Hi there! I really love your vast universe of headcanons, so I have a request :b
How would each Bot (TFP) react to the game Five Nights at Freddy's? Because, like, if you think about it, Cybertronians kinda ARE animatronics😂 . So would that make them more scared, or less scared? Also, I just wanna see how they'd all react to getting jumpscared.
Oooh! Interesting little concept! I love doing the bots reactions to things like this! Although admittedly I don't know how all the mechanics for FNAF work despite knowing a lot of lore, so yeah, this could end up amazing or crap.
Five Nights at Freddy's
The children regularly played video games, it was nothing new to the team. They were the ones who got Bumblebee and Smokescreen hooked after all. Most of the time the children played pretty tame games, often a shooter or racing game of sorts, nothing to be concerned about. However one Friday night after school Rafael brought a new video game to base to share.
It seemed normal at first to the team who were watching from the corners of their optics as they worked. It seemed to be a horror game, one where there was a hidden enemy. And that perked the interest of the team who slowly gathered around to watch as Rafael played the game he called Five Nights at Freddy's.
At first everything seemed relatively normal to the team. From what they gathered there was a hidden monster trying to hunt down the player character to do something awful like suck out their spark or something. The team didn't fully get it, but they watched nonetheless and in increasing horror as the enemies were revealed to be what the human children called "animatronics".
Ratchet: That has to be at least third degree frame deterioration! And look at all those exposed components! How in Primus's name are those poor mecha still functioning??!
Optimus: Are they perhaps spark eaters? Or ghouls?
Arcee: They could be beastformers gone rogue. I've heard of a few cases like that.
Bulkhead: No way. Those have to be techno-organics. How else would they function without spark chambers?
Wheeljack: Nah, they have to be triplechangers. Look at all those excess transformation seams.
Ultra Magnus: Ridiculous. Whatever those things are, they are obviously tortured mecha who have been set up in some sick bloodsport.
Bumblebee: Is this some type of gladiatorial game then? There's no way the player character would be in this situation unless forced.
Smokescreen: Those mecha aren't acting all that rationally. If they really wanted to kill the player character they should have just swarmed. Seems like rookie behavior to me.
Arcee: So sayeth the rookie.
The team were filled with endless questions upon seeing the enemies in the game. And so at Miko and Rafael's behest, every bot was convinced to sit down and give the game a try. It went about as well as one might expect.
Ratchet, wanting to know what the frag the animatronics were all about, sat down first. He was very methodical and dutifully spent time looking over all the mechanics and game controls. He then took every in game night slow, meeting every animatronic and stopping them in their tracks before they could jump-scare him. However his slow and methodical approach backfired during the last night when the stakes got higher and in the end he did get caught. His first response was to leap back with his blade extended and ready to fight back. He was no stranger to battle and he was certain he could take on a beaten and mad mech. He was not afraid, merely battle-ready.
Of course Ratchet made valiant attempts to beat the game. And once he did, he refused to shut up about how simple it was and how ridiculous the animatronics were. He made it a point to try and prove that the animatronics were not akin to Cybertronians in any way, and not a spark stopped him since none wanted to admit just how off the whole thing felt.
Optimus went next just to prove a point and to figure out the lore of the game to understand the animatronics better. He was far less interested in the gameplay and more invested in the story above all else. This led him to get jump scared a handful of times, all of which he didn't even flinch at. But most of his time was spent picking apart the story and quickly finding himself far more in fear of the plot than the machines involved. The souls of children being trapped in the frames of decrepit machines and stuck unable to even control themselves properly... it was horrible.
Once he finished the game, he didn't touch it again. He didn't want to. It hurt his spark to see such innocents beings subjected to what was in his mind, unlawful spark transfers, shadow play, and a degree of slave coding. He ended up refusing to even speak on the game, it brought back bad memories. Where Ratchet tried to walk off the poor feelings associated with the game by disproving it, Optimus just didn't want to even think about it.
The children noticed both these behaviors and tried not to bring up the game around the team leader and medic since it was obvious both were not pleased.
Ultra Magnus refused to play after watching Optimus and Ratchet go through it. He had similar thoughts about the game and viewed it as being made in poor taste as it made a mockery of the suffering of those who the council harmed. And while he did realize the humans who made the game couldn't have known about the pain of those on Cybertron, he still wasn't fond of it. He personally saw the whole thing as disrespectful to the fallen and those who were lost to plague and the cruelties of the caste system. And while perhaps a bit of a far fetched connection, the appearance of the animatronics... he couldn't handle it, not after the Cybonic plague.
Wheeljack and Bulkhead took it better than their superior officers and even enjoyed the game. They opted not to think too hard on the deeper implications of the story and instead had fun poking around with game mechanics. Wheeljack tried to see how he could break the game, often trying to outsmart the game AI and cheat his way through just to prove that he could. Bulkhead didn't play much and more often than not just cheered Wheeljack on, but both always startled during jump-scares simply because it reminded them both of scraplets and the shapeshifters on Cybertron.
For them it was like the old sparkling stories of scraplets coming to eat them alive had become reality. And while they knew it was a silly human game, they both found a degree of entertainment in facing a knockoff version of their sparklinghood fears.
Wheeljack: *getting jump-scared* HOLY SCRAP!
Bulkhead: FRAGGING PLASMA PIT JACKIE!
Wheeljack: That was FANTASTIC! I've got to figure out how that little beasty caught me!
Ratchet: How in the Allspark do you two find enjoyment in this bloodsport?!
Bumblebee and Smokescreen found the deeper implications of the game too dark to consider so instead they took to trying to speedrun the game as best as they could. However considering speedrunning a survival game is a rather difficult feat, they instead made it a game to see who could avoid the most jump-scares. Smokescreen almost always screamed like a little girl whenever he got jump-scared, even throwing his remote at the T.V once. Bumblebee never outwardly screamed, but he did almost crush his remote when he got startled once too many times.
They got invested to the point of trying to get every achievement possible. Together with the children, Bumblebee and Smokescreen spent one long night beating the whole game through a use of tricks, training, and even the odd online tutorial. They were dead tired come morning, but they "won" so they spent the day sleep deprived but pleased with themselves. They received nothing but disappointed looks from the older members of the team. Although Bulkhead and Wheeljack did offer smiles and thumbs up at their efforts.
Arcee for her part wasn't interested in the game after watching the differing reactions from others on the team. She too had seen too much of old Cybertron to ignore the game's implication. So while she didn't play, she most certainly watched and made it a habit to comment on everyone else's playing styles. Wheeljack and Bulkhead received most of her mockery, especially when they cursed in fear loud enough for the whole base to hear. For Bumblebee and Smokescreen she just tried to scare them when they were most focused just to watch them flip out.
It brought her a degree of sick joy to watch her companions flail because of a game. The children for their part found the situation amusing and somewhat concerning. All in all, it was obvious who could handle video games and who could not.
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So we all know the blog @/humans used by Staff to communicate with Tumblr users directly and yada yada.
They do this thing of liking posts relating to various things, a lot of times about problems they're resolving, people being positive towards Staff, etc...
But after some time they go back and dislike those posts, so those posts are only there temporarily. This is probably used as a bookmarking feature or just to tell the OPs of said posts that Staff heard them and are promptly removed from the liked page when the Staff members think that the message came across.
So over the last few months I've sometimes taken a peak at the likes, and the thing is that they usually clean the likes until a certain post. After that post they leave the likes untouched.
Now you're probably wondering which post Staff seems to refuse to remove from their liked page?
Well uhm.
I think nothing more needs to be said.
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being very truthful i wasn't feeling particularly positive about the trailer for TIT (still bought tix though hi nyc <3) and am holding out hope they do a little more teasing for what this tour is actually about in future videos,
but i cannot deny that this specific frame of it
("we basically raised half of them." - phil)
like very specifically got me? like obviously yes the bit is like, they're our dads i started watching them age twelve et cetera but. i don't know. with the way all of this is laid out, the contrasting colors that blend together and the silhouettes on their respective sides (as we always view them, dan to the left & phil to the right) and the screens, it says so loudly like... it's dan and phil, side by side. it's the two of them. it's been them for the last fifteen years.
it's a we, it's a testament that this kinda sacred thing of 'dan and phil' has lasted a really long time, and survived a hiatus, solely because dan and phil themselves have known each other and existed alongside each other for those fifteen years. and yes, obviously, this trailer is all scripted, but this exchange still has this feeling of it being about them, not just their brand together-- they aren't really talking to the audience, here, are they? it wasn't solely 'dan and phil' content that raised the audience; dan and phil did. (maybe a redundant point, but i am working off of the negative space here. a lot of this feels like intertwining themselves with their online personas, and simultaneously walking that line. letting us see only what they want to be shown, and now examining that introspectively).
i hope that makes sense, i'm not much of an analyst or theorist. i don't know what the dan and phil renaissance really is yet, and i am a bit afraid of it all, but i'm really excited, both for everything that's to come but also -- more importantly -- i'm just fucking excited for them.
for this bond between them and the phandom to blossom in the healthy ways it has been lately, for the opening of new doors amidst this phan renaissance... and for them to take back what the internet took from them.
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i think like. so much would be solved if we normalized the fact that some people do experience delusions and hallucinations. like yes, its something that those people need help with/need more accommodations for, but we could use being more understanding of people with psychotic symptoms in general.
like, i can tell you that at least one person raving about conspiracy theories is someone who experiences delusions, and if we understood that, we wouldn't have such a hard time getting them back to a more grounded perspective.
i am someone who experiences delusions and I do get incredibly triggered by all the unreality bullshit, the simulation theories, all that unreal bullshit, and it is actively negatively impacting people like me.
we could really use a better understanding of those with these symptoms, because acting like having hallucinations/delusions makes you a killer is a take that makes zero sense. Like, genuinely, you have no idea what you're talking about if that's where you immediately go. I can point out a bunch of shit discussing the darkness of humanity and that logic applies to anyone, regardless of mental illness. Delusions and hallucinations don't mean you'll act on anything, it just means that your brain is creating false images or thoughts, and that can get really fucking confusing.
We could use a little more empathy or compassion towards those with these symptoms, because obviously this shit isn't going away for us, just like other disabled people dealing with their disabilities. We are not idiots or monsters, our brain just gives us random false shit sometimes and it really fucking sucks. Be more understanding or I'll telepathically insert false shit into your brain one day, y'all should see the nightmare that some of us have to deal with.
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Interesting how the Trident incident is the only moment where people question Joffrey's capacity for cruelty. He is almost universally considered one of the worst asoiaf characters, with no redeemable qualities. No one ever attempts to justify his actions when he abuses Sansa, orders Ned's executions, or any of his other many acts of violence. It's only this moment, a moment meant to introduce us to his cruel nature, that people seem to believe him to be a rational character with limits. It's honestly laughable. It's evident that the people who think like this are just biased against Arya; the majority of these arguments are centered not around Joffrey's violence, but Arya's actions to defend Mycah. People seem to truly believe that the better option would have been to let Joffrey "have his fun" and torment Mycah.
Debating how badly Joffrey would've hurt Mycah misses the entire point of the moment. Joffrey attacks Mycah because he's lowborn, he finds amusement in tormenting others, and he knows he can get away with it. He was quick to pull his sword and draw blood and, from what we know of his character, he undoubtedly would've taken it further. Arya stands up to him because she thinks that Mycah is worth defending which is significant considering she is the only one to do so. She is also the only character who mourns him and is affected by his senseless death, even books later (Ned is affected by his death but I wouldn't say he mourns him, although it is a moment that influences his feelings towards the Lannisters and Robert). Even if, which is a very big if, Joffery hadn't intended to go any further he had already crossed a line by attacking Mycah. The only alternative would be that Arya simply sits by and watches Joffrey further injure Mycah...and that's somehow the "better" option?
The people coming to the conclusion that Arya was the one who escalated the situation (and that it's somehow not Joffrey pulling his sword on an innocent boy) are coming from the perspective of the classist society that they live in. Joffrey attacking a lowborn boy wasn't an issue worth action, but harming a prince is "wrong". Mycah being attacked, and later murdered, is seen as inconsequential to the other characters (and readers) because he is lowborn. That's the thing though. You aren't supposed to look at this situation where a young boy is murdered for no reason and think that the only one who defended should've behaved differently. This moment is a criticism of the classist society these characters live in. It is significant that Arya is markedly less classist than a majority of other characters and cares when no one else does.
Further, if Arya were truly in the wrong for her actions then Joffrey wouldn't have needed to lie about what happened. From the very existence of the "trial" and Arya being given the chance to tell her version of events, we know that there wouldn't be any punishment if the truth of the situation had been told from the very beginning. The only reason there was an issue is because Joffrey decided to attack Mycah, and then later lie about what happened. Arya is not responsible for Joffrey's cruelty, Cersei's enabling, or Robert's subsequent apathy. The fact that people can't seem to comprehend this is maddening. I've never seen people have the same attitude towards Sansa for speaking up for Dontos, even though it incurred Joffrey's wrath and would've escalated had Sandor not spoken up. Why are Sansa's actions brave and kind, but Arya's are seen as stupid and reckless? What happened to not blaming young characters for the actions of others?
This is one of those things where the fandom decides for themselves that they know the story being told, without actually looking at how it's written. They would rather debate on (baseless) hypotheticals than look at why George presented the story to us the way he did. It takes an insane amount of misinterpretation to decide that Arya's actions are the reason for Mycah's death and misses a, rather large, point being made by the author. Notably, none of these people can ever provide evidence from the book to support their insistence that Joffrey would've simply left Mycah alone. You would think that since that's the basis of their argument and they're so adamant that their analysis is correct, they would be able to support their reasoning. It's almost as though the books don't support their interpretations...
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