#and now I can only either leave the game open in the background until it crashes/fixes itself

[shower-racoon]

guess who just hardlocked her Terraria world! 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[ailawritesfics]

✎ cw: 18+(minors dni), oral (m receiving), exhibitionism (in a meeting), cum eating, dabi is a little mean & rough

✎ I haven't written in months so im trying to get back into writing again. Not proofread

What started as a joke between you and Dabi at 4 in the morning turned into a challenge of who can rile up the other more until it became a practical execution rather than back and forth play fighting.

The meeting is underway when he had ushered you beneath the table, uncaring of the curious eyes watching and internally criticizing whatever ploy you two had cooked up today. Dabi merely offers them a silent response, a smirk here and a flipped middle finger there, much to Shigaraki's vexation. No one bothers to even try to stop either of you by this point anyway.

He spares you a glance, slouching on the chair with his hands resting on his thigh and the other on the back of your head, lightly scratching your scalp. With hooded eyes he watches you fiddle with his belt, tugging off the buckle and unzipping his pants quite eagerly.

"We received intel from one of our men in..."

The voices of the other men in the room fade in the background, rendered static noise in comparison to the loud shuffling of his clothes being tugged and moved aside by manicured nails.

And finally, Dabi exhales as you tug down his boxers enough to free his cock from its confines. It nearly slapped your cheek had you not moved back in time.

The hand in your hair tightens, wordlessly tugging you closer to where he needs you and mouthing for you to hurry up. A soft giggle bubbles in your chest, teasing as you bat your lashes at him and he swears if you weren't in a meeting room right now, he would've had his way with you already. So he plays nice for now.

"We're not short on manpower. What we need is..."

You wrap your fingers around his cock, slowly stroking him while maintaining eye contact. Cerulean eyes meet yours in a silent challenge, a battle of wits and wagers, where pushing each other to their limits warrants the winner a satisfying reward. And Dabi would be damned if he lets you win this little bet.

You lick a path on the underside of his cock, swirling your tongue on the mushroom tip. You're rewarded with a muffled groan when you finally wrap your lips around him, taking him in inch by inch and working to slacken your jaw.

Dabi leans his head back, your warm mouth feeling too good to resist. A murmured fuck and a quick tug on your hair, he shoves you down against his pelvis, the tip of his cock meeting the back of your throat and making you gag.

Tears form in the corner of your eyes the longer Dabi holds you there, one hand supporting the back of your head and the other on your neck. He looks down at you and sucks in a breath at the sight.

You look so fucking hot like this.

Choking while being forced to deep throat his dick.

You tap on his thigh twice and he lets up, allowing you to pull away. A cough strains your throat, leaving it feeling sore and aching. The death glare you send his way doesn't even deter the man, in fact it only makes his cock twitch in his hold. The bastard enjoyed it, of course he did.

He grabs your face, fingers digging into your cheeks as he pulls you back in.

His voice is low, a hushed whisper amongst the arguing voices of the other men in the room. "You talked big game back there and you couldn't even handle that? I'm disappointed, doll."

Again, your glare does nothing, only succeeding on making him act more smug. He presses hard on your cheeks, making you wince, something he enjoys a little too much, evident in the way his smirk turns into a grin.

A thumb forces its way through your lips, pressing flat against your tongue. It's salty and tastes like ash. For a moment, you think he might grant you some mercy. But Dabi had never really been kind. Using this hold on you, he tugs your jaw open and before you can react, he replaces his thumb with his cock but this time he doesn't just shove it in. He lets it rest on your tongue, waiting to see what you'll do.

At least his gracious enough to grant you some control.

Starting with a slow pace, you bob your head up and down, hallowing your cheeks as you take in more of him with each trip down. You've given him head before but it never really feels like it gets easier after each time. It's a struggle to make him fit, a struggle you refuse to show him lest you want him to become even more smug and cocky.

A large hand trails up the nape of your neck, sliding into your hair, tugging lightly as he guides your movement.

He throws his head back against the head rest, the tips of his ears flushing bright red and fighting the urge to moan and groan at the feeling of your warm, wet mouth doing wonders on him. He couldn't care less of the obvious stares, much too focused on chasing the pleasure. He'll get scolded by Shigaraki later but fuck it, this is worth it.

You quicken your pace, swallowing around the tip, trying your best to deep throat him.

Dabi bucks his hips upward to meet your movements with what little freedom the chair allows him. He relishes the sound of you choking on his cock, sweat dripping down his temples as he chases his high.

Suddenly, he shoves your head down against him again, nose burying in his happy trail. Spurts of thick, hot cum slide down your throat and fills your mouth with the sheer amount he spills.

He breathes heavily, tugging you off him but covering your mouth with one hand before you can spit any of his precious cum.

"Swallow it." He commands in a hushed voice.

[the-gay-trashmouth]

I think something that's bothers me about how folks talk about mouthwashing is how they talk about Swansea. It's either "Swansea would have killed Jimmy immediately if Anya had told him" or "he knew and he did nothing just like curly." because, to me at least it leaves out a lot of nuance to his character and situation. Curly and Swansea are really good foils to each other, one who's got a reputation for being the kind and helpful captain but in the end does nothing to truly protect the crew from Jimmy, and one who's gruff, harsh, and cruel but genuinely tries to help in the background, the reliable mechanic.

(read more for a long Mouthwashing character ramble tw for unwanted pregnancy and SA)

Because Curly is the one with the power. He doesn't take what Jimmy did seriously enough. And you can say that he might not have known fully what Jimmy did, but I think the "I told you" pregnancy conversation and his reaction to Jimmy right before the crash ("come on we'll get through this together. We'll figure it out, you've had hard times before-") are indicators that he knew, but he still chose to stick by his friend and treat it like a "mistake" rather than what it really was.

Now that's my own personal speculation of course, there's no outright scene of her telling him "your best friend assaulted me", but I think there's enough evidence in game through Anya and Curlys interactions to say that he knew, and he knew before Anaya knew she was pregnant. He had a fully functioning ship and four fully functional cryo-pods. He could have at least given Anya more security, kept her far away from him, and at most forced him into the cryopod until they got back to earth. Jimmy STILL had full, uncontrolled access to the cockpit AFTER his freakout with curly. AFTER Anya tells curly she doesn't feel safe with him. AFTER Curly finds out he raped Anya. He's so focused on seeing the good in his friend that he does NOTHING to protect Anya, doesn't strip away not one of Jimmy powers as copilot and consequently endangers her and the rest of the crew.

Curly was the captain, he had the power to relegate Jimmy to the fucking storage closet if he really wanted, at least put him in the cryopod until they got back to earth. In fact, he was the only person above Jimmy in terms of rank on the ship, but he chose to do nothing. He chose to let Jimmy continue as acting co-pilot, chose to comfort him rather than actually confront him. Slides off his weird sexual comments as jokes "So what's this about horses?"

Now let's compare that to Swansea, the mechanic.

We don't have any evidence that Swansea knew about what Jimmy did until after the crash ("it's been her telling me things") where they were trapped with no captain, barely any rations, and a single cryopod that he kept hidden away in the one room he had the key too (and the only room that could lead into medbay). He didn't use it for himself, he makes it clear he didn't intend on getting off this hunk of metal in his last few conversations with Jimmy.

Swansea as the ship's mechanic, was used to fixing things in the background. He didn't need to get along with anyone to keep the ship running, he didn't need people to like him to keep them safe. We see that with Daisuke. He's harsh on him, for sure, but he leaves constant notes to help him learn. Genuinely tries to keep him out of harm's way when it comes to more dangerous jobs. We know Anya was scared of Jimmy getting a weapon, she hid the gun case in the medical bay even knowing she would never get it open. We can see Swansea and Anya off on their own towards the first days after the crash, and Swansea still has a tight grip of the axe weeks and months later.

I personally think that was him trying to keep Jimmy from having access to a weapon. The only time Jimmy gets the axe while Swansea is alive is when Anya Specifically asks him to use it to get medical supplies. I don't think that's a coincidence.

Swansea, like any good mechanic, was quietly trying to keep things running out of Jimmy's sight. It's not until everyone is dead or dying that he snaps, that he finally takes direct action. But it was too little too late.

Both Curly and Swansea thought they were doing the right thing, helping in their own way. Curly genuinely wanted to see the good in Jimmy, wanted it to just be some challenge they could overcome, but in doing so he failed to see the monster right in front of him. He had all the power (in context of the crew, the company is a whole other can of worms I have so many other thoughts on), but he was too afraid to use it. Hell, he was DISCOURAGED to use it if the memo about HR complaints are anything to go by. Swansea, on the other hand, never trusted Jimmy, never even really liked him, but he didn't want to make anything worse either. He didn't know what would actually set Jimmy off, or what he was capable of, and aside from just straight up killing him what else could he do that wouldn't just push Jimmy further off the edge? Like with the foam. "One wrong move and you'll rip this ship a new asshole", he worked carefully, hiding the last pod from Jimmy, keeping the only other weapon on himself, guarding the only other entrance into Medbay, but Jimmy was escalating quickly. He underestimated how far Jimmy was willing to go, just like Curly had, and in the end suffered the consequences.

The only character who actually understood how dangerous and unstable Jimmy was is Anya. She knew the moment she found out she was pregnant he would hurt her ("you won't let me protect myself"). He wouldn't be able to take it, he would do something drastic. She knew he was escalating the longer they were stranded. Anya is the only crew member who truly understood how dangerous Jimmy was and took direct action.

And interesting thing to me is that she doesn't just kill herself. She locks herself in the medbay. She could have waited for Jimmy to sleep, or locked herself in the cockpit, but she locked herself in the medbay with Curly. She knows that with her gone there would be no one left to take care of him, she knew Jimmy would continue to escalate his abuse, and with her gone all of his anger and fear and guilt would turn on Curly.

And wouldn't you know it? She was right. Without Anya to stop him, he takes curly out of the bed, forces him upright into the cryopod, and forces a man with no skin, no arms, no legs, and infected tissues to be frozen for 20 years while the rest of his crew Rot. And that's only what we know to be reality- if any of his delusions had some basis in reality he could have done so so much more. Anya is the Only one to take reasonable, direct action to keep herself, and then Curly, safe.

But she didn't have enough power over Jimmy to truly protect herself. She didn't have the code to the gun case, she didn't have a weapon or a rank to fall back on. She was outnumbered by men who she knew from experience either wouldn't or couldn't keep her safe, and she was heavily pregnant with a baby she didn't want and most likely couldn't even get enough nutrients to sustain either her or the fetus. She was physically weakened and trapped in a stranded ship with her abuser with no way home and a medical miracle (curse) in Curly.

This game is a really good reflection of reality, in my opinion as an abuse survivor. Some people will see them as "one of the boys" and constantly excuse or downplay their actions (Curly), some people will do small things in the background, recognize the abuse and disprove, but don't want to get in the way or make things worse (Swansea), and some people are just straight up oblivious/naive (Daisuke). But in the end, it's the system that allows abuse and incentives coverups to keep peace or save face that really allows abuse to fester and escalate.

Which is why I personally have a problem with the idea that Anya should have just Told A Different Man because it ignores the very real chain of power and her own agency in her story, AS WELL AS the idea that Swansea and Diasuke knew but didn't care because that's just not reflective of real life. Not every man is some rapist apologist who doesn't care what abusers do until it happens to them, some people just don't know what to do, or don't have any good options that wouldn't result in further abuse. Hell some people just don't even fucking notice! Not everyone has had exposure to the signs or knows what to look for.

It's easy when looking at fictional depictions of abuse to say "well if I was there I would have just punched him/killed him/called the police" but real life, in that moment, its never going to be clear cut. You can call out abuse, but that might just lead to that abuser taking it out on their abuse victim later. They could even start to target you for daring to speak out, or try to hurt you and cut you off from the person being abused. You can know all the right steps and the right programs, but in the moment, when faced with a real situation where someone could get hurt or even killed? You stumble. You think things over, you don't try and make any direct moves that would set their abusers off. Sometimes that's a good instinct, and sometimes that just lets abuse escalate. It's never a good situation, and it's never actually anyone's fault but the abusers. And this way of thinking also conveniently leaves out the survivor of this abuse, and portrays them as someone who needs to be saved, rather than someone who needs support and resources to save themselves. It also very conveniently lets the company that Put Anya in this situation in the first place get off Scott free.

The solution isn't "oh one of the men on board should have personally killed Jimbo and saved Anya all by himself" its "Anya deserved the support of her crewmates instead of being forced into close proximity with her rapist and also maybe Jimmy shouldn't have access to the fucking controls or medbay or any weapons- AND ALSO the crew shouldn't have financial incentives not to report things to HR"

[utopians]

PSYCHO NYMPH EXILE // A SACRED AND TERRIBLE AIR

transcripts in alt text and under the cut

[image 1: black text on white background reading, "They evacuate people through the night cities, trying to outstrip perceived horizons of disintegration. These relocation attempts break down as matter ceases to perform. Fuel is water and water is air. Walls are soft. Push a truck until the wheels slough off. Sit on the couch and watch people with a little more energy take your food."]

[image 2: black text on a sepia background reading, "Then, when the stars bend under the destruction falling from above, many can no longer take the phrase “the end of the world” entirely seriously. The panic has cooled. In the strange indifference of the evacuation, whole families stay behind in Vaasa. There they play board games, in their houses, in their spacious apartments. They love vitamin-rich food, and when the pale is only a few days away, it’s always signalled by the same beautiful event. Fruits go mouldy. It grows vigorously on them. Children listen to oranges crackling on the table. Spores sprout from the pulp, apples are hairy with it. If you try to touch them, they crack open. No one knows why it’s like that. But few can muster the energy to be afraid of that time, and that's why I say it's beautiful."]

[image 3: black text on a white background reading, "Vellus and Isidol loot a mansion, kicking through walls like sand. The owner is looking for them with a flashlight, listening for the vibration of their hearts transmitted through the hollow surfaces, hunting for ghosts. They run, bending the taffy bars of the fence.

They scored a jacket and some dehydrated fruit. They curl up together in a funicular stranded on a rusty rail, cozy metal box with ashen windows, seat cushions for pillows.]

[image 4: black text on a sepia background reading, "Nothing seems to stop future ecologically-oriented projects there either. In the very last months, when the pale is creeping across the ocean towards Vaasa, lobby groups against light pollution see their grand dream come true. Industrial and commercial buildings turn off artificial lighting at the end of the working day, and street lamps are shielded with special filters. As the first and last big city in the history of the world, Vaasa completely eliminates light pollution. This isn’t just a measure against bomb raids – it also saves birds who might otherwise get lost in the city's maze of lights, and harbour seals whose mating rhythms are disrupted when the day is too long. You may laugh at this, but in the evening, when the big world in the distance swells into a bloody maelstrom, families come out into the street in Vaasa and are insignificant together. Only distant explosions disturb the deep peace of the winter night, its flawless starry sky. Everyone watches, heads tilted back."]

[image 5: black text on a white background reading, "The sun shines like a sick moon.

Holding hands, feeling her thin and brittle wrist. Rubbing her palm nervously, like you always did, leaves flakes now, ashen thumbprints.

Vellus and Isidol are becoming part of the dust storm."]

[image 6: black text on a sepia background that reads, "Like everyone else, she can't do anything in this extended stay, where one’s sense of the present slowly drifts away. But whereas the others dissolve into their memories, she simply disappears. It’s as if her life had never happened. The past is not awaiting her return. She just wanders around the rooms, adjusts her grandmother's lace doily and bedspreads, arranges the curtains on the rails. And thus, tastefully, she refuses to indulge in those ecstasies which visit the human spirit when the world is disintegrating. Nothing leaves her hands, and nothing returns.

When Katla finally sinks into the pale, Ann-Margret Lund turns, without the slightest pleasure, into a protein mass."]

[dreamon-worshiper]

do you have any pim headcanons 👀

jules i love you so much thank you for sending me this ask 😭

anyways here are some of my pim headcanons!!! (posted below the cut bc it's long lmfao):

⁃ his birthplace is Wollongong, Australia. he and his family moved to america when he was around 3-4 years old with his baby sister amy.

⁃ his accent softened from growing up in the states but it never truly went away; it gets stronger when he's extremely furious or drunk (and he doesn't like to be either).

⁃ his family is lower income/working class, often on the brink of poverty due to his parents' awful money management and the amount of mouths they had to feed. sadly, welfare checks were usually spent on alcohol and lottery tickets instead of healthy food, leaving pim's growth stunted from malnutrition :(

⁃ pim had a HUGE hyperfixation on gwimbly as a little boy, to the point where he would obsessively play the games until he 100%'d all of them and would even pretend to be gwimbly himself at the playground, repeating his famous catchphrase and victory dance ad naseum. imagining himself having the same adventures as his childhood video game hero was his escape from his turbulent home life...

⁃ throughout his childhood, pim was a victim of severe bullying due to his "nerdiness" and undiagnosed autism/ADHD. he was viciously teased for his Goodwill clothes and his accent, as well as excluded from group activities because his excitable personality annoyed his peers. this bullying worsened in high school, to the point where after his glasses were stolen and broken by a bully, he stopped wearing them altogether —both to avoid further harassment, and because his dad accused pim of losing it on purpose and refused to "waste money" buying a replacement for his glasses.

⁃ besides his old penpal oscar, pim had no actual friends until he went to community college, where he would meet his roommate and close friend bill from joining his UFO club, in which fillmore and duncan were the only other members at the time. what they all had in common, besides an apparent interest in aliens, was that none of them were all that popular in school either, and so they were united in being losers :,D

⁃ SPEAKING OF COLLEGE, i think pim was a bit of a party animal in his early 20s. he was more open to trying "new things"; whether it be smoking marijuana or skinny dipping, he was down (as long as it was with the boys). of course, he's mellowed out since then, but that wild side of him can still come out under sufficient peer pressure, as that alien party showed so clearly...

⁃ when pim first met charlie 7 years ago, charlie honestly hated him lmfao. he thought pim's cheerfulness was fake, and on their first day on the job, charlie progressively grew more annoyed at pim's overwhelming optimism, until he blew up at him and the two had their first real argument. however, pim didn't respond back with insults, but rather he pointed out the good qualities that charlie never saw in himself, angry tears welling up as he insisted that charlie was a good person deep down and that he's determined to bring the best out of charlie no matter how hard it may be, because he truly cares about him and sees him as a friend. as you can guess, charlie was moved by this statement, and that was when he realized that pim wasn't just pretending to be nice as part of his job as a smiling friend, he just genuinely enjoyed making people's lives a little brighter. and ever since that fateful day, the two became the best of friends :,)

I have SO many more headcanons to share, but for now i primarily focused on pim's background and upbringing because i'm autistic about giving cartoon characters lore :P

[aquatark]

My previous post made me realize that not a lot of people here are aware of Endless Ocean's bowmouth guitarfish glitch fiasco, which I think is a shame because 1) it's an interesting look into this game's history, and 2) I find it really funny... long-winded explanation incoming!

So! you see this guy?

You can place him in the game's aquarium, right? I bet if you've played the game, you've done it without even thinking twice!

...Well, in the initial Japanese release of Endless Ocean (known over there as Forever Blue), you couldn't. In fact, attempting to place this little scrimbly in the aquarium crashes your game.

Now this isn't too bad, since you can just press the reset button and continue your game normally, right? well... if you happen to leave the aquarium and save the game after having opened the creature placing menu, selecting a bowmouth guitarfish, and then closing the menu without placing anything... then congrats! you can never use the aquarium again, because it autoplaces whatever you left in that menu on your next visit! :D

In case you're wondering what this looks like in action, this video taken around the game's launch showcases it well, while also using the game's MP3 playback feature to put some anime music in the background, which I think adds to the experience:

So... how does this happen? How could something like this make it into the final game?

Turns out, this is due to how Endless Ocean categorizes creatures internally. Each creature in the game falls into a category, depending on the movements and behaviors the developers wanted to give them. For example, "migrate" type creatures follow a set of coordinate points creating a route around a stage, whereas "swim" type creatures simply swim around the area in which they are placed within a certain radius. Think of a whale shark's movements versus that of a butterflyfish - they have very different AI telling them how to behave.

Now, trying to load a creature of one type as a creature of another... does not make the game happy, to put it lightly. It doesn't know how to handle the request, and so crashes to prevent further weirdness from ensuing. There is only one byte (literally the second smallest unit of digital information storage you could use) per creature responsible for telling the game what type to load the creature as, and this includes when placing creatures in the aquarium. A slip of the keyboard caused a dev to type the wrong number in this byte, making it attempt to spawn bowmouth guitarfish placed in the aquarium as "swim" type rather than their correct "migrate" type. Literally one wrong number caused the game to crash, and for ears to bleed across Japan.

Since the aquarium is unlocked so early in the game, people discovered this on day one, in their first play session... and since Endless Ocean was a launch game for the Wii in Japan, that's even worse. It's not exactly a great look for your brand new console to have a game break so bad you can't use a mechanic anymore. And Wii game crashes are not pretty. So, Nintendo put out a statement on the day of release, notifying people of the problem, how to avoid it, and saying that a recall would be put in place. A week later, they released another statement, which stated people could apply to have their games replaced with an updated version, which would be mailed to them free of charge, by either phoning in or filling out an application online. This service continued up until 2020, over ten years after release! They really didn't want any copies of the broken version around... good thing we have archives of it!

The updated version even has different box art, with an added blue bar at the bottom, showcased in this incredibly crunchy image:

I love picturing Nintendo executives freaking out after a humble diving game causes such a mess they have to print the game again, losing them a lot of money and causing the game to get a lot of negative press...

I've seen old forum threads talking about the game as if it's garbage before it even came out internationally, because this situation was pretty much the only major news coming out about it. Can't have helped sales, at least...

Anyway, the game was patched to fix this glitch, along with a few other minor tweaks, and it was this version of the game that got translated worldwide. Japanese fans love joking about the whole ordeal, and I can see why! For example, on the bowmouth guitarfish's Niconico Pedia page (for which the closest equivalent in English would be something like Know Your Meme), this is recounted comedically as "...probably the most notable moment for the bowmouth guitarfish in the history of the internet", which is probably true! There's even image macros about it!

So yeah. The bowmouth guitarfish's reputation was forever tainted, and some Nintendo execs to this day probably wince when they see one.

tl;dr - A developer for Endless Ocean typed one number wrong in the code, making the game explode if you place a bowmouth guitarfish in the aquarium. Nintendo had to recall the game, and that specific fish has lived on in infamy among Japanese fans ever since.

Next time you use the aquarium, try putting a bowmouth guitarfish in there, and be grateful you can at all!

[lfcgirlie8]

You Called ~ JB TAA

Hi! I'm so nervous to post this ahhh. It's probably awful, but hopefully you guys like it! I should also warn you that it's most likely too overdramatic and unrealistic but I guess that's why it's fanfiction, right? That, and I like writing angst apparently...

Summary: Jude is feeling down about everything that's been going on with his team lately, and there's only one person he wants to see

Pairing: jude bellingham × trent alexander-arnold (or it could just be them as platonic besties/brother vibes. It's open to your interpretation ☺️)

He shouldn't be doing this.

He really, really should not be doing this. But he is. For him.

Trent should be at home, asleep, recovering from the game last night but instead he's on a private jet heading towards Madrid at 1 in the morning. It's the one city he definitely should not be seen in right now, and he has no idea what will happen if the media spots him there. He's risking everything; his contract with Liverpool, his vice-captaincy... all of it. But he's doing it.

For him. For Jude.

Because Jude has never been the type of person to let things get to him for too long. He's too mature for that. Usually, the media's chatter about his performances is just annoying background noise that he can drown out with the help of his family or friends. He's the type of player who loves the game, loves to play no matter what. If you give him a challenge then he'll take it, and despite what people think, he's not in it for the glory. He doesn't need to be the 'golden boy' all the time. Jude just loves to play.

So when he called Trent a few hours ago, his voice shaky and devoid of anything good, Trent knew that something wasn't right. At all.

He'd watched Jude's recent games, or as much of them as he could fit in around his own demanding schedule of fixtures and training, so he'd seen the way Jude was being run into the ground every game. He'd watched one of his favourite people in this world give everything he had and more, but with nothing back in return. Trent knows better than anyone just how quick the media and 'fans' can turn on you after a bad performance, but Jude didn't deserve this.

Trents knee bounces up and down uncontrollably as he sits and watches the little plane graphic on one of the screens inch closer and closer to its destination. Each minute seems to feel like ten, and every single one of them is a minute too long. He's never wanted the ability to teleport more than he does now.

The haunting sound of Jude's hollow voice echoes around in his mind, scaring him in a way he didn't know was possible. In all of their defeats, even the huge ones, Trent has never heard Jude sound so lost. It had almost felt like even the younger man's underlying love of the game had been diminished, too.

This need Trent has to see Jude, to protect him, to soothe away the hurt... it's overwhelming. And it's not going to go anywhere until he's there with him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jude's shoulder was in agony, his ankle not faring much better either, and all he could manage to do about it was lay there on the couch, staring at the ceiling for hours on end. He couldn't sleep. Couldn't eat. Couldn't even be bothered to get up and take some painkillers.

Maybe he liked the pain a little too much. Maybe it quietened his mind just enough for him not to drown in his thoughts. Maybe it stopped him from replaying his games over and over again in his head, berating himself each time for all the mistakes he'd made.

Or maybe he's a liar. Maybe he just wanted to punish himself even more.

The large house was silent around him, shrouded in darkness now that he was here alone. He'd thought that was what he wanted. That's why he told his mum to go back to England to visit his dad and Jobe. She hadn't wanted to leave him, especially not when she knew he wasn't doing very well, but he'd ended up practically forcing her to go by booking her flight for her.

In his defence, all he'd wanted was some space to breathe. Some time alone to get himself together. So why did it feel like all the air in the house had disappeared?

His family are usually his saving graces. They keep his feet on the ground and support him through everything. They're his safe space in this world. Jobe especially can always seem to put Jude at ease and lift any weight from his shoulders. But Jobe was doing incredible at Sunderland this season and Jude didn't want to zap any of the focus away from him. His brother deserved all the glory. He was on a high, and Jude couldn't risk pulling him down from it with his own problems. So he'd called the only other person who felt like home to him.

Trent.

It was selfish, he knew that. His best friend had more than enough going on without him adding to it, but even just hearing his voice down the phone had brought some relief. That scouse accent that grates on most people's nerves was like a soothing balm to Jude. He didn't know why. Maybe because it was so familiar at this point. Maybe because it reminded him of all the good times they'd spent together over the years. Maybe it reminded him of how incredible it felt when they connected on the pitch. Or maybe he just loved the person behind the voice.

If he was being really honest with himself, Jude wanted Trent here with him. Their whole 'we ain't inseparable' spiel was mocking him right now, but that was one thing he definitely did not care about at this point. So what if they liked to be around each other? So what if they were each other's support systems? So. fucking. what.

He'd seen all the comments about them during the international breaks, saying the two of them were 'like a married couple' or that they were 'so touchy-feely'. He found them all hilarious, to be honest, and Jude finds himself wishing he was there at an England camp right now. At least then he'd have his 'emotional support scouser' by his side.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Open the door

Trent texts him as he stands by the gate outside Jude's house, his hood pulled up to stay as hidden as possible even though the street is seemingly empty.

What are you on about?

Comes his reply a few minutes later. Trent can't help but smile as he types out his next message.

Get off your lazy arse and come see lad

It's not long before the gate buzzes and unlocks, Trent slipping into the front yard quickly, closing the exterior gate behind him and shutting the rest of the world out with it.

And then Jude is there.

He's standing in the doorway of the house, looking more tired than Trent has ever seen him. Sadder, too. His eyes are wide, a slight frown creasing his brow as if he can't quite believe what he's seeing in front of him.

"You came?"

He questions in pure disbelief, and it rattles Trent in a way he isn't quite comfortable with.

"You called."

And it was that simple. It would always be that simple.

Of course he came. Of. Fucking. Course.

Within seconds the distance between them has disappeared. Jude's hand wraps around Trent's wrist, practically dragging him inside the house. The younger boy slams the door closed with his free hand, the other one remaining tightly gripping Trent's wrist, his fingers digging into the flesh there like he's trying to tether himself back to reality.

"Am I dreaming?" Jude whispers, his voice cracking as if he's about to fall apart any second now.

The sound steals Trent's own breath away. That, coupled with the obvious demons hiding behind Jude's eyes, is enough for Trent to feel like he's falling apart himself. He sends a prayer out to whoever is listening, asking them to take all of Jude's pain and give it to him. He'll bear it for him, do anything just to get the boy in front of him to smile again.

"Nah, 'm real." He murmurs.

And then Jude's in his arms, burying his face in Trent's neck as he clings to him desperately. The relief is instant, Trent's familiar scent and feel wrapping around him comfortingly.

Now, finally, Jude can breathe properly again.

[cleolinda]

Silent Hill 2 commentary: Wood Side Apartments (4)

PREVIOUSLY ON: Wrangling the party balloon achievement and getting out of "a prison of your own making"; "What is going on in this building! What is happening!" 

Spoiler policy: Just about anything but That One Big Thing near the end of the game, particularly information about characters, their motives, and their dynamics. The game’s eight endings may also be discussed. Content notes are below the cut.

Content notes: For this post, we have discussions or mentions (not visual depictions) of bullying, fatphobia, animal cruelty and animal death. Visually, there is a dead body half-stuffed into a fridge with either rotten food or body parts, it's uncertain. We have a lot of (human as well as monster) vomiting and see some of it; bathrooms are generally disgusting.

The combat involves body horror, acid vomit, realistic amounts of blood, and the wooden plank and handgun.

1:46:56: The padlock: we open the third floor that we were told not to go to. Bonus mention of the "Scourge of Toluca Lake" achievement, which comes from original SH2 players rowing around the whole damn lake looking for clues and collectibles. 

1:48:25: Apartment 119. Okay: we're about to meet Eddie, and there will be a lot of (human) vomiting sounds, and I am unfortunately so desensitized at this point that I hang around letting him retch way longer than I should, for y'all's sakes, and I apologize. Also, the bathroom Eddie's vomiting in is heinous (see Fight Club mention above). You may want to lower or mute the volume until the cutscene starts at 1:50:45, while I'm searching the kitchen for loot. 

1:50:10: So there's a dead body shoved into the open fridge, amid... loose intestines? Rotten foods? I have a lot of questions and no answers. Fridges in this game are also disgusting. The interesting thing is that I think the body is the James model, but the feet are bare (not James' recognizable boots) and the jacket seems to be on backwards; I think the game is trying to tell us that this isn't a James, time loop or otherwise. There's a theory that whenever James sees his own (dead) body around Eddie, it's simply because James can't see Eddie's version of Silent Hill, and so he doesn't know who Eddie's seeing. James can only fill in his own likeness, and I think that's happening here. 

1:50:45: Cutscene: Anyway, Eddie is so nauseated by the dead body that he is basically throwing up his entire life and every previous one as well. When James pokes his head into the bathroom and introduces himself, Eddie immediately swears that he didn't kill Fridge Guy, like anyone would think he did. What Eddie doesn't tell James is that he's on the run—maybe from the police, maybe not—which we'll get to in a second. What I find most interesting about this scene is how kind and patient James is—and how receptive Eddie is to that; Eddie sounds so disappointed that James, a stranger, doesn't want to leave town with him. I think that something Eddie and Angela have in common is that James may be one of the first people who's ever treated them with kindness. Moreover, the fact that we see James consistently being kind and polite (I mean, he has beef with a child, but even with her, he tries) also sets up the reveal of [what he's done] to be shocking. 

Did not mention: The fact that you can see Eddie's breath, as if the room is ice cold—but you can't see James'. Eddie's version of Silent Hill is cold, and his final scene will be in a refrigerated meat locker. It is a massive oversight on my part that I forgot to point this out. 

All images are ©2024 Konami Digital Entertainment, and captured from my gameplay in January-March 2025.

Now, Ian talks about the music in this scene ("Ordinary Vanity," renamed "Ordinary Vanity's Solitude" for 2024), which is incongruously pretty. I specifically asked about this, because it's odd to have this lovely melody in the background while Eddie is hworfing his guts out. Ian mentions that it's also used in the opening of the first Silent Hill movie, and that the remake version omits an additional G minor chord; it's a simpler and less aggressively ominous (IMO) track in general. But in terms of that chord, Ian gets out the keyboard overlay and talks about diatonic and non-diatonic chords, and the way that Akira Yamaoka uses that contrast to create dissonance and tension. 

1:52:48: With the cutscene over, I park us in a bedroom filled with (American) football memorabilia, as if from someone's school days. 

Did not mention: The original Eddie seems to have been heavy as well, but there was less of an emphasis on his looks; he was originally intended to be a more "cheerful," wisecracking character, named for Eddie Murphy (!). But in the remake, I feel like the character design is meant to be actively off-putting, to the point where I initially felt like it looked more cartoonish (uncanny, maybe?) than the other characters. This is the one character who doesn't look at least somewhat like his voice actor (Scott Haining, who is really good once you get a feel for what Bloober is going for); Eddie's biggest moment in the game is a monologue about having been "hated, picked on, spit on, just 'cause of the way you look!" 

Here's the thing: this is a character you could feel a lot of sympathy for. And then that monologue keeps going, and you find out why Eddie's in Silent Hill. My personal interpretation (which I'll go into around 1:58:00) is that you aren't "called" to Silent Hill because you did something terrible; you're called because you feel guilty about it. Angela feels guilty about (what I would call) self-defense; I don't think she should be there, but she does. Eddie may initially feel guilty about what he's done, but as the game progresses, he embraces (literal) coldness and cruelty. At this point, he's still nauseated by a dead body, and he's still fretting that someone might blame it on him. But I've parked us in this bedroom with football memorabilia for a reason.

1:56:56: "Here's why we're in this room." Per the Silent Hill Wiki (my emphasis):

Due to being overweight, Eddie was often bullied by his peers. At times, Eddie was forced to get on his knees and beg for his life. He dislikes the body he was born with, feeling as if he "lost the genetic lottery," and was sick of being judged by his physical appearance. [...] One bully, a football player, would not leave Eddie alone even after he graduated high school. Eddie became an easy target and a victim. Eventually, Eddie mentally snapped and proceeded to kill the bully's dog in retaliation. Afterwards, Eddie shot the bully in the knee using his father's revolver, crippling him, though Eddie did not kill him.

Eddie will say in his climactic monologue that he enjoyed watching the dog die a painful, lingering death. I loathe Eddie. 

Did not mention: Ian touches on this idea in his stream as well, but it's interesting that Eddie's Silent Hill—which James is sharing for a moment—has what might be the bully's bedroom in it. At this point, is Eddie's psyche, his ability to still feel guilt, trying to make him empathize with the football player and imagine his life? 

Did not mention: On a lighter note, my headcanon is that Eddie was called to Silent Hill because Mira the dog, who features in one of the joke endings, Took That Personally. 

1:58:00: As I discuss my theory about Silent Hill and guilt, I state things a little too certainly: "Silent Hill is not here to punish people." Listen, I don't know; when I talk in absolutes like this, what I mean is, in the framework of this theory, etc. 

If you think I overexplain and apologize too much, well—Silent Hill fandom has been around for 20 years, and I'm waiting for the day they show up to kick my ass. 

2:00:45: Moving on: The Snake coin is waiting for us out in an empty swimming pool... full of lying figures. You know, actually, I misremembered who I got the "shoot them from afar and lure them out" method from: I tried out a lot of Hollow's strategies (including kneecapping generally), but his play this time was to just run around the lying figures rather than engage. I must have been thinking of Jacksepticeye's approach. (Listen! I'd never played a video game before this! I studied many masters!)

2:02:00: I am trying to tell you that this gate would have taken us to Rosewater Park if the game hadn't (in)conveniently locked it, but I am tired and distracted. After dispatching a lying figure I wandered away from earlier, I go straight back into tour guide mode, pointing out a map of town and forgetting about the gate. 

2:02:30: There's some white graffiti on the wall that really jumps out, and I saw it somewhere else on Ian's stream as well. I have no idea what it is. 

2:02:40: My strategy shifts to "lure them out of the pool to stagger around the perimeter so that I have the time to jump down and grab the Snake coin." It almost works.

Did not mention: I forgot to point out that the coin is in an empty baby carriage, which is a prime example of the "James and Mary wanted children" motif (V2 31:20). 

2:04:20: "NONONONONONONO!"

2:04:47: For some reason I think it's a good idea to turn my back to the remaining lying figure to unlock a door I don't even need. "STOP THAT!"

2:05:10: We check on Eddie ("Eddie doesn't want to talk to us anymore") before returning to the building interior.

2:07:05: Around this time on the third floor: with deep chagrin, I realize I am on the floor with an apartment I think of as "the mannequin trap." "Oh, it's festive, we'll have fun."

2:07:40: Here's the floor that must have gotten flooded, possibly by rain (associated with James) through the roof. 

I mention that "the mannequin trap" went two different ways for me before: the first time, I immediately got jumped by everybody, and the second time, all the enemies decided to be sneaky and hide. They've chosen the latter approach this time, and you even get to see one mannequin prance across the dark room to a different hiding place. 

If you remember me talking about listening for monster noises—on this floor, you’ll hear me react before I get attacked, because I heard a mannequin (generally giggling or squelching) before I saw it. 

(When I say "have a little fun," I mean letting the mannequins show off their moves, not the "beating them up" part.)

2:09:30: While I'm talking about how fun they are, I get jumped when I turn a corner, and yelp. And then while I'm talking about the creepy giggle, the reminder of both fantasy and humanity, "girls with cute little giggles that he shouldn't be thinking about while his wife is sick—"

2:10:00: —I HEAR that giggle, and get jumped again and shriek. 

"—anyway, that they may be more human than he thinks they are."

2:11:00: Next apartment: I promptly get tag-teamed by a fresh pair of mannequins, and I am knocked very quickly down to critically low health. "I AM NOT DYING IN WOOD SIDE, MOTHERFUCKER! IF WE'RE DYING IT'S AT LEAST GONNA BE SOMEWHERE RESPECTABLE!" Like, at least let me go out in some kind of boss fight, damn. Also, I knew perfectly well that this room had a second mannequin waiting around the corner, but that first one got me so fast, and the second one doesn't usually come out on its own.

(Okay, but I only noticed when rewatching the video that the first mannequin speed-tiptoes past me while I'm yelling, and it's really, really funny. Meanwhile, they just wait politely for Ian.)

2:14:00: Another mannequin and a Sinister Note about "peel[ing] off more" (to see the Otherworld underneath, I'd say). I realize I have missed the Strange Note that ought to precede it. I proceed to wander 3F for the next six minutes. 

2:20:10: Finally, a hidden area with a desk and the Strange Note: "I know there is Something Here, I know I can feel it. It all looks normal, but it's NOT." (This will make more sense once you see Blue Creek Apartments in HELL the Otherworld.) Now we have to wander back. 

2:22:55: "This is fine. This is absolutely fine."

("I like to kill the monsters because at least I know they're down. At least I know they're not coming after me again," I say, ordering the monsters not to get back up in the very next breath.)

2:24:04: The traversal I groaned at actually leads to the 3F laundry room and “Bloody Apple” CANNED JUICE. I explain my deep grudge: I got lost for at least half an hour on my first run because I didn't realize the third floor was already open to me. Finally, I googled the damn thing and read that it was originally in Apartment 107, made my way there... found NO JUICE, and kept wandering until FINALLY I realized that it was on the third floor. And I'm still BITTER ABOUT IT. I drank cranapple juice in ANGER. Anyway, this may be part of the Adam and Eve motif—"bloody apple" rather than "blood orange"—and I'll let Ian talk about that. 

What's banging around in the washer? I don't know; it never comes out, and it can stay there. 

Next post: Three Bright Coins in the Five Holes Be; Apartment 107 is full of allusions to Laura and Mary; Apartment 201 is full of allusions to Mary and James; Pyramid Head and Blue Velvet; we cross over to the Otherworld. 

(SH2R commentary master post)

[safe-by-dawn]

Prey

Hoodie x reader (Smut)

Requests are currently open

Word Count: 2.1k

Content Warnings: CNC themes, name-calling, knife play, predator/prey dynamic, public-ish.

A/N: Not really good at warnings, so if I left anything out that you think needs to be listed let me know and I'll add it. Not edited because I wanted to get something out before work. Will definitely go back and fix errors a little later!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There’s a chill in the air, burning your lungs with every heavy stride that carries you further and further into the deep forest. The buzzing of insects and occasional branches snapped by the wildlife observing your form has gone silent in favor of your heavy heart pounding in your ears.

You know he’s just around the corner, waiting, watching you struggle as the sweat slips across your forehead and for only a moment, part of you wants to stop and allow his hands to take hold of you. You want this game of cat and mouse to end. Your feet are heavy and your motions become exhausted after minutes of sprinting through the forest.

The longer you run, the worse it will be for you.

Somewhere, within the burn that spread across your skin, a heavy feeling settles in your core. Whether it was the fear of the chase or the adrenaline or arousal that this man laces into your bones when he decides to play games with you like this.

You knew him; knew he had a sick interest in watching you run away from him and pressing you into the earth after he catches you, watching you writhe and fight with him. It’s not uncommon for him to pull the car over on long drives when there’s long stretches of nothing but trees, grabbing your face in his hands before he all but pushes you out of the passenger seat.

“You’ll be a good brat for me, won’t you?” The grip he has on your cheeks is only heightened by the leather of his gloves. You can only nod at him, all words leaving your throat as a mix between excitement and longing and fear bubbles and presses a knot into your throat. “Now get the fuck out.”

You can barely see the smirk on his face as he pulls the balaclava over his head and then raises his hood. The car shuts off leaving you in darkness, and you know it’s your turn to hold up your part of the sick game he was oh so in love with and take off into the forest.

He was sick, demented, disgusting, and any other vile word you can think of, but you get off on the run as much as he does for the chase, so what does that make you? Just as twisted as he is.

Your footsteps are loud enough that you know he can hear you. He can hear you panting, dragging in as much air as your scorched lungs can carry. Even though this was a somewhat common occurrence, you’re never as prepared as you think you might be. The weaving through trees can only last so long until you feel hands press into your back, lurching you forward and onto your hands and knees and into the cold, wet ground. You don’t have enough time to think about the way the mud splatters across you as you before he flips you onto your back.

It’s only then that you notice the steady red blinking of his recorder in his hand, capturing the fear and arousal pressed into your features. He stands above you, feet on either side of your hips as the recorder drinks in every bit of you: The heave of your chest, the limpness of your now throbbing muscles that pushed so hard to get away from him. All of it to be kept and played back to you later before he decides to take you again with your own whimpers and screams in the background of the dark room.

It’s sick. It’s sick and you adore it.

“You’re so goddamn gorgeous like this.” He squats down, close enough to wrap his hand around your face once again and you push it away. He’s already excited, you can tell even in the dark that his pants are tight around him. It only earns you a smack across your cheek, the leather burning you in such a delicious way, pulling a whimper out of you.

His hand runs down you, dragging down your still clothed body to dip into your jeans, tugging on the fabric but never pushing further into the desire that throbs between your legs. You attempt to push yourself across the ground out from under him but he only pulls you back closer by the waist of your pants, tugging them down slightly in the process.

“Don’t run from me, whore.” His voice is distorted from under his mask, filtering though the fabric in such a deep way that you can help the sound that comes out of you.

“Please,” You plead, and he only brings the recorder closer to your face to capture the mud and sweat lining your features.

“Please what?”

“Please, let me go.” You continue your attempt to scoot away from him. It’s the question you always ask. It lights the fire in him when he feels like you might fight him off. He loves having the upper hand, loves watching you squirm away.

“Sit there and be a good girl.” He steps off of you, to your surprise, moving over to one of the closer trees to set his camera up to watch the entire thing.

You take your chance to move, tired body trying to pull yourself up off the ground and away from him. You only make it back onto your hands and knees before his hands are back on you, pushing your face into the ground as his clothed hips meet your ass and you can feel him press into your heat through his jeans. “I told you not to fucking move.”

His hand grips into your hair pulling your top half back up off the ground and further into him. You hear the flick of his blade, a small thing but sharp enough to tear through you if he wanted it to.

He drags the smooth side down your chest resting just at your navel before he pushes it up and into your shirt shedding the thin material and exposing you even further to the cold night air. “You didn’t like that shirt, did you?” He speaks into your ear before pushing your face back into the dirt and you can barely manage to shake your head from the vice grip he has on your hair.

“No.”

“What about these jeans?” The knife slides across the denim covering your now dripping cunt. The light pressure only exciting you more. “You look delicious, but they gotta go.” As he speaks, he pulls the fabric from your skin, barely slicing the denim enough to get his hands in to tear it open.

You gasp as the air hits. The tear in the jeans leave you exposed, pussy only covered by the thin panties you decided to wear and they don’t last long as he cuts them in half to leave you out in the open.

“Won’t you give the camera a show, slut.” He growls out before the knife is thrown to the side in favor of grabbing your hips and angling you to where he knows the camera is sitting only feet away from you. You know that it can see everything through the rips in your jeans, but he goes the extra mile by letting the leather of his gloves press against your lips and spread you out for it. Your heat squelches obscenely the slick collected there almost dripping onto the forest floor but Hoodie catches it with his finger to drag it back up before pushing a gloved finger into you.

His hands are already large, but the thickness the gloves add is delicious. A whine escapes your lips as he drags back out enough to add a second digit into you, stretching you around his fingers before he curls them down into the spot he knows you love.

“I could just fuck you right now.” He growls out, lifting you and letting his fingers slip out in favor of pressing them into your mouth. “See how wet your are, slut.”

You nod, letting your tongue press into his glove, collecting the slick there and your own taste lingers as he pulls them out and lets you fall back onto the ground.

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you.” You can hear him undoing his belt as he talks, and it only makes you drip more, knowing that he’ll fill you up soon.

“Yes, please.” You turn enough to watch him press his fingers against your heat and collect your wetness and pump his cock with it, mixing with his own pre-cum.

“You’re a whore,” Hoodie presses the length against you, letting it slip under you and against your folds, barely brushing against your clit, “You’re my whore.”

He barely presses the tip into you now, your pussy squeezing against nothing in anticipation, trying to pull in every inch of him, “Say it.” His voice comes out much harsher when he speaks, but you say nothing.

“I told you to fucking say it.” His hand reaches under you to push into your throat, grip tightening as he pulls his cock away from your entrance. “You want it so bad, fucking beg for it.”

“I’m your whore, please,” You beg, pushing your ass back into him in hopes he’ll finally push into you, “Hoodie, please fuck me.”

Before the words can even fully leave your lips, he pushes into you harshly, bottoming out in one thrust and almost pushing out all of the air in your lungs as a moan leaves you harshly at the stretch. “Oh, fuck.” You whimper out as he snaps his hips back and into you, already abusing your poor cervix with every thrust he pounds into you.

Your entire body is his to play with. Curves and meat there for him to smack and pinch and pull on. Every bit of it there to abuse and bite.

You love it. You love the way his hands pull on you as he plows you into the ground, no doubt leaving bruises that you’ll stare at in the mirror until they finally fade and he replaces them with fresh new ones.

His hips push you harshly into the ground as your hands search for purchase in the earth, gripping anything you can get a hold of. He pulls you up by your throat as he continues to slam into you, pulling out obscene sounds, moans and whimpers flood the once empty forest. You can feel his teeth press deep into your shoulder even through the balaclava he wears, and you scream at the pain but he loves it. He loves every sound coming out of you. It only spurs him on.

His hand runs down you again, pressing against your breast, pulling at your nipples before he continues on to rub at your clit. The hand on your throat tightens, leaving your head an even fuzzier mess than his cock is already doing. It’s too much, the coil inside of you tightens and he knows it. He can’t wait to watch you come undone of video later.

Your thighs clench as it finally snaps, cunt pulsing around his length as the high washes over you. As your body sets itself on fire against him. “Such a good girl for me, such a beautiful whore, just for me.” He talks you through your high, watching you come down as he continues pounding his cock in and out of you, finally chasing his own high as he lets you fall back onto the hard ground as he watches you take all of him. He presses into the soft spot he knows you love, watching as you mewl, chattering nothings into the air.

“’s good, so good.” Rambles and moans are the only thing you can get out your mouth before he pushes in to the hilt, emptying into you with a deep groan, before he pulls out and pushes back in, fucking his mess fully into you.

He pulls off of you, hand coming to pull his balaclava up before he grabs onto your face once again, jerking you towards his face to press a bruising kiss to your lips before he’s pulling his hoodie off and tossing it towards you.

You struggle in a half lidded daze to put it on, leaving your destroyed shirt in the forest, as he reaches a hand out to you to help pull you up and you lean heavy into him as he walks you in what you hope is the direction you had come from. Your muscles ache and you’ll definitely feel in the next morning when he shows you what a mess you were the night before as he plugs his camera into his computer to replay the whole scene for you.

But first, finding the car you had left abandoned on the side of the road.

[myfanfic-urfantrash]

ok but now i wanna see a gacha where the mc is like forced to help lol. literally being dragged like a cat to the bath into helping others around them, and then they slowly start to open up and seeing how doing even small acts of kindness still matters even in times of despair. you know the whole "you are a part of the world/universe" so it's up to you to make it fair and kind when it isn't. if that makes sense.

i just think that in modern times, a cynical protagonist like this might resonate more than someone who can shrug of hardship with ease and always remain optimistic. but being realistic or even pessimistic isn’t inherently a flaw that will stop you from also being compassionate. Jiaoqiu, Acheron, and Welt from HSR are great examples of what I mean as characters of Nihility who still go out of their way to help others despite seeing the worst of people and feeling the pointlessness of it all.

tbf to the traveler, i think the mizuki story quest and genshin's overall story just didn't do a well enough job of diving into their mindset. curse the "mc is a self insert" syndrome. either make them a full character or a complete blank slate. this weird limbo of getting glimpses at their personality before going back to "stereotypical shallow ass shounen protag" so frustrating.

It is frustrating and it's sort of a reason why I'm slowly moving away from these gacha games(besides the gameplay being tedious and painfully repetitive as heck honestly).

Though not sure how well a gacha game MC that has thoughts and such of their own would appeal to players especially those that spend tons of money to get a specific character...like I could see them losing their mind if they realize the one they spent tons of money on doesn't like the MC in anyway and by extension them as the player playing the MC. I mean there is the portion of the audience that'd be 100% into that but for the rest eh...

It'd be cool if they make a sorta custom MC where you can either take a quiz or choose to be a certain personality type and that your MC's actions would be based on those things. And that if you wanted to have other options that may be out of character or signify growth you have to unlock them through a quest or something so said growth or out of character behavior makes sense.

Like a MC that's timid and instead of them speaking up/charging in about some wrong doing like a typical MC they work in the background to do something about the issue instead. And later they become braver and can actually stand up for others directly even if they stutter.

Or even an MC that like we talked about before gets pushed around until they've had enough and leave. Have them become better at saying no and also learn to take on only what they're capable of and let others learn to handle themselves.

It might be heck to code though and writing all of that would make anyone cry though I think they can do it...they just have to have a finished product though which isn't what gachas do/are...but I'd love to see someone make a game using these things anyways regardless of gacha. In all honesty I feel like Genshin, HSR, and etc gacha games would be 1000% better if they weren't restricted by the fact they are gacha games...

You could make it so every character is unlockable via in game quests since we're already going through character quests for them it's the perfect set up honestly...or make them and alternative outfits for them DLC... but again it's gacha and gacha games make more money in the long/short term than finished games do until they shut down.

Eh I dunno did not realize how much I had to say about this.

[izartn]

The next post from my fic recs series! this post was the previous!! In this one I keep on with the Complete fics, from over 5.000 words, of whose fandoms I only have one (1) bookmark.

The ratings on this post are gonna be Gen and Teen&Up. Here for Mature and Explicit, the next post!

NOTE: The fandom will be marked with NCK for no canon knowledge on the recs where I haven’t read/watched a substantial part or all of the canon before reading fic. I rec those fics but fair is fair and I warn my judgement is not as good in those cases!

General Audiences

A Dirge for Gregor by LadyCharity (Restricted) Fandoms: Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

Words: 6,789

Tags: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, F/M

Pairing: Adam/Eve

Summary: "If it was so wrong to eat to survive then maybe it was so wrong to exist." Adam never knew monsters. He only ever was one.

What I Did At Border Camp by petrichoral (Restricted) Fandoms: The Turn of the Story, aka In Other Lands - Sarah Rees Brennan

Words: 8,846

Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, Gen

Ship: None. Luke Sunborn & Selene-chaos-in-battle & Elliot Schafer

Summary: A rewrite of Part I from Luke's PoV, with bonus Luke and Serene scenes. Most dialogue taken directly from canon.

Elliot was without doubt the most irritating, spiteful and neurotic council cadet that Luke had ever encountered. Luke also suspected that Elliot was the type of clever which made Luke look like a particularly bright cabbage, and he didn’t like that either. But Elliot, for some weird reasons of his own, was helping Serene. And Serene liked him.

Teens and Up

the runaround by astardanced Fandoms: The Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison

Words: 9.925

Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, M/M

Ships: Csevet Aisava/Goblin Courier, Csevet Aisava & Maia Drazhar, Cala Athmaza & Csevet Aisava

Summary: "No doubt thou didst melt the seal open on the steam vents to read the business of thy betters, planned how thou wouldst ingratiate thyself with the Archduke— oh yes, we know thy tricks…”

Not the steam vents, thinks Csevet. It would wet the paper. The hot pipes, yes— but not the vents. He would only use a steam vent if he wanted to bleed the ink onto the external sheet and claim inclement weather, and that almost never can be gotten away with inside the court.

Captain Orthema is saying Lord Chavar, leave Mer Aisava, but Csevet knows Chavar will not move for love or money now, not until he has said his piece.

Two attempts on the throne; and Csevet Aisava, in the shadows.

an ode to all our wasted time by elliptical - NCK (i've read the other trilogies though) Fandoms: The Last Hours Series - Cassandra Clare

Words: 7.749

Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, M/F, M/M

Ships: Cordelia Carstairs/Matthew Fairchild/James Herondale, Cordelia Carstairs/James Herondale, Cordelia Carstairs/Matthew Fairchild, Matthew Fairchild/James Herondale, Matthew Fairchild & James Herondale

Summary: Matthew looks at James and Cordelia, and he thinks, I missed my chance. (He didn't, though.)

A Song for Daphne by spoken Fandoms: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat

Words: 8.840

Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, M/M, M/F (background)

Ships: Erasmus/Kallias, Kallias & Jokaste

Summary: Kingdoms, lost and won in the space of a summer. Kallias and Jokaste play the game of royal favour in the court of a dying King, and prepare for the end.

Time and Again by vulpes_cantus Fandoms: Tales of Zestiria

Words: 6.634

Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, M/M

Ships: Sorey/Mikleo

Summary: Sorey had never, not for one second, doubted his relationship with Mikleo, ever since they were children… but six hundred years was a long time. Anything could’ve happened. It wasn’t even that he was worried about anything in particular -- it was simply that the time itself felt like a distance vaster than the world itself.

[chocolateteapotsvis]

Ohhh for the WIP ask, what can you tell me about Crane Husband?

Okay, Crane Husband!  A couple people asked about this one, so I’ll give the background here, and will link the snippets once I post them!

Also, uh, trigger warning for folklore being weird?  Forced marriage, self harm, and death mentioned, but nothing graphic.

Okay, so the inspiration for Crane Husband is the weirdly common and global folklore subgenre about animal turning into beautiful lady, and marrying our rando protagonist, often after he steals the magical robe that allows her to change shape and coerces her into doing his bidding. Which, like, WTF?  Ancient people telling on themselves about how they can’t get a date centuries after the fact. 

The Crane Wife specifically is a Japanese story, where a dude helps a crane, who flies off, and then coincidentally a woman shows up wanting to be his wife.  He’s poor, but she says she can make them money. She locks herself in a room with a warning not to look, and emerges with the most beautiful cloth he’s ever seen, but also not looking so great herself.  The cloth sells for a lot, and they’re much better off now.  Depending on the version, the husband starts pushing her to weave more cloth so that they can be rich, or their beset by debtors but the husband begs for the wife to stop weaving because of how sick she gets after every time she does it.  This goes on for a while, her weaving more, and becoming more sickly and pale, until finally, he spies on her while she’s weaving, only to find the crane that he helped pulling out her feathers and weaving it into the cloth.  The crane either dies or has to leave because he broke their bargain, again, depending on the version.

It's also a song by the Decemberists.

There’s something kind of tragically romantic in a way that speaks to my angst-loving side, especially with fairytales being so open ended and there being versions where the dude is more/less aware of what he’s letting her/asking her to do.  In the previously mentioned “man coerces marriage from animal disguised as a human” I’m just rooting for her to fuck him up, but this one starts with an act of kindness and then ends up badly regardless.

Barry absolutely seemed like the kind of guy who would help an injured bird, and I could absolutely see echoes of Hal’s terrible self esteem in the crane’s actions.  I was going to mix in some of the other myths too, with the cloak that lets Hal switch between being a bird and being a human.  The story is about Hal and Barry navigating the general plot of the story, with the added bonus of crane Hal having grown up on bird fairytales warning him away from humans, and also I’m aiming for a happier ending because it felt very attainable in the fairy tale despite not going that way.

Thanks for asking!

WIP ask game

[raycyel]

What were the Border Wars (headcannons)

Oooo boy headcannon time. This is some background lore for my NSR fic, The Comeback from the Fall. This post is gonna center around the Border Wars, Neon J's involvement in them, and how cyborgs came to be. Considering Neon J is a main character, that stuff matters at least somewhat.

Probably mild spoilers for my fic below the cut.

Alright, so the border wars. We don't know much about them outside of what Neon J mentions in his speech after being defeated, and the creators said they're purposefully leaving it vague to let people fill in the blanks. So that's what I shall do.

Name alone, I'm under the assumption that the "Border Wars" are about one country trying to take over other countries, expanding their borders. Maybe it started as a fight over where the border should be between two countries, but as more allies and other countries got involved, it turned into one country trying to take over others.

Now, which country went and started taking over all the others? Hard to say because we know next to nothing of this games geography, but based on what Neon J says in his speech, I would say Azkar.

Neon J said he was in the Azkar faction in the ridges of Kewan. I took that to mean the part of Kewan that Azkar had taken over.

This next part is where I start getting a bit cannon divergent. Its hinted at in the game's lore that before the war, Neon J had a toy shop in Vinyl City. I agree that he was 100% a toy maker, but I would like to argue for the sake of my headcannon that he wasn't a toy maker in Vinyl City, because he wasn't in Vinyl City.

I think that Neon J is a refugee from one of the countries that Azkar took over in the Border Wars. Vinyl City opened its arms to soldiers from countries that had been lost, as long as they fought in the war for Vinyl City. With nowhere else to go, Neon J joined Vinyl City's military and continued fighting in the border wars. Maybe his deployment to the Azkar faction in Kewan was his first as a soldier for Vinyl City, which is why he brought it up after talking about defending the city.

Despite how well off Vinyl City seems to be, blackouts aside, he still talks about his home in the past tense. What it was like, how he wants kids to be able to run around freely without worry, even though they can 100% do that in Vinyl City. Before B2J start rebelling for sure, but honestly also during because B2J were not causing that much harm. People were doing graffiti, and in the finale they were actually fighting, but Neon J said this before the real fighting had started. I feel like Tatiana's announcements made it seem a lot more worse than it actually was.

Either way, Neon J's words feel a lot bigger than just the revolution, because it wasn't causing that much chaos until the finale. Almost like he's talking about a home that he lost entirely, which is what would happen if his home country was consumed by Azkar. It's a home he can't get back, which is why he is so dedicated to NSR and Vinyl City. When he lost so much before, dude is probably constantly on edge about things going bad and losing everything again. Any threat to what he knows could send everything he has back to nothing, so he needs to protect his new home with everything he has from even the smallest disruption.

Also this line in particular makes it feel like he's not talking about Vinyl City to me. It comes right after the "A promise to bring peace back to my people" line. Until the day comes where peace is brought back to his people, he will serve this city. Seems like very extreme wording for a rebellion that has been around for like, 5 days max at the time Neon J fights B2J. He could be blowing things out of proportion (which is very in character), or he could be saying that until he gets his first home back (which might never happen), he will protect his new one the best he can. Also saying "this" city instead of "my" city, but that is very nitpicky so its only a side note.

Well, if Neon J is a refugee soldier from another country, how is he a charter and basically the head of military in Vinyl City? There are two major military based robotics developments in Vinyl City, cyborgs and warbots. In my fic, there will be more cyborgs than just Neon J. 2 major movements, perhaps 2 different people leading the Vinyl City military? Major headcannon territory below, but here is what I think could have happened.

When Neon J arrived to Vinyl City, he was still fully human, no robotics. Given that his home country was being consumed by Azkar when he was still there, they would not be able to make advancements in robotics to make cyborgs happen. The Vinyl City military at the time were the people developing cyborg technology. Injured soldiers were given robotic parts whether they wanted them or not, and dying soldiers got the worst of it all.

Dying soldiers were the primary experimental group for whole body replacements, as we see with Neon J. Some injury (perhaps an explosion on a naval vessel, because Neon J is a navy guy *wink wink*) almost killed Neon J. He was barely alive when he was rescued. Experimental procedures replaced his body with robotic parts that housed all his remaining human organs. I'll discuss this more later in a different post, but long story short, cyborg parts have to function in the same way human parts would in order for the brain to really recognize and use them. This made the procedure highly lethal until way later in development, where Neon J was one of the first successful cyborgs to actually survive. Not a lot of cyborgs exist, and since they were struggling too much to simply exist after the procedure, they were removed from the war force and left to fend for themselves in Vinyl City.

This is when Neon J started his toy shop in Vinyl City, while working to adapt to his new life as a cyborg. Obviously, we can see Neon J works with a radar on his monitor head, I assume that he is blind and uses the radar to "see". Him and other cyborgs who lost their sight can plug in cameras to see, but because its not how the brain wants to see, it gives Neon J a migraine, so he doesn't use it often. So it took him a while to get to the point where he was making coherent toys. That was enough time for like, 13 cyborgs to pile up, most of whom were pissed off about forcibly being turned into cyborgs and basically left for dead to try and figure out how to live.

What do said 13 cyborgs do? They go to complain to the leader of Vinyl City, of course. She must know that this was happening. Except she doesn't, not to the extent of full body replacement. That's no good, the head of military was keeping secrets and has got to be replaced. And who better to do it than the cyborg in front of her with one of the best track records as a naval commander. Neon J. He obviously accepts.

Now in charge, he ends the cyborg program for full body replacement. But that gets rid of Vinyl City's advantage over Azkar, because the robotic enhancements were really giving them an edge. Neon J has to come up with something else. If not robotic enhancements, how about robots in general. And thus, Neon J combined his newfound robotics expertise (thanks to needing to do self maintenance) and his old toy making abilities to start making warbots. Due to what happened to his first home, Neon J plans to do everything in his power to protect his new home. And when he finds out giving the warbots fake memories makes them fight better, he does so without hesitation.

Over time, the war continues going with no real end in sight. At this point, there is no real hope for recovering the countries that were overtaken. When no progress is made in recovering the lost land, Neon J shifts his priorities to defense, making sure Azkar doesn't take over more territory than they already have. Eventually he shifts his priorities further to make Vinyl City open to people who lost their homes. The war continues on at the time the game takes place.

If the war is still happening, then why are all the warbots at home? Simple, Neon J pulled Vinyl City out of the border wars and is now focusing even more on defense. He's defending his new home after having lost the first one to the war. Vinyl City is an island, its a fair distance away from where the war is happening, meaning they can afford to prioritize defense without the worry of constantly being bombarded by attacks. Vinyl City is very diverse because he is focused on helping refugees find a new, safe home. Something he didn't get to have when his home country was lost. It's also why he takes B2J's rebellion so seriously. Not only is it an attack on the home hes trying to protect, but it could be taken as a sign of instability to Azkar, a vulnerability that might cause them to attack. It draws unwanted attention to Vinyl City.

tldr: The border wars are the country of Azkar taking over other countries around it. One of these countries is the one Neon J is from, so he joined Vinyl City's military in order to gain citizenship to it. An injury during his time there resulted in him undergoing cyborg replacement against his will and then being left on his own. Himself and other cyborgs brought it up to Tatiana, who made Neon J the new head of military. As the head of military, Neon J switch to making warbots before eventually pulling out of the border wars all together to protect Vinyl City and allow other people displaced by the war to find a new home. Because he lost his first home, he will protect Vinyl City with his life.

--------

HAHA! THAT WAS A DOOSEY TO WRITE BUT IT IS HERE! I've been meaning to write this for a while. It's all been rotating around in my brain, but that's all I remember right now. Might edit it again later if i remember anything. Some of this is about to be relevant in a lore dump in the fic, so I figured I'd get my story straight. Hope you like it (:

There is gonna be another lore dump about how I think cyborgs work at some point, and then maybe also some stuff from my outline that isn't gonna be coming to the fic for, like, potentially years depending on how long it takes me to write when I'm out of college.

[callmewhatyouwantitdoesnotmatter]

Can you share a Croissant or Timekeeper headcanon with me? :>

More on Director Croissant Cookie Haha XDD

- Headcanon that she's rounding her 40's now

- Director Croissant keeps a Toolkit and some random parts hidden away in the drawers of her office, so if she's confused, frustrated, or nervous, she'd pull it out and just begin tinkering with them.

- Director thinks often of the life she could have lived if she chose not to chase her dreams of being The Best Engineer, but when she thinks of not chasing that dream she gets very numb cause she has no idea of what she'd do if she chose not to chase the dream since it's all she ever did do since she was young.

- Croissant Cookie thinks of Hero Cookie and Sandwich cookie a whole lot too, and she's tried on multiple occassions to call them or send them a message, but she drafts everything she writes.

- She's convinced herself that she's content to drift into the background, A better option than to have anyone remember her.

- She lost her arm, not in an accident, but during the moment she smashed the Central Square. (Idk, I like to think that the red smearing is from Croissant Cookies- Mnnn)

- She really tried to be great for an hour. She took up a small invitation of String Gummy Cookie to eat out, but in the end she ended up not coming. The next day, String found her just fiddling away at a Cog near her desk. He chose to try and speak to her about it, but Croissant would not open up about the date and instead give him a fake mission to clear his mind off of the topic.

- She has a limp om her left leg! She uses her Golden Spanner as her Walking cane, and She has declined the offer of Maple Taffy Cookie in using a Wheelchair on multiple occasions.

- Croissant Cookies Golden Eye is something she uses to see the multiple futures and the pasts of anyone she encounters, however she couldn't see The Future of String Gummy Cookie.

- She often uses her Foresight as a cheat during games of Chess, and she never loses. String Gummy Cookie however was there to stop her streak, but he noticed her about to lose and gave her the win instead.

- Any small loss to Croissant now , to her, it feels like her whole world is breaking. She will choose not to speak for a long while and instead opt to write down her messages on paper (Hence the many papers all over the floor in the Office)

- Those papers in the Directors office floor can either be Her messages, Ramblings about how to fix time, or just the words "Time is Over" written all over again on the paper.

- The sound of a clock ticking is nowhere to be heard in the Future, but coincidentally if it is heard then it would signal that a timeline was shattered. This ticking is something that Timekeeper would usually hear until she gave up her position and Fled, leaving Croissant Cookie to hear the ticking.

- She secretly likes Those Ice Cream Sandwiches.

- She struggles to hear often because of the loudness of the ticking because it sounds like the tick is just near her ear, but she just couldn't get rid of it.

- She has no idea how to cook, and frankly she would choose never to leave the office for 3 days straight and just have nothing to eat, but she'd only ever ask String Gummy cookie for a drink.

- Strinf Gummy cookie would often Cook sandwiches for Croissant Cookie, trying to mimic what she described of Sandwich cookies Sandwiches.

- Croissants earlier days were with her staying inside her room and playing with her toys to create something new out of them and then showing them off to her friends, and she's thought that she would eventually leave that isolated feeling of being inside, but now she finds herself cooped up within another room with the weight of the world over her shoulders.

- String Gummy Cookie had caught up to how she looks to alot of places with a somber look in her eyes, and so he'd ask her what was her attachment to them.

- This has gone on for a long while until Croissant Cookie had warmed up enough to String Gummy, so she'd tell him stories of her old friends and everything she loved to do.

- The Time Balance Department manages sending supplies to the surviving cookies of "The Apocalypse" as Croissant Cookie likes to call their current situation in the future.

I have like One Timekeeper Cookie Headcanon and it's mainly for ROTF

-Ruler of The Epehemeral Flow looks back at Croissant Cookie and genuinely feels for her since they both now understand this feeling of being powerless. They can't achieve what they wanted, and for Timekeeper she's gotten too much of what she wanted.

- After the Timeline deletion however, ROTF is just stuck in the Time Pocket where there is no end to the constant reminder of her Powerlessness.

- She would come as a glimpse in the mirrors or in the TV's that line the streets, and when you see her, then it serves as a warning to be weary since your time might be over.

- She tries to Catch Croissant Cookies attention at times, but Croissant is too absorbed over what she's doing to notice Timekeepers presence (A stark difference of how it would be back then whenever Timekeeper would appear and all eyes would be on her).

- Comtinuum Cog Acts like a cat?

Uh- Yes, This is my Headcanons

(I AM SO SORRY IF THIS IS SO LONG)

[afoxdoeswrite]

I just got out of watching the Five Nights at Freddy's movie a couple hours ago. Here's some thoughts.

They're under this cut because obviously, a lot of spoilers.

On the FNaF movie;

It’s sure a movie. It didn’t need to be FNaF.

Let me preface this with some context; I’m fond of FNaF. I wasn’t in much of the big early craze. In fact I don’t think I really got into things until like, 2017, so coming up to the end of the early games. But I’m very fond of it. I love the lore, it’s a tangled disaster and everything about it is a mess. But I like that there’s plot holes everywhere to poke into, and that there’s about six different arguments for so many different things, and generally I like it because it’s a mess.

I’m admittedly not super up to date on the books and their lore, but that’s because I don’t have the free time to buy that many books and also read them. I’ve been working on that, mostly through things like the various wikis. I’d definitely not call myself up to date on the level that the Youtube lore video makers are, but I’m comfortably aware of a decent amount of things.

So with that in mind, the movie.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent movie. It’s not great.

Which is admittedly a problem when it’s had a development time of like five years or something? But hey.

The problem comes from the fact that it’s not really horror. At least. Not Five Nights at Freddy’s horror. It seems in some ways to bill itself more as a mystery- except, it’s a FNaF movie. If you know anything about FNaF, you can probably guess the ‘plot twist’ within the first few minutes of the mystery coming up. You could honestly remove all the FNaF elements and replace it with a Chuck E. Cheese, or some other Legally Distinct Restaurant With Robots, and get the same sort of energy.

Is it creepy? Sure. They do the atmosphere for the Pizza Place great, honestly. The tension is pretty good. And sure, I’ll let it slide that it is horror in that. The tension is good, there’s a creeping sense of not knowing what’s around the corners, the sense of being hunted. It’s good.

It didn’t need to be FNaF. It really, truly didn’t.

Let me explain.

The core of FNaF, the beating heart of it, is that it’s a survival horror where you’re locked in a room. You can’t see what’s coming for the majority of the game; you click the lights on your doors to see if they’re right outside, but that only works for two of the four. For the other two- Freddy and Foxy- as well as for tracking both Bonnie and Chica around the building, you have the cameras! It’s FNaF’s big mechanic for the first three games, and even the later ones have something similar to that.

The movie doesn’t use that.

(This is admittedly also my problem with Security Breach, but that’s a talk for another time.)

If the movie had given me Mike Schmidt, stuck in his office at the restaurant, being hunted by animatronics and having to defend the room, I’d’ve been happy. Sure, maybe it’s a little hard to make that a full movie. But there’s nothing to say he couldn’t also leave the room. Mix it up, use the cameras to keep track of things, make Mike too afraid to leave that safe place at first, but then make it so it’s either run or die, and then make things more mobile. Keep the cameras somehow; they’re linked to a tablet in the games, maybe use that.

But instead the movie gives us the FNaF office setting as a background to the family drama going on outside. It’s used as a place for Mike to have a job, and a place for him to talk to the ghosts while obsessing over finding out who took his brother.

And there’s another thing. The family drama frontline is also pretty meh. It’s used to push why Mike needs a job so much, why he takes the Freddy’s job even though it’s utter crap. But it’s basically dropped half way through the movie into a sub plot, and then isn’t resolved. The aunt just disappears. It’s sort of implied that she’s killed- which opens up another host of issues but Hey-, the people the aunt was using are all killed half way through and only used for some shock horror in the final climax of the film, and those guys are where a solid amount of the horror even comes from, with their invasion of Freddy’s and the following hunt.

If they’d taken that hunt into the rest of the film, that’d be great.

Continuing back, the plot with Abby is also… a bit flat. She’s got an imaginary friend! Neat! Mike has to take her to Freddy’s for work and she makes friends with the ghosts in the robots! Also neat!

The ending is boring. It’s dramatic, it’s tense. It’s boring. And honestly, my reasons why is entirely tied up with my next point;

William. Freaking. Afton.

This is about to get a bit non-chronological with the movie plot.

Now admittedly, in the setting of the movie, his entire existence isn’t nearly as groan-inducing as it is in the games. Especially the later games.

(My opinions on Security Breach continue to appear.)

But he is criminally misused in this movie. He’s why Mike’s brother disappeared, and so was likely killed. Yeah ok that’s fair. I don’t believe that’s how Afton has ever been presented as working like that in the games, but sure. I’ll take it.

Afton is able to control the animatronics? Sure…? I mean he kinda does that at one point, if you want to take the FNaF 3 post-night games as that. The Shadow Freddy in those minigames isn’t exactly Afton’s style at all, I’ve always assumed it to be some other ghost and I think a lot of people agree with that, but hey. We can work with that.

Afton appears in the last like, ten minutes or so of the movie, he rants for a bit, and is dragged off by the bots. He gets springlocked. He’s shut in one of the back rooms, presumably to meet his FNaF 3 ending cutscene fate of being stuck back there to rot. He’s hinted at before then, but the main villain of literally the entire series isn’t used.

And then there’s the Vanessa stuff.

Ok I would first like to point out; Vanessa introduces herself as Vanessa Shelly. Could this be a fake name? Sure. Or maybe she changed her name. But that would not be necessary at all. Vanessa in the games is Vanessa A., no last name given. The fandom is happily divided on if she’s an Afton or not. It’s right up there with the Vanny/Vanessa arguments. The point stands is that the movie nicely sets up that this isn’t the same Vanessa as Vanessa the Pizzaplex Security Guard.

My friend I tell you, when I say I groaned aloud when the whole ‘he’s my father’ line came up? I groaned. My soul left my body. We had to pause watching because the others in the room were laughing so hard at my reaction that no-one could hear anything.

I am so tired of this, man. I know some of this comes from having dealt with the last decade of franchise and the endless nightmare that is FNaF 6’s nice fairly neat ending followed by Ultimate Custom Night and Help Wanted and Security Breach.

(And Ruin. But Ruin is slightly less awful for this.

Barely.

Rant for another time.)

But I am so tired of William Afton being connected to everyone. Movie team. We have three canon children for Afton already. I understand if you didn’t want to poke the game lore snake with that stick. But you also didn’t need to do this.

I will admit. Do I know how they would have done the William Afton Info Dump- sorry, Dramatic Reveal- without Vanessa The Convenient Daughter? No. Were there options? Certainly. Hell. You have the ghosts of his victims wandering around. Remove the ‘Afton is controlling them’ bit. Have the kid tell Mike who this guy is.

In the games it’s implied Afton is actually arrested for the murders, but let go due to lack of evidence. You could use that too! Have Mike find out about the murders from Vanessa, like he does, have him go home and do some research, and find out about this William Afton guy who was taken in and let go. If you want to keep your dramatic family should-be-a-B-plot, that can be when Mike starts to think that maybe it was this same guy that took Garrett; link the fact that the ghosts of the Freddy’s kids keep appearing in his dream about his brother, and there you go.

Or tie it to Abby’s drawing thing. He sees the drawing, finds out the kids told her about Garrett, puts it together that maybe this Afton guy who was accused of potentially killing the kids at Freddy’s is also linked to what happened to Garrett, and that’s why they keep showing up in his dream. Ta-da, no need for Vanessa to be Afton’s kid.

Is it a perfect change? God no. But the movie isn’t perfect either by any means, so I don’t see why that should be a complaint.

But going forward.

The ending wasn’t bad, I’ll give the movie that. It’s not. Grand. I will admit that I did not think that we needed that whole Afton Face Reveal moment that we got. It’s kind of pitiful. And the drawings thing being how they break the control is also pretty meh. Nicely foreshadowed, but meh. If you take out the Afton control thing, then you don’t need that. Or alternatively, maybe the bots are listening to Afton-in-the-Springsuit because… it’s a springsuit. It’s canon to FNaF 2 that they can’t tell a bot from a human just using a mask, so why would a suit be different? They just think it’s another bot, so they listen.

Reveal that the Spring Bonnie isn’t just another suit but is a person by just. Damaging it, or something? Vanessa shoots him in the movie, use that fact. Use the taser and have that set the springlocks off. Something that reveals that it’s a person in there.

You can also do the whole ‘remove the mask’ that the movie did. Which by the way; boring! Again! While I was watching it is genuinely took me minutes to register ‘hey. That was the job centre guy, right?’

That’s bad.

That’s also unnecessary.

Afton’s whole thing was that he was a faceless killer. He wore the suit and mask and hid who he was. He didn’t need to be linked into the job centre guy at all. This is honestly similar to my situation with the ‘Vanessa’s his kid’ thing, really. We didn’t need that. It wasn’t necessary. Afton didn’t need to be anyone important in their lives. That’s half the point of Afton. He’s a serial murderer, and most of his on-purpose crimes are people he has no relationship to other than ‘worked in the building’. There wasn’t a need to bring this silly little loop of ‘Afton was the job centre guy and he specifically got Mike hired here so he could kill him!’ into things.

But hey. It’s Five Nights At Freddy’s. It’s not like unnecessary plot loops is a new thing here.

Either way. I don't think the ending was bad. I just think, much like a lot of everything else, it was just sort of boring and a bit full of things that weren't totally necessary.

Is there more I could say? Probably. If I felt like rewatching the movie again and picking it apart minute by minute for all the Bad Things, I could do that. I don’t want to. I’ve watched it, now.

I came out of this movie with the opinion that it wasn’t bad, and I stand by that. As a movie, it was acceptable. If you don’t really care about FNaF and the lore, and just want something to kind of brainlessly watch for a bit of a spook and some gore… yeah, it pulls that off alright.

But it’s a FNaF movie. I came here for FNaF. Maybe it was for the lore, to see how they tied things together. Maybe it was just for some spooky jumpscares. Maybe it was for a tense, survive the night action with a mix of defending the room and running for his life. But I came here for Five Nights at Freddy’s, and what I got was a movie that could be reskinned with any generic animatronic pizza place company and still stand on its own.

That is not a good thing.

[eldritch-nightmare]

I honestly don’t k ow anything about dbd so colour me surprised when I found out ghostface is in there??? Is it like a game where the mc gets transported to a hell like dimension and do a bunch of trails conducted by people like ghsotfsce to survive?

Also k have my accounting exam today and I’m super nervous. It’s the highest course in my study field that has the highest failure/ dropout rate, which now I understand

omg im wishing you luck on your exam!!

but yeah i mean... technically?? that's definitely one way to describe it. and i'll try my best to explain what it is because it overtakes my every waking thought these days.

so like. there is this thing right. she's known as the entity. she's essentially the main antagonist of the whole game, and she drags people into something known as the fog, a place that no one has been able to escape. once you're in the fog, you're not leaving.

so you have one group of people known as survivors. this includes original characters like meg, yunjin, sable, dwight, etc etc. and then licensed characters such as leon kennedy, nick cage, alan wake, ellen ripley, etc etc.

then you have the second group, the killers. this includes original killers like the trickster, skull merchant, the trapper, the artist, etc etec. and then licensed characters like michael myers, pinhead, demogorgon, amanda young, and so on. then there's ghostface. he's only half-licensed, so he's not from any of this movies, he's only canon to dbd. his name is danny.

the lore of this game is not something i'm an expert at. i only know the lore for like... 5 characters. but the gist is that you get dragged into the fog (or willingly enter, if you're quirky like sable) and are forever stuck there, cursed to either continuously get killed over and over again or cursed to continuously murder over and over again.

each trial is a 1v4. one killer, four survivors. the survivors have to repair generators to power up the exit gates in order to escape, and the killer has to hunt them down and sacrifice them to the entity by hooking them 3 times. 2, if you bring a mori or if they get left on hook until their second hook state.

and each survivor and killer comes with their own set of perks, like little skills essentially, that you can use to help yourself out in trials. like uhhh...

some examples being the perks i put on my survivors: adrenaline, a meg perk, instantly heals you a health state and gives you a haste boost once gates are powered. background player, a renato perk, that gives you a massive speed boost when the killer picks up a downed survivor. unbreakable, a bill perk, that lets you pick yourself up if you've been downed. and soul guard, a cheryl perk, that grants you endurance for a period of time once you've been healed from a downed state.

and then some killer perks: no way out, a trickster perk, that calls the entity to block exit gates when someone tries opening them. the time depends on how many survivors you hooked that match. rancor, a spirit perk, that lets you immediately down and mori your obsession once gates are powered no matter how many times you've hooked them. nurse's calling, a nurse perk, that lets you see the aura of survivors healing within a certain range. blood warden, a nightmare perk, that blocks off the exit for 60 seconds after hooking a survivor once either gate has been opened.

i don't think i'm doing the best job at explaining the game tbh. the best way to learn about it is to either watch someone play it or play it yourself, bc that's how i learned. and i'm still new to the game man, 4 months, 420 hours.

it's an online game, so there's always bound to be toxic people on both sides, but it's also a really fun game and like.

there have been moments in this game, lil interactions w other survivors and killers, that have genuinely made my day.

there's also outfits!! for the killers and survivors!! some of them aren't good, but some of them are. really just depends on your taste in fashion, i guess. and lil charms that you can put on your survivors, and on your hooks.

sorry for the long and messy explanation i will take literally any chance given to me to talk about this game :thumbs up: