#in an apocalyptic mood lately

[arunneronthird]

i have one of ur sad timkon artworks queue’d for 2037 so i can just easily come back and look at it which i do like three times a week, its the one w/ the lyrics from The House That Heaven Built

a good and solid 13 years, which im assuming is the time we all have left until the planet falls into the sea so good planing

now for real, thank u so much! it means a lot, im really pleased with that one cause i really admire and feel the lyrics in that song

[flowerpotmage]

Oh I am SO hyped for this

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 1: Welcome To A New Kind Of Tension]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “American Idiot” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.1k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

“What do you think, should we kill ourselves now or later?” Rio is spinning his Beretta M9 around on his index finger. This is not advisable. He doesn’t care.

Your hands are gripping the skeletal latticework of the transmission tower, steel hot enough to burn you; no electricity hums in the power lines suspended above your heads. Your eyes are on the horizon, golden June sunlight over fields no one has planted. Weeds are growing up through the earth, feral and defiantly useless, reclaiming their land just like the deer are, and the rabbits and the opossums and the turtles and the squirrels and the doves. The reign of humanity is over. Now you’re prey animals too. “Let’s wait.”

“For what?”

“Maybe someone will save us.”

“Ain’t nobody coming, Chips!” Rio says. “We’re a hundred feet off the ground in the middle of nowhere, motherfucking Catawissa, Pennsylvania, and we haven’t run into anyone since that Amish family back in Lightstreet, and I wouldn’t count on them driving by in their horse and buggy to pick us up.”

“We’re about sixty feet off the ground.”

“Okay, Bob the Builder, why don’t you whip up a helicopter or something to get us out of here?” Rio’s M9 has one bullet left in it, yours has three, nowhere near enough. At the bottom of the tower is a swarm of fifty-four zombies; you’ve counted them twice. There are no cute euphemisms: walkers, biters, the infected. They were once people and now they’re not. They wear the vestiges of their former lives, like how those who believe in reincarnation see meaning in birthmarks: here you were stabbed, there you were kissed by your true love. They lurch and snarl and hiss in their professional attire, college t-shirts, Vans and Jordans, septum piercings, wedding rings. They decompose in a miasma of metallic blood and spoiled meat. Parker had been the last one to the transmission tower, and they grabbed him by the legs. Now they’re chewing the gristle off his bones: disconnected ligaments that swing like strands of cobwebs, scarlet threads of muscle. “Oh shit,” Rio says, looking down. “We’ve got a smart one.”

Most zombies don’t have the fine motor skills to climb, swim, or open doors, but every once in a while—just like out of every 5,000 or 10,000 or however many ordinary humans you’ll pull the lever on the genetic slot machine and get a Picasso or a kid who can score a 1600 on the SATs—you run into an overachiever. This zombie, a teenage boy with red hair and a blue plaid shirt, is slowly scaling the tower. He’s already ten feet off the ground.

Rio aims his M9, semiautomatic, packs a punch but won’t break your arm with the recoil. “Fuck off, Ed Sheeran!” He fires and misses; the bullet grazes the boy’s shoulder. He groans dramatically and asks you in defeat: “Will you take care of that, please?”

You pull your pistol out of your holster and lean away from the tower to get a better angle, holding onto the scaffolding with one hand. You feel Rio’s large fingers close around your wrist, ready to yank you back if you slip. You click off the safety with your thumb, peer through the front sight, aim and wait until you’re sure. It’s a headshot: shards of skull ricochet off steel beams, half-rotten brains spray out in a mist. The carcass plummets to the earth.

“All this horror, all this catastrophe.” Rio’s eyes, dark like a mineshaft, drift mischievously back to you. “We could…distract each other.”

He’s not serious; this is a game you play. “No thanks.”

“You don’t want to die a virgin.”

“I do if you’re the only other person up here.”

“You deny a condemned man his final wish?”

“We’re not dying,” you insist. “What about Sophie?”

“Sophie would understand given the circumstances. She would want me to be happy.”

“What if we have sex and then immediately thereafter get rescued? You’d be a cheater. You’d be consumed by guilt. You’d never be able to take me back to your parents’ doomsday prepper cult commune in bumblefuck Oregon to wait out the apocalypse in peace.”

“You’re going to appreciate those doomsday preppers when you’re eating Chef Boyardee out of a can instead of shuffling around as a reanimated corpse.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I will,” you muse. “So you agree we’re going to get off this tower somehow.”

Rio sighs and whistles a morose tune: what a shame. “You should have gone out with that Marine at Corpus Christi.”

You frown, repentant, wistful. There’s nothing on the horizon except fields and trees and black storm clouds of crows taking flight. “I was afraid of making a mistake.”

“And now look at you. About to die as pure as Pope Francis.”

“How did this happen?! We’re not idiots, we’re goddamn professionals!” You re-holster your M9. You’re still wearing your uniforms from when you went AWOL, stealing away from Saratoga Springs like rats from a sinking ship.

“I’ll tell you exactly how this happened. You let that loser Parker come with us even though I knew it was a bad idea—”

“I couldn’t just leave him there! He started crying!”

“And he had one job, which was to check the oil in the Humvee, and clearly he failed because…” Rio glances at his watch. “Approximately four hours ago, the engine started smoking and the whole thing died on us, so we had to get out and walk, like we’re pioneers or some shit, and then that hoard down there came out of nowhere, and the only place left to go was up. Freaking Parker. I could murder that guy.” An awkward pause. “I mean, the zombies beat me to it. But still.”

“He had two jobs. He was also carrying the extra ammo.”

“Don’t remind me.” Rio isn’t messing around with his M9 anymore. He’s contemplating it as the sun hovers just past noon, hot and shadowless. “How many bullets do you have left?”

“Two.”

“Good. Don’t use them.”

You look at him, this man you’ve known for over four years, this man you’ve traveled the world with. You’ve already gone so much farther than Oregon together. How is it possible that what was once a six hour flight is now a month-long journey that might kill you? “It’s not over yet, Rio.”

“Remember what you promised me.”

His hushed voice in the moonlit indigo of the Humvee the night you left Saratoga Springs: Don’t let me die alone. “We’re going to be okay. We’re going to make it to Oregon.” Then you grin, sweltering summer air breathing over you, humid, heavy, the screeching of insects in the trees. “But if it comes to that, I’d be happy to shoot you first.”

Rio smiles as the zombies below growl and claw at the steel framework of the transmission tower. Flesh peels off their fingers until you can see the gore-stained white of their bones. “Don’t miss.”

“I rarely do.”

“Do you have any more packs of Cheddar Whales in your pockets or—?” He cuts off as he spots something in the distance. His eyes go wide, his jaw drops open. “What…what is that?!”

It’s an SUV, massive, dark blue, rumbling across the field in a dust storm of displaced earth. It’s headed straight towards you. There is someone standing up through the sunroof, short dark hair that whips wildly in the wind, binoculars. You can hear the engine revving and, faintly, Kanye West’s Gold Digger. As the SUV nears the tower, Sunroof Kid ducks inside and closes the hatch.

Rio explodes into hysterical, rapturous laughter. “Oh my God, we’re saved! We’re not going to die up here! Oh, thank you, Jesus, thank you. I’m never going to jack off on Sundays again.”

The SUV, still accelerating, plows through the mob of zombies. Severed limbs go flying; bones crunch and snap. There’s a woman driving, you can see now through the slightly tinted windows. She puts the monstrous vehicle and reverse and does another pass. Zombies paw futilely at the sides of the SUV, a Chevy Tahoe, as it turns out. They smack their open, soggy palms on the windows; they gnaw and lick at the bumpers and the wheel wells. The Tahoe circles to regain speed, the engine growling, a bear, a dragon, and barrels into the remaining ambulatory zombies. The hoard is now largely incapacitated. Rio is cheering and clapping his hands.

The Tahoe’s doors open, and your rescuers appear. There are two men wielding baseball bats: one with long dark curly hair, the other tall and blonde, and there’s something wrong with his face, the left side, though you are too far away to see clearly. They move rapidly through the battlefield of felled, moaning bodies, swinging their bats and crushing skulls. There’s another blonde guy, shorter, softer, pink with sunburn, wearing plastic sunglasses and a teal polo with a popped collar. He’s spinning a golf club in his right hand. He is followed out of the Tahoe by one last blonde, spindly and swift, stalking the perimeter with a compound bow, a quiver of arrows secured to his belt. Rio is singing along to Gold Digger, drumming his fists on the steel beams.

“Now, I ain’t sayin’ you a gold digger, you got needs

You don’t want a dude to smoke, but he can’t buy weed

You go out to eat, he can’t pay, y’all can’t leave

There’s dishes in the back, he gotta roll up his sleeves…”

The driver wriggles out of the Tahoe with some difficulty; she is seven or eight months pregnant. “Stay in the car,” Madame Driver tells someone inside as she slams the door shut. She’s holding a hammer and sets about euthanizing the zombies still squirming on the ground and gnashing their cracked teeth at her.

Golf Club says: “Jace, bro, that’s so embarrassing. You’re gonna let her do that?”

Curly—or, rather, Jace—shrugs. “Exercise is good for the baby.”

All three blondes respond at once in a chorus of appalled disapproval. Interestingly, your rescuers have British accents. From within the Tahoe, someone turns off the CD player. This is wise; noise tends to attract more zombies. Madame Driver, unaffected, puts her hammer through the eye socket of a former Arby’s employee.

Jace flings back: “She likes helping! It would be sexist to tell her she’s not allowed to!”

The Scarred Man looks up at you and Rio and salutes, two fingers glanced off his forehead. You begin climbing down the scalding rungs of the transmission tower to meet them.

“Oh fuck, Aemond, you gotta deal with this,” Golf Club says. He is holding a yowling zombie at arm’s length by the straps of its overalls. It’s tiny, maybe a kindergartener. “You know I can’t kill the little kid ones.”

The Scarred Man, Aemond, turns to him. He’s wearing a maroon Harvard University t-shirt. “You have to learn how to do things yourself. I might not always be around.”

Golf Club scoffs. “As if I’d outlive you.”

“Go on. You can do it,” Aemond says. Behind him, more people are emerging from the Chevy Tahoe: Binoculars Buddy, a slight girl with shifting, watchful eyes, a blonde woman in a billowing sundress and with a burlap messenger bag slung over one shoulder.

Golf Club is still struggling. “Aw, Aemond, man, he’s got light-up sneakers!”

Jace strides over irritably. “Aegon, you’re so fucking useless…” He kicks the miniature zombie to the dirt, raises his bloodied baseball bat, and brings it down on a skull that disintegrates like an overripe Halloween pumpkin. “You’re welcome.”

“Get bit, you poodle.”

Rio hits the ground first, his boots thumping against untamed earth. Aemond sets his baseball bat aside and reaches out to offer assistance as you dangle from a white-hot steel beam. “No,” Rio tells him roughly. “Back up.”

Aemond shows his palms and complies, retreating several paces. Rio helps you down. Now you can see Aemond’s face perfectly. There’s a relatively fresh wound running down the left half of his face, the violent red of burgeoning scar tissue, clear stitches; his eye has been sutured shut. But that’s not why you’re staring at him. His other eye is a focused, hypnotic blue, his short blonde hair disheveled. He keeps touching his chin, a nervous tick. Immediately, there’s something you like about him. He gives you the impression of someone who has gotten very good at hiding how afraid he is. Aemond looks away from your gaze, thinking you’re horrified by his injury. Then, reluctantly, he comes back. There’s forbidden temptation the lines of his ravaged face, a curiosity, a hesitation.

“Thank you for saving us,” you say to your rescuers, tearing your attention from Aemond. It’s not easy. “That was really, really cool of you, and we know you didn’t have to do it. So thanks.”

“Yeah,” Rio adds. “Sorry your Tahoe is covered in guts now.”

Aemond turns to confer silently with his companions, then asks you: “Where are you headed?”

“Odessa, Oregon.”

He nods. “We’re going to California.”

“NorCal,” Jace says, holding his baseball bat across his shoulders. “Bay Area.”

“Are you two together?” Aegon asks.

“Yeah,” Rio says, misunderstanding the question.

“Not like that,” you clarify. “He has a wife and baby, that’s what’s in Oregon.”

“So you’re single,” Aegon says, grinning toothily. His fellow travelers—family? friends? classmates? a combination thereof?—grumble and roll their eyes.

“Um, I mean, yeah, technically…?”

“Aemond’s also single,” Madame Driver informs you, relishing the chaos.

“He’s single but deformed and traumatized,” Aegon says. “I am mentally uninjured.”

You chuckle awkwardly. Your eyes, by their own volition, flick back to Aemond. He peers down at the ground then up at you again, smiling, a little sheepish, a little wicked.

Aegon groans, swinging his golf club around. “Man, come on.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Aemond replies.

“No, it’s just right there, all over your fucked up face.”

Madame Driver feigns a sympathetic frown at Aegon. “How sad. Guess you won’t have anyone to give your syphilis to.”

“I don’t have syphilis,” Aegon tells you. Then, to the others: “I can’t be the only single guy! It’s pathetic!”

“I’m single,” Archery Team says brightly.

“You’re like twelve. You don’t count.”

“I’m seventeen!”

“Are you Army?” Aemond asks you and Rio.

“Navy,” Rio replies. “We were stationed at Saratoga Springs in upstate New York.”

Aemond is fascinated. “You’re deserters?”

“What are you gonna do about it, Brit Boy?” Rio says. Aemond blinks at him. Aegon cackles, drawing huge circles in the air with his golf club.

“Everyone’s deserting,” you explain diplomatically.

“They were going to evacuate the base and send everyone left into New York City,” Rio says. “Fuck that, we’d heard things, we weren’t about to go on some suicide mission. We weren’t even in a combat unit for Christ’s sake, we’re Seabees.”

“You’re what?” Aemond asks, puzzled.

“We do construction. That’s why we were still at the base. If they’re putting us on the front lines, the situation is truly desperate. I’m not going in the meatgrinder. I’m not gonna be like those Hitler Youth kids sent to Russia.”

Aegon is squinting behind his sunglasses, truly lost. “Huh?”

“We should go west together,” Aemond suggests. He’s attempting to sound casual.

“I thought we didn’t want to travel with strangers, Aemond,” Jace says pointedly, mocking him. “I thought they couldn’t be trusted, Aemond. I thought they might slit our throats and steal our Tahoe in the dead of night, Aemond.”

“We’re useful!” Rio bargains. “We can shoot things!”

Aegon is very confused. “I thought you did construction.”

“Everyone has to go through basic training,” Aemond tells him impatiently, watching you.

“She got the Marksmanship Medal,” Rio says, grinning, proud.

“A lot of people get that,” you demur immediately.

“We can give you guys weapons training,” Rio continues. “You seem…like you probably don’t know about guns. Like you read a lot of books.” He gestures to Aegon. “Except that one.”

Aegon snickers, unoffended, still swinging his golf club around. “I don’t read books. I read maps.”

“Okay, lets do it,” Aemond says. “We’ll stick together across the Midwest and split up before we get to the Pacific. That puts us at ten people, and there’s safety in numbers.”

“Why do you get to make all the decisions?!” Jace demands. “Who signed that fucking contract? I didn’t consent to those terms.”

“Because that’s what Criston told us the last time the phones worked,” Aegon replies smugly. “He said Aemond’s in charge. So he is. If you want to find your way to California on your own, you’re welcome to try.”

“Who’s Criston?” you ask.

“Our fake dad,” Aegon says.

“Oh, your stepdad?”

“No, our mom is still married to our dad, he just sucks.”

“He does suck,” Archery Team confirms.

Rio tells you: “Hey, Chips, you’re standing in a torso.”

“Am I?” You look down. Your boots are buried to the ankles in the rotting gore of a bare midsection with only one limp arm still attached. You step out of it and shake off the bits of decomposing organs. “Gnarly. Thanks.” You spot Parker’s backpack containing the extra ammunition, pick it up out of the dirt, and throw it over your shoulders.

“Chips?” Aemond says. “Like…chocolate chips?”

“No, like woodchips. I’m a carpenter. I mean, I was a carpenter, I guess. That’s what I did in the Navy. Some people call the carpenters Chips.”

“I was an electrician,” Rio says. “So clearly, now that all the power is down, that turned out to be a fantastic career path.” Then he formally introduces himself. “Hi everyone, I’m Rio.”

Aegon perks up. “Oh, like the Rio Grande.”

Rio pretends to be scandalized. “Wow, racist.”

“So racist,” you agree.

Aegon’s chubby pink face fills with horror. “No, wait, I didn’t…um…”

Rio laughs and taps the nametag on his chest, black letters stitched over green camouflage: Osorio.

“His first name’s Bryan,” you say. “But no one calls him that.”

“My mom calls me Bryan. Sophie calls me Bryan.”

Aemond points at his companions, one after the other. “That’s my brother Aegon and my sister Helaena. Jace and Luke are our cousins. Then Baela and Rhaena are their girlfriends. Well, Baela…she’s kind of a fiancée. But there’s no official ring yet.”

Jace says: “Unfortunately, all the jewelry stores were looted on account of the apocalypse.”

“And I’m Daeron,” Archery Team says buoyantly, waving. Then he shields his eyes as he notices something at the edge of the field. “Oh, guys…?”

There are zombies approaching with clumsy, staggering strides, only a few now, but more will follow. That’s the thing; they are in seemingly endless supply. It’s easy to get too comfortable with them, to think of them as slow and mindless, even comical, even pitiful. But they can surprise you. And it only takes one bite to become just like them.

“Time to return to the Tahoe,” Baela announces, waddling towards the driver’s seat. Rhaena climbs in the passenger’s side. The rest of you pile into the back. The SUV has nine seats; Aegon crouches on the floor without being asked to. He’s unfolding a map he pulled from the pocket of his salmon-colored shorts and laying it flat across Rio’s knees so everyone can see. Baela turns the key in the ignition and the Tahoe rumbles to life. You spot a few red gas cans under the seats. If you can’t find more when that runs out—siphoning it out of other vehicles, stumbling across a gas station that is miraculously not drained dry—you’ll be walking, biking, or skateboarding to the West Coast. Or embracing the Amish lifestyle with a horse and buggy.

“We were planning to swing by Fort Indiantown Gap,” you tell Aemond. He twists around in his seat to look at you, that absorbed crystalline blue gaze. “That’s where we were headed before our Humvee broke down. It’s a National Guard Training Center. It’s probably cleaned out like everywhere else, but if it’s not…we might be able to find some guns and ammo there.”

“Where is it?”

“An hour south of here, just outside of Harrisburg.”

Baela is watching Aemond in the rearview mirror. He gives her a nod. “How do I get there?” Baela asks you.

“South on Route 42. Did you see the signs on your way in…?”

“Yup. Got it.” Baela steers the Tahoe across the field, kicking up a vortex of parched soil. She intentionally runs down four zombies before swerving left onto a two-lane road. Then she turns up the volume on the CD player: War Pigs by Black Sabbath. “It’s a mixtape,” she informs you.

Aegon points to southcentral Pennsylvania on a map of the United States of America, highway arteries and local route veins. “We’re here,” he says, sliding around on the floor of the Tahoe as Baela drives. His index finger traces the path; it’s a precarious balance between avoiding the most heavily populated areas and still having access to the necessary trappings of civilization: supplies to scavenge, roads to follow, buildings to take shelter in. “We’ll stop by Fort Indiantown Gap and then head northwest, thread the needle between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, stay south of Detroit and Chicago, cut across Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, that top part of Utah, then go our separate ways in Nevada. Oh my God, it’s just like the Oregon Trail! Do you guys remember that game?! Fording rivers, getting dysentery, hunting bison to extinction?” He starts humming the theme song.

Jace smirks, chomping on a Twizzler. “Hope you don’t die of a snakebite or something. That’d be awful.”

Aegon ignores him and refolds the map. “Rio! Fuck, marry, kill. The last three first ladies before Biden.”

Rhaena says, exasperated: “Aegon, you have to stop asking people that. It’s inappropriate.”

“Oh, easy,” Rio replies. “I’m fucking Laura Bush.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Aegon gives him a high five.

“And then I have to marry Michelle.”

“You gotta.”

“Which means Melania gets the grape Flavor Aid.”

“It’s the only logical answer.”

“I’d fuck Melania,” Jace says.

“Of course you would, you sick, sick man,” Aegon mutters, rolling down a window and sticking his head out like a golden retriever, his sunglasses still on, his blonde hair flapping in the wind. There’s a tattoo in black ink on his forearm, you notice for the first time: It’s not over ‘til you’re underground.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fort Indiantown Gap is a ghost town like a gold seam emptied, an oil well run dry, a collapsed coal mine. There’s no central armory but instead a series of arms rooms, one for each unit. Every single scrap of lethal metal is gone: no pistols, no rifles, no grenade launchers or machine guns, no ammo, not even pocketknives, although you do find clean PT uniforms for you and Rio to change into, t-shirts and running shorts and sneakers. Clothes are surprisingly difficult to acquire now. Most stores have either been looted or overrun by zombies, and Amazon is tragically no longer delivering. You can break into houses that seem abandoned, but then you have to hope the people who lived there just so happened to be your size and also aren’t waiting inside to eat you. It’s not usually a wise gamble.

You study Aemond and his companions as you move through the base clearing buildings, you and Rio with loaded M9s in your holsters and clutching borrowed baseball bats; gunshots are best avoided if possible so as not to attract unwanted attention. Aemond and Jace take point, almost always; Aegon hovers on Aemond’s blind left side, wagging his golf club around, occasionally slapping Aemond’s shoulder to remind him he’s there. Daeron prowls at the back and on the periphery. Baela pretends she isn’t struggling to keep up. Luke and Rhaena are the lookouts. Helaena fills her burlap messenger bag with small treasures you don’t even notice her accumulating: bottles of Advil, batteries, lighters, pens, tweezers, Band-Aids, Uno cards. You encounter only three zombies, easily decommissioned. Fort Indiantown Gap must have been evacuated weeks ago. You wonder what pointless battles her soldiers died in. Everyone knows the dead have won.

What the abandoned base lacks in weaponry it makes up for in food. You find a chow hall with an untouched kitchen, a wealth of shelf-stable delicacies: chili, saltine crackers, applesauce, fruit cocktail with bright red gems of cherries, peanut butter, strawberry jelly, green beans, carrots, peas, beets, tuna fish, chicken noodle soup. You feast—a Thanksgiving, a Last Supper—then settle into the barracks next door as the sun begins to set. There are plenty of bunkbeds and a closet full of pillows and sheets. Someone always has to be up to keep watch; Daeron and Jace immediately go to sleep so they can get some rest before they are shaken awake sometime around 2 or 3 a.m. Baela says she’s going to lie down for a minute and almost immediately begins snoring. Helaena makes silent amendments in her notebook; she keeps an inventory of everything the group has, needs, or wants.

Outside, Rio and Aegon are engaged in a spirited game of Uno. Luke is sitting cross-legged on the roof of the Tahoe with his binoculars. Rhaena is beside him softly reading a book out loud: The Hunger Games. Aemond is on a wooden bench on the front porch of the barracks, watching the sun sink into the west. When he notices you, he seems pleased. “Hi.”

“Hi. I’m sorry we wasted your gas to come here.”

“No, it was a good idea. It was worth a shot. And now we have a safe place to sleep tonight.” His eye drops lower, his scarred brow crinkles in concern. “What happened to your hands?”

“My hands?” In the haze of the adrenaline, you didn’t even notice. Your palms are blistered, swollen and stinging. “Oh. It was the transmission tower. The steel beams got really hot while we were up there. I’ll be okay.”

“Let me bandage them. You don’t want to get an infection.”

“Really, I’m fine, I shouldn’t inconvenience—”

“Sit down,” Aemond insists. You take a seat on the bench while he goes to the Tahoe to fetch a black nylon bag about the size of a briefcase. Rio casts you a furtive, crafty grin. It’s nothing, you mouth back, more to convince yourself than him. Your pulse is thudding in your ears; your cheeks are warm. You haven’t felt like this since you almost agreed to go on a date with that Marine you met at Corpus Christi, where your battalion had been dispatched to build a series of new airplane hangars. Aemond returns to the bench and begins wiping down your palms with antiseptic. “Sorry if this stings.”

It does, but you’re grateful for the distraction. “It isn’t too bad.”

“You’re not from Oregon.” He’s noticed your accent.

“Kentucky,” you confess.

“You aren’t making a stop at home before traveling west?”

“Why would I want to go back there?”

Aemond looks at you uncertainly; he can’t tell if you’re joking. You like the way his voice goes quiet when it’s just the two of you. You like the way he barely shows his teeth when he talks, like he’s keeping secrets.

After a moment, as the sky begins to turn to orange and pink and lilac, you continue. “People join the Army for a paycheck and a place to sleep, free college, health insurance. People join the Marines to prove they’re the best. People join the Air Force because they want to be in the military but think they’re too smart for grunt work. And people join the Navy to get away from home. I wanted to get far, far, far away.”

Aemond smiles. “Are you far enough yet?” He doesn’t mean by miles. He means the fact that the world will never be the same. Now he’s coating your hands in a thick white ointment, cool and blissful.

“I was afraid of so many things, and now none of them matter.”

“We all have brand new things to be afraid of.” He gets a roll of gauze and begins to wrap your palms, careful to keep your fingers and thumbs unencumbered.

“Aemond?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to your face?”

He shrugs. He’s trying not to be resentful about it; he can’t change it anyway. “We were scavenging supplies from a Home Depot. We had to board up the house and wait until things…got quieter and it was safe to travel out of Boston.” And by got quieter, he means that the initial wave passed, the zombies began to wander out of the cities and disperse, the survivors were hunkered down and not participating in gunfights or Vikings-style pillaging in the streets. “A piece of sheet metal fell on me from the top shelf. Aegon and Jace dragged me home, they thought I was dying.”

“I’m glad you weren’t. Who treated it?”

“I did.”

You can’t disguise your shock. “You…you stitched up your own face?”

He smirks, finishing the bandages on your hands. “I was in medical school before all this.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“I was an intern. So definitely not a doctor, but the closest thing to one I had access to. And I had taken some things from the hospital when everything went to hell. So I got a little mirror, and I lidocained myself very generously, and I started suturing.”

You don’t know what to say. His eye?? He stitched his eye shut?? “I mean…you did a great job.”

“I’m aware I look like Frankenstein, but I guess it’s better than not being here at all.”

“No, seriously. You look amazing, Aemond.”

He stares at you, bewildered. You realize how bizarre it must sound. You both start laughing as Aemond packs his supplies back into his medical kit. He touches his fingertips to his chin a few times—restless, meditative—then stands to return inside the barracks. “I’m…going to go check on Helaena.”

“Yeah. Cool. See ya.” You don’t watch him leave. This takes intentional effort.

Seconds pass anonymously: no time you need to be anywhere, nothing late, nothing early, no television premiers, no football games, no State Of The Unions, no time zones to do mental math over. You aren’t even sure what day it is. The earth has erased your invisible prisons. Now all that remain are the real ones: weather, terrain, disease, predators.

There is the creaking of weight on the porch steps. You warn him: “I’m not interested in your commentary.”

Rio winks as he says: “Maybe you won’t die a virgin after all.”

[rwrbficrecs]

First monthly faves for 2024 !! ❤️

Leave a message by @sherryvalli (book-verse)

@dot524: In the mood for some cute, heart-melting fluff? This is a one-shot that recounts Alex’s voicemail messages over the years from those who care about him - including Henry.

would you be my love, my love? (would you be mine) by ohprongs (book-verse)

@wilmonsfolklore: a strictly come dancing AU with a lot of feelings that I've been thinking about ever since i read it!!!

even though we know it isn't true by @matherines (book-verse)

@wilmonsfolklore: for everyone struggling with academic pressure, or anyone, really. it's pretty sad but of course there's comfort personified in Henry!!

beyond infatuation, how obsessively i adore you by @waterloolovers (book-verse)

@wilmonsfolklore: a new fandom classic if you ask me. Henry works at the daycare Alex's daughter goes to and their relationship progresses really naturally. the kid content in this fic is some of the cutest i have ever read and this is the perfect fic to go on your reread list for comfort.

And They Were Roommates by @14carrotghoul (book-verse)

@na-dineee: Alex and Henry get to know themselves and each other after they move in together. This story is not sugarcoated at all, very realistic - just how life is, and so so sweet. Also, unfortunately, rather short, but still worth the read - as are many other stories by this author, such as the 'Las flores' series.

Spirit of the Season by @pridepages (book-verse)

@heybuddy-drabbles: A little late to the game but I finally read E.J's Christmas story. Her way of story telling doesn't disappoint in this shorter tale (by her standards). It's not lighthearted and it touches some difficult topics (mostly canon) but it's all worth it because of the way they fall in love through Christmas Eve/night. Can't recommend it enough!

Where There Are Octobers by @iboatedhere (book-verse)

@na-dineee: 31 short chapters that are just really fun to read! Some are post-canon or canon-compliant, others are AUs - but in all of them the characters are so beautifully drawn, true to how we know and love them! A vet AU, a hospital AU, major fluff, even an X-Files AU - and who knows, maybe one or two dribbles will turn into more?! Fingers crossed!

The Art of Losing by bigfishbigpond (book-verse)

@dot524: If you think the mid-story breakup should have been longer and more angsty, here’s the story for you. An interesting and heartfelt story of what Henry and Alex are like apart, and what pulls them back together.

I know that you hate me (Do you though?) by @arand0mdutchgirl (book-verse)

@magnificentandcoolfez: A bit of good ADHD angst (with some comfort ofc). I like the focus on how hard adhd can be and it's a short and good read for those who like comfort that comes in the shape of your crush holding you until you feel grounded again.

blushing ears and beating hearts by @kill8a (book-verse)

@na-dineee: This story is not just slow burn, it is glacial burn. It's an college AU, set in New York, and so slow, so tender, so fluffy - after reading it I was floating on cloud 9 for quite a while. I don't know if you feel the same way, but it's funny how changing one given variable somehow changes the whole dynamic between the two of them. Or is it just me?! Either way, it's so wholesome to tag along as their love blossoms, I still feel so hugged and cared for.

all so human with our guards down by @maxbegone (book-verse)

@myheartalivewrites: a post-apocalyptic story that is unlike any other. There are no zombies or gore, but instead it focuses on rebuilding and the softest love growing between Alex and Henry, surrounded by family and friends. I kinda wanted to live there by the end of it.

The Snow Prince by @orchidscript (book-verse)

@zwiazdziarka: several fairy tale tropes meet to create this absolutely amazing story. It has dreaminess of a fable, best kind of yearning of your favourite slow burn fics and a little bit of adventure of a fantasy novel.

but to say that I'm a rainbow, to tell me that I'm bright (when I'm so used to feeling wrong, well, it helps me feel alright.) by What_Is_A_Mild_Opinion (book-verse)

@zwiazdziarka: Fandom is really sleeping on this one! This story is a canon rewrite with characters reimagined as creatures with animal characteristics. The wordbuilding is so fantastic that even if you are not a fan of long fics following canon step by step, it's absolutely worth to check this even for a chapter or two and get to know these wonderful versions of Alex and Henry. (Alex is literally rainbow.)

safe with me / more than I ever (in a thousand years)by @indomitable-love (book-verse)

@na-dineee: I think the author is very well known among all rwrb fanfic readers. I really, really liked these two stories, like a lot: Two 5+1 fics, one from Pez's point of view, the other from Bea's - unfortunately both characters are given too little attention in the book imho. As expected, both narrators are sharply observing, protective of Henry, loving, honest, tender - and you end up loving Henry (and Alex) even more.

check out our past Monthly Faves here ❤️

[moondirti]

12. PUSH COMES TO SHOVE

CHAPTER TWELVE OF ANIMALIC | MIGUEL O'HARA X F!READER

↼ chapter eleven / chapter thirteen ⇀

summary: you cross a line you can't turn back to. miguel takes you up on a joke.

explicit (18+) | 5.6k words warnings: smut, female masturbation, sexual fantasies (including unprotected p-in-v, breeding, biting, paralysis, bondage, aftercare), everyone is bad at feelings, insecurity, fear of heights, mentions of death notes: nothing i wrote sounded right so i just had to publish before i decided to scrap it all and reqrite

It’s a shameful, awful thing to do. 

One with no excuse for it – not really.

You were just bored. Pent up on an endless routine; familiar people, recurring places. Your night and day mirror images of one another. Even in the post-apocalyptic landscape of your old home did you have something to do with your spare time – wandering wrecks and cleaning the devastation left in the wake of your mistake. 

But here, visiting an Earth where the expectations for your stay had never been clearly defined – where you can go, who you can talk to, what freedoms you’re permitted – you’re technically no more enriched than a prisoner, peering listlessly from their window at the bustling lives outside. And with a track record of dragging chaos along no matter your intentions, you’re much too afraid to push the hang fire state in which you live in. 

So, containment or self-sabotage, it doesn’t really matter. Not when both have the same, invariable conclusion. This. Dangerous boredom; the type that always, always feeds into thoughts of him. 

They’ve gotten worse too. Of late, your previously honed scorn and resentment for the futuristic spider-man has ebbed into something more… mellow. Understated. It’s a peculiar condition, hard to name. Fuzzy in the places it once stung and barrelling down an unmarked path. Confusion, maybe. Indecision. And while your chest twinges with the not knowing of it all, you’ve already decided that you hate this more than the antagonism you felt before. At least it had been logical, founded on a bank of valid evidence, with bruises and scars to show for it. This is bolstered by nothing; vague impressions of his smirk and strict approval. A pulse between your legs. Sweaty palms before seeing him, wondering what state you’ll be greeted with. 

(You always hope it’s washed, snugly dressed and wounds tended to. He’s in a significantly better mood when refreshed, you find. Enough of a difference from post-fights to make you wonder whether you’ve ever known him at all.)

And it’s pathetic because Miguel has a life where you don’t. You’ve disproved your theory on his marital status, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is his home. A world where every possibility is open to him – walks in the park, ice cream from a quaint corner shop, a group of highschool friends, maybe, who he sees on occasion. Kids – you’re certain of that, the reality imbued in everything he does. The man has to be the father of at least one darling angel, someone he can dedicate all his work to. He’s too committed not to be. 

So, every hour he spends outside of your meetings, he’s probably off doing something worthwhile. Daycare pickups. Stopping crime. Running a building full of spider-folk. And you–

Well, that’s the mortifying point. 

You’re here, leaning against your shower wall, soaked to the bone while two fingers work your cunt. And you’re thinking of him. 

Broad shoulders, packed with ineffable strength, curving down to tree-trunk arms. They man-handle you in the best of ways – clamped around your thighs, upturning you onto his plump, magical fucking lips. That mouth had been expert, quick or slow when need be, much like his touch. He’s good at working them in tandem to make a mess of you, searching for devastation somewhere in your core. He’s good at finding it, at rendering you pliant enough to spill it onto him. 

Are you crossing a line? 

It’s been pseudo-professional so far; sex in favour for another milestone crossed. Encouragement on the only degree you respond well to. But now you’re fingering yourself to mere notions of him, alone, for no reason other than what his imagined presence does to you. 

Fuck. You’re perverse. Worse than that. There’s no verbiage available to capture how depraved you are – you’ve just never gone through this before. Everyone you’ve ever wanted, you’ve taken and promptly abandoned the next morning. One night stands. Fleeting flings. No one has ever stuck around long enough to make things complicated. 

Of course he would, though. You have to laugh at the irony of it. Miguel’s always made life hard for you, whether intentionally or not. And now he’s taken root in your mind, forcing you to face all its flowering consequences. 

Like how he simultaneously sates you and leaves you wanting more. You’ve had his fingers and tongue – a great deal more than you can attribute to yourself in the past year. And they’re great, brilliant. But it isn’t enough. Not when you’ve seen his cock; thick-set, throbbing, splitting your jaw open with brutal efficiency. He was big and eager and much less restrained that day than he has been since you established your new dynamic. He’d come closer than he dared to before. 

Or again.

(Whatever’s changed, you’d give everything to reserve it. To feel him – not down your throat, but in you. Mushroomed head spearing you open, imprinting itself on your walls. Ramming your cervix, made easy as his large hands fold you into a mating press. The position would give him the added benefit of watching you come undone, every miniscule expression laid out to spur him on. Or maybe he wouldn’t like that – maybe he’s the type to grab your hair and pull your head back so his tongue can lather over your neck. 

You’d take whatever you can get, no hesitation.)

Your index and middle sandwich your clit, scissored open as you rub the swollen bud. Blood rushes downward, fattening under pressurised pleasure. The wet smeared on your thighs is slippery, much too slick to be a product of the hot water beating down on you. It points to what you already know; that, no matter what you do to scour it off, all you’ll ever be is a wanton idiot. 

Vapour latches onto oxygen, the bathroom air growing suffocating, humid, heady with the scent of sex. Nerve ends prickle at the drag of pruned skin, your orgasm on a never-ending approach. No matter what you do, you can’t seem to beckon it. You’ve been here for far too long, cycling through every trick in the book, testing sweet spots that’ve become accustomed to another’s manipulation. You’ve pinched yourself, used the shower head until its pipes hissed, stuffed your slit full and curled forward, looking for that patch of spongy tissue. 

None of it works. Nothing helps you see stars, unable to drag you to the heavens you’ve reached with your mentor. 

(Wanton idiot is a tolerant title, too lenient for you. At least one would be able to satisfy themselves.

But now, in the wake of your frustration, you’re reduced to a roll of drenched cotton, numb to everything but the fire at Miguel’s fingertips.)

Still, you try. You anchor a foot to the faucet, plastering yourself on the glass pane that separates the shower from the rest of your bathroom. It’s frigid, a stark contrast to the water heating your flesh, and the temperature drop strikes your senses awake, flooding you with new vigour. If it’s possible, the proof it offers to your fever – the gooseflesh that erupts at your waist or the blurry line between where sweat begins and soap-buds end – only eggs you further, hardening the truth to startling clarity: 

You’re crossing a line and drawing it out with a frustration that benefits no one. Cum, that’s all you need to do. To finally be done with it and put this whole blip behind you. 

Spread open, your hand returns to your cunt. You’re wet enough to do so without fuss, the fingers that had been at your clit plunging in until they’re sheathed to the knuckle. It’s a tight fit, walls greedily sucking you in, vacuum-sealed and clenching. The stretch burns and you find solace in it, the tender skin of your hole straining to accommodate another digit once the two find their rhythm. 

How much better would his dick be? Would it cleave you apart like his fingers do? You imagine it so well, the reverie blossoming like second nature. 

(Miguel, planking above you, hair flopping onto his forehead after being ruffled out of its usual push-back. It’d be a sight of your own doing, your nails combing through dark waves on their way to his shoulders. He’s marked you several times over now – claw wounds above your wrist and a deep scar on the back of your arm. Would he let you mark him, in turn? Scratch red lines down his muscled back, rolling as he fucks into you. Or suckle his neck, leave it purple and angry to pay back for the punctures at your collar? It’s been weeks and they’re still there.)

Your free hand finds them, smoothing over the pocks left by his fangs. The heel of your other presses on your clit, kneading the sore centre. It buckles with the abuse, pouring into your rising orgasm. The tide promises violence for when you eventually let it loose.

(In this crude fantasy, he isn’t much of a masochist. He gets irritated with your wandering hurt, turned off the pursuit in pumping you full of his seed. Maybe he pins your arms over your head, holds them down with ease to get you to stop. But he needs his palms free, your bouncing tits all-too tempting not to squeeze, so he uses his webs to bind you to the headboard. Or–)

Your core grows sloppier with every passing second. It weeps, slurping whatever you give it – the feral force of your fingers. Your knees tremble. Your pelvis aches. The amalgamation of your effort knots your organs together, weaving an impossible pattern out of desire and desperation.

(– he bites you again, injects you with venom so you stay nice and still for him regardless.)

God, it’s perfect. It’s the tart, slightly-salty pour of caramel over toffee pudding, topped with vanilla and the memory of his paralytic essence ballooning through your veins. It’d been cold and graceful, so bloody efficient you wonder how he didn’t think of it as a means of incapacitation sooner. Perhaps it’s tough to measure – how much is too much before you kill your victim, or something along the lines. But back then, despite hating no one more than he did you, he kept you alive. 

Would he risk it again, if you asked? 

Does he think about you? Like this, when the day drags and there’s no adequate excuse to see you through it. You quiver with the thought. Holed up in his own bath, spacier than yours, pumping his cock slick. He wouldn’t trail it out. Miguel has his own life, and if you somehow manage to worm your way into it, he’d spill himself quick. Not for disgust – it’s clear that he’s at least attracted to you. No. Just because he’s a better man than you can hope to be. 

Rough around the edges but decent. Moral.

(There it is again – the apollonian. If he’s the olympian deity for the Sun, of truth and prophecy and order, then you’re Dionysus while you bring yourself to ecstasy, caught on the tip of his sharpened arrowhead.)

You groan, letting your head fall back as your efforts gain traction. The bottom of your stomach lurches, making way for the combustion taking space in your chest. It sputters, gorging on a kindling flame, and travels downwards to the pocket between your gut and pubic bone. The fulfilment borders on painful, skinned raw by your relentless assault on it. Once-warm water adds to the overstimulation, turned bitter by its prolonged use. Hair clings to your brow, obscuring your eyesight. Your orgasm snowballs, knocking everything in its determined path.

(And afterward, wrapped up somewhere in your pipe dream, he would empty himself inside you, drunk off the pleading whine that clawed its way out from your throat. He’d made you cum several times – the only addition you can guarantee would be fact – but it wouldn’t end there. Not while you remain still, all wandering eyes and diving comedowns, looking at him in your peripheral. 

He’d linger, his cum dribbling out of you in thick globs, waiting by your side as the paralysis wears off. Gaining control of your body would be a slow process, as it was before, and he’d have a wetted towel to clean you off in the meantime. The room would remain quiet – founded on that same limbo state from after he ate you out – and neither of you speaking a word until you nod off, drowsy and properly fucked. If only to exchange hummed goodnights. An appreciative pat on the head, maybe. Detached praise, stunted communication.

Because even in your wildest fantasies, Miguel does not stoop to kiss you.)

You’re a wreck when it finally hits. Seized muscles release, disgorging the built-up tension of the last hour. You cum – not as powerfully as you might’ve done had he been here – though that’s trivial. He’s present in your mind, praising you through it, working you despite encroaching sensitivity. And you break down not at the thought, the sheer salacity of it all, but to the tenderness you can only imagine. Unrestrained. Given freely. Not because you earned it, but because you're worthy even when you haven’t.

A sob captures your lungs. Your skin prickles. 

Phasing right through the glass partition, you fall backward to smack your temple on the edge of your sink. A throbbing pain immediately engulfs the site. Black speckles your vision.

And if it isn’t the perfect illustration of your concurrent dopamine crash, then you’ll be damned. 

Curse him.

“You… You’re kidding, right?” 

You don’t necessarily need an answer, but you ask to give yourself a distraction from the anxiety torrenting through you. With the way he leans on the glass railing, self-satisfied against the backdrop of Nueva York at noon, you can glean every bit of genuineness from his expression alone.

Miguel gives a vague gesture to the rooftop you stand upon. “You said it yourself.”

“First of all, no. I said I would climb up buildings, not jump off one. Second of all, it was a joke. I hope you know what a joke is, O’hara – otherwise I have a list of situations that make much more sense with hindsight.”

“I’m not asking you to jump off.” He ignores your barb, pushing off the edge to usher you closer. Your heels dig into the ground, an obstacle proved to be done in vain when his hand skims the small of your back. The heat of it penetrates your shirt, weaving its way to your dimpled flesh like it knows how much you crave it. One would think he’s burnt you with how rapidly you move to brush it off, and by the end – whether you like it or not – you find yourself peering over the palisades to the four-foot drop below. Bile spikes the back of your gullet. 

“Are we here to sight-see, then? It’s an apartment complex, nothing special about that.” Breathing, you try to suppress the nausea that overrules your systems. The descent isn’t that high – about fifty feet, give or take your own height – but that does nothing to combat the fear gradually creeping up your nerves. 

“Very funny.” He says, rolling his eyes at something you refuse to see. You’ve no energy to decipher it, either, zeroed in on the task expected of you. “Leaving your room got me thinking–” 

“That’s dangerous.” You snap. 

The man must be used to your little tantrums by now, for he continues like you hadn’t interrupted him, delineating the perplexing logic that lured him into thinking this was a good idea.

“– about what you meant by your suggestion. You’d pitched it instinctively.”

(‘If you promised this earlier, I would’ve climbed up fucking buildings to earn it.’

You remember. Somehow, it infuriates you that he does too – that even raptured in the throes of pleasure, his tongue buried between your folds, he’d been stewing over ways to better you. It pokes a fresh sore spot – like the maturating bruise on your temple, consequence of your scene in the shower – that reminds you you’re not good enough.)

“Okay, smart ass. Since you think you know everything, allow me to explain to you the definition of hyperbole. I was–”

“Exaggerating, yes. But I figured, to make that specific example during such… unsober circumstances, it must’ve originated from a sincere place.” He joins your observation of the street below, flicking over the trimmed bushes, surveying for wandering pedestrians. He’d picked somewhere secluded – a neighbourhood two blocks down from HQ, whose residents are likely employees at the bustling base. If anything, it explains their absence at twelve o’clock on a weekday. “So, here we are.” 

You blink up at him, incredulous. He still hasn’t explicitly stated what he wants you to do. If this conversation had taken place on the ground, then perhaps you would’ve caught on quicker. Find your way to the top, just like he’s implying. As it stands though, you’re teetering on the crown of a stubby building that still seems too tall given your aversion to heights, with nothing but a stubborn spider-man and a locked stairwell for aid. It only dawns on you now why he made the conscious decision to close it after coming up here – to prevent your cheating.

Another strike towards his lack of faith. Charming. 

In the bout of bewildered silence, Miguel sighs and spells it out for you.

“I want you to scale down the side of it.” 

You could choke on your heart with how high it skyrockets. 

“With what?” You squeak. The protest is weak, ungrounded as your bones start to give out. You’re not sure whether it’s mental, your brain tricking you into distrusting your body, or if you’re truly about to collapse. In either case, your distress threatens to unman you. Sickening. You’re green to your stomach.

His eyebrows raise, humoured. It’s a call to land on the solution yourself – like it’s obvious, like you’re not losing yourself just picturing it. 

Quaking, you return to an age-old mantra. Miguel doesn’t know you, no matter how good he is at reading the bits he’s privy to. You’ve never highlighted to him the extent and end of your abilities – and yes, that’s partly for lack of understanding them yourself. But as it so happens, you do know a few, indispensable attributes; ones that should be considered before you’re made to defy gravity and saunter down the face of a wall. 

Like how you can’t control your powers, the reigns ever-elusive, slipping from your grip whenever you actively try to run them. Or that your super-strength and enhanced healing are fickle things, arising only in impractical episodes. How your spider-sense is unpractised, severely underutilised by the mundane life you lead, and, perhaps most relevantly: 

“I have no webs to harness me.” You emphasise. “And my hands can’t stick to surfaces to make that a negligible factor.”

He listens, contemplative, digesting the latter piece of information and what it means for his lesson plan. 

“If they did, then I wouldn’t have been in nearly as much trouble at that quarry as I was, hanging on with just my fingers. But…” You wave your palms at him as if to punctuate your point. “Unfortunately for me, I’m normal below the wrist.” 

“Below the wrist.” He repeats, picking up on the contrivance in your choice of phrase. Cringing, you scramble for an excuse, looking to get off the road he leads you on. It’s frenzied, unbecoming of this arrangement. You’ve learnt to lend your begrudging trust to his methods, their validity proved over weeks of training – but something about his current tone, the interrogative way with which he singles out faults in your diction. It sends you back to an era where all you worried about was his pursuit, about a capture made inevitable by your clumsy side steps. 

You won’t forget, either. At the pinnacle of it, he was ready to step on your hold to a crane and send you plummeting to supposed death. 

(If push comes to shove, would he force you to descend this hurdle – worried about a more forgiving yet just as terrifying end, given you should trip and lose pace on the right-angled wall?

But then you think of food shared over a makeshift dining table – navigating the new peace found between your legs. He’d allowed your skipping class. He took concern for your health in spite of it – and you’re reminded of another thing. One more constant, there since the beginning too. 

Miguel O’Hara does not want you dead. 

That, at the very most, is consolation that he won’t throw you off this ledge.)

“My feet can, from what I’ve tested. I can tread on steep slopes and hang upside down. Just… not very well.” You elaborate, then feel the urge to grant him less room for argument, just in case. “I don’t know what kind of scientists you are, O’Hara. A biologist, maybe, which would explain a whole ton, but take it from me. Physics won’t agree with this. You’re asking me to walk down a wall completely perpendicular to the ground, reliant on a weak abdomen and capabilities I haven’t taught myself to use properly.” 

And when your words run their course, feeding into the husk of an alarmed echo, you can’t stop warmth from pooling behind your cheeks, or when your pulse flutters, feeble as the flap of a baby bird’s wings. You’re dangled over a branch you’ve known your whole life, nest torn out from under you. A condition of your own doing, of course, seeing as he stays quiet, compliant to your rant. 

A moment later, he adds. “Geneticist.” 

“Huh.” 

“I was a geneticist.” The nugget of background he offers flares like a treaty, a temporary campaign for goodwill. And, as if intentionally building upon your theory of armistice, Miguel tips away, popping out your personal space. The afternoon breeze hits you then, chillier without his immediate presence. You don’t voice your wish for him to come back. “Why haven’t you?” He seeks, testing his luck now that you’re placated.

It works. 

“Pushed my potential?” 

He hums in the affirmative.

“I have. It helped nothing but my upchuck reflex.” You evoke. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten my doomed history with hard drops. We don’t work well, particularly not when you’re around.” Beyond the quarry, he’d witnessed your misfortunate swinging around Earth-15 too. You’d phased right through his arms, bound to solidify before splattering onto the pavement below. It’d been peaceful then only because you had so much less to lose. “Besides, I don’t see the point. I won’t be going back home to fight crime, in any case. And scaling apartment complexes won’t magically lend me enough virtue to want to return.” 

When he speaks next, it’s tacitly, an intrusion to jog your memory like you did his, however subtly. “You’re okay now, though.” He says, and implies a truth too heavy to audibly assert. I caught you. Every time. The understanding lingers, oscillating between you two, before he starts again. “But I get it.”

You scoff. In turn, he sounds his question – hm? – rumbled deep from within his chest. If you focus, you can sense the way it vibrates the particles separating you.

“I doubt it, is’all.” 

“That’s condemning.” 

“Please, as if you need the ego boost.” Ducking from his scrutiny, you rest your elbows on the glass lining the rooftop to look out on the cityscape before you. It glitters, contemporary blue architecture slated on fields of green. This world is utopia compared to the many you’ve visited; amongst them, you’re hit with the vivid memory of your own – peppered with red fires under a perpetual cover of smoke. Blown to unrecognisable bits by a product of your ignorance. 

You swallow to shake the tangent off. He’s still staring at you. You can feel his solemn study, dimmed from its previous challenge, severe enough to penetrate the marge of your skull. 

“Are you really going to make me say it?” 

He shrugs, not in the least bit teasing. It’s the straw that finally breaks your back – the integrity he regards you with. Sighing, you smother your pride before it can change your mind. 

“Fucking look at you. You’re like… the peak of spider prowess. All muscle and righteousness. And I don’t even know where to begin, scared to even cash in on the powers I've been handed. What kind of hero is nervous of heights, for God’s sake.” 

The admission escapes as hushed, warbled by string-plucked insecurity. You don’t attempt to assess his reaction to it, following the motions of a cirrus cloud instead, swaying like tufts of hair on a cerulean scalp. It makes his next course of action jarring – frightening for all you don’t expect it. 

Miguel’s hand appears before you, face down so the digital suit-patterns on his palm are exposed. You half-think he’s offering you hold it, or wants to pinion you to something before he pulls you off the roof. But his body turns to overlook your side, and with a sudden schwip, his talons protrude from the pads of his fingers. Before you can fully process it, you stumble back, phantom pain pounding where he once gripped you with them.

He notices it, though doesn’t comment on your misgivings, waiting patiently until you steel yourself and return to your post. He must be used to the hesitation. 

“Do you know what these are for?” 

To claw run-away anomalies – you’re compelled to say, but decide against the low blow. You shake your head no. 

“I didn’t either. Not when I first developed them. They seemed inconvenient and hard to handle. Got in the way of everyday life.” You struggle to picture it. Miguel, younger, troubled with defects he never asked for. Did it hurt, you wonder – the ingrowth of fangs and talons? 

Does it still? 

“Biology isn’t a lesser science though, despite what certain physicists may believe.” He continues, raising a brow at you. You can’t suppress the sheepish expression that threads the corners of your mouth. “I remembered the spiders I worked with, what features of theirs might come to be represented by this. The fangs I realised the purpose of much faster.” 

“To paralyse.” 

“Right.” His gaze flicks to the slip of neck exposed by your loose collared shirt, finding the bite marks bridged over your clavicle. You’d been good at ignoring your masturbatory fantasies thus far, yet at his cue, flashes of them occur to you. Your knees knock together, timid that he can perhaps smell the shame on you. “My claws weren’t so obvious. Not until I met another spider-man who could climb walls. It occurred to me then, the microscopic setules on the end of spiders’ legs. They create an electromagnetic charge with any molecule at their nanometric radius. And while he, like many others, gained a figurative interpretation of it, I got something more literal.” 

“So, they adhere to anything.” 

“No. But they help me hold on.” Miguel corrects. “I’m not guaranteed proper fixture, so climbing buildings – scaling any surface – is a labour entirely dependent on me.” 

You trail over his wide shoulders – the top heavy form you’ve spent so much time revering. You’ve never so much as considered why he’s built so differently from other spider-heroes, burly in contrast to their lithe figures. (For good reason, maybe – you would’ve assumed incorrectly as recently as three minutes ago.) It’s not to set himself apart, or being that he was blessed with it. But because it was necessary. Pure proof of the effort it took to hone his skills. 

Guilt is swift in sweeping you off your feet; you feel foolish for ever suggesting it was talent that got him to this point. And–

“That’s… tough.” Is the only response you can conjure. 

It’s so stupid you want to punch yourself over it. Miguel, on the other hand, just chuckles. A brief huff from upturned lips. 

“Sure.” He takes one last look down the verge of the rooftop before turning his back on it. You keep facing forward. “The crux is – we don’t always see the point of things, or why they are the way they are. Sometimes, we might even refuse to when all seems unfair. But the second mark of a hero, as I’ve come to know it, is having the courage to address them despite your ignorance. Firmness of mind when confronted with danger – or, in your case, a burden of great difficulty.” 

And piece by piece, it starts to come together. The small revelation of his backstory as nothing more than an allegory. His bringing you here, to start from the top and not the bottom, instilling in you the fear of falling. And what it all means – courage being the point of this little exercise, a step up from resilience now that you’ve proved your tenacity. Priming you for the eventuality of returning home – a burden of great difficulty.  

“Of course you’d turn this into a philosophical seminar.” You deride, rubbing the wariness from your expression. “And here I believed we were bonding.” 

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.” He says. You don’t have it in you to disagree, searching for the pluck to get this over with. Yet what he adds next takes you completely off-guard. “You don’t have to do this.” 

A compromise – you thought you’d have to fight for one. 

“I’m a few plank-sessions short of having the core strength to walk down a wall.” You circumvent, not ready to admit your failure. 

Miguel nods, yielding now that he’s gotten his opinion on the matter across. Nothing about him betrays disappointment, but you somehow still squirm, distressed at the very notion that you let him down. 

As he breaks away, you catch sight of the platforms protruding from the windows below you, and a haphazard idea forms.

“But… if it’s courage you want, then maybe we can start smaller?” You raise, worrying the inside of your cheek. It’s rushed, not expertly planned through, but he cocks his head, and you’re forced to toss it out now that he’s all ears. “I can hang from the bottom of a balcony – upside down – until I’m better at trusting my powers over gravity. And, y’know, there are still the odds that I fall, just onto the deck below and not four stories. Less fatal that way.”

There’s hardly a spark of deliberation before his eyes narrow, cheekbones projecting with a smile. It has to be your insatiable itch for praise, consequence of anything over what he actually thinks – but a bright glint streaks upon those red pupils and, remarkably, it feels a lot like pride.

(You’ll take what you can get.)

“Yeah. That works.” He approaches, sinking closer once more. It’s warm again and you stand self-assured, regardless of the trepidation still bubbling within you. “I suppose not everyone has a death wish.” 

“Wishful thinking on your part, maybe.” You taunt. “Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but you’re stuck with me for the time being.”

What feels like hours later, your head throbs violently, and under the novelty of it all, you learn of three new things. 

One – an observation most idle yet, embarrassingly, the first to be made – is that Miguel looks just as handsome the other way around as he does proper side up. Elevated, too, given that you’re finally at his level like this. Staring him down, nose-to-nose, able to capture his face outside the forced perspective that comes with being shorter. He occupies the balcony below while you stand, hang, on the belly of the one above. There’s a tiny, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mole by the corner of his mouth. He’s still smiling at you. 

Two – a facet you haven’t stopped imprecating since you started, one that technically isn't even new to you – is that, while your external body seems to defy gravity, fastened in place by your feet, your internal systems aren’t granted the same luxury. Gallons worth of blood pools to your brain, distending the soft tissue until it weighs like lead on your crown. You never thought your organs would be this heavy, especially the ones that stack on top of your lungs. Your stomach, liver, kidneys, intestines. They make it hard to breathe. You can barely feel your hands anymore. 

And three – perhaps your proudest realisation yet – is that this isn't so bad once you get the hang of it. Sure, your mentor is a few paces away, ready to grab you should you spontaneously collapse. And if he didn’t, then yes, the worst that could come of it is a broken arm. You certainly need more practice before you test it on taller heights, and you don’t think you trust your abilities yet to walk down building planes, but– 

It’s easy. Bodily effects aside, it’s easy. Supernaturally so. In a way that bends every one of Newton’s laws and you’re left reeling trying to string together mechanical equations that could make sense of it. The tension between you and the ceiling and how great it must be to combat your weight. The equal and opposite force perpetually acting against gravity. 

Because you’re upside down, despite having no cable or chain to keep you situated, no hooks on your heels. You’re stuck to a surface by just the soles of your shoes, and when you walk around, lift one to put in front of the other, you stay fixed. You don’t – can’t – fall.

(Secretly, you thank him for pushing you to this stage. The euphoria of it is just enough to supersede any nausea you worried about before.)

“How’s that?” Miguel asks, tone low and smooth like velvet. Something tugs your heart – your arteries, perhaps, shrivelling around it.

“Weird. Great. If I didn’t feel like throwing up, I’d stay here forever.” 

“Try to refrain from projecting it on me.”

“Copy that.” 

“But,” He says, tipping his head so he can assess you the right way around. “You’re doing it.”  “Yeah.” You giggle. The bloodrush must be making you loopy. You’d have never been so animated on the ground. “I’m doing it.”

chapter thirteen

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[overlordmetal]

Art Rewind: Dragon Ball

I went through my gallery and picked out a few Dragon Ball artworks I created over the years I felt stood out and decided to share them here with you.

"This Isn’t Even My Final Form!"

A transformation sequence I made of Frieza back in 2020 (yes, I know I forgot Cyborg Frieza). I first released it on an online Dragon Ball community under the name "SaiyanOverlord".

"Cellvolution"

A parody of the iconic "The March of Progress/The Road to Homo Sapiens" painting by Rudolph Zallinger, I instead depicted Cell’s road to perfection. Drawn in 2020.

"Super Vegeta"

One of—if not my very first digital art piece. I drew a simple bust of Vegeta in his Super Saiyan form. I’ve learned a lot of things about digital art since but this 2020 illustration was finger-drawn on a single layer (which made the month-spanning experience far more challenging than it needed to be).

"Man and Metal"

I drew this one (also in 2020) for a friend of mine who liked Krillin. A lot of people have come and told me Krillin looked stoned in this one, I wonder why?

"Sailor 18"

The #sailormoonredrawchallenge was big at the time so I decided to add my own twist to things by drawing Android 18 as the titular protagonist.

"Son Goku"

I drew Son Goku in a blend of styles between my own and the original manga’s as tribute to the late Akira Toriyama, who unfortunately passed away earlier this year.

"Future Trunks Cast"

Still in a Dragon Ball mood from the Goku artwork, I decided to draw the Future Trunks cast + a post-apocalyptic cyborg Launch in a similar style.

~

I’d like to take a moment to thank you if you’ve read this far, I really appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed and that you have a great day.

[homestuckreplay]

[EOA2] Years In The Future, But Not Many: Adolescence and Time in Act 2 of Homestuck

‘Stories of cultural evolution and of individual adolescent development prioritize the ending; they are primarily narratives of fulfillment.’ – Nancy Lesko (2001)

Act 2 of Homestuck takes place in a single afternoon, and also spans the whole history of life on earth, from before the Pacific Ocean formed to a post-apocalyptic wasteland. As time flashes and contorts and makes a maze of sequential storytelling, our main characters remain frozen at thirteen years old, locked in time at the end of the world. The modern teenager is culturally constructed as a person who is always waiting and preparing, running to keep up with milestones and punished for stepping outside a correct order. Teenagers’ only, and very difficult, job is to adequately prepare for adulthood – an adulthood that is always years in the future, but not many.

This essay looks at adolescence as it is theorized in society and in young adult literature, with a focus on its temporal dimension. It then applies these theories to Act 2 of Homestuck, asking to what extent Homestuck recreates, explores or subverts dominant ideas of adolescence with its characterizations and nonlinear storytelling. It’s about 8,000 words; to skip the theoretical background and just read the Homestuck analysis, Ctrl+F for ‘Paragraphs in the future…’ and read from that section onwards.

This essay is also hosted on ao3 and has a bibliography.

Background: Normal Teenagers, Normal Development

‘A child’s social, and ontological purpose is therefore, it would seem, not to stay a child… any signs of entrenchment or backtracking, like play for example, may be interpreted as indicators of a failure to ‘develop’’ – Chris Jenks (2009)

All current adults have experienced childhood and adolescence – it is ‘the only truly common experience of being human’ (Jenks). Adolescence was not theorized in academia until the late 1800s, but had a social meaning much earlier; in 1818, Isaac Taylor published Advice to the Teens, Or, Practical Help Towards the Formation of One’s Own Character at the tender age of fifty-nine. G Stanley Hall, the first scholar of adolescence, was also fifty-nine in 1904 when he characterized the teenage experience as ‘storm and stress’, a time of turbulence, mood and behavioral changes, and conflict with authority.

In this early era of research, children and adolescents were studied in terms of their deviations from the ‘normal adult’, who was explicitly characterized as a middle-class white man. Young people were seen as speedrunning all stages of human evolution before reaching this ‘enlightened’ state at the onset of adulthood; the entirety of history recreated in each individual life. Those seen as ‘further down’ the evolutionary ladder – people of color and the working class in addition to adolescents – were viewed as biologically determined, controlled by their hormones and ‘underdeveloped’ brains, making it the job of those more ‘advanced’ to restrict their behavior. In this way, minors became a marginalized group, and adolescence became a training ground. By positioning teenagers as not yet capable of rational thinking and decision making, it was easy to justify controlling them until they were ‘ready’ to be full members of society.

Modern social scientists generally believe that our idea of ‘the adolescent’ was constructed in the early 20th century, in response to specific social conditions – but many people, including parents, teachers, journalists and young adult fiction authors, retain ideas about the ‘inherent nature’ of teenagers. Science surrounding the ‘teenage brain’ is picked up by popular media and adopted as proof of a biological basis of behavior, and two studies found that preservice teachers saw their future teenage students as ‘incomplete people’. Teenagers have long been described as overly emotional, as unstable due to raging hormones, as disrespectful and rebellious towards authority, delinquents and criminals, lacking individuality, lazy and disengaged, loud and disruptive, politically inactive, hedonistic, immature, as wasting their youth and health, and as not to be taken seriously. In the 21st century, the discourse shifts slightly: teenagers are just as much of a problem, but now they are entitled, inattentive, lacking in intelligence, work ethic and critical thinking skills, reliant on technology, spending too much time indoors, self- and celebrity-obsessed, irresponsible with money, overly sensitive and nihilistic towards the future. When these beliefs are dispersed throughout society and reiterated from all angles, it is no surprise that young people internalize them, and fulfill the prophecy they are told is unavoidable.

Politically, the ‘correct’ development of young people is crucial. The youth are the future adults, and as future adults, it is crucial that they advance society in the ‘right’ direction, and continue along the same path as the current adults. Hand in hand with the idea of teenagers’ inherent nature is the idea that their future trajectory can be changed through the right guidance and the right policy. Placed in a political spotlight, young people are always the ones to be concerned about, never able to formally raise their own concerns. Teenagers are denied the right to vote in countries they will likely be citizens of for their whole lives, and if they attempt to enter political arenas, are widely disparaged with their ideas seen as unrealistic and overly radical. They should instead be waiting their turn, with the expectation that their views will become more moderate by the time they are ‘mature’ enough to guide society.

In her re-theorization of adolescence Act Your Age! A Cultural Construction of Adolescence, Nancy Lesko points out that adolescence is defined through chronological age, and therefore through time. Pointing to theories of the clock as the technology that best defines the modern age, she discusses how youth are kept to a schedule of universalized milestones. One example is age graded schools, where all students are expected to turn thirteen during the seventh grade, and to all achieve the same defined educational standard at this age. Activities such as learning to drive and entering paid work are legally prohibited until a certain age, but people are expected to do these shortly after reaching these milestones, or they will be seen as falling behind. Physical markers of puberty are expected in narrow age ranges, and teenagers are medically pathologized if their bodies mature too fast or too slow. Social development, such as the expectation that adolescents will have their first kisses and first romantic relationships in their early teens, also qualify as milestones. Placed in narrowly age-grouped environments, young people will continually compare themselves to their peers, and those who reach milestones on time are socially rewarded by each other as well as by adults.

These milestones are not end points in themselves, but simply necessary steps along a path of becoming, always focused on the adult a teenager will be. Adults are positioned as superior in society, and to develop as a child is to become more adultlike. When a young person is given increased freedom and responsibility, it is bestowed by adults with the expectation that they will make the decisions of the adult – a teenager told they no longer have a curfew is probably still expected to come home at an adult-defined ‘reasonable time’, otherwise, the curfew will likely be reinstated.

The significance of adolescent decisions and experiences are often minimized. A first heartbreak, a failure to qualify for a sports team, or a decision between two potential friend groups or two academic tracks has a major impact on a teenager’s day to day life, but adults are typically dismissive, framing the issues from their perspective – when the teen is older, they will surely realize the insignificance of this training-ground decision to the arena of real life. Future reflections are privileged over in the moment feelings.

Time, more broadly, has been theorized by philosophers in many different ways, and studies have shown that humans intuitively understand time as both linear (happening one moment after another, continuous and unstoppable) and spatial (held in memory, with moments from the past able to be recaptured and moments from the future rehearsed). Western society heavily privileges the linear view, where time is measurable, unidirectional, and correlated with progress. Once a milestone has been reached, regression is unacceptable. A teenager putting away their Lego sets to get a part time job would be criticized for quitting that job and returning to their toys, and a high school that sees a year-on-year decline in standardized test results is seen as ‘failing’, regardless of other metrics (such as students’ mental health). Individuals and societies must continue to grow and advance with time; a logic which guides our current economic system as well as previous colonial projects. The fear of a society in decline is arguably the primary driving force behind the general obsession with youth, and with the ways the current adolescent generation is inferior to the previous.

This runs contrary to real experiences of time, which involve expansion, compression, twists, circles, loss, gain, running out and having too much. Time passes faster for a fifty year old compared to a fifteen year old. It passes faster when spending time with friends than when waiting for a bus in the rain, faster when anxiously preparing for a final exam than when waiting for results with fingers crossed. Adolescence, in its entirety, passes faster for a teenager raised in poverty who helps provide income and childcare at the age of fourteen than for an upper middle class teenager given a sizable income until they leave college at twenty-two. The past is returned to, over and over again, by adults who relive their high school yearbooks, watch television shows set in high schools, and reconceptualize their own adolescence by watching their children. My personal experience of time changed radically when I took on a seven year project, and started planning for a long term future as well as a short. Time is important not only in how it is spent, but in how it is captured, preserved, and shared.

Technological developments have further changed the experience of time for people of all ages. Writing in 2008, Judy Wajcman discusses the common belief that the pace of life is speeding up, as studies have found that across the second half of the twentieth century, people subjectively experienced feeling more rushed with decreased time for leisure. Some possible explanations discussed are how mobile communication has led to people organizing their lives around blocks of time instead of physical locations, as more activities are available ‘on the go’. There are greater expectations for people to do multiple tasks simultaneously, and mobile devices allow for people to plan and coordinate their time, and therefore optimize it for maximum productivity. Communication and the search for information happen at beyond-human speeds, and time that would historically have been ‘waiting time’ becomes obsolete.

For teenagers especially, social media has changed the experience of time, with young people feeling increased pressure to post frequently, respond to messages in the moment, and record their lives. One teenager explained social media as ‘kind of like documenting your life – you can look back in ten years time, you'll have all these pictures and comments’ while another, discussing taking photographs at Madame Tussauds, suggested that ‘the images became significant after the visit when they could be used to “tell stories” to others, providing digital prompts and enabling conversation about culture’ (Manchester & Pett, 2015). As affordable cultural spaces for teenagers decline, with fewer discos, malls and parks as well as a cultural shift away from parents allowing their children to roam outside, teenagers’ use of time also changes, and young people – especially the working class – report finding themselves with nothing to do.

In contrast, some middle-class young people have the opposite problem, their lives a far cry from the ‘leisure class’ of their peers fifty years before. Some schools begin careers education in middle school, and high achieving youth with college prospects are encouraged to fill their time with extracurriculars, volunteer work and academic preparation, held up against their peers who are using their time more effectively now, and are sure to see better futures because of it. In this way, some teenagers find themselves quite literally waiting for the time to pass and the next stage of life to arrive, while others find themselves working against the clock, trying to complete all preparatory work in time for their entry into adulthood. Despite attempts at standardization, real experiences of both adolescence and time are highly variable, responsive to individual differences, social positions, and new technologies.

Background: Narratives About Youth

‘Behind every disempowered teen narrator is an empowered adult author conveying ideology about the superiority of adult norms.’ – Petrone et al. (2015)

As teenagers became a distinct marketing group, new culture industries grew up around them. The first teen movies, focused on delinquent teenage boys committing crimes due to lack of adequate parenting, were released in the 1950s. In his book The Road to Romance and Ruin: Teen Films and Youth Culture, Jon Lewis argues that via these movies, adults projected their own discontent with modern society onto the teenage characters they created. He views all narrative as ideological, as even the most rebellious and anti-establishment teen movies end up reinforcing adult authority, with characters coming to regret their deviance and ‘reform’ themselves, or being punished for their actions.

Young adult literature was slower to develop, but grew in popularity throughout the 1970s and 80s. So named because it focuses on similar themes to adult books but intended for a younger audience, young adult books can work in any genre, but focus on teenage protagonists and coming of age narratives. Whether real or fantastical, these protagonists navigate the rules and power structures of the world around them, go through some type of trial and eventually learn a lesson crucial to adulthood. It has been argued that the classical narrative is inherently adolescent, as stories by their nature deal with development and change; postmodern fiction does not always follow these rules but it is true for many works for all age groups.

Jon Lewis also discusses the ‘notion of cause and effect’ as it applies to teenagers being ‘at once a mass movement and a mass market’. Many people have argued that the ‘teenager’ was partly created by marketing industries, who, noticing young people’s increased free time and money in the 1950s, created products to fill that niche. Other scholars assert the agency of young people in creating their own subcultures, saying that teen culture arises spontaneously, with adolescents just as likely to adopt a symbol not specifically marketed to them – such as the safety pin’s role in punk culture – as to be swayed by intentional marketing.

In media, the product being sold is an identity to embody. The protagonist of a teen movie can be both relatable and aspirational – they reflect both who the viewer is, and who they want to be. A teenage protagonist is described as ‘relatable’ and ‘authentic’ if they appear to reflect experiences of actual teenagers, who are conceptualized here as a monolith. Petrone et al. point out that such an analysis would seem ridiculous if a character were described as an ‘authentic adult’. They advocate for a more nuanced discussion of ideas surrounding adolescence in fiction – a Youth Lens, which questions how literature represents adolescence, what assumptions the story makes about youth and how that frames plots and characterizations, and to what extent the text reinforces or subverts the dominant understandings. They believe this could pave the way for more varied representations of teenagers, which could positively impact young readers, as ‘writers who foreground examples of youth who do not follow conventional expectations of adolescence can shift how youth might be understood’.

Young adult literature is typically written by adult authors, capturing a reflection of teen culture instead of the reality. It is also regulated by adults – editors and publishers who decide whether a book can be marketed for young adults, and librarians and bookstore owners who decide whether to categorize it as such. Mature themes – including mental health, death, drug abuse, sex, and structural issues such as racism – do feature in young adult fiction, but there are no formal guidelines, and any book seen as ‘going too far’ is liable to be kept away from teenagers.

Writing about young adult fantastical fiction, Alison Waller shows how fantasy narratives reinforce adult norms just as much as realistic fiction; the expectations of growth on a young witch, werewolf or ‘chosen one’ are not radically different from those on real life teenagers. A common theme in dystopian and high fantasy fiction sees a teenage protagonist framed as the only hope for the future, a person prophesized to both change and save their world. Although this narrative may seem progressive as it allows for radical change, in reality these characters are generally guided by wiser adult characters who influence their decisions, and the story is not so different from the real life expectation that the next generation will save us from the problems caused by the previous.

In time travel narratives specifically, a protagonist may go back in time to a situation where they have improved agency and a subjectively better life, but by the end of the story, will voluntarily decide that returning to the present is the right thing to do. A temporary move backwards gives this character the tools they need to succeed at the next stage of life, and overall, their chronological and developmental trajectory is not disrupted. Where a secondary character chooses the past over the future, the narrative tends to treat them with anxiety, positioning them as cautionary tales or as mistakes in need of fixing.

Novels, movies and video games are typically released as completed works – the creators know how the story ends before the work is released. This may not apply to books in a series, and also does not apply to many television shows, comic books, or audio dramas. In a format such as the sitcom, the growing up narrative is complicated – a teenage character may learn a lesson about sensitivity to others’ emotions in one episode, and return to their previous self-centered ways in the next, thereby allowing ‘adolescent’ to be a primary descriptor of the character, not a state to be grown out of. Creators who are teenagers themselves, such as published British author Rachael Wing and many online writers producing fanfiction and original fiction about characters their age, also present a new paradigm. Although they may be influenced by the judgments of adults, they are still writing based on their present experiences instead of memories and observations.

The internet expands possibilities for both narratives and creators. A work posted serially online has the chance to respond in real time to a young audience, and there are far fewer restrictions on what can be posted on the internet, meaning that stories can be made accessible to young adults even if a major publisher or a parent would disapprove. As the internet itself is an ‘adolescent’ rather than a ‘mature’ medium, exploring the possibilities of the medium itself could go hand in hand with disrupting a typical coming of age narrative.

Paragraphs in the future…

‘Try not to be so linear, dear.’ (p.421)

Homestuck is written by Andrew Hussie, a former teenager who turned 30 while writing Act 2 in 2009. Its principal characters are teenagers and like most stories, it is written from memories of being a teenager and observations of what teenagers are like today. Its first act is entirely linear, but Act 2 begins to explore time, continuity, and cause and effect. Readers can no longer assume that a page takes place after its preceding page, and the main characters – John, Rose, Dave and the Wayward Vagabond – all exist at different points along the timeline.

I believe that Act 2 represents time as it is actually experienced by teenagers, where growth and personal development are not always linear and not always in sync with that of others. John, Rose and Dave are all growing up in the 2000s USA, and are all subject to roughly the same cultural expectations as described in the earlier sections, just as the overall work is written in that context. Looking at each character in turn, I will discuss to what extent they conform to dominant conceptions of ‘the teenager’ and how they experience time within the narrative, with a view to asking whether Homestuck could offer a new understanding of adolescence.

John Egbert

‘And even meanerwhile, in the present. Sort of. Once again, the slippery antagonist eludes you.’ (p.385)

As the principal character and the first introduced, John’s time is arbitrarily defined as ‘the present’ – pages 334 and 385 both say as such. However, at the end of act 1, John is transported to a ‘realm untouched by the flow of time’ (p.421) and while time continues to pass for him, it’s not necessarily in step with Earth time, indicated by the ??:?? timestamps on his Pesterlogs. As such, John’s ‘normal’ development has been stalled on the day he becomes a teenager, and he’s locked off from the future of his society.

For John, time and space are linked. Although he has been removed from time and therefore from normal expectations, he’s still stuck in his house, the one piece of his culture that he brought with him. The picture John’s dad pinned to the fridge and the green slime pogo ride John continues to define himself by in this act both keep him tied to his childhood. While he’s here, John can’t escape a multitude of authority figures. His dad has been kidnapped, but still leaves notes around the house congratulating John on his maturity – ‘You are strong enough to lift the safe. You are now a man… I know you will take this responsibility seriously’ (p.546).

With Dad gone, Nannasprite steps in, having not seen John since he was very young. She restores John’s bedroom door to its hinges and restores the family order in the house, giving advice, controlling what John knows, and baking unprecedented amounts of cookies. Nannasprite calls John a ‘good boy’ (p.428), and the Wayward Vagabond’s first command to John is ‘BOY.’ (p.252), a word with assumptions about both John’s gender and current stage of life. Rose and WV also have guardianlike roles over John, able to control how he spends his time.

John is younger than Rose and Dave by a few months, but retains far more childlike qualities. His priorities lean towards play and silliness, as shown when he captchalogues shaving cream in case he suddenly needs to make a Santa beard (p.488) or makes a tent out of cruxite dowels (p.615), and he isn’t in any hurry to reach the signifiers of adulthood, such as shaving (p.544) or taking personal responsibility (p.643). The trait John most shares with the stereotypical teenager is poor emotional regulation – both his excitement and his frustration are obvious on his face and regularly interfere with his behavior (for example, p.429, p.637).

He passes the time instead of using the time, and is easily swayed by his peers. He has a drive for autonomy and self preservation, and will attempt to stand up for himself, but usually ends up deferring to the authority of his friends or guardians. He’s not very self-motivated except when it comes to putting bunnies back in boxes, and he enjoys consuming media, not all of which is age-appropriate – three of the movies on his wall are R-rated, including Con Air. He also plays popular video games and buys media merchandise such as T-shirts and posters, so falls into a mainstream youth marketing demographic.

As a prophesized savior positioned to undertake a hero’s journey, John is a classic young adult protagonist. He demonstrates the idea that the youth are our only hope, though they still require guidance from previous generations and are defined by their opposition to adulthood (seen through Nannasprite’s presence). However, despite Skaia influencing Earth since before life itself existed (p.757), it wasn’t until its power was harnessed into a video game that it began to threaten the world – youth’s popular culture is the thing that sends us all into decline, even if that culture was created and marketed by adults.

The earth already being ‘done for’ (p.427) allows for a subversion of the typical progress narrative. Page 757 indicates that Sburb may be influenced by ancient technology from outside of Earth, The end goal is not known, making John’s narrative defined by the journey and not by the ending, highlighting adolescence as a meaningful experience in and of itself, not only because of where it leads. And Sburb is already poking fun at John’s culture – the echeladder (p.405) parodies the milestone progression of youth, filled with meaningless and generic titles placed in an arbitrary order.

John’s destiny to ascend through the Seven Gates to Skaia, fighting with the light kingdom and attempting to overcome the dark forces’ destined win, could be read as an ascension from childhood to adulthood. John would be moving away from the sinful childlike state where young people are ruled by their base instincts of hunger, sleep, hormones and emotions, towards a rational and enlightened adulthood. But an inversion of this metaphor would work, too. John could move away from his culture’s ideal adult that he’s been told he’ll become – a person who is cynical, conformist, an obedient worker, driven by money and personal success – back towards the childlike state, retaining the open-mindedness, sense of whimsy and possibility, and creativity of childhood. Earth is done for, and so there’s no reason John should still be tied to the linear march of the culture he came from. He is perfectly positioned to imagine a new paradigm of adolescence, if he can break away from the ties – his house and his guardians – that try to tie him down to the ‘old ways’.

Rose Lalonde

‘To hear his mammoth belly gurgle is to know the Epoch of Joy has come to an abrupt end.’ (p.302)

In the narrative, Rose’s time is defined as the near future. Although her story directly overlaps with John’s, putting them at the same point in time, Rose is three timezones ahead and refers to other timezones as ‘younger’ (p.174). It’s night time for her, which visually distinguishes her panels and gives her story a more adult atmosphere. She is future oriented and proactive, planning for the next thing, and typically portrayed as one step ahead of John.

Rose has experienced the passage of time quickly, and has not had the luxury of lingering in childhood as John has. With a mother who is inattentive towards raising her and communicates through daily arguments (p.389) and ‘notes’ on the fridge (p.366), Rose likely had to develop independence and adult traits at a young age. She would be considered ‘precocious’, a word typically carrying a negative or judgmental tone describing a young person whose achievements or inclinations are happening ‘too soon’. In the narrative, Rose is continually running out of time, watching the battery on her laptop slowly drain and the forest fire surrounding her house creep closer. This anxiety of something yet to come positions Rose as a teenager who is awaiting the future and making use of every possible moment to prepare for it.

Educationally, she has a larger vocabulary than the average person her age, and likely a higher reading level. Practically, she understands construction and generator safety, has a good grasp of modern technology such as computers as well as classic skills such as knitting, and the hand eye coordination to do these things well. She demonstrates abstract and critical thinking, and attempts – with varying levels of success – to understand the consequences of her actions. She shows an understanding of a world greater than herself when she wishes Jaspers had been allowed to decompose (p.414) and avoids allocating her grimoire to her strife specibus (p.297). Despite being raised by a rich mother, she enjoys a challenge and is willing to work hard, rejecting childlike wish-fulfillment fantasies such as princesses and wizards.

Rose is a teenager who attempts to fill her time with activities she sees as productive and as bettering her as a person. She has internalized adult values and would prefer to get there too soon than be left behind, and she works hard to define herself through timeless, sophisticated hobbies such as literature, knitting and the violin, generally resisting mass culture that would be typically marketed to teens; unlike John she disrupts the idea of the teenager as mindless consumer or as defined by her peers’ interests. She tries to avoid juvenile behavior and scorns it in others (p.249) and is very attuned to cultural expectations, feeling a nebulous pair of eyes upon her judging the appropriateness of her actions, which affects her decisions (p.370), almost as if she is trying to skip the complicated, messy parts of being a modern teenager and move directly from childhood into rational adulthood.

It’s rare for Rose to regress into childlike behavior, such as the ‘W’ mustache (p.370) and the Youth Roll (p.379), and she usually ends up regretting or correcting the behavior afterwards (p.398, p.380). Her disdain for her mother suggests that she is self-correcting and trying to parent herself in response to these ‘slips’. Notably on page 440, Rose works on her GameFAQs, which are intended as an informative guide to future players. Accidentally slipping into a frustrated and self-berating personal anecdote, she strikes out the passage and again criticizes her own regression, which is immediately followed by a narrative shift into Rose’s actual past.

Rose struggles with patience, and with waiting for other people to catch up to her. She understands the seriousness of her situation; for her adolescence is a time of survival, her decisions now liable to affect her entire future. Act 2’s title, ‘Raise of the Conductor’s Baton’, appears in the text in relation to Rose - ‘Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton’ (p.307). This certainly links to Rose’s experience of time, her living in expectant mode for a terrifying, looming future.

Primarily Rose strives for the ‘positive’ markers of adulthood, such as responsibility and educational attainment, but she also tries to be casual regarding sex, such as claiming to enjoy Dave’s bro’s websites (p.419). The only markers of adulthood she openly rejects are alcohol and domestic chores, both of which the text associates with Rose’s mother, who Rose views as a cautionary tale and the ‘wrong’ kind of adult. Through Rose’s relationship with her mother, there is space to question the idea put forward by other media that teenagers become dangers to society through poor parental oversight; Rose is certainly a rebellious and anti-authority teen, but her ‘rebellion’ consists of asserting her own capability and responsibility, such as turning down alcohol in favor of water (p.388).

Rose sees herself as the more responsible of the two of them, but it remains uncertain whether the narrative will legitimize this. By being positioned in a guardianlike role over John she disrupts the typical adult-youth dynamic, and is given a chance to prove her chesslike skills of thinking several steps ahead while staying responsive to new information, evidenced by her GameFAQ updates. However, in the final page of the act, Rose’s ability to manage her own life reaches its limits, and it is her mother who saves her by opening a secret passage, having apparently planned for this all along. Here Rose’s independence is taken from her and she is once again the teenager who needs a firm guiding hand, despite apparently working much harder than her mother. This reinforces a typical authority structure and is dismissive of Rose’s legitimate problems with her mother, as despite her flaws she is still a necessary figure in Rose’s life.

In future acts, Rose’s character arc could go multiple ways, particularly once she enters the Medium and is presumably separated from her mother. The story could legitimize her drive to grow up at a young age and allow her to take on a leadership role that she does seem well positioned for, given her ability to keep a clear head and solve problems in real time. In this narrative, Rose would not be punished or put back in her ‘rightful place’ for speeding through time, instead, her early development would allow her to be valuable to the group, and to challenge herself in ways a thirteen-year-old would not have access to in the real world. Alternatively, Rose could have an arc that allows her to go ‘back in time’ and reclaim her more youthful traits, taking on some of John’s silliness, handing over responsibility or making bad and uninformed decisions when in a new context, for example when she becomes a client player. This could also be subversive if returning from a more adultlike to a more childlike state is portrayed as a valid and meaningful journey in its own right, instead of as someone who grew up too fast returning to their ‘correct’ place in time.

Dave Strider

‘You just don’t have time for this bullshit. You’ll catch up later.’ (p.332)

Dave’s narrative time is defined as the past. His story begins on page 308, at the same moment where John’s story began on page 1. John and Rose are several hours ahead of him by now, and Dave’s storyline is constantly racing to catch up. Like any teen looking around and watching their peers maturing physically and socially while they fail to keep up, Dave is always missing information and excluded from his friends’ activities. The narrator makes sly references to Dave being in the past and unaware of what’s to come (p.314) like a nagging thought in the back of his head, and in every page, he has the relic of a five-year-old movie stamped on his face.

In reality, Dave is not failing to meet developmental milestones – quite the opposite. In a world where the athletic achievement of young men is prized and adults are expected to be in control of their own bodies, Dave is physically fit with quick reflexes, able to fight, jump, dodge and perform an ‘acrobatic fucking pirouette’ (p.579, p.665), even without regular access to food. The original, early 20th century Boy Scouts prepared boys for military service primarily through obedience, a sense of duty, and personal responsibility towards physical development; Dave’s brother with his strict sword-training and Saw trap regime is instilling similar values.

Dave does participate in mainstream culture, evidenced by his regular reading of GameBro and his desire to be ‘cool’ and to like the same things as his brother – but he’s not only a consumer of culture, he’s also a producer. He writes a blog, ostensibly on a regular schedule, and produces a webcomic, combining creative and analytical pursuits. He regularly refers to himself as ‘busy’ (p.309, etc) and says he ‘doesn’t have time’ for things (p.310, 332), has ‘a lot on [his] plate’ (p.333), and that it’s ‘hard to get any work done’ (p.381). Dave sees his internet projects as work, as commitments he needs to make time for, and he’s not afraid to push back against the player’s commands if he thinks they wouldn’t be a good use of his time.

He has the Complete Bullshit desktop application and keeps up with his brother’s projects, and likely other internet culture too, to stay on the cutting edge of irony that he prides himself on. It seems like Dave’s time is largely full and he struggles to fit everything in. He is very aware of the constantly changing, modern society that he lives in and wants to stay on the pulse of these changes. Less than six months after Obama’s election, a black president is no longer noteworthy to Dave (p.287), and he creates remixes with electronic samplers instead of playing classical instruments like his friends. He’s always online and always keeping in real time contact with his friends; he ‘pesters [Rose] like clockwork’ (p.415). Trying to keep the beat of an ever-shifting internet meme culture to stay cool and avoid being outdated at all costs is exhausting, and it’s no wonder Dave sometimes struggles to keep up.

Living in the city, a place where the pace of life is quickest, in a time of rapid technological and cultural change already creates a ‘racing against the clock’ mindset, and Dave’s relationship with his brother compounds this. By modeling himself on Jigsaw, a villain who created complex, physically violent traps with strict time limits, he forces Dave to be constantly on guard, constantly expecting the next danger, yet often a moment too late for it, behaving like an intense ‘no pain, no gain’ style sports coach. On the surface, Dave’s sunglasses, frown and monosyllables look like a rebellious teen movie protagonist, but beneath that, Dave best corresponds to a real life high achieving teenager who is put under pressure to achieve even more by the adults around them.

Dave’s story so far has focused on the ‘campaign of one-upmanship’ between himself and his brother as he fights for his brother’s Sburb game discs – his brother is an obstacle to both his plot development and his emotional development (for example, admitting that he’s uncomfortable with his brother’s hobbies). This is likely setting up a ‘loss of innocence’ story, where Dave has to come to terms with harsh realities of the adult world by recognizing that an authority figure is imperfect. This is a fairly typical growing up narrative that does not disrupt conventional ideas of linear growth, as the adult world is widely seen as darker, more serious, and something young people need to be protected from.

However, I think Dave’s status as a subcultural producer places him outside a typical youth/adult binary. Dave is not overall presented as adultlike, as he follows trends and is fully subservient to the adult in his life, and his hobbies – Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, sweet bro’s hella blog, and remixing music – don’t place him on a typical path to adulthood. By establishing that Dave sees these as responsibilities, and as things he creates for a real audience of at minimum four people and potentially many more, Dave’s teenage experiences and creations are given importance without needing to be legitimated by adults (such as the narrator or his brother).

Dave’s self-motivation when it comes to his creative pursuits also disrupts ideas of teenagers as lazy or needing to be shaped by outside forces; he’s capable of sticking to a self-imposed schedule. However, his creative drive is part of a real-time responsiveness to internet culture – if he is taken to the Medium, outside the normal progression of time, would he be able to maintain this? An arc that focuses on Dave as a creator instead of Dave as a soldier could do more to complicate a typical youth narrative.

Wayward Vagabond

‘The APPEARIFIER cannot appearify something if it will create a TIME PARADOX’. (p.752)

The Wayward Vagabond is not a human adolescent, and does not come from the same culture as John, Rose and Dave – they discover the concepts of ‘cutlery’ and ‘politeness’ in Act 2, so are a long way from internalizing age-based ideals. As such, although WV exists in the future – their story taking place 413 years after the human characters’ – they are not more advanced, or more adult, than the others.

Alone in a wasteland and free from social influences, WV does not regulate their eating, is described as physically weak, expresses black and white opinions on governance, and loses track of time playing pretend games. At the same time, they show a good understanding of art, chess strategy and precise movements and distances. They pick up social and technological skills quickly and are very attuned to positions in space (p.743), but far less attuned to positions in time (p.755). Many of their actions are similarly nonsensical to John’s, and these moments of whimsy frame WV as childlike.

However, WV has a privileged position in time. Not only are they in the future, but they have the technology to experiment with temporal mechanics. Through a set of screens they are able to look back at and directly influence events from the past; they have authority over at least one young person, and can appearify objects from other points in time.

Being an adult and a child at the same time feels like a time paradox to us, just as appearifying a rotten pumpkin they ate earlier is a time paradox to WV. Having authority over a young person who, if he continued to grow in linear time, would be long dead by the time WV enters the bunker is also a paradox of normal development. By mixing childlike and adultlike traits, WV draws attention to the way roles in society are socially mediated and may not exist outside of their cultural moment. By living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where advanced technology is lost to the ravages of nature, WV represents a type of person who could live in the future if the world does not follow a path of strict linear progress, but simply of change.

The appearifier and command station in WV’s bunker fundamentally change the function of time in the narrative. Although WV’s mastery of time is limited by the need to avoid paradoxes, if characters take actions to influence or improve the past, they disrupt the norm of future orientation and give equal importance to the past. Indeed, the pages titled ‘Years in the future…’ are not presented as the desirable end goal of the narrative, nor are they a terrible fate to be avoided. They are interesting asides to the story, but they are asides, with the bulk of them taking place in pages hosted outside of the main story. The story structure lets the past and present be centered in themselves, not just through their leading to the future.

The Narrator

‘Maybe you could go bug someone somewhere else for a while? Or at the very least, somewhen else.’ (p.440)

The position of any given Homestuck page within the timeline is uncertain until established by the narrator, who regularly exercises their power to shift back and forth, and to conceal these movements until the player has made a fool of themself. In this way, the narrator is positioned as an adult with perfect knowledge of the timeline, viewing adolescence in its totality. They have transcended the limitations of adolescence and have moved onto a real and meaningful time of life, and will occasionally reference their superior knowledge of future events with winks to the audience while keeping characters out of the loop – ‘you can’t imagine how a video game could save someone’s life’ (p.314) or ‘only… babies who poop in their diapers believe in [monsters]’ (p.387).

However, moments of the narrator criticizing or speaking condescendingly to the teenage characters is surprisingly rare. It happens occasionally, like with ‘This is COMPLETE BULLSHIT.’ (p.458) or ‘The circle of stupidity is complete’ (p.490) but the vast majority of narrative criticism is directed towards the Wayward Vagabond, the only character the narrator regularly speaks directly to. The narrator calls WV stupid on multiple occasions (for example, p.437, p.746), and tells them to defer to Rose’s decision making (p.277), but the majority of narrative text criticizing the kids’ behavior is actually just reporting their own thoughts, either towards themselves – ‘It seems the woman has you at a clear disadvantage’ (p.373) – or towards each other, such as ‘What the hell is that nincompoop doing?’ (p.508). When a command would lead to a bad decision, it’s generally the character who refutes it, not the narrator (p.489). In this way, although the narrator does have superior knowledge, they give center stage to adolescent perspectives.

Implicitly, the narrator controls the flow of time in the story – deciding who to switch to and in what moment of their story, allowing characters to speak or moving focus away from them – and the narrator is willing to indulge the characters in their non-plot critical diversions, rarely hurrying them along when they take extended time to read books or rearrange their sylladex, but allowing the minutiae of their experiences to matter. The narrator lists characters’ interests without judgment – adult characters are interested in clowns, wizards, puppets and sugary foods, while adolescent characters are interested in computer programming, knitting and specimen preservation, with no clear line on ‘acceptable’ interests for a given age group.

Zooming out a layer, Act 2 posits the idea of John, Rose and Dave’s stories available for viewing through a screen, four hundred and thirteen years in the future. As well as reflecting the existence of the webcomic itself, this contrasts the idea of adolescence as a transient state. The 13-year-old versions of these characters are frozen in time on the Wayward Vagabond’s screen. Born in the mid-1990s, these characters are among the first to grow up with social media, and with an internet moving away from anonymity. Their lives being recorded on the command terminal, in Rose’s GameFAQ screenshots (p.510) and in Bro’s Jigsaw puppet (p.570) are not a million miles from the teenagers documenting each other’s lives on Facebook in 2009 – and at the time of Act 2’s writing, it’s not yet certain what the real world impacts of this will be on current young people’s experiences of time.

Conclusion

‘Temporal movement into the future is understood as linear, uni-directional, and able to be separated from the present and the past… a conception of growth and change as recursive, as occurring over and over again as we move into new situations, would reorient us.’ - Nancy Lesko (2001)

Written in 2009, Homestuck carries the baggage of over a hundred years of public discourse around the teenager. Adulthood is seen as the most important stage of life, with teenagers as flawed, incomplete versions who need to be corrected before reaching the end goal of conventional adult society through conforming to a series of linear milestones. The expected development of real teenagers is reflected in the stories told about them, which focus on characters ‘coming of age’ and successfully internalizing adult norms.

By introducing nonlinear storytelling in Act 2, Homestuck represents time as teenagers actually experience it, which gives the comic a chance to explore and question dominant ideas of adolescence and adolescent time. John and Rose have relationships with guardian figures, including the narrator, that reinforce adult superiority, and all three kids have communication breakdowns between themselves and their guardians – but the skills and interests of teenagers are also given importance, and adults are not exempt from narrative criticism. The narrator is happy to indulge the teenagers just as often as to correct them.

The end of Act 2 positions Sburb as an organic entity of sorts, not necessarily created by adults in universe. Sburb encourages linear gameplay with progression up the Echeladder and through the Seven Gates, but the Medium’s position outside of time, and the fact that restoring the Earth is not the game’s goal, allow for narratives of change that are not necessarily narratives of progress, as the characters’ future in rational adult society no longer exists. The comic’s focus on creativity – both the potential of Skaia and with Dave’s role as an artist – means the story could focus on the importance of not losing childlike traits along the path to adulthood.

The narrative structure allows teenage characters to be nonlinear, to move between past and future moments, to experience sudden growth and moments of regression, to overtake their friends and then fall behind. The real-time nature of Homestuck’s creation allows readers to linger in the characters’ day to day moments and to experience their present alongside them, instead of tightly focusing on their plot development, and the reader submitted commands central to Act 2 mean that real life teenagers likely contributed to their own story. Homestuck is still early on in its story, but has already laid the groundwork for a novel conceptualization of time, and therefore an understanding of adolescence as more than just its ending.

[shroombell]

sunny and sides binary stars au pt.3 Praxus

bluestreak incoming :3 pt 3 of my aerial sparks apocalyptic cybertron with sunny and sides au called the Binary Stars au <3 (not in plot order) sunny is watchful of their surroundings even as sideswipe dances down the ruined streets of Praxus. A certain Praxian sniper is out of sunny's range tho >:)

pt 1 Vos pt 2 Tarn

bluestreak is an autobot, rescued just after the bombing of Praxus as a bitlet just about to get his adult upgrades (hes slightly older than sunny and sides in this au). currently, he is on a mission to scout out his former home to find any leftover resources or survivors/scavengers, as unlikely as that is, until he comes across a strange set of a yellow and red mech. autobot command advises for him to accompany them when they invite him on their travels... but it seems like sunstreaker and sideswipe have a dislike for both decepticons and autobots so Bluestreak will have to pretend he is a fellow neutral. No secret can be kept forever though.

tiny snippet i wrote before drawing this scene under the cut!

Sideswipe's giggles echoed from building to building, even as most of them were now husks once apart of the bustling street this used to be. Sunstreaker felt a pang of regret they weren't able to see it in its full glory, before the bombing of Praxus, like Sideswipe had so desperately wanted but better late than never.

His red twin was twirling through the abandoned and desolate street like he was performing to an imaginary audience, or maybe the ghosts of the many greyed out frames that still lay beneath all the wreckage. Sunstreaker wanted to protest at the loud noises Sideswipe made without concern of attracting the beasts that could be prowling nearby, but as always, he couldn't bring himself to interrupt his brother's happy mood.

A few scratches on his finish from the inevitable fight was an acceptable sacrifice for Sideswipe's happiness.

[j4gm]

SPOILERS!!! REFERENCES AND EASTER EGGS IN F&C ep. 5: DESTINY

I'm a week late on this post because I had some stuff going on last week, but let's go!

The opening scene reintroduces us to Ice Finn, who was briefly cursed by Evergreen's crown. We see him abducting a family, who will become part of the pile of frozen bodies that made up the area where he and the Lich opened a portal to the Multiverse in Crossover. At the end of that episode Prismo moved the crown to the site of the Mushroom Bomb's explosion, freeing Farmworld Finn from the curse. But he remains a frightening figure in Farmworld's mythology, as demonstrated by this scarecrow that Simon steals his new clothes from.

Fionna telling Simon to relax because she's an expert at post-apocalyptic RPGs is ironic considering that Simon has survived and raised a child in an actual apocalypse.

Big Destiny appears alongside returning Destiny Gang members Tromo (far left) and Trami (fifth from left, just next to the mast). Tromo was assumed to be a boy in her first appearance; it's possible she's transed her gender. Big Destiny claims he was the one who defeated Ice Finn, which is most definitely not the case, but it seems like nobody is in the mood to dispute his claim.

This is Farmworld Wildberry Princess. She's a butcher just like her Ooo counterpart. Fionna also assaults Farmworld Starchy, and Farmworld Chet is the guy who was surprised to hear that Cake could talk. I'm not sure if there are any other recognisable characters amongst the crowds at the Farmworld meeting place, except of course for...

Choose Bruce! He was the person who gave Farmworld Finn his sword-arm in his debut episode, and is obviously the Farmworld version of Choose Goose. The evilness of his Ooo counterpart doesn't seem to have manifested in quite the same way, except that he is as shady a salesman as ever.

Fionna has a copy of a magazine called Mle, which seems to be the Fionna and Cake version of Ble. She also has Finn's iconic flute.

Peanut exclaims "magic fist" when he sees Cake use her powers, which was the name of Finn and Jake's wizard disguise when they entered the tournament in the episode Wizard Battle.

Peanut also mentions Fionna's missing nose, which is the first time someone has brought up the art style discrepency in canon. Fionna does in fact have a nose. It's just not drawn in her universe's art style.

Farmworld Finn's house is reminiscent of the Tree Fort, with its corrugated roof, haphazard wooden construction, steel chimneys, and the ladder steps leading up the trunk of the tree behind. But it still has its own unique design.

And here is Farmworld Finn himself! His retractable axe-arm is cool.

He is a widower with five children. As you probably already know, Jay (previous image) and Bonnie (third on left) are named after Finn's kids from Puhoy, who were themselves named after corruptions of Jake and Princess Bubblegum's names. The other three kids on the right are unnamed in the episode's credits, but have characteristics of some of Finn's other "children". The first on the right could represent Neptr, who Finn created in the episode What is Life. The middle on the right likely represents Stormo, who was spawned from Finn's DNA in the episode Goliad. The far right can't really be identified with any existing characters, but he has green eyes like Huntress Wizard, perhaps symbolising the potential of Finn's relationship with her or even being an explicit indicator that Farmworld Huntress was the mother of these children.

Jake is still alive in this universe. He was possessed by the Lich for a while, but was freed at the end of Crossover.

Finn throws a stick of bubblegum into the soup for some reason. I've seen various theories about what this is meant to mean but none of them really seem likely to me. It was probably just a nod to the fact that Princess Bubblegum doesn't appear anywhere else in Farmworld.

Old lady Marceline's broken laser gun and Farmworld Finn's sword arm are mounted on the wall, alongside other artifacts.

Bonnie has doodled a Candy Kingdom on the wall.

This is the first of at least two times that Cake suggests selfcest.

This is the crater from when the Mushroom Bomb blew up. Just like in its original appearance, it remains unclear why its impact was small compared to the bombs that exploded during the war. Perhaps time dulled its power, or perhaps the Lich's spirit was enough to make it more threatening than any conventional nuclear weapon. As previously mentioned, the crown got blown up here because Prismo teleported it here in Crossover. Out-of-universe, this was an explanation for a minor continuity error where the crown was present in a scene it shouldn't have been in during Finn the Human.

Little Destiny is afflicted by a lesser version of the curse of Evergreen's crown, since she's only wearing one of the jewels. This is why Jay says she feels cold.

Bartram! This is Farmworld Finn's beloved mule. He was reluctant to sell Bartram in order to pay off the Destiny Gang, which was the catalyst for his discovery of Evergreen's crown. It's good to see that he was at least able to keep his mule after that whole ordeal.

This show has conditioned us to expect blood when someone dies, so perhaps Farmworld Finn isn't dead despite this looking like a killing blow. Either way, I don't think we'll be seeing him again.

The dream in this episode's credits is a bunny with a sword.

[calamity-talvi]

Frozen Heart Pt.11

Monday morning came sooner than Arthur would have liked as he went through the motions of getting ready for work. His phone had over 200 “unread” messages from his father at this point, each had become increasingly more angry as the weekend stretched on and Arthur had crumbled to disabling the read tag so he could see what his father had sent without the other knowing. Guilt gnawed inside of him, but he knew his decision was the right one. Morgana had tried to contact him as well. She’d sent no more and no less than precisely 33 messages in the timeframe. Even enlisting their friends' help in trying to get through to Arthur. However none of it got to him like it would have done just days prior, because very soon he would be free of the things weighing him down. He’d not only be happier in his life, but a better friend as a result. So for his friends, he just said vaguely that some stuff had been going on and not to worry and it would all be explained soon enough he just needed some time. They had agreed and backed off, probably telling Morgana what had been said because her last message to him was; Morgana: I hope you have an explanation behind your sudden absence, Uther has been near apocalyptic round the clock. Arthur bit his lip and typed a reply.  Arthur: I do, Morgs. Just I need a bit of time.  Arthur: I’ll be back at work Monday. Arthur: You’ll understand soon enough. She didn’t send a reply which Arthur took as her quiet agreement to let things drop for now. Arthur wanted the documents signed and filed before he told anyone further about his impending departure from the company, at least that way it would be too late for anything to stop it. He’d spent the weekend relaxing in Merlin’s presence, that too was another reason why nothing could ruin his good mood about going back to work. He had helped around the shop, assisting in setting up the themed display Merlin was getting ready, he served customers at the till and really did it all.  Well… except for trying to help in the kitchen.

Click here to read chapter 11!

[zprites]

April TMNT All 4-1!

IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING! I WROTE ABOUT BLUE OMGOMGOMG lol - Honestly had such a hard time with writing this month's prompt, hence why it didn't come out sooner... I kept losing concentration while writing buuuttt I think that's my mental illness talking. Plus the new Dragon Age playthrough I started, shhhh lol.

Apologizes in advance if it's kinda lacking 😭

The Lovely Hosts - @thelaundrybitch, @post-apocalyptic-daydream, @leosgirl82, and @turtle-babe83!

Prompt - “What are you doing in my bed?”

Rise! Leo x GN! Reader and SFW -- Characters are in their 20s! Enjoy!!

Taglist: @turtle-babe83, @manduse, @morning-sun-brah, @crazysarah-98, @pacoholin, @iamdefinitelytheratking

Close Your Eyes, I Got You Now

Close your eyes I got you now Fall into me, and I'll catch you darlin'... Fall Into Me - Forest Blakk

It started off like any other day for you - your alarm blaring after you hit snooze several times too many, tripping over that damned rug in your bathroom you always swore you’d replace if it happened again (which it always did), speeding out the door after hastily pulling yourself together with nothing in your stomach besides a few sips of coffee you’d managed before you cursed at the time. You moved seamlessly through the crowd of New Yorkers as each one made their way to their destinations. The nearby subway station was packed as usual yet you were able to squeeze your way onto the last train that would allow you to make it to your job just in time for your shift. 

After five stops you stepped out of the car and briskly walked toward the stairs leading up to the streets above, taking two at a time. A quick glance at your phone showed that you would make it on time with only seconds to spare. 

However you ended up misjudging the amount of steps left until you reached the landing causing your feet to blunder beneath you. Your hand clamped around the metal railing that was thankfully beside you, allowing you to catch yourself before you got a mouthful of concrete. Unfortunately at the same time the person behind you bumped into your body, their coffee (iced, thankfully) spilling over your form. Instead of apologizing for their lack of attention to the world around them, they shouted obscenities at you for a moment before rushing past you, nose going back into their phone within seconds as they blended into the sea of people.

You arrived at work five minutes late. Your boss took one look at the liquid dripping from your hair and work uniform and ushered you into the bathroom for you to clean yourself up. Thankfully your uniform was dark colored though your hair remained sticky and grimy, the scent of coffee lingering on you throughout the entirety of your shift. Your coworkers did little to help your evergrowing foul mood, one of them being particularly inept for one reason or another, leaving you to deal with the brunt of customer scrutiny. To top it all off, a particular encounter with an elderly woman who wanted to return merchandise they purchased over a year ago with no receipt had you at your absolute limit. 

And it wasn’t even noon.

You were so fucking done with the day…

After clocking out you made the trek back to your apartment, wanting nothing more than to take a nice long shower and enjoy the comfort of your home in solitude. You had nothing planned and you were so, so ready to veg out in your bed with nothing but a glass of wine and the cast of The Office for company. 

You let out a sigh of relief once you stepped through your front door, kicking off your shoes with dramatic flair as you locked the door behind you. A yawn escaped you as your sock-clad feet padded lightly against the wooden flooring as you moseyed over to your bedroom. 

“Sweetie! You’re finally home!”

You stopped dead in your tracks and groaned a bit on the inside when you took in the scene before you. Your boyfriend, who you noticed was wearing only a pair of joggers, was laying on your bed though upon seeing you he instantly sat up, beaming at you as his dark eyes shone with glee. 

While this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, and normally a welcome one at that, today was different. When you didn’t want to deal with anyone for the remainder of the day, you meant it. This included your loving, handsome turtle mutant boyfriend. 

You blinked a few times at him as the frustration that had been building up inside you threatened to boil over. A moment passed as you struggled to say something that wouldn’t come across as completely rude - you didn’t want to take your foul mood out on him. 

“What are you doing in my bed?”

As soon as the words left your mouth you cringed inwardly, slapping a palm to your forehead in your mind at your choice in words. The way you said them wasn’t any better if you were to be honest. Your voice asked the question with a tautness you had hoped wouldn’t upset him. 

It didn’t. Leonardo kept his smile plastered on his face as he began speaking.

“Well after you texted me during your lunch break, I thought it would be nice to surprise you.”

You frowned a bit. Did you text him? You couldn’t remember…

Which only frustrated you further. On top of your evergrowing irritation, you didn’t even realize you had texted your boyfriend to complain about the world that seemingly had it out for you from the moment you woke up.

“- wanted to cheer you up! I just placed an order for take-out from that chinese place you love a few minutes ago and…”

And here he was. 

The overwhelming feeling that you didn’t deserve him hit you like a ton of bricks in that moment.

“- watch whatever you want while I rub your feet… Hey, why are you crying?”

You were crying?

You brought a hand to cheek and felt the saltwater trail from where a single tear had escaped from the moisture that had accumulated in your eyes. A dam broke and you began sobbing in earnest, letting out all of the stress and annoyance that had built up over the day in a matter of seconds. 

“Hey now… C'mere." Leo soothed as he took your hands in his, gently pulling you closer to him. You let him, allowing him to maneuver you so that you were sitting on his lap sideways, head tucked into his neck as your shoulders shook. 

The two of you stayed that way for several minutes until you felt yourself eventually calm down, your eyes no longer producing tears as your crying had seemed to run its course. Leo held you firmly against his plastron, rubbing circles across your back to comfort you. 

“I’m sorry…” You got out past a sniffle. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” He spoke barely above a whisper. 

You let out a shaky sigh. “It’s just - today sucked. I was so happy to be home and have some much needed alone time, to decompress and forget about all the bullshit I had to deal with. I guess when I saw you here, I got even more upset, which is silly because I know you only want to help… I don’t know…” You trailed off. It was true, you felt extremely silly for the way you had reacted. 

“It’s okay, I understand. If I had known you wanted to be alone I wouldn’t have shown up unannounced like this.” 

You felt bad. Now that he was here, the idea of spending your evening with him sounded more favorable than spending it by yourself. You just wish you hadn’t broken down to the extent that you did. 

“I can go, if you still want to be left alone…” Leo offered with a hint of dejection laced in his words that would have been missed by most people. But not to you.

“No no no.” You lifted your head up to meet his gaze. “Stay, please.”

He smiled down at you, bringing a hand to wipe away the streaks on your cheeks. “Alright.”

The evening passed by slowly. Leo catered to your every need, insisting that you relaxed as he drew you a bath after the two of you had eaten. Once in bed he held good on his promise to massage your feet as the two of you laughed over several episodes of The Office. Eventually you started dozing off, your head rested on his shoulder as it became increasingly difficult for your eyes to stay open. You felt his lips press a kiss to your forehead as one final thought passed through your mind before sleep overtook you.

You knew that you could always count on him to turn even your shittiest of days into a good one. 

[creature-wizard]

I think if you're doing anything along the lines of hypnosis, trancework, lucid dreaming, whatever, it's a good idea to be aware of your cognitive distortions.

This includes everything from acknowledging mood disorders to acknowledging what kind of stuff in your life is bothering you right now, and how it's making you feel.

Like if your boss has been really hard on you lately, and you do a hypnosis journey thing and oh hey there's a big monster here who wants to eat you-

These things could very well be connected. Hell, your hypnosis experience could help give you insight into how your boss is making you feel.

If you have apocalyptic visions or something, there's a decent chance it relates to something that threatens your life's stability. What makes you feel like your world is ending?

So yeah, try and take stock of your moods and what's making you feel what; it helps with discernment a lot.

[bbgem329]

Where’s My Love—Chapter Six

Pairings—Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

Summary

Two years ago, you and your husband built a life for your growing family at a safe camp during a world wide apocalypse. Everything is good until Bucky catches wind that a rival group is out to dominate the rest for their own gain.

What happens when, one day, the most capable men and your husband are out on a hunt when the camp is attacked? Will you be able to get your children and your heavily pregnant self to safety? Will Bucky find you before it’s too late?

Warnings

MINORS DNI! 18++. Violence. Language. Apocalyptic world. Childbirth. Protective!Bucky. Little dark. Little gore? We love feral, protective men. Did I miss anything?

Note

This is my birthday present to myself. So sorry for the delay! Work and school and life tend to get in the way! I will finish this and in about a month my schedule will open up for summer break so expect more soon!! Thanks for the support and love! Always!

Series Masterlist

—————

Run. Run. Run.

Just keep running.

Don’t think.

Just run.

Bucky didn’t let his mind wander too far. He couldn’t afford to. If he let his thoughts run rampant–his worries, it just might tear him apart and twist him up from inside out.

What good would he be then?

No. He needed to be calm and collected. He needed to keep his head.

You were fine. You had to be.

You were smart.

You were resourceful.

You could handle your own, he’d made sure of that with all the training he’d forced upon you in the past few years. You wouldn’t, in a million years, let anything happen to his babies. You would fight.

But what if…

No.

Bucky shook his head, letting out a frustrated growl as he picked up the pace. Arms pumping harder, stride longer, steps lighter, and his head held high.

JUST RUN.

Don’t. Think.

He couldn’t remember the last time he worked up such a sweat. Or got his heart pumping this hard. Or his lungs burning this much.

Has he ever run this fast before?

He doesn’t think so.

Not as the Winter Soldier as far as he remembered.

No, when he was the Winter Soldier he would stalk, not run, after his targets–his missions.

Like a hunter after his prey.

That’s exactly what he would do if–

No.

How long had he been running?

Bucky stole a glance up at the sky. The sun was at its highest position, meaning it had to be somewhere around noon. And if he had left just around sunrise, he’d had been gone for over six hours by now.

Bucky’s stomach rolled and he could nearly taste the bile clawing its way up his throat.

A lot can happen in six hours.

He swallowed thickly, shaking the thought from his head. There was absolutely no need to go there. You would always tell him how silly it was to worry. Remind him that whatever he was in his head about was out of his control.

Whatever happened, happened.

Worrying was nothing but a waste of time and energy that could be put to good use.

It’s almost as if he can hear your voice in his head–clear as day, telling him the exact thing or something along those lines.

You’d spoken those exact words more than a few times in the years you’d been together but there was one time in particular that came to the forefront of his mind.

“You better knock it off.”

Bucky’s gaze lifted to meet your eyes in the mirror, the pressure of his hands on either side of your hips lessening for just a moment. He tried to hide his surprise over the bite in your tone but he clearly didn’t mask his deer-caught-in-a-headlights reaction quick enough.

“What?” He asked, sounding a little offended. “I’m not doing anything, baby. Just trying to help relieve the pressure…”

He was quick to avert his eyes, instead focusing on his hands on either side of your waist, making sure he was adding just the right amount of pressure to ease the pain of the contractions.

He damn well knew you were onto him–knew you knew him better than he knew himself by now.

You’d probably gauged his mood long before he did. There really was no point in trying to hide it anymore.

You’d get it out of him eventually.

But that didn’t stop him from trying to distract you from his little slip up by laying a little trail of kisses along your exposed spine, thumbs kneading the soft skin along your hip.

And he thought it might work, that he might’ve actually gotten away with it.

Then you let out a long, frustrated huff.

The jig was up.

You went to move, trying to shift back and sit up but his hands on your waist stopped you.

“Bucky.” You protested.

“Just stay there, woman.” He groaned, “I’m fine.”

“Don’t make me feel dumb.” You wiggled in his hold, trying to brush him off. “You should never lie to a pregnant woman, let alone one in labor-”

You let out a long moan, fingers digging into the sheets as you burrowed your face in the pillow to not wake Jamie on the other side of the tent. Your body shook and trembled through the pain as the contraction continued. Bucky did his best to help you through it, whispering sweet nothings and encouragement in your ears, rubbing your back and hips, wiping a cool, wet rag along the back of your neck and over your shoulders.

Your contractions were closer together and longer now.

And just to be sure, he used your current position to his advantage to check how dilated you were now.

“I feel like I need to push.”

Bucky’s stomach rolled, his heart thumping wildly in his chest as he bent down to examine you. His eye nearly bulged out of his head when his fingers came in contact with something soft but firm at the edge of your cervix.

Holy fuck.

Was that…?

He shifted to get a better look between your legs.

Yup.

Definitely a head.

“Fuck.”

He regretted that word the moment it left his lips.

“What?” You lifted your head from the sheets to look over your shoulder at him, face unnaturally flushed and a new flash of worry in your eyes. “What’s wrong?”

Bucky needed to keep his head. He couldn’t get worked up because then you would get worked up and everyone knew that a worked up woman in labor never led to anything good.

No, he needed to keep you calm to make this process as smooth and easy as possible.

“Nothings wrong, baby.” He assured you, working hard to keep his voice soft and steady. “You’re doing so great. I can see baby's head, that’s all.” He pressed a soft kiss to the base of your spine, his left hand brushing gently over your hip. “You’re fully dilated so whenever you feel the need to push go ahead.”

He was a little proud of himself for remaining so cool and collected on the outside because the turmoil blazing through him on the inside was bound to be catastrophic.

“I know you’re worried.” Your voice startled him out of his thoughts and he lifted his head to meet your gaze in the mirror across the tent again. “But you can do this. You’re ready. No point in worrying, Buck. Whatever happens, happens. It’s out of your control.” You took a deep breath, offering him a soft smile, “So worrying is a waste of time and energy.”

His expression softened as his heart clenched in his chest, nearly beating out of control. You would never cease to amaze him.

Your strength, your resilience, your selflessness.

Here you were, on your hands and knees, in one of the most vulnerable moments of your life, trying to comfort him.

He wasn’t the one about to push an actual human out of their body.

He wasn’t the one who’s life was at risk.

Though it might as well be his life too because there wasn’t a chance Bucky could go on without you.

“Pretty girl.” He whispered, fighting a smile as he shook his head in disbelief. “I should be the one comforting you. You’re the one in labor.”

You tried to smile but it came across as more of a grimace. Despite it all, the pained smile, the sweat gleamed skin, the cherry red cheeks, and the wild, snarled hair, you still looked as beautiful to him as ever.

“I know that but I’ve birthed a baby before, you have never delivered one.”

It was moments like these that made him wonder what he did to deserve you.

Sometimes he wondered if you were really real. If you were really his.

“Those are two very different things-”

He was cut off but your strained cry.

“Okay.” He mumbled to you or himself, he wasn’t sure. “Okay, you got this.”

Bucky positioned himself back between your spread thighs, rubbing reassuringly along the back of your legs and hips coaching and encouraging you through it as best as he could.

A few good pushes and the head was out–this was called crowning, he’d remembered from one of the many books he’d read and you weren’t allowed to push, only breathe so as to not risk tearing. Before the apocalypse a tear was an easy fix but here and now, it could mean life or death. As far as you were both aware, you were the only medical professional that could even remotely handle that sort of situation and you couldn’t very well stitch up yourself if you found yourself in that position.

“Just breathe, baby.” He pleaded, rubbing his metal hand reassuringly along your waist and back, trying to distract you from the pain. “Follow my lead.”

Finally the contraction ended, and he was able to guide and carefully maneuver the shoulders out.

One more determined push and the baby–his baby girl was sliding out and into his eagerly awaiting hands.

And you both let out a matching sigh of relief when she immediately let loose with a piercing wail.

That had worked out.

This would too.

Whatever God or higher power existed wouldn’t dare take you or his babies from him. Not after everything he was put through and faced.

You, Jamie, Becca, and the baby were his redemption.

His light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

The world wouldn’t be able to handle James Buchanan Barnes without you.

So you would survive. You had to, if not for his sake.

Bucky couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief when finally the ‘Brookstown’ sign came into view. He always hated that sign, thought it attracted too much attention and would only bring trouble into their little town, and maybe he was right but he’d never been happier to see it than he is now.

It served, somewhat, as a beacon of hope.

He was close.

His chest tightened as he turned down the familiar path, leading into the woods. Just on the other side of this mini forest, was the truth and he wasn’t sure he was ready to face it.

He didn’t hear gunshots, in fact, he didn’t hear anything at all.

It was dead silent.

And that was enough to alert him that something was off.

No.

Something was wrong.

Normally, he could hear the life that lay beyond as he approached the front fence–giggles of children, people talking as they washed clothes in the river, and the clanking of tools because they were always fixing up and improving things around camp.

There was always something going on, even in the dead of the night.

He steeled himself, steps deliberate yet reluctant as he pushed through the bush and came out on the other side.

Bucky wasn’t sure what to expect but it wasn’t this.

The fence had been knocked down on two sides, a good amount of the dead had already rounded up, wandering around the completely lifeless camp, feasting on the bodies that were left behind.

Bucky didn’t let himself think, body numb as he took off in a sprint towards your shared tent on the other side of camp. His mind was on one thing and one thing only, completely oblivious and unaware as he screamed your name at the top of his lungs.

It didn’t matter that it attracted a lot of unwanted attention, the rage bubbling up inside him was no match for the infected that wandered his way.

They were nothing more than an outlet and he took whatever came his way out without batting an eye–a knife to the eye, a stab to the top of the head, a cut clean across the neck that sent a still growling head rolling across the flattened grass.

He intentionally didn’t look at the bodies littering the ground, kept his gaze up and his head held high as he moved closer and closer to his tent. If he stole a glance and connected each body to a face and name in his head..

It would only slow him down.

He couldn’t afford to feel or think about anything else right now.

Once the coast was clear, Bucky barged through the door of his tent, relief hitting him square in the chest as he took in the familiar space.

The backpack–gone.

All the coats–gone.

The chest at the end of the bed–open and rifled through.

You were in a rush, that much was obvious.

He pressed a hand to his head, letting himself have a moment of relief.

His girl.

His girl was strong. Resilient.

If you made it back here and had enough time to gather some stuff, there was no doubt you made it out.

Your next move would’ve been towards the fence–the back fence specifically and seeing as they attacked from the front, you most likely had a smooth escape.

You were okay. You were out there.

And he was coming after you.

Bucky snatched up his own backpack, quickly stuffing a few more smaller guns and knives in the pockets before racing into Becca and Jamie’s space to collect his worn blue blankie and her stained stuffed rabbit.

Once he had everything packed, he slung the bag over his shoulder and grabbed his old M249 Paratrooper off the bed.

“I’m coming.”

He couldn’t imagine how scared you must be, didn’t even want to think about what you went through. But he knew you trusted that he would come after you and that he would find you.

With one last deep breath, he positioned his gun in his right arm and carefully pulled back the flap of the tent with his left.

But never in his wildest dreams, could he have prepared for the next moment.

Barely a step out of the tent and he was frozen in shock as his gaze locked on a familiar pair of warm chocolate eyes. The breath was nearly knocked from his lungs as he subconsciously jolted back, one hand over his frantically beating heart.

“You… You” He stuttered out. “What..”

“Hey, Buck.” Followed by a chuckle. “ Good to see you too.”

“Sam?”

—————

Taglist

@here4thespice @ameerakane20

@netflixxgodess @animegirlgeeky @futur3corps3 @toldyouitwasamelodrama

@ginger-swag-rapunzel @buckystevelove @snugglingbucky @slamminmine

[lukas-wrld]

Rough Draft Month 2024 Update

So, it's been a week, and I don't think I actually announced what exactly I'm working on for rough draft month this year, lol

Since I'm already working on a fanfiction, I didn't think I would be able to start writing a new one, so I decided to spend the month plotting the next one, and I'm proud to say I've made quite some progress on it! :D The goal is to work on the story for at least an hour everyday, in whatever capacity I can manage.

So here's an update on what I've been doing during the week!

started writing out major plot points (I keep getting stuck in the middle T~T)

wrote out a couple of scenes that I really liked

did some research on the characters in the AU so that I'd have a starting point when I diverge their behaviours

started making a playlist for the story!

made some picrews on how I'd envision some of the characters

created a couple of moodboards that I don't hate, but I feel like they could be better

worked on a bit of backstory for the main character and the world

Images below;

Pushing Up Daisies

An Underfell Sans x Reader set in a post apocalyptic world where humans are worse than the monsters and healing is near impossible when you're focused on surviving.

crowesn's picrew

rough draft month's sticker book

mood boards made on canva

And if you haven't already, it's not too late to join in on the fun! There's a discord where you can talk to like minded people, and plenty of pretty stickers to collect!!

[tilbageidanmark]

MOVIES I WATCHED THIS WEEK #201:

The best films of the week: 'A taxi driver', 'Sudden fear', 'Sharper', 'The eloquent peasant', 'Rocks in my pockets', 'If anything happens I love you', 'Windy day', 'Late autumn', 'The big wait'.

2 BY KOREAN DIRECTOR JANG HOON, BOTH WITH STAR SONG KANG-HO:

🍿 A TAXI DRIVER (2017), my first by director Jang Hoon, is one the five best Korean films I've ever seen. What style! What a balance of emotional complexity, technical proficiency and political subtext! It's based on true events which happened during a perilous time in South Korean history. Song Kang-ho (The father in 'Paradise') is a street-smart taxi driver, who takes a German journalist into Gwangju and witnesses with him the student uprising and massacre that occurred there after the 1980 Coup d'état. Maybe even better than Scorsese's 'Taxi Driver'?... 10/10.

🍿 Jang Hoon directed only 4 features, and all were huge money makers in Korea. But his 2010 SECRET REUNION disappointed me greatly. It was just a standard police action film revolving around a North Korean sleeper cell of trained assassins, and it was unremarkable. 2/10.

🍿

"Who are you? Another relative? You have broken 18 dicks! I'll kill you, all gorillas, all policemen and all the Dutch"

THE SUNDAY WOMAN is an unusual Italian comedy about a murder investigation. An eccentric architect is bashed on the head with a large stone phallus, and the clueless police force is scrambling to solve the high-society death.

It's definitely worth watching for the star power of "Commissioner" Marcello Mastroianni (with his sexy baritone voice), Jean-Louis Trintignant as a secret gay patrician and Jacqueline Bisset as the radiant, bored wife of a wealthy businessman. Also for the unmistakable score by Ennio Morricone's.

The director's ambiguous style makes the confusing 'Chinatown'-like plot even more convoluted. It's also wonderful to see the streets of Turin as they were in 1975. 7/10.

🍿

2 OF DIRECTOR DAVID MILLER'S (??) BEST FILMS:

🍿 How come I never even heard of the stylish, smashing Noir thriller SUDDEN FEAR from 1952?? Milf'ish Joan Crawford is a rich and successful San Francisco playwright, who falls for younger actor Jack Palance, while he schemes to murder her for her inheritance. He looks here like one of the greatest film villains, with his chiseled jaw and piercing eyes, and his side-lover Gloria Grahame is just gorgeous. (Interesting side note: Crawford mentions that there were 2,174,000,000 people in the world at that time. Mmmm...) 9/10.

🍿 "If it didn't take men to make babies, I wouldn't have anything to do with any of you..."

LONELY ARE THE BRAVE is a 1962 new revisionist Western with Kirk Douglas as the "last" old-fashioned cowboy, a rugged individual and independently free. He's a 'Rebel without a cause', a freewheelin' ranch hand who refuses to join the contemporary society of mortgages and driving licenses. Unfortunately, he's now roaming a modern New Mexico which is filled with highways, Jeeps and helicopters. It's obvious that it's going to end up badly. Still, I did not expect the symbolism of his horse getting hit in a rainstorm by a long-hauling truck carrying toilets. (and chauffeured by Archie Bunker!). With young wife-of-a friend Gena Rowlands.

🍿

HEAVY TRIP, (2018), a sweet comedy from Finland about 'Impaled Rektum', a Heavy Metal band from a small rural town which after 12 years of practicing, still have never played a live gig. I have absolutely zero interest in "symphonic post-apocalyptic reindeer-grinding Christ-abusing extreme war pagan fenno-scandian metal" or any other kind, but this was highly entertaining. Its mood reminded me of "Miss little sunshine", even though story wise the two had no connection whatsoever. 7/10.

🍿

THE GETAWAY, Sam Peckinpah's suspenseful action-thriller of a Texas bank heist and Lovers on the run. Starring real-life, super-cool married couple Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw. Also co-starring both "Virgil Sollozzo" and "Al Nery" (which makes sense as this too was filmed in 1972), as well as Silm Pickens.

Also with Quincy Jones' distinct jazzy score, highlighted by Toots Thielemans' mournful harmonica sound. In Peckinpah's usual misogynistic manner, there are multiple incidents of guys slapping women around, including the otherwise-loving McQueen. Also, the famous bad guy who kidnap a meek husband and his naughty wife, and then humiliates him by sleeping with the wife in front of him. I've seen a similar story multiple other times, but can't remember where. Re-watch♻️. 8/10.

RIP, Quincy Jones!

🍿

THE ELOQUENT PEASANT (1969) is the most unusual film I saw this week. It's an Egyptian morality tale based on a 4,000 year old story from the 'Middle Kingdom' of Egypt. A poor peasant is robbed by a noble man of all his possessions, and he's seeking justice from a Pharaoh, by applying flowery arguments to make his case. His language skills are so appreciated by the ruler, that he delays his verdict, just so he can hear him speak longer. It's composed in the most beautiful Technicolor brushes, and has a striking, radiant look. It was restored and preserved by Martin Scorsese's 'World Cinema Foundation' (together with the director's 'The Night of Counting the Years' which is next on my list).

🍿

ANYTHING FOR HER (2008) is a French thriller by a first time director. Diane Kruger and her husband are an ordinary couple with a kid, when she is suddenly arrested for a murder she didn't commit, but is wrongly convicted for it and is sentenced to 20 years in prison. The first two acts are okay, but unremarkable. The last suspenseful 30 minutes are dynamite!

🍿

FILMS WITH 100% SCORE ON ROTTEN TOMATOES X 2:

🍿 ROCKS IN MY POCKETS (2014), "A funny film about depression", is the most amazing adult animation feature from Latvia I've ever seen! I simply cannot understand how come there are original and amazing masterpieces like this out in the world which are completely off the radar. For. ex., it was submitted by Latvia as their official entry for the 87th Academy Award, but was not even nominated.

The trailer is all one needs to see before deciding if the movie is right for them. 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes. 10/10! [*Female Director*]

🍿 Re-watch ♻️: IF ANYTHING HAPPENS I LOVE YOU won the Oscars in 2020. A married couple is wordlessly grieving the death of their 12 year old daughter [in a school shooting]. Inspired by (and reminiscent of) the Dutch 'Father and daughter' which also won the Oscars (in 2000). 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes. It's Devastatingly Sad.

🍿

Re-watch of the clever thriller SHARPER. An excellent long-com game, equal to the best of the 'Grifters' genre (in spite of the final, improbable twist). With an exceptional score that includes both Talking Heads and Cole Porter at the right moments. 9/10. ♻️.

🍿

PUT OUR MÄRTA FIRST OR AS LUCK WILL HAVE IT is a traditional Swedish comedy from 1945. I watched it only because I was led to believe that it was some "obscure science-fiction comedy about drag queens", but it wasn't. It's obscure all right. But the sci-fi element was limited to a 2006 opening scene, with an old man telling his granddaughter the story about a hero from 1945, and the rest of the movie is just a flashback. The exact cross dressing plot was later used better on 'Some like it hot': 2 unemployed musicians can only get a job with a traveling women's band, so one of them has to dress up as a woman. [it even has some important scenes on a train, just like Wilder's!]. Unsurprisingly it morphs into a straight-up feminist message film, a-la-Tootsie, with a call for equal rights and free love. But it is told in a very dated, low-brow, broad comedic style. The director, Hasse Ekman, was apparently the most acclaimed Swedish director after Sjöström and before Bergman. 2/10.

🍿  

WHO KILLED JAZZ (Documentary, 2021) is a skillfully-made and impressionistic analysis of the economics of the live jazz music scene. The genre as a whole still flourishes, but the musicians themselves cannot make a living in it. Recommended.

🍿  

ITALIAN POETIC REALIST VITTORIO DE SETA IN 1955 X 3:

🍿 ISLANDS OF FIRE, a wordless natural documentation of fishermen and villagers on the island of Stromboli during a volcanic eruption in 1954. He did 10 ethnographic shorts like this during this time.

🍿 THE AGE OF SWORDFISH, another awesome story of Sicilian fishermen spear-fishing a large swordfish, a custom that disappeared around that time. 8/10.

🍿 PEASANTS OF THE SEA is even more brutal; A fleet of boats capture a large school of Tuna, and kill them all in an orgy of blood and guts. CW. 9/10. De Seta was really talented.

🍿

“Ouch-e-megouch!"

MAGIC TOWN (1947) was the last movie I anxiously watched the night before the election, while being depressed by opposing polls predicting the winner. It was recommended because city slicker James Stewart played a public opinion pollster (for time on film) who moved into Small Town USA, believing that there he can find a perfect reflection of the country as a whole. But this Frank Capra-lite was terrible all around, with a lame-ass romance, and reactionary politics, including the outlandish proposition in one of the polls that "79% favor a woman for president" [Screenshot Above]. Ridiculous! 1/10.

🍿

A BUNCH OF SHORTS:

🍿 BORED ON EDUCATION (1936), my first 'Our gang' episode, and the only one (Out of 220) to win an Oscar. The series was notable for featuring black & white children acting as equals during the Jim Crow era. I didn't realize that the series lasted for 22 years, and employed many sets of kids replacing others who grew out of their roles.

🍿 WINDY DAY (1968) was an adorable animation about two cute little sisters who chatter over each other's as they play and playact, in the cutest, most natural voices. 9/10.

🍿 GOD OF LOVE won the Oscars in 2010. It's a quirky independent comedy in a French New Wave style. A goofy-looking, young Brooklynite lounge singer receives an anonymous box of 'Love Darts' and becomes a local Cupid. Cute. 7/10.

🍿 LATE AFTERNOON (2017) a tender Oscar-nominated Irish story about an old woman who doesn't remember much of anything anymore. 10/10. [*Female Director*]

🍿 In LUCKY FISH (2022), two Asian-American girls exchange glances across the tables at a Chinese restaurant, and then meet by the magical gold fish tank to kiss. Pretty adolescent and not very deep. [*Female Director*]

🍿 PORTRAIT OF GOD (2022), a short horror story about a religious girl who prepares a presentation about a painting of God. Everything I don't like about the Horror genre is here: The eerie soundtrack, the mystical questions that remain unanswerable, the scary jump-cuts, the implied danger, the ambiguous undertone of evil. It's all so unnecessary. 1/10.

🍿 THE BIG WAIT (2023) is a lovely Australian documentary about a couple who lives alone in the middle of nowhere, and maintains a 6-cabin B&B in pristine condition, for visitors who hardly ever come there. 8/10.

🍿 MNEMONADE, a brand-new A.I.-generated short about the Sands of Time and an old woman with dementia. It's not quiet yet there, but as I said a year ago here, I'm sure that within a year, two max, we'll start seeing 'Good' A.I. features, and that in 2025, I'll be viewing some of them. (Via).

🍿

(ALL MY FILM REVIEWS - HERE).

[homestuckreplay]

Refusing To Give Dave Strider The Jester’s Privilege

(page 443-455; general discussion of character parallels)

8/7/2009 Wheel Spin: Long Pesterlog Verdict: INCORRECT (1 page too late….)

8/9/2009 Wheel Spin: Captchalogue Lore Verdict: ABSOLUTELY NOT. PUPPET LORE ONLY

In this page spread, we see the ‘Dave equivalent’ of two things that have already happened with John and Rose. The first is the meditation on the weather, the day, and the general mood that’s accompanied by a misattributed quote and animation of a character gazing at the sky. The second is the character exploring their house and reacting to their family member’s interests, with one eye open for that family member, who could appear at any moment.

Both of these play out differently with Dave than they did with John and Rose, twisting the pattern now that it’s established. And I have to say, I don’t find p.444 (Dave) as effective as p.307 (Rose) or p.82 (John). The animation is good - not quite as cool as the cinematic opening of the clouds in Rose’s page, but I like how it shows us Dave isn’t just dealing with regular heat, there’s apocalyptic fire dripping down from the sky, and how it shows us Dave’s home in its local context. I also like the metaphor of the hot needle ‘hot needle skipping on a groove its tracing 'round the earth,’ and the world as a turntable, referencing Dave’s instrument the way the other pages do with theirs.

What I like less is the ‘izzle’ suffixes and the deployment of Snoop Dogg lyrics as the misattributed quote. Again, this is a white author and character referencing Black rap culture in a way that’s not overtly racist, but feels like it’s used here as a joke. John and Rose’s misattributed quotes were reflective and relevant to their situations, while Dave’s is just lyrics from a popular song (a song where the lyrics are probably not the main form of artistry). There are plenty of thoughtful Snoop Dogg quotes that could have been used here, bud it feels like this slang and these lyrics are used as a counterpoint to the more serious tone of the other pages, which doesn’t say great things about Hussie’s overall opinion of Black culture.

I think I understand the intended effect here - Dave’s mind is wandering, descending into first his own raps and then someone else’s. He’s not one to linger in the malaise like John and Rose are, he’s leaning on his ‘ironic rapper’ persona even inside his own head, and his personality is refracted out into the meta layers of the story. I get that. But this page still positions Dave as a comic relief character who isn’t allowed to have a serious moment, and it’s hard for me to take him seriously as a character if the narrator won’t either. As we’re still in act 2, this page doesn’t reference an act title like John’s and Rose’s did, which also makes Dave feel like a secondary character even if that’s not the intention. 

Dave’s brother lives in the living room - he sleeps on a futon and has his whole computer and gaming setup out there. Whether or not they have parents around, Dave’s brother is the family member who controls the communal space, keeping Dave confined to his room. Dave is wary of using the Xbox, showing that he’s not allowed to use equipment in what should be a shared space. His brother might not have the parental authority over him that John’s dad and Rose’s mom do, but he has authority over the space (and by extension, Dave’s ability to leave the house), which contributes to Dave appearing just as isolated as John and Rose. The way his tower stretches above everyone else’s in the city, meaning Dave can’t even wave to a neighbor through a window, is a great visual for this.

The sequence of Dave interacting with and commenting on the different puppets around his house is really effective - these pages allow Dave to be different from John and Rose without making him less of a character. John and Rose don’t really distinguish between the various harlequins and wizards around their houses, but Dave knows these puppets - often by name - along with some of the stories behind them. He’s also careful and respectful when he moves them around, treating them almost like members of the family, while John and Rose have no issue damaging the equivalents in their own houses.

Dave’s feelings about the specific puppets are variable - he seems to like puppets with clothes and defined personas better than nameless nude puppets. He finds it easier to see the many layers of irony ostensibly surrounding pop culture figures like Mr. T and Chuck Norris, justifying an interest in them, but seems more off put by the ‘weird nude puppets’ perhaps because he can’t justify why his brother likes them. Lil Cal is the most interesting of all - he appears from nowhere between p.450 and 451, and Dave worries about him like he’s an actual person (‘man you hope the little guy's alright’). 

We know objects can appear from nowhere if they’re taken out of a sylladex, and we know Dave’s brother uses Cal as a ventriloquism doll. Sylladex + ventriloquism could easily mimic magic, so I think Dave’s brother is hiding somewhere close by, using sylladex tricks to play with Cal and waiting to catch Dave in the act of using his Xbox and computer.

And finally, we get some gameplay for (presumably) Grand Snack Fuckyeah, discussed on Dave’s blog (p.325). I am delighted to learn that this game involves collecting Doritos the same way you’d collect coins in Mario. This game was absolutely invented for college stoners. Sadly, there’s no answer yet to Dave’s burning question of whether popular beverages will play a role, which is a shame because Mtn Dew Baja Blast would fit right in here.

[angelosearch]

Favorite's meme!

I've been tagged by @cynic-view-ahead and so I must!!

I am really bad at picking favorites so the addendum to all of this is that these are my favorites as of right now, all time favorites is a whole different ball game.

Favorite painter: I actually don't know many painters by name, but I do really like Jane Wilson. Her impressionist landscapes are so beautiful, atmospheric, airy, sometimes haunting. But also, I love that she is an American woman doing big landscapes because the wall-sized landscape paintings in the US have always been dominated by men and she subverts that.

Favorite poet/writer: This is such a big question but I'm just going to say Tamsyn Muir and be done with it. I love The Locked Tomb Series! If I was going to try and describe the series I would say... a murder mystery in a post-apocalyptic society involving swashbuckling Necromancer lesbians... in space.

Favorite band: Hmmm, even just narrowing this one to right now only is hard! I've been listening to The Last Dinner Party, Mother Mother, and Cavetown on repeat lately. I am seeing Cold War Kids on Wednesday and The Rocket Summer (I went SUPER HARD for this band in high school) on the 17th. ABBA and Death Cab for Cutie are on permanent rotation!!

Bonus: A fictional band that will be featured in an upcoming chapter of Chaos Theory - Wimbly Donner and the Soldiers. There's three sentences about this band in my fic and I have two pages of headcanon about them.

Favorite meal & drink: I am very mood/situation dependent on my food choices. I am not picky in the sense that there's food I won't eat, but the vibe has to right for every meal. There is only one thing I can eat under any circumstance or time of day and back-to-back and that is a huge bowl of popcorn. Specifically, popcorn stovetop-popped using canola oil and white kernels. I top it only with salt. It was the first thing I could cook for myself and the only thing I could have for dinner for a while so my brain has just adapted to crave it 24/7. I like it warm, burnt, even stale. My favorite drink to pair it with is a smooth iced Americano. That sounds weird but the bitterness of the coffee highlights the sweet and saltiness of the popcorn!

Favorite outfit aesthetic/style: My favorite outfit is my causal Squall outfit (the Squoutfit)! But my style usually consists of bright colors, sequins/shiny things (Cher-core), busy patterns, and tons of accessories. I like playing with layering and trying to make myself look taller. I am a bigger person who is not always on good terms with my body but ironically I really like wearing crop tops. I just can't expose my biceps.

Favorite singer: Today it is Xana. I am OBSESSED with the song "Better Kind of Best Friend." Normally I do not listen to songs on a constant repeat but I'm probably pushing on listening to this one 30 times in the last 12 hours.

Favorite item you own: You mean other than my copy of Final Fantasy VIII? Hmm, it's a tough one. I just got a hot dog bookmark. And someone else gave me a glasses-cleaning cloth that looks like a hot dog. And then there is my hot dog sculpture. Probably one of those perfectly normal things to own.

Favorite perfume: I don't really do perfume these days because my husband is allergic but I have this mint and cinnamon soap that I absolutely adore. When it comes to fragrances, I generally like notes of lemon balm, flowers, cedar wood, rosemary, or vanilla, but I am very picky about how these scents are presented.

Tagging people I didn't get in my other tag game this evening: @gardengalwrites @redfoxline @sevlinop @thewillroar @mathiwrites