#while everyone else is still grieving bc they think he’s dead

[winnie-the-monster]

[remember-the-fanfics]

Hai, so um I really like the Gen-Z overlord Reader, bc well they are basically me, if you are able/want to can you make some possible angst headcanons? Like how they miss home or their friends

Just Before the pilot episode

I'm trying so hard to have a timeline, everything is connected! I just have it in no order.

This is shorter than usual.

• You would have so many things to be sad about

• Like how you could never live your life before you died

• Missing all your friends because they'll (hopefully) get to grow old

• Your family grieving over your life being taken to soon.

• Older sibling never got to see you truly become an adult without your parents

• Younger sibling missing you, who just got them in a way where they could annoy you but you would still protect them afterwards.

• Parents/Guardian losing their child way to soon.

• You usually avoid those thoughts, having to do be someone strong daily for the people you protect.

• You already had time to mourn the future you never got and everyone you miss when you weren't an Overlord.

• So pushing your grief all the way down inside to never see the light of day.

"Haha, nope."

• Until you seeing or smell something like home and it hits you, hard.

• Then you're back being a child, who just wants their parents to comfort them from a nightmare.

• You're with Angel Dust, Vaggie, and Charlie. Doing an exercise that Charlie ropped you into.

• When something of the moment of true trust reminds you of home.

• The last place it was completely given so freely.

• Angel Dust nugges you saying it was your turn again.

• Before realizing you had tears that started stream down your face.

• He tried to cheer you up with a joke

"Didn't think the exercise was that bad."

• Didn't work for the most part.

• You were laughing, while crying. Creepied him out and got the others attention.

• You just wanted to go home, back to the people you care about.

• But you could never go back, you were dead.

• Why does it feel so unfair that you died before you actually got to live.

• Getting up while everyone was asking you if you were alright

"Ha ha, no."

• Heading to your room because you didn't want to drag everyone else's mood down with you.

• Only to be stop by Angel Dust, who knows how you feel about missing your family but not understanding that your grief about missing your life.

"I didn't get to live my life, Angel! I died less than two months after I turned 18, I still lived with my parents! My family and friends had to bury me, I have to wait while everyone I know get to live."

• Angel Dust did not know you were that young.

• This is the first time most of them saw you be more than just chaotic.

• Heading to your room to be alone finally

• After you got your emotions back inside because you are still needed by many people.

• Avoided Charlie for awhile because she wanted you to talk about your feelings

• Then Vaggie when Charlie got sad about it.

• You stayed away from the hotel for a week, wanting stayat your territory for the extermination any way.

• Texts Charlie and Vaggie, that you would be back afterwards.

• Charlie texting you about an interview she has the day after.

• Vaggie texts you to stay safe until then.

• Missing your family from life and realizing that you made your own type of family-friendship in hell.

• Not having time to process it when you see an explosion from a far and you know who would be there and rushing there to make sure they'll be okay.

-

And that leads you into the whole being there when Carmilla killed an exorcist.

[stonegoldsxcrxt]

I hate to still be talking about this bc it kind of pops up literally every episode and I think I have a different perspective on it than most, but regardless of if Tech is or isn’t alive, the fact that the show refuses to allow us to see other characters actually grieve him is a narratively weak move imo.

I’ve seen lots of arguments about why we as the audience are not seeing a lot of the emotional processing regarding Tech in tbb ranging from “these people are soldiers and they’re used to losing people” to “it’s just happening off screen” and while I guess either one of those things could be the explanation, I’m still kind of puzzled by why production would make any of those choices re: Tech’s death.

My counter argument for “these people are soldiers” is that we do get to see other emotional processing in the show. We’ve gotten to see Crosshair process a LOT between Mayday and his squad and the most recent episode where he’s still emotionally regulating (just not a death, more so the trauma he’s been through that’s causing his hand tremor). Therefore we have to assume production is sweeping over Tech’s death on purpose.

Here’s the reason I think that choice is weak: if Tech IS alive, the narrative is presenting the story to us as if the other characters somehow already know that in the back of their minds. It’s one thing for the audience to have an inkling that a “dead” character actually survived, but it’s another thing to write other characters within the story as having a lack of emotional reaction that implies the loss either 1. Didn’t affect them that much or 2. May not be permanent. And there’s no reason for other tbb characters to expect Tech isn’t dead. It would be vastly more compelling to see characters who we as the audience KNOW never expect to see their literal brother ever again react to a “reveal” than it would be to see the same characters learn he’s alive who don’t seem invested in his passing.

If Tech is well and truly dead and we are not ever going to see him on screen again, then not allowing us as the audience to see other characters grieve him is equally weak writing in my opinion. There’s no closure. Especially when we have past scenes like Omega asking Tech why he doesn’t act like they’re a family— ironically, Tech is the only person with an explanation behind why he can seem overly detached compared to others— what’s everyone else’s excuse?

[manwiththemagic]

spn s1 ep3 "Dead in the water"

more rewatch notes/commentary I have while watching!! :9

Ew Wisconsin okay...

“guys don't like buff girls.” WHO ASKED?? dumbahh person of the week. I don't even REMEMBER this episode and honestly, I blame you pal. I. Blame. You.

“be careful.” Okay so she's going to die then.

I wish I lived on a lake :(((

HELP THE SLOWMO... uhhh rip girl?? Ig..

Why does Dean look actually insane. He has like 100 newspapers, and his scribbling out faces and circling others 😭😭 i'd call the cops tbh..

Episode three, and second chick we see hitting on dean. It's just bc of his long eyelashes I bet.

LMAO “can I... get you anything else? 😏” “just the check please ☺️” LOVE YOU SAM.

The way dean immediately gives up trying to convince Sam about hookups bc lil bro is still distraught about jess. Like yeah... no way is a hookup gonna seem "fun" to a grieving man

The side eye Sam gives dean when he's telling him about how the people had a funeral for a missing person.

“a funeral?” “yeah for closure or whatever” “closure? What closure. People don't just disappear Dean, others just stop looking for them.” WOAH NELLY... I get it. Bro wants to find dad, dad to find monster, monster to be KKKKKKKKKILLED‼️

vaild.

Okay so Sam is tweaking because he wants to find John, and Dean is— NO WAY HE JUST SAID THAT. “im sick of the attitude.” DAD DEAN CHAT!! also no way he pulled the "I've been with him everyday for the past two years while you were off at school—" BRO.

Great more depressed. old. MEN.

does the loch ness monster exist?

Oh shoot broke dam!! More like... Dam I'm BROKE!!

Dean being good with kids part 1!! Also this is why I have a hard time believing he's so bad with Jack like... LOOK ST THIS.

Dean and his 3 woman in three episodes.

“must be hard with your sense of direction.. trying to find your way to a decent pickup line.” HEYOOOOO!! she ate that.

“‘i love kids’?? You don't even like kids.” “yes I do!” “name 3 kids that you even know.” LMAO NOT SAM GATEKEEPING KIDS LIKE ITS AN INDIE BAND!!! also yes he likes kids, he literally raised you Sam wtfdym?

Wait so late monsters do exist?? THE LOCH NESS IS CANON?? just not here..? Damn I thought since bigfoot was fake that would be too.

I'm pretty sure it's some ghost chick.

Yikes more dead...

“no wonder that kid was so freaked out, watching one of your parents die isn't something you just get over..” DEAN :((( I always forget he watched Mary die, cause like Sam too, he just doesn't remember it.

Dean is so good with kids :(((

STOP THEY'RE SO CUTE.

“when I was your age I saw something... anyways..” FUCK.

DWAHHH LUCAS TAKING THE PICTURE DEAN DREW ☹️

AWH HE GAVE DEAN A PICTURE!! they made a connection.

Oh shoot.. that man is so dead. “im gonna make some dinner”

OH SHIT ITS IN THE PIPES

your dead kid. D E A D. IDC tho you ain't Lucas

Ew don't dig in the dirty water. HOLY SHIT HE DROWBING. HE DROWBNIN

Damn.. and in dirty water. I could never.

Bill Carlton is cooked. Literally everyone he knows is dead now.. like damn. Wtf did he DO.

“my children are gone..its worse than dying..” MORE SAD OLD MEN OMFG.

Lucas drawing is important!!

Why don't these people ever be like “yea.. serial killer man..” LIKE A BELIEVABLE BUT STILL CRAZY LIE. "Why the FBI here?" "Serial killer." ITS THAT EASY.

Dean getting help from a kid AHHHHHHHH!!

“your... scared..? I understand.. you see when I was your age, I saw something real bad happen to my mom, and I was scared too.. I didn't feel like talking, just like you. But see my mom.. I know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day.” FUCK. JUST TEAR AT MY HEART STRINGS THEN DEAN. “and I do my best to be brave.. and maybe your dad wants you to be brave too.”

LUCAS YOU THE GOAT!!!

so now they are looking for the house Lucas drew and Dean like "man where tf is it?" And Sam's like "uh.. maybe let's look for the church?"

“ohhh collage boy thinks he's so smart!!” Dean the goat of this episode

Sam twitching because he doesn't know if or how he should bring up deans speech. Honestly now that I think about it Sam digs into deans personal stuff alot, mostly because Dean is jaded and hides stuff but IDK it's interesting.

“oh God we're not gonna have to hug or anything are we?” like you wouldn't enjoy that..

The churchhhhh

OMG THE BIKE. IT WAS BIG IN A DIFF DRAWING AND HERE IT IS AGAIN. omg wait it is important.

He's missing.. the kid with the bike.

HOLY COW. all the parents talking about how losing a kid is worse than death, and hey I know what canonically happens in death and uhh, idk if your right about that. Hell? eck.. ghost life?? yikes.. heaven? good but.. mehh...

Rip lil kid. Rip

HE KNEW BILLY. holy cow. Dead kid knew billy. Billy Carlton knows something is going on?? WAIT WHATS HAPOENING.

So wait is the dead kid the ghost..?

HOLY COW THAT BOAT FLEWWWW!!

Lucas having another vision??.. OH SHIT YEA THE GHOST GIES AFTER HIS MOM OR SMTH RIGHT??

THIRD TIME GETTING CAUGHT LMAOOO. “and your not really wildlife service..” HELP.

this cop made sus. Why you so mad these guys are investigating a murder?? They weird but like..

LUCAS KNOWSSSS..

This is kinda like a call forward or uhh foreshadowing to Sam's visions, which is kinda dope

LADY DON'T TAKE THAT BATH. NOT JUST CAUSE I DONT WANNA SEE YOU NAKED..

deans going back to town even after being threaten because lil kid was scared. GOAT. the goat I tell you.

“who are you and what have you done with my brother??” it's really not out of character for him Sam😭

DON'T TAKE THAT BATH LADY. YOUR DEAD. DOOMED.

oh whatever. I give up. EW MURKY WATER. CAN'T YOU FEEL IT LADY.

poor lucas.. lil bro bouta become an orphan.

LMAO DEAN THREW LUCAS OUTTA THE WAY. and Sam actually saved her 🤷

So wtf is after them. I DON'T REMEMBER.

Oh shoot puppy dog eyes Sam is back. “tell me what happened. Everything. 🥺”

More Lucas visions..

THEY FOUND THE BODY. or no? THE BIKE.

THE SHERIFF DID WHAT NOW.

No dead ghost Peter LEAVE LUCAS ALONEE!!

oh shit he did kill someone.

OH SHIT.

YOU WERE A BULLY?? EE. I HATE YOU. YOU KULLED HOM?? WTF.

dude no your daughter should stay away from you you freak.

LUCAS IS DROWNING.

Mermaid Dean 🧜

Sacrifice yourself for Lucas? Valid sheriff. Valid.

WOOO ITS OVERRRR!! MYSTERY SSSSOLVED!!

AW LUCAS IS TALKING AGAINNN!!

Dean teaching random kid his morals and tastes in music LMAO.

dean pulls yet NAOTHER woman. Are you fr?

One of my least favorite episodes tbh..

[daedalusdavinci]

Superbat Fic Recs

every superbat fic ive ever read has been recommended to me, almost, bc the superbat tag scares the absolute piss out of me, so these are like. twice over recommended. i dont believe that theres such a thing as "in character" when it comes to bruce or clark bc theyve been characterized so many different ways, so i tend to rate how good superbat fics are entirely by how delightful they are to read (plot, writing style, fun dynamic, etc). that said here are some of the superbat fics that i find the most delightful

The Long Hangover

by CoffioCake

Clark knows he should take a break: His powers are on the fritz, he feels like shit, and Batman’s treating him like a liability. But Gotham's villains seem to have it in for Metropolis' Big Blue Boy Scout and Clark won't just wait around for answers. Batman might be the world’s greatest detective, but Clark Kent is one of the Daily Planet’s most tenacious reporters. This is definitely a job for Superman.

i love this one. its long but its got so many good beats- good plot, fun dialogue, fantastic levels of identity porn where you are just DYING for them to figure it out. i think a lot of superbat fics tend to prioritize batman and his family and cast too much, but this ones definitely about superman, which is a nice change of pace

Nor The Rain

by Romany (@romanyeva on tumblr)

Bruce decides it's time.

this ones short but its cute and so sweet. its been a while since i read it, but i remember loving the writing

Rescue and Recover

by OdosBucket

The bats have spent the better part of the past two months in captivity, and Clark is grateful to finally have them back, even if it will still be some time before any of them are recovered from the experience.

this one drove me CRAZY the first time i read it. i was so obsessed w the absolutely married dynamic bruce and clark have in this, and its good if you really like batfam whump

certain obscure things

by @liodain

Bruce seeks to mend in the wake of Superman's death. Fortunately, Superman doesn't believe in staying dead. Unfortunately, Bruce isn't certain how to deal with this—especially with how easily Clark slots into his life. All he knows is that an encounter with the Enchantress is definitely not the way to go.

im not a synderverse fan but it remains that some of the best and most fun superbat fics to read are synderverse. love what the girlies are doing with those old men. this one is really fun, particularly in how it handles bruces grief and what its like to grieve someone who isnt gone

fame is the bait (and the switch is your desolate smile)

by nowrunalong (@buffyfemslash on tumblr)

"Superman,” Wayne says emphatically. "Now there’s an interesting guy. The concept of wealth probably doesn’t even register to an alien who could throw a whole skyscraper into the sea if he was in a snit.” It’s almost hilariously ironic that Wayne is saying this here, in Clark’s place of employment, where Clark works ten-hour shifts to earn enough tip money to pay rent on a one-bedroom apartment. “He’s gotta live somewhere,” Clark points out. Or: Clark meets Bruce, and then Superman meets Bruce Wayne. Neither is entirely fooled.

speaking of synderverse. this ones also a lot of fun! its a lot of bruce being antagonistic in the beginning and clark being a total golden retriever, which is pretty on beat for the enemies to lovers type dynamic that i always see in synderverse fics.

I'm Not As Think As You Drunk I Am

by Mardiaz173

It was like living in the Twilight Zone. Everyone else believed fervently in Bruce Wayne’s reputation. He was a flirty, stupid, and entitled drunk whose only redeeming quality was his bleeding heart. And yet every time Clark spoke with Wayne, the man was clever, mischievous, and sober with an indecipherable ulterior motive. And no one believed Clark. Not Lois, not his parents, not even Batman.

bruce is such a ridiculous ass in this and its kind of hilarious. identity porn galore. its a fun read!

Send to All

by kerosceene

I, ___________________________, hereby acknowledge that this form represents my wishes should I contract phytoaphrodisiac-induced delirium (hereafter referred to as “PAID”) during engagements with or while apprehending Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley (“Poison Ivy”). - the bats have a sex pollen release form. because of course they do.

this ones really more batfamily and i just. listen. i think this is the funniest fic ever written, maybe. it makes me sob every single time. im not going to say anything else but you should just read it and trust me

[wildissylupus]

NO STOP BC currently, I definitely think Mei and Cass have a little sister/older brother sort of friendship, and now I'm thinking like. Before Antarctica, Mei was more of a mentor to Cass and made sure he was alright like after missions and such (think of her cooking him meals and visiting when he landed in the medward after missions 😭), and when they said goodbye to each other before Antarctica they didn't know what would happen, obviously. They thought she'd be back in, say, a year (or however long she was supposed to be down there).

9 years later, Cass is informing her of the current events. What happened to everyone who didn't answer the recall. All the chaos and terror Mei had no idea about. He's looking out for her while she's processing her own grief over her teammates, maybe even making meals every now and then when she gets consumed in her work and forgets to eat. She's almost the exact same as when she left, she's still 31-yr-old Mei, just grief-stricken and trying to wrap her head around everything. Cass has grown so much more, he's been hardened and grown wiser abt everything he's seen. He's actually been able to process the events bc he had the time, and he's grown from it.

And now he's watching the woman who helped him out so much, having barely grown (as much as 9 years should have you grow physically and mentally at least), and now he's the one looking after her.

So what I'm trying to say is they were older sister and younger brother, and now the tables have turned and neither expected it. Probably a hard pill to swallow when/if they do.

This is made even worse by the fact that I think that though Cassidy has dealt with all the events that have happened and processed it to an extent. He hasn't fully had time to grieve, he went from one problem to another in the final years of Overwatch and then when he should have been able to process everything he was being hunted down by law enforcement so even then he needed to focus more on not being arrested then his own mental health. It doesn't help that I think this is the reason Cassidy has become a (functional) alcoholic.

Like Mei knew Cassidy in the golden years, yes he was still traumatized from his own experiences with the Crisis and Deadlock but he was still a positive force. Now when she comes back he's still that positive force but he's now burdened with holding himself together while everyone else on the team deals with their own issues. Cause someone needs to be focused on the mission. He's tired and back to being closed off but not in the way that he was when he first joined, he's avoiding his problems and focusing on others while putting on a mask.

I honestly think that seeing Mei would be one of the only times that mask slips because with everyone else he's lost he's been there for it. He knew the details, all he knows about what happened to Mei was that there was a blizzard and the Ecopoint lost contact. He didn't know what happened like with Jack, Gabe and Mina, he couldn't make assumptions on what happed like he did with Ana, he had no information other than there was a blizzard.

Not only that but looking at the timeline Mei was probably the first person Cassidy lost, followed by Mina and Echo.

I think putting all this in context him seeing Mei again would have an impact that no other "dead" character has. Unlike with Ana and possibly Jack and Gabe, who he had suspicions about being alive, I don't think he expected the same with Mei.

And now Mei is going into combat, into the front lines. This wouldn't be like with Angela where at least she would of had full on training along with her experience of being a doctor. Mei has absolutely no experience in combat, she was a climatologist, she wasn't trained for the battle field and now she's being thrusted into a global crisis.

I think a big part of Cassidy being put into the big brother role of they're dynamic would be him teaching Mei how to fight, because as we see in "Zero Hour" she doesn't really know how. At least no at the capacity that everyone else does. So I think Cassidy would want her to at least be able to handle herself before any big missions.

Also them cooking together as a form of comfort is now one of my favorite headcannons!

[sky4cherry]

what do u think is chets initial reaction to bob being killed? and also how does he process that grief

(ALSO THOSE CHET HCS U POSTED I AM LIVING FOR THEM he deserves more recognition and content i love him so bad 💔)

actually going insane thinking about what the soc boys would do immediately after fleeing the scene (if anyone wants to ask me about brill also pls do because he’s my other blorbo)

chet baker is very aware of the type of things the gang warfare in tulsa brings, if we’re going by my hc that his dad is the chief of police

i feel like, because i see him as the baby of his family, he’s probably a little more sheltered from death than his siblings (esp bc his older brother is in the marines), but he’s definitely aware of it

in all honesty, he’s freaking the fuck out

he’s going home, making a beeline for the bathroom, and he’s throwing up, which his parents assume means he’s drunk, so his dad starts ripping into him

and then chet turns around and tells him that bob’s dead, which prompts the police going to find bob’s body at the fountain

i think all the soc boys are definitely going to struggle with realising that they 1. did not have the upper hand and 2. they have to figure out what to do without bob’s guidance, which leaves paul in charge

bro chet is not doing well because he’s almost disgusted that this is what it took for his dad to be a bit softer with him, because he’s having this really complex battle where he’s so glad he has his parents’ support, but he only has it because he’s a valuable witness, and he knows it

the whole week before the rumble is bad

he’s drinking a lot, picking fights with any greasers he sees, he honestly probably took his car and just drove laps and laps around tulsa crying until he broke down and ran his car off the road, and brill ends up finding him and taking him to his house for the night

in my head he is the silliest goober out of the socs, and i think that changes so much while he’s grieving that it makes everyone else’s grief even worse, because he’s usually the one cheering them up when they need it and now the roles are reversed

i feel like he grieves for a very long time, because even once the charges are dropped against johnny, his dad’s still walking around mentioning it offhandedly, already forgetting that the recent murder in town was one of chet’s closest friends

for my chet and cherry truthers, he is not seeing her for a while because he’s so unbelievably mortified with himself for being unable to control himself, especially when he knows she’s probably doing so much worse than he is

[weltato]

SAF AU IDEA

Spies Are Forever but instead of Owen slipping on the banana peel, it was Curt. Everything is the same up until that point, but after we see things from Owen's perspective.

Rest under the cut!

He stops working for four years, then a case comes up and Cynthia calls him in even though she works for a different secret service than Owen, but they need Owen's skillset. Barb is happy to see him, but just as sad as he is about Curt being gone.

Owen meets Tatiana in a similar fashion to Curt, they see the Deadliest Man Alive, Owen gets injured and remembers Mrs Mega's safehouse and takes Tatiana there. Mrs Mega is over the moon to see Owen again, going off on a tangent to Tatiana about how Curt and Owen were the best of friends. There isn't the weird mixed signals bit bc Owen is blatantly not interested in Tatiana that way, and she sort of guesses with how he talks about Curt that they had something. So they become friends (also, Mrs M isn't shipping these two quite as hard, but she just wants to be involved bc Owen is the last remnant of her son that she's seen in four years so is sort of seeing them together in her head) and work together with Barb and the Informant to track down DMA.

Then they find out that DMA is Curt and Owen is crushed. Cue 'One Step Ahead' and then the stairs. Oh boy, the stairs. This time it's Curt that is so convinced in Chimera that he'll kill Owen to keep it going, but Curt had always been the one out of the two of them to lead with his heart and his feelings than his head. He's afraid of what might happen if he leaves Chimera, he can't see a way out of this, he really doesn't want to kill Owen but will if he has to.

He argues that Owen left him to die in the explosion, but Owen tells him no, he didn't. Because Curt told him to run. Owen hadn't known about the 3 minute timer instead of 4 and Curt told him to run because he didn't want Owen to die too.

Owen asks if their secret died in that explosion. It's silent, tense, the gun is still pointing at Owen...but it slowly lowers. No, their secret isn't dead, Curt tells him, but it might as well be because he can't leave Chimera. Not like this. Owen mentions that he fooled the world by dying once, he could do it again, he even has a Russian friend who might be able to help with that. Curt really wants to believe it, but he doesn't think it'll work.

Cue Tatiana entering, warning the lads that whatever they're doing needs to be wrapped up fast because they've got company. Curt looks at her, looks at Owen, sees the offer. Owen asks if Curt trusts him, and of course he does, so the two rig the place to explode and get out with Tatiana.

Barb and Cynthia are in shock to find out that Curt is alive, but Mrs Mega seems to have known all along. "Mother's instinct, dear" she calls it. Curt has to stay under the radar for a while since the service needs to figure out how to explain his sudden reappearance, so he stays with his mum at the safehouse. Owen stays too, bc damn it he just got Curt back and doesn't want to leave him so soon. Tatiana and Curt hit it off really well and become close friends, which Mrs M takes completely the wrong way, much to their chagrin. Barb is all over Curt at first, but he's still oblivious to it and she doesn't understand until Tatiana pulls her to the side and explains (under pain of death if Barb were to ever tell anyone).

Curt goes back to working for Cynthia, Owen transfers to the American Secret Service as a British liaison sort of thing (idk if that's an actual thing irl) and Tatiana becomes part of the team with inside knowledge on Russian operations since, y'know, they're in the middle of a cold war, ya fuckin' dumb dumb!

Overall, a happier ending, but still angsty between Curt and Owen bc now it's Owen that had been grieving and Curt that feels cut off and alone from everyone and everything.

I might write this, idk. If someone else wants to, feel free! (Pls tag me if you do <3)

[caatws]

I just want to say thank you for pointing out that open ended canon doesn't make up for major skipping of on screen character development, especially when women and poc are involved. Same with other groups who don't always have consistent treatment in film or TV or real life. I love headcanons and playing with concepts but I don't want to have to fill in huge gaping hole sized gaps all the damn time for the same characters who just so happen to fall into a specific demographic. At some point it's no longer a coincidence.

I don't want to be told well there wasn't time for Gamora to get a funeral or have her emotions around being in the future explored and it's okay because I'm sure it happened and we can just imagine everyone cared. How about no. How about if Yondu can get a funeral, a flashback in the holiday special and a quick spiritual glimpse in vol 3, they could do much better by Gamora. If they had used her coming to the future as a way to have a new life with the guardians and new bonds I'd be more okay with it. James Gunn didn't do that though. He had her get a new family we never see developed and then have her old family a stupid mix of "I'm losing my mind" (Peter) and "lol whose Gamora we don't know her"(everyone else). With Nebula and her having a decent groove and being sisters but we don't know how that's been going. The whole thing is painful to me.

so true anon!! like the way women and poc are dismissed and treated irl has always informed their less than great treatment in film and tv more often than not, and when we see it happen, we should be able to call it out and dissect it and feel our feelings about it together. at the end of the day, gunn still writes from his white male pov (which i think everyone can agree has been blatantly obvious since vol 1), and it may result in some female, bipoc, and especially woc characters getting left behind in the end, intentionally or not.

i'm RLY glad you brought up yondu bc i hadn't even thought of those points before but YOU ARE SO RIGHT. yondu has gotten these incredible, impactful moments after his death that have been cool and all, but it's weird that someone who ultimately still treated peter so badly (despite loving him) and didn't have much of a relationship with the rest of the gotg besides rocket has been given a better onscreen legacy than someone who loved peter and the entire team so fully and unconditionally all along. even to her last breath, gamora was doing whatever she could, even if it meant killing herself, to try to protect them all, and the whole universe too, and then that's just...the last we see of her? ever? dead, at the bottom of the fridging cliff?

and yeah you pretty much summed up every character's attitude toward her in vol 3 lmaooo. like honestly if i were peter maybe i'd want to leave everyone at the end of vol 3 too, after being the only one made out to be grieving original gamora while everyone else is just chilling. like i think i would've been driven to a breaking point with that dynamic, Actually

and again, mcu CANON has been giving us all this stuff abt variant characters for years now, essentially treating them as all separate characters rather than the same, interchangeable individual just with different memories, so like. what am i supposed to do with all these "no it's still gamora she just doesn't remember us so it's fine" comments in the context of the mcu multiverse rules lol

[izzy-b-hands]

There’s a moment or two of gentlebeard in this, but tbh? it’s v in the background bc the main focus is everyone realising that Ed does in fact miss Jack (we’re setting this past the Big Reunion Point, all of that has been squared away by this fic kdlfjsakj) and

That he might not be dead.

So of course they’ll need to go look, just in case, and ask around, bc even if he is dead, Ed deserves to know for sure, to grieve properly (even if he and Jack were pissed at each other at the time of Jack’s potential death, there are still Feelings, ya know?)

Happy ending with new crewmates being added to the team though!

Genuinely, this is all the best I can describe this. I entered a fugue state of some sort while writing this, I swear skfjdklafj.

---

“I’m not bothered by it,” Ed insists.

Multiple times.

Without being asked about Jack or anything in regards to Jack at all.

“He’s definitely not actually okay with it, is he?” Olu suggests, after the captains have gone to bed.

“No,” Izzy replies from where he’s wedged between Roach and Frenchie. “But I figured it would be best if I didn’t say anything, this time around.”

“You’ve known this whole time-”

“Look, what has being vocal gotten me in the last few months?” Izzy interrupts. “Would you be so eager to speak up and mention that your captain seems affected by the death of a...”

He frowns. “Jack was a lot of things.”

“Is he dead though?” Frenchie asks. “Like, I’m thinking about it now. Did anyone really check?”

Silence, minds churning away.

“I don’t recall that any of us saw his body,” Roach says slowly. “But he can’t have survived that.”

“Can’t he have? Would it shock anyone if he did?” Frenchie continues. “I say we keep an eye out for him first. Ask around at the next few ports, ask anyone we raid, anywhere we stop, we check.”

“Not a bad idea,” Izzy nods. “Worst case, he really is dead, and we can deal with that once we have it confirmed.”

They all lay back down to sleep, but no one actually sleeps.

There’s too much to wonder about in how even Calico Jack might have survived a cannonball to the gut.

--

“But have you actually seen him?” Izzy asks Jackie softly. “In the flesh?”

“How the fuck else would I see a person, but also,” Jackie replies. “I don’t like what that phrasing implies. I didn’t like him that way. Love the money he spent here, but otherwise?”

“No, I know,” Izzy says. “Just...it’s for Ed. We need to know for sure.”

“I can put word out,” Jackie nods. “He owe anything to Ed?”

“No, it isn’t like that. He just wants to know...to know for sure, if Jack is dead or not.”

“Most emotional ship on the water,” Jackie rolls her eyes.

“It isn’t the worst thing.”

“It isn’t, but I don’t allow crying in here. One person goes, then someone else asks why, they hear it and start crying, then I got a whole fucking thing on my hands,” she continues. “You know my rules. No exceptions, not even for Blackbeard.”

“Fair enough. You’ll write me if you hear anything then?”

“About all I can do, unless you want us to take him hostage, hold him here, and then write you so you can come here and see him yourself.”

Izzy ponders it. “That would work too.”

“Consider it done. If he isn’t dead, and if he isn’t weirdly greasy like last time.”

“Did you ever find out what he had all over himself?”

Jackie shakes her head, a grave look on her face. “And now, I don’t wanna know. Better not to know.”

Izzy nods, and thinks how ridiculous it is he almost misses those antics of Jack’s.

Almost.

--

“So, he did look like Jack?” Jim asks. “The guy you saw swimming near here?”

Their Nana nods. “Based on this lovely sketch-”

“Thank you,” Lucius interjects. “That’s from memory, by the way.”

“Really? What else do you draw?”

“Well-”

“This isn’t what we’re here for,” Jim cuts him off with huff. “If you see him again, write me.”

“I can do that. And in the meantime-”

“Yes, Roach is trying the cake recipe,” Jim sighs. “I promise. He said he’ll write to you if he runs into any issues, though I don’t know what fucking good that does-”

“Tell him to write anyway, I want to hear how it goes no matter what. Now, back to this young man with the talented hands: could I bother you to sketch my Jim before you go back to the ship?”

--

“I really don’t care,” Ed scoffs. “But the concern is appreciated.”

“Hm,” Stede remarks. “So, what are we naming the new kittens that Fang rescued?”

“Jerry, Jemaine, Jaclyn, Jack-” Ed pauses. “Okay, so I have been the one naming them all, but the names are a coincidence.”

“Look, I have to be honest,” Stede sits by Ed on their newest stolen couch. A nice yellow, but not overly bright, satin. “I didn’t care for him.”

“You don’t fucking say? I’d never have guessed it,” Ed smiles.

“But, that said...even if we don’t care for someone, when they die-”

“I think I know that,” Ed interjects. “That even if you didn’t love everything about them, even if you were really fucking mad at them by the time they died, you can still miss them and think hey, Jack would have loved those kittens, and-”

Ed stands.

“Ed?”

“M’good,” Ed grunts, but he won’t look at Stede.

“Did he like cats? I figured he was more of a dog person,” Stede continues softly.

Ed drops back down beside him, and into his arms. “He liked all animals, even fucking snakes. He used to get rid of them for me, and I took care of spiders for him.”

“Scared of them?”

“He’d kill me if I told you, but yeah. Not a lot, just enough that he didn’t want to touch them if he didn’t have to,” Ed replies. “Fuck.”

“Maybe I’d like him better if I knew more about him.”

There’s a beat before Ed laughs. “You almost said that like you meant it.”

“I do! Kind of,” Stede mumbles. “I’m sure he was...okay, sometimes.”

Ed’s crying, but laughing as he does. “You’ve got to stop; you’re killing me.”

“I’m trying!”

“I know; I appreciate it,” Ed wipes away tears. “This is really fucking confusing for me, this moment.”

“Lot of conflicting emotions.”

“Too many, arguably,” Ed sobs. “I don’t know that I would have forgiven him right off the bat, but-”

“You didn’t get the chance to find out,” Stede rubs his back and peers out the nearest window.

It’ll take the crew time to check the various spots they’ve asked or begged people to take mail for them. They’ve been gone all of half an hour, and he did tell them to shop and eat and relax a bit too.

But he’d like them to be back now, for Ed’s sake.

--

“I like your look,” a voice purrs. “I’m into the beige sort of thing myself.”

Jim turns. “How long have you been standing in the corner here? Not saying anything, waiting for me to notice you, like a fucking creep?”

“Actually, I just walked up,” Jack smiles. “I promise! Thought up my line a good six feet away.”

“And how long did that take you?”

“In my defense,” Jack slowly opens up his vest and lifts up his shirt slightly. “As you can see, I’ve got a bit of an injury I’m recovering from. Man has to take it easy, go a little slower, in times like these.”

Jim stares at the gnarled wound in his gut. “Weird question. What’s your name?”

“That’s...not a weird question,” Jack chuckles. “Jack. Calico Jack, to some. Jackie, to a few people, more than you’d think! James to my grandmother, god rest her soul. She wasn’t confused; she just really thought James fit me better.”

“I need you to come with me,” Jim grabs his arm.

“And why should I do that?”

“Because...” they pause and think of what the rest of the crew has told them about Jack. “We’re having a wine tasting on our ship. And we have spare places, so if you’re into that-”

“Wine! Well, what fancy motherfuckers have I found,” Jack snorts. “Sure. Lead on.”

--

“Hey,” Olu dips his head into their quarters. “So, can you two get dressed up fancy quickly?”

Stede nods.

“You don’t care why?”

“I suppose I should. Why?”

“Because we found him,” Olu grins. “But, per the relay chain, they told him he was being invited to a wine tasting on here.”

“Oh! Do we have any wine?” Stede asks. “I don’t think we do.”

“We don’t, but Roach is working on getting us some,” Olu replies. “Ed, you ready to see him?”

“I’d like to believe it’s him,” Ed sighs. “Hearing that you’ve all been trying to find him behind my back...explains why we’ve been stopping so often, actually. Not that I mind the extra shopping, time to stretch the legs, but-”

“That’s a yes,” Stede interrupts. “We’ll be ready.”

--

The galley is suitably full of wine (almost to excess, but no one is complaining) when Jim and Jack follow in the crew’s footsteps and return to the ship.

“Wow,” Jack’s eyes go wide as they enter the galley. “That is...y’all okay?”

“What do you mean?” Jim asks. “We were completely out. Now we don’t have to stock up for awhile.”

“Rum is cheaper.” 

“You’re the one that called us fancy motherfuckers,” Jim smiles. “You wait here, and I’ll go get the other guests.”

“Kind of a weird setup for a wine tasting,” Jack says, but Jim is already out the door. “Wonder if they got cheese too. Can’t have wine-”

“Without cheese,” Ed says as he steps into the galley.

“That was the dorkiest fucking thing I have ever heard,” Lucius sighs, but Stede slaps his arm. “Don’t be like that; you heard it too!”

“Well, well, well,” Jack turns and scoffs. “So...no more pirate shit, just wine?”

“No, actually,” Ed says. “We did buy the wine, but we’re still very much pirates. Did...did you not recognize the ship-”

“My man,” Jack grins. “I am on so much morphine, constantly, it’s a wonder I recognize myself. Or you! I do like the beard bows though.”

His beard has grown out just enough for it, and Stede’s fingers still hurt from helping Izzy get them all tied onto Ed.

But they do look fucking amazing.

“Should you be doing that?” Ed frowns. “Or drinking, if you’re-”

“I shouldn’t be alive,” Jack tosses his vest off and lifts his shirt. “For a fucking week, it was an open hole. I still don’t know how the doc I found saved me.”

“How did you find anyone?” Lucius asks, pouring himself a glass of wine. “I wasn’t going to stay after we got Ed in here, but I’m curious now.”

“More the merrier,” Jack nods, and Stede takes it as a cue to lean out and let the crew know to come in.

“I swam,” Jack continues as everyone settles in. “Too fucking far. Bleeding out. Probably lost some of my guts along the way, but I didn’t ask questions when I did finally find a surgeon. Random little house along a beach, and he just happened to have worked in the field before.”

“And he sewed you up?” Ed asks as he motions for Jack to sit with him at the long table. “What about the guts you lost? I mean, we do need most of them, as far as we know.”

“He said he found replacements, and like I told you, I didn’t ask questions,” Jack chuckles. “I was alive, and that was good enough.”

He takes a bottle of wine as Stede starts passing them out and down the table. “We treatin’ this like a fancy one, where you spit it out, or-”

“Just drink it,” Stede replies hurriedly. “Swallow it, please.”

“You wouldn’t have to ask me twice,” Jack winks.

“Oh, fuck off.”

“You’ve grown on me!” Jack laughs. “It’s a compliment.”

“I was going to share this extra expensive one,” Stede sighs and sits on Ed’s other side. “But this bottle is just mine now. Everyone good with that?”

As he asks, he pops the cork and starts drinking, and the question answers itself. 

“What do you do now?” Ed asks Jack. “You’re surviving somehow, I presume.”

“Surviving,” Jack gets into his own bottle and takes a noticeably long drink before continuing. “Is a word for it. I can’t fight like I used to, so now it’s random boring gigs onshore. Fucking...getting shopping for little old ladies, and shit like that. They’re nice enough, don’t get me wrong but-”

He grins. “I fucking hate every minute of it.”

Ed frowns. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. Twas mine own,” Jack scoffs and drinks again. “Fucking bird.”

“Olivia will absolutely try to kill you again,” Izzy notes. “I would mind your language when you talk about her.”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“Buttons has told me,” Izzy replies. “On the later watches we’ve shared. She’s very nice, actually. For a gull.”

“Watch yer tongue!” Buttons calls from down the table. “She’s not forgiven you, by the way, Jack. But she’s agreed to forget.”

“That’s...” Jack nods slowly. “Okay. Cool. Best news I’ve gotten since the surgeon said I was gonna make it!”

“That’s a decent chunk of time with no good news,” Ed says, and looks to Stede.

“Oh no,” Stede sighs. “Oh, Ed. Darling.”

“I mean,” Ed continues. “We can almost always use spare hands. And we could put you somewhere that you won’t have to fight unless we’re well and truly fucked-”

“Can you cook?” Roach, sitting on the other side of the table, nods to Jack.

“Nothing fancy, but I can make shit without burning it.”

“I could use an apprentice,” Roach shrugs.

“I’m older than you. Apprentice doesn’t seem the right title.”

“It is when you’re being taught cooking and surgery,” Roach says. “Because if you apprentice with me, you’re learning both. Meat is meat.”

“I can work with that.”

Stede leans against Ed’s shoulder. “He’s your responsibility.”

“You sound like I did when I was talking to Fang about the kittens.”

“Kittens?” Jack peers down under the table.

“They’re in the Jam Room,” Stede replies. “You can go down and see them later, if you’d like. Because, and I cannot believe I’m saying this...you can stay here, so long as you follow our rules.”

Jack cheers, arms raised, only to immediately wince. “Oh god, that wiggled something. Hate how that feels.”

“Ew,” Stede remarks. “Anyway, that means Ed and I are both your captains. Do you underst-”

“You have my undying loyalty,” Jack stands and sweeps to the floor in a deep bow. “Mostly because I’m afraid if I don’t give it, Olivia will have me killed again.”

“She just might,” Stede turns around. “I mean, she said she would forget, but...”

“Gulls are fickle,” Buttons remarks. “Livvy may not like it, but she’s admitted it herself. If ye fuck with her, or any of us, in such a way again...”

He shakes his head. “I’m not responsible for what happens to ye.”

“Creepy,” Jack sits back down. “But fair.”

“I’d say we should do something to celebrate,” Stede says. “But we’re already drinking. Drunk. We should have had dinner before this, hm?”

“We could have dinner now!” Jack trips, standing again rapidly. “Roach, you and me, let’s do this!”

“I like the enthusiasm,” Roach follows him into the kitchen. “We have slightly more wine than food options, but-”

“Let’s put some wine in the food! Make a reduction!”

“You know how to make a wine reduction?”

--

“Here,” Jack gently pushes a bite of cupcake into their hostage’s mouth. “Now, Roach and I made these special for you.”

The man swallows and smiles. “Thank you. A bit of kindness, finally.”

“Oh,” Jack chuckles, and motions to Stede. “You wanna tell him?”

“Those were poisoned,” Stede says cheerfully. “But, we do have an antidote!”

“All you need do is agree to give up your ship, loot, and...” Ed pauses. “Hm. Anyone on your crew you don’t like?”

“We could do without Rory.”

A crew member of the merchant vessel steps out of the crowd of them. “Hi. That’s me.”

“You,” Stede stares. “Badminton?”

“Ah, yeah,” Rory blushes. “I don’t use the family name out here, since they’re not real pleased with my current career.”

“This is perfectly respectable,” Stede scoffs. “You know they tell people you died, right?”

“I did not know that.”

“Would you mind being a pirate?” Ed asks. “Instead of...what is you people here do?”

“We sell and ship ornate bejewled hairbrushes,” the captain replies. “My throat-”

“Yeah,” Ed cuts him off. “Rory, weird question, but bear with me: if you had to say if you liked your brothers or not-”

“Fuck ‘em,” Rory grins. “Seriously, they hate me and I...I’m not a fan of either of theirs. Not to be rude, but I think our captain is dying.”

“No, he’s dead,” Jack says, gently checking for a pulse at the side of the man’s neck. “Roach, you wanna double check my work though?”

“Nah,” Roach waves a hand. “Welcome aboard, by the way.”

“Mum won’t like this anymore than the merchant stuff,” Rory giggles. “Exciting though! Is there an opening in the kit-”

“Galley is full,” Jack interrupts quickly. “But I bet Izzy and Olu would love to teach you about being a first mate.”

“Hang the fuck on,” Izzy and Olu say at once, but Stede is already nodding.

“Is this what we get for looking for Jack?” Olu murmurs to Izzy as they finish the raid, moving loot from the merchant ship to theirs (all hairbrushes, unfortunately.)

“I think so,” Izzy sighs. “But it’s worth it.”

“Is it?”

“I’m trying to be more positive, you know that-”

“Sorry, right. Well. This will probably go fine.”

“Not that positive.”

“Thank fuck, this is gonna be a fucking mess.”

Izzy shrugs and sets down his box of hairbrushes on the deck of The Revenge. “Maybe he’ll get better with time.”

They watch as Rory trips on the board to cross from one ship to the other, shouting as he hits the water.

“We can make Jack go get him,” Izzy says. “Because...medical concerns, right? Since he fell.”

“That makes sense to me.”

Before they can call, Jack is already over the side.

Apparently, a natural born paramedic that missed his calling, a surprisingly good cook, and...

Well. Jack. To sum him up in so little would never do him justice.

[witchsickness]

hey, this might be a bit random but do you have any book recommendations? looking at your blog i just know you have great taste in literature

hi i love books and i love lists and i love book lists so here’s my top 5 books i read this year and then six of my most loved ever. my taste is the WORST btw. enjoy <3

scenes of a graphic nature by caroline o’donoghue: a young filmmaker gets invited to a film festival and takes the opportunity to visit her dying father’s birthplace — this one snuck up on me. went into it thinking it’d be a lighthearted crime story, but it ended up being so much more. it’s about feeling unmoored and rootless when everyone around you seems to have everything figured out, about gearing up to grieve something you haven’t yet lost. about finding a place to grow roots where you least expect it. fen by daisy johnson: a collection of interconnected stories dealing with the horror of living in one place all your life, and the monsters familiarity breeds — okay. this isn’t for everyone, i’ll give you that. but. oh, man. it’s transcendental. reads like poetry, while also maintaining a very grounded, fairytale-like storytelling. the language. the way it flows. WISH i could write like that the paying guests by sarah waters: a woman’s life is upended by the arrival of her new lodgers in post-wwi london — prose-wise, this is the weakest. it heavily relies on the plot and the world-building to impose an ominous, gloomy atmosphere on the reader. i still maintain that the last hundred pages or so could’ve been edited to something shorter, but up to that point, it’s gripping and oppressive and very, very gay mostly dead things by kristen arnett: in the aftermath of her father’s suicide, a young woman tries to navigate the changes in her life and juggle the new responsibilities she’s burdened with, while the rest of her family falls apart — deceptively comical. cloaked in witty prose that fools you at first, deflecting like its heroine, who drowns her worries in booze and sarcasm. one of the rawest explorations of grief and anger and stagnation in a life pre-decided i’ve ever read. now i know exactly how those poor flamingos felt rebecca by daphne du maurier: a young bride is haunted by the memory of her husband’s dead wife — this one needs no introduction, but i could write essays on how misguided most people’s perception of who the real villain and the real ghost of this story is. i loved the implications more than the actual story. it’s gothic, it’s atmospheric, it’s spooky. you could leave it at that, or you could take into consideration the oppression du maurier went through in her life as a female author, and her constant need to break free. much to think about.  

//

franny and zooey by j.d. salinger: two siblings are dealing with the aftermath of their eldest brother’s suicide — see a pattern here? it’s bc i eat stuff like that up. i LIVE for fucked-up families. this is. my favorite book. of all time. read it when i was sixteen and i’m still recovering. say what you will about salinger, he could weave a family drama like no one else. no hysterics, no explosions. just broken people living broken lives. and me filling up oceans  bunny by mona awad: a lonely college girl’s imagination runs wild when she gets accepted into the cool girls’ group and their rituals — one of my most intense reading experiences. visceral and violent in a way only not-yet-adult girls can be. sad and laced with a loneliness you can’t ever shake, no matter what impossible shapes you contort yourself into. it follows you, like the imaginary friend you never outgrew.   the collector by john fowles: a woman is held hostage by a man steadily losing his grip on reality — this is. definitely not an easy read. both the book and the film made me, famously unfeeling, extremely uncomfortable. it’s also one of the most subversive examples of writing i’ve ever encountered, oscillating between reality and each of the two protagonists’ version of it. not for the faint-hearted, but SO worth it if one can stomach it.  cat’s eye by margaret atwood: a woman’s recollections of the traumatic events from her childhood that shaped her into the artist she’s become — another extremely uncomfortable read. felt like i was holding my breath for the entire 500 pages. if ‘sticks and stones may break my bones’ was a book, this’d be it. cemented my belief that little girls have the capacity to be the cruelest creatures in the whole world.   to the lighthouse by virginia woolf: a family’s visits to their summer house in the span of a decade — the plot is very loose, because, like most of woolf’s novels, it’s only there to provide a vehicle for all the ideas she had no other outlet for. reads like a dream, with prose so good it makes you want to take off your clothes and jump into the nearest body of water. no one will ever write yearning and upper-class ennui as beautiful as she did. vanity of duluoz by jack kerouac: kerouac’s semi-autobiographical novel — i LOVE kerouac. his novels are permeated by a freedom most people spend their whole lives chasing just a taste of. so this one, a glimpse inside his mind, his childhood, what shaped him, it’s like unearthing treasure aeons-long buried. apart from f&z, it’s the only book that’s ever made me bawl my eyes out. life is nothing more but a scratched blues vinyl.

[kings-paintbrush]

Part 3. (Thanks again to everyone for being so invested! The drawing of Andromeda has taken me 8 hours so far and I’ve never painted with such bold colors, I hope you like the WIP)

so I genuinely can’t remember how the thanos fight goes in Infinity war, and I don’t wanna sob over the movie again to find out B)

anyways. I’m out cold. And in the chaos of the fight, whoever’s around me thinks I’m dead. Thanos snaps. And nobody realizes it but— I get dusted (I’m not dead sorry to break it to ya)

Wanda tries her best during the blip, in my DR it’s only 3 years (bc initially I was gonna be alive during it, if anyone wants to hear that story, it’s a lot better thought out). But she has Pietro still… and Vision. (that fucking toaster I hate him sm and so does Pietro) but they fall in “love” or something blah blah blah screw him.

so again haven’t seen endgame in a while don’t ask me how any of this works. But, on Vormir, it’s Natasha, Clint, and Pietro. Clint and Nat still have their fight thing and Nat ends up jumping, but Pietro catches her. But not before she hits her head. (Coma! Oh no!)

Someway somehow Vision still dies. And then Tony snaps (and dies still, BUT GUYS DW my friend @aceditwrites is in my dr and they can talk to ghosts or something)

and. I come back. Also my scar is hella cool so take this really cool drawing to celebrate

Also tie in song bc yes: https://open.spotify.com/track/3zyDQeTrptB1etZyRCpOLX?si=g8BhuBkfR0q1q2X1gH_PWQ

I kind of get settled. I’m sort of stuck being the “main avenger”. Keeping the world in check, keeping hopes high, all that stuff. (In my original idea, I didn’t blip but andromeda did, and I still had my scar & went thru a harrowing depression.) but the thing is, after the snap back its like Wanda just… disappeared. As of my knowledge she’s still my girlfriend, the love of my life. Wandavision happens still… I’m DEFINITELY in it bc I LOVE sitcoms (full house especially). I’m in my “morally grey” era bc I actually help Wanda keep the Hex stable (without her knowing and foiling some of Agatha’s plans) there’s 2 episodes per decade, and a Christmas special bc we deserved one, it’s maybe like a Christmas in July special) the BIGGEST issue is like… the kids. At this point I’m like 18 maybe idk I haven’t kept track of my age. I DONT WANT NO DAMN KIDS. ❓QUESTION! Should I make vision’s human form half black in my dr since he’s made of Vibranium(Wakanda),,,❓ anyways while I avoid that, I’m not actively apart of Hawkeye’s plot but it still happens bc NATASHA IS STILL IN A COMA!! And Yelena met Pietro once and it impacted her. I love Kate Bishop sm but separate to this I’m gonna write ALL of my obscure headcanons… I have so many

so, you’re probably wandering… did me and Pietro’s civil war investigation

during the Blip, Pietro met his father. Magneto. He didn’t involve anyone else, especially not Wanda. She was grieving over me and barely wanted to use her powers at all.

ALSO ILL SCREAM THIS TO WHOEVER WILL LISTEN WANDA IDOLIZES NATASHA AND THATS WHY SHE DYED HER HAIR RED,,, NATASHA MENTORS HER GRR BARK GRR.

So. Multiverse of madness still happens, though HEAVILY rewritten. First of all WANDA ISNT A VILLAIN. She’s my wife. So, essentially, I take my round yknow? Changing nightmares to have happy endings, changing things around in dreams. You see, every time I enter a dream I open a door. It’s sort of like traveling in the nether in Minecraft, if you travel one block in the nether, that’s 8 blocks in the overworld. Everything is still it’s relative difference, so in order to save a child from their nightmare in, let’s say Florida, it’d still take a while to get from the New Yorker’s dreams to there, but not as long. But, every time I make a change, something’s different. I get booted to a new door. I wake up and go to the only person I think can help— Fury, but he’s Gone. I try to find Wanda but she ran away after Wandavision, I haven’t been able to find her in dreams, either. So. I’m stuck with. UGH “Doctor Strange”

So, I see Wong and he tells me the thing about how dreams are pathways into other realities… and that’s the start of the up climb of my powers. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say Wanda DOESNT have her kids in Wandavision. Me and America are BOTH trying to figure out her powers. And, WANDA IS THERE!! There’s a lot of… uncomfortable tension in the air. Bc yknow, I’m still in love with her but I had to sit through 2 weeks of a sitcom of her being in love with a RED HYPER ADVANCED KITCHEN APPLIANCE. But.. we reminisce, she still loves me. She’s never been the most comfortable in her sexuality (internalized homophobia) but shhh. So. As we travel the multiverse, in every single one the Wanda variant is happy. So. So happy. And that’s when Wanda sees her kids. We take a long stop in one universe, where we meet uh… THIS IS WHERE WE STOP!

IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG TO DO, SCHOOL STARTED ON WEDNESDAY FOR ME AND THE DAYS HAVE BEEN SO SHORT BUT I HOPE U ALL LIKE IT!! I’LL UPDATE ON WEEKENDS! Maybe one or two more parts left I SWEAR. But again Ty all for being so invested in my dr!!

@romanoffshifting @snowdecahdrn @shitty-shifty-shiftblr-blog

@aceditwrites @achilleslefttoe

@thebetterloki (hope ur ok with being tagged!!!)

PLEASE

I NEED SOMEONE TO HEAR ME RAMBLE ABOUT MY MCU DR ITS SO COOL

[heartburstings]

what r ur guys's headcanons/theories for post-bare? mine is that matt has a sexuality crisis and has a crush on peter and is like, "how soon is too soon" but inflicts catholic guilt upon himself whenever he thinks like that so he just never makes his move, esp bc like. who the hell is he going to go for advice. bc the last advice guy he had made him homophobic so.

and u think this wouldn't be an issue bc like, after they graduate, how much would they see each other actually? but surprise! there's like way too much drama surrounding ivy's pregnancy and what she should do abt it. even tho it's like. nobody's business but yk how ~society~ can be. so the group sticks together and supports her in her decisions, so like, while it's tense bc. matt's there. he's also allowed to be there bc matt's valedictorian (allegedly) straight altar boy status helps them out in reasoning/arguing with whatever rando pta adult takes issue with ivy's decision-making, even when she hasn't made a goddamn decision yet.

speaking of. matt also has "how soon is too soon"-itus with ivy. he's like, well clearly she can't stand to be in the same room w me, but :( i wuv her :( [is repressing his gay realizations]. meanwhile ivy n nadia are eating chips and casually cussing out jason's dad for trying to pressure ivy into keeping the baby as if being the father's father even matters. he's like having 3 different crises in his little chair and everyone else is just chilling and bitching. he's like "how soon is too soon... no. i don't deserve him. not after what i did. and especially not ivy. they all deserve better than me... why am i here..." just brooding in the cvs aisle while peter asks him if he's got cash on him to help pay for ivy's shit bc he's a few bucks short. lucas takes a passing glance at him one day and is like jesus christ dude you need weed so bad and matt's like haha no ty :] i'm a good catholic boy. and lucas is like ok dude but lmk if u change ur mind i'll see u later. and now matt has 1 more thing to brood about even tho he has 0 qualms abt stealing church wine

[longlivefanfic-net]

Banished&Bloody: Eddie the Banished

Fic Summary: Post-Volume II. Eddie Munson wasn't dead when he was left in the Upside Down; well, he wasn't dead anymore. Steve Harrington has spent the days since they came back to Hawkins haunted by the idea that he could have saved Eddie--or at least died in his place. It quickly becomes clear that the Hawkin's group has to go back to the Upside Down and, when they do, they find an unfamiliar face. Vampire!Eddie Munson, Grieving Steve Harrington.

Chapter Summary/Content: Chapter 1 of 8. Eddie wakes up in the Upside Down and realizes he has to get back to Hawkins. Mentions of blood, grief, brief suicide mention. Extra angsty.

Word Count: 3.6k

A/N: Listen. Listen. I want Vampire! Eddie so fucking bad. But I am also absolutely terrified of him. Also, writing this made me tear up bc this baby boy just deserved nice, happy things and instead he gets?? this?? This fic is going to be 8 chapters (I think), alternating Eddie/Steve POVs, and (should be) smut free (it just doesn't fit!!! idk! maybe I can work something in). I am also planning on still writing a few little smut pieces in between chapters (I have a Steve/Reader and Reader/Robin fic that I'm just waiting on my beta reader's response for before I post it)!!

Chapter One: Eddie the Banished

When Eddie’s eyes opened, the skies above him were black. He thought it was night, at first, then cloudy when he realized he couldn’t see any stars. When he saw the sky roiling overhead, he felt momentarily reassured. This wasn’t the first time he had gone on a bender and ended up waking outside, flat on his back in the woods or on a hill. But when streaks of lightning flashed the wrong way across the clouds, going straight across the throbbing mass of darkness instead of straight down, he recognized that he wasn’t in Hawkins–not the Hawkins he knew. He was somehow still in the other Hawkins, the one Dustin had called the “Upside Down,” like it was part of Hellfire nights instead of…this, this other, terrifying place Henderson and Wheeler and their friends had brought him to. Once he understood where he was, Eddie sat straight up, searching the darkness around him for his newfound group of friends. Surely, if he was here, the rest of them must be too; at least, Harrington or Buckley or Wheeler, the “adults” of the group he had so reluctantly joined, would still be here with him.

He was in the road of his trailer park, the Upside Down version of it, and–as he looked around him–he realized he was surrounded by a circle of demobats. None of them were moving. He sat, breath bated, watching for one of them to twitch, for the whole flock to suddenly jump up and swarm him, but they stayed where they were. He reached out, slowly, and gingerly poked the one closest to him. When it didn’t move, he looked, quickly, his eyes jumping from corpse to corpse, at the limp bodies surrounding him. Surely this was a sign of Vecna’s fall, a sign that Harrington had made good on his promise and made him pay, a sign that they were all safe. But no one else appeared. It seemed like he was alone. Eddie couldn’t understand it–if he was there, in this Upside Down Hawkins, where was everyone else? Had he been taken, grabbed like Harrington in the lake and dragged through a gate? He wracked his memory, still lying on the cool ground while he kept a careful ear out for any hints of approaching bats–or the other creatures Henderson had mentioned, the demogorgons, or dogs, or any of the other crazy shit he had thought only existed in tabletop games two weeks ago. The last thing he could remember–barely, the memory dark and fuzzy around the edges–was Henderson’s face hovering over his, tears running down over his nose to splatter on Eddie’s face. 

It was an odd memory. Eddie couldn’t place it, couldn’t link it to anything else. Why would Dustin have been crying? Why did he remember Dustin holding him up, trying to pull him to standing, and oh God, why did he remember a ripping pain through his side when Dustin pulled at his skin? What the fuck was that, that memory of agony splitting through his body as he choked on hot liquid pooling in his mouth? Eddie carefully, slowly, reached his fingers down to his torso and brushed them over his skin, searching out an answer for the question this blurry half-memory created. He found nothing. There were ragged holes in his shirt, sure, but the skin underneath it felt fine, almost hard to his touch. The strange memory must be some Vecna thing, one of those false creations Red–Max, he corrected himself–had tried to explain to him: his skin was fine, his body still whole under his probing hands. He was not choking, his body was not in pieces, he wasn’t being held by Dustin while he promised to look after the kids in Hawkins who were a little too much like the two of them, a little too weird to fly under the radar. Whatever had created that memory of splitting pain through his skin, the fear and pain were gone now. In fact, Eddie almost couldn’t believe how good he felt as he sat in the deserted road. To have woken up here in the Upside Down with no memory of how he got there he would have assumed something was wrong, but his body felt fine–hell, maybe even better than when he first crossed the gate in his ceiling, exhausted and starving from running for his life from Chrissy’s body, from the cops, from Jason and his friends, from bats and creatures he couldn’t even envision. He felt rested, his muscles light under his skin, and his mind was working faster than it seemed like it ever had before, even when he had tried that shit that Rick had promised would help him finally focus on one specific thing long enough to get to graduation. He had been surviving on nothing but the cheap beer and junk food Harrington had brought him for too long, and his body had felt close to giving up even before he had flipped, head over heels, into the Upside Down. 

On the thought of his previous days of starving, he did feel a slow sensation building in his core. A hunger was gnawing at his sides, but it was different, not like his normal hunger. Hunger was far from being a completely unknown feeling to Eddie Munson: he had felt hunger when he had still been living with his dad, just a kid who had gone too many days without a real meal; he had felt hunger when he smoked some of the weed he was supposed to be selling, a deep gnawing need for whatever comfort food he could get his hands on. This hunger was different: it was more of a slinking feeling, a physical need accompanied by an emotional sensation he couldn’t put words to. It reminded him of how he felt when he thought about Corroded Coffin breaking out of Hawkins, making a name for themselves with a rush and flush of skin; it reminded him of that sinking pit in his stomach that opened within him every time another test he hadn’t studied for ended up on the desk in front of him and he thought to himself that he should be able to turn in his D&D quests for his writing projects instead of these damn analysis essays; it reminded him of how longing for another person would slide it’s way into his heart late at night sometimes and soak through his frame, filling his head with images of someone wrapping their arms around his neck or brushing his hair smooth against his head. This ache in his stomach, this hunger, made his throat constrict too, made his nostrils flare as he acknowledged it. Mixtures of sadness, of desire, of longing, met with a need through his whole body and, suddenly, he was overwhelmed by the sharp, metallic stink of blood. Eddie suddenly remembered where he was. The smell of blood could be anything, could be a creeping monster coming nearer to finish him off after dragging him here in the first place. Nervous, he slowly, gingerly put his feet under himself and stood up. 

Eddie’s body felt different–he felt stronger, lighter on his feet. As he looked around himself in the cool, dark constant night of the Upside Down, he swallowed against the tightness in his throat. The smell of blood seemed to be coming from the slick stains on the ground around him. Patches of darkness spilled over the road, and some of it–closer to savaged remains of demobats–was darker, thicker. Eddie looked down at himself, noting the bright red smears over his clothes and drying along his arms. Hurriedly, he tried to wipe the gore from his slick palms, patting his jeans and ragged shirt but his hands only came away damper, more blood coming from his clothes. It must have been because he was laying in it, Eddie thought, trying to find a single part of him that would clean his hands. In his frantic search, an unbidden thought came to him: that play he had to read his second Senior year, where the wife (or was she a Queen? Whatever) had dreamed about blood on her hands. She had scrubbed her hands in water, yelling “Out, out damned spot!” He remembered because it was the first time he’d ever heard a teacher swear in class, and everyone had giggled. He felt like her now, madly cleaning his hands. “Out,” he hissed between his teeth, finally rubbing his hands on the inside of his jeans pockets. This seemed to work–his hands felt cleaner, at least. Whoever’s blood he was soaked in–his stomach curdled at the thought–had covered him so thoroughly he didn’t know if they would have lived. 

He took stock of the carnage around him, trying to put the pieces together to explain the sheer amount of blood under his feet. Fuck, he hoped it wasn’t from any of his friends. If it was Dustin– He couldn’t even finish the thought. He refused to lose that kid. Eddie looked around, searching for even the slightest hint of proof that someone else was still out there with him. When he couldn’t find it, he decided they must have taken whoever was injured–more injured than him, since he was just passed out–back to safety. They must be back at the trailer, he thought. He should get to the trailer. Stepping around the dark, fallen corpses of the bats on the ground, he made his way down the road, keeping to the shadows of the other trailers. He would make it back to the trailer and find his friends, he was sure of it, and then they would go back to Hawkins–the real Hawkins–and he could clear his name, tell the police he hadn’t even been around when Nancy’s friend got killed, and he and his uncle would buy a new trailer and be safe. He could graduate. He could finally leave Hawkins and move on with his life. He felt renewed, a sense of vigor coursing through his bloodstream as he snuck trailer to trailer up to his own. 

When he swung the door open, he half expected to see the lights on, his friends in a circle around his stained mattress on the floor, all cheering for him like the Hellfire club had when they finished his most recent campaign. His heart thudded against his chest painfully when he saw no one inside. The mattress was gone–he vaguely remembered moving it himself, trying to keep Henderson from following him as he went back to buy Steve, Nancy, and Robin safety for a little while longer. The half of the rope he remembered cutting was still on the floor, one of the old chairs he and his uncle ate dinner in replacing it in the middle of the room. But when he looked up at the ceiling, the undulating vines had been–boarded over? That wasn’t possible. Scraps of wood–wood that looked suspiciously like pieces of Eddie’s uncle’s furniture, his dining table and maybe the end table he kept his alarm clock on–had been thrown over the opening on the right side of Hawkins. His eyebrows furrowed, trying to understand how the chunks of loose furniture could be above him, knowing they would have to be nailed or screwed or supported against the ceiling in the real Hawkins. Eddie stood on the chair, placing his hands against the wood, and shoved. It barely shifted. His body groaned, the unusual tightness in his throat burning again, and he shoved again, bracing his feet more soundly in the chair. However this shit was stuck to the ceiling, it should come loose easy enough but it didn’t move. Whatever had been piled against the wood, likely propping each piece in place in some sort of complicated manner only Nancy Wheeler and Dustin Henderson could dream up, it was there firmly. 

Eddie climbed off the chair and looked around the room. If this blockage was in place, keeping anything from the Upside Down from getting back into his world, what did that mean for him? His stomach tightened into knots. Why would they leave him here? His friends were gone–that much was clear–but they had left him behind and, more than that, they had locked him out. How was he supposed to get back to them? Was he expected to get all the way back to the dry field of what was supposed to be Lover’s Lake and swim his way through a gate again? He had never been a strong swimmer, and he felt certain he wouldn’t make it through the watergate a second time without Robin pulling him along. And why were all of his friends gone? Did they–did they not want him to come back? Or…did they think he wouldn’t? Had they left him, passed out on the street, thinking he was dead? Oh God, oh fuck, if they thought he was dead they wouldn’t come back for him. They would go back to Hawkins and tell everyone he was dead; it would be just like when Nancy’s boyfriend’s kid brother had disappeared, the school making everyone going to an assembly to honor his life right before he had suddenly shown up again. His uncle Wayne’s face flashed in his mind, a memory from when Eddie was a little kid and had seen him sitting in the dark at the kitchen table, draining a beer, glimmering tear tracks running down his face and leaving giant, wet splotches along his work shirt. One of his friends, an old buddy, had died that night, had walked in front of a fucking train, but Eddie hadn’t known that then. He had stood in the doorframe between the hallway and the kitchen and watched his uncle sit at that table, lit only by the passing headlights that cut through the wide windows intermittently. Eddie had listened to him sob, had listened to muffled cries turn into heart wrenching choking sounds, and he had felt his own stomach curdle. It had been a relief when his uncle had finally put his head down on his arms, his sobs turning to gentle breathing as he fell asleep. Eddie never knew if his uncle had known that Eddie had watched him that night; he didn’t know if his uncle knew that every time Eddie really, really started to screw up he pulled back at the last second, thinking about his uncle making those sounds over him. 

And now that’s all Eddie could imagine. Somewhere, back in the Right Side of Hawkins, was his uncle sleeping on a kitchen table strewn with empty beer cans? Was he choking on his own sadness as it broke through his mouth, the way Eddie suddenly felt like he might? Or did Uncle Wayne think he was just missing, maybe on a bender with some of his friends like he had been before? The last time Eddie had disappeared for a week, Wayne had sat him down in the living room–the same room Eddie was in now, but it was warm and softly lit with lamps and tense with awkward silence–and told him that he was allowed to disappear for a while (“Hell,” uncle Wayne had said, “You’re practically grown now.”) but that he had to check in every three days. He hadn’t seen his uncle since Chrissy died–also in this same room, he remembered with a painful shudder forcing it’s way up his spine–but he had known that Wayne would understand that; would be waiting for him, but would let him do what he needed to keep the both of them safe. Was that what Eddie was doing now? Keeping himself and others safe by leaving those scraps of wood in place where Chrissy had died, keeping himself here? Eddie wasn’t sure. Part of him couldn’t make sense of it anyway–how could they board this up? How could they think he was dead when he was right here?

The memory of Dustin crying over him flashed through his head again. He, Eddie, had thought he was dying then. But surely he was wrong because look at him–he’s alive, right now. He held a hand up in front of his face, pinching the smooth pale skin below his rings. No, not dreaming. This was real, whatever it was. This had to be some weird sort of Upside Down thing; maybe you couldn’t die in the Upside Down. That had to be it, Eddie thought. He should have died but he didn’t, probably because he wasn’t from the Upside Down, he wasn’t like all of those other things out there, rattling in the dark as they searched for their next meal, so he couldn’t die here. An unwelcome thought occurred to him: maybe he had died but he had come back as a ghost. Sure, Eddie had assumed that ghosts wouldn’t be bothered by things like pieces of broken wood over a transdimensional crossing, but it’s not like he knew how that shit would work. He’d ask Henderson, if he could, but he imagined Dustin would roll his eyes and sigh, condescendingly explaining that ghosts aren't real (but, Eddie reasoned, none of this shit should be real. Didn’t stop it from being real, didn’t stop him from being here). Desperate to prove to himself that he really was alive, Eddie wrapped his fingers around his wrist, his grip so tight that the rational part of his mind told him to expect bruises. Nothing. He slid his hands around his cool skin, trying to find the dull beat that he could always feel tingling through his extremities when he had smoked a little too much, but there was nothing there. His hand came up to his chest, groping around over his thin t-shirt. Where the fuck was his heartbeat? He was alive, he knew he was alive, he could feel himself moving and breathing and thinking, he had to be alive. There–in his throat–he had found his pulse. Just barely, the softest, lightest thrum against his fingers. The beat was too slow, but it was there. 

He wasn’t sure why his heartbeat was so slow, why his blood felt thick and morose under his skin. He also wasn’t sure why he had been left behind. Shit, Eddie Munson was slowly coming to terms with the fact that there was a lot he didn’t–and never would–know. But, Eddie thought to himself, he had been left behind, and that’s what really mattered right now. He didn’t think of Dustin’s friends as his own–Harrington, Wheeler, and Buckley had all been nice enough but that didn’t mean he expected them to be a band of best friends after this. He had expected them to fight for him; it had been clear from the moment he lowered the broken bottle he had held against Steve’s throat that whatever this was, they were in it together. But they weren’t anymore, were they? Abandoned. Eddie had been abandoned by his temporary friends. Eddie the Banished, really and truly banished, left to rot alongside the vines and the demobats and Vecna. He didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do. Maybe he could find a way around this–he could go back to Wheeler’s house and touch the lights and tap out SOS on every damn surface in this town until someone put two and two together and brought him back. That would work, he thought, that had to work. A small voice rang out in the back of his head: what if they’re not at Wheeler’s house? What if they just think the wiring’s gone bad? What if they don’t want you back bad enough to risk opening the gate again? Eddie shook his head, dispelling the thoughts that threatened to take over, and sniffed, once. 

He looked around the dark, empty trailer. Eddie knew it wasn’t really safe to stay here too long–Vecna’s monsters would probably come back here, they could probably scent or sense or whatever they did, the fucking creeps, that he was there already. Dustin’s spear was leaning up against the wall, one of their homemade shields made of a garbage can lid and long nails still stuck to the ceiling. He stood on a chair, prying the shield loose from where he had stabbed it, and took Dustin’s spear in his other hand. It wasn’t much–probably not enough to keep him alive–but it would have to be enough to get him around town. He’d stick to the shadows, take back roads he was already too familiar with in case those fucking monsters preferred sidewalks or some shit, and he’d ruin the electrical grid of the whole damn town of Hawkins, Indiana if that’s what it took to get him home. He was going home, dammit, and not this home, a backwards, Upside Down version of his house. Eddie steeled his courage at the door of his trailer. Taking one last look over his shoulder, he regarded the space that was so similar to the one he had lived in for so long. His guitar was leaning up against the wall where he had discarded it before fighting the bats with Dustin, and there were die with too-many sides scattered over countertops. He couldn’t take it with him; he couldn’t take the memories, the longing for that part of his life again, either. When he swung the door open, stepping out into the darkness, the sky lit up overhead. The roiling flashes of red lighting cast a bloody glow over Eddie’s face as he stared up, blinking slowly. Shouldering his spear, makeshift shield in his other hand, he began the slow walk towards Wheeler’s house. 

Chapter two here!

[voiceless-terror]

would you consider writing me some precanon jongeorgie angst. bc i imagine they probably bonded over their interest in the supernatural but never. you know. actually talked about their personal experiences/trauma. just give me a little of both of them handling that trauma very badly while never admitting their closest brush with the supernatural. or something. idk.

Hello anon! I haven’t written Jon/Georgie yet, but this prompt was too good to pass up. Hope you like!

Being with Georgie was easy. It shouldn’t have been, not for him.

But it was.

She carried herself with the utmost surety: of her opinions, of her feelings, of her place in the world. It wasn’t arrogance, more like confidence and something else Jon couldn’t quite put his finger on. There was a blankness in her eyes sometimes. Not an absence of feeling but an absence of...understanding, maybe. Of empathy. Georgie saw the world in black and white; she knew exactly what was right and what was wrong. She was blunt. She bulldozed over others in conversations, pointed out flaws that polite society knew to overlook and not name. Jon admired it, as much as it made him cringe.

But it was complemented by her fierce capacity for loving, her clever, teasing words, the way her fingers ran through his hair when he was stressed. That black and white view could quiet his mind like no other- ‘yes, Jon’, ‘no, Jon.’  She listened to his incessant rambling, nodding in the right places and adding her own commentary. She filled out the crosswords in the morning, her brow furrowed in concentration, colorful nails tapping at the table. She never wanted help, stubborn to a fault. Her dark skin ethereal in the morning light, the way her voice was low and croaky before her coffee. The ease with which she said ‘I love you.’ 

He remembered the day she first approached him, all ripped-tights and smudged, smoky eyeshadow. Just leaned against the wall on that chilly fall night and snatched the cigarette right from his hand, an eyebrow flicked upward as she took a drag. He couldn’t get a word out, just silently took her phone when she offered it and typed in a number with shaking hands. A year later and she was still that same girl, though he’d seen her stash of manga and her weird cat memorabilia. She was whole, real. It was comfortable.

“I’m not really sure if I should go.” They’re curled up on the couch, Jon leaning into the warm bulk of her. “All of the others are going, though.”

“It’s not like you’re close, right?” Jon’s petting the Admiral, the new addition to the household fitting in seamlessly. “I’m sure she won’t take it as an insult. You can always say you’re busy. Who was it, again? Her father?”

“Yeah.” Georgie’s shifting against him, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. It’s odd- she’s not usually so awkward about these things. If there’s something she doesn’t want to talk about, she shuts it down right away. This seems...different. “And no, not close. But everyone else is going- they want to show their support, I guess. It would be awkward if I didn’t.”

Perhaps Georgie didn’t like funerals. You’re not supposed to, of course. Maybe it was a phobia, a perfectly valid one. Plenty of people don’t like to see the reminder of death laid out before them. Jon’s been to a few in his lifetime- for his Gran’s friend, for a distant cousin.

For his parents.

He doesn’t remember his father’s, he might not have even gone. He was only two at the time. He distantly remembers his mother’s; it wasn’t well attended, he sat in the front row with his Gran. He doesn’t even remember crying, if he even realized the thing in the box was his mother, dead and gone.

Needless to say, he understands Georgie’s sentiments. “You don’t have to go, not if...not if you don’t like it. Plenty of people are uncomfortable with death-” This was the wrong thing to say, for Georgie tensed instantly, leaning away from him.

“That’s not it at all,” she says, snatching her legs out from where Jon’s leaning comfortable against them. “It’s- it’s the performance of it all. All those people standing around a body, sniffling and moaning-”

Jon tried for levity, bristling at her tone. “People grieve, they need closure-”

Georgie snorted, this time shoving him away on the couch, the Admiral jumping from Jon’s lap at the movement. Her words became impassioned, as if Jon needed to know, needed to understand. “Cremate them, then! Say a few words, scatter the ashes, whatever. But having the body on display like that?” She gets up, starts to pace. Jon’s never seen her like this. “Paint the corpse, dress it up, pretend it’s a person still but it’s not, and everyone’s just standing there around it, praying over it and watching it like it’s not just rotting meat you put lipstick on-”

“Georgie!”

“I can’t stand it.” She stops in front of him, chest heaving and eyes aflame. “What’s so monumental about it? We live, we die- and her father was old, it was bound to happen sometime. No need to make such a to-do. It’s- it’s just disgusting, is what it is.” She didn’t continue, and an awkward silence permeated the room. 

Georgie got worked up about things on occasion. But the wild look in her eye, the total sense of incomprehension was...disconcerting. He agreed with her on certain points, of course, but the vehemence behind them- something wasn’t right. But it didn’t feel right to pry, either, and Georgie surely wouldn’t appreciate it.

“You could just say you’re busy, you don’t have to go,” he tries tentatively. She seems to deflate where she stands, looking uncharacteristically vulnerable. So he stands up, taking her hand in his. She lets him, but doesn’t meet his eyes. “But if you do, I can come with you. If you’d like.”

They stand in the very back row of the church after awkwardly greeting her grieving coworker. Georgie’s nails dig painfully into his arm, but he says nothing. They leave after ten minutes and stop at an Indian buffet on the way home. He silently watches her dig into a curry, his own untouched.

___________

When she first met Jon, she thought he was utterly out of her league.

It was her first semester back at school, she was an absolute fucking mess- drinking at all hours, barely present in her classes. She was out at the bar with a few new friends, most of whom she’d already forgotten the names of, and saw him standing there under a single flickering lamp, a cigarette dangling from long, slender fingers, raven hair back in a messy bun. Not many people could pull that off but he looked almost effortlessly cool (a thing she’d later find laughable for ever thinking) in his dingy leather jacket, his eyes far away and shadowed. She wondered what made him lose sleep. He had an odd, crooked little smile on his face and she was filled with liquid courage. The look he gave her when she took that cigarette out of his hand made her knees weak, and he took the proffered phone like he was only a little impressed. She sent a text to his phone and left, so embarrassed she went straight home.

He never did text her. To be fair, she never expected him to.

But she found him not two days later, hunched over a table in the campus library. She did a double take- surely this couldn’t be him, her impossibly handsome, silent figure who she surely dreamed up. But there was no mistaking that hair, those eyes. He was smaller, somehow diminished in his baggy jumper and wire-rimmed glasses, tapping a pencil against his textbook in irritation. Before she knew it she found herself picking up her phone, sending a text to the number with no name. And sure enough, his phone buzzed.

They went out on their first date a day later.

Jon was a ball of nerves, awkward and not at all like the man she thought she met that night. Somehow, the real Jon was better. She liked the way he blushed and stammered, the way a touch of her hand left him flustered and unable to speak. The way he could talk for hours about nothing at all, making even the most dull of subjects seem interesting with that voice of his- a voice surely meant for radio or T.V., something Jon himself endlessly scoffed at whenever she brought it up. They would sit in front of the telly for hours, marathoning ridiculous ghost hunting shows and pointing out the obvious fakes. Jon had a weakness for ghost stories, just like she did. “Most of them are absolute drivel, of course,” he said.

Most of them. 

They found comfort in each other, their small island of two, had no need for other company. Georgie had never been able to relate to someone so well, not since Alex, and Jon was never fond of crowds. Three months in he tried to break up with her, saying he could never give her what ‘she needed’ but she stopped that in its tracks- Georgie would be the one who decided what she did and didn’t need, thank you very much. She liked the way he leaned into her on movie nights, like her touch was the only thing that mattered. The sincerity in his eyes whenever he complimented her in that earnest, awkward way of his. He challenged her when he thought she was wrong, sometimes their fights lasted days. But they always came back to one another, each knowing they had no one else who understood them. Was it healthy? Georgie couldn’t answer that, she didn’t know herself. Jon probably didn’t either. But she loved him, in her way. 

That night they have a few glasses of wine, and Jon’s regaling her with some ridiculous story from his youth- apparently he was somewhat of a delinquent, wandering about at all hours. She laughs in delight, imagining a small, serious Jon climbing fences and evading the law. But suddenly Jon stops, his eyes going wide and his face growing ashen as he stares unblinking at the table.

It’s a spider- a tiny thing, really. Georgie’s been seeing a lot of them lately, and she really should be better about dusting the place. But Jon- Jon looks absolutely terrified, like the thing’s bound to leap out and kill him. She opens her mouth to tease, an instinctive reaction, but is instead startled by the loud smack of a hand against the table. Jon had smashed it certainly, but he lifts his hand and stares at it in wide-eyed horror, as if whatever he sees is nine times worse than the original thing.

“Jon-”

The chair hits the ground as he stumbles to her bathroom with heavy, labored breathing. She gets up slowly, approaching as quietly as possible to find him hyperventilating against the sink, the faucet on full blast as he washes his hand- scratches it, really. He’s mumbling frantically under his breath.

“...so many legs, get off, get off-”

She makes her presence known as not to startle him, approaching from the side and gently wrapping a hand around his arm once she sees him drawing blood. He starts anyway, his movements jerky and frenzied as he rips his arm away like her touch burns.

“It’s just a spider Jon,” she says softly, lifting her hands to show she means no harm. “It’s okay, you got it, it’s dead now-”

“But what if it isn’t!” He spits, slamming his hands on the marble rim of the sink and leaving bloody prints in his wake. He’s breathing so fast she thinks he might pass out. “What if it isn’t?”

She has no answer to that.

It takes about two hours, a hot shower and a stiff drink for him to calm down. They lay on the couch, watching something stupid, mind-numbing. She runs her fingers through his hair. He always liked that. She doesn’t say a word, he’s exhausted, and she knows from experience that pushing him will just lead to another fit like before. The next day, he brings her Hungarian by way of apology. They eat in a more comfortable silence, Jon gradually warming up as the evening goes on. Still, she doesn’t ask.

She spends the weekend cleaning her flat, standing on a chair and vacuuming at the cobwebs.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28440474

[crossdressingdeath]

i find it interesting, seeing as there are multiple deaths in mdzs (including the death of the main character), how ppl write about grief in this fandom. i’m thinking specifically about lwj’s grief during the 13/16 years wwx was dead.

ppl often talk about lwj as if he spent those years drowning in his grief. how on the days he didn’t think of wwx, he felt immense pain and guilt at forgetting to remember him. that he spent those years feeling like he was in darkness without color and when wwx returned, the light and color returned as well. while i’m sure this is not true for everyone, i can’t help but feel like the ppl writing this have never experienced personal loss before and are just going off of what media portrays grief as being like. and while i’m sure there are ppl who do experience grief in a similar way to how it’s portrayed in media, it not a universal experience and that way of talking about grief is pretty one dimensional.

admittedly the grief that comes from the loss of a loved one can be hard to understand until you experience it for yourself but ppl aren’t meant to feel such intense grief for such a long period of time. that is severely unhealthy, experiencing that much pain for that long would severely harm a person. we would not meet the lwj we meet at the beginning of the novel if he had spent the last 13 years drowning in grief. and if he had spent the last 13 years lost in grief, he would not have been in the right state of mind to start a relationship with wwx that was sane and healthy like he did at the end of the novel bc wwx coming back would not be a magic cure for that state of being.

lwj moved on, he became the one who appears wherever the chaos is, he helped raise lsz, he taught the juniors and he helped ppl whenever he could. he moved on with his life and that is not a bad thing. maybe because media also portrays moving on as leaving that person behind; as surpassing that grief and never feeling that grief again. maybe that’s why people don’t talk about lwj moving on, because they see it as lwj leaving wwx behind. but that is not what moving on is. moving on is not forgetting the person or never talking about them. it’s not even that you’ll never feel grief for that person again. it just means that you are at state where you are able to handle that loss without it overwhelming you.

Yeah, it’s like... LWJ never stopped missing WWX, but there comes a point where you just can’t maintain that sort of grief. The human brain doesn’t function like that; you can’t withstand feelings staying at that level indefinitely. LWJ loved WWX and didn’t stop loving him and mourned him when he died, but... yeah. If nothing else it’s not... healthy? to be entirely incapable of living without that one person? Which is part of the reason why MDZS is very much my favourite MXTX novel, because LWJ does move on and learn to live without WWX even though he’s still in love with him. He’s overjoyed at being reunited with WWX and being given the chance for a relationship with him, but he was prepared and willing to live a long and meaningful life without him. No matter how much you love someone, if you genuinely cannot live a meaningful life without them because you’re so busy grieving even years after they’re gone that really isn’t healthy.