really not a fan of seeing red, from the attempted rape scene to the killing of the second queer character (of only 3, 4 if you count andrew as being actually gay and not just “haha wouldnt it be funny?”) on the show its just. not fucking fun

By far not the only deaths that made me sad, but no other deaths made me quite as mad, for very different reasons.

1. Laurel Lance (Earth One), Arrow In a show where everyone who dies gets somehow brought back, apparently she was the only one never to be resurrected. No shade to E-2 Laurel, I enjoyed her too, but still. Her death and final words where so disrespectful to her development that it hurt, 2. Robin Hood, OUAT Now, I agree that Regina got a pretty good ending on her own and all that, but the way everyone else was coupled up and happy ever after while she could not have him alive as well as being queen never sat well with me. It felt like a cheap way to give the baby his name. 3. Tracy McConnell, HIMYM Listen. People more eloquent than me have talked about this, but you can’t center a whole show about a premise, introduce a loveable character like her, and treat her like a stepping stone to a ship that the show itself proved time and time again just didn’t work. The whole show felt like a waste of time in retrospect. 4. Ianto Jones, Torchwood Characters in TW that aren’t immortal or the showrunner’s pet (you know who that was) died, I get it. That’s fine. But the way he died was just so incredibly cruel, senseless and due to an action so mind-numbing-ly ill-informed that I will probably never be over the tragedy of it all.  5. Tara Maclay, BtVS Representative of every dead lesbian character killed by a stray bullet in fiction because it was the first instance I saw it. Killed by a stray bullet just for pure shock value and to spark dark!Willow was in poor taste and felt so completely unnecessary and cheap.

honorable mentions (not in the picture): Jocelyn Fray (Shadowhunters): why kill a character in a show based on a book that didn’t even die in said book? Kenya Rosewater (Defiance): again, a wlw character, killed by her lover, who unceremoniously got burried and her killer was never punished. Lance Sweet (Bones): Just because that effing hurt like hell. Natasha Romanoff (MCU): not a show, but bear with me: you can’t kill 2 female characters for manpain the same way in the same movie franchise and call it a heroic sacrifice without me having choice words for you

Reunited

Get up, get dressed, get armed, and come with me. 

Sky opened her eyes, internalizing the groan that was aching to spew from her mouth. She hadn’t slept much and the little that she did manage to get was interrupted by noise and nightmares. She was exhausted, in truth, but it hadn’t mattered as Sky functioned best on minimal sleep; although minimal sleep ideally was a straight four hour stretch. Not intermittent ten minute intervals.

The brunette, now tired and cranky, stretched out under her blanket before sitting up in the darkened van. She didn’t want to do a damn thing that man ever said. He acted like the universal nice guy but he’d sooner ask for your weapon and then plunge it into your chest. He wasn’t a good man and Sky hated him. She watched him make shitty decision after shitty decision, horrible call after call and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She didn’t believe a word he said from the moment she met him, but she had nowhere else to go and until recent events, Woodbury was mostly secure.  She couldn’t help but wonder where he was taking her this time. No matter where it was, she knew it was going to suck. Maybe they were just moving again, which was smart. But she usually didn’t have to tag along for that, they just woke each other up when they reached a new location. She had a bad feeling about this... Not to be a negative bitch, but each time Sky had been brought anywhere by the man himself, it always ended badly. 

*   *   *   *   *

The day started out peacefully enough, quiet... the eye of the storm. The wolf sat in her cot against the cold, stone wall of her old cell. Rick had gone outside along with most of the others. The sun was out, which made people feel hopeful; Ash, however, couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. Maybe she was being paranoid. Maybe it was nothing. It didn’t feel like nothing.... She almost voiced her concern to Rick before he left this morning, but she didn’t want to burden him with a hypothetical bad scenario that she had no specifics and no proof of. Just some really bad vibes from the second she laid down the night before. 

Eventually, events would unfold to prove her right...and she hated being right about this. The prison walls shook and suddenly, it was the beginning of the end. Ash ran outside where half their gate had been torn down and trucks were lining up one by one. As people descended each vehicle, the wolf held tight to her gun while she watched the Governor emerge onto the scene with two of their people undertow, bound and set in front of each group on their knees. Her breath caught in her throat as she witnessed Hershel and Michonne being lined up execution style. Nobody would be ready for what came next... .

*   *   *   *   *  

Sky stood in the middle of the field, listening to Philip with a clenched jaw and a growing migraine. Every time he spoke it was like nails on a chalkboard, slowly grinding and breaking with each overly emphasized word. She stared at his eye patch, hoping to make him as uncomfortable as possible, but it didn’t work. He didn’t even seem to notice as he gave his speech to the small group they still had. She looked at Tara as he carried on about talking them into something, Tara returned the look before asking him what he wanted them to do, what they supposedly had to do.  A ball of cement sank deep into the pit of her stomach when she heard his plan. It was insane. Disgusting.. Not to mention completely unnecessary. How could he possibly think that this was something that had to be done? And how were the rest of these people just going along with it?  Maybe it was because they were lemmings... they all thought they owed Philip something. Sky saw him for what he was; an ego maniacal, self absorbed, murderous level ten wack-job with a chip on his shoulder and too much access to heavy artillery. She wanted zero part in this, but if she walked away or said no, he’d kill her on the spot. Maybe it’s worth it. Her pride was telling her to walk, but her survival instinct was telling her to shut up and go along with it...and maybe she could figure out a way to end this all before it began. 

As soon as they rolled up to their destination, Sky looked out the window to see a huge prison with fences and a guard tower. Huh.. Smart. If there really were people living in there, it seemed kind of brilliant. Prisons were meant to keep bad guys inside ... it would definitely keep walkers outside. She waited for a moment before she hopped out of the truck, keeping low the ground. She almost gagged though seeing the old man and the woman Philip was talking about... tied up and walked towards the fence like lambs to the slaughter. This was wrong. She felt sick as she ducked next to another truck, behind its door. She didn’t care to see any of what was happening. And right now, her main priority was not to vomit, so she focused her thoughts on how to potentially save the old man who now had a giant freakin’ samurai sword to his throat. She didn’t know him or who he was associated with, but she knew that he didn’t deserve this. 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

The whole prison watched in paralyzed fear as the Governor began talking. What the hell could they do? If they tried anything, made one shot... Hershel was dead for sure. All they could do was stand and listen. When Rick began to speak, Ash hoped desperately for it to work. Maybe he could talk some sense into the senseless. Or at the very least make a deal with the Devil incarnate. He almost seemed to be getting through but then the unthinkable happened... a flash of sunlight shone off the blade of the katana before it was thrust into flesh and covered in blood. Multiple screams erupted from their side and all bets were off completely. Rick fired at the Governor, hitting him in the arm---before everyone from every angle began shooting almost blindly in both directions.  Tanks began tearing through the fences, firing at the prison walls that caused irreparable damage. Vehicles were driving into the prison yard, men on foot firing automatics at her people. Ash began tearing through the crowd, running for the other side and shooting anyone of the Governor’s men that came within firing distance. She jumped behind a pile of fire wood, using it as a barrier. She’d use this gun until she ran out of ammo and then move through the crowd on foot with a pistol and her knives. She worked better in hand to hand combat...granted she was significantly outnumbered in this case. The storm was here... and it was lethal.  Everyone was fighting for their lives now, it was a mess. She lost sight of most of her people in the crossfire which made her nervous, but she couldn’t think about it and focus on fighting at the same time. She had to go ghost, so to speak, dead inside as she ripped through human lives like they meant nothing. It was the worst feeling in the world... so the feelings had to go. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  * 

The young woman on the ground wretched as she fell onto all fours watching the old man’s head lob to the side. Sky wasn’t queasy in the slightest and she was quite used to gore, especially now.. but this? This couldn’t have been more disgusting, vile... A human man killed by another human man over what? A town? A title? It brought something out of her that she didn’t know she had to begin with. But Sky stood in that moment, the moment gunfire shot across the field and vehicles began to invade the other territory. She burned inside and out with a rage like she hadn’t felt before, letting her powers flow through her arms as she walked towards the prison. She wouldn’t fight with the Governor... no. But she was going to fight. Bringing her arms up to her sides, she focused her anger as she gathered the energy she needed to throw one of the trucks off its track with her powers. She watched the truck skid and roll over onto its side before she knocked two of Philip’s goons off their feet entirely, shaking another’s pointed gun out of commission and out of his hands in many useless metal pieces. She was making her way for the Governor himself, luckily nobody other than her victims had seemed to notice or care about the totaled truck or her abilities at all. Good. The bad news was that she was on a war path for Psychoville..the good news for Psychoville was that Rick got to him first. Sky was knocked back by a stray bullet to the shoulder that ricocheted off a tank to her left. She yelped hoarsely as it tore through the muscle, exiting as harshly as it came, if not worse. She grunted as she brought her gloved hand up to the wound, applying pressure as she looked around. The man she was after had disappeared. Damn it! She ducked behind a pile of stacked wood and took a second to look at the new hole in her shoulder. That was gonna leave a mark....  Before she could push herself away from the wooden barricade, three bullets had been fired off into her direction and she realized that someone was above her behind it that those bullets were intended for. She quickly stood up, despite the fierce shooting pain through her arm and chest, and pushed the bullets straight back into the man who’d shot them. He fell to the ground and as she turned to see who it was he was shooting at, the person was already on the move. She didn’t know anyone who could move that fast except... Her heart sank even lower as she remembered the woman she’d been staying with over a year ago... She missed her. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on dreams and memories. The battle was far from over. 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

Ash was in attack mode, ready to wolf out any moment and fight tooth and claw until she ripped every single one of them to shreds. She’d had enough. As she fired her last rounds off, she ducked as she saw a man in her line of sight shooting directly at her. Leaning against the pile, she took a few breaths and left the gun in her place as she pulled the pistol from her leg holster and the knife from the sheath at her hip. Hit, shoot, slash. The mantra of her next few moments as she ran full speed from behind the barrier. And she did. Punching, shooting, and slashing with her blade was exactly what she did as she ran through the thinning crowd.  She finally caught a glimpse of Rick on the ground and panicked internally. No.. No no no!! She saw the Governor fall to the ground shortly after, Michonne hovering over both of them. The wolf continued running towards them, sliding on her knees as she all but dove to the ground by Rick’s side. “Oh thank God,” She mumbled shakily, emotions pouring back in that moment she realized that he wasn’t dead. She tried to keep them in check, however, because he was badly injured, and even though the Governor was dead...this wasn’t over. 

Sky saw a streak of red and brunette hair in the distance as she continued making her way through the chaos. She could swear she recognized the hair...and the run.... Call it wishful thinking, but Sky followed the woman into a clearing where she saw that same man who she helped at Woodbury, the man who was trying to talk down the Governor, on the ground. Along with Philip a few feet away, face down in the dirt and the chick with the sword standing above him. She watched as the woman ran to the Prison’s leader and fell to the ground beside him, cradling him before she and the other woman hoisted him up--a young boy joining them soon after. Sky was on the opposing team, so to speak...if she went over there, they’d probably kill her. They didn’t know that she wasn’t on Philip’s side...they only knew that she wasn’t one of theirs, so she must be one of his. She wanted desperately to talk to them...The leader had to know she wasn’t like the rest of them..right? But the others didn’t...and he didn’t look like he was in much shape to talk. And they didn’t look like they would listen.  It wasn’t until the dark haired woman she followed out here turned around and Sky almost heaved again. It couldn’t be...She felt temporarily paralyzed as she saw the woman’s all too familiar face, streaked with blood and stray hair sticking to her forehead. Her eyes were colder, darker... but they were those same eyes she’d known for years. And they looked as if they softened the slightest bit when she seemed to recognize the girl staring her down from ten yards out. “Sky.” She whispered, almost as if the word was brand new to the wolf. The younger female read her name clearly on the other’s bruised lips as she stood for another moment, almost waiting to see what she would do first...if she was still her. When Carl came to take hold of his dad to hold him up, asking if she knew that girl. When she replied with an emotional yes, the boy  gave her a nod and she began to walk at first, towards the girl before breaking into a run. Ash hadn’t seen Sky in over a year. She looked for her when she came back but the girl was gone. She continued to look, even after she got to the prison...it was why she went out most nights and what got her into a lot of shit with Rick. She never told him why she was going out every night, probably because she felt that it would jinx everything and she’d never find her...but then she never did. But she never gave up and here she was...right in front of her. Sky ran at her ‘legal guardian #3’ and the two females crashed into each other as they embraced the other in a bone crushing hug.  “Where the hell ... have you been with him this whole time?”  Sky nodded, tears pricked her eyes as she awaited the disappointed look from Ash but it never came. Instead, Ash looked her over with relief and concern---noting the gunshot wound to her shoulder and the blood on her leg. “You can tell me everything later.. Let’s get the fuck out of here.” Sky simply nodded again, an inaudible okay from her dry lips as she walked hurriedly with the wolf back over to the other three. “She’s with me,” Ash said bluntly as Michonne glared at Sky. She pulled her closer and glared right back. “You touch her, and I will not feel bad about putting a bullet through your skull. Keep that in mind.” She spoke low enough so that the child present couldn’t hear her threat and only Michonne and Sky could. Ash didn’t like throwing around blame, but she was sincerely bitter with the other woman for starting all of this with the Governor. She couldn’t help but feel that a lot of it was because of her and her inability to not play the hero. The wolf would keep that to herself, for now... as long as she left Sky alone. Besides, they had more important things to worry about in that moment. Like where the hell they were going to go now.... and where everybody else was.