#i doubt i’m the first one to notice this but i haven’t seen anyone point it out before so i figured i’d make a post about it

[7-crows-in-a-trench-coat]

WAIT A MINUTE

I JUST REALIZED SOMETHING SAD

ok so i’m rewatching ‘echos of the past’ and king said that (while he was in his egg) he remembers “a deep roar” that was followed by a loud crash. but he was “too small to do anything”.

that loud crash was 100% papa titan collapsing into the boiling sea.

his first memory is the sound of his parent dying

[fluentmoviequoter]

Opposites

Requested Here!

Pairing: Jim Street x shy/quiet!fem!reader (implied Hondo's sister)

Summary: Hondo finds out you're dating someone, but doesn't expect it to be Jim Street, your total opposite.

Warnings: r is referred to as Hondo's sister but I left this pretty vague (could be half-sister or they just grew up really close!), lots of fluff!

Word Count: 1.9k+ words

A/N: I'm still getting a feel for writing Street, so apologies if he's OOC!

Picture from Pinterest

“Ooh, I know that smile!” Hondo says. “Haven’t seen it since high school, though.”

“Leave me alone,” you demand weakly.

“You talk to your new boy toy like that?”

“Yes.”

Hondo shakes his head as he sits beside you. Growing up together taught Hondo all of your tells. While he will be the first to tease you mercilessly, he is fiercely protective, refusing to let anyone else take advantage of your shyness. Your seemingly sudden and unexplained silences have often been taken as weakness; Hondo has been defending your honor for most of your life.

“So, you’ll admit there is a guy?” Hondo continues.

You tilt your head back against the couch, sighing rather than answering.

“Oh, that’s a yes. It’s been a while, has your type changed since high school?”

“You haven’t.”

“You’re not gonna tell me anything, are you?”

“Nope.”

Sighing, Hondo pats your knee before standing. He has to go to work, and you know he will be thinking about you and your “new boy toy” until he gets answers.

“Hondo,” you call softly. “He’s a good guy, okay? And I’ll introduce you as soon as I’m ready.”

“You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“And listen to you use it against me? Yeah, sounds like tons of fun, bro.”

“Against you? What kinda guy you think I am?” Hondo replies, raising a hand to his chest. “I’m just try’na help you.”

Humming, you hope he knows you aren’t buying his protective big brother act. You and he both know that it’s not an act and he has overprotective tendencies.

“As long as he’s good,” Hondo continues, “I’m alright with it. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to meet him when you’re feeling up to it.”

You nod, and Hondo waves over his shoulder as he leaves for work. Pulling your phone out of your pocket, you text your so-called boy toy to have a good day, but you don’t include a warning that Hondo is in one of his investigative (read: nosy) moods today.

✯✯✯✯✯

Walking into SWAT HQ the following morning, you tap Hondo’s wallet against your palm. If you catch him while he’s alone, you’ll tease him about leaving his stuff at home or try to get ransom money, but you doubt that will happen. Hondo is rarely alone, and he seems to enjoy watching you squirm at the attention of his teammates. They’re nice but make you even quieter than usual, which Hondo didn’t think was possible until you visited the first time.

Hicks says your name, smiling as he approaches you. “Hondo’s over by the ring. Good to see you.”

“You too,” you reply quietly.

You hear him before you see him, and your shoulders tense when you hear the number of voices mixing with his. Stopping beside a pillar, you wait until he notices you, unable to interrupt their bickering. Street sees you first, his brows furrowing as he looks you over, ensuring you’re okay. When he sees the wallet in your hand, he rolls his eyes, elbowing Hondo’s side and pointing to you. Street smiles when you tuck the wallet behind your back.

“What’s up?” Hondo asks when he sees you.

“Are you missing something?” you ask, keeping your eyes on him rather than the other men looking at you.

“I don’t think so,” he answers after a moment. “Should I be?”

You shrug, and Street steps back to hide his smile from Hondo.

“What’d you take?” Hondo demands.

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t sound like nothing. Don’t make me take you into an interrogation room in front of all my lovely friends here.”

You take a short breath at the idea, already shy enough just standing before them.

“Hondo,” Street calls. “Lay off, man.”

“When you get your own shy person, you can decide how much teasing is acceptable, kid.”

Street looks back at you, shrugging as if saying, ‘Hey, I tried.’ You know better than anyone that Hondo can’t be reasoned with.

“So, you’re not missing anything?” you repeat.

“No,” Hondo insists.

You nod, pulling his wallet from behind your back. You take some of his cash and a random gift card from it before tossing it to him.

“Hey,” Hondo warns, holding his hand out for the rest.

“You said you weren’t missing anything, so this isn’t any different,” you argue softly.

“She’s got you there, boss,” Luca comments, leaning against the corner of the boxing ring as he watches the interaction. “But can we get back to work now?”

Hondo looks at you with his brows raised and his jaw set, so you smile and slide the cash into your pocket before waving. After you’re out of sight, you shake your arms, desperate for the comfort of solitude after being on display like that.

Behind you, Street says, “You may call the teasing shots, but she owns you. Can’t blame you for letting her get away with so much, though.”

“What does that even mean, man?” Hondo replies.

“Nothing,” Street answers with a smile. “Now, can we keep sparring so I can take your title, old man?”

Hondo stretches his neck to the side, forgetting about you and focusing on defending his title. His misplaced focus keeps him from dwelling on the soft looks between you and Street.

✯✯✯✯✯

“You good?” Street asks, laying his hands on your shoulders.

You nod, relaxing under his touch.

“I liked your bad cop act at HQ today. Think you should have taken some more ransom money, but you’re cute when you’re trying to be tough.”

Leaning toward him, you wish there was an easy way to hide from him.

“Sorry.”

“What’d you do today?” you ask.

“Can’t tell you that, it’s classified,” he replies quickly.

“Who’d you do it for?”

“Can’t tell you that, either.”

“Do you like me?”

“Can’t tell you- hey, that actually wasn’t bad.” Street smiles as he hooks his arms over your shoulders, pulling you close in a hug that probably looks uncomfortable but wraps you in safety. “I can tell you that and the answer is yes.”

“Why?” you whisper, looping your arms around him.

Street doesn’t answer, raising a hand to brush over your hair and down your back. You sigh, grateful for quiet moments like this. Street can push you just as hard as Hondo, but the moment he takes it too far or thinks he does, he gets sweet and gentle again, whispering apologies and pressing kisses to your hairline that make you even shyer than the original teasing. You are sure he does it on purpose, but you don't care while receiving his affections.

“Hondo figured out that I’m dating someone,” you tell him, pushing a hand under his jacket to rest against his back.

“How?”

“Apparently I have a smile unique to liking someone.”

“Cute.” You huff, and Street adds, “I’ve never had a brother like Hondo, but it seems to me like he really cares about you and just wants to make sure you’re safe and happy. If you want to tell him, I’m prepared to accept the consequences.”

“I don’t want to tell him. He’ll do it again.”

“Do what?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

Street tightens his arms on you until you grunt. If he really thinks touching you more will make you talk, he hasn’t learned anything.

“Well, just know that whatever you decide to do, I’m with you. And if you need someone to protect you from Hondo’s teasing, I’m pretty good at that.”

“Hicks can make him stop faster.”

“Because Hicks is scary.”

“No, he’s not. Hondo just respects him more.”

“You may be quiet, but you have no regard for maintaining my ego, do you?”

You shake your head against him, smiling as he dips his head to whisper, “Luckily, I like you more than me.”

Tucking your face against him, he chuckles underneath you. You don’t know if he can tell, but when he makes you shy, it’s different than when Hondo does it.

✯✯✯✯✯

“I’m heading out,” Street announces, hoisting his backpack over his shoulder.

“Have a nice weekend,” Deacon replies.

“If you have time, our campaign needs us!” Luca calls after him.

“Hard to find time in a busy social schedule like his,” Hondo jokes.

“He’s actually been seeing the same girl for a while,” Luca comments.

“Good for him,” Tan responds.

“I’m right behind him,” Hondo says, closing his locker. “Enjoy your time off.”

As he walks outside, he doesn’t expect to see Street is still there, but what truly surprises him is the sight of Street sitting on his motorcycle, looking up at a woman like she’s the only thing that has ever mattered.

Hondo shakes his head, taking a step toward his car. He stops when he hears a familiar laugh, low and like it’s trying to be hidden. Turning quickly, he calls your name.

✯✯✯✯✯

“What are you doing here?” Street asks, pulling you into a hug when he sees you.

“Missed you,” you confess.

Street pulls back, gripping both sides of your waist as he lowers onto his bike, looking up at you. You drop your eyes to his arms, unable to speak with his attention on you like this. Someone yells your name, and you look up without thinking, immediately stiffening when you see Hondo walking toward you.

“Help,” you whisper.

Street stands, nodding at you before he turns to face Hondo.

“Hondo,” he begins.

“Don’t,” Hondo warns, pointing at him while looking at you. “Jim Street, really?”

“Yes,” you answer. “We’ve been dating for a while.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me? Of all the people you could’ve chosen, you got 20-David’s resident playboy. I know you’re shy, but you can do better.”

 “Hondo, stop,” you demand. “That’s not fair.”

Hondo takes a breath, thinking back to the moment he interrupted. That was a side of Street he has never seen.

“Okay,” he says, turning toward Street. “Try to explain it.”

“She is the best thing that has ever happened to me,” Street answers. “But forcing her to talk before she’s ready isn’t going to help this.”

Hondo hates to admit it, but Street is right. You’ve clearly been happy, and in the few minutes he’s been watching, he’s gentle with you, at the least.

“You’ll still talk to me when you’re ready?” Hondo asks you.

“No. Not unless you apologize. You’re judging Jim for something he used to do with no evidence that he’s still like that. You changed, and you preach that people can, but you refuse to see it.”

Your shoulders drop as you finish, losing your anger after defending Street.

“You’re right,” Hondo replies. “And I’m sorry, Street. I just-“

“I get it, Hondo, she’s your sister. But I’m not going to hurt her.”

“You better not.”

Hondo walks away, and you sag against Street’s side.

“Sorry,” you tell him.

“Eh, I’m used to him,” Street replies.

“As a sergeant, not an overprotective brother.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“Not until I have to. He won’t understand any of it.”

“Just tell him opposites attract.”

“Makes it sound like you think I complete you,” you murmur.

“I think we need to get out of here so I can kiss you until you can’t even say my name,” Street whispers in your ear.

You make a sound that you hope conveys your displeasure with his statement. He takes it as an opportunity to keep teasing instead. He really is your opposite, but that’s what makes you like him.

[sgtcalhouns]

PDA

Felix and Tamora are a little too comfortable expressing their affection in public, leaving Ralph with the uncomfortable task of addressing the issue.

this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now and I thought it might be nice to expand on my random musings for a quick fic. I’ve decided this is going in the mechanic au but honestly I like to believe this is a problem regardless of setting. enjoy!

It was a perfectly pleasant day as Felix and Ralph sat across from one another at an old wooden picnic table at the park. Vanellope had quickly occupied herself with the swing-set, and Tamora would be joining them once she returned from work. Almost nothing could ruin the agreeable atmosphere of their outing. Nothing except for the issue that Ralph had been avoiding for weeks.

“Hey, bud, can I talk to you about something?”

“Sure, Ralph. What’s up?”

Ralph steeled himself before responding. This was a conversation he had been putting off for some time now; Felix seemed so happy, and he didn’t want to discourage that. He’d never seen his friend with such a constant smile on his face, and the honeyglow on his cheeks seemed almost permanent at this point. Anyone could tell he was head-over-heels for his new girlfriend—they’d recently made it official, and the couple’s excitement was palpable. They really were sweet together, so Ralph had been hoping the situation would resolve itself. But things had started getting out of hand, and it was becoming increasingly clear that he was unfortunately going to have to say something.

The constant hand-holding and “googly eyes” were a little awkward, but easy enough to ignore. Ralph had gotten into the habit of turning away and occupying himself with some other task when the couple started their sickly sweet talk; it felt invasive to witness, even though they often engaged in it right out in the open. Even the kissing had been bearable at first, before they lost all consideration for the comfort of those around them. Whenever the pair was together, it seemed as though they were encapsulated in a bubble of ardor that made them forget their surroundings.

Ralph could set aside his discomfort to spend time with his friends, but it was getting harder to hide it from Vanellope. Despite his best attempts to usher her away when things got a little too… couple-y, she had begun taking notice of what was happening in front of her. She wasn’t quite old enough to believe in cooties; instead, she had questions. Lots of questions. Questions Ralph was not prepared to answer.

So, finally, the time had come for him to swallow his discomfort and pull Felix aside to have the most awkward conversation of his life.

“Before I say anything, I just wanna tell you that I am really happy for you,” he began. “You and Calhoun seem very happy together.”

“Thanks, Ralph,” Felix replied, his blush deepening at the mention of his lady. “I’m just crazy about her.”

Given the way the handyman was visibly melting before him, Ralph was beginning to doubt that this was going to be a productive conversation.

“That’s great. I love that for you, really,” Ralph said. “But that’s sort of what I need to talk to you about.”

Felix nodded, brow creasing slightly with concern.

“Look, it’s great that you and Calhoun like each other so much and that you’re both comfortable showing it,” he continued, wincing as he transitioned to his true concern, “but the PDA has gotten to be a bit much.”

The handyman seemed confused. Ralph rubbed the back of his neck in discomfort as he realized he would need to elaborate.

“I don’t want to tell you what to do or anything, but do you think you could just try to keep it PG when you leave the house?” he continued, unable to look his friend in the eyes as he spoke. “It’s a little uncomfortable when we all hang out together.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do I—what do you mean, ‘what do I mean?’” Ralph asked incredulously. “Are you really telling me you haven’t noticed?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Felix answered. He seemed sincere, which only frustrated his friend further. “Sure, we hold hands and kiss, but I don’t think that’s excessive.”

“You’re right, that’s not excessive,” Ralph replied, “but you guys can’t seem to leave it at just one kiss. It feels like every time I turn around you two are making out.”

“That’s not true,” Felix said adamantly. “We never do anything like that in public.”

Ralph raised an eyebrow, his face otherwise expressionless.

“You do realize that sneaking over to a secluded corner doesn’t magically mean you’re not in public, right? People can still see you.”

Felix’s eyes widened and his cheeks flushed. All the times he and Tamora had snuck off during a group outing flashed before his eyes, bringing with them a new understanding of Ralph’s plight. Suddenly, he had a hard time maintaining eye contact with his companion.

“I didn’t realize anyone saw us,” he muttered.

“Vanellope saw you guys,” Ralph said. Felix gasped in horror. “Now she’s asking me all kinds of questions I didn’t think I was gonna have to answer for a couple more years.”

“Oh, Ralph, I’m so sorry.”

“Look, I really am happy for you. I mean that,” Ralph said. “But just do me a favor and keep that stuff at home. Unless you’d like to explain your behavior to Vanellope.”

“Of course,” Felix replied with a gulp, fearful of the prospect of teaching Vanellope about the birds and the bees. “And I really am sorry. I’ve just been so excited, I guess I haven’t been paying attention to my surroundings.”

“It’s okay,” Ralph said, glad to move past the awkwardness. “I really am glad to see you so happy. I’d just like to see a little bit less of it.”

The pair chuckled.

“Don’t worry, brother,” Felix replied. “I’ll talk to Tammy and we’ll be more mindful moving forward.”

Internally, Ralph heaved a sigh of relief that he didn’t have to have this conversation with Calhoun. It was awkward enough with Felix, and he had somehow managed to attract the most intimidating woman in town. Trying to tell her to stop being so lovey-dovey with her boyfriend may well have ended in a black eye.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, she appeared, walking up behind Felix and placing a hand on his shoulder. A smile split his cheeks as he turned to look at her, and though Ralph rolled his eyes, he couldn’t help but smile at the sight. Tamora leaned down to whisper something in Felix’s ear, his eyes widening and his blush darkening as she spoke. Straightening back up to her full height, she acknowledged Ralph with a nod before moving to leave the pair alone again. Felix was rooted to the spot as she turned and locked eyes with him, running her fingertips across his shoulders as she sauntered away from them.

Only once she was out of arm’s reach did she turn away, and Ralph saw the slight tremor in Felix’s body as he tried to suppress a shiver. It figured that as soon as he managed to dispel the awkwardness between himself and Felix, Tamora showed up to put it right back in place. He let out a low whistle, breaking his friend out of his trance.

“So, uh… is everything good with Calhoun, or…?”

Felix paused to clear his throat before responding.

“Just peachy,” he answered. He had a hard time maintaining eye contact with Ralph as Tamora’s words reverberated in his mind. “She just, um… wanted to discuss our plans for this evening.”

Judging by the deep flush on his companion’s cheeks and the way his eyes kept flitting to the side in the direction his girlfriend had just gone, Ralph had a pretty good idea what those “plans” entailed, and he certainly didn’t want to know the details. He had to give Felix credit for trying so hard to maintain his composure and finish their conversation instead of dropping everything to follow after her.

“Well, that was really all I wanted to talk to you about,” Ralph said. “I’m sure you probably wanna go catch up with Calhoun.”

The offer was tempting, but Felix held back. He didn’t want to exemplify the very behavior they had just discussed.

“No,” he replied. “You’re right, I haven’t been a very attentive friend recently. Let’s finish our conversation.”

Ralph made a small noise of agreement and the pair fell into silence. It was clear that it was taking every shred of self-restraint in Felix’s body to remain seated across from Ralph—he couldn’t seem to get comfortable, readjusting his sitting position multiple times and chuckling nervously when it seemed his friend had caught on. Finally, he crossed his legs and arms as though somehow he could hold himself together mentally as long as he was holding himself physically. Ralph shook his head in amusement.

“It’s really killing you, isn’t it?”

“…Maybe a little.”

Nodding his head, Ralph resigned himself to the fact that he had done all he could to talk some sense into his friend today. Sweet mother hubbard, he hoped it was enough.

“Alright then,” he said, sweeping his arm out in the direction Calhoun had gone. “Go ahead.”

Felix clambered out of his seat more quickly than Ralph had ever seen him move. As he shot off after his lady, he shouted a quick “Thanks, Ralph!” over his shoulder. Before his friend was out of earshot, he shared a final parting message:

“Just get a room this time, please.”

[autisticlancemcclain]

Jackie supports the lion swap? How dare you!

Okay SO. This is not the first time I’ve gotten an ask or a comment like this, and I’m fully aware it’s a joke (or at least I think), but I also know that it is kind of a controversial topic on here! And I’ve already written an essay in the topic, but I have some more thoughts I’d like to dive into.

I used to be team Blue Paladin Lance, and hardcore on that team, too. If you look at some of my old fics, you’ll see that. However since I am a contrary person by nature, I started to notice that Red Paladin Lance was way less liked, and so I started to like it more. I really grew fond of the dynamic Keith and Lance got to have as co-leaders, both because it was homoerotic as hell and because the symbolism was fun to explore, but klance is not the main reason I started to care so deeply for the lion change — it was actually Shiro and Allura.

I’m going to start with Shiro, because he’s one of the most fascinating characters in VLD, if not underdeveloped. Part of that fascination for me is that he probably has the most arcs and opportunities for character growth and development in the show, and yet somehow he’s the flattest. He’s portrayed as very one-dimensional in a lot of fic — he tends to be less of a character and more of a role. He’s the Space Dad, or the older brother, or the cool teacher, or the kind and wise friend, or even the stoic Black Paladin. He is loved, I think, but the role he plays is loved, not quite the person he is. And that makes sense, because that is exactly how he’s portrayed in canon.

To Keith, Shiro is “like a brother to [him]”, but what do we see of that dynamic? The show has a clear sense of how a brother acts, that’s a good chunk of Pidge’s character. We barely even know Matt, but Pidge carries herself in such a way that it’s clear when her brother shines through her. And yet even though Shiro also goes missing, twice even, Shiro does not shine through his brother. Keith’s impulses are his own, developed from general abandonment issues rather than Shiro’s specific absence. Shiro’s absence becomes less of Shiro’s absence and more of an absence of a beloved leader figure, kind of a martyr, a “Shiro would have wanted you to carry on”. It is really hard for us as a fandom to use Shiro’s disappearance as anything but a plot device, because that’s all it felt like! We have occasional moments with Shiro, enough to care about him in some way, but as a figure, not as a person. Someone pointed it out on one of my fics and I agree wholeheartedly — Shiro is not shown with any flaws, and that makes it really hard to love him, because you don’t really get the pleasure of defending him, of seeing his motivations, his reasons. Not until the very end, at least.

This is, in all honesty, likely just poor writing. Shiro’s character was honestly just sidelined to a role, because he is really not that present in the show. But I am going to work with the benefit of the doubt, and see if I can use the lion change to explain why we all kind of love Shiro anyway, despite the fact that he’s flat as hell.

Shiro isn’t the Black Paladin. He never was. He flew the Black Lion, yes, and he flew her well — but he was never her Chosen. He couldn’t have been. From the very beginning, the Black Lion was in mourning; she was in no space to choose a new paladin. She accepted Shiro, and she loved him, but he did not fall into her as much as he fell into the role she provided for him. He piloted the Black Lion, but he was not her Paladin. This is made obvious in two ways: in that he never got her bayard, and that from the very beginning, he set up a replacement for himself.

Doesn’t that strike anyone else as odd? I haven’t seen the show in five years, and I don’t plan on rewatching, but I do remember that every moment with Shiro almost had this underlying tension. The closest thing I have to canon off the top of my head is the Handbook (which I had to stop reading because they did everyone SO dirty there, even though some of it was honestly pretty funny), which was released in S2, and even that incredibly early canon talked about Keith replacing Shiro!

From the very beginning, Shiro was planning an out to his role. He knew it was not meant for him. He did the role well, but it was not his to do.

Aside from those two reasons, Shiro also…can’t be the Black Paladin. He can’t be that and himself, I mean. This part is a little more complicated, so I’m going to borrow some of my own tags from some awesome fanart I saw:

I really do think Shiro is defined by his humanity (as is heavily implied by his illness — this is a character who is completely and totally bound to his mortality. Of all the other characters, he is the one most familiar with death, so he is the one who is most intimate with the raw fear of being human. But more on that later), but it’s my last comment that I want to focus on — “he is DEFINED by his his humanity…even as his greatest asset is the part of him that is not human”.

Every second that Shiro is leader of Voltron, he is the Champion. That can literally be his only goal — he is the head of the fight against Zarkon and the Empire. Either Shiro comes out the Champion, or Zarkon does. Either Shiro has to grit his teeth and fight off the flashbacks and the fear and the pain and use the one thing that forces him to reconcile with the fact that he had his entire personhood stripped away (his arm, his Galra arm, one of their biggest advantages as a team; his connection to Zarkon through Black, something that can only help the war effort at a direct cost to him; everything he does in this war is shoving him right back into that Arena again and again and again), or Zarkon wins. Every second Shiro pilots Black, every time he plays her paladin, he has to be who the Empire made him to be. He has to be the Champion. Once again he is not Takashi Shirogane, the person, the astronaut, the man, he is the Role. He is the Space Dad he is the Pilot of the Black Lion he is the Champion. For every second he is in that lion he is stripping away himself.

Obviously, that is something that was never sustainable. On this argument alone, Shiro was going to waste away eventually. There was always going to be a point where Shiro was not going to be able to be the Champion anymore. There was always, from the very way the dynamic was set up, going to have to be a lion switch. Now, interestingly enough, there could have been a really easy fix to this: Black Paladin Allura. She’s already a born and raised leader, already shown her immense competence, already someone the rest of the paladins follow. With her at the helm, nothing else would have to change, right?

Well, maybe. We’ll never know. One part of that is absolutely true — Allura should have been a paladin from the very beginning. Her quintessence is canonically closest to the entirety of Voltron (something that bears its own essay,; the relationship between all six of the paladins and Voltron is wrought with heavy symbolism), she is the most highly trained, she is smart, and she actually wants to be out on the field. She should have been in that armour from day one.

But Allura cannot be the Black Paladin. Allura cannot handle other’s sacrifice.

Of course this is a complicated subject. Should a leader sit back and let her crew sacrifice themselves instead of her? Must she hold herself in higher regard, convince herself she’s more important? Of course not! Teams, especially Voltron, are built with assets. While not everyone might be ‘equal’ in the traditional sense, they are all integral, and expecting sacrifices is not the stance I am trying to take here. But the point of a team, especially a team so small and vital as Voltron, is that everyone is willing to be the sacrifice, as they have to be, and Allura simply can’t handle that. She shows us this from the beginning, when she disguises herself as Galra and is taken in place of anyone on the team she barely knows, and again in Oriande with the White Lion, and finally in the piece of shit canon ending. Allura has to be the sacrifice. Every time.

And how could she not be? The last time she spared herself of sacrifice, she lost her entire people. The last time she let others sacrifice themselves for her, she was left alone, to shoulder a war bigger and greater than she could ever handle. Allura is painfully familiar with the agony of being the survivor, and she cannot do that again. She cannot and will not put herself through that again. As the Black Paladin, she would have to let her team make sacrifices — she would have to let them have their own agency, their own decisions; she would have to let them choose to get hurt and choose to do risky things and analyse and react and act. As leader she would have to trust her team to put themselves in harm’s way, and not only that, but she would have to authorize them to do so.

Like Shiro cannot last as the Champion, Allura cannot last as the Survivor. Shiro cannot even last in Voltron, and it is foolish to keep Allura out of it. A lion change is absolutely necessary for the show to move forward, for the war to move forward. The initial team was doomed to fail.

How would it change, then? What would fit? I know I’ve said my piece. I know who I think would fit where. But since I’ve been comparing character arcs to their roles as paladins, I’d like to keep doing that — what about Keith makes me so sure that he’s the true Black Paladin?

I’ll show you with process of elimination. I know Black Paladin Lance is a favourite, and I can see why. Lance has many leadership qualities, is a good tactician, and cares deeply. However, aside from his desire for power making him less suitable for the role, Lance functions best as support, despite how much he hates it. He is the one who knows how to pick up the pieces of a broken situation. He is an excellent guide, which makes him an unbelievably valuable second. He is adaptable, so he can fill in for many different roles. He can step in for leader when necessary, but putting him in Black would encourage a more active role for him; would force him to anticipate and plan for specific outcomes rather than his strength as one who analyses any outcome as it arises and works within it then. Lance could be the Black Paladin, yes, but taking him from the body and placing him in the head would be a fool’s choice. It would be crippling to Voltron, to put the jack of all trades as a master of one. Lance’s arc is all about learning to love and trust himself as he is, as the seventh wheel. Not to put him in charge of the vehicle.

Well, what about Hunk? Hunk is incredibly intelligent and analytical. He probably could lead Voltron, and did in several occasions. But Hunk’s arc is interesting because it was handled so early in the show. Unlike the rest of the team, Hunk’s arcs were solved largely in the first season. His biggest flaws were his distrust of people and, literally, his inability to fly. He could not take his feet off the ground. He was so untrusting that he could not manage to take a step forward. However his bonding with Yellow and trust with the team and their subsequent and returned trust resolved these issues, more or less, which is probably why Hunk was treated more and more like a side character the longer VLD went on. Hunk didn’t need the role of Black Paladin because he had settled into the Yellow Paladin in a way that was sustainable.

Pidge is in a similar boat. Her arc, primarily, has been about finding her family. Voltron was almost second priority for her, or at least not her only first priority. And understandably so! As the youngest she was afforded with that lenience. Her growth was about growing into her own pain, about becoming her own person alongside what she had become in the absence of her brother. As the Black Paladin, she would no longer have the space to prioritize her search for her family alongside Voltron, so her position as Black Paladin would be unstable. She is best suited in Green, where she can focus on several things at once.

That really only leaves Keith. In many ways it comes full circle — the Black Lion healing from her grief by choosing the man who ran from his Galran heritage and his power as a leader, rather than the man who chose nationalism and power over anything else. Keith is Zarkon’s direct opposite, and as such is the other side of the same coin, the one who is truly Black’s Chosen. We know this because Keith is the one who wields the Black Bayard, and Keith is, from the very beginning, the one the rest of the team chooses to follow — I ask you whether it was for Shiro that the three other humans ran off to chase in the desert, or Keith? Who was it that Lance could not leave alone? Who was it that piqued Hunk’s curiousity? Who was it that challenged Pidge to choose Voltron, rather than the search for her family?

That covers Black Paladin Keith. But what about Red Paladin Lance? I’ve established already why he cannot be the Black Paladin, but why did he have to move from Blue? For that, I bring you another few slices from early, S2 and previous canon:

“I thought what we had was special!” “Seventh wheel, if you count the Alteans.” More than once, Lance laments over being forgotten. He struggles with feeling like anything but the extra, the unnecessary. Whether or not Blue Chose him is irrelevant — he does not feel Chosen by her. The Pilot of the Blue Lion position for Lance is as unsustainable as the Pilot of the Black Lion position for Shiro — Lance does not trust it. He doesn’t trust himself in the role, and doesn’t trust Blue in having chosen it for him. Obviously, this is not the role for him.

But Red? Keith’s Red Paladin, at least? Yes, he struggles with feeling like Keith’s second, but that is literally his arc. Lance’s development is about becoming his own person despite his own misgivings about being second-best. His role as the Red Paladin is the fulfilling of his arc, and is thus the best Lion for him, the Chosen. And Red did Choose him, mind you. There was an adjustment period, of course there was, but Red did more than let Lance pilot her. She opened up new possibilities for Lance — think the broadsword — that he could not see. Red saw his potential and revelled in it. She Chose him.

Lastly — and this turned out to be less relevant to the essay than I expected, but I do want to go over it a tad — is Shiro’s tie to humanity. I mentioned two important points: Shiro’s connection to mortality makes him the most intimate with his humanity out of all the characters, and he is undoubtedly the flattest character of them all. That is, if you don’t consider his clone to be part of his character.

But I’m begging you to reconsider. Reconsider, perhaps, who the clone is — Haggar had pure access to Shiro for a year, you remember. His thoughts, his dreams, his mannerisms, his priorities, his body. Even him at his most human, his most deranged, his most scared. She had Shiro then. She had Shiro when he had nothing to look forward to. She had Shiro when he hurt his crew to make sure they would live, at direct cost to himself.

She stripped him of his humanity — his connection to his own mortality. She took his illness from him. And who, then, did she return to the team? Who was clone? Shiro, mostly. The clone was happy to play with the team. The clone was clever. The clone believed, fully, that he was Shiro, only he was angrier and meaner, a little, and less capable of shoving down his own pain. Shiro, stripped of his tie to humanity and mortality, stripped of his compulsive need to be strained and stressed and the one everyone else can rely on, the Role rather than the Person, is emotional. He has flaws and outbursts. He can’t manage his own pain. He is is cruelest to the one person on the team — Lance — who canonically reminds him closest of himself.

Shiro, in the purest form that Haggar can make him, is flawed and self-hating. That is where our love for him comes. Not the man who pushes himself down at the same time as he sacrifices his personality to be someone for others, but the man who is struggling and can’t keep it locked down. That’s where it comes from.

Anyways. Like with my other essay, I’ll admit that this analysis is probably reading into this. The writing of VLD was flawed, at best, but regardless, I think the lion change is a rich amalgamation of the characters and who they really are.

[shadamyheadcanons]

It’s kinda cute to see that Bark has a canonical crush on Amy (in the newest comic if you haven’t seen). She’s such a magnet for the stoic, hardy, initially antagonistic types lol. How do you think Shadow would feel to know that Bark was crushing on Amy before anyone else?

In reference to this interaction in IDW’s recent comic for her 30th anniversary:

It was also made apparent in Sonic’s 30th anniversary comic:

Looks like IDW took a cue from Archie and re-canonized Amy’s tendency to get cold easily. Sonic never took the hint...

...but it’s free real estate for other Amy ships. A+.

The bigger question is why a polar bear needs a scarf in the first place. Maybe I’m not supposed to ask that.

Anyway, I wouldn’t say it’s 100% confirmed that it’s a crush. No one ever says it is. He might just think she’s a sweet little girl. Panels like these make it seem like he just thinks she’s a nice kid, like a little sister. You could easily substitute Knuckles in for Bark here:

Blushing is usually used to indicate a crush, but not always. It can also be used to show embarrassment. I personally think he’s just shy because he’s not used to being hugged and hearing things like this:

It’s not surprising that Bark has a soft spot for her. He’s very strong and hangs out with Fang’s group, so a lot of people assume the worst. On top of that, he’s nonverbal, so he can’t really argue against it. She’s the only one who gives him a chance off the bat.

It’s also more appropriate if it’s not romantic, given their implied age gap. I’m glad Sega removed the official ages, but even without exact numbers, I’d be very surprised if an official Sonic publication made an older teenager have a crush on a child. If they did, I think Shadow would hunt him down, lol. I have a headcanon about him going after Storm about it, but Storm actively makes himself a problem. Bark isn’t like that.

Even if a different stoic and quiet character developed a crush on Amy, though, I don’t think Shadow would be jealous. I usually imagine Shadow hiding his feelings for Amy, and this is the same situation. He doesn’t act on it. At most, I could see them exchanging a subtle nod of acknowledgement.

They’d just both have good taste. Shadow might have to get used to it, but after that, I doubt he would see a character like that as a “problem.”

Shadow also might just flat-out appreciate Bark. It’s always a relief to have someone else who makes her safety a priority. Even when Bark and Amy “fight,” he outright refuses to hurt her:

(In case anyone needs more evidence that blushing isn’t always romantic in this comic, Amy’s blushing right there in panel three. Something tells me she probably doesn’t see this as a romantic situation.)

And when they’re on the same team, he keeps an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t rush into danger and get out of her depth:

I made a post recently pointing out that Shadow might have helped Amy out in Cryptic Castle because he also notices she rushes into situations she can’t handle alone. She’s a danger magnet whose first ever appearance was getting kidnapped, and it was a long time before that stopped happening. We need more characters who’ll keep an eye on her. I can imagine Shadow and Bark pointing to situations like these and looking at each other as if to say, “Ah, so you’re the reason she made it to adulthood unscathed.” They’d see each other as allies, not competition.

[the-heart-of-a-monster]

I’M BACK MUAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAA COWER IN FEAR FOR I HAVE RETURNED ONCE MORE TO ONCE AGAIN SPEW THE OBVIOUS

Translation: I’m back and I’m making it everyone’s problem

So yes, I saw the new pages, and as it turns out I was right about Sonic! As suspected, he’s hiding how he really feels about his new bodily features, and I think he’ll continue to do so for the rest of the comic. The finale for this series is right around the corner, and this issue is gonna have a lot of Eggman fighting, so based on what we already know… Yeah. Unless Sonic’s development is intended to be kinda rushed or last-minute, I don’t think he’s going to stop faking his optimism. It also has to be remembered that Sonic doesn’t always have to fake said optimism because he is at heart a hero and a snarky little gremlin. During the earlier days of the comic, Sonic was seen being elated at the prospect of Shadow willingly keeping a secret for him. Bro danced and sang all the way home just because someone was being nice to him. But even still, he’ll most likely continue faking his true emotions at least until the very end of the comic when things go back to normal for him. Because at the end of the day, Sonic is a happy little guy who just does what’s best for him and his friends, and that is that.

About the secret base, I honestly find it so funny and so realistic that the Chaotix have to basically beg for new cases in order to pay for their home and the secret base. It’s like families who thought they’d have enough for two homes but then a year or two goes by and they’re like “Oh crap, we’re broke.” It makes so much sense and it’s so funny to me! Meanwhile the others just appreciate the fact that they have a secret base and not the fact that they pay for both homes. 🤣

Chaotix: 🥲 Yeah yeah we’re fine we’re not broke we’re totally alright 👍🥲

OH AND HERE IS SOMETHING I JUST THOUGHT OF. There is of course a reason why the Chaotix have a secret base, and I wondered for a second why they would need it in the first place. They’re detectives, journalists, problem-solvers. In their field of work, it doesn’t take too much effort to become targets of the government. So, in case they got noticed by either GUN or some other important people, they have a back-up place where they could continue their work in secret. I think they specifically anticipated GUN, because they make a point to mention them in their explanation in the newest page. Probably not something SuperEm thought too hard on, but uh. I did. So… Guess I did their job for them???? idk I thought it would be cool to flex my worldbuilding skillz

Now I wanna talk about Rouge here. She, along with Amy, know far more than they let on and I’m wondering if that will have a part to play in Sonic’s story moving forward. In the newest page, we see him standing awkwardly and trying to grasp the fact that his friends knew about him for a while! He figured Tails might have taken the hint a while ago because he knows Tails better than anyone, but Amy?? That’s a different story. The two haven’t properly interacted in a while, almost 2 years (Or maybe 1 year I’m terrible at this) in our time and a week or two in their time. Amy and Rouge have been investigating Dark Gaia and Sonic’s new form for probably a month or so, meaning that they’ve known for a long, long time! I think Knuckles and the Chaotix were the only ones left in the dark the longest. So if Sonic were to find out about this, how would he react?? I’m thinking it wouldn’t be too different to his reaction about Tails and everyone else knowing, but him and Amy have had a rocky relationship status over the years, so it could also be different. I doubt we’ll get to see anything since it doesn’t make much of a difference to the blue blur at this point in the comic, but if we do I’m excited to see how he’ll react!

Now I’m going back to Sonic for a bit because I noticed something intriguing about him in the newest page. In the first panel, we see him standing awkwardly with his hands tied behind his back, fidgeting with his fingers impatiently. Then we see him immediately walk over to Shadow, who’s waiting for him outside. When he opens the curtain, we see him squint upwards towards the sky, a warm light seeping onto his face and his whole stature seeming softer. (For lack of a better word) Thematically, this sequence of movement/expressions is used to indicate a character’s growth, or to just show that they are willing to become better. I mean, that’s my takeaway from that. I’m not a theatre/film professional. All I do is stare at animations and talk about each frame as if I know stuff. But for me that’s the kind of vibe I’m getting from this page, that Sonic is learning or growing, and that he’s willing to step out into the light and be fine with who he is. Earlier on in the comic, he would’ve requested for Shadow to come inside or for him to not be seen by others, but now that he’s been through quite a lot and after being appreciated by the small snowy village, he feels much better about himself and is thus willing to just. Walk outside for a bit and talk to someone. Sonic is learning how to be around people again, learning to trust others with his secrets, and I love that for him.

Again this most likely is not SuperEm’s intention and I highly doubt those were the actual the thematically correct rules, so if anyone is reading this and is a film/comic geek, please Please PLEASE correct me via a reblog or a comment. I need some correction desperately please. I don’t wanna spew incorrect information.

Now, I would go ahead and talk about Shadow because he clearly has a lot going on in his brain, but OH MY GOD THIS THING IS HUGE. PROBABLY THE BIGGEST ASK IVE EVER WRITTEN HERE ON THIS FINE WEBSITE CALLED TUMBLR. So please do yourself a favor and give your eyes a break because holy crap I did not skip any corners for this one. Your pupils will thank you later, I promise. Go read a real book or go outside or something, please.

Anywhizzle, thank you so so so much for reading this whole thing, and have a good day/night!

(Also SuperEmeralds, just know that I adore your outdoor backgrounds so so much and they are not being overlooked. Your background skills are amazing and I’m so hype for what you have in store for the next few pages)

i think it is interesting how split the opinions are on sonic having learned nothing throughout the story and sonic finally having accepted his flaw and adapting. the mirror snap has divided the thoam theory community like no other askfjhasjkfhajk

who says they're paying for that run down place though? trust me i think super hard about literally everything, im sometimes embarrased abt it bc literally no one ever points most of my little details out but it makes me happy to connect dots so i just keep doing it

though sonic already reacted in a way, he knows everyone knew. granted the explaination happened off screen because quite frankly i didnt want the same conversation to happen twice back to back with the end of issue 8 and the beginning of issue 9, its better to just fill in the blanks yourself with everything.

the way i wrote sonic's emotions after waking up hopefully convey everything going through his mind well. there's a whole lot more pages to this so rest assured it's not over! your interpretation definitely makes sense! though i'd def disagree with the idea that in an earlier state of the comic sonic would've called for shadow to come inside? if his secret came out earlier in the comic he would still have reacted similarly and learned his lesson equally. the difference with the way it is in the comic is that he learned more about himself, and shadow, by dragging out the resolution to his (non)problem

thanks btw i love drawing environments and ur gonna get a good view of some really cool stuff soon ^_^

btw i have a name.. u can call me talaka, it's a little awkward to be called by my @ lol

[woozapooza]

So I’ve been slowly working on a post—or, more likely, multiple posts—about why I disliked The Blue Comet and how I would fix it. In the meantime, I want to share a thought about Tony and Melfi’s relationship. See, The Blue Comet depicts Melfi realizing that Tony is a “sociopath.” I’m not convinced that that word actually applies to Tony, either in the simplistic colloquial sense or in the clinical, antisocial personality disorder sense, but whatever, I’m no psychologist. Anyway, as I sort out my thoughts about Melfi’s exit, in which the concept of "sociopathy" is key, I keep thinking about a related insight I’ve had, and that’s what this post is about.

Before The Blue Comet, Melfi only referred to Tony as a sociopath once, IIRC. In Employee of the Month, when she tries to demand more effort from Tony, he resists and deflects. Later, she vents to Kupferberg: “Richard was right. I've been charmed by a sociopath.” At her next session with Tony, she suggests he move on to behavior modification therapy, but by the end of the episode she changes her mind. Haters will say that this was a selfish decision springing solely from her attachment to Tony, appreciators will point out that she was never fully sold on the behavioral therapy idea in the first place and only brought it up due to pressure from Richard and Kupferberg (EDIT: actually I think she might have brought it up initially because Tony was getting impatient, but she was only going to go through with it due to pressure from them, so my point still stands), but it occurred to me that there’s another possible reason, one that I haven’t seen anyone else mention. Okay so, whatever definition of “sociopath” we’re using, a big part of it is a persistent disregard for the feelings of others, right? Well, before EotM, I don’t think Melfi has any direct evidence that Tony doesn’t have this quality. She knows he has good qualities—he feels affection for his friends and family, he’s capable of realizing when he’s done something wrong, he likes ducks—but unless I'm forgetting something, she hasn’t seen him be compassionate firsthand, whereas she has seen him be callous, selfish, and unkind. So, in the final scene of EotM, when she cries and he tries to comfort her, he shows a side of himself that I'm pretty sure she’s never seen before. He’s genuinely upset at seeing her upset. He’s genuinely upset to think that he upset her (he repeatedly asks, “What did I do?”). On top of that, in the same session, he brings the anxiety log she’s been asking him to keep. So in the space of a minute, he demonstrates compassion, kindness, and diligence. Of course she changes her mind about the best course of treatment—he’s just upended everything she thought she knew about him!

To be clear, I doubt she was thinking this deeply in the final scene of EotM. In that moment, her main concern was clearly the comfort she derived from Tony, but I think his behavior in that scene provides a solid in-universe explanation for why she never again tries to hand him off to another doctor until The Blue Comet, without precluding the idea that her personal attachment to him also plays a role. I’m very much reading between the lines here, so this may not have been the intention of the writers at all, but it makes so much sense that once I noticed it, I simply couldn’t un-notice it. 

[im-out-of-it]

part 2 of season 2 of episode 18 “awake, arise, or be forever fallen” IZZY COMFORTING HER BROTHER

18. of course Magnus didn’t take it well that alec lied about the sword. I like how they have it worded “you told Magnus, didn’t you” Alec doesn’t say anything because HE DIDNT TELL MAGNUS! okay but imagine after their dinner and before Magnus spoke to Luke, if Alec couldn’t take it anymore and told Magnus about it. maybe Magnus would have taken the news a little better. because if it’s me and I find out my soulmate lied to me and just watched me talk about trust and still said nothing- I would be mad. would Alec have ever told Magnus about it?

19. this was part of the other gif set from part 1

20. is everything okay in black and white

im going to nonstop talk about Matt and Harry’s acting but Matt is so good here at showing that he’s hurting but not making it so obvious. he can hardly look at Izzy and he just seems so defeated

21. what I like about this scene is that Alec doesn’t say that he told Magnus. he’s just there missing Magnus. I don’t know if part of Alec already regrets his actions but it seems like perhaps he does?????

22. Izzy: say no more I’m here for you

23. Alec: I fucked up

I know we were all mad at Alec last episode but I feel so bad for him HES HURTING 😭 and I wasnt mad at Alec exactly but more at the writers for Alec doing out of pocket shit he would never do

24. Magnus has chosen a side

HES SUCH A DREAM 🥹

25. and Luke has joined him. I don’t blame Luke and Magnus doing what needs to be done for their people. it looks extremely bad that the clave lied about a sword, that valentine walked around as Magnus for a while, that Valentine hasn’t been reprimanded all that much, and that he got out again!!!!!! Valentine has escaped so many times and when the clave has more focus on lying to the downworld, I’d have a hard time trusting them as well no matter who I’m with

if anyone remembers, Luke spent the first half of the season being a shitty leader while Magnus hasn’t been shown to be around his people but I doubt Magnus would leave them be. the difference between Magnus and Luke as leaders is that Magnus is actually a good leader. we see it being shown many times but more in season one. (when Magnus hosts the downworlders at his lair, when he decides to hide out with his people) (I haven’t seen him put his focus on them much in this season much) whereas Luke puts clary first 50% of the time and the 50%, he remembers he’s lack leader

26. I know not everything has to be a parallel but these words from the seelie Queen is so close to what Magnus said in 2x01

27. this is what the seelie Queen says:

28. it’s not the exact same but surprised and shocked are technically similar

29. the seelie Queen isn’t playing Luke

while she does raise a few points. I’ve been hard on Luke because he did (unknowingly) lead his lack into slaughter. he made clary more of a focus/priority in early season two. he only remembered the pack when he needed a favor for clary. it’s only later season two when Maia gets chipped that he starts to take more notice to his pack

Magnus is my favorite character (with alec) but we haven’t seen him be a high warlock that much in this season. this is on the writers, not Magnus for taking away some of his people. I saw Magnus help Simon, Raphael, reminisce with Dot but I haven’t really seen Magnus actually help his warlocks about Valentine that I can remember. he helped clary the most and he’s always down to help alec.

I blame the writers for this unless their goal was to have magnus be shit at balancing career and relationship then they achieved that aspect. but they didn’t need to take away Magnus’s warlocks or have magnus help clary and jace 24/7 who he has no reason to help especially with the way they treat mags. but we know magnus is selfless and the best person ever. but it’s just a shame (my opinion) that they took away ragnor, Catarina doesn’t show up until either 2x19 or 2x20, and has really only one main scene worh dot, and he’s not shown with other warlocks throughout the season before this episode

I’m sorry but it bothers me so much because this is out of pocket for magnus too but I know he cares about his people so much. magnus said he can’t have children and he looks at the warlocks as his own. so for magnus not to be shown around with the warlocks, it doesn’t make sense. unless the goal from the beginning was to show unstable leadership then congrats y’all achieved that

30. Luke: I don’t really want a war

it’s funny how most downworlders are like I don’t want a war with shadowhunters but most shadowhunters seem eager almost to hurt the downworld. not all of them want a revolt obviously because they do so much to prevent a war by hiding valuable information but they have people in the shadowhunter world who don’t seem to care if downworlders die or get hurt and who can’t stand to be in the same room as downworlders

31. you have to admit she is so good at manipulation!!!! “that’s why your pack has lost so many wolves, after the lies your boyfriend told” like damn girl, now we all feel insulted and attacked lmao

32. since I need a gif to fit, I’m using this Simon one I forget about earlier

stopping at 33 for part 3!!!! I’m honestly shocked tumblr is allowing me all this power. I’ve done like 7 posts with probably 200 gifs lmao so into part 3 if tumblr allows me to keep my power

[influentcomic4]

The Walking Dead: North Wind Arc 4 part 2/2

Inspire

The five of us shuffle into the crowd in the theatre part of the museum. I’m not sure why exactly there was a whole ass stage in here, but it serves a good purpose now I guess. Janette walks out and faces the crowd. Everyone slowly stops talking as they notice her getting ready to talk.

“This morning, one of the T-Rexes came to us, and willingly shared some intel with us. It’s… troubling to say the least.” She sighs, and people start to murmur, “We have learned that they are planning to attack The Tyrrell. We don’t know exactly when, but it’ll be within two weeks.”

“What are we going to do?” Someone asks.

“We can’t fight them.”

“Can’t we escape while we have a chance?” Janette paces around the stage, trying to think of what to say.

“I know you all have questions… I know… but…” She looks at me, silently begging me to help. I debate whether or not I should go up, I doubt I could do any better. Despite it being a bad Idea, I stand up, and walk towards the stage. I climb up, and stand beside Janette.

“I… I know most of you don’t know me. I know I have no authority in this community. But my friend was taken by them, and he is the one who brought this information to us. He’s going to do his best to disrupt them, slow them down as much as he can, and give us as much information as he can.” The murmurs of the crowd slowly grow louder, “I’ve seen you all, you all care deeply for this place, as do I. This place that all of us have built, it’s worth fighting for, it’s worth staying for, it’s worth standing up for. I-... I know we’re all terrified for what is coming, for what could happen. But, we can’t give up. We can’t just lie down and wait for them to come. Everyone who can fight, I ask you to please volunteer. Janette is working on getting some training programs up and running, so as many people who are able to fight can get all the training they can.” I look over at Mark and Ada, they’re both smiling at me, “I came to this place at one of the lowest points of my life. We had lost the place we called home, and we thought that our friend had just been killed. But seeing this place for the first time, seeing the walls, the people, the community you’ve all built. It gave me hope, it gave me the strength to keep fighting. I won’t act like I know what’s going to happen. I won’t act like this will work. But what I do know is that we are all worth fighting for. You are worth fighting for. Your family is worth fighting for. The Tyrrell is worth fighting for.” I raise my fist triumphantly into the air. It’s awkwardly silent for a while. But then Mark breaks the silence.

“YEAH!” He shouts, raising his fist, cheering. Then another follows. Then another. And another. The entire theatre erupts into cheers. I look over at Janette, she puts her hand on my shoulder. I sigh heavily, almost passing out again. I have no idea how the hell I did that. I don’t know where that came from. But… It felt good. The people are with us, so we have a fighting chance. This might work. It might work…

The four of us walk through the parking lot of a Canadian Tire. Jen, Jayce, Maddie and I were sent here to try and find anything that could be used as weapons. If I remember correctly, Canadian Tires have a bunch of hunting rifles and bullets. So if they haven’t been looted yet, those will be perfect. Plus, there’s gotta be axes, pickaxes, knives, pitchforks, and a ton of other close quarters weapons here. We approach the sliding doors at the front of the building. Obviously the automatic doors don’t open for us, so we’ll have to invite ourselves in. Jayce tugs on one side of the door, grunting with the struggle. The door doesn’t budge. He sighs and turns back to us.

“Well, I hoped that would work.” He kicks his foot against the ground, “Anyone else have any ideas?”

“Well… one.” I step forward, picking up a broken piece of concrete off the ground, “It isn’t exactly stealthy though.” Jen looks over at me, then towards the building, trying to will another way into existence.

“Unfortunately, it seems like you’re right.” She sighs, putting her hands on her hips, pulling out her knife, “When the window shatters we all need to back up, and let the risen come to us. If not many come out, we can take that as a sign that there might not be many in there. We’ll still need to be very cautious though, no being stupid. Got it?”

“Yes ma'am.” Jayce salutes. Maddie scoffs as he does. The three of them get into position behind me, readying their weapons.

“Ready?” I call back.

“Ready.”

“Bring it on!”

“Yup.” I chuck the hunk of concrete towards the glass door, backing up quickly as it soars. It makes contact with the glass, shattering it on impact with a large crash. I unsheathe my machete as the four of us stand there, waiting. The seconds feel like hours. Slowly, the groans of monsters draw closer and closer. One walks through the shards of glass, then another, and another.

“Just like with the wall?” Jayce turns to me.

“Something like that, yeah.” I don’t really know what he meant by that, since I was the one that mainly took out the monsters when patching up the wall. But, whatever. The four of us work together to take them all out. We kill one after the other, after the other. The flow of them doesn’t seem to be getting slower. In fact, it feels like it’s getting faster.

“Hey… there’s kind of a lot here.” Maddie says nervously.

“Should we retreat?” I ask.

“No.” Jen responds as she takes one out, “We need the weapons.” 

“The weapons won’t get back to The Tyrrell if we’re dead.” Maddie snaps.

“There’s gotta be an end eventually, just… let’s wait a while longer.” I slash at a monster as it reaches for me, then drive the blade into another. The monsters are starting to force us to back up.

“Jen!?” I call out. Maddie and I grunt as our backs hit a car.

“SHIT!” Maddie shouts, jumping out of the way of a monster.

“Climb onto the roof!” I shout. Maddie climbs up first, and I follow closely behind as the monsters surround us. One grabs my leg as I’m about to reach the top. I grab Maddie’s hand as she pulls as hard as she can. I kick the monster with all the strength I have. It takes a while, but it eventually lets me go. I scramble up to the top, and stand up. Thankfully this car is an SUV, so it’s pretty tall, keeping us nice and out of reach. But that doesn’t really help us get out of this situation. I look up to try and find Jen and Jayce. They’re taking out some stragglers.

“HEY!” I shout as the last one falls. They look up at me, and I can see Jen say something under her breath.

“Can you jump to that car?” Jen shouts. I looked over to the car she pointed at. Maybe if we had a running start it could be possible, but there isn’t much room on the roof, especially with the two of us up here.

“I don’t know, maybe?”

“You can’t actually be considering trying that, right?” Maddie grabs my shoulder.

“You got any other plans!?” I snap.

“No… but-”

“Then shut the fuck up for a minute and let me think.” I analyze everything that I could possibly do to get out of here. All of which are far from guaranteed to work. We could just do a running jump, but I never did much track and field. So I’m not exactly great at that under normal circumstances. Maybe if we take some out, or the two of them draw some away, that could give us more of a chance to clear the monsters. Yeah… yeah that might work.

“Do you think you could draw some away from us!?” I shout, “Give us a little more room to work with!”

“Yeah, we can do that!” Jen shouts back. Her and Jayce start shouting and calling for the monsters. They catch the attention of a couple, and they break off from the group. I crouch down and drive my machete into as many as I can reach.

“You gonna help!?” I look back at Maddie, who’s just standing there with her arms crossed.

“Why?” She groans, “This is fucking pointless.”

“What is your problem!?” I stand up.

“Do you really think that we can take all of them out from up here without one of us getting grabbed and yanked off!?” She shouts, “And do you really think that Jen and Jayce won’t get too tired to fight after probably not even a quarter of them are gone!?”

“So, what?” I snap, “You’re just alright with sitting up here, waiting to starve to death?”

“No, just… it seems pointless.”

“Fine.” I scoff, going back to taking some out, “Suit yourself.” I look up at Jen and Jayce as they take more out. Then I look towards the horde surrounding us. I know it looks really bad, but I don’t care what Maddie says. It’s better to die trying than to die after giving up.

I slash at more, and more, and more, and more. Blood drenching the blade of my machete. My arm has been aching for the last twenty minutes, but I can’t stop. I look up and see that a lot of the horde is gone. I definitely can’t make it to the car, but I might be able to clear the monsters and land on the ground, hopefully not hurting myself in the process.

“Ok, we’re gonna try.” I shout to Jen. She finishes dealing with the monster in front of her, then looks over at me.

“Alright, just… Please, be careful.” Nothing about this is careful, so I have no idea what the hell Jen’s talking about.

“You coming?” I ask Maddie. She turns around.

“Yeah… you go first.” She says, turning around.

“You sure?” I look into her eyes, “I don’t mind going aft-”

“Just fucking go Elsie.” She snaps. I side eye her a bit, then go to prepare myself for this very stupid move. I go to the front of the car and try to psyche myself up. I shake my hands, take many deep breaths, then I go for it. The car bounces as I sprint and launch off the back. As I fly, I look down at the monsters below me. They’re all reaching up, trying to grab me. My feet hit the ground hard. I go into a roll, dropping my machete. It clatters to the ground as I finally come to a stop. I shuffle to pick my machete up, and look towards the car. A group of the monsters is coming towards me. I quickly stand up and retreat towards Jen and Jayce. The three of us look back at Maddie, she’s still on the car.

“Come on Maddie!” I shout, “You have tons of room!” She just looks at me, and shakes her head.

“Jayce, I’m sorry, I just…” She closes her eyes, “...I just don’t want to fight anymore.”

“Maddie!?” Jayce shouts, “Maddie, what the fuck are you talking about!?” My stomach sinks as the realization hits me.

“MADDIE NO!” I shout as she falls forward, into the group of monsters.

“NO! MADDIE!” Jayce screams in agony as the sounds of her screams and her flesh being torn apart fill the air. I grab Jayce’s shoulders to stop him from running into the horde. I close my eyes to fight the tears.

“God damn it!” Jen shouts. I… I don’t say anything. I just stand there in shock. Jen looks over at me.

“Should we…”

“Let’s… let’s retreat and figure out what to do.” Jen commands, “God fucking damn it…” We run off to find somewhere to lie down for a bit. We need to catch our breath, and deal with what the fuck just happened.

A Missing Piece

I sit down in the dining hall, doing my best to keep to myself. People bump into me as they walk by. I don’t think they do it on purpose. I hate it here. I wish I could leave, but… if I get caught again, I don’t think Solomon will spare me this time. I’d give anything to see Mark again. I hate knowing that he’s mourning me, when I’m not even dead. I wish there was a way I could tell him I’m alive, that I’m doing everything I can to try and find a way out of here. But if they kill me, he’ll never know… I’ll never be able to taste his lips again. Solomon enters the room, and everyone quickly stands up. I follow. He stands in front of everyone as they all quiet down.

“Soon, we will rise above all those who wronged us.” He says triumphantly, his voice booming in my ears, “Soon, we will reach our full potential once more. Soon, we will return to the place that exiled us, tossed us to the wolves. Their incompetence will be their undoing.” My eyes dart around the room, judging the expressions of everyone. Nobody seems scared or nervous, but instead… thrilled, “Most of you in this room were there the day they forced us out. Though some of you weren’t, so let me give you a history lesson.” He starts to walk down the center aisle, “Shortly before the winter, we all lived happily. Plans for a wall surrounding the building, defences, power. We were going to be a formidable force in this world that’s now ruled by the dead.” Solomon looks directly into my eyes for a brief moment as he passes, then stops not far from the table I’m sitting at, “They had little care for if we lived or died because they were scared. Scared of change, of the dead, of us. They’re right to be scared. Because we’re going to do something about it.” Some people begin to cheer, “We are going to take back our home, and do to them what they did to us! We’ll throw them out, cast them to the wolves. They’ll know pain. They’ll know suffering. They’ll know the hell that we all fought through. The hell that killed our brothers, our sisters, our parents, our children. THEY WILL FEEL THAT PAIN!” The cheering gets louder and louder. Solomon has a menacing grin on his face. Solomon leaves and the cheering slowly dies down, and everyone goes back to eating. As I slowly eat the rest of my food. I hear some people talking about what Solomon was saying.

“The Tyrrell is going to be ours again.” The guy beside me nudges me with his elbow. I look over at him and nervously smile.

“I-I can’t wait to see it.” I stutter, “It sounds really impressive.”

“You have no idea.” He laughs and goes back to eating. Wait… wait… isn’t that the place we were trying to go to when we crashed? Shitshitshitshitshit. That isn’t good. If they made it there, they’re in a lot of danger right now. But… maybe… I could volunteer to scope out the place or something, then warn them. I need to try, because they won’t stand a chance without a heads up.

We finally stop a few streets over. Jayce is (understandably) still in hysterics. He isn’t scream crying like he was before but… he’s still crying. I look over at him, and pull him into a hug. I wrap my arms around him and he buries his face into my shoulder.

“Why…?” He sobs, “Why did she… why didn’t she talk to me about it?”

“I’m sorry, Jayce.” I hug him as tight as I can, “I-I… I’m so sorry.” I can’t think of anything else to say. I don’t think there is anything I could say here. Nothing I say could make him feel better. Nothing can bring her back. I can feel my shoulder start to feel damp from his tears.

“Why couldn’t I see that she was hurting?” He says softly, “Maybe if I talked to her about it, maybe she’d…”

“Jayce, no.” I say, “None of this is your fault, don’t blame yourself for this.”

“But… I…” He tries to get out but I keep him in the hug, “I think I just… I need to sit down.”

“We’ll sit here as long as you need.” I say softly, letting him go. He sniffles and sits down on the curb. I look over at Jen and she’s just staring back at where we came from. Maybe she’s hoping Maddie will somehow walk around the corner. Maybe she’s hoping that somehow she made it out of that. But those screams… I don’t think she made it out. I sit down beside Jayce as he puts his face in his hands.

“We went through so much together.” He says, “Traveled so far. Through all of it, I thought she was strong. None of this seemed to bother her, but…”

“Some people are just better at hiding their emotions.” I say, looking forward, “I faked my way through a lot of my life. I didn’t want people to think I was weak. Especially after everything fell. I have no idea if anything I’m doing is right for my family. I’m haunted by the things I did to protect them.”

“What do you mean?” He looks up at me. I sigh.

“I’ve killed people, and… I don’t think I hated it.” My voice shakes, “I hate knowing that I’ve taken somebody's life but… in the moment, when you're so angry at someone who’s trying to hurt you. Seeing their life fade… I don’t know if I like it or not.”

“I know what you mean…” He says quietly.

“You… you do?”

“Yeah… I killed someone, before all this.” He brings his knees up to his chest, “I’m sure you’re aware that Vancouver isn’t exactly the greatest place. I used to buy drugs from this one guy, never even told me his name. The transactions were pretty straight forward. We met on Tuesdays, 7pm sharp, rain or shine. But… one day, he jacked up the price on me. Tried charging me nearly double what I was already paying.” I see tears start to form in his eyes, but I let him continue to talk, “I started refusing the deal, trying to convince him to take the normal price, but he wouldn’t budge. Then, out of nowhere he pulls out this big ass knife, like too big to be practical. He starts to threaten me with it, saying ‘I’m either takin’ the 450, or I’m takin’ it all off your corpse’. I had never been more scared in all my life. He kept getting closer and closer, and eventually my back was against the wall. I knew then and there that only one of us was walking out of that alley. We started wrestling for the knife, spinning in circles, trying to trip each other. He got me pretty good on my arm here.” He rolls up his sleeve and shows me the giant scar going down his arm, “Eventually, I had him down on the ground, and I managed to get the knife out of his hand. Without thinking, I… I stabbed him right in the chest. Punctured his lung.” He starts crying harder again, “Watching him slowly die in front of me, I felt… satisfaction. I won. I beat that prick. I don’t regret it. But… I hate that I did it.” I pull him into a hug again. 

“The people we were before aren't who we are today.” I comfort him, “We’ve all had to do horrible things. But the way I see it is that if it’s to protect yourself, or someone you love, it’s a good thing.”

“Yeah…” He smiles softly, “Yeah, that’s true.”

“Do you think you’ll want to come with us?” I ask, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” He wipes a tear away and looks up at me as I stand.

“Yeah, I’ll be alright just… I need a minute.”

“Of course.” I smile and put my hand on his shoulder, “Take all the time you need.”

“Thanks Elsie.” I walk over to Jen to discuss what the hell we’re going to do.

I stand at the top of the wall, and place my hand at the top. I sigh as I look down the road. Soon, an army will be standing there. Will we be ready by then? Joseph said that they’re armed to the teeth. Elsie and the others have been going out to find any weapons they can but… I just don’t think it will be enough. I want to believe, and I’m not going to give up. I’ll keep fighting and fighting until I’m dead. But we’re definitely David in this story, and they’re Goliath. But, if I remember correctly, David did end up beating Goliath. So it’s possible. It won’t be easy though. The exact opposite to be specific.

“You alright Uncle Mark?” Jake asks as he appears out of nowhere, startling me a bit.

“Hey, little man!” I smile at him, “Yeah, just… thinking.”

“About what?” He looks up at me with wonder in his eyes.

“A little bit of everything I suppose.” I sigh and look forward again, leaning on the wall, “I think we’re going to be alright here.” I try to look strong for him.

“I hope so.” Jake says quietly, “It’s scary knowing that they’re coming here.”

“I know, I’m scared too. But we’re going to do everything we can to be ready for them.”

“I wish I could help.” He looks back at the museum.

“I don’t think you’re old enough for that just yet.” I chuckle, “Plus your Mom would probably kill me if I let you out there.” Jake laughs a little bit. I smile a little more when he does.

“Yeah, she probably wouldn’t like that.” He looks up at me again, “Maybe one day when I’m older I can help more!”

“Yeah, definitely.” I say warmly, “It might take some convincing for your Mom to be alright with it. But I’m sure she’ll come around eventually.”

“Do you want to come look at the dinosaurs with me?” He asks. I look down at him and smile.

“Sure.” I push myself off the wall, “Lead the way. Give me a good tour.” The two of us walk down the stairs, and head towards the museum. Jake runs and I struggle to keep up with him.

The parking lot is a lot emptier now. Most of the monsters have wandered off somewhere else. I drive the blade of my machete into the skull of one of the monsters. It falls down to the ground as the blade comes out. I look back to the car Maddie and I were stuck on. At the bottom, I can see her remains. They left nothing of her. Not even enough to reanimate.

“Don’t look, Jayce.” I say softly, placing my hand on his shoulder to guide him toward the building. He closes his eyes and inhales heavily.

“I won’t…” His voice shakes, “Is it… is it bad?”

“That shouldn’t be how you remember her.” We stand outside the door of the Canadian Tire.

“The plan is still the same guys.” Jen looks at us, “We go in, get as many weapons as we can.”

“Sounds good.” Jayce says, sighing again.

“We’ll stick together, move as a group.” She wipes some blood off her knife, “You guys ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Jayce pulls out his knife and flashlight, clicking it on.

“Let’s do this.” I say, pulling out my own flashlight. I crouch down through the window I broke. The shards of glass crackle under my feet with each step. I shine my light around the store, getting a bearing of our surroundings. There’s tons of aisles stretching up to the roof. I look back as Jayce and Jen crawl through as well.

“Any idea where the guns would be?” Jayce asks.

“I’m going to assume the hunting area.” I say, waving the light in the general direction of where it might be.

“I probably should’ve known that.” The three of us slowly start walking down the main aisle. Light fixtures. Sinks. Toilets. Then I look to the right and in the far corner, I see what looks like hunting stuff. As we approach the hunting section, I start to hear the groans of a monster.

“There’s a monster somewhere up ahead.” I whisper, “Be careful.”

“I’ll keep my eye open.” Jen says from behind me. I poke my head around a corner and see it standing there in the middle of an aisle full of various camo jackets. I sneak up behind it and put it down. I look at the jackets after backing away from its body. They remind me of Hugo. One of them looks exactly like the jacket he used to wear. I miss him. I wish he was still here. I think he’d like The Tyrrell.

“You alright?” Jayce asks as he walks up beside me.

“Yeah just… these jackets remind me of someone I lost.” I snap back to reality.

“What was their name?”

“His name was Hugo.” I sigh, “He was a good guy. I’ll tell you about him when we get back.”

“Alright.” He smiles.

“Let’s get to shopping.” I say as we walk out of the aisle, and my light shines on a gun case. It’s filled to the brim with rifles and boxes of ammo.

“This is exactly what we need!” Jen says excitedly.

“Fuck yeah.” Jayce tries to open it, but obviously it’s locked, “Well… I don’t know what I thought would happen.”

“Where are we going to find the key?” Jen puts her hands on her hips. I look around for a while.

“I think I might have an idea.” I say, “Follow me.” I start leading them to another part of the store. We might not need a key afterall.

Shopping Spree

I walk into Solomon’s tent. He turns around and looks over at me as I enter. I nervously hold my arms close to my body.

“Ah, Joseph.” He smiles, “How are you doing my boy?”

“I’m doing alright.” I scratch my neck, “That was a cool speech.” He chuckles and sits down at his desk.

“Thank you.” He says gratefully, “Would you believe me if I told you that I used to hate public speaking?”

“Really!?” I’m genuinely stunned, “No, I never would have guessed.”

“I’ve learned that if you seem confident, people will follow you.” He motions his hand for me to sit down in a chair, “Strong words rally the troops better than anything else.”

“Yeah, that definitely seems to be the case.” I chuckle, “The reason I came here was somewhat about that kind of thing.”

“What is it?” He tilts his head slightly.

“Umm… I was thinking that if we’re going to attack that place, wouldn’t it help to have someone do some reconnaissance?” Solomon pauses and scratches his chin.

“Hmm… are you volunteering yourself for that?” He asks.

“Yes.” I nod, “I’m pretty nimble despite my legs being a bit fucked up still.”

“How do you think it would work?” He places both his elbows on the desk.

“Well, to decrease the risk of them spotting us as much as possible, I’d ideally go alone.”

“Now, I’m many things.” He stands up, “But one thing I’m not is a fool. You aren’t using this to make a break for it again, are you?”

“No, of course not.” I quickly reassure, “I’m one of you guys now, and I have nothing but our best interest in mind. I want to make sure we know what we’re walking into so we can minimize the casualties on our side.” Solomon pulls out a pistol and places the barrel on the back of my neck. I freeze as the cold steel touches me.

“You remember what I’ve told you, yes?”

“O-of course… I’m out of second chances.” I stutter.

“What did I tell you would happen if you step out of line again?”

“You told me that I would die slowly and painfully.”

“Good job.” He pats my shoulder, removing the pistol, “So you make sure you keep that in mind.” Solomon sits back down in his chair, “We’re still in the early stages of planning this. I’ll let you know when you can expect to head out.”

“Thank you, Solomon.” I say, standing up, “I won’t disappoint, I promise.”

“You better not.” He says coldly. I nervously walk out of the tent. Fuck me, what did I just get myself into?

I lead the group down a couple aisles, looking for the perfect tool for the job. After passing several things that wouldn’t do much to help, I see it.

“Aha!” I shout, walking up to it. I grab the handle, and grunt as I lift the sledgehammer up, “This’ll get that gun case open in no time at all!”

“Yeah, I think that’ll do it.” Jen chuckles.

“That’s an understatement.” Jayce looks in awe.

“I know I said we need to stick together, but I’ll go grab some carts to make carrying everything a little easier.” Jen says.

“Alright, we’ll get it open lickitysplit.” I say, gripping the hammer with both hands. Jayce and I walk back towards the hunting section as Jen wanders off. I notice Jayce is staring off into space as we walk.

“How’re you holding up?” I ask sincerely. Jayce sighs heavily.

“I’m trying to keep it together but… it isn’t easy.” He looks over at me, “I’m not going to give up, but I’m going to miss her.”

“I’ll be honest with you, it never gets easier.” I sigh, “I miss those I’ve lost every single day.” We pause as we reach the gun case.

“Yeah…” He looks down at the ground, “Thanks for being here for me.”

“You’re welcome, Jayce.” I put my hand on his shoulder, “If you ever need to talk, please don’t hesitate to come find me, ok?”

“I will, thank you.” He smiles softly, “Now let’s get this thing open.” I grip the hammer tightly again, raising it up into the air. I slam the head of the sledgehammer into the glass. It just bounces off though, hurting my wrist.

“God damn.” I shake my hand, “They made these things sturdy.”

“Well, I guess it makes sense.”

“Yeah I suppose.” I raise the hammer again, “They wouldn’t want someone just walking up and smashing into the case.” I slam the hammer into the glass again. The glass still doesn’t break, but it is starting to crack. I raise the hammer once more, striking as hard as I can, finally shattering the glass.

“HA!” I exclaim as Jen walks around the corner pushing several shopping carts.

“Looks like I have perfect timing.” Jen jokes.

“Seems like it, yeah.” I place the sledgehammer on the ground, and grab one of the rifles. It’s some kind of semi-automatic rifle. Not sure exactly what brand or calibre and whatnot, but I’m sure that someone at The Tyrrell knows much more than I do. I place it in the first cart that Jen places in front of me. Then I grab a bolt-action rifle. Again, I don’t know the kind, but a gun is a gun, so it’ll have to do. Jayce grabs several boxes of ammo, placing them in a cart too. As the last of the guns and bullets get placed into the cart, we inspect our armoury.

“I think we have about fifteen rifles, and ten handguns.” Jen puts her hands on her hips.

“Lots of bullets too” Jayce interjects.

“You think it’s enough?” I ask.

“It’s gonna have to be.” Jen looks up at me, “We can look in other places another time, but that will be enough guns for today.”

“What about melee weapons?”

“We can window shop a bit, see what we see.”

“Sounds good to me!” Jayce smiles, “Let’s get shopping.” He wanders off deeper into the store, pushing a cart. Jen and I follow closely behind.

As the three of us walk back to The Tyrrell, each of us pushing a cart, my mind starts to race. Should we be doing this? Should we be trying to stand up to them? What does “armed to the teeth” mean exactly? I don’t know if it’s a good idea to stay here. To keep my kids here knowing what’s on the way. There’s nothing I want more than to just take my kids and run away. Protecting them has been my top priority through all of this. If anything were to happen to either of them, I… I don’t know what I would turn into. I don’t know what I’d do to whoever hurt them. If it was guaranteed that they’d both be fine, I’d stay at The Tyrrell for sure. Everyone there is a good person. I want to fight for them because this place gives us the best shot of making it. But how long will it last? Even if we fend them off, will we be able to rebuild? Will we be able to fight them off again if any survivors come back? There’s so much uncertainty here. I have a million questions, and zero answers. This is the most scared I’ve ever been. Scared for my kids. Scared for Mark. Scared for Ada. Scared for… for me. When they come knocking on our door, I’ll be there until the bitter end, because I know what I’m fighting for. I know who I’m fighting for. I have something to fight for, and that means something. Having something to fight for isn’t something that everyone is lucky enough to have. They keep me going. They give me a reason to get up every morning. They give me a reason to try. I would’ve given up a long time ago if I didn’t have them with me. Whatever happens the day they come, I’ll die before anyone else does. I’ll die defending my family. I’ll die to protect my kids, my brother, my girlfriend. I’ll be in the ground long before any of them are. I don’t think anything could fully prepare me for what’s coming. But because I know what I’m fighting for, I’m as ready as I possibly can be.

Once More to See You

We walk through the gates, and Janette walks up to greet us. She smiles and waves as she approaches. I shyly wave too.

“This looks like a pretty good haul.” She says, grabbing one of the rifles, “This is a good start.” She smiles and aims down the sights.

“We grabbed all we could find there.” I say. Janette places the rifle back in the cart, then looks at the three of us. She then looks around everywhere.

“Did Maddie already head in?” Jayce looks down at the ground.

“She, uh…. She didn’t make it…” Jayce quietly says, “Her and Elsie got stuck on a roof, surrounded by the dead. Elsie made it out, but Maddie… she said she didn’t want to fight anymore.”

“Fuck…” Janette pulls Jayce into a hug, “I’m so sorry Jayce.”

“Thanks…” He wipes a tear away.

“If you need anything, please let me know.” She puts her hands on his shoulders, looking him right in the eye. Jayce just silently nods his head.

“I’ll get these to the armoury, you two rest up.” Jen says.

“You sure?” I look over at her as she grabs my cart, “I wouldn’t mind helping.”

“I insist, you both could use a little R&R.” She smiles at me, then places a hand on Jayce’s shoulder before heading inside. Jayce and I slowly head in too.

“You want me to walk you to your room?” I ask. Jayce pauses for a minute.

“Sure…” He stares off into space for a moment, “I could use the company.” We walk, mostly in silence. I can tell he’s still hurting a lot. But I can’t say I blame him. When I thought Mark died, I was a wreck for a long time. I hid it well, but on the inside I was barely keeping myself together. Mark and I have always been close with each other. Ever since we were young. We bickered a bit, but that’s just what siblings do. We both protected each other, watched each other’s backs. That’s something we still do. Except now it’s very literal and not metaphorical. I want to help Jayce, but I know there’s not a whole lot that I could do to help. There’s no healing something like that. We stop outside of his room. Jayce just stands there, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

“Umm… thanks for, y’know… being here for me.” He looks up at me, smiling slightly, “It really does mean a lot to me.”

“Of course, Jayce.” I smile at him, “I’m here for you.”

“I know she wasn’t always the kindest person, but… when we were working on the wall, she said that she thought you were cool.”

“She did!?” I’m genuinely shocked to hear that.

“She did, said something along the lines of ‘she knows how to get shit done’.” A small smile creeps across my face.

“Wow, I-... I’m genuinely at a loss for words. I had no idea she thought that about me.”

“Yeah, she never really was great at showing affection.” He chuckles softly before opening the door to his room, “I think I need a lie down.”

“That sounds like a great idea to me.” I smile, “I’ll probably do the exact same thing when I get back.”

“I’ll see you around.” He looks back at me, “Thanks again.”

“You’re welcome.” I wave as he closes the door. I close my eyes and breathe in and out a couple times before heading back.

I walk back into my room. Jake looks over at me with a huge smile across his face.

“MOM!” He shouts, jumping up to me. Mark walks out from around the corner.

“We were starting to get a little worried.” He chuckles as Jake wraps his arms around me.

“Not all of us made it back.” I say somberly as I run my fingers through Jake’s hair.

“Oh no… what happened?”

“Maddie, she… she didn’t have any fight left in her.” Mark wraps his arm around me too.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers, “Are Jayce and Jen alright?”

“Physically, yeah. Jayce took it really hard though.” I wipe a tear away, “He’s going to be grieving for a while, but he said he won’t stop fighting.”

“That’s good.” Mark nods softly as he pulls away from the hug.

“Have you heard from Joseph lately?” I ask.

“He came by while you were out actually.” Mark smiles.

“Did he get any new information for us?”

“Not really, no.” Mark puts his hand on his hip, “We got to spend a little time together though. It wasn’t for very long though, but it was nice.”

“That’s nice.” I smile and look down at Jake, still hugging me, “I hope that when this is all over we get to spend more time with him.”

“Can Joseph come live here?” Jake looks up at me.

“I hope so.” I chuckle, “But that’ll be for him to decide.”

“I’ll convince him for you Jake, don’t worry.” Mark taps Jake on the shoulder.

“YAAY!” He shouts, “He’s fun.”

“He definitely is.” Mark laughs. Jake finally stops hugging me and runs off. I rub my eyes, and yawn.

“I think I need to lay down for a bit and just not think about anything for a while.” I start walking towards my bed.

“I’ll hold down the fort for you, Elsie.” He smiles at me, “Do you want me to let Ada know you’re back?”

“Sure.” I look back at him, “Thanks, Mark.”

“I know, I’m the best.” I scoff.

“Right, totally.” I fall into my bed. While it isn’t the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in. After being away from it for a while, it feels like heaven. I practically sink into it. Closing my eyes and letting the burdens of the world go away.

Rain falls all around me as I skulk through the dark. I know I shouldn’t be going in  there, but if I’m going to bring them some information, the amount of weapons they have would be valuable. I hide behind some crates and peek over the top. Someone’s walking by, but it’s too dark to see who. I duck my head down as he looks around, praying he didn’t see me. It takes a while, but they finally leave. I take one last scan around before quietly making a dash towards the armoury. I push the door open as silently as I possibly can, but the hinges clearly need to be oiled. Just praying nobody heard. I turn on the flashlight I stole and look around the large room. There’s boxes upon boxes, presumably full of ammo. There’s gun lockers too. I look in as best I can, and can make out rifles, shotguns… grenade launchers… I hope they aren’t planning on using those in the attack. But then again, what else is a grenade launcher used for? Certainly aren’t used for parties. Maybe they are used for that down in the States. Those Yankees are a different breed.

“Coulda’ sworn I heard something.” Someone says from outside.

“Fuck.” I whisper under my breath. I quickly hide behind some of the boxes, lowering myself down as much as humanly possible. The door creaks open, and a light shines onto the walls. I close my eyes, silently praying that they don’t investigate further.

“I’m tellin’ ya, you gotta lay off the weed man.” The other person says, “It’s making you jumpy.”

“Yeah, maybe…” The first guy mumbles, “C’mon.” They leave and I breathe a heavy sigh of relief. It’s probably a good idea to wait a while before leaving. Because if I get caught in here, I’ll be completely fucked.

A Flame in Your Heart

Mark and I sit down in our room. We’re sitting at a table, drinking some tea. Well, I am. Mark’s weird and likes coffee, so he’s drinking that.

“I feel like we haven’t had these one-on-one conversations since we got here.” Mark says, placing his mug back down after taking a drink.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that too.” I take a sip, “I wanted to talk more, but with everything going on, it’s been hard.”

“Yeah…” He sighs, running his finger along the rim of the mug, “When we got here I thought that we’d get to talk more. But with our jobs, and now the T-Rexes coming for us. I just want a week where I don’t need to do anything, y’know?”

“God, you have no idea how much I’d love that.” I lean back in my chair, “I feel like I’d sleep for a whole week if given the opportunity.” Mark chuckles as he takes another sip.

“Do you remember when someone pulled the fire alarm at school?”

“I think so, yeah.” I say, “Wasn’t the person never caught or something?”

“Nope.” He shakes his head, “But I know who it was.”

“Really?” I lean forward, “Who?”

“It may or may not have been… me.”

“WHAT!?” I laugh, “THAT WAS YOU!?”

“Hey now, I said may or may not have been me.” He throws his hand up, “I got dared by… the fuck was his name again? Cameron, I think?”

“Oh I always hated Cameron. He was such a dick.”

“Yeah no fuck that guy.” Mark takes a sip, “He said he’d pay me $5 if I didn’t get caught, but he never gave it to me.”

“Yeah that unfortunately sounds like him.” I look over towards the door as someone runs by, “I wonder what happened to the people we went to school with.”

“I think about that a lot too.” Mark scratches the side of his face, “I wonder where they all went. I wonder how many of them are still alive.”

“Yeah… there’s a good chance that a lot of them didn’t make it this far.” I sigh, looking down.

“I mean there’s gotta be a solid chunk that is still-” Mark is interrupted by Ada quickly coming into the room, the kids following closely behind her.

“Ada!?” I stand up, bumping the table and spilling my tea, “Are you alright!?”

“Shit…” She’s out of breath, “They’re here.”

“Fuck…” I feel my heart rate quickly get faster, “God fucking damn it.” I quickly run over and grab Hugo’s rifle and as many bullets as I can.

“How many?” Mark asks.

“Too many.” I grab a pistol and put it in the back of my pants.

“Shit…” I tie my machete to my hip, then turn around and walk up to Sara and Jake.

“Ok… you two stay in here with Uncle Mark.” I put a hand on each of their shoulders, “Listen to what he says, and stay away from the door.”

“Mom…” Jake hugs me, “I’m scared.”

“Me too hun.” I hold him tightly, “Me too…”

“I have my knife too.” Sara says, “Hopefully I won’t need it but… just in case.”

“That’s good Sara.” I smile through tears, “He’ll be the first line of defence, but… if anything happens… you need to protect your brother.”

“I will… I promise.” She hugs me too. I hold them both as tight as my arms will allow, closing my eyes.

“Don’t worry Elsie.” Mark puts his hand on my shoulder as I stand up, “I won’t let anything happen to them.”

“Thank you Mark.” I hug him too, “I love you all, and I’ll be back soon.” I walk towards the door with Ada before turning around, “Remember, if we get separated and need to flee, go to where we parked that car.”

“We’ll be there.” Mark nods, picking up his knife.

“I love you mom.” Jake says timidly.

“I love you too.” I say as Ada and I walk into the hall, closing the door behind us. I hear Mark lock the door behind us.

“We’ll stop at my room on the way so I can get my stuff.” Ada says as we start jogging down the hall.”

“Alright…” My breathing gets faster, “We’re going to be alright.”

“We will be Els, don’t worry.”

I drop down from the truck, carrying a heavy assault rifle and wearing a tactical vest. Pain shoots through my legs as my boots hit the ground, almost making me fall over. I have several extra magazines and a few smoke grenades connected to the vest. I can use the smoke to disrupt us, throw it in spots that’ll block our view, and give the people inside the best chance possible. There’s a lot of us, too many considering The Tyrrell not being as well armed. I just hope that my warning was enough to give them time to properly prepare. As I get into formation, I see the people standing at the top of the wall start to draw their weapons, and some run off to warn everyone. Solomon steps forward, raising his gun into the air.

“We are here to claim what is rightfully ours.” He shouts, “We simply want what was taken from us. You have the choice to give it up without a fight, and we’ll let you leave unharmed.” A woman, Janette I believe, steps up, aiming a rifle.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen asshole!” She shouts, “You can climb back into your trucks and kindly fuck off!” More people arrive, I scan them for Elsie, but I don’t see her.

“Yeah… that’s not gonna work for us.” Solomon paces, “I kinda promised my soldiers here that we’d be moving in one way or the other.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes your ambitions can be unrealistic!” Solomon turns to face us.

“What did we come here to do?” He asks us.

“TAKE OVER!” People respond, I nervously look around.

“And what are we going to do to secure that dream?”

“WHATEVER IT TAKES!” They cheer. Solomon turns back towards the wall.

“Seems to me like it isn’t just my ambition.” He says smugly.

“They’re only following you because you tell them what they want to hear.” Janette shouts, “They follow you because they’re scared of what you’ll do if they don’t. I’ve seen people like you before.”

“Here’s how this whole thing is going to go.” Solomon reaches into his pocket, “I’m going to give you guys half an hour to talk, figure out what you want to do. Then if you make the wrong choice, what follows will be on you.” Janette lowers her rifle. She looks frustrated, which is very understandable given the circumstances. She walks off and disappears below the wall. I take a few deep breaths as Solomon walks by, patting my shoulder.

Ada and I walk down the hall, my heart practically beating out of my chest. People run past us, brushing our shoulders. People run towards and away from the danger. Ada stops me as we enter the main foyer.

“Els, can we talk for a second?” She asks, “I just… I just wanted to say something.”

“Of course Ada.” I put my hand on her cheek, “You know you can tell me anything.”

“I just wanted to tell you that just in case anything happens, I love you. I love you so much.” She smiles, tears welling in her eyes, “These past few months have been some of the greatest in my whole life. And I just wanted to thank you.” I smile and pull her into a kiss.

“I love you too.” I say before kissing her again, “But we’re going to be alright. We’re going to defend our home.” Ada pulls me into a hug, squeezing me with a lot of force. I wrap my arms around her too.

“We will.” We reluctantly pull away from the hug, and look towards the door. I breathe heavily before the two of us walk towards it, holding hands. As we exit the building, the warm summer air washes over us. I hear some shouting, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. I take my rifle off my back, gripping it tightly in my hands. Looking over at Ada, she grips her rifle too. We walk up the steps to the top of the wall, and I put my hands on the railing. There’s… a lot, to say the least. Joseph is somewhere in there, but it’s hard to make him out. Fuck… I hope we’re ready for this. I hear someone walking up to us.

“The day of reckoning is here.” Janette says, looking over the army of soldiers, “You ready?”

“We’re gonna have to be.” I say softly.

“We’re as prepared as we possibly can be, we’ve done everything possible to be ready.”

“God… it better be-”

“Alright!” Solomon shouts, “Time’s up! I hope you made the right choice!” Janette leans forward.

“Screw you asshole!” She shouts. Solomon chuckles, though I can’t hear it, turning to his soldiers. As he looks back towards us, he has a grim smile on his face. I see the people around us begin to ready their weapons. Ada and I follow suit, and I click my safety off.

“That’s a shame, truly.” Solomon crosses his arms, “I had some hope you’d see it my way. Oh well. Too late now.” I hear a pop, and something flies over us. We all duck down as an explosion rings out. I look towards the museum and see chunks of the building fall to the ground. God damn it. Joseph wasn’t lying about the fucking grenade launchers. People on both sides begin opening fire.

“SHIT!” I shout. I grit my teeth and peek over the wall, firing a round before crouching back down.

“You alright!?” Ada asks as she stands up and takes a couple shots.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just… this is a lot.” I wipe sweat off my forehead.

“I’m with you Els.” She places her hand on mine, “‘Til the end.” A chunk of wall gets blown up to the right of us. I cover Ada’s head to protect her from flying debris.

“GOD DAMN!” Janette shouts, “Is everyone alright.” I hear a mix of different answers. Ranging from good things to bad. I peek up again and fire another shot, seeing a soldier’s head fly back before he falls. I cock the rifle and aim again. But before I can fire again, another explosion rings out. This time right in front of us. The shockwave tears the wall apart, knocking all of us backwards. I hit the ground hard, and roll. My ears ring, and I can’t think straight. There’s so much smoke, and I see people running around. I look towards where the wall was, and I see John. He sees me and says something, but… I can’t hear him. He looks distressed. I look down, and see his leg is trapped under a large chunk of debris. He grabs for my hand, and I want to help but… I know I can’t.

“I-I-I’m sorry…” I say to him before grabbing my rifle and standing up. He has an empty expression on his face as I slowly back up. I stumble into Ada, she puts her hands on my shoulder. She says something too, but again, the ringing is too loud. She leads me back towards the building. I take one last look towards John as the soldiers march up. One of them walks up to him, and slits his throat. I’m sorry, John.

Life and Death

The wall shatters as someone fires another grenade into it. The screams. God… the screams. I pull one of the smoke grenades off my vest and throw it forward. Hopeful it gives the people a little bit of cover to get inside.

“PUSH!” Solomon commands, and the army begins to walk forward. People fire their guns towards the museum. I fire some rounds too, but deliberately miss. We push through the smoke, and there’s nothing but chaos on the other side. There’s people injured and dying on the ground. Others run towards the building. I hope Elsie made it inside. I look to the right and see someone on my side walking towards someone on the ground. The person on the ground is crawling backwards, desperate to get to their pistol laying just out of reach. I aim, and fire a round into my guy’s leg. He cries out and kneels onto the ground. The person I helped quickly crawls towards the pistol and shoots my guy in the face. He falls backwards. That was risky, but I couldn’t just watch that guy die. I just hope that nobody noticed me do that. If I’m questioned I’ll come up with a lie. We push up more and more, eventually making it to the door. Dead bodies litter the courtyard. Many on both sides have already died. A few of them have already reanimated.

“You all know the plan.” Solomon says smugly, “Let none get away. Bring them to me.” The soldiers cheer and push inside, firing their weapons. More people die. As I walk in, someone’s body falls against me, and blood splatters onto my face. I close my eyes and wipe as much of the blood off as I can, and move into some cover. I notice a door that seems to lead deeper into the museum. Maybe I can help some people get out. I just hope they don’t shoot me on sight. But it’s worth a shot. I need to try. I will try. I sprint across the foyer, bullets fly over me as more people get hit. As I get to the other side, I push some people out of the way and throw the door open, locking it behind me. The room I’m in branches off into several hallways. I take a few deep breaths, and march onward.

I crouch down in the dark, hold my knife in my hand and tight as I physically can. Sara and Jake are hiding under the beds. I can see the shadows of people running by under the door. I jump as muffled gunshots ring out.

“We’re going to be alright.” I whisper, “Just stay silent, no matter what.” I can hear my heart pounding, and my hand trembles. Someone tries to open the door frantically.

“PLEASE! PLEASE!” She screams, pounding on the door, “YOU NEED TO-” A gunshot, and the sound of a body falling. I close my eyes. The person who shot that lady tries to open the door too, but they don’t have any more luck.

“Come on.” A voice says, “There’s nobody in there.”

“She wanted to get in here. There’s gotta be someone in here.” The other says. He starts banging into the door, shaking the whole room. It feels like he kicks it a thousand times. Slowly, more and more light starts to fill the room. Finally, the door opens. As they step in I stand up and drive my knife into the shoulder of the first person I see. He cries out as I pull the knife out and go to stab him somewhere else too. Right before I’m able to, the other person punches me. I stumble back, some blood dripping onto the floor. I wipe some of the blood off with my arm.

“Look at this guy.” One of them laughs, “He’s got one arm.”

“He won’t put up much of a fight.”

“Fuck you guys!” I shout, charging forward again. I kick one in the knee, and go for the other person. I slash my knife into his side. The other one stands back upright and grabs my arm. I try to fight him off, but he’s stronger than I am.

“Just give up!” He grunts, “You can’t win!” The other grabs me by the throat.

“Drop it!” The other commands coldly. I fight it as much as I can, but they twist my wrist, forcing me to drop the knife. The one holding my throat punches me in the side of the face. I stumble back and fall to the ground, coughing as I hit the ground.

“Fuck…” I groan.

“Remember what Solomon said.”

“Yeah, yeah, bring them to him.” The other grabs my arm, handcuffing me to himself. As he stands me up, I hear the other cry out in pain. I look over and see Sara, stabbing the guy in the leg. But her efforts are in vain. The guy quickly overpowers her, pushing Sara onto the ground.

“SARA!” I shout, trying to run up to her. The person I’m cuffed to punches me, pulling me away from her.

“DON’T HURT HER!” Jake shouts, running up to Sara.

“No…” I try to catch my breath.

“You’re a hell of a fighter kid.” The other guy says, “Solomon will want to meet you.” He zip ties her arms, then does the same to Jake. They both tried to fight back, but again, he’s much stronger than them both. The person I’m cuffed to stands me up, and the other guy starts to lead Jake and Sara as we follow behind.

We keep getting pushed back. Ada and I take out as many as we can but… there’s just too many of them. We got split up from the rest of the militia, and I don’t know where they went. We back up down a hallway, closing a door behind us.

“What the fuck are we supposed to do!?” Ada looks over at me. My mind races, and my hands tremble.

“I-” I feel myself getting more and more overwhelmed, “I don’t-” I look over at her, and she hugs me tightly.

“I don’t think we can win this Els.” She whispers, “I think The Tyrrell is done.” I sigh and close my eyes.

“We need to get to Mark and the kids.” I say, my breathing gets heavier, “Jayce too if we can find him.”

“Ok, that’s a good plan.” She kisses my cheek, “We’ll find them, and get the hell out of-” Someone starts banging on the door. I quickly pull out my pistol and machete. Ada and I walk backwards, aiming out guns at the door as the banging gets louder. Ada goes around a corner, and I stay for a moment and watch. The door flies open, nearly coming off the hinges.

“I see some!” Someone shouts, shooting towards us. I jump to the side as bullets fly. I stick my arm out and blindly fire a couple shots.

“We need to go!” Ada tugs on my arm.

“Shit…” I look over at her, “Let’s go.” We run as more bullets hit the wall. We enter a large room that is used as a storage room. It has a bunch of supplies, but still has some of the fossils too. Ada closes the doors behind us. I pick up what looks like some for of leg bone, and stick it between the handles.

“That probably won’t hold long.” I pant.

“Let’s go.” Ada grabs my hand as we start running again. The sounds of gunshot and screams echo through the halls. Some sounds coming out of the vents. I’m terrified, but I won’t give up. I’m fighting for my family. I’m fighting to give them a chance at survival. I will die protecting the people I love. I refuse to let anymore of the people I care about die. I don’t know where we’ll go from here, but we’ll figure it out. We can have a conversation about what we want to do once we get the hell out of here.

The Red Means I Love You

I push a door open, and see a group of people huddled inside. The adults hold the children tight to them. None of them scream when I see me, they just stare. One of them points a shotgun in my direction. I raise my hands, and hold my rifle in a way to show them that I won’t hurt them.

“Hey.” I say softly, “I’m the person who warned you guys about the attack. I’m here to help you get out of here.”

“How… how do we know you won’t just shoot us in the back?” Someone asks.

“Because I hate the T-Rexes just as much as you guys.” I say somberly, “They took me away from the only people I consider family, and now they’re attacking their home. I want to do everything I can to make sure as many people survive as I can.” The person with the shotgun stands up, and walks towards me, still pointing the barrel at my chest.

“What do you suppose we do then?” He asks, placing the end of the barrel at the base of my neck.

“You guys know this place better than I do.” I say calmly, “Where’s the nearest exit?” The man looks back at the group.

“You want us to leave!?”

“I don’t think we can stop them.” I say, “Even if we do, they’ll still tear this place to the ground.”

“God damn it.” The man sighs, and walks back to the group. I finally lower my hands. The group whispers to each other. I can’t make out what they’re saying though. I poke my head out into the hall just to make sure nobody is coming. The man turns back to face me, and the rest stand up too.

“There’s an exit not too far from here.” He says, “You don’t leave my sight though.”

“That sounds fair to me.” I say, smiling slightly, “Just tell me where to go.”

We creep slowly down the halls. Thankfully we were able to avoid the brunt of the T-Rexes, but still ran into a couple. We somehow took them out unscathed. My stomach sinks as we come around the corner and I see the door to our room open.

“No…” My eyes widen, “Nonononono!” I run towards the room. I enter and find it completely empty. There’s signs of a struggle. Chairs knocked over… blood on the floor. But there aren't any bodies in here, so that’s a good sign… I think. I see Mark’s knife on the ground, Sara’s too. They both have blood on them. So at least they managed to do some damage. Ada crouches down beside me, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“They’re going to be alright Els.” She reassures me, “Mark wouldn’t let the kids be taken without a fight. Maybe he took them somewhere else.”

“I hope so…” I cry silently, tears dropping to the floor, mixing with the blood. I hear someone walk by, and I draw my pistol, aiming towards the door. In the doorway stands too people, a man and a woman, T-Rexes.

“What do we have here?” The man steps into the room.

“Did you know the people in this room?” The woman mocks, “I heard the one armed guy and the kid put up quite the fight.”

“Where are they!?” I ask coldly, standing up.

“They’re where you’re going.” The man steps close, “Kneeling for Solomon.”

“We aren’t going anywhere with you!” I grip the handle of my machete tightly. The man gets closer and closer, and right as I go to pull the trigger, he grabs both my arms, pushing me against the wall. Ada tries to get him off, but the woman jumps at her. I try to kick him off me, but I can’t. He twists my arms, and my machete and pistol clatter to the floor. He then throws me to the ground. I catch myself on my arms, grunting in pain. I look back and see Ada get overpowered. I kick at the man as he gets closer, but he just grabs my leg and flips me onto my stomach. He zip ties my hands behind my back, and stands me up. I try to fight him, but he’s way stronger than me.

“ADA!” I shout as the woman hits her, knocking her to the ground, “LEAVE HER ALONE!” 

“GET OFF OF ME!” Ada screams. The woman just laughs as she zip ties her too.

“If it were up to me I’d say we just kill you both right now.” The woman says, “But we got our orders.” The man places his hands on my shoulders tightly.

“It’s a shame such a pretty lady has to go to waste like this.” He says in a really gross way.

“The fuck does that mean!?” I snap, trying to get away from him.

“Don’t worry about it.” He caresses my cheek, “You take that one down, I’ll be there in a minute.

“ELSIE!” Ada screams, trying to get away from the woman.

“You’re disgusting.” The woman says, “Just don’t take too long.”

“You know I won’t, don’t worry.” He chuckles, she scoffs in disgust.

“ELSIE! NO!” The door closes as they leave. He spins me around and I glare at him.

“Don’t worry baby.” He says, “I won’t hurt you.”

“GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!” I scream as he pushes me against the wall. He runs his hand down my body, “STOP!” I manage to kick him off of me and he stumbles back.

“You fucking bitch!” He walks up and pushes me against the wall even harder, “You need to learn to play nice!” He sticks his thumb into my eye. I scream in agony and feel blood start to flow down my face. That goes on for way longer than it should. He finally stops, and my head drops down. I can’t see out of my left eye. And I see lots of blood dripping down onto the floor.

“Ah… god damn…” I pant.

“You reach to play nice now?” He asks smugly. I don’t say anything and he leans in to kiss me. I lean my head into his neck, biting as hard as I can. Blood fills my mouth as he screams and tries to get away. He pulls away as the chunk of flesh gets torn off. He stumbles back, placing a hand on the wall, holding his throat tightly. I spit the chunk out onto the floor.

“Fuck you.” I say as he slowly drops onto the floor, choking. I stand over him as he slowly and painfully dies like he deserves. I spit on him before I start to stomp his skull. I kick him again, and again, and again, the wet sounds of his brain being crushed echoes off the walls. I keep going until my foot hits the floor instead of his head. I look down at him, his head is completely caved in, and a massive pool of blood flows all around him. Nobody will recognize his corpse. I walk over to my machete and crouch down, sawing at the zip tie. Once I’m free, I pick the machete and my pistol. I put Hugo’s rifle onto my back and wipe some of the blood off my mouth. A shirt is the closest thing to a bandage that we have in here, so I tear off a sleeve and tie it around my head, covering my eye. I don’t know where all this is coming from, but it feels good. The strength, the determination, the will. I’m not prey anymore.

I push the fire escape door open and look outside. I can hear the sounds of bastards slamming into the wall.

“Shit…” I say under my breath before turning around to face the group, “I think the sound drew in the dead.”

“There’s a gate to the side, we’ll fight our way through.” The man with the shotgun says.

“You guys go.” I say quickly, “I’m going back in to try and find more people. I’ll tell them to try and find you guys though.”

“Alright.” The man sighs, looking back, “Thank you, son.” He smiles.

“Goodluck.” I smile back.

“Same to you.” I hold the door open for the group when suddenly a bullet zips by, hitting someone in the back of the head. She drops to the ground and the group starts to panic. They all frantically try to push outside. I duck down and fire a few shots in the direction of them. More people get hit as the last person exits.

“GO!” I shout, closing the door. I shuffle over to a column, using it as cover. I take a few deep breaths and collect my thoughts.

“There’s still one over there!” Someone shouts.

“Get ‘em!” I peek around the corner, and fire a couple shots, jumping back behind as bullets start flying towards me. I feel the wind as they fly past me. I peek around again, but before I can fire a shot, I feel a sharp pain in my shoulder.

“AGH!”I cry out, putting my hand over the wound, stepping back behind cover. I feel my warm blood flowing down my arm, “Shit… shit… fuck…” I hear them start to press forward. I’m not going to be able to lift my gun properly. I jump out at the first person I see once they get close enough. I get a couple hits in before I’m forced to the ground.

“Ohhhh SHIT!” One of them laughs, “Look at what we got here.” The place the barrel in between my eyes.

“Solomon will have a field day when he gets a hold of you.”

“Fuck you guys.” I say coldly, swatting the barrel out of my face, “I’m not scared of that pussy.”

“We’ll see about that.” Another laughs, “I’m willing to bet you’ll be pissing yourself the second he looks at you.” The group starts roaring with laughter as two of them pick me up by the arms. I wince in pain from the gaping hole in my arm. I want to fight back, but I know I’d never win that fight.

Face the Music

“KNEEL!” The guy I’m tied to forces me down onto the ground. The other guy forces the kids down too.

“HEY!” I shout, trying to get at him, “BE GENTLE!” I struggle for a moment as the guy I’m tied to laughs, hitting me in the side of the head. I groan in pain as I fall to the ground. The guy grabs my shoulder, making me kneel again.

“Uncle Mark.” Jake whimpers, “I’m scared…”

“I am too Jake, just… just stay calm, ok?” I look over at him. He has tears in his eyes, “Everything is going to work out.” I’m doing my best to make him feel safe but… I don’t know if I can keep him safe now, “Can… Can they sit closer to me? Please?”

“No.” The man says coldly.

“Please! Just-”

“You got a listening problem!?” He hits me in the side of the head again, “I fucking said no.” I look down at the ground as some blood drips off my face. More and more people get brought in. All of us kneel, awaiting an uncertain fate. There’s a mix of cries and pleads from people. Mothers begging to see their children. Brothers crying with their sister. Friends scared for each other’s lives. Of all the ways I thought I’d die, I never thought I’d be executed. Put down like a dog. Someone gets forced to kneel right beside me. I look over and it… it’s Ada.

“Ada?” I call out to her. She looks up at me, blood coming from her nose.

“Mark… I…”

“Where’s Elsie!?” I ask frantically.

“The people who found us… the guy, he… he said it would be a shame if she ‘went to waste’ and stayed back while I got brought here.”

“What the fuck does…” I pause, my eyes darting around, “Please tell me it isn’t…” Ada just silently nods her head, crying.

“We tried to fight them off but… we couldn’t.” She sobs.

“We’re going to be alright.” I try to calm her down, “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“No it isn’t.” The guy chuckles. I look up and see, who I assume to be, Solomon walks out. He has a disgusting smirk on his face. I’d love nothing more than to beat it off of his face.

“I’m sure you’re all asking yourselves ‘what did we do you deserve this!?’” He says in a mocking tone, “I’m aware that some of you weren’t here before, but you’re all guilty by association. We were cast out because we didn’t like how this joint was being run. Now, we’ve to take back what’s ours. Or at the very least make sure you guys can’t have it.”

“YOU’RE A MONSTER!” Someone shouts.

“It appears that we have a volunteer to demonstrate what’s going to happen.” Solomon pulls out a pistol, “Don’t be shy, come on up.” The person who shouted gets dragged up to Solomon, It’s Jen, “I think I remember you from way back when.”

“Fuck off and die prick.” She scoffs. Solomon crouches down beside her.

“That’s why I remember you!” He pats Jen’s head, “You’re the one who stood on the wall, flipping us off after we got thrown to the wolves.” Solomon stands back up, laughing, pacing around. I know what’s going to happen, but I can’t look away, “I can’t for the life of me remember what your name was though. Oh well. Doesn’t matter anyway.” He points the pistol to the side of her head and fires. Blood shoots onto the floor and Jen falls to the side. I can hear Jake and Sara crying. I want to get to them, but they’ll never let me. Solomon looks towards us, smiling.

“Cut that one loose.” He points towards Sara, “She has a fire in her eye.”

“NO!” I scream, “DON’T HURT HER!” I stand up but immediately get kicked in the back of the knee. I fall to the ground and look up in horror.

“She put up quite a fight.” The guy says as Sara stands up, “Got me pretty good.”

“What’s your name sweetie?” He asks softly as Sara approaches.

“Sara…” She says softly.

“That’s a nice name.” He smiles, “What would you say if I offered to teach you how to not just survive out in the world, but thrive?”

“I’m not going anywhere without my family.” She says.

“That’s what they all say.” He chuckles and puts his hands on her shoulders. I bear my teeth, I want to just pounce on him and beat him to a bloody pulp, “But soon enough, they all learn to-”

“YOU FUCKING PRICKS THINK HE REALLY VALUES YOU!?” Someone shouts as they get brought in, “YOU’RE NOTHING TO HIM EXCEPT ANOTHER PAWN!” They get thrown onto the ground, and it’s… shit, it’s Joseph. Solomon looks over at him with disappointment in his eyes. 

“I had such hope for you my boy.” Solomon puts his hands on his hips, “Do you know this man, Sara?”

“Yeah.” She says, “He’s my friend.”

“Not anymore he isn’t.” Solomon says coldly, placing the pistol in Sara’s hands, “He’s nothing but a fucking rat. Trash that needs to be taken out. I want you to put him down.” He forces Sara to aim at Joseph. I watch in stunned silence. Joseph looks towards Sara, and nods softly. Her hands tremble, and I can tell she’s crying.

“I-... I can’t…” She lowers the gun, “I won’t…” There’s fear in Joseph’s eyes.

“That’s a shame.” He grabs the gun, “You can go back with your family.” He motions for her to come back to us. She holds her arms closely to her body and starts walking toward me. I look down at the ground in relief. Then hear a gunshot.

I walk through the halls, adrenaline pumping through my veins. The only thing keeping me going is the drive to protect my family. I sneak up behind one of the T-Rexes, and drive my machete into his shoulder. He screams in pain as he falls to his knees. I pull the machete out and slash him again, hitting his neck. I walk over his dying body, pressing forward, fixated on my goal. I raise my pistol as someone walks around the corner, they raise their weapon too.

“Elsie!?” Jayce calls out right before I squeeze the trigger, “Is… is that you?”

“Shit Jayce.” I sigh, lowering my weapon, “I almost shot you.”

“I almost shot you too.” He chuckles, “What the fuck happened to you!?”

“That’s not important right now.” I say coldly, “I need to find my family. They were taken to Solomon and they’re in danger.”

“Fuck…” He puts his hand on his forehead, “Janette and a few of the others were headed that way. I think she said they’re in the dining hall.”

“Then that’s where we’re headed.” I start walking. Jayce jogs up to me, trying to keep up.

“Is your eye alright?” Jayce asks in a concerned voice.

“No.” I say, still fixated on getting to where I need to go, “Pretty sure I’ll be permanently blind out of that eye. It got gouged out by some prick trying to… assault me.”

“Fuck… I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine, he’s dead now.” We keep marching, eventually coming up on Janette and the group.

“Elsie!?” Janette looks at me as I crouch down beside her, “Are you ok!?”

“Not one bit.”

“Fuck, we have bandages if you-”

“Not right now.” I look away, “Once we clean up this mess, then I’ll worry about patching myself up.”

“Elsie… you need to-”

“I need to protect my fucking family!” I quietly scream, “Why aren’t we going in there and killing them!?”

“They have hostages. At least twenty, if not more.” Janette sighs, looking down at the ground, “We think they've executed one of them already…”

“God damn it.” I sigh, standing up.

“Once we come up with a plan we can go in and help them but we can’t just run headlong in there.” I pace back and forth, gripping my machete tightly in my hand. Another gunshot rings out, and silence washes over the group.

“NOOOOO!” I hear someone scream. That was Mark screaming.

“No… no… nonononono!” I pull my rifle off my back and run towards the dining hall.

“ELSIE!” Janette shouts from behind me, but I don’t listen. I hear the group running with me. I know this is stupid, but if they hurt anyone I care about, I’ll give Solomon the slowest, most painful death. I stand at the top of the railing, and fire at the first T-Rex I see. He falls to the ground dead. The rest of them turn to me, firing. I duck down and move.

“God damn it Elsie!” Janette shouts, “What the fuck were you thinking!?”

“Mark wouldn’t scream like that if it was anyone else.” I say coldly, “If you have a shot on Solomon, make sure it isn’t lethal. He’s mine.” I quickly run down the stairs and get behind some cover, loading rounds into the gun.

I’ll always remember that first time I held her. Sweet, innocent, soft. I fell in love with her instantly. I took a while to come up with a name, but I had always liked the name Sara. I don’t know what it was about that name. I just loved how it sounded. It felt warm, inviting, and gentle. It took a while to convince Simon to agree with the name. He wanted to use his Grandma’s name. But there was no way I was naming my daughter Heather. That’s an old person name. Jake completed our little family. It was the four of us against the world. Then that terminology became very very literal. Everything I’ve done, every time I’ve pulled the trigger or swung my arm, it was for them. It was to give them just one more day. Now Solomon wants to take that away from me. He wants to take that away from everyone. I refuse to stand by and just let that happen. He won’t hurt my family. He won’t hurt me. He won’t leave this museum alive. I’ll see to that myself. I open my eyes, finally snapping back to reality. Jayce runs to some cover beside me.

“You alright!?” He shouts.

“I’ll be a lot better once this is over.”

“That makes two of us.” He stands up, taking a couple shots. I do the same as he crouches down.

“You know how many there are?” I ask.

“Too damn many, that’s for sure.” He takes a few more shots before looking over to me, “We all need to push up together!” He shouts, “Janette! Are you ready!?”

“Gonna have to be!” She responds. Her and the rest of the group push up to us. We need to surround them.

“Try to move that way!” I point to the left, “If we surround them it’ll be harder for them.”

“Alright, we’ll try.” Her and a few of the others run from cover to cover, all of us taking shots when there’s an opening. Jayce and I move up slightly. I poke my head around the corner and see Mark wrestling with someone he’s zip tied to. I aim, but it’s hard with them moving around a bunch. I fire, hitting him in the chest. Mark gets on top as he falls backward, choking him. I push up more and more to try and help. He stops moving, and Mark rolls off of him.

“MARK!” I shout, “WE’RE COMING!” Ada stabs the man in the head, then cuts Mark free. He runs out of view, then comes back with Jake. He’s crying, but otherwise fine.

“Where… where’s Sara?” I ask, looking around, “Does Ada have her?”

“Elsie… I…” He pants, looking around, “I’m so sorry, she…” I freeze.

“She… she’s with Ada, right?” I look into Mark’s eyes, and I see nothing but pain. “She…” Mark mutters, “It was instant… she didn’t suffer…”

“No…” I feel… something I haven’t felt before, “No, no, no, NO!” I toss my rifle onto the floor and pull out my pistol and machete.

“Elsie, wait!” Mark grabs my arm.

“He’s going to suffer, I’ll make sure of that.” I look over at Jayce, and he nods, we come to a silent agreement. Ada runs over as I start marching.

“Els…” She hugs me, “I’m so sorry…” I move us behind some cover.

“I’m going to kill him for what he did.” I say, gritting my teeth, “You and Mark get out of the dining hall, it isn’t safe here.”

“Els, your eye, are you ok?”

“I’m fine Ada, just… get somewhere safe, ok?” Ada nods through the tears, then kisses me.

“I love you, and I’m here for you, through anything.”

“I love you too.” I look at her hands, “Thank… thank you.” She stands up and runs over to Mark and Jake. They all carefully flee the hall, and I focus on my target. I stand up, firing at someone, then another. Once there’s an opening, Jayce and I run through. 

“YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!” I hear Joseph. We run up, and he’s punching Solomon in the face.

“JOSEPH!” I call out, and he looks back, “He’s mine.” I walk up, putting my pistol away, but keeping out the machete.

“Elsie…” Joseph wimpers through tears, “Elsie, I…” I push Joseph out of the way.

“You fucking monster!” I shout.

“Oh, was that brat yours?” His laugh is raspy and laboured. I look over and see Sara, face down in a pool of her own blood.

“I’m going to make sure you feel all of this.” I say, running my finger along the side of my machete, “I’ll make sure it isn’t fast.”

“Give me your best shot you fucking bitch.” He laughs again, “Even if you kill me, I still won.” His laugh gets even louder, “You lost your home, your friends, and your daughter.” I slam my machete into his ankle, and Solomon screams in agony. I raise it up again and stab his shin.

“YOU TOOK MY DAUGHTER AWAY FROM ME!” I kick him in the face, “YOU KILLED MY DAUGHTER!” I kick him again, “YOU GOD!” And again, “DAMN!” I pull the machete out of his leg, “WASTE!” I raise it up, “OF SPACE!” I stab it into his stomach, making him scream more, “PIECE OF HUMAN GARBAGE!” I raise it up again, slamming the blade down on him. First his side, then his shoulder, his chest, arms, legs, stomach, knee, hips. I slash him again and again and again and again, blood spraying onto my entire body. Even after he stops screaming, I keep going. But I make sure to avoid his head. He’s going to become an actual monster. I stand up, blood dripping off of me and the blade of my machete. I slide my machete back into its sheath, and just crouch down.

“I hope you felt every single piece of that you unloved bitch.” I angrily say to Solomon, “Nobody will mourn you.” I stand back up, spit on his body, then turn to Sara. I slowly walk up to her, and ready my arms out. I flip her over, putting my hand on the back of her head. I can feel blood dripping from the gunshot wound. I start to sob. I wail, I scream, I cry in a way that I never have before. As the adrenaline slowly wears down, the entire weight of her death crashes down on me in an instant. All the agony. All the pain. I feel every bit of it all at once. I hug her close to my chest. I try to bring her back to me. I beg. I beg for her to come back. I beg for whatever god might be out there to kill me and let her live. I beg, but nobody answers. I feel a hand softly grab my shoulder. I look up and Joseph looks down at me.

“Come on.” He says softly, “Let’s find her somewhere nice.”

“W-w-why did it have to be her!?” I sob, “WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE HER!?”

“Solomon wanted her to kill me, but… she refused.” He crouches down beside me, “She died because she didn’t kill me. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you. I’ll happily die defending you to atone.”

“She cared about you…” I say, running my fingers through her hair, “Let’s go find her somewhere to rest…” I stand up, cradling her.

“Do you want me to take her?” Jayce asks.

“No… I got her.” I look at her, remembering all the good memories we made together. All the memories that are just that now, memories. Her first steps. Her first words. Her first year of school. All nothing more than memories now. Even more tears start to flow down my face as we start walking. I hope that fucker burns in hell.

I Wish It Was Me

I smile as I wait outside the classroom, waiting for the bell to ring. Sara was nervous about starting school. She didn’t want me to leave, but I eventually calmed her down enough so she stopped clinging to my leg. She kept saying she was excited to start school, but once we finally got here, I guess she just got cold feet. It’s common for that to happen though. They spend their entire life by your side, and when you have to leave them for a while they take it really hard. Sara was far from the only kid that was scared for their parents to leave. Jake coos in the carrier that’s resting on the ground. I crouch down and lift up the cover.

“Well good morning sleepyhead!” I stick my finger out, letting him hold it, “Sara will be out soon, then we’ll go home.” Jake babbles and spits a little, I just laugh. I was terrified to have another kid, but Jake has surprisingly been smooth sailing. I guess him being my second made me know what to expect, so that’s probably some of it. It can be hard to put him down for a nap sometimes, but when he’s out, he’s out for a while. Sara was not the same there. She never wanted to sleep, and when she finally did sleep, it would be for half an hour at most. The door to the classroom opens and the teacher walks out, with all the kids right behind her. Sara comes out, scanning around. When she locks eyes with me she smiles widely and runs over to me, nearly knocking some other kids over.

“MOM!” She says as she damn near jumps into me.

“Hey Sara!” I hug her tightly, “How was your first day of school?” I crouch down to her level.

“It was so much fun!” She does a little spin, laughing.

“See? I told you it would be fun.” I chuckle.

“Look at what I drew for you!” She takes her backpack off and rummages through it, pulling out a piece of paper. It’s a drawing of me. It’s a portrait made out of crayon, with “MOM” scribbled at the top. I smile, and feel some tears well up in my eyes.

“Thank you Sara.” I hug her, “I’ll keep this forever.”

“You’re welcome!” She smiles, “Can we go home now? I’m hungry.”

“You didn’t eat your snacks?”

“I did… but I’m still hungry.”

“Alright.” I smile, picking up the carrier, “We’ll get you something when we get home.”

“YAY!” Sara skips down the hall beside me. I look down at her as we walk. She’s too damn pure.

Joseph walks up to a monster clawing at the door to Ada’s room. He grunts in pain as it falls to the ground.

“You alright?” Jayce asks as Joseph puts his hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, just got shot earlier.”

“Jesus!” Jayce says in a shocked voice, “We’ll get you patched up when we have a moment to breathe.” Jayce opens the door and the four… three of us walk in. Mark is sitting down, bouncing his knee quickly. Ada is pacing around the room. Jake is… somewhere. They both look up at us as we enter.

“Els!” Ada runs up to me, pausing, “I’m… I’m so…” I walk over to Ada’s bed, laying Sara down on it gently. I hug Ada as tight as I can, starting to sob again. Ada runs her fingers through my hard.

“We’re going to be alright, Els.” She tries to comfort me, “We… we’ll figure out what to do.” Mark puts his hand on my shoulder.

“I… I would give anything to swap places with her.” His voice shakes, “I should’ve done more to stop them. I should’ve fought harder. I should have…”

“This is all my fault…” I whimper, “We had so much time to leave. We should’ve left the second we knew they were coming.”

“Elsie, no!” Mark says sternly, “Don’t think like that. None of this was your fault.”

“I don’t…” My legs start to feel weak, and I sit down in a chair, “I-... I failed her.”

“Els, you did everything you possibly could have done.” Ada crouches down, looking me in the eyes… eye, “You wanted to fight for this place. You saw that this place was worth fighting for because it was a safe place for your kids. Yeah, The Tyrrell is done, but that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. All of us, we’ll go out there, and make a safe place.” I smile slightly, but it quickly fades away.

“Yeah…” I sigh, “I’m scared of what will become of me…”

“We’ll be here to support you every step of the way Elsie.” Mark smiles, putting his hand on my arm.”

“Like I told you, I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you.” Joseph steps forward, “I feel horrible for what happened, and I’m going to make it right.”

“I’d love to help too.” Jayce says, “If you’re alright with me tagging along.” Mark looks at me, and I nod softly.

“We’d be lucky to have you with us.” He says. I feel another weight on my arm. I look over and Jake is tightly holding me. I’m not going to let anything happen to him.

“Let’s go.” I say softly, “I want to find somewhere nice to bury her.”

“We should get you a proper bandage first.” Ada says as I stand up.

“Me too please.” Joseph says as he steps forward.

“Alright…” I say, crouching down to Jake, and hugging him as tight as I can, “I won’t let anything happen to you Jake. I promise.” I whisper into his ear. He holds me tighter.

We step outside into the courtyard, and I see Janette put down John. She looks up at us, her eyes wide.

“I’m so sorry for your loss Elsie.” She says softly, “Is there anything I can do for you?” I look down at Sara, wrapped up in some sheets.

“No… I don’t think so…” I do everything in my power to hold back tears, but it’s a futile effort. I look back towards the museum. The wall around has crumbled, and the building itself isn’t any better. Walls are caved in, and there’s black smoke coming out from the roof.

“Do… Do you want to come with us?” Janette asks, looking back at the small group of survivors.

“Thanks but… we’re going to find our own way.” I sigh, “Thanks for everything you did for us though. I can’t put into words how much I appreciate your help.”

“Of course Elsie.” She smiles softly at me, “I just wish it ended differently.”

“Yeah…”

“I helped a group get out during the attack.” Joseph steps forward, “They went West I think. You might be able to catch up with them.”

“Thank you. We’ll see if we can find them.” She looks over at Jayce, “Are you going with them too?”

“Yeah.” Jayce says nervously, “I just… I want to help Elsie. She needs it.” Janette nods, putting her hands on her hips.

“Well, umm… I guess this is goodbye then.” She looks down at the ground, “I’m… I’m glad we met you guys. And I hope that things get better for all of you.”

“Thank you.” I smile a little, “The same goes to you too.”

“I know that things won’t be easy, but you’re all good people, so make sure you don’t forget who you are.” I don’t know why, but what she said really resonates with me. I won’t forget who I am. I won’t forget what I fight for. Ada hugs Janette before she walks back to her group. They all wave at us before heading West. I hope they make it out there. Maybe we’ll find each other again one day.

“Where are we going to go?” Ada asks, looking over at me.

“We parked a car at the welcome sign.” I look over at her, “Hopefully nobody siphoned it or took the battery.”

“Then I think I might have some ideas for where to bury her.” Jayce says, “I’ll tell you how to get there once we get to the car.”

“Thank you Jayce.” I say as we start walking. I take one last look at The Tyrrell. It was once our last hope of survival. Now it’s been destroyed, just like everything else. This world isn’t ours anymore. We’re just living in it like everything else.

Final Resting Place

I dip my hands into the creek, washing the blood off my hands. The water turns a crimson red as the blood comes off. I splash the cold water onto my face, doing my best to get it all off. I look across the creek, out across the badlands. A couple monsters stubble across the landscape, wandering with no destination. I wonder who they were before. I feel a hand softly place itself on my shoulder. I look back and see Ada smile softly at me.

“Hey Els.” She says as she crouches down beside me.

“Hi…” I look down at the ground.

“You doing alright?”

“No, but… I’m still alive…” I look up at her, tears flowing down my face, “Are… are they done digging the hole?”

“They are, we’ll start as soon as you’re ready.”

“Ok, I just… need a minute…”

“Take all the time you need Els.” She says as she kisses me on the cheek. I adjust the bandage over my eye, and take a moment to collect myself. I look down at my hands, still slightly stained with blood, and plunge them back into the water, trying to get the rest off. It’s a futile effort though, since only a little more comes off. Taking a deep breath, I stand up and walk towards the group as Joseph and Jayce lower her into the grave. Jake is clinging to Mark’s leg, burying his face in his thigh. Mark rubs the back of Jake’s head. I look down at her, my lip quivering. A silence washes over all of us as we just stand there.

“I-... I’ll always remember the day Elsie told me she was pregnant.” Mark breaks the silence, “I was just in utter disbelief, I was going to be an Uncle. And for the entire nine months, I was terrified. I wanted to be a good Uncle, but I had absolutely no idea how.” He scratches his cheek, “But when I saw her for the first time, it all clicked just like that.” He snaps his fingers, “All my worries just disappeared. Granted, I was still scared I’d do something wrong and stuff like that. But I wasn’t worried about being a bad Uncle.” He crouches down, picking up a handful of dirt, “I’d give anything for just one more day with her. Goodbye, Sara.” He tosses the dirt into the grave.

“When it was just the four of us out on the farm, I almost saw Sara and Jake as my siblings. I wanted to protect them. Keep them safe. I did anything it took to make sure that they got tomorrow.” He stumbles forward, “I’m not going to lie, I… I loved Sara like she was my sister. I did some horrible things with the T-Rexes. I had to execute someone.” His voice breaks a bit, “I hated doing those things. But I did them in the hopes that one day I could get away from those monsters. I tried so many times to get away and make my way to Drumheller.” He picks up some dirt, “Each time I got a little farther than the last, but it was never enough. And when Solomon threatened to kill me if I got caught again, I knew I had to figure something out. I just wish I could’ve gotten to you guys sooner. Or maybe… found more information about what they were planning. I just… I feel horrible knowing that I had a hand in causing… this. For that, I’ll atone for my sins, no matter the cost.” He tosses the dirt into the grave. I feel myself starting to break down. Ada steps forward next.

“I remember one night, Sara and I snuck out because she wanted to see the stars. We laid out in the courtyard, just staring up at the sky. While we were looking, we saw a shooting star, so I told her to make a wish.” She pauses for a moment, wiping away her tears, “She… she said ‘I wish for us to always have a roof over our heads’. I’ve been thinking about that a lot more today.” She picks up some dirt, “I’m going to fight for a roof over our head, I’ll grant her wish. Goodbye, Sara.” She drops the dirt into the grave.

“I, uhh…” Jayce nervously steps forward, “I know I didn’t know Sara for that long, but… I can tell she was a good kid. She always seemed like the kind of kid I would want if I ever have kids.” He looks down at Sara, “When I lost Maddie, I thought that was the worst pain anyone could feel. But seeing how this loss broke Elsie… wanting to help her but knowing that there was nothing I could do, I knew I couldn’t have been more wrong.” He picks up some dirt, “I’m going to help you through this Elsie, just like you helped me.” He drops the dirt too. I look over at Jake, but he’s just crying.

“I-... I never thought that… that I’d be here.” my voice shakes, and it’s hard to speak, “It seems like a lifetime ago that things were… normal.” Ada wraps her arm around me, “I wish I could go back and live one more day from back then. I took it all for granted. I didn’t fully appreciate what I had until it was gone.” I lean my head against Ada’s, “The day everything happened, it was just any other day. I took care of the kids, Simon was at work, and we were waiting for Mark to pick us up so I could visit our dad in the hospital. And when the dead started walking, I knew that things would never be the same again. I didn’t want to believe it at first but… but deep down, I knew.” I look over at Jake, “I swore that I’d protect my kids no matter what, but… I couldn’t save Sara. So I’ll be damn sure that nothing and nobody will touch a hair on Jake’s head as long as I still have a pulse. I refuse to be at the funeral of both my kids. He’ll be at mine.” I grab the shovel, “Goodbye, Sara. I love you so so much. And I’m so sorry this happened.” I start shoveling dirt into the grave, but I start to sob, and I physically can’t. Ada catches me as I fall to my knees. I don’t know how I’ll be able to move on from this. I don’t think I physically can. This isn’t something you move on from. I’ll always have the memories I made with her. I’ll remember the good times. Her first day of school. Taking her skating. Teaching her how to ride a bike. They’ll help me to keep going.

I sit down at the picnic table across from Ada, putting my hand on my leg. She’s just staring towards Elsie. She’s just kneeling in front of Sara’s grave.

“Has she moved at all?” I ask.

“Barely.” She sighs, “Nothing more than shifting position.”

“Should… should we talk to her?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Ada looks down at the table, making circles on the table with her finger, “She’s grieving, I think the best thing we can do for her is giving her space for a while.”

“Yeah, maybe…” I want to help her, but I know that I can’t, “I’m worried about her. Joseph told me about what she did to Solomon. I’m not saying that I blame her for doing what she did, but… I’m scared that she’ll lose herself. Or that she already has.”

“Was it… bad?” She asks, looking up at me.

“You saw what she looked like after, all that blood…”

“Fuck…” She puts her face in her hands, “I hate that I would’ve done the same thing.”

“I feel like most of us would in that situation. All that rage, coming out all at once.”

“How’s Jake holding up?”

“About as well as you could expect I guess.” I look over at the car, “He managed to fall asleep but… it’s going to be really hard on him.”

“All of us will be there to support him through this.” Ada smiles softly, “We’ll all be here for each other.”

“I’m glad you’re here with us Ada.” I look over at Elsie again, she’s laying on the mound of dirt now, “You’re a good person for her.”

“Thank you Mark.” She smiles again, “I want to do everything I can for her. She deserves a chance to be happy.”

“You’re welcome, Ada.” I put my hand on hers, “I can keep watch if you want to try to get some sleep.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I can’t sleep.”

“Thank you.” She stands up, “I’ll see if I can find somewhere to lie down for a bit.”

“Goodnight.” I wave as she walks off. I look back at Elsie. I’m scared for her. I’m scared that I won’t be able to help her.

“I told you.” Simon scolds me as he walks around me, “I told you exactly what was going to happen, and now Sara is dead because of you.” I look up at him with my hands on my knees. Wind blows my hair into my face, but I don’t know where it’s coming from.

“You think I wanted this to happen!?” I shout, crying, “I didn’t want her to die. I didn’t want to abandon The Tyrrell. I stayed because I wanted to build a life for us there.”

“Oh yeah and look at how well that turned out.” He chuckles, then crouches down to my level, “Not to mention how quickly you moved on from me. You met someone who gave you a little bit of attention and you got this god damn lesbian fucking fantasy. I thought you loved me.”

“I thought I did too, but Ada actually treats me like a person, not a possession.”

“You’re lucky I even dated you.” He scoffs, poking my forehead, “We both know that nobody else would’ve. You saw yourself back then. The social outcast. Didn’t get lucky like the rest of the girls who naturally got better bodies.”

“Shut up…”

“When I saw you at that party, you know what I thought?”

“Shut the fuck-”

“I thought ‘that looks like a girl who will listen to anything she’s told because she’s desperate for approval from someone’; So I took a shot, and sure enough, I was spot on.”

“FUCK YOU SIMON!” I scream, standing up, “Don’t you fucking dare act like you were this pillar of excellence. You were no fucking model citizen. I should’ve listened to my parents and left your ass. You used me because I was weak, I never took the reins in my life. You couldn’t handle the fact that I grew up. That’s why you’re dead, and I’m still here. You believed that everyone was lesser. You killed my Mom so that you’d get out of the house. You didn’t want to accept the fact that we couldn’t make it just the four of us.”

“Look at you, hardened by the world. You never stood up to me like that.” He chuckles, staring me up and down, “Gotta say, it’s kinda hot.”

“Fuck off.” I walk away.

“Well, I mean there was that one time you stood up to me.” I pause, “You remember it, it was messy. I wanted us to move to Toronto because I could get a better paying job. But you sure as shit didn’t want to. We argued back and forth and back and forth forever. But I eventually just got tired of it.”

“Yeah, then you fucked me to try and ‘make up for it’.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it.” He laughs.

“Even when you’re fucking dead you’re still a pretentious asshole.” I start walking away, and I keep going.

“Babe, wait!” He calls out, but I just ignore him.

Just You and Me in the Wreckage of the World

Birds chirp as I open my eye, the sun shining down on my face. Fuck… did I sleep out here? I sit up beside Sara’s grave, brushing dirt off my face and clothes. I rest my hand on the top for a moment, then pick a nearby stick up off the ground. I drive it into the ground, marking the grave. I wish it could be more, but it’s the best I can do with the available resources. I kneel in front of it again as I hear the cracking of sticks behind me.

“Hey, Els.” Ada crouches down beside me, hugging me tightly.

“Hi Ada.” I say in a groggy voice, “Did… did I sleep out here all night?”

“Yeah, but Mark and I took turns keeping watch. We figured it would be best if we didn’t disturb you.”

“Thank you.” I say softly, looking down at the grave again. Ada kisses me on the cheek, I turn my head over and kiss her back.

“I know that it’s going to be hard for you, but you have all of us to help you through this.”

“I know, just… it really hurts.” I say as she grabs my hand.

“And that’s a perfectly normal thing to feel, we all feel it too.” She sighs, “That pain is going to be inside of us for a long long time.”

“How’s Jake doing?” I ask.

“Him, Mark and Joseph are out checking the different campsites for supplies.” She looks over in the general direction they went, “Jake hasn’t been talking much, and when he does, the sentences are never more than a few words at most.”

“Yeah, he’s always done that when he gets upset.” I sigh, “I saw the way he looked at me when I was covered in blood. I don’t know if it was fear or… I don’t know…”

“He might’ve just been in shock.” Ada reassures me, “What happened yesterday was a lot for such a young mind to comprehend. He didn’t know what to do.”

“Maybe…” I wipe a tear away and adjust the bandage, “Would you be able to change the bandage and clean the wound for me?”

“Of course, Els.” She smiles, “I’ll be right back.” She kisses me again, and gives me one last hug before standing up and walking over to the car. I’m just left with my thoughts as I sit in the grass alone. I listen to the wind, the birds, the soft rushing water from the creek. It’s a small moment of peace in this horrible situation we’re all in. What Simon told me, is that what he really thought? Or is it what I think he thought? Maybe it’s what I think of myself deep down… fuck, I don’t… everything is going to be alright. Ada returns with all the supplies in hand, crouching down in front of me. I take the bandage off, and toss it onto the grass behind me.

“Is… is it bad?” I ask nervously.

“Well, it definitely isn’t pretty.” She looks a little closer, “But from what I can tell, it doesn’t look infected. It’ll likely be permanent damage though. Can you see through it at all?” I close my good eye, but see nothing.

“No, I can’t.”

“I’m sorry…”

“It’s alright.” I look down at the ground, “I got him worse though.”

“What did you do?”

“I uhh… I bit a chunk of his neck out, then stomped his head in.”

“Fuck… are you ok after that, mentally?” She asks, with a concerned look in her eyes, “I don’t mean that in a bad way, just… y’know, that’s a lot.”

“I don’t think so, no.” I sigh, “I fucked him up pretty good. Also my eye being gouged out when he was trying to… do horrible things to me wasn’t the best feeling. It felt like… my brain was being invaded. I felt the smallest movement of his finger, and it was agony.”

“I’m so sorry Els.” She grabs my hand, “Oop, you got a bit of blood there.” She wipes the blood that started flowing down my face, “We should probably get you patched up.” She pours rubbing alcohol onto a rag.

“Don’t give me a countdown, just do it.” I say, bracing myself.

“Alright.” She says nervously as she puts the rag in my eye. It stings, and I do my best to keep still. I breathe heavily when she finally stops, “I’m sorry Els.”

“It’s ok, Ada.” I say through the pain. She helps me wrap a clean bandage around my head. She looks at me as we finish, then over to the grave.

“Are you ready to head out?” She asks.

“Where?”

“I don’t know, we never really came up with a concrete answer. Maybe you could help us.”

“Alright, just… give me a moment to… say my goodbyes.”

“Of course babe.” She kisses me before standing back up, “Take all the time you need.” I watch her as she walks off. I then turn back over to the grave, kneeling in front of it again.

Joseph, Jake and I return back to the camp. Elsie is up, her and Ada are sitting at one of the picnic benches talking. Jake runs up to her, and wraps his arm around her. She quickly turns around, smiling at him. I smile softly seeing her smile. As we walk, Joseph grabs my arm.

“Mark, can we… can we talk?” He asks timidly.

“Of course.” I say, turning to him, “What is it?” He crosses his arms, holding them tightly to his body. His eyes shoot around nervously.

“I know that we were apart for a long time, but I always thought of you.”

“I thought about you too.” I look down at the ground, “I missed you so much.”

“I wanted nothing more than to hold you in my arms again, and I know that right now is a super stressful time, but we haven’t really… kissed or anything like that very much…” I see tears start welling up in his eyes, “Are… are we still…?”

“I-... I love you, Joseph, but… I’m not in the best place right now mentally.” I grab his hand, “I want us to still be together, but I don’t think I would be a very good partner for you right now, and that wouldn’t be fair to you.”

“Oh…” He looks away a little to try and hide the tears. I pull him into a hug and hold him tightly.

“When I’m in a better place we can pick up where we left off, I promise.”

“Ok..” He sniffles.

“We can still be there for each other of course.” I reassure, “If you need someone to talk to, I’ll always be here for you.”

“And… and I’ll be here for you.” He looks up at me, “Thank you for being honest with me. I know that wasn’t hard for you to say.”

“I’m glad you asked though, because I’ve wanted to have this conversation with you, but I was too scared to.”

“I was scared to mention it to you too because I was worried about what you were going to say.” He wipes his nose on his sleeve, “But I think I’m alright with the answer you gave. I completely understand that not being in a good place mentally makes relationships harder.”

“Thank you, Joseph.” I smile, “You going to keep wearing that jacket?” He looks down, realizing he’s still wearing his T-Rex jacket.

“Oh, shit.” He starts taking it off, “I like that jacket but… too many bad memories.” He takes one last look at it before tossing it into some bushes. He turns back to face me.

“You want to head back, figure out a plan?” I ask.

“Yeah, let’s go.” We walk back together, side by side. I want to hold his hand, but… now just isn’t a good time. I hope he doesn’t feel hurt because of it. I hope he understands.

I softly kiss Jake on the forehead as Mark and Joseph come back too, placing their backpacks on the ground beside the picnic table.

“Hey Elsie.” Mark says, hugging me, “How’re you doing?”

“A little better, but… y’know…” I look up at him, “Did you find anything of use?”

“Somewhat.” He picks his bag up and opens it after placing it on the table, “We got a pack of batteries, some lighters, a new flashlight, and… marshmallows.”

“Well, it’s better than nothing I guess.” I look down at Jake again, running my fingers through his hair.

“So, what should we do?” Jayce asks, leaning against a tree, “We probably can’t stay here. Should we go to a small town or something?”

“Maybe not a town.” Ada says, “We should go somewhere where the dead aren’t.”

“Yeah I’m with her on that one.” Joseph steps forward, “We were in a compound near Brooks, and there were bastards at the fence practically at all hours.”

“We could go North, into The Northwest Territory.” Ada suggests.

“There wouldn’t be many monsters up there, but supplies would be scarce, we’d have to fend for ourselves.” I interject.

“That and the winters.” Mark adds.

“Shit yeah, that’s true.”

“We could go South, to The States.” Mark says.

“Maybe, but there’s probably more of the dead down there.” Ada stands up.

“What about West, into the Rockies.” Jayce steps forward.

“Yeah, that… that might work.” I look up at him, then over to Mark, “There’s plenty of natural resources out there, cover from wind, natural defenses against the dead and people.”

“Yeah, we could find a cabin or something and set up there.” Mark smiles.

“Maddie and I passed through there on our way East, and the lower altitudes seemed like they could work.”

“Does anyone object to that idea?” I ask. Everyone shrugs or says no. I look down at Jake, he’s smiling softly up at me.

“I think it’s a good idea.” Ada says as she puts her hand on my arm.

“I think so too.” She kisses my cheek, and I feel myself smile a little more. Now of course nowhere will be 100% safe. Everywhere has some sort of risk to it. But going into the mountains seems like our safest bet. We can set up traps to catch bunnies and other rodents. Put some fortifications up. Find a source of clean water. I think we have a good shot. I just wish Sara would be able to see it too.

Goodnight my Sweet

Jake and I sit in front of Sara’s grave as the rest get ready to leave. I put my hand on top, and Jake does too.

“Sara, we… we have to go.” I say to her, “We’re going to find somewhere safe. But you’ll never leave our hearts.”

“I’m going to miss you Sara…” Jake wimpers, I pull him in close to me with my other arm, “I’m glad that you were there to protect me…” He looks up at me, “Do you think she’s in heaven?”

“Yeah, I’m sure she is.” I reassure him, “She’s looking down on us now, so she’ll never really be truly gone. She’ll always be with us, even though it isn’t physically.” I feel myself starting to cry, but I manage to hold it back. I pull her knife out of my pocket, looking down at it in my hands. I close my hands on it, looking over at Jake.

“I know you aren’t old enough just yet, but once you are, I’m sure she’d want you to have her knife.” I open my hand up, looking at the wooden grip, and leather sheath covering the blade.

“Woah…” He looks at it in awe, “Will you teach me how to fight too?”

“Of course hun.” I smile at him, “You’ll be just as good as she was.”

“I can’t wait!”

“You need to know that this isn’t a toy.” I say to him, “You should only use it if you can’t run, and fighting is the only option.”

“I know…” He groans, “But it’s so cool!” I look back at the group. They’re getting closer to being ready to leave. We should probably head back.

“It is cool, but you’ll get it once you’re older.” I put it back in my pocket, “We should probably head back right away, so if you want, say goodbye to her one last time.”

“Ok…” He says, looking back at the grave, “Goodbye Sara… thank you for the knife.” He hugs the ground. I put my hand down on it one last time.

“Good… goodbye Sara.” I can’t hold it back anymore, tears start flowing out of my eye again, “I… I love you so much.” Jake and I stand up, and he grabs my hand as we walk over to the group.

I sit out on the porch late at night. It’s hard for me to fall back asleep after Sara wakes up crying. A cigarette hangs off my lip as I look up at the sky. The city's lights make it hard to see many stars. I like the cool breath though, it lets me think for a moment. I don’t know if I regret getting with Simon. I love him, but sometimes I wonder if he truly loves me. He claims he does but it’s one thing to say something. I love Sara though, I definitely don’t regret having her. I take the cigarette out of my mouth, exhaling the smoke as I put my hand over my eyes. I’m barely 18, didn’t finish high school, definitely won’t be able to go to college. Could I be considered a failure? I’d work somewhere if I could, but with Simon working already, we’d have to find a babysitter, which would eat up more of our money. Simon gets paid a decent amount, but we’re practically living paycheque to paycheque. I hope something changes for us soon. Because I don’t know what could happen if it doesn’t. I guess we can only take things one day at a time though, so that’s what I’ll do. I’ll always be there for my daughter, that definitely won’t change anytime soon. I’ll be there for her through anything life throws our way. I just hope she doesn’t make the same choices I did. I hope she’ll at least wait a while before she has kids. I tap some of the ashes into the ashtray. Right before I put the cigarette back into my mouth, I pause and sigh before putting the cigarette out. I pull my legs close to my body, tapping my knee. My eyes start burning as tears start to form. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like things are going to change. I’m scared that this will be the life I’m forced to live. Did one decision ruin my life? Should I have said no to Simon that night? Fuck… I don’t know. I don’t know what I should and shouldn’t have done. It’s not like I can see the future so how was I supposed to know that the choice I made would lead to this moment? I’ll be alright. I’ll figure something out. I’ll make it work.

Jayce pulls us into a gas station in a small town. The sun is starting to go down and the sky is a nice orange colour. He parks the car and I take a look around.

“Here should be a good spot to rest for the night.” Jayce says. God, I’ve slept in too many gas stations for my taste. But hey, what’s one more.

“It looks clear.” I say. The inside is being illuminated by the setting sun. I don’t see any monsters in there. The front door is propped open by a dead body, so at least getting in will be easy.

“I can go check it, just in case.” Joseph says, opening the car door.

“You sure?” Ada asks as he steps out.

“Yeah, I got it.” He smiles, “Shouldn’t take too long.” He closes the door and Jake jolts awake.

“Hmm?” He groans, rubbing his eyes.

“Hey Jake.” I smile at him, “We’re going to rest here once Joseph makes sure it’s safe.”

“How much farther do we have to drive?”

“Not too much farther.” I look out the window and point, “The mountains are just over there.”

“Woah…” He stares out the window at them. The sun gives them a really pretty colour. They look amazing from here.

“You want to step out and stretch your legs while we wait?” I ask him.

“Yeah, my legs hurt.” He says as I open the door.

“I’m with you there little man.” Mark says as he steps out too, “My legs are too long to sit back here.” Mark crawls up and goes out the door.

“You can have shotgun in the morning.” I say as he stretches.

“Thank god.” He says as I hear his joints crack, “I’m getting too old for this shit.”

“Bitch, I’m older than you.” I swat him with my hand. He jumps back.

“Exactly, so why am I in pain and you aren’t?”

“Firstly, I’m shorter.” He rolls his eyes, “Secondly, I guess I just got better genes.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” Mark jokes as Joseph comes back.

“It’s clear.” Joseph says as he approaches. Mark turns to face him and my smile disappears from my face. I have to pretend that everything is fine. It’s hard, but… I can’t let them see how much pain I’m in. I don’t want them to feel sorry for me.

“Is there anything we can use in there?” Ada asks as she steps out.

“From what I can tell, it wasn’t too ransacked in there.”

“Perfect, we can load up in the morning.”

“I can try to siphon some gas too, we don’t have much left.” Jayce says as he steps out too, “I’ll take first watch if you guys want to sleep.”

“I’ll get second.” I raise my hand, “Just come get me when you want to sleep and I’ll take over.”

“Alright, thank you Elsie.” He smiles at me.

“You’re welcome.” I open the trunk and grab my bag and weapons. Jake and I walk towards the store. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when we get to wherever we’re going. But I know that everyone here is a good person to have. We all want to help each other through all this. Maybe we can find a small semblance of normal for each other.

[tumblhurgoyf]

Feeling super negative for a multitude of reasons, some not Magic related at all, but the recent talk on Blogatog about “microset” products just feels so out of touch. I don’t want to bring that negativity on one of Mark’s posts as I’m not sure I could be polite about it and I’ve mostly just dismissed the product as not for me already anyway. But I do want to vent.

First it’s like $1 a card for random cards? That’s nuts. Boosters are already overpriced with all the commons included. They worked some really good PR speak by explaining away cutting the commons to give you more rares and uncommons, but the reality is you’re just paying more for less. It’s not like those rare slots are actually going to ever reach an EV that makes it a good gamble.

Second let’s talk about product fatigue. Like not only is this an additional release (or four) a year, but you’re doing normal and collector’s boosters for this as well? Holy fuck.

The fact that Mark’s openly work shopping what variation of this product players might actually shell out money for tells me it’s not received well. I haven’t seen a positive video about it at all.

It’s a shame though that they can’t give their golden goose a bit of breathing room though. I shared that post the other day about... let me find it for the term... trust thermocline. The basic idea is that people who like your product will stick with you through some missteps and bad ideas. And you won’t even notice how bad all of them are because sales keep increasing and people keep paying higher prices and buying new stuff and all that.

But at some point you hit that trust thermocline. Something pushes a lot of people over the edge. You walk it back but it’s too late. Because the thing is that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. They didn’t leave because of one bad story, or because $5 a pack was too much but $4.50 wasn’t, or because two dozen products a year was ok but thirty went to far.

They left because of all of it. The last thing is just what made them finally say “enough.” And once they say enough and leave, you don’t get them back. It’s hard to see because things keep chugging along and all your numbers and metrics look fine. But I feel like Wizards has to be approaching this. I wonder about why they stopped including space at the end of surveys for additional comments. Too much negativity they don’t want to put any effort into handling?

On a different front, I’m also not enjoying the lore changes they’ve dropped with this same product. I am willing to admit that I’m somehow still too close to the story to really take a step back and appreciate this; that could change with time. But my reaction right now is that desparking a lot of planeswalkers while opening rifts so anyone and anything can now travel the multiverse is just stupid. You’ve just eviscerated the story conceit that made planeswalkers special.

idk, I wasn’t thrilled with how they handled the team up cards anyway, and to me this feels like the next step of that. We got to see unlikely allies on cards, now what if we got stories where Thalia was on Ravnica fighting the Obzedat? It feels (I keep intentionally using the word feels to describe this--it’s my emotional reaction detached from the idea that they’re going to be able to tell cool stories they couldn’t otherwise tell), anyway, it feels like they just tossed out a core story concept and don’t even realize it.

Like as much shit they get for the world of hats approach, I think that really works for what they do and is part of what I enjoy. I’m honestly in part concerned that the recent big events that effect the entire multiverse and set up this situation where planes can blend a lot more freely could impact the distinct feel of different worlds. And while I’m sure that’s something that’s on creative’s radar, they’ve also burned enough trust in recent years that I’m doubtful they will handle it well.

Though at the same time this feels kind of par for the course. There have been so many let downs in Magic story over the years that the amazing part is that I’m still invested at all. But the story’s a slave to corporate needs and is undoubtedly more story-by-committee than ever. A left-right punch to KO any creative work for sure.

But I shouldn’t be surprised. They are not and have never really tried to say they’re anything else. They make blockbuster sets and want blockbuster stories to go along with it. Anyone who wants a fantasy card game with DC/Marvel story sensibilities to produce artistic short fiction is a damned fool.

Anyway this is just me venting. Could all be wrong. Time will tell. If you want to vent here feel free.

[missjanjie]

Nobody asked but that’s never stopped me anyway. So, here’s which queen from every season that I think is most likely to be on a future all stars season (no repeats/winners) with explanations that also no one asked for:

Season 1: Porkchop - I just feel like they’re priming us for her to be on either an AS or early-outs season and I think she deserves it

Season 2: Nicole Paige Brooks - it was between her and Mystique as the only ones left and Nicole has expressed interest in going back for AS, and with Poppy’s reunion look referencing her, she’s back on fans minds

Season 3: Delta Work - out of the queens that haven’t been on, I think she’s the most relevant other than Carmen, who has burned all the bridges between her and wow anyway. idk what standings she’s in but I could see it happening

Season 4: Dida Ritz - I’ve seen people campaigning for her to be on AS for a while now, and she’s always expressed a willingness to go if invited back. And while Willam is more popular, we can all safely assume that’s not happening

Season 5: Lineysha Sparx - like Dida, she had some good highlights but never really got her flowers (I’m noticing a trend here). No offense to Monica, because I am genuinely so excited to see her on AS8, but I am a bit surprised she was picked over her. But I will concede that I don’t know if she’s still active in drag, but a lot of articles had said MBH retired so 🤷‍♀️

Season 6: Joslyn Fox - I like her, I wanna see her back on. But this is one of those cases where out of the remaining queens from that season, she seems like the most likely choice unless the producers want a ‘do it for the meme’ route like with Serena and cast Kelly (who doesn’t need it and has a great resume on her own, but that’s how I imagine a show runner seeing it)

Season 7: Jaidynn Dior Fierce - another queen that fans have pointed out deserve another chance in the spotlight and there have been rumors that she’d been shortlisted once or twice. Kandy Ho was also shortlisted for what I believe was an early-out season, but I feel like between the two, we’ll see Jaidynn first

Season 8: Cynthia Lee Fontaine - this is, of course, contingent on her health being in a strong enough state to take it on, which isn’t a given, unfortunately. So, barring any health problem, I know Ru loves her and would bring her back

Season 9: Peppermint - at this point, I feel like they’re gonna give into peer pressure one of these days and finally cast her. I think a lot of fans feel that it’s long overdue

Season 10: Asia O’Hara - the only reason I put her as more likely than Kameron is because (I think) she’s expressed more interest in going back. But both of them did the Vegas show for a while so wow definitely likes them and is probably keeping tabs on them

Season 11: Vanessa ‘Vanjie’ Mateo - I feel like this is one of the more obvious ones, to the point where I’m actually surprised it hasn’t happened yet. My theory is that they’re waiting to bring her back when producers know she’ll go far (unlike with 11 where there were a lot of highs and lows without people really seeing her as ‘winner material’). I will, however, acknowledge the possibility that someone like Nina or Plastique could be cast before her

Season 12: Crystal Methyd - like Vanjie and Cynthia, it’s clear Ru loves her and production likely wants her back. That said, I do think she’s one of the queens that wants to put a little more time between her original season and AS, but there’s no other obvious choice. And knowing what I do know about AS shortlists, there’s a chance Rock or Dahlia may precede her if they do go an early-outs route

Season 13: Denali Foxx - again, I don’t know if she’ll be the next s13 queen to go on for the same reasons as Crystal, but I don’t doubt it’s inevitability with how much of a fan favorite she is. If I saw anyone getting cast before her, it could be Kahmora (see above) or Utica

Season 14: Any of the four runner-ups - I know, kind of a cop-out. But here’s the thing, the obvious answer is Kornbread, but she’s said she doesn’t want to go back for AS, but wanted to get another chance to compete in a regular season (which she should’ve!!!). So, Daya, Bosco, Camden, and Angeria all seem more or less equally likely if you mix both the fandom and production standpoints

Season 15: Mistress Isabelle Brooks - also kind of early to call, of course. But I’m not talking about who will be the first/next queen of a season to do AS, just who I feel like stands a good chance of being on one at some point. And I’m so sure they’re gonna wanna bring her back

[sweetmusingss]

Oscar smirked softly at you when hearing what you said before shaking his head. “I am not that threatened since I already have it in the back of my mind that you are likely to murder me while we’re on this yacht. I already know it’s coming. Maybe I should warn Lando in case I mysteriously disappear. But you’re too pretty to be in prison,” he said. “And if Lando’s games are too much tonight, I might be actually begging you to murder me,” he sighed softly, playing these games being his worst nightmare since he didn’t love being outwardly social. “No, she definitely won’t be Face Timing me,” he said, not even saying anything else. He couldn’t even get a text back barely. He highly doubted she would be randomly calling him.

I smile as he calls me pretty, it being obvious that we were crossing the boundary from banter into flirting and I was more than okay with that turn of events. “I’d love to hear you beg... for murder.” I giggle, continuing to sip my iced coffee. “I think Lando wants this to be like a college party so he wants everyone to get drunk and do embarrassing things and what better way to make that happen than to force us all to play stupid embarrassing games.” I furrow my brows a bit as he says that she definitely wouldn’t be calling him, finding that interesting. I haven’t had a boyfriend in a while, being too focused on school to really give anyone a proper chance, but I did know that if my boyfriend was on a yacht with a bunch of other girls and I was not with him, he’d be getting phone calls once every hour. “If my man was on a yacht with Lando and this whole lot, I’d be calling him... but I’m not a girlfriend so what do I know. What does Katie call them? WAGS?” I laugh, shaking my head. “She’s desperate for me to become one... she says all the other girlfriends on track suck.” I take a long sip of my iced coffee before realizing what I said, looking over at him and giving him a playful pout. “Oops... see, I’m too honest sometimes. Sorry. I bet she’s a lovely girl.”

Max walks out into the kitchen with Katie and Charles in tow, glancing out the large window onto the deck and seeing me and Oscar chatting away out there, nudging his girlfriend in the side to point out the scene to her, unaware of Charles noticing as well. “I don’t think I’ve seen Oscar talk so much... especially to someone who isn’t an interviewer or you, Lando.” Max pats Lando on the back in greeting, laughing when he realizes that Lando was eating his breakfast and actively watching the two of us talk outside. “Breakfast and a show, yeah? Can you hear what they’re saying?”

__

I felt really bad that you were here instead of where you should be right now but it also warmed my heart to know that you cared for me as much as you did. I sigh softly before nodding at you. “Yeah, I am a little upset.. But he’s not the first man to call me those names and he definitely won’t be the last. I would only let it get to me if you believed those things he said and you don’t… So, I will be fine. He’s just a jerk. Please go do your media, baby,” I say, stroking your cheek gently. “I can wait for you in your driver’s room.” 

“That doesn’t matter. It just makes me more mad to think that other people have called you names and it really isn’t helping my anger right now... I can’t go do media, Katie, I’ll headbutt someone.” Max says honestly, it being painfully clear that he was in no shape to go talk to people. If he was a cartoon character, there would be smoke and steam coming out of his ears. His hands were balled into fists and his jaw was clenched so tight that it looked on the verge of breaking. “I don’t want you alone in the paddock... he’s still lingering around. I want you in media with me.”

Renee was watching the entire thing, realizing that Max was completely beyond saving and now he was asking for things that were unrealistic and were never going to happen. She walks over and looks up at Max, the two of them being good friends so she wasn’t as afraid to approach a very angry Max Verstappen, knowing he was all bark and no bite with his good friends. “Max, I’ve got her. She can’t come to media with you, it would cause a huge scene and no one would be talking to you about the race and your dad would just use it as ammo for another attack on you or her or whoever. I’ve got her here, me and Charles will look after her and she can visit with Leo and when you’re done, I will bring her back to you... but you need to go do your job and let Katie just hangout here with me where your dad can’t find her.”

[lara-cairncross]

I doubt I’m the first person to notice this, but I haven’t seen anyone point it out, so… 

y’all remember this scene from Hollow Mind?

Aka, that scene where Hunter watches as a literal BIRD PALISMAN dissolves in his hands?

I know people like to throw around the word “foreshadowing” a lot, but like. please consider.

 am I overthinking it? yes definitely but now I feel like one of the cool people contributing with theories so <3

[wheelsup]

kissing lessons

summary: one of your classic movie nights with spencer turns into a learning opportunity

A/N: this is really fluffy, but the whole story centers around kissing. use your own judgement! i’d say it’s at worst 16+

category: spencer reid x gn!reader, fluff (with a bit of spice)  best friends to lovers (sorta)

warnings: just kissing, a brief implication at the end

word count: 3k

Occasionally, the team will spend an extra night in their hotel before heading home from a case. Be it due to poor weather conditions, or the fact that your case wrapped in the dead of night, the reasons for flying don’t ever matter. Because the majority of the times when you have to stay that extra night, you and Spencer have sleepovers.

The routine is pretty much the same. You’ll stock up on gas station snacks – sour peach rings for Spencer, salted microwave popcorn for you – and reconvene in one of your hotel rooms. Preferably, whichever of you got the better deal that week – a bigger tv, a room further away from the ice machine. And you’d rent the cheapest movie available on-demand, the options spanning from low-budget sci-fi to poorly written rom-coms. That night, the viewing fell under the latter category.

Spencer perched at the foot of your bed with both feet tucked under his legs, criss-cross style, while you laid against the headboard to watch. Every now and then, you tossed out your commentary and he’d ignore it. He always says you’re too critical of movies and you’re of the belief that he’s too forgiving.

“I don’t think they should end up together,” you mumbled, words slurring around your mouthful of popcorn. You pulled a face right as the movie approached the romantic climax, after spending the past ninety minutes actively rooting against the couple. Spencer ignored you, pretending to be engrossed in the movie to spite your disparagement of it. “They both suck.”

You groaned, slumped further against the pillows, and shoved your sock-clad toes under Spencer’s left thigh in a call for attention. He jumped at the intrusion, but ultimately, your efforts were futile.

And then the big kiss commenced, and your booing finally piqued his interest. “Gross! I feel bad for people who kiss like that.”

A small bell went off in his head and he took a curious glance at you over his shoulder.

“What do you mean?” he asked. He stopped chewing and the piece of candy in his mouth pushed out his cheek, giving him an adorably innocent look. His brows scrunched in the middle and his nose had a tiny crinkle in it, utterly confused.

You scoffed and matched his expression. “Are you serious?” You jerked your head in the direction of the television and Spencer whipped his head back, squinting. He couldn’t figure out what you were pointing out, what it was that was so obviously wrong to you. “Spencer, he’s swallowing her chin!”

Oh. He hadn’t noticed.

Feeling dumb, he muttered, “I thought that’s how you’re supposed to kiss…” It wasn’t the deepest confession to admit to you that he lacked some knowledge when it came to kissing, but he still refused to look at you as he said it.

“Spencer, please tell me you haven’t been kissing people like that.” You narrowed your eyes at the back of his head, sitting up straighter in bed. He shrugged and lowered his head, focusing on his snack as his fingers dug into the packet of gummy rings in his lap.

He popped another piece into his mouth, pretending to be occupied with eating so as to avoid your prying. “I dunno.”

It didn’t occur to you until that moment that Spencer might have learned everything he knows about kissing – among other things – solely through watching movies. How else could he look at that and think it’s normal? And you’re left wondering if he’s ever even practiced it with another living human. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it, but unfortunately, that only heightened your interest. You had to know.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” You kept your voice low, your tone implying that you were ready to exchange this secret with him. You wouldn’t judge him if he admitted he hadn’t.

He scoffed loudly, and though you couldn’t see his face, you’re positive he rolled his eyes too. “Yeah, of course.” Then quietly, he added on, “But it was only like… for four seconds.”

You nodded thoughtfully, considering how this new piece of information adjusted your existing view of Spencer. For some reason, you couldn’t tell if you actually expected him to be experienced or not.

He didn’t exactly scream that he’d… gotten around, for lack of better words, but you’re still surprised to learn that he’s barely done it at all. You supposed he was objectively cute, that maybe you could see it if he weren’t your best friend. And yeah, he’s a little awkward, but he’s smart and kind, so he has three great things going for him, and you’re surprised more people haven’t swooped him up yet.

Your lips curled down in thought, brows raised in curiosity. “And was it good?” It was a genuine enough question, because you’ve never really thought about Spencer Reid and kissing in the same sentence before. As it turned out, there was a lot of missing information relating to those two things.

“I don’t know! I didn’t get, like, a feedback form,” he grunted, angling his shoulder even further away from you. If you could’ve seen him, you’d notice his face boiling and turning red with heat. All this inquiring made him think harder about his … talents … than he’s ever had to before, and he’s not a fan.

You were prepared to do some more digging when the slump in his back made you feel a tinge of guilt. It was your fault he looked so defeated. You pressed too hard, disregarding his boundaries just because you wanted to know more. And now, he was wondering if there was something wrong with him, because you wouldn’t leave it alone.

He barely noticed as you swung your feet from under his thigh and rocked onto your knees, leaning forward to nudge his shoulder with your palm. It hauled his attention out of his thoughts and back into the room. You wanted to apologize, but instead you settled with “I’m sure you’re fine, Spence.”

He nodded unconvincingly. By the glow of the screen, you could see he was still gnawing on the inside of his cheek, focusing his eyes as he played with a loose hangnail on one of his fingers. It made you feel even worse. “Are you actually worried about it?” you asked, laden with concern.

“What if I am bad at it?” He whispered, like saying it too loud would make it true. “And that’s why it’s only happened once?”

A large exhale puffed out of your nose as you weighed your options.

You could go back to your original plan and apologize for setting him down this path of doubt. But that wouldn’t do anything to stop him from worrying, anyway. You could tell him there’s no correlation between the way he kisses and how frequently it’s happened; that you’re sure the reason isn’t because he’s bad. But you don’t know that for sure.

So, fuck it, you thought, grabbing a fistful of his pajama shirt and tugging him closer to you roughly, pressing your lips onto his.

This way, you’d at least have an informed opinion to be able to tell him if he was good or bad.

His lips were softer than you expected – not that you’d thought about them often, they’re just impossibly softer than they look – and invitingly warm. But they were completely stiff.

You could tell he was trying to kiss you back by the way his mouth ferociously moved over yours. He was trying to be a passionate, engaged partner, but he forgot about the aspect of tenderness.

His lips felt like two solid objects just sliding around on your face. They didn’t move in any sort of accordance with yours. There was no push and pull, your lips didn’t mesh perfectly together to form a solitary unit as they moved in unison.

It felt more like his lips were your opponent, putting up an attack and defense play against the actions of your own.

You pulled away, resisting a giggle at his bewildered face. “You’re not so terrible,” you swipe the corner of your mouth, smudged with Spencer’s flavored chapstick, “But it could use some work.”

He was at a loss for words, mouth gaping open as his eyes darted around the room and all over you. Maybe he’d find an explanation for what just happened carved into the walls somewhere or written across your forehead.

What happened was that you kissed him. And he was a little bit bad. Simple as that.

“I-I wasn’t ready!” he stammered, chucking up his hands defensively. He’d process the fact that he’d just made out with his best friend at a later time, right now the bigger concern was the slight cringed look on your face. He sulked and folded his arms.“What was so bad about it?”

“Well,” you scratched the back of your ear, trying to gauge if he’d react well to getting some advice, “my first tip would be to relax your lips.”

“Okay, I can do that.”

“And don’t think too hard. You should react to what’s happening in the moment, not worrying about what your next move is gonna be.” You could see the gears turning in his head as he tried to envision what that would play out like in a real situation. “You wanna try again?” you offered, figuring he’d learn much faster if he was more hands-on about it.

He nodded, and you leaned in close, waiting for him to go for it. His heart quickened under the pressure of performance, eyes screwing shut as he closed the gap. His mouth smashed into yours as he dove in hard. It was toeing on the side of too harsh, but you let that one slide in hopes it was just a byproduct of his nerves.

You had to tap his knee to remind him to relax, and he loosened some of the tension he had in his lips. He slotted his between yours, allowing them to be pliable to your movements and remembering to react, not plan.

He moved his mouth leisurely against yours, trying to match your pressure and pacing. They actually started moving in time with yours at some point. The kiss took on a shape of its own as he started getting out of his head, letting himself enjoy the kiss for what it was in that exact moment.

It was already better than before. Leaps and bounds better. But then he tried to deepen it, building on its intensity but adding more… something into it. You couldn’t even tell what it was he was trying to do.

“Okay, second tip…” you inhaled sharply, pushing him off of you with a palm against his chest. Whatever it was, it needed to stop. “You kinda do this thing like… where you’re blowing air into my mouth?” You scrunched your nose, punctuating your dislike. “That feels weird. Don’t do that. If anything, do the opposite.”

“I’m supposed to suck the air out of your mouth?” His face contorted, voice already slightly exasperated. He barely understood what the air thing was that you claimed he did. He didn’t realize in the process of trying to add pressure to the kiss, he was just forcibly blowing against your mouth.

“Not literally, no.” You laughed a little, rubbing your palm in a comforting pattern on his chest.”But you can use your lips to suck on mine, or my tongue… just nothing involving the exchange of breath. We’re not in CPR training.”

He eased up a little with your joke, adjusting to your advice he gave it another try. After a few moments, he latched onto your bottom lip with his own, sucking it softly into his mouth. “Yeah, like that,” you mumbled against him, voice pitching high in encouragement. He sucked on it with a little more greed, holding it for a second, then eased up, varying the pressure of his movements just like you did before.

You made a mental note to praise him for that at a later time, deciding to instead part your lips to see if he’d venture into further experimentation.

He caught on quickly. He parted them further, prodding his tongue against them as you opened to allow him entry. Just as you started to really enjoy it, he ran his tongue over the inside of your mouth, moving it fast and roughly like he was a washing machine.

“Stop,” you grimaced, tearing away quickly. You had to swipe your hand over your mouth to get rid of the excess saliva that really shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place, given how brief the frenching was. “Your tongue is way too aggressive.”

Overwhelmed, he tilted his head to the ceiling and let out a frustrated grunt, slapping his hands down to the top of his thighs.

There were too many factors to worry about. He had no idea how you looked at him with a straight face and told him not to think too much when there were a million things he needed to remember all at once; he needed to vary his moves to keep it interesting, but make sure he’s not ruining the flow by changing things up too much, and to be gentle but not timid.

All of this was second nature to you, but it was brand new to Spencer. Could you really blame him for not getting the hang of it right away? You decided to stop your list of critiques short for this round to spare him. He’d get there eventually, but not if he felt discouraged too soon.

“I don’t see why people like it in the first place,” he huffed, his head returning to it’s normal posture. In Spencer’s eyes, there truly wasn’t any appeal to kissing with tongue; it looked sloppy and unnecessary, and as you’d just confirmed, it actually was.

You thought about his statement for a second. There’s a certain allure to it, and you didn’t know how to describe it to him. So instead you cupped his cheeks in both your palms and slid your mouth over his again. As his jaw slacked its tension, you slowly pushed your tongue past his lips and gently pressed it against his own before swirling them together.

You sighed softly into his mouth, running your fingers through his hair and tugging carefully at the ends. He made a small noise against you, something like a whimper, and you swallowed the vibrations of it. As you retreated, you captured his bottom lip between your teeth and gave it a light, teasing tug. You soothed it again with your lips before releasing it, a proud giggle forming in your chest as Spencer chased after your lips as you broke apart.

“That’s why.” You smirked at the dazed look on his face. His eyelids remained closed longer than necessary, still feeling the ghost of your mouth on his and a tingle where your fingers were in his hair.

“Oh.” His voice came out meek as he slowly came back to reality, brows wrinkling up his forehead as he opened his eyes.

He put both his palms down on the mattress, one laying flat on either side of you, and dove forward to resume the kiss right where you left it. A surprised squeak left you as his mouth collided with yours with an insatiable hunger. You brought one hand back to his hair, and he was a goner.

He unfolded his legs from under himself and shuffled onto his knees, following his hands until he practically crawled into your lap. Each of his legs hooked onto either side of your thighs as he hovered over your lap, leaning his body entirely into yours.

The physics of it didn’t hold up; he’s taller than you are, and his chest was too heavy for you to carry. The balance was off center and it sent you tumbling back onto the mattress, bringing him down with you until his chest laid on yours.

It was the perfect force – the weight of him on top of you. He tasted like peach candy and sour sugar, and you found yourself craving more of it.

You shuffled higher up the mattress, giving him space to stretch out his body as he followed yours. One of his hands found your waist, gripping tightly, while he placed the other on the mattress beside your head, using it to steady himself. Sliding your legs out from under him, you wrapped them on the outside of his hips, using them to pull him closer down to you.

It only broke off in moments when both of you absolutely needed to get air, gasping as you pulled apart for brief reprieve before colliding again. He followed every word of your advice, getting better with each passing second until he exceeded expectations by leaps and bounds.

Your fingers weaved through his hair, passionately tugging the wavy strands to angle him against you and igniting his nerves under your touch. A soft moan leaves him and you’re encouraged to tighten your grip on them. His hips bucked reactively at the sensation, and he quickly pulled back, a slight embarrassment creeping up his cheeks. He got too carried away.

You took in his flushed face and swollen, kiss-bruised lips. They’d turned a shade of red brighter than you’ve ever seen them, and it was all you could do not to dive for them again as his tongue sweeped over them, soothing the burning heat you’d left on them.

Before he could apologize for his eagerness, you nudged your nose against his, your smile skimming against his lips. “So what else don’t you know how to do?”

☆

☆

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[artzee-bee]

Sick little lady| Adrien Agreste x reader

Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug

Request: “ hey! if your mlb requests are still open— maybe an adrien/chat one where reader is sick and so he either comes over or sneaks her into his house? thank you! “

Genre: fluff

Warnings: none

A/N: I’M BACK!!!! Finally. It’s been a long time but now that I’m finally done with school and all my exams (which went great by the way) I can get back to writting❤️ Requests are open again for anyone interested, I promise to not take as long on finishing them anymore :)))

~~~

Sickness snuck up on you when you least expected it. You woke up one day with a stuffy nose and a slight cough and before you knew it, you could barely get out of bed. You called in sick from school and spent the large majority of your time in bed, sleeping away your headache, until you got a phone call around 1pm

“Hello?”

“Hi princess, how are you feeling?”

“Not...the best”

“Well then, would you maybe open the door for your prince charming so he can help you feel better?” you could practically see the smirk on his face

“Right now” you told him before hanging up.

Slowly but surely, you made your way to the window above your desk, pulling the curtains to reveal the black clad superhero of Paris, also known as your boyfriend. He climbed in and stepped over your desk, hugging you tight

“You’ll get sick, silly kitty”

“That’s for me to worry about princess” he said, booping your nose

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school right now?”

“You are losing yourself in details, the most important thing is that your hero is here to take care of you” he smiled, before escorting you back to bed.

By the time you got back under the covers, he had already detransformed. Now, he was just Adrien Agreste, the model, the school boy, the heartthrob of so many teenage girls in Paris. His hair was messy, no wonder from jumping from rooftop to rooftop to get to you.He reached for a bag on your desk, one he’s probably brought with him

“I got you some vitamin c and some other things Alya and Nino said would help. I’ve never been good with meds but I trust them” he said, making you giggle. He was such a clueless little boy!

“It’s ok really, I have everything that I need”

“Well, I doubt you have everything...:” he pulled something out of the bag and hid it behind his back, slowly and teasingly approaching you

“What’d you get?” “Hmm, I don’t know” he said with an evil smirk on his face “ Wanna take a guess?”

“I think I’m too tired for that” you joked, making him giggle

“Fair point” finally, he brought his hands in front of you, revealing a bowl of ramen from your favorite restaurant. Your eyes immediately lit up with excitement and when you reached out to take it from his hands, you noticed it was still very warm “Thank you Adrien!”

“Anything for you, little lady” he said, before kissing your forehead

“I’ll get you a spoon for that” 

While you ate your food, Adrien helped clean up your room a little bit, since you had no energy to put away clothes or clean your desk. While he was working, he made sure to catch you up to speed with everything that happened in school, from classes, lessons and homework to Lila’s latest shenanigans and all the fun things happening in your friend group. You loved listening to him talk, but it was getting harder and harder to stay focused. Especially after you were done eating and you felt all warm and cozy on the inside, you could barely keep your eyes open

“Babe? Is everything ok?” Adrien asked, noticing your distracted state

“Yeah, I’m good. Just a little sleepy I guess”

“Should I leave? Do you want to nap?”

“No, I’ve spent all day sleeping. I’m fine” Adrien looked at you and knew instantly that you were lying. He sat down next to you in bed, taking your hand in his. You instantly began playing with his ring, as he talked to you

“You should rest. The faster you get better, the faster you get back to school and we’ll get to hang out again”

“It’s barely been 2 days since we haven’t seen eachother in school” you laughed, but as you spoke, Adrien was already tucking you in bed

“Well, I miss you. So take care of yourself” he kissed the top of your head before whispering in your ear

“Good night love”

“Night!”

~

It had barely been 3 days before you got well enough to get back to school. Because of his busy schedule, Adrien didn’t have time to visit you after that day, but he made sure to facetime you as often as he could. When you walked through the gates of the high school, he was the first to notice you. He had been sitting with Nino, Alya and Marinette but as soon as his eyes met yours, he took off running towards you. He wrapped you in a hug

“Hi babyyy!” he whispered, sounding like a little kid

“Hey!” you laughed

“You didn’t tell me you were coming back today!”

“I wanted it to be a surprise”

“Well consider me surprised! How are you feeling?”

“Much better. Thank you for everything”

“I barely helped” he said in an honest and somewhat disappointed voice. You cupped his face in your palms, making him look straight into your eyes

“You did more than enough. I love you Adrien!”

“I love you too” he smiled. You booped his nose before taking his hand in yours and guiding the 2 of you to the rest of your friends, who were patiently waiting to welcome you back to school as well.

[bullet-prooflove]

PB & Jelly Otis 😍😍 From the Otp jealousy prompt list Brian “Otis” Zvonecek x female reader.

- ‘you know they think of you as more than a friend’

In which Otis tries to remember that Clarke is a really good guy...

Molly’s was busy, busier than it usually was for a Friday night but that didn’t stop Otis from noticing you perched on a bar tool right at the very end. Your hand was wrapped your bottle of beer, your eyes dazzling in the glow from the fairy lights that were strung on the ceiling above. He could hear your laugher over the hum of the crowd, a sound he would know anywhere. It plucked a chord deep within him, one that was viciously ripped out his chest when he looked up to see former fighter Jeff Clarke whispering in your ear.

He felt his heart wrench at the sight before he busied himself on the opposite side of the bar. He didn’t want to see the two of you together, he didn’t want to think about Clarke’s hands roving over your body, his mouth on yours.

He knew he was being unfair. Clarke was a good guy, a great guy in fact. He had put the pieces of his life back together after injuring his spine on the job and before that, there had been that whole thing with his ex-wife Lisa. Clarke deserved to be happy, Otis simply wished it was with anyone but you.

He knew the way this was going to go. He had seen it a million times before with women who had crossed his path before they stumbled into the arms of other men. He chanced a glance at you again to see you slapping Clarke’s arm with the back of your hand. By the end of the night something would happen between the two of you, he’d bet his shares of Molly’s on it.

Still, this was the first time in a while that he had seen you laugh like that. It had been a tough year, your brother had died last winter of an O.D, and you’d been forced to organise a funeral that consisted of an audience of three. Otis had attended alongside you and the priest who had been assigned to the cremation. You’d clutched his hand throughout the service. When your voice began to shake during the eulogy he had stepped up and taken the paper from your quivering hands and said the words you hadn’t been able to.  

He’d been the one to get you home when you had been so blindingly drunk, you’d barely been able to stand. He’d rebuffed your advances when you’d tried to persuade him to stay the night because he knew what it as like to feel that crippling numbness, to want to seek comfort, to drown it out. You hadn’t talked about that night and neither had he. He doubted you even remembered it.

Seeing you happy again, even if it was with another man…

Clarke was warm, compassionate. The kind of guy that would treat you the way you deserved.

It was when Clarke excused himself to use the restroom that Otis approached setting another beer down in front of you. You placed your chin on your hand and gave him that wonderful, beauteous smile, the one that was currently tearing his heart into tiny pieces.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you all night.” You said to him as he placed his elbows on the bar and leaned over.

“It’s been a busy night.” He shrugged before tipping his head in the direction of the restrooms. “You know he thinks of you as more than a friend, right?”

“Are you talking about Jeff?” you asked him incredulously.

Jeff…

He hated the way the other man’s name rolled off your tongue. To Otis he was simply Clarke but to you he was Jeff.

“Trust me, he’s a great guy.”

“Uh huh.” You said, taking a sip from your beer. “I remember you being a pretty great guy the night of David’s funeral.”

Otis raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Yea. I remember that.” You told him. “And I’m sorry I put you in such an awful position.”

“You were hurting.” he said simply.

“That doesn’t excuse what I did.” You informed him. “You were there for me, and I tried to use you…”

“But you didn’t.” He pointed out.

“Because you stopped me.” You reminded him, thumb peeling away the label on your beer bottle. “And I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for being there for me, even when I did my very best to seduce you.”

“You don’t have to thank me.” He told you, picking up Clarke’s empty beer bottle and tossing it into the recycling.

“Maybe I can try again sometime?”

He paused for a second, the words taking a second to register before he turned his attention back to you.

“I thought you and Clarke…”

You shook your head vehemently at his words.

“God no, he used to serve with David before…” You trailed off before picking up the thread of the conversation. “He didn’t make it to the funeral because the snow grounded all the flights from Washington.”

Otis felt like an idiot. You had mentioned that your brother’s friend was stranded, he just hadn’t realised that your Jeff, was his Clarke.

“Oh Brian, were you jealous?” You teased him, your eyes glittering with mirth as you leaned over the bar. “Trust me Jeff is definitely not my type.”

“What is your type?”

Your fingers enclosed on the collar of his shirt, drawing him closer as you whispered against his lips.

“Let me show you.”