#i might just yeet this from existence

[artemisravencourtney]

Klaroline WIP Wednesday: Mixing all the colors like we're making a Monet

I don't know what this one is, guys. I guess technically speaking it's a songfic because literally all of it was inspired by 'Violet Chemistry' by Miley Cyrus (including the title), which I then put on loop as I wrote it, but you don't have to listen to the song to enjoy it. But anyway yeah normally when I write a fic I have something of substance in it but this one is literally all for the vibes. And somehow it's currently sitting at 2.5k and I don't even think it's any good so, yay?

Plot: Klaroline run into each other at a club. That's it.

When he first sees her, Klaus thinks he must be dreaming.

She looks like a goddess, but she always does, commanding attention in any room she enters with the warmth of her presence and her otherworldly beauty. And otherworldly is exactly the word for her as she twirls with some bumbling human who is far too inebriated to match her steps. She’s wearing a dress made of tiny, white, satin, the hem stopping at her mid-thigh. The dress shifts color as it’s caressed by the strobe lights, going from neon green to inky blue to a brilliant, brilliant violet. Her golden curls are loose and wild, the humidity giving them more volume than he’s used to seeing on her. And then she twirls again, and he realizes that beautifully tempting dress is backless, with thin white straps crisscrossing over bare skin that he can still taste on his tongue from their last rendezvous.

She is an angel among mortals, and he must see her up close. He knows he promised to keep his distance after their time in the woods, but a chance encounter like this doesn’t count, does it?

Caroline spins away from her partner again, and Klaus realizes that she’s being strategic about it. Every time she stills, even for a second, the drunken oaf tries to put his hands lower than would be appropriate.

“Marcel,” he grits out, remembering that they were in Miami for a reason, “have our associate know that I was unable to make it this evening, but I will join you both for brunch tomorrow.” The other vampire starts to question him, but he walks away before he can finish getting the words out.

No, this time doesn’t count, he decides, making his way toward them.

[featherymainffins]

Me when I have plans but my head looks like a trashcan on fire and like 3 separate "mes" are arguing with me about said plans

[garsideofthemoon]

hot take time but the point of shb is that venat was right

[jaewritesfic]

Everlasting Trio DP x DC Nobody Knows Au Pt 6

Part 5

Warning for very brief flashback implying vivisection

It is highly amusing to float to Red Robin's rooftop and see up close how intensely vigilant he's being. He looks like if a pigeon took off halfway across the city he'd fucking notice, but the ghost standing next to him and trying not to snicker goes undetected.

Poor guy. He really seems like the type to drive himself up a wall over a mystery - he's certainly been driving himself up a wall over Danny.

Danny has to force himself not to tickle the back of the guy's neck just to watch him flail.

He likes Red Robin, he really does. He didn't set out to torture the poor guy - Red did that all by himself, all Danny has been trying to do is help. 

They can't pursue him the way they have been and expect him not to try and get some entertainment out of it. It tempers the annoyance, making their obsession with finding him a game.

Danny considers the box in Red's lap.

He's been doing the same thing with each box they leave him from the beginning: grab box, open pocket dimension, yeet.

Not even Bat trackers can transmit from an entirely different plane of existence, it would seem.

And the thing Danny has discovered about having died when an entirely different plane of existence opened on top of him and merged with his DNA?

He is a pocket dimension, in a way. 

In other words, no need to expend energy to tear the fabric of reality to deposit his loot - all he needs to do is phase things into himself.

So Red will definitely notice when the box disappears from his lap and seemingly blinks out of existence, but at least he won't be seeing any neon green tears in reality open up in front of him.

That seems like a good deal to Danny.

He steps forward and reaches for the box-

NA NA NA NA NA NANA

Danny and Red Robin both curse and flail as the Ghostbusters theme rings out across the rooftop.

Red Robin nearly falls out of his lawn chair launching himself away from the sudden sound, almost dropping the lockbox in the process.

Danny frantically searches his pockets for his goddamn phone, pulls it out, has the fear of God struck into him at the idea of hanging up on Sam Manson and thus shoves it into his chest to go to voicemail somewhere where nobody can hear it ring.

In the dead silence that follows, Danny finds himself in something like a startled cowboy standoff where only one of the participants is actually visible.

Red Robin stands with feet braced shoulder width apart, lockbox in one hand and bo staff in the other. He is visibly bewildered and ready to throw hands.

He's staring at the space a little to the left of Danny's head, so at least he hadn't dropped his invisibility in panic.

Welp. No use trying to change plans now.

Danny lunges forward and grabs the lockbox, relishing in the squawk of shock and indignance Red Robin makes as it abruptly leaves his hand and blinks out of sight.

He doesn't anticipate how fast Red Robin will recover or move.

A hand wraps tightly around his wrist and jerks him back in an impressive estimation of where Danny might be occupying space.

Danny almost goes ghost right there. Not because he wants to, but because for a moment there are restraints around his wrists and ectoplasm on the table and bright lights and sharp blades and pain-

He swallows the growl that wants to well up in his throat as he turns and looks at Red Robin, teeth feeling a little too large and sharp in his mouth before he forces himself to calm down.

Red is staring him straight in the eyes despite Danny being able to see he's still invisible. Red’s hand looks to be wrapped around nothing.

“You're not going anywhere,” Red Robin says, voice low and slightly feral with the high of perceived victory. That, paired with the crooked smirk on his lips is kind of, uh- well. Hoo boy, that's all Danny has to say about that.

Well, he does have one other thing to say.

“Bet.”

The way Red Robin's face falls in disbelief when Danny phases out of his grip is nothing short of glorious. Danny's already floating off the roof and out of grabbing distance before Red finishes buffering.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

Danny cackles, tossing him a salute he can't even see.

“Better luck next time, Angry Bird!”

“Son of a bitch!”

Masterpost

[rollingeevee]

Got this idea a while ago while listening to this song

Shadow Milk managing to muster enough strength inside the Silver Tree to reach out to one person. A cautious Witch child studying Dark Moon Magic, which draws its power from the Dark Side of the Moon, which Shadow Milk states is his home. Through his charisma and Deceit, he manages to form a bond with this Witch child as they grow older and older. He eventually convinces them to come down to Earthbread to aide him and the other Beasts in escaping the Silver Tree. As the Beasts were imprisoned long ago, the Witches likely no longer speak of them, and if they do, it’s probably through legend, especially since they existed long before the Ancient cookies and barely anyone on Earthbread knows of them anymore.

Very

“You… tricked me…”

“Tricked you? Oh, no, no, no, silly! No, I saved you! :)”

Vibes

Anyways, I also wrote a blurb that went along with that so I’ll add that as well YEET

You could feel yourself drifting away from the cookie. It’s likely the sun was rising. Your body was waking. “I gotta go, Milky.” You said sadly.

You didn’t notice the large blue cookie’s slit pupils further thin. Before he could stop himself, he blurted in a deafeningly angry tone, “N O !”

He realized his mistake when he saw you back away slightly, your face contorting in fear. Oh dear, he broke character! My, he really was out of practice, wasn’t he? Silly Shadow Milk. He placed his hand over his Soul Jam and bowed a bit in a gesture of apology. “Oh, I’m so so sorry, little witchlet! I’ve just been alone for sooooo long that the thought of you leaving terrified me to no end!” He whined dramatically, the back of his hand against his forehead as though he just might faint in despair. “Please forgive me!”

After a bit, you seemed to calm down. You still looked a little wary, but there was now sympathy in your eyes. You were rather emotionally intelligent for a child it seemed. “What if I come back tomorrow?”

Shadow Milk readily allowed the giddy expression to grace his face. Oh, this was perfect, perfect, perfect! He playfully tapped his chin in thought. “What if you come back… every night?” He suggested.

You giggled. “Okie!”

He held out his humanized hand, pinkie outstretched. “Pinkie promise?” He asked.

You locked your pinkie with his. “Pinkie promise!” You agreed with a smile. His eyes seemed to glow with delight at your answer.

Children were oh-so easy to trick.

Btw I’m sorry if I’m posting a bunch I’m just like- so excited that people have been liking the stuff I post AAAAAA

[catofadifferentcolor]

Terrible Fic Idea #92: Percy/Apollo, but make it The Trojan War

Into every fandom, a time travel fic must fall - or in this case a second one, because I somehow got to thinking about the delightful PJO trope of Percy being thrown back in time to The Trojan War and realized that doing so misses out on a fantastic opportunity.

Or: What if post-TOA Percy Jackson and Apollo time travel to shortly before The Trojan War?

aka the Tried To Change The Ending fic

Just imagine it:

Everything follows canon through TOA, with one exception: rather than struggle to catch up in the mortal world following the Second Gigantomachy, Percy elects to stay at Camp Half-Blood. There he can homeschool at his own place with programs tailored towards ADHD children and still visit his family on the weekends - and not get into any more ridiculous situations in the mortal world when one of the gods kidnaps him or sends him on a quest to find their sneakers.

This, naturally, stresses his relationship with Annabeth - who, now that she's no longer living at camp full time, calls it the easy way out. But Percy is tired and struggling in mortal high school where everyone thinks he's a delinquent idiot when another option exists seems foolish. Percy and Annabeth break up and drift apart.

Enter Apollo, fresh from his latest stint as a mortal. He's trying to do his best by his children, which includes popping by camp as often as he can get away with - which in turn means spending a lot of time with Percy, who at this point is unofficially running CHB because it's not like Dionysus or even Chiron have done a brilliant job of it in recent times.

(First aid, strategy, and mythology classes are made mandatory. Percy personally ensures every demigod knows enough about self-defense to be able to survive long enough to run away or for help to arrive. Bullying is cracked down on so hard that it's this, not Percy's generally parental nature, that has people calling him Camp Mom.)

Percy and Apollo become friendly. Enough so that some of Apollo's kids assume they're dating and keeping it on the down-low so as not to draw Zeus' ire. Or Poseidon's. Or anyone else's. It's on one of their not-dates that they're yeeted into the past, without warning or explanation.

And so 19-year-old Percy Jackson and post-TOA Apollo find themselves in Ancient Greece c. 1220 BCE, roughly thirty-five years before the destruction of Troy.

The time travel is immediately obvious, as Apollo becomes the closest thing a god might experience to being high the moment they land in the past - being a powerful god in modern times is nothing like being a powerful god at the height of his power in ancient times. It's overwhelming (and somewhat alarming from Percy's POV, but kind of funny in retrospect.)

The specific date is harder to determine, but made clear when Hermes shows up and starts going on about you'll never believe what father's done now: he seduced the Spartan queen as a swan and she's laid an egg. Hera is furious - especially as they're saying the girl that hatched from it is the most beautiful in the world, even though she's only a few days old. It's nuts. By the way, where have you been? You missed the last two council meetings. Do you want Dad to punish you?

Apollo at this stage is very high. He's also been USTing over Percy for quite some time and is worried what the gods of this era might do to Percy without divine protection (smiting or seduction, it's all on the table). But mostly he's very high, and so to keep Percy close and safe he declares he's been off having the dirtiest of dirty weekends with his latest lover and that Hermes' presence is ruining the mood. So if he would kindly leave, please and thank you, he'd really rather get back to it without an audience.

This, naturally, is a surprise to Percy, but he rolls with it because 1) he doesn't have any better ideas on how to get rid of Ancient Greek Hermes so they can figure out what the hades is going on and 2) he's been USTing over Apollo ever since he recovered enough from Tartarus to start feeling attraction again.

Fueled by mutual UST, they put together a cover story that should hold the next time a god with too much prurient interest shows: Percy is now Prince Persē of Gadir - a Phoenician colony that will grow into the future Cadiz - well past the edge of the Greek world at this stage but not beyond belief for Poseidon to have visited, as it's obvious who his father is. They claim his mother is the King of Gadir's youngest sister and as such Persē had a royal upbringing, but was far enough down the line of succession that he was free to chose to sail east and explore his father's homeland. Apollo caught sight of him on his journey, one thing led to another, and here they are.

(Are there easier, more sensible cover stories? Possibly. But the UST refuses to let them consider any of them now that a fake relationship is on the table.)

Deciding what to do about The Trojan War is much harder. On the one hand, it's a lot of senseless death and destruction. On the other, without it we don't get The Iliad and The Odyssey - two of the most influential works of literature in western civilization - and Aeneas doesn't go off to Italy (leading to the founding of Rome, which would change the history of western civilization a lot). In the end, they decide to let the war happen but do their best to mitigate the worst parts of it.

And so Percy goes off and becomes a hero of Ancient Greece while pretending to be in a relationship with Apollo.

This stage of things is filed with angst from both parties, as both Percy and Apollo want a real relationship with each other but think they're abusing the other's trust by eagerly faking their relationship. There's a lot of PDA, a lot of feelings, and limited communication. It goes on for quite a while and would probably exasperate quite a few people if everyone in the know didn't think they were already in a relationship.

It's also filled with modern day Percy being confronted by realties of life in Ancient Greece. It's not just mortals knowing about - and interacting with - the gods: it's everything. It's food and clothes and language and culture and housing and travel. He can play a lot off it as being a traveler from the edge of the known world, but some of it has him asking Apollo if he's being rick rolled.

Apollo, meanwhile, is having troubles of his own. He is not the god he used to be and it's hard pretending otherwise. He tries to walk the line of doing enough to be believable and holding back enough not to despise himself, but it's a fine line, he fails often, and he spends a not insignificant amount of time worried he's backsliding.

And so it goes until 7-year-old Helen of Troy is kidnapped by Theseus to be his wife.

This, naturally, does not fly with Percy, who by this time has built up something of a reputation as a hero. He teams up with the Dioscuri to rescue Helen.

One would think this would earn him Zeus' favor. It doesn't. Instead, Zeus sends monsters to harry him for refusing to let Castor and Pollux take Helen's captors' loved ones captive and raze Aphidna for Theseus' crime. Percy manages to hold his own for quite a while but eventually, exhausted from the near-constant fighting, is gored and left for dead by the reformed Minotaur.

...and when Apollo arrives, frantic, to heal him, Percy ascends instead, becoming the greek version of Saint Sebastian - a minor god of heroes, strength in the face of adversity, and athleticism; sort of halfway between Hercules and Chiron.

Then and only then do Percy and Apollo finally get their act together, confessing to each other how much they care for the other and how much they don't want this to be fake any longer.

History proceeds apace - albeit with Persē being a second immortal trainer of heroes.

24 years after their arrival in the past, 16 years after Percy's ascension, The Trojan War begins. Despite their best efforts, there's only so much they can do - war is war and gods are gods. They are able to stop some of the worst excesses on both sides, but in the end Apollo still sends the plague that causes Agamemnon to take Briseis for his own, which caused Achilles' departure from the field, Patroclus' death, &c - not because Apollo was trying to maintain the timeline, but because in the instant he sent it he was angry and reverted to his old ways.

Troy falls...

...but when Zeus tries to use this as an excuse to ban gods from interacting with their demigod children, Apollo is able to say that's a bit extreme isn't it? with enough backing from the rest of the council that Zeus is forced to amend his ruling so that the gods are only allowed to freely visit their children on the "cross quarter days" that fall between each solstice and equinox (1 February, 1 May, 1 August, and 1 November).

This changes everything and nothing.

Time continues its inevitable march. Greece has its golden age before being conquered by Rome, which splits apart under its own weight and forms several smaller countries, which eventually spread their cultures around the world...

Apollo and Percy are there for it all. Persē is a minor figure in mythology, but never forgotten. He is ever-present in Apollo's temples - though the Church will later try to rewrite their myth so that they were merely sworn fighting partners, rather than lovers who eventually had a quite lovely wedding on Olympus (and then, at Poseidon's insistence, an even bigger ceremony on Atlantis). Percy takes over day-to-day operations of CHB from practically the moment the Trojan War ends.

...and so Persē is there the day Sally Jackson tries to get her son to camp, and is able to intervene when the Minotaur attacks on their border. He's able to meet her and her young son, Perseus ("Mom named me after you and the guy that killed Medusa since you're the only two heroes to have happy endings!"), and guide him through the trials that come with being a child of prophecy.

One day that Percy will hand Luke - who was never happy with the limited attention the gods were allowed to give their children - a cursed dagger so that Kronos can be defeated. That child will be offered godhood, turn it down, and go on to have a happy life with his eventual wife, Annabeth. He will never have his memories erased and be sent to Camp Jupiter. Gaia will not rise until long after that Percy's grandchildren are dead, and Zeus will not be quite so bullheaded when the proof of it is brought before him. That Second Gigantomachy is swift, well-coordinated, and fought without another Greek/Roman war brewing in the background.

And when they finally arrive at the day Apollo and Percy were originally sent back in time, Percy admits that while he is happy some version of him was better prepared for the war he was asked to fight in and allowed his peace afterward, he would change nothing about his own life, for it brought him to Apollo. The sunrise the next morning - on the first morning of the rest of their lives - is particularly spectacular.

Bonuses include:

Gaslighting Poseidon into believing that he's met Percy before the first time they're introduced. ("What do you mean you don't remember me, Father? You were present when I came of age! You gifted me this trident! Have I displeased you in some way?") It's an absolute masterclass that eventually manages to convince Poseidon that, yes, of course he knows Percy - and, maybe, he should check in on all his other demigod children to make sure he's not missed someone. (Two. He lost track of two of the others. Maybe he should be more careful about siring children in the future.) Apollo practically has to stuff his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing.

As much historical accuracy as can be crammed into the Percy trying to make sense of Ancient Greece chapters as possible. Think Of a Linear Circle - Part III by flamethrower levels of historical research. As much as can be shoehorned in without bogging down the plot.

Percy and Dionysus bonding over their mutual dislike of Theseus, though Percy generally gets along with his other half-siblings, especially the ones who come to camp young enough to keep from getting big heads over being the children of Poseidon.

Though Percy adores all the children in Cabin 7 (most of whom are born via blessing this time around), he and Apollo have at least one child of their own - maybe a demigod born before Percy's ascension to sell their fake relationship? Maybe a minor god who's later attributed a different parentage by mortals? Dealer's choice on details.

It never being made clear who, or what, or how, Percy and Apollo were sent into the past. All of Percy's oddities are attributed to him being foreign or formerly mortal, all of Apollo's to the fact that he's in love with someone who didn't die before their first anniversary, and no one ever guesses time travel is responsible for their eccentricities. Or that time travel was ever an option.

And that's all I have. As always, feel free to adopt, just link back if you ever decide to do anything with it.

More PJO Ideas | More Terrible Fic Ideas

[insert-random-account-name]

Crappy Character Analysis, part 6

I've been putting off this one, simply because I love Contrarian, everyone loves Contrarian, and I was worried I wouldn't do him justice. BTW, if you haven't read any others, I'd recommend at least reading Cold and Stubborn before this one.

part 1 (Broken) part 2 (Skeptic) part 3 (Cold)

part 4 (Paranoid) part 5 (Stubborn) part 6 (You are here)

part 7 (Smitten) part 8 (Opportunist) part 9 (Cheated)

part 10 (Hunted) part 11 (Hero)

VOICE OF THE CONTRARIAN

Contrarian is my favorite voice, so let’s just get that out of the way. I’m doing my best to give him a fair analysis, but if there are any flaws, that’s probably why. I’d say a good 40% of Contrarian content was added after the Pristine Cut, probably because the fandom loved him so much. He basically lives up to his name. Any time someone says something, he immediately tries to counter it. Slay the Princess? No thanks. The world beyond yours is beautiful? Eh, it ain’t all that. Take the knife? Only to throw it out the window! In fact, throwing the knife out the window is his MO, seeing as he does it in three separate chapters (Stranger, Razor (No Way Out), and Fury (through Adversary)) and the only reason he doesn’t do it in the other two chapters he shows up in is because there are no windows for the blade to go out of. He also dabbles in bending reality, working together with Stubborn to keep you moving without your muscles. He is also, objectively, kind of a jerk. He calls Hero a baby for being upset at whatever abomination you see in the Stranger, refuses to give the Narrator vital information, antagonizes Stubborn by calling him weak, and then proceeds to manipulate him into throwing away your weapon, and then delivers the line that goes to the affect of “Oh, are we lying? I’m happy to be here, and I like all of you.” Of course, he does turn a new leaf at the end of the Stranger, and if you get the Stranger’s cabin at the end, he seems to have matured since the last time you’ve seen him.Contrarian exists to amuse himself. You get him by not taking the consequences of your actions seriously (not going to the cabin, fighting the Adversary unarmed, not taking the blade/stabbing yourself in the Razor, cutting your throat in the Tower). This attitude makes him careless. He wants to sow chaos, start conflicts, and just have fun. His commitment to the bit helps you survive and fight in the Apotheosis and the Fury. Who cares if you die? You were going to anyway. Contrarian doesn’t fully realize the effects his recklessness has on others until it is far too late. In the Razor, if he throws the knife out the window, he thinks of it as a funny bit. But after he realizes that there will be no getting it back, he admits he might have acted too hastily. Something similar happens in the Stranger. There may be a more deep-seated root to his nature, as well. One that most people miss. Contrarian is a contrarian out of frustration. You tried running away from the problem, and now it got worse. Now you have to face it, and he isn’t happy. If he has to confront his own mistakes, well, he isn’t going to make it easy. If he has to be miserable, so does everyone else. He reminds me of Cold, in a way. One turns to indifference, while the other turns to indignation. This point is accentuated by a line in the Stranger ending, where he confesses that he thinks of himself as the worst part of you. In the Stranger, it takes the entire world collapsing in on itself for Contrarian to fully realize the harm he’s caused. Once he sees the bigger picture, he shows remorse, and suggests that you try and help the Princess. In the Stranger ending, when you return to her cabin, he’s had more time to cool down and reflect, and he shows a surprising maturity, holding back on yeeting the blade. This may be the only voice who got significantly more content in the Pristine Cut, yet whose depth lies in pre-Pristine Cut content.

[zeondraws]

I poked a few questions at Secret Mode on their discord server and got an answer back today. Right after I came home and I can't stress how happy I got reading it.

I'll try to show my the questions and the answers together, so that people on tumblr have enough context what I asked about. Figured you guys might enjoy.

"Does Muir play the Bagpipe?" - Personally (others might disagree), I could definitely see Muir play the bagpipe (especially if he can annoy Innes with it!) but what would most likely happen is that he would bring something small that is allowed in his baggage like an harmonica.

"Something I noticed is that McLeary's name seems to be an innuendo to MacReady from The Thing, which made me wonder: Were names chosen at random or did they serve a specific purpose? Another person I know noticed Muir means "sea" while Innes means "island"." - I think the short answer is yes names have meaning and none of them were picked at random! But our philosophy is to let people draw their own conclusion as we don't want to make things "official" by giving our reasons! (we love to read/see people create their own theories so feel free to share them!)

"One small thing me and other people wondered, ingame we found a schedule for the shifts. A bunch of the crewmates seem to be listed on it, like "Derek M."? and "Joey I." Where we wondered if those were the first names of Muir and Innes?" - To my knowledge Muir and Innes have always existed in the game and can be found listed on that schedule I think although it might be hidden. Derek and Joey might be in the background without lines. - Innes' first name is Terry and Muir's name is Ewan.

"Another mini question I had was, is it possible to know who lived in the room 121? I could never find any indications thus far." - 121 was meant to be Innes and Muir's room...Innes is the one who likes reading. Seeing how much fans love them I wish we'd set dressed it more with clues about them.

"And my last goofy question is, when Muir basically yeets Innes across the deck, he is still animated when he lands inbetween the containers (I'm using a mod to look around the level a bit more). Did that have a specific reason? Did Muir just threw him across the deck or did he want to carry him?" - For Innes being animated for a bit longer, the simple answer is that our lead animator always plan to show a tiny bit more than what is shown because you never know if an angle might change...

With this I am finally able to somewhat complete my picture of the crewmate rooms. Thank you so much! I am learning so much about this game and how the developers approach the lore. I've never really been in such a community before so this is all very new for me. But a very positive experience (Since I feel extremely awkward asking questions, where I never know if I sound pushy/annoying, so I am often extremely nervous).

But this also means I have another detail to add for my video- Ooohhhh!

[bluginkgo]

Another Nuzi rant. Don't mind me

Spoilers, duh

Since I've already done a quick character study/nuzi rant from N's side. Here's one from Uzi's side!

This is probably gonna be just me repeating things people have already said... again. But I love Uzi. (Just like every other character in Murder Drones, honestly.) But Liam did a wonderful job of making an angsty, emo girl, borderline maniac that we know as Uzi. Her character, to me at least, never became the annoying overdramatized and overused stereotype that follows her style. She has real reasons for being the way she is.

A loner, whose dad loves nothing but doors. School is not different, as her classmates pretty much forget about her existence on a day to day basis. No one to talk to, no one to connect with, gives her the angsty side that I absolutely adore. Because underneath all of that toughness is just a lonely little drone who was left by herself since early age. But guess who comes in and busts down those walls (literally and figuratively)?

Our good boi N! Despite their rough start, N never really gave Uzi a reason not to trust him. Their chance encounter, and a broken sensor, allowed them to have the talk that might have never happened. Their beginning might have been a lucky accident, but for the rest of the season, we can see how both sides had to work to make well... Nuzi work!

For Uzi, asking for help is like asking for a death sentence probably. After being on her own for so long, she doesn't expect anyone to help. With that information in mind, the first time she let's that wall crumble was episode 2, Heartbeat.

"Uzi, shoot! Or give it to me!"

Granted, we all know that was not our N. But in that moment, when Uzi was in an enough distressed state, she sought help in N. We all know how that ended, though. Absolute Solver took advantage of that and almost killed her, before N once again sweeped in to save her. The one and only notorious Nuzi misunderstanding was, for better or for worse, cleared up pretty quickly. Seeing as glitchproduction only has so much money at their disposal, they can't really drag this ordeal out. Personally, I'm glad that it didn't. The long drama that is just a misunderstanding after misunderstanding gets quite tedious to follow.

So, moving forward in The Promening, Uzi once again seeks out N when she's in distress. When she sees and hears about what Doll and Lizzy were gonna do, she books it to the only person she knows can help her.

N! Now don't get me wrong. Uzi, by herself is plenty strong. She's shown off her fighting and capabilities, and would have probably been able to take V on. She's taken J down before, aaaand Uzi does technically also take V down in Cabin Fever. But she still went out of her way to go find N. So they could work together and get this mess sorted out.

And then there's this. God I love Cabin Fever, and surprisingly no, not for the Falling.... for you? scene. No, I loved the entire Uzi going on murder spree because she can! The music was such a banger too. But back to Uzi. She recognizes V and briefly snaps back to her usual self. Curious isn't it? N and Uzi both tried reaching out to V, but because V is so untrusting (and we all understand why from ep 5, Home). Here Uzi tried to ask V for help... in form of N.

I find it interesting how ever since Uzi met N and V, she's been getting better at asking for help. Sure, V shot her down because, once again, V was scared. Uzi was turning into the monster that only Cyn has been capable of creating. This soon leads to N yeeting Uzi into the f*cking stratosphere and the two have a chat.

I love how the animators included Uzi hiding behind her bat wings.

Her metaphorical walls were back up. And guess who broke them yet again.

The bestest boi N! And ever since this moment, N and Uzi are way more open.

Episode 5 was taking place in N's memories. But episode 6 is where their trust and care shines. Yeah, sure, there was the hand holding. And it was a big moment! But I enjoyed the little things more. Uzi checking in on N, nodding at his little comments and jokes.

Summary: I love Nuzi. Send help they're on my mind 24/7.

[emmg]

Herbarium had me biting into my knuckles and slamming my head against the headboard to keep me from screaming at how good this story is!!!! Could you share some of your favourite books? I need to binge whatever you’ve been feeding that insane mind of yours with

Stop it right now, you absolute angel, or I’m gonna have to dig a full-on ostrich hole and yeet my head into it out of pure bashful overload ohmyGAWD you saintly ray of sunshine 🥺

Herbarium is 100% inspired by Nabokov’s Laughter in the Dark, just without the murder and tragic unrequited love (lol, thank God). But seriously, prose-wise, it’s all coming from there.

My Emmrich is a morbid guy. Is that actually in character for him? Does he really sound like that in his own head? Who knows because I sure don’t. He’s just a bunch of pixels, and I’m not psychic.

That said, Laughter in the Dark isn’t the only book that’s left its grubby fingerprints all over my writing. There are a few others that have wormed their way into my “style,” if you can call whatever this is a style.

I’ll throw in a few quotes with the titles so you can see what I mean, because when I say those books are directly responsible for my writing, I’m not kidding; they practically wrote it for me.

Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov

The very way in which she had drawn her shoulder blades together and purred when he first kissed her downy back had told him that he would get exactly what he wanted, and what he wanted was not the chill of innocence.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente

Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don’t you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.

Henry and June by Anaïs Nin

I want to run out and kiss her fantastic beauty, kiss it and say, "You carry away with you a reflection of me, a part of me. I dreamed you, I wished for your existence. You will always be part of my life. If I love you, it must be because we have shared at some time the same imaginings, the same madness, the same stage.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings. Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid.

Thank you for your sweet words and for letting me yap about my favorite books 🙂‍↔️

Mwah 💋

[quibbs126]

So this morning I’ve been attempting to draw this megop fankid, aka Palisade

I think I’ve mostly been thinking about her because of my post last night complaining about not being able to use the name Nova, but then getting the idea for the name Palisade. And then my brain’s been trying to work with those ideas

Honestly I think the main reason I have ideas for her is the fact that she’s named after a pre-existing character, and her design and personality is somewhat based on that character (Palisade from Anodyne 2)

It’s why she’s a girl at all and also why she’s strong and has shield things

But yeah, I had ideas, so I attempted to at least get some general ideas out on a canvas, which is what you see here

Honestly my biggest issue right now is that she’s not tied to any continuity, and thus I have no concrete bases for her design outside of general shared features between iterations of Megatron and Optimus

I do think I subconsciously was trying to incorporate Transformers Prime things in there, like her sharper plating and the things under her eyes. But I don’t really want her to be in TFP, I’m divided on how I see megop there. You can sell me on pre-breakup them and if a fic has an interesting enough premise you might get me interested, but as is, as close to canon as you can, I don’t like it

Another large issue is that I have absolutely no clue what her alt mode should be, only general ideas as to what I want on her robot mode, like big things on her arms that act like shields and also weapons to beat you to death with

But I tried with what I could, which mostly consisted of trying to figure out her head

Like Overdrive, she’s very much a work in progress, I just felt like sharing her as well

But unlike Overdrive, I actually have some ideas on her character at this stage. We’ll get back to design things later

So basically I’m thinking that Palisade here is a rather large and bulky bot, something she gets from Megatron’s side. However, she’s far more about defense than offense, being very durable and using herself as a shield for others. She’s an absolute tank in the figurative sense, probably not the literal sense. She’s also supposed to have things on the side of her arms that as stated, turn into shields (possibly with energy extensions to make them bigger) and can probably combine into one big one if need be. But also they can turn into weapons and/or just on their own are very heavy and bulky, and are effective bludgeoning tools to beat the crap out of you with. And she is not above violence, so that is a threat

In another life, she probably would have made it big as a gladiator

But I imagine she tends to work more in rescue missions than fighting, wanting to help people and being physically strong enough to save them. I think she’d be neutral, but if she had to pick a side it’d probably be Autobot

Should probably be a good time to mention I don’t really know her backstory either, at least when it comes to her parents. I might incorporate the “born right after the breakup and yeeted as soon as possible” backstory I made up prior into her, but I’m not sure. Realistically though it’s either that or she’s born after the war. Still not sure though, I’m only imagining her as an adult

Personality wise, all I can really say is that in my head she’s very cheery and friendly. She probably should have more to her than that, and she probably will, I just haven’t figured out what yet. More depth would probably come from her relationship with her parents, but again, I haven’t really figured out the circumstances there yet

I think that’s about all I have figured out on her character, now to complain about the design process

Trying to combine Optimus and Megatron’s helms is a nightmare, I tell you. I’ve tried it before, and I really don’t know how to do it. Though I think in some cases it’s a problem of me not wanting to change an idea I had, despite it not working. The biggest offender of this being trying to incorporate antenna

But yeah, there’s probably ways, especially with the designs of other characters; like I think maybe g1 Dion’s helm could be a good mix of the two, I just refuse to find them or give up on what I want

But yeah, I tried to combine Megatron’s bottom helm things with Optimus’ antenna, and they never work right together. Because the antenna have to be on those circles, which need to be outermost, but the bottom of Megatron’s helm also needs to be outermost, with maybe some exceptions. So like, it never looks right, but I really wanted it here

The top triangle thing on her helm is also a feature I lifted from Anodyne 2 Palisade. To me it’s a thinner plate, more decoration than bulk, and while I’m still trying to figure out exactly how it works, I like how it looks

The leftmost two helm designs you see here are my favorites, I want her to have the antenna and the bottom things, but I just don’t know how to make them work together

I did come up with a semi solution though, while scrolling through my refs. Basically it was to combine the bottom helm with Optimus’ side horn things, and make them tall so they look sort of like antenna. It also looks similar to Earthspark Megatron’s design

I think it works and isn’t as much confusion for me on anatomy, but if I could make the antenna-helm combo work, I would rather do that

Also I’m still not sure how her helm outside of the red bits work. You might be able to tell they’re just kind of existing as is

But moving on from that tirade, I’ve had some ideas for color combos of the two floating around for a while, the main one I wanted to try a being grey and red combo

Sure she might have turned out looking more like black and red here, but maybe with her full design the grey can come out more. I’d just need to figure out an alt mode for her

She also ended up with blue eyes simply because I liked the color alongside the rest of hers. I tried red and yellow but I think I just liked blue best

Also there’s the little diamond thing at the top of her triangle. I think I just added that for extra decoration, but it does kind of evoke Optimus’ head thing, so it works

And yeah, I think that’s all on her right now. I just wanted to share this as well. Should probably work more on her, but I don’t know too much how to further her outside of more tweaking to her head

[thenyandrawsnstuff]

day 14 - who/what inspired your OC?

this might as well be drawing over memes: part two because I have no idea what else I could of drawn lol, anyways here’s the big wall of text:

It’s funny going back to when Bombyx was first made and seeing how they changed

so how were they made?

Uh well you see they just… came into existence I drew the first image in a discord call as a random slugcat oc

and things kind of built around from there lol

it’s funny seeing that they weren’t originally meant to be an absolute sassy icon

oh, and they were meant as a sort of sona but Yeahh no that got lost eventually

oh, and they got stolen a couple times???? Like one time the old arena icon was used as a pfp randomly and then they also got yeeted in a rp and I had no idea until I was told by the person LOL (there was no hard feelings though dw) i never really looked back on that but it’s really funny actually like wow i was good enough artist for people to want to yoink my characters??? And use my art?? I see it as very flattering NFKNFSKSN

oh yeah the inspo part, uhhh I just went “hehehe I like moths so I should make a scug based off one!” And that’s as deep as it goes in all honestly

I already said this part but their design wasn’t originally based on a specific kind of moth but one day i was like “fuck it, they’re a rosy maple moth slug now” and yeah that’s what Inspired their winged design at least

I’ve had people compare them to eevee from Pokémon before but honestly I don’t know if it was just pure coincidence or a subconscious thing??? I mean truthfully, it’s probably the latter but hey I guess that counts as inspiration then?

oh and a last thing? Their iterator-phobia was definitely a thing that was included early on in the making of them and I was inspired by the thought “hey why are all the slugcat/iterator dynamic always generally positive” yeah in short, I’m a chaotic being that HATES wholesome dynamics! THEY NEED TO BE ABUSIVE AND TERRIBLE AND- ok im joking obviously but since the idea of a negative dynamic between a slugcat and iterator had been something I’ve never seen done before until that point, i capitalised on it! Because of course i did and oh yeah that’s how FS came into the picture?? We’re getting all the creation backstories today

Anyways I’m happy I included that idea because I love seeing my OCs S U F F E R, or because I thought it was an idea unique at the time? Yeah that works too ig smh

[seventeenpins]

violet pairing: older qz!joel x f!reader

word count: 5.8k

summary: follow-up to forget-me-not. it's been seven years since you last saw joel in the boston qz, and a lot has changed. you find yourselves reunited in jackson.

warnings: smut, actually contains a lot of plot (sorry), tommy, maria & ellie all exist, allusions to/discussion of abortion, reader has a kid, joel is insecure about being an old man (you're only 63, it's ok buddy), reader is mid-thirties to early 40s, lil bit of daddy kink, face sitting, multiple orgasms.

a/n: okay first -- header or no header? like, it's a bit ridiculous but i also kinda love it? instead of packing up for a move, i've been writing this 🤷 thanks for all the continued love on my fics, it's so sweet and means a whole lot. working on a few other stories, and i hope to have more out soon!

this chapter is dedicated to the dumbass at the club who didn't quite manage to ruin a first date i was on by asking us what we thought about gay rights (as two fem-perceived folks caught smoochin) and then telling us "you're clearly so in love, i respect that" before yeeting off in the moonlight.

you could have sworn the terrain had been totally empty only moments before, but now in the blink of an eye, you’re surrounded by a small group of riders, armed, their horses huffing down at you. 

“shit,” you gasp, trying to shield your girl, but realising there was little use. can’t put your body in front of hers when there’s people on every side of you. instead, your hands grip tighter on the shoulders of your daughter and you take a breath, trying to steady your breathing.

“you been near infected?” a man calls down at you, and his accent reminds you of joel, so much so that your heart flutters for a moment at the memory. you’ve met lots of people on your travels, a few of them from austin, too, and every time you think of him.

“no,” you call back, “last we saw them was back in the dakotas and there weren’t many there. that was weeks ago, haven’t encountered any since.”

the man nods, and you’re not sure what he’s thinking under his stetson, but the fact you’re not shot yet seems like a good sign. hopefully.

"frankly, we've had much more trouble from people than from infected on our way. but we've been able to take care of ourselves," you say, and you're hoping your words have an underlying edge of danger, but you're pretty sure you just come off as scared and defensive.

the man nods, and looks you up and down. “well, we've gotta make sure,” he says, almost apologetic, and you tense. it takes a moment before you see the dog, but then a dark blur comes bounding towards you, snarling. You tense and pull your girl close, but after a few moments of incredibly stressful sniffing, the dog leaves you alone and trods back to his owner, panting happily.

“good,” the man says, “now we've got that cleared up, what’s your business here?”

it's a good fuckin question, but not one you have a direct answer to.

"we came from boston," you tell him, "it was okay for a while, but the qz changed--got worse. more bombings. more hangings. if it was just me i might have stayed put, but i have my daughter."

there's so much you could say, but you're pretty sure you're advocating for your own life right now, so you keep it short and simple.

"we're just trying to find... somewhere better. travelling through all the places i've ever known people, to see if there's somewhere safe out there at all."

he nods, and the group surrounding you seems to back down a little.

"come with us. i think we might have what you're looking for," he tells you, and then one rider jumps down from their horse, mounts another, and the first man helps you and your daughter onto the vacated horse.

you follow the group, cantering along, and the man keeps an eye on you, and a woman in the group rides up next to you.

"so, you're from the boston qz? that's quite a journey," the man says, and nods his head towards the young woman, "she and i both travelled here from boston, years ago. i left back in, oof, '13? remind me, when did you leave?"

the woman nods, "left when i was fourteen, in '23."

"oh wow," you say, "i honestly didn't expect to meet anyone from boston round here"

there's a pause.

"what did you say your name was?" he asks, and you tell him.

"and this is violet," you say, giving your daughter's shoulder a squeeze, and she nestles back into your chest, ever shy around strangers.

"nice to meet you both," the woman grins, "i'm ellie"

"and i'm tommy," the man says. you're sure it's just a weird coincidence, a common name, just cos he happens to share the same name as joel's brother it doesn't mean anything, but you can't help but ask-

"this is probably silly, but you're not tommy miller are you?"

both tommy and ellie halt, so you do to, as they communicate something through quick glances and furrowed brows.

"wait," you say, "are you? tommy miller?"

he stares you down, and all of a sudden, you see it in his eyes. joel's eyes. violet's eyes.

"i-" your heart is pounding now with the realisation, "i knew your brother. i knew joel. he was a-" you hesitate for only a split second, "friend."

"well shit," tommy says. he caught the hesitation when you landed on friend, and he's looking at you, brows furrowed. "when was the last time you saw him?"

you shrug. "guess it was seven years ago." you look at your daughter, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, and then back up at tommy. "it was when he'd stopped hearing from you, actually. he came out to find you. did... did he find you?"

tommy doesn't answer, his eyes widening, and you can see him put the pieces together as he looks at you and then at your daughter, to you, and to her again.

"how old did you say she was?" he nods at violet but keeps his gaze fixed on you.

"i didn't."

"humor me."

"she's six."

"huh," he says, and ellie's looking between you two now and you can see realisation dawning on her, too.

"wait a second--holy shit," ellie cackles, "joel's gonna lose his fuckin' mind."

a sudden flare of panic and excitement floods through you. "wait, you know him too? he's nearby? i'm sorry- he lives around here? he made it?"

ellie snorts and tommy lets out a noise that's almost like a cross between a deep exhale and a strangled moan.

"yep, he lives in town. made it here with ellie a few years back. been living here a while now."

you don't know if you're thrilled or terrified. to be honest, your brain suddenly feels like it's filled to the brim with bees that were muffling out any thought more complex than AAAAHHHHHHHH.. you'd always hoped you might see joel again, but it wasn't till now you realised you never really believed you would.

he's alive. he actually made it.

as if sensing your racing thoughts, tommy pulls up beside you and claps a strong hand on your shoulder.

"one step at a time, sweetheart. seems like y'all have a whole lotta catchin' up to do."

after you're brought through the gate and finish up at the dining hall for a bite to eat, tommy and ellie take you both on a tour of jackson. you'd seen lots of things in the time you'd travelled, but this is the first real community you'd seen. it made you think of the old days, or rather, your ideas of the old days. you were too young when the world ended, but the idea of people living together and supporting one another without bombs going off on street corners and scheduled hangings was something else.

"we've been workin' on makin' a functioning society here. we get energy from the dam, so actual, non-fedra electricity." tommy points along the main street at the street lighting (actual street lighting!!)

"most of the shops are along here," he continues, pointing out each place as he lists them off, "necessities, like a cobbler and a tailor over in that space. greenhouses and farms over in that direction as well as a clinic. we've got a bar, a couple o' bakeries, house of worship, stables back that way- couple fellas opening a barbershop in that space over there pretty soon. and, of course, the residential area just down here. we've got a lotta houses, and we're working on refurbishing a whole lot, too. most families have their own homes. you're welcome to take some time to decide if you would like to stay here, but y'all seem like decent people and at the very least, we can put you up in some of our temporary housing 'til we have a better grasp on what you need. we got families of all configurations here. we did that a whole lot better after the world ended. and this is a home for a lotta people."

"oh-!" ellie says, suddenly excited, "and the school's over there, if you guys wanna stay. fedra school fucking sucked but this one was actually pretty cool. we actually got to learn stuff!"

violet giggles a little, and ellie shoots her a bright smile that makes her giggle little more. it feels safe here. you don't remember the last time things have felt safe. you're trying to take it all in, memorise every storefront, every person, every moment, when the aroma of fresh-baked pastries suddenly assaults your nostrils and you let out an involuntary moan.

"been a while, huh?" ellie asks and snorts, and you nod. "i grew up in the qz so i never had one of these till the shop opened up a couple years ago. but i hear it's just like the old days!"

"mama, it smells really good," violet says, and it's the first thing she's said since you've come through the gates.

"it does, doesn't it?" you ask her, "and look at all these shops. see those clothes in the window there?"

her eyes are as wide as saucers, and you're so overwhelmed with joy that she gets to experience this that you don't notice ellie bounding up the steps to the bakery and running back a minute later with a paper wrapped something in hand.

she holds it out to you and you take it from her gingerly. you kneel down to let violet unwrap the paper and inside is a perfect strawberry danish. you're stunned.

"that's cream cheese and butter from our cows," tommy tells you, "strawberries and wheat grown here, too. all fresh. all cordyceps free. we don't risk using any of the old stuff that might be contaminated"

that's amazing. that's fucking amazing.

"here, baby," you tear off a piece for violet, and she clutches it carefully and sniffs at it warily before popping it into her mouth, chewing with furrowed brows, and breaking out into a grin.

"welcome to jackson," ellie says, and now you're laughing too.

by the evening, tommy's given you a tour of the whole settlement and left you, ellie, and violet at the tipsy bison with an invitation to join him and his family for dinner. there was a strong likelihood that joel would be there and you were shitting bricks.

what if he's totally different from how you remember him? what if he isn't?

what if he wants nothing to do with you? what if he wants nothing to do with violet?

what if he's forgotten you?

you pinch yourself to pull out of your spiral. ellie winks at violet, who's sipping at her juice, and clinks her glass against yours. together, you take large swigs of your beer.

she tells you a bit about herself. she's vague about how she and joel met, and you're not sure if it's because she doesn't want to talk about it or if she's trying to spare the gory details around violet, but she speaks of him fondly and blushed a little when she mentioned i've kinda become, like, a surrogate daughter to him. and he's my old man.

before you could gather your thoughts and ask any follow-ups, she's already blowing through different topics, grinning as she tells you about her girlfriend, about her tattoo and how she wants another one, about her favorite horse, and the way patrols worked around here, and you relax into the conversation. into the peace. into taking a break.

before you know it, the three of you are walking towards tommy's house and right as you're about to knock at the door, ellie barrels past and swings the door open with a bellowed "we're here!" reverberating off the walls.

as you step through the door, delicious food smells waft through the hallway and you hear laughter and music coming from the kitchen. ellie makes a beeline through the door on your right and you take it all in for a moment.

"you coming?" ellie calls, and you follow her.

and stop dead in your tracks.

illuminated in the light of an antique shaded lamp, sat on a rocking chair, was joel.

he's greyer and more tired, but he also looks- happy? and he's got reading glasses on as he peers at what looks to be a picture book as he points out the illustrations to the kid on his lap. your jaw drops.

the kid's probably around the same age as violet.

ellie is stood in the corner of the room, half-heartedly pretending to examine a bookshelf while she blatantly eavesdrops.

joel looks up and smiles in a way that you've only seen a few times before. it's... unguarded. he extends a hand, "hi there, you must be our guests, i'm jo-"

and then recognition flickers over his face and he stops. stares at you, wide eyed, and then his eyes flick over to violet, and back to you.

"hi joel," you say.

if you're honest, you're expecting him to be the asshole you remember. grouchy. closed off. sweet only in private, intimate, brief moments.

what you don't expect is for him to gently call over to ellie with a "we need a minute here, could you take your cousin and see if tommy and maria need a hand?"

cousin, he'd said, and you can feel your heart slow down a notch, calming down a little. oof. one step at a time, you remind yourself, one step at a time.

"sure thing," ellie nods and helps the kid down from joel's lap, holding his hand as they walk through to the kitchen.

you're stood, frozen, as joel takes off his readers, rubs his eyes, and stands up. you've forgotten how imposing he can be, but even now, he just feels like a big shield between you and the rest of the world. you stare at each other for just a moment, and then strong arms are wrapping around you and joel is laughing?

"fuck," he snorts, "i can't believe it's you. after all this time!"

he pulls back but keeps his hands on your shoulders, looking you up and down, studying you.

and then he looks back down at violet and you see his face contort from joy to something almost like fear. maybe dread, even? or anticipation.

"mama, who is this man?" violet asks, tugging at your sleeve, and you kneel down to her.

you meet eyes with joel one more time before answering her, and you see building panic behind them.

this was, admittedly, a lot. one step at a time. "his name is joel, he was a friend of mine. i knew him before you were born!"

violet extends her little hand out towards joel. "my name is violet, it's a kind of flower. i like your hair. it's sooo silvery."

you snort involuntarily, and joel gulps audibly, wide-eyed, before taking her small hand in his large palm, cradling it as if holding something precious, and shakes it. "i'm joel. it's nice to meet you."

you all have dinner and it's actually a pretty good time, as long as you don't make too much eye contact with joel, who looks as though he has an electric current running through him, keeping him wide eyed and twitchy. he's clearly trying to appear unfazed, but he's jumpy and not at all subtle, to the point that the kid who'd been on joel's lap earlier, rowan you'd learned, prods at joel at one point in the meal. joel jumps a mile and rowan furrows his brow asking why are you being so weird, uncle joel?

despite the tension, it's so domestic. this was a joel who folded his napkin on his lap before starting to eat, who minded his manners, and obviously pressed ellie to mind hers, too. the joel you patched up when he came to you bloodied and bruised felt like a shadow long since past.

after dinner, when you've made it through unscathed, tommy's watching the little ones as they conk out on the couch. maria's going over paperwork, and ellie's tuning a guitar.

joel pops his head into the room and makes a vague gesture indicating outside. "wanna chat on the porch?" he asks, and you nod and follow him.

there are a pair of handsome adirondack chairs and you each take a seat. you don't say anything, don't even look at one another. you just sit there in comfortable silence.

but then joel takes a deep breath and you know the question that's coming.

"violet?" he asks, "is she mine?"

you smile sadly.

"yeah," you say, "you're her daddy."

he chokes out a strangled noise and tries to cover it with a cough, badly.

he doesn't seem like he's gonna say anything, and you reckon he's not gonna, so you try and breeze past it.

"i know- i know it wasn't part of the plan." you exhale, "but it's okay, joel. she's only known one parent her whole life and it's common enough these days that she doesn't think it's strange. and i don't know if you ever want her to know that you're her dad, but i'm not ready for her to know. i'll tell her, but i want her to settle in here before any big life revelations come up for her. jackson's enough of a change as it is."

he nods slowly, coughs out a low "i understand. and i respect it. i just never thought-"

"neither did i," you cut him off, "and when i realized i was pregnant i didn't intend to keep it, but fedra had raided the last underground clinics that i knew about. most of the staff got hanged, and i was out of options."

he lets out a sharp exhale.

you're silent for another minute before joel speaks again.

"i'm sorry-" he says, "i'm sorry that your choice was taken from you. and i'm so sorry i wasn't there for you."

he still doesn't look at you, but he rests a hand on your knee.

"i can't believe- all this time and i have another daughter and i had no idea."

"she's such a cool kid," you tell him, "and don't get me wrong, i felt like the worst person in the world, bringing a kid into that fuckin'- fedra plague world," you admit, "but she's so funny, shy when you first meet her, but she has so much personality. every day, she's more and more of a tiny person! and she's just started doing this thing where i'll tell her something and she'll just scowl at me and she looks just like you-"

"hey, i don't scowl that much-" joel argues, scowling, and there's the joel you remember. all of a sudden you're hysterical with laughter, and then joel cracks too and he's laughing with you.

after a while, you fall into another comfortable silence. it gets later and later, and then joel's standing up and offering you a hand.

"'fraid i've got patrol in the morning, so i'd best be going to bed soon, and i'm guessing y'all are exhausted?"

you nod, feeling as if acknowledgement of it suddenly made it true. good god you were tired.

"you know what house you're staying in tonight?" he asked, and you tell him the number.

"sounds good," he nods, "can i walk ya home?"

"sure," you smile.

you head back inside, scoop up violet, and then the three of you are heading towards your temporary lodgings.

when you arrive, joel bids you goodnight at your doorstep and bobs his head a little as though he was about to lean in to kiss your cheek but then thought better of it, and instead takes your hand for a moment and mutters without looking directly at you, "it's really great to see you, baby. glad you made it here safe."

you go to bed. an actual bed, mind you.

you dreamed of joel miller.

you'd pretty much decided you and violet would stay here in jackson from the first minute you walked down the main street, but you gave it a few days before letting the council know. this is what you've been looking for, though. a home. a community. safety.

violet starts going to school. she's in the same year as rowan and apparently thrilled about it, so you're at tommy and maria's home more often than you'd imagined. you start patrolling, too. just short routes to begin with, but you didn't make it through this much without knowing how to survive, and you're good at it.

and then there's joel.

he's different.

he's aged, but he still looks great. the salt and pepper of his hair has turned more salt than pepper, and the crinkles by his eyes are deeper. you're still attracted to him, so attracted to him, but you don't wanna make any rash decisions. he seems lighter, clearly taken by ellie, and cautiously friendly towards you and violet.

he's made it clear he'd like to get to know her, but is happy to take his time, waiting until you're more comfortable with it. which is so beautifully, frustratingly thoughtful.

you never expected that cold, angry joel could be so warm and open, but he seems like such a doting family man, keeping an eye out for ellie, always there for tommy, being a good uncle for rowan. there was clearly some tension between him and his sister-in-law, too, but one evening you walked in on them doing dishes together, singing along to some old dolly parton cd. you slipped out the door before either of them saw you'd seen.

one night, violet and rowan are having a sleepover, supervised by tommy, and you have a rare night to yourself. you make your way over to the tipsy bison and relax at the bar, letting the whiskey warm you.

you chat with the bartender, and decide to put a song on the jukebox, but as you get up from your stool you knock the whiskey bottle over and watch tumble seemingly in slow motion before being caught by- "joel?"

"easy now," joel smiles, "don't want a repeat of last time."

it takes you aback for a moment, and then your face is burning with the memory.

"can't believe you remember that," you say, and he snorts.

"course i do. that was the last night i saw you."

he pulls out a stool and sits down next to you. gestures at the bartender for a glass, and pours himself a healthy finger of whiskey.

"how do you remember that night going?" you ask.

joel scratches at his cheek for a moment, pondering, and smiles, sipping his whiskey. "i was gonna be leavin' town, and i wanted to say goodbye so i checked out all your usual spots. walked in to see you smash a bottle and then try and flirt your way out of it with that weedy little bartender."

"i remember that bit, too," you say, "though on my end, i'll remind you, i was drinking because i was preemptively missing you and didn't realise you were leaving so soon."

"i do remember you saying that," joel nods, "and i was so mad because i'd spent so much time that night trying to find you, and that was time we wouldn't get back."

your eyes widen at his words. you didn't know this part. suddenly, you feel a warmth rising in you that you hadn't expected.

"do you remember what happened next?" he asks.

you nod. "yeah, you yelled at me a little, implied i was a whore, yelled at me more, and then told me you were leaving in the morning."

"jesus, i'm an asshole," joel says, and you smile.

"yeah, you are. neither of us were at our best though. but then we had one last night."

"one last night," he echoes.

neither of you say anything for a minute, and then joel breaks the silence.

"i'd be lying if i said i hadn't replayed that night over and over again in my head."

you smile. "me too," you admit, "it's honestly been a while since i've been with anyone, and when it's just me and my hand, that night's the first thing that i think of."

joel inadvertently chokes and splutters, dabbing at his mouth as he tries to collect himself. he's flushed a beautiful shade of pink and it makes you giggle.

"shit, girl, i forgot how blunt you can be."

"i think this might be the first wholly honest conversation we've had since i got to town," you ponder, still smiling, "we're always dancing around each other. in orbit but never colliding."

he looks at you with a curious expression on his face, like he's enjoying the task of trying to parse you almost as much as he's seeking an understanding.

you pour yourself another glass of whiskey and knock it back in one. you're gathering your courage. you're plotting plots now, and sure it's been a long time, but you figure it's worth a shot.

"i've been thinking, joel," you tell him, and his eyes are so focused on you, "i wanna say up front i don't have any expectations, and i won't be offended if you'd rather not-"

he raises an eyebrow at you and you could swear you see flirtation behind it.

"but, if you wanted-"

"spit it out"

"that last night doesn't have to be the last night."

your eyes are locked and don't speak, don't move, don't breathe.

and then joel miller's lips are crashing into yours, and you moan into him, one hand clutching at your shoulders, the other cupping your chin, and you melt into it.

"my place," you tell him, "violet's with her cousin tonight."

you realise that's the first time you said those words like that, so casual and normal, and you know you'll need to unpack that later but joel, shockingly, takes it in stride.

before you know it, you're walking up the porch steps with joel right on your heels and unlocking the front door.

you've barely gotten the door open before you're on the other side of it and it's slamming shut, joel pressing you against the threshold and kissing you deeply. one of his thighs presses between your legs and without thinking you rub up against it.

"shit, i've missed you baby," he says, and you're moaning against him as he helps you pull off your shirt, and you start to unbutton his. he continues, bashful, "didn't think you'd want an old man like me, anymore."

you scoff, "you've aged well, joel, and more than that, you've aged. you're still here and i can't even begin to tell you how much that means."

you tug the flannel from his shoulders, letting it drop to the floor behind him before you pull off his undershirt.

"besides," you tell him, "you're the best lay i've ever had and i don't believe for a minute you've lost your touch."

he snorts, but then he's kissing on your neck again and you know you'll need to talk about things properly at some point. for now, though, you'll get lost in the feeling of him.

you're lost in the dizzy haze of touch. joel's hands are all over you, grabbing, stroking, caressing. you stumble to your bedroom, stepping out of your jeans and helping him shuck off his pants along the way. then he's laid out on your bed, bare except for his boxer shorts, chest heaving and cock straining.

you yank off your panties and climb on top of him, straddling him so your bare pussy rubs up against his hardness. he groans and grabs you by the hips, rocking you up and down his length.

"feel so good, baby," he breathes, and his eyes are fluttering closed in pleasure. "come here," he tells you, and he pulls you down for a kiss.

you take him in. look at his body. his chest hair has greyed, and he's got more scars than you remember including a nasty-looking one that must've been a close call. you run a thumb over the one on the side of his chest, still pearly but less pink these days, from the time you patched him up.

joel watches you watch him. "i never thanked you properly for that, sweetheart," he says, "but thank you. you saved my ass that night."

"of course," you tell him, as you dip down and lick a stripe up from his happy trail, all the way to his throat.

"fuck," he whines, and you shut him up with a kiss.

when you finally break, he strokes your cheek. "sit on my face," he tells you, and you don't need him to ask you twice.

you hobble up on your knees and then rest your cunt on his open mouth. he lets out a strangled moan and hmmms into you, the vibrations hitting your clit deliciously, before grabbing onto your hips and eating you like a man starved.

his clever tongue finds your aching clit and flicks against it, hard. once you're nearly overstimulated, he senses it and starts to lick long strokes, back and forth, dipping into your drooling pussy with each pass.

it's heavenly. addictive. you've hooked with old flames before, years after you'd slept with them last, and not only does joel not disappoint? he blows your fucking mind.

you come on his tongue and instead of pulling away, he pulls you closer. licks you deep. takes a breath and tells you "one more, baby, gimme another one."

you do, using his face to get yourself off, taking your time to build back up, rocking your hips over him, his nose covered with your slick, his cheeks, lips, and chin glistening so pretty when you finally shudder and spasm all over him.

"taste so good, baby," he tells you, "i wanna make you come on my tongue all night long."

"as much as i'd love that," you say, "i need that cock in me right fucking now. it's been seven years, joel."

he smirks, but doesn't need persuading.

he flips you over and presses his cock head at your entrance. before he slides in, though, he takes a moment to look you over.

you know you look older, and your hair has a few grey strands throughout. you've got more wrinkles, and stretch marks, and more than a few new scars.

before you can second-guess yourself, though, joel is stroking a hand along all of your perceived imperfections, adoring.

"so fuckin' beautiful", he whispers, "after all this time- i can't believe-"

you let your hand lace through the hair at his nape and give it a gentle tug. he closes his eyes, focusing only on the sensation, before opening them again. looking directly at you.

you're already so wet and worked up, he slides into you easily in one stroke, making you both gasp, and he just rests there for a moment, fully sheathed in you.

you clutch one another as he starts to thrust into you, pressing you open in a delicious stretch.

he fucks into you and then pauses and readjusts. moves your legs so they're on his shoulders, rather than wrapped round his waist. then he presses into you again, tentative, and your eyes practically roll back. it's the deepest thing you've felt.

"takin' me so good," he praises, "i feel how wet and ready you are, you've been needing this a while, huh?"

you can barely speak, only enough to breath out a whiny uh-huh that makes him chuckle.

"touch me", you beg, and he does, rubbing his thumbs over your nipples, gripping your waist, your hips. he grabs at your ass and jiggles it before giving it a swat that makes you giggle, but he looks positively feral.

"this fuckin' body," he groans, and you squeak as you take a particularly deep thrust and he eases up just a little.

you reach up to grab his jaw and kiss him, and he kisses you back, deep and lovely. you drag your tongue along his jawline and pepper kisses down his neck, trace your fingertips along his pearlescent scars.

"god, joel," you moan, "so fuckin big, you feel so good."

"you even feel better than i remember, too."

"don't you dare stop, don't you dare stop fucking me-"

"never, baby. wanna have you like this always."

you can feel your eyes fill with tears, overwhelmed with the sensation, with the tenderness and the care and the big cock fucking deep into you, it's all so good.

"yes baby," he grunts, "keep it open for me, good girl, letting me fuck you so nice."

you can see how his eyes are glittering and know he's emotional, too. he's staring at you with reverential awe that might embarrass you if it didn't feel so right. this isn't the rough, hair pulling, choking, biting sex you remember from him. he presses a hand over your belly and rubs gentle circles against it. his touch is electric.

"can't believe you made it," joel whispers, "made it all the way here, and you still want me. we've got a kid, and i left you all alone, and you still want me."

"always, joel," you tell him, and you realise it's the truth. whatever life you make for yourself, you want joel miller in it.

he lets out a growl and starts fucking you harder, deeper.

your orgasm builds quickly and soon you're clutching at his shoulder, leaving half moon crescents in his skin where your nails dig in, holding on for dear life.

"i'm gonna come," you tell him, and he holds you through it, his pace steady as your walls clench around his cock.

his hips begin to stutter as he loses his rhythm, nearing his own climax. he chokes out, "where do you want it?"

"my chest," you say, "come all over my tits."

he pulls out and strokes himself twice before spilling out on your chest, his cum landing on you in hot ropes.

after you catch your breath, he gently cleans you up and then pulls you into the crook of his arm, holding you close. you lay there together, just breathing.

"so gorgeous, momma," he says.

"not too bad yourself, daddy," you tell him, and he snorts.

you know you have a lot of things to talk about. the past seven years. the future. loss and love. violet getting to know her father.

for now, though, joel miller is in your bed and you're going to cherish every minute of it. it's more than enough.

[dark-elf-writes]

Suggestion for drabbles since I don't recall if you've done it before:

Assassin's Creed x Dragon Age. Because it just hit me that the memory-reading Animus could be compared to blood magic (literally since its reading stuff in your blood and while I don't know the full details on the function, it seems like body/mind control might have enough similarity with animus burning memories of your ancestors in your head to count) and the Templars are basically Completely Unchallenged in their power over... well, influence or history whereas the Circles's (nominally anyway) are publicly and knowingly tied to a religion structure.

Whether it's a AC character yeeted into DA, vice versa, or a fusion. Take your pick.

“So, you glow.”

Desmond pretended not to look at the man (the dwarf) sitting across the fire, instead fidgeting with his hidden blade. The mechanism had jammed sometime in the last fight anyway, and it was with Altair’s practiced hands that he tended to the weapon.

“It’s a long story.”

Varric laughed, even as his hand didn’t stray too far from Bianca. “They usually are. Fortunately I make my business in stories… among other things.”

Desmond didn’t know where to start, how to put the Animus, war between Templars and Assassins, and the three assassins who had taken the place of their memories in a skull that was already filled with to bursting, into words that someone from a world where chamber pits still existed.

Then again, he had been forced to explain it to his three mental roommates… and dragons apparently existed here so….

That… still wouldn’t explain the arm, blackened as if he had shoved it into an open flame (or directly into the fucking sun) and threaded with golden circuits that were several hundred if not thousand years ahead of their time.

“You’re not a mage,” Varric, thankfully seemed to take pity on him at least a little. “I’ve never seen one so… stabby who wasn’t—.” He broke off all at once some of the reading light dying in his eyes.

Maybe Desmond wasn’t the only one with a long story to tell.

“I was… captured. Experimented on. They… changed me. Put memories in my head that weren’t my own and gave me…” he waved rather than finish the sentence before going back to the hidden blade, cursing in Italian as it stayed stubbornly jammed.

In his head Altair scoffed and called him a novice whose was less than helpful.

“Memories or a demon?”

Desmond laughed a little. “They’ve been called that, but while they are killers threaten killers with a creed.”

“You have Crows in your head?”

This time when Desmond laughed it was full and deep. “Let’s call them eagles,” His voice was filled with mirth and his head full of laughter and irritated grumblings. “But I’m serious about the Creed. We don’t kill innocents.”

“And who decides who is innocent?”

“Who decides that for you?” Desmond shot back with a pointed look at the monster of a crossbow that Ezio was dying to get his metaphorical hands on. Something about Leonardo having made something similar. “Normally the ones that are innocent are the ones not actively trying to kill me at that particular moment… normally. It can get a bit complicated.”

“And when you decide someone isn’t innocent?”

Desmond shrugged, “A knife to the heart hasn’t failed me yet.”

Varric was quiet for a long moment, then huffed a laugh. “Anyone ever told you you think in straight lines?”

The mechanism unjammed and Desmon grinned. “They didn’t seem to think it was nearly as much of a good thing as you do.”

“Trust me, with the person I’m after, the ability to cut straight through twisting words is exactly the kind of thing I need. I could use the help if you’re willing.”

It was strange, being asked instead of being told. Desmond couldn’t remember a single time in his life something had been a request.

At least this time he wouldn’t have his brain scrambled… probably.

“Fuck it, I have nothing better going on.”

Varric’s smile was wide as he set Bianca to the side, still within easy arms reach but far enough away that he couldn’t shoot Desmond before he could move. Not that he could have if he had the crossbow pressed against the back of Desmond’s head, but the gesture what seen and understood all the same.

“Welcome aboard, Rook. How do you feel about pissing off a god?”

Desmond Miles tipped his head back and laughed.

[skyward-floored]

I'd like to hear about your hw rewrite ideas 👀

- hero-of-the-wolf

*cracks knuckles* gladly!

I mostly just have notes on fleshing out the story, changing a few characters, actually fitting the game and other era stuff in with canon in a way that might make sense and things like that. And I only really have stuff about the base game since that’s the one I own, so I’m not going to go into dlc/definitive edition stuff as much. I’m going to focus on the three different displaced eras mostly in this post just because that’s what I’ve mostly got fleshed out the most :)

But first I also have to mention a couple other things first:

Kid Link has been upgraded to story mode character, instead of merely unlockable in that one mode. Sheik has a much more legitimate reason to exist and Impa realizes much earlier that this random Sheikah warrior is actually the missing Zelda. Cia still looks suggestive, but has clothes that look more like clothes and not just underwear. She and Lana have the same skin tone. And I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting but that’s the main stuff. Moving on!

Skyward Sword

I’m placing this one about... hm. I actually have two ideas here about that.

The first is to have this take place a few hundred years before skyward sword, and be only a distant history lesson by the time sksw itself rolls around, which would make sense but for the fact that Skyloft looks a little too much like it does in sksw to be that far off.

The other idea is to make it be fifty or so years before sksw, and be part of the reason Skyloft isn’t all that populated. The bit of war that touched them took out a fair amount of the population, and Gaepora was a kid around when this all went down, which inspired him to start the knight academy when he was older. Both have their pros and cons, though I think I’m leaning towards the second.

That’s the biggest thing I’m changing for this era, though I will address the Groosenator paradox, being “how can the Groosenator be around to stop the imprisonef if this is before Groose is even born”. Well you see, canons in loz have two names: canon, and Groosenator. The army from hw brings their canons along with them when they go to sksw’s era, and they call them groosenators because they’re from an era after they were invented. Bam.

Ocarina of Time

Placing the time for this one is tricky, since Ruto is an adult, but I don’t know if she’s like... gone through oot..? Is this the mm/tp timeline where Link is still around? Is this the ww timeline where Link left? I do not know. And I don’t know which makes more sense.

Aside from the Sheik stuff I’m largely leaving this bit untouched. I think it would be fun to include more sages, maybe even oot Zelda, but admittedly I haven’t thought this one through quite as much (except for the sheik stuff).

Twilight princess

I’m placing the era of twilight in this game as happening after tp itself. “But Peggy where’s tp Link then” he’s either on vacation so far away he didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late or Cia accidentally yeeted him to botw as a wolf. Don’t worry about it.

Anywho this part begins with Lana heading to twilight-era Hyrule, finding it absolutely covered in twilight, and later meeting Agitha and Midna. In my version I’m kicking out Agitha as a main playable character, because out of all the cool characters in twilight princess they picked her?? The bug girl?? She’s nice and all but no. Sorry. She can still be around as part of the story (saving her makes a good level mechanic), but not as a major player. She can even be playable still, but not as a major person.

I’m replacing her with the Resistance. Lana gets to the era of twilight and finds Rusl, Shad, Ashei, and maybe Auru (don’t know if he’d be active enough to want to fight) trying fruitlessly to protect Kakariko, figure out what the heck is going on, where the huge influx of monsters came from, and how the heckin twilight is back. Lana explains about the monsters, but can’t tell them much about the twilight. Somewhere in here Midna shows up on her hunt for Cia, furious at being an imp again, even more furious about the twilight spread over Hyrule again, and especially majorly furious that Zant is somehow back. The game never explains this, but I’m saying that Cia somehow brought him back. Or he was secretly not dead and laying low. One of those.

The Resistance goes along with Lana (and Midna once they convince her they’re on the same side) to stop Zant (Zelda maybe shows up for a bit, but she’s holding down the fort in Hyrule, so after a quick “oh crap Midna’s here that’s bad”, she’s not around as much). I figure the Resistance members are all one “character” in that each combo is like, a different one of them or something. Or they’d all be different lol idk. This is getting really long and I’m running out of steam haha.

But yeah those are my thoughts on those parts at least— I have more thoughts about character interactions and some other random things, but like I said this is really long XD hopefully that answers your question at least a little :)

[katyspersonal]

Somehow I will discover super elusive and obscure connections in the lore, and then will misinterpret something as simple and plain as Goldmask's ending kghygcnh

The notions that it does make everyone equal before it and that it is opposite of Ranni's ending ARE still true! But for some reason, for the longest time, I've been reading it as giving everyone the opportunity to interpret it and gain from it in their own way! Ranni yeets the Elden Ring, and by effect the GO "infinitely far away" for the next thousand of years, so everyone is free to forge their own fate! So I thought Goldmask did the same, but minus the "remove all golden things that stemmed from GW" part. Think like, removing the preachy guy from religion that tells HOW to read the holy book, but keep the book 🤔

I did think of it from a slightly wrong angle, and it IS simpler! GO is bad because it is effected by human logic. Their biases, their subjective vision, conveniences of the timeframe, their whims and ambitions maybe.. all the things that guarantee it won't and CAN'T please everyone and be fair to everyone! The darn thing can't even be consistently unfair, ffs! Crucible having been divine before but becoming condemned later comes to mind.

The "problem" is that the principles come from an imperfect, human in all but status mind, and there is no individuality that could fit everyone. Human mind just can't think of a one shoe fits all solution, and human mind in power will always have to hurt someone or favour someone. Goldmask ending makes the thing objective for everyone, as someone's individual mind, with all their biases, flaws and treachery is removed from the picture. In Goldmask ending, GO becomes something that cannot be debated, cannot be misconstructed, cannot be doubled or challenged! It is simply how things are, without any "interpretation"!

In a way, it is more liberating than Ranni's ending! People might be freed from the influence of GW that dwelled in Elden Ring and Marika/Radagon, but they are not freed from being people. Flawed, chaotic beings, that won't know what to DO with their freedom besides inventing new ways to cripple it by themselves. Making new oppression for self and others. Perfect Order deals with the problem of people having "will weak and minds young", having the rules and principles come from a much more transcendental and objective source instead. No guarantee that truth without any interpretation is always pleasant, of course. Who can tell if "objective reality" is FAIR to everyone? Except this time, if someone gets a shorter end of the stick, it can't be blamed on corrupt person in power... This is horrifying to think about.

At the same time, it is also better world than what Miquella wanted in the end! He was opposite to Ranni in the way of striping people of their freedom "for their own sake", but Perfect Order is not forced by anyone. It is just creation of "objective reality" that can't be debated, in can be both a blessing or a curse. People have freedom, but they also have answers, so they can "calm down" if that makes sense...? There is harmony to be found, for sure. Though both Ranni and Miquella suggest that any world can only be "a thousand years voyage", so for sure EVENTUALLY someone would just become Marika/Radagon 2 🤔 Perfect Order is just a long rest before another inevitable turn of the vicious cycle of existence, but honestly, it is the best option