#and i just generally have a lot to say about this piece but

[joojconverts]

4T3 Conversion of HistoricalSimsLife's CC Catalogue

So… here we are, haha! This is the grand project I’ve been working on for about three months now! I made a promise to all of you, so I’m here not only to fulfill that promise and make a bit of a comeback but also to celebrate reaching the incredible milestone of 3,000 FOLLOWERS!!!

I’m so grateful to all of you for everything that has happened since I joined this community, it’s one of the little shining points of my life, lol. So, let me give back by bringing your sims MORE THAN 150 pieces of CC, including clothes, hairstyles, accessories, and buy mode objects!

You’ve probably already guessed that I have A LOT to say about this set, so please, follow me after the cut! 💖

Hope you like it, enjoy!

In this compilation are included sets, mini-sets and standalone pieces that the original creator made! Posepacks, patterns, mods, and pieces categorized as “modern” are not included! HistoricalSimsLife has a lot of 3T4 conversions, and naturally they're also not included EXCEPT for the ones that are mesh edits (e.g. here and here)! TSM to 4 conversions are also not included, as you can find every item converted to TS3 here by votenga! I also re-converted CC that I had previously converted before, such as the printing press set and the dandy suit!

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I'll link the CC just so you know what I'm talking about!

Known Problems:

Most of the time the sleeping animation that comes with the One With Nature mod looks off when making your sim sleep under the prehistoric lean-to shelter. I'm not sure why but instead of sleeping horizontally they sleep vertically, so they clip with the branches that are on the floor. Two times while I was testing they slept horizontally tho, so I'm not sure if I can fix it. Sorry!!

The drawer (chest) of the Kativip Library set doesn't have an animation!

The telescope's eyepiece looks a bit off when a sim is using it. The way the mesh is made is very different from ts3's telescopes, and it would be quite hard to make it looks seamless and also it wouldn't look good, as ts3's telescopes all look kinda silly imo hahah. Hope you don't mind it very much!

The celtic cape might clip depending on the clothes being used and the animation being played!

The round weave rug of the Rustic Living Set generates some white lines when zooming really far out. I thought it was UV map, but I tweaked it and they're still showing up. It's only apparent if you look closely tho!

LIGHTING GLITCHES ONLY APPEAR ON CAS!

* Note that teens and elders have neck gaps. This is sadly the price for having them available! For teens, try using this and this slider by gruesim!

Please let me know if you find any problems!

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ALL OG CREDITS GO T​O @historicalsimslife, Kativip and EA/Maxis! IT'S NOT MY MESHES, AND IT’S NOT MY TEXTURES, I JUST CONVERTED THEM TO THE SIMS 3!

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Buckle up now...

NOTES & INFO:

The whole catalogue is quite low-poly and gameplay friendly, so don’t worry about that!

The whole catalogue is categorized into folders once you extract the zip, so you can pick and choose if you're playing in a specific era!

The buy mode items have collection files so you can find them a lot easier (except for the crib, the map painting and the aztek sink)! Just put them inside your "collections" folder in ts3's documents folder!

I highly recommend using the One With Nature mod by @spheresims while using the prehistoric collection!

The printing press letter plate works as a functional computer, and it's categorized as so!

The printing press desk and chair both have 4 matching presets! They're all different wood presets!

The hollow food storage works as a functional fridge for your prehistoric sims!

The Pile of Rocks cave works as, you guessed it, a cave! Actually no lol, it works as a tent, and your sims can sleep inside! It also has 5 presets, all stone textures, first one is an overlay, the rest is recolorable!

The sleeping underlay works as a sleeping bag! It has 2 recolorable presets!

The Skyrim lean-to has 2 presets! First one has an overlay texture, second one is recolorable!

The prehistoric lean-to shelter has 7 presets. The last one (fur) is recolorable, the others are overlays!

The rustic living set has two bed frames (single and double bed) and two matresses! All you need to do is to put the bed frame first, and then the matress on top of it, now you have two separate objects that can be customized!

The weave rug has 6 recolorable presets!

The round weave rug has 7 presets, and they're all combinations of recolorable and overlayed parts!

Both love seats and both bed frames of the rustic living set have 3 presets, different types of wood! Not recolorable.

The matresses also have 3 presets, they're combinations of overlayed and recolorable parts!

The old map painting has 4 non-recolorable presets!

The aztek sink has 4 presets, and they're combinations of overlayed and recolorables parts except for the last one! It also works as a functional sink!

The two empty boockases of the Katvip library set work as displays, so there are many slots for you to put decor on!

All hats/caps are hat-slider compatible and unissex!

The Dandy Lady hat (renamed it from ts3's hairstyle) has 3 different versions: One with feathers (that I made), one without them, and one without feathers nor decorations (renamed as Gone to Riding Hat)! You need to have V1 installed for the textures of the other two to show up, as they're linked!

The maid dress has 4 different versions (i know the post says 3 but it's 4 lol), as you can see on the preview! They work just like the Dandy Lady hat, above!

The Pirate Dress has an overlay you can find in accessories! Using it with the outfit you can recolor the belt and the buckle! If you don't use the accessory, those parts will just be a usual overlay texture!

You need to use a no feet mesh to use the Boy's 1700s Frock Coat, you can find one here!

The Boy's 1700s Frock Coat has has an overlay accessory, same thing as the Pirate Dress! With it you can recolor the belt, the pockets and the buckle!

The Edwardian Tea In The Garden dress has 6 presets, 5 of them are floral overlays, and the last one is a solid version.

The Regency Morning Dress has 11 presets. First one is a solid version, the last four are patterned overlays, and the rest are recolorable patterns.

The Ester Wedding Dress has 4 recolorable presets, the patterns of the bodice change!

The Simply Rococo Dress has 15 totally recolorable patterned presets!

The Embroided Rococo Dress has 2 presets: the first one is the original texture as an overlay, and the second one is a recolorable version of it (though not as good, since it's a very complicated texture).

The Vintage Men's Exercise Outfit has 6 patterned presets, all recolorable!

The Edwardian Men's underwear and the Edwardian Men's nightgown both have 2 presets, one striped and one solid. Both recolorable!

The Dandy Suit has 9 presets, first one's solid and the rest are patterned, all recolorable!

The Celtic Warrior Outfit has 2 presets. In the first one the plaid is an overlay, original texture. In the second one you can change it however you want using CASt!

The Bodacious Boy Suit has 2 presets! The mask is different, so you can recolour different parts!

The Vintage Girl's Dress With Bows has 8 presets, one of them is a solid version, another one is a recolorable patterned preset, and the rest are patterned overlays!

The Colonial Living Girl's Dress has 5 presets, last one is a solid recolorable version, and the rest are patterned overlays!

The Victorian Tweed Dress Top has 6 presets. The last one is a totally recolorable preset, the other 5 are overlay presets!

The Celtic Dress Top has 2 presets. First one is a long sleeved version, and the second is a vest like top with long sleeved white shirt underneath. Both recolorable!

The Victorian Tweed Dress Skirt has 6 presets, same thing as the top!

The Celtic Dress Skirt has 2 presets. First one has an apron with it, and the second one doesn't! Both recolorable.

I think that’s all haha! Now to the download! <3

G-Drive |  Dropbox

☕  buy me a coffee or become a patron!

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Credits & Special Thanks:

@historicalsimslife, Kativip and EA/Maxis for all the meshes and textures! Check out the full catalogue here!

Thank you @deniisu-sims, @suteflower, @sideshowsnob and @twinsimming for the general support (and help, where needed lol) when creating this collection!

💖 @eternalccfinds @katsujiiccfinds @sisilou @darkccfinds @xto3conversionsfinds @wanderingsimsfinds

[cutehoons02]

Dark Seduction

*pairing: boxer spiderman-venom Jay x radio university Girl

*trope: roomates to enemies to lovers

*synopsis: What would happen if your roommate who doesn't like you told you that you're too curious and nosy about always talking about this vigilante with the nickname of Black Spiderman-Venom on university radio? Doing 2+2 with all the clues that Jay left you understood that he was the vigilante of the city but you discovered him in an unexpected way with the personality of Jay but also the mysterious and sneaky Venom

*tags: A lot of tension, they love to tease each other, Jay is the eggermente arrogant at the beginning of the story, possessing, protecting, body shaping in Spiderman-Venon, tentacles, unprotected sex (don’t horny ppl) masturbation (f.receives) kisses, sucking, touching, licking, curiosity, white lies.

6.1k (🕷️) (English is not my native language)

The University radio was your kingdom. From eight o'clock in the morning, your voice filled campus frequencies, informing and entertaining sleepless students with your brilliant spirit and sharp tongue.

"Good morning to all listeners! Here is your favorite student radio to speak to you, the voice of the University of Seoul, and today we talk about him... the mysterious vigilante who is making the news crazy. He wears a black suit, moves in the shadows, and helps people but... let’s face it, he's not exactly the classic hero. Some say that he is a savior, like all the people he is saving. Like the little girl who was saved while a deranged man was kidnapping her and others that he is a monster. What do you think?" said pausing and announcing the new comeback of a K-pop band.

Across the glass, in the small waiting room of the radio, Jake and Sunghoon sat on a crumpled couch, listening to you with funny smiles. They both had coffee in their hands and backpacks lying next to them, waiting for the lessons to start later.

'Again with this story?' Sunghoon snorted, stretching. 'Maybe it’s just a mockingman who dresses up to avoid getting caught.'

-Or maybe it’s a real anti-hero! - Jake said, giving you a fun look. -Like... Batman but even darker.-

You smiled, swiping your finger on the keyboard as you read the live comments. "I think it’s hiding something big. What if it was someone we know or who goes to the same university as us?" you asked with a flash of curiosity in your eyes.

Jake and Sunghoon exchanged a quick, understated glance. They looked like they knew more than they wanted to admit and certainly did not want to be discovered by anyone that they were hiding a secret even bigger than themselves.

-Hey, stop making a thousand theories of the plot and then who knows, it could be anyone...- said Jake with a fake innocent air to misdirect the conversation

'Yep, it could be anyone,' added Sunghoon, shrugging.

"But I would pay gold to see it live, I would like too much to see those tentacles and also how he shoots the webs from his hands," you said as you saw the two guys not looking at your face anymore.

"You two are too suspicious. Don’t you know him? Or that you saw him in action? You stepped forward, narrowing your eyes. But before they could answer, the broadcast timer told them that the next song had to start. "And now, folks, I leave you with a piece that has shaped generations as well as Thriller by Michael Jackson. Stay with us!"

You press the button to start the song, then you shoot your fingers towards your roommates. "Okay, now you’re talking. What are you hiding? Have you ever seen him live?"

Jake chuckled and took a sip of his coffee. -Come on, don’t be a detective. Simply, maybe this guy has his reasons for doing what he does and I think that if you saw him live on one side you would be happy because it would save your life but on the other hand according to me you would be afraid if you found him in front of you with all his tentacles and with his Hands that shoot webs- and he laughed at Spiderman’s gesture

You looked at them suspiciously but at the same time you laughed to see Jake so happy, you were ready to press them again, but just then the door of the radio studio opened with a squeak.

Jay made his entrance as if he were the protagonist of a movie, with ripped jeans, and black leather jacket, the usual guitar strap, and the lethal look that could make you shiver and infuriate at the same time.

«Interesting conversation yours,» said Jay with a low voice and loaded with sarcasm, crossing his arms.

«I hope I have not interrupted anything important»

"Oh, nothing," you replied, approaching him with defiance. "Just speculations about our mysterious vigilante friend. Who knows, maybe you know him too. Have you seen how everyone is talking about it?"

Jay tilted his head to the side with an almost amused smile. «I? I have no time for this bullshit, I’m too busy with music and that vigilante should be more careful because every time I hear the news, the police are getting closer to finding his identity» And with that phrase he took your coffee and drank it all and went away throwing you a glance that made you shiver.

That night, outside of Seoul, the storm was raging. You were alone in the house: Jake, Sunghoon, and Jay had all.

Jake was definitely at the university football training, Sunghoon would have been around the city shooting as a model and well Jay would have been in his music office composing music for some record company. The shared apartment with those 3 guys was always full of screaming, laughing and people but that night you were at home alone and you sincerely missed spending time with them; It was for weeks that in the evening they came back late or only one of them returned and you understood that life as a student and worker was different from that of the high school but sometimes you just wanted to spend time with them like in the old days.

You sat on the couch with your phone in hand, carelessly scrolling through Twitter until a trending video caught your attention. A boy along with the vigilante or "Black Spider-Venom" so named by everyone on social media was wearing his black suit and he was saving people in a bank from robbers: he was blocking a car on the way, He stopped a criminal with dark tentacles and protected a woman with a black barrier of spider webs.

Stay glued to the screen for almost an hour, reading comments and police statements.

The police had been saying for days that the superhero or "monster" was between 20 and 25 because they found a backpack with university books but the fatalities were books used in all universities of the state and a snack boy who did sports. So you thought that this guy had two personalities: one was the student who could be anyone and the other a superhero who tried in every way to protect people but also had a dark side as well as the emphasis from Venom and Spiderman.

A deafening thunder shook the house, and you clenched your phone. Then you heard the front door open.

Jay was there, soaking wet, his hair stuck to his forehead, his face marked by fine scratches. You knew that Jay was a boxing athlete and that he trained meticulously but it was strange to see him with scratches and split lips, you tried to talk to him but he closed the door in the face of the bath and sighed and waited anxiously. When he came out, he was wearing a jumpsuit, an old 80’s band shirt that he loved so much and his hair was still wet. He made to go to his room, but you blocked the way.

Jay looked at you with a funny grin. «Problems?»

"What’s the matter?" you asked, crossing your arms, his face was full of small scratches, his lip slightly split and covered with blood and also his hands were bruised

He shrugged his shoulders. «I slipped while boxing, you know it’s not a princess sport and sooner or later you can get hurt and I took a good punch while I was training because I wasn’t careful.» said in a too-serious tone.

You sighed, holding your arms. "I don’t believe you, I know how boxing works, and ok the lip can also stand but those scratches?"

Jay laughed softly, coming one step closer. He was towering over you, the height difference was embarrassing. It was enough of a gesture to grab and push you against the wall.

Why did you always have to stick your nose everywhere? Thought Jay, irritated. He could not stand your insistence, your way of talking to him as if you could decipher every thought.

But beneath his irritation was something else. Something darker. Venom whispered inside him, hungry.

It is small... fragile. We could break it or make it our own.

Jay chased away those thoughts with a deep breath, but the voice inside him laughed. He made to open the door of his room, but you grabbed his wrist and dragged him into your room. "Sit down. I will take care of you."

He nodded, looking at you with a shadow of amusement. But inside him, Venom was agitating. How nice it would be to see her below us, to hear her tremble, fill her until she can’t think of anything but us...

Jay clenched his jaw. Fucking symbiote...he thought as he saw you go back to your room with the first aid kit you used to disinfect the beatings that Jake was getting, as well as your cousin at soccer or perhaps in some other way but did not deny that the idea was damn inviting to have you all for himself as he so desired.

You took the first-aid kit and sat next to Jay. He looked at you with his usual funny grin, the air of not taking anything seriously, but there was something strange in his eyes. Something darker. Deeper.

You grabbed his hands to disinfect them and only then did you notice how big they were compared to yours. Your little fingers almost seemed to get lost against his venous hands, with corns here and there for the hours spent playing guitar.

"Wow, you have huge hands," you murmured distressingly, focused on passing the cotton ball over the bruises.

Jay laughed softly, tilting his head. «And you are really small.»

You looked up at him, crossing his dark eyes staring at you with something undefined.

He was teasing you, as usual, but this time there was a different intensity in his words. He seemed... amused, yes, but also curious.

Jay wondered how it was possible that someone like you, so noisy, cheeky, stubborn, could be so delicate in gestures. He was annoyed by how your presence penetrated his skin, like a melody that could not get out of his head. Yet, there was something about you that irritated and attracted him at the same time. Ever since he first met you in the park when you fell off the slide, With the knee peeled and tears running down your face had thought about how dramatic you could be but to the same inside he had promised that he would never want to see you cry again because he would make sure to protect you.

Venom, on the other hand, had completely different thoughts. He was intrigued by you, by your apparent innocence, by your small body that moved with lightness beside him. Jay’s dark side only wanted one thing: branding you, making you his. He imagined you under him, bent to his will, your skin marked by his bites. And the more he tried to ignore it, the more that desire became overwhelming.

You rubbed the scratches gently on your face with disinfectant. Jay stood still, letting you do it, but your gaze lingered for a moment on the mark on his neck, that little dark spot in the shape of a heart or perhaps a butterfly. You bit your lip without realizing it, the indecent thought that crossed your mind was instantaneous and unstoppable. How good would it have been to kiss her? Lick her? Suck her?

You got yourself right back, driving those thoughts away. You shouldn’t have them. Not on him.

You have known him for more than 10 years and you have always found him annoying but it was a while ago that you found him extremely attractive and this thing made you go crazy because he wasn’t even your type with his character "I know everything."

Just then you passed the cotton swab over his split lip and Jay barely moaned, a low, involuntary sound that made you shudder. His breath became heavier, and you noticed him moving, escaping your touch as if he didn’t want to let you do it. It was frustrating.

"Stop moving," you snapped with an exasperated sigh. "Don’t be a baby," you warned him, but you knew he was doing it on purpose.

Jay smiled dangerously. «Don’t be a caring mom. I didn’t know you liked taking care of me.»

"I don’t like it, but if you don’t stand still I can’t finish."

Without thinking about it you put yourself on his legs, only to keep him still and be able to finish the job. But as soon as you did, you knew you’d made a mistake.

Jay curled under you for a moment, before relaxing and bowing his head with a grin that made you tremble.

«Oh... baby, that was a big mistake on your part,» he murmured in a low and husky voice, his hands slid naturally over your thighs, just clutching them but you felt a lot of chills go through your body because of his touch.

His rational side knew that he had to stop, that it was just a game of provocation between you. But Venom... Venom didn’t want to stop at all. He wanted to taste you, feel your body give in under his grip, and hear every sound you could make for him.

«Tell me, what do you think of that guy?» asked Jay, with a mischievous grin as he heard you disinfect him carefully

You bit your lip. "It’s... intriguing. After all, it is for everyone, isn’t it?" you said looking at his expression.

Jay nodded slowly. «Yeah. Maybe a little too much.»

You raised an eyebrow.

"Well, when something spectacular happens it always ends up on social media. That’s normal."

Jay bowed his head, his piercing gaze. «And you’re happy about it, aren’t you? You can’t wait for something exciting to happen to snoop around and talk about it on the radio so are you happy to have new material for your show?»

You smiled. "Sure. I love my work, both on radio and social media."

Jay came a little closer, his fingers slid down your back in a barely perceptible touch. «You’re too curious,» he murmured. «You also have the habit of asking too many questions.»

"Informed," you corrected.

«Curious,» he repeated, bowing his head with a clever smile

You looked him straight in the eye. "What questions?"

He chuckled. «I see and hear the questions you say you would ask if you found him in person: Who is he? Where does he come from? Why does he do it? What is it like to live two lives? What is it like to have the human part but also the monster part inside? You would like to find out, right?»

You raised your chin in defiance "Maybe yes, you know I was always too curious when we were little"

Jay shook his head, his eyes became darker. «You know, girls who are too curious have a bad end»

You didn’t look down. "I’m not afraid."

Jay was silent for a few seconds, then smiled. «You should.»

You came even closer, challenging him. "I’m afraid of murderers, rapists... not a boy who transforms to save people."

Something changed in him. His breath became heavier, his eyes shone with a dangerous light. Maybe it wasn’t just Jay at that moment Maybe it was something else.

A soft growl made its way through his lips, a low, almost animalistic sound. Venom was emerging. He wanted to test you, to see if you really wouldn’t be afraid when you were in front of him. And Jay couldn’t stop touching you, tightening his grip on your thighs, imagining what it would be like if he gave in to his instincts.

It was at that moment that something changed in Jay. His gaze became darker, more intense. Without giving you time to understand, Jay grabbed your face in his hands and smashed his lips on yours. The kiss was sudden, hungry, almost brutal. There was not only Jay at that moment. There was also something more dark, something more dangerous.

His hands clenched around your hips, holding you glued to him, while his tongue invaded your mouth with a security that made your head turn. You couldn’t even think. All you could do was hold on to him, arms around his shoulders, while your body instinctively reacted to contact.

You felt his fingers sink slightly into your skin, exploring every curve with a possession that made you shiver. Every touch sent sparks down your back, and before you knew it, your body was starting to respond to his.

"Jay..." moaning against his lips when you felt something hard press under you.

Jay smiled at your mouth, but there was something more. That smile wasn’t just his. It was also Venom’s.

His lips fell down your neck, initially leaving gentle, almost sweet kisses. But then the kisses became more insistent, more possessive. You felt him sucking, biting your skin slightly, marking you, leaving marks. Signs that no one else could have erased and you still didn’t know what you were getting into.

Jay’s lips were hot, and hungry, moving on yours with disarming security. His taste was intense, the breath barely altered as his hands clenched more tightly on your thighs, holding you firmly against him. Every touch of it seemed to leave a mark on your skin, an invisible mark that made you shiver and want even more.

He detached himself from you only for a moment, his dark eyes full of something indecipherable, a mix between the Jay you knew and another presence that seemed more and more domineering.

«Tell me...» he murmured, his voice was husky, charged with something that made you tremble and light at the same time. «Would you like to interview Venom?»

You looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and excitement, the chest rising and falling faster. "Yes," you answered without hesitation, with the desire to dig into that mystery that attracted you like a magnet. "I would ask him a lot of questions."

Jay smiled, but there was something dark behind that grin, a shadow that fascinated and frightened you at the same time. A hand slid under your shirt, fingers touching the bare skin of your side with an exasperating slowness. You shivered and he noticed it, lowering himself slightly to whisper in your ear.

«Venom has never been interviewed by anyone...» he paused, letting his warm breath caress your skin. «And if he did, he would want something in return.»

You looked into his eyes, your heart beating hard in your chest. "How do you know?" you asked, even if deep down you already sensed the answer.

Jay tilted his head to the side, his smile became sweeter, but no less predatory. "Maybe because Venom is much closer to you than you think.»

And as he said it, the change came before your eyes.

The black of the suit seemed to emerge directly from his skin, wrapping it in a slimy and eerie embrace, making it look bigger, more imposing. The symbol of Spider-Man shone on his chest, his body now a perfect balance between muscles and the dark power of Venom. But his face, which was still uncovered, as if he wanted you to see the man behind the monster.

Your breath stopped in your throat when you felt something cold and sinuous slip under your shirt.

A black tentacle touched your bare skin, caressing you with an exasperating slowness, making you shiver.

Jay- or maybe Venom- looked at you with bright eyes, his voice now more guttural, deeper.

«I want you all to myself,» he murmured, and her tone was an obscure promise. «And not only today.» His hands came back on you, stronger, safer.

«You may ask me any question,» he added, a mischievous grin spreading on his lips. «To Venom... or Jay.»

Your hands trembled as they slid over the black suit, feeling the strange but fascinating texture of the living material that enveloped it. It was warm under the fingers, pulsating as if it had a life of its own. When your fingers touched his biceps, the consistency changed, revealing the hard and sculpted flesh of his muscles.

Without thinking too much, you started sliding the suit off, slowly discovering her body. And fuck... it was beautiful. Perfect in an almost surreal way, with the skin stretched on defined muscles, some scratches here and there, and those damned tentacles that seemed to move with a will of their own. But for some reason, you didn’t feel scared. Maybe you should have, but the idea didn’t even occur to you.

Jay looked at you with a mixture of surprise and something else, something darker. «You... aren’t afraid?»

His rational part was confused, but Venom... Venom was damn smug. You could feel it in the air, in the tension between you. Her already overblown ego seemed to grow even more when she saw you so close, so curious instead of terrified.

You leaned over him, letting your lips touch his skin. Your warm breath tickled his neck as you began to kiss the heart-shaped birthmark perhaps a butterfly- that he had there. Jay closed his eyes for a moment, a sigh escaped from his lips, but when he opened them again there was something more dangerous in that look.

«You’re getting into trouble, you know?» he murmured in a husky voice.

I murmured in a hoarse voice. «Because when I fill you... it will not be just me.»

Those words made you shiver, but you did not stop. You continued to kiss his skin softly, savoring the warmth of his body. You looked up at him, your eyes shining with curiosity.

"Who did you save today?"

Jay barely smiled, a crooked smile, almost amused by your attempt to distract him. «A bank. There was a robbery.»

Annuded, without stopping to leave him little kisses on the tense muscles. He was seriously the vigilante, you had had him in front of your eyes for a long time and your doubts had come to light some time ago but you finally knew the truth. When your lips touched a scratch, he made a slight movement, almost imperceptible.

"Then you did a good job," you whispered, sliding your fingers over another mark on her skin.

Jay bowed his head, looking at you. «Do you want me to make the tentacles disappear?»

For a moment you considered the idea, and then you looked up at him with a curious smirk. "Venom would be happy if you let go of your tentacles?"

His expression changed. Jay puffed, but his eyes darkened slightly as a tentacle slowly brushed your back under your shirt. «Yes,» he admitted. "It would be.»

He paused, then added in a lower tone: «It’s hard to live with two personalities. Venom only comes out when I transform... Otherwise, I’m just the usual Jay.»

You looked at him, tilting your head slightly. "So, in a way, you are two different people?"

Jay stared at you, then smiled. «You’re not stupid at all, are you?»

You were winning. You felt it. You were asking questions, asking questions, taking him exactly where you wanted. But what you didn’t expect was that, at some point, Venom would notice. And it wouldn’t have worked out for him.

Your lips kept coming down her body, tracing a line of kisses on her warm, scratched skin. When you reached his navel, you heard Jay moaning softly your name, his irregular breath against your neck.

«You’re playing with fire, you know?» he murmured, his voice roaring, crossed by a thread of fun and something darker.

But before you could answer, a deep growl vibrated in the room.

"You’re too slow, Jay," Venom hissed into the boy’s mind. "This prey is ours. We must claim it."

Jay clenched his jaw, trying to maintain control. But he knew it was impossible with you. With you, Venom had too much desire to emerge.

Then, without warning, he pushed you gently backward, making you lie down under him. His dark eyes were burning reflections of something more primordial. More dangerous. You instinctively caressed his hair, your fingers intertwining between the dark locks. Jay closed his eyes for a moment, as if he wanted to taste your touch but it was only a moment.

When he opened them again, a grin cut off his lips.

«Do you realize what you’re doing?» he whispered, lowering her head to the edge of your ear. «Do you know how tempting you are? Or maybe... are you doing it on purpose?»

Its length rubbed against thy center, and thy breath broke.

Venom chuckled in Jay’s mind. "Look how she reacts. So hot. So ready. She’s ours. I want to hear her pleading."

Jay swallowed, fighting the way Venom was trying to overwhelm him. But he was on the edge of the abyss too.

«I can’t wait to fill you up,» he said in a loud, low, hypnotic tone. «Both me and him.»

His hands slipped on your hips, holding you tight as he lifted you slightly towards himself. His fingertips drew fire lines on your naked skin.

He took off your shirt slowly, with a deliberate slowness that made you shudder. Then he looked down at you, his eyes shining with desire.

«You are so sensitive,» he murmured, his lips resting on your hard buds, his tongue caressing them, his teeth teasing them with sweet cruelty. «Tell me, how will you take all of me?»

You rolled your back, "Jay" a moan escaped from your lips and inside him, Jay was struggling. A part of him wanted to take you with an almost painful sweetness, like a cat that enjoys teasing his prey before giving it the final blow but Venom... did not want to play. Venom wanted to eat you and you didn’t know what you were into.

His lips moved along your skin, descending ever lower, leaving a trail of warm and possessive kisses. Jay’s breath deepened as it reached your breasts, his tongue drawing circles around your tight buds before wrapping them completely.

You moan his name, your head slightly bent backward, your senses now completely overwhelmed by him.

Jay looked up at you with a satisfied grin, his eyes shining with something darker, deeper.

«Call me as you like,» he whispered, his voice stinging and dangerous. «Jay... or Venom.»

His tone made you shudder, but you nodded, hands still clinging to his hair. " Yes..." you murmured, your breath broken by excitement.

Jay smiled at your skin before coming down again, his hands caressing you with exasperating slowness. He took off your pajamas without haste, enjoying every second that your body revealed itself to him.

Then he looked down at your exposed center and a lascivious whisper slipped from his lips.

«You are already so soaked...» he muttered, the fingers that touched your intimacy with a light but devastating touch. «It is so sensitive... only for me.»

He looked at you carefully, tilting his head slightly.

«Tell me...» whispered, the fingers that kept exploring you without ever giving you enough. «Have you ever thought of me in this way?»

His question hit you in the chest. Your breath stopped, and for a moment there was only silence between you. Then, with a slight movement of the head, you nodded no.

But you couldn’t stand his gaze.

Inside him, Venom hissed amused. Liar.

Jay laughed softly, but his eyes were dark, full of something that made you tremble. «You are a terrible liar,» he said with a smirk. «I see how you look at me.»

And without giving you time to answer, he slipped a finger inside you.

A moan immediately escaped from your lips. "Venom..."

Jay smiled. Or was it Venom?

«Good girl,» he whispered against your skin, while his finger moved slowly inside you, exploring you, testing every reaction.

You shudder, the heart pounding in your chest. " Perhaps... in the past..." your voice was trembling, full of desire, "I... I fantasized about you..."

Jay laughed, satisfied, while inside of him Venom was boiling with pleasure.

«Oh, honey,» whispered Jay, his mouth back to bite your neck, leaving red marks on your skin. «You belong to me now.»

Venom became more brazen, his desire almost tangible. You are ours.

Jay’s breath was erratic, his body tense as he watched you with those deep dark eyes. Venom, however, was scrambling to take control. You felt his presence, a hungry shadow growing in him, ready to claim you.

"Look how fragile she is... so small in our hands," the voice of Venom resounded in the room, low and guttural. "It’s ours. Nobody else can have it, nobody else can touch it."

Jay clenched his jaw, fighting with the creature inside him. "Venom, calm down."

"No," hissed the symbiote. "Can’t you see what he calls it? He wants us both. He wants to feel us inside him. Why should we wait?"

Wet and sloppy sounds fill your ears and Jay’s as he pumps another finger into you, Jay feels how well you took it and how excited your pussy was as he pumped and curls his fingers up and down, Your legs are wriggling as you hear Jay’s tongue slowly pinch and suck on your swollen clitoris for the stimulation you’re receiving, Contrast the muscle with a moan so pronounced that Jay could come all on himself because it was for whole months that he dreamed of hearing your moans, Instead Venom from the first day you met you had thought about how beautiful you were and how much he would want to make you feel good but at the same time take you and make you his and fill you.

"mmhm! It’s too much, I need to come" Your eyes spill into the skull as you feel your body be pervaded by shivers and feel your excitement slowly increase as you come between Jay’s fingers. Jay took his fingers full of white cum into his tongue and tasted you.

«delicious,» he said to you with a rock voice and a shiver ran across your back as Jay touched your face with his fingers, his warm fingertips on your skin. «Are you all right?» His voice was sweet and worried, but there was something deeper in his eyes. Desire.

You looked at it and nodded slowly. "I want both."

It was all that Venom needed to hear. A low growl vibrated in Jay’s chest as the symbiote took over, his hands clenching tighter on your hips. " You hear that, Jay? She wants it. She wants to be ours."

Your trembling fingers slid along the elastic of his suit, slowly lowering it down with his boxers. Your breath stopped for a moment when you saw it in its entirety.

"Fuck... will it fit me completely?" whispering, biting your lip as you watched.

Jay laughed softly, shaking his head. «Only you could make fun of me at a time like this.»

You curled your lips, letting your fingers slide along its length before gently squeezing it and starting to pump it with slow movements, knowing exactly how to make it go crazy. You felt his breath getting heavier as the pre-sperm liquid started to wet the tip.

"I want you..." you said in a low, sensual voice, moving closer to his ear. "But I want both the Jay and Venom parts."

Jay held his head for a moment. «Are you sure?»

You bit your lip, brushing its chest with your nails. "I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. Did you think I would let someone else touch me like that?"

Venom made himself feel inside him, a shiver shook Jay as his deep voice resounded in his head. It’s perfect. Cheeky, provocative. She wants to make it ours. he wants to fill it and brand it.

Jay swallowed hard as he felt his darker side take over. With the tip of his member, he began to touch your entry, slowly teasing you, driving you crazy.

"Jay..." moans, the need in your voice was clear.

«Tell me exactly what you want,» he said with a satisfied smile.

You bent slightly, trying to push against him, but his hands stopped you, holding you still.

"Asshole," you hissed, eyes burning with desire. "Move."

A guttural growl escaped from Jay’s lips, or rather of Venom. «You are so impatient... and so excited for us.»

Then, without further ado, it pushed itself inside you, slowly at first, letting you feel every inch as your body adapted to its size.

He withheld a groan, seeing you shudder beneath him, your body wrapped around his.

"Fuck, you’re perfect...» murmured Jay, caressing your face softly. "I want you to like it.»

"Move," you whisper, the voice full of need.

It was at this moment that Venom took control. His hands seized your hips with force, his movements became deeper, faster, and more brutal.

«You hear him» he growled, his voice lower, darker. «Are you enjoying being filled like this?»

The pleasure overtook you, you clung to his shoulders, your nails sinking into his skin.

"Yes, fuck!" you panicked, your body responding to every push. You felt something fresh and sinuous enveloping your belly, sliding along your body with an unnatural precision. A glossy black tentacle crept towards your center, pressing firmly on your clitoris. A shiver ran down your back, making you shudder.

"Oh God..." groans, squeezing Jay even harder.

«Do you like it, baby?» Venom’s voice was deeper, darker. Jay was still there, but you could hear him leaving more and more room for the creature. The tentacle wrapped around your body, stroking you in places you didn’t even think were so sensitive. The pressure on you increased, each pushes more intense, deeper until you lost your breath.

«Look how well you treat us... You were born to be ours.» Venom’s voice was a hoarse whisper against your skin, a sinful murmur that made you shiver.

Jay stuck his fingers in your hips, his blows getting stronger and faster. The pleasure accumulated in your belly, each push sent waves of heat into your body, while the tentacle kept on tickling you without respite.

«Tell me you’re coming for us.» Jay clenched his jaw, holding back with difficulty.

"S-yes... I’m coming..." you panicked, your body shaking.

And when the pleasure finally exploded inside you, Venom emitted a guttural sound of approval.

«Beautiful...» whispered Jay. You felt the heat spread within you, as the tentacle slowly retreated, leaving behind a trail of electric chills.

Jay panted as Venom pushed deeper, feeling your orgasm grip him perfectly. With an animalistic growl, Jay let go of every brake, pushing himself inside you one last time before filling you.

It remained inside you for a few seconds, the heavy breath, the body still tense from pleasure.

«You are beautiful with my seed inside you,» he whispered against your neck, slowly licking your skin.

You still felt trembling, exhausted, and completely possessed by them.

«Now you are ours,» added Venom with a satisfied grin.

Jay hugged you and felt that the "human" Jay you knew was back. Both of you had a long breath, the bodies still intertwined, and you gently brushed the bruises that began to form on her skin. He sank his head into the hollow of your neck, tickling you with a warm breath, and with a thread of voice asked you:

«Did you like it?»

He seemed almost embarrassed by the question, which made you smile. You stroked him gently and with a slight smile, you replied:

"Jay, it was crazy. I was so stupid not to know that you were the guy I talked about every day..."

He stood up slowly, pulling a strand of hair from your face and touching your cheek with his fingertips. His gaze was full of sweetness but also a veil of apprehension.

«You won’t tell anyone, will you?» he asked with a hint of concern in his voice.

You smiled and, without a word, gave him your little finger. Jay burst out laughing but crossed his finger with yours, sealing that secret with a swearing oath.

After a few seconds of silence, you looked at him with curiosity.

"But... are there others like you?"

Jay just made a gesture with his boss, pointing to the little picture you had on your bedside table. In that photo were you, him, Jake, and Hoon. You felt the breath cut and brought a hand to your mouth, surprised.

"Wait... they too...?"

Jay nodded with a clever smirk. «You’ll find out for yourself. But not in spicy situations!»

You burst out laughing, shaking your head as a shiver of excitement ran down your spine. This story was becoming much more interesting than you ever imagined.

If you like the genre tell me if you want to discover also the other members with their powers:)

Taglist: @hearts4cheol @lovenha7 @in-somnias-world @heeseungxo @luvyeni @jayjw16enxp @jvngwnii @jooniesbears-blog @gguk-n @cloudykim @enhaverse713586 @immelissaaa @d4-b1 @firstclassjaylee @stormy1408 @jakesw82 @misssparklyprincess @bamguetismee @jaylajakey @arclviie @strxwbloody @steddie-steddie @jungwoosbaey @laurenmia65 @tasnemluvs @lovellydisaster @rikiscupid @simj4k3 @numnommz @sspidermanss @vixialuvs @smlbch @m3wkledreamy @xylatox

The taglist is open!!!!

Comments and rebblog are appreciated

©cutehoons02 all rights reserved 2025.

[highway-143]

baby take my hand - nishimura riki

genre: smut, fluff

pairing: nishimura riki x fem reader

warnings: loss of virginity, unprotected sex, fingering, pain, etc.

summary: your relationship with riki has always been amazing, but youre finally ready to take it to the next level.

song: connected (bang chan) - stray kids

(proofread)

"riki stop!" you giggle as your boyfriend tickles your stomach. a movie played loudly in the background, drowning out both of your laughter. your arms and legs flailed around riki as he continued to tackle you into the couch, his hands running around your abdomen

"i cant!" his bright smile shows itself in the dim light of his living room, making your heart flutter. "youre just too adorable!" he chuckles and finally takes his fingers off of you. you admittedly miss his touch, but thankfully he lies next to you, pulling you in his arms to close the gap between his chest and your back.

"you smell good," he says, his lips against your neck muffling his voice. "i could smell you forever"

you blush and lace your fingers through his, your intertwined hands pressed against your stomach, holding your bodies close together

riki loved being close to you. cuddling, holding hands, and soft kisses were frequent when the two of you spent time together. you were practically inseperable at this point.

you loved riki so much, it felt like a physical pain in your chest to be away from him for too long. he was the most precious piece of your heart now. nothing in the world could change that

so now you began to think. about sex. a lot.

you havent had that... discussion... with him yet, its always been a little too embarrassing and nerve wracking to bring up.

but you couldnt deny the steady feeling of emptiness between your legs, especially at times when he held you this close. you were getting more and more ready to jump that next hurdle, with his hand holding yours along the way.

"ki?" you ask, rubbing circles over his knuckles with your thumbs

"hmm?" he hums against your neck

"can we talk?"

"whats up babe?" he sits up and pulls you so you are facing eachother, cross legged and still on the couch.

you squint your eyes and clench your fists, very nervous. "i want to have sex with you."

he stares at you in shock. his eyebrows furrow adorably, and his lips slowly form a smirk.

"you want to.... let me finally fuck you? for real?"

"yes i-"

before you can finish he pounces on you, pinning you under him. "ive been waiting for you, babe" he whispers sultrily in your ear. " you dont know how long ive wanted this"

your face flushes under his intense gaze. "if id known i would have said so sooner, im so-"

"ah! dont be sorry. not even for a second. i want you to be ready when you are ready, not when you want to appease me because my dick is hard."

if its even possible, your face reddens further. he lets out a sexy laugh at your embarrassment. "what, do you think thats weird?"

"no, its just different... i dont know what to do or how to do it well, and im nervous, ki"

"dont be nervous, babe. you know its both of our first times. you dont need to be embarrassed with me. especially not with me"

"thanks, baby"

you wring your hands and look around the room. nothing seems right. its too bright, too cramped, too quiet, even with the movie in the background. the silence between you and riki is deafening.

"so did you just say that in general or do you want to do it now?" he teases, a wide grin forming on his insanely kissable lips.

you slap his arm. "yeah i mean now, i just dont really know what to do." you cast your gaze downward, looking at the hem of your shorts that was being rumpled in your fingers.

"then lets find out together." riki grabs your hands in his and pulls you off the couch, guiding you down the hallway of his small apartment.

when you reach his room, he puts you on the bed, shutting the door and turning off the lights. the faint glow of dusk seeps through his windows and spills into the bedroom, lighting the room in a romantic haze that has your senses on high alert. every slight motion has you on edge, anticipation rising as riki steps closer and closer to you.

"what do you want to do?" he asks, eyes softly gazing into yours, looking for any response

"i... god this is so embarrassing!" you bury your face in your hands, and riki chuckles in amusement.

"babe, look at me. please." he pulls your hands down by your wrists, bringing your gaze to him. "this isnt about being perfect. or looking perfect. its going to be sloppy, its going to be hard. but i know that we can both take it, and that we will love each other no matter what. right?"

you nod your head slowly, tears threatening to fall onto your cheeks.

"words, please" riki begs from his kneeling position below you

"right"

he smiles "okay. so where do you want to start?"

"i... i guess we should maybe take off our clothes?"

"probably a good idea"

you both start removing your clothing. your hands tremble under your fingers as you pull your shirt over your head.

and although you cant see it, riki's are too. he nervously pulls his pants down, hands shaking like he had roo much coffee.

you and riki take eachother in. your whole body heats up as his gaze trails over your bare skin. it felt so irregular. nobody has ever viewed your body this way. you stare at riki's gorgeous abs, slowly making your way to his cock.

it was half hard, not fully aroused, yet still bigger than what you thought it would be. you worry how youre supposed to fit him in you. but damn, it was just to beautiful. the tip was a pinkish color, and you could just make out a vein traveling down his shaft, dissapearing into his pelvis.

"holy shit, youre beautiful." riki says, jaw dropped as he rakes his eyes over your insecurities. you dont mind your body, but hell, you couldnt ignore the curve of your stomach, or thickness of your thighs. you use your hands to cover your stomach, but riki mives them away.

"dont you dare try and cover yourself. you are absolutely gorgeous. do you hear me?" his voice is practically a growl as he tuggs your wrists

"oky, ki." you say, smiling up at him.

he takes your lips in a soft kiss, pulling your face to his by cupping his hands on your cheeks.

"i love you so much" you say, pulling back to look at him

"i love you more" he whispers into the darkness. "what do you want next?"

"no, its your turn to choose what we do," you try to be teasing, but only feel nervousness

"well lets get on the bed. go put your head on the pillows." he points to the empty bed behind you.

when you are settled, riki climbs over you and places soft kisses on your face, caressing your hot skin with his lips as his sturdy arms hold himself up above you. you let him kiss his way down to your neck, slowly sucking on the skin near your collarbone as you wrapped your arms around his back.

he pulls away and kneels at your waist, looking at you for any sign of regret.

"are you ready?" he searches your eyes for uncertainty, but you nod in approval

"words"

"yes," you breathe

he pulls himself in between your legs and spreads them wide, getting a perfectly unobscured view of your glistening pussy

"already wet for me babe?" his eyes dialate from pure enjoyment. "and i havent even touched you yet"

"please," you scoff, "you know what youve done"

"mmm" he moans as he slowly aligns his tip with your entrance "are you ready?"

you gab his wrist and grip his hand tightly. "lets do it ki." you grit your teeth an he slowly pushes his tip onto your opening, only for it to slide up, refusing to enter.

you moan from the friction of his dick rubbing your cunt. he chuckles and pushes back do your entrance, even slower in entry this time.

but again, he slides right out.

every time he tries to breach your walls, they tighten and refuse to let him in. by the eleventh time, riki groans in pain. his cock now fully hard and throbbing in need, and his tip is coated in a smeared mixture of your combined pre-cum

you lay back, squeezing his hand as if its your life force as tears begin to fall down your cheeks. "i... i cant do it, ki" you sob. "its too big, i cant do it.... i cant do it..."

your tears paint trails on your face while riki squeezes your hand even harder. "you can, baby. i know you can. do you want me to try and stretch you out?"

you nod and choke back another sob, pulling yourself together.

this time, riki doesnt ask for words. he sees how distressed you are, and places a kiss on your hand, still held in his.

his free hand works its way between your thighs, finding your entrance. he smoothly slides one finger in, rubbing it along your gummy walls as he stretches your hole further. he slides a second finger in. then a third. and a fourth

your cunt burns from the pressure as his fingers glide inside you, not with the intent to pleasure, no. that was for his dick tonight.

riki removes his fingers, bringing them to his mouth as he moves his cock back to where he was before.

you stare at him, completely in shock, as he slurps your juices off of his own digits, a slutty smile curving the corners of his lips as he sucked on the sweet liquid

when he pulls his hand out of his mouth and back to its guiding position at his dick, you ready yourself, holding his hand tightly.

he spreads your legs as wide as they can go and finally shoves his tip into your pussy.

you gasp at the stretch. it was definetly more than his fingers, but fuck, it felt like heaven once the stinging subsided

riki moaned in joy as your core squeezed him nicely. "oh fuck, babe, thats fucking tight"

he slowly pushes deeper and deeper into you until he cant go any further. only 2/3 of his length fit inside of you, but it fit in you perfectly.

"baby, you are fucking wonderful. im so proud of you" he says, giving your hand a faint squeeze "do you want to see if we can fit the rest of me in?"

your eyes look wild at his words, darting from his face to what you can see of his abdomen.

"you... you meant thats not it?" you ask, ready to cry again. "i dont think i can"

"thats okay baby, youre doing wonderful" riki takes your other hand and squeezes both "this feels fucking perfect"

"im sorry, ki" you say, the tears that were being held back slowly falling down your cheeks now "im sorry i cant take all of you. i want to take all of you, i do, but its so much"

he looks down at you with soft eyes. "how about we try something else?"

you nod again, and riki slowly pulls out of you and picks you up. he flips over so you are straddling his waist, and he is where you were

"now try," he says, helping you position yourself on him.

you slide his dick into you, sinking down on it inch by inch until you finally have all of it inside.

you and riki grin in satisfaction as you settle down onto his pelvis, but that doesnt last long. he smoothly flips you back to where you were before, only now he is buried fully inside your aching core

"do you want me to move?" he asks, gripping your hand again

"fuck yes. please go"

riki starts pulling out, then thrusting back in. his motions start out lazy and slow, wanting you to feel pleasure instead of pain.

"faster, ki. i can take it"

he immediately quickens his pace, his hips slapping hard against your ass. his hand grips your thigh, leaving marks on the skin as he held you open

his other hand still held yours. you squeezed it as you felt his dick pounding deeper and deeper inside of you, making you see white

"shit, baby... im- im gonna cum" riki groans, his head hands limply off his shoulders, the tips of his hair slightly ticking your stomach

"then- ah- do it ki, cum in m- me"

your body shudders as you feel your orgasm building up, the band threatening to break while riki thrusted hastily into you

he holds your thigh tighter as orgasm takes over, thick jets of cum spilling into your cunt, filling up what little space you had left

your body snaps from the feeling of being so full, twitching and clenching with riki as you both rode the high, hand in hand.

riki slumps next to you, pulling his dick out. it left you with an emty feeling, but he pulled you closer to his chest to make up for it.

that didnt last long though. he immediately shot up and walked into the bathroom, only giving you a "stay there" to go on

he walked back out, his boxers back on, with a towel in his hand. he pressed the cool cloth to your forehead, slowly working it over your body until it cleaned everything, even the dripping mess between your legs

he tosses the fabric away and lays back down, pulling your back to his chest and wrapping his arms around you again. you take his hands, whispering into the darkness of his bedroom

"ill hold you forever" you say

"and i will hold you longer"

a.n.- dear god im crying. this was so sweet to write. riki is def the type of bf who isnt afraid to tease but fs knows what he needs to do to make you feel good. but now my heart is hurting bc man, i need this boy in my life like right now. okay time to put me back in my cage before i say smth more out of pocket

please reblog if you liked it, and comment with ideas bc i need more XD

[glitchinginthegarden]

Woke up with thoughts so here we go:

Johnny’s behavior early in the game makes 100% sense and I support it because it fits his character writing and situation.

I've been seeing a lot of newer cyberpunk players getting onto the "Johnny is an absolute piece of shit" / "why would anyone do anything for this douchebag" soapbox and they're entitled to that opinion BUT...

Coming from the perspective of having completed the game multiple times and done plenty of digging into the ttrpg stuff, it fits. We also have to keep in mind the unreliable narrator factor but that's another thing all together.

In the beginning (after the nightmare night), Johnny is playing the face of cool dude who's suddenly on V's side while actively attempting to manipulate them. This tracks for his character, yes, but also for Night City.

If their positions were swapped, I know for a fact my V would be doing the same exact thing to her unwilling host. Which, when you break it down, is simply an attempt to regain control over a situation where she has none.

I don't blame Johnny in the slightest for that at that point in the plot. It's in human nature to fight tooth and nail for survival. Why would that not extend to someone who's been trapped in soul prison for fifty years too?

He's just "escaped" Mikoshi only to wake up imprisoned (again) in the mind of a complete stranger. Can you blame him for trying to find an angle he can work there?

Because I don't.

Everything tells us yes, Johnny is an asshole who historically has generally only looked out for himself. But not that he's been actively or maliciously intent on causing harm to the people around him. He doesn't behave the way he does for the hell of it, he does it (in my opinion) because in the past, his flavor of manipulation has worked and usually gotten him what he wants.

Which brings me to another thing: I've also seen some comments about how he doesn't tell V certain things depending on how you talk to him. That he withholds more if V is nice than when they're more mean to him. And that also tracks for his character.

Now, I will say that I haven't played a lot of "be mean to Johnny" runs, but if he does drop more info for that, I'm not surprised. Case and point: the oil fields.

Johnny is a person who won't take shit seriously unless he gets a kick in the ass for his behavior. V has to call him on his bullshit to get that sweet approval boost for Don't Fear The Reaper. So, it ultimately it makes sense for him to cough up more information along the line if V isn't being nice about getting it or calls him on being a dodgy fuck. Johnny doesn't fuck with weak people unless he can use them, that's not a secret.

He's playing his cards close to his chest for the most part and it makes sense. He has sparingly few hands to play after 50 years in soul prison. Why would he show his spread to someone who, depending on where you are in the plot, ultimately wants to end him again and scrape him off their brain? He's trying to survive.

He's a disabled man with a grand total of eighty something years of untreated ptsd and people wonder why he's not forthcoming with what he knows? Of course he's not. It's unreasonable to expect that, and especially from a character like his.

The point I'm trying to get to here, I suppose, is that I support Johnny’s wrongs because they're in line with his character and that's part of what makes him so well written. Yes, he's an asshole. Yes, he manipulates and lies and cheats to serve his needs. But, c'mon, look at the whole picture. Look at the setting and the other players on the board, and tell me it doesn't make perfect sense.

[inconveniently-discorporated]

Y'all because joy is an act of resistance and so, apparently, is doing science while being a woman...

I AM SO HAPPY. I recently just got over a couple weeks of back to back illnesses, BUT had the delightful combination of recovering just in time for Fool's Spring (the fakeout unseasonably sunny/warm days in the PNW before the final boss music of winter starts playing) (it gives us a stamina boost to get through the rest of it before real spring), AND getting my first ever telescope in.

So I set it up last night and tonight. No idea what I'm doing because all of my research means nothing until I get my hands on the thing. Last night couldn't use my 9mm lens piece for shit, but I used the 30mm to find some pretty jaw-dropping things.

TONIGHT THOUGH??? TONIGHT???? Let my 5yo stay up late. We saw everything on my list (which wasn't a LOT being an absolute beginner using my telescope in my backyard in a city without really any idea what I'm doing,,,, but still wonderful). I'm especially proud to say I got some good use out of the 9mm which last night I couldn't even focus to see ANYTHING. My list:

Pleiades ✅

Orion nebula ✅✅✅

Jupiter and moons ✅✅✅✅✅✅

JUPITER IN ENOUGH DETAIL TO SEE THE FUCKING BANDS ON THE PLANET AND HOLY SHIT IT'S A REAL FUCKING PLANET OUT IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM ✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅

BONUS OBJECTS?!

Saw Venus ✅✅ -- easy to spot, obv, bright as fuck, BUT I DID NOT KNOW that it has PHASES????????!!!!! I actually wasn't trying to look at it very closely because I was like "yeah it's gonna be a bright as fuck dot probably but let's focus on it and adjust the scope/lens piece to help me find stuff later tonight" and it was A HALF MOON SHAPE?!?!!!;;??!:_#$+(; I DIDN'T KNOW THAT????? WHY IS IT LIKE THAT?????? WHAT IS IT DOING??????? IT. HAS. PHASES. IT IS A ROCK OUT IN SPACE. I'M ON A ROCK OUT IN SPACE. WE'RE TWO ROCKS OUT IN SPACE DOING SPACE SHIT AND STUFF OUT HERE AND WHAT THE FUCK! Apparently it's one of the only planets besides Mercury that has phases?!?!!

Y'ALL I OBSERVED A THING AND LEARNED A THING I DIDN'T PREVIOUSLY KNOW ABOUT OUR SOLAR SYSTEM AND I LOVE THE SOLAR SYSTEM AND IT FEELS LIKE I SHOULD'VE KNOWN THIS ALREADY BUT I DIDN'T AND LIKE I DID REAL ACTUAL PERSONAL SCIENCE! WHAT THE FUCK!!!

And like almost by ACCIDENT -- but like accidentally on purpose, like I was TRYING TO do this but didn't expect it to actually work -- I saw ANDROMEDA ✅✅✅. Y'ALL THE GASP I GUSPED! Like, let's level set here -- it was a faint grey smudge in my lens piece. BUT IT WAS MY GREY SMUDGE, AND I KNEW THAT OUT THERE THAT GREY SMUDGE -- THAT I WAS LOOKING AT WITH MY OWN TWO HUMAN EYEBALLS (not through a screen but by way of a couple mirrors bouncing the photons DIRECTLY FROM THIS GALAXY STRAIGHT INTO MY EYEBALLS) -- WAS A WHOLE ASS ENTIRE GALAXY JUST LIKE OURS. And I FOUND it, like some kinda special rock in a great big giant lakes full of other rocks!!! Y'all I died.

And my 5yo?!?! Among the things she said tonight were: "Mom!!! This is great!!! I love you so much!!!" and "WOW, this is so cool, mom you're AMAZING!!!" and "Oh god DAMN!" (About Jupiter) (Yes same girl) -- but also these words she has NEVER BEFORE IN HER LIFE UTTERED: "Mom, I think I want to go inside and go to bed -- I'm really tired." NEVER HAS SHE EVER.

Absolutely incredible on everything all around. I have so many feelings and I don't even feel like I saw all that much yet. Saturn apparently is fantastic around my birthday later this year. I'm hoping so incredibly much that the weather cooperates for the lunar eclipse in a couple weeks, goodness I'd LOVE to get in on the show for that one. That's something super easy my daughter and I can explore together.

Anyway, FUCK THE PATRIARCHY. Fuck the current state of politics launching an assault on women, diversity, and science. Love science for us. Can't wait to explore some more and make some core lifelong memories. My back hurts like hell bc it's totally fucked up in general but it's totally worth it to see all the things.

[ilyfynn]

fynn hi ! i have been reading another summer taking cover and i come from the hbg side so im like... generally aware of everyone but not super familiar with the non-hbg runners... so do you by chance have like, a summary of the beefstrid vibe or some clips for reference for new people or something? i'm curious !!

HELLO!!!!! im so glad to hear youve been reading my febuwhump, im so sorry some of the pieces were lower effort but im delighted to hear youre interested in beefstrid peepoGiggles !!! ok. how to begin.

the thing is ranked works a bit differently from hbg. we don't really have physical clip interactions here. we have chat messages (MANY) and little jokes and snippets of moments but i'll be real with you half of the charm is in our imagination. i can offer you several chat screenshots that fuel my soul and perhaps my interpretation of their dynamic (everything i write is fiction especially for ranked so take it with a pinch of salt) but overall, its all in our heads 😭

behold. a collection of beefstrid related chat messages. bonus points if you can guess why i literally gged myself at the two bottom left.

really, that's all i can offer in terms of their actual interactions. beefsalads like, perpetually in vstrid chat as well unless they're live. and even if they are they say hi in chat while live ome. if the two of them ever hopped in call or something you'd be able to tell because i would have blown up on the spot.

so basically it's all up to your personal interpretation! that's the beautiful thing about ranked, i think. everyone has their own perception of each runner, how they'd interact, so on and so forth - all guided by the small glimpses we've seen and developed in our slightly insane minds. ill drop my own personal possible interpretation (it differs from fic to fic) below under the cut, if you're interested!

good luck beefstriding! i hope my febuwhump was enjoyable and that this post is helpful in satisfying your curiosity. they are so special, i love them so much <3

so vstrid. this guy. hates his stats, hates ranked, hates everything. self-destructive, destructive of others. he doesn't want to be here (at ranked) but he is. beefsalad is. beefsalad is sort of the opposite but not quite. they're alike in the sense they both throw themselves again and again at ranked, at running, at trying to earn their eloes - but they're different in the sense that beefsalad doesn't hate everything is a lot more chill. and theyre drawn to each other inexplicably and their chat messages are literally reflective of 5k hurt/comfort fics im crying, beefsalads always there, he's always there, and vstrid can hate him and push him away and do whatever but he cares about beefsalad and beefsalad cares about him and that's it. that's it. ok this makes no sense im just rambling about them at this point let's keep this in the google doc. :sorry:

I AM DERANGED OVER THEM

tldr

[bringbackmaes14]

Guys I think this is recency bias.

Andrew Johnson was a horrible president. In fact him ending up president was a complete fluke. He was only chosen as Lincoln's VP in his second term because he wanted to appease more Democrats in his second term. And then of course he only became president because Lincoln was assassinated (except fun fact Andrew Johnson and William Seward were also supposed to be assassinated that night but Seward's assassin was fought off by Seward's family while he was sick in bed and Johnson's assassin just didn't have the guts to do it—he just went to a bar to get a drink for his nerves before the job and then never left the bar that night.)

There are a couple things that Johnson did that were horrible:

Reversing Special Field Order No. 15

Basically during the Civil War, Union General William T. Sherman took his army across the Confederate States and seized and/or burned pretty much every piece of land they came across (except Savannah, Georgia—Sherman left that in tact because he thought it was a beautiful place). In total they collected about 400,000 acres of land. In 1865, still during the war, Special Field Order No. 15 was a proclamation made by General Sherman basically saying that they were going to divide up all the conquered land between newly emancipated black people and some poor white people and give families 40 acres of land to start a farm. Eventually the plan was also amended to say the army would give each family a mule, and the plan then also became known as the "40 acres and a mule" plan.

Enter Andrew Johnson as President. He basically doesn't think it's fair that all these wealthy white landowners had their land stolen from them, so he reversed the order. It had been in effect for about a year. Not only did he say all the leftover land that was not yet given out is going back to its original owners, he also repossessed any land that had been newly settled by the emancipated black families or poor white families and returned those plots back to the rich white landowners too. So he really inhibited societal growth after slaves in the US with this.

Andrew Johnson's interpretation of the Declaration of Independence

Okay so you know how in the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson wrote "all men are created equal"? And that's pretty vague which on one hand is like, why would he do that, but on the other hand the exact reason that he did that is so the meanings in the Declaration of Independence could grow and change with the country. However, because it's vague, it means that random idiots like Andrew Johnson can interpret in any way they see fit.

In 1859, Johnson gave a speech to Senate where he claimed that the phrase "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence did not apply to African Americans because the same phrase ("all men are created equal") was in Illinois's state constitution, and the state of Illinois barred African Americans from voting.

Which is just honestly... one of the wildest and worst interpretations of the Declaration of Independence I've ever heard.

First President to be Impeached

So, despite being really racist, and undoing a lot of Lincoln's legislation, (and pardoning so many (but not all of the) former confederates despite the fact that they had been marked domestic insurrectionists by Lincoln and a lot of the Union), none of those were the reason he ended up getting impeached.

The first thing you need to know is that both the House of Representatives and the House Select Committee of Reconstruction tried to launch separate impeachment inquiries against Johnson before he was officially impeached on the third try.

The first inquiry was pushed by this guy James Mitchell Ashley in December 1866 because he was obsessed with this conspiracy theory that Johnson was somehow involved in Lincoln's death. It made it to the House on January 1867 but no one really heard him out. But by then a lot of Midwestern states were petitioning Congress to kick Johnson out, so Ashley changed tactics and started saying that President Johnson should be investigated for corruption and usurpation of power, all relating to people Johnson had appointed to the government, the Confederate leaders Johnson had pardoned, a lot of presidential vetoes, all the confiscated property he sold and supposed interference with elections. The House agrees to do the inquiry, but not full impeachment trial. And it goes on for a few months.

The second inquiry is in January 1868 and it was headed by this guy Rufus Spalding basically because Johnson refused to play nice with the mostly (radical) Republican Congress and so Spalding was inquiring about impeachment on the basis that Johnson was shutting down pretty much every legislation sent his way that was a Republican idea.

Johnson was finally impeached in March 1868 because he had violated the Tenure of Office Act (1867). Basically when Lincoln was president, he had established Edward Stanton as his secretary of war, and Stanton was a Radical Republican. Congress (which I'll remind you was also mostly Radical Republicans) really liked him, and wanted him to stay Secretary of War after Johnson inherited him into his presidential cabinet. So they passed the Tenure of Office Act which basically said the president can't get rid of appointed officials without approval from Senate. Because Johnson couldn't get rid of Stanton without Senate approval and Senate was at recess for the season, he suspended him in August of 1867. Then he tried to fill the position with Ulysses S. Grant. Senate voted to reinstate Stanton in January 1868 and Grant immediately resigned, fearing the upheaval would hurt his future wishes to run for president. Johnson continued to complain about Stanton and tried again to replace him but this time with William T. Sherman (an enemy of Stanton), but Sherman turned down the offer. Sherman tried to offer other Radical and Moderate Republican options for the Secretary of War positions, but Johnson shut them all down. Finally in February 1868, Johnson appointed Lorenzo Thomas. Johnson informed the Senate of his decision and Thomas personally informed Stanton he was replacing him, but rather than leaving, Stanton barricaded himself in his office and ordered Thomas' arrest for violating the Tenure of Office Act. The charge was only dropped by Stanton after he realized it would cause the courts to look at the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act and he didn't want that to happen because that act was letting him keep his job. Finally, he was impeached on 11 articles, mostly for violating the Tenure of Office Act (which was deemed unconstitutional in 1926, but I stand by the fact that his musical chairs game with the secretary of war position was ridiculous), but he missed conviction by one vote, letting him remain in office.

Crazy stuff.

Worst US President Bracket

[jewlist]

“And if I do touch them,” he hisses. “If I say use this sword” — In one swift motion he scoops Time’s sword off of the ground, holding it up so that the blade gleams — “to slit their necks what will you do? Will you don the Deity mask that sits in the pouch at your hip? Will you follow me across time? Hunt me down?”

A piece I drew inspired by this fic by @adrift-in-thyme.

bonus close-up under the cut:

[katabay]

”—ah. seems like mother goose has been playing around in your egg salad. if you won’t dance to that tune, I got others.”

honestly, the would you kindly scene is whatever to me*, code yellow is the more interesting violation/betrayal of the body because of how beautifully it escalates the Fontaine reveal/betrayal and shows how ugly some of those ‘locks and keys’ that Tenenbaum mentions are. not only have you been a tool in another man’s hand this entire time, it goes deeper. your body is not your own.

*there used to be a meandering thought here about the would you kindly scene, but it was really just talking around the fact that I spent way too many years seeing people discuss it in the most insufferable and reductive ways possible when it’s a combination of three or four other things that make that moment compelling lmao

collage credits: heart one/heart two

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / tip jar!

[aemiron-main]

why is he posed like a dead oblivion npc

[deadchannelradio]

i’ve been reading buy back the secrets over the past couple days bc of your review and omg it’s so good 😭 i’m genuinely not much of a fic reader usually but u have such good taste ty

this is the thing is that i also am not much of a fic reader. i read fic at a pace of 1-2 per year. i have slowly, over the years, cultivated the ones that i enjoy and have downloaded them all onto my phone to keep forever. if i count the various series that ive downloaded everything from there are 16 fics on my phone. i have some in my bookmarks on ao3 that i like a lot but havent made the cut.

buy back the secrets is an all timer. hit that download button so fast when the last chapter came out.

[accio-victuuri]

i don’t understand what people expect to hear from RBS when questions like this come up. what kind of confirmation can he possibly do? is he expected to track down the friend? research on the person who said it? lol.

the thing is, no one here knows for sure or can confirm stuff like this. even the things we “confirm” based on facts, is still up for debate. and i agree with being careful about people who claim they know things. any person in their inner circle — who genuinely care for them will not say anything. we should be more discerning with candies and think about what this is really trying to tell us. there have been a couple of times where antis led cpfs with piece of information and we unintentionally harmed the boys cause we didn’t know better. these days tho, i’d like to think that we are improving in that area ( or are we really? )

having said that, these more popular platforms are full of shit. i just can’t find a better way to phrase it so i’m going with the truth. maybe a small 15% of it have some weight if any. and the problem with these sites and their “candies” — they are all showing stuff that will generate the shock factor. no context. no explanations. and for the most part, horribly misinterpreted.

so yeah, i know we have a lot of “newbies” who are so excited to get the scoop or some hidden truth behind bjyx. there is none. it’s all speculation. it’s all fake. cpn. support them in ways that matter and please respect them as human beings.

and to those who intentionally mislead fans with your posts from yt, ig, x or whatever hellsite — please stop. please. just stop.

Ah, I saw a video on Instagram, where someone said Wang Yibo's grandmother's neighbour confessed to yizhan being together. And about Lan Quiren video of confessing about them. Your thoughts on this please. Xie xie.

Here we go again...

If I had a dollar for every ask that started out with "I saw a video on (sketchy platform)," I'd be in a yacht club with Bezos by now. 😅

Please don't believe sensationalist garbage you see on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc. There are so many lies being spread via these platforms, it's utterly breathtaking.

There are more and more fake AI videos every day, people making up garbage for clicks, and people unwittingly spreading misinformation due to declining levels of critical thinking and intellectual self-defense among the population at large.

Re: the Huang Ziteng thing, I already covered that a while back.

Bottom line: Anyone claiming to be an insider or close to them, anyone making claims about their lives, etc. should be more suspect to us, not less. There are countless reasons why this kind of thing should be blocked and ignored.

This is not a fandom of proofs and certainties - nor should it be. Part of being a turtle is embracing the ambiguity, enjoying being a clown, recognizing that these are real people, protecting them and treating them with respect. We should be extremely cautious of anyone who doesn't approach things from that perspective.

In my view, we should be able to look at a sentence like, "claiming to be Yibo's grandmother's neighbour" and immediately be appalled and incapable of seeing it as a candy. If we have any other reaction, self-reflection is in order. In my opinion.

PS: you only ever need to submit a question once. I will get to what I can when I can.

[panharmonium]

Hi! I love your Naruto thoughts and meta posts with all my heart and I want to ask your thoughts on something that has been on my mind literally since I was 13: what do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura? I went from being a hardcore shipper when I was a teenager, to being against any romantic relationship in Naruto after finishing the anime when I was in my early twenties. Nowadays I'm very into platonic love and depictions of friendship and I think the anime's obsession with forcing the "romantic interest" curse upon the main female character robbed us of... so much. There are a few wonderful moments in the anime where Sasuke and Sakura acknowledge each other, but because she's always "the girl with the crush", her actions are so often interpret as irrational or selfish by the fandom.

Hi @riemmetric!  It's great to talk to you again! Sorry it's taken me so long to answer this; RL has been making demands of me lately and it took me way longer to finish writing this up than I wanted it to (then again, I knew from the minute I read your original ask that my reply was going to get long, so I suppose I should have predicted a delay XD)

It's funny, my sister once asked me to choose between Sasuke or Sakura for an “unpopular opinion” meme, and I ended up doing Sasuke solely because I think the negative fandom opinions about Sakura are so unhinged and divorced from the actual text that I wouldn’t even know where to start.  People are entitled to dislike whatever characters they want, obviously, but there are some fandom takes that are, for me, so obviously rooted in bad faith viewings/readings that there’s no urge in me to discuss them.  That said, since you asked, I’m happy to go into my own thoughts on this a bit, with the disclaimer for other potential readers that I only write about fandom things for my own personal enjoyment, not as a contribution to The Discourse. If you don’t like Sakura, great!  I have no interest in changing your mind. Please consider this a sincere invitation to scroll on by and go enjoy whatever parts of the fandom appeal to you.

In general terms: I love Sasuke and Sakura’s relationship as much as I love all of the relationships in Team 7.  If we’re talking about them specifically as a romantic couple, then I probably fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, because I do like them together in a post-canon (to be clear: non-Boruto) setting, after time has passed and they’ve continued to develop individually and reconnect with each other, but I also wouldn’t exactly call myself an intense “shipper,” in the sense that I have no interest in pulling things out from the text and incorrectly citing them as evidence that Sasuke has hidden romantic feelings for her during the canon period. He cares about her in the canon period, just like he cares about Naruto and Kakashi.  That’s not up for interpretation; it’s the text.  But Sasuke during the canon time period does not demonstrate specifically romantic interest in anyone.  

[A note before people who might ship Sasuke with Someone Else emerge to rail against this statement - please just scroll past and continue enjoying fandom in whatever way is most fun for you. It is cool to ship whatever fanon thing you want; I think that’s great!  But earnestly citing any loving or emotional thing Sasuke does re: various characters in this story (yes, Sakura included) as indicative of specifically romantic love isn’t supported by the text. I know there are always going to be enormous subsets of any fandom who insist that it is, and I'm certainly not going to barge into anyone else's space to complain about that (because other people having fun together is harmless and none of my business), but I'm not obligated to indulge it on my own blog, either.]

Anyway, that said - the reason why I love Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship (from here on out I’ll use “relationship” in a general, non-romantic sense) is precisely because Sakura isn’t just “the girl with the crush.” Sakura has an arc when it comes to Sasuke, and its trajectory moves in the exact opposite direction of “irrational” or “selfish.”  She specifically goes from “the girl with the crush” to “the girl who steels herself and tries to put her personal feelings for Sasuke aside for the greater good” to “the girl who knows she can’t put her feelings aside, but who also knows full well that Sasuke doesn’t reciprocate them, and who still wants to save him regardless, because he matters to her as a person and a friend.”

[I'm putting the rest of this under a cut to save everyone's dash, and also to emphasize once again that this is a personal post on my personal blog which I wrote in response to a question from a personal acquaintance, the full content of which no one is obligated to read. I am not sending this post to random strangers and forcing them to look at it. I'm not even putting it in the character tags. I'm typing it up on my own blog and putting it under a cut. If you already know that you don't like Sakura, but you still click the link/read the post and then feel an urge to comment and complain, I am going to copy-paste this disclaimer and remind you that I specifically recommended that you scroll past and go have fun with fandom in your own way. Thanks in advance for responsibly curating your own fandom experience!]

So, from the top:

1. the girl with the crush

Sakura is, obviously, completely obsessed with Sasuke at the beginning of Part 1.  She’s also deeply clueless about him and his history (bizarre though it is, the story seems to indicate that she initially doesn’t know what happened with his family, the same way young!Obito is initially clueless about Kakashi’s father).  But what I like about Sakura and Sasuke’s Part 1 relationship is how this changes over time.

The critical scene that kicks this off happens right at the beginning of the manga, when she and Sasuke are talking by that bench - she complains about Naruto and blames his behavior on him being all alone/having no family to scold him; and even says she’s jealous that he doesn’t have parents to nag him all the time.  This obviously triggers an outburst from Sasuke, who tells her she has no idea what loneliness means and that she “makes him sick”/she’s “annoying” (importantly, the exact same thing Sakura said to Naruto in anger earlier that day), which in turn prompts Sakura to reassess herself and wonder whether she’s been making Naruto feel this terrible all the time, too:

From that point on, it’s a process of her putting little pieces together.  She still has a MAJOR crush, and she still acts like a twelve year-old, but as we approach the end of Part I, Sakura actually has a more accurate grasp on Sasuke’s current state of mind than Naruto does.  Naruto is initially excited to fight Sasuke on top of the hospital, because he feels like Sasuke’s finally acknowledging him, whereas Sakura is the one who immediately recognizes that something is wrong about this situation.  She is also the one who, after this fight, is concerned that Sasuke is really unwell and might do something drastic like run off in pursuit of the power Orochimaru promised him, but when she communicates this to Naruto, he assures her that this would NEVER happen:

(Sakura isn't convinced, though, because she goes to monitor the exit out of the village anyway.)

I’m not criticizing Naruto for his response here.  I ADORE hearing him say that Sasuke is too strong to need Orochimaru, with such perfect confidence - I love seeing how much respect and admiration he has for Sasuke underneath all their fighting, because that’s the whole reason he’s always baiting Sasuke and yelling at him and claiming “you're not so great!” He looks up to Sasuke; he wants to be like Sasuke; he thinks Sasuke is awesome! (It’s that Obito @ Kakashi behavior, you know?) But the fact remains that he is clueless about what’s actually going on with Sasuke in Part 1, and he remains clueless(ly optimistic) for a long time.  

(Eg, when he catches up to Sasuke during the retrieval arc and Sasuke climbs out of that cursed seal coffin, Naruto waves at him and calls "Come on, let's go!" as if Sasuke has been successfully rescued and is now going to come running home.  Even in Part II, when Naruto hears that Sasuke killed Orochimaru, he beams and immediately says, “So he must be on his way back to the Leaf Village!”  And everyone else in the room is like, “....,” because they know better.  Naruto doesn’t yet fully understand [or doesn't want to accept] the extent to which Sasuke has willingly chosen this path, and it’s not until after Jiraiya’s death/the Pain attack/the Five Kage Summit that Naruto really starts to understand Sasuke more clearly, which is something he himself admits.)

Sakura, in Part 1, has access to more information about Sasuke - she’s there for his first dissociative monologue during the bells test, she’s there for the curse mark’s placement, she’s there for his first violent transformation in the Forest of Death - she is, in fact, the unwitting catalyst for it (“Sakura…who did this to you?”), and her compassion is the reason Sasuke is later able to overcome the curse mark’s influence - so she has a more accurate/complete picture of “how he’s doing,” for lack of a better phrase, whereas Naruto, who doesn’t know about the curse mark in the first place, is still in the dark.  This means that Sakura is able to accurately discern that Sasuke is struggling more than Naruto realizes, and specifically to predict that he’s going to run away.  

(This dynamic is then interestingly flipped in the back half of Part II, since at any point after the Five Kage Summit, Sakura doesn’t have access to extremely relevant [if currently questionable and unproven] details that would in any other circumstance inform her behavior).

Of course, just because she has more info in Part 1 doesn’t mean she has some kind of miraculous insight into Sasuke’s every thought and feeling.  There are parts of her attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village that are as clueless as any of Naruto’s assumptions, and they showcase the kind of magical thinking common to childhood - like when she says that if he stayed with her, she could give him happiness, she’d do anything for him, even help him get his revenge - this idea that she herself can do something to make him feel better, that she can love him powerfully enough to defeat his pain - obviously none of that is rooted in realism.

Is this part of her approach irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered?  Of course it is!  But it’s no more irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered than Naruto’s stated plan to drag Sasuke back to the village even if he has to “break every bone in [his] body!” 

Hating on Sakura for her Part 1 attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village while simultaneously lauding Naruto for his feels like a bad faith misread of what is, to me, pretty clear narrative intention.  The story doesn’t at any point intend for us to see her begging him to stay as a selfish or conniving attempt to get something she wants.  She’s begging him to stay for the same underlying reason that Naruto is: she cares about him.  She thinks he’s making a mistake that will only cause him more pain in the end (she’s right) and she wants to make it so he feels less pain right now (she can’t.  But she doesn’t understand that/isn’t able to admit that, and she’s willing to try ANYTHING that might help).  

It’s critical that this farewell scene is set in front of that same bench from their first important confrontation - she references that day and how angry he got at her, and this time she tells him that she understands his reaction.  She’s learned things and she recognizes how insensitive she was being back then (“I know what happened to your clan, Sasuke”), even though she still can’t fully grasp all the complexities of the situation. She tells him that him blowing up at her back then helped her understand what loneliness actually meant (as opposed to her previous shallow understanding of it), and she challenges him about his choice right now: "So that's it, you're choosing the lonely path?" And when she tells him that she'll be very lonely if he leaves, we're immediately shown a panel of Sasuke thinking of both his friends, with the very clear implication that if he goes through with this, he will be lonely without them, too - that he's still struggling with the idea of leaving them, no matter how hard he tries to pretend:

Sakura at this point knows that Sasuke isn’t interested in her the way she is in him, but she still wants to give him happiness, however fantastical and immature her ideas sound to us (and, I’m sure, to him).  “I’ll do anything, even help you get your revenge/we'll have fun every day, and...and you'll be happy! I'll make sure of it!” - of course, it’s completely childish.  It’s irrational.  It’s ridiculous to think that any of this would ever be effective, but no more ridiculous than Naruto’s belief that he can simply break every bone in Sasuke’s body and keep him in the Leaf by force.

Both Naruto and Sakura are children who have a deeply oversimplified understanding of Sasuke’s situation.  They both still think they can fix him themselves.  They both think they can save him themselves.  They both think they can convince (or force) him to do what they want, what they think is in his best interests.  Both of them don’t yet understand that he has to want to come back, if it’s ever going to mean anything.  Their attempts to keep him in the village are immature and unrealistic, yes.  What they aren’t, however, is selfish, because neither Sakura nor Naruto are doing any of this with the intention of advancing their own interests.  They’re only thinking about Sasuke - how to keep Sasuke safe, how to make Sasuke happy - even when neither of them are taking an approach that will actually work.

Naruto and Sakura are children.  They’re afraid of losing somebody they care about.  Their attempts to prevent that from happening are desperate and messy and ultimately ineffective, but they are also genuinely felt and rooted in a true desire to rescue Sasuke from his pain, which - and this is the single most important thing that should impact our viewing of Part 1 - is something that Sasuke RECOGNIZES.  He doesn’t spend that agonizingly long moment bowed over Naruto’s defeated body so we can pretend he doesn’t understand that Naruto was just trying to help him.  He doesn’t take the time to murmur, “Sakura…thank you,” before laying her out carefully on a bench, just so we can discount it and pretend that he doesn’t recognize and appreciate her genuine intention to make things better for him, however clumsy that attempt might have been.

2. the greater good

If Stage 1 Sakura is "the girl with the crush," then Stage 2 Sakura is a progression to “the girl who decides to put her feelings for Sasuke aside in order to protect innocent people, including (but certainly not limited to) Naruto.”  She’s driven to this decision by interactions with Shikamaru, who all too recently had to grow up fast himself (“We're not kids anymore...we can't allow a war to break out between the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Cloud because of Sasuke") and Sai, who risks his new friendship with Sakura and Team 7 in order to speak some hard truths and deliver one of my favorite lines in the whole story: “I don’t know what promise Naruto made to you, but it’s really no different than what was done to me.  It’s like a curse mark.”

(INCREDIBLE.  How can anybody be complaining about a season where Sai gets to say something that goes THIS HARD and Sakura LISTENS and takes DRAMATIC ACTION that actually propels the story forward in a meaningful way - )

[Okay, yeah, brief personal opinion interlude - it is just bonkers wild to me that there are people who complain about Sakura in the Five Kage Summit arc. That entire season is the greatest character arc she ever has.  Literally she has never been more interesting and dynamic than in Season 10; it’s the first time she ever gets to be as deep and fascinating as the boys; what is everybody so worked up about?  Oh, “she lied to Naruto that one time” - Sasuke joined infant-kidnapping baby-murdering human experimentation machine Orochimaru when he was twelve years old in order to (dare I say it????) selfishly pursue his personal goals and yet, somehow, we are still able to root for him.  He abandoned his friends/allies to imprisonment and death (Suigetsu and Jūgo) or outright stabbed them in the chest himself (Karin) in order to (SELFISHLY) get what he wanted, and yet, somehow, we are still able to love him, understand him, and be on his side.  Naruto is canonically not upset with Sakura about her lie after receiving context for the situation and I think we can probably take our cues from him without feeling the need to bring her up on war crimes; please calm down]

[Sorry, I just really love most of Season 10 and think it’s one of the best examples of how good this story can be when every single character gets to do something that matters (as opposed to things being all Naruto, all the time) so I get a little bit worked up over people complaining about some of the best writing Sakura ever gets.  I don’t understand what certain elements of fandom want from her. People complain about her being “useless” and not doing anything that contributes to the story, but then they complain just as much when she does finally get to act decisively and have just as complex/dynamic an inner world as the boys.  She’s “weak” for being unreasonably in love with Sasuke, but when she tries to be “strong” and put her love for him aside and eliminate him in order to protect Naruto and the rest of the world, she’s evil, because she should have been more understanding of his situation (despite the fact that she doesn’t KNOW anything about his situation).  But then when she can’t go through with killing him after all because she cares about him too much despite the things he’s done, she’s not "compassionate" or "kind" or "a good friend," she’s “weak” again. Nothing Sakura does in S10 is more wrongheaded or rash than any of the batshit, buckwild things Naruto and Sasuke have done in the past (and will continue to do in the future), but when Naruto and Sasuke have big feelings or take bold action, it makes them interesting characters, whereas Sakura can’t breathe in anyone’s direction without being minutely scrutinized for moral impurities.]  

Anyway. Back to a more measured response.  

Every single piece of development Sakura has with regard to Sasuke in this season satisfies me so much.  Her initial shock and disbelief at hearing that Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki?  Good, appropriate.  The fact that she starts to acknowledge the reality of what Sasuke’s done sooner than Naruto does?  Also extremely appropriate, very in-character for both of them.  Her taking Sai’s words to heart and deciding that the promise she asked Naruto to make when they were children is causing him to suffer and she has to relieve him of that burden?  Juicy!  AND thematically significant (promises!!!!  the burden that a promise places on a person, especially when it can't be kept - we've seen that before in this story and we'll see it again).  Her anguished pivot from wanting to protect Sasuke to realizing that she has a responsibility to protect the countless innocents who will die because of the war he’s trying to start?  HELLO THIS IS INCREDIBLE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.  Her knocking out the classmates who agreed to help her so they don’t have to share in her burden (and so the only person Naruto will hate when it’s over is her)?  BRUH.  Her being so committed and focused on her goal of saving innocents and protecting Naruto (not just from being harmed by Sasuke/the Akatsuki, but by the possibility that Naruto will someday have to hurt Sasuke himself) that she tries to take everything on by herself and walks into a confrontation that she absolutely cannot win??  INCREDIBLE.  (Literally the first time I watched this, I said, “Finally!!!  It’s Sakura’s turn to go off the rails!”  I laughed with my sister about how Kakashi isn’t even mad, because Naruto and Sasuke have been pulling stunts like this for years and Sakura was way overdue for her own meltdown.)  And then, after Kakashi intervenes in the fight - Sakura barreling back into the battle when she realizes he’s going to take on the burden of killing Sasuke himself in order to spare her and Naruto the horror - “I can’t let Kakashi-sensei bear this burden!”  I love her for that.  

And then, of course, in the end - her not being able to do hurt Sasuke after all.  Despite committing herself to the act, despite forcing herself to put her feelings for him aside, despite resolving to stop him from starting a war and killing innocent people, she can’t harm him.  She cares about him too much.  This, too, is thematically significant - think about Itachi’s “you don’t have enough hatred” - she doesn’t have enough hatred to kill someone she cares about, even if it seems like he deserves it, even if would be the right thing to do to protect others.  She can’t do it, and Sasuke almost kills her for her compassion.  

I love the dynamic this sets up between her and Sasuke, for a few reasons:

1) Personally, I think Sasuke respects Sakura much more for trying to kill him than he would have if she’d just tried to talk him out of his behavior or beg him to come home (a la their original confrontation in Part 1).  This is the first significant interaction he’s had with Sakura in years, and the fact that she does something SO contrary to his memory of her is an important demonstration of the fact that she’s not the same girl she used to be.  Sasuke spends a lot of time after his defection declaring to his old team “I’ve changed; I’m not that person anymore,” but this is one of the moments where he’s forced to acknowledge that his teammates have changed, too.  Time didn’t just stop for them when he left.  While he was turning into someone new, so were they.  They grew up without him, and his old memories of them can’t encompass the whole picture of who they are now.  

(This is a little tangential, but in general, I love the spectrum of reactions that Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi have in this sequence, and the way that all of them are ultimately messages Sasuke needs to hear.  Sasuke - who we know textually regrets what he did here, who apologizes to Sakura for it later - for “everything,” in fact - needs Naruto’s aggressively optimistic open-arms policy, yes, needs that potential, that unconditional possibility of return.  He also needs Sakura’s refusal to let him hurt her friends and start a war that will kill thousands of people, needs her surprisingly ruthless attempt to take him down; needs just as much her failure to do so, because it shows him that she still loves him too much to kill him even as she condemns him.  And he needs Kakashi’s grim line in the sand, needs someone who very possibly won't hesitate like Sakura (despite the horrifying personal cost), someone who will try to reach him but also won't let him escape and become the next generation’s Orochimaru, who won't let him cause untold suffering to untold numbers of people just because a teacher loved him too much to stop him when he had the chance. 

(And then even Kakashi chooses not to deliver a killing blow when he has the opportunity -)

(I know that in fandom people are more likely to be all, “oh, Naruto Good, everybody else Bad,” but I don’t think the narrative frames Sakura or Kakashi as “worse” than Naruto in any way.  The story goes out of its way to make it clear how desperately they don’t want to hurt Sasuke and how much they care about him.  And [this is just my interpretation, so obviously I won’t claim it as fact], I personally think that Sasuke - Sasuke, who, looking back, can see how lost he was then and how tortured he would have been if he’d gone through with many of his plans - would be grateful to Sakura and Kakashi for making an attempt to stop him when he couldn’t stop himself.)

2) On the other side of this, the fact that Sakura wasn’t able to deliver the killing blow means a lot. Sasuke was incapacitated under that bridge; he was completely at her mercy - but she stopped with the kunai an inch from his back.  She couldn’t kill him, even though she knew that he was completely willing to kill her (because he'd attempted to Chidori-assassinate her from behind just a few minutes ago).  That’s huge!  Sasuke is too out of his head right now to process this or understand it, but later, it's going to matter.  She stayed her hand.  She spared his life.  She loved him too much to hurt him, even when he’d given her every reason to take him down.  She hesitated, and he almost killed her for it, but her inability to strike him ultimately gave him yet another chance to come home, another chance to get better, another chance to have a life outside of his pain.  Despite everything, some part of her still hadn’t really given up on him, and that knowledge will matter later, when he’s finally able to acknowledge it.  

The point of all this is to say that I really have no complaints about Sakura and Sasuke’s dynamic in their S10 confrontation.  This season is the point where Sakura fully grows past her “girl with a crush” stage and into her “shinobi must make very harsh decisions” adulthood, but it never means that she doesn’t care about the person she’s trying to take down.  Her ultimate inability to deliver the killing blow remains a dangling lifeline for her relationship with Sasuke, an open door that Sasuke is able to walk through at the end of the story (literally, in fact, when Sakura opens that portal for him and saves him from Kaguya’s desert prison, and figuratively, too, when Sasuke apologizes to her).

3. she only wants to save you

The last stage in their relationship is what Sakura settles into during the war arc.  She started off Part 1 being just a girl with a crush, then tried to harden her heart and put her feelings for Sasuke aside in service of the greater good, but she was unable to actually follow through and kill him, and because of that, what she’s come to accept by the war arc is actually two things: that 1) Sasuke truly is willing to let her die if it furthers his goals, and 2) she wants to save him anyway.  

She has no intention of pursuing Sasuke romantically.  She knows full well that Sasuke isn’t interested in her.  She even knows that Sasuke isn’t really on their side (there’s a great scene where Sai questions Sakura about Sasuke’s return, and she reassures him that everything is fine, and Sai sadly thinks to himself “even I can tell your smile is fake”).  She’s well-aware that Sasuke didn’t try to help her when Madara stabbed her.  She’s well-aware that he left her to die in the lava pit.  She’s also well-aware that none of this is enough to make her stop loving him.  He doesn’t have to care about her - she still cares about him.  She still wants to help him.  She still wants to save him.

This is not hidden, hard-to-parse character development.  It’s explicitly articulated on the page:

Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers!  She only wants to save you.

I’m not sure if people look at this last confrontation and unquestioningly take Sasuke at his word (as if we haven’t just read 71 volumes/watched 700 episodes showing us how how painfully distorted his thinking is), or if they stop reading/watching before the end of the scene, or if they don’t understand that Sasuke saying something doesn’t make that statement an accurate representation of reality.  The entire point of this scene is to show us how deeply mistaken Sasuke is about Sakura (and, by extension, the rest of Team 7).  He’s locked into a false pattern of thinking.  His single-minded focus on revenge and destruction has blinded him to the unconditional love his friends feel for him; he’s become so accustomed to using others and being used that he can’t understand or accept that someone would care about him without needing a reason, without needing him to love them back, without needing to receive something from him in exchange.

Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers!  She only wants to save you.

Sasuke matters to Sakura as more than a love interest.  He always has.  She does love him romantically, yes, but she doesn’t only love him romantically, and her desire to help him is not and has never been contingent on him returning her feelings, romantically or otherwise.  Sasuke isn’t able to acknowledge that in this scene, but that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to just sit back and agree with his warped perspective.  Kakashi is the one who’s explicitly positioned as the voice of the narrative here.  We, as the audience, are supposed to recognize that Kakashi is the one telling us the truth.

[tangential thing 1: You don’t have to love Sakura's last plea to Sasuke here. It’s not my favorite, either - the best part, other than Kakashi’s speech at the end, is the moment after Kakashi collapses when Sakura’s expression changes from pained uncertainty to pure rage, when she grits her teeth together - when I first saw that, I almost leapt out of my seat like “Oh my god.  She’s finally going to let him have it.  It’s finally happening - ”  I wanted that so badly, and I still think it would have been a more effective writing choice for Sakura’s last words to lean more into her anger at the suffering Sasuke is causing all of them (himself included!) and less into yet another of Kishimoto’s “let me have Sakura articulate what a shame it is that she can’t do as much as Naruto despite the fact that I literally just went through a major reveal sequence in the war to show that she’s caught up to the boys; I can’t make up my mind about whether I want her to progress or not” - it’s extremely frustrating (and it's something he does at the very end of the S10 Team 7 reunion, too, which is the ONLY moment of S10 that falls flat for me).  But at the same time, even if there are ways this sequence could be more satisfying, it doesn’t change the fact that her plea to him is not remotely motivated by a desire to be with him romantically and not anything to condemn her for.]

[tangential thing 2: I do like how she remembers that moment when Sasuke says “Thank you.”  That panel precedes her saying “If there’s even a tiny corner of your heart that thinks about me…” (which I’m sure is one of the things that people like to criticize about this scene, aka “oh she’s sooooo self-centered” etc), but that particular line of dialogue is preceded by that particular flashback panel for a reason: Sakura knows that Sasuke DOES think about her.  He thinks about all of them.  Sakura remembers that “thank you,” and it reminds her that despite everything Sasuke has done and said since, despite all evidence to the contrary, she knows in her bones that his expression of gratitude back then was genuine.  He cared about her once.  He cared about all of them.  She’s trying to reach the part of him that still does, if it exists.]

[tangential thing 3: The fact that Kakashi says “she suffers from loving you,” and it triggers Sasuke to remember his own family - thinking about how much he suffered (and still suffers) from loving them - “Perhaps…those are the ties to a failed past” - the idea that it’s not worth it to have bonds if it means you suffer this much…that it’s too difficult, it’s too painful, and if Sakura and the rest of Team 7 were smarter they would just give it up (all Sasuke knows how to do now is sever potential bonds before they can hurt him; so why aren’t Sakura and the rest of his teammates doing that, why can’t they let it go, why are they making this so hard - ) << yeah, he clearly doesn't care about her/them at all.]

4. the shadow of my family

This has all been a really long way to answer the original question, but the short response to “What do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura?” is “I really care about it,” just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Naruto, just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Kakashi. And I don’t think the story ever asks me to choose between them.

I’m not sure whether it’s the impact of Boruto-era “canon” that gets in the way of other people approaching things this way (I don’t consider sequel material when I evaluate the original story), or if it’s Kishimoto’s frequent disinterest in/disrespect towards female characters, which yes, does sometimes make it harder, or if it's a shipping thing (bane of my existence), or some combination of factors, but for me, taking one member of Team 7 out of the equation hobbles the rest of the story.  I can’t read/watch Naruto while hating one of the protagonists and loving the other three.  It doesn’t work like that for me.  The story wasn’t written that way, and there’s nothing in the text that would cause me to receive it that way.

That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with disliking one of the main foursome (or any character, for that matter) - obviously we're all going to have different preferences, and everyone is free to enjoy or reject whatever parts of a story they want, or to like or dislike whatever characters they want. I know that some people have more fun disregarding canon and doing their own thing, which is fine.  My own personal zone of enjoyment comes from receiving the story as closely to how I think it was intended to be read as I can, and personally, when I look at this particular story, what I see is that all the members of Team 7 clearly demonstrate their love for Sasuke in ways that he himself later recognizes and acknowledges. All of them are driven by their desire to save him and their unwillingness to hurt him. All of them make repeated choices to chase after him when he runs away, to trust him when he hasn't exactly earned it, to give him another chance when he doesn't appear to deserve it. ALL of them, not just Naruto, do these things multiple times throughout the story, and Sasuke owes his life (and thus his eventual recovery) to ALL of them, many times over. Kakashi disobeys Hokage-elect Danzō and breaks the law to negotiate for Sasuke's life with a foreign head of state. Sakura and Kakashi both have opportunities to kill Sasuke in the Land of Iron, and they choose to spare him instead. Kakashi stops Sasuke from killing his only friends at two different points in the story, which would have been a mistake Sasuke couldn't have recovered from. Sasuke would have died in Kaguya's desert dimension if Sakura hadn't saved him (Sakura, who knew that Sasuke wasn't even truly on her side yet, who knew he'd abandoned her for dead multiple times already that day). Kaguya's bone bullet would have killed Sasuke too, if Kakashi, with his intention to die in Sasuke's place, hadn't leapt in front of it (Kakashi, who also knew that Sasuke wasn't fully on their side yet, who also knew that Sasuke had abandoned him for dead earlier that day). Sasuke and Naruto would have BOTH died in the Final Valley if Sakura and a severely injured Kakashi hadn't chased after them to heal their injuries.

Remove any one member of Team 7, and Sasuke never makes it home. Without the combined efforts of all three of his teammates, he doesn't survive.  That’s the way it should be, thematically, for a story whose first and most foundational premise was the importance of teamwork, and since Sakura was just as essential to that framework as everyone else, I’m just as invested in her relationship with Sasuke as I am in his relationship with everyone else.  You can’t remove one leg from a four-legged stool without damaging the integrity of the entire structure, and for me, discounting any single member of Team 7 irreparably damages the integrity of the entire story. 

TL;DR: I love all of the Team 7 relationships, including Sakura and Sasuke's, because despite what some segments of fandom seem to believe, the text of the story never gives me any reason not to.

[arsen1cs4ng0]

i cant believe i have to say this and i know some people are gonna piss their pants over this, but just know the chipspeech fandom will forever be a system-friendly space, and if you dont like that then you can take your ass elsewhere

systems are stigmatized enough and i dont want any systems here to feel unsafe. if this is how yall are gonna treat systems then it really says a lot about you

[lord-squiggletits]

Speaking of Tyrest. A lot of people forget that he treated Pharma with absolute disdain, not only using him as a test subject for a clearly painful mass murder machine, but talking to Pharma like he saw him as nothing but some henchman to order around that was nothing more than a 'diseased cripple' if Tyrest hadn't come to rescue him.

Like it really is an interesting background dynamic with some curious implications, but when you look at fandom posts from around that issue/the years after, for some reason people just saw "Pharma worked with Tyrest" and concluded Pharma is a card carrying bigot ksjfnskxkd. Like yeah Pharma didn't do anything to stop Tyrest but it seems his main beef with the Autobots was with Ratchet in particular and maybe a general disdain for his ex-comrades. As well as continuing to hate Decepticons which like, not even the "good Autobots" are immune to (even in Pharma's introduction, First Aid says in his journal something like "yeah we all hate Decepticons, but Pharma REALLY hates them"). And despite what fandom likes to construe there's really no evidence in IDW1 that Autobots and Decepticons are different "races" or "types" of Cybertronians, so Pharma hating Decepticons really isn't a bigotry/robot racism thing. And instead probably has something to do with, idk, the 4 million year long galaxy-spanning blood feud war, or maybe being blackmailed and tortured into insanity by the Biggest and Most Decepticon-y of Decepticons.

Tyrest treated Pharma like trash, the other Decepticons working for Tyrest (how come no one ever brings that up btw) also hated him, so if anything it seems that Pharma was more of a rogue element only staying with Tyrest bc he was his best option and probably had no way to even escape.

I'm glad that at least in recent years the fandom has acquired a keen reading eye and good taste to finally recognize Pharma as the (accidentally) complex character he is instead of making him some posh, racist Starscream clone SHSJDGSGDH

[variousqueerthings]

finished reading "tell me I'm worthless," which was an interesting experience. I think there's something really good for you in your soul to be able to understand the genre conventions you're in and the kinds of structures and language and character that can be explored in these genres. I think about how people tend to -- with fiction about marginalisation and/or about people who are marginalised as a blanket whole, regardless of the story -- operate on a checklist of dos and donts, but mainly donts: don't ever tell us a deadname, don't ever use these "problematic" words to describe them/or have them describe themselves in this way, don't ever describe negative emotions or "problematic" emotions, don't let the characters have harmful traits (either towards themselves or others), don't hurt your characters at all actually, don't make your characters politically uncomfortable or "problematically" complicated in their political outlook and/or journey, don't make your characters be assholes ever, certainly don't traumatise your characters, and under no circumstance do you kill your characters!

which of course, this book does praaaactically every one of these things, thank goodness