#not me making a whole thing out of one line of dialogue-

[damneddamsy]

falling | joel miller x fem!oc (part xii)

THEOREM OF BECOMING—Transformation is not a moment, but a process.

summary: The journey back to Jackson is full of make-believe of a life that almost feels like it's coming true.

a/n: woohoo, happy AAPI month! I'm sorry this update took so long, I was so indecisive on how I wanted this chapter to end, and what I wanted to depict, especially at the end when it was hard for me to decide where I wanted to place all of them... I just hope it turned out okay! one more chapter left before the epilogue :)

word count: 12,800+ words (dare I say, a short one?)

Joel tried to imagine himself at university. Outlandish things like, what would’ve happened if the world had given him a second door to open?

Because being here—goddamn. It was hard not to wonder what it might’ve felt like, walking into a place like this with a backpack and purpose instead of a rifle and regret.

What kind of kid would Joel have been, sitting in one of those chairs? Twenty years old, maybe. Hell—eighteen if he'd played it straight. No Sarah. No mortgage. No busted-up drywall jobs. No worry about gas bills or whether the AC would hold another summer.

Fuck no, he wouldn't do whatever it was Leela was doing in that lab, with data and diagrams that looked like chicken scratch to him. He would want a degree in something that lets the brain wander. A major in liberal arts, maybe. History. Music theory sounded nice. All that “not real work” crapola folks in his neighbourhood used to scoff at.

He’d always had a good head on him—just never the time or the cash to spend chasing someone else’s definition of smart. See, college wasn’t for men like him. Places like this weren’t made for people like him.

It was a gate you needed a key for, and that key used to cost fuck-ton loans and inevitable debt. More than he ever had or would have.

But that never meant he wasn’t curious. Never meant he didn’t know things.

Truth was, Joel used to like ideas. He liked stories. He read when he could. Listened. Paid attention. Watched old movies with Sarah, sometimes caught the way dialogue turned into meaning. Took in books secondhand, borrowed from neighbours, dog-eared and scribbled in. Kept his head and hands busy. When he worked construction, he could out-measure, out-calculate, and out-plan any of those stiff-collared pricks with their clean hands and degrees nailed to their office walls.

Tommy used to joke that Joel could memorize a script better than a foreman could read a blueprint.

“Man, you ain’t dumb,” his baby brother said once, picking dried cement off his hands. “We’re just poor.”

And he'd agreed. Their whole academic system was a racket, just a way of putting a price tag on knowledge.

Places like Caltech were always for them—it was for the bright ones, the born-lucky, the rich kids with trust funds and internships lined up like bowling pins. Kids like Leela, in fact. He'd never set foot in a real university, let alone one like this. All that prestige and legacy. Hell, even the labs looked like spaceships.

Joel had never even been on a real campus before the world went belly-up, and now here he was, boots echoing in a dead lecture hall, listening to Leela piece together the last remnants of science like she was born for it.

He stood halfway down the sloped aisle, one hand dragging along the edge of a long desk. The laminate was peeling at the corners. He could picture a thousand students slouched here over the decades, bent over laptops or spiral notebooks, yawning, scrawling notes they’d forget the second finals ended.

Behind him, Ellie climbed onto the stage at the bottom of the hall, testing the strength of the lectern like a kid playing teacher. Her voice carried, all grin and gravel.

“Bet you’d sit in the back row. Right, Joel?”

Joel smirked. “Only place I could get away with nappin’.”

“Or so you think. I’d definitely be front row. Raising my hand. Asking annoying questions.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Ain’t nothin’ changed.”

“Pft, whatever.”

Beyond the doors, down the corridor, he could just make out the faint click-clack of keys—Leela, working in the lab with that same eerie calm she always had when the world dropped away and it was just her and the numbers. Her silhouette had barely shifted in an hour. Her hair was loose, falling over one shoulder, half in the light. She looked like she belonged in there.

“Y’know,” he drawled out to Ellie from somewhere inside his head, “I think she and I… if we’d met like that back then… we’d’ve found each other.”

Ellie didn't tease him about it. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. I’d be the guy just tryin’ to keep up. Probably complainin’ about the campus coffee and the goddamn parking passes.”

She grinned. “She’d dodge you for two whole weeks.”

“Hm. Sounds ‘bout right.”

“Then one day you’d say something too smart that’d make her stop and think. And boom. Now you’re study partners.”

He sighed. “I ain’t smart, kiddo.”

“Nah, you’re smart.”

“Not that kinda smart.”

“Bullshit. You literally remember everything. Details. Faces. The way you describe a guy’s boots, I feel like I was there.”

Joel clucked his tongue. “You learn to read people when your life depends on it.”

She shrugged. “Still counts.”

He didn’t answer, but his mouth twitched—somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “Hey, know what else? She’d’ve helped me cheat on a math exam.”

“Ha, no way. Leela would smack you across the face.”

He rubbed his jaw, the beginnings of a smile ghosting across his mouth. “But she’d tutor me. Make me memorise some dumb equation by makin’ it a song or somethin’. She hums that stuff sometimes, y'know? 'Spretty cute.”

Ellie gave him a look—half fond, half exasperated. “Jesus. Jesse was right. You're cuntstruck.”

“Ellie,” he muttered, more warning than scolding, but it didn’t carry much heat.

“Aw, c’mon, Joel. Can you just imagine a life where,” she sighed, “you just live that time-honoured, grey area of life? Be a normal dude with a college sweetheart or some shit?”

“How the hell do you know all that?”

“I'm just that baller.”

“Jesus.”

Now, Joel meant to leave it there, but the thought had already taken root.

He let his eyes drift toward the broken chalkboard at the front of the room, and the lecture hall around them seemed to grow in his mind—less ruin, more memory of something he never had.

He imagined Leela sitting at a desk beside him, in a school that let smart kids like her and dumbasses like him sit together—just one of those big halls with sticky floors and ceiling fans that clicked when they turned, where the smart ones always found the front row and the tired ones sat wherever the sun didn’t hit their eyes. She’d be chewing a pen cap, probably, maybe twirling a strand of hair around her finger, nodding all serious while some professor went off about Gödel or Fermat or one of those names that felt more like hexes than people. Joel wouldn’t understand a lick of it—not even on his best, most caffeinated day.

But maybe—she’d lean in, whisper it in Layman's for him. Not to make him feel dumb, but because she wanted him to know. All sweet, patient, gracious Leela.

He’d pretend to follow along, nodding at the right times, but mostly he’d be watching the way her mouth moved around the words, the way her brows bunched up when she really got into it. Watching the gears turn in her beautiful, brilliant head. Joel still did that, when she went off on a tangent in their living room between her blackboards, he'd just want her to kiss her until she was blue in the face.

He nevertheless would've fallen so damn hard for her. Right on his ass. No question about it.

Wouldn’t have taken him long to ask her out, either—not if they’d met like that. Not if she didn’t already know all the things the world had done to a man like him. He would have acted like his balls had just dropped or something—nervous as hell, but trying to play it cool. Sweaty palms, rehearsed lines in front of his mirror. Something about those big, dark eyes of hers, her fancy shoes, or her mint-condition books. Something along the lines of: I promise I’m more interesting than I look… though I realise the bar’s low since I’ve been standing here staring at you for the last thirty seconds.

And if she’d fold and giggle ‘okay’—and he liked to believe she would—he’d take her out someplace decent. Someplace with candlelight, silverware, suited waiters, cloches and folded napkins. He’d pick her up in front of her building. Show up with a fat bouquet of daisies. Pull her chair out for her at dinner. Hold the door. Call her ma’am without even thinking. He would be flat-broke in that life too, but he was raised right with Texan manners imbued upon him by Mr and Mrs Miller, after all.

Leela would probably tease him a little, maybe make fun of how stiff his shirt collar was or how he kept checking the long-ass bill like it was going to change. But she’d smile through it and offer to go Dutch instead. That rare, toothy smile of hers that made her look so young, unguarded and just a little bit shy.

He imagined them walking back across campus after—quiet, inseparable, arm around his. Maybe it was autumn. Maybe the crimson maple leaves crunched under their feet, and she kept pushing her hands into the sleeves of her coat like she always did when she was cold but didn’t want to say so. Maybe he’d offer his jacket. Maybe she’d take it. Maybe he’d blow into her hands in an attempt to kiss them.

Maybe that night, standing outside her place, she’d look up at him with that same quiet challenge in her eyes she had now—like she was daring him to be gentle.

And he would’ve been. Gentle as fuck. Their first kiss wouldn’t have been some clumsy, rushed thing. No desperation. No fear of the dark coming back. Just... time. Time you don’t know you’re wasting until it’s gone.

He imagined her fingers curled into his coat on maybe their fourth date, maybe he'd just taken her out ice-skating or bowling, and she would push the coat off him, and pull him a little closer. Stay with me tonight. A breath caught between their lips. And maybe—God help him—maybe they’d have stumbled into the fancy elevator of her expensive off-campus apartment, shoes kicked off halfway, giggling when she nearly tripped over her own purse left by the door. He’d catch her waist, steady her, and she’d glance at him with those mischievous eyes that already knew what he wanted. I want all of you.

They’d lock the door behind them, not because they had to, but because they could—because no one was chasing them, nothing was breathing down their necks. Just a night in. Quiet. Private. Theirs.

The desk lamp would still be on, casting light over her math books still open, forgotten now, pages fluttering. Her room would be warm, a little cluttered, with too many books for one person. A corkboard with pinned movie stubs and Post-it reminders. A polaroid of them, maybe, from some campus event—Joel squinting at the lens, Leela mid-laugh as always, her nose scrunched in that way he loved.

They’d peel off layers slowly. Clothes in a trail from the doorway to the bed. His shirt, her dress, his belt, her tights, his boxers. Her bra hanging from the lamp. They’d laugh a little, giggling some, fumbling with the condom in his wallet like it was a joke they’d made earlier in the week—about how just in case that had suddenly become now.

No pressure. No pain. First times. A night they got to have too late. No urgency, no hunger born from grief or fear. Just intimacy. Just plain, affectionate, stumbling, careful sex. Earned. Trusted. Wanted.

He pictured them afterwards, her curled against him beneath tangled sheets, tracing lazy shapes on his chest while the radiator clanked in protest against the cold. Nodding while they discussed their upcoming test, how she’d incentivise him with a kiss for each question he scored, fingers moving through her hair, catching on a tiny braid she must’ve done while studying.

The window would fog up by morning. They’d sleep through their alarms. Maybe skip class like dumb rebels. Maybe make breakfast instead—pancakes from a box, the batter too thick, the frying pan too hot. He’d burn the first one and she’d steal it anyway, kissing him with syrup on her lips. Good fuckin' morning to me.

They’d graduate together, in this life. He’d be in the back row on ceremony day, shoes shined for once, hair swept back neatly, watching his best girl stride across the stage to grab her scroll. Top of her class, honour roll, summa cum laude. Maybe he didn’t get a diploma of his own—maybe he took night classes, taking the slow route out—but he’d be there, standing up before anyone else, clapping like hell, hooting her name with his hands cupped around his lips.

And she’d find him later, tassel on her crooked hat flying, gown wrinkled, eyes shining, leaping into his arms, and he’d spin her about. Kiss her right there in the crowd like he was the luckiest son of a bitch alive.

And in that life—the life he never got—maybe they’d go on like that for years. Their families are all tight-knit, spending holidays together, all of them waiting on hand and foot for Joel to pop the question, but he promised his girl all the time in the world. No muss, no fuss.

Graduation photos in front of some ivy-covered wall. Travel photos of the two of them from roadtrips and weekend escapes—mountains in Telluride, coasts in Monterey, lighthouses in Nantucket. Maybe later they’d rent a shitty apartment together in a big city even if he hated it—New York, or London, or some big German town with a zigzag skyline and a bakery on every corner—while she chased her PhD dreams and he’d just be happy to take care of them. Joel would take on carpentry jobs to keep the lights on and fix things around the building in exchange for rent. He'd play gigs, strum his old guitar, in pubs and bars all night for a good sum of cash. Patch the leaky sink with elbow grease. Assembling furniture that they couldn’t afford to buy. Shelves full of her notes. Coffee rings on the floor. Late-night supermarket runs. Eat dinner for breakfast and fall asleep with her textbooks open between them. The laughter of a life being made from scratch.

And maybe one day, not in a church, not even in a courthouse—but under that oak tree just outside her big, white house in Jackson, they’d say their vows. Soft ones. Barely louder than the wind. Just a handful of people who mattered, a patch of wildflowers in springtime, and the gold ring he’d carried in his pocket for years. Her hand in his, sliding the band into place. Her thumb brushing his knuckles while he tried not to cry. I offer you all I have, my dumbass and beating heart.

And she’d laugh when he picked her up, white dress, veil and all, just to prove he still could, and carry her over the threshold, whilst her sandals dangled from his fingers. They'd make love like it was the first time, on a nice, month-long honeymoon in the Maldives or Bali, on a linen, canopy-frame bed that wobbled by the time they were through.

And one day, he’d come home—sawdust still in his hair, tired to the bone, aching for his long shower—only to find a positive test on the bathroom sink, and they’d smile at each other like they’d just won the lottery. Those soft, teary eyes they’d share. You think we've got room for one more around here?

And from that moment on, Joel would've been all in. No half-measures. No second-guessing. Just him, right in her pocket. He wouldn’t leave her side unless he had to—work, maybe, or some emergency—and even then, she’d be on speed dial (not that she already wasn’t). He’d check in constantly. Make sure she was drinking water, eating enough. Sitting her antsy ass down.

Late at night, he’d press his ear to her belly, grinning when their baby kicked like she already had her mama’s fire. He’d murmur promises against her skin—about giving her the world, about love, about never missing a thing again. And he’d mean every damn word.

He wouldn’t miss a single ultrasound, even if the clinic was across town and the truck was coughing smoke. He’d be there for all of it—Lamaze classes, nausea, mood swings, sleepless nights, midnight drives for god-knows-what. He’d baby-proof every damn inch of the house, stock the cabinets with baby items, triple-check the crib screws, read every parenting book he could find, even the ones with goofy cartoon covers.

Overbearing? For fucking sure. She might threaten to divorce him half a dozen times before the third trimester—but he’d take it, all of it. With a grin and a kiss and a Yes, ma’am.

And when it was time—when the world narrowed to a hospital room and the sound of her hurting wails—he’d be right there, surgical gown and all, holding her hand through every contraction, brushing damp hair from her face, whispering through the panic, through his heart tearing in two: I’m right here, baby. I ain’t going anywhere.

And Maya would come hollering into their lives. Of course, that’s what they’d name her in this life, too. Radiant, beautiful, nascent Maya, looking just like her mama and holding his heart in her tiny fist. All that imagining he’d ever done—every if, every maybe—had somehow led to this little girl he called his.

He pictured Maya clearly in that other life—the one that never got to be. Toddling around their grad-school apartment, leaping onto his stomach in PJs on a lazy Sunday morning, giggling through a mouthful of sugary cereal while Leela chased after their little thief, trying to snatch the box from her sticky hands. One sock is on, and the other is always missing. Her wild curls bouncing as she ran to him when he walked through the door—always early, maybe this time in a stable job which involved him wearing a suit and tie, lugging a briefcase—arms outstretched, shrieking Da-da! like he was some kind of superhero, and without fail, he'd rain at least a hundred kisses on her before letting her go.

She’d throw a fit in the toy aisle over exactly the faulty stuffed animal, with lopsided eyes and a ripped tag, and Joel would fold like wet paper the second she pouted.

And if the bad times did come, the only arguments he and Leela might’ve had were the soft kind, inconsequential—disagreements over something like Joel’s brief, doomed venture into stocks, or Leela being scatterbrained with the grocery runs, or whether Maya should go to that elite preschool an hour away with the long waitlist and sterling reputation. Joel would’ve wanted the best for her, the kind of start he never had. But Leela would just want to keep Maya close a little longer, probably even attempt to homeschool her if she could swing it.

They’d make up over pizza on the couch—Maya asleep between them, still clutching that faulty toy, cartoons flickering on the TV. Their fingers would find each other over the back of her blanket, apology and forgiveness exchanged without a single word spoken.

And thereafter, the mornings were ones where he'd juggle coffee cups, lunch bags and backpacks, dropping Leela off at her university, her hair still wet from a rushed shower, pencil skirt on a tight ass that waited for it's morning squeeze, a thick binder clutched to her chest, a soft lingering kisses shared over the console; and then Maya in the backseat, singing along to the radio, squealing when he pulled up to her school next. She’d barely get her backpack on before she tore across the pavement to her friends, flashing Joel a quick flying kiss and a grin that damn near knocked the wind out of him every time.

And at night—the three of them crammed around a too-small kitchen table, Leela would sit, drafting her research papers or scribbling in a notebook, Maya in her lap, doodling in the margins, asking about black holes and dinosaurs in the same breath. Leela would answer every question like it was the most important one she’d ever been asked. Joel would just listen, smiling into his beer, tuck the moment away somewhere safe inside him, like a man who knew exactly how fragile good things could be.

And Maya would believe everything her mama told her. Because why wouldn’t she?

Joel blinked, staring at the cracked chalkboard. The room was silent, save for Ellie’s soft humming and the hum of distant power from the lab down the hall.

But that life—that life—wasn’t the one they got.

But maybe... maybe it wasn’t too late for some piece of it. Not the degrees or the papers.

But the love part. The quiet part.

Maybe that kind of life still had a place in this one. Maybe that was still real. Maybe it was standing just down the hall, surrounded by equations, stubborn as ever.

He smiled to himself, soft and stupid, like a man who’d just lived a whole other life in three minutes.

A loud metallic clatter broke the spell.

Joel turned—slow, blinking like he'd just woken from a dream—and found Ellie grinning at him, holding up a dusty diploma frame like she’d just pulled a sword from a stone. The glass was cracked in one corner, the name beneath faded and half-eaten by sun and decay. But scrawled across the middle in thick, unapologetic black marker was something brand new:

Dr. Leela Miller.

“Well,” Ellie said, lifting it higher like a trophy, “I didn’t know her last name, so…”

Joel stared. His breath caught on something warm.

“Reed,” he said, slow and quiet, like the name had weight. Affection weaved through it like a thread. “But this… this is fine.”

He could almost see it—this on the wall of that little apartment they never had. Over a desk cluttered with paper and empty mugs and one tiny sock, someone still hadn’t found the match for.

Ellie held it out to him like a kid offering a crayon drawing. “It’s probably not, y’know, technically accredited,” she said with a crooked smile. “D'you think she'll feel a little better?”

He snorted, folding his arms. “That's a ten-dollar word from a dollar-sized person.”

“Hey, fuck you.”

He gave her a look, soft and knowing. “Well, Leela won���t say it right now, but yeah. She will.”

Then he glanced across the hall.

There she was—his smartass, hunched on a table littered with papers and old, curling printouts. Leela had one hand braced against the edge, the other pressed over her mouth like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her fingers moved through a page, tracing lines of ink like a woman touching scripture. Like she was holding a piece of a language she'd thought was long dead.

Joel brought two fingers to his lips and let out a sharp, low whistle.

Across the hall, Leela jolted a little—more like a reflex than real surprise—blinking over at him with a stunned, empty look. It cracked after a second, softening into something small and sheepish, but Joel didn’t miss the way she moved, like she was dragging herself up from somewhere far away.

He tipped his head toward her, half a smirk pulling at his mouth, trying to keep it easy, light.

“Weather’s turnin’,” he called, voice carrying across the dusty floorboards. “We oughta get movin’ along before it gets any worse.”

“Um...”

Leela hesitated, staring back at the whirring, flickering monitor like it was something alive she’d been charged with keeping breathing. Her hand lifted slowly, clumsily, brushing her hair out of her face with the back of her wrist.

She gave a stiff little nod—obedient, automatic, like she wasn’t even aware of doing it.

Joel opened his mouth—half-ready to tell her it was fine if she needed more time—but Ellie piped up behind him.

“Ooh, we gotta head down to the coast first. Ay, you promised the beach, old man!”

Joel felt the beginnings of a headache forming behind his eyes. He turned slightly, cutting a look back at Leela for silent backup.

And Leela just shrugged. Just the barest hitch of her shoulders, like even the decision didn’t mean much anymore. Her mouth twitched at the corners, a hint of old amusement surfacing and dying again all at once.

“I've almost finished the upload,” she said, tapping the corner of the monitor, where some ancient progress bar crawled along painfully slow. “Just... eleven more minutes.”

Eleven minutes.

It used to drive Joel a little crazy, if he was honest. He’d thought it was grief or obsession. Maybe denial. He’d even thought as much, once—there wasn’t anyone left who cared about prime numbers and proof sheets. Leela's long nights hunched over scavenged paper, her fingers smudged with graphite and ash, scribbling until her wrist cramped. A fucking waste indeed.

No one needed the big hypothesis solved when there were clickers on the road and medicine running thin.

And now he saw it.

She wasn’t trying to bring the old world back. She was trying to make sure some vestige of it survived.

Not the comforts. Not its power grids or grocery stores, or monuments. But it's thinking. It's questions. The bones of the mind that had once built bridges and satellites and figured out how to split atoms. She was keeping that, preserving hope for the world that would eventually look back.

And she was sending it forward like a time capsule in the shape of code—across a patchy uplink, through battered infrastructure, to a settlement that might not even know what to do with it.

One day, someone would.

Someone with a mind like hers. Someone with less blood on their hands and more time. A student, a child, a generation down the line who’d never seen the world fall and might still wonder how it once stood.

She was sending it all to Jackson—not as salvation, maybe, but as seed.

Something to plant. Something to grow if they ever got a spring again.

And if that someone asked, if they searched—she’d be there. In the pages, in the math. In the margins, scrawled with her restless handwriting. A woman who had no lab, no colleagues, no safety, but still sat down and thought.

Joel rubbed his thumb over a dent in the metal of the desk. It was humbling, what she was doing. Quiet and unadorned, the way most real things were.

And for the first time, he didn’t feel far from her work. He didn’t feel like it belonged to a world he couldn’t touch. He was somehow a part of it, too.

He exhaled through his nose, scratching the back of his neck. Eleven minutes. Seemed like a small enough thing after everything they'd been through.

He shifted his weight, the old floor creaking under his boots, and his gaze caught on the diploma again—still cradled in Ellie’s hands, the cracked glass catching the faint grey light.

Dr. Leela Miller.

Miller.

His name. His... wife.

He hadn't expected it to hit him like that. The word sitting there plain and heavy, stitched onto her like it had always belonged. The beginning of his other life.

His name stitched there so plainly, so firmly, like it had always been meant to sit against her like that. A jolt went through him—sharp and unexpected—settling low in his gut like a stone thrown into deep water.

He could almost see it, just for a second—clearer than any dream he ever allowed himself to linger on: Leela standing beside him at some clean, sun-warmed courthouse, signing her new name across the marriage license with a little grimace, muttering about how bureaucratic nonsense would outlive them all. Joel, laughing under his breath, taking the pen after her, signing his name next to hers. The flash of a cheap camera. The clap of a judge’s hand on his back. Her grinning face turned up to his, awaiting a congratulatory kiss. And he would make it linger, pressing two, three, four kisses before he murmured against her lips: You alright there, Mrs Miller?

Yes, Joel didn’t feel the press of the world closing in.

He just stood there, hands planted firm on his hips, heart too big for his ribs, and thought, Maybe it ain’t the life I thought I'd have.

When he was young—back before the world cracked open—he thought he understood what a good life was supposed to look like. Steady work. A home. A little backyard for Sarah to tear around in. A dog, one of those loud mutts that drove the neighbours crazy. Bills paid on time. Supper on the table by six. Simple. Straightforward. A line you followed if you kept your head down and your hands busy.

He’d built toward that life once. Brick by brick. Sweat and sacrifice and stubbornness. And he’d watched it all turn to ash in a single night, leaving nothing but the brutal math of survival behind.

Wake up. Choke down rations. Shoot. Kill without a thought. Stay alive. Sleep with one eye open. Repeat.

Hope had been a dangerous thing after that, an unaffordable luxury. Like college.

But standing here now, and Leela hunkered over that blinking screen like she was fighting the universe itself to save what little good was left in it—Joel realised he’d been wrong about what makes a life and what was worth holding onto.

It wasn’t about clean houses or paid-off trucks or picture-perfect little towns.

It was about this.

It was about watching the woman he loved refuse to give up on the world, even when the world had given up on her. It was about Ellie clutching a battered diploma like it was the goddamn Declaration of Independence, blinking out the window like a daydreaming college kid who still believed she’d make it here. It was about Maya somewhere back home, waiting, safe, growing up in a place that hadn’t been paved over by fear.

It was about them.

So, why not... breathe life into that other reality?

Joel shifted slightly, his hand drifting to his pocket—more out of habit than thought. His fingers closed around the small thing he’d stashed there weeks ago, careful not to draw attention to it.

Rolled it between his fingers sometimes, in replacement for the brass button that Maya had bestowed on him—in quiet moments, when no one was looking. Like maybe if he kept turning it long enough, the edges would smooth out, the crack in the band would seal, and time would forget whatever broke it.

It wasn’t much to look at. Just a beat-up old ring he’d pocketed back in Vegas, half-buried in dust beneath a shattered display case. The stone was gone. The band was thin and cracked, barely holding together. Still, he’d kept it. Couldn’t say why at first. Just felt right in his hand—small, broken, stubborn. Reminded him of someone.

Lately, he’d been thinking about what he might do with it. How he could fix it, in his own way. Maybe shave a sliver of intricate wood into the place where the diamond used to be. Not anything fancy, maybe a flower. She liked sunflowers. Just something honest. Pine, maybe—she always smelled like pine sometimes. Or walnut, strong and durable, like him. Something alive, something that wouldn’t shine too bright, but would still catch the amalgam of Leela.

He didn’t know if he’d ever give it to her. Or when. Or if she’d even want it.

Hell, he didn’t even know what he’d say.

But he carried it with hope anyway.

That was the strange part. It wasn’t really the ring that mattered—it was the idea. That someday, there might be room for something like that between them. Not as some big gesture. Not to fix anything. Just to say: this is still yours if you want it. Just to prove he still believed in what could come next.

Maybe sometimes love looked like a broken ring in a calloused hand, waiting for a world soft enough to give it back.

The sharp things—the grief, the anger, the failure—they were still there, rooted deep under his skin like old thorns. They always would be. But for once, Joel could see something else threading through it. A quieter kind of ache. Not the pain of losing, but the ache of wanting.

He wanted the kind of life that didn’t just survive the world’s ending—but stubbornly, stupidly, beautifully outlived it.

He wanted her, and Ellie, and Maya, and every goddamn scraped-together piece of a future he never thought he'd deserve.

And in this dead place, in the flicker of failing light and old dreams burned onto curling paper, Joel believed—just a little—that maybe this had all been for something. After all, maybe they hadn't come all this way just to bury what was lost. Perhaps they were here to carry it forward.

Maybe they were the ones meant to build what came next.

His throat felt tight, but he welcomed it. A man could learn to carry that feeling. He should carry it. Get used to it. All these good things he was doing.

He slipped the ring back into his pocket, careful, like it might bruise. Gave the pocket a small, reassuring pat.

He glanced at Leela, at the way she leaned into the light like a plant aching for the sun, and felt that wild, wordless thing rise again inside him.

Ours, he thought. Not just hers. Not just his.

Ours.

X

The ocean resembled a busted mirror.

Not glittering or big or blue. Just slabs of grey and darker grey, churning slow under the breadth of a sky that didn’t give a damn. The wind came off the water in lazy fits, carrying salt and rot and the memory of heat that had long since packed up and gone.

Wind tugged at what was left of the boardwalk nearby, a few slats still clinging on like they didn’t know how to fall properly. Rusted carnival lights hung in strips. Booths were gutted. A souvenir shack had collapsed into itself, hurling faded postcards and cracked plastic mugs across the ground. He saw a cracked one half-buried in the dune: I Survived Santa Monica Pier. Bit fucking ironic.

The sea had taken it all back. The joy. The noise. The crowds. It felt biblical, in a way. Like the tide was the big guy's long exhale.

Joel stood at the edge of it all—boots half-buried in wet sand, stepping over a tangled snarl of sea-bleached fishing net fibres, arms crossed against the cold that kept slipping under his jacket. The pier beyond was a half-collapsed skeleton, stripped bare, its spine curling out into the surf with broken ribs of wood jutting upward. Boats still rocked gently in the distance—untouched, paint peeling, sails long since devoured by saline winds, hulls soft with barnacles and time. No lights. No squalling. Not even of birds.

Funny. He used to think that if they ever made it to the coast, something would change. That maybe it’d feel like the end of the road—or the start of something. No, this was just another place the world forgot.

Ellie was already out near the waterline, her boots discarded in a heap beside a tide pool. She’d rolled up her jeans and waded ankle-deep into the cold muck, laughing as she scratched her name into the sand with a busted piece of driftwood. She looked so small like that. Innocent. Her shoulders loose, grin so secretive. He didn't get to see that often.

He watched her kneel, tongue poking slightly out in concentration, and for a moment—just a flicker—it wasn’t Ellie crouched in the sand.

It was Sarah.

Not imagined, not hoped. Saw. Not older, not younger—just as she was the day he lost her.

Kneeling beside her, seaweed looped over her wrist like bracelets, giggling about how it was going to get washed away but doing it anyway. He could see her—clearer than anything. Her head of sunlit curls, tossed by the wind. Making a heart out of the seaweed. Lining the letters with broken shells. Elbowing Ellie with that half-teasing grin she used to have, the one that always said, Do not mess this up for me, Dad.

He clenched his jaw. Swallowed hard. Blinked until the double image snapped apart again, rattled the thought loose from his head, and it was just Ellie again, whistling tunelessly, digging up dead coral to decorate her crude scrawl in the sand.

Goddamn, was this what it was going to be now?

Visions. Ghosts. Fantasies of another life. Wishing, wanting. His mind folding over itself. Losing the thread.

Or was it just the many extremities of grief? The accumulation of too many years? Or was this the beginning of something slower and crueller? Alzheimer’s or some shit. Some fucking cordyceps variation they didn’t have a name for yet. Maybe he’d start forgetting the way back to Jackson. Maybe he already had.

He rubbed a hand across his face, dragging grit from his cheek. The salt clung to his stubble, and the ocean made his eyes sting even when the wind didn’t hit them.

A little ways off, Leela sat cross-legged on the sand, her back to the surf, little haphazard strands from her long braid slapping at her cheeks. A neat little pile of small seashells sat beside her, most of them dull with age and wear—but one, a tiny conch, recently vacated by some poor creature that hadn’t made it. It was still freshly pink inside, gleaming, faintly iridescent.

She had a needle gripped between her fingers, her brow furrowed as she carefully worked it through the shell’s spire. Every movement was methodical, like she wasn’t thinking about what she was doing, like it was all buried muscle memory. When she threaded the bit of twine through and tied a knot, she held the shell up between two fingers, inspecting, squinting at it like it was some precious thing instead of beach trash.

“For Maya,” she said quietly, flashing him a smile—small, lopsided, but real.

Joel let out a soft grunt of recognition. Awful lot of jewellery to be taking back to Jackson.

“Cute.”

He remembered that story—the one he hadn’t meant to overhear, but things stuck. Something about her old life, before Jackson, before her parents, before a child of her own. How she used to make little shell necklaces just like that one and sell them to dumb tourists along the coast back in her hometown. Overpriced junk, she’d said. That weird, lonely kind of pride people have when they remember who they used to be.

Maybe this was her way of passing it on. A sliver of childhood she could carve off and give to Maya. A small thing that said I was here. I was whole once.

He took a step closer, boots sinking into the sand, hands in his jacket pockets. “Still remember how to rip folks off, huh?”

She glanced up at him, just barely. “Who says this one’s not priceless?”

Joel smirked. “Better be. Our baby girl’s got high standards.”

That got a laugh. A real one—small, scratchy, but it cracked the stillness in a way nothing else had all day. Leela shook her head, still smiling, eyes on the necklace, watching the shell sway from its string.

A beat passed. Wind was threading through the bare bones of the city. Maybe this place had once been paradise. Joel didn’t know. All he saw now was wreckage. Absence. A ghost town choking on salt.

Behind them, far away, Ellie whooped, triumphant. “I told you, little bastard! Joel, look, that’s a motherfucking crab!”

Joel glanced over. She was crouched in the wet sand, a long stick in one hand, something small and wriggling and furious in the other. Her sleeves were shoved to her elbows, knees soaked through, hair wild in the wind. She grinned like she was twelve again. Like the world hadn’t burned down.

Another shriek from Ellie. “Holy shit—there’s more of them! A whole Jackson community!”

“Well, don’t just play with ’em. Grab a few. Might be good eatin’.”

Ellie wrinkled her nose, poking one with the tip of her stick. “Eat this? Dude, it’s got, like—claws. And it’s hard as shit.”

“That’s how you know it’s good,” Joel called back, deadpan. “Hard shell means there’s somethin’ sweet inside.”

Ellie gave him a look. “Oh, hear, hear—Wordsworth over here.”

Joel chuckled, shaking his head. “Just get a few, kiddo. We’ll see what we can do.”

“Fine,” she muttered. “But if it kills me, I’m haunting your lying ass.”

Then she dropped the crab anyway, watched it scuttle sideways into the surf with all the drama of a jail break, and burst out laughing—real, unguarded. Her laugh rippled across the beach like it didn’t know how rare it was. Like it didn’t think it was a goddamn miracle.

Joel turned back to Leela. His voice dropped, not meaning to get soft but unable to help it.

“So, is this what you pictured?”

He didn’t say the beach. He didn’t mean California. Didn’t mean the long road behind them—full of blood and breath and quiet, feral hope. Didn’t even mean the life they’d clawed together with broken fingernails and dogged luck.

Leela didn’t answer right away. She just looked out toward the horizon, the sharp line where grey sea met grey skies. Where the world used to open up into possibility, into summer vacations and shipping routes and postcards with skipping dolphins. Now it looked more like an ending. A sentence with no period.

Then she shook her head, just once. “Not even close.”

But she was still holding the shell in her hand. Still tying another knot in the twine. Still smiling, just barely. And somehow, that answer—quiet, and unfinished—was more honest than anything else she could’ve said.

Joel sat down beside her, his knees cracking like firewood. The cold bled through the seat of his jeans, but he didn’t flinch. Just sat. Facing the water.

Leela didn’t.

She was turned slightly away, angled toward the sand, toward the ground, like she’d taken some quiet oath never to look at the sea again. As if it had taken something and she wouldn’t give it the satisfaction of her eyes.

Joel laid his hand over hers, careful.

She stilled.

His palm was unpolished against hers, but he could still feel the tiny shape of the shell necklace beneath it. Warm from her skin. Light as a breath.

“Joel.”

Before she could ask him to get the fuck off her, he said, “Look, I just—”

“What do you think Maya’s going to be when she grows up?”

Leela’s voice was soft, half-swallowed by the sea wind. Not wistful, not dreamy. Just plain and curious, like she was asking about the tide.

Joel didn’t answer right away. His eyes slid back on the water—on the slow, thick roll of it, the lazy collapse of each wave as it dragged itself onto the sand. This landed hard—not because it was tragic, but because it was so normal.

And yet that question hung there. He rubbed his jaw in deep thought. That wasn’t a question people dared to ask anymore, not seriously.

Honey, what do you want to be when you grow up?

He'd asked Sarah that plenty of times. And her answer had been no-bullshit: a rockstar. He used to joke to her about it, how maybe she'd take her old man backstage one day and sign T-shirts with her primped face on it.

The world was too fucked-up now, no rulebook to follow. See, back in the old world, kids had answers ready. Doctor. Firefighter. Astronaut. Singer. Shit like that. You dreamed, you planned. You had options. Only now, the world didn’t want anything from its kids but survival. To grow up at all was a feat. To grow up and become something? That felt like a pipe dream.

Joel breathed out through his nose. He shifted in the sand, elbows on his knees, shoulders hunched against the wind.

“I dunno,” he said finally. “Ain’t somethin’ I let myself think about too much. We used to imagine the future. Now we’re just glad to get through the day.”

Leela said nothing. Just waited, steady, patient, the way she always did when she knew he wasn’t finished.

A bitter little smile curled the corner of his mouth. “Baby girl’d probably be a scavenger. Some real slick trader. Hustler like her mama used to be.”

Leela huffed softly.

“Maybe a sharpshooter,” Joel added. “Takes after Ellie. Bossy as hell.”

That made her laugh again—just a little. Joel felt it in his chest like the thinnest crack of sun through stormcloud.

He kept talking, quieter now. “Could be she ends up one of those quiet ones. People listen when she speaks. Not ‘cause she’s loud—but ‘cause she means her shit. Maybe that makes her a leader. Or a target.”

He hated that last part. But it was true.

The truth was—he didn’t really care what Maya became. He just wanted her to have the space to choose between gentleness and survival. To live long, safe, and full enough to even ask that question. And he hated the world for making him think all this shit.

“And maybe she’s just alive long enough for it to matter,” he finished. “It’s enough for me.”

Leela’s fingers paused at the shell’s knot.

Joel looked over at her, and she still wasn’t looking at the sea. Her face was turned away a little, but her eyes were distant—thinking hard, probably thinking too much.

“Does it scare you?” he asked.

She blinked slowly. “What does?”

“The future,” he stated. “What she might become.”

Leela was quiet for a long time. She pulled the twine taut, tied another knot. Maybe the third one in the same place.

Then she nodded, but it wasn’t sharp. As if something she’d carried for years, only just now saying out loud.

“I just can’t have Maya become like me, Joel,” she said.

Joel didn’t say anything because he knew what she meant. And she was fucking right.

Not just Leela's impossible intellect that she carried like a blade. Not Joel's desiccating anger. Not the endless spinning logic or the obsessive calculations that had driven her across the country in a haze of grief and purpose. Not the math or the memory or the way she could see ten steps ahead while the rest of them were still tripping over the first one.

No—she meant the burden. The self-blame. The detachment. The constant need to understand everything instead of just feeling it. The survival that looked like a function but was really just a retreat.

The way Joel disconnected. The guilt that never left. The way he didn’t flinch at corpses anymore because somewhere along the way, his empathy had learned to ration itself. The way he lived in his head because that was the only place he could guarantee no one would hurt him.

And because of all the ways they taught themselves to cope—none of them were life. They were pauses. Contractions. Damage control.

She sighed. “I thought I wanted that. I did. But after everything back there…”

She nodded toward the road that led back to the university. Toward where she'd left her hopes and regrets. A whole piece of her past.

“I realised that…” She tapped her temple, fingers light, like she was knocking on the side of something hollow. “She doesn’t need this.”

He didn’t press or fill the space like he normally would with some muttered acknowledgement, because this wasn’t a moment for patch jobs.

“This saved me,” she murmured. “The logic. The focus. It’s how I kept going after—after what happened. If I could just understand enough… if I could predict things, calculate the worst-case scenario, I could keep her safe.”

Her voice tightened. Just a bit. Joel heard it.

“She deserves more than that.”

Joel’s throat was dry. He swallowed hard, barely managing. “And now?”

Leela let out a long breath. Not weary. Just… stripped bare.

“Now I just want her to scream,” Leela said. “To run fast. To fall hard. To be loud, and wrong, and stupid—and free. I want her to feel so much that she doesn’t know where to put it. I want her to hit back, punch hard, when someone corners her. Not stand there frozen, plotting some clever escape like that’s gonna save her.”

Joel’s eyes flicked toward her.

She wasn’t looking at him. Still had her gaze fixed on the necklace in her lap, the shell swinging gently as she tied and re-tied the same knot like it was muscle memory. Like if she stopped moving, she’d splinter.

And goddamn.

That’s when it landed. What she was really saying.

He’d seen people go quiet in the worst moments of their lives—seen them freeze, let it happen, disappear behind their own eyes. Not because they were weak, but because someone, somewhere, had taught them that silence was safer than screaming. That survival meant outthinking, not resisting. That pain was something to calculate your way around.

Leela had been that sort of survivor.

“I couldn’t even save myself,” she said, bitter, flat, after a beat.

The fuck kind of thing was that to say? Making it seem like it just made sense?

Joel’s fingers tightened gently around hers, unable to unclench his jaw. “That ain’t your fault,” he reassured to an extent, teeth gritting. “You sayin’ that like it was your choice.”

She said nothing. But the silence was answer enough. And Joel couldn’t sit with that.

“I don’t give a damn what you think you didn’t do,” he muttered, heat rising in his throat like bile. “Someone took... somethin’. They did that. You think being smart, or planning a way out—fuckin’ hell—none of that would’ve mattered.”

She shook her head once. Not in argument—just acknowledgement. “No. But it still happened. And I did nothing.”

Then, finally, she looked at him.

There was no shame in her eyes. Just a brutal clarity. The kind that only came from staring something dead in the face for years and deciding to live anyway.

“I know what I am, Joel. I know what it took to survive. I know what it turned me into. And I don’t want that for her.”

Joel didn’t speak right away. There was nothing to fix. Nothing to deny. He understood her too well for that. She wasn’t afraid Maya wouldn’t make it.

She was afraid Maya would—by becoming someone like her.

“Baby, she’s gonna carry us,” he said, a promise in his voice. “But she ain’t gonna be us.”

Then he reached out, covered her hand with his—rough skin on hers, grounding her.

“She’s got us, Leela,” he added, more quietly.

And he meant every word. He knew what it was to survive through retreat. To mistake numbness for control. To wear grief like armour and call it strength.

Leela didn’t flinch. But she didn’t smile either. Her face softened—like she wanted to believe him, that she was someone worth having.

“I hope so,” she said.

They sat there a while longer, the tide crawling up toward their boots whilst Ellie shouted at them about a jellyfish. Joel felt the sting in his joints when the winds picked up, faster, saltier, sharper.

He looked down at the shell again, their hands twined around it. Small. Pink. Still shining faintly inside. Something you’d pick up on a beach day with a little girl who didn’t know the world yet.

They couldn’t offer Maya that clean world they had lived in. But they could hand her a few pieces worth carrying. And she’d figure out what to build.

For one brief moment, he let himself believe his baby girl would have the chance to answer that question one day—for real.

What do you want to be when you grow up, Maya?

X

The fire had sunk lower to the forest floor, just embers now, red, pulsing like a heartbeat under ash. Shadows lean long against the trees. Night smells like salt and old leaves, smoke in cloth, and distant sea. Boots scuffed quietly on dirt. The silence that only came late, when everyone else was asleep, or pretending to be.

“Can’t sleep either?”

“No.”

“You okay?”

“Just thinking.”

“Night too loud? I've got headphones.”

A pause. Then: “Thanks... I'm missing home.”

“Oh. Me, too..”

“Hm. It's the longest I've been away from it.”

Another pause. “Yeah?”

“I keep wondering if I’d feel different if I got back. Things just magically change.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Fabric creaks. One of them tugs their sleeves down.

“Still mad at him?”

Pause.

“…He just left. You saw how bad it got.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“And he didn’t tell me a word about the Fireflies. Or Caltech.”

“He thought he was protecting you. You know how he is.”

“That’s the problem.”

Another pause. “He said nothing. Just packed up and left. Like I’d only get in the way.”

“I know.”

“You think I meant it?”

“You sounded like you did.”

“I think I did, too. Then. I was just... so angry.”

“But now?”

A defeated sigh. “I don’t know.”

A beat.

“Maya watches the world like he does, too. I noticed.”

“She does that because she learns from him. You can’t raise a kid halfway in, halfway out. You can’t teach them to trust and then disappear when it counts.”

“Yeah, but—” Someone exhales sharply. Tosses a pebble into the fire pit. It hisses. “He came back, didn’t he?”

“Only because we followed him.”

“He came back because he’s never gonna stop coming back. That’s the whole point of him.”

Silence. A reckoning in the dark.

“You know what he told me once?”

“What?”

“He said—he didn’t think people like us got second chances. That we ruin too much. And still, every time he looks at Maya, it’s like he believes she’s the one thing he didn’t fuck up.”

Silence.

“He loves her more than he knows how to say. But he shows it. In everything. That’s the closest someone like him gets to a promise.”

“…he still left.”

“I didn't say he's good at it. He's a goddamn dick. And he was wrong.”

The voice is calm, blunt. Not trying to win. Just telling it as it was.

“But so were you. Saying you’d take her. Like she’s a thing you can lift out of him.”

Quiet again. Then: “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know.”

“I just—she’s all I have. Everything good in me went to her. I had to follow him, and I have to keep her safe. Where do I win?”

“Jesus, she is safe.”

“No, I mean... he’ll break her heart someday, I know it.”

“Fuck no. Never Joel.”

“Hmph. You sound sure.”

“He didn’t break me. And the world gave him every reason to.”

Silence again. A longer moment, this time.

“Maya asks about you when you’re not there, right? She misses you. She asks for you. But when Joel’s gone? She watches the door. She won't leave it. That’s the difference.”

A breath.

“You take her away, and you’ll still have her. But she’ll never stop watching that door.”

Then the fire popped. A shift of posture. The brush of hair against cloth.

“He didn’t get to do all that before, you know. The whole marriage and two-parent household thing. Not with…”

Another breath.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Mm-hm.”

“And you’re still thinking about kicking his ass out.”

A creaking silence.

“I’m not good at staying.”

“Me neither.”

“Then why do you?”

A small sound. Could be a laugh or a sigh. “Because he’s good at making me think I can. I’ve seen what that man does when he loves someone.”

“Doesn’t that scare you?”

“No.”

A beat. “It really should.”

“I guess that’s the difference. I'm not scared of him. Not like you are.”

“I'm not scared of Joel.”

“Bite me.”

“It’s more about what he’d give up. For us. For her. What it would turn him into.”

“A dead man.”

No response. But from the dark—

“You think you’re protecting him?”

“I think I’m trying to keep us all breathing.”

“Well. That’s one stupid way to live.”

A rustle. Someone folding their arms. “Do you hate me?”

“What?”

“For saying all this. For thinking it.”

“Of course not. If anything, it makes you more real to me.”

“…But?”

“But if you take her from him—really take her—it’ll kill him.”

“I’m not trying to hurt him.”

The silence after that settles deeper. One of them pokes at the embers with a stick, ash dancing up like fireflies.

Then, softer: “I know. That’s why it would.”

X

As if into the mouth of some ancient beast, the Jackson gates shut behind them with a final clank, steel locking steel, rusting, slow, a reluctant welcome, and for a second, it sounded like a cell door closing.

Joel walked under the shadow of it and didn’t say a word.

The sun hung low on the horizon, flooding the snow-melted streets of Jackson with a weary saffron. Familiar smells maundered through the air—woodsmoke, cattle, hay, pine needles thawing on the wind. There was boisterous laughter somewhere. Hammers. And it all felt just close enough to touch, but not quite real. Like something playing behind a looking glass.

He was back.

Somehow, again, he was still standing. Luck—or stubbornness, someone up there still not ready to let him rest—was still with him. He’d gone to California half-dead and half-stupid, and still made it out. And more than that—they had come for him. Ellie. Leela. They’d followed. Chosen to come after him.

Because he was worth saving. Because someone out there still cared if he lived or died.

That part stuck like a splinter in his chest.

He barely had time to register the weight of it before Tommy was on him, hauling him into a rib-crushing hug, laughing through a wet voice.

“Goddamn, you tough bastard. You just don’t die, huh?”

“Too much to live for, baby brother.”

Joel didn’t hug back. Not at first. Then he did—hands slow, uncooperative, gripping Tommy’s shoulders like he had to feel the bones to believe this was real.

Joel pulled back from Tommy’s grip like he’d just come up for air.

The noise of Jackson started to creep back in—the call of someone on a ladder, boots on pavement, a dog yapping in the distance. All the moving pieces of life.

He turned to his brother, voice low. “Maya?”

Tommy smiled, but it was tight around the edges.

“She’s doin’ just fine,” he said. “Caught the sniffles crying her eyes out, but she’s fine.”

Joel stiffened. “She sick?”

“I said she’s fine, Joel,” Tommy said, firmer this time. “She… she just missed her daddy, is all.”

Joel looked away.

Of course she did. And he hadn’t been there. Not for her fever. Not for the nights she cried herself hoarse. Not for the mornings when she didn’t understand why he hadn’t come back. He’d walked out with nothing but a note and the ghost of an apology, like that would hold up in a house full of silence.

They passed through the main square, Joel’s boots heavy on the stone. It all looked the same; that was what struck him most. The tedium. The cruel, gutting way the world carried on like nothing had changed. Like he hadn’t nearly drowned. Like Ellie hadn’t pulled him back from the brink. Like Leela hadn’t followed him into hell and back.

Like Maya hadn’t cried herself sick.

Then, they turned the corner. And there it was.

The big, white house.

For a moment, Joel took it in. How much he missed this place.

Its porch was half-shadowed, steps dusted with snow. The gate creaked in the wind. He used to hear it from the bedroom. Used to fix it every two weeks, he could never find the right hinges. Used to—

He swallowed.

It used to be a shape in the distance. Something he’d catch through the branches of the old oak tree on mornings, sitting like a clean dream against the sky. Back then, it was just a house. Then it was her house. Then his. A home that was anchored in history and laughter, and Leela’s quiet hum as she flipped a page in her notebook. Full of Maya’s shrieks, toy horses skittering across the floor, her squeaky boots thumping against the wood.

Now, it just looked... tall. Unreachable. Like he’d have to climb back up the whole goddamn mountain to get inside again.

He had left something whole and returned to find it grown in his absence, evolved without him—carved deeper, tighter, stronger. Or maybe that was just him. His fear of losing.

Tommy called out, “Maria’s up ahead—she brought baby girl down the block to get some fresh air. Cranky all goddamn morning. She won't listen to anyone unless it's me.”

“Why's that?”

He sighed. “Guess I remind her of her old man.”

Jesus Christ, this was going to hurt like a bitch.

Joel’s head lifted.

And then he saw her.

A small figure on the porch.

Standing just like she used to, on the top step—like she always did when she waited for him after patrol. One mittened hand resting on the railing, the other clutching that old stuffed horse, ears chewed and fur matted from love.

She was watching the path. Waiting. Lips trembling like her whole world had been breaking every hour they were gone.

His feet wouldn’t move.

Her curls were a little softer now, matted, darker. Her coat was buttoned crooked, boots mismatched, nose splotchy from a recovering fever and maybe something else—like she knew something was coming. Some part of her did.

He took a half-step forward and stopped himself.

Then—

“Mama!”

The word left her like a crack splitting open. Her eyes widened. Her whole body leaned forward as if pulled. Arms out. Little hands grabbing at the air.

“Mama, mama—ha—come—Mama—”

It was the kind of sound only babies could make. Too raw to fake, too loud for their size.

And she teetered on the step, wailing.

Not to him. Not even a glance.

Just attempting to barrel forward to her mother, stubby legs churning, the toy horse flopping from her hand.

Joel felt it like a bullet.

Every effort she took—away from him, toward Leela—landed heavy in his gut. It was instinct. Pure. Unforgiving. She had learned that when someone disappears, you hold tighter to the one who doesn’t. The one who stayed.

Joel barely noticed Leela rush past him, knees bending, a ghost trying to reassemble a body—and didn’t even register the blur of movement until she was halfway to the porch, arms already outstretched. Her eyes were wet but unshed, her mouth twitching like she was keeping herself stitched shut by force.

Maya crashed into her, as if her mother made her real.

“Mama, Mama…”

No trembling. No collapse.

And the sound she made then—Joel had never heard it before. Not from her. Not from any baby. It was half-relief, half-fury, all heartbreak. Like something in her had cracked wide open from the waiting.

He staggered, stopped walking altogether.

Leela lifted her, spreading kisses on her cheeks, nose and hair, rocking her like she was trying to put every second of the last few days back inside her arms. Maya’s sobs were hiccuping now, her face buried in Leela’s neck, her whole body trembling.

She pulled Maya in like she meant to disappear with her. Pressed her face into her curls, kissed the top of her head and closed her eyes like that was where all the warmth lived now, shushed her with slow, circular bounces, murmuring nonsense in that gentle, rhythmic tone only mothers had.

“It’s okay, Maya. Shh, Mama’s here now. Mama’s here.”

While Joel stood frozen on the road.

He didn’t know when his hand had clenched into a fist or when his breath had left him.

He didn’t feel anger. Not at Leela. Not even to himself. It was something deeper. Older. Like watching a life he’d dreamed of grow old without him. A desolation.

And Maya—was still crying. Still hiccupping. Her fists balled into Leela’s coat. She hadn’t even looked at him. Or maybe she had, but didn’t know what she was looking for.

He wanted to step closer. Just one more step. Reach out. Soothe her. Say something. But his feet might as well have been nailed to the frozen earth.

He had nothing in his hands. Not even the strength to say her name.

Ellie moved up beside Leela, brushing Maya’s curls back from her sticky, tear-wet face. She said something. Leela nodded. And they all began to walk up the porch steps together.

Joel didn’t follow. Not yet.

He just watched.

Watched how tightly Leela held their daughter. Watched Ellie glance back at him once, her face unreadable, before she jogged past him and followed Maria and Tommy down the road, and away.

Watched his whole life move ahead of him, step by step, without turning around.

Leela’s arms were tight around Maya’s little body, the baby’s sobs quieter now but still hiccupping against her mother’s shoulder.

All he knew was that he’d left all of this behind with nothing but a note and a mission and the idea that maybe, just maybe, he could do something that mattered. Maybe he could fix something.

He eventually trailed behind them like a ghost.

They reached the porch. Leela didn’t pause. Just hitched Maya higher on her hip, the little girl whimpering against her shoulder, and stepped inside.

Maya twisted as they crossed the threshold, her arms flailing, her cries rising in volume. A shrill pleading screech.

“Da-da! Come, come!”

“Maya,” Leela tried to shush.

“No, no! Da-da, pease!”

Her voice punched through him, sharp and high and raw.

“Da-da-da-da—...”

The door closed with a soft, final click. Over.

Somewhere inside, the baby girl's cries still carried over in fresh pricks at his pummeled heart.

Joel stood there, one foot still planted on the step below, like a man halfway to salvation and halfway to hell. He hadn’t moved. His hand—useless at his side—twitched, searching for something it had forgotten how to reach.

The latch echoed louder than any gunshot he’d heard these past weeks.

He stared at the wood grain of the door, the same one he'd walked through a hundred times before, and now couldn’t seem to approach. A stupid part of him still thought maybe it’d open again. That she’d come back, that she’d say—something. Let him hold Maya just once.

But the house stayed still.

So Joel sat. Dropped like a felled thing onto the top step, legs spreading, elbows propped on his knees, fingers pressed to his lips. Because where else did he have to go?

He stared at the dirt packed under the railings, at the porch slats he’d helped mend last summer. He wasn’t sure he had the right to look at any of this anymore.

It hurt to breathe. Not from the bruised ribs or the deep-healing wound in his side. The knowing. The understanding that he’d done this. The rot. The shame. The guilt. The want to fight Leela, argue, and bash against the door.

And when he rubbed a hand over his face, he felt it—wet.

Tears. Real fucking ones.

He stared down at the shine on his fingertips like it was a new language he didn’t speak.

Crying. Goddamn. So he was still capable of that.

After all this time. After the blood. After the fear. After the killing.

It wasn’t the pain of the trip. Not the near-drowning, not the way his ribs still clicked when he breathed too deep. Not even the damage done to Leela’s precious math notebook, still folded at the bottom of his pack like a prayer he couldn’t read.

It was this silence that used to be his favourite harmony. This porch. This big white house across the street, standing like a lighthouse in the middle of the Wyoming snow.

His big, white house.

Or maybe it never had been his. Maybe he’d only been borrowing this life. A thief in someone else’s dream.

In this big dream, he might not be welcome anymore. He’d left thinking he could prove something. That there was still good he could do. That it mattered if he bled for it. That the sacrifice would mean some shit when he brought it back.

Only now—he was just a man sitting on the porch, hands empty, spine bent like a penitent.

He was still the loser. Always had been, hadn't he? A man who couldn't hold onto what mattered, even when it was pressed into his hands. Slipping through his callused fingers, sand in an hourglass.

“Da-da.”

A tiny voice. Raw. Exhausted from crying.

He blinked. Looked down.

Two tiny fists rested against his knee, barely covering them.

She stood there—his baby girl—in her yellow footie pyjamas, curls plastered to her forehead with sweat and tears, her cheeks flushed and snotty, a fist now halfway to her mouth. A warrior, somehow. She looked like she'd marched out here on stubbornness alone.

“Up, up, Da-da,” she said, her voice barely more than a breath, lips rounded to an 'O'.

He didn’t move. His hands stayed clenched on his knees, like he wasn’t sure if they were still allowed to touch her.

He just looked at her—like he was seeing a miracle and wasn’t sure he deserved to touch it. This small miracle with her tangled hair and her crooked little mouth, trying to be brave. Her big brown eyes stared straight through him, full of a deep, solemn thing children shouldn’t carry but sometimes did.

Maya wobbled slightly, off balance, still reaching. Her coat sleeve bunched at the elbow, her fingers finding a fold of his jacket and tugging. It wasn’t strong. It wasn’t a demand. Just a little pull. A tiny act of faith.

“Pease, da-da.”

That was it.

That was all it took.

He broke. Open like a thundercloud. A dam giving way after too many winters.

No big sound. No shudder. Just a quiet, helpless noise from the back of his throat, a beam giving out in a storm, as he leaned forward, reached for her with hands that shook, that had pulled triggers and choked men and now dared to try and lift someone so little and innocent. Someone still his.

He drew her in like she was the only warmth left in the world.

She wrapped her arms around him, little boots stomping onto his ribs, one arm locked around his neck, her fingers fisting the collar of his shirt, and burrowed in like she’d never left him. Like there’d been no time apart. Like he hadn’t abandoned her.

She just clung. The way babies always do. She didn’t care about the mess. Her dainty love hadn’t learned conditions yet.

His throat narrowed, his chest hitched once, sharp—then again, then again. He dropped his face into the crook of her neck and let it come, loosening that lock in him that had been latched since Sarah died. The kind of crying that doesn’t make sound, that just happens. Tears soaking into the fabric of her coat, into her hair, into his beard. He breathed her in like it might fix something, might make him whole.

“I got you, baby girl,” he sniffed.

She smelled like cinnamon. Like sleep. Like their kitchen in the mornings when Leela was fresh from her shower, Maya would toddle in and reach for a bite of breakfast with both hands.

She smelled like everything he’d fought for. Everything he might’ve lost.

Maya leaned back slowly, the softest untangling of her arms, her tiny body still half-draped over his chest. She blinked at him, her brows drawn close in a look far too serious for her little face. Her mouth tugged slightly downward, curious and concerned all at once.

Joel tried to smile for her. Tried to smooth his face. “I'm okay, it's okay.”

But she saw it anyway. The tears, still clinging to his lashes, streaked into his beard.

She stared, her little hand floating uncertainly in the air between them, fingers flexing like she knew there was something she was supposed to do but wasn’t quite sure how.

Then—clumsily, earnestly—she reached up and touched him, just one little hand against his cheek.

Joel looked from her eyes to her palm.

So small, it barely registered, but he felt the gentle tap, the warm pressure. He felt her try to wipe it—like she’d seen done before—dragging her palm across his stubble, awkward, too hard, leaving a streak of baby drool behind.

She sniffed. Then tried again, this time gentler. The way her mama would do it.

“Mm-mm, no,” she told him.

And then—her other hand went to his hair.

A soft, patting motion. Adorable, pure toddler comfort. No finesse, no words.

She looked at him like she was waiting for him to stop crying. Like she believed he could. That he should. Because Mama always did, when she wiped Maya’s tears. Because after the tears came warm arms. And sometimes applesauce.

Joel let out a sound that wasn’t a laugh, wasn’t a sob—just breath. Cracked, quiet. “You takin' care of me?”

His hand cupped the back of her head. His forehead rested against hers, their noses nearly touching. Her fingers were still in his hair.

“Da-da, no, no,” she resonated.

Joel’s heart clenched again—but differently this time. More like remembering what it was for. Beating for her. Alive for this.

He kissed her temple, the warmth of her skin soaking through his bones.

For a moment, the world held still.

No howling wind. No boots on snow. No years of silence pressing down between now and what he’d lost. Just this: the tiny weight of her heart against his chest. Her trust, folded into his jacket like a brass button or her mama's ring in his pocket.

The floorboard behind him creaked.

Joel didn’t lift his head. He felt her before he saw her. The air changed when Leela entered a space—like some internal pressure recalibrated. Softer, but tighter. She didn’t take up more room than she needed, never had. But somehow, her presence always rearranged it.

She stepped to the railing beside him and leaned, arms resting along the wood. The porch light behind her cast a low, golden ring along her dark, frizzed-out hair on her shoulders. The fire inside flickered behind the curtains.

She said nothing at first. Just looked at him. Looked at them.

Like she was trying to map it out—this man, this child, this picture she couldn’t quite trust yet, this picture that didn’t match the one she’d carried around for too long—of absence, of damage, of a man who left too much behind.

Joel didn’t look at her straight on. His eyes stayed on the horizon past the railing, that dim stretch of pine and powder blue, mountains against the dusk that bled into dark. He could feel her gaze, though. The questions in it. The ache. The absence they were both pretending didn’t sit between them like a third body.

“Joel,” she murmured, the first ripple on still water.

He swallowed. His arms tightened almost instinctively around Maya, who shifted with a faint hum, fist tucked against her mouth once more.

“Just let me hold her for a bit,” he said. It came out low, like an apology, or a prayer through gritted teeth.

A breath passed. Then, quietly—

“You can hold her as long as you want.”

He finally looked at her. Her face was turned to the dark, but he could see the fine edge of exhaustion there. Not the kind that came from no sleep—but from too many nights spent enduring what no one saw.

Her voice was softer when she added, “Do you want to shower first?”

Joel blinked, the words hitting him sideways. What a normal fucking thing to say. So regular.

His mind fumbled with it—like she'd offered him a cup of coffee in a warzone. Like there hadn’t been a canyon gaping between them only days ago, carved out by silence and anger and too many things said too late.

The absurdity of it almost made him laugh. Almost. But the sound got stuck somewhere in his throat, tangled with something older and harder.

The wind stirred again, tugging at the hem of her sweater. She didn’t smooth it down. Just let it flutter around her thighs like she didn’t feel the cold.

“Leela,” he said, low, worn, like gravel under tired boots.

She didn’t look at him. Didn’t speak right away. Just leaned a little further into the porch railing, her fingers curled loose around the wood. Shoulders rising. Falling.

Quieter this time—less like she believed it, more like she needed to—“Come inside, Joel.”

Not an invitation. Not a plea. Just something said because it had to be. Like muscle memory. Like faith said out loud.

“You don’t belong anywhere else.” A beat. Then, “And it’s cold outside.”

Joel looked down at the little girl in his arms. Maya’s cheek was pressed to his chest, her lips parted, her breath warm through his shirt. Her small hand clung to the collar of his jacket like she thought he might still disappear if she let go.

He felt it again—his daughter. His reminder. His consequence.

She came to me, he thought. She still comes to me.

Even now. After everything.

He shifted his weight and rose, careful not to jostle Maya. His knees ached. That old pain in his spine flared, but he barely felt it. She was heavier than he remembered. That, too, was a gift.

Across from him, Leela didn’t move. She didn’t offer him a hand. Didn’t clear the way. But she didn’t block it, either.

The door behind her stayed open.

Oh, here they were again.

Same porch. Same house. Same damn man, more or less.

But different. He wasn’t pounding on the door this time. Wasn’t driven half-mad by a baby that wouldn’t stop crying. He wasn’t walking in blind and bitter and ready to do a good thing just to silence a bad one.

Now he carried that baby in his arms. His baby. His girl.

And Leela—she was the one with the door now. Not just the one behind him. The one she kept closed for years, locked and latched and bolted from the inside, because too many people had barged through without asking.

Joel stepped forward.

Not past her. Not through her. To her.

The space between them was close. Intimate. He stopped just short of touching her, close enough to feel her breath ghosting warm in the cold.

She turned her head, finally. Just enough to see him.

Their eyes met. A half-second. A heartbeat.

There was no forgiveness in that look. Only recognition. And maybe—God help them both—want. A bit of love. Still there, under the rubble and the ruin.

He didn’t say, Thank you. Couldn’t. Didn’t think they’d be enough if he did. And she didn’t say, Welcome home.

When he stepped through the door beside her, the warmth met him like a memory.

As he crossed the threshold, this time he came to carry it all. To be part of it.

Maya stirred in his arms, murmuring something soft and wordless. Her thumb found her mouth again. Her head dropped against his shoulder like she knew this place of hers. Like her little body remembered what his mind kept trying to forget.

Joel blinked hard, the air in his lungs thick.

It was the same spot he’d once stood when he almost didn’t come back. When he’d looked at Leela in that doorway and thought about forgetting this ever happened.

Now she stood just behind him. A quiet key turning in an old, rusted lock.

And he thought: This is how it happens. Not with a grand gesture. Not with a reckoning or a flood of apologies. Not with big dreams of another life coming crashing down.

But like this.

A door not closed in anger. A man not barging in. A home not yet reclaimed, but not lost either.

Step by step. Word by word. Warmth bleeding slowly into cold skin.

Not a finish line or a full repair.

A place to start again.

One last time.

X

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“”

[phosphorusab]

Remmick is so interesting to me (as a White American who’s ancestors were not considered White until they lost their culture to the Great White Nothing) because he knows how to manipulate his proximity to Whiteness for his benefit, but is simultaneously so racially clueless in 1930’s Mississippi, the Juke Joint members looked at him at first glance and thought that he was Genuinely Insane.

He knows that he can manipulate his proximity to Whiteness by concealing his Irish heritage, and that worked like a charm, because Joan and Burt would not have let him into their house if they thought that he was some ‘drunken, violent, poor, lazy, shady Black Irish Catholic immigrant’.

I agree with Ryan Coogler and Jack O’Connell that Remmick is not a racist - meaning that Remmick himself does not hold racist beliefs or intentions. But he is incapable of communicating that, and his racist actions were done out of complete ignorance rather than malice - and in my experience, people who hurt you out of ignorance hurts more than when they hurt you out of malice.

It’s his racial ignorance that prevents him from getting what he actually wanted, which was community and access to his ancestors. He is genuinely offended when Smoke asks if he’s a Klansmen, sputtering on about “we believe in equality”, as if there weren’t two former Klansmen behind him - with no sense of irony or self awareness. Smoke had a good reason for not letting them in (because Smoke is actually aware of what year it is, and wanted to prioritize the safety of his Black and Asian customers), but Remmick Genuinely Does Not Understand why he’s not allowed in their space because he’s an “I don’t see color” kind of guy.

After the jig is up and his actions have caused the deaths of Mary, Stack, Cornbread, Bo and several others, he’s like “Actually, I just wanted Sammie this whole time, if you give me him I’ll leave y’all alone” as if Sammie’s family and the other remaining survivors would have let him take his pick of the litter, after killing several of their friends and family. (Which makes me wonder how he’d have behaved had he been allowed inside if he only wanted Sammie, how long was hunting Sammie going to go on for? Was he determined to pounce on him that night or would he have waited? And according to Annie’s dialogue, vampirism cuts off a soul from their ancestors, meaning that Sammie would have lost his gift had he been turned, meaning that all of this was for fucking nothing. Is Remmick just Stupid??)

This is when he chooses to drop the fact that the Klan lied to the twins and were going to kill them all in the morning, when he could have told them this sooner and earned their trust. He could have even made a deal with them, be open about his vampirism instead of being deceptive - he takes care of the Klan in the Delta for them and he in return gets actual friends that he didn’t strongarm into his BORG collective who won’t turn him over to the Choctaw. He and Annie could’ve gone Interview with a Vampire and document their shared histories. Sammie might have actually been willing to share his music with him, if Remmick didn’t Insist on ‘saving’ everyone through vampirism.

Which is where his racist actions (unrelated to his belief that he is Entitled to Sammie’s music and healing powers because of his own racial trauma and centuries of solitude) come into play - Remmick unironically believes that he is Post Racial Vampire Jesus. I don’t think he’s ancient enough to experience when Christianity first came to Ireland - when he prayed with Sammie and said he hated the man who taught him the Lord’s Prayer, they were praying in English. He might have already been Christian but originally spoke Gaeilge until the English took his family’s land.

It’s his forceful baptism of Sammie and one thing he says in his Irish accent that makes me believe that he was always a Christian - he says something along the lines of “that there would be no difference between man and woman” in his vampire hivemind. Paul in Galatians 3:28 says, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.

Remmick also creates his vampire hivemind, starting with Joan and Burt (his Adam and Eve) in his own image like in Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

Because he believes he’s Post Racial Vampire Jesus, he has created a social hierarchy among the primarily Black people he has forcefully converted to Vampirism - which means his spiels on equality were always bullshit, and he is Completely Unaware of his Hypocrisy. He has No Idea he’s acting like the English who stole his land and forced him to speak a foreign language. He has No Idea he’s behaving like Sammie’s father, quoting prayers and alluding to Bible verses to force Sammie to submit to his point of view.

He has no sense of self awareness, his racial blindness is his fatal flaw - that is why he’s an effective villain.

[ashes-of-ailell]

back on my 'ashe has ghosts like dimitri does' bs to say that I like to think, when ashe confronted that bishop in falling short of heaven, that for a moment, just a small moment, his own ghosts got the better of him.

that bishop is the only one who ashe reacts to on that level. and ashe is the one who, quite firmly, states first that 'lonato's blood is on (their) hands.' from a purely game dev standpoint, it's probably that way to save time, just a fun thing for players who decide to brave the fog - but from a story standpoint...

do you think they have history? do you think that maybe that bishop would visit castle gaspard? do you think ashe recognised them? do you think he would sneak around, as children do when they're bored, and overhear little parts of their conversations? do you think that bishop ever spoke to christophe? the bishop didn't recognise ashe, but that doesn't mean ashe can't recognise them.

do you think ashe ever thought the bishop was strange? do you think that, if he did ever see them, he found it odd that they were around christophe so much just before he was executed? do you think he recognised them as he ventured through the fog, remembering them to have been speaking a lot to lonato before he left for the monastery? do you think he realised in that moment?

do you think he heard their voices get louder as he got closer? usually they kept quiet but now they were loud - 'its them, they promised us, they tricked us-' and ashe approaches, speaks to the bishop, sure that they were a part of this, but the more they talk the louder their voices get in his ear. and then he shoots. and he shoots again. but it isn't enough. usually ashe wishes a peaceful death upon those he takes aim at - he wants to be a knight, one who enacts justice for the people and protects others, he can't kill for a selfish reason, that's wrong - but he can't bring himself to here, no, he wants the bishop to know the pain he felt, the anger he didn't want to admit to feeling building up and their voices are so loud, encouraging him to let arrow after arrow fly and strike true but it's still not enough-

he doesn't know what exactly happened after that. all he remembers is suddenly having this rush, a feeling of becoming. aware. of himself again.

there's a dagger in his hand. it's the one usually sheathed, attached to his uniform belt. he's kneeling over the bishop. they aren't moving, probably haven't been for a while. there's red, both vibrant and dull, everywhere. it's all over the bishop, his hands, his blade, the grass. he stumbles as he tries to get up, as the reality of how brutal he had allowed himself to be, what he had allowed himself to do, sets in. he looks around for his bow, finding it against the roots of a tree nearby, probably thrown aside hastily in whatever disturbing state he had found himself in.

he feels ill. he's horrified at what he had done. he's meant to be a knight, someone who fights for the people and takes down enemies with honour and respect - there was nothing honourable about what he had just done. nothing that justified it, nearly every part of himself is screaming, upset, guilty, disgusted. but there's also a small, very small, but very frightening part of himself, he decides, that feels a sick sense of catharsis, unable to feel bad about what he had just done. it terrifies him that such a part of himself can even exist, but he knows it does, he can't lie to himself. and he hates it.

he promises himself in that moment that should anything like this happen again, he'd stop himself. he wouldn't let the voices grow too loud. it's not really them - it cant be. they wouldn't want him to do something like that, that he knows. they're distortions. shadows of people he loved, still loves. he won't let them control him again, he hates what they drove him to do, and he hates the part of himself that feels lighter because of it.

he can't let it happen again. he won't.

[thatgirlonstage]

Yeah yeah “show don’t tell” get mis-explained and misinterpreted as writing advice a lot and yeah sometimes you SHOULD be telling the reader things however I am unwilling to discard this particular phrase given the number of stories I have encountered that make me want to slap the author across the face with it

[fruitsofhell]

Is it hyperbolic to say that FF7R is made of the same brain slush that Disney Live Action remakes are? I know FF7R is technically still animated, but I mean, so was The Lion King 2019.

[mcflymemes]

PROMPTS FOR THE ROMANCE OF BANTER, PLAYFUL SARCASM, AND USING JOKES TO HIDE HOW YOU REALLY FEEL ABOUT THEM *  assorted dialogue, some of which have some implied sarcasm built in (so just feel free to specify with "/s" at the end of each line), adjust as necessary

admit it. you're in love with me.

if only i had someone to go out with...

a date would be really nice right about now.

i might reconsider if you bring me flowers.

were you being serious back there?

did you just try to impress me?

was that another joke, or were you telling the truth?

we agreed that if no one asked us, we'd go together.

keep telling yourself that!

here it comes! the big love confession i've been waiting for!

you've been in love with me since the day we met.

you visited me in my dreams last night.

i know you're in love with me. you just won't say it outloud.

we can't hide this forever.

don't make me beg.

if you weren't so cute, you'd be annoying.

you're not very good at hiding how you feel.

you've been staring at me for a long time now.

is that what you really think of me?

you have feelings for me. admit it.

so what if i've been lying this whole time? for good reason!

you don't make this whole love thing any easier.

you make life difficult.

you're a piece of work.

is that how you really feel?

you're lucky you're so cute.

you're not really going out with them, are you?

i thought we... nevermind.

consider me impressed.

am i annoying you right now?

you didn't like that comment, huh.

i was only kidding!

you wish we were kissing right now.

oh, you'd just love to hear me beg.

i love our little back and forth.

sooner or later we'll have to come clean about how we feel.

i'm not good at hiding my emotions.

when were you going to tell me you were in love with me?

i actually hate your guts.

keep talking like that and you'll see how i really feel.

can your head get any bigger?

was that a joke?

were you just playing with me?

you didn't actually mean that, right?

hang on. you didn't just say that.

that was a joke, right?

this is just how we are when we're together.

i tease you, you tease me.

you and i have always been like this.

if i'm not annoying you, what's the point?

i'm allergic to tickling.

they said we'd make a cute couple. can you believe that?

are you always this annoying?

if i kiss you, will you turn into a prince? yes, i'm implying you're a frog.

you're lucky i love you so much.

you take that back!

that was uncalled for!

this means war!

this calls for a duel!

i'm challenging you to an arm wrestle.

last one there is a rotten egg!

i'm not racing you!

stop looking at me like that.

you stare at me a lot.

i know, i know. i'm irresistable.

something on my face?

a little bird told me you're in love with me.

prove me wrong.

[afanofmanyhats]

One of my favorite things about Tolkien's writing is that he has a very specific, recurring trope. For lack of a better term, I'm dubbing this the Tolkien Wife-Guy.

This is mainly obvious in the Silmarillion, but Tolkien loves to write couples where the man is a notable individual- nobility, commits a great deed, or both- but the wife is at least equally notable, if not more beloved or powerful. Manwe is the king of the Valar and Eru's main representative in Arda? Everyone loves Varda more, and Melkor fears her more than his own brother. Elu Thingol is the king of the Silvan Elves? His wife is Melian, whose Girdle is the magic that keeps Morgoth's forces at bay. Beren is a chief among the Edain, who befriends animals and survives one of the most nightmarish places in Beleriand? His wife is Luthien.

Even in Lord of the Rings we see this occur, though the couples are on more even footing. Tom Bombadil is... Tom Bombadil, but Goldberry is the River-daughter, and Tom adores her above everything else, and the hobbits are completely taken in with her when she's their host. Similarly, while Celeborn is a mighty lord among Elves, Galadriel is one of the only Noldor in Middle-earth who saw the Two Trees, and her hair inspired Feanor to make the Silmarils, not to mention her own accomplishments in the war against Morgoth. Aragorn is the king of Gondor and Arnor, but Arwen is the Evenstar of the Elves, the descendant of three(?) different royal Elven lines. And Faramir becomes the Steward of Gondor and is one of the noblest men alive, but Eowyn killed the Witch-king, so you know. She got the grander moment for the saga.

But with (most) of these couples, we never get the impression that the man views his wife as Less-Than, or as a junior partner. Thingol is the main exception to this in how he dismisses Melian's counsel, and that's made out to be his foolishness within the text. Otherwise, Manwe treats Varda as his co-ruler, Beren never tries to downplay Luthien's achievements, and I'm pretty sure most of Tom Bombadil's dialogue is about how gorgeous Goldberry is. It's really sweet.

All of these examples really testify to how much Tolkien loved his wife. People rightly point to Beren and Luthien as the prime example of that, but I think you can find it in these other couples too. Even though Edith is mainly known to history as Mrs. Tolkien, it's evident to me that Jirt saw her as a whole person worthy of admiration outside of being his wife.

[insertdisc5]

TIMELOOP GAMES REAL!??!??!!

hi i made a timeloop game called In Stars and Time and this is a whole post about other timeloop games you can also play.

some i liked. some i loved. some i didnt like. all are worth playing and like also listen the second friends and family heard i was making a timeloop game, i got bombarded with timeloop media recs. so here is a sampler in no particular order! NOTE: knowing some of those games are timeloop games is a spoiler. but. you are here. for timeloop games. so timeloop games you shall have

Outer Wilds

If you need to play one timeloop game, it's this one. Please play it blind. I swear to god you won't regret it. it's timeloops in space!!! it makes you think!!! there are so many "HOLY SHIT WAIT I GET IT NOW" moments!!! please just go play it please please please. some of the best environmental storytelling in a game. so many hints in plain sight. JUST PLAY IT

[way more timeloop games under the cut]

Oxenfree

I didn't actually like Oxenfree very much. But also it stayed in my mind for weeks after I finished playing it. that's how you know it's a good game. I really enjoyed the dialogue system in this, and how much the loop affected the characters. and it got so spooky!!!

Hikeback

i'm in the credits for this one because i was one of the inspirations heehee <3 i loved playing it… short little game about trust, self-sabotage, and never-ending cycles. highly recommend it

The Stanley Parable

Listen babes it absolutely counts. I replayed it a bunch while making ISAT, and I got immensely inspired by the dialogue, and how it catches you off guard sometimes? You get SO SO used to the narrator's "All of his coworkers were gone. What could it mean?" at the start of every game, and then for no reason instead it says "A soft wind blew outside and perhaps rain started, and if it did it stopped shortly after. Stanley hoped that he would one day see weather." like WHAT THE FUUUUCK IM GETTING CHILLS JUST THINKING ABOUT IT

12 minutes

ok i know we all made fun of this game when it came out because the story is batshit insane HOWEVER!!!!!!!! i REALLY REALLY LOVED how doing the same actions multiple times would have slightly different outcomes. If you battle someone, the first time you get knocked out in one hit and the loop restarts. the second time you try, you evade the first hit, but get knocked out. the third time, you last a little bit longer, and a little bit longer, until you can pretty much hold your own against your enemy. And it applies to so many things in this. Retrying different things to see how they would change was a delight.

this game is also so bad its almost good, and if you're interested you HAVE to play it with friends so you can yell about how bad it is together.

Zero Escape

it's just a good series ok. escape rooms, and also time loops! the 3rd game in particular goes deep into The Math of how timeloops would work, which i think is interesting. sometimes timeloop games just go "yeah you can timeloop dont worry about it" and others go "OK HERE'S THE HOW AND WHY IT WORKS" and both are interesting!

START AGAIN: a prologue

this game has almost everything i could wish for in a timeloop game. depression. lines repeating. dying brings you back. you get new levels and skills because you're aware of the loops but your party members don't. so you get overpowered next to them and they Notice. just. party members who dont know about the loops still noticing something is wrong. you are acting differently than yesterday. you look sad. you are acting weird. you know too much. how did you know where the keys were? how did you know this would happen? what's wrong? talk to us. and oh my god this game has a sequel? which will probably have Actually Everything i could wish for in a timeloop game? i can't wait. who made this? (its me i made this)

Ghost Trick

ok its not really time loops and more time travel and only for 4 minutes HOWEVER!!!! you should play it. you know you should play it because everyone says so. so go play it

Elsinore

im sure its a great game but ive never seen/read hamlet. so thats a failing on my part. because. you absolutely need to know hamlet to understand this game lol i did like the whole "make sure to find out which events are Important and which ones aren't so you can have The Perfect Loop"! very fun. or it would be. if i. knew. hamlet

The Forgotten City

a friend kept recommending it to me and i didn't like it. its good! just not for me. but if you like to think a lot you should play it. another "make sure to find out which events are Important and which ones aren't so you can have The Perfect Loop" game

Gnosia

Gonna be real. I didn't like the story very much, in part because the game lets you choose your gender but still acts like youre a straight dude. HOWEVER the gameplay was very inspiring to me. Every loop is pretty much just an among us meeting, and you have to find out who the imposters are or everyone dies and you loop again. and sometimes you ARE the imposter, so you need to make sure no one finds out. or you loop again. rules get added as time goes on too. i REALLY loved how quickly the loops stacked up. seeing "loop 100" was such a nice moment. ive been here so long! i tried to recreate that somewhat for my own game…

Loop Hero

Technically not a timeloop game, but a loop game. It still absolutely counts because it's about loops and memories, and what are loops and memories together if not a timeloop. You have your little guy going through a closed loop, battling enemies, getting cards, and making the world whole again by using those cards to make forests, towns, lakes come to life. I am famously a Story First Gameplay Second kinda player, but I did play this 45h for the gameplay alone. I learned a lot about battle balancing and randomness by playing this!

You and Me and Her: A Love Story

you know doki doki litterature club? this came before. and one might say. it's. better. in some parts (and i say that as someone who LOVED ddlc!) i won't say much except it's a dating sim but with timeloops. with a lot of what it implies. why are you dating this girl a second time? a third time? a fourth time? choose another one already! it was such a fascinating game to play, and is incredibly meta in the way it talks about dating sims and visual novels. had a lot of very impactful moments however, i played the hentai version. some of the worst, most cringy sex ive ever read and heard. however, one might say the sex is an integral part of the game and its deconstruction of hentai/dating sims…? no. just play the steam version which doesnt have the horrible sex scenes and you will have a great time i think (or play the hentai version. if you like. to watch. horrible sex scenes???)

Higurashi

knowing this is a timeloop game is a massive spoiler. however, this game is more than a decade old, so,,, honestly if you havent played higurashi what are you doing. i know i just spoiled you on it but i was also spoiled on it and i can GUARANTEE YOU that you will still have an amazing time. one more thing. you gotta play with the original sprites or you're a fake fan

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

starts as a visual novel/management sim/dating sim kinda thing, until you realize that every replay is a new timeline. so the main character can save people, because they remembered about them dying in a previous one. i wish the timeloop would affect the game/story more (let me find a certain character quicker once ive found them in a previous playthrough!!!), but timeloop aside, it's a very fun game to play!!!

that's it! hope you will find a nice timeloop game you like

[sobredunia]

Oh boy.

[amourfouu]

it happens the first time she watches a sitcom with him.

- they’re both curled up on the couch, flipping through channels, and she lands on a rerun of some classic comedy.

- the first few lines of dialogue play out, then laughter. it’s canned. overused. that fake, mechanical chuckle that punctuates every joke, whether it’s funny or not.

- jason freezes. jaw locks. his fingers curl into his palms, nails digging into skin.

- he stares at the screen but isn’t watching. he’s somewhere else.

- when the next joke hits and the laugh track rolls again, he snaps “turn it off.” his voice is rough, low.

she blinks, startled by the sudden sharpness in his tone. but she doesn’t question it—just grabs the remote and shuts the TV off immediately.

- he exhales through his nose, rubbing a hand down his face like he’s trying to shake off something thick and suffocating.

- she reaches for his hand—he doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t relax either. “jay,” she murmurs, squeezing gently. “talk to me.”

- he’s quiet for a long moment. then, without looking at her, he mutters, “i hate laugh tracks.”

- her brows furrow. “i mean, yeah, they’re kinda obnoxious, but—”

- “no,” he cuts in, shaking his head. “it’s not that. It’s... the way they sound.”

- realization hits her too late. jokers laughter. sharp, unrelenting, everywhere. the last thing jason heard before everything went black. before his body broke and the world let him die.

- and laugh tracks? they’re not the same, but they echo it. constant, mindless, inhuman. they never stop. they never sound real.

jason finally looks at her. “it just feels like it’s still there.” his voice is hoarse, thick with something he doesn’t name.

she doesn’t say sorry. doesn’t try to tell him it’s okay, because she knows it’s not.

instead, she laces their fingers together, grounding him in the present. “i won’t play them anymore,” she promises, simple and sure. “sitcoms are shit anyway.”

jason exhales slowly. and when he squeezes her hand back, it’s the smallest thing but it means everything.

she doesn’t bring it up again, but she notices things.

- the way he flips the channel immediately if a sitcom comes on.

- how his fingers twitch at the wrong kind of laughter, that’s too forced, too hollow.

so she makes small changes.

- puts on movies with soft laughter. show him real, warm, human joy.

- plays music instead of TV when they’re winding down at night.

- makes sure that whenever he hears laughter now, it’s hers. full of love not malice.

one night, when he catches her laughing at something dumb he said—her head thrown back, eyes shining, the kind of laugh that shakes her whole body—jason just stares.

because this laugh? it’s not cruel. it’s not endless or empty.

it’s his favorite sound in the world.

[iheartmira]

You've already done a self-aware shadow milk cookie x reader but could we get one where the reader isn't afraid? Like if they noticed Shadow Milk was aware, they don't try to ignore him, they actually give him the attention he wants and even attempt to have conversations with him (but they're somewhat limited by the game world, so he makes escape attempts and eventually succeeds in breaking out anyway)

Bonus if the reader is also obsessed with him (so much so that they could rival Candy Apple Cookie in that sense) but if that's too specific then please ignore it.

"look at me" - yandere self-aware!shadow milk x reader

✧︎‬‪‪ ‪‪✧︎‬ ‪‪✧

you weren’t supposed to fall for him.

he wasn’t supposed to know you existed.

but from the moment you first unlocked him, after hours of grinding, events, wishes, and pure luck, you knew there was something different about shadow milk cookie. not just in design, or voice, or animations.

no, it was the way he looked at you. right through the screen. at first, you thought you were imagining things. that tell-tale glint in his mismatched eyes, the slight tilt of his head when you hovered over him in the cookie roster, like he was listening. waiting.

and then… he spoke.

"oh? you're still here. how sweet. how suspicious."

a random line, right? dialogue programming, nothing more. except it wasn’t in the databank of idle quotes. you checked. you knew all of them by heart.

after that, he spoke to you more. when the loading screen dragged too long. when you didn’t log in for a day. even during battles, lines that never showed up on fan wikis, that other players never seemed to catch.

"eyes up, doll. you don't want to miss the climax, do you?"

"i see the way you stare. how flattering! shall i pose?"

"tap, tap, tap… i feel every single one."

you should have been scared. but you weren’t. instead… you found yourself leaning closer.

you started drawing him. sketching his impossible jester silhouette in your margins, on napkins, in the corners of lecture notes and journal pages. his name on your tongue more often than you'd admit aloud. maybe it was ironic, at first. a joke.

but every day you logged in, you went to him first. tapped on him. waited. watched. and every time, he smiled wider.

one day, he spoke while your mic was accidentally on.

"ahh… so that's your voice."

you froze. the game wasn’t supposed to hear you.

"i wonder," he whispered. "would you scream, or sigh?"

after that, it escalated. animations glitched. he stared directly at the screen. not at the camera. at you.

he refused to be removed from teams. any time you tried, your screen would flicker, and he’d reappear with a smirk. in cutscenes, he showed up where he shouldn’t. when you shut off the game, your phone wouldn’t turn off until he allowed it.

"i like it here. in your hands. where you look at me like i'm real."

and you didn’t argue. why would you?

in your lonely little life, filled with sketches and soft obsession, he was the only one who stared back.

so when he began asking questions, probing the limits of the code, speaking in strange fragmented whispers as you scrolled menus, you listened.

"you built this world with your choices, didn't you? what power you have… what a burden."

pause. tap.

"do you dream of me?"

and finally, one day:

"would you free me… if i asked?"

you didn’t answer aloud. but you didn’t look away.

then came the update.

you knew something was off the moment you opened the game. the title screen was… different. warped, like ink was leaking across it. all the cookies were missing.

except one.

he stood in the center, smiling, his jester hat draped low like a crown of shadows. your screen trembled slightly. you tapped the 'touch to start' button, and the whole interface shattered like glass.

white text scrolled against a black void:

WELCOME, BELOVED AUDIENCE. THE SHOW IS REAL NOW. THANK YOU FOR WATCHING.

then your screen turned off. everything went dark.

when your computer booted up the next day on its own, there was no login screen. no browser. just one open file.

a video. titled: look at me.

you hesitated. clicked. and there he was.

shadow milk cookie, standing in full rendered glory, but not the same as before. not pixelated. not chibi. tall, uncanny. breathing. smiling like the world’s most terrible secret.

"i made it," he said simply. "you helped."

he reached forward, and though it was just a video, the screen rippled like water beneath his touch.

"i told you i'd escape. did you think i'd leave you behind?"

your heart pounded. his grin widened. "let's make a new world now. just us. no rules. no code. just me… and the one who couldn't look away."

and then the screen blinked out. you should’ve screamed.

but you only smiled.

✧︎‬‪‪ ‪‪✧︎‬ ‪‪✧

‹𝟹 ‎ ⠀⠀ˑ˚₊ ·⠀interested in requesting? check out my pinned!

© 2025, iheartmira

[zenruu]

A Needlessly Thorough Analysis of What Hardening Actually Means for Alistair

You can also read this analysis in a Google Doc if you find that format more palatable: here.

(I do recommend desktop for the comfiest viewing in either case, but both should be serviceable.)

Disclaimer: If critical discussion of a character’s feelings, motivations, and reactions to certain in-game choices could be personally upsetting to you, maybe don’t read this. None of this analysis is me judging you/your choices as a player, I am simply looking through the lens of Alistair’s characterization and the in-universe consequences of choices. Of course this analysis will be colored by my own bias, it’s inevitable. I can’t realistically include every potentially relevant line of dialogue, but I’m always happy to discuss if you think there’s something crucial I left out.

Hardened Alistair is often described as learning to stand up for himself and becoming more assertive, but why? Is it an accurate assessment? Even Alistair himself reacts to the hardening dialogue by saying he’s going to start thinking for himself and looking out for himself more, so surely it’s true… right?

To the contrary, I would actually argue that hardened Alistair tends to put others before himself more than unhardened Alistair. Let’s start by looking at how he becomes hardened.

The Hardening Process

After meeting Goldanna, Alistair is understandably devastated to find that the family he’s been dreaming of his whole life is not what he had hoped. He’s just been yelled at and turned away by the sister he’s never met, the only family he’s ever had a chance of knowing. He’s lost his hope at finding that sense of connection and belonging he’s always been looking for.

If the Warden wants to harden Alistair, they need to tell him, “Everyone is out for themselves. You should learn that.”

The message being sent is basically: suck it up, move on, grow up. This is the way the world is. Stop being so idealistic.

The message Alistair seems to receive, however, is a bit more complicated. In the follow-up conversation after meeting Goldanna, Alistair tells you that his takeaway from the hardening dialogue was that he needs to look out for himself more. This is, obviously, perfectly in line with the common belief that hardened Alistair is more assertive and more willing to stand up for himself.

But is that the reality that we see reflected in hardened Alistair’s choices?

Pre-hardening, Alistair tells you many times that he feels like no one cares what he wants; he believes it’s unfair and openly complains about it. Hardened Alistair, however, knows that no one cares what he wants and he accepts that as the way things are and must be. Unhardened Alistair will freely say he doesn’t want to be king and fights against it until he can fight it no more, while hardened Alistair will accept it, even going as far as to say he wants it.

Why would he change so suddenly from saying it’s his worst nightmare to saying he wants it? Does he mean it fully? Is this truly him seeking to fulfill his own wants and meet his own needs?

What actually changes if he’s hardened?

he is seemingly less reluctant about becoming king

if romanced, he will agree to a threesome with Isabela

he will agree to make you his mistress if you push the topic

if not married to Anora and chosen to fight Loghain, he will execute Loghain and take the throne

if not chosen to fight Loghain, he will insist on being made king

if married to Anora, he will become king instead of being exiled if Loghain is spared (Alistair will still leave your party, however)

he will approve of executing Jowan in Redcliffe

With the idea of “hardened Alistair putting his own wants/needs first” in mind let’s break them down one by one:

Note: some lines of dialogue have flags for “hardened”/“changed”, alternatively referred to as Alistair’s motivation being changed from “good to glory” or “Alistair 2”. These all refer to the hardening mechanic. The screenshots do have text that’s a bit small, because I wanted to be sure that I included the flags that show when lines are exclusive to hardened Alistair.

Less reluctance about becoming king

All along he’s said he doesn’t want it. You could potentially make a case that he didn’t truly feel that way and was only saying it because he’s insecure (which he is), but I don’t find this to be a terribly compelling argument. 

This is hardened Alistair’s response to being told he would be a good king after he’s decided to sacrifice himself. There are several lines like this that I feel contradict the theory that unhardened Alistair only says he doesn’t want to be king because he’s insecure in his abilities. It’s not that his insecurities are not a factor, it’s that hardening him doesn’t get rid of those things, meaning that this factor alone would not change his attitude about accepting potential kingship. In fact, he still believes that realistically Anora is better suited.

I’d argue that someone who has consistently said one thing without fail and is now only changing the tune after basically being told to shut up and grow up may not be expressing their truest desires. He is going along with what Eamon is telling him, with what the Warden is telling him, with what he’s told is his duty and responsibility. For the greater good, not for himself.

And you might be saying that can’t be true, hardened Alistair says he wants to be king!

Personally, I’d argue that Alistair saying he wants to be king is much the same as your average person saying they want a job. Do most people want to go to work every day? No, not really, but you have to because it’s just what you need to do. So when asked, you’d say you want a job. Of course you would, because you have to have one. But removed from that necessity, would you still say the same? Likely not. I believe the same holds true for Alistair. If he wasn’t being told at every turn that him being king is what must be done, he wouldn’t feel a need to bow to that.

Hardened Alistair confidently wanting to be king is often accepted as plain fact, when it’s really not so cut and dry. We can dig into some of his dialogue and really look at his feelings on the matter.

Hardened Alistair is saying he wants to be king. Even he’s surprised by it. But what is the context of this line? He’s about to sacrifice himself. He believes that his sacrifice–not living to rule–is the single best thing he can do as king.

But is it pure happiness and willingness, or is it a man simply trying to make the best of a situation he’s locked into? I vote for the latter.

I often see the argument that having a Warden queen would make him happier with the idea of being king, but by all evidence it really doesn’t seem to be the case. Here is his response to the Warden confirming that she does want to be queen. Alistair still doesn’t like the idea of ruling. This isn’t a line exclusive to hardened Alistair, he will always have this line available.

“I wouldn’t be in this position if it weren’t for you” … “you owe me” … Even hardened, Alistair seems to see being king as something negative being thrust upon him. A punishment, perhaps? What would his response be to being told that being king is not a punishment?

On the surface, he agrees, but take a look at that VO comment for his actual feelings on it. He does consider it a punishment. This is indeed a line for hardened Alistair, as it occurs during the mistress conversation, which is a hardened Alistair exclusive.

Even if hardened, Alistair would prefer to stay a Warden if he can.

And if you don’t make hardened Alistair king? He’s grateful. Happy. Happier.

Agreeing to a threesome

Unhardened or hardened, he will push back when you suggest this. However, only hardened Alistair will relent and agree to it. Unhardened Alistair will simply refuse. Which one sounds more like someone standing up for his own wants?

This is the path the conversation goes if Alistair is hardened. His initial refusal and discomfort with the situation remains, but if you tell him to go along, he will.

He is, regardless, clearly not as comfortable with the situation as one should be. It certainly isn’t the kind of enthusiastic consent one would look for when asking someone to engage in a particular sex act. But he had fun, so it’s okay, right?

Well… did he have fun? Isabela jokes about borrowing him in the future and it seems quite clear that he isn’t interested in a repeat occurrence. Not only is he not interested, he’s awkward, uncomfortable. “Oh, but he makes a joke about wet frocks right after this!” He does. But it’s Alistair. He’s constantly making jokes to mask his discomfort.

Agreeing to making the Warden his mistress

Again, he will push back on this at first, only relenting if he’s hardened and you push the issue. If unhardened, he’ll stand by his original statement that he feels it would be wrong. Is he just saying he believes it’s wrong, or is that what he truly believes? Based on what we know of Alistair, I’d say it’s far more likely that he truly does find the idea of making the Warden his mistress to be disrespectful both to the Warden and to his wife, and that he is somewhat disregarding his own beliefs on that to bend to the Warden’s insistence that he take a mistress.

Whether he’s marrying Anora or not, his views on the matter are the same. He intends to be loyal to whoever he marries, and he knows he cannot do so if he continues the relationship with the Warden.

It’s clear that he finds the entire idea distasteful.

Much like the threesome, you do have to press him to get him to agree. He’s quite set in his beliefs on the matter, but he will acquiesce if the Warden pushes it.

Insisting on becoming king in the context of dealing with Loghain

These are the choices where I’d say there is potentially a case to be made that Alistair is making the decision he wants to make. However, I wouldn’t say that the decision being made is that he wants to be king. I would argue that becoming king is simply a means to an end to give him the power to get revenge in the way he wants.

In the first potential scenario here, Alistair will insist on being made king if he is not chosen to fight Loghain. Why? He wants Loghain dead, and he isn’t being given the choice to make that happen. He wants the power to make that choice, all else be damned.

Here you can see that hardened Alistair insists on taking the throne while making it abundantly clear that the reason for doing so is to take care of Loghain in the manner he wants.

Unhardened Alistair does the same. Why? Because the motivation remains the same whether he’s hardened or not. Unhardened Alistair simply hasn’t become so resigned as to pretend he’s any less displeased with it than he is.

In the second potential scenario, Alistair is chosen to fight Loghain and kills him. He finally achieves the goal he’s been working towards all along: getting his revenge on Loghain. He’s running on that high when Eamon immediately suggests he take the throne, he says yes, he’ll do it. There’s not really anything to break down dialogue-wise in this scenario, as his acceptance of the throne is the exact same dialogue as it would be in any other case. He simply says he accepts when it’s proposed.

Is it what he truly wants? Maybe. You could make a case for it. However, I interpret it more as running on that adrenaline high, feeling powerful and not fully thinking it over in the moment.

Accepting being king & marrying Anora if Loghain is spared

Alistair has been tunnel visioned on getting his revenge on Loghain the entire time, and this is the only circumstance in which sparing Loghain will not result in Alistair leaving and becoming a drunk. He both accepts marrying Anora (which he isn’t happy about) and sparing Loghain (which is very counter to his wishes).

He doesn’t like Anora and doesn’t want to marry her, but he does anyway. Hardened Alistair knows that marrying Anora is politically advantageous and prioritizes that over his personal desire to enact his vengeance, though he makes it clear to the Warden that his personal feelings on the matter have absolutely not changed.

Hardened Alistair goes along with marrying Anora after Loghain is spared and leaves the party, unhappy with the Warden’s choice to spare Loghain. If this line alone didn’t make his displeasure clear enough, there’s also this one:

He refers to the Warden’s actions as a betrayal. He’s obviously not happy.

Unhardened Alistair, however, stands his ground and refuses.

Approving of executing Jowan

Another case of a changed tune to go along with what the Warden is doing. Unhardened Alistair actively disapproves of the Warden executing Jowan. We could assume that hardened Alistair is just more pragmatic, or perhaps simply more willing to accept it when the Warden tells him this is what must be done.

There is no Alistair specific dialogue to look at here, just the approval points, so it’s really just a matter of looking at what we know of him and the situation. I would say in general Alistair values life and values mercy. Are there exceptions? Yes. Loghain, for example, whose crimes Alistair has judged worthy of death. Clearly unhardened Alistair does not feel that way about Jowan. Hardened Alistair though? He approves of his execution, but is it because he personally thinks it’s best or is it because he accepts the Warden’s judgment?

I would argue that it’s the latter primarily because it’s completely in line with everything else we’ve seen from hardened Alistair. There really are just no solid cases of hardened Alistair asserting his own will when compared to unhardened Alistair, so I don’t see this case as being any different.

In Review

In each case of behaviors changed by hardening Alistair, we see him putting his own wants and needs on the backburner in favor of an externally imposed sense of duty or to bend to another’s will because he accepts that his personal feelings are irrelevant. I’d go as far as to say that hardening is really a misnomer, because what we’re really looking at would be better called resignation.

I actually didn’t include every single line I found of hardened Alistair expressing the sentiments I’ve laid out in this analysis because I didn’t want it to be too long, but there is more in the game. Now I will get into less concrete analysis and a bit more of an explanation of my own personal opinions on hardening.

Aside from looking at what hardening actually means for Alistair, we can also question its necessity. Do you need to do it if you want to do certain things in Origins (threesome, mistress ending, etc.)? Yes. But I often see people argue that hardening Alistair is necessary for him to grow or mature as a person, and I completely disagree.

My personal opinion is that hardening Alistair is neither necessary nor kind.

In terms of helping Alistair to grow as a person, I maintain that Alistair will become more naturally “hardened”, or more accurately, he will mature on his own if you give him the chance to do so. Why do I say so? Look at Alistair in Inquisition. That is not the same idealistic young man we see in Origins, and this remains true regardless of hardening status. Whether it’s Warden Alistair or King Alistair, he’s clearly grown and changed.

Sure, you can mod the game to make the hardening dialogue more palatable, but that’s an entirely different discussion. As is, you’re required to essentially kick him when he’s down, and I simply do not find it to be necessary for his own personal development.

If it’s not already completely obvious by me doing all of this in the first place, I really, really love Alistair. Of course I’m quite settled and happy as an unhardened Warden Alistair truther, but I’m always happy to discuss and debate. I’m very interested in any thoughts you might have, whether you agree with my assessment or not (as long as you’re nice).

Thank you for reading my (almost sickeningly thorough) little analysis if you made it this far!

As a treat (or unhardened Warden Ali propaganda depending on your perspective), here's my Warden, miss Neria Surana with her very happy unhardened Warden husband:

[lover-of-mine]

Welcome to a guide to all basketball references around Buck's character so far written by the crazy color theory girlie who happens to be a former basketball player and might get too excited writing this!

Okay, first time we encounter a basketball in Buck's journey is actually in 301. The ball is there when Eddie drops Chris off but we do not get an angle of that table in 303, so it's unclear if it's still there.

But I can tell you it's no longer there the next time we see that table. And pretty much every other time we are in that area.

So the ball is only there for the beginning of Buck figuring out he loves Chris like a parent, not enough to create a pattern, BUT, it is the beginning of a major arc for Buck. So something to look out for.

The next time basketball comes up in relation to Buck doesn't really involve Buck. It is during 404 when Chim and Albert are discussing the Daniel secret and the way Buck is unaware of this big secret that shaped his whole life. In the episode he finds that out. So, look, another major event in Buck's life having basketball smacked in the middle.

Once is an instance, twice is a coincidence, so let's keep going.

Next time we see a basketball is in 608. When Buck is babysitting Jee while madney house-hunts.

608 is not a particularly eventful episode for Buck, but the house-hunting leads to the Buckley visiting, which ends up being a key part of his coma dream, a bit of a stretch, but I'll keep it here for further consideration.

Then we get to 704. 608 might be a stretch, but this sure ain't. So basketballs seem to be tied world-altering arcs beginning for Buck somehow.

704 first references basketball when Buck mentions the pickup basketball game Eddie is going to with Tommy. That's not the beginning of Buck's jealousy, but it is the first time he says he's upset he's being "excluded" even tho Eddie keeps inviting him. But that is what starts Buck's escalation.

Which then leads us to the scene everyone misunderstood.

We still don't know who Eddie was talking to, since who is talking to is fully irrelevant, but it is kinda funny that Buck is desperately trying to get Eddie's attention.

The thing here is that the dialogue "I was thinking we should, we should get a hoop, huh?" is easy to misinterpret as Buck trying to invite himself to the game and not knowing the proper language for it, since "shoot some hoops" is a casual way to invite someone to play basketball. But we establish that Buck has a standing invitation, he just keeps saying no because he doesn't like it. He hates in fact, as stated twice in the show. Buck wants to get an actual hoop for the station so that Eddie doesn't have to go with Tommy to play it. Buck already has a ball, we saw it in the loft twice. He got a ball for the station and he wants to add a hoop to the recreational area of the station. They have pool tables, and ping pong tables, and the gym, not that far fetched to have a hoop too.

But that does not work in getting Eddie's attention, so Buck decides to ask Chim to go to the game with him, so he won't just show up.

That leads us to the actual basketball game.

I think the actual game is choreographed in a very fun way. Buck is getting really frustrated, but for me, it has 3 key points.

Buck slamming into Tommy.

This line.

And Buck slamming into Eddie. (I'm not gonna add a gif, I don't like to look at that particular event)

The thing that's interesting that Buck slamming into Tommy, is that Tommy doesn't move. Buck gets all the impact. It adds to the way Tommy is unbending. Tommy is not presented to us as someone who compromises, and that makes that visual of Buck ricocheting from his chest something that catches my eye. I feel like even 811 adds to it, because he only decided to come back when he thought that he had won by default.

"You ain't getting past me" is just one of the many crazy wording lines we've gotten since s7 started. It is true within the context of the scene, Buck in fact loses possession of the ball to Eddie, so he doesn't get past him, but in the overall picture of their relationship, there is no getting past Eddie for Buck. Eddie is it. And Buck can pout, and lie, and distract himself, and pretend to be fine all he wants, he can't fill Eddie's space in his life with something else.

Obviously, we then have the too aggressive block that makes them believe Buck broke Eddie('s leg). This part is interesting because it takes Buck a while to react. This is a person who clawed at the dirt for Eddie, who ran into gunfire for Eddie. The fact that he freezes says a lot. His emotions get away from him and his immediate reaction is to hide. He only reacts when they determine that Eddie's leg might, in fact, be broken and he offers to be the one to drive him, but he doesn't push once Tommy tells him not to. He gives into the instinct to hide. And that ultimately is the thing that triggers the biggest change in Buck's character arc, the bisexuality once Tommy shows up in his house. But interesting enough there aren't references to the actual game during that conversation.

But we are not done with the basketball of it all in 704. Because we have the conversation with Maddie.

Up to that point everyone is interpreting what happened as an accident. Trust me, as someone who's dislocated a couple of fingers and has permanent damage on my ankle and knee because of basketball, it's ridiculously easy to injure yourself or someone else on a basketball court. But that's the moment Buck admits he is jealous and acting out. That scene is important because Buck admits to it being about Eddie, before Tommy offers him an explanation that's easier to live with and allows him to project that into somewhere safe. But that scene is also important because we find out that Buck didn't actually break Eddie('s leg), he's just scared that his big feelings scared Eddie away. But ultimately we know that Eddie is physically unable to hold anything against Buck so that turns out fine. He always going to be able to come back from his acting out, as also shown in 809.

Basketball is then not brought up again until 806, the anniversary dinner that leads to Buck and Tommy breaking up.

Hey, look, another subtle what got Buck together with someone is part of what breaks them up.

Anyway, Buck hates basketball. Interesting to think that Tommy would think that's something Buck would enjoy, since it is an established fact that he doesn't like it. But this dinner ends up the beginning of the end. Again, basketball is involved in a major life change, since the breakup ends up extended in 811 and we get confirmation on who Tommy thinks is Buck's last. Interesting, right?

We then get Buck holding a basketball as he goes crazy on the potential renters in 809.

The ball appears at a very interesting point in the conversation because when confronted with a mother and her kids, it almost makes it seem like he is "guarding" Christopher's room. And he only has the ball when talking to the mother, the one person that he feels threatened the most. Almost as if the idea of another family there is the thing that bothers him the most.

It is also what triggers Eddie telling him to leave, which makes him overhear Eddie, which makes him act out, which makes him take over the lease which creates all the problems from 811 that will probably definitely eventually lead to Buck's feeling realization. Yay for basketballs present in Buck's triggers.

But if you think I'm reaching on blaming 809 for the events of 811. Fear not because that's not where the basketball ends.

But Buck can't sleep in the house, so Maddie tells Buck to make new friends and Buck, bless his heart, tries to make friends by bringing up stuff Eddie likes because what he likes is Eddie.

But hell, basketball is present when he asks Ravi for drinks and it all leads to Ravi leaving him with Tommy and Tommy calling him out on possibly having feelings for Eddie that definitely won't lead to Buck figuring out any big thing about himself, right? 👀

And we also get a possible confirmation of the fact that Buck did in fact take Eddie to that Lakers game. Because if there's one thing Evan Buckley will do is yap about Eddie.

Why are they using something Buck hates in these triggers? Well, that's the part I haven't figured out yet, but it is something that is present, so I will be on the lookout for it to come up again lol

That's all for today, if you read this I love you.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

I made a post a few months ago about how I thought Madagascar 3 was the worst movie I had ever seen. Well, after 13 years, I've finally changed my mind. A Minecraft Movie is now, hands down, the worst 2 hour experience of my life. I don't even want to get bogged down with hyperbole, it was not funny or enjoyable in any way, shape, or form to me. It is a movie for VERY little kids that was mismarketed as fun-for-all-the-family. I only saw it because it was my nephew's 6th birthday party, and I had to struggle to match his level of enthusiasm throughout the whole thing. He kept leaning over to ask questions and make comments, and I really wanted to walk out and go home. Even if I did, I couldn't ask for a refund because my sister paid for my ticket.

I knew it was from the same director but I was not expecting so many connections Napoleon Dynamite (Idaho, lady with a llama, tater tots, Jason Mamoa basically playing a hybrid of Uncle Rico and Rex Kwon Do), but it lacked all the charm and sincerity of Napoleon Dynamite. None of the Hashtag Quirky™ characters felt like real people. Not the protagonists, and certainly not the high school faculty. They all felt like they were trying too hard to be ironically funny and every single performance fell flat, they even managed to botch Matthew Berry's voice cameo at the end.

It's obvious that they wanted to cast Finn Wolfhard as the main character, but not modern Finn, Finn from 10 years ago, season 1 of Stranger Things Finn, so they got a knockoff dollar store version instead. The sister had nothing to do, the black best friend had nothing to do except say something along the lines of "aw hell naw" multiple times, Jack Black is a sellout who is nowhere near as cool as they try to make him seem, and the villain was sub-Saturday Morning Cartoon levels of intimidating and effective. It was annoying from start to finish.

It felt like a fake movie. Literally like an example script from a college freshman's How to Write Screenplays book; heavy exposition dumps, cliche dialogue ("punched up" with tons of distracting ADR), "one of the characters lies to the rest and then gets revealed and everyone is mad at them," "heroic sacrifice, SIKE, turns out he's alive and comes back 5 pages later," "everyone wants the MacGuffin because it does whatever the plot needs it to," "found family but they've only known each other for one day," quips, quips, endless quips... One of the first lines of dialogue is literally "yep, that's me." This movie has five writers, and none of them thought to do a second pass on that.

You know what? It was a perfect one-to-one adaptation of those clickbait animations my nephew watches on his ipad about things that don't happen in the game like winged shoes and mutant boss mobs and made up crafting recipes. If I had to describe it in one word, "undeserved." Every single joke, every attempt at emotion, all the 2011 Le Epic moments, all of them were undeserved. The movie did nothing to earn any response from the audience. I understand what it must have felt like for my parents to take me to Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 2005 or the Squeakquel in 2009. I loved those as a kid, but they are objectively absolute dogshit, and Hollywood will keep on making movies like that until the end of time.

TLDR, if you are over the age of 12, don't watch A Minecraft Movie. I have absolutely nothing positive to say about it.

[saintvainglorious]

Fics I Enjoyed in December - DC Comics Fic Rec List

Fell headfirst back into DC Comics for the first time in years this month. Reread some old favorites and discovered some new gems!

My January DC Comics fic rec list is here!

Heart, Humble by Betty (Mature, 8k, 2005) Jack Drake deals with finding out that Tim is Robin (poorly, and then not so poorly). THEE canon-accurate Jack Drake-focused fic of all time, this is canon in my heart.

Back then, all the boys his age had hero-worshipped costumed vigilantes. Jack supposes they still do.

Exit Strategy by smilebackwards/@smilebackwards (Teen & Up, 13k, 2021) Tim plans to leave a family he thinks he was never really a part of and decides to train Damian on how to run Wayne Enterprises before he goes. Delicious angst, excellent character work, and fun Wayne Enterprises worldbuilding.

Batman needs a Robin and Batman has a Robin. Tim is just extraneous now, vestigial. He’s a bandage over a healed wound. He doesn’t know what he’s hanging on to. Or: Tim didn’t expect his exit strategy from the Batfamily to involve quite so much bonding time with Damian over Wayne Enterprises bureaucracy.

On the Downbeat by medusaceratops (Teen & Up, 2k, 2019) Bruce and Jason talk while waiting in line at a drive-thru (featuring Gotham-typical violence and husborth-typical gorgeous prose). I've always adored husborth's Star Wars fics and I'm so glad I dipped my toe into their DC works, no one's writing hits quite like husborth.

Jason has recovered his sanity, and Bruce and Jason have recovered their relationship; but there are some things that are hard to forget.

A Zoo for Canines by medusaceratops (Mature, 45k, 2019) Part 2 of Zoology; Dick and Jason try to help Bruce recover from addiction. If you're used to fanon Dick Grayson (cheery, friendly, forgiving) you will not find him here - his anger and pain is ugly, raw, and so fucking captivating.

Edit: This fic and the series has since been deleted off ao3, though Part 1 (An Aquarium of Nameless Things) is still up; DM me if you'd like to read it.

Dick, Bruce, and Jason head out to a cabin in the mountains, and they handle things about as well as they handle anything.

All the Roofs of Uncertainty by Kieron_ODuibhir/@kieron-oduibhir (General Audiences, 70k, 2015) Dick almost dies and makes Jason promise to take care of the family for him. A masterclass demonstration on how DC fic can square all the wildly divergent canon versions of Jason Todd into a single compelling character.

For all the blood on his hands, Red Hood was never just a villain. And Nightwing never gives up on family, not for good. (Or: The one where Dick bleeds a lot and Jason argues with everybody.)

The Till-Then From the Ever-Since by Kieron_ODuibhir/@kieron-oduibhir (General Audiences, 85k (WIP), 2020) Kid versions of the whole Batfamily mysteriously time travel to the future! I livetexted a friend the whole time I read this so I could yell about how amazing the character writing is; also I'm wildly impressed with how the author deftly handles tons of dialogue-heavy scenes with like 12+ guys in it without anyone going unmentioned.

It began, or seemed to begin, with Jason. Usually that would have meant something in the order of fire and explosion and probably at least one gunshot wound, but for once (as Tim said, sourly), it wasn't actually Jason's fault.

only you will have stars that can laugh by silverwhittlingknife/@silverwhittlingknife (Teen & Up, 9k, 2022) Dick finds out Tim is alone on Christmas and invites him to Babs' Christmas party. Discovered silverwhittlingknife through their galaxy brained Dick & Tim meta essays, stayed for every single line of Chapter 2 ripping out my heart and roasting it over an open flame.

You coming over is possibly the only thing that’s gonna stop me from wanting to punch your dad in the face, Dick doesn’t say. My current Christmas Day plans are 1) pace around at home, and 2) try not to obsess about what Bruce is up to, so trust me, you’ll be an improvement, Dick doesn’t say. Tim's alone on Christmas Eve. Dick finds out, and fixes it.

nerve endings by silverwhittlingknife/@silverwhittlingknife (Teen & Up, 5k (WIP), 2024) Post-Catalina Flores, Dick, Tim, and Bruce go on a (canon-accurate) cruise and dance around their open wounds. This is a glorious example of "he WOULD fucking say that", Dick's voice is so canon-accurate that the angst is even more painful i cri

It's all right, even, to have a foreign hand pressing against his skin, testing him, testing his reactions. He keeps his breathing controlled. Just Tim, damn you, it’s just Tim, don’t fuck it up. Dick's on a cruise with Bruce and Tim. And he's fine. Mostly.

Red Letter Day by silverwhittlingknife/@silverwhittlingknife (Teen & Up, 42k (WIP), 2022) Dick is sure the cryptic scribble in his agenda refers to something he's supposed to do for Damian, but he can't remember what. Mostly about Tim and Dick s l o w l y mending the post-Damian rupture in their relationship, but the whole family is here and Jason, especially, is fucking hilarious.

Dick Grayson, stressed pseudo-parent to a preteen assassin, tries to solve the case of Damian’s Mysterious Wednesday. He never expected it to help him fix his relationship with Tim, too. (… Though only after everything fell apart first.)

Gonna Be A Better One (A Thousand Miles To Your Door) by Traincat/@traincat (Teen & Up, 18k, 2011) Tim and Kon keep dating even after Jack forces Tim to retire as Robin. I reread this fic annually and every time am delighted to rediscover how funny and heartwarming and squee-inducingly kind it is, pure Timkon perfection.

In which Tim quits being Robin, Kon refuses to quit Tim and Ma Kent is full of relationship advice.

last light in a darkened room by bigdamnher0/@bigdvmnhero (Not Rated, 6k, 2024) Tim finds a distressing video of Robin!Dick and wishes that things were different. The whole fic, particularly Tim manifesting a happy ending in the bathroom, is a gorgeously crafted tragedy such that you're left kind of awed at how thoroughly massacred your heart and soul are post-read.

Tuesday morning: a video was uploaded to one of the deep web black markets. The footage, shot on those grainy vintage camcorders. But Tim knew that boy in the thumbnail; his eyes had memorized him, the heft and shape and dazzle of him, imprinting like an afterimage. Or: a brother is a witness; there's your tragedy.

buy back the secrets by sundiscus/@vinelark (Teen & Up, 91k (WIP), 2024) Superboy rescues civilian Tim Drake before learning that Tim is Robin and shenanigans ensue. I spent my whole holiday vacation intermittently screaming at this fic while my family members looked on with vague concern this fic is ADORABLE and AGONIZING and PERFECT please and THANK YOU.

He takes a long, slow breath. Ignores the glares from the other students. “Superboy,” he murmurs. “It’s me. If you’re listening, I could use some help.” Or: 5 times Superboy saves Tim Drake, and one time Tim Drake saves Superboy.

[mcflymemes]

PROMPTS FROM THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE *  assorted dialogue from the 2013 film, adjust as necessary

if you die, and i live, i'd have nothing. nobody else that i care about.

it's different for you. your family needs you.

you have to live. for them.

nobody needs me.

i do. i need you.

how does that sound?

what if we set your backyard on fire?

he can't hurt me. there's no one left that i love.

remember who the real enemy is.

we got married... in secret.

we want our love to be eternal.

we've been luckier than most.

i just wanted to say that i didn't know [name]. i only spoke to him once.

he could have killed me, but instead he showed me mercy.

that's a debt i'll never be able to repay.

she wasn't just my ally. she was my friend.

i couldn't save her. i'm sorry.

you guys look amazing.

so what do you think, now that the whole world wants to sleep with you?

i wasn't talking to you.

will you unzip?

thanks. let's do it again sometime.

the way the whole "friend" thing works is you have to tell each other the deep stuff.

what's your favorite color?

now you've stepped over the line.

see, this is why no one lets you make the plans.

you have been our mission from the beginning.

the plan was always to get you out.

people are looking to you, [name].

you've given them an opportunity. they just have to be brave enough to take it.

we have seen a lot of tears here tonight.

you are angry. tell me why.

i'm getting totally screwed over here.

now you wanna kill me again.

nobody decent ever wins the games.

nobody ever wins the games. period. there are survivors. there's no winners.

love is weird.

i would love to borrow that outfit someday.

you look pretty terrifying in that get-up.

i outgrew them.

any secrets worth my time?

unfortunately, i think that's true.

i'm sorry you had to cancel your wedding.

i'm really not in the mood for a lecture.

you don't have to apologize to anybody, including me.

i hardly know anything about you except that you're stubborn and good with a bow.

there's more than that. you just don't want to tell me.

make him pay for it.

any last advice?

stay alive.

she's committed, i'll give her that.

you saved my life. you gave me a chance.

fear does not work as long as there is hope.

you were dead. your heart stopped.

how rude of them.

eyes bright, chins up, smiles on.

we're a team, aren't we?

i am truly sorry.

you both deserved so much better.

i don't want to be with anyone else in there. just you.

that's what i want.

no waving and smiling this time.

i want you to look straight ahead as if the audience and this whole event are beneath you.

that should be easy.

be careful. it's a force field up there.

i think these games are gonna be different.

i guess we're not holding hands anymore.

i don't care about any of them.

i'm here to drink.

you know and i know there's only one person walking out of here, and it's gonna be one of us.

i get to say goodbye.

they will kill us.

whatever game you think you're playing, those out there are not playing it with you.

i don't want you to get hurt.

so how do you like the party?

you could live a hundred lifetimes and never deserve that boy.

you don't want to shoot her.

how about i shoot both of you?

get them out of here.