#(( filed under: things he's probably literally said at some point

[sunarryn]

DP X Marvel #30

Dani Phantom wasn’t exactly trying to join a government-sanctioned group of reformed (read: questionably reformed) assassins, mercenaries, and general menaces to society, but in her defense, she didn’t know what a Thunderbolt was. She thought they were just a bunch of really cool weirdos with snappy outfits who didn’t mind that she phased through walls sometimes or accidentally vaporized a training drone.

It started when Dani, on the run from some GIW idiots, phased through several realities and crash-landed in the middle of a Thunderbolts operation — specifically, right between Bucky Barnes (grumpy, armed, tired) and Yelena Belova (chaotic, armed, also tired but hiding it better).

“Is that a child?” Yelena asked, peering over Bucky’s shoulder like he was a slightly inconvenient lamp.

Bucky, gun still raised, frowned. “That’s a floating child.”

“I can see that, Captain Obvious,” Yelena snapped, flipping her knife casually in her hand. “Why is she floating like—”

Before she could finish that thought, Dani spun midair and zapped the rogue Hydra agents sneaking up behind them with a giant neon green energy blast. The agents went flying into a brick wall like someone had yeeted them across a football field.

“…Okay,” Yelena said brightly. “I like her. She can stay.”

“I—what?” Bucky sputtered, lowering his gun slightly. “She’s a kid, Yelena.”

“And she vaporized five men without blinking,” Yelena pointed out, beaming like a proud aunt. “I say we keep her. She’s Thunderbolt material. Very murder-y. Very spunky.”

“She’s like ten.”

“Exactly. She’s moldable. We can teach her the good stuff early,” Yelena insisted, already imagining Dani learning to throw knives and argue over which snacks were superior.

Meanwhile, Dani floated down to their level, blinking wide green eyes. “Are you guys… superheroes?” she asked hopefully.

Yelena immediately lied through her teeth. “Yes. Very professional. Very respected. No felonies.”

Bucky choked on absolutely nothing.

Thus began Dani’s unofficial, highly illegal induction into the Thunderbolts.

Nobody officially signed paperwork. Dani just started showing up. She helped steal Hydra files. She broke into a SHIELD safehouse for snacks. She haunted a couple of corrupt senators for laughs. The team decided if the government didn’t want her around, they should have given them actual HR training.

The real problem started when Bucky and Yelena decided they were both, separately, her legal guardian.

“You are not responsible enough to raise a kid,” Bucky said one evening, arms crossed while Dani hovered upside down from the ceiling chewing bubblegum she definitely stole from somewhere.

“And you are?” Yelena scoffed, tossing popcorn at Dani, who caught it in her mouth mid-flip. “You still get confused by TikTok.”

“That’s not the same as raising a kid!” Bucky barked. “She needs stability. Structure. Rules.”

“She needs to learn how to properly dismantle a car bomb in under thirty seconds,” Yelena said cheerfully. “You Americans are so boring.”

“I fought in World War II, of course I’m boring!” Bucky exploded.

“You’re ancient,” Yelena sniffed. “You probably think letting her get a tattoo is ‘dangerous.’”

“She’s a kid!” Bucky nearly screamed.

In the background, Dani giggled and skated on a conjured green energy hoverboard through the briefing room, knocking over chairs and sending a very concerned Red Guardian flying out of the way with a yell.

“This is fine,” Yelena said as Bucky watched in silent horror. “She is thriving.”

Thriving was one word for it.

Things escalated when Bucky tried to enforce an 8 PM bedtime.

“I’m literally a half-ghost,” Dani said, deadpan. “I don’t sleep.”

Bucky blinked. “What do you mean you don’t sleep? Everyone sleeps.”

Yelena, sitting smugly on the couch with a tub of ice cream, smirked. “Ha! The child sides with me. We binge-watch shows until 3 AM.”

“You’re killing her brain cells,” Bucky growled.

“Undead,” Dani corrected sweetly, phasing through the ceiling to avoid capture when Bucky tried to confiscate her ghostly hoverboard.

Meanwhile, other Thunderbolts members slowly realized there was a child among them and had no idea how to handle it.

Red Guardian tried to teach her Russian wrestling moves.

Taskmaster, after three failed attempts at babysitting, locked themselves in their room and refused to come out without bribes of coffee.

Ghost (Ava Starr) just accepted Dani as a background gremlin who occasionally made her coffee float across the room when she was too tired to move.

The real bomb dropped when Jazz Fenton stormed into the Thunderbolts’ compound.

Not walked. Stormed. Like an avenging angel armed with binders full of academic papers, parental rights lawsuits, and the righteous fury of an older sister forced to deal with supernatural nonsense since age twelve.

“What. The hell. Is going on,” Jazz asked, her voice eerily calm as she stared down Bucky, Yelena, Red Guardian, and Taskmaster at once.

Nobody moved.

Even Dani froze, halfway through trying to fit a stolen grenade into her backpack.

“You—” Jazz pointed at Bucky. “—brought my minor sister to an assassination mission.”

Bucky immediately tried to stand at attention like she was a general. “In my defense, she’s very good at it—”

“And you—” she pivoted to Yelena, who grinned unrepentantly. “—taught her how to hotwire a motorcycle!”

“Useful life skills,” Yelena said brightly.

“And you—” Jazz growled at Red Guardian, who tried to blend into the wall. “—gave her vodka!”

“It was for medicinal purposes,” Red Guardian said weakly.

Jazz took a deep breath, cracked her knuckles, and pulled out a thick legal document titled “Fenton v. Thunderbolts: Custody Hearing” that somehow already had signed pages, notarizations, and citations of obscure interdimensional child protection laws.

“I am taking her home,” Jazz said, enunciating every syllable like she wanted to bludgeon them with the concept of language.

Dani immediately wailed, “Nooooooo! Jazz! I like it here! They let me have grenades!”

“You are eleven!”

“Twelve and a half!” Dani insisted.

“I was giving her a flamethrower for her half-birthday,” Yelena said proudly.

Jazz pinched the bridge of her nose like she was resisting the urge to start swinging.

“I don’t even know how you people are still alive,” Jazz muttered.

“Luck,” Bucky offered helpfully. “Mostly luck. And sarcasm.”

“And murder,” Yelena added. “Don’t forget murder.”

Jazz turned to Dani, crouching so they were eye-level.

“Sweetie,” she said in the voice adults use when they’re seconds from committing a homicide, “you cannot just…join a government hit squad.”

“But they have matching jackets,” Dani said, voice wobbling. “And Bucky taught me how to punch people really hard without breaking my own hand!”

“She is surprisingly good at it,” Bucky muttered under his breath, rubbing his jaw where Dani had accidentally socked him two days prior during sparring.

Jazz looked up at the group, expression utterly blank.

“You realize that she’s technically a meta-human, a half-ghost, and a minor with no legal documentation in this universe, right?”

There was a pause.

Bucky blinked. “Technically…?”

Yelena shrugged. “Technicalities are boring. She lives here now.”

Jazz threw her hands in the air. “That’s not how this works! That’s not how any of this works!”

Dani, sensing weakness, clutched Jazz’s arm and put on the biggest, saddest puppy eyes she could muster.

“But Jazz…I finally have a family here…” she sniffled, lip trembling.

Bucky and Yelena, without missing a beat, immediately looked at Jazz like how dare you break her little heart you monster.

Jazz stared at them. “You are manipulating me.”

“Yes,” Yelena said brightly. “It’s working, no?”

Jazz closed her eyes, counted to ten in Esperanto, and resigned herself to the fact that apparently her life was now a living sitcom.

“I want a full academic curriculum. Supervision. No war crimes without prior approval. And absolutely, absolutely, no assassinations unless it’s self-defense and I’m there to supervise.”

Dani fist-pumped midair. “YES!”

Bucky and Yelena high-fived behind her back.

“I’m going to regret this,” Jazz muttered.

“You already regret it,” Bucky said, smirking.

And that’s how little Dani Fenton, half-ghost clone, menace of Amity Park, became the official junior Thunderbolt, the semi-official godchild of two retired assassins, and the proud holder of a laminated “Certified Baby Badass” card that Yelena made with glitter pens.

There were explosions. There were lawsuits. There were training montages.

There was Jazz drinking an entire bottle of wine while watching Dani yeet herself at Taskmaster with a battle cry of “YEET OR BE YEETED!”

There were Bucky and Yelena arguing over which martial arts Dani should master first (“Russian Sambo!” “No, Krav Maga!” “SHE’S A CHILD YOU MANIACS!”) while Dani snuck off to teach herself breakdancing instead.

There was Dani winning the team sparring competition by phasing through everyone’s attacks and slapping sticky notes labeled “LOSER” on their foreheads before they even realized what was happening.

There was Jazz realizing too late that she was now somehow not only Dani’s sister, therapist, and guardian…but also the unofficial mom of the entire Thunderbolts squad, a title she did not want but was too tired to fight.

And there was Dani — floating over the compound at sunset, arms spread wide, grinning so hard her face hurt — who realized for the first time in a long time that maybe, just maybe, being a weird half-ghost clone kid wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

Especially if you had a dysfunctional murder family to back you up.

[thinking-emoji]

RNZ interview mirror - the original file is exactly 700 kb too big for tumblr so I had to compress it slightly 🙃

Transcript under the cut!

YouTube megastars Dan and Phil will be coming to Aotearoa next week with a live show full of scandalous stories. For those who don't know them, these two Brits invented being internet famous. Coming to stardom in 2009, the pair have amassed a media empire with over 40 million combined followers, 2 billion views on YouTube, as well as a handful of best-selling books. Dan and Phil went on hiatus in 2018, with each coming out as gay soon after. This is their first tour together since then. The show is called Terrible Influence and it's coming to Auckland's Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre next Thursday, the 19th of December. I caught up with Dan and Phil earlier on the line from Australia.

DnP: Hello.

(Interviewer laughs)

D: Sorry, was that a weird stereo hello there? That must have been disturbing.

I: That's exactly how I wanted you to answer the call.

P: Yes, that's how we speak all the time. D: We share one braincell.

I: You speak in unison.

P: Yes. (laughs)

I: Because you two have lived together for quite some time, haven't you? D: We have. I: Not only working together for many years.

D: Yeah, like imagine like being really fed up with your co-worker and then you want to come home and you want to be like, God, this guy, I can't stand him. Like, what are we doing here, people?

P: Then he's in your house.

I: How long have you lived together for?

D: Errr, fourteen- P: No. D: No, thirteen- twel- P: Twelve years. I want to say twelve years. D: Twelve years, but it feels like 2000. Do you know what I mean? P: Time is not real. We don't know what's going on. D: At this point, we're like, you know, when you go to a zoo and there's two elderly tortoises that are about 400 years old. P: Yeah. D: That's how we feel. P: Yeah.

I: I'm glad that you've decided to, you know, take air travel to get to New Zealand.

D: It's literally the furthest place from home we could ever. So we get some tweets from people that are like, Dan and Phil, thank you for coming to New Zealand because, by golly, you've travelled a bit of a way. But hey, we're happy to be there. New Zealand is a beautiful country. P: Yes. D: And so are the people.

P: Whenever I come to New Zealand, I just want to move to New Zealand. I'm like, why am I in London when I could be in this beautiful, verdant land?

D: A lot of people do abandon for New Zealand and we understand why.

I: Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad that you do understand that. And it's your first big tour back since coming out in 2018. D: It is. I: The show is kind of a little bit like a gossip session. Is that right? Setting some things straight?

D: Absolutely. We're people that have been on the internet for a very long time and people have talked a lot of smack about us over the years, as a lot of people do with anyone with a lot of followers. And we're like, you know what? We all deserve to look back at our past. We all deserve to be roasted for the things that we did and said. That includes us being embarrassing and what our audience were like when they were all teenagers on the internet. But if we have a bit of a therapy session slash Catholic confession, we can end it with a bit of a hug and a pat on the back and go, it's okay. We survived. Here we are now in 2024. So it's like a roast and a healing session at the same time.

I: That must be quite an interesting thing because, you know, you both grew up on the internet and made so much content. You have this huge following that you've built. And so many people work really hard to kind of erase their former selves online. And that's probably something that you cannot do.

D: Oh, no. I would love to. It's too late. P: That's the thing as well. Sometimes our audience know us better than we know ourselves because they watch these videos so much. I never watch my videos back ever. So they'll come up to us at a meet and greet like, remember that thing you did in 2014? I'm like, no. D: No, I don't. P: I don't know what I said or did. D: But Phil, you love this ice cream flavour. P: Yeah. Speaking of ice cream, I'm excited for the Hokey Pokey ice cream. That was the thing I remember in New Zealand. I: It is good.

D: Yeah. Someone said, hey, you're excited to have it again. I was like, what was that? P: We don't have that. D: Don't you remember the time that you had it? P: No. D: Here, I've got this photo on my phone. P: Yeah. I'm going to have some more when I get there for sure.

D: That is not the main reason why we made the travel, but it will help with the jet lag.

P: It's 80% of the reason, I'll be honest.

I: Why is the show called Terrible Influence?

D: I think there's this idea that everyone on the internet, all these creators, all these TikTokers and podcasters are just horrible people that are trying to sell you some kind of crypto scam. And the truth is 90% of them are. And the question that we're asking is, were we terrible? What did we do to all these young people that watch it? Maybe the other question is, what did they do to us? Is what we do inherently bad? Is it a two-way street? Well, maybe we can answer that question and along the way just giggle so much that we kind of forgive and forget.

I: I'm sure you have a pretty good idea of the extent of your influence. But being in high school in New Zealand when Dan and Phil were first starting out, it was almost like a code word. (Dan laughs) It was how weirdos, kind of, identified with each other.

P: I think we've always been happy to kind of have representation for the slightly alternative people of the world.

D: Yeah, we like to joke that it's for the goths, the girls, the gays and the geeks. Any type of person that feels like on any level, they may not be completely mainstream. They may not be vanilla. They might feel other in any kind of way. We have an audience and we look out now because you understand when all these people were 14, it kind of looked like they were all teenagers. Now that they're all adults, some people are coming up to us, they're like, hi, Dan and Phil, meet my child. (laughs) But all these people have been in such different journeys in life. But it's knowing that, you know, back in the day, there was a place where no matter what kind of person they are, they felt like, you know what? Here in this comment section with these guys, I can just be myself and that makes me happy. I think whether that is something that we did do intentionally or it's an accidental byproduct of our influence, we'll take it.

P: And a lot of them have grown up with us as well. That's the lovely thing. So we're meeting people now that are just much older, but they're still watching the videos because we've- we've grown up and they've grown up as well.

I: Absolutely. And you took this hiatus, you know, from the internet. How long was that hiatus for and what was the impetus for it? And for coming back?

D: It was five dark years. P: Five years. D: And there was no Dan and Phil in the world until one day, like Jesus, we returned and here we are now.

P: We did. I think it's always a good thing to kind of have a moment where you're like, what's going on in life? Have a reset. And and I think we're kind of back now.

D: You know, like when everyone, you know, there was a pandemic and then they were like, you know what? My relationship, my job, you have decided it's not for me. I think we were trendsetters there. We did that early, voluntarily style, because we'd been going nonstop since 2009. And I was like, I just need to hit the brakes and look around for a little bit. And then I came back and I was like, hi, guys, I'm gay now. And they were like, ah, yes, that makes sense. But sometimes you have to hit the brake in life in order to take the space, look around you, take stock of things, make decisions. And ultimately, when you come back, it'll be healthier and happier.

P: And we didn't know this Dan and Phil thing- Like when we came back, we're like, do you guys still want these videos? And then, like, the reaction has been incredible, like, so many people watching the gaming channel. D: To the extent people thought Dan and Phil, you need to go on a tour right now. You need to get your butts all the way to Auckland (laughs) because I've been waiting for you to come back and we need to have a good night together. P: Yeah.

I: Yeah. And get out from behind the screen and kind of just interact face to face. You two are hugely into gaming and it's been quite a good pivot from YouTube to kind of try and be more successful, I guess. It's incredible how popular you are on these platforms. Can you tell me a little bit more about how that works and how you kind of make a career out of this?

D: Well, Phil's been doing it so long that he did it before YouTube could even monetize videos. He was doing it purely out of boredom and passion for the craft. P: Yeah. D: That's terrifying.

P: I'm a YouTube dinosaur. But I think with the gaming, we've got a Sims series, which we've got- how many episodes now? Like- D: Oh a hundred or so. P: A hundred episodes. And I think people follow along the journey with us playing the games. And it's like, I guess it's like when you were a little kid and you're watching your big brother play a video game. It's kind of that thing. You're just like watching along, having the bants. So I think what the people come to our videos for is more of the personality and us having a laugh rather than getting really into gaming.

D: Yeah! I mean, gaming is just the topic. It's like any type of TV or radio talk or commentary show, it could be about football, it could be about music and pop culture or the news, you just want to see people that you relate to, that you find entertaining, doing something that you find interesting and then you pair it together, and for lots of people they go: yeah! This is what i want to see P: Yeah.

I: Phil, how have you noticed the kind of gaming culture change over time, and was that something you're a little bit hesitant about, you know coming out as gay in that kind of domain, because we know generally that - you know, over the last decade-

D: The gamers are the worst demographic in the world absolutely- I: Things have changed. D: We’ve been on the internet since the ancient times and it's hard to say, like in a way obviously the internet these days, it feels like it's more terrible than ever, but in a sense it is a lot less toxic and a lot more wholesome and inclusive than it used to be.

P: Yeah, I'd say coming out on the internet is always going to be a scary thing, when you're saying that and being kind of vulnerable in front of so many people. Thankfully we've got such a great audience that the reaction was incredible, I would say.

D: And i think that what's great about the internet is that people can find their own communities, so even within spaces that you might think, oh they're dominated by this type of person – any subculture, any type of person that feels like, I want this space for myself – you can find it. If you want to order you know a ping pong club for girls with ginger hair called Susan that drink wine on a Tuesday, you can start that discord server, people will love it.

I: And I think it's nice to have those pocket on the internet where people can feel safe and can kind of commune together. You will be playing the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, on December the 19th. What about people who didn't grow up watching you, who think you might be quite funny right now. Like what could you say to them if you want them to come to your show?

P: I'd say, well luckily for you we have got a whole section of the start of the show which is the complete history of Dan and Phil in five minutes, so if you might have just slightly known who we are and be like, what's going on with these guys? We're going to catch you up in no time.

D: A lot of people drag their boyfriends, their sisters, sometimes like that mum that you need to drive you so you can have a couple of cocktails to the show, and we're like we need something for these people, we're going to catch them up, we're going to get them on our side, and if we have a spot- there's like a grumpy dad folding his arms in row three, I'm like, I'm going to crack you P: but- D: My mission for the night is you're going to be belly laughing by the end. P: They're always smiling at the end though. That's the thing, we do. We do crack them.

I: Oh and this will be your last show before a well deserved Christmas break, then back into the new year. What will Christmas look like for both of you?

P: I mean we're going to try and get home for Christmas. D: Yeah, yeah the question is, can we get back from Auckland on the 21st of December? P: Twenty- yeah. I think it's gonna be a challenge to get all the way home, but then I'm probably just gonna be asleep on my mum's sofa with jet lag, hoping to drink a lot of cocktails. D: I'm gonna slip into a nice coma.

I: I'm really glad to hear you are back together again.

D: Oh, well thank you! We really, really appreciate it and we're so excited for the show, so thank you New Zealand. P: Nice speaking to you!

@dnp-described

[redbatchedcumbermayned]

It all started under a duvet held up by an oar

Not so long ago I emailed Chris Tester, the voice of Heinrix van Calox in Owlcat’s recently released CRPG Rogue Trader, and asked if he would like to sit for an interview with me. Having some experience in interviewing people I like, most famously Oscar winner and all-around sweetheart Eddie Redmayne, this was not a completely nerve-wracking endeavour. And within a day of sending my email, Chris said yes. And what a pleasure it was interviewing him: Chris was so generous with his time, that the agreed upon 30 minutes turned into 50 minutes as we brushed upon many topics from his start as a theatre actor to his first voice-over role in a video game to his recently discovered hobby of playing D&D. Of course, we also spoke about all things Warhammer 40k, his new found fame brought on by voicing Heinrix and the insights he could share about the character.

I will publish this interview in three parts over the next week in text form and with the accompanying audio file (the audio quality is not spectacular but tumblr limits uploads to 10MB). If you quote or reshare, please quote me as the original source.

Part 2 of the interview

Part 3 of the interview

Fran: Thank you very much for taking your time.

Chris Tester: That's no problem. No problem at all.

F: So then let's start. You graduated in 2008.

CT: I did. Yes.

F: You started out as a stage actor. Did you always want to become a stage actor or an actor in general? Tell us a bit about your career.

CT: I always wanted to be a stage actor. Yes, as soon as I knew that I wanted to be an actor, which probably wasn't until I was a teenager. But yeah, my first passion was always the stage, and that was kind of borne out in my career. I would have been open to TV and film of course, if it had come along, I'm a huge fan of TV and film as well, but I never got an audition for any TV or film work.

I think I literally did about three short films in my 10, 12 years of actually professionally acting, and it is one of those industries where the more you do of one thing, the more you seem to find yourself doing the same thing to a degree. So yes, watching Shakespeare from an early age was one of my first passions.

And that was what first planted the seed of wanting to do it myself. The whole aspect of live performance is still something that I'm very passionate about. Up until 2020, when the world changed, I was trying to do two or three theatre shows a year, but since 2020, I haven't been near a stage and I doubt right now, especially with the way that the UK theatre scene is going, that I'm going to be back on stage anytime soon. I am resigned to that, but at some point in my career, I know I will be on stage again, because I can't live without it, but only for the right thing, both financially, but more importantly, creatively.

F: Your production company is currently on hiatus?

CT: I was the producer of a theatre company, which was run and was the baby of the director of the company, a guy called Ross Armstrong, who's one of the most talented writers and directors that I've ever worked with. I was helping out with a lot of the administration stuff so that he could still put me in plays. Instead of creating my own work because I'm not a very good writer or the best writer in the world, I support those people who will write me good parts. So yes, it is currently on hiatus, but never say never, we would always be looking to get back. It's difficult right now. It's difficult for all of us, because arts council subsidy, that way of being able to fund stuff, is drying up. We were doing a national tour of the UK when we were doing that [with the support of a subsidy]. There's even less money, there's even more people. I won't bore you with anything more than that, but it's kind of tough. We'd like to come back, but in the right way, and that's tricky to negotiate.

F: It's always hard as a stage actor to earn a living.

CT: Well, I've been spoiled by voice-over as well, and whereas when I was in my 20s and 30s then you're all about your art. And of course, I'm still all about my art, but I'm also about my wife and my cat and the mortgage and the bills and wanting to have nicer things to a degree as well. I've come to terms with that and voice-over does facilitate that as well as it opens you up to different roles and working with different people. So, I can't complain.

F: It's quite similar with making a living as a writer, because with a steady income you get used to a certain standard of living and once you have obligations and bills to pay, I think the stress on your mental health being creative and having all the stresses of regular life thrust upon you brings with it a challenge.

CT: It's a cliche we can very easily fall into: if I'm suffering, then it means I'm an artist. And that's not necessarily very true. It very often means that the art that we create only reflects one aspect of our lives, and it's usually a very tortured one. I am also about having wider experiences and broadening myself out. Whereas I think when I was in my twenties, I was thinking a bit more like: Oh, I'll experience the world and life through my art and just purely through my art. Whereas now necessarily I need to have a life outside of it as well, and then I can justify like I have the life so that I can feed my art or not, whatever. You know, I'll be a better artist by having a bit of a life outside of it. Maybe.

F: But that's what your twenties are for.

CT: Yeah, indeed.

F: Doing the crazy stuff, doing the band stuff 

CT: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, there was certainly an aspect of that in my twenties.

F: So, what brought you to voice acting or voice-over work initially?

CT: Money. Video game stuff is kind of sexy and cool, and I'm a gamer, so that's important. Before I was a video gamer, I was a board gamer and off the back of that, I was a voracious video gamer, partly because I wasn't very good at team sports at school. I was always the person who was picked last in the football team. So that becomes part of your identity for better or worse. But video games, I was pretty good at, not amazing, but I was pretty good at, and I enjoyed it. And it gave me a different form of escapism as well, and off the back of that I always had an interest in them. 

So, the very first voiceover job was a video game: Dark Souls, which is quite a big franchise. At that time, I was your very typically jobbing actor. My acting agent came in and said: I got something for you. And so, I went in with that. But it was only in 2016, 2017 that I realised it was something that you could actually do yourself. People had recording studios at home and they were contacting people directly, not just going through agents. Because I'd basically written to the same 20 voice agents in the UK, mainly in London for like eight years in a row and not received anything. So, you keep knocking on those doors hoping. 

Before I'd even graduated from drama school, I'd burnt a CD and made these cases with my headshot on it and sent them all off at what at the time felt like great personal expense and didn't get anything for eight years in a row.  So, I was a bit like, I'm obviously doing something wrong, but I don't really know what, because I'm doing these workshops and getting good feedback. Then I found out through a couple of online courses, that there were ways and means of doing it myself, and that was a bit of a game changer for me, and within six months of having started, I was earning more through voice work than the bar job and the box office job that I was doing combined. Within six months, I was kind of like: “I gotta quit because I'm actually holding myself back from things.” So that was quite a big shift.

F: Somewhere you said, you started out under a duvet and with an oar.

CT: Yeah. On my website, I do have an image of it. [Dear reader, I could not locate this elusive photo] I literally had to take the duvet off my bed and put it into the living room, which was the quietest space in my then shared flat. I also had to wait until after one flat mate had watched TV and another one had used the table that had their washing on it. One of my flat mates had stolen an oar from some night out and that was perfect in order to be able to erect it over my head and the duvet as a frame. 

I did probably the first four or five months of voice recording like that. Probably about 10, 15 voiceover jobs that I actually got paid for, I was using that because it worked well enough. Since then, I've gone through various different iterations of a setup in the bedroom, to a setup in the hallway, to my current setup. In 2020 we moved to our first house, and this is the spare bedroom which I've had converted into a studio, which means my cat can be here asleep on me or near me getting fur everywhere, but it's fine. I can thrash around and I've got natural light to work in at the same time, which I find quite important. [Pictured below Chris' current setup.]

F: Very pretty. That's good. Guide us through a typical day of yours, if you like.

CT: Oh, sure. I mean, there is no typical day. And yet, and yet, and yet. A typical day for me is, because I am spending the vast majority of the day sitting in this room or somewhere close to this room, because I may need to record at short notice, because the vast majority of jobs are quite short notice. My priority is exercise for mental health more than anything. I've got some weights at the bottom of the garden, and I will get up first thing, and I will go there and I will do that after breakfast. And that's my minimal routine of physical activity done. 

And then I'll come back, and this is so rock and roll. Now what I do is, I spend like an hour on LinkedIn. And that's what you dreamed of as a creative person. Isn't it as an actor? I spend time on LinkedIn regularly every day, because it's a really good networking place for a lot of my types of work, and first thing in the morning, I'm a bit mentally sharper. So that's when I come up with a quick post that may be inspired by a bit of content that I've made elsewhere. That probably takes about 20 minutes and then I spend another 45 minutes to an hour engaging with people and saying hi and introducing myself and asking questions, whether that's with video producers or game developers or documentary makers or pretty much anything and everything. There are a lot of people who are active at that time. And so I do it.

And then after that, if I already have some recording lined up, then I'll prioritise mid-morning, because I've warmed up physically a bit more then, and I'm focused. So, you're going through the scripts, annotating the scripts, recording the scripts, editing the scripts. But then there could be live sessions at any time within that as well. I try to keep hours from nine till six. But occasionally, like with Rogue Trader, that was recorded at various different times of the day because we had people in New York, we had people in mainland Europe, and we had people in the UK. So all different time zones, so that can happen at any time. 

And then I try to do other kinds of bits and pieces of marketing whenever I've got free time to. I do use really exciting productivity hacks, like time blocking. Again, not something that as a creative individual, I was like: Oh God, this gets me so excited, because it doesn't, but it works. It's finding a system that works for you, but still has a certain kind of flexibility and fluidity. I'm trying to make sure that I get outside of the house, and that kind of stuff. 

Recently, over the last year, I’ve started doing audiobooks as well. That long form type of thing is quite nice to be able to dip into because sometimes you don't record for two, three days. You don't get the work. Nothing’s coming in. So, you’re marketing, but it kind of connects you back to the performance side of things to go: I can do a few chapters and you know, that kind of thing. So that's probably it. I try to formalise it, but you know, every voice actor’s day is radically different. There are people, some of the biggest names, going into different studios every week or every day. I very rarely, despite being based in London, I very rarely go into external studios. Like I would say 99 percent of the work I just do from home.

F: So how do you find the right voice for the specific type of voiceover work you do, maybe start with how did you find Heinrix's voice?

CT: Thankfully, Owlcat sent through quite a detailed casting breakdown. So, you get a picture, and that's pretty crucial, as well as a short bio, in terms of the background of the character, but not too much, because you have to sign an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement. But even if you do sign an NDA, I think developers are always slightly hesitant of giving you too much info about the game because things could still be changed. But I think I did get a picture of Heinrix, if not in the first audition, then certainly on the second one. From that you immediately think about the physicality and what might affect the voice, and there was also some direction in terms of what they were looking for. Anybody who has heard the character and me, they do not sound radically dissimilar. There's not a transformative process that I needed to go through, other than his sense of authority and the space that he takes up and the sureness that he has in that he has a kind of divine right from the emperor, so that level of confidence being brought through.

The other part of the audition was about the void ship [the Black Ship] that he'd been raised in and the horrors that he'd seen. And you as the actor have to do the detective work to go like this is showing another side, the more vulnerable side, the side that underpins all of his life choices up to this point. It's essentially playing the opposite to a degree. So it was kind of knowing when to let those elements bleed through a little bit. I think I had probably about a page worth of scripts, quite a lot of script actually to audition with. 

But I don't like to listen back to it a lot, because I think you get into your head. My biggest thing is stage work where it's ephemeral. You say it once and it could be different the next night. The whole point is that there's no one definitive way of doing things. Not quite the same with voice acting, where it's being recorded and you've got to get used to hearing it back. But I try not to overthink it. Just like record it two or three times with different impulses and then review and go like, those two seem pretty contrasting. I'll send those along and hope and then never hear anything back unless I do.

[tobyisave]

Introducing nagito music, my 4 hour long chronological birth-to-death Komaeda playlist!!!

For anyone willing to subject themselves to that, I recommend listening in order — I tried to make the narrative clear even on a first listen, so hopefully most of it should come across without explanation??? That said, I'm also putting a summary of the different plot beats of the playlist under the cut for anyone who's curious!

Precanon

"I Don't Wanna Die" - "Rejoice": Early misfortune & realizing he has a luck cycle

"Dear Life" - "Waiting42moro": What I call the "descent into madness" arc, trying to hold on to hope that his luck will change for the better.

"Happylucky" & "Congratulations": His luck finally flips and he tries to pretend it was worth it. Basically sitting on a throne of money he didn't want covered in the blood of people he loved because it literally cost him everything.

"No More Shame, No More Fear, No More Dread" & "Just a Fan": Radical acceptance of his place in the world, especially upon entering HPA and receiving his diagnoses.

SDR2

"Ready to Die" & "Problems": Entering the killing game and planning his own suicide (by Teruteru's hand) + Revealing that during the trial and taking the role of antagonist thereafter.

"I Wanna Be Your Dog 2" - "Caroline, Please Kill Me": Increasingly intense fixation on Hajime, more and more overtly asking Hajime to kill him.

"Gross" - "Shihatsu to Kafuka" (n-buna): Reaching an impasse with Hajime, realizing they will never be able to see eye to eye despite their best attempts (around Chapter 4).

"We Will Commit Wolf Murder" - "Ghost (of 7th street)": Reading the file from the Final Dead Room and resolving to do his Chapter 5 scheme.

"Rhinestone Eyes" - "RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES": Blowing up the hotel, making bomb threats, telling people to torture him --- generally going villain mode.

"#2" & "Kill Command": He just wanted to be loved before he died................

OVA

"Trouble Awful Devil Evil" - "entotsu" (mitsume): Being brought out of his coma, rejoining other Remnants, reorienting himself to the new Hajime.

Postcanon (it's all Komahina)

"You've Got a Gift" - "the same things happening to me all the time, even in my dreams": Realizing he still admires, and has feelings for, Hajime. Immediately assumes those feelings will go unreciprocated for the rest of his life, and is more or less fine with that.

"Struck by Lightning" - "Un See Through": At Hajime's insistence, Komaeda chooses to be "selfish" by letting Hajime in. At this point he still fully believes that it will get them both killed, hence the songs about blissfully dying together.

"Happy Unhappy" - "Self Control": Very very painfully questioning his beliefs in light of his luck never retaliating.

"Gods of the Good Shit" & "Wishing Well": He manages to avoid losing his mind by reframing his relationship with Hajime as a final stroke of luck, the Ultimate Hope everything has been leading up towards. Much like his example in FTE 3, the Tragedy and the killing game were necessary precursors to him meeting Hajime.

"Everyone Adores You" - "Ball Cap": Trying to help Hajime through his own insecurities.

"Doc" - "Paul": Despite having sorted through the fear that his luck will kill Hajime, Komaeda still feels unworthy as a person and believes he's dragging Hajime down. In other words, he sees this as finally coming down from the irresponsible fantasy life he's been letting himself live with Hajime. He lets Hajime know it'd be fine if he wanted to leave... Then admits Hajime probably should leave him. Then begs Hajime to leave him. Finally, upon realizing Hajime is too stubborn to give up, Komaeda takes some drastic action to push him away.

"Heart for Brains" - "OK" : Hajime insists that Komaeda is what's important to him in life, and basically talks him off the edge — he'd basically spend every waking moment of his life making Komaeda feel better if that's what it takes, and he's not taking no for an answer. Komaeda truly cannot accept that he's not a burden, but eventually gives in and allows Hajime to love him anyway. He's too weak to keep putting up a fight, after all.

"Don't Go": Komaeda finally becomes selfish enough to ask Hajime to stay with him. This song parallels the lyrics "You can go if you want to / You should go if you want to" from "I'll be Alright" earlier in this relationship depression arc.

"Possession": Eternal commitment to each other, basically a montage of their life up until...

Death

"Putting the Dog to Sleep": Years later, Hajime's health starts to decline (ultimately due to the Kamukura project). Komaeda is convinced it's his fault, probably on account of his luck, and begs Hajime not to die first - "Prove to me I'm not gonna die alone." Outliving Hajime is especially cruel irony since Komaeda was never even meant to survive to this age. This song mirrors the first unlucky death, Komaeda's dog, which was a net loss.

"You Swan, Go On": Hajime dies, and Komaeda follows soon after. He feels unspeakable levels of gratitude towards Hajime in his final moments, never feeling entirely worthy even at the very end but so, so happy that it happened to him anyway.

"Last Words of a Shooting Star": Komaeda is grateful that his own body self destructs fast enough that he doesn't have to live too long in a world without Hajime. This song mirrors the second unlucky deaths, Komaeda's parents, who died with each other at the exact same time.

[crow-in-gotham]

BLOG POST NO. 4 - ALL ABOUT THE WAYNES

Remember that off-handed comment I made about moving into Gotham without proper research? Well, it’s more like no research at all because I just found out who the Waynes actually are.

For you see, I am what my friends lovingly (read: derogatorily) refer to as an internet hermit. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that I have lived under a rock for basically my entire life. Well, at least when it comes to anything celebrity related. Hell, I don’t know much about Filipino celebrities, much less foreign ones. The only Filipino celebrities I bothered knowing the bare minimum about is BINI, and the only foreign actors I know are the ones who played in the Harry Potter series.

But back to my main point— yes, I only just now found out about who the Waynes are.

Why? Because I literally share a class with one of them. Actually, scratch that, I’m pretty sure I share a class with two of them—

So I did a little digging (read: my friends were appalled by how “uncultured” I am, and forced me to sit through a 3 hour long lecture about Wayne Lore) and here’s my thoughts.

First of all, Bruce Wayne, or “Brucie” as the media likes to call him, is the biggest fucking teddy bear I have ever seen. Like seriously, if “head empty, no thoughts” was a person, it would be him. Kinda sus (look Ray, internet slang!) to think he’s completely empty up there considering the fact that he, you know, runs one of the biggest enterprises in the entire world? The man is richer than Lex Luthor himself (yes, I know who he is— thank you Lan) and just keeps getting richer even with the amount of money he just seems to throw out everyday.

Honestly I’d be inclined to believe he’s actually some sort of secret super genius who’s just hiding behind a facade of stupidity just to lower everyone’s guard, but at the same time, I, quite frankly, could not give a fuck. The man pays my scholarship, I don’t really care if he’s the human version of a koala or the second coming of Isaac Newton. As long as he keeps doing all the good that he’s doing, I’m good. Overall, seems like a good guy and a nice hugger.

Next up is Richard Grayson-Wayne. Or, as literally everyone apparently calls him, “Dick”. Like, seriously? I know this has probably been said so many times— to the point where if you took all those times it was said by someone and turned it into an audio file, it would probably outlive the universe— but still. Really? Out of all the nicknames, you chose that?

And okay, maybe times were just different back then (shoutout to you old people out there), but was this guy so attached to the name that he just couldn’t be bothered to change it even when the modern day meaning for it was popularized? I mean, seriously, how many spittakes am I gonna have to go through every time my friend (hi Lan) says something along the lines of “I have a thing for Dick”. My friend knows exactly what the fuck he’s doing every time he says this sentence, because he never bothered to add the last name “Grayson” to it. Like, I know you’re gay Lan, but come on. The closet is already made of fucking glass.

Other comments to make? That ass. Like seriously, he tries to hide it by wearing slacks but sir, we are not blind. Those seams are fighting for their lives every time you take a step.

Next one on the list is Cassandra Cain-Wayne. There’s honestly not much else I can say about her other than the fact that I think she’s an absolute angel, and that I’ve replayed videos of her ballet performances for maybe an hour? There’s just something about the way that she dances that just looks so mesmerizing. It reminds me of a swan— beautiful, graceful, and equally as deadly. No, seriously, have you seen angry swans attacking people? Those birds can be fucking terrifying. I don’t know what about her looks so dangerous, but she just does? To me? It’s weird.

I’m not saying she’s a bad person or anything, I’m just saying that in a scenario where someone tries to mug her, I don’t think it would be her who’d end up with stitches. Which, honestly, I respect.

Next is Jason Todd-Wayne. The fucking brick house himself. I mean, come on, just look at one picture taken of him recently and tell me you did not stare for more than 10 seconds. This man is the definition of “If he’s a tree then I’m a squirrel”. Am I completely biased in this case? Maybe. Will I plead guilty? Over my dead fucking body.

The whole “disappeared for a weird amount of time, was assumed dead by the public for a while, then suddenly came back one day out of nowhere” situation aside, this guy is like the prime example of a glow-up. I don’t know what happened during those years he went missing, but he came back looking like a beefed up Princess Anna.

Chunk of muscle aside, there are also a few pictures of him hanging out with the kids that come by Martha’s House (local homeless shelter— thanks WE), and rescuing kittens from trees, and honestly I think it’s so sweet. It’s giving “gap moe” and I’m very much here for it.

Up next is Timothy Drake-Wayne, otherwise known as Tim (because who the fuck says Timothy nowadays—). Now this guy is the reason why this entire post exists in the first place. Why? Because I literally saw him walk right into class and sit literally right next to me (which, now that I think about it, is kinda weird because we were in a lecture hall and— hello, there’s literally 10 other seats in the same line as us?). Now, at first I didn’t really think anything of it— because duh, I lived under a rock remember? I had no idea who he was when he walked in, nor why everyone else in the room was staring at us like our heads were on fire (I checked— they were not), but I was running on 2 hours of sleep and barely any caffeine so I couldn’t give two fucks.

Then this mf (look Ray, abbreviations!) turned to me and just— hands me a bottle of 5 hour energy? That he just took out of his bag?? Now don’t get me wrong, I was thankful and all that, because there was no way in hell I would’ve survived that class without more caffeine making my heart almost palpitate, but also— kinda weird? Didn’t think much of it anyway and just thanked him. We did introduce ourselves to each other, but only with our first names because, you know, who the fuck introduces themselves with their full names unless it’s the first day of class and your professor decided it would be great to “get to know everyone” by doing self-introductions.

It wasn’t until 3 hours later at lunch when I discovered that I had, in fact, talked to Tim Drake-Wayne himself, courtesy of one of my friends (I’m looking at you Rayne) screaming at me.

That was also what led to the whole “sit down and let’s talk about Wayne Lore” that lasted 3 hours.

Duke Thomas-Wayne is the next one. This guy is an absolute fucking sunshine. He’s the other guy that’s in one of my other classes— actually, now that I think about it, we’re in a group together for that class’ semester-long project.

Wtf.

The literal personification of a ray of light is groupmates with me holy shit. “Become group mates with a Wayne” was definitely not on my bucket list for this year but you know what I’m not complaining about it.

Oh god I just remembered the fact that I ended up rambling about seashells for an embarrassingly long amount of time to him because the group wasn’t talking about anything so I ended up making small talk with the person next to me, which ended up being him.

I hope he liked my ramblings about the different kinds of seashells I have??

Last but definitely not the least (I feel legally obligated to say that) is Damian Wayne himself. He’s famous for being the only Wayne child to actually be blood-related to Bruce Wayne (not that that makes the others any less his kids—), and also well-known for the fact that he threatened to shove a cane up someone’s ass during one of the many Wayne Galas. Honestly, I respect it. The threatened person was being an asshole to some other guests and apparently Damian Wayne had enough of his bullshit. It made rounds on social media for an entire year apparently (not that I’d know— I was dead to the internet beyond my little circle of hyperfixations).

Other than that there’s not really much else to say about this guy? Other than the fact that I think he’s kinda cute in the little brother way. There’s a clip online of Tim Drake-Wayne calling him a demon spawn though, which I think is funny as fuck. It’s giving sibling energy to the max. I’m sure there's a good reason why this Damian Wayne has been dubbed the demon spawn.

There’s some honorable mentions for the Wayne Family (you know who I’m talking about) but honestly this has gone on for so fucking long. Maybe I’ll make a separate post about it at some point.

… How the fuck does Bruce Wayne deal with all these fucking kids—

[reine-desideria]

My dearest Désirée, my darling, my radiant northern star, my legally wedded, publicly and spiritually entwined wife—

I hope this message finds you in good health and excellent taste, as always. I write not out of jealousy (though some might, unfairly, accuse me of it), nor out of irrational spite (which is frankly beneath me), but rather out of... gentle concern. And love. And a sense of—national security.

Permit me to speak plainly, for my heart knows no artifice where you are concerned. You reblogged something earlier—yes, yes, I do look at your posts and tags sometimes, it's charming, really—and it was from a person who you may not entirely recall is one of my most persistent lifelong enemies.

Now, I understand it's been some time, and memory can be a fickle thing, but the man you reblogged from—Louis-Nicolas Davout, Marshal of the Empire, bane of my existence, eater of joy and sunshine—is that Davout. The one with the glare, and no friends. That Davout.

To summarize, he is a terrible, horrible, insufferable man with a heart made of iron filings, nothing more than a grudge-bearing automaton powered by malice and regulation. I dislike him greatly. He dislikes me greatly. It's mutual, passionate, and, I fear, eternal.

Which brings me back to your tag. “hello <3”

Darling.

Sweetheart.

Light of my diplomatic balancing act.

He doesn’t deserve the heart. He deserves several hours of mandatory socialization. He would, without hesitation, twist your kind little “hello <3” into political ammunition, Do you not see what havoc such a tender glyph might wreak? I’m asking that you refrain from giving him your affection. I cannot bear to imagine him smirking at your kindness. He will print it out and frame it and use it as leverage against me. Not to mention, if word were to circulate that you, my queen, publicly greeted him with affection—even flippant affection—it would become gossip. Then headlines. Then quotes at my expense in council.

You understand, I trust, how that would make me look. The optics alone—well. I won’t dramatize.

All I ask is that you consider how our reputation—yours and mine, united in matrimony—might be affected. I know it may seem petty, but appearances are not petty when one wears a crown. And Davout would love nothing more than to insinuate a closeness between us, to smirk and say, “Ah, well, your wife doesn’t seem to mind me.”

I do. I mind him tremendously.

Anyway! Love you so much. Just thought you should know.

Warmest regards and eternal devotion from your,

Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte

P.S. You looked lovely yesterday. Unrelated, but I thought it would soften the tone.

My dear, sweet husband, whom I love beyond measure,

Too much text, I ain't reading all that, but I think I got the general idea.

Right now, you're in the library and I'm in the living room. If you want news of my health, just open the door and shout loud enough for me to hear you and if I do not respond, call emergency services because I am probably dying or try to remember what you did wrong because I am probably ignoring you on purpose. I do, however, appreciate the slightly silly romanticism of little papers slipped under the door, so I won't hold it against you.

To begin with, I'd like to point out that there's an endless list of people who are jealous of you, your charisma and your professional success, and it's impossible for me to remember all your haters (although it's true that when I saw that name, it sounded vaguely familiar).

Secondly, it's precisely because I'm thinking of your reputation and mine that I did what I did. I know we're in Sweden, and people here are as warm and friendly as literal prison gates, but that doesn't exempt us from observing the basic rules of hospitality, which are to greet people and kiss them on both cheeks like decent human beings. Think of the disastrous consequences if I hadn't said hello to Monsieur Davout: he could have said “your wife didn't say hello to people, she's bad-mannered”, and in Marseille that's enough to ruin a family's reputation. At least now he won't be able to say I'm rude! You can hate people and talk behind their backs, and I'll even pay my cousins in Lambesc to go and beat the shit out of him if you want, but always say hello.

Toodeloo,

Your wife.

PS: I looked lovely yesterday??? What exactly does that mean, that I wasn't lovely on every other day of the year or today? Why yesterday in particular, what does that mean? AAAAH. Now I'm mad at you.

PPS: I know you're going out this afternoon, please bring some bread. But I mean REAL bread, bread made with real flour and baked in a real stone oven, not the disgusting white bread the Swedes eat, bread with which our cooks can prepare a proper bruschetta.

[tedbird]

Whats your opinion about the MPHFPC movie vs the book?

book vs movie feels like a question every mphfpc blog has answered at some point so ig it’s my turn now lol. rite of passage undertaken 🫡

keep in mind everything i’m saying has probably already been said much better by other people so if you want the tldr i like the books better, but ill take this as an excuse to ramble pointlessly under the cut in a critical manner (mild spoilers for the first + second trilogy)

quick note that i tend to speak with a lot of hyperbole/exaggeration so apologies if i overuse excessive language

general feeling seems to be that book >>>> movie and i agree because the movie sucks as an adaptation </3 i dont think its that bad of a movie; if you detach it from the source material, its average rather than unwatchable all things considered, but if you love the books and spend a lot of time thinking about the world and the characters and the original series is important to you, that is very hard to do because every infraction just feels like a kick in the teeth. and given that these aren’t little errors here and there and instead an entire rewrite of both the characters and the plot, its really hard to reconcile.

it sort of taints the joy i can get out of the movie. like i remember watching the film on netflix at some point when i was like thirteen or smthn with my family and i thought it was a good film, and then four years later i read the books and rewatched the film and now i can’t deal with it. i dread to imagine how it must’ve felt to have read the books first and gotten excited for the movie only to have sat down to watch something that can only be called miss peregrine’s home for peculiar children through technicality. most if not every accent has been filed down to american or english, only half the ages are correct, they couldn’t even get the peculiarities right (emma and olive </3), two new characters were added in the twins when the existing movie cast is barely explored as is, and i haven’t even gotten into the plot yet, and they made it less jewish. also they made jake about 20 percent less cool which irks me (as summarised by a post someone else made but i can’t bloody find it anywhere </3)

book jacob shot a man through the neck, i don’t believe that movie jacob could fire a gun. the movie states he went into the navy i think to get back to the loop, and whatever character development lead to that must’ve happened off-screen. i truly can’t see movie jacob being able to pull off the hollowgast army in books three and six and like sure if there were other movies he might’ve developed enough for that to be the case but that wet noodle did fuck all in that film. ‘you made us feel brave’ why because he sucked so hard in comparison to you that you felt like you could do anything? he could never pull ‘your mother is a truck stop hooker’ </3

i connected better to the characters in the books as a whole than in the movie, but that’s probably just personal preference. imo the movie characters felt a bit flat, a lot of the intrigue and depth was missing. i don’t like how emma’s fire is gone both literally and metaphorically, her fight and determination and strong sense of justice even if she had a bit of a temper, and a lot of interesting situations were sanded off with her edges (i.e knife to the neck when she first met jacob). i don’t like how olive was changed to be a one-note ‘crushing on the Dark Brooding Boy TM’ and given literally nothing else. with fiona, she talks a lot more which is a testament to poor character knowledge because it ties directly into her backstory, said backstory is reduced to that one line about peculiar persecution and im fairly certain the famine and witchcraft accusations aren’t mentioned - and if they are it isn’t meaningfully - and she doesn’t sound irish. it’s an important part of her character, ties into her lore pre-loop, and its explicitly stated that she has such a strong accent hugh has to translate, and none of that went into the film. even if the actor couldn’t do a convincing irish accent, it wouldn’t be an issue if fiona was accurate to the books. they also blanked on giving movie enoch any redeemable qualities, he’s just an asshole with a cool power. wait, we need him to have a bit of a character arc or he’ll just be aggravating to the audience. uhhh fuck it let him get with the fire bird. having a girlfriend is basically a positive character trait so that’s good enough /sarc. book enoch was at least entertaining even when he was being a little bastard, and he did have some care for his friends. i think it was dragonsdendoodles that made a post about how book enoch treated victor vs how movie enoch treated victor showed their differences in character and how movie enoch was a lot less compassionate, and that basically sums up the flaws with movie enoch and the film in general tbh. they took all the aesthetic qualities with none of the heart (lol). if im being fair to them, they did only get one movie and they can’t shove all the backstory and development of two trilogies into one film, but that doesn’t really explain why basic facts about the characters have been bulldozed over.

it also really doesn’t help that miss peregrines is split into two trilogies and it’s clear in how the books are written. book one is a third of the whole and it wasnt meant to be forced through a full conclusion like the movie does, it’s partially set-up for the next books whilst still being its own standalone story. technically it has a conclusion but it’s not the ending because it was never meant to be. in that case i get why they changed the second half of the movie because if they only got one, they sort of had to, but it reflects poorly on the film as a whole because the original story wasn’t meant for that. i admit this may be my fan view tainting it though because i like the books ending/latter half better.

also the phone thing sort of irritated me. this is a petty grievance considering magic is real but like. how did jacob call his grandfather in the future if he’s in 1940 technically1943infilmterms. i know the books have the ymbrine telephone boxes but like how to the present though. why did they make abe live, they were pushing too hard for the completely fluffy ending, he couldn’t even die right. the inciting incident for the whole movie is undone. on the other hand that also means jacob left abe for the loop and would’ve been cooler if they made it tie in to how abe left the peculiar house for the present, i accept that maybe they did and im just media illiterate and misremembering but i maintain that he should’ve stayed dead. the ending also felt a bit rushed and confusing in ways i don’t know how to articulate yet.

long story short they should’ve just made either a decent adaptation or called it ‘inspired by’ or a rewrite instead. i get that sacrifices have to be made to turn a book into a film but by god they took some fucking liberties with that sentiment. + 10 points for the acting though, only point i don’t really have any issues with. they did the best with the material they had

[tobiasdrake]

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy 07 - My Money's on Karua's Mom

Nothing like some good old-fashioned non-existential horrors to make your day feel so much brighter. Alright, Alexa, lay it all out for us.

Darumi wants so bad to be in V3. So bad. You have no idea.

I like that he specifically rules out the Neo World Program because y'all know I was thinking that. In the back of my mind, I was thinking that.

But Alexa is very clear that we're meant to take the purple wall of flame literally.

And I'm sure it's true. I mean, do you really think a Killing Game mascot would do that? Just get up on the podium and spread lies?

It's weird that they encircle the school. Kinda makes it seem like the school is involved in the Undying Flames. Like we're doing something to make those flames occur.

Ha! Nice reference to the original movie.

I mean, he obviously doesn't mean "of us". Otherwise he'd just detonate the bombs in our chests. Assuming they're really there; We kinda just took his word for it without any demonstration.

Is it "Destroy all monsters with your Blood Cocoon Magical Girl Powers"? Because I'm down for that. I love TRPGs. I'm not super great at them but I enjoy them.

Destroy all monsters with your Blood Cocoon Magical Girl Powers.

It's interesting to me that we've specified that our school is NOT within the population center where civilians live, but that we are here to defend the school from danger. Not the population center.

There typically is, yeah. My money's on Karua's mom, personally.

Also, we may or may not need to send information to our parallel reality selves via the Morphogenetic Field in order to truly prevail. Uchikoshi's big on that sort of thing. It featured in both the Zero Escape and the AI: Somnium Files series, so I give it decent odds of showing up here.

Okay that timing was suspicious as fuck. What are you hiding, Shinigamikuma?

There's gotta be something going on with the monsters too, right?

Having flashbacks of that prick from Silent Hill 3 like, "They looked like monsters to you!?" to mess with Heather. That's probably not it. But I'm wondering.

You know, now that you mention it, we have no assurance that the people in the complex survived. Karua said that the siren wasn't like normal sirens and they broke the ceiling.

There is a non-zero chance that we're "Last Defense" because nobody's left.

No no no, Gaku, I have the perfect role for you. We're gonna strap you to a plank of wood and then Takemaru can hold it out in front of him for defense.

Yep yep. There's a lot of buzz about "Should we?" "Shouldn't we?" but we all know in the end it's going to come down to do or die, and nobody here--

...oh, I guess Eito's taking his chances with the horde.

Huh. You know, he makes some fair points. Honestly, the suspicious timing of this attack really does imply that the "enemy troops" are in some way in league with this operation.

This whole thing has me paranoid. There has to be an angle here.

...but we still probably shouldn't let the monsters claw our faces off.

Wow guys. Over half the team is voting to let the monsters come eat our faces.

This is why a good military organization puts people through training first. You can't count on survival instincts alone to carry someone through war.

You know what, that's fair.

So we're going into battle with the Cool Team. Takemaru, Hiruko, and Darumi are marching off to war. I guess everyone else will just chill in this room and hope for the best. Hope all of you fuckers don't get killed by your decision to not help us or anything!

Seriously, I'm gonna need you to explain how that's all connected, big guy. Is the Tokyo complex under the school or something?

Blagh. Amazing how complicated something that seems so open-shut can actually be. I trust Sirei about as far as I can throw Takemaru, but ravenous stuffies who want to eat our faces are fairly uncomplicated in terms of what we should do. And yet....

[lochlogie]

was saxon awake when lochlan started jerking it?

No idea. There is a possibility, since he likes to sleep in the nude, that this old ass man was actually trying to take a nap, and that’s why he took off his shorts and was under the sheets. I find that a little hard to believe, but he was high out of his mind. Maybe he paid no mind to the sex happening literally inches from him.

But even then, he had already established the pattern of “Get naked in front of Lochlan, instigate some kind of sex act that Lochlan is maybe supposed to witness? Participate in? Something?”

So I don’t hold Lochlan, also high out of his mind, totally responsible for misreading the situation if Saxon was really just trying to sleep. That’s a mistake that he’s unlikely to make in the future given how hyperspecific his groomer/victim relationship with Saxon is. Plus he’s not evil for misinterpreting his sexual predator older brother’s signals. It’s something he can learn from and be a better person thereafter. He just needs some proper sex education.

If Saxon wasn’t asleep, then I feel even less sympathy for him lol. Like he may have been zooted, incapacitated, what have you. But as the adult (and I know Lochlan is 18 as if that makes it better), the older, wiser, more experienced… the responsibility is still on him to create distance, to enforce boundaries.

The fact that he is shown to have enjoyed the handjob is pretty damning for him. He did less than nothing to enforce those boundaries and fully allowed himself to enjoy the handjob and fantasize about Lochlan during.

And as I’ve said countless times, no he was not magically less sober than Lochlan, when he takes Adderall daily and has drunk alcohol before, when he’s got at least 50lbs on Lochlan, when he was shown to be alert and active alongside everyone else right up to that point.

I think he was just chilling, probably already hard, possibly already masturbating, and when he felt Lochlan start to jerk him off he was like “Period sis,” or fucking whatever, and all his thoughts were bent on the curve of Lochlan’s pert ass and on tenderly stroking his neck while making out with him. When he blasts his baby batter all over Lochlan’s knuckles it throws him back to reality and that’s when he freaks out.

I’m not trying to ~victim blame~ but as Lochlan’s defense attorney I would immediately file a motion to drop the charges unless Saxon wants every detail of every illicit and inappropriate thing he ever did to Lochlan coming out on the stand 🤓

[autisticlalna]

okay. full episode analysis coming later because i have so, so much to say about that one clip, but:

so. Dominion references. that's the big thing. we got two of them back-to-back in a very hard to ignore way if you're familiar with season 2.

but it's not just been Dominion. that's been what we're all excited about, obviously, but there's been some other stuff blending in.

after all, we have Viking surviving the apocalypse and talking about how he has experience working with tnt bombers-- something said ooc, maybe, but he has been working with them on both Hardcore and Twitch SMP, and died on TSMP because of getting caught in the explosions.

there's also the moment earlier in the trial where M1G starts ripping into Milkman for what he did on Pleasantcraft. again, line between ooc and in-character is blurry here, but either way Viking recognized what M1G was getting at. (Viking also cut out the part where it got called into question if that should count as testimony against Milkman seeing as it happened on another server and Elffe said "let's get multiversal". god, literally everything elffe did in the trial was great)

but, speaking of multiversal, i'm going to bring up something i've been calling "multiversal bleed" for lack of a better term. sometimes the lines dividing the Vikings are... wiggly. history likes to repeat and mirror itself (as shown in the trial), but some stuff slips in regardless of reality echoing itself. this is the obligatory part of the post where i pull up the TSMP transcripts.

because, for some reason, this specific line from tViking sticks in my head:

Viking: [cat beckoning noises] Frickin’ cat, like the cat I had one time. C’mon.

the reason this is filed under multiversal bleed is because Viking had a cat in Gilded Hardcore. (Also in Dominion, but Cranberry is better remembered.) tViking also could've had a cat during the gap of time between his arrival in TSMP's world and tRuby's, but either way the reaction was "wait, Gilded?"

there's also an equally brief example in the solo Skyblock series, where Wanderer recognizes Avid despite neither of them having crossed paths on-camera before... or those specific versions, anyway. again, Gilded Hardcore.

multiversal bleed is kinda a consequence of mcyt in general when you have multiple series running with different iterations of your character. there's bound to be crossovers and quick jokes and the like. but, considering that Viking's lore has been steadily building up to his status as a universal constant, it's more on the table as "something with canon repercussions".

going off of what moxijunk has suggested before, Summertime might be having heavy bleed from other versions of himself. he's still a separate entity from dViking, or Hardcore, or tViking, but when things get a little too familiar, memories that aren't his start to spill through. it seems to be what's happening to Cherryby, after all.

there is another route, though. on some level, we know the Vikings are aware of each other... maybe. again, most of my evidence is going to be from Twitch SMP, seeing as that went deeper into the overall storyline that's been building since the introduction of V.P. as a concept.

Navigator, local Viking that knows about the multiverse and is very involved in keeping it on-rails, told Sapphire at one point:

Navigator: You won’t tell me anything. And none of the others seem to know… or know even he exists.

and Sapphire later brought up:

Sapphire: Well. I am me as much as this one… is nothing. Hm. Y’know? Me, myself, and I… always work together. We’ve always have. Just as all Vikings. And… Navigator: So you work together… Sapphire: Even to an extent, VP, back before… Well. He didn’t, anymore.

...so there's some level of communication going on between the Vikings. Navigator keeping himself hidden from tViking probably has more to do with "tViking being an unknown and dangerous variable" rather than "Vikings aren't supposed to interfere with each other". maybe. basically anything with Navigator involved is vague, though.

and then, of course:

Viking: So for me, [laughs] I may not build these things myself, but I wake up and they’re done, and I know it’s me, because me wants to help me. Vikings help Viking. That’s how it works.

Vikings help Viking.

this hinges on Summertime being aware, either consciously or subconsciously, of his other selves.

in a TSMP stream i don't have a clip of at the moment he did swap places with tViking / Navigator, but there was no meeting of the Vikings and we don't know if he understood what was happening or if he even remembers it. most of the evidence here is from Navigator, who is an outlier and probably should not be counted, and tViking, who has been voted "most possessable Viking" since near the start of TSMP's storyline.

good lord this post got long. i'm going to go get coffee. draw your own conclusions because i forgot mine

[virtualchaoticgood]

It's Never a Good Day to Die in Slough House

Fandom: Slow Horses (TV)

Words: 4108

Warnings/tropes: blood and injury, stabbed, weak, passing out, worry for loved one, mistaken for dead, moderate swearing (as per canon)

Hey there, I don’t post on here other than to reblog. But I wrote (and actually finished) something and wanted to share. 

I binged all 4 current seasons of Slow Horses over a long weekend recently, and have had this scene playing in my head on repeat since then.

It’s kinda set post season 4, but also doesn’t have any spoilers. Just that River and Louisa’s friendship is more season 3/4 vibes.

Also, just a WARNING to those not expecting it: cigarettes are referred to as 'fags' a couple times, because England. The single headcannon I have for this show rn is that Lamb absolutely calls them that and you can trust me on this because I'm English.

Thanks so much to @deepwoundsandfadedscars who read this through for me and helped me figure out tags and such on here and Ao3!

Summary: River gets chased into Slough House by some foreign operatives wanting just two things from him: his recently acquired USB stick, and his life.

You can read it on Ao3 too!

It had been a long night. 

Not the usual long night you got from working at Slough House, the ones that you question why you still even bother going in each day. No, this had been the kind of long night that you get kidnapped by a foreign operative, claiming to be a turncoat, who then gives you a USB that seems to have a dangerous amount of your top secret files mixed in with a healthy dose of their own. 

Obviously River hadn’t believed them. Right up until the point that they got taken down by a trained team speaking the turncoat’s native tongue.

He still wasn’t sure he trusted their reasoning behind coming to him with that USB instead of literally-fucking-anyone else. They knew enough about him to know he was MI5, so they also knew he was relegated to Slough House. They said something about “under the radar”. He figured it was more like “plausible deniability” for everyone else involved except for lucky-old-him. 

He’d probably call it in at this point, but the turncoat had helpfully taken his phone and then failed to give it back before kicking the bucket.

So he was alone. 

But he was on his streets, not theirs. And he knew somewhere nearby that, in an hour or so, would have people that would (well, might) help him stay alive.

It was only about an hour before River would have been arriving at Slough House for work this morning; had it been a normal morning. Instead he was walking up the road to it after dawn had barely broken, pissed off and, frankly, highly paranoid. He hadn’t got a good look at the team that had taken down the turncoat, too busy getting the fuck out of there, so he was watching anyone around him that seemed to be going the same direction for a little too long.

Why were there so many people going to work this early?

Sure, he was too, technically, but he was pretty sure that none of the people walking past him had been kidnapped and almost killed last night.

He was on the right road, just a block or so down. There was someone he spotted, over his shoulder on the other side of the road, hanging around and watching him. But they didn’t make as if to move, and held his gaze when they met it. He turned back, quickening his pace. He was almost at Slough House, and for the first time ever, he was glad. 

Someone stepped out in front of him with something glinting in their hand. River didn’t have enough time to react, he had been too focused on people following behind him. Idiot. The man brought the blade up, making for River’s gut, but wasn’t able to cut that deep as River pulled back at the last moment. It was a quick cut, but, damn, did it still burn. The man went for River again, his chest this time, but River swerved, getting just his left wrist cut in the process. He hissed, he could feel this one was deeper, but he didn’t have time to check it.

Before the man had the chance to swipe at him a third time, River pulled back and landed a punch. He wasn’t sure what part of the guy’s face he hit, but it was enough to make him double over, which was enough for River to break out into a sprint for Slough House.

He heard someone running after him, there was probably more than one, but he kept going. 

Hopefully the worst they had was knives. 

He threw himself around the corner and towards the metal staircase leading to the front door. With every step, the cut in his side felt like it was tearing further open and his left hand was getting slick with what could only be blood. Taking two steps at a time he fished the keys out of his pocket, quickly covering them in blood as well. As he jammed them in the lock, only going in the second time he tried, he chanced a look back down the stairs. There was one guy at the bottom, seemingly the one he had punched, then another shortly after him. 

He twisted the keys and slammed his weight against the door. 

It groaned but stayed closed. 

He twisted the keys back and forth and threw himself at it again. 

Still the fucking thing didn’t budge. 

He could hear the footsteps of the two men almost on him. River let out a yell in frustration. He was going to die and Slough fucking House, the god damn building itself, was going to be the reason. 

They had reached the top of the stairs. The one in front with a bloodied nose and a pissed off look raised his knife, looking like he was aiming for River’s face. River didn’t go to defend himself, instead deciding to try the door one last time, wondering briefly if they left his corpse up against the door might Lamb finally get it fixed?

He twisted the keys and shoved, watching the arc of the knife as it sailed down towards him, not expecting it when the door suddenly, finally, gave way. 

Instead of hitting his face, the knife lodged deep into his left shoulder. He yelled in both surprise and pain as he fell through the doorway onto the floor of the corridor, his attacker surprised too as he fell on top of River, losing grip of his knife in the process. The stars swimming across River’s vision took a few, precious seconds to subside. 

The guy on top of him scrambled to right himself, trying to hold River down while he did, thankfully blocking the one behind him from being able to get through the door. 

River was on his back. His side and his wrist had already been screaming at him. The amount of pain radiating from his shoulder was so great it felt foreign, to the point he wasn’t entirely sure it was going to still be there as he looked around for something to fight with, slapping away the hands going for his throat. There was nothing. Even those pointless fucking boxes of files were around the corner, outside Roddy’s office. So River gripped the only thing he had and couldn’t help the scream he let out as he tore the knife from his own shoulder. His mind addled by experiencing that level of pain for a second time, only instinct and training sent the knife quickly plunging it into the neck of the man above him before he had a chance to defend himself. River’s view came back into focus as he stabbed again, a second and third time, to make sure the guy was done. With a thud, the body hit the ground, still half on River who desperately pushed to roll it off as the second man clambered through the, now emptier, doorway brandishing his own knife. As soon as his legs were within reach, River stabbed at them, not letting up until the guy fell to his knees. Then he quickly shifted to stab upward towards his neck. He didn’t see if the knife did any damage as his shoulder immediately gave way under him and he fell back down onto it, hard. His vision went white. The pain overwhelmed him. His own heartbeat was deafening in his ears. That was the only thing he could hear except for deep, ragged breaths that seemed to be his too. After a few moments he came back to his senses to hear choking and coughing from the second man, blood pouring from his throat and mouth. His eyes were wide and both his hands were gripped tightly around his neck but doing little to stop the flow of blood. 

River slowly, carefully, stood himself back up using the wall for support, trying not to slip again on all the blood pooling on the floor around him. He tried to close the door but the legs of the first man’s corpse were in the way and he knew he didn’t have the strength to move them now. Gripping his knife tightly in his right fist, he made his way further into the building. He clambered over the second man who made some final blind swipes that River clumsily kicked away. Stumbling around the corner, River could see Roddy’s office door was closed and there was no glow from his half dozen monitors. He hadn’t expected Roddy to be in, but it was nice to confirm that he hadn’t just been fucking sitting there the whole time, ignoring the sounds of River fighting for his bloody life. He wouldn’t put it past the prick. 

He wandered slowly down the corridor towards the bottom of the stairs, dragging himself against the wall to be sure he would stay upright. Nearing the end of the corridor he heard something that made him stop.

The creaking of the metal steps outside.

Someone was walking up them, carefully. It sounded like there was only one. It was too early, still, for it to be a friendly (if it had been any other moment he would have burst out laughing at the idea of calling any of the other slow horses ‘friendly’). 

Adrenaline coming back to him with a new threat closing in, River hurried around the corner onto the bottom of the stairs. He wouldn’t get far running, so he stayed there, two steps up, hugging the middle wall, knife tight in his grip, and trying not to breathe.

He heard them pause just outside the door. Then maneuver over the bodies. Then slowly make their way down the corridor. 

In spite of the new adrenaline rush, he was feeling tired and slow. Every blink felt a little more like he might just not open his eyes back up again. 

But the newcomer had reached the other side of the wall to River, and it was then that their gun finally came into view. They were pointing it at Roddy’s office, presumably trying to see if he was in there. 

He knew, with a knife against a gun, getting in close would be his best chance. Well, running the fuck away would’ve been his best chance but that wasn’t an option anymore. He tried to raise his arms in front of him without making a sound, but his shoulder strongly protested.

He thought about how little Jackson Lamb would care upon finding his body. About him celebrating, even, that a thorn he’d had stuck in his rotten, oily arse was finally gone. 

He grimaced at the thought of Lamb’s rotten, oily arse. 

Steeling himself with his spite, he raised his arms in front of him: knife gripped in his right, left shaking with only a slight tremor. 

He saw, now, for the first time, just how much blood was coating his hands and arms. He had no idea how much was his own.

The gun started to move, turning to go up the stairs River was standing on. He waited until he could see enough of the person’s forearm come round the corner and then lept.

He was down the steps in a moment, grabbing the closer forearm and sinking the knife into it in one motion. The person yelled and fired the gun. It was right next to River’s ear and deafening. Even though the bullet went harmlessly into the wall behind him he was immediately off balance. So as they drew their injured arm back, River lost grip of the knife.

He had no weapon and felt dead on his feet, his ear still ringing from the gunshot. The person drew their gun back to take aim at him properly. There wasn’t the time to think.

River rushed them, the gun now pointed right at his chest. He tried to grab it but his hands were slippery. They both yelled as they fell to the floor, River on top of the gunman. He could feel the cold metal, but he wasn’t sure what part he was holding. 

He didn’t know where it was facing when it went off a second time. 

It was muffled by their two bodies wrapped around it, and with how much he was hurting already, River couldn’t tell if he had been hit or not. He wrenched the gun from the other’s hands, was he getting stronger moments before death or were they putting up less of a fight?, then backed away from them just enough to point the weapon at their chest and pull the trigger two more times.

He collapsed backwards onto the cardboard boxes littering the bottom of the staircase and looked down at himself. The clothes he had been wearing to work yesterday were almost unrecognisable; torn and bloodied. He tried to breathe more steadily, but it was hard with his heart still hammering in his chest. Over that, there weren’t the sounds of any more people coming up the stairs outside– for now, at least.

The gunman gurgled from the floor. River weakly kicked their foot, but they didn’t respond. 

He thought he had been tired while he was fighting, but the exhaustion that was hitting him now was on another level. Bringing the gun up to rest on his lap and leaning his head back against the boxes behind him, River waited for the next person to walk up the metal steps outside. He did manage a chuckle this time (although it came out much more like a strained wheeze) at the fact he was hoping that the next person he saw was a slow horse. 

He could have sworn only a few moments had passed, only a few heavy blinks of his eyes, but suddenly he was aware of someone standing directly in front of him.

He raised the gun, aiming at the centre of the blurry mass that he couldn’t quite pull into focus.

“Put that thing down, you fucking prick.” 

What?

Oh.

Amazing that he would be grateful for both Slough House and Jackson Lamb on the same day. Although, thinking about it, it would make sense if it was the day he dies.

Jackson Lamb, horrifically, was somewhat early for work. He wasn’t even sure where he had gained the half hour or so. Maybe he had smoked through the rest of that pack of fags faster than normal… or maybe more cars had got out of his way as he, with the correct amount of recklessness, had driven into work. Whatever it had been, Lamb seriously considered turning back and doing fucking anything else for 30 (better make that 40) minutes rather than give The Service even more of his time than they even fucking pay him for. 

But he had just turned off the pavement to head for the metal staircase when he had noticed the time. And right after that he had smelled something odd. Metallic. 

Blood.

Any other person might not have considered it that odd to smell blood in a place that normally stank of piss on a good day. But not him, and not here. No one could say with a straight face that he cared for any of the useless idiots that worked at Slough House, but if someone had killed one of his Joes, today was going to be a very fucking bad day for him and the pricks that did it.

He started walking up the steps, slowly, listening for anything out of the ordinary. He could see it now – the blood. There were drops of it on the left side of some of the steps, and smeared up the handrail in places. It was sticky and starting to dry. At the top of the stairs, Lamb briefly leant his head around the corner to glance at the door. 

It was open. And someone’s legs were keeping it that way. 

He glanced around again, the legs were dead. There was another body just inside the door and a lot of blood pooling between them. He didn’t recognise them immediately, but he took a few steps back down the metal stairs before going any further.

The tone rang twice before Guy answered.

“Where are you?” Lamb asked.

“I’m on my way in, why?”

“Well, get here fucking now, Guy. And call the others. Someone’s fucking dead.”

With that, he hung up. It was vague enough to light a fire under her arse. And at this point, for all he knew, all the others might be dead in there too. The idea of that upset him, not because he’d miss them, of course, but because he’d just get sent a whole new batch of losers and idiots he’d have to figure out how to mess with. He’d already put in all the work with this lot. It’s basically all The Service pays him for at this point, whether they know it or not.

With a scowl, Lamb climbed back up the rest of the steps, through the door, and over the two corpses, unable to entirely avoid the blood – they definitely weren’t any of his. Around the corner he saw a trail of blood across one of the walls leading to another body slumped half against the wall of Ho’s ‘office’. No signs that the little prick was in there right now. From this distance Lamb was pretty sure the third body also wasn’t one of his, but he could see a shoe sticking out from the bottom of the stairs that looked upsettingly familiar. 

He was less cautious as he walked up to it, knowing what he was probably going to find. But being prepared for it didn’t make it feel any better. 

River was wearing the same clothes he had been the last time Lamb had seen him yesterday. But now they were soaked red all over. From his face and hair down to his shoes, the amount of blood on him made it seem like he probably killed the other three. He had a gun resting loosely in his lap. His head was leaning back against a few of those stupid fucking boxes, and his deathly pale face, looked almost fucking peaceful, like he was having a goddamn nap.

“Fuck, River.” 

So this was going to be a bad fucking day.

Lamb’s face screwed up tighter as he stood and looked down at his dead Joe.

A Joe that suddenly took a breath. 

Lamb stepped back, genuinely startled out of his somber thoughts. River’s eyes opened lazily and his grip on the gun tightened.

He seemed to abruptly notice Lamb’s presence and tried to raise the gun level with him. But his wrist was mostly limp so the gun wasn’t even pointing the right direction.

“Put that thing down, you fucking prick.” Lamb said as he knelt down next to River and tried to tell where the blood that was his was coming from. After a moment River let the gun drop back down to his lap and made a noise that sounded like he was trying to laugh, and when Lamb looked back up at his face, he saw a dopey grin spread across it. 

“The fuck are you grinning about, you idiot?” Lamb asked, trying to rile River up while taking his phone back out of his pocket and putting it on one of the boxes. He’d found a wound on his shoulder and one on his wrist that seemed pretty bad and was trying to apply pressure.

“I never thought,” River said weakly, “I’d ever be glad to see you.” 

Lamb looked at him, bewildered, and then joined him laughing. Only stopping when he heard someone loudly charging up the outside staircase. Lamb grabbed the gun off River and aimed down the corridor. But it was only Guy who came racing round the corner yelling his name.

“Lamb!”

“Guy, shut the fuck up and come here.”

She jogged over but stopped short when she saw River. 

“Oh fuck, River. Oh fuck.” She said as she tried to kneel down on the staircase on the other side of River, with her hands raised up towards him like she was about to heal him with fucking prayers. 

“Guy.” She didn’t look away from River. “Guy, stop fucking looking at him!” Finally her attention turned back to Lamb. He raised the gun to give to her.

“Take this and check we don’t have any more uninvited guests wandering around upstairs.”

She took the gun and stood, but hesitated. 

“Should I call an ambulance?” She asked, once again staring down at River who didn’t seem to be fully aware of what was going on anymore.

“Guy, you do your fucking job and I’ll do mine.” Lamb said back, raising his phone where she could see him pressing nine three times and then the call button. Seeming satisfied with that, Guy went up the stairs, gun trained in front of her. 

Lamb gave the address to the poor sod that had answered his call after probably traumatising them and setting in motion the creation of a new training programme for 999 phone operators. After which he hung up. 

River stirred. He was sloppily trying to reach into his pocket. After watching him try and fail a few times, Lamb took his hand off River’s shoulder wound to fish into the pocket for him. When he pulled out what was in there he found himself looking at an, only slightly bloodied, USB. Lamb looked at it quizzically a moment longer, then looked back at River and waved it in front of his face so as to ask the question without needing to say it.

“It’s what they were after.” River explained between heavy breaths. “Killed– turncoat.” He added, then raised his hand, weakly, to point at the USB. “Ours– and theirs.” Lamb waited remarkably patiently for River to follow up with something more coherent. When he didn’t he just said:

“Right.” And put the USB in his jacket. 

The stairs creaked loudly as Guy rushed back down them.

“The rest of the place is clear. None hiding, no bodies.” She reported as she reached the bottom step and knelt down next to River again. She looked him over, tears coming to her eyes that she was obviously trying, and failing, to hold back. She turned to Lamb, “What can I do?”

He was about to tell her to go wait outside for the ambulance that had better be here any fucking minute, but then thought better of it. She wanted to be here and if Lamb was the one waiting outside, he wouldn’t have to try and be decent to River if these end up being his last moments.

“Put your hands where mine are and press hard.” She swapped to kneeling where he had been, and he moaned as his knees cracked and complained as he stood. “I mean it,” Lamb said, looking at what Guy was doing, “Press fucking hard, Guy.” She pressed harder, River mumbled something but didn’t react otherwise.

Lamb took a fresh pack of fags out his pocket and put one in his mouth as he turned and walked quickly to the front door, saying over his shoulder, “I’m going to find us some fucking paramedics.”

Outside, Lamb stood at the entrance of the alley, blood on his hands and clothes, noting the looks he was and wasn’t getting while he smoked. He wanted to take another look at the USB, but there were definitely a few people standing around out here that also wanted to, and they weren’t hiding it well. Where he’d normally have clocked them for looking too much, these few weren’t looking enough at the guy standing in an alley, smoking and bloodstained. 

Thankfully the paramedics only took another minute. Lamb beckoned them up the stairs, taking a pause from smoking to tell the paramedics, “Three of them are already dead.” Then turning back and continuing to smoke without waiting for a response.

He’d expected Guy to be sobbing over River’s corpse when he led the paramedics in and pointed them over to him. But, remarkably, they didn’t immediately pronounce him dead, so she seemed to only be crying over him while he was still alive.

Satisfied that River seemed to be sticking around for now, Lamb turned back to wait outside for the police that were inevitably about to turn up, too. He could have really done without this fucking mess, but it seemed like maybe it wasn’t going to be as bad a day as it could have been.

[aranarumei]

12 an 29 for the wip asks!!

ask me something from this list?

12: a trope you’re really into right now

hm… nothing? I don’t think of fic ideas in terms of tropes, more just that I wanna express some specific feeling I have

29: how easy is it for you to come up with titles?

the short answer is “it depends” but I think the long answer of how I approach titling is way more interesting, so… here’s an impromptu “kiri’s personal guide to titling fics!” I know my tendency to ramble, so I’ll let this spiel live under the cut.

the first thing to note is that titling got a bit easier for me when I realized that it just so does not matter on ao3. without pointing fingers at any specific fic, I tend to recognize a fic I’ve read and liked by the summary, tags, kr author… usually I remember the title only bc I’ve seen it a bunch, not because it actually connects to anything. this applies to browsing, too: I tend to judge whether I want to read a fic based on the summary and the tags. other people I’ve talked to have agreed that fic titles don’t seem to really… Matter? to them as much as other stuff. so if you’re someone who gets really anxious about titling stuff, hopefully that lets you take it a little less seriously?

with that said, I do like to think about titles, because it is part of the package of the fic and I’d like it to be good.

also on a practical level it’s just helpful for me to distinguish fics. if every one of my fics was titled smthing vague but pretty, like, I dunno, “fuschia birdsong”… I don’t know think they’d be so easy to identify.

this was actually a real problem when I went through my archives… I remember my published ao3 fics well enough, but I’d also archived pieces of unpublished wips, and just had no idea what any of them were based on title alone. like why is “eyes are the window to the soul” my title for this fic I wrote like. 8 years ago where kageyama’s a demon. I probably just thought it was a phrase that correlated with soul or something…? but it’s un-parseable. for wips that I shelve, these days I tend to pick out really obvious labels instead, so above would just be titled as “demon!kageyama” for my archives or something (yes I know the ! is not in common use these days. let me indulge.)

my rambling coincidentally highlights what I think is important about a title: conveying a core part of the piece. I want to look at a title and at least somewhat be like “yeah, I remember what that fic is about” so my title has to touch on something major about the fic.

as for how I do that, I tend to go to two sources for titles: the fic’s “concept” and the fic’s “point.”

the fic’s “concept” is like… is there a certain situation that this fic is about? some examples: “the stranger in the hall” (it’s literally about shirahama meeting ichinose—a stranger—in the hallway) or “day negative fourteen” (a fic set fourteen days before the beginning of a dating sim isekai), or, in its most obvious form, “help! my classmate’s asking for relationship advice, but I’m aromantic!?” (this fic is exactly what it says on the tin)

the fic’s “point,”on the other hand, is like… what themes or ideas are being discussed in this fic? examples include: “something there” (revolves around the underlying tension of shirahama’s yet-unrealized crush on miyano, which is a Something There that he’s trying to not really think about) or “see the light” (fic deals with vision and perception in various ways, and tashiro gets compared to light in a couple of ways, so it’s like… seeing tashiro in a new way, which is what the final scene of the fic is all about)

so that’s a good base for how i wanna start building a title. but then getting the words into something that “feels right” is a lot harder. how do you condense your “point” or “concept” into something that’s concise enough? sometimes it’s really easy: “the anomalous agate” is meant to copy the style of a chapter of one of the first two volumes of the case files of jeweler richard, and I literally can’t write the fic without knowing what the central gem (agate) and idea (anomaly) is going to be. when it’s not, I tend to have two ways I go about it.

the first is pretty classically ao3: song lyrics! if I happen to have some songs that I’ve been listening to for the fic mood, it’s probably bc it matches something in the fic, so I’ll just borrow from there. apart from that, song lyrics in general just tend to have… nice phrases? so they can be fun to take out of context or use. both “something there” and “see the light” reference disney songs, which is kind of the reason for why I named “see the light” that way… I was like “oh shirahama’s narrating this fic again, it’d be hilarious if another disney song title fit—oh wait I can work with this one.” this cloud & tifa fic I’d written is just very vaguely like “wow… Life Goes On even when things suck” which. ig “life goes on” is a title but I went with “symptom of life” bc I’d been listening to that song by willow recently.

my other technique is one I used to do for personal essays to apply to college, actually… which is basically just “if one idea isn’t good enough, go with two!” the reasoning is basically like… if you pick one topic to talk abt, it feels like it’s been skewered to death, but if you pick two and manage to synthesize them somehow, it’s got way more of a chance of being unique, and you also get to sound clever and thoughtful by how you tie things together.

examples: “the peridot of favor” borrows from the same structured title as “the anomalous agate”, but here favor has two meanings: hanzawa’s doing a favor for tashiro by helping him out with their crossdressing contest, but he’s also showing him favor, because they liiiike each other. or something. “dialed in” refers to the point of the fic (tenma’s paying attention to yuki and reaffirming his connection with summer troupe) as well as the concept (the fic is built off a moment in canon where they’re literally on a phone call), and “ill at ease” also blends point and concept, because seigi is literally “ill” (it’s a sickfic) but the fic is also about him feeling “ill at ease” (his discomfort with the hotel room he’s staying in)

while I’m writing wips my titles are almost never the actual ao3 title. I like putting either a very plain title like “kagihira wip” or something that makes me laugh. the latter can definitely seep into my published fic titles… song lyrics and double meanings are fun to me, and so is titling something “help! my classmate’s asking for relationship advice, but I’m aromantic!?” (this was the wip title as well. it was too perfect to change)

and as a final, super personal rule, i try to avoid using the word “dream” because i used it way too much for earlier titles when frankly. they didn’t need it. I just think i like the word a lot… it’s pretty and represents a fun concept, and it has vague sentiments of yearning so it can apply to a lot of stuff. it’s definitely way too easy to get to vaguely pretty titles with it. therefore I really try to make sure i have a good justification when i use that word. after this ban I’ve only used it in one title: “dream; reality” which is literally a fic where these two characters keep dreaming about a tragic alternative universe version of themselves, and differentiating that from their much happier reality, so… yeah, I’ll allow that.

[bainofjustice]

Kitty's Notes On Episode 1 Of The Payday 2 Web Series

According to Bain Crime.net is a organization which is a notable definition of the group & program, it isn't just a program but something with structure to it.

Bain says he seeks out the top theives, thugs, drug dealers & hustlers for the organization.

To me this implies a heavy focus on contracting work out to contractors (thugs) and some independent work, possibly with members having to pay to be a member but get some benefit like being directed to targets or having costumers pointed to them, along with protection from the law (theives, drug dealers & hustlers) (starting scene)

He does outright say he hookups them up with contacts & “sets the stage”, so my immediate thoughts are right on that.

Also he says “they think they are working for themselves but they just can't see the bigger picture”, given this there might not be a membership fee but more splitting what they make with Bain since he “did them a favor”

Bain in this starting scene says that he is training the Payday Gang for the greatest heist of all, which my interpretation is he is either speaking of the White House pardons which I remember is mentioned to have been one of the first heists he planned or perhaps a heist involving the Katrau, maybe not a literal heist and more stealing it's secrets.

When starting the real part of the episode it says “DC, Present Day” which means First World Bank happened around when the episode came out, but given that would have been around 2012 & 2013 but FBI files indicate that the first batch of heists take place 2014 it is likely this was retconned

They do use the in-game escape van within the show

Houston starts off strong with talking about his ideology which includes the following 

Banks are stealing from the people 

Houston says that some call the gang modern day Robinhoods & seems to agree with that, this leads me to assume that he either is under the belief that Bain redistributes the wealth the gang steals or that Houston himself is doing that & assumes the other gang members are too

He also says others don't understand that they/we have a choice, which he doesn't follow up on instead saying that Newton said for every action there is a equal & opposite reaction and that The Payday Gang is their reaction, this ties in more to how Houston views the banking system & likely government systems as corrupt & hurting the general population 

“Am I a criminal? I don't think so, everyone needs a job, right? We all need a payday.” -Houston, to me this really suggests he sees working with the gang as a means to survival aka what money tends to be used for most, that it isn't the thrills but that message from above and also his own need for money to do things like pay off debts & pay for things.

Wolf seems concerned with hiding his identity taking steps such as a likely real human wig to 1. Give him “cool recognizable hair” & 2. Fasle DNA to be left at the scene, this is probably why in canon no one seems to know his previous identity at the time of Payday 2's end (perhaps this will come up more in 3's story?)

Houston is shown as the planer for the team on First World Bank, directing Wolf & Chains on what to do & explaining what Dallas is doing, at the start of 2 it seems likely he was second in command to Dallas, Chains doesn't seem the happiest about this as he rolls his eyes after the fact

Wolf does a literal wolf howl before the heist in the escape van, I just find this sort of cute/a interesting part of character 

Chains seems to be the voice of the gang when Dallas isn't around as he's the one to tell civis to get on the ground at the start of the heist

Later though Houston also does some speaking for the gang, which is a little less threatening and seems like more a set up for Dallas's speech, so pretty internally for planning had a different purpose for the heist.

We hear/see early in the heist one of the guards within the bank be directed by a female voice who has some camera access, this is probably a GenSec guard & operator like how the pagers work

I have to assume given that Dallas/”Natehen Steele” isn't arrested during his questioning later at FBI HQ that the director wasn't able to see him attack this guard.

The security cameras go down before Dallas attacks so that explains the above

We see that Bain is able to detect when silent alarms have been triggered, this is probably a normal part of his set up during Payday gang heists 

Houston is the one to give a speech once the civis are on the ground, given how calmly it's delivered and how it's a good lead in to the First World Bank speech it is probably written by Bain or Dallas & Houston memorized it alongside the plan

We see that the gang checks money packs for tracers & dyepacks before bagging them, using some sort of scanner, saying clear before each one is bagged, we have to assume that there is also a word like “skip” or “traced” to indicate to skip a money pack for bagging.

Houston is shown using what looks like a normal smartphone as a timer during the bagging section, I don't even know how to begin to explain how bad an idea that is irl, so we can probably assume that the phones the gang uses have been altered in some major ways likely by Bain & Wolf (Bain on software & Wolf on hardware)

Wolf in the credits section which shows who plays who is “Wolf as Himself” funnily

[kyogre-blue]

Finally started on HSR 3.3 story. I've made it to just before heading off to face Aquila... or as it turns out, the... corpse of Aquila being reanimated by the will of Hyacine's ancestor...?

Anyway, that was quite a tough trek to make it here. It is back to back pov switch talking scenes for literally hours straight. I know I complained about too much "gameplay" in between story sections, but this isn't really better... I think the only real interactive portion in this entire stretch from the start to now (which seems to be about two thirds of the way through this act) was the part with Cipher in Styxia at the very beginning. And it's all in other character POV, so stopping feels really awkward, since the game makes you exit the POV if you want to do anything else.

On the positives, HSR does have a way of making certain scenes really tense. Like I mentioned, there was a couple of times like this in the Hoolay questline, and there were definitely some here. The background music also works quite well for setting the mood in a lot of cases. I know it's the big boss fight tracks and character trailer songs everyone remembers, HSR OST is pretty damn good.

Also, I appreciate that the characters interact with each other and have their own thoughts and intentions, which are revealed to us in pieces. The POV system is really awkwardly implemented, but I do think it benefits the story as a whole... mostly. The character relationships are something I particularly value, and they are what puts HSR story well above Genshin and Wuwa for me. (That said, the endless layers of backstory are not to my taste, though that doesn't necessarily make them bad writing, just not my thing.) The characters also have at least some variety in their perspectives and actions. Cipher has her own view of receiving a prophecy, and even Dan Heng has a distinctive approach to matters, very thoughtful and methodical, with an interest in records that fits with him sleeping in the data bank room (lol).

Overall, I don't dislike the story progression, and obviously I'm happy to see so much of Phainon's face (also lol).

THAT SAID, it's time to complain!

First of all, let me say, the TB is by far the weakest part of the story and kind of a dead weight on the story as a whole. Even Dan Heng is doing better since he's... doing things. TB's just here to be a Mem anchor. The lack of doing anything makes the occasional MC shilling and weirdly excessive closeness with other characters stand out even more. I've seen leaks about the letter Phainon sends at the end of 3.3 and let me just say...... that was so much dick sucking. "You are the true hero of my heart uwu" jesus christ... Don't even get me started on Castorice.

This can probably also be filed under the ways in which Amphoreus is negatively affected by being a chapter in an ongoing gacha. The gacha model is just not doing the story any favors here.

There's the need to slot in our existing protag who needs to be the most special and receive special powers but not have any history with anyone here. (Belobog finale suffered from this too.) In a reasonable standalone game, Phainon would just be the protag and be done with it, lbr.

There's also the weirdass pacing issues. A normal game would have you doing side quests in between all these story beats, and a VN would be way, way longer, so they'd have room to show you three hijinks daily life scenes for every plot scene. But since this is a gacha, the story has to compact all these plot scenes together one after another. (That said, at least let us have a natural stopping point between the povs instead of dropping us into the next one automatically??)

And of course, the need to align with character banners means their storylines are also compacted. It's not the worst thing, but it's REALLY obvious who the patch releases are because we focus on them so heavily. Hyacine was just a minor character with like two lines about her background in previous patches, but now we need to crash course through her entire character, and same for Cipher. We basically didn't even discuss Aquila until now, but now we speedrun its presence and importance. It's not great.

That said, the pacing is not actively catastrophic, just unideal. The worst fallout is probably the way this affects Aglaea, who spends three patches just kind of being there without doing much but now suddenly becomes The Best Most Important Character In Amphoreus. I don't even disagree with positioning her like this, but having it all come out so suddenly feels kinda forced.

Or at least, Aglaea is the Best and Most Important for now, until the story needs to sell the next most tragic yet heroic character. Every character needing to sell how sad, misunderstood and yet awesome they are is getting a bit old, ngl. I'm kind of glad that Hyacine seems to not actually have a tragic backstory. ...I sure hope she doesn't have a tragic backstory. I only have so much sympathy and tbh I ran out back in 3.1. All latecomers to the tragic backstory olympics are only getting an eyeroll from me.

[somerandomcryptid]

Ok so the plot point connected to this art might not stay because I know it's treading on Cala's boundaries and I feel really bad about that (but I fucking forgot about it when I was drawing this so sorry, I'm just dumb like that) so Cala absolutely feel free to tell me no that's too far, I'll absolutely rework it, but I wanted to at least post the art because I'm really happy with the art

So uh possibly triggering context under the cut

Tw for brief SH (scratching, though not to the point of drawing blood, and filing horns down, with no lasting or major nerve damage, just grazing it a bit, I don't even go into any of it actually, am very vague) and generally just, lots of Cryptid's mental state being absolutely totally fucked up

Basically, the short version, is a few weeks after Cryptid moves back into the artic commune, Dream and them have a big fight. This is post The first bottle, not the last.

A very big fight, a lot of hurtful things are said, mostly by Cryptid, because they are still rightfully pissed about everything. Dream insists he cares about them, Cryptid is skeptical. But eventually convinced. This does not make them any less angry and resentful.

Infact they just decide, "you care about me? Fine. I'll make that one of the worse mistake of your life." Because as they logically conclude, hurting themself will hurt Dream. You can probably see where this gets bad.

Thankfully they don't really get to hurt themself much. And they are talked down by Wren, but this is when everyone realizes just how hard they're spiraling.

Anyway yeah that's about it for context, I get if it's too much and overall Dreaming of death spiraled into something way darker then I originally intended and I honestly didn't even realize it, which I feel bad about given this is an au of someone else's work.

It turned into a bit of therapy for me and that was very unintentional, but I think it's honestly so connected to some of my plot points that I can't really separate that. I would be majorly changing the story if Cryptid didn't become an emotional mess of a person at some point, but certain things like the SH is definitely something that can be removed for everyone else's(and especially Cala's, since they're the author of penpal) comfort. I have my reasons for adding it, but I don't want to be violating any boundaries.

Anyway sorry for rambling, I kinda did this art and then realized, 'oh fuck idk if this is ok actually' so I just wanted to make clear that this might change and I'm completely willing to change it based on if Cala's alright with it or not

(I've literally mentioned them like 4 times but I'm tagging them here, @calamari-minecraft-corner is the creator of penpal, the fic Dreaming of death is based on, as we all know by now)

[butchsophiewalten]

haii i like JUST watched the walten files… idk if this blog is still alive, but im tryin to learn the lore and if u could give me a run-down of like the timeline/lore i would rlly appreciate it ^_^ TY!!!

Well i'm definitely still active, but this is kind of a tall ask! Also pretty complicated since there's a lot of fringe stuff that I care a lot about but probably isn't actually that important for a new fan to familiarize themself with right away, and sometimes it's hard for someone like me to differentiate that from the essential stuff. That said, I've written a lot here so it's going under a cut.

Just to cover all my bases: If you've just watched the series for the first time, be sure that you're also checking out the two hidden videos. They're both present in the Official Playlist in the order you're meant to view them, but there's really nothing wrong with watching both of them last, you shouldn't be that confused. These are technically and literally bonus content, but they ARE lore-important.

Also, a mutual of mine, @gir-posting put together a neocities site a while ago specifically with the intention of helping people who are new to The Walten Files get their bearings with it, and you can find that here:

Just as a note and to add my own pedantic criticism, this page eventually guides you towards the series' companion website, Findjackwalten.com, and provides archived links of all* the iterated versions of that site's pages. It's a LOT, don't worry about catching up on everything, it is literally all just bonus content to make the wait between episodes more fun. The Twfinfo page here also calls it an ARG, which i would not consider it by any stretch of the word's definition. It's just a website.

*some pages were never archived and Twfinfo is also missing the most recent findjackwalten update from August 15th.

I recognize that literally none of this is what you asked me for! This is because I honestly have a really difficult time trying to summarize the events of The Walten Files. But this is the part where I try:

In the late 50s, two college friends named Jack Walten and Felix Kranken came up with an idea for animatronic performers that, through the years, would eventually morph into the concept for Bon's Burgers. Sometime between 1968 and 1972, Jack and Felix's company, Bunny Smiles Incorporated, would partner with a company called CyberFun Tech to assist them in their Bon's Burgers project, providing them with resources and engineering expertise to create those animatronic performers they had envisioned. After lots of work, Bon's Burgers was set to open on June 1st, 1974.

This is the part you probably know. On May 2nd, 1974, Jack asked Felix for a favor he was needing. He was doing overtime at the workshop trying to get things ready for the opening, but his two youngest kids, Edd and Molly, needed someone to drive them to a school party they wanted to attend. His wife, Rosemary, couldn't take them, because she was taking his eldest daughter Sophie to the dentist. Felix agreed to the favor. You know what happened then.

This is where it gets fuzzy. After Edd & Molly's disappearances, the Bon's Burgers opening was postponed to June 28th. It seems like Jack and Felix more or less continued to collaborate on the project until Jack's disappearance on June 11th. We have no idea what happened to him after that.

The restaurant opened. At some point presumably between Jack's disappearance and the 30th of June, the animatronic Bon went strange. The lead engineer, Susan Woodings, decided to examine him after noticing some "irregularities" during his performance during the day, and he violently attacked her, then stuffed her damaged-but-still-living body into the animatronic Banny, where she eventually starved to death.

Bon's massacre would continue with the elusive employee, Charles B., who we continue to know next to nothing about except that he ended up in Boozoo, and would finish with Rosemary Walten, who had been returning to the restaurant regularly with hopes of finding her missing husband. The screams heard during Rosemary's attack and dismemberment were reported by the neighborhood and led to the restaurant's immediate closure. All of the restaurants assets, including its animatronic performers, were relocated to a storage unit in the middle of a nearby forest.

Over the years Felix pulled a lot of cheap merchandising schemes to try and keep the Bon's Burgers and Bunny Smiles brand relevant in the consciousness of Brighton. Lots of toys and direct-to-video cartoons and even a reasonably popular television series. In the late 70s he put forward a plan to fix up all the animatronics and reopen the Bon's Burgers restaurant in a new location. The first version of the plan went really terribly, since they just went and hired some teenaged engineers and put them on crunch time to try and fix everything wrong with four half-decade old complicated machines. One of those engineers, Ashley Parks, ended up poking around in some back hallways she wasn't supposed to see and was killed by Bon for snooping. She ended up in the animatronic Billy, who was present at the old Bon's Burgers location but has been kept suspiciously separate from the other animatronics for years.

Flash forward to 1982. Sophie Walten, the only living member of the Walten family, has been living with medication-induced amnesia for years. This is until her girlfriend Jenny introduces her to the BunnyFarm arcade machine, which has just been installed in the basement of the hotel where Jenny and she live. Through the machine, the spirits of her dead friends and family begin communicating with her, and she learns a lot of the information I just relayed to you. And that's where we are, really.