#<— ​I’m gonna make tags for these lol

[ittybittyfanblog]

Error 404: (Self-Aware!AU, Sylus Edition)

Summary: A LADS self-aware!AU featuring Sylus (+ maybe the other MLs!) and an oblivious player. That’s it, that’s the plot. Tags: player!reader x sylus, fem!reader x sylus, reader x lads, maybe some suggestive language?? will add more tags as the story progresses A/N: This is gonna be a multi-chapter fic! I’m still not sure whether to do the boys in rotation, or just focus on one ML per series. Don’t take my word for it atp tho – I’m not even sure if I can actually finish a series lol.  Also, I’ve had the creative liberty of changing stuff from the actual gameplay here and there. (Except for the self-awareness. That’s most definitely real.) Hope you enjoy~!

Chapter 1

It’s a quarter past eight and you’re still on your desk working overtime on a Friday night. 

You let out a big sigh, leaning back on your office chair after an unhealthy duration of bad posture from hours of slouching down in front of your computer. There’s nothing ergonomic about the way this job is killing you, and the ache in your lower back can attest to that. 

An irate orange tabby plops himself in front of you, blocking your view of the glaring screen and you figure that it’s time for a break. 

“Me-oow.”

“I know, I know,” You answer tiredly, standing up to dodge a stray paw clawing your way and you hear cracks in three different places that are honestly unbecoming of a woman your age. You haven’t even reached thirty yet, for god’s sake. “I’m a bad mother. But mom also had to skip dinner to make it to the seven PM meeting, so cut me some slack, okay?” 

A high-pitched “meooowr!” is the only response you get; it seems like there’s no excusing late dinner time this time around. 

As much as you’d like to hem and haw and complain, the main reason why you’re still keeping this job is because you can work remotely. If it weren’t for the fact that you’re stuck most days at home working hours past your regular nine to five, having to be on-call around the clock at all times, and that you’ve consumed more sodium than a nitrite victim with the way you live off cup ramen, then, really, it beats working in an office where you’d physically have to clock in and out from exactly nine to five. 

Your right eye twitches. No, I have not fallen in love with the system that exploits me, thank you very much. 

“Here is your Fancy Feast, your highness,” you tell the hungry feline who’s already ignoring the hand that feeds for the bowl full of white fish paté. He eats healthier than you, sure, but you work like this for him to eat like this. The life of a single mom is an uphill battle, but extremely rewarding. 

You raise your hand to pat your son’s head lovingly, aborting the gesture halfway when you hear a warning growl. Alright, tough crowd. 

After nuking a half-eaten takeout box in the microwave and grabbing a cold Bundaberg from the fridge, you hunker down on the “chaise lounge” (see: an old wingback and a rattan ottoman you’ve refurbished as a makeshift seat a few weeks back when you had guests over) for a late meal. 

You barely register the taste of lukewarm rice on your tongue, mouth moving mechanically while your mind runs on autopilot about everything and nothing at the same time. 

Maybe it’s time to check Jobstreet again

Is there like a laundromat near the area that’s open twenty four seven

Eugh, I hate cold peas

What do we feel about Chromakopia? 

I will… die alone

I really need to stock on some fresh produce this weekend–

Ping! 

A notification from your phone pulls you out of your thoughts – and like a well-trained dog pavlov’d into responding, you visibly perk up at the sight of your lock screen lighting up and the familiar banner you’ve already memorized by heart. 

Your Galaxy Explorer rewards are here. Did you put my hotel’s address as the shipping address? 

Ah, just like clockwork. 

You press on it with a quiet, bubbling anticipation, chewing on the plastic spork as you wait impatiently for the silly mobile game that’s been your short respite at intervals – for more than you’d care to admit – to boot up. 

Offhandedly, you wish that the devs would add more variations to the game’s push notifications; more random, personalized stuff like maybe a reminder to drink water, or a fun update about their day. What you’d give – pay – for a: "Less on the overtime, kitten. I miss you,” dialogue from a certain character, but you digress. 

Oh, well. Probably better this way, lest you dig yourself deeper into delusion. 

The game greets you with the usual picturesque view of a silver-haired man sitting cross-legged on a chair, looking all the bit at ease in his signature crimson and white button up. The warm ambience of the Destiny Café at night draws you in, already pulling your attention away from the never-ending stream of thoughts in your brain. 

“Before seeing you, I thought today would be another dull day,“ Sylus comments airily. The way he drawls out the words in that deep timbre of his voice never fails to make your heart flutter – just a teeeensy bit.

“Ever the charmer,” you sigh happily in return, situating yourself more comfortably on the sofa, almost horizontal from how far you’re leaning back on the cushion. “You’re looking awfully normal tonight. What, no pineapple glasses for your favorite girl?” 

Having bypassed the initial cringe of talking to yourself after literal months of gameplay, it almost comes off natural, the banter. You’ve already accepted the fact that you’re crazy about a fictional, pixelated man – what’s pretending to have actual conversations with him gonna do? It’s not as if he actually hears you yap your nonsense; there are worse things in the world than a parasocial attachment to an otome game character. 

Your little jab at the sometimes random addition to his choice of attire earns you a laugh from the man itself– or at least it looks as though it does, making you blink momentarily in surprise. Happy coincidence, I guess.

You shake your head, cracking a smile, then proceed to do the routine of completing the daily agenda and then some. 

It’s tedious business, sure. You’ve dedicated hours upon hours on this game and you’re honestly starting to feel pretty bored with some of the gameplay elements, but you *do* like the ritualistic nature of ticking off the tasks one by one. It’s almost ironic – the way you dutifully do one thing after the other in this game, just to avoid the pile of work that’s waiting for you in real life. 

It’s not as if anything, or anyone’s relying on you to do your daily log-ins, so you suppose it’s due to that lack of pressure as well. 

Pulling yourself away from the five-star Xavier memory card you’ve grinded to level seventy, you stare despondently at the sad little 2 on your remaining energy. The embarrassing amount of materials you lack to ascend the card seem to mock you, even as you exit the Memories window. Another goal for another day, perhaps.

All tasks on the daily agenda are complete, except for one that you’ve always saved for last.

You’re met with a standing Sylus on the game’s home screen, arms crossed and wearing an expression you’d almost describe as impatient– if you didn’t know better. The sight makes you grin. 

Cheekily, you poke his crotch.

You’re looking forward to getting a playful remark, or if you’re lucky, a blush along with an embarrassed retort about your shamelessness. 

 What you get, however, is a resounding scoff. Your eyes snap back to his face – from, ahem, your prolonged staring at the area below his waist – and you do see the familiar tinge of pink on his cheeks, but what he says in response catches you off-guard.

“You spend that much resource for a card that isn’t mine?” Sylus tsks, both his voice and expression coming across as… affronted? ���Kitten, I’m actually hurt.” 

Huh?

You haven’t heard that line from him before. Was there a recent update you weren’t aware of? The man in question then appears to look amused, from the way you’ve been rendered speechless by the unexpected dialogue. 

All at once, you gasp when you realize what the new response means. 

“That’s so smart,” you say giddily. You see Sylus cock his head to the side, synchronously quirking an eyebrow—expectant. “They actually added a feature that lets them know which memory I’ve upgraded last, and make you react to it. Oh, that’s so cool!” 

If you weren’t too busy being excited over what you think is a new update from the game,  you’d see the chagrined look on Sylus’ face. But when you glance back at him, all trace of the emotion is gone before you could notice anything different. 

“Don’t worry, Crow Man. You’re still my favorite,” you assure him, making his mouth tick upwards in a semblance of a smile. He looks pleased all of the sudden, his demeanor shifting into something more relaxed.

Then a pout forms on your face. You crinkle your nose in frustration as you complain, “It’s just really hard to level your cards up at this point. It takes ages and a shit ton of energy just to level you up past seventy five.” Sighing, you add, kind of bitterly, “And I’m too broke to be spending money on growth packs.” 

Checking the time on your phone, you see that you’ve already spent more than an hour on your self-imposed break time and you know that you ought to get back to work soon. With a groan, you pull yourself to sit upright, savoring the last few minutes of free time before you slave off for the rest of the night. 

You’re about to clean up what’s left of dinner when you notice the oddly thoughtful look on Sylus’ face. 

There’s a deep furrow in his brows as he brings a hand up to cover his mouth. He closes his eyes shut for a few seconds.

Suddenly, you see a flicker– then a weird, sort of graphic distortion happening in the background. Uh, what??

A beat; then a glitch on the screen. “Ah, shit.” 

The game crashes.

You exhale loudly as the game’s interface goes back to the loading screen, tapping your thumb impatiently as the bar slowly loads to 15%... 50%..... 81%....... 

“Maybe make sure to patch up first before releasing an update next time, jeez— Huh?” 

For a quick second, nothing seems to be amiss. But then the first thing you see on the home screen is Sylus’ figure standing before you, wearing an expression one could only describe as a cat that ate the proverbial canary. 

He speaks— and it’s another intro you haven’t heard him say, ever. 

“You should’ve told me sooner, sweetie,” he almost coos the words out, making your eyes bug out in shock. 

“Now, why don’t you go check your–” he pauses, and his mouth moves as if he’s rolling the word out, testing it. “Inventory?” 

Sylus slides his gaze towards the upper left corner of the screen, a coy smirk still ever-present on his face. 

There, you see something you haven’t noticed earlier: two notification badges. One on your mailbox, and another on the Hunter’s Info tab. Bewildered, you press on the mail icon first, despite the insistence for you to start with the latter. 

You see a new message: [For You]

A small gift, to bridge our worlds closer. – S 

Nothing is attached to it. You read it twice, perplexed.  

“You’re quite the contradictorian, aren’t you?” Sylus tuts as soon as you return back to the home screen, his gaze boring into you even when he tilts his head sideways in mock exasperation. “Mmm, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Take all the time you need, sweetheart.” 

Helplessly, you open your inventory next. 

Your jaw drops. 

“What. The fuck,” You whisper to yourself, voice wavering in disbelief at what you’re seeing, and the sheer amount of what you’re seeing. “This– this can’t be real.” 

You see that all the materials you own, from the bottle of wishes to the ascension crystal boxes, have been multiplied a hundred times over.

And on top of that–

Ninety nine thousand red dias????

You cannot believe how this– this recent… update (or is it a bug? Infold sure isn’t this generous) didn't make the news. Even as someone as uninvolved as you are with the community and the game’s latest releases, something like this for sure would’ve made headlines on Twitter (X), at least. But you haven’t heard anything. Nada. 

Holy shit. 

You feel a little light-headed, both from incredulity and excitement. Needing a moment to calm yourself down, you exit the Inventory tab in a daze.

You stare at Sylus. He stares back at you with what looks to be mirth in his eyes. 

Skeptically, you mutter, “did–did I get hacked or something?” 

Anticipating another unexpected dialogue to prompt up, you wait for a full minute without saying anything else. And for a moment, the man in front of you looks indecisive, contemplative. 

There’s something very odd, very… human in the way he’s looking at you. He looks as if– as if he’s—

His face falls back into a neutral expression. Not unlike how his idle animation usually looks. 

..

…

….. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to initiate a conversation any time soon, so you hesitantly poke him on the nose. 

“Even in the worst-case scenario, there’s no need to panic.”

You’ve heard that one before.

So he’s back to normal now. You temper the small disappointment that blooms in your gut. 

Shaking your head slowly, you try to make sense of all the stuff that just happened, but a sharp bite on your ankle pulls you out of your reverie. 

“Ow–!” The sight of your cat flopping near your feet reminds you of the time. More importantly, the backlogs waiting for you at your desk. 

“Wait, shit– I gotta get back to work.” This… unbelievable stroke of good luck (?) is gonna have to take a backseat for now.

You grab the carton box and the half-empty bottle of sparkling peach as you stand up. Making quick work of throwing the container in the trash and gulping down the rest of your drink, you rush into your room and back in front of your PC. 

Cracking your knuckles, you gingerly set your phone against the monitor. Setting the timer to one hour in Quality Time, knowing fully-well that you’re going to have to keep extending it until the wee hours of the morning – or until your battery dies, whichever comes first – you give Sylus one last look, letting out a long exhale before locking in.

“Just keep me company for the night, alright? I’ll figure out what’s going on once my shift’s over.” 

It could just be your overactive imagination, but you swear you hear a quiet chuckle from the man polishing his gun in your peripheral.

[chibishortdeath]

Happy 37th birthday, Simon’s Quest :). It’s been quite a lot of horrible nights to have a curse, huh.

[thwackk]

i realized im never gonna color these ever i might as well post them, YALL FW BUTCH ZORO 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[sydneys-adamu]

I just want it known that sydney adamu is a person. a human. with human feelings which now more than ever will be annoyed. angry. frustrated. regretful. and she has every reason to be. she shouldn’t need to be defended with every argument as to why she is allowed this room for her feelings. what she is, is a human, not the obedient little girl so many people seem to think she should be. where as her white male counterparts can scream and yell and nearly tear the place apart, she can’t even be mad about it without being called “annoying” or “ungrateful”. she may scream for the first time. she may yell. she may decide that she’s fucking over it and she may have to be convinced this is still worth her time. carmy may have to fucking convince her that HE is worth her time. she cares about him, and about every other person in that damn restaurant but that doesn’t mean she has to smile about it 24/7. I don’t want to fucking hear your stupid reasons as to why a young black woman isn’t allowed to be overwhelmed into making decisions you might not personally make. literally shut the fuck up.

[blackburningrose]

I’m late yeah but consider it’s been haunting me this ENTIRE TIME

Nanny AU by @notherpuppet

[raiiny-bay]

some WIPs from the 80s AU i never finished

[mossy-paws]

Coroika Splatoon but it’s PHIGHTING! Roblox

Hi to my Coroika and phighting fans so how are we feeling about this one

cooked these up in a few hours! These honestly didn’t really take that long at all and were really fun to do since I got to play around with some charcoal brushes (I love doing everything in my power to NOT use midtones lmfao).

I tired to mimic the style of the manga a bit and I think i did relatively okay! I have a lot more of these planned so yeah >:3! Really excited to get to do them sometime

Og Panels:

[stastnesova]

Silly little thing, but I made some earrings!

[growmybelly]

@cheeseburgersinparadise asked so nicely for some more belly play so of course I’ve gotta provide the goods 😉

[tennessoui]

it’s like baby gorl there’s no way I, the author who wrote the fic you’re commenting on and who is the intended audience for this comment, am gonna agree with you 😿🙏 some things can just stay on your chest 🙏

[great-and-small]

Me in high school reading about the Ancient Greek practice of Ornithomancy: Lol that’s so silly they really thought they could predict things about the future based on the random shit that birds do 😂

Me as an adult after seeing a swallow-tailed kite on my drive to work: oh my god that was everything. What a blessing. It is going to be the most beautiful perfect day. Everything is gonna go my way now I can just feel it

[pinayelf]

Halfling sorcerer Immy!

I’m not playing in any campaigns rn but I wanted to re-imagine immy as a dnd character and to me Halfling lol

[chimerahyperfix]

This loop has to be the one. Nevermind that you said it last loop, and the one before, and the one before that, and most of the ones before that. THIS was the one you'd stop the King in his tracks. You push a few of your many potions to the side to make room on your desk. None of them worked to stop him, so they were useless. He's still about twelve, fourteen? hours away, so you have enough time to make the bomb, eat and take a fat nap before you go pick a fight. Maybe this time, it'll work! It has to!

You've gotten better at making the Craft Bomb. It hasn't blown up on you before you intended to use it in... a long time. You can make it fast enough, now, for it to still be light outside! You've become silent while you work, which Mirabelle has told you is ''worrying'', but you don't see why it is. Are you really that loud? (Yes. You are.)

It's hard work. Soft light bathes your desk, your work, you. You reach out, past your potions, and grab your water bottle. Take a big swig, and

Hmm. That's not water.

How. HOW do you keep making this mistake. You look at the bottle in your hand, and sure enough, it’s one of the potions; your water bottle is shoved in the back of the collection of other containers. The taste is caustic, your throat begins to burn. You shouldn’t be this calm for having just drank something that’ll kill you in a handful of minutes, but it’s happened before. Despite the pain you don't bother trying anything. Just push the finished bomb to the side and lay your face against the wood of the table. Feel the blood start to pool in your mouth and dribbling out, staining the wood. Mirabelle, or Euphie or whoever comes in next, they can use it this loop. It's not the first time you've drank one of the many, many dangerous potions on your desk, and it's probably not the last. Maybe you'll actually clean the crabbing thing off before you work.

Whatever. You have next time. You have all the time.

Perhaps a bit too much, actually.

[ursachaotic]

is this. anything lmao (I just want them to fight each other lmao 😭)

[charmac]

just wanna say I agree wholeheartedly with your tags on that fandom post. I have been following sunny on here since 2015 and there is a constant cycle of sensitive, and frankly delusional people, who claim the show, make crazy headcanons and justifications to make it tolerable and acceptable to them before they eventually shun and condemn the show altogether. it was very bad in 2018 and made me withdraw from the fandom lmao. I remember being most annoyed with the endless woobifying of charlie and the absolute condemnation of dee above everyone else. like, they're all bad. that's the point of the show. I just don't understand how they could stomach it in the first place

You are a warrior, dude.

The reason it took me so long to join Sunnyblr in the first place was the fact that ~early 2020 I was rarely seeing anything here that was based in canon, mostly weird headcanons that made no sense to me, and Reddit genuinely seemed like a more based place to exist for this show.

I literally needed a friend to give me specific accounts to follow because the tag was (and, sorry, lowkey still is) a nightmare. (Though to be fair I’ve been in fandoms on Tumblr for over a decade and literally never liked scrolling tags.)

I got into Sunny and I fell in love with Sunny because of canon. Because it’s so fucking weird and fucked up but it’s FUNNY, and there’s genuinely nothing like it. The characters are horrible stupid terrible people but they’re actually deeply complex and rich to study, so much so that you feel extremely compelled in a multitude of ways to dedicate yourself to some part of them, or all parts of them. But.. if you strip them of those core identities, of what the characters stand for, that compulsion is gone, void, irrelevant.

Because it’s the extremely raw, almost purely acting on basic instinct, unfiltered humanity, worst parts of the self, inability to recognise or follow societal norms aspects of these characters that are relatable. It’s relatable in a way that *should* make you uncomfortable, feel unsettled, and maybe a little relieved that these parts of people can be acknowledged... That’s a unique and interesting feeling, something people engage with media like this to explore and expand upon, and it’s often something that genuinely helps or supports people who wrestle with a lot of the heavy concepts Sunny satirises (and sometimes just, shoves at you head on).

When people start to disregard all of this, for whatever reason they do, that’s when you end up with the Fandom using Sunny Characters as an “ability to project” or (much worse) a “near blank canvas to play with” (because, yeah, if you strip them of their literal reason for being created and continued existence, ofc you lose their whole identity!?)

The problem seems to be that either 1) they just don’t understand the show well enough to get that they’re disregarding this aspect of the plots and characters, and so they genuinely don’t recognise that the fandom for Sunny exists because of these terrible compulsions and insane trauma exploration and that’s why we enjoy discussing and playing with these characters or 2) they do understand this but they can’t engage with it without some kind of personal moral conundrum or extreme discomfort, so they have to sanitise or completely alter the characters to enjoy them.

The thing is, if you fall into category 2, you just don’t belong in the depths of it all, and it’s an unfortunate truth you have to face. If you cannot enjoy canon, if the actual show makes you extremely uncomfortable and you’re only here for a gay ship or to project your gender and sexuality onto one character, you need to go stan something else. I say that with the greatest intentions for you. As Anon here has stated, it’s an insane cycle in this fandom over and over, you’re just going to upset yourself and resent the show and the people here, because we like the canon and the fuckery because that’s what the show is for. That is the literal point of the show at the end of the day.

Now if you’re in category 1, I heavily encourage you to actually *talk to people about the show and the characters*, read analysis, watch the episodes with different frames of reference and in alternate states of mind. Do your own analysis or character work, try and just write out the plot of your favourite episode and put to words *why* you like it. Hell, try and write a fanfic or a spec script from the mind of one of the characters, even if you think you can’t write.

Honestly, honestly, honestly, if you genuinely like this show at face value but you’re only engaging with fanon because you feel like you ‘shouldn’t’ openly enjoy the canon because it’s seen as ‘bad,’ the best thing you can do is have a conversation with someone, or multiple people, who get the show.

That being said, I do wanna open this shell Discord I’ve made to people. For people who *enjoy* the canon, who want to discuss actual Sunny (and also have fun with it, of course!) you’re welcome to join.

A lot of you get it. I’ve made some amazing friends in this fandom and regularly have extremely stimulating and insanely throught provoking convos with the people I’ve met here. I love it, it drives my insane passion for this show and I am eternally grateful to have found people who love this show for what it is. I hope, if you’re struggling to figure out why you like this show or struggling to accept that you like media like Sunny, you reach out or join a conversation and learn to love it too. And if you don’t, if you genuinely hate the canon of this show and only like the version of Macdennis you saw in a dozen different Tiktok edits to Taylor Swift songs, I really hope you move on for your own sake.

[bugsnaxed]

Au stuff :0D

(Cw for minor disturbing stuff, lots of eyes, and staring)