#and like. no matter how much of civilization is collapsing around you time is still time. the seasons are constant

[incomingalbatross]

I just don't believe in a societal collapse dramatic enough to make humans reset the calendar to count from it.

[llama529orange]

Hello everyone it's good to come back after days or weeks of not posting so today I present:

Housewardens with an affection s/o

Riddle

Definitely, he would be flustered or shy about having someone be affectionate with him since his mother treated him like a trophy kid and he never knew what it was like to be hugged or kissed as mothers do . This has left Riddle touch starved without him realizing it . Imagine you giving Riddle all the kisses and hugs he missed , snuggling or cuddling against him , being all clingy towards him , or expressing your love for him would make Riddle 's heart beat faster every minute . His face would be all red , trying to hide it and maintain his posture , but the second you two are alone and have private time , he collapses into your touch and cuddles against you , maybe murmuring softly a small "I love you.." Riddle would try to keep things mostly private, but holding hands or a small kiss on the cheek wouldn't be a problem however, cuddles and kisses on the lips are clearly things he wants in private.

Leona

One word : smug . He definitely would like an s/o who gives him all the attention he desires and smooches him every second they can. Leona would definitely drag you to sleep with him together; it doesn't matter if it's the botanical garden or his room . Leona wants you to cuddle with him ; he wants to have you around to hold you , or mostly to be his pillow , burying his face in your chest and sleeping soundly. Leona wouldn't be shy with you being affectionate in public , while he still wants to keep some things private. Deep down , Leona loves the affection and attention that you chose him and not someone else. Even while he is smug and prideful, Leona wouldn't express that loudly, but he will show it in his own way and would fight for you . He doesn't plan to lose you to be second place again . Leona loves you till the moon and earth and will keep you by his side.Even if your lion is lazy , it doesn't change the fact that your love for him and his love for you is something you both know , even without words.

Azul

Other shy boy who can't handle your smooch or affection . He tries to keep his reputation as a businessman, the one who creates contracts, the one who manages the Monster Lounge, the one who fooled the first years. Well , bad luck for Azul since you love to kiss and smooch his face every time you sit on his lap while he does his paperwork . Clinging to him , praising him , or whining for attention , you take every kiss you can from Azul. The twins love to tease Azul while Jade keeps his facade polite , unlike Floyd , who teases him without any problem. While Azul may be shy and keep this whole affection private for his own sake and reputation , and also can't handle your affection , he loves it very much - the attention , the way you hold and kiss him , the way you praise him . Deep down , it helps Azul not to feel so insecure , helping him to overcome the negative thoughts and reminding him of who he truly is and why you love him. Azul loves you very much ; even if he's not that vocal in the most intimate moments , he would murmur , "Thank you..."

Kalim

Your precious boyfriend , your lovely partner , who loves to kiss and smooch , is the one who has no problems with public affection - the one who spoils you and loves you with all his heart. Kalim loves you and makes that very clear by words, gifts , and affection . He clearly loves to snuggle with you , to invite you to his sleepover parties, and to have you around him. While you know how Jamil is and do not look past him, you try to act civil with each other , sometimes even giving him a break and taking Kalim 's attention only for yourself, smooching him , knowing that will keep Kalim busy. While Kalim is your lovely sunshine boyfriend and loves you very much , the fact that he was kidnapped , poisoned , and betrayed sometimes makes Kalim hug you close , keeping you tight in his arms, softly crying in the crook of your neck , repeating the phrase , "Stay with me , please..." You caress his back and let him cry in your arms, giving him comfort and trust , promising that you would stay by his side even in the hardest moments of your life. Your affection helps Kalim in a way you may not know .

Vil

That would be a problem since Vil has a busy schedule being an actor and a housewarden , but either way , he will try to make time for you . When he has his free time , he spends it with you. Vil will love your kiss , but with a restriction since he doesn't want his makeup to be ruined or his reputation to suffer; he has an image that he needs to maintain . Even with that , he cherishes the intimate time with you , taking time for yourself , giving him soft touches and kissing his face , while he kisses yours. You cuddle against him and melt in his touch , keeping a firm yet tight hold , knowing you are there with him , that you love him not because of his beauty or image , but for who he is , loving even his "ugly" side. Even Vil shows his love through quality time and sweet words for you ; he can't help but smile while looking at you , with a look that says he doesn't want to lose you , and that's enough for you to know that Vil truly loves you.

Idia

Other shy boy , or rather anxious boy , who couldn't handle your affection and your touch , making his hair turn pink and his face too . I'm not gonna lie , you kill that man every time you just try to cuddle him or kiss him. While Idia barely gets out of his room and wants all your affection to be private and only when you two are alone , since he can't handle people looking at him or you being like that in public. Either way , Ortho loves that his big brother has someone who loves him and socializes with someone , making sure that you two spend time together or help his brother when he tries to do something nice for you. Still , Idia loves you very much , even if he can't say it , and he holds you tight sometimes to make sure you are with him , alive , that you are still breathing and in front of him . During this time , Idia holds you and nuzzles in your neck , letting him know that in that moment , Idia only needs your touch to make sure you're with him.

Malleus

Ah yes , an affectionate s/o and a clingy dragon that's how you and Malleus are. This lonely dragon loves you so much it hurts him . He loves your kisses, your touch , the way you hold his hand so tenderly, the way you cuddle with him when you guys have time only for yourselves, and the way you look at him with pure love and adoration . He almost wants to propose when you look at him like that. Even so, Malleus has his own moments of feeling lonely , fearing that he will lose the people he cares about , that they will leave one day and he won 't be able to see them or that they will die before him , leaving him alive while his special ones become just a grave and a decomposing body. In those moments , you see Malleus at his most vulnerable, holding you close and tight as he fears losing you , knowing you could go at any second. You let him rest his head on your shoulder while he pleads quietly , "Please don't leave me..." You promise to be at his side for as long as time allows, giving him that reassurance. This makes every moment special , so your clingy , lonely boyfriend isn 't left wondering how much you truly love him.

[matcha3mochi]

rin itoshi x fem! reader // enemies to lovers

next

༄˖°.🪐.ೃ࿔*:･

Itoshi Rin was insufferable. Or at least, that’s what you kept telling yourself. Every interaction with him felt like a battleground, a constant exchange of snarky remarks and jabs that left you seething in frustration. It didn’t help that Rin was the type to act like he was better than everyone else, especially you.

What was worse was how often you found yourself in his presence. Being one of the team managers for Blue Lock meant you were stuck with him during practices, and because of his talent, Rin was always around—brooding, quiet, and of course, ready to pounce on you with some teasing comment.

The worst part? You had no idea what you ever did to deserve his animosity.

Every time you tried to be civil, it ended in some form of bickering. You couldn’t get through a single conversation without him criticizing something, whether it was how you organized the equipment or how you helped the other players. It felt personal, like he had a vendetta against you specifically. It was enough to make you think Rin hated you.

Today was no different. You were standing on the field during practice, jotting down some notes for the coach when you heard that familiar voice behind you.

“Your handwriting is still terrible,” Rin commented, his voice cool and indifferent as he passed by with a soccer ball under his arm.

You glared at him, resisting the urge to snap back immediately. “It’s legible enough. Maybe you just have poor reading comprehension.”

He didn’t even glance back, just waved a dismissive hand. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

You clenched your jaw, fuming as you watched him jog off to rejoin the team. Every single time. It was as if he made it his life’s mission to get under your skin. But no matter how many snarky comments he threw your way, there was something infuriatingly captivating about him. His intense focus during practice, the way he seemed to carry the weight of every play—he was talented, that much was undeniable. And sometimes, on the rare occasion when his icy demeanor cracked just a little, you caught glimpses of something more behind those sharp blue eyes.

But then he'd go and ruin it with another sarcastic jab, and whatever fleeting warmth you thought you saw vanished just as quickly.

“Hey,” one of the players, Bachira, came jogging up to you with his usual playful grin. “You and Rin are at it again, huh? You two fight like an old married couple.”

You gave him a withering look. “He’s the one who starts it. I swear, he has it out for me.”

Bachira chuckled, shrugging. “Maybe he just likes you?”

You scoffed at that. “Yeah, right. He hates me.”

Bachira only laughed again before running back to practice, leaving you with that unsettling thought. Like you? That seemed impossible. If Rin liked you, he had a really weird way of showing it.

The real trouble started later that day.

After practice, the weather began to turn. Dark clouds rolled in fast, and before long, rain started pouring down in sheets. You had stayed behind to clean up the equipment—something that normally didn’t bother you, but the sudden downpour made it a miserable task. The other players had already cleared out, and you were alone on the field, rushing to gather the scattered soccer balls.

Just as you were about to finish, your foot slipped on the wet grass, sending you tumbling to the ground. Pain shot up your ankle as you hit the ground with a yelp, clutching your leg.

The ground came up fast, and you hit it hard, pain exploding in your ankle. "Ow, ow, ow," you hissed, clutching your ankle, which was already starting to throb with a fiery intensity.

You tried to stand, hoping it was just a minor tweak, but as soon as you put weight on it, the pain flared up, making you collapse back down with a frustrated groan. Great. You were stuck in the middle of the field, rain starting to drizzle down on you, and your ankle felt like it was on fire.

You fumbled for your phone, realizing it had been knocked from your pocket in the fall. Your fingers were shaking, a mix of pain and panic starting to creep in. As the rain started to fall harder, soaking through your clothes, you gritted your teeth, frustrated beyond belief.

Just then, a shadow appeared above you.

“Idiot,” a familiar voice cut through the sound of the rain.

You looked up and saw Rin, standing there with that typical scowl of his. He must have stayed behind after practice for his usual solo training. For a second, your pride flared up, and you almost waved him away. But the pain in your ankle made you swallow your stubbornness.

“I’m fine,” you muttered through gritted teeth, trying to play it off as no big deal. “I just twisted my ankle.”

Rin crouched down beside you, his sharp blue eyes narrowing at the sight of your injury. He clicked his tongue in annoyance, clearly not buying your bravado. “You can’t even stand up.”

You opened your mouth to protest, but the truth was undeniable. You couldn’t stand. The rain was starting to pour down harder now, soaking through your clothes and hair. The cold only made your ankle hurt worse.

Without another word, Rin reached out, slipping an arm around your back and under your knees. Before you could even register what was happening, he lifted you off the ground in one swift motion, holding you securely against his chest.

“What—Rin, I can walk!” you protested, your voice coming out much weaker than you intended. His arms were surprisingly steady, and despite the rain pouring down on both of you, his warmth was undeniable.

“Yeah, clearly,” he muttered, his tone flat but not cruel. He adjusted you in his arms, careful not to jostle your ankle too much as he began walking toward the locker room.

The rain pelted down, soaking both of you, but Rin didn’t seem to mind. His jaw was set in that usual determined way, as if he were simply running drills on the field and not carrying you through a storm.

“Why are you… doing this?” you asked, feeling a strange mix of emotions—embarrassment, confusion, and something else you couldn’t quite place.

“Because you’re an idiot,” he replied curtly, though there wasn’t as much bite to his words as usual. “You should’ve asked for help instead of being stubborn.”

You huffed, looking away to hide your embarrassment. The last thing you wanted was to be seen as weak in front of Rin, of all people. But the way he carried you, carefully avoiding any sudden movements that might hurt your ankle further, left you at a loss for words.

By the time he got you inside the locker room, you were shivering from the cold rain, but the pain in your ankle had numbed slightly. Rin set you down on one of the benches with surprising gentleness, his brows furrowed as he examined your swollen ankle.

“Stay here,” he ordered before walking off to get a first aid kit.

You sat there, your ankle pulsing with pain as you tried to process what had just happened. Rin—it was always Rin. The one who constantly teased and tormented you, yet here he was, carrying you through a storm and tending to your injury like it was the most natural thing in the world.

He returned a moment later, kneeling in front of you as he began wrapping your ankle with a firm, practiced hand. You watched him in silence, still bewildered by the strange tenderness in his actions.

The storm raged outside, the downpour relentless as it drenched the field and soaked you to the bone. The pain in your ankle had been dulling since Rin had carried you inside, but your thoughts were still spinning from the sheer absurdity of the situation. The guy who couldn’t go two minutes without making a sarcastic remark was now crouched in front of you, focused on bandaging your injury.

You couldn’t help but steal a glance at him—his brows furrowed in concentration, lips pressed into a firm line. It was almost unsettling how quiet he was. No teasing, no biting remarks. Just silence.

The locker room lights flickered slightly, adding to the odd tension between you two. You leaned back on the bench, the icy sting of the rain fading from your body, though the memory of Rin’s warmth as he carried you was still fresh.

"You're gonna need to stay off this for a while," Rin said, finally breaking the silence as he secured the bandage around your ankle. His voice was low, almost gruff, but not unkind. He tied off the bandage with a swift motion, straightening up to look at his handiwork. “At least a week. You’re lucky it’s just a sprain.”

You swallowed, nodding. “I’ll manage.”

“Sure you will,” Rin muttered, standing up and grabbing the first aid kit. “Knowing you, you’ll be running around like an idiot by tomorrow.”

A snappy retort was on the tip of your tongue, but you bit it back, suddenly tired. The pain in your ankle wasn’t too bad now that it was properly wrapped, but your pride still smarted. Of all people to help me, it had to be Rin, you thought, glancing out the window as the rain finally started to ease up.

The sound of it softened, turning into a gentle patter against the windows.

Rin noticed it too. He stood by the door, staring outside for a moment before shifting his gaze back to you. His usual cold expression was back, but there was something different about it now—like the sharp edges had softened, even if just a little.

“Looks like it’s stopped,” he said quietly, as if the rain had taken with it the tension that had been hanging between you two. “You need to head home.”

You frowned, testing your ankle by gingerly placing it on the ground. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” The words came out shakier than you intended, and when you tried to stand, the sharp pain shot back through your leg, making you wince.

Rin was beside you in an instant, his hands grabbing your arm before you could collapse again. “You’re not walking on that.”

You blinked, thrown off by how quickly he’d reacted. He was scowling, but the concern was unmistakable. You’d never seen him like this before—not with you, anyway.

“I can handle it,” you insisted, though the throbbing in your ankle told a different story.

Rin narrowed his eyes, his grip on your arm tightening slightly. “Stop being stubborn. I’m walking you home.”

You stared at him, taken aback by the sudden firmness in his voice. He was serious.

“I’m not a baby, Rin. I can—”

“I said I’m walking you home,” he cut you off, his tone leaving no room for argument. His eyes met yours, unyielding and intense. You wanted to argue, to insist that you could take care of yourself, but something in the way he looked at you—determined, almost protective—made the words die in your throat.

Before you could protest further, Rin moved beside you, his arm slipping around your waist to support you. He adjusted his hold carefully, making sure you could lean on him without putting pressure on your injured ankle.

You couldn’t help the heat that crept up your neck at how close he was, his body warm against yours despite the cold air that still lingered from the storm.

“Come on,” he muttered, his voice a little softer now. “Let’s get you home.”

The walk was quiet at first, neither of you quite knowing what to say. The tension between you hung in the air, thick and heavy. Rin’s usual teasing demeanor was gone, replaced by a focused silence as he matched your pace, adjusting whenever you needed.

After a few minutes, you decided to break the silence. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“I know,” he replied curtly, his gaze fixed ahead. “But you’d make it worse if I didn’t.”

You sighed, biting back a sarcastic remark. It was easier to just let him be like this than to argue. The quiet stretched out again, but this time, it felt less awkward. There was something strangely comfortable about walking with him, even in silence.

As you neared your house, the sun began to dip below the horizon, casting a warm glow over the street. You glanced up at Rin, noticing how the golden light softened his usually sharp features. For the first time, you saw a different side of him—less cold, less distant.

When you finally reached your door, you stopped, turning to face him. “Thanks… for this.”

Rin’s eyes flickered with something you couldn’t quite place. He nodded, his hand still resting lightly on your waist. “Just… be careful next time.”

You smirked, leaning against the doorframe. “Careful? Coming from you?”

He let out a small scoff, rolling his eyes. “You’re impossible.”

“Yeah, well… so are you.”

For a split second, Rin’s lips twitched, almost forming a smile before he turned away. Without another word, he started walking back, his figure disappearing into the evening light.

You watched him go, your heart racing slightly. Despite all his coldness, Rin had shown a glimpse of something deeper—something that left you wondering if there was more to him than you had ever realized.

As you limped inside, you couldn’t help but smile.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist:

Last night was sickening. A replay of 2016. It’s hardly ancient history. We stepped on a rake years ago and we decided to do it again. This was a reminder that 2020, not 2016, was the year where the presidential election went sideways. The year of the pandemic was also the high watermark for the decade. The results are bad for church/state separation. Bad for civil rights. Bad for bodily autonomy. Bad for Ukraine and our foreign allies. Bad for Palestinians. Bad for science and the climate and common sense. Bad for just about every issue that matters to the type of people who read this newsletter. The worst people you know got pretty much everything they wanted. The people who have empathy and expertise—the people who care too much and want the best for others—lost again. A Trump without guardrails is a Trump who’s even worse than he was years ago, and he was really fucking awful years ago.

If the famous saying is “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” we’re about to be ruled by people who’ll do everything in their power to make sure we never learn about the past. The people who ban books, whitewash American history, and reject science have been given another chance to turn their ignorance into policy. We’re screwed in the event of another pandemic. Blue states will not be able to rely on federal funding in the event of a natural disaster because that will require Trump’s signature. When the economy collapses, Republicans will blame everyone but themselves and most people won’t know they’re being lied to. (The mainstream media can’t be expected to push back. They failed to meet the moment this time around, and they’re bound to get worse.) With the Senate now in Republican control and the presidency within Donald Trump’s grasp (the blue wall of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have not yet been called), we’re on the verge of seeing at least two years of utter chaos with ramifications that will last even longer. At best, if Democrats manage to flip the House, they will still control a mere 1/6 of the federal government.

[...]

I don’t know how to beat back the firehose of misinformation that contributed to the rightward shift of the country. I don’t know what could have changed the minds of the half of the country that seems immune to reality. I don’t know what else the Harris campaign could have done to change the outcome. (There’s an argument to be made that she should have pushed back against Joe Biden’s policies, especially regarding Israel, but given the results, even if that helped her with Muslims in Michigan, it arguably wouldn’t have moved the needle everywhere else as much as she needed.) I also don’t believe Biden or a different candidate would have fared any better. It’s easy to feel like the past few months were just pointless. The debate that Harris won didn’t matter. The half-filled Trump rallies didn’t indicate a loss of support. The meandering ramblings of a man whose brain is clearly broken didn’t turn off enough people. The major endorsements for Harris—and the lack of big ones for Trump— didn’t change much. The overwhelming financial support for Harris didn’t overcome the billionaires backing Trump. The “vibes” didn’t match the other side’s arrogance. The Democratic National Convention, so full of joy, now feels like a last gasp rather than a new beginning. The Democrats’ superb ground game and the utter lack of one for Republicans still didn’t meet the “margin of effort.” Trump’s criminal indictments and impeachments and legal battles and mugshot and looming potential jail sentence (!) weren’t dealbreakers.

January 6 eventually led Trump to another term in office when it should have blackballed him from public life. Too many Americans are nostalgic for a utopia that never existed, and when they realized they’ve been conned, there are going to be a hell of a lot of conservatives eager to blame minorities of all stripes for all the problems they made worse. At the same time, as older generations of Americans understand all too well, the path to progress is never smooth and it requires constant vigilance. We knew that in 2016 and there were reverberations—in 2018 and 2020. We’ll now walk down that path again. It will likely be even more fierce this time around.

Last night’s election results were a gut punch for Americans opposed to the Orange Felon.

For the next four years, there will be horror show after horror show.

[priderock-inc]

The meeting room had been so bright. 

Scar stalks into his office, allows himself the luxury of slamming the door behind him, doesn’t turn on the lights, and all but collapses into his desk chair, letting his head fall onto the desk with a slight thud.

That whole meeting could have been an email. Shorter, oh, mercifully shorter, and he could have printed it and read it on paper like a civilized human being and he wouldn’t have had to deal with the light of his computer screen, or the absolute wattage of that meeting room. 

His eyes are stinging so badly he can almost feel himself tearing up. 

A knock at the door.

Scar restrains himself from cursing violently and, without raising his head, growls. “What?”

The door opens; he can hear footfalls on the carpet. Not heavy enough to be Mufasa. 

“Are you quite all right?” asks the last person Scar wants to deal with right now. 

No, that’s not fair. There are several last people he wants to deal with right now. 

“Go away, Zazu.”

The voice gets closer. “Is something the matter, Scar?”

“Get out of my office.”

“It’s the light, isn’t it? There were new bulbs put into the-”

“Get out.”

“I’ll get you some water.”

“Get. Out.”

Footsteps again. The door closing softly. Scar doesn’t raise his head.

He bites back a moan. 

He hasn't even enough energy to get up, cross the room, and lock the door against any further intruders.

“I brought you something to drink.”

Speak of the devil.

“Go away,” Scar mutters one more time, just in case. 

As expected, that accomplishes exactly nothing.

He lifts his head.

Zazu’s standing in front of the desk, in the relative darkness of the office, holding a stack of papers under one arm and a glass- where had he managed to find a glass?- of iced water in his hand.

“This’ll help,” he says crisply, and sets the papers down on the edge of the desk before placing the water in front of Scar. 

Scar looks at it, then up at Zazu.

Drinking it down in one go and throwing it directly between the advisor’s eyes are both extraordinarily pleasant ideas. 

Zazu waits a for a moment. 

Scar doesn’t budge. 

Zazu huffs. “Oh, would you shelve your pride for two minutes?” 

His throat bobs in a quick swallow, a movement Scar almost misses, before he comes around the side of the desk. 

Well. This should be entertaining. What could the advisor possibly be up to-?

Zazu pulls out a handkerchief from his pocket and, looking very much ready to entirely lose his nerve, dips it into the glass of water and crumples it in his fist.

“How delightfully archaic,” Scar says shortly. “A handkerchief. You so rarely see those in use anymore.”

“Well, you’re seeing one now.” The authority in Zazu’s voice seems to surprise them both. “Put your head back.”

Scar blinks at him. “I beg your pardon?”

Zazu reaches out and, before Scar can grab his wrist and snap it, gently pushes the VP’s forehead back, turning the sharply-planed face toward his own. “And close your eyes.”

Possibly out of sheer confusion, Scar finds himself obeying.  

And Zazu lays the wet cloth over his eyes, patting it carefully into place, and Scar goes rigid and makes a noise that has Zazu almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to stumble backwards.

But for once, he can’t focus on the ever-delightful effect he has over the advisor. Not when- oh stars above the cool wetness against his burning lids and the relief is so stark that tears prickle painfully at the corners of his closed eyes. 

He almost murmurs something that he really ought not to before catching himself. 

“Zazu,” he hums instead, and hears a strangled squeak in return. 

Oh. Marvelous. 

Face still turned toward the ceiling, Scar flashes a grin. “Do you know what I’d like to do to you right now, Zazu?”

It earns him another squeak, more strangled than the last, before a “...no, Scar, I-I do not.”

“Absolutely nothing,” Scar replies, almost dreamily. “Because I am not moving from this spot. Run along and tell Mufasa not to expect me to lunch, would you?”

Rapid footsteps. A door slamming. 

Scar smiles to himself.

Zazu had deserved that, for touching him without permission. 

But maybe Scar will make it up to him later. 

(shout-out to my cheerleaders; you know who you are~)

[deityoftherain]

zombabe - Smallidarity Zombie Apocalypse AU Fanfic

Rating: Teen

Relationship: M/M

Archive Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Status: Completed Oneshot

Word Count: 3,406

Summary: Joel hadn’t ever thought he would be stabbing a zombie with the sharpened end of his baseball bat (he got bored and carved things) on a random Wednesday afternoon (was it Wednesday?), yet here he was, living after the collapse of civilization... at least he had Jimmy by his side.

Full fanfic underneath the cut! Please reblog, leave kudos on the AO3 fic slash notes/likes here on Tumblr, comment either place, and etc if you enjoy the story :D

People always talked about preparing for the zombie apocalypse, but most rarely did. Why would they? It was just a thing made up for entertainment, nothing more. If anything, Joel just wished he had binge-watched more zombie movies to prepare.

Joel was one of those people who thought the whole thing was stupid. Buying canned goods in bulk, solar panels on roofs to power generators, elaborate underground bunkers… all of it, rubbish! It was just rubbish until the zombies (actual brain-dead, flesh-eating zombies) started to take over.

At least he no longer had to work, though he had quite liked his job, watching youtube videos, having more than one friend, take-out meals, reliable running water, art shows, and so much more from his life before… not that it mattered anymore. Life from before meant nothing. All that mattered was survival now, and he wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

Joel hadn’t ever thought he would be stabbing a zombie with the sharpened end of his baseball bat (he got bored and carved things) on a random Wednesday afternoon (was it Wednesday?), yet here he was. He pulled out his pocket knife with his free hand and flipped it open before slicing it across the zombie’s neck. When it fell to the ground, he puffed out his chest with a sneer. Another one of those dreadful things down, countless more still out in the world.

“What do you think they are? Werewolves?” Jimmy joked, drawing Joel’s attention to him. 

Jimmy was wiping off the zombie guts from the large kitchen knife he claimed from the ruins early that week. Joel was pretty sure it was a week, but he wasn’t positive about it. Considering they were facing societal collapse and having to scavenge to stay alive, keeping time wasn’t something he tended to cross off on his itinerary.

“Those are vampires, Jim. Not blummin’ werewolves,” Joel scoffed, turning to his companion throughout this whole thing. “Werewolves are killed with silver. Vampires are killed by things like wooden stakes and garlic.”

“Oh, right, right,” Jimmy chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. He glanced behind him before starting to survey the general area. Joel assumed he was checking to make sure there weren’t more zombies, meaning he didn’t need to, meaning he could stare at Jimmy. They’ve always been friends, yeah, but after spending all this time together, Joel wasn’t exactly sure where they stood. Talking about his emotions wasn’t exactly his strong suit, so he never brought it up. 

Jimmy had always been rather fit since he’d been on track in secondary school and then ran every other morning from then on. He ran more frequently than that now, just less as a hobby to relieve stress and more as a way to get away from human-eating monsters. Joel considered himself to be extremely strong, buff, handsome, and sexy, but he couldn’t deny that Jimmy could run laps around him. They evened each other out in that way.

“What do you think we should have for lunch, babe?” Joel shrugged off his beat-up backpack. “Canned beans or canned beans?”

“Canned beans again?” Jimmy wrinkled his nose at the lack of options. “Wow, you really know how to treat a girl.”

“As much as I would love to wine and dine you properly, we are kinda in the blummin’ apocalypse.” Joel tossed a can toward him, ignoring the rumbling of his stomach. “Eat up. We can scavenge for something else later.”

Jimmy fumbled to catch it, but he did manage to do so. Joel was mildly proud at his improved catching skills, but not enough to show it. Instead, they settled down on makeshift chairs (they were tipped over trash cans) as they ate their cans of beans.

“Your jacket has a new cut on the sleeve,” Jimmy pointed out.

Joel twisted his arm to get a better look at what Jimmy was referring to and groaned, “Ugh, not another one. Blummin’ thing wasn’t made for the apocalypse, I guess.”

“It’s lasted this long,” Jimmy shrugged. “I think we got our money’s worth.”

Both Jimmy and Joel had on their leather jackets with a badass, perhaps sort of cringey design on the back that they bought together. There was a sale at one of the shops, they had recently gotten paid, and they may or may not have been a teensy bit tipsy. Joel didn’t regret it though, still thinking it was rather cool. Besides, it acted as protection from the elements, loose screws, and overgrown zombie nails.

“The store owner did gave us a good deal on Grian’s since we already bought two from ‘em,” Joel reminisced. 

Grian, Jimmy’s cousin, always acted like they were dumb, but Joel insisted he was just jealous. Taking a bet that he was right, he and Jimmy worked together to get one for him as well. Lo and behold, Grian loved it more than he would have ever admitted to their faces and they became self-proclaimed Bad Boys.

They hadn’t seen Grian since before this whole thing started.

Joel regretted bringing him up as he watched Jimmy’s expression shift from a smile to a grimace. He cleared his throat awkwardly and wracked his brain for something to lighten the mood again.

“I think I spotted a pet shop a bit down. You wanna see if they have some bird seed?” Joel was aware that going out to get bird seed to feed some blummin’ birds of all things was a waste of time, energy, and carrying space, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret it when he saw the way that Jimmy’s eyes lit up. 

Joel would trade away everything he had just to see Jimmy look so excited and full of life. He would do anything if it meant that he could see Jimmy look like Jimmy again. The grim atmosphere that came with the end of their civilization and the loss of their loved ones stomped out a lot of Jimmy’s light, but it wasn’t gone completely. Whenever Joel could do something to bring one of his dumb, crooked smiles to his face, he would.

He would never admit that though. Jimmy didn’t need to get a big head; that was Joel’s job, thank you very much.

“Really?” Jimmy squeaked as he started to bounce in his spot. If he had a tail, Joel was sure it would be wagging enthusiastically. Since he didn’t, Jimmy shook his arms instead. Joel got on him sometimes for being loud (he could attract zombies!), but it was hard to stay mad when he was simply displaying joy. Joy was already so rare and Joel couldn’t bring himself to ruin it.

Ruffling Jimmy’s hair, Joel huffed and said, “A’course! Would I ever lie to you, Jim?”

“Are you joking?” Jimmy deadpanned. “Oi, it’s not my fault you’re gullible.” Joel tossed the empty can aside, having no use for it. It wasn’t like they had a trash system anymore so why bother throwing it away? “Now do you want to go feed your bird friends or not?”

“I do, I do, hold on,” Jimmy’s words were muffled as he spoke around the beans he stuffed into his mouth. He chewed quickly, swallowed, and pushed himself up to his feet. “Okay, done, let’s go!”

Joel rolled his eyes fondly. He slung his arm over his friend’s shoulder and started to drag him down the street.

The pet store wasn’t too far away nor was it hard to get into. The windows had been shattered open and half of the products were on the floor, but it was still intact to some extent. Joel ran his baseball bat against the floor, the nails hammered into it making an awful scratching noise as it ran against the laminate tiles. If he was going to live in a real life scary movie, he may as well have a spiked baseball bat!

“Babe, that is driving me insane,” Jimmy lightly smacked Joel’s hip with the side of his kitchen knife. “Hold it the right way or we’re switching weapons.” “You have no sense of showmanship,” Joel huffed, but did as he was told. He tossed it up so it rested against his shoulder, ready to swing if any zombies decided to jump out at them.

Jimmy was about to retort when he got side tracked by the bird seed. Joel tried to listen, he really did, but he could only pay attention to Jimmy ramble about the different kinds of bird seed and what would be the best for the birds that stuck around in this area for so long. He wandered off through the store to browse the shelves and see if anything else would be useful.

Joel may have zoned out just a tad (a dangerous thing to do during times like this) because he didn’t register anything when Jimmy slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. “Blummin’ hell! Can’t you watch where you’re going?”

Jimmy ignored him, the only semblance of a response being a gasp as he scrambled off of Joel. Before Joel could see what happened, he heard the slashing of Jimmy’s kitchen knife against fabric and the grunts of a zombie. 

Fuck. Joel snatched his spiked baseball bat and bolted towards the sounds of commotion. Another zombie grunted behind him, so he spun on his heel and swung at it. When did the zombies close in on them? Joel hadn’t seen any earlier!

Joel tried to swing strategically, but that only lasted so long before he started to blindly throw the bat around. No matter what he tried, the zombies just kept coming back. 

“Jim, I think we gotta make a run for it. These smelly zombies aren’t backing off,” Joel warned.

He didn’t get a response and concern started to gnaw at him. Only after he managed to knock down the zombies around him again did he spare a glance over his shoulder. 

Jimmy wasn’t there. 

Joel paled as fear gripped him tight. His throat closed up and his heart seemed to stop beating. He’d already lost so much– he couldn’t lose Jimmy too. Not now, not when he’d never gotten to tell Jimmy how much he meant to him.

Not when he’d been in love with him for so long..

Joel loved Jimmy. He loved him more than a friend.

Fuck, fuck, fuck—

“Jimmy!” Joel called out, breaking out into a sprint.

His crush. Ha! Crush sounded like such a silly word for what Joel felt for Jimmy. Crush made it sound like it was some stupid primary school infatuation. Crush made it sound like they weren’t in the middle of the end of the world. The end of the world with no one else but each other.

Joel wasn’t sure how long it had been when he heard his name be called. He stopped in his tracks and frantically looked around. “Jimmy?”

“Joel, I’m here.” When they made eye contact, Jimmy gave him a weak smile, though it was more like a grimace. He was standing, at least, so that was a good sign… right?

“Jimmy, what the hell?” Joel exclaimed as he ran to Jimmy’s side and threw his arms around him for a hug. He didn’t stay there long, pulling away but keeping his hands firmly around Jimmy’s shoulders. “What happened? Why did you run off? You know better than to stray that far away! That was stupid. Such a stupid thing for you to do. Do I need to put you on a lead?”

Maybe he came off a bit too harsh because Jimmy stayed silent, allowing his gaze to drop down to his feet. Joel bit down on the inside of his cheek harshly, a tinge of copper setting off his taste buds.

Now that Joel’s racing heart was allowed to calm down, he could make up for not protecting him like he should. His eyes ran over Jimmy, ignoring the blush he could feel burning on his face. He hoped Jimmy would just take it as being flushed from running a lot.

Joel’s gaze lingered on Jimmy’s torso and arms for longer than he should before finally trailing down his legs. That’s when he saw part of Jimmy’s trousers soaked a dark crimson color. “Jimmy, are you bleeding?” Jimmy winced, still avoiding Joel’s eyes. “Yeah, it got my leg.” Joel turned his sight down, now inspecting it more carefully. Now that he was paying attention, Joel could tell that Jimmy was putting all his weight on his right leg– his trousers were torn around his left leg. He cursed again, moving to Jimmy’s left to help support him walking. “Let’s get somewhere safe and I’ll look at it.” Jimmy only nodded, not saying anything else. He was uncharacteristically quiet, which only made guilt and fear burrow deep in Joel’s gut. The journey to an abandoned building was a silent one, apart from the pained hisses, grunts, and groans from Jimmy.

Joel pulled out his pocket knife once he got Jimmy sat down to remove the remaining fabric just below Jimmy’s knee. This way, Joel could properly see what he was working with.

“Did I get bit?” Jimmy whispered weakly, his voice cracking. His hands were held tightly into fists, fingernails digging into his palms.

Joel didn’t answer nor did he breathe as his eyes ran over Jimmy’s leg to find the answer. He let out a shaky sigh of relief and shook his head. “No, it’s just a bunch of scratches. I got some disinfectant and bandages from that one store we raided a bit back, so I’m going to do that, okay? It’s going to sting.” A stuttering laugh escaped Jimmy’s lips as the tears pooling in his eyes started to fall. “Just do it.”

Joel gave him a brief nod before getting to work. He pulled the disinfectant and bandages out of his bag, dosing the long and rather deep scratches with the disinfectant. Joel wasn’t going to take any risks; he would use every supply he could muster to help Jimmy if he was able to. He tried his best to ignore the pained noises Jimmy made, but he couldn’t. Each whimper made Joel feel more guilty for snapping at him.

“We can stay here a bit for you to rest your leg,” Joel murmured as he finished wrapping Jimmy’s leg. He put the supplies back in his bag and pushed himself to his feet. “Can’t do much if walking hurts too much.” “Okay.” Jimmy nodded simply, staring off at nothing. 

Silence stayed between them for several moments before Joel broke it. “I’m going to go check the perimeter. Stay here and maybe rest a bit.” Just as Joel turned to walk away, Jimmy reached out and grabbed his wrist. Joel stopped moving, turning back toward Jimmy and raising an eyebrow in question.

“Can you stay with me?” Jimmy asked with shaky desperation in his voice. He peered up at Joel through his eyelashes, looking rather small despite him being noticeably taller than Joel. “Please.” The tension in Joel’s shoulders didn’t necessarily relax, but they did soften, just like his guarded expression. He swallowed back his emotions as he carefully moved to sit down besides Jimmy. “Okay.”

Jimmy leaned into Joel, squeezing his eyes shut as his body started to contract some with his sobs. The weight of everything was undoubtedly hitting Jimmy again. It wasn’t the first time and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Joel knew well how he felt, for he’d also had his fair share of breakdowns. He tended to do it in private, or he would shove the emotions down to convert it into energy and anger at the zombies. It made him reckless, but he’d never been one to live his life curled up in bubble wrap.

They gradually shifted until Jimmy’s face was partly pressed against Joel’s chest and Joel had both of his arms wrapped snugly around Jimmy. Joel idly ran his nails up and down Jimmy’s arm. Despite all that happened, Joel felt strangely at peace. It was like they had been placed into a timeless bubble, safe from everything outside that would try to hurt them.

“I love you, Joel,” Jimmy admitted, tone infused with genuine care and a bit of fear. “I don’t think we say it enough, especially now. Especially with everything going on.”

Joel didn’t respond at first, sucking in his lips for only a moment. “I would die for you.” Jimmy snorted, partly baffled and partly unsurprised. “What, is ‘I love you’ too hard to say? What more do you have to lose?” “You.” Joel surprised himself with how vulnerable a singular word could sound.

Jimmy shifted his position only enough so he could look at Joel properly. They were touching each other previously and still were, but their faces hadn’t been this close before. Joel got an up-close view of the freckles peppered across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, as well as the warmth in his brown eyes. 

“If I didn’t know better, I would say that sounded romantic,” Jimmy murmured.

Joel huffed out a cross between a scoff and a snort. “Ever consider that you may not know better?” Before Joel could fully process what happened, Jimmy’s lips were on his. The kiss was greedy and desperate, forcing him to forget about the world outside of them. It caught Joel off guard, but he certainly couldn’t complain. He pushed back into the kiss, giving Jimmy the same energy he had given Joel.

Their hands wandered each other's body, hands finding their way under shirts and fingers getting tangled in each other's hair. They were desperate for the physical contact they had previously left to minimum touches and the occasional cuddling for warmth. Maybe they had both been idiots, dancing around the topic out of fear the other would leave. Out of fear that they would lose their last connection to life from before, out of fear that they would be alone.

With each kiss and caring touch, that fear drained away, leaving a bond stronger than any zombie they may have to face. It may be the end of the world, but at least they were facing it together.

[eamonorus-blog]

Why TLOU2 fails as a morality tale.

Ok, it may feel like it's not necessary in order to talk about tlou2, but I want to talk about the first game first. Specifically, the ways in which it fails to be realistic, but why that isn't important in the same way the failure of the sequel to be realistic is.

Obviously, stories in any medium feature impossible scenarios, contrivances and fantastical elements all the time, and they don't have to ruin the story. They can either have a minor negative effect, or in fact be part of the appeal.

So, I feel like I have to explain why the way that tlou2 is unrealistic is a problem first, and a great case study of the opposite is the first game.

tlou follows in the footsteps of many tropes from the post-apoc genre. Most notably for my discussion, in the way the world is populated by hordes of kill crazed bandits.

To a degree, this is the inevitable nature of the medium. tlou is a third-person shooter, so it needs a lot of hostiles, and hordes of vicious killers with a bad sense of self-preservation are a great way to add that.

But I think there is more to it than that. Cormac Mcarthy's The Road has the same set up. As does the Fallout series. So, I think this is more a matter of genre convention than medium convention. Plenty of games are just about killing zombies, so there is no reason that the killing of human enemies couldn't be very limited or non-existent.

And why is this a problem? This is a problem because its not how people would really behave.

Of course, I don't know that for certain, but I think I have a good argument to make. The world of tlou is a pre-industrial society basically, and we know what those would be like. We can look at all of human history. And what we see is conflict, sure, but not just hordes of angry bandits without women and children that they look after.

Its human nature to fight, but its also human nature to cooperate and breed. The all male groups of criminals who focus on material possessions are not the natural outgrowth of a collapse of civilisation, but instead its continuation.

We ascribe the presence of sadistic Mad Max style raider gangs to the post-apocalypse because that is the kind of social ill that actually plagues us in the here and now, in our modern world. In the presence of urban gangs, motorbike gangs, etc…

Even if you look at African modern civil wars with child soldiers, those conflicts are still based around racial and tribal loyalties which distinguish them from the multi-racial rootless gang which tends to predominate in post apocalyptic fiction.

In the first game the biggest culprit here is the Pittsburgh group, with their lack of women and children, and hence any wider society that they are fighting for, and their total lack of regard for their own lives in chasing after Joel no matter how many of them die.

In the modern overpopulated world, life is cheap. Whether we are talking about gang warfare or full scale conflict. But in a post-apocalyptic setting people would be risk averse, respectful, and would only resort to violence as a final choice.

Steppe pastoralists like the Mongols, Scythians, Turks, etc… who had a low population and lived in vast nearly uninhabited wildernesses tended to adopt fighting styles that minimised casualties as much as possible.

And people living in a wasteland caused by some apocalyptic event would act in the same way. They wouldn't attack a stranger for no reason, if only to avoid entangling themselves in conflict, with another tribe who would seek revenge. Ofc course, like I said, conflict would still exist over territory, resources, women, etc…

But it wouldn't be the way it is shown to be in tlou.

But why is this not that much of a problem in my opinion? For starters, one of the central themes of tlou in regard to violence is that we all just do what we have to to survive. That that is what drives conflict. And that is what David uses to justify his actions, and what Joel does to.

So the game is diagnosing the way conflict works correctly, even if the gameplay is doing a bit of a sloppy job of getting that across.

But the main reason why it works is because the game ends with Joel choosing to sacrifice hope for a cure to save Ellie. By doing this the game would have us believe he is dooming humanity as a whole to more suffering, but what has the game shown us humanity consists of?

Certainly not the tough and brutal but nonetheless sympathetic and rational people who would really exist in such a world.

Instead it would be to save a bunch of trigger happy fascist police, a whole city of murderous bandits, random bandits who attack people trying to rebuild society, and a bunch of cannibals lead by a pedophile.

Yeah, no thanks.

Sure we meet some good people, and we like Jackson, but if we got a broader sense that humanity as a whole consisted of decent people who would really benefit from the cure, we might feel a bit differently about Joels decision. As it is, we have Tess, Sam and Henry die as a consequence of being bitten, and that's sad, but still, thats already happened and cant be changed.

Having the world of tlou be more realistic would make how we feel about Joels choice more complicated, and I dont think it would make the game worse, but as it is the games failing in this way just makes us sympathise with his decision even more.

So the game is actually leading us into being ok with the ending.

If we never met any hostile humans, just helpful kind people who are desperate to avoid being infected and need whatever help they can get, who are traumatized by losing loved ones to infection, we would feel quite differently about Joels final decision. In that hypothetical situation, making the world unrealistically OPTIMISTIC about how humans would behave in the post apocalypse, as opposed to PESSIMISTIC, would hurt the story, since it would lead Joel to seem more villainous and unjustified.

So, with that extended preamble out of the way, let me explain why lack of realism hurting the story is exactly what happens with tlou2

First off, tlou2 fixes the problem I mentioned in tlou. In the sense that the rabid, mad max style, casualty careless, all male bandit groups of the first game are gone.

Instead we have group conflict happening between rational, capable societies that fight each other over land, resources, normal stuff, stuff that makes sense.

This is a good thing as far as it goes, but unfortunately this increased realism is countermanded at every turn.

Lets start with the opening, with Abby leading the Salt Lake crew to Jackson to kill Joel. Right away we have serious issues.

As I just laid out, in the real world people fight each other over resources, land, women, stuff that really matters. And they fight on behalf of a broader group/society.

Even the modern criminal groups I mentioned beforehand do this for the most part. Sure, lone vengeance killing unrelated to a wider societal enemy or resources do happen, like with the few famous cases of parents who have killed someone who raped or killed their child before they could be sentenced.

But even that is very rare. FAR more common is revenge killings in the context of a gang war over territory. Which mimics the historical pattern of conflicts over history I have mentioned before. When people seek vengeance over a murdered parent, historically that is within the context of their parents' killer being a part of a group their tribe/society is at war with. If the killing is within their own society in most cases, there are social mechanisms to get justice.

By which I mean that the vengeace, while a very real motivator, is actually given the ooomph to be carried out because it serves the wider purpose of fighting your societies enemies.

We see this in tlou2 with the way Isaac talks about the back-and-forth conflict with the Seraphites. That is an example of a realistic conflict leading to realistic revenge being sought by both parties. The fight is actually over ideology, territory, etc… The vengeance is just a factor that comes out as the conflict escalates.

Let me reiterate, human beings are risk averse, and are only usually willing to resort to violence to defend their people, and/or for a big material benefit.

And Abbys quest for revenge has none of these factors. Joel was a lone individual. He isn't a member of a group the Fireflies have a vested interest in fighting, or who will continue to be a threat to them. Ideologically it would make sense for them to go after him to get Ellie, but the game dismisses that with the claim that Jerry was the only person who could make the cure, so that's a non-factor.

All of this has a cascading effect that makes going after Joel a terrible idea. Finding him will involve taking a bunch of people the WLF can't afford to lose, across country on a massive trek where they are liable to get hurt or killed, in order to kill one man who is no threat to them, and who they have nothing material to gain from killing, and in doing so risk aggravating any community that he has become a part of in the meantime.

The game itself, to its credit is well aware of all these problems. We are told that Isaac green lit this operation off screen with the claim that he "cares about justice"

Well, it looks to me like Isaac, as a person engaged in an actually plausible example of group conflict, cares more about winning and fighting for the survival and wellbeing of his people against outsiders. It looks to me like that is his value, not justice.

But he does agree to this for some reason.

But then we have all the reasons why people in the real world don't act like Abby does begin to raise their heads.

When they get to Jackson, Owen discovers that the place is big and thriving. There is no way their small team that Isaac for some reason granted permission to leave is going to be able to attack this place. And he rightly says that the others are going to want to leave after this. But Abby ignores him, goes off on her own, and miraculously finds Joel and Tommy, miraculously in the middle of a zombie horde so they can bond fighting them off and it makes sense for them to trust her.

It's also necessary so that she can plausibly convince them to come with her to their hideout, where, as many people have pointed out, Joel and Tommy seem shockingly unconcerned about why a large armed group would have come all this way to Jackson and not have introduced themselves.

The contrivances, character assassinations and almost plot holes here annoy people. But they annoy them especially because even if they can't articulate it like I can, they know that this kind of thing doesn't make sense for people to do in this world, and it doesn't make sense that they would succeed at it.

The blizzard, the infected, Joel giving out his name, they are all needed to happen because logic needs to be bent out of shape for this to happen in the first place.

Ellie choosing to go after Abby is just as stupid. Some people felt that way too, but others didn't, because yes, we are more invested in Joel than Abby, and the human instinct for revenge does kick in, which is of course the feeling Neil wants us to feel.

Abby has gone out of her way to be unreasonable and stupid, so we feel that Ellie is justified in doing the same back.

But that doesn't make it any less foolish. Maybe if we had seen Ellie grow and get attached to Jackson, as she probably would have, we would realise more how stupid she is being by risking all that going after Abby. But just like the masses of decent people that we would have needed to see in tlou to get us to really question Joels decision to save Ellie, we don't see that here.

tlou2 wants to be a commentary on the nature of violence, and why the cycle of violence is bad, but it doesn't actually critique the kind of cycles of violence that actually occur in the real world. Neil is fighting shadows, wagging his finger at a kind of human being who doesn't really exist, shaming us for doing something people don't actually do.

In terms of the games actually believable conflict, that between the Seraphites and the WLF, the game tries to a degree to be nuanced and "both sides" but it falls short because the Seraphites are so over the top evil, in a different way than the Pittsburgh gang maybe, but in a way that makes them just as unlikable and clearly coded as evil.

The only Scar characters that we are meant to empathise with are defectors, we clearly aren't meant to actually understand or sympathise with their perspective like we are with Abby.

The game is about different perspectives, but only for someone who is engaging in a self-destructive, stupid, act of vengeance, not for a religiously minded oppressed people fighting for their beliefs and their way of life against a superior enemy.

And this is why the game doesnt work as a tragedy.

The idea of a tragedy is that the protagonist has a fatal flaw, one they are given opportunity, time and time again, to correct and overcome, but the flaw is a part of their nature, and they fail to overcome it and perish.

But Ellie does overcome, she lets go of the pointless hatred she and Abby have engaged in. And she still loses everything. If she had killed her, and lost everything, just like Abby did after killing Joel, that would have been something, but no.

Either a story is a hero's journey, where the protagonist learns the lesson and triumphs, or a tragedy, where they do not, and fail.

But Ellie learns her lesson and still fails.

tlou2 chastises humanity for a sin it doesn't commit. That is its great failing.

[miqojak]

Maybe I'm alone in not pitying fascist bigots who dug the grave they now have to lie in. I was raised by racist bigots, in a part of the U.S. where lots of people are still those things; where being in the military/being a cop means you're basically a superhero to the civilian public.

But then I got out of that home, and learned that the things I saw, grew up around, and was taught... were skewed. My government and my culture celebrated things that seemed antithetical to human nature - skin color doesn't matter, and serving in the military/police force isn't actually honorable or anything to celebrate. And I figured this all out while I was attending the military college that fired the opening shots of the Civil War - they even had a mural of the cadets firing those first shots in the campus library. I get it, I know what its like to grow up in a place that still thinks certain types of people are subhuman - young men at my college tried to run out the women attending there, and I matriculated 10 years after the school started accepting women as cadets. Think about that - this school didn't allow black men, or women... and they let black men in years ago... but in 2006, women had only been allowed to attend for 10 years, and were still held to unfairly high standards compared to the men. Did no Garleans ever do the same - become young adults and question what the hell was going on around them?

No matter how much brainwashing their country was doing, you know deep down that some things are just wrong. I always felt uncomfortable when racist jokes were made around me growing up, despite the casual nature of racism still prevalent in the U.S. south in many places.

So all that said? Yeah, I spent my whole time in Garlemald thinking "serves you bastards right," and being disgusted that Ala Mhigan refugees, run out of their homes by these very people... were asked to sew tents and send them to the Garlean refugees. Think about that if it happened in the real world - imagine a country committing genocide/unthinkable war crimes (not hard to do at present), but they collapse in on themselves one day, and their people are starving... would you ask the survivors of that genocide to help them? The very people who violated their women, murdered children, burned down homes and hospitals... you want them to make homes for those hateful people now? It felt like a slap in the face to me and my Ala Mhigan oc. Maybe literally anyone else should have been tasked with that relief effort.

Sure, we're all human - and maybe the dregs of their fascist state (most of whom still openly regard you as filth, even as they starve) will have their eyes opened by kindness, but we see that even that is spit on because "needing help is weak," and we basically have to do the trick you pull with giving a dog medicine by hiding it in cheese/meat - you trick them into a trade deal with the one nation they didn't genocide, just to get them to accept aid they desperately need, but would rather die cold and alone in a cave than accept.

It absolutely tracks that XIV storytelling will have us all hold hands in the end - but it's all a little too sugar-coated for me. I write a character who suffered terribly at Garlean hands, and I have been deeply immersed in the details of the various kinds of heinous war crimes they've committed - one that stands out to me is a man at his mother's and sister's graves, telling you that after what the Garleans did to them, they killed themselves - and that death was a mercy after what they endured. When you know the nitty gritty, (let's not forget the horror that is the Weapon questline either) instead of just standing back and talking about a bad, faceless empire... they're almost impossible to forgive, or want to help in any way.

I don't pity fallen, genocidal fascists - I spit on their graves, and hope that the hateful people they left behind don't sprout a new empire of hate... after all, many children of high ranking Nazis went on to firmly believe in what they were taught growing up. Not all, but many still espoused the disgusting beliefs of 'the Third Reich'... giving some soup and blankets to Garleans won't change what's molded them their entire lives, either. It's pretty obvious that the WoL befriends the very few moderate Garleans there are - all the other NPCs still had rather hateful, bigoted dialogue.

So yes, the story tracks for how SE writes XIV stories - hell, it even aligns with Christian philosophy, that says to love all men... especially your enemies! But I'm only human, and I couldn't drum up any pity for those who made the bed they now lie in. Not with the lines that they crossed, and the beliefs they kept espousing even after being shown how wrong they were. But it tracks for the story SE is telling - because even in Dawntrail, we're told that it's possible to become friends with someone you once thought you hated... and it is a beautiful sentiment! I wish more people were willing to give second chances, and work through miscommunications, and move forward with a better understanding of each other. It's not a bad message - I just can't pity unrepentant fascists who celebrated war crimes, and still hold fast to those beliefs.

WRT the Garlemald portion of EW: I'm sure that for a lot of FFXIV's history players have been wondering what it would be like to reach Garlemald proper in-game, and daydreaming of epic battles, maybe a sense of "conquering the conquerers"

And it is so, so genius of EW to not give you that.

You don't get any glory or revenge in defeating the evil empire, they already self-destructed on their own. You can't really revel in it. If you're feeling particularly vindictive you might look at the rubble and silently think "Serves you right!" or "Good riddance to bad rubbish." but no matter how much you may have hated the Empire in the past it's hard not to pity what's left.

See, the thing about Garlemald is that in their prejudice and conquest they treated everyone who isn't them as subhuman. But in the end you are all human beings, and so are they. The Empire isn't a nameless, faceless evil, it's a war machine created by the beliefs of humans who saw other humans as inhuman. By helping the survivors you are not only doing the right thing, the human thing to do, you are also disproving their prejudice in the process by reminding them that you're all human. (I'm using the word "human" in abstract sense here, not to refer just to the Hyuran race of FFXIV, but all the races of sentient beings, all deserving of rights, respect, etc.)

I'm trying to shine a light on the significance of this part of the story because it seems like some people have conflicted feelings about helping citizens of a facist former empire, but it would be sheer Reading Comprehension Stat: None to assume that that means FFXIV is condoning their ideology. In fact, it would be antithetical to FFXIV's optimistic, pro-humanity, love-and-peace, a-better-world-is-possible -type philosophy if we instead left the survivors to starve.

[rjzimmerman]

‘Worst-Case’ Disaster for Antarctic Ice Looks Less Likely, Study Finds. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

For almost a decade, climate scientists have been trying to get their heads around a particularly disastrous scenario for how West Antarctica’s gigantic ice sheet might break apart, bringing catastrophe to the world’s coasts.

It goes like this: Once enough of the ice sheet’s floating edges melt away, what remains are immense, sheer cliffs of ice facing the sea. These cliffs will be so tall and steep that they are unstable. Great chunks of ice start breaking away from them, exposing even taller, even more-unstable cliffs. Soon, these start crumbling too, and before long you have runaway collapse.

As all this ice tumbles into the ocean, and assuming that nations’ emissions of heat-trapping gases climb to extremely high levels, Antarctica could contribute more than a foot to worldwide sea-level rise before the end of the century.

This calamitous chain of events is still hypothetical, yet scientists have taken it seriously enough to include it as a “low-likelihood, high-impact” possibility in the United Nations’ latest assessment of future sea-level increase.

Now, though, a group of researchers has put forth evidence that the prospect may be more remote than previously thought. As humans burn fossil fuels and heat the planet, West Antarctica’s ice remains vulnerable to destruction in many forms. But this particular form, in which ice cliffs collapse one after the other, looks less likely, according to the scientists’ computer simulations.

“We’re not saying that we’re safe,” said Mathieu Morlighem, a professor of earth science at Dartmouth College who led the research. “The Antarctic ice sheet is going to disappear; this is going to happen. The question is how fast.”

The speed at which West Antarctica’s ice disintegrates matters hugely for human civilization and the environment. A slower breakdown gives seaside populations more time to mount defenses or move inland. It gives coastal ecosystems such as wetlands and mangroves more time to adapt.

Still, there’s a lot of uncertainty about how ice breaks apart under stress, Dr. Morlighem said. So it remains hard to say with high confidence how much time the world has to prepare for higher seas. “We still have a lot to do to reduce these uncertainties,” he said.

[hwadam-stories]

| College Student Empress (Light Novel) - English Translation (MTL)

| Translation Tool: Chat GPT

| Chapter 8: I Will Summon My Father

| Notes: Italics / Bold pink texts is meant for character thoughts.

"Wolryeo. Can you get me a sword wielded by a military officer?"

It had been four days since she first paid her respects to the Empress Dowager, and the days passed as usual.

Wolryeo was shocked and exclaimed when the Empress, who had safely completed her greetings and seemed to be buried in the study again, suddenly made an unexpected request.

"How could you want such a dangerous thing...!"

It was as if holding a sword alone would consume its owner's flesh.

Haeseol understood Wolryeo's reaction, recalling what she had read in the book brought by Myeongwol. In Yeonryeoguk, literature was revered, and martial skills were looked down upon, so it was understandable.

Of course, that didn't mean that military officers were treated poorly compared to civil officers, but the respected warriors were mostly military officers, and those from a military background couldn't rise to the highest government positions, the Samgong.

Since the Empress, Sindanyeong, was traditionally from Yeonguk, Wolryeo, her nanny, would be too, and that would strengthen such ideology even more.

However, Haeseol's situation wasn't good enough to withdraw her request just because Wolryeo was shocked.

Ten days ago, Haeseol had hit an intruder on the roof with a stone and later heard the report that the intruder had escaped that evening.

At the time, she thought it was possible. After all, the intruder had managed to get this far undetected, so they must be skilled, including in escape.

However, ten days had passed without any news about the intruder, and no matter how much she researched, she couldn't find any stories about soul-swapping. Not even in novels. She couldn't help but become anxious.

In this situation, Haeseol heard this morning that not only were those incompetent enough to let the intruder escape, but they hadn't even tried to catch the intruder! Unbelievable news!

"I need to protect myself."

At this point, it wasn't the time to just sit around hoping the culprit would be caught.

If the officials were so negligent about those who attacked the Empress, then the one blocking the investigation must be the Emperor.

In fact, the Emperor made little effort to catch the culprit when the Empress was ambushed and collapsed, leading to rumors that the Emperor might have sent the assassin.

Those rumors were still circulating.

Anyway, such an Emperor wasn't going to sincerely investigate an intruder who failed an ambush, so Haeseol decided she had to protect her own life.

‘That bastard. Would he only act if the intruder broke Kongrin's leg?’

Or did the Emperor really send the assassin? Haeseol cursed inwardly but managed to control her expression and looked sadly down in front of Wolryeo.

Wolryeo, feeling pity for the Empress, who was like a cherished daughter, holding a sword with her delicate hands to protect herself, teared up and said, "Mama..." in a trembling voice.

Haeseol smiled weakly and said,

"We must end the stabbings with eyes wide open in one go, mustn't we?"

"Mama! Using such words again!"

"Since I got stabbed once, my language has become like this. If I get stabbed twice and wake up, I might actually grab His Majesty by the collar and curse at him, which would be quite troublesome, wouldn't it?"

Myeongwol, unable to hold back her laughter, trembled as she looked up at the ceiling.

Despite sighing, Wolryeo eventually muttered that she would try to get it, and Haeseol sincerely thanked her.

"Oh, and there's one more thing."

What now? Wolryeo looked at her with anxious eyes.

This time, Haeseol asked even more cautiously.

"Um... Wolryeo, am I an orphan?"

Wolryeo was startled and exclaimed at the sudden orphan statement.

"Absolutely not, Mama. Your father is the well-known Gong Shinseolju, and one of the three highest officials, Taesa. Moreover, your mother is the youngest daughter of the former great general who conquered Ryeoguk. And both of them are very healthy!"

Haeseol, who hadn't memorized all the official titles yet, understood the top positions, so she recognized Taesa and the great general. Moreover, her maternal grandfather was the great general who conquered Ryeoguk! The 'real Empress' had an extraordinary lineage.

Seeing Haeseol's surprised expression, Wolryeo continued speaking.

“Both your father and mother care deeply for you, so please never say such things again. They would be heartbroken to hear that.”

Haeseol clicked her tongue inwardly.

The real Empress... that is, the woman named Sindanyeong. If she hadn’t married the Emperor, she would have lived a very comfortable life, born with a silver spoon in her mouth, both in terms of heart and body.

If her husband wasn’t the Emperor, anyone would have to be extremely considerate of her due to her prestigious family, whether they got along well or not. It was truly unfortunate that she was attacked and disappeared because of a single wrong marriage. Marrying the highest figure in the country, the Emperor, had become the greatest misfortune of her life.

“Then why has Father never visited me even once?”

“Before you lost your memory, you commanded that your maternal family should refrain from frequenting the Empress’s palace, as it would not look good in the eyes of others.”

“Oh.”

“I should have informed you earlier….”

Watching Wolryeo blame herself, Haeseol nodded.

It didn’t seem like she was just saying it to sound nice, and since there was no need for her to sugarcoat things regarding bad relations with her parents, it was probably true.

Haeseol felt relieved knowing that there were likely a few more people in Yeonryeoguk besides Wolryeo who would be on her side.

“Then, Wolryeo. Since losing my memory, I’ve been missing my family more. Can you call my father and mother for me?”

***

“I am so glad that Her Majesty the Empress has called for me. I don’t know how to express my joy.”

Unlike the request to bring a sword, Wolryeo happily accepted the request to call her parents, and within less than five shijins, the Empress’s father, Taesa Shinseolju, arrived at the Empress’s palace.

Even Wolryeo, who had conveyed the message, hadn’t expected Shinseolju to come so early, indicating that he must have come running as soon as he heard the news.

Haeseol, who had been preparing to go out, thinking he might come tomorrow, nearly missed him.

Seeing Shinseolju smiling brightly, saying he was happy to see her face and checking on her health, Haeseol blinked in surprise.

Though she had heard they were on good terms, even without long conversations, it was clear that Shinseolju’s eyes were filled with affection and concern for his daughter.

Of course, as one of the highest officials, he couldn’t be unaware of how his daughter was treated in the palace. If he had no news at all, it would be one thing, but hearing the news while being unable to come close must have been agonizing.

Even if he was hurt by being told not to come near his daughter, Shinseolju showed no sign of it, making Haeseol feel somewhat guilty.

“I heard from Wolryeo that I asked you not to come to the Empress’s palace. But I lost my memory and feel so lost, the only thing that comes to mind is family.”

Of course, someone else sent the assassin, and it wasn’t Haeseol’s fault that she ended up in the body of the ‘real Empress’. However, since it was unclear whether Shinseolju’s ‘real daughter’ was still in this body or if her soul had flown elsewhere, Haeseol felt uneasy facing him.

It was like entering someone else’s home and acting as the owner.

Feeling uneasy about the affection Shinseolju was showing, Haeseol decided to get to the point early.

“But Father, you know about the intruder in my quarters, right?”

“Of course. …How could I not?”

“Then you must also know how the investigation is going?”

Fortunately, Haeseol’s attempt to change the subject worked. The warm atmosphere of the father-daughter reunion quickly turned cold and awkward.

Shinseolju, knowing more about the situation than Haeseol, looked anxious and replied in a subdued voice.

#8

“…Yes, Your Majesty.”

Seeing his sudden depression, it seemed the investigation into the intruder wasn’t going well, as expected.

Haeseol quickly forced a smile to comfort him.

“I’m not blaming you, Father. I’m not throwing a tantrum either.”

“Your Majesty…”

“It’s just that since His Majesty can’t protect me, I need to find a way to survive on my own. Having been attacked twice, I feel very uneasy.”

Technically, the Empress was attacked once, and the second time, Haeseol attacked the intruder, but she lumped the two incidents together.

Shinseolju didn’t seem to see the need to distinguish between the two and asked in a curious voice instead of nitpicking that part.

“What do you mean by a way…?”

However, his voice subtly hinted that he was welcoming the Empress’s words.

“I can't just sit still and risk being assassinated again. There's a high possibility that the intruder is the same person who tried to assassinate me before.”

“Indeed.”

“So now, I must take it upon myself to find out who is attacking me so viciously.”

Shinseolju’s previously subtle enthusiasm fully blossomed at Haeseol’s words. His eyes sparkled as if to say, “Absolutely,” and Haeseol smiled inwardly.

It seemed this man had been quietly suffering, having such a kind and passive daughter.

“I need your help, Father.”

“I will help with anything you need.”

Shinseolju looked at her sternly, as if questioning why she would even ask, and reached out to clasp Haeseol’s hand, patting the back of it. As befitting a civil servant, his hands bore no signs of hard labor; despite being an older man, his hands were very smooth.

Haeseol, noting that this man had even smoother hands than her original body, gently withdrew her hand and walked over to a drawer.

She returned with a book she had prepared in advance and handed it to Shinseolju, who accepted it with a puzzled look and opened it.

“What is this?”

“It contains a few sections I’ve written. Since I have no memories, I can’t fill them in myself. I’d like you to write the names of those who fit into these sections. There’s no need to rush; just be as objective as possible.”

“A list. Or rather, a book that will become a list.”

“Yes.”

The sections were straightforward: those who had quarreled with the Empress, potential rivals, current rivals, those who would benefit from her death, and those who had grievances with Shinseolju. This book would serve as a list of people Haeseol needed to be cautious of within the palace.

“It would be best for the Empress herself to fill this out, but since that’s impossible, I’ll ask Wolryeo to compile a similar list.”

Combining the lists from the two would at least help identify who the enemies might be.

“I must survive here until I can return to my original body.”

With this resolution, Haeseol nodded firmly.

[magnoliamyrrh]

and the.... it wasnt the second dream. i had other ones in-between. but in this dream

the world was collapsing, again. i was with my friends, but they werent really the same people, moreso blends of different people ive known throughout my life. we were in a shitty motel somewhere in the mountains when it caught us, the collapse of "civilization." no more electricity, no more internet, no more nothing. i remember confusion, but we didnt go insane or nothing. we just figured, wed have to learn to survive

and so, the dream spanned weeks, months, years. at first, we were still living in the motel. animals had started coming closer however, and plants were starting to take it over. we would go hunting, foraging, in the beggining stages of trying to see if we could plant. i remember going down to the river to gather water. mostly, we would use the wood around to set up fires in the inner countyard of this motel, and cook and keep ourselves warm.... it was not a bad time. i remember, there was time for storytelling, for my friends singing, for play as if we were children - i remember trying to keep some strange little creature, something in between a squirrel and a racoon if you could imagine, as a pet, having the time to run around with it and play with it. i remember the shine of the full moon, and how many starts could be seen above - much more than before the collapse

i remember the months passing, it was like i would wake up in and out of conciousness after watching the world go by in fast-forward mode, we stared building outside of the motel, feeling it was past time we keep living in it. my little pet went missing one day, and no matter how much i searched for it i couldnt find it. but in searching for him, i realized, we were taking care of many creatures in our motel-turned home. three little alligators were chilling on the top second floor, intertwined between the wearing wooden bars of the walkways; you could play with them, snap their mouths shut and open. wed feed them fish. birds would come and make nests, vines had started covering areas. all odd sort of rodents and other beings would make their way in and out - the motel was no longer a place just for humans; it seems we had learned how to coexist much better... i remember giving up my search for my little pet, figuring hed either been eaten, or returned to the woods,and walking into the meadow in which we were starting to build. a fireplace, tents were set up, the sun was shining, people were carrying wood and mud and starting to build what seemed to be small huts, and a larger one

time was passing, as if in a daze, as if on fast forward. storms would come and pass, good weather and bad weather, the sun would rise and set, the seasons would change. i remember, we had raised up almost fully the main hut, but it still had some missing patches in the roof and sides. we were inside, sitting around a fireplace on the ground, on blankets, another one wrapped around me. i was making some sort of weave, or perhaps pottery, something we would need, anyway. a storm had come, rain above which you could see through the pathes; but it seemed to bother none of us. warm summer rain in the summer months, i remember only peace and happiness, someone playing an old guitar among slow and quiet conversations and laughter

and time passed again, work kept happening, but i do not remember either pain or extensive tiredness, doing what i could while others did the same. i remember the shining sun, the crops growing, the thick grass and its smell. i remember coming back to myself, still sitting on the ground of the hut, through now it was long finished, decorated as well with rugs, pots, weaves, hanging herbs, and all matter of other things. many more months must have passed it seemed, many years had passed

the smell of the fire and grilled food filled my nose, and i was holding some sort of large beautifully decorated weaved plate. someone told me to watch out and catch, and before i knew, on this plate i had caught several thin, long fish which they had tossed out of the fireplace they were cooking on. looking at them i felt i fully woke up from another fast-forward daze, looking at them and my surroundings in amazement. some children next to me were laughing at my good catch and seeming confusing after snapping out of my daze - my children, the children of the group, who knows, they were still my children though. i remember looking at them and smiling, extending to them the plate, each of them grabbing a fish before running outside to play. looking down at the plate myself, grabbing one of the long fish before passing it on to others. someone who must have been a good friend of mine smiled at me gently, as if saying, its alright; its alright, we have indeed made it. realizing, there were many more now than there were before. sitting around the fire eating, working, people moving in and out of the hut, what was once a small survival settlement had become a small village by now. the warm summer sun was high, and as i took a bite of the fish and looked around, i was surprised by how good it was. by, indeed, how good all of it had turned out. how "civilization" had collapsed, and yet, we seemed to be managing to live in a much more civilized way than before

[xxgotthedevilinsidexx-archived]

【❖】 ―――― SHE UNDERSTANDS THE LOOK HE GIVES HER AND KNOWS THE REASON BEHIND IT. He had a tough time at the Sanctuary, and so did she. She often wakes up in the middle of the night, terrified by the nightmares and memories she still holds. Daryl could consider himself fortunate in some ways because he was only there for a few weeks, while she endured it for much longer. The mere recollection of those times fills her with an overwhelming surge of fury and wrath, to the point where she fears she may explode, but she refuses to allow herself to do so. She thought leaving the Sanctuary would be the end for her but she survived. A promise was made to herself to never be a victim again. She was determined to face her end while standing tall, fiercely battling with all her strength. Never again would she allow anyone to exploit her or subject her to the atrocities inflicted by Negan ever again.

WHEN SHE FIRST LEFT SHE HAD ALLOWED HERSELF TO FEEL EVERYTHING. She was overwhelmed as everything collapsed around her, each wave crashing upon her until she had no more tears left to cry. She embarked on a journey in search of a safe haven, but every time she stumbled upon civilization, the warning signs urged her to flee immediately. It appeared that the remaining individuals in this world were just as damaged as the Sanctuary she had left behind. The ongoing power struggle was palpable, with everyone vying to become the dominant force. Regardless of the excuses or justifications they offered, it was the same old story, just with a new day.

LEARNING ABOUT DWIGHT'S DEATH AFTER THE SANCTUARY FELL SHOULD HAVE COME AS A SHOCK TO HER. It was bound to happen eventually. When she decided to leave, he had transformed into someone unrecognizable to her. He had become the very thing they both despised. She acknowledges that she bears a significant portion of the blame for this. It must have been difficult for him to be forced to watch Negan with her, but he made no effort to change or prevent it. The man she once adored was gone, and the remaining man no longer held the cherished pieces of her heart. Moreover, how could she love anyone when she couldn't even love herself anymore ? In fact, she can't even recall the last time she could bear to look at her own reflection.

A LOT HAS CHANGED ABOUT HER SINCE THE LAST TIME THEY CROSSED PATHS. When she caught sight of Daryl in the distance, she found herself standing there for an extended period, contemplating whether or not to interact with him. It evoked a multitude of unpleasant memories, none of which she wished to revisit. Despite her attempts to simply walk away without uttering a single word, her feet refused to comply. However, upon further reflection, she realized that he also provided her with a glimmer of hope. Daryl would never openly admit it, as that is simply his nature, but he is just as screwed as she is. They have both endured unjust and unfair experiences, things they did not deserve. Yet, here they both stood, refusing to give up or surrender. What was she even thinking ? Daryl had every right to despise her, just like everyone else. Assisting him in any way does not make up for their initial encounter. It never will.

HER EYES SHIFTED WITH A LIFT WHEN HE SNAPPED BACK AT HER. ❛ Fair enough. ❜ The last part of what he says cuts and it cuts deep but her skin is tougher than it used to be. For now, at least she can hold on and not show just how much that bothered her. Instead, she looks right back at him. ❛ Does it look like I have people, anyone for that matter ? I've been out here for a while and thought maybe I could help, guess I was wrong. Keep your food, you'll need it more than I will. ❜ She wasn't much for staying in places she wasn't welcomed. Grabbing her bag she hooked it over her shoulder. ❛ I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for. ❜ Turning around she headed back down the path she traveled in on. Not too far from here, she had been staying in an old building she had secured a few weeks back.

the look daryl shoots her when she prods him about the sanctuary tells her that it was a low blow to a sore spot he didn't appreciate much. from the corners of his eyes and with a twitch to his tightening jawline, the younger dixon thumbed the corner of his nose and sniffed. shoulders hitched like he didn't know what she was talkin' about when he damn well did and didn't like a single fuckin' word. he was letting her off the hook. mainly cause he didn't wanna talk about those weeks being in that place. months. however long it was. s'all a blur when he thinks about back then. how he was walled up in that hole. what was done to him there. s'not shit he lets cross his mind often. least he tries not to let it. gives him nightmares when it does.

still hasn't gotten outta all that claustrophobic shit from back when he was a kid being brought back times ten from it. even when he has to face shit like that now. the people he's with never are allowed to see it. but there's been times where he's damn near wanted to crawl out of his own skin to get out of situations where he's had to keep the appearance of having a cool head. when he was anything but. just cause if he didn't? then the shit would hit the fan and all roll down hill with no one there to stop it.

but just like back when he was a kid in georgia? this world doesn't give room for time outs. for anyone to take a second in their fucking corner and compose themselves. there's no safe spaces in the world today. and anyone that can't take what the world's gonna throw at ya and fucking deal with it? well they've been long dead for a while now. negan, the sanctuary, the bullshit that went on there? wasn't allowed to claim him. and maybe that's why seeing her makes a part of him feel like he wants to panic inside. like he's got some shit he's gotta step up and face and deal with. how the best way to do that is put space between him and her now. instead of runnin' to her. because neither one of them are kids. and their worlds threw a whole bucket load of shit on 'em from point a to point b.

you just don't magically come back from that and make it all sunflowers and roses. maybe she can. is that what she's trying by sticking around? that he might give her some kinda familiar hope? daryl's so damn much the same but older. wiser. more level headed but not. funny how he's changed so much. yet barely changed at all. the core of him. who he is is always been who he was. just who he was was waiting to become who he is without the world telling him he couldn't be. and she god damn saw it all. it's complicated. who knew he'd be complicated. everyone close to him. that's who..

"ain't none of your business what i'm out here for. maybe i just needed a break from people asking me so many damn questions," yeah that look went right into her eyes as he grumbles and toes another log into a fire. "don't mean i'm not gonna cook for the both of us tho. you don't wanna eat? then don't. ain't gonna force ya. s'up to you. "what do ya need me as a sounding board for then? what? you don't got people no more?"

[blackwoolncrown]

For the past few days, a heatwave has glowered over the Pacific Northwest, forcing temperatures in the region to a record-breaking 118ºF. Few people in the region—neither Americans nor Canadians—have air-conditioning. Stores sold out of new AC units in hours as a panicked public sought a reasonable solution to the emergency. Unfortunately, air-conditioning is part of what’s causing the unusual heatwave in the first place.

We came close to destroying all life on Earth during the Cold War, with the threat of nuclear annihilation. But we may have come even closer during the cooling war, when the rising number of Americans with air conditioners—and a refrigerant industry that fought regulation—nearly obliterated the ozone layer. We avoided that environmental catastrophe, but the fundamental problem of air conditioning has never really been resolved.

Mechanical cooling appeared in the early 1900s not for comfort but for business. In manufacturing, the regulation of temperature—“process cooling”—controlled the quality of commodities like cotton, tobacco, and chewing gum. In 1903, Alfred Wolff installed the first cooling system for people at the New York Stock Exchange because comfortable traders yielded considerably higher stock returns. Only in the ’20s did “commercial cooling” appear. On Memorial Day weekend 1925, Willis Carrier debuted the first centrifugal air-conditioning system at the Rivoli Theater in Midtown Manhattan. Previously, theaters had shut down in the summer. With air-conditioning, the Rivoli became “the talk of Broadway” and inaugurated the summer blockbuster.

-another direct tie to capitalism. Everything born out of colonio-capitalism carries its toxic mark. Article totally not under the cut for those who can’t pay for Time. It honestly paints a really clear picture of the situation. Bolding mine.-

“It’s time we become more comfortable with discomfort. Our survival may depend on it.“

Before World War II, almost no one had air-conditioning at home. Besides being financially impractical and culturally odd, it was also dangerous. Chemical refrigerants like sulfur dioxide and methyl chloride filled most fridges and coolers, and leaks could kill a child, poison a hospital floor, even blow up a basement. Everything changed with the invention of Freon in 1928. Non-toxic and non-explosive, Freon was hailed as a “miracle.” It made the modernist skyscraper—with its sealed windows and heat-absorbing materials—possible. It made living in the desert possible. The small, winter resort of Phoenix, Arizona, became a year-round attraction. Architecture could now ignore the local climate. Anywhere could be 65ºF with 55% humidity. Cheap materials made boxy, suburban tract housing affordable to most Americans, but the sealed-up, stifling design of these homes required air-conditioning to keep the heat at bay. Quickly, air-conditioning transitioned from a luxury to a necessity. By 1980, more than half of all U.S. homes were air-conditioned. And despite millions of Black Americans fleeing the violence of Jim Crow, the South saw greater in-migration than out-migration for the first time—a direct result of AC. The American car was similarly transformed. In 1955, only 10 percent of American cars had air-conditioning. Thirty years later, it came standard.

The cooling boom also altered the way we work. Now, Americans could work anywhere at any hour of the day. Early ads for air-conditioning promised not health or comfort but productivity. The workday could proceed no matter the season or the climate. Even in the home, A/C brought comfort as a means to rest up before the next work day.

The use of air-conditioning was as symbolic as it was material. It conveyed class status. Who did and didn’t have air-conditioning often fell starkly along the color line, too, especially in the South. It conquered the weather and, with it, the need to sweat or squirm or lie down in the summer swelter. In that sense, air-conditioning allowed Americans to transcend their physical bodies, that long-sought fantasy of the Puritan settlers: to be in the world but not of it. Miracle, indeed.

But it came with a price. As it turned out, Freon isn’t exactly non-toxic. Freon is a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), which depletes the ozone layer and also acts as a global warming gas. By 1974, the industrialized world was churning out CFCs, chemicals that had never appeared on the planet in any significant quantities, at a rate of one million metric tons a year—the equivalent mass of more than 500,000 cars. That was the year atmospheric chemists Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina first hypothesized that the chlorine molecules in CFCs might be destroying ozone in the stratosphere by bonding to free oxygen atoms and disrupting the atmosphere’s delicate chemistry. By then, CFCs were used not only as refrigerants but also as spray can propellants, manufacturing degreasers, and foam-blowing agents.

The ozone layer absorbs the worst of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. Without stratospheric ozone, life as we know it is impossible. A 1 percent decline in the ozone layer’s thickness results in thousands of new cases of skin cancer. Greater depletion would lead to crop failures, the collapse of oceanic food systems, and, eventually, the destruction of all life on Earth.

In the 1980s, geophysicist Joseph Farman confirmed the Rowland-Molina hypothesis when he detected a near-absence of ozone over Antarctica—the “Ozone Hole.” A fierce battle ensued among industry, scientists, environmentalists, and politicians, but in 1987 the U.S signed the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which ended Freon production.

The Montreal Protocol remains the world’s only successful international environmental treaty with legally binding emissions targets. Annual conferences to re-assess the goals of the treaty make it a living document, which is revised in light of up-to-date scientific data. For instance, the Montreal Protocol set out only to slow production of CFCs, but, by 1997, industrialized countries had stopped production entirely, far sooner than was thought possible. The world was saved through global cooperation.

The trouble is that the refrigerants replacing CFCs, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), turned out to be terrible for the planet, too. While they have an ozone-depleting potential of zero, they are potent greenhouse gases. They absorb infrared radiation from the sun and Earth and block heat that normally escapes into outer space. Carbon dioxide and methane do this too, but HFCs trap heat at rates thousands of times higher. Although the number of refrigerant molecules in the atmosphere is far fewer than those of other greenhouse gases, their destructive force, molecule for molecule, is far greater.

In three decades, the production of HFCs grew exponentially. Today, HFCs provide the cooling power to almost any air conditioner in the home, in the office, in the supermarket, or in the car. They cool vaccines, blood for transfusions, and temperature-sensitive medications, as well as the data processors and computer servers that make up the internet—everything from the cloud to blockchains. In 2019, annual global warming emissions from HFCs were the equivalent of 175 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

In May, the EPA signaled it will begin phasing down HFCs and replacing them with more climate-friendly alternatives. Experts agree that a swift end to HFCs could prevent as much as 0.5ºC of warming over the next century—a third of the way to the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Yet regardless of the refrigerant used, cooling still requires energy. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, air-conditioning accounts for nearly a fifth of annual U.S. residential electricity use. This is more energy for cooling overall and per capita than in any other nation. Most Americans consider the cost of energy only in terms of their electricity bills. But it’s also costing us the planet. Joe Biden’s announcement to shift toward a renewable energy infrastructure obscures the uncertainty of whether that infrastructure could meet Americans’ outrageously high energy demand—much of it for cooling that doesn’t save lives. Renewable energy infrastructure can take us only so far. The rest of the work is cultural. From Freon to HFCs, we keep replacing chemical refrigerants without taking a hard look at why we’re cooling in the first place.

Comfort cooling began not as a survival strategy but as a business venture. It still carries all those symbolic meanings, though its currency now works globally, cleaving the world into civilized cooling and barbaric heat. Despite what we assume, as a means of weathering a heat wave, individual air-conditioning is terribly ineffective. It works only for those who can afford it. But even then, their use in urban areas only makes the surrounding micro-climate hotter, sometimes by a factor of 10ºF, actively threatening the lives of those who don’t have access to cooling. (The sociologist Eric Klinenberg has brilliantly studied how, in a 1995 Chicago heat wave, about twice as many people died than in a comparable heat wave forty years earlier due to the city’s neglect of certain neighborhoods and social infrastructure.) Ironically, research suggests that exposure to constant air-conditioning can prevent our bodies from acclimatizing to hot weather, so those who subject themselves to “thermal monotony” are, in the end, making themselves more vulnerable to heat-related illness.

And, of course, air-conditioning only works when you have the electricity to power it. During heatwaves, when air-conditioning is needed most, blackouts are frequent. On Sunday, with afternoon temperatures reaching 112ºF around Portland, the power grid failed for more than 6,300 residences under control by Portland General Electrics.

The troubled history of air-conditioning suggests not that we chuck it entirely but that we focus on public cooling, on public comfort, rather than individual cooling, on individual comfort. Ensuring that the most vulnerable among the planet’s human inhabitants can keep cool through better access to public cooling centers, shade-giving trees, safe green spaces, water infrastructure to cool, and smart design will not only enrich our cities overall, it will lower the temperature for everyone. It’s far more efficient this way.

To do so, we’ll have to re-orient ourselves to the meaning of air-conditioning. And to comfort. Privatized air-conditioning survived the ozone crisis, but its power to separate—by class, by race, by nation, by ability—has survived, too. Comfort for some comes at the expense of the life on this planet.

It’s time we become more comfortable with discomfort. Our survival may depend on it.

[baeddel]

Please. Please can you tell me what a baeddel is and why people (terfs?) used it in a derogatory manner on this website for a hot minute but now no one ever uses it at all

you asked for it, fucker

[2k words; philology and drama]

baeddel is an Old English word. i have no idea where it actually occurs in the Old English written corpus, but it occurs in a few placenames. its diminuitive form, baedling, is much better documented. it appears in the (untranslated) Canons of Theodore, a penitential handbook, a sort of guidebook for priests offering advice on what penances should be recommended for which sins. in a passage devoted to sexual transgressions it gives the penances suggested for a man who sleeps with a woman, a man who sleeps with another man, and then a man who sleeps with a baedling. so you have this construction of a baedling as something other than a man or a woman. and then it gives the penance for a baedling who sleeps with another baedling (a ludicrous one-year fast). then, by way of an explaination, Theodore delivers us one of the most enigmatic phrases in the Old English corpus: "for she is soft, like an adulturess."

the -ling suffix in baedling is masculine. but Theodore uses feminine pronouns and suffixes to describe baedlings. as we said, it's also used separately from male and female. but it's also used separately from their words for intersex and it never appears in this context. all of this means that you have this word that denotes a subject who is, as Christopher Monk put it, "of problematic gender." interested historians have typically interpreted it as referring to some category of homosexual male, such as Wayne R. Dines in his two-volume Encyclopedia of Homosexuality who discusses it in the context of an Old English glossary which works a bit like an Old English-Latin dictionary, giving Old English words and their Latin counterparts. the Latin words the Anglo-Saxon lexicographer chose to correspond with baedling were effeminatus and mollis, and Lang concludes that it refers to an "effeminate homosexual" (pg 60, Anglo Saxon). this same glossary gives as an Old English synonym the word waepenwifstere which literally means "woman with a penis," and which Dines gives the approximate translation (hold on tight) male wife.

R. D. Fulk, a philologist and medievalist, made a separate analysis of the term in his study on the Canons of Theodore 'Male Homoeroticism in the Old English Canons of Theodore', collected in Sex and Sexuality in Medieval England, 2004. he analysed it as a 'sexual category' (sexual as in sexuality), owing to the context of sexual transgressions in the Canons. he decides that it refers to a man who bottoms in sexual relationships with another man. i don't have the article on hand so i'm not sure what his reasoning was, but this seems obviously inadequate given what we know from the glossary described by Dines. Latin has a word for bottom, pathica, and the lexicographer did not use this in their translation, preferring words that emphasized the baedling's femininity like effeminatus, and doesn't address the sexual context at all. Dines, however, only reading this glossary, seems to decide that it refers to a type of male homosexual too hastily, considering the Canons explicitly treat them separately. both Dines and Fulk immediately reduce the baedling to a subcategory of homosexual when neither of the sources to hand actually do so themselves.

by now it should be obvious why, seven or so years ago, we interpreted it as an equivalent to trans woman. I mean come on - a woman with a penis! these days I tend to add a bit of a caution to this understanding, which is that trans woman is the translation of baedling which seems most adequate to us, just as baedling was the translation of effeminatus that seemed most adequate to our lexicographer. but the term cannot translate perfectly; its sense was derived from some minimal context; a legal context, a doctrinal context, and so forth... the way Anglo-Saxons understood sex/gender is complicated but it has been argued that they had a 'one sex model' and didn't regard men and women as biologically separate types, which is obviously quite different from the sexual model accepted today; in any case they didn't have access to the karyotype and so on. the basic categories they used to understand gender and sexuality were different from ours. in particular, Hirschfield et al. should be understood as a particularly revolutionary moment in the genealogy of transsexuality; the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft essentially invented the concept of the 'sex change', the 'transition', conceived as a biological passage from one sex to the other. even in other contexts where (forgive me) #girlslikeus changed their bodies in some way, like the castration of the priestesses of Cybele, or those belonging to the various historical societies which we believe used premarin for feminization [disputed; see this post], there is no record that they were ever considered men at any stage or had some kind of male biology that preceded their 'gender identity.' the concept of the trans woman requires the minimal context of the coercive assignment at birth and its subsequent (civil and bio-technological) rejection. i have never encountered evidence that this has ever been true in any previous society. nonetheless, these societies still had gendered relations, and essentially wherever we find these gendered relations we also find some subject which is omitted or for whom it has been necessary to note exceptions. what is of chief interest to us is not so much that there was such a subject here or there in history (and whatever propagandistic uses this fact might have), but understanding why these regularities exist.

a very parsimonious explanation is that gender is a biological reality, and there is some particular biological subject which a whole host of words have been conjured to denote. if this were the case then we would expect that, no matter what gender/sexual system we encounter in a given society, it will inevitably find some linguistic expression. if, like me, you find this idea revolting, then you should busy yourself trying to come up with an alternative explanation which is not just plausible, but more plausible. my best guesses are outside the scope of this answer...

anyway, all of this must be very interesting to the five or six people invested in the confluence of philology and gender studies. but why on earth did it become so widely used, in so many strange and unusual contexts, in the 2010s? we're very sorry, but yes, it's our fault. you see apart from all of this, there is also a little piece of information which goes along with the word baeddel, which is that it's the root of the Modern English word bad. by way of, no less, the word baedan, 'to defile'. how this defiled historical subject came to bear responsibility for everything bad to English-speakers doesn't seem to be known from linguistic evidence. however, it makes for a very pithy little remark on transmisogyny. my dear friend [REDACTED] made a playful little post making this point and, good Lord, had we only known...

it went like this. its such a funny little idea that we all start changing our urls to include the word baeddel. in those days it was common to make puns with your url (we always did halloween and christmas ones); i was baeddelaire, a play on the French poet Baudelaire. while we all still had these urls a series of events which everyone would like to forget happened, and we became Enemies of Everyone in the Whole World. because of the url thing people started to call us "the baeddels." then there was "a cult" called "the baeddels" and so forth. this cult had various infamies attatched to it and a constellation of indefensible political positions. ultimately we faced a metric fucking shit ton of harassment, including, for some of my friends, really serious and bad irl harassment that had long-term bad awful consequences relating to stable housing and physical safety and i basically never want to talk about that part of my life ever again. and i never have to, because i've come to realize that for most people, when they use the word baeddel, they don't know about that stuff. it doesn't mean that anymore.

so what does it mean? you'll see it in a few contexts. TERFs do use it, as you guessed. i am not quite sure what they really mean by it and how it differs from other TERF barbs. i think being a baeddel invovles being politically active or at least having a political consciousness, but in a way thats distinct from just any 'TRA' or trans activist. so perhaps 'militant' trans women, but perhaps also just any trans woman with any opinions at all. how this was transmitted from tumblr/west coast tranny drama to TERF vocabulary i have no idea. but you will also find - or, could have found a few years ago - i would say 'copycat' groups who didn't know us or what we believed but heard the rumours, and established their own (generously) organizations (usually facebook groups) dedicated to putting those principles into practice. they considered themselves trans lesbian separatists and did things like doxx and harass trans women who dated cafabs. if you don't know about this, yes, there really were such groups. they mostly collapsed and disappeared because they were evildoers who based their ideology on a caricature. i knew a black trans woman who was treated very badly by one of these groups, for predictable reasons. so long-time readers: if you see people talking about their bad experiences with 'baeddels', you can't necessarily relate it to the 2014 context and assume they're carrying around old baggage. there are other dreams in the nightmare.

the most common way you'll see it today, in my experience, is in this form: people will say that it was a "slur" for trans women. they might bring up that it's the root of the word bad, and they might even think that you shouldn't use the word bad because of it, or that you shouldn't use the word baeddel because it's a slur. all of this is a silly game of internet telephone and not worth addressing. except to say that it's by no means clear that baeddel, or baedling, were slurs, or even insulting at all. while Theodore doesn't provide us with a description of how we can have sex with a baedling without sinning, and it may be the case that any sexual relations with a baedling was considered sinful, sexuality-based transgressions were not taken all that seriously in those days. there was a period where homosexuality within the Church was almost sanctioned, and it wasn't until much later that homosexuality became so harshly proscribed, to the extent that it was thought to represent a threat to society, etc. and as i mentioned, there are places in England named after baedlings. there is a little parish near Kent which is called Badlesmere, Baeddel's Lake, which was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Domesday Book (as having a lord, a handful of villagers and a few slaves; perhaps only one or two households). it's not unheard of, but i just don't know very many places called Faggot Town or some such. it's possible that baedlings had some role in Anglo-Saxon society which we are not aware of; it could even have been a prestigious one, as it was in other societies. there is just no evidence other than a couple of passing references in the literature and we'll probably never have a complete picture.

[holdontorogers]

dumbification with steve? innocence kinda corruption kink too if u wanna

࿐ 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧'𝐬 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥, 𝐬.𝐫.

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠; nomad!Steve x reader

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲; You were on Steve’s side during the Civil War events, now you had to go undercover, just like him. After a few months apart, Steve has missed you more than both of you could’ve imagined. But he will surely make sure you know that.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭; 1,500

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬; 18+ ONLY | MINORS DNI, porn with little no plot, swearing, dumbification, mocking (dumb girl, cockdrunk), pet-names (pretty girl, honey, sweetheart), corruption kink, dom!Steve, face-fucking, blowjob, fingering, unprotected sex, degradation, size kink (Steve is huge, reader doesn’t think it will fit), slight breeding kink (Steve cums inside reader).

𝐚/𝐧; GIF NOT MINE CREDITS HERE. REQUESTS ARE OPEN! Made this with Nomad!Steve bc 🤤 why not? Okay, I didn’t expect to go so far out with this one but oh God. I guess writing smut is my new passion lol.

It has been months since he even heard from you. After a while running together, you ended up going separate ways. He wanted you. It was that simple. And at this point, after all of the events that led him to go undercover and a fugitive, he couldn’t care less. All he knew is that he wanted to cross lines with you, tonight.

You barely recognized him when he arrived at your new hidden place. The calm blue ocean that once shaped his eyes seemed dark and dangerous now. Those angelic eyes and clean face were replaced by wild, almost animalistic eyes. And the beard. Oh, Lord, the beard. You whimpered at the feeling of it rubbing your skin when he hugged you. You also didn’t think Steve could get bigger — but there he was. Broader shoulder, stealth suit fitting his muscles perfectly, and an evil smirk on his face.

“How you’ve been sweetheart?” the pet-name sending shrives down your spine. You simply stare at him, taking in all his features. “Did you lose your words, honey?” your eyes widened at his words, the blue in his eyes almost disappearing as they grew darker. Steve licked his lips staring at you, you could feel the pooling in your panties just by staring at him. Unable to move or do anything thing. You wanted him, it was that simple.

The only problem is that this Steve seemed dangerous, experienced, rough; and you barely knew how to do a proper blowjob at best, lacking much of the experienced he seemed to master by now. But you knew that for him you would do it. Whatever he asked, you were his. Ready for whatever he was willing to give up. You bit your lower lips, lost in your thoughts.

Steve held a groan, the sight of you pressing your thighs together as you looked at him playing hoops in his mind. He left a heavy breath, his dagger eyes focused on all your movements. He could smell your arousal from his place. Carefully, he went forward, cupping a side of your face with his hand.

“What’s going on in that pretty mind of yours?” his voice was heavy just like his stare. “I’m…” Fuck, did you forgot how to speak? Was he that intoxicating? “You…” he mocked “I need to know what you want so I can give it to you, my dumb girl” his fingers caressed your cheek, as you felt your blood rushing through your body. You leaned to his touching, biting your lips hard so a moan wouldn’t escape. What was he doing to you?

“My dumb baby” he taunted “can’t barely contain the sweet sounds when I touch you” you closed your eyes and swallowed, addicted to the sound of his voice and his fingertips. “Gotta tell me what you want, put that pretty mouth of yours to use” your eyes widened at his words.

“I want you to ruin me” this time the words didn’t fail to leave your mouth. Steve had a satisfied smile on his face, dragging his thumb to your parted lips. You took them in, sucking and swirling your tongue around it, a low, strangled groan escaping his mouth at the sight.

“On your knees, pretty girl” he commanded, and you quickly sunk down to your knees. “Wanna see that pretty mouth of yours having a reason for being so out of words” he stated while undoing his belt and lowering his pants. The bulge clear in his boxers watering your mouths and making you wonder if it would fit later.

“Steve” you mumbled, after his cock sprang free from the restraining underwea. “it won’t fit” you blinked a couple of times. Steve chuckled at your words “Oh, my dumb gir, already so needy for my cock” he pouted, mocking your expression “it will fit, don’t worry. Just wait for it” he promised. You gulped and turned your eyes back to his shaft. “Now,” his authoritative tone made you look at him “Tongue out, sweetheart” another barked command, another order you followed promptly. “Eyes on me” he tilted your chin so you could actually look into his eyes, you nodded complying to all his demands.

You could taste the salty pre cum as you licked and sucked on his reddened tip. Sweet moans leaving your lips at the feeling, Steve’s hand threw back in pleasure. He gripped your hair and started thrusting into your mouth, leaving no spacing for breathing. You tugged on his thighs for support, gagging as his cock reached the back of your throat, tears falling down your eyes. The sounds and your current state only made Steve grew harder in your mouth, seeking his own release, using your mouth at his mercy.

“Doing so good for me, my dumb girl” he purred “gonna cum all over your face, fuck” he promised, almost losing his mind at the feeling “then have you bent over and dripping with my seed after I fuck you stupid” he whispered, his words fading as his release approached, curses leaving his mouth. The sounds he was making became your new favorite, he was in control but his flushed look, parted lips, groans and moans were all because of you. You hollowed your cheeks, and continue to let him use you. Suddenly he removed himself slightly as you felt hot, salty cum filling your mouth. You swallowed all he had for you, licking your lips afterwards.

Looking at him with flushed, innocent eyes, Steve pulled you up by your hair, kissing you. Teeth, tongue and his taste in your mouth mixing together in a passionate and rough kiss. Steve finally started undressing you, his lips never leaving your body. He sucked on your lips and moved to your neck, he could bruise the skin that his mouth captured. Steve wanted to let everyone know who you belonged to. As he sucked on one of your boobs, his large hands cupped the other, squeezing and pulling your nipples, making you whine for more. His fingers found your panties ripping the fabric and throwing away.

Steve removed his remaining clothes, lifting you up and placing you in the couch arm. His fingers found your pussy as he groaned at how wet you were “fuck, baby, you’re so fucking wet for me” his fingers spread your arousal through your cunt, tracing every inch, the fraction at your clit making you nearly jump. Steve pushes two fingers into you at once, stretching you open, delighting himself at how well you took them. “Feel so good squeezing my fingers, can’t wait til it’s my cock” he hissed. His thumb starting circling your clit, the pressure building inside you. You felt dizzy, numb to the feeling, gripping his shoulders as you came, hard. The coil in your stomach turning into white, hot, unimaginable, pleasure. Steve licked his fingers clean and moaned at the taste.

With an evil smile, he turned you easily, bending you over, exposing your ass and pussy for him. With a few strokes on his cock, his was ready to ruin all men for you. You whine at his tip teasing your entrance. Steve wasn’t gentle, burring all of him at once, barely giving you time to adjust to his size, impossibly stretching you to fit all of him. He started at a slow, agonizing pace, teasing you. It worked, you whined, grabbed at any resemblance of balance you could find. Almost sobbing for him to stop the torturous pace.

“Steve, I” you whined his name and his cock twitched inside you. “So cockdrunk already?” he mocked “Can’t even form words” he slowed even more, yet you thought it was impossible. “Fa-aster” you tried “Plea—” no warning, his hips started thrusting harder and faster. The pace settled made you feel the coil to form again, his dick sinking into you at every thrust. “My dumb girl” he said with raspy voice “So fucked out by me, won’t even be able to think after I’m done with you”. You could only moan his name, a mess of incoherent whines, sobs and curses leaving your lips.

Steve’s pace lost his rhythm, his release approaching. He started rubbing circles around your clit, pushing you towards the edge with him. It was all too much, the feeling of your walls contracting around him, his thumb in a perfect pace, the fact that it was Steve. You reached your orgasm soon enough, giving Steve the green light to pursue his own release. It was like shockwaves all over his body, his cock buried deep inside you, his hot cum warming you. Steve collapsed on your back, his cock beginning to soften, still inside you.

After a few heavy breaths, Steve removed himself, watching his cum dripping from your cunt, down to your thighs. He grabbed you in his arms and turned you to face him, rubbing his hand through your face. “Guess we need to clean you up” he offered, a sweet, tired smile on your lips. After that night Steve knew that no matter what happened, he wouldn’t leave you ever again. He would make sure to take care of you, protect you. No matter what.

[ruki--mukami]

"Indeed. Rejecting one's love, even after the man has allowed his guard to collapse and his innermost feelings to be revealed, only to have them utterly dismantled before his very eyes… I suppose it's true that it can, in fact, lead to his suffering later on. Not only is it a wound to his pride, but also it illuminates how little the characters really understood each other. We can see in Pride and Prejudice that Elizabeth initially rejects Mr. Darcy, for instance, and he cannot help but feel astonished as a result."

The vast expanse of the library the two often frequented stood still in silence, except for their debate over a book with which Ruki was more than familiarized. Just as one could immerse themselves in the tomes of knowledge, his reserved and calm demeanor slowly waned the more he spoke to Cassandra, the one woman with whom he could play the devil's advocate and watch the civil discussion about various literature unfold, much to his amusement. Leaning closer over its pages, uncaring how their faces were mere inches apart, a surprisingly playful smirk began to creep upon his visage at the sound of her surprised gasp.

"However, the two also eventually marry once they finally see eye-to-eye. By visiting Darcy's home, she eventually saw him for who he truly is in the environment that brought him the most comfort. The treatment of his his sister, his servants, his entire estate," his gaze unceasingly bore into hers. "The Great Gatsby follows a similar trope; the main characters develop mutual feelings, but Gatsby is rejected regardless. Much like Darcy, both men refuse to believe that they have been rejected and continue to pursue the subjects of their affection."

Stormy azure hues zeroed in on her own amber ones as their knees gently brushed against one another, no longer concentrated on the pages that seem to vanish from his mind like the library surrounding them. Just as her own warm breath dusted his cheek, a cold one frosted upon hers in exchange. Unlike his own exhalation, his sapphires suffused a hidden mirth deep within in spite of his usual apathy. Rather than deriving joy from how immobilized she was, the Vampire simply couldn't resist the sight of the woman's inquisitive stare. A profound fondness settled in the chill fortress of his caged heart whenever he reflected on their intellectual conversations, her passion towards art, or the way she managed to brighten the monochrome world around him, introducing him to a myriad of color.

"Perhaps I misunderstood your conclusion after all, Cassandra. You are far more keen than I thought about this book. As much as I believe returning one's love is easier said than done, I'm also a man who would never allow the woman I love to walk away from me. I would never let go of her, no matter what threatens to separate us."

The tempest in his eyes subsided in favor of a tender grip on the book they shared, raising it up to the sides of their faces as if to conceal what would happen next. The other hand softly threaded through her golden tresses, caressing the side of her cheek like a fragile canvas, one he could break and mold back together. Although the Vampire analyzed every text he read with unparalleled insight compared to his peers, he never knew the sensation of love itself. He never fully understood the love Darcy and Elizabeth shared, or how to love someone and be loved in return.

The only love he once knew evaporated in the wake of lie after lie.

A pain that built the foundation of his despondence and cold heart, a suffering inevitable due to the death and lies of his human parents. The ones he valued the most, abandoning him in his time of need, fostering distress that urged Ruki to either kill or be killed, raining a shower of blood. Much like the characters he admired, he refused to let a tragedy befall him again and vowed vengeance against mankind.

"Would you truly confess your feelings in return for a man of interest who bears his heart in full exposure, even after discovering the good and bad sides of him? There could be something about him more atrocious than you would ever expect, lying in wait right in front of you. A naïve woman like you would never see it coming. Oftentimes it's too easy to be lured in by a beautiful face that obscures a dark secret and an ugly past. With such an innocent stare like that, you'll only entice that type of man to strike when the opportunity arises."

Eyelashes fluttering shut, the Vampire inclined further until his lips connected with hers. A subtle hum of delight echoed into the soft, chaste kiss, holding the book up all throughout to hide their tryst from whoever happened to stumble upon them in the library. The hand cradling her face stroked slow, soothing circles into her porcelain skin, ending its reverie on the contour of her jawline to deepen and prolong the kiss they shared. An incessant wave of unparalleled mansuetude washed over with each slotting of his lips against hers. Curious fingers began to roam down Cassandra's backside, entangling between champagne curls and pulling her closer to him as Ruki urgently savored the sweet taste. Exulting in the sensation of her lips a while longer, he finally withdrew himself.

"Shall I teach you about it, Cassandra? About how a man pursues and takes what he wants with conviction? A conviction strong enough to change everything you already know; strong enough to turn your entire world on its axis. A desire strong enough to conquer all fears."

🧩 💋 for a random kiss. <receiver’s choice> I thought it might've been too soon, but I was also so tempted to send something, so I will let you decide the type of kiss 🏃‍♀️✨✨ 🧩

╭═════════════•⊱⋆☘⋆⊰•═════════════╮

SEND A HEART FOR A SPECIFIC KISS.

Send 💋 for a random kiss (receiver’s choice).

Receiver chooses: A surprise! Continue reading >:3

╰═════════════•⊱⋆☘⋆⊰•═════════════╯

“No Ruki, you are misunderstanding at me” she said, pointing the book she had on the table “It is not like I do not understand the change in the character's opinion, but I honestly thought she had more principles!”.

Both of them were in the library sharing another night together. Those meetings were getting so usual that she actually forgot for how long they have been meeting. Maybe it was for three weeks, or maybe over a year. Who had the interest to count? It was still a good thing on her perspective. It always had been like that with her closest friends and she wasn't more than glad to have the pleasure to spend time with him. But it is not yet rosy either. Time after time he was showing his true nature, that tacit and severe personality he had, in total contrast with her cheerful and appeased one. Nonetheless, it wasn't an obstacle for them to enjoy time together. Neither to discuss, in whispers, good literature.

“If she were really interested on him, if she, after all the meetings they had, changed her outlook about him, she should express her feelings the day he opened his heart to her” she calmly expressed her point, palpable confused by the development of the romance turning her head to see him “I cannot imagine more than——”

She stopped for a few seconds. “More than the suffering he felt in the moment she rejected him” were the words that a gasp stole from her. She didn't have noticed how close he was from her. What it possibly was because she was dragging each time closer to herself the book both were sharing. Logically, he hadn't any other option to get closer to read without interrupting their debate, had he?

But this time the distance between them was so small that she was able to see his cloudy eyes in detail, so close that the vampire was able to feel the warm breath over his lips. ‘Hand, chin, lips’ were words spoken on her mind in a suggestion. She slightly opened her mouth, breathing warm air and aversely she was still frozen, bordering the line of the unknown danger, wandering why she never took a look at the beauty in the depths of his eyes.