#but also it sounds like a band

[phoenixkaptain]

Have you ever noticed that while we have a bunch of evidence that William explicitly told Elizabeth not to go near the Circus Baby animatronic, and the implication of the lines is that he said this multiple times and was very insistent on it, and the Fredbear plush (no matter who you think is speaking through it) told the Crying Child not to go near the animatronics in general, the lines here also suggest that it has given this advice multiple times, we don’t actually have any evidence that Michael was ever told not to go near any of the animatronics?

In fact, in regard to Michael, the only evidence we do have is Michael being explicitly told to go mess around with animatronics. “It was right where you said it would be.” “I put her back together, just like you asked me to.” These both tell us that 1. Unlike the other children, Michael was not only encouraged to go hang out with animatronics but was also encouraged to go mess around with animatronics and 2. Michael’s tone of speaking could imply that this is the first time he’s been told to go mess around with animatronics.

Now, I’m not saying that William, from the very start, took a baby Michael and just handed him over to Fredbear without worrying about it, but I do think William tried to get Michael invested in some aspect of the business. I believe this because Michael’s the oldest son. And while Utah doesn’t have heir apparent to the family title, it did, back in the seventies and eighties, have a common idea that young men should follow in their fathers’ footsteps. Or, at the very least, the oldest son should bond with his father through a shared knowledge of the father’s job.

This was exceptionally common everywhere, but especially in Utah, where the people have always been (as we will diplomatically call it) traditional.

(But, of course, the Aftons probably are not originally from Utah. That doesn’t actually have much of a sway in form of argument in this particular case, because Mormons have a long history of outcasting people they considered “other.” If you smoked, if you drank to excessively, if you didn’t go to church, if you did go to church but not the “correct” way (I have no fucking clue what the correct way is, I only know that I, personally, did not do it correctly as a four-year-old, I know, baffles the mind), you were other and therefore, nobody would speak to you. And, more importantly to my case, nobody would go to your business.

William, being the one who spoke to more people (if we trust the books) had to at least play at being charmingly British enough that his neighbours wouldn’t think he’s a bad person. In fact, they would probably accept that he doesn’t want to go to church if he just used being from another country to get out of it (but they would probably suggest it everytime he spoke to them anyway) but William would have to fit in in other ways so he didn’t come across as too other. Enter Michael.

His relationship with Michael, if it mimicked the common relationship of father-and-son at the time, would be enough to charm people into believing he’s a family man and going to his diner anyway. Having three children was already going to boost people’s opinions of him, but if, on top of that, his oldest son “helped” with animatronics or paperwork or even if he just occasionally wiped tables, that would add more to the public image of the business being a family operation, just this one included two families.)

Admittedly, we don’t know much about how Michael acts. But, since it’s a similar case to Ethan Winters from the Resident Evil series (1. Both first person. 2. Both keeping the face out of view from the viewer, even going as far as obscuring mirrors or leaving mirrors out entirely. 3. Both of them get taken over by an outside entity (Ennard and Mold, respectively). 4. Both seem to do incredibly stupid things (“I think I’ll go see my wife in this ominous house I was given the address to multiple years after her disappearane and assumed death. I want my dearest darlingest baby girl back so I am going to fight hell monsters with whatever weapons aren’t nailed down and if I have to fight a god, then I guess I have to fight a god. I inexplicably know how to put together a functioning flamethrower.” “Well, Dad told me to go down in his weird undergroudn bunker that he keeps behind the house where my sister who has been missing for some amount of time is apparently hanging out, so I guess I’ll head down there on the nightly.” “I will not make any noise of complaint or annoyance or fear or even pain as I am inconvenienced and hurt and even murdered.” “I inexplicably consider being used as a flesh suit by the possessed wires of multiple animatronics a win because I’m pretty sure my sister was in there somewhere, so great news, Old Man, I’ve succeeded in the task.”) 5. I like comparing media that technically is very different but is similar in key ways and that’s what I’m currently doing. Shh, go with it, my child, go with it) I’m going to assume that Michael’s face does the same thing Ethan’s does. As in, if you wait long enough, even in situations where Ethan should reasonably be terrified, he just looks sort of like he’s wondering if he left the oven on. I like to think that’s how Michael’s face looks. Like: “Oh no, Ballora could catch me at any moment and kill me! …I wonder if that bird I saw last week is having any luck finding worms? It’s been a bit of a dry year.”

Michael certainly seems determined, but he only seems determined if we assume that he’s in more than one game. Like, if we think Michael isn’t the guy running the pizzeria in Pizzeria Simulator, then Michael said “I’m going to come find you” to his father and didn’t do anything? If we assume he isn’t the nightguard of the first game, if we assume he isn’t the second nightguard in the second game, if we assume he is only the protagonist of Sister Location, then Michael is the funniest character of all time. Because he literally said “Father, I am going to come find you” and then went back inside and enjoyed a quiet life? Maybe he did look around but didn’t go to any of the obvious places, the restaurants his father worked and killed at? Maybe he knew exactly where William was and just said “Ah, fock it, I’m going back to my tele-novella, tell me when you’re dead, Father.” It also makes William screaming for Michael a lot funnier because oh my God, William, do you think he’ll just teleport there?

(Sorry, that was a tangent. I saw someone complain about the night guards all being the same person or related to the events of the game in some way and it kind of annoyed me. “Why must they be the same person?” you ask? Because that’s just basic storytelling. The characters have to be related to the plot in some way, or the storytelling is nonexistent. And besides, from a narrative perspective, it makes a more satisfying story if Michael is the night guard of at least one location, because it means that Michael isn’t the stupidest man alive. He’s looking for his father. If I was in Michael Afton’s shoes, looking for my father who I knew was a tad obsessive about robots, I would go to the robot restaurant. It makes sense. (I’m sorry, I went on a tangent within my apology for going on a tangent. I will get back to the actual point now.))

We know that William told Elizabeth not to go near animatronics (or at least not to go near one animatronic). We know that someone told the Crying Child not to go near any animatronics. But we don’t have any evidence that Michael was ever told any of the animatronics were dangerous. In fact, evidence suggests that he was not only told to hang around animatronics, but he’s basically used to them. He finds his brother’s fear of animatronics amusing, which, to me, suggests that he finds the animatronics to be the opposite of scary. It suggests that he’s around them enough (because apparently Crying Child and Michael just hung out at the robot restaurant nearly every day of their lives, for some reason) that he’s either ignored any warnings that they’re dangerous or he was never told they could be dangerous in the first place.

Why does any of this matter?

Because I am sick and tired of people complaining about Michael killing his brother. They say it makes him an asshole big brother, I’ve seen some suggest it makes him just like his father, and I respectfully disagree. Michael is certainly not winning any Brother of the Year awards, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t find his relationship with his brother to be unrealistically cruel.

Michael doesn’t hurt his brother. He only scares him. That’s his entire goal. He’s a dick, yes, but he doesn’t seem to actively pursue harmjng his little brother.

Michael was never told the animatronics were dangerous. Michael was never told to stay away from them, and even if he was, it wasn’t terribly convincing. (“Son, the robot performers are super duper dangerous and you should never ever not once go near any of them. Now, here’s a dollar, go play near the robot performers.”)

Michael, if anything, is trying to get his brother to see that he’s overreacting. He’s trying to prove that they aren’t dangerous. He’s trying to show his brother that the animatronics won’t hurt him. He’s making fun of his brother, yes, but the fact that he gets him so close to the stage and goes so far as to put his head in Fredbear’s mouth tells me that he was basically doing something similar to shoving a worm in someone’s face. He was trying to scare him, yes, but then his brother would, we assume, see that nothing happened and would be shaken, but ultimately admit that Michael was right, the animatronics aren’t dangerous.

This, obviously, isn’t what happens. But I’m pretty sure Michael didn’t purposefully kill his brother and I’m even more sure that he wasn’t even trying to hurt him.

I have three older brothers. And, it was a similar situation in that the four of us were left to watch each other a lot while our parents were at work. And while I know my brothers are not the mold for all brothers, I also know that there’s a reason people talk about the “Cain Instinct.” Boys roughhouse. And, while not actively encouraged in Utah, it’s certainly not discouraged either.

Michael was being a dick, yes. But, the behaviour is similar to a child who doesn’t think that guns are dangerous, whether because they’re not told or because they’re left unsupervised with access to guns. This sort of incident is not without precedent. And while it was certainly stupid, Michael didn’t do anything that a dumb big brother wouldn’t do.

[inkskinned]

he says i hate everyone except you and that is addictive and that is kind of romantic and beautiful because you're young and you're kind of a sarcastic asshole too and you don't like bad boys, per say, but you don't really like good ones either. and you like that you were the exception, it felt like winning.

except life is not a romance book, and he was kind of being honest. he doesn't learn to be nice to your friends. he only tolerates your family. you have to beg him to come with you to birthday parties, he complains the whole time. you want to go on a date but - people are often there, wherever you're going. he's just so angry. about everything, is the thing. in the romance book, doesn't he eventually soften? can't you teach him, through your own sense of whimsy and comfort?

at first - you know introverts often need smaller friend groups, and honestly, you're fine staying at home too. you like the small, tidy life you occupy. you're not going to punish him for his personality type.

except: he really does hate everyone but you. which means he doesn't get along with his therapist. which means he has no one to talk to except for you. which means you take care of him constantly, since he otherwise has no one. which means you sometimes have to apologize for him. which means he keeps you home from seeing your friends because he hates them. you're the single exception.

about a decade from this experience, you'll type into google: how to know if a relationship is codependent.

he wraps an arm around you. i hate everyone except you. these days, you're learning what he's actually confessing is i have very little practice being kind.

[fexjam]

Medic headcanons💉

[mispatchedgreens]

clothing, day 2 of @radiantemperorweek

he/she dyke fashions

[bucephaly]

It's kinda shocking to me how few people seem to know how prevalent the 'my great grandmother was cherokee' myth is and how it's almost never actually true, especially when it comes with things like 'never signed up' or 'fell off the trail' or 'courthouse burned down destorying the documentation' etc etc.

People just don't even seem to know the history like.. when the Trail happened. My great great great grandfather was 2 years old during Removal in 1838, so peoples 'my great grandmother hid in the mountains!' is so clearly wrong. And we have rolls. From before and after removal, rolls done by cherokee nation and others by the government, rolls that were not stored in one random flammable courthouse. It's not difficult to find the actual evidence of ancestry.

And just.. there are lots of ways those family stories get started. It was a practice during the confederacy to claim cherokee ancestry to show one's family had 'deep roots in the south' that they were there before the cherokee were removed. Many people pretended to be cherokee and applied for the Guion-Miller payout just to try to steal money meant for cherokees - 2/3rds of the applicants were denied for having 0 proof of actual cherokee ancestry. [We even see lawyers advertising signing up for the Miller roll just to try to get free money.] And the myth even started in some families in the cherokee land lotteries, where the land stolen from us was raffled off, including the house and everything that was left behind when the cherokees were removed. We have seen people whose families just take these things stolen from the cherokee family and adopt them into their own family story, saying that they were cherokee themselves.

If you had some family story about being cherokee and you wanna have proof one way or the other, check out this Facebook group run by expert cherokee genealogists that do research for free. Just please read the rules fully and respect the researchers. They run thousands of people's ancestries a year and their average is only around 0.7% of lines they run actually end up having true cherokee ancestry.

[delawaredetroit]

Since we're talking names, I went to the fandom wiki to dig into Mirio's real name and hero name a bit more, and I'm even more convinced of my interpretation of his character and the depths to which he is meant to be a foil for Izuku.

Both of their hero names are calls to action created from puns of their given names. The first character of Izuku's name can be read as "de" which Bakugou used to call him Deku, worthless/a wooden doll, which Ochako reinterpreted as dekiru as in "you can do it!". Izuku writes his hero name in accordance with Ochako's interpretation, but it's still a homophone with how he was called by Bakugou. And that "you can do it!" is simultaneously Izuku's aspirations for himself, a callback to his origin, and a call to action for others.

Mirio's name is close to a homophone with the Japanese pronunciation of million, and his hero name is Lemillion. His goal is to save a million people. He lacks the ambition to save everyone or create a new framework for their society. Assuming Japan's population was around 126.8 million people during this chapter, Mirio's highest ambition was to save approximately one percent of the population. It's a grand goal for an average pro hero, but for a supposed fledging symbol that goal is nothing special.

There are conflicting indications in Mirio's name concerning One for All. Mirio's name does fit within the number pattern for One for All successors. His surname contains a kanji that can also be read as ten just like the "ku" in Izuku's name is a homophone for nine. But, his surname, Togata, can also be read as "conformity", which is the opposite of the role of a One for All successor.

All the One for All users went against the grain of their time. The first three went against the man who first brought society back together again after the Dawn of Quirks (because he was trying to rule over everything). Shinomori rejected the existing society entirely and lived in the woods. Banjo through Nana were swimming against the tide trying to keep society together and fight the ultimate villain during times of turmoil. All Might was an orphan who came from nothing who aspired to be a pillar for society to progress. Izuku had ambitions to include those excluded/disempowered by All Might's era of peace (not that Izuku thinks poorly of All Might but they have disagreements concerning questions like can everyone be saved or are their inherently evil quirks).

Mirio's rationality and achievable, grounded goals just don't mesh well with the ethos of One for All despite the surface level compatibility.

Tl;dr: Mirio isn't crazy enough to be a One for All successor

[not-the-coffee-machine4]

Roger Taylor’s vocal range is so insanely slept on like tell me why I was just reading about countertenors and Wiki saying they tend to top out generally at E5 and Roger’s RECORDED DEMONSTRATE-ABLE vocal range is Bb1-E6. SIX. A whole OCTAVE above what was listed. And even calling him a tenor or countertenor is misleading ‘cause there’s somewhat of an implication that he can’t sing low LET ME REMIND YOU I JUST SAID B FLAT ONE. ONE. (I know voice type is where you’re generally most comfortable not just what you’re physically capable of and he seemed to naturally fall into the high range and etc etc don’t get technical with me rn) That is one note lower than Freddie’s highest and seven notes lower than Freddie’s lowest. Why does nobody talk about this like that’s insane??

[lesbiandarvey]

one band of brothers 2001 missing scene i can see so clearly in my head is like. okay so at the beginning of the episode they found some warehouse full of stolen/stored nazi art. and the one nix took for himself was like from the romantic period of a medieval looking woman welcoming her battle weary crusader husband home. and hes this knight sitting down and shes kneeling in front of him washing his face with a clean cloth

and then at the end of the episode winters comes home to their billet, filthy and covered in mud and nix is waiting for him. and they dont say anything you just hear the rustle of clothes, the sound of water being sloshed as lewis puts dick in a chair at the kitchen table and sits him down and kneels in front of him, and gingerly peels off dicks muddy jacket and boots and wets a clean rag in a basin on the table and delicately starts to clean his face. again theres no dialogue or even background music all we hear is the sound of nix cleaning dicks face as hes on his knees in front of him. and then pan out and we see the painting leaning against the wall

[slurpyboii]

OH MY GODDDD MY SON FINALLY GOT A NENDOROID OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GODD

[kindahoping4forever]

LukeHemmings: The city tends to move on all the same.

[aithusarosekiller]

Nothing more painful than seeing the people who worship the fic that turned Remus into an edgy, anger-issues, messy heartthrob drug dealer without his loving parents turn around and say that a 12 year old saying he'd like a Taylor Swift song is too extreme

Welcome to your first day in fandom, you're just as outlandish as the rest of us! Your cool rockstar Remus is just as unrealistic as theirs, stop feigning moral superiority over someone having fun.

Anyway I'm not saying canon him would be a mega-fan but if it was set in modern day and exile came on while he was marking papers he'd totally let it play through

[canisalbus]

Your art tastes like aged paper, sugar, and chocolate to me, with a hint of salt every so often

Machete looks like white chocolate, and Vasco's like buttery caramel

.

[mercymaker]

ENVER GORTASH & THE DARK URGE

[madcapberry]

Great Frog is such an accurate indie band name. I feel like the writers were trying to come up with a really silly name and maybe it was actually ridiculous for the time but this could be the name of a local band from my midwestern hometown 100%

[caligarish]

We're The Long Quiet, sure, but since the Voices stay with us only for a little while and are strong presences... are they The Short Louds