- Powder: If you think there's no hope for the world, why go on? I mean, don’t you want to try?
Carl: You’re seeing the world for the first time, Powder. You understand? You keep goin' for your people. Your family. That’s it.Powder: But I’m not family.
Carl: No. You’re cargo. But I made a promise to Belshaw so I could save mine.
Flesh Wounds
is an Arcane, The Last of Us, and The Walking Dead crossover by classifiedgenomes.
Flesh Wounds provides examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: Carl... and Powder.
- Action Girl: Powder, with relative glee.
- Accent Interest: A few characters comment on Powder's Cajun accent.
- Adoptive Peer Parent: Carl and Powder have a nine-year age gap, but consider each other parent and child.
- Adult Hater: Powder does not seem fond of adults.
- After the End: The fanfic takes place years after the apocalypse has started.
- Animal Metaphor: Powder and Carl have a discussion about dragons, in which Carl compares the people he knows to them.
- Arc Words: For Carl, it's If I look back I am lost.
- Awesome McCoolname: Powder Stormborn.
- Apron Matron: Lyla to Powder.
- Back for the Finale: Lyla & Ella.
- Badass Adorable: Powder grows into a capable person further into the story, but remains playful and curious.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Carl.
- Born During a Storm: How Powder chooses the last name she wants to use. Discussed: Carl was born during a thunderstorm, Powder during a blizzard/snowstorm.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: Why the hell would Lyla let Carl, who she knows has bonded with Powder and has Shimmer in his body, walk away with just one guard to make sure he actually leaves?
- Brutal Brawl: There are several hand-to-hand fight scenes, especially further into the story.
- Bungled Suicide: Carl intended to kill himself exactly prior to the prologue, but doesn't.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Powder and Carl engage in this early in Chapter Ten, when trying to fight off the Hospital Raiders/Silco's men.
- Changed My Mind, Kid: Carl decides to finish the journey with Powder instead of letting Cassandra take him.
- Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: Not the exact words used, but Silco tries to bait Powder/"Jinx" out so he can kill her.
- Children Forced to Kill: By the end of the story, Powder has quite a few kills under her belt.
- Crossover: Characters from both Arcane & The Walking Dead, in a story that takes place in a world that is a fusion of The Walking Dead & The Last of Us. See Fusion Fic below.
- Death by Adaptation: Neither Vi nor Ekko is dead in Arcane or League of Legends. Here, they are.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Carl reminisces about Lori quite a few times and only talks about his father when pressed.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The main characters are put through hell, but get an ending where they both get to live freely.
- Escaped from the Lab: Both Carl & Powder. Ties into Secret Project Refugee Family.
- Establishing Character Moment: Carl's first scene is him continuing to push on and survive after overcoming his infection. Powder's first scene is her trying to escape from the CRM's compound.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: After being Shimmered, streaks of pink start to grow in Carl's hair. He asks Powder to cut it before they reach their final destination.
- False Innocence Trick: How Powder tricks Silco into getting close to her.
- Family Eye Resemblance: Adoptive example. At the very end of the finale, Carl and Powder both have pink eyes.
- Fan of the Past: Both Carl and Powder enjoy the X-Men comics.
- Fan Verse: There are several entries into this universe.
- Faux Affably Evil: Silco.
- Fusion Fic: The world is a fusion of The Walking Dead & The Last of Us.
- Good Is Not Soft: Carl is not the boy he was in The Walking Dead. Powder is not the girl she was in Act 1 of Arcane.
- Hair-Contrast Duo: By the end of the story, Powder is blue to Carl's pink.
- Handicapped Badass: Carl is missing an eye and doing quite well for himself. Powder is implied to have brain damage from at least one concussion.
- Human Pincushion: Carl in Chapter 10.
- I Am Not My Father: Carl wants to step out of the shadow cast by his father, Rick Grimes.
- I Can't Do This by Myself: Played straight in Chapter 6 by Carl, again in Chapter 10 by Powder.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Most chapters, with the exception of 11 and 12, are one word and connect to something inside the chapter.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Silco and his people.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Carl by rebar in Chapter 10, after falling off a balcony.
- Jade-Colored Glasses: Powder, and to a lesser extent Carl.
- Kill the Ones You Love: Benzo has to put down an Infected Ekko, his son, to stop him from trying to kill Powder. Powder ends up with a bite on her hand to remember Ekko by.
- Morality Pet: For Carl, it's Powder with increasing intensity. Downplayed in that Carl isn't a villain.
- Meaningful Name: Powder could refer to powder blue, the color of Powder's hair, powder keg, a barrel of gunpowder, or a powder monkey, someone who works with explosives.
- Nerves of Steel: Powder is able to make a plan and hunt down Silco when she escapes her confines with relative swiftness. It works, too.
- Not Quite Dead: Actually, quite very dead for both Carl and Powder. Shimmer brings them back.
- Papa Wolf: Carl to Powder, and Benzo to Ekko.
- Patchwork Fic: While no characters from The Last of Us appear, characters from Arcane and The Walking Dead are plentiful.
- Psycho Serum: Shimmer. It gives both Carl and Powder thick purple nosebleeds and gives them both purple/pink eyes.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "You'd just come after us."
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: Powder and Carl can't go back to who they were before the story, and their lives will be changed forever. This doesn't seem like a bad thing.
- Reclaimed by Nature: All cities the main characters come across are described this way.
- Relationship Reveal: Through most of the story, Powder believes that Judith is Carl's daughter. She's actually his sister.
- Revenge Before Reason: Carl slaughters a building of CRM soldiers.
- Shed the Family Name: Inverted in that Carl changes his name to Stormborn to match with Powder. Lampshaded later on with Morgan. Justified in that Carl has a desire to distance himself from his father.
- Super-Senses: Shimmer seems to add more sensitivities to smell, hearing, and sight on top of the ones provided by being immune.
- The Big Guy: Benzo.
- The Immune: Both main characters.
- Time Skip: Several, with varying lengths.
- Weapon-Based Characterization: Carl takes Benzo's bow and uses it for the remainder of the story, which symbolizes Carl's emotional growth as a person.
- Wham Episode: Chapter Ten has Powder meeting Silco, obtaining Shimmer, giving Carl that Shimmer, and then being captured by Silco after suffering another head injury.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Rick about Powder to Sevika and Jadis.
- Worst Aid: Powder is not a medical professional.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Lyla to Carl.
- Youngest Child Wins: Vi, Claggor, and Mylo are confirmed to be dead, which leaves Powder as the sole survivor of her siblings.
- Zombie Infectee: Both of the main characters, as well as Powder's siblings.
