#wraith notes

[wr-n]

muscle memory so good, when amnesia hits youre already on autopilot

no one even knows youre not you anymore

[thewr-eckening]

Ehhh this is a rant about cancel culture, Ink, and Blueberry Sans. You don't need to read it if you aren't in the mood to hear about stuff like this.

My number one goal is to not hate ANYONE.

sometimes I catch myself falling into gossip and rumor mills where people like to talk about "oh this creator is terrible because of x,y,z...."

or "why did they do this with their character/story/design? its terrible!"

at some point i kinda just went "I... don't wanna hate people anymore"

because hating people is exhausting and all problems have nuance. It's why I take great care in asking things like 'why did I hate this Sans?', 'Did I hate this sans because *I* didn't like it? Or because someone said I shouldn't like it?', and 'Do I have the full story?'

Disliking things is totally fine, I just don't like the knee-jerk reaction of "Oh, I heard something about this creator from someone so they must be evil and be ostracized"

I can think to myself how I disagree with a creator's decision without thinking of them as a bad person for doing so. Maybe I'm too forgiving but I like giving people chances to explain themselves. Because if I ever became a part of a major drama, I'd want to hear myself out, too. So try to do that for other people.

Unless I know 100% that a person is being purposefully malicious towards someone, I keep myself neutral.

I think thats also why I've slowly looked at Sanses I once hated and finding how to love them again. I thought Ink was a terrible character with manipulative tendencies and cruel intentions. But why? He's just a silly little guy?

It's why i love Blueberry and Yanberry, because I used to hate that they were so cutesy and so many people complaining that he's child-coded and too stupid to be likable. But why? I just think of him as a regular Swap... but showing more of what people enjoy about him. That he's just that. Cute. There's nothing wrong with being cute. Why do people assume that being an optimist and liking cute things immediately be condemned?

In conclusion, let me like what I want to like. I have my own reasons for liking what I like. The fandom doesn't decide for me what I should and shouldn't enjoy and I'm not gonna be peer pressured to think a certain way because 'everyone else thinks the same way'. That's what's great about a community, that everyone has their own preferences and opinions and still get along.

[knockknockitsnickels]

I think this is one of my favorite lines from the Wraith route because of (imo) how much the meaning changes depending on if you got there via Spectre or Nightmare. For Spectre, it honestly strikes me as a genuine question. Why are you doing this to her? If you're on the Spectre route, you presumably already know the Narrator can't really be trusted, since you had to reject his reward to get here. What are you hoping to gain from continuing to hurt her? For Nightmare, it honestly just makes me sad. As the Shifting Mound describes her, "She desires only companionship, but the only thing she knows is how to hurt." This line feels like a plea from someone who genuinely doesn't understand why you keep rejecting her. She wants to be with you, but she just can't understand how to do that in a way which doesn't hurt you.

[russetfoxfur]

okay so i went a bit insane about the examination of agency in the nightmare's routes, and then this evolved into a deeper examination of the rest of nightmare's whole deal. i am not an analyst so please take everything i say with a grain of salt, but. you know. i find her whole character to be very interesting. rambles under the cut.

warning it is 5k words of me rambling so like. be aware of that

okay, so every route the princess begins by being chained to a wall. this is the first thing she knows. she appears to be the ideal of a damsel in distress - she can't move, can't fight on her own at first, can be easily stabbed if your perception of her stays as a damsel in distress. she has no agency in this. she is forced to wait in the cabin until you, an unknown monster-looking thing comes along explicitly to kill her. and if you're quick and doubtless, she ends her life just as it began - born in a chain in a cabin, died in a chain in a cabin. and that's how you get the spectre.

now, the nightmare you can get on either harsh or soft princess. she's unique in this - as far as i remember, the only other princess like this is the stranger, where you don't meet her at all. (please correct me if i'm wrong though, i'm new to this fandom). and - as pointed out in another analysis, though i can't find it now - she's like this because she speaks to the foundational fear that all princesses have, which is going unperceived. she adapts based on what you are, and while she'll treat you differently if you try to kill her or save her at first, she will always revert to the nightmare when you meet her and then refuse to engage with her at all.

by refusing to perceive her you take away her agency. when you fight her she at least has the chance to fight back. if you manage to stab her in the heart she can at least provoke you into wondering if she's actually dead. but she has so little agency here, fighting for scraps to keep herself alive in the face of a construct that desperately wants her dead, and you leaving her alone says that you don't even see her as someone who's a threat. while slaying her means seeing her as an apocalypse in the making, and freeing her means seeing her as a pitiful thing locked up in a harsh cabin, leaving her alone means seeing her as absolutely nothing at all.

so she fights back. she slips her chains to try and escape from the cabin on her own terms. i genuinely don't think the shutting-down-the-organs thing is a lie on her part - she doesn't really lie, not unless you think she can, and she doesn't want to kill you at all, as evidenced in her chapter II. she knew you were the key to her escape, and then (in her eyes) you have the spite and sheer audacity to kill yourself just when her freedom is in view, just before she can leave for good. you kill yourself just to make sure she can't have the option of leaving at all.

so, to recap: she's locked up, you abandon her, she tries to escape, you die, she dies.

when we come back to her, the cabin bends to her will. her chains are nowhere in sight - whether they existed in the first place is a mystery. what i find interesting is the sort of prelude to her appearance - when you descend into the basement, you're given a choice between staying, running for the stairs, turning left, or turning right.

no matter which way you go, she always finds you.

she gives you the false choice this time. while before you'd spoken to her, tempted her with freedom and autonomy and agency, you'd snatched it away and left her with the worst fate she can imagine. now she's giving it to you - she tempts you with freedom and agency, and then she snatches it away by showing up no matter where you turn. no one ever talks about it but it's just. she'd said so many things to try and coerce/persuade you into helping her leave, and no matter what she'd said you'd left her anyway. you try and go any way to avoid meeting her and facing the princess again, but no matter which way you go she'll always find you.

anyway.

you pass out a few times as paranoid begins his chant, she reacts with mild curiosity and annoyance, and then you're free to question her. someone else pointed out that her mask never changes - it's frozen in this teasing smile, almost like she's smiling over the pain. (which she definitely is, considering what happens in the leadup to MoC.) she repeatedly reinstates her desire to leave and now gleefully talks about the world ending. what has it ever done for her, anyway? she also teases lq with death, just like he teased her with freedom. an eye for an eye.

a few highlights of her dialogue: when told that she's a lunatic, she responds, "I am what I am. And right now, what I am is in control." she also then teases him with death again. how the tables have turned. if you've got the knife, you can tell her you might just kill her instead, to which she warns the player and then says, "This place is mine. And I'm not giving you the stairs unless I'm leaving with you." she then demonstrates you by trapping you in the cabin if you decide to slay her right then and there. everything else is pretty standard - talking about her plans when she's free, talking about what happened after she died. these are interesting in their own right, but not for this analysis.

then, once you've exhausted all dialogue options, you have a few more options, three of which lead to chapter IIIs which have interesting takes on agency as well. you can remain with her, run, leave with her, or (if you have the knife) stab her.

both running and remaining - seemingly opposing actions - lead to the same outcome: the moment of clarity. this happens when you've finally exhausted all other possible outcomes, and all that's left for you to do is to let. her. out. you have no other choice - they're all grayed out. whether it's a broken hero or your own amnesia-blocked trauma doing this is anyone's guess, but the fact remains.

in the leadup to the moment of clarity, she takes off her mask, the thing that's kept her seeming morbidly cheerful and playful throughout the rest of the route despite her multiple open threats and gleeful hatred of the world. the narrator describes, in detail, a horrific existence which she is baring to you in an attempt to get you to help her to leave. she takes off her mask, stops playing nice with you, and tries to get you to see her side of the story, tries to get you to at least pity her and leave.

it's so bad the narrator stops narrating and refuses to go on.

think about this. this is the guy who narrates the entirety of the fury sequence, cool and calm. he describes the nightmarish cabin matter-of-factly a few minutes before, which hero points out. he isn't bothered by you getting killed except that it means his plans are ruined and the world is doomed, and he tells you about various gruesome deaths such as being crushed by vines or watching the prisoner chop her own head off. the only other times i can think of that he despairs like this is when you fail your mission (by freeing or dying to the princess) or when he himself is in danger (getting burned up by apotheosis, getting controlled by the tower). but in nightmare, the vision is so horrible that he cannot stand going on. (paranoid also stops chanting at this time, but he does that before when his concentration is broken. narry is notably VERY DEAD SET on his goal of slaying the princess. he's not like this!)

what this vision is exactly, i cannot tell, but for the sake of this analysis i'm going to interpret it as what she is, behind the mask, behind the facade of a vessel. shifty offloads the nature of her existence, the purest distillation of change - a lifetime, the circle of life, bloom and decay and burgeoning rot over and over and over again, success and fame turning into scandals and dishonor and poverty, humans living and changing into monsters or saints, every choice you make irreversibly altering the tapestry of time you are a part of. she represents the future and its unpredictable nature, and people trying to adapt to changing societal pressures and failing to evolve fast enough, and each unlucky twist of fate that leads to ruin and despair. she is survival of the fittest, and she is testing you.

this is what the nightmare is, under the mask. a monster, a murderer, the essence of death and destruction. this is what you are denying agency.

in this light, refusing shifty's offer of godhood seems almost reasonable. maybe she's trapped here for a reason. death is... pretty bad, isn't it? if our cool-headed narrator doesn't want her out, maybe there's a reason for that. maybe he's loved and lost - maybe he's seeing reflections of himself, in the princess' experiences, and the reason why he's so set on you slaying her is to prevent this nightmare from happening to anyone else.

you die, of course. you have the audacity to die. and when you wake again - we don't know whether she's hopeful you've learned the error of your ways, or whether she's still as forceful as in chapter II, but one thing's for certain - she doesn't win. you still act as the prison guard. you still keep her away from her only goal, and you become determined to keep it that way.

so you guard the door. you slay her. you romance her and question her and murder her and you end up with different voices, each time, different fragments of change that help you evolve to fight her but you always end up with the same princess with the same goal and nothing's getting better and you keep on denying her freedom because she's clearly awful and you're clearly the guard to an irredeemable prisoner.

from her perspective, mind you, she's been locked in a room for no reason, teased with escape, accidentally killed you while trying to leave, entertained your faints and questions, bared her soul to you in order to get you to understand why leaving her alone is such a bad idea, and then you died and promptly doubled down on your decision.

it's hell for her! she doesn't know why you're doing this! she's forced to react to your actions, because you're the one who can take the knife and you're the one who can leave! she lashes out! how dare you! how dare you keep her trapped here! why can't she leave! why can't she be the one in control of her fate! why do you hate her so much, that you are willing to die over and over just to keep her trapped?

so she lashes out at you. she takes vengeance on her captor, and she hunts you again and again, eroding away your defiance loop by painstaking loop. we don't know exactly what she did. we probably don't want to. but it's bad enough to break the voices, shatter many of them beyond recognition, and outright deny us our autonomy in a way that's only otherwise seen in tower.

and i'm not saying she's a saint! i know this whole analysis i've been on her side but that's because most people aren't! she's undeniably cruel to lq, but the thing most people forget is he was cruel first! she is a creature of perception and he denies her even that basic privilege! and she reacts violently! she lashes out and tries to threaten him into staying! has no qualms with sacrificing the world if she can get out! the nightmare cranks the abandonment anxiety of all the princesses up and adds a vicious vengeance to her as well!

but also. this route shows how hero isn't quite so perfect as he appears to be. you get this route by taking hero's third option, which satisfies no one. (it's also worth noting that HEA is also hero's call.) you abandon her, she who literally never has met anyone beside yourself, and that breaks her. so she tries to cling onto you. she possesses you and shatters you and threatens you and wants you there because she knows nothing else and she's already fractured from shifty's splintering, she can't fracture further, so she'll squeeze and claw for any bit of companionship she can get. she'll hunt you down for sport if it means she can spend a few minutes with you perceiving her. she's lonely is what she is. and she's reacting in the worst way possible.

where were we? oh, right. moment of clarity.

eventually, though, after untold numbers of loops where you keep doggedly trying to keep her locked away, she breaks through. she exhausts your options, traumatizes you, forces you to let her out. she will not be defeated. she will have her way. she makes sure of it.

what i also find interesting is that you're not scared of her anymore. paranoia isn't chanting away in the background. there's no more fear - just resignation. no one's happy with your third option, just as the narrator said back when you made it in the first cabin - everyone just wants it to end, and the only voice of dissent is the narrator, who doesn't even remember what's happened and doesn't know how awful it is to keep on trudging through the same, unchanging story over and over and over again. it's not new, or exciting, or changing anymore. it's just painful. you should really just let her out.

ah, but you might be wise enough not to try and pick that third option, and instead choose the more traditional two options - leaving or slaying.

leaving with the nightmare, like most chapter II endings, is pretty straightforward - you comply with her wishes and let. her. out. if you have the knife, there's a fun moment where paranoid says 'fuck you' to the narrator, but otherwise you give her her agency again. you allow her out. you've learned the error of your ways - now you'll let her free.

and, granted, she does wish death onto the world, but - as detailed above - she does kinda deserve it. i'd let her. she should kill people. i want to watch it happen :3

but if you choose to slay her, she reacts not with indignance but with gleeful wickedness. she can't believe you - a paranoid, helpless thing that she'd decided was barely a person at all, just a key that kept getting stuck in the lock, just a helpless little birdie who couldn't even stay alive in the face of her beauty and power - actually killed her! she's too surprised to be angry, i think. and then that surprise turns into realization - she's already figured out that you were always going to keep coming back until you let. her. out, and she can feel herself changing as a result of your changing perception.

and thus we meet the wraith.

while she has the same dialogue no matter where you kill her, you get different voices depending on where you do it - oppy on the stairs/in the cabin, cold if you do it in the basement. you're also forced to kill yourself either way - she tosses you into the void if you betray her, and you're stuck in the basement if you kill her in the basement since, as mentioned before, she won't give you the stairs. you die either from biology or suicide, and then you go into the wraith.

the wraith is a vengeful creature, and for good reason. she tried being nice to you! she tried talking to you, then tried threatening you, then tried forcing you. but you keep refusing! you keep dying, stubbornly, before you can reach her... you keep killing her before she can reach the outside... you keep teasing her with freedom! you keep her away from freedom, so tantalizingly close yet far.

and she's done being nice. she's seen where that's gotten her - a paranoid corpse and a knife through her heart. it's not her fault you keep dying! you just can't help being so afraid of a shackled princess that you're willing to kill yourself to be rid of her! so she's going to take it by force. she'll be evil. that's the only way things get done around here.

so she transforms into the wraith, a half-dead thing with a skeletal grin and grasping claws. you're introduced to her when she twists your ankle and drags you down to her level. she also explains that she was so, so close to freedom last time, but then you locked her away, killed her, and took her body away from her. so she's going to take your body away and march out that door, and you're going to be completely helpless during all of this, just like she was.

interestingly, she also limits your freedom, just like she did last time - if you ask her questions twice, she'll cut you off and take over your body then and there. she's done entertaining your frivolous questions. she wants to leave. let. her. out. she also goes ahead and possesses you without a second thought if you try to struggle or give up

a few interesting highlights from these explore options: you can claim that you were a victim in all of this, and she says, "Just because someone hurt you doesn't mean you get a free pass to hurt anyone else." some delicious hypocrisy there, wraith, as the voices point out. but perhaps she doesn't even see you as someone who can hurt, thus justifying her possession and torture of you. someone who can hurt would have sympathy for the poor locked up princess in the dark basement, and they certainly wouldn't lock her away and stab her to death. only heartless people do that, and heartless people can't be hurt. if you tell her that possessing you is evil, she says, "After all you've done, why would I ever care what you think of me?" she's past the point of evil and not-evil. to her, you're evil - you hurt her first, after all. whether a villain sees a hero as evil is irrelevant; to her, you're means to an end, an end that is always dancing just out of reach. possessing you is a necessary step to her goal.

she then possesses you.

now that she's in your head, she realizes that you also have voices in your head. oppy is immediately on wraith's side, because of course he is, and cold's a bit ambivalent about the whole ordeal (as he often is), though he's leaning toward your side. narry and hero are mortified, as they are wont.

if you struggle as she possesses you, paranoid's able to save up a bit of will and uses it to help you defy her one last time. first you lock her away in the basement, then you stab her, then you are literally willing to kill yourself and fall forever to be rid of her. she's sadistic as she tries to force you to move, but if you want to - because you're the one with agency here, still, even as she forces you to shamble toward the door on a broken ankle, even as she usurps your body and forces you to watch - you can throw yourself out the window.

as you fall, she asks you why you hate her. why you've always hated her. why you didn't trust her when you locked her away, why you decided to stab a knife through someone who didn't even want to kill you, why you defied her even with a shattered ankle and her voice in your head. why you decided your autonomy was more worthy than hers, way back at the start, back when she didn't even want to kill you. why you hated her into the nightmare, and then the wraith. why you decided she was better off alone and abandoned.

and honestly? you might have a valid reason at this point. she did break your ankle, after all. she did shut down your organs and act gleeful about the end of the world. she's a monster. she's sadistic and cruel and horrible and she possessed you, for goodness' sake! you've been trying to defend yourself against a threat! you're literally dying all the time near nightmare, and wraith greets you by breaking your ankle! like, i understand why people hate her! i'm not saying she's a good person! no one is, in this series! that's part of the appeal!!!

but she never even tried to kill you. (to those who are going to say well what about the organs-shutting-down-thing, think about it rationally: she needs you to get out. you fainting and dying isn't helping her. it's an active detriment. if she could control it, she probably wouldn't do it, because you being dead just shunts you back into the same hellvoid again.) she never locked you away forever. that was you. you keep taunting her with freedom and then shutting her away. you killed her and trapped her and, to her, you forced her into this. you forced her to hurt you and possess you and make you fear her. this isn't her fault. this is yours. for locking her away, for killing her, for denying her her one wish. she tried, in that first chapter. and you decided she wasn't worth the time of day.

personally, i would've made this choice also branch off into MoC. this game doesn't do fourth chapters - and i understand why - but i feel like it would've been fulfilling. she finally gets her freedom after you kill her and kill yourself and lock her away and keep her from getting out. you wouldn't even have to change much - you've already proven you're not going to let her out again. who's to say that the wraith wasn't one of MoC's iterations, and that the voices leading the charge then were also able to store some will and kill themselves before she could escape?

and maybe they were right. we don't know what happened between the nightmare and MoC, and we never will. maybe she was horrifically cruel, an unfeeling maniac. maybe she was pleading to be let out, and you weren't having that. maybe she was doing both. what we know is she never left the cabin.

finally, i want to draw attention to what, exactly, shifty says about each vessel. she gives us our best glimpse into each vessel's psyche, as someone who is part of them. her little speech often endears me to the princess i delivered, even if i wasn't very fond of her.

for the nightmare, she states, "This one is filled with sadness. A doll abandoned to the company of her darkest impulses. She desires only companionship, but the only thing she knows is how to hurt. She will make for a tender heart."

this reinforces what i've been saying throughout the whole analysis - most of the nightmare's nightmarish qualities come from her desperate need to be perceived by someone else. to be known. you doom her to a life of eternal loneliness, so she gives into her darkest urges and hurts you, over and over again, to try and win you over. she doesn't know how to do otherwise.

for the moment of clarity she states, "This one is a waiting maw. An inevitable destination where all roads end. She will make for a wise heart."

she chased you over and over until you broke, waiting for you to shatter and let her out. no matter what you tried to do, no matter which choices you made or roads you took, she awaited you, and you awaited her. she was made wise through your attempts to defy her, and eventually she won the long game. it was inevitable, really. you did your best. there's just a pecking order, and you'll always be at the bottom.

and about the wraith she states: "This one is loneliness turned to seething. She could not find her strength in others, so she found it in herself. She will make for a driven heart."

when you refused to save her, when you defied her over and over, she realized she couldn't rely on you to save her. you took everything she had away from her. so she took everything you had - a pristine blade, a free body - away from you instead. she used to be lonely, scared - but now she is powerful, hateful, laughing even as you throw her out a window in a spiteful act of defiance. you monster.

but eventually, inevitably, finally, she rejoins the shifting mound as one of her many perspectives. she finds peace, finally, in the eternal choir of the vessels.

do not mourn her. she is not alone anymore.

...

this analysis is not in defense of her actions - she does do some pretty fucked up things in this! pro tip: do not break people's ankles and then possess them, and also do not torture someone and break their will. just a suggestion.

but the reason i'm making this analysis is that so many people will say that nightmare/MoC (and tower, though this analysis isn't about her (but i love her very much and she was so valid for mind controlling the narrator)) is a horrible irredeemable bitch, and then they'll turn around and praise smitten/oppy/cold.

and that feels... more than a little hypocritical to me. oppy is literally a backstabbing bastard who allies with the person who has the most power - he literally tries to stab you in patd! he is born out of the decision to betray the princess when she's finally thought she could trust you, similarly to the nightmare, except this time you're killing her instead of locking her away. in HEA, he decides that free food is worth more than the princess' happiness, and in thorn he wants to stab the princess because of her newfound vulnerability.

and yet i've seen so many analyses of his behavior! so many people excusing him as a sopping wet cat who just doesn't want to die. and it's like, well, okay, i'm not going to stop you from liking oppy. i'm not a cop. i can get why you might like a morally gray kinda sneaky character. but it just feels a little misogynistic when you hate the nightmare, who also resorts to desperate measures in order to not die, don'tcha think?

or cold! i'm gonna be honest i'm a bit more favorable of cold, but he still advocates for killing the princess when he thinks it'll be interesting. he is literally born when you don't even try to hear the princess out in the first place, coldly stabbing her without a second thought. he values novelty over pain. and yet people will praise him and then turn around and criticize the tower for not caring about you at all!

ugh. i just... hate the shifty neg, you know? so many ppl hate her for being 'manipulative' and 'self-centered' while completely ignoring your own hand in shaping her! she is a creature of perception, after all - the damsel and the tower are wildly different, and they both change based on how you act. each princess is a reflection of your own thoughts toward her. and people hate on the nightmare for *checks script* trying to leave the basement she was locked into, and then reacting violently when the only person she's ever known decides to keep her trapped, possibly for forever. like, you all see why she'd do that, right.

...also, like. god forbid women do anything. even if she did do all that organ-shutting-down stuff of her own volition, good for her. she should do it more. she should kill everyone who disagrees with her. she was locked in a basement and abandoned by the first person she met i think she deserves to kill and slaughter.

andddd end of post! again i am NOT, like, a practiced analyst. there are almost certainly things i got wrong during this, and feel free to bring those up in the comments! i will admit this got a bit out of hand and turned halfway into a gushing-about-nightmare post.

also i just want to reiterate that this analysis explores her motives and explains why she's Like That, and again i am not trying to say she's a precious cinnamon roll. just that she's got some reasons for doing what she does.

ALSO ALSO PLEASE DO NOT MAKE THIS POST ABOUT THE VOICES THIS POST IS ABOUT THE NIGHTMARE AND HER ITERATIONS!!! MAKE YOUR OWN POST!!!

alright! that's it! russet out!

[yaekiss]

its monsterfucking hours again. maybe ive just been watching too many minecraft horror mods but i need an eldritch being of mass destruction obsessed with me right now sigh. -🪻

𝑬𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝟑𝑳𝑫

꩜ Room Content: GN! Researcher! Reader x Yandere! Ivory Wraith, no gendered terms for reader, mild horror(?), lmk if I missed out anything! ꩜ A/N: omg minecraft horror mod videos... is it by any chance The Obsessed? Hmmm honestly any character could have eldritch potential if you try hard enough. Tried out a new way of writing for this one, lmk if it's effective for this fic! ꩜ Spin this wheel and submit a prompt + character for a quick blurb!

Experiment 3LD, helmed by the renowned Dr. ▇▇▇▇▇. The experiment will be conducted over a period of 44 days. See below for the assistant researcher's compiled voice notes:

1VRY.

Day 4, 10.03am - Otherwise known as the Ivory Wraith, we have managed to contain it within a temporary holding cell for the time being. A more advanced enclosure facility is currently being built for it. Although we are still unsure of exactly its abilities work, a strict rule of no mirrors within a set radius has been implemented.

Day 13, 12.45pm - Monitoring the experiment subject proves to be challenging. Its behavior seems to vary wildly from staying abnormally still, akin to a statue carved from pure ivory, to clawing at its neck and stalking to and fro frantically in its cell. The sight is wildly unsettling resulting in all of the other researchers vacating the observation room.

Day 21, 4.38pm - It seems that we have managed to procure a relic related to the experiment subject. It is an ivory necklace, inset with deep blue jewels. The Ivory Wraith seems to have the ability to sense whenever someone is in contact with the relic, where as soon as one of the other researchers touches a part of the necklace, it immediately appears in front of the observation glass, its expression terrible and haunting. Due to this, most of the other researchers have requested to leave the research team, leaving myself as the sole and resulting, assistant researcher.

Day 32, 6.20pm - 1VRY has appeared to have realised that the sole researcher left on behind the observation glass is myself. Strangely enough, its aggressive behavior has lessened, as long as no contact is made with the ivory necklace relic. Now, it usually spends its days hovering around the front of its cell where the glass is, its gaze never parting from my position. Occasionally, trills and whispers are heard from the otherwise quiet surroundings. Its larger, more fully equipped enclosure facility is finally done and attempts to transfer 1VRY will be made in the coming days when the team is fully prepared.

Day 40, 10.13pm - Preparations by the researcher team, consisting solely of myself, and the moving team are almost complete. 1VRY's behavior has reverted back to before, where it is erratic and volatile, prone to lashing out at the observational glass whenever my presence is requested elsewhere, resulting in scratches engraved into the glass. The whispers have also grown in frequency, although no one else has reported hearing anything. Additionally, the same behavior is observed when someone else other than myself is also in the observation room. This has made it difficult to efficiently prepare for its transfer but with consistent effort, we estimate that it could be done in about 4 days' time.

Day 42, 11.04pm - The moving team has just packed up and moved the ivory necklace relic to the new enclosure facility. This however, contradicts the earlier observations of how 1VRY reacts aggressively to the relic being touched by people other than myself. As of right now, it is still continuing its previous docile behavior of simply staring through the glass. Stranger yet, it seems to shift into something more unnatural between bleary blinks. Something smiling too wide with too many teeth, its usual blue eyes a vivid red, along with a swath of tentacles behind its form. However, unnatural does not necessary equate to threatening, perhaps this could be a sort of tempting and alluring another individual. Or it could just be a mirage ability it has? Note to self: Stop staying too late in the observational room...

Day 43, 11.49pm - Terrible miscommunication has occurred between myself and the moving team. It turns out that the ivory necklace was not moved by them. And yet, no one else has come into contact with the relic. 1VRY's transfer must be done immediately with how the certain preparations only allow us a limited timeframe of working with it. There is no choice but for me to search for the relic so that the transfer can go through in the next few hours. Despite the ongoing panic beyond the glass, 1VRY has taken on a sort of behavior that suggests attraction towards something in the observational room. There is no available time for myself to properly document its new state as of the current situation, and it does not help that the lights overhead have been flickering. [Faint static can be heard before the voice note ends.]

Day 44, 12.11am - [The voice note is interspersed with bouts of static, making it hard to decipher at some parts.] I... I don't understand. Why is the ivory necklace in my ▇ab coat pocket? I haven't touched the relic since the contact tests c▇nduct▇d on it on Day 22. This makes no s▇nse. [Sounds of shuffling, presumably the researcher moving.] 1VRY...?

Day 44, 12.29am - [Alarms blare overhead. The static grows worse.] Thi▇ is terrible. The lights in th▇ holdin▇ cell have g▇ne out, altho▇gh it remains o▇ in here. There shou▇ be a flashl▇ght here somewhere. [Sounds of shuffling, then a click, presumably the flashlight turning on.] F▇ck f▇ck f▇ck f▇ck. Where is it? [A chilling laugh is heard, followed by a low trill before the voice note cuts out abruptly.]

Day 44, 12.44am - [The voice note is eerily quiet, no alarms or commotion in the background. The voice speaking is new.] Presented as gift, there is no thief. Drown with me. Forever.

Additional information:

Dr. ▇▇▇▇▇ has put out an order for this experimental failure to be kept under wraps. Not a single soul outside of the organisation can learn of this. Although, there have been rumors swirling of a mysterious file on their desk. [3LD - "Assistant Researcher"]

Thanks for reading! Consider supporting me on kofi if you enjoyed this or check out my other works hehe ♡

If you'd like to request a full fic of your own, do consider checking out my event post!

[guilhem-png]

Opportunist in Chapter III - The Wraith

I replayed The Wraith today and I was struck with how insanely funny it is to go through this chapter with Opportunist

For context (spoilers ahead), you can get to The Wraith either from The Specter or The Nightmare, two chapters that are loaded with violence. They mirror each other. Either you kill the Princess first and get Cold, then die at her hands and get Paranoid. Or you get killed by the Princess first, get Paranoid, then have your revenge and get Cold.

Basically, the most likely scenario is that you'll start The Wraith with Cold and Paranoid, one voice wracked with constant terror, the other numb to the point of apathy. The Wraith is one of those "dead end chapters", where violence has gone so far that it's impossible to mend the relationship. The game punishes you accordingly (by removing most of your agency, something that is even more prevalent in The Grey).

But there's a grain of sand in that well oiled machine, one tiny shard of glass that comes to disrupt the beautiful symmetry, and it's Opportunist. He feels completely out of place in The Wraith. While Cold and Paranoid are perfectly able to seize the gravity of the situation, Opportunist spectacularly fails to read the room and makes a series of bizarre attempts to win the Princess' favors. None of his ideas really go anywhere. The Princess doesn't care about him, the Narrator is violently opposed, and if you, the player, decide to toss the Wraith into an endless void, there's not much Opportunist can do besides complain.

But I don't think that's a design flaw at all! I think this is quite brilliant, on the contrary. First of all, it's genuinely funny. Opportunist can be a sinister character in chapters like The Witch or The Princess and the Dragon, but he's more of a harmless fool in The Wraith. To me, it all depends on whether or not his rhetoric works. The world is full of conniving backstabbers, opportunists who flatter others in order to gain personal benefits, but are quick to turn their backs on those they no longer need. This callous behavior is perfectly illustrated in Slay the Princess. Opportunist seems like a nice guy because his over-the-top flattery is amusing, but then he displays genuine cruelty without even changing his tone or attitude, and it's... chilling.

But that has no chance of working in The Wraith, obviously. You can't talk to a vengeful ghost like she's your boss looking for people to hire, and yet that's exactly what Opportunist does. This is the exact kind of tonal whiplash we usually get from Contrarian. It means you can replay The Wraith and have a completely different experience, even though what happens in the chapter is basically the same.

Isn't that game just brilliant?

[leveragehunters]

Title: There's Something Out There (I Can Hear it Calling) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Word count: 12,080 Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Characters: Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Alexander Pierce, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, James "Bucky" Barnes Additional Tags: Canon Divergence - Movie: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Magical Realism, Canon-Typical Violence, POV Outsider, POV Multiple, Eye Trauma, Explosions, HYDRA Character Death Summary:

What if Steve died fighting the Winter Soldier.

What if he came back.

(A Winter Soldier/The Wraith (1986) AU)

Read it on AO3

[squirebingus]

They took his ass

[fujii-draws]

Grovyle, Celebi, and Dusknoir creating the most intricate plan regarding the most appropriate time to meet Hero and Partner again in the present while they’re next to the Passage of Time. How they’ll explore the present first as a trio for a couple more weeks/months, have Grovyle and Celebi reunite with the two whilst also giving a Big Heads Up regarding Dusknoir; where they’d then go on to see whether or not they truly want him there, and take the necessary action based on their decision. (Whether it’s a unanimous ‘fuck no we don’t want him back’, 50/50, or completely okay with starting over.) Nodding in agreement towards the plan and stepping into the portal together.

They then proceed to immediately get spotted by Hero and Partner just relaxing on the beach.

[fishyvamp]

Imagine a medieval!AU where Princess!reader is betrothed to King Macmillan. He's cold and distant to you and the only one who seems to show you the slightest sympathy is Sir Ojomo the knight tasked with your safety. He's the one taking you to all your dress fittings, he's the one who listens as you complain that your betrothed seems too busy with the Captain of the guards to even speak with you. That pesky man always glued by the kings side.

Sir Ojomo knows something you don't and he hates the king for it. The king will never love you no matter how much he tries, but this marriage will always be one of convenience and politics. You will produce his heir, but once a son is born he will likely never touch you again.

Though what Phillip hates the most is how he finds himself craving the company of the future queen. He hates how his mind is filled your laughs and corny jokes. He hates that when he closes his eyes at night his dreams are filled with nothing but your naked form and the way it would look glowing under the moonlight. He is a traitor to the crown for even having these dreams. For having these visions of the woman who belongs to his dearest friend the king.

[wr-n]

im a simple creature i just wanna see Sans go to Grillby's bar covered in his own blood and playfully suggest he might need help

[thewr-eckening]

friendly reminder that characters don't always reflect their creator and don't have to be likable or redeemable

[mistfallengw2]

A legendary fine norn ask game

1. How are they building their legend? What do they want it to be? Are they being successful? What's their greatest achievement? Do they really care for it?

2. How do they feel about norn society's expectations and traditions? Are they comfortable in norn society? Is there anything they wish was different?

3. What's their family like? Are they still around? Do they like them and get along? Are there any particular expectations coming from them? Is there anyone noteworthy in the family?

4. Where are they from? Were they born in Hoelbrak, in one of the many homesteads and villages, or somewhere not in the Shiverpeaks? Did they like the place? Did they travel often or stayed long in the same place?

5. Which Spirit of the Wild do they have a connection to? How was the connection forged? How does their Spirit influence them? What do they think of their Spirit? Do they revere any other Spirit?

6. Can they shapeshift into Spirit Form? What does it look like? Can they do only one kind or more? Is there anything unique to it? If they can't, what's the reason behind it?

7. What are their thoughts on Jormag and the Sons of Svanir? Have they ever had to deal with either directly?

8. Are they a good hunter? Do they like it or is it just out of necessity? What's their most impressive prey? Do they keep trophies from their hunts? Do they prefer to hunt alone or with others? What weapons do they use, if any? Have they ever taken part in a Great Hunt?

9. Do they enjoy moots? What's their favorite part? Is there anything they don't like? Was one ever thrown in their honor?

10. Did anyone mentor them or did they learn things by themselves? Would they have wanted a teacher or a different one? Was there something they wished someone had taught them before they had to learn by themselves?

11. Do they have a job/occupation? Did they ever change it? Are they happy with it?

12. Are they close with anyone or do they keep everyone at arm's length? Do they make more enemies/rivals or friends? Are they involved in any drama? Do they have any meaningful friendship or bond?

13. Do/did they have a pet or a companion of sorts? If not, would they want one?

14. Do they have any heirlooms? Are there legends behind them or do they only have sentimental value? Or did they earn/find someone else's?

15. [Free space for 3 pieces of trivia about your norn!]

[dollya-robinprotector]

pls plspls pleaseeeee a crimble of jordan, a spit a line of jordan i am thirsting for him so much you cant image and you’re teasing me about him ajsjshfjdhakd

Yahhh when you mention Jordan, Lya will immediately go back to her repressed phase :) girl only saw "it" in the retracted form and already knows how "it" will be in full glory...

Anyway... here's my current design of Jordan the Pious. Note that I'm still working on the clothes, but his hair and the hood will remain in the final design!

[through-the-white-noise]

my work for the losers secret santa!!

my recipient was @gloomy-prince and I really hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Post-Derry 2: Electric Bogaloo, Richie and Eddie are (finally) going out on their first date. Technically they're not going out, because Richie's still famous and Eddie's still sure that Myra would have no qualms about stalking him, but the point stands. Richie and Eddie have a date, and it's only been three decades since their friends bet that they would.

apologies for posting it on the literal last day 😭

[accidental-spice]

If I had a nickel for every Wraith that was ever true about...