#if this post somehow leaks containment

[ultraviolet-ink]

hot take, genklint (and genklintville) sucks as ships and does their characters a HUGE disservice and actively makes them less interesting, especially since both men are defined by their families rather than their friendship. genshin did kill klint out of honor, but both mens families impact the game and story more than that one single moment. that moment wouldnt have been so impactful if they had no families, thats what makes it so horribly tragic. lbr, people dont care about lady baskerville like they do genshin and klint— she's just an afterthought of "oh shes here too i guess". cowards...

Strongly agree | Agree | Neutral | Disagree | Strongly disagree

So I will admit that I'm not much of a Genk/int girlie, and I'm even less a Genk/intvi//e girlie (censoring these so they don't show up in the tags), so I do hope that this won't come off as super salty/mean. I do try to keep myself from saying that certain ships suck bc I know what it's like to be on the other side of that. That being said, I definitely see why Genk/int is so popular, it's very homoerotic to duel to the death to save your bff's honor, and tbh, Lady B really is kind of a lamp in this story (she doesn't even have a name!). If there's anything I'm still really salty about in the games is that Lady B really is treated like an afterthought to the point where she doesn't even have a name, despite being one of the main characters' mother! This could easily be explained as part of the sort of rushed nature of production since DGS 1 wasn't as big a success as it could have been, and the fact that Takushu had to cut the games down significantly, but that's a rant for another day. I do think that as a ship Genk/int could easily provide another layer of tragedy and angst, this sort of illicit affair that could prove disastrous should their loved ones find out, these paragons of honor and loyalty proving that they are human after all, flaws and imperfections and all that comes with it. I guess that's one aspect that makes the ship interesting to me, that telenovela shit XD As for your Genk/intvi//e analysis, I definitely agree there, she really does feel kind of like a third wheel and is sort of tacked on at the last minute. And I do say this as someone who really likes making ocs and filling in the blanks, but at the end of the day, there is only so much you can do with a character that is just a lamp before you just get to straight up oc territory (not that that's a bad thing, it's always really fun to see different interpretations on Lady B!)

[halflifebutawesome]

BEHOLD! FOR THE SECOND TIME, THE GBVRAI LINEUP! now with another weird old dude!

waves my hands around vaguely I wanted to make a nicer looking lineup and more coherent post actually explaining the au. I've now made 2 gbvrai lineups but never a plain old hlvrai lineup. Whatever.

There's a complete AU explanation and individual character profiles (?) under the cut! check it out! ASK ME ABOUT IT !!! SMILES!!!!!

The basic gist of this au is that the science team, are a group of ghost hunting paranormal researchers. The Ghostbusters. You mightve heard of them. This isn't a 1 for 1 au where certain characters take the role of others, it's more just. What if the science team existed in the Ghostbusters universe. They're just the Ghostbusters now.

On a particularly odd case, they bust a ghost that seems... off. It's sentient, it's talking back, and it's psychokinetic energy is off the charts.

Thinking nothing of it, they return to the firehouse and prep the trap for containment disposal. Gordon's the new guy, so he's the unlucky dude who's been assigned the job of disposing of the traps. All the while the ghost will NOT shut up. It's weirdly powerful and seems mostly unbothered. It's name is Benry, and he's a little freak.

the ghost containment unit has been unstable for a while, overfilled with ghosts, but they have to dispose of Benry somehow, so they go ahead with it.

In this AU I'm kind of combining the Resonance Cascade with the Manhattan Crossrip (the Manhattan crossrip is the big scary ghost event that happens at the end of GB1). Basically what happens is that Benrys weirdly powerful ghostly energy, combined with an unstable ghost containment unit, tears a big rip in the fabric between the ghost realm and ours, letting all sorts of ghouls and specters free.

Imagine the Resonance Cascade, with all the aliens getting out and ravaging Black Mesa, but it's a bunch of ghosts getting out and ravaging New York. Gordon and the rest of the team have to fight their way through the ghost filled streets of NYC, and close the crossrip.

Heres some closeups and more individual info/thoughts for the gang!!

GORDON FREEMAN! The new guy. Again, this is less a direct 1 for 1 swap au kind of deal, and more just putting these guys in situations. Gordon's HEV suit, tho, I wanna talk about.

In Ghostbusters canon, they DO have a weird fucked up hazard suit. It first appears in the TRGB episode "Xmas Marks The Spot", where Egon uses it to travel into the ghost realm. I know it makes another appearance in the comics, in a way that's more HEV-esque, but I never finished the comics so idk. It's real tho.

I imagine here that the ghost containment unit is more like the reactor in half life, where it's hazardous to be around for too long, probably bcos of like. I don't know. Concentrated psychokinetic energy. Sure. In any case he needs to wear the HEV to use the containment unit.

My design here is taking the chest piece, helmet, gloves and belts and modifying them to look a little more HEV-esque.

Bennyyyy. Benrey benry beny. He's a ghost, as far as they can tell. It would be more appropriate to call him an entity of sorts.

He's not a ghost simply for the fact that he wasn't ever human. He wasn't ever a living person that died. He's some pure, really powerful, concentrate entity/being that leaked through from the ghost realm. He looks like. A guy, for the most part, but he's a mimic. Something pretending to be human. He's been around for a while, and has settled into this form. He's mostly corporeal, but can phase in and out as he pleases (noclipping) Switching from corporeal/incorporeal when it's funny.

He met Tommy when they were both a lot younger, Benry being fresh out of the ghost realm, and have been bestfriends ever since. ☝️ my au my weirdly specific tommybenny dynamic. Dw about it

TOMMY & SUNKIST!!!! Tommy has grown up around ghosts his whole life, and is pretty in-tune with them. This is proven with his bond to Sunkist, who's decidedly not a real dog, and his longtime friendship with Benry.

I gave him the goggles cos. Tommy's my fave and Ray's my fave and I think they're fun. Also cos if it WAS a 1 to 1 swap I would def have Tommy as Ray. Anyway. He's been a part of the Ghostbusters since he was little, like I said he grew up with them and around them. He's really knowledgeable about ghost types and physics. He knows all the ghost rules.

Sunkist isn't like. His dead childhood dog cos that seems. Kind of sad. Instead she's kind of a church Grimm or hell hound. An entity taking the form of a big huge dog that Tommy befriended when he was a kid, and has now kind of bonded to him. She's pretty corporeal as far as ghosts go, and can interact w the physical environment pretty well.

DARNOLD ^^ my friend darnold. Darnolds not usually super involved in the actual ghostbusting, and prefers to stay behind. He's more of the research and tech kind of guy, he studies the readings and takes measurements.

He's interested in psychokinetic energy and ghost residue and all sorts of like. Ghost sciences. Why some people stay behind, why some people just seem to die and disappear, the properties of the ghost realm and the ghosts themselves. Corporeality and degradation of personhood the longer someone's been a ghost.

When the Resonance Crossrip happens, he opts to stay behind and observe the effects of the insane amounts of ghost energy on the corporeal world.

Hes also a transfer over from the ghost engineers! That's a fun thing for me. I love the ghost engineers idc frozen empire gave me everything I wanted

FORZEN. Forzen is... the same thing as Benry. A mimic, something taking the form of a normal ghost to blend in or hide in plain sight.

He came through with the Resonance Crossrip, but obviously like. He knew Benry before (we WERE bestfriends..). He's not as powerful, which is why he wasn't able to sneak through when Benry did. He's also not super corporeal. He can only interact with the physical world if he's exerting a LOT of energy. Prone to flickering in and out of vision.

Upon coming thru the Crossrip, he kind of just. Decided to hang around the firehouse. Didn't wanna go much further, for fear of being ghostbusted and sent back into the containment unit. The source is the last place they'd look for him!

Darnold, who's holed up in the firehouse, is more than delighted to meet a ghost who's sentient and willing to cooperate to do some tests and experimentation to get never before documented results. They bond and they're cutesit. ☝️ DARZEN WIN. hi splash 👋

Dr Coomer and Dr Bubby are two of the three original founders of the Ghostbusters! They've been around for a looooong time. They're also married obviously but that's like a given.

They helped found the Ghostbusters, having met in college while both were studying parapsychology. I imagine their like. Parapsychology -> Ghostbusters pipeline was very in line with how GB1 starts, where they used to work in an academic environment before getting kicked out and founding the GB.

They're also both. Psychic. Because frozen empire has once again given me everything. Coomers got some like. Idk something that lines up with his self awareness in HLVRAI, maybe prophecy? Vauge visions of the future? Bubby has pyrokinesis. Duh.

and... Mr. Coolatta..... Tommy's dad...he was one of the founders along w Coomer and Bubby and at some point he. Died. And is now a reeeally really powerful ghost. maybe from the exposure to ghost energy or smth?

Now hes got gman powers and just kinda hangs around. Pretty corporeal and solid and. Present. For lack of a better word. But he IS a dead guy. Used to be human.

This is why Tommy kind of grew up around ghosts and knows alot about them :) Mr Coolatta is pretty benevolent, and mostly just kind of spooky and fucked up.

And that's. About it? I believe?? PLEAAASE ASK ME QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS I have so many thoughts. I've been working on this for like 2 months now. Lol.

[wrappedinthemilkyway]

A Lover's Embrace

Pairing: Joel Miller x Reader

Summary: After ignoring your anxiety for too long, it all comes out. Luckily, Joel is there to hold you through it.

Warnings/Tags: Soft!Joel, can imagine game!Joel or tvshow!Joel, can be pre-outbreak or post-outbreak, reader has no description, petnames, crying, anxiety and difficult emotions, comfort

Word Count: 1.4k

a/n: I have had nothing but anxiety for the past couple of weeks and finally had some room to breathe so I decided to write a little comfort piece.

You’d spent the entire week trying to ignore the feeling that had been bubbling inside you. 

The first three days were spent in denial. The anxiety that had started to swirl in you lingered more like a nuisance than a real threat. You couldn’t understand why it was there, why now. 

So you pushed through it, carried on with your daily tasks as though it wasn’t there. 

But after those first few days of denial, it had become unbearable. It was impossible to escape the feeling that was overtaking your body, the sensation digging deeper and deeper into your chest until you were sure you would collapse in on yourself. 

It had become suffocating, and that suffocation only magnified what you were feeling. A week into feeling this way, with no end or remedy in sight, the anxiety within started to bubble and leak out. 

There was a sadness mingling with it now. A feeling of despair, of frustration, with yourself as much as it had also been about the unwanted feeling. 

Through it all, the main priority had been caging it in and locking it up, determined to not let it interfere with your life or with Joel’s. 

Joel had been busy, too. The more he was needed by others, the longer he spent away from home. When he’d return to your shared home late into the evening, you already in bed, you didn’t have the heart to lean on him. He was carrying so much. He always carried too much. And you didn’t want him to have to carry you despite his exhaustion. 

This night wasn’t very different from those other nights. 

Joel was still not home. The darkness of the night had already started to take over the sky, and the house you occupied had become silent once again. And that feeling, that anxiety, only grew in that silence. 

A shaky sigh escaped your lips as you aimlessly walked through the space, eyes scanning for ways to distract yourself from the feeling taking over. Hand pressed to your chest, an attempt at grounding yourself, as you tried to steady your breathing. 

You moved into the kitchen, deciding that tea would help, that the warmth would somehow end the anxiety. The heat, however - like every other night so far -, did nothing. It instead felt like the warmth was scorching you, the heat of your anxiety mingling with the tea, fueled by it. 

You tried everything. You did those breathing exercises, you opened a window; you’d even tried touching something soft, a blanket Joel had gifted you, in hopes that it would somehow replicate his presence and ground you. But nothing worked. 

Tears of frustration gathered at your eyes, and you began to make your way into your bedroom, hoping that sleep would come faster than all the previous nights. Hoping that the feeling would end. 

You watched as the clock kept moving. 8pm. 9pm. 10pm. And then, finally, 11pm. 

The lack of sleep and the constant state of tension your body had been in the past few days was not enough for you to fall asleep. Your body ached, heavy and exhausted from the stress it had been put under. A dull throb lingered in your head, eyes burning as you closed them. The tears had started falling, no longer contained. 

You eventually heard the front door open, the sound loud in the silence despite the way Joel was trying to be careful with it. You wiped your tears away, closing your eyes and turning your back to the door, hoping that he would think you were asleep just as he had done all the other nights. 

His steps resounded as he made his way to your shared bedroom. The door creaked open slowly, and you could feel rather than hear Joel make his way toward the bed. The sound of Joel undressing and getting ready to join you was the only sound in the room. 

You felt the bed dip behind you as he lowered himself onto it, a small grunt escaping his lips. He shuffled, moving himself into a comfortable position on his back, and the sigh of exhaustion and relief that came out of him at the feeling of finally resting brought a new batch of tears to your eyes. You didn’t want to be a burden to him. You’re just a burden. 

You felt Joel slowly move toward you, his arm snaking around your torso and pulling you against his chest just as he always did. You tried to stifle the sound of your sobs, but the shaking of your body and small sniffle that escaped you was immediately felt and heard by him.

His hand pulled you into him tighter, his head lifting from the pillow to look at your face, studying whether you were awake or not. 

Joel immediately sat up, his torso reaching across you to turn on the lamp beside your head. The sudden light made you squint, eyes clenching even tighter, but Joel cradled your face gently in his palms, turning you towards him.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He whispered, the concern obvious in his voice as much as the exhaustion was. “Are you hurt? Did something happen?” 

His eyes scanned your body, hand lifting the sheets so he could see if you were in any visible pain. 

You shook your head, hand moving on top of the one cradling your face to keep it there. The tears kept falling, everything that had been locked away for so long finally spilling out of you. 

“‘m not hurt, I just-” you whispered back. “I don’t feel good.” 

He pulled you into him, body cradled in his arms as he held you against his chest, face gazing down at you as you lay there wrapped in him. 

“Your head hurt?” He asked, still unsure of what was wrong. 

You shook your head at him, the tears still falling as you try to lean even further into him. 

“No, I’m not in pain, Joel.” You sniffled.

“Baby, you’re making me worried- what’s going on?” He asked, hand rubbing a soothing pattern on your back. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong. Something’s not right but I don’t know what. I just… I feel so scared. I’m so anxious.” You whisper. 

He moves to press a kiss to the top of your head before pulling the sheets over his body and yours, intertwining you together, pulling you into him. 

You lie there in silence for a while, your confession heavy in the air. The sound of his breathing and his heartbeat at your ear begins to slowly lull you from your panic. The warmth of his body was soaking into yours, the strength of his embrace making you feel safer than you had done in a very long time. 

“How can I make it better?” He whispers, finally. “I don’t… I don’t want you to feel that way but I don’t know what to do for you.”

You move your head, finally facing him, and lean to press a soft kiss onto his lips. “Just hold me.” You whisper to him. 

He nods his head, pressing an equally soft kiss onto your lips as he keeps his arms wrapped around you. The silence continues, his arms and presence grounding you. 

“I’m sorry.” You whisper to him, feeling new tears start to gather at your waterline. 

“What are you sorry for?” He whispers, the confusion audible in his voice. 

“‘m sorry you’re having to stay up with me right now. You should be sleeping, you’ve had a long day.” You sniffle.

“You don’t have to feel sorry about that, darlin’.” He whispers. “I want to stay up with you.”

He presses a kiss to your lips. 

“I’ll do whatever you need me to do to make you feel better.” He reassures you, another kiss pressed to your lips. “I love you.”

The warmth of his words and his actions brought a comfort you hadn’t had that entire week. And while the fear and anxiety hadn’t completely disappeared, you could feel them slowly ebbing away.

[teambyler]

Potential leak that Will recognized Brenner? And casting call for a young Will in *1979*??

The evidence that Will might have latent powers keeps accumulating. I just saw this post, which includes this pic that was apparently grabbed from a script on 8flix for 4x8 ("Papa"). Apparently, Netflix cracked down on it, and it contains a note that Will recognizes Brenner when they find him and El in the desert:

And of course there's the confirmation that they are trying to cast a young Will, Mike, and Jonathan from when Will was eight. Will was born on March 22, 1971. He was eight years old when the sh*t went down at Hawkins Lab in late 1979, when El sent One to the Upside Down.

Is it possible that Will somehow was another kid at the lab at some point?

This is not the first time it's been suggested that Will might have untapped powers. For SOME reason, he was targeted in s1. For SOME reason, he survived. We also know that Vecna has been seeking people with powers to try to claim their powers. We know from Eight that there are other powers besides telekinesis. We know that Will has "true sight" and can sense Vecna.

It was also never explained to us how El recognized Will in s1:

We know that the Upside Down seems "frozen" (or at least has a copy) of the real Hawkins from the night Will disappeared. Why is that?

And it is established in the show that people with powers can have buried traumatic memories. (See El in s4.) So Will might have memories he has blocked as well.

When Will recovered in the hospital in s1, he was strangely serene and asked Jonathan if his hand was okay, suggesting he didn't remember his time in the Upside Down at all. And the s5 preview shows we will see his REPRESSED memories of his time in the Upside Down.

AND the rumored title of episode 4, which it is rumored is the episode featuring a young Will, Mike and Jonathan in 1979, is titled The Sorcerer?

And we've heard from the Duffers that Will's "emotional journey" will be core to s5. This show has established that the development of one's powers comes from an internal process, an emotional place. Eight and One both told El to tap into a memory that makes her angry. But in 4x7, we learn that El remembering LOVE from her mother made her overpower One.

So Will's emotional journey of coming out, where the Duffers described him as being used to being the quiet one who's saved, that he comes into his own, "not just his sexuality" (e.g. his love, perhaps for Mike), but also "becomes a young man," could manifest... supernaturally.

When there's smoke, there's fire.

Will we be talking about Will the Sorcerer?

-teambyler

[genericpuff]

in the wake of LO ending, especially over the next three weeks as the FP updates become free, this is your public service reminder from a fellow anti that you should be following tumblr / fandom etiquette and keeping antiLO/critical LO posts to their respective tags (#antiloreolympus , #antilo, #locritical, #loreolympuscritical) as best as you can

yes, it's our own responsibility to curate our online experiences by following the accounts we like and blocking the accounts we don't, and using the general search bar on tumblr absolutely opens you up to the inevitable risk of seeing something you don't wanna see, but we as the critical side of the fandom should be doing what we can to make it easier for people to curate by labelling our criticisms / shitposts / etc. about LO with the correct tags ! this ensures that if someone doesn't want to see anti/critical stuff, they can do their part to block those tags and don't have to worry about it leaking into the general tags. I don't think it's that big of a reach to expect that general fandom tags will contain content from, y'know... people who are still genuine fans and not talking shit LOL

And yes, this is why you will not see me ever using the general loreolympus tags when posting my own critical essays or Rekindled. Obviously what you decide to tag your stuff with is on you, but I'm gonna ask y'all to please remember NOT to use general loreolympus tags when reblogging my stuff!! that's not to say my content is entirely off-limits to fans of the comic (we actually do have people in the Rekindled community who enjoy both!), but what I do here obviously isn't tailored specifically to general fans of the comic and the general LO tags are what those fans are using to find content from other fans, not hyper-driven maniacal anti's like myself ╭( ･ㅂ･)و

Just because it's no longer an unpopular opinion to rag on LO doesn't mean our slice of the fandom is now the whole pie. It's easy to think when you spend so much time in the critical part of the fandom that LO is somehow "dead" but like, there is still very much a dedicated fanbase to this comic and it still has some of the highest stats on the platform. We can't in good faith complain about fans coming into our spaces complaining about criticism existing if we're not gonna follow the rules of etiquette and label our stuff properly. And hey, at the very least if we properly tag things and they still find it from journeying into the anti/critical tags, then that's on them at that point. We don't have to take that "stop being such a meanie to two-time-Eisner-winning NYT bestselling creator Rachel Smythe" shtick from anyone, but we do gotta be willing to respect the lines that are drawn in the sand so that we don't tear each other apart over this dumbass webcomic LOL

[ironunderstands]

Explaining why I think the notion that “Jade did nothing wrong and if you hate her then you are a misogynist” is incorrect 

Disclaimer: I don’t actually hate Jade, I find her compelling because she seems like the first true villain we might get in the game, and her kit looks really fun, so for that I can respect her. However, to say that she did nothing wrong, or that the people who dislike her are somehow in the wrong or are misogynists is very stupid, which is why I would like to clear up this misconception.

Let’s start with the “she did nothing wrong part” because that’s straight up not true. 

‼️This post will contain leaks of Jade’s eidolons and lc, it will also contain mentions of slavery and sexual violence so be careful‼️ 

I think the scene Jade fans go to point to when trying to argue that she does nothing wrong is the one that depicts her conversation with Aventurine. They state that she “saved him” and that the notions of her being a slave owner/having ties to slavery is incorrect.

However, at the very least the first part of this assumption is wrong, as in no way shape or form did she “save” Aventurine. 

1.Aventurine saved himself. 

He is the one who set up the scheme to get the IPC’s attention, he is the one who killed his master, and he is the one who fought for his freedom. Attributing his hard work to Jade’s “benevolence” erases that, and it pretends as if she’s the one who did all the work, when in reality Aventurine wouldn’t have even had a chance if he didn’t bet on himself.

2.What she offers Aventurine isn’t much better than what his life was before. 

In a sense, Jade just gave Aventurine golden chains, and if she was really interested in saving him, there wouldn’t be a trial, and she would just let him go. “But the scam” the IPC has an uncountable amount of money, they literally control the currency in the galaxy, and are working on taking over the whole universe, a scam ran by one person on one planet will not damage them for long. What Aventurine did really only matters because the IPC made it matter, and even if Jade doesn’t have complete control over all the goings on on the IPC, if she could make it so Aventurine could join them, there’s really no reason she couldn’t just let him free without any strings attached (which is what a normal person would do in this situation, because, well, empathy).

She knows how bad his situation was, as she remarked on how he killed his master, and the average person would struggle to find fault in his behavior at all, let alone have there even be a debate of whether she should let him live or not. 

Like, imagine yourself as Jade for a second, and you are sent to judge this kid (we don’t actually know how old Aven was in that scene, but I’d wager he was a late teenager/young adult) who just escaped slavery but also scammed the organization you are a part of, the organization that is what caused him to be enslaved in the first place (I’ll get into it*). At the very least, if you are like me, you would have a very hard time getting mad at this kid because well who wouldn’t do what he did in his circumstances. That’s why Jade still focusing on her self interests disgusts me and likely disgusts a lot of people who saw this scene, it’s not some equal transaction of sorts, she quite literally has his life on her hands and is toying with it to suit her own ends. 

Now, this situation is complicated, as Aventurine does actually want to join the IPC, but only because he believed that would be the best way he could try and save any remains of his people, the Avgin. We know this for two reasons a) the IPC took everything from him, and he has absolutely no reason why he would want to work for them if they can’t offer him anything b) the first thing Aventurine asks Jade when he becomes a Stoneheart is what happened to the rest of the Avgin, meaning that was likely his goal from the start, as even before becoming enslaved Aventurine had a ton of expectations of being the one to save the Avgin. 

However, from Jade’s perspective, likely

she doesn’t know any of this (unless she can read minds who knows), all she does know is that she holds a position of power over a very brave and intelligent person who owes a debt to the IPC for their crimes against it, and will die if she doesn’t save them. Therefore, she takes advantage of Aventurine’s inferior position, offering him a job not out of the kindness of her heart, but because she see’s his moneymaking potential and knows he can’t decline her offer, since his options are IPC or death. 

This is textbook exploitation, and it honestly disgusts me when people try and paint their relationship to be a mother/son one, when she so clearly views him as nothing more than a tool to achieve her own ends. As someone else puts it, Jade cares for Aventurine like one might care for a gun/weapon, ie she finds it useful and would like it to not get destroyed, but ultimately it’s just a tool that can be replaced. 

Aventurine’s banner name is called “Gilded Imprisonment” for a reason, and Jade offers him nothing more than shiny new chains. 

*sidenote: the IPC aren’t just the ones who broke their promise to help the Avgin, they are also likely the ones who enslaved Aventurine. This is because as Kakavasha, he referred to them as “the men in black/the men in black suits”, aka the IPC. Which is why when first enslaver says he bought him from “the men in black”, he’s also likely referring to the IPC, considering that the exact same phrase in used, in fact, he’s probably mocking the way Aventurine referred to them due to how specific it is. So yeah, I don’t know why people pretend Aventurine is over what the IPC did to him, or even like they saved him, bro probably wants to kill all of them and I fully support him in this endeavor.*

Speaking of treating him like a tool 

3. Dehumanizing Aventurine 

Her first words to him in this scene are pointing out his biggest insecurity.

“What pretty eyes. Tell me, do they shine in the dark?”

Out of context this might not be bad, but oh my god is it horrific in context. The Avgin’s eyes aren’t just a defining feature of theirs, but something they have been sexualized and abused for. Sparkle in her conversation with Aventurine implies that Sigonian’s use their attractive features (including their distinctive eyes) to get people to let down there guard and trick people, and in the same breath she also implies he did that to convince Sunday as well. Aventurine also hides his eyes with his tinted glasses because people automatically judge/discriminate against him for it, so Jade continuing that pattern is gross in my opinion.

Let’s also not forget that Aventurine is Romani coded, and a large proportion of both enslaved Roma in the past and free Roma have experienced sexual violence, as well as being treated as exotic and having other fetishized stereotypes attached to them. Calling his eyes pretty isn’t just some compliment, it’s also an extension of that, especially considering that it’s heavily implied that Aventurine did experience sexual violence when he was enslaved. 

This is what makes Jade IMMEDIATELY going to talking about his eyes creepy as hell to me, and something I dislike her for. 

However, I don’t think she meant it in a sexual manner, rather I think she was trying to get a reaction out of him, as well as demonstrate her position of power over him, which is just, ugh. Like I’m sorry to say this, but if Aventurine was a woman and Jade was a man, Jade would never be beating the p3do allegations for this comment. What do you mean the first words you say to someone involve taunting them for a feature they get sexualized and mistreated over, someone that is likely a minor or a very young adult,  someone that you hold a very clear position of power over. At the very nicest this is insensitive as hell for her to do, but considering she did not at all apologize to his very obviously negative reaction makes me think it was deliberate targeting. 

Also, the next part of that opening.

Yes, Jade is somewhat impressed by Aventurine, but objectively, this phrase doesn’t really come off that way, especially considering her tone in the scene. Seriously, rewatch it, it’s less of her being impressed, and more of her being surprised at him breaking the status quo, one which she doesn’t seem to view negatively. Also, keep in mind that in the CN (aka canon) version, the word is “slave” instead of servant, however I don’t know how the lines are delivered in CN, so she might sound kinder.

Regardless, having this neutral, almost detached perspective on slavery is very uncomfortable, at least to me. Because well, slavery is really bad (shocker), and you can’t really be neutral about these kinds of things. Commenting about how resisting his master would put Aventurine in danger in a clinical and detached manner gives the impression that Jade does not care about the existence of slavery in the slightest, and is perfectly happy with knowing it’s going on and doing nothing about it. Something which gets 10x worse considering the organization she works for is the one doing the slavery, which makes me wonder if she’s seen it before and been like “eh, it’s part of life” 😭

I’m aware dismantling an entire institution is difficult, but her sheer apathy rather than inaction is what I feel is wrong in this scene, as again, a normal person wouldn’t talk about slavery like this. They would probably phrase it like, “resisting your enslaver would put your life in danger, yet you did it anyways”, with none of that neutral tone in there, which kind to implies that Aventurine resisting the person who abuses him is in any way wrong or unusual for a person to do. Honestly I can understand a little bit why people don’t have problems with this line, as understand why people see it as just her doing her job as a judge. However, there’s something so disturbingly off with it that makes me really not like Jade for it, and hopefully I conveyed that well enough, if you have a better way of phrasing it please tell me.

Annnd this is why I say she doesn’t view him as a person. Jade literally tells Aventurine that his name, the remainder of his identity, the one part of his culture and his family and his life, quite literally the only thing he has left is destined to be buried and abandoned. She knows how much it means to him, and she wants him to cast it aside and pick a new identity, as the only thing Jade cares about is what value Aventurine can bring for the IPC. 

Also, she does refer to him as “child” there, so yeah, he likely is a minor or at the very least they have a very significant age gap! Yay! Taking advantage of people significantly younger than you! And if he is somehow close to her age, then well, she views him like a child in comparison to her, which is dehumanizing. There’s really no winning with this one huh 😭

She also refers to him in the same way his old enslaver did! 

Hound and dog are synonyms, so yeah, ew. Narratively, this is meant to be a parallel from Aventurine’s time enslaved to his time now, which demonstrates how nothing really changed, as Jade refers to him in the same way his old master/enslaver did.

4. However, that’s not all to be concerned about for Jade, at least in terms of morality, so let’s look at her eidolons.

Each one of her eidolons questions a good quality, let’s take E3 for an example.

“Honesty?” She questions why people, more specifically she would be sincere, and answers it with “Soon Mortgaged”. 

Now in this context, her honesty is likely seen as being convienent in order to get a deal off, if meant as a noun. As a verb it’s used in a similar manner, with Jade only behaving honestly because it’s part of her duty as a debt collector/contract maker.

Either way, this pattern for her eidolons, of her questioning a good quality then providing a selfish reason for why she exhibits it sets up a vicious implication. It makes it seem like any an all seemingly kind, benevolent behavior from Jade is really just a means to further her goals, making her seem untrustworthy and selfish, like well, a snake, which is a motif prevalent throughout her design. 

Her lightcone description also doesn’t make her seem much better.

Oh how lovely, giving a future to innocent children, I sure do hope this description doesn’t end badly!

“A philanthropist with a hidden agenda, a villain who mortgages souls… She was given various identities by the world, but only she understood the morality behind these actions.”

Jade what are you planning… 

This tells us two things:

1) She engages in philanthropist behavior for reasons we don’t know of yet which is concerning because philanthropy is centered around helping people, why do you have ulterior motives for helping people. What are you planning with those children, Jade?

2)”A villain who mortgages souls” oh! Sure, these two identities were apparently given to her by the world, but like, mortgaging souls??? I’ll get into her biblical (specifically satanic) references next, but like, you need one hell of a good reason to justify buying and selling PEOPLES SOULS. Whatever hidden agenda Jade might have must be like unfathomably good to justify this, because well, this means she owns (or at least helps other people own) people. PEOPLE. 

Jade fucking OWNS HUMAN BEINGS. Unless those people are like a dictator reincarnated or something there’s no good reason to justify owning the essence of someone’s being. It’s straight up evil and I’m glad the game calls her a villain for it. 

5. Satan is that you???

The snake, her contract thing as her skill and in her splash art, her job being “Jade of Credit”, her relationship to withered fruit, and the apple in her splash art, the man at her feet in her splash art, her MORTGAGING SOULS. Look, I’m not a Christian, but like, these are all pretty blatant references to satan who’s, idk, the embodiment of evil. Sure, you could say she’s more like Eve, but she’s not being tricked by the snake, no, in fact, the snake works for her.

Now I don’t literally think Jade is meant to be the devil or something, but she sure as hell seems like she’s meant to be narratively like an agent of Satan/ a demon, which is fascinating. Interestingly, this also paints her interaction with Aventurine as a deal with the devil, which just makes it seem even worse than it already is. 

Well, for now that’s all of Jade’s questionable behavior, and I feel confident enough in saying that at the very least she’s meant to be read as morally grey, so acting like she does no wrong is strange. However, it’s not a crime to like villains at all, and I feel like if Jade’s hardcore defenders just accepted that part of her character, everyone would be way happier, because people do have legitimate reasons to dislike her for the shit she has done, especially rroma people for how she treated Aventurine. 

Not everyone has to like your favorite character, and downplaying and lying about her lore and character because you can’t handle that is annoying as hell and does the character you are defending in the first place a disservice. Jade being a bad person is what makes her interesting, and honestly the idea that women can’t be bad people is misogynistic as well, which is a nice way to transition to the other part of this post:

For the love of god people don’t dislike Jade because of misogyny. Please shut up and stop throwing words around that you clearly don’t understand, as you only end up diminishing actual misogyny. 

I’ve already gone over the valid reasons why people dislike her, so let’s go over all the other stupid shit people bring up in trying to pretend like Jade hate is misogyny.

“But Boothill didn’t get complaints when he was randomly drip marketed, people complaining are only misogynistic Sunday fans!”

Jesus Christ.

Boothill has been leaked for several fucking months prior to his drip marketing, and people had been waiting diligently for when he would finally show up for a while, so obviously they were happy when he did.

He’s like, the most fanservice-y character (in a good way) ever. Boothill is a fucking long-haired cyborg space cowboy outlaw who physically cannot curse and has the cuntiest animations known to mankind, that’s like the most appealing combination of traits known to man. So appealing in fact, that people outside the fandom were making posts about him. Big shocker that the character designed to make everyone love him has everyone love him, act surprised 

Jade’s only scene so far had been her one with Aventurine in 2.1, which as I mentioned prior, has problems. This also doesn’t help that she’s just as slimy in his character stories and their interaction in 2.2, which compared to again, the character designed to be as appealing as possible, isn’t a good look. 

For the love of god Sunday fans have the right to complain. They have also been waiting MONTHS for him, so they would have been disappointed at any character that isn’t Sunday getting marketed, as that means they have to wait even more months for him. He’s highly anticipated, in comparison to Jade, whose had crumbs so far, so of course some people got upset (I didn’t see anything more than disappointment tbh)

People did complain about Boothill’s marketing! Like I know everyone clowned on them, but there were Firefly stans genuinely upset that he got marketed over her, and someone even started a “boycott Boothill’s banner” campaign 😭. It’s just the other reasons compounded why more people complained about Jade than they did about him.

I’m sure there’s some people out there who hate her because they hate women, but like, everyone? Really?

Genuinely, it is so tiring to see misogyny get thrown around like it doesn’t mean anything, and people complaining about misogyny where it doesn’t exist, and ignoring it where it does. Like I’m sorry SOME Jade stans, but yall cannot call this misogyny, then proceed to compare Jade to other female characters like Firefly, and call them flops and trash in comparison to her. THATS unnecessary hating on women for no reason, so don’t be a fucking hypocrite.

Also if a goddamn fictional character is the hill you die on for women’s rights issues, when there’s actual women being genocided right now, please reevaluate your priorities and support the women who actually need your help and assistance right now. Dogging on random Sunday fan #365 for being “misogynistic” because they said they wished he was marketed instead of Jade when there are women being murdered as we speak is dumb as hell. Like yes, these two problems can coexist, but for the love of god pixels are not as important as actual people, and if you really cared about women this would not be the one issue of misogyny you seem to talk about. 

Well, this post was kinda a mess, but I hope you enjoyed it anyways! I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter, and personally I’m very interested to see where they go with Jade in 2.3. Please keep making her evil and don’t try to hit us with the sad backstory Hoyo, I’m fine if it’s meant to complicate her, but please don’t try and redeem her. Hopefully they go with the Dottore route, but considering they are planning on selling her, they might throw everything interesting down the drain for her which is sad. Let women be evil! And I hope you have a good day :) 

[teriri-sayes]

Reactions to Tsunami Creator's Chapter 176

TL;DR - Info about god's plate. Baek's special eyes can see the essence of people. The world in Cale's plate. Jungwon's message. GoD's message about Zed.

Soos? LSH = ✅ CJS = ✅

Plate of a God I would like to make a correction. Last chapter I called it "god's vessel", but it would be more correct to call it "god's plate." The plate here refers to the one Cale cracked and dragon Mila fixed. Personally, "vessel" sounds better, but I'll follow EAP's translation of "plate."

Baek was laughing when Cale did not know he even had the plate of a god. There was some explanation how one could get a god's plate:

An ability to create a "world" inside oneself - Because KRS possessed the Record ability that recorded everything he experienced, it created some sort of "world" inside him.

Have the mental strength to withstand the world inside oneself - We know how strong Cale's mental strength and resilience is.

Have the ability to dominate the world - Cale's Dominating Aura ancient power somehow helps in that part.

You ask, why is it called a world? Because it had the following:

Nature - Cale's ancient powers are all nature-related

Abilities from various time and space - Cale got various abilities and power-ups from his time as KRS (Record, Instant, etc) in Earth 1, and as Cale in Nameless 1 and Central Plains. So he got those from various times (time) and worlds (space).

Presence of records - KRS's Record ability recorded everything he experienced, so it created the foundation of a "world" inside him.

Cale and the King's Successor How did Baek know about Cale's plate anyway? Because he was born with special eyes that allowed him to see the essence of a person. That was why he hated humans. Because their essence was ugly.

Baek compared the worlds contained inside the plates of Cale and the king's successor whom he once saw in a festival when he was young.

The world of the King's Successor was full of good and evil emotions, of screams, and of things that a normal human could not bear. In short, it was scary and ugly. Baek was confused why the hunters did not see it, but he kept what he saw to himself.

The world of Cale was beautiful. It might be unbalanced, small, and fragile, but it was like how a world was being built. Nature shined, and numerous records flowed like a river, containing everything.

And thus, our Cale ended up derailing into the path to becoming god instead of the path to becoming a slacker... 🤣🤣🤣

Divine Mirror Messages We finally get an update on Jungwon and GoD. Jungwon's message was like some news headline:

Dramatic Negotiations Concluded! Cale Henituse's Power Balance Can Be Adjusted! ...Read more. - From Jungwon

And GoD's message, hahaha 😂 He reported that he found info about Zed, Alberu's father. Apparently, Zed was listed on the Book of Death something in half a year later, but his place of death kept changing locations, so GoD presumed Zed was being brought place to place. Afterwards, GoD was like, this was confidential info, but I leaked it to you, Cale, since you seem to be having a hard time. I did a good job, right?

Cale: I hate gods. GoD: You up...? Cale: Ah, so annoying. GoD: *talks about Zed* Cale: !!! GoD: I did a good job, right? Fufu. By the way, you're interested in the god position? Cale: *stiffens* Ah, you're seriously annoying. GoD: Sobs. You're so mean.

Seriously, GoD always makes me laugh. Some comments in Ridi even likened him to acting like an ex-boyfriend. 🤣🤣🤣

Ending Remarks We got info dump again. Next chapter will probably be about Baek's records about jiangshi production. As for the author's Q&A that was released today, I'll put it up in another post later. There's like 27 questions there, and I'm only at question #7. Expect it in a few hours soon~!

[babblingeccentric]

Your Grace

I wrote most of this in a haze of divinely inspired lust after @quinloki posted the first few chapters of Dragon's Clause. I let it sit for a little bit and then realized it would make a great gift. So I polished it up and posted it.

Happy Birthday Quin! I made you pornography.

CONTAINS: Sabo x Reader, Reader with breasts and a vagina, power play, titles, rough tit play, fingering, mild bondage, pet names "angel" and "darling"

Sabo is as polite and gentle as ever as he leads you to a wooden chair in the middle of the room. He holds your arm as you bend to arrange your skirts and waits until you’re comfortable before taking out his handkerchief, handing it to you, and then undoing his cravat. He takes one of your small hands in his black gloved one and rests it on the arm of the chair. And then he ties it there with his cravat, tight and immovable. He told you he would do it, and yet it still makes your heart jump.

Sabo takes the hankie from your hand and does the same to the other hand. Smiling, he looks up at you.

“Okay?”

“Ah- fine” you answer.

“No shooting pains?” 

You shake your head.

“No? Can you wiggle your fingers for me?”

You oblige and Sabo leans back on his heels after you move each of your fingers, “Perfect!”

Something in his face changes then as he kneels between your legs. He starts to look like the maddened duke of court rumors, shadows limning his face and scar stark and horrifying. You could believe he cares not a whit for anything but his own amusements.

You freeze as his long fingered hands stroke your sides, square palms sweeping over your bosom to arrive at the top of the line of buttons running down your front. He watches you for a moment, long gloved fingers resting in the hollow of your throat. Your heart beats no slower, but you relax your shoulders and breathe again. 

Sabo smiles and then turns his focus to his fingers. He undoes the cloth covered button at your throat. You feel his warm breath on the skin of your neck. He doesn't take off his gloves.

Each tiny button is a great effort for him to undo with covered fingers. There is a silver buttonhook on the bureau that he used to button up your bodice this morning. You don’t mention it to him. It would feel wrong. It’s not your prerogative to tear the heavy blanket of silence over the two of you. Sabo never does anything he doesn’t intend to.

Somehow, instead of being silly or awkward, his head bent close to you and his gloved hands patiently struggling to undo your bodice create a hushed anticipation. You're barely breathing as you silently watch him work his way down your chest, each button feeling like a step closer to the sun. 

The only sound is your breaths.

Finally, as he watches you from under his lashes, he undoes the last button. 

Like unwrapping a delicate piece of crystal he pulls aside your bodice to reveal your heaving chest pushed upwards by your corset and uncovered by the low neck of your shift. You don’t know when you started panting. 

You feel much too hot to be so undressed.

Sabo caresses the swell of your cleavage with the smooth leather of his gloves, fanning the heat somewhere in your breastbone.

“Sabo…” You whimper, and he looks up at you, eyebrow arched in reprove.

“Angel…” he says danger in his voice

“Your Grace.” You hastily correct yourself

“Yes?” He answers archly

You stutter, not expecting to get this far.

“Nothing to say? You should think before you speak.”

He pushes the collar of your shift off your shoulders and carefully scoops your breasts out of the cups of your corset. 

The sudden cool air of the bedroom on your nipples makes you shudder, and Sabo smiles self satisfiedly at it. 

Gently he swipes his leather clad thumbs over your nipples, watching your expression like a predator.

Your lips part gently in the surprise of him finally touching you, but your carefully cultivated control of your face keeps anything else from leaking through. The air is thick and muggy with tension.

Sabo loves a challenge though, and presses his lips to the mounds of your chest leaving soft chaste kisses as his thumbs begin to circle your nipples. Your hands clench at the arms of the chair they are tied to, and your thighs press together under your skirts. The tension is excruciating. 

You arch your back trying to press yourself into Sabo’s hands and mouth and he smiles against your skin.

“Do you want something, angel?” He asks

Your breath catches in your throat. 

“I- ah.” words stumble in your mouth. “I would like more, please, Your Grace” You manage.

“Very polite.” He says smilingly. “I shouldn’t deny such a sweetly made request, should I?” 

You shake your head rapidly. It’s insane, Sabo has barely touched you, just a few caresses of your breasts and you feel like you’re losing your mind to want. You almost suspect sorcery.

Achingly slowly his mouth envelops your nipple, and then he sucks. It sends a frisson of heat zipping through your spine. His mouth is warm and wet and soft and he looks up at you as he does it. Even with your arms tied down it’s his gaze that really makes you feel pinned. He’s watching you like a hunting cat, studying your expression with intimidating intensity as he caresses you. You shut your eyes.

One of his gloved hands moves from your side to cup the neglected breast. He pinches and rolls the nipple gently in his fingers and it pulls a high breathy sound from your throat.

You feel him grin at that and he makes a path of wet open mouthed kisses across your chest to your other nipple. 

He repeats this switch several times until your nipples are puffy and your chest wet with saliva. You are squirming in your seat, some hot hollow in your stomach driving you to crave.

“More, please! Sabo, harder!” slips from your lips and everything freezes.

He pulls off your tit with a pop.

“Sabo?” He says.

You rush to correct your mistake, “Your Grace! I’m sorry, Your Grace. Please, Your Grace.”

He pauses, deciding your fate. You feel like the sword of Damocles, suspended by the thinnest thread. 

Finally, Sabo returns to your breasts. This time rougher, digging his teeth into your areola and tugging on your nipples, sending rushes of pain and pleasure through you.

You moan, low and long into the air, the punishment more a reward. 

Your face flushes from the lewd noise you make and Sabo grins smugly up at you.

“Aw, who knew my darling could moan like a whore just from a little tit touching.” He says meanly.

Your breath catches in a sob.

“I wonder…” He muses airily. “If I could make you come from this alone?”

You wail. You’re already desperate for something to touch your cunt, the idea of him spending ages just slowly playing with your breasts as you lose more and more of your mind until you’re a wailing paragon of unsatisfied lust is absolutely torturous. 

“No! No, Sa- Your Grace! I can’t. I can’t! Please…” You beg.

He relents a little at your frenzied begging. That may be a little much for a first time, after all. And you do beg splendidly for someone who’s never done this sort of thing before. He’ll be lenient. 

“Alright, alright,” he yields, “Perhaps another time.” 

Your breathing slows and Sabo continues to play with your nipples as he watches your face. You’re flushed and sweaty with glazed eyes and parted lips, the very picture of debauchery. It really is incredible he’s managed to elicit this just with a little tit play and tying your hands.

“Now, what do you need, Angel?” He asks

“I need you to touch me, Your Grace!” And before he can smugly say he’s already touching you, you add “Under my skirts! Please, Your Grace, make me cum.” 

And really, how can he deny that? Sabo thinks. You even have the beginning of tears in your eyes.

“As you wish.” He says and bends his blond head to your breast as one black gloved hand slips under your skirts.

The feel of the smooth leather makes you moan as he swipes his fingers through your slit. Removing his hand Sabo marvels at the gathered wetness.

“Oh, Wow, angel.” He says awed as he spreads his fingers making the clear slick form dripping strings. “You really did need this.”

You can’t look at him, embarrassed by your desire. And then he pops his gloved and glossy fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean with an appreciative hum. 

You squeal and jerk your bound hands in an attempt to cover your face at the humiliation of watching him do that.

He laughs at you and presses a chaste kiss to your jaw. “I’ll save eating you for another time, darling.” 

“The rumors are true! You really are a man eating ogre.” You gibe thoughtlessly.

Sabo cackles at that, shoulders shaking as he laughs harder than you’ve ever seen him. 

Finally he calms down and returns to press soft kisses against your face. 

“I did say I would make you cum, didn’t I?” He says as he pulls away.

You nod eagerly, wiggling in the chair he has you tied to.

“I hate to break my promises.” Sabo says as he presses a wet kiss to your parted lips, his gloved hands returning to your breasts and the apex of your thighs.

He strokes your cunt gently as his fingers tug cruelly at your nipples, his hot mouth pressing biting kisses to your breasts. The flame in the pit of your stomach is roaring.

His fingers circle your clit as he torments your chest, a smooth counterpoint to the frissions of pain he creates. It’s divine and he propels you rapidly along to your finish. You’re dripping onto your petticoats now you’re so wet.

You’re panting and bucking against his hands now, too preoccupied by pleasure to be embarrassed at the soft wet sounds coming from his mouth and your pussy. 

“Come on, angel. Can you come for me? I know you can.” You realize he’s cooing at you between kisses. You’re so, so close. 

All it takes is one more harsh tug at your breast and you’re coming, cunt fluttering against Sabo’s hand. He gentles you through it, holding you until the spasms stop. He unties your hands, and pulls you on unsteady legs into his arms as he takes your seat.

[cnl0400]

Spoilers for the next Celestial Box event/ Happy Devil Day 2024

(DON'T OPEN IF YOU DON'T WANT TO GET SPOILED!!!)

This post contains news for next event (no leaks or anything. Anything here Is legal, clean and safe I guess)

This Is all from NTT Solmare article for HDD2024 so yeah... A very largue event, we'll have to songs and everything...

At least the undeatables have a pitty 🥲 somehow feels more insulting

Saw people asking for them on Twitter and yeah, I don't think it's happening, neither S3 apparently...

Link to all information. If you want to check It out yourself

[strawberryya]

humble me down to my knees (you’re just what I need)

Seonghwa x reader

synopsis: He had to follow one rule, and he couldn't even manage to keep his filthy hands off of himself for a single week. Your bad kitty will have to be reprimanded somehow...

word count: 1k

genre/contains: smut, supernatural au - hybrid au, degradation and begging kinks, established relationship, sexual bets/rules made by your partner, sub-kitty-hybrid!seonghwa, fem bodied reader, use of nipple clamps, light bondage, overstimulation as punishment, unprotected sex.

rating: 18+

a/n: second submission to the arousal august event held by @wooyoungmybelovedhusband and @taehyungisminee! this one got me all hot and bothered hsvdcjsdvh

my arousal august masterlist

original event for arousal august

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“I’ll be good I swear,” he whined as you let your fingertips follow the lines down his body. 

“Yeah? My kitty won’t cum without my permission tonight?” 

He nodded, the pink ears that perked up from his messy pink hair twitching as you softly traced your fingers up his cock. 

“Get on your knees then.” 

His yellow eyes begged you to show him mercy, but he was an obedient kitty. So he did, tugging only a bit on the silk ties that held his hands behind his back. They were loose since he would be able to break through anything you tied him up with anyhow, but he showed restraint.

He was leaking precum, showing you his devotion by how wet he was for you. It wasn’t all his fault what had happened that day though. You had caught him touching himself in the shower while you were out grocery shopping; something you had strictly forbidden him from doing during this one week. He wasn’t allowed to touch himself, and you had to wear an item of his choice, everywhere you went, for an entire week. He had chosen pretty butterfly clamps that drove the both of you mad when you felt them pressing on your sensitive nipples while you went on errands, and him when you snuck away from your desk to take a picture of your tits I’m the bathroom to send to your boyfriend. Today you had sent a picture just like that, and in return, you had received a nude of Seonghwa with a semi, and his fluffy tail dragging along his torso, which he knew would have you rushing to get home. 

Once you got home, however, he was in the shower, and you knew that if you joined him the groceries would never be bought. So instead, you left the apartment to quickly shop before you came home to stay in for the night. 

When you got home with multiple bags stuffed with what you two needed for the week, something was different. You could smell Seonghwa’s pheromones from the hallway, he wasn’t showering anymore. Small grunts and a low purr could be heard from your bedroom as you moved towards the scent. 

He had broken your one rule this week, and you had won the game. Now you would get to do anything and everything until he begged you for mercy tonight. 

It didn’t take much. He jumped as he saw you coming in through the door, finding him caressing himself splayed out on the bed, nothing but a towel that still clung to his thigh to cover his godlike body. Small drops of water were still running from his half-dried hair and onto his lean shoulders, following the lines of his chest until they landed on the pillowy bed beneath him. 

You had no choice but to order him to stop immediately. He winced as he let his leaking cock go. His tail swayed behind him as you made him sit up properly, no more leaning comfortably against pillows while being disobedient. 

You fetched a silk tie from his closet and quickly made sure he wouldn’t be able to please himself even if he tried. Not that he would, he knew that it would take even longer for his needs to be fulfilled if he argued. 

You pulled your shirt off once he was on his knees in front of you. His cock was reacting to the sight of the butterfly-shaped nipple clamps and his pupils dilated enough to almost make his yellow eyes completely black when your decorated tits came into his view. He was ready to beg, plead to touch you, for you to touch him, for anything and everything. 

“I promise I’ll be better, I won’t touch myself ever again without your permission! Just please, let me cum, please please please,” he whined. 

“You won’t touch that filthy cock of yours without my permission? Ever again? I don’t believe you.” 

He was almost crying now, his cock aching enough from seeing you half-naked in front of him while you let him suffer on the floor. He could cum right then and there.

You undressed fully, telling him to get up and get on the bed. He didn’t hesitate and positioned himself in the same way you had found him before. You tied his hands in front of him instead, the silk tie loosely keeping his greedy hands to himself. His cock was slapping against his abs as he eagerly awaited your dripping cunt. 

You sank down on him at a grueling pace. So slow that he thought he would pass out at any second. You were so tight and wet that he had to fight from thrusting up and bottoming out with everything he had. His pretty pink ears lay flat against his head as you began bouncing on his cock. A slow purring sound filled the room along with the moans the both of you were unable to keep to yourselves. 

“You will never disobey me again, my little kitty. I’ve been following your rules for days, you know. I’ve had to sneak away from meetings so I could cum in the bathroom to the thought of you licking these fucking nipple clamps so I could focus on work, and here I find you breaking your one and only rule after only a couple of days. If you had waited, maybe I wouldn’t have to punish you like this, instead, you would have been rewarded.” 

You kept bouncing on his cock mercilessly, panting out your words in a reprimanding tone.

“Please let me cum, don’t punish me, I’ll do anything!” He moaned. 

“Oh don’t worry, you will cum for me,” you breathed out before kissing him fiercely. The realization of how you would make him suffer tonight dawned on Seonghwa that very moment as he came undone beneath you, unloading himself inside of you as you continued clenching around him and letting the cum flow out of your cunt along with your arousal, not planning to stop fucking your disobedient boyfriend until you were satisfied.

Reblogging and commenting is highly appreciated!! Hearing what you thought is what makes writing and being here overall so much fun! Ty and ily 💕

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[loverofstufflof]

Airing out my LMK trailer/S5 thoughts cause u gotta do this somehow

Most glaring, animation. It’s not bad, by any means. I’d certainly be proud of myself if I were able to come up with it.

However, I think it’s important to consider the context of the show’s style, and how it’s been improving significantly over instalments. Also, it’s Flying Bark. Flying Bark is just gonna make banger animation.

Am I a bit disappointed when comparing it to Emperor’s Wrath? Yeah. Especially when we’ve been waiting a full year for this—twice as long as usual.

But I’m not saying I won’t be watching the show because of it. I still love this story. Fuck, my favourite series is Epithet Erased. The show that’s best described as JPEGs wiggling around your screen for 2 hours. I can handle less than expected animation if it’s made up for by good writing.

I’ve been seeing a lot of people attacking invisible fans that claim they’re going to boycott the show because of this. Respectfully, source? The most aggressive criticism I’ve seen is “man that’s disappointing ig, still excited tho”. Who are you guys even fighting lmao. (Unless this is something happening on other platforms and you’re just venting on here which, valid)

Nevertheless, as I’ve said before, it’s not bad animation, just not up to the standard we’re used to. People are allowed to be disappointed. Let them be. This show isn’t flawless.

It’s looking to be real, all things considered. We’ve never gotten a fan leak this elaborate before, and it contains a lot of elements that were just recently revealed. Unless they’ve been getting announcements much earlier than we have (considering this fanbase’s sleuth skills, I’d doubt it) then there’s no other explanation other than it being official.

Official, however, doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to look that way the whole time. The animation is being done by another studio, yes, but only partially. Flying Bark is still here for the fun. This other studio also isn’t incompetent, they’re behind things like Carmen Sandiego. They know what they’re doing.

They’re also primarily handling additional material, means promotions, meaning trailers. Listen, it’s a bit of a stretch considering the fact that all trailers so far have been taken directly from the show, but also it’s industry standard to make a trailer before you’re even done, meaning you gotta cut some corners for the scenes you’re showing until you polish them up in post.

We know LEGO has a habit of keeping LMK things in their vault until they need to, this may be something they had lying around from early prod and released to maintain hype.

Any which way, this development is very much temporary, only applying because the team is currently working on a movie and need to momentarily lessen their workload. Even if the odds are against us and S5 looks like a PowerPoint presentation, it’ll likely go back to normal later.

Biiig animation rant aside, I am a tad bit sad about the direction the story is going in (namely the abandonment of Red Son) and the fan service is a bit much, but honestly what else are we expecting from JTTW fanfic.

I’m stoked to see more Macaque though—he’s looking to be becoming a proper protagonist, which is great for angst! Yippee!

One thing I haven’t seen anyone talk about is the complete lack of Nüwa. You know, the character they’ve been teasing this whole time? Where is she? Not in the trailer. Not in the posters.

Makes me wondering if this is a part of the new season, teasing the next one, the one Nüwa’s in, later.

[nightylantern]

Gojo x reader; A nightmare that couldn’t hope to exist again

So I uh saw the newest leaks on jjk, and I wanted to be heavily comforted as I don’t know how to feel about it. Don’t worry this doesn’t contain the leaks, this is a what if scenario (info down below)

Here’s just some comfort as a what if, what if maybe after everything they somehow revive Gojo? I mean this Gojo right? He’s not a regular sorcerer…right? This is honestly to comfort me, don’t come at me if he’s truly truly gone.

Tw: Nightmares, fluff, Au of post canon where everything is saved and all, because I don’t know how the ending will go yet, ptsd, SPOILERS LIKE HUUUGE-

Poke poke

…

poke poke poke

…

poke poke poke po-

“ALRIGHT, I’m up I’m yawn, up, wha- OW!” His waist was still sensitive as heck, no wonder, he was slash- no, SPLIT, literally. Gojo groans as he blears out from his sleepiness due to the insistent poking, the poking who he assumes is coming from you, “listen I know you want me up but could you turn on the lamp? It would be easier to se- yelp agh…shoulda warned me, gosh my eyes… rub rub I hope it’s not to early, otherwise I won’t be able to sleep” he continues to ramble out of sleep for a bit and turns to you, or more surprisingly, your back.

Now that he thinks about it you haven’t done or said anything, minus the poking of course. “Hello…? Uh your awakened husband is here, seriously you can’t just poke me awake as I’m recovering from, well I dunno…MY BODY SPLITTING IN HALF and just remain in the edge all quiet and everything.” He tried to sound playful but you didn’t move, it was almost like you didn’t hear him, and suddenly he felt chills.

What if maybe…he was still out there, rotting in half? What if he left you behind..? What if what if what if-

He didn’t realise he reached out for you unconsciously until he felt the warmth of your skin and you turned your head slowly, not enough for him to see your face but well…enough for him to know you acknowledged his presence, he runs his fingers up and down your back “hey, uh, you okay? You woke me up and yet you seem so…distant and odd, love you know I’m here right?” He hesitated before holding your shoulder, where he felt the trembling and realised why you weren’t facing him, why you were so quiet. You turned around facing him which confirmed it, you were crying. With this knowledge he wasted no time in sitting up at the headboard despite his waist screaming otherwise and trying to situate you in his lap, which came along with your protests;

“Satorou! No I can’t…it’s still healing!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I’m alive and it’s not like it’s gonna fall off.”

“It’s still healing, what if it gets infected due to a blood clot or something! Satorou I can’t, even if you claim it’s okay I won’t be okay…so please..”

The fear and helplessness is your voice is what got him to stop, so, rather than you sitting on his lap he had you both lie down and cuddle up to each other, making sure you were comfy while also proving he was comfortable aswell. He kept kissing your face, wherever his lips could touch as a gesture of comfort, he wanted you to feel, to know he was here, and he also wanted to know that he was here. He kept you against him while running his fingers up and down like earlier in a comforting manner, hoping to soothe you.

“…so, my scrumptious little dollop of happiness, love a-“ “Satorou don't you dare,” you interrupted with a giggle, both cringing and giggling at the super long phrase he tried to give you “haha! Just wanted to make you laugh, or atleast a it happier darling. Seeing that you giggled I had done an amazing job, right sweetheart?” He said as he kissed your cheeks, to which you giggled.

“Seeing that my first job is done, we are moving to the second job!” He said as his voice toned down slightly, “and that is finding out why you were crying when I woke up, my lovely spouse here shouldn’t be crying as I was sleeping, oh do tell me if it was the snoring, wait that explains as to why you were poking me aggressively!” He said dramatically to which you chuckled “no no Satorou, I’m sorry I woke you up, I just…I had a horrible nightmare about…about you and I thought you were…let’s just say I needed you, I needed you talking to me, touching me, I mean the warmth is enough but you sleeping, considering how your body has been…I just needed to see you alive” You mumbled the last part out quieter but he caught it. He didn’t know that his sleeping was THAT bad, he was told by Shoko that he slept like a dead man, but to make his one and only think that too? It broke his heart seeing you crying because of him, because he looked dead, and while you trailed off he had a good idea as to what you might have dreamed about, sure you weren’t out there but you knew the contents of his…death. Hmm…

”Is that so darling? Hm…what to do, this is rather a pickle isn’t it? Well as much as I would love to say that everything will be okay…I can’t confirm it considering the situation is still unknown,” he murmured while stroking your hair, you tensed against him as you knew this, but didn’t want to hear it. “However, Yuji and Shoko both are on my case, they refuse to leave me alone, and are basically forcing me into temporary leave, heck maybe considering my condition they will force me to retire all together,” he said with a joking tone which made you smirk. “I don’t know what will happen, for despite my amazing capabilities I cannot tell the future, if I could I wouldn’t have been split in half now would I? Hey…no I meant is as a joke, no I’m sorry I didn’t mean to dampen the mood..” he said upon realising you were tensing, fretting over his words,”damn it…I really suck with comforting don-“ “yes,”you deadpanned.

“…haha, did you really need to call me out?” He said awkwardly, when he got no reply he just continued running his hand up and down your back, the atmosphere eventually got comforting. The night was quiet, minus the ticking of the clock, and the wind outside, it was cozy and warm, safety was guaranteed, yet your trembling had yet to cease, he was about to speak up again when you interrupted him,

“I always hated your cockiness you know?” He looked down at you, “I hated how you always assumed you would win due to your abilities, it was because of that, that you became reckless and lazy, and even when fighting against a formidable enemy you still remained confident no? How do you think I felt in regards to that?” Gojo wasn’t stupid or deaf, you would always complain about his recklessness and how he could die, to which he would always brush off, one day it even lead in a fully fledged argument between you both, which lasted for days on end until you both broke the silence, realising that it wasn’t healthy for either of you to continue with this silence since you both had issues taking care of yourselves. That’s not to say your worries ceased, nor his cockiness, but he promised to be more careful, and well…he was cut in half. “I knew you know? I knew that the jobs were dnagerous and I knew you weren’t guaranteed a happy ending or anything, especially with your cockiness and all,” happy ending? Damn you had unique phrases didn’t you.

“I hate you so much, I hate you for making me worry! I hate you for dying! I hate you for making me grieve and mourn!” You kept crying over and over and letting your resentment be known until “I hate myself for being weak, for being unable to protect you…” Gojo froze at that, while he was aware of your worries, he wasn’t aware of how it affected the image you projected onto yourself, the fact that you couldn’t help him on the field, the fact that he surpassed you miles ahead, and the fact that he basically died. He thought about it for a moment before finally speaking up:

“I won’t lie to you, I haven’t necessarily been thinking about your needs on the field, or in general despite the fact that I love you. Getting stronger, teaching my students and defeating curses were mainly on my mind. For that, I am really sorry…but that doesn’t mean I loved you any less. If anything I’m at fault for not taking you into consideration, because the last thing I want to do is break my dearest spouses heart. Now that everything has changed, if there are curses they are most likely not strong, something I could take out within minutes, seconds even…hey dont give me that look, I’m not being cocky.” He trembled under your glare..

“Okay, maybe I’m being a little cocky, but that isn’t my point. The point is, the curses are weakened drastically and if that’s not the case then they are gone for good. Regardless of the outcome we don’t have to worry about danger, for we both are capable enough to defend ourselves, you with your self defence and me with my abilities. Don’t you see what this means?” He wiped the stains off your cheeks. “Just because everything is over doesn’t mean the pain and suffering will go away immediately, heck maybe never, I know Yuji will be unstable for a while, but that isn’t all there is. I’m not young, but I’m not old either, same with you. We still have a life to lead you know?” He pulled you against his chest while smiling, a soft smile reserved for his closest ones, like you. “So let’s live with happiness moving forward. Whenever you suffer I’ll be there to support you, just as I expect you to do the same. Let us live our lives to the fullest, like a normal married couple, it is my job as your husband to make you the happiest person alive no?” He murmured softly. You listened intently while resting against his chest, and then you spoke up:

“Can you at least promise me that you will remain safe moving forward? That you will take care of yourself?” You asked, looking at him expectantly, to which he hesitated a bit, to which you spoke up once again, “you said it yourself, there are no more major threats with the curses, so you shouldn’t be out there fighting and returning home all banged up, so it’s impossible for you to be able to break said promise…unless you plan to pull something?” You eyed him suspiciously to which he spoke up quickly,” NO! I uh…I mean no, I wouldn’t dare, and your right about the curses…so yes, I promise that I won’t ever put myself in danger recklessly ever again, and that I will make sure I return to you, in one piece, not two- OW!” He winced at your smack, however you were satisfied, and with that you snuggled up to him. A comfortable silence ensued again, until you asked one last question:

“Satorou…you said we would have a future of happiness earlier…what future do you envision when thinking of that? I mean I can’t expect life to be simple for you after everything that’s occurred…” He was silent for a long time, until he replied, “honestly I don’t know, I just tend to dream about your happy face, and me being by your side, touching you, kissing you, loving you, and living a happy life with each other, heck maybe even with a child,” he smiled at the thought.

“…then let’s make it come true.” You finalised, to which he looked down raising an eyebrow. “Let’s make your dream come true, for that is now my dream as-well! A dream like that…is a thousand times better than the nightmares.” You said with sparkling eyes, the first genuine emotion of happiness you showed that night.

He smiled, but didn’t say anything, he didn’t need to, for all his words could be felt with his eyes, hands and body. He wanted nothing more then to secure that future, and so he squeezed you a bit tighter, to which you reciprocated, and just like that, both you and him dreamed.

He dreamed of you, your smiling face, your laughter, your iconic glaring face, you scolding him, and just living a happy life.

You dreamed of him, his smiling, his laughter, his face when he is trying to hide from your scolding. A happy life with a happy man, and even a glimpse of a child, a child you desired to have with him.

You both didn’t know if the world would even be safe, and knew that a “happily ever after” was near impossible for sorcerers or those within the circle, especially with someone like Gojo who had been different from the other sorcerers. However the world had changed for the better, you both knew that, so maybe, just maybe, his ending that intertwined with yours, and continues intertwining, could change too. However all you could do was dream in the meantime.

Nightmares became less common after that night.

*Credits to the amazing manga of JJK, also GOJO PLEASE COMEBACK ALIVE* *I hope you enjoyed! Mind you I’m not into JJK as a whole so I don’t understand the lore, please correct me if I do get things wrong!Also IM ALMOST DONE WITH SCHOOL AND FINALS AAAAA*

[lryghe]

MXTX thoughts; conventions

The long awaited (not) analysis of MXTX conventions is here! I’ve literally been meaning to talk about this for months but it got sidelined in favour of vicious arguing on PDB about MBTI. Anyways! Obviously this post will contain spoilers, and something I wanted to touch on was 3rd person limited in MXTX, but I already have a post on that here, so feel free to check that out for a better explanation of it. Beware of mediocre analysis ahead, I’m a little rusty (also shoutout to the person who liked some of my posts this morning, you reminded me to actually write something!).

THE AGENDA since this post is long:

Non-linear storylines

Dying and resurrection

Colour symbolism

Character tropes

NON-LINEAR STORYLINES

An interesting thing that follows MXTX’s more thought out works, is the non-linear plotlines she follows in them. This itself is a really good convention of writing in general, especially if it’s done well, and I can safely say that MXTX did it astoundingly well in TGCF. The clear cuts between time periods in relation to each book is an incredible feat, and is something that easily trumps MXTX's other examples of non-linear storylines. Through the use of the jumping back and forth in time, specifically in TGCF, creates an excellent cause and effect, something that is definitely central to the novel. Everything done has an effect, whether that be on the continuation of the plot, or even as a characterisation point, so the non-linear narrative cements that sense of foreboding hanging over everything. A simple sentence said when Xie Lian 17 somehow amounts to a complete upheaval of the heavens 800 years later, unveiling a conspiracy well over 2000 years old. A friendship group dissolving due to difficult circumstances results in a really horrific friendship confession later in the novel. Shi Wudu trying to save his sibling ends his own demise, the crippling of said sibling, and a vengeful ghost with nothing to do anymore. This nonlinear storyline is definitely used in MDZS as well, but I found it a bit more complex, and actually, now that I think about it, is a really good reflection of Wei Wuxian in general. The thing with MXTX, is that all her novels are in 3rd person limited, so they follow our protagonist in 3rd person, but it’s tinged with their own personal views and biases that limit the omniscience of 3rd person. And with MDZS it would be a fair assessment to say that the unordered mess of time leaps in the novel are an excellent indication of Wei Wuxian’s bias leaking through the 3rd person. The incessant jumping is difficult to follow in places (don’t say otherwise), but it’s actually a genius idea because it’s an accurate assessment of the thought process that Wei Wuxian probably follows anyway. I wouldn’t say that this was definitely on purpose however, as MDZS was written before TGCF, so it could just be MXTX growing alongside her writing, but hey, maybe it is a stroke of complete and beautiful genius! Don’t bother mentioning SVSSS, it’s definitely an interesting novel, but it’s not non-linear, at least not as wholly as MDZS and TGCF are. The most you’ll get in SVSSS is like a two line flashback, plus the extra’s, but I think that’s a reflection of when MXTX wrote it.

DYING AND RESURRECTION

Moving on from serious conventions, MXTX’s trope with one of the main characters dying and then coming back later is a really funny kind of convention, because it’s not funny in the moment obviously, but the fact that it’s done at least once per novel is hilarious. Wei Wuxian’s initial resurrection after 13 years of being dead, Shen Qingqiu’s return in his plant body 5 years later, and then his return back to his ‘original’ body, and Hua Cheng’s little death defying stunt at the end of the novel. Then there’s the use of cliffs and such, like Binghe’s fall into the Abyss, Hua Cheng’s fall off that wall (forgive me its been like 3 years since I read TGCF), and if we’re being inclusive, then there’s always Wei Wuxian’s death in The Untamed. Maybe there’s a hidden meaning in there somewhere, but it’s fine to look at it from a surface level, which amounts to ‘MXTX got bored and needed some drama’. A perfectly reasonable deduction. 

COLOUR SYMBOLISM

Another thing I wanted to touch on was the colour symbolism that MXTX uses because I think it’s pretty cool, AND it has the added benefits of adding symbolism and contrast to each novel's main character and their love interest. It’s mentioned in the novel’s obviously, but it really shines in fan content and fanarts. I like the symbolism of Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu’s robes both being green before the time-skip, because Luo Binghe was a disciple at the time and a little white lotus, so the green was used to directly align him with Shen Qingqiu. After the timeskip he’s obviously got his big boy pants on and swapped to a stunning black and red ensemble, fitting of the protagonist, and that itself contrasts Shen Qingqiu’s majestic and lofty green robes, because Binghe means business with this fit. A fun thought is how green and red fit together on the colour spectrum, because they don’t, they’re contrasting colours which is some real obvious symbolism. Do I really need to spell out Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian? I feel like this one is rudimentary. White equals noble and virtuous, pure and holy, and black is evil, demonic, cruel, and scary. Simple! And Hua Cheng and Xie Lian’s red and white are a very cute mixture, because although it gives them a Bingqiu style christmas tree vibe, it’s interesting in comparison to the previous two love interest and main character dynamics, considering red and white are a lot more complimentary than black and white or red and green. And it’s a testament to how similar Hualian are with their complimentary robes, how like-minded they are throughout the novel, especially considering their predecessors. Or maybe I’m overthinking it, who knows?

CHARACTER TROPES

In regards to tropes of MXTX, I think her character tropes are incredible and have the addition of being really funny. She’s consistent enough with her conventions that clear links can be drawn with her side characters across all 3 novels. To begin with, there’s Mr Angry. I think you can guess who that is, but it's Jiang Cheng, Liu Qingge, and Mu Qing. All have a really close relationship with their related main character, all are angry or harsh where they probably didn't need to be, and all three are good fighters. Then there’s the guy who’s always smiling, like Yue Qingyuan or Lan Xichen. Complacency is a key part of their characters, and excuses aside, it’s interesting how it played out. You could argue for Jun Wu to be a part of this circle, but I’ll keep that to myself. Finally, there’s the fodder characters, only useful to further the plot in a miniscule way. Gongyi Xiao (MAY HE REST WELL), Xiao Xingchen, and once again, I don’t have a very good TGCF equivalent. Gongyi Xiao dies after the events of the water prison, and Xiao Xingchen was really just there to highlight how fucked up Xue Yang was. Rest in peace our beloved fodder, especially Gongyi Xiao, MXTX should have treated you better…

I think I’ve typed myself out honestly. Kudos to whoever reached the end of this post, I haven’t written this much since my Team 7 analysis when I got back into my Naruto phase briefly.

Word count: 1271

Reading time: 4 ½ mins

[probssomethingorother]

🚨NEW CHAPTER! 🚨

Back & Forth: a the last of us fic

post-episode 8 Silver Lake hurt/comfort

Ellie & Joel, both riding the struggle bus, canon compliant

Rating: Mature for dark themes, nothing more than the show

It was Joel who stumbled first.He had felt the strength seeping out of him with every step so viscerally it was like his body was a container with a slow leak. His gate would falter and his hand would slip further down her shoulder, power waning. He would cough in his throat and blink forcefully trying to reignite the spark of energy that had carried him to Ellie just hours ago, but it was all a losing battle. And eventually, he lost it.It was Ellie who moved first after that.

chp 1 | chp 2 | chp 3 | chp 4 | chp 5 | chp 6 | chp 7 | chp 8 | chp 9| chp 10

CHAPTER 11!!!

read on Ao3 with the link above or below the cut ⤵️

❤️ remember comment where you can! ❤️

Her eyes were stuck on the back of the door. 

It was a nauseating shade of yellow with flakes of ancient paint curling away, exposing fissured grey wood beneath. It was bleak and bland, yet Ellie found her eyes glued to it, silently urging it to swing open again. She harbored a flickering hope that Joel would reconsider, that he would come back, that he wouldn't venture out there alone—or at least, not without her. 

Seconds stretched into agonizing minutes, but the door remained still. 

Ellie was alone.

Her breathing was uneven, her chest rising and falling silently in the chilly bathroom, the icy tiles biting at her bare feet and goosebumps blossoming on her exposed legs. 

The glance had been quick as Joel had dragged her down the hall, but she had seen enough: flames greedily nibbling at the couch's base, devouring dust and aged fabric, scorching it with too much ease, spreading upwards and onwards. And now she could smell it. 

One time, a records room at FEDRA went up in flames and she had to help bring water buckets to it. For some reason, it smelt just like that, almost to a T. It was smoky, yet also had a musty sort of aroma with faint hints of wet logs and old paper.

Ellie's fingers nervously palmed her switchblade, flicking it open and closed in a rhythmic pattern. Her mouth was going dry and her throat was beginning to feel tight as she envisioned the progress of it all, flames now hungry and angry, consuming everything in its path. 

She hoped not everything - not Joel. 

Joel - who was now braving the flames that were spreading across the living space, licking up the walls, cascading across the floor. 

His eyes darted around, trying to suddenly make sense of the situation, which wasn’t really all that hard of course: their shelter was on fire. 

Actually no - it wasn’t just on fire - someone had lit it on fire. Someone was lighting it on fire.

A targeted attack to flush them out, or hell, just burn them alive. 

With a lung-searing breath, Joel hastily gathered their rifles and their packs, sidestepping hot fiery pools of flames. His head was on a swivel as he tried to see what else had been left in the room, what could be saved - they had so little now, they couldn’t afford to lose any of it.

The blaze spread rapidly, growing as it joined their once small corner fire. Running along the perimeter, flames enveloped the thin curtains, transforming them into fiery veils. Smoke filled the room, stinging Joel's eyes and clogging his lungs, the heat pricking his skin like countless tiny pins

Squinting, Joel zeroed in on Ellie’s jeans and boots by the couch. When he took a step forward to retrieve them, his foot struck an object, sending it rolling. With time he didn’t have, he paused for a moment, eyes following as it traveled across the floor, coming to a halt against the baseboard of the wall a few feet away.  

A wine bottle, stuffed with cloth, somehow unbroken. 

Fucking molotovs. 

He knew that’s what they had been throwing, but seeing the evidence of it made anger in his heart smolder just as hot as the flames in the room, and it pounded with equal parts rage and urgency as he tore his eyes away and clenched his jaw. 

With a pained groan, he hastily reached down to grab Ellie’s stuff, their packs, and his rifle almost slipping off his back in the process. The moment he was straight again, he heard it - another crash, this time followed by a distant holler - words indistinguishable. 

They were coming for them. 

If fear hadn't already tightened its grip on his chest, it did now - viscerally enough that it was painful. 

He stayed eerily still for a moment, waiting for another crash, another yell, but the only sounds to fill his ears were the pops and snaps of the growing fire. 

Carefully, he crossed the living room to an unbroken window and brought his face to the glass, nose hitting the now warm pane. The sun was making its way up the horizon, bathing the outside in a warm glow that eerily matched the color of the burning living room. He could see the light of the flames refracting off, creating dancing shadows across the white snow. 

It would have been almost pretty if it wasn’t a sign of something so deadly.

He scoured the treeline, searching for whoever was out there. 

He knew it had to be the people from the resort, but couldn’t wager a guess about how many. By the rate at which the Molotovs had been thrown - at least two. But, there could be so many more - a fucking resort’s worth. 

Taking down a couple had been a strain - more? - jesus fuck. 

Joel held his breath as he stared and waited as long as he could, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was lurking out there. Sweat mingled with soot on his brow, the intense heat making his skin tingle uncomfortably, each breath becoming harder against the smokey air as his eyes moved around, scanning relentlessly. 

His heart was torn between the instinct to flee and the possibility of bringing Ellie out into danger - out into a potential ambush.  They could run, but neither were in much condition to make it far. Not in the cold. Not with injuries like there’s. Not trailed by people who knew the terrain far better than they did.  

He couldn’t even make it away last time without passing out. 

A fucking failure. 

No part of him could say for certain that wouldn't happen again.  Ellie would be forced to go at it alone - stare down a mob of men by herself - which he also couldn’t say for certain didn’t already happen once.  

“Okay look at me. There are men coming, okay?” Her voice drifted through his head almost hazily while his brain supplied a vision of her mouthing the words. He hadn’t been able to draw his eyes up to her at the time, exhaustion and delirium sticking his gaze to her lips instead. 

“ I’m going to lead them away from you.”

Another crash jolted him back to reality. 

Another bottle. Another burst of flames, this time through the kitchen window. 

He was running out of time. 

He couldn’t afford to linger and worry about what could happen next - not when it would mean their death. 

Joel quickly turned away from the window, his eyes casting a final lingering look back as he made his way out of the room. 

Just before exiting, he made a split-second decision and turned, ducking into the kitchen, and plucking the quilt from the ground. It was dangerously close to a pool of fiery alcohol creeping towards it, which had him leaning awkwardly and covering his eyes to avoid the sting of the heat. His teeth were clenched so hard that his side stung with the movement, almost to the point he thought his molars might crack.

The second the fabric was in his fingers, he was on the move again. As he turned to head down the hallway, he bunched up the blanket into a bearhug hold against his chest, holding it firmly alongside Ellie’s boots and pants.

His gait was uneven but hurried as he made his way back -  a plume of smoke eagerly trailed behind him like a competitor in some twisted race. A race he felt like he was losing. 

Knew he was losing. 

Without giving Ellie any warning, Joel burst back into the bathroom, the door urgently swinging open enough to hit the counter behind with a thwack.

Startled, Ellie’s instincts took over, and her hand shot out, gripping her switchblade tightly as she braced for the intruder, nostrils flared, stance hard. Her heart raced in her chest until she recognized Joel's disheveled appearance just a moment later. As relief washed over her, the tension in her shoulders eased, and she lowered the blade, allowing him to enter the bathroom completely. Joel released a long breath as he closed the door with his foot, a wisp of smoke slipping in behind him and skimming along the floor before it sealed shut. 

The moment it was closed, Joel dropped their belongings to the ground, shrugged off their packs and the rifle, and ripped off his coat. He wiggled it down his arms with haste and threw it to the floor, the weighty fabric landing on the cold tile with a modest thump. Ellie watched, wide-eyed and tense as he used his foot to shove it up against the doorframe, pressing the fabric firmly against the gap, sealing out the smoke that was sliding under. 

“It’s bad?” 

He turned around and nodded hard, not trying to sugar-coat the truth in the slightest. 

“Can’t stay,” he grunted, his voice low and resolute, locking on to her and looking her straight up and down. 

Every time he sees her now, his stomach continually drops like it somehow doesn’t have a bottom. His brain kept forgetting how he found her - expecting her to look like normal old Ellie - rosy, cheery, personality bigger than her body, not battered and broken.

She was still pantless, her sweatshirt riding up to her hips, no longer covering her thighs as before. Her wet hair hung in odd clumps, dripping down onto her shoulders. It left two massive wet spots on both sides of her collarbone, making the tan fabric turn dark. Her sweatshirt was still speckled in blood, and, of course, there were also the black soot stains from the last fire she had managed to escape.  

Shaking his head and gulping away the dryness in his throat, Joel grabbed Ellie’s backpack, turned toward the vanity, and plopped it into the sink. His hands stumbled to grasp at the zippers, his fingers surprisingly shaky. 

“Need’ta get clothes on you,” he said firmly, just as he was finally able to grasp the metal pull fastener, the zipping sound promptly scratching through the air and punctuating his sentence. 

Her backpack wasn’t all that big, but he did have to dig toward the bottom, pulling out her walkman and notebook and tossing them on the vanity counter so he could better see what else she had in there. Her metal water bottle was thrown aside too, a hollow clanking sound filling the air as it hit the counter and rolled. 

“Hey watch it, that’s my shit,” Ellie scolded, arms crossing in front of her chest with a flicker of a pout. She knew he wasn’t trying to be rough - he was just rushing. Yet, she couldn’t hold the comment back. Her emotions were getting a bit jumbled - she always met fear with snarkiness. Growing up in FEDRA had her masking emotions from a young age; otherwise, she would have been eaten alive. 

“Your clothes in my bag?” Joel asked quickly, hands meeting the dirty bottom of hers without finding anything more. 

Confused, she replied, “What?”

“Your spares - ain’t here.” He patted and squeezed at the sides, checking the outer pockets - not that they could fit clothes anyway. He then paused, looking up to meet Ellie's eyes in the mirror’s reflection. “In mine?” he suggested, raising his own brows.  

She took a tentative step toward him, arms falling limply to her sides. A defeated expression gradually overtook her features as she peeked around his shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of her bag. 

"Oh... um..." Her voice wavered with uncertainty, her words faltering, as relayed, "They should've been in there."

“Are you sure they ain’t mine?” Joel began, turning to retrieve his bag to investigate, “didn’t you just get- ”

"Yeah. I just fucking just did," she replied, annoyance briefly cutting through her words, a sharp edginess to them. “Those assfucks probably just took them or something.” 

Joel heaved out a shaky breath, anxiety rearing its head monetarily. He knew that was the truth, but it was still not a reality he wanted to have to face, but, there was also no time to dwell on it either. 

“It’s fine I’ll just put back on the -” Joel instantly began shaking his head at her suggestion, causing Ellie to leave the rest unsaid. 

When he had picked up her pants in the living room before, they were cool to the touch and damp, the heat of the room doing little to melt away the iciness still somehow clinging to the fibers. 

“Your pants are too wet; you’ll freeze when we get outside. I got an extra - will make that work.” 

Joel leaned down for his backpack, movements surprisingly brisk as he hoisted the bag off the floor and to the counter, landing it with a thud on the edge of the sink.  His hands dove inside the worn weathered bag, fingers dancing across its contents until they found what he sought, going on touch rather than sight. Dragging his arm up, he pulled the pants out from the very bottom. 

They certainly were not the cleanest, grimy in fact, but they were dry - which really was all either of them could ask for right now. Without a moment's hesitation, he balled and flung them back towards Ellie, not even glancing her way, his focus entirely on his pack, lost in finding the next thing and planning their next steps. 

The denim struck her chest and nearly slipped through her arms, its abrupt arrival catching her off guard. “Joel, what the fuck, dude.”   

The list seemed endless - clothes, protection, exiting, running, cover …  god forbid he would need to fight them off. Every new thing his brain remembered made the air feel even thicker in the bathroom - chest squeezing and squeezing and squeezing - barely able to grab air. 

"Put‘em on." His voice was clipped - rough and urgent- as he rubbed a soothing hand across his chest for a second. He felt like he could hear the ticking of a clock, counting them down until it was all too late - until the situation was finally one of complete failure. 

And no matter how fast he was trying to go - trying to get them to go - it wasn’t going to be enough. They were losing the race. 

“Are you serious?” 

He didn’t dignify it with a reply - they really didn’t have the time. 

"Dude, these aren't going to-" Ellie began to counter, but Joel silenced her, his frustration finally spilling over, voice tinged with exasperation: 

“Just- Goddammit Ellie!” 

It came out with an unintended force that made Ellie flinch - left foot sliding back, body shying away, the click of her switchblade firing open on instinct. She was jumpy down to her bones now - ready to fight, always. 

The silence was thick for a moment as the ring of Joel’s voice lingered in the air, bouncing off the tile and settling between them. He hadn’t met to yell; but like the flames surely biting at the door by now, dread and fear and frustration were burning hot inside him. 

“Sorry…just..,” his hands found the edge of the counter and gripped it hard, knuckles going white while he dropped his head and lowered his voice. With a steadying breath, he continued, “Please listen to me, okay?” He moved his head to the side, balancing his chin on his shoulder as he glanced back at her. “Don’t got time to do this.” 

She gave him a long slow nod before holding the jeans out in front of her and eyeing them up and down. “Sorry,” she mumbled as she gently placed her switchblade on the counter, freeing both her hands to put the pants on.  Tears pricked at her waterline, and she pretended it was just because the bathroom's air was gradually thickening with smoke, a hazy veil forming. She whipped Joel’s jeans in the air, fluffing out the pant legs as she backed toward the toilet, sitting down to put them on. 

Turning back to his bag, Joel muttered, "can't find my spare socks," - more to himself than to her.  His fingers dug through the pack, moving aside items in a desperate bid to find them, eyebrows scrunching closer and closer every second he came up empty-handed. 

“My extra socks? You put’em somewhere?” 

“Used’em. For when you got stabbed. I didn’t have gauze,” she told him flatly as she wiggled her feet through the long pant legs, focusing hard on getting them on.

Joel let out another deep long sigh, learning they were down another crucial item - this time without a replacement. 

Nothing could be easy. 

“Okay,” he muttered softly, taking out an undershirt and flannel and putting them aside before zipping both his and Ellie’s bags up. 

His gaze shifted back to Ellie, concern etched in his features as he watched her struggle with the oversized jeans. Even though she was sitting on the closed toilet lid, her movements were labored as she gathered the excess fabric up her legs. Each bend and twist seemed to draw a silent wince from her. The bruises on her ribs protested under the strain. 

"You okay?" Joel asked, although he knew the answer - clearly could see it. 

Ellie nodded, biting her lip as she worked through the discomfort. 

Briefly, he returned to his task, grabbing the crusty yellowing shirt, and, with a slight grimace, clenched the fabric between his teeth and tore, ripping two sizable pieces - the sound of the tear piercing through the air. He placed them on the counter and then quickly turned his attention back to Ellie just as she stood up from her seat. 

She had managed to pull the jeans up to her hips, but they were comically large, the waistband gaping and slipping down. 

“They’re not going to stay,” she muttered, a note of frustration in her voice as she gathered a handful of fabric at the waistband to keep them in place and then looked up at Joel. 

Within an instant, he was taking off his belt, not having to think longer than a second about it. The leather whipped through the air with a sharp snap, the sound echoing in the small bathroom, just as the shirt had done seconds ago. 

He handed her the belt, and she began threading it through the loops of the jeans as Joel stepped around and crouched in front of her, bracing on the sink cabinet to lower himself to the floor with a prolonged wince of pain. His hands quickly came to the bottom of the jeans and began rolling them up, cuffing them several times until they were the proper length. 

Ellie leaned to the side, reaching for her switchblade with a grimace. She tried not to move too much, mindful of Joel's hands still busy with the fabric at her ankles. Her fingers wrapped around the blade, and she began to carve a new hole into the leather - the existing ones too few to keep the pants tightly in place.

Bending her head down and keeping it there, even just briefly as she drilled a new hole, sent a wave of dizziness crashing over her. The pressure in her head-mounted, concussion flaring up.

Suddenly unsteady, Ellie swayed, her balance faltering. She sat back down on the toilet- a soft thump marking her descent. 

Caught off-guard, and hands still on her pants, Joel almost toppled forward, barely catching himself from falling out of his crouch as he moved with her. He quickly flicked his eyes up to her, a silent question in his gaze, but she was already focused back on the belt - determined but clearly uncomfortable. 

He wasn’t thrilled she was sitting back down - didn’t bode well for what was coming next - but he kept that to himself.  Pants cuffed, Joel straightened up - shakily.  

“Get your boots and socks on,” he instructed as he glanced toward the door. Ellie gave him a nod as he crossed over to it, his movements quick and tense. Holding his breath, he reached out, cautiously touching the wood and the doorknob, checking for any signs of heat.

It was cool, but that did little to quell his anxiety. 

“We need to hurry.” He pressed, looking back towards her. 

“I’m not trying to be fucking slow,” Ellie pushed back.

Her blade finally pierced through Joel’s belt and she threw it back onto the counter and she fumbled to close the buckle. Her head was really starting to pound again, clearly over-irritated; and maybe it was the addition of the smoke, but it was coming to the point where her throat felt tight, nausea mounting. 

“I know you ain’t- just- gotta keep goin’ okay - can’t slow down.”

She screwed her eyes shut for a moment, so hard the little crow's feet scrunched at the sides of her face. It numbed the pain for a second, but not completely. 

“My fucking head is making that a little hard,” she admitted. 

Seeing the pained look on her face, Joel was moving to help her before she even had time to protest, hands digging into her boots and retrieving her still-damp socks, balled and cold. He gave his head a small shake as he unraveled them, chastising himself for not laying them out by the fire after stripping them off her before. 

Carefully, again, he bent down in front of where she sat. 

“So we’re just going to run?”

He scrunched up the fabric, stretched out the opening, and slipped it onto her foot with a fluidity that was surely born from years of practice.

“Don’t have much else of a choice.”

“It’s still snowing right?” She asked, tone tinged with a subtle sense of worry. 

He paused for a fraction second - an image of her going hypothermic again, but he quickly cleared the intrusive thought away.

“It’s slowing down,” he said with a curt nod. He hoped it was true. 

When both socks were on he leaned and grabbed her boots. His fingers plucked at the laces, loosening them quickly, before hastily and roughly wedging them onto her feet, little care for any possible discomfort. Ellie’s face scrunched as she tried to help, pushing her feet down into the stiff boots - practically semi-frozen. 

“I don’t have a coat-“ 

“-You’ll take mine.” He replied firmly and quickly- answer already in mind. He pulled hard at her laces - the sharp sound punctuating the end of his statement as he synched the boot up as tight as it would go. 

Ellie’s eyes followed his hands as they made work of her laces. Despite Joel’s best efforts to keep them steady, they were shaking like a leaf, barely able to keep the ties from fumbling out from between his fingers. 

“They - the people from the town - it’s them right?” She asked, voice dropping softer than it had been, true emotions finally starting to peek through. 

Joel looked up through his brows briefly, catching her eyes with his. He nodded slowly, with an affirmative hum as he tucked both the pant legs into her boots as best as possible. 

Ellie exhaled hard through her nose, enough to where Joel could feel the warm air hit his forehead.

“It’ll be alright - ain’t nothin’ we can do about them ‘sept run, but first we need ta focus on gettin’ outta here, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered in a soft reply.

Once both boots were snugly on, Joel rose to his feet, wincing slightly from a sharp pain in his side. Ellie mirrored his action, gingerly supporting her ribs with a protective arm. Joel swiftly grabbed his spare flannel from the counter, shaking it out before gripping the sleeves firmly. He approached Ellie, extending the shirt towards her. Confusion flickered across her face as he moved closer, her eyes narrowing and eyebrows knitting together in a silent question.

But, there wasn’t any time to ask what he was doing - movements purposeful and fluid. Quickly, he placed the shirt over her hair, and brought the sleeves down the sides of her face and under, carefully tying the flannel like a headscarf, securing the knot under her chin.

Suddenly, the sound of another crash echoed through the door, followed by distant hollering that seeped in through a small crack in the bathroom window. This time, although still coming from outside, the voices were much more clear - “We know you’re in there!” 

Ellie’s eyes flicked toward the window, following the sound of the voices, eyes blown wide.

“You look at me, Ellie-”,  Joel said forcefully, grabbing at her chin, pushing her eyes to meet him instead. They were drowning in apprehension, but he desperately needed her to focus. 

“We get out there, you keep runnin’, you understand?”

Even held firm in place by his hand, she managed to give her head a small defiant shake side to side. She didn’t want to leave him.

“Keep goin’ even if you don’t see me, okay?” His voice softened just slightly - a contrast to the hard set of his jaw and the worry etched deep in the lines around his eyes.

“But-”

“You keep goin’ til you can’t run no more then you find somewhere small. Tuck yourself in and hide, real small.” 

Joel’s hand trailed from her chin and to the side of her face, fingers skimming the edge of the flannel. Gently, he tucked a stray piece of her cold wet hair beneath the fabric as his thumb rubbed gently at her cheekbone. 

“You can do that right?” 

Her eyes were prickling with tears now, beads of water pooling at the edges. She couldn’t think of anything worse than leaving him. 

“You won’t-” 

“- I’ll find you. I found you last time. I’ll do it again.” 

He didn't know what else to say to make this any less scary. 

Swallowing down a lump in his throat, Joel turned away and took the remnants of his shirt, now reduced to scraps, and dampened them with the last of their water. It wasn't much, but it was enough. He handed one piece to Ellie and wrapped the other around his face, fashioning it into a makeshift bandana.  

"Do the same," he instructed, his voice muffled behind the cloth. Ellie did. 

As he put the back and rifle over his shoulder, he gave her the plan - raising his voice so it was clear even blocked by the cloth.

“We’re goin’ to try to go out the slider in the living room.” 

“Not the front?”

“Think they are trying to push us that way. So I need you to do what I say when I say it alright? Don’t have time for questions.”

Ellie gave Joel a nervous look but ultimately nodded hard. 

He stooped to pick up his coat from the floor, the fabric heavy and stiff. He held it open for Ellie, guiding her arms through the sleeves and zipping her in. He then did the same with her  backpack, ensuring it was securely on her shoulders. 

He couldn’t help but pause for a second and look at her - bundled to the nines, everything too big. Despite their best efforts, Joel’s pants were bunching and hanging weirdly out of the tops of her boots. His coat hung off her shoulders and stretched all the way just past the middle of her thighs, a short dress of sorts. Even his flannel covering her hair and the half piece of shirt over her mouth looked too big - out of place. 

And peaking through it, were her eyes - big brown orbs that he had never seen so filled with worry. They were the most out of place of it all. 

Joel took a breath.

“You trust me?” 

“Yeah, just -” she said, bending to grab the quilt from the floor and handing it to him, shaking her head instead of finishing her sentence with words. He took the fabric from her with a sympathetic nod. 

“I know you're scared.”

“I’m not scared,” she lied, voice gaining a higher pitch as a red flag. 

“I ain’t going to let anything happen to us,” Joel offered - it was perhaps a lie too.

Turning around, he approached the door once more, palm pressing against its surface, testing the safety of the other side. The wood was still cool to the touch - a small mercy. He cracked the door open, and tendrils of smoke immediately pushed in, hitting his eyes, and he shut it. He took a step back, blinking hard, and then opened the door again, more prepared this time. He quickly popped his out checking the hallway was safe before closing the door a fraction of an inch.

“Ready?”

Ellie nodded. 

“Ready.”

With a firm but reassuring grip, Joel took Ellie's wrist. He opened the door fully, and pulled her through, moving quickly. The fire blazing in the living room was encroaching on the beginning of the hallway, casting long, orange ominous shadows down to them.  

He had them pause at the doorway to the living room, taking in the now heavy inferno of crackling flames and suffocating smoke. It had progressed more than he thought it would have - slider almost too far away.

Joel's eyes darted around, seeking out a viable path through the blaze, but nothing was all that much more clear than anything else.

“Joel,” she called out anxiously - taking in the same sight as he was.  

“I know,  I know,” he replied, voice laced with urgency. He gave her wrist a gentle reassuring squeeze before ushering her in front of him, dragging her by the same grip. “Get in front of me,” he said, positioning her so close that her backpack dug into his stomach. If his brain and body weren’t so preoccupied with reconciling the fact it was about to walk through fire, the pain of her bag hitting his stitches probably would have sent him to the ground. Instead, he sucked in a startled pained breath which only had him coughing, despite the wet cloth over his face and nose. 

Recentering, he continued: “You’re goin’ to have to stay real close, okay?” 

Joel took the quilt, draped it over his back, and then extended it over her, enclosing them both inside the fabric. 

“Take’em… hold ‘em from the inside,” he instructed between lingering tickles of a cough, holding out the blanket’s edges for Ellie to grasp onto it. 

She gave a brisk nod and took the ends for him, one hand still grasping her switchblade and the other shaking, but still managed to hold the quilt in place around them. Joel’s arms snaked back towards his center, stopping at Ellie’s head and pushing it down - chin to her chest- before ultimately landing on her shoulders. He could feel she was shaking. 

“I’ll lead ya - just stay tucked.”

Ellie responded with a small nod, Joel’s flannel on her head scratching against the fabric of the quilt. It was better like this-  she didn’t want to look at the flames anyway. 

Joel inched forward, his steps deliberate and slow, navigating through the inferno with a protective vigilance. The heat was intense, a pressing force against their makeshift shield. The crackling of the fire mingled with the sound of their labored breathing, creating an almost rhythmic cadence amidst chaos tearing away at the living room. 

The quilt got tighter, Ellie's grip on the ends increasing at the front. 

A loud crack resonated through the room as a burning chunk of the ceiling crumpled, plummeting down toward them just inches away. The sound had Joel's instincts kicking in immediately,  and with a swift movement, he turned Ellie to the side, ducking them both out of its path. Narrowly avoiding the falling debris, they were enveloped in a shower of sparks and embers as the remnants hit the ground - white-hot grains hitting the quilt instead of their clothes. Hesitantly, Joel raised his head and straightened up, heart beating fast as he appraised the status of their path forward now. The large piece of plaster on the ground was definitely in their way, but thankfully, was not blocking the entire way forward.

A small miracle. 

With renewed determination, Joel guided Ellie away toward the open route, shuffling to the side past the hot burning couch. The heat was almost unbearable now, and the smoke made it hard to see and breathe. Joel was finding it hard to even keep his eyes open. 

"Nearly there," he murmured, half-lost in the roar of the fire. He wasn't sure if he was reassuring Ellie or himself. He could feel the tension in her body, the slight shivers that weren't just from the heat. It was fear, raw and unfiltered, but she was holding on, just as he was.

His hold on her shoulders tightened, pulling her closer, ensuring she was as shielded as possible from the flames. The perimeter flames were more intense than those engulfing the furniture in the center, and despite knowing it necessary - a small part of Joel couldn’t help but wonder if he was making the wrong decision. 

Suppressing a set of coughs, Joel pressed on, the tips of his boots colliding with Ellie’s heels as they shuffled the last few feet, his gaze fixed forward on the reflective glow of the sliding glass door. When his hand finally came to the handle, he threw it open with expeditious force. The frame bounced off as it hit the end of the track and the glass crackled as it broke apart more- the hole Ellie had put in it acting as an epicenter to a full shatter. 

He urged Ellie out first, following immediately behind and slamming the glass slide shut. Together they took several hasty steps forward, almost tripping each other up still wrapped in the quilt, before Ellie finally released her grip on it, dropping it into the snow, and freeing them both. 

For a moment, neither of them moved - caught off guard by how warm the outside air felt against the exposed bits of their faces- not bitterly cold like it should have been. The promise of crisp cool air would have been a prize for making it out - and now, the fire took that away too.

Ellie raked in a breath, the fabric of Joel’s t-shirt sucking into her mouth with the heave as she blinked several times, trying to moisten her dry eyes. Joel did the same, breaths deep, chest rising and falling as he stood behind her. He wiped the remaining smoke from his eyes as they dissected the treeline of the backyard, not allowing himself much time to catch his breath at all. 

Joel's body tensed, his stance shifting subtly, eyes narrowing. 

His hands found Ellie's back, landing squarely between her shoulder blades. With a firm push, he propelled her forward.

“Run.” 

[nonsensical-pixels]

THE LINDASIMS2 RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTATION: PART SIX

Today, it's finally here, and with proper grammar and punctuation (hopefully!), as my 200th post. The proof that only @lindasims2 could've destroyed her own content.

As a bloody April Fool's joke.

And we've all been blind to it for years and years and years.

With the help of @fireflowersims, @bstu, my buddies Yolkema and Zeta_Reticuli on the Simscord, @honeymoonseason, and many other lovely folks who are also tired of Linda and her followers' BS, we finally got proof that only LINDA, ONLY LINDA, could've destroyed those files we got.

Keep reading, it's a long one, but I promise it's worth it.

THE REASON FOR THE POLYCOUNT

Firstly, I returned to my roots: the March 2021 set. I wanted to see what else I’d missed. Now, when I loaded up a specific pair of leggings Linda made, I finally understood why the polycount is so high.

If you zoom in closely, you can clearly see that each subset is duplicated multiple times. At first I thought that was normal, until I realised that it's all identical. And uh, that's not normal!

Now, what did Linda herself say? That she has experience in… clothing?

Yeah, I’m pretty sure you'd be able to do this, Linda. With your eyes closed.

THE JPG IMAGES

For awhile I wondered why this particular image was thrown in so randomly into not just this file, but almost every file in the March 2021 dump. But thanks to Linda’s providing that lovely VK link on her callout post against NoMoreSims2Patreon, I finally know the only person in this that had any ‘sentimentality’ regarding Mr Junior over here. (Yes, it’s not actually McQueen, which makes it all the more specific! I love it!)

This was posted just 1 day after that lovely March 2021 dump finally released, on 1st April. No coincidence, I bet, that this Junior is being sent by the lovely lindasims2 herself! Photo provided by @honeymoonseason and also shared to me by multiple others :]

Yeah, Linda, what do you have to say to this…? Your favourite fake Lightning McQueen has finally exposed who actually placed him in this file, and only because you were kind enough to link us to your VK group <3

THE DATES

So, after this pretty incriminating discovery, I decided to backtrack and take a look at what Linda claimed in her callout post to NoMoreSims2Patreon:

These files were apparently last edited on March 28, many days after Linda made a post announcing them. Which points to the leaker being the one to edit them, right?

Well…Linda, did you forget how you operate or something?

Linda uploaded these files on April 1st 2021, having ‘forgotten’ to upload them on March 31st. Credits go to @caramelsmiles12 and @honeymoonseason for the pics <3 Yeah, Linda, thanks for admitting your own guilt?

It’s impossible for any leaker to be able to edit files before they’re even released. To my understanding, Linda purposefully added those corrupt characters and NSFW defaults to her CC, as a sick April Fool’s prank on the people who download her leaked CC.

All of the files you see above, have had the hidden sim, PT 19 (also renamed some very bad slurs by Linda) slipped in. (Though #332 has been accidentally saved by me, lol). The top-only teen-elder male folder also contains the weird gigantoborkodoggo default. And they were all last edited a day before Linda even released the files to her subscribers.

THE EXPERIMENTS

@fireflowersims was kind enough to do some experiments with the corrupted files, to see what else we could find, as well as to dig deeper in them. I won’t state all of them here, but here are a few that stood out to me:

THE LOGIC

I can already hear Linda’s hardcore defendersand subscribers in my askbox (like @alicestrife and @sims2x10 <3) claiming that the pics have been edited, that somehow I have changed the story, etc. I have done nothing except look at the facts I have dug up or been shown. If you want proof, look at this post, it contains some stuff that may interest you and was found over a year ago. As well as the original files :]

I can already see that not being enough for some of you, so here’s the logic even if you don’t take the incriminating Junior (yeah, the fake Lightning McQueen) JPG, or the fact that the files were edited pre-release, into account.

Let’s look at the pros and cons to corrupting these files, for both Linda and her leakers.

PROS FOR LINDA: Gets to ‘expose’ the leaker that has been a thorn in her side all this time. Gets to prank the clueless people who download from her for April Fool’s. Gets more subscribers since people are desperate for ‘good’ content from her.

CONS FOR LINDA: Some people may accuse her, but of course, she always points them to her leakers. Because who else gets direct content from her? Only her hardcore patrons, who won’t turn against her.

PROS FOR LEAKERS: Uhh… maybe gets a kick out of seeing people get mad at Linda?

CONS FOR LEAKERS: People no longer trust them. They won’t download their content, which is how pirates survive in this community. Attitudes towards pirates have always been terrible in this community, especially from the paywallers themselves. Also, people will probably accuse them since they are the people who reupload CC.

Who do you think would have corrupted these files, even without the evidence shown above?

SUMMARY

Stolen meshes, illegally paywalled content, etc. was never enough for Lindasims2, clearly. No, she had one thorn in her side that she wanted to get rid of: NoMoreSims2Patreon, who continually shared her files FOR FREE to the public and meant she made much, much less money.

So, for one final April Fool’s joke of leaked content, she slipped in a very large, very corrupted surprise for anyone who downloaded from her leaker–and sat back and waited. A year later, @dystopianam stumbled across that hidden surprise and on spiraled this saga of discoveries by myself and many others.

However, Linda made a couple of mistakes. She assumed people would look at her response post and think, oh, surely it’s the leaker! Linda’s dates match up!

But thanks to Dale Earnhardt Jr. himself, a bunch of Simscorders and many others decided to research further. And found her lie. Thanks for having such love for a minor Cars 1 character, Linda!

I urge everyone to do their best to report Linda’s Tumblr account, Boosty, Patreon, etc. What she has done ON PURPOSE to destroy people’s games and frame others is NO JOKE. I am not sure if we can take legal action against this sort of ‘malware’ that she produced many years ago, but I know one thing.

A minimum of 2278 simmers have downloaded the reuploaded archive containing Linda’s special April Fool’s 2021 joke. 2278, not counting anyone who might’ve been shared these files through other links, downloaded them from friends, etc. 

CHECK YOUR GAMES, guys! And for the love of all things holy, STOP SUPPORTING SIMS PAYWALLERS! ESPECIALLY THIEVES LIKE LINDA!

[centrally-unplanned]

To recount a twitter story, Kenny Lauderdale posted this very normcore review of the English release of Gainax VN Princess Maker 2 from the May 1996 edition of the (Michigan) Times Herald:

It includes some great quotes, like Japanese professor Etsuko Yamashita believing its existence is a step back for feminism - very amusing given how gender-equal the player base for these games is today! Time marches past us all. Sometimes for the better - it cost $140 in Japan on release!?

But what I found interesting was the art featured - because that isn't Princess Maker 2?

This is PM2, that girl above is not our player-named protagonist.

Turns out that is art is from Princess Maker 3:

You can see specific scenes like the beach as well, in case you had any doubt. This is weird though because, well, Princess Maker 3 came out in January of 1997? More than half a year after this article was published! Which means they somehow had access to promotional material for Princess Maker 3? Which to be clear absolutely did exist at the time - in fact, Princess Maker 3 was bought up by Sony as a limited release for their brand-new console the Playstation. PM3 was actually featured on the cover of the first ever volume of the Dengeki Playstation magazine, released in January of 1995 (the PS1 coming out in December 1994):

Alas I haven't found a copy of this scanned online, so I can't say what it contained. This being two years before the game's release does honestly point to some development hell drama, the timeline for a game back then should not be that lengthy. Man, wonder what was happening at Gainax in 1995 that might have been a distraction...

Still, we have a question of how this American newspaper article got their hands on them. It also seems worthwhile to note that this article is syndicated - it was published in a dozen newspapers across the country around this time, but with different titles and photos to fit each paper's needs. And other papers do have correct Princess Maker 2 screenshots on them!

I have no grand answer here or anything, sorry guys, but I think we can infer it. The article itself actually mentions that a "third one" is now in the works, which is something they would have learned from the publisher of the English version, IntraCorp (they weren't reading Japanese press magazines in 1996!). IntraCorp likely wanted them to mention it because they themselves were going to hopefully license it, assuming the first (well, second) one was successful - this was their first foray into this specific licensing niche, previously making action games like Witchaven II: Blood Vengeance. In early 1996 they sent out copies & press kits to reviewers, and I am guessing that copy almost certainly included - perhaps poorly labeled - promotional material for Princess Maker 3 as well that Gainax had provided them, so they would mention it in the article and seed hype. The harried layout editor at The Times Herald opened the wrong folder and threw them on the page by mistake - after all the author didn't work for him, he worked for the Associated Press. He had no experience with the game to know his error.

We will never know because this is a niche curiosity from almost 30 years ago, sure, but we will also never know because the game being reviewed above...was never released! IntraCorp declared bankruptcy soon after the publication of this article. They were not the localizers themselves - a team of 4 people called SoftEgg were - but their contract with them was binding enough that it left the virtually-finished translated copy in perpetual legal limbo. Eventually it was leaked onto the internet as a form of abandonware a few years later. The hard-working men of America never got to be "Sim Dad" in 1996 unless they were intrepid enough to be UseNet Forum users hunting down and running Japanese-language romhacks.

Which is not a hypothetical, that was occurring. I will leave you all with the opening quote from the rec.arts.anime group's User Manual for navigating your Nihongo copy of Princess Maker 2, preserved still in the roms you can download today:

We all know of Gainax as being the wonderful company that brought us Wings of Honneamise, Otaku no Video as well as multitudes of garage kits and other paraphenelia. However with the release of Princess Maker 2, one might think that their true calling is in computer software! This band of self described otakus which managed to lose almost all their profits in the anime business have come back by releasing several computer games (some of which were on display at Anime Con).

...written, of course, in 1994 :)