#i feel for that employee so much

[noecoded]

ur favorite employee :3

[inkskinned]

i hate how commodity and capitalism has ruined so much storytelling . i hate how sequels and prequels and whatever else all ring like merch sales; i hate that i as an author have to include any social media following i have as a marketable trait; i hate that everything feels like a xerox of a copy of a dream of a memory.

i hate that my nostalgia has been turned into profit. i hate that companies fear consumer backlash so no real commentary may be made; i hate that companies care more about quantity over quality. i hate that so many artists and creators are being overworked to the point of complete collapse rather than being allowed to tell the story their way. i hate that every point of representation has to be fought for. i hate it i want us all to go back to living in a cave .

when you sit with friends over a bonfire and the night is getting long and people start telling this slow, almost hypnotic story - in this quiet voice, like they don't expect you to listen while they say the most fucked up shit you've ever heard - that is storytelling. who cares if the punchline is car hand hook door. storytelling has always been about community, about us all sitting in the dark, choosing to fill the silence while the last embers are dying. we forgot that storytelling is spellwork. hallucinating together, our breaths held, waiting for the ending we already knew was coming.

[syncrovoid-presents]

Wally and the Colour RED

Wally and the colour Red have an interesting relationship in Welcome Home. This is a rambling/analysis of different things I've found that makes me believe it's an important detail moving forwards with the Welcome Home Mystery!

First! Why do I think this matters?

There's a few reasons why I think this matters! First, while all the members of the cast seem to be tied to a colour, none is as focused or as consistent as Wally and the colour red! The two primary examples I'll use to cover this is one that we've had for a while, and two that we got in this update. Those being the signatures at the bottom of the guestbook, the interactable telephone, and the name graphics on the transcript page!

Interestingly, all of the cast are directly tied to a specific colour! The signatures at the bottom of the Guestpage and the colours of the "calls" on the telephone are the same for each character. This being pink for Julie, orange for Sally, yellow for Frank, green for Poppy, turquoise for Howdy, blue for Barnaby, purple for Eddie, and red for Wally. This is consistent (and possibly something to pay attention for in the future?)

Notably however, Home is signed by Wally, while the audio file for Wally's "call" recording is also called "duet" when you open it in another tab. Audio files with "duet" is a sign that Home is present. This means that red is not strictly a Wally colour, but also the colour for Home!

(if you're curious, the other audio called "duet" is Wally's little song he sings)

This is interesting, because Wally and Home are often treated as a duo, moreso than any other characters of Welcome Home. I would also like to point out another detail, one that I think ties into this tie between Wally, Home and the colour red.

The Records

All the records from Wally's hidden message ("I will help you understand neighbor, I will find a way soon.") are red! Sure, some are glitched, but they are all red. As is this record with the strange audio (has anyone decoded this yet?). This audio is directly tied to Wally, as it's called "(DRAWING?) WITH WALLY DARLING".

However the hidden one's may not just be Wally. Though they are all name the tab "answer" when opened, I'm tempted to say that "answer" is wally prompting us to answer (or, alternatively, Wally is trying to answer us, however he perceives us).

I believe that Home is there too in the audio. If you listen to all of them in a row, turning up the audio will reveal that there is a heart beat in the background. This, I want to say, is Home and not Wally, as Wally does not seem to register them. It peaks about halfway through with Neighbor, coincidentally the audio that is both glitching and is made of a series of clicks rather than voice lines.

I have seen people say that this is "Help Me" or "Hello" in morse code. I do not know which is the agreed translation is (to me it sounds like "…. . ..-.. .. -.. ---", which translates to "HEĘIDO", which is not a word. However it most resembles "…. . .-.. .-.. ---" which translates to "HELLO")

Regardless of what Home may be saying, it shows that the hidden recordings can be put together into a timeline that sounds like one recording, which means it's most likely all recorded at the same place. Ergo, Home is in the hidden recordings as well!

Other spots where red is brought up

There are other instances of red being tied to Wally. Some are obvious, like his love of apples (red ones specifically), the Wally prints/finger paint on the bottom of the guestbook, the background of the "i <3 Wally" gif/sticker in the sticker section of the site (also shared with Home. Wally's character description is also shared by home!), Wally himself in the "so-below" page, among other things. Such as the Wally themed telephone being red, despite his more iconic blue swirled hair (or blue and yellow-trimed sweater), his clothing in multiple official artworks, the Wally cereal box, and more.

(Like something I've noticed, which is that Home is the only house that's a solid colour (red!) without any pattern breaking it up, plus the most "standout" red that Wally typically wears being tied around his neck (symbolism?). Plus the "W" of Welcome Home is red! That's fun too!

There's also some... stranger ones. Such as this hidden piece of morse code found by this person, which spells out ".. -- .-. . -..", or "IM RED" when translated to english.

And more hidden ones too, that tie into the hidden staff page (I have a post breaking that down that you can find here!! I cover everything I could find plus went through the website code, if you want to know everything about the secret staff site check it out!)

There is the red safe, which has in WHRP universe lore!! I delve into this in my other post, just know that it is something that exists both in the secret website (it is what introduces you to the hidden website!) AND it exists in the WHRP world, both written about in printed emails and as a physical object seen within The Room:tm:. You may also notice everyone is represented by their original colours, except for home, who is now white (or blank?).

There's also scrap pieces of red paper spilled on the ground in The Room:tm: (that have drawn spirals), a red clock in the style of Wally's red car, a red painting of some sort on the wall of The Room:tm: (that we never get a good look at, though it may have a drawn yellow eye in the upper center), a red apple, and most importantly of all, this:

The Red Notebook

This is no ordinary notebook. This here is the notebook that the WHRP team have "loaned" the Question Answerer, also known as the Head Curator of Question Answer! according to the printed emails. This book is very important because there are multiple signs that it was written by Wally. Inside is a sketchpad attached to the lefthand interior bookcase with little paintings and a handprint suspiciously similar to that on the bottom of the GuestBook page and doodles in the styles Wally has used (spirals, finger paint smiley face, the drawn apple, etc).

(by the way, if you're interested in what the note says the most accurate translation I've found is by Tumblr user truckfreaks

"Hello,

My name doesn't matter. I am here to catalogue something I'm not sure is fully real. But it must be. I'm holding all the evidence in my hands. Pictures. Characters. Text I can barely read. It's called "Welcome Home" and it looks like it might've been a children's book? Like I said, I can't tell.

It was sopping wet when I found it. When I first reached into one of the brightly colored envelopes, my hand was already covered in some gross, [unknown - possibly “oozing”] material. It feels like antiques are always covered in some kind of grime. I'm trying to clean up what I have and do a little more digging.

There's only one name I can make out right now... Wally. Probably important, but like I said, I'll keep looking.

XOXO"

The wrap up (don't want to make this too long!)

Regardless of what you make of this, it shows that there is even more proof of Wally, not just the character but the Wally ""haunting"" the website and the Wally within the WHRP universe, all being tied to the colour red. (Quick clarification: The Wally we see in branding, clips of the show, etc are all Wally, however he isn't current Wally. He is the Wally of the past, the original Wally, the base Wallly, whatever you want to call him. Therefore I separate him from the "now" Wally. It's unconfirmed whether the Wally that's seemingly trying to communicate with us through the website is the same as the Wally that seems to be related to all the objects being sent to Question Answerer, who is the same Wally that is constantly calling them. If so, then there is only one "now" Wally. If they are separate, then there are two, possibly one in the website itself and one focusing on Question Answerer. Please note, this is all speculation).

While it's true that red is Wally's favourite colour, I believe that it's far more than just that tying Wally and the color red together. Going forwards, anything red that isn't immediately branded as a Wally related object should be considered important, at least I think so.

As for the connection between Wally and Home, both sharing the colour Red? I think this primarily is a display of how the two characters either rely on each other or are, in the vaguest of ways, tied together by fate.

Good bye for now!

[thatfilthyanimal]

You could draw the best, sexiest Megamind and if you add some sarcastic comment like "there's no sequel" I will refuse to reblog that anywhere. I am not teaching people that acting this way gets them my engagement anymore, no thank you.

You're absolutely entitled to your opinion and can have it, that's fine, just like I am not required to spread it.

[moonlightsapphic]

Yeah and so the movie was 75% finished before it was completely shut down. What a loss to the community, and I can't imagine how heartbreaking it must've been for Nate and all the people working on it. Nimona (2023), later picked up and adapted by Netflix, is a phoenix risen from the ashes and it had to fight to be here despite the book's (and She-ra's!) prior success.

Fuck Disney.

[wowa-bublord]

Does Cloud ever have vague/fuzzy flashes of memories of when he and Zack were on the road or was he completely cut off from the outside world?

he remembers bits and pieces, usually when he's having a nightmare. Or he'll remembers information Zack told him while they were on the road, but doesn't remember when/where he was told it. He has the same level of memory about being catatonic that Zack has of being in the lab. (not much)

[dee-in-the-box]

thinking.

thinking about Dave and his thoughts on Jack pre-Everything (in my headcanons, obviously)

like, the way i view Jack pre-Dee's Murder is that he's still rather blunt and rude, but he could still be rather sweet to others when he wanted. like the whole "kind, but not nice" type of thing.

(also, note that Dave mentioned, while talking to Dee, that he was never fine with Henry murdering her, and that he even tried to talk Henry out of doing it. there's also a Henry Tape where Dave sounds like he regrets what had happened to Dee, mentioning to Henry that he "knew this was a bad idea," and even sounding like he doesn't agree with them framing Jack for the crime. all in all, it's one of the few times we get to hear Dave go "Henry, I don't like what we're doing, and I don't feel comfortable helping you with this." so me writing Dave in this to regret Dee's murder and be generally uncomfortable with what's happening is not technically out of character.)

(this also turned into a bit of a fic whoops-)

thinking about Dave deciding to talk to Jack because...well, he seems kind of approachable. if a little...blunt at times.

he didn't hesitate to talk to Dave about whatever while he worked on animatronics. sometimes it was just complaints about his coworkers from other jobs, sometimes it was his past.

but a lot of the time it was about his siblings. he spoke rather highly of them, especially his sister.

Jack was oddly concerned about him, and the sheer number of scars that littered his body. he was nice to Dave, treated him like an actual human and not a freak (Jack would "jokingly" laugh it off when Dave would bring it up, saying something along the lines of "Well, I mean, a lot of people consider me to be a bit of a freak too, so I guess I understand a bit, man." Dave tries to ignore the sadness in his eyes as he says that, about how it's clear that Jack's had that particular insult slung at him more than once himself, albeit for...different reasons than Dave).

Dave will admit...maybe he got a bit infatuated.

Jack certainly didn't hesitate to let people know what he thought, that was for sure. as Dave had noted early on, he was blunt. he didn't even have much restraint with Henry, his boss. sure, he never said anything that would get him fired, but there were times where you could've convinced Dave that he stepped right up to that line.

sure, Dave could understand a bit why Henry might not have been particularly fond of Jack.

it was when Henry brought up killing Dee that Dave had tried putting his foot down a bit. he tried bringing up every excuse in the book (besides legality, because Henry clearly didn't care about that at this point) to keep Henry from doing it: they wouldn't have a place to hide the third body, Dave was worried about getting cold feet (definitely not because he'd grown close to Jack. definitely not), but, most of all, because it was likely going to piss Jack the FUCK off.

(it had come up during a conversation one afternoon.

"So, Old Sport...you said you were willing to die for your sister once-"

"Oh, fuck yeah, I'd give my life for her's in a heartbeat, Will."

"And...what if someone ever tried to hurt her, like seriously hurt her-?"

He didn't even hesitate.

"I'd tear them limb from limb where they stand.")

Dave had hoped that Henry would've dropped it by the next day.

he definitely didn't.

(Dave had to restrain her while Henry tried killing her. it took a while, given that she kept kicking right at Henry's arms, scratching and biting him. she didn't go down easy, that was for certain.

Dave kept telling Henry not to do this, that he couldn't do this. can't they just threaten her not to say anything? they don't have to kill her. c'mon Henry, please-)

they took her scarf. Jack said that their mom had made it for her before she and their father died. even Dave felt a little bad about that.

Jack came back that evening, and he started looking around for her. Dave couldn't help but feel pure guilt over what had happened. he had to console Jack as he ran around the restaurant, screaming for his sister, saying things like "C'mon Dee, this isn't funny! Come out, Kiddo!" and "Dee? Dee?! Where are you, please!" he had to console Jack during a breakdown where the only words Jack was able to get out through his sobs were "Peter's gonna fucking kill me." he couldn't help but feel shame, remorse as he was practically forced to lie to Jack's face, saying "We'll find her, I'm sure she's alright."

they sent Jack home for a few days, just to process his grief. Dave continued to do his job. it felt like his guilt was eating him alive over those few days.

(he feels eyes on him. he hears whispers. he notices the animatronics getting aggressive. things are moving around.)

Jack comes back, eye bags darker, his eyes still red from crying, but with a determined look on his face. he's rather short with Henry, clearly suspicious of him, but he goes off to do his job.

Dave never sees him...alive after that.

Henry acts weird after that. the hauntings get worse.

after a few days, he decides to finally confront Henry about everything. to try and put his foot down once more.

it doesn't work. but he does learn a few more things.

Henry's building a vessel for Dee. and Jack is dead.

they're framing him for murder.

Dave tries to protest; this isn't what he wants!

Henry shushes him again.

"You wanted this."

Dave goes back to talk with the cops. he still doesn't like this.

Henry promises to show him what happened to Jack later that night.

and when the restaurant closes that evening, Henry tries to take him back to show him after they waited for a bit in the office to make sure that Fredbear and Springbonnie wouldn't move too much and potentially kill one of them. they did hear some movement, but it didn't last long. Henry tries to take him to the Saferoom to show him Jack's resting place.

the suit's empty.

Dave doesn't think he's ever seen Henry legitimately scared before. they both head out into the dining room, where they discover something they failed to notice earlier, and probably the source of the noise.

a trail of blood across the tile floor, leading to the door, where the trail turns into footprints.

it doesn't seem like Jack's dead anymore.

Dave doesn't remember much after that, just that he must've taken a nap or something and woken up sometime around 5:30 in the morning.

(why does his head hurt?)

Henry seems annoyed, taking Dave outside to look at something.

Henry's car has been scratched by someone, the word "LIAR" scratched into the door, and the windshield smashed. it was Jack, it had to be.

Henry had apparently also caught Dee, and put the Puppet on strings. something of which really seemed to piss her off.

(that thing kept staring right into his soul, almost shaking in rage at the sight of him. he keeps his distance)

Peter sued them at one point, and also won. Dave doesn't like thinking about it much, it brings The Guilt back up.

over the years, he felt his mind get more and more scrambled. he felt less remorse, and...even a little bit of his memories got screwed up.

he didn't recognize the name "Jack Kennedy" anymore (oh, but Jack can sure recognize him).

at some point, Henry either vanished or died, Dave's not sure which, and he was left alone again.

but...it wouldn't be for long.

(Colorado. Dave heard the Saferoom door open, and he turned to see...an orange man, no, a zombie.

he can help Dave with his plan!

"Hello there, Old Sport!"

in that moment, for a reason Dave can't understand, the new employee looks at him with a look that can only be described as a mix of annoyance, mild fear, and...pity.

...wait.

why does he look so...familiar?

has Dave met him before?)

[xexthex]

Weird girl swag (8 undiagnosed mental illnesses)

[backpackingspace]

Okay but yin yu needs a raise this yin yu is overworked that. Where is the Ling wen needs a raise content

[shegoesbyjoy]

“What do you make of the claims that Robert and Aleksander have made about Ilnar and Tõnas, and the sense that ZA/UM has been stolen from them?”

“In the beginning, when we became friends...to me, he was a god. I was very young, very influence-able. I sort of admired him to a degree where my own personality was eaten up.” – Argo Tuulik, Writer at ZA/UM (responsible for Cuno, The Hardie Boys, Evrart Claire, and more)

Bonus:

Investigation: Who’s Telling the Truth about Disco Elysium? by People Make Games

[peaches2217]

Honestly? Today was an amazing day! Exhausting, stressful at points, but so much fun. Chatting with and helping all the people pouring into our park to watch the eclipse, scrambling to restock the gift shop because ice and firewood and refreshments and tees and mugs were flying off the shelves faster than we could put them out, looking out and seeing people having fun, kids stumbling in to use our bathroom all sunburnt and worn out but visibly content...

It kinda reaffirmed that I'm finally, finally where I belong. I enjoyed certain aspects of my work while in retail, but this is easily the most passionate I've ever felt about a job since I did work-study for the Communications department in college. I always thought in the back of my mind that a career in tourism sounded nice. Today I realized with a sort of finality that it's really, truly what I wanna do with my life.

I dunno. Having been in a place for the past several months (and frankly most of my adult life) where I wasn't even sure I'd make it to 30, having something so concrete to look forward to feels nice.

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Y'all, I think I've figured it out. Operating on the assumption that the finale is indeed an alternate timeline from the manga, then someone could have written on a page of the Book to rewrite reality to lead to the events of the finale sometime during season 5's events. In other words, this would explain the INCONSISTENCIES with things that were established or at least heavily implied/assumed prior and in the manga: Chuuya being a real vampire and not in control, nothing being planned, Dazai giving sincere speeches, Dazai really being shot and saying his "last words", Fyodor's hand not being injured, soukoku not killing Fyodor while in Meursault because they literally couldn't and Dazai needing Sigma to discover Fyodor's secrets because of that, Fukuchi's goal not being one that relied on Fukuzawa being alive since he clearly intended to kill him, etc etc too many more to count

Events and explanations in the finale feeling so contradictory and out of place, and characters feeling so ooc and not acknowledging any discrepancies, makes perfect sense if you consider that, up until a certain point, this was our canon timeline — until someone rewrote the ending of the arc with the Book, starting with Fyodor injuring his hand...! We only have one example of the Book being used to majorly rewrite reality in the manga, and when that happened, the main players — the ADA members — were aware that reality was changed, even though they did have memories of the new rewritten reality. BUT, Nikolai was unaware of this during that scene, and so also were all law enforcement because of the clause written on the page accounting for that, so what if the same thing could happen in this instance, to prevent all our characters in the finale from being aware that things had changed? We literally saw someone writing Nikolai's dialogue for him; imagine someone doing that during Dazai's final speech in the episode, and during all the rest of it! I don't know who this would be, but possibly a mysterious third party who got a hold of a different page from the Book somewhere and wrote things to turn out this way, because they wanted the ADA to win against Fukuchi and Fyodor? Maybe even because... this is the only way they can win?

Remember Atsushi asserting this plan, and how silly and too simple it sounded? What if someone else ended up doing just that, writing their own simple outcome for the ADA to win (as a narrative of course, which is probably why it had to start with the major catalyst of, again, Fyodor injuring his hand)? Additionally, if that's what happened, maybe the ending of the finale is a sort of side effect to the Book being used improperly in this way, leading to a destabilization of the timeline or a mishmash of other timelines into the anime one, leading to the alternate Fukuchi and Akutagawa we see there?

[theidiotabides]

Would really love to hear about the angsty marcotobias fic if you're interested in sharing. 👀

Oh gosh, I feel like I'd have to actually write it for it to make sense because like 80% of it is subtext, but here's some rambling in that general direction.

I'm chiefly interested in the ways in which Marco & Tobias are actually incredibly similar -- their senses of humor, their attractions, their complete direspect for authority, and most importantly how they both lowkey hate themselves but insist on survival anyway, largely out of spite -- but how they treat their similarity as, like, a cautionary tale rather than the basis for a healthy connection that it could be.

Like, Tobias disappearing into the woods and giving up on everybody is exactly the kind of behavior that Marco finds incredibly triggering, having lived through it with his dad. Marco would never walk away from his remaining loved ones like that, especially in the post-war world where he's charged himself with being the public face of the Animorphs because somebody has to. But there is absolutely a part of him that wants to give up and disappear; ya boi is tired.

Meanwhile, I think Tobias sees Marco's devotion to Jake and refusal to abandon him even after how Rachel died (which Tobias blames Jake for) as a version of the hero worship complex Tobias used to have about Jake -- like, I think Tobias sees Marco as being too devoted to Jake to see "the truth" about him, and he pities that in Marco. But at the same time, Tobias envies Marco's close personal connections, and I think on some level he knows that the only way to get to that place would be to work through his anger at Jake to get to his anger at Rachel, and he just can't bring himself to do that. It's easier to stay mad.

And then there's the question of Rachel herself, whom they were both deeply invested in trying to keep alive at the end of the war. Like, we see this explicitly from Tobias, with his "just be Rachel" and constant emotional check-ins with her, but I don't think Marco gets enough credit for his active role in keeping her literally alive. Dude bodily removed her from battles, at risk to his own life, and I just refuse to believe that's not something Marco & Tobias talked about, given how much time they spent together in Ax's scoop during that period of time between Marco's fake death & the move to the valley. Rachel is both a mutual love and a mutual failure for them (and that level of mutual devotion to a third person gives my polyamorous ass A Lot of Feelings).

Basically I think there's a lot of respect and love between Tobias and Marco, but they can't get to it because it would require each of them to deal with Rachel-related guilt and confront parts of themselves that they don't want to acknowledge.

...so I want to get them high on Marco's fancy penthouse balcony and make them kiss about it

[hauntedorpheum]

first time people tell a content creator GIVE US MORE ADS

[icewindandboringhorror]

Hrmm... Revising my game and I feel like there's still sooo much writing left to do, for something that probably won't even amount to much, so.. I do want to narrow my focus more (especially given my health problems seeming to get worse/less energy the past few years), but I'm not sure how would be best to...

I currently have 5 characters as the Main ones with full planned questlines and such, with each character having 6 quests you can do for them. But I haven't really started the writing for the 5th main character. So then I was thinking, if I were going to write 6 full quests worth of content anyway... is it better to allocate that time on just doing a Complete 6 Quests for ONE single character, OR would it be better to do something like.. choose THREE side characters and do 2 quests for each of them? So that people have a wider variety to interact with and sort of sample around (of course with the idea that, once the first version of the game is released, IF people actually care about it enough to make it worth the effort, I would then add additional content to complete those 3 characters stories as well)

-

SO... If you were playing an interactive fiction sort of game centered around talking to & doing quests for a cast of characters (like there's no larger plot, more it's just about interacting with people, every character kind of has a self contained story, the focus is just learning about them and the world and exploring the area) --- Which would you rather have?

(and of course it would be stated up front which characters have only partial questlines, so people don't expect them to have full quests like the others and then get disappointed, or etc. etc.)

Basically, is it better to just focus in specifically on having one fully complete questline? Or for there to be a few stories that are not complete yet, but have more initial options available?