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thenukacolachallenge · 1 year ago

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In defense of the One Piece Live Action Adaptation’s stylistic choices: A Cosmetologist’s Perspective

Hello! My name is Dia, and I’ve been a licensed cosmetologist since 2015(almost a decade now!). For those unaware of what exactly that entails, cosmetology is traditionally defined as ‘the professional skill or practice of beautifying the face, hair, and skin’. For me specifically, I have worked in the fields of hairstyling/haircutting/hair coloring, skincare, nail care, and makeup application(both traditional makeup and FX makeup) in my eight years of being licensed to work in these industries.

The reason I’m making this post today is to talk about the Netflix adaptation of the hit manga/anime One Piece, and specifically to address a lot of complaints I’ve seen about the wardrobe, makeup, and hair choices of the main cast thus far. I’ve seen quite a bit in the way of complaints, and a lot of it seems to be, to put it as politely as I can, not based in reality of how makeup, hair, and acting in general works, and I’d like to address some of it to possibly explain why certain choices were made, to maybe help people come to a better understanding of the why and how of these sorts of decisions.

I’d like to also, before I dive in, note that I am not in any way, shape, or form affiliated with this production! These are merely my personal thoughts and speculation as someone with some experience in this field. None of this is set in stone unless I provide evidence from the cast and crew to back my claims up. As well, I’d like to point out that I have next to no experience working on film sets(I have worked on VERY small productions in the past, for things that go up on sites like Youtube and not Netflix lmao), but I am married to a person who has a degree in film and has worked on live production sets before, and I did defer to them for a lot of the knowledge that I lack with live action production specifically.

I’d also like to point out that while I’m not mad at anyone who has the critiques I cover in this post, I may come across as a bit exasperated. I promise this isn’t me being angry at anyone, but more of just.... I’ve seen the same critiques over and over again, and to me, a lot of the choices seem fairly obvious as to why they were made, and some of the critiques come across as extremely silly to me. This is of course due to my own background related to these sorts of things. I promise I mean no offense or disrespect to anyone saying these things! I just want to make this to be able to help others understand why production may have made the choices they did.

Now, under the cut, I’ll be discussing some common complaints I’ve heard with regards to this production, and provide some potential explanation as to why these changes were made. On to the post! It is quite hefty, so please bear with me.

First and foremost, the most common complaint I’ve seen thus far is some variation of the phrase “I’ve seen cosplayers that look more accurate to the characters than this show does,” and I’d like to address this one first, as I think it’s the one that probably frustrates me the most. It specifically frustrates me because comparing cosplayers to actors feels like an apples to oranges situation. The two groups are designed to do entirely different things! Cosplayers do typically look more like the characters they portray than a live action actor will, and that’s a very common occurrence, but there’s a reason for that: the two groups are not doing the same thing.

Both cosplayers and actors put a huge amount of time and effort into their work, and I love cosplay personally. However, cosplayers are typically in their outfits for 8-10 hour days at most for a weekend, doing things like photoshoots where they have to pose, walking around conventions, and maybe filming a small amount of video(Not to say that this takes no effort! Please do not take this as such, I have helped friends with cosplays and I fully understand and appreciate the level of dedication and hard work that goes into it!). Actors, on the other hand, are in hair and makeup on set for 10-12 hours a day(if not longer) for weeks to months on end, and have to be fully in character while filming, as well as(specifically for a show like One Piece) doing things like stunt work, being submerged in water, and being on boats with lots of wind and ocean spray. There are certain things you simply cannot do, hair/makeup/costume-wise as an actor that you can as a cosplayer, so I really don’t think this comparison in specific is being very fair to the actors and the crew who are in charge of makeup, hair, and wardrobe in this case.

I’ll be getting into a lot more specifics below, but I will be deferring to my main point here very often, which is this: The safety and comfort of the actors is far more important than 1-to-1 accuracy in the way cosplayers can do, especially for minor changes in appearance.

Now that I’ve addressed that specifically, I’d like to move onto some common complaints I’ve heard for each specific main cast member, and my opinion on these complaints, as well as listing potential reasons as to why these things may have been changed!

We’ll start with everyone’s favorite funky little pirate king, Monkey D. Luffy:

For Luffy, the number one complaint I’ve seen is the live action’s choice in shoes. in the manga/anime, Luffy wears and fights in flip-flops, but this was changed in the live action. This was changed for a very simple reason, and Emily Rudd, the actor that portrays Nami, actually addressed this on Instagram while being asked by a fan:

Simply put, trying to do the kind of stunt work that Luffy has to do is not safe in a shoe like a flip flop. This is something that falls very completely under my original point of the comfort and safety of the actors being more important than 100% accuracy. It would be entirely too easy for Iñaki or someone he’s in a scene with to get hurt if he weren’t wearing the proper footwear. Fairly simple explanation there!

This is really the only gripe with Luffy costume-wise I could find, to be honest! I have seen a few people saying that he doesn’t have his signature undereye scar, but he does, although it’s not as visible as it is in the original work:

They kept him fairly true to the spirit of his original character, and although I don’t know why they chose to give him this specific potato shoe footwear, it is what they went with, and the main takeaway is that it was for safety reasons.

Onto our favorite wayward booze-loving swordsman, Roronoa Zoro:

Similarly to Luffy, I’ve only seen one main complaint regarding Zoro, and it involves his use of swords. In the anime/manga, Zoro has pioneered a specific fighting style called “Santoryu”, known in English as “Three Sword Style”: one sword in each hand, and a third in his mouth.

I’ve seen several people wondering where his third sword(the one that goes in the mouth) is from the trailers, and I was initially wondering this as well, since in most of his action scenes that have been revealed so far, he seems to only be holding either one sword or two. However, there was a brief clip(I’m talking, like, maybe one second) of him utilizing his three-swords style in the teaser trailer released in mid-June:

Now, as to potential reasons as to why this seems to be the only clip of him thus far using all three of his swords:

1. Again, this could be for the safety of the cast. Obviously being a cartoon character, Zoro wouldn’t have to worry about potential damage to his jaws and teeth, but Mackenyu, Zoro’s actor, is a real person who does have to worry about such things, especially as an actor who relies on(among other things) his facial expressions to earn a living. Carrying something like a sword, even a prop sword, in your mouth for long periods of time cannot be good for the health of your jaw and teeth, and I could understand if they chose not to film him with a sword in his mouth very often for this reason alone. 2. It could also be he uses all three swords less often so he can still deliver lines while fighting. In an SBS(”Shitsumon o Boshū Suru”, when translated means “I’m Taking Questions”, essentially an AMA for mangaka to answer questions their readers may have), Eiichiro Oda, the author of One Piece, once answered a question about how Zoro was able to talk with a sword in his mouth with quite a funny answer:

Sadly, in real life, Mackenyu cannot speak through his heart as Zoro does, so it’s possible that some of the scenes have been changed for ease of dialogue. 3. It’s also entirely possible that he uses his three-sword style as often as he does in the anime and manga, and the small amount of what we’ve seen in the trailers isn’t necessarily the full picture. I imagine this is something we’ll have to wait for the full series to drop to find out definitively one way or another!

Now, onto our lovely citrus-fruit-loving navigator, Nami!

I have seen two main complaints with Nami’s looks, and I’ll start with her hair, as it’s the more common one I’ve been seeing. I have seen a large number of people saying that her hair looks like(and I am slightly paraphrasing here) “a bad cosplay wig”, and honestly? I think this is just not true, and either comes from unrealistic expectations or just plain being mean-spirited.

First and foremost, this is very obviously human hair:

Now, I don’t know what kind of bad cosplays y’all have been seeing, but the ones I’ve seen start with synthetic hair wigs, not human hair ones(This is not to say synthetic wigs are inherently bad for cosplay! Simply that they are much harder to work with, though they are cheaper than human hair wigs). As well, I know for a fact Emily Rudd got her hair done similarly to this, to the point where I wasn’t actually sure that this WAS a wig at first(this picture comes directly from her Instagram account):

This is very obviously almost the exact same haircut as the wig chosen for Nami, save with more layers, and even the color choices are similar. To say that this wig looks like a “bad cosplay” is honestly just flat-out wrong in my professional opinion, and moreover, it’s quite rude. In addition, to me at least, it really looks like the wig was styled to resemble anime-esque hair, which is actually quite common among cosplayers. If anything, I have the same complaint on Nami’s wig that I also have with Sanji’s(which I’ll definitely be touching on later): it’s not thick enough. Both Nami and Sanji’s wigs just seem like they could use more hair attached to the cap in general, but especially for Nami’s, I really don’t think it’s as bad as people are saying.

I think this “bad cosplay wig” complaint specifically is mainly coming from people who only see the tail end of cosplay productions, which tends to be photos that are often times edited to look a certain way, which can often include doctoring the hair. There’s nothing wrong with a cosplayer editing their photos, for the record, but it can absolutely give unrealistic expectations to those who aren’t familiar with this practice, and I personally think this may be where these comments are coming from. Obviously you cannot photoshop every frame of a live action production, at least not without a lot of time and effort on the behalf of the post-production team, and I highly doubt Netflix would have greenlit something like that for such a small detail. It’s simply not realistic.

As well, I do find it quite interesting that I have seen far less complaints about the wigs of characters such as Zoro or Sanji(played by Taz Skylar(as stated previously, I have seen complaints about Sanji’s wig and I will be speaking on that later)) than I have about Nami’s. I’m not saying it’s outwardly misogynistic, but it does make one consider such things.

The only other complaint I’ve seen directed towards Nami’s live action look(and truth be told, I’ve seen this one far less than the comments on the hair) is the discrepancy between Emily Rudd’s eye color and Nami’s. As you can see from the above photos, Emily Rudd does not have brown eyes, which are the color of Nami’s eyes:

Now, I didn’t actually see this complaint until after the first full trailer dropped on July 21st. Specifically, I saw someone saying that it seemed strange that Steven John Ward, who portrays Dracule Mihawk in the series, is wearing colored contacts to better resemble his character, while Emily is not.

Now, there could be a lot of potential reasons for this, including that Emily may simply be not wearing colored contacts because they irritate her eyes(going back to my original point of the comfort and safety of the cast). But more importantly, I think, is that Mihawk’s unique eyes are directly related to his character, specifically through his epithet: Hawkeye. This is a seemingly important enough part of his character, to the point where it’s directly mentioned in his title. Nami has no such distinctions with her eye color, so I really don’t think it’s as important, and at the end of the day, it takes nothing away from her character to have a different eye color. So, while I don’t know the particular reason she doesn’t have brown contacts, I also don’t think it’s nearly as important for that detail to be as canonically correct as it is for Mihawk. To me, this particular comparison is another apples to oranges situation.

Onto our beloved liar, God Usopp himself:

Of course, the number one talking point I’ve seen about the live action Usopp is that Jacob Romero Gibson, Usopp’s actor, is missing his trademark long nose.

As One Piece fans know, one of Usopp’s characteristic traits is his tendency to lie. His name, Usopp, comes from a portmanteau of the Japanese word “uso”, which means lie, and Aesop, the famous Greek storyteller and the namesake for Aesop’s Fables. Because of his propensity towards tall tales, Usopp’s anime and manga character designs also added a reference to another character who’s known for lying, Pinocchio, whose nose grows when he lies. Thus, Usopp in his cartoon form has a long nose!

Considering how many gags in the story involve Usopp’s nose, a lot of fans were surprised to see that aspect of him not carried over into the live action. After the drop of the official trailer, seeing that the character Arlong had his signature sawshark-esque long nose in prosthetic form, there was even more confusion about this choice.

(As an aside, Arlong’s costuming choices will not be discussed in this post, as it’s long enough with just the main cast, but believe me, I do have Opinions on it lmao)

Now, as to why the show chose to not give Jacob a prosthetic long nose to better match Usopp’s appearance, I don’t know the specifics. I can only speculate, and really, the only things I could feasibly come up with are the following:

1. It’s entirely possible that for whatever reason, Jacob is unable to wear a prosthetic nose. This could be due to several things, including allergies to either the prosthetic material itself or the adhesive used to attach it, or the makeup required to blend the prosthetic into his skin. If this is the case, then it of course goes back to my main point here that the comfort of the cast takes precedence over accuracy to the source material. 2. The only other explanation that really makes sense to me is that they did in fact attempt the nose in costume fitting, and either the absurdity of it was just either too distracting to audiences/the crew/Netflix execs/possibly even Oda himself, or it could have potentially been a problem during stunt work. Usopp primarily fights with a slingshot, and I have no experience with slingshots so this is just me taking a stab in the dark, but it’s possible that the extra length on the nose could have possibly messed with the actor’s depth perception while attempting to act out Usopp’s fight scenes.

Overall, I genuinely don’t know why they decided to axe Usopp’s long nose. But at the end of the day, I know that for me specifically, this is a minor detail, and not something I see as a genuine problem, nor will it ruin the immersion for me. That being said, I can definitely understand the criticisms here. I’m hoping that a lot of these changes will eventually be answered, perhaps in some behind-the-scenes footage that comes out after the show’s release.

The only other comment on Usopp’s costuming that I’ve seen is much more easily explainable, and I also haven’t seen nearly as much in the way of commenting on it: Usopp’s hair is not in dreads in the anime and manga, and instead is kept natural, especially before the timeskip.

As we can see in the above picture, Usopp seems to keep his hair fairly natural, whereas Jacob, Usopp’s actor, sports dreads in his portrayal of Usopp, as seen in the above photo.

Luckily, I haven’t seen very many comments on this, and I think that’s a good thing, since the explanation seems fairly simple to me. Usopp in canon is based off of (mostly unused in this day and age, for good reason: a lot of the design is highly based off racist blackface caricatures) old-school anime portrayals of Black/African people. As well, in an SBS, a fan asked where the Straw Hats would be based out of if One Piece was set in the real world:

As stated above, Usopp would come from Africa! As well, if I recall correctly, Oda had a hand in casting the live action adaptation, which all points to the undeniable proof that Usopp is and has always been intended to read as Black/African in some form.

The reason I bring this all up specifically, is because of the way African hair grows. Obviously not all Black/African people are a monolith, and even among curly haired people there are different curl tightness and growth patterns, but for a large portion of people of African descent, their hair would not grow similarly to the way Usopp’s is portrayed in his cartoon form. His hair is indeed curly, but it grows down, similar to most wavy or straight hair types. This is especially evident in his post-timeskip hair growth:

Usopp’s hair, which was once above his shoulders before the two year time skip, now extends down past his shoulders. This is not necessarily inaccurate to Black/African hair types, as, since stated previously, different curl patterns and tightness exist, and even with super tight curl patterns, if grown out long enough, the hair will eventually grow down, due to the weight of the hair strands. But for a lot of Black/African hair types, the natural hair tends to grow outwards, instead of downwards(or at the very least it grows outwards before it begins to grow downwards). This type of hair is typically referred to as afro-textured hair, and is the namesake for the afro, a hairstyle wherein someone with afro-textured hair combs out their natural hair growth in the shape it naturally grows.

Now, I’m not familiar with Jacob Romero Gibson’s work prior to One Piece, and I have never seen his hair without his dreads, therefore I can’t say with 100% certainty how his hair grows naturally. However, he does have an Instagram account, and on this account he has photos of himself. I looked through his account, and although he doesn’t seem to have any photos of himself without his dreads(indeed, they seem to be his signature hairstyle) as an adult, he does have a few photos of himself from his childhood. I don’t personally feel comfortable linking his baby photos to this post, so I’m not going to do so here. However, they are visible there, and from what I can see from those photos, he does indeed have afro-textured hair. This may not be 100% accurate to how his hair grows now as an adult, as lots of things can change hair growth types and curl patterns, including things such as hormones, medications, stress levels etc. In my professional opinion, I feel fairly confident in saying that Jacob most likely has afto-textured hair, and therefore his natural hair likely wouldn’t fully grow in the exact same way that Usopp’s does.

Overall, I only bring all of this up to say that if Jacob did have his hair in a natural, non-protective style in his portrayal of Usopp, I feel that the same people who are complaining about the dreads now would likely complain that his natural hair doesn’t match Usopp’s exactly. Either way, Usopp’s hair is not a huge characteristic that defines who he is as a character(especially not in the way that his nose is), and therefore I don’t think that him having dreads in the live action takes away from the character in any way.

Finally, we’ll discuss the Straw Hat crew’s first-rate cook who attacks through kicks, Black Leg Sanji:

Sanji has the unfortunate position of being the character who’s had the most changes to his design from his cartoon to the live action, and there’s a lot of criticism that’s been lobbed his way. Some of it I think is fair, but there’s also quite a bit that I think is honestly quite silly. So without further ado, I’ll go through the four main critiques I’ve seen, and my opinions of each.

Let’s start with the one I’ve heard the most often, and the one that’s easily my least favorite to hear about at this point: the missing eyebrow swirl. Maybe it’s just because Sanji is personally my favorite on the crew and I’m just paying the most attention to him, but my god, the way some people are going on about the eyebrow, you’d think the showrunners made the decision to axe his signature curly eyebrow specifically to spite the Sanji fangirls. I think a lot of the complaining about the lack of eyebrow swirl would simply be changed to complaining about how bad the eyebrow swirl would look if they’d tried to keep it, and I’ll explain why below.

Like many of the costuming changes made to the live action adaptation, I don’t know the exact reasoning as to why they decided to get rid of the eyebrow swirl. As someone who has worked as a makeup artist, however, I do have a theory as to why they got rid of it, and my theory is fairly simple: it is just not really very possible to create a realistic-looking eyebrow swirl that reads well on a film camera.

Yes, the makeup team could have very easily drawn on a swirl with a brow pencil or some pomade and called it a day. However, it would have been fairly obvious that it was in fact drawn on, especially on a film shoot. I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about the missing swirl point to both cosplayers and stage actors as “proof” that it could be done, but again, this is an apples to oranges situation. Stage makeup(like that used for stage actors), photoshoot makeup(like what cosplayers would employ), and live action film makeup are three entirely different types of makeup application, and while they each have their own merits, that doesn’t inherently mean they translate into other mediums, and this is something that you have to learn fairly early on as a makeup artist if you want to continue getting work. If you are doing makeup professionally, you have to keep a lot of things in mind, one of the biggest things being how your work will read on camera, specifically the camera your canvas will be in front of. You have to keep in mind things like flash photography, shine versus matte, whether or not post-production editing will be involved, and the like. A fairly popular example of this is makeup influencer James Charles’ old meet-and-greet photo, which has become a meme since surfacing. Charles was used to only doing makeup and being photographed a certain way, leading to him using a setting powder that didn’t lend well to flash photography, and made him look like he was wearing makeup that was far too pale for his skin tone, when in reality it was just a makeup product that didn’t work for the kind of camera it was in front of:

Another example is basically the entire Cosmo Queens video series done for Cosmopolitan magazine’s youtube page, and I’ll use Kandy Muse’s video as a specific example, since she uses her natural brows in addition to her makeup. This series focused on the makeup of drag queens, and it’s very obvious when watching these videos that there’s a huge discrepancy between makeup meant for the stage and makeup meant for other avenues. Drag queens typically are live performers, and there is a common saying among drag artists, which is to “paint(apply makeup) for the back of the house(so that even those in the back row can see your makeup)”. On stage, Kandy Muse’s makeup is quite stunning, but it’s very clear that it’s not fully meant for the editorial style that Cosmo uses during these videos:

Even from a distance, you can very clearly see where Kandy’s real eyebrows sit versus her makeup. And while this is obviously an extreme example, it’s even more obvious when zoomed in, which film cameras have to do often in order to capture the expressions of their actors:

In a similar vein, film cameras, which are typically designed to catch a lot of definition and lend better to a more realistic look, likely would not be very kind to a drawn on part of an eyebrow. Without any hair growing there naturally to make the eyebrow makeup look more realistic, it would be very obvious that it was makeup, and would likely be more distracting to audiences(especially first-timers to the series; it’s important to keep in mind that Netflix would want to cater to those people as well as long-time One Piece fans) than omitting it entirely would. In addition, we have to take into account the actor, Taz Skylar, and his natural hair growth and the direction of his brows.

As is visible from the photo, Taz Skylar’s natural brow grows downwards at the end, whereas Sanji the fictional character’s brow grows upwards into his swirl at the end. In order to match the character 1-to-1 and change his own natural features, Taz would have to either shave/pluck/wax the entire outer half of his brow(which for an actor would be extremely inconvenient for other projects and would be an absolute pain to grow back out), or he would have to sit longer in the makeup chair to have his brow covered by FX makeup, which takes extra time and effort and could throw off the timing of the entire shoot. In addition, neither of these potential fixes would necessarily make the obviously-drawn-on swirl look good and read well on film. Add on the facts that Taz’s character is fully submerged in water in at least one scene, if not more, and has several fight scenes, and it’s not even a guarantee that the makeup swirl would even last throughout the shoot.

I’ve also seen people say that they could have added the swirl in post, but I think that’s it’s very unrealistic for Netflix to greenlight that for a minor detail such as a singular visible eyebrow.

While I am very sad that they weren’t able to translate Sanji’s signature brow to the live action adaptation, I think a lot of the complaints regarding him not having it and insistence that the production should have included it are entirely overblown, and are mainly being made by people who don’t have a lot of knowledge of what goes into film makeup versus other types of makeup. And while Sanji’s brows are fairly important to his character, this fact doesn’t actually come into the story until far after the timeskip, and we don’t even know if the live action will get another season outside of this one. I really hope this can help explain why they may have made the decision to nix the brow swirl for people who are still concerned about it, since from what I’ve seen, it seems to be the number one point of contention when it comes to live-action Sanji.

Next, I’d like to speak a bit about Sanji’s hair. Now, I have some complaints of my own about the wig used on Taz, but most of the criticism I’ve seen regarding the wig actually revolves around why it doesn’t cover his eye completely, as Sanji’s hair does. This is something that seems fairly obvious to me: Taz has to do a lot of stunt work, and he needs to be able to see! This is a potential safety issue more than anything else, and therefore goes back to my main original point. As well, there’s no real way to make the hair not move without completely overloading it with product, which, again, would be very obvious on a film camera, and likely wouldn’t read nearly as well as people think.

As for me, my personal critiques around the wig are just how sparse it is. Sanji has a lot more hair than is in the wig, and I really think a wig that had a little more hair attached to the base would have looked better. As well, I don’t know if the styling of the wig works for me personally.

I was actually really hoping that the live action adaptation would take cues on Sanji’s hair from the character who Sanji was modeled after. A lot of people still to this day think that Sanji’s appearance is based off Leonardo DiCaprio, specifically his role as Jack Dawson from the hit movie Titanic or his role as Romeo from Romeo and Juliet, but Oda has actually explained in an SBS that this isn’t the case:

Sanji’s looks and his “vibes” are based off of Steve Buscemi’s character Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs, and personally I would have loved to see his live-action hair more closely resemble that, but sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.

Another critique of live action Sanji is that he hasn’t been depicted with his trademark cigarette, and I kind of knew that this would happen from the moment I found out about the live action adaptation. This is not the fault of Tomorrow Studios(the production company), or even Netflix at large, but instead this is largely based off backlash from anti-smoking lobbies.

(As a former smoker myself, I have a lot of opinions on the ridiculousness of anti-smoking groups going after smoking in fictional scenarios like films and shows, but that’s a gripe for a whole other post lol)

Netflix notably caught a lot of flack for the depiction of commonplace cigarette smoking in other series, such as Stranger Things, even though the series takes place in the 1980′s, where smoking was incredibly commonplace. The major backlash even got to the point where you can actively see the drop in depictions of smoking between each season. I am hoping they at least give Taz one scene with Sanji’s iconic cigarette, but I’m not holding my breath on this one. I doubt Netflix wants to deal with that backlash again.

Finally, the last big complaint with Sanji’s wardrobe I’ve seen is his signature suit, specifically regarding the fitting of it. Sanji’s suits in the anime/manga tend to be fairly fitted in nature, while the live action once Taz wears, while still having a slightly tapered fit, is a bit baggier than what Sanji typically wears.

This is a fairly straightforward change, in my opinion: if the suit was as form-fitting as Sanji’s are, Taz(and his potential stunt double(I don’t know if he did all of his own stunt work or not)) simply would not be able to move the way Sanji does! This is an issue of cartoon versus reality: Oda is able to depict his characters doing whatever they want in whatever clothing they want. However, real life is sadly not as accommodating, and because of that, Taz’s suit has to be a bit less form-fitting so he can still do all of Sanji’s signature footwork. Going back to my original point, the sacrifice of the fitted suit had to be made so the production could actually work.

I tried to touch on all the biggest differences I’ve seen people talk about, and I hope this was helpful to anyone who may have been curious as to why some of these changes were made. Please let me know if I missed anything big or if you have any additional questions/need me to explain anything further, I love what I do and I love being able to have insight like this. Thank you so much if you’ve read this far, and please reblog if you found this post helpful or informative <3

#one piece #one piece live action #one piece live action adaptation #opla #tomorrow studios #dia drabbles #a rare case of nonfiction in my writing tag lol

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batmanfruitloops · 1 year ago

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You can't imagine how excited I was when I found out about Scarebeast. My favorite character becomes a big creechur? Wonderful! Amazing! It makes my autistic little brain so happy! Two of my special interest meshing together! Batman and monsters. I'm also bringing another one of my special interests into the mix with my own design, speculative biology. Making him more cryptid and werewolf-like than the tree-like design from As The Crow Flies.

There's definitely more to work on but these are the ideas and concepts I have so far. The bottom drawing is older and not up to date, but it gives a better view of what he looks like with his clothes on. He also doesn't talk anymore. He would not be able to with those teeth and a more animalistic body.

I've mixed a bunch of different traits that animals use to either scare or sneak. His body is that of a lion, for the cat-like reflexes, strength, stealth, and especially the hair to make him look bigger than he actually is. Along with porcupine spikes on his shoulders and back, but not very many, since porcupines also use their hair to seem scarier than they are. He has the head of a barn owl, to amplify the cryptid look and give him incredible eyesight, especially in the dark. His neck is longer like an owl as well, so he can turn his head upside down and 180 degrees. He has a mix of crow and cat feet, crow for climbing and grip, and cat for paw pads that help him stay quiet. His hands are the same but with a bit of aye-aye for the long creepy middle finger. Bat-like ears for better hearing. His mouth is kind of snake-like, mostly inspired by a cotton mouth. Cottonmouths flash their brightly colored mouths at any threat to show they are venomous. Since Scarebeast can breathe fear toxin, and most animals have bright colors to show they are toxic I thought this was fitting. Of course a forked tongue for "smell." The hair on his arms is similar to a yeti crab, so it's not as soft compared to the rest of the fur and is actually bristly but not painful to touch. This was for the sake of the silhouette and because some people find yeti crabs creepy.

Lore wise, this doesn't happen in the au but instead in a separate timeline. Jonathan as Scarebeast suddenly has to consume fear toxin to sustain himself, because of the serum used to transform in the first place. He won't die if doesn't consume it but it will make him sick to not have it for long periods of time. This is also how he breathes it. It's processed in the body and recycled to new glands in his neck to be used as a defense mechanism. Similar to how poisonous animals will eat toxic things to make themselves poisonous. In this form he is very quickly dying. He is the only one who knows how to make fear toxin so he’d run out eventually, and a stature so big requires so much food and water to sustain he wouldn’t realistically be able to find so much so often. He was already very malnourished in the first place so that’s wouldn’t help.

This version is acts a lot more like an animal instead of just having a beastly body. Reacting more on instinct than conscious decisions. In this case he was turned into Scarebeast against his will (keep in mind I haven’t read the comic Scarebeast comes from, I’ve tried to research what I can but I couldn’t find much). So he his not very happy after his transformation. Reacting in pain and anger. Though still having some understanding of what’s going on. If you talked to him he could understand what you were saying but couldn’t respond very well or get distracted. So he can recognize Ed at least. Because Jonathan is so uncomfortable he only allows Ed to be near him.

I hope you enjoyed this infodump. I have a much better time expanding through visuals than text. So hopefully this made sense. Since this is non cannon I can share more, so I can make some things more clear through other doodles and what not.

-Fluffy

#batmanfruitloops #batmanfruitloopslore #dc #dc fanart #batman #batman villains #gotham rogues #batman rogues #jonathan crane #scarecrow #the scarecrow #riddler #scarebeast #anewgothamau

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dianasaurusrex102 · 2 years ago

Text

Maybe it gets better? (I could wait, it'd be my pleasure) -Remastered ver-

Authors Note: First post :0 I recently reread one of my fanfics and was extremely embarrassed to see all the spelling and pacing mistakes I made TwT so I decided to rewrite some parts and regain my honor as a writer. Fun fact I’m Asexual and am uncomfortable with writing too explicit scenes lol and yet the few fanfic I’ve written are all NSFW :< I took the the liberty of ignoring the layout of the canon sister location in order to make it more human friendly, and characters can’t be ooc if they’re barely given a personality lolol Also from all the fnaf lore I’ve taken in Ballora, and both Funtimes aren’t possessed so they should be fine to romance :)

Content Warning(s): Female Reader & Anatomy, lots of pet names, Mild-Dubcon, Size Difference, Overstim, Aftercare

Ft: Ballora, Funtime Freddy, and Funtime Foxy

This wasn't supposed to happen. You weren't supposed to go near the building everyone warned you about. And you definitely weren't even supposed to think about entering it either.

At this point you've given up on trying to follow any rules you were told. The only thing on your mind was getting away from everything even if it was only for a night. But you walked into the unmarked building despite all your senses screaming to turn around , only wanting to get somewhere your body didn't feel so claustrophobic.

Your home wasn't the same anymore, work didn't provide any solace either so your last resort was to hide from the world. You'd heard the rumors around this place, how some rich guy owned it and only specific people would ever come in and out. Everyone whispered about how it was a drug rink or maybe a sextraffiking headquarters, but all you could find was an empty, dusty lobby and boarded off stairs.

You almost turned around at the sight of them, not wanting to explore this infamous building if it made your breaking and entering even more obvious. But a singular door at the far end of the lobby caught your eye, upon further inspection the knob was noticeably cleaner than everything else in the room.

You turned the doorknob, quietly hoping that it would work so you wouldn't have to return to your house late and without a story to tell. The door opened with a quiet sound and a rush of adrenaline cut through you, am I really doing this? There's no going back once you step through, so you step forward hyping yourself up as you close the door behind the sharp click of the lock much to your horror.

You whipped around, gripping at the knob as you greatly regretted your decision of walking in without a second thought. You violently twisted it damming whoever decided to install a automatic lock, instead of your initial "quick peek around" idea you now had a new objective.

Find another way out, or the alternative of finding something to pick the lock with. You dejectedly turned back around staring at the narrow staircase, you clicked on your phone flashlight huffing slightly as you accepted your fate.

The walk down wasn't tremendously difficult, but you couldn't help being discouraged that at the end of the sketchy climb, the huge basement you imagined wasn't there. Instead an elevator was neatly stationed just in front of the last step, an extremely odd placement in your opinion but you didn't show up to judge.

You pressed the only button you could see on the outside, a down arrow popped up at the top screen and in a split second the door slid open. With an unsure expression you shuffled into the oddly shaped elevator, every design choice of this place seemed intentionally weird even the semi circle elevator you begrudgingly entered.

The doors shut and you're moving in an instant despite not touching a single button, in a slight panic you grip onto the small screen at the sudden descent down. The screen is blank, and you stare at the large lifeless eyes placed on top of the device as if you're waiting for them to blink back, they don't of course but you can't stop yourself from doing so until the doors reopen with a soft ding .

You aren't sure why there's a need for this secret area to be so far down, the only thing you're sure of is the feeling of dread at the odd room you've stumbled across. The room was barely lit, T.V's filled with static lines up above the desks being the only thing illuminating the room. Mannequin heads lined on the desks bored into you as you took a step back and forced yourself into the wall behind you, begging for the doors to close and take you back up.

The elevator doors stubbornly despite the extended minute you stayed hyperventilating and questioning if you really needed this adventure to clear your mind. But everything stayed as still as you and the annoying static from the T.V was starting to piss you off rather than scare you.

" They're just mannequins, they aren't even moving! Get a hold of yourself!" That stern self-talk was all you needed to to stiffly walk making sure to keep a steady eye on the unnerving mannequins sitting in the left corner. The elevator finally closes behind you but you stand strong and take a deep breath to try to convince yourself all your decisions thus far were correct.

You head towards the desks trying to shake any unnerving feelings, you wanted to do this! You needed this adrenaline rush, and while this wasn't the most convenient way to receive one it was the one you chose. Your hands shook slightly as you took in the scenery around you, a large desk with junk haphazardly thrown on top and a cheap looking clock hung right above those ugly mannequins.

Tentatively, you slid your fingers across one of their faces trying to make sure they weren't going to react. Its eyes rolled slightly when your fingertips slid on top, but other than that no unwarranted movements were made by them so you finally let your shoulders relax a tad. Paper was scattered atop desks for no rhyme or reason, and a seemingly useless statue on the opposite side of the desk.

"Whoever decorated this place needs to get fired, and who doesn't put a clock in the middle of the wal-" your critiques came to a sudden stop as you caught some movements behind the curtain on your left. You whipped your head at the sight, was there someone down here? Your hope spiked slightly but the movement was gone as soon as you tried to check.

You hadn't even noticed the small sliver of what you could only assume was a window when you first walked in, your fingers itched to open the curtains and check. The other curtains seemed to be drawn shut, maybe it was a sign that this room was the right one after all. Or maybe there was a murderer on the other side, but at this point you were sure your initial heart attack when you saw the mannequins was the worst thing you could encounter down here.

You confidently walked over to the double doors, stilling just as your hand gripped the knob. You brewed in your own self doubt for a second, trying hard to keep up your sudden flash of self-assuredness. You suddenly pulled as hard as you could, trying to both surprise your brain and give your body no chance to back out.

If you could explain your situation to the person no doubt they'd understand and hopefully lead you out! You speed walked inside letting the door slam behind you, this is what people do right? Walk in like you own the place? You took in your surroundings again, soft dim lighting illuminated the grand foyer looking area and you took a second to realize how much bigger the room was.

" Is someone there? " A voice called out, you froze on the spot. Why were you so surprised? You were anticipating the presence of a person but the voice that rang out sounded too robotic and it dragged a shiver out of you.

Your muscles seemed to lock up, it must have come from the intercoms! You force your head to turn towards the corner, quietly praying that all you found was a speaker. Instead a monstrously tall woman stood still, as if in the middle of a spin, moving to face your direction.

Wait, not a woman? Her skin was too glossy and stark white to pass as anything human but her build resembled one. She seemed like a ballerina, no she had to be a ballerina. She balanced perfectly on her pointed feet and she had her hands above her head in a perfect position.

" Hello? Are you still here? " Her voice was so calming you would have never guessed it came from such a horrifying source. You watched in silent shock as her brows furrowed slightly in an uncanny show of emotion. Her face was segmented, closed eyes and purple eyelids were decorated with long eyelashes, and elegant cheeks accentuated with round purple blush.

Her face segments shifted slightly and you couldn't stop the sharp gasp you let out. You started to breathe harder when she finally made eye contact (could it even be considered eye contact if her eyes were closed?) She gracefully lowered herself off her toes and her arms down, that was all you needed to snap out of your daze.

You took a step back trying to be as stealthy as possible, only to be stopped before you could even move your foot more than an inch. Wait but there wasn't anything on the floor when you came in? A tiny robot stood right behind your feet, its small cream face giving a terrifying smile.

This time you couldn't repress the sudden shriek escaped, you scrambled forward trying to get away from the doll. The only thing you ended up doing was tripping over another one of those darn dolls. Why were there so more??? You landed hard on your elbows, staring in disbelief at seemingly duplicating dolls.

More seemed to walk along, as if they sensed your sudden fright and decided to join in. You tried to shift away, managing to get into a sitting position only to stop again. You'd taken your eyes off that damn ballerina for one second now her boxed purple flats were maybe a foot away. The dolls seemed to still, looking up at the ballerina before hopping away to stand behind her legs, peering at you like a curious child would.

" There was no maintenance scheduled today, it’s after hours, are you supposed to be in here? " You shakily looked up, the angle making your height difference even worse than you thought. She easily towered over you and she spoke without ever opening her eyes. You began to wonder if she could.

" Please answer my question or I will be forced to detain you " Her threat hung around the room and you opened your mouth to say something. At first a squeak was all you mustered up as you tried to force something out of your closed up throat.

"I-Im here for uh-emergency maintenance, I lost my key, ma'am" your words were so shaky that even you doubted that your pieced together lie would be believable, the ballerina seemed to cock her head at your voice.

" Don't lie to me " she snapped, obvious frustration showing in her face. You flinched at the harsh tone and tears started to flood your vision, your anxiety only worsened when she bent over slightly with a mechanical whir. You could see the mechanical workings peek out from under her torso casing, but your eyes quickly snapped up to her face as she seemingly studied you.

"I'm s-sorry... I-I just got down here and I got locked i-in" you couldn't stop the sharp inhales you took mid sentence in order to stop yourself from turning into a bawling mess. You tried not to ask yourself why the robot's stern tone shook you more than her initial presence but your mind was rendered a jumbled mess regardless of the source.

She seemed to move closer to inspect you and enlightened you that she possibly had some sense of sight. You blinked hard in an effort to dispel the tears from your eyes, the soft ballet music in the background ringing loudly in your ears.

" ...Why did you come down here " she asked, voice softening up at the sound of your desperate attempts to calm yourself down. The sudden compassion in her voice threw you off, if she actually had raw feelings or if this was just a trap to get your guard down, you didn't know. You took a deep breath and straightened your back slightly, trying to regain any dignity you could manage.

"I.. was just trying to find a place to stay the night, I didn't mean to uh- bother you ma'am" you forced the best "I'm not a threat" voice you could, finally managing to not let all your words audibly shake. You slowly lifted your arm to wipe at your eyes, finally feeling like she wouldn't attack you at any second.

The ballerina seemed to mull over your response, as if she was trying to decide if your answer was good enough. She unexpectedly reached her hand towards you, you had to stop yourself from flinching back at the gesture.

" I apologize for scaring you, I was a bit thrown off because there hasn't been a human girl down here since… " her voice trailed off at the end, and you couldn't help but be terrified of what could have happened to the last girl who came down here. You physically shook your head, trying to get the unnerving thoughts out of it.

You gingerly placed your hand on top of hers, the intrusive thought of her immediately crushing your hand staying in the back of your brain despite your best efforts. Her palm was chilled and smooth, you could feel the small ridges in her knuckles and at the bases of her fingers.

" I must confess that I'm not equipped to help you exit, so we require help" she pauses, moving her head down in a pseudo looking down pose. " And if the minireenas give you any trouble please just nudge them away"

Minireenas? You turn your gaze to your feet, feeling a soft poke against your calf. You tried to ignore the flash of anxiety the sight of the dol- minireenas curiously examining your pants brought you. A slow swooping movement of your foot dispelled them, you finally had it in you to smile at the way they hurriedly waddled away, cloth skirts flopping with them.

The ballerina gently wrapped her previously relaxed fingers around your hand, snapping your thoughts back to her. With a slow pull she easily guided you onto uneasy feet, and with that you finally could breathe. You weren't sure if your uneasy alliance with her would end with you alive but you had to try something.

" May I ask what your name is? " You glanced up before realizing how close you were, with your height difference you fit just under her chest. You blushed and stumbled back, retracting your hand from her gentle hold in the process.

"My name is y/n, w-whats yours?"

" My name is Ballora, it's very nice to meet you y/n " The name Ballora was a bit cheesy in your opinion but somehow it fit her. You could see her hesitate for a second before gently placing her hand on the small of your back, trying to test the waters but also needing to lead you around.

"We'll need to enter the Funtime Auditorium to see if one of my friends can help with your situation, feel free to ask questions as you feel fit" Her precise way of speaking soothed you slightly, knowing where you'd go and a clear invite for a conversation made you feel oddly comfortable. The only worry still rattling in your brain was that by "friend" she could either mean another animatronic or a real person, which one? You still weren't sure.

"Oh um… is it okay if I ask why you're down here?" You asked as you finally found your voice. Ballora used the hand on your back to smoothly turn you towards the door.

" Any question is fine, dear. I'm a performing animatronic, we're shipped out for different events and until we're needed, we're kept here " You walked slowly towards the doors, you had to imagine that since she was so large she must have weighed at least several thousand pounds.

"Do you ever get lonely?" You blurted out next, your mind couldn't imagine how isolated she must have been if she only surfaces to entertain.

" I try not to dwell on loneliness, the others also keep me company so in a sense no" she grasped the handle of one of the doors opening it, she let you step ahead and both of you were back in the office. You silently watched as she ducked under the door, only to easily regaining her perfect posture as she headed toward the door opposite to hers.

" I feel I must warn you that there is a very…" Ballora paused clearly trying to find the right words " energetic animatronic that might be present here, please stay by my side so he doesn't accidentally harm you. "

A chill ran down your spine, so there really were animatronics that could kill you down here, what a world. You didn't ignore the fact that she inadvertently implied that she could have potentially hurt you before.

"Oh uh, okay? I do have one more question before we go in" The shake in your voice was back, terrified of what you had to face on the other side but you wanted to at least get your most burning question in.

" Of course dear, what would you like to ask? " Both of you stood in tense silence for a second in front of the other door before you could muster up the strength to speak.

"Can you… see? Like at all?" She cocked her head to a side looking (?) down at you, to your surprise her lips quirked into a smile and a soft giggle erupted from her.

" Oh my you're really inquisitive aren't you? " Ballora teased, " Well I have no sense of sight but my other sensors are heightened so I can pinpoint exact locations with sound "

"Woah, that's actually really cool!" You responded in genuine awe, your cheeks only slightly flushed at her teasing. Maybe she wasn't as terrifying as you originally thought.

" I'm glad you think so dear, now let's get you out of here okay? Please stay close " she paused to make sure you were ready, you nodded before remembering the information you just learned and instead made a noise in confirmation.

She opened the door, walking in first in an effort to evaluate the situation. You walked close behind planting your hands on either sides of her torso, hoping she wouldn't mind. You sucked in a sharp breath around taking in the new environment.

There were smooth tile floors with speckles of what you had to guess was confetti embedded in it, white walls, cheap folding tables and folding chairs. Two stages not too far apart from each other were to your left, one with a microphone and the other with a medal stool.

Your eyes trailed along the thin streamers hung on the top of the wall, they led back to a huge banner saying "WELCOME BACK STAFF". Ballora stopped once she navigated towards the right side of the room,

" Hello gentleman " she said smoothly, you peeked your head out from behind Ballora trying to search for whoever she was talking to. Your eyes widened at the sight of them, they were a fox and a bear. Or maybe a wolf and bear? You weren't sure.

One had a rounder build, not a sharp edge to be found on his plump body. A small top hat sat between his extended ears, a bow tie accenting his chest with a speaker underneath. His mostly white skin (fur?) matched Ballora's but instead of her soft purple accents he was dotted in pink. A blue bunny puppet rested on his arm and both of their eyes were stuck on you, you tried to ignore the way the bear’s jaw dropped at the sight of you or how his face plates shifted in a similar anxious tick as Ballora's.

The animatronic across from him was considerably more feminine, but Ballora had referred to them as gentlemen hadn't she? His face was more defined than the bears, long snout with black freckles. Their chests were about the same, even down to the pink colored belly. The only difference you could tell was their contrast in figure and the fox’s long pink nails.

An extended moment of awkwardness sat heavy in the room, and the fact that they were clearly just in the middle of a conversation made the feeling worse. They glanced at each other before looking back in your direction,

" Well hello Ballora, I didn't know you carried around freeloaders" The fox spoke in a scratchy voice, almost like every word was recorded on an old radio and played back. You stubbornly ignored the warm feeling his voice brought as you tried to avoid eye contact.

" This is a special situation Foxy, I was actually wondering if you coul- " she was cut off by the bear standing up so fast the stool he was sitting on violently fell to the ground.

" HEL-LO BIRTHDAY GIRL!! WE HAVEN'T GOTTEN AN IN HOUSE B-BIRTHDAY I-IN SO L-L-LONG!! " His jittery excitement unsettled you and any comfortable feeling you had was replaced with fear. Unexpectedly, he ran full speed towards you, he was so quick you couldn't even think of doing anything. Your muscles tensed as he rapidly approached.

" Freddy, no " Ballora said sternly as she quickly moved in front of you before he got too close, the movement made you aware how tightly you were gripping onto her in your silent terror. You self-consciously loosened your grasp, hoping she didn't notice how scared you were.

" Freddy! Don't scare her! She's our new friend, we can throw her a party later!" A small voice seemed to try to calm Freddy down, you hadn't seen another animatronic when you'd walked in but then again you hadn't noticed the minireenas so maybe you had just missed one.

" B-But Bon-Bon! We have to cele-brate! She's so sm-all!! We haven't had a friend this sm-all in ages! " You could see his head crane to try to catch a peak of you, but Ballora stood firm.

" Your little rabbit is right Freddy, you really musn't scare the new dame so soon old friend " The sound of the fox speed walking up filled was apparent as he spoke, he seemed to join in on the effort to calm Freddy down.

" But-But! " His voice faltered as he tried to come up with a reason for his outburst. " O-Oh! Fine!" Freddy huffed and you could hear him stomp back to the table.

" It's okay Freddy, she can play with us later, you just have to be patient! We can even have a little special time if you're extra good " You dared to glance out from behind Ballora to search for the tiny voice, your eyes finding prize in the small bunny gently petting at Freddy's face. He seemed to notice you staring at his efforts to calm his friend down and offered a small smile and wave before he returned to his task.

" Y/n? " Ballora asked, turning around and effectively getting you to drop your grasp on her in the process. You hugged yourself to give your hands something to do before you looked up at her.

"Um, yeah?"

" Are you okay? Please let me know if you ever want to go to a more secluded area, I don't wish to overwhelm you" She doted on you, using both of her giant hands to gently cup the sides of your face. Her hands were now surprisingly warm and it only served to make your cheeks unbearably hot as you felt yourself flush.

"Oh! I'm uh- fine! Yeah it wasn't that bad" your voice cracked mid sentence when Ballora's thumbs gently swiped across your cheeks in an agonizingly soft way. Your stomach knotted up as she smiled down at you.

" I'm glad but please don't overheat on me dear " her joking words only served to worsen your blush, but she thankfully let go of your face and turned back to the fox.

" Okay with that resolved, Foxy I do need your help to find a possible exit for Y/N to leave from " You were back to business as soon as the moment passed and you took a step forward to stand beside Ballora.

" Ah, I was afraid you'd ask that, " Foxy answered, a static crackling in his voice. " You see you've just missed your window to leave! Its 12:23 and the elevator and service doors are locked until 6 "

You had to swallow your disappointment, so you were really stuck down here? His words rattled in your head as mild panic flooded your senses, you could barely react as Ballora wrapped her arm around your shoulders.

" Well it's only 6 hours, we just need to find a nice place for us to hide you " Ballora hummed, " how about we start with quick introductions so we can get going? " You pressed into her side in an effort to ground yourself, 6 hours with them couldn’t be all that bad right?

Ballora maneuvered you over to the table Freddy and Foxy were previously sitting at, despite it being the last place you wanted to be you sat down in the middle of her and Foxy. Freddy sat in front of you, artificial eyes shining with uncanny excitement.

" Of course the star of the show must speak first! " You gave up the stare down you were having with Freddy to politely give your attention to Foxy, " my name is Funtime Foxy and I keep this place well entertained! Though I must say once we get you out of here you must return to witness one of my shows doll "

The blush that stained your cheeks was inevitable, whether he was flirting with you or he was just normally this charismatic you didn't know. He bowed before reaching his hand towards you to shake, you shook his hand loosely. Your mind was too preoccupied freaking out over how his hands were somehow bigger than Ballora's, his palm had to be at least the size of your head.

" A-And I'm Funtime Freddy! Me and Bon-Bon also ha-ve a show here! " He stuck out his hand towards you as he bounced in his seat, you hesitate to give up Foxy's steady hold but you relented and carefully gave your hand to him. He immediately gripped your hand hard and shook it firmly, ignoring the wince you gave.

" Freddy! Be gentle! She's a girl remember!" Bon-Bon scolded moving himself down to to use his small paws to manually pry his hand off yours. Freddy pouted but thankfully loosened his grasp on you, Bon-Bon nodded to himself clearly proud of what he accomplished.

" I'm Bon-Bon by the way, I hope you stick around" he offered his small paw towards you, you used your pointer finger and thumb to gently shake his paw. You were pleasantly surprised that unlike the other animatronics he was wrapped in a soft mink fabric.

" So Y/N how'd you get down here? Can't imagine you go down random elevators everyday for fun " Funtime Foxy joked as you let go of Bon-Bon's paw, and straightened in your seat as you tried to regain any valid thoughts.

"I just…" as soon as the words came out of your mouth you deflated, almost as if your social battery died in an instant. The adrenaline pumping through your veins finally slowed down and you fought the feeling of sleepiness. You yawned instead of trying to force out anything else.

" Oh my! I think she might be getting sleepy " Ballora cooed, her demeanor changing as she reached over to pet your thigh, " All this stress must have tired you out huh? " The sudden affection in her voice threw you for a loop, and you stiffened in shock.

"N-No! I'm fine I just-" you didn't have time to finish speaking before she unexpectedly picked you up, one arm placed under your knees the other snug on your back. You squeaked and quickly looped your arms around her neck in an effort to not be dropped, you glanced over at Foxy who just grinned at you.

" Well lucky for you doll I know where the staff hides their blankets! Please follow me ladies, and Freddy stand watch, make sure Baby doesn't come around " Foxy quickly stood up, waving for you and Ballora to follow before Freddy could protest. In a blur of movement you were rushed through the kitchen door in the back of the room,

" Sorry about that dear, we just needed to give Freddy some time to calm down, " Ballora explained when you were safely inside. You stayed silent for a second, confusion filling your senses as you tried to decide if even the sudden affection shown towards you was also used to throw off Freddy.

"Who's… Baby?" You asked after you decided to push that thought to the back of your mind.

" She's… another animatronic here " she seemed to bristle at the sudden question as she seemingly forced that response, as soon as the words filled the air you felt horrible for even asking.

" And she's turned very bitter, it's better if you don't encounter her Y/N " Foxy added in order to quickly end the discussion before turning around and heading towards a door in the back, leaving the room in uncomfortable silence.

"I'm sorry I didn't…"

" It's fine hun, just… stay with us and you'll be safe " You could tell she forced the smile on her face and the light tone she used. You reached a hand up to grasp the side of her face, trying to mimic the way she comforted you before.

Your fingers barely reached the top of her cheek at the angle you were being held, but you did your best to slowly swipe your thumb across the soft purple blush on her cheek. She seemed to appreciate the effort and snuggled into your grasp for a second before turning her head and gently kissing the palm of your hand. A soft blush reappeared on your face, knowing no one would be able to see, you brought your hand down and shamelessly pressed your palm against your cheek as if you could transfer the kiss to it.

" Okay ladies quiet down, I've graciously grabbed you all the blankets that were stashed and even blessed you with a complimentary stuffed animal " Foxy showed off his finds with a raised hand and a bow, then gracefully standing straight and placing everything on your stomach. You laughed slightly at the gesture and reached down to grab the plushy, of course he would pick a Funtime Foxy plush for you to sleep with.

"If it's complimentary then how are you blessing me with it" you teased as you examined the plush.

" Anything I give you is a blessing doll and don't you forget it " He huffed back leaning down slightly to pinch your cheek while still mindful to not poke you in the eye with his nails, you quickly put down the plush and waved his hand away. The three of you laughed, before your eyes finally started to droop.

" Seems like Y/N needs to catch some shut eye! You want me to take her off your hands or are you gonna keep her with you? "

" I think she'll be safe with me, if any problems arise do tell me " Ballora jostled you slightly as she readjusted her grip on you.

" Then I must bid you girls a do. Please make sure to come back before you leave! But I know you'd never miss a chance to say goodbye to your favorite performer " You were about to refute his last claim but were easily silenced by Foxy leaning down to press his snout against your forehead in a chaste peck. The action made you flush darker, instead of giving Foxy the pleasure of seeing your reaction you hid your face in Ballora's shoulder.

" Foxy stop being a tease, we're trying to get her sleepy not riled up " She reprimanded softly as she tried to ignore the swell of feelings your warm face pressed against her caused. Foxy only laughed in response, guiding the both of you to the door.

The walk back to Ballora's Gallery was a blur, you used all the energy you had left to keep your eyes from fully shutting. You could barely make out the shrill voice of Freddy, all his words were unclear and melded into each other but eventually they stopped. Ballora said something to who you had to guess was Foxy but even with her being so close you couldn't make anything out.

You pressed impossibly closer, finding comfort in the soft whirring you could hear as she continued walking. An hour ago the thought of a giant robot carrying you back and forth would have been a nightmare but now you were being hauled off back to sleep by one and you were perfectly content. You hadn't even noticed your eyes closed before a poke to your cheek jostled you.

" I haven't even put you down and you're already asleep? If you were so tired you could have told me "

" 'm not tired" you slurred, bringing a hand up to try to rub the sleep out of your eyes. Ballora chuckled softly at your defiance,

" Okay I believe you " She joked. " But I'm about to put you down so please hold onto your things dear " The words took a second to register but as soon as they did you quickly used your free hand to press the blanket and plush securely against your body. She carefully placed you on your feet, staying close in case your exhaustion got the best of you.

"Where do you want me to set up my blankets?" You murmured as you forced your eyes to focus on your surroundings again. Ballora took a second to think,

" How about the stage? " You hadn't realized she had one until she said something, but a quick squint of your eyes you saw the shadow of a stage tucked into the far corner. You steadied your legs and walked towards it, Ballora following just behind you.

Now that you had time, you could appreciate how mellow the room was with its dark tiles and dusty purple color coating the walls. You walked up to the stage, its twinkling lights blinking on as soon as you were close enough. Her stage was a bit larger than the Funtime's but in a way it was classier with its large arc in the back.

"Your stage is… nice" You wanted to fill the quiet air with some small talk as you stood uselessly in front of the stage. You didn't want to invade her space, but she was inviting you on.

" Thank you, please get comfortable i'll stay in the room if you need me " You nodded and placed your things on top of the stage before pushing yourself up the unnecessarily tall base. Ballora waited patiently as you steadied yourself on your knees before huffing and sorting through your goods.

You'd received one thick blanket and two thin ones, with shaky movements you managed to air out the thick blanket so you could fight off the uncomfortable hard floor. In the meantime, the Minireenas took turns stacking on each other to watch you fluff out the Funtime Foxy plush you were given to use as a pillow.

With everything set up Ballora seemed satisfied and gave you some privacy, you watched quietly as she got onto the tips of her toes and twirled away. You were easily distracted by the realization that you would have to sleep in your normal clothes. It wasn't anything you'd willingly do but you were too tired to worry about it. You laid down on your makeshift mattress and draped the small blankets over you in an attempt to fight off the cold.

Your tiredness was certainly still there but definitely not as strong as when Ballora was carrying you. The AC was loud and the sound was bothering you to the point of staving off sleep. You watched aimlessly as the minireenas crawled up the stage and approached you, their faces less terrifying and now you could confidently say they were growing on you.

One walked up to your face, tilting its head at your expression. You tested your luck and reached out to pet its face with your pointer finger. In response it used its nub hands to experimentally squish your finger, behind you you felt other minireenas examine your hair and sweater. Prodding hands curiously poked at your scalp and picked up strands of hair, others gently tugged the part of your sweater that wasn't under the blanket.

You giggled under their attention, and the minireena you were petting slowly walked up to your face. You dropped your arm as it poked at one of your cheeks, before carefully pressing onto your lips. You weren't sure why they were so curious about you, but they showed no ill intent so you let them examine what they could get to.

Unexpectedly, one minireena crawled under the blanket while you were distracted. It sneaked its small hand under your shirt, the cold nub pressing against your warm skin made you squeak loudly.

"Hey! Don't do that-" you reached back to wave it off but the other ran away at the loud noise. You forgot how easily they were dispelled and they all ran off, jumping off the stage and flopping away. You pouted at the sudden loss of attention, letting out a long sigh as you snuggled into the plushie under your head.

" Are you alright Y/N? " Ballora called out, spinning her way back towards the stage.

"Yeah yeah I'm fine, just… can't sleep" It was only a half lie, you didn't want to tell her that you stupidly ran off the only source of comfort you had at that moment.

" Well you sure had a tough time staying awake when I was carrying you honey " She teased as she stepped onto the stage, catching you off guard " Would you like me to keep you company? "

You blushed bright red at the question, laying in stunned silence as she slowly walked up to you. You averted your eyes when you got a full view under her skirt, despite her just having another smooth plate where her crotch should be, you had the decency to not stare.

"...Could you?" You asked quietly as you fought off the warmth blooming in your chest, the smile that Ballora gave you didn't help your case. She carefully knelt down before delicately sliding onto her side next to you, you had to imagine laying down wasn't something she did often.

She extended her arms towards you and you quickly shuffled into her hold. She easily wrapped both hands around you and pulled you close, nestling you against her neck so she could nose through your hair.

" It's been so long since I've been able to hold someone like this… " Ballora lamented, " But please tell me if you're uncomfortable or if I squeeze you too hard " you chuckled softly before wrapping your free arm around her torso. You would have used your other arm but for fear that she'd crush it under her weight you kept it squished between the two of you.

"Can you actually smell?" You asked after a beat of silence, curiosity getting the best of you.

" Yes, I'm not completely sure the reason why. My guess is that we need it in case somethings on fire " she absent-mindedly rubbed circles into your back, sectioned fingertips stopping when they reached exposed skin. A devious thought popped in your head, and to your half awake mind seemed it like a good thing to follow through on.

"How… well can you feel" You pressed your burning face against her neck as your rational mind caught up with you why were you flirting with the robot?

" I have a very heightened feeling of touch, I mostly experience my world through sound but it's nice to map it out in other ways too " She whispered that part to you like it was a secret just between the two of you, but by her tone it was obvious she either didn't catch onto your insinuation or chose to ignore it.

" Of course she wouldn't react, she's a robot! Get your head out of the gutter " you chastised yourself as she gently massaged your lower back, slow movement lulling you to sleep. Your embarrassment dissipated as soon as it came and you closed your eyes, finally giving in to your tiredness.

The last thing you heard was Ballora softly humming a tune, sleep came easily when you were pressed into her warm form. You came down here to get away, and maybe you did. Being cuddled by a giant machine with unsettling sentience was worlds better than anything you experienced above ground.

~~~~~~~~~

" Y/N " Ballora tried whispering, slightly shaking you. " Y/N you have to get up, this is important " Her words felt like they were under water, barely audible to your groggy mind. In response you groaned slightly trying to wrap yourself back up in blankets, you felt like you barely got any sleep.

" Y/N " She snapped sitting you up in a quick motion, blood rushed to your head and your eyes finally snapped open at her sharp words. You pushed away slightly with a whine, your mind not yet understanding the urgency in her voice.

" Y/N, honey, I'm sorry for waking you up but I need you to do something for me " She tried to keep the both of you calm, but the edge to her voice finally registered.

" She's here, she cannot see you. She won't let you leave if she finds you, you have to understand that Y/N " A pit of dread was planted in your stomach and you only nodded your head, " There's a vent right next to the stage, pull the frame off and crawl through. I'll distract her but you need to move quickly, go find Foxy. "

You swallowed sharply, your mind racing as you tried both processing the information you just received and getting up from your cozy cocoon . Is she talking about Baby? Why won't Baby let you leave if you're found? Ballora quickly stood up and took you with her.

With a quick but stern push she got you closer to the vent and handed you your things, trying to get any evidence of you hidden. In the short time you've known her you'd never seen Ballora more anxious and it was throwing you for a loop. You quickly stepped off the stage and found the vent, your fingers gripping the channels before pulling.

It came off with minimal effort, you pushed your blankets in front of you before you glanced back at Ballora. She stayed "staring" in your direction, faceplates anxiously shifting as she waited for you to exit. You swallowed your anxiety and crawled into the vent, where did it even lead?

A small sound clued you in that Ballora closed the vent hood behind you, while the vent wasn't an extremely close fit you still had no room to turn around and check. A small huff escaped your lips as you took a second to try to calm yourself down, soft music fading away as Ballora twirled away.

You abruptly heard the doors to Ballora's Gallery slam open, heavy footsteps following and all you could do was freeze in fear. You didn't move in the case she has heightened hearing like Ballora, but you didn't think Ballora would send you to crawl in such a rickety vent if that was the case.

" Ballora " A voice called out, Baby's voice was much too soft for what you expected. Despite that it sent a chill down your spine.

" ...Baby, " Ballora answered in the same tone.

" Are you hiding someone from me, Ballora? " Her calm voice seemed more threatening than soothing, as if she was more calculated in her malice.

" Nobody's come in here since this evenings maintenance "

" Well, Freddy says otherwise "

" Freddy always mistakes mice and other things for humans, we've been made aware of this fact time and time again " Your hands were shaking but the fear of getting caught made you quietly move forward, stopping every time you moved to push your things along.

" Then you wouldn't mind if I examined your room would you? " Baby asked, her voice now muffled as you finally reached the other side of the vent. Sweat ran down your back despite the cool metal pressing against your clothes, you hooked your fingers on the channels of the opening and prayed to God that it wouldn't make a noise when you pushed.

You gave it a soft push and it came off silently, you placed it leaning on the wall next to the opening. Your mind was racing, you'd made it this far by yourself now you just had to get to Foxy. The blankets and plushy fell to the ground with a small shove and you crawled out with them, being extremely mindful to not bump the vent cover.

You could finally sit upright and catch your breath, you had to guess you were back in the office now just under the desk. The closed doors of the elevator mocking you, as if asking why you couldn't have just gone somewhere with less high stakes and a lower chance of dying via robot. You physically shook your head to clear your thoughts again, you're not dead yet! Might as well make the most of it.

You quickly pressed the vent cover back on before deciding on where to head next. Another vent was on the opposite side, but the doors to the Funtime Auditorium seemed like a safer bet since you weren't sure where you'd end up if you took the vents. With a quick scoop, your things were in your hands and you were hyping yourself up to run to the door.

You inched forward before bolting towards the door, pulling the door open while still being mindful to not create too much noise. You slowed down to a jog as soon as you entered the room and you quickly spotted both Funtimes.

" -didn't me-an t-t-to! I-I was just so ex-cited! " Freddy seemed choked up to the point of making you wonder if he could cry. He dragged a hand across his face while Bon-Bon said something so quiet you couldn't discern.

" It doesn't matter if you meant it or not Freddy! If Baby finds Y/N I'm gonn- " Foxy abruptly stopped chewing him out at the door shutting behind you, both of them jumping at the sound. They seemed relieved at the sight of you,

" Well speak of the devil " Foxy joked, clearly trying to laugh off his prior mood. " Great timing Y/N! You're just in time to catch the hide-away express "

You finally stopped your slow trot when you were close enough, trying to surpress your own anxiety. Unexpectedly, he swooped down to give you a hug. The mechanical sound of his tail wagging filled the room.

" Y/N! I-I'm so gl-ad you're okay, I'm sorry! " You hugged back before glancing over at Freddy, not sure what to say. You couldn't reassure him that what he did wasn't his fault, whatever words he spoke could have gotten you killed.

Foxy raised his head and threw a quick glare Freddy's way while you averted your eyes at the tense atmosphere. You didn't want to take sides so you kept your mouth shut. Foxy straightened himself as quickly as he came down, turning you so you were facing the kitchen.

" I'm going to go stash her somewhere, if Baby comes back say I'm in parts and service " His stern voice got both you and Freddy back to the task at hand. Freddy nodded with a frown, and you couldn't help but feel bad for him. He seemed to be programmed to be very jumpy and excitable giving him a stark personality compared to Ballora and Foxy.

Before you had time to go too far into those thoughts, Foxy placed a hand on your back and rushed you to the kitchen. You had to jog to keep up with his pace as he easily directed you past the cabinets to two doors tucked in the back.

" I would find you a better place to hide in Parts and Service but all the BidyBabs like to hang around there so we must make do with the closet " He seemed to catch your questioning stare and continued,

" BidyBabs are like Ballora's minireenas but they look more like baby dolls. Since Baby and Ballora have their own areas they needed extra company " You nodded along as he opened the door for you to enter. The small space lined with shelves for storage, the only empty wall space was just above a short shelving unit and was decorated with a poster.

"Circus Baby's Pizza World" was written in big bold letters just under a picture of Ballora, Funtime Foxy, Funtime Freddy, and… The last one you had to guess was Baby, red pigtails and nose making her look akin to a clown. You ignored how unsettling the picture of her was by fiddling around to find a place to put your things up.

" They were on the top shelf doll, here let me help you " He stepped forward, dodging the hanging light to grab the blankets from you. You inched back, both of you couldn't comfortably be in such a small space. Well not without invading each other's personal space that is.

You half sat on the short shelves behind you, back hitting the scratchy brick wall. Foxy paused his organizing to examine the small plushie he'd given you. He seemed a bit hesitant to place it back in its box,

" How about you hold onto this? Wouldn't want you having nothing to keep you busy" You nodded, face only getting warmer as he got closer to hand the stuffed animal to you. You busied yourself by dragging your fingers over the soft material.

"How… long do you want me to stay in here?" Foxy seemed surprised at your question, like he hadn't thought about it, he placed a finger on his chin in an exaggerated thinking pose.

" Ah well I could just leave you alone, but where’s the fun in that? I’d say we have some time to spare before we must part ways" He leaned over you, close, too close. He easily placed both hands on either side of you, the shelf groaning slightly in protest as he leaned his weight on it.

" How about I keep you company? " It was such a simple question but he whispered it so close to your ear, faux breathing surprising you. Your death grip on the plushy only increases as he sniffs what he can reach of your neck, cold nose momentarily pressing against your overheated skin.

He paused, looking over at you as he waited for your response. Your brain was frazzled from the moment he got close, you closed your eyes and stubbornly pressed your legs together.

"Could you…?" As hot and bothered his presence got you, you were too embarrassed to directly answer him. He gave a gleaming smile full of sharp teeth,

" Of course I can sweetheart! Now sit still, won't you? I think I'm gonna have my fun with you " You helplessly stared at the closed door opposite to you, the danger of Baby coming to look for you was still lingering but if Foxy was acting so calm you had to trust him.

He quickly got on his knees in front of you, the elevation of the shelf you were on giving you a fighting chance to not look so tiny compared to the huge animatronic. Large hands were placed on your waist, fingers easily lifting the hem of your sweater.

" You didn't wear a shirt under here? Naughty, Naughty, what am I going to do with you? " Foxy scolded, dragging your sweater up as a silent request for you to take it off. You forced your fingers to relax around the poor plushy you were holding to be able to take it off.

You weren't sure why you were so eager to let him see you but his calming energy made you agreeable with whatever he suggested. With shaking hands, you dropped your sweater to the side, going back to holding the plushy so your hands had something to do. Foxy seemed pleased with the motion and went back to exploring your torso.

Long nails traced your ribs, leaving shallow indents in their wake. His hands easily shifted upwards gently to fondle your boobs, squeezing them together experimentally.

" Humans are so soft and squishy " He noted out loud, " I've never felt something like this, do tell me if I'm too rough " The fact that he was pushing all your buttons while still being inexperienced made you somehow even warmer.

He didn't seem to mind your frazzled silence as he continued to feel you up. He unknowingly rolled his palms your nipple, making you let out a soft moan before you snapped your mouth closed. His head tilted at the sound before he delicately pinched at the area, his face lighting up impossibly brighter at the louder moan he earned.

" How about you take this pesky garment off? It isn't fair you're the only one wearing clothes " Foxy jokes, choosing not to react to how your thighs shifted against him.

"How do you even know what to do?" You surprisingly got the words out even if they were barely above a whisper. You fumbled with the clasps on your bra, unbuckling them before you could second guess yourself.

" Our creator made us with the idea that we could also host adult parties in mind, that was before Baby came along " You paused as you were attempting to slip off your bra, the thought that Ballora actually caught your flirting and instead chose not to act on it flooding your brain. You put the thought into the back of your mind before you finally slipped your bra off.

Foxy easily changed his focus back to your body, hands going back to their original places but this time thumbs rolled over your nipples. He seemed to revel in the loud moan that you let out before you quickly slapped a hand over your mouth, not trusting yourself to keep them in anymore.

" Do you want us to get caught, doll? " He gave another long roll of his thumbs, " Keep quiet or I'll have to give you something to help " His threat made a shiver run down your spine, whoever programmed him was seriously going to burn in hell for this.

He stopped his assault on your chest to finally push your thighs open and unbuckle your pants, dragging them off in a too self assured motion and your shoes were discarded just as easily. His fingers danced along the edge of the fabric of your panties, taking in the soft cotton.

" Jeez I've barely touched you and you've already ruined your underwear? " He gave a purposeful press of his knuckle against where the majority of your slick had pooled. In an instant you nearly forgot any prior conflict as you pathetically buckled under his touch.

Foxy thumbed the panties to the side, making you squirm at the feeling of your slick being sloppily spread with the motion. Your brain was so fuzzy with lust that you didn't even mind how he took it upon himself to uncover yourself to him.

" God I wish I could taste you, you smell so good sweetheart" You figured that they had no logistical need to taste, but if they were programmed with acute senses how hard would it have been to give them the ability to taste? You were dragged out of your thoughts as Foxy continued his exploration of your body.

He swiped a smooth finger across your folds, catching you off guard as he gathered your slick on it. You whined as the tip of his finger finally pressed against your entrance, the barest hint of pressure applied. You'd only ever put your own fingers inside yourself so the thought of his huge digits inside you made you tremble in anticipation.

" I'll go slow just for you, after all you are my number one fan, hun " Foxy seemed to enjoy teasing you, you tried to swallow your anxiety. The first person you'd even let touch you in a sexual way is going to be an animatronic, and you're willingly letting it happen. You'd hoped your first time would be magical but being fingered in a closet wasn't too much of a downgrade.

He finally pressed a finger inside of you, the feeling more uncomfortable than what you'd expected. His finger was easily the size of two of yours and much longer. Despite your lack of noise when he finally gave you what you had wanted, he gently pumped the digit in and out.

" See you're just begging to have someone fill you up huh? You're just in need of your favorite performer to take care of you right? " He seemed excited to both praise himself but still make it clear that you enjoyed his presence. The mixed signals flip flopped in your muddled brain as his fingering finally got pleasurable.

Foxy's thumb finally sneaked up and pressed against your throbbing clit, making you sob out a muffled moan. He pressed a second finger inside before curling them and the only way you could describe the feeling was as if you felt was a strike of electricity coursing through your veins.

Warmth pooled in your stomach as you tried to process the onslaught of pleasure that finally hit you. Your thighs snapped around his arm but were easily parted with his free hand as his fingering slowed down.

"Foxy…" You whined, voice still shaky as you tried thrusting yourself on his digits

" That's my name, doll! Don't wear it out " Foxy responded, his ever confident smile never leaving his face and he stopped your movements with a strong hand on your hips.

" Now I don't want you to wear yourself out so fast, how about we move on to the real fun? " He knew what he was doing right? You tried to calm yourself down, you genuinely hadn't expected him to allude to actually having sex. You glanced down just in time to watch his ears wiggle in anticipation,

"O-Okay" was all you had to offer as an answer. He leaned forward to press a kiss on your stomach and with an embarrassing squelch his fingers were pulled out. You quietly placed your plushy to the side making sure it was looking away, feeling bad that it even had to be here.

Foxy easily got back onto his feet, unexpectedly pulling you closer to him with a grip on your thighs. Your thighs spread an almost uncomfortable amount for him to step in between them. With your crotches leveled in this position, you scratched your nails into the shelf below you in anticipation.

A soft mechanical whirring filled your senses and your eyes snapped down as a phallic pink dido slowly poked out of his shifting crotch panel. You had half a thought to laugh at the unexpected reveal until you noticed it just kept going. The surprisingly warm tip pressed into your skin just under your belly button.

"I don't- I don’t think that's gonna fit '' You whispered, half panicked as you looked up. Foxy's smile dropped slightly at your lack of eagerness, expression turning into something more tender.

" We don't have to, dear. I'm only here to make you feel good " He leaned forward to wrap his hands around you and rest his chin on your shoulder, ignoring the squeak you let out when his dick accidentally pressed on your clit during the movement.

" I could just finish you off with my fingers, I won't do anything you don't want me to" His kind words would have had more of an impact on your judgment if the position you were in didn't have both of your sexes pressed together just so. You wrapped your arms around his neck to hug back, your own arousal spiking despite his caring sentiment.

"I… wouldn't mind if we kept going" It couldn't hurt to try would it? He pulled back slightly to study your expression,

" Don't feel pressured to do this, I can put it away it isn't that big of a de- "

"I want to do this Foxy" you said confidently, finally managing to catch his stare. He let out a small surprised static noise before finally regaining his smile.

" Well you don't have to tell me twice, if you ever want to stop, don't be afraid to say so " He peppered warm kisses all over your face as if to praise you for your new found confidence, all you could do was giggle and gently push his snout away.

Foxy easily stepped back and regained his hold under your knees, angling his hips just enough to let the tip of his cock press against your opening. You shivered and leaned back, letting your head hit the wall behind you as you attempted to brace yourself.

" Now I must warn you, if you end up loving my cock more than a human's I'm not liable " His static voice faltered slightly as he continued to try to boast but you could feel a glob of precome(?) drip out from him. You adjusted your arms into a more comfortable position on his shoulders before looking up with a questioning look.

" That's just lube, doll. You're clearly already wet enough but it wouldn't hurt to have some more stuffed in you right? " You flustered particularly hard at that sentence and your only response was to just close your eyes with a huff. A distorted chuckle left Foxy at your reaction but he chose not to push any further.

Instead he finally let the head of his cock enter you, knocking the breath out of your lungs with it. He was bigger than you'd even imagined, your walls stretching almost unbearably as you tried to fit him. He kept shifting into you until you were finally pressed against the opening on his crotch panel.

You barely even noticed the long moan you let out but as soon as you caught yourself you bit down on your lip. You'd never felt so entirely full before, his dick greedily pressing against everything it could.

" Tell me when you're ready " He murmured, somewhat out of breath at the feeling of your warm walls gripping onto him. You experimentally moved in a slight up and down action to try to gauge your own reaction.

A slight dull pain was all you could feel, despite all the prior stretching it didn't compare to how massive he truly was. But despite that you heard Foxy growl slightly, you opened your eyes to find he’d closed his. He seemed to be trying very hard to hold back any movements and the through of that sent a shock of lust through your body.

"Please move" You whispered still out of breath, mild pain be damned because the only thing you wanted right now was him. He let out a dark chuckle before meeting your eyes,

" You need to be more specific doll, tell me what do you want ol' Funtime Foxy to do?" His sudden change of tone made you shiver, he really was made for this. Despite how eager you just were, the words got stuck in your throat. You had to take a deep breath before you could even try to speak.

"Please…" You paused with a deliciously pained look as your squeezed the words out, " fuck me Foxy" Foxy grinned ear to ear at your vulgar words before doing as he was told.

His thrusts started slow and shallow, just enough movement that made you keen with want. Your brain was quickly reduced to a pile of mush as soon as he started to speed up. At this angle he could easily press against all the right places and all you could do was mewl and dig your nails into his shoulders.

" I'm going to fill you up Y/N, but you'd like that wouldn't you? You want to be pumped full of my cum. Just such a sweet girl, didn't even stop me from moving her drenched panties " He huffed right next to your ear, pulling you closer as he moved impossibly faster. " Now I'm going to make sure to take care of you doll. I'll stuff you full just how you want "

The words were so loud in your head but they only half registered, yet that was still more than enough to make you moan out. You pressed your face on his overheated metal as you curled in on yourself, forgetting your promise to stay quiet when he sneaked a hand between both of you to firmly rub your clit.

Your legs uselessly clamped around his form as they were finally released from his hold, and your pooling pleasure finally tipped you over the edge. The feeling was like a tense string finally snapping and a wave of euphoria crashing over you instantaneously.

Your mind was foggy, trying to reel itself back to reality as overstimulation finally hit you. Foxy continued to fuck into you so he could fulfill his promise. You whined as he continued to use you to finish, tears steadily forming in the corners of your eyes.

Thankfully he soon let up, pressing in as deep as he could go before finally emptying out what you had to assume was just more lube into you. The feeling of the thick liquid inside of you made you squirm, especially as it overfilled and slowly trickled down your thighs, but your mind was too disoriented to quite care. Your prior tiredness obviously catching up to you after such a mind numbing experience.

Foxy gently rubbed your back in an effort to comfort you without overwhelming you any more. You stayed in his arms with droopy eyes for a solid couple of minutes before he carefully pushed you off his cock with a wet sound that you would have normally been embarrassed of if you weren’t too busy trying not to fall over.

You let your shoulders meet the wall behind you, trying to catch your breath as lube slowly spewed out of you. The sound of Foxy tucking his dick under his crotch plate filled the room, but he busied himself with grabbing hand towels from a box on the shelf.

He hummed a tune as he got back onto his knees to gently wipe down your thighs and the shelf under you. The microfiber tickled your senses but you kept your mouth shut to let your mind recover. When he finally got to your crotch he paused,

" How about you also keep these on as a memento from me to you" Foxy gently hooked his thumb under the fabric to pull it away, taking great joy in the translucent lube that smeared on the way. With feather light touches he wiped up the bare minimum amount of lube from your panties and puffy folds, laughing at the half hearted glare you gave him when he pressed his thumb into you just to watch the cum gush out again.

" I'm just cleaning you up sweetheart no need to be so dirty minded " He teased before moving your now only mildly soiled underwear back to the right place. He wiped his hands before grabbing the other towel to reach up and wipe your damp face, not without pausing to boop your nose of course.

He discarded the towels in a box, you felt bad for the poor souls who’d uncover those. Your barely cohesive thoughts were cut off when he handed you your clothes and shoes, getting up to give you some space.

You slipped everything back on, trying to pat your clothes down to make sure you didn't look as fucked out as you felt. Your legs felt like jello but you also felt a sense of satisfaction so the mild discomfort was worth it. Foxy extended a hand towards you with a smile,

" What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn't walk my favorite dame out? " You laughed before grabbing your plushie and his hand. You were easily pulled onto your feet only to hold onto Foxy for dear life as your knees buckled under you.

"You're not a very considerate gentleman if you put me in this predicament in the first place" You gritted out in an effort to distract yourself from any embarrassment.

" Well I wasn’t the one who asked to be fucked so I must say your argument is weak " Despite his teasing words he patiently waited for you to gain stable footing.

" By now Ballora must have gotten Circus Baby out of her room so do allow me to -" As if on cue a loud thump sounded in the room next to you, making both of you freeze.

" Stupid! Stupid! I didn't actually mean kill a rat! Biddybab I- Ew! Don't bring it closer! " Baby's voice was muffled, her footsteps running away making any other words spoken inaudible. Foxys hold on you tightened,

" Seems I'm mistaken, no worries! " His voice had a nervous shake that unsettled you. " I need to go wave her back to her room so she doesn't go snooping around anymore, you need to go back to Ballora’s room"

"Are you sure? What if she isn't-"

" Then you'll come back here and get Freddy, just please move quickly. I promise you’re safe dear " He leaned down for another quick hug but you couldn't help but feel terrified. If both Foxy and Ballora are this scared of Baby, how bad was she?

You nodded, waiting in chilling silence as he went to peek his head out the door once he opened it. You followed him out the door, ignoring the dull ache between your legs as you closed it behind you. Foxy ushered you back into the kitchen before offering you a wave as he disappeared through another door.

And just like that you were alone, brain trying to process the series of events that just unfolded as you leaned against the fridge. One moment feeling warm and loved and the next being rushed away for your own safety. But you really couldn't be upset by it, you just sighed and accepted your situation.

Getting right back to your objective, you attempted speed walking but the underlying soreness between your legs stopped that in a couple seconds. You dug your nails into your palm, trying to limp as inconspicuously as possible as you finally entered into the Funtime Auditorium.

" O-oh! You're back! Me and B-Bon-Bon were starting worried! " You heard Freddy before you saw him and had to physically stop yourself from making a face. You had to say out of all the animatronics you've met so far he was your least favorite, besides the one who's actively trying to kill you of course.

"Yeah! Um Foxy just sent me to go back to Ballora's room" You continued your walk to the door that led to the office, Freddy clearly not getting the memo as he jogged to catch up with you from the stage.

" Where's Fo-xy? What took you g-uys so long? " He stood in front of you with a skeptical look on his face, not understanding the rush you were in.

"He went to go make sure Baby wasn't going to come back" You hurriedly responded, "And me and Foxy were just… talking"

" See Freddy, everything's fine! Y/N isn't hurt, she just reaaaaally needs to go with Ballora " Bon-Bon piped up, he reached up to calm his friend. You just nodded and you anxiously gripped onto your Foxy plush.

" Th-en let me walk you over there! I'm going to be a ge-ntleman! Just like Fo-oxy " Pure excitement emanated from his words but all you could feel was underlying fear, helplessly watching as he giddily got closer.

"No No! You don't have to, I'll just go by myself!" Your words fell on deaf ears as he pulled you close with one arm. His frankly overbearing presence unnerved you, obviously not one to take no for an answer.

" Foxy's go-ing to be so s-s-so proud of me! " Freddy babbled on as he walked you over to the door, Bon-Bon peeked out from the other side of Freddy to look at you with a " I'm sorry about him " expression. You gave a small smile back, stumbling slightly as you tried to keep up with him. The three of you were back in Ballora's Gallery in record time, Freddy looking around in the dim light.

" Oh go-osh she's not here! Wh-at are we going to do Y/N? " His voice turned weirdly petulant and it took you off guard, you swallowed down any fear and looked up at him.

"We could just sit and wait" Your words shook slightly as you willed yourself to stay calm.

" I w-was just thinking the sa-me thing! " Freddy seemingly snapped back to normal just as fast as he changed. You made a protesting sound as he lifted you up with one hand around your torso, watching sadly as your plushy slipped out of your grasp and fell to the floor. He walked you over to the nearest wall before sitting down and placing you on his lap, wrapping you up in a snug hug.

" G-Gosh I really missed huging people! Ki-ids don't come around here anymore and the workers don't care enough " He bemoaned, his speaker rumbled against your back as he pulled you against it. Your thighs protested having to spread around his legs but you ignored it when he squeezed his arms around you.

You felt a wave of regret wash over you, he must have not being unnerving on purpose he seemed to just be so touch starved so he jumped at the opportunity to get to you. He placed his large head on your shoulder causing you to crane your own head to the side in order to accommodate him.

"I'm okay with hugs Freddy just… please ask me before okay?" He just makes a noise in confirmation before closing his eyes. You sneaked your hand up to pet his cheek. He smiles wide at the touch but otherwise says nothing, and in an unexpected move Bon-Bon shifts closer to press a small kiss to your cheek.

" You're awful pre-ety Y/N, did you know that we haven't had a gi-rl down here in ne-arly t-t-two wh-ole years? " His voice rumbled through your torso, Freddy was pleasantly quiet and you were grateful for that. You hummed a surprised noise so he knew you were listening, finally relaxing your back into him.

“ We’ve been closed for parties for soooo lon-g, only technicians can come down here and there’s not even one girl amo-ng them! Can you believe that y/n.? ” For once that night you felt at ease with Freddy, his quiet rambling lulling your senses. “Wow really?” You quietly remarked, happy to entertain his story.

“ Yeah, really!! And a-and in two weeks the staff comes back! It was supposed to be next week but Baby got into a scrap with a technician and it got pushed back. Bu-ut we’ll get to preform for real again! It’s been ages since our last real performance ” you offered a small noise in response before closing your eyes, blissfully unaware of Freddy's eyes opening to eagerly trace your body.

“ It’s also been ages since we’ve had s-ome real fun too… You’d think having the faci-lity all to yourself would be exciting but the fun of sneaking around staff to get so-ome… stress relief was really what made it fun. ” Your eyes slotted open as your confusion got the better of you, the slowly deeper tone Freddy adopted as he continued talking didn’t offer any clarification. “ The closest any of us have gott-en to that recently was that little stunt you and Foxy pulled, fucking in a closet isn’t exactl-y allowed ”

" Y’know I'm only a li-ittle sad that Foxy got to you first " His eyes watched your face burn red, " But I al-so don't mind slo-oppy seconds though " His voice ringed with so much glee as your mind started racing, how did he know you'd had sex? How much had he seen?

Your panicked thoughts cut off as Freddy's hand slowly slid to your thigh and groped it, cold fingertips digging into your flesh as he delighted in the shiver you gave. His hands impatiently trailed up and down before sliding over your crotch.

"F-Freddy we really shouldn't- Ballora's probably coming back and-" He grinded his palm right against your crotch, effectively shutting you up. You gave a small moan and tried to push his hand away but he easily overpowered you.

" Ballora re-ally like likes you, I saw her " He chuckled at his own words, " I'm sure she'd be m-ore than happy to see you so worked up " Dammit that was your last logical reason to stop but you still didn't want to give in, at least for your dignity's sake. You weren't sure if it was ethical to get fucked by one let alone two robots.

His hand moved up to clumsily unbutton your pants, nearly ripping them and your underwear off all together. You kneeled up higher as your lust finally got the best of you, one more couldn't hurt right? He pulled you up so you were kneeling on his smooth thighs, pants and panties pooled around your knees as you just braced yourself against his forearms.

You were in far too deep now, you wanted to at least think up one more reason to fight him off but you were too turned on to care anymore. Thick fingers traced your folds, exploring your sensitive parts with reckless abandon.

" Foxy wan-ted you to stay all di-irty down the-ere right? I don't thi-nk he'd mind if I filled you up again" You could hear the smile in his voice but you squeezed your eyes shut in defiance. The arm that had Bon-Bon on it shifted to gently hold your midsection, trying to hold you still and keep you from slipping off his thighs.

Freddy's fingers ignored your aching clit, instead opting to stick two of his fingers deep inside you in one go. You jumped at the intrusion, tears welling up at the rough treatment.

" S-Sorry I thought y-ou were looser " Was all Freddy gave in response, not even bothering to take one finger out. He rubbed at your clit in an apology, and a moan itched at your throat from the pressure despite your earlier pain.

Bon-Bon swiveled in your direction, gently patting at the stray tear that fell. As turned on as you felt you had to admit Freddy definitely wasn't as skilled as Foxy, sloppy digits moving only to stretch instead of pleasure. He prematurely took out his fingers, and the sound of his crotch plate shifting aside filled the room.

" I'll be e-xtra gentle with you! Do-ont worry! " Freddy sing songs, his dick does the same slow exit as Foxy's did but this time you could feel it immediately press against your entrance. You grind down slowly in an effort to regain any friction, not missing the slight growl that Freddy gave.

He was clearly desperate to move on to the part where both of you could feel the most pleasure, emphasis on both. He eases up his hold on you to clamp his hand on your hip and slowly maneuvering you down his shaft, tears reappearing at the sharp burn. He was much thicker than Foxy at the expense of being shorter than him, but despite this your eyes snap open and you feel overwhelmingly full.

Freddy let out a low groan when you finally slipped all the way down, your knees hitting the floor as you tried to remember how to breathe. He experimentally thrust into you in a shallow movement and your face distorted in pain.

" So-rry! Again! I dont want to hu-urt you, you ju-st feel so g-go-od! " His last word was garbled up when you clenched at the compliment. You scan around the scarcely lit room for something to distract yourself with but it was empty, not even a minireena toddled around.

" You like it when I say h-ow go-od you feel do-ont you? " Freddy taunted, " Ballora's gonna lo-ve you Y/N, you're so cu-te and grip o-nto my cock so tight~ " The praise immediately went to your crotch when he shifted slightly again. His hand finally moved down to feel around where your crotches were connected.

" Ho-w about we play a g-game? " His hand finally found your clit, giving it a fleeting touch before traitorously inching back up. You let a soft whine,

"W-What do you want to play?" Your voice trembled as you tried not to move.

" I'll fu-ck you really de-ep and soft but you ca-an't cum before Ballora c-omes back and lets yo-u " He laughed at his own harsh words, " If you be-g me to touch you i'll w-in"

A warmth flooded your senses at the thought of Ballora touching you, the rules were simple enough and the stakes weren't too high right? You were mainly excited to have the chance to see Ballora again, you yearned for her soothing aura.

"That seems a little unfair Freddy" You huffed, "But let's do it" He grinned widely at how out of breath you already were but still nodded against you. Thankfully he moved slowly, easily lifting you just a little with one hand before letting you slide back down.

All you had to do was hold back until she came back! That's easy enough, but the thought that it might take her a while to get back struck you hard as Freddy shifted under you with a groan and your body lit up with pleasure. You did your best to relax into him, letting him move however he wanted.

" Jeez you're just gon-na sit back and let me u-se you? You're not very fun! " You gave a half hearted glare at the comment, delicately rapping your knuckles against the side of his face.

"Well I'd help you out more but since you wanna play a game I can't" You shot back while he laughed at the feeble punches you gave him. Freddy pushed his hips into you, effectively dismantling your demeanor as another moan got the best of you.

" I don't mind it! You lo-ok real cute bouncing on my cock even if you aren't try-ing " Once Freddy learned what made you tick he seemed to never forget, in response you closed your eyes and turned away from him. You were already worked up, anymore and you were sure to lose.

You tried to focus on something else, biting your lip to keep any embarrassing sounds down as Freddy continued to slowly thrust into you. Thankfully he stopped making his occasional comments but it came at the price of having his warm breath right next to your sensitive neck.

The reason they were even designed with any sort of breathing was lost on you but you suspected it must have been some kind of way to prevent overheating. Your thoughts were scrambled once again as he finally started to thrust harder into you.

" It's okay if you lose Y/N! It won’t be that bad, promise " Bon-Bon whispered to you, you'd forgotten he was even there but the sentiment was nice. His soft paw continued to pet your face in an effort to comfort you. You finally managed a smile, opening your eyes to find him smiling back.

The next few minutes went by in a blur, pleasure steadily building up despite your own efforts. Freddy seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself as he kept up a punishing pace. Would not cumming even be worth it at this point? You'd stop keeping count of the seconds that passed by and now you were closer than ever, debating all your past decisions.

As if Freddy was reading your mind he slowed down, stopping almost as if he was taking pity on you. Half of you wanted him to keep going, but you were silently grateful. Freddy laughed quietly as he watched you squirm at the lack of movement.

" I'm gonna give you a bre-ak, you're about to pop! " He laughed even harder, " Ballora might take a while, why don't you just gi-ive in? I might not st-op next time~ " You didn't understand what he found so hilarious about the situation he'd put you in but you just nodded and tried to calm yourself down.

Your clit ached for attention and you were genuinely debating on taking him up on his offer. You studied his expression, his massive antsy smile making you itch to wipe it off his face.

"I'm gonna beat you Freddy" You muttered through gritted teeth, his smile getting impossibly bigger at your harsh breaths. He quickly started up again, taking your taunting words more seriously than you'd expected.

Your head once again got fuzzy with pleasure and soft moans left your lips, and minutes passed too slowly yet much too fast. Tears filling your vision as you tried to stave off your orgasm, now regretting the boasting you'd attempted to do. Your brain was ready to try to form a cohesive thought and beg for Freddy to touch you when a door finally opened.

You blinked your tears away as Freddy abruptly stopped his movements. Ballora walked in as oblivious as ever with a trail of minireenas just behind her. You wanted to call out to her immediately but the words died in your throat when Freddy unexpectedly started moving again.

" Jeez Ballora what to-ook you so long? He asked, unabashedly still using you even if it mortified you.

" Freddy…? What are you doing? Is Y/N with you? " Worry filled her voice as she got closer, you wanted to say something to her but all you could let out was an embarrassingly wanton moan at a particularly hard thrust.

" Y/N's right here! The-re's no need to worry, I've got her sa-fe and warm! She was even sweet enough to wa-rm up my cock for me " You stared at the ground in shame, silence filling the room except for the constant shlick shlick of Freddy driving himself into you. Ballora stood in shock for a second and you were sure if she could blush she'd be the same shade of red as you were.

She silently started her stride again, quickly getting to you before carefully sliding to kneel in front of you. Freddy thankfully dropped his grip on your torso, letting you freely move. Ballora opened her arms in a simple gesture but you had to stop the sob of relief that tried to escape.

You almost collapsed into her, arms tightly wrapped around her as you were momentarily distracted from the onslaught of pleasure you were receiving. Thankfully she didn't say anything about your current predicament, instead opting to gently rub at your back.

" Oh darling what happened while I was gone? " She asked quietly, " Is Freddy being mean to you? " You laughed against her chest, new found tears slowly falling.

"Yes, he said I couldn't cum until you touched me" You didn't care if you stretched the truth a little, you already felt more at ease in Balloras hold.

" Hey! That's no-ot true! She decided to play with me and she's just ups-et that I didn't make it easy! " Freddy protested with a frown, making sure to punctuate his words with a particularly hard thrust. You made a protesting sound at his harsh treatment but didn't correct him.

" Y/N don't lie to me, i wouldn't want to have to punish you when you're so close to cumming " You shivered at the familiar words but just nodded against her, too ashamed to say anything else. She went back to rubbing your back in a soothing manner,

" If you just wanted me to touch so you could have said so darling, now let me help you princess " Ballora's kind words cut right through you, making you soft and pliable to anything she said. She easily sat you up before her hands roamed your body.

Long, elegant fingers gently traced your face and neck as she took her time mapping you out. They traced your sweater all the way down to the hem before slipping under and pressing into your stomach. Ballora leaned towards you to pepper kisses on your face, smooth metal lips cooling your overheated skin.

"Ballora…" You whined, as much as you enjoyed the attention your legs were an uncomfortable mix of numb and extremely oversensitive. You weren't quite sure how much more you could take.

" Give me a second honey, be a good girl and let me take care of you " Her lips quirked up at the mewl you gave in response before easily getting back to letting her hands roam lower.

" Y/N r-really likes it when you compliment her~ " Freddy huffed, movements unexpectedly slowing down as he pushed as far as he could into you. You weren't sure why he'd stopped until the feeling of his cum spewing into you keyed you in.

"That's not fair" You said weakly, one word away from whining before you let out a squeak as Ballora briefly pinched your thigh.

" Behave Y/N " Was the only warning she gave but your fizzled brain took it harsher than she probably meant it to sound, reflexively your eyes watered slightly.

" 'm sorry" You mumbled as you leaned back into Freddy, needy for any kind of attention that would release the pressure between your legs.

" Don't be so me-an to her Ballora " Freddy haphazardly pet your ribs with his free hand, " I've had her here for alm-ost 30 minutes, our little cumdump is just a li-ttle frustrated " You could feel your face burn at the name he called you,

"I'm not-!" Before you could even finish your sentence Ballora's smooth fingers finally grazed your aching clit. It was as if she flipped a switch inside you and you had to try to quickly censor yourself.

" I don't think she minds me being a little mean now do you Y/N? " She cooed sweetly as her fingers explored further down. A soft moan escaped you as she gently felt around as if she was mapping out how filled up you were.

It was the most intimate thing you could possibly think, her fingers following your puffy folds, applying featherlight pressure until they led to where your abused hole was stretched past your limit. She firmly rubbed the crease where Freddy’s cock and your folds met,

" See her cunts still sopping wet, were you excited for me baby? " Freddy let out a wheezing laugh at her choice of words,

" I think she is, every time you ta-lk she gets so-o tight " The way they talked about you as if you couldn't even respond made your head incredibly fuzzy, whoever programmed them must have known what they were doing.

You watched in anticipation as her digits finally traced their way back to your clit, you were a moaning mess by the time she finally started applying pressure. And naturally it didn't take long for her to bring you to the edge, you squeezed your eyes shut as you finally let the pleasure wash over you. You came to your senses when a familiar pair of lips pressed against your neck for a second,

" Didn't want you fainting on me dear " Ballora joked, you shared a breathless laugh. She let your brain catch up before she got on her feet to slowly lift you off of Freddy, thankfully helping you stand after. She held your close, waiting until you were steady on your feet to let go.

" How about we get you cleaned up, take you to the kitchen, maybe a cup of tea before you go? " She kneeled behind you in an unexpected motion, making you regain the blush you'd almost lost as she helped you get your underwear and pants on unprompted.

"It's already time to go?" You ask as you try to swallow your disappointment, catching a glimpse of Freddy tucking himself up and hobbling on his feet.

" You spent a lot of time with Foxy~ " He teased, only laughing harder at the glare you gave him.

" I'm afraid so dear, how about you come back next Saturday? I'm sure we'd all like to see you again " Ballora pressed a kiss to your hips before pulling your pants all the way up and letting you fiddle with them. Your ears burned warm at the thought of coming back, did they like you that much?

"I'll… try to come back I promise" She seemed pleased with that response as she got up and pulled you into another warm embrace which Freddy jumped in on as well.

" Good, now let's go get you ready to leave sweetie " You still weren't sure if the warm feeling in your chest was warranted but this time you didn't fight it off. While you didn't find solace in casual trespassing like you had planned, but getting your brains fucked out by two animatronics and coddled by the other bought that idea out by a landslide.

#fnaf smut #five nights at freddy's #fnaf sister location #Ballora x reader #ballora x you #Time for excessive tagging bc why not #Funtime Freddy x reader #Funtime Freddy x you #Funtime foxy x reader #Funtime foxy x you #ballora #funtime freddy #funtime foxy

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funhouse-mirror-barbie · 4 months ago

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I did one of these for fun, and because I thought it would be fun to breakdown the way I like to look at characters! I would love to see everyone else’s thoughts and tier lists! All of my opinions could change with time as the stories progress.

Explanations of the tiers below if ur interested—these are really just personal opinions and have nothing to do with any sort of actual critique. More ranty than usual near the end:

S tier: these are characters that I think have a lot of potential, and could have been a LOT more interesting and engaging to me personally if they were written well and had better characterization + I like their designs more than the rest, or I think they’re actually funny. Most of them are women characters with designs I really like that I think deserve SO much more than what the writings given to them. Plus mammon b/c he’s genuinely funny to me, I like his voice, and i think he’s attractive.

A tier: Same as the above, but I’m just not quite as interested in them and their storylines as S tier. Most of the A tiers are characters that I vibe with but still have problems with their character designs (Ozzie, Fizz, and Bee are the biggest ones). Still made me laugh or are silly, but not quite as much as the S tiers either.

B tier: Characters that I like okay enough, but are really just too bland for me. I don’t think they’re necessarily bad characters, but they’re just very cookie cutter to me. They’d have to have a LOT more personality for me to like them more. I like their designs, but they still have issues—Husk is in here pretty much just b/c I love Keith David, and think he did such a good job with him that it made me like him more.

C tier: These guys are the ones that kind of annoy me. They’re sort of nothing characters that feel more like plot devices, and we dont know enough about them for them to be really interesting, they just sort of exist. Moxxie is there because I’m so tired of him. He hasn’t done anything bad but like. I’m tired of him constantly getting punched down on and being given SO much focus over Millie.

D tier: these guys straight up just annoy the hell out of me. As characters they seem to exist either just to be as annoying and edgy as possible, or they’re so poorly written that probably no amount of potential can make me interested in them. They seem like they’re either around as creator’s pets or excuses to say sexist and fatphobic shit. Loona is there specifically b/c she’s so constantly mean to other characters that it’s frustratingly boring. Beginning to wonder if the writers think that if you have any sort of trauma or difficulties in your past that it means you can just be horrible to everyone around you. People use these characters backstories to explain their inconsistent characterization as if their backstories weren’t also just. Writing decisions. Angel Dust’s series voice direction was terrible he sounds really nasally and whiny to me and I hate that they wrote him to just sexually harass everyone.

F tier: I hate these guys. They are so annoying to me. There is next to nothing charming about them. Two of them are literally rapists that the fandom insists on either weirdly babying or acting like they’re some funny slapstick character. When like. They’re rapists yall. Andraelphus literally just exists to be the replacement male villain to stella, Alastor is one of the absolutely worst character designs and characterizations I’ve ever seen, and crim and Chaz…idk I just don’t like em.

Zestial (Who???) tier: imma be real zestial didn’t do anything wrong. He just. He’s just a cardboard cut out. I know who he is but he literally does nothing and serves no purpose AT ALL other than to give James Monroe Igleheart a role in Hazbin. Which like. Good for James. He’s probably the most talented singer in the whole cast, and he’s a fantastic actor. There’s a reason that his other two characters, Ozzie and Vortex are in A tier. But damn Zestial is just such a nothing boring character that I literally was like “what character is that????” for a sec when making this. Sorry Zestial. You’re not actually below F tier youre just. In the void of TRULY pointless characters. Sorry :(

#funhouse convo #hazbin hotel critical #helluva boss critical #helluva boss criticism #helluva boss critique #hazbin hotel critique #hazbin hotel criticism #media criticism #media critique #tier list #character tier list

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brian-in-finance · 7 months ago

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After the onslaught of criticism about her IFTA look, I thought of putting together some of Cait's quotes, a look into her character and what she's about.

“I respect and admire people who put work before fame, and life before work.”

"I think as women sometimes we can judge other women's journeys, actions a lot more harshly than we would if it was a man."

"I think there's something in the DNA of actors that we thrive on the lack of stability or regime. I relish the unpredictability of it in many ways."

The sexiest things about a man are, "Integrity, smarts and kindness".

"I just want to be happy in my life. I want to stay sane. I'm lucky that I have a job that I love. It's very important that your career can't be your only thing. So, I feel lucky that I've also found someone who makes me very happy. As long as I can keep those two things going well, then I'll be good."

"While 'Outlander' is a brilliant period show, Claire represents so many qualities of a 10th century modern-day woman: someone who is forging her own path, fighting for what she believes, and doing so with integrity."

"It's such a compliment when people say they can see 'thoughts' on your face. I started theater before modeling and the frustrated actress within me made work interesting by viewing a character or story in the head with interior monologues."

"Life is meant to be lived and not put on the back-burner for one day when you will have time. I love my job and I love work but it can’t be the be-all and end-all."

“You have to fight to create the life that you want. I’ve been lucky and had a very varied and interesting career so far, but I’m always thinking about the next chapter.”

"I'm very young at heart but combined with a bit of an old soul. I have two sides of myself, one side is this cray-likes-to-party side, and then the other side likes-to-hibernate-and-keep-quiet-and-read. Those two sides constantly battle and that's why I'm crazy!"

"It was something I've been wanting for a while. There's sometimes fear about actors who become producers—that they're going to try to throw their weight around. For me, it's an expansion of growing within this industry. I like to problem solve. I like to look around at what every single person is doing, and [ask], how can we make things better?"

"Wrinkles equal time, equal life . . . trying to love them."

"SM brings out the very worst in people and makes us feel worse and worse about ourselves. So I'm trying to do, at least one day a week, hopefully 2 days a week, where I just step back and, I've been trying to do it recently and because I really felt like I needed to ... there's so much anger going on and there's so much "uhh" that it was making me feel just awful about everything."

"The modeling industry is completely what you make it. I've had a really great career but what some girls fail to understand is that it is a business like everything else. It's a job, not an opportunity for you and your friends to go away together a lot. You have to remember that the reason you're flying off to an exotic location is that you are there to deliver a job."

“The hardest part when I decided to move into acting was trusting I'd made the right decision.”

Thanks for the message, Anon. 😃 I’m happy to share the impressive list you’ve compiled of Caitríona’s quotes, and I hope people enjoy the walk down memory lane. As for the onslaught of criticism about her IFTA look…

One of the things you and I and everyone else are entitled to is an opinion. Some people liked her IFTA look, some did not. I sometimes post “fashion,” but have no expertise in that field, and I don’t necessarily like or dislike the garments or jewellery or footwear or accessories, or how they’re worn.

As for Standing Ground’s collections, unsupported breasts and nipples abound. I’d like to say it’s by design (wee pun), but I don’t know if it’s the designer’s intent in keeping with his natural scheme or if it’s the model’s choice to go braless. (If I were writing in DM, this is where I would say, “Blah blah blah.”)

What I do know, if I owned “the IFTA” dress and could wear it the way I chose, I would be wearing a bra. Everybody, every body, is different.

Most of the time, when I disagree with an opinion, I silently 🙄 or 🤦🏻‍♂️ or 🤯 or 🤬 or 😂, and scroll along my merry way. The odd time when I both 🤬 and chime in is when someone says it’s their opinion Caitríona is not married to Tony.

Literacy Ideas

Remember… opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes. — Voltaire

#Tait rhymes with hat #Good times #Inbox #Anonymous #Opinions #Quotes #Received & Responded 22 April 2024

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thekingofthenameless · 6 months ago

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I’M BACK

And I’m rebranding everything.

Profile picture change, username change (in a few days), etc.

talesofarcadiaforever -> thekingofthenameless

I took a long hiatus from writing and Tumblr in general because of bad burnout and putting expectations on myself that I shouldn’t have. Ha. But I’m back! And good news! I started writing again! Better news?

I decided to officially discontinue Emerald Embers and the Daylight’s Redemption series and write my own book.

I was already making everything so different from ToA that it was practically an alternate universe already: redesigning Merlin, making Merlin and Charlie familiars, adding magical species that weren’t explicitly in canon, completely changing other characters… I still love ToA, but I’m not hyperfixated on it anymore. And that’s okay. I was so scared of letting go for a long time, but I’m happy with my decision.

My wip is now called The King of the Nameless!

Currently, there are five main characters, and tidbits about each of them will be a little further down. (Except for one guy. He sucks.) Their attempted designs will also be down there.

In some aspects, it probably hasn’t changed too much. I’m still basing it off of Arthurian Legends, and Merlin is still the protagonist. But I redesigned him. Again.

The deuteragonist is Charlie; he and Merlin are still familiars. I tried several different names for him, but none of them would stick for him no matter how hard I tried; so Charlie the dragon he stays. But he now has the last name Ambrosius to reflect that he and Merlin are found family as well.

The other three characters in this stage of the story are Igraine, Gorlois, and Uther.

Igraine is Arthur and Morgana’s mother in the Arthurian Legends, (which I did not know at first and was wondering how Arthur and Morgana were half-siblings because they have different fathers…) and will stay the same here. I couldn’t find any official last name for her besides Pendragon from when she marries Uther? (Which is not going to happen here.) So I gave her and her husband the last name “le Fay” to match their daughter!

Gorlois is Igraine’s husband, and like I said, is Morgana’s father. However, unlike some media, he’s not going to be portrayed as a jealous and abusive husband. He’s the epitome of the “I love my wife” guy.

Uther is… a piece of work, to say the least. He’s the character who’s going to have a separate post because of triggering topics that I don’t want in this post.

I’m also going to make a separate post for upcoming characters, which include Nimue, Morgana, Arthur, etc.

Bear with me on lore and designs though please (I’m still working on the lore and I’m not sure if these will be their permanent designs except for Charlie). Some of it might be just random babble until I decide on something 😭 You’ll definitely be able to tell which characters I think about most ahaha.

Anyways, in more good news, I don’t use Artbreeder anymore. I attempt to use Picrews, but sometimes they don’t have everything I want, so I also use character creators from video games. If I could use Baldur’s Gate 3’s, I definitely would, but I’d have to spend like $600-ish to get something to play it on and get the game. 😑 I could also play it with my boyfriend, but our schedules are so busy with both of us working that’s it not really a convenient option.

But there is a game called Dragon’s Dogma, and I’ve been using that one! It’s an older game, so it doesn’t really have many fantasy character options, but it’s good enough for human characters lol. I made Igraine and Gorlois with it, and a few other characters yet to be posted.

Design and lore time!

Merlin:

This is him at the beginning of TKN! Expect more art of him eventually.

• 6' 8"

• “my son crump he has every disease”: schizophrenia, C-PTSD, misophonia

• is still a cambion like in the Arthurian Legends (specifically half-human, half-demon)

• was supposed to be the Anti-Christ (also like in the Legends)

• is also a romance and sex repulsed, non-partnering aroace <3.

• usually excudes a regal, dignified presence, and his preference for flowing outfits helps

• may seem slightly formal with strangers, but on a good day where he can clock their personality, he’ll either warm up to them quickly, or distance himself, depending on the person

• has a strong sense of justice, which also makes him anti-authoritarian for the most part. (unless they’ve actually proven that they’re not just in their position for the power of it, or because of nepotism; and really do want to help people.)

• extremely loyal

• highly empathetic; cries easily

• has a lot of trauma, but is still kind because he’s not going to make people suffer just because he did

• adrenaline junkie in regards to flying with Charlie

• Doesn’t kill if not necessary.

• Is very punctual. If you tell him to come at 5 he’ll be there at 4:30. At most.

Charlie:

• 6' 6" (top of muzzle)

• 7' 3" (top of head)

• the marking on his leg is his familiar mark!

• still nice, seems a little rougher around the edges than Merlin

• says the things that his wizard thinks but won’t say, and doesn’t hide that he stares people down while gauging their character. he sometimes won’t care that he sounds mean or very direct either

• very protective of his familiar and is intensely loyal to him. isn’t really willing to leave the latter alone with people they don’t really know because of people attempting to take advantage of his schizophrenia in the past, gaslighting him into thinking that their actions weren’t real and were things he hallucinated/imagined

• Do no harm but take no shit

• Far more willing to kill than Merlin

• “Hey do you want me to kill that guy for you? Because it sounds like he sucks and I will totally kill that guy for you.”

• (I guess he technically counts as an emotional support animal but like. he’s sentient so idk 😭)

• is an omnivore (most dragons are, but he eats more human food than them from growing up and staying around them.)

Igriane:

• 6' 5"

• a wizard!

• was originally a red head before I realized that oh yeah. Morgana has brown hair, and a ginger and blonde would definitely not for the most part have a brunette kid

• purple eyes (haven’t decided if I’m gonna stay with this concept, but I like the idea of all wizards having some type of heterochromia, or technicolor eyes to show that they have magic)

Gorlois:

• 6' 0"

• he doesn’t have any type of unique eye color yet because I didn’t have the concept of that for wizards yet, and still not sure if I’m gonna keep it so. blue eyes for now

• again I say he’s the “I love my wife” guy!!

• also a wizard (which is where Morgana gets her magic when she’s born. You have two parents with magic you’re like. guaranteed to have magic.)

• maybe not really much of a fighter? Would probably use some type of sword if he was.

Wow that was so much lore. 👍 If anyone wants to talk to me about my ocs or suggest ideas, my ask box is always open! (And I love love love getting asks)

Artist credits!

Merlin:

Charlie’s original artist:

Charlie’s second artist:

Charlie’s saddle:

#yelling #that’s my new ramble tag lol #would like to mention that i’m keeping my archive of EE and DR content up! people can absolutely use those ideas if they want to lol #like go ham with the ideas i’ll probably never use again #my writing #the king of the nameless #old tkn content #tkn character designs #art stuff #my ocs #merlin ambrosius #tkn merlin #charlemagne ambrosius #igraine le fay #gorlois le fay

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dapperrokyuu · 11 months ago

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Alright now that I’ve seen the end Slay the Princess, who’s your favorite princess?

Ill do you even better and give you my top 5/the ones Id love to get if I played the game, just to see their sequences in the end and how itd reflect on that version of the player (literally made a list for fun just before you sent this ask, hehe).

Admittedly, a lot of this is informed by aesthetic and then enjoyment of their routes because I came into (watching Manlybadasshero play) the game after some fandom osmosis–thus, understanding I wouldnt have all my thoughts together within one playthrough. So I cant say Ive devoted my satisfactory amount of attention to speak on the princesses’ narrative presence... But I did rewatch their routes and “Thoughts on this vessel?” sections a bit to formulate a stronger opinion. Here we go...! (Buckle in, fellas, haha ha h a…)

1. Adversary/Eye of the Needle

The Adversary and the Eye of the Needle are very hand in hand imo, and I love the progression into a dragon-like appearance for the latter, especially in combination with the cabin becoming akin to a dragon’s den. This (combination of) routes stands out the most to me (as far as Manly has played) because I personally feel its the one where the princess is the most active and engaged. Whether its being beaten to death or running for one’s life, the route was very exciting for me! And it was intriguing how the princess and player felt the most on equal ground because they are both intent on pursuing some objective. Its just that in this case–and this is how this princess exceeds and is an overwhelming presence compared to the player–the princess is set on a choice they dont care to deny and the player is a creature of the habit called “deliberation,” as narrator aside, in-universe reasons aside, the very structure of Slay the Princess has taught you to constantly pause and consider your choices.

It contributes to the tone of the routes so well! Even if you can sit forever in the Outside World, the game progresses like a split second decision and/or that any time given to you is at the princess’s turbulent discretion. In a game where your choices tend to matter most (which, frankly, they do, its kind of the whole point, but you may not know that your choices are what caused this situation yet, lol), the princess seeming to supercede you and the narrative and the concept of death is!!! Powerful and quite something, lol. And poignant, considering *gestures vaguely but particularly at the Narrator*.

Otherwise, I love how theres apparently many more and amusing divergences in this route (that Manly did not showcase) and the ending is pretty cathartic. And to keep this a bit short, yadda yadda, dragon dens is where they store and protect their treasure and in this case, the treasure is fighting you, yadda yadda, as the vessel of growth, the princess’s embracing of the cycle of violence between you two is her latching onto the only avenue of growth she can perceive (as opposed to escaping–since you didnt offer that option prior–and dying since thats tend to be the stop to the concept of growth), yadda yadda-

2. Spectre

This princess’s voicework is probably my favorite! The whispering under the regular voice acting is just really neat, doing a great job setting a tone of something delicate, chilling, and unnerving. The princess’s design shifts between cute and scary very well too! Her personality is probably my fave overall; while her “thoughts on this vessel?” section highlights her embodying kindness and understanding, they only exist to an extent that is fair. Which is, well. Fair. And I think it extra emphasizes the understanding aspect, with how the princess is aware of her circumstances and the injustices that have occurred yet is willing to let bygones be bygones. Shes coy, sincere, and pragmatically deadly, which is a full spectrum of delight for me!

The moment that really gets me regarding her character is when you say youre gonna leave her. Other decisions lead you to working together or demonstrating you have no intention to with some form of violence–both resulting in the Spectre just responding fairly. But the “leave” option truly shows that the Spectre doesnt/never intends to act out in malice, since Spectre responds out of desperation to avoid perpetual loneliness, pain, and emptiness. Theres an aspect of “fairness” here too (youre abandoning and hurting her more after having murdered her), but the choice comes after a breakdown and deliberation as opposed to an immediate retaliation. Even then, Spectre laments that she didnt want things to be this way but youve made her worse. Other stand out moments are when Spectre goes, “Youre funny when youre confused. But I didnt give you permission to touch me,” and the player’s moment of patheticness, lol.

This route really hints onto the meta aspects of Slay the Princess too, which is neat! The whole “want to end the world” convo, Spectre just wanting to go home, reality being what is in front of us vs. static truth/objectivity, whether destruction being one thing leading into another vs. the same thing reborn, glass on the floor, and the narrator being like Spectre as a memory of a person…I dont have much to say here currently–still need to ponder, itd be a whole other conversation, Im a bit tired, lol–but its tons of food for thought that I enjoy! Yay, Spectre!

3. Prisoner

Fun fact: this is a rewriting of the extreme word vomit that was me lamenting over how I was kind of confused about the Prisoner but chose her for the sake of a 5th (note the placing change) and then discovering the absolute genius she is!!! Basically, my only exposure to the Prisoner I had was Manly’s recent playthrough, which contained (what Ill call) the Chained Together variation and didnt even have her “thoughts on this vessel?” section due to the game going into the final sequence immediately after. The Prisoner’s section in that final sequence befuddled me because I couldnt connect much other than a theme of “inevitable change,” and even when I dug up the Prisoner’s “thoughts on this vessel?” elsewhere, I couldnt put it all together…until I watched (what Ill call) the Head Trophy variation in the middle of my initial writeup.

Regarding what I enjoyed prior to recognizing genius, I really enjoyed how the Prisoner conducted herself–her curtness and resignation was very unique. Her form was created as a result of the player cutting off her arm, instilling a matter of fact-ness to her that allows her to slit the player’s throat later (got this from the Wiki, Manly didnt show this part). Upon waking up once again chained and chained even more, I interpreted the cleverness aspect from the Prisoner’s “thoughts on this vessel?” section as being able to come to terms with her situation, play along, and bid her time in hopes that her patience (that she emphasizes) would eventually reward her. After all, the Prisoner was willing to pretend she and the player met for the first time until the player prompts otherwise, even saying they dropped “playing the game”--very meta of her! Thus, I interpreted the Prisoner as the princess completely embodying/accepting her role in the game; she couldnt leave when she defied her role last time, so she was fine continuing to wait this time. As a character who realized they were a character and systematically changed their behavior to attempt a new avenue of escape, I thought that was the extent of the Prisoner’s cleverness and was satisfied…enough.

AND I WAS WRONG. DELIGHTFULLY WRONG. I assumed the Prisoner was completely fine with her potentially only means of escape becoming not one, since she didnt seem upset or disappointed. Which was frankly incorrect, as her rude curtness is a result of her being miffed with you. Why? Because her cleverness actually alludes to the fact she had a plan for escape the entire time, and you utterly fucked it up! Which, tbf, she shouldve shown more reaction than curiosity to dissuade the player, but I digress- During the Head Trophy variation, you realize that the Prisoner had a plan this entire time to deceive the Narrator and she succeeds so well because she also got me and got the player. How often do I get got? It was amazing! From the stare as the Prisoner takes the knife away from the player, to the smile before That All Happens, to the wink as it occurs and after, it may speak to an underestimation thats set up due to the Prisoner’s appearance and behavior, but reflecting on all the signs that She Planned This dismantles that perception and reaffirms that the Prisoner is a person with depth beyond what you expect from her and those in her role. As I viewed the Prisoner as a caricature of the princess’s role in the first place (the whole point is that the Prisoner is exactly like the princess in appearance except the chained/locked up aspect is exaggerated), this route is so striking for me with its interrogation of victimhood, how victims are treated/viewed, and how that may be unintentionally stripped of their personhood and reduced (into a caricature of solely “a victim”). The Prisoner puts it quite nicely when the player attacks and she “suddenly” has a ton of fight in her, stating, “Im not a damsel to be helplessly murdered!” …Im not sure if I put it into words the best, but I hope this is understandable. To top off the topic of Prisoner’s cleverness, its a neat detail (I dont know if this is intentional) that the Prisoner does the opposite of what her prior princess form did: the player cut her arm to free her last time, she cut herself out this time and the player “died” the last time, she “died” this time. Beyond recognizing there was a Narrator beyond them she should fool, the Prisoner also reasoned that since having the player kill her is likely not favorable, dying by her own hand might just be fine! The Head Trophy variation is just more poignant when you note that her “thoughts on this vessel?” section talks about how the Prisoner protected herself when others could not but for her plan to work, she has to put complete faith in another.

As 1000% better the Head Trophy variation is in the Prisoner’s route, I do have a soft spot for the Chained Together variation since, from both the Prisoner and the Narrator’s perspective, it must be a hilarious emotional rollercoaster. The Prisoner’s plan failed and shes now stuck with the loser who made it so…for potentially forever! The Narrator probably oscillates between an uneasy concession that while both gods are not dead, they are locked up forever and an utter dread that things may fall apart at any time and thus, the world is practically doomed with no way to change that. The Prisoner doesnt have to decapitate herself, which makes her freedom extra cathartic in the relief she likely felt and didnt expect…and also extra sad in how she found it was nothing but cold and is quickly taken away. Theres also something to be said about how the player joins the princess in her perspective by chaining himself up and that they both inform each other’s perspective, leading to their escape together: (1) since the princess isnt starving to death, the player also doesnt, which is a surprise to the Voices and (2) the player showing up again signaled that change is indeed possible to the princess, perhaps causing the ability for the world to erode around them. Maybe the latter is the Voices informing the player, causing the change…? But I like to think its the initial thought since the cabin could and shouldve have eroded prior to the player’s arrival, assuming the Prisoner understands the concept of erosion…which, I assume she does- Anyways, the route is as emotional as it is kind of wacky, which is up my alley!

4. Witch

This princess is the one I enjoy the most aesthetically. Im a sucker for both witches and cats, what can I say? The allusion to the fable The Scorpion and the Frog really tickles me, and ultimately, whatever decisions made in this chapter are some form of hilarious. Whether we’re both dying on the floor with broken backs or handing a blade to someone who immediately stabs you, its great. I do enjoy the progression into the Thorn chapter, especially with the immediate regret from the Witch and the following reconciliation in Thorn’s chapter, but Thorn is not as funny and aesthetically pleasing as Witch princess for me, which is why she is not here, haha.

Her “Thoughts on this vessel?” section adds a lot of depth to her, since the way the Witch presents herself is very superficial and guarded. Particularly the statement about the Witch making for a “righteous” heart, in combination with her ability to just slip out of her chains. She couldve freed herself at any time, but chose to stay and confront you. Which I feel speaks to the bitterness aspect, as the Witch feels its only “right” to pursue an answer to her pain–whether it be the player’s penance or punishment. The game’s thoughts on bitterness are made even more poignant when you realize the Witch’s ends are either death (hers and/or yours) or a transformation into another state.

5. Tower

This route is just incredibly cool in how she takes over the narrator and the little divergences of the narration’s phrasing to be in her perspective in the voiceover. The progression into that route was amusing for me to think about because I think the shift of perspective that transforms the princess boils down to either “the princess had the might of a god to have defeated you,” “your sudden stop during the fight was a blessing from god to the princess,” and/or “your sudden stop was because your recognized the value of the princess’s life as larger than your own (‘larger than life,’ referring to her bigger form as the Tower and godhood itself).” The Tower calling you disappointing is funny, but what also sticks out is how she said she wanted company before turning into the Tower. Even as the Tower with the ability to just free herself, she chose to wait for you because thats what she wanted, and I think that plays on the relational idea of “What is a god without a believer?” since she’s willing to have the player as a priest or pet, lol.

How this route differs from the Adversary route is interesting, as the Tower is indeed also an overwhelming presence whose decisions matter more than yours not because her single minded relentless pursuit of it but because of the power to overwrite yours. Its a twist on the player’s and princess’s roles until now, but instead of making them equal like in the Adversary, the roles were reversed on who decides and who is forcefully changed as a result of that decision. Of course, you cant take the ability to choose from us, as a player completely, but its about the best you can do, I imagine. And not to mention the “defiling” aspect when you slay the Tower, dragging her down from godhood to an equal (humanity?) or perhaps her original state of someone who responds to your decision as usual… I think this route connects deeply to the meta aspect of Slay the Princess, since this state is where the princess is closest to the “concept of change” and the concept of their true self as a god. It makes the “thoughts on this vessel?” section very poignant because change in itself is indeed a constantly dominant, terrifying, and arguably divine force in its inevitability.

Honorable Mention to...the Damsel!

I really like the deconstruction of her concept, but that also means I feel that liking her is completely counterintuitive to that very deconstruction, lol. Her route is very straightforward in what it does, but it kind of has to be. Meaning it does what it set out to do very well.

This took a bit and is so much more than you asked for, so thank you for your patience and acceptance. Im just bonkers and bananas, so if I have it partially done, I might as well go all the way instead of going in depth on only one, lol. It was a fun exercise in pondering deeper about the princesses and dipping my toes in the ~meta~, but I will also readily say that Im not at all nearly deep enough into Slay the Princess as a whole to be confident on my takes, so this may have just been a session of Talking Out Of My Booty. Nonetheless, I hope this was enjoyable and thank you for prompting me to think about it! The order of the princesses changed throughout this answer, and it may be fun to guess what order they were written in, lol. Id love to hear about your fave/faves if youre interested in sharing as well~! And please, have a lovely day too!!! c:

#a wild ask appeared!#thanks and also Im so sorry adnbladkj #but also maybe not and youre welcome??? I dunno boss #a showcase of how theres tons of thoughts up there theyre just in a dam constantly threatening to spill out and it either manages to stay #there forever or is a FLOODDDDD- anyways #slay the princess #I guess. in case anyone would find this an enjoyable read- gotta think on the game a ton more but bandwidth mayhaps Ill get there someday #*shrugs* I still gotta get into my cha*ns*w m*n thoughts... <- so I dont spam/mistag lol

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alltrap · 9 months ago

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Hazbin Hotel Song Tierlist

Ranking Explanations-

S Tier (my favorite songs)-

Loser Baby: Do I have to explain myself?

Hell’s Greatest Dad: What’s better than watching 2 prideful ass men fighting? Nothing.

A Tier-

Stayed Gone: Love this song so much. Debated on putting it in S tier but I’ve been replaying those songs more than I have this one.

B Tier (Songs I like but I’m picky)-

Respectless: At first I didn’t like it but it kinda grew on me. I don’t like Velvet since she’s kinda dumb but she absolutely ate during this scene.

It Starts With Sorry: Super sweet and I really liked it. Not in my playlist but I wouldn’t mind listening to it.

Hell is Forever: It’s fine. I love rock so this song could’ve gotten into A tier but most of it is pretty mid. Even though I know Adam is supposed to be an asshole he just makes the song annoying. I only really like the last part of the song. Plus most of my other complaints aren’t really about the song, mostly writing of the actual show and Adam’s design. Adam’s design sucks.

C Tier (Mid songs that I would only sit through when watching the show):

Poison: Don’t get me wrong, I love Angel Dust and his story but I feel like this is such a bad song to convey his feelings through. It’s like it’s trying to be a catchy pop song but also trying to convey abuse and deep feelings and it just falls flat. Some of the lyrics just get on my nerves because of how much they’re repeated. “Yeah” doesn’t even feel like a word anymore after this song. Reminds me of Cotton Candy from Helluva Boss. It would be a good song if the words “cotton candy” weren’t 90% of it. But like I say with most music, everybody is subjected to their own music taste and it’s cool if you like this and I don’t. I just wouldn’t listen to this unless I was rewatching the show.

Happy Day In Hell- Again, this song is fine. There’s a few seconds where I kinda vibe but most of it where I don’t. It’s a mid tier song.

More than Anything- It was cute and all seeing Lucifer be there for Charlie but it felt a little rushed. Plus it didn’t really stick out to me. If I listened to it again maybe it could grow on me but for now it’s mid tier.

You Didn’t Know: Like I said with More than Anything, it didn’t really stick out. I liked the Seraphim taking Charlie’s side and stuff but it didn’t really do anything. They were trying to protest and stuff but the song kinda felt useless after Sera made her final decision. Still mid.

D Tier (Songs I literally forgot about):

Whatever It Takes: No joke, forgot about this song only a week after I watch the episode. That’s how bad this song was. I didn’t like the pacing in the song. Charlie and Vaggie’s conflict felt rushed too so Vaggie’s part felt unnecessary. Plus, we still barely know anything about Carmilla except she makes weapons and she loves her family so this song really falls through. I think the show’s writing sabotaged this song but I don’t want to get into that.

Welcome to Heaven: 😐. My face during this song. Such a bad song. I guarantee to you that I’ll forget about this next week. I also just don’t like most of the designs from heaven. They look so tacky and rushed. I literally let out a disappointed sigh when I saw the seraphim. Most of my gripes about this is mostly just the character design. I know Viv put thought into some of the demons but the angels have me dead.

Here’s me ranting again about the show that doesn’t have anything to do with the songs. I just have so much stuff I want to rant about this show, some of it good and the rest bad. But that’s my tier-list so far.

#hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin alastor #hot take #loser baby #lucifer #charlie morningstar #vaggie #angel dust #huskerdust #hazbin hotel husk #vivziepop #helluva boss #carmilla #nifty hazbin hotel #nifty #personal rant #rant #yapping

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athetos · 7 months ago

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I loved this video about the game design of Metroid Dread, and I want to add my own thoughts. Essentially, he explains how Metroid Dread is more of a guided experience than most other Metroid games; most of the abilities you acquire have uses only a room or two over, the teleporter rooms are conveniently placed, the game uses “breadcrumbs” to lead you to the next upgrade, and often you will find yourself blocked off from other areas, preventing you from backtracking until you find the next ability. All together, these make it difficult for the player to get lost, making it very accessible for new fans of the genre, or people who prefer the atmosphere and combat of the games over the exploration element.

While I do love the atmosphere of Metroid games - something I’ve talked about quite a bit - my favorite part of the games is the exploration, and this railroading led to my only frustrations with the game. There were many times I wanted to backtrack, to either test my newly acquired skills to get a shiny missile expansion I saw, or just look for an alternate route to the next area, only to be told no. This isn’t a rarity in Metroid games - as the video mentions, this happened all the way back in Super Metroid - but never to the frequency that’s on display here. Still, this didn’t stop me from not exploring when I was given the chance - I would go out of my way to deliberately avoid progressing the plot to backtrack for a precious energy tank.

Personally, I think something more akin to the hint system in Metroid Prime would have been a better fit. It was completely optional, and it pointed you in the right direction but never told you exactly what to do. It would highlight a room and give a brief description of it - like “increased hive activity” or “gravity abnormalities” - which was enough to give you an idea of what you would find there. Plus, if it was a room you haven’t found yet on your map, it wouldn’t tell you how to get there. You had to figure out the route there yourself, so it gave you a ball park of which rooms to check every nook and cranny of for another entrance.

Regardless, Metroid Dread is still one of my favorite games, and I think the incredible gameplay really makes up for these issues. The EMMI sections are more tense than the SA-X scenes in Fusion, and honestly, I’d rank them as the crowning moments of fear in the series, right up there with fleeing the space pirates lab in Metroid Prime in total darkness upon finding the thermal visor. The boss fights shred, Samus’s animation is excellent, they did her character justice, and the map as a whole is a thrill to explore. I’m sure this decision was made to make the game more accessible to newer players, which isn’t a bad thing by any means, but it also alienated some of the more hardcore fans (of which Metroid has many).

#Metroid #Metroid dread #metroidvania

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thriplerex · 16 days ago

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Hermit Craft Rising AU: Grant "Glen" Collins

“You see, I’ve got this weird brain condition called stupidity…”

With more than a few screws loose, this British biologist turned mercenary sows chaos wherever he goes. One of the founders of Architech Worldwide with Oliver Bancroft and Iyod Samuelsson, rumors are that an unfortunate accident involving an industrial potato sorting machine (the details of which are unspecified, but rumors persist he pushed a button he shouldn’t have) made him a double amputee from the thighs down. Other rumors suggest he underwent the operation to become a cyborg voluntarily. Either way, he used the company’s funds to provide himself with lightweight cyborg legs with localized electromagnetic field generators, enabling him to disconnect them at will and control them independently of his body with great finesse, augmenting his already quick reflexes to superhuman levels. (His arms, though, remain entirely organic.)

This local control of electromagnetism actually extends to being able to manipulate and levitate objects around him, both nonmagnetic and magnetic, although it puts a massive drain on his energy reserves if he manipulates anything other than his body and darts. A winged propulsion pack he wears on his torso allows his main body a high degree of maneuverability equivalent to that of his limbs, making him a menace in the air.

Seemingly unhinged, thrill-seeking and what some might call a gremlin, Grant never turns down an opportunity to show off his flying and combat prowess. He often rushes in without taking time to ponder things, but beneath that adrenaline rush is a sharp, decisive, and calculatingly clever wit - it's very difficult to catch this adaptable Terraformer off guard, for he quite literally thinks on the fly (and in flight.) He arguably would also be the most likable of them - that is, if he wasn't working for the wrong side and if his priorities were better placed. His code name originates from a fault line in northern Scotland.

Age: 36 Hometown: Bexley, UK Signature weapon: A set of (at least) ten “Parakeet” iridescent spearhead-shaped “darts” that are magento-telekinetically controlled. The overall shape is that of a throwing dart, but the tip somewhat resembles a bird’s beak. The tail, however, is notched like that of an arrow and has tiny wings resembling that of a scarlet macaw’s. Made of an extremely dense, unspecified material - CCSC suspects it to be a kind of tungsten carbide or depleted uranium core. At the speeds at which he wields them, they can easily pierce lightly-armored vehicles and are quite the anti-personnel deterrent.

Everyone's favorite button-pusher, Grian! For his design, I decided to hone in more on the magnetokinetic powers of his MGRR counterpart and blend them with those of MCU Falcon, while maintaining a bit of Monsoon's ability to split his body up. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the different take on the bird motifs Grian is frequently drawn with. Again, like with many other characters in Hermit Craft Rising, due to the rather heavy nature of the source material (especially whatnot with Monsoon's sociopathic and pessimistic tendencies,) personality-wise this character substitution is very far removed from their MGRR counterpart.

Theme: V.S. Grant "Glen" Collins (The Stains of Time - Instrumental)

youtube

Hermit Craft Rising AU Masterpost

Art by Winter

#hermitcraft #hermit craft rising #grian #grian fanart #hermitblr #Youtube

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meowthefluffy · 1 year ago

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An update on my unfinished au’s!

I have over the last few months fallen deeply out of love with the Sanders Sides series and as a result I have not updated any of my projects in some time. At the current point I am at I am only planning to do the final two installments in the cupid au (because I pretty much lost my affection for the ts series right before the big finale of the project!!) and the lust Roman au (as it is my longest running work to date and I want to comple the project as a show of dedication to my younger self) although it will most likely be on a much quicker time scale than I was intending originally! (Instead of the 11 more parts I was hoping to produce it will probably be closer to 5 and I will most likely skip a few parts of the story that weren’t as important)

I feel a lot of affection for the work I have created but not a lot for the actual series so I’m trying to find a way to rework the stories I’ve created for the au’s to become independent creations that I will enjoy continuing to make! (Aside from the Lust au which I feel is mostly a story I don’t feel the need to come back to/rework since it relies so heavily on the source material) Most of my au’s function as stories mostly separate from canon material except for the characters archetypes present in each, so I’ll be working on retooling/reskinning said work to be more original and workable as long term projects! (Since u guys were really invest in my plots which had almost nothing to do with the canon characterization)

I’m currently working on retooling the Zombie au (Which I used as heavy inspiration for my oc Sophia I sometimes post about and her girlfriend) the Cupid au (I’m putting together more creative designs for the characters so that I can hopefully redo the comic- since I’m super in love with the concept) The sleeping beauty au (since it functions entirely the same as a stand alone story- and I could use the designs of my princess characters from that comic I made a long time ago for Valentine’s Day ) and the Super hero au! (Which I never properly defined and thus have a lot of incomplete ideas for, and my only struggle is coming up with better super hero names for them)

The only one of my main au’s I probably won’t rework is the Evil king au- just because I’m not sure how I could retool it to not just be a story about abuse(I feel more comfortable creating a story where everything is horrible and bad and the people involved are just bad for eachother when it’s an au- because there is other work of those characters where they aren’t that way to balance it out- but if it were my own new characters I feel as though it wouldn’t be nearly as fun to read or write)

This is a series of decisions I’ve been trying to wait on for a long time because I have been hoping something sanders Sides related would come out soon that would re spark my interest but nothing so far has happened- and with the way the story is going I don’t think it’s something that is going to happen. I still love all the work I have created for this fandom and I am so proud of all the collaborative projects I have been able to create with you all! I will happily re-read your asks and comments on my comics and I am still really proud of the community I’ve been able to create!

I’m sad to let this part of my life go (it’s taken up a solid 4th of my lifetime) and I understand that a lot of you all won’t follow me to my new projects- because I understand you guys didn’t come here for random oc projects- or original comics. And Altho it breaks my heart to see some of you move on and leave my notifications I am happy I the time with you all that I did!

Thank you all for everything- and I’ll see you soon 💖

#Im going to use the Prinxiety tags so that more people will see this post- since I am one of the bigger Prinxiety centric creators)#prinxiety #ts roman #tsvirgil #virgil sanders #cupid! au #sanders sides #roman sanders

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wits-writing · 1 year ago

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“A Wonderful Experience”: Why Transformers: EarthSpark and Nightshade Matter

I’ve been a Transformers fan to one degree or another for as long as I can remember. Whether it’s early memories of watching Beast Wars, renting the G1 animated film on VHS from Blockbuster, or reading the numerous excellent comics that have come over the years, I’ve always found something to love about this franchise. So, I was probably going to find time to check out the 2022 CGI animated series Transformers: EarthSpark eventually no matter what. But one little bird changed that from an “I’ll get around to it eventually” to “I need to make watching this show a priority.”

A little bird by the name of Nightshade (voiced by Z Infante)!

I’d already heard from people I trust about EarthSpark’s quality as a series, but finding out about the franchise’s first prominent, explicitly nonbinary Transformer got me eager to dive in. I’ve discussed characters I relate to and read nonbinary themes into in the past, but getting a chance to see a show in a franchise I love feature that kind of representation with intent was exciting. Given the fact I’ve written 3000 words analyzing the character of Nightshade now, it’s easy to say I wasn’t disappointed!

The topic of gender and how it relates to the Transformers as characters has been one of many long, exhausting fandom debates over the franchise’s nearly four decade history. I’m not here to relitigate any of that, so take it as read from here on out that the Transformers as characters do have and express gendered identities throughout the history of all its incarnations.

To give a quick primer on EarthSpark as a whole (and why it’s great) before digging into Nightshade’s character in specific:

The series is set fifteen years after the end of the Autobot/Decepticon War. The bots that managed to survive the fighting and remain on Earth are presumed to be the last of their species. All of them are stuck in a holding pattern where the only options currently viable are a life in hiding or working alongside the government-funded alien threat detection/response agency GHOST. Optimus Prime and Megatron head up the latter efforts, in the hope of finding some peaceful balance between humans and Transformers going into the future (though neither of them are fully at ease with the situation, as GHOST clearly has ulterior motives of their own.)

The grim outlook for the Cybertronians takes a turn for the better with the birth of two new Transformers. The Earth-sparks of the show’s title (called “Terrans” throughout the series), Twitch and Thrash, who are bonded to the human children Robby and Mo Malto. Helped by Optimus, Megatron, and the Malto kids’ parents, GHOST agent Dot and her husband Alex, the decision is made to keep the Terrans a secret until the extent of what their existence could mean for the Transformers future as a species is fully understood. The Terrans become an official part of the Malto Family (lovingly referred to as “Malto-bots” by the other characters.) At the halfway point of the first season, in the episode “Age of Evolution”, this unconventional family unit expands further with the birth of three more Terrans, including Nightshade.

Between puzzling out the Terrans’ existence, hiding from GHOST, and fighting threats like the human mad scientist Mandroid, there’s a lot of thematic meat on the bone of this series’ setup. The main one I’m interested in digging into through the lens of Nightshade’s characterization is how the Terrans are written to feel like kids figuring out who they want to be as they grow up. Transformers has a history of designating one or more bots in its series central casts as the rookie/kid character, not insignificantly the Terrans’ primary mentor, Bumblebee, has been traditionally positioned as that very rookie. EarthSpark adding the narrative weight of representing a potential for all Transformers, particularly in how they’ll relate to humans while living on Earth, onto these characters gives more meaning to them being under that role.

The Terrans learn lessons about who they want to be and who they can/can’t trust (not always determined by old alliances like Autobot/Decepticon) from the older Transformers and humans alike. Also proving through their actions everything new they’ll have to offer the world they call home through the gift of their existence. Each Terran has been given the appropriate space so far to have their characters develop, each in their own directions, through this theme.

Nightshade is exemplary of this, best understood through looking at how they’re characterized before/after their first focus episode “Missed Connection”, about them forming a bond with Decepticon scientist Tarantulas.

[SPOILERS for EarthSpark beyond this point]

Before “Missed Connection”

Something that genuinely impressed me going back through EarthSpark for the sake of writing this piece is how immediately Nightshade is fully themself from their earliest bits of screentime in “Age of Evolution.” While the other two members of the second batch of Terran Transformers, Hashtag and Jawbreaker, have their names confirmed upon them by their connection to Robby and Mo, Nightshade actively introduces themself with a bow and a flourish (“It is a delight and a surprise to meet you all!”) This beat quickly establishes their self-assuredness in their identity and that, while they’re later shown to have occasional introverted tendencies, they are anything but shy. I’m also fond of how the scene establishing their pronouns as Optimus lays out their plan of attack also foreshadows their eventual alt-mode, since they ask to be represented by an owl-bobblehead during the planning. The one scene serving as a contrast to their outgoing demeanor, as they recoil at the sight of Mandroid’s cruelty, gives the first hint towards their eventual desire to protect those in need.

There’s only two episodes between Nightshade’s debut in “Age of Evolution” and their first focus episode; “Hashtag: Oops” and “Outtakes.” Since neither is their focus episode, there’s not much to say about how they’re portrayed in either one (in fact, Nightshade’s entirely absent from “Outtakes” as anything but a brief visual cameo.) “Hashtag: Oops” does still manage to establish some key parts of Nightshade’s personality. Firstly, their comfort in themselves as they proclaim they don’t need an alt-mode (“I like who I am as I am.”) Secondly, their inclination towards tech and engineering as they secretly build a new underground base to surprise their family and give everyone more room to operate within. The latter also indicates their “better to ask forgiveness than permission” approach to their tinkering and scientific work. Which comes back around in a big way during “Missed Connection.”

Which finally brings us to the episode that’s the primary reason I’m writing this piece at all!

“Missed Connection”

Being Nightshade’s first proper focus episode in the series, their current state as part of the ensemble cast gets reestablished in short order. Namely, how they feel out of place around their siblings. Their affinity for science and technology leads to them making their own fun separate from the rest of the family. A pattern that gets highlighted by Nightshade working to perfect a new training drone while the rest of their siblings are playing a game of tag outdoors in celebration of Robby and Mo having the day off school. When later questioned by Alex and Dot about why they don’t spend more time with the rest of the family, Nightshade says it feels like their siblings treat them like they’re “speaking another language.”

This sense of isolation informs why Nightshade is so eager later in the episode when they find a connection with Tarantulas’ own work with tech. Simultaneously providing an opportunity for Alex to offer them something they can connect with while trying to figure out how to connect with others. Like any good nerdy dad, he does it through the magic of reading. He offers Nightshade a copy of his favorite book from when he was growing up, “Winged Sentinel”, an in-universe fantasy/sci-fi series they immediately connect with and find new aspirations. Which we hear as they repeatedly call back to the books like about its hero “protecting those in need.” Their connection to this book quickly leads to the one they find working with Tarantulas, as they were in the local cemetery since it was the “last known address” of Winged Sentinel’s author.

(Quick aside: First time I watched this episode, that detail had me thinking the show was going to do a “Nightshade learns about mortality” type of story. I was relieved when not only did Nightshade grok what happened to the author pretty fast, but the episode in turn swiftly shifted to the dynamic between Tarantulas and them.)

“Missed Connection” finds its central theme in Nightshade and Tarantulas’ discussions on identity and finding one’s place within that world rife with conflict that can be directly hostile to those like them. There’s a recurrent motif in the dialogue of Tarantulas’ cynicism born from eons of experience and Nightshade’s youthful enthusiasm. Though cynicism is far from all the elder Transformer has to offer, as he also provides Nightshade with a new perspective on alt-modes they hadn’t considered and ultimately guides them to their choice.

Nightshade: Aren’t I sufficient as I am? Tarantulas: Alt-forms aren’t meant to complete you, as though you have a missing part, they further express who you already are.

Combining that with Tarantulas’ frustration at the “constrictive labels” of Autobot/Decepticon adds to the resonance this episode has with the nonbinary experience. The concept of “passing” gets explicitly evoked by him while discussing his plan to create a hard-light hologram projector so he can live freely as a human while evading GHOST’s forces. Which is the first proper disguise Tarantulas has taken in his life. While his giant spider alt-mode may provide plenty of utility, it’s anything but discreet.

His plan and attitude informing on it connects back to the broader central theme of EarthSpark as a series of the Transformers finding a new way to live on Earth among humanity with the Terrans representing the way forward. He can’t see a way forward besides hiding who he is and the only safety he can think to offer Nightshade is to join him in that life of discretion. His outlook’s best emphasized by his assuredness that the Autobot/Decepticon War resuming is inevitable, alongside that eventuality dragging him out of whatever peace he does find.

However, cracks in Tarantulas’ bleak worldview show as he begins to admire Nightshade’s exuberant demeanor and determination to be a protector. That admiration for a Transformer with the potential to live unburdened by all the hardships he’s seen leads to him delivering the best, most resonant line in the episode:

“It is a gift to know yourself so well, so young. Take pride in that.”

A beautiful sentiment aimed directly at members of EarthSpark’s target demographic on their own journeys to express their identities.

Unfortunately, the bond these characters have found can’t last. When Tarantulas recognizes Dot as an agent of GHOST, he acts rashly under the assumption that she’s holding Nightshade prisoner. He kidnaps Alex and her, planning to erase Nightshade from their memories so they can go into hiding with him. As a fight between the bots eventually breaks out, Nightshade commits to acting like the protector they aspire to be and chooses the alt-mode of a green armored owl, based on the hero of Winged Sentinel. (Alex’s proud declaration of “You read the book!” while witnessing this is great.) A form that isn’t a disguise but expresses themself as they are and what they want to be going forward.

Nightshade and Tarantulas’ conflict has grown intense enough by this point that the elder Transformer’s admiration for the young bot doesn’t come through in his reaction. Rather he flips it into an insult providing Nightshade their opportunity for a sharp, direct retort (and other best line in the episode):

Tarantulas: You’re still just the lost protoform I first met! Nightshade: You’ve just proven you don’t really know me, because I was never lost!

When the fight ends with Tarantulas’ hologram projector destroyed in the skirmish, Nightshade reflects on words Dot offered them earlier about how everyone deserves a second chance and convinces their family not to hurt Tarantulas any further. However, it seems to be a decision out of their hands as GHOST is drawn to their location by the fight. Tarantulas, finally understanding Nightshade’s situation as well as who they are, offers himself up as bait to lure GHOST away from the Maltos. Running off into the forest as Nightshade reflects on the broken hologram projector the two of them made.

Multiple rewatches of this episode, as well as the first season of EarthSpark as a whole, has reaffirmed it as my favorite episode of the show so far. The tight focus of the dynamic between Nightshade and Tarantulas, alongside the deeper meaning that can be taken from pretty much every exchange between the two, is exemplary of what makes this series standout wonderfully as part of the vast Transformers canon.

After “Missed Connection”

Since there’s not that much of the first season left after “Missed Connection”, Nightshade’s once again mostly off to the side doing their own thing. But there are small bits that show how their experiences in that episode have changed them. They actively spend more time around the rest of the Malto Family, like helping Bumblebee train for an upcoming race and showing that they’ve formed a bond built on mutual tech-obsession with their sister, Hashtag, as they work together to further upgrade the underground headquarters.

We also get a fun minor bit of their “better to ask forgiveness…” way of operating when they add some high tech bells and whistles to Dot’s prosthetic leg as a Mother’s Day present in the episode “Bear Necessities.” A plot point that later gives the show an opportunity for Dot and Nightshade to have a nice mother-child bonding moment as she explains to them why she liked her leg the way it was in terms they can understand (“something like this is personal”) while not completely shutting them down over it (“I’m open to some small changes, but they’ll have to be ones we come up with together.”)

Though the biggest moment post “Missed Connection” moment for the character, as well as my personal favorite single scene in EarthSpark so far, comes from their subplot in the season 1 two-parter episode “Home.” As the Malto kids and the Terrans go into Philadelphia to see more of the wider world, we get to see Nightshade continue acting as a protector for those in need as they save a young person named Sam from getting mugged in an alley. Nightshade notices a pin that says “SHE/THEY” on Sam’s handbag and tells her their pronouns in return. The two end up having a conversation about how the things that make them who they are can also make them targets for intolerantly minded people. This interaction ends with Sam affirming they feel safe around Nightshade and giving the young Transformer a simple but effective explanation of what being nonbinary means.

This not only gives Nightshade further context to understand themself, but also has the important touch from a metaperspective of having a human character be the one to explain the concept. An effective dodge of what’s frequently cited as a pitfall of using aliens/robots to explore these facets of human identity, making it as clear as possible for anyone watching (especially the target demographic of kids) that Nightshade’s nonbinary identity is in no way just a product of their being an alien robot. Rather, it's an identity that simply feels right for some people living in the world. One that people who identify with it and explore their connections to it can find immensely fulfilling.

Or, as Nightshade puts it at the end of this conversation:

“What a wonderful word, for a wonderful experience.”

(Before I dive into my conclusion, I want to say I deeply hope this isn’t the last we see of Sam in the series. Both for representation’s sake and because I like seeing the Terrans bond with humans outside of their immediate family circle.)

It would feel wrong to end this look at Nightshade’s character and how that reflects on the best qualities of EarthSpark as a series without giving proper credit to the creative voices involved in bringing them to life. Namely, writer Mae Catt (she/they) who wrote the episode “Missed Connection” and one of the three writers on “Home”, the other two being showrunners Nicole Dubuc and Dale Malinkowski. While fundamentally I believe anyone could write any kind of story, authenticity comes through stronger when writers from the same background are involved. Catt’s passion for writing this show comes through beautifully in these episodes and in how they’ve discussed the show on social media.

Her understanding for what these characters and stories can mean to the young people watching gets clearly reflected in recurrent elements of EarthSpark’s story. Aside from Nightshade’s admiration for the main character of the Winged Sentinel novels, we also see moments in other episodes of their siblings trying to figure out what being a Transformers means through in-universe Transformers comic books telling the story of the Autobot/Decepticon War.

It’s also what drove me to write this piece. I see Nightshade in all their creative, expressive glory and it makes me happy for the kids watching Transformers: EarthSpark, seeing them, and relating to them. Every story has the potential to be a guide someone out there can use to move closer to their heart. Nightshade’s being that guide to nonbinary kids now in a way I never could’ve dreamed of growing up is, simply put, wonderful.

Happy Pride! 💛🤍💜🖤

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

#transformers earthspark #transformers #nightshade #nightshade earthspark #Wit's Writing #tv review #nonbinary #lgbtqia #queer #nightshade malto #nightshade transformers #pride #happy pride

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