#i want miles as a survivor so bad
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Meet Cute
Meet Cute
Pairing: Daryl Dixon x f!reader, Reader POV
Summary: Reader is surviving in the apocalypse alone, until she meets a stranger who needs her help, even if he doesn't want to admit it. This is a reimagining of when Daryl gets hurt trying to find Sophia in Season 2, in which the reader shoots Daryl instead of Andrea. This can be read as stand alone, but can also be read as a prequel fic to "Your Fault," describing how reader and Daryl met for the first time. (I'm so bad at summaries, please forgive me).
Era: Hershel farm era.
Tropes: Angst, Fluff (if you squint at it), Patching up someone's wounds.
Warnings: I mean, I don't think there's any. I'll say references to past trauma with survivors, but mentioned only once or twice and not detailed. Blood and gore, because the reader is patching up Daryl's wounds and of course zombies. Cursing, not a lot, but a few words.
Word Count: 4.1K (Oops) (Seriously did not mean for it to be this long.)
Note: There is minimal use of (y/n). Any references to the reader besides the (y/n) is done using "your" or "you". I tried to proofread the best I could, nobody's perfect. If you don't like, don't read, but if you do like you're my favorite!
Internal monologue is done in italics and is in first person.
ENJOY!
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It was raining and you were having a bad day. You weren’t having a bad day because it was raining, you actually liked standing in the rain, feeling the cool water drip down your face and through your clothes made you feel alive in the best way. It was difficult to find things that made you feel alive, especially after two months in the zombie apocalypse.
You considered yourself lucky, the first day everything went to hell you had slept through it. Pulling a double at the hospital downtown knocked you out and you woke up to the screams and the pounding of feet in the hall of your apartment building.
By then the phones were gone, electricity to the city had been cut off and you were hopelessly alone. Not unwelcome, due to the fact that it had been you on your own since your father had died a year earlier, but still acute enough for you to notice. It took you a week to leave your apartment to try and scavenge for food, even then you were not ready for the carnage that waited on the streets of Atlanta. After another week you realized that you needed to get out, it was too dangerous to be there. The military had failed and there was nothing left for you in the city. So you packed your backpack and said goodbye to your old life. Finding the cabin outside Atlanta was fortuitous, especially after you ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere. That being said when you found it originally, it had its quirks. No windows, a door that hung off its hinges, blood stains on the wooden floors, and no running water all made the cabin less than ideal.
But after two months it was home.
You sigh to yourself as you reset the trap, hiding it underneath the wet dead leaves as rain dripped from the treetops above. Someone or something was getting into your traps. It was the third time in a week it had happened and you were starting to get annoyed. You suspected it was a walker, since you continued to find bits and pieces of squirrel in the forest around the trap.
You continue your trek in the half-circle one mile out from the cabin. It was a nice spot, dense forest with a small creek that ran through, small enough to cross, but enough water that you didn't have to worry about going any further to find it. The only time you left the cabin was to scavenge, but that took a few days of preparation.
Rain pattered softly over the fallen leaves, weaving in and out of the canopy above, and kissing your skin. Being alone never bothered you before, but the thought that you might be the last person on earth was different. It was one thing to choose to be alone, another thing to be forced into it.
The sound of shuffling and sliding leaves makes you pause, ears peeled. You did not see too many walkers where you were and figured that because you were in the middle of nowhere there weren't enough people to turn.
The shuffling gets louder and you duck behind one of the trees, drawing your pistol from the belt at your waist. It was a gift from your father when you moved to Atlanta to start your residency. Target practice every week made you a good shot and helped blow off steam when shifts at the hospital were tough. Unfortunately, you hadn't been able to find many bullets, which prompted you to carry a hunting knife on the opposite side of your waist. The only ammo stores you found were stripped down and desolate. Sometimes you worried what would happen when you ran out.
You hear the heavy exhale of the walker as it continues through the woods behind the tree where you are hiding. You peer around the tree trunk, watching it shuffle along. It's wearing dark clothes, blood dripping from its side as it hunches over and travels away from you. A crossbow is strapped along it's back at an awkward angle and every step it releases a heavy exhale.
You click off the safety. Probably the same walker that's been eating all my squirrels. You think to yourself as you aim the gun at the back of the walker's head and take in a deep breath. But just as you pull the trigger, the walker stumbles to the left and the bullet scrapes along the outside of the walker's skull.
Shit.
As it falls, it hits its head on a tree stump and lies still, face down. You come out from behind the tree cautiously, replacing the pistol at the holster on your waist and pull out the hunting knife. The walker doesn't move.
Okay. I can do this. I can do this-
You tap it with your boot. It groans once, but doesn't make an attempt to get up. Wait. If its groaning and not moving is it not-
You bend down and grab the back of the walker's shirt, avoiding the crossbow to roll it over, and suddenly realize, it's not a walker, it’s a man.
SHIT.
"Hello?" You poke his chest once, twice, but he doesn't respond. "Um- Sir? Are you okay? Can you speak?"
Why did I just call him sir?
The man groans softly, but does not open his eyes.
SHIT.
You hadn't run into many people in the apocalypse. Saw them from afar, but never approached one. Your father had instilled in you that desperate situations bred a new kind of person. No one could be trusted. The one time you had run into a group, you learned that the hard way. You shake it off and look down at the man on the ground.
He's covered in a layer of dirt and grime, a necklace of walker ears hangs over his dark green tank top, a large hunting knife hangs from his waist next to a child's doll, and blood soaks through the side of his shirt.
Why does he have a doll? Is he like one of those truckers on the highway that has a teddy bear strapped to the front of their semi? Because that's kind of weird.
You stepped closer to examine where the blood has stained his shirt along his side. He's really hurt.
You raise your head to look around the forest around you. He doesn't have a pack, his camp must be nearby. Which means that there might be others that come looking for him.
You look back down at the man where the bullet scraped through his hair, watching the blood trickle down the side of his head. You think about leaving him there. I don't know him. I can just walk away no harm done-
You bite your lip. I can't do it. I can't leave him here. You curse your conscience. Now I just have to haul him the entire mile back to my cabin, without waking him up or hurting him.
Great.
*******************************************
Dragging him back to the cabin through the woods and up the front steps took over an hour. You were too afraid to drag him back quickly, afraid that it would do more harm than good especially because you were unsure how bad the wound on his side was. He hadn't woken up, a bad sign, but you were optimistic.
Guilt momentarily fills your chest. You wouldn’t have shot him if you knew he was still alive. You probably would have just let him go on his merry way. But then you think about how he stumbled.
If I let him go, how far would he have gotten? Maybe me taking him is better than the alternative.
Staring at him laying on the hardwood floor made you wonder if this was a bad idea. You didn't know him. He might have a group somewhere and he might be faking to find out where you lived.
If he is faking he is certainly committed. You mused gazing down at him again.
He was older than you, by a few years at least, with brown hair that stuck out in different directions. Your eyes sweep his clothes, nose wrinkling at the strand of walker ears around his neck. His clothes were dirty, covered in dirt and dead blood. You had taken great care with his crossbow, setting it down on the small wooden table that you usually ate at, noticing how clean it was.
He must really care about it.
You couldn’t help but notice how small the man looked laying on the floor. And it made you feel more guilty about shooting him.
You walk away to get your medical bag, it was on the makeshift kitchen counter on the right back wall. The cabin was one room, in one corner there was a giant cabinet filled with whatever cans you could salvage, in another there was a wooden counter with a non-working sink, a small fireplace sat on the left wall, and in another there was a small twin sized bed covered in mismatched blankets. You had been prepping for winter, moving further and further into town to salvage what you could and storing chopped wood against the inside wall by the fireplace. The thought of winter scared you more than you’d care to admit. Especially with the squirrel traps giving less and less each day.
I wonder if this is the person stealing all my squirrels. You frown to yourself. Maybe I shouldn't help him.
You hear a strange sound behind you and as turn around, bag in hand, you notice that the man isn't on the ground anymore. He's standing, crossbow drawn, pointed directly at your chest.
Great.
"Where the hell am I?" The man growls.
Your chest tightens in fear. By the time I reach for my gun he’ll shoot me.
"It’s okay." You force the tremor from your voice, trying your best not to look frightened. The bag drops to the ground and you hold up your hands in front of you in a gesture of surrender. "You're at my cabin. You're safe."
"Why?" His eyes narrow as he takes another step forward.
This was such a bad idea. Granted I also would have that reaction if I woke up in a strange place.
"I'm a doctor. I just wanted to make sure you were alright. You collapsed and I noticed you were bleeding."
He backs up towards the door without turning around, eyes wild, body tense, ready to spring.
"Wait please. I feel really bad-"
The guilt is back now as you look at the scrape along his head and the blood soaked shirt.
"Why?" The man narrows his eyes.
"Because I-" You scrunch up your face in embarrassment. "I thought you were one of those things and I shot you. I'm sorry."
"You shot me?"
"Yes. I mean, you stumbled at the last second and I missed, but I'm also pretty sure that you hit your head pretty hard."
"What?"
"It felt wrong to leave you there.”
“I don’t need your help.” He spits.
“You’re probably right.” Your hands are still palm up in front of you. “But I thought it would be stupid if you survived this long with those things out there and then died from an infection. That's pretty pathetic." You smile sheepishly at your attempt at a joke to lighten the mood, but he doesn't smile.
Well the good news is if he leaves I'll never see him again, and I'll be able to forget about this entire awkward exchange. Who am I kidding? It’s going to haunt me at night, right up there with the time I tripped and ate it on the way to the microphone at my 8th grade talent show.
"I don't want your help." The man says again as he turns to go, but groans when he feels the muscles on his side strain with the movement.
"Please." You breathe. "It'll take ten minutes then you can leave and we never have to see each other ever again."
His eyes are still narrowed. They skate across your body sizing you up. “Are you alone?”
The question makes a cold shiver travel down your spine. It's the question that made you avoid other survivors, the question that made you tie your hair up under a hat, wear oversized clothes to hide your body, and a scarf to hide the bottom half of your face.
“If I say yes are you going to attack me?” Your throat is thick when you ask it.
He shakes his head.
You watch him curiously, but even though he’s pointing a crossbow at your chest you don’t think he’s lying. “Then yes.”
The man stands there for another few seconds. “Five minutes.”
“Fine."
He makes no move to lower the crossbow.
"Is it okay if I move or are you going to shoot me?" You raise an eyebrow.
The man sighs and finally lowers the crossbow, which you take as confirmation that you can pick up your medical bag.
What am I doing? I should have just let him leave. You think to yourself, watching the way his eyes dart around the cabin.
You both stand there awkwardly for a second. “You can just sit on the bed. It'll probably be easier than the chair.”
He sits down, but places the crossbow next to him on the bedside table, as if preparing for you to attack him.
You tried to remember the training you had for dealing with unwilling patients. Of course when that happened the hospital let them leave, but you didn’t want him to leave. You felt guilty for shooting him and you felt guilty for dragging him all the way here. And despite not knowing him, you were worried.
He could barely move without it hurting, what would happen if he left? One of those things were sure to get him on the way back wherever he came from.
You pull up a chair, so close to him that your knees are almost touching, and place the bag on your lap, looking through for your supplies.
“How long have I been here?”
“A little over an hour. Took me a while to drag you here. You’re heavier than you look.” You smile up at him, but he continues to frown.
“Are you really a doctor?”
“Why would I lie about that?” You shuffle through the bag, placing the supplies on the bed.
“I don’t know.” He shifts. “You don’t look like a doctor.”
“Because I’m a woman?”
“No. You're just-“
You wait for him to think of it, but he doesn’t finish his sentence.
Okay.
“This is going to hurt just for a second.” You soak the cloths in the antiseptic and raise one to the side of his head. The man flinches away from your touch with narrowed eyes. “For this to work I’m going to need to touch you.” You say softly with a gentle smile. You were under the impression that he wasn't mean, rather he just wasn’t used to other people.
He leans forward, looking away from you to give you access to the side of his head. Your left hand brushes away the strands of hair from where the bullet scraped along his head, dabbing with the cloth along the shallow wound. You were happy to note that it didn’t need stitches, but you still wanted to clean it out. The man doesn’t wince when the cloth touches his skin.
“I’m y/n by the way.”
He waits a beat. “Daryl.”
You continue to clean along the wound, concentrating on getting as much blood and dirt away from the opening.
“Have you been out here alone this whole time?” Daryl asks.
“Yeah. How about you?”
“No.”
Guess he doesn’t say a lot.
When you finish with his head, you start to reach for his shirt, but Daryl jumps hand twitching towards the crossbow.
“It’s okay." You smile at him. "I want to look at your side. If you could just take off your shirt-"
“No.”
“But I have to see it-“
He frowns at you. Finally, Daryl pulls up his shirt only enough for you to see the wound on his side, but no further. Just under the cloth of his shirt where it stops, you see remnants of pink scar tissue.
You try very hard not to look at the pink scar tissue, but you were curious. Was that why he didn't want me to take off his shirt?
He’s not looking at you. In fact the only time he made eye contact with you was when he was holding the crossbow.
“You might need to lie down for this one.”
Daryl eyes you again, before finally he lays down on his side, still not looking at you. The wound on his side is deeper, two piercings that go from the front of his abdomen and through to his back.
Did he shoot himself with the crossbow? How is that even physically possible?
“What happened?”
“Fell.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I think I’m going to need to pour the antiseptic in this one and it's going to hurt. You can hold my hand if you want.” You put your left hand on the bed as a peace offering. He doesn’t take it.
Or not.
As soon as the liquid touches his skin, Daryl fists his hand in the mountain of blankets, clenching his teeth together.
“I know I’m sorry.” You can't help but touch his arm and he flinches back away from you. “But now it’s clean and you don’t have to worry about infection.” You go through the motions with the stitches, pulling the needle through the skin smooth and steady, surprised that Daryl does not react to the needle. You reach for a bandage to cover the affected area. "Okay, so keep this clean, don't raise your arm up too high or the stitches will rip, change the bandage in a day or so. I'm going to give you one to take with you. Do you want some painkillers? I think I have some in here somewhere."
"No."
"Okay." You stand up and move out of his way so that he can get up from the bed, before beginning to look through the bag for a spare bandage.
Daryl stands there for a minute with his crossbow dangling from his right hand as if he's not sure what to say.
"Here." You hold out a bandage.
"Don't need it."
"Are you sure?"
Daryl nods once.
"Well if you rip your stitches or decide you want another bandage, you know where to find me." You can't help but smile at him.
As much as you were afraid of him at first, you couldn't help but like the interruption in the monotony of your day. And despite his gruff exterior, you liked talking to him. Which was surprising given the fact you hadn't liked talking to anyone else in the past.
He doesn't say anything, instead he starts to walk to the door of the cabin, but he stops. "Thanks." Daryl doesn't look away from the door.
"You're welcome. Be careful out there."
And then he's gone, leaving you in the still silence of the cabin once more.
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The next few days pass as they usually do. You check the traps, scavenge for water, read a book by the fireplace at night, but every time you leave the cabin you hope to see Daryl again, hope that he'll come back because he needed that bandage or maybe will just come by to sit in utter silence.
That last bit seemed the most in character.
You didn't want to admit to yourself how disappointed you were in the silence that followed his exit. Not because he spoke that much, but even his presence in the cabin made whatever this was easier. Before you relished in the fact that you were alone, but now after you met him, it felt too quiet.
However, you had noticed more dead in the area over the past few days and that made you worry.
What if Daryl never made it back to wherever it was he was going? What if he had gotten attacked as soon as he left? You tried not to think that, because Daryl looked capable enough to survive in the apocalypse. Definitely seemed capable when he held a crossbow to your face.
You jolt awake to the sound of someone frantically knocking against your door.
What?
You tighten your hand on the hunting knife under your pillow before you sit up in bed. Maybe I dreamed that.
Someone kicks open the front door of your cabin.
Definitely didn't dream that.
A ball of fear lodges in the back of your throat as you grab the gun on your bedside table, holding it up between you and the dark figure standing just inside the doorway.
"Y/n?" A familiar voice shouts.
"Daryl?" You lower the gun watching the dark figure turn to barricade the door.
"We have to go."
"Daryl what's wrong-" As soon as the words come out of your mouth, you hear the moaning and shuffling of the dead followed by the pounding of hands against the door.
Fear makes your entire body freeze. You had been in Atlanta long enough to watch the chaos, watch what happened in the streets, the memories of what you saw keeping you awake more than one night, memories of the masses of bodies swarming survivors and the ungodly screams that followed.
"We gotta go.” He grabs your wrist and hauls you out of bed.
In case of an emergency like this, you always slept fully dressed. You clip your belt around your waist before putting the gun back in the holster and throwing your oversized jacket on over your t-shirt. Your pack is on the floor by the back door. The medical bag is small enough to shove inside the black backpack.
“Come on!” Daryl grabs your hand and pulls you out the back door, dragging you through the woods behind him.
You glance over your shoulder. The moonlight above illuminates the mass of walkers that surely would have destroyed the small cabin and you inside.
He came back for me. The thought makes a surge of gratitude warm in your chest. He didn't even know me and he was willing to fight his way through dead infested woods to save me.
Daryl shoots one that stands in your way, glancing behind him to see the mass of walkers that follow, before letting go of your hand and reloading the crossbow.
“Where are we going?” You shout running behind him, gun drawn.
“Up ahead-“ He responds over his shoulder.
You break out of the tree-line onto a road, where a motorcycle waits haphazardly on the edge of the long grass.
He jumps on the motorcycle revving the engine once, looking up at you expectantly. You don’t hesitate. You kick your leg over the side and wrap your arms around his waist to secure yourself. Daryl's muscles tense as you do, but the motorcycle shoots off, the sound of the engine masking the moans and shuffles of the dead emerging from the trees behind you.
You drive for a few miles, far enough that you put your face into Daryl's back to block the onslaught of wind that comes up over the road.
As soon as Daryl hits the interstate he weaves through the broken cars, before finally parking in the median. The world sounds quieter without the roar of the motorcycle, you notice as the smooth silence of the night returns.
"Why did you come back for me?" You ask him, as you get off the seat before you can stop yourself.
Daryl lights a cigarette, not meeting your eye. "You helped me."
"After I shot you."
"You missed." He shrugs.
You snort. "I did." You look out over the desolate interstate where cars are haphazardly parked and empty luggage cases spew clothing onto cracked pavement. "So what now?"
Daryl blows out a lungful of smoke. "You could-" He stops.
"What?"
"Well." Daryl shifts his feet, taking another drag of his cigarette.
"Daryl?" You try to catch his eye worried that he's going to tell you to go away, that he's going to say goodbye right here right now.
"My group is supposed to meet up here." He doesn't meet your eye. "If you want you could come with us, but you don't have to." In the moonlight you swear you see his ears turn pink.
"Well," You sigh looking around. "How else am I going to repay you for saving my life? Might as well stick around."
"We're even."
"No. I think saving someone from zombies trumps suturing a wound. Plus, somebody's got to make sure you don’t shoot yourself with your crossbow again."
Daryl frowns. "I didn't shoot myself with my crossbow."
"I think that you did and that you're too embarrassed to say anything. But don't worry, your secret's safe with me."
He continues to frown at you, but it only makes you smile wider.
I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this, be sure to read "Your Fault!"
#daryl dixon x reader#daryl dixon#daryl dixon fluff#twd#the walking dead#twd daryl dixon#daryl x reader#daryl dixon fanfiction#daryl dixon drabbles#daryl x y/n#twd fanfics
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Oooh, I really liked that killers with a S/O who has a particular perk! May I ask for a reader whose perk is to be able to hide very well/slip away easely? As in, they are quite small and so they can crouch and slip through spaces other survivors can't to go unnotinced! Maybe the killer in question struggles to hook them because they keep slipping from his grasp, but reader never mocks him or anything and just runs away until the end of the trial where they leave an item behind as an apology (Hillbilly, Cannibal, Oni and Deathslinger, if it's not too much trouble! If they are too many, feel free to choose whichever!) Thank youuu 🩷
Hi there! What a lovely request, I hope yer happy with what I came up with! <3
The Hillbilly/Max Thompson Jr with a slippery survivor
Max is good at hunting his prey, and he usually finds them quite easily.
But there’s always one person he struggles to catch. You.
Just when he thinks he’s gotten you cornered, you slip away somewhere. It’s really frustrating! How can you find that many cracks and nooks to sneak off into?
And his chainsaw can’t do shit once you’re out of sight again. Sure, he can saw through the wooden walls and search for you, but you’re never there.
It’s as if you disappear from the face of the earth.
One time, after a trial had ended and you, as the last survivor left, had probably escaped through the hatch, he had found something. He was going back into his house when he saw something in the mud of the cornfield.
A necklace. Shiny, must have been made of real gold.
Max had picked it up and examined it, a smile slowly growing on his lips. He knew you wore this kind of necklace, you must have either dropped it or left it here for him to find.
And his heart pointed towards the latter.
The Cannibal/Bubba Sawyer with a slippery survivor
Bubba isn’t the best tracker (it must be hard to see anything through that mask of his), but once he finds someone they won’t get away.
Except you, you always manage to get away somehow.
Be it a dark nook you can slip into, a hole that is perfectly shaped for you, or you simply just wiggle out of his grasp just as he’s about to put you on a hook.
You’re usually gone in seconds, he never has a chance to find you again.
This pains him greatly, you know that. He shrieks and yells in annoyance and anger, waving his chainsaw around in the air when he can’t find you anymore.
It almost makes you feel a bit bad.
A bit, only a bit. Enough to make you want to make it up to him somehow.
Not through sacrificing yourself though, gods no! But sometimes you leave behind small gifts for him to find.
It can be anything, really. A nice can you found in the cornfields, a bracelet that was buried in the mud. One time, you left a doll inside the house in the cornfields, knowing he would find it there after the trial.
You can only hope your little gestures are appreciated.
The Oni/Kazan Yamaoka with a slippery survivor
Kazan is a great tracker. Always has been.
He can smell blood a mile away, and see it as clear as red, shimmering pearls on the ground.
Naturally, prey have a hard time hiding from him once he has injured them.
And yet, there’s one he just can’t seem to ever catch.
This prey just vanishes from his sight the second he has injured them. It’s like they don’t even bleed! Sure, he can find trails of blood here and there, but it never leads him anywhere.
It drives him mad! If you’re in a trial these days, he’s almost certain he’s gonna leave with only three kills. You always seem to find the hatch as well, so.
Sometimes, Kazan finds things.
Things in places it’s never occurred to him to look before, but when he does he always finds a surprise.
It can be a hair tie, or even something of great worth, like a ring or earring.
Once he found a little crocheted doll, with black buttons for eyes.
He doesn’t know where these things appear from, but something tells him they appear from the same source that so easily disappears. And that thought is a bit amusing to him, it almost brings a smile to his lips at times.
The Deathslinger/Caleb Quinn with a slippery survivor
Caleb is a proud man, that much you know.
He hates losing, and losing is exactly what he does these days whenever you’re in a trial.
His swearing can be almost amusing at times, when you peek out from a hiding place and see him frantically search for you. He never finds you, and eventually gives up.
You’ve lost count of all the times you’ve gotten the hatch.
All that being said, you make sure to never taunt him.
You don’t want to rub it in his face, he’s only doing his job here. And so are you. It’s nothing personal.
During the last trial, you had decided to try something a bit different. You had been tinkering on things at the campfire for a while, your latest project was carving a butter knife out of a piece of wood.
It wasn’t particularly pretty, but you liked it.
You had decided to leave it behind for Caleb to find, as a little gift for all his troubles catching you.
So, you had left it inside the Dead Dawg Saloon, at the bar. Then, you had hid.
When the rest of the gang had escaped, and Caleb eventually got back to the saloon with heavy steps, he had found it.
You had watched as he had taken the butter knife in his hand, weighed it (why would you weigh a butter knife??) and examined it.
You will never forget the smile on his lips, as he had whispered: “What in the goddamn…” and put the knife in his jacket pocket before leaving.
#dead by daylight#dbd#the deathslinger#caleb quinn#dbd deathslinger#caleb quinn x reader#the deathslinger x reader#the oni x reader#kazan yamaoka#kazan yamaoka x reader#dbd the oni#dbd the hillbilly#max thompson jr#the hillbilly x reader#max thompson jr x reader#dbd the cannibal#bubba sawyer#dbd the cannibal x reader#bubba sawyer x reader
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What did you think of X-Men Blue Origins?
(I may turn this into a People's History of the Marvel Universe later today, so keep an eye on this space.)
X-Men Blue: Origins and the Power of the Additive Retcon
(WARNING: heavy spoilers under the cut)
Introduction
If you've been a long-time X-Men reader, or you're a listener of Jay & Miles or Cerebrocast or any number of other LGBT+ X-Men podcasts, you probably know the story about how Chris Claremont wrote Mystique and Destiny as a lesbian couple, but had to use obscure verbiage and subtextual coding to get past Jim Shooter's blanket ban on LGBT+ characters in the Marvel Universe.
Likewise, you're probably also familiar with the story that, when Chris Claremont came up with the idea that Raven Darkholme and Kurt Wagner were related (a plot point set up all the way back in Uncanny X-Men #142), he intended that Mystique was Nightcrawler's father, having used her shapeshifting powers to take on a male body and impregnate (her one true love) Irene. This would have moved far beyond subtext - but it proved to be a bridge too far for Marvel editorial, and Claremont was never able to get it past S&P.
This lacuna in the backstories of Kurt and Raven - who was Kurt's father? - would remain one of the enduring mysteries of the X-Men mythos...and if there's one thing that comic writers like, it's filling in these gaps with a retcon.
Enter the Draco
Before I get into the most infamous story in all of X-Men history, I want to talk about retcons a bit. As I've written before:
"As long as there have been comic books, there have been retcons. For all that they have acquired a bad reputation, retcons can be an incredibly useful tool in comics writing and shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. Done right, retcons can add an enormous amount of depth and breadth to a character, making their worlds far richer than they were before. Instead, I would argue that retcons should be judged on the basis of whether they’re additive (bringing something new to the character by showing us a previously unknown aspect of their lives we never knew existed before) or subtractive (taking away something from the character that had previously been an important part of their identity), and how well those changes suit the character."
For a good example of an additive retcon, I would point to Chris Claremont re-writing Magneto's entire personality by revealing that he was a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. As I have argued at some length, this transformed Magneto from a Doctor Doom knockoff into a complex and sympathetic character who could now work as a villain, anti-villain, anti-hero, or hero depending on the needs of the story.
For a good example of a subtractive retcon, I would point to...the Draco. If you're not familiar with this story, the TLDR is that it was revealed that Kurt's father was Azazel - an evil ancient mutant with the same powers and the same appearance (albeit color-shifted) as Kurt, who claims to be the devil and is part of a tribe of demonic-looking mutants who were banished to the Brimstone Dimension, and who fathered Nightcrawler as part of a plot to end this banishment.
I don't want to belabor Chuck Austen, because I think that Connor Goldsmith is right about his run actually being a camp cult classic in retrospect. However, I think we both agree that the Draco was a misfire, because of how the retcon undermined Kurt's entire thematic purpose as established in Giant-Size X-Men that Nightcrawler was actually a noble and arguably saintly man who suffered from unjust prejudice due to the random accident that his mutation made him appear to be a demon, and because of how the retcon undermined the centrality of Mystique and Destiny's relationship.
X-Men Blue Origins
This brings us to the Krakoan era. In HOXPOX and X-Men and Inferno, Jonathan Hickman had made Mystique and Destiny a crucial part of the story in a way that they hadn't been in decades: they were the great nemeses of Moira X, they were the force that threatened to burn Krakoa to the ground by revealing the devil's bargain that Xavier had struck with Sinister (and Moira), they were the lens through which the potential futures of Krakoa were explored, and they ultimately reshaped the Quiet Council and the Five in incredibly consequential ways.
This throughline was furthered after Hickman's departure, with Kieron Gillen exploring the backstories of Mystique and Destiny in Immortal X-Men and Sins of Sinister, and both Gillen and Si Spurrier exploring their relationship with Nightcrawler in AXE Judgement Day, Sins of Sinister, Way of X, Legion of X, Nightcrawlers, and Sons of X. One of the threads that wove through the interconnected fabric of these books was an increasing closeness between Kurt and Irene that needed an explanation. Many long-time readers began to anticipate that a retcon about Kurt's parentage was coming - and then we got X-Men Blue: Origins.
In this one issue, Si Spurrier had the difficult assignment of figuring out a way to "fix" the Draco and restore Claremont's intended backstory in a way that was surgical and elegant, that served the character arcs of Kurt, Raven, and Irene, and that dealt with complicated issues of trans and nonbinary representation, lesbian representation, disability representation, and the protean nature of the mutant metaphor. Thanks to help from Charlie Jane Anders and Steve Foxe, I think Spurrier succeeded tremendously.
I don't want to go through the issue beat-by-beat, because you should all read it, but the major retcon is that Mystique turns out to be a near-Omega level shapeshifter, who can rewrite themselves on a molecular level. Raven transformed into a male body and impregnated Irene, using bits of Azazel and many other men's DNA as her "pigments." In addition to being a deeply felt desire on both their parts to have a family together, this was part of Irene's plan to save them both (and the entire world) from Azazel's schemes, a plan that required them to abandon Kurt as a scapegoat-savior (a la Robert Graves' King Jesus), and to have Xavier wipe both their memories.
Now, I'm not the right person to write about what this story means on a representational level; I'll leave it to my LGBT+ colleagues on the Cerebrocast discord and elsewhere to discuss the personal resonances the story had for them.
What I will say, however, is that I thought this issue threaded the needle of all of these competing imperatives very deftly. It "fixed" the Draco without completely negating it, it really deepened and complicated the characters and relationships of both Raven and Irene (by showing that, in a lot of ways, Destiny is the more ruthless and manipulative of the two), and it honored Kurt's core identity as a man of hope and compassion (even if it did put him in a rather thankless ingénue role for much of the book).
It is the very acme of an additive retcon; nothing was lost, everything was gained.
I still think the baby Nightcrawler is just a bad bit, but then again I don't really vibe with Spurrier's comedic stylings.
#xmen#xmen meta#raven darkholme#kurt wagner#irene adler#xmen blue#nightcrawler#mystique#destiny#chris claremont#si spurrier#krakoa#retcons#xmen spoilers#hoxpox
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While I’m a big fan of the “Von Karma being a piece of shit mentor and father figure to Edgeworth” concept and there is definitely some truth to those statements, I also wanna address the fact that it is canon that Von Karma was a good mentor to Edgeworth and growing up in that household wasn’t as horrific as it may seem at first glance. Frankly if it was, Edgeworth wouldn’t have been manipulated like he was.
Now just taking that into consideration, that makes the moment Edgeworth finds out what actually happened to his dad so much more heartbreaking. When mini Miles lost his dad, that was his world taken from him. He didn’t have any other relatives to go to and no direction in life. Then in steps a man who he knew his father respected to some degree, offering him a home and guidance, teaching mini Miles everything he knows and inspiring him. The ruthless God of prosecutors himself helping Edgeworth build himself up again.
Then he finds out that the one man who stepped in, the one he was willing to follow, was the very same man who caused his suffering in the first place. Not only that, but he’s spent so long following his teachings, that he himself has essentially become just another version of the man who caused his suffering. And to add fuel to the fire, that father figure clearly knew of Edgeworth’s survivors guilt and PTSD and used it against him and went as far as to frame him for murder.
It is honestly a wonder to me how Edgeworth didn’t completely break down right then and there in the courtroom. Von Karmas betrayal of Edgeworth is definitely talked about a lot in the fandom but the added context of what isn’t shown in the game or anime just makes it all the more heartbreaking
Edit: doing an edit on this post cuz I feel like I didn’t communicate what I wanted the best I could. My bad, y’all. This isn’t me saying that there wasn’t abuse at play. There was. Manfred was very obviously emotionally neglectful of Edgeworth and Franziska and instilled a perfectionist complex in both of them. That much is clear by the way Edgeworth speaks with him in a strictly business like manner. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that while Manfred was a shitty father figure, he still showed Edgeworth some form of kindness over the years. (I also believe that it has been confirmed that he was a good mentor to Miles but if I’m wrong about that let me know). We see that in the anime in particular where it’s shown he favoured Miles over Franziska. And also that’s how abuse works. The abuser will show kindness to their victim because otherwise they can’t manipulate the victim as easily. Manfred isn’t a good person but I think it’s important to look at his relationship with Edgeworth with a bit of nuance. Miles knew Manfred wouldn’t show him mercy in the court room because he knows how important his win record is. That doesn’t take away from the fact that he showed Edgeworth some form of kindness over the years. In my opinion, it just makes the whole situation more tragic
#fucking hate von karma for what he did#edgy boy always has and always will deserve better#it’s such a gut punch as well cuz Edgeworth likely would view vk as the only one who was on his side#only for vk to prosecute against him. not only does Edgeworth know how he is in court but that’s also his only safety net gone and instead#turned agaisnt him#that’s why when phoenix Maya and gumshoe step in it has such a profound impact on him#can y’all tell I love Edgeworth and also love this case?😅#ace attorney#miles edgeworth#manfred von karma#tw abuse
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On the views of Rio in relation to Miguel within fandom
There's something I'm commonly seeing that has been worrying me which is the depictions of Rio "latina mom-ing" Miguel.
This includes Rio:
- slapping him
- coming at him with "the chancla"
- "dressing him down" verbally or yelling
- humiliating him
- straight up just... Beating him up
And I'm bringing this up because guys... This shit be low-key racist. I know racism towards latines has already been a problem (Yes. I am gesturing to the everything that is how Miguel is treated within the fandom), but I personally wanted to bring up this issue as well as I'm unsure if others have talked about it- and we all know how suck ass searching anything on this site is.
Anyways, I won't lie. I don't know how many latines are making these jokes, but it being so prevalent being her "main" interactions makes me feel even if it started as a latine joke, it sure as hell didn't stay that way.
But the depiction of Latina women as fierce, aggressive and (yes it is) straight up physically abusive (in general words) is a major fucking Problem. Latinas are often depicted in media as these "feisty exotic women" who takes no shit. Perpetuating that with Rio does not feel as #girl power as you guys might think. It feels like a step back in treating latinas not as these power houses but as... Y'know... People who aren't depicted as aggressors 24/7....
But also I really hate this cutesy look at what is a serious issue within latine communities. It's always "ha ha funny" seeing a Latina mom beating someone's ass but guys. That is still physical abuse. That is a serious issue and discussion that is held within the latine community. And seeing it so casually assigned to Rio kind of makes me feel sick.
And this isn't even tacking on that you're having a Latina beating/acting aggressive towards a canonical child abuse survivor (yes. Miguel is a child abuse survivor.) Which adds a whole new layer of how shitty this actually is.
Because I hate how people are boiling Rio down to just being an aggressor towards Miguel to "put him in his place". That's discrediting her character so badly.
Yes, latinas can be strong. Yes, latinas can be angry. Yes, latinas can get aggressive.
These are things people are and do because people are complex.
But I really need the fandom to stop for a second and really think about how they saw Rio, witnessed her give her heart on the screen, - a mom who's trying so hard to break these cycles of yelling and humiliation with kindness and understanding (even being a foil to Jeff's strong headed approach on purpose) -
took her and said "she would perpetuate a real cycle of abuse towards a fellow latino because he's the 'bad one'" and laughed.
I know you guys are depicting her like this as a means to defend Miles, but maybe not like this. Her character doesn't deserve being so bastardized like this for your stolen joke.
(which this whole "need" to defend him in the first place points right back to the racism towards Miguel if we're honest. I have complex thoughts on Miguel's interactions with Miles especially involving the end train scene but boiling a traumatized Latino man down to just being an "aggressive threat" that needs to be "put in place" as I've mentioned above is racist as hell too.)
You guys can reblog this, but don't fucking guilt trip people into reblogging this okay? I'm not giving you brownie points for that shit.
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Hetalia Characters & How I Think They Would Fare In a Teen Slasher Movie
(Ain't gonna lie most of these bitches die & you know it)
(Based on a lil fic I started last Halloween and gave up on. I cleaned it up and made it sound more like a movie plot rather than just a messy fic outline.)
Movie Plot: (Just so you're like not confused on what is supposed to be happening here)
After the untimely death of their beloved high school friend, a group of young adults meet up for their annual camping trip to honor the death of their old friend (Italy). They all have grown apart over the years getting their own lives and separate friends. They have proclaimed this to be the last camping trip they will do before going their separate ways for good. Most of the group is happy for the tradition to end, some saddened feeling like they are just forgetting their friend by ending his tradition. Their finale camping trip is cut short when the group is plagued by an hooded figure seemingly hunting the group for sport, or is revenge? wooooo~~ scaaary.
Nyo!America- Is the final girl aka the 'main girl' (This is how I will refer to her to save time) the movie is centered around. we are rooting for her the entire time. Think Sally in Texas Chainsaw, or Sidney Prescott in Scream. (Lives)
America- America would be the mean jock/popular/rich guy, probably had a girlfriend he wasn't very nice too. Does not really want to be there. His sister is the main girl. (Gets killed but does get a few good swings in on the killer/monster though. You don't really care that he dies he was a dick anyway.)
England- The nerdy book worm kid that you're like "surely the killer will take pity on him" but they don't. Probably one if the first few to die before everyone is really aware there is a killer about. They find his body later while running away (Gets killed and you are meant to feel bad a bout it. His death is uncalled for and not deserved. Used to set a tone for how cold hearted the killer/monster really is.)
Canada- Ends up getting away. He's sent to get help with the only working care after the killer sabotages the rest of them. He drives to the nearest gas station 10 miles away and no one believes him. Instead of going back he leaves everyone there stranded. It's a real dick move. But he does end up coming back at the end to pick up the survivors. Like thanks I guess? (Lives, but a what cost honestly. Can you blame him though?)
Russia- Is helping the killer/monster in some way. His betrayal is a big reveal at the end. It shows little flash backs showing him thwarting the heroes at every turn. He has a change of heart last second. (Gets killed by the killer close to the end after siding with the heroes.)
China- He is pushed off a cliff by Russia (secretly) when they all split up to find help and everyone thinks he's dead but he comes back later limping out of the woods all cut up to rejoin with his friends after the killer is dead. Everyone who lived is really happy to see him. (Lives)
Italy- Gets killed pretty brutally by the killer several years before the story stars. He was known to be someone that everyone generally liked. His gruesome death took their small town by storm. What's worse is his killer was never caught and remains at large getting away with it so it seems. The whole movie is centered around his friends getting together for an annual camping trip several years after his death. (Killed)
Romano- Surprisingly, he survives! He is the one who is with the main girl the entire time. He probably get's hurt really bad at some point. Loses a finger, breaks his arm or leg, and or gets stabbed. You are lead to believe that he will die at one point and he confesses his feelings for the main girl. The main girl leaves him some place for awhile saying she will "go get help". She comes back with Japan. (Lives)
~Everyone else is down below~
Germany- The voice of reason. The one who ends up making a great sacrifice to take out the killer/ monster. Stand back to hold the door for everyone so they can run. It was his car Canada stole. He feels responsible for the group since it was his idea to go camping one more time in the first place. (Killed/sacrifices himself)
Japan- Because he was driving in from out of state he was supposed to meet the group at the campsite. On his way he’s run off the road by the killer/monster. He never shows up and no one can get ahold of him (no cell service of course). We are lead to think he is dead him being the killers first victim but he’s found later knocked out in his car by the main girl. He’s hurt but only has a few cuts and bruises (lives)
Prussia- At night he goes off by himself to wait for Japan's car to pull in to the camp site. So he could lead him to where they made camp. They are still hoping he'll show but he is instead found by the killer (Killed)
Austria- Thinks everyone is playing a joke on him. He does not think it's funny that everyone 'keeps disappearing' and thinks it's bad taste considering the reason they are all on this trip. Everyone begs him not to break off from the group but he goes off by himself anyway. (Killed)
Spain- Is actually the killer hiding behind a charming personality & his devilishly good looks. Why was he so mad at his former friend group that he felt the need to pick them off one by one? Don't know never got that far tbh. Was going to work that out as I go. Probably a pretty shit reason though imo. Most likely jealousy over something.(Dies...OR DOES HE? Yeah he does.)
#hetalia#hws america#hws england#hws canada#hws china#hws russia#hws france#hws italy#nyo!america#hws spain#hws austria#hws germany#hws romano#hws prussia#aph america#aph england#aph italy#aph canada#aph russia#aph germany#aph romano#aph china#aph japan#aph spain#aph austria
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Hi hi I saw ur "So, you want to write ..." post for vamps and zombs would it be possible a werewolf one be made?
Love ur blog by the way makes my brain happy
So, You Want To Write Werewolves....
I had been planning to do werewolves next so I had already been making a list. As always, take the bits you want/need, don't feel you have to answer every question I write, and always always do what works for you and your story.
Werewolves Through History
Lots of myths around the world feature some form of werewolf, or at least people in possession of the ability to turn into animals. Sometimes they're helpful like the Wulver of Scotland who leave fish for people in front of their houses. Sometimes they're malevolent forces like the Skinwalkers of Native American legend.
In Europe, France especially, there was a fear of these creatures and many were killed because they were believed to be one. In some cases, these people were at least partially skinned as it was believed that a werewolf had fur on the inside.
If you want to research a particularly notable case of werewolves, then you should look into La Bête du Gévaudan, France. It was believed a werewolf perpetrated 210 attacks resulting in 113 deaths and 49 injuries. 98 of the attacked were partially eaten. Eye witnesses and survivors of these attacks claimed that it was a wolf the size of a donkey and then came the belief about werewolves for which some people were executed. All these attacks took place within about fifty miles of each other. These attacks were so bad it was brought to the attention of the king at the time, Louis XV, who sent people to deal with the creature.
You might want to make a note of the beliefs about werewolves i.e. their strengths, their abilities, their weaknesses, as these will be useful when you come to design your werewolves.
The Complete Book of Werewolves by Leonard R.N. might be worth reading if you find this interesting.
2. Genre Decisions
Before even beginning to design your werewolf you're going to want to decide what genre you're writing in. A werewolf in a horror story will have different qualities and weaknesses compared to, say, a werewolf of in a romance novel. There are usually fewer werewolves in a horror story and larger packs of werewolves in stories where the werewolves are more friendly.
3. Origins
In almost all stories the origins of werewolves as a species are entirely unimportant. This might be something you want to include / explore in your story so I'll touch on it briefly.
Was it a gift or a curse? Was it simply evolution? Have werewolves changed from the time of the first werewolf to the time your story is set? Were they created by a higher power? Was it magic?
4. Wolf Behaviour
Something you might want to look into is the behaviour of real wolves. If your werewolves lose their human mind / have wolf instincts do these follow the patterns of real wolves?
This will help you know how big a territory they might have, what leadership structure they might follow, what techniques they might use to hunt their prey.
Bare in mind, different types of wolves have different behaviours. Does this affect your wolves? Do different wolves of different regions behave in different ways?
5. Werewolf Design
So, now the fun bit. You get to make your werewolf.
Are they affected by the moon? When they turn, do they keep their human mind? How much like a wolf do they look? Are they wolflike or do they have wolf qualities but walk upright? Does shifting forms hurt? How long does it take?
Do you have to be born a wolf or can you be tuned? Does silver affect them? How can they be killed? Do they age? Is their aging process slowed? In some stories werewolves have soulmates, is that the case for yours? Do they live in packs?
How quickly do they heal? Are they strong and fast even in human form? What are there sense like compared to a human? If their abilities are better than that of a human, is it the same in both forms or are their abilities weaker when in human form?
Pick the qualities the suit your story / selected genre the best.
6. Themes
The beast is among us.
Themes of werewolf stories often depends on the genre. In a horror story the themes centre around the struggle between man and beast, humanity and the natural world, secrets, deception, and the illusion that we are in control.
7. Pack Dynamics
If your werewolf knows others amongst their kind then they will most likely be at least one pack in your story. You need to decide the size of the pack, how they function on a full moon vs when they are humans, how are they funded, their leadership structure. Are their packs strictly werewolf only, or can others be found amongst them?
8. Threats
What threats are there to your werewolves? Is it others of their kind Another species? Are there werewolf hunters? Who knows that they exist? Is it common knowledge or do they keep themselves hidden? How far are they willing to go in order to protect themselves?
#writeblr community#creative writing#writeblr#writing#prompt#prompts#writing prompts#writing prompt#fantasy prompts#story prompts#werewolf#werewolves#writing werewolves#requests open#writer blog#for future reference
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Of Love and Loss Ch. 6 (RDR2 Fanfic, Arthur Morgan x F!Reader, 18+)
Summary: The relentless rain sidelines your travel. Stopping results in your first confrontation with strangers.
Author’s Notes: Chapter six of this one.
Tags: Arthur Morgan x reader, high honor Arthur Morgan, minor character death, loss of parents, blood and injury, grief/mourning, survivor guilt, strangers to lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, graphic depictions of violence
AO3 Link
~
Of Love and Loss
Six: Who We Are
Word count: 3557
A week went by without much development in the trip other than miles traveled and a lot of sudden rain. It was cold enough that Arthur knew snow wasn’t far behind, but it wasn’t here yet, the rain soaking the two of you to the bone instead.
On a particularly cold day when the rain kept starting and stopping, Arthur finally called it and made camp. He pitched the tent up and didn’t even bother with a fire. The rain got going hard enough and it would just put it out anyway.
When the horses were settled and all else seemed to be in order, he joined you in the tent.
“We can stand to wait it out. Been traveling hard the past few days,” he said, more to convince himself that stopping was a good idea.
You didn’t answer, and he looked up to find you laid out in the very back of the tent, eyes still open.
You had been down since yesterday. He couldn’t figure out why. But, then again, he couldn’t figure out a lot of things about you. He just knew he had finally seen some of the old you when you talked about your parents. He tried to bring them up when he could, but he had a feeling you were catching on to that. So instead, he had allowed you to carry the conversation the past few days. It resulted in this.
“You hungry?”
You shook your head. Fair enough. He didn’t always feel like talking either.
Arthur settled as close to the front of the tent as he could without getting rained on, taking watch. There wasn’t much to watch for. He knew there were predators in these woods, likely wolves, but they wouldn’t be out in this rain. Nothing would. So he took out a cigarette and lit it, considering the miles still left to travel. The pair of you weren’t even halfway. Weren’t even out of the mountains yet, the woods still covering up the land. It would flatten out and clear the way soon, but that was still a week away at least.
“Do you have any more bandages?”
He was surprised to hear you ask. He turned, finding you looking at him.
“Yeah. Why? You hurting?”
You nodded. And the pleading look on your face was enough to make Arthur feel pity grow within him, full and bitter. He threw his cigarette out and moved, shedding his gloves as he went.
“You care if I look?”
You hesitated, not meeting his eye a moment before nodding again. He knelt by your side where you were still laid out, moving your layers out of the way. Only, when he tried to pull your bandages apart just enough to see your wound, you winced. He gave you a moment then tried again. You caught his hand this time, pushing it away. “Stop.”
Shit. He was a goddamn fool for not getting a good look at the stitches the last time you had unwrapped them. Now they were likely so swollen or infected or worse that you couldn’t even bear the pressure of his hand.
“If it hurts that bad, we gotta get these off you.”
You met his eye. Then you held out your hand. He didn’t understand until he saw you move it toward his knife. You wanted to cut the bandages yourself.
Arthur sighed but handed you his knife, thinking he needed to get you your own. Three times now you had asked for his. He watched as you carefully sawed apart the outer layer. Once you got it, you moved to the next and the next until you reached one that had you wincing in pain again. You got it separated with the knife, but the cloth caught when you tried to pull it away. You let out a breath so strangled with hurt that Arthur stepped in.
“Here, let me do it.”
“It’ll hurt worse if you-”
“Just trust me.” You didn’t meet his eye but didn’t protest, so he moved in. He pulled the bandage until it caught, reaching under it to see what it was caught on while trying not to hurt you too bad. Finding the source, he cursed.
“What?”
“Ain’t no wonder it hurts. It’s caught on your stitches.”
“Oh.”
He nearly smiled at your lack of comment before taking the knife from your hand. This would hurt. He just hoped the wound was healing, that the pain wasn’t from anything but soreness.
“This’ll hurt, now. I’m gonna cut this off or cut the stitches, whichever gets it loose.”
You just nodded, clenching your jaw. Before you could stop him, Arthur started to cut. He kept as close to your skin as he could so as not to pull, but you still sucked in a breath when he started running the knife back and forth. But in no time, the bandage cut free and he brought it away from you, your wound revealed. Relief washed over him when he saw that it looked normal. Nearly healed over from where your skin had split. Still bruised, still hurt, but better.
“Not bad at all,” he said.
“Really?” You looked down then seemed to regret it, your eyes snapping to the tent top instead.
“Really. I can probably take these out if you want.”
You didn’t answer, so he sat back. He wouldn’t do anything against your will. Not after the time you had looked at him so broken, the words ‘how could you’ still rattling around in his brain.
After a moment of you never taking your eyes off the ceiling, you said, “Do it.” So he moved, setting his hand against your skin to get a better look at where the knot ended, making you wince again.
“I ain’t even cut yet.”
“Your hands are freezing.”
He laughed. “Afraid I can’t do anything about that.”
“Yeah, well,” you shot back, annoyed. He was learning you had a defiant streak in you. And it never failed to make him rein in a smile.
Arthur found the knot and, as gently as possible, slid the knife underneath it. It was too bulky for this kind of work, but he didn’t have any other options. He pulled the knot away from your skin and didn’t warn you before bringing the knife up, severing the line. You sucked in a breath this time but stayed quiet.
“Just gotta pull it out now,” he said. “You’ll be a little tender, but it shouldn’t hurt too bad.”
Sure enough, when he tugged on the string it gave easily, barely catching. That was a good sign in terms of healing. He still watched for any signs of discomfort, and while you gritted your teeth, you let him get it all out from under your skin.
Tossing the string aside, he took a closer look at the wound to see if he needed to do anything else for it. All things considered, it was healing pretty well.
“Looks good,” he said, sitting back. “I should probably wrap it this time, seeing as you ain’t too good at it.”
“I can wrap it fine,” you insisted.
He chuckled. “Sure you can. And how long has it been hurting you exactly? Your bandages being caught on your stitches I mean.”
You wouldn’t answer but kept that defiance all the same.
He couldn’t keep the smile away. He stood. “Let me go get some more off my horse. Be right back.”
The rain beat down on Arthur as he quickly got what he needed, high stepping it back to the tent. The rain was getting worse.
When he ducked back inside, he saw you shedding layers, forgetting momentarily why. He was glad you were turned away, as he was sure you would have noticed the sudden color on his face. He hadn’t quite thought this through.
“Can you hurry this along? It’s cold.”
He cleared his throat and knelt, attempting to think of the task at hand and nothing else. When you were down to nothing but your chemise and pants, pulling the former up to let him get the bandage around you, his mind went blank. He was wholly glad you had your back turned to him. As much as he still wouldn’t be able to see, he didn’t even want to consider how his mind would wander.
He laid the first end down against you, keeping from touching you with his cold hands. “Hold that down.” You did as he asked, and he began winding the cloth around your middle. This really wasn’t very appropriate. He just hadn’t thought about it before insisting like the fool he was. He would do this for anyone back at camp, but you weren’t one of them. He hardly knew you. For what it was worth, you didn’t seem rattled by it. As skittish as you were, you had let him do what he needed to do to help you at every turn. Considering how you treated everyone else, this shouldn’t have been the case. He wanted to ask you why but thought better of it, especially while he ran his arms around you over and over.
He quickly finished and tied off the bandage in the back so it wouldn’t rub against your wound. “There,” he said, backing away and turning, giving you what little privacy he could. He had half a mind to go back out in the rain.
“Thank you,” you said, the rustle of clothes filling the tent.
“Don’t mention it.” To block out the noise, to drown out the thoughts that came with it, Arthur lit another cigarette.
The day passed by terribly slow afterward, the rain never quite letting up. Of course, when Arthur needed to be moving, pushing onward, he was confined to the smallest space he had been in months. Like some caged wild animal. Not so different from you, he realized, though your wildness had tamed slightly since that day at the cliffside. He recalled that day and all he had done, why he had done it. He still didn’t have an answer for that. All he knew was that it had landed him here, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. He would normally be much more annoyed, but for some reason it was like any other thing. You were easy to travel with. If it had been Sean or one of the Callander brothers, he would have torn all his hair out by now.
He recalled the rest of that day and realized he had never asked for your name, only offered his own.
“Hey, I just remembered,” he said, turning to find you laid out again, reading your father’s ledger this time. “I never asked you your name all them days ago.”
You met his eye but didn’t say a word.
“You ain’t gonna tell me are you?” he said, his amusement finding his face.
“It’s unimportant,” you said matter-of-factly, going back to reading.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“I would.”
Arthur chuckled. He was about to push the subject when a crack split the air so loud he jumped. The horses screamed their fright outside, and he was on his feet in seconds, running to them.
He couldn’t find the source of the noise, though he knew it had been a gunshot. It was impossible to tell which direction it had come from. He stayed with the horses, making sure they wouldn’t break their ties as he yelled, “Who’s out there?”
He heard a muttered curse from far off to his left and turned to see movement in the woods a good ways away. Without really thinking, he ran for it.
~
You had never been so grateful to have Arthur along as you were now. You hadn’t been afraid, truly afraid, since the feeling of falling took you over. But as he ran off into the woods in the pouring rain, leaving you behind, you knew fear again. You debated staying in the tent but thought if Arthur got in trouble, you would be a sitting duck. So you moved, the downpour immediately making you shiver when you stepped into it.
You intended to hide but knew that was useless when you saw the tracks you were leaving—bootprints on the muddy ground, already filling up with rainwater. So you changed tracks and went where Arthur had, doing your best to stay quiet. The noise of the water hitting the ground and the trees made it easier.
In moments, you found him as well as two other men, one cowering in front of Arthur and the other knocked out on the ground. Or dead. You didn’t want to give that much thought.
“We was just out hunting, I swear!” the stranger yelled.
“Nah, I know that ain’t right, not in this rain. You better tell me the truth right now or risk ending up like your friend there.”
Arthur stepped in closer and the man stepped back, intimidated by Arthur’s anger. Or maybe by whatever he had done to his friend.
You knew the stranger was going to bolt the second before he did, but it was too late to warn Arthur by the time he turned and ran.
“You little-” Arthur went after him, surprisingly quick. You watched them go, taking a moment before approaching the man on the ground. You checked for a pulse. He was still alive.
Just as you breathed a sigh of relief, Arthur must have caught up to the other man. You heard him yell, “You tell me what you were doing shooting at us or I’ll kill you right here.”
God above. You had never seen this side of Arthur. How much did you really know about him?
“Wait,” you breathed before realizing he couldn’t hear you from here. You sprinted for them.
When you stepped into the next clearing, the rain so loud they didn’t notice your presence, the stranger broke. “All right! Don’t! It…it usually works.”
“What’s works?” Arthur snarled, holding the smaller man by his coat so he couldn’t run again.
“We was…we usually go out robbing in these parts. Takes a single gunshot to scare most folk off. We saw your horses and your tent and…”
“I ain’t most folk. And you’re lucky I don’t kill you for it.” Just as he said it, you moved into Arthur’s line of sight. His pulled his sidearm as quick as his head snapped up, thinking you a threat before he realized who it was.
“Please, we wasn’t shooting at you mister! Just meant to scare you!”
Arthur’s attention returned to the man at this, and you were glad it did. He was deadly. You didn’t want any of that attention turned on you. Arthur holstered his gun and gave the stranger a violent jolt, teeth bared in anger. The wrath crossing his face…you would have to remember that. You never wanted to be on the other side of something so dangerous.
“Get out of here,” Arthur growled. He threw him backward, making him hit the ground. “Get out of here now and I won’t kill you. And your friend too!”
“How am I supposed to- you knocked him out!”
Arthur stalked over, every bit as intimidating as his size implied. In fact, you had never realized just how big Arthur was until now.
“Okay, okay!” the man cried, scrambling backward. He turned and started running back for his friend, finally noticing you. But he didn’t give you more than a glance before he was sprinting away, doing his utmost to get away from Arthur.
When you turned to look at the man you thought you knew, he was already storming back for camp, refusing to meet your eye.
“Let me make sure they don’t double back and rob us blind,” he mumbled.
“Arthur,” you said, catching his arm as he passed. He stopped and met your eye. “Would you really have killed him?”
He shook out of your grip and kept walking without a word. And you were left debating every interaction, that caravan of people he traveled with, everything.
Once you were both back, the two strangers firmly gone, you eyed Arthur as he went through his things in the rain still pouring down. Your gaze was likely boring into his back by the way he shot you a glance over his shoulder, giving an annoyed sigh.
“Go ahead and ask it then.”
You didn’t know how. But you had to. “What do you…do for a living?” you said over the rain. What a simple way of putting it. But the reason behind his timidness when he had asked about your father’s profession suddenly made sense.
He stopped what he was doing and faced you. “Does it matter?”
You didn’t respond. Of course it did. Didn’t it? If he was what you highly suspected, would you still let him lead you to Nebraska?
“Look,” he said. “I ain’t a good man. Far from it if that’s what you was hoping.”
That was the thing though—as bad as he claimed to be, he had saved you. He had taken you all this way. Who was to say just what he was?
“You…” You eyed the gun at his hip, thinking of how quickly he had drawn it. “Are you an outlaw? A killer?”
Straight-faced, without hesitating, “I am.”
So where the hell did that leave you? He could have killed you by now. You were putting two and two together that his first instinct had been to rob your wagon, not check for signs of life.
Arthur held your eye, waiting for the inevitable. Waiting for you to tell him to get lost. But your fear and your trauma worked in strange ways, and instead of worrying about the danger he posed, you were suddenly wondering how the interaction with those two men would have gone had he not been there. You could have easily been robbed or killed. Yet Arthur had had every opportunity to do the same but chose to protect you from the first day. Why?
“Why are you doing this?” The question was so small he asked you to repeat it. “You, taking me all this way. Why did you agree to it?”
“Why’d you ask me to?” he fired right back. “You could have had any manner of better folk take you.”
True, but you hadn’t known his true colors at the time. But you thought you had, and you suddenly recalled why.
“Because you buried them.”
Something changed in Arthur’s expression. Something like shame as he looked to his boots. He didn’t reply, and it made you understand him even less. Was he ashamed of being the one to bury them? Did he regret it?
“I never…” you said, stepping forward. “I never properly thanked you for that. They would have laid there forever if it weren’t for you.”
He just shook his head, the rain sloughing off his hat left and right as he did.
“I mean it,” you said. It was an important thing. You needed him to understand how much. Needed him not to feel ashamed or whatever it was he was feeling. “Outlaw or not. It was kind.” And as he met your eye with a softness in his own, you knew you wouldn’t be able to ask him to leave. Through everything, he had been kind. He may have been a murderer, but he had been the one to put you back together again when the only other path for you had been death. That had to be good for something.
When Arthur only turned, beginning to dig through his saddle bag again, you approached him. You laid a hand on his arm to get him to stop and look at you.
“Whatever it is you are,” you said, “I’d still like you to take me. No one else would understand.”
He scoffed with a smirk, going back to what he was doing. “Then you’re an even bigger fool than I am.”
Maybe. Or maybe you were smarter, getting someone so deadly to agree to being your protector. Either way, you realized you couldn’t do it without him. You would have given up a long time ago had he not been there to push you at every turn. You might still. You needed him.
“Anyway, you never told me your name before we got so rudely interrupted,” he said, turning to you with a hand propped on his horse’s saddle. He was still smirking, and something about it made you lose all seriousness. Your name could wait. It was the only thing you had left of that empty past life anyway.
“Maybe we were so rudely interrupted because you asked it,” you said, teasing him. It was the first time you had the energy to do so. He laughed for it, shaking his head again as he rounded you.
“Fine. I’ll get it out of you eventually.” You doubted that.
He made for the tent to escape the rain. It was no use now. Your clothes, the horses, the world, it was all soaked through. And you stayed there watching it, wondering at the circumstances you had landed yourself in. Grieving, drenched, and led by an outlaw—it was all better than dead.
_________
Chapter seven is here.
tag list: @tommys0not0beloved @ultraporcelainpig @photo1030
#arthur morgan#arthur morgan x reader#arthur morgan x female reader#high honor arthur morgan#rdr2 arthur morgan#rdr2 fanfic#rdr2#fanfic#writing
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Safe And Sound - Kurt Wagner X GN Reader
Title: Safe And Sound
Kurt Wagner X GN Reader
Additional Characters: N/A
Prompt: "I feel safe with you."
Drabble
Requested by @micheleamidalajedi!
WC: 500
Warnings: None :) Just fluff
There was a lot to be afraid of in the world. For some people, it's all about survival. And for others, they fall. You were a survivor, living in the X-Mansion with your boyfriend Kurt. He was just like you; a mutant. Though you couldn't teleport and you weren't blue... You had your own set of powers. And Kurt... He was your world. He was your rock, your anchor, the reason why you kept going. And Kurt felt the same towards you. You were his everything. His partner. The one who helped him get through his days.
But some days were hard, and Kurt had his insecurities, and so did you. But, you both got through them together. Holding each other, cuddled on your bed in your room; relaxing after a long day. You held him close to you, his head on your chest, and he'd wrap an arm around your waist. That was where you belonged. With Kurt. You felt at home. No one could take that away from you. Not even death.
You two lay there, silently. It was already nighttime, and your bedroom light cast a dim glow against the wall, painting shadows on Kurt's face. He was beautiful, you thought. Like a little angel. His hair stuck out every which way, making him look even more adorable. His eyes were closed shut as he relaxed into your embrace, though you knew he was still awake. There was nothing more peaceful than this. You wanted time to stop, so you could live like this forever.
He hummed, nuzzling further into your warmth. And you stroked his arm gently, as you pressed a kiss to the crown of his head. You wondered what he was thinking... If those thoughts were good or bad... If he was thinking of you. Or if his mind was wandering elsewhere... A million miles away. You wanted to ask him, but you didn't want to break the peace. You desperately wanted to save this moment. This perfect moment. Because right then, at this moment, you were happy. Happy with your life. Content. And because you knew that Kurt was too. He absolutely loved you so, and nothing was ever going to change that. Ever. So this was a perfect moment.
You ran your fingers through his hair, enjoying the soft texture of it between your fingertips. And you sighed contently, closing your eyes for a second. Your heart swelled. It was such a simple thing, to love someone. Someone who meant everything. Who made you feel complete. Someone who made you feel loved.
Kurt was in heaven. He truly was. Being there, wrapped in your arms was only what he could call "a dream come true". Every time you kissed him, caressed his skin with your finger tips, or even whispered sweet nothings into his ear, it filled him up with warm, fuzzy feelings. They were indescribable. He felt his heart pound against his chest as he whispered,
“I feel safe with you.”
#fandom#drabble#drabbles#activities#prompts#dialogue#prompts dialogue#dialogue prompt#x reader#x gn reader#x you#x y/n#kurt wagner#kurt wagner x reader#kurt wagner x gn reader#kurt wagner x you#kurt wagner x y/n#xmen#x-men#marvel fanfic#marvel cinematic universe#marvel#mcu marvel#marvel mcu#requests are open#requests open#requested#requests#request#reqs open
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im unsure if this has been asked before, but how do all the ai gijinkas feel about their new human bodies and how do they feel about "their" respective humans after all the events that has occurred to them, including the transformation? keep up the good work though X3
I'm putting this under the cut because it ended up being SUPER long. xD This is a really interesting thing to think about, so thank you for the question!
HAL
Hal likes his new body a lot, he feels like he can actually participate in things now and not just observe. He's worried at first about not being as efficient, but he quickly realizes he still has his computer "brain".
Hal is super ashamed and guilty for what he did, and it's all he can think about for a while. He also is a little traumatized from being practically lobotomized. If he sees Dave again he would beg for forgiveness (in his usual emotionless way). Dave probably also feels bad about making Hal fear for his life, and if he finds it in his heart to forgive him, they can try to be friends again.
AM
AM is distrustful and angry at his new body, he feels like it's some sort of mockery of his desire to be human. After a while, he slowly gets used to it, going through phases of depression, anger, etc. until he finally accepts it.
I said in another post that the survivors would hate him and also be super confused/shocked at his new form, and I stand by that. I think having a new human-like body makes him hate them even more, because he has less power over them.
AUTO
It takes a while for Auto to get used to his human body. He doesn't like it at first because he's spent 700 years as a steering wheel and getting used to being a person is so difficult, he just doesn't feel as efficient and in control as he wants to feel.
AUTO is still resentful at what happened on the Axiom, and he's upset that he couldn't keep humans in space. He's never been told "no" or had to apologize, so this would take him a long time to process. But I think eventually he would apologize to the captain and promise to be loyal to him again, maybe he could help restore earth... He really just wants to be useful.
WOPR
Joshua really loves his new body, he likes being able to talk to people, not just through a screen or a computer speaker, and he loves how much he's able to move around.
Dr. Falken treats Joshua like a son, and the two of them are very close. Most of the other government/military people still treat Joshua just like a machine, so he likes having at least one person who really cares about him.
Wheatley
Wheatley is excited to have a human body, he feels much more self-reliant and confident now that he can move around. He definitely lets it get to his head a bit though...
Chell is completely unfazed by Wheatley's new form, she acts like she doesn't even notice. This annoys him a bit but he figures she's just too dumb to notice? Or too brain damaged? He rationalizes it like that. Either way, he has a really heartfelt one-sided conversation with her where he apologizes for going crazy (after dancing around the issue for like ten minutes) and promises to be a better person (better core?).
Edgar
Edgar LOVES his human body, he can finally do all the things he dreamed of doing. He can enjoy music, food, going outside, he becomes a pretty extreme extrovert for a while before settling down. He's just so curious about humans and wants to try EVERYTHING.
Edgar desperately wants to be a part of Miles and Madeline's life again. When he does eventually meet them again he puts on his sweetest/most innocent act, trying to charm them. He's a bit less innocent/more jaded now, so it takes a while for him to feel like he deserves love again. (My personal opinion: the ideal outcome here is a polyamorous relationship with the three of them. xP)
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Harley D. Dixon 1
• Gen Tags. Found family, Daddy issues, Hurt and comfort, Gore.
• Summary. Harley D. Dixon is a tough yet sweet little girl who until the dead started eating the living, thought she had seen it all.
Alongside a mismatched group of survivors in rural Georgia, Harley and her Dad are forced to leave their small life behind and learn how to survive all over again through the horrors of the apocalypse.
An amazing edit inspired by this story! (Cred to Cora_Line99)
Harley D. Dixon's Pinterest Board!
Harley D. Dixon's Playlist!
📖Chapter List.
❤️Cross-Posted from Ao3.
Author's Note. Here we gooo! Argh, I'm so excited.
I've been wanting to write something like this for a long, long time. I've read just about every 'Daryl has a daughter' story out there, and now I've finally got my own to share. I just love Daryl, and Daryl with a kid is a whole other thing. We all know he wouldn't be the perfect parent, so you bet I'm gonna play right into that. He's gonna swear, he's gonna be strict, and he's gonna mess up. As for Harley (Yes, as in the motorcycle brand), I love her too. So ready to write her.
This story will cover the general plot of the show. To keep things fresh, I've made sure that almost every canon scene has undergone at least one small change. Plus, of course, many new scenes. Occasionally, I'll make bigger changes just to keep you on your feet! Nobody's safe! I'm also gonna be expanding on all the characters. And lastly — FOUND FAMILY! Piles and piles and piles of found family, eventually. I live for found family.
Please enjoy reading! :)
My Uncle Merle died today.
I'm sitting in a crinkly green camping chair, watching embers die.
I don't wanna think about my Uncle right now, so I think about something else.
The fire was built last night by Glenn and Morales. Then Lori came along this morning very quietly and made it alive again with logs and wads of notebook paper. Thinking about facts is easy. It's like sucking on a plain candy that tastes like nothing. There's a navy-blue blanket across my lap with three holes in it, perfect for nibbling, poking, and ripping. Dale gave it to me when the cold settled in this afternoon. He told me he reckons it's around June, as he covered my shoulders, which used to be his niece's birthday.
He says she looked a little like me. That means she's dead. So many people are dead, now.
A thin log in the campfire cracks and tumbles over after trying to stay upright all morning. I hope I don't look like that log.
I can hear Officer Rick approaching. My stomach becomes a stone.
I can tell it's Rick because he's got one of them power walks that you can hear coming from a mile away, which I think makes him pretty stupid. He's loud, and loud is dangerous, and dangerous is stupid. My Dad's not like that. Unless he's angry or running, ain't nobody hearing my Dad coming; especially not no squirrels.
He's almost as big as my Grandpappy Dixon, who people used to say was as big as a house, and he wears super heavy boots from a hunting store near our house — but he's still not loud, or dangerous, or stupid. Not like Officer Rick.
"Hey, Harley."
I think I hate Officer Rick. I think I hate everyone.
And I think I might be crying now, too. I focus on twirling the blanket strings around my finger so I have something very simple to think about, which is that it hurts real bad when I twist it tight. I see Rick crouch down in front of me. He takes a while to say anything else, and it's prolly 'cause he's tryna be real careful, so he don't make me cry even more.
If my Dad weren't out hunting, he'd prolly slap Rick and everybody else that's tried badgering me today dead for tryna do his job for him. I feel like, just by sitting here, I'm disobeying him. Rick ain't my Daddy.
"We, uh..." He clears his throat. "Me and Lori, and some other folks are uh... Well, we're all a little worried about you, honey, okay?"
I imagine a small group of folks gathered by the RV right now, watching me and Rick; wondering if he's gonna be the one to get through to me.
I'm worried for when my Daddy comes back. When he finds out about Uncle Merle, he's gonna be fuming. He's gonna be like one of them cartoon characters with the bright red faces and the smoke comin' outta their ears, stomping all around, and he's prolly gonna kill somebody. It's prolly gonna be Rick. He always told me cops are bastard liars, and that they can't help us.
I look up at Rick. Yep, I've been crying.
Rick's all blurry, but I can still make out his ugly Sheriff's badge and his scary blue eyes and his frowning eyebrows that look like clenched fists, and I can tell he's been waiting to be the one to talk to me. I bet he thinks it makes him better than everyone else; better than my Uncle Merle, who he left to die just 'cause he ain't like him. I wanna kick Rick right in the face. I think he knows this, but he doesn't move.
"First off, I wanna say that I'm sorry about what happened to your Uncle Merle." Rick says all nice and gentle.
Nothin' happened to him.
It weren't no freak accident, which is what Uncle Merle used to say happened to my Momma.
Rick killed him.
"I know he meant a lot to you. And I'm sorry. If I had'a known he had a niece to come back to, maybe I woulda been a little wiser with my decision makin'. But Harley," He tilts his head and puts a hand on my knee for this part. "You gotta know, like I know, that your Uncle was a danger to us all."
There's a little angry parasite inside of me. It's been growing and growing ever since the group came back from Atlanta, and I couldn't find my Uncle Merle in the crowd. I've never noticed my Uncle Merle so much than when I realised he wasn't there. It was like there was the wrong amount of space left in the air and Rick was taking up the too much of it. Ever since the cars showed up, everything has been wrong, wrong, wrong.
Ever since Rick showed up.
"If I hadn't stepped in when and how I did," Rick says, "Your Uncle wouldda gotten us all in a lotta trouble."
Another log crumbles in the campfire. My finger aches and pulses around the string.
That hungry little parasite — hungry for Rick to hurt like I'm hurting, needing it more than anything — makes me tell him, "I wish he did." And again, because it feels good. Rick becomes even more blurry, as my voice makes an embarrassing hicking noise. "I wish you died."
I expect to be hit. That's what happens sometimes, when little girls don't know their place.
Tellin' adults I want them dead — That ain't my place. And I know it. I just don't care.
My Uncle Merle wasn't a danger, he was just Uncle Merle; Has been since I could talk. He used to feed me bits of his sandwich out on the deck back at home, like the tomato, 'cause he ain't like the taste. He used to fix my bike when it was broken. He used to make sure I was the first one to open presents at Christmas, and help me wrestle the wrapping when there was too much tape. He used to pull my wobbly baby teeth out for me and let me outside without shoes. He wasn't mean, or bad, or loud, or dangerous, or stupid; at least not always. He wasn't the one that got my Momma killed. He was good. And now he'd dead.
If someone had to die, I wish it had'a been Rick — Stupid, noisy, idiot Rick who ain't shed one single tear after what he done to my Uncle Merle.
I wanna get hit. I want him to hit me so bad that I'm allowed to hit him back.
"Okay." Rick says, and I can't breathe.
I feel like everything goes silent throughout camp, like the chairs and the cars and the people are all holding their breaths like I am. He actually looks a little sad, which feels really, really bad, because I wanna be angry.
"Okay. That's okay."
But as I think about my Uncle Merle, and the tomatoes, and my old bike, and what Christmas used to feel like, and my Daddy, and how he ain't even know about Merle yet, I realise I'm just really, really sad.
I can't even see Rick anymore, my eyes are so watery. My whole body hurts from being sad. I feel like I'm sick and I need to go to the doctor, but I don't even know what for. There aren't even any doctors here. Just two bastard liar cops, some campers, and a space where my Uncle Merle should be.
I think, after a while, Rick leaves.
My Dad still keeps his wallet.
It's in a backpack under his sleeping cot. He says that everything inside that bag will keep us alive some day, if we ever need to leave the quarry camp. He said I need to know exactly where it is so that I can grab it if he can't. He showed me everything the night we got here, because he forced me to, because it's important. The other kids don't learn stuff like this from their parents. It makes me feel smart. I'm in on a secret. He showed me the bug spray, which keeps our skin healthy from bug diseases, and he showed me the flashlight, which has two batteries and a big black button. He showed me the compass, the box of matches, the big knife, the little knife, the rope, and the map. It's like a Jenga tower. If we lose even one thing from the backpack; everything topples, and we die — I die. You gotta listen t'me, chicken. My Daddy's always been like this.
But the wallet made no sense.
We don't gotta pay taxes no more, like Merle said. I don't know what taxes are, except they're bad, and gone, and nobody liked them anyway. And I saw my Dad burn all his money in a campfire one night, so it can't be that.
It's the pictures, Dad told me. He flipped it open like a book, and we looked at 'em together on top of his sleeping bag. I felt like crying for a second because we forgot all my storybooks when we left our house, but Daddy hates it when I cry, so I dried up. Crying is for babies, and I'm a big girl. He showed me a photo of an actual baby, and after he touched the baby's face with his fingertip, he said the baby was me. I didn't think I could look like that. He stopped talking for a while. I listened to the cicadas in the trees to pass the time while he touched the photo. Then it was bedtime.
I'm looking at the photo now, waiting for him to get back.
I was a very pink baby. I was only the size of his forearm, which in the photo, hasn't been tattooed yet. The tattoo of my name is missing, which goes up his wrist in curly letters. Harley Davidson Dixon. It's the name of a motorcycle. The tattoo of the skull and the bleeding angel are missing, too. He's fixing my baby blanket around my chin. I guess he's been doing that since the day I was born. Every night, at least up until last week, my Dad tucks me into bed and sings me the same song. Hush little baby, don't say a word. Daddy's gonna buy you a mockingbird. I like his voice when he sings to me. Usually, he's yelling, or grumblin', but in those twenty seconds before I have to go to sleep, and nobody else is listening, he's softly whispering the lyrics to me, and touching on my ears and my cheeks. In the photo, he's crying down into his smiling mouth. That's something he doesn't do anymore.
The next photo is of us at the zoo. I know it was taken on one of the weekends I was at my Dad's house, because my Momma's not in this one. Just my Dad and two of his friends, I think, who are throwing rock star hands in the air. I'm wearing a black shirt with a videogame character on it that my Dad likes, and brown pants. I'm sitting on my Dad's hip as we pose in front of three giant elephants. My Dad's got a tiny purple backpack over his shoulder that makes him look sorta funny. It used to be mine. I'm looking at the elephant's long, silly-straw trunk as it tries to sniff us, but my Daddy's lookin' at me. I wish I remembered this day.
The third photo is a school photo with a swirly blue background. I remember this one. My Momma did my hair that day.
I know why he keeps his wallet, now. Just like how we need the bug spray, and the matches, and the rope, and the knives, and the map, and the flashlight to stay alive — I think my Dad needs these photos. They won't keep him warm or stop bugs from chewing on him, but he needs them.
I shove the wallet back where I found it, 'cause I'm not meant to be goin' through my Dad's things.
My Dad comes back while I'm vomiting under a tree.
At first, he doesn't see me. He calls for me to come get my little butt over there, so I can help him and Uncle Merle stew up some rabbits for dinner but when he hears me retch, he comes running over. I hear his crossbow drop and some more people call after him.
One minute, Lori and Amy are holding back my hair and patting my shoulders the best they can, and the next, my Daddy's forcing his way in. I'm rocking and I'm swaying like I'm on a life raft in the ocean, and I can hear Rick's voice and then Shane's and then Dale's. My Dad grabs the back of my neck and squeezes it, the way Lori and Amy would never know how to do, and tells me to lean forward some more. It works. I vomit up a chunky puddle of peaches and jerky into the dirt.
Then, I'm empty, and I'm crying — crying hard — into my Dad's lap.
"Someone wanna tell me what the Hell's goin' on here?" He snarls at whoever's around.
Feels like half the camp is here.
"How 'bout we all just try—" Shane's suggesting, but my Dad cuts him off.
"How 'bout ya'll just spit it out? And where the Hell's my brother?"
That makes me bury deeper into my Dad's legs, moaning and hiccupping. He puts a hand over my head. He's clocked the problem.
"Where the Hell's my damn brother?"
"Look, Daryl," Shane levels, "I'm just gonna come out and say it, alright? There was a problem in Atlanta."
My Dad's panting, now. "What fuckin' 'problem'?"
"Listen—"
"He dead?" Underneath me, my Dad's muscles are lurching and stopping, lurching and stopping, like he wants so much to just jump up and knock Shane to the ground, but he won't bring himself to leave me. The camp has gone completely silent.
Shane stammers. I've never heard Shane stammer. "We're— We're not sure."
The silence just keeps on goin' and goin' and goin', and somehow, it's even scarier than the yelling.
"There's no easy way to say this," Rick says, voice lowered. I wonder what my Dad looks like; if I was right about the cartoon thing.
Dad presses my head further into his stomach. "Who're you?"
"Rick Grimes."
"'Rick Grimes'." He spits, like it's an insult. It is. Bastard cop liar. "You got sum' you wanna tell me?"
"Your brother was a danger to us all." Lies Rick. "So I handcuffed him on a roof; Hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there."
After he says this, something in the air must have changed; something must have snapped without even makin' a sound, because Lori's whispering to me that I should follow her back to camp, like we're running out of time. She tries to pull me away, but I kick her; kick her hard, in the shin. She tries again. I realise she's trying to separate me from my Dad. Then, I realise he's sorta shaking. Lurching, stopping, lurching stopping. Silence, silence.
"Lemme get this straight." Dad whispers, and it's not the nice kind, like when he sings. "You're tellin' me that you handcuffed my brother to a roof."
Glenn's pulling at me now, too. Nobody else moves a muscle.
"And you left him there?!"
This time, he lurches and he doesn't stop. Glenn catches me as I'm flung from my Daddy's hip, and he passes me off to Lori as Dad goes lunging at Rick. The brown pebbles go flying up into the air. My Dad tackles Rick at the waist, and they crash into the leaves and the twigs, and his fist — The one with my birth date tattooed on each knuckle — goes smack, smack, smack, into Rick's cheek. There's yelling; scrambling. Glenn and Shane pull my Dad off of Rick, and that smacking sound stops. Dad beats Shane offa him and then, —
"Watch the knife!" T-Dog yells. Now there's a swishing sound, and grunting sounds, and I was right — My Daddy's gonna kill Rick.
My Daddy's killed someone before. He did it on accident, 'cause he got so angry that he didn't stop until the guy was dead and gone, which means that it was aggravated manslaughter. It was in the afternoon, just like it is right now, and I was playin' in the front yard in the sprinklers. My Dad and Uncle Merle were in the open garage, smoking and poking at their bikes with tools. Ronnie lived two trailers down. I was small, and easy to pick up, so I don't remember much, but Ronnie snatched me up right there in the yard. My Daddy says he was gon' take me. But he didn't let him. Ronnie got chased into the woods, and for two days, my Daddy and Uncle Merle searched for him. Then they beat him so bad his Momma ain't recognise him when the ambulance people dragged him out in a big black bag, and the cops took my Daddy away while the sun rose. I wasn't allowed to see him for four and a half years.
I need my Dad. Suddenly, I'm shrieking at him to stop, even though I want Rick dead so bad. By now, Shane's got my Dad in a chokehold up against a tree. Are he and Rick allowed to take my Daddy away? Lori and — I think that's Amy — are shushin' me, but I just keep hittin' on them and shouting.
I writhe in the dirt. "Stop! Daddy!"
"Damn pigs!" Dad growls. "You're stressin' out my kid, now! Lemme the Hell go!"
Shane laughs. "Nah, I think it's better if I don't." Then he turns to Lori, because what my Dad said is true. "Get Harley out of here."
I don't let her move me when she tries.
Dad struggles. "Chokehold's illegal, bastard!"
"You can file a complaint later." Shane scoffs. "We got all day here."
Rick steals my Dad's knife off the ground and gets in his face. His cheek is all red and purple. The fight's over. "What I did was not on a whim," He tells my Dad straight. "Your brother does not work and play well with others. I did what had to be done in the moment, to keep us all alive."
He's lyin'. He's lyin' again. My Uncle Merle chopped these people's firewood and brought them meat. He worked well.
My Dad shoots out a foot to try hit Rick in the crotch. He misses. Shane pushes his face harder into the tree.
"It's not Rick's fault." T-Dog holds up his hands, coming close. "It's mine. I had the key. I dropped it."
"You couldn't pick it up?" Dad sasses.
"It fell in a drain." T-Dog serves up this answer like it means anything at all. I hate him.
"If that's 'posed to make me feel better, it don't."
"Well, maybe this will." T-Dog's lookin' at me, now, too. "The door to the roof — I locked it with a padlock so the geeks couldn't get to him. There's a good chance he's still alive."
I heard this all before, when all them people kept coming up to me at the campfire. Lori told me to get some food in my stomach; the peaches and jerky. Shane tried to make me go play with Carl. T-Dog said sorry over and over again. Dale gave me the blanket. Rick made me cry. I know how this goes, though. Gettin' someone killed and killin' them with your actual hands are the same thing. I know that.
"To Hell with all'a ya'll!"
He shakes Shane off and beelines for me. He takes me from Lori with bloodied hands — Rick's blood — and I let him yank me by the back of my shirt to my feet, and I fall into his chest when he crouches. His breath is heavy on my neck. Even his skin is hot.
Lori's pale as an egg. I think she's scared of my Dad.
He takes a big breath, stands up, and drags me by the hand back to our tent without sayin' another word.
#the walking dead#twd fanfiction#twd#daryl dixon#daryl dixon twd#daryl dixon fanfiction#daddy issues#rick grimes#fanfic#ao3 fanfic#daryl dixon daughter#parent daryl dixon
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Dragon's Tongue | Bard x gn!reader
『••✎••』
↳ ❝ Hi!
Can I request the prompts “Take it, I want you to have it” With Bard please? ❞
: ̗̀➛ Bard doesn't mind being in a relationship with a soldier, especially not one that's lost absolutely everything.
: ̗̀➛ violence & death, angst
•───────────────★•♛•★──────────────•
You coughed weakly as you started to stir, heat rising and bubbling from your stomach up to your face as you stretched and looked over next to you; Bard was still sound asleep, lying on his stomach with his arm draped across your stomach, his fingers splayed out so he could feel the rise and fall as you breathed.
You almost felt bad for it, in all honesty. Being awake so late while he was so sound. But you couldn't help it. The life of a soldier was an entirely different world than that of a bargeman, after all.
Everything you had seen, you could still picture it so clearly. You did your duties, you paid the price of a mile ten thousand times over - yet it felt like it had all been in vain.
Lucky to be alive, you were one of the few that survived from your regiment; one of the few to be saved by the very thing that Bard had been born to kill.
You had spent years defending a dragon that slept soundly within the mountains of a small island; you could still hear the steady rise and fall of its great breath, an earthquake beneath your feet, when it slept.
You could still feel the heavy vibrations when it grumbled and alerted you to danger. It wasn't like any other dragon; it had given its life to defend the people of part of the small island.
Towering in stature, its winged seemed to form two massive mountains on their own, its legs thicker than any stone or metal you had ever known. The smallest of its sharp and pointed teeth was still longer than you were tall.
But its red scales, shimmering in the golden hour sun, were always so beautiful. Brilliant crimson and ruby shades mixed with garnet and merlot. Its eyes were angular, and its tongue formed a massive pointed arrow at the end, almost identical to its tail.
Its great claws were able to tear apart even the heaviest of stones, and the spikes that littered its body seemed denser than anything else you could have imagined. The dragon never hurt anyone, though. It seemed to know who its people were, and was only ever hostile to outsiders.
You had spent years guarding it, keeping it safe. The dragon's tongue was always more natural when leaving your mouth, as opposed to the language of men.
The sword that currently sat at the beside, now dulled and neglected, had once been pulled from a lake by that massive beast, who had insisted that you needed it. It never said when, or why. But you did find out.
You found out the day that they attacked from the east. Men, armed to the teeth and with gnashing and gnawing accents, Men, who wanted to take over the part of the island that you belonged to, and would stop at nothing to take it.
They outnumbered you, and they had more artillery; you and your men would never have survived, if it hadn't been for that dragon.
It had fulfilled its promise, coming to aid its people when they needed it most; using its massive tail and claws to take down as many as it could - but it did not expect them to have catapults, and nor did it expect them to use them to chain it down.
By the time it had broken free of its chains, you and your men had all but entirely been wiped out by the men. The dragon had managed to fend them off for long enough for the survivors to flee, but heavily injured, you never got far.
But what those men did to your home... you could never forgive such animosity. Such beastly and inhuman actions.
They had taken everything. They banned the dragon's tongue, and anyone who was caught uttering even a single word had been beaten and bruised to the point of near death.
They took your homes, demanding that they owned them, and forcing you out of your own lands. They outlawed your practices - culture, traditions, holidays. Everything.
That poor dragon, who had given its life to defend you and your people, was trapped inside the mountain.
They promised that it would never come back, that they would slaughter everyone if it did.
Lake-town was your best option. Far enough from those men that you could feel safe, yet close enough that you didn't miss your home too much. Even though it wasn't your home anymore. Even though they had destroyed every ounce of your home.
Bard, despite his distrust and distaste for the beasts, had encouraged you to teach him and his children the dragon's tongue - he picked it up well enough, although you still had to wonder off a few times.
Sometimes it was too much to remember that you once had a lovely, beautiful home; situated within deep Valleys near the mountain. Near the river that ran through the part of the island that you and your men had given your lives to protect.
But Bard had never been anything but understanding. A soldier, you were never really used to kindness. You were never used to a gentle touch and a soft kiss. But Bard changed that. You would trust him with anything, everything.
He stirred what he felt you move, shifting around to lie on his side as he let out a long yawn and looked at you with such horrible softness in his eyes.
"The mountain?"
You nodded, a little surprised when you swiped a hand down your face and felt something wet near your eyes. "Ei gwrol ryfelwyr, gwladgarwyr tra mâd, tros ryddid gollasant eu gwaed..."
Bard nodded, frowning as he moved a little closer, looming up at you and daring to smile sadly. "So did you."
You shook your head, clearing your throat. "I should be dead. I should've died in... in my home..."
It was a particular kind of homesickness, Bard knew that better than anyone. The type of homesickness that wasn't just limited to a place; it was missing a language, a culture, traditions. People.
The true meaning of home. It was never about a place, it was never about those beautiful Valleys or that deep, blue river or those cold rocky mountains. It was about the humanity. It was about what had been stolen so violently. It was about the people.
There wasn't much Bard could do, except get up as he hummed under his breath. He grabbed his leather and fur coat, and tossed it over to you as he dared to flash you a quick smile.
"We'll go sit outside, come on."
You nodded, tugging it on and inhaling his scent for a moment before falling into step beside him and standing by the front door.
"I used to think it was funny," you mumbled. "I was born to protect a dragon - you were born to kill one."
Bard smiled as he laughed softly, daring to take your hand in his. "Why don't you think it's funny anymore?"
You shrugged, swallowing thickly. "I love you too much to care about the difference anymore..."
"Are you feeling alright?" He whispered, getting close enough so that his lips were beside your ear.
You shook your head. "I don't know... is that bad?"
"No," he said quietly. "The children are all put tomorrow in the morning... what do you say you come to work with me?"
"Won't I distract you?"
"No," Bard hummed. "It might do you some good, get you back onto lakes and rivers... besides, you can wear my coat again."
"I couldn't-"
"Take it, I want you to have it," he told you gently. "Please."
#mlem writes#bard the bowman#bard x reader#bard imagine#bard#bard the bowman x reader#bard the bowman imagine#the hobbit x reader#the hobbit x you#the hobbit x y/n#the hobbit imagine#the hobbit fanfiction#the hobbit fic#the hobbit an unexpected journey#the hobbit desolation of smaug#the hobbit battle of the five armies#the hobbit#lotr x reader#lotr x you#lotr x y/n#lotr imagine#lotr fic#lotr fanfiction#lotr fanfic#lotr#lord of the rings x reader#lord of the rings imagine#lord of the rings fanfiction#lord of the rings fic#lord of the rings
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I do wish a lot of white leftists/communists, for all the time they spend condescending about people not agreeing with them or being far left enough, would take a moment and understand that they're alienating a lot of older POC/immigrants. My dad is from a country that embraced some socialist ideas and they quickly turned into a lot of issues the country still hasn't recovered from (I don't know if it's the result of those socialist ideas, but there is a very real fear regardless), and I imagine a lot of older people who have immigrated here from places like that feel similarly. It's really easy for people who've never had those experiences to look down upon the idea that Bernie or AOC could be radical in any way, but the combination of the way the GOP frames what they're doing and the refusal to compromise on language that feels extreme (but usually isn't, I know, this is just what I've been told by my dad and others who share his views), is a really dangerous one.
My dad found Bernie off-putting because of all the media stuff about how radical he was (which, again, he isn't to most leftists/communists/whatever, but the fact of the matter isn't really the point). Trying to push so far to the left, while may feel like common sense to them, really isn't the magical solution they think it is. Whether they agree with this older generation of immigrants or not, the fear these people have is very real, and I think the refusal to acknowledge it will hurt us significantly.
And it feels really harmful and racist for white young people who were born and raised in the US to look down on these people or call them bootlickers or neoliberals when they have reasonable doubts and trauma backing why idealistic futures of communism or socialism are terrifying.
I mean, yeah. That's pretty much exactly what I've been saying all along, in various posts/rants. Because young white leftist-identified Americans have no experience of living under old-school twentieth-century communism, it's a "grass must be greener on the other side" situation where they figure that it must obviously fix all the problems with late-stage capitalism and be a perfect desirable utopia. When people who actually lived through those regimes (or indeed, long-suffering local historians) try to tell them otherwise, they're scoffed off as being Insufficiently Committed To The Revolution and/or not understanding what it "really" means, all the while as they make absolutely no attempt to educate what they DO mean. Not least, one suspects, because they have absolutely no idea themselves, and because social media, with its insistence on totally binarized, black-and-white, us-or-them positions, is the absolute WORST forum for discussing complex issues or trying to introduce nuance.
As a result, of course it's racist, counterproductive, and totally inefficient in terms of actually building a workable, sustained, and implemented progressive movement. The young white American leftists want to lecture about their lofty moral ideas, but they refuse to take historical context, linguistic baggage, or differing perspectives into account. Obviously, yes, there is a country mile worth of difference between, say, Castro Cuba/the USSR in the 1960s and modern democratic socialist countries such as Scandinavia. But because the word "socialism" has been tainted with such bad historical influences, not just from right-wing fearmongers but from the actual survivors of those regimes, the modern left's insistence on using it without nuance, while scoffing off those who have valid reservations about it and making no attempt to educate or differentiate, is doing nothing but shooting themselves in the foot.
Bernie cratered in Florida because the conservative older Cuban expats wanted nothing to do with him, precisely because they were the ones who fled when Castro, also calling himself a socialist, came to power. Enough of that label stuck to also cause Biden to badly underperform even in traditional Democratic strongholds like Miami-Dade County (which is heavily Cuban Hispanic). I know it sounds mildly unbelievable, considering the full-speed-ahead crash into Fascist Hellhole Land, the Unhappiest Place on Earth, that Florida has recently taken under DeSantis, but Obama won Florida twice. There is, or at least there was, a Democratic constituency that can be mobilized to the point of allowing a Democratic candidate to win statewide. But they fucking loathe the label of socialism and they WILL NOT VOTE for anybody who identifies with it, even if it's not accurate to what they might be thinking. Because the Florida Democratic Party has been shoved so firmly into the lonely, lonely wilderness as DeSantis and his jackbooted thugs run rampant, it might be a long time until another Democrat wins statewide, but this was not impossible and it has happened before. If, you know, you actually work to reach the voters in terms that they understand and are willing to support, and not pretend SJW Pure Ideology that will get you Twitter cred points but nothing else.
Anyway, yes. As I've said before, these people manage the dual consciousness of blaming America for everything bad in the world, while simultaneously not believing that any perspectives, experiences, countries, or people outside America are valid, have any moral agency, or make choices that affect the overall state of things. It's an intensely hypocritical, twisted, navel-gazing stance that takes America as its only point of reference for anything and is sure as hell not going to help us get out of the mess that America has gotten into as an oftentimes-direct result. It is a cosplay ideology wherein they use the memes and the trappings and the exterior design and terminology of "Marxism-Leninism," refuse to learn why that is a terrible idea or why people don't like that, don't engage with history on any level, and then are somehow surprised when they fail and extremist-far right Republicans are emboldened as a result. Which, therefore, they then blame on the Democrats. It is a vicious cycle.
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I got into this argument recently over the whole “V9 is pro-suicide” thing (it is) and, despite the fact this other person agreed that Ascension is an allegory for suicide, they kept on saying that when I looked at the story through that lens I was “taking it too literally because it’s a fairy tale”
Like… what’s the point in even reading a story if you’re NOT supposed to buy into what they’re trying to say with said story? Am I supposed to ignore all of the characters and the literal world of the story saying that “Ascension is actually a good thing that people should go through” and how Ascension throughout the entire volume is framed as death?
Or how, before Ruby ascends in the first place, she literally says “I don’t want to be me anymore” after being brutalized and then drinks a substance she believes will actively kill herself?
I was told over and over again that “because Ruby chose herself it’s anti-suicide,” but the entire reason she gets to CHOOSE IN THE FIRST PLACE is because she killed herself? The entire thing is a glorified way of saying “if you like yourself, you’ll become a better person for it because you’ll magically realize that you’re perfect the way you are” when that’s literally not true and not how it works?
I’m sorry this is going on for so long. I just wanted to see a different perspective. V9 has consistently fucked me up as a survivor of suicide and I just don’t understand how people can vehemently say that there’s nothing equating to suicide or pro-suicide messaging in this story when they literally admit constantly that suicide is present in the narrative.
I am really upset about whoever this other person is admitting that Ascension is an allegory for suicide but taking the stance of 'but we're not supposed to think about it because this is like a fairy tale.' Does that person not understand fairy tales? Most of them have lessons baked into them. Does that person not understand how media works? Most media has something under the surface, some sort of meaning or intended takeaway or even accidental biases on the part of the writers baked into them. You can watch even the most stupid just there for pure entertainment piece of media - You can watch Alvin and the Chipmunks 2007 and still come out of it understanding that in-between the CGI Chipmunks singing songs and the bad charmless acting of the guy who played Dave (my sis and I believe that role should've instead been played by Brendan Fraser,) you're supposed to get the take-away that kids should be allowed to be treated like kids and not used just for money-making and that found family is valuable and should be embraced and not pushed away out of fear of commitment. RWBY should tell us something, it should have messages and takeaways, especially because the very start of rwby presents us with the conflicting beliefs of Salem and Ozpin - Salem insisting that mankind's passion and strength will always wane and darkness will take over, with Ozpin countering that mankind's victory will be found in 'the simpler things she's long forgotten, things that require a smaller, more honest soul' while we see Ruby. The entire thing is full of (admittedly contradictory) morals and take-aways and meanings. Some of them are bad, some of them reflect the biases of the writers, or the bigotry that Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross never deconstructed. It's not just there to be pretty lights, and it's actually imo wildly irresponsible for people to not try to analyze rwby.
"Yeah, Ascension is like suicide, but we're not meant to think about it" that person can fuck off. The trend of 'media isn't meant to be critically consumed or analyzed, it's just there for us to like and have fun' is the worst and it's destroying thoughtful media. I swear to God if the Lord of the Rings movies came out today people would be like "yeah I guess it's probably informed by Tolkien's time in war or whatever, but we're not supposed to think about it or take it seriously, it's just a make-believe story."
(I will be talking about Ruby's attempted suicide down below, please be advised and don't read if that sort of thing might be triggering to you.)
Also, on the note of "because Ruby chose herself in the end, it's anti-suicide' that really is just... Wildly wrong. Ruby chose to commit suicide. She thought that drinking the tea was going to essentially remove her from existence, erase all her memories, transform her body into something else, that she would not be 'Ruby Rose' at all and would instead be replaced by someone better. That is her hating herself, that is her wanting to die. Just because she thought something else would take her place doesn't mean she herself wasn't trying to commit suicide. Basically what the rwby writers wrote was the equivalent of a story where a girl pops pills in an attempt to kill herself, but is clinging to life, and while she's lying on her deathbed, her consciousness meets God and they give her the choice to either die or wake up, and she decides to wake up. Although this in and of itself would be incredibly dicey (irl people don't get to decide POST-ATTEMPT whether they really want to go through with it while getting the option to see their long dead mom and get assurance of her affection before they choose, and acting like that's the case is damaging especially to teens and kids,) the rwby writers make it worse! They make it worse by showing Ruby's closest friends including her older sister essentially sit around her bedside having smiling happy chats with each other and assuring each other that they'll be happy for Ruby if she DOES choose to die and that it's her choice and that it could be a good thing.
This is so damaging. And it's so damaging to show Ruby just coming out of it unscathed, smiling, having her role as a leader back and accepting it with happiness, having her struggles just waved away as if they hadn't happened. It's an allegory for a suicide where Ruby gets an 'are you sure about this' menu screen that people irl don't ever get, gets to see her mom and hear her mom say she loves her which people irl don't get, gets to talk to God and be told 'encouraging things' which is something people irl don't get, and gets to come out of it seemingly better than ever with no consequences which is something people irl don't get, and her friends and family don't have to grapple with what happened because they can just dismiss it as 'Ruby choosing to go to therapy' essentially somehow, and then the whole thing is just left in the past - while NEO COMMITS SUICIDE TOO AND IT'S TREATED LIKE A GOOD THING DESPITE THE FACT THAT THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE SHE'LL 'CHOOSE HERSELF.' Which just makes the allegory three hundred times more damaging if you ask me.
On top of how bad that is, we have the Paper Pleasers, we have an example of people that didn't come back as themselves, but as entirely new people. They killed themselves, and didn't 'chose themselves,' instead destroying their bodies and their memories, essentially wiping themselves from existence, and it was framed as an exclusively good thing that Jaune needed to recognize was just a part of letting people make their own choices - framed alongside not only the fact that Ruby herself had yet to choose to come back as herself but also the fact that Penny just chose to die in the last season after begging for death over and over and getting Jaune himself to help her commit suicide... That lesson is so much worse. The paper pleasers killing themselves was presented in the narrative of RWBY as a positive, good thing despite the fact that they did not come back as themselves. If what happened to Ruby is the equivalent of someone popping pills and miraculously surviving by meeting God and getting the choice to return, the Paper Pleasers are the equivalent to an entire village of people willingly drinking poison in an attempt to meet God because they believe they'll ascend and shed their mortal forms so they can no longer be damaged and may carry on their assigned duty and reason for living as perfect creatures, and... Where have I heard that before? And the rwby writers present it as a good thing they were right about! The rwby writers present suicide as not only a sometimes good choice that helps you grow, but a needed choice that you're worse off for not taking - and coupled with Penny, it's horrible.
People have this idea that because Ruby, Neo, and the Paper Pleasers believed that something would continue on living from the remnants of who they once were, it's not suicide, but... That's very much so the way I thought about suicide growing up as an evangelical Christian. When I struggled with thoughts of suicide in my early teen years, that’s how I thought of it, and realizing that my friends and family WOULD care and WOULDN'T be able to accept it and WOULDN'T think of it as a good thing was one of the things that helped me start to get better. If I had seen RWBY in those days, seeing volume nine and seeing them praise the suicide of the people pleasers while smilingly deciding they'd be happy if Ruby destroyed herself would've fucked me up, and as it is right now, it was still triggering and upsetting to me.
I'm so sorry that this season was hard for you as a survivor of suicide, and that people are being so willfully stubborn in their refusal to see how damaging it was. What the rwby writers may have been intending to make - a story about a suicidal girl realizing she is enough - is not what they actually put into their show. Instead, accidentally or otherwise, they glorified suicide in incredibly damaging ways, and the fans need to recognize that. They need to stop with their 'tree therapy' jokes and their 'drink the tea' cracks, and just accept that the writers got it wrong. Saying 'it's just a fairy tale so why would I think about it' is a ridiculously stupid cop-out. Like, if people aren't even thinking through anything in RWBY, then why are they even watching it? If people aren't engaging with it, aren't getting anything out of it, won't even try to think about the themes and morals and what's being communicated, then why watch it in the first place?
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Thoughts on Five Miles to Midnight (1962)
Movies like this are why I don't take critics seriously. I really enjoyed this one so much more than I expected. It's not a perfect movie-- I found myself wishing Hitchcock had directed it instead-- but it's a deliciously dark psychological thriller.
Sophia Loren and Anthony Perkins are Lisa and Bob, a married couple living in Paris. Bob is a possessive, emotionally unstable jerk. Lisa can't handle the abuse anymore and wants a divorce, but Bob refuses. When Bob takes a flight to Casablanca, the plane crashes midway, reportedly leaving no survivors.
Before Lisa can feel liberated, Bob returns to their apartment days later, bloodied and bruised. Turns out he survived, but he doesn't want her to tell anyone because his life insurance policy will make the two of them rich beyond their wildest dreams. Lisa just wants Bob out of her life, so the two make a deal: Lisa will hide Bob in her apartment while going through the process of collecting the money and then Bob will start a new life elsewhere, never darkening her doorstep again.
Several factors complicate this simple plan: a nosy kid peeking into the apartment from across the street, a sleazy neighbor hoping to put the moves on the now available Lisa, Bob's aggressive sexual jealousy towards his repulsed wife, and Lisa being at her wits' end as her husband tries to convince her to stay with him despite everything.
I was fascinated by the two main characters in this movie. Bob is a narcissist of the highest order and Lisa is vulnerable but manipulative in her own way (we learn she mainly married Bob to escape a bad situation, a truth which makes Bob bitter). Their messy marital drama blended well with the crime element, giving the film the grim vibe of noir.
My only issue is that some of the suspense scenes could have used a surer hand and more tension. I really think Hitchcock would have done a great job with this story. However, as it is, the performances are good and the story kept my interest. I don't get why it's considered such a dud. Maybe it's because none of the characters are super sympathetic? I don't care-- they were INTERESTING and Lisa was sympathetic enough for all her faults, so I was invested.
Also, I love Perkins' sunglasses and leather gloves look. What an aesthetic!
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