Bruv, tell me we still know how to speak of heroes! In the old days, the bold days, everyone knew what real men were: a bloke could bootstrap his way out of a basement with no blazon to his blood, beat down every bench-brother who stepped up to bat, splinter-swing his way to glory till every mouth north and south of the whale-road carried his name. He rode hard, they’d say! He stayed thirsty! That was a man! That was a good man.
“That’s all very well,” says the lord of the hall, “but who the hell are you?”
Every head in the hall turns to look at the stranger in their midst, the lad with the borrowed sword and the burnished skin. His armour’s too big, his helm don’t fit right, yet there’s a history of violence tattooed in the scars on his knuckles. He grins like he’s got God’s candle gripped between his teeth.
“The name’s Charles, son of Rowland, and the party don’t start till I walk in.”
-laiqualaurelote, still my heartbeat with your bare hands
I am constantly in awe of @laiqualaurelote's knowledge of literature and history and I will bow at the feet of any Medievalist, much less one who can incorporate Kesha references into their stories. This moodboard is my small tribute to laiqua's lovely fic, "still my heartbeat with your bare hands," which y'all can find here!
this is @jomiddlemarch's list. i’m the annoying friend who will create a masterlist of a fanfic series you’ve written for The Last of Us (TV) and Ted Lasso. sorry not sorry. however, i will genuinely apologize for the amateur-hour board i assembled.
@jomiddlemarch has written for multiple fandoms - she has 800+ works on AO3. she writes great fics as quickly as i make myself coffee every morning. like how and what the fuck. (yes I'm also the roy kent of every friend group). she’s fucking brilliant and I felt compelled to catalog.
this loose fit crossover series reads a bit better on her AO3.
summary: angsty slow-burn romance between Joel Miller and Grace Yang (OFC), Jackson’s town physician. Ted Lasso AU crossover with Ted and Beard. Ellie, Maria, Tommy are here. In this house we love Tess. Other original characters include Lauren (Grace’s friend) and Kian (Grace’s partner while she was at the Seattle QZ). Set between seasons 1 and 2. Ted bakes, Beard philosophizes. Joel and Grace mostly banter and occasionally get down and dirty. Ellie is Ellie.
main pairing: Joel Miller x Grace (OFC)
ratings: mostly teen or mature (3 fics are slightly explicit)
warnings/notes: grief, mourning, trauma, sexual tension, post-apocalyptic domestic life, medical stuff, mentions of food, references to music and books, oral sex and rough sex (slightly explicit), fluff, coffee shop AU (i know, but trust me it works), airport AU, one fic alludes to miscarriage, profanity
loose (head)canon for the OFC: Grace is stubborn, weary, does no harm but takes no shit. Firefly-adjacent during her time in the Seattle QZ. She’d finished her medical training at the time of the outbreak, so she’d be in her 40s in Wyoming. (I initially chose Constance Wu as a visual stand-in cause she has a great resting bitch face, IRL she hails from Virginia, and I thought that Southern connection would be nice for Texan Joel Miller but out of chaos changed my mind and opted for Canadian actress Grace Park as a face-claim - same name a coincidence - since she’s older, about the same age as Pedro, and who among us didn’t love her in Battlestar Galactica? So say we all)
word counts: range from 1.5K-3K
links to the vignettes/chapters below the cut - some of the AO3 stories are accessible if you’re a registered user. these do not need to be read in order.
my happiness depends on you - AO3 - Grace and Joel search for supplies
that might as well be the first sign of the apocalypse - AO3 Tumblr - intro to Ted and Beard in the Jackson universe
your voice is soft like summer rain - AO3 - postcoital angst
y’all know it tastes like garbage? - AO3 - Tumblr - @jomiddlemarch hits it out of the park with Ted’s voice in this fic - all the fucking kudos for this one
good French cooking cannot be produced by a zombie cook - AO3 - Tumblr - Ellie cooks for Joel and Grace, chaos ensues
but I could never love again - AO3 - Joel and Grace in a bathtub
I walk the line - AO3 - Tumblr - Joel and Grace in the wilderness
you turned my whole world upside down - AO3 - Tumblr - Joel, Grace, and Ellie banter over beverages
what I like to call making muffins of us - AO3 - Tumblr - the coffee shop AU in which Tess conspires with Grace
turn and face the strange changes - AO3 - Tumblr - Beard speaks, and a fun and respectful nod to a brilliant fic by @laiqualaurelote
kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths - AO3 - Tumblr - Grace fixes Joel’s dislocated shoulder. They miss Ted and Beard’s trivia night.
where might I be, if I were not here? - AO3 - Tumblr - Joel takes care of Grace, hurt/comfort with a side of oh-wait-the-one-bed trope
because you saw me when I was invisible - AO3 - Tumblr - no outbreak hospital AU, Joel and Grace fake-date
it is love, not reason, that is stronger than death - AO3 - Tumblr - tfw fucking is a coping mechanism for grief (smut)
but ah, united, what reverse we have! - AO3 - Tumblr - fluff and grumpiness - Joel, Grace, Beard, and Ted play charades
and there’s no way back to where we’ve been - AO3 - Tumblr - airport AU - pre and post outbreak. Did Joel and Grace run into one another during another lifetime?
only true things even when she wasn’t quite sure what was true - AO3 - Tumblr - oral sex (get it, Grace) (smut)
on the cold earth under the cold sky - AO3 - Tumblr - illness and sadness. Joel is a kind partner. Quick mention of Sarah’s mom.
time, doing this to me, may alter too - AO3- Tumblr - when two middle aged folks engage in shower sex - tw: low back pain (smut)
there are shadows because there are hills - AO3 - Tumblr - bittersweet angst, probably the most authentic and cathartic read you’ll have on this hellsite about these heavy topics (miscarriage, life shit). Ellie asks Grace questions. Grace doesn’t tell Joel.
but simply an irrevocable condition - AO3 - Tumblr - domestic lowkeyness with the whole gang: Joel, Grace, Ellie, Tommy, Maria, Ted, Beard
they do become more real - AO3 - Joel as a dad. Comforting Ellie, referencing Sarah's mom.
y’all ever think about how the media judged rebecca and so she expected trent to eviscerate ted in his profile piece - she wanted him to be judgmental, but trent is curious instead, not least of which is because it’s his job but because ted inspired that - “you really mean that, don’t you?” trent was the first major domino to fall by siding with him in his article because he’s curious and not judgmental
