#when will this existential dread GO AWAY!!!!!!1 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

myosotisa · 2 years ago

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Old Heart - Part 1 - Barely

‖ chapter summary: Faced with tragedy, you are forced to travel across the country with a series of people you barely know in order to reunite with your only remaining family. The second leg of your journey, and your traveling companion for it, promises to be way more than you bargained for.

‖ tags: enemies to lovers, age gap (41 and 25), forced proximity, slow burn, angst, hurt/comfort, HEA, "zombie" apocalypse, reader uses she/her pronouns, no y/n, no physical description given, minors dni

‖ chapter warnings: death of a parent, gun violence, grief, existential dread

‖ word count: 8.3k

‖ ao3 ‖ masterlist ‖ tag list request ‖ next ‖

Tuesday, August 9th, 2016 – Quantico, Virginia - 13 years Post-Outbreak

Out of everything you’ve learned in life, you know without a doubt that it really only takes one moment to change everything.

One moment, you’re walking through a safe zone you’ve lived in for the last 10 years with your dad. It’s a normal Tuesday morning and the two of you are on your way to the mess hall for breakfast. It’s the only time you have to see him because he normally works late on the base. So, despite your hate for mornings, you got up, met your dad in the hallway of your tiny apartment, he’d hold out his arm and you’d loop yours through it before going on your way together. It’s a routine, same time everyday. Has been for years. And today is no different. It’s raining lightly but the sun still shines. You wonder if you might catch a rainbow after you’ve had your eggs.

The next, you’re on your knees in the mud. There’s blood on your hands. There are people scattering, ducking for cover, running and crying out in fear. Your whole body trembles as you reach out toward the prone form in front of you. The familiar tan of his sunkissed skin. The smattering of freckles across his collarbone and up his neck. Your eyes, the ones everyone said matched perfectly, staring straight up into the sky. Unseeing. A bullet hole completes a 3 point triangle with them as they dull.

The one after, there are hands dragging you away from him, through the mud, through the crowd. You’re kicking and you’re screaming but you can’t even hear it past the shot still ringing in your ears. Armed guards descend, reaching to check for a pulse. As if someone could survive a shot like that. They circle like vultures to a carcass.

You lose sight of the gathering crowd as you’re dragged around a corner and pushed up against a wall. Every instinct in your body screams run, fight, lunge, survive but there’s a forearm to your throat and a single finger on your lips. When you blink away the tears, Helen is there. She works with your dad, you’ve had dinner with her more than a few times. Her eyes are bloodshot, her breathing heavy as she presses you to the wall with her entire body. The pressure and the brick digging into your back ground you for the moment.

“We need to get out of here, now.” Her voice is a soft hiss, her eyes darting toward corners and through alleyways. She’s anxious for sure, maybe even afraid. “You’re not safe here.”

There are a million questions you want to ask. What happened, how did someone get past the defenses, what are they going to do with him, how is she here, how did she know, what is she so afraid of. They all get lodged in your throat in a chokehold worse than the one she’s applying, the only sound that comes through is a broken sob.

Her posture folds then, taking an inch back and moving both hands to cradle your jaw. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I know. But we need to go. There’s no time.” Her thumbs wipe across the tears on your cheeks as she holds you just a bit tighter. Like that’s the only way to keep you together. “Do you understand?”

You don’t understand. Not at all. There is not a single thing that you currently understand. But you nod and let her hold your hand anyway. You follow her through side streets away from the mess hall. Away from your life as you know it.

Here one moment – gone the next.

Saturday, August 13th, 2016 – Louisville, Kentucky

“I really think you’ll like him, he’s still the coolest guy I know. Always has been.”

This is your 3rd time meeting Dustin Henderson. You’d been deposited into his care (mostly against your will) 3 days ago. The only thing he had going for him as a traveling companion is his bright smile and infectious enthusiasm. He’d accepted your silence with the ease of someone who was used to running their own conversations, even seemed excited just to have a new audience, no matter how little you participated. If you were being honest, you were grateful for the noise.

“I think this is the 7th time today you’ve said that I’ll like him.” You hear what you think is him huffing, but you’re too focused on tossing a stress ball into the air above you to bother looking over. You’re laying on a brick wall outside of St. John’s United Church of Christ, a few miles from where you and Dustin had slept for the night. “Why a church, anyway? There must be a million other potential drop off points in this place.”

“Dunno, Eddie always wants to meet at churches. Maybe because they’re normally pretty big and recognizable.”

The ball drops into your hand and you lower your elbows to rest, turning your head toward him with a small frown. “He a man of God or something?”

Dustin lets out a snort of amusement, his curls wobbling from where they stick out underneath his hat. “Definitely not.” He offers you another bright smile before he returns to scanning your surroundings. You would assume from his demeanor that he’s goofy – well intentioned, undisciplined. But you’ve seen how he wields the shotgun slung across his torso, how he seems to be able to hear things you’d think impossible, how he navigates through the ruined cityscapes of his domain with ease. He’s sharp as a whip and not afraid to get his hands dirty. A clever disguise of prey to lure in predators. He’s a part of this team for a reason after all.

Struggling to sit up with a groan, you lean forward to drape your forearms over your knees. “So, how much does he know?”

“About?” Dustin pauses, then shifts toward you when you don’t reply. All you offer is a loaded look, waiting for him to catch on to what you’re really asking. His eyebrows draw together in confusion before it appears to hit him. “Oh. Well. He knows you’re Robin’s sister.”

“Half-sister,” you correct easily.

“Whatever,” he rolls his eyes. “He knows you’re Robin’s half-sister and he’s tasked with getting you from point A to point B.”

“So nothing, is what he knows. Absolutely nothing.”

Dustin’s arms, brushed with dirt and a subtle sheen of sweat, cross over his chest as he leans further back against the wall you’re sitting on. “Yeah, I guess.” It’s your turn to roll your eyes as you pull your pack into your lap, digging through for your water bottle. “Listen,” you make a noise to let him know you’re paying attention, “you know it’s not my call who knows. Nancy decides when to bring people in.”

Immediately, you dig your palms into your eyes in frustration, rubbing in tight circles and unable to keep the tension from leaking out into your tone. “Why does everyone just do whatever Nancy says? Who the fuck even put Nancy Wheeler in charge?”

“Your dad did,” he replies, as if it isn’t an absolute punch to the gut. As if it doesn’t make fire burn up your throat and beg to burst from between your lips in a scream. He seems to recognize it soon after he says it, and decides the best way to move on is to sit in an awkward and tense silence for the next 30 minutes. Which is fine. Whatever. Works for me.

In fact, the next time he makes any sound or movement at all, he’s shifting forward, primary hand gripping his shotgun. “Dustin?” He holds out a hand for you to stop as his head tilts a bit down, his eyes closing to focus. You search the area visually and listen hard to see if you can get even an inkling of what he’s hearing. Coming up short, you simply watch as he trots down the small set of stairs between you and the street, directing his weapon west. You flounder, trying to decide if you should hide or pull your own pistol.

Just as you’re about to roll off the wall to duck behind it, a long whistle rings out. 4 distinct tones that echo past the debris of nearby fallen buildings and through the gothic architecture of the church behind you. Dustin’s posture immediately softens, his gun lowering slowly as he repeats the whistle back, adding an extra note at the end. He turns back, taking the steps two at a time as he returns to where you're sitting. “Your new babysitter is here.”

“Dustin, I swear to God, that’s not funny, and I will break your fingers.”

He barks a small laugh until he catches sight of your glare, then quickly raises his hands in surrender with a muttered apology. You’re about ready to continue to tear into him when you see a figure in black appear in the corner of your eye.

You’ve heard a lot of stories about Eddie Munson over the years, most you doubt are true, but have never actually met the guy. You know he's a little bit older than Steve, putting him in his early 40s. He’s been running the smuggling train through Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas for close to 10 years. He’d been part of Hopper’s original team, loosely connected via radio and scattered across North America. While you’d heard more about him in the last 2 days from Dustin than you had the entire rest of your life, you know he worked with Robin, Steve, Nancy, and your dad already. While you couldn’t say you’d ever stopped to wonder what he looked like, it definitely was not this.

But walking out from behind a solitary pillar, it couldn’t have been anyone else. A pair of dusty blue jeans and black boots, a red flannel tied around his hips, a white t-shirt that almost shines from how bright the sun beats down, a black biker jacket layered over it. His near-black hair is pulled back behind his head and, despite having a pair of aviators on, he still raises a hand to block the sun from his eyes as he surveys the area. When he catches sight of the two of you, his arm swings down to his side and he begins his approach. You watch carefully – studying his gait, the length of his legs, the broadness of his shoulders, the narrow waist tucked beneath leather. He’s tall, lean, strong. Intimidating, even without any weapons visible on his person. While Dustin is a predator disguised as prey, Eddie is a wolf, plain and simple.

Your sweaty palms press to the dusty, sun bleached concrete on either side of your knees as you face him. Dustin meets him halfway, arms wrapping around torsos to clap on backs as they exchange a happy greeting. While you had become very aware of Dustin’s fondness for Eddie over the last few days, you’re still surprised to see the affection returned in almost equal measure. By all appearances, the older is gruff, unapproachable, untouchable. But he still hits the underside of Dustin’s cap to knock it off, and, when the younger dips to reach for it, loops an arm around his neck to ruffle his unruly hair. They start elbowing each other and pushing lightly, messing around like brothers and acting half their age. Acting like there isn’t an apocalypse, isn’t a war, isn’t death all around them.

It’s hard to believe something like that is still possible. Relationships like that still exist.

Dustin is pulling Eddie back toward you before you’re ready for it.

“And this is your package to deliver,” Dustin offers with a grin, ignoring the hard glare you send him once again. Eddie raises the sunglasses from his eyes and it takes everything in you to stay firm as he studies you just as you had studied him. This close, you can see a bit more – the bits of gray woven into the dark waves of his hair, the sun-creased laugh lines that remain despite his neutral expression, a scar that arches down the corner of his lower lip and chin, disappearing into the subtle fuzz of a salt and pepper shadow across his jaw. But you mostly get caught on his eyes. They’re youthful in appearance: wide, bright, and a rich, beautiful shade of warm umber. Despite the crow’s feet that arch out beside them, if you’d looked at his eyes alone, you’d assume he was your age and no older.

“Hey,” he seems to finish his study of you first, offering nothing more than a slight head tilt of acknowledgement before his aviators hit the bridge of his nose again and he redirects back to Dustin. “So I get her from here to Three Corners, right? When are they expecting us?”

Doesn’t even ask your name or anything. Like you weren’t even there. Like you weren’t even a person, just a package to be delivered. Dustin doesn’t seem to notice as he whips out his map and they discuss the route the two of you will be taking so the younger can report it back to Colorado when he gets home. The frustration boils in the base of your gut again, a bubbling pool of lava that is desperate to erupt.

“We’re gonna have to stop in Memphis for a day or two,” Eddie explains, rubbing the back of his sweaty neck with his palm as they look over the map.

“And why’s that?” You cut in, some of the heat invading. Both men look toward you, as if just realizing you’re still there, before Dustin finally acknowledges your question.

“Memphis is Eddie’s base of operations. The two of you can get some actual sleep, bathe, and stock up for the rest of the trip there.” Eddie grunts an affirmative, back to facing away from you and leaning over the map Dustin has spread over a concrete pillar.

Your tongue presses against your cheek in annoyance, staring hard at the sun-faded leather that drapes over his back. “So how long until the next hand off?”

This seems to humor him, a small laugh huffing out of his nose as he shifts back toward you and lowers his sunglasses. “Desperate to get rid of me already?” There’s a bit of a tease in his tone that makes the boil bubble faster, the tension in your jaw getting tighter. Without waiting for an answer, he grabs the map and slaps it down next to you. “4 days to Memphis,” his finger tip touches the paper map, dirt under his nails, and drags from Louisville to the southwest corner of Tennessee. “2 or 3 days in Memphis to stock up. Then another 4 or 5 days to Three Corners.” Before you can really see where Three Corners is, he’s folding the map back up into its usual rectangles and holding it toward Dustin. “So I’ll be outta your hair and you’ll be outta mine in 14 days max.”

Your former partner gapes at him, taking the map and slowly drawing it back towards his chest with a dropped jaw. “Eddie, come on-”

“Jeez Henderson,” you interrupt with full disdain, hopping off your perch and wiping the dust off your clammy hands, “this is the guy you were so excited for me to meet? Whatta riot.”

This, finally, gets a reaction out of Eddie. Strong eyebrows raise as his head tilts, gaze hard on you as you turn away toward your backpack. “Listen, I don’t know what you think this is supposed to be, but it’s not a fucking field trip. I don’t care who you are or who you’re related to. We’re not going to be friends. I’m going to get your privileged ass from here to where it needs to go, alive mind you, and you’re going to shut up and do what I say.”

Steam billows out of your nose as you whirl back toward him, hands clenching into fists at your sides. “Privileged? Field trip? Look man, I get you’re old, but this complex that’s radiating off of you is really a bit delusional. We get it, you’re so seasoned and experienced and that makes you so much better than everyone else. I feel like I’m about five seconds away from getting ‘y’know back in my day’d.”

His own jaw sets tight as his neutral expression falls into a sharp glare. “You fucking brat, I should just-”

“HEY.”

Dustin’s voice isn’t loud – not when anything or anyone could be nearby and hear, but the volatile nature makes it feel as though it should be a scream. Both your and Eddie’s mouths snap shut as you face him, his cheeks flushed with something that looks like embarrassment. “Is this going to be a problem? I thought you were both adults.”

A scoff. “I dunno, is she actually legal?”

A glare. “Does a senior citizen count as an adult?”

“Guys.” Dustin looks furious. You aren’t sure if you’ve ever actually seen him mad. “I don’t need a guarantee that you two are going to be friends. I don’t care, actually. You can both be stubborn idiots if you want to be. But I do need a guarantee that you won’t get each other killed.”

A harsh silence falls over you all like a blanket of fresh snow. You’re fully capable of putting your sudden negative feelings toward your new escort aside to get through the next 2 weeks. Making a fast enemy out of anyone you meet isn’t the best way to go about life in this world, but making friends isn’t exactly a great idea either. If he can keep his ego in check, you can easily make it through 2 weeks of silence and then forget about each other at the end of it.

The two of you make eye contact again, the shape of his eyes barely showing through the tint of the lenses. A silent appraisal. Can I trust you? And the answer looks to be a resounding: When pigs fly.

“We’ll be fine.” Eddie answers first, breaking away from your gaze to look over at Dustin again. “Haven’t died yet, have we?”

The younger looks at you, like he also wants your word on if this will work out. As if you have a choice in the matter.

“All good, boss,” you offer with a half-assed salute and smile before shouldering your pack with a huff. “On the road we go.”

Eddie gives a stiff nod then claps Dustin on the back once more as he passes. “I mean it, you guys,” Dustin continues as he holds out a hand to you. “If she ends up dead, Steve and Robin will kill you. And if you get him killed, Max will hunt you down.”

“Not going down without a fight, Henderson,” Eddie’s cocky grin is back, the tension that built quickly between the two of you immediately pushed to the side. “Don’t worry about us.”

He begins to walk back the way he came, motioning over his shoulder for you to follow, while you give Dustin one last pleading look. “And get home safe to Sally, okay?”

Dustin nods, hitting the brim of his hat with a finger. “Will do. Check in when you get to Memphis.”

All you do is wave back at him as you scamper to catch up with Eddie before he disappears back into the debris he emerged from. You keep your eyes on the wiry bun of hair at the base of his skull as you follow in his footsteps, leading you in the direction the sun will inevitably set at day’s end.

Very little is exchanged between you and Eddie over the next 3 days. As soon as you’re out of Louisville city limits, he leads you to where he stashed an old pickup truck. It won’t have gas to last even a few hours, but with some luck, there will be enough to scavenge along the way. You offer to trade off driving, explaining you’d learned on the base, but he says it won’t be needed.

Luckily, there’s a CD player in the car. You don’t recognize any of the songs, but the music helps fill the silence. It doesn’t help with your boredom however. After spending way too much time trying not to notice Eddie’s mannerisms – like how he bounces the leg that isn’t on the gas pedal almost all the time, how he taps one finger to the beat of whatever song is playing, how he mostly drives with his right hand and his left elbow propped up on the door – you start digging through the glove compartment.

“What are you doing?” His voice makes you jump, having not heard it in hours.

“Snooping,” you answer plainly, not even bothering to look at him as you dig through the mess of papers and trash in the small space. He lets out a long suffering exhale but makes no move to stop you. Eventually you find a paper map, slightly stained and a bit tattered, but it will do the job for a little while.

You unfold it over your lap and find Louisville. It becomes a challenge to see if you can figure out which way Eddie took you out of the city, but you find your sense of direction in a moving vehicle a bit lacking. South and west, that’s for sure, but you’d made more than a couple turns before getting onto this long, clear stretch of road and you’re not even sure where you started beyond the city. There had been a few hazards along the way, mostly broken down cars, but they were easy to maneuver around and Eddie had seemed entirely prepared for them. It made you wonder how often he made this same trip back and forth.

The next 15 minutes are spent looking out the window waiting for a road sign to fly by. With that info, you should be able to get a better idea of what highway you’re on and maybe even where on the highway based on the exit. Your patience rewards you with a faded green sign in the distance – a shield symbol with the number 62 in the center and says the upcoming exit is for ‘Central City’. Really? Couldn't it be something more unique?

Regardless, you bend back over the map and use your finger to trace across the weave of roads and cities, trying to find where you might be. You’re able to find US Highway 62 stretching west across the northside of Kentucky, but nothing that says Central City. The tension builds between your eyebrows as you pull the map a bit closer to your face, thinking maybe you’re just missing it.

“Look at Nashville,” you whip toward Eddie, who is looking between the paper in your hands and the road. He sounds wholly bored, but tilts his chin to direct your attention back to the map. “From Nashville, trace your finger straight north until it hits 62. We’re a little bit west of that.”

There’s still no ‘Central City’, but you figure it’s probably just too small to show up on a map this size. “Why didn’t we drive down through Nashville?” You find yourself asking, eyes scanning the wrinkled paper. “It seems more direct than this.”

“Roads into and out of Nashville might as well be graveyards.” He goes back to leaning his cheek on his left fist. “Nashville itself is totally wiped out. Well, not wiped out, but you get what I mean. All that's left is clickers and corpses.”

“Oh, okay.”

Having completed your goal, you carefully fold the map back up and set it on the dashboard. The gravity of his statement hits you hard despite the casual nature he shares it with. You remember reading in a book a couple years ago the population of Nashville had been over half a million people. Half a million. There’s no guarantee they’re all mindless Infected now, some probably got out, but statistically speaking…

Better not to think about it.

The rest of the days are spent listening to the same 14 songs on repeat, stopping along the way to siphon gas and hit supply caches he has set up across the state, breaking to eat or go to the bathroom, and sleeping. You take turns keeping watch while the other sleeps in the bed of the pickup. He explained he didn’t want to drive at night and risk trying to siphon gas in a dangerous area while it’s dark, so when the sun starts to set, he pulls the truck off the highway and into the closest tree line to hide away.

During the first night, you find another reason to resent Eddie. When he lays down on top of his sleeping bag, it only takes moments for him to lose consciousness. The second his eyes close, his breathing slowly gets deeper and the tension in his face falls slack. He wakes just as easily, but the rate at which he’s able to fall asleep is more than enough to keep the heat in your veins from fading. When he does wake up and gruffly order you to get some sleep, you lay down and stare at the stars overhead. Sometimes you actually manage to drift off.

Sleeping in the car is easier. Especially because it keeps you from more awkward silences with Eddie.

The third night is colder than before. You’re at a higher elevation than home and edging closer to winter every day. In the woods at night, the wind kicks up and sends shivers down your spine no matter how tightly you pull your jacket around you. While Eddie softly snores in the truck bed, you sit on the running board below the passenger seat, your sleeping bag wrapped around your shoulders to combat the cold, in silence.

You’ve come to learn that silence is your worst enemy. Infected have patterns, ways to outsmart them. People have weaknesses, morals, and desires. Hunger, thirst, FEDRA – they all have motivations for why they exist and ways to beat them or get around them. Silence, on the other hand, is overbearing, all encompassing. The quiet settles into your bones, leaks into the marrow, infects the white blood cells that are born there, uses them as weapons to subdue the boiling in your blood. Silence lays across you like a heavy, fiberglass blanket suffocating all of the air out of a fire.

It's a fertile breeding ground for thoughts better left alone.

One thing about living most of your life on the base at Quantico is you never saw too much of what the rest of the country looked like. The tall walls of concrete kept your community mostly secluded from the rest of the world and people like you had very little reason to venture outside those walls. You knew how to use a gun, how to drive, how to fight. For emergencies, your dad had insisted. Because you never wanted to catch yourself wishing you could when you really needed to know. Now, after days of driving past dilapidated towns, broken down cars, cracked streets, and the odd infected, it’s a harsh dose of reality. One you had thought you were prepared for, but evidently not. So you sit in your sleeping bag and remember the quilt from your bed, the one your mom had given you, with its faded pastels and fraying edges. The random poster of some boy band on the wall after you’d found it in an attic and put it up just to have something to look at. You miss the Christmas lights you’d hung along the ceiling after convincing your dad they used less electricity than a normal lamp. The walk to the mess hall in the morning when the world was just waking up and most people around didn’t have reason to be in a bad mood yet. The Carolina Wrens that rested along power lines and sang their high pitched songs. The guarantee of scrambled eggs and oatmeal for breakfast, and maybe some jam and toast if you were lucky.

You miss your dad.

Mistakenly acknowledging the grief you’ve been avoiding – just forcing yourself to keep moving, to keep fighting, to keep going – feels like releasing something long kept captive. It claws its way up your throat, starts to buzz in your ears, presses hard against the backs of your eyes. You try to scare it back down into the pit it came from, but you realize too late the path you’ve gone down and don’t have enough fire left to keep it at bay. It roars and howls, tears and bites, grows and climbs until it overtakes you completely.

You press your face into the polyester around your shoulders to muffle the first sob as it rips out of you. Let it soak up the tears that pour out as your back bends, drawing you in towards your knees, instinctually trying to make yourself feel smaller. Like maybe if you curl in tight enough, you can compress the waves that start to batter you so forcefully that they won't have room to move. Make it so the churning in your gut can’t erode at the concrete you’ve poured down your spine to keep yourself upright. This can just be a small release to take the pressure off the top. This won’t be the breakdown. The breakdown will never come.

If you’d been lucky, Eddie wouldn’t have heard your muffled cries. Would’ve slept right through your unwilling moment of weakness. But he wakes just as easily as he goes down to rest and has ears like a bat even in REM sleep. He sits up in the truck bed and leans over the side toward where you’re sitting in what you assume is panic, but you don’t dare to look. Instead, you just beg your body to stop sobbing, to stop trembling, to hold it together in front of him.

It doesn’t listen.

Dead leaves muffle the steps of his boots as he hops down to the ground and approaches slowly, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. Your choked cries and gasps are still muffled by the fabric pressed to your face – but it’s not exactly hard to guess what’s going on.

Eddie kneels a respectful distance away, his voice soft as the night itself. “Are you hurt?”

The gentle tone, the concern he shows in something so small almost destroys you. Almost tears you right in two. Almost makes the breakdown happen right here and now. But remembering how he’s acted since the two of you met – how this is the first time he’s asked you anything at all – has enough heat roaring to life to stifle your sobs and stop the tears. It takes a few moments of harsh swallowing and rubbing at your damp skin before you straighten up, blinking the last tears away to face him head on. “I’m fine.”

He huffs through his nose, his head tilting a bit to the side like a curious dog. “Yeah, you look real fine.” And if he hadn’t said it so sarcastically, with such disdain…

Better not to think about it.

Pushing off his own knee, he rises to his feet with a groan, arms stretching skyward. “You should try to get some sleep. I’ll watch for a while.”

Running the backs of your hands under your eyes, you shake your head harshly and focus your gaze back out into the woods. “My shift isn’t over yet.”

“No offense, sweetheart, but you’re not exactly keeping a good watch like this.”

Your eyes roll and you pull the sleeping bag tighter when another shiver rolls down your spine. “Oh yeah, none taken. Asshole.”

Leather ladened arms cross over his chest as he cocks one hip back and looks you over. “You’re cold, you’re tired, and you’re crying. Use my sleeping bag to warm up and get some rest. I’ll wake you up a few hours before sunrise so I can get another nap in before we hit the road.”

You want to fight him. You want to tell him to fuck off and go back to sleep, let you keep doing your job. But the small amount of kindness he’s shown, added to the way you’ve lost all the heat and steam that kept your engine running, makes it near impossible to argue. So instead you stand and shuffle toward the back of the truck, brushing past him without a word. You’re about to lift your shoe up onto the back bumper when a soft call of your name has your attention drifting toward him.

Eddie is barely illuminated in the moonlight. A shadow of himself in the dark. You can’t read his expression, can barely see the vague outline that implies he’s looking in your direction. “I’m sorry, y’know. About your dad.”

“Yeah,” you lift yourself up onto the truck bed with the very last bit of energy you have left. “Yeah, me too.”

Neither of you say another word as you shuffle down into his sleeping bag and layer yours on top. It’s still heated from his time spent in it and it smells of pine, whiskey, and something human. With the warmth surrounding you and the stars above, you find just enough comfort to allow you to drift off into a dreamless sleep.

Tuesday, August 16th, 2016 – 10 miles outside Memphis, Tennessee

The pickup rumbles to a stop, waking you from your nap. Your head tilts up from leaning hard against the window in shock. After wiping some drying drool from your chin and stretching your shoulders in the limited space, you look to the shadows out the windshield in confusion. Eddie flips the engine off and pulls the emergency break from beside his seat. “How long was I out? Do we need more gas already?”

“No, Sleeping Beauty, you were only out for an hour.” It really is comical how easy it is for him to take you from half asleep to wanting to snap his head off. “I know you need your beauty rest, but we gotta walk the rest of the way.” His door swings open with a creak, echoing in the concrete room you’ve parked in. Choosing to keep your mouth shut and just follow his lead instead, you open your door and slide out of the seat, your legs already protesting from how they were contorted while you slept.

“Is this a garage?”

“Yup.” Walking around the front toward him, he already grabbed his backpack and has it laid out on a table littered with gear. Pistols, rifles, ammo, machetes, metal pipes, baseball bats, knives, canned food, batteries – a spread perfect for any survivalist. It must’ve taken ages to collect it all, and even more work to keep it stocked this well.

Your curiosity gets the better of you. “Is this all your stuff? Or do you work with other people?” Eddie throws an annoyed look over his shoulder, like you should know better than to ask him anything. Embers fire to life as you walk up right next to him, looking directly into the side of his face while he keeps his eyes on cleaning his pistol on the tabletop. “Is it so horrible just to make conversation? Would it really kill you to be a normal person and talk to someone?”

“Maybe it would. Why the fuck do you even care?” The retort is cold but provides you with a bit of clarity. The chill isn’t directed toward you, but at the idea in general. The issue isn’t just you. The issue is someone caring. You just happen to be the one doing it.

“I don’t care,” you assure him as you swing your own pack onto the table next to his, opening it a little too aggressively and pulling out your own pistol. “Just bored.” The magazine clicks out of the grip at your request, falling into your opposite hand. You silently count through the remaining bullets and reach for the box of 9mms on the table. Your skin tingles with the heat of his glare but he doesn’t make any move to interrupt. You take enough to fill the empty space and let the rest clatter back into the box.

“I share the garage with someone else.”

The admittance falls as he rocks the slide back up the frame and clicks the parts back into place. He doesn’t look away from his work so you don’t either, trying not to react too much to him answering a question. The last thing you want to do is say something wrong and make him clam up again. Would probably be safer to talk about the plan than potentially ask anything else about him as a person. At least, if you wanted to avoid the silence. “How far out of Memphis are we?”

“Couple hours walk,” he’s much quicker to answer as he slots his pistol into a holster near his waistband and goes digging through a box full of what looks like rocks. “Too many patrols and blocked roads to bring the truck further without getting caught.”

“Why are we worried about getting caught? By FEDRA?”

He glances over at you, eyebrows drawn together tight like he’s confused. “Civ’s aren’t supposed to leave the QZ. If I got caught and they recognized me, we’d be fucked.”

Nodding once in understanding, you started putting your things back together with a bit more care than you’d ripped them open. “So we’re sneaking in.”

“We have a few routes in and out of the zone that we rotate through for safety. The closest one had some Infected lurking around last time I was there, but they might have cleared out by now, so we’ll try there first.”

You shoulder your pack again and spend the rest of your time waiting by snooping more. The garage is small and pretty dark, the only light coming from the open door to the outside. Just big enough to fit the truck, the work table, and room to stand between them. There’s nothing personal that could be traced back to anyone and most of the weapons are in locked containers. Nothing a pair of bolt cutters couldn’t get through with a little bit of elbow grease but still better than nothing.

Eddie claps his hands together in what seems like an attempt just to startle you – and it succeeds in making you jump as it echoes against the walls. When you turn on him, steam rushing up from below, his shit eating grin is the happiest you’ve seen him since you left Louisville. “Ready?”

Choosing (again) to exhale the heat instead, continue to avoid the animosity for as long as you can, you tuck your hands into the pockets of your jacket. “When you are.”

The sun is absolutely blazing when you both step out of the shadowed garage and into the bright heat of the morning. You’re surrounded by light gray concrete on all sides, the sun’s rays ricocheting off of every surface until the light is hitting you from all directions. Even squinting hard with your hand over your brow does little to assist your eyes in adjusting to the new normal. When Eddie steps back up, garage door lowered and locked behind you, he has his aviators back on and looks perfectly content.

Prick.

“Must be shit around here in the summer.” You’ve only just made it outside and you’re already tempted to take off your jacket despite the subtle breeze.

“It’s shit everywhere in the summer,” Eddie’s grumbled reply is almost quiet enough for you not to hear, but offers another piece of information. He hates the heat. “Come on, ‘s this way.”

Outer Memphis is utterly deserted. Both by humans and infected. Hell, even seeing an animal at this point would be shocking. But that doesn’t mean it’s missing life, not at all. Greenery stretches all around you as you walk through the suburbs and toward the city center. Vines climbing up walls and poles, grass and weeds pushing out from between sidewalk cracks, bushes weaving their way into chain link fences. Trees left to go wild grow towards each other, making canopies of shade here and there as you walk down the empty streets. The leaves have just started to turn into yellows and oranges, some falling and scattering in muddy piles across the pavement. If you hadn’t known any better, it would’ve looked like humanity just disappeared one day and left the Earth to reclaim what was hers. But you do know better. And the signs of what actually happened are everywhere if you know how to look.

Shattered shop windows of every pharmacy, liquor store, gun shop, and grocery. A rusted and warped metal sign calling the area a FEDRA quarantine zone, matched with another that tells you to look out for signs of cordyceps infection. An apartment building with a yellow ‘X’ spray painted across the door and dried fungus peeking out through the cracks in the frame. Lines of cars in off street parking with the wheels stripped, hoods open to scavenge for parts, gas caps hanging from tanks siphoned. Deep brown streaks of long-dried blood arching across the pavement towards alleys and behind buildings.

While it can be easy to look at the plant life thriving and feel serene, really focusing on the details produces a sulfuric taste in your mouth. One that can only be washed away with liquor or enough time to forget.

You’ve been walking for close to two hours when a wide palm suddenly lands on your chest, halting you in place. It mostly freezes you in shock and disbelief at the touch, but when you look up and see Eddie staring at you with a single finger pressed to his lips, it’s enough to make your heart rate kick up in your chest and a cold sweat break out across the back of your neck. Neither of you move for a few moments. You try to focus your ears in to listen, wanting to try to understand these stimuli Dustin and Eddie seem to instinctually respond to. At first, all you can hear is the brush of leaves across concrete. Attempting to push past that, squeezing your eyes shut as if that will help you extend your senses further, you pick up on the edge of something deep. It’s a rumble in the distance, pitched low and long as it rolls through the air. Almost like a groan.

Brown eyes pitched black by tinted lenses meet your own as soon as you look for them. Wordlessly, Eddie directs you towards the sidewalk where a car sits with its wheel wells flat to the ground. He follows close behind as you cross over and duck behind it, shuffling towards the back bumper to try and peek around the other side. You’re looking out over a 4 way intersection and you spot the source of the noise towards the northern end.

Three infected stand in the street, deep moans pouring from their throats as their heads twitch erratically. One’s arm is broken, bent unnaturally backward, and all three have torn clothes and are covered in dirt. There’s visible fungal growth along their skin, indicating they have been this way for some time, but their eyes remain uncovered. Runners.

Shifting back to being fully behind the car, you hold up 3 fingers to Eddie. His expression is stone as he circles his finger in the air before him. Confused for a moment, you realize he’s probably asking you to check the perimeter and make sure there aren’t more. A careful glance around yields nothing. You return to him with a shake of your head. His middle finger and thumb pinch together 3 times in quick succession, his eyebrows raising in a question. It takes you another pause to consider what the motion means, what exactly he’s trying to ask you. It’s not like the two of you had considered beforehand how to communicate in case danger arose. But some part of your brain nags at you: He’s asking if they’re Clickers.

Going with your gut, you give another small shake of your head and mimic a person running with your own pointer and middle finger. He exhales through his nose in what seems like both relief and amusement before motioning for you to get behind him and reaching for something in a side pocket of his bag. By the time you’ve inched your way around so he can look out beyond the car, he’s produced an intense looking slingshot and a small tan pellet. Unable to ask what the hell he’s doing, you can only watch as he places the pellet into the sling and begins to pull it back hard, his bicep straining against leather with the movement. The tip of his tongue peeks out the corner of his mouth as he takes aim.

It goes sailing – your eyes can barely track it as it arcs high and sails directly over the heads of the infected. You think maybe he missed trying to hit one of them, but his true intention becomes clear when it makes contact with the ground. There’s a small flash of white accompanied by a sharp crack that echoes between the buildings on either side of the intersection. All 3 heads immediately turn on the noise, one so forcefully it almost knocks itself off its feet, before they take off running. Eddie counts to 3 under his breath and then grabs your bicep, pulling you along with him as he jogs across the intersection and a couple blocks further. You rip your arm from his hold but continue to follow close behind as he ducks around a corner and into an overgrown city park.

Once you deem you’re a safe distance away, you chance talking again. “That was a pretty neat trick. What are those things?”

His long legs don’t stop moving so you try to keep the pace as he continues to hurry away from the scene. “Little mix of gunpowder and a couple other things. Some brainiac made the recipe as an alternative to fireworks or sparklers for the kids, which then turned into kids throwing them everywhere and pissing off the guards, which got them banned and confiscated. And, well…” The corner of his mouth pulls toward his ear, dry lips spreading in a sly smile. “FEDRA contraband is fair game if you know where they keep it.”

For the first time in what feels like weeks, you laugh. It bubbles up unexpectedly, the feeling foreign by now, and bursts from between your lips in a bark, one you’re quick to stifle with your hand as it trails off. “Y’know, I thought people were supposed to grow out of their rebellious phase by your age.”

His smile disappears just as fast as it occurred, a flat look directed your way. “Very funny,�� is his grumbled reply, huffing as he adjusts his pack. “Come on, we’re not too far.”

You perk up at the idea of this hike finally being done, especially with the promise of a bath on the other side. Jogging up to his side from where he’s walked away, you ask for confirmation with a little bit too much enthusiasm. “Really?”

“QZ was set up in the Medical District, just east of the Mississippi,” he explains without looking your way, his head swiveling on an axis. Ever vigilant, circling his surroundings like a hawk. The two of you approach a small, wrought iron arch, bracketed on either side by hedges that have to be 9 feet tall. You assume it leads out of the park but Eddie stops you before you can cross through. “Wait here a second.”

Eddie leans his head through, looking both ways like he’s about to cross the street before disappearing to the right. Unease prickles up your spine as you hear the shift of greenery ahead, your lower lip drawing in between your teeth in a nervous habit. The silence builds, starting as a pressure at the base of your skull and growing into a ringing in your ears. It spreads down through your nerves like radio static as you shift uneasily, anxiety setting in quickly the moment you’re left alone. Adrenaline drumming up, you’re close to either yelling for him or bolting when he finally calls out:

“Okay, we’re clear, come on out.”

You pass through the archway and into a tunnel of vines. The sun filters through as the leaves shift, projecting dancing shadows on the packed dirt floor. You turn right and push ahead, using your arms to part a curtain of hanging vines. There’s a concrete staircase on the other side leading up. Halfway to the top, you look ahead and see Eddie.

His back is to you as he stands tall and proud. His silhouette is surrounded by bright blue sky on all sides. The red flannel around his hips and loose bits of his hair sway in the breeze as the sun beats down on the cracked leather of his jacket. His hair is frizzy, his jeans dusted and worn, his boots spread wide as he raises a hand to his brow to look out. A few steps further and you see he’s standing on a sort of balcony over a decorative town square, a murky fountain in the middle and dilapidated statues lining the walkways. It’s situated on a hill, well above the city center that stretches beyond. You can see straight over the buildings of downtown, to the barbed wire-lined walls of the Quarantine Zone, and beyond to the Mississippi River as it rolls.

Eddie turns to you, slowly walking backward toward the stairway down into the square, hands in his pockets with the thumbs sticking out. “You coming or what?”

thanks for reading!! if you liked it, please consider reblogging and leaving a comment, they make my day 💜

#eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x female reader #older!eddie munson #eddie munson angst #eddie munson hurt/comfort #the last of us au #eddie munson series #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #myos ideas #Old Heart

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oscarisaacasimov · 6 months ago

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"Why Would You Be Loved" by Hozier

Verse 1 It's only said to be kind the time that you have with love You're never told but you're loaned it It's a lie, the high that you have with love It feels like gold when you hold it And know it's sweet, to know it when it's gone, baby, So why, why, why

In Hozier’s self-titled first album, love could be a deliverance from the problems of the world (i.e., Take me to Church, Jackie & Wilson, To Be Alone, Work Song).

This latest release “from the vault” fits thematically into Wasteland Baby, where love is yet another complication in chaotic world (i.e. Shrike, Talk, Would That I, Sunlight).

Chorus Why would you be lovin' Why would you be lovin' Why would you be lovin', hey And, hey, why would you be loved Mm, hey, why would you be loved

Hozier repeats this existential question over and over – love is not permanent, or a safe haven, it ends up hurting us, so why do we keep doing it? Why bother to give and receive love?

A few years later, On Unreal Unearth, Hozier resolves his own question with All Things End. Despair and bewilderment at the inevitable end of love has turned into “nihilistic optimism.”

Just knowing That everything will end Should not change our plans When we begin again

Verse 2 Now the world falls apart it starts with their actin' up I wouldn't say it, but I blame them The bleedin' hearts, the arts & that other stuff All the same motivations will melt away Like snowflakes on a tongue, baby So why, why, why

Besides the struggle with romantic love, the other major theme of Wasteland Baby is the ominous dread of apocalypse approaching, and the need to rise up politically against the dangers of the ruling class.

“Bleeding hearts” and “snowflakes” are doing double duty here, as terms for the tenderness and fragility of romantic love but also as derogatory terms for those with leftist or progressive politics.

“The word falls apart, it starts with their actin up, I wouldn’t say it but I blame them.”

I can see several possible interpretations for this opening line of verse 2, and who is the “they” acting up:

It feels like the world falls apart when your relationship ends, and you know the end is near once “actin up” or more conflicts/annoyances begin between the two.

Hozier “blames them,” all the older musicians whose work he listened to in youth, that love is not as “the arts” promised. Now in heartbreak again, he feels unprepared or misled on the true nature of love (and maybe realizes that his work too has contributed to the cultural myth of “love conquers all.”)

Hozier may feel frustrated that artists can describe the world so well, but all their efforts and talent are just "other stuff" and cannot directly change or fix anything.

“They” are the ruling class, and the world is literally falling apart on their watch. “I blame them” for keeping the people fixated on finding perfect romantic love, instead of noticing injustices that we are all harmed by, coming together in larger communities for mutual care or political action. (This final theory may sound a bit tinfoily, but Hozier has politics side by side with love throughout so many songs in Wasteland Baby, it seems hardly a stretch. Look what’s coming in verse 3!)

Bridge Why would you play it all on somethin' as hollow as trust? What if you gave it all, to find that it wasn't enough? What if under the gaze of all, you come short when the going gets rough?

Hozier reveals a worse fear than his lover not caring enough, what if his own best isn’t good enough to keep the relationship going? The “gaze of all” may be a nod to his fame, which came from writing romantic love songs, and is sustained by fans, some of whom openly imagine that he must be the perfect boyfriend.

Bad enough for anyone to come up short in love, but for “Hozier” to fail in this way might be an extra mind-fuck or identity crisis for him.

This tension seems to be resolved in “Too Sweet” where Hozier admits that his career & lifestyle might make him incompatible with some romantic partners, but he loves his life and is content to go their separate ways.

Verse 3 They look for somethin' to be done for those that are most in pain What about me and my achin'? The scales rehung, the breakin' of yoke and chain What about me and my breakin'? And if you ain't for all, how could you try at all, baby? So why, why, why

I can hear the back and forth internal dialogue between two attitudes in the same mind, and boy do I relate to this exact exchange.

Part of Hozier wants to protest for justice and freedom, in the spirit of Nina Cried Power, Jackboot Jump, Be, and even Moment’s Silence. While another part of him is in so much pain that he wants to be cared for and not take on the burden of others pain. Heartbreak and the world hurtling toward destruction both feel like impossible struggles to solve.

[Tangent for Enneagram folks – Hozier is likely a type 4, which is described as romantic, creative, gentle, prone to sadness, high emotional intelligence. Type 4s have a “growth direction” of Type 1, which is described as hard-working, disciplined, devoted to their ideals, and concerned about justice in society. I hear this verse as some push and pull between the Enneagram 1 part that wants to save the world, and the Enneagram 4 that wants to languish in sadness until they feel healed.]

Other Wasteland Baby songs that pair the ruin & hope of love with the ruin & hope of apocalypse include:

Be Be love in its disrepute (lover, be good to me) Scorches the hillside and salts every root (lover, be good to me) And watches the slowin' and starvin' of troops And, lover, be good to me (lover be good to me) Be there and just as you stand (lover, be good to me) Or be like the rose that you hold in your hand (lover, be good to me) That grow bold in a barren and desolate land And lover be good to me

Wasteland Baby And the day that we'll watch the death of the sun That the cloud & the cold and those jeans you have on Then you'll gaze unafraid as they sob from the city roofs Wasteland, baby I'm in love I'm in love with you

NFWMB Ain't it a gentle sound, the rollin' in the graves? … Ain't it warming you, the world gone up in flames? … Ain't you my baby? ain't you my babe?

#hozier #wasteland baby #why would you be loved

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smallnico · 9 days ago

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6, 8, 13, 30 for the oc ask list please!😄

yippee yay yay wahoo! thank you for asking!!

6) If your OC is in a fantasy setting, what profession would they be in the modern day?

answered here!

8) What hobbies does your OC have? What do they do to unwind?

esper has a specific meditation ritual that they do to relax! they hum and pluck random strings on their lyre to feel the vibrations and let their magic just channel through them. stimming.

as for hobbies, aside from playing music for fun, esper collects and polishes swords. on top of being a scary assassin, they are a big sword nerd who likes to learn about different types of weapons, techniques for using them, and how to care for them. post-game i've decided that they take up gardening and herbalism (jaheira teaches them) and teamaking.

13) Does your OC have a rival? How did it start?

not sure! the only person i can think of who would qualify is gortash, and that's mostly because neither of them knows how affection works or how to have a normal friendship. short answer to how that started is that esper framed him for a high-profile murder as leverage to get him to do them a favour, and everything that came after was gortash trying to get them to work for him because they would be unbelievably useful to him. alas the only language either of them speaks is mindgames and one-upmanship.

then the joke answer is this. have an old drawing. they never knew each other as kids but if they did, this is how it would go. because this is basically how it actually went when they were both adults.

ft. baby esper. :)

30) My OC and your OC are friends. This isn't a question. I'm not asking. (How do they respond?)

esper and sunflower should garden together!!!!!!!!! i don't know that they'd get along right away but they can bond over being aasimar/divine-blooded beings who are pretty lonely. i think she would probably intimidate esper a lot, just because she seems like a really genuinely kind person and they have trouble understanding that -- they mirror the people around them but feel stifled by being shaped into someone bright and sunny and good by the emotions of the people they're with -- but i think they would balance each other out well once they got to know each other. i think esper would probably bring her out of her sheltered mindset and encourage her to try new things that seem unpleasant or weird.

as for valora, i think the bhaalblob would fill them with existential dread. they got bodysnatched by bhaal a lot back in the day so they have a bad reaction to the idea of it happening again, or it happening to anyone else around them. esper wouldn't be uncivil toward bb, but they would be uncomfortable, lol :,)

#the askbox #sunflowergem #ask game #esper #gortash #gortposting #smallnico art

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justallihere · 16 days ago

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1, 4, 23 & 58 🤗

1. do you know how you want the story to end when you start, or are you just stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road?

A little bit of both. I usually know the very end goal, but the road to get there changes a lot. My initial (vague) plans for sitq have changed a lot, but where we’re going to end up is still essentially the same. I’m kind of right in the middle of planning and pantsing.

4. what is the plot bunny you’ve been carrying for the longest? optional bonus question: do you ever wonder why you haven’t written it yet and experience deep existential dread?

It’s a reincarnation fic called this life and every other—the title comes from Xaden’s love confession in Iron Flame: “It’s a damned good thing you love me, too, because you’re stuck with me in this life and every other that could possibly follow.” It is basically a dumping ground for a little bit of every fic idea I’ve ever had that I know I won’t ever flesh out completely.

In every life, it starts and ends the same.

Mira Sorrengail says to her sister, “Stay the hell away from Xaden Riorson,” and Violet does the exact opposite.

I don’t really have any existential dread about it lol, I still poke it at every week or two, but I’ve decided to write it in present tense for the vibes and it’s hard to go back and forth with tenses when I have other things that take precedence. And if I don’t end up finishing it, that’s fine. I don’t have the energy to fight with my own brain, and I’d rather write things I love.

23. how do you deal with writers block?

Lots of complaining. Sometimes I write through it, and then go back and edit the garbage that comes out when I have time. Sometimes I read a book or write something else or do nothing. Just kinda depends where my brain is; I usually know if forcing it will make it better or worse.

58. what is the last thing that a fic made you google when you were writing it?

I don’t think I’ve googled much recently. I google name ideas a lot—last night I was searching up synonyms for “disturb” because I’d just used “undisturbed” in the paragraph right before it and needed a different word lol.

#fanfic writer asks

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puffin-smoke · 5 months ago

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Bug Questions to stave off the existential dread

1 - Scenario timee

Your bug was sent into town to grab some supplies, and things are going pretty well. They've ticked off most of their list, and were just looking for one final thing when they came across a small cafe. It was very rustic looking, and there were tables and chairs arranged outside it. Sitting at one such table was Duarte, slightly hunched over and picking at the end of her scarf. On the other side was a stern looking woman who looked uncannily like her. Your bug overhears some of their conversation.

"Why the hell are you acting like this? I'm sorry I haven't been around, but this just- I'm trying. I want to be around."

The woman just sneers at her, annoyed. "Oh this has to be a joke- what do you want from me? Are you here to beg for money? I swear you are just like your father-"

What does your bug do?

2 - How would your bug respond to getting cheated on?

3 - Another scenario?? Wtf. (Tw, character experiencing dissociation)

The bugs haven't seen Duarte in a little while. That isn't unusual in of itself, she's never been the most social, but she's usually around at least. So your bug gets worried and decides to go and check on them.

Your bug knocks on the door to her room. There's no answer, so they knock again. No answer. Shrugging, your bug decides to go in anyway.

Your bug opens the door to see Duarte, sitting on the floor. She's staring at a wall, her eyes glassy and not really seeing anything. She doesn't respond when your bug asks what's going on, but she is mumbling something.

"I'm not here... I'm not here..."

Your bug gets closer. Duarte's breathing is shallow and fast, and she's picking at her skin. It's bleeding. Her gaze is a thousand miles away.

What does your bug do?

4 - wow, that last question was kind of alot. Let's get back to something more lighthearted. Tell me something silly about your bug.

5 - Your bug has been booped on the nose. Discuss.

tags:

@rozeliyawashereyall @willowve01 @asmrbrainrot @kaiamtt @iistxrmyskyii @insignificant-anarchy @stxph-artist @aspenm00n @keyaartz @fangsshadow @rustycopper4use @piffany666 @dreamyshape @idontevenknow7878 @lunaritychuwolf @littlesiren79 @castbracelet240 @strayharmony943 @proxdragon @tiefling-chaos @threeweekinsomnia

@recated @wilderrorcard @diamondzoey @fennaboysenberry @lunnats

@lightdragon789 @pinkcocopuff-aqualoid @itsargyle @not-5-rats @astralbulldragon13

@ccstiles @puffin-smoke

#sorry for rambling #the bug army #gator boys #obsidian lantern #does this count as disassociation? I googled the symptoms and i feel like it fits Duarte? Comparing it to that past bug scenario where #She freezes up during that one fight #At the very least it's the freeze response and that kind of goes hand in hand with disassociation (to my knowledge)#i need to shut up

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animusiem · 4 months ago

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Mayonaka Punch Broke Me In Pieces

Summer 2024 for anime has been slow for me since all the anime I'm anticipating are still long way to go. But, one anime stood out from the rest and it's Mayonaka Punch. An original anime from the director of Ya Boy Kongming tells a story about a cancelled YouTuber (oh sorry NewTuber) making a new channel with vampires with her goal of reaching a million subs. With this being an original anime, I wasn't expecting much apart to see maybe vampire thirsting over girls. We do get that and so far it has been a blast.

What I did not expect is to be crying and having an existential dread over the loss of somebody. Episode 1-3 is the selling hook of the anime where you can see the dynamic between Masaki and the vampires. We see that the vampires here are different than most vampires in media like getting high off of garlic or still can go outside if it's overcast. But this week's episode...I'm floored by this because not only again took the vampire character into creative territory, but also what happened when vampire befriended or even have a bond with a human.

Episode 4 is about Masaki trying to diversify the channel's content by asking her vampires colleague of their interest. Fu didn't fill in the form even before she works at an Onsen. So Masaki entered the room and found a boom box with a cassette tape still in them. After she found out about Fu's singing skills, Masaki and Live decided that they want Fu to do song cover. Fu rejected that idea and that led to the whole gang to find the reason why.

I still can't believe this anime really just dropping one of the most heartbreaking story in anime this season or even the year. The way that the story handled grief and how as a vampire, you just accept it that if you have some sort of attachment towards a human that it won't last long for you. This philosophical question is actually has been explored before with Adventure Time being the animation parallel. But, what it reminded me of (and because the song they played is like singer songwriter type) is Jason Isbell's "If We Were Vampire" which talking about old relationship that one has to die before the other and you have to overcome those grief. Using vampire as something that they wish they are but would the relationship still the same as it was if you're mortal. One lyric that caught me after relistening to it again is "Maybe time running out was a gift". There's no other way to say but part of relationship that you need to face is your own mortality and how it affected you and your partner. Maybe if one of us becoming a vampire or just not telling your human partner that you're one, and then one day you just disappear because they can't bear the disappointment or even being scared of turned away. Then you found out years later that it might be too late for you as a vampire to just relive that moment and what could have been. But in the end life keep going on as you will remember them to infinity.

I just wanna basically let out my thoughts here because as someone who's not even in her thirties yet, the thought of my mortality is already creeping in and I think this show is what I need right now to just let that feeling out. And I can't believe it came from the anime that an episode ago, is having a garlic mukbang. So yeah I highly recommend this anime.

#mayonaka punch #anime #review #anime review #vampire

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mysteriousbp · 4 months ago

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Since Kanako is going to relive Clover's memories she is going to learn about saves and resets.

And that can be really messed up depending on how it's used.

I headcanon that Amalgamates have enough detemination to remember resets but no control the timeline and the only reason they don't act differently is because they have been trapped there for so long they think it's a dream.

And before someone says that Undyne has determination or Martlet has the syringe.

1 - Toriel, Papyrus and Undyne have déja vu moments when you reset.

2 - They are focusing on killing you, they aren't going to stop and remember the good times, Undyne doesn't even talk and Martlet only talks at certain points (phase 2 and melting).

So if that applies to Kanako and we mention Flowey that could mean that she could have been in the true lab with the other Amalgamates for DECADES but to everyone else it was almost two years.

AND THANK GOD FRISK ISN'T A MENACE IN YOUR AU CAUSE DON'T EVEN MAKE ME MENTION THE TRUE PACIFIST RESET.

I can see Kanako having a lot existential dread after learning about saves and resets.

And considering that she still has determination, she will never see the save point the same way again.

That's a nice headcanon. But in my AU, the Amalgamates only have déja vu moments.

My version of Kanako is divided by the existence of saves and resets. On the one hand, there are so many things that happen that just got erased like it was nothing by a flower with a twisted mind. But on the other hand, they are the reason why Clover doesn't have his soul shattered at the moment.

She sees the saves as things that can be used for good or for bad. It all depends on who is using them. So she's more bothered by the fact that Flowey used those powers for his own gain and twisted entertainment.

And taking about Frisk. The original plans were to make Frisk a little bit of a menace. Frisk was never planned to do a True Reset, but they were a menace in other ways. But those plans were thrown away, and I made Frisk a neutral good character.

#undertale yellow #uty #uty kanako #uty second chance au

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dalgursbate · 6 months ago

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to forgive is human and failure is divine (1/?)

Summary: A divinity school dropout walks into the shittiest dive bar in the Lower City. The bartender asks, “What are you having?” The dropout responds, “An existential crisis.” *** Magical realism/Modern Faerûn AU where Shadowheart and Lae’zel run from their problems by causing new ones. Also, by punching each other. A lot.

Rating: M WC: ~4,500 Pairing: F/F, Shadowheart/Lae'zel

Shadowheart needs to find a job.

She can tell, because the emails from her student loan servicer have a lot more capital letters and exclamation points in them these days. She could probably apply for forbearance, but the thought of even opening those messages fills her with a deep-seated dread. Part of her is sort of hoping that if she just ignores them long enough, they’ll go away. Or, hey, maybe one day she’ll finally wake up, and it will turn out that this whole nightmare where she threw her entire life into the toilet was just that—a nightmare.

It's not that Shadowheart regrets dropping out of her program. Not really. It’s just that she had planned her whole life around her service to Lady Shar. Once upon a time, her greatest ambition had been to receive a Master of Divinity from Nightbringer University. The program is known across Faerûn for its prestige and exclusivity, the kind of degree that could take her anywhere in the Sharran church, and Shadowheart had somehow gotten in. At the time, it felt like a dream come true. She wanted nothing more than to devote herself to worship, to repay the church for everything it had given her.

Ha. So much for that.

Though she may no longer serve a deity, Shadowheart nevertheless finds herself praying that today is the day where she wakes up and this horror show ends.

Unfortunately, however, when she opens her eyes her mattress remains on the floor of a shitty studio apartment. The carpet continues to smells like cat piss despite the fact that she doesn’t have a cat. And, according to the clock on her phone, Shadowheart yet again slept in until 4:37 p.m., effectively wasting another day.

It seems she’s still stuck with the reality where everything is wrong.

Oh well, she thinks, and dismisses the three new frantic notifications from her email.

Shadowheart goes through the motions of being a person even though she doesn’t really feel like one right now. She brushes her teeth, showers, forces herself to eat a piece of toast. She braids her hair and puts on a pair of jeans—black, so it’s harder to tell they need a wash. She drinks a glass of water.

Her apartment has a steadily growing pile of Important Things™ on the kitchen table that she’s supposed to attend to; exit paperwork from her program at Nightbringer, research on potential job prospects, and the list goes on and on and on. Even just looking at it is kind of overwhelming. Still, Shadowheart forces herself to sit down, pick the paperwork out from the stack of documents, and look it over in a vain hope that she might actually be able to get work done today.

She starts scanning over the forms she needs to fill out, but it only takes a couple of minutes before she grows too restless to focus. Every time she sees the Nightbringer insignia, she can feel a nervous itch developing under her skin. It becomes impossible to sit still. Before long, her anxious foot tapping turns into anxious leg bouncing, which quickly grows so aggressive that her knee knocks into the bottom of the flimsy secondhand table and threatens to upend it. She only barely manages to grab hold of her laptop and the stack of papers before they're sent flying.

Shadowheart decides to take that as an omen against continuing to pull her own teeth.

Besides, she’ll be productive tomorrow, she promises herself. Because if she is being very honest, she does not think she can stand to be in this godforsaken apartment for a single minute longer. It’s too dirty and dingy and claustrophobic. She desperately craves a change of scenery, ideally to a locale that is less depressingly beige. However, being relatively new to this part of Baldur’s Gate, Shadowheart hasn’t exactly curated a long list of local haunts to patronize. But she’s pretty certain that if she just picks a direction and walks long enough, she’ll find somewhere loud and crowded that will help take her mind off of things.

She spares another glance around her dismal living quarters, before her eyes settle on the haphazard mess of papers once more. Yeah, a distraction sounds pretty good right about now.

So she gets dressed in something skimpy, smudges black around her eyes, and puts on the leather jacket that her ex left and that Shadowheart never bothered returning. She wishes desperately that she still had her divine magic and could cast a spell to clean her clothes, but she figures that a little bit of perfume will more or less do the job. Her whole wallet doesn’t fit in her back pocket, so she takes out her ID and credit card and shoves them loose into her jeans with her phone.

Off she goes, then, in search of something interesting.

The best she can find within a fifteen minute walk ends up being a little dive bar called The Grove.

It isn’t exactly what she’s looking for. Really, what she wants is to dance until she forgets, to maybe let someone take her home so she can spend a night outside of the awful nest she has built herself. But there’s something about it that intrigues her, something about it that catches her eye and pulls her in. It’s just one door in a line among many other stores and restaurants, tucked between a magic shop and what appears to be a laundromat. Truthfully, it doesn't really seem all that exceptional. It looks a little run down, and the storefront is covered in a thickety mess of ivy, twining around the entryway until the words on the sign are barely legible. Somewhat at odds with its naturopathesque exterior, though, is the violent punk music filtering onto the street from inside.

It piques Shadowheart's curiosity.

When she peers into the tiny window in the door, she can see that the interior looks rustic, cozy; there’s a massive hearth along the back wall, surrounded by couches that look rather comfy, if a little bit threadbare. And, despite how unassuming it is, The Grove is surprisingly populated. Inside are a lot of crunchy-looking humans, elves, and dwarves in natural fibers and open-toed sandals, which Shadowheart supposes she should’ve expected given the faint aura of druidic magic about the place. More interesting to her are the number of people dressed in trendier clothing, most of whom appear to be tieflings. There are a hodgepodge mix of patrons lingering all over the establishment, in fact—playing cards, chatting amiably, and headbanging along to the aggressive music.

She figures it warrants further investigation.

Shadowheart decides to enter, and she takes a seat at the end of the bar. She notices that, from inside the establishment, the music is just loud enough to vibe to without disturbing conversation, which is something she would appreciate more if she liked talking to people. The woman behind the bar is one of the aforementioned tieflings, and although Shadowheart can't detect any druidic magic on her, there is still something wild and animalistic about her. She's good to look at, too; tall and muscular, with cherry-red skin and the kind of side shave Shadowheart has always wanted to try but never had the daring too. One of her horns is conspicuously broken in half. Ut makes Shadowheart speculate about the various scrapes and mixups that could have resulted in such an injury, though she's too polite to ever ask. The woman's voice carries from across the bar, over the music, loud and brash in a way that matches the outfit she's wearing: a denim vest covered in colorful pins, with sayings on them like “Nobody knows I’m a lesbian” and “COMMIE DYKE.”

Eventually, the bartender takes notice of Shadowheart's arrival and bounds over to greet her like an excited golden retriever.

“What’ll it be, chief?” Her voice is chipper and bouncy in a way that manages to be inviting instead of irritating. Maybe it’s because there’s a genuine warmth to the way she smiles at Shadowheart, or maybe it’s because she looks like she is trying and failing not to dance enthusiastically to the music.

Normally, Shadowheart is more of a red wine type of a girl. Tonight, however: “Vodka soda, double.”

“We have pretty good cocktails, you know,” the bartender tells her with a wry grin.

“They cost more than a vodka soda?”

“Yep.”

“Vodka soda, double.”

“Aye, aye, cap’n.” The bartender salutes her in faux deference, and Shadowheart finds herself smiling a little, too. “Name’s Karlach, by the way, if you need me. Sometimes I get a little distracted back here.”

“Shadowheart.” Karlach quirks a brow at that, but blessedly says nothing. A minute later, she slides a vodka soda to Shadowheart and then goes back to making drinks for the other patrons.

There’s fast, angry guitar pounding in her ears, and the drink is strong when Shadowheart sips it.

Her chest loosens, a little.

A few vodka sodas later and there is a pleasant haze around Shadowheart’s vision. The lights have halos, now, bright and glowy and almost holy. The edges of her world feel as though they have softened somewhat. The only people still sitting at the bar are her and a couple at the opposite end, a halfling and a drow who are too invested in each other to need any attention from the bartender. As such, Shadowheart has apparently been assigned the duty of entertaining Karlach.

And, wow, Karlach is nosy.

“You new to Baldur’s Gate?” Karlach asks, leaning over the bar and resting her chin on her palm. “Haven’t seen you around before.”

Shadowheart shakes her head. “I grew up in the Upper City. Went to school there, too.” She takes a long sip of her drink.

Karlach lets out a low whistle, expressing an emotion that Shadowheart is too intoxicated to interpret. “So what went wrong for you to end up here?”

“Who says I ended up here? Maybe I’m just visiting,” Shadowheart says with a single eyebrow raised. At least, she thinks she has a single eyebrow raised. Her face is a little tingly.

“Shady—I’m gonna call you Shady, by the way. Shady, you’re drinking the cheap drinks at a dive near the docks. By yourself. Doesn’t exactly suggest that things are going well right now.”

Shadowheart stares at her for a long moment, intent on stonewalling her. Soon, though, the earnestness in Karlach’s expression breaks her resolve. She sighs. “Got kicked out of school. Or left, I guess.”

“What happened?”

“That’s none of your business,” Shadowheart responds, tone acerbic, and then winces a little in regret; she likes Karlach. Karlach is nice. Shadowheart shouldn’t be mean to Karlach, even if Karlach is terrible at minding boundaries.

Karlach just shrugs it off good-naturedly, still grinning, and Shadowheart is relieved to not have ruined this, too. “Fair play, but you look like you need a confessional, bad. And who better to swoop in and lend an ear than the gorgeous-but-attentive bartender?”

Shadowheart barks a laugh at that, unexpectedly. “Confessional, right,” she says sarcastically. For a brief second, she worries at her bottom lip with her teeth as she contemplates actually telling Karlach the truth. Eventually, she thinks, fuck it. What does she really have to lose here? “That was a better joke than you probably even realize.”

“Oh?”

She nods. “I was a cleric, in divinity school to work within my church.” Shadowheart takes a deep breath and forces herself to say the next part: “I–I left the church, and they kicked me out of the school.”

“So maybe confessional’s the last thing you need, then, eh Shady?” Karlach’s voice is light, but she seems to be listening to Shadowheart pretty intently. “What made you leave?”

Unintentionally, Shadowheart’s eyes drop to the pins on Karlach’s shirt. Then, quietly, she answers: “It was the Sharran church.”

“Oh,” Karlach says softly, voice full of empathy and immediate understanding. It makes Shadowheart’s skin tingle uncomfortably, and she starts squirming in her seat. Karlach's kind stare is making her feel too exposed, now. She wishes that she hadn’t taken her jacket off; gooseflesh is beginning to dot her arms where she rubs them absentmindedly. Then, Karlach asks, “You like bourbon?”

Shadowheart blinks at her. “Yeah, why?”

“There’s a cocktail we got here you gotta try,” Karlach says. “It’s called the Oak Father’s Blessing, technically, but we all just call it the Oaky Smoky.” She turns, and begins mixing ingredients. “I think you’d really like it.”

“I–what?”

“Don’t worry, it’s on the house,” Karlach grins back at her, before turning back to make the drink.

Shadowheart is struck with the revolting sense that Karlach pities her.

Oh, Gods, she really hates that. This is why she doesn’t tell people this stuff, she remembers. This is why it is better for her to just deal with it by herself.

She wishes she weren’t tipsy, wishes she could think more clearly. As Karlach has her back turned, mixing the drink, Shadowheart tries to categorize the maelstrom of complicated emotions warring for attention inside of her. Her brain feels numb, hazy. There is a hot, sparkling rush churning unpleasantly in her belly, something like shame or anger or panic. But she thinks there is also, maybe, a tiny part of her that feels lighter for having told Karlach even a part of what happened. Like she’s let go of a breath she’d been holding for a long, long time.

It's as Shadowheart is busy introspecting that someone comes and sits two seats down from her at the bar. Unlike Shadowheart, this person seems oblivious to the complex array of emotions and contradictions swimming in Shadowheart's liquor-addled mind, a fact of which Shadowheart is eternally jealous. Also unlike Shadowheart, the person appears to be a githyanki, which is a strange enough occurrence to pull her out of her reverie for a moment and look over.

The woman must notice her surprise, because she greets Shadowheart with a menacing glare and a pronounced scowl before quickly looking over to Karlach.

“Be with you in a moment!” Karlach chirps at the newcomer cheerily, clearly oblivious to the woman's blatant and unwarranted hostility.

Despite her surliness, Shadowheart finds it strangely difficult to look away from her. Both because it is uncommon to find githyanki in Baldur's Gate, and because the woman is oddly...captivating. Emboldened by alcohol, Shadowheart attempts to discreetly eye the woman up from down the bar. She notices a few things immediately. First, the woman has absurdly large, babydoll-like eyes. Though, she notes, they are not particularly innocent looking. Rather, the adjectives that leap to Shadowheart's mind are “catlike” and “feral.” Something dangerous lurks there, she thinks to herself nonsensically. Dangerous or maybe just unhinged. Further cementing the image of a cat in Shadowheart's mind are the leopard spots that adorn the other woman's olive green skin. And, as Shadowheart tries to covertly drag her gaze down the woman's body, she sees how wiry and thin the woman's frame is. Almost delicate looking, she would think, if not for the fact that she suspects that the woman throws a killer right hook.

The other woman either does not notice Shadowheart's covert observation, or she simply elects to ignore it. Either way, it is quickly interrupted by Karlach's return, accompanied by a drink in either hand.

“Right, here ya are, Shady,” she says, passing one of them to Shadowheart and retaining the other for herself. When Shadowheart grabs hers, Karlach raises her glass toward Shadowheart’s for a toast. “Cheers, to abandoning the church! To choosing yourself, and to choosing better things!”

Somehow, despite herself, Shadowheart finds herself grinning at Karlach’s optimism. Silently, she clinks her tumbler against Karlach’s before taking a hesitant sip. The cocktail is warm and, as its nickname suggested, smoky. She can see why Karlach suggested it; it settles in Shadowheart’s belly like a pleased cat, curling around her comfortingly even in the face of all of her unease.

For a brief moment, Shadowheart almost feels okay again.

“Tchk. As if being a heretic is a thing to celebrate.”

Well, it was nice while it lasted. But then, Shadowheart supposes, she never did get to keep nice things.

Still, the sheer audacity of the outburst takes her by surprise and ignites a righteous ire in her. She whips her head to the right to look at the strange woman, eyes shooting daggers at her even as the world stutters slightly from the booze. Words like acid jump to her tongue unbidden. “You’d do well to keep your thoughts to yourself, stranger.”

“And you’d do well to develop a higher tolerance, istik. Or do your kind simply not know how to enunciate?”

Oh for the love of—outraged, Shadowheart jumps out of her seat. Truthfully, she isn't really thinking about what her plan is once she’s standing, whether she's going to pick a fight or if she is going to storm off. She just knows she needs to move, needs to get up, needs to do something. She feels propelled as if by motor, like she has been shocked out of a stasis she didn't even realize she was in. Even as her ire turns to pure, unadulterated fury, there's something pleasant about the sensation; she hasn't been so motivated since...Well, since.

Karlach, damn her, sees where this is going and immediately steps in.

“Hey, hey, hey. Not in my bar, nuh-uh. Take it outside or act like adults,” she says exasperatedly, gesticulating wildly with a bar rag. Then, she stops. “Actually, you know what?” She points at the gith. “You leave. You can come back when you’ve learned some manners.”

“Tchk,” the rude woman says again, before she acquiesces and exits the bar.

Logically, that should be the end of it. If Shadowheart were smart, she'd let the matter drop there, content with the moral victory of the asshole getting dressed down and kicked out of the bar.

The thing is, though, that Shadowheart does not want to let the matter drop. What she wants is to follow the woman out of the bar and give her a pointed, colorful piece of Shadowheart's mind. Unfortunately, that is an idea that comes with at least a couple of problems. The first problem being that she hasn’t paid Karlach for her drinks yet, and the second problem being that a plan like that is likely to end in violence.

You know, the kind of violence where she fights another woman in an alley over a few stray comments.

Yes, Shadowheart thinks. That would be bad.

And it would be bad, of course. But. Somehow, the thought of punching a stranger—that stranger, specifically—in the face fills Shadowheart with a new emotion. An enticing emotion, and one that is difficult to entirely pin down. The best she can think to describe it is that it makes her feel like her blood has been replaced with something thinner and more fluid. That it makes her feel awake for the first time in too long. Or maybe just that it makes her feel, period.

She chooses not to examine that any further.

Instead, Shadowheart looks to Karlach, digging her credit card out from her jeans and hurriedly sliding it across the counter. “Can you settle me up please? I’ll be back.”

“Oh, Shady, no,” Karlach says, and she looks so disappointed. Shadowheart decides that she can’t really deal with that, not right now, so she just turns and follows the stranger out the door without another word.

The air when she steps outside is frigid; much colder than it was in the bar, and the goosebumps on her arms return with a wicked vengeance. She almost can't feel it, though; not with the way her blood is searing hot and vital in her veins. She searches the street frantically for the other woman, and it's only a brief second before she catches a glimpse of her turning into the alley next to the bar. Fighting the chorus of gogogo that is singing loudly in her mind, Shadowheart forces herself to pause and consider whether she really wants to do this.

The decision is disturbingly easy. Easier than any other she's made in the past several months.

“Hey!” Shadowheart shouts after the woman, rounding the corner into the alley to see her propped up against the wall. Even though it feels like it's only been a moment, the stranger is already smoking a cigarette. Infuriatingly, she looks like she was waiting for Shadowheart. “Just who the fuck do you think you are?”

The woman smiles nastily. “I’m Lae’zel of Crèche K’liir.” Shadowheart doesn't know where that is, so she assumes it must be in Alprisma. The woman drops her cigarette to the ground and stamps it out. “The real question is who you are, faithless.”

Oh, that bitch.

“You know nothing of my faith,” Shadowheart hisses back, fists balling at her sides. She walks forward into the woman's, Lae'zel's, space until they’re almost nose-to-nose. Absentmindedly, she notes that Lae’zel’s breath smells of a noxious mix of whiskey and tobacco, and she wonders how intoxicated the other woman is. She seems more sober than Shadowheart, at least, but she supposes that's not much of a feat.

“I know you betrayed it,” Lae’zel snarls back, poking a finger into Shadowheart’s chest. “I heard what that teeth-ling said,” and Shadowheart doesn’t even have time to process the mispronunciation before Lae’zel continues, “I know you chose to forsake your church, chose to be named h'sharlak. You're a disgrace.”

Shadowheart doesn't know what that word means, but she doesn't like the ugly way it curls around Lae'zel's tongue. She finds her eyes drawn to the movement of it, repulsion or rage or something else pooling in her gut at the sight. She doesn't know what, exactly. All she knows is that she doesn't want to talk anymore, doesn't want to think, so she punches Lae’zel in the face as hard as she can.

Lae’zel reels slightly, but to her credit she otherwise bears the hit well. She clearly anticipates it, rolling with it easily and recovering quickly enough to respond with one of her own to Shadowheart’s gut.

It turns out Shadowheart was right: Lae’zel can throw a punch. The sensation of it knocks the wind from her lungs in an instant, sending her stumbling back a step. Something about the way the pain blooms in her stomach is grounding, almost. Like Shadowheart is finally tethered to the earth beneath her again. More than that, she can feel the way the blow lights up her nervous system, her body flooded with chemical impulses that almost feel foreign after so long spent absent.

Shadowheart smiles. There's a split second of stillness where neither of them moves.

Then, Lae’zel turns her head, spits a frothy pink mix of saliva and blood onto the stone pavement beneath them. “Is that all you’ve got, istik?”

Involuntarily, as though compelled, Shadowheart feels a growl rip from her throat and she lunges at Lae’zel. Her fingers dig into the other woman's shoulders as she shoves her into the wall of the magic shop next door as hard as she can, hard enough that she can hear the crack of Lae'zel's skull against the brick. She can hear the bright sound of Lae'zel laughing, manic and fierce, as Shadowheart pins her there.

“You do not know who I am,” Shadowheart warns her, and isn't the thought of that exciting? That they don't know each other, not at all, and here they are. “You do not know what I’ve got.”

“Then show me, faithless,” Lae’zel spits out, and the sound of it is like music, like poetry, somehow. It's nasty and cruel in a way that burrows deep inside Shadowheart’s bones. Shadowheart hopes it makes a home there. “Or I will show you.”

And Lae’zel stomps down hard on Shadowheart’s foot, forcing her to wince and pull back enough that Lae'zel is able to flip their positions. The two of them are both breathing heavily, now. Shadowheart can feel Lae'zel's nails leaving marks in her bare skin.

Suddenly, Shadowheart wonders what passerby would think of the position they're in. Whether they would assume their passion was romantic rather than violent. The thought forces a shudder of disgust down her spine. Then, Lae'zel slams her backwards into the wall once, twice, three times. Shadowheart can feel the strength of her in each ruthless thrust, and the edges of her vision quickly become blurry—this time, from pain and adrenaline rather than alcohol.

She struggles vainly in Lae’zel’s grasp, but it immediately becomes apparent that the other woman is too powerful (or, perhaps, that Shadowheart is too drunk), and she knows she isn’t going to be able to budge her. It seems like she’ll have to fight dirty, then. Lae’zel’s stance is wider than Shadowheart’s, wide enough to provide an opening, so Shadowheart ratchets her knee up as quickly and brutally as she can into Lae’zel’s groin. Lae’zel grunts, clearly hurt, but her hold on Shadowheart lessens not at all.

In the instant where Shadowheart makes contact, though, she can feel the pulsing heat radiating off of Lae’zel’s crotch. She thinks Lae'zel must burn at a much higher temperature than she does. Or maybe, Shadowheart thinks absurdly, Lae’zel’s blood has simply all rushed to greet her. Whatever the cause, it makes Shadowheart keenly aware of all the places where their bodies touch. Every point of contact feels sharp and alive, her poor, abused flesh made so tender from Lae'zel's beating. The rough brick of the magic shop scrapes against the bare skin of Shadowheart's shoulders. Lae'zel's grasp on her arms is bruisingly savage. Shadowheart can almost feel the electric anticipation of touch in the space between them. Belatedly, she realizes her nipples are hard.

The fourth time Lae’zel rams her mercilessly against the brick, Shadowheart lets out a little gasp against her will.

It makes Lae’zel stop and stare at her. Shadowheart struggles to meet her gaze, less out of shame and more because of the way the world spins around her. She tries anyway. The other woman's eyes are bright and intent like a neon sign. She looks hungry. No, Shadowheart realizes. She looks starving.

“If I ever see you here again,” Lae’zel says, taking a step back and releasing her hold on Shadowheart, “I will have to remind you of your place once more.”

Shadowheart can't stop herself from asking, "And where's that?"

"Beneath me," Lae'zel sneers, and Shadowheart swallows. Because it’s a threat, of course. But she can read between the lines well enough to see the invitation there, too.

Without another word, Lae’zel walks away, leaving Shadowheart bloody and panting in the alleyway.

It’s not until later that night, after Shadowheart gets home and furiously rubs herself off with a hand inside her jeans, that she realizes she never retrieved her credit card and leather jacket from The Grove.

Well then, she thinks, a grin slowly growing on her face. I guess I’ll just have to go back.

#bg3 shadowheart #bg3 lae'zel #shadowzel #my fic #tfihafid #reposting bc i did a significant rewrite

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essentionesque · 11 months ago

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LORE DROP???

Image text under read-more

Templar Emperors (Vegala 1) Humans have long since lived to grow and adapt as they survive the trenches of existential dread and woe. These wonderers believe in a religious overseer, but deluded themselves into thinking they had to create their overseer who was never going to come for them. Centuries pass as the land destroys its organic resource and turns to an era of artificial technology, borrowing from the minds of regular civilians and crafting what they believe is wizardry and playing with forces unbeknownst to them, but are in fact just mirrors of their own shells.

Crimson Colony (Vegala 2) Rising heat waves permeate from Vegala 1 and 3 as it creates fire and onyx. Gargoyles and orcs of magma and onyx come together born from the acidic fire that brims through their system. A system dividing these species moves their plates from one side of their system to another, like individual tectonic plates in their own orbit. Their 6 layers of hell act as the measure of depth one must remain in to survive in their atmosphere. Often times planets cross from one to another, which can often result in civil discourse. But from the flames becomes a forged arsenal of heavy weaponry each borrow as they grow stronger.

Phyliphasees (Vegala 3) Caught in between the fires of Vegala 2, and the parasitic gases erupting from Vegala 4, Angels of shining orbs were born. They were but mere glowing entities scattering through the cosmos of their own system. Their lives had moved far beyond the concept of survival, and had discovered the strength of being a light that keeps away the darkness. Many of these angels are cast away if they bring nothing to their planetary structure and are seen as lesser by their overseers. They would lurk across the planes of nothingness in search for a home, to which they would find it in a race of titan mechs.

Bozchlyth Gnial (Vegala 4) Millenia's pass through Vegala, and with rising pollution crossed between Vegala 5 & 3, gluttony and vile bacteria's evolved into freakishly barbaric Xenos races. They are a disease that prey on spreading across planes of land, consuming mass entities to transform and evolve throughout years, eventually being able to spread their wings unto territories unaware of their emerging swarms.

Trojan Magnus (Vegala 5) An age of mechanic tyranny bestows the regions of Vegala 5. Trojan Magnus. A war of machines came with a perilous fight for biomass, all in which to create super titans capable of fortifying their worlds and keeping danger away. These monsters are lesioned by dark angels that create forgery and harmony between steel and muscle, crafting the faces of blood and debauchery on a titans chest. A Trojan titan's bionic carnage knows no bounds when combined with super human organisms. They had faced Xenos armies before, and with their remains would become this forging.

Velvetta (Vegala 6) In the far away barons of Vegala Infinity remains a race of majestic elvan royalty bent on concealing archives of recourse to be sent back to Vegala Infinity. This empire was not about war, they were about protecting knowledge and bringing it back to their rulers caught in the middle of the Vegala bubble. Time after time, several of the various systems floating in space catch their eyes on this resource and instead come to lust for this knowledge and prey on its seed. Several times the Velvettans frail masses would succumb to invasion, and must spend the rest of their lives being defenders of resource.

#dagames #iris official #goliath's throne #dawn of the dimetrix #heart of an artist #will ryan originals #Tag yourself I'm Velvetta-

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bracketsoffear · 1 year ago

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Joy Wang/Jobu Tupaki (Everything Everywhere All At Once) "Jobu is able to comprehend the entire scale of humanity in every corner of the multiverse, and it's all… Meaningless. You see when you put literally everything on a bagel when you're bored one day - every report card, every breed of dog, every ad on Craigslist, every grain of salt or seed - it collapses in on itself and you realize… We are all so small and insignificant that nothing we do matters. And when nothing matters, all of the pain and guilt you feel at your life going nowhere just goes away. It's sucked into a bagel.

A cult is formed around this bagel - all the other people that Jobu has shown the truth to - but what she really wants is her mother to understand how empty she really feels."

Jadis (Kill Six Billion Demons) "Same Cosmic Madness with the other existential dread Vast Avatars. She saw the Shape of the Universe--all of space-time, in a form the human mind could theoretically comprehend--giving her total, perfect knowledge of literally everything there has been, is, and will be. Her understanding of how vast existence is and how insignificant everyone and everything is in the face of that destroyed her: “The totality of time and space is a beautiful piece of amber, in which we are frozen. A speck…of a speck of a speck of a speck of a speck of a speck.”"

#vast poll #the magnus archives #the vast #poll #everything everywhere all at once #eeaao #kill six billion demons #ksbd

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junelover505 · 3 months ago

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I have stitches in my mouth; I yearn to be heard

TRIGGER WARNING!!

existential dread, but it's not too bad! This is part of a series that's for mature audiences however, and the chapters will progressively get darker and darker.

So as always: Minors DNI!! And read with caution!!

A little something to set the mood :)

Between blacking out and coming to; transportation:

Juniper bears an indiscernable hollowness in her heart. The lonely soul found itself in emptiness as terrifying as it was familiar.

Is the void a mirror or a window?

What constitutes your existence?

Is it just your belief? Your perception of your own self? The very act of thought?

Cogito ergo sum.

Juniper always believed that when a tree falls down and no one is around to hear it's echo, then it is mute.

Why think when you can be seen.

Juniper is always seen.

Where is June?

CHAPTER 1: Cogitare; cogitare; the only thing you can do as it begins.

"Je pense ,donc je suis."

"I am thinking, therefore i am."

June always thought it was just: "i think, therefore i am."

The memory was something she recalled from when the teacher brought up some other philosopher's interpretation of the sentence, and upon discussing the belief of a mistranslation, everyone turned to the only student fluent in french for confirmation.

It very well could have been; as the french present tense is rather vague ,and capable of being used in the absolute; whereas the English simple present is much more restricted, and not necessarily indicative of an active continuous action.

That class started with the teacher's attempt to establish a scenario of consistent doubting of all that you know.

--Passed down information, folklore stories, word of mouth anything without tangible scientific proof.--

Discarding all that had a chance of doubt, until all that you had left was certainty.

--Anything that you simply couldn't prove yourself, all that you can't see or experience through your own perception.--

As long as it had even the most minute chance of being false; it is then factually not real, or wrong ;so that what is left is what we can know beyond the shadow of a doubt.A

And as all can be cause for doubt, it also includes your very own senses and your very self.

June moved on to daydreaming by that point of the class, because how can you have doubt in so much? What would even be left for you to doubt? you'll have nothing. might as well be nothing, as nothing will be left.

How can you even doubt all your senses simultaneously for that long, all that you've known and what's been ingrained in you. Something so fundamental is literally 70% of what built you, your perception, and how you process the world that you just simply decided was not real.

You cannot look at fire, put your hand in and feel the burning in your palm, then deny the fact that it simply is a flame before you ,crying deception while blisters form at your skin.

Well ,the strawberry Blonde understood such train of thought when she saw a moving tree that turned out to be a man from the woods, outside a rundown motel window.

She doubted her sense of sight ,when she saw the 'man' turn out to be a live mannequin as tall as if not taller then the highest branches, in a black suit and bright red tie.

She doubted her sense of smell ,when the scent of copper mingled in with that of pine trees after running to look for it.

She doubted her sense of touch, when she stepped on a dying, beaten body in the woods.

She doubted her very judgement when she didn't try fighting harder when the killer grabbed at her like she was some type of stress plush and he was but a scared child.

Now, at this moment where time seemed to stand still and she lost all reference that she's long relied on; she doubted her very existence after blacking out without a second's notice; upon standing before that creature, the moment that blood covered man had let go of her and she failed to run away in time; leading June to find herself in endless darkness for a reason that she has yet to come to understand.

Empty black; an all consuming nothingness. A void. An abyss.

Did she die? Maybe a heart attack.

no.

Those hurt, her diet is good, she had no genetic heart issues from either side of her family.

Did she pass out?

Shouldn't she then be unconscious? Unaware of even where she was and safe from knowing that such a void existed.

What was she supposed to do if she suddenly stopped existing? Was this it?

Without her sense of perception; without that man covered in blood and soot, what other proof did she have of still being alive; of being real?

He was least lucky enough to ask her to confirm they saw the same thing when they faced the tall mannequin; she had no one to tell her if she herself could be seen.

She was alone; without the perception of herself or that of others to rely on.

Can she truly remain when she had no way of grounding herself with her self despite having no body an no way to impact what is around her corporally?

If there wasn't a world for her to interact with any longer, and be perceived in ;then she could only conclude that she was simply taken away from reality itself; akin to a grey hair plucked out from a scalp filled in black.

That is how she felt at least. One moment, she was awake and afraid, doubting all her senses and all that she'd known, facing a one in a million scenario that seemed to have come straight out of a block buster shelf, and like a snap everything went to an all consuming black.

She was no longer real. She could not have been.

She had just ceased to exist, she is now nothing. As nothing is all that is left and the only thing she could conceive.

So she was simply nothing? That's all it could be.

A conscious concept doomed to roam about in a forever nothingness with no one but the empty shell she's never bothered to know until now. Except there was no shell of flesh; just a dull obsidian.

Wasn't that who she was before?

An empty nothing, the lack of a person.

Was that all she'd ever been? How shed been seen? Just the silhouette of a a void, a nothingness cut out from the fabric of reality and ever moving in stopmotion-like gestures ;only craving to prove she was made of tangible matter upon her interactions with all that is in smooth sultry gestures; but pathetically failing each attempt and creating a show of pitiful submission to whatever creator willfully made her believe she was made in the image of meat to be ferociously consumed?

Desperate and hungry in her own right, but never allowed satiation.

She could not feel the air entering her lungs no matter how hard she tried to breathe.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

Over and over, she tried to take in a desperate breath but felt nothing fill the area she assumed her lungs should have been in.

Where were her organs supposed to be in? The rest of her.

There was no way to tell up from down ,the left from right ,the north from east, the front from the back.

Her lungs, her shoulders her feet her stomach, the ever growing source of her aching.

There was no use in trying to hug herself as she felt nothing.

She saw nothing and felt nothing, knew nothing and so she might as well be nothing.

She'd been stuck like this for so long.o

How long?

She never will she know a reality beyond this one, where a lack of existence will forever be her mirror as a nothing; a less then nought.

She was doomed. How much time had passed? It felt like hours ,days, ages without any stimuli other then her own physically unfelt terror and an all consuming famishment for a corplorality she'd lost, bordering onto manic obsession.

Ages of trying to create sound through cries and screams without a voice box to speak of, no throat to go sore ,and no ears to deafen let alone hear.

All encompassing carnal anguish and restless terror of a nothing, a horror that is not to be anatomically felt.

She had no heart, to feel its breakneck unrhythmic thundering in her ribcage, creating rapid thought clouding pulsations in her ear; no blood to feel its rapid pumping through her system; no vision to cloud over and blur and tunnel into everything and nothing at once.

She had no mind left to loose, but endless time to mourn the flesh she's once took for granted and had the audacity to despise in the past, thinking of it as a curse that will ruin her until she would have no consciousness left to realize it was gone ,when she's 6 feet under.

This was hell itself.

Her hell was her very own all consuming emptiness she'd long felt within personified. Her filthy all blackened soul laid bare before her and she had eternity to make peace with such a fate.

Eternity; days ,weeks ,months. Time was not real and she had no way to count it, but her thoughts were so disgustingly clouded as she ruminated on her lack of existing.

Her new normal.

So much began to blur and mush together before separating back with only the sheer desperate carnal thirst her mind had for stimulation that made her take the time to rearrange her dusted memory closet.

And over whatever chunk of uncountable time had passed ,as her very mind felt like it was dissipating and fizzling out; she realized that her new curse of lucidity was the only thing she had left in this dark abyss, was slowly giving out on her as well.

She did have a mind, awareness, at least she had thought. And that might be all she would ever have.

What if that could just as easily be lost as her body and all else?

Wouldn't having a mind mean she was at least something within it's own right? She must at least exist in some form as her consciousness was concrete.

The very fact that she thought she simply ceased to exist was proof she did . And that despite feeling like time no longer existed beyond her vaguely guessed perceptions of its passing, it still technically should have still been passing.

You cannot doubt the active moving concept that you are as you'd need to exist to deny it.

Therefore she herself as an active, conscious concept , is simply incapable of denying her own existence, as the ladder act was paradoxically the antonym of the concept she was denying.

Therefore ,she had to be real, this new normal still had something of her old normal within it, there might be more to dig out.

Maybe her consciousness ,and therefore existence was just temporary?

After all, you'd never know if you are simply dreaming, you just wake up.

So maybe there was a way out of this nightmare that was beyond accommodating to it, or trying to look for traces of her body through recreating the basic functions with no flesh to function ,or raking through her blurred and unreliable memories for concrete examples of her existence ?

It would explain the eternal aspect of her reality and the rapid fizzling of the small traces left of her that were not linked to her corporal

She didn't know how long shed been stuck in this abstract state but it was far longer then she could bother keeping track of all at once ,despite her mind's hunger for entertainment that was not its own self.

She was still real; right? She wasn't completely faded yet as she could still think.

She had just concluded that she was.

But maybe she remembered wrong.

This state felt timeless, but the proof of her existence was not a timeless final fact.

It's only a certainty if she was actively thinking of it, reflecting upon it; doubting it; desperately holding onto her fastly fleeting identity as it slipped like sand through her fingers.

God what she couldn't give to feel sand in her fingers ,under the nail bed that she would later scrub off with cooling water and lathered soap.

The more she tried to guesstimate her time spent in the abstract ; the worse it got, in the form of an ever heavy sense of despair, pushing her to stop halfway through trying to count passing mississippies before starting over again in some type of sick self inflicted torture.

It's s not like she had anything left but her consciousness in this dark and unfeeling , all encompassing void.

She just had to make sure she was real; that she wasn't fading. Focus on your existence, that you are in fact real.

It's the only thing she's yet to try, and she could at least feel it was slowing down the dissipation of the fastly fleeting "I" that she was.

She had to stick to the basics and keep her mind in one easy and discernable track.

"cogito ergo sum"

She was real. Real and not a nothing.

She was June.

"i think , there for i am"

She was june. And she was real. Even if she was stuck here for centuries more. At least she was real. She was;

And she will keep telling herself and make sure it remained as such.

"I am thinking, therefore I am"

She was Juniper Eve Laine. And she was real. She still existed. She was actively existing. And by whatever cruel god that created her, she will keep existing if she has a hand in it.

"I am."

"I. AM."

But did certainty equate the truth?

If she was so sure she existed, did that make it fact?

A gasp finally filled her lungs.

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