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saintrvckwell · 2 years

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The truth is stranger than my own worst nightmares (ellie williams x reader)

ellie williams x fem!reader

summary: "life's worth living, not just surviving."

warnings: mentions of death, depression, PTSD. the story takes place after ellie leaves for santa barbara.

words count: 9.3k

a/n: listen i'm not going to lie, i cried a few times while writing it, probably cause i'm an emotional wreck these days. i apologise for the length, kinda got caught up in it. clearly i'm not capable of writing emotionally stable characters. anyways, i hope you'll enjoy it.

by the way! i highly recommend listening to some sad bops while reading in order to get the full depressive experience lmao, have fun.

"you taught me the courage of stars before you left. how light carries on endlessly even after death."

•

Could’ve been weeks, maybe even months since you and Ellie shared your last conversation. The last time you saw that auburn haired girl as she was slowly losing herself, fighting for the revenge she knew would destroy her in the process. The last time you stood on the porch of her and Dina’s farm house, tears streaming down your face as you begged her not to go. The pain in her eyes was undeniable.

A part of you understood her need to finish what she'd started. What Dina might not noticed, you saw clearly. Ellie wasn’t alright, no matter how much she tried to tell otherwise. Overpowered with her guilt and trauma, she was trapped in never ending cycle. A part of you knew she would never be able to fully settle down the way Dina did. But a part of you couldn’t let your best friend continue on this suicidal quest.

That day, Dina invited you to stay over. You used to visit the farm from time to time. Without them, and Jesse, Jackson felt so unfamiliar. It was the best place you could’ve possible come across. But it didn’t feel like a home anymore. No more patrols with Ellie, no more Saturday dances with Jesse, purposely embarrassing you with his drunk dance moves as he begged you to join him on the dance floor. No more bonfires with the four of you and Ellie’s songs.

Joel’s brutal death has shaken up the whole settlement. When Maria broke the news at the town meeting, a deadly silence settled across the room. And you sat there, stiff and numb, the scene of you, Dina and Jesse finding him and Ellie, playing in your mind all over again. The only thing you cared about was Ellie and her safety. The second you found out she went after that group, you didn’t hesitate to follow her, with Jesse.

And then all those horrific incidents took place. Somehow, probably by a miracle, you arrived to Jackson. With WLF losing their war, you managed to steal a truck from one of their, now empty, bases and head back. The three of them ended up staying in infirmary for more than a week, you were released quickly because of your minor injuries. Which, in the end, made you feel even worse. Knowing you didn’t do enough to prevent this from happening.

Worse than that was Maria’s request to accompany her at Jesse’s parents house. Before leaving the Seattle, Ellie helped you bury his body, giving him the best possible funeral you could’ve arranged in such conditions. With Ellie’s broken arm, Tommy and Dina’s multiple injuries, you had to get them all the proper medical care.

But walking away from him was the worst form of heartbreak you have ever been through. Seeing him die and now leaving his body behind brought an insane amount of guilt you failed to deal with.

The same kind you felt the second you entered their home. Just like Joel, they have been nothing but kind to you. His mother hugged you so tightly, as soon as she spotted the bruises all over your face. A few hours after arriving, there you were, saying the last thing a parent would ever want to hear. You sat in their living room with Maria right next to you, watching them broke down to tears as you handed them his backpack. You knew you couldn’t leave it there. You wanted them to have it.

You whispered a quiet sorry, looking at both of them. You needed them to know that. You needed them to know you didn’t do enough to save him. And although his parents didn't put the blame on any of you, you’ve never got rid of the guilt swallowing your body. Just like Ellie.

This and Joel’s passing changed the town for good. The first few weeks put you through the worst form of depression. You removed yourself from patrols and locked inside your half-empty house. You couldn’t bring yourself to do anything. Can’t really say you tried that much, to be fair. But no one could hold it against you. You didn’t know how to fix yourself, fix the way you felt. Took weeks before you finally left your house, coming to terms with the fact that you needed some fresh air.

Needless to say, it was hard for you to find a way to live again. To socialise, to go on patrols. The place that once used to feel like your forever home, was gone.

That’s why you loved visiting Ellie and Dina, helping out as much as possible. Being away from Jackson gave you an opportunity to clear your mind and see your best friends, building a life together. Shortly after JJ was born, you started to visit more frequently, sometimes even staying over for a few days. It was your form of escape from the loneliness.

No matter how empty you felt, the moment you saw JJ in Ellie’s arms, a smile was brought to your lips. As if the sadness was never there. And the second you arrived to Jackson, there it was again. You sat on the bed and stared out of the window, seeing Joel’s house. Every single time you looked out of that window, your heart sunk.

You couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. Although you never knew him the way Ellie did, Joel always made you feel welcomed. Whenever he was hosting his usual dinners, he never forgot to invite you. He knew you’ve been on your own, as he was the one who found you on patrol, along with Tommy. To you, he was a decent man.

His and Ellie’s fallout was obvious to everyone around. You never learnt the reason as for why Ellie stopped talking to him, but you saw how devastated he was. He cared for her deeply. And understood her decision, even if it broke his heart. You saw him sitting at the front porch with his guitar while you were coming home from your patrols. No matter the weather, he always sat there. With that gloomy look in his eyes.

So one day, you made a quick stop at Seth’s for two sandwiches. Walking over to his house, Joel spotted you and put down the guitar. You didn’t say anything, just handed him the sandwich with a smile on your face. That was the first time in weeks you saw the same thing appear on his. Even if it was just for a second.

You used to stop by, from now and then. Sometimes, especially when the weather was freezing cold, Joel invited you inside and you two dined together in his living room. You’ve never led any deep conversations, just quietly enjoyed each other’s presence. Once in a while, Joel subtly asked about Ellie, how she was doing on patrols. He spent the last two years of his life as a spectator in hers. But you knew he would never change a thing. Just knowing she was safe was enough for Joel. Ellie’s safety remained his main priority.

One evening after coming from the farm house, you stopped by his house. Reaching the first step, you noticed bunch of bouquets of fresh flowers. It’s been more than a year since his passing, yet some people never stopped paying their respects to him. Especially the younger ones, for whom Joel became a role model.

Even standing on the porch seemed impossibly hard. There was no way you could actually enter his house, especially the living room. The purpose of your visit was simple.

You struggled to sleep peacefully, knowing he’s not there anymore. And this seemed like the best idea, look out of your window and see the porch light on. So before you went to sleep, you imagined Joel sitting out there, playing his six string. As if he never left. The porch light was your way of dealing with you sadness, letting him go slowly.

Which brought you to the day you saw Ellie for the last time.

You arrived in the morning, immediately getting ready to help. While Ellie babysat JJ inside, you and Dina managed to take care of the animals and prepare lunch. As usual, she asked about Jesse’s parents. They visited Ellie and Dina from time to time, but most of their conversations slowly turned into them advising both girls to move back which Ellie could not always handle. She would never go back.

Surprisingly, Tommy decided pay a visit. He showed up at the doorstep with a backpack over his shoulder, smiling happily once he spotted JJ in your arms. The four of your sat in the living room, with you impatiently biting your lip while looking out of the window, hoping to see Ellie arriving soon.

Tommy or Maria used to stop there once in a while, mostly to make sure the girls had everything they needed. However, the reason behind his visit was different this time. You and Dina realised it the moment he placed a map on the table, giving Ellie a harsh speech which led to Dina, yelling at him.

You noticed the look on Ellie’s face. She tried so much to adjust to this lifestyle and forget about everything that happened in Seattle, once and for all. The way Dina did. But she couldn’t, no matter how much effort she put in it. She was struggling, every day more and more, not letting the thought of coming after Abby, leave her mind. Truth was, Ellie would’ve left no matter what. Tommy’s words just hastened her decision.

She kept thinking about his speech for the rest of her day. You knew Dina picked up on Ellie’s distant behaviour. But most likely didn’t want to admit the worst happening. That night, Ellie went to bed early, leaving you and Dina chatting back outside. The two of you sat there with cups of tea, wrapped in blankets, watching the stairs. Dina brought up how you once tried to teach Jesse the constellations.

It was a few weeks after your arrival. Joel was having one his dinners when the four of you sneaked outside, lying down on the cold grass. You promised Jesse this morning on patrol that you would show him some stars. But his desire slowly turned into him being extremely frustrated and pissed off as he was the only one who couldn’t find a single constellation you had showed them. Ellie and Dina were losing it over Jesse, throwing his hands in the air, visibly done with you all.

You always had the best time.

That brief memory brought a smile on your lips as well as on Dina’s. She used to talk about Jesse a lot, unlike Ellie. She never spoke about Jesse nor Joel, running away from every conversation that could even slightly mention their names. Which you, unfortunately, had sympathy for.

A few minutes before midnight, you both said your goodbyes and Dina disappeared upstairs. While making the bed, you thought of Ellie. You really hoped she would let this go. You didn’t want anything more than her having a good life, here with Dina and JJ. Her happiness meant everything to you. But a part of you couldn’t get rid of that strange feeling.

Especially when you woke up in the middle of the night, hearing creaks coming from the kitchen. Getting off the couch, you grabbed the switchblade from your backpack and quietly headed towards the target. Ready to ambush the impostor, you stopped in the last second, once you saw Ellie’s face.

“Jesus Christ, Y/N!” she snarled. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Me? What are you doing? I thought someone was robbing you!” you explained. “You scared the shit out of me, Ellie.”

She sighed, scratching the back of her head. “I’m sorry.”

You took a quick look at her and noticed she was fully dressed up.

“What are you—“ you didn’t have to finish that sentence. You’ve got the answer as soon as you saw her backpack and riffle lying on the floor. “Ellie, please,” you whispered. “Please, don’t do this.”

Hearing the pleading sound of your voice made you feel pathetic.

“Y/N, I’m not having this conversation with you,” she mumbled, breaking off the eyes contact. “Don’t make this harder for me.”

She didn’t utter another word, only reached for her stuff and headed towards the front entrance. Not hesitating, you ran after her, grabbing her hand. You squeezed her cold fingers and dared to look into her green eyes. She was standing there, few inches away from the steps, ready to leave no matter what. You knew now that nothing would stop her.

“Y/N, please,” she whispered, tears sparking in her eyes. “Please, let me go.”

“What about Dina?” you raised your voice, already tearing up. “What about her and JJ? What about your family, Ellie? Does this get to be more important that what’s waiting for you upstairs? Don’t throw away what you have. You’ve fought for this. So don’t walk away from it.”

The words were breaking your heart, as well as hers.

Instead of answering, Ellie reached into her pocket and handed you a piece of paper.

“Give this to Dina,” she requested.

“You’re gonna have to give that to her yourself,” you shook your heart. “Because I’m not letting you leave.”

The moment she let go of your hand, whispering one last sorry, you broke down to tears. Standing on the porch with coldness wrapping around your body, you watched Ellie leave. Realising this might be the last time you ever saw her.

Worst than this was handling the letter to Dina and watch her completely break down. You immediately jumped over to comfort her, hugging her tightly. You stayed with her for following two weeks, as there was no chance she could manage to take care of the whole property by herself. The other reason of your extended visit was guilt. Guilt of not doing enough to prevent Dina from feeling the way she did.

Eventually, after month and a half, Dina made a decision to move back to Jackson upon the offer from Jesse’s parents. As soon as the news of Ellie departure broke, they rushed over here, promising to do as much as they could to help her. And even though the farm was everything Dina ever dreamed of, it was time to go.

A group of patrollers and few men helped you both pack Dina and JJ’s stuff and move them to Jesse’s parents’ house where she was planning on staying. She knew it was for the best, having JJ grow up beside his family. Their arrival brought a part of joy that’s been missing in Jackson for the past few months.

Dina knew she didn’t have time to mourn over Ellie’s choice. She came to terms with it, making her child the main priority. And doing everything in her power to provide him as much of normal life as possible. Which sort of became a reason for you to get your shit together. The following months taught you more than one lesson. You wanted to be there for Dina as well as find a way to make this place feel like a home again.

Which you managed to achieve, sort of. You started helping around the town, preventing yourself from being left alone with your thoughts. You started participating wherever you were needed, slowly becoming Maria’s right hand. With Tommy’s condition, she needed someone to help out and you’ve proven to be reliable. To the point where you started training the young patrollers. Yet between this and Dina, you still found time to think of Ellie.

She made her decision. And although you didn’t support her literal suicidal quest, you respected her choice. To be completely honest, as the time passed, you didn’t think the two of you would ever run into each other again. If she made it out alive, there wasn’t much of chance of her going back to Jackson.

From time to time, you’d pass the empty farmhouse on your patrol. And every single time you spotted that house, there she was. Back in your head. Every moment you had of her was there. Whether it was her birthday, Joel's dinners or bonfires. She was there with a smile on her face, looking as happy as she possibly could. And you desired, more than anything, she would find that smile again.

The idea of her showing up, crossed your mind a few times. Especially when walking around the farmhouse. What if you just opened the door and there she was, waiting for you. That thought of yours forced you more than once to head over there, open the door and wander through an empty house, just to find a single memory of her. But the only thing left was a box with her belongings, placed under the table in her art room.

And the fact that the box remained on the same spot as before served as a reminder that she was still gone, not coming back.

You had to detach yourself from it, once and for all. You knew that walking over to that house after almost every single patrol wasn’t doing any good to you. Letting Ellie go for good was scary, yet much needed choice. You couldn’t dwell on your pain and false hopes. You needed to move on.

Fours months later, when the snow settled across the Wyoming, you were coming back from you patrol. Soaking wet from the blizzard going on out there, you decided to grab a dinner at Seth’s. Regular route prolonged to almost six hours because of the horrible weather so by the time you arrived at the stables, you were starving. Ham sandwich seemed like a Heaven on Earth at this point.

Walking down the street, you noticed people putting on the Christmas decorations, mostly lights. It was a tradition from the old world that people adopted. It brought a smile on your face, seeing the colours shining in the dark. Looking at the lights and snowmen built on the street truly let you forget, even just for a second, about the world out there.

While looking around, you caught a sight of Joel’s house. You noticed the porch light, still being on and empty chair, placed in the corner, as well as the flowers, now covered in snow. You stopped for a second, letting yourself place the idea in your head before you snapped out of your thoughts.

And spotted Maria standing by your front door.

As soon as you saw her, you rushed over to her, putting the sandwich into your backpack.

“I have a job for you.”

You heard the second both of you entered your house. Sitting by the kitchen table, Maria seemed nervous, compared to her usual confident self. The only time you saw that strange look on her face, was when Tommy set off to Seattle. You didn’t ask as you weren’t sure whether you wanted to hear the answer or not.

“A group of new people arrived last week, as you know,” she started.

During one of the patrols, one of the guys you were training, ran into a rather larger group of people with children. With majority of them unarmed, starved and injured, he offered to take them into your settlement. Maria had an open door policy, giving every one who passed through, an opportunity to stay, if they wanted to.

“We’re planning on expanding the fences, but until then, there’s not much space left,” she added. “We decided that it’s for the best if we move one of the families into Joel’s house.”

Of course you were aware of the fact that this day would come eventually. You just didn’t expect to feel that sudden wave of sadness.

You couldn’t get a single word out of you.

“What I need from you, is to collect his stuff and belongings and decide what are we should keep,” she continued. “I wanted to ask Tommy, but there’s no way he would do it. And with Ellie being gone, I think you’re the right choice for the job. You two seemed to be close.”

“Oh,” that was possibly the only thing you could get out of yourself right now. “How much time do I have?” you asked.

“Well, the sooner the better,” she replied. “The family is staying at infirmary, for now. The mother is pregnant, so I’m sure she would appreciate sleeping in her own bed.”

The job was simple. Just the idea itself was scary. The house was a symbol of Joel's being, for you. A reminder that he’s not gone. He’s still out there, at least your imaginary idea. Emptying the house means letting go of that. And you weren’t sure whether you were truly ready for that step. To say goodbye to it once and for all. To turn off the porch light.

“Listen, I’m aware of what I’m asking for,” she continued after her words were met with no reaction from you. “But I really don’t have the time for this. And there’s no one else I could ask to do that. You cared about Joel, you cared about Ellie—“

“Doesn’t she deserve to know?” you interrupted Maria, leaving a sight of confusion in her eyes. “I know that their relationship was never easy. But after all she’s been through, it doesn’t seem fair to do it without her approval. Without, at least, letting her know.”

Maria sighed, sitting down next to you. “I see where you’re coming from. But she’s gone, Y/N. She made her choice. I’m not blaming her for leaving. I’m just trying to say, that we can’t sit around and wait for her, potentially coming back. And if you’re wanting to go after her because of this. Think twice. I’m not sure there’s anything that could bring Ellie back. Not even this.”

Of course she meant well. She always cared for Ellie and wanted her to be happy, just like everybody else. But unlike you, she came to terms with the fact, that Ellie was most likely gone for good. Something you were still working on. And at the end of the day, she had a town to take care of. She couldn’t just send someone out there to look for her. Ellie made her choice to go to Santa Barbara.

And there were only two endings to her situation. She either died on the way, being bitten or ambushed by some group. Or she somehow managed to find Abby and finish her quest, with no consolation prize. If she would proceed with the killing, which was the last thing you wanted, Ellie would lose herself for good. And as much as you didn’t want to think about the worst possible scenario, there was a chance of it, becoming an actual horrifying reality.

The only thing left to do, was accept Maria’s request. You nodded quietly, giving her what she came for in the first place. There was more than one thought running through your mind right now. Joel’s house, the farm, Ellie. You needed a second to process this.

“Y/N,” Maria’s voice snapped out of yours thoughts once again. “Thank you.”

A fleeting smile was the only thing she received before leaving. She spoke to you one last time, halfway gone, when she turned around on the porch.

You had one week to finish your job.

You probably could’ve used the time more productively, separating the parts of the house for each day. But that would require to overcome your fear of entering it. The first day you tried to, the morning right after your conversation with Maria, you only reached the porch. The second you touched door-handle, a memory of you and Joel sitting in his living room flew through your mind. The sound of the heavy storm outside the windows, the story you told him that night, about your patrol with Ellie and how she helped you with those clickers. That smile he had, the whole time. Whenever she was mentioned, he always had the saddest smile.

Saddest one filled with care and love that was never going to go away.

You turned around, running home, locking the door and sitting down on the floor. Trying to catch your breath. Two days later, after arriving from patrol, you lied to Maria, saying the job is almost done.

You avoided the house like a plague, being aware of the reality that you can’t run away from it. As well as of the fact that didn’t want to let Maria down. So on a Friday night, with all the strength left in you, you grabbed the empty boxes and headed towards the house. Walking up the porch stairs without a single anxious feeling inside your body was quite a success.

Taking a quick look around, you spotted Joel’s rocking chair. Taking two deep breaths was enough to prepare. You grabbed the door handle, closed your eyes and opened the door. First time in months.

But the second you entered the hall, it felt as if nothing has changed. As if he was still there, his scent dancing around the house. Everywhere you looked, there he was. The dinner table — Joel laughing at Tommy’s terrible story. The couch — Joel talking about his favourite music album. You walked through to hallway to the living room and stopped for a second to absorb it. There was so many sights of him. One look at the fireplace and you thought of all those sandwiches and dinners you shared before he passed away.

You didn’t do much the first night since you spent almost all of your time walking around the house, exploring everything. From seeing his unfinished wood projects to discovering his relatively extensive record collection. Besides that, you found something else as well. Rather a realisation than a thing. Realisation of how many things in this house were somehow connected to Ellie. Pictures she drew for him, photos of them together, even a bunch of comics he most likely read because of her.

The saddest of all of them was a book called Idiot’s Guide to Space. There wasn’t anything Ellie’d love more than a space. That girl could spend hours and hours talking about it, knowing every single detail possible, from dates to names. She once named you all the astronauts that travelled to space, including the exact dates of their trips. It was her passion.

You sat down on the floor, leaning against his bed. You noticed a bookmark, a fact of him not being able to finish it brought a certain feeling of sadness. You went through a few pages and spotted that some of the sentences were highlighted with a pencil. There was something written on one of the corners.

Yury Gagarin was the first man in the space. She mentioned this in Wyoming. The year of 1961, just like she said. He flew abroad the Vostok 1.

That night you left the house shortly after one o’clock in the morning, spending another hour reading the book in your bed. There was a lot of his small, personal notes written almost all over the book.

The next day you decided to be more productive. Knowing you were pressed for time, there was not much space left for exploring of any kind. You started early in the morning with the easier rooms, such as kitchen and bathrooms. Most of the stuff stayed, beside Joel’s coffee mug and toiletries.

His living room and bedroom were probably the hardest one to pack. Especially when you realised that three boxes were clearly not enough for all of his records, clothes and wooden projects. You decided to divide the most personal stuff into a separate box, such as a photo of him and a small, blonde girl. Ellie once told you about his daughter whom he had lost on the day of the outbreak. He never mentioned her, at least not to you. You never asked. You knew better than anyone how delicate these topics can be.

You dedicated that box to Tommy. Even if he refused to enter Joel’s home, he deserved to have it. You packed it all safely and left at his doorstep. Small talk weren’t your speciality and considering how grumpy Tommy has been lately, you didn’t want to risk any embarrassing encounter. You even put a small letter inside, expressing all you wished you had said after Seattle. It was your way of closure for you and him.

Cleaning the house brought not only a lot of memories but thoughts as well. Especially about Jackson and your life here. You’ve made a progress since you came back. Even if it took a lot of strength, you managed to get back on your feet. Somehow getting through every day. Helping out Maria was great, that feeling of responsibility was all you needed to move on. You had Dina who you occasionally visited. You did everything you could.

Yet the feeling of being home was still not there. The sense of home Jackson used represent was gone. And you struggled a lot to find it.

The idea of leaving went through your mind a few times. Ellie did it. Though the intentions were different, she left because of the way she felt. You felt alone, for months now. No matter how much you tried to say otherwise. There was too much sadness tied to this place. Maybe that was what you needed. To pack your things and leave. You knew the door were always open for you. So in case you wouldn’t find what you were looking for, Jackson was there. Maybe packing up Joel’s house was all you needed to detach yourself from this. Once and for all.

There was a significant difference between living and surviving. You knew it now, more than ever.

The third and last night a heavy storm was taking over Jackson. You were standing in Joel’s kitchen with a glass of water in your hand, having a little break. After all day, you were worn out. You had an awfully long patrol with a few newbies and that always took twice the time than the usual routes you took by yourself.

You were passing the farm house, again. To be honest, as much as it annoyed you to admit it, you were quite thankful for the group of newbies as it taken away the opportunity of having another one of your visits. The last time you went to that place was after your failed attempt to enter Joel’s house. Just right after your panic attack at home, you grabbed the necessities and sneaked out of the settlement. It was a momentary idea that somehow turned into reality.

Maria would most likely give you a lot of shit for doing something so stupid. But you had to, for your own sake. You went to that house with a piece of paper in your backpack and put it on the front door with a three layers of duck tape to make sure it won’t fall down. Letting Ellie know was your own permission to proceed with the job. There wasn’t any chance she would show up at the farm house and even if so, she would never cross the gates of Jackson. But you felt obligated to do it.

Putting the glass in the sink, your eyes landed on Ellie’s old house. Maria never mentioned whether the new residents planned on using her space as well but it was still worth checking out. It was not the first time you wondered about it. Although Ellie took majority of her belongings to the farmhouse, there could be something left worth saving.

Just like you did for Tommy, you dedicated a special box to Ellie. With their pictures, Ellie’s drawings, the space book, Wyoming museum flyer you found in the living room and one of Joel’s jackets. It was a last minute choice you made in the morning, as well as the other one. The plan was to pack Joel’s things she deserved to have and carry them to that farm house. Making one last stop before leaving Jackson, for good.

You decided to give it a try and see what’s behind those fences. Might have been a reckless, abrupt option but you wanted to do it. The world out there was brutal and scary, to say the least. But you were devoted to find the bits of good left in there.

That morning, you also managed to write two letters, one for Maria and one for Dina. Tearful goodbyes were honestly the last thing you desired. Going for a stealthy departure was rather suitable choice.

Most of the boxes will Joel’s belongings were already in your living room. You put on your hoodie, grabbed the last box and ran through the rain towards Ellie’s shed. Slipping in, you reached for the switch, your body meeting with a deadly coldness. As soon as the light took over, you had a chance to properly look around.

Felt so strange to be her. Seeing her bed not being made up since the morning she left for farm. A pile of clothes lying on the couch right next to succession of books. Most of her personal stuff was gone, the closet was half empty as well as the cupboards in her small kitchen corner. You approached her desk and noticed the posters hanging on the walls. Savage Starlight, the comics Joel read because of her. Bunch of trading cards left on the shelf.

You immediately took those.

The notice board above Ellie’s bed was left with a photo of Cat and few drawings. Grabbing those, you put them right next to Joel’s book. Coming back to her desk, you saw a blue robot standing on one of the shelves, right next to her lava lamp. You suggested it was something from her childhood, not thinking it would carry any more significance. But still, you decided to add that into her box, almost filling all the space left.

As you walked around her room, taking one thing after another, the bittersweet feeling of leaving settled in your body. Sitting down on the edge of her bed, you couldn’t help but reflect on everything that happened over the past few months. So many good memories took place in her bedroom, before it all went down. The idea of you and Ellie laughing on her bed while watching one of her favourite comedies seemed out of this world. Impossible.

Ellie had a special place in your heart, ever since you met her. She was so extraordinary, funny and overall the kind of friend not everyone is lucky enough to stumble upon. Sure, you loved Dina and Jesse to pieces but Ellie was different. She understood you the way no one did before. Your relationship was strange, in the best way possible.

But now she was gone. Your best friend, the person you would travelled across the whole country for. The person for whom you walked to that farm house almost every single day with a false hope in your heart. Seeing it now, it broke your heart. Not knowing where she was, whether she was still alive. That moment of darkness came upon you. Exiting the town meant leaving behind not only Joel but Ellie as well.

Knowing you might never receive the closure both of you deserved was the last thing you needed to completely break down. Getting on your feet and running towards the bathroom, you grabbed the sink in order to prevent yourself from falling on a cold floor. Opening your eyes you saw your tears streaming down the sink. With a blurred sight you gasped for breath and squeezed the edges tighter, trying to get ahold of your balance.

You couldn’t stop sobbing. Your body was trapped in a madness and your last encounter was playing in your head like a broken tape, again and again. You stood there, convinced you completely lost your mind. More than anything in the world, you wanted to get rid of the pain. The pain that never seemed the leave your body. That sadness that was swallowing you, as you stood there, crying it out. You wanted it to end.

When you heard her voice.

There she was.

Back in your mind again. The same night. On Ellie and Dina’s porch you saw her a few feet away from you, looking right into your eyes. You begged her not to leave. With your whole heart and tears covering your red face, you almost fell on your knees. You repeated her name multiple times, each time with more pain.

But this time, the scene felt odd. Ellie wasn’t leaving.

She was walking towards you.

Each step closer and closer, until you felt her touch.

“Y/N…”

You couldn’t stop crying.

“Y/N…”

You barely managed to breathe, panic attack taking over your body. A second later, that rare image of her was gone. Mind left empty.

“Y/N!”

You heard her voice. This time outside you deluded mind.

You shook your head, convinced you’ve gone mad so bad that you started hallucinating her presence.

“Y/N!”

And again.

Convulsing in pain, you refused to believe what you heard. You shook your head again and again, almost giving yourself a vertigo before you felt a cold touch on both of your cheeks, stopping you from doing it. Scared by the convincingness of your imagination, you opened your eyes.

Almost breaking down for the second time.

“Y/N,” a heavy sigh left her mouth while her hands stayed pressed on your red, puffy cheeks. “It’s alright, it’s alright,” she whispered, taking a step closer. “It’s alright.”

You weren’t sure whether it was the weight of your feelings overwhelming you or a pure disbelief towards the idea of her actually standing in front of you that caused you to be in a complete loss of your words. Looking into her green eyes seemed like a fever dream. Because she was still there. The Ellie you loved and cared for was not gone.

“Ellie?” you gasped unbelievably, feeling your body becoming heavier every second. The realisation came upon you, followed by sob leaving your trembling lips. “Jesus Christ, Ellie.”

It wasn’t impossible for her to overlook your condition. A pure concern settled across her face as soon as she saw tears rolling down cheeks. Structuring every single detail of yours, a worry was slowly replaced with love. Love and happiness she felt while looking into your eyes. Trying the best to hold it together, you couldn’t stop crying.

Especially when she wrapped her arms around your body. It took a single second for her to pull you closer. Let you bury your face into her shoulder and feel the strong grip around your waist. That was enough for you to let it all out again. To cry everything out because she was there. Your Ellie was there, in Jackson, holding your aching body.

“It’s alright,” she whispered, one hand caressing your hair. “It’s alright, I got you.”

You stood there, in darkened bathroom of a house she once used to call home, holding each other tightly. Tears streaming down your hot cheeks as you wrapped your arms around Ellie’s neck, pulling her even closer. She was alive, right here. Words you found hard to believe in. Promising you do whatever it takes to not lose her again.

Twenty minutes later, you were sitting on the edge of her bed, letting silence to take over. Catching the sight of her bruised face, you took a proper look at her face, for the first time in months. Freckled cheeks, green eyes and rosy lips. There she was. With hands placed on her thighs, her eyes were dancing from one thing to another. You realised this was most likely her first visit after leaving with Dina.

“I didn’t do it.”

Ellie’s voice interrupted your thoughts.

You struggled to find the right words. Although the look on your face was enough for Ellie to continue, trying to give you a full picture.

“I wanted it, so bad,” she admitted. “I thought that was the only thing that would have ease my mind. And then I had her, ready to finish what she started. But I couldn’t do it. I realised I wasn’t doing it for him anymore. I was doing it to find the parts of myself I had lost in the process. Without realising that I was losing more and more, without getting anything back. And I didn’t want to lose me. I didn’t want to lose all I had left of him.”

Actions speak louder than a words. That’s why you reached out for her hand, staying quiet. Leaving her space to get it all out of her system. Letting her know you’re here to listen.

“I now understand why he did what he did, even if it took some time. And I forgive him, or at least I’m trying to. I’m not going to dwell on the fact that we didn’t have much time. I know he knew what he meant for me. I know what I meant for him. And that’s enough for me. Enough to let him go. Enough to let go of the pain.”

She was a different person before leaving to Santa Barbara. That Ellie would never openly talk about Joel, let alone the events that brought her there. She was heavily depressed and struggled to find her wait out. That Ellie almost lost herself for good.

But that version of her was gone.

And even though she was nowhere near the end, Ellie was healing.

“I found your letter,” she mumbled and reached into her back pocket to pull out a creased piece of paper.

“How long have you been back?” you asked.

“For a few days. I wandered around Jackson, mostly. Taking up my courage.”

“Were you planning on.. you know?” you whispered. “Going home?”

Ellie shook her head, swiftly wiping away her tears.

“There’s not a place for me anymore,” she replied, sentimentality covered in her voice. “Maybe one day, I will come back. But for now, no. Dina and JJ deserve to have the kind of life I would never be able to provide them. And Tommy. Well it’s not like we were on a speaking terms before I left. However, he would never talk to me again if he knew what I did. Or didn’t do. But I made my peace with it. And came to say my goodbyes.”

“To whom?” you wondered.

“To this house. To Joel,” she answered. “But not to you.”

A single tears rolled down your cheek.

“I know you blame yourself for a lot of stuff that had happened,” she turned to you, grabbing both of your hands. “Jesse, Tommy, me leaving. And I need you to realise that none of it is on you. I need you to stop living with that dark cloud over your head. The world out there is shitty enough as it is. And I know better than anyone that being hard on yourself won’t make it any easier.”

You closed your eyes, trying hard to keep that sobs inside you.

“I’ve hurt you all a lot. I’ve put you all through hell. But what I regret the most is walking away from you that night.”

“Ellie, you know I understood why you—“

She didn’t even let you finish your sentence.

“Shut up,” she couldn’t help but laugh, tears streaming down her face. “You travelled to Seattle for me, just to make sure I was alright. And to give me shit about it, which you had a full right to. You never walked away from me, even if you suffered. So now I’m going to do the same. I’m not going to walk away from you, not again.”

“Well, that’s convenient,” whispered. “Because I was just thinking about having a little adventure. And I would surely used a companion.”

Ellie cracked a smile, nodding tearfully.

Her sudden arrival changed everything. Especially your desire for stealthy departure. Both of those letters you wrote in the morning ended up at the bottom of a trashcan. Nothing would change, if you kept on running away from tough conversations. You knew it and so did she. That’s why you took all the time you had left and decided to have your closure. With everything.

Early in the morning, you went to Dina’s house, accompanied by Ellie. You knew they deserved to have their talk. You sat in the living room, holding JJ in your arms, watching the two of them sitting by the kitchen table with Ellie’s hand holding Dina's. She owed her apology, owed her an explanation as for why she couldn’t give her what rightfully deserved. Seeing that brought a certain feeling of heartbreak, knowing their chapter is closed. She hugged you both as you promised to visit them, one day.

Dina made her peace with everything, long before Ellie arrived. But you knew she was happy to hear the same coming from Ellie, knowing she respected all they have been through together. She smiled at you one last time as the two you disappeared in the streets, reaching your next target.

To say that Maria was shocked to see Ellie in once piece, would have been an understatement. That woman definitely wasn’t one of the most affectionate people but the second the realisation dawned on her, she pulled Ellie into a hug.

By the time you started repeating what you wrote in your letter, Maria was already aware of the purpose of your visit. Nevertheless, she respected that decision.

“I can spare a horse, if you need one,” she offered.

Ellie took a quick look at you, getting a nonverbal agreement. “We would appreciate that.”

After that, the two of you headed out.

“Take care of each other, alright?” Maria whispered, tapping Ellie’s shoulder. “Our gates are all always open.”

A thankful smile slipped onto your lips.

“Listen,” Ellie mumbled and reached into her pocket. “Could you give this to Tommy?” She asked, handing a piece of paper to Maria.

“Sure,” she nodded, smiling one last time. “Travel safely, both of you.”

As soon as the two of you left her house, you couldn’t help but ask. “You wrote a letter for him?”

“I did,” she mumbled. “But it’s not what you’re thinking. I came for a goodbye, not to give him an explanation. Even if our last encounter wasn’t the one I wished for, I always respected him. Seemed fair to let him know.”

That evening you went for two sandwiches at Seth’s while Ellie stayed at Joel’s house. You knew she deserved a moment alone, so you took that as an opportunity to enjoy your favourite spots in town for one last time. You walked down the streets, noticing a flyer to Saturday dance. You used to love those, always forcing Ellie to dance with you and Dina.

You smiled at Seth, something you usually didn’t do, considering how much of an asshole this man could be. But that sudden sentiment in you forced you to do it. You grabbed the sandwiches, seeing the pure concern on old man’s face, caused by your strange behaviour. You turned around, taking one last look around Tipsy Bison and headed out.

Taking the longer way, you walked past the stables. Another fresh memory appeared in your mind. The day you arrived. Sitting behind Joel, you tried to capture everything around you. You couldn’t believe something like this actually existed.

“Kiddo!” Joel shouted, as soon as the two of you jumped off. “Kiddo, come here!” he waved at someone at the stables.

You stood there, bitting your upper lip nervously, not sure what to expect.

A moment later, auburn haired girl appeared right in front of you with a backpack over her shoulder. She was fifteen, year older than you.

“What’s up?” she asked, catching a sight of you.

Joel took a quick look at you, giving you a fleeting smile, mostly to calm you down. “It’s alright, this is Ellie,” he pointed out to that girl in front of you.

Ellie smiled. “Hey.”

“I need you to take Y/N to infirmary, alright?” he asked. “Y/N is your name, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, it is,” you nodded. “And you’re Joel, right?”

“Right,” he smiled. “Now go. Ellie will help you, I’m going to talk to Maria…”

The night you arrived, Ellie walked you to the infirmary and stayed the whole time until Maria and Tommy replaced her. Properly welcoming you here, making sure you had everything you needed. The morning after, Ellie surprised you with a breakfast in her backpack. She learnt from Joel that you have been travelling on your own for months now and decided to pay you a visit. She understood that sense of loneliness you came from. Maybe that was brought the two of you together.

An hour later, you got back to Joel's.

“Finally! I was starving!” Ellie shouted as soon as she heard the door slap. She jumped off the couch and ran to you.

Taking one of the sandwiches, she noticed that peculiar smile on your lips. “What’s going on?”

You shook your head, smiling eve more. “Nothing.”

There she was, five years later.

You sat down together in living room, with you immediately thinking of those dinners you used to have with Joel. This was your last night in Jackson and that sentimentality wasn’t leaving any time soon.

“What is it?” Ellie’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts.

Before you knew it, she was bending over for a box lying next to fireplace, with her name written on the top.

“Oh, it’s a bunch of stuff I collected around the house. Figured you should have it.”

She put it on the table and ripped off the duck tape with her switchblade. With a bated breath, she looked inside, spotting all of her photos and drawings.

“You know for someone so quiet and tough, he was quite a sentimental man,” you uttered, standing up from the couch and following her.

“Yeah,” she laughed, browsing through his belongings. “I remember this. This is my favourite. It’s a flyer from—“

“Wyoming museum, I know,” you smiled. “Will you take it with you?” you asked.

She shook her head. “Probably not. All of this is a nice reminder of a person he used to represent and I’m glad you put it all together. But I don’t need that flyer to keep him in my mind. I have all those memories for that. Besides, it gives a good reason for visit, maybe one day. To go back here and reminisce.”

“Well, how about this?” you handed her a picture of her and Joel.

“Gotta make an exception for that one,” she accepted it. “Do you realise you just ruined my whole speech?”

“Sorry,” you couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll take the first watch on the road, to make it up to you. Is that alright?”

“That’ll do it.”

The next day turned out to be much sadder rather than hard. Leaving is never easy, especially from a place like that. But at the end of the day, it was what you wanted. What you needed. Going out there was always scary. But gladly, you had Ellie by your side, easing that worried mind of yours, at least a little.

Early in the morning, she decided to go for a walk while you finished packing the rest of your stuff. You figured one backpack is enough so you tried to make it as light as possible. The two of you didn’t have any proper goal or location you would be headed towards which somehow made this whole journey even more exciting, overpowering the fear. There was a whole world out there waiting for you to find your place in it. With Ellie, whose steps led her to cemetery.

With two flowers in her hand, she stopped by Jesse’s grave. Although the two of you buried his body back in Seattle, Maria decided to give him his own place, out of respect. He contributed to Jackson’s community a lot. Just like Joel.

Majority of your belongings were staying in your house. You packed what was necessary, including your old camera and Ellie’s favourite card game. You eventually decided to take Joel’s book, dedicated to finish what he couldn’t. There was nothing left for you to do. Your job was finished, Joel’s house was packed up.

You walked down the stairs, stopping in the middle of the staircase. You looked around, capturing every single detail in your mind. It seemed scary in some ways, leave it all behind. But you remembered what Ellie told you last night. She didn’t needed to bring that box with her in order to not lose a memory of him. He was more than a box of stuff.

“Hey, Y/N?” Ellie’s voice echoed around the empty house.

You snapped out of your thoughts, rushing towards the hallway.

“There you are,” she smiled, putting a backpack over her shoulder.

“Sorry, I was—“

“Reminiscing?” she grinned.

You cracked a laugh, reaching down for your backpack as well, putting your pistol into thigh holster.

“Maria’s horse is waiting for us at the gate,” she said. “I reckon we head north, probably taking it through the woods to avoid the main roads. We can take shelter in one of the lookouts if the weather gets worse..”

Her voice disappeared in the background as she walked out of the house. You stayed there, one hand placed on the door handle. You looked around, grabbing every last detail with you. You’ve made your peace with everything and everyone. There was just one last goodbye remaining. The hardest one to take.

“Y/N?” Ellie’s concerned voice forced you to turn around and see her, walking up to you. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” you mumbled, “everything’s okay.”

With that, you closed the door for one last time. You placed the key on the table right next to his old rocking chair while Ellie waited for you by the stairs. As soon as your eyes met again, she couldn’t help but ask.

“Are you ready?”

Without saying a single word, you turned around, reaching for the switch, finally turning off the porch light once and for all.

A strange feeling of sadness ran through your body. Goodbyes were bittersweet. But leaving what you knew behind was necessary in order to give yourself the taste of something new. Goodbyes were all you needed to move on. To heal, to let go. And that’s what you did. You let him go. You let go of your imaginary idea of Joel sitting out here with his six string. You didn’t need that or the house to keep a memory of him. You didn’t need his porch light anymore. You were going to find your own.

With Ellie by your side.

In an unpredictable world the two of you were living, tomorrow was never guaranteed. And even if your paths divided one day, you would always have her, preciously kept in your mind. That memory of the two of you, sitting in her old room, having the conversation you were looking for. You found it. And you found her. Now you needed to find your home.

Was that the right choice? Head out there and face the darkest fears? One look into her curious green eyes assured you more than any other speech of hers.

“Yeah, I'm ready.”

#the last of us #the last of us part ii #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams #tlou fanfic #ellie williams fanfic #ellie williams oneshot #ellie williams story #writing #oneshot #tlou #tlou2 #ellie williams and y/n

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sevendeadlymorons · 3 years

Note

hi there!! first i gotta say trust I love your work sm!! and I've seen some of your angsty or atleast angst-ish works,, love em!! angst runs in my blood so I'm wondering if I could request some angst? Like,, maybe mc missing their own siblings and feels homesick and jealous of the brothers and maybe dislikes them for it because they brought the mc there??? when they could be w/ their sibs instead?? plus points that they use mammon as their stress reliever and all that- sorry if its confusing!!

Hello! Thank you so much, I’m happy that you love my work 🥰

I been looking forward to this one~ time to pull an uno reverse on the boys and hate them instead~

Oh and I kinda made this a fic type thing with all the brothers’ different parts because my brain wouldn’t let me figure out how to make it a HC lmao idk I’m dumb this came out kinda shit whoops

MC Hating the Brothers for Taking Them Away From Their Siblings

WARNING: Angst

—————————————

You woke up in a strange place in a large strange room, the heat unbearable as you peer up to see 7 powerful looking men sitting in front of you, staring down at you. They introduce themselves, each looking at you in threatening ways making you feel unwelcome in your surroundings.

They eventually show you to your room after telling you all the rules, but you soon felt something missing... your siblings. Where were they...? You couldn’t remember a thing when you woke up but now it was all flooding back. They took you away from them, from your home. You were alone and you immediately wanted to leave, but you knew the eldest brother, Lucifer, told you that you couldn’t until the year was up...

The days pass by and you watch them all live their daily lives, just a bunch of happy brothers going about their day. You despised them all so much for bringing you here and one look at their faces made you miss home and you could barely look them in the eye after only a few days living there.

Lucifer was one of the brothers that would constantly check up on you to make sure you were alright after refusing to leave your room. He pissed you off the most. He pisses you off because he didn’t acknowledge his brothers like he was supposed to as the older brother. You watch him every single day, a new punishment towards the second eldest, Mammon, a new way to ignore them all and ridicule them. You couldn’t help but feel sorry for them honestly.

He took you away from your siblings. You don’t have them around anymore so the least he could do was be civil with his brothers. You despise him and you make sure he knows that. You end his calls, ignore him at RAD, dodge him when you’re at the house, but he just keeps trying to talk to you. You yell at him to leave you alone, sometimes begging him to take you back as well. You just want to be with your family, not here, here isn’t home...

Mammon was the demon assigned to help you at your time in Devildom but every time you looked at his face it filled you with both sadness and disgust. His attitude towards you made you miss the comfort you felt at home and you quickly learnt to hate him and avoid him whenever possible, even at the house. You can’t stand the way he’s so happy around his brothers and it just made you miss home even more.

After a while, realising he just wouldn’t leave you alone, he became a target. Your go to stress relief when you needed to let go of some inner rage. You’d curse at him, using words that he’d call you until you soon acted like how his brothers do towards him. You enjoyed watching his smile turn into a frown though and he’d then turn to leave you, letting you miss your family in peace as you think about how much he deserves the pain for taking you away from your siblings.

Leviathan was a complete shut in. He mainly left you alone apart from the few days where you’d bump into him in the corridor and he’d curse you out just for existing. You slowly began to develop a strong hatred towards him and the way he treated his brothers. He treats them like dirt, insulting his older brother and acting like he’s so smart compared to all his other siblings. It pissed you off.

He was honestly such an easy target after figuring out his whole personality. You used his insecurities against him, insulting him and watching him storm off from you after his voice begins to break and small tears form in his eyes. He deserves it. Maybe he should learn to treat his brothers with respect. After all, you’d do anything to see your siblings again. You so badly wanted to go home that it was hard to not tease and abuse Levi every single time you saw him.

Satan was quiet and the most tolerable one, but that didn’t stop you from despising his smart arse attitude towards his older brother, Lucifer. His constant complaining and pure hatred towards him ticked you off and you found yourself ignoring him and giving him the cold shoulder. He wasn’t particularly a person you could manipulate and control like Mammon and Levi but making him angry and causing trouble for the other brothers sure made you feel new found joy.

You mess with his emotions, tampering with his insecurities until he’s at his breaking point and he shuts down, going on a rampage and losing it when his brothers interfere. You couldn’t stand how he finds himself superior to his brothers. He deserves this. You just want to be at home with your family, laughing with your siblings like he laughs with his. He deserves everything coming to him.

Asmodeus was a kind of irritating that you couldn’t exactly ignore since he was always sticking his nose into your business. You hated him off the bat, watching him every single day as he gets to hold his brothers and talk to them and laugh and you just couldn’t because he took you away from them.

You’d start to ignore him, dodging him and subtly insulting him whenever you could. When he touched you, you shrugged him off and gave him a cold look, observing him as he recoils off of you. You hated him and you wanted him to know that. You would feed his insecurities, reminding him that not everybody likes him and you sure didn’t and never would. You liked seeing him hurt emotionally and he sure made it easy to hurt him alright. But in truth, you didn’t care, he truly deserves it.

Beelzebub was easy to hate truthfully. His blatant affection towards his family made you sick and you learnt to hate him out of pure envy. You hated how he laughs with his brothers, held them and acted all nice with them and then received affection back. You felt jealous that you couldn’t do that with yours and it just fed your longing to go home.

You’d take his food, avoid him and dodge him, even insult the way he eats and how much he eats. It was easy getting to his insecurities as he wasn’t exactly secretive about his past. It only took a few days and you were soon able to interfere with his head, leaving him walking away with his tail between his legs. You enjoyed watching such a large man turn into a puppy at your hands, becoming weak and insecure by your words and he deserves every single second of it for taking you away from your family.

Belphegor, ever since you stupidly saved him from the attic, has been on your nerves. Of course the murder incident has left you with an undying hatred towards him, but it was the way he treated his family as well. He was so rude and self centred, ignoring everyone and insulting everyone around him except his twin, Beelzebub. It pissed you off because if your siblings were with you right in that second you’d be cherishing them, holding them and laughing.

You made no conversation with him, ignoring his texts and attempts to take a nap with you and to make you forgive him. You stare at him in disgust, constantly making him remember every little detail that he did to you when he put his hands around your neck. You toyed with his mind, breaking him down little by little until he could barely stare you in the face and you liked watching it. Liked watching this strong demon be emotionally defeated by a mere human. All you wanted was to go home so now he has to put up with the insults in return.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me headcanons #obey me leviathan #obey me belphegor #obey me belphie #obey me satan #obey me mammon #obey me beelzebub #obey me lucifer #obey me asmodeus #obey me angst

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comradekatara · 3 years

Note

the gaang + how well they would do on the infinity train?

this is suuuper hard because there are so many factors to take into consideration. first is obviously the train itself. the train's function in a metanarrative sense is to serve as a vehicle for storytelling, dissecting & deconstructing the process of a narrative and how a character's arc is propelled by their circumstances. the train supposedly functions to improve its passengers, and yet we also know that The Train is a deeply flawed mechanism that can corrupt and further traumatize its passengers just as much as it can "fix" them. when the train invites you in with the single-minded goal of getting your number to zero, assuming you ever disembark, you're probably gonna be left with even more trauma than when you arrived, or at the very least, weirder trauma.

grace wanted to be seen, but instead of learning to value herself for her own intrinsic worth instead of relying on validation from those around her, she was enabled by that validation and literally started a cult. likewise, since jet is basically a less heinous version of simon, i see him taking a similar path to the apex (though he would of course name them the freedom fighters) trying to overthrow the tyrannical one-one and reinstate the True Conductor. he would think his path is righteous. he would think he is protecting those kids from evil. who knows what would happen once he learns the truth.

then there is the matter of what the train wants from you. the train arrives at a pivotal moment in one's life, when they are at an emotional crossroads and need a catalyst for growth. for example, jesse's problem was relatively small (because he is perfect) but hurting his brother caused him emotional turmoil nonetheless, so the train stepped in. this means that to answer this question properly, i would have to answer not only when the train arrives for them, but why, and seeing that every single atla character carries massive amounts of baggage (most of it flavors of trauma that infinity train has not addressed), this proves extremely difficult. i have to identify the most narratively satisfying moment in each character's lives to have the train arrive, and then i have to make assumptions about which cars would propel them which way (emotionally). you're asking me to outline nine different fanfictions.

only jet's character feels similar enough to any of the characters we've seen in infinity train for me to even have an inkling as to what path he would take. while sokka and tulip are quite similar as people (rational, scientific yet creative thinkers who over-rely on logic over feeling, are deeply loyal, and instinctually blame themselves for the problems caused by others), their character arcs themselves have little in common. both aang and hazel experience a tragic loss of pure, childhood innocence (which is why i cry over both of them every day), but in relatively dissimilar ways (at least appa gets to return to aang). min-gi and zuko are both pressured by their upbringings to conform to a standard that makes them miserable to please their parents, only to ultimately embrace their own passion & truth... but not only do those arcs play out completely differently, zuko and min-gi are completely different people, and if anything, zuko's approach to life is far more like ryan's (ie, jumping off a cliff and hoping he lands on his feet).

but what i think you're really asking, at the end of the day, is how emotionally mature, self-aware, and capable of positive growth is each atla character? because how am i supposed to know what the train would do to their psyches, considering each external situation would shape them differently, and unless i'm supposed to meticulously craft fanfiction for each one of them (which i wouldn't be opposed to doing, but only for one character, i simply cannot do all nine – also, i'm surprised infinity train AUs aren't more common, but then again i'm not particularly familiar with fanficition, so maybe it is!), it would only be an approximation, in which i identify their core problem (which again, is not how real people work, or even how atla characters work, but how The Train works) and then analyze how long it would take for each of them to solve said problem.

so, that was a very long-winded preface. without further ado:

aang's main problem is that he keeps running away from his problems, which is to say, distracting himself from the enormity of his grief. personally, i would say his coping mechanism isn't the worst. after all, he experiences so much world-shattering pain in such a short span of time, and he does deserve to preserve his childhood and his innocence for as long as possible. but, for the purposes of the narrative, the train must necessarily disagree. he must confront his grief head-on, without distracting himself from it or flying into a destructive rage that he'd only regret later. it also depends on who his companions are. with katara by his side, he can get through anything (and vice versa), but it's unclear who will be there to guide him through his pain. that said, i know he'd make it through okay. he's aang. he has to.

katara lives in a fairytale. like i said with aang, that's not really a bad thing. she's a great kid with big dreams and a big heart. she wants to save the world, and – guess what! – she does. but living in a storybook strips one's worldview of the nuances of life, not simply the harsh realities of the world, but also the full extent of one's personhood, outside of simply the black and white worldview of heroes and villains. katara's apotheosis is when she confronts yon rha, looks him in the eyes, and sees a human being staring back at her, another human being. she is no longer in a revenge tale. she is out of stories to tell herself. (life doesn't make narrative sense.) ironically, the train is a metaphor for storytelling, so katara coming to realize that she isn't in a story would both be confusingly meta and also fucking brilliant (if i do say so, personally). i don't know how exactly it would play out, but by god i would pay to see it.

in many ways, sokka is remarkably open-minded, and in many ways, sokka is extremely stubborn. i think he'd come to terms with his own emotional growth (which would be rooted in learning his own self-worth) faster than he'd come to terms with the train itself. "okay, fine, yeah, i deserve love regardless of what i can do for other people, but WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS PLACE?!?!?" his journey through the train is actually everyone else's dream experience on the train. passengers and denizens alike keep falling in love with him (or at the very least, admiring him more than they've ever admired anyone they've ever met), but he doesn't even notice because he's too busy being extremely suspicious of everything he comes into contact with. yes, he'll solve your problems and puzzles and help people and make meaningful connections and eventually he might start to realize that he is worth something even when he's alone, even (especially) when he's being unconventional or "weird" or "selfish." but even once he does get his door, does he walk through it? oh no, he takes it apart and tries to figure out how it just created a fucking portal. so while he would technically "do" quite well, he is never leaving that fucking train. rip sokka.

well, toph needs to learn to accept and embrace her own vulnerability. she definitely goes through that same crystal karaoke car tulip did. that, or the train just tortures her by putting her in increasingly more painful situations in which she must ask for help. but that's too awful to even think about, so i'm just gonna say she has to sing karaoke.

zuko needs to learn to trust his instincts and his own internal moral compass instead of the external pressures being forced upon him by his Father (capital F to emphasize that his nation & his father – aka the patriarchy – are one & the same for him, lmao). and he would fail. a lot. but eventually he would realize that his number goes down when he lets himself be himself, and he would leave the train happy. he probably also gets a bunch of cute little talking animal companions to guide him through. he deserves it.

the train appears to suki while she's having a breakdown in solitary confinement at the boiling rock. she finds healthy ways to cope with being put through hell while on the train, and by the time she gets off, she's being let out of solitary. it is a very rewarding experience, and one that she can swear wasn't just some hallucination. she's constantly telling herself yes, of course it was just a hallucination.... but still... it felt so real....

if i had to diagnose azula with one singular problem that plagues her at the core of her very being, it would have to be her fear of rejection. but it's not good enough to just keep having train cars reject azula, she has to accept that rejection, instead of just intimidating people into submission after the fact. she needs to understand why she is being rejected, and be fine with it, and learn from it, instead of letting her lack of universal perfection in every area anyone could ever excel in shake her to her very core. when ty lee proved that she secured the affections of dumb stupid boys better than azula ever could, she did an arson to cope (which of course is still very valid of her uwu). azula needs to learn to come in second place, third place, even last place, and shrug it off, think to herself, "hopefully i'll do better next time, and if not, that's okay also," and once that happens, everything else will fall into place. though maybe she could read bell hooks or smth at some point on the train cuz i think that could help too.

mai needs to stop being so goddamn depressed all the time. has she tried lexapro, or perhaps using a lightbox in winter? her favorite coping mechanism, knives, only helps her feel something some of the time, but most (if not all) of the time she's still being expected to play a part. has she tried, like, being herself? i heard from zuko (you know, the guy? from the train?) that "being yourself" works wonders. so the train gives her that opportunity. and she actually even enjoys herself for once in her miserable fucking life.

omg there must've been some sort of mistake ty lee was totally sent here by accident because she's actually super happy all the time and doesn't have any problems!!!!!!!! jk, can u even imagine? ty lee hates her life too, she just doesn't go around advertising it like mai does with her big dyke boots and depressing eyeliner. but apparently she also needs to learn how to "be herself," whatever that means. as if life isn't a constant performance, you know, like jacques said or whatever. she sees mai on the train. she rolls her big beautiful brown eyes. "oh god, not you too."

#obeetlebeetle #fuck this took me over an hour to write #asks #the gaang and #analysis #AUs #synthesis #mailee infinity train au when.....#sokka is the only one who dies on the train. unfortunate. aunt wu was right once again.#god this question was hard #so many factors to consider #i want the mailee season tho #and i want it NOW!

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littledewdrops2 · 2 years

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I have a pisces moon, which is in an aquarius 12th house: How does your own 12th house moon feel?

Hi there :) That's the first time someone has asked me about my own placement. Precious, thank you for asking and I have so so much love for pisces moooons.

Lemme just preface this by expressing in general how I feel about the 12th.

I don't think having placements in the 12th means you aren't like xyz planet, or that you push it off onto other people I think planets in the 12th are planets that have inadvertently cause some level of suffering and become an uncomfortable place. "It doesn't serve me to show this because when I do xyz happens", because it's a cadent house coming before the 1st and the 1st talks of the self- body & soul and planets falling into cadent house can be over thought out/not given proper time without major effort on the native's part to develop in healthy ways. Planets here can almost be seen a hinderance to developing a secure sense of self and that's the reason for the self-sabotaging nature of this placement.

Also, a lot of the time with 12th house placements, I've seen the native develops ways to hide the energy in the 12th because of early experiences with other people denying whatever planet is there. For me it takes me a lot of time to trust others to be emotionally open to them and to even be comfortable around them. I'm not a large group kind of person because of that. And even just with this post, I'm sure I'll be concerned for a while after sharing so much like I do with all my posts where I over explain and spill my life story lmao.

I have a complicated relationship with it tbh, I have a well aspected taurus moon and I'm a very loving, soft person but not to myself. I used to try to do anything possible to avoid showing any sort of vulnerability because it was unsafe in my eyes. Why open myself to others, if painful shit is going to follow?

It's been an extremely long process to be open to others. I've been in both phases of denying myself when it comes to self-care, love, patience and kindness and being denied that by others.

I've noticed that a lot with mine, it's a very literal description of me as a child and my relationship with my mother. My mother was absent after years of traumatic bs. She was also institutionalized (for both her mental and physical health, on and off for many years) and then she left so it's quite a literal example ha. I was always the sensitive one as a kid and I was ridiculed because of that constantly too. I was called the invisible child all the time. Never had any needs or wants, never wanted to be a bother. It's still that way. My dad used to say I would cry with someone looking at me the wrong way and then for many years I didn't speak at all just from the anxiety of it all. I do have a moon/mercury opposition though and my mercury is conjunct pluto so that has a big influence too but I think a lot of that was also from my moon placement.

With suffering being a theme for the house, I think with me it's very much in the realm of suffering with a lack of comfort & nurturing. It's never been a thing in my family for anyone to check in with me. I don't get calls from them asking how I'm doing even if I'm there they don't ask lol. And that has followed to friendships and relationships because I was so familiar with the feeling. The flip side of the suffering theme is that I've always been a caregiver in either more extreme instances (injuries, illness) or emotional ones (from being the on-call friend for someone who struggles with ideation, to mothering others).

Bright side is that spirituality and being alone has always been an easy space for me. It's odd because the way I feel inside and what I outwardly express are vastly different and often I feel like I express clearly how I feel but that I'm just not heard. And this is why I like overlays to my 12th (depending on the planet), because I feel the understanding is more direct for me having this placement.

Now I'm not scared of being alone or doing the hard thing or going in those spaces where other people may struggle because it's been such a core theme to work through these things. And I give & give & give to who I'm able to form close bonds with. It takes a lot of effort to keep the balance in relationships though and it's easy to give more than I receive, and I have to actively try to express myself openly at times because I tend to be very in my head when things get too emotional or difficult and don't go to seeking out other people's help or support.

It's a blessing and a curse because of the work that has to go into it, I'm so much more emotionally stable now, but I envy other people who have an easy time expressing but at the same time, the practice helps me be there for other people. I don't explode, I can listen to others, and I have a lot of empathy for others, and it benefits my children and that's everything.

I think 12th house placements can always benefit from time to process, time to really feel things out, to express what's inside, to be around safe people who hear them & see them & value them. And realizing that you don't deserve to suffer (if that's the way it manifests), there is no reason for anyone to treat you poorly.

Therapy has been a life saver for me, it's been helpful to realize how hard I am on myself at all times, how much I keep inside and how often I say I'm fine when I'm not and just realizing I'm not a burden and that people who truly love you want to know those parts of you too.

Feel free to share your experiences, or if you can relate to any of it, if you feel comfortable. I'd love to hear it, and I'm sorry for such a lengthy response ha ha ha.

#12th house moon

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monpalace · 2 years

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(dis is @sunraysthatdontreach about dis) what's stopping you from talking about it bestie??? :eyes:

I WAS JUST GONNA WORD VOMIT ABOUT LIKE,, HORROR THINGS?? BUT I DIDN'T WANNA CLOG UR NOTIFS SO I'LL JUST DO IT HERE--

i'm word vomiting so if this doesn't fit the narrative just ignore me LMAO

@sunraysthatdontreach

What if, like you said, things change depending on how someone gains access to current! Yuu?

If you were to brute force your way through it, the house would warp. More layers would be added, each more convoluted than the last. Not only would they emotionally and physically damage, but they'd receive Yuu's pain tenfold.

Yuu knows everything about everyone because they're so trustworthy and everyone can go to them for problems— but.. what if OB! Yuu used those secrets against someone? What if OB! Yuu used that to turn away anyone who tries to get to current! Yuu?

Enough damage could result in a maze like Heartslabyul's, except there's no possible way for you to leave. You caused so much damage to Yuu, now you get to experience it.

OB! Yuu doesn't mind the people who are only there because they accidentally wandered there. If anything, they're more uncomfortable. They're supposed to be the one everyone comes to with their secrets— so why should their therapist image be ruined just because someone got lost? There was no promise that the lost one wouldn't tell their friends about how they saw Ramshackle's prefect overblot. If they told their friends, there was no doubt their friends would tell their friends, and so on and so forth.

Maybe OB! Yuu has accumulated.. some way to use magic. They're surrounded by so many powerful magic users, there's no doubt that some of that passed on to them.

Though they're unskilled and unaware that they even had the ability to do so, they erase the memories of their overblot once the lost one is gone. What if, because they've never done anything like it, they accidentally erase the lost one's conscious? Everything that made them them.

Anyways.

Grim. What had happened to Grim? Was he okay?

Maybe.

Does he look like the monster you see during the very first fight of the game? Is he some amalgamation of Yuu and himself? No one's sure. They are sure that he guards current! Yuu, making sure no one touches his henchman.

No one's managed to reach current! Yuu yet, so no one knows how they're faring after being overblotted for so long. Are they dead? Are they just a soul in an empty husk?

Not only were they magicless, but they weren't from this world either. Could their body handle it like Riddle, Leona, Azul, and the did? Was it possible to get Yuu back? Their old Yuu back? The Yuu that everyone could rely on?

What if they got another Yuu? A Yuu who could rely on other people when their problems got to big for their body? A Yuu who could clearly feel sorrow whenever they talked of their old home?

Who knows.

#twst #twisted wonderland #many thoughts. part of head that can form good sentences non existent.#twst yuu #twisted wonderland yuu #twst mc #twisted wonderland mc #grim's scribbles

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meggannn · 3 years

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shepard/garrus?

oh boy, sorry for the late response! I always end up posting these things and then going to read/take a nap/play a game or something. anyway writing this up took two hours, i hope it is even slightly interesting to read. cut because this is looooooong

What made you ship it?

I think I was interested in this ship before I even played ME. I was just like “I know Shepard is a character and an alien named Garrus is a character, and people draw porn of them together.” because I think it’s reasonable to say it’s one of, if not the most, popular ship in the fandom, or at least in ME’s tumblr fandom? and the way people talked about it, I knew their tropes were #banter, #battle couple, #partnerships, and... and as we’ve learned from royai, I am a bit weak to those tropes (assuming I like both of the characters). the way people talked about them also from a “best friends” angle—which is sort of forced in-game in a way that seems strange to me now—was also a plus in its favor at the time. (if they get together, I do see their friendship/companionship, in whatever form, in some ways integral to their romance—unless you’re playing full far-right renegade who’s like a xenophobe and hate-fucking Garrus, I guess?—but Bioware also kind of shoehorned Garrus into that best-friend role and that’s a topic for another day.)

What are your favorite things about the ship?

(my friend will hit me if I say “partnerships” again) I’m gonna talk about the way I play my Shepard now, because so much is dependent on the unique Shepard. for Lydia’s journey over the series, I see a large part of her journey as basically a study of her (often self-inflicted) loneliness. and she never entirely breaks her habits of self-isolation, but the events of the series force her to be vulnerable in a way she would prefer not to be in front of a crew, or, y’know, ever. Garrus becomes an integral part of that story to help her break her out of these bad habits (all of the crew does, particularly also Ashley for my Shep), but to my eyes, the story of “Shepard and Garrus’s relationship” is also one of mutual respect, burden-sharing, and sanity and morality checks.

I don’t think of their “mentor” relationship in ME1 very often mostly because I don’t think it was done particularly well, but for all its faults, I do like how naturally the jump from “subordinate” in ME1 to “ally” in ME2 felt; once you meet Garrus on Omega you feel more on the same footing as two friends greeting each other because you’ve both recently been through trauma and the sight of a friendly face in a station full of hostiles is so unexpectedly welcome that it lets them both hope things will be okay for a minute. starting from that moment, Garrus becomes one of the few people who can see “under” her mask, I guess: partly because he’s one of the few combatants from the SR-1 who knows Shepard well and sees who she is both on the field and onboard the SR-2, with the ability to compare both to the times of “before you died”; partly because he has trauma response training and recognizes it in others even if he doesn’t in himself; partly because his loyal personality makes him sensitive to wonder how she’s dealing with being resurrected; and also partly because they’ve both gone through similar things. namely, getting your squad killed and blaming yourself for it, and it possibly being your fault (BioWare is inconsistent on what Shepard’s role was on Akuze, but in ME1 she has the chance to reply that she was responsible for getting them out safely, and failed).

necessity forces Shepard to adapt to things like being effectively forced to work for terrorists; being isolated from her support system; being resurrected and feeling like a stranger in her own body; later, getting decommissioned for making an incredibly difficult call to save the galaxy; watching your homeworld burn; being forced into a political role negotiating high stakes you don’t know how to play; being told you’re the spearhead of a galactic war; doing all of this without a full crew complement; the list goes on. those are all, on their own, incredibly isolating, traumatic experiences, and my Shepard’s not emotionally sane at the best of times. (emotionally stable, perhaps, only in the most literal of terms, at least on the surface. she’s like a rock when shit hits the fan. emotionally sane, no, for that reason and more.)

the tables have turned, and Garrus ends up becoming a large part of helping her regain agency in most if not all of those things: in ME2 he was a former crew member she trusted, and he was eager to work for her and be distracted from his failures on Omega. over in the battery, he is himself recovering from a major injury (like Shepard) and going through the aftermath of a bloodbath he feels responsible for (like Shepard), working on a crew that holds him at arm’s length, that he also... arguably... didn’t have much choice in joining (like Shepard—I’m assuming he wasn’t held hostage and joined voluntarily after waking up, but lbr this is unconfirmed). their reasons are different and varied, but they don’t realize until much later that they have found each other at the most opportune time, providing a sense of stability for each other, and also, frankly, sanity and morality checks.

in ME3, he steps into this role more fully because he’s become more disciplined, is doing work firmly in his wheelhouse, and paired up against Shepard struggling with their positions somewhat reversed from ME1: him more confident and her now completely out of her element, floundering with her place on a galactic scale. without Garrus—and Chakwas, and Joker, and Tali, and later the loyalty of the entire SR-2—the story of ME would be a tragedy, and it would end shortly in ME2; it’d be the story of how my Shepard slowly went insane being forced to fight boogeymen under a terrorist banner. Garrus isn’t, like, the keeper of her sanity, but their ability to check each other, and see themselves in the eyes of each other, provides stability and occasionally a bit of a wake-up call to both of them. when they’re both vulnerable, they both feel most seen, and most understood, by an alien that listens.

one angle of this ship that highly interests me at the moment, along with the above, is that while it’s not illegal for them to be together, it’s still... a really bad fucking idea lmao. (I could make the argument that it’s a bad idea for Shepard to be in any relationship with their crew but I think there are a few ships—Garrus, Tali, any Alliance crew at all—that realistically would be huge political clusterfucks.) so overcoming personal insecurity and fear of the unknown to acknowledge interest in each other, and the desire to become an item, getting roadblocked by a reality wake-up call with the fact that 1) she’s his boss, 2) Garrus comes from a society where station matters, like, sort of a lot and it even determines your job and how much legal power you have, 3) the potential political blowback (which would be ENORMOUS because lbr the hierarchy may not care about what turians do in off-hours but they WOULD care about the superior/subordinate thing, the human thing, the fact that they’re doing this while a war is going on. basically one of their best agents is on the Normandy to negotiate their interests and they’re basically at the whims of their relationship the whole time)... it’s a lot! all of that sort of makes it tragic, but I’m curious to see how they’d overcome it.

anyway, all of that is where I’m coming from when I think or write about this ship, but there’s a lot more I’m not mentioning here. there are a lot of juxtapositions that in my head that I’ve either added or extrapolated from canon that also interest me about this pairing. Garrus is a former cop, as is his father; Lydia is a poor kid who used to be in a gang out of necessity. Garrus is a turian with often traditionalist thinking; Shepard is a human who has much less sociopolitical power than him, even if she is his superior on the Normandy. both of them are roughly as old as the First Contact War, when their people were at each other’s throats not thirty years ago. Garrus idolizes Spectrehood while Lydia hates it, feeling it was forced on her. they can’t eat the same food. and yet despite all of that, and the fact that they need translators to communicate, they manage to understand each other when a lot of the world around them doesn’t.

god this is not even the full list of it. anyway I could go on but I’ll stop there lol.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

oh jesus, so much. I’m a grouchy and picky shipper, be warned.

pining can always make my ships more interesting, and imo it’s a consistent part of any ship of Shepard’s, considering it’s wildly inappropriate and unprofessional for her to be fucking any subordinate, so I think more consideration could be given to shakarian in the “we shouldn’t be having a thing and oh also you’re an alien and I’m kind of scared of both your government and your body” angle! I hope to explore that a bit with a fic I’m writing (if I ever finish it, god).

I hate the flavor of fandom!shakarian where Shepard romanced Kaidan in ME1 then felt “betrayed” when he’s confused and hurt on Horizon, so she gets with Garrus as like... revenge? idk. and then Garrus usually develops this bias against Kaidan as a sort of author mouthpiece (which is inconsistent with his characterization cause Garrus is nothing but pleased to have Kaidan back on the SR-2 in ME3!) and takes up the anti-Kaidan crusade cause K ~questioned the commander~ (since when does Garrus fall over himself defending a superior from criticism?) like, idk. I think Garrus can be sensitive to the fact that that reuniting must’ve been painful for Shepard, but also be aware that it was also really painful for Kaidan because all of Kaidan’s complicated feelings about Shepard’s resurrection were, realistically, things Garrus should’ve felt too! this trope is very popular but just feels like manufactured drama for drama’s sake, idk, I’m also not big on love triangles so. I would much rather people just rescue Ashley on Virmire and avoid the whole thing rather than have previously-romanced Kaidan around in ME3 for the sole purpose of forcing him to watch Shepard/Garrus being happy together tbh.

I think full goody-goody paragon Shepard is too preachy to make a good partner for Garrus and full shoot-anyone-in-my-way renegade Shepard encourages and emboldens his worst tendencies (and Castis Vakarian is right to disapprove of them). most people end up playing some combination of both, or if they do settle in one camp or the other, usually there is some sense of realism where Shepard doesn’t play nice/naive or play mean all the time, so it’s rare I see either of those kinds of extreme Shepards depicted, but in general if there is a Shepard that is so far in one direction it seems illogical to me that they ever stay together.

I think wanting a mShep romance for Garrus is a pretty welcome idea in fandom, but adding onto that, I think Garrus should’ve been romanceable in ME3 for players who changed their minds on other romances or want to play slow-burn romances! we had it for Kaidan—and should’ve had it for Ash—so (pounds fist on desk) Garrus too imo!

I hate the canon get-together because Shepard walking into the battery and asking “do you want to fuck” feels very tailored to the players who want to romance Garrus, not to who Commander Shepard is, imo. it lacked all of the subtlety and depth of some other romances—until the scene of Garrus coming to her cabin with a wine bottle, at least, cause I do like that scene, but anyway, I dislike the actual get-together.

just in general, I’m a stick in the mud, so my favorite iteration of this ship is where Shepard is resolutely professional, and the challenge of it becomes him getting her to open up, not the other way around. like, I think on some level every iteration of Shepard is a bit of a lunatic/eccentric, because you have to be to do the things they do, but I like to see their flirting with less of her calling him “big guy” (not sure where that came from, is that in canon? I must’ve missed it, but personally I don’t like it) and more of Garrus making wisecracks in the canteen while he’s talking to Joker, but he’s looking at her out of the corner of his eyes and he really said his joke with the aim of making her laugh, and as she’s reading her datapad she hears him, and even when she wants to chuckle she stops himself and just smirks cause she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a laugh, but he sees her lips twitch and feels his heart flutter. that. I want more of that.

oh lastly, I hate “Shepard takes Vakarian clan markings” in any iteration. there is no canon relation to turians being poc—in fact I’d argue they have sociopolitical privilege real-world bipoc do not—but the concept of social face markings, face tattoos, etc., is rooted in non-white cultures and with the fact that 1) turians had a literal civil war over the territories those markings represent, 2) we don’t even know if marriage is how markings are shared or if non-turians are ever invited to wear them in the first place, 3) most of the art of this trend, lbr, is of mostly white Shepards in wedding dresses and blue face paint... all that combined just makes me frown and scroll faster every time I see it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bipoc Shepard with Vakarian face markings in fic/art, and that to me is very telling (not because they should have them, but because bipoc fans who make bipoc Shepards usually recognize when a racially-coded trope is uhhhhh not so great to appropriate for someone not of that group).

#megan does memes #marisjellyfish #shakarian

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mooglesorts · 3 years

Text

man. it's weird, because there's a lot of things about me that are Very Badger Primary, to the point where i would probably pick it with a strong bird model over anything else at this point... except that i hate dehumanization. i saw primaries described recently as 'things you wouldn't be you anymore if you went against,' and more than just about anything else that's it. even when i think people are monsters, i can't see them as not human; i'd be hard put to define exactly what i consider a 'monster,' but it's more about like. good faith than personhood, i suppose?

it's not necessarily a permanent status to be one--people can change--but my deeply held instinct is that once you have done something monstrous you will always be a person who has been a monster by your own choices, and that it's your duty to learn how to accept that while still living your life, and act accordingly from thereon out. you have to reconcile that you are a person with the fact that some doors are closed to you now, and it's up to you to decide what you do from there.

just. like. even when i hate someone and as far as i'm concerned they can go fuck themself, even in the multiple Heavily Badger social environments i've been in over the course of my life--church, progressive circles, the way the structure of the internet kind of just affects you in general--even on occasions where i've gotten swept away and given in to the pressure to dehumanize (or perform it) for a minute, there's always, always been a voice in the back of my head saying this is a person. this is a person. this is a person. this isn't right.

unintentional dehumanization sets off my '...should we really be doing this? we are getting into not good territory here, it's time to pull up and start questioning' alarms. explicit, intentional, purposeful dehumanization sets off the whole ass tornado sirens. if people on my side are doing it it's enough to throw me into a system-destabilizing crisis, because NO NO NO I WANT TO GET OFF THIS RIDE, I WANT NO PART OF THESE PEOPLE'S MORAL SYSTEM, I FEEL UNCLEAN. it's a good way to make sure i will never, ever, ever trust someone again.

things that are Really Really Badger, off the top of my head (after the cut because Long and trauma talk):

[[MORE]]

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-i've always loved playing adoptable games, pet simulators, etc? any game with randomly generated characters that are Yours Now and a Community, in a deeply badgery way. including games where they can die (the satisfying part is making sure they don't). except that, no matter how much fun the gameplay is, if it gets to the point where they start feeling disposable, and the only way to really keep playing is to stop humanizing them, i lose interest. it's super fucking depressing. it feels like part of me dying inside a little. i don't like it at all.

-i've always been drawn to fandoms and roleplaying communities. i was fiercely loyal to, and proud of, my first rp community on dragoncave as a 13-year-old. when my abusive mom found out about it and completely isolated me for half a year, the promise of being able to make it back to them--just sneakier this time--kept me going; when i finally got back and the group had drifted apart in my absence, it.... was absolutely devastating. i never really recovered from it. even then, i spent years trying to get the group back together every now and then, until i finally gave up.

-i am always keenly, painfully aware of the life cycle of a community. every time i hear the sentiment 'you guys are all great and i love this group' my stomach drops, because i know it's only a matter of time before things go sour or the group dissolves. rp groups, skype chats/discord servers, fandoms, you name it, i am always bracing myself or staying away entirely to avoid the inevitable and it hurts. and it hurts to see people taking part in a community i don't dare be part of, which makes lurking in fandoms... really rough. frankly, it takes me a lot of courage every time i express my appreciation for the shc community because i've been burned so many times.

-on that note: i went through some really traumatic stuff at the end of 2020 that completely turned my life upside down, and i was doing bad until i stumbled across the shc community. the moment i started engaging, it was a huge boost to my mental health, and my ability to cope with circumstances under which i was about to break down spectacularly. and it has been ever since! contributing to The Group Project and seeing other folks being friendly with each other gives me the happy feelings.

-i used to go out of my way to build and run spaces, mainly fandom and rp spaces, and took a lot of pride in engineering them so that they Functioned Well. unfortunately it wore me the hell down over the years for Burnt Badger Reasons, and now i'm too jaded, bitter, and exhausted to give a shit about being a mod/community leader anymore because of it lmao

-among those burnt badger things i relate HARD to the Red Ledger narrative. hoo boy.

-i wish i could find it again, but there was an mlp comic i saw once which went into luna's observations of what each element of harmony Means. with the element of friendship, she says that twilight has a massive amount of love to give; right now it's all focused on celestia, but when she learns to expand it outward she'll have grown into her full potential as a person, and she'll change the world. that struck a chord with how i used to feel, hard, and it's really stuck with me ever since. (hello, unhealthy snake model)

-emphasis on 'used to feel,' lmao

-got super invested in a really toxic '''mental health''' community at a low point in my life; exploded HARD trying to help everyone i could; got into vicious, protracted fights with the shitty mods for years about the harmful way they ran their community until i finally managed to go 'fuck this it's not getting better' and leave.

-had to numb myself emotionally to the people around me for a long time once i really started learning about mental health and trauma stuff, because now i was seeing signs of their pain and baggage everywhere i looked, and i couldn't handle not being able to help.

-the imagery with which i think about my bird primary is overwhelmingly negative. whether it's my actual primary or a model, i uh. i feel like a healthy relationship to one's primary doesn't involve associating it with gore.

-i saw a conversation recently about how birds think of morality in terms of 'if you can, you should,' and how that's scary for badgers because their definition of 'can' involves destroying yourself for the sake of that 'should,' and... yeah, that's a mood. that's a BIG mood. thinking about bird primary stuff is hard--and i had to pick up my lion model to deal with it--because it's so easy for me to spiral into a self-shredding spiral of other people are counting on you to do the right thing, how dare you pull back for your own health and sanity. how dare you turn your back for even a minute. how dare you rest. the work is never done.

which is... a very exploded badger approach to exploded bird morality. whoops.

-fix-it and time travel fiction in which Everything Went Right This Time and It's Going to Be Okay are one of my very favorite self-indulgent fantasies. i will enjoy putting characters through the wringer in all kinds of creatively horrific ways which may or may not end on a downer note, certainly, i love that shit, but i will also 90% of the time have a backup version of the arc or dynamic that's softer and lighter and Actually Healthy This Time. it's the dichotomy there that really gets me tbh, a story where Everything Ends Happily by default will mmmaybe pull me in? but stories where there's the constant shadow of this could end horribly, it's supposed to end horribly, and we got a happy fucking ending anyway are just... that shit will make me cry, man.

it's also why i kind of really hate stable time loop stories where it initially looks like this is going to be The Good Timeline this time around, but OOPSIE everything went to shit anyway! we're right back where we started, just like it was meant to be all along! it's a tired cliche by this point and an unsatisfying one for me, and it makes me roll my eyes every time.

-this is relevant to the bird vs. badger because like... my gut instinct is to prioritize people over systems. when shit hits the fan, when someone's fallen into the machinery and is about to get hurt, i don't feel right about it if i just let it happen. i'll break the machinery if i have to to keep it away from them; i won't feel great about that, and it might cause problems, but fuck it, we'll figure it out later. throwing people into the gears of a system when i'm convinced it's the only option makes me feel Awful.

-related to the above, another trope that really speaks to me in fiction is when a character defies the rules of reality through sheer force of will. no, this is not happening, i don't give a shit what the limits are supposed to be. i refuse to let this be the way things are. (there's that lion model.)

-i've just kind of... always wanted to be an Everyone Badger. it makes me sad how much of that i've lost over the years as i've gotten more cynical, but it's what i wish i could be.

---

doubtless i'll think of more the moment i hit send, and there are just as many things about me that are Super Bird Primary, but like... mamma mia that's some spicy badger. the main thing stopping me is the Can't and Refuse to Dehumanize bit. i also... hm. i think i can function okay without a community? they just help a lot, and it sucks when i'm confronted with one i don't have a (stable) place in. any thoughts? is it possible for a bird system's foundation to run so deep that eventually it overrides the bird?

#shc #sortinghatchats #sorting hat chats #badger primary #bird primary #burned badger primary #exploded badger primary #exploded bird primary #burned houses #exploded houses #abuse cw #gore implied cw #moogle hat talks

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lizzaroona · 4 years

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On the Subject of Magicstone

Alright, so I'll admit- Ducktales 2017 is the first thing I've gotten into related to all the classic Disney characters. I haven't seen the old shows, I haven't read any of the old comics, I don't know much about the old lore (I'm gonna start investigating these things though haha)

I do know some basic facts, though. Anyone has heard that this is the best reincarnation and least toxic Daisy yet. But something I've also heard a lot about is Magicstone (Magica x Gladstone) and how people have very mixed feelings about it. Again, I don't know all of the facts, but from what I've heard, Magica only dates Gladstone to get at Scrooge, developed mutual feelings, but eventually, they broke up anyway. (Maybe. There's probably more to it, or different storylines, but that's what I heard from one biased source about the ship lmao)

I don't want to take a specific side on the ship, but if Magicstone happens in the reboot, or if they allude to it at all, here are some things that I would be really interested in seeing:

Them actually deciding they like each other for who they are, and they start dating, no strings attached. They both are caring and non-toxic towards each other.

Magica starts dating Gladstone to use him and get back at Scrooge, buy over time, develops genuine feelings. This could be interesting for a number of reasons; it would be cool to see Magica get a redemption arc and change herself for the better because she cares about Gladstone. Obviously she would keep her same basic character traits, and no character is perfect (Gladstone, for example, can be pretty selfish and self-centered at times). Also to see her soften for someone just like Lena did in s1. Lena was using Webby, but we all know how that turned out. It'd be an interesting path to see the character go down the same path Lena did. Magica reforms herself, and Magicstone stays together.

Magica... Doesn't reform herself. And before I go on, that's ok! It's fun to see villains go through a redemption arc but it's also refreshing to see villains go through zero change regarding their ideals. And they stay as villains. Some characters work better that way, anyway! Magica so far is (was) probably one of the most threatening villains on the show (I say was because she wasn't much of a threat in season two. But she still has the potential and capabilities to become threatening again.)

So she uses Gladstone to get back at Scrooge, and she's being very toxic towards Gladstone. And, poor Gladstone, but there's a high chance that no one has ever liked him for him. He probably hasn't had many friends or genuine relationships, because when people seem like they want to get close to him, chances are it's only because of his luck. So of course Gladstone is gonna cling tightly to a relationship where she doesn't seem to care about that. And he'd be right, to an extent. She'd only care about Scrooge. And because Gladstone is insecure, he'd be willing to look past the glaring toxicity in the relationship. But throughout the season, or maybe a certain big moment, will help Gladstone realize how toxic the relationship is, and there can be a scene where he breaks up with Magica. It'd be cool to see someone stand up to Magica, and DuckTales address toxic relationships, since they've already done so much family representation already. We've already seen toxic relationships in regards to Magica and Lena, but seeing it in a romantic relationship would be slightly different, and intriguing to see how it plays out.

A moment where Gladstone breaks up with Magica could be a huge turning moment for her character here as well. It can act as an analysis for her as a person and how she's toxic. Sure, she's a villain, but when we think of villains, we think of big, loud, evil people. But toxicity is a lot quieter than that. While writing this I'm thinking of Bojack Horseman, who was never trying to be evil or mean, but ended up toxic and harmful to the people around him nonetheless. Magica has been shown to be both a villain who wants to defeat the world's richest duck, and as a toxic individual, who has emotionally scarred many people she's come into contact with. If Gladstone were to break up with her, it could put her in her place, and cause her to start rethinking her choices and actions. Maybe not a full on redemption, but... Backing off a bit.

And maybe you're thinking, why Gladstone of all people? How would he be able to leave Magica speechless? We'll, either Gladstone's more scary angry than we think, or... It's a mixture of the two theories. Sure the first theory already kinda was that, but I didn't plan ahead on writing this so 😅. Anyway, this pathway could be "Magica uses him, grows to like him, they break up anyway" plotline, like the biased source said happened in the comics. And that way it could show how painful it can be to cut off from a toxic person, which would be even more maturity (not saying that's a bad thing!). I've dealt with toxic people in my life, and a lot of people don't mention that when you do have to inevitably cut yourself off from them, it's still painful. Gladstone and Magica may love each other in this circumstance, but they've got too much baggage, and they're not a good fit for each other... At least not yet. That can always change, but they choose to go their seperate ways for now, and this can spark Magica's road to a possible redemption.

Or, probably the most possible option: it doesn't happen. Maybe they make a reference to it, and they interact a couple times in The Phantom and The Sorceress, but that's about it. And that would be perfectly okay too! Because we honestly don't need a ship there. But I have faith in this DuckTales reboot; they've exceeded my expectations time and time again, and they have the capabilities to tell mature stories. And this could be another one, exploring toxic romantic relationships. Or, maybe so, they could do the opposite, and make a healthy version of Magicstone. After all, this show does have the healthiest version of Dondaisy ever seen yet!

I'm not sure what to expect from the upcoming episodes, and part of me doubts they'll have time for a Magicstone storyline amongst all the Fowl plotlines. And I personally don't need one! But it's still fun to theorize and wonder what might happen between them if Ducktales does go this route.

#ducktales #duck tales #ducktales 2017 #duck tales 2017 #dt17 #dt 2017 #dt2017 #ducktales lena #lena sabrewing #magicstone #ducktales comic #ducktales magica #magica de spell #ducktales gladstone #gladstone gander #ducktales scrooge #scrooge mcduck

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flying-elliska · 3 years

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The thing is everyone talks about conflict and being enemies and no one talks about the aftermath of it and what happens afterwards. How are they supposed to act around each other when they are both hurt. How will they begin to trust each other again for real this time and what is the appropriate period of time for them to stay apart before they realise it was all misunderstanding coz if things take too long to sort out then it gets boring. I was hoping if you have any advice about all these things and about aftermath of a conflict, also maybe about change in body language (coz they are in a situation where they have to see each other everyday) and/or if the conflict has any influence on the personal life of any of the character (I mean, I can't describe that due to the fight one of them is not eating properly or is staying up late overthinking) what are the things we need to show and what are the things that we should avoid? (Can you help me with this? Or do you know anyone who can help me or like can you tag someone who can answer this?)

hey ! thank you, this is such an interesting question ! here’s what I’m thinking about :

- you wrote in your first arc about having another conflict after they moved from enemies to friends, which is a fascinating moment for you to shift the relationship and show them managing to find a different way to solve the conflict between them now they’re friends, contrasting to how they did when they were enemies, and so you can really push their relationship to the next stage ; after all, successfully resolving a conflict can get people a lot closer and reveal a lot about who they are to each other/push them to see each other in a different light, and create a first “win” for their fledgling relationship

- so, for the reactions to the conflict, that of course depends a lot on your character’s personalities, what their conflict styles are, and how they react to each other. is one of them avoidant, starting to pretend not to care anymore, disengaging emotionally, not showing their emotions, becoming cold and indifferent, so that the other one has to realize they care too much not to go after them ? are they both very passive aggressive, making hurtful quips and trying to needle the other, so this might push them back into enemy territory, but after a while they realize they don’t actually want to go back to it ? is one of them going to start acting out, before realizing they’re actually being ridiculous ? is one of them too accommodating and tries to pretend nothing is going on, only for the other one to be hey wait a minute i messed up this is not okay you need to stand up for yourself more ? they might engage in a game of chicken trying to get the other to show they’re hurt first. That’s up for you to know, and the specifics depends a lot on this, on how long they can carry a grudge or ignore each other, etc. it just needs to match with the story you want to tell. If you have two very avoidant characters they might just ignore each other for months which might be kind of a drag on your pacing lmao

- So you need to figure out what each character’s emotional trajectory is. Because of course, fighting with someone who is starting to be a friend hurts a lot more, because you can feel foolish, paranoid, disappointed, etc. So it’s likely they will have a negative reaction first (because their friendship is not strong yet) depending on their character (anger, sadness, betrayal, depression, rage, self-directed loathing, annoyance, pessimism, paranoia, etc) and how this presses on their backstory issues (eg. they’ve always been an outcast and this is bringing back painful issues, or it hits on their insecurities so they’re going back to being an asshole, or they’re going to be in denial about it because they don’t want to be vulnerable, etc). The difference between this and the conflict in ‘enemy stage’ though, is that there is some good to fall back on. What you want is to find a good ‘turning point’ where they somehow manage to find their way back to each other and changes how they deal with the conflict. It can be something in their environment forcing them to work together, a coincidence, a plot thing, whatever you need basically ; and then something happens that shifts the emotional dynamic, pushing them to actually communicate this time around and try to make amends towards each other. It’s often a revelation about another character’s background that causes the other to shift how they see them and decide to be vulnerable in turn ; it can also be a character having a revelation on their own caused by this new separation, remembering the good times, followed by an act of service. A good example is Darcy’s letter in Pride and Prejudice ; they dislike each other at first but develop some chemistry and witty banter, but then she learns something about him that she doesn’t quite understand and that upsets her ; he proposes to her in the stupidest way possible and she rejects him ; they don’t talk to each other for a while but then Darcy writes her a letter explaining what actually happened in his past in a way that is focused not on his own feelings but on helping her and her family, so it’s very noble and it’s the start of them growing closer again. So often you want one of the characters to make the first step ; either because they’re a bit more mature or they realized that they wronged the other party more. Or sometimes it can just be something in a moment where they simultaneously shift, like they can be very angry, yelling at each other passionately, or trading mean barbs, and then somehow one makes a joke, or they both realize they’re being over the top, etc, and they burst into laughter and then talk it out, etc. Or it can be another character noticing how upset they are and pushing them to talk. In any case, the most important thing is for you to pinpoint that emotional transformation. Figure out what you want your characters to learn and what you want the reader to learn about your characters.

- The body language is also very interesting. Of course it depends on your character and on their character style. A character who is avoidant or has been traumatized by conflict before might seek to make themselves smaller, to avoid the other’s eyes, to disappear from the common settings more quickly, to avoid them altogether for spurious reasons, etc. A character who is very anxious might indeed develop insomnia, but you can also show that in smaller ways, biting nails or lips, fidgeting, scratching skin, having a trembling voice, becoming more clumsy, etc. A character with a more confrontational style might become louder, dress in bolder colors, get into the other character’s way more, try to piss them off, invade their personal space, steal their things, show off their successes, etc. A character who’s a bit more in denial might overcompensate trying to look their best, boasting about great things they’ve done with other friends, laughing too loud, trying too hard to look fine ; an angrier character might do these things out of spite to prove to the other they don’t need them. Another might try to prove they don’t care by trying to be as normal as possible but there might be very small clues they’re not fine, like they forget to do things they would normally do, they don’t look as invested in things anymore, etc. A character who is more emotional might look openly angry or sad, be more prone to tears and embarrassing themselves, having bursts of emotion, having to leave the room, etc.

So I would say there is no right/wrong way to do this, it’s all about being true to your characters. You want to avoid, I think, being too repetitive compared to how they used to behave when they were enemies so i think it’s important to highlight how they’re solving it differently this time ahead and really working for it/making an effort. I think you also don’t want to make any of them look like too much of an asshole compared to the other, things should remain balanced here. And indeed you don’t want this to drag on forever, you might want to have a small separation, long enough for them to become more aware of their feelings, but get them back together soon enough that the tension doesn’t disappear.

so yeah, i hope this helps at least a bit and gives you some inspiration ! if anybody has any further advice don’t hesitate to add it ! good luck !

#writing #writing advice #writing conflict #writebrl

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arlenianchronicles · 3 years

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Hi!! :D I really liked the last post about Fëanorians because I had trouble imagining their personality and this helped a lot. ^^ I would love to see your Nolofinwëan headcanons ❤❤

Hello again! I’m so happy you liked my Fëanorian headcanon post and found it helpful! :D I understand it can be tough to imagine character personalities when there’s not much of them; I still have trouble imagining some of the Fëanorians haha ^^;;

I have a clearer image of the Nolofinwëans, so I’m excited to go into them XDD I’ll admit I did some projecting onto Fingon especially, but it’s mostly me projecting one of my OC’s personality/backstory onto him too. Tbh, this is more of a sketch of how I imagine Fingon’s childhood played out, so be warned that this post is a long one. I should also warn y’all that my headcanons for these guys aren’t very happy ^^;; I’ll put in a content warning for mentions of bullying and emotional abuse (mostly caused by the Fëanorians).

If you don’t like these headcanons and they don’t help, that’s totally okay! Lots of people have their own interpretations of these characters, so I’m sure there’s some that are much happier than mine ^^;; I’ll put everything under the “keep reading” tab so you don’t have to read mine if you change your mind. And I’ll also bold the main names like in my previous post; I hope it helps for search purposes, just in case.

Let’s start with Fingolfin. As a child in Finwë’s house, living with Fëanor and Findis, I imagine that Fëanor bullied him a lot. Why? Because Fëanor saw him as a threat, given that Fingolfin is the first-born son of Indis. I think that Findis, and later Írimë, wasn’t viewed with much suspicion by Fëanor because they’re girls (and I even headcanon that Fëanor might’ve had a soft spot for them). And once Finarfin comes along, Fëanor sees him as a wimp, someone who can’t do much to stop him. So Fingolfin is the main target.

Now, to be clear, I sympathize very much with child Fëanor when he’s just lost his mother and his father marries a stranger. This Fëanor is likely more grown-up, though I’m not sure how much; I feel deep down that his actions would be akin to emotional abuse, but that’s a heavy term and I’m not sure if this is a good point in the tale to use it ^^;; So for now, we’ll stick with bullying. Once Fëanor’s a full-fledged adult, then I think it’d classify as abuse. Please feel free to give me advice or clarity, if you want!

So back to Fingolfin. Because of all this happening, I imagine he grows up with self-esteem issues and stress, and some anxiety on the side. He'd believe Fëanor and think that he's not good enough to be Finwë's son, etc. Finwë thinks that Fëanor can't be wrong in anything, so Fëanor must be right about Fingolfin. At the same time, he still loves Fëanor as his brother and wishes for a return of that love. It might stem from a desire to please Finwë (y’know, showing that they can be a real family and that Fingolfin’s making an effort), but also, I imagine he admires Fëanor's confidence in public situations – and especially now that Fingolfin lacks confidence and trust in himself.

Also, if you’re wondering about Finwë, he only scolds Fëanor when he thinks his son is being a bit too harsh, but doesn't do anything for the root of the problem (nor does he know about what goes on away from his sight). Given that Fëanor is his favourite son, I doubt he’d really see his son’s actions, and if he does, he’d be in denial about them.

Despite all this, I've always imagined that Fingolfin grew up with a desire to help others. He's good at diplomatic talk and politics, but he's not good at defending himself from Fëanor, even after he becomes an adult. Fortunately, he moves out once he's older, and being away from Fëanor allows for improvement.

And then he meets Anairë. I envision her as very loving and kind, and nurturing. She supports Fingolfin as he gains more self-confidence. I also headcanon that she wears a gold circlet in her hair at times, while Fingolfin wears a gold crown, and these both inspire Fingon to wear gold in his hair.

On that note, let's talk about Fingon. Essentially, his childhood is somewhat similar to Fingolfin's. However, there's now the added stress of being caught between Fëanor and Fingolfin's houses. He wants to make his father proud and uphold their family name, but that’s a lot for his young shoulders to handle (nor did Fingolfin and Anairë ever pressure him). I also imagine that Fingon, when he was very young, witnessed how badly Fëanor treats Fingolfin – perhaps at a family gathering when the others have gone somewhere else, and Fingon's waiting for his father, hiding behind a pillar or wall etc. It'd be frightening for young Fingon to witness that, seeing someone whom he loves and upholds as a figure of strength be hurt so much, and it would increase his fear of Fëanor too.

But, lo and behold, he becomes friends with Maedros. I'm still not sure how they met, but in any case, Fingon is glad for Maedros' kindness and admires his ability to shoulder leadership responsibilities near easily, not to mention his ease in a public crowd. Fingon ends up visiting Maedros at Fëanor's house, where Fëanor and his other sons are. You can probably imagine how that'd turn out.

Fëanor sees Fingolfin as a threat, so Fingon is also a threat by extension. I don't think Fëanor would treat Fingon with quite the same intensity, but it'd still be some form of emotional abuse. Fingon would be deeply affected by it; his own confidence would go down, and he’d think that he’s not worthy to be Fingolfin’s son or a prince of the Noldor. And let’s not get started on Fëanor’s sons (but yes, let’s).

As I mentioned in my Fëanorian headcanons post, his sons bully Fingon both out of jealousy (because Fingon is Maedros’ favourite) and anger and to get Fëanor’s approval. I imagine mainly Celegorm, Curufin, and Caranthir doing this; Amrod and Amras might take part at times (following their father and brothers’ example), but are also uncertain of whether it’s a good idea or not. Maglor probably turns a blind eye since he’s too busy perfecting his music.

Maedros would, of course, scold them for being harsh, but that doesn't solve the root of the problem. Nor does he know of how far back the hurt goes. And I think Fingon would be afraid to tell him of what’s really going on because Maedros loves his family a lot. Fingon fears that, if he told him, Maedros would get upset and possibly resent Fingon, and he might not want to be friends anymore. And Fingon doesn't want that. All in all, it’s all very emotionally exhausting, and I think that Fingon would have some crying sessions to himself, since those can be quite cathartic.

Fingolfin doesn't know what’s going on at first either; I think he’d expect that Fingon would be safe with Maedros. But then he ends up recognizing Fingon’s behaviour and how similar it is to what he had, and he asks Fingon about it one day, and Fingon breaks down and tells him everything. Fingolfin comforts him, of course, and tells him not to listen to what the Fëanorians say, and even shares his own experiences so that Fingon knows he isn’t alone. And Fingon doesn't feel alone anymore. Fingolfin becomes his greatest supporter hereafter.

But boy oh boy, now Fingolfin is furious. This is when I imagine his ferocity comes up; he goes to Fëanor and confronts him about it, and Fëanor is startled by Fingolfin’s fierce side since he’s never seen it before. You can think of it as something similar to my painting of angry Fingon, if you like XDD And this is where Fingolfin shows that he is capable of defending others, if not himself. He is fully prepared to protect Fingon however he needs to. And after this, I think Maedros would have to come over to Fingolfin’s house, since Fingon isn’t about to go over to Fëanor’s house and be bullied more (nor would Fingolfin allow it).

(As a side note, Fingolfin showing his fierce side doesn't really help with regard to Fëanor’s suspicions. In fact, it may even increase them a bit, if not a lot.)

Like Fingolfin, I headcanon that Fingon grows up to be good at diplomacy and stuff, but he is also kind and compassionate, quiet and solemn. And also aroace, since I go with the version of canon where he doesn't marry and has no children. I’m sure he’d be a good partner, but all this in consideration, he’d worry about not being good enough as a father, and he wouldn’t want to put his child through the same pain that he and Fingolfin went through. His family’s well-being is his priority, and he loves them dearly. And on that note (if y’all are still reading this ^^;;), let’s bring in Turgon and Aredhel :D

So Fingon has some siblings now! He loves them so much he thinks his heart will burst. It’s only until there’s a family gathering, and Turgon encounters Fëanor’s sons, that Fingon realizes his duty to protect his little brother from suffering the same hurts as Fingon did. In fact, he gets angry when one of the Fëanorians – Celegorm still seems the likeliest one to me, or Curufin loll – insult Turgon, or something like that. And just like Fingolfin, one of Fingon’s strengths is to defend others (even if he’s still not confident enough to defend himself). Because of Fingon’s protection and the combined family nurturing, Turgon grows up stern and confident and with a firm dislike of the Fëanorians. As canon says, he becomes good friends with Finrod (gosh I haven’t even started thinking of headcanons for the Arafinweans aaahhh). I also think of him as a very good architect with excellent visualization. And, of course, he loves his elder brother like no other :’’’)

Aredhel, on the other hand, befriends Celegorm and Curufin (as said in the Silmarillion). How did that happen, you ask? I’m not so sure myself lmao The best idea I have so far is that the two brothers thought her fierceness and spunk impressive for a Nolofinwëan, and they found that she was more risk-taking and no-nonsense than they gave her credit for. As for her, she wants to explore and hunt and be a badass, and it seems that she can learn to do some, if not all, of those things by being with them. And yet I also headcanon that Aredhel adores Fingon as her older brother, so how does this dynamic play out?

An example I have is a little scenario that I thought up; in her youth, Aredhel overhears Celegorm talking crap about Fingon, and gets angry with him. She says she’ll never speak to him again unless he apologizes, but he’s not about to. So she goes to Fingon and tells him. Essentially, he says that he’ll be alright and she doesn't have to worry (he’s not brave enough to defend himself, but he’ll defend her if Celegorm spoke ill of her). Eventually, Celegorm does apologize to Aredhel about it, but it’s not genuine (something like those “I’m sorry I made you feel that way” apologies). She accepts the apology anyway, even though he technically didn’t do her any wrong. This is because she genuinely wants to be his friend, and if she did notice that it wasn’t genuine, she denies it because she wants to believe it was.

I think she becomes more aware of what’s going on between Fëanor and Fingolfin’s houses, but she still wants to keep the connection between Fëanor’s sons and herself. I haven’t really developed that far into her relation with them yet, just her and her family ^^;;

Finally we have Argon. He’s the youngest of the siblings, and at this point there’d be an age gap between him and Fingon. Since Fingon’s settling in his duty as a prince and doing princely things (alongside spending time with his friends and all), I’d imagine he’s not able to keep as good an eye on Argon as he did with Turgon and Aredhel. Nevertheless, he forms the closest bond with Argon due to the shared emotional exhaustion they experience; I headcanon that Argon is deeply affected by the tensions and stress between Fëanor and Fingolfin’s house, and it takes a toll on him as a young child. So he gets some social anxiety and is afraid of large crowds, but when big brother Fingon is with him, he feels a little braver.

And there we are! My headcanons for the Nolofinwëans, as requested :) I might’ve forgotten something, but for now, this is all I have. Thank you for reading this far, if you did!! It was super long, and I’m sorry to have bored anyone ^^;; I actually thought about writing a fic of Fingon’s childhood, but I doubt that’ll happen anytime soon hahaa Thanks again for messaging me anon, and I hope you have a good day/night! <333

#asks #anon asks #house of fingolfin #meta #nolofinweans #once again i worked on my reply while at work loll #man this was a lot of writing #feels good to get it all down on a docs tho #cuz before this it was all in my head #and in various tags scattered across my art of the nolofinweans XDD #some other headcanons include #fingon doing his siblings hair with his gold ribbons at one point or another #weaving argon's hair with his gold accessories helps to calm argon down #aredhel likes to wear her hair long #but she loves it when fingon gives her a little makeover #and turgon is content in any case hahaa

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