#death match survivor

[devotedlystrangewizard]

renheng is arguably too delicious for the average hoyoverse fan because when i found out one of the main characters is haunted by a spectre of his past who hates him so much entirely because he once loved and trusted him. and they watched the stars together. and they have matching bracers that they can sense each other through. and they were closer than any other two in their old friend group. and

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

I hope every parent who has ever sent their child to a troubled teen industry camp fucking kills themselves. Hopefully as slowly and painfully as possible. And I hope the people who run those places and the sick fucks who work there do the same.

[waterbearable]

like. i don’t even think it’s better necessarily, but if the only person with actual buy-in on the hunt aside from lottie was van (i don’t really buy tai as having committed here, she’s just going along w van which i think does repeat old patterns), then why not just to subdue lottie from the start? like i GUESS it’s some attempt to suggest groupthink but as soon as lottie starts trying to pursue shauna why would you make it seem like you’re also trying to get her? like i could see at least a couple of them trying to subdue lottie, lottie+van trying to fight them off, chaos/giving into the violence ensues. idk it just does not work for me and the outcome...ehhh

(more in the tags srry but for my non-yj folks cw for mentions of ideation, overdose, addiction)

[kay9leo]

At First Glance... Part VII

Chapter 6 <<< ||| Chapter 7 ||| >>> Chapter 8

...On Hippogriffs

It was by chance he recognized the exact location of the final piece of the triptych.

During their pause on their friendship, Sebastian found that the third best thing to clear his head aside from talking to MC or to Ominis and dueling was to take his broom and fly off.

While Imelda might focus more on breaking her latest speeding record and MC would focus on whatever misadventure she could get herself into (that girl don’t know the meaning of taking it easy), Sebastian couldn’t care less about either thing. The thing that he cared about was feeling the wind against his hair and the cool breeze against his face.

It was almost meditative.

He could always count on mindlessly flying to keep his mind off of things…such as his wayward friendwho decided that apparently getting in trouble with Garreth in potions was more fun than hanging out with him.

Yet, somehow when he spotted MC leaving the dungeons with Weasley after a Saturday’s morning detention of scrubbing caldrons clean and prepping materials for the next potion’s class –all done by hand mind you– with a fat smile before laughing at something Weasley said, Sebastian found that he couldn’t even be in the same building as the two.

So, he took off on his broom and started flying.

Usually when things bothered him, the first person he would go to was to MC to figure out how to resolve it. Then it would be Ominis –if it was something he didn’t want MC to worry about, like his thoughts on her.

Sebastian didn’t dare to bother Anne. Not with this.

And if he was being honest to himself, not since she was cursed.

Before (because there was always a before when things were better), Anne was always his go-to person. The person who knew how to handle things with a mischievous plan that would work nearly 75% of the time. His twin knew him better than anyone else…

…Until she got cursed.

Then it was as if a new person replaced her.

A more docile, behaved worried girl instead of his headstrong, playful, cheeky sister.

Telling his problems to Anne would only make things worse. She didn’t need to worry her pretty, mischievous head over him. It wasn’t the first time he kept her in the dark over something like this.

Lying to her however, made his stomach feel like it was filled with lead as he told her another made-up story over what the three of them were doing.

Anne SHOULDN’T feel the need to worry about her healthy twin brother when she was the one who was cursed. Who consistently needed bedrest. Who got weaker each time he saw her. He couldn’t bear to place weight on her weaken shoulders about his problems when half the battle of fighting a curse was having an optimistic attitude towards it.

If his sister couldn’t muster the strength to be optimistic about a cure, when their Uncle kept saying that it was pointless, that curing her was a lost cause, then he’ll be the one to do it.

He’ll be strongly optimistic for the both of them!

And if lying to her about his non-hiatuses friendship with MC would make her feel better, why should he tell her the truth if it will only make her feel worse?

Anne was over the moon to see that he made a new friend.

That it wasn’t just him and Ominis and an abandoned Undercroft.

Or that he wasn’t wasting his youth away trying to find an unknown cure.

Anne was happy that for once he was actually sneaking out to go on adventures, spending time at Hogsmeade, drinking butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks, dueling for fun, talking at dinner, playing with beasts, traveling over the Highlands, pranking the prefects, playing cards, exploding snaps, Jacks, gobstones, manhunt, quidditch, soccer, quodpot, chicke–

Basically, anything that involved Sebastain acting like the adolescent he was instead of behaving like he was some old, grayed hair wrinkly olive-spotted researcher–healer with his nose buried in a book. Anne had countlessly teased him that he was becoming an old fart out in Hogwarts quicker than she was in her bed at Feldcroft.

Then all her teasing stopped when he met MC.

He sent letter after letter about their daily activities and mishaps they got into…minus a few parts…

…Such as fighting goblins…

…Or MC’s ancient magic that attracted trouble like moonlight to mooncalves…

…speaking of which, did MC remember to feed her mooncalves with that new feed they created in Beasts class?

He huffed and rolled his eyes.

She probably has Weasley helping her this time. The two seem pretty chummy for potions partner–

His train of thought stopped when he spotted two hippogriffs above him, front talons locked between them, tumbling and cartwheeling down.

A Death Spiral. Sebastian thought to himself with bated breath. They’re completing their courtship ritual.

“The reason why hippogriffs feathers are often used as part of an exchange in marriage ceremonies in some cultures is due to their symbol of love and companionship. According to records, hippogriffs are born of an unlikely union of male griffin and a mare. As you can recall, it isn’t uncommon for a griffin to prey on horse, but even love can tame the wildest.”

Sebastian recalled the words Prof. Howin lectured during class as he watched the pair fall in front of him on his broom.

“This extraordinary joining of two species that are typically seen as adversaries embodies the concept of love overcoming barriers and defying expectations. And their connection to love symbolizes the transformative and often unpredictable nature of romantic relationships, highlighting the profound impact that love can have on overcoming obstacles together. They are portrayed as a faithful and devoted companions who can form meaningful bonds with those who approach it with respect and humility.”

The two hippogriffs held tight, neither letting go, zooming down on a crash course to earth, each trusting the other on when to let go.

“When it comes to the end of their courtship ritual, they will perform a death spiral, similar to eagles, in which they lock talons and spiral downwards. It is a test to determine each other’s fitness and trustworthiness of a potential mate.” Prof. Howin stated.

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Isn’t there a risk that they might die?”

Some of his classmates asked.

“It is. It isn’t surprising to see a few juveniles dead either from a failed courtship.” Prof. Howin said as she petted one. The white hippogriff keened with each stroke Prof. Howin gave on her head. “Remember class, don’t let their size fool you. The female hippogriffs like this one here are larger than their male counterparts. They are just like birds in that aspect. Now look at their wings here. The primary feathers of their wings are used for the exchange before the rings during the marriage ritual. It symbolizes–

“Then why risk it?” Sebastian thought out loud.

Professor Howin glanced at him.

“I apologize for my outburst, but why? Why would you risk your life for a potential mate like that when it can also lead you to death?” Sebastian had a strong sense of self-preservation, especially since Anne was cursed a few weeks ago.

Professor Howin shock her head with a smile.

“Ahh, spoken like someone whose never been in love before. Do you want to know what’s the prize they get if they survive Mr. Sallow?”

Sebastian nodded.

Just when it looked like they were too cocky, too prideful for either to yield first, they both let go, flying parallel to each other a few feet above ground. They then landed nearby the edge of the forest before they started preening each other, like a couple of lovebirds.

He couldn’t help but smile.

“The prize that is won from a successful death spiral is a mate for life. A partner you can always rely on Mr. Sallow. Surely as someone who’s a fine duelist like yourself would know what a difference it makes to have a partner to watch your back during paired fights. And now, imagine having a fine partner like that to help carry your burdens. A partner who you could also share your good times with as well.” Professor Howin stated with a smile.

Sebastian couldn’t.

Sebastian stood seated, hovering far above the newly mated pair of Hippogriffs, watching them as they nuzzled each other before flying off. That’s when he recognized a familiar landscape in the direction that they flew towards.

Looks like we might not have to fight that much to the next triptych piece. Not with that Floo spot available nearby. Sebastian smirked before he felt an ache in his heart. The corners of his lips fell.

It doesn’t matter. I bet Weasley’s keeping her happily entertain to even remember about me. He snorted before he flew back to the castle.

That evening, he wrote Anne another letter about his encounter with the paired hippogriff’s death spiral. He described the awe that appeared in MC’s eyes as the hippogriff separated in time before nuzzling each other like lovebirds back in the ground before she shared a fun fact about how the females ‘griffs tended to be bigger than the male ones before he joked that big thing comes in small packages with a wink.

Not that his own package was small mind you…at least from what he figured…

…So, what if his own package was smaller than the British average of 5.17 inches? He still had good 5.05 inches on him.

Either way, at least that joke will for certain make Anne roll her eyes before writing something about him being a scoundrel and to stop treating MC as if she was one of the boys.

Then Sebastain would roll his eyes and reply that he is aware that MC is a girl thank you very much. Why else would he be bothered by the fact that the other boys in their year were being a bit too friendly with her? What guy would wear a citrus orange perfume? Or even make crown flowers?

For all the tomfoolery, tomboyish attitude and trousers that MC would wear, Sebastian was deeply aware that at the end of the day, MC is a girl.

A girl who had no idea how much her absence in their friendship had hurt him.

Either way, that crude joke should be enough to distract Anne from looking too deep into the details of why he hasn’t written much about MC recently.

Anne was happy to see that Sebastian living his life for once.

He wasn’t going to break that illusion.

Sebastian just wished he could’ve lived that lie he written with MC.

So, after mailing the insincere letter to his twin and seeing MC and Weasley still being buddy-buddy after their shared morning detention with the addition of Natty at dinner, Sebastian went to the Undercroft to review the second triptych painting.

The landmarks he saw earlier matched to what he seen in the last canvas piece they found. Looking at it gave him the same feeling just like it did the first time when he recognized the landmarks seen in the first and only canvas piece.

It was excitement, determination and hope.

It was an adventure waiting. A piece to understanding MC's ancient magic. A great mystery the two were going to solve…

…a mystery he ended up shelfing when he realized that that meant he would need to talk to MC. That he would need to yield.

But that was yesterday.

Before he dreamt of his mother.

Before he mailed out the apologize letter with an offer to help find the last triptych piece this Sunday morning.

Even if they disagreed about certain things like her goblin friend, he would always have her back. It didn’t matter the length of the pause of their friendship or that glare MC threw at him that spelt murder when she finally arrived at the stated location to meet him.

Sebastian will always have her back.

Just like she had his in every single duel, challenge or fight of their lives as together, they razed down goblins, Ashwinders and poachers who thought they could destroy the world without any consequences.

Like they did with his.

Nothing could defeat them.

Not when they can relay on each other like a mated pair of hippogriffs.

…

But it seems as if that small pause, that little hiatus in their friendship was enough for them to change while apart from each other.

...

Chapter 6 <<< ||| Chapter 7 ||| >>> Chapter 8

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

A Big TB Announcement

Greetings from Washington D.C., where I spent the morning meeting with senators before joining a panel that included TB survivor Shaka Brown, Dr. Phil LoBue of the CDC, and Dr. Atul Gawande of USAID. Dr. Gawande announced a major new project to bring truly comprehensive tuberculosis care to regions in Ethiopia and the Philippines. Over the next four years, this project can bring over $80,000,000 in new money to fight TB in these two high-burden countries.

Our family is committing an additional $1,000,000 a year to help fund the project in the Philippines, which has the fourth highest burden of tuberculosis globally.

Here’s how it breaks down: The Department of Health in the Philippines has made TB reduction a major priority and has provided $11,000,0000 per year in matching funds to go alongside $10,000,000 contributed by USAID and an additional $1,000,000 donated by us. This $22,000,000 per year will fund everything from X-Ray machines, medications, and GeneXpert tests to training and employing a huge surge of community health workers, nurses, and doctors who are calling themselves TB Warriors. In an area that includes nearly 3,000,000 people, these TB Warriors will screen for TB, identify cases, provide curative treatment, and offer preventative therapy to close contacts of the ill. We know this Search-Treat-Prevent model is the key to ending tuberculosis, but we hope this project will be both a beacon and a blueprint to show that It’s possible to radically reduce the burden of TB in communities quickly and permanently. It will also, we believe, save many, many lives.

—

I believe we can’t end TB without these kinds of public/private partnerships. After all, that’s how we ended smallpox and radically reduced the global burden of polio. It’s also how we’ve driven down death from malaria and HIV. For too long, TB hasn’t had the kind of government or private support needed to accelerate the fight against the disease, but I really hope that’s starting to change. I’m grateful to USAID for spearheading this project, and also to the Philippine Ministry of Health for showing such commitment and prioritizing TB.

—

One reason this project is even possible: Both the cost of diagnosis (through GeneXpert tests) and the cost of treatment with bedaquiline are far lower than they were a year ago, and that is due to public pressure campaigns, many of which were organized by nerdfighteria. I’m not asking you for money (yet); Hank and I will be funding this in partnership with a few people in nerdfighteria who are making major gifts. But I am asking you to continue pressuring the corporations that profit from the world’s poorest people to lower their prices. I’ve seen some of the budgets, and it’s absolutely jaw-dropping how many more tests and pills are available because of what you’ve done as a community.

—

I don’t yet have the details on which region of the Philippines we’ll be working in, but it will be an area that includes millions of people–perhaps as many as 3 million. And it will include urban, suburban, and rural areas to see the different responses needed to provide comprehensive care in different communities. This will not (to start!) be a nationwide campaign, because even though $80,000,000 is a lot of money, it’s not enough to fund comprehensive care in a nation as large as the Philippines. But we hope that it will serve as a model–to the nation, to the region, and to the world–of what’s possible. 

—

I’m really excited (and grateful) that our community gets to have a front-row seat to see the challenges and hopefully the successes of implementing comprehensive care. Just in the planning, this project has involved so many contributors–NGOs in the Philippines, global organizations like the Partners in Health community, USAID, the national Ministry of Health in the Philippines, and regional health authorities as well. There are a lot of partners here, but they’ve been working together extremely well over the last few months to plan for this project, which will start more or less immediately thanks to their incredibly hard work.

[nothomegal]

HIII I MISS YOU :(( straight to the point, I need a yandere pyramid head fic!!

I´m sorry for the disappearance ;v; Can't post much due my studies.

Anyways, I ADORE your suggestion! And boy if our little (Y/N) is going to have a rough time with a yandere creature like Pyramid Head ._.)

Welp, let's start the story!

"Innocent lamb"

(Yandere!Pyramid Head x GN Reader)

Summary: the entity's realm was hell for some, heaven for others, and an inconvenience for the rest... But when one of the creatures encountered you, he made it everyone's problem, even the entity's that brough him there in the first place. But he meant no harm to you. He likes you. He wants you. He needs you. And he wͦ̀ͯi̸ll̩ͩ have Y̛̗̰͇͚͓͈̣͕̰͓̗͛ͤ̀̇̍ͥ͒̓͝Ơ̵̔_̰̅U̵̷̡̧̡̨͖̟̹͙̙͓̥̗̫̣̙͉͕͉̣̬̇ͭ͗̉͂̅̍͗̇̇́́̈͟͞

Warnings: yandere/obsessive behavior, violence and violent acts, quite angst(y) mood in general, (understandably) terrified reader darling :(.

Word count: 4.2k

The moment they entered the trial, all four survivors knew right away who the killer was. Either its the dread they all felt as soon as their feet made contact with the ground that gave it away, or the fact that the entity had placed all of them in the same spot next to two generators just to have any chances to make it out alive.

But they know it's in vain, they know they're doomed for a long long death by bleeding out.

They know it... Because (Y/N) is with them.

Said survivor had to bite their lip to avoid crying, as guilt and terror embraced them. Just because the monster had this unholy obsession with them it didn't mean they were okay with it, if anything it scared them more.

He, Pyramid Head, the Executioner... Or however you want to nickname him, is said to be one of the most powerful creatures the entity had the pleasure to bring, so powerful in fact that the spider-like being had to make a deal to bring him.

So it's not surprising that they are absolutely horrified, but who wouldn't? This monster, an embodiment of pain and punishment, almost a god, has been hunting them relentlessly ever since he laid his gaze or... Helmet? On them.

At first it was all jokes and gags;

'Aww look, (Y/N) has a boyfriend!'

'Watch out, here comes your crush (Y/N)!'

'Uh-oh, the triangle man seems jealous, look how pissed he is at Nea for healing you!'.

But the jokes stopped when it got clear how truly messed up and sinister said 'crush' is.

They still remember it, it was a regular match against that one masked knife wielding guy that runs a lot, he's called 'Legion' they think. The trial was going relatively well, just like many previous ones. Until it suddenly got an 180° turn when one of the walls to the realm was literally destroyed by a hulking mass of muscle and a giant knife. To say both (Y/N) and the killer nearly had a cardiac arrest was an understatement, things got so ugly that the entity had to intervene and cut the trial short.

That incident could be a fuel for a new wave of jokes, could... If it didn't happen again. And that next time was even worse, the beast nearly made his way into the survivor side of the realm, somehow bursting through the barrier the entity had created to keep the survivors separated from the killers to avoid any pity fights after trials.

Ever since that event, Pyramid Head was strictly kept in 'his' realm, aka Midwich Elementary School.

Sometimes, after escaping through the gates and running back into the camp through the fog, (Y/N) could swear they can hear the monster roar in the distance. Loud, distorted and fierce howls resonating somewhere behind the dense fog, as if the creature was desperately trying to yell out their name. Either to let them know how badly he wants them or a promise to break free and get them... Both possibilities giving them chills.

The entity of course wasn't okay with this, it was pissed! But it also could do so little... The great deal now had turned into a major curse. If the deal is broken, the Executioner won't hesitate to damage the realm to get what he wants. But if it remains, the monster will find new ways to bend the rules and make it everyone's problem.

Why the entity doesn't just give (Y/N) to the beast or gets rid of them ones for all? No one really has the answer. Some think it's due the entity's pride, or the possibility of the executioner going ballistic. For now, it's more of a silent (and petty) battle between two stubborn beings, each of them refusing to back away from their goal.

Goal. The entity's goal, though still confusing, is more or less clear; force people and creatures to play these twisted games and feed on those who get sacrificed. But the executioner's goal? It's straight up a mystery. (Y/N) know it has something to do with them, but... Why them exactly? Why not Cheryl? Didn't she come from the same place as that beast? What the monster even wants them for?

What will he do when he finally gets his hands on them? Wh-

A rough shake snapped (Y/N) out of their internal break down.

They blink a couple of times, tears of fear nearly sliding down their cheeks as their body shivers. They were scared, more than the other three survivors combined.

The survivor holding them by their shoulders, David, sighs when he finally notices them react.

—"Look, I know you're scared..."— he starts talking, his voice surprisingly calm.

—"I'm-... I- I'm sorry, I'm s-so sorry-..."— you choke out in a weak wobbly voice, guilt eating you from inside.

—"No no. Just listen for a sec. I... Well, we all can tell that you aren't enjoying it neither. So, let's not break down into a soap opera, okay? Don’t think of this as hopeless match, but as another chance to woop that asshole's ass and escape."—

—"And also leave him empty handed!"— Feng announces from her place while already working on a generator.

—"Yeah, screw that triangular piece of shit! Let's try out Dwight's strategy this time. You remember it, do you?"— he asks you, not letting go of your shoulders yet.

The surprisingly positive and reassuring words of their teammates towards them really soothed and even cheered (Y/N) a bit. With a small smile they quickly wipe their eyes before nodding.

—"Good, see? We're already starting on a good note!"— he lets go to then pat your back, basically pushing you forward. —"Now go help with a gen before putting the 'plan' into work."—

Though the push hurt a bit, (Y/N) didn't care at all about the pain, too focused on keepings all the negative and pessimistic thoughts away.

For the first minute and a half everything was going well, (Y/N) and Feng were working on one generator while David and Jonah were working on the other one. The four of them were dead silent, straining their ears for any of the sounds the creature makes, such as heavy footsteps, the scraping of his gigantic knife or their own heartbeat. Weirdly enough, everything was calm... Too calm.

(Y/N) nearly choked with air when a cold chill ran through their spine.

Spine Chill. The beast... Is watching them.

They attempt to subtly alert Feng by carefully tapping her leg, but as soon as their fingertips touched the other girl’s skin, their heartbeat started to get louder and louder, until…

—“WATCH OUT!”—

(Y/N) exclaimed as they pushed Feng, just in time to dodge a bunch of sharp and rusted metal pieces coming out the ground.

—“Holy-...”— she mutters.

Now that the monster is here, the four survivors decided to put in action the mentioned strategy.

They all let go of the generators and run away in different directions, (Y/N) being the most desperate while running since they know exactly who the beast is targeting.

His pattern is always the same; chase after until sending them into a cage to then down all of their teammates and then come straight back to all caged and helpless (Y/N) and then… Stare or touch them until the others bleed out or the entity has enough.

The difference in the current case, is that (Y/N) is not playing just cat and mouse. In fact, chasing them is the worst the killer can do. All of their abilities are chase oriented, another teammate lurking around has all the boon ones, while the last two have all is needed to rush through the generators. If everything works out, the monster will get himself in a situation where he's be forced to leave (Y/N) alone.

The chase was intense, at least for (Y/N). Despite never catching a clear view of the Executioner, they could feel him close behind, following them methodically like a wild animal on a hunt, waiting for the right moment to strike while keeping up the tension.

It was hard to maintain the focus, every single hallways in The Game looked the exact same. Did they vaulted that window already? Didn't they pre-dropped that palled over there? Did Feng placed it up again? Are the other two working on the generators? Have they taken this left path before?

So many questions where swarming their mind as their legs kept carrying them on, only momentarily relaxing when two generators finally made that distinguish noise.

Two done! Tree left.

A breathless laugh escaped from them. Great! This is already going better than all of their previous encounters with the Executioner, which would always end with the first generator barely reaching 30%.

However, their smile was quickly swept when they realized they no longer hear their heartbeat or thundering footsteps tailing behind. It was silent, dead silent, with no other sounds that their own breathing.

A wave of anxiety flushed through (Y/N) like a tsunami wave and started to drag and drown them deeper into their own worries.

What the?... Okay, this was not part of the plan. The Executioner had never left the chase with them, never. So the fact that he finally did, and apparently a while ago, made them shake.

With nothing else to do, they gather the courage to start moving again. Where? Somewhere! Anywhere but to stay in place and be an easy target to the beast that so desperately wants them.

They keep running, stopping only for a brief moment before turning a corner, making sure they don't hear any muffled breathing that at times resembled growls. They learned the hard way with the Shape that some killers like to wait around corners, and they don't want to commit the same mistake right now.

Their heart jerked when they heard a scream resonate from their left, and a faint reddish aura in the shape of a human gleamed for a second before disappearing.

David is down.

And it seems like he's not getting picked up, which could either mean that the monster is setting up a trap or chasing someone else. Whichever the case is, they shouldn't go-

They hear a bunch of footsteps come their way, and in a set of panic they crouch behind a bunch of boxes, silently praying that their disguise is mildly good.

They can't see much from their spot, but they can clearly recognize the shape of Jonah running away from something massive.

As soon as the two figures passed by, (Y/N) gets up and takes off running towards David to check on him.

After some wondering around the labyrinth-like place, they finally reach their injured teammate, who was still on the ground and groaning from pain.

—"{David!}"— you whisper-yell as you start running towards him.

He weakly lifts his head just enough to see them. When he recognized who it is, he starts to frantically shake his head.

—"NO! GET THE FUCK OUT!"—

Huh? What-

As (Y/N) is about to reach David, a path of sharp metal pieces and razor wires had emerged right in front of them, just when they're about to make contact with the floor again, making in impossible to dodge.

The second their leg got tangled into the sharp metallic mess, everything went too fast. They don't even have time to pull away as something sliced them on their side, sending them directly on the ground.

They send a guilty and ashamed glance to David, who had an frustrated expression.

—"{Sorry...}"— you mouth.

(Y/N) has no chance to see David's answer as a massive hand suddenly curled around their throat and forced them to look away from the other man.

Their eyes wide at the sight of the beast menacingly hovering over their helpless form, holding their body in place between him and the ground. The muscles of his extended arm were tense, his breathing heavy, almost like he's holding back the anger and displeasure caused by them giving attention to someone else.

Their heart skipped beats, their breath uneven, their eyes watered as they tightly closed them, not wanting to witness whatever this thing was about to do. They can feel the warmth coming from his body, his breathing slowly stabilizing, as if staring at them and watching them slowly submit was enough to calm the monster. Ironically, it did the complete opposite to (Y/N), as their own heartbeat raised from the anxiety of having to face the unknown, attempt to predict the unpredictable and prepare to witness another massacre unfold around them at any second... Just to then end up caged and at the mercy of this-

—"LEAVE THEM ALONE ASSHOLE!"— David angrily yells from his place, struggling and trying to stand up. —"You're fucking terrifying, of course they don't want to look at you!"—

They can feel Pyramid Head's hand tense and start shaking, his fingers twitching and pressing further into their skin. (Y/N) was beyond terrified now, just a little bit of pressure and the creature could crush their throat like a cardboard tube.

David, though clearly using all of his strength, ended up falling back on the ground, as if some invisible weigh is actively pushing him down.

—“You freak! Absolute sick fuck! Let them go already!”—

As the waterfall of profanities continues, (Y/N) slowly places their hands around the monster’s wrist to attempt to push his hand away, unfortunately he didn’t budge at all.

Suddenly, David’s stops screaming and the very next second (Y/N) feels something warm and slippery press against their cheek.

They jerk in place at the uncanny sensation and shoot open their eyes, a breathless gasp escaping them at the sight of a… Wh-What even is that? A freaking tentacle? A tongue?…

The dark pink muscle wiggles in front of their face for a moment before licking another stride, wiping some of their tears and blood in the process, making (Y/N) shiver in discomfort.

They shoot a confused glance to David, desperately wanting to know if he’s witnessing this too. The man had an expression of pure ‘what the fuck’; eyes narrowed, brows furrowed and mouth slightly gaping.

This eye contact was brief though. (Y/N) got startled for a loud growl that reverbed from the beast's chest and helmet. The hand finally leaves their throat as the beast stands up to his full height and starts making his way to David, leaving them alone, as well as his knife?

(Y/N) throws their teammate a scared look, but David responds with a forced smirk.

—"Ah, now you decide to drag your big ass towards me."— he mutters through gritted teeth.

The monster seem to not react to his taunts. With each step that he takes towards David, his mask of confidence seems to crack.

Nevertheless, the man didn’t back out from his insults, he never does.

—“What’s wrong? Why so pissy, huh?! Jealous that (Y/N) prefers us?!”—

Saying their name was a sore spot to hit, and the way Pyramid Head reacted confirmed that.

The monster roughly grabs David by the neck, completely ignoring the fact that he’s not even holding his weapon. Instead he uses his bare hands to silence him.

Nasty, wet and crunchy sounds resonated through the room and hallways as the creature began to tear the man’s body limb by limb, piece by peace, unbothered by the pained screams of his victim or the low groan of displeasure that resonated from above for again not playing by the rules.

(Y/N) froze in horror at the sight in front of them. Blood, chunks of flesh and bone pieces where flying everywhere, never before they’ve witnessed this type of gore, not even during the ‘mori’.

Though it felt like the massacre lasted hours, it was actually second. The monster threw the whatever remaining he had in his hands and slowly turned back to (Y/N), who was still frozen and unable to look away from what was left from David. They know they will meet again in the fire camp, in one piece and alive, but god they felt sick...

Their shock breaks only when the thundering footsteps began to resonate again, shaking the ground underneath them with each the creature took. He grew closer, and closer, with them being able to do absolutely nothing aside from attempting to crawl away.

But that pity attempt was stopped when the same sharp wires and rusty metal pieces emerged from the ground and wrapped around their body, pulling them slowly underneath and sinking them further into the ground. And before they realize it, their body is already trapped in that rotten metallic cage.

Cold metal spikes just inches away from their flesh, so close to penetrate their skin, a wrong move and they would undoubtedly get hurt. But even if they wanted to move, they couldn't really. The space in the structure was small, claustrophobic even, each spike perfectly adjusted to keep their form in place. In some twisted way, it felt like a hug, a very cold, unwelcoming and unnerving hug.

They flinch when they hear a scream resonate from somewhere, which was cut by a loud slam.

Feng was caught.

It seems like the Executioner didn't bother to down her, rather getting rid of her directly, most likely because he's aware that Jonah is not keen of going for rescues...

And speaking of the man, there is his aura flashing before (Y/N)'s eyes as his body fell on the floor.

He's down... Which means that-

Before they even finish their conclusion, the tall figure of the monster appeared. Just by looking at them his behavior seemed to change; movements more erratic and pace uneven, almost like he's hypnotized.

He makes his way to them, slowly, as if purposely building up the tension.

(Y/N) wanted to look away or close their eyes, but whenever they did so the cage felt painfully small. It hurt, literally, so they stare at that beast grow closer with wide shaky eyes that struggled to keep their focus on him. This is something Pyramid Head was always good at, he could always make you fear, even the toughest bravest ones would inevitably succumb to the terror his presence brings.

Ones in front of them, the creature stops in place and simply stares, like he always did.

(Y/N), though still scared, was a tiny bit relieved that this is what the rest of the trial would be; them being pinned like a butterfly with the monster observing.

It would be just that.

Just this bizarre staring contest.

...Right?

WRONG.

The creature suddenly let go of his weapon and grabs the edges of the cage with both hands quite violently.

Now the little hope and comfort (Y/N) had was thrown out the window, as now they realize they no longer have any idea of what will happen next.

And by what it looks like, the entity is not planning to intervene, as if curious itself to see what will happen next.

Pyramid Head remains like this, his big hands tightly squeezing the imperfect metal bars, bending them slightly and making the already miserable looking material groan from the pressure he was applying.

It looked like he wanted to destroy that cage, rip it apart and get to them, but didn't do it by holding himself back... Why? What's even the point of this build up? What's even the point in wanting them?!

—"{Wh-...Why?...}"— you choke out in a very quiet voice. —"{Why a-are you d-... doing this?...}"—

(Y/N) knows is stupid to ask, Pyramid Head can't even speak! But they can't help themselves, they're too scared, their anxiety is unbearable and their thoughts are too out of control. They need answers, anything that could even hint for a possible explanation of the killer's intentions.

They began to second guess their decision to speak when the creature froze in place, even his breath was now inaudible. This was the first time (Y/N) spoke directly to the monster, but they didn't expect him to react at this fact, not like this, or at all.

But he did, he did acknowledged that little detail, and he will make sure they acknowledge it too.

The creature soon moves again, by slowly leaning closer and slightly tilting his head to the side, almost like trying to get a better look at them.

His breathing got heavier, low huffs and growls resonating from that metallic helmet of his. It really looked like he was actively holding back some major urge or desire, but what it is?

(Y/N) wanted to ask again, but decided against it as there is little Pyramid Head could do to answer, and even if he could, why should he? Maybe it's more amusing to him to see them helplessly wondering in the dark and unable to comprehend what's going on.

Or maybe, there is simply nothing to explain?... Maybe he does what he does just because? Human mind is way too used to seek for reasons and explanations for anything and everything, often forgetting that sometimes the answer is way too simple or straight up null, could that be the case?

The same groan coming from the cage bars pulled (Y/N) out of their thoughts. They forget how to breathe at the sight of the structure slowly collapsing as the monster starts to rip the bars with his raw strength.

A scared yelp escaped them as they try to back further into the cage as much as they can, ignoring the sharp edges that scratched or pierced their body. They barely felt pain, none at all actually, the adrenaline and basic survival instincts keeping their body resilient and ready to run. The sad part is, is that there is nowhere to run, nothing to do. It's sweet that their body tries so desperately to keep their hopes up and reassure their survival, but their mind is more than aware of the cold desolated reality...

The front part of the cage was eventually ripped off and thrown against the floor violently. (Y/N) can only cover their eyes with their hands and quietly sob as they wait for whatever the monster had planned to do next.

Even when no further actions are made, they refuse to look. They no longer want to face this thing, they no longer want to suffer this torment. Regardless if they believed in any religion or no, they mutter silent prayers under their breath, but not no save them, but to make it end and to know how sorry they are for any evil or harm they've did in their life that leaded to such tragic conclusion.

But this is where the catch is... They've committed none. At least from the Executioner's perspective.

Despite their whispers being so silent to a non-existent point, Pyramid Head heard them loud and clear. And the more he heard their voice, the more he felt the inside of his chest burn and the desire for them grow even more. (Y/N) is not perfect, they're human after all, and all humans have their fair share of flaws and defects... But unlike the rest, (Y/N) has the ability to acknowledge said imperfections and genuinely try to make up for them, to fix them... Regardless if they get something in return or not.

This, this is the true purity in a human being. An innocence and kindness so genuine that it would be a sin not to worship and protect... And who is a best fit to take care of it other than the fearsome Pyramid Head?

(Y/N)... So pure... So innocent... So kind... He must keep them save.

He must keep them...

He wants them...

W̴͕̳͈͔̭̝͠ͅ a̶̩̰̲̎̓͊̈̓̕ ǹ̴̢͇̬̘̗̯̜̍̋͊͠͝͠ ṭ̶͇̃̔͝ s̶̭̩͔̹̝̼̅̍̆̉͌͝

As the monster is about to reach them, a spider like legs burst out through the floor and wrap themselves around (Y/N).

The trial... Is over.

And while the absolutely livid roar gets overshadowed by the groans of the entity as the black fog surrounds the whole place. (Y/N) only keeps quietly sobbing as they cling to the spider leg sticking out of their chest. And though they knew the entity is the main responsible of their current torment, they were too overwhelmed with emotions to properly process their actions.

Surprisingly, the spider-like being didn't disappear right away, probably feeling pity for their situation and allowing them to cry for a brief moment, most likely to compensate this unplanned mess they have to deal with.

To everyone's surprise in the camp, when (Y/N) finally arrived they where unconscious, either passed out after such emotional roller coaster or the entity wants them take some genuine rest. Whatever the case it, it didn't matter, what matters is that their fellow friend is back save and sound, right?

As one of the survivors decided to take them closer to the bonfire for warmth and comfort, they could swear they heard some weird noises from afar.

It resembled a demonic cry filler with rage, so distant yet menacing. Everyone instinctively shivered.

And though (Y/N) successfully 'survived' yet another trial with the executioner, almost everyone had the gut feeling that the next encounter they have with the beast, it will not end good...

They all take a glance at their still unconscious form.

Poor (Y/N)...

[sleepyangelkami]

Recently got into the walking dead and let me just say i’m obsessed with your carl fics. It’s alarming how many times i’ve read them lmao.

CLINGY c.grimes

 ☆ WORD COUNT - 2.4K

CARL GRIMES X FEM!READER

 ☆ SUMMARY - being clingy was the most natural thing in you and carl's relationship after all the trauma you'd both endured. but when things get too much for carl, he shuts you out, leaving you to assume only the worst.

 ☆ WARNINGS - clingy relationship, crying, blood, gore, mentions of death, walkers, mean!carl, yelling, stress, mentions of violence, weapons, (2) use of y/n, petnames, intended lower case, nothing i write is ever proofread 🩷

clingy was a word you had much distaste for.

when the world literally ended, there wasn't much to do aside from survive and hold onto your loved ones. you'd been alone so long, people slowly falling, dying, leaving. before you knew it, it was just you and the group you'd found. well, they'd found you.

more specifically, he'd found you.

the boy with the sheriff's hat, eyeing you with his gun in the air. you made no sudden movements, eyes cast down on the ground as if you didn't care whether or not the bullet would fly from his gun.

it was just you in the house they'd raided. you didn't have a family, nor a group. just you, covered in blood, starved and in a kind of fetal position, knees pressed against your chest as you eyed the pool of blood surrounding you. some of your own, some from the ones before.

when you'd met the group, you had nothing. dead parents, dead siblings, nothing seemed to matter anymore. the world was gone, the people you loved either dead, taking the easy way out or leaving it to the walkers. or perhaps they'd left you, walking out when things got tough, leaving you and the remains of your family behind.

the screams from outside of the house would alert you of their soon fate afterwards.

you opened up, albeit it was slow.

you liked to believe there was an instant connection between you and the boy. he lowered his gun almost instantly, realising you weren't a threat behind the blood and glassy eyes. how he'd known, you weren't sure. he just did.

he rushed towards you, calling downstairs for his father in a panic.

you didn't speak much at first, staring when he'd offered his name. carl grimes. the boy you'd soon learn to love.

and with time, you made a new family. daryl dixon was a good idea for a father, you soon learned, carol sort of alike a mother when she snuck you an extra one of her homemade cookies.

you lost others, more fell. but you and carl never frayed.

rick and michonne would always catch you together, smiling and looking at one another knowingly. it was safe to say that it was no surprise when carl announced you were together. after all, you were practically joined by the hip.

this brings us back to the beginning. the word clingy.

you hated the word as much as you hated the death surrounding you. could anyone truly be clingy in a world like this? is anyone really too much? you liked to believe that there was no such thing as too much anymore. people died, left, separated. any day could be someone's last. you'd prefer to know that you'd spent all the time with them as you could.

if that was clingy, then so be it.

carl was used to this side of you, he catered to it, if anything, he matched it. he was used to the way you laid against him, talking lowly as he went about his tasks.

there was a grey cloud looming over alexandria at a time like this. the survivors were getting more powerful and it was plaguing carl's mind. you did your best to be as gentle as you possibly could, attempting to console the boy but it seemed no matter what you did, he would find himself bubbling over with anger.

"will you pass me the carving knife?" he cut you off mid-speech, ignoring the way your lips instantly shut closed, eyes searching your side of the table.

you weren't hanging from the boy as you usually were, picking at his hands and fingers, playing with them as though they were dough. you weren't snuggling into him while he placed his arm around you. your normal routine simply didn't exist with the past week or so.

but if space was what he needed, you were more than happy to offer that to him. "okay." you mumbled, picking up the knife you thought was the carving knife and passing it to him.

you didn't know much about knives and guns, usually sitting your head on your knees and listening to the boy speak about them. yet, every time he told you what was what and their intent, everything went in one ear and out the other. he'd often admire the way you asked a thousand questions over, one's he'd already answered. he'd only smile, answering them again.

now you realised perhaps you should have been listening.

apparently, you'd passed him the wrong one. you heard what you assumed was a swear pass his lips in a whisper as he placed the knife back to the table roughly. "what's wrong?" you questioned softly, watching him pick up a thinner knife, sanding it down with the block in his hand.

"got the wrong one." but his voice was anything but the gentle carl you knew and loved. this one was sort of mean, a tone of anger behind his words. "how many times have i explained all of them to you? i mean, you still don't know, seriously?"

it seemed as though the dark cloud over alexandria had moved into the room belonging to carl grimes. you found yourself sneaking your knees closer to your chest, just like the day he'd found you. "sorry." you mumbled, glancing away.

confrontation wasn't exactly your forté.

it didn't help that fighting with carl was a rare experience. "maybe if you just listened to me every now and again we wouldn't have this problem."

offence took over your face, brows knitting together. "I do listen to you." but when he talked about things like knives and guns it was sort of hard for you to keep up.

a scoff left his lips. "sure you do." angry carl never failed to show you a different side of the boy you loved.

you stared at him in shock, wondering where the sudden attitude towards you was coming from. you knew he was stressed, understood it even but you'd done nothing to deserve the hatred being thrown your way.

that was when the shaky, "why're you being so mean?" left your lips.

like i said, confrontation wasn't something you practiced often. you were sort of unsure of where to go in this situation.

carl breathed out a ragged breath, practically throwing the tools onto the table. you jumped slightly, staring at him with widened eyes. "maybe you're the one being too clingy." his eyes stared into yours but they didn't look like the ones you'd fallen for so deeply. "just..." breathing through his nose. "just leave me alone for a bit, yeah?"

clearly, he wasn't in the mood for any of this.

and neither were you.

you spoke no words as you quickly scooped up the bag on the ground, making a haste exit towards the door. the sound of a quick sniffle before you shut the door closed was enough for the weighing bricks to fall down on carl.

the sudden severity of the situation dawned on the boy.

he'd made you cry.

and he swore never to be the cause of your tears.

he didn't run after you, though, much too caught up in his own head. the stress of the entire situation of the saviours was weighing on him too. he crashed his elbows onto the table, shoving his head between his hands and groaning. he wondered if he'd ever get anything right.

before he could get too far with the self pity, his bedroom door swung open to reveal his father.

"what was that?" the older man questioned, not giving a clue to what he was talking about. but carl could guess. "y/n just ran out of here crying, you have somethin' to do with that?"

in a moment like this, disappointed dad gazing at him, carl would have done anything to wipe that look off his face. "dad, you don't get it―" about to explain himself, weave out of whatever this was.

"i don't care." was the answer he gave, having better things to be doing than sorting out this teenage relationship himself. "fix it." and finally slamming the door.

rick always taught carl how respect worked, he punished him when he was wrong, rewarded him when he was right. he didn't teach him to act like this.

it was night fall when carl finally found himself walking around the town of alexandria. he was sort of hoping you were out here instead of back at home for he really didn't feel like speaking to daryl at the door and asking were you home. however, he searched every nook and cranny, every place you usually went when you were upset and yet he walked back empty handed, realising you definitely hadn't been outside.

finally, he found himself standing on your doorstep, sucking in a breath before knocking on the white door, the light from above shining down on his face making him squint.

the door opened to reveal carol, thankfully not daryl. carl really couldn't imagine what daryl would have to say to him right about now. he just hoped he was out hunting somewhere or other, at least then he wouldn't get the urge to haul the boy off his front porch.

"y/n?" is all carol questioned, she was dressed in her own hunting attire and carl could only guess that she was on her way out too.

he pressed his lips into a thin line. "she home."

the woman nodded. "upstairs." before swapping places with the boy, making her way outside while inviting him in. "carl." he looked towards her. "don't make me regret leaving you inside."

he only nodded, allowing her to close the door from the outside.

finally, the silence of your house enveloped him.

you, carol and daryl all lived in the same two story house but sometimes it seemed only you lived here. all the decorations were your work, pictures and photo frames, some of before, some of now, everything screamed... you.

it was that cosiness about you that made him fall for you all that time ago.

his boots found the stairs, making his way up and finding your bedroom door, the last door on the right hallway.

your door was white, a brass handle leading him into the room he'd seen a thousand times before.

he'd imagine your room at the other side of the door, pretty pink bedsheets with matching curtains. he'd found the curtains for you on a separate occasion, you'd been over the moon. and the pretty lights that decorated your walls along with the picture frames and the stuffed animal he'd found tucked away in your bloodied back so long ago, now fresh against your bed.

a sort of comfort from the world before.

he knocked, receiving no answer.

"sweetheart? it's carl." again, he was met with the mere silence as his fingertips hung heavy against the door handle. "i'm coming in, okay?" it wasn't a question, more like a warning.

when he did walk in, he was met with a sight he'd seen before.

tears coating the edges of your eyes, sitting criss-cross legged on your bed in your favourite pijamas, pretty stuffed toy between your legs. carl had seen this before, held you through it, comforted you and swore that whoever hurt you would pay. what was he to do now when he was the cause of your sorrow?

"hey, baby." his tone was as gentle as could be, making his way to sit next to you on the bed. "missed you."

you two were so different.

carl had the stubbornness of a mule, when things got tough he found it awfully hard to apologise, not that he ever had to do it much. though, he'd much prefer for everything to disappear in a blink of an eye, forget everything ever happened and go back to the way you two were.

and when you were upset? you shut off.

"i was thinking..." still avoiding the two words that would seemingly make it all okay. "maybe next week we can go someplace? find somewhere to hang out for the weekend, like a night away." his words prodded no reaction from you. "how's that sound, angel?"

a shrug was the only thing he was met with.

your glassy eyes strayed far from his, not even attempting to look him in the eyes. he sighed, unsure of where to go. "look at me, sweet girl." long fingers entrapping your chin and turning it towards him.

there was a pang of guilt as he looked in your glassy red eyes, evidence that you'd been crying earlier that day. and he'd been the cause of it.

finally, the long awaited. "I'm sorry." and carl the stubborn mule grimes didn't just apologise to anyone. "shouldn't have talked to you liked that, c'mere." in a time like this, all you needed was comfort, that was what compelled you to move with his hands, climbing into his lap. the sound of your soft cries soon filled his ears. "i know, i know, 'm so sorry." hand rubbing circles against your back, holding you close.

you didn't mean to cry the way you did, but the weight of the day collapsing on you was enough for you to cling to the boy.

you buried your head in the crook of his neck, wisps of his own hair in front of your face, his hat steady on his head as he held you so gently, as though you were made of glass.

a wobble of your bottom lip as you pulled away from the boy, holding your hands up to your face as if to shield yourself. there was something so scary about him seeing you cry. "i didn't..." your own voice cracking. "i didn't mean to be clingy."

his heart quite literally shattered.

"no, no." his voice sort of high pitched as he pulled your hands from your face. "no, you're not, sweetheart, i promise you're not."

you sniffled at the boy. "but you said―"

carl couldn't dare to hear the rest of such a sentence. "i didn't mean it, baby, i promise." he pulled you back towards his chest, head finding his neck again only this time you didn't cry as hard, mere sniffles leaving your nose. "was bein' an asshole, baby, 'm so sorry."

it'd take a while for you to believe him.

but he'd do whatever it took.

main masterlist/carl's masterlist

[neo--queen--serenity]

I’m still not over this conversation from the most recent episode. Yes, we knew that Tanjirou would be able to get through to Giyuu, due to their shared loss of family and loved ones at the hands of demons. And yes, we knew that Tanjirou still carried immense amounts of grief and sorrow when it came to these (still fairly recent) deaths.

But this is the first and only time Tanjirou has ever admitted to wishing that he had died instead of someone else. This is a huge and devastating thing for him to acknowledge about himself.

With his family, his survivor’s guilt was about not being there when Muzan attacked. Even though, realistically, he wouldn’t have stood a chance against Kibutsuji at the time, it doesn’t matter to him. This fact still constantly haunts him.

Rengoku’s death, though—this is the only time Tanjirou’s survivor’s guilt takes this shape, that his confusion and grief is so severe that he wishes that he had died instead.

Tanjirou tells himself that it’s because he believed Rengoku was capable of defeating Muzan someday. And there is some truth to this rationalization, but deep down, it’s an excuse. Rengoku didn’t survive against Akaza, a demon who—though incredibly formidable—was ultimately bound to have only a fraction of Muzan’s full strength.

Once the viewer understands this excuse for what it is, it hurts even more to understand why Rengoku’s death impacted him so heavily.

Tanjirou only knew Rengoku for a short period of time. And in that brief window, Rengoku managed to leave one of the greatest, deepest impressions on that him that few other characters were able to match.

There are many reasons why, but I think a huge part of it is because Rengoku was everything Tanjirou wanted and needed in his life at the time. He had other mentors up to this point, yes. But Rengoku was so similar to him, and his communication style was easy for Tanjirou to follow. He was affectionate, kind, morally sound, and near incontestable in a fight. Due to this, I think Tanjirou inadvertently saw Kyoujurou as the ideal demon slayer. The ideal fighter. The ideal person.

It doesn’t diminish his love for anyone else, not by a longshot. But Rengoku was, in ways Tanjirou may or may not have understood at the time, the perfect mentor for him. And that perfect person—someone he was desperate to learn from, someone he came to love so quickly and so fiercely—was snatched away from him before he could fully understand what he’d lost.

That’s why Tanjirou cried when Giyuu told him about Sabito. That’s why Tanjirou understood, without being told, that Giyuu was suffering from survival’s guilt. He heard and witnessed Giyuu’s despair firsthand, saw his loss and his struggle to live on and immediately empathized because it reminded him of how it felt to lose Rengoku.

[starcurtain]

Hey! I apologize if this question has been asked before since it seems like a pretty obvious one, but where do you think the idea of Aventurine being a sex slave came from? Other than the obvious factor of it being something fun for the fandom to mess around with, I mean.

It's something I kind of took for granted as being true before playing his quest, but after finishing it I realized there wasn't really any indication. The only thing I can really think of is his master's comments about him having a good body. Is there anything in his behavior you can think of that would lead to this conclusion if it wasn't a popular fan interpretation already/kind of just an easy conclusion to reach with a slave character?

(also kind of related but what do you think of the idea that he sleeps around/with his clients to make deals? he's obviously willing to sexualize himself with the boob window, but that doesn't necessarily mean he goes further.)

As far as I can tell, the idea that Aventurine was involved in sexual slavery comes from three (maybe four) places:

First, the comment from the master about Aventurine's appearance. People were holding this comment up as refutable proof that Aventurine was used in sexual slavery on top of being tossed into the Hunger Games; however, the response from other players on this interpretation, especially the Chinese side of the fandom, was very mixed, with a lot of people pointing out that the context in the game probably meant the slave master was talking about Aventurine's ability to attract attention from fans watching the literal Sigonian Hunger Games, rather than having a direct sexual-slavery connotation.

Second, the comment from Sparkle about stripping naked and getting on his knees for Sunday. This one has way more implication in English than I think it might for an Eastern audience, actually. In English, this pretty much sounds like Sparkle saying Aventurine trades sexual favors for success in his gambles. However, I suspect the original intention in Chinese was more about humiliation. Western audiences don't have as much history with honor-based prostration, i.e. accepting corporal humiliation as a form of reconciliation that Eastern audiences might be more familiar with. And in any case, Sparkle is Sparkle. She probably just went for the lowest blow she could think of here.

Third, the general assumption that if Sigonian slaves were being chained, branded, beaten, sent to death matches, etc., it seems logical that they would also be taken advantage of in other ways. I honestly think this is probably the fairest take--many, many real slaves around the world faced (and still face!) sexual abuse, so if slaves from Sigonia were treated so poorly you could make them fight to the death for entertainment, it stands to reason they were probably also not safe from other forms of assault. We also have no idea what happened to Kakavasha in any of the years between his being a tiny child fleeing the massacre and then being purchased as a slave as a late-teens-early-twenties person. That's a very long time for a child to have to survive on their own on an extremely hostile planet and not face risks of all kinds or end up needing to do unspeakable things to survive. So I think this is at least not that far-fetched, although it's important to say there's nothing in the game that directly confirms this.

And fourth: I read a tweet semi-recently that stated that one of the Chinese (or maybe it was Japanese) names for a quest Aventurine was involved in was actually a reference to a book about a teenage sexual assault survivor. However, when I tried to verify this myself, I couldn't find any quest Aventurine was in that was based on a book about sexual assault in either English, Chinese, or Japanese. It's possible I just missed something, but I'm taking this one with a bit of a grain of salt currently, since I can't confirm it personally.

Regarding your other question, about whether I think Aventurine sleeps around to make deals...

I definitely think he does not, for one major reason.

First, I will admit that Aventurine is definitely willing to use his appearance to his advantage. This is pretty obvious. He wears incredibly flashy clothes, baths himself in cologne, overloads on glittering golden jewels, and absolutely calls attention to his appearance when working with clients.

We see him actively doing this in his Moment Among the Stars video, where he is clearly using his looks as an equal tool (to his wealth), to daze his target.

It's not an accident that he says things like "Use me as you wish," with all the explicit connotations preserved. The implication is there. However, unless he was absolutely backed into a corner, I think that implication is all it will ever be.

The reason I think this is that the devs go out of their way to give Aventurine three fairly noticeable physical behaviors in his in-game scenes:

For one, he has some of the most closed off body language of any character in the game.

Aventurine's default conversation pose is arms crossed directly and tightly in front of himself. This is like "Defensive Body Language 101." By crossing your arms, you put a symbolic barrier between yourself and the person you're speaking to, and also ensure that your hands are up and available in case you actually need to physically defend yourself.

Virtually all of Aventurine's conversations take place from this stance, no matter who he is speaking to (from the Trailblazer all the way to Topaz). He deliberately closes his pose off and tightens up his silhouette, which just sends a glaring "Don't touch me" message.

This closing off is also blatantly apparent when you compare it to the deliberately open poses he strikes while trying to make himself seem accessible to others (like tempting clients) or seem powerful (to intimidate):

Complementing this habit of closing himself off is a second noticeable aspect of his body language: He frequently avoids eye contact to the point that he even holds conversations while entirely facing away from the person he's speaking to.

I might be a bit lenient and say maybe he's doing this to on purpose to be mysterious, whoo~~ But... in all honestly, he just does this with everyone, even with Ratio while trying to talk about an actual important issue (wanting to look into Acheron's real identity). Hell, even the fake Aventurine does it to himself!

We can even say that wearing the rose-tinted glasses in the first place is another intentional barrier, one Aventurine deliberately removes in specific moments to give people the (false) impression that he's "letting them in" to his circle:

Now, this might be a bit more complicated in Aventurine's case, because eye contact has a whole extra meaning when eyes are the defining trait of your species and come with particularly challenging racial stereotypes. So it may be that Aventurine is simply used to conducting conversation while looking away to minimize racial prejudice against his eyes' unique appearance.

However, I'd also argue that the devs deliberately turned his entire model away in cutscene after cutscene to create a clear sense of being inaccessible, unapproachable, and unwilling to engage in the physical intimacy of standing closely, directly facing, and staring at his conversation partners.

While he faces away, he controls both the figurative and the literal direction of conversation, forcing people to keep their eyes on him while he is free to move as he pleases. Over and over again, it just says "I want to be the one in control. I'm not afraid to show my back to you, but you are not welcome to come near me."

And, in fact, that's a third aspect of his character's body language that I am sure the devs did not include accidentally: More so than other characters, many of Aventurine's conversations are conducted from weirdly far distances. Like, half the time he's talking, he's standing all the way on the opposite side of the room!

This habit of speaking from a-larger-than-normal distance is apparent in the first scene with Himeko...

And then in just about every other conversation too:

The bubble is twenty feet in every direction.

Like yes, he does approach and have conversations like a normal person... sometimes... But it is significantly more noticeable with Aventurine than with other characters that he often conducts whole conversations--even with his allies--from a distance. Just genuinely weirdly far apart.

Leaving space for Gaiathra, I guess.

And it's because these significant decisions were made with Aventurine's in-game body language that, when he deliberately alters his own behavior, it is instantaneously noticeable.

In 2.0, he closes the distance, the glasses come off, and he gets directly up in the Trailblazer's face.

It's uncomfortable not just because the player is suddenly being loomed over, but because this behavior has already been subconsciously established for the player as out of character for Aventurine.

The barriers the character himself was putting up are deliberately stripped away so that he can use physicality and demanding eye contact to intimidate his target. He has to reverse his own normal body language in order to come across as domineering (and, I guess if you're into that, appealing in a domineering manner).

And ummmm, just a tiny aside here because I can't resist:

This does mean that when the game goes out of its way to demonstrate Aventurine altering his own normal habit of distant and defensive body language, it is absolutely intentional.

Yes, this is a Ratiorine post in disguise. There literally isn't any other character in the game that Aventurine is shown being comfortable standing so close to and interacting with in this manner. This doesn't occur in every one of their scenes, but Ratio is the only character that this happens with repeatedly. It's not an accident that the devs literally added "They were walking side-by-side" as flavor text.

But look, I'll be fair: There's a great example of this in Aventurine's scene with Acheron too, where he closes the distance and attempts to make eye contact with her--seeking her guidance and closeness--and she is actually the one stepping away, speaking with her back turned, demonstrating her power and control (and issues with connection!) in that scene.

Anyway, this was a whole longggg tangent into analyzing Aventurine's body language, but my point is that, overall, the devs deliberately adjusted his model's actions in-game to give the impression of a person who clearly wants to be in control of every interaction he has with other people, who insists on distance over intimacy, and whose stances and habits suggest that he is significantly less accessible and open than his "Use me as you wish" motto might suggest.

Long story longer, I think that there is almost zero chance Aventurine is willingly ceding control over himself or the actions expected of him to anyone he isn't 100% comfortable with, and I think that using physical intimacy of any kind would be an absolute last resort for him. Frankly, he comes across as more likely to shoot himself in the foot than let someone he doesn't trust lay hands on him.

To me, he reads very much as "You may look, but you may not touch."

[captain-tch]

Anchor (Logan Howlett x GN!PlatonicReader)

Logan finds you when the memories of the past threaten to swallow you whole Warning: mentions of self harm, implied suicidal thoughts below the cut

There was so much blood. Tents where you once huddled with your friends, laughing, talking, bonding were in ribbons, the poles keeping them upright having been ripped from the ground. One of the poles was skewered inside a body, the face hidden by the red spray masking their features. Fire pits where you once warmed your hands and toasted marshmallows had been destroyed, the thick smell of ash consuming all of your senses. A charred hand reached towards another, mere inches from touching each other. The makeshift laundry lines had been broken, leaving clothes strewn across the ground, muddied footprints and blood stains marrying the materials. And then there were the bodies.

So many bodies. 

You knelt in the middle of it all, unable to move a single muscle. Your friends, your family, all dead. You were the lone survivor. 

It didn’t feel fair - what made you different from the others? What made you worthy of being alive, whilst your knees sank into their pools of blood and their skin grew cold around you? 

You didn’t even move, or speak, as you heard footfalls behind you. You didn’t look up as people descended upon the crime scene, where you most likely looked like the perpetrator. You just prayed that those who caused this harm had returned to finish the job. However, the horror was only beginning. 

“Hey, we missed one!” 

You stared at your reflection with venom in your eyes. Your gaze honed onto the jagged scar running from the corner of your mouth all the way down to your collarbone. Similar wounds ghosted down your body, but this was the one you could never hide from. The feelings rushed you like a wave - rough hands shoving your shoulders into the ground, their hands leaving bruises, a menacing grin leering down at you, the coolness of the blade as it was first caressed against your skin. The fiery hot pain that lit up your entire being when the knife was plunged into your skin. The feeling of hot liquid rushing out the wound, the overwhelming taste of iron hijacking your senses. 

A bubble of anger and hatred began to boil in your veins. The memories kept flooding you, until you couldn’t remember where you were or what was happening or when you were. All you knew was the pain and the terror and the hate.  

A scream ripped out of you. You grabbed the nearest thing your fingers landed on, a small metal bin, and hurled it with all of your might to the mirror. The crash was like music to your ears, the shards flying around you in slow motion. You didn’t feel them slice at your skin. You didn’t feel the blood well or the liquid slip down your skin. You felt absolutely nothing at all.  

It wasn’t enough. You could still see their faces, frozen in death. You could still smell the fire and ash and burning flesh and you couldn’t stop feeling like you were standing back at your campsite all over again and - 

Your fist flew at the shattered fragments. A delicious fire consumed your knuckles. The images fizzled slightly, then overpowered you. You became starved for that feeling of relief, craving the sweet moment of ecstasy where all your brain could focus on was the agony rippling through your hand. 

Again and again you sent your fist flying into the glass, the hits becoming less coordinated as blood coated every surface you could see.

Bodies burned to a crisp. 

Hit. 

A singular shoe discarded in the mud. 

Hit. 

A knife glinting in the light, glowing brighter as it got closer to your face. 

Hit. 

You were so absorbed in seeking relief you didn’t hear how the thud of your fist matched the one coming from behind, until yours was the only thuds once again. You didn’t hear the tirade of swear words leaving their lips, or your name being repeated over and over again. You weren’t in this reality anymore, too deep into your nightmare of memories to escape. 

A pair of muscular arms wrapped around your chest, dragging you from the mirror. A sob wracked through you - now the images were hitting you ten fold, and no matter how much you struggled in your captor's grasp you couldn’t escape. In the jagged remains of the reflection on the wall, you saw Logan behind you, concern painted over his face. 

“Ssh.” A voice soothed in your ear. You thrashed against them even harder - you didn’t deserve comfort, you deserved to be with your family. 

“Let me do it.” You begged, unsure what exactly you were asking for, only knowing you wanted the leaden guilt and torment to be erased from your being. “I just want it to stop.”

“This is not how it’s done.” Logan held you tighter, gently leading you away from the bathroom. You tried to fight back; god, you were so tired. You were tired of fighting back the memories, or pretending to be okay. You were exhausted. 

You crumpled in his arms, leaning heavily into him. His body didn’t falter, only grasped you tighter. You turned to bury your face in their shoulder, trying and failing to stop the images of terror and agony from flashing across your retinas. 

“What can you see?” His gruff voice asked. 

You froze, the words sinking in. Your brows furrowed, struggling to comprehend what he was asking. “What?” 

“Name five things you can see.” 

Your breathing quickened. “Broken tents -” 

“No,” Logan grabbed your shoulders, firmly pulling you away from his neck. He held you at arms length, staring deep into your eyes. “Here, now. What can you see?” 

“Um,” you sniffled, gently pulling your attention from him to the rest of the room. “Glass. A toilet. Shower. Tap. You.” 

“What can you touch?” 

You sought your senses, reaching out to all of your nerves. “Your flannel, the floor, my clothes, my blood.” 

“What can you hear?” 

Forcing your eyes to close, you tried to turn off your other senses, focusing on your hearing. The distant dripping of the tap snatched your attention. Logan’s steady breathing. Faintly, you could hear shouts and playful screams of children from the hall. 

“What can you smell?” 

The answer flew out of your mouth without even needing to think - it was the smell of safety, the first thing you smelt after you escaped from death's clutches. It was what you smelt as you were carried away from the cemetery that was once your home. “Cigar smoke.” 

“What can you taste?” 

Your lips turned slightly at the corners. “Scott’s shitty bolognese.”

Logan kept you at arm's length, taking you in. Your breathing was laboured, but it was evening out. Your eyes appeared more focused and he felt you could actually seem him now.  

“You good now?” 

You contemplated it. The guilt still lay heavy on your shoulders, and the memories were always playing in your brain, except now it was muted enough that you felt like you could cope. Your heart rate had resumed its usual pace and you didn’t have the urge to smash glass.

“That’s a stretch,” you sniffled, wiping at your nose. “But I’m better. Thank you.” 

“Let’s get you to the infirmary.” 

“No!” Your hand shot out, snatching at his shirt, smearing blood on it. “Please, no.” 

His brow quipped. 

“I don’t want them to see me like this.” 

Logan sighed, assessing your injuries and thinking for a beat. “Fine, but you can’t complain about my bedside manner.”

He wanted to go get a first aid kit; he didn’t want to leave you alone. He used his best judgement, hoping the cuts he could see were as minor as they appeared, grabbing a rag and running it over a faucet, being careful to avoid the glass. He came back to your bed, where you sat on the edge staring after him. He knelt in front of you, opening his palm flat to you. You moved your hand into his, wincing at the sight. Your knuckles looked like they’d been massacred, red coating so much of your skin you couldn’t even see the cuts. Without warning, he dragged the fabric across your wounded skin, a flame of pain following in its wake. You tensed up, squeezing your jaw tight to keep the hiss quiet. 

“You know, this isn’t the best way to deal with your feelings.” Logan’s eyes darted up to connect with yours. 

You scoffed. The hypocrisy wasn’t lost on you - many times you had walked into the gym to see him destroying the boxing bag, blood being flung in every direction. “Coming from the expert, clearly.” 

“I can heal.” 

“That’s so not the point.” 

He grunted, dismissing your argument. He carried on his work, his grip on you tight but gentle as the blood disappeared wipe by wipe, revealing the skin beneath. Your skin was littered with cuts; thankfully they seemed minor, them having already stopped oozing blood. 

“Look, kid, you ever speak to anyone about what happened?” 

“Did you?” Logan huffed, frowning at you. You ignored his reaction, watching as he finished cleaning one hand and started on the other. “There’s nothing to talk about.” 

Logan stared pointedly at you. “I’ve lived over a century and survived a war - you can’t fool me.” 

“Honestly, I’m fine.” 

“The mirror says otherwise.” 

A bubble of anger exploded in your gut. Your words were flung like knives, their edge sharp. “Why does everyone have to keep asking me about how I feel? Is it really that important to have feelings? Why can’t I just bury it deep down til it disappears?” 

“I wish that was how it worked. Stuff like this doesn’t go away overnight. You shove it down, it gets ugly, infected. It’ll turn you into a different person.” 

“Is that what happened to you?” 

A few beats passed, then some more. You worried you had crossed a boundary - this man saved you, and was saving you again, and here you were opening up his wounds whilst he helped clean yours. 

He surprised you by breaking the silence, his voice so low you had to strain to listen. “...Something like that.” 

“No offence, but why should I take advice from someone who clearly doesn’t take it themselves?” 

“Take it or leave it, that’s your call. It changes nothing for me.” He shrugged, wiping away the last bit of the blood. He evaluated his work, carefully turning your hand left and right, assessing for any further wounds he couldn’t see.  

“Either way, it’s going to destroy me, isn’t it?” 

He paused, eyes flitting to yours. He surprised you yet again, sending you a small smile. “Great thing about destruction - it leaves room for something new.”

“Hm.” You pondered it for a minute. “That was very wise of you, you’re starting to show your age.” 

Logan brushed off your attempt at humour, his face turning serious. “Let’s just get one thing clear - this,” he gestured to the bathroom, where the glass still lay shattered on the floor. “Is not going to be a habit.” 

“Why do you care?” 

“Because I only have a few shirts and you’ve already stained two of them.” 

You looked at his white top, cringing. It had smears of red, marrying the immaculate white. “Sorry.” 

Logan waved it off. He threw the rag to the floor, bringing himself up to his full height. He towered over you, yet you felt no fear at his size. You felt at ease, enjoying how his shadow fell over you. 

“What do you suggest instead?” 

“Find me. We can spend some time working on your god awful fighting form.” 

“It’s not that bad!” 

“Whatever you say.” He smirked. A warmth blossomed in your chest. 

Maybe you wouldn’t feel like this forever. Maybe the memories would overwhelm you less and less with time, but they would never disappear. They would always haunt you, lingering in the back of your consciousness. But the man in front of you, your friend, would help keep you grounded. He would be your anchor. And he’d never admit it, but you’d do the same for him too.  

marvel masterlist

[metamatar]

October 10, 2022

Amit Kumar had everything going for him. After graduating in engineering and landing a decent job, Amit wanted to settle down with his childhood sweetheart Renu. The couple had known each other since Class IX and dreamt of a life together. The only difficulty was that Renu belonged to a Brahmin family and Amit was a Dalit.

With their homes barely a kilometre apart in Garhwa district of Jharkhand, Renu knew her family would never approve of the match. The couple decided to run away and tie the knot in another State. And thus began their tale of unending harassment and tragedy.

The couple married at a temple in Dehradun and got their marriage registered there. They had just about settled down at Paonta Sahib in Himachal Pradesh when, in a midnight raid, the Uttar Pradesh police took away Renu, claiming that she had been abducted. Amit and Renu have not seen or spoken to each other since that fateful night of August 13, 2021.

Amit’s life has been a quagmire of legal battles and dismissed habeas corpus petitions since then. “I fear my wife is no more,” he told The Hindu.

Activists say such tragic situations can be avoided if couples like Amit and Renu are provided safe houses and special protection by the State governments as mandated by the Supreme Court.

According to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the number of “honour killings” in the country was 24, 25 and 33 in 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively. Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand topped the list in 2021 and 2020, while Manipur was on top in 2019.

The government in 2021 informed Parliament that there were 145 “honour killing” incidents in the country between 2017 and 2019.

Interestingly, though the NCRB report attributed only 25 deaths to “honour killings” in 2020, it said there were 27 deaths due to casteism and 1,558 due to “illicit relationship”. Similarly, in 2021, 33 deaths were listed under “honour killings”, but 1,544 and 1,532 under “illicit relationship” and “love affairs”, respectively.

So far, only Delhi, Haryana and Punjab have safe houses for inter-faith and inter-religious couples. Kerala has only announced the setting up of a safe house.

In fact, only 21 States have said that they have complied with the Supreme Court directives, which means that they have asked the police officers concerned of a State for strict compliance, according to Dhanak for Humanity, a non-governmental organisation which works with such couples, helping them solemnise their marriages and providing legal support.

The Supreme Court had in 2018 directed that safe houses be set up in every district as well as a special cell in States for couples facing opposition from families and community.

Gaurav Yadav, an engineer from IIT Chennai, said he was working with survivors of “honour crimes” and couples who are in hiding to petition the government for more safe houses across the country.

“Soon we will form an official grouping and petition the government to follow the Supreme Court directives on safe houses and special cells,” Mr. Yadav said, adding that he had organised a convention regarding the same in Delhi recently.

He said though couples had been demanding that safe houses be set up, the State administrations had looked the other way.

An example is of Ravikant Chandrawanshi and Alisha, who had a harrowing time getting married under the Special Marriage Act in Chhattisgarh.

The inter-faith couple at first decided to elope and marry in Bilaspur. However, a lack of support system and security, including finances, saw them return home in Kawardha within four days.

“As my wife’s family were well to do and politically connected, they kept up the pressure on us. Finally, we had to take legal recourse and approached the High Court asking them to direct the State administration to provide the mandated safe house and police protection.

“However, we were informed that there was no safe house and Alisha had to go to a sakhi centre or a women’s safe house,” Mr. Chandravanshi said.

Though the couple approached the highest of authorities, they were not given any police protection either and had to go into hiding for around six months after their marriage.

According to Asif Iqbal of Dhanak for Humanity, most States send the girl to a Nari Niketan after couples approach them. “It is here that the girl is the most insecure as her family mostly approaches her and puts pressure to go back. Many a time, this also leads to what is known as honour killing of the girl”.

Sanjay Sachadev of Love Commandoes, an organisation which rescues and shelters such couples, said, “The need of the hour is safe houses across the country. In almost every case, the police try and send the girl to a women’s shelter and the boy is left to fend for himself.”

A couple who are staying in a Delhi safe house and did not wish to be identified said that they could not have thought of living together had it not been for the security of the safe house.

Mr. Iqbal, whose organisation has helped many couples seek legal recourse to stay together and get married, said that of the distress calls he receives, the most were from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

[mundoperla]

𝘿𝘽𝘿 𝙠𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙫𝙤𝙧 𝙨/𝙤 “𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜” 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙜𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙝𝙪𝙧𝙩. (help)

DBD killers x Gender Neutral S/O

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

— Getting cut up wasn’t stopping you from having a quick minute to yourself. Little did you know that you had a front row audience to your little show.

[ characters included;; pyramid head, herman carter, caleb quinn, ji-woon hak & danny johnson ]

⚠️⚠️ [tw(s);; wounds, messing with said wounds for trickster, general nsfw, dub-con, trickster being freaky with your wounds, trickster is his own warning tbh, mentions of killer inflicted cuts, full on devils tango with trickster & ghostie😔deathslinger jerks off to you🧍‍♂️] ⚠️⚠️

ppl who know me irl im so sorry if ur seeing this

·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ 　　.·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ . ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙.

𝕻𝖞𝖗𝖆𝖒𝖎𝖉 𝕳𝖊𝖆𝖉—𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕰𝖝𝖊𝖈𝖚𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖊𝖗

⋆｡°✩ You were one of the last two survivors in the match, his sights were set on Jonah but another sound caught his attention.

⋆｡°✩ Straying away from the pools of blood and scratch marks, he followed the low grunts coming from behind one of the boulders surrounding the Macmillan Estate.

⋆｡°✩ How you couldn’t hear his heavy breathing before is wild, even after he had caught you in such a.. provocative position…

⋆｡°✩ The back of your shirt was shredded & only hanging on by a thread. The large gash on your back displayed for him and the world to see. You had cuts all over your abdomen and chest. The more you contorted the more pain you felt. That was irrelevant right now.

⋆｡°✩ Your other hand was lost between your legs, but Pyra could see the mess that was dripping onto the floor beneath where you were hunched over. You weren’t good at suppressing your voice.

⋆｡°✩ His pants grew tighter the more he stood there and silently watched you. Maybe he could grumble a bit to get your attention? You would have thought his breathing would’ve gotten your attention by now.

⋆｡°✩ There was obvious appeal to him, he 𝙇𝙊𝙑𝙀𝙎 the visuals of you being all cut up. Especially since it was his doing. How he wasn’t immediately acting out to fulfill his desires was incredible.

⋆｡°✩ The last generator had been popped, frustration plastered itself on your face. Jonah wasn’t gonna linger and wait for you in the first place so you’d better get going. You can finish this some other time.

⋆｡°✩ You gathered yourself together, pulling your bottoms back up, ready to go up to one of the exits to leave the trial.

⋆｡°✩ He was still standing there. Not a muscle had moved since he found you.

⋆｡°✩ Did he.. did he see.. was he watching you this whole time ?!

⋆｡°✩ You dashed past him trying to avoid the paranoia and embarrassment that was flooding your mind, but he still didn’t budge.

⋆｡°✩ You and Jonah escaped **relatively** fine, there were more med kits at the campfire for the two of you to get bandaged back up. That encounter with the executioner was something you didn’t plan on sharing with anyone else for as long as you remained in the fog.

⋆｡°✩ Pyra returned to the killer’s campfire as silent as usual. Ignoring the more lively killer’s advances to try and interact, he couldn’t get you off of his mind. Would you skitter off and do that again if he sliced you with his blade?

⋆｡°✩ Hopefully the entity would give him another opportunity to test that theory out soon.

𝕯𝖆𝖓𝖓𝖞 𝕵𝖔𝖍𝖓𝖘𝖔𝖓—𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕲𝖍𝖔𝖘𝖙𝖋𝖆𝖈𝖊

⋆｡°✩ There’s only four generators left; most (if not all of) your friends are on death hook and/or injured.

⋆｡°✩ Going up against Ghostface was never easy, he was good at what he did, and it was something new with him every time.

⋆｡°✩ He was especially good at tearing you down no matter how big of a fight you put up.

⋆｡°✩ You and Nea were in chase, the two of you were badly injured but healing felt impossible with how quickly he’d locate you and the others.

⋆｡°✩ Nea had shoved you out of the way so you could make some distance, leaving her alone in this chase wasn’t something you wanted to do, but you’d rather get out of here a bit battered and bruised than dead.

⋆｡°✩ Your entire body was burning with how badly beaten up you were, you were exhausted from the nonstop running, your shoulders ached from being thrown onto the rusty hooks of coldwind farm, and most importantly? you’re sexually frustrated.

⋆｡°✩ The only completed generator rumbled from the inside of the barn, lights blaring down on the metal fences surrounding it. Limping over towards the piles of unused hay that sat in front of a nearby window for a quick escape if needed.

⋆｡°✩ Shimmying out of your jeans and underwear, you quickly got to work. You wouldn’t take too long, right ?

⋆｡°✩ Nea had just gotten mori’d & Dwight hooked for the last time. It was just you and Quentin who remained in the trial. Danny was saving you for last, you were his obsession after all.

⋆｡°✩ You had lost track of how much time you spent in the haystacks, Quentin had just died yet you stayed quivering in your spot, your hand felt tired but you 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙𝙚𝙙 some kind of relief.

⋆｡°✩ Danny searched for you after he finished your final teammate, but he couldn’t find you. No matter how much he retraced his steps and looked underneath tables and searched every locker, you remained unfound.

⋆｡°✩ Hatch had spawned right outside shack, but you weren’t there to make him watch you leave either. He could of just closed it so the exits gates would open and the timer would start, but something told him not to do that.

⋆｡°✩ Confusion clouded his mind until he had done another quick pass of the barn, low sighs echoing past the thin walls.

⋆｡°✩ 𝙊𝙝? Is this where you’ve been hiding from him this whole time? Crouching close to the ground, he had began to sneakily wander the abandoned building whilst following your low grunts.

⋆｡°✩ Peaking from behind one of the hay bales, he found you. He sat still for a moment, trying to process what it was you were doing.

⋆｡°✩ Oh. OHHHHHH THATS WHAT YOU’RE DOING????

⋆｡°✩ How long has it been since he’s touched himself? He can’t remember either. Time in the entity’s realm felt like an eternity…

⋆｡°✩ There’s an endless amount of time for him to eliminate entire survivor teams, maybe he’d let you get hatch in exchange for some relief too.

⋆｡°✩ His movements were quick and he had no issue vocalizing to you about what he wanted once he had you pinned. Glad to know that you were also on board for such a grand exchange!

⋆｡°✩ The grip he had on your hips was tight, your legs caging him inside, the two of you needed this more than anything.

⋆｡°✩ With every thrust you had the wind knocked out of you, he had no intention of being soft with you in that moment. You had no complaints of course, he began whining into your chest how gorgeous you looked with his marks all over your arms and legs; how he wanted to tough you up even more than he had already.

⋆｡°✩ You guys had gone at it for what felt like hours, you even got the privilege to see the bottom half of his face when he pulled his mask up so he could bite and suck at your neck and chest. Your fellow survivors back at the fire were wondering where you were. Danny only had Ji-Woon and Frank to question where he was back at the killer’s camp, nobody else really paid attention to him.

⋆｡°✩ Your little “session” had came to an end, the walk to the hatch was mostly silent with the exception of Danny cracking a joke to fill the air around you.

⋆｡°✩ With a quick smack on the ass he gave you a quick goodbye and ran off somewhere on the map giggling manically. You resorted to 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 for human contact? Bless your heart..

𝕮𝖆𝖑𝖊𝖇 𝕼𝖚𝖎𝖓𝖓—𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍𝖘𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗

⋆｡°✩ God fucking dammit.

⋆｡°✩ You hated going up against The Deathslinger, he was precise, quick, efficient, and honestly a bit charming.

⋆｡°✩ There was some type of tension between the two of you, the long pauses when he’d catch you with his speargun just to eye you down before letting you run off, the whistles when he’d catch you bent over to rummage chests, it was obvious to anyone in y’all’s radius that he found you attractive.

⋆｡°✩ Every trial you had with him you came out with a scar from a wound he inflicted himself, to be quite honest? you liked having these little reminders of him on your body.

⋆｡°✩ This trial with him went no different than the last, your arms were so badly cut up and you had bruises where the butt of the speargun had wacked you earlier. Your sweat mixing inside your wounds wasn’t helping either. Nobody had brought a medkit nor circle of healing so you had to rely on your teammates, yet none of them were to be found after spreading out when the killer had appeared.

⋆｡°✩ Did Caleb get to them already? There’s no way that could be the case.. But with how he kills others so quickly there is always a possibility.

⋆｡°✩You were getting stressed out, none of your teammates were to be found, you’re too paranoid to even touch a gen because you’re injured, too much is going on all at once and you can’t take it anymore.

⋆｡°✩ ❝I need to jerk off.❞

⋆｡°✩ Garden of Joy had a dark room in the main house, it wasn’t far from where you stood so you made your way there.

⋆｡°✩ You could just barely see your hands when you entered the room, but the red light shining in from the hallway made this sequence of actions much more sensual.

⋆｡°✩ Your one good hand migrated down to unbutton your jeans, past your underwear and immediately towards your sex.

⋆｡°✩ Your back was pressed against the lockers and your mind was full of fog. Nothing mattered in your short moments of bliss.

⋆｡°✩ Caleb lingered in the next room over, he’d cleared your entire team long ago and now it was just the two of you left in the map. He searched for the hatch just so he could properly bring you to it instead of slaughtering you like the last person.

⋆｡°✩ Originally there to sit and ponder for a moment before resuming his search, became something else much quicker. He didn’t plan on making his presence known to you, instead he decided to join you from his current spot.

⋆｡°✩ Unbuckling his belt and removing his pants with haste, he took a slow & steady speed with his hand. He makes no noise as to not disturb or startle you. You must want him badly the way you’re touching yourself after his usual antics.

⋆｡°✩ Hearing you whimper out his name is pushing him over the edge, he wants to go in there and take you himself but he just wants to keep what’s going on currently.

⋆｡°✩ His body feels so hot, he’s getting closer to his release and by the way you’re whining so are you. Low grunts escape his lips, his hot seed coating his fist along with a small patch on his pants. He’d have to change real soon once this match ended.

⋆｡°✩ You’d just finished too, pulling your pants up and making your way to the doorway just to be immediately faced with Caleb just as you turned the corner. That same shit eating grin stretched across his face.

⋆｡°✩ ❝Wished we coulda’ done more while yer’ here, but let’s get’cha down to the hatch. ❞

𝕵𝖎-𝖂𝖔𝖔𝖓 𝕳𝖆𝖐—𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕿𝖗𝖎𝖈𝖐𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗

⋆｡°✩ He’s toying with you and has no intention on stopping any time soon.

⋆｡°✩ He wishes he had his phone on him so he could record your wonderful screams for a new song!

⋆｡°✩ You’re wandering aimlessly through Midwich, your pants and shirt are basically shredded. Small cuts litter every part of your body like one big morbid tattoo, every time you move it’s that same stinging sensation that pushes you closer to tears.

⋆｡°✩ He’s so annoying. He doesn’t even bother taking the knives that still stick into the muscles of your thighs when he downs & hooks you. Then complains how quickly he runs out of the luminescent blades even though he’ll waste them by tossing them around the place before actually aiming someone down.

⋆｡°✩ Despite your internal protests to keep moving, you came to a stop in one of the classrooms towards the very back of the building.

⋆｡°✩ You had a medkit on you so you could bandage up your deeper wounds, but what purpose did these knives serve you now? The Trickster definitely wasn’t gonna come back for them in the first place.

⋆｡°✩ You tucked one into your back pocket, maybe decisive strike with an actual blade would be much more efficient.

⋆｡°✩ He’s had these knives long before the fog had taken him, fans would go crazy to have one of these knives in their possession. 𝙏𝙃𝙀 Trickster’s knives, not some cheap replica of them — but the real deal. One that his actual hands had touched.

⋆｡°✩ He was kind of cute now that you thought about it. If you removed his… murderous behaviors then he’d be pretty cool. Maybe.

⋆｡°✩ Fans across the world would kill to be in your place, especially when he would sling you over his broad shoulders, his large hand tight on your back to ensure you don’t wiggle free. Being as close to someone of such high importance is so strange, but you feel so special when he’s man handling you.

⋆｡°✩ He probably only saw you as another survivor and nothing more, but you could live with that. Having him as the main material for your private sessions wasn’t gonna kill either of you.

⋆｡°✩ Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. He was so stupid but here you are, folding at the thought of him yanking you away from generators and tossing you around like you’re nothing.

⋆｡°✩ Strutting down the hallway in yet another outfit the entity had gifted him, freshly stained after attacking the rest of your team. He hadn’t seen you in a minute, so of course he had to go out looking for you~!

⋆｡°✩ He’d reached the very end of the hallway, prepared to turn back around he caught a glimpse of your jacket in one of the doorways.

⋆｡°✩ Aww, why were you hiding ? Didn’t you wanna see him ?

⋆｡°✩ Swinging through the doorway fully prepared to wack you with his usual weapon, he got a good eyeful of what you were really doing.

⋆｡°✩ Now you’ve got him interested, you’re ready for him to knock you unconscious so you can briefly forget this moment of embarrassment and be immediately brought back to the campfire, but you aren’t given that gracious of an exit.

⋆｡°✩ He won’t shut the fuck up, palming himself through the leather material of his pants whilst degrading you.

⋆｡°✩ It’s turning you on even more, there’s no way he’s unaware of this effect he has on you.

⋆｡°✩ You’re this desperate for him that you’re getting off to the idea of him tossing you around? Hurting you even? How pathetic of you.

⋆｡°✩ But since he’s so kind, he’ll help you with your little issue. Unfortunately for you, this douchebag is fucking you completely stupid.

⋆｡°✩ He’s gripping onto your arms as hard as possible to ensure your little cuts will sting some more, occasionally shoving his cock into your mouth to watch the cut on your cheek stretch open more and more.

⋆｡°✩ He’ll keep you here for as long as the entity allows it. This feeling of bliss is something he can’t get enough of, he needs to savor this.

⋆｡°✩ The little blade you kept fell out of your pocket mid thrust, of course he wasn’t going to let this go unnoticed. Now what were you gonna do with this? You need a physical reminder of him for when you go back? Jeez you must like him a whole lot.

⋆｡°✩ Once the two of you are finished he’ll sit in a dazed trance for a good while, don’t bother trying to talk to him, you won’t get anywhere.

⋆｡°✩ You use this opportunity to run off and find the rest of your team who’re also in the same rough condition as you. You all make it out together leaving Ji-Woon in the school to do whatever until he goes back.

⋆｡°✩ He’ll consult Danny and Frank about his newfound fascination with you, but won’t share specifics why.

⋆｡°✩ A dedicated fan will always have his full attention no matter what realm they are in.

𝕳𝖊𝖗𝖒𝖆𝖓 𝕮𝖆𝖗𝖙𝖊𝖗—𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕯𝖔𝖈𝖙𝖔𝖗

⋆｡°✩ Your brain is beyond deep fried and you can barely form a cohesive thought.

⋆｡°✩ Every word that comes out of your mouth is on the spot or impulsive and you can’t even process anything anymore.

⋆｡°✩ Your entire body is tingling and you’re only getting so much friction from crouching and running.

⋆｡°✩ Was this a common side effect from the doctor’s shocks? Everyone else looks horrified once they’re completely insane, but you? you’re grinding against nothing like a bitch in heat.

⋆｡°✩ You were stable enough to know not to ask your fellow survivors for some help, you don’t think the killer would help you either.

⋆｡°✩ Or so you thought.

⋆｡°✩ Herman watches you from afar, laughing to himself; that he’s the one causing you to need to relieve yourself just because of him.

⋆｡°✩ Is he also aroused? Of course, he’s not gonna bother hiding it from others, this reaction came from you; his newest test subject.

⋆｡°✩You’re so sensitive now, you’re suppressing everything the second a teammate places a hand on your back to ask if you’re alright. Herman doesn’t want other subjects interjecting during his observation so he will remove them immediately. You need to be closely examined.

⋆｡°✩ He’s watching you silently, you can travel to the farthest corner of the abandoned ski resort but he will always be watching you.

⋆｡°✩ In the moments where you’re confident that you are truly alone he will still be “examining” you. Just a little shock and you’re back to coming undone on the single mattress of one of the few rooms in the resort.

⋆｡°✩ Back at the killer’s camp he will silently remove himself from the environment to secretly relieve himself from another trial of examination. Seeing you grind hopelessly into the piano seat of the saloon was not something he expected today. However with these experiments he learns more and more every time.

⋆｡°✩He wants to taste you more than anything, to lick the messes you make of yourself off your fingers. He needs you so bad but he refuses to let himself have you just like that.

⋆｡°✩ He can’t just rush this experiment, all his research needs to be thorough. You’re too perfect of a specimen to just let off the hook so soon.

⋆｡°✩ Although he will not make it known how filthy his thoughts are, he will let you know that he is in fact interested.

⋆｡°✩ He wont let you leave the trial alive regardless of how he feels. Some examinations need the subject to be completely unscathed or damaged. You’re always gonna be the perfect candidate for new experiments.

·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ 　　.·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ . ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙.

this is my first time like actually writing lord forgive how messy this is

—

—

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Errors, “Errors,” and Sci Fi

@strawberry-crocodile

tvtropes calls stuff like the wolf example "science matches on" which I think is a pretty fair shake

This.  This is what’s got me thinking so much about errors.  There’s a certain danger, here.  A certain way that this particular effect — delicious dramatic irony — tempts the mind when reading old stories, even true ones.

What do you know about R.M.S. Titanic? I ask my class every year, and the first hand rises.  “It was unsinkable,” the student inevitably says, and everyone is nodding, “or so they thought.”  I write the word UNSINKABLE on the board, underneath my crude drawing of a ship with four smokestacks.  It will be crossed out before the end of the hour, but not for the reason they expect.

“I find no evidence,” Walter Lord, preeminent biographer of the ship’s survivors, wrote, “that Titanic was ever advertised as unsinkable. This detail seems to have entered the collective mind so as to create a more perfect irony.”  Indeed, historians’ examinations of White Star Line documents show the shipbuilders themselves worried it would be so large as to risk collision; they stocked several more lifeboats than 1910s regulations required.

The War to End All Wars (deep breath, satisfied exhale), also known as World War ONE. Chuckle.  Shake of the head.  What if I told you that this phrase, used primarily in American newspapers after the fact, wasn’t meant to be literal? Nowadays we’d say The Mother of All Wars, or One Hell of a Fucking War, but we wouldn’t mean literal motherhood, literal intercourse.  What if I said the armistice and the Lost Generation and the Roaring 20s were all braced for another outbreak of European conflict, and yet we still failed to prevent it?

Did you know they were so confident in the safety of the S.S. Challenger that they put a civilian schoolteacher onboard? I do, because I’ve heard that one repeated many times.  Only, see, it’s got the cause and effect reversed.  Challenger launched on a day the shuttle’s engineers knew to be dangerously cold, because the first civilian in space was on board. And NASA knew its shuttle project would be cancelled entirely, if they couldn’t get that civilian’s much-delayed entry into space in the next two weeks.  So they launched on a cold day, and killed her instead.

These are all what cognitive science calls Hindsight Bias on the personal level, what sociology calls Presentism on the cultural level.  Social psychology’s a little of both, is primarily interested in why you’re sitting on your couch in a Colonize Mars shirt watching PBS and chuckling at the fools who believed in El Dorado.  It wants to know why the mind flees straight from “marijuana will kill you” to “marijuana will cure cancer” without so much as a pause on the middle ground of its real benefits and drawbacks, its real (mild) risks and rewards.

And they can paralyze the sci-fi writer, if you think too much about them. Jetsons is futurist one decade, retro the next.  “There are no bathrooms on the Enterprise,” the creators of Serenity say smugly, as if Gene Roddenberry should’ve simply known that decades later it’d be acceptable to show a man peeing in full view of the camera, nothing but the curve of the actor’s hand to protect his modesty.  “No sound in space,” the Fandom Menace says, “No explosions in space,” and “A space station can’t collapse in zero-G.”  Only then NASA burns a paper napkin outside of atmosphere, transmits music using only the ghost of nearby planets’ gravities, and logs onto Reddit long enough to point out the Death Star would implode in its own gravity field.  And now we’re the ones pointing, the ones laughing, at those earlier point-and-laughers.  Self-satisfied, smug in superiority.  As if we did the work to find out ourselves, instead of just happening to be born a little later than George Lucas.

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A redraw of the official icons of the ten named slugcats from Rain World, arranged in two rows: Survivor, Monk, Hunter, Nightcat, and Gourmand in the first, Artificer, Rivulet, Spearmaster, Saint and Enot/Inv in the second. Each is drawn in roughly the same pose as in the original art and fitted with speculative interpretations of their biology, and the second image is a “dead” version of this. For example, all ten have slug-like rhinophores in place of ears, cuttlefish-like colorful eyes with strangely-shaped pupils, cephalopod-like beak "teeth", expressive barbels or oral tentacles at the corners of mouths, spiny radulas, and the frilly mantle fringes of sea slugs, though otherwise their faces are squishy, simple and mammalian-shaped.

Cream-colored Survivor and yellow Monk both share triangular, bicolored spots matching their eyes (which are tan and brown, and two shades of blue, respectively), small, bumpy fringes, and relatively neutral looks on their faces. Defensive-looking Hunter is mostly a dull orange-pink, though their blobby fringe is a more violent red and their back is purple and marred with lumps. Nightcat is navy blue and flecked with dots of yellow and teal, their rolled rhinophores are a lighter blue, and their shading fractures into stars in some places. Gourmand is almost uniformly tan, their wide, very ruffly white mantle fringe bordered by a spray of white spots, and their beak sticks out from either corner of their smile. Primarily red Artificer, snarling, has yellow markings of multiple sorts, a prominent yellow dewlap and their characteristic dark scar taking out a chunk of its face. Rivulet is a darker blue than usual, with long barbels, red gills and rings, countershading, and a cheerful expression, sticking out their radula. Spearmaster is purple with orange accents, eyes and spots, a large fringe and spines down their back. Saint’s green caryophyllidia are marked by small, yellow diamonds, and their long, thin radula extends far below them. Enot is decorated with mottled red stripes, blue patches, yellow stars, and an uneven and almost cartoonish imitation of blush, though generally the same deep blue as Nightcat, a passive or almost slightly smug look on their face and their rolled rhinophores out to either side.

In the second image, nine of the slugcats’ eyes are crossed out, indicating that these are death icons. They look fairly the same, with mostly expression differences. Survivor is caught in the beginning of a threat display, a karma flower sprouts from Monk’s side, Hunter is burdened with overgrowing, purple and blue rot, Nightcat’s rhinophores are pinned back, and Gourmand looks mildly disheartened. For the final row, Artificer bites its radula between small plumes of smoke, Rivulet drops their expression, Spearmaster looks very startled, Saint looks almost entirely the same besides half-open eyes and their markings greater in number, and Enot grins confusedly. End ID]

If you'll excuse the unusually lengthy ID: the arena meme introduced by @pansear-doodles at long last after a nearly year-long wip status (or, rather, finished a month ago today to honor my own first time playing it!)

Design notes and shout-outs under cut! :]

The following people are some of those who’ve inspired my designs most since I started this eight months ago (or just inspired me to get a little weirder with slugcat biology), among many others for sure, and I thank them for it–but this is simply to bring attention to artists I find cool, and in no way an obligation to interact or anything :]

> @saturncoyote , @carpsoup , @charseraph , @gallusgalluss , @bitsbug , @dopscratch , and @0hmanit (and a special mention to dddeerbo and hunterlonglegs, who’ve since deactivated)!

Survivor: Surprisingly the hardest to pin down the colors for, since nothing with its sibling's palette seemed to match up right (I did have to add in a little blue somewhere for Monk, the beginning of making it clear how much I’m simply going based off of vibes for the colors of scug innards). I consider them, Monk and Gourmand to be part of the same gene pool of slugcats, and even possibly the same colony even if the latter isn't really related, so took a bit of Gourmand's coloring and fit them in with their inspiration: Goniobranchus verrieri. They serve as a bit of an introduction to my ideas of scug traits (i find it really fun how many people have thought to add so many silly sluglike fixtures of biology completely independent of me, buuut here I’m mostly talking about species variation), and like in-game they’re pretty average! They, Monk and Hunter have a couple scars sourced from a piece of Joar's concept art that I'm failing to find, those across the bridge of the nose, under the eyes, and across the rhinophores, respectively, and my Survivor interpretation features many on the back of the neck, as a result of survived lizard bites.

Monk: Their coloring is primarily based off the fact that I associate them with blue fruits, honestly, a bit because I was compelled to establish a familiarity with Rivulet, and lastly inspired by the spots of Goniobranchus kuniei (and geminus, less important to me as one of my characters is a kuniei instead, but more fitting). Between the yellow + blue and the circular marking in the center of their face, they’re meant to bear a little resemblance to an iterator that shares similarities with the characterization I’ve given them, and similar coding of her sibling can be seen on Survivor’s markings around the eyes. As both a “default” slugcat and one whose campaign I haven’t played, though, I can’t say I have much more to point out about em.

Hunter: The whole rot thing made for a really fun time drawing them, and while the color change on their back is a result of this, it’s also an excuse to relate them to Babakina festiva, arguably my favorite sea slug (mostly for sentimental purposes). And to Spearmaster, a fellow messenger slugcat, and it serves as a gradient between Hunter’s pink and the “traditional” color of Rot seen in the DLLs. Aside from their affliction, they’d actually be the plainest in terms of design, as they don’t have any patterns or quirks of body type, just the red + purple and strange lumps + possible malnutrition. I can’t remember if NSH had created them in particular or just...caught + released or something, but it probably wouldn’t be strange for a lab-grown slugcat to be simple like that.

Gourmand: Like the two above, they’re rather plain in terms of coloring and adaptation, and like the two above, I find that fun. I decided it would be nice to avert the “all slugcats being of the same body type, and Gourmand’s out of place as the exception” thing by just...adding more fat to all of them, really. I did want to emphasize their sheer bulk even so, both fat and muscular (not like I couldn’t have still gone further with it, of course, but slugcat anatomy can be a little obfuscating sometimes, and they were intended to look rather plush considering personal size headcanons and therefore the lack of proper gravity), and the thick and flounced mantle looked like a good addition, as per their sea slug Glossodoris hikuerensis. Unlike Survivor and Monk, I didn’t attempt to hold their resemblance to any particular other character (which means a little less to balance out the “default gene pool” thing), so those are all the design notes I have for em.

Artificer: The second slugcat I’ve ever played, or finished the campaign of, my favorite for at least a long time, and the first thing I did was give them yellow accents, the shape of which have troubled me slightly (not quite like the spots or stripes of the others). They’re both a little more appealing and more explosive-looking to me, and considering how early on I played Arti, actually present in some of my older art. It does give them a little resemblance to Saint (completely intentional, two slugcats with strange relations to karma), as well as the fact that its radula is green for familiarity with one of its children (at some point it was going to have all-green markings, even!). I’m generous with their scars, partly because it was fun to overemphasize the one on their face and partly because it does seem like a reckless slugcat, on top of the dangers of its explosive abilities–I’ll probably just keep adding more forever. Mostly-red sea slugs aren’t too common, but Hexabranchus sanguineus works for sure. The ridged, yellow dewlap can expand for combustion purposes, or something along those lines. Arti’s where I began experimenting with a lot of the mildly-offkilter features seen in my interpretation of slugcats, as they’ve once again been a favorite from the start.

Rivulet: I've obviously given other slugcats spots, deeply enjoy the bubbly-soda markings of other peoples' slugcats, and thought seal riv would be cute. Despite not too closely resembling it, they've been government-assigned Hypselodoris bennetti, for color reasons and for a couple sentimental ones. Originally, the colors of every scug were meant to match up with the custom colors I gave them at the beginning of their campaigns, (though Arti, Gourm and Spearmy are the only three who actually apply here, since I've only played through half the slugcats: I gave arti the yellow as mentioned above, gourm brown eyes and spearmy light pink spears, furthered by the outskirts pearl accompanying me and that palette all the way to moon. Tolerance training for eternity in hell cause I already knew about the maroon pearl quest). I initially gave them the colors of the bi flag for fun... but with the limited palette of this image, I was left without pink for a while and decided to see how they'd look in red. I then realized how they now wonderfully matched Moon, and besides, red's a sort of camouflage in deep water! As a side-note, the difference between their eyes and those of others always bothered me a little for anatomical purposes, and the cephalopod eyes were probably influenced by this!

Spearmaster: Inspired as much as possible by @notyourfunnyman ’s wonderful spearmy: designed in a way that helps it fit in with scavengers, at least between the long sensory tentacles, big ruff, back spines and slightly thin/distended anatomy, a form of defensive mimicry. I always had annulate rhinophores in mind, for a little diversity sure, but mostly because the shape reminds me of radio antennae and communication towers (seems fitting for the comms array and being a messenger slugcat)! I started searching for a real-life slug to give them just by looking up their rhinophore shape...and was met immediately and coincidentally with annulate-topped nudibranchs that fit them more perfectly than I could've imagined: Flabellina and surrounding clades, I think Paraflabellina ischitana works very nicely. The orange was completely unplanned, but there wasn’t a place for light pink among the other slugcats’ palettes, and importantly it likens them to both Hunter and Seven Red Suns a little more.

Saint: I am very much a non-furred slugcat enjoyer, with respect to those who aren’t, so figuring out the only visibly furred slugcat was an interesting challenge. I’ve decided that they likely have other, milder adaptations for help in the cold, mainly just more efficient fat storage, and what looks vaguely like fur is instead a bunch of tubercles (called caryophillia, for the second reminder out of three). Their inspiration doesn’t have these, however, Miamira sinuata’s numerous yellow and blue spots (not to mention...whatever’s going on with that shape) and general effect of being the only really green nudibranch I could find were probably perfect for a strange green echo. Not pictured, but their beak-teeth are tiny and flat to make a surface for grinding soft food against with the lack of a functioning radula, which is tipped with a specialized spiny “grapple-hook” for better traction/grip (not to mention the numerous little teeth running down the whole thing).

(Best part of hiding this under a readmore means edits will be seen by all reblogs, I'm mostly sure, because I completely forgot to mention! The spots on their forehead are simple eyes. Their camera eyes appear closed in-game, I like to believe their complex eyesight is rather poor anyways or otherwise reason that they aren't seeing out of those, and while this was far from her REASON for attunement with the world, it does help compensate for mainly viewing it through a canvas of simple light and dark. This, and the fact that their swapped-out "fur" is not only to commit to a lack of hairs but contributes to sensory input!)

Nightcat/Enot: I guess you could say I found the “these two are technically the same person” compelling. (E.g. similar colors, both very strange and enigmatic, and Enot/Inv/Sofanthiel’s remark during the dating sim about getting removed from Arena Mode.) I doubt they’re the only two slugcats in their body, considering humans with DID tend to have more than a few (and I find it very funny that a slugcat bearing resemblance to Nightcat appears in Gourmand’s ending. They’re allowed in the colony and Enot isn’t </3), and I have to credit @faelingdraws ’s art for being what convinced me on it! Their design inspirations come down to trying to balance a few different ideas: making the patterns and palettes of both look oddly similar (special mention to the stars, since those are fun to draw), basing them off of Felimare sechurana and juliae respectively, using blocks of color with the same placement as in Enot’s official art, and specifically making Enot look...biologically reasonable and imperfect, whilst also clearly trying to imitate human displays of emotion (what with...the eyes and blush on that one piece of official art).

Lastly, here’s just a lineup with notes on body shape and size. Most of the nicknames (existing to give a little more space, that’s all) are obvious, and while I can’t remember why I shortened Nightcat to Nox, it is in honor of my friend by the same nickname :]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Emil Ferris’s long-awaited “My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two”

NEXT WEEKEND (June 7–9), I'm in AMHERST, NEW YORK to keynote the 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention and accept the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Seven years ago, I was absolutely floored by My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, a wildly original, stunningly gorgeous, haunting and brilliant debut graphic novel from Emil Ferris. Every single thing about this book was amazing:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/06/20/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-a-haunting-diary-of-a-young-girl-as-a-dazzling-graphic-novel/

The more I found out about the book, the more amazed I became. I met Ferris at that summer's San Diego Comic Con, where I learned that she had drawn it over a while recovering from paralysis of her right – dominant – hand after a West Nile Virus infection. Each meticulously drawn and cross-hatched page had taken days of work with a pen duct-taped to her hand, a project of seven years.

The wild backstory of the book's creation was matched with a wild production story: first, Ferris's initial publisher bailed on her because the book was too long; then her new publisher's first shipment of the book was seized by the South Korean state bank, from the Panama Canal, when the shipper went bankrupt and its creditors held all its cargo to ransom.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters told the story of Karen Reyes, a 10 year old, monster-obsessed queer girl in 1968 Chicago who lives with her working-class single mother and her older brother, Deeze, in an apartment house full of mysterious, haunted adults. There's the landlord – a gangster and his girlfriend – the one-eyed ventriloquist, and the beautiful Holocaust survivor and her jazz-drummer husband.

Karen narrates and draws the story, depicting herself as a werewolf in a detective's trenchcoat and fedora, as she tries to unravel the secrets kept by the grownups around her. Karen's life is filled with mysteries, from the identity of her father (her brother, a talented illustrator, has removed him from all the family photos and redrawn him as the Invisible Man) to the purpose of a mysterious locked door in the building's cellar.

But the most pressing mystery of all is the death of her upstairs neighbor, the beautiful Annika Silverberg, a troubled Holocaust survivor whose alleged suicide just doesn't add up, and Karen – who loved and worshiped Annika – is determined to get to the bottom of it.

Karen is tormented by the adults in her life keeping too much from her – and by their failure to shield her from life's hardest truths. The flip side of Karen's frustration with adult secrecy is her exposure to adult activity she's too young to understand. From Annika's cassette-taped oral history of her girlhood in an Weimar brothel and her escape from a Nazi concentration camp, to the sex workers she sees turning tricks in cars and alleys in her neighborhood, to the horrors of the Vietnam war, Karen's struggle to understand is characterized by too much information, and too little.

Ferris's storytelling style is dazzling, and it's matched and exceeded by her illustration style, which is grounded in the classic horror comics of the 1950s and 1960s. Characters in Karen's life – including Karen herself – are sometimes depicted in the EC horror style, and that same sinister darkness crowds around the edges of her depictions of real-world Chicago.

These monster-comic throwbacks are absolute catnip for me. I, too, was a monster-obsessed kid, and spent endless hours watching, drawing, and dreaming about this kind of monster.

But Ferris isn't just a monster-obsessive; she's also a formally trained fine artist, and she infuses her love of great painters into Deeze, Karen's womanizing petty criminal of an older brother. Deeze and Karen's visits to the Art Institute of Chicago are commemorated with loving recreations of famous paintings, which are skillfully connected to pulp monster art with a combination of Deeze's commentary and Ferris's meticulous pen-strokes.

Seven years ago, Book One of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters absolutely floored me, and I early anticipated Book Two, which was meant to conclude the story, picking up from Book One's cliff-hanger ending. Originally, that second volume was scheduled for just a few months after Book One's publication (the original manuscript for Book One ran to 700 pages, and the book had been chopped down for publication, with the intention of concluding the story in another volume).

But the book was mysteriously delayed, and then delayed again. Months stretched into years. Stranger rumors swirled about the second volume's status, compounded by the bizarre misfortunes that had befallen book one. Last winter, Bleeding Cool's Rich Johnston published an article detailing a messy lawsuit between Ferris and her publishers, Fantagraphics:

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/fantagraphics-sued-emil-ferris-over-my-favorite-thing-is-monsters/

The filings in that case go some ways toward resolve the mystery of Book Two's delay, though the contradictory claims from Ferris and her publisher are harder to sort through than the mysteries at the heart of Monsters. The one sure thing is that writer and publisher eventually settled, paving the way for the publication of the very long-awaited Book Two:

https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-book-two

Book Two picks up from Book One's cliffhanger and then rockets forward. Everything brilliant about One is even better in Two – the illustrations more lush, the fine art analysis more pointed and brilliant, the storytelling more assured and propulsive, the shocks and violence more outrageous, the characters more lovable, complex and grotesque.

Everything about Two is more. The background radiation of the Vietnam War in One takes center stage with Deeze's machinations to beat the draft, and Deeze and Karen being ensnared in the Chicago Police Riots of '68. The allegories, analysis and reproductions of classical art get more pointed, grotesque and lavish. Annika's Nazi concentration camp horrors are more explicit and more explicitly connected to Karen's life. The queerness of the story takes center stage, both through Karen's first love and the introduction of a queer nightclub. The characters are more vivid, as is the racial injustice and the corruption of the adult world.

I've been staring at the spine of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book One on my bookshelf for seven years. Partly, that's because the book is such a gorgeous thing, truly one of the great publishing packages of the century. But mostly, it's because I couldn't let go of Ferris's story, her characters, and her stupendous art.

After seven years, it would have been hard for Book Two to live up to all that anticipation, but goddammit if Ferris didn't manage to meet and exceed everything I could have hoped for in a conclusion.

There's a lot of people on my Christmas list who'll be getting both volumes of Monsters this year – and that number will only go up if Fantagraphics does some kind of slipcased two-volume set.

In the meantime, we've got more Ferris to look forward to. Last April, she announced that she had sold a prequel to Monsters and a new standalone two-volume noir murder series to Pantheon Books:

https://twitter.com/likaluca/status/1648364225855733769

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/01/the-druid/#oh-my-papa

[fictional-orphan-smackdown]

ROUND 3, MATCH 5!

All propaganda and what each competitor is from under the cut

Trafalgar D. Water Law (Once Piece)

Law is a genocide survivor who saw his parents' dead bodies along with experiencing a whole bunch of other messed up stuff (his sister burning to death, the people of his country being shot for being poisoned by their own government, being terminally ill, escaping the genocide by hiding under a pile of dead bodies, etc etc). After all this shit, he eventually got forcibly adopted by this one guy and dragged around the world looking for a cure for his illness. Right when Law started to trust and love his new caretaker, he is also brutally murdered in front of him. Law's life goal for the next decade is to get revenge on the person who killed his adoptive father. Vote for him bc he needs a goddamn win for once in his life. He is the people's princess and the narrative's favorite punching bag. Also, his depressed, PTSD-ridden autistic swag and scoliosis realness have captivated me body and soul

His biological parents were killed (before his eyes, by the governement) when he was 10(?). He then joined a bunch of pirates, knowing he wouldn't have much time (and will) left to live anyway. There he was sort of adopted by the Big Bad Pirate's brother, who managed to save his life, only for said brother to be killed (more or less before Law's eyes, by the Big Bad Pirate), when he was 13. You could say he was orphaned twice.

He’s literally got the double orphan special (Parents died and then the guy who took him in after them died too) that’s a 50% increase in orphannedness above your standard orphan. He’s also cool as fuck.

Law's parents were already on death row along with him and his younger sister due to a disease that shortens the life span of a person. The disease can only be passed down genetically and has afflicted everyone in the town that he has grown up in. Due to the sudden outbreak and unknown nature of the disease to the rest of the world panicked and the government closed off his city, killing everyone there. That is how his first set of parents died when he was 10, I think. Still then Law would later join a pirate crew where he would eventually be taken away 2-3 years later by Corazon, marine working undercover as a pirate in order to take down this brother, who is the captain of crew Law joined. Corazon took him in order to cure Law's disease which he still had and to get him away from Doflamingo, his brother. Over the course of 6 months the two became close with Corazon essentially becoming a father figure to Law. I am simplify this but at some point of Doflamingo catches on to Corazon being a double agent and finds him. Doflamingo then proceeds to find Corazon and shoot him in front of a chest that Law was hiding in.

Law has faced many hardships since he was a child, but used his experiences to become an extremely powerful doctor. His pirate crew theme and his Devil Fruit ability are all owed to his adoptive father. Law acts really gruff and serious most of the time, initially seeming like a cool, calculating character and feared swordsman… but one second around the Straw Hats and you quickly see just how silly he really is. He hates bread. He collects coins. He is obsessed with ninjas and superhero comic books. In one arc he just fucked around with his powers and INVENTED harpies and centaurs. Oh, and his First Mate is a polar bear. What could be better than that?

The government ordered to kill everyone in Law's country due to everyone getting "fantasy lead poisoning" disease, which was wrongfully thought to be contagious stroked. Law's family was living at the hospital when they got attacked, his parents (who were doctors) got killed and the hospital got set on fire with his little sister inside. He managed to fled the country hiding in a pile of corpses and ended up joining a pirate crew lead by Doflamingo. Law knew he had the disease and it was going to kill him in three years. Doflamingo's brother, Rosinante took Law hospital to hospital to find a cure but they always rejected him thinking the disease was contagious. Then they learned that someone had offered Doflamingo a devil fruit that could grant him immortality. The fruit could also cure Law so Rosinante stole it and made Law eat it. He then made sure Law could escape Doflamingo and got killed by his brother.

dude spent his childhood getting thrown out of windows, while dying from a deadly disease (that was eventually cured) but while he was still showing symptoms of the disease no one would go near him out of fear and disgust, save for his father figure.

nothing can ever go right for this man. its fucking hilarious in the series and makes for some wonderful angst content. i want everyone who has not watched or read One Piece to know that, for half of his 'main' arc, he's carried around like a potato sack by MULTIPLE people. he is a damsel in despair. he didn't even need to be carried, he honestly could've walked, but he had to save that energy so he could take the like 17 lead bullets out of him. he's always getting shot or thrown out a window and he's severely injured more often than not. he's also a doctor/surgeon, one that should be able to cure incurable diseases, yet his pathetic loserboy ass is too busy being emo to worry about the several gunshot wounds and internal bleeding. god help this man but also don't because honestly it's really fucking funny

Ok, FIRST, when he was a tiny frog-disecting little kid, him and his family and island contacted a disease equivalent to cancer BUT his fam didn't die from that. No, no, his parents got gunned down by the military and his little sis was burned alive with the rest of his house, so, yeah, very traumatic, horrific in a way that makes you very angry at yourself and life and want to oh I don't know, kill everyone and everything possible until the day you die, which won't be long because you have cancer after all. Later, after joining a mafia/cult/gang, Law meets Corazon who after like 2 years kidnaps him to try and get him healed and so they spend the next 6 months bonding, WEEEEEE!! Wait, no, NOT weeee because Cora who is now his father-figure DIES having protected and saved him, and thus bruv becomes orphaned not once, not thrice, but TWO very traumatic times! If this isn't an orphan, idk what is……

Anthony Lockwood (Lockwood and Co)

Lockwood (he's known by his surname mostly) is the mysterious, daredevil and charming founder of Lockwood and Co., a detective agency specialised in protecting people from angry -and sometimes sort of hungry- ghosts in a world where they're rampant. His agency is starting small despite Lockwood bragging it's the best in London but get more and more recognition as the series progress and the agents composing them meet success (when they're not on the verge of dying). Lockwood has open manners but hid his painful past from his coworkers to protect himself. He and George, the first teenager he recruited, are quite stunned by Lucy, a country girl who fled to London after disaster striked in her hometown. Thanks to her talent, she quickly becomes known as one of the best ghost fighter in London and finds her place in the small team despite having the same determination to hide her past than Lockwood, which draws him close to her, making George jealous, but Lockwood's manifest good skills in leadership and the three of them become fast friends while unravelling secret truths and risking their lives repeatedly

He has a lot of trauma and a lot of pain but he always smiles and always has a warm and polite attitude; he’s so protective of the ones he loves that it overrides his suicidal tendencies; at the end of the series he starts to heal from his past; he’s hot but has only two braincells.