#i set myself the task

[dedkake]

no one there | gen, .6k, t

october days 19-24 whumptober + fictober: five times john was alone and one time he wished he were

The clearing in front of the shrine is empty, and John’s stomach drops. He’s really on his own here, not that he’d expected anything different.

**here’s a little warning for an ambiguous ending

read it below or on ao3

-

“I’m not saying I’ll be at the gym six hours a day,” John says, his foot slipping on the wet stones of the river. “Not like Ronon—no offense, buddy. Just that I’ll put in a little more time. I’ll even bring McKay—” His knees give out, though, his lungs seizing up as he hits the icy water.

“Shit,” he says, but he can’t bring himself to move.

“Just—” he tries, sucking in as much air as he can—“quit playing games and get back here already. Do we have a deal, or what?”

There’s no one there to answer.

- -

John blinks when they pull the bag off his head, his eyes stinging at sudden brightness.

“It seems Mr. Woolsey’s got as much of a backbone as you said,” Dhen says, fingering his gun.

The clearing in front of the shrine is empty, and John’s stomach drops. He’s really on his own here, not that he’d expected anything different. Woolsey was never going to trade the Aqol ambassador for John. Their tentative alliance with the Aqol is too important to jeopardize.

Dhen steps closer. “Well,” he says, the muzzle of his gun pressed to John’s thigh. “Since there’s only us.”

- - -

The door to John’s cell creaks, setting John’s teeth on edge before the guard even enters.

Not that there’s much hope for him at this point. He wipes at the blood on his hands, can taste it on his lips. The coughing that had started last night hasn’t let up, not after the beating he’d endured yesterday.

“Your friends sure are talkative,” the guard says, and John’s world goes gray at the edges.

“You said they’d be safe,” he says, his voice distant, his chest tight. He’d been sure, that’s why he’d volunteered.

The guard laughs. “I never said that.”

- - - -

The light from the isolation room ceiling is too bright and no one will fucking shut it off. They don’t even have the decency to let John turn the damn thing off himself—they’ve just left him here, strapped to the bed.

“Who said this was a good idea?” he asks, but distantly, he thinks that it might’ve been him. Something about the enzyme, which he’s been able to avoid until now, now when he can feel its grip on him loosening, leaving him drifting away into nothing, leaving him to die.

And there’s no one there to stop it.

- - - - -

“Thought you could escape?” John can’t see the man who’s shot him, just scrambles to get away. “Not on my watch.”

“Hold him down,” the man says. There are hands on his arms, his pressing into his back, his legs, keeping him down, the pain in his side skyrocketing at the pressure. If he can keep their attention on him, though, maybe the team will get away.

“Ten against one,” John says, lungs burning. “I’d take those odds too.”

There are boots in front of him, someone crouching down. John sees the Wraith tracking device before he hears it beeping.

+

“Is this safe?” Teyla asks, shining her light around the cave. That should’ve been their first clue to get the hell out.

Just one visitor, the village elders had said. It was supposed to be John alone. It’s too late now. They’re cut off from the entrance and the creatures under the mountain are relentless.

John flexes his fingers, wincing at the stretch in his bleeding knuckles. He’d run out of ammo long ago, his knife and fists all he has left.

“Sheppard,” Ronon says, his hands covered in Rodney’s blood as he struggles with a clean bandage.

“They’re back.”

also on ao3

[last-flight-of-fancy]

finally completed the common rarity cookie set!

[catnippackets]

I feel like 2023 has simultaneously been the best but also most panicky year I've had like...ever. I've never been so stressed and not stressed at the same time. everything is happening so much and everything includes nothing. I have experienced epic highs and lows this year like no other. I had a legitimate breakdown in January and cried myself to sleep more nights than I could count and then in mid April I felt unstoppable and was literally waking up every morning feeling like a kid on Christmas and then from that point on it's been an endless oscillation between "I have never felt better than I do right now in my whole life" and "my life is completely meaningless and I've never felt more trapped". my mental health has gotta be a completely even line at this point bc the extreme goodness and extreme sadness are cancelling each other out. things are just solidly OK right now. I'm doing a lot of things of varying importance and feeling really good about myself. it's more just like the state of existing right now is kind of difficult. but that's fine. I'm fine. everything is normal. my birthday is in three weeks and I'm not even excited about it what the heck (hell) is that about!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[n3ongold3n]

Ever since i saw the thongTM i could not stop thinking about this 🐳

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

the deeply dispiriting feeling of being told that a handful of friendly strangers in a shared community would like to be part of a group you've proposed, only to hear from none of them and still be the only person in the discord you created when invites are about to expire almost a week later, leaving you paranoid and wondering whether you set it up wrong or just haven't received any kind of acknowledgement because they saw the work you put in setting it up and all realized you are way too much

[ps1demodisk]

this is mister john whimper

also the exact same fox from the other meme

[caterpillarinacave]

So I haven’t written anything in a month

[ambersky0319]

why do i get the productivity and organizational motivations at night when i should be getting the sleep motivation

[godsfavoritescientist]

How do I explain the ways in which the bill origins fic 'A Romance of Many Dimensions' by haley3 rewired my brain without needing to give paragraphs upon paragraphs of context. The fic is something like 200,000 words long. Almost every single good moment calls back to things that are set up earlier in the fic

[darkseldarine]

I wish I'd actually internalized this about ttrpgs when I was younger (especially in regards to d&d) but I think you should never be expected to make your own campaign setting. You're no more Morally Pure or Righteous for making your own setting than just running in one that already exists. If you otherwise like an existing setting but don't vibe with some parts then you can just tweak it and make your own spin. You don't have to build everything from ground up.

Don't be like me and abandon 5 different half-baked settings I didn't have fun making over the course of ~7 years, all of which were never played in. When I could've used all that time I spent to just run in the forgotten realms lmao.

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

why am i actually incapable of writing a basic smut scene without turning it into an angst-filled, pining-laden character study??

[amaranthsynthesis]

on a little self-imposed creative retreat working on said the tiger to the king and im writing brief versions of the history of the empire and the history of the magerium :))) they are in direct disagreement :)))))))))

I'm having so much fun :)

[fluffypotatey]

have a soul eater lmk au eating at my brain (this is what i get for playing the op on repeat but oh well)

and all i did was ask: would swk be classified as a kishin and then be stripped of all the souls he ate by the time jttw rolls around?

[llycaons]

I've had tasks all day but the alternative was what, sitting around watching tv? I brought salt fish girl and I'm trying to read it but I'm really not into it unfortunately. but there are issues and problems at work that aren't my fault (so no need to feel guilty) and my supervisor is telling me to attend to them and attend to them I will...my god I love creating solutions. I just had a conversation with some other members of the unit and solved some issues. made a tip sheet. restocked some very important supplies. helped draft an email. confirmed I restocked some stuff last week. I love it

[nexus-nebulae]

do any other autistic people feel like they experience like. way more extreme emotions than neurotypical people. like as if my Emotions lever is constantly set to MAXIMUM POWER so whatever im feeling is just amplified way more than other people. good emotions bad emotions all emotions they just feel like i Feel them so much i might actually explode

[torchickentacos]

so I just realized the reason I read maybe 7 fics a year is probably because of this thing my therapist likes to call task paralysis