#i need to go back and tag older posts with 'game talk' later

[introdemodev]

Howdy!

Anyways...to celebrate the demo turning one year old, I wanted to celebrate by posting more behind-the-scene works and such! :-) The plan is to post every day, but I might space some posts out by a day or two - I don’t want to seem like I’m spamming. Either way, I’m going to be active for the next two weeks.

And if you guys have anything you want to see, just let me know and I’ll add it to the queue.

With that out the way, let’s start off with talking about........her. The text box.

The first thing I tested for Introdemo was sprites, the next thing was the textbox and font size. The textbox was something I wanted to figure out right away. If I had to make changes to it later down the line, that meant I might have to possibly rewrite and reformat lines of dialogue. If you notice, the textbox almost always contains 1-2 lines of dialogue.

My original idea for the text box was to have it be literal speech bubbles. Introdemo is a prequel to an old webcomic of mine so I wanted Introdemo to read like a ‘comic’ too (btw don’t look at fridge and bear for any clues!!! it’s getting a soft reboot later down the line!! it’s technically canon but also not canon...it exists in canon limbo).

I also looked at The World Ends With You for inspiration as well.

However, I didn’t understand/know how to code something like that at the time, so I scrapped the idea. This idea still lives on in the game though. Introdemo feels like a bunch of different things, and that’s cool. Aaaaaah look out!! A style shift is approaching!!!!

So, I started to think of other games that I liked that might’ve used as a speech bubble as a textbox or had a speech bubble-like textbox, if that makes any sense. One of the first games that came to mind was Animal Crossing. I’m a fan of that Franchise™ and I’ve been playing it ever since the Gamecube version (best version btw). I’m going to be completely honest, I was heavily inspired by it, especially the speech bubble used in New Horizon, and a bit of New Leaf (NL, because of its use of patterns and the lower opacity).

But mainly, the inspo was New Horizons. I like how sleek it is and it’s nice on the eyes. It’s very simple. Best part is, it doesn’t take too much of the screen either - this was also important because Introdemo has *a lot* of art in it. I didn’t want to cover up the artwork.

So, what I’m saying is, I ripped off the textbox I was heavily inspired by it!

There is another variation of the textbox used in the game, and that is the thought box. It’s a rectangle, an uneven one. Since the game takes place primarily in Fennel’s POV, it’s mainly used by him to narrate, think, vent, and give commentary.

The inspiration for this was manga. In manga, squares/rectangles are sometimes used for inner monologue and narration (well, they're used in western comics too, but you get my point....I was thinking about manga when I made this decision).

After figuring out how I wanted the textbox to look, it was very easy to figure out how I wanted the game’s GUI to look overall. I like to think everything works together aesthetically.

The game has a pulpy-inspired comic look ...

and the menus have a pulpy-inspired magazine/tabloid look.

The menus aren’t exactly set in stone, unlike the textbox, so I do have plans to touch it up on future. It’s fine, but it’s not ‘there’ yet, in my opinion. The accessibility and about menus definitely needs more work and care put into it.

And that’s it for now! There’s not much to say about the GUI at the moment but I’ll go over my inspirations for it at another time. I’ll also go more in-depth about it in the digital art book, which will be available for purchase when the full game comes out (full game will be available for free, ofc :-) )

Thanks for reading!!

[remember-digimon]

Good ol' reliable Joe!

When I first watched Digimon back in the 2000s, Joe was the character I related to the least. Now, as a big grown up in my late 30s, I finally understand what Joe is all about.

At first glance, Joe is anxiety incarnate. In the dub, he gets the 'nerd' trope that Izzy avoided for the most part. Joe is always allergic to things, worried about the slightest danger, and constantly trying to be the voice of reason. His 'voice of reason' however is more 'voice of general complaints and worry.'

If I recall correctly, in the original Japanese, Joe is like this because he's the oldest, at 12 years old. He feels it's his responsibility to make sure everyone is safe since he's the upperclassmen in this situation. In the dub, he's just a worrywort.

Joe takes on responsibility that he could easily delegate to other kids. In the episode where Gomamon evolves into Ikkakumon, Joe tries to break up an argument between Tai and Matt about climbing a mountain, only managing to get drawn into the argument himself. Later, he decides that he should climb up the mountain on his own as a compromise. He doesn't even bring Gomamon with him; Gomamon tags along anyway, of course, but initially Joe intended to go by himself.

He shows initiative, that's for sure. At least when the pressure is on. Others have noted that Tai, Sora, and Joe are the action-takers while Matt and Izzy act more defensively with Mimi, Tk, and later, Kari in mind. I like this thought, especially for Joe. He is often stumbling into danger out of his need to be the 'adult' of the group, feeling responsible for everyone's safety.

One thing we should discuss is his crest. I want to go more in depth on the crests on a different post, but here I think we need to talk about Joe's crest being changed for the dub. Originally it was the crest of faith.

Honestly, I do think reliability fits Joe a lot better. It is awkward for that to be a trait of a child (Remember, their crests were developed back during the original Digimon Adventure OVA, when Greymon fights Parrotmon). But I do think he exemplifies being reliable, because it's the right thing to do.

Conversely, Joe doesn't really expect others to help him. He wants to be relied on, but doesn't want to rely on others. He saves TK from drowning in the bay without thinking of his own safety.

Joe is also the studious member of the group. At one point, while they're temporarily back in Odaiba, Joe takes a practice test and fails it. This causes him a lot of anxiety. It feeds into the situation at home, which is another point I'll get into shortly.

In Our War Game, Joe is unreachable because he's taking an entrance exam. He's in a panic the whole time, showing how important it is that he does well. No doubt he's one of those cram school kids.

As for his family, we do meet his older brother Jim, but not his parents. In fact, Joe's parents are the only ones we don't meet out of the original 8. We do hear a lot about his dad, though, who has high expectations of his sons. Mr Kido wants both of his sons to be doctors like him, and on his terms, too. Jim says he wants to go to less developed countries to practice medicine, and that their father doesn't approve.

Jim also doesn't seem to have much faith in Joe becoming a doctor due to his high anxiety, and the fact that he faints at the sight of blood. Joe seems apprehensive about it himself, even though he does eventually go into med school and become a doctor.

To me, Joe's story is one of perseverance. When he's working off his debt in the diner, he fully expects to work there until it's paid off and is genuinely surprised that Matt would offer to help. When his test scores fall, he resolves to work harder. Even though he doesn't like the idea much at first he does eventually become a doctor. I can see how the original script would give him the crest of faith with all that in mind, but I still think reliability fits him better. He doesn't just have faith that things will work out, he's proactive in making sure they work out. Even if he's a little clumsy about it.

[skyward-floored]

Blog intro! That I'm finally getting around to after several years lol.

Hi there! I’m Peggy, Sky Floor, Floor, Skyward, or Peg if you like.

Basically any variation of my username is fine.

I'm a Christian girl, muddling my way through life 👍

This is my Legend of Zelda/Linkeduniverse blog, the home of all my Zelda stuff I reblog and create. I’m a writer and random theory person mostly, but I also draw and reblog a lot of stuff, talk about the loz games, and bust out various insane AUs every so often. I also never shut up. sorry.

Writing tag is #writing from the floor

Talk tag is #rambles from the floor

And my ao3, Skyward_Arpeggio

I also make an effort to tag everything for easy organization and proper warnings, but I can't catch everything. I do my best though. Also no political discussions or NSFW asks, please. I try to keep this a light-hearted space, so please respect that.

I'm always willing to talk Zelda/Lu, and have an unhealthy amount of lore memorized, so don't be afraid to shoot me an ask if you wanna chat :D

Some of my projects and AUs I'm working on:

Linked Universe Incredibles AU, an semi-modern superhero au, where I basically dumped the lu boys into the Incredibles movie(s). If you're looking for family stuff, superpowers, and way too much angst, this is the au for you. You can find it under the tag: #incredibles au, and all the writing I've done for it under: #incredibles au fic. (also on ao3!)

Brethren in a Cradle, my longest-running and most intense plot-wise project (with the very slow updates 😭). The chain gain an unusual addition to their ranks, and somehow Wild is a dad now. Wait, all of them are. Oops. Link to the fic.

Hyrule Dragon Warriors, which is a hyrule warriors au in which Link's dad is Volga, and his mom is Impa. Yeah. Family drama. You can find it under: #hdw au. (also on ao3!)

I have two original Zelda stories I'm working on, one that I just call Lost AU, and the other Hero of Sages, or Berry Link. Lost is about a Link who's corrupted very early in the story, and Zelda setting out to save him and the kingdom. While Hero of Sages is about a Link who has six older sisters... who happen to be six of the seven maidens needed to bring back Ganon. You can find them respectively under #Lost and #hero of sages.

You can also find my own all the links from the games go on an adventure together au at the tag: #Courage of Ages. There isn't a whole lot posted on here about them, but I always love talking about my boys :)

I have much more than this though, AUs/projects and other stuff I’ve written, but I'm going to put it under the cut (...still under editing so it's messy and unfinished!)

The past three years I've participated in the whumptober challenge! I did half of 2021's for lu, and in 2022 and 2023 I did all 31 days for lu! You can find the list for 2021 here, the ones for 2022 here, and the 2023 ones here (or find them all on my ao3 (see above), as well as some ao3-only bonus scenes!).

Kitty Wind, which is exactly what it sounds like. Wind touches Twilight's crystal, and finds himself as... a cat. A tiny, fluffy, adorable little cat. Needless to say, he isn't thrilled. You can find it under #kitty wind or read the fic on ao3!

A Royal Castletown Wedding

Accidental Domestication

Scales and Gills, a collection of Mermaid Legend fics

The Twilight Turns (true form au),

Pup is only a oneshot for now, but I have more fics planned for this idea! Dark Link goes back in time, and after the chain when they're too small to defend themselves. Unfortunately for Dink, he doesn't bet on them having protectors in the form of their predecessors.

Many Courses of Love

Up in Arms

Botw Dark Link AU

Downfall IAU

other aus(?) you're probably forgetting some so check later girl

[thekingofthenameless]

Is Arthur a character in TKN, and if he is, what kind of role does he play? I know Uther is the Villain King of the story, and I was curious on how you planned to portray Arthur, if at all? 👀

Thanks for the ask! :D

For reference, this is Uther’s appearance in TKN!

He may look cool, but trust me, he’s not a good person at all.

He’s charming (superficially), lacking empathy and a sense of guilt, a pathological liar, inclined to psychologically manipulate, bold, impulsive, narcissistic, arrogant, inclined to violence…

The list goes on, and it’s because he’s a psychopath. The word is overused and misused, but I mean it in the (current) true definition. It can be caused by “genetic and environmental issues, such as neglect or abuse by parental figures”, from Wikipedia’s article covering it.

A few risk factors are also “family history, parental neglect, abuse, or psychological manipulation of the affected child”. And depending on how I characterize his father, Constantine (The Third possibly, but idk lol), he could’ve been a sweetheart who was abused into becoming a monster, or he was the monster all along.

Either way, he destroys everyone around him, intentionally or not. He harbors secret hate towards Merlin and Charlie, because neither of them are like him at all, besides both being blatantly magic.

Realizing there’s so much I haven’t thought about…

Back in Daylight’s Redemption: Emerald Embers, Merlin had been living at Camelot for 100 years when the story started (separated from Charlie at that point; I’ll say more about that in a different post). The order of the kings I had was Vortigern, Constantine, Uther, and Arthur. Vortigern is the only one who isn’t explicitly related to them, but he was who I was going with.

The order of the kings still makes sense to me? But I don’t know how long Merlin and Charlie would’ve been living at Camelot before “present day”. T_T

Anyways, Uther is a sun coded character, like Merlin is subtly moon coded with his earrings!

Camelot has the sun as its insignia, making Merlin’s moon motifs seem like he’s rebelling against the royals’ authority. (He is. Secretly.)

Merlin actually had moon motifs back in Daylight's Redemption, to match Morgana! But when I started The King of the Nameless, I wasn't sure who the brutal sun character would be for a while, since at the "beginning" of the story, Morgana isn't even alive yet. And of course, she isn't the Morgana from Tales of Arcadia. (I'll talk more about her later.) Ignore the tag for Morgana lol; that's for ToA's version, not mine.

Finaly had a stroke of genius and decided it would be Uther! That was before he'd been designed lol, so now that he was going to have that coding, I wanted to finally give him one.

It was... difficult. He was being a bitch to design along with just. being a bitch in general. Forgot he was supposed to be 25, so I kept making dudes in their 40s in the game Dragon's Dogma, and I also couldn't decide if I wanted him to be handsome or ugly. To past me, “the first option would show that evil people can be handsome too, but I don't still don’t want people simping for him. The second option might make it unintentionally seem like 'Oh of course he’s evil! He’s ugly!’”

Made a poll asking if I should make him handsome or ugly, and handsome won! After that, I think I finally gave up and commissioned Merlin's first artist, using some references at the bottom of the post.

That's how his design finally came to be!

Then after that, his backstory that I really need to update at some point went through multiple revisions.

Idea 1: Listened to “Monster” from Epic the Musical and thought of him not always being evil until his father died; (magically related, presumably) he saw his brother, Aurelius, who was the older brother and king at this point in time, struggling under the weight of the crown and blamed it on magic doing this. Then as he grew up with Merlin as one his mentors, he realized that Merlin was insane (read: mentally ill) and felt like he was losing him, and presumed his magic did it to him.

His brother died, and his feelings towards magic taking everything from him only increased. Logical solution is, of course, eradicating magic completely so no one else would get hurt because of it (and starting with murdering Merlin). I had no idea how that would fit in with Igraine.

I didn't want to retcon Uther’s character, but I also thought a kind character becoming a monster was peak. I had no idea who a different character could be though.

Idea 2: Constantine sucked ass and Merlin basically raised Uther, but the latter's biological father still managed to get into Uther’s head that Merlin was crazy. That cued the complicated feelings of not wanting the one who raised him to die, while also thinking he needed to be put out of his misery so he wouldn't suffer anymore, and the misguided offspring betrayal. Seemed like a tragic villain at this point, and once again couldn't figure out how to make Igraine fit. He also started planning the magical genocide behind Merlin’s back because he knew that Merlin would never agree, and his reasoning was that magic took his father and brother, and he wouldn’t let that happen to anyone else.

Idea 3: Make Aurelius the asshole brother to fit the previous two ideas. Or Uther was still an asshole and he was dead. Or he faked his death or something.

@danhengsbestie and I got mixed up while talking about the third idea, and she thought I meant make Uther good and Aurelius evil, but I meant keep Uther evil and Aurelius good. She liked his design and though he could be a good guy, and that I could give him a more heroic treatment. I disagreed because if you know what he did to Igraine (and Gorlois afterwards) in the Legends, then you know.

Made another poll. Uther won, so that's what I kept.

If anyone wants to hear more about Uther, and Igraine, Gorlois, and that whole situation, send me an ask? 👀 There's some dark things there so I'd put it in a separate post so people can avoid it if they need to. Also this is getting a bit long even without their designs and things...

Ending Uther's bit with this: something funny about Charlie’s personality changing is that at one point Uther hated him for “being like him (and he doesn’t realize it)” but now their personalities are vastly different lol.

Compared to Uther’s above traits, Charlie’s serious, brave, protective (of Merlin), compassionate (towards Merlin), as well as fierce but loving and loyal, who sometimes takes a little bit longer to care about people than Merlin due to personality differences. He'll readily state his opinions and start arguments without caring, as well as having no qualms about staring people down while gauging their personality and threat level. Was at first completely normal but is now Fucked Up too.

Arthur:

I... have no official design for this dude yet. But like in many of the Legends, he's the son of Uther and Igraine! He's also the older sister of Morgana.

These are just a few of his portrayals in media, in order: King Arthur by Charles Ernest Butler, N. C. Wyeth's title page illustration for The Boy's King Arthur (1922), The Sword in the Stone (1963), The Quest for Camelot, Once Upon A Time, Merlin (2008), and Tales of Arcadia.

These are a couple of beta designs I made before I realized I wanted him to look younger, like his father, and these are also from before Uther got designed lol.

I also made a couple of Picrews for him, but now when I look at them I'm like: "Why are you white."

Because this is the color swatch I picked directly from Morgana's skin, and while her original artist said she could be any race or gender I wanted since she was designed to be ambigious, I went with her being Greek after @honeyxmonkey suggested it!

Decided to attempt another design for him while making this post, and I'm not set on it, but for now this is him lol.

I think he looks like Krel from Tales of Arcadia. 💀

Anyways, onto his portrayal!

Or former portrayal. Apparently most of this is not updated information. I'm so sorry to disappoint lol.

Some of this is a combination of Daylight’s Redemption and TKN content.

DR, January: I was thinking about Arthur struggling with trusting his magic his whole life because of Uther’s upbringing, in spite of Merlin and Morgana proving that magic can be good instead of doing an abrupt 180 as soon as Guinevere dies. Because most fics either have him hating magic the whole fic regardless of logical timelines, or have the 180, but I was thinking the struggle would be interesting because it contrasted Gwen, who’s loved magic her whole life and he loves her, Merlin, and Morgana enough to keep trying to fight his father’s opinions drilled into.

Then it’s all thrown down the drain when Bellroc stabs him and the Order makes him the Green Knight.

And Gwen dying also pushed him over the edge of after all his trying and launching the genocide out of grief despite Merlin and Morgana’s pleas.

TKN, January: Despite me starting to change the newly titled writing into a book, Guinevere was still dead due to magical means, and Arthur still started the genocide out of grief.

February: I realized Merlin being more open with his emotions meant he actually told people about his visions, which made it even more gutwrenching when Merlin told Arthur about his vision of the latter committing the magical genocide, and he was so grief stricken he did it anyways because he felt like Uther was right about everything he taught him despite him being dead for years at this point.

March: He was going to be one of four of Merlin’s adopted kids: him, Guinevere, Morgana, and Mordred. Which is very weird compared to now, where Merlin only has Charlie as his adopted kid lol. I’ll elaborate more on him and Charlie in an ask @gaylightisminetocommand sent!

Arthur was adopted first because Uther was severely lacking as a father figure (to say the least). Guinevere came to Camelot every summer to hopefully become friends with Arthur because the two were betrothed (Swan Princess, anyone?). And they did bond pretty much immediately! Morgana was adopted because at that point, she also lived in Camelot, and Uther was just as amazing with her. Same with Mordred.

Currently: Something that will stay the same from my most recent version is Arthur being nicer than some portrayals, such as Once Upon A Time, where, according to the casting call, is “a good and just ruler who, beneath the surface, is a master manipulator who can carry a grudge to the grave, and maybe beyond. He harbors an eternal burning love for Guinevere that can lean toward being a bit... controlling.”, or Tales of Arcadia, where he enacts a magical genocide after Guinevere dies. (Back then, this was because of Merlin’s influence, but if that stays the same Merlin will be more of a mentor figure than a parental one.)

Also, Mordred is still going to be related to him, but he isn’t his son like the Legends. Especially not through his mother being Morgana (or Morgause depending on the version). They’re both Arthur’s half-sisters, and there won’t be any incest in TKN at all. Mordred also won’t bring around the end of Camelot lol. I think.

Also also, he’s a great older brother to Morgana, and he and Guinevere actually have a wholesome marriage! He never has any lovers besides her, and they rule Camelot as equals.

To apologize for the lack of information, I’m also going to yap about Guinevere and Morgana!

Guinevere:

I actually have more of a set design for her!

I could've SWORN she's usually blonde at first, so I made that design first, but most images I found depict her with brown hair. So now… I can’t decide if I like blonde or brunette better. 😭

Back in January, when I was first coming up with new ideas, I thought of Morgana being a teenager instead of a grown woman like usual, and at this point, she was the child produced by ahem. The if you know thing. Her being so much younger when Uther died and being the result of the Uther thing™️ instead of Arthur caused her a lot of insecurity, but Guinevere didn’t care about the circumstances of her birth because it wasn’t her fault, and basically became an older sister to her. When she died, Morgana was shattered.

Debated on if I was going to keep her dead or not as I went through more revisions, and finally decided not to :] She’s gonna live!!!

Back when Merlin had four kids, I was debating on if he possibly would have three instead, since her just coming every summer might not be enough for him to be a dad to her. At the very least, they’d have been friends.

In her current version, she still loves Morgana, and she’s an older sister figure to her like before. And a line in God Games from Epic: the Musical applies to her: “Never once has he cheated on his wife”. The Lancelot affair destroying the round table doesn’t occur, and we love a loyal queen!

Morgana:

Like Merlin, she’s gone through a few design changes.

This was her first design! And I still think she looks cute :) It’s very different from her current one though lol.

This was way back when I first started TKN! I was thinking of inverting Arthur and Morgana’s usual designs, and making him have black hair, and her have blonde hair.

I’ll go through her ton of backstory changes like Merlin and Charlie first and reveal her design at the end!

As I said, originally, she was Uther’s daughter produced by that, a bastard child because Uther wasn’t married to her mother. He hated her because of it, even though it was the consequences of his own actions.

In the og Arthurian Legends, the result was Arthur, but I forgot which sibling it was, so I had to Google it, and I also wanted Morgana angst. Uther also treated her like shit for having magic; she was eight when it first started.

He only let Merlin train her in magic so she wouldn’t become a monster, but unbeknownst to them, he was secretly sending assassins in attempts to rid himself of her (and he might have done it to Merlin too).

Also I wasn’t very smart lol, because then I couldn’t decide if she or Arthur was going to be Igraine’s child but… in Arthurian Legends they’re both her kids. I thought they were half-siblings through Uther, not her. That’s part of why Morgana was the bastard child first, but then I couldn’t decide which one it was going to be, and apparently. I didn’t have to and I’m just stupid.

Like how I forgot Arthur was the original child by Uther in the Legends. 😭 But in my defense, I may have been thinking of BBC Merlin where they were actually half-siblings through Uther.

After my realization, I was thinking about how Merlin would become Morgana’s surrogate father because of her being Igraine and Gorlois’ daughter, and Uther wouldn’t have any claim to take her to Camelot that way; so maybe they would actually die of old age later on, and then she was taken to Camelot. (Uther was possibly still alive because he was forcing Merlin to keep him immortal. Idk. Or Arthur and Gwen were ruling Camelot by then and he wantsd to take in the half-sister he’s never met.) So anyways, she latched onto Merlin because he was nice just like her parents were, and he was magic just like her, and as much as her parents had loved her, they had never known what it was to be magic in a world that hated you.

But then @danhengsbestie said killing them off was rude lol.

Then I thought that maybe actually she could start coming to Camelot every summer or something so Merlin could teach her magic. And then she has three parents.

When Guinevere dies, she and Arthur were both heartbroken, and her grief got even worse when Arthur launched the genocide against magical beings despite her and Merlin’s pleas.

She couldn’t take being in the castle after Gwen’s funeral, and she goes out to the forest, where my equivalent of the Arcane Order at this point found her.

“Nari” sensed her soul and how much pain she was in, and they decide that her grief and young age makes her a prime target for them.

They easily manipulate her into being their pawn, and the “fight” between Merlin and her was him getting her to stand down after he tells her who they truly are.

But no one else was taking her unintentional betrayal well…

Well, that was wild. It’s gonna get even worse with Merlin and Charlie’s post lollll.

Another idea I had was Morgana getting a prosthetic arm later, like how ToA Morgana got the prosthetic hand.

And a day later, I found an adoptable that I decided was perfect! I was so glad they (designed to be an ambiguous gender as well as race lol) were still available, because I would’ve been crushed. 😭 I couldn’t believe nobody had snagged them.

They didn’t have a name either when I got them lol, but I saw them and I was like “Ohh that’s beautiful!! WAIT THAT WOULD BE A PERFECT MORGANA DESIGN”

I thought it was hilarious that I had the idea for her to have a prosthetic arm and then not even a day later bam. art.

I still have to figure out how she loses her arm and part of her left ear, along with getting the scars on her face.

The one thing that’s stayed consistent about her is being a lesbian! :D Like ToA’s is.

Back when Uther was still her stepfather, I had an idea for him being so despicable that he yelled at Morgana after she lost her arm for being that “careless” when she’d just woken up at Camelot after passing out from the blood loss and being bandaged up. Yeah that definitely won’t happen now.

I wasn’t actually going to make her Greek at first, but when I was making a reference sheet for her, her skin color came out as various shades of brown when I used a color picker tool. Before, I thought she was white because of the lighting. I thought it was my mistake, so I asked her original artist if he had a possible race for her, and he said I could decide.

Like I said, @honeyxmonkey suggested her being Greek after saying she looked vaguely Latina lol, and I ran with it! I also made a few Picrews of her during the figuring out her race part, and you can see how she changed! The third one is actually still a little bit lighter than her color swatch lol.

Oh also, she gets a familiar eventually! :D Her name is Willa!

Since Charlie is one of the biggest animal familiars currently existing, she’ll definitely be smaller than him, but other than that I don’t have a current size for her lol.

Artist credits: Soberana Art (on Artstation) MuriWorks (on DeviantArt), inn13art (on DeviantArt)

Picrew credits: brightgoat, romanapologist/hotvanilla, baydews

Links to their individual posts, if applicable: Uther reveal, Original Uther concepts, Uther design poll, Uther moral alignment poll, Original character, (1, 2,) Young Arthas Menethil, 3rd Uther reference), King Arthur, N. C. Wyeth's illustration, The Sword in the Stone Arthur, The Quest for Camelot Arthur, Once Upon A Time Arthur, BBC Arthur, ToA Arthur, ADOPTABLE - Machine Amongst the Flowers (on DeviantArt) Willa (on DeviantArt). (also a few more links throughout the post lol)

Taglist: @gaylightisminetocommand, @the-arson-author-gamer, @honeyxmonkey, @danhengsbestie, @falki-of-the-vanir

[canarias-stuff]

Phases of Love / Kuroo Tetsurou X Fem!Reader - Chapter 3

Summary:

They lower the net by Coach Nekomata’s request, and Kuroo doesn’t lose time going near it, but this time he doesn't go alone, you go there too. You throw your initial self-consciousness aside and starts jumping to get the ball, it’s a trial and error process, you can feel your fingers grinding on the ball, you can see Kuroo trying to jump as high as he can, and when you and Kuroo finally spikes the ball to the other side of the net, you knew that you would never forget that feeling.

Just like you would never forget the smile that appeared on Tetsurou's lips.

Author's note:

It took sometime, but I finished the chapter! It's longer than the other 2 too!^^ So, I hope that you have fun!^^

Tags: Romance; Eventual romance; Slow Burn; cross posted Ao3.

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Elementary School

You were right, Kuroo Tetsurou is cute in several senses of the word.

He is a cute kid in appearance. He is taller than other kids their age, has chubby cheeks, big and sparkling hazel eyes, and then, there’s the bed head hair.

You can’t stop yourself from asking him about his hair when he finally sits at the end of Kenma’s bed still holding the volleyball.

“(y/n)...” Kenma’s voice sounds like he is trying to warn you, to be mindful of your words (he wouldn’t admit that his first thought of Kuroo was how funny his hair was), but you are too curious.

Kuroo doesn’t seem to be offended by the question.

“It’s…natural.” He answers sincerely.

“What?!” And this time, even Kenma looks surprised.

A few months later you would learn that the hairstyle was a result of the way he kept his head between the pillows (a bad habit of his), but this is just months later.

…

After that day, you become friends with Kuroo too.

The less shy he becomes around you and Kenma, the easier it is to talk and interact with him. He laughs, and you can’t stop yourself from laughing at his hyena-like laugh. He yells while running after you and Kenma, he yells when he tosses the volleyball or tries a spike and fails, and yells when he loses or wins a round of games.

“You’re loud, Kuro.” Kenma says an afternoon, when the three of you are sitting on the grass, looking at the orange sky.

You look at the youngest boy, curious at the slightly different way that he calls the older one. A nickname , you think surprised and happy that Kenma was leaving his shell one step at a time.

“I’m not!” Kuroo retorted, not realizing that he wasn’t Kuroo anymore, but just Kuro.

“You are.” He insisted.

“I’m not!

“You are.”

And you smiled fondly at the two, because it looks like Kenma wasn’t the only one leaving his shell.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Yes, you are Tetsu .” You say, giving him a nickname too, because (in your childlike brain) there’s no way that you are the only one that would stick with “Kuroo” or “Kuroo-kun”. There’s just no way that you would be left aside from this small group of friends.

This time, he blushes, realizing that you changed the way that you call him.

Kuroo Tetsurou's reactions are cute, be it when he is excited, gets complimented, and especially when he gets embarrassed.

“I’m not!”

…

Golden, hazel and (e/c) stare at the broken flower vase on the floor of your mother garden.

“I told you it was a bad idea.” Kenma is the first one to open his mouth after you accidentally knocked the vase with the volleyball.

“B-but I really thought that I was getting better at receiving the ball…” You try to justify the reason why you choose to play volleyball in your garden instead of the riverbank.

“W-what should we do?” Kuroo asked, slightly panicked. It was the first time that he got involved in trouble since arriving in that neighborhood, and he really, really, didn’t want to get scolded.

“Glue! I need glue!” You suddenly say. “I just need to put the vase together before mom comes back.”

Kenma stares at you with a frown, and Kuroo looks at you as if you are a genius.

“That’s…”

But the bed-head boy cuts the other boy.

“...a good idea!”

“No…really, we should just…”

“Okay! I will get the glue!” But Kenma’s words fall to deaf ears as you go inside your house to find the sticky material.

“...apologize…”

When your mother comes back, the three of you get scolded not only for breaking the vase but also for trying something as dangerous as to glue pieces of glass.

That day, Tetsurou finds out that you are a troublemaker, and Kenma is the voice of reason. Does it make him reconsider your friendship? Absolutely not. It just makes him think that everyday would be an adventure.

…

“Hey…why don’t you find better people to play with?” Kenma asks when they decided to go back home. “Playing volleyball with newbies like me and (y/n) has to be boring…”

“Hey!” You exclaimed, slightly offended. “I’m not so bad at it!”

“Nope! Nuh-uh! Playing with you isn’t boring at all!” Tetsurou denied it, shaking his head. “You two learn it quickly and are super smart!”

You couldn’t stop sending your best smug smile in Kenma’s direction, who just rolled his eyes.

“Oh…really…?” The youngest one of you said.

There was a short pause before Tetsurou continued.

“Actually...I played in a team before…” He says, staring at the ball in his hands. “But then I had to move.”

“Oh…hummm, but I think you could find more people to play with here, if you looked.” The younger boy commented, but judging by the other silence, Kuroo didn’t really want to, and neither Kenma nor you couldn't blame him, because neither of you wouldn’t want to do it either.

“H-hey!” The black haired exclaimed, surprising you both. “Do you have free time this saturday?”

…

“A gymnasium?” You muttered, staring at the big building.

It’s the place that Kuroo decides to bring you and Kenma along on that sunny saturday morning.

“You ready? Cause here we go!” Kuroo says excited, but there is still some uncertainty there. “I meant it! We're gonna go there right now!”

“Then go.” Kenma replies dryly.

Thump. Bamm. Baf. Bomm.

It’s loud. There were a lot of people and volley balls. Some volley balls almost hit you (you and Kenma flinched with the force), but Kuroo's eyes were sparkling, and instantly you knew that that boy found a refuge in the middle of a place that he barely knew.

An adult approached you three, and with a smile, invited you to play together. Kuroo doesn’t need another invitation, he is already running to the middle of the court, Kenma declines, he prefers watching people play, and you…you decided to stay with your younger friend, because you don’t see any girl and suddenly you feel self conscious.

Kuroo plays with the beginners while you and Kenma look around. The older kids are training in a different area, and you are really impressed by them.

“That over there.” Kenma says, pulling the sleeve of your shirt to draw you attention. “That looks cool.”

“What?” And you turn your head to look at whatever caught Kenma’s attention.

BAMM.

The boy’s hand slaps the ball, and it goes to the other side of the court. It’s really cool.

“Ooh!” Kuroo approaches you two again with a big smile. “That is spiking! It’s super cool!”

“Why don’t we do that?” Kenma asks, and you are surprised that your younger friend is actually showing some interest in volleyball.

“But you can only do stuff like that if you’re really tall.” Tetsurou answers.

“I can see on your face that you want to try, Tetsu.” You comment, and his face goes red.

“W-well that…”

“Oh? So why don’t we lower the net then?”

And you three turn in the direction that the new voice came from. 

“Oh! Hey, Coach Nekomata!” The instructor that was playing with the beginners exclaimed, approaching the short old man that just showed up from behind you three.

“The first and most important lesson to teach is how fun it is to succeed at something.” The old coach, Nekomata, continues as the three of you keep looking at him, not really sure with who he is talking to.

“It’s been a while, sir! I didn’t know that you were coming.”

“I just happened to be passing by today, that's all.” He smiles.

Coach Nekomata? You wonder if he was also a volleyball teacher.

“Do what you love, and success will come.” Nekomata says, and you are almost sure that he took a look at the three of you. “Have you heard that saying?”

And something inside you stirs hearing that.

They lower the net by Coach Nekomata’s request, and Kuroo doesn’t lose time going near it, but this time he doesn't go alone, you go there too. You throw your initial self-consciousness aside and starts jumping to get the ball, it’s a trial and error process, you can feel your fingers grinding on the ball, you can see Kuroo trying to jump as high as he can, and when you and Kuroo finally spikes the ball to the other side of the net, you knew that you would never forget that feeling.

Just like you would never forget the smile that appeared on Tetsurou's lips.

…

After that day you can see how volleyball grows on Kuroo, and as much as you would deny it, it did to you too, but the volleyball neighborhood association has only a boy’s volleyball team (there wasn’t any girls playing aside from you) so Kuroo is the only one who actually plays on a team, you can only go there and train tosses and receives.

“Aren’t you upset?” Kenma asks once, joining you on your train, while Kuroo plays with other boys.

“Why?” You tilt your head holding the ball.

“I mean…you can’t play in a team…”

You hummed, pondering the question.

“Yes, but I can see Tetsu’s smile, so it’s okay.”

Kenma stares at you like you grew another head, and really, you can’t see any problem with your answer, because it was true that you were happy for Tetsurou.

…

Eventually summer vacations end, and the time that you can spend together is cut to half (it also means that the chances to get in trouble decrease). It’s the start of the second week of august and the three of you have to return to school, at least you all attend the same elementary school, but Kenma is one year younger, and you and Kuroo are in different classes (or so you found out when you help Kuroo find the school board’s room).

Tetsurou doesn’t look as nervous as you thought that he would be, actually, that morning, Kenma looked 10 times worse, but could you blame him? Kenma wasn’t exactly the best with people, he didn’t even want to interact with other people, but still, you knew that he was concerned at how people view him.

“Are you okay?” You ask, tilting your head a little bit to take a good look at the black haired boy’s face. Because right now, even if you were worried about Kenma, you were also worried about your new friend.

“...yeah…” Kuroo answers, but you can feel some insecurity in his tone.

“Don’t lie, Tetsu!” You point a finger at him.

“Hahh?!” He immediately reacts, stops walking and turns to look at you. “I-I’m not lying, (y/n)!”

“You are lying again!”

“I’m not!”

“You are!”

“I’m not!”

“Yes, you are!”

You stare at each other, hazel eyes glaring at the direction of your (e/c) eyes and vice versa, and then…

“Pfftt.”

You can’t hold your laugh, and neither can he.

The other children passing by stare at you two weirdly and with arched eyebrows, wondering what was so funny.

“Thanks.” Kuroo says as soon as his laugh dies.

“No problem!” You grins.

…

As expected, Kuroo fits well with his new classmates, you could even say that he becomes kind of popular among boys and girls from school. But by the end of the day, the three of you would walk together to get home, retelling fun facts of your day (in Kenma’s case he would gladly ignore you two to play his game) and sometimes stopping to get ice cream at a convenience store.

The three of you would still go to each other's houses or play volleyball by the riverbank together because neither of Kuroo’s new volleyball teammates lives nearby, so your bond gets stronger day by day, and you start to understand how each other works.

…

“THERE! DID YOU SEE?!”

Kenma is the type who speaks low, it’s really rare to see him so excited about something that’s not a video game, so you almost fall from your place in his bed when he cries.

“Hum?” You say trying to suppress a yawn.

“What?” Kuroo blinks, eyes focusing on the TV.

Tetsurou brings videos of professional volleyball matches to watch together, for an hour or two, you can say that you and Kuroo are excited to see it, but after three or four hours you both are almost sleeping. Kenma is the only one who doesn’t nod off while watching game after game, on the contrary, he is the one who gets excited. Like now.

“He looked over to the right for just a second, making you think he’d set it there, but then he put it to the left!” The younger boy points.

“Is t-that so?” You say, but honestly you can’t really see such a thing.

“Ugh…come on, that’s enough watching games!” Tetsurou grumbles. “Let’s go outside and play one!”

“You were the one who brought those DVD’s though.” You commented, and this time he doesn’t have a good comeback.

“Oh…speaking of…” Kenma suddenly says, pausing the video and turning to Kuroo. “Remember the one you brought last week? Bring that one again.”

“Hum?!” Tetsurou and you exclaimed.

Oh no! Okay, you and Kuroo like volleyball, but you don’t want to rewatch hours of the same game again. You turn to Tetsurou, eyes begging for him to change subjects, begging him to find something to distract Kenma.

“Kenma!” And Kurro seems to get the message. “I really think that you should be a setter! It’s really cool! You get to be…like…the mastermind and stuff!”

What is stuff? You wonder, but who cares? Kenma already looks distracted.

“Not only that, setters don’t have to move around too much either! It’s a super awesome position!” The bed-head boy continues.

Lies. You know for sure that Tetsurou is saying that just because he wants Kenma to join the team so they can play together.

But the “I’m considering this now” face that Kenma is making is just so funny, that you can’t suppress your laughs.

“What?” They both ask.

“Nothing!” You giggled. “Come on! Let’s go play outside!”

“Let’s go!” Tetsurou beams.

“Ehhh…really?” But Kenma is not as excited.

The next time that you go to the gymnasium, Kenma, for the first time, play volleyball with other children that are not you (and join the team), and you can’t hide the prideful expression on your face

…

Sometimes after school, Kuroo goes out with some classmates to play football. On those days, you and Kenma decide to stay indoors, playing video games, because you don’t really like the sport and your younger friend definitely isn’t the type to run after a ball (except for volleyball, because if he really hated it, Kenma would have said something already).

But Kenma’s father wanted to see his son go outside.

“Tetsurou-kun.” He called.

Said boy stopped, and his friends went ahead.

“Yes, Uncle Kozume?”

You and Kenma are going down the stairs to get some snacks when you hear the conversation, and for some reason, both of you stopped to hear it.

“Say, do you mind taking Kenma and (y/n) with you to play football sometime?”

There’s a pause, and you exchange a look with Kenma.

“But I don’t think that they want to go, sir.” Comes the answer, and Tetsurou really sounds like he gave a lot of thought to that. “I understand not wanting to go out sometimes. If they want to go even a little, I’ll definitely invite Kenma and (y/n), but right now, I don’t think they want at all.”

Oh. You were caught off guard. Tetsurou knows you and Kenma for less than 2 months, but he does understand how you two feel.

“When Kenma wants to do something, he tries as hard as he can, though. So I don’t think you have to worry Uncle.”

“Ah, okay.” The older man accepts with a slightly surprised expression.

Kenma has a small smile on his lips too.

“And (y/n)...” Tetsurou continues, and you wonder what his thoughts are about you. “...well, she hates football, so I take back what I said. I won’t invite her at all. Also, she is really bad at it.”

“Hahhh?!” You yell, startling everyone. “Say it again!”

That day, Tetsurou didn't play football, he played hide and seek.

Ao3 Link

[inception-bigbang]

Inception Big Bang 2024

Schedule/Rules/Guidelines/FAQ

Sign-ups May 13-20 Author summaries due May 29 Artist claims start June 1 Pairing announcement June 15 First check-in July 1 Second check-in July 15 Posting date July 31 August 11

A Big Bang is a fandom event where authors and artists work together on a two-part project. When signing-up, authors submit a summary of the fic they’ll be working on during the event, as well as the rating and relevant tags. Fics are later claimed by artists during two rounds (if needed) of fic claims.

(Details below the break)

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an Inception fanfic 

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at least 1500 words

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We recommend writing a summary of your story, the rating, and a couple relevant tags. Remember, what you submit is what we send to the artists! Make it easy to understand your story.

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Before fic claims you can send us updates or even send us a different story altogether. All’s fair.

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We work with artists interested in all different kinds of fics! We also have very cool and open-minded pinch-hitters. In our recent years all fics were claimed.

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[sp00kycrumpet]

When Our Paths Cross Again. (Final).

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

Rating: E

Tags: Soft!Joel; pre-outbeak up till end of Season 1; no use of y/n; sometimes Ellie is the adult in the situation

Warnings: swearing; character death; spoilers (if you haven't watched the series/played the game)

Word count; 9,227 out of 22,020

Will also be posted on my AO3

Part One. Part Two.

Thank you so much for reading this fic. It's my first finished TLOU fic (I have a bunch more to finish and post) I hope you enjoyed it 🥺 Feel free to drop a message if you have ideas or just wanna chat! 🖤 On to the finale!!

At the house, you took the main bathroom while Ellie was in a guest room. You were almost tempted to stay under the hot water for hours, finally feeling clean and refreshing. Finally able to not have your hair tied back and knotty, finally shave your legs and have a moment to feel human again. Now clean, you could see bruising from your escapades and sleeping on rocks but it was nice to not feel grimy and smelly. You got changed into the clothes Maria left out for you and headed downstairs, finding Ellie standing in the living room.

"Hey, I knew there was a girl somewhere under that dirt." You teased as she glanced at you, she gave a little smile before glancing back at the chimney breast. Your eyes followed her eyeline and saw the little memory board for Sarah and who you assumed was Maria's son. You opened your mouth when you heard Maria come back into the house.

"I traded to get you both new coats. They might be a little big but, they're good." She handed them over, Ellie moaning about the colour as you nudged her and thanked Maria. Ellie was still on guard with the woman as she tried to make small talk, eventually convincing Ellie to let Maria cut her hair while you excused yourself to go for a walk, promising Ellie you'd be back soon. You just wanted to see the place for yourself and be in your own company for a moment. You shivered a little, your hair still damp but it was nice to feel clean. As you walked through town, a few people passing said hello like you'd always been there. In the middle of town, you found a crowd of people around a Christmas tree that had been recently put up and covered in décor clearly made by everyone and their children. You smiled softly when movement to your left caught your attention. Joel came storming out of the bar, pausing by a streetlamp and leaning on it as a hand clutched his chest. The same as the other morning outside of the cabin. You headed straight over to him as he stood up, his eyes distant as he watched someone.

"Joel?" You said his name softly as you placed a hand on his back, he jumped a little and looked at you. A soft look on his face as he glanced back where he'd been looking. Turning you saw her. A young lady who looked the spitting image of Sarah, except obviously older. You looked back at Joel and recognised the look on his face and the shine of unshed tears in his eyes. You reached up to cup his face in one hand, gently rubbing his cheekbone with your thumb. He leaned into your touch as you wordlessly stood together and comforted him. You stepped closer and pulled him against you, hugging him. He resisted at first but just melted into your embrace, resting his cheek against your head as he took a few breaths.

"You smell nice." He teased lightly as you smiled and looked up. There was a hint of a smile on his face and you melted how it looked on his face, resisting the intrusive thought of kissing him right there.

"Finally showered. A miracle, right?" Joel shook his head a little as he finally let go of you and stood up straight. "I'm heading back to Maria's to get Ellie if you want to come? You could shower too, it feels so nice to be warm and clean." You said softly, Joel shaking his head.

"I gotta do somethin' and I just need a moment alone. I'll come by later." You frowned softly and brushed a hand through his hair.

"Don't get lost in that head of yours Joel. I'm here with you, okay?" Joel nodded a little, stepping back and turning to head through town. Your eyes glued to him as he left. You shook your head and turned to go back to Maria's. You bumped into her and Ellie at the front door.

"There's a movie showing in the town hall in about ten minutes, you two wanna come?" Maria offered, you smiled softly.

"Sounds fun."

---

As you walked through town, Maria pointed out the house you'd be staying in and handed you the keys, explaining Tommy would show Joel where it was once they were done. You thanked her and slid your arm around Ellies shoulders as you walked, the girl still tense and frustrated but she let you be physically affectionate with her. The town hall was packed with people, Ellie squeezing into one of the last empty seats as a movie played on a projector from the back. You hung to the side with Maria, smiling softly as The Goodbye Girl played out in front of you.

"This was one of my mom's favourite movies. I've seen it too many times to count." You whispered to Maria who smiled softly and nodded.

"Mine too. That's why I suggested it for tonight's movie night. It would have been my mom's birthday in a few days." You smiled at her, wrapping your arms around yourself as you turned your attention back to the screen. Once the movie ended, people hung around chatting and getting their kids ready to head home. You realised Ellie wasn't in her seat, panic gripped you as you frantically scanned the room and called her name a few times. You squeezed through the crowd to do a lap but still couldn't find her. You cursed under your breath and headed out the front door, checking every person you passed until you found her sat on a bench.

"Ellie. You scared the shit out of me then." You exhaled, moving to stand in front of her.

"Sorry." She muttered. "I went for a walk." You frowned and crouched in front of her, your forearms resting gently on her knees.

"What's wrong?" She shook her head, wrinkling her nose a little.

"Can we just go to the house now? I'm tired." You nodded and stood up, Ellie joining you as you walked in silence towards the house Maria had pointed out. Something was bothering the girl but you knew better than to push. She really was just like Joel.

Once inside the house, the two of you had a quick look around before you found a bedroom for Ellie to stay in. A comfortable looking single bed and clothes from a young previous resident. You hugged her tightly and bid her good night. Ellie just quietly repeating it before closing the door after you left. You padded around the house, feeling a little strange at being in a house after the desolate apartments of the city or sleeping in caves. It was sparsely furnished with a brown couch in the center of the living room, a bookshelf on one side had a couple of well worn books on it - some of the titles barely visible from years of being handled or sunbleached. It was warm, cosy. You'd be happy to stay forever, you found yourself wondering if you could convince Joel and Ellie to stay a little while before continuing, maybe even come back here after the Fireflies did what they needed to. You made yourself a coffee, tipping the last of your whisky into it to help yourself sleep. You changed into some sweatpants and a t-shirt you'd found in the main bedroom and got comfortable on the sofa with a blanket draped over you. At some point you dozed off, waking up when you heard the front door. You froze, listening before you realised it was Joel. You sank back into the pillows again and closed your eyes, his footsteps got closer before he paused. Then the blanket got pulled up over you properly before his footsteps disappeared upstairs. You smiled to yourself and settled comfortably, listening as you could hear the soft noise of him talking to Ellie. You almost drifted off again when you heard them get louder suddenly. Arguing. You got up and headed upstairs, pausing by the door as you heard them.

"So don't tell me I'd be safer with someone else cause the truth is I'd just be more scared." Ellie said, your heart dropping as you wondered what was going on with them. The silence was deafening for a moment.

"You're right. You're not my daughter and I sure as hell aint your dad. Now come dawn. We go our separate ways." The door opened and Joel walked out, slamming it behind him. He never saw you stood at the top of the stairs as he stalked through to the bedroom. You bit your lower lip and waited before knocking on Ellie's door.

"Fuck off." She answered, muffled. You sighed softly.

"Ellie it's me. Can I come in?" When she didn't answer, you pushed the door open and found her sat on the window seat, forehead against the window as she cried. You headed over and sat beside her, quiet. You offered your hand and she responded by throwing herself into your arms, burying her face against your chest. You gently ran your fingers through her hair as you let her cry it out. You couldn't understand what had happened and you wanted her to tell you when she felt comfortable. After a few moments she sat back, her eyes filled with anger and hurt.

"He's palming me off to Tommy. Saying I'd be safer with him. I don't get it. We came all this way, been through so much and he still thinks of me as just a package?" She sighed. You shook your head, reaching out to pull Ellie against you, her back against your chest as you held onto her.

"Joel… avoids attachments. He's lost a lot of people and he just thinks he can protect himself by pushing everyone away. But he just hurts himself and everyone else instead." You muttered softly as Ellie's breathing eventually slowed from her hysterics.

"When I went for a walk during the movie, I overheard him talking with Tommy. He told him everything. Saying he can't do it." You sighed quietly as you hugged her.

"Despite what he just said, Joel does care about you. And that's what scares him the most. Because if he cares and something happens to you, he'll never forgive himself."

"But I'm not Sarah. And we've made it this far, why give up now? It just doesn't make sense." You frowned softly.

"How did you know about Sarah?"

"Maria let it slip when you went out. She didn't tell me much but tried to use it to make me not trust Joel." You hummed quietly.

"Sarah died on outbreak day while Joel and Tommy were trying to escape. From what Joel told me, she died in his arms after getting shot by an asshole from FEDRA. He may have just said you aren't his daughter, but I can see how he looks at you, talks to you and treats you. He cares about you so much that I think it reminds him of Sarah and that's why he can be an asshole. Because he's scared to let you close and lose you." Ellie huffed out a sigh, leaning her head back to look up at you.

"But I'm not her. He can't assume the worst in everything." You smiled softly, brushing your fingers through her hair.

"We know that. Joel has a lot of emotional scars and he hides behind them. But now and then I see the man I met all those years ago, and I know he's in there. We just need to be patient." Ellie shrugged a little.

"No time left if he's making me go with Tommy." She muttered.

"I'll talk to him. Okay?" She shrugged a little, leaning against you again. You sat with Ellie for a little while, until you could feel her relaxing and eventually dozing off. You scooped her up and carefully put her into bed, tucking her in before you headed out. You took a moment before heading to the bedroom, you knocked gently before pushing the door open. Joel sat on the edge of the bed, eyes staring out of the window as he got lost in his thoughts. You moved to sit beside him quietly, his eyes flickering to you before back out of the window.

"You okay?" You ask tentatively, Joel just glanced at you again before sighing.

"I can't do it. I'll get her killed." He finally said after a few beats of silence.

"What? Joel you made it here without getting her killed. Why would it suddenly change now?" Joel sighed, running a hand through his messy curls.

"Because I'm strugglin'. Outside the cabin, it wasn't the cold. It was a panic attack. I felt like my heart was goin' to explode and my body felt like it was vibratin' on high alert. It happened again when you found me in the town square. I'm gettin' too old for this, I can't protect her. She already had to protect me. That damn dog coulda ripped her to pieces and I just couldn't move or do anythin'." You tilted your head slightly as you listened to him, you reached a hand up to gently turn his head so he would look at you.

"You're just scared Joel. You found your brother and he's building a new life. You see Sarah in Ellie and I can tell because I've seen it too. You try to protect yourself by pushing people away but it's not the answer anymore. She needs you." Joel sighed again, he's not frowning anymore. He looked tired and scared. "I know you. You're dealing with a lot of loss and things you don't want to think or talk about. But Ellie is different. She adores you and you adore her. When I see you two together, it takes me back to the restaurant and seeing you and Sarah at that same table you had every time. It's nice. Don't shut yourself off to love because of fear, okay?" You smiled at him and he nodded slightly, exhaling slowly as his shoulders slumped slightly.

"I was pretty harsh with her earlier." You nodded and dropped your hand to squeeze his gently.

"She was really upset. But you two can talk it out in the morning. Take her yourself, she'll appreciate that." Joel's jaw tensed slightly as he thought it over, curling his fingers gently around yours as he did.

"Thank you." He said softly, lifting his gaze to yours as you gave a small smile.

"Any time. Oh and also, you're not too old for shit. You're only in your fifties." You nudged him with a smile, Joel snorting softly and shaking his head.

You sat talking for a while with him, making a plan for how the next part of the journey would go. He wanted you to stay here, keep an eye on things and it would give them more of a reason to come back. Something in his eyes told you he meant more for himself than Ellie but you didn't comment on it. You argued for a bit but eventually gave in and agreed to stay, telling him he'd have to explain to Ellie why. He agreed and seemed to relax a bit more. At some point you must have fallen asleep because the next thing you knew it, there was sunlight streaming across your face and waking you up. You shifted slightly, realising you were laid on the bed but more importantly there was a weight on your waist. Joel had an arm draped over you, you could feel the gentle puff of his breath against the back of your beck and the warmth coming from him. You smiled to yourself and allowed yourself a few moments to indulge in this. You reached to gently pry his arm from around you so you could get up, but he seemingly noticed and tightened his grip on you, pulling you closer. You smiled to yourself, moving your hand to gently run your fingers over his forearm. Joel stirred, a mumble under his breath but his eyes remained closed as his fingers flexed under your touch. It seemed out of character but also reminded you of the old Joel. Every time you met up there'd be little shows of physical affection, hand holding or prolonged hugs. You had a feeling he enjoyed it as much as you did. Once his grip relaxed again, you carefully extracted yourself from his hold and silently slipped out of the room. You paused by the bathroom to wash your face and brush your teeth. It felt so good to have the domestic necessities like running water and heating. There was something so comforting about the sound of heating turning on and the radiators humming. You were stood in the kitchen making coffee and some food for Joel and Ellie to take when you heard footsteps coming downstairs. Joel appeared in the doorway, already dressed and ready to go.

"I made supplies and coffee." You said softly as you poured the coffee into Joel's thermos. You almost didn't want to look at him and accept they were already going.

"I'm gon' head out early and tack a horse up ready. If she decides she still hates me, I'll just go for a ride to look around the area then come back. Tommy's comin' for her in about an hour." You nodded as you listened, taking Joel's bag from him and putting his food and thermos into it.

"I'll make sure she's ready. Although I thought I heard movement earlier so she may be up." Joel nodded a little, pulling his bag onto his back.

"Thank you for talkin' to me last night, I really appreciate it." You smiled warmly at him, nodding your head.

"Of course Joel, I care about you. I didn't want you doing something you'd regret later down the line." Joel regarded you for a moment before a small smile pulled over his lips.

"I'll see you at the stables?" You nodded, putting the lid on the box you'd packed Ellie's food into.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

Once Joel left, you took a moment to see how the silence of the house felt. Wondering if you should have said something about how you felt or if it would have made things awkward. You shook it off as you got dressed for the day, going back downstairs as there was a knock at the door. Tommy gave a little smile as you greeted him.

"I made food for you both." Tommy chuckled a little.

"Domesticated already." He teased, glancing towards the stairs. "She up?" You nodded, wrapping your arms around yourself.

"Yeah but I think she keeps hoping Joel will come to get her so she hasn't left her room." Tommy sighed, pushing a hand through his hair.

"I'll go get her." He said softly, disappearing upstairs. You could hear the muffled noise of him talking to her before they both came back down. You told Ellie about the food, packing it into her bag as well as some bottles of water. She looked sad as she took the bag back and pulled it onto her shoulders.

"Come with us?" You shook your head a little.

"I'm gonna hold down the fort here Ellie. Make sure you have a nice warm home to come back to, I'll even decorate your room for you and make it more Ellie and less Barbie." Ellie opened her mouth to argue but just sighed and accepted it. You watched her before reaching into your pocket, fishing out the bracelet Sarah had made you. You gently took Ellie's hand and slid the bracelet onto her wrist.

"This is a promise you'll come home and I'll be waiting here for you. If you ever feel scared or lost, just remember I'm still here. Okay?" Ellie nodded, running her fingers over the faded plastic beads. She took a moment before wrapping her arms crushingly tight around you, you cuddled her close.

"Go save the world kiddo." You whispered, squeezing her before stepping back. Ellie glanced at Tommy then back to you.

"Come with us as far as the gates at least?" Tommy nodded.

"That'd be nice." He added, Ellie watching you with big hopeful eyes. You agreed and fought to not say anything as those eyes turned to the stairs like she hoped Joel would come down. You pulled your coat on and headed out with her, following Tommy quietly towards the stables. Ellie dragged her feet a little, eyes watching Tommy's footprints in the snow. You wanted to tell her Joel's plan but you didn't want to get her riled up.

To say Ellie was surprised to see Joel in a stable would be an understatement. She threw a biting comment at him before he could explain. Yet, he barely finished giving her his explanation and options before she tossed her bag at him and climbed up onto the horse. Tommy just smiled, proud of his big brother and relieved he didn't have to leave the compound. Joel led the horse out as Tommy gave him directions and an idea of the quickest way to the hospital. You made sure Ellie was comfortable on the horse and had everything while the men talked. You then turned to Joel, his eyes studying your face quietly before he wrapped his arms around you. He'd never hugged you in front of others before and it caused Tommy to raise an eyebrow of curiousity. Especially when Joel pressed a subtle kiss to the side of your head with a whispered promise of coming back soon. He then turned and embraced Tommy tightly. You smiled, arms instinctively wrapping around yourself as you tried to not get upset.

"Look after her. We'll be back soon."

"Yessir." Tommy chuckled, hugging Joel again. There didn't need to be too many words exchanged. This was the scariest part of their journey and it was back to just the two of them. Joel asked to borrow the rifle slung over Tommy's shoulder, the younger immediately handing it over without argument. Joel stayed walking as he lead the horse to the gates, you and Tommy walking beside them. No one really knew what to say as the gates opened and Joel climbed up to sit in front of Ellie. You waved and watched as they went through the opening, Ellie twisting back to keep waving until the gates closed behind them.

"C'mon. Maria made breakfast for us." You blinked at Tommy, frowning curiously. "I had a feelin' he wouldn't let her go."

---

At first it felt strange being alone. You'd been on the road with Joel and Ellie for a couple of months and before that had split your time between Kathleen or Sam and Henry. It was rare you were completely alone. You spent most of your time fixing up the house, decorating it and making it into your dream house you'd always imagined. Granted it was a little difficult with very limited resources but you'd traded a few items here and there to get paint or home decor. You painted Ellie's room a very light grey colour, making a collage of comic book pages on one wall and even found a Marvel blanket tucked away in the general store in town. It had taken four washes to get it looking anything close to new and get rid of the musty smell but now it looked like the perfect finishing touch as you draped it over the bottom of Ellie's bed. You found some other blankets to put on the couch, some books that were still readable and soon the house felt like a real home. Warm and cosy. You spent time with Maria, helping her out with work around the compound. You met a handful of new people, found a sort of routine as you worked to keep your place within Jackson. Tommy took you on a couple of scouting trips or patrols. He was impressed with how well you handled a gun, always able to help with hunting or clearing out any stray infected from nearby areas. Every now and then you'd find little things that you took home for Joel and Ellie for when they returned.

Christmas day crept up on you before you really noticed. You hadn't celebrated in many, many years. But Maria insisted on you coming to hers and Tommys for dinner. She even managed to convince you to go to the small gathering at the Town Hall. It was nice to pretend to be back in the times before the apocalypse happened, have a glass of mulled wine and watch as the kids had a snowball fight tournament. You just wished Joel and Ellie were here with you to see it all. You knew Maria still didn't think very highly of Joel but she never said anything to your face, which you were grateful for. On one of your rides, Tommy had broached the subject of whether there was still something between you and Joel while you stopped for lunch. You shrugged a little, picking at your sandwich.

"I don't know? Sometimes it seems like it used to be but then he disappears back behind his emotional walls again." Tommy shook his head a little.

"Joel never was good with this stuff. Hell, look how long it took me an' Sarah to convince him to ask you out." You snorted, a smile on your face.

"Who knows what'll happen when he comes back, maybe being away will make him think about it. I know Ellie thinks there's something, she's kinda poked at the subject with me but she's closer to Joel and would definitely be a little rougher with him about it." You laughed, leaning back against the tree you were sitting under. Tommy just smiled at you, watching you for a moment.

"I saw it before he left. Didn't wanna say anythin' before but I saw it. The way he used to look at you in the restaurant is exactly how he was lookin' at you in the Jackson restaurant. Then the day they left, saw it again. He's just a stubborn ass an' won't say anythin' out of his own insecurities." You shrugged, finishing your food.

"Well we'll see what happens when he comes home." You packed your things away as Tommy changed the subject to the upcoming New Year's plans. You admitted you were probably just going to stay home, Tommy said Maria wouldn't allow her newest friend to sit alone on New Year's Eve. You just shrugged a little, saying you'd speak to her about it at some point. Even before everything went down, you'd never seen the big deal with big New Year's parties or anything. It just seemed like an excuse for people to drink a lot and grab someone to kiss at midnight. On the ride back, Tommy started talking about the baby and how it would be born soon, how he was excited to be a father. He spoke about how he met Maria and had taken so long to pluck up the courage to ask her out, her response had been 'about damn time' which made you laugh. Tommy and Maria seemed like such a good match. Their energy bounced off of each other and they just aligned perfectly together. It was nice to see love could work in such a fucked up world.

Months passed by and there was still no sign of Joel and Ellie. You couldn't help but get antsy, nervous something happened to them. You kept yourself distracted as best as possible, not dwelling on what if's and worst case scenarios. As the snow melted away and it got a little warmer, you couldn't help but find yourself trying to stop obsessing over their return only to be disappointed every day. You spent the day at Maria's helping her put the baby's crib together, she was stubborn even if she could no longer see her feet and had to take regular breaks. So you'd had to just assist and do the heavy lifting. She packed you some cake she'd been gifted before you left, promising to come by and see you the next morning. You headed out, a hum in your throat as you waved to the neighbour when they passed you on the street. You'd been accepted so easily into the community, never any questions or people digging into your past which you appreciated. It was like a fresh start really, the safe haven you'd always dreamed of tucked away here in Jackson. The sun was setting as you let yourself into the house with a muffled yawn, pausing to pull your shoes off. You walked through to the kitchen to cut yourself some of the cake when something catches your eye. You freeze. A jacket tossed onto the table. Too small to be yours.

"Ellie." You breathed out, dropping everything onto the counter and turning back to rush through the house, scanning the living room for her before racing upstairs - your heart in your throat. There was no sounds, you couldn't help but suddenly worry someone had broken in. You paused outside of her room, slowly pushing the door open as you peered in. There she was. Sat on the edge of the bed, running her fingers over the blanket. Ellie. You smiled and stepped into the room, the girl looking up as a floorboard creaked. You stared at each other for a moment before you rushed over and gathered her up into your arms. Ellie let out a choked sob as she clung onto you. You didn't dare to think what had happened out beyond the walls with the way she clung onto you.

"You're home." You leaned back, wiping her cheeks as she nodded, lifting her wrist to show the bracelet still there.

"I had to bring it back, remember?" You laughed and hugged her again, she felt a little thinner but taller. Like she'd had a bit of a growth spurt on the journey.

"I missed you." You said, sitting beside her as you brushed your fingers through her hair. She smiled a little.

"I missed you too. It's… been rough." She replied softly, her eyes on the blanket again. "It didn't work. They stopped looking for a cure apparently." She mumbled, wrinkling her nose. "We went through hell to get there, they put me under and everything but when I woke up, I was in the back of a car and Joel told me it didn't work. We should have just stayed here." She sniffled a little, you watched her.

"You wanna talk about it?" She shook her head, moving to lay back on the bed.

"I just want to sleep for a while." You understood, saying as such as you stood up.

"I'll be downstairs if you need me, okay?" She nodded and pulled the blanket over herself. You paused, desperate to ask her where Joel was, why was she alone, why was the journey so bad but she looked tired. You headed towards her door, pausing for a moment before stepping out.

"Joel's at the infirmary. He got injured while we were out there and I had to stitch him up so he's getting it checked out. He said he'll be home after he sees Tommy." You smiled softly, Ellie knew you too well. You thanked her and stepped out, pulling the door almost closed.

You went back downstairs and cut the cake into three. A little celebration once everyone was home and awake. You chewed on your thumbnail as you paced the living room a few times, glancing at the clock now and then. Ellie was fast asleep and the only noise was your footsteps and the ticking of the wall clock. You couldn't settle, anxiety bubbling away in your chest. After a couple of hours, you walked through to the kitchen to make yourself some tea in the hopes it would calm your nerves. As the water boiled, you heard the familiar sound of the front door opening and closing. Your heart stopped as you hear footsteps slowly make their way towards the kitchen, stopping by the doorway. You turned and your eyes fell on Joel. His hair peppered with a few more grey streaks, he looked exhausted and a little pale.

"Welcome home." You said softly, watching him as his eyes met yours and a weak smile worked over his face. You were desperate to just run to him and hold onto him but you didn't want to freak him out.

"It's good to be home." He answered, making his way around the table towards you. He winced a little but once he was close enough, he reached out a hand to you. You bit your lower lip as you took his hand. He was really there. He gently pulled you closer, wrapping his arms around your shoulders. Immediately, you leaned into him and wrapped your arms around his middle. He winced again and you adjusted where you held him. You just stood there like that, your head against his shoulder as you closed your eyes. Finally they were home. Your house felt whole again.

Eventually you pulled back to look up at him, lifting your hands to gently cup his face.

"I'll make you both some dinner. You both look like you need a good meal." You teased gently, Joel nodding and let go of you as you slowly pulled away to turn and rummage through the cupboards to make food. You set to making something as Joel eased himself down into one of the chairs at the table. He was quiet as you worked, and once everything was cooking you handed him a mug of coffee and sat down across from him.

"Everything okay?" You asked softly. "Ellie said you went straight to the infirmary to get checked out?" Joel swallowed as he nodded.

"We got jumped as we got into the University grounds. I grabbed a guy to defend us and he stabbed me with his broken wooden bat. I don't remember much between that and waking up to having to fight for my life and Ellie's. She took care of me, stitched me up and apparently traded a deer for penicillin. I found her in an abandoned ski lodge place, she…" He paused, taking a breath. "She didn't want to talk about what happened to her. But I can take a damn good guess given her reaction when I found her." He paused again, his jaw clenching slightly as his fingers tightened around his mug. You watched him, he didn't need to say anything else on that subject. You got it. "I tried to keep her spirits up, encouragin' her to tell those puns, told her some more about me, told her about Sarah's cupcake plan with you and a few other things. We had an amazing moment as we found some giraffes. Ellie fed them and she seemed to perk up." He smiled a little, going on to explain other parts of their journey until the Fireflies captured them. You blinked, Ellie hadn't mentioned that. Joel explained Marlene had been there, she'd just set the wheel's in motion and had just expected Joel to walk away and leave Ellie in the hospital. You blinked as you watched him, jumping up when a pan boiled over. You grabbed it and checked nothing had burnt, straining out the pasta before checking the sauce you'd been making as well. You dropped some crudely made homemade meatballs in and let it all simmer before sitting down.

"What happened Joel?" You asked, Joel frowning a little as he paused and glanced towards the stairs. Hearing nothing he turned back to you and lowered his voice to barely above a whisper.

"They were goin' to kill her. She had no say in it. All this time we thought it was her blood but… it's her brain." He replied, your eyes going wide as you sank back in your chair. "I couldn't let 'em do it. I couldn't lose another daughter. I just saw red… I don't wanna think how many Fireflies I shot that day. But I was not leavin' there without Ellie. Selfish, I know. I'm a terrible person. Givin' up all of humanities chance of a cure to save one girl. But I couldn't do it." He watched you closely as he spoke, like he expected you to jump up and yell or get angry or something. But you didn't.

"I would have been more angry if you'd have left her there." Was your reply, Joel looking relieved as you said it. "Ellie said it didn't work. They stopped looking for a cure?" Joel shook his head.

"I told her that so she wouldn't hate me if I told her the truth. She was crushed but… at least she's alive." You nodded a little, chewing your lower lip as you thought about it all. Everything he was admitting, everything they'd been through. You understood completely. You reached out across the table and took one of Joel's hands in yours, his eyes never leaving your face.

"You aren't a terrible person. If you are then so am I because I'd have done the exact same thing. It wasn't fair she didn't know what would happen to her, that she didn't have a say in whether she went through with it or not. She'll be fine, she'll be upset for a few days but she'll be back to herself eventually. I'm sure of it." You nodded, Joel giving a non-commital noise in response, his eyes dropping to your hands as he laced his fingers with yours. You both fell quiet, your mind taking you back to the first time you'd sat like this in a café. Holding hands, sharing a slice of cake and talking for hours. You looked up and found Joel looking at you. He opened his mouth to speak when Ellie's voice from the doorway broke the moment.

"Something smells fucking amazing." She mumbled, rubbing at her eyes as she shuffled in. You smiled warmly, reluctantly letting go of Joel's hand to stand up and check everything.

"How do you have the perfect timing? It's all ready!" You smiled again, moving to plate everything up. Ellie asked Joel how he was and he asked her the same. What they'd been through had bonded them, something made them stronger than ever and you had a feeling it wasn't just the night in the hospital.

After dinner, Joel excused himself to take a shower and Ellie stayed to help you clean up. You washed while she dried everything.

"He told me about you two." She suddenly said as you handed her the last pan. You blinked and watched her, Ellie glancing up at you before shaking her head. "About Sarah's cupcake plan, your little coffee dates and how the night it all went down was his birthday and you'd promised to make him breakfast but the world went to shit. He definitely still cares about you like that but he's too chicken to tell you. And you're too chicken to tell him." She shook her head again. "Adults are weird man, you act like kids when it comes to stuff like this!" She handed you the pan back once it was dry. You laughed and moved to put the pan into the cupboard.

"Because there's more important things going on at the moment Ellie. It seems trivial in the grand scheme of things to be like 'hey by the way, I still like you' while we're setting up home here." Ellie rolled her eyes.

"Nothing is trivial." She suddenly sounded much older as she watched you. "Don't tell him I told you this but… He almost killed himself before he was tasked with looking after me. He basically said you and me, we keep him going. So I think the 'hey I still like you' might be a good conversation to have. If he spoke to me about it openly then it means something to him, clearly you too, and that means it isn't trivial." She nodded, watching you closely. "Don't ever repeat this but I love you both and it makes sense. Stop being babies." She grinned, waving her damp towel at you. "Just don't be gross around me, I might barf." You stared at her wide-eyed, suddenly feeling like the roles were reversed and she was the adult talking to teenage you about relationships. Ellie grinned a little, changing the subject to the cake she'd spotted sat on the counter. Your head was spinning from the whole conversation as you plated up a slice of cake for her and handed it over.

"I'm glad to be home." She said after taking it from you, smiling softly as she handed over your bracelet as well. You took it, your fingers gently playing with the beads before you remember the one you'd made her at one of the craft sessions in the town hall Maria had dragged you to.

"Wait here." You grinned, heading out to where your backpack hung in the hallway and rummaging in one of the pockets. You fished out the braided bracelet and went back, asking for Ellie's hand. Once she held it out, you tied the bracelet around her wrist. She lifted her arm to look at it with a soft smile. In the middle were two beads, each one had your initials on.

"It's kinda childish but… I wanted to make one for us as well." You smiled, rolling up your sleeve to show the matching one. Ellie grinned at it before trying to keep her cool composure.

"Totally childish. But I love it." She grabbed her cake and started eating it. Again the subject changing to how long it had been since she'd had cake, telling you some stories from when she was at the Fedra and her one attempt at baking. You'd almost forgotten how Ellie could make your head spin with her constant topic changing. But you were just glad to have her home again, her cheesy puns and laughter making the house instantly feel lighter.

"I'm glad I know sign language." She started, leaning back in her chair to pause for dramatic effect, the corners of her mouth twitching as she tried not to grin as the punchline formed on the tip of her tongue.

"I bet that's become real handy." Came Joel's voice from the doorway, Ellie slammed her hands on the table as she laughed.

"You dick! That's the second time you've done that to me!" She was still laughing as Joel came in, finally in clean and comfortable clothing. He smiled at her, ruffling her hair as he passed her.

"Couldn't resist." You laughed at them both, Ellie puffing her cheeks out in frustration as she not-so-discreetly thumbed through the book on her lap for another one to hit him with.

"You wanna hear a joke about pizza?" She grinned before continuing. "Nevermind, it's too cheesy." You snorted, Joel shaking his head as he made himself another coffee.

"I coulda sworn we left that book with the giraffes." Ellie just grinned again as she pointed at you.

"Someone got me a new one and left it in my room." Joel looked at you, deadpan.

"Gee. Thanks." You just looked up at him, giving a grin.

"You're welcome." You winked at him and turned back to Ellie. She flicked through the book, glad to see pages her other book had been missing were there. The cover itself was battered but the pages themselves were all there and still legible.

After a couple more puns, Ellie eventually headed upstairs to take a bath. You couldn't help the smile on your face as you dug out a bottle of whiskey Tommy and Maria had gifted you for Christmas. You grabbed two glasses and went through to the living room where Joel sat on the couch.

"I don't know if the doc gave you any medicine, but I can guarantee this will help any aches and pains." You held up the bottle as Joel looked up. A smile worked over his face.

"You wonderful, wonderful woman." You chuckled and moved to sit beside him, pouring you both a drink before handing a glass over.

"To being reunited. Again." You smiled warmly, holding up your glass in a salute. Joel nodded, gently clinking his glass against yours.

"To bein' re-reunited." A hum left your throat as you took a sip and leaned back in your seat, folding your legs underneath yourself as you went over what Ellie said earlier and whether to mention it to Joel or not.

"What's goin' on in that head of yours?" Joel's voice brought you back to the present, you looked over at him for a moment before you shrugged a little, pushing a hand through your hair.

"Just something Ellie said earlier." Joel tilted his head slightly, clearly curious and maybe a little nervous given what they'd been through. You paused, pursing your lips a little. "Nothing is trivial. Is what she said… sometimes that girl is wise beyond her years I swear." You chuckled, Joel nodding in agreement.

"She's had to grow up real fast."

"Seems a shame she never really had time to just be a kid. Do the dumb things we did as kids and just… grow up playing outside and going to a real school."

"She seems happy, for the most part." Joel added. "Aside from some of the shit she's dealt with this past year. But why'd she say that nothin' is trivial?" You wrinkled your nose a little, your eyes lowering to the glass in your hands.

"She, uh, was telling me about some of the things you two spoke of. How you told her how you and I met, the cupcake scandal and our coffee dates. She was talking about how we should talk about it and I said in the grand scheme of everything lately, it might seem trivial to suddenly bring up our past. But she insisted that if you'd spoken about it, then it wasn't. And that nothing is trivial really. I didn't even know she knew what that word meant till then." You laughed nervously, licking your lips as Joel stayed quiet. You suddenly regretted being so open as the silence weighed heavy on your shoulders. You took a sip of the whiskey, not daring to look up at Joel now. "I think she was just emptying her thoughts, considering it's been a few months since we were all together." You added, your voice quiet as you took Joel's silence as a quiet rejection of the topic. You almost jumped when he cleared his throat before speaking.

"Do you still think about it? Our past?" He asked softly, you took a breath before nodding.

"From time to time. There's moments where I'll catch myself reminiscing. Like earlier when you let me hold your hand over the table while we talked. It reminded me of that tiny coffee shop we found down one of the side-streets back home."

"I remember that one. The barista looked offended I only wanted a black coffee after he bragged about the flavoured syrups for ten minutes." You laughed and nodded.

"Yeah, he was definitely trying the hard sell that day." A quiet fell over you both again, your eyes still on your glass as you bit back the urge to ask the main question on your mind, trying to work out what he might say or what options you had if he didn't still feel the same. He was so guarded now, not as easy to read. There was no awkward shyness, no attempts at his lame but adorable flirting or anything. You heard him say your name, your muscles tensing subtly as you prepared for the blow. He repeated your name again and you realised he wanted you to look at him. Slowly you lifted your gaze and looked over at Joel. His gaze soft, his face relaxed and as open as you'd ever seen it with a hint of the nervousness you'd seen glimpses of in passing.

"Do… do you have any of those feelin's anymore?" He asked, holding your gaze and you knew you couldn't lie. You nodded a little, feeling your cheeks flush slightly. He hummed quietly, lifting a hand to rub it against his stubble as he thought for a moment. "I've done some real shitty things to survive in this world. I shut everyone out when I lost Sarah. I didn't believe anythin' good could happen in this world anymore. Ellie reopened my heart to that paternal love, showin' me it was okay to care for someone else. Then somehow I walked into that house in Kansas City and found my past starin' at me from the dark. I couldn't fuckin' believe it." He paused to take a drink. "I ain't a good man. Not the same man who sat with you by Lake Travis." You sighed softly.

"But you are Joel. I see him in how you watch Ellie so closely, I see him in the moments your ninety foot tall barriers slip, I see him when you instinctively reach out for my hand when you're overwhelmed. You're still him, just a little older and more guarded with your heart. I see you and your scars and my heart still races like it did the first time you spoke to me. I get ridiculously nervous sometimes around you but not out of being afraid of you, but being afraid that I'll open my mouth and everything will just come tumbling out before I can stop it… kinda like now." Joel fell quiet, you could tell he was processing it and trying to see things from your perspective. You moved to top up both of your glasses, placing the bottle on the small coffee table before sinking back in your seat. "Look. I'm not expecting anything or asking for everything to pick up where we left it off twenty years ago. I just … wanted to be honest and if it's not something you want or feel anymore then, I can accept that." Your voice was soft, trying to not get too emotional as you opted to take another drink to stop yourself saying more.

"Fuck that. I almost died three months ago, and I realised I'd die not bein' honest with you, Ellie, Tommy or myself. So after that, I was more open with her. Told her how much she meant to me. I've apologised to Tommy and said how I actually am happy for him. And now I'm tellin' you that you absolutely do make me feel the same way you did back in 2013." You blinked, looking up at him, a smile playing over Joel's lips. He put his glass down, took yours and placed it with his then held his hands out to you. You took a breath and slid your hands into his, feeling his fingers curl around yours. "It won't be easy. I'm still tryin' to open up and not think about just me and my survival. But if you can be patient with me, I'd be more than happy to pick up where we left off." Your eyes went wide as you stared up at him, feeling Joel's thumbs trace idle patterns over the backs of your hands.

"Joel…I…Only if you're sure." Joel chuckled a little, lifting your hands to brush a kiss to your knuckles - the same way he always used to do and suddenly you were thirty years old again, shyly standing outside of the restaurant as Joel picked you up after your shift to spend his lunch break with you.

"The only thing I've ever been more sure of was gettin' Ellie outta that hospital." You smiled softly, Joel resting his cheek against your fingers.

"I'll only believe you on one condition." Joel blinked, confusion flickering across his face.

"What's that?" You smiled, glancing down briefly before looking back at him.

"You give me the kiss I've waited over twenty years for." Joel paused before a laugh bubbled in his throat. There he was, your relaxed and comfortable Joel from 2013.

"It'd be my pleasure." He replied as he tugged your hands gently so you could rest them on his shoulders, encouraging you closer as he leaned in and met you halfway. Finally, finally his lips met yours in the sweetest kiss you'd ever had. Your heart fluttered in your chest as you slid your arms around his shoulders properly and pressed close, the kiss deepening and your senses were flooded with Joel in the best way.

When you eventually broke the kiss, Joel rest his forehead against yours.

"Worth the wait." He muttered, brushing a final kiss to your lips. You smiled and moved to cuddle close to him, nuzzling your face against his neck.

"Definitely worth the wait." You repeated, melting into his embrace with a content sigh.

"I almost did it that mornin' we left for the University but I chickened out. I didn't wanna give you mixed messages and I wasn't too sure if you still felt the same." You snorted softly and leaned back to look at him.

"Joel, we literally shared a bed for the first time and we were actually cuddled up when I woke up. Although I can guarantee if you'd kissed me that morning, there'd have been no way I was staying here alone after that." He huffed out a laugh, lifting a hand to brush his fingers through your hair.

"Fair points." He nodded, he finally looked completely relaxed, that sparkle back in his dark eyes and a smile on his lips. You finished your drinks, Joel keeping one arm around you so you could stay cuddled up against his side, and eventually headed to bed. You felt a little nervous suddenly but Joel insisted it was fine to share the bed again once you offered to take the couch. Joking he'd be offended if you suddenly slept on the couch. You both got ready for bed and once under the covers, immediately found each other again; Joel cuddling you against his chest. You fell asleep listening to his heartbeat and finally felt happy.

Your bubble of bliss was loudly burst the next morning by Ellie wandering in, looking for you. Only for her to yell "fucking finally!!" at seeing the two of you cuddled up together. Joel grumbled something and tossed one of the pillows at the door to close it again; immediately cuddling you close again and pressing sleepy kisses to your shoulder.

"She needs to learn to knock." He muttered, squeezing you gently as you hummed in agreement and slid your hand along his arm to lace your fingers with his. Welcoming the warm comfort of sleep pulling you back in mixed with the wonderful feeling in the pit of your stomach as Joel nuzzled against your shoulder and held you tightly. Domestic bliss amongst a world gone to shit.

[jovenshires]

💛Smoshblr December Asks Final Day💙

We‘ve done it! We’ve finally reached the end of this lil ask game and also the end of 2023! 🥳 Thank you so much for joining in on this, I truly appreciate it so much 🫶! I wish you a wonderful start into the new year and that all your hopes and dreams for 2024 will come true! ✨💞

But, since the year isn’t quite over yet, I thought this might be a nice time to reminisce a little bit. Therefore, the final question of the Smoshblr December Asks Game:

What are your favourite smosh-related memories of 2023? 💖

(no specific amount required for this one; and you can ofc also include older smosh memories, if you want to 🤗)

oh my god........ im emotional fr. this was so, so, SO much fun and stella, i will speak for EVERYONE you sent these asks to when i say that we are all so grateful to YOU for organizing it. you brought the community together in such an amazing way, asking us thought-provoking and interesting questions, a lot of which i never would have thought to ask. and yet i got to learn all my mutuals' answers anyway!!! it made me feel like i really got to know everyone, even the people im too scared to start a convo with bc i am a Coward. i love you, we all adore you, thank you SO much, and i cant wait to see where smoshblr goes in the new year now that we are all closer than ever <3<3<3<3<3

okay so...... okay okay okay okay HERE we go. im gonna put it under the cut bc this got SO long but if you want a tl;dr summary, please by all means go check out this video i made at the beginning of the month bc. it sums it up tbh.

making all of my amazing friends: i am literally. an emotional wreck just thinking ab this. anyway. i've already been sappy enough this year (from my christmas presents to my many many personal posts and asks that are just. me talking about how much i love these people), but i would still be remiss if i didn't mention my beautiful, wonderful friends. im not gonna tag them all here - it'd be too many and you all know who you are <3<3<3 - but to everyone i've dmed for hours on end, or talked to in replies, or mutuals i've never even spoken to at all, or anons who come into my askbox and just have the most wonderful interactions with me, i am so, so eternally grateful. i made new friends; i reconnected with one of my best friends in the WHOLE world; i met some people who i never would have spoken to otherwise and found such an incredible community. i love you all so so SO much (yes ALL of you even if you think im not talking ab you if you're reading this i AM), and i am so excited to see what happens with all of us next. love you all. mwah. <3

domo day/my birthday: oh my god. OHHHH my god. literally the fic that brought me back to this fandom. i am not crying its fine im FINE. domo - aka dancing on my own - was a passion project from the very start. i thought, 'well, no one will wanna read this niche lil fic that im writing just to deal with My very personal trauma about an rpf ship that no one cares about.' (mind you i started it before i even posted right side, so, like, i literally thought it was just me standing on a deserted island.) and then five or six months later... there we were. i posted it on my birthday (bc i Live for drama !) and god. the amount of love and support i got that day was... everything to me. when i said this was a passion project, i mean that it was truly one of the first things i sat down and wrote For Myself, without giving a fuck what anyone else would think. it was something i poured my heart and soul into because i needed to read it. and when other people started to reach out - telling me how much they related, how much they got from it, how much it meant to them. then there was the analyses of it from everyone,,,, not to mention the birthday love. my birthday is a HUGE thing for me, and, as i told you at the time, you were the very first person to wish me a happy birthday stella (with that incredible moodboard that i think of frequently........ the rat.........). and then kit went and published bad idea and gifted it to ME which was such an incredible and treasured gesture and... truly some of my irls forgot to wish me a happy birthday so. im just so honored and i love you all so much. thank you for loving me and my dearest darling daughter domo <333333

shaynse day: this literally isn't even about me, it's honestly about nat, but this changed my brain chemistry and i think everybody's tbh. it was the way that the MOMENT the love is blind video dropped, we all gathered around my blog to hold hands, sing kumbaya, and all hail the shaynse anon (aka now shaynse founder nat). they had their third eye OPEN. and everyone had to come check on them to make sure they were okay. that meant so much to me. not only did it mean that enough people were reading my blog that an anon had their own niche subset of a fan base, but it was truly like. one of the best displays of fandom togetherness i've ever seen. we were all so united that day. god bless november 19th, aka shaynse day, my FAVORITE national holiday.

gedits: i really Dont think i have to explain this one. this is one of my favorite bits (but also its not really a bit and i genuinely wanna fuck that old man). making thirst traps for garrett? oh my god. stroke of actual genius. once again another day we all came together, held hands, and decided we were ALL gonna be garrett fuckers. long live gedits. they will never stop and im NOT sorry about it.

the bsf fan art: i have literally never had fan art made for my fic before...... i screamed and cried and threw up when someone made fan art for the bed-sharing fic. furry-jackson is my hero and this fan art lives in my mind RENT FUCKING FREE. it truly imprinted itself on my brain and i think about it all the time. thanks so much to them for loving i could be the reason as much as i do <3333

the top ten dynamics poll: !!!!! my baby!!!! i truly thank you all so much for indulging me by voting in that silly lil poll. it was so SO interesting to see the way the dynamics stacked up. not to mention, it also got me into gif-making again!! that was the first time i'd made gifs in ages, especially gifs i was proud of. but i love that silly lil gif series so much, one of my favorite projects of the year, so thank you all <3

smoshblr december asks: i mean. i said it all up top, but it's worth mentioning again. this was so, so, SO much fun, and it must have been such hard work for you, and i am honored that you did all this work for US of all people when you are so busy and talented and working so hard just in like. YOUR LIFE. honestly, this whole section could just be called 'stella,' bc i am so, so grateful for you especially coming into my life this year. whether we're working together on fic or just chatting about our lives or shouting back and forth about why EVERY taylor swift song is in fact a spommy song, i am just so lucky to have you and i love you so, so much. you always tolerate my shenanigans and i am SO incredibly lucky to have you as a friend. anyway. yeah i love you and smoshblr december asks so there.

[thribby]

Endless Ocean Luminous

I wrote this as a review on backloggd.com, and I figured I may as well post it here too.

It would take a lot of work to convince me that this game was not a hit piece to prove that smaller and older franchises are not viable.

I wrote some shit down below that I'm sure has been said elsewhere and better, but I already wrote it so I'm not deleting it. I'm gonna talk about something else that I'm speculating on.

Did they want this game to be good? Let's think about this. The Endless Ocean franchise hasn't had a game since 2009, then all of a sudden (13 years later) we hear there's gonna be a new game in a few months. That's exciting and surprising for fans of the series, like me. Can't wait (although, background alarm bells were already ringing for me [I never trusted the "roguelite map," Thanatos' model looks so bad, and I think the look of the characters is so much lamer than what we had in the last games, and all of that was shown in the first trailer]).

So next the game comes out, and it's got less features and mechanics than the previous games. How come? Were we running low on development time? I hope not, it'd already been over a decade since the last game, you may as well take your time with this one. Was it a problem with the budget? I REALLY hope not, as if that's true you are charging $50 for a game you didn't quite finish (also, Endless Ocean Blue World cost $30 back when it released in the US in 2010).

Alright, so I've given them the benefit of the doubt that the game did not run out of time or money to make sure Endless Ocean 3 had all of the bells and whistles from the first two games. Which leads me to the conclusion that they had simply never planned on making Endless Ocean Luminous as complex of a game as Endless Ocean 1 or 2. They had always planned on making less and selling it at a higher price.

Ok, why would they do that? Corporate greed following the general trend of seeking higher profits for less effort? Yeah, sure. But I also think that they wanted this game to do badly. Or at the very least, they don't particularly mind if it does.

So there's a simple way to group the people who play Endless Ocean Luminous into 2 categories: people who have played previous Endless Ocean games and people who are new to Endless Ocean games. I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that people who have played previous Endless Ocean games are gonna be disappointed with this one more often than not. The Endless Ocean games are cult classics and here comes this new entry that doesn't even do as much. The aforementioned "cult" of these "cult classics" will not like that. Which means that the group of people who were most likely to buy this game is now a lot smaller.

As for the new players, you just need to win them over with the fun and engaging gameplay loop! But, oh wait. There are three things to do in this game. And you must do them hundreds of times. But, who knows, maybe enough of the new players will like the game anyway.

Ok, so really, how can I believe any of this? I think this game was sort of a test. If it was popular, cool, that means "less effort with higher price tags" can work and the executives can take that idea and run with it. If it fails, the execs get to go "ahh, we should've known! these old video game franchises are so risky, it's probably best that we just stick a couple of proven franchises and non-franchise IP's." And instead of a big variety of games being produced, we see less and less of these smaller franchises, and more individual games that get shuttered after one game, because "we tried doing sequels and reboots of games once before and everybody said it sucked!" Like how Netflix cancels shows ASAP.

I really just struggle to imagine that this game was made in good faith as an Endless Ocean game when it clearly does not compare well to the other Endless Ocean games.

Here's that shit I wrote back before I decided to just write my little conspiracy theory instead:

The first Endless Ocean in 14 years and it's so much less than either of its prequels (except for the price!). No more hub world in between dives. No more walking on small islands or beaches, or even poking your head above the water, because all of that would require designing and programming an entirely different kind of gameplay, and that's a whole lot of work so why bother? No more specifically and intentionally put together maps, now it's just generated! <-that's where I got fed up with talking about the lack of content and made my pivot

tumblr exclusive thoughts:

Yeah sure, it's just a chill lofi game to relax and swim to now, and it is good that we're not treating sharks as inherently dangerous. but like, how good of a defense is that when 1: the only thing keeping the evil killer shark thanatos from attacking you is the magic sea's water which makes him a pacifist and 2: we're already in a suspension of disbelief with how marine life works in general on account of all of these freshwater and arctic aquatic lifeforms congregating in the fucking tropics of the pacific ocean (not to mention the extinct animals)

It is nice to see some of the models got better but then they also made thanatos look so bad like so so bad oh my god why is he so lumpy why are his eyes bulging out like that????

what were we thinking?? why did we do this to him?

[wretcheddthing]

7 Comfort Movies

i was tagged by @cuteallo and i’m Watching you.

1) The Mummy (1999): We Know. If you know me you know this. Hold on I’m going to go take a picture of my bumper sticker (you know the one)

I have a poster hanging up in my room. It’s my all time most favorite movie Ever. Plus it just feels like a love letter to classic Universal monsters which I didn’t really Get until my good buddy Jamie got me interested in the history of it while I was doing research for my old radio show. Some of the creative choices and definitely the horror elements were so precisely implemented to mimic classic horror set tropes, like how the moon is always huge and bright and a little too big. And it’s SO quotable. RIDDLED with problems, but Roger Ebert said it best, “There is hardly a thing I can say in its favor, except that I was cheered by nearly every minute of it. I cannot argue for the script, the direction, the acting or even the mummy, but I can say that I was not bored and sometimes I was unreasonably pleased.“

2) Howl’s Moving Castle: I don’t think I need to explain this one. It’s a movie that Radiates comfort. I watched it at least a couple times back to back the last time i got sick.

3) Atlantis: The Lost Empire: This movie is directly responsible (in conjunction with The Mummy and Uncharted) for a full cast of OCs. This movie is part of the reason I’ve taken so many archaeology courses and helped out at a dig site last summer. also in conjunction with the mummy and uncharted

4) Mamma Mia: it reminds me of my mom ;-; i grew up with ABBA because of her, she took me to see this in theaters when it came out. she lives a couple states away now and is currently utilizing her retirement to spend a month abroad and i miss her very much. will probably watch this later

5) Brave: I made myself sad bc i miss my mom. This is one I took her to see in theaters, and let me tell you were there not other people in the theater i would have been openly sobbing. Also it’s just a damn fine movie. It came out around the time I was deeply interested in archery and i am partially Scottish so on the surface it seemed right up my alley. but then the story got me and i cannot watch it without crying

6) Zombieland: Stealing this one from Teagan because hard same. Found family, zombies, reminiscent of Left 4 Dead. Good memories with that game playing it with my older sibling on their XBox 360 whenever they came up to visit :) Also it’s SO HARD to find decent zombie shit now!!! no one gets it! nobody gets it anymore they’re all like “the people are the real monsters” NO. THAT’S NOTHING. THAT’S NOT INTERESTING. USE ZOMBIES AS THE METAPHORICAL TOOL THEY ARE TO ELEVATE HUMAN STORIES. COWARDS.

7) The Martian: It’s my favorite book of all time and as far as movie adaptations go I really don’t think it’s that bad. Mark Watney’s gotta be one of the characters ever made. I read this book every single year now because I related to it at a time I really needed to (see: high school) and the movie is pretty faithful imo. Look I have a drawing for it

anyways i think i made this post too long and i would say it’s bc i’m a film minor but i didn’t say anything really insightful about any of these movies i just like to talk i’m tagging @gilarroyo @olliesaurus-rex @prioriincantatemx @elliewilliams @adairable-dirks @jamiechanga​ and whosoever wishes to participate

[sedailanderekaden]

I posted 313 times in 2022

That's 269 more posts than 2021!

100 posts created (32%)

213 posts reblogged (68%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@spiced-wine-fic

@photographss-world

@catchymemes

@starstrand-sorceress

I tagged 243 of my posts in 2022

Only 22% of my posts had no tags

#witcher - 65 posts

#witcher fanfiction - 58 posts

#wiedźmin - 53 posts

#aen elle - 50 posts

#my asks - 40 posts

#humor - 36 posts

#fanfiction writer - 35 posts

#nature - 25 posts

#aen seidhe - 24 posts

#fanfic - 22 posts

Longest Tag: 64 characters

#obviously my male elf beauty standards are different than cdpr's

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Damn, this really fits so well. 😂 Source: https://twitter.com/TerribleMaps

18 notes - Posted November 4, 2022

#4

Summarizes my feelings perfectly.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wiedzmin/comments/rvxul1/stop_defending_bad_adaptations/

1, If you call something a book adaptation, then stay true to the source material.

2, If you don't stay true to the source material call it what it really is, just like we do - fanfiction. (Although I've seen most of the Witcher fanfiction stories being 100x more true to the source material, than the current Netflix abomination.)

3, If you don't stay true to the source material and are unwilling to admit your work is fanfiction, then go and create your own fantasy story, characters & content and stop screwing over the fans of the Witcher, which have been here for decades.

27 notes - Posted January 8, 2022

#3

Beauty is pain

The tap-tapping sound stopped for a moment as the older elf's hands stilled and he turned his head to the side. Briefly examining the speaker out of the corner of his eye.

He heard about this one already. A new member of the Scoia'tael. They said he was smart, courageous and very eager to fight the Dh'oine. Soon enough he'll probably be a strong competition for some of the commanders.

The much younger elf stared back at him defiantly with his stunningly green eyes.

Excerpt from my newest short story on AO3. You can find the full story under: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37713121

This is a very short humorous story about Iorveth’s tattoo.

Thanks a lot to @aquakaris​ for the idea and @cirimanga​ / @witchermanga​ for the very inspirational pictures of his tattoo... Especially the NSFW version... 😁

27 notes - Posted March 14, 2022

#2

do you like eredin's personality?

Thank you for the Ask. 🌹

The book version - hell, yes! The game version - not so much.

His character in the game is quite one-sided and I had the feeling it's on purpose just to make him the 'big bad antagonist', without giving him more depth.

Even though he appears in the books only briefly, Mr. Sapkowski managed here to depict him in those short scenes as a complex character. Like most of the other characters in the Witcher universe, he's not entirely just good or bad. (*"Shades of grey, I think."; Iorveth)

He does have his pros and cons. Charming, yet threatening. Irritating, yet polite. Smart, observant. I seriously got the impression from the books, that he didn't really want to kill Auberon. When Ciri told him, that Auberon is dead he was surprised for a brief moment. So that seemed to me really like an unfortunate accident. Eredin did want to probably 'help' Auberon for his own selfish reasons (like making sure Auberon is able 'to perform' and impregnate Ciri).

Hard to say what his ultimate motive was really, but I doubt the intention was to kill the King. That he took advantage of the situation later and in the games took Auberon's place, is I think more related to him simply being an opportunist. (And because the game needed the 'big bad antagonist').

So I actually like his personality in the books. I can understand why he at first was sceptical towards Ciri and made some nasty remarks. The Aen Elle have no real respect towards humans as such. But I keep on remembering, that he still managed to be polite later when talking to her and kept his condescending remarks really to a minimum. Going so far as to invite Ciri for lunch even though she clearly refused previously his offer to give Auberon the aphrodisiac.

So he still handled the whole thing with a certain amount of grace. He only got pissed and became quite nasty when he caught Ciri as she was fleeing. I can also here understand his reactions as he probably saw it as her breaking the agreement she had with the Aen Elle.

For me he's an interesting character with a multifaceted personality and I like that. 😉

PS: Let's also not forget that for me Eredin means someone like this:

And definitely NOT this: 😏

See the full post

35 notes - Posted March 9, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Let’s enjoy today’s National Squirrel Appreciation Day

Until today I had no idea this day exists... 😂👍

See the full post

42 notes - Posted January 21, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[jenseclaren]

I posted 451 times in 2022

That's 451 more posts than 2021!

57 posts created (13%)

394 posts reblogged (87%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@dankesebi

@colors-of-feeling

@nekorosberg

@libraryofloveletters

@redfives

I tagged 206 of my posts in 2022

#nico rosberg - 58 posts

#random charlie thoughts - 35 posts

#jenson button - 27 posts

#brocedes - 23 posts

#sebastian vettel - 17 posts

#lewis hamilton - 16 posts

#charlie writes - 16 posts

#princess cake - 10 posts

#f1 - 10 posts

#jenseclaren masterlist - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 72 characters

#it’s from 2005 when jenson was in istanbul to test istanbul park circuit

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

the sluttiest thing a man can do is be jenson button

82 notes - Posted November 10, 2022

#4

I AM SO NORMAL ABOUT THIS

118 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

#3

making assumptions (judging you) based on your favourite f1rpf pairing

Brocedes: Did you take your meds today? Your favourite ao3 tag is probably angst. You probably get overly attached to people with the fear of losing them. You read Brocedes fics just to feel something.

Martian: Is this a right time to talk about your daddy issues or should i come back later? You probably go for people older than you and most likely with a protective instinct in relationships.

Sewis: You are the one person in your friend group who has their shit together. You also don’t need fan fiction to add excitement into your life. You are comfortable in your place. Probably mentally stable (but that’s questionable)

Simi: You live for the sunshine/grumpy trope. It’s probably because you are either of them and lowkey desperate for a sunshine or a grumpy of your own. You are in general very quiet and lowkey, you don’t like to be the centre of attention.

Princess Cake: Horny, you are definitely very horny. Also you tend to project into either side of this pairing. You probably talk a lot. You are a fun person to be around, you bring good vibes and chaotic energy to the group. Probably a bit bratty too but that’s not too bad, keeps you interesting.

Sebson: You are probably into hurt/comfort fics. You are very knowledgable in topics you are interested in. Basically you’re a huge nerd. You are either extremely introverted or extremely extroverted, no in between. Reading fan fiction is probably your comfort activity.

Carlando: You are gay and your first moment of realisation was your best friend in middle school. If you were a pre-teen/teen in the early 2010s, you had a YouTubers phase. You are very energetic, probably too energetic.

Lestappen: You had unrestricted internet access as a kid. There is no other explanation why you would turn out this way. You are probably very competitive and take your ambitions very seriously. People either love you or hate you.

Maxiel: You are in love with your best friend. You love partying and (maybe) drinking games. You are the kind of person who puts people’s moods up. You are a delight to hang out with. You are confident and but really insecure at the same time.

155 notes - Posted October 15, 2022

#2

Do y’all see it or am I the only one?

178 notes - Posted November 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

we won but at what cost

359 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[vogeldernacht]

Hi.

My name is Sky.

I wanted to post about this way later than today. But since I wrote a friend about V and a very strange situation lead to M in my head I need to clear my brain with my good ol' friend Tumblr.

Earlier this year I had a strange thought about my life. I became 26 and realized that it has been 10 years since our first date. 09/22/2014 marks the first conversation via Facebook. We met earlier because he helped me to choose a game. Nevertheless - he was some kind of big idiot with a strange desire to subjugate girls that were way younger than him.

I thought that I was the one he was going to marry one day. I thought he was the savior I asked for. But that's really not the point of this posting.

Some days ago a friend of mine had the idea to look at a profile of one of her ex-boyfriends just to find out that he is now married and a father. My idiotic self looked up M. I knew his Insta for a longer time now because his "new" girlfriend was a friend of a friend - and she tagged him. Funny story tho - nothing for now.

When I opened their Instas, I was shocked. No tags in none of their Instas - instead: private profiles and changed pictures. They broke up after eight years. My inner child screamed because I felt some kind of strange relief - he betrayed me with her. Now they broke up. He tried to contact me several times after they became a couple to tell me that she was a bad girlfriend. That he didn't want to be her boyfriend and that he wanted me to come back to him. A friend of mine tried to show her these texts but she said, that it wasn't neccesary - nobody would have the power to bring them apart.

Eventually I laughed about the situation - I wouldn't do the same thing again. Something in my head says, that she saw all of the explicit content and they just laughed about me - together.

For me it is now a very strange situation. I went through some old messages and saw things that weren't his fault initally. And some days - I can't lie to this - I asked myself the big "IF". Some days I am pretty afraid that he tries to contact me again just to tell me that he is free and wants to "try again" now that we are older. (Luckily enough nobody is ever reading this...) I'm not afraid because I could say "yes" (I'm in a pretty good relationship) but because he's still giving me anxiety attacks. I saw him... 5 years ago when he ran into Vs store just to say hello and my heart has never beaten this fast. I've never felt such a big yet scary trembling in my whole body. He won't be able to contact me - I blocked all his socials in 2017.

Funny enough to see his now-ex-gf with the same glasses as I have.

I'm not the kind of broken I used to be. I need to admit, that I feel free now that I know that he and this girl had a breakup.

And perhaps that's it. For the moment. We need to talk about V next time. Bye old friend, Tumblr. ♥

[dragonnan]

First Sentence Game

Saw this shared by @helloliriels and it looked incredibly fun so here's mine!

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

1. The Home Visit (Doctor Strange) It smelled cold.

Not like winter – which tasted metallic and fresh at the same time, no. No, this cold had the aroma that was patently October. Black cats and scudding cloud and ripened pumpkins. It was the earthy snap of fallen leaves and the far off sound of hunter's rifles and the call of geese and ducks headed for warmer lands. For many people, Autumn was their favorite time of year. Maybe... once, when he was younger, Stephen could have said the same.

2. We Are Men of Action - Lies Do Not Become Us (Psych - a cross-post of an older fic) Cool, that morning; just on the right side of chilly, actually. Early, even for the early risers. Far too early for a guy who hadn't slept in two days. Far, far too early for that guy's father to demand they share coffee while watching the sun rise over the waves.

3. Sed Diabolus (Avengers WIP) It was a pretty great view. He'd been meaning to check it out; sometime. Those weeks spent in his (new) room; dishes of food going cold at his elbow while he'd sat at his computer and clicked through five years of history that he hadn't lived. Most of the news stories had been about the failing economy; the declaration of martial law around the country, the breakdown of infrastructure. His current roosting spot was exactly the same as it had been the day he'd… dusted. Skyline Tower had been scheduled for completion in 2020. Three years later and, like so many other construction projects, it was an abandoned property with naked I-beams stabbing towards the clouds. It would probably never be finished. Not the way things were, now.

4. The Wizard Was the Wicked Witch and the Scarecrow Lost His Courage (Psych - another cross-post of an older story) It was hot there out on the sidewalk. Getting off the plane – walking through the tunnel back to the airport he'd felt the wave of temperature thud against him, both familiar and a little bit of a let-down. Odd that his destination, so unwelcome after the past week, was a tropical getaway to most everyone else he'd traveled with. He wished he could have stayed longer. But then, he always wished it could be longer.

5. The Holiday is Over (Sherlock) He could no longer track how many days had passed, since he'd been captured and brought to this… hell hole, though he suspected it was close to a month. He'd knelt in the snow, once he'd realized there had been nowhere left to run; collapsed, really. He'd been on Moran's trail for weeks and had scarcely stopped for rest or food. It had caught up to him at the worst possible time.

6. Like Some Sort of Parable (Sherlock) The cab, carrying his best friend, along with his new fiance’, had long since been swallowed by the night. Sniffing, wincing at the pain in his nose, Sherlock tossed the bloody serviette before walking to the kerb to hail his own ride. He winced again upon raising his hand and felt the tug of the motion through his back.

7. The Fire in Which We Burn (Sherlock WIP) “I just wanted to let you know that... well, Dennis is scheduled to be released this afternoon. I didn't find out myself until twenty minutes ago. I know he was meant to be in longer but... well we both know the justice system is a joke. Listen... call me, alright? Let me know... I'm here if you need me, yeah? Christ. Just, look after yourself, Molly. I'll talk to you soon.”

8. If You Want this Choice Position Have a Cheery Disposition (Sherlock) Barred from any investigations requiring footwork, forced to once more suffer the restrictions of a sling for another three weeks, Sherlock could feel the restlessness like ants in his skin.

9. A Faun at Baker Street (Sherlock) It had all started in Dartmoor.

It had been nearly been 2am by the time they'd finished up at the field and had staggered back to the hotel. Sherlock had left hours earlier so John had offered to remain behind with Greg while they had filled in the local constabulary; a greying man a year out from retirement along with his replacement-in-training.

10. Your Loss Would Break My Heart (Sherlock) He could have taken the helicopter but, quite frankly, he had needed the drive in order to structure what he would say to them. Though, even as he pulled the sleek vehicle into the drive; gravel snapping and popping beneath the narrow tyres, he was no more prepared than he'd been when he'd left London. After turning off the engine he hung back for a beat – hands gripped around the wheel.

Tagging (no pressure): @ariaadagio @aelaer @ceruleanmindpalace @kitcat992 @hanuko @sgam76 @disappearinginq @itsjustdg as well as anyone else who'd like to participate :)

[deke-rivers-1957]

I posted 126 times in 2022

That's 126 more posts than 2021!

54 posts created (43%)

72 posts reblogged (57%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@alienelvisobsession

@skinnypantsmcgee

@loving-elvis

@heartbrake-hotel

@lindszeppelin

I tagged 123 of my posts in 2022

Only 2% of my posts had no tags

#0 - 7 posts

#real elvis - 77 posts

#elvis presley - 37 posts

#elvis film - 31 posts

#elvis fandom - 13 posts

#real talk - 10 posts

#elvis was a nerd - 9 posts

#elvis art - 7 posts

#film review - 7 posts

#my thoughts - 6 posts

Longest Tag: 129 characters

#seriously look at pics where he's holding a frame from the 70s his thumb is bent backwards a bit more than most people can handle

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Kung Fu Elvis Part 1

So going back to @skinnypantsmcgee posting a piece where different Elvis' fighting each other made me think of something. What if we rank all of Elvis' characters based on their fighting ability?

Basically what I'm gonna do is after I watch 4 films, I'm gonna rank each of Elvis' characters based on their ability to win a no weapons hand to hand combat style fight. I know Elvis did 31 films but I do not count his 2 documentaries as films so I'm only judging his 29 films. That's 7 parts with the last one having 5 films.

Ok so here we go, after I recap each of the characters including their age in the order I watch the film I'll rank them at the end. Age is important because a young 20 something fighting is different than a 30 something fighting. In some cases Elvis' character is specifically given an age in the film, but otherwise his character will be treated as if he was the same age as Elvis when he did the film.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok so first review of course was the first film, Love Me Tender. This film is set during the last couple days of the Civil War and the next couple months that follow. Elvis' character was Clint Reno, the youngest brother who didn't go to war. His only occupation is being a farmer who did most of the work while his brothers were away. Since this is the 1860s it's debatable as to how much nutrition he got and because the farm wasn't doing that well we can assume this is not a well off family.

Clint is implied to be a young adult or recently became an adult. It's hard to tell because based on the dialogue and circumstances in the film, he comes off as an 18 year old. Vance said he was practically a man, he wanted to be part of the war but he couldn't go and just in general he comes off as a young man trying to prove to his brothers he's not a kid anymore. However, the tombstone saying he was 22 years old is evidence that suggests that he's older. The problem with using that to determine age is that it contradicts a line stating how much time has passed since the brothers robbed the train by having him die before they were supposed to have been arrested. Ultimately, I'll just say he's between 18 and 22 since Elvis himself can pass for someone younger than 21 his actual age at the time.

See the full post

13 notes - Posted October 23, 2022

#4

This Boy

Look at this boy from 1956 behind stage on the Steve Allen Show. He's just biting on his hat. He can't even go 5 minutes without be a goof or absolutely precious. Why does he need to have something his mouth all the time?

America explain.

14 notes - Posted August 25, 2022

#3

Elvis Ask Game

This is a part of the original thread by @aconflagrationofmyown. I made it separate to make it easier to read since I'm deciding to answer a lot of these lol. Thank you @lindszeppelin and @ash-omalley for tagging me.

•When and what was your first exposure to Elvis Presley?

I don't remember when I first watched this film, but my first exposure to Elvis was watching Lilo and Stitch.

I was only 2 or so when the movie came out so I think I saw it later on when I was like 5 or 6 years old so like maybe 2005/2006.

•And what was your first impression?

I didn't understand who Elvis was other than oh he's the guy Lilo likes so much because of her parents. I didn't think much of him until I was older.

•Lace shirts or jumpsuits?

Lace shirts since I like that era of Elvis better. The jumpsuits are very hit or miss with me and the idea of how much he suffered in that era keeps me from truly enjoying that era.

•You can steal one of Elvis/Austin’s outfits, what’s it going to be?

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18 notes - Posted September 23, 2022

#2

See the full post

26 notes - Posted October 27, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Not totally on board with "Big daddy Elvis" thing. It was water retention from his health issues, not fat. Finding it sexy feels kinda' wrong, to me, but that's just my opinion.🤷

I can understand that. I have hesitancies about it too. I'm fully aware that he had health issues that contributed to his physical appearance.

To me I like the clothes that he wore in that era and to me he sometimes did have good days where the average person wouldn't know that he was even sick.

Regarding his actual size, I try to say "hey it's one thing for him to actually be fat that's perfectly fine, but here it's a bit different because he was actually sick" you know. I try to make it clear that he was sick and that I personally would like him at the size he was in that era so long as he was healthy.

Basically I agree sexualizing him as he really was in this era can be off putting. I personally base my own feelings on a what if fantasy that he was that size and perfectly healthy.

I hope that cleared things up for you as I totally understand that something like this can be uncomfortable and that not everyone in the fandom really understood just how sick he was.

I'm glad you asked this anon because it helped me summarize my own thoughts on the latest surge in big daddy Elvis. While I do agree that he was still a person that deserved love and affection, the degree being taken here is a bit excessive and is more of a sign that the fandom isn't aware of his issues.

51 notes - Posted November 2, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[tanoraqui]

responding to @shrikeseams’s tags on this post separately bc it was getting long...

#tbf i think fandom puts too much weight on Turgon being the Staid One #since most of his cautious behavior is... after his wife died. and while he's trying to keep at least his daughter from Death By Doom #he was down to cross the ice in the first place! it's not like he turned back with finarfin! #IDK what KIND of hellion he was at tirion formal events. but HE WAS A HELLION LIKE ANY FINWION COUSIN. #I just haven't pinned down his specific brand of bastardy yet 

...because they are good and right and I DON’T want to fall into that Turgon characterization trap. Looking back at the text, Turgon first stood with Fingolfin to tell Fëanor he was a fucking idiot for swearing that Oath he just swore and like hell were they going anywhere with him, but after Alqualondë and the issueing of the Doom he was with Fingon in being, “bold and fiery of heart, and loath to abandon any task to which they had put their hands until the bitter end, if bitter it must be.” He was, if not eager for rebellion, certainly #inittowinit once they’d started.

I think that very “this is still a terrible idea but now that we’ve started, I’ll see it fucking accomplished” is what cuts deepest later, after Elenwë’s death. The end is too bitter already; he doesn’t want to be here and he doesn’t want their daughter to be here. Ulmo warns that a time will come when hidden refuges are their only hope and it rings true in his heart. And he finds some pride and joy again in the city he builds, in its long peaceful rule and (for a while) its continued safety even after the peace is shattered and burned elsewhere. Even as he felt Doom closing in on them, and he sent seven different crews to try to reach Valinor and plead for aid before all fell...

That said, I still think young Turgon prided himself on being more sensible than his older brother (and certainly more sensible than his younger siblings - a category which, again also includes Finrod’s younger siblings). Someone in this family has to be responsible, and it’s clearly not Fingon, and it’s rarely Finrod! The heavy, heady duty Must fall to him, Turukáno, or all will be lo-

oh, well, if the food fight is already started, then he’s going to throw a bowl of mashed potatoes are Carnistir’s head. For what he said about Irissë earlier (which Turukáno nearly punched him for at the time, too, and was only stopped by Findarato grabbing his arm and Tyelkormo elbowing his own brother sharply in the ribs.)

(Side note: my real hobby is referring to Noldor by their Quenya names when talking about them as children who had no idea how bad fighting could get.)

Tldr: I think Turgon’s brand of childhood bastardry is that he rarely initiates the hellion-doings, but he WILL escalate them, and afterwards might accept responsibility but might also loudly protest to his parents that it wasn’t his fault.

Relatedly, I think Finrod always had very good instincts for when it was important to be responsible, eg, when the world is dark, your grandfather is dead, and your uncles are on the verge of civil war; or when you meet a new species and need to negotiate your extended relatives into giving them land; or when an old friend’s grandson comes to you with a request for aid...or, once upon a time, when doing something would genuinely upset someone, whether they be one of his siblings or the artist whose ice sculpture looked really enticingly climbable, or genuinely upset the increasingly delicate balance of power in Tirion...

Conversely, however, that instinct for when responsibility is important means he always knew in his heart that almost all state dinners are 100% fair game for tomfoolery, hellionship, bastardry, and, dare I saw, shenanigans. And Finrod and Turgon were - you know JD and Turk from Scrubs, the “We’re not married.” “Dude, we’re a little married.” “I know. I love it”? That. So...

Edit: “will not start the fight but WILL escalate it, especially in personal retaliation” does still make Mandos the Turgon of the Valarin family