#make way for the motherlode

[todayinhiphophistory]

Today in Hip Hop History:

Yo-Yo released her debut album Make Way For The Motherlode March 19, 1991

[mypoisonedvine]

𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 | dark-ish!joel miller x reader

sequel to 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐞

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | your... relationship with joel, if you can call it that, has become all you know. you might be his only indulgence, but what happens to you when he needs to leave the boston qz?

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 | just under 6k

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | no episode 2 spoilers/no relationship to the show's plot, extremely dubious consent SMUT (18+ only as always; unprotected sex, non-graphic somnophilia, free use, cnc), angst, graphic depictions of addiction, drug use, and withdrawals, daddy kink, breeding kink, implied but unspecified age gap, degradation and praise, mean!joel but with some hints of soft!joel in there

The lights are on, but you’re not home

Your mind is not your own

Your heart sweats, your body shakes

Another kiss is all it takes…

There were words in your mind, a faint melody echoing, but you couldn’t tell where any of it came from.  You didn’t think you dreamt it, but you weren’t even sure if you’d been asleep this morning.  Time didn’t seem to move the same way when he was gone.

You were tangled in Joel’s sheets, but suddenly it was too warm for them and so you kicked them off, letting the still air of the room sink onto your bare skin.  Your eyes were open sometimes, shut other times… but because the view never changed— the window, the table and chair, the radio— you never knew how much time had passed.

It had to be afternoon when you heard the door open and shut; normally, if he came back during the day, it was the afternoon.  You imagined getting up and greeting him, but you knew you couldn’t— too tired, exhausted to the bone, still recovering from what happened before he left this morning.  In fact, you were already damn near asleep again by the time he had stepped inside.

He approached the bed, tilting his head slightly as he watched you lay still on your back.  He said nothing, just started to open his belt.

“I can’t,” you pouted, but he just grinned at you.

“Can’t say no to me, baby,” he reminded you softly.

“Joel, please,” you whimpered, as he climbed on top of you with a groan, “no— m’still sore…”

“Shh,” was his only reply, his hand reaching into his jeans so he could guide his cock to your opening.  He wasn’t even fully hard yet— but he was hard enough, and he forced his head into you with a grunt.

“Fuck,” you sobbed, holding onto him tightly to cope with the pain; he stretched you open and reawakened the pain from before when he’d fucked you for hours, spitting on your pussy to keep it wet when your body had given all it could.

He buried his face in your neck, breathing in deep, whispering a few things you were too caught up in your discomfort to really make out.  “Just need you right now,” that was one you remembered— “need you, baby…”

This was pretty typical.  Well, it didn’t always hurt this much, but waiting for him all day just so he could come back and use you however he wanted, that was normal.  So normal that you’d basically forgotten what life was like before this— before him, before the pills… it was like a memory of a dream, fading faster than you could try to remember it each morning.

He kept you high pretty much constantly, though not nearly enough for your tastes.  It was a delicate balance: not enough pills, and you might say ‘fuck this’ and leave him, if you even knew how; too many, and you’d be too fucked up to do what he said— or worse, you might OD.  His regiment for you was strict, and designed to keep you addicted enough that you needed him but without getting your tolerance too high.

It was only a few months after this little arrangement started that you moved in.  He wanted access to you all the time, and frankly, you only agreed to it because you thought you could find out where he kept the motherlode and steal a lifetime supply of pills before disappearing into the night.  Of course, even if you had found the stash, he would’ve found you not too much later— because it’s Joel, and that’s what he does.  But it didn’t matter now, because you never found anything more than what he was already going to give you, and that was… you didn’t even know how long ago that was.  Everything was sort of a blur now.

He pulled out, but he wasn’t done; he was only stopping to roll you onto your stomach, running his rough hand down your bare back with a soft hum.  You hissed as he slid inside you again, but if you knew how to do anything by now, it was how to lay down and take it.  Joel admired this talent of yours; “Jus’ take it, baby, mm,” he cooed encouragingly, his thrusts deeper yet slower as he got back to it.  “Good girl.”

Even though you were so weak you could hardly grab the thin pillow under your head, you still moaned and arched your back at that.  You tried not to think too much about why you craved his approval so much, mostly because deep down, you already knew: he gave you purpose, the one thing drugs couldn’t give you.  The pills kept you happy, numb, satisfied; he made you feel like you actually might have some shred of value, even if he was the one who robbed you of your dignity, freedom, your independence of both body and mind.

It was worth it, though.  A fair trade, you thought.

“Joel,” you whimpered when his fingers dug into your arm, holding you tight while he laid on top of you; his lips and teeth trailed along your neck and shoulder, his hips grinded against your ass as he fucked you as deep as he could.  By now, it didn’t hurt when he went that deep— you’d basically built up an immunity, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t still be sore when he fucked you before he left only to do it all again as soon as he came home.  His stamina was impressive at best, dangerous at worst… you might not have agreed to move in here if you knew how often he would want to get his dick wet.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “s’me, baby, m’right here…”

You wondered if he really thought you weren’t sure— you weren’t that high, but it wasn’t the most outlandish idea.  Sometimes you woke up to him already inside you, sometimes you drifted in and out of consciousness while he was using you and he didn't even slow down— sometimes he'd give your face little slaps to try to keep you awake, mumbling 'look at me, baby, look up at me with those pretty eyes'...

Maybe you dreamed those, you couldn't even be sure.  "So good," he grunted as his pace increased and he fucked you faster.  "Perfect little pussy, nice and tight for me."

You buried your face deeper in the pillow to muffle your whines, but he yanked your head back by your hair.  “Fuck!” you yelped as he pressed his lips to your ear.

“Wanna hear you,” he explained in a grunt that made shivers jump up and down your spine like lightning.  “Lemme hear how much my little whore likes it— let ‘em all hear.”

“Fuck,” you said again, closer to a sob now, “Joel, daddy, please— please, fuck, m’gonna—”

“Gonna cream for me?” he finished for you, and you shut your eyes tight as you nodded.  His free hand was kneading your ass, still decorated with a few old bruises from the last time he gave you some nice hard spanks.  “Gonna soak my dick?”

“Yeah,” you panted, “yeah— you’re gonna make me come…”

He let go of your hair, instead wrapping his arm around your neck— he didn’t use it to choke you this time, just to keep you close as he pressed himself to you.  He usually stayed fully dressed, and didn’t give you anything to cover yourself; you would steal a shirt of his from time to time, only for him to take it back to put on before he left— as if he didn’t have anything else he could wear, you knew he had more than one fucking shirt.

Maybe he just wanted to make you stay naked.  Maybe he just wanted to take the scent of you with him when he left.  Who’s to say?

“So good, so fuckin’ good,” he praised, groaning loudly as he sped up even more.  “Tell me what you want.”

That was code for tell me what I want to hear.  “Want you to come inside, daddy,” you sighed, “wan’ it all inside me, please, want you to— to fill my pussy—”

“Fuck,” he moaned, his voice deeper than ever, and a shudder tensed up your insides around him.  “Yeah— fuck, keep going.”

“Please, please,” you rambled, your own pleasure ready to burst even though there was still that edge of pain to it all, “wanna be full of your come— wanna… want you to… knock me up…”

He laughed, but then he growled a second later and fucked you more brutally than ever until you bit back a scream.  “Yeah?  Fuck, you’re such a needy slut,” he spat.  “Need my come that bad?  ‘Cause you wanna be pregnant?”

You swallowed, nodding as you pretended that wasn’t one of your biggest fears.  “Yes, daddy, please— need you, need you, fuck, I need you—”

“Come,” he ordered, “right fuckin’ now, come for me—”

He kept talking, but you stopped listening; when it hit you, it was like your muscles were too weak to do what your orgasm dictated they should— because normally, everything in you would tighten and your toes would curl and your head would fall back and it would be obvious that you were coming for him.  Instead, all you could do was lay there and let it wash over you, pangs of pleasure and pain alternating while he groaned and came with you.  He coated your walls with every pump, thrusts faltering until his forehead rested on your shoulder with a long sigh.

“Fuck,” he whispered, only indulging in a moment of rest and stillness before he pulled out and got up.  It was amazing to you how he could just shove his dick back in his jeans and zip up and it was like nothing happened— amazing, and sad.  Meanwhile, you couldn’t even get up off the bed, couldn’t even walk if you tried.  He had such an effect on you, and you were just an instinct for him— just a fill to a need, like food is to hunger or water is to thirst.  Maybe you sort of liked to be needed, but it wasn’t easy.

“Is it time yet?” you asked.

“No,” he answered quickly, firmly, and you rolled your eyes.  He never told you what time you were allowed to get your fix, usually he just told you that it wasn’t time yet.  It felt like it was never fucking time.  What was even the point of all this if he made you wait?  You never made him wait— you tried, but he made it clear your body was his and your job was just to spread your legs when he was ready.

You like to think that you’re immune to the stuff, oh yeah

Closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough

You know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to love

You were lucid enough now to actually question how and why those words were in your head; your eyes were heavy, but you kept them open to look at the radio.  “A song…” you realized aloud.

He looked over at you again.  “Huh?”

You summoned your little strength to lift yourself up— just enough to turn onto your side and slip under the sheet again.  You were cold again, even though the temperature in the room hadn’t changed.  “The radio… there was a song,” you mumbled.

He stepped up to you again.  “What song?”

You shook your head.  “Didn’t know it,” you said.  Because of course you didn’t, you barely knew anything, you were too young to remember before.  You barely even remembered last month— the pills will do that to you.

“Well, how did it go?” he asked.

Looking away, you tried to conjure it in your mind, but it was so distant.  Did he want you to hum it for him, sing or something?  Your throat was tired from screaming all that bullshit about getting pregnant— it was gonna be a pretty rough go, if you tried that.  “I… I dunno,” you mumbled.  “My brain’s all… it’s fuzzy.  I need the pills.”

He tightened his jaw.  “Are you trying to negotiate with me?” he asked, the tone of his voice making it obvious that the correct answer was no.

“I— no, I,” you stalled, “I really can’t remember, I just… maybe if you give me some—”

“God damn it,” he rolled his eyes as he started to reach into his coat pocket.  “One.  Y’hear me?  One.”

Suddenly you were full of energy, sitting up on the bed and reaching for him eagerly.  “Yeah, yeah,” you agreed, nodding fervently.  “Thanks, s’gonna help, Joel, really.”

You tried to grab the pill as soon as you saw it, but he jerked it away.  “Jesus,” he grumbled, “give me a second.”

He set it on the bedside table, taking out a gun from his belt next and using the butt to crush the pill.  You watched, enraptured, practically drooling, as he ground the pill into powder and prepared a line for you.

“Do you need—?” he began to ask as he backed away, likely about to offer a rolled up paper or something to make it easier, but you were already face-first in it, holding one nostril shut and running the other across the surface of the table.

One wasn’t much, but neither is a sip of water when you’re stranded in the desert— but it’s still incredible.  You hummed a little as you sat back on the bed, tilting your head back.  It was already hitting, and you were already feeling better than you had all day.

A one track mind, you can’t be saved

Oblivion is all you crave

If there’s some left for you, you don’t mind if you do

“You remember it now?” he asked impatiently.

“Yeah,” you sighed.  “Yeah, uh—” you cleared your throat and did your best to sing the hook, the part that repeated a thousand times— “might as well face it, you’re addicted to love.”

You opened your eyes again for his reaction, maybe hoping he might say something nice about your singing voice or thank you for remembering.  That wasn’t quite how it went.  “Shit,” Joel hissed, then again, louder: “Shit!”

“What?” you wondered, your voice sleepy and slurred as you sunk back into the bed, ready to go back to sleep— real sleep, the kind you can only get from a hit.  It wouldn’t last long, but it would still be better than anything else.

“We’ve gotta go.”

“What?!” you said again, though this time you had a lot more energy, because you heard what he said.  He was already shoving things into a bag.  “Joel, we— what?  Go where?”

“Long story, I’ll explain on the way,” he promised.  “Just… start getting your things together.”

What things? “Seriously, we can’t— I can’t—”

“Do what I fucking say,” he said sharply, stopping what he was doing to look at you intensely.  “Don’t make me tell you again: Get dressed. Get your shit. We’re going.”

~

The first day was torture.  You thought maybe he was getting sick of you, too— you weren’t very… useful.  You couldn’t even keep up with him, couldn’t follow as quickly or navigate the rocky, uneven terrain outside the QZ like he could.  You held out hope that you were going to get your daily dose soon— he only gave you that one before, never your full allowance— but as it grew darker, you realized he was going to have you skip the day since you wouldn’t be in any condition to hike once you got your fix.  He promised, though, that you could have a double dose tomorrow if you were patient.  It was still nearly impossible to wait for it, but it was a nice motivator to keep moving.

He never explained where you were going exactly, or why— just that the song you heard on the radio was code for something that he needed to handle.  In a weird way, you were flattered that he was bringing you with him, even though all you could think about was going back home and curling up in his bed.

What you expected to be the worst part of this, though, turned out to be one of the only good things about this situation: sleeping.  He brought something to roll out on the ground, and it helped, but you’d been dreading sleeping on the ground from the moment you stepped outside of Joel’s apartment.  The thing about sleeping out here, though, was that— unlike at home— he held you at night.  Sure, it wasn’t the first time you’d cuddled with Joel, but it was the first time you really noticed it— normally, he would hold you while you slept but he’d be gone before you woke up, so you’d really only be aware if you happened to wake up while he was still asleep.  Instead, now, it started from the beginning: he motioned for you to lay down with him, opening up his arm for you and letting you rest your head on his shoulder.  He held you close, promising it wouldn’t get too cold, even breathing in deeply against the top of your head.  

It took you longer to fall asleep than him, and not just because you were craving your fix; you couldn’t really wrap your brain around all of it, and every time you looked up at his sleeping face, you realized how rare it was to see him this vulnerable.

In the middle of the night, awakened by the pain of craving those pills you were waiting for you traced his features— the lines on his forehead, the slope of his nose, the salt-and-pepper stubble on his jaw.

Having a mischievous thought, your eyes glanced at the jacket rolled up under his head; the right side pocket, he’d pulled out the pill from you from there.  Is that where he’s keeping the rest of them?  You examined it, wondering if you could somehow reach into it without unrolling it or waking him up.

It definitely wouldn’t have worked, but you didn’t even get a chance to try— when your fingers brushed over the jacket, the sound of your fingers on the fabric just beside his ear woke him up.  He just stirred at first, but then he blinked his eyes open and hummed as he held you tighter.

“Can’t sleep,” you whispered, and even though you didn’t think that was good news, he smiled at you and turned on his side— pulling you into him, nuzzling his face in your neck.

“Tell me what you need, baby,” he mumbled just beside your ear.

I need the fucking pills, Joel.  “I need you,” you whispered instead.

He rolled you onto your back, kissing up and down the height of your throat, humming soft praises to you.  It was so easy to give into him, like second nature: you spread your legs and let his body slot between them, hooking your ankles together behind his back and holding on with trembling hands to his broad shoulders.  “Gonna give you what you need,” he promised, and you sighed in satisfaction— you were still imagining tomorrow, when he’d give you what you really needed, but a little dopamine in the meantime would stave off the shakes at least.

He pushed up the borrowed shirt you were wearing, and pulled your panties halfway down your thighs.  A second later, his pants were shoved down and he was inside you— and yes, it stung at first, but it was also shockingly comfortable.  Not just the penetration itself, but the slow movements of his hips, the kisses on your jaw and collarbone, the way he held you… 

“So good, my good girl,” he whispered to you, making you moan shamelessly.  “Shh, not so loud— need to be quiet, okay?  Not too loud…”

Nodding and biting your lip, you tried your best, but every time he filled you made waves of relief flood your body; it was hard to keep from just saying his name, over and over, like a mantra as he took you to enlightenment.

It was mostly wordless after that, spare a few times you hissed out a yes or he mumbled a fuck, but much more was said in the silence.  The way his hand gripped your thigh, fingers digging into the softness of your skin, said don’t leave, don’t even move, you’re right where I want you.  The way his teeth nipped at your neck said I’m holding myself back, but I can only control myself so much.  The way you hid your face in his chest said I know if you look at me now, you’ll see everything.

He must’ve heard that, then, because his free hand brushed your hair back and guided your head to lay down on the jacket-pillow again— he stared down at you, and bent down to kiss away the tear on your temple.  Maybe a more gentlemanly sort of guy would actually stop and ask why you were crying, but you knew he already knew that this wasn’t a cry of pain or anguish, he knew that if he stopped you’d just whine and beg him to keep going.

So he didn’t stop, not until he’d made you fall apart to the pleasure and your walls were coated with him once again.  Even as weak as your body had become, you still found the energy to give him one more squeeze when he grunted at the end, the rough sound of his pleasure which you took a little too much pride in being responsible for.

Only then did you finally fall asleep, with him still inside you and surrounding you, your whole body going a little numb— yet you were warm, ecstasy running through your veins, thick and sweet like syrup.

~

Some things didn’t change at all: he wasn’t laying with you when you woke up, already re-packing the bag and checking his map one more time.  At least he wasn’t totally gone, like most mornings, but of course he’d never leave you out here on your own.

Another thing that didn’t change was your favorite question.  You’d probably asked almost ten times already: “Is it time yet?”

It never was— you tried to keep walking, keep following, but each step was worse than the last and your body felt completely drained.  Joel apparently didn’t understand this, but the pills didn’t really get you high anymore, not in the way they had when he was just your dealer once a week.  You needed them just to feel normal; it wasn’t for fun, you weren’t partying or anything, you just wanted the pain to stop… you just wanted to sleep.

At least you got a few hours last night, but your body could only take so much, and your brain could only survive on so little.

“Is it—” you began as you trailed behind him.

“Don’t ask again,” he ordered, still marching ahead determinedly.  “You’ll know when it’s time.”

“How will I know?” you asked, but he didn’t answer, he didn’t even look back at you over his shoulder.  He just readjusted the pack on his back and kept moving forward.

The sun was so low you couldn’t even see it past the buildings on the horizon, a tangerine haze settling over the ruins of wherever-the-fuck-you-were, and he was guiding you up a long cement spiral— a parking garage, if you were thinking clearly enough to consider what this used to be.

You were thinking clearly enough to know this wasn’t a necessary path through; this was a detour, and presumably it was where you’d settle for the night considering it had all the necessary attributes of a temporary shelter.  You liked this better than the last place— you could probably get inside one of the cars left behind, clean it out a bit, and have an especially secure (and padded) sleeping spot— but there was still one glaring flaw with this plan: it was nearly time to stop for the night and you still didn’t get your goddamn fix.  

You’d been saving your complaints in case he went back on the offer to double you up for today, but you couldn’t hold it back anymore.  Your hands were shaking— almost made you paranoid that you got infected somehow, even though you had managed to avoid any runners the past two days.

“Please, Joel, m’goin’ crazy over here,” you whimpered, clutching your arm.  “I need—”

“I don’t have any!” he finally snapped at you.  “I was out when we left.”

“No,” you denied instantly, “no— you’re lying, you had one— you gave me one.”

He sighed, his expression and tone losing their frustration and shifting instead to a sort of solemnity as his shoulders slumped.  “It was the last one.

It was like instinct: you ran at him like you really thought you could take him down.  Of course, as soon as you reached him, he held you back without even putting much effort into it while you clawed and screeched and and said every horrible thing you could think of.  “Fuck, Joel!  Fucking fuck you!  I hate you!” you screamed.  

“You wouldn’t have come with me if I told you,” he offered, as if that were a defense.

“No fucking shit!” you yelped, trying to writhe your way out of his grip on your wrists, but it was useless.  So you tried to kick him— and then he went from mildly irritated to properly done with your shit.  Shoving you back, he pushed you away and you tripped on a broken chunk of cement; the pain of hitting the ground was nothing— nothing compared to the aching need that crawled under your skin, nothing compared to the twist in your heart that made your eyes and nose burn.  Sniffling, you hid your face with your arm so he wouldn’t see you cry.

He knelt down in front of you, sighing like he was about to say something, but he didn’t.

“I need them, Joel, I need them,” you kept repeating weakly.  “I’m so— fuck, I can’t even think without them…”

“You can’t think with them, either,” he replied.  “They were messing with your head, kid.”

No, you were messing with my head.  You made me your slave and now I’m stranded in the middle of fucking nowhere about to go into withdrawals.

His hand came to rest on your knee, and you were too exhausted to even pull away.  “You needed to get clean— now’s as good a time as any.”

You pulled your arm down so you could glare at him.  “Now, Joel?  Cold turkey, hours from the nearest QZ, no doctors or nurses or fucking anything around— now’s as good a time as any?”

He frowned and looked away.  

“You know how much you had me on, you know I can’t just stop.”

“You’re gonna have to,” he shrugged.  “Unless you have a better plan.”

“We’ll go back—”

“Are you fucking kidding?”

“We— there’s gotta be something on the way, somewhere we can go to get more—”

“There’s not,” he promised.  “You’re just gonna have to ride it out.  But it’s gonna be so much better when you get to the other side— it won’t control you anymore—”

“Will you?”

He stopped.  For a second, he actually looked sad— heartbroken, if you didn’t know any better.  After a long silence, his face straightened out again and he looked at you, just as cold and stern as usual.  “You know you can’t leave,” he said.  “Not because I’m making you stay— because you’ll die if you go alone.”

“I know,” you admitted, only able to whisper because speaking any louder would make your voice break with a sob.  “I know, Joel, I know— m’fuckin’ useless, I know—”

“Shh, hey,” he reached forward, hesitantly stroking your arm through the material of his own shirt that you were wearing.  “That’s not what I mean.  I just can’t let that happen to you— you have to stay here.  Just for the night.”

As if tomorrow you’d be free— but tomorrow would be the same, tomorrow might be even worse depending on how bad the withdrawals got.  Tomorrow wouldn’t give you some magical way to get home, or to get your fix, or to trust him again after that monumental lie.

Still, you both knew that you had no choice tonight: you were here now and he was all you had.

You didn’t even sleep for a second.  The two of you hunkered down in a rotted Land Rover just because, well, it felt like the fanciest option and the seats were in better condition than most; he held you all night, rubbing your back and trying his best to soothe you as the pain grew and grew.  You cried into his chest— you wanted to hate him, but the way he held you was the only thing that didn’t feel like pure agony right now.  You wanted to blame him, but you subconsciously associated him with the cure; some part of you was convinced he was the cure.

“Hurts,” you choked out, as if this was some new information for either of you; it was like everything inside you was sharp, your toes were curling inside your boots and your brain felt like it was swelling up and pressing against the inside of your skull.  “Hurts, Joel…”

“I know, I know,” he soothed, letting you grip as tight as you could onto his arm.  “It gets better— it’s gonna stop hurting soon.”

"I think I'm dying," you announced, "am I dying?"

"No, baby," he sighed, "you're not.  You'll be fine."

“I think I’m gonna die,” you sobbed anyways.  “I can’t— I can’t do this… I just want it to stop…”

“I know,” he said again.  That was the meat of it, really: you kept telling him how bad it hurt and he kept telling you he knew.  But you couldn’t imagine how he could understand pain like this.

It was quiet for a long time, probably hours.  You’d stopped crying— you felt empty of all tears, of all words or thoughts— and just tried to breathe as slowly as you could.  Your heart wanted to race even as you sat perfectly still, curled up in his lap, and it scared the shit out of you; so you were doing everything you could to try to get your heart rate down, taking long breaths and saying nothing and keeping your eyes shut as you rested your tear-stained face on his shirt.

His own breathing was the only other sound in the car— you could hear his heartbeat, too, with your ear on his chest, and you tried to get your own to match it.  It was steady and strong, not weak and unpredictable like yours; it was fitting, really.

It almost startled you when he spoke; it made your heart pick up again, slightly, but you didn’t react otherwise.  “I couldn’t give you anymore, sweetheart,” he whispered, petting your head softly.  “I know you fucking hate me, I know what I did to you for this long… you know it’s almost been a year?  Since you first ran out of rations and offered yourself instead, can you believe that?”

You were too weak to answer— he probably thought you were asleep, he only got to talking this much when at least one of you was asleep.

“I never felt good about it,” he admitted, “but I was able to let it go for a while.  Having you was worth it.  I felt like fuckin’ shit keeping you hooked on that crap but I couldn’t lose you— I knew if I stopped, you’d leave.  What I didn’t realize was I was gonna lose you to the drugs if I didn’t get you clean.  You were too fucked up, baby, you were barely there… this was the only way, m’so sorry, but this was the only way— couldn’t lose you, darlin’, I couldn’t lose you…”

He was holding your limp body so tight, so close, burying his face in your neck; you’d never really seen him like this, he had his moments but he was generally pretty aloof.  You wished you had the strength to tell him: I was never gonna leave you, Joel.  I was never strong enough for that.

~

You watched the sunrise, through the filthy back window of the car and between the cement levels of the dilapidated garage.  Then you watched Joel sleep, and felt a different pain than the shudders of withdrawals that you’d almost gotten used to by now: the pain of loving someone, and having no fucking idea how to survive it.  You were still angry with him for what he’d done, and why he did it, but you knew you were going to tolerate it all— and not just because you had to.  You needed him now, for much more than just survival.

The shakes hit again, and though you held your fist tight to fight it, the movement still woke him.  He opened just one eye first, and you couldn’t help but smile slightly at the expression on his face.

“Drink some more water,” he encouraged you— and you were perfectly capable of handling that task yourself, but he still unscrewed the canteen he’d brought and held it to your lips, tilting it forward slightly for you.  With his guidance, you drank a bit more than you usually would have, which was probably a good thing.  “How are you feeling?” he asked when he let you stop.

“Better,” you admitted.  “I didn’t think it would ever get better but… yeah, better.”

“It might come and go for a while,” he warned you, “but we won’t start moving again until you’re ready.”

You nodded, rubbing your own arm as you noticed a slight chill inside the car.  Your legs were still draped over his lap, and he wrapped an arm around them.  “M’ready,” you decided.  “Just… might need a break—”

“Yeah, of course,” he offered; you’d never seen him so effusive, if that was the right word.  He could certainly be gentle, it wasn’t the first time you’d seen that side, but that was usually little physical things like petting your head or cleaning you off with a rag or something.  Not words: not promising, in a not-so-obvious way, that he would do anything to take care of you now.  That he cared more about keeping you safe than getting to where he needed to go.

Still, you didn’t want to abuse his mercy.  It didn’t take you too long to get everything together and head out, setting down a new path that he’d actually explained to you somewhat in advance: past that big tree there, between the two grey buildings, and East for a while…

For most of the morning you were silent— he led, you followed, walking along the uneven ground and avoiding anything that looked like it might be connected to the larger network of infection.

It must’ve been about an hour before you finally found the courage to say something.  “I don’t hate you,” you blurted out.

He looked over your shoulder at you, an unreadable expression on his weathered face.

“Just wanted you to know that,” you explained.

He nodded, turning back forward, and you kept moving.

[xenodile]

I don't know if I would quite call it an OC just yet but I've been brainstorming how I would write 621 as a character and the impression I get from them as protagonist in Armored Core 6. And the vibe I get is that they're jaded, tired, and just...empty.

Walter mentions they're so deep in debt that only striking a Coral motherlode will make enough to buy their life back, and the Gen4 augments have fried so much of their brain that there's hardly even a person left. They were frozen in stasis and comatose right up until they're crashing through Rubicon's atmosphere and being told to get to work. Ostensibly the goal would be to do enough jobs and earn enough to buy their life back but it feels like there's nothing to go back to. They have no name, no past, they're just a serial number.

They gain their freedom, pay off their debt, and what then? They can't undo the augments. You can't go back to a home or a life that you don't even remember.

They're a hound. The only thing they have is the job. They're crippled by how many years in stasis waiting for someone to buy them, the surgeries have destroyed their ability to feel and function. The closest they can come to feeling alive is in the cockpit of the AC. A proxy body of steel and lightning that feels more real than their own flesh and bone thanks to their augments. The only way they can move without pain, act without assistance, choose and control their body, is through the war machine. It's all there is left.

Until, for the first time since coming to Rubicon, the comms fail and the hiss of the AC's cockpit speakers goes silent. No handler, no chatter from other pilots, just them alone in the quiet of their titanic prosthesis.

Until they hear a new voice. A soft, gentle voice that doesn't come from outside their AC, transmitted through the cockpit speakers or the two-way radio implanted in their ear. It echoes through them from deep within, feel it reverberate from their organic heart through every servo and piston of their AC. The voice lacks the synthetic hiss of electronic speakers and addresses them not as a hound or a serial number, but by name. As if they were a person again.

Everything changes once they make Contact.

[oliversrarebooks]

Hunting Dog Part One: Lowell's Mistake

Masterlist

This is a spinoff of The Rare Bookseller! It takes place in the same world, but you don't have to have read Bookseller to understand this story.

April 1922

TW: human auction, capture, drugging

Oh, he'd hit the absolute motherlode.

Lowell couldn't believe that the tip he'd received at the speakeasy had actually panned out. He'd spent all night in surveillance observing the vampires  -- and there was no question that they were vampires -- bustling in and out of the old but well-kept mansion. With a specially crafted scent to disguise the smell of his blood and the moon nearly full, it hadn't been difficult to conceal himself in an a gnarled oak tree and confirm that this was likely the infamous, elusive auction house.

He watched cars and carriages arrive and depart, well-dressed vampires chatting on the porch, struggling humans being dragged into a basement entrance, and clearly enthralled individuals carrying out trash and carrying in crates of supplies, their sleepwalking movements and glassy eyes apparent even from a distance. If this wasn't the auction house itself, it was certainly a major hotbed of vampire activity, more than worth his time.

Every vampire hunter worth his salt dreamed of finding and taking down the auction house. Between all the thralls the hunter's guild had rescued over the years, they had a very good idea of what the interior was like, how they processed humans, and what kind of clientele frequented the place. But no thrall knew where it was located -- about an hour away from the city by carriage, somewhere secluded in the countryside, memories far too vague to have any success locating it. The vampires were careful to make sure that the thralls were unconscious, drugged, or hypnotized while taking them to and from the cursed place.

Lowell hadn't thought much of the alcohol drenched, barely lucid man who had stumbled into the speakeasy that night, until he claimed that he had escaped from a fledgeling vampire. Purchased at the auction for a thousand dollars, a pitiful sum for a human life, the poor thrall had managed to get free in just two months' time. His memory of the auction house had proved shockingly clear, giving Lowell the final few clues he needed to track the place down.

And now, it was within his sights, that wretched house of misery where humans were bought and sold like meat at a butcher's. Even now, within those walls, innocent victims were having their minds spirited away, their wills bent towards serving monstrous masters, their very lives stolen from them.

All there was to do was wait until sunup, when he'd have all the advantages against sluggish vampires who could not flee outdoors. He briefly toyed with the idea of gathering more hunters and returning the next day, before discarding it. The security around the auction house, especially as the sun began to rise and the vampires retreated within, appeared to be minimal. It was obvious that they counted on secrecy and remoteness as their main way of keeping humans out -- the security was no doubt focused instead on keeping humans in.

And if the allure of being the vampire hunter to destroy the notorious auction house was clouding his judgement a tad... well, you didn't get to be a hunter with this many dustings under your belt without a lot of confidence and a lot of risks.

Once the sun had crested the hills and the vampires had all either left or gone back within, the only souls remaining outside the mansion were some unfortunate thralls enlisted as guards. While they had clearly been chosen for strength and size, their slow reactions were no match for a hunter in possession of his full faculties. Lowell quickly dispatched the guard near the basement door with a sedative dart, liberating the poor man of his keys and entering the building. He used a small block of wood to prop the door open, a trick he'd learned from well-seasoned hunters to always leave himself an escape route.

The vast majority of vampire manors Lowell had entered were ornate and packed wall-to-wall with furniture and collectibles suiting the vampire's particular desires, an expression of their innate possessiveness. Lowell knew for sure that he was in the auction house and no ordinary manor the second he laid eyes on the hallway -- painted white, free of obstruction, sterile, resembling a hospital or military base.

It was deathly quiet, so Lowell took extra care that his footsteps did not make noise against the polished wood floor, lest he alert any vampire that happened to be awake. He passed a few rooms, cautiously peering in with weapons drawn. One was an infirmary, one was a shower, one seemed to be an office, another couple were occupied primarily by padded chairs with leather restraints. 

The laundry room and kitchen each had a couple of dazed thralls doing chores. In each case, Lowell shut the door again before they noticed, if they were even capable of noticing. The guild would have a lot of work on their hands rehabilitating all of these thralls once he cleaned out the vampires, that was for certain.

Truthfully, Lowell didn't have a lot of patience for thralls himself. He felt compassion for innocent victims, and tried to rescue them when possible, but when it came to rehabilitating them... he couldn't stand their foggy, dazed expressions, their nervous flinching, the way they laced their speech with 'sirs' and empty courtesies. He especially hated to hear freed thralls begging for the touch of a cruel master, longing for fangs in their neck even months after rescue. So many of them who tried to live on their own ended up back in the sway of a vampire within a  year or less. Once easy prey, always easy prey.

Lowell was eternally thankful that he was a predator instead.

Rounding the corner, he encountered the first vampire, a drowsy, scrawny thing stationed in front of a double door. It was beyond obvious that he'd never encountered a threat before -- even with his vampiric reflexes, he was far too slow to react before Lowell was on top of him, hand pressing to his mouth to stifle his cry, a sure hand driving a wooden stake straight through his heart.

It was easy. This had all been easy so far. Too easy, for such a legendary place. He knew he shouldn't let his guard down as the dusted vampire had.

But maybe this would be easy. After all, it was clear that the vampires were only concerned about humans escaping, not humans infiltrating. And despite their enhanced strength and senses and their many supernatural powers, vampires weren't especially clever compared to humans. Undeath and immortality made them stagnate -- most vampires were eternally stuck in their ways, and that made them careless and unimaginative. Lowell couldn't help the rush of pleasure that came with beating the vampires right in their own territory.

He quietly pushed open the double door, crossbow at the ready, cracking it just slightly with a doorstop. It was a long, dark hallway, and the scattered noises Lowell could hear didn't sound like vampires. It sounded like soft breathing, quiet snoring, the occasional mutter or sob. It was pitch black, and Lowell had to risk lighting a match, its flickering light revealing iron-barred cells. 

Holding cells for the poor humans waiting to be processed into thralls, just as he'd expected. The motherlode, indeed. Most of the humans seemed to be either asleep or unresponsive as he passed their cells. It was just as well, because it meant they couldn't raise an alarm. 

"Ah --" 

Lowell could see his matchlight reflected in a pair of terrified eyes, hands gripping the bars of her cell. "Shhh, be quiet," he said.

"Sorry," she said in a voice so quiet that he could barely hear her. "Are you... you're not a vampire, are you? Are you here to rescue us?"

"Yes," he said, with a swell of pride. "That's the idea."

"Oh, thank you, thank you. They told me I was going to be taken and hypnotized tomorrow night -- and I've been so scared -- I want to go home, please -- "

"All right, all right, keep your voice down and let me do my work."

"Of course," she said, slinking back into the shadows. "Thank you, thank you."

As Lowell approached the other end of the hall, he could see another pair of double doors, and considered his options. The doors hadn't been locked against his entry, but if the vampires were concerned about potential thralls escaping, they might lock the doors to prevent exit. If he tried them, he'd be likely to alert the vampire guard that may be lurking on the other side, who could fetch backup.

Too risky. He'd have to go back the way he came. 

But when he turned around and reached the door he had entered, he found it shut tight.

No -- he had certainly left it propped open. There was no way it had closed without him hearing it, not unless --

Shit, they were onto him.

He dropped his match, snuffing it out with his foot while preparing his crossbow. He took a deep breath, trying to keep his nerves steady. There might not be many vampires in the auction house at this hour. This wasn't even the worst situation he'd ever been in. He'd fight his way through them and have an amazing story to tell the guild once they showed up here to help with the cleanup.

Several tense moments passed as the hunter readied his weapons and reassured himself of his impending victory.

The double doors at both ends of the hall slammed open, and the electric lights overhead flashed on and off in quick succession -- with his eyes acclimated to the darkness, he was blinded, shooting his bow half on instinct. He shot one in the shoulder -- saw another crumble to dust -- before cold hands wrapped around his arms, forcing his crossbow to drop and pinning him against a vampire.

Vampires weren't any more clever than humans, but they were strong. Even the weakest looking vampire was stronger than any ordinary human. That's why hunters relied on skill and surprise, because their odds were so poor when it came to hand-to-hand combat.

This was it, then. He'd fucked up, and this was how he died. It was happening so fast. He'd had this nightmare so many times, and he braced himself for a knife in his gut or a snap of his neck. At least he'd died bravely. The way he always wanted to go out, really, fighting the goddamn leeches.

But then a damp cloth was pressed against his face, a cloth with a thick chemical smell. His eyes widened as he realized that he was going to be subjected to a fate far worse than death.

Capture. They were going to capture him, and with vampires, that only meant one thing -- they were going to try and make him into a thrall. A nightmare worse than death, one that he'd never even let himself entertain. 

He saw the cruel grins of the vampires surrounding him as two of them held him tightly restrained and another pushed the cloth firm against his face. He held his breath, thrashing, hoping for an opening to escape, even as their grip held firm.

A vampire with the appearance of a young, innocent woman was standing nearby, watching the scene, yawning wide. "Nice work," she said. "Worth staying up late for."

"Are you sure you don't want to kill him? I mean, he just dusted Tim," said the vampire holding the cloth.

"He's too valuable to kill. A hunter turned thrall will make a fine prize. I know just the right buyer, too."

No! No, he couldn't let it happen. That would never happen. He couldn't be a mindlessly adoring pet to some prideful, cruel monster. He couldn't fawn and offer his blood and call a vampire 'sir'. That couldn't be him. He'd rather die, he'd so much rather die.

He wasn't fucking prey.

But his struggles were fruitless, especially as more vampires surrounded him and helped to immobilize him. He couldn't hold his breath forever, and he was forced to gulp down the noxious drug along with the air he needed. His head started to spin, his extremities going numb.

He had to get free, right now, before it was too late.

But as he began to sag in the vampires' arms, his limbs heavy and his eyelids beginning to droop against his will, he knew in his heart it already was too late. He was growing exhausted, the drugged cloth slowly but surely putting him under, and his fight to wrench himself from the vampires' grasp had now transitioned into a fight to keep himself awake. 

"That's a good hunter," cooed the young woman, petting his hair, and he was too drowsy to move his head away. "Just go right to sleep. I'll take such good care of you."

"You won't. Whatever you're planning... it won't work," he said with all of the fire he could muster, his voice muffled by the cloth. "You might have caught me, but you're not going to turn me into some pathetic, simpering thrall."

"Oh, I'll do that and more," she said, her sugary voice growing more sinister. "By the time I'm through with you, you'll be nothing more than an eager little puppy of a thrall, laying at a vampire's feet and begging to be fed on."

The thought sickened him. He thrashed weakly, one last vain attempt to get free, but it was beyond hopeless. The urge to just shut his eyes and go to sleep was so strong, and every blink made it harder for him to open his eyes again. But he couldn't sleep, couldn't let the bloodsuckers take his mind.

"Aww, is the mighty hunter getting sleepy?" She scratched lightly at his scalp, a gesture which might be affectionate under different circumstances. "Go to sleep," she sang in a mocking lullaby, "go to sleep, go to sleep, little hunter..."

"No... don't..." His head sagged forward into the cloth, his vision blurring, his eyelids fluttering.

"Off to dreamland with you now, little hunter-thrall. You'll feel so much better after a little nap. And once you wake up, we're going to have so much fun together."

Lowell could do nothing but groan, defeated, as his eyes closed and refused to open again. His mind began to drift far away as he sank helplessly into a drugged sleep.

Masterlist

I'm not sure how many parts this side story will have, but knowing me, too many.

[lotussuns]

implied fem! reader. she her pronouns used. kind of suggestive but no smut, talks about porn mostly. minors don’t interact please. i just spat it out in one sitting so lots of spelling mistakes probs. ooc gojo! he’s a loser

just a thought that i had today hihihi. i imagine a future where both gojo and geto are in their early twenties, in the middle of getting their teaching license to teach at jujutsu high. they are both young, healthy, attractive men so they sleep around a little bit, and of course share their experiences and preferences with each other. that further escalated to porn.

so geto and gojo have a tradition of sharing porn with each other. if geto finds something super hot, he most likely will send it to gojo to get a second opinion and they both talk about how that actress looked super hot while getting pounded from behind, or that they should find a hottie to have that specific threesome with.

anyway geto starts noticing a weird trend with the actresses that gojo sends him. why do they all … kind of look similar, they all kind of look like you.

it’s either the same hairstyle, same body type, similar facial structure. and geto is fucking freaking out because they have known you for like 3 months?? you just started here?? and he knew gojo was obsessed with you, everyone could tell (apart from you) but he didn’t know it was this severe.

he sends a quick text.

“i didn’t know anyone could be this down bad.”

which gojo quickly responds to with

“HUH?!”

“WHAT HAPPENED.”

geto answers with a vague. “i know what you are doing lol did you think you were slick like that.”

gojo fucking spirals.

“WHAT DID YOU FIND DID YOU TOUCH MY FUCKING LAPTOP?!?!?!???!??!!!!”

“HOLY SHIT YOU FUCKING TRAITOR IM TELEPORTING HOME YOU FUCKCKDMND.”

geto is super confused like what the fuck? gojo sent that shit himself, it was quite obvious the actresses looked as close to you as they could. was gojo not even realizing that? he couldn’t understand what the man was so worried about.

“?”

“what are you talking about lol. you sent that shit yourself.”

gojo responds with another wave of panicked texts.

“FUCK I CANNOT TELEPORT HOME IM TOO BUSY WHAT DID I AEND WHERE.”

“PLEASE SUGURU DONT TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS PLEASE YOU CAN MAKE FUN OF ME ALL HOU WANT JUST DONT TELL ANYONE.”

and now geto was super confused what else did gojo hide from him. he decided it was the perfect opportunity to fuck around and find out.

“you’re absolutely insane i cannot believe you did that. sick fuck.”

geto’s phone once again lights up like crazy from all the notifications he’s bombarded with.

“PLEASE DONT TELL HER PLEASE.”

“AND DONT DELETE ANYTHINF DONT TOCUCHHF IT.”

“I WORKED SO HARD ON OUR LITTLE FAMILY.”

“SHES PREGANANT WITH OUR 6 CHILD ND IT WAS SO HARD TO GET OUR PENFHOUSE WITHOUT ANY CODES I EARNDNDD THAT SHIT WITH REAL WORK SUGURU REAL HONEST WORK NO MOTHERLODE AND SHIT.”

“I EVEN PAYED FOR OUR WEDDING MYSELF.”

and it was then that geto realized gojo was talking about something more cringe that his porn preferences. he was talking about the sims.

gojo fucking satoru made you guys in the sims. married. with 5 kids and 1 on its way.

after the initial wave of tremendous cringe geto felt in his body (he almost collapsed from how intense it was) geto didnt know if he should laugh or cry from how much of a pathetic loser gojo was, but he knew he would never let him live it down.

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: I Told Sunset About You (ITSAY) Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, in a long post, I work my way through Nadao Bangkok’s cinematic motherlode: ITSAY. Thanks to everyone for your patience with this post: I did major due diligence with it, with the absolutely TREMENDOUS help of @telomeke, @lurkingshan​, @wen-kexing-apologist​, and @bengiyo​ to ensure I had facts and analysis correct. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to these dear friends for holding me down and offering your sharp eyes.]

To dive into a topic as complicated, as beautiful, as reflective, as impactful as a macro-analysis of I Told Sunset About You is to take on...a lot. As I’ve discussed with @lurkingshan, from a filmmaking perspective, as so many of us who have watched ITSAY know -- it occupies the top spot of Thai BLs by way of pure cinematic quality. (If you follow my late-night liveblogs, you’ll know that this was the first show -- not even Bad Buddy did this to me -- where I needed to stop multitasking, to just sit and watch the episodes. No drama has done that for me in the years since I became a multitasking mom.)

As with 2gether and Still 2gether last week, this watch of ITSAY is a definite milestone on the OGMMTVC list, and I really thank @shortpplfedup, @bengiyo, @wen-kexing-apologist, @lurkingshan, @telomeke, and others in advance for what we’ve talked about in direct conversation regarding ITSAY, its many influential tentacles, and the influences that the show itself may have come from.

I’d like to touch upon a couple of frames to structure this piece, but the caveat here is that by no way will I consider myself an ITSAY expert, because there’s a tremendous fandom that knows much more about the Nadao Bangkok studio, about PP Krit and Billkin Putthipong, about the director and screenwriter, Boss Naruebet, and much more. I will have a substantial postscript to capture loose notes and learnings that didn’t make it into the main analysis. 

Inspired in part by direct conversations with @telomeke and @lurkingshan, I’d like to dive into the following: 

1) From a question that @lurkingshan posed to me: what shows from the start of the OGMMTVC watchlist -- and, more broadly, what art out there -- do I think spoke to ITSAY and its development, 2) The important story of Chinese migration to locations like Phuket, Penang (in Malaysia), and other locations on the Malay Peninsula, and how Chinese and Thai-Malay-Chinese-Peranakan cultures flavored ITSAY’s storytelling, 3) A discussion of internal and external homophobia on Teh’s experience, and how his conversation with Hoon encapsulated our understanding of homophobia, filial piety, and socioeconomic pressures in Teh’s particular life, timeline, and culture,

and more, I’m sure. Let’s boogie.

I warned some folks prior to this review that my thoughts on what may have spoken to ITSAY may turn some people off, so I offer this as a flare to y’all in advance. Acknowledging that episodes three and four of ITSAY were as emotional as anything I had ever seen in Asian BLs, Teh was just such a PERFECTLY written character. (The ITSAY supporting documentary episodes state that the show was in part inspired by Billkin’s and PP’s personal lives, and I know there’s fanon that the show was meant to deeply depict their personal stories with each other. I don’t have primary source material to point to regarding this, so I’ll leave it alone, with the understanding that there are interpretations of the show that read between the lines to bring that lens in. I acknowledge the existence of the theories, but will not dive into that here.)

So, in regards to Teh, as I chatted with @lurkingshan as I was watching the series, I just kept thinking to myself... hello, Fuse. 

CHAOS BOYS! (Fire Boys? No, no, chaos boys, ha.) 

This is where I think my analytical read might get a little controversial with folks, because to compare Make It Right to ITSAY -- from a LOOKS perspective, CERTAINLY from a storyline and narrative structure perspective -- no, it’s not there, not by a long shot.

But when I wonder about what ENERGIES and inspirations opened the door for Boss Narubet to WRITE the way that he wrote, and to DIRECT the way that he directed, Teh’s ENTIRE EMOTIONAL PROCESS AND BREAKDOWNS, his back-and-forth, his hesitations -- I saw chaos, and when I think of chaos, I think of Fuse.

I think of Fuse, and how Fuse was held back, particularly in Make It Right 2, regarding Fuse’s CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ASSUMPTION that he couldn’t break up with his girlfriend, all while being in a nascent give-and-take, back-and-forth relationship with Tee. And how that ASSUMPTION held BACK the full expression of commitment, honesty, and trust that Fuse and Tee ended up having at the end of MIR2. Fuse was being rather unsophisticated while he was struggling with this, and he was bringing Tee along, frustratingly, for that ride.  

Something that you said to me also really resonated, @bengiyo, in conversation with @lurkingshan, about comparing TeeFuse and TehOh, in that Fuse and Teh weren’t necessarily SPARKLING or GIFTED presences. As you two both pointed out to me: Teh had to work much, much harder than Oh-aew for the talents that Teh achieved, and somehow, chaotically, he managed to lose his grip on those talents and achievements as he gave up his hard-earned opportunities for the sake of the overall-better-off Oh-aew. MESSY, BRO.

Besides MIR/MIR2, there’s somewhere else where I saw chaos. @bengiyo, you pointed out to me that you felt that you saw more of Thai queer cinema in ITSAY than in BL. I don’t think ITSAY *doesn’t* speak to BL and vice versa (I don’t think there’s anyone who thinks that, considering what Nadao Bangkok achieved with this show), but when I think of chaos -- and of the structures of storytelling that allowed us to get such an in-depth experience of Teh -- I also think of 2019′s Dew the Movie, and to a different extent, the before-its-time show in 2019′s He’s Coming To Me. 

ITSAY, Dew, and HCTM have:

a) multiple chaotic leads (including actual ghosts and dudes who see ghosts),  b) overarching cultural backgrounds rooted in extremely specific Asian cultures and/or practices and/or time periods, and c) interplays of emotional revelations vis à vis those specific cultural backgrounds.

 - Fuse introduced to us, way back in 2016 and 2017, an internal holding back of an emotional engagement with Tee that was rooted in internal homophobia by way of his negotiation with what Fuse’s girlfriend expected of him, and what HE expected of HIMSELF regarding HAVING a girlfriend, while falling in love with a young man. 

- Dew featured two young men in chaos, in 1990s rural Thailand, one of whom (Dew) who had previously lived in a different city where, likely, his sexual orientation would not have been met with such dystopic scrutiny as it did in the movie. The movie made clear that Dew wanted a solid relationship with Phop, but with both Dew’s and Phop’s families and cultural expectations holding them back, they both met untimely and unfortunate ends that hammered, in extremes, the perils, in cinema, of being gay and out in an incredibly restrictive and old-fashioned Asian society.

- HCTM featured a young man (Thun) who could see ghosts, along with the ghost that he ends up falling in love with (Med). The revelation of Thun’s being able to see Med is deeply connected to Thun’s Thai-Chinese Buddhist practices, and how his family has engaged with spirituality over the course of his life. While the structure of the show has often been described as having a happy ending, I argue the opposite -- that the ending is left open-ended, as it so often is in some of P’Aof Noppharnach’s shows, with the assumed understanding on behalf of an Asian audience that Med will one day be reborn and will leave Thun’s side (unless he’s reborn into another person that knows Thun) (hello, Until We Meet Again). 

So what do all of these shows/movies -- ITSAY, Make It Right/MIR2, Dew, and HCTM -- have in common?

ITSAY, Dew, and HCTM have the common background of an old-fashioned culture serving as a MAJOR anchor to their stories. Their stories are leveraged by the micro-level, individual-level interplay between their main characters and old-fashioned worlds, complete with old-fashioned notions, assumptions, and expectations. ITSAY, Dew, and HCTM negotiate boundaries with these cultural guardrails, and we see -- Teh at the end of episode 4, Thun on the rooftop in episode 5, Dew talking to his mother -- what those expectations and boundaries have done internally to our dear young men. 

Make It Right’s Fuse, way back in 2016, internalized this slightly differently, without us seeing as deeply the WORLD in which he grew up. The directors and screenwriters New Siwaj and Cheewin Thanamin gave us a guy in school with a girlfriend. FUSE’S world, that we see, is a school world, so apropos for that time of Thai BLs, complete with very heterosexual expectations for a young man WITH a girlfriend. And Fuse struggles with his push-and-pull throughout the two seasons.

What I love about the OGMMTVC project is that by having watched these projects before ITSAY, I can somewhat predict what the journey of chaos, by way of internal revelation, will be for these characters. 

However.

What ITSAY DESTROYED for me, as compared to these dramas and movies, was the high level of acting that Billkin leveraged to get Teh to the emotional levels that he reached. Teh, episode 4, and Thun, episode 5 = handshakes. 

This is where ITSAY’s structure just brings ITSAY to the top of the cinematic list and runs away from everything else. I posted in my liveblogging that the ending of episode 3 blew me away with a subversion of the four-act structure of screenwriting. @bengiyo corrected me to say that it was, instead, a rare example of Thai BLs achieving a successful five-act structure. 

Just -- fuck. 

You combine this UTTERLY FUCKING BRILLIANT STORYTELLING STRUCTURE, NARRATIVE STRUCTURING PAR FUCKING EXCELLENCE, ALONG WITH BILLKIN’S PORTRAYAL OF TEH IN HEAT AND CHAOS, and I’m eating, fam. Five-star Michelin tasting menu-level. 

But before I start that meal, there’s even more that ITSAY did to really hammer in what I’m referencing by way of the anchors of old-fashioned culture to this story, which, clearly, Boss and Nadao Bangkok value, in the show’s indirect commentary on Chinese culture and migration in Thailand, and what it meant for Teh and Oh-aew to grow up in Phuket and prepare to leave for Bangkok. (If you haven’t watched ITSAY, I highly recommend that you plan on watching the supplementary documentary material, because those docs give a ton of insight into the Thai-Malay-Chinese background of the show. As a SE Asian homey, those revelations gave me the wonderful warm and familiar vibes.)

Dear @telomeke (I don’t know what I’d do without you, friend!) helped me to understand, back in my HCTM days, that I inherently know more about Chinese migration, immigration, and culture into Southeast Asia than I previously gave myself credit for as a part-Malaysian, because many of the migratory patterns and cultural assimilations are similar between Thailand and Malaysia. I appreciated that confirmation, and had my inspector’s hat on during my watch and rewatch of ITSAY. 

I’ve spoken with @lurkingshan and @neuroticbookworm about the impact of migration and diasporic existence, in that, I think, oftentimes, immigrants to another country often hold a more conservative view of the cultures they bring with them -- in order to hold onto the tenets of those cultures, and to keep those tenets from getting influenced or maybe even watered down by the new environment in which immigrants are living. (My example to Shan and NBW was that I find that South Asian immigrants are often MORE conservative than my relatives in my homelands -- so as to keep a tight grip on assimilation, or, say, moral/ethical weakening by way of Western culture.)

I think the background of Phuket and EVERYTHING it lent to the show...

- Teh’s mom selling Hokkien mee at a stall storefront and the boys eating it in Teh’s old-fashioned house, - The old-fashioned o-aew dessert shop, selling a Hokkien Chinese dessert, which is often preceded by a shot of the “Phuket Old Town” sign, - Teh’s mom’s traditional Chinese-Peranakan outfits, particularly when she’s celebrating Teh and Hoon’s successes, - The tight streets and alleys,

...all of it, visually and culturally, reminded us that the boys live in a world that was DEEPLY INFLUENCED by the way back when. I posit that Teh’s mom is the encapsulation of this kind of old-fashioned culture, from the architectural style of her Hokkien mee stall, to the clothes she wears, to the heavy decorations and rugs and furniture of her old-fashioned house -- to her old-fashioned notions of filial piety that both her sons will be successful and will help to take care of her as she ages. I posit that this old-fashioned mindset also likely led Teh to believe that Teh’s mom would not accept him for liking men, which I will delve into more in a bit.

I mentioned cultural assimilation earlier: I brought up Penang, Malaysia, earlier, because I’ve spent time in Penang -- and Penang was referenced by Boss in the ITSAY documentaries as being similar to Phuket by way of cultural structure. @telomeke educated me on the tin-trade-influenced links from Phuket to the Malaysian towns of Penang and Kuala Lumpur, all towns that experienced heavy immigration from China and feature the strong presence of Chinese-Malay-Peranakan cultures in their social fabrics. The Peranakan population developed when the first Chinese immigrants to these regions began marrying the local ethnic Thai and Malay residents, creating a brand-new culture, complete with unique foods, clothing, architecture, and much more. 

Having not been to Phuket yet, I believe Boss. As well, I want to note -- very important to me as a part-Malaysian -- that Boss referenced Teh’s nickname as the Malay word for tea. @telomeke​ noted for me this distinction as one that’s notable for how ITSAY differentiates the culture within the show -- again, a culture that’s influenced by Chinese and Malay migratory history -- against the backdrop of Bangkok, where tea is not “teh,” but rather is called “cha,” the Thai word for tea. [The most famous “teh” drink of Malaysia is teh tarik, a sweet, creamy, and strong tea drink that you see everywhere in Malaysia. While o-aew is a distinctly Chinese-style dessert, teh tarik comes from Indian immigrants to Malaysia (and is usually drunk with roti canai, another Indian import to Malaysia)]. 

In other words: we are talking a TREMENDOUS, a TREMENDOUS amount of references to cultural mixing, development, and assimilation here, all INTENTIONALLY placed by Boss Narubet and his screenwriting team -- and all of this serving as a reflection against what Teh and Oh-aew will experience as being “different” in their futures in Bangkok, where this Thai-Chinese-Malay cultural differential will make them different when they get to college. (Not having seen I Promised You The Moon yet, I wonder if IPYTM sets up Teh and Oh-aew as potential country mice, à la Ji Hyun and Joon Pyo in The Eighth Sense.)

One more pertinent note of cultural intermixing by way of the historical Thai-Chinese-Malay linkages. @bengiyo was surprised that I didn’t initially exclaim at the presence of hijab- and songkok-clad Muslim women and men eating at Teh’s mom’s Hokkien mee stall; Teh and Oh-aew’s friend, Phillip, is also shown with his Muslim parents. It’s funny, @bengiyo, as I said to you: because I was watching ITSAY with such a trained eye towards spotting the Thai-Chinese-Malay cultural mixing, seeing Muslims on screen did NOT ring a bell of differentials because -- I expect to see them there, in those kinds of spaces, anyway. (In fact, seeing Muslims on Thai television is rare, which I will get into more in the postscript.)

So we have: MANY CULTURES MIXING OVER MANY GENERATIONS. Migratory patterns intertwining. Indications of physical and emotional movement. And even though, and even DESPITE, these cultures mixing, we ALSO HAVE an OVERARCHING message of old-fashioned customs and ways of living that dominate the lives of the children in the show -- ESPECIALLY Teh. Teh and Oh-aew -- literally, their NAMES reference places ELSEWHERE than Phuket and Thailand. Phuket’s old-fashioned roots. Teh’s mom SELLS a dish that comes from somewhere else (the Hokkien Chinese population mostly hails from Fujian, China, as its origin).  

What happens with migration and immigration? Cultures collide and combine -- social mores and expectations change -- one’s standards of HOW TO LIVE ONE’S LIFE changes. 

Teh and Oh-aew, during the entire series, are facing a moment in time where THEIR lives, THEIR cultures, THEIR micro-interactions WITH THEIR cultures, ARE GOING TO CHANGE, definitively, by way of their burgeoning same-sex relationship. Teh and Oh-aew are already different in Thailand by way of their cultural backgrounds, as I’ve established -- and now, with a potential public revelation of their relationship, will they be even more different. And their families -- especially Teh’s mom, but Oh-aew’s family as well -- are going to collide with the very PRESENT present vis à vis their boys and their love. 

As this happens with migration and immigration, CHANGE WILL HAPPEN vis à vis Teh and Oh-aew’s queer revelations as well. 

Boss focused on the aspects of Phuket that were anchors to the culture that Teh and Oh-aew were raised in -- an immigrant culture, a migrant culture from China, that has had a long hold over many, many towns and societies in Thailand. We didn’t see the modern 7-11s that we know are there in Phuket, serving the tourists of these towns. 

And, just like the physical dystopia of Dew, and even vis à vis the spiritual practices built into He’s Coming To Me, the slice of Old Town Phuket that we SAW as that anchor was a HEAVY PRESENCE in Teh’s life -- it was PERFECTLY matched with the old-fashioned, conservative ANGER and DISAPPOINTMENT that we saw in Teh’s mom in episode 4, when Teh shares that he dropped out of university for Oh-aew. That anchor, to me, was meant to SMASH into, FEED into Teh’s overwhelming emotionality at his queer revelation, and at the revelation that serving his mother via filial piety would be automatically made more difficult, thus maximizing the impact of his internalized homophobia and his fear of recognizing his love and attraction for Oh-aew.

COUPLE THAT with the previous hints -- and then the SMASHING WRECKING BALL -- of the visual depths of Oh-aew’s own realizations earlier in episode 4, his own internally different place, the way he reveals himself to the world vis à vis the fast Instagram post of him wearing the red bra. And how Teh reacts to it. And how it sets off such an unreal chain of emotional unraveling for Teh, the SECOND of that episode, even before he goes to Bangkok to drop out. 

WHOA.

THIS, TO ME WAS FUCKING STUNNING

and very important to me to see as a South/Southeast Asian. WHEW.

And, good lord. How Hoon comes in at the end for Teh. Hoon, the eldest son, the one who has very quietly borne the financial responsibility that his mom, Teh’s mom, too, has placed on Hoon’s shoulders, naturally, through generations of family custom. (Super duper thanks to @lurkingshan for talking me through this in detail with me.)

And Hoon gives his family, his little bro, Teh, comfort. How Hoon says, listen. Mom’s gonna be mad if and when you tell her about Oh-aew and your feelings for me. But guess what? She’s gonna come around. You’re a crybaby, Teh, but I’m here for you.

Hoon knows that Teh’s mom will come around -- because Hoon is also a part of the next generation of change, much like his Thai-Malay-Chinese-Peranakan community before him -- as he brings his Japanese girlfriend home to his mother and brother. (THANK YOU, @wen-kexing-apologist, for pointing this out!)

Teh’s mom, too, will move. She will move from her old-fashioned mindset, to migrate to a new mindset, where she will accept her son. Teh needed to hear that, to know that that movement would be possible.

Just like the movement of the many swirling cultures around Teh and Oh-aew, the hustle of Bangkok before them, nipping at their lives like the ocean to the beach. 

What ITSAY captured for me was a cinematic moment of movement on so many levels. It was a pulsating reflection of change. It was meant and designed to insidiously shock viewers out of complacency. Like a beanstalk climbing from the ground, the movement begot movement to these two young men beginning to address and empty themselves of the homophobia that kept them back, Teh especially. 

GAH, THEIR MOVING PHYSICALITY, IT NEVER STOPPED -- the end of episode 2 on the boat, the end of episode 3 in Teh’s room, GAWD -- Teh’s ABSOLUTE HORMONAL DRUNKENNESS, Oh-aew’s STARE AFTER STARE AFTER STARE, Oh-aew’s SILENT DEVASTATION AT THE END OF EPISODE 3, the way Teh would nod and FLOP his head uncontrollably in desire, the nuzzles, the sniffs, the uncontrolled reaches -- GAH. It gives me the shivers. 

It was a lot.

ITSAY was just -- y’all know it. It was fantastic. While HCTM was before its time, I feel that ITSAY was RIGHT ON TIME. It brought so many elements of this GORGEOUS, HISTORIC, culturally Southeast Asian experience into the intersection of the queer lens, as well as the *migratory* lens of the Southeast Asian region specifically. It showed us, from a micro-perspective, the very tremendous macro-level implications and pressures of filial piety, of internalized homophobia, of the huge socioeconomic expectations that families have on Asian students to succeed in education, and so much more. IT WAS *DEFINITIVELY INTERSECTIONAL*, MORE SO THAN ANY BL BEFORE ITS TIME.

Yet again, for me, just like Bad Buddy, just like Until We Meet Again, I have another show in my arsenal that makes me proud to be an Asian watching these shows -- and in ITSAY, I feel particularly proud that a slice of my own personal culture, as an Malaysian, made it in there, intentionally. I will FOREVER, and ever, be grateful to ITSAY for that.

-------

I’d like to offer this postscript as a means of making some quick points that @telomeke, @bengiyo, @lurkingshan, and @wen-kexing-apologist shared with me as I was writing this review -- and I thank them all deeply for reading drafts of this post before publication. 

1) I was previously unaware of the history and current state of Islamic culture in Thailand until ITSAY and Be My Favorite included women wearing hijabs in their shows. This is an important slice of culture for me to know about, as I’m part-Malaysian, where Islam is the dominant religion. @telomeke shared with me that the majority Muslim population in Thailand is in southern Thailand (although, of course, Muslims live across Thailand), and that there have historically been separatist efforts in those southern provinces that have often led to violence. 

There are many reasons why discrimination of Muslims exist in Thailand, as it does around the world, including references to the separatist efforts in the southern provinces. As well, ethnic Thais can trace their heritage back to various towns and communities within China, thus possibly making northern Thailand, with its proximity to China, potentially more lauded in Thai culture, and contributing even more to a perception that southern Thailand, with its Muslim population, as potentially “less desirable.” (And I want to take a second to note @telomeke​‘s excellent point to me that “Chinese” as a catch-all word is often incomplete, as Han Chinese make up a sizable portion of Thailand’s population, but as we see in ITSAY, the Hokkien Chinese population also flourishes in certain parts of the country, and there are populations of Teochew and Hakka Chinese as well, as there are in Malaysia.)

All of this combined -- the geographic proximities to China, the places where various populations have settled, from the places that various populations of Thais track their heritages, plus global and/or popular misconceptions and stereotypes of “other” communities -- can contribute to discrimination of Muslims in Thailand. Of course, that is not a universal statement, as we do see Muslims beginning to show up in Thai drama art, which is heartening. To me, it strikes me as more realistic for the region to see Muslims on screen, but I don’t know Thailand well enough to say that for sure (that’s my Malaysian-side talking). I really want to thank @telomeke for taking me on SUCH a deep dive with insight into this part of Thai culture that I think is very necessary and fascinating. (Politics in Thailand is quite complicated at the moment, but at this very second, Thailand’s current Parliament speaker, from the Move Forward party, is Thai Muslim, with a Malay Muslim name -- Wan Muhamed Noor Matha. Very cool, but this is going to change soon, as Move Forward will make way for another political party to take control of the government.)

2) If you know me well enough, I cannot leave food well enough alone in our wonderful dramas (exhibit A: Moonlight Chicken and khao man gai, exhibit B: coffee/kopi in The Promise, lol), and I want to make sure that we were all aware back in 2020, and/or make you aware now, that Hokkien mee is a VERY regional dish, with styles unique to each town in which it is famous. @telomeke, I know you feel differently, but Hokkien mee from Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia is my.... it’s my heaven, my soul, my heart, HA!

Here’s some linkies to get you educated. And also! Oh-aew prefers his Hokkien mee with rice vermicelli noodles, instead of the usual, thicker egg noodles. You know what I like to do if I see that a stall has the two styles of noodles available: I like to get them mixed together. Hokkien mee, Hokkien prawn mee noodle soup, curry laksa -- I like the best of both worlds of noodles in my bowl. YUM.

Phuket Hokkien mee KL Hokkien mee Penang Hokkien mee (this one is the prawn noodle soup, not the fried noodles -- omfg so good) Singapore Hokkien mee (note the lighter color -- and the m’fing mix of thick and thin noodles, hell yeah!)

(If you made it this far in the ITSAY review, I have an easter egg for you. Guess what the Malay name is for rice vermicelli noodles? Bee hoon or mee hoon. 

Hoon and Teh, two Malay names: thin noodles and tea. What Teh’s mom serves at her stall, and what Teh and Oh-aew represent, symbolically, by names and their noodle preferences, as a pairing. AND! @telomeke​ gave me one more easter egg! Teh O is a popular way to order tea in Malaysia and Singapore. It’s black tea with sugar, no milk. Another pairing reference. ITSAY never stopped with all the layered references!)

[WHEW! What a ride. Thanks to all y’all who held me down during my losing-it liveblogging of ITSAY. More to come when I get to Last Twilight in Phuket and I Promised You The Moon.

Next week, I’ll release my review of YYY into the wild -- listen, honestly. Yes, chaos, confusion, all of it. But I am not writing this show totally off. There was definitely stuff in it to chew on. And: POPPY RATCHAPONG. And Pee Peerawich. The acting was actually stacked on this show. There’s stuff! More soon.

And I also finished Manner of Death, so that review will drop in two weeks. I LOVE MAXTUL. UNABASHEDLY. Yes, I know I’m years late, yes, I know Tul is retired, sobs. Let me live my 2021 dreams! These guys are so good together, and MoD was fuckin’ great.

I have so much good stuff on the way: I’m fully in my ATOTS rewatch, and I’ve added 55:15 Never Too Late, very specifically its BL storyline. I may not give 55:15 a full review because I’ll fast-watch the rest of it, but: Khao, come to me, boo-boo! I have an INSANE August ahead of me as I’ll be moving in a month (GAH), but hopefully this schedule won’t fall back too much.

Status of the listy! Hit me up if you have feedback!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 15) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) 17) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 18) I Told Sunset About You (2020)  19) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review coming) 20) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) (review coming) 21) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (watching) 23) Lovely Writer (2021) 24) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) 25) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 26) Not Me (2021-2022) 27) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 28) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) 29) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 30) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 31) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 32) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 33) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 34) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 35) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 36) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 37) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

[monstersdownthepath]

If you're curious about the Book of Unremitting Horror, I do feel obligated to give some warnings, because the book does get intense

It contains blood, gore, and intense body horror throughout, and thorough descriptions of such. Murder is a matter of course. Other specific triggers include, but are not limited to:

Themes of self-harm (the Bleeder, Dementia Larva)

Cannibalism (the Blossomer)

Pregnancy as horror (Blossomer, Skitch, the Empty One, and technically the Motherlode)

Emotional manipulation and gaslighting (Man in the Bar, Ovvashi, Kooks, Soliloquy, the Mystery Man)

Harm, trauma, or death of a child (Clootie, Strap Throat, Kooks, Skitch, Sleep Hag)

Drug abuse (Man in the Bar, Ovvashi) ('offscreen' drugs are mentioned in many of the entries, as in-universe it's one of the most commonly available ways to open one's mind to the supernatural)

Sexual assault (Feral Drowners)

Protracted torture (Torture Dogs, Snuff Golems)

Unreality/entries which exist to make the reader nervous about their own memory (Dream Tearer, the Outsiders, Scourger, technically the Sisterite)

Mentions of incest (the Empty One)

[simmancy]

Happy Spooky Season, pumpkaboos! 

Here’s what’s happening this month / going forward on simmancy-dot-tumblr-dot-com.

𝙷𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚘 𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚜! 👋

Hi there if you’re new! My name is Kit, I am 32 now, this is my simblr, I am active on and off. If any of that bothers you, unfollow, it's okay! If you're here because I posted a mod list or a random piece of CC you like, then I have good news - I do those things occasionally! When I am actively posting, I usually dabble in gameplay. I don't do much storytelling anymore because... well, I don't have the time!

𝚂𝚒𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚂𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍𝚞𝚕𝚎 🍬

I have SOME stuff I've been poking at in my ~spare time~. I love Simblreen, it's the best time of the year imo and it's just... a tradition. It's a tradition. So I'm going to try 🤞

I have been writing out a mod list centered around occults/spooky gameplay at least. So that's seasonally appropriate????? If you have a mod list request hit my inbox because I still fucking LOVE WCIFs and that's a sort of WCIF.

𝙾𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝 🎃

This year (and likely going forward), I'm going to try to use my blog to showcase the community. There's SO many cool things in the ts4 tag!! So I've been scouring it at the dead of night to refill my queue 👻 That's what you can mainly expect this month. No CAS challenges, no CC challenges, just some creepies and kookies from others around simblr.

𝚁𝚎𝚐𝚞𝚕𝚊𝚛 𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝 🌕

Hi regular followers!! I’m so sorry if you've been here a long time, because I don't have much updates on my ~classic~ gameplays and saves and they just...... won't be. For a while.

Not So Perry... I have a bit of Gen 4 but I haven't played in a whiiiiile so. I might revisit that/redo/we'll see.

Star x Crossed is indefinitely on hold - I will probably revise how that was posting because the full episodes just aren't possible right now. I might do it more as like... an edit type thing, where the edits tell the stories or whatever. It SUCKS because I had really big hopes and dreams for that save and instead I... had a child.

The Nobel ABCs will return because I have 10 generations done in game. I just need to queue.

Maggie's Wonderful Life WILL eventually be done LMAO. I'm hoping to get back into that save soonish. I LOVE farming gameplay! So I want to play/finish it. I had about half of the introductions shot before I got distracted with other things and then... well. yeah.

New saves? When I manage to play, I play a lot of newer saves LMAO. Mostly because when I have time right now I need... something easy.

𝙻𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚄𝚙𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎 🔮

I decided I like doing this once a year Simmancy Newsletter during my favorite time of the year. Halloween remains the BEST season, and there's also no guarantee I won't drop off the face of the planet again.

Obv the main thing is that, as previously stated, I had a baby. A whole ass baby. She's now 3 months old, and she is so much in the best way. We're currently teething and if you're like "Kit that seems a bit early," you're absolutely right but this is the lot I've drawn in life. She likes to be sat up, and stood up, and to talk to the Baby in the Mirror. She also is obsessed with trees and the cat. I know new moms are annoying and I'm absolutely that annoying new mom, I literally cannot shut up about her and therefore make my sims blog also about her.

I go back to work next month and I'm absolutely dreading it. Can I just be a sim and have someone press motherlode for me? Please?

Otherwise, there's very little in Kit World. The past 6 simblr years remain wonderful, and I've met some of my best friends on here. I go between BG3 and Sims when I have game time (which isn't a lot because Baby Simmancy is increasingly awake and mobile). I WISH I had more time to hang around here but maybe in a year or so.

Anyway, that’s my update of the year. Happy spooky season everybody! I hope it’s a good one!

Stay safe & spooky out there!

[hollowtones]

hey what do u think u wanna do build-wise or area-wise for trailblazer league? the combat relics all look fun to work with

I'm having a really hard time deciding... LOL

There's a ton of stuff in "Old School RuneScape" I have yet to look up, let alone unlock and do, so any of the picks would be fresh and new and exciting for me, and having scary power-ups could be a fun way to learn some bosses / raids for the first time. It doesn't really feel like I can make a wrong choice!! So I'm feeling a lot of decision paralysis, haha.

I'm eyeing the melee relic right now, though. I'm a sucker for being a tank and slugging it out in video games, so it feels a little targeted to me. Asgarnia's got some good looking melee gear but most importantly it has Motherlode Mine. Kourend has the cocks raid and big hammers but also it's got the woodcutting and farming guilds. Realistically I might fuck off into the woods and just power-level woodcutting at some point.

[ellethespaceunicorn]

Let's spread some positivity! Tag some of your fellow content creators here and let them know why they are absolutely amazing!❤️

I decided to tag you all because I care about you and am so happy to have met you. Also, I included my fave fic of yours because hey, it's all about sharing the wealth and writing/fandom is community.

I'm putting the list under a cut, cuz I may have written...too much? A fanfiction writer's worst fear? Never.

@peyton-warren, besides being literally the same person as me, more on that never, this lady is one of my accountability officers. she reminds me to drink water and eat my lunch and also is my beta for my written works because she just gets me. she fucking gets me, ok? Peyton, I adore you. Fave fic is a series: Blinded by the Fog (ongoing/hiatus)

@geralts-yenn, The first person I talked to today, funny enough. LOL. she was one of the first people that came to me and told me my work was good and I trust her judgement over a lot of people. Yenn, thank you. Fave fic: Hearts Too Big (part of a larger universe)

@raccoon-eyed-rebel, this little rodent is adorable. but she be feisty lol so look out. also her love of mikey from hellraiser is probably one of the most intense passions I have ever come across. Neen (my nickname for r-e-r), *squishy boob hug*. Fave fic: Making A Mess of Mikey

@littlefreya, my friend, my love. there are few people in my life who have said to me that I can come to them with anything. freya is one of those people. and she fucking means it. just one of the sweetest, most ferocious people I have ever met and I wanna hug her. Freya, you're so awesome. Fave fic: Autumn Blood

@cardierreh15, my sweet Gumball mama, you are so fucking funny, it's almost off-putting. when I read 'the guy next door', I hit the fucking motherlode. i never thought I would read any 'x black reader' fanfiction on tumblr. and then I found your masterlist and omg I could go on and on about your writing and your friendship. Cardi, I fucking love you. Fave fic is a series: The Guy Next Door (ongoing)

@deandoesthingstome, again one of the first people that reached out to me and was like hey tag me in this story please. and I thought to myself oh they're like lost or something, they can't mean my little story. but no, this person liked my work and like, anticipated it. and because 'hall pass' was already an instant fave of mine, I thought oh lord they think I'm cool. and then I fainted and went about my way. Charlie, thank you for being amazing. Fave fic is a series: Night Moves (complete)

@milknhonies, hi bestie!!, you're an amazing writer, an amazing friend, and I bet you smell good too. what I also love is that you label your fucking warnings so well. and that one time you saw I was reading and reblogging through your work and you messaged me to inform me of future explicit things and it made me feel so seen that you wanted to keep me in the know. that was the sweetest. Fave fic is a series: The Negatives of Shooting People (ongoing)

@mayloma, the first multi-chapter Walter Marshall fic I ever read (I think) was 'the light side of the night' and it set me on a journey. to this day, most of what I read is a lot of Walter and a lot of that is due to that fic. and she loved all of my manically rabid comments when I would reblog her stories after reading. Maja, you are wonderful. Fave fic is a series: The Light Side of the Night (complete)

@sillyrabbit81, if it wasn't for your follower milestone, I may have never started writing to begin with. I put out a Humphrey fic and a sub!Clark fic out to be included in your game. and it was the most fun. and I made new followers over those fics. i love what you do with gifs as well. i admire you, and my admiration does not come lightly, if you didn't know...i hate most humans. lol. Rabbit, keep up the gorgeous work. Fave fic: Curious

[rjalker]

That shitty 'people should curate their tumblr experience but only in ways I approve' is a motherlode of a block list. Spotted in the notes several people agreeing with the op of it as well as a small handful of transphobes, and one or two zionists

yep, I've blocked dozens and dozens of people just crowing about how much they hate people who have simple, clearly-communicated boundaries. People are saying the most blatant victim blaming things ever and they think it's okay as long as they pretend *checks notes* that the person they're shitting on is from another social media site. Because apparently that makes everything okay.

"curate your experiences" until you do it in a way assholes don't like.

"block whoever you want" until someone blocks people for violating a simple, clearly communicated boundary.

"cringe culture is dead" until someone has a boundary these people think is cringey.

[fagaroni-and-cheese]

Family Faults Legacy Challenge

I wrote a Sims 4 legacy challenge! This challenge is designed to have you play through different kinds of family and relationship structures, as well as playing sims who have negative traits. Oftentimes I get stuck in a rut playing with happy nuclear families, so this is my way of going outside the box. I hope some of you play this and have fun!

Required Packs:

Cottage Living, City Living, Snowy Escape, Island Living, High School Years, Discover University, Seasons, Parenthood, Nifty Knitting

Optional Packs:

Horse Ranch, Vampires, Growing Together

Rules:

- You may build or buy a house using your starting funds, but money cheats like motherlode are not allowed

- Lifespan stays on normal unless attending university, in which you can pause aging

- You may have any number of children unless the rules of the generation state otherwise

- You may make a spouse for your heirs in CAS if you wish

- Be creative and have fun!

Gen 1: Matriarch/Patriarch

From the time you were a teen, all you wanted was to be a parent. You treated all your baby dolls like they were real kids, and that want for parenthood never left you as you became an adult. After inheriting your grandpa’s old farm, you move to Henford-on-Bagley to start your new life as a farmer and animal caretaker. As your farm grows, a small town romance begins to blossom between you and a local. Together, you run the farm and make it into a success. You’re the messiest person they’ve ever met, but they love you just the way you are. You sell produce and eventually, when the time is right, have children, coming full circle and accomplishing your life goal.

Rules:

- Complete the Country Caretaker and Big Happy Family aspirations

- Master the Cooking and Gardening skills (you may choose to master the Nectar Making skill if you want an added challenge)

- Have no official job, just make money by selling produce/animal products

- Move onto a lot in Henford-on-Bagley and build a farm (you may build this farm with starting funds ONLY)

- Have the Wild Foxes and Simple Living lot traits on your home lot

- Marry a townie

- Have at least three children

- Have one of the spares take over the farm when you become an Elder

- Have at least one horse and a cellar for nectar making (if you have Horse Ranch)

Traits:

Slob, Animal Enthusiast, Family Oriented

Gen 2: Wild at Heart

You’ve always dreamed of traveling the globe. You want to experience different cultures and know what it’s like to live in other worlds. Unfortunately for you, fate has other plans. You get pregnant as a Teen with your high school partner, and break up as a result. Your parents help you raise the kid while you’re in school, and you get a job as soon as you can. You move to the big city the first chance you get, to start your traveling journey. You hop around different places for a while, working different jobs and having different flings. You never do end up settling down, but you make sure your children always come along for the ride.

Rules:

- Complete the City Native, Beach Life, and Mt. Komorebi Sightseer aspirations

- Reach level 5 in at least 5 skills

- Get to at least level 3 in 3 careers (switch jobs when you move)

- You may do odd jobs if you so choose

- Move to San Myshuno as a YA

- Live in the corresponding world to your current aspiration. When you complete an aspiration, move to the next world (example: when you finish the City Native aspiration, move out of San Myshuno and go to Sulani)

- Have at least five sims at friendship level at all times (your child does not count for this)

- Achieve the “Adrenaline Seeker” and “Frequent Traveler” lifestyles

- Never live with a partner or get married

- Have a baby as a Teen (you may cheat or use mods for this)

- You may only have one child

Traits:

Non-committal, Outgoing, Adventurous

Gen 3: Reclusive Genius

From a young age, you got to see a lot of the world. Traveling with your parent made life exciting, but also left you feeling isolated. You tried to make friends, but nothing ever seemed to stick. You were an overachieving child, so your grades were good enough to land you a spot at Foxbury. There, you spent all of your time studying robotics and how different mechanisms work. You had no time nor interest in friends or parties. After years of study, you had finally crafted a Servo. While its original purpose was to help you around the house, you quickly realize that this robot is more than it appears to be. You become best friends with them, something you’ve never experienced before. While you don’t desire romance, you do want children, so you have a science baby by yourself and raise the child with your best friend.

Rules:

- Complete the Goal-Oriented (teen) and Super Parent aspirations

- Master the Robotics and Logic skills

- Complete the Engineering career (Mechanical Engineer branch)

- Try to make friends as a child, but remain at acquaintance level

- Get A’s upon graduating HS

- Get into the Physics Distinguished Degree at Foxbury (you may pause aging while at university)

- Obtain the “Indoorsy” and “Techie” lifestyles

- Don’t make any friends until you have crafted your servo

- After crafting the servo, slowly form a close friendship with them

- Have a science baby as a single parent and raise the baby with the servo

Traits:

Loner, Genius, Unflirty

Gen 4: Suburban Sweetheart

You’ve always been your parents’ little darling. You did well in school, you were kind, smart, and infinitely curious about the world. Unfortunately, you were also cursed with social anxiety. It was always hard for you to make friends, god forbid flirting! You spent a lot of time with your hobbies as a result, and knitting ended up becoming a major passion of yours. You work really hard to become better at socializing, so that you can have lots of friends and maybe even a partner. You finally manage to overcome it and fall in love, eventually getting married and having kids together. Now that you’re settled down, you can focus on your career and raising your kids.

Rules:

- Complete the Admired Icon (teen) and Lord/Lady of the Knits aspirations

- Max the Charisma and Knitting skills

- Reach level 10 of the Politician career (Charity Organizer branch)

- Be part of the cheer squad as a Teen

- Win Prom Royalty

- Live in a suburban neighborhood (examples: Willow Creek, Copperdale, Brindleton Bay, etc.)

- Have your human parent move in with you when they become an Elder

- Overcome your social anxiety to fall in love and get married

- Have at least two children

Traits:

Socially Awkward, Romantic, Good

Gen 5: I Hate This Family!

You’ve always felt really out of place in your family. Your parents are such goody-two-shoes, it makes you sick. You’re not good at much in life, but you do have a talent for two things; mischief and writing. Writing has been your escape from your family since you were a child, so it was only natural that this would be the career path you’d take. You’re actually really successful as a writer, but you still manage to get up to nefarious things in your free time. Once you’ve had your fun though, you find that that other Evil sim might be good to settle down with after all.

Rules:

- Complete the Villainous Valentine AND/OR the Master Vampire aspiration

- Max the Writing and Mischief skills

- Complete the Writer career (Author branch)

- Gain the Evil trait as a Child

- Marry another Evil sim

- Be turned into a vampire as a YA (if you own Vampires)

- Have at least two children

- All spare children also have the Evil trait

Traits:

Evil, Bookworm, Proper

Gen 6: Black Sheep

You are the most immature sim to ever live. At least, that’s what everyone says anyway. You grow up with extremely low self esteem, no thanks to your evil family. They always compare you to your more evil siblings, and it isn’t fair! Sick of feeling like an outcast, you decide to rebel against them as a teenager, and start sneaking out of the house to go hang out with your friends at the bar. That’s when you discover your greatest passion…partying! Coming from such a traumatic background, you act a little strange..but other sims still seem to really like you. You decide to become a bartender, since that’s where the people (and the party) are at! You get into a hot and cold relationship with a coworker, and decide to elope on a whim. That turns out to be a horrible decision. In fact, you spend so much time arguing with your spouse that your children end up falling by the wayside. After the divorce, you decide that romance doesn’t matter after all, only partying does.

Rules:

- Complete the Party Animal aspiration

- Max the Mixology and Charisma skills

- Reach Level 10 of the Culinary career (Mixology branch)

- Have a Difficult family dynamic growing up, switch to a Distant dynamic as a Teen (if you have Growing Together). Have a Distant relationship with your own children

- Age up to a YA with at least 3 negative Character Values

- Go drink Juice and dance at a bar every Friday night as a YA

- Elope with a coworker soon after you become a YA

- Get divorced shortly after having your second child

- Do not get married or date again for the rest of your life

- Your firstborn child must become the heir

Traits:

Erratic, Party Animal, Childish

Gen 7: The Overcorrector

Your parents didn’t really pay you much attention as a kid. They were far too busy squabbling over random things to bother to care for you. That’s why you as the oldest had to step up to the plate and become the parent that your siblings needed. You raised them and yourself, by yourself, which made you a hyper-independent adult. You attend college on a loan, determined to make it completely on your own. You’re a success, and get hired at a prestigious law firm right out of university. Determined not to make the same mistakes your parents did, you wait a bit to get married. Unfortunately for you, sometimes things don’t work out, even if you plan them to. You have an amicable divorce, and afterwards take the time to focus on yourself and heal. Sooner than you expect, you fall madly in love with a sim who is just right for you. Together, you build a beautiful life and help each other achieve success.

Rules:

- Complete the Academic and Mansion Baron aspirations

- Max the Research and Debate skill

- Reach level 10 in the Law career (Private Attorney branch)

- Age up with at least 3 positive character values without help from either of your parents

- Join the Chess club in high school

- Go to University soon after aging up to a YA (you may pause aging while attending university)

- Get a Language and Literature degree

- Get married midway into your Young Adulthood, get divorced soon after aging up to an Adult

- Get remarried before you become an Elder (your second spouse must share at least one trait with your heir)

- Have at least one child with each spouse

- Obtain the “Coffee Fanatic” lifestyle

- Have a Distant family dynamic with your parents (if you have Growing Together)

- Have a Strict family dynamic with your children, a Difficult relationship with spouse #1, and a Close relationship with spouse #2 (if you have Growing Together)

Traits:

Overachiever, Snob, Materialistic

Gen 8: Just Take It Easy, Man

Unlike your parents, you never really felt a drive to do…well, anything. If chill were a person, it would be you. They tried to instill the same ambition in you, but it kind of backfired on them. All you ever really enjoyed was cooking, but being a chef sounded like wayyy too much pressure. Why not just become obsessed with grilled cheese instead? You have a ‘go with the flow’, easygoing attitude towards life. You spend your days lazing on the couch, eating grilled cheese (of course), and letting your partners take over the housework. After all, they both love to clean, and they also know that you HATE it. You help with the kids as you can, but the best days are always spent snoozing the time away.

Rules:

- Complete the Grilled Cheese aspiration

- Max the Cooking and Video Gaming skills, but do not reach higher than level 6 in any other skills

- Have any part time job, but use up all your vacation days and frequently call in fake sick, be late to work, leave early, and slack off on the job

- Have two partners, both must have the Neat trait (you may use mods or cheats to avoid jealousy)

- Help with childcare, but no household chores

- Have Cooking and Video Gaming as your likes, every other activity your sim must dislike

- Order pizza every Friday night

- Obtain the “Sedentary” lifestyle

- Eat a grilled cheese at least once a week

Traits:

Lazy, Glutton, Cheerful

Gen 9: Star Athlete

If anyone loves sports, it’s you. While one of your parents was spending their time on the couch, you were spending yours on the monkey bars and the basketball court. While you dream of being a pro athlete, that’s not all you want out of life. You also strive to be popular and liked by everyone! Some might think you’re a little self-absorbed, but you don’t care. You marry young, against all of your parents’ wishes, but you think you know best. That is, until you catch your fiancé cheating the night before the wedding! You say nothing in the moment, but soon take your revenge by leaving them at the altar. However, there’s a problem; you already had a child together. You decide to raise the child anyway, because you already love them, but you refuse to let your ex ever see them. You move your childhood best friend, who’s been by your side your whole life, into your place to help you raise your kid in their other parent’s absence. You live together as friends for years, until one day you begin to see them differently. You fall wildly in love, and get married soon after, giving you a gift you never thought would be within your reach again.

Rules:

- Complete the Friend of the World aspiration

- Max the Charisma and Fitness skills

- Reach level 10 in the Athlete career (Professional Athlete branch)

- Live in a “Needs TLC” apartment your entire Young Adulthood

- Be best friends with another Bro sim

- Have at least three keg parties as a YA

- Get engaged as a YA to a Mean sim, but leave them at the altar after witnessing them cheating

- Have a baby with your fiancé before they cheat

- Move your best friend in after you leave your fiancé, have them adopt your kid/s as care dependents

- Have a home gym from YA onwards

- Fall in love with your best friend as an Adult

Traits:

Active, Jealous, Bro

Gen 10: The Sea’s Sweet Serenade

You have two passions in life; the sea and your music. You move to Sulani as a YA to gather inspiration for your music, with the goal of someday becoming a famous artist. You’ve always felt a deep pull towards the ocean, and you fell even more in love with it when you saw it. One night, you meet a breathtaking sim on the beach, and you have a lot in common. They’re a creative type too, a painter, and you both have a great respect and admiration for the ocean. You slowly fall in love, move in together, and have children. The strange thing is, you’ve never seen them in the bath. They always insist on showering or bathing alone. One day, you find out their secret; they’re a mermaid. That doesn’t bother you in the slightest, though. They’re still the love of your life, after all. Turns out they were the muse you needed all along, and soon you become a popular musician.

Rules:

- Complete the Soulmate aspiration

- Max the Guitar, Violin, and Piano skills

- Reach level 10 in the Entertainer career (Musician branch)

- Move to Sulani as a YA

- Marry a mermaid who has the Child of the Ocean trait, place them in the Artist career if they’re not already

Traits:

Music Lover, Child of the Ocean, Clumsy

[raisengen]

Giving my two pennies for Reclamation Algorithm hints, vaguely ordered earlygame → lategame:

1. The only stuff that automatically carries between runs is your crude gold and any buildings you put in your base. So build lots of stuff!

2. Once you unlock Transregional Communication, you can send some inventory items to your next run, but not raw resources. However, you can send yourself some harvesters to kickstart resource collection, or a high-value cooked meal that you then blend into slurry to get more energy.

3. Speaking of which, the wood/stone/iron harvesters are great, please rely on them as your main tool for farming. Massively more efficient than anything your operators can do, to to the point where you can farm certain stages with zero operators to save your energy.

4. In the upgrade tree, I recommend focusing on starting resources, then on Transregional Communication. Upgrading your control point HP is a low priority, since that only kicks in if things are already going badly.

5. You can scout resources for free by checking which apparently-normal tiles are blocked for melee operator deployment (though note resources can also spawn on deployment-forbidden tiles).

6. Some stages have cracked walls that reveal a new area when broken. In particular, "Clash of Clans" (yes, really) has one at the bottom of the map that leads to a motherlode of stone+iron with only one enemy guarding it.

7. Mountain Pass nodes aren't explained well in-game, but they're essentially raids in reverse. Find the enemy's control point and destroy it to stop their raids and loot their stuff.

8. If you've not played other tower defence games, one common feature is building a "maze" that forces enemies to take a really long path to the objective. Adding this to your base can earn you more time to prepare your frontline.

9. ...Alternatively. Certain cooked foods reduce an operator's DP cost. If you feed them to your vanguards you can get lots of DP very quickly. Very useful when you don't have a full base yet.

10. It's also very useful for if try intercepting the final boss before it reaches you. You'll be on a small stage with lots of enemies heading your way ASAP, with the boss leading the charge. You need to get some damage on the map very quickly to make it worth the act+stamina cost.

(If you want a specific combo, Reed S3 + Surtr is disgustingly good for chunking the raid forces. Lots of enemies packed together = lots of enemies for Reed to AoE and heal Surtr with.)

[mothgodofchaos]

Yandere God of Night x a male reader who's a thief, and he tricks them into stealing smth like a piece of wedding jewelry just so he's able to take the reader or smth? It's okay if not

Stolen

God of Night x M!Reader, TW: yandere, obsession, manipulation, ownership, hypnotism Words: 562

An old man approached you in a back alley last night. A robe obscured his features, yet you could tell he was taller than average. There was a booming quality to his voice, despite him purposefully keeping it low so as to not alert passersby. He had asked you to retrieve a necklace from a nearby temple. Apparently it was stolen from him and given as an offering. He was not nearly as experienced with thievery as you were, and his brittle bones made it difficult for him to be agile. Hence, where you come in.

You had agreed to it, considering the hefty reward he had promised. Enough riches to last a lifetime, you’d never need to worry about any of your needs being met ever again. You just had to steal the necklace. More pieces of gold than stars in the sky, he said.

So you went to the temple in the dead of night. Moon and star motifs glitter on the outside of pillars, silver leaf and opals with large garnets as centerpieces. Made you wonder what the inside looked like if the outside was so expensively decorated.

Black marble and lowlight torches lined the halls of the temple. You get flashbacks to being a small child, holding your mother’s hand as you both took refuge in the temple. They offered you shelter as a storm passed outside, ravaging your home. One of the high priests had taken interest in you, saying you had been “marked” or something. You left the city in your formative years, only coming because it’s easier to pickpocket in large crowds versus empty pastures with nothing but sheep and goats.

Something on your right shoulder burns, making you smack it to try and get the pain to stop. You have to keep going to the altar room. Passing by sleeping quarters, you quietly make your way to the altar room. Before you, a giant statue of the god of night sits on a throne, and all the offerings are laid at his feet. Food, pottery, jewelry, a thief’s motherlode. But you must focus, you’re only here for one thing.

The man mentioned it’s a single silver ring, with a large opal hanging from the center. It’s hard to find amongst the other glittering objects and the low light, but you eventually get your hands on it.

“Well done, good boy for following directions so well.”

The robed man stands behind you, lifting it off his head and revealing the same god that sits behind you in statue form. To say you’re scared would be an understatement. He takes the necklace out of your hands, placing it around your neck. You hear a click, hands reaching for it, making you realize it won’t come off.

“Now you won’t leave me, starlight. You never can. Forever by my side, never having to worry about anything ever again.”

He grabs you, picking you up into his arms while you try to squirm away. Your chin is grabbed, and the swirl around his eye starts to move. You find every bit of will in you to try to get away begins to fade, until all you can think of is him.

“That’s a good boy, my little priest. You’ll serve me well, such a pretty boy…”

You won’t ever leave his temple again, he’ll make sure of it.

[dangeloxox]

Perfectionist Legacy Challenge

Looking for a new challenge to make The Sims 4 more exciting? Well, I have created my own version of the legacy challenge to keep you on your toes. This challenge forces you to play the sims with a story in mind, with each generation being distinct in its own right.

Basic Rules:

1. All legacy heirs must have the perfectionist trait, otherwise you can pick the other traits for all of your legacy heirs. This gives you the flexibility to create a unique story.

2. You should not use cheats to get ahead, but you can if the game is acting up/being annoying. For example, you can use move objects, but you cannot use motherlode. (Just don’t cheat too much).

3. Drama is everything in this challenge. Embrace drama/chaos/tragedy as much as possible in this challenge… it will make your perfectionist sims’ lives much more difficult!

4. You must fully complete the challenge requirements for each generation before moving on to the next heir.

5. You should play on either a medium/long lifespan.

6. You can use as many mods/custom content as you like.

7. You will require Get To Work & Seasons to play the original challenge. If you do not own those packs then you can try to substitute your own rules/generation with what you have - get creative with it!

8. Your sims can be any gender.

____________________________________________________________

Note: All of these sims have a strong internal drive to be perfect. It is almost an obsession on an unhealthy level. You can take this in whatever way you like with your story, I am simply laying down the foundation of the challenge. Get creative with your story. At the end of the day, it is your Sims game. Create drama, play with fire, and watch a broken legacy unfold on a bed of unrealistic expectations and an eternal dream to reach perfection.

Generation One: Scientist

You grew up in a broken home, with divided parents that both put pressure on you to always perform your best. As they both failed in their own aspirations, they instilled in you their dreams of becoming successful in the scientist career. This is the beginning of your pursuit of perfection and will leave a lasting effect on your legacy.

Aspiration: Successful Lineage

Career: Scientist

Rules

Complete Scientist Career

Complete as much of the Successful Lineage aspiration as possible

Have at least 2 children

Have at least one failed marriage

____________________________________________________________

Generation Two: Astronaut

Growing up with such a demanding parent always made you look for an outlet. Although you refuse to see it, you are very similar to said parent - you are a perfectionist through and through. You are intrigued by the laws of science and specifically want to escape planet Earth to explore outer space. You feel most at ease when you are thousands of miles away in a spaceship.

Aspiration: Nerd Brain

Career: Astronaut

Rules

Complete Astronaut Career

Complete Nerd Brain aspiration

Have at least 1 child

Reach level 10 in two skills

____________________________________________________________

Generation Three: Secret Agent

You will do anything to get to the truth. You are someone that always wants more. You never stop until you get what you want. As the child of a perfectionist, you learned from your parent the importance of never settling for mediocrity. You think of yourself highly, never think twice, yet are still always successful in what you do.

Aspiration: Friend of the World

Career: Secret Agent

Rules

Complete Secret Agent Career

Complete Friend of the World aspiration

Reach level 10 in charisma skill

Have at least 3 children

____________________________________________________________

Generation Four: Artist

As part of a big family, you never felt seen or understood. You used art as a tool to escape from your problems, but also as a way to show your family that you are good at something. They might not care enough to see your talent, but you go through life trying to be the best there ever was.

Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire

Career: Painter

Rules

Complete Painter Career

Complete Painter Extraordinaire aspiration

Have an affair

Have only 1 child

____________________________________________________________

Generation Five: Botanist

You are a simple sim, you wake up, water your plants, and mind your business. You don’t like drama but somehow it always manages to find its way into your life. Do you nurture toxic relationships or do you just have bad luck? Are your perfectionist ideals the culprit, or is it others that are to blame?

Aspiration: Freelance Botanist

Career: Gardener

Rules

Complete Gardener Career

Complete Freelance Botanist aspiration

Own a house exceeding $250,000

Have at least 2 children after becoming an adult

____________________________________________________________

Generation Six: Criminal

You had a decent upbringing but always had a grudge against your parents. You don’t align yourself with your family and want to establish a new life for yourself. Your mean streak takes control; you run away and take your place in the criminal underworld, where you have a keen eye for darkness.

Aspiration: Public Enemy

Career: Criminal

Rules

Run away from home as a teenager (never to return)

Complete Criminal Career

Complete Public Enemy aspiration

Have only 1 child

Marry three times

____________________________________________________________

Generation Seven: Entrepreneur

Your childhood was anything but conventional. You reject your parent and search for a new sense of belonging from your estranged family. You aim to rewrite your past and create a falsified perfect image. You want the perfect career and family life. You are savvy, smart, and ambitious to achieve great things.  Life is yours for the taking.

Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy

Career: Business

Rules

Abandon your parent and reach out to your estranged family

Complete Business Career

Complete tier 3 of Fabulously Wealthy aspiration

Have at least 3 children

____________________________________________________________

Generation Eight: Chef

As a child, you had everything you could have wanted but material goods and parental love sometimes isn’t enough. You never fit in with your siblings or peers at school. You sought comfort in food. Food was always there for you when others were not. You will do anything to make a success for yourself in the culinary field.

Aspiration: Master Chef

Career: Culinary

Rules

Complete Culinary Career

Complete Master Chef aspiration

Reach level 10 of baking skill

Have twins and give them food-related names

____________________________________________________________

Generation Nine: Athlete

You always knew that you were destined for greatness. Always active and energetic, you channel your physical prowess into bodybuilding. You aim to become the best athlete in the world. Your impressive physique and physical attractiveness mean that you receive a lot of attention from other sims.

Aspiration: Bodybuilder

Career: Athlete

Rules

Complete Athlete Career

Complete Bodybuilder aspiration

Have 3 affairs without getting caught

Have at least 1 child

____________________________________________________________

Generation Ten: Doctor

A distant voice calls to you, and a cloud of scientific knowledge and wisdom sinks into your brain. For as long as you remember, you have always wanted to be a doctor. Helping people has always been your main concern. However, your kind heart often gets taken advantage of. Is your kindness ever going to be good enough? Will you follow your ancestors in the pursuit of perfection, or will you forge a new path for yourself?

Aspiration: Big Happy Family

Career: Doctor

Rules

Complete Doctor Career

Complete Big Happy Family aspiration

Write a book

Have at least 3 children

____________________________________________________________

I hope you have fun with this challenge! Be sure to use #perfectionistlegacy to share your stories! Share this challenge with those who need to spice up their sims gameplay!

[invisibleraven]

I killed you in the Sims, I’m a terrible friend. for Flynn?

In between getting her fashion designer degree and managing Julie and the Phantoms, Flynn doesn't find herself with a plethora of free time. But in order to not go crazy from burnout, Julie suggests she take up a hobby.

"Maybe knitting? Luke's mom could teach you how."

And while Emily Patterson might have the patience of a saint, Flynn quickly learns that knitting is not for her, and abandons it after a few hours of attempting-and failing-at the perl stitch.

She's been banned from the kitchen after Carrie caught her trying to bake cookies at 500 degrees, so the culinary arts are out. She likes drawing, but given that is a huge part of her school, she doesn't find it exactly relaxing anymore.

:"Why not just play video games?" Reggie suggests. "I bet I could find you a cute little casual one-no shooting or galaxy saving involved."

So Reggie installs The Sims onto Flynn's computer, explains how to play, and tells her it has some design elements, but if she finds it too much like school he'll loan her his Switch and get her set up with Animal Crossing.

Flynn likes the design stuff-getting to make Sim versions of her friends, creating a mega huge house for them to live in (once Reggie taught her the motherlode cheat, of course) and making sure their needs are met.

It's relaxing in it's own way, to see how the little avatars interact and differ from their real life counterparts. She laughs out loud when SimJulie and SimLuke hate each other though, especially since her friends are getting ready to tie the knot in the real world.

However, Flynn also kind of likes the power to play God in this universe; dictating what all these little people can be and do. She makes Reggie a vampire for shits and giggles, knowing full well that he's petrified of them.

Only she forgets vampire lore, and has SimReggie go out on a gorgeous sunny day to tend to the flowers. And he immediately catches fire, burning right to a crispy pile of ash.

Reggie finds her crying over her keyboard a few moments later and rushes over. "Hey hey honeybear, what's wrong?"

"I-I killed yoooou in the Simmmmms," she wailed. "I'm a terrible friend! And an even worse girlfriend!"

Reggie looks at the screen where his Sim is naught but an urn, all his little Sim friends gathered around. "Did I at least go out cool like in a kitchen explosion or eaten by a giant Audrey 2 type plant?"

"What?" Flynn looks at him and sniffles, swiping at her watery eyes.

"Wait, did you do the whole let me drown in the pool by taking away the ladders bit?" Reggie asked. "Luke used to do that one all the time because I teased him about not knowing how to swim in real life."

"Luke doesn't know how to swim?" Flynn asked with a wet giggle.

"Well he knows now," Reggie admitted. "Me and Alex taught him because we wanted to surf and Luke refused to babysit the towel. He's still not great, but he can hold his own."

"Please tell me you have pictures," Flynn begged, gratefully taking the tissue Reggie handed her to clean her face.

"I might," he said with a sly smile. "If you tell me how I died."

"Oh, um... you got bit by a vampire and then burned up in the sun," Flynn finally admitted.

Reggie shuddered. "Well at least I didn't have to stay vampiric for long. Guess you'll just have to make a new me and add me to the household."

"Wait, you can do that?" Flynn asked.

"Sure, you can do lots of stuff," Reggie explained, showing her a few features she knew nothing about. "Or we could start from scratch and make a new family together."

"That sounds like fun," Flynn admitted.

"Just do me one favour?" he asked.

"Anything sweetpea."

"No vampires this time."

"Deal."