#i'm not particularly afraid of death but i am of losing others

[noxtivagus]

philo class today oh my god

[qqueenofhades]

what's been particularly vile to me is this group of white online leftists who insist that anyone who cares about more than this one issue for the election is a bad person, like, as if us black and brown people are making up reasons to be afraid and not.....believing the gop when they say they are coming for us. believing trump who has said previously that he does not bluff, that he will do the things he's said he will do (i hate what social media has gone to the word gaslighting but it feels like gaslighting. we lived through four years of trump. we saw the damage. stop treating us like we're being dramatic). it must be great to not have to worry about that i guess? "life won't change under trump" is such a telling admission because maybe theirs won't but mine will. and so many others' will.

and it is often again these (white) online leftists that love to call anyone who disagrees with them a white liberal (derogatory) because they know it would be racist (bad) to be this shitty and condescending to poc but they don't want to actually listen to anything black and brown voters are saying. it's easier to just call us white liberals and throw our opinions out, to ignore the work of black people for decades to gain the right to vote, to disregard the weight of telling them to not do that. it's genuinely appalling. they care so much about racism until it's time to engage with poc who have different opinions than their online echo chambers, then we're just stupid liberals with terrible opinions like..... wanting to live. not wanting four more years of trump. so sorry for that.

sorry for this vent in your inbox, i'm just so fucking tired of white people trying to rewrite history as if trump wasn't that bad. he was for my family and countless others and i am terrified for what's to come if he wins.

The thing about (the often-white) Online Leftists is that they have become just as much as a radicalized death cult as the diehard Trumpists. If you don't want to die for The Revolution and/or sacrifice your life, friends, family, the rest of the country, etc., then you're Insufficiently Pure and must be Purged. (Which I think is just complete BS, as none of them could actually handle sacrificing anything, but it's increasingly the only kind of performative rhetoric that is acceptable in leftist-identified discourse spaces.) This is functionally identical to "if you aren't willing to lay down your life for our Lord and Savior Donald Trump and the Great White Christian Nationalist Dictatorship, you're a liberal cuck," but with the names and justification changed. It doesn't change the underlying radicalization, nihilism, and insanity of the premise.

Another thing the Trumpists and the Online Leftists have in common is that they are busily rewriting just how bad Trump was in order to serve their Ideology. Ever since January 6, 2021, the Republicans have thrown everything they have at revising and whitewashing any suggestion that it was an "insurrection," and the Online Leftists have done the same, in an attempt to "prove" their insane point that Trump "would be better" than Biden. This is embodied in the recent ultimate-brainworm-nonsense maximalist-online take that "Biden has to lose so the rest of the world will see that the US rejects genocide!!!" That's right, the message that the rest of the world would take from Biden losing to Trump is that the US rejects genocide. Never mind if Trump literally wants to commit all the genocide possible and to install himself as a fascist theocratic dictator. In the deeply twisted minds of the Online Leftists, this is the only possible interpretation of Biden's loss, so they'll push for it as hard as they can! The Trumpists and the Online Leftists, at this point, are working pretty much in concert to damage Biden for similar insane reasons and get Trump elected. Etc etc., one Nazi and ten people at the same table is eleven Nazis.

Like. Sure. Four years ago, when Trump was president and people were dying by the thousands because he didn't want to wear a mask because it smeared his bronzer, just to name literally one of the terrible things he did every single day (and not even mentioning how much worse a second term would be) we were absolutely better off. Super-duper great. (Sarcasm.) Either that or "there is suffering and evil in the world and the only solution is to drastically increase the suffering and evil for everyone and to destroy what progress we have managed to make because It Does Not Fix Everything Now" is an absolute moral imperative, and either way, yeah. I'm calling bullshit.

[melodic-haze]

heyy, may i request some natasha content? she's so underrated i swear 😩😩

☆ — SONG TITLE: Acts of service

☆ — PAIRINGS: Natasha x Reader

☆ — TYPE: Fluff, SFW

☆ — CONTENT WARNINGS: None

☆ — NOTES: No NSFW for this one cuz I've been doing a lotta that 🫶 hope you don't mind!!! Also idk what colour to give her :(

☆ — WORD COUNT: 1,609 words

Visiting Natasha became something of a routine for you. Despite everything that you did in the day, you never failed to visit the doctor—it was usually during the afternoon, around the time you had lunch, because then you asked her to have a bite with her every time, to which she always agreed to.

Half of the reason why was because you had wanted to spend time with Wildfire's true leader as.. well, not Wildfire's leader. You wanted to get to know Natasha, nobody else, at first.. but then it went from getting to know her to having each other's presence become something of a constant in both your lives, and then to something even more.

The other half of the reason, though, was because you were concerned.

She was the Underworld's best doctor, so naturally everyone relied on her. While she did have a massively good reputation, unfortunately that came at the cost of a decrease in the time for her to relax.

Such a thing was evident to see when it was moments like these—you had just stepped into her clinic and already you are witnessing the blue-gray-haired woman rush back and forth, patient to patient. After all, you had waited for.. what was essentially an hour before you decided to just stop waiting and to go to her yourself to see what was happening.

You had to take your time in actually approaching her, worried that you might somehow disturb her flow, and only actually decide to try to gain her attention when she seems to have slowed down.

Gently placing a hand on her shoulder, you softly called out to her, "Natasha?"

You hear her sigh the slightest bit, tired and weary, but when she turns her head and sees you she pushes herself upright on her desk as if startled. She quickly downplays her surprise with a laugh, however, "Oh! Dear, you gave me a quite a shock. What are you here for? Are you sick?"

"No, no," you shook your head, "I'm not on death's door or anything like that. Seems like you've got your hands full of the people that are, though."

She let out a small yet exhausted laugh, the lines on her eyes particularly evident today, "I suppose I am, aren't I? ..Though not to be hasty, and I do love to see you and your face, but if you aren't here to get treated, then is there another reason why you're here?"

The clinic was so particularly hectic today that she forgot.

"..Nat."

"Yes?"

"We were supposed to meet up a bit more than an hour ago."

You see her take her phone out of her pocket to check the time and--

"Oh."

Her eyes widen at the realisation before darting back to you with furrowed brows, "I hadn't realised... Were you waiting this whole time?"

You shrugged with a sheepish grin, "I didn't really want to leave in case you were just late. I see that you're really busy, though."

You see her sigh out and look at you apologetically, "Dear, you should've called me. I didn't mean to lose track--"

"Hey, no, I'm not mad or anything, don't worry about it." You reach for her hands to hold them tenderly as you got a little closer to her, "I can see that you're absolutely swamped with work, I get it. I wouldn't have signed myself up for dating you if I didn't accept it."

"Be that as it may, this is practically routine for the both of us."

"Yeah, but this is still your job." You gave her a light shrug and a reassuring smile, "Don't worry about it, yeah? We can just postphone it for when you go off the clock."

She huffs out gently with a small shake of her head, "A doctor never fully gets off the clock."

"Even when the Stellaron's gone?"

"Mhm. Not only that, but some of the others have caught an illness so we're short-staffed and I've been scrambling left and right. I'm afraid I had no time to think about anything else... Or, well," she draws a hand back from your grasp to cup your cheek with such a soft, affectionate look, "until you came along. Now I feel like I can't seem to think of--"

"Natasha?" The both of you turn to look at the nurse calling out to your lover, her touch on you breaking away at the disturbance, "Sorry to disturb you but, um, we need you here."

Natasha fully lets go of you now, easily getting herself back into work mode, "He's woken up?" And when the nurse nods, she answers swiftly, "Alright. I'll be there in a second."

Then she turns back to you, work mode off for a brief moment. While her affectionate look is still there, you could easily see how much today's exhaustion's getting to her, "I'm sorry that I'll have to leave you like this. I don't think I really have time to spare so.. I'll meet you when I'm done?"

"Mm." You briefly go to squeeze her hand and press a quick peck on her cheek, "Good luck with work, yeah? I'll be waiting."

She nods, and then she turns to make a beeline over to the waiting patient, leaving you alone in the middle of the clinic. You supposed that you should probably go so you make your way over to the door...

But when you put a hand on the doorknob, suddenly you're hit with a revelation.

You rush back over to her (the desk she owns, specifically) and wait for until she's finished with her current charge. It takes a while, but eventually she turns to walk over to said desk, to which she sees you and makes a confused yet amused expression, "I don't believe I'm off the clock yet, darling. Anything you need?"

"No, actually." You shook your head at her, "On the contrary, I think I have a little solution to your problem."

She crossed her arms as she hummed in curiosity, "Hmm? And whatever may that be?"

"I can help. Like, as some sort of assistant."

"..Go on."

"I know I'm not necessarily trained to be a doctor like you, or a nurse, or anyone in the professional health field, but I can do the other stuff like book-keeping and supply pick-ups. And maybe fetching stuff for you," you shrugged, "but I can't promise that I'll know what they look like."

You had expected her to accept the help—you have to use whatever resource you have in the Underworld, even when the passage between here and the overworld has been opened up. However, instead you see her shaking her head with slightly furrowed brows, "I'm afraid I can't let you do that."

"Why not?"

"I can't ask that of you. I wouldn't want you to sacrifice your day to help me with my job..." She looks to the side, pensive, "And I'm afraid I can't pay you either; I don't want to monopolise you just because we share a close bond.

You waved off her concerns, "Don't worry about that. One, I already get paid by spending time with you. And two, you're not monopolising anything—I'm offering to help. So let me?"

She looks at you, looks back towards the patients behind her, and then looks back at you again, her face showing clear contemplation. She's silent for a while and the lack of an answer plays with your nerves, but she eventually gives you a small, teasing smile, "It will probably take up the entire rest of your day. Are you sure you can hold out for that long here?"

"Ah, but you underestimate me—I can do anything when you're with me."

She laughs, and it's the most beautiful sight you've ever witnessed, "We'll have to see, won't we?"

You both get straight into work after that; Natasha tends to the patients with the other nurses as you dutifully do exactly as you said, taking care of most of the documentations and fetching the needed supplies for her and everyone else (without touching the chemicals in case you mess something up, of course). The amount of work was, quite frankly, insane for such a small clinic but you supposed that all places had their busiest days, medical locations included.

It was tough, and it sure as hell was exhausting, but eventually you pulled through the day and finally you were off the clock. You left a little earlier per your girlfriend's request, waiting outside for her to come out instead. And once she walks out the door, you two walk back home in companiable silence.

It's only when you reach your house when she speaks up, guilt tinging her tone, "I'm sorry we didn't end up having lunch as per usual, dear."

"I told you so many times, Nat, I seriously don't mind. I wanted to help!"

"Not that I'm ungrateful, and I know you offered, but are you sure you were okay to help? Treating people and helping them recover is something I love to do, but you could have done something else."

"I could have," you paused in your steps, opting Natasha go do the same. "But I wanna spend more time with you. Plus, hospital intern dates aren't exactly the worst dates ever."

She laughs again, and you can't get enough of it, "I suppose it isn't. Now come," she nudges her head towards your house's direction, "I'll make up for the whole of today, starting with a delightful meal. Care to join me, Y/N?"

Yes. Yes, you'd very much like to.

[starlost-andfound]

claire de lune | bang chan

bang chan x friend gn!reader

summary: on a particularly rough night, y/n and chan find comfort in each other's company under the moonlight

word count: 1.1k

warning: discussions of grief, losing loved ones, mentions of death, angst and a bit of bittersweet but comforting (?) fluff

authors note: i don't actually think anyone will read this but i'm missing some ppl a little more than usual tonight. i thought i'd write this as a comfort for myself and for others who feel the same too

additional note: also, after years of using tumblr, i just figured out how to do this three pictures in a row thing and i am absolutely ecstatic about it

_ _ _

The knock on his studio door snapped Chan out of his trance.

He blinked his eyes a few times, his vision slowly coming back to focus, staring at the black computer screen in front of him. How long had he been zoned out? His head drifting to other places, clinging to lingering thoughts? 

He glanced at the clock. 1:45 AM. Had it really been that long?

The knock sounded and Chan cleared his throat, “Come in.”

The door opened slightly and y/n peaked through the small gap. 

“Oh, hey you,” Chan smiled tiredly. “It’s been a while.”

Y/n smiled. “Mind if I step in?”

“You know you’re always welcome,” Chan gestured to the couch behind him. The bags under y/n’s eyes didn’t go unnoticed by him. He couldn’t deny that he held his own too. Chan had been in the studio for so long he could barely remember what time he had entered and how much time had passed.

Y/n closed the door behind them, leaning against it. 

“Why are you up so late?” Chan asked.

“I could ask you the same.”

Chan chuckled. He glanced at the time again and sighed. He looked back at y/n, “Wanna go out on a walk?”

“Yeah, I could use some fresh air.”

_ _ _

Chan and y/n didn’t really have a destination in mind. They walked quietly side by side, matching each other’s pace. Occasionally, a soft sigh would break the silence or one of the two would point out the nice weather or a stray cat on the opposite side of the street. Both carried some kind of weight, a wearing shadow looming behind them.

Eventually the two found a park and made their way to a bench. Y/n let out a sigh as they sat. Chan followed, sitting a slight distance away from them. Neither made the first move to speak, both of their hearts aching to let go of the heavy anchor in their chest, but neither were courageous enough to say the words they needed to.

Chan looked up and sighed.

“Oh,” he whispered. “It’s a half moon tonight.”

Y/n followed his gaze up to the sky. They hummed in agreement. “Yeah, it’s beautiful.”

“You never did tell me why you were up,” Chan added.

A small pause. “Too much on my mind,” y/n mumbled.

“What were you thinking about?”

“It’s not so much of what I was thinking about,” y/n replied. “- but more of who i was thinking about,” they whispered. 

Y/n inhaled deeply and cleared their throat. “Why were you up?”

Chan chuckled, but his laughter held some heaviness. “I guess the same as you.”

After a longer silence, Chan spoke again. “Were they a friend, family... or a lover?”

“Family,” y/n spoke quietly, afraid if they spoke any louder their feelings would burst. “You?”

“Friend,” Chan sighed..

He laughed lightly. “It doesn’t get easier, does it?”

“Nope,” y/n chuckled, fiddling with the hem of their t-shirt. “I feel like every time it hits me I drown again.”

“They say it comes in waves.”

“Yeah,” y/n bit their lip as their eyes started to water, a lump building in their throat.

“Sometimes it’s unforgiving like a high tide and it completely floods and it drowns you,” Chan continued with a deep breath. “But sometimes it’s gentle and kind like the low tide on a shore on a quiet morning.”

A tear slipped passed y/n’s eye and they quickly brushed it away.

“I hate it, I really do.” their lip trembled. They inhaled shakily. “I just wish it would go away.”

“I know,” Chan said. “Me too.”

He couldn’t tell when the first tear had fallen, quickly wiping away the tears smudged on his cheeks. 

“I just don’t know how to deal with all of this pain that I have left, all of this love I have left for them. I don’t know where to put it. I don’t know how anyone lives with it. How the world just keeps spinning but I’m still stuck here.”

“I guess we just have to learn to live with it,” Chan whispered. “Slowly, step by step. We put the love we have left for them into the way we live.”

He paused, and breathed shakily. “Maybe by smiling a little more for them, or doing that crazy thing we’re scared of, just living more for them - because they would’ve wanted that for us.” His voice wavered, “They would’ve wanted us to be happy.”

Y/n sniffled. “You have a really good way with words.”

“Funny.” Chan laughed through his tears. “People say that a lot.”

“Sometimes, I feel really lost without them. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m doing with myself, with my life.” y/n spoke. “They used to be a call away and now, I don’t know what to do when I need them the most.”

“It’s hard, learning to live and grow.” Chan said. “As you get older, you grow apart or you have to learn how to keep growing on your own.” 

He sniffled. “But they’re always looking out for us, even when they’re gone. You just need to look for the signs.”

“Do you think they can see us from up there?”, y/n asked, looking back up at the sky.

“I think they do. They always watch over us, in the stars.” Chan pointed up in the far distance, to a small cluster of stars surrounding the moon. 

The two sat in silence again, both looking up at the stars, the moonlight washing over them with a soft glow, wrapping them in a gentle embrace.

“For what it’s worth, I think they would be really proud of who you are today.” Chan looked at y/n.

Y/n’s eyes welled with tears again. “You really think so?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“Thank you,” y/n said quietly. They glanced at Chan. “For what it’s worth, I know that they’re really proud of you too Chan.”

Chan remained silent for a moment, composing himself before he replied. “Thank you, y/n.”

They sat together quietly for a few more minutes, each allowing the other to feel their own heaviness in their chest, in their own time. 

After some time passed, the only sound heard was the distant chirp of crickets and their quiet breathing.

“Do you want to head back?”, y/n asked.

Chan looked back up at the moon and exhaled shakily. “I think I’d like to stay here for a bit longer, look at the stars a little more.”

“I think I’ll stay a little bit longer too.”

Up above them, in the light of the moon in the dark sky, a pair of stars shined a little brighter.

[hellaarknight]

Something called love

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

Genre: angst Warnings: swearing

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

A king has to be flawless.

That's something Callisto Regulus has heard all his life. Don't show your vulnerability, don't show your emotions, don't show you're hurt, don't show you care. These words are engraved in Callisto's mind, in his behaviors, in his heart, whether he likes it or not. It's not like he ever had a choice in the matter. But then why does he hate it so much right now when he's seeing you spit blood?

A king has to be flawless.

That's why he agreed with the arranged marriage with you, a marriage plotted by the empress to keep him in check. Or at least that's what he thought at first.

"Fuck this" he thought as he run to pick up your bloodied body from the ground. His body just moved on his own, his voice screamed for a physician, but he was stuck on your beautiful eyes which were losing their light.

___________________________________________________________________

"I don't want this marriage as much as you. Unfortunately for you, Your Highness, I'm just a paw for my family, one they'll discard given the chance. I entered this marriage with the sole purpose of getting out of that mansion that I called home. Believe it or not, the thought of dying by your hands on a whim of your attitude is merciful in comparison with the living I had there. So, if you feel merciful today, swing that sword harder and actually cut my throat, don't just give me false hope".

Callisto was certainly taken aback by your words. He just wanted to scare you, his new so called fiancee, to run back home crying as he did not have the wish nor patience to play the game the empress had in mind. So, taking advantage of his infamous reputation, he put his sword at your throat, asking for a reason why he shouldn't just kill you on a whim. If you intended to peak his interest, you did.

" So you're telling me, that you're treating the next emperor as a way out of a bad family situation? Am I a joke to you?" He was amused, a smirk gracing his handsome face. Even though now he was sure you would not be a thorn in his side, at least for now, he wanted to make sure that you knew your place, and be afraid of him. He does have a reputation as a tyrant, after all.

" If I have to be sincere, Your Highness, then yes, I have used you... No, even better, I am using you as a way out of that place. The ducy is not particularly fond of their illegitimate daughter, you see. Even a prisoner of the Empire has a better life than I did. You may do whatever you want with this information and if your wish is to punish me with the death penalty, I'd gladly take it."

___________________________________________________________________

Callisto was definitely fond of your first encounter after you entered the palace as his fiancee. While staying by your unconscious side day after day, he reminiscent more of those moments he kept very close to his heart. Your fiery attitude, your sharp mind and your quick witted responses to his provocation made him fall in love with you, without even realizing it. He, who had a duty to carry, a revenge to fight for, deemed that it was impossible to fall in love. He was sure his marriage will be a political one to straighten his power once he becomes emperor and still he found himself waiting for your encounters, waiting to see your smile and now hoping for you to wake up.

A king has to be flawless.

Everyone around him wanted to see his desperation now that his esteemed fiancee was on the verge of death. But he did not show any. Not around others, of course. But when he remains alone with you, holding your frail hand, kissing your pale temples, he pleads with the gods to have you back.

___________________________________________________________________

"You should really stop hiding in the library"

Callisto found your secret hideout in the castle library, somewhere in the back, all cozy with some blankets and pillows. You intrigued him, you stood your ground in front of him, even in front of the empress. He discovered that you loved reading, so he granted you access to the imperial library. He found out a lot about his fiancee these past months.

" You should stop following me around, Your Highness. Don't you have something better to do, like fighting the nobles and beating the monsters?"

"What now? I'm not allowed to spend time with my own fiancee?"

"Careful now. If someone hears you might think that you actually have feelings for me"

Calisto scoffed, avoiding your gaze and immediately changing the subject, while sitting near you in your cozy space. A very illegal cozy space, the librarian throwing a fit over it, but he made sure that you'd be allowed to keep it. After all, he was keeping you in check so you wouldn't conspire with the empress, or that's the lie he keeps telling around.

" What are you reading today?"

" Honestly, something about the monster from the Empire and magic. "

" Oh no, did you get bored of the lovey dovey stories you read until now?"

You playfully smacked his arm, something you've done once in frustration and since you did not lose your head, you continued doing it. Callisto was rather amused by it, so he allowed it, after all it was one of the few physical interactions you two had.

" No, no I did not. I just need a break from all that, you know, get back on earth with my head. Don't wanna fool myself into believing that something called love exists."

Foolish girl, were the words that never left Calisto's lips that day. Instead, he felt so at peace that he fell asleep with his head on your shoulder. And you never spoke about it after his awakening, but it definitely became your little secret that kept happening every now and then.

___________________________________________________________________

This was the third time Calisto felt fear when it came to you. The first time was when the monster attacked at the hunting competition. The second time was when your family came to visit. He remembered that when you heard the news that they came unannounced you paled, your complexion being almost the same shade that you had now while on the verge of death. It was more than six months into your engagement when they made their presence at the palace, if he remembers correctly.

"Do you remember that time when you were so scared of hearing the news that you gripped yourself to my side and did not want to let go?"

Calisto smiled to himself while pressing a gentle kiss on the back of your hand. How the tables have turned, now he's the one glued to your side, not wanting to let go.

"Do you remember the promise I made you that day? That I'll help you be free from your family with or without our engagement? This was not the freedom I was talking about..."

His voice cracked.

He remembered when he first saw the scars on your back. An accident, really, he was at the wrong place and wrong time... Or should it be the right place at the right time? He never could have guessed that you were carrying such a burdensome secret. Then it all made sense, why you weren't afraid to lose your head at his hand, the way you called him being merciful for taking away your life.

" I'm sorry, Your Highness... You should not have seen that. Unfortunately, my body is not the most pleasurable one to look at..." A sad smile. " I'm full of old scars. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not the beauty they promised you."

Your voice still rang in his head as he recalled his foolish action at the time.

" Don't cover up!" He made you turn your back to him. He hated that you were putting yourself down for something you did not have any control over. He also had scars from battle, would you find them ugly when you eventually would get to see them? He placed a kiss on your back then quietly whispered making you shiver.

" You're nothing less than perfect in my eyes and your scars only tell the story of how powerful you really are. Don't ever try to hide yourself from me"

Callisto was going crazy, having all these flashbacks of the moments he secretly cherished. He placed another kiss on your hand, then whispered in your ear.

" Please come back to me, and I promise to kiss every scar that there is on your body and I'll promise that something called love does actually exist"

[fandom-blackhole]

hi, i really liked your work in ao3, so i’d like to request about joel where reader is pregnant and she’s freaking out a bit about telling joel, afraid he’s not going to take the new well, mostly cause of his traumas, but also cause it’s not a safe environment to raise a kid. thank you!

So sorry this took me absolutely forever to get to my lovely, school has been super busy for me! But I'm so happy that you liked my other Joel works and came over here send a request <3 I hope you like this!!

WC: 3.6K (this one got away from me woops)

Warnings: afab!reader, pregnancy, set in Jackson, no real spoilers (that i noticed), one cuss word, mentions of doubts and intrusive thoughts over the pregnancy, very unedited (i am tired and i am sure there are a ton of mistakes sorry)

When the sickness first started you chalked it up to food poisoning from the twenty some year old can of Cambell’s baked potato soup you had found and eaten while out on a three day supply run. Joel had warned you about eating it, but you had been too excited over the soup and the nostalgic memories of before the outbreak that it brought with it. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise when two days later as you were hunched over the toilet, Joel rubbed your back gently and waited until after you were finished and he passed you a glass of water, crossing his arms as he leaned back against the door frame and sighed, “Told you not to eat that soup.”

You had only huffed at him and lifted your hand, motioning for help, to which Joel helped you up off the floor and helped you to bed. He left you there with your glass of water and a small trash can, but not before he pressed a lingering kiss to your forehead and whispered, “Rest up. I’ll come check up on ya in a few hours.”

Of course when a week passed and you were still running from bed each morning, Joel insisted you visit the doctor in town. You pushed back at first, saying that it was probably just the flu, it was that time of year right before winter fully sets in and the weather bounced from warm and cold and almost everyone had at least the sniffles. Joel, however, kept pushing and eventually he won out after a particularly rough day where you could barely hold down water and you couldn’t handle Joel’s worried glances anymore.

So the next morning, before he left for his patrol, Joel walked you to the building downtown that had long been converted into a doctor’s office. The whole walk there Joel kept fretting over you.

“You sure you’ll make it back home alright? I can ask Maria to come and walk you back when she’s finished, or have her grab Ellie to do it.”

”I’ll be fine. I swear you act like I am gonna walk out of there knocking on death’s door.”

Joel of course gives you an exasperated look as the two of you turn the corner to the main hub of Jackson that was downtown and he gives a huff before saying, “You just have me worried. I’ve never seen you this sick and you haven’t been getting any better. It’s been two weeks, you should be getting better by now.”

“Joel, I really think you are making a mountain out of a molehill here,” you reply to his worry, trying to reassure him just a little, but as he opens the door for you to enter the doctor’s office he just shakes his head while looking at the ground. When he meets your eyes again, he says with full seriousness, “I don’t think you ‘re taking this serious enough. Maybe I should stay an’ make sure you don’t downplay everything.”

At that you take a step forward towards Joel and stick a finger on his chest with your eyebrows raised.

“Oh no, you are going to go do your patrol with Tommy. I can do this like an adult,” you pause and meet Joel’s hazel gaze, reading into his worry with a sigh, “and I promise I will tell the doc the whole truth, leaving nothing out. You aren’t going to lose me to something as small as the flu Joel Miller, you’re stuck with me.”

That earned you a small quirk of Joel’s lips, before he sighed again before nodding. You gave him a small smile back and pressed a kiss to Joel’s nose before whispering a goodbye and walking into the doctor’s office.

---

Well, Joel was right it would seem. It wasn’t the flu like you had assumed. You weren’t even sure how to wrap your head around what the doctor had come in and told you. He had told you that he ran the test twice just to be sure, but both had come back positive. You were pregnant and there was no doubt in your mind whose child it was.

You didn’t mean to start crying, but once it started you couldn’t stop, the tears cascading down your cheeks as your shoulders shook with silent gasping sobs. Your doctor held you, letting your tears soak his shoulder as he ran a comforting hand up and down your back. From his reaction, you doubt this is the first time he’s comforted someone with news like this, afterall who wants to bring new life into a world like the one surrounding you now, it wasn’t a safe environment for children. 

Once you had calmed, the doctor pulled away and with a gentle voice started giving you the pregnancy spiel- avoid this, don’t drink that, try to eat more of this. All of it was a blur in your mind, shock clouding your thoughts. The doctor told you he estimated that you were about six or seven weeks in, which is when morning sickness tended to make an appearance. So he gave you a bottle of multivitamins to start taking as well as a chamomile and ginger tea that is supposed to help the nausea. He also gave you a small bag of honey and mint candies, saying he was a little worried about your lack of calorie and fluid intake over the last week, telling you to drink the tea and try and suck on a few candies until you thought you could hold down actual food. 

As you got ready to leave, your tote of goodies, as the nurse had called it, slung over your shoulder, the doctor gave your shoulder a reassuring squeeze and a small smile telling you, “Try not to worry too much, you’re in the best spot in the whole country to be going through something like this, and you aren’t alone, you have a whole town at your back. Not to mention the hardest fighter in town beside you.”

You returned his smile, though your’s was hollow and full of worry, and nodded. You wished the doctor and the nurse a good week and walked home, not stopping until you were alone in your bathroom sobbing as you slid down the wall in your shower.

---

Weeks passed and your nausea and morning sickness eased with the help of the tea which you drank in the mornings, smiling over the rim of your mug as Joel drank his coffee, always offering you some and you always declining. He never seemed any suspicious of your condition. He believed you that evening when you had told him a lie, told him that you had been right, that the doctor said it had been the flu making you sick. He didn’t question you when in the mornings after saying you were better you still drank the tea telling him you had really liked it and just didn’t want it to go to waste, when in reality you were still waking up with a queasy stomach each morning.

You aren’t completely sure why you continued to hide the pregnancy for Joel. He didn’t say it much, but he had told you that he loved you, he showed it to you almost daily through small things like bringing you fresh eggs when you mentioned a craving for cookies but you were missing that one ingredient, how he brought home you favorite food from the dining hall once you were finally able to hold down food again, how he surprised you with a gift yesterday- a small wooden bird carving he’d started for you when he noticed you’d been feeling down. He loved you, you knew this, and you loved him, but you were terrified of telling him. What if it changed how he felt? What if he didn’t take the news well?

You should know to ignore these doubts, you really should, but they cloud your thoughts anyway. Joel had already been through so much with his daughter, Sarah, and his adoptive daughter, Ellie. He’d long since confided both of their stories to you, he had told you how the death of his daughter had shattered him and how his cross country trip with Ellie had broken him back down once more. What if the pregnancy brought up all the bad memories and traumas for him? What if it was too much for him to go through the process of raising, caring, and protecting another kid?

That’s not even mentioning your own personal worries of the pregnancy. You knew Jackson was one of the safest places left, but that doesn’t mean that it is completely safe from the outside world. The town often had enough raids from hunters to remind you of that fact, and the hordes of infected wandering up north and getting closer to town were of no comfort to these worries either. And what about all the possible complications? Things could always go south and put you at risk. You could die giving birth, the baby could die, both of you could die. You both could end up as just another name on Joel’s list of loss. You didn’t want to be another source of pain for him, you didn’t want to hurt the man you loved like that. 

So you don’t tell him. You continue to smile at him over the rim of your mug each morning. You continue to live your life around Jackson like nothing is different and you live in fear of the day you can no longer hide yourself from the man you love.

---

Months pass and you continue working. You continued patrols with Joel and you kept putting on the facade that everything was fine and like there wasn’t a constant fight going on in your head. Joel of course ever observant gave you worried looks like he could see through your mask, but never brought it up nor asked you what was troubling you. It was tearing you apart being the only one that knew and unable to bring yourself to say anything. 

The nausea and morning sickness started to fade around the three month mark and you were truly overjoyed to not be waking up feeling ill each morning. But of course there had to be a downside. You only got another two weeks without the morning sickness before you noticed the thing that was going to be your undoing. 

You had been pulling on your jeans, getting ready for the day’s patrol- one of the longer routes and you’d be accompanied by both Joel and Tommy- only when it got to buttoning them, you couldn’t. You’d noticed them getting a little tight, but had hoped that you’d have more time. Luck had never been on your side however, so as you struggled with the button you could feel your heart in your throat as your panic started to take ahold of you. 

After several minutes you gave up, knowing your struggle was going to stay fruitless. Looking around your room for a solution, you paused on your spare pair of boots. As quickly as possible you dethreaded both sets of shoelaces and slipped them through your jean’s belt loops as many times as possible before tying the sides together and zipping the jeans closed as much as you could. 

After shoving your boots that still had their laces on, you raced downstairs and rushed out an apology as you slipped your coat on, the weather still holding its chill.

“Sorry I couldn’t find my warm sweater. Let’s go before Tommy starts complaining about us holding him up.”

Joel just shook his head with a fond smile, holding your bag out for you to take as you passed to leave the house. 

The walk to the front gate was quiet, the morning sun just gracing the horizon as you rubbed your hands together and slipped them into your pockets for your gloves which you hurriedly pulled on. Like you had predicted, once you reached the gate, Tommy stood next to his horse with his arms crossed and he spoke up as you and Joel approached, “What took you both so long? Coulda slept in in my nice warm bed if I’d known you’d be late.”

You rolled your eyes as Joel helped you up onto your horse and he replied, “Someone couldn’t find their warm sweater even though it was hanging right there in the closet.”

Gasping, you nudged Joel’s shoulder with the toe of your boot as he walked away, grumbling, “Just throw me under the bus why don’t you. See if I agree to go on anymore patrols with you two.”

Tommy laughs as he swings onto his own horse before leading the three of you out of Jackson and out towards your path for the day.

The three of you travel in silence for a little bit, you yourself enjoying listening to the early morning bird songs. Once you all get to the first sign-in point, you all take the chance for a pause and a stretch. You walk around the converted home, stopping to look through the bay window in one of the upstairs bedrooms. The room was clearly a kid’s room, the walls painted with fields and a barn and farmhouse surrounded by houses, cattle, chickens, and bison. The bed one of those that grew with a kid, going from cradle to toddler bed. Toys and stuffies long forgotten and scattered around the room. You leaned down and picked one up, a weathered build-a-bear wearing a pair of faux denim overalls and a red handkerchief. Gently you wiped the dirt and dust off the eyes, letting the black plastic shine once again. 

Without realizing it, one of your hands drifted down to lay on your lower abdomen as you swallowed heavily and your eyes start to water. But you don’t get too far, as a soft knock on the door behind you brings you back. Turning, you find Joel looking over you, eyes slightly worried as he holds out a small pack of dried fruit. You give him a small smile and set the bear down on the bed before grabbing the food, noticing the hand on your stomach, quickly laughing and patting the hand there saying, “You must have heard my stomach growl downstairs.”

Taking your lead Joel gave you a grin replying, “Thought there was a runner up here from all the noise it was making.”

You huffed a laugh, kissing Joel’s cheek as you walked back downstairs and let out a sigh of thanks to whoever let you get away that easily with such a terrible lie. But you didn’t dwell on it, the three of you hopping onto your horses and setting out on the trail once more. 

As you went this time, Joel and Tommy passed the time with conversation. You though just listened to them, eating the fruit Joel had given you and occasionally adding little input when prompted. 

Tommy made mention that the meat stores were running a little low and he’d been asked to try and catch a deer if he could. That led the two down a conversation over how the food stores as a whole were doing and if there needed to be any supply runs anytime soon. You however zoned out at this knowing they would probably get wrapped up in the conversation. Instead you looked around as you rode, both to keep an eye out for anything and to keep your mind busy. Not that it worked as your mind drifted.

You were starting to show and while it wasn’t too noticeable right now, it would only be a matter of time before nothing fit and you’d be forced to tell Joel, or he’d figure it all out himself. At this point you're worried over his anger at being left in the dark over this for so long as well, adding to the number of worries you already held. The doctor had told you on your last check up that all your stress and worrying was causing your blood pressure to raise and that worried him. He had urged you to take a break, to try and relax but you couldn’t, not when relaxing meant your thoughts would be given more time to circle and bring you more stress and worry. You just wished all of this would disappear, that everything was fine and you only had to worry about the usual things like hunters and infected. You hated yourself for it, because you had truly not wanted it, but in the beginning you had hoped and prayed that something would happen, that this would go away and you wouldn’t have to tell Joel. But here you are and you should have known that this child being part Joel meant it wasn’t going to give up, that it was going to be there no matter how hard they had to fight, and fuck did you already love the little devil, but the worry it brought left you breaking apart. 

Hearing your name shouted pulled you from your thoughts. Jerking your head you met Joel’s worried and confused look as he said, “Come on, Tommy is gonna go start a fire for us all to warm up an’ I spotted some deer tracks so you an’ me are gonna go see if we can find anything…..you good?”

Looking around, you noticed the three of you had reached the next sign in spot on the patrol route while you had been lost in your thoughts. Turning back to Joel you nodded before sliding from your horse and tying her up.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine, just got a little lost in thought. Sorry.”

Joel just nodded slowly, his worried look not leaving, before he nodded his head to the right, saying, “The tracks lead this way.”

You nod, and grab your rifle from your shoulder, and start to follow after him, watching the tracks as the two of you go. It didn’t take long to catch up to the deer, the pretty female gazing on an open patch of grass only a fifteen minute or so walk from where you both had left Tommy and the horses. Quietly, both you and Joel looked through your scopes that the deer as she slowly stepped and ate at the patch of grass. You had had a clear shot, and were about to take it, knowing Joel’s own was blocked by a thin tree in front of him, but you paused when you saw movement next to her and that’s when you saw the small fauntling clinging close to its mother’s legs.

For some reason all of your worries came to a head as you saw the two together, and your hands shook as you put your rifle down. Joel turned to you confused as he had yet to notice the baby, so you just turned to him and shook your head and pressed your fingers to your lips before pointing to the deer and cradling your arms, signing to him that she had a baby with her. Joel took another quick look and sighed, putting his rifle down as well when he finally saw the fawn. 

The two of you started back to Tommy to tell him that the prints had been a dead end, but halfway back you couldn’t help but pause, and say, “Do you ever feel jealous of them?”

Confused, Joel turned to look at you where you stood and shook his head as he said, “What?”

You sigh and refuse to meet his eyes as you motion back to where the deer were, clearing your throat.

“The animals. Do you ever get jealous over how they aren’t chased after like we are, how they can’t turn into monsters that become murderous and hunt down the rest of their species? They just have to worry about running fast enough away from those of us that are living so they don’t become some terribly seasoned stew.”

Joel takes a step towards you, reaching a hand out to cup your shoulder, and says your name, “Where is this coming from? Does this have to do with what’s had you so stressed lately?”

You opened your mouth to reply, to brush it all away and just say nevermind, that it didn’t matter it was only a thought, but you met Joel’s eyes, the hazel swirling with concern and his voice laced with the need to help. In that moment every reply is lost to your tongue and your eyes swell with tears as you utter the words you’d been so terrified to share.

“Joel, I’m pregnant.”

The seconds ticked like hours as you realized you finally let the truth slip. As you watched the emotions filter over Joel’s face. Surprise, confusion, worry….wonder. His eyes danced around your figure as a single tear finally slipped.

“You’re sure?”

You nodded choppily and you gave him a timid smile.

“Yeah…turns out you were right months ago, it was never the flu,” you paused, taking a shuddering breath before continuing, “I…. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, I-I just didn’t know how and my head kept fueling all these ‘what ifs’ around my thoughts and I just didn’t know how to handle it but god I should have told you and I am sorry.”

Gently, Joel cupped your face and wiped away the tears that had fallen as you apologized. He looked at you like you had just whispered to him the secret cure to the infection, one that didn’t involve Ellie. 

Joel’s eyes bounced between your own as he asked, “How far….how far along are you?”

“Almost three and a half months,” you reply, your stress slowly fading to the background and slipping away.

Joel, as if he could see all of your doubts over the last three months, looks you right in the eye as he says, “You don’t have to worry anymore. Nothing will happen to either of you, not under my watch.”

Have an idea or headcannon you want written for Joel? My askbox is open! Feel free to send it to me! Thanks for reading and check out my other Joel fics! <3

Masterlist

[cookies-and-music]

Ghost. - part 6: The Night We Parted.

This chapter's musical suggestion is Love of my life by Queen.

Part 1 here - part 7 here

PAIRING: TVA!LokixOC

RATING: ALL

SUMMARY: Loki meets sombody at the TVA he once knew. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to remember him.

This chapter is a little bit angsty but it's all for the sake of the plot.

Who am I kidding, this was angsty from the start.

Perhaps it was the influence of the TVA that transmitted this conviction to her, but Lydia felt wrong. The erroneous copy of a corrected version of herself. And she threw herself into her work, hoping to prove that this was her better version, starting a sort of insane competition with herself. The problem was that Lydia had never seen her file, afraid to know exactly what she had missed, so she didn't even know what she was competing against.

Until that moment.

The recording contained everything. Every encounter, every exchange, every glance, every moment.

"There's only one place where you can find such a source of energy." "Which is?" "The Stark Tower in New York."

Lydia glanced at Loki, who didn't take his eyes off the footage.

The file really had everything, up to her last day of life. Their whole story, from her perspective.

Midgard, 2012. Battle of New York.

"I want you back to the bunker."

Lydia shook her head amusedly. "No way, I'm finally back in New York, and there's no way I'm going back to that shithole at the end of the world."

Lydia - Agent Prichett - sat facing Loki in the small space at the back of the black jet they had stolen from SHIELD.

"I'm serious," Loki put his hands on his legs, leaning towards her "when the Chitauri arrive, the situation won't be good."

"Don’t you say? I thought you wanted to have tea with the Avengers while playing with one of your space pets."

"Lydia" he said impatiently.

"Loki" she imitated his voice.

There was silence for a moment.

"You'll lose."

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do. They're bigger and more powerful than you, it's an uneven match" Lydia shrugged.

"But if I were to win—"

"It won't happen" she decreed, looking at him severely before taking a deep breath, softening her expression "You still have time, Loki. Stop everything, withdraw your orders."

"They'll come anyway," Loki shook his head.

"And how?"

Loki didn't answer, and Lydia exhaled a frustrated breath.

Back at the TVA, all of that, Loki knew. He had seen it. What he hadn't seen was everything Lydia had done once they arrived in New York.

When the Avengers arrived in New York, Lydia led Black Widow to the platform where, from the device containing the Tesseract, the beam that created the portal between worlds originated.

"How do we destroy it?" "With this" Lydia raised Loki's scepter with a smirk. "How did you get that?" Romanoff raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you know me, I have a couple of aces up my sleeve" Lydia shrugged. "Well, how do we do it?"

TVA, 2021

After closing the portal, Lydia and Natasha Romanoff descended from the tower to rush to support the other members of the ground team with what remained of the Chitauri. It was at that point that debris from a building collapsed, hitting Agent Princhett, and on the screen appeared the words

<Lydia Pinchett - End of recording>.

Lydia shrugged as she couldn't take her eyes off the footage. Her death had been so... unheroic. A piece of debris? Seriously? Of course, not all endings have to be particularly grandiose, but that... that was pathetic. Not to mention the fact that she had just found out that Loki, the man sitting next to her, who had organized the closest thing to a TVA picnic under the stars, had tried to destroy her entire world and had torn apart a good percentage of New York.

Loki, for his part, had his brain spinning.

"What... what happened?"

"I died."

"Yes, I got that," he turned to her, "I mean in New York. Why did you lead her there? I mean... I would have won."

Lydia raised an eyebrow, moving her eyes from him to the screen.

"Why... why did you betray me?" Loki turned his torso towards her.

"Loki... she was never on your side," Lydia shook her head, looking at Loki's hurt expression.

"That's not true... we, I mean you and I... you saw the same thing I saw. There was complicity, there was—"

"Manipulation, Loki," she interrupted him, "that's what I saw. Every time she talked to you, she wasn't just curious about your motivations, she didn't want to know you because you interested her. She was interrogating you."

Loki shook his head, turning to the other side.

"I know it hurts, but it's true," Lydia extended a hand, placing it on his shoulder, but Loki shrugged it off, "I'm sorry you misunderstood."

"Misunderstood?" Loki turned abruptly, "You deceived me!"

"Me? I didn't do anything. While those things were happening, I was here," she pointed a finger at herself, "Variant, remember?"

But Loki didn't listen; he was lost in his thoughts and anger.

"It's your fault if I lost."

"I didn't ask you to attack my planet. I'm only guilty of defending my home," she shook her head annoyed.

"I trusted you, I opened up to you, and you stabbed me in the back."

"From what pulpit comes the preaching," Lydia forced a laugh, "what do you want, Loki? Apologies for something I didn't do?" she raised her voice slightly.

"You hurt me!"

"I didn't!" she yelled, standing up, "As far as I'm concerned, I only met you a few weeks ago!"

"But you're her," Loki stood too, pointing to the screen, "and if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that people don't change," he shook his head with a bitter smile, "a backstabber doesn't wait for anything but the right moment to strike again."

"And you're certainly an expert at that," she spat, approaching him.

Loki stared at her for a moment before bending slightly so they were face to face.

"At least I know who I am."

They stared at each other full of anger for long endless seconds before Lydia took a breath through clenched teeth.

"It's not my fault you fell in love with someone who manipulated you."

Loki could have started a long speech, probably accompanied by a presentation with about twenty slides, about the fact that this wasn't love. But it wouldn't have made sense. The only relevant issue is that the eyes he had in front of him, those he had just believed were the sweetest and brightest in the universe, now seemed to him those of a viper.

"Get back to your work, Prichett, trample anyone who stands between you and your mission since it's the only thing you care about."

Loki passed her, giving her a slight push. He strode across the room and left through the door, slamming it shut behind him.

"You fucking murderer!" She screamed, trembling with anger.

Lydia grabbed the computer keyboard and, with a scream, threw it against a wall. "I didn't do anything!" she grabbed the monitor and, tearing out all the wires, threw it to the other side of the room, repeating louder, "I didn't do anything!!" as she trembled and tears covered her face.

She collapsed into the chair, rested her head on the desk, and covered it with her arms while repeating softly, with a voice interrupted by sobs, "I didn't do anything."

No more starry skies for these two. Next chapter will be connected to canon events. Please go on supporting as I'm writing a short sequel. Or I'll just make this fic longer. Dunno. Ps. Should I make a masterlist with all the links for this fic? Is it even needed?

[measuringbliss]

Spider-Man Read-Through 029 The Ghost That Haunted Octopus (ASM 157-159, Ann 10)

MASTERPOST

In this batch, Peter, Doc Ock and May eat KFC together, Hammerhead's back in more ways than one, people throw trashcans at each other and

Ock has such peak schoolgirl behavior.

Remember what happened last time? Doc Ock's back in spite of an entire nuclear exploding with him on it. Can't wait to hear Marvel's explanation for that one, especially since I don't see him as a particularly interesting villain.

Just like last batch, this one begins with a tilted picture of Spidey against a carefully drawn backdrop. Ross Andru, I love you.

So Spidey wants to salvage the Spider-Mobile, and I'm elated. I didn't expect us to come back to it, but it's nice to see continuity. Sadly for me though, our hero can't find it aside from a small part. (There's also the question of how he'd get it out of the water, but all in good time!)

Ross Andru's art really improved, and it was great from the very beginning!

Meanwhile, if you're interested in the rest of the cast...

I'm grinning ear to ear. So Harry follows a therapy, that's good! He doesn't remember finding his father's equipement... and I have to assume, his showdown with Peter too. But "the weeks after" Norman's death certainly stretches it, doesn't it? Oh well. Handy way to stay vague. More importantly, something's going between Liz and Harry. Gee, I'm sure everything will go fine and no drama will happen in the next 50 years.

What am I saying? Let's just enjoy the present time.

And Otto's certainly enjoying his time, showering at May's and putting on that hideous suit of his. Just in time for Peter to arrive with a bucket full of crispy chicken he can't wait to share with his favorite (and only?) aunt.

He's less than enthused. Octavius's schoolgirl posture just compliments his fatigue.

The explanation is bonkers and yet oddly makes sense. It still made me laugh. So the reactor didn't explose right when Hammerhead dove into it, giving the time to Ock to find a protected hatch and secure himself in his indestructible mechanical arms.

Silly, but logical enough. Then the island actually exploded when Hammerhead unstuck himself from the reactor.

Suddenly, Hammerhead's ghost barges in and May does what she does best: she faints. Ock's quite annoyed and leaves with May, just as Peter gives us a nice backshot.

I have priorities, folks. I'm awake since 2 am, and it's almost 5. You can't be angry at me. I'll objectify my men however I can.

He puts on his Spidey suit and follows Ock, accidentally barging in a random lady's apartment. She has a ferocious dog though and she immediately orders him to attack Peter.

He escapes, then Ock gets into a chopper, Spidey webs himself to it, but Ock notices and slashes his web. The issue closes with our hero falling on a desert landscape! Oh no, will he survive?!

#158 starts with Spidey webbing up a glider. Why not! He still loses track of Ock and Aunt May. The next day...

MJ does have a nice outfit. I was afraid that MJ would be wary of Glory for trying to steal her man, but it seems like they're going to become friends instead and I'm totally here for it!

I'm also very much here for the objectification of one Peter Parker. It's giving Ripley on the Nostromo. And hey, they pass the Bechdel test!

At the Daily Bugle, we learn that a competitor has been hiring the Bugle's members. Robbie's afraid that they'd already contacted Peter.

They did not.

Still, with Betty being in Paris with Ned (I miss them already!), Jameson hired a new secretary, and we see a funny scene where she's trying her very best, which obviously doesn't cut it.

More importantly, Peter learns May is at the Brookhaven Labs and goes there as Spidey.

Long story short, Ock thinks he's about to disintegrate Hammerhead's ghost... but instead, the man's back in the flesh! Incredible, two villains I don't care much about. Ock at least has the ridiculous May plotline, but what does Hammerhead have?

In #159, the three enemies knock each other down at the same time, the henchmen in yellow confess they've been working to resurrect their boss Hammerhead this entire time, and Hammerhead escapes with May. Spidey and Ock vow to save her together.

I do appreciate that Spidey and Ock are allies for a chunk of this batch, but dear Lord, there really isn't enough civilian stuff for my taste. Thankfully, we get a bit right now.

Somewhere, people have saved the Spider-Mobile from annihilation... but it seems to be booby-trapped.

At the Bugle, Jameson's second new secretary is having just as hard a time as her predecessor. She quickly decides to value her life and quits.

Spidey and Ock find Hammerhead in his spinning circular office (I know we've seen it before, but I don't remember where and I'm too uninterested to search for it, isn't it a Mysterio issue?), Hammerhead escapes in a chopper and Ock throws trashcans at it until it explodes.

Pretty explosion at least!

Don't worry, May's fine.

What a mess of issues. Check the fluff, skip the chuffs.

In the readers' letters, Larry Twiss mentions Tomb of Dracula from several months earlier and my interest is piqued. Can't wait to reach that! He also mentions the first Superman/Spider-Man crossover and man, I have to read it!

Now, onto Annual 10!

So the main plot of the issue is not particularly interesting: Spidey stops a criminal, but he gets away and becomes the Fly thanks to a scientist Jameson bribes. The real plot, however, is that the Globe has been getting more popular than the Bugle recently, and I wonder if Peter's going to work there for a bit...

The Fly kills the scientist and kidnaps Jameson. If Spider-Man wants to save JJ, he's going to have to fight the Fly!

Sadly, Jameson created enemies for Spidey (when he isn't one himself) is just not a plot I care much about.

The Fly gets taken care of, and Peter stays at the Bugle.

Ooooooh, we're finally getting to the second magazine!

[ryuzakemo128]

Memento Mori

Chapter Two: Picking Up Pieces

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Trigger Warning(s):

Cursing/ swearing

Mention of death

Marianna's Point Of View

"I thought about what you said the night before that it wasn't my fault that things ended up the way they did and that dwelling on it wouldn't make the problem go away." I replied to my therapist. "I'm also afraid that if I don't think about it, I'll forget about her."

"That wasn't my intention. You won't forget her, but you won't be able to cope with her death without the process of grief." She said to me trying to make it clear that these sessions were to help with my grief. I had just lost someone close to me, and I was struggling to come to terms with her death. The grief counselor was trying to explain to me that the process of grieving was imperative in order to move forward and accept the fact that she was dead.

"I know this sounds weird coming from someone who caused the death of quite a few people in my younger years, and even stranger that this singular death has taken a bigger toll than the other ones." But it's true, this one death has had a profound impact on me in ways I never expected.

After the session with her ended. I stepped outside to find Steve and Eddie waiting for me. I didn't understand at that moment why they decided to stay with me while I grieved her death. For example, Steve offered me support and company in the following days, while Eddie checked in on me regularly.

"Vecna targeted her. You were going to lose her no matter what you did." Steve said.

"It wasn't your fault," Eddie reassured me. "We're here for you."

"I appreciate that very much. But I remind you that sticking by me all the time isn't necessary. I assure you I'm fine most of the time." I reminded the both of them.

"I'm in the mood for pizza, what do you think?" Steve says trying to lighten the mood. It was like turning a page in a book; the conversation went from serious to light and carefree.

"I'm up for it as long as it doesn't have olives," I replied. Olives have a strong taste that I don't particularly enjoy, so I don't like to have them in my food.

"You can get a lot of health benefits from olives," Steve said.

"Yeah and they can stay off my pizza." I muttered.

"Pineapple on pizza? I don't think you are in a position to argue about what belongs on pizza." Steve replied.

"I beg to differ," I said, emphasizing the point.

My friends understand me better than I understand myself. I hid in shame and they used a flashlight to spot me. As I freed myself from it, I realized there is no way I can express how much they mean to me. But I do believe if I tried I would have crumpled into a large mess before I even started. It is because of their unconditional acceptance and understanding of who I am that I am able to be my true self without fear. They have seen me at my best and worst, and have always been there to show me the light and encourage me to keep going.

For a brief moment I could swear I slept like I was a child all over again. The soft music playing on my radio made it all the better. I now understand why they say "dead but not forgotten". Galina may be dead. But I will never forget her. No matter what happens in the future. The music reminded me of our childhood days when we would play together in the garden. I felt safe and secure and the comfort it brought me in that moment was unlike any other. I felt a connection with her that I have never felt before and it was a reminder that I will always remember her.

I'm finally picking up where I left off before this mess even started. Picking up the pieces of my past to know what happened and I'll make sure no one gets in my way this time.

[fallloverfic]

@rise-ha replied to your post "hey hey so glad to have found you on tumblr...":

glad u enjoyed the ask! i posted the ask, but i think i accidentally | ticked the anon box lol i like how positive u r abt the characters and main ship. there’ve been other sites where readers/fans are anti-seth x anyone, and they prefer seth to end up w/ no one at all which always struck me as counter-intuitive to the themes of his character (loss of agency, narrative of his story, trust in family, etc.) like, how can he relearn trust without being around other people and overcome his curse without suffering and taking action to fix the problems he caused? plus seth doesn’t seem like the internal introspective sort- he needs external interference to make him realize he’s even feeling things (re: sekhmet and his self-destructive feelings in S1). it’s also canon that when isis was MIA seth just spiraled for centuries n did ntg to climb out of the abyss of angst.

ur hypotheses on what might happen is interesting… but on the memory loss. i agree with u that in canon it's unlikely horus will lose his memory upon ascending, but it's quite intriguing for fanfic fuel: seth not realizing how much horus meant to him until suddenly he means nothing at all to the god!horus. if you'd ever be into writing that haha i'm still slowly going through your existing ennead fics XD - thanks for the all the great content!

It's okay! It happens XD Tumblr is a strange existence and as you can see I too am not doing so well using it alkdjlaj (I apologize if I'm doing this wrong, replies are just clunky and this got longer than I expected).

But yeah I love the main ship and I love most of the characters :3 I climb walls about them adlkajdlak

I definitely have a "ship and let ship" approach for folks who want Seth to end up alone or with idk an OC or something. To each their own, folks can do whatever they want.

From a canon standpoint, I do find it to be a deep misunderstanding of his character that being alone would somehow be the "best" ending for him. After all, we have that panel in S01E40 where Seth says, "I was afraid... of being forgotten by them." One of the few things we know Seth wants for himself is to be loved and not forgotten, and this has been repeated a few times at this point. So him ending up alone would not be happiness for him. It would, like you mentioned, be right back where he was during his kingship: depressed and self-isolating to the point of suicide.

That being said, a lot of folks who are pro this position have acknowledged that while this would be a sad Seth, he would be less sad than if he ended up in any of the ships people stick him with, particularly the four tops. Which I would personally argue against, particularly after Seth initiated the kiss with Horus when he realized that Horus loves him and didn't want to forget him, both things Seth wants the most. Heck, even ending up with Anubis would be better than ending up alone, since at least Seth has wanted to follow Anubis. But what's personal autonomy and choice, I guess? -shrug- But again, to each their own! It's not what I write and I have no interest in it! But folks do for a variety of reasons, and more power to em!

I think it's perfectly fine for folks to make fanworks and headcanons about the potential for Horus getting amnesia! That's the awesome thing about fanworks :D My opinion only affects my own thoughts and fanworks, and other folks can do as they please! A few folks have tackled the amnesia thing before, and I wish them the best! I'm not the biggest fan of amnesia plots generally (and I generally can't stand permanent amnesia because I view it as character death), and I'm very particular when I write them, I just think there's enough ambiguity and stuff with Horus' powerset and background that it's not guaranteed in canon. This particular set-up is unfortunately not a plot I have any interest in writing, and the only ENNEAD amnesia plotline I ever wrote involved Seth having temporary amnesia, and it was in my Dear Monster/ENNEAD crossover. Anything can change, of course, and I never say never when it comes to fic writing, but it's one of the saddest plots I think about (which I imagine is amusing, given some of the terrible situations I put Seth in lol but brains are weird sometimes) and I have other things I'm prioritizing, so it's a bit unlikely.

I wish you luck with any fics you try :D And thank you so much for reading them!! <3 <3

hey hey so glad to have found you on tumblr. it was a bit hard for me to find content creators for ennead on this site, oddly enough

i saw some of your ask me prompts and i was wondering if you could do 4 and 10?

Hello!! And welcome :3 Thank you for the ask!! And yeah, tumblr is very quiet for the fandom. Twitter, pixiv, Ao3, and instagram are far more hopping.

I think this is for the ENNEAD ask me meme, so I'll answer based on that!

4. Who is your favorite character (if you have one)?

Shockingly I know, after publishing 48 fanfics that star or otherwise feature him in some fashion... it is Seth alkdjaldja he is best boi for me. Sad man, angry man. Love him. He's beautiful, he's tragic, he's fun. I love the way Mojito is exploring so many things with him, whether it's suicidal ideation, self-destructive tendencies, self-blame for things that are out of your control, cycles of violence, anxiety, responsibility... Just a lot of things. I love his power set (no pun intended). Shapeshifter characters have been my favorites since I was little (big fan of werewolves and shifters generally, and always have been, pretty sure it's why The Little Mermaid and other similar stories about water people who can change their shape have always stuck with me), especially when they can like dissolve into particles and reform. And I love his relationship with Horus. He's also really smart and can be quite thoughtful and I love how creative he is. Also I love when he gets into Situations. Angsty, whumpy man.

Second place is Horus. I love him so much. He's gorgeous, he's such a fun character, and he's hilarious. And his wings are so gorgeous T-T He and Seth are so cute and I go feral whenever I see them.

I like most of the cast, though.

10. How do you think ENNEAD will end?

I don't have good luck with guessing what Mojito will do intentionally, so take this with a lot of grains of salt lol I do have some luck doing it unintentionally when I write things into fics with like, "This would be cool if it happened", and then it kind of does lol And I do have some luck guessing what she won't do, so. Anywho.

We know Horuseth is the endgame ship, so they'll end up together. I assume they'll rule Egypt together in some fashion or, worst case, go off into the sunset together. Seth will fully get his powers back and the curse will be resolved. I imagine whatever's going on with Hathor's mirror will also be resolved (I think Nephthys was split into two people, and she'll be recombined and get all her memories back, and I think Hathor did it to take revenge for Ra). I'm still on the fence for whether Horus will actually "ascend" properly or not, or what that'll look like. He's kind of a strange demigod (Nut calls him the "link between the gods and humankind" (S02E44)), so I wonder if he won't actually ascend/he already has. But his ascension might also just be different than other gods, at which point I think Isis will step aside and let him rule fully on his own, with her help as needed. He doesn't marry Hathor. She gets booted out of Heliopolis. I also don't personally think he's going to lose his memory. He could, but on top of the circumstances around the whole "ascension involves memory loss" thing being still kind of unclear and questionable, he's a special kind of demigod/god, and his power involves knowing things. I think he'll be fine.

I assume Osiris will be defeated in Duat in some fashion (possibly by Seth, Horus, Anubis, and maybe FG) and just be stuck down there, stewing (Mojito likes sticking to the original mythology in a lot of ways, and I don't think she'd like... perma-dissolve Osiris of all people), and he and Anubis will be on more of a balanced power stance, and just sort of share a power domain. I feel like part of ENNEAD's conclusion will involve Anubis leaving his control and just coming into his own power entirely. And he gets his memories of Seth back to some degree.

I assume FG will head home after/around when we learn his name and the Egyptians will be like "huh, well idk who that was, but whatever, I guess we'll keep an eye on [FG's home country], though." Which... if it's Greece or Rome... -cringes a little-

I also hope that Anubis will have a heavily implied partner of some kind. It's not gonna be Seth, and I don't really think it'll be Khnum, much as I love that ship (though I'm rooting for it fully and he's as likely as anyone), but it could be Isis, too. Mojito did do some Anubis/Isis art years ago. I just want him to not be so alone.

I think Isis, Seth, and Nephthys will reconcile to some degree. I don't know that they'll be very close, but I think they will be on speaking terms, though I honestly think Seth and Nephthys are the least likely of the group for this to happen with. It depends on whatever is actually happening with the mirror. Seth and Isis are already on the path to reconciliation. Nephthys is the only actually sort of static one.

If anyone would like to ask more questions, here's the meme again :D

(If this is for the fanfiction author ask me meme I linked, I can answer that one, too! I just didn't know which meme it was, and assumed based on context it was the ENNEAD one)

[yurtletheturtlehenderson]

i just wanna talk to someone abt this because i trust u and ppl on tumblr actually freak me out and scare me so…hear me out. im not at all opposed to byler and im not homophobic bc i dont particularly ship it as much as others. yes i do ship it some amount, but the only thing that worries me is homophobes. being a queer person in a homophobic family is reallt hard and u have to learn to grow with a fear of them hating u. im just afraid of how ppl will take it if byler is canon. again i am not against the ship. that being said i am a girl who simps over will byers and i adore the y/n x will dynamic they have. just wanted to tell someone bc a lot of ppl on this sight would call me homophobic and stuff over this

Aw honey... of course it's okay. And I'm sorry things have been like this. I totally get it. What's not okay is a fandom getting so protective over their ships they make people of afraid of not shipping something enough. (Long but necessary rant ahead. Sorry, but its worth it)

I'm gonna lose a lot of people here, and likely cause they don't want to read to the end to hear all I have to say, but here goes: I don't particularly ship Byler either. When most people hear this statement they immediately equate it with the statement "I don't think Will is gay and neither is Mike" (I feel like this is true for most queer ships, or just shipping culture in general?).... this could not be more wrong. For one, nobody ever immediately knows why someone ships something (and a lot of times, the person themselves don't understand/realize why they subconsciously pick to a specific pairing and cling to it so tightly) and while it's completely understandable to have become defensive, say, because you feel as though your own identity is under attack, it's so easy—natural even—for people to snap into survival mode and try to defend themselves. But as we've seen, this can, in the right circumstances, also feed the pre-existing cycle of offense and defense that is far too long and philosophical a discussion to dive into here and now.

No, for now I wanna just reiterate that just because someone admits to not being particularly hyper-enthused by a specific ship—yes, like Byler—doesn't mean they automatically hate it. I don't particularly campaign for Mileven either! I've been persuaded by both in the past, but I've never found myself at point where I'm making fan accounts surrounding the ship, pumping out content 24/7, and I certainly haven't felt compelled to bash anyone who ships the other. But ya know what? I will say, and I bet im not alone here, the more I encounter Mileven content/space OR Byler content/space, the more I'm driven away. Why? The fucking shipping wars.

Byler and Mileven shippers, hard-core super-shippers specifically speaking, are some of the most toxic fans I've ever encountered. Is it every one? No!! But most. Most. The most extreme ive heard/seen is horrific. I'm talking death threats, suicide baiting, doxing, constant harassment and just overall borderline cyberterrorism. It's fucking unacceptable. And the underlying theme here and why there's so much fear spreading throughout fandom spaces. Why someone felt the need to limit contact and come to someone they claimed to trust to anonymously admit they aren't frothing at the mouth for one of these aforementioned ships. (Thank u btw for feeling u could trust me) This is not okay!!! People have to see how wrong this is!!! Right?? Right?!

I have no idea how much people will respect all this considering the source: a 21 year old reader insert writer who dedicates most of her time to writing teenagers into the plot of stranger things with Will Byers as their love interest (yes, specifically fem presenting/ she/her pronoun users). So no, I wouldn't blame anyone for hearing me say the words "I'm not a big byler shipper" and assume it has anything to do with that. But I'd hope that anyone who knows me, or is at least willing to hear me out, will understand that I have stated many times (and likely will again cause im a ✨️repetitive bitch✨️) that when I was a teenager, I was going through the absolute worst years of my life. Like, it warmed me up the for 2020s, that's how bad it was for me. And the only thing that got me through (likely without falling into what I believe would have become some incredibly dangerous habits) was falling into a world I could completely disappear into and forget my own shitty world existed.

I found this series called The Maze Runner, fell absolutely in love with the books and the world and bought every copy I could get my hands on. And when that wasn't enough, I looked for every blogspace I could get my hands on. Enter tumblr. Not even five minutes into my new account and searching the maze runner tag do I find a short little story called an "x reader". I literally cried. I was so fucking alone cause, and I'll tell yall, in the span of 15 months, I put down my dog of 11 years, lost my great-grandmother, then my grandpa, then my great grandfather, and then my grandmother. I had reason to believe I would suddenly lose my best friend to depression, and then to top it off my parents got divorced. Granted things have definitely gotten brighter, but little 14 year old me was no where near a healthy state of mind, or body and stumbling across something that not only let me disappear from my collapsing world, but surrounded me in love and encouragement, no matter how corny or silly, by the characters I had fallen in love with was an indescribable experience. This. This is precisely why i write. If theres even a chance i can provide that for you, and God, in the 2020s of all time to be a teenager, than i want to. I want to pay it forward.

That being said, I'd also hope one would understand while things were on the mend, I wasn't fully recovered by the time stranger things came out and i decided to write for it. The grief and trauma was one thing but, another thing you guys might know about me if you've been following me for a while is in the past, I've struggled severely—and still do a great deal—with compulsory heterosexuality. And honestly, a little internalized homophobia I think. It's stuff I work on daily, and it's stuff, I'd be willing to bet, a lot more people deal with than you'd expect. It's for this reason, that I suspect hilariously enough, me a deeply closeted lesbian while planning an x (at the time fem!)reader rewrite for younger kids to escape into, was faced with the choice of a love interest and subconsciously chose one of the only semi-canonically gay male characters available. Yes, essentially, in my own comphet riddled brain, I subconsciously gave both the (fem)reader and Will Byers my own comphet.

But guess what? Characters evolve as the story evolves and that rings true for COSMIC. I wish I had stories back then that casually explored sexuality outside the confines of cisgender heterosexuality in a safe, fun, encouraging way. I also wish I had stories that led you down one story with one character only and suck you in only to change and evolve if needed to say, an opposite sex or nonbinary character as the new love interest and being able to do so cause the love interest was never THE PLOT in the first place. It certainly would have helped speed things along I think, and even if I wasn't its healthy to try things out/consider before saying, ya know I think this still feels right, I'm good! And that's okay!

I deeply deeply appreciate anyone who read this far. I completely understand how much i tend to blather and granted i didnt plan on going into the specifics of my childhood trauma but i felt it necessary info as to why on earth im preaching gay Will while i currently have a Will x fem!reader on my page (Again, dont worry. Im not about to disrespect/erase anything likely to come in s4, nor have is this is a sudden thing in COSMIC) and seemingly shitting on ships. Again, it's the over intense shippers, not the ships themselves and overall lack of byler content that failed to get my attention.

In conclusion, yes, I don't particularly ship Byler much like you dear nonnie, but anyone who automatically thinks that statement makes us homophobic really needs to take a step back and perhaps consider taking a break from public fandom space. If you as a byler OR mileven shipper feel confronted at every corner to a point you're jumping down others throats, you need to take a break from the internet. Draw your ship, write some fanfic if you still want to engage in fandom activities offline but take a break from the internet and prowling for any throat to jump down.

Blech. Rant over. I kinda accidentally combined it with the pre season 4 premiere disclaimer for Cosmic and how and why I have a will x reader with a fem reader copy and how that's going to be affected by s4 so that's prob why it's so long but I don't regret it. The point is, this is and always will be a safe space for fandom enjoyment and just hanging out and the last thing I want here is someone to be feel afraid or threatened in any way. I love you all so much and wish nothing but amazing things for you all. And thank you again, dear nonnie, for trusting me. It means a lot.

💕💕💕 - Yurtle

[clatterbane]

Haven't been around much lately, largely thanks to the lovely post-plague BS. The situation has been pretty depressing too, though I do suspect that at least part of that is also directly a post-viral thing. Mirrors' death didn't help much either, but hey.

I haven't been managing to make it out anywhere but to the occasional medical appointment (where I caught that garbage in the first place! 😒), with the continuing fatigue. Haven't been able to get much done around here either. Frustrating as hell, but in general I'm basically trying to stay patient with myself and not push too hard--which is a particularly bad idea with all kinds of post-viral crap. That includes with braining and wording enough to socialize, unfortunately.

But, I thought I would check in here and let anybody who might have been concerned know what's been going on. Still chugging along! And basically OK, other than this current exasperating health situation and the continuing financial strain which should hopefully be letting up some before too long. (And we should thankfully be due a decent chunk of money back once I am finally officially covered under the health system here.)

Anyway, one relieving development after another laser treatment appointment yesterday: I am apparently NOT likely to go blind in that one eye quite yet! Because yeah, that really has been a major concern the past couple of weeks. 😬

The worse, repeatedly Haunted Eyeball has been seeming to get destabilized by the treatments so far, with more bleeds after every session. Which has been pretty damned discouraging, and also kinda bumming me out.

I actually do trust that the people who have been zapping at my eyeballs here know what they're doing. Too refreshing to get hold of specialists who seem competent and also behave respectfully! 😲 But yeah, from what other people with more experience have said? Evidently, it really is sometimes a "worse before it gets better" situation.

At any rate, I woke up to a massive bleed in Repeatedly Haunted Eyeball a couple of weeks ago, and honestly wasn't sure what to do. I was afraid the retina might have partially detached, as fucked up as my vision was. I was getting A LOT of the dark swirling--obviously from more blood--in most of my visual field. (Which then, of course, blurred everything as it spread out within a couple of days.) Maybe a third of my vision in that eye, though? Just a reddish blur when I got up. Never experienced that before, and hope never to again!

I did consider going to the university medical center ER to get that looked at, that was worrying enough. And Mr. C kinda encouraged me to, because jfc! But, we really couldn't afford it, refundable later or no. I was fatigued enough to make it much harder, my PTSD around that sort of thing is even worse after they basically held me prisoner in Plague Island Hospital after that emergency surgery--and I honestly wasn't sure what they could even do if it was a detached retina, after looking into it some more.

It at least did not seem to get worse over the next few days, other than the blood swirls dispersing and blurring everything out as expected. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Or I might have gone anyway.

So yeah, I decided just to wait for the next scheduled opthalmology appointment. While basically only able to see some light and dark through that eye. 🙃 (And dealing with a bunch of migrainey eyestrain/squinting headaches.) At the office, when they checked my vision, I could just barely make out the eye chart as a lighter blob through the blur. Nicely illustrating how great the vision has been.

I was not expecting anything good, tbqh. I'd halfway resigned myself to just losing that vision, and was also half-expecting shitty blamey reactions and lectures--including to not getting it checked out more urgently. 😑 Besides, you know, to obviously being such a Bad Diabetic that this is even a problem, like I kept getting from that one pompous opthalmology shitpoke in particular at Plague Island Hospital.

At best, I was expecting partial vision going forward and a vitrectomy in the near future. The prospect of which would still be pretty horrifying to me, even if local anesthetics worked properly. It also carries some pretty serious risks.

But, that appointment went about as well as it possibly could have (again)! 😎

No shittiness whatsoever, and it was a bit of a relief that they were also not acting nearly as alarmed about the situation as I was. While not acting dismissive in general.

The doctor had a quick look, and unsurprisingly couldn't see the retina for all the blood in the way. So, she did a quick ultrasound to check for retinal detachment, then called in a colleague who is apparently an eye ultrasound expert to double check. Thankfully, my retina did seem to be intact! They both concluded that it was "just" a pretty bad bleed blurring things out to that extent. 😮‍💨

Much better than it could have been, yeah. She also just wanted to wait and see how that cleared up over the next few weeks before the next scheduled appointment, before considering the dreaded vitrectomy. She sounded like she DID expect it to clear up on its own, at least! Which hopefully means no permanent vision loss for now. Another huge relief.

So, I got the other eyeball zapped--with no ill effects whatsoever on that side thus far! *fingers crossed* And I'm due back in a few weeks to reevaluate the situation with Repeatedly Haunted Eyeball.

I am still understandably pretty concerned about that, especially with not having much choice other than to continue with treatments which have seemingly been making it SO MUCH WORSE so far. Rock and a hard place, and I am not feeling overly optimistic about my chances of avoiding permanent vision loss even in the shorter term.

That eye was apparently in pretty bad shape by the time I finally managed to get appropriate treatment for the retinopathy. I can only keep hoping that it wasn't too late to fix enough of the damage to at least mostly keep me seeing for now. We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out.

(And Mr. C started grumbling again about the plausible malpractice claims keeping stacking up--so you know Mr. Very Deliberately Cool And Collected is getting really worked up when that happens. But yeah, good luck when it's the NHS. 🙄)

Shit happens, you deal, and all that. But, I would really prefer to keep my sight for as long as possible.

[forgottenedmund]

"I didn't expect you to find my observations amusing," Arthur had been the target, after all. "But I do happen to find myself wildly entertaining."

Edmund couldn't help but laugh aloud at his brother's next statement. He couldn't quite figure out if Arthur truly believed Aria struggled to resist him, or if he had said it in an attempt to convince Edmund that this was so. Either way, he found it ridiculous to imagine that Arthur could be quite so naive -- or that he would think that Edmund would be gullible enough to believe it.

"For someone who has had ladies falling at his feet his entire life, I would have thought you would have figured out which ones were genuinely have real affection for you." While each of Roderick's sons had had their share of admirers, Arthur as the eldest, bravest, and most handsome had certainly had more ladies line up for him than his two younger brothers combined (even Edmund must admit to that). However, Edmund estimated more than half cared more for the fact that he was a prince than anything else.

It was hard to find a lady who seemed to fancy you, who didn't want anything from you. And imprisoned Aria Stafford certainly had lots to be gained from a relationship with Arthur Varmont.

The jab pointed at his own "inability" to charm a woman did not go unnoticed, but Edmund chose to ignore it. Perhaps Arthur had not noticed how far his little brother had come from that awkward, book-loving boy he used to be, but Edmund was no longer afraid of kissing girls. But, as it turns out, he had been finding it a little more complicated when he came to the girl he really did like. It was so much harder when you had so much to lose if it failed.

"Arthur ... are you saying you think I'm handsome?" Edmund asked, his eyebrow raised teasingly. "I never realized it was my main asset. I really am flattered."

None of Arthur's jabs thus far managed to land -- that is, until he called him a coward. Edmund didn't quite believe that of himself, but he was hyper aware of others perception of him -- and that sometimes felt as though it mattered even more than whatever the truth happened to be. He had done many brave things in his life, but he was afraid he might only be remembered for the things that made him look as though he wasn't.

And truth be told, the reason he was so absent from the list these days wasn't because he was afraid of pain or injury or even death, but because he was afraid to lose; because he was afraid of appearing small and weak.

The lighthearted tone he'd used earlier was gone. Instead, his voice was even, serious, and almost weary. "We can't all be great warriors, Arthur. Every solider needs a commander." Even Edmund would have admitted that Arthur had more presence of mind and leadership on the battlefield than this comment gave him credit for, but Arthur had undercut him and Edmund meant to do the same.

"Little farm girl? She's hardly a little farm girl. Is that how you would describe Eithne Malconaire?" Edmund would have been more offended by the insult to Rose if it wasn't clear to him that Arthur had only meant to hurt him in the heat of the moment, and hadn't considered what it meant. "Either way, I'm not fond of chasing. That implies they've run away and I'm not particularly interested in someone who has felt the need to escape from me."

Edmund did not care for his father to marry Eilionora Stafford -- however Arthur's argument was almost the best one he had heard. Even as he had felt the need, his entire life, to prove himself just as capable as either Arthur or Guinevere in seceding his father, there was almost some relief in the potential that there would one day be another heir, who would not be in competition with any of them. Someone losing to someone who could not be beaten because of something that was out of their control would make it all that much easier to give up.

If she had a child with Roderick, Edmund wouldn't have lost. He just would no longer be in the running.

"On the contrary -- Eilionora marrying father and giving him an heir means we wouldn't have any reason to continue our tiffs at all." And although his voice dripped with sarcasm, he found that he meant every word.

Unfriendly Competition | Arthur & Edmund

Edmund had spent the entire day dodging servants.

It seemed a bit chaotic and unorganized, but he supposed that that was to be expected as this was the first time the two combined households were expected to work together for such a large occasion. (In addition, it hadn't taken much to note that the local Astairans were less than pleased to be serving Roderick Varmont and his entire family while their Queen remained a glorified prisoner.)

Those feelings will pass, Edmund thought, They always did.

He had eventually found a tucked away corner in one of the courtyards which seemed mostly undisturbed, where he poured over an atlas of Astaira -- familiarizing himself with this new realm that would (hopefully) one day pass to him.

He went unnoticed here, half-hidden behind some of the trees that had clearly not been the gardeners priority and had been allowed to grow as wild as they pleased. It was from this vantage point that he spotted his brother Arthur and what seemed like a botched attempt to garner Aria Stafford's favor. Edmund could not hear what was said, but it was clear that Aria was more irritated than entranced with her brother.

As soon as she departed, Edmund stood and approached his brother (he never could pass up on an attempt to tease him). "Have you had to resort to flirting with the hostages?" Edmund smirked. "These really are dark days."

[dreamylyfe-x]

of all the things they could make mickey and ian fight over, why are the writers going with 2 so OOC storylines in the final season? the show never framed ian as seeing mickey's illegal income as not "real" work before. and mickey was never the slacker type, so why now? and mickey would never vague about monogamy. i'm so confused. if they gotta fight, why not over something in character and meaningful. this just feels like writers being mean to the fans, making us sit thru all this nonsense

Hey! Thanks for the ask. Made my (very weird and stressful) day. 

I’m going to be disappointing right off the jump and say that I don’t actually think any of this is OOC, per say. But. In GENERAL. Shameless is not the show it was. I think this is very normal for long-running shows. Take Friends: When you get into the back half of that show’s extensive catalogue, is starts to feel like the characters are a Xerox of a Xerox. Early season Monica is a bit OCD, and a clean freak who loves to be in charge -- but she’s also warm, and hospitable and emotionally available to her friends. Late season Monica is often a coked-out squirrel-woman who loses her mind if someone moves a pillow. That’s quality isn’t out of character, but it’s no longer being balanced with the warm and supportive woman we initially met. I think a bit of that might be “we already know you either like or hate Monica, so we’re just giving you the stuff that’s funny and/or dramatic. We got 22 minutes and six characters and we don’t have to build that other shit anymore.” 

I think that’s happening with Mickey and Gallavich. And I don’t think that’s weird for a) a show that has run this long and b) a character who was gone and then returned. They are giving us a Mickey that has always existed -- unbound by traditional manners, aggressive, blunt and obsessed with Ian Gallagher -- but we aren’t getting much of the Mickey who curls up with Ian at the worst time of his life and kisses his forehead. We aren’t getting all the verbal confirmation of Big Feelings they gave us when he came back in season 7. We aren’t seeing Ian and Mickey as a team, which is a big part of their mid-seasons dynamic. I think that makes people feel like these arguments are OOC, when they’re arguably reasonable issues, but aren’t being given a ton of nuance, or balance. 

Aside: There’s some balance in how the actors are playing the intimacy and the physical affection. The little touches and kisses are appreciated by me. 

So to dig into the OOC stuff -- first of all, it makes total sense to me that they’d have issues about the role crime plays in their lives together. I love that Ian never gave a damn that Mickey is a straight up criminal. But every time Ian lost Mickey, it was because the law intervened. When Mickey is not incarcerated, he’s with Ian. Ian is no longer 16, no one is a juvenile offender, Mickey was given a devastating sentence in season 6 -- 16 years -- Ian was 18! That was his entire living memory, if not more. They are married now, against considerable odds, and I completely understand why Ian doesn’t want Mickey to risk going back to jail. 

Likewise, I get why Mickey doesn’t want to do what Ian is doing. Mickey does not have the temperament for minimum wage jobs. He has a longstanding history of thinking it’s absolute bullshit to work hard for no money. Particularly when he’s smart enough, skilled enough and ballsy enough to make a LOT of money in an afternoon just by spotting an opportunity. 

Mickey has never SAID this on the show, but in canon we have seen him go to prison four times. Once, because Ian’s unhinged spurned groomer shot him; once because Mickey CHOSE to headbutt a cop so he could go to prison and avoid his dad; once because Mickey was consumed with a need to avenge Ian; and finally because Ian got himself tossed in prison, so Mickey CHOSE to join him. If Mickey has confidence that he won't go to prison if Ian isn’t a factor... Not the craziest idea. 

So -- writers spitballing ideas for Gallavich conflict? I think that’s a pretty good one. Two clear sides that both have merit. I’ve already written a bit about my thoughts on the monogamy issues... first, I’ve always figured they were monogam-ish, to reference Dan Savage. They are faithful to each other while they’re together, and when they are separated (usually by prison!) they aren’t. This isn’t the first time Mickey has voiced a lack of interest in being monogamous -- most notably “Great. Now we’re in a horror movie.” Mickey isn’t a traditionalist and I don’t think he feels like this is a make-or-break issue. But MOSTLY? 

MOSTLY. 

I really and truly believe what I’m about to say... 

Mostly Mickey wanted to do what Ian wanted. 

If he legit didn’t want monogamy he wouldn’t have tried to cheat of Ian’s paper. He didn’t like that “write it down and flip the paper” game. He wanted to match Ian’s answer. So he took a guess and he was wrong about what Ian -- who had literally just told him he found the concept of the rest of his life overwhelming -- had written. 

This is my head cannon: I think he liked that Ian wrote down monogamy. This is not my head canon: they are SUPER sweet to each other in the next scene. I am not convinced that the monogamy debate is going to be much of a thing beyond that scene. And I understand that, for a lot of people, that scene was extremely unpleasant. To me, personally, it made sense for it to come up. But I think it’s settled. I think they’re done with it. 

The one place where I’m like “What is this?” is the slacker stuff. I mean, I can meta why Mickey might be afraid of failure or whatever, but it’d be mostly head cannon. They haven’t given us a ton to build on there. The best we got is “Stop disappointing the people you love!” being what motivated Mickey to do something he didn’t want to do. But Mickey was right, if he thought that interview was going to be a disaster. Mickey knows himself and he is painfully aware of his limitations. 

As for why are the writers DOING this? Well. Ok. Here’s what I think it is: 

1. Story is conflict. So they needed one. And “struggle to adjust to marriage” really isn’t a bad one. Specifically, figuring out how to be married when you have no role models and have a few social strikes against you is a good one. 

2. The writers are amused by Gallavich fighting. They think it’s entertaining. And while there are a lot of people out there for whom Gallavich is EVERYTHING, Shameless’s viewership is also made up of people who think Frank is hilarious. No one ever send me an ask about why Frank is hilarious. I will not be able to figure that one out and the research might kill me. We definitely don’t all agree on what is and is not funny. 

3. They’re going somewhere with it. At least a little. 

I don’t KNOW three is true, but here’s something I believe about John Welles. I think he’s a biiiiit of a sap. I think he probably wants to leave each Gallagher with something nice. I don't think his plan it to send everyone off on an ice floe to freeze to death. So I think (hope?) that what we’re going to see is three (maybe four?) episodes of Gallavich At Odds and then I think we’re going to move into them trying to work together to make lives together. And they will probably still fight, because that seems to be part of the Xerox of a Xerox of Gallavich. I’m sure many people will find that cringey and problematic and annoying -- but I also bet we get a few moments we love, here and there. 

I don’t think they’re trying to be mean to the fans, but I think it’s serving 8 characters ... Nope. 9. (I forgot Frank. I always forget about Frank.) ... and we aren’t going to get the depth and breadth we want. And most of that will be on the side where we see Gallavich loving each other, because at this point they expect us to KNOW that. And some of it’ll be Mickey’s internal life because they tend to focus on the Gallaghers. But I do fervently hope we get a little more of that other side of the coin. Because I absolutely agree that one side is more fun than the other. 

[strangertheory]

A “perfect” ending?

Thank you for Asking, @strangerbylerss ! I was a Tumblr amateur once again, and I accidentally tried to save your Ask as a Draft and it disappeared. Thankfully, I’ve started taking screenshots of all Asks so I don’t lose track of them so I’m replying in a post like this.

What do I envision as a “perfect ending” that the public would say is not forced that involves Mike and Will falling in love and becoming a couple? Well. As you probably have noticed, I already see Mike and Will’s strong bond as canon and as an essential part of the very structure of the entire series. I personally believe that any other ending would feel forced and as though the writers had diverged from their original plans that they foreshadowed in seasons 1, 2, and 3. But! I respect that my opinion on that topic is controversial in the context of the popular fandom understanding of the series thus far, and I am happy to describe my thoughts on the direction that the series might take next, how that might involve Mike and Will’s relationship, and what I would personally like to see addressed in the story by the end of season 5.

It is, of course, important for the writers to explore Mike and Will’s relationship from this point forward in a way that continues to be consistent with the established Stranger Things universe and any canon details that we have been given so far in the first three seasons. I think Mike and Will have quite a lot of hurdles to get through, but that those hurdles are an intrinsic part of the story and that they will be addressed in the final seasons. Whether they face their challenges together earlier on, or whether those challenges need to be dealt with before they feel comfortable admitting their feelings for each other, remains to be seen. I have a hunch, however, that the mysterious events and odd happenings with the Mindflayer are directly connected to what Will is struggling with in the story, and as such it only makes sense that in the process of confronting the Mindflayer and conquering the personal issues that Will is dealing with that he will also inevitably confront his feelings for Mike.

I trust the Duffer Brothers and the writing team behind Stranger Things to continue telling a great story just as they have been thus far. Season 4 and 5 will undoubtedly feature more monsters and strange happenings around Hawkins, the Upside Down, and now wherever Hopper is (presumably Russia) and wherever the Byers Family has moved to. I am wary of hypothesizing too far into plot-related specifics since I think that's entirely dependent on the writers' creative decisions and something that could take many different paths, but I'm happy to share a very general idea of one route that I could envision the story taking that I think could be very satisfying.

Hints and clues in the series so far suggest that Will is dealing with a lot of trauma, and I believe that there is evidence that Will is also dealing with a significant amount of internalized homophobia. Canonically, the Mindflayer is implied to be connected to Will's emotional state in some way or at the very least heavily influences it. Will is pulled into the Upside Down in season 2 when he is afraid: first while trick-or-treating when startled by the bullies in masks, and again when at school and frightened by Dart in the bathroom. Will senses the Mindflayer in season 3 while watching Mike and El holding hands on the hill as they walk home, and he senses the Mindflayer while at the movies alone with Mike. I hypothesize that these season 3 moments in which Will senses the Mindflayer are specifically triggered by Will’s intense fear and anxiety over his repressed feelings for Mike. I believe that by the end of the series Will has to confront many of his fears in order to effectively deal with the Mindflayer, and his internalized homophobia is a significant source of fear and anxiety for him. I theorize that he will have to face his feelings for Mike eventually, and that it is actually a critical part of the logical resolution of the story.

Mike, meanwhile, has his own challenges. We are led to understand that Mike has a lot of deep insecurities and wants to be loved and accepted by other people, and also very much cares about doing the “right” thing. As rebellious as Mike can sometimes act, you can tell that he values the respect of his friends and he also might feel like he needs to live up to his strict and orderly parents’ expectations in order to be loved. I might be projecting a bit here, but while growing up in a household that was very strict and had lots of rules, I often felt like if I broke a rule or if I didn’t live up to my parents’ expectations that their love might actually be revealed to be entirely conditional someday.

For Mike and Will to end up together in a way that I would consider narratively consistent with the themes in Stranger Things so far, I believe that season 4 and season 5 need to address:

Will’s trauma

Will’s severe internalized homophobia

Mike’s insecurities and his desire for love and approval

their separation now that the Byers Family moved out of Hawkins

The perfect ending, for me, would involve Will finally starting to confront his trauma and any parts of his past that are haunting him in the present, and working through his internalized homophobia and the ghost of his father’s abuse. I would hope to see Mike recognizing that even if people don’t approve of what he wants to do with his life that he will ultimately be much happier when he is honest with himself and with others about his feelings and who he is regardless of what society expects. I think that Karen Wheeler will be particularly happy that her son is able to understand this in a way that she struggled to when she was younger.

If I were to predict the chronology of certain plot-points: I might guess that in season 4 we will follow Mike figuring out his feelings for Will while in Hawkins, and that Will would be working through his trauma and dealing with the Mindflayer with El and Joyce and Jonathan wherever they’ve relocated to. Will, in all likelihood, is probably still under the heartbreaking impression that Mike does not return his feelings, that being queer means that he will never have the chance to be happy like his friends, and that he is alone and unworthy of romantic love. We might see a rather angsty contrast between Mike realizing his feelings for Will while in Hawkins and becoming more passionately confident about it, while Will is off on his own facing horrible things and convinced that Mike will never return his feelings. (The drama!) At some point, the adventures in Hawkins will probably collide with the adventures with the Mindflayer once again, and the cast will be reunited through various twists of fate. When reunited, Mike might be prepared to confess his feelings for Will but plans could be thrown awry as sinister plots unfold and antagonists gain the upper hand in the season’s latest conflict. Since it is the penultimate season, I wouldn't be shocked if they leave us with a grittier cliffhanger than even season 3 and Hopper's (incorrectly) presumed death.

I think there’s any number of ways that the writers could address the main conflict in the series while also addressing the emotional conflicts of the story and offer us a very satisfying conclusion to both over the course of season 4 and season 5. I’ve given you a peek into one of many different hypothetical scenarios that I’ve imagined might take place and that could work, but I trust that whatever route the Duffer Brothers decide to take with the story that it will be excellent.

In conclusion: the perfect ending for Stranger Things, for me, would involve Hopper, Will, El, and Mike (and everyone else!) being safe and healthy and happy and confronting their fears, their traumas, and their feelings while being honest with their loved ones and themselves about what matters most to them. And I do think this will involve Mike falling in love with his friend that went missing in November 1983, and them living a very happy life together for the rest of their days.

Thank you for your Ask!

*Edit: I realize that I should briefly address Mike and El’s former dating relationship since oftentimes fans see their rom-com drama in season 3 as the largest hurdle between Mike and Will becoming a couple by the end of the series. I see Mike and El’s dynamic, and El and Will’s eerie connections to one another, as being an intrinsic part of the emotional journey of self-discovery and self-love that Mike and Will are going through. I believe that El and Will's stories are intertwined and that they are not entirely independent from each other. I won’t elaborate in this post, but you can read some of my thoughts on Will and El’s connection to each other here and you can read my opinion of Mike and El’s current dynamic here. In short: I don’t see Mike and El’s relationship as being in direct conflict with Mike and Will becoming a couple, I actually see Mike and El’s dynamics as frequently directly supporting the theory that Mike has feelings for Will. @kaypeace21​ also has an excellent write-up on the way that El and Mike’s break-up in season 3 directly parallels Will and Mike’s fight, and the way that the tone of those scenes reveal Mike’s feelings. You can read that here.

[bluexiao]

(fun fact! in one of aria's death voicelines, it includes her whispering "no, mondstadt..." before she dies, this shows how much love aria has for the city. mondstadt was the first thing she laid eyes upon when she first came alive and she was given a purpose to protect it and its people and she will do it to the end of her life)

2. what is your view on the archons?

"the archons each has the responsibility to rule over a part of teyvat to keep it from falling apart. however along with this responsibility, the archons carry with them great burden. all of them have secrets buried in their past that led them to be who they are. i live to respect that."

3. what is your hobby?

"a hobby? it's something you do for... leisure, if i'm not wrong? i'm not sure... but i do enjoy cooking for others. other than that, i'm afraid i might not have more."

4. what is something that you like?

"i like the breeze. the wind reminds me of a soft lenient caress. windrise is particularly fitting if you're looking for a spot to sit by yourself."

5. what is troubling you?

"you wish to know about my troubles? i am trying to keep my best from letting venti consume too much dandelion wine. but lately... i've been thinking about how i'd like to get to know certain people but i am uncertain on how to approach them without a proper reason."

6. a habit that you have?

"as a being made out of tears and wind, i have no necessary need for sleep like humans do. but apparently, i was told by venti that during times when i do doze off, i suddenly disappear out of sight. it is most likely because when i feel too lulled, i lose my sense of the current human form i hold and i become apart of the wind for a moment." (basically aria turns invisible sometimes when she gets sleepy lmao since when she loses her sense of her human form, she will turn to her original formless state; mere wind either at will or not.)

7. your favorite food?

"apple cider. i have found myself having this drink more than i expected during times i was making sure venti stay in line at a bar. the drink is good to sober you up if you've one too many glasses of wine. other than being commonly found at a bar, it's an invigorating drink to make while you're on your travels as well. i can make some for you, if you'd like."

(fun fact: aria's special dish is a sweeter variation of apple cider which includes valberries and sweet flowers as the newly added ingredients! this dish is called 'by the cliff' because her special drink reminds those who drink it would remind you of a nice rest by the cliff. this recipe can be obtained if you choose the when talking to aria and venti at windrise at the end of the stormterror arc right before the traveler and paimon head off to liyue!)

8. your favorite colour?

"favorite colour? i do not have any. but if i must choose... then it'd be the colour, green. it reminds me of the grass around windrise."

extra!

9. how do you feel about meeting new people?

"i try to treat everyone i encounter with the utmost respect. i have to make sure they prove no threat first however. but if i have to admit, i am not good with first impressions."

10. what do you feel about the stormterror incident?

"yes, it pained me to see a dear friend of venti's and mine spiral into such a state. his soul was clogged with loes and deceit by the abyss. but i am grateful that we managed to release dvalin from his shackles and bring mondstadt back to peace. together with venti, master jean, master diluc and of course... you, traveler."

11. have you heard of the rite of rex lapis' parting in liyue?

"rex lapis... he had a soul that was strict yet all the more nurturing. the people in liyue looked up to him, he was a beacon of hope for them. rex lapis has always been that way, not just for humans but also for those such as the adepti and a insignificant being like myself."

conclusion: aria has a straightforward and respectful manner of speaking (her speech is not as poetic as zhongli but it does have some old-fashioned manner). due to her long years of living (2,500 years gee), aria is used to traditional views but she doesn't hold any grudge against modern views. also @feifae or anyone else who wants to know more about how aria talks or acts, i'd really like to see how you portray my oc in your perspective!

p/s: i feel like aria would be fascinated with fei's tales back from her world (she likes to listen to people talk!) and aria would tell fei that venti avoiding her is just him being dramatic about his allergy lmao. aria is so jokingly mean to venti hshahah but rlly, i think aria just wants to clarify to fei that venti isn't avoiding her out of spite!! maybe aria would be a bit worried for fei too because fei seems very outspoken and instinctive. so, aria would feel concerned if something happened to fei if she made decision too impulsively, aria worries like a big sis??? maybe?? haha aria's still kinda awkward with people

About Fei: "The energetic exorcist from Inazuma? Yes, I have heard of her. I also noticed that she has a pair of cat ears, maybe that's why Venti seems to avoid her... Although personally, I'd love to sit down with her and listen to her stories. But perhaps, that would be too... formal? Sitting down with a person you just met might not be the best first impression if I were to approach her. I... do not excel very well in terms of social relationships. What do you think, Traveler? Should I try another way to introduce myself to her properly?" (she's so nervous to approach fei, someone pls give aria lessons on social skills pspspsp)

About Xiao: "Alatus-- I mean, Xiao, the Conqueror of Demons, bears too many great burdens for his own good. Through the limited amount of times I have spent working with him, it is in my acknowledgement that he has been through so much. I hope you do not view him in a dim light. Despite his coldness, he has a heart of gold and a fond liking for Almond Tofu." (inserted this because i feel like aria would really appreciate fei trying to lessen xiao's burdens as she too thinks that he is too harsh on himself)

omg but aria becoming one with the wind was so cool? but also so frightening-like what if aria suddenly has a lover and she disappears so suddenly like that😨😨 idk it’s just something i imagined. you really thought all of these out!!! because of this i wanted to also make a post of danielle aaa i haven’t really talked about her much lately.