#didn't read

[soapdispensersalesman]

[our-reb00t-boi]

ugh I finished RE8 I'm late and going for a second round just coz I didn't find collectibles enough

HOWEVER I must make a theory (in case this was already theorized somewhere by someone I didn't know also link me I just wanna talk... 🤓)

This is my long TLDR theory of the post-Mold, or how the nature of the Mold is like in their hosts in relation to trauma and recovery. Please strap yourselves in and apologies it's on mobile....

Anyway there's already been hints that Ethan (and Mia AND Zoe) are going to have traces of the E-series mold no matter how they got 'cleaned'.

The best clue we ever have about the nature of the Mold and being clean from it is from

Lucas Baker.

This guy had monitored and 'taken cared' of Eveline for the last 3 years she (and Mia) are in the Baker residence, as well as being heavily monitored by that provided underground lab in the abandoned mine. Lucas had been in contact with the Connections for that long!

On top of that, he had been provided a 'vaccine' of sorts so he wouldn't be under Eveline's control anymore. However, nothing from the effects of the 'vaccine' (as far as I can tell and as far as was provided) makes it clear Lucas went back to normal. He's simply immune from Eveline.

However, it's undeniable he retains the nature of this E-series Mold. He sustained multiple, MULTIPLE injuries in RE7, including implications of being harmed by his "father" under Eveline's control before Ethan showed up/events of RE7. The infamous arm chop in the Dinner Scene reveals Lucas saying "... Not again!" which highly concludes Lucas is harmed like that by his own family.

When Ethan faces Lucas, Lucas is gleeful and self-mutilates himself in front of a camera, WITH HIS ARMS intact again, and pulling his own nails to reveal regenerative abilities to Ethan. It's also in this scene that Lucas has been pulling strings behind the Baker residence for 3 years, even with Eveline around. He's in charge and just pretends while Eveline plays dollhouse.

However, and it feels like a stretch, but there seems to be a time limit on how long the post-Mold (that's just how I'll call Ethan, Lucas, etc.) keeps their body intact and "human". I also think, depending on how unhealthy the body is, the strength of the Mold inside will degenerate over time, or in case of physical trauma, mutate.

In both RE7 and RE8, there's both a 3 year gap. Mia is infected with the E-series Mold in 2014 and 3 years later is finally 'cleaned' of it in 2017. The same can be said of Zoe Baker, who only received treatment after the events (End of Zoe).

Lucas got his serum/vaccine in January 2015 from the Connections. That puts him earlier, although not as early as Ethan and, to my theory, Uncle Joe Baker, who both got treated if they have the mutamycete almost immediately.

These two guys got immersed in the Baker residence for one night only, but the infectioness of the Mold is high (hence the area being cordoned by Blue Umbrella/BSAA) and Ethan was technically already infected by just going in the Baker residence, on top of being in contact with Mia again, having been 'chosen' by Eveline to be part of her family and up to the final part where he hallucinates a mutant Mia back in the guest house.

Despite being treated, I think the treatment degraded the Mold inside, but never fully went away. They're 'vaccinated', which is the best term I can come up with, and their bodies will react negatively depending on how much they got harmed.

Ethan and Lucas are both harmed a lot. Lucas is tormented by his brainwashed family and self-mutilates. In his final moments, he was finally fatally shot by Chris and Lucas transforms, triggering his Mold mutation. This part is heavily reminiscent to Lady Dimitrescu's Cadou mutation, as she is fatally harmed by one specific item (Death Flower Dagger) and triggered the Mold Cadou. (With Dimitrescu, we may attribute the dagger being closely related to Dimitrescu's genetic illness, but that's another theory for another time...)

Mia, Joe and Zoe are definitely also harmed, although the gravity of how they were physically harmed and/or how fit/healthy they are is up there.

I can only assume that Mia, having been the first Eveline has infected with the E-series and has been in captive for 3 years, has a LOT on her plate. She's also knowledgeable enough, just like Lucas, regarding the E-series Mold, as she was the Connections' operative. From the next 3 years moving to RE8, we were given proof of Mia's medications in the new house. So she's been recovering from the abuse and infection, and she doubled down when she had been pregnant! (Which is a miracle! Also, Mia has also a triggered mutation, that horrifying intro to RE7!! Who knows how she would've ended up if she let her mutation got worse or Eveline ordered her to mutate further!!!)

With Zoe, it's a little sketchy. We can assume she had been harmed by her family but she has kept herself isolated from them most of the time. In her notes, she does describe how she feels and the continuing degradation of her parents' minds and likely their bodies. From here, it's not physical trauma that's harming her but their degrading health. With Zoe being the only one who likely eats as normally as she can (if she has reserves of normal food [and from the clues in the house there seems to be a stash of some though supplies are low]), she's definitely running out of time. She had also calcified for a short moment, according to the Canon ending and in End Of Zoe DLC. With that, I can assume that the Mold was supposed to kill her, as ordered by Eveline but she pulled through because of whatever treatment BSAA/Blue Umbrella has.

Joe is definitely infected for a short time as well, and him punching/being in close contact with these Molded and the final Jack Baker Mold doesn't help his case being not infected. He definitely also sustained injuries trying to save Zoe.

With Lucas and Mia, they succumbed to their mutation (Mia, as ordered by Eveline, and Lucas through a fatal shot). Joe and Zoe never did, likely because Joe was infected in a short time and Zoe kept herself isolated as much as she could from Eveline.

Ethan is definitely a special case. He, Mia, Zoe and Joe are post-Mold, but Ethan is re-exposed to Miranda, disguised as Mia, and enters the Village likely infested with little amounts of the Mold. The watermill is under Moreau's dominance, which means the water flowing across has been tampered for so long. The Cadou pollen has likely travelled during spring season, and from the notes of that guitar maker, there were some people coming in and out of Beneviento's estate (before disappearing). And the main Mold itself, the Megamycete! That's been growing underneath the Village for God knows how long....

Ethan has been re-exposed and physically traumatized MULTIPLE times! Despite a stable body that got injured/mutilated so many times, Ethan was degrading during those intense moments of injuries/mutilations in RE8.

And never, never once did he mutate at all!! No triggering, nothing!! He, Lucas and Heisenberg have some similarities, in that they have a stable physique. Ethan's stability has been passed on to Rosemary, coupled with post-Mold Mia being her mother, which made her even more special!

(However, I will say, if Ethan's heart hadn't been pulled out of his body, he may have had a mutation. But Miranda took no chance and went for a vital organ. Come to think of it, a Mold hosting inside a living or corpse need to be intact as much as possible. This is further supported by the RE8 notes from Dimitrescu, Moreau, Heisenberg and Miranda... 😲)

[muvana]

via Giphy

[spookyspaghettisundae]

A Stressful Day

The old mansion on the hill had always loomed over Jill’s hometown, and it looked even more menacing now that she was coming home from a business trip, feeling all exhausted. She had to squeeze in three meetings this afternoon and then take two back-to-back flights to make it back in time.

Her little boy, Julian, was waiting for her on the doorstep, already wearing his Halloween costume. Frank had bought it with him about a week ago, shortly after Jill had left for her trip. It always made her sad when she couldn’t share those precious moments with her only child. When his eyes gleamed with wonder and he got all excited about something. Those moments of childhood innocence already got a little less over the years, but there were still plenty of them at the age of nine.

Frank had texted her that Julian wanted to be Thor this year. But even with that information, the costume was a surprise to Jill. Somehow she had expected the Norse god and not the Marvel hero instead. Mythology obviously couldn’t beat comic books and superhero movies. Figures.

She wrapped her arms around her little boy while Frank grabbed his coat and walked over to them. They exchanged a few words, after which Frank gave her a kiss on the cheek, ready to walk off and meet his friends at the local basketball court.

“Am I really taking Julian to the creepy old mansion this year?” There was a hint of fear in Jill’s voice.

“That’s all he’s been talking about all week. Apparently, everyone’s going. I’m afraid, there’s no way around it. Are you worried? You never believed the old stories, right?”

“Of course not.”

“What’s the hold-up? Let’s go already!” Julian said, having already walked half the way to the low white fence surrounding the property.

“See you later, my darling,” Frank said with a loving smile dancing around his lips, “You too, champ.” He ruffled Julian’s hair as he passed him and added, “Don’t be so impatient. Your mother has just come home from a long and exhausting business trip. Cut her some slack, alright?”

“Oh, alright, dad. But we gotta go. We don’t want to miss the whole thing.”

“What is it we might be missing anyhow?” asked Jill.

“Didn’t you get the link I sent you? It’s some sort of spooky guided tour through the old thing or something like that. I’m sure you’ll like it. I gotta go, or I’ll be late for practice.”

Shortly after, Jill and Julian walked away in one direction, while Frank drove off in the other.

Julian had no interest in regular trick or treating this year, he wanted to go straight to the mansion. After the tour, he would meet up with his friends, and they’d be going from door to door together while Jill could chat with the other mothers close-by. It was a simple enough plan for a busy evening.

When they arrived, the large old house looked abandoned. Jill wanted to leave, believing that they were in the wrong place after all, but Julian just smiled and ran to the big, heavy wooden entrance door and knocked. It opened with a creak, and a butler was standing there, looking at them expectantly but not saying a word. He looked like a cliché from a horror movie. Tall, lanky, long white hair, and piercing eyes. He was wearing the mandatory dusty, worn suit as well as the dark leather shoes that, just like the suit, might have been black at one point but weren’t anymore.

As soon as the door opened, Julian ran past the butler and into the mansion. Jill followed, feeling more than a little uneasy as she walked pass the tall servant.

It was rather dark in the entrance hall, which was lit by a chandelier, hanging from a far-away ceiling. The ancient chandelier was so high up that little of its light even reached the ground floor. Instead, it cast its light mostly onto the second floor, which was accessible by two curving staircases, arching their way up in two spacious curves.

Jill looked around the room, but couldn’t see Julian anywhere. She could clearly hear footsteps running deeper into the mansion, but it sounded like they simultaneously went up both stairs as well as down several hallways, which was of course impossible.

She turned around to ask the butler for help, but he was suddenly gone as if he had vanished into thin air. All she saw was the heavy oak door, which was now closed again. Jill started to feel quite upset. She turned around again to face the entrance hall and took a step as she turned. She almost bumped into the eerie butler, who had somehow made his way past her.

Jill barely managed to stifle a scream. From up close, the butler looked even more scary. His grey eyes looked empty and lifeless, but at the same time, there seemed to be a certain malevolence in them.

“Oh my god, you scared me. Have you seen my boy? He was just here a second ago.”

The ancient-looking man just slowly shook his head.

“Do you know where he could have gone? This place is huge.”

Another slow head-shake.

“Can you help me find him? You seem to be familiar with the place.”

This time he didn’t even shake his head. He just stared at her and said nothing.

“What’s going on here? Why aren’t you answering me? My boy ran off, and I need your help. Can’t you talk?”

Once again, he moved his head slowly, toying with Jill’s tense emotions. But this time he nodded.

“You cannot talk? Are you mute?”

This was answered by a second nod and by his hand slowly reaching into his breast pocket. When he withdrew his wrinkly hand from behind his lapel, he was holding a note. It looked as ancient as the man who held it in a steady grip. Flowing handwriting in black ink on a sepia-coloured paper read, “My name is Ishmael. Follow me.”

“Will you lead me to my boy? Do you know where he is?”

The answer was a cold, hard stare and a slow-moving finger tapping the same note again.

Jill sighed and decided to stay calm. Well, as calm as she could. She told herself that kids ran off sometimes, and that as a parent, you had to learn how to deal with that. You helped no one when you lost your mind in a situation like this. It’s like those plane emergency leaflets say: first put on your own oxygen mask, then take care of your child’s.

The butler named Ishmael turned around and walked towards one of the lower hallways, the one that branched off to the left. There was a dark wood panel that reached up to about chest height and above that was a wallpaper showing a dark brown damask pattern on a beige background. The long and narrow hallway was as gloomy as the entrance hall had been, the only light source being the occasional candlestick protruding from the wall to the right.

At the end of the hallway, Jill could see a small flight of stairs going down into what must be the cellar, and Ishmael went down that way without delay. Jill felt uneasy as she followed the butler down those rickety old stairs, so she decided to say something, just to hear a voice instead of the ever-looming silence.

“Are you sure Julian went this way? This doesn’t seem like a place a child would run to. Wouldn’t most children have run up the big stairs in the entrance hall instead?”

Of course there was no answer, and Jill had expected none. Yet in a way there actually was one, because she could clearly hear a child’s joyful laughter, and it sounded like it came from the gloom that was waiting at the bottom of the narrow stairs.

When they reached the bottom, there was a door. Ishmael fumbled around in the recesses of his jacket again and finally produced a very old blackened iron key. He slowly put it in the keyhole and opened the lock with a loud click.

Jill stood there, waiting for this slow process to happen, her mind racing a million miles an hour. Why was she even following Ishmael? Where was he leading her? This didn’t seem like a place Julian would have run off to. And even if he had, he couldn’t have entered this door, he didn’t have the key. So why was the butler leading her here? This didn’t seem right. She should have tried to find Julian on her own. Instead, she somehow followed this creep. Maybe if she ran away right now, she could find Julian before anyone could find her, and they could escape this place together with nothing more than a big scare and a laugh afterwards to calm the nerves.

That sounded like a plan. Jill was about to turn around when the door finally opened with a high-pitched creak. Behind it was a different world.

There was laughter and the clinking of glasses. Many of her friends were there, and all of them were having a good time. On the wall her right, there were several big monitors showing different parts of the house. The screens also showed many of the local kids, all roaming around the mansion. Some were alone, some in groups. Some were walking stealthily, some were running wild. But all of them were enjoying themselves in their own way.

And there, on the top left monitor, Jill finally saw Julian. He was sneaking around a corner after his best friend Tom, and he had a big, happy smile on his face. Jill felt her own smile spread over her face. She slowly walked over to the vintage-looking bar with its big mirror framed by light bulbs.

When she arrived there, she helped herself to a whisky sour. Jill hardly ever drank alcohol, but today she felt that she might make an exception. It had been a stressful day.

—Submitted by Lone-Eyed

[shadowned7]

Of the big four...

oh wait that’s right i stopped reading fairy tail because the plot became to confusing, it was jumping all over the place, there were hardly any explanations for anything and i just couldn’t give a rats ass read a series that really isn’t as great as people make it out to be.