#the game is for a prototyping assignment

[bonicle]

i love screenshots of prototypes like what the fuck is even happening here

[zamalie]

when i was little i used to draw ocs of me and all my cousins based off whatever particular cartoon i was fixating on in that moment and i felt the need to give them like. fictional names instead of their real names because i felt like i had to protect their identities from some dubious Online Platform i had that lived only in my head even though i was just showing them to my family and nobody else

[darlingyougotthis]

Gravity

Jake “Hangman” Seresin Fanfic

Chapter Two: The Storm Beneath

The morning sun burned through the hangar’s glass, striping the concrete with long shadows. Inside, the Top Gun squad filed into the briefing room, most still shaking off sleep with half-finished coffees and lazy banter.

Jake strolled in last, sunglasses perched low on his nose, the familiar cocky tilt in his step. He looked as he always did—golden, loose, in control.

But he didn’t feel like it.

Because she was already there.

Nova sat in the second row, legs crossed, flight suit zipped to her collarbone. Her Strike Six patch—dark, understated, deadly—rested over her heart. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. The guys weren’t even trying to hide it anymore—the sideways glances, the hushed murmurs.

Jake didn’t look at her.

Not right away.

He took a seat across the aisle, a few rows back, and told himself he wasn’t keeping her in his peripheral vision. That his attention wasn’t already bending toward her like gravity.

But it was. She looked composed. Polished. Effortless. She didn’t scan the room. Didn’t try to place herself. She already knew where she stood.

Like nothing from last night lingered—not the dart game, not the way she’d shut down that “ghost squad” comment with a single line, not the way she’d looked at him when she said goodnight.

That look still echoed somewhere in his chest.

Phoenix dropped into the seat beside her, nudging her lightly. “Morning, Ghost Girl.”

Nova huffed a quiet laugh. “You still calling me that?”

“I don’t see you denying it.”

Rooster leaned toward Coyote behind them. “Think she’s as lethal as her badge looks?”

Coyote muttered, “Think she could kill you with her flight helmet.”

Jake didn’t speak, but he was listening. He tapped his boot lightly against the floor, jaw tight.

Then the room shifted—straightened—as Admiral Beau “Cyclone” Simpson entered with his usual no-nonsense scowl. Behind him came Maverick, flight suit half-zipped and eyes scanning the room like he already knew everything they didn’t.

“All right,” the commander called out, pulling up the screen behind him. “Hope you’re all feeling sharp this morning, because we’re diving straight into classified scenario prep.”

A chorus of “Yes, sir.” can be heard from around the room as Cyclone explains the perimeters of their training.

“What you’re about to see hasn’t been flown before. It’s a prototype extraction op, low-visibility, multi-vector. You’ll be running it in sim, then in air. We’re assigning pairs. These rotations will stick for now.”

He tapped a button. Names appeared on the screen. Jake’s stomach tightened when he read his.

Seresin – Brooke.

He blinked. Brooke. Nova.

One beat of silence passed before he let out a low breath. Phoenix smirked beside Nova. “Lucky boy,” she muttered.

“Pairing decisions weren’t random,” Cyclone went on. “Brooke’s experience with Strike Six makes her a critical asset in scenario building. She has logged over 1,200 hours in black zone operations, has confirmed three air-to-air kills during classified missions, and holds the record for the lowest successful terrain-hugging exfiltration on file. She’ll be leading some of the tactical phases.”

Heads turned toward Nova, someone—Rooster, probably—let out a low whistle. She didn’t react. But, Jake did. He couldn’t help it—the way his brow ticked up, the way his focus narrowed on her profile. Tactical lead? That wasn’t casual. That was trust.

Maverick launched into mission parameters, the room adjusting around the sharp angles of strategy and simulated risk. But Jake was only half-listening.

He was watching Nova.

She sat straight, eyes forward, fingers loosely laced on the desk. When Maverick threw out a question—“What’s the fastest vertical split response in a blind canyon at high-altitude entry?”—Nova didn’t pause.

“Two-point-six,” she said. “Three, if you’re flying with deadweight.”

A low whistle came from Coyote.

Mav gave a short nod. “Correct.”

Jake leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. He was impressed. Too impressed. Maybe that was the problem.

This wasn’t some pretty blonde with a mysterious past and a good aim at the dartboard. This was someone who didn’t just deserve to be here—she could fly circles around half the room. Maybe including him.

“Gear up. Wheels up in 30.” Maverick dismissed them as the briefing wrapped up, chairs scraped and conversations sparked. Rooster clapped Coyote lightly on the shoulder as they passed, muttering something like “Damn, she really is a ghost.”

Coyote rolled his eyes. “Told you.”

Jake stood slower than the rest. He told himself he wasn’t waiting for her to look at him.

He told himself wrong.

She rose gracefully, gathering nothing—she hadn’t even brought a pen. She didn’t need to. That brain of hers probably held more classified knowledge than half the intel office.

And then, just as she passed him, she glanced sideways. Their eyes met. No smile. No word. Just that look. Like she saw right through him.

Then she was gone, boots tapping steadily out of the room like she wasn’t leaving a trail of tension in her wake. Jake let out a slow breath, dragged a hand through his hair, and muttered under it— “Shit.”

The locker room was quiet, filled with the rustle of gear bags and the low creak of hinges as Phoenix pulled her locker open. Nova leaned against the bench, zipping up the top half of her flight suit, blond waves falling down over one shoulder. She looked calm. Almost serene.

She was still new here. But it didn’t feel like it.

Not to Phoenix.

“You really don’t rattle, do you?” Phoenix asked, tossing Nova a water bottle from the top shelf. “Not last night. Not this morning. Not even when Cyclone dropped your kill count like a mic.”

Nova caught the bottle one-handed and smirked. “Why waste energy?”

Phoenix rolled her eyes, grinning. “I swear, Strike Six must teach emotional detachment with flight mechanics.”

Nova chuckled, soft and low. “It’s more like… perspective.”

Before Phoenix could reply, the door opened behind them.

Tiffany stepped inside.

Her heels clicked against the tile, and even out of uniform she looked like she’d walked off a magazine cover—sleek hair, perfect blouse, clipboard clutched in one manicured hand.

“Didn’t realize this was an open meeting,” Phoenix muttered under her breath.

Nova said nothing, just tightened the strap on her gear bag and focused on tucking in the edge of her sleeve.

Tiffany smiled. Wide. Pleasant. Deadly. Eyes landing on Nova.

“Just thought I’d drop by and check on the pilot side of things. Big flight coming up. Heard you’ve been paired with Jake.”

Nova glanced over, expression unreadable. “That’s what the board said.”

“Interesting choice,” Tiffany said, head tilting slightly. “They usually don’t shuffle partners unless there’s… potential.”

Phoenix turned fully now, one brow arched. “I’m sorry, are you implying something?”

Tiffany didn’t even blink. “Of course not. I’m just surprised how quickly things move around here.”

Nova finally looked at her then—calm, open. No edge, no bite.

“I’m just here to do my job.”

Tiffany’s smile tightened. “Naturally. Though it’s a little jarring, I guess… how someone can show up one day and have everyone talking.”

Nova didn’t respond. She didn’t need to.

She just swung her bag over one shoulder, smooth and practiced, then offered Tiffany a gentle nod. “Nice to meet you, by the way. Officially. Professionally.”

Tiffany blinked. “Right. Yes. You too.”

She extended her hand.

Nova took it without hesitation—firm, respectful, brief.

Tiffany’s grip lingered half a second longer than necessary. “I hope your time here is… productive.”

Nova’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “So do I.”

With that, Tiffany turned on her heel and walked out—head high, hips swaying, and a tension in her jaw that didn’t match her parting grace.

The door clicked softly shut. Phoenix let out a breath.

“I don’t know what Jake sees in her,” she muttered.

Nova, still facing her locker, didn’t look up. “That’s not really my business.”

Phoenix scoffed. “She doesn’t like you.”

This time Nova did look at her and shrugged.

“Yeah,” she said simply. “I noticed.”

She grabbed her gloves from the bench and tucked them under her arm, not a trace of bitterness in her voice. Just fact. As if it meant nothing at all.

Phoenix studied her for a moment, then nodded slowly. “You’re kind of a badass, you know that?”

Nova gave a faint smile. “You’re late to that conclusion.”

Laughing, Phoenix followed her out of the locker room, boots hitting the tile in sync. Together, they headed for the sims—two women, side by side, walking into fire without ever needing armor.

The tarmac shimmered under the late afternoon sun, the heat rippling off steel wings and freshly laid jet fuel. Jake “Hangman” Seresin adjusted his gloves out of habit, attention flicking toward the runway.

Then he heard her.

Boots on pavement. Confident, steady, unhurried.

Nova.

Helmet under one arm, Strike Six patch gleaming over her heart, eyes hidden behind aviators that somehow made her even harder to read. She walked past him like he wasn’t even there—but her words landed with precision.

“Try to keep up, Hangman,” she said casually.

Jake’s grin came slow, easy, and way too honest.

“If you’re setting the pace,” he replied, eyes following her, “I won’t complain.”

She didn’t stop. Didn’t look back. But he noticed the subtle rise of her shoulders, the slight pause in her step—just enough to let him know she’d heard it. Then she was climbing into her jet, silent and composed.

Jake shook his head, laughing under his breath. This wasn’t going to be a routine flight. Engines ignited moments later, rumbling under the weight of two high-performance birds preparing to punch through the sky.

Jake launched first, Nova tight behind him. Separate jets. Shared objective. Shared frequency.

“Hangman, airborne.”

“Nova, on your six.”

Her voice crackled into his headset—low, precise, unreadable.

Jake checked his radar, watching her icon slide effortlessly into formation behind him.

“Targets ahead,” he said. “You want high or low?”

“Split left. I’ve got upper sightlines.”

He didn’t hesitate. Jake banked hard into the turn, Nova slipping above him like they were two pieces of the same machine. Her movement was clean. Automatic. Every minor shift predicted the air before it changed.

Strike Six. Ghost team, sure—but her instincts were all too real.

“Ping at nine o’clock,” she called out. “Cut wide. You’ll ride through clean.”

Jake adjusted without hesitation. She wasn’t giving suggestions—she was anticipating and she was right again.

“Sharp eyes,” he murmured.

“Comes with the ghosts,” she replied. He could almost hear the shrug.

Jake exhaled a tight laugh. “Remind me to get one of those Strike Six manuals.”

“There isn’t one,” she said simply. “You either get it… or you don’t.”

They flew tighter. Cleaner. Every shift in position felt choreographed, but it wasn’t. It was trust. Immediate. Natural.

Nova called another move. “Thrust down two percent. You’re drifting.”

Jake followed without thinking. A beat later, she added, “Clean correction. Didn’t think you’d actually listen.”

“Only when it counts.”

“You mean when I’m right?” she teased—just enough to twist the knife.

Jake smirked. “You’re not wrong.”

There was a pause in the comms—brief. But not empty.

Then Nova spoke again, voice softer now. “You don’t fly like the rumors.”

Jake arched a brow. “That a compliment?”

“Take it however helps you sleep.”

They dropped low into canyon terrain—tight ridges, red rock shadows, and simulated fire zones. Jake cut between walls like he’d done a hundred times before. Nova was right with him. No errors. No corrections. Just harmony.

Then came the final run. Target acquisition.

“Visual on the mark,” Nova said. “You ready?”

“Always.”

“Then let’s finish this.”

He aligned, locked in, and struck clean.

Nova confirmed it a second later. “Target hit. Smooth shot.”

Jake pulled up into open sky, adrenaline still humming.

“Hell of a run,” he said. “You always this easy to fly with?”

“Only when they can keep up.”

Her tone was still even. But something in it curled beneath his skin like a spark.

Minutes later, both jets touched down—Jake first, Nova gliding in behind.

He powered down his jet, lifted his helmet, and slid out onto the ladder. The heat hit again. So did the buzz still crawling down his spine.

She joined him near the tarmac, helmet still tucked against her hip, eyes calm.

“Nice flying,” she said, meeting his gaze.

And then, with just the faintest smile:

“Jake.”

It hit harder than it should have.

Not Hangman.

Just Jake.

Before he could reply, she turned and walked away—like she hadn’t just unbalanced his entire axis with two syllables and a smile.

Jake didn’t follow. He just stood there, watching her go and thinking, she’s dangerous.

The debrief room buzzed low with chatter, but Jake barely registered it. His gaze was locked on the footage playing across the screen—silent, stunning, undeniable.

Nova’s jet carved through the sky like she owned it. Every move was instinct. Every pivot, every shift, every call—it was all just ahead of where it needed to be. Not rushed. Not guessed. She wasn’t reacting. She was reading the sky.

“Look at that,” Rooster muttered beside him, chin propped in his hand. “She’s already banking before the radar even picks up the threat.”

Jake didn’t respond. His jaw ticked once, eyes locked on the way Nova’s jet sliced low through the canyon like she knew exactly where the danger would be.

“Damn,” Rooster said. “That’s not flying. That’s something else.”

“She flies like she’s dancing,” he said quietly, the words slipping out before he could catch them.

Rooster tilted his head. “That’s either poetic or horny, and I honestly can’t tell which.”

Jake’s mouth twitched. “She’s precise. I’ve never seen anyone fly like that.”

Nova’s voice crackled over the recorded comms. “Cut thrust two percent. You’re drifting.”

Jake watched his own response—fluid, immediate. He hadn’t questioned her in the moment. Just followed. Trusted.

He hadn’t done that with anyone else. Not like that.

“She doesn’t hesitate,” Jake murmured. “She just knows.”

Rooster leaned back in his chair. “It’s hot.”

Jake didn’t respond at first. Then - quietly, almost as if he wasn’t aware he said it. “Yeah…”

Rooster glanced at him, brow raised. Jake didn’t look away from the screen.

Rooster added, more softly this time, “Careful, man. That kind of attention’s hard to hide.”

Jake’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile.

“It’s just flying,” he said.

But he said it too fast. Too flat. And his jaw clenched a beat too long. Rooster didn’t call him out on it. He just looked back at the screen. At the woman carving through simulated death zones like she was painting in the air.

“Sure it is,” Rooster murmured.

Jake didn’t reply. He didn’t have to because somewhere between her voice in his headset and the way she said his name after they landed, he knew damn well— It wasn’t just flying.

[snap-oversteer]

Hi:) Gotta say I find you infinitely cool and your car headcanons are so damn fascinating. Feel free to ignore me but do you maybe probably have some thoughts on Blurr? Since his personality heavily revolves around the fact that he’s the fastest racer on his planet I feel like you can give a really interesting perspective on him

- Keferon

DUUUUUDDDDDEEEEEEEE Blurr is so hard to pinpoint exactly what car he could be... theres just so, so many historical cars that completely dominated the racing scene, and there's many more that's to come. Before i go onto full-fledged experimental vehicles, lemme first introduce you to the Bugatti Bolide

THIS piece of art and engineering is a track-only hypercar, and it recently debuted at the 2023 Le Mans. It has all the bells and whistles you'd expect a race car to have, W16 engine, carbon all over, carbon brakes, 7 speed dual clutch transmission, what have you. The paint color is dubbed Agile Blue and what more perfect car to assign to our beloved Blurr. Bugatti claims it makes about 1825 horsepower with 1850 n/m torque, with a top speed of 501 km/h (311 mph).

Speaking of Le Mans, let's dive into those vehicles now. For those unfamiliar with Le Mans, it's a 24 hour endurance race held in France. It's one of the oldest racing series to exist, predating Formula 1 by 30 years, and it's still continuing now!

In Rescue Bots, Blurr IS in fact an LMP (Le Mans Prototype) styled car.

judging by the headlights it looks more to be a newer LMP Ferrari, but ehhh while its not a bad choice i wouldnt really associate Blurr with Ferrari, that brand's nature would be more suited for Mirage. but damn do they have good lookin cars. I would, though, associate Blurr with older Porsche. Statistically, Porsche is the current record holder for the most successful manufacturer in Le Mans to date with 19 wins, with one of their most iconic cars being the Porsche 917 & Porsche 956.

I think it would be criminal to not honour Blurr's racing history, that's why i'm putting a race car in here.

Honorable mentions! :

Ford GT40 - THE car that beat Ferrari at its own game, and has gained a cult following ever since.

Audi R18 e-tron Quattro - The car that beat Porsche's 16 victories, driven by Toms Kriestensen, and holding the most driver victories in a single car (9)

McLaren F1 GTR - I just like how it looks lol

[wakebymoonsleepbysun]

My breakdown of the Doey timeline, cuz whynot

Combination of my own theories/conjecture and what's actually in the game.

We see Jack getting a Doey toy for Christmas of 92, as well as a trip to the factory. The trip to the factory happens in Jan of 93 and of course Jack falls in.

This makes Jack an unplanned experiment. My theory--since he wasn't trained/prepped in the Game Station or Playcare, and the scientists had to kinda scramble to get anything salvageable of him, that left proto-Doey in a pretty bad/unstable state.

The fact that he had a Doey toy that he already loved so much could be what saved him. Kids are shown to have "assigned toys" at the Game Station, which makes me think a bond with the character/toy is necessary for the kids to adapt to their new bodies, and maybe even make the child take on personality traits of the toy's character.

1322 was too unstable to survive on his own. So another child was selected--Kevin. It seems the scientists hoped Kevin's physical strength would balance out Jack's lack of physical training before the process, and Jack's good temper would balance out Kevin's (perceived) bad one. (I think there's more to Kevin than just "angry child angry and violent at everything". I think he was abused and probably neurodivergent, maybe autistic. Probably on the cusp of a very rough puberty as well. But as a 90s "problem child" myself, I'm not surprised he was just dismissed as a bad kid with no hope. Heartbroken, yes. Surprised? No.)

Sidenote here--I do wonder if they'd gotten the idea of using multiple subjects in the same experiment from the Prototype. Not sure if that would have been something the Prototype would have been doing yet at this point. But I do think it's interesting to call out that the Prototype is not the only experiment made from multiple sources. (I think Poppy may also be such a one but that's some wild conjecture on my part and a post for another day.)

We know Kevin is second because he's described as 1322B. However I think the incident with Jack's parents happened before Matthew was added.

Jack's parents get invited to see Doey. Now, who wrote that letter and why? I'm not completely sure on the details, but I think the main reason it got APPROVED was for the sake of conducting a test. I think it's POSSIBLE someone like Stella may have been making a genuine attempt to do good, but that wouldn't've been reason enough on its own to make this happen.

So Jack's parents rock up to Playtime so the scientists can see how 1322 will react. We've all heard the tape so we know the jist of it, but here's what I think happened internally with Doey. Jack and Kevin's personalities and memories were still muddled. Kevin saw Jack's mom, recognized her as "mom", not realizing she is NOT actually HIS mother. I believe his parents had been abusive, so what Kevin THOUGHT he was doing was fighting back at his own abusers, not some other kid's kind parents. Between that and being in a body he could barely control with a strength he can barely comprehend...Well. Again. We all heard the tape.

So, time to stabilize. Enter Matthew. Responsible, kind, and older. Perfect to wrangle the two younger boys into a fully functioning experiment, ready to be useful to Playtime co. (I kinda gagged typing that. Playtime Co is bastards.)

And y'know? I'd say it mostly worked. From his monologues in the prison, it sounds like Doey wasn't always the most cooperative. He had a bit of a mischievous streak. But I get the impression he didn't lash out or attack until Safe Haven was destroyed. And who wouldn't be broken by that?

[sepublic]

I remember hearing that Dana was inspired by True Crime, amongst other things and people IRL, when writing Belos. And it seems that contrary to the notoriety of True Crime fans, she actually understood the assignment.

Because she opted to demystify the serial killer as this dark, unusual psychology that operates outside of societal borders and rules, disturbed by some secret reason, and instead literally pull off the mask to reveal he’s just some white manchild who hates women and minorities to a violent degree, because he feels threatened by them and their ability to say No in his entitlement. There’s nothing special or unique about his motives.

He’s no exception to the status quo, he is it unmasked of the veneer of civility, he’s the lynch mob and the cop (all of whom inherit the violence of white supremacy and colonialism) and fittingly a lot of serial killers were clocked by women and PoC as dangerous, but cops —largely white men— dismissed their claims because look at this dude, he seems like an upstanding citizen! And that’s really how he got away.

And because his victims were people the system was less likely to believe because they both operated on the same biases, you see why a lot of cops who commit brutality are drawn to an institution where they’re given violent power over brown and/or queer communities who are labeled as ‘suspicious’, because they enjoy easy targets they know the system doesn’t care about, and are enraged by body cams and accountability.

It doesn’t matter if they’re intentionally bigoted, their support of an inherently bigoted institution makes them the same; Internalized biases and “I don’t see race” and all that. You see how Philip wanted to be a witch hunter —the prototypical cop who is not exclusively violent towards women but still has a clear slant— or colonial savior so bad, because his violence could be legitimized by the authority of the state.

He leans into it hardcore when he feels threatened by the presence of an outside girl who challenges the Christian narrative of Gravesfield, to the point of violence; It’s a position that validates killing anyone who doesn’t agree with him in general, hence Caleb and the Grimwalkers, but of course his and society’s biases slant towards women and PoC. And while it ultimately doesn’t matter whether he’s intentionally racist/misogynistic, it’s worth addressing that he very much does have the intention due to his blatant Conservative backdrop.

And seeing how charming Philip is and the portrayal of him as a little kid playing games in his youth, a perception Caleb might’ve still had which led to his death, I can see the direct line to families who find out their sons are school shooters and are in disbelief because he was such a nice kid! While ignoring the obvious Red Flags because white men are allowed to express these without being immediately scrutinized by the community, by having it brushed off. On some level cops don’t suspect him because he’s the same type of guy as them.

Part of that denial comes from the fact that he’s not an “unfeeling sociopath” who’s wired differently. Philip can feel empathy and guilt like anyone else, but he’s still a hateful prick and these aren’t mutually exclusive; Not when people can be perfectly selective about who they extend these feelings towards, or even do things in spite of these feelings, because other ones —anger and pride and hatred— exist and they choose to prioritize those. There’s an assumption that empathy and guilt inherently make you a good person, but they don’t; That ultimately comes from what you do about it, not how you feel.

You could even say Dana and the other writers wrote him too well, because true to life, we have a similar issue but on a micro-scale via the abstraction of fiction regarding a very dedicated fan base who loves to romanticize him and his actions, attributing his issues to some secret trauma in childhood, a young man failed by society! While also scrubbing him of his racism and misogyny and reliance on the status quo, to make him ‘apolitical’ and you can see the same not just with fans but also in society.

Because society doesn’t want to acknowledge serial killers as just the truth behind their white sons and the system that absolved and encourages them, because that would require them to admit their guilt in how they’re structured. Rather, they’ll say these men reflect some dark truth inherent to humanity, and don’t exist within a certain sociopolitical framework.

And so he was a ‘loner’ whose problems can be pathologized via mental illness, his trauma can be traced back to a specific incident in his youth he just couldn’t get over. So you see how school shooters are made into victims, how serial killers are also made apolitical and even alien to distance them from the status quo.

And then you can lean into how unusual they are by writing characters like Dexter or Hannibal Lecter, you can not just defend the system but feed into it via the commodification of their violence as entertainment and consumption, and thus fuel the white supremacy train by letting their violence towards women and minorities be praised as something fascinating and interesting and conveniently clean of bigotry. This is the dichotomy of the hypothetical, romanticized Fantasy Serial Killer, and the banal IRL Serial Killer.

Thus we have the same cycle of white men’s violence being praised and validated by the system, and white men feeling entitled to this fame as a delusional fantasy. Because you’ve never heard of a black serial killer; Because black people are violent, that’s just the way they are, right? But if white men are violent, this is sensationalized as somehow unusual and fascinating and worth dedicating countless books and shows and movies towards. Obviously.

And even going back to witch hunters, sometimes I wonder about the constant consideration of, What if witches did exist? What if they were evil? Things like The VVitch or The Conjuring series, which have some framing of the Salem Witch Trials’ IRL violence towards women as legitimate in another universe, because of Satanism’s genuine predatory threat towards women, and how evil women sacrifice theirs or others’ God-given gift of a child, and now threaten another white Christian family.

And again there’s the the demystifying of the real life witch hunter too when we have a historical reenactment declare verbatim that IRL witch hunters were motivated by economics and other banal factors, not by any genuine belief in the dangers of demons; And even in a setting where the demons were real, they were not the predatory threat IRL witch hunters made them out to be, and so their very real biases and ulterior motives still apply in cumulative insincerity.

Hence, the Titan correcting Luz by explaining Belos as someone who only cares about being the hero in his own delusion; The fascist wet dream of a hidden invader here to corrupt even young white men, an outside monster to vanquish and whose destruction justifies the state, when in reality the monster IS the state, and before he was even presented as a witch (much less the human truth), his system’s destruction was called for.

Ultimately, a lot of True Crime and similar narratives are criticized for focusing more on this apparently inevitable mystique behind the perpetrators, who warrant far more attention than their victims. So when the villain is an example of True Crime, it’s worth noting how the show is so much more focused on the ‘weirdoes’ he targets, on women and/or PoC. The lives of Luz Noceda and her friends, them getting along and their psychologies, are just so much more important, and it really isn’t about that guy, who is informed as much as he needs to be.

But again, the True Crime fans dilemma; People genuinely salty at the show for not focusing on their favorite serial killer and his troubled backstory, his tragic motives and Puritan repression. The framing of his murders and motives isolated through the lens of his violence on undeserving white men, and not on the out-group he is specifically targeting and has committed much more violence on, esp if you look at the narrative’s actual framing of his impact on our protagonists, but also other victims who are witches or demons, and even his own self-professed motives; Hence, ‘Fratricide Georg’ as a joke depoliticized of his colonial violence, a violence that is not just adjacent to but fulfilling racism.

Because he hallucinated only those white men out of guilt, but that’s his biased perspective and priorities; And so you see how this is contrasted with a refusal to empathize with people like the Collector or Luz, who are put into the same situations as his white male victims via shared cinematography, yet are just as rejected. Luz is only put into this situation as convenient to Belos’ narrative, the closest replacement to a white male human he can get, but again if this girl of color says No, he tries to murder her and even does.

Yet again, people take genuine, personal insult at the creator for finding Belos to be her least favorite character to write, while ignoring that she still found him necessary to the story she was trying to tell; She just found the framing and focus should’ve been shifted to his actual victims’ deep and meaningful lives, how they matter. So people hate that S3 cares more about Luz Noceda’s relationship with her parents of color, as well as her female mentor and demonic brother, or her queer relationship with her girlfriend, etc.

And even when they get a bone of white boy Hunter, it’s still not enough; Fans inevitably gather themselves into an almost frenzied state of personal victimization, rallying into harassment of PoC who criticize their portrayal and discussion around their colonial serial killer fave, organizing dedicated trends and months to giving their white men the focus they ‘deserved’, because this is just White fandom in general.

Look at the entitlement campaigns regarding Ben Solo or Billy Hargroves deserving better, these young white men violent to women and minorities. It’s just the same thing but on a micro-scale, at least filtered via fictional characters. But Jesus you see how internalized biases bleed into everything. You’ve never heard of a black serial killer and fandom doesn’t fight for characters of color.

[mask-of-prime]

BIONICLE: Ta-Wahi Travel Poster - [PROTOTYPE]

In a graphic design course dedicated to Adobe Illustrator, we were tasked to make vacation spot posters in the style of the ones from the 1950's. Our professor said it could be fictional, or even a real place we're fond of. Part of the assignment was to use the Symbol Sprayer, repetition of shapes, and the Warp Tool.

First thing that came to mind for me was a location in Bionicle, such as Ta-Wahi Beach, the first place you wake up to as Takua in Mata-Nui Online Game.

I wouldn't be surprised if the assets of MNOG were made in Illustrator and/or Flash (which I think the latter once belonged to MacroMedia at the time if we really wanna talk about feeling old).

Will I make other posters for the other Koro's/Wahi's? Um... it sounds like having them all together would be really cool, but if I do, I kinda wanna revise this current one and learn to have an easier time making them and/or possibly make them a little more straightforward and easy to make out. Definitely should go for the classic TradeMarker font if I do (since this isn't an assignment anymore, let alone one being monitored/graded by a professor who also teaches typography :p)

Made in 2022.

[glassrowboat]

Ruffled Crow Headcanons. Dottore.

Dottore, once upon a time, used to be really bad about safety measures once upon a time, but now there's eyelash stations in every section of his lab along with showers and signs to remind people to wear their safety glasses on every door. Though, he did assign the task of handling that to his segments.

Each segments hair is synthetic, so instead of it being able to grow itself they would have to uproot their hair and fix a new one much like you would do a doll for their new wig (aka the good old push pin method) if they wish to change it.

Dottore has a chemical burn under his mask from an experiment gone awry that caused one of his eyes to go blind. Nowadays, it's been changed out for a robotic eye. It may or may not be like bluetooth connected to the monitor on his mask.

The bracelet Yelan lost that she cherished as family heirloom was actually made by him. When he was in that lab in Liyue (Childe’s story quest for a reminder) he had started tinkering with the idea of making the prototype for what is now his network with how Dottore communicates with his segments. This is why he ended up breaking out in a hysterical fit of laughter when Pantalone brought it to him one day out of the blue and asked him if he knew what it was. 

He knows how to swing dance. It's just you have to be careful with him because those stupid (cunty) boots of his are a hazard. One time they may have even gotten caught on your pants leg and tripped him. A fact he still denies. 

Dottore has a child segment he finds himself disassembling and reassembling every few years. To see the face his own parents turned away running around with a smile, giddy and without worry, is something that always has his stomach turning without fail. So wouldn't it make sense he simply ignores the thing before he turns it to a pile of parts again? So why is he currently building the little boy again with gritted teeth?

Major sweet tooth. To the point he had done some bullshit scientific method to make the perfect baklava. Still, Dottore finds himself preferring the one his mother made.

He does not have any game. Sorry guys, but this is the same man who prefers to hide away in his lab rather than interact with other people. You can't tell me he knows how to flirt, and it ends up affecting any romantic relationship he has because he knows about such practices in theory, but not in reality. It can make his time with you rather....well, let's just say he tries.

(Welder Dottore is so real in my heart, guys) The reason Dottore's bangs are uneven isn't because of a fashion choice, despite the fact he says it is. Rather, it's because one time when he got too wrapped up in his excitement, Dottore didn't properly secure his hair behind the welding mask, and it caught on fire. The only reason he hasn't let it grow back out is because he knows Pantalone would call him out that it was never a fashion choice in the first place. 

He has worked with Sandrone on multiple projects. Their research tends to lean towards the same subject, so it only makes sense that they have collaborated multiple times even if their interactions can be tense and full of snark. But a like, mind that can challenge your ideas is what Dottore needs so he can reach new heights, no? 

His sharp teeth aren't natural. They're the result of one of his first experiments. After all, he didn't have any willing subjects besides himself now, did he?

[wizardsfang]

Niche Kin Appreciation Challenge

A 30 prompt challenge by @wizardsfang

-

1. Introduce your kin

2. Make a playlist for your kin

3. Share 5 fun facts about your kin

4. Do a photo dump for your kin

5. Assign colors to your kin

6. Share about your kin’s hearthome

7. Share your favorite aspects of your kin

8. Write a poem or drabble

9. Create a moodboard

10. Share a piece of media that relates to/reminds you of your kin

11. Share how you discovered this kin

12. Badly make a minimalist drawing of your kin

13. Assign your kin a food, hobby or genre

14. Create a Userbox or PFP set for your kin

15. Assign your kin an aesthetic & rant about why

16. Write affirmations for this kin

17. Create a club for your kin (or those close) and describe the objective of the club

18. Design a prototype, create, or otherwise share gear suggestions for your kin

19. Talk about how you express this kin

20. Make gifs & do a gif dump for your kin

21. Create a Stimboard

22. Create a “beginners guide” to your kin

23. Make a silly meme or trend for your kin

24. Share memories, shifts, quirks, or feelings this kin may bring

25. Start a silly/lighthearted rumor about this kin

26. Draw or Write your kin in a past or present drawing/writing trend & put sincere effort into it

27. Share your tougher experiences you have with your kin & you how persevere

28. Assign your kin a cutie mark, pokemon type, httyd class, WC clan or any other means or special identification from media & share why

29. Create a watchlist or gaming list for your kin

30. Create anything else you wish you’d seen for this kin

-

Anyone with any kind of type or kin can use this however, this challenge is especially geared towards niche & lesser acknowledged kins

From big to small, nonfiction to high fantasy, this challenge was designed to help give a few small fun things for folk to do to help fill the gaps in content for the things attached to their identity

I encourage folk to use #Niche Kin Appreciation or #Kin Appreciation along with other relevant alterhuman tags to help showcase what they create :]!!

- Image Version for Challenge Here

- Kin Drawing Challenge Here (coming soon)

-

Note: not all kinfolk will be able to fulfill every prompt due to various degrees of representation; users are encouraged to get creative in their means to fulfill the gap WITHOUT using AI to generate or alter works

[cherrytimemachine]

Ok. Is it just me, or is the lore in SOTM absolutely insane?

I can't be the only one who thinks this is ridiculous. I mean the sci-fi bullshit thing was already overstaying it's welcome with the whole remnant collection stuff in SL, then it got weirder with the illusion disks and especially the gas chamber thing, and now this? It's like the lore just keeps getting crazier and more absurd.

Don't get me wrong, I like this game. I have a few gripes with it, but overall I like the gameplay and the storytelling throughout most of it. It's really towards the end where it's giving me an aneurysm.

Like, can we all agree that the underground pizzeria thing doesn't make much sense? This is 1979, right? FNAF 1 comes after FNAF 2 in the timeline, yet they have the FNAF 1 designs for the characters? At the very least, wouldn't it be the Withered models in prototype form?

Also, why would he need this underground pizzeria to create character prototypes? It would be one thing if they were just in a storage unit or something, but this dude built a whole pizzeria underneath the building. How?? And why?? Did he do that??

It feels like they're trying to compensate for the total confusion that was created with the underground pizzeria in SB, but they just added a new layer to the lore that made it even more confusing. Then there's the whole thing with the house and how apparently William took it from Edwin, so now he owns the house, and I guess that's how he got ownership of the place that would become Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental? Again, why would William have any interest in Edwin's house?

There are two things that really peeved me when I saw them: one, adding in Edwin and giving him the title of "guy who actually made most of the stuff"; and two, the crazy ass backstory with Edwin and the Mimic.

I'll start with the character creation thing first. I don't mind Edwin being the original creator of the SB animatronics, it's just the originals that feel weird. It doesn't make much sense to suddenly add in this new character and assign him a role in the story that was previously, for many years, filled by a different person. I know I'm not the only one to ask this, but what the fuck does Henry do then? Henry has been set up for years, starting with the novel series, as the robotics side of the company and the one who made all of the robots, specifically the main 4 and the springlocks. All of that was Henry's domain; that wasn't something they needed to create a new explanation for. We had a guy to fill that role already, and instead of using him at all, they vaguely name dropped him twice to be like "oh yeah he's still here" without clarifying any of the specifics of what Henry actually did. It feels like he's even more invisible than he was before, and now lacks a chunk of the relevancy that made him so important to the franchise. It's left unclear whether Edwin actually made the original cast or if they were commissioned, but he does freak out at one point and said all his stuff was stolen. Even if it was the commission option, it still feels kinda weird. Again, Henry was supposed to be the guy who made the characters, so what happened with that? It would make more sense (to me at least) if their partnership with MCM was for the recording stage and the MCM designs were for Fredbear and Friends or the record album. Now we don't even know if the ideas for the characters belonged to Henry or not, which was something that seemed cut and dry before.

It's not that I don't like Edwin's character, they actually did a nice job of characterizing him compared to the rest of the ones in the franchise, but that's also part of the problem. Instead of elaborating on characters that already existed prior and delving more into them, they just introduce new ones and give them the character depth and lore relevance that is lacking in the original cast. Edwin and his family are given the privilege of having rounded personalities, backstory prior to the main events of the game, and even real human faces to put to the names. Why can't we have that with William and Henry? Henry was in one game. He was unreachable the whole time, dropped a few tidbits of lore about his daughter and his relationship with William, and then he died and was never mentioned again until now. He didn't even specify that his name was Henry, it's implied in the blueprints and assumed from the novels.

Speaking of the novels, Edwin is literally just the novel version of Henry with a new coat of paint slapped on it. They're both neglectful dads who are too absorbed in their work to actually interact with their children, they both made their child cry and had very weird tone-deaf responses to it (Edwin when he scared baby David with the puppet Roxy and Henry when he just took apart that frog toy for Charlie and she freaked out even more), they both ended up as single parents (Edwin's wife died and Henry's wife left and took Sammy), they both live in secluded houses that connect to a goddamn underground pizzeria where the Funtimes were kept, they both built fucking robots to replace their dead child/family member (Edwin did that shit twice), they were both absorbed in their grief and projected that grief onto the robot they built to replace said dead child to the point where the robot learned anger and resentment, and they were both eventually killed by their creation (Henry on purpose and Edwin as an unintended consequence). I thought we left that robot replacing a human thing behind, but here we are again.

The Charliebot thing was weird as hell when it happened in The Fourth Closet, but apparently Scott really likes the idea of a depressed dad rebuilding his child as a robot as their weird form of coping. Honestly, I think the Mimic stuff is worse. The Charliebot thing was already strange with the "four versions of Charlie where one is her doll and one is Circus Baby" nonsense, but now there's a robo-wife who used to be the og Mimic who's now trapped in a computer, and the current Mimic was a replacement for David. I thought the whole point of the Mimic was that it was basically David's best friend and Edwin destroyed it because it kept copying his son after David died, which also happened in the game, it's just that the M2 was supposed to be a new David, and it wasn't even finished when he destroyed it because he had the Henry Emily experience of discarding your batshit project after finally realizing it's not gonna fix your loss.

He kept a robo-wife for like a year and actually treated M1 like it was his dead wife, and now it's trapped in a computer (also M1 is MXES too now so how does that work exactly)? Plus it turns out Fazbear Entertainment wasn't forcing the technicians to get the Mimic because it was M1 the whole time? Did Fazbear Entertainment not notice that a lot of their technicians were being called on projects and then going missing? How long has M1 been doing this? How exactly did M1 manage to call all of these people and know their names ahead of time? I don't understand what the hell is going on here.

Also, what happened to the Mimic after the game? I'm guessing the canon ending would be either the one where you hand the Data Diver over or the Parachute Ending, but then what happened to the Mimic? It stole the blueprints to create more of itself or adapt or something, right? So did it just go back down to MCM and sit there for a while? Oh yeah, that also means that MCM is where the Pizzaplex will be at some point. So not only is that spot both the MCM and the Pizzaplex, but it's also the FFPS location, the SL rental service, and they all connect to the house in SL which was Edwin's but now William owns it or something. It's very over the top and unnecessarily convoluted.

I don't know, it just feels like everything is wrong. It's not like this exact storytelling issue hasn't happened before, this type of shenanigans has been a staple of the FNAF story since FNAF 4 and SL. When Scott makes a game with too many questions that don't have concrete answers or don't make sense, he uses the next game to switch the clarification on parts we thought we understood pretty definitively instead of actually filling in the parts that were needing more information. It's a cycle of trying to fill holes in the story with even crazier stuff that ends up opening even more holes until it's like a slice of mutilated cheese that was run over by a bus ten times.

[pupmkincake2000]

Why do people who are against hankcon always talk about the power imbalance in their relationship? They say it's problematic, since one of them is the boss, and the other is the subordinate… Although yes, in the police, people who are in a relationship cannot be partners and work on the same team but for some reason it doesn't bother anyone in dbh fandom...

What I mean is that this argument assumes that Hank and Connor operate within a strict hierarchy, similar to a boss-subordinate relationship, but that’s not really the case here.

First, Connor isn’t technically under Hank’s command. He’s a CyberLife prototype assigned to assist the DPD, not a formal part of the police force’s internal structure. He doesn’t report to Fowler or Hank in a hierarchical sense, and Hank can’t give him binding orders. In fact, the game shows multiple instances where Connor defies Hank, makes independent decisions, or even directly confronts him, like in the interrogation scene with the deviant threatening suicide.

Second, their relationship is portrayed as a partnership. That’s emphasized throughout the game. They learn to work together, challenge each other, and build trust on equal footing, not as a superior and subordinate.

Lastly, Hank is not the one holding authority in their dynamic. If anything, Connor is the one with greater control. Physically, tactically, and narratively. Depending on player choices, he can lead investigations, override human input, or shape the outcome of the entire story.

So if there’s a power imbalance, it certainly doesn’t favor Hank, and it’s not one that compromises the emotional or romantic credibility of their connection.

If Hank and Connor were to start a romantic relationship and Connor chose to formally join the police force, the solution would be simple: they’d just stop being direct partners.

There’s nothing in police regulations that prohibits two consenting adults from working in the same department, especially if they’re not in a direct chain of command. Plenty of departments allow for romantic relationships, as long as there’s no supervisory dynamic involved.

In their case, Hank and Connor already operate more as equals than as superior/subordinate and adjusting their assignments to remove potential conflict of interest would be a standard procedural step, not a dramatic complication. It’s an administrative issue, not a moral or narrative one.

[cxvii666]

“charge it to the game”

sunday to saturday

motive; a week in the life of a burnt out, over worked, underpaid, uni student

“i can sleep when i'm rich, or when i'm dead, whichever comes first.”

📎 ⋆ 🗒️ ⋆ 📐 ⋆ 🖇️

sunday: 10:06 - the store

the folding table smells like synthetic vanilla and someone’s perfume from two shifts ago. your hands move on autopilot — fold once, tuck the tag, half roll it, stack it, repeat. you’ve been here since 8:30, and you haven’t made a single sale. not that you’re trying. not today.

your manager, she's nice enough but you hate her, in the way everyone in the early twenties hates their manager, flounces past in her heeled boots and “support women in STEM” cropped sweatshirt.

you scoff, internally of course.

“don’t forget to mention the promo,” she chirps.

you nod like a bobblehead.

you’ve been mentioning the promo. you’ve been mentioning it for two weeks. the promo sucks.

you work a full seven hours, minus your half-hour unpaid break, and by the end of it you’ve sold four fleece zip-ups, two useless beanies, and convinced a girl named hayley that yes, the asymmetrical cargos are flattering.

you leave with your feet aching and your stomach growling.

monday: 14:11 - the café in the library

you’re not here for the food. or the company.

you’re here for the wifi and the electrical outlet that no one knows is hidden under the corner table.

you order a small americano to earn your right to sit. it goes cold while you rewrite your group project deliverables, because the guy you’re assigned to keeps fucking up the formatting and citing sources in MLA. in engineering.

“you good?” katsuki texts.

“no. but we move.”

“project stuff?”

“worse. group project stuff.”

“fuck. come to mine after. we’ll get some actual shit done.”

“say less. bring snacks.”

monday: 21:23 - the bar

you’re halfway through your shift at the campus bar, dodging a guy trying to order six vodka-crans with one hand and talk to you about your “vibe” with the other. you haven’t been on your phone in three hours. your sketchpad is stuffed behind the keg fridge. you’d been sketching a redesign of the circuit layout between bottle checks.

someone drops a pint and it shatters by your feet. you flinch but don’t jump. your coworker brings a mop. you barely register it. you’re mentally debugging the last prototype mock-up. someone passes you a rum and coke and you wonder if you can write it off as performance fuel.

tuesday: 04:12 - the library

the lights are cold and too bright. the vending machine ate your last 50 yen coin. you’re halfway through editing your code to make it less ugly, whatever the hell your TA meant by that. katsuki’s slumped on the desk across from you, out cold, highlighter still in his hand, hood pulled up like he could disappear inside it.

you smile. you don’t even mean to.

your back hurts. your headphones are dead. your coffee tastes like battery acid.

you feel… weirdly peaceful.

your phone buzzes.

🧷 sero hanta

attached: 📸

caption: “should i post this or keep it sacred”

it’s katsuki, snoring with his head on a pile of notes.

you: “keep it sacred. but also send me a copy”

he replies with a sticker of a cat giving a thumbs up.

wednesday: 07:19 - the bus

you’re on the high street express, standing because the seats are full. your hair’s tied up, your tote bag is heavy, and you’re reading flashcards by the window’s fogged glass.

question: define max capacitance threshold per module load.

answer: whatever the hell doesn’t blow up when you test it.

you scribble a correction on the back.

the guy next to you is watching anime on his phone with no headphones. someone smells like weed and egg sandwich. your shift starts in eleven minutes. you can feel the panic in your chest, just behind your ribs.

you get off two stops early and run the rest.

thursday 17:17 - your flat.

you’re in sweats. your hair’s in clips. you’ve got one leg up on the chair and one arm half in a hoodie you never finished putting on. the room smells like leftover ramen and vanilla body mist. you’ve got four poster commissions to finish by saturday, and you’ve only started one.

you open photoshop.

you stare at the empty file for a second.

you type: “SOMETHING WICKED - 10PM TIL LATE”

you layer that over an abstract photo of a chainlink fence and a blurry streetlamp.

it’s kind of genius.

it’s kind of bullshit.

it’s art.

you send it off with the caption:

“let me know if you hate it. i don’t care, but i’ll pretend.”

friday: 22:45 - the club

you’re at the front door of a warehouse club, wrist-stamping people and yelling “CASH ONLY FOR TICKETS” over the beat of a house remix. your friend’s working the bar. you’re technically off the clock, but you’re getting paid in free drinks and exposure.

you’re wearing a crop top from the shop and a pair of boots held together with prayer and duct tape. someone offers you a shot and you take it. your group chat is blowing up about a missed lecture. you’re not even mad. just numb.

sero texts you:

“btw ur flyer’s all over the boys bathroom. congrats on being hot & talented.”

you laugh.

you take a selfie in the bathroom mirror, half blurry and overexposed.

you caption it: still alive (barely).

saturday: 15:43 - katsuki’s place

you didn’t mean to fall asleep.

you were sketching diagrams in his room. working on that prototype housing you promised to draft. you were sitting cross-legged on the floor, hoodie sleeves pulled over your hands, mid-sentence when everything just… faded.

now you’re curled up sideways on his futon, the sun casting slats of light over your knees. your mouth is dry. your back is sore. your page is still open on the floor.

katsuki doesn’t wake you.

he just keeps working beside you. quiet.

he pulls the blanket over your legs when you shift in your sleep.

⸻

it’s not enough. you’re still behind. you’re always behind.

but you’re still moving.

still here.

still answering texts with sarcasm and ambition.

still showing up, even when you shouldn’t have to.

because you want more.

because you can’t afford to stop.

because sleeping feels like losing ground.

[ikamigami]

TW: EXTREME CHILD ABUSE

In this post I won't only share my headcanon about Sawyer's childhood but also I'll try to explain why it might fit into canon.

First things first. I know you may find this headcanon to be too much but I really hope that you won't be rude. You're allowed to disagree and share your thoughts on my headcanon but please don't be rude about it.

So now let's get to it.

So my headcanon is that Sawyer's parents were a part of mind control program. His father is a scientist and his mother is a child psychologist. They were both experimenting on Harley to make him an amoral and unempathetic scientist who will do anything to push humanity forward past their limits. They indoctrinated with beliving in mystical things - like with poppy flowers and golden path (I'll explain everything better later).

I know I know. It sounds far fetched and as if I'm trying too hard to make Sawyer to be a sympathetic victim.

But tbh with you I only later realized that the way Sawyer behaved and trying to think about what could cause such behavior could be caused by being a victim of mind control programming.

Because at first I came up with the idea of strict parents who were pushing Harley too much to focus only on studying while they were emotionally neglectful towards him. I thought that his parents definitely had to push him to focus on studying because the line "progress doesn't care about anyone's feelings" didn't come from nowhere. It stood out to me because why Sawyer as a child (even if he was a teenager at that time he was still a child) was thinking like that.

But one day when I was thinking about the way Sawyer projects his trauma and hurt onto experiments because of how he was focusing on troubled kids more and the way he was talking about the orphans in his secret recording and I had a thought: what if his parents could experiment on him? Wouldn't it be too much?

And I was thinking how such experiments could look like so it would make sense to the story and canon. What type of experiments could impact Sawyer to be the way he is now? And when I was thinking hard about all of this I realized that all of this reminds me of mind control program that happened in real life.

And then I thought to myself that it's far fetched and too much.

But when I was thinking about it and how such mind programming could affect him (considering what things were done to victims in real case of mind control program) it started to make more and more sense and I realized that it not only explains why Sawyer is the way he is but it also fits themes presented in the game.

How? Let me explain.

First of all: hallucinogenic gas - the red smoke.

The orphans are treated with red smoke every single night and it's also used during experiments. The red smoke causes hallucinations and nightmares or more specifically night terrors.

Victims of mind control program were treated with LSD or other psychedelics that caused hallucinations.

Next thing: conditioning - orphans turned into experiments were later conditioned to better fulfill their assigned role.

The whole point of mind control program was to indoctrinate/condition a victim to believe in something.

Next thing: making experiments to be a certain way - i.e. Huggy Wuggy was designed and experimented on to be a guard dog of Playtime Co.

Mind control program was supposed to make people be basically someone else by changing their mindset completely.

Another thing that I forgot about is a weird accent put on poppy flowers. There was a time in PPT fandom when people widely thoerized including me that there's some sort of cult thing going on with poppy flowers.

It was later forgotten but when you think about it characters like the Prototype and CatNap and things in chapter 3 were straight up cult like stuff: the Prototype being a god, CatNap being his apostle who built his shrine and had his church - Playcare.

And while there isn't anything related to demons in Poppy Playtime I found it rather odd that someone found in game files the statue of Baphomet (it was 3 years ago).

I'm not saying that Playtime Co is weird cult or something. What I'm trying to say is that it may imply something.

Because we have stuff related to cult with the Prototype and CatNap already.

Weird allusions were made regarding the Prototype in Project Playtime that he can speak directly to or maybe even control others minds. While it's hard to say if that's exactly the case cause he could find other ways of communication it reminded me of something.

Special properties of poppy flowers.

We learned about them in note about experiment 814 - rat experiment with poppy gel.

The person who made that note believed in some sort of magical/mystical properties of poppy flowers that they can bring the dead back.

And I have to admit that for a long while I thought that it was Elliot who wrote it (I know I already said that) and I thought that he believed in magic or something like that hence why Sawyer called his vision a childish fantasy.

But now when I'm pretty sure and confident with it I think that Sawyer wrote that note during his time at Young Geniuses Program which implies that he is the one who holds this believe in poppy flowers.

While we know that flowers have unique properties to them that help with many things such as healing or treating wounds etc. there isn't anything like a flower that can revive the dead.

At first I thought it was Elliot who had this magical thinking because Sawyer was the one who was using knowledge and his brain and etc. etc. but when you think about it and remember that Sawyer came up with the idea of golden path ("I paved the golden path") and has references to Joker who is known from being a madman.

It all start to makes sense.

And when we consider implications of cult like stuff and mind control stuff and special properties of poppy flowers and golden path we can see an odd pattern here.

And what's really odd is that Sawyer held this weird belief in special properties of poppy flowers when he was a teenager and I believe that he also came up with golden path since he started with experiments (rat experiment had a number 814). So Sawyer had strange beliefs and weird idea - golden path sounds mystical not like something science like.

And while Harley definitely was heavily inspired by Dune (I only realized it now when I'm writing this post, I'm not joking) - he said in QnA that he's science-fiction person and Golden Path is in Dune and Dune has a messiah character I'm 100% sure that Sawyer read Dune when he was a teenager like it's definitely canon - it didn't cause him his issues.

And while Sawyer could have these issues from different type of abuse and he could escape into science-fiction I found it interesting that Harley was most likely born when human and child experiments were a huge thing and whole mind control program had happened in real life.

It was a part of reason to why this thought came to my mind that maybe Sawyer's parents experimented on him (even before I came up with mind control program part). Because at the time he was born child experiments were quite common.

And if they injected psychedelics into him and indoctrinated him with some strange beliefs he could later think that he came up with idea of golden path because of Dune.

Sawyer's mind after being subjected to experiments and injected with LSD and other psychedelics was definitely more prone to developing some sort of psychosis hence why he could end up believing in whatever he read in Dune and maybe even believing that he's like Paul and or Leto II - a messiah, someone with a mission to save humanity by improving it.

And Dune also has this some sort of psychedelic - the spice that make people see visions etc.

And the reason why Sawyer is so detached from his past might be because he could have had implemented fake (false) memories while he doesn't remember experiments - memory manipulation exist in real life too.

Sawyer could believe that whatever ideas he came up with which he later named golden path after Dune were his own ideas but in fact they're a result of indoctrination and visions caused by psychedelics.

And while you may ask why Mob Games would reference something lile mind control program in their game, they did that with Mommy Long Legs which is named after a girl with a horrifying history of what happened to her. Marie Payne was a real girl. And I'm 100% sure Mob Games knew what they were doing giving a girl who was turn into Mommy Long Legs this name. You can read about Marie Payne on the internet or go and watch Tericho who also mentioned it on YouTube during one of his older videos about Poppy Playtime.

And Mommy Long Legs is also the reason to why I think that Sawyer could be a victim of mind control programming. Its because of their parallels.

And I need to give a shout out to a person who made a thread about the parallels between Harley and MLL on Twitter:

Because it's so well done and they did awesome work with this! ✨✨

And this is what convinced me that devs really made Sawyer with the intention of us to see him also as a victim and not only a perpetrator.

[starryeyedstray]

during the intergalactic space war, cyberlife deploys android soldiers to be used in combat to prevent more human deaths. the rk800 is a specialized prototype sent work with the unit of earth's military that specializes in reconnaissance and intel. he it is assigned to lieutenant hank anderson for further testing.

ramblings and closeups below the cut~!

i have a soft spot for faceless characters. like i think they're just so cute with their nonexistent yet expressive faces. and someone i follow has been reblogging a lot of gabriel from ultrakill (i know nothing about the character or the game but the art is so cool) who is a faceless character so i really wanted to draw one.

and hence this au was born.

connor's design is based off cyberlife's skinless android design and a little bit of viktor's robot followers (from arcane). y'all i am shit at technical drawing so apologies for my kinda scuffed robot design. i am no engineer that's for sure.

anyway i have no other ideas for this au so if someone sees this and is like hey that sounds like a cool fic idea, feel free to write it and just tag or dm me cause i'd love to read it. ALSO, if anyone has any more cool ideas for this i would love to draw it more bc i'm all out ahhahahah. (literally just drew this just to give connor a cute lil robo design LMAO)

[chronicalchaos]

Finally have some things about the Poppy Playtime AU that I can share.

It just doesn't have a name yet lol

It's a human AU, mixing my favorite book series (Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children) with the characters from PPT. Most of the plot stays the same (kids being experimented on, the hour of joy) and it still takes place in the factory.

If I get to write something about this AU, it would probably be separated in 4 POVs, I don't have any digital drawings, but, I have some doodles:

Group/Plot A - Safe Haven/The survivors

This group consists of Doey(Matthew/Kevin/Jack), most of the smiling critters, Kissy and a few of the smaller toys. They don't live in the safe haven we know from chapter 4, not anymore at least, now, they reside in playcare (there's 2 playcares, it gets a bit confusing, but I'll try to explain it at the end).

Their goal is to rescue kids/toys while trying to find a way out of the factory.

Who is the PoV wasn't decided yet.

Group/Plot B - Prisoners/The seekers

This group starts with only Yarnaby/Quinn, where he's been locked up on the prison for a LONG time, even before the hour of Joy. This plot starts with him being set free by the doctor, who asks Yarnaby to free him from... wherever he is. As he explores the prison area, the group starts to get bigger, as Pianosauros (bud's alive lol) and the Nightmare Critters join him.

Yarnaby/Quinn is the PoV for this Plot.

Group/Plot C - The Prototype Gang

The main danger of the AU, the 4 most loyal people to the prototype: Catnap/Theo, Huggy, Mommy/Marie and Boxy. Each takes care of a part of the factory, Huggy with the entrance floor and the catwalks where Poppy was, Mommy/Marie with the game station floor, Catnap/Theo with the playcare (the other one) and Boxy with the prison.

Catnap/Theo is the PoV for this Plot.

Group/Plot D - Game Station Duo/The Lost ones

This is a plot that is intertwined with Plots A and C, as it follows people Safe Haven is trying to save and the Prototype Gang keeps as hostage. It follows Bunzo and PJ as they escape the Game Station when Long Legs left for a meeting.

Other toys might join this group, buy I don't have who would join.

Bunzo is the PoV for this Plot.

The Factory

There's technically 3 factories, but only 2 will appear in the AU. Now, why is that?

This is where the Miss Peregrine's series comes into play. There's a thing called a loop, where the same day repeats in a, well, a loop.

In this AU, there's the present: the original factory where the hour of joy happened. Playcare/the worker's loop: Where the Peculiar kids stayed to be eventually trained to be toys, it's now on the hands of the prototype. And there's Safe Haven: the loop poppy made to keep the toys against the hour of joy safe.

Peculiar kids/The Toys

As mentioned above, all who would be a "living toy" in the game, are actually just peculiar kids persuaded to act like and answer as the toy character it was assigned.

What is a peculiar? It's a person who was born with a "second soul" that grants them a "super power", it's also what allows them to live in loops, normals (people without a second soul) can't even enter the loops, that makes it a safe place for peculiars to live.

At least, that's why a loop is normally created.

[yuurei20]

Updated Ortho Facts Part 18: Ortho's Abilities (pt4)

When Kalim talks about Jamil wanting to take him to a theme park Ortho calculates the odds of such happening as “less than one percent,” and we also see him assigning percentages to how likely it is that the students will suffer injury if they do not do as Idia says during Book 6.

Ortho says he can predict most things through simulations and data crunching, “so it’s really nice when something unexpected happens.”

Ortho and Lilia complain together about the predictability of a Playfulland ride, with Ortho suggesting the implementation of randomized movements. 

Ortho says that he enjoys research and gathering data.

Ortho is also equipped with a “built-in emergency magical disaster alert” which is triggered when he is wearing his Ignihyde gear. It is not specified if blot density increase detection is equipped only to his Ignihyde Gear or if it is something he can do regardless of the gear he wears. The alert goes to STYX.

Ortho will occasionally reference online searches that he performs, even offering to look up the physical address of Idia’s online game friend Muscle Red.

Ortho explains, “There's essentially no such thing as anonymity online for me.”

Ortho is also capable of QR code scanning and email. In his incorporeal state in Idia’s dream he is capable of connecting to wireless speakers and simple, non-technomantic electronics.

Ortho suffers his equivalent of falling unconscious in response to Malleus’ unique magic and escapes by uploading himself over the school’s public wi-fi.

He attempts to use the Land of Dawning’s network and undersea cables to send himself to STYX but fails due to Malleus’ energy field, which has stopped time.

Ortho notices Idia’s tablet and says it should support satellite broadband, as Idia designed it to connect with a STYX prototype communications satellite via an antenna that he secretly set up on a large tree behind the school.