#it was… oof. no good. good at first then bad

[floral-hex]

going through old letters and cards today to see what I can throw away, mail I received when I lived in New York and never remembered to go through again until now, and I kept finding a) old school photos of my brothers, & b) letters my youngest brother wrote to me while I lived away from home, and… oof. I’m glad no one was around because I criiiiiiieeeeed so hard. Had to step away for awhile.

[sunlaire]

It's done

[rapunziedameron]

seeing people genuinely complain about the deaths in the acolyte and throwing around words like cruel and sadistic just once again has me thinking people need to actually sit and ponder on where a story is going and if it's something they can handle watching. nothing about the acolyte has implied it's anything besides a murder mystery, and features an entirely new cast of characters — something that, the last time we saw this in live action, ended in them all dying. just because something belongs to a franchise you love, doesn't mean you have to watch it, or that it has to be your cup of tea. It also doesn't make it bad storytelling if it's too brutal for your liking. The internet gives you every opportunity to make an informed opinion on what you consume, ultimately it's your responsibility, not the show's, to cater to what you can handle.

[fisheadz]

A bit of a rundown for the Still Wakes The Cordyceps AU plot line. Ain’t no way I’m making any multi-chapter fic out of this one, and if I do then people are legally obliged to yell at me. Spoilers for both games/show, and @milestonekestrel inspired the AU. Plus, this has Caz Survives elements, sooooo. :P.

• outbreak day happens, and the McLeary family, along with family friends Roy and Billy try to escape their town, which is falling into chaos.

• they get stopped by a soldier in the outskirts, and are almost all killed by him. He’s killed, but not before he manages to kill Cait and Maidie.

• Billy is blamed, due to either getting the guard’s attention in the first place, or failing to save the girls some way or another. He and them go their separate ways. (After getting his shit clobbered by Guess Who).

• many years later, Caz and Suze have separated. He goes to stay in Beira D, one of the QZs, and she runs off to join the Fireflies, eventually settling down in a little survivor settlement (either Jackson, or something else SWTD related).

• Roy and Caz go to "have a chat" with a supplier that screwed them over. Afterwards, they come across Rennick, a Firefly leader. He’s injured, and has a "product" that needs to be smuggled to a group outside of the QZ. Roy and Caz agree on the condition that Rennick gets them back the stuff the supplier sold.

• only, said "product" is actually a man. A very, suspiciously familiar man. Yup. It’s Billy Fuckoff Chamberlain. He’s chained to a wall heater, his arm in a sling and he’s also giving off some very Not Doing So Good vibes.

• Caz is not amused and wants to call it off, but Roy has infinitely more sympathy, and convinces Caz to go through with it. They need their stuff to make it to Suze, after all.

• and so, they start their journey to get out of Beira D and into the open, fucked world. There’s some hiccups along the way, including Caz beating a guy to death and almost getting shot by patrolling Cadal soldiers, but other than all of… that, things go smooth enough.

• then, they find out why exactly Billy is being smuggled by the Fireflies. He’s infected… but immune. A while ago, his arm was torn up by an Infected, and while his friend and totes not crush Kieran turned, he didn’t. He was found by Rennick’s group, and now he’s being sent off to a lab to try and make a cure.

• of course, this sets Caz off again, and he’s SO ready to just fuck right back off to Beira D, but he did already kill a bunch of people getting out of it, and they’ve gotten this far, so why turn back now when they’re so close? Roy tells him as much, and they continue on, a bit more weary of their old "friend".

• they reach an Infected-infested museum, and while they’re sneaking through it, there’s a fight. Roy gets bit, but he doesn’t tell anyone. They’re almost there, and, well, he wasn’t going to last much longer in the End Of The World, either way. They could only give away so much for his insulin.

• they reach the meeting spot… only to find that all of the Fireflies have died, via infection and infighting due to the paranoia.

• Roy is devastated. Getting Billy to the Fireflies was supposed to save everybody, and now the group that was supposed to take him were all dead. During his subsequent breakdown, Caz discovers that he’s bit.

• Roy makes Caz promise to get Billy to the Firefly lab, and evek though Caz doesn’t believe in the so called "cure", he agrees. Roy stays behind to give them time to escape the Cadal soldiers that had followed them there, and Caz and Billy officially set off on their cross-country journey. What could go wrong?

• Caz takes them to a small town a couple miles away from the QZ, where an old smuggler friend of his and Roy’s lived. Well, "lived" is a strong word. More like "holed-up".

• after they dodged all of his traps and the Infected lurking around the outskirts of his base, Innes finds them, and agrees to help them fix up his truck, and take some of his supplies to last them the trip.

• it’s not that easy, though. There’s a lot of setbacks and a lot more sneaking, running, and killing, but they eventually find a truck that’s actually salvageable. They also find Innes’ old partner, Muir. He had been infected, and took the easy way out.

• it’s clear that the sight hurt him, but Innes wasn’t about to stop now. They get the vehicle running, and manage to escape the hoard. Outside of the town, Innes gives them his half-hearted well-wishes, and then Caz and Billy are off.

• they take the truck as far as they can, and make good distance. Until they drive into a bigger city, and encounter a group of scavengers.

• the truck is fucked. They’re stuck sneaking through the city on foot, trying to avoid the scavengers that had overthrown the Cadal base there. The scavengers are relentless, though.

• thankfully, they’re saved by two men, Brodie and Raffs. The two are like father and son, separated from their own group and also trying to get out of the city. So, they all agree to work together, and figure out the next step once they’re in relative safety. (It’s the apocalypse. There is no safety.)

• escaping the scavengers is taxing, and scary, and very annoying, but they make it out. There’s one scare, where Caz nearly drowns in the river, but Brodie is able to get him out and keep him alive. Typical Brodie activities.

• they find a secret little community, that had lived in the sewers outside of the city. Unfortunately, though, it’s clear that no one has been there in a long, long time. Instead, the underground settlement is infested with Infected. Unable to go back, the only way for Caz, Billy, Brodie and Raffs to leave, is to go through.

• they find children, or at least the ones that got the easy way out. They’re stalked by Infected, and eventually, they make it out, and into the suburbs. There, they find more notes from the person who started the community, a woman named Finlay. She and a few others had escaped the sewers, and were out there somewhere.

• when they were almost home free, the scavengers find them yet again, as well as a hoard. They fight them off, with Caz providing backup from afar, and they get away!

• not before Raffs is bit, though. Billy finds out, and tries to use his blood to cure him. The next morning, however, he turns, and Brodie is forced to kill him to save Billy. Distraught, he follows his son a moment later.

• it’s a horrible experience, but Caz and Billy move on. Finally, they make it to the forest surrounding the settlement Suze is at.

• She is surprised, but overall happy to see that Caz is safe. Despite the bad note they left on, it’s clear that they still loved each other, no matter what. Billy, on the other hand, is not as welcome. Caz’s plan was to have Suze send Billy off with some former Fireflies, since she was one herself, and knew where the lab was. She refuses, not wanting to risk lives for Billy. Especially after losing some of her friends to a raid.

• Billy overhears this, and runs off. Suze and Caz go to find him, but first find a bunch of raiders. After they’re dealt with, they find Billy in an old farmhouse. They have a talk, him and Caz, that ends with Billy telling him that he loves him and Suze, Caz telling him that he would never love him back. This… does not go over well for any of them, but they have the raiders to worry about, at the moment.

• in the end, Caz and Billy leave to find the lab, Caz having decided that maybe he went a bit too far, and should make up for it by being nice to his old friend and taking him the rest of the way. Suze stays because she’s an important member of the settlement, but not before she tells them both to get their asses back afterwards.

• on horseback, they reach the college where the lab is, and also find more Infected. The worst thing, however, is that the lab is abandoned. They moved shop to a hospital miles away, after some escaped experiments left the place too dangerous to hang around. To make things even worse, the fucking scavs are back.

• Caz is injured. Bad. Like, high chance he won’t recover or walk ever again, bad. Capital B Bad. It’s winter by now, and with no sign of Caz getting better, Billy is getting desperate.

• so, when a man named Bernard and his goonie friend take the deer that HE took down, and offer anything in exchange for it, he jumps on the opportunity to get Caz the much needed medicine for his - more human - infection.

• as soon as they’re alone, Bernard drops a bomb on Billy: the scavs at the college, weren’t scavs. They were part of Bernard’s community (even Billy can tell that it’s actually a cult, from context clues alone), and the survivors had reported that they were all killed by a man matching Billy’s description, and a short, cunty bastard with a beanie.

• Bernard says he isn’t mad, even stops his goonie friend from shooting him. All he wants, is for Billy to tell them where Caz is. See, Bernard believes that Caz made Billy do those things, due to his bum arm and Caz’s general bossiness. He even wants Billy to join his cult, because he likes his vibe. Billy properly tells him to go get fucked, and his mother as well, before taking off with the medicine. Caz may be an asshole, but he’s Billy’s asshole friend.

• after giving Caz the medicine, he finds out that he was followed, and goes to lure them away from the basement where they were holed up. That’s doesn’t really go very well.

• Billy wakes up to a cannibal live presentation, and after breaking Bernard’s finger while the bastard is trying to butter him up with "community" and "love" and "safety", is almost chopped up to be tonight’s venison stew. He’s saved by the bite marks on his arm. He bites Bernard, making the man believe he’s infected… not for long, but long enough for Billy to escape into the town, and the snowstorm.

• meanwhile, Caz is busy a mile away with torturing and killing some of Bernard’s cultists. He gets a location and books it, killing every fucker that doesn’t have Billy’s stupid face along the way.

• Billy kills a few guys, more out of a craving for vengeance than anything else (Caz’s winning personality is totally rubbing off on him) and, inevitably, gets trapped in the burning diner with Bernard.

• Bernard tries to kill him, hurting his arm even more and is thankfully not as much of a fucking freak as some of his alternate universe counterparts, but he’s still awful and able to get under Billy’s skin with horrible words and accusations.

• by the time Caz finds the burning building, Bernard no longer has any semblance of a face. He catches Billy stumbling out, and there’s a whole reunion, with Billy an absolute mess of blood and gore and tears, and Caz is no better. Through the storm, you can just faintly hear a cartoony "mwah <3". Heart included.

• fast forward many, many days, and they reach the hospital. And are immediately knocked the fuck out by patrolling Fireflies. Caz just cannot stop adding to his concussion collection.

• he wakes up, and Rennick is there, healed and well. And then he says some shit like “you don’t have to worry about him anymore” and “your stuff that we promised you is in your brand new Chevy Tahoe”.

• so, Caz kills a bunch more people, and finds Billy on the operating table, about to have his brain cut out to have a 3% chance of finding some sort of miracle cure. He kills the shit out of the lead surgeon, traumatizes all the nurses, and runs out with Billy.

• before leaving, Rennick tries to stop him. He says they can still fix this, as long as he leaves Billy, and just drives away. Then, when Caz shoots him, he says it’ll all be okay as long as Caz lets him live. Then, when Caz shoots him again, he says… nothing, because he’s dead.

• when Billy wakes up, Caz lies. He tells him that, there was no cure. The Fireflies all died in a hoard attack, and they just barely made it out alive. No, Rennick did not survive. Yes, there was absolutely no way anyone could’ve been saved. No, he’s not lying, what kinda asshole do you take me for?

• they make it back to the settlement with Caz sporting a brand new Shit Leg and Billy’s arm and mental health about 50% worse than it was at the beginning, and meet the leaders Trots and Simon, who welcome them with open arms. Suze is ecstatic, and Caz admits that he and Billy are in love, and she decides "huh. That sounds nice, scoot over I want a spot in this not-quite-situationship" and they live happily ever after.

• for now :>. Until I play the TLOU pt2. Maybe I won’t, all I hear is that it sucks ass and that you’re better off with just your imagination. But I will. Someday. Cos I wanna.

• …I’m gonna regret, aren’t I?

[manofthepipis]

One thing that I’ve been thinking about is a possible route(?) this story could go, and that is Spamton’s trip to the Ambyu-Lances’s office. And boy do I feel bad for the Addisons because it’s gonna be hell on earth for all of em. Spamton has the mentality of a feral cat and this feral cat is going to the vet in the first time in forever. I don’t think Spamton is a big fan of large syringes, and when you have one of those chasing you down because well, look at him. He’s a walking talking corrupted program. If masters his glitches like Survey says, I can totally see him glitching through the doctors to make his grand escape™️. I feel like all the Addisons are gonna have to be here for both moral support, as well as making sure that he doesn’t attack his doctor. (Maybe they’ll sedate him a little? I know that’s what some hospitals do with rowdy-er patients LMAO, but then the Addisons have a whole new problem on their hands because now Spamton is high as a mf kite or something 😭) the last time I was under anesthesia my doctor said I wouldn’t stop laughing until I burst out into uncontrollable sobs and then I immediately blacked out💀

god a trip to the doctors office would be hell in a handbasket for this guy ;v; because he 100% has the energy of a feral cat finally being checked out

though i think once he gets closer to the addisons he'd agree to go, just to see if he can be set back to normal (spoiler alert: he can't cuz fate has handed his ass the bad luck card from square one) but he immediately regrets it and the addisons have to calm him down

them sedating him would probably be the best course of action as to actually get ANY results (because he will bite and attack on instinct hfjkkdjfkks)

though i feel if i were to write an ambyu-lance scene in the future this is how id imagine it would go:

[beetlebongos]

duck list chuck list fuck list muck list

[satorugojoswiife]

Dunno I but I actually feel kinda sad when I see people talking about Gojo like he's some kind of bad person etc etc😩 maybe I take it personally but how can I not when I love him so much😢 do you have such feelings?

No, I get you 😭 it's kind of frustrating to see how often he gets mischaracterized.

[hauntingblue]

Episode 8 I am so scared....

[androidboy]

-

[fluffypurpleglitterdemon]

Xie Lian is so bad at robbery and also he hates it. Full "but what if they're on their way to donate their life savings to a puppy orphanage!" level of second-guessing when picking a target and then he doesn't even successfully rob them before getting caught by a whole pack of gods. And then he feels so awful about almost maybe robbing someone he gets blackout drunk in a graveyard.

[biromanticwritergal]

Hi! I just did another tacky rebrand. I used to be biromanticbookbabe. The babe part of my name was irking me. Oof. I changed my name on Storygraph too in case anyone was wondering (I think I have a few followers in both places?). They match again finally! :D

[wanderingfaee]

“I’ll take it from here”

LAWDDD THIS MAN IS PUTTING ME IN A SPIRALLLL!! 🥴🥴😵‍💫😮‍💨😮‍💨😩🕷️🖤🤰🏻🤰🏻

[capricioussun]

So. While I am definitely still oc-ifying abstract fully, in that he won't be tied to ut at all, I did just unintentionally think up a "lore" reason for why he’s skeletal whenever I put him in ut scenarios.

What if, like mimikyu pokemon,, upon being brought into "reality" for "rehabilitation", he settled on a form he saw as similar to a much beloved monster in hopes it may make him appear friendlier/lovable?

[robo-milky]

Question for Chole, of you had magic, what would be your Unique magic?

[Cloche’ Birthday Bash]

[gauntlets-shot]

Aaaaaaand I remembered why I turned off in game chat In Wild Rift in the first place lmfao

[wizardclown]

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