entrance, to your clit and back. 

One hand roughly shoved its way to your mound, pressing the heel of his calm into your clit soaked with you and his own saliva and rubbed short quick strokes. As one knee bent with your gasp, Joel used his free hand to greedily hold the soft skin of your waist before licking into you feverishly. 

Your back arched off the bed as a shock stabbed through you, sending a fiery pleasure into every stretch of your nerves. He licked into you with no cohesive pattern or approach, just drinking from you like a man starved for only one need. His rubbing into your clit lost in your wetness form how little he moved away from it, but deep in Joel he knew the slight burn of drier friction on your clit yanked cries from you. 

Your orgasm suddenly hit you with a force, “Oh fuck, Joel-” A white hot train flowing from your clit and soaked right into Joel who only added to the feeling as he moaned into your pussy. His grip already so tight he’d be able to see bruises once he was done with you. 

He never let up, “Fuck, baby.” Mumbling to himself as he licked more inside of you, letting his hand slide down to gather more from your core he realized just how unbelievably soaked you were. His tongue grazing up against a sensitive wall inside of you, he gave you zero time to calm down. 

The wet rubs of two fingers against your clit, harsh pushing and tight strokes the wet sounds filling the air alongside how relentless he tasted you. Your hands tightly grasping the sheets just above your head as your whole lower half arched closer to his mouth. 

Your heart beat widely out of your chest as the pleasure coiled inside of you without ever letting you recover from the sudden burst of your first orgasm. Your legs shook as he kept them bent by the knee, feet flat on the sheets as they were spread as far as he could manage. 

You didn’t even realize when one hand left your hip, his grip so tight it held a phantom sting in its departure. Joel’s own hips lifting up enough to start shoving his jeans down as far as he could manage without leaving your cunt. 

The groan vibrating through your body as he finally was free down to his knees and pressed his cock into the sheets adding to whatever mess he was pulling from you. You didn’t have words this time, just high pitched gasps and desperate attempts at his name that were interrupted by sharp jolts of pleasure almost bordering on pain. 

The flying burn of your orgasm this time felt like a flood passing the bloodstream. A needing warmth engulfing you as the white noise in your ears turned out whatever was passing by Joel’s lips. You missed it the first time, and now the second time. 

Joel didn’t realize it either. He knew exactly the feeling and why it made him take you with such a lack of control but neither of you were in the state of mind that night to hear it. 

You had just barley felt the final shocks of pleasure as Joel pulled from you. His face twisted close to a snarl as he impatiently pulled his jeans off the rest of the way. Grabbing the back of his shirts collar and throwing it beyond sight. 

His chest leading to such a soft stomach made his thick cock stand out between his legs. You touched the skin over his chest near his heart, but Joel couldn’t handle such a soft touch. Not right now. He couldn’t lay there and let himself feel your gentleness without something in his heart snapping. Instead, Joel yanked up your hips and sunk his cock into your folds. 

Your name moaned from his mouth, “Fuck, don’t- oh fuck.” You hadn’t come down yet, aftershocks of your orgasm overwhelmed your system as you felt his thick cock sliding into you. Clenching around him without trying to tease, you were still soaking his cock from your orgasms. 

Joel buried his face into your neck. One hand fisted into the sheets beside your head as he closed his eyes. Your arms wrapped around his neck, you paused mid motion as your rang your hands through the ends of his hair as one arm wrapped around your waist to keep himself tucked inside you but strong enough to keep you from moving. 

It actually took a bit before Joel tempered whatever aggression was overwhelming him. He wanted to do this for you, but now your touch, your cunt, your soft lips always speaking and pressing so sweetly against his? It tugged at his heart just as much as he took over all of your senses. 

The grip on your hair tempered down to cupping the back of your head. Joel moving to consume you in a less rough kiss, but the damage was already done to your swollen bitten lips. The plumpness just like his own without the greedy teeth markings. 

Your heart slowing down, but somehow still hard enough to feel in your chest at his touch. Joel pulled away, tracing his nose along yours. “Turn around for me, sweet girl.” 

Joel gently shushing comfortingly at you at your whine when he pulled out. But you complied. Joel’s mouth was open, panting as his hands clenched beside him watching you go willingly move to your hands and knees. But that’s not the closeness either of you truly needed. 

You sighed at how much more gentle his touch was, moving you up to kneel your back against his chest just like earlier. His cock slid between your thighs, already soaked as it teased between your folds. “Just like that, I’ve got you.” 

One of your arms reaching behind to find a tender home in his now messy hair, while the other laid flat against the arm wrapping around your stomach. “Please,” You leaned your head against his shoulder as Joel rubbed your stomach and hip with his free hand. His brown eyes bright and so much less of a dark lust, replaced with a soft almost desperateness. “I want to feel you. Please? I can still take it, I just want you inside of me.” 

You felt so one note in your brain, but Joel dealt the killing blow when he pressed his lips to yours. Not rough, or commanding, just soft kisses that he struggled to part from. Finally moving to grip his cock, he pulled away and turned your head to look down. 

Joel slid his cock inside of you, not spending a moment to stop and let you adjust to his size. Just one smooth stroke that didn’t thrust into you too fast until you were sat totally full of his cock. “Always slide so well into you,” 

Your eyes squeezing shut at the sight, his cock was so thick watching it slide deep inside you was too much to handle. Your head leaned back against him, lungs stuttering at how drastic he was handling you now compared to mere minutes ago. 

Joel held you tightly against him, burying his face into your neck and shoulder as he started to finally slide his cock almost out of you. Your whimper at the prospect of him leaving you empty poking at something distressing in your mind. 

You weren’t sure he ever kept up a pace this slow. Your pussy so tight and wet around his cock, making the sounds of him pulling and pushing his cock in and out so much louder. How much you’ve already cum so much more obvious as he moaned into your shoulder. 

You couldn’t tell anyone how long you were there. Knelt back against his chest as his cock fucked into you, not even hard enough to call it thrusting. Your chest felt so constricted yet filed with a warmth that would be cozy if his cock wasn’t sliding right up against such a sensitive wall inside of you. 

Inside of you this time the coil was just a slow and calm. But the addition of how tight he already pushed your orgasm too had this build up flutter around you. It just slipped from your lips, the brave face you tried to fake in front of him, in front of everyone crumbled with his squeezing hands and slow slide of his cock inside of you. Something deep in your heart plead. “Stay with me, please. God, Joel- stay with me.” 

Your eyes were shut and Joels arms held you tighter. His jaw clenching, teeth gritted as his breaths came out in rasping pants. He pressed his lips into your neck and whatever part of your jaw he couch reach. “Always, sweet girl. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere. “

Even as his cock throbbed inside of you as your walls clenched around him, as the burning orgasm threatened to overtake you once more, it all mixed together as you just whispered his name. The drag of his cock along the sensitive walls of your cunt pushed tears from your eyes. 

Gasps and breathless pleas let go of the stinging tears behind your eyes and cried down your cheeks as one final loud and wet push of his cock inside of you had whatever hold you had on him dig your nails into his skin. 

Your orgasm pulling a gasping sob from you. Just one, but loud enough in Joel’s ears to cover your mouth as your pleasure sung into his hand. Joel couldn’t take it any longer. His cock so desperate to burst, he moaned into your neck and finally came.

Your pussy fluttering around him, as his cum spilled inside of you. Thick and to both of you, never ending. He came inside of you more then he could remember, filling you with warm cum that didn’t stop the tears of your need. 

By the time you both came down, you had dropped more then Joel had thought. Your eyes barley open, as your struggled to catch your breathe. Weak nods to his questions, asking if you were with him, what you needed, weak thank yous to him just saying how perfect you fit him. 

He shushed in your ear when he pulled out, never letting both hands off of you and his lips somewhere close to yours. You both laid in bed for a while, both your bare, sweat covered bodies, your lower half a little more wet with cum then what he didn’t bother cleaning from his cock. He held you with his nose pressed into your hair waiting for you to come down before he even thought of getting up to clean you off. 

Your mind was fuzzy and your face felt the aftermath of tears but none of it had any regret. Your eyes were closed, fine with coming down in his arms as you faced one another. Slowly ready to peel your eyes open, you noticed he wasn’t at your eye level, his face in your hair. His breathing enough confirmation he hadn’t fallen asleep. 

You burned between your legs, the mix of rough and soft kept the memory of his thick throbbing cock inside of you. You knew you were covered in cum between your thighs but you didn’t have any reason to want to get rid of it anytime soon. 

You did however ask to do something Joel ignored. Smirking, you suddenly left his gentle pressed arms, down his body. He flipped onto his back reflexively to see what you were doing, before hissing out. 

Licking the tip of his cock before sinking down around the rest. His cock now soft but it still was coated in your orgasm and his cum. Joels moans were stuttering and needy as he cupped the back of your head, still bobbing up and down his length sucking him until his chest was ready to explode. He called your name in warning along with more strings of swearing through hissed teeth, “Jesus fucking christ, baby”, but you already were slowing down the second it bordered too overwhelming for him. 

Your mouth sliding down to press your nose into the coarse dark hair around his cock, before very slowly sliding back, making sure his cock didn’t leave you until you had sucked him clean. Only fair he gets even the slightest idea of how overstimulated he so greedily made you.

Sliding him gently out of your mouth you went to come back up to his level. Your hand cupped his soft length now resting between his legs before your palm moving to his stomach. Chest, and the cupping the side of his face as you rubbed your thumb along his facial hair.

Joel chuckled deeply in his chest, pulling your face to his with fingers pulling your chin as he kissed you. Pushing you back into the sheets with half his body over you as you shared a gentle kiss. “You are such a goddamn brat.” 

You smiled back, letting his tongue tease yours as you tried to find breathes into between the kiss. “Maybe. Just for you though.” 

He nuzzled his nose against yours then pressed a kiss to it. He didn’t say it, he so badly wanted to say it but so much of his emotions came out in times like this. He wanted to tell you in quiet peace, make sure you understand your heart belongs to him for the rest of his life. Telling you now, he didn’t want to risk you thinking it was just to keep you calm or not upset. 

Neither of you realizing he’s already said it twice this very evening. 

Only one of those times did it reach someones brain, but to their dismay, it was neither of you who even heard what came out of his own mouth. 

You spoke quietly into the night. Joel on his back as he kept his arms around you to rest on his chest. Sometimes you sat up enough to look at him properly, ensuring you both understood the plans, backup plans, and what might be the safest option. At least for in his home, in a town of innocent people. 

You needed Joel, but Joel needed you like he never even wanted from anyone else before. The concept of a deep need in his heart to keep a woman like you close in his arms like a lifeline would have been foreign not long ago. But then again, meeting Ellie changed a lot about what was going on in Joel’s head and heart. 

You took your time joining the two of them that morning. Still balancing intruding on what was no doubt an emotional time between those two, and wondering exactly what Ellie would even see you as. 

Joel for his part was as normal as possible, with an underlying closeness both he and Ellie stuck to each other with with a different kind of silent intensity. You did tell him your news would be the actually hurtful one. Ellie stopped moving her fork the second you turned the corner, a stare that almost felt judging but the slightest softening as she sniffed and forced her face impassive. 

Sensing Joel watching her carefully, Ellie glanced up at his flat expression with one eyebrow raised. Her own face falling just as flat. “What? I already used my crying quota for the week. And I’m not getting it all over my eggs either.” 

It wasn’t enough to jostle her, but Joel nudging the side of her head lightly before sharing a more serious glance with you. His eyes nodded over to a drawer in the counter, watching you for as long as he could follow. Neither of you wanting to make a scene about it in front of Ellie. 

Watching the their backs as you silently wrapped the your knife sheath around your waist, quickly covering it purposely with one of Joel’s jackets that sat just blow it on your thigh. He had taken it upon himself to sharpen your usual knife for you, not before stopping of course to comment on how shit it looked. Words of praise towards your equipment he was full of. 

You had found yourself alone with Owen when Joel was distracted. Ellie prompted out of the house from a Maria that gave Joel a knowing look. He had stopped by earlier to talk to them, and she agreed to keep Ellie out with her, purposely around a decent amount of people. 

A spark of need inside your heart telling you that he at least deserved water. He didn’t say much, but his eyes spoke for him. A surprise at being given any hospitality. 

Almost ending up giving him an entire bottle, you watched him with one hand hovering somewhat near his face. Looking between the water and his face, you tilted your head as you considered if you were willing to ignore the part of you that people like him tried to deprive you of. “If I take that off of you,” using your free hand to gesture to his gag, “Are you going to stay quiet?” 

Owen seemed exhausted, nodding his head almost lazily as your chest raised in a deep breathe. “You make any noise, this time I’m just going to stuff it right into your mouth.” There wasn’t much in the way of conviction in your voice, but as you slowly untied the gag he made no sound aside from catching his breath. 

Flipping the bottle against the cloth, you let it soak for a while on the cleanest side where it sat at the back of his head. 

Silence, Joel was used too. He lived in it, too much of it for a long time even. Even through the turmoil in his head, the quiet still helped him stay clear. Listening to any hint of a sound and knowing how to react to it. 

Probably why he didn’t search for you when he found himself seemingly alone in the house. If he had one distraction it was you, and an unshakable need to make sure he could hear or see your every step. The past few weeks had really set that tendency in motion. But he needed silence. And he heard it break. 

Getting the jump on him outside in the world was one thing, but this was his territory. Somewhere he could sense the slightest thing out of place. Joel just raised two hands slightly in the air. He knew it could be a variety of possibilities behind him, so he played ball. For now. “You really think I can’t tell when someone’s in my own home?”  

“Just turn around. Slowly.” 

Joel expected something not quite what he saw. Dark eyes and angry, willing to do anything for that ravaging vengeance inside. But no. The woman behind him wasn’t quite that. As if it was what she wanted to put on but there was an uncertainty in her eyes that made him narrow his. Her face was tense, looking over him with her arm outstretched as much as she could. Either keeping the gun as close to him as possible, or wanting to keep as much distance from him. 

“You live here?” 

Joel’s eyes darkened more at the woman. “You sure don’t.” 

“Just answer the question, you live here right? With a girl? Fucking, what’s her name, Ellie?” 

Sometimes anger worked in favour of the advantage, but not against him. Joel mastered the art of anger as motivation and there wasn’t a single second ever again did he want any of her kind of people saying that girls name. His face steeled at her, hands up almost just for show at this point. “Keep her name out of this. I think we both know who you’re looking for.” 

A realization dawned on her, and it only pissed her off that much more that he was having no reaction of fear. “You’re him right?” Joel cocked an eyebrow but nothing more. “The hospital, that was you right? You’ve got the girl, after everything you’ve done I can’t imagine you’d dump her off somewhere. People usually don’t ditch people they’ve murdered innocent people for.” 

Her own teeth started to grit as she spat her words out with eyes no doubt growing red. “You in the habit of cutting open a fucking child and calling yourself a good person for it?” 

Shaking her head, Joel could hear how hard she was trying to keep her breathing under control, her fingers on the gun twitching slightly and not from any kind of trigger fingers. “No right, you had no fucking right he was a goddamn person-” 

Joel’s hands started to lower, and yet it didn’t make her any more confident. The twitch turned into what looked like her hand shaking. “And she’s my daughter.” 

She shook her head, eyes falling in darkness to something much more complicated. “So what you get your daughter and I have to loose my own father for it? Fucking..people like you...” 

No doubt this was a plan much more confident in theory, because Joel risked a step forward as his face twisted more into something of anger she took a step back. Readjusting her aim with an unsteady arm. 

“Put your hands back up,” 

They remained just barley by his sides, “You think I’m gonna reach for something? ‘Cus trust me you even think about pulling that trigger and I’ll make sure you regret it.” 

Whatever laugh she let out was weak, but the tense look one could mistaken for crazed told a thousand different emotions. “I’m not stupid, I know you don’t have a fucking weapon on you.” 

The one he thought was in the room wasn’t. Getting caught off guard by her after getting caught off guard by it’s lack of presence. Ellie didn’t always put things in the right place after she tries to sneak them away. His voice was low, even, and absolute that it made her hair stand on end. “You really think I need a gun to kill you?” 

You don’t remember Grady being particularly smart. Loyal, good at following orders but missing the basic function of checking a corner. Crouching as he snuck into the room, he could see Owen knelt on the floor, blood on his face, chest, hands and a swollen eye as even his gag was blood soaked. What he didn’t see was you. 

One arm suddenly wrapped around his face, the fabric of it’s jacket shoved to muffle his voice as the other hand pressed a cold metal to the bottom of his head right at his chin. Unlike the shaky arm holding a similar gun at Joel, you had the advantage of having yours at least pressed right against the mans head. Grady didn’t feel the shake in your bones behind the straining muscle. 

Moving him closer to the open door, your heart pounded so harshly that you could throw up from the shaking pressure it put on you. You could hear her yelling, and a dangerously low cadence from Joel, but she was getting louder and angrier. 

And while you had this one and a knife strapped to your side, Joel’s gun sat tucked behind your back only realizing whoever touched it last, didn’t put it where Joel had clearly expected to grab it before being snuck up on. 

He was bigger, stronger then her. But if she shot first then it didn’t matter how much Joel could overpower her. She was yelling more, and so did your limbs shake. You were supposed to help have this under control, but she was looking for blood and Joel’s own gun wasn’t in his hand. 

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t shoot you dead right now you fucking bastard-” Joel must have said something in response, “Her dad for my dad it’s only fair,” 

You couldn’t stand there, you couldn’t let him deal with her on his own. You push an already aggressive dog to the edge, then she’s just going to go for the throat because she can. Plan B it was. Despite not knowing what that entailed. 

A hallway door was kicked open, and following right out was a man Joel didn’t recognize but by the confused anger on her face, she did. Deep down Joel wished the voice was Tommy. There was no hesitation the man could handle himself, and didn’t make Joel feel cold and petrified at having to involve you in this more. 

But you rang a warning shot at a higher part of the wall that had the woman jump in startle. What followed though, was a reaction that in a way reminded him of you. Likely an ironic association, because all that it took was you yell out who you were. Her eyes widened as the hand pointed right at Joel trembled. A washing devastation that surpassed mere surprise, something she didn’t expect and neither had Owen.

The man on the floor pressed himself up against the wall in fear as did a new unsettling emotion come over the woman in front of Joel. But you piled onto something that just dug deeper, 

Your voice almost a shout that shook in what Joel felt in his heart a terrified urgency. “You know who I am Abby, and what I’ll do to Owen and Grady if you don’t bring Joel to me.”

Whatever intimidation she felt from a man she considered a monster, Abby’s entire being shook. Her gun was on Joel but she could barley keep her eyes on him or on Grady just looking at her desperately for help. This wasn’t a normal fear, almost one that was like seeing a ghost she could only hear.

Her yell back was a rasping screech as she morphed her features into too much to keep up with. “You do anything, and I swear to god-” She’d what? Shoot the man in front of her and set you lose on her? 

You needed to scare her. Swallow the dizzying sickness in your head and the bile from eating at your chest. You couldn’t take the chance of her first instinct to act at Joel before you did hers. 

You shook as you pointed the gun at Grady, but you were hidden behind the wall from her sight, and the sting in your eyes couldn’t be used against you. Blood splattered all over the wall behind Grady's head, the booming shot and painted red had Abby flinch back. 

Joel didn’t move. A deep seeded anger at who his life was at the expense of burned his soul, but he didn’t dare risk letting it happen. If Abby was going to shoot, it sure as hell wouldn’t be at him or his own.

In barley a second, you holstered the gun so quick it could have missed and dropped to the floor. The knife at your side flew into your hand, gripping tight as you hauled Owen over in front of you, your knife pressed so much to his throat he made the most inaudible squawks of protest at the sharpness. 

Hauling him up partially on his feet, you pressed with better leverage. “Your boys next Abby- give him to me,” Your voice yelled, so loud it scratched your throat at the strain. It was violent and angry, and you only wished it made you feel it too. Instead you stood, braced against the wall with a knife keeping Owens battered self in your threat as your soul kept shaking and holding back the sting in your eyes. 

Abby’s jaw clenched as she swore, her yell echoing down the halls. “Fuck- okay.” 

It was the only choice for you and her. She wanted Owen back, and you needed Joel. A conflict in her eyes as she looked between the man now slumped over in the hall, and the darkness in a pair of eyes she never truly prepared herself to face properly. 

Abby’s eyes peeled off the sightless body to the open air between it and the door. “We make a trade. I bring him to you, I get Owen back and we leave. Got it?”

You looked to the side, knowing nothing was out the view you could see out the door anyways. “You touch him in anyway and I slit this throat. Got it?” 

One request was shouted back. “Toss the gun.” 

It wasn’t even a second later the gun banged far out on the wooden floor. You it turned out, weren’t the only one with a shaking fear of losing their companion. There wasn’t a soul in that house didn’t radiate that very perilous fear. Joel looked at Abby with his features sharp and penetrating. Her other hand having to rise up and join her hold on the gun just to keep it aimed at him. “This isn’t over you understand me?” 

Abby didn’t appear to know what scared her more. The threat of death you held at Owens throat, or just how terrifyingly cold Joel’s unblinking expression didn’t move from. This was supposed to be easy, kill some guy who shot her father for no reason. But standing here, motioning for him to walk slowly towards the hall? It was made clear that you and Joel weren’t regular people, and this was exposing itself to be something she didn’t remotely prepare for.

It felt like agony standing there, each creak of the floorboard screaming in the terse silence the only indication of life. Owen’s blood was seeping into your clothes and staining your skin at this point and there was next to nothing holding back the pressure behind your eyes. 

You wanted to be someone else. Someone brave, a person others would look at and say is some kind of fighter, someone a kid like Ellie would amusingly call a bad ass. But you stood holding a man at knife point trading his life for the man you love didn’t make you feel brave. Just scared. Scared beyond whatever danger you had been alone in the past, and sick to your stomach that it took up until now for you to feel brave enough to even think that word. 

They were outside the door, but you shook. Grip on the knife so tight you might have started hurting your own palm with the tight grip as you were hurting Owen’s neck with the blade. The bravery wasn’t even in your voice. “Joel first.” 

“Show me him. Let me see him.” 

You were done paying any kind of hero or savior. Instead just tearing the knife away and shoving Owen enough that he stumbled onto the ground. Hands behind his back still too bound to steady him. 

Joel was handed over first. Whatever passed between them unknown to you until a tidal wave hit your heart as you both reached for the other the second he came in view. Joel’s own expression harsh, nostrils flared as his rage was barley contained in his bones. His warm hands gripping your forearms as he looked at a watering overflow of something grander then fear pass your face as you looked him over for anything hurt. 

He cupped one of your cheeks as you took a deep breathe. Joel’s eyes narrowed in question, and you nodded. Hoping the shaking breathe you let you was only audible to one. His hand keeping your touch as it wasn’t leaving one of your wrists, almost keeping your mind back at his side as you turned the corner. 

Neither of you looked like the visage of bravery your actions spoke. Neither of you even tried. Abby’s eyes widened with a taken back sort of shock as she looked at you. A name she kept hearing and denying, but your face that of what she long remembered as a memory. A bite sharp on your arm before watching your gun raise as she fell back to the ground. 

She lived, and kept trying to deny that you could have either. But you both looked at each other, as she held her own gun to you. Resting one side against the door frame just to keep it steady, while your own hand kept the knife painfully tight. 

Joel stood behind you, and you felt him pull up your jacket slightly, resting the fabric to expose what you had hidden away behind you. Abby was staring at you and you back, she didn’t even see Joel’s hands moving near your back. 

Her words slurred together, teeth bordering on gritting from the force. “Give him to me.” 

Joel squeezed your arm holding the knife. Don’t move was his touch. Abby’s gaze continued to plaster all over you, and yours taking her person in, in a capacity she couldn’t possibly even guess now. Blood ringing in your ears hearing the shuffling behind you. Abby kept it on you now, a woman much more a fighter unable to tear her attention away from how entangled your lives became. 

Your own eyes stung. Unable to move or blink, looking at the very thing that confused you. Was her being here what scared you, or how very real losing the one thing that brought you to a purpose was becoming? 

As soon as Joel slightly pushed Owen, Abby snatched him with one arm and yanked him to her side, Owen barley keeping himself up despite his hands now free. Joel having undone them bringing him over. But as soon as he was out of his hand, he reached for your back once more. His arm smoothly pulling the gun, and now aiming it at Abby. She didn’t just try to kill him, now she had her gun pointing at you and it was pushing Joel to an edge he was close to forcing you to let him fall off. 

His instincts were quicker then hers, and he dared her to end it the smarter way, as opposed to joining the mess on the walls behind her. 

Her eyes flickered between the two of you, mind racing with questions not even she could understand at that moment. You weren’t supposed to be here, this wasn’t even about you. Blind to what kind of people she walked in on, she just looked at you and Joel unable to land on what to do. 

You could feel something vile rising in your throat, just as unable to grasp what was unfolding in front of you. Abby had no right to make this about Joel. Either she knew the truth and lost herself beyond the capacity of her own humanity, or she was left in the dark and didn’t care to turn the lights on herself. A fact you couldn’t feel okay with. Your voice was mostly just a whisper once you found the strength to push something forward. “This is really just about your father?” 

You didn’t need to hear the answer to that. You already knew by a confused pain in her eyes. Not understanding what else this could possibly be over. To her it was almost a taunt, her failure she was able to see through, but to you? A memory that no longer felt pushed away. A truth that was fighting tooth and crawl to attack you at your door. 

Owen leaned against her exhausted and bloody. Lowering her gun she glanced down to your arm, it was covered and there was nothing to see though. Remaining you a ghost. 

Her gaze flicked to Joel’s own aim, no shake or tremble to be found. Don described nothing more then some guy had done it, but the inflamed emotions boiling behind Joel’s eyes wasn’t the story she had been sold on. So they ran. Slamming open a back door you not to long ago ran out of just as harshly, also running from these very people but for drastically different reasons. 

 You didn’t register Tommy or Maria coming in, you only had the capacity to feel Joel pull you into his chest. One arm wrapped tightly around your stomach as you finally leaned back into him. Your eyes squeezing shut, you felt Joel gently take your knife from your fingers and put it back in it’s sheath as he spoke to Tommy. 

You grabbed the wrist that wasn’t around you, holding it just as he did when he first came back to you still needing him to ground you to the floor. These weren’t two worlds ever meant to mix. This was supposed to be a solace for him and a breather for you, but you combined your lives and now stood a mess painted with the looming of blood.

Was this your fault? And if not why couldn’t you have done something to actually end this? 

You thought back to the night you and Joel opened up to each other. How the worst emotion you felt was finding out how Tommy blabbed about your feelings for him by the very man you had the such a humiliating crush on. How letting him in was so scary to you back then. 

Would all of this have happened anyways? Or was letting him kiss you that night, pull you into his arms and he yours forever entangling your hearts in ways new to both of you the catalyst? 

If this was all your fault, would Joel end up despising you for not fixing this? 

[aita-blorbos]

FAQs

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SA of any kind, especially if your ask can be summed up as "AITA for committing/being the victim of SA?"

Incest, especially if it is really central to the submission (Also, we may have a different definition of incest than you, so be warned in advance in case your submission that you thought was fine gets sent back or deleted.)

Abuse of any kind, particularly if your ask can be summed up as "AITA for abusing [x]/being abused?"

Suicide, especially if your ask can be summed up as "AITA for committing suicide/making someone commit suicide?"

Extreme violence towards children, especially from the POV of the person doing the violence.

Anything that could be alternately summed up as "AITA for being a bigot?" Yes, fictional bigotry counts.

Submissions about real people.

Harry Potter submissions.

MCU submissions.

All-caps asks. Depending on what software is being run, this can mess with screen readers.

Small-text asks. These are hard to read for people with low vision.

Leetspeak asks / typing quirks of any kind. Again, screen readers, but this time it's for all of them.

Colored text. It can cause migraines.

... For the last four, if your ask makes minor use of caps, small text, leetspeak, or colored text, it will probably get posted with tags like "small text," "not screenreader friendly," or "colored text."

Excluding, to the best of our ability, Harry Potter, we do not delete submissions based on what the source material depicts. 9 times out of 10, we don't know what the source material even is.

Can I submit something about real people if they've been dead for a long time? We would still prefer that you not. If your media of choice is something like SIX, Hamilton, Our Flag Means Death, or any other fictionalized account of real peoples' lives, we may choose to delete your submission even if we recognize the fandom... or there may not be enough to distinguish it from real life, and delete it because we thought you were submitting something about the real Anne of Cleves.

What about Jesus? Jesus was probably a real person but we'll make an exception.

Are 'sequel' submissions (the same scenario from another point of view, a followup, etc) allowed? Yes! However, it's up to you to figure out a way to tie back to your previous ask. You are welcome to do this in the form of a reblog, but we probably won't see it.

Can I submit an ask about my OCs/fanfic/roleplay/other non-canon thing? Sure! Though if you're submitting something about someone else's fic, we'd prefer if you had the author's permission. Same principle with roleplay--everyone involved should be OK with it going here. (We won't know if you don't have permission, but we'd like to remind you that it's polite to get it.)

Do I have to tell you if I’m submitting something from a fic/roleplay/AU/OC/whatever?

You do not! You can if you want to but it doesn’t make a difference to us.

Can we post stuff that has spoilers for X media? Yes*. * Please don't send in submissions for stuff that's less than a month old, as we can't realistically tag spoilers.** ** The exception to this is remakes/adaptations/remasters/etc, which we don't consider to be "new"*** *** Unless something new actually is added, in which case only that specific thing is considered "new." So, if you have a scenario that utilizes that specific thing, please wait a month. If not, you're good.

Can I ask if you've gotten my submission/if it's been queued? Yes, but only off anon, and we will only tell you if it's in the queue or the askbox. We want to answer asks like this privately instead of clogging up peoples' dashes with them, and we do not want to dig through our blog for a specific post. You do that.

If I submitted something off anon, will you let me know if you decide not to post it? Yes, we will answer your ask privately to tell you why we do not want to post it.

How many times do you post a day? 12 posts are published a day.

Can you post more? No. This is an irritating question. You are encouraged to make your own blog if you don't like the way this one is run--we don't have a monopoly on this idea!

How long is the queue? A few days to a week, usually, including stuff in the askbox that hasn't been properly queued.

What do these acronyms mean? YTA = you're the asshole NTA = not the asshole (this means someone else is) JAH = justified asshole NAH = no assholes here ESH = everyone sucks here INFO = more information is required to make a decision

Some of the characters I want to post about are nonbinary. how should I format my submission? We do not require submissions to include the age or gender of any characters. However, if you want to include this, what we've seen other people do say is 18NB or 18X.

Can I put trigger tags at the top of my submission? Yeah that's fine! We also try to tag common triggers, although we don't tag for murder or human death because so many of these stories involve murder.

Right now we tag: - Unreality (every post) - Animal death - Suicide - Rape/CSA - Child harm/death/endangerment - Abuse - Kidnapping - Stalking - ... And a whole bunch of other stuff

All our trigger tags are just the trigger with no CW/TW

Why do you sometimes post submissions that are basically just a characters name? They're not what this blog should be for.

People think they're funny, so we publish them. It's not the joke format the blog was originally intended for but it's one that people seem to enjoy, so we're happy to post those types of submissions!

[moonyinpisces]

re: your last post, i would really love to get this ask answered but i can understand if you don't (and i definitely do not expect this to be answered publicly), but is there a post that i can read in which you've explained your "love and sex are connected" stance? i ask because i'm so curious to read your thoughts about it, coming from someone who agrees with that thought, i'm just curious about the specifics of what do you mean when you say that (for example: does that mean that by definition asexual love is platonic and not romantic? is there space for asexuality or aromanticism in this idea? i think that love and sex are connected and that there still are people who are asexual and can have partnerships, so that's why i was curious about more details on that).

sorry for bothering you and thank you in advance if you answer my question 🩷

you're totally fine! i hope it's cool i answered it publicly, i think it's a topic that a lot of people shy away from. luckily, i have little to no self preservation. i'll just re-explain my stance here 👇

i think just inherently, if we call a piece of media a love story it implies sex. this is a fact no matter how deep you worm your way into internet culture and try to convince yourself otherwise. now that doesn't mean sex is going to happen, or even be mentioned--that has to do with the rating/presentation of the media, not the media itself (one time almost a year ago i mentioned this same topic and someone specifically cited the little mermaid as ace rep. and i was like in the sequel they... literally have a child? and then the person blocked me lol)

now can love be platonic? absolutely. can people have love for others and not want to fuck them? yeah, i would say a majority of love experienced globally is the platonic/familial sort lol. but a love story is only platonic if it's designated as platonic, meaning that at its root, the implication is sex. if i want to divorce sex from the romance, i have to explicitly define it as such. meaning if we call, for example, good omens a love story, that implies sex and sexual attraction unless the canon ever explicitly tells us differently. a love story includes sex unless it can prove it doesn't, that's just... the nature of being a human being living in a human society lol

and i think that's a scary concept to people who have labeled themselves as sex-repulsed without digging into WHY they feel that way in the first place. but i think further than that people are too bogged down in connecting their identities with fiction to the point that the work becomes divorced from fiction, so you have huge swathes of people claiming characters as whatever they want external to the canon in order to feel secure in their own identity. fascinating subject, too dense to get into in a tumblr ask haha

i think at the crux of it what i need people to understand is characters are not real people, they do not have aspects deeper than what we're shown in the canon. characters are simply functions of the plot. like take two characters in a love story. sure, if these WERE real people, TECHNICALLY someone could say "they can have sex and actively want to have sex and be attracted to each other and still be asexual!" which. uh, sure, but if a mouse said that about a kia sorento, etc etc. like that potential reading has so little bearing on the story that i know it's just pulled out of someone's ass so they can manufacture deeper meaning and "representation" out of the media they consume because they're not getting that representation elsewhere. which sucks! but! just because something COULD be canon doesn't mean it IS canon and in our current climate of media illiteracy, that's the unfortunate trend to how people are choosing to consume media. self-first rather than story-first, internal vs external, individual vs collective. you can go on and on.

and of course. of course. you can negate ALL of this by just telling me it's not that serious and media is consumed in the preferred method of the consumer, that's what it's meant for. i am fully self-aware i come at this like i have two english degrees. and for that fact, rest assured i will always be deeply deeply uncool

[epickiya722]

6,7,9,10 for the choose violence ask for both MHA and JJK

6. Which ship fans are the most annoying?

For both fandoms, I can find anyone annoying no matter specifically what they ship. Now, if I had to be specific, it has to be people who hate on a ship who are clearly just homophobic.

I recently had been called an "imbecile" by someone over an innocent ItaFushi post and found out they found the ship "diabolical".

Twice, one for each fandom, I made a post about F/F ships and someone had to bring up a M/F ship. Honey, please, I don't care. BEGONE, HEATHEN!

But again, no matter what they ship, if they annoy me, they annoy me.

7. What character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because of how the fandom acts about them?

Okay, for MHA, I don't actually hate Hawks. I'm more so indifferent with him even when he did appear. However, sometimes in fandom, I find his presence annoying. Especially, whenever Miruko is involved. I was recently salty for a week because for the Miruko tags, it his face there and the artwork centered around him.

Like, no, last time I checked Miruko was a bunny woman. Not a blond bird man whose jacket I have a disdain for.

I even once wrote a fic out of spite because someone said something about Miruko and hyped up Hawks and I'm like "She didn't do anything to warrant this slander but alright". Ever since then, Hawks would sometimes be the butt monkey in my fics. I actually was thinking about doing a sequel to that fic, too.

For JJK, it only recently became Yuta. Now, unlike Hawks, I don't actually not feel anything towards Yuta. I do like him.

However, I have a deep seething hatred for those who constantly bash Yuji to hype him up. Yuta is cool, but he is not that fucking cool to bash Yuji. Come on now. I hate it whenever I go on a post anywhere and someone will talk about Yuji's accomplishments or just only mention Yuji and some assholes will be like "well, Yuta this" and "Yuta that". Yuta is rocking the teenage boy version of Yuji's mom's haircut, so stop.

9. Worst part of canon?

Okay, did Miruko have to lose 3 of her limbs? Her arm? I was fine with that. A leg, I was actually confused for a while as to how she even lost it until I went back and saw what happened but I don't think she should have completely cut it off. 😭 Her other arm? Okay... her and Edgeshot are definitely the Heroes who lost the most in the final war. Mind you, Miruko's Quirk has her use her limbs. I'm glad she got her a little bazooka in the end, but she low-key sacrificed a lot more than other Heroes.

I actually wrote a fic addressing that because I'm salty about it. It was my recent Miruko-centric fic.

Okay, for JJK... do I have anything? Nothing really actually aggravated me... okay, I think Choso shouldn't have died. Or Yuki. I think about them and start punching the air.

10. Worst part of fanon?

Where to begin here? I feel like there are so many things.

For JJK, I low-key have a disdain for the first person who misinterpreted Gojo would be a fucking playboy. Like, no he wouldn't be in a committed relationship because he can't be loyal because "he's a man, he has needs" or whatever bullshit reason. It's because he's a jujutsu sorcerer! And one of the busiest ones in top of that! Hell, we just found out what his schedule looks like, he wouldn't have time to commit!

There's also how dumb some people tend to make Yuji. Like... he's dumb, he even admits it but I think it's just more so that he's not motivated to learn certain things and he just thinks he is. He's smarter than what he (and the fandom) gives him credit for.

And some of the memes? Don't find funny at all. I actually got tired of the "Nah, I'd win" memes I kept seeing. And how Yuta would make fun of someone for having "No bitches". That's stupid, I hate it.

For MHA, again some memes I just don't find funny. Recently any meme I see about "Midoriya being a fast food worker", who makes them instantly has me wishing they step on a Lego. And just saying, fast food workers have probably done more for anybody than certain people. Or that "Katsuki stole Ochako" from him is definitely a case of "those are OCs with the same name" because we know damn well canon Katsuki ain't touching Ochako like that with even a ten foot long pole and vice versa on her end.

Playboy Katsuki? Yeah, not really my favorite portrayal of him in fiction like that. I can see him being very popular and having a lot of girl fans because that's canon, it makes sense. But hooking up with a lot of people? And using it as some "escape" or whatever? Yeah... eh...

Also, sometimes I feel like folks want to use that "Black Best Friend" trope on Miruko whenever it comes to Hawks and DabiHawks. Like, she got to be his hype man or something. The idea doesn't appeal to me really.

Choose Violence Ask Game

[puckish-rogue]

I will forever be endlessly fascinated by the way Julius decides to pin everything that happened by the end of the first game entirely on the Boss. Like ignoring the various plot points that were more or less dropped in the sequel, it's kind of amazing how the man seemingly refused to take any accountability for what the Saints had started to turn into during their first iteration. For a man who was the founder and leader of the gang it sure seems like the kid he saved on the street was the real MASTERMIND behind everything.

To paraphrase a post I read that led me to think about this in the first place; people have a tendency to take what Julius said at face value. They just willingly accept the idea that the Boss was just "always like that" and Julius was not only justified in putting them into a coma, but able to see their true colors. But I highly doubt that. I mean, if you pay close enough attention to the first game, there's plenty of material that can lead you to believe that whatever "good intentions" he may have had in forming the Saints to being with was misguided at best and self-serving at worst.

Whatever "valid" reasons he may have had in dropping his flags with the VK's means jack shit as soon as you realize two things during a mission with his former friend/former leader of the VK's Ben King; the first is that Julius lies to everyone's face about coming from the Row, as he originally hailed from the neighborhood of Sunnyvale. The second is that the speech he gives towards the Saints is a direct copy of one Ben had given. Julius wants the same kind of power his best friend had. He wants the recognition, the respect, and everything that comes with running the biggest and baddest gang in the city.

With my specific portrayal of the Boss I've always said that before joining the Saints there was just something fundamentally wrong with him. Something that had been brewing for years and was finally able to be released by the time he wound up in the gang, acting as a sort of catalyst. Does this mean Julius was right all along? Maybe to an extent. But in no way can I say he was justified entirely. Because for a man who seemingly regrets the way things turned out, he sure as hell seemed pretty fine with everything the gang had done prior to his arrest. I mean shit, even the death of one of his lieutenants was met with a "she knew the risks of this life".

And it's not only that, but I can only imagine that the fallout from disbanding the Saints was pretty fucking bad. People getting arrested, murdered, and who the hell knows what else. Not to mention the large power vacuum that was ultimately filled up by three new gangs during those five years. Everything had basically gone to shit just so Julius could save his own ass.

Which brings me back to the Boss. Or I suppose Django to be specific. Make no mistake, I don't excuse anything he or the gang does. For all the ways in which I make him likeable there is no changing the fact that he is a villain protagonist through and through. But that's not going to prevent me from talking about frankly ridiculous it is that Julius could have the audacity to blame everything on him. That he could so easily try and assassinate his golden boy via explosives all because he saw him as both an ultimate evil and expendable.

I'm sure the man's had moments where he questions what he's done. Where he wonders if he made the right choice. And I know for sure that at least in my interpretation of the series and what I consider canon on here, Julius will convince himself time and time again that he was correct. That it had to be done. That the kid needed to go. It's fine. He's fine. It's all over now. There will come a day where the ghosts of his past will stop haunting him, and he can finally get that peaceful night of sleep he's desired for so long now.

Unfortunately for him some spirits are just that restless.

[rallamajoop]

I have too many feelings about Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2/3)

So we've covered gameplay and worldbuilding. The stuff on character has been deemed too long and will be split out into yet another post. For now, let's talk plot.

Plot

God, where do I even start with this mess?

Plotwise, I'd call Deus Ex: Human Revolution fine, but unremarkable. It had many problems and a notoriously weak ending, but it still delivered a decently-paced adventure with rising stakes and tension, and major reveals at appropriate intervals. The bar for video game writing at large is so low that I’d honestly rate it well above average [insert obligatory grumbling about The Witcher 3, RE4R etc here].

The scope for sequels to that story were always going to be somewhat hamstrung by that usual prequel-problem where we can’t actually beat the Illuminati, because we know they’re still around in the future. But there’s plenty that could have been done with Jensen’s story. In particular, HR’s DLC chapter has Jensen catching the interest of an anti-Illuminati hacktavist network called the Juggernaut Collective, led by the mysterious Janus (real identity unknown). Jensen’s backstory as a genetic test subject was presumably meant to be expanded upon in future too. And canon tells us that Jensen was declared legally dead after the Panchea incident at the end of the previous game, only to wake up in a facility in Alaska with no memory of how he survived. Surely that’s the perfect start point for the sequel – it even gives you the perfect excuse to reset all his augs again for gameplay reasons!

But MD does not take that perfect sequel idea. Instead, the ‘story’ of Jensen’s survival is relayed to us via Black Light, a tie-in novel that I read months ago and have so many conflicted feelings about. On the one hand the author, James Swallow, is refreshingly interested in so much aug-related worldbuilding that the games utterly ignore, and writes some genuinely great Jensen/Pritchard banter. On the other, the main ‘conflict’ of the book revolves around retrieving a smuggled shipment of leftover Sarif Industries cyborg parts, which is pretty lame even by the usual weak MacGuffin standards. With stakes like these, it's just very hard to care whether the heros succeed or fail.

Meanwhile, having set up the great mystery of the holes in Jensen's memory and how he really survived, the book delivers no answers whatsoever (and nor, I'm sorry to say, does Mankind Divided itself). Tasked also with setting up Jensen’s new double-life working for both the Juggernaut Collective and Interpol, well, the book tells us the collective comes to see Jensen and asks him to work for them, and Jensen thinks about it and then says ‘yes’. The story of how he came to work for Interpol is similarly underwhelming.

But perhaps worst of all is the title, which refers indirectly to the mysterious ‘Project Black Light’ – something which a villain significantly reads a report on in this one scene. We do not see the content of the report. ‘Project Black Light’ presumably has something to do with Jensen ‒ either the genetic experiment that created him or whatever created that hole in his memory ‒ but that’s literally all Deus Ex canon has ever told us about it. It’s embarrassing just how little meat this thing has on its bones.

Unfortunately, Mankind Divided itself would prove to be a lot like Black Light – just without the interesting worldbuilding or the good banter to spice it up.

The usual big complaint levied at this game is that it’s too short, and the story feels unfinished – presumably cut short by time and budget constraints. That first point surprised me, as I’m sure it took me as long to finish as HR did – but I’m a terrible completionist and MD does have roughly a gazillion different side quests to waste your time. As the player, I’ll do almost anything for EXP, but rationalising why a guy as busy as Jensen would waste time on this crap is dissonance city. All these distractions do nothing to keep you invested in the main plot either (which is hard enough to care about to begin with).

I’d also debate that the story feels unfinished. To me, it feels unstarted.

(Yes, that is a loading screen detailing the history of a construction firm. This is absolutely the level of excitement you can look forward to here.)

The story of MD is so uninvolving it’s an effort even to remember much of it. The augmented populace who survived the 'aug incident' are now the new world-wide pariahs, and there’s an upcoming UN vote that will ban them from living anywhere worthwhile, and some terrorists have bombed a train station for some allegedly-related reason. Jensen is sent to apprehend the leader of a pro-augmented rights group leader as a suspect, a staunch pacifist whose name I've forgotten. On the way in, though, he meets a man with a sinister accent called Viktor Marchenko, the mother of all big-ugly-heavies, so it will amaze you all to learn that this guy is secretly the real terrorist mastermind, and will later be the final boss. The Illuminati have stakes in this somehow, and are probably pulling his strings or something. Look, I’m all for stories about twisted political shenanigans, but some of that has to happen on screen to work. This is a story where you’ll hear about all that shit third hand if you’re lucky.

Possibly, the idea was to open MD on a similar note to HR, at least in that Jensen is some months into his new job when a terrorist attack leaves him and his augs back at Factory 0. He then spends most of the rest of the game trying to track down those responsible. The key difference is that in HR, the attack was a targeted assault on Jensen’s workplace, resulting in his robocop upgrades and the abduction of his ex-girlfriend. Yes, it’s cheesy, yes, it’s cliched, but it gives us personal stakes. And as the story chugged along, we’d learn that Jensen’s own DNA was behind the discoveries that led to Sarif Industries being targeted, used without his consent. Love it or hate it, it’s very much Jensen’s story.

MD, by comparison, is just a story which Jensen happens to be in. He’s only at ground 0 for MD’s terrorist attack by unlucky accident, and is barely injured. He investigates because he works for Interpol, so this shit is literally his day job. Stopping bad people from doing bad things shouldn't need justification, but in what way is this Jensen’s story? His contacts with the Juggernaut Collective help with the investigation, but the conflict between his day job and his own secret affiliations never comes to a head, or even really escalates. It's the kind of experience that makes you long for the sort of generic genre cliches you thought you were tired of.

Some token attempt is made to link Megan’s research on Jensen's DNA to a new poison being used by the terrorists – and two almost complete games in, Jensen’s personal superpowers have finally mattered by making him immune to that poison – but why on earth would they need a new poison at all? Any quick-acting poison would’ve done the same job. (A cynical answer is that the plague from the original Deus Ex was supposed to have been accidentally created during human augmentation experiments, and fans want this to be more like the original Deus Ex, right? So let's do that again! Just, you know, even worse.)

None of the other dangling plot points go anywhere either; this is a story devoid of exciting reveals. We never meet the real Janus. We learn nothing new about Jensen’s background, his amnesia, or the Illuminati’s plans for him. Various members of Interpol are either revealed or subtly hinted to be working for the Illuminati, but Jensen himself doesn't get to react to those reveals. We learn that the Illuminati hopes Jensen will uncover Janus' true identity for them, which is to say that they mention it in passing in the very final cutscene. I as the player would really like that to happen too, if only so something would happen, but as an explanation for the Illuminati's interest in Jensen (escaped research test subject with DNA apparently vital to augmentation technology) that's pretty freaking underwhelming. The grand 'villain' of Mankind Divided isn't the Illuminati but ordinary human prejudice, and no actual progress is made in defeating that either.

We do get some intriguing hints in optional side quests that the Jensen we’re playing as may be a clone of the Jensen from HR (heck, maybe the real Jensen really did die when Panchea sank, and the Illuminati decided they still had a use for him), but hints are as far as it goes. The whole universe feels like it’s treading water, desperately trying to squeeze out another installment without having to answer any real questions or advance the real plot one iota forward. The whole game feels like a filler episode.

There are good moments scattered through nonetheless. Having to decide between doing the urgent mission Interpol wants and the equally-urgent mission the Collective wants at one key moment is wonderfully tense (though the actual consequences of that choice are typically minor). Wandering around Interpol HQ talking to people who are busily trying to track down the Juggernaut Collective without a clue that Jensen's an actual Collective agent is effective too. But the pacing suffers badly from the huge number of side-quests it encourages you to waste time on, and the core cast really isn’t holding up their end.

A few side-quests actually deliver some of the game’s other best moments. There’s a cult leader living in the sewers with hypnotic powers somehow strong enough to scramble Jensen’s CASIE aug, producing a terrific sequence when some of our favourite tools suddenly turn against us. Elsewhere, Eliza’s side-quest features by far the single best moment of twisted, trust-no-one paranoia in this whole franchise, where you have the chance to spot the fact that an "ordinary" shopkeeper is actually a plant trying to bait Jensen into a trap. That reveal worked all the better for me because I missed it completely on my first run through that dialogue tree, and stumbled onto it only by accident after reloading a save for unrelated reasons. You’ll get the odd glimpse of what this game could have been with a stronger vision behind it, but such material remains few and far between.

And burying the best stuff in optional content does the game no favours. I’d been spoiled for the fact you can find what seems to be a cloned copy of Jensen’s body (or maybe even the real Jensen?) in the Versalife vault, and had naively assumed that meant it was an actual plot point. I'd never have guessed the body isn’t even visible unless you let off an EMP grenade while standing right on top of it (which you have no reason to do because there are no enemies in this room). There’s no way to get a really good look at it without using freecam mods. And so the biggest single clue to any of the mysteries still surrounding Jensen is a detail so minor I can’t help wonder whether it’s anything more than an asset leftover from cut content, shipped in the finished game by mistake.

Maybe this game really was finished in a hurry with half its intended plot incomplete. But for my money, what it really needed wasn't an extra year in development, it was the direction to tell an actual story from the start. Seriously, Jensen discovering that he died in Panchea, that he's a clone re-created by his worst enemies as a sleeper agent against his new allies? Gold. If that was even the real intent. But no-one wanted an entire game about a UN resolution to make cyborgs more oppressed ‒ and if they did, the game they delivered was not it.

A bad plot alone isn't necessarily a death-knell from my side of fandom, of course. Some of the most beloved franchises out there are pretty objectively a load of hot garbage with a few compelling characters at the fore. Some of my own most beloved series are that exactly. So I wish I could tell you that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was at least saved by its stellar characters and cast. But my thoughts on that front have yet again been deemed too long to squeeze into this post.

[virtie333]

Let's talk Damerey.

I ended up being a VERY general fan during the SW sequels. Like...none of the ships bother me. FinnPoe? Fine. Damerey? Fine. Kylo and whomever, sure. I guess. I just want them to live and be happy.

Anyway, when did your Damerey journey start? I think I read at one point they had thought about making Poe and Rey a thing? But I guess the visions of the differing directors didn't allow for it? Did I make that up in my head?

I understand the appeal of that ship as well as FinnPoe or whatever it's called. I mean, it's Poe, so who wouldn't be obsessed lol

Anyway, thoughts?

Also, do you like to stick to Damerey fics for Poe or do you also like xreader with Poe?

Oh, boy. This might take a while.

I can honestly say I've been Damerey a lot longer than I've been a fan of Oscar Isaac. I became Damerey right after The Force Awakens. But here's the thing, I was Reylo, too. What? Okay, let me explain. I love the 'good girl falls for bad boy' trope, but I've always been realistic about it; the bad boy can't be horrible bad and has to become good eventually. I loved the idea of Rey bringing Ben back from the Dark Side, but... what he did to his father (my first love and still the one I compare to all other crushes) is unforgivable. I knew Ben Solo would NOT have a happy ending. Therefore, Rey needed to have her happily ever after with someone else. Finn or Poe? I loved them both, but I do have a thing for pilots, so I chose Poe.

The Last Jedi only increased my interest in both ships. The connection between Rey and Ben was fascinating. But... that last scene between Rey and Poe? I remember commenting to my brother after our first viewing, "They have to be planning something between them after that! Right?"

I went into the last movie wondering which way (if either) they were going to take it. I told myself I would be happy with either, and even if Rey chose no one; after all, she doesn't need a man to make her happy. But I am a hopeless romantic. After the first argument between Poe and Rey, where I nudged my brother (who I saw all 3 movies with) and said "They're just like Han and Leia!", I had hopes.

But... they failed to continue with that bright start. And with the kiss between Ben and Rey at the end, I was pretty much resolved to settle for Reylo. And that was my focus for the first couple of month after the movie. But then something strange happened. A fellow Reylo fan, who had defended the first two movies despite all the hate going on, started bemoaning how 'Rey would never be happy now,' and she 'would never get to have babies,' etc. etc. And that pissed me off. Big Time. She had options, dammit! She could stay single and raise Force sensitive orphans. She had Finn. And of course, she had Poe. So, I wrote Rising, my first fanfic in almost 20 years.

When the pandemic hit, and I ended up working part-time, I decided I needed to continue with this post-movie world I had created. I still had a soft spot for Ben, and it shows up in my early works, but I wanted to make Rey and Poe find their happily ever after. Then something else strange happened. In one of my stories, Kennera, I wrote a scene from Poe's POV. Suddenly, I wanted to know more about the actor who portrayed him. And I found this...

That was that. I was hooked on this man. I started watching everything I could with him in it. And I continued to write Damerey, falling more and more deeply into that ship. Reylo became less and less interesting to me, and now I could care less about it. Damerey is everything to me. And it's been that way for almost three years now. I just freaking love them with everything in me.

To answer your question about the ship almost becoming canon, yes it almost did. Colin Trevorrow's script The Duel of the Fates almost became the third movie, and it included a lot more Rey/Poe interaction, even a kiss or two. Some say it's why that scene at the end of The Last Jedi was added, to introduce that attraction. But alas, it didn't happen.

If you had asked me two years ago if I had read any Poe x Reader stories, I would have scoffed at you. I am a reader of novels and I write in the same style and always will, so why would I read that? But... I've read several amazing writers that write in that style since then, and I have become addicted. I know I will never write that way, but I will enjoy others.

I think the fact that I don't write that way is the reason why no one on Tumblr (other than a few trusted friends) ever reads and shares my stuff. It's a bit lonely sometimes, but it is what it is.

Damerey forever!

Art by @greysmartwolf

[coquelicoq]

9 Fandom Peeps to Get to Know Better

i was tagged by @littleragondin! mci mon ami.e !

3 Ships You Like: in a kim dojka & yoo sangah platonic life partners phase rn. god. they would get married but not because they particularly care about marriage, just to bypass the hoops the government makes single people jump through in order to adopt kids, but kim dokja would seriously hesitate for the sole reason that him marrying yoo sangah would make all three of his parents very happy in a way that he would find incredibly annoying.

ok i'm doing another platonic one: moon & ember! i have read the few existing moon & ember fics so many times i can no longer separate them from canon. their dynamic is everything 2 me. bodyguard & anger translator. damaged hottie with trust issues & naive little pretty boy who just wants to go home. moon sees ember as not just a romantic rival but also a threat to his place in the colony, and of course being moon, his reaction to that is not to challenge ember but just to assume that he's been replaced and that he has to start over again alone. ember is everything that moon is not, everything he's convinced he's supposed to be, but ACTUALLY they're both perfect the way they are and there's room enough in this court for the both of them. they are so powerful when they combine their complementary skillsets for the good of the colony. plus i love that every time he interacts with anyone moon is probably thinking, "ugh, i bet EMBER wouldn't be fucking this up"…but also he's defending ember when stone makes fun of him and offering to challenge the reigning queen on ember's behalf! he's protective of ember even as ember embodies everything that makes him insecure. meanwhile ember thinks moon is the coolest person to ever exist and also. extremely cringe. probably 25% of his pillow talk is him subtly trying to convince pearl that moon is just a little birthday boy who should be allowed to be a hugely oversensitive weirdo, as a treat.

people have been rbing some of my cherry magic posts recently so i've been thinking about kurodachi again. i miss them! they're so well matched, so complementary in the ways that they need to grow, and it's lovely to watch them help each other do that. the way that adachi is inspired to make an effort by kurosawa's continuous striving for things he thinks he'll never get, and the way that adachi's apathy for perfection frees kurosawa from his need to be worthy…like ok fine whatever i am listening!!!

First Ship Ever: i have been sitting here trying to think of an earlier ship so i can avoid embarrassing myself, but if i'm honest it's probably ron/hermione. moving right along.

Last Song You Heard: one week by barenaked ladies! what a banger.

Favorite Childhood Book: when i was a kid i had meticulously curated my top ten favorite books, but now i can only remember half of them: island of the blue dolphins, the witch of blackbird pond, ella enchanted, walk two moons, and mrs. frisby and the rats of nimh. can you tell i had one of those bookmarks that listed all the newberry award winners and was working my way through it? lol.

Currently Reading: i just finished my reread of maskerade, the discworld book about the opera, which i had put on hold after reading le fantôme de l'opéra. it wasn't one of my fave discworlds as a teen but i think i'm now in the right headspace for it. enjoyed it quite a bit!

i'm near the end of both the traitor baru cormorant by seth dickinson and par amour by valérie tong cuong. the latter is about a family in le havre during wwii and is very hard to put down. i have honestly no idea what will happen in the remaining two chapters except the nazis are going to lose the war. the traitor baru cormorant is well done, but i don't think i like it enough to read the sequel. (i still am pathologically unable to stop a book that i've started, but i've just discovered that i am capable of stopping after book 1 of a series. life hack!!)

Currently watching: natsume season 4 dub! i just watched the moon-splitting festival arc and the baby nanase episode yesterday. next up is the one about natsume's picture of his parents which. like. let's just say i am marshaling my emotional forces for that one.

also it is about to be march madness! selection sunday tomorrow babey!!!

Currently consuming: the great thing (sarcastic) about living alone is that you spend four hours making this quinoa black bean dish and then have to somehow eat all of it before it goes bad. luckily my neighbor and i have been doing this cute thing for the last ~6 months where we share whatever food we make with each other. this has been working out extremely well for me, because when he cooks i get to eat without having to do anything whatsoever, and when i cook i don't have to worry as much about quantity. i feel like i tricked him into it somehow even though he is getting exactly the same thing out of it as i am.

Currently craving: a baked good i made for the first time recently and then made again two times in rapid succession because i (and my neighbor lol) liked it so much: gingies! okay technically the recipe calls them gingerbread cookie bars, and i just looked up "gingies" (to make sure it's not an offensive term for redheads that i don't know about) and apparently it's frequently used for gingersnaps, but MY use of "gingies" is right and correct and all these other people are idiots. the reason is that they're basically brownies (texture/structure/technique-wise) but with the gingerbread flavor profile instead of chocolate. and "gingeries" sounds stupid, so gingies it is!

tagging @treecakes, @joelletwo, @qserasera, @defeateddetectives, @ctl-yuejie, @deimos-the-wolf, @stupid-lemon-eater, @loreofcardigan, and @dangerliesbeforeyou if you feel like it! no pressure obvi!!

[randomthefox]

https://randomthefox.tumblr.com/post/760632883900760064/eggman-and-gerald-known-for-their-outlandish

"That’s why assertions like Pariah’s that he can’t consider SA2 to take place in the same setting as the classic games is so ridiculous"

I really dislike those types of claims. The classic games had normal cities in the backgrounds and it was no big deal.

People need to understand that Sonic's world is meant to be a blend of real-life possibilities AND bizarre nonsense. Mario does this all the time and no one bats an eye. Sonic fans just like to nitpick about every little thing.

The Sonic setting should have wacky places and normal places. The stories and characters are designed/written with that notion in mind.

Stuff like that is why I also hate when people say the Riders series makes no sense it supposedly just HAS to be an alternate timeline or something. This is the same setting that has magical casinos, nonsensical areas like music plant, and giant rings that send people to acid trip pocket dimensions. Is it really that crazy for the characters to go racing on hover boards in futuristic cities?

Sonic's world is fine as is. Sonic fans are just weirdly insistent on giving everything an explanation or justification when that type of thing isn't needed.

Yeah, exactly. It's always so weird and dumb when people try and make shit up like that. Saying that the Riders games must be an alternate timeline or non canon because of whatever stupid reason they've manufactured. Trying to argue that Sonic Adventure was somehow a reboot. Insisting that Sonic Generations makes the classic games noncanon. Ect. Whatever weird shit they invent in their imagination and then act like is irrefutably true. In cases such as those, I blame the wider media landscape we currently find ourselves in. The Halloween-ification of all franchise properties.

This kind of thing is unfortunately not uncommon. The X-Men movies. The Alien movies. All kinds of long running big franchises do this kind of thing, where they'll reboot and do twenty year later sequels that disregard everything but the first movie, and so on. A thirty year long video game franchise just having one single unbroken continuity that has been running continuously and seamlessly is practically unheard of. I understand the instinct of those who are a bit more surface level in their media consumption and who aren't all that invested in the Sonic franchise to assume that Sonic MUST have done something similar, at some point.

But no. Just play the games from start to finish in release order, and that's pretty much the chronology of the series. There's only two outliers that I would say are hard to place, Sonic Battle released on the same day as Sonic Heroes but by my appraisal it makes the most sense to say it takes place after Shadow the Hedgehog. And Sonic 06 has a few peculiarities with its plot such as Blazes involvement that seem to cause a bit of friction with other established elements of the series. But you can still play them in the order of their release and it'll still make sense.

It all goes back to that "Sonic is/has always been inconsistent" thing people say. Which Pariah has now started saying. And which he had honestly been building up to ever since his Shadow the Hedgehog video, where he said this.

And I honestly just cannot tolerate this entire sentiment. It's such a shame. Pariah's entire thesis for his videos was originally "Sonic was always good." But it turned out to just be the same old shit. And now he's completely mask off and straight up saying unironically "Sonic has always been inconsistent." It's such bullshit.

The classic Sonic games had dark themes and nuanced story telling. It just EXPRESSED them in a very different way because of the nature of the medium at the time the games were made. And the Adventure era games have plenty of levity and humor and had an uplifting message of hope, just like what the classic games had. The games are ENTIRELY consistent. Some games having different tonal priorities than others doesn't mean they're in a different fucking universe or timeline or continuity. It doesn't mean that Sonic Adventure 2 takes place in the Christopher Nolan universe and Colors takes place in the Adam West universe. Those two games having different tones doesn't mean they're in other dimensions or that the series isn't consistent. It just means your imagination is anemic. And I'm sick of hearing that shit from these fucking haters pretending to be fans.

[raveneira]

Continuing from my other post, for those who may be curious if this finally means Im giving up on KawaSara and the possibility that it could become canon...my answer is no, Im not.

Realistically its not lookin good, Im mature enough to admit that, does that mean I think this is the end? no I do not, why? because in a decent mangaka’s writing this usually would be the ship killer, but Ikemoto isnt a decent mangaka, hes not even a decent artist, the bar is literally in hell with him on all fronts.

With this sequels writing literally ANYTHING is possible, it doesnt matter if theres build up to it or not because just look at Kawaki’s villain arc, he literally changed his whole mindset in a fkin DAY and no Im not kidding, go back and read 76, literally took only a day for him to make a complete 180.

Look at Sasuke back in 69, he understood Kawaki, empathized with him, took the blame on himself for failing to be the one to kill Boruto instead, said Konoha doesnt have anyone to blame except for him. Now look at 78, hes holdin a sword to Kawaki’s throat despite sensing Momoshiki TWICE and KNOWING why Kawaki is doing what hes doing, he LITERALLY swore to do the same and yet here he is, hunting down Kawaki like everyone else as if he never once thought about killing Boruto himself.

So do I think this is the death of KawaSara? no I dont, because this sequel switches from one narrative to another on a whim whenever it wants to, so right now things look horrible for KawaSara like theres no way things could ever work out and that they just totally hate eachother now etc but when the story feels like it actually wants to bother remembering Sarada and Kawaki’s bond it will, and if Ikemoto has decided to make them canon he literally will with or without build up because the man just does not care.

So no Im not giving up on KawaSara, and no I dont think KawaSara is dead, this writing doesnt give af about logic or build up so to say 79 really killed the ship is giving this man too much credit as a writer. Nothing is consistent, and nothing STAYS consistent either. If he suddenly wants to remember KawaSaras bond he will, and if he suddenly wants to forget it he will as well, whatever he feels like in the moment is what he’ll go with.

I dont blame ppl for losing hope here, I dont blame ppl for giving up either, I completely understand your frustration and hopelessness and I do not blame you in the slightest if you just wanna call it quits here, totally understandable.

All Im saying is Im not, not because I cant take the loss, I’ve lost plenty of ships and handled it just fine, but for the principal of it.

I will never forget and never let anyone else forget how a certain fanbase cared more about seeing a harmless small fandoms ship sink than enjoying their own ship they claimed was smooth sailing

I will never forget how this supposed biggest fandom of the most popular ship was praying on our downfall CONSTANTLY simply because they couldnt STAND people shipping Sarada with anyone other than Boruto who they felt she was the property of and no one elses

I will never forget how big accounts incited hate and bitterness towards us unprovoked for no other reason than just enjoying seeing a small group of ppl suffer and be ridiculed by their followers because it was just fun hating on the little guy

I will never forget how the entire fandom turned on one big account for the simple fact that he came out that he shipped KawaSara [theres other reasons now but that was the first and still is the main reason they hate him]

I will never forget how this fanbase made that disgusting head tweet [saying they wanted teen Sarada to give Boruto oral on Kawaki’s dead decapitated body] and over 500 ppl FROM THAT FANBASE liked it and cracked similar jokes, one of which saying Boruto should give HER head instead which also got a bunch of likes

I will never forget how that fanbase was quick to accuse KawaSara fans calling us sick and disgusting over a instagram post saying they hope Kawaki R-pes Sarada only for the poster to admit to being a KawaBoru shipper and NONE of those ppl apologized

I will never forget how this fandom was so insecure and downright hateful towards KawaSara just existing that when members of their own fandom also liked/didnt mind the ship they were literally SHUNNED from the fandom to the point they had to leave it because they couldnt stand it

I will never forget how that fandom constantly vandalized the KawaSara wiki page because they couldnt stand it just existing

and I will never forget how these ppl pretended to be the victim of us this entire time and convinced majority of the fanbase of this as well because they had so many ppl already on their side branding us as the bad guys when literally all we did was try to fkin ship in peace and they just WOULD NOT let us do that.

THATS why I wont give up on the ship, not because I cant take the loss, but because I cant stand letting these ppl feel like they won because more than anything they wanna see ppl drop the ship so only Bsa exists while Kawaki is thrown to whoever is convenient but Im not gonna do that. I’ll stand with the ship whether its canon or not, if others do the same great but if not then that sucks but I understand.

I aint gonna give em the satisfaction tho, whether its endgame or not, whether things get better or worse for them, even whether the ship really is killed or not, Im not giving the ppl who’ve just nonstop been praying on harmless ships downfall the satisfaction of thinkin they finally buried us, I just wont do it.

[sarah-sandwich-writes]

20 Questions - Fanfic Writer Edition

I was tagged by both @writer-or-whatever and @jmrothwell so I suppose I better do it 😅 Thanks guys!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 42 (*gasp* am I Miles Morales?)

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 1,265,660 lol

3. What fandoms do you write for? currently just Spider-Man but I used to write for Supernatural and before that Harry Potter. I'm a one obsession at a time kinda girl.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Paradise (spread out with a butter knife) - 72k spideypool soulmates au

Don't Freak Out - 136k parkner rivals to lovers speedrun

A Peach Like You - 73k parkner featuring autistic!peter, loveatfirstsight!harley, and a cringe self insert as the villain of the week lmao

The Distance Between (You and Me) - 29k parkner bodyguard au

You're Freaking Out - 166k sequel to DFO featuring plot (wow!) and Miles (yay!)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

My dudes I try. I know I'm not very consistent and I have a tendency to disappear for months at a time, but I read and cherish each one.

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't really do angsty endings lol I think the closest I've gotten is Lay Me Down - 8k destiel major character death--lowest kudosed fic out of all 42 lmao

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

This is an impossible question. I am like the queen of happy endings? You want me to rank them??? Fine, it's You're Freaking Out. Best 10k epilogue in the land. Oh hey also I just noticed it has 997 kudos. May I humbly request 3 more pretty please?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No. Closest was when someone complained on one of my destiel fics about the grocery store not having plastic bags and needing a quarter in order to obtain a cart. I specifically remember they said, "I hate when writers do this," and went on to complain about us making up obviously fake stuff that pulls them out of the story. Like, first of all you're complaining about storytellers making stuff up ??? okay. And second, it was an Aldi. A real grocery store. That I didn't make up.

I had to take a day to cool off before I responded and then they were like oh yeah, my roommate told me when I complained to them, you responded to this really nicely though! WHICH folks LET ME TELL YOU made me angrier lol Like you found out you were wrong and didn't even come back to edit/delete/apologize for your comment???

Anyway after that I internalized that you don't know what kind of lived experience your commenters have so some comments should be taken with a grain of salt. Which is a double-edged sword bc sometimes I get really nice enthusiastic comments and read it like, okay but what if this person is 12 and read it at 2am in a fit of delirium and this is their first fic ever and it's actually not as good as they think haha

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I doooo. I haven't published any since I wrote for spn but I have a parkner pwp ready to go as soon as I muster up the nerve.

I have no idea how to interpret the question "what kind" lol uhhh the hot kind? pffft

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I have but I never published them. Again, these were for spn which is hella fun to play with merging into other canon. I started but never finished spn crossovers with Firefly, The 100, The Hunger Games, Criminal Minds, Agents of Shield, and Teen Wolf. I think that's all of them. I've been thinking about putting all of my abandoned wips on AO3 for archive purposes, but idk still noodling on it. I wish there way a way I could elect to post without notifying my subscribers :/ Or at least send them a message warning them that I'm about to be incredibly annoying

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of 🙃

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes!! A few now! The ultimate kudo in my opinion, and one I never expected <3

The wonderful @bluettspetal has translated An Insignificant Problem, Undercover? I thought you said under covers..., and Completely and utterly devoid of sex appeal into Russian with plans to translate more.

And Faaayeee42 on AO3 translated Paradise (spread out with a butter knife) to Mandarin Chinese.

I'm forever blown away by this.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope! Done some brainstorming a few times but nothing that has evolved into actually writing out a shared thing. Not sure I'd be any good at it tbh. I'd probably be a very frustrating writing partner.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Peter Parker/Harley Keener. They're good boys.

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

My Infinity War time travel fix it (make it worse) fic 😔 It's got so much potential but it is perpetually at the bottom of the to-do list.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and developing relationships

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

mother fucking action sequences and like, coming up with The Plan (the evil kind and the ones to take down the evil kind)

This silly little graphic I made for You're Freaking Out where Harley mocks The Plan made by the spider dumplin gang was initially one half of my brain negging the other half about being shit at making Plans and I decided that it might as well manifest as the characters lmao

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Eh. It's fanfiction, you know? Do what you want. Experiment. Try your best to do it justice. Accept that some people are going to let their eyes blur and skim over it while others will pick it apart but most will exist somewhere in the middle. Just write what you want to write, how you want to write it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

*sigh* Harry Potter. Looking forward to my own post getting gobbled up by my block list lmao

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Goodness gracious how do I even decide? I think Peaches Ain't Pretty is my favorite. It's the fic that showed me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I can step outside of fanfiction and write whatever I want and be just as satisfied, if not more.

[x-authorship-x]

2022 Creators Self-Love Extravaganza!

Rules:

It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works (fics, art, edits, etc.) you’ve created this year and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2022. If you don’t have five published works, that’s fine! Include ideas/drafts/whatever you like that you’ve worked on/thought about, and talk a little about them instead! Remember, this is all about self-love and positive enthusiasm, so fuck the rules if you need to. Have fun, and tag as many fellow creators as you like so they can share the love!

This post is inspired by @bubblesthemonsterartist - thanks for bringing it across my dash! ✨

1) THE 'A' IN ANBU STANDS FOR (SURPRISE) ADOPTION

I love feel-good found-family fluff fics and this one served a side of comedy to boot. Writing this was really therapeutic at a stressful time in my life and I was feeling really guilty for not keeping up with my longstanding Shisui Series (HOPE AU, including completed work 'No Tomorrow' (NoT) and ongoing sequel 'Until Dawn Breaks' (UDB)). Writing Shisui is always my favourite thing to do, he's such a comfort character to me even if I'm making him hurtle through life and death situations or wacky AUs. This fic kind of encapsulated that, the joy I find in him as a character, and making sure he's loved and supported too. The fic started when I asked myself all the possible points in time for Shisui to transform what happened in canon; one of them was 'Itachi is under crazy pressure... How can Shisui protect him?' and 'legal guardian the shit out of his baby cousins' was the immediate answer.

Summary: Shisui didn't know why Raidou was giving him disappointed looks. It wasn't like Shisui had much of a track record for letting things go, for going with the Status-Quo and ignoring what was happening around him. Or that this was the first, er, child acquisition - for any of them! - either.

Honestly, at this rate, they were going to be renamed Squad Toddler instead of Two.

It was Kakashi who grabbed this one, anyway!

2) Until Dawn Breaks

This is the sequel to my favourite shisui fic I've ever written. I planned the whole story out, multiple arcs, before I had even written a word for the fic itself. I spent days getting together a brand new timeline for the Narutoverse, I figured out a whole cast, their abilities and motivations and relationships, and it felt like the whole thing was hovering above the page, waiting to be written. Writing No Tomorrow (NoT) was literally the best thing I've ever done and I'm so proud of that fic, even if I would edit it differently looking back on it now. For Until Dawn Breaks (UDB), I was really conflicted on the plotline because of that phrase, 'no plan survives contact with the enemy'. I'm at a cross roads with the fic, part of me wishes I'd skipped this arc entirely, but I don't want to abandon anything so I'm forced to soldier through. I have to make a lot of big plot decisions and that takes a lot of time, which I don't have, and knowledge, which has faded over the past year or so. I used to only update when I had at least three more chapters finished ahead of time and now I publish as soon as it's ready, and I'm sad to have lost that routine. Writing is hard and it's supposed to be fun. I hope my readers understand that breaks are inevitable and they still come read updates whenever they arrive. The fact I updated this fic this year is a huge thing for me and I'm really proud that I could keep going through this rough patch with the fic and IRL.

Summary: Shisui had succeeded, destroying the man who was responsible for his death, in every way possible. Who had caused so much suffering... more than anyone could have foreseen.

(He gasped for air, throat parched and lips chapped and-)

But now came the hardest part; learning to live again.

(The ground felt as distant as the dim twinkle of stars scattered across the night sky.)

All was still.

(The air, the only thing surrounding him, felt stretched in his lungs, whipped his clothes and hair taunt from his skin, and streamed tears from his eyes.)

And then it wasn't.

3) The Red Istari

I submitted my thesis at midnight and planned this fic before I went to sleep. The first chapter was completed and posted within a day of that. This fic was a watershed moment for me, I had made a promise that I wouldn't write any fanfic whilst working on my thesis drafts until it had been completed and I stuck to that. I did some brainstorming, I have a lot of WIP ideas saved up, but I didn't write and I didn't allow my focus to shift. This fic was like a dam exploding and I feel like I'm still recovering for the enforced sabbatical. I'd attempted LotR/Naruto crossovers before but it always felt like there wasn't much of an audience for it and, whilst I like to think I write for myself, I do weigh up reader engagement too because I find it discouraging to post and get nothing nice back for my hard work. This time I didn't care, tbh. I watched the extended edition on loop in the final days of my thesis work and it felt like i had to write this fic or explode. I think it worked out nicely haha

Summary: The sky was aglow, deepest crimson washing over the land and undimmed by the bruise-purple clouds that clutched at the edges of the horizon.

The sands shifted beneath him, deep and perfect as only a desert that has consumed everything within it can be.

A staff of inscribed steel stood proud where it was stabbed into the sand, radiating heat against the side of his neck.

Somehow, he knew in his bones that there was nothing out there but him, the staff, and the golden desert.

He was alive, bare, and unwounded despite the blood he could feel stuck to his flesh.

This was not death.

This was… something new.

4) REVELRY

I once wrote a Bnha self insert and the whole experience of trying to make sense of the fandom and the canon verse was so bewildering that I never wrote for my hero academia again. Until now. I've read a lot of Bnha (seriously, my total ao3 bookmarks are in the 6000s now) and I have a lot of characters I adore but i never felt the urge to write for them like i did for this Tokoyami fic. Quirk science confuses me, I'm not one of those accounts who can theorise legitimately on the topic, but quirk Shenanigans and fuckery is something I can weigh in on a little more confidently. I'm ending 2022 by trying out a fandom i thought I'd never post about again. It's a nice bit of self character development, yeah?

Summary: “The shadow is the greatest teacher for how to come to the light.”

Others don't understand that a 'quirk' is not always a tool and that, sometimes, a family is two birds in the darkness of the night.

Fumikage is going to be a hero.

And so is Dark Shadow.

AKA

What if Tokoyami was the top hero student in his class?

5) WIPS

This last celebration is for my WIPs! There are a stupid amount of them, most will never see the light of day, but i love them all ❤️ they're wacky, heart breaking, ridiculous, fluffy, healing and badass! I'll spotlight a few of my favs from this year, since I pick out a snappy title, dramatic summary and aesthetic line divider before almost anything else haha

DRAGON (KAGE SERIES WIP)

“The hunger of a dragon is slow to wake, but hard to sate." ― Ursula K. Le Guin

Mikoto had been born into a Clan that, whilst not so foolish as to disregard its girls, preferred for them to stay at home, providing future heirs and fighters, than risking themselves in the field. Peace had only esasperated the expectations that a pretty girl made a prettier wife.

Mikoto, thankfully, was the daughter of Uzushio Ambassador Uchiha Kagami and Shiho the Silvertongue.

Her inner spark was tended, never stifled. 

The Will of Fire would burn brightly once more.

AKA

Mikoto had been born in a plum grove, nearly a month premature, exactly half way between Konoha and Uzushio. Her mother predicted that she would have an indomitable will. Her father declared that she was born between two worlds.

They were both right.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

HUNTER (KAGE SERIES WIP)

The Sarutobi Clan had long been in the service of the Daimyo. The Uchiha and Senju were Noble Shinobi. The Nara were Wild Healers, coaxed out of obscurity by their connection to the Yamanaka and Akimichi.

The Hatake had been Samurai, set apart by their own moral code and Clan culture.

They'd sworn themsleves to Konoha, allies with the Senju for centuries. They were Kin to the Nidaime, who was born of Senju Butsuma's second wife, and an integral part of the village founding. Their loyalty and skill had put them in the first line of defense and had proven their Clan's downfall.

Sakumo was the Head of a Clan of two. His wife, ambushed on a solo courier mission. His son and heir, strongarmed onto the battlefield far too young for all of his genius. The Hatake were in danger and Sakumo was their only hope.

The White Fang had played the loyal watchdog for too long. Konoha had forgotten the bite of white chakra and the savagery of a desperate father.

Konoha needed to remember why the rest of the known world rightly feared wolves.

╣◍╠╣◍╠╣◍╠╣◍╠╣◍╠╣◍╠╣◍╠╣◍╠╣◍╠╣◍╠╣◍╠╣◍╠

THORN

"We, who wield power, adorn ourselves with flowers to hide the sting of our thorns." - L. Bardugo

They saw her ebony curls, eyes like cranberries, and the strength of her Genjutsu.

'Uchiha,' they whispered, fearful, wrong.

'Pretender', the Clan-born dismissed, sneering, ignorant.

'Clan', the trees seemed to murmur, a song precious few could hear these days, and swayed towards her presence. A leaf caressed her cheek, the soil humming underfoot, and branches curved to cradle her descent.

Kurenai had grown up in a civilian family and, whenever anyone looked at her, that was all they saw. The Yuuhi family were small, wide-spread, but had done well for themselves. Kurenai was their only child, the lone Shinobi in generations, and the secrets in her blood seemed to pound just beneath her skin. 

She wove roses into reality and warped the mind in her grasp until nothing was believable and the flourishing greenery was waved away as a trick of the light.

'Yuuhi,' they called her.

'Senju', the forest breathed.

And Kurenai smiled.

AKA

Kurenai wasn't supposed to reach Jounin until she was 25, and even that might have garnered too much attention. However, when she notices familiar chakra - like her, like her, like her - lingering around her friend, Kakashi, Kurenai stumbles across a conspiracy that spans decades.

Truth will out. And Blood runs true.

AKA

Kurenai has her Grandfather's eyes and her Great Uncle's chakra.

ෆ(⁠)✿ᘛ⋋⁠✿ෆ(⁠)✿ᘛ⋋⁠✿⁠ෆ(⁠)✿ᘛ⋋⁠✿ෆ(⁠)✿ᘛ⋋⁠✿⁠ ෆ(⁠)✿ᘛ⋋⁠✿

I'll tag: @looks-like-starlight @katlou303 @thekatthatbarks @ellorypurebloodculture @raendown anyone else who wants to play!

[grave-bride]

Amaya's Favorite Weird Lil' Games

Hello, I'm Amaya. I needed some kind of pinned post here, and introductions are lame and I'm not funny, so I figure what better to have as a first introduction than a list of some of my favorite games, especially ones I consider to be somewhat under-rated. That's a vague term in some regards, and can mean different things to different people for different games. Regardless these are several video games I hold very dearly and many of them are quite formative for me as a person. I've posted something like this on Twitter before, but switching over to Tumblr gives me a little bit more leeway on how many words I'm willing to give to each title, as well as many shift some titles around, and I may edit this more in the future. It should go without saying by the way that all of these games have some incredible soundtracks please listen to them sometime if you can. Either way... shall we begin?

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth

I've been a Digimon fan all of my life, so in some ways this feels like cheating, like of course a Digimon game would wind up on this list when it was effectively my first fixation. Cyber Sleuth though, is a genuinely good video game, and honestly probably the first time a Digimon game has been "Good" with no caveats. This is a well constructed turn based, monster collecting RPG with a compelling narrative that unfolds over the course of multiple different mysteries you, as the titular Cyber Sleuth, work to solve by utilizing your Digimon combined with your unique ability to travel through cyberspace itself. While clunky around the edges, it's a fun video game that feels similar enough to its contemporaries like Pokemon that its fairly easy to slip into with a really good, quirky cast of characters, even among the nameless NPCs there are several who remain memorable due to their entertaining quips or the nature of whatever side quest they're attached to. Among the fandom there's even a bit of a running joke about Cyber Sleuth and its seemingly magical ability to turn people who aren't Digimon fans... INTO diehard Digimon fans after completion. The Complete Edition available via PC and Steam includes bonus content and all the old DLC, including the whole ass sequel, Hacker's Memory, which takes place concurrently with Cyber Sleuth but from someone else's point of view... I am more mixed on that game, but it's still worth trying if you manage to pick up that version.

Digimon Survive

Look I'm a little bit sorry about putting two Digimon titles back to back but I need to talk about this one for a bit bear with me. Digimon Survive is a visual novel, and those won't be to everyone's tastes, though it is broken up occasionally by some RPG battles, still you can scroll down if that's an immediate dealbreaker. Survive though is... hard to explain for me, especially being a visual novel, it's basically impossible to discuss without spoilers. Compared to many entries in the Digimon canon, Survive feels more down to earth and grounded, all things considered. Taking clear inspiration from the original anime series, but putting a more "realistic" spin on the general premise, acknowledging the implicit darker elements of a setting like this, and it truly uses it for some powerful moments, and across its multiple endings were willing to go in directions I kind of always wanted Digimon to dive into more but never really expected they would do. It's a very... fulfilling narrative to me, and even as far back as the first trailer, its main instrumental track leaves me feeling a sort of pained, nostalgic, melancholy, and I think the full game managed to live up to whatever ethereal feeling that first reveal gave me all those years ago. Who knew it was possible for a game to come out of development hell just fine?

Wild Arms / Wild Arms: Alter Code F

Wild Arms was legitimately one of the first video games I ever played, and has stuck with me in many ways, affecting me all my life. Despite being a sort of "forgotten" franchise, it still has a bit of impact continuing to this day, with the main creator later going to work on fucking Symphogear of all things, and the influence is noticeable. Now he's working on a more direct spiritual successor, Armed Fantasia, which does look good but it was kickstarted so I'm trying not to be too excited! To be more focused on the topic at hand, this is... a very old, classic RPG, despite releasing on the PS1 its DNA sort of traces back to a very "SNES flavor" of the genre in its general vibe. It stands apart though with its very creative setting for its genre, a Wild West inspired setting with cowboys, and samurai, and mages and ancient civilizations with advanced technology and aliens and it's all... very much, but it creates a very fascinating and unique world. It's a world that's fun to experience and explore with its "Tool" system, which may as well be adapting a sort of Zelda/Metroid like system of upgrades to an RPG, granting the ability to solve various puzzles or gain access to areas previously locked off, and in combination with this, each party member has drastically different abilities in how they function. It later received a remake for PS2 titled Alter Code F which... I think genuinely stands on its own. Many things were redesigned aesthetically, mechanically, and more. New party members and side quests added, music rearranged. It creates a very different vibe that makes it hard for me to say if there is a "definitive" way to experience Wild Arms, but I think it's a journey worth taking either way.

Wild Arms 3

Okay, admittedly this is a bit of a tough post to write after the one on Wild Arms 1, because Wild Arms 3 in many regards is just a better Wild Arms 1. The setting is mostly the same vibes, and most of the core gameplay remains, but its feel and narrative are in a world of their own. If you are a fan of Symphogear already, then this is the title that will be more in line with what you know from the creator. Though many aspects of the original remain in play, Wild Arms 3 mixed things up quite a bit with its unique take on how skills work. Spells and skills are now tied to 12 Runes which you can divide up among the 4 party members, and you can change these at any point, even mid-combat, but there is some emphasis put on planning as each characters stats are geared towards using different spells but those are often bundled with spells the character in question cannot use as effectively. Plus, the Runes are also where passive skills come from, so while you can swap Runes at a moments notice to best take advantage of a situation, doing so does mean jumbling around the passive skills that some characters may be relying upon. It's a unique system and I like it a lot, even if admittedly the base game is hardly challenging enough for it be a common problem to consider. You can sort of tell the creator would later go on to make Symphogear based on this title, because even this game feels like an anime series split across multiple seasons, with the story split into multiple Acts, each one introducing new antagonists and even a change to the games opening movie, and it all culminates in a twist villain that sticks in my head because of how much she seems like she comes out of nowhere... until you take a second look, and realize on a new playthrough she was always there, always watching, always just out of reach.

7th Dragon 7th Dragon 2020 7th Dragon 2020-II 7th Dragon III Code: VFD

Yes, I'm putting the entire series here, because I genuinely do just recommend the entire series if you can bear it. 7th Dragon is a series of RPGs where the emphasis is on the challenging bosses, traversing the dungeons they find a home in, all while using a party of silent protagonists you design yourself by picking out their Classes and how they invest in their skills. In many respects it is similar to Etrian Odyssey and that's... because they're made by the same dude, though sadly 7th Dragon didn't have as much success outside Japan... or even within Japan. It's a series that I appreciate a lot because I think it has a very unique style to it but they can be brutal, especially the first game. I've played many RPGs that feature the "indomitable human spirit" as part of its plot and how the conflict is overcome but I'm not sure I've ever felt it through gameplay quite like I have in these games. It's the sort of game where you will boot it up and get your ass beaten by a squirrel, and you... just have to overcome that, and every obstacle after, by finding your own strategy that works, and planning one out can be an ordeal in of itself as several Classes have such unique mechanics that it barely even seems like every member of your party is playing the same game as each other. (Seriously you can have a mage who casts spells by using MP in the same party as a mage that casts spells by micro-managing Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.) You can play as a catgirl.

Dark Cloud

All right this one is just a fun adventure. Honestly you shouldn't expect any deep story here, nor one with any emotional impact, but it's a damn fun time if you're willing to give it some time. Dark Cloud is a dungeon crawler, where you will be venturing into multiple dungeons, traversing floor after floor after floor of procedurally generated rooms, hallways, enemies, treasure, and traps. What makes it a little bit unique though is the "Atma" you'll find alongside the way which give you all manner of things such as trees, fences, rivers, roads, houses, windmills and... people! In between dungeon diving, you will return to the surface to use the Atma you've collected to rebuild several destroyed civilizations, turning barren wastelands into small villages, bringing the peaceful people back and listening to their requests to make it even better than it was before it was destroyed... or ignore them all and do whatever you want. Either way, it's a fun and addicting little adventure full of dungeon crawling, boss battling, city planning, and making new friends along the way. Also sometimes you build a giant robot and engage in time travel shenanigans. You can play as a catgirl.

Okage: Shadow King

Probably the most obscure game I have ever talked about, Okage is a forgotten but beloved cult classic RPG about a boy whose shadow now harbors a demon who is pushing him on a quest to conquer the world in exchange for curing his sister of her curse to always speak in pig Latin, by turning her shadow pink. It's a very ridiculous game wild a wild sense of humor, and a very quirky and charming cast with a memorable aesthetic. Sadly it is a bit of a low budget title and the game does show that sometimes with how rough it can be but the poor balance and other issues can easily be overlooked for the games absurd and entertaining world and dialogue, all of which later gives way to a pretty interesting story starring a person who feels forgotten and isolated in the world, and them learning to be more confident and aggressive by reminding the world they do exist.

God Eater Resurrection God Eater 2 Rage Burst God Eater 3

Again putting the whole series here. Each game has unique elements, but they're all worth the time if you ask me, with hundreds of hours of content and some decent stories, I especially am a big fan of the found family narrative of 3. Though the primary reason its on here is for the gameplay, God Eater is a series of action games in a similar vein to Monster Hunter, where you are tasked with going on missions to take down dangerous, towering beasts. Though these games generally are much faster paced with a greater emphasis on the break neck combat, and your ability to customize your character with armor, a melee weapon, a gun, various passive skills and even abilities that may enhance your move set or completely change how some of your attacks behave on a fundamental level. More importantly, these games all have co-op that allow up to 4 players to tackle most missions in the game, including being able to experience the story campaigns together from beginning to end. So y'know... hit me up on a weekend sometime, I am just saying...

Ys IX: Monstrum Nox

Ys is a long running RPG series and it is perhaps a criminal offense to specifically be recommending the ninth entry, especially seeing as how it is the last game in the series chronologically at the moment, and serves as a capstone for the protagonists current adventures. Though it was my first game in the series myself, and even after playing all of them yeah I still think this is the best one. Monstrum Nox is an action RPG where you are trapped in a large city, forced to remain until you can solve all of the mysteries in the dungeons under its paved roads. Though you and several others have the ability to turn into "Monstrums", powerful beings with unique abilities that are helpful in traversing the city and its dungeons. There's a lot of fun in meeting the Monstrums and not knowing their true, civilian identities, especially because you will often encounter their civilian identities a decent time before its revealed they are one of the Monstrums helping you too dispel monsters around town. Alongside the fun of combat, and running around dungeons with the cool cast of Monstrums, the size of the city and the various movement abilities you unlock almost make the game feel akin to a platformer sometimes, a feeling bolstered by several collectables spread through out the city and the main map keeping track of your completion percentage for all of said collectables. While the action RPG part of the game is great on its own, there's something to be said about the joy of running up a skyscraper, double jumping off, doing a roll forward into a glide to reach a far off building for another feather. You can play as a catgirl.

Harvestella

This is the most recent release on this list, and quickly became a favorite of mine. Harvestella is a farming sim/action RPG hybrid, with emphasis mostly put on the RPG half of the game. It's a compelling narrative that rings with vibes of classic Final Fantasy and Bravely Default, filled with likeable characters and several gorgeous locations along the way. It's a thrilling adventure that you can tackle at your own pace, going on an adventure through dangerous locations or doing side quests in between just chilling on a farm, planting crops, raising animals, making products, all to craft various tools, prepare food or sell for income. Since it is so new I don't really want to go into it too much but look... it's good. No catgirls but the gender selection at the very beginning of the game has nonbinary as an option, and in the post-game you can give become "Life Partners" with any of the party members by giving them a "Promise Ring".

[quantumboogaloo]

Fixing the sequel trilogy

*Spoilers for Star Wars Episodes VII-IX, if you care.*

Honestly, I think the sequel trilogy could be fixed with some reltively minor changes. I think The Force Awakens is good. A few tweaks, maybe, but overall its solid. The only change I would make is that Finn should go with Rey to the Island to find Luke.

The Last Jedi is where I would change some stuff. I think that Luke becoming jaded and isolated could work, but I think we need some changes to his reasoning. The main thing is that I would ADD more about his reasoning in there. When he goes in to kill Ben, and then doesn't, I think he should be scared of turning to the Dark Side. I don't think Ben should go and destroy the School then and there. I think Luke should have taken some time to think and consult his father and Obi-Wan and Yoda, and come to the conclustion that perhaps the Jedi ways need to die with him, and that he needs to isolate himself so as not to hurt anyone else. I think this would also make the title of the movie much more fitting, also. At first, Luke thinks he needs to be the last Jedi, and then realizes that isn't so. Rey is honestly fine in this movie, too, I think she gets a bit too much hate. I think she's bland, but I don't hate her like so many people seem to. I think she could have similar interactions with Kylo Ren, but then having Finn on the Island with her, she can voice her hesitations and we can have some more of that lovely Finn and Rey chemistry (should be platonic, imo). They worked with each other so well in TFA, and I think that should be preserved. The fight in the throne room can be basically the same, but PLEASE better choreography. The way they fight in the movie would be so ineffective.

The big change to TLJ is eliminating the stupid casino planet subplot. It's just stupid. If you want Poe to have gone too far and need to get in trouble, he can try to mutiny earlier, becasue Holdo won't share her plan, then she can send him to the brig. I think it would be good to have a nice conversation between him and Holdo, where we get an actually good reason for her not initially telling her the plan, then he accepts that, grows, and supports her actions. (I'm not a huge Poe fan, so I can't come up with as good of ideas for him). This could show significant character growth from when he wouldn't listen to authority, (which is definitely shown to be a flaw in the movie, Leia knew better than him) to being a bit skeptical, but ultimately a better soldier.

Finally, The Rise of Skywalker. TROS needs the most changes. First off, the real Palpatine isn't back. What we see is a messed up clone of him. He needs Rey, because this rotten, horrid version of his body is failing. Kylo needs to start questioning the First Order. In the actual movie, he is deeper in than ever, and basically unredeemable, in order to get that big SHOCK later on, but I think that at this point he would actively be questioning his own actions, and might be redeemable. The plot as a whole would need a rewrite, in ways I can't even summarize properly for this post, but basically, Rey can find out she's a Palpatine, or start to accidentally use the Dark Side, or both, early on in the movie, leading her to start isolating herself more and more from everyone. Leia, Chewie, Poe, Finn, etc. The other characters can be worried about her, and THEN we get the huge drop of "holy shit is Palpatine alive?!" via a video message or something. It is LAME to not see that happen on screen.

I actually quite like several aspects of the end of the movie, particularly Ben finally renouncing Kylo and coming to help Rey, fighting his own men on the way. I will say, I think we need one of two things for the ending. 1: completely get rid of the "if you kill a Sith, they posess you" or whatever. It really doesn't line up with established canon, imo, or 2: ONLY Palpatine can do the posession thing, and its because he's just such an evil powerful Sith or whatever. We get that final bit, where Rey has to decide whether to kill Palpatine or let everyone die. She makes up her mind, turns to Palpatine with determination in her eyes, and he grins. He's won. She raises her lightsaber to strike him, and he cackles. She kills him. Ben climbs up out of that pit, seeing Rey with her lightsaber turned towards herself. "No!" he shouts, running towards her. She throws her hand in the air, force-throwing him away from her, tears in her eyes, as she ignites her blade. She falls to the ground, dead, Palpatine, Darth Sidious, the Emperor, finally, FINALLY defeated, as Ben runs towards her. At that point, he can either revive her, or (since that's not really something it is established is possible, healing and resurrection are very different), he holds her and cries over her body, and he then emerges to the surface, to help the Resistance.

Whichever of the two of them isn't dead starts the Jedi Order anew, but with improvements. The end.

Obviously, I'm no professional, but I think these or similar changes, would VASTLY improve the sequel trilogy.