#script is the fear of isolation

[thehellishtrinity]

The theme for this year was Fears!

[ Characters from System Trinity ]

[honestcompassion]

may you do a shadow milk cookie version of the yandere headcanons?

𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐒. having strong feelings of romantic love

𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚 yandere shadow milk cookie headcanons

warnings: obsessive and possessive behavior, physical abuse, psychological abuse, stalking, manipulation, brainwashing, implied forced relationship, potentially ooc

A/N: Of course I can! When Shadow Milk Cookie first debuted, I fell in love instantly. There’s just something about theatrical villains, especially the eccentric jester types, that captivates me. One order of yandere Shadow Milk Cookie headcanons, coming right up!

Shadow Milk Cookie as a yandere would be like a dark chocolate truffle—rich, alluring, and just a little bitter beneath the sweetness. His charm wraps around you like velvet, a perfect blend of theatrical flair and quiet intensity that feels as intoxicating as it is unsettling. His love is a shadowed waltz, beautiful and haunting, leaving you unsure whether to be captivated or cautious. It’s the kind of affection that feels like a dream you can’t wake up from—both a sweet escape and a lingering trap. You’ll find yourself drawn into his world of dramatic devotion, but beneath the warmth of his smiles lies a possessive hunger he can’t quite hide.

He thrives on grand, theatrical gestures to express his devotion, leaving you gifts with cryptic yet poetic notes signed with an elegant flourish. These gestures range from elaborate displays of affection—like lighting up a dark field with glowing lanterns in your honor—to eerily personal offerings, such as items he’s "acquired" from your daily life. Every act is calculated to make you feel like you’re at the center of his universe, even as it slowly closes in around you.

He views your relationship as a masterpiece, with himself as the playwright and you as the star. Shadow Milk Cookie meticulously plans each moment to keep you enchanted, ensuring you never have a reason to stray from him. If you ever seem distant, he’ll orchestrate events that pull you back into his embrace, from accidental encounters to dramatic rescues that only he could have staged.

Shadow Milk Cookie takes his role as the playwright of your love story to sinister extremes, orchestrating every detail of your life to align with his vision. His stalking is meticulous; he knows your schedule, preferences, and even your deepest fears. He uses this information not just to keep you under his watchful eye, but also to manipulate your circumstances, ensuring that you rely on him entirely. Whether it’s sabotaging relationships, creating accidents, or isolating you from friends and family, everything he does is designed to sever your ties to the outside world.

Anything proving to be a psychological feat are one of his most insidious tools. Shadow Milk Cookie weaves a narrative that convinces you the world outside is full of dangers and betrayals, leaving him as the only one you can trust. He’ll gaslight you into questioning your own memories and perceptions, using his silver tongue to twist reality into something that serves his control. "Surely, you don't actually believe their words? Ignorance is a sin only a fool can commit, dearest!"

His manipulation extends to planting seeds of doubt and fear in your mind. He’ll isolate you with subtle cruelty, belittling your connections to others or hinting that they harbor ill intentions toward you. At the same time, he showers you with affection, creating a jarring cycle of emotional highs and lows that leaves you dependent on his approval and affection.

Shadow Milk Cookie’s possessiveness becomes physical when his control is threatened. If you attempt to defy or leave him, his charm will shatter, replaced by a terrifying intensity. He won’t hesitate to use force to keep you by his side, gripping your wrist hard enough to leave bruises or blocking your path with an unsettling grin. "This was not part of the script, silly. You should know better than to anger me."

The brainwashing is relentless, as Shadow Milk Cookie works tirelessly to mold your thoughts and feelings to fit his narrative. He’ll whisper sweet lies in your ear, repeating them until they feel like truth. Over time, you’ll find yourself questioning your own desires and autonomy, your sense of self eroding under his constant pressure.

Any attempts to resist the relationship are met with overwhelming force, both emotional and physical. He’ll guilt you into compliance, framing your resistance as a betrayal of his devotion. "I've given you everything, and yet you still pull away. Why would you hurt me like this?" If guilt doesn’t work, his darker side emerges, and he’ll ensure you understand the consequences of disobedience.

Shadow Milk Cookie’s forced relationship is a gilded cage, beautiful on the surface but suffocating beneath. He’ll use every tool at his disposal to keep you trapped, from fabricated crises that require his intervention to veiled threats disguised as declarations of love.

Even as his behavior grows more extreme, Shadow Milk Cookie maintains the facade of a devoted lover, his gestures of affection as grand and theatrical as ever. He genuinely believes his actions are justified, that his obsessive, controlling love is the only way to keep you safe and happy. To him, your relationship is a story of fate and devotion, and he won’t let you rewrite the ending.

The moon hung low in the sky, casting a sickly pale light across the room as Shadow Milk Cookie paced back and forth, his hands tightly gripping the edge of his staff. His usually 'composed' demeanor was shattered, his face twisted with a mixture of rage and disbelief. His eyes, once full of affection, now burned with something darker—a madness that had been building for far too long.

"You insolent fool," he muttered to himself, his voice a low growl. "How dare you? How could you…"

His steps quickened, his once graceful movements that he kept up in front of you for so long becoming erratic as the fury inside him bubbled to the surface. His calloused fingers twitched as he thought about the escape. Your escape. The idea that you, his beloved, could leave him—leave him—was something he couldn’t fathom.

The room around him seemed to shrink, the walls closing in as his mind spiraled. Every crack in the floorboards, every rustle of the curtains, every shift in the shadows—it all felt like a reminder of your betrayal.

"You think you can escape, silly?" he snarled, his voice rising with each word. His normally playful tone had vanished, replaced by a harshness that echoed through the empty room. "You think you can get away from me? From me?"

His hands shook as he slammed his staff against the ground, the sharp crack splitting the silence like thunder. The smile that usually lingered on his lips was gone, replaced by a grimace of pure, unfiltered anger. His heart raced as the image of you slipping away haunted his every thought.

"You silly little pest," he hissed, his words a venomous whisper. "Running from me? After all I’ve done? I gave you everything, and this is how you repay me? You think anyone else could ever love you the way I do?"

He turned toward the window, the glass reflecting his distorted expression—twisted, obsessed, consumed. His breath came in ragged gasps as he gripped the edge of the windowsill, staring out into the night as if willing you to appear in front of him. The world beyond the walls was a blur, a fading memory he couldn’t bear to face.

"You can’t run from me. I won’t let you," he whispered, his voice soft but laced with a chilling promise. He slowly turned back toward the center of the room, the room where he had kept you, the room where you belonged. "You’re mine, and you will stay mine, no matter how many foolish attempts you make."

A low, manic laugh bubbled from his throat, sharp and cold. "Stupid puppet, always trying to run away," he muttered. "I'll break you down if I have to. I’ll remake you. You’ll beg me to stop." He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes wild, pupils dilated. His breathing became erratic as he stood, still trembling, his body humming with an anxious energy.

The thought of you—of you being free—drove him to the edge. Every second that passed without you in his arms felt like a lifetime. He couldn't fathom it. You, slipping away, making your own choices. You, defying him. His chest tightened with panic and rage.

"You’ll never escape me. Never," he snarled. "And when I find you, when I pull you back into my arms, you’ll understand. You’ll thank me for making you stay."

His eyes glazed over as he imagined it—the moment when you finally realized that the only way to feel safe, to feel loved, was in his arms. His arms, where you belonged. He could already feel the rush of relief coursing through him, the sweet, intoxicating satisfaction of having you back under his control.

He turned away, his fingers twitching, a smile finally creeping back onto his lips. It was small, but it was there—twisted, deluded, and soaked in madness.

"I'll have you back. You’ll come to me, silly little thing," he whispered, his voice slipping into a dangerous calm. "And I will make sure you never forget how much I love you."

You're going to wish you never met him after he's done with you.

[rafry]

Euclydia, Cults and Need for Control

Disclaimer: this analysis raises sensitive topics. if you are/were a victim of a cult and the topic triggers you, please refrain from reading further(/seek help). Additionally, I am not a specialist on said topic, nor am I a clinician. But I am a survivor, so part of the narrative may or may not be just me projecting the trauma on a silly yellow triangle. That said, reader discretion is advised! :)

The take: Euclydia is likely to be a cult-like society and the reason Bill, after years of abuse, grows up to be as he is: a power-hungry monster. Let's analyze!

For the starters, The Start. Each state has its own anthem. How lucky that we were kindly provided with the Euclidian hymn (hidden under the code "FORGETTHEPAST")! Lets take a look:

"Two dimensions to and from, You always know which way to go If you're lost, don't be afraid, In Euclydia you've got it made! Run too far too right of frame, You'll appear on left again! Jump too high, don't fry or fret, You'll pop up from the ground, I bet! In this place there is no fear, Roles and rules, always clear, Euclydia, we hold you dear…"

That tells us way more than we could've asked for, really. The most important: Euclydia is a state of Clear Rules™. Everything works perfectly thanks to The Rules and The Roles, and the state is loved by it's citizens. It's might be a caricature 2D utopia, but how it reacts when the rules are questioned?

"Eye doctor of a different kind, who wants to make his patient blind The doctor says: 'three sips a day will make the visions go away' Fussy eater, baby Billy Wouldn't drink unless it's silly..."

If there's anything about cults and the way they make people behave, is that the "wrong" ones in the community are usually ostracized and/or heavily medicated to not cause any troubles. Those people are sometimes called 'heretics', but may as well just be called crazy or insane by their peers. Oh look completely unrelated picture:

"Cipher, Cipher, he's insane Starting fires with his brain"

Honestly, the other time it would be it. Euclydia, if not Is, then sure does Act like a cult in some way. I could've finished here, easily, but there's something missing, isn't?

"The hell do you mean by 'The Need to Control', OP?"

I mean that the BILLVILLE is important.

There's the thing about trauma survivors: some of us, after living a life with no control over ones societal position (ostracization/isolation), body (forcibly medicated) or even mind (feeling of inadequacy), crave for some form of control to be regained.

It can turn toxic very quickly when the only form of control one has ever seen in their life is being The Leader (cult leader/shitty parent/armageddon overlord/you get the idea, it's about becoming an authority figure).

And so, Bill becomes a cult leader! Very possibly covering up the need for control and admiration with what I call "The most inefficient way to build an Interdimentional Portal ever", since, well, he's got to lie to himself every now and then, that's his thing (trauma response).

As for the details:

He uses the dead mans body — the body that wouldn't cause any resistance, thus being perfect for taking under control.

He sees the position of the interviewer as more authoritative than the position of the interviewee — and he swaps the roles. That wasn't enough though, so he demands (politely) to be called "My Lord And Master" for a good measure.

He very possibly recreates some of Euclydia-like order in his own "Town" in terms of expressing individuality. They might've been pretty decent in following scripts, I think.

So, I don't think Euclydia has ever been religious in any way, since that would left some other scars on Bills psyche for sure. But highly authoritative, ignorant, strict in its rules to the point of self-damnation? That checks. That's the place that has formed Bill, after all.

That's the place that he wishes to rebuild.

Maybe not consciously, maybe distorted by his illness and broken memory of a loving-paradise-home that has never actually been that way, but he seeks the comfort of familiarity — most of us do. Familiar stings are better than an uncontrollable too-bright future, isn't?

I hope he does well on therapy.

[greenteaandtattoos]

A major theme of Bell's Hells is the breaking of cycles, and throughout the entire campaign, and looking at history, the burden of "breaking the cycle" has always been put on the shoulders of mortals.

The two times the Gods get involved in the cycle to attempt to alter it, they have left destruction and death in their wake, and it is up to the mortals to rebuild and are tasked with "preventing" the cycle from continuing for as long as possible.

Sometimes, a cycle can't be broken, but the responsibility for it should fall on those who created it, not those who are affected the most by it, as the Gods have been doing to mortals throughout history.

Now, the Hells have flipped the script. Now, it's up to the Gods to take the burden of "preventing the cycle" on their shoulders, with two options that won't leave the carnage of mortals behind.

This is not a choice between death or death; the options are fleeing and cowardice or living and humbleness. They can choose to run away, scattering, alone in the universe with Predathos hot on their trails, never having a moment of peace.

Or, they can choose to bring themselves to the level of mortals, to forget and reincarnate and live amongst their creations, to eventually remember and then choose again how they would like to continue. Fear and isolation? Or life and love?

The reason the Gods' solution to continue the cycle by resealing Predathos is so flawed. Inevitably there will be another Ludinus and another and another, over and over throughout the ages, until one eventually succeeds, and there might not be a Vox Machina, or Mighty Nein, or Bell's Hells that can stop it (reminder that Ludinus is still out there, so if it's not another disgruntled individual, it'll be him).

This is what the Hells need to beat into the heads of the Gods. Their best options, truly their only options, are to be "brought low", whether by casting aside their pride and running away and potential death, or by humbling themselves and casting away their divinity and living amongst their creations.

[gingaseiun]

I haven't really shared this with anyone except my close friends, but I used to dream of having my own TV show. I would write scripts and brainstorm countless ideas for what my perfect show could be. When I got to college, I focused on one particular show concept that had been with me since high school. I wrote a really rough script, created a show bible, and even drafted a letter to send out to production teams....but I never had the courage to actually send it. I was too scared, honestly, haha. The characters and the shows still pop into my head from time to time, and I keep reimagining and redesigning them. At one point, I even commissioned artists to bring them to life. I got hyperfixated on it all. The one thing that held me back was the fear that nobody would like the show. I feel like there's still time to make it happen, but, nervously, I keep wondering, "What's the point?" So here I am, just rambling about it on my blog.

Soooooooo below will be me rambling about the show and characters

The show itself was called Heart Failure, and it revolved around cupids doing their jobs Sometimes successfully, sometimes....not!

(Logo made by Discord: aikozu)

One of the main characters, Sorbet Clairmont, was a serious, no-nonsense cupid who had dedicated millennia to her work in Aetheria, though in Earth time, it had only been about ten years. The show played with that contrast a lot, making jokes about her "ancient" experience compared to how young she would seem to humans.

Born in the Realm of Aetheria, Sorbet was a prodigy from a young age, deeply attuned to the emotions around her. As a child, she had witnessed love in all its messy, beautiful forms joyful reunions, painful goodbyes, and everything in between. Those experiences convinced her she was destined to help others find connections. Over time, she became one of the best, known for crafting love arrows that perfectly captured the emotions she aimed to inspire.

But her success came with a cost. The more skilled she became, the more isolated she felt. Her sharp tongue and brusque demeanor kept most people at a distance, and though many admired her work, very few actually wanted to get close. She told herself that was fine—less emotional entanglement meant fewer distractions. Still, even in the rough first draft of my script, her loneliness seeped through in her sarcastic remarks, like: "Fingers crossed they last longer than a houseplant," and "This better not be another annoying mission... Last time, they sent me to sort out romance at a retirement home. I’ve barely heard the end of it from the other divisions."

(Art below is made by Discord: jijicomms)

The story really started to pick up when Sorbet was assigned a trainee, Lyris Arrowheart. To her, it felt like a punishment rather than an opportunity, one more thing to slow her down. But Lyris’s earnestness and clumsy enthusiasm stirred something in her, something she had buried a long time ago: the simple, genuine desire to connect.

Now, the other main character is my little failure, Lyris. I love Lyris.

Lyris Arrowheart grew up in a prestigious family of Cupids, where success was expected, and anything less felt like failure. His parents often boasted about their achievements. How they effortlessly paired soulmates and ignited love stories that became legendary in Aetheria. From a young age, Lyris felt the crushing pressure to live up to that legacy.

But school was a different story. While his classmates excelled at crafting love arrows and navigating emotional auras, Lyris struggled just to keep up. His daydreaming often got the better of him, causing him to miss critical lessons. No matter how hard he tried, he always seemed a step behind, more of a spectator in a world that demanded precision and excellence.

When he finally graduated, it was less a moment of triumph and more a quiet sigh of relief, overshadowed by lingering doubts. Though he technically passed, the weight of his family’s expectations stayed with him.

One of my favorite little moments for Lyris comes from his introduction in the first script I wrote:

He awkwardly waves at Sorbet, his hands trembling so badly that he nearly drops his bow. He fumbles it, juggling it between both hands before finally managing to hold it steady and wave again, bowing slightly. In the middle of it all, his glasses slip off and shatter loudly on the floor. Frozen in mortification, Lyris immediately covers his face, his cheeks flushing a deep red.

(Art below is made by Discord: jijicomms)

Both of them were always meant to be contrasts to each other, and honestly, I love that about them. Sorbet is sharp, serious, and guarded, while Lyris is clumsy, warm, and endlessly earnest. The idea was for them to become close, just not romantically. I’m sure if the show ever actually existed, some people would end up shipping them anyway (it's inevitable, haha), but there’s a reason they were never meant to be love interests. Their bond was always supposed to show that deep, meaningful connections don't have to be romantic to be important.

There are other characters in the show too, like Elysia.

Elysia is Sorbet’s advisor (and the advisor for a few other characters I’ll bring up later). In Heart Failure, an advisor is a Cupid who assigns other Cupids their missions, called "Moments," on Earth. They are the ones who organize and oversee the work behind the scenes.

Elysia is an advisor cupid and one of the senior chair Cupids of the Embassy of Love, specifically within the Branch of Love. She plays a pivotal role in guiding and mentoring younger Cupids, including Sorbet. With her sharp insight into the complexities of love, Elysia carefully selects each Cupid’s assignments, choosing missions that challenge and help them grow.

Known for her direct, no-nonsense attitude, Elysia takes her responsibilities seriously, making sure every mission is approached with care and precision. Beneath her stern, professional exterior, there is a surprising warmth, kind of like a piece of dark chocolate: a little bitter at first, but sweet once you get past the surface. Her "tough love" approach sometimes frustrates those she mentors, but in the end, she is exactly the kind of guide they need, even if they do not realize it right away.

(Art below is made by Discord: jijicomms)

Another character you would see in the show is Noelle Glaciamour.

Noelle is best known for melting people's cold hearts, the ones that are guarded, frozen over, and untrusting of love. She represents the emotional state of those who have closed themselves off from love or are hesitant to embrace it because of past pain, betrayal, or fear of vulnerability. Her role as a Cupid revolves around rekindling warmth and breaking through the icy walls that surround these hearts.

Now, Noelle’s backstory is touched on in the show, and I won't get too deep into it right now, but there’s one thing that really sets her apart. Unlike most of the Cupids in Heart Failure, she doesn’t really have wings anymore. Instead, she has little torn-off nubs on her back. Something that hints at the struggles she's faced without needing many words.

(Art below is made by Discord: jijicomms)

Now, you can't talk about love without talking about heartbreak. And unfortunately, that means we have to talk about him.

Valen Amour. The bane of Sorbet's existence. The so-called "Emissary of Love," though if you ask Sorbet, he’s more like the embodiment of everything wrong with the system. He’s smug, insufferable, and somehow still manages to be good at his job. The worst kind of person, honestly.

Valen started working as a Cupid around the same time Sorbet did, but unlike her, he made a career out of meddling. Early on, he would intentionally disrupt the pairs Sorbet painstakingly matched, reassigning them with a smug smile and claiming he had found "better matches." His reckless (and, to Sorbet's eternal frustration, often effective) methods got him fast-tracked to elite Cupid status way faster than anyone expected, or deserved.

Growing up, Valen never really had to struggle for anything. Success just sort of fell into his lap. Naturally, that carried into his work. When he was effortlessly placed in the Heartbreak Branch of the Embassy of Love, it only reinforced his belief that he knew better than everyone else. In his mind, instinct always beats strategy, and if he had to step on a few toes to prove it, so be it.

Even his wings set him apart. While most Cupids bear pure white wings, Valen’s are a smoky dark gray, fitting for someone who thrives not in creating new love but in pulling apart the old.

(Art below is made by Discord: jijicomms)

Now, I want to finish off my yapping session with world building. Even though theres tons(not really) of side characters I could yap endeless about. Here’s a more concise breakdown of Aetheria and its rulers. The Cupids live in a hidden realm called Aetheria, beyond the sight of mortals. As the narrator in my poorly written pilot script says:

"Beyond the sight of mortals, hidden from the world of Earth, lies the Realm of Aetheria. The sacred home of the Cupids. Born from the will of the god of love, this world is one where emotion shapes reality itself. Here, Cupids glide through skies of golden threads, each movement carrying whispers of everlasting devotion. It is a place where love is born and nurtured. Where every letter to a secret crush, every fleeting desire, is delivered by the hands of the Cupids, guiding hearts toward their destined connections."

Aetheria was once ruled by Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, who created the Cupid lineage before retiring and passing control to her son, Eros, the primordial god of love. Eros reshaped Aetheria, but Aphrodite didn’t leave him to run things alone. She established the Erotes, a group of gods and goddesses to assist him. These include Anteros, the God of Requited Love, Hedylogos, the God of Sweet-Talk and Flattery, Himeros, the God of Desire, Hymenaeus, the God of Weddings, Hermaphroditos, the God of Effeminate Men and Androgyny, Pothos, the God of Yearning and Longing, and Phthonus, the God of Jealousy. Finally, Psyche, once a mortal, became the Goddess of the Soul after marrying Eros and joining the ranks of the Erotes.

Together, the Cupids and the Erotes run the Embassy of Love, an organization that governs different branches responsible for various aspects of love and human emotion: Camaraderie, Desire, Heartbreak, and Love. In this realm, the Cupids are tasked with nurturing and guiding love, shaping the world’s emotional fabric in ways both subtle and profound.

(Eros, Art below is made by Discord: jijicomms)

I hoped you enjoyed my yapp session!!

[hoardcloneheadcanons]

I'll Eat You Up I Love You So

A Magnus Archives based Stobotnik AU. Because I crave the horrors.

Trigger Warning: Spiders, Manipulation, Uncanny Valley, Unsettling Creatures following people in the night, Stalking, Gore, Cannibalism, Stobotnik, Isolation, Possessive behavior.

An Ivo Robotnik of the Stranger and a Stone of the Spider

Ivo Robotnik always felt off from people. Like he was missing a script that everyone else received. He had the wrong feelings, the wrong expressions. Like he was always saying the wrong things no matter what he did.

The other kids in the orphanage tended to avoid him. And he busied himself with altering things around the house to play tricks on them, switching the TV to horror movies at random intervals when he wasn’t in the room. Or making the toaster burn in their hands when they tried to use it.

If you can’t join them, you can at least laugh at them.

When he was about 14 a weird mist started following him around. It would be in the corners of his vision constantly. Sunny days would suddenly get foggy on his way home from school. Rooms where he was alone would suddenly get smokey

He was a boy who considered himself very rational, but he swore those clouds had an intelligence and that they were trying to eat him.

He got caught in the mist a few times. Every time he did, faces would get blurry and speech incomprehensible, and everything, Everything in him felt cold. Then he’d run until he could see the sun again and try to stay around people.

The mist only came when he was alone.

He didn’t dare tell the head of the orphanage about it. Or the other children.  He knew they didn’t like him, he knew they wouldn’t believe him. They’d probably say he deserved the mist. They just watched the child get suddenly gaunter and more haunted with no reason as to why.

And then one day, Ivo found a book.

A book titled “A Beginners Guide to Animatronics. Stimulating for Young Minds Ages 13-17.”

And the book showed him how to make life-like, fake people. He realized as he was reading it, that the book must’ve been lying about the age ranges. It would’ve been too hard for anyone of his age. But he could follow it easily. He’d always been advanced. 

Nobody liked what he made from the book. The cold doll-like faces blinked too rapidly, the necks hung to the side awkwardly, and nobody knew how to shut them off. Ivo refused to tell them. When he went to school they just hung out in his room, waiting for him.

And no matter what you did to break them, they never stopped moving.

Ivo discovered that if he kept his machines with him, the mist left him alone. The something person-like he had with him counted. And the longer that Ivo built, the more odd he got. Until his blinking became off rhythm and his walking became weird, and the color of his skin was just slightly off.

People avoided him. That used to bother him. Now it seemed to fuel him. To get into their space and unsettle them, to make himself uncomfortable to be around. And his mentality morphed to suit it. He didn’t need people when he had his machines, when he could make better versions of them that could climb on walls and twist their head 180 degrees.

Ivo kept his machines around him as he aged.

He took odd-jobs as an IT consultant, a programmer and a machinist. They lasted longer if he worked remotely. It usually wasn’t steady work, his personality often ended his employment. But that was fine. Ivo found more and more often that he didn’t need to eat, not as long as he had someone’s fear, not as long as someone was looking aside at him, wondering if the mechanical eyes they saw outside their window was his, or his machines.

This is when he starts taking on assistants. It’s easy to terrify someone who's forced to be in your space for money. It’s easy to terrify someone who gets bit by shiny, chromium-covered things as they’re trying to clean them.

So on one of his steadier periods, when he has a work-from home programming job. He put out a Craigslist ad for an assistant. Someone to help clean his machines and his house when he was working.

And he gets one Aban Stone. A soldier who ended his tour of duty and was looking for a job.

And he’s horrified to discover that Mr. Stone seems to be quite immune to most of his tricks. Ivo can’t tell if he’s the stupidest, most oblivious man on the face of the earth or simply the most fearless.

Stone would clean the robots, and they’d turn their heads round 180 degrees to stare at him and grin. And Stone would simply turn their heads back around, and then continue his task, humming all the way.

The animatronics followed Stone home, and watched him while he slept, staring through his bedroom window, and Ivo got a knocking on his door in the middle of the night.

He opened the door to find Stone, in his bathrobe and sneakers leading the robots back to Ivo’s door by the wrist saying that “they must’ve gotten lost, I’m surprised none of them got hit by a truck on the way over.”

Robotnik found a little bit of webbing on each of their backs the next morning. He thought nothing of it, except that he should probably yell at Stone for not dusting for cobwebs more often.

(He forgot to mention it, by the time Stone got there he was already dug into some network error, and half-paying attention to the world around him).

Stone got bit by one of the machines as he was making lunch for the two of them and his main response was to say “Fascinating! They’re so detailed, I didn’t know they had teeth.” Before turning around and chiding Ivo that he should probably adjust their programing. “I can handle it, I’ve been shot before. But what if they bit you? Ivo, that isn’t safe.”

It drove Ivo insane.

And he was so relentlessly helpful. His job was to clean the machines, and the house. And he did all of that, and then also insisted on doing the laundry, and cooking for Ivo. He consistently worked past his shift and even when he wasn’t bustling around the house, he was asking Ivo questions about himself, bringing him coffee, and humming.

Always humming. In a sound that Ivo found himself mimicking. He had to shut down conversation and insist Stone go home a million and a half times. He didn’t need people, he had his machines.

He knew he was sunk when he started building machines that looked like Stone.

He’d always tear them apart, rip them to shreds before Stone could see. All Stone understood was that Ivo was going through some creative slump where none of his creations were good enough.

And Ivo was eating food. He didn’t need to eat, not when he had people’s fear. He’d almost forgotten how. A fork felt weird in his hand. Most food tasted like dust to him. 

But he did whenever Stone cooked for him. It tasted like care and attention, and he devoured it whole.

At first Ivo refused everything he made, but Stone was stubborn and fretted over him, and kept buying groceries and making him things until he found the exact things Ivo could eat. The first time he did it’s because Stone had put a sandwich by his hand while he was working, only half paying attention and he ate it without thinking. It had some spicy aioli, that burned past his dulled senses.

And a second fear started to build within him that Stone might leave. That the humming and bustling around the house might end, and the one person he could stand to be in his space and could stand to be in his could go away.

A billion times he’d thought to fire Stone to end the fear and this madness and change. And a billion times the thought would slip from his mind as he got distracted, or he thought “one more day, just one, then he can leave.”

And Ivo was getting hungry. It must've confused Stone so much how his charge seemed to be getting listless and tired even as he was feeding him more. He felt Ivo’s head to check if he was sick and insisted he drink electrolytes before Ivo could shoo him away.

Always so relentlessly helpful, always so caring and doting.

That night, while Stone wasn’t there, he repurposed his basement and filled it with machines of horror. He filled it with spinning blades that wailed like people in pain and left his most uncanny and troublesome creations down there, filled them with sharp teeth and fire jets, and eyes too big for their heads.

And then he called a plumber for a burst pipe in his basement. Emergency situation.

He ate well that day. Stone was glad to see whatever fever he had, had cleared up. He was curious about the lock on the basement, but Ivo explained it away with “Water damage in the basement, and the stair is broken.”

And then he had to insist several times that Stone let him handle it. He’d already called a plumber and they’d be there next week.

And for a little while longer, they got to pretend to be normal.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Meanwhile,

Stone was finding Ivo a hard meal to digest.

Aban Stone likes getting what he wants. And will be quiet and friendly to do so. He has worked hard to be the best all his life. The best in athletics, the most attractive, the one with the most gung-ho, can-do attitude.

It’s only natural that he gets rewarded, that he gets everything he asks for in return for his efforts. It’s only natural that he got everything he wanted from the people he loved.

He liked taking care of people. He had a little habit, a hobby one could say, of finding a single person to take care of, coming into their life, and making them utterly dependent on him controlling their lives completely. Making sure they wanted and needed to do everything he asked of them.

Then he would then ask them to rip out their hearts so that he could eat them.

He wasn’t quite sure when he started to see the little threads on them, that he could pull to subtly change their thoughts, or when he started to look in the mirror and see three extra pair of eyes.

It all seemed a natural extension of it all.

So when he saw an ad for an assistant and house cleaner for one Ivo Robotnik, he thought he’d hit a jackpot.

Ivo was an isolated man who spent all day in his workshop or on his computer. He lived in an abandoned part of town and people avoided him. Stone could take over his life and feed off the fear of his dependence, and his loss of control for a long time without anyone noticing or telling him what was normal. Stone could eat him slowly.

But Robotnik had such a stubborn resistance to human connection that made him so hard to devour.

He pushed Stone out and away thousands of times, he insisted he didn’t want help beyond his basic chores. Stone had offered to move in a couple of times and Ivo had shoved him out, and told him he couldn’t stand to have him around more often than he was.

If Stone was human, he would’ve thought Robotnik didn’t like him.

But he can taste his fear. It’s subtle, in the background, slowly growing, but it’s there. Fear of dependence, of loss, of change. It’s there. And Stone is a patient spider, he can wait for it to grow.

And in the meantime, he makes himself comfortable.

He fills the refrigerator with things he likes, since Ivo barely eats. And he got busy investigating this strange man who resisted human contact like the plague, learning his favorite color, his tastes, his hopes and dreams, growing ever more possessive all the way.

He was so interesting. He built things no one else could! He treated his job as a hobby and filled his life with passions. He moved and talked in ways none of the other humans did. He talked to his creations often, and Stone learned the most about him when he did, finding out all the people he judged in the neighborhood, and all the little ways he had messed with their lives.

He’d sent his androids to listen to the Diazes’ house to find out their gossip, He’d made the Jones lawnmower turn on and off randomly and made it into a lethal hazard.

Stone found himself wrapping web around the house where Ivo wouldn’t see, over and over, around and around, so thin as to be a layer of paint, marking what was his. “Mine mine mine mine mine” whispered over and over in tiny threads.

It would make him sorry to eat him, he liked his fascinating human and all the delightful toys he surrounded himself with.

 Stone found the constructs were just similar enough to humans that he could puppet them himself with his webs. They followed him around docilly. At a certain point he stopped leading them back to Ivo’s in the middle of the night and just let them settle down on his living room floor until he could lead them back the next morning when his shift started.

He didn’t need to interrupt Ivo’s sleep.

But the entire time his hunger grew. Ivo’s fear was to him like potato chips would be to a normal human. It was delightful, tasty, but it was hardly filling.

So he went out to eat. Just to tide himself over, nothing major.

A simple meal, a quick one. A gentleman at the bar who chatted him up, someone he could lure into his house with the promise of conversation and wine, and heat and close flesh.

Someone who he could tie to his bed and crack open his ribs, and eat with the heart still beating, screaming as he saw Stone’s mandibles and 8 reflective eyes.

He didn’t notice the animatronic that had followed him home, yellow-camera eyes staring through his bedroom window.

Then Stone felt fear.

He hadn’t checked. He’d been so hungry. He didn’t usually go to the bar. it must’ve been waiting for him to come home.

He lunged at the creature, determined to control it, to stop it and it skittered away. He didn’t know Ivo could make them go that fast, and he felt impressed even as the horror dawned on him.

He was going to lose everything.

There would be no final meal, no constant snacking, no Ivo, no home, no fascinating conversations over lunch of circuitry and mayhem. Ivo was going to see him, and be afraid of him, and it was all going to end. He’d see the webs outside of his house and move and it was all going to end.

No no no. He can fix this. He’s eaten, he's stronger. It’ll be fine. He can fix this.

Suppressing his panic, he cleans himself up, washes his hair and gets prepared to go over to Ivo’s house and to pretend, to make him believe that everything is normal. To yank the faint threads he had from Ivo and whisper in his ear that everything was safe. He’d go to his job, at the same time he always does, because nothing happened and everything was fine.

He walks around his living room in the dark, reciting it to himself in his head.

Ivo? is everything alright? You look pale. I saw one of your robots last night at my house and it was acting strange, walking into walls. I think it might be glitching. You should check it. See if there’s any bugs in its code. You look like you need something to do with your hands. You do that and I’ll make us some tea and we can forget about this.

Ivo, people don’t turn into spiders. You’re being silly, you’ve been working too hard. You know people hallucinate when they don’t sleep enough.

Ivo, you don’t want to get rid of me.

It’s in a loop in his brain as he walks up Robotnik’s front steps the next morning, all nice and shiny and clean with the most harmless body language he can muster and prepares to knock on Robotnik’s door, certain that the locks have been changed.

He is rather surprised when Ivo yanks him inside and pins him to a wall before his fist can hit the door.

Was Ivo always that strong?

Ivo is in his space not leaving him two inches of breathing room, grinning like a madman.

“Let me see them! I saw them last night, I want to see them!’

“ See what?”

Robotnik made a clenching gesture around his own face where his mustache was.

“The mandibles! I saw them last night when you ripped that poor sucker’s heart out. Let me see them! I want to study them.”

In that moment, Stone wondered if his webs could be tugged in both directions, because his mandibles sort of popped-out out of sheer surprise.

Robotnik had the measuring tape out, to review them and was delicately feeling the texture, and Stone realized it was the first time Ivo had touched him with his bare hand, he usually had gloves on.

Stone’s fingers happened to glance upon his wrist and he noticed that where his blue veins should be there was instead complex circuitry.

“Ivo, are you a robot?”

“No Idea!” His scientist was the most expressive that Stone had ever seen. “It started happening to me in my late 20s, I’m not sure which parts of me are man and machine anymore.”

He pulled up his sleeves to show circuity going up his wrists, through his forearms, and then stopping at his shoulders, shifting back to veins and muscle tissue.

Stone felt dizzy from the paradigm shift, like a puppet with his strings cut.

He sat down while Ivo pelted him with a thousand questions about his reflective eyes, their color spectrum, his depth perception, where they went when he wasn’t using them.

Ivo wasn’t afraid of him. If anything…

Stone tasted the air.

“Ivo are you less afraid of me now then you were before?”

“Of course I am, you’re not human, I never have to worry about you leaving because I've scared you away or broken some inane social custom. You eat people. What could I do to ever terrify you?”

He grabbed Stone’s face, suddenly tactile where he’d been so resistant before.

“You do realize you’re never leaving me right? I have a thousand eyes everywhere and an infinite mechanical soldiers. You can’t leave now that I’ve gotten used to you. I’ll hunt you down. I’ll drag you back.”

And suddenly Stone saw all his webs in Ivo, taking root and finding their place now that his final barrier of resistance was gone, increasing the madness in his eyes.

Stone smiled, harder that the structure of his face had changed to it’s more arachnid form.

“Ivo, do you need your heart inside your chest to survive?”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

He didn’t.

Stone gnawed on the mechanical heart as Ivo excitedly showed him his basement of horrors. He sat with his bathrobe on, low enough to show the cavity in his chest that he’d wrenched open himself, rewiring his arteries, and quickly fitting it with a temporary device so he could hand his own heart to Stone.

Such a romantic. Stone wanted to fill the empty cavity with spider eggs and watch spiders crawl out of Ivo’s mouth as they hatched. That was a new urge he didn’t know he could have. Could he put them in his lungs or his stomach? He could ask him once he finished talking.

Ivo’s heart had pretty little blinking lights in it. It was shiny and steel and Stone was pretty sure he couldn’t digest it, but he was happy to have it anyway. He was going to wrap it up in spider-silk before putting it back in Ivo's chest. It was his. His forever.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Notes:

Stone and Ivo do move in together.

The murder-basement of horrors continues to exist, and it is Stone’s job to lure people into it. Manipulation is still the main way he feeds, and he delights in it. Ivo will watch the horrors through the cameras and feed that way, while creating a series of obstacles for the victims to run through as Stone and his animatronics hunt them. They have a little game of “who can get to them first.”

Stone does have a full giant-spider form.

They have to move whenever the disappearances get too suspicious. They got married when they found they could get into more docile, unsuspecting suburban neighborhoods as a couple.

Ivo tries creating robotic bugs for Stone to chase for enrichment. Stone finds it a little insulting, especially since his main prey is people.

Stone does, however, find the robotic spiders that Ivo created to join Stone in the murder basement when he hunts very romantic.

Once Ivo finds the Stone can hold him with 3 pairs of limbs, (4 if they’re lying down) He feels neglected if Stone only holds him with two. He has not slept outside of a cocoon since they started sleeping together.

Stone has adjusted to the fact that most of the appliances in their home have some extra sentience due to Ivo. The toaster will try to escape if he uses it. He’s tried to web it to the wall, and it gnawed through it. It is one of the few things in the house he cannot control.

Most people think that Stone is out of Robotnik’s league and don’t understand why they’re together. That is a trap. Their basement is littered with the bodies of people who thought they could seduce Stone away from Ivo. It’s his favorite method of hunting because he gets to eat someone who ever doubted their romance.

Robotnik does not let Stone fill his stomach or lungs with spiders. Instead, he makes an entirely separate organ for himself called his "egg-sac" that Stone can fill as much as he wants, to the same effect.

Freaks. Run.

[luna-azzurra]

Hi Luna🙂

Today I came across your account by chance and literally devoured many of your posts. Your tips are worth their weight in gold and are making me rethink my character (my OC).

One thing I've noticed... I think his lore is well developed, but I'm not sure how he's supposed to achieve his goal anymore.

Er ist der Sohn eines der berüchtigtsten Schurken dieser Welt und möchte nicht im Schatten seines Vaters stehen. Er möchte seinen eigenen Weg gehen, aber kein „Held“ werden, denn das würde eine Verpflichtung bedeuten, die er nicht eingehen möchte.

His problem, however, is that he looks very similar to his father and has almost the same quirk (ability).

This leads to everyone seeing him only as their father and not as the person he really is.

My question now is: Would it be better for such a character to give up and simply become evil over time, or would some kind of “anti-hero” be better?

Hey (◍•ᴗ•◍)

First of all, thank you for the kind words, seriously, that means a lot. And second? Holy hell, I love this character setup. You’ve built a character with some incredible tension at his core. He’s not just trying to break out of a legacy, he’s trying to break out of his own reflection. He looks like his father. Has the same quirk. People see him and immediately slap the “villain” label on him before he even gets a word in.

That does something to a person.

When you’re constantly treated like you already are something, especially something dark, something dangerous...it’s not just annoying. It’s exhausting. It's isolating. Eventually, even the strongest-willed people start to ask, “Is there any point in fighting this?” And that’s what makes your question so powerful:

Should he give up and just become evil? Or should he try to become an anti-hero?

Let’s unpack both...

╰ Going Full Villain – “If I’m gonna be hated anyway…”

On the surface, this path makes sense. People already expect the worst. They project his father onto him every time he walks into a room. They don’t see him, but just the shadow he casts. So at some point, yeah, it might feel easier to stop trying to prove he’s not his dad and just… lean into it.

But that wouldn’t be surrender, that would be self-erasure. It’s not a choice rooted in desire or ideology, it’s rooted in burnout. Bitterness. A kind of emotional collapse.

You can absolutely write this path if you want to explore what it means to become the mask others forced onto you. There’s beauty in tragedy. There’s pain in watching someone slip into the very shape they swore they’d never take, just because no one gave them the chance to be more.

But… is that really what he wants? Or is it what he thinks is left?

╰ Becoming an Anti-Hero – “I’ll make my own damn category”

This, to me, is where his heart probably lives.

Because from what you described, he doesn’t want to be a villain. But he also doesn’t want to be a hero, like not in the clean, performative, cape-wearing sense. Heroism, to him, feels like a cage made of expectations. He doesn’t want to be anyone’s symbol. Doesn’t want to be a PR-friendly redemption arc. He just wants to be free—to exist outside the script written for him.

That’s anti-hero territory.

And the beautiful thing about anti-heroes is, that they fight for things they care about, not things they’re told to care about. They help people, but they break rules doing it. They’re messy, unpredictable, and wildly human.

Let your character become someone who carves out his own moral compass. Someone who helps the helpless but refuses to smile for the cameras. Someone who uses his father’s powers but twists them into something new. Something meaningful. Something his own.

And let him struggle with it. Let him wonder if he’s becoming what everyone feared, and then have a moment, one small, honest moment, where he chooses not to.

╰  One more thought, What if the real story isn’t about what side he chooses…but about who he becomes when no one’s looking?

Not villain. Not hero. Not symbol. Just… him.

A kid born in someone else’s shadow, learning, slowly, painfully, that he can make his own light, even if it flickers. Even if people don’t see it. Even if it scares them. And maybe that light doesn’t look heroic. Maybe it’s sharp-edged. Maybe it hurts people sometimes. But it’s his. And that is more powerful than anything he could be labeled.

You’re already thinking so deeply about this character, which tells me you care. And that’s how stories get written with soul. Don’t rush the answer. Let him show you who he is over time...

[the-nosy-neighbor]

Creepy Flower Throughout the Secret Videos

I have included all different shots of the creepy flower in the videos in order. I don't have anything super useful to add from this, but I do think it will be something that will be handy to reference.

There also may be a difference in lighting over the span of the videos indicating it getting darker, despite the fact that we know there is an overnight in this span somewhere.

This last one, in particular, really highlights the eye aspect of the flower. While I'm posting about the creepy flower, I have read quite a few theories about it, and my take is a bit different but not a lot different.

I think this is a camera, designed to fit in with the environment. Reasons:

It is made of cloth and yarn (we see Julie's puppet hand as well, but she's not "real" either)

It is dark blue, not a natural color for the environment.

It has the same colors and a similar configuration as/to the Marlo logo, which is an eye (and maybe a hypnotic one, at that)

The center part of the flower is very obviously a camera lens, in my mind

I'm not ready to fully commit to the idea that Marlo is manipulating the neighbors into performing a show for their benefit, and pretending their natural behaviors are a scripted show. We do have the interview that indicate at least some characters are aware of the show aspect at some level.

Here, though, it really appears that Julie has been given this false flower to "bloom," when it is never going to. Also, the narrator (as the voice of the unknown masters) wakes her up early. It feels like assigning blame to Julie for these failures, knowing that she is going to lose it. And she does lose it, panicking about her place in the neighborhood, her family, her friendship with Frank, and being good enough to be a part of any of it.

In this light, it does appear that these experiments are taking place to crack the characters. Eddie loses his ability to earn his place in the neighborhood, to earn recognition through work, and that leads him to a very disturbing break where he seems to consider how small he is (or how small his life is). Poppy is purposely pushed into a situation that will cause her to break by isolating her and using her own agoraphobia against her, by making her safe space a very dangerous space. Her fear makes her crack.

I'm working on compiling the use of other flowers in other areas of the website, in case that is relevant.

[lulu2992]

Greg Bryk was in episode 25 of Podcast141, co-hosted by Marwen Heni, Mars Lipowski, and Jim Boeven, to talk about his acting career in general, but also and mostly his role as Joseph Seed in Far Cry 5.

Since he’s already shared a lot of anecdotes in interviews and live videos on Instagram, I thought I wouldn’t learn anything new... but I did, so here’s a summary of what he said about his experience playing the Father.

We knew that the dev team (he specifically mentioned Dan Hay and Drew Holmes) had struggled to find the “right” actor for the role, but what I don’t remember ever hearing before is that, after two years of unsuccessful search, the project was almost cancelled for this reason!

Thankfully, that was when Greg Bryk auditioned. He had already said the script they gave him (and that he thought was “amazing”) was what became Joseph’s monologue in the mission “We Must Be Strong”, but he gave more details about what was originally in it. In this early version of his backstory, Joseph was 23 years old and working two jobs to support his family. One night, exhausted, he fell asleep on the couch as his pregnant wife went out to get ice cream. He was then awoken by a knock on the door, told she had been in an accident, and taken to the hospital. The rest of the story is what he says in Far Cry 5: when he arrives, his wife is dead, their premature daughter is “stuffed with tubes”, he hears God’s calling, and understands he has to make this sacrifice.

So he got the role, and when they called him again to record a sermon (my guess is it was this one, but I’m just speculating), he saw what the game looked like and thought everything and everyone was “incredible”. Over time, as they got to know him, they even changed the character and partly rewrote the Father specifically for him.

The team was also very accommodating. For example, the scenes are usually shot in the huge performance capture studio, but for the Heralds’ eulogies, which are much more intimate, they built a small room so he felt like he actually had something around him instead of a big, empty space.

A day before the game came out, the cutscenes were already available online and he watched some of them. He was very impressed by the last eulogy (or, as he calls it, “snot monologue”) in particular because of how “vivid” and “human” it felt. It brought tears to his eyes and he recalls his wife was “blown away”; it was “special”.

As for the fans, he thinks they’ve been very supportive and welcoming. Some have told him they felt heard and seen by Joseph, and he believes it’s because he’s a character who loves people for who they are. At this point, he and the co-hosts agreed that being an actor was a gift because it gives an opportunity to make people’s lives better, especially in video games because there’s a unique connection that doesn’t really exist in movies or TV series.

Marwen Heni mentioned that, while most villains want you to hate them, Joseph, on the contrary, wanted you to reflect and think that he might be right. Greg Bryk admitted that he believed everything he said, especially about family and technology. Sometimes, people are isolated or only have online connections, so having someone tell them, “I see you and I love you for what you are” is powerful. In his opinion, this message resonated with a lot of players because it’s a simple truth and we all want to be part of a family.

Joseph doesn’t control his followers with fear, Marwen Heni commented, but with devotion, and that too makes him compelling. As he was playing Far Cry 5, he started questioning whether or not he (as the Deputy) was right for opposing the Father, which is something Greg Bryk says he saw a lot in comments. He believes there’s “an intimacy to the relationship” between Joseph and the player, a “seduction” in the sense that we all want to belong. He’s humbled by the impact his work had on people.

When asked if he would be open to reprising the role, this time, he answered, “Absolutely”. In fact, and this is news to me, he revealed there were discussions about turning Far Cry into a TV show, and the different games would have been standalone seasons. That said, he added that, at a certain point, it’s necessary to let characters go and that he was grateful for what he had already experienced playing the Father.

Marwen Heni then asked if Joseph, who is very complex, was entirely fictional or if it was Greg talking through him. He answered his characters are always him, to a degree, because he wants to connect with the material so he never lies and can work from things that matter to him. He never judges them and tries to think about what he wants to express through them. He’s interested in their humanity and what motivates them. “We’re all broken,” he said. “Some are much more broken than others, and sometimes those broken pieces are very sharp and jagged, and they lash out.”

He also revealed he had “very specific rituals” to help him become a character and then let them go. He mentioned a few prayers that one of his friends, who is a Wiccan, taught him. In fact, and all the co-hosts agreed, it can be very hard to “disconnect” from a character sometimes because actors aren’t just pretending; they’re using real emotions.

He had already said his son Dempsey had done the mocap for John and Jacob in the Collapse DLC and that he felt carrying Ethan’s body in New Dawn was a way for him to honor his “boy”, his dead dog Lucky, since he deeply regretted that he couldn’t be there to take him to the veterinarian the day he passed. What I didn’t know, however, is that it was Greg himself who had asked if Joseph could carry Ethan, and the team made it happen. He also explained that, when it was time to play this scene, he tried to imagine what it would be like to actually lose his son.

But who is Greg Bryk’s favorite Far Cry villain? Well, when he auditioned and started researching the franchise, he was interested in Vaas because of Michael Mando’s performance. He still doesn’t know him personally but has a friend who worked with him and who spoke about “how electrifying his talent was”. There’s something “unhinged” and “primal” to him as a performer; he’s a “wild” and “special” actor.

Finally, when told he was born to play Joseph, he confessed he felt he was indeed “called” to play this part but wants to give credit to Dan Hay, Drew Holmes, and Jean-Sébastien Décant for creating such a “terrifyingly human” antagonist in the first place.

[torchstelechos]

There's something really heartbreaking about the misunderstandings between Mirabelle and Siffrin, because at the start of the game Siffrin teases Mirabelle but gets real anxious and worried about upsetting her multiple times and even gets worried about Bonnie throughout the game. This being to the point that they keep the good lines in the script, even if they could feasibly stop caring about it. Then, during act 5, Mirabelle hits Siffrin with the fact that he's mean when he's teasing her but she doesn't let it get to her because she knows they mean well. Do you think about this? The thought of Siffrin being so self conscious of his own faults to the point they made sure the loops always were kind until the last one only to get slapped in the face by your families comments and hand. Like I think about this a lot. Obviously they knew they were mean but they also did everything in their ability to not hurt their family only to be told that they had multiple times and it was only because of his families trust and love that his family didn't take it to heart. Like fuck, fuck, I think id fucking go crazy. I think I'd isolate myself if that happened to me. Oh my gods. It really makes some of his next decisions really bonkers to me, but in a good way because yeah! Yeah that makes sense. Anyway post game I think Siffrin would probably not tease or poke fun at anyone for a good while in fear of hurting their families feelings.

[bumbled-bees]

Is Lily a Cult of Personality?

That term can be heavy-handed, so let’s be specific about what it actually means and how Lily fits the pattern.

What is a cult of personality?

A cult of personality arises when a leader uses media, censorship, groupthink, fear, and emotional manipulation to create an uncritical, idealized, and authoritative image of themselves. It doesn’t require literal worship, but it does rely on loyalty, conformity, and the idea that the leader is fundamentally correct, even when reality contradicts them.

In online communities, it often manifests as:

Elevating the creator’s opinions to gospel

Punishing dissent or even mild disagreement

Creating an “in-group vs. out-group” narrative

Rewriting events to protect the leader’s ego

Justifying abuse or cruelty as “tough love” or honesty

How Lily fits this mold

Lily positions herself as a hyper-confident, always-correct moral arbiter. Her audience isn’t just encouraged to agree with her: they’re often expected to parrot her rhetoric, adopt her framing, and attack people she criticizes (or vaguely references). If someone pushes back, even gently, they’re treated as disloyal. They get mocked, banned, or accused of “making it about themselves.” Disagreement isn't treated as part of dialogue, it's treated as betrayal.

Her community reflects that authoritarian dynamic. It’s a space where people walk on eggshells, where apologies are punished, where tone policing is weaponized by the person in charge, and where even longtime fans feel scared to say they were hurt. That’s not healthy, it’s coercive. And it reinforces the illusion that Lily is “never in the wrong,” because the only people left around her are the ones who’ve learned to never say otherwise.

And when people do leave, she frames them as “stalkers,” “parasites,” “bad faith actors,” or emotionally unstable. That language keeps current fans from empathizing with critics, and it raises the social cost of defecting. Even if someone’s quietly uncomfortable, they often won’t say anything. They’ll either disappear silently or repress their feelings, because objecting to Lily means risking public humiliation and alienation.

The contradiction of her supposed self-awareness

Lily claims to hate being put on a pedestal. She says she doesn’t want parasocial fans or cult-like behavior. But she does everything possible to maintain it. She:

Demands emotional submission and silence

Controls what can and can’t be said in her spaces

Acts out when fans step outside her carefully curated script

Refuses to meaningfully apologize or accept criticism

That contradiction is telling. It’s not that she hates cult-like behavior: it’s that she hates the responsibility that should come with it. She wants the reverence without the accountability. She wants the loyalty without the listening. She wants control without challenge.

So: is it a cult of personality?

Not in the “leader in sunglasses with followers in robes” way. But in the modern, digital, deeply personal sense?

Yes.

Lily has built a parasocial structure around herself that discourages criticism, rewards obedience, isolates dissenters, and centers her personality as the ultimate source of truth and judgment. That’s a textbook cult of personality, just scaled to the size of a Discord server, a Patreon page, and a slowly shrinking YouTube channel.

[radical-revolution]

Here’s a fantastic share on the notion of ‘soft rebellion’, an act that cultivates beauty instead of despair, that disrupts through delight, that calls for tenderness against hardness, and a “deep, embodied resistance—rebellion that does not just fight against but builds towards.” Yes!

“We need a different strategy—one that doesn’t just burn, but smolders, spreads, takes root. One that knows endurance is its own kind of rebellion.

Soft Rebellion is the mycelial strategy of weaving beneath the surface, unsettling rigid structures with slow, persistent entanglement. It does not meet violence with a mirrored fist but with the supple intelligence of the willow, bending just enough to redirect the force and send it spiraling elsewhere. Soft Rebellion is the way water carves stone—not through brute force but through patient insistence, through intimate knowledge of the cracks, through the whisper of time.

Its strategies are those of the trickster, the lover, the root and the reed. It listens before it moves, feeling into the hidden weaknesses of oppressive systems, understanding that no empire, no ideology, no monolith is without its fractures. It knows that control is a brittle thing, and that softness—fluid, adaptable, decentralized—is far harder to extinguish than steel.

Soft rebellion moves through stories, through the slow embroidery of alternative worlds into the fabric of the present. It cultivates beauty in places of despair, weaving small sanctuaries of aliveness that offer refuge and reimagine what is possible. It disrupts through delight, through care, through humor that turns the blade of power back on itself. It does not fight on the battlefield chosen by the oppressor; it shifts the ground beneath their feet.

To rebel softly is to refuse to be reduced. It is to remain tender in a world that would harden you, to insist on connection where division is sown. It is to plant seeds in the ruins, knowing that even in the shadow of collapse, life finds a way to creep through the cracks and bloom.

Soft rebellion is extraction work. It’s the slow, deliberate untangling of the barbed wire we’ve swallowed—hustle culture, internalized oppression, fear masquerading as productivity. It’s the quiet but radical refusal to be a machine, to be optimized, to be ground down into a function rather than a being.

Soft rebellion doesn’t look like a war cry. It looks like walking away. Like choosing to move at a different rhythm than the one demanded. Like reclaiming time as something stolen, not something to be managed. It is choosing pleasure where exhaustion was expected, choosing presence where dissociation was normalized.

Soft rebellion is the mycelial antidote to the brittle, crumbling monolith of power. In the face of a slow-moving coup—where democracy is gutted in broad daylight, where fear is the chosen currency of control—soft rebellion does not play by the rules of the oppressor. It moves beneath, between, beyond. It resists not with brute force, but with the cunning of ecosystems, the resilience of roots breaking concrete.

Soft rebellion understands that the systems tightening their grip on power want us exhausted, divided, reactive. It knows that despair is an instrument of control, that urgency is often a trap. So instead, it cultivates deep, embodied resistance—rebellion that does not just fight against but builds towards.

Soft Rebellion in Action

1. Refusing the Script of Fear

The coup depends on a narrative of helplessness, of inevitability. Soft rebellion rewrites it. It speaks in futures not yet stolen. It refuses to repeat the script that says “we are powerless.” Instead, it whispers: We are vast. We are unruly. We are not so easily governed.

2. Sanctuary Networks

Authoritarianism thrives on isolation, on making people feel like they stand alone. Soft rebellion builds underground networks of care—mutual aid, resource sharing, protection. It weaves safety where the state seeks to unravel it. This looks like organizing community bail funds, housing networks, off-the-grid communication systems. It looks like knowing who in your neighborhood needs help, who has a safe house, who can be counted on when institutions fail.

3. Disobedient Joy

The coup wants you terrified. It wants you brittle and compliant. So laugh in its face. Gather in parks, sing, dance, make art that mocks the strongman and his fragile grip on power. Remember that joy is not a distraction—it is a weapon. It reminds us that another world is possible, that we are more than the violence done to us.

4. Slowing the Machine

Capitalism and fascism walk hand in hand, demanding productivity even as the world burns. Soft rebellion opts out. It works just enough to survive, then redirects energy into resistance, into community, into slowness. It refuses to feed the machine that funds oppression. It chooses to rest when the system demands exhaustion.

5. Decentralized Resistance

The state expects rebellion to be centralized, to have leaders it can imprison, movements it can crush. Soft rebellion is fungal—it spreads, untraceable, leaderless. It moves through encrypted networks, anonymous zines, whisper campaigns. It understands that a revolution with no head cannot be beheaded.

6. Rituals of Rewilding

Fascism thrives on control—of land, of bodies, of narratives. Soft rebellion rewilds. It plants trees in vacant lots. It reclaims stolen land. It teaches foraging and rainwater collection. It remembers that resistance is not just about destruction, but about growing something back.

7. Disrupting the Spectacle

Authoritarianism is theater—it survives on attention, on outrage, on the constant churn of crisis. Soft rebellion learns when to look away, when to starve the beast. It refuses to amplify propaganda, to take every bait, to let the regime dictate the rhythm of our days. It turns its gaze instead toward the work of healing, building, dreaming.

8. Turning Disinformation Into Openings

The coup thrives on disinformation, on turning reality itself into a battlefield. But soft rebellion doesn’t waste energy fighting ghosts. Instead of arguing in bad faith arenas, it uses moments of disinformation as openings—gently rerouting conversations toward truth, planting quiet seeds of doubt in false narratives. This looks like asking questions rather than attacking, offering a story rather than a statistic, introducing facts with the ease of someone handing over a cup of water instead of a hammer. It resists not through force, but through invitation—through giving people the tools to unspool their own illusions.

Soft rebellion is not passive. It is insurgent, but in a way that cannot be easily named or neutralized. It moves in whispers, in laughter, in unnoticed refusals. It weaves a world beneath the one being forced upon us—a world that, one day, will break through the cracks and bloom.”

—-Shannon Willis

Image: Holding a giant Sequoia Semperviren, Coastal Redwoods, Jedediah State Park, California, ©️Sarah West www.sarahwestfineart.com

[dragon-susceptible]

Different Path Taken Ch17 P3

Another section! This might be the last one and I might need to make another chapter for any more antics in the village, at this point the three sections are 4.5k words long altogether, so. They should be done unless I wanna add the leechleaf scene though, since a lot of what the boys go through isn't any different than the show. After this, it's off to report to the other assassins.

Ram found Rayla stalking after the man in an alley near the edge of town.  She had been careful to remain out of sight, and the two of them quickly made their way to a rooftop to follow him when Ram’s presence made him bolt.  It was almost too easy, running light-footed across the rooftops, leaping from one to the next, herding him into an isolated part of town.  Ram’s blood lit excitedly with the chase.

They cornered him almost too soon.  He whipped the dagger out and turned to face the alley, and Ram smirked down at him and glanced at Rayla.

“I’ll go down behind him,” She signed, silent, and grinned back at him. 

“When he turns, I’ll drop in on his other side,” He agreed, also signing, and gestured for her to go.  She bounced over to the wall behind the man and dropped down behind him.

He whirled around to face her, brandishing the dagger. “I won that money fair and square,” He said defensively.

Ram dropped down behind him. “Oh, we’re not looking for money.” He drawled, and the stranger stumbled, turning so he could see both of them with his dark eyes wild with sudden fear.

“Then what do you want?” He demanded.

“We want your help.” Rayla said firmly.

With a glance between them, the human slowly straightened up, his fear morphing to skeptical curiosity. “With what?” He asked warily.

“That dagger.” Ram said.

The human started to back up again, and Rayla held out her hands to stop him. “Wait!  We don’t want tae take it from you, we just want to borrow your blade to cut these.” She held out her hand and showed him the binding on her wrist, tugging it away from her glove. 

“Oh, you just wanna borrow it, huh?” The human said skeptically. “Do you know how valuable this thing is?”

“Oh, yes,” Ram growled, still rankling at seeing his fucking knife being bandied about, used in bets and swindling, by some human.  He bit back his urge to claim it, not wanting to be identified as an elf.  It had his name inscribed on the hilt in elvish script.

Rayla held up her hands again. “Fine, you hold it, just cut these things off us,” She begged him.  Ram wondered if she was intentionally playing up her youth to gain sympathy from the stranger.

The human straightened up again, giving her a critical look. “But it’ll burn you.”

“I don’t care.  Just do it, please!” She pleaded, holding out her wrist.  The human finally relaxed a little bit more, and nodded carefully.

Ram saw what was happening just in time and stepped around between them. “Absolutely not.  We’re trying mine first.” He said firmly to Rayla. 

Rayla scowled at him. “This whole thing was my idea,” She argued. “An’ your gloves are important, you have tools in them.   Mine are just gloves.”

“If this doesn’t work, Runaan will be furious if I bring you back to camp with a burned arm and nothing to show for it,” Ram said. “I’m not willing to take a chance with you.”

Rayla scowled deeper. “Either he’s mad at you or I am.” She said flatly. “Who’d you rather take your chances with?”

She looked like an angry shadowcub when she pouted like that, but she had laid Ram out often enough in training that he winced at the idea of being on her bad side.  That said, she could be a jerk to him, but she didn’t actually have any authority over him, and Runaan could do both. “You.” He said just as flatly. “I’m not arguing with your father, Rayla.”

She looked ready to spit, but she folded her arms and stepped back. “Fine.”

Ram turned towards the human, who fortunately had not run away while they argued, and who was looking warily between them.  He held out his wrist. “We’re not taking questions.”

“Right.” The human said, and took hold of Ram’s hand to steady it.  Ram balled it into a fist to disguise how his fifth finger wasn’t really there, and braced himself as the heat drew closer to his wrist.

Predictably, as the human tried to set the blade to his wrist like he was slicing something, his glove caught on fire first and he had to jerk free to put it out.  He hissed with pain but doubted his skin was actually burned beneath the thick leather. “Don’t slice, idiot, it’s a sunforge blade, all you have to do is set the heat to what you actually want to cut.”

“You know a lot about these blades, do you?” The human asked warily. 

Ram scowled at him. “Never mind.  Try this.” He tugged the binding away from his glove, wincing at how it bit into the back of his wrist, and held his arm out again.

The human carefully threaded the knife into the gap and tried to cut the binding free.  Ram’s glove once again caught fire, and Ram snarled through the pain until the human flinched away from it and lost hold of the blade.  When Ram flinched too his binding snapped tight again, pinning the searing blade to his wrist, and he felt as though the wind had been knocked out of him as he stumbled backwards.

Rayla caught him and yanked the dagger free of his binding, his wounds instantly cauterized in its heat, and Ram felt like his voice was just burning on the inside as he quickly fell to his knees to pin his hand to the snow.  He put out the fire and just left his burning wrist down there, shuddering as he breathed through his teeth. “It’s no use.  We can’t cut them.” He said, eyes burning with a combination of pain and helplessness in the face of having this slim hope snatched away.

“Are you okay?” Rayla asked worriedly from above him.

Ram shook his head. “Burned, but I’ll be fine.  Good gloves go a long way.” He winced as he looked at the condition his left glove had been left in, halfway to tatters on the inner side, but stood up and dusted himself off nonetheless.

Rayla looked from the dagger to him to the human and back to him.  She carefully handed it to him. “Ram . . . the dagger.  It is yours, it’s got your name inscribed in it.”

“I knew it!” The human gasped. “You’re elves!”

Ram sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, and at least Rayla looked appropriately ashamed of herself.

“Rayla, go meet me where we agreed earlier.” Ram said firmly. “I’ll handle this.”

Rayla hesitated, giving him a hard look. “No killin’, Ram,” She reminded just as firmly. “No maiming either.”

“We’re just going to talk.” Ram promised her. “Just go.”

With one last searching look at him and a frown, Rayla obeyed. 

Once she was out of earshot, Ram turned to face the human, who was half–crouched and looking once again wild-eyed and terrified. “Please don’t hurt me.  Just take the dagger, just let me go.” The man begged.

“I’m not going to take it from you.” Ram said though it felt like pulling teeth, and backed the man up until he fell down into the snow and cowered there.  Ram crouched in front of him and showed him the blade. “I’m going to give this back to you.”

The human glanced from him to the dagger. “What’s the catch?”

“You’re going to keep your mouth shut about us.” Ram said, patiently, voice deadly soft, holding the human’s gaze with his own. “You’re the only one in this town who’s managed to see through the illusions hiding us, so believe me, if the torches and pitchforks start coming out, I will know who told everyone.  We’ve already gotten what we need from this little village, and we’re leaving.  You’re going to keep quiet and let us leave without any trouble.  If you don’t . . .” Ram slowly sank the knife into the stone on the ground between them. “I will come back for you.  And it doesn’t matter how far you run, how well you hide, or how fast you get there.  I will find you.  And when I do, you will wish I had just killed you now.  Do you understand?”

The human nodded jerkily, breath coming in harsh pants.  Ram flared his nostrils and could swear he smelled piss, and his lip curled with disgust.

“I want you to say the words, human.”

“I - I understand.” The human said shakily. 

“So what are you going to do once I leave?”

The human trembled. “N-nothing.”

“Try again.”

Sweat was dripping from his brow now. “I’m - I’m not going to tell anyone about you or - or your girl.”

“Oh, she’s not mine.  But close enough.” Ram snapped his right hand out and grasped the man by the jaw to enforce their eye contact, digging his finger into the hinge of his jaw. “Any questions?”

The man opened and shut his mouth once before daring to ask, “Is the knife actually yours?”

“It was.” Ram admitted, and tightened his grip on his jaw until the man whimpered. “So appreciate that I’m leaving it with you, and keep your mouth shut.”

The human nodded weakly, as best he could with Ram’s grip on his jaw.

“Good.” Ram let go of him roughly and strode out of the alleyway without a glance back until he reached its mouth.  When he did look, the human was still trembling in the snow.

Good.  They would be long gone by the time he regained his senses enough to tell anyone about them or come after them, and he’d be a laughingstock in the town if they couldn’t be found.  Ram smirked to himself and went to rejoin Rayla and the humans at the statue, though his smirk faded quickly as he remembered their respective missions.  With only dried leechleaf in the village for Andromeda, he hoped the humans had found better news for the egg.

[soultragedy]

DEAD POET SOCIETY'S RICHARD CAMERON: A Character Analysis

Disclaimer: Dead Poets Society is my current hyperfixation, this is just me infodumping and sharing some opinions on Cameron as he is a problematic character.

This is all just for fun don't take any of this too seriously!

Who is Richard Cameron?

Richard Cameron is a character in Peter Weir's 1989 film Dead Poets Society. He is most commonly referred to by his last name 'Cameron'. He is a supporting character, turned antagonist in the film.

Cameron is the straight A, teacher's pet type of the group. He was a member of debate club, Welton Society Candidates, crew team, forensics club, service club, and honour council. He is mentioned to have the most achievement pins out of all the Poets. Cameron joins the Dead Poets Society begrudgingly.

He is very pragmatic and rule-abiding. He is often shown hesitating to join in Mr. Keating's teachings as well as his friends own infringement of Welton's expectations. Cameron follows the school's rigid expectation and is meant to be a stark contrast against his roommate, Charlie Dalton.

Cameron's Betrayal

Cameron is most well known for his 'betrayal' of the Dead Poets Society at the end of the film. After Neil's death, Cameron misses a meeting that Meeks told him about twice. While missing this meeting, he goes to Principal Nolan and tells him all the details about the Dead Poets Society meetings and what had occurred. Afterwards, comes his infamous argument with Charlie Dalton which ends with him getting hit in the face.

Cameron Post-Betrayal

After Cameron's betrayal, he is seen very tense in the class formerly taught by Mr. Keating, now taught by Mr. Nolan. He answers every question Nolan asks, and tells him the pages of their poetry books have been ripped out and that they 'skipped around' the chapters. Cameron is the only member of the Dead Poets Society that doesn't stand for the 'O Captain, my captain!' scene

Gale Hansen's Post Canon

In Gale Hansen's Post-Canon script Welton, Cameron takes over as headmaster of Welton Academy and hires Charlie as a teacher.

The Unofficial Types of Richard Cameron percievers

I have read just about everything I can find about Richard Cameron, every wiki, every Tumblr post, every comment, enough to formulate an opinion on him and to classify the people who watched Dead Poets Society and how they feel about Cameron.

Cameron Enjoyers - Richard Cameron enjoyers are someone who watched/read Dead Poets Society and like Cameron and his character. They enjoy his personality and his dynamic with the other boys despite his decision at the end of the film

Cameron Defenders - Richard Cameron defenders are someone who watched/read Dead Poets Society and defend Cameron's actions at the end of the movie (i.e saying how his treatment of his friends was okay and warranted given the situation)

Cameron Apologists - Richard Cameron apologists are someone who watched/read Dead Poets Society and recognize the negative impact of Cameron's actions at the end of the movie but sympathize with his decision due to the pressures of the situation he was in (i.e saying his decision wasn't okay but recognize the pressures he was under and how he thought the decision was right)

This is just how I classify people and their opinions on Dead Poets Society! Don't take it too seriously, I just thought people's perceptions on his character was interesting!

My Opinions, Perceptions and End Thoughts

With all my research and cramming about Dead Poets Society, I have found myself identifying as a Cameron apologist. In no means do I like Cameron's character, but then again he isn't my least favourite (Knox is, but I'll explain that in my character analysis of him).

I see Cameron's character as a representation of isolation, conformity and fear. He's the only one who is afraid to rebel, to 'carpe diem' and to go against the grain. Cameron is also the only Poet not particularly close to anyone else Neil has Charlie and Todd, Charlie has Knox and Neil, Pitts and Meeks have each other, whereas Cameron continues to try to fit in (i.e making fun of Todd, poking fun at Charlie) but never succeeds, therefore representing isolation.

I perceive Cameron's decision as a decision made out of fear. I see his decision as one made in an attempt to 'save his friends'

[rebellenotes]

I hate being asked "how are you?"

It doesn't matter if it's just a greeting. It'll always make me look inwards and think, how am I, really?

The answer will always be somewhere on the "not good" side of the spectrum (whatever that spectrum is). I know the appropriate answer is "good," or "fine," because the person asking isn't really wanting to know how I am doing, but it physically pains me to lie and say I'm fine when I'm not. I can't do it.

I am a great liar, but I can't lie when someone asks me how I am. It feels too raw, too exposed, like opening a wound in front of someone who just expected a wave and a smile. But I can’t keep it all inside, either.

When someone asks me how I am, a part of me wants to answer honestly. I want to say, “Actually, I’m not okay.” I want them to know that I’m not coping, that my thoughts feel too heavy, that sometimes I can barely make it through the day without collapsing under the weight of it all. I need to tell someone—someone who isn’t the relentless voice in my head—that I’m struggling.

It’s not about wanting to burden them. That’s the last thing I want. I just need to hear the words out loud. I need to feel like someone else knows, like I’m not carrying this entirely on my own. Because the more I keep it in, the louder it gets in my mind, and the harder it becomes to convince myself that I’m okay.

So when someone asks “how are you?” I hesitate. I want to scream, “I’m not fine!” but I worry about their reaction. What if they don’t care? What if I scare them off? What if my honesty makes them uncomfortable? But then I think: maybe that’s not my problem. Maybe my honesty is exactly what I need, even if it’s messy, even if it makes someone else squirm.

Because sometimes just saying it—just admitting that I’m not okay—feels like a tiny victory. It feels like I’ve broken free of the silence, even if only for a moment. And maybe, just maybe, someone will hear me and say, “I get it. You’re not alone.”

And if they don’t? If they give me a quick “oh, I’m sorry to hear that” and move on? At least I didn’t lie. At least I didn’t pretend. At least I was honest about the fact that, right now, I’m not fine—and that has to count for something.

Why are we as a society so scared to honestly tell people how we're doing? If I'm the recipient of someone honestly answering the question "how are you," (because I am also a culprit of asking it), I don't feel burdened. I think "oh, thank god I'm not alone." We may not carry the same hardships or experiences, but I can empathise with them because I know the weight your thoughts and emotions can have over you.

And maybe that’s the whole point—we’re all carrying something, but we’ve collectively decided to bury it beneath polite smiles and scripted responses. It’s like we’ve created this unspoken rule that vulnerability is too messy for casual conversation. That sharing how we really feel is somehow selfish or inappropriate, as if admitting struggle makes us weak.

But what if it didn’t? What if answering “how are you?” with honesty made us feel seen instead of ashamed? What if it created connection instead of discomfort?

It’s a reminder that the chaos in my own head isn’t unique or isolating. Someone else has been there, is there, and maybe together we can feel a little less trapped in our own silences. When someone shares their truth with me, it feels like an invitation—not to fix them or offer empty platitudes, but just to sit with them in it. To acknowledge that being human is hard and complicated and not something any of us are meant to do entirely on our own.

I think the fear of answering honestly comes from not knowing how the other person will react. What if they dismiss it? What if they pity us? What if they get uncomfortable and change the subject? But maybe the fear goes deeper. Maybe it’s because once we say it out loud—once we admit that we’re struggling—it becomes real. And that’s terrifying.

But the thing is, it’s already real. It’s already there, weighing us down. Speaking it doesn’t create the weight—it lightens it. Even if only by a fraction. Even if only for a moment.

So maybe the next time someone asks me how I’m doing, I’ll take the risk. I’ll choose honesty, not just for myself but for them too. Because maybe they need to hear it. Maybe they need to know they’re not the only one walking through life with invisible battles. And maybe, just maybe, in sharing my truth, I can make space for someone else to share theirs.

[undertale-fic-librarby]

Do you know any Nightmare x classic fics please?:) can be explicit or not, I don't really care

Howdy, thanks for asking! Here are some fics that might fit what you're looking for!

Everyone Loves a Classic by Corpsetalia_fan_the_Brotato (Not Rated, Incomplete)

Classic Sans... everyone has heard about their origin tale. The very character that ended up setting up all of their lives in their own universes and their own time. However, to any extent, almost no one has met him. The reason? Simple, there was no reason for them to. Whilst they all were able to talk to each other face to face, Classic was the one who never intermingled with the alternate universes. So, what happens when a chance encounter leads to all of the Undertale Au finally being able to meet the one who started it all. The very reason they too are anomalies in the grand spectrum of the universe. One thing is for sure, Classic will never be able to get a break. However, no matter how akin anybody actually does becomes to Classic, there is always something that he is hiding. All of his newfound friends and aquaintences are determined to figure out just what happens when he is not around. Why he won't allow them to go and see his universe with their own eyes. // Welcome to a general fan-book that is going to be written in a script format, because I have nothing better to do in my life and I am literally just wasting away here. Please help me, I am going to die of boredom... :'(//

The Collector of Broken Things by Redacted_Writer (Mature, Complete)

Classic knew of the AU's. He simply never thought he would meet anyone until that one fateful day, when Nightmare offered his hand. It was the best choice he would ever make, taking the offer.

The Last Remaining Enemy is Fear by Zenovy (Teen And Up, Incomplete)

Classic tired of the repeating genocide route, it drained him to the point of isolating himself while unknowingly fueling Nightmare's power. After getting severly injured by Dreams arrows, Nightmare is forced to flee and find negative emotions to fuel his weakened state. That's when he stumble across Classic. After recovering he decided to snatch Classic as his forever power generator. Mutualistic symbiosis Classic emotions become a power generator for Nightmare and feels happy with the negative emotions getting vacuumed. Nightmare Vacuum the negative emotions to fuel his power. Update : hiatus (WRITER BLOCK)

Classic Nightmares by Magyka13 (Explicit, Complete)

Classic Sans goes to sleep tired after a long day on the surface Unbeknownst to Classic until it's too late, Nightmare is waiting for him in his dreams No one can save him now

Beyond Repair by LoversInMidnight (Mature, Incomplete)

Sans had lost everything. In the past, his only friend had been his anchor. The moment the world cast Sans into isolation, he lost hope. Years he remained alone without help. He was broken to the core. Even so, will someone finally see his pain and save him from the darkness, or even himself?