#may not be the best explanation cause its 5am and i should sleep

[whatlurksbean]

I'm curious as to why Trout says "they think she ate her child". I haven't seen Gull spread that misinformation, and it seemed like common knowledge Tusk wanted to give him a burial.

The whole reason Gull started pestering Tusk in the first place is because she thought Tusk might eat Rays body instead of giving him to the crabs.

When she found out tusk wanted to bury him, she was just as horrified, and brought it to trout loudly.

(You can infer that she didn’t initially expect tusk wanting to bury him because of her surprise when she admits it.)

When tusk was told she couldnt bury ray by her tree, she asked to be alone.

When they returned later, gull discovers that ray is gone, but tusk hasnt left the cave. There is heavy implication of what gull thinks happened, and she goes and spreads her belief that tusk ate her child.

[stelladea]

This playlist is the accumulation of almost five years’ worth of ZR-related emotional turmoil. That’s given me plenty of time to find a buttload of relevant songs.

>>> Stay Safe Out There: A ZR Playlist for all your badass-running, energy-pumping, life-saving needs. Art by Six to Start.

Annotations/explanations below contain (very vague) spoilers for seasons 1-5!

[For more: my 5am playlist is coming soon!]

Warriors - Imagine Dragons

Honestly what about this song isn’t relevant to ZR? The ultimate badass pump-up song. I imagine Major de Santa must have used this as a motivational speech during Seasons 1-2 as Abel prepped to fight New Canton or Van Ark. Or any of their adversaries, really. Take your pick.

Here we are, don't turn away now We are the warriors that built this town from dust The time will come When you'll have to rise Above the best and prove yourself, Your spirit never dies

Ticking Bomb - Aloe Blacc

POST-APOCALYPSE AMAZINGNESS AND ALL-AROUND GREAT SONG.

The sun may never rise again The question ain’t if but when The sea will boil and the sky will fall The sun may never rise again

The silent war has begun We’re staring down a loaded gun No refuge found on solid ground This human race can’t be won

The Phoenix - Fall Out Boy

Another truly relevant pump-up song.

Hey young blood Doesn't it feel like our time is running out? I'm gonna change you like a remix Then I'll raise you like a phoenix Wearing our vintage misery No, I think it looked a little better on me I'm gonna change you like a remix Then I'll raise you like a phoenix

Put on your war paint

Radioactive - Imagine Dragons

The ZR anthem. Need I say more?

I'm breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus This is it, the apocalypse

I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones Enough to make my system blow Welcome to the new age, to the new age Welcome to the new age, to the new age Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, I'm radioactive, radioactive Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, I'm radioactive, radioactive

Ghost - Mystery Skulls

Runner Five’s gotta feel like this every so often. A great, upbeat song perfect for running.

'Cause the world might do me in It's alright 'cause I'm with friends Guess I'm giving up again It doesn't matter

Had me feeling like a ghost And that's what I hate the most Guess I'm giving up again This time I might just disappear

Come With Me Now - KONGOS

I��ll let the lyrics speak for me. Very ZR-esque.

Afraid to lose control And caught up in this world I've wasted time, I've wasted breath I think I've thought myself to death

I was born without this fear Now only this seems clear I need to move, I need to fight I need to lose myself tonight

Coming Back - Dean Ray

For all of your S3/4 Moonchild-mind-control-related needs:

Chasing down your silhouette I find there's nothing there Facing down a lonely road into the pure unknown But I'll keep coming back

You can steal my mind twist it for a while but you can't take my pride You can watch me crack throw me way off track but I'll keep coming back

Uprising - Muse

Y'all. Play this when you’re bringing down Moonchild. When you’re fighting Van Ark. When you’re forming the resistance against Sigrid. USE IT FOR EVERYTHING

Interchanging mind control Come, let the revolution take its toll If you could flick the switch and open your third eye You'd see that we should never be afraid to die

Rise up and take the power back It's time the fat cats had a heart attack You know that their time's coming to an end We have to unify and watch our flag ascend

They will not force us They will stop degrading us They will not control us We will be victorious

The Pretender - Foo Fighters

Another song for Five and Moonchild. Fantastically upbeat and makes you feel like you can take on the whole damn world.

What if I say I'm not like the others? What if I say I'm not just another one of your plays? You're the pretender What if I say I will never surrender?

I'm the voice inside your head You refuse to hear I'm the face that you have to face Mirrored in your stare I'm what's left, I'm what's right I'm the enemy I'm the hand that will take you down Bring you to your knees

Knights of Cydonia - Muse

This one sums all of ZR up pretty well, if I do say so myself:

No one's gonna take me alive The time has come to make things right You and I must fight for our rights You and I must fight to survive

Angels (Radio Edit) - Vicetone

Don’t screw with Runner Five or they will MESS YOU UP

I can't remember when you hurt me so bad But now the tables turn, apocalypse is coming I can't remember when you left me so sad But in the end I learned it rains in hell and angels could be bad

Barton Hollow - The Civil Wars

A generally badass folksy apocalypse song. Would highly recommend.

Miles and miles in my bare feet Still can't lay me down to sleep If I die before I wake I know the Lord my soul won't take

I'm a dead man walking I'm a dead man walking

Keep walking and running and running for miles Keep walking and running and running for miles

Beat It - Michael Jackson

A world-saving classic.

You have to show them that you're really not scared You're playin' with your life, this ain't no truth or dare They'll kick you, then they beat you, then they'll tell you it's fair So beat it, but you wanna be bad

Somewhere to Run - Krewella

More S3 mind-control and general running fun.

I'm hearing the voices in my head Telling me I should just pretend But how can I sit around and swallow all the bullshit while I'm choking

I just need somewhere to run I gave up, don't give a fuck Somewhere to run, I'm so sick but I can't quit I'm saying ooh, another day, another night, I'm getting through

Too Close - Alex Clare

Honestly it’s not even the lyrics for this one, but I couldn’t pass up on how amazingly upbeat it is.

Counting Stars - OneRepublic

The hopeless 5am shipper that I am, I like to imagine Five and Sam sitting together on the roof of the comms shack just spending a nice, non-zombie-related sunset together. (Ughhhhh so corny I’m so corny)

I feel the love and I feel it burn Down this river, every turn Hope is our four-letter word Make that money, watch it burn Old, but I'm not that old Young, but I'm not that bold And I don't think the world is sold On just doing what we're told I feel something so wrong Doing the right thing I could lie, could lie, could lie Everything that drowns me makes me wanna fly

Jungle - X Ambassadors

As you enter the world of the undead:

Won't you follow me into the jungle Ain't no god on these streets in the heart of the jungle

Runnin’ - Adam Lambert

The title is more relevant than the lyrics, but this is still a solid addition to the list.

Trap Requiem - Apashe

HATERS GONNA FUCK WIT ME

Brave - Moriah Peters

Feel-good, cutesy song if you're tired of feeling hardcore all the time. Good palate-cleanser from the last one.

Brave I'll fight like a soldier Brave Rise like a warrior Brave Won't stop till the final day Brave I want to be stronger Brave Gonna be bolder Brave Look up and I see the way You make me brave

Kill of the Night - Gin Wigmore

Aaaand we’re back with some bloodthirsty Runner Five.

The danger is I'm dangerous And I might just tear you apart I'm gonna catch ya I'm gonna get ya, get ya I wanna taste the way that you bleed, oh You're my kill of the night

Spike in a Rail - Darren Korb

An instrumental piece that you listen to as you collect sports bras and soak in the apocalypse aesthetic.

Through the Fire and the Flames - DragonForce

Finally, one more piece to help you SAVE THE WHOLE FCKIN WORLD:

So far away we wait for the day For the lights are so wasted and gone We feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days Through the fire and the flames we carry on Now here we stand with their blood on our hands We've fought so hard now can we understand? I'll break the seal of this curse if I possibly can For freedom of every man

[sadwriterperson]

November 14th, 2017

Just gonna throw out there that this is really long, so read on if you've got like 10 minutes to spare.

Alright, hello again, I'm writing this real early because I can't sleep. I work a lot of 3rd shift at my job, which is fine until I can't sleep when it's dark out, haha. Im starting this at 10 after 5am and I've checked all my social media, checked all the mindless games I keep on my phone for no reason, and now I'm here, still wide awake and bored as hell, and I could use this time to catch up on the nearly 12000 words I'm behind in for NaNoWriMo, only I'm so incredibly unmotivated that I thought, why not finally get around to writing about Tristan Haynes, my main character, and some overall backstory to how this novel came to fruition. There are a lot of ins and outs to this, a lot of pieces of my life weaved into this, so I'll try to make that all make sense.

So, Tristan, my good human, I hurt him more than I should, but, I'm hurting all of them more than I should. The character of Tristan goes way back into my past, starting when I was 6 years old. Growing up and even in my more recent years I would have these dreams that when I woke up I swore they were real, and a few I've had have actually happened, more than I'd like to admit. Some aren't as big, but, they still get kinda weird, an example of this is when I was in grade 8, just shy of 14, I had this dream that my best friend would buy this necklace, she was the definition of the goth kinda person, and it fit her, the setting was in our English class, the first class we would share that day, 3rd hour, so around the 10:30ish time frame and it didn't happen right away, it took a few weeks, but, she came to school wearing the necklace I had the dream of. That's just one instance in a long life of thousands of dreams, but, they still happen like this. So Tristan, he came way before that, and in this dream, I'm trying to find this white house over the hill, and I keep walking, the sidewalk is endless, and the grass on the side of me, my left side rises into a wall, a stone wall and then without explanation I turn around and there is Trit. That's what I called him, Trit, and I don't know who he is, why he existed, but, he was standing on the lower side of the stone wall, the grass was fake, turf, is what my brain supplied to me mid dream and under the corner of this turf, Trit points down and I follow his lead pulling out a red notebook, it wasn't an important notebook, just a regular red notebook, like you can buy anywhere for 94 cents at Wal-Mart. He smiled at me and even tho he was standing right in front of me, he sounded miles away and it was like the breeze was talking to me and I heard "you found it, you found it" I followed it, Trit at my side, following the breeze I would find the white house in the middle of a field of long grass swaying peacefully in the wind, Trit runs ahead and I follow him into it and then wake up.

Trit became this beacon, I've never forgotten that feeling of peace, and Ive carried Trit in my head for years, using pieces of that dream in countless stories I've written, but, I've never been able to describe it as well as my dream showed me. It will truly always be one of those things that unless you're in my head you will never be able to experience who Tristan is to me, but, I'm Trying.

So fast forward, people come and go, die, grow apart, and without going into to much detail because it's a time in my life I don't care much to talk about, i believed I was the reason someone died, and it genuinley broke my will to live, and I took that out on myself, Lord did I, and then after carving words into my legs and some other good depression stuff I adopted the phrase "My decision for living isn't mine to decide" a lyric from the song "Hole in the ground" by Twenty One Pilots, the band that's saved my life countless times, with lyrics I relate to on a molecular level, and decided that I was going to write. I had to live with my decision, i needed to learn to live with my guilt, and over the period of a year I got better, but, at times it would break me over again and while it's better now, it's still kinda raw. Anyway, so I decided I was going to write this story - Only the long grass remembers - and it was no debate who would be the star of this story. Deciding Tristan was my main character was the easiest part of the entire process, and I wrote the first chapter in 15 minutes, and thus the second character of the novel was born. Parker Middleton was born, and he plays an important roll in the novel that is important to many and I hope will be responded well too when someone finally reads this thing, but, that won't be until I'm at least 30000 words deep probably.

After writing the first chapter, and deciding that Trit couldn't just stay as Trit, i knew I needed to get a real name for him, and all of me couldn't bear to part with the name of him so I knew it needed to be as close to Trit as I could get it and that's how he got Tristan. Well, sorta.

HERE COMES MORE BACKSTORY

So August of 2015 I started watching the CW show: Supernatural. Binge watched it hardcore and later on would do roleplay as the characters on Facebook with a bunch of people and we were all super tight knit, not only because we bonded over the show, but, because most if not all of us were and are dealing with mental illness or some other physical ailment and we all used the RP and the community to keep each other alive . On top of that, there were the actors if the show, Jared Padalecki one of the main stars of the show suffers from mental illness, and so the actors all bonded together to make campaigns for people suffering, and they are along the lines of 'always keep fighting' and 'you are not alone,' and so it felt important to me to tie in these people with these great causes to this story that I'm writing for the same reason, you know? Its because of this mindset that I decided Trit would become Tristan. So Jared Padalecki, he plays Sam on supernatural, and he is who Trit is physically paired with for the novel, and it was in this I decided Trit would have a twin brother - Ross.. Trit didnt have family in the dream, but, it felt wrong to me to not include Ross, because Ross is based after Jared Padalecki's co-star Jensen Ackles. It would be wrong because they're currently on their 13th season of Supernatural, and a commonly used phrase is 'Family doesn't end in blood' and after 13 years, Jared and Jensen truly do see each other as brothers, and I wanted to incorporate that into the story, and wanted to link them both together in a binding way, and it worked out really well, all things considered. Their middle names are what binds them from my from the real world, to my mind to the page, respectively:

Jared TRISTAN Padalecki

Jensen ROSS Ackles.

Is this all making sense? Its a lot, or it feels like a lot at least to me, but it's 6:02am now.. So that may be something to do with it too.

I should probably try and sleep again, so I think I'll end this here, but, I hope that it makes sense why Tristan is so important to me, because he's been with me for 15 years.

Not only just Tristan, but, the dream is why the novel is called "The Long Grass Remembers"

It's all connected, and its important that I keep it as true as possible, to do justice for me, for the people I've met online, for friends lost, for the actors who gave them a name, for the musicians who helped me through for the musicians who breathe life into this story every single time I write, the people in my life who have shout outs, for the people in my life for as much as they may make me angry, ground me, for who they are, are motivation for me to be a better person then I was the day before, the story is for me, and no one else. To many times have I stopped writing out of fear that the people I know won't like it, because I'm revealing to much of myself. It's why I stuck in the horror genre for years, horror was easy to write, but, this, this is for me, and I am revealing all of it, and I'm ready, Trit at my side once more, only this time, he won't just stay in my head, now everyone gets to know him, and my heart is warm.

Thank you for sticking through this long winded, rambling, less than stellar wording from Bry, have a beautiful day or night.

Stay tuned, stay hyped and most of all, stay alive!

-- Bry