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#best selling video game franchise
iamvoid0 · 2 years
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Does Megaman 11 deserve to be the best-selling game in the franchise?
Megaman 11 brought the classic blue bomber back to new heights, and with that, it took the title of best-selling classic Megaman title. Capcom had pre-emptively purchased the domains of Megaman 12, 13, 14, and 15. With the glaring success that Megaman 11 has, there is still a demand for classic Megaman. That raises a question, though, Does Megaman 11 deserve to be the best-selling game in the franchise?
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Short Answer: Yes. But let us dig deeper as we prepare for Capcom's announcement for Megaman 12.
An Evolution of form
Megaman 11 was a return to form for the blue bomber that harkens back to the old school days while modernizing a notorious, mechanically demanding game for audiences of all skill levels. Megaman 11 simultaneously invokes nostalgia while pushing every aspect of its design, audio, gameplay, and art to new heights. It not only separates it from the mega man clones of today but also prevents it from being another hollow Megaman clone.
It is easy to view Megaman 11 through the lens of pure nostalgia, a cash grab, stomping on the cold dead corpse of a long-dead franchise for an easy payday. What is hard is accepting the fact that the team that took Megaman 11 from idea to product outdid themselves.
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Another Dimension
Megaman 11 takes the classic game out of its 2D roots and into a new 3D space; though at times it may look like it's 2.5D, I have a sneaking suspicion that it is a full 3D space that is 2D in the viewport.
The art direction of this game is stellar. I cannot begin to describe just how gorgeous and warm this art feels. Every character and background is just bursting at the seams with personality and life. From Roll, Auto, and Dr Light to the various enemies you encounter, many of which are callbacks to the original Megaman 1, to the new ones that blend so seamlessly into the world of Megaman that you will question if it had always been there. Megaman is expressive, clear, and concise in his actions and animations.
Dynamic lighting effects breathe life into every nook and cranny of this gorgeous hand-drawn environment. The stunning illustrations that wash the backdrops are often reminiscent of old 90s cartoons, although that might be my nostalgia bleeding through.
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Despite that, however, the game continues to be a breath of fresh air. We rarely get such a visually distinct game from a large publisher. It was clear from the get-go that Capcom needed – no, wanted – Megaman 11 to be an evolution, the springboard for the next generation of Megaman.
Lessons from yesterday
Megaman 11 takes a vast array of cues from its predecessors. From its punishing difficulty to its ease of access. The deceptively simplistic level design hides brilliantly crafted sequences that encourage experimentation while also providing a challenge for those willing to take it on.
One of the strengths of Megaman 11 lies in how it carries its legacy while also being distinct and new. The previous two Megaman games, 9 & 10, felt more like the recently uncovered Nintendo Entertainment System games that were lost media than they did a proper sequel for a new generation.
The previous games introduced a shop, which is brought back for the ride in this new entry. The game also comes preloaded with multiple easy-to-hard difficulty challenges.
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The game makes excellent use of the various bosses' gimmicks to give Megaman a new way to interact with the stages. Megaman controls much better than I anticipated. The game was responsive and kept the old-school feeling of Megaman in this new perspective.
I mentioned before that the game could be unforgiving at times, and it is very unforgiving. Several passages throughout the game will give even seasoned Megaman players a challenge.
It is hard to describe how Megaman plays and controls, and it is ultimately something you will have to experience to understand Megaman 11 at its core gameplay.
Listen
If it's one other thing Megaman is known for, it is the absolute jaw-dropping, iconic soundtracks of the past. Megaman 11 is no slouch in this department. Every single stage gets a theme song that fits the environment, matches the scenes' intensity, and pairs well with the various bosses.
Marika Suzuki shines as Megaman 11's composer, having attained experience in various games across multiple genres. She clearly understands what made the original soundtrack so appealing, and she carries much of the soundtrack to its logical climax.
The soundtrack is more electronic-based, but Marika Suzuki masterfully makes every single instrument sing a dazzling array of notes and phrases that matches everything surrounding it.
Marika Suzuki's soundtrack was so rendered that it beautifully tied all the extremities of the game into an even more closely knit experience that all provided a sense of cohesion that ultimately elevated the experience of Megaman as a whole.
Conclusion
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Whatever you think about Capcom's business practices, Megaman 11 is truly one for the history books. A fun-filled experience with a visually unique art style and a lavish soundscape that perfectly blends all parts of Megaman into an experience worthy of the franchise.
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The Void Calls, Will you Answer?
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velvetchrry · 4 months
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hockey player!ghoap x smm!reader thoughts
just thinking about how you’re a social media manager for a new hockey expansion team. johnny and simon — who grew up playing hockey together — both got drafted to the pros but have never played on a team together before. they’re both selected for this new franchise — the first time they’ve played together since they were kids.
simon is a defenseman. big, hulking — he’s the guy that's going to initiate fights with the players that are picking on his teammates. you aren’t going to get away with a dirty hit when he's around — he will retaliate. he will dish out a big clean hit when they think they’re safe. especially if it’s johnny. he’s the team enforcer, but still a talented defenseman.
johnny is your center star. he’s wicked fast on the ice, and is always showing off with plays you think are near impossible. he’s surprisingly humble — giving credit where credits due, passing to his teammates when they’re open instead of taking a wild shot himself. he’s the chatty one, always talking up the press during intermission and after the games over.
(and ofc we have gaz as a winger and price as the old goaltender close to retirement, who just can’t give up the game yet)
you were hired with a batch of social media managers in order to promote this new team to the locals. you want to attract season ticket holders. you want people excited for the upcoming season. you want people to meet their players — even though most of them have a history on the ice.
you’re really good at your job. your main job is keeping up with the videos and pictures of the team and players — creating the content that gets posted. your coworkers laswell responds to the fan tweets and comments — she’s got more of a knack for that, where you have the creative eye.
part of your job is getting to know the players and getting them to open up to you on camera, especially when you’re recording. you have them follow along to the latest tiktok trends, record practice sessions and even what time everyone shows up to the arena (simon is early, price is right on time, gaz and johnny are running late). normally your job would be staying on home ice — not following the team when they’re away — but to keep up with content the owners request you specifically go along. it’s been a total hit online and tickets are selling like hotcakes.
you start to really get to know the team — you fly with them and stay in the same hotels. you’re with them at every practice. they start requesting you be the dj at practice even. it helps loosen them up. you get great content. you joke with them. you even stand at the bench during games. (content content content)
johnny of course chats you up first. he's easily to film and he’s your star. he’s the one generating the views and likes and hearts and comments. he’s the one everyone’s excited to see. he’s the first to jump on a new trend you want to film and he’ll encourage everyone to do the same. he’s the only reason that you get simon to be on camera. (and he still won’t go on camera much, rather you have to get shots of him on the ice)
they do their best to include you in everything, but especially when they’re at an away game. if the boys are going out for dinner, johnny will make simon knock on your hotel room door and convince you to join. (you don’t take a lot of convincing, however johnny has to pour simon a stiff bourbon to work up the courage to go ask you). you’re included in celebrations when the team wins. they drag you to one of the guy’s houses for a private dinner and drinks.
johnny and simon start to separately invite you to things — just the two of them. it’ll start off as johnny acting like he has a great new idea for content. he and simon did grow up together, they are best friends. they could have a great little segment together.
but it turns into more. they sit on either side of you. johnny brushes a hand against your thigh and rests it there. simon has an arm on the back of your chair, always keeping his body in the way of any potential threats. always keeping you safe. their sweet little puck slut princess. their hands are all over you by the end of the night.
they take you to a shared hotel room — after all it would be irresponsible for any of your to drive home. and johnny and simon share everything. they’re happy to share a room.
they’re happy to share you.
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harbinger-of-chaossss · 6 months
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What I think your favourite sonic character says about you!
Sonic- you need therapy
Tails- Your an older sibling who feels 6 years old in their 20’s
Knuckles- you complain that nobody appreciates him enough. And you’d be correct.
Amy- you could give me a 3 hour video essay on an oddly specific historical subject and you’d have my full attention
Cream- you say you don’t like kids but then you cry every time you see a kid in fiction because you’re scared that anything or everything bad will happen. (the embodiment of that “if anything happens to them I’ll kill everyone in this room and then myself” meme)
Big the cat- you scare me in a way that shouldn’t even exist
Shadow- You are so right (please kiss me on the mouth)
Rouge- you ether like her way to much. Or you like her way to much.
Omega- haha. Bomb.
Silver- You believe you’d be able to win a fight against anyone who would make fun of your friends, but would cry if you had to make plans over the phone.
Blaze- your handwriting and craftsmanship with making art and stories always comes to amaze me. Like you know when you join a fandom and see the most breathtaking fic or art. Like how is it not in a museum, or a best selling novel, that’s how I feel about your art/writing.
Metal- ok you’re a NERD nerd. Like you’ve been a fan of sonic since you were 8, you played a lot of the games, you own at least a couple comics and figures. This franchise is ingrained in your BLOOD.
Eggman- wow that’s really interes- *pepper-sprays you in the eyes*
Charmy- you were either the really annoying kid and proud, or stuck using millennial/ tumblr slang 24/7, Or both.
Espio- what’s it like only shipping rear pairs
Vector- your to swag to exist. Like there are at least 50 people you’ve had minor interactions with in real life who now have that interaction in their long term memory just because of how cool you were. What are you even doing here man? Go outside!
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super-lovely-star · 4 months
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Fun and nostalgic gifts and treats for Middle Regressors and Dreamers
This is a list of cute little things you can get for yourself or your middle friend! I will generally list them from cheapest to most spendy- but remember, just because something is cheap doesn’t mean it’s a bad gift. Don’t spend beyond your means! And also, you DO NOT need these things to “properly regress!”
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Mood Jewelry ($) These were popular when I was a kid. You can get mood rings, necklaces, bracelets, and probably even earrings.
Age appropriate cosmetics ($) Like scented lip creams and gloss, or body glitter.
Glow in the dark stars ($) you can get these in the classic color, or bright colors!
Fidget toys ($) I especially like Tangle! These are good if you have anxiety or are just fidgety.
Small collectable toys ($) Like matchbox cars, littlest pet shop, blind box toys, etc!
Candy ($) Just make sure you don’t get too much, or you might get sick! I especially like sour patch kids, and yan yan.
Stickers ($) I like to get these at Daiso, but you can get them pretty much anywhere! Especially good of you/your friend keeps a journal or writes letters.
Cute plushie keychains ($) To clip onto your bag!
Art supplies ($-$$) If you/your friend likes to draw, you can get some colored pencils, markers, etc! Even a new sketchbook!
Stuff with a First initial on it ($-$$) like pillows, jewelry, little compacts, keychains, etc.
Kids craft kits ($-$$) they have plenty of these at craft stores! Jewelry making kits, paint a sculpture, you name it!
A cute character waterbottle ($-$$) choose depending on your/their favorite character/franchise! I have an usahana water bottle coming in the mail!
A lava/glitter lamp ($$) A cool way to add atmosphere to your/their room, and super relaxing to look at.
A caboodle ($$) To keep your/their accessories, makeup, art supplies, or small toys organized.
Plushies, duh! ($$) If you’re on a budget, you can get these at thrift stores! Just make sure to clean before cuddling.
Action figure or Fashion doll ($$) If you/they are less into plushies, these make equally good companions.
Video games ($$) for whatever console you/they use. I like nintendogs games best!
Tamagotchi ($$) or a similar virtual pet! I never had one, but they look fun!
A DVD of a favorite movie ($$) You can get these cheaper secondhand! Just make sure they still work.
A cute journal ($$) I like the ones they sell at Claire’s best. They look like cute animals!
Vintage Clothes ($$-$$$) If your shopping on ebay or depop, make sure you know the measurements. Especially if you’re going for actual tween brands like Limited Too or Mezzo Piano Junior, which run smaller than adult sizes.
An inflatable or beanbag chair ($$-$$$) Just make sure you/they have space for one!
MP3 or CD player ($$$) Especially good gift for a music lover!
Last but not least, a Razor scooter! ($$$) Did you know they make these in adult sizes? I have one named Jazz and I love it dearly.
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Love you all, platonically ofc! 🎁💝
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starsandhughes · 1 year
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Penalty Box— Quinn Hughes Edition (Part Eighteen)
SERIES MASTERLIST
previous: seventeen
next: nineteen
a/n cole mcward is now my baby and i will talk about him any chance i get tysm
THURSDAY, APRIL 6TH
yourusername
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liked by _quinnhughes, canucks, and 8,643 others
yourusername welcome to my postgame penalty box update show: connor mcgregor— i mean, quinny baby edition! tonight, the canucks ended a 133 game streak without a shutout with a 3-0 win! that streak was the longest in franchise history; and demmer ended it!
you know what else ended tonight? you guess it! quintin hughes lost his seven games without a penalty streak tonight in a fight! he got a double roughing minor, and kavtsov sat in the box for his second. personally, a five minute major would have been way more fun, but sadly, i’m not in charge. (i should be!!) he tackled blackhawk andreas athanasiou to the ground, and did NOT release him for a hot minute. AND quinn argued with him in the penalty box, and i would sell jamie to know what he was saying! those smelling salts must have triggered a really strong fight response! he was also grinning like a psychopath after (sound familiar?) and that’s why i love him <3 #TeamUnhingedQuinn
i could talk about this all day, but i do want to give some shoutouts! congrats to kravs (@/kravtsov93) for scoring his first goal as a canuck tonight! and to hirose (@/kithirosee) for getting his first nhl career point with an assist on that goal! lastly, welcome to the team cole mcward! you did great tonight! we might even adopt you! (@/colemcward) what a night for the defensemen!!!
and shoutout to quinn, for being the bestest best friend i could ask for. i love you, but i’d like to see some blood next time💙
tagged _quinnhughes
view all 344 comments
_quinnhughes you want to see me bloody and i’m the psycho??? (i love you, too💙)
trevorzegras we like to use the term “quirky”
yourusername i want you to DRAW blood quintin!! there’s a difference
_quinnhughes @/yourusername why are you critiquing my fight?
yourusername you didn’t even drop gloves!!
_quinnhughes @/yourusername you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit
trevorzegras @_quinnhughes we all know that’s not true
user1 THAT FIGHT WAS SO HOT!! AND THE ARGUING??? I DIED
trevorzegras not mentioned: y/n was in the kitchen when it started and she ran and jumped over the back of the couch and cheered
jamie.drysdale @_quinnhughes for reference, she has tried it multiple times and fell on her ass
_quinnhughes @/trevorzegras and why hasn’t a video of that been sent to the group chat?
trevorzegras @_quinnhughes she gives no warning. we just hear a thud every once in a while and wait for the “i’m okay!”
yourusername i’m not friends with any of you until further notice
user2 quinn’s face post smelling salts>>>
user3 at least the penalty let him not have a 30 minute shift😭
lhughes_06 proud of you bro!! @_quinnhughes
_quinnhughes @/yourusername what did you do to him
yourusername @_quinnhughes i raised him right that’s what. my other child tried to fight tonight, too #MomOfTheYear
lhughes_06 #MomOfTheYear
edwards.73 #MomOfTheYear
jamie.drysdale #WifeyOfTheYear
jackhughes #ExWifeyOfTheYear #SoulmateOfTheYear
_quinnhughes i don’t like any of you
yourusername @_quinnhughes that is false
trevorzegras spider-man reference alert
user4 that’s my future captain!!
colemcward adopt me…?
yourusername i said what i said
_quinnhughes i’ll explain later
kithirosee thank you, y/n!
yourusername you’re ever so welcome!!
user5 #TeamUnhingedQuinn i’m dead lmao
jackhughes what is up with my brothers and getting penalties?
yourusername they love me more than you do
_quinnhughes why do you think i got into that fight?
jackhughes @_quinnhughes for her or over her?
_quinnhughes no comment
kravtsov93 thank you!
yourusername always!
user6 tonight was the best and worst night of my life. devs win 8-1 with two jack goal, canucks shutout and a quinn fight, but team 101 lost :(
jamie.drysdale you can’t proclaim adoption without talking to me first
yourusername i never said you’d be the father
jamie.drysdale BETRAYAL
yourusername cry about it
_alexturcotte oh (alternate) captain, my (alternate) captain
yourusername all hail
_quinnhughes can you feel my eyes roll?
yourusername @_quinnhughes no, try harder
canucks that’s our huggy!!
yourusername huggy bear? more like cocaine bear
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avaantares · 10 months
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Wait, Zhao Yunlan's gun is actually a...?!
(I've never claimed production meta for @guardianbingo before, but after the amount of time and research I put in on this, I feel like I've earned the "Zhao Yunlan's Gun or Whip" square, haha)
SO. GUYS.
Maybe this is something fandom as a whole figured out back in 2018, but I, who didn't hear of Guardian until 2020, did not realize until now and I need to share the knowledge because when I finally noticed, I made an unholy sound.
I've tracked down where Zhao Yunlan's gun came from -- or at least, what it most likely started as. Not the in-universe dark-energy-maybe-uses-bullets-maybe-doesn't-device-that's-best-not-thought-about-too-long, but rather the actual fake-steampunk-revolver-that-is-best-not-looked-at-too-long-because-it's-awful prop.
Y'know, this disaster:
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I was actually working on a different Guardian Bingo fill and needed to look something up for continuity, so I'd flipped through a couple of episodes at super high speed trying to find a scene. As luck would have it, one of my skips forward happened to land on the scene I screencapped above, when ZYL confronts Zhang Shi.
Normally we don't get this clear (or this stationary) a shot of the godawful gun prop. I'd assumed all along they had just taken a plastic gun, glued some extra bits and bobs on it to make it look fancy, and hit it with some dry brushing (fun fact: you can watch the paint flake throughout the series; check out the top of the barrel and the side of the cylinder in the above screenshot!) to make it look #steampunk like the abandoned aesthetic of 25% of the show (as I've said before, I have theories about what happened in preproduction, but that's another post). This sort of thing is exactly what I've done for cheap cosplay weapons or background props for film work that aren't going to be seen at HD detail range.
Anyway, since the detail showed up better here than in other shots, I paused the video to look at the random screws and hex bolts (why??) they'd glued on it, since I recalled that I had the aforementioned gun/whip bingo square to fill.
That's when I noticed a detail that had eluded me before: An inverted V shape at the bottom of the grip.
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Only looking more closely, that's not an inverted V. It's a symbol that I've seen a whole series of variations of over the past 15+ years... every time there's a new installment of the Assassin's Creed video game series:
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So I started hunting. The principal weapons in each game turned up no matches, but eventually I found a gun that looks almost exactly like ZYL's:
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It's not a perfect replica, but the details are certainly all there: The stylized logo; the leaves and swirls on the grip; the feathers up the back; even the Victorian scrollwork beneath the barrel.
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Now, what's really interesting is that this gun isn't actually from the AC game series. It's part of an elaborate fan project by artist David Paget that started as a class assignment back in 2014. Even though it gathered a bit of steam in the AC fandom and generated a couple of forum role-play groups, OCs and the like, nothing about this artwork was ever connected to a real Assassin's Creed title. So why would there be a physical version of a gun that was only someone's fanart?
This is where the smoking gun (*rimshot*) goes missing, because I can't prove any of this, and it's been long enough that digging through the archives of the internet to find answers is going to take way more time than I can afford to spend on a project I'm not getting paid for. But there are two likely possibilities:
Scenario A: Some employee in a toy factory somewhere in China got told, "This Assassin's Creed franchise is really big, so we need to be producing replicas from those games to sell. Work up some designs." So the employee Googles "assassin's creed gun," finds David Paget's very professional-looking art, and whips up a replica to mass-injection-mold without realizing it's not actually from a game. Later, someone on the cash-strapped Guardian production team needs a gun to mod, and finds a cheap toy revolver on clearance after several years of sitting in storage because there was little demand for a replica of a gun that was never in a game. They buy several, glue hex bolts on the cylinder for reasons unknown, and poof! Instant pseudo-steampunk!
Scenario B: Other fans were involved in the design. Someone did build a 3D model of David Paget's design that's still available on Sketchfab (screenshot below), and it's not unreasonable to assume that other fans could have thought it looked cool and built 3D printable models. Later, someone on the cash-strapped Guardian production team needs a gun to mod, and acquires the 3D print file of one of those models from the interwebs. They mod the file a bit, print some, glue hex bolts on the cylinder for reasons unknown, and poof! Instant pseudo-steampunk!
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Personally, I find Scenario A far more likely than Scenario B, for two reasons: First, the hero prop looks more injection molded than 3D printed, especially given the technical state of 3D printing back in 2017-8. And second... Budget-challenged dramas do have a history of picking up bulk video game replicas and using them as cheap props. I made a post back in 2019 about the WoW Horde shields we spotted in a different drama...
Anyway, no firm answers about the source of the hero prop -- the world may never know! -- but we have now confirmed that in some alternate universe (possibly one of the first eighty?), Zhao Yunlan and/or Zhao Xinci is an Assassin.
Wait, wait, wait... *recalls mechanics of how the whole Assassin's Creed frame story is supposed to work* Uh... so... who wants to write a genetic memory explanation for the whole Kunlun -> [lots of lifetimes] -> Zhao Yunlan thing?
.
(I did actually check the catalogue of a friend of mine who makes replicas of props from various media franchises to see if he'd done a commission of the David Paget design, since a surprising number of his custom pieces actually do end up on film and television, but while he has a gorgeous replica of a revolver that actually appears in an AC game, it appears he has not done the Zhao Yunlan gun. I didn't really think it likely, since he's in the U.S., but you never know.)
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writingmochi · 1 year
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Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, home to pizza and entertainment from our animatronics, Freddy Fazbear & Friends. Oh… What's that? The animatronics walks by itself and you can smell a rotten odor? Don't worry about that. Fazbear Entertainment, as the owner of the pizza franchise, is not responsible for any death or disappearance
cast: sunoo ✗ fem.reader (ft. itzy's yuna, cravity's taeyoung and serim, with a few ocs)
synopsis: pizzeria, animatronics, missing children, and mystery. those are words that encompass what people may believe of freddy fazbear's pizza, whose doors were closed years ago. so, what do you do if you and your friends have to stay in one of their abandoned establishments from midnight 'til sunrise? are you able to survive the night? and be careful what you answer, they're listening
genre: horror, mystery, adventure, survival, dark comedy, high school au, a bit of fluff, angst
based on: video game series five nights at freddy’s (2014-present); set before five nights at freddy's 3 (2015)
word count: 17929 (17.9k)
warning(s): blood, arson, a small kiss and romantic part, description of unpleasant odor, mention of missing and dead children, mention of murder, mention of animatronic and animal mascot (for those who have masklophobia), a bit lore dumping but i have to make you guys know it (especially in the context of the plot) (if i forgot something, let me know!)
message to the moon: remember that this story is fiction and do be careful and read the warnings at the top. all the idols mentioned here are not what they are in real life.
it's here!! and it is still june *weights drop off my shoulder* this is meant for sunoo's birthday so as long as it is his birthday month. i am extremely fine with that :D + the fnaf movie trailer came out yesterday. so i guess it is the right timing to upload it today
mini playlist: van halen's "jump"; toby fox's "amalgam"; lena raine's "scattered and lost" ; allen simpson's "d.j. music man"
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now open
“what do you guys know about freddy fazbear’s pizza?”
“that pizzeria franchise? what about it?”
those two sentences were the start of a pretty unusual conversation you have with your friend group during recess. lifting your head from opening the snack you bought before as you and your friends sit in the cafeteria hall, other students walk around trying to find a table or return to one. the conversation continues with the boy and girl sitting across from you while another boy sits silently eating the snack that you open.
“serim got access to the abandoned building that used to be a franchise near this city.” you watch taeyoung lets out a smirk as yuna contorted while shaking her head, already knowing what he might say next. your eyes widen as you are now intrigued by following the conversation.
“how did he get it? did your dad buy the land there?” yuna replied, her eyes squinting at the boy your group of friends knows is the richest of the four of you. his father owns multiple properties in the city for whatever construction he has planned or selling them to the highest bidder.
“that’s what my brother implies.” taeyoung’s eyes wander between the three of you. you turn your head slightly towards sunoo, your next-door neighbor and best friend since you two were kids. both of you were quiet as you observed your two friends converse about taeyoung’s ‘special access’ to the mysterious building you had never heard of before, but have learned the stories surrounding what it has.
“and like that stupid brain of his, he dared me to stay there from midnight to 6 in the morning.” taeyoung ruffles his hair as you see him roll his eyes and scoff, covering himself because of the ridiculousness.
“what you’re getting from that?” sunoo asked beside you as you nod while raising your eyebrow. taeyoung is not stupid enough to be gaslighted by his older brother like that, isn’t he?
“his allowance for three months, you know how big their allowances are especially college students like him,” taeyoung replied snarkily, a smirk forming on his face. “and also my dignity cause you all recognize how much he teases me.” you see yuna rolled her eyes as sunoo giggled, you pursed your lips, looking at the boy in front of you in disbelief, leaning your body back as you don’t want to get involved in their sibling rivalry while grabbing the snack that is now in front of sunoo.
“and he said i can bring my friends so i want to bring you all.”
what?
hearing the ridiculousness of taeyoung’s invitation with the whole context made sunoo covers his face in embarrassment. yuna looks at the boy beside you and nods, understanding his feelings before looking away. you, on the other hand, viewed your surroundings as the voice of the cafeteria environment making your focus turn away.
“guys, please? (y/n)? you like true crime, right?” taeyoung asked, bringing your focus back to the table as your name is mentioned.
you and your friends know how much you love true crime. how your favorite board game is clue while your favorite activity while going out with them is to go to escape rooms. half of your entertainment is watching criminal psychology videos—including their interrogation or just story time of the true crimes that happened in history, both solved and unsolved. you have always liked mysteries, help solve alternate reality games on the internet with the skills you train to use. they always seem to intrigue you, the absence of certain information. it’s no different with freddy fazbear’s pizza and the scandals surrounding it.
the legend that is freddy fazbear’s pizza, their franchises and stories about how it becomes the business failure that has always intrigued you. how back in the late 70s, two people by the name of henry emily and william afton tried to open a diner by selling pizza for kids’ birthday parties. you learned from what you read, back at that time, mascots are popular in those establishments, so they create two spring-lock animatronics made for the kids’ entertainment the two can wear, while also prototyping four others which will possess their own sense of control. henry‘s called fredbear, a yellow bear, while william‘s called spring bonnie, a yellow rabbit. the other four are freedy fazbear, a brown bear; bonnie, a purple rabbit; chica, a yellow chicken; and foxy, a pirate-costumed fox.
that is until five children went missing and the animatronics started to act weird, as people back then described. it all goes downhill from the incident.
the original diner closed after lawsuits and missing children were reported with the diner as its connection. henry emily and william afton fought with each other where henry cuts their partnership and created his own company, hiring employees to get the business together in the 80s, it’s called fazbear entertainment. the company opens so many franchises of freddy fazbear’s pizza until one by one it closes down. rumors of odor coming from inside the pizzeria and the animatronics going ‘haywire to walk around the vicinity’ at night are the main reasons for its downfall until the early 2000s when the company disappeared, never opening another franchise again.
you always believed there is a connection between the missing children, the odor, and the animatronics acting weirdly. you really wanted to find out about it. never have you assumed that near where you lived, there was once a freedy fazbear’s pizza. and the news was the reason for your shock when taeyoung said that he, by proxy from his dad who is a property developer, gained access to one.
“i mean… i do.” you replied to taeyoung with a tilted head. “but never have i thought that you’re going to ask me to go to one of their places. heck, i didn’t even know our city had one.” you continued, unconsciously biting the inside of your lips.
“well, that’s good, right? you can explore the building while getting to know it and its history? maybe be able to contribute to the story that is out there.” you can only nod after what taeyoung said as it is, in your mind, the truth. you maybe aren’t the best equipped to solve this kind of mystery, but being a high school student sometimes has its boring times and this is an opportunity of a lifetime, a story that you can tell someday. you don’t even know if this abandoned building also owns its secret. were there also missing children cases back in their prime days like the other franchises? does it also have any link to the odor and weird animatronics people have associated the franchise with other than their pizza and arcade?
“i’ll go.” sunoo and yuna stare at you bewildered after what you said, making taeyoung lightly bounce on his side of the table. you can’t help to want to know. all the curiosity that’s running through your mind envelops you—you don’t even have enough moments to think about how to survive a night there, at an abandoned building engulf in trees where it is hard to reach. where danger can just be right around the corner, yet you just want to know what happened and why it has become like this.
“if (y/n)’s going, i’ll go too.” you see sunoo replied. you let out a small smirk as you glimpse at the boy, lifting your fist up for him to fist bump where sunoo grins at you while giving a light one.
yuna lets out a sigh and said, “fine, but, i know the other two agree with me. we want those allowances to be given to us evenly.” you let out a chuckle as the three of you glare at taeyoung with a baffled look on his face, before letting out his breath.
“25% for each of us?” taeyoung sees all three of you nodding, a sneaky grin on all of your faces.
“fine by me.”
-
“you’re nervous?” you heard sunoo speak as you tie your combat boots tightly and slip the remaining laces under the tied ones. sighing quietly as you look up to admire his room that you’ve visited hundreds maybe nearing thousand of times while looking at the backpack you packed full of stuff you needed as you told your mom and his mom that you’re having a sleepover in his room tonight.
“it’s… mixed. like nervous but excited and also scared.” you bounce your feet on the floor sitting as he furrows his eyebrows while also checking the backpack you can see is beside you. “anything can happen there.” you mumbled.
sunoo smiled as he replied, “we can get through it, all of us.”
in your group, sunoo has always been the optimistic one: like when all four of you play dodgeball for p.e. class with your other classmates, he is usually the one that commands the most but also throws the most, most of his shots are a hit which—you can’t deny—also amazed you. yuna is the pessimistic one: worrying at first but being solid at it after, like when she complained to the rest of you before a physics exam and then found out that she also gets the highest score. taeyoung is the mischievous one that pranks and dares all three of you, sometimes not even caring if karma gets him like a ball to his nuts. while you are the curious one: sometimes your curiosity gets you in trouble like getting detention but it also helps your friends in acing the hardest math exam you have ever taken with the answer key you remembered reading and all four of you got at least a 90 on the scores.
“speaking of getting through it, what do you bring?” you nudge your shoulder toward his backpack beside yours.
“snacks, water bottles, blankets, medkit,” he replied as he closes his bag, his gaze now on you.
you hummed as a smile formed, “like a scout. nice!”
“you knew about me going camping before. so i packed the things i pack when camping, “ sunoo answered as he gently put his hand on his waist. “how about you?”
“a notebook, pencil, spare clothes, water, spare batteries, and a pocket knife,” you reply while you think about how funny your differing priorities are for today’s adventure, exactly like what you group yourself and your friends’ stereotypes. both your phone vibrates at the same time as you glance at yours, the message being shared in your group chat showing on the screen telling you they have arrived at the meeting point. the open window of sunoo’s ground-floor bedroom opens to the front side of his house, ready for you both to go through.
as you two picked up your backpacks and climb out the window, sunoo slowly closed it, leaving a small gap so he can push it open when you both arrived in the morning. you two walk into the night to the corner of your block where a car waits. both of you can see taeyoung from the front seat window as you both are approaching, gesturing you to go into the back seat. climbing into the car with serim driving and yuna that sits with you two at the back, the car zooms away as saturday slowly ends.
seeing the streetlights illuminate the road and trees forming around it, you trail your eyes off to yuna who is sitting next to you. she has a small backpack of her own on her lap.
“how are you, bestie?” you nudge her shoulder with your own.
“to be honest, i’m sleepy. after we arrive, we should find a good place so that we can stay and i can sleep,” she replied, making taeyoung who sits at shotgun tilt his head back to take a glimpse at her and you.
“she doesn’t believe the roaming animatronics stuff.”
“as if they’re real.” she crosses her arm and leans against the car door beside her while the dark woods slowly envelop the car. the headlights are the only source of light other than the ones coming from the moon above you.
you heard serim chuckle from the driver’s seat. “i agree like what’s with the rumored stuff with the kids and animatronics being tethered. just tell the truth that they are malfunctioning. what an exaggeration to say that they walk around the restaurant.” you glance at yuna, who is nodding after serim finish his opinion. yet, you are still convinced they are tethered in some way. maybe the animatronics are haunted…
the car goes deep on a wide enough dirt track for a single vehicle and stops in a small clearing, a building’s silhouette upon it with an enormous billboard on the top of what you presume is the entrance. it stops and you all step out from the cramped interior, feeling the chills forming from the night wind blowing through the thin spaces of trees’ trunks and branches.
“the keys, taeyoung.” serim lightly flings it to taeyoung who catches it perfectly. “best of luck to you all, i guess, especially you. big stakes right here.” he points to his brother and gives a wink, the said boy getting disgusted by it and silently gagged. yuna, who is beside you, picked up everything as she chuckle next to your shoulder.
“shut the heck up.” taeyoung mumbles making serim lightly laugh as he grabs the steering wheel in front of him.
“see you at 6, losers,” serim said and then the car drove off. you can’t help but look at the time from your phone that you picked out from your pocket.
00:00
the beam from the flashlights all of you have brought shines on the path to the abandoned pizzeria building. the lights roaming on the building's exterior, seeing the scraps of a billboard on top of the building with a freddy fazbear head as the logo and the name is written across the bottom of the logo, signalling its glory and how it has withered with time with it being slanted; almost fallen off the roof. looking around the entrance’s exterior, you see images of the animatronics in a cartoon style in front of a mini playground with slides, monkey bars, and swings. in the distance, you can also see a silhouette of what looks like a door on the other side of in it. the door is most likely an emergency door shown by the weird positioning that is placed. if it uses another color, it will stick out too much. so that's why it uses the same paint as the exterior walls.
there are questions instantly running through your mind as you step closer to it. why isn’t the main entrance bordered with planks of wood like other abandoned buildings you know from documentaries or the internet? is it because every franchise is closed around the same time, and the staff and management didn’t mind the leftovers that they can use if they want to try again? maybe, they wanted to continue, but the lawsuits and pressure are just too much for them to be open. maybe, fear might have a factor in it.
you hear the jingling of the keys and the lock on the iron fence that stands in front of a set of glass doors. the metal creaks as taeyoung continues to move forward and open the glass door. one by one, you all go in as yuna slowly pushes the glass door open.
stepping inside the room, your flashlight lets you observe the strips of wallpaper that are deteriorating and watermarks staining the wall from leaking spots. you walk at the back with sunoo while letting your eyes adjust to the darkness as the flashlight beams roam the spacious room of what used to be a reception room, with its lectern for one of the staff to stand by and the many amounts of benches for people in the waiting list.
hearing the scrunch under your feet, you let your flashlight shines on the scattered pizza boxes on the floor and party decorations that have filled the room. your nose itching from the cumulated dust in the air but not enough to make rub your finger against it or make you sneeze. taeyoung walks to the front as the lights coming from his beam show promotional posters on one side, bathroom doors on the other, and a large doorway on the same side at the end of the hallway. old telephone booths sticking out onto the wall beside the entrance to the main area.
“we can spread out, but don’t go out of this room.” sunoo whispered behind the crowd as you all enter a giant room which you guess is the main area of the pizzeria, and its condition is worse than the reception area.
the room is full of dining tables and benches with paper plates and open pizza boxes, a stage on one of the sides, and arcade cabinets on one corner of the room; some stood while others were laying broken as a pool of glass shards reflected the shine of your flashlight. rubbers that were supposed to resemble balloons are flat on the ground—a few are looking like the air leaked from them while others look like they popped as their edges look like it was ripped apart. a few of the tiles on the floor are cracked and you can hear them crunch under your footsteps. holding your breath as you look like the restaurant resembling a shipwreck, your light shines on two hallways on two sides of the arcade area. both of them leading to dead ends that have a poster attached to the wall, but the one on the right has light coming in from a plank-covered window. and as you look closer, you can see doorways on both of the hallway; a room is there behind the arcade.
you and your friends scattered around the dining tables to search the nooks and crannies of the room. walking to where the stage stood, you could see chipped wood from the front of the stage and an emergency exit door on the corner beside it—the same position you see the silhouette on the outside. scattering your lights to view the surroundings, you see yuna shines hers to one of the dining tables. approaching it, you find rotten pizzas in an open pizza box that isn't complete or on top of a paper plate that has confetti on its design.
“ew, there are rotten foods here,” she commented lightly, waving her hand from the disgusting smell of spoiled food that have kicked your senses. you let your feet walk to one of the entrances to the hallways across the room, seeing a few doors in a hallway with a double door to the right.
“we should find a place for our base camp for the next hours,” you mumbled, the quiet atmosphere attracting their attention towards you as they approach where you stand. your flashlight shines in the hallway in front of you.
“yeah, we don’t know what is lurking in this building, so it's best if we can find a safe place.” sunoo echoes your idea, earning a nod and smile from you. peeking from the corner of your eyes, you can see he lets out one too from the slight shine that reflects on a bit of his face.
“we can search one by one.” yuna remarked behind you as she looks in the hallway and taeyoung hummed, agreeing to what you all said. all of you approach the two doors to see them made out of glass and windows spread along the wall beside them, miraculously not broken into smithereens like the glass screen from the arcade cabinets. an anomaly from the other two glass doors you presume will be an identical type of room is the double doors right on your right side.
“this must have been a private party room,” taeyoung commented with you turning around, letting his lights shine inside the room as you all take a peek from the glass door. bookshelves stood across the entrance with a few windows on top of them, a short table with cushion chairs surrounding it, confetti paper on the floor with party hats, matching paper and cup set of chica and a chalky and crumbly birthday cake at the other hand of the table with a blackboard that said “happy birthday“ written with chalk.
“is it just me or even though this place has been shut down decades ago, many of the decorations and small trivial things are still there? like why would they leave food?” yuna added as you take another glance at the long table where you can see other rancid food on it—resembling the ones in the main dining area. it seems as if the management doesn’t want to care about the restaurant when it closes. none of the furniture was moved out or cleaned up before being. it looks as if the staff working had disappeared so suddenly one day into thin air, and no one has the responsibility to clean the mess before letting it spread all over the restaurant.
“looks like the building has stayed in the past cause all i can think about is people abandoning the building and all of its activities without no actions to clean them up.” sunoo made a hypothesis the same as what you thought.
“hmm, 80s fresh air, felt so different.” taeyoung joked as your hand reaches the handle of the door and slowly open it. yuna’s flashlight right behind your body shines the room from on top of your shoulder. the chairs are so small you assumed it's for children around and under five years old.
“do you want to stay here or stay outside?” you turned to your friends as you gently held it open.
“inside the room is safer and we can barricade it. good for escape if we can reach up the bookshelves of the window above it. while outside, there is much more room to run if there is danger and the path to the exit, but we’re much more exposed.” you let out your thoughts as all four of you look at each other, gently letting go of the door before putting one cushion to the doorframe, not letting it shut as you don’t want to cause a loud noise if—if it is true—something is lurking in these hallways and rooms.
“inside could work.” taeyoung voiced out as he settles his bag on the ground. “great access to see the outside if we see any animatronics roaming down the hall.”
“no, they’re not.” yuna exclaimed as her face creased from the comment, then immediately yawns after before continuing. “since we searched the place when we get here, we should be able to make a small map of the place, right?”
“yes, we can,” sunoo said as he places his backpack and then looks at you. at first, you were confused by what he implied, but his eyes move to the bag on your back. you silently acknowledge before pulling your backpack down and opening the zipper, pulling your notebook and pencil out. all of you sit down, taeyoung sits on the cushion and yuna sits on the floor while you kneel on your knees down as you put the notebook on the dusty table, tracing the rough layout of the building from what you could remember.
“i’ve drawn the main entrance and reception, the hallway with the bathrooms, and the doorway to the dining room.” the others see your drawing as you let your fingers fidget with the pencil.
taeyoung gently grabs the pencil from you as he continues your drawing. “across from the entrance there is a small stage and a door. and the place where we are is through here, near the doorway from the reception. a hall with two party rooms and a double door to a room on the right side.”
“the kitchen.” sunoo cuts in as he is standing and looking at the double doors outside from the window. “i can see glints of silver in there from the circle window. on some angle, i can see the metal thingy where you suck up smoke from the stove and some circular stuff dangling which i guess are pans.” he tells his assumption.
“that makes sense. i was scouring near the arcade in the dining room and see the little window where servers usually grab food from the kitchen. the big cartoon-ish animal drawings on the wall can’t be ignored.” yuna said as she leans near you.
“i found another hallway beside the small stage and arcade. lights coming in seems to be a large window with a door at the end of the hallway on the left and one near the front of the hallway on the right.” sunoo added as you continued drawing the new areas on the map, few of the ones you made have already been assigned with their descriptions from all of your friends help. you added the stage you saw, the emergency door beside it, and the other hallway between the arcade and the kitchen; the one where sunoo didn’t catch as you heard him hum.
“i think that is all…” sunoo turns back from where he stands, now crouching on the other end of the table while looking at the sketch. you put down your pencil, unconsciously biting the nail on your thumb.
“what are the other two rooms then?” yuna asked from beside you. seeing the three empty rectangles with no scribbles on top of it. the room across from where the hallway to reception, the hallway sunoo mentioned with the door on the front right side, and the room behind the arcade.
taeyoung inspects the paper and the words inside them to indicate their purpose. “this is a restaurant, so supply closets for cleaning stuff and extra party decorations. and they have animatronics so maybe one of them is to clean their parts and repair them. what’s the last one then?”
“security,” you murmured, letting your thumb fall from your face.
“the animatronics are dangerous apparitions after all. security has to have their own office to help track animatronics and not let them do dangerous things.” you see the others nodding as you added the last three names for the last three doors beside the layout. the current matter is that you don't know the certain locations of them.
01:00
you felt your body being gently shaken inside the blanket that you are sleeping in.
by the time you finished talking about the layout of the rooms inside the abandoned building, all of you let your tiredness get to you and fall asleep. sunoo, who brought blankets, gave one to you as you are the only that doesn’t bring any form of sleeping props; taeyoung with his pillow-neck while yuna with her towel-turn-blanket. the thing is, you didn’t get any sleep when you can hear muffled clanks from outside of the room, your mind letting you awake, letting you observe the area with your hearing. and now, you can feel your head throbbing as you are placed in a between rem and non-rem sleep.
“(y/n), please…” you hear yuna’s recognizable voice. feeling a tad bit safer, your eyes open and you sit your body up on the party room floor.
“what’s wrong? did you also h-“
“i need to pee,” yuna hissed as she kneel beside you, trying to hold it in. the concern in your eyes fall as you let out a chuckle at the girl. dragging off the blanket from your body, you lean in closer to her.
“you can pee in the corne-“
“i rather get grabbed by the animatronic than see the boys seeing me pee.” yuna’s tense face made you chuckle again as you nod your head, seeing a small smile forming on her face before you paused when you heard the muffled clanks again. turning your head against where the sound came from—the double doors across from the room you are in. sighing, you quickly turn around to crawl closer to your friend, shaking his upper arm with enough force to wake him up.
“sunoo…” you whispered, seeing him stirring with his eyes open. his eyebrows are raised as he looks between you and yuna, who puts her hands on your shoulder.
“what are you doing?” he mumbled as he leans up.
“we’re going to the bathroom. i just need you to know so you can stand by if anything went wrong. don’t fall asleep on us,” you warned him as sunoo sits up while stretching his arms and neck. as yuna waits by with sunoo, you scrambled to your bag and grab a few needed items to be on your body: your phone and a pocket knife, before going to the glass door as yuna gently opens it. you turn around to close it and see sunoo now sitting on the cushion as taeyoung still sleeping on the other side of the room. you gave him a small nod as you point at your phone in your hand before gently walking away.
you were glad that the hallways are close enough with each other that no other occurrence really disturbed you in someway—the clanking that lingers in your mind for the past hour suddenly disappeared. you both walk to the hallway and stand facing the bathrooms, the female one is wide open with a poster of chica on display, while the male one had its door slightly open. yuna walks towards the female bathroom where you suddenly grab her wrist, stopping her movement before turning around towards you.
“what’s wrong?” she scream-whispered towards you. you jutted your chin to the door as you see how the hinges of the bathroom door she wanted to enter are broken, how the door is slanted and battered like many pressures of opening said door too hard has caused it to be like this.
“we should use the male bathroom. if something happens, the door from the male one can be our line of protection,” you replied as yuna looks back between you and the female bathroom before looking at the door beside it. she tilts her head and shows a slight nod before walking—also pulling you—to the male bathroom.
hearing the door screech as she pushes it wider, a flickering horizontal light from above the sink illuminates the dirty bathroom, the only evidence that electricity still reaches this building which has been abandoned for years. yuna pulled you to the stall in front of the last one at the back where the door is slightly open to see the dirty toilet. seeing her holding a tissue that can help to clean the pee, you turn around and close the door behind you as gently as possible as yuna does her business, locking the door that is still working.
staring at the paint of the stall, you can trace the various intangible writings on the stall’s walls from kids dating back to the latest in 2005; someone wrote the year in black marker along with other doodles. there are also a few drawings of the animatronic characters made with the same pen that wrote the year instead of the illustrations that you see in the halls. it is childish in nature and as you pin it into your mind, you felt a sudden somber by the missing children incident that is related to the franchise.
that’s when you heard a music box playing, and it seems getting closer and closer.
catching the sound of tissue from yuna’s hand as she throws it away, you turn and grab her wrist as you put your pointer finger in front of your mouth. she follows your gesture as silence consumes you both before you hear the music box playing again. you see yuna’s eyes widen before the sound of a door opens, and it opens hard, slamming onto the wall. you jumped as you heard yuna’s gasp before you walk closer and cover her mouth, looking back toward your stall’s door to see the lock that you put in is still intact.
putting your lips in a straight line to help muffled yourself, your legs wobble when the music box sound is getting louder, followed by the sound of something metallic hitting the ceramic tiles of the bathroom. you gently push yourself to sit on your knees, the song of the music box playing sounded familiar to you, like a part of a classical piece. the sound of metal and footsteps is heavy and your pupils tremble when you peek outside under the door to see a pair of legs full of fur underneath the light of the bulb from the sink. seeing its shadow walking closer, you felt yuna’s breath beside your cheek as she replaces your hand with her own, seemingly paralyzed along with you as you see the legs coming closer towards your stall.
you can finally recognize the color of the fur of its feet, brown.
the sound of mechanical joints whirling can be picked up from above where you sit, obscured by the door as the feet are walking to the front of the stall you are in. you can’t help yourself to cover yuna’s hand with your own to help increase the muffling, hoping that it can mute your breathing as you try to hold it as best as you can. seeing the feet slowing down right where you are, you can identify the side of the three-fingered paws of the animatronic. yuna seems to hide her face on your shoulder as you listened to her muffled gagged before you smell the cause of the gag yourself. as it walks away, the waft of rotten odor coming from it also leaves your vicinity and you peek to sit it turning around from the wall on the last stall—the stall you are in—and now walk in a pace that you observed before. the music box panning from both of your ears as the music rewinds again, knowing that it can attract something or someone to get closer.
as you hear the music box now muffled from the layers of walls—the thing not closing the door at all—you quickly stood up from your position and gently open the lock of the stall, seeing the sink area intact as you walk further from yuna, who is still covering her mouth, to the entrance of the male bathroom. the sound of the music box playing from your left, where the entrance is. you were glad that sunoo had the right mind to not let it open wide and not close it shut but leave a small gap for both the glass door and the iron fence. you could make a run if you need to. but that means leaving the others behind.
pulling out your phone from your pocket, you open your camera and use the front camera as a mirror as you lean back—but not with pressure—against the door with yuna now standing beside you, peeking to examine the torso and head of the being that is creating music. it stands facing its back towards you where you can see from the silhouette courtesy of the moon: the rounded ears and the hat right in the middle. your lips tremble as you see it walking around the benches, making most of its body obscure by the wall, if you stepped out.
you can’t believe it as you see the back of its head move behind the wall as you stood in the hallway, the music box still playing the same song. your heart is beating like crazy and you know it can jump out if it wants to. the cogs in your mind moving in a frenzy as you now know what you encountered.
“that’s a freddy fazbear animatronic,” you whispered under your breath.
“what th-“
the music box stopped when yuna replied beside you, making you grab onto her arm and your phone on the other side tightly as you turn your body around and speedwalk to the dining room doorway. but then a shadow on the ground of a bunny figure appears, making you hide behind the wall beside the doorway, the phone booth can be felt on your back as you turn your head to watch the silhouette of the bunny animatronic walking away from where you at before turning a corner, making its back now facing you. you remembered the lines of dining tables you saw, four rows from the stage, that takes most of the hall.
you let go of yuna’s hand when you heard her whisper, “wait” as you crawl on your knees and open the cloth of the dining tables. looking back at yuna, who has frightened eyes. you nodded at her as she follows you and crawl to the opening you made. crawling past you before you instantly drop the cloth around the right time as you listened to the animatronic footsteps coming from where you were now at the doorway. freddy’s music box stops playing like it’s in alarm mode.
you drag your knees to bring you closer to the middle of the long dining table, opening your phone that illuminates the space under the cloth slightly, making you able to see the dusty tiles with a few toy cars, paper plates, and character masks on the floor. you quickly open the group chat for your friends and quickly type into the group chat.
y/n: SUNOO!
y/n: IT’S TRUEEE
y/n: IT’S REAL
someone types right after you.
sunoo: IK
sunoo: WE SAW A CHICKEN ONE COMING OUT OF THE DOOR ACROSS FROM THE BASE
sunoo: THE KITCHEN
the chicken one…
y/n: THAT’S CHICA
y/n: WE SAW FREDDYY
y/n: AND BONNIE
breathing rapidly, you notice yuna looking between you and the phone in your hand.
“you didn’t bring yours?” you whispered as she shook her head, eyes still wide. that’s when you picked up the whirring metal moving around you. a slight gap underneath the cloth makes you able to catch another pair of legs full of fur. but this one is not brown. it’s purple.
raising your hands to your mouth, you try to not make a sound as best as you can. seeing the furry feet stomping onto the tiled floor—crunching underneath its weight. you hope they don’t have joints where they could lean down and see you under the table. but then you remember that is supposed to be a singing animatronic, how else can they show their rhythm and groove without a joint to their hip area. the machinery walks slowly. but you also suspect that they could run with their current physiology.
something touches you and you got startled as you turn towards your friend in a position that looks painful, facing her stomach down as she looks out from the other side of the table. you grab her hand to reassure her when yuna pulls you to do the same thing. slowly approaching her, you try your best not to let the rubber sound on the dirty tiled floor.
“what is it?” you whisper directly into her ear. the glint in her eyes letting you know she might found something helpful.
“see that open doorway?” she whispered back, pointing to the rectangle void compared to the greyish hue of the wall.
“we could go there. especially if the boys are also in trouble,” she replied, almost letting out a chuckle before you reply by ruffling her hair, non-verbally expressing how proud you are of her. you scan the doorway from that small glimmer of open space between the tablecloth and your own, seeing that it is on the other side of the room. you slowly raise your body as yuna raises her, seeing you in a near crouch position as you tell her with gestures as best as you can, pointing between the two of you, your forefinger and middle finger bent as it moves across the dorsum of your other hand, pointing on the table that concealed the two of you and showing three with your fingers.
‘we have to crouch under the table three times.’
she nods, understanding what you meant. with the moonlight shining into the room, and a few exterior lights as well. you can see the silhouette of the figures roaming around the dining room. a burst of laughter caught your attention, something you didn’t hear before as another animatronic steps into the hallway from where the side where your base camp is. chica.
as you watch the silhouette from the table you are underneath, you can inspect where the animatronics are: bonnie is walking in front of the stage, going the direction where you are going, chica is walking towards the middle of the room, whilst freddy is still near the hallway to the reception area. the coast is clear as you give a look to yuna, her stance resembling yours as you give nods in a rhythm.
one…
two…
three.
you carefully lift the tablecloth as yuna moves forward first, her hand reaching for the end of the cloth as she opens it. your eyes only strained forward as you follow her before she closes the cloth. your legs nearly slipped on the floor as yuna braces you. with your adapting eyes, you notice the rotten cream on your sneakers as yuna lets out a grim expression on her face, almost gagging before you shush her up. you glance at the remnants of a pie here, complete with the degrading aluminium foil that is in its place—deep down you are glad you didn’t step onto the aluminium.
yuna nudges you to the other side of the table when you realize the gap between this row and the one across is larger than the one you just passed. bracing yourself, you glance at her as she nods knowingly when she does her own countdown and lifts the tablecloth for you as you rush out.
eyes only looking forwards as your knees nearly gave out when you reach the other table, too late to open the tablecloth as it slips from your force. you gritted your teeth as you hear the plastic utensils above the table scratching each other from the force, the hum of the machinery turns towards you as you stare at bonnie’s three-toed feet that are walking in the path that separates you and yuna.
you quickly cover yourself as your mind scrambles to find something to help her. your eyes follow the shadowy items near you as you find a plastic fork not too broken like the ones you came across. it can help to be a distraction to get yuna to you.
your aching feet take you towards the fallen plastic utensils—thoughts in your mind still wonder how this is still here even with it being closed down—as you pick up the fork and adjust its prong to its maximum potential. approaching away from where bonnie is almost nearing the end of the long table, you lift the cloth up and throw the plastic fork towards where the kitchen is. your hypothesis on the animatronic becomes fact as you see bonnie rush towards where the plastic fork landed, even freddy joining the frenzy. you immediately close the opening as yuna’s swift body move to where you are, slipping behind the animatronic.
approaching her, she lets out a silent exhale as her eyes are wide open, shaking her head as you both approach the final table and do the final dash towards the doorway. the gap returns to the shorter one as yuna opens the tablecloth for you to pass, the animatronics is still focusing on the fork and where it landed. you open the last one for yuna and quickly close it as you step onto something not flat. looking down, you again meet the character masks you also saw earlier: one for bonnie and one for freddy. you didn’t notice that you linger on them when yuna approaches the last obstacle before you finally leave.
“hurry (y/n).” her whisper rings as you picked the masks up in your hand and slip them through your arm. the almost broken rubber bands stretch against your skin as yuna stares at you weirdly before you open the tablecloth for her. she steps out and approaches the void before slipping to the side—the door dark enough that it looks wide open but it actually has a small crack open. your eyes scan at the silhouette of the animatronics as you can see chica almost approaching the path you are now. you sprint towards the door and slip inside. you felt large wires behind you as you grab one and slip it onto the doorway before pushing the door close so that it doesn’t make the usual click sound.
“bad idea.” yuna mumbled beside you as you finally stare at the room and the things decorating the wall.
both of you were met by the heads of the animatronic, jaw open with no eyeballs. most of them sticking onto the walls. in one corner, there is a pile of metal amalgamation with a few of them sticking out. you can catch yuna’s chattering teeth as she looks at the menacing heads on the wall. the vibration in your pant pocket tickles your thigh as you pull your phone out and open it. the screen filled up with sunoo’s worries as you glance at the clock.
02.00
sunoo: you okay?
taeyoung: we’re so freaking worried
typing the answer, the light of the phone illuminates you, yuna, and some of the room. pipes and wires draping from the ceiling as you can pick up the whirring machines outside of the small gap in the door.
y/n: we’re alright
y/n: though we are stuck now
y/n: gonna tell you the next plan later
you let the phone’s screen light up the room which still irks you in a bad way, but it’s definitely not the worst as the one from the outside. seeing the familiar faces of the animatronic heads, you piece up what this room might be. the scent of oil sticks to your smelling scent and yuna moves to approach the tall shelf where tools and equipment are oxidizing there. remembering the layout, yuna pointed to one of the rooms that you remember is unknown on your do-it-yourself map.
“this is the parts and service room,” you mumbled, glancing at yuna who turns her body to yours. she hums, lifting the tools as the small sound creates a scratch to your sense. slowly stepping onto the floor, you approach yuna as the light of the phone creates a spotlight to let you see clearer. it reflects on the metallic materials in the room. the soggy smell of fur from the backup heads of the animatronics, wet and might have moulds in it.
the metal amalgamation caught your eyes as you approach it. you crouch down and inspect the long pipe—like metal bones and joints that resemble the human skeletal system. you could identify the toes, fingers, hips, and torsos. as you approach, you glance at one head and look at a skull with uncanny eyeballs sticking to both the left and right sides. the eyes stare open, lifeless, yet it has eyelids that could blink in a moment; your heart thumps more imagining that. none of the skeletons stand tall, unlike the animatronics striding outside the room you are in, as if someone has pulled them apart to not let them be working.
“hey…” yuna calls with a small voice, the rubbing sound present also coming from her.
“i found something.”
“shoot,” you responded, straightening your stature as yuna stepped towards the metal table where half of chica’s head is present. the rubbing noise you heard is the large pieces of paper that she brought, shaped in rolls. tucking a few under her arms, she opens one roll and places tools from a wrench to a hammer on each corner.
“blueprints…”
pointing your lit screen towards it, you can see the white illustrations on the blue-colored grids and a few words around them. the unnatural shape of the top hat indicates that this is the blueprint of freddy. on the left side is the illustration of the body while on the right side is the illustration of the head, shaped meticulously so that it looks mascot-like and almost resembles the head of a real bear.
squinting your eyes, you scan the words surrounding it. it’s full of unfamiliar terms that you can’t instantly deduct. but you might figure out something when you glance and examine the body of the animatronic even further.
“their body is hollow. look at the gap between the skeleton and the outer casing.” you trace the skeleton’s spine down the drawing before trailing to the side where the stomach is. yuna stares at the mangled skeletons as you glance for a response from her.
“so they have an endoskeleton with fur casing? that doesn’t explain the odor coming from them and how they’re ‘alive’.” her hands lift to make air quotes.
an epiphany comes into your mind even though you don’t want to presume it happened. but you can’t hold it in.
“i think it has something to do with the missing children.” you pivot to her, seeing her shake her head.
“that can’t be possible, right? are they… possessed?” the pitch of her speaking voice tells you everything about her working mind.
“i mean… how can they still move even with decades past? the animatronic must be plugged into electricity to work. unless there is a supernatural thing going out, they’re not gonna move at all.”
yuna stares at you, her eyes trembling as she seems to consider the possibility of that happening. distracting herself, she returns to the blueprint as you turn your body around to lean against the metal table. the tap of the items on your arms presses against the edge of the table. your eyes stare at the mascot heads on the walls; how the fur is shedding from the casing and the watermarks trailing down, damping the paints on the wall so that it looks bubbly.
you don’t expect there was any missing children incident related to this specific building—especially in your town relating to a pizzeria. but the past is much harder to archive specifically with the little franchises separate from the main restaurant franchise. you don’t want to assume anything vile about what happened, but the smell of odor coming from animatronics makes you much more suspicious of what could happen. why the missing children from the main franchise building might not be found and how it could make the animatronics work and move like it’s alive. the uncanniness is making shivers run down your spine, but the animatronics act animatedly, unlike what a robot is.
“no way…” you heard muttering coming from the other person in the room. a small hum as a reply to her, yuna pulled your phone from your hand and pointed it to the words on the blueprint.
“facial recognition…”
you shift your head as you see her open more blueprints—bonnie’s, foxy’s, and chica’s—and check the same area as the first blueprint.
“they all have facial recognition. there are books from the same shelf. maybe a repair manual?” her words trail off as she turns to the shelf where she fetches the prints. the small beacon from your phone still allows you to trace the words of facial recognition right above the music box player on freddy’s blueprint. the heavy sound of books landing on something rings in the room as dust flies.
“aha!” she exclaimed with a little voice before bringing a book towards you. the word ‘manual’ sticking out to you when she flipped the cover open, tracing the directory before opening the right page. she held the book right by her eyes, seeing her eyes move behind the barrier from your view
“‘the animatronics has a facial recognition system that can detect the human faces from its fellow animatronic. this system was made to prevent entry for known child criminals and it has access to the criminal database…’” she read out the information. that’s when you stare at the items on your arm. the masks.
you push the masks slipped onto your arm to her as she stares between the book and the items on you. her eyes enlarged as she leans closer, slipping your phone back onto your open palm.
“we could wear this. get the boys out of the party room, and exit from the emergency exit, which is the door beside this room and get out,” you spoke, nodding your head along with it as you affirm yourself.
“that might work. we can recognize ourselves between them. let’s do it.” yuna said with a thin smile. you let her pull off the freddy mask from your arm. the mask looks like a child’s mask and you reckoned it might not fit your face, but when you slip the bonnie mask on, the bands stretching behind your earlobes, you can feel the plastic edge press against your cheek.
now, your view is much more obscured with only the holes for the eyes and nostrils helping to get the air in clearer. trying your best to inform the others, you send out a message in the group chat.
y/n: if you can, search for character masks to wear in the party room. we can meet up at the arcade area.
taeyoung: what’s this? ^
y/n: they have facial recognition. we can disguise ourselves - yuna
she slips your phone back into your pocket and gives you a pat. the scratching sound enters your ear as yuna now holds a wrench in her hand—better be safe than sorry. you take a deep breath, sensing her presence protecting you from the back.
“you ready?” she asked behind you.
“uh huh…” you said, with a tinge of worrisome you hope she didn’t figure it out. hand on the handle, the hinges creak as you pull the door open.
peeking your head out, you could examine the main dining area; thinking that enormous figures are roaming the hall, but finding it empty instead. the lingering sound of freddy’s music box is playing in the hallway on the other side of where you are. but no animatronics seems to be present. the curtain of the stage is closed like the last time you notice it and you caught clanging sounds from the kitchen area, probably from chica—the boys saw her from there.
yuna’s hands grip each of your shoulders when you step forward. each foot moves slowly on the tiled floor as the windows on the other side of the hallway let the outside light in. step by step, you amble beside the dining table you hide under a few minutes ago. you gaze at the abandoned food and utensils on the table. plastic plates, glass, knife; all you can study without worry.
looking towards the right, you find a half circle that is covered by the curtain—the small stage taeyoung mentioned. walking in front of the elevated floor, you notice the dark void in between the purple-patterned curtains. yuna’s empty hand grips your shoulder as you both stare at it.
“‘sorry out of order’?” you heard her faint whisper in your ear, but you didn’t expect a buzzing sound to come from behind the curtain. your body instantly shoves yuna behind you as you reach your other pocket, pushing your hand inside as you grip the handle. the source of light behind you reflects on something white as it gets bigger. a claw pushes out and moves the curtain out.
yuna’s trembling finger holds onto your waist as you see the silhouette of something poking out from the curtain, a head with a sharp nose. you held your breath when you look at the animatronic peeking out of the stage. the last animatronic of the roster: foxy, complete with its pirate garment of the eyepatch and the hook. its behavior is animalistic, jutting its nose as it sniffs the air with its artificial nose.
before it stiffs and turns its head towards both of you.
its body moves out of the curtain slowly as you both stood still, making yourself as robotic as possible. even with the mask as your front, you still feel as exposed as ever. the beating of your heart might explode out of your chest as your grasp on the pocket knife is ready to pull it out. biting your bottom lip, you let it stand before you as it scans your face. and it seems to recognize the familiar visual of the character’s face. its tall figure looms over both of you before it runs towards the bigger stage.
its heavy footsteps echo in the room as you stare at it moving away. your mind was too distracted by the animatronic that even a small, bitter touch on your exposed skin startled you. turning around, you find two people in chica and foxy masks.
your breath heave as you perceived the familiar touch of sunoo and the tousled hair that only belongs to taeyoung. the boy points towards the arcade area as all of you approach it. the clanking in the kitchen is still prominent enough as you stood beside the door.
“how’d you know the masks work?” sunoo asked as they gave out both of your backpacks back to their rightful owners.
“they have a facial recognition system. (y/n) suggests that masks might work so they see us as one of them.” yuna’s hand still grips your shoulder as you felt the wrench on her hand, swaying from the weight.
“we’re gonna get ou-“
the sound of an open draping cloth distracts you. your eyes follow the sound of it, the animatronic comes out from the stage as you see bonnie on stage. your breathing is calm and your mind is collected from the non-reactive way foxy did. but this is different as the sound of a ripping cloth filled the air. the bunny animatronic jumps down towards you and rushes towards you, letting out a gargled electrical scream that covers the music box from freddy.
“GUYS!” you exclaimed, but the animatronic only focuses towards you. the sound of the barging door opening from the side. chica’s laugh filled the room as you and yuna let go of each other and you pushed the others away as you let bonnie be distracted by you.
flicking open your pocket knife, you scattered towards the stage as bonnie jumps over the table to get to you. the rotting table legs collapsing as your hand still grips your backpack strap that is not on your shoulder properly. but the animatronic is too fast for your liking, from their taller stature to their mechanical limbs.
your backpack was caught as you pull it out of the animatronic, seeing it pulling as best as it can. its jaw opens and your tired body can’t hold itself up as your strength is lost against the robot. the eyes that are sticking to the endoskeleton are lifeless but reflect something that you have seen in other humans.
rage.
the robot growls as you’re being pulled against your might. the edge of the bonnie mask you’re wearing is pulled along your head with the strength of the conflicting forces, creating a flame to your skin senses. your head is almost near its wide-open jaw as you try hitting it with your knife; not applicable and only cut through the fur. not handling it well, you pushed the jaw apart with both of your hands.
your hearing is only focusing on the animatronic in front of you, making you didn’t expect the blow to the animatronic head as the eyeholes of your mask move nowhere near your eyes. pulsing bloodstream flowed to your palm as warmth wrapped around your wrist and drag you. trickling fluid coming out and dripping from your fingers as you still hold on to your pocket knife, not letting it go. you let your legs drag you along with the being that pulls you as it pushes you inside the room.
the heavy footsteps that followed you come to a halt as a loud bang comes before followed by the muffled one. you heard haggard breath as the sound of a large object scraping on the floor. something holds your shoulders up and you let your legs bring you somewhere else. but your vision is flickering as the black spots appear, tinnitus in your ear, your body getting heavy, and you can’t open your eyes anymore.
the void embraces you as your body shuts down.
03.00
something drips out from your lips.
hushes and the rustle of paper is all around you.
your hand fidgets as the pain spreads all around once again. opening your eyes, you were met with a blurry vision and light pointing towards the ceiling, painting it white instead of the musky grey. wooden marks from the ceiling tell you that this room in risk of leaking and might make the beam fall if not careful enough.
your lips are chapped as you sense a tear come down from the corner of your eyes, becoming clearer after each and every drop has fallen.
“oh gosh!” someone gasps as you felt your body being enveloped tightly. their hair tickles your nostrils but you needed the hug. your goosebumps grow as the coldness your body is showing is reduced by the warmth.
“you’re okay!” they whispered to you, pressing their palm against your cheek—a barrier that doesn’t allow the skin to skin contact makes a vertical down from under your eye to your jaw.
“sun?” you speak, a hoarse voice coming out as you see sunoo’s face. his smile is still as wide as ever, even with a smudge of thick dust on his cheeks.
“i’m here...” he whispered, holding onto your hand that is covered by something thin. noticing your expression, he lifts your hand so you could examine it. a bandage wrapped around your skin as you find a bloomed red coming from the palm.
“your tired body, adrenaline, and loss of blood make you instantly pass out as i brought you here. i tried to patch you up as best as i could.” sunoo answered your unspoken question, giving you the water bottle that he was trying to get you to sip even with your unconscious body.
“time?” you questioned, holding the water bottle as it still trembles in your hold. the soothing sensation wets your dry cavern as the water rushes down inside your digestive system.
“past 3. half past 4 actually,” he replied whilst looking at the lit phone in his hand. your eyes wander to the dim room, seeing the shelves rising above you like skyscrapers. a gallon of something looking like bleach is resting on one shelf—probably only left with its evaporated dust.
“we’re still in the pizzeria. locked in a cleaning cupboard of some sort.” his words reminded you of the locations of the map that are burnt into your mind. two out of three are identified. then the last room is security.
but when you touch the thin mattress beneath you, you became more alert as you can see a hole in one of the walls. through it, more shelves are standing and you can identify the familiar silhouette of brooms and mops.
“we’re deeper in it though. bonnie was still clawing at the door before i move one of the shelves over to hold the door close. then i found the hole, and it looks like someone lived here.” sunoo continued. one side of his face is shone by the flashlight, sitting with his knees now tuck to his chest.
“it’s a safe room of sorts, but by the messy mattress i found and newspapers. someone must have lived here.” your eyes wander to the pile of paper that sits beside him, scattered around the floor and a few near the edge of the mattress. you followed his hand as he picks one up and gives it to you. sitting up your body, you find the most comfortable position for you to read. eyebrows raised as you examine the headline.
Kids vanish at local pizzeria—bodies not found. Two local children were reportedly lured into a back room during the late hours of operation at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza on the night of June 26th. While video surveillance identified the man responsible and led to his capture the following morning, the children themselves were never found and are presumed dead.
Police think that the suspect dressed as a company mascot to earn the children’s trust.
“i tried to trace where these came from and a few of them led back to the missing person incident in the main branch of freddy fazbear’s pizza. but look at this.” he then shuffles some pages around as he pulls one out and gives it to you.
Four children reported missing in our town’s very own Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Investigators link the incident to other similar incidents occurring in the other franchises.
the news was concise. telling you that there might be ten or more missing children that are scattered across the different franchises that are open. it is suspected that the same motive is done between all these franchises: children allegedly lured into a backroom during late hours.
sunoo then gave you another clipping that read “Local pizzeria threatened with shutdown over sanitation.” one about the main building while a few related ones about the other local franchises also, including your town.
“the others and i tried our freaking best to piece these up. they’re now stuck in the kitchen,” he said as he know you might wonder about yuna and taeyoung. “but i think this is when your knowledge comes to help. you knew more about these stories than anybody in our friend group. wikipedia doesn’t even give any straightforward answers.”
the boy moves so he could sit beside you, shoulder to shoulder. your fingertips still run against the pile you allowed him to stack on your lap as sunoo continues to open his phone, glancing your eyes to see the group chat.
you pat his arm to help you fetch your backpack, finding it as battered as ever with one strap hanging for dear life with a piece of string to not break. sipping the water bottle to help you better, your brain is much more awake that a few moments ago. the gears in them are turning as you open the notebook and scribble everything you know. the founders. the original five missing children. animatronic going haywire. unpleasant odor. and you trace each newspaper clipping to create the most effective timeline you could create. some of the newspaper has its ink bleed from the moist on it, but you decipher it as best as you could.
“yuna said that you speculate the animatronics are possessed?” sunoo questioned as you skim the words on the clipping before putting it aside. you hummed as a reply, mind to focus on connecting all the dots as best as you can.
whilst opening a few pages, something slipped out of the pile and landed on the tiled floor beside you. dashing to get a grip on the corner of the rectangular paper. you picked it up and sunoo shines the light from your flashlight onto it.
“a cheque...” the boy spoke as you scan the words.
mike schmidt. $120. valued employee.
the reflection of the flashlight shines more than the ink from the front side you are reading. flipping it around, you see a written note almost in cursive as you tried your best to read.
Father. It’s me, Michael. I’ve followed along your trails of blood even to the towns outside of ours. I’ve seen each and every one of your creations, from how they react to how they’ve smelled because of you. They all seem to recognize me because they thought I was you. No trace of your golden bunny suit means you’re not here. Something has gone terribly for me. But I will try my best to find you... I’m going to come find you.
“michael?” sunoo muttered, your eyes peeking at him as he realizes something and typed in something in a browser’s search engine. the result comes out immediately as he presses on the link on one of the founders. william afton.
“no way...” he mumbled, skimming the web page as you lean in against him. his sturdy shoulder holding you one before stopping at one section.
“‘nothing is much known about what happened to afton, but he had mentioned that he wanted his son, michael, to continue his legacy’... michael is william’s son.” sunoo turns his head towards you, so close to yours as you can felt his breath on your cupid’s bow.
“wait, wait, w-“ you push your hand out as your mind goes into overdrive. all the information you have in your mind pinning up against the surface of your brain, ready to be pieced onto your inner corkboard.
michael is william afton’s son.
golden bunny suit.
missing children lured by an employee.
odor from the animatronics.
their unusual frantic acts with metal bodies.
bonnie being aggressive towards you, who was wearing a bonnie mask.
looking up, you gaze at sunoo who is tilting his head, watching you putting the puzzle pieces together.
“they’re dead. the missing children are dead...”
“uh- okay..? that is so grim.” sunoo lets out a reply before you hold his hand.
“i mean, listen. they’re dead and they possessed the animatronic endoskeletons. okay, let me just-“ you picked up your notebook so sunoo can see, pencil on hand as you create underlines under the missing children incident.
“so ‘kids vanish at local pizzeria-bodied not found’ leading to the suspicions of an employee luring them back into the backroom of the restaurant. that means an employee-only area which we know by schematics on the place is the kitchen, parts and service, stage area, supply closet, and security office.” the graphite creates a line between the phrases and keywords you wrote on the paper.
“because of the vanishing bodies, either they were kidnapped or murdered on the spot. but i suggest the latter because...” you make a line between the sentence to the one above it. “the animatronics has an unpleasant odor, relating it to the pizzerias that are succumbing to lawsuits and eventually shutting down.”
sunoo continues following the line you made as you connect the employee to william afton, “i suspect william is the killer because of what michael said, ‘no trace of your golden bunny suit’. i have a guess that he has been searching for the father. and- believe it or not...”
you wrote something you remember by memory about the pizzeria that you didn’t write yet, “both the founders had to use this spring-lock animatronic costume in the early years of their business. william uses a golden bonnie suit...”
“so you’re saying the founder just commit a killing spree?” he questioned as you reply with a hum of agreement.
“i’ve seen discussion on forums on why both of them dissolve. many suggest that they have this business rivalry—unmatched vision, one has more power than the other—because afton also has his own company called afton robotics...” you write the name of the company right beside the two aftons.
sunoo grips one end of the piece of paper, eyes trailing down the content before speaking, “william is on the run for revenge and michael is trying to find him...”
“that and he’s trying to hurt the efforts of his former business partner. he must have done this killing spree on many freddy fazbear’s pizza locations. and if he want to leave no trace, he had to stuff the bodies into the animatronics, fusing their soul to the metals.” you replied, leaning back against the wall.
“that’s why i got attacked by bonnie for wearing the bonnie mask, how it’s more aggressive towards me. the child that possesses that must remember the bunny suit-wearing man that killed them, also all of us who are still human and alive. they’re sad and angry about what somebody has done to them. they’re stuck in limbo now, unable to rest in peace...”
you felt sunoo’s hand on yours, interlacing his fingers with yours and putting them on his thigh. his eyes strain on your face, glancing at your trembling lips as you empathize with what the children faced that is so unfair. ripping their lives because of a crazed man hungry for revenge.
“what do you want to do?” sunoo asked. even with your glum eyes, he can still detect how your mind is thinking about something. pupils frantically move around as you gulp down your saliva.
“we have to help them let go of this world. help them tether the connection here to let them rest.” you lean your head against his shoulder, his thumb rubbing softly on your dorsal as you let your legs stretch. seeing his feet beside yours reminds you of when you are children, sitting on the grass in the playground by your school, gazing at your friends who are dangling off the monkey bars or sliding down the slide. realizing the approximate time age of the kids that possessed the animatronics, you got reminded that they are also around your age. but because of what happened, they’re unable to grow up and live their life. instead, they’re stuck to a robot suit.
sunoo’s phone screen lights up both of your faces as he typed in all that you spoke to him about. your phone vibrates beside you—letting them talk about things as you collect your thoughts. you glance to see yuna using taeyoung’s phone saying their worries and how tragic all of this is.
“as much as i want to escape...” your eyes move to look at sunoo’s face as best as you can before he continues, “having second thoughts about what you’re saying and... yeah... they’re kids. those animatronics are kids who are frustrated and stuck.”
more vibration can be heard between both of your phones together as you let sunoo be your messenger, “i agree. we should help them rest- we should meet up and talk about it and also help convince them.”
you nodded your head, lifting and turning your head to him. a thin smile on your face as you stretch your wounded hand. “the security room is our best bet. right near all of us, correct?”
“yup...” he replied as he pushes himself, his hand outstretched to you to help you stand up as you gather your items—sunoo helping you put on your nearly breaking backpack. he handed you your pocket knife and you swiftly open it, seeing blood on the ridge as you look at your reflection; your blood. the makeshift mirror shows your wounded face as sunoo’s phone screen is shining the side, typing away to tell the other two to meet up at the security office.
ducking out of the hole of the safe room hidden in the depths of the cleaning closet, sunoo pushed the shelf from the door as you glance at your phone one last time before tucking it in your pocket.
04.00
the clicking of the door catches your attention as sunoo leads both of you. his head turning right, then left as before he jutted his head towards the right side as you move in front of him. he is still wearing his mask as his eyes turned towards the larger space as you move deeper into the hallway. ripped posters decorated the wall on one side, as the other is a window bordered up by planks from the outside. even with minimal lighting, you could see the open doorway at the end of the hall.
flicking turning left from a poster, you were met with an open office area. on one side is a cracking wall with a small bed for sleeping and cabinets you can assume are used for storing pieces of information—unless they’re eaten by termites. your flashlight turns to the other side, seeing a similar open doorway across from where you are before going to the left. the wall is covered with papers sticking onto the concrete: a large poster of the fabulous four animatronics dominates most of the wall before you move your spotlight to the side, coming across the structured map of the pizzeria. that is until you notice pictures of people right underneath it.
footsteps approaching you as you step closer to the desk, eyes gazing at the fan and old boxy computer desktop that is full of dust. sunoo entered the doorway you came in from before both of you were distracted for a few seconds by the sound of an open door on the other side. seeing the shadow of two people running as carefully as they entered the room. heaves of breath flowing between all of you as you give them a smile when they pull off their masks. yet, your sense still stay at the pictures as you stepped aside.
there are four different pictures in four different forms stuck onto a wall with staplers. shining closely at it, your hand pauses as you let the sound of sunoo explain the theory you two made. you let the flashlight shines on the pictures, colors fading along with the degrading paper. but features are smooth enough that you can examine them clearly. staring at the top of the papers, you identify a recognizable logo and its description.
these are missing person reports from the police. all of them are children.
scanning through the report, all of them has the same information on the last seen part.
‘Last seen at the local Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.’
your hand reaches to pull them out, eyes looking closely as you can look at the sparks coming from the faulty and near-broken wiring, all connecting to one main switchboard with numerous other switches; divided into left and right for both lights and doors. recalling other than the exterior light, you could remember that the lights flicker back in the bathroom—electricity is still running through the building’s vicinity.
“guys...” you spoke and turn around. their flashlight shines their face ominously until you caught the two faces you hadn’t seen in the past hour. taeyoung has a bandage on his forehead while yuna has watering eyes, guessing it’s from the story that sunoo told them.
“aw (y/n)...” yuna sighed as you see her hand reaching for your bandage one. grimacing at her touch, you find taeyoung letting out a small smile while shaking your arm as carefully as to not hurt you more.
“i’ve told them the summary of our deduction and our idea to set them free.” sunoo said as you stood in front of them who are sitting on the bed.
“and we agree. they’re kids that are treated freaking unfairly by the world and they should deserve a rest. even thinking about it makes me so angry.” taeyoung spoke as you let out a snicker.
“thanks, guys. how did you two even survive in the kitchen, especially if it’s chica’s ‘place’?” you give an air quote.
“chica bangs on the kitchen door so much that we have to push the metal tables to both doors and sat in the middle of the kitchen so it couldn’t step inside. we also have the server hole that we used to peek outside at the animatronics.” yuna answered before noticing the paper you are holding in your other hand.
you give one of them for each of you as you let them read it through. you glance back at sunoo, his eyebrow folded from the information.
“they’re the children that possess this location’s animatronic,” you answered their unspoken question as you read the paper in your hand.
“in my hand is a report about junhao zhong. age 6 when he died. his parents described him as a child who is very active, especially running. the last time they see him, they remember him running around the tables in the dining area.” you read the information as briefly as possible, eyes lingering on the boy’s photo before you face the others.
yuna spoke after you, “her name is hanako yamamoto. she was 9 when she disappeared. in her description, it said that she likes freddy fazbear’s pizza a lot and that she could visit up to 4 or 5 times per week. she has a pretty chubby build to her because she loves eating.”
taeyoung leans his body forward and clears his throat, “this kid’s name is sei lee. she was 8. her parents describe her as a creative kid. likes to sing, likes to dance, likes to draw. one of her favorite past times here is drawing freddy and friends while they are on stage and meeting new friends.”
“and last but not least. we have kit murray. he is 11 when he died, the oldest of the bunch based on what each of you has told me. he is an avid freddy fazbear’s pizza fan. he had nearly all of his birthdays here after he became a big fan. he even spends the day after school here by himself or with his other friends. his favorite was bonnie based on this.” sunoo said as you look between them all, trying to figure out something that is stuck in your mind.
“what did you say about the girl?” you pointed towards yuna.
“hanako likes to eat-“
you snap your fingers as you contain your excitement at figuring something up, pointing towards the paper as you said with gritted teeth, “chica also likes to eat, right? it’s always in the kitchen most of the time.”
“right- wait. oh, shoot!” taeyoung’s face reflects yours as he also does the same gestures right at you.
“the girl is chica!” he exclaimed as quietly as possible as you nod your head. taeyoung seems to shake yuna’s body as he stares at him, speaking with his eyes to her as your mind is running everywhere on this.
“we could figure out which one of them is which...” sunoo cuts in as he stares at yuna’s shaken body by taeyoung before she then replied.
“taeyoung and i have been observing them so we can help with identifying their characteristics.”
“nice!” you emphasize the last syllable as you continue, “okay, about junhao being active-“
“foxy rounds around the room so much. he’s definitely the fox.” yuna jumps in as you see all of them nodding their head.
“now we only have kit and sei...” taeyoung mumbles as you tried to understand as best as you can. you want to assume kit is bonnie but you don’t expect afton will be that caring to have him reserved for his favorite character. your eyes glance at sunoo who is reading kit’s report.
“he’s 11...” he muttered. “and he loves freddy’s fazbear pizza. i’m just shooting it, but based on his age and his love for the franchise, he must’ve had great memories with it.”
“what are you saying, sun?” taeyoung asked, head tilted with curiosity.
“bonnie became aggressive after it looked at (y/n) wearing a bonnie mask. at first, i thought it was because the soul recognized the character masks match the same as who they are now but i was wearing a foxy mask and foxy stared right at me and he didn't become aggressive. it’s definitely more on the soul that is connected to the animatronic, not its system.” sunoo stood up as he turned towards you. you felt something warm on your covered hand as you find his hand in yours.
“11-year-olds are more developed, especially in relating to logic and action. him being the oldest helps because he could’ve figured out that the killer, william, wears a golden bonnie suit, especially since it’s his favorite character.”
“and that’s why he became aggressive when he looked at me. he thought i was him,” you mumbled, your memories return to the encounter you had with the animatronic. the eyes bonnie has: lifeless yet full of rage at the same time. he remembers the character that killed him.
“consensus says yes for kit is bonnie and sei is freddy.” taeyoung said as you all nodded.
“and we’ve seen freddy playing with its music box the whole time so it relates to her creativity too. but the thing is they’re more aggressive now knowing we're here.” yuna’s voice laced with resistance before continuing. “if we don’t act fast, they might actually notice that we’re here. so how can we do that?”
you glance at sunoo, his hand gripping yours carefully yet tight as he seems to understand what you’re guessing about.
“since the animatronics are made of metal and we can’t bury them or let them roam around other people.” you give sunoo’s hand a squeeze with yours.
“our only way to help them is to burn the building...”
05.00
it takes time for such a meticulous plan to be done in such an incomplete situation. and it took more than one hour to make the arrangements. yet, you persist and create the best plan all of you can conduct. you have your phone open as you are ready to click on the group call you are planning. your back against the desk, you gaze at your friends who are packing up their things. your eyes linger on your best friend for a beat too long. he had almost a pout that makes you want to giggle from the cuteness.
“remember, once i turn on the switchboard, the electricity will run to my area. there’s a chance that the animatronics will focus on me especially since i can control everything in the room. you all know your tasks, right?”
a chorus of agreement replies towards you as you gave them a nod before hugging them one by one. you smooth down taeyoung’s bandage on his forehead before giving him a pat on his shoulder as he lets go and leaves first. yuna is next as she hugs you tightly before she left for her task. your eyes landed on sunoo who has a stern facade on his face before it softens.
“you’re okay with leading the ship?” he asked as he reaches for your bandaged hand. the blood that seeps into the fabric has dry with leftover haemoglobins creating a maroon color.
“yeah...” you replied, falling out of your confidence as you stare at him. stepping closer, he interlocks both of your hands in his.
“listen, i-“ sunoo inhales before he continues. “if this doesn’t work or any of us are hurt by what we’re doing. i want to say that i care for you so much you don’t know how much. i was in tears while i was patching you up. you were bleeding so mu-“
you cut him off with a kiss on the corner of his lips, ending his monologue early as you glance back at him. letting go of his hand, you let yours trail up his arms before you held both of his shoulders, firming him up.
“i also care for you more than you think, sun. we’re gonna pin this, okay? it will work. you also plan this with every knowledge you know.” you pat his shoulders as he follows your nodding.
“okay, i’ll hear you on the call?”
“of course...” you replied as he retreated, stepping away to the door you came from as you turn towards the switchboard. the light of your phone screen is turned on and you can see the depleting battery. opening your group chat’s interface, you enter the group call—the only one inside as you waited for the rest to join in.
bracing yourself, you switch the main button on the switchboard and hear the buzzes fading in. the electricity now runs into the security office. the box screen turns on and the camera feeds show up, lights flickering on at the table and in the room, and even the fan turns on as it hums to create a solemn atmosphere if it isn’t for the sound of your friends entering the group call.
your eyes flicker to the screen as you watch the cathode-ray tube materials creating moving images of your locations throughout the night. with the joystick beside the switchboard, half of your screen focuses on one camera feed from the grid—no cameras in the kitchen or the supply closet. the feeds are black and white as you can only distinguish lights, items, and beings between each of the monochromatic spectrum.
“chica’s approaching you, taeyoung.” yuna speaks calmly in your talkie system when you pick up the sound of rummaging layers of walls from you. the sound becomes closer and closer as you turn the switch for the door to your right. it falls on the door frame, creating a thud as you glimpse at the switchboard bar right at the top, showing the amount of electricity left to be used.
pressing carefully on the lights button so you don't run the electricity out, you see chica’s silhouette from the small window by the side of the door. you hold your breath as the dark figure comes closer before it approaches the kitchen door, barging in with a loud noise. you could listen further from the call at the crackling sound of the animatronic trashing the kitchen for more pizza or food. that’s when you glance at one of the stages, seeing foxy’s head peeking out of the curtain.
“sun don’t step out no-“ you exclaimed as the animatronic ran to the side. with your swift reaction, you immediately close the door to your left and open the one on the right. you picked up scratches from the other side of the closed door as foxy shoves his face to the window.
“hi junhao...” you spoke as he pauses, seemingly realizing what you called him. the animatronic face moved back to its menacing phase as he continues staring at you. flickering the lights on the left. you catch him being distracted by the light and you behind the window. the correct moment for you to mumble, “you can move out now, sun. and watch out for bonnie. he’s by the stage.”
“got it...” the boy speaks as you distract foxy more. your sight goes back-to-back from the window and to the screen. in it, you see sunoo’s silhouette walking to the arcade area, ducking by the fallen and standing cabinets.
“i heard freddy’s music box. be careful, yuna!” said the boy as foxy’s moving away from the door, letting you open it to conserve energy. sunoo continues to duck as he looks behind him to meet foxy emerging from the hallway. the animatronic walks in a stance before he pronounces towards the stage, kicking anything that is on its way as it caught bonnie's attention. but not as long as you hope.
staring at the boxy monitor, you focus on the one by the hallway to the reception as freddy walks by the entrance before moving away. movements are there in the shadows. looking closely as you lean your body near the screen, yuna is hiding by the bench and fallen decorations, obscure by the darkness that is so grain-like to your eyes of the camera.
“(y/n), bonnie’s coming!”
you switched on both lights as you couldn’t guess where he comes from. the footsteps are too fade out as you decide to let the door close on both sides. feeling the rising panic internally as you flicker both lights, you jumped as half of bonnie’s body is visible by the window.
“you guys are in position?” you mumbled, focusing on the animatronic before you note the electricity that is depleting quick. a chorus of yes came in when you turn to bonnie once again. yet he stays there, standing idle. you tried to not do anything more on the switchboard other than letting the right door switch on.
“we gonna have to do this fast ‘cause the security office is depleting its energy fast. distract them towards me.”
your statement is then met by the sound of clicks and clanks from your call. on the screen, you look at freddy approaching the main hallway as chica’s laugh is followed—yuna steps out of the shadow as she creates something on the floor. the bear animatronic is approaching you fast as you yelled to get more of their attention; letting your plan go faster. sunoo gives a small glance at the camera he knows you are seeing as your shout makes each of the robot’s dangerous sides show once again.
you let them knock on the steel doors and you can see all your friends doing the plan. yuna is trailing along the papers and boxes she could as sunoo helps her as he pours out something out of one of the gallons that he brought. taeyoung is still not found as you can still hear the rummages in the kitchen.
your finger pads clench against your wounded palm, the pain is the constant reminder for you to stay awake and realistic. the knocking of the metal-on-metal is becoming more and more prominent even louder. you glance at both doors where you find dents forming on the barrier and screeching scratches all made into a cacophony to distract you.
“taeyoung, how are you doing?”
“almost there, don’t worry,” he replied.
yuna went out of the group call along with sunoo as they approach the tables, so your voice doesn’t distract them from doing their part and caught the giant machineries' attention.
“if you’re done, step out of the kitchen by the party rooms.”
taeyoung hums when you watch the energy bar decreases. two bars now becoming one as you are approaching your last 10%. you try not to panic, trusting your friends too much as you close and breathe as best as you can. the punching on the metal and impenetrable glass windows becomes background sound as you see that taeyoung is now outside of the group call from your small peek to your own screen.
your phone is hot in your hands as you turn the call off and pocket it. your backpack sways behind you as you peer at your friends outside from the boxy screen. taeyoung coming out from the kitchen doors farthest from you, a radiant light by him as the grey becomes lighter in the black and white feed. glancing at the electricity, you only have 2%. a few more seconds and your protection will be gone as the door will rise back to its inactive status; wide open.
the animatronic seems to notice it too as the lights inside the security office are flickering and the fan now turning off. each second passes and more electric appliances turn off. the monitor shuts down as you relay every last bit of the electric current so the doors can survive. you can survive.
in the deepest part of your heart, you might actually be ready for this; to succumb with the restaurant.
“HEY!”
a muffled shout pierced through the clanks as you watch them all turn towards the hallway and scurry away. their focus stayed on it as the doors slams up, exposing you. and in a beat, you run to the left side, seeing the emergency exit beside the stage.
heat spreads through the room as the animatronics gather at the center of the room. flame spreading fast as it all lits up any flammable material and substance it has on its way. you listened to harrowing screams coming from the center as the voice box machinery they have burned along with their metal bodies. they scream out of pain as they seem more alive than ever. you fast walk as you look at the abomination. bonnie’s eyes stare at you when you didn’t see any rage inside, but content.
“come on, (y/n)!” someone pulls you by your arm as you turn to face sunoo who is dragging you to the exit that is slowly going into flames. pushing the door open, you were met with the outside air after nearly six hours of staying inside. the sun peeks behind the trees at the east as the flame is ever so close to the door. sunoo pushes a big dumpster outside before you realize it and come to help, putting it to rest by the door as it's going to be harder for something inside to go out.
“the others are by the entrance.” sunoo with energy still going on surging in him, helps drag you as you run past the playground to meet yuna and taeyoung, who finished locking the lock to the main entrance. in the distance, you hear a honk. you all instantly run to it.
you couldn’t be happier to see a car.
“hey, losers! how is it-“ serim voice pitches up as his smug face turns to worry as you all approach the car.
“why is the building on fire-“
“GO NOW!” his little brother said as he sits shotgun. you’re back in your center seat between sunoo and yuna. serim presses down on the gas, the car lurching away as all four of you are panting. your eyes stared at the screen at the front as a radio fm plays an old 80s arena rock song. specifically on the clock at the top corner.
06.00
you felt your weight falling off your shoulders, letting you rest your head against sunoo’s beside yours. your hand in his as he brushes your skin.
“the hell was that? taeyoung?” serim questioned as you drive out of the forest to be met by the asphalt street, approaching society. the sun is now more visible as the car came out of the woods. it shines the new day and a new page for all of you.
yet all of you are too stunned to speak. you specifically can’t. your mind brought you back to the last eye contact you had with bonnie and the one pause you had with foxy when you mention his name. their aggressive machinery seems to cover their pain and sadness, especially with their young ages. but your eye contact with bonnie lingers as you view the content in his eyes. how he now knows what all of you are trying to do. to help them out. to set them free.
“it’s the electricity. the current is still on even with the old and broken cable and it created a fire in one of the rooms.” taeyoung mumbles, saying the explanation that you all suggest if serim or his dad asked what happened to the property. “i know we failed. it’s just getting to danger-“
“nah. i was about to call you to get you out,” serim asked, he glances behind from the rearview mirror. “all of you running to me makes my job easier. i thought all of you guys are asleep somewhere in the corner. and what the heck happened to your forehead?”
“he got hit by one of the doors.” sunoo lays out another lie to help cover it up. “the kitchen door is swingy and heavy even with the dust and trash inside.”
you all let the radio play the music as the car approaches your neighborhood, parking by the block corner that you also went to last midnight. stepping out of the car, you and sunoo let out small “thank you”s to serim and your farewell to your friends as you walk by the sidewalk, hand in hand.
yet your thoughts return to the moments before all of you begin the plan. sunoo’s sudden confession even in front of danger’s door, and you say the same to help him calm down. but you do. you care about him more than friends and you’re willing to try with him.
“we did it, right?” your voice rings between you two as sunoo giggles. you notice more soot and dust on both of his cheeks and how puffy his eyes become because of the lack of sleep.
“yeah... you have a lot of things on your mind...” you can’t help to let out a smile as he sees through you.
“it's... before you drag me away... i saw bonnie looking at me. i thought kit’s gonna attack me before i see his eyes. how at peace he is. how he’s telling me he is okay with his sight...” you watch both of your houses in your sight approaching closer.
“you did right. we all did. we help them rest peacefully.” sunoo reassured you as you approached the window you left. the gap is still there to let him open the window and for you to climb in. the bed is left a mess so that if anyone comes, both of you are still inside. seeing no difference, you let out a sigh as neither of sunoo’s parents seems to check on him before you let out a yawn.
sunoo plops down on his bed after pulling out his shoes as he opens his arm for you. your legs brought you to him as you lay down on the other side, grateful for the soft mattress he has.
“you knew i reciprocate your feelings, right?” eyes glancing at the boy.
he hums before speaking, “do we wanna do something about it?”
“i do but....” yawn came from you. “i need some sleep... and you too. you look so tired.”
he wraps his hand around your wrist before you move to let him hold you more.
“we should discuss after we get our deserving sleep,” he agreed, pulling the duvet so that it covers both of you.
-
you see the stack of cash on the table after taeyoung pulls it out. divided into four different stacks before he pushes to each three of you.
“thanks for making my brother broke, guys. he couldn’t even go clubbing anymore.” taeyoung said with a smirk on his face.
“anything to help your brother go a step away from alcohol poisoning.” yuna replied as you all giggled. the commotion in the cafeteria hall masked your conversation as all of you swiftly pluck one stack to be put into your bag.
“how’s the cut on your palm, bestie?” yuna nudges your shoulder with her own.
“it’s healing. i didn’t know it was that deep until i realize that it's because of me holding onto the blade while trying not to get my head chomped by bonnie.” you replied, turning it as trivial as ever as you don’t want the weight to get heavier. all of you spend your sunday healing up from the trip at the start of the day. no communication with each other as you tried to cope with each other, but you spend your time with sunoo instead.
it became more like an impromptu date as he asked you if you want lunch outside. knowing the change between you two’s relationship, you agree and you now see sunoo in a different light like he is towards you. locking your fingers seems to be the perfect pda for both of you who are very new to this.
“we shouldn’t ask (y/n) that.” taeyoung retorts. “we should ask about their date yesterday.”
the two giggle as you glance at sunoo who has his signature sassy look.
“it went well for us. we’re taking it real slow now,” sunoo said as you nod your head.
“that’s right. plus y’all have to change your mindset to always be our third and fourth wheels.” it’s now your and sunoo’s turn to snicker as the two jokingly roll their eyes.
the recess progressed as usual with a new light to it. the fact that all of you survive a dangerous situation. older you must think it’s stupid, to get paid for staying in a haunted place for six hours. but those six hours will stick in your mind for a long time now.
you let your eyes focus on your phone as you scroll down something on your timeline. the three’s conversation is becoming background sound that you could understand tiny bits. but your mind immediately mutes it as your eyes read the words that make you stop scrolling.
“guys...” your words cut through to their conversation as they all turn towards you.
“'the cult-favorite local pizzeria, freddy fazbear’s pizza, is planning to make a horror attraction called fazbear frights.’” you read and spoke the headline as you scroll down on the article, letting out a gasp as you continue.
“‘the owners of the attraction have salvaged and searched every remaining franchise to find animatronics for their attraction but only to find them torn apart or destroyed.'”
“that’s why dad is furious yesterday.” taeyoung exclaimed as he looks at all of you. “the fire makes the property cost plummet, especially with the pizzeria intact now burnt. he must’ve known that he could sell it again without cleaning it up.”
all of you hummed as you continue to scroll down and speak, “'fortunately, the owners already have one animatronic in their arsenal. an original animatronic dating back to years of history for the infamous restaurant chain.’”
“what animatronic?” sunoo exclaimed, meeting your stern eyes as you lift it up to look at your friends. your grip on the phone becomes so tight that you sag your shoulders to help you relax. gulping down your saliva, you finally say it.
“a golden bunny animatronic.”
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ordinaryschmuck · 6 months
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I think the reason why you often see more game/show/movie announcements for a random Marvel character you never heard of where DC primarily focuses on Batman and Batman related characters is because...Marvel built more trust with the obscure.
All the way back when they started the MCU, Marvel didn't have the rights to its more iconic, recognizable, and, more important, marketable characters. Spider-Man went to Sony, X-Men and Fantastic Four went to Fox, and even the Hulk was technically owned Universal. By the time the MCU was being conceived, Marvel only had its C-listers and D-listers. No one even HEARD of characters like Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and ESPECIALLY the Guardians of the Galaxy before the MCU. Even characters like Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor, characters considered Marvel's big three nowadays, characters who the MCU relied on, weren't as huge as DC's big three. Meanwhile, DC had access to ALL of its characters, relying on its most recognizable IPs like Batman and Superman...And, oh yeah, I guess Wonder Woman was there too...Sometimes.
But the biggest seller was always Batman. Because how could he not be? He looked cool, he had an impressive rogues gallery to make toys of, and is everything for DC as Spider-Man was to Marvel. Both Batman and Spider-Man could sell anything. But Marvel technically didn't have the FULL rights to Spider-Man and DC...didn't bother with its other characters. Batman made bank with his videogames, movies, and TV shows to the point where they could sell a Gotham prequel series to Fox and STILL make a lot of cash. Why bother making a movie about Aquaman or The Flash when it likely won't sell as well as BATMAN. Sure, you got a Green Arrow TV show on the same network as a Superman prequel series, but that didn't change how most of DC's other projects weren't connected to Batman in someway.
Teen Titans was a show that starred Robin, Batman's sidekick. Same with Young Justice. And the only time kids got introduced to other DC characters, it was for a campy show like Batman: The Brave and the Bold where BATMAN teamed up with a hero a week. Which would have been a smart way to bring other characters into the light, but it's still connected strictly through BATMAN. Even now, DC has what is best described as a Batman problem. The Flash was a movie that featured two versions of Batman, one of them bringing in nostalgia through a past Batman movie instead of focusing on an old Flash product. And with the last few years, the only video games were Batman related, with Gotham Knights starring Batman's sidekicks and that Suicide Squad game starring Harley Quinn, a BATMAN villain who goes to kill BATMAN that's actually the same BATMAN from an old BATMAN game.
And yeah...I love Batman. We ALL love Batman. He's the coolest character ever conceived and it's the easiest thing in the world to make a movie about him. It might not be a GOOD movie sometimes, but it's at least a movie that'll make billions. But with this over-saturation of Batman, it left DC unsure if they can make anything big WITHOUT him. Because how can they be sure it'll succeed without their signature character that gave them a shitload of money?
But let's go back to Marvel. Starting a cinematic universe without their most popular IPs was a risk. They SORT of had the rights to the Hulk, but...there was no way Hulk would have made more money than a Spider-Man movie. If they wanted to make a successful franchise, Marvel had to put more faith in its other characters, allowing to make good movies and hope that enough people would be interested to see more. And...it worked. Iron Man was a hit, Thor and Captain America got people interest, and the big pay off was the box office smash that was The Avengers. Everyone started to know these characters and it didn't stop there. Guardians of the Galaxy became popular enough to be another big franchise for Marvel, Black Panther became the most popular Black superhero after Blade (another Marvel character), and people were left BEGGING for Spider-Man and the X-Men to join this universe so they could see their old favorites interact with their NEW favorites. And that just...never stopped. Marvel kept pushing more and more characters to the spotlight, with it paying it off for them.
Before 2014, NO ONE would consider buying a Guardians of the Galaxy game. But due to the MCU's revamping of those characters, it was enough to make people willing to do so. And in a few years, we're getting games based on Iron Man, Captain America and Black Panther, and JUST Black Panther, all because the Marvel had enough faith to turn this C-listers into A-listers. As for TV shows, we've got connected MCU stuff like Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel, but also a really good and imaginative cartoon with Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.
Now, to be fair, it's not paying off for Marvel, especially with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels causing the studio to lose bank. They're even thinking about cutting back on riskier stuff and focusing on their bigger franchises. Which...honestly sounds dumb to me not only because the MCU was founded on taking risks, but also because DC is exactly what you get when you focus on JUST the money makers. We're still getting nothing but Batman and Batman related characters or movies/universes that references nothing but Batman. To the point where I just want DC to retire Batman for a year, maybe TWO tops. Marvel proved that you can make a hit if you let other characters than the most marketable one. Even if it fails like The Marvels did, it's not because Captain Marvel isn't as iconic as Iron Man, it's because the movie wasn't as well-written enough. It was a fun time, sure, but not as strongly written as other MCU films. And that's what DC needs to learn and Marvel to remember: It's not about who's the most popular, it's about strong writing.
Hopefully we get more attention on lesser-known Marvel and DC characters in the future.
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otakween · 11 months
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Digimon Tamers - Episode 51 (final episode!)
Yay! I enjoyed this finale. It was basically like the inverse of Adventure where instead of the kids having to go back to the real world it was the digimon having to return to the digital world. It was probably not as emotional as Adventure because the goodbyes were kind of abrupt, but it was close enough. I feel satisfied :^)
Notes:
Exciting title card is exciting. Gotta love it when the final episode switches up the intro for dramatic effect.
Sakuyamon's armor bursts off and her hair streams out when she gives Cyberdramon her power. I was kind of giggling at how fanservicey that was (I wonder if it awakened anything in anyone), but it was nice to see Ruki and Ryo finally cooperating and Ruki respecting Ryo as a teammate.
Lots of flowing hair in this episode: Sakuyamon, Ruki and Juri all get this treatment. Honestly it kinda made Ruki and Juri look really similar in my screenshots (see below), whoops. Other than that, they looked nice.
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They probably just look more similar than normal here because of Juri's serious expression.
Nice of the holy beasts to show up and help, but they barely showed them (you could only see them fading into the distance). I wish they had the budget to animate them more up close because then their heroic moment would have had more oomph.
Why did Juri suddenly have 90s anime eyes in that one scene? She looked so cute lol (Culumon too)
Nice to see the less powerful, more defensive digimon save the day in this with Culumon using a barrier on Juri and then MarineAngemon doing the same for everyone to get them out of the D-Reaper bubble.
I laughed out loud when the goddess monster moaned it's way into the pit. Why was that so goofy sounding? Totally took away any cool-factor for that thing
Now that I think about it, when MarineAngemon saves the day, Hirokazu, Guardromon, and Lopmon did not need to be there. Guess they just wanted to participate haha
Poor Jian and Terriermon have to spin super hard to revert the D-Reapers power. The little "momantai" with swirling eyes was super cute.
It's revealed that part of sealing the digital world and real world connection means that all the partner digimon have to go back to the digital world, but first they revert to babies! Omg the baby digimon were so cuuuute ;w; Guilmon was a lil bean and hearing the super-serious Renamon's baby voice was great too.
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We got a cheesy "Primary colors' insert song that I'm guessing was sung by the VAs, looking forward to giving that a closer listen.
It's interesting to think about what having digimon in the real world would even mean if there are no threats. They just hang out slice of life style? Are there any mon shows like that where there's no fighting? Sounds cute but it probably wouldn't sell as many toys lol.
This poor background child with huge ears:
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I was like "gah! Why is there an elf in their class??"
Glad they didn't end with a silly "and then 20 years later they had all the babies" epilogue. Open-ended is best. Good for the imagination and good for the franchise if they ever want to do more with these characters.
All in all, this was a good kids show. It didn't blow me away or anything, but it was probably stronger than 02 at least. Since no one talks about the other series I can only assume it's all downhill from here -cries- Nah, JK. I'm looking forward to checking out everything else. But first, video game and manga time baby! :D
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celestiachan · 7 days
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underrated 3ds and ds games you can get on hshop and archive.org right now for free
Style Savvy: Styling Star is an eshop exclusive 3ds game that released after the Switch. Way after the Switch. It released on Christmas. It is the worst selling game in the Style Savvy franchise. A shame, because it's the best one. It is a fashion game where you dress up different customers who all want to become singers. There are styles in it that I hadn't ever heard of before playing it. It has gothic lolita, gyaru, pop kei, girly kei, and lots of other j-fashions that I didn't know about before playing it. And there's lesbianism in it. I am not joking. There are actual fictional lesbians in this Nintendo published game. Go play it
Boxboy, Boxboxboy, and Bye-Bye Boxboy are three eshop exclusives, with the last one being released after the Switch. I'm noticing a pattern here. They were developed by the same studio as Kirby, and they (debatably) share a universe. The gameplay of the first game starts off slow, but there is a plot twist halfway through the game. This trend continues to a point where I would consider Bye-Bye Boxboy to be a horror game. There is a fourth game on Switch called Boxboy + Boxgirl, but I would recommend saving that one for after you beat the 3ds trilogy. Oh yeah and the main character is a guy and you can make him wear bows and dresses and makeup. He's gnc af. The only other thing I have to say in regards to its plot is to look very closely at the box behind the player character in the first level of the first game.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 and Last Window: The Secret of Cape West are two visual novel puzzle games for the DS. You play as Kyle Hyde, who is a complete and utter asshole. He is a salesman who used to be a police detective. He shot his partner (who he was probably gay for) 3 years ago and quit the force. Now it's 1979 and he's spending a night at Hotel Dusk for his job. The second game takes place in the apartment building he lives in. Uh oh! His landlady sold it and it's going to be demolished next month. He spends his last week there investigating the unsolved murder of his father. This one only released in Europe and Japan before its developer went out of business. Sad! This is maybe the only video game that has a novelisation of itself inside of it. They really leaned heavily into the visual novel aspect. Also the soundtrack and artstyle of these games are absolutely gorgeous. Please play them
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minkparched · 10 days
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Pretty sure this is going to be my last text post in a while, but I wanna let this out because something's been bugging me about the Sonic canon for a bit.
I was browsing X today (I know) and I came across this post
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As someone who used to be a borderline JP Sonic Purist, one thing that drew me away from that position was realizing how much more interesting the Western characterization of Sonic and his friends were. In the Japanese canon, Sonic and his friends are treated as fairy-like creatures who serve as an infinite source of inspiration and empowerment for the human cast around them (06, X, Unleashed, SA1, SA2). Sonic, being the main character, inspires both his fellow anthromorphic animals and humans alike.
This is especially true for Sonic, who is definitely not a character defined by personhood as he has no known family, background, or ties, which is characteristic of the human experience, rather he's portrayed as something more like an essence, like being described of the wind, and an inspirational figure for everyone around him. He has a boy's heart but the experience of an adult.
He is simultaneously pure because he prefers to focus on adventure and making friends while neglecting love and refuses to ever do things out of a selfish interest, but he is also wise because he is shown as apparently knowing the deeper truths about reality (X, 06, Sonic and the Black Knight, Unleashed). Aside from a few characters, like Eggman, Jet the Hawk and the Babylon Rogues, and Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic is rarely contradicted or opposed by anyone except Eggman and his cronies.
Sometimes, his friends can even be reduced to a generic cheerleader role. Tails is a geek who adores and looks up to Sonic, in a big brother type of relationship. Amy is a fangirl (yes, I'm sure someone wants to tell me her love for him is actually deep and profound yaddayadda) who is Sonic's friend and loves him in spite of his constant rejections towards her. Knuckles was Sonic's former rival turned friend who acts as an occasional sparing buddy but that role was mostly consummated by Shadow.
Now, them being cheerleaders isn't always true. Sometimes Sonic will have an argument with Tails, or Amy will get annoyed at Sonic, or Knuckles will threaten to fight with him, but by and large, interactions in Sonic's world revolve around Sonic.
Yet... while revisiting Sonic media (both Western and Japanese) and researching the intents of the original creators to reignite my life-long interest in the franchise, I'm left with the feeling that this is so unsatisfying on a mundane level. I don't think characters created without personhood and instead exist as essences of the elements or emotions can be truly compelling on a psychological level. At worst, they serve as after-thoughts of characters where the main selling point is a video game that has to prove it has good gameplay and prioritizes above all else. At best, they're good for fans drawn to characters with a semi-blank template with enough interesting information to sink their teeth into but empty to the point where they can easily project themselves or their ideas onto the character. Maybe that was done on purpose?
I didn't understand it before, but I truly believe that this is why characters like Shadow, Rouge, and hell, the Western characters like Sally, Scourge, Mammoth Mogul, Dr. Robotnik, were so beloved in the fandom. Those characters feel like persons, they have a developed backstory, they are interactive with the environment around them, they're noticeably passively/actively reactive to each character they come across, they have strong emotions, face adversary, personal agendas, that make them feel... human. In my opinion, Sonic is too single-mindedly fixated on adventure and thus feels too detached from the world around him, boring me to death instead of making me excited. His wins are also easily given and his rivalry with Eggman is just standard good guy vs bad guy dynamic. There's nothing wrong with a larger-than-life character! After all, those kinds of people exist in real life. But, there's nothing inspiring or exciting about a personality that doesn't feel "hungry" for something.. for lack of a better word.
I mean, Sonic was always a superficial character, but at least in the Classic Era to SA2, they played it well with his swagger and demeanor that was just so damn cool. Since Heroes though? Eh.
In the Western canon, I just like how he (and the cast members) have both noticeable flaws and pros. Seeing someone pick themselves back up after so much adversary and struggling with their vices makes me wanna root for them even harder. It makes their wins much more satisfying and impactful in my opinion, rather than someone who is given the position of the hero by virtue of being supernaturally strong only.
But yeah, in my opinion it's this: Worldbuilding
Western > Japanese
Characterization
Western > Japanese
Setting
Japanese > Western (but Mobius is better than an undefined, unnamed world)
Aesthetics
Japanese > Western
Sound
Japanese > Western
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jeffgerstmann · 1 year
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why does playstation still outsell xbox 2:1? is microsoft STILL paying for the 2013 drm debacle?
I think that's probably part of it, but I'd probably look at the entirety of the previous generation, not just the DRM shit. The Xbox One was an under-powered piece of tech. The PS4 did great, they had smart initiatives to court indies that also helped earn them a lot of goodwill, and all of that is still paying off for them this time around. Sony also has games and first-party franchises that people want to play, and unlike Microsoft, Sony has been able to produce and ship a pretty decent number of those games already. People used to always talk about how games like Uncharted and most of the first-party games were big, but not necessarily as big as Sony felt they could/should be, but even if that's actually true, those games add up. In a world where the differences in hardware between the two machines are kinda minor, being able to say HERE ARE OUR BIG EXCLUSIVE GAMES matters. Sony's also been pretty smart about which games they go after. Surely getting Final Fantasy would be enough to sway some number of people to buy a PS5 over an Xbox Series X.
I also think Microsoft probably needs to be smarter about advertising and educating the mass market about Game Pass? Like do people even know it exists? I guess I'm not the best judge of that since I don't really watch any TV at all, but like... there should be big Game Pass ads on sports games and shit like that. For the mainstream game player who kinda operates on a budget and has a different mindset than the "core" "player," I would think that selling them on "the Netflix for video games" or whatever would be kind of a no-brainer.
In short, Sony has better third-party support, particular with Japanese developers, and their first-party games seem like they're really resonating with people in a way that Microsoft's simply aren't anymore. Maybe Call of Duty or Fortnite are factors here, and their rise helped lower interest in things like Halo or Gears of War? Regardless, it really feels like Microsoft's first-party teams just don't have what the masses are looking for anymore and with due respect to Forza, Starfield is their only big bet (that we know of).
All of that said, though... Microsoft's fortunes in gaming have been spread out. Their first-party games appear on PC and even in third-party stores like Steam. Some percentage of people who might've bought an Xbox are now realizing they don't need to buy one at all. Microsoft has more or less said that they're OK with that trade-off, but it sure does make a lot of these comparison points look rough for them. Ultimately we don't really know what "success" looks like for the Xbox division anymore because their business is more diverse and weird than it used to be (or, to compare, the Xbox business turns on different metrics than Sony's does). They've always seemed like they're taking the long view on things, for whatever that's worth.
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randomthefox · 19 days
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I just came across a video saying that the Sonic movies "saved" the franchise (someone kill me now.) They didn't save anything. Sonic is a game franchise first and foremost, and the games are what most people come for. The movies, like the comics, exists to advertise the games. If anything "saved" the franchise, it was Sonic Frontiers, which sold 3.5 million units worldwide, making it the best-selling Sonic game in a while. The game also sold well in Japan and brought in a lot of new Japanese fans too. This is notable because Sonic isn't as popular in Japan as he is in North America, Europe, or some Latin American countries like Brazil. The East Asian country that Sonic is most popular in happens to be South Korea. Despite this, the game got Japan interested in Sonic for the first time in ages. Frontiers started this new era of Sonic. The movies may have helped but they're not the main source of it.
Honestly this is such a trend for clickbait youtube videos in general. When I was digimon hyperfocusing i cannot tell you the number of videos I started getting recommended with the exact same fucking title of shit like "how cyber sleuth saved Digimon!" and shit like that.
Any time any release for a franchise is mildly popular enough to be recognized by the mainstream and brings in a wave of new normie fans, it gets proclaimed as "saving the franchise." Because fucking children today are so doomer pilled and obsessed with doing whatever they have to do to accrue social approval, they view existing in a comfortably profitable niche as "about to die" and they view popularity as the end all be all.
It's honestly not even worth engaging with those people. They might as well be living on fucking mars.
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felassan · 1 year
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A few more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from an older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age: Origins some months ago -
Chat said "Templars 'reinforce reality' according to Cole. Does this mean lyrium/Titan's blood also reinforces reality? Maybe that's why dwarves don't dream and have Stone Sense?". Mark replied, "Well, I'm not gonna reveal any of the dwarven stuff, I suspect they're gonna get into it some. They're gonna probably get into it in DA:D."
[source]
He also talked more generally about DA:O and the franchise and things in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length -
Can dwarves get possessed? "I'm not sure. Tranquil can"
Chat asked "What would have happened, in your opinion, had Cailan and Celene gotten their way and wed?". Mark replied, "It's hard to say what would have happened". Chat followed up "​I don't think Ferelden would have been at all happy" and he said "That's true"
Warden's Keep was one of the first pieces of DLC that tried to sell itself to players inside the game itself
Chat asked "Were the darkspawn all done by a single voice actor like the Reaper-creatures and Vorcha were all Mark Meer?" Mark said "I don't know. I think within a race they were"
[about the eluvian or eluvian-like art asset/s in Soldier's Peak] "Is it an eluvian? Sure looks like one"
Chat asked ''Were you ever disappointed that DAII ruined the whole 'Dragon Age: NOUN W/ a VOWEL'. We had DA:O, DA:O-A, and DA:I. We almost had DA: Exalted March right?". Mark replied, "Yes I'm disappointed that DAII ruined the Dragon Age, it was supposed to be Dragon Age: Exodus. I definitely carry entirely too much emotional baggage on that one."
[source]
(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)
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eri-blogs-life · 1 month
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Today officially marks my 5-year anniversary of starting gender-affirming hormone replacement therapy! It's been a real good five years, overall. A mixed bag at times, for sure, with my old shitty job and then me losing my job and getting into extreme debt, but on the bright side I'm in a great relationship, I've got some fantastic friends, and I feel like I am my own person now and all that good stuff's got a lot to do with my transition.
Anyway, to celebrate I decided to take a whole day off work and play a bunch of video games! Quick impressions on like the half-dozen games I played at least an hour or so of today, in no particular order other than the order I played them in today:
Lego: Lord of the Rings
I'll be real, I was not the biggest fan from my first impression. I grew up with Lego Star Wars, and still love that game to this day, but a new Lego game for me...? The gameplay is pretty simple, which is fine but not necessarily the most engaging.
Worst of all though is adding voice acting. One of the best aspects of the Lego Star Wars games was that they had to get creative with how they told the story, focus only on the really important details, and come up with unique ways for characters to express themselves. By ripping the dialogue straight out of the Lord of the Rings movies instead, it cuts a lot of the Lego charm that I loved so much in those games growing up.
Probably not going to play much more of this one
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun
RIP AND TEAR
Holy shit, this game slaps. Like, I'd heard lots of good things, but now that I've played it I can really feel just how good it is. The pixel art intro is amazing (though a little long-winded for my taste I feel), the graphics of the core gameplay are absolutely beautiful, the music and sound feels so good to the ears, the shooting feels so clunky and satisfying... All around, an absolutely awesome experience.
I am definitely going to be beating this one at LEAST once through.
Lethal Company
Far from my first time playing Lethal Company, but yeah, this is a real fun game. The mix of horror and goofing off with friends just makes for a real fun experience. Once you start learning the creatures' behaviors and they stop being so scary, it really does become just a fun, goofy, silly time with friends in which you ocassionally get extremely freaked out by something suddenly killing you when you don't expect it.
Absolutely playing more, of course.
Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin Edition
I've written about this game before on my blog, it is one of my favorite games of all time and I absolutely adore it. I didn't play for a whole lot today, mostly just booted it up and played until I died, but that made for a satisfying little taste of the game again. Without the social aspect of me playing this game with my friend Jon back in college, though, it definitely doesn't have quite the same appeal.
I don't know if I'm going to play more DS2 anytime soon. I played so, so many hours of this game and explored nearly all its secrets, I don't know how much more playtime I've got in me.
XCOM 2
I've been playing this game for the past few weeks, actually, and fucking loving it. I adored the original reboot XCOM and played it tons, and I picked up XCOM 2 shortly after its release, but I didn't actually give it a real good playing until recently. It's fantastic, but man is it rough to play. You lose a couple of good soldiers on one mision and it feels like everything starts chain-reacting til you've lost the whole run.
Definitely going to be playing more. I want to see this game's ending at least once.
Slay the Spire
Quite possibly my favorite game of all time, I love Slay the Spire's everything. Its game loop, its art, its music, the whole package is absolutely fantastic.
Absolutely I'm playing this game more. I also cannot wait for StS 2.
Cube Escape Collection
Alright, so my first exposure to this series was my neice playing a Cube Escape game on her ipad in, like, 2014, and then I didn't think about it again for a really long time. It was just some weird little puzzle game for mobile apps for kids or whatever. But then I saw this game on steam one time on sale, thought the name sounded familiar, and decided to pick it up. So far in first little experience, it's chill. I do enjoy me a good little escape room puzzle, for sure.
Probably going to play more, but it might be a while before I pick it up again
Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp
I loved Monster Prom - its fun characters and silly setting make for a really entertaining time. I finally got around to trying out the sequel. It's good, though mechanically it felt like largely the same core loop. It's not a bad loop by any means, and of course the real appeal is in the new romanceable characters, but I didn't find myself really falling too hard for any of them on an initial runthrough like I did with Polly in Monster Prom.
I might play more. Might try at least one run to date Aaravi cause they seemed fun.
Highschool Romance
Holy shit this made me feel things. The premise of a boy has to crossdress to fit in at an all-girls school feels kinda silly at first blush, but it really feels like the game takes it seriously. I dunno, when the game put me in a situation where I had to make a decision between revealing my identity to the girl I was interested in or keeping it a secret, I had to just pause the game and step away for a few minutes. The game really got me in to feeling like I was there in the character's shoes, caught in the headlights of a near impossible decision between trying to keep my secret a little longer or coming out when I didn't know how she'd take it. I tried keeping it a secret, but it didn't exactly end up working out, and she found out. But she was cool about it. And she even wanted to kiss me, which was pretty hot.
I'm absolutely about to play the fuck out of this game.
Ocean's Heart
Didn't play this game for long, but I got just enough of a taste to say it seems really promising. Got a lot of the 2D Zelda genes in it and from my short time with it, it feels pretty fun to play.
Definitely going to play more of it, but I think it's going to go back onto the backlog for now while I focus on other games.
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voidsentprinces · 1 month
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Youtube trying to hype me on WoW again like I haven't seen this all before. WoW is pretty much on the Sonic Cycle...
What is the Sonic Cycle?
To quote the video game critic, Yahtzee from his review of Sonic Generations:
"Now, the fan reaction to new Sonic games has been getting kind of predictable of late. The first thing that usually happened is that everyone goes, "Oh my god, it's actually good! Sonic doesn't suck anymore! Our saviour has returned! Paint your household pets blue and mutilate baby foxes in thanks!" Then, after a couple of weeks pass and everyone's had a chance to play it, things go mysteriously quiet. Skip forward a year or two and Sonic Team inevitably bring out another Sonic game and up go the voices again. "Oh my god, it's actually good! Sonic doesn't suck anym-" etc., etc. I've seen picnic blankets with less consistent patterns."
All the animations and Chris Metzen interviews in the world isn't going to sell me on how the next expansion actually IS. Everyone was super hyped on Warlords of Draenor and then Blizzard just abandoned it literally half way through. Everyone was hyped about Battle for Azeroth until they actually had to play Battle for Azeroth for a couple years. Everyone was hyped for Shadowlands until Shadowlands happened. And everyone was hyped about Dragonflight until...far as I can tell, they rushed the end of Dragonflight so they could use the rest of the X.X patches to hype up War Within.
I mention Chris Metzen interviews because I am pretty sure that man could sell the Elephant's Foot as the most delicious chocolate cake in the world to the WoW Fandom and they would of bought it in bulk.
Void, isn't this an FFXIV Blog?
Oh my sweet summer child...I use to be neck deep into WoW until Battle for Azeroth when I realized I had wasted my entire young adult and teenage life on Warcraft because it went from something semi-good and coherent to being run by the producers and writers of Netflix Witcher under the Harvey Weinstein production company. And now its just run by the producers and writers of Netflix's Witcher but Gamer Jeff Bezos is calling the shots now as the Monopoly of Bill Gate's Scrotum hangs over it all.
So I moved to Final Fantasy XIV. Which I mean...is a decent game and the last couple CEOs of SquareEnix have been...questionable at best. But at least it doesn't retcon its fucking lore every three expansions. It actually tries to build off the world it set up for itself.
So yeah this is the lamentation of an ex-fan having seen Warcraft go from Terminator 2: Judgment Day to...well actually to the Sonic Franchise come to think of it.
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