#No other Switch game has caused me these problems so far

[alynnl]

I was enthusiastic as the rest of y’all about Octopath Traveler II’s release this year, and I was looking forward to playing it.

However, I have a problem.  (Health related rant under the cut.)

When I played the demo not too long ago, both times I picked it up (only for an hour at a time, in a well-lit room, at daytime no less) I had terrible eye strain and a headache the next morning.  Because of this, I didn’t buy the full version.

Is anyone else experiencing eye strain and headaches from this game’s graphics?

Just wondering.

I am working on getting new glasses to see if that helps but I’m honestly not very hopeful at the moment.

[babysukiii]

fallingforyou (1)

lottie x fem!reader enemies to lovers au <3

// lottie matthew’s does not like you. you’re annoying, preppy, and way too nice. lottie doesn’t fail to show you time after time just how much she hates you. you finally get the message and steer clear of her, until senior year, when you both get paired up for a science project. //

i’ll never make it right (if you don’t want me ‘round)

you don’t really know why lottie matthews hates you, but she does. she has since freshman year, and up until senior year, nothing changes. lottie isn’t known for being a mean person… in fact, she’s actually very nice. but for some reason, she just hates you. you don’t really know what you did, or why she treats you like you’re absolute garbage… but she does. you aren’t really the type to beg or try to make someone like you, especially someone popular and rich like charlotte isobel matthews.

you’ve never really been popular at all. your best friend is natalie mary scatorccio, and you’re mostly friends with the ‘nerds’ and ‘dorks’. you’re even friends with a few theater kids. everyone at school knows who you are, but you aren’t really interested in your social status. in fact, sometimes in lottie’s opinion it was almost like you didn’t care at all. you walked around so carefree and unapologetically yourself… lottie for some reason hated that. she hated that while she had to take her meds, and act like someone she’s not; you get to be whoever the hell you want.

today though, everyone around lottie matthews was feeling her wrath. it wasn’t unusual for lottie to be catty, or snappy when someone deserved it, but today it seemed as if the yellowjackets sweeper was angry at everyone and everything. you were steering clear of her since this morning and natalie noticed the way you had been avoiding her as well. it wasn’t unlike you to try and avoid lottie; she was unnecessarily mean and always had a sardonic response to whatever you had to say, but you never avoided natalie.

“jesus christ, what the fuck is wrong with you today, matthews?” mari asks in frustration after falling right on her ass. lottie had just knocked her out of the way in order to get the ball during practice. mari was currently glaring up at lottie from the grass she had landed on. “get your head in the game, and maybe this wouldn’t be a problem.” lottie responds in a way that everyone recognizes. she’s clearly in a mood and it causes the girls to exchange looks of uncertainty. coach scott blows his whistle as soon as mari stands up.

“alright, that’s enough practice for today. everyone get changed and go home.” he dismisses the girls who all sigh in a bit of relief. as everyone begins to get off the field, tai makes her way up to natalie; jackie not too far behind. “hey, what’s wrong with lot?” tai asks in a whisper, as they all rush into the locker room. “she’s just being an ass because ms. weinstein paired her up with y/n for a chemistry project.” natalie says, and mari groans. “what does that have to do with us??” the raven haired girl complains.

“why can’t she just ask ms. weinstein for a new partner?” jackie asks and natalie smirks, “y/n already tried. i think that’s why lottie’s pissed.” natalie states, and jackie throws her head back and lets out a laugh. “oh wow, that’s a new one. y/n wanting to switch partners? she’s gonna get lottie an easy ‘A’ and lottie’s being a di—“ jackie cuts herself off as soon as lottie begins to walk up to them; a scowl etched onto her face. “you assholes do realize that my locker is right on the other side of yours right? i can hear everything.” the taller girl points out.

you used to always try to talk to her. you’d smile at her, and compliment her outfits. yet she’d always scowl at you or have a clear expression of annoyance, and say something harsh. she noticed you stopped smiling at her in the middle of junior year. this year, you’ve barely even spared her a glance. lottie didn’t even think you realized you were both in ms. weinstein’s class together, but apparently you did. “you’re not the only person who’s unhappy about who you got paired up with. it’s just a few weeks. try not to be such a cunt about it.” natalie says seriously, and lottie rolls her eyes in response.

“i can’t help it if she’s insufferable.” the taller girl mumbles under her breath, causing mari to shake her head and make a face. “she’s insufferable?” mari asks sarcastically as she finishes getting dressed. “i think y/n is nice. she let me copy off all her notes in trig last month.” shauna shrugs as she brushes her in the mirror inside of her locker. “yeah, she remembered my dog had surgery during the summer and she brought me a bag of treats for him when the year started.” akilah pipes up, causing lottie to scoff.

“okay, so she remembered a few things you said, and she let you cheat off her work. who cares? she’s still annoying.” lottie states before swinging her duffle bag over her shoulder and walking out. natalie shakes her head, slamming her locker shut. “i swear if she so much as makes y/n shed a single tear, i’m kicking her ass.” natalie says in a tone so serious, nobody dares question it. though, most of the girls knew how sensitive you were; everyone did. it was only a matter of time before lottie actually did hurt your feelings.

the next day at school, you and lottie have yet to discuss anything about the project. you two haven’t even decided on a topic, and you’ve never been unprepared for a school assignment before. but right now, your pride was too important to you. you didn’t want to be the bigger person and cordially talk to lottie. you’ve tried that; you’ve done nothing but try and be polite or nice. yet all of your efforts have been rewarded with rude comments or bratty behavior. so you were done trying.

“okay i want you all to get into your pairs and talk about the project you should’ve gotten started on yesterday.” ms. weinstein announces, causing you to nearly sink into your chair. you can feel a pair of dark eyes on you, and you look over in lottie’s direction to see her already staring at you. as if she’s waiting for you to make the first move. you internally sigh, realizing that you’re probably going to have to be the bigger person again.

finally, you get up and hesitantly make your way over to the empty seat beside lottie. “hi.” you greet her a bit quietly, and she nods, “hey.” she retorts in a low, uncaring manner. you take a breath, “maybe we could do a study of saponification reactions. it’s just an option, i honestly don’t care what topic we do.” you admit and she nods, thankfully not saying anything rude yet. “we can do that. i don’t care either.” her voice is curt and the answers are short. you nod slowly as you open your notebook to the next blank page, and label it.

lottie notices you use a blue color pen to label it, and then a black one to take actual notes with. you have a whole bunch of colored pens in different colors for your notes, and how prim and proper your writing was seemed to irk her too. then her eyes seem to dance up to your face; the way your brows creased together in slight concentration. your hair was a bit frizzy during this time of day because school was almost over, and lottie could smell your overwhelmingly girly perfume. it smells like vanilla.

“did you want to work on this at your place or mine?” you wonder out loud, the pen never leaving the paper. “yours.” lottie answers way too quickly, but thankfully you don’t say anything about it. you nod, “okay. here’s my address and the number to my landline in my room.” you say as you turn to a new page, and write your phone number and home address down. you tear the page out when your done, and hand it to lottie who says nothing as she takes it.

lottie pauses for a moment, thinking about how much she hates her house. she wonders if maybe you hate yours too. “we could work in the library if you don’t want to work at your place.” the noirette actually sounds considerate as she says this, and you look surprised for just a second, before offering this shy smile that she hadn’t seen directed at her for nearly a year and half now. “it’s okay! i don’t mind working at my place. my little sister practices the violin after school sometimes… but she’ll be quiet if i ask.” you assure her and lottie only nods in response.

“anything else you wanna warn me about?” she inquires a bit sarcastically, and you nod. “my older sister is kind of a bitch.” you say bluntly, taking lottie by surprise. she’s never once heard you curse. at all. you can’t help but laugh lightly at her reaction, “she’s not that bad though…” you trail off before the bell rings, and you immediately start putting your things into your backpack. “wait, when did you wanna start?” lottie questions, and you shrug. “whenever your free after school just come over.” you assure her and she furrows her brows as she stands up.

“but your debate club—” she starts and you cut her off, “i quit last month. i’ll see you later!” you rush out of the room before lottie can say another word. she huffs; this was going to be a horrid few weeks.

[levemetal]

I have a million and one svsss AU ideas that idk if I'll ever write cause I have 0 confidence in my untested writing skills. Any of these appeal to you?? Go ahead, use 'em. Know any fanfics like that? Please please PLEASE leave them in the comments. Ideas to add? Anything? Please go ahead I have no friends that are as deep in the svsss brainrot as me to subject this to ˚‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥᷄⌓˂̣̣̥᷅ )‧º·˚

Continued under the cut due to excessive rambling

These will be Ghost King/Calamity!SJ cause he has been living rentfree in my brain ever since one braincell at one AM shouted about it so you have been warned.

- Dual Ghost Kings YQY and SJ, Post canon of PIDW. That's it that's the idea. Their extras hurt my cold dead heart way too much and as much as bbygirl SJ is a piece of shit, Yue Qingyuan deserves happiness, and for that he needs his Xiao-Jiu. Basically YQY does not stay dead when Bingge turns him into a pincushion à la White No Face to Xie Lian except with arrows. What happens from here? Idk didn't get that far but I imagine he steals back his (probably dead) Xiao-Jiu, maybe does some other batshit insane shit like we all know that deep down he's capable of, and the duo fucking COMMUNICATES for once in their life and they live happily ever after. Bonus points for hilarious deaths for Bingge.

- If you're a filthy multishipper like me, want a BingJiu version of the above QiJiu? Easy, SJ decides to haunt Bingge's ass for eternity and vice versa when Bingge kicks the bucket and so they spent the rest of eternity trying to make each other miserable in increasingly ridiculous and creative ways. Maybe along the centuries they find a common enemy or sort their shit out and proceed to make their awful existence everyone else's problem. A match made in hell, truly <3

Are you seeing a theme yet. I like a general comedic air to svsss AUs, it just belongs to the svsss experience ya know? Anyway carrying on-

Shen twins, and SQH twins cause why not. If you want Binghe twins too, actually probably funnier with Binghe twins, where one is our beloved maiden Bingmei and the other OG!PIDW Bingge but forced back in time with memories of the PIDW timeline. Transmigrator SQH aka Airplane gets the peak lord + Mobei-Jun plotline while OG!SQH is just chilling as an An Ding Peak Hallmaster or something. Meanwhile, the Shen twins have a funny game of imposter going on. As far as everyone is concerned, there is only one Shen Qingqiu, Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan transmigrated in earlier into the novel, but ended up going to CQM with Yue Qi while SJ got stuck in the Qiu household as in canon. From here the details can change but the main idea is that

A) Shen Yuan knows how to do his peak lord job actually

B) SJ is a calamity ghost, having died either in his disciple years or alternatively never made it out of the Qiu household alive

C) Both SY and SJ have been playing switcheroo when SY needs to head out and do stuff or just wants SJ to do his paperwork for him.

I still need a good reason for the switching and duping, but wouldn't it be funny if the disciples just had to deal with their peak lord behaving WILDLY different at times. Most of the time it's good ol' Shen Yuan smiling at disciples, way too enthusiastic for monsters and plants and keeps forgetting his fans everywhere. Then one random week in the month after he has a resting bitch face, scowls, snarls and bitches at anyone and has 0 patience for teenage attempts at music.

Most shrug it off as just terrible migraine weeks, but some disciples are suspicious, most of all Bingge who is CONVINCED something is WrongTM. Like, he KNOWS SQQ and this SQQ is just so different, something must be different. He doesn't know how right he is yet everyone just thinks he's actually insane.

I know this is probably increasingly insane and dumb, but fast forward to the Abyss opening. SJ was probably there to keep an eye on his clumsy twin, but SY ends up asking the ghost to look over the Luos, as the system still demands that they go to the abyss. So SJ after much grumbling agrees (after all he probably just was unmasked as ghost calamity, and the twins as demons, with a huge amount of cultivators moving their way. It's really the smaller hassle to jump into the Abyss and deal with the horrors there. Besides, the scholar in SJ would be curious about the abyss (and SY too let's be honest) ), kicks both in and goes "Alright we're taking an impromptu field trip" and jumps in after leaving SY to deal with the political mess that comes after.

Anyway, the last AU can be changed in various ways, like make it a PIDW time travel fix it with only the OGs around, or just Shen twins, etc. Feel free to shout at me how dumb this all is.

[homestuckreplay]

Turning Lead Into Gold Into A Rocket Pack

(page 615-626)

9/9/2009 Wheel Spin: Character Switch Verdict: John Turns Into Problem Sleuth

9/10/2009 Wheel Spin: Parent Bad :( Verdict: Parent Kidnapped By Imps :( :( :(

There’s a fucking ROCKET PACK in this game. A blasting off, cool flame decals, doing loops around the moon rocket pack. This is an absolute game changer (if Rose and John can get it working) cause it’s kinda hard to be stuck at home when you have one of those bad boys.

But before that, John makes a sweet fort! It’s pretty good structurally, and mirrors Dave making a fort nine pages earlier (less good, but in fairness, he didn’t have sheets or dowels to work with). I remember that characters making forts and disappearing into their imaginations was a recurring feature in Problem Sleuth. It’s sweet that John and Dave are doing this at almost the same moment without consulting each other, both sharing a similar childlike whimsy while so far apart.

Not so for Rose Lalonde, who has abandoned all silliness and fun that allowed her to wear a W as a mustache, who destroys John’s fort and throws his whole dresser into the void. How’s he gonna get clean socks now?? I get that she’s in a scary situation and is trying to take control any way she can, but this disregard for John’s few possessions has gotta stop. I noticed recently that his magic chest is STILL on the roof. And it’s not like his situation is much better than hers – I say that if John wants to take a moment to enjoy a fort break, he’s earned it.

Following the fort interlude, John carves totems from a bunch of cruxite dowels. The different shapes of the totems are really fun to look at, and remind me a lot of vinyl records, with their various bumps and notches etched into the record’s groove that then turn into music when a needle (or in the alchemiter’s case, a laser) moves over it. It’s also notable that the totem that eventually becomes the rocket pack has the most mass removed from it, possibly because it has to code for four items instead of just one.

And with that, we FINALLY get started on punch card alchemy! It’s real, Rose was right when she hypothesized this back on p.157 (!!) and the possibilities are insane. The process functions very similarly to the apple from the pre-punched card – use the card on the totem lathe to carve a cruxite dowel unique to that punch code, then use the alchemiter to ‘read’ the totem with its laser and spend the required grist to create the corresponding item. When the holes are punched into a card containing the corresponding item, this object immediately shows up in the Atheneum (p.189, 620) – which is a benefit of punching the ‘right’ card, as even though you lose the original item, you get the cost information up front. When punching a card with a code for something it doesn’t contain, it’s entered as a question mark, and the grist needs to be expended to see the item.

One difference to the pre-punched card is that these codes/totems only contain the item itself, not its precursor. The apple grew from a tree with us seeing its whole creation, suggesting that the pre-punched card had extra information in its code, for an apple + tree combination. Speaking of which, I wonder if John still has the pre-punched card’s totem. It doesn’t appear in the Atheneum, so I wonder what would happen if he tried to use it again.

Rose creates a bunch of new captchalogue cards, ending the reign of the two-card sylladex (inventory of dumbasses) and pioneering the brand new two hundred card syladex (inventory of a different kind of dumbass if you’re using stack or queue). She makes a hammer and then a bouncing Slimer pogo ride, and as soon as the pogo appears, a couple imps jump up to the platform and one bounces off with it. I love this moment. The imps’ sense of harlequin mischief simply cannot be overcome.

Back to the most important thing here, the ROCKET PACK. It’s sadly inoperable, due to containing a violin (something we’ve seen in Rose’s room), a cinderblock (something that’s all over Dave’s house) and a flowerpot (something that fits pretty neatly with gardenGnostic’s chumhandle). So, a new theory: Sburb has somehow pre-indexed the houses of people who will play the game. Beta testers had to provide an address to send the discs to, so Skaianet knows which houses might play. GG has been signed up as a beta tester without their knowledge, either by a family member, or possibly by Rose.

In Sburb, the base items that can be created via alchemy are limited to 1. all items contained within players’ homes, and 2. Sburb-critical items pre-programmed by the game that will prove necessary for gameplay. These include the pre-punched card and the rocket pack – given John’s precarious location, it makes sense that flying would be a game mechanic. These Sburb-critical items probably have pre-punched cards of their own as unlockable rewards, or their codes can be learned from solving in-game puzzles.

We've only seen a few captchalogue codes so far, but they've all been alphanumeric, allowing both upper and lower case letters. While it's possible that future codes could include special characters or even wild card characters, the total number of 8-digit codes (from a set of 62 characters, order matters, characters can repeat) is over 218 trillion - specifically, 218,340,105,584,896. That's a LOT of possibilities.

From the base items, codes can be mixed in various combinations. This is where the creative aspect comes in. Some of these will be useless – like the rocket pack jammed with unrelated debris – but some will improve on their components and make something really cool. For example, John could combine a hammer with a piano and make a beautiful blunt weapon that plays Showtime whenever it bonks an imp on the head. That’s the dream.

[rheiple]

Tea Party in Hell

OneShot

▪︎SUMMARY↦ To think that the tasked that you've been handled would be the cause of meeting your one and only source of nightmare fuel.

▪︎WARNING/s↦ Cussing, Not proofread (I just made this like a min ago)

▪︎CHARACTER/s↦ Eclipse, Reader

▪︎WORD COUNT↦2252 [Minus the dots for the timeskips]

▪︎AUTHOR'S NOTE↦ I have not poster for 5 months☠ uhmm hi again, it's been so long since i have posted, I missed writing fanfics so much 😭 But! School is almost over and I can finally have a 2 months break to focus on my hobbies!! I hope you all take this apology gift for me being dead in 5 months 😭😭 (If I'm being honest idk if I should be embarrassed at the fact that this fic is way longer than all of my 4 essays combined 🕴)

You never really thought of how... unique the Daycare Attendant's room is.

Upon opening the secret door that led you to your robotic friend's room, you scanned everything inside. From the hanged up drawings of the little kids, to the disturbingly looking broken staff bots lying on the corner, it didn't help that with their damaged head it looks like they're all at you.

It really surprised you. That because of their obsession with keeping everything clean and perfect, you assumed that their room would be neat.

Well... everyone has problems you guessed, maybe they're too busy with their job to clean up their room. Poor them, overworking theirselves to shut down. Maybe in another time you'll offer to help them clean their room.

You went inside the tube to access the other side of the room. You see something big that's covered with a dusty blanket. You assumed that it's the arcade machine that the staff decided to keep in there... The confusion on how they got that thing in is giving you a headache, and what pains you more is that you have to get that out when you have fixed it.

You huffed at the thought, why do they need this arcade machine anyways? There are plenty of unused gaming machine at the lowest floor, and they're still working pretty well! What's with all the hype on this one?

Taking off the dirty blanket, you see that the arcade machine looks new... It's already powered on, does Sun and Moon play this game?

You examined it closely, searching for a coin in your pocket. You'll just play the game to see if it's working, if it does then you'll bring it outside and clean it up, easy as pie.

But out of the blue, The name of the game appears on the pixelated screen. It's jolly tune of amusic made you immediately jumped out of surprise.

"What the hell? Is this game haunted or what?" You narrowed your eyes suspiciously at the screen. Do they really think that you're a exorcist and not a staff? You really should thought of this through before signing up for this under paying shit of a job.

Hesitantly in doing so, you grabbed the joystick and pressed on a random button to start the game.

So far it went ok, the game is working well, the sky switches from day to night. Everything is going smoothly wait what the fuck did the game glitched did the sky turned red??

You blinked your eyes, but it turned normal as if it the wasn't even real.

Hell no, you stopped playing and turned around. You know you're going to get paid less, and that's fine because you'd rather live than experience some 3 a.m. scary story creepypasta kind of shit.

You flinched at the sudden ear rape sound that the arcade machine emits. Looking back you noticed that the machine is shaking. Black fingertips slowly emerged from the glitched screen.

You didn't have to think two seconds to try and dart through the tube to get out of that room.

And try as you might, but the moment took a step back the said black hands chased after you. They took a hold of your feet and arms, dragging you slowly, inside the haunted machine.

"Let me go! Assholes!" You twist and turn, kicked your legs and punched one of the hands and yet all of your efforts were in vain.

You're eyes darts around to look for anything that could stop them from pulling you inside, you took blocks and hit them with it. You hold on to the big blocks, or anything that that's heavy to not get pulled.

"No! no no nononono!"  You frantically kicked on the machine, lowered your whole body down all to not get close to the screen. You think it worked, for a minute.

Your face drained of color when you see two robotic pair of chance come out. They grabbed on to your waist.

"...Fuck."

You got pulled into the machine.

.

.

.

You sharply gasped at the sudden jolt through your body. It's so loud, you can't focus. You're sweating real bad. You inspect everything around you.

Breathing heavily a few times, you calmed down a bit. And it helps to make you more aware of your surroundings. The loud sound suddenly going lower and slower.

You realized now that the sound you heard earlier was your own heartbeat.

To say that you're going mad is the right word. The place your in looks like an imitation of hell. Bloodshot red of the sky, those black clouds that are thinly outlined with a bright orange. You noticed that that you aren't laying down on a floor, but rather floating, yet not a cloud, just floating.

You look up at the sky and see-...

Your breath hitched upon making eye contact with the culprit who you think is the reason that you're in this hellhole.

"Is that... a god?"

It's face like the Sun you know, but the colors are very dark and, if you look hard enough you could see the inside of the mouth is glowing with a bright yellow.

The creature went down to you, you saw how it's body is just a big black of glob. It took all of your face muscles to not grimace at the sight of it, you didn't wanna die because of offending it in anyway.

The robotic glitched face tilt it's head looking at you.

You gulped at the staring, and decided to greet him quietly.

"...Hi"

You were grabbed by the wrist.

In one quick motion, it lead you up in the sky, abose the clouds when you look down you don't see anything other than the color of the sky.

You screamed and cried, you didn't do anything to deserve this! Sure you might've said something mean to someone but that wasn't intentional! That was the most you could have done at being bad!

You curled yourself into a ball, if you're going to die you hope they make it quick, you want all of this to end. You can just live peacefully in your second life, no more pain, no more scary robots, no more demonic eldritch being wanting to kill you.

You feel them stop and let them go of your hand. You wiped your eyes to clear your vision. You look around to see everything dark, you know you're in some kind of void, but there's alot of stuff hanging around above you.

You look at the monster in confusion. "W... What's all those?" 'Are you going to kill me with all those items?'

It didn't respond, opted to only look at you.

This suddenly irked you. All this silence is about to  you hysterical. What's his problem? Does he want to see you suffer? He's already done it, why can't he just kill you now?!

You noticed a shadow looming over you, looking up you see a... Kiddies table coming down between you.

The creature backed away to give the table some space.

Your gaze went back up at the stuff above you, to see two cups and a glass teapot filled with... tea? Or coffee? Either way you're not going to drink that.

It landed on the table, each cup is at the end, with the teapot at the middle.

You eyed the creature, it doing it's  head tilt again. "I'm not gonna drink that." You said whilst your crossing your arms.

The teapot floats up again and pours the content at your cup, doing the same at the other. The delicate object went back to it's position.

... Right, an indirect way of telling that you didn't have a choice to begin with. You clicked your tongue in annoyance. Glaring at the monster, asked why you're here.

A minute of silence, and then it finally replied back. "ₒₗd... fᵣᵢₑₙd.." The creature whispered.

"Uh, what??" You couldn't help you're harsh tone. Out of all the things it could've said, it said something so... Weird. As if all of this isn't.

"Old friend who?"

The monster points at you.

Wow. Ok, this is so confusing and stressful. You know that you haven't met it before, so it's highly likely that it must've mistaken you for someone else.

As if reading reading your thoughts- well, at this point it probably is, you're not surprised at anything what it does at this point. The creature called you with your own name.

"Y/ₙ.. ₒₗd f₋fᵣᵢₑₙ-d.."  

You cringed at the sound of it calling you by your name. You look down at your uniform to not see your nametag. It knows your name.

Shoulders are tense, you're back is straight. You kept your guard up incase of anything bad will happen. "Get straight to the point, what do you want from me?"

The monster, let's out a glitched and low sound of a motorboat. What the hell is it doing? Putting a curse on you? You should've brought something holy to smack that with it.

"ₘᵢₛₛₛₛₛ,, y₋ₒᵤ₋ᵤ.."

You're not deaf, you are sure that this mother fucker just hissed at you.

You backed away for a bit, and raised up your hands when it tried to inch closer. 

"Oi! Back the fuck up!" You semi- yelled at the Eldritch as a warning... When you think about it, what is there to warn it about? It could've killed you if it wanted to. Compared to it, you're just a human being with no powers what so ever.

But to your surprise and relief, the creature backed away. Although you think it's because it's of the darkness, you shrugged off the thought of the creature lowering it's head because it was sad of what you did.

Good, he deserved it for scaring you and taking you away.

Now that everything is calmed down, you repeated your question once again.

"...ₕₑₗₚ₋ₚ ₘ₋ₑₑ.."

"Help you? With what?"

"Fᵢₙd...ₘₑ₋ₑ"

You scratched the back of your head. "I don't understand, all of this doesn't! You're already here so why do I have to find you?!"

You head starts throbbing, your vision is getting blurry each second. What? That's impossible, you didn't even drank the fucking tea!

"..ᵢₙₛᵢdₑ."

You collapsed.

.

.

.

You're being moved. Left and right. Someone familiar is calling your name.

"Y/n..."

Each time you don't answer they're call, they shake you harder.

"...Y/n."

You feel like throwing up from all the things you've went through today. It all felt like a bad dream.

But was it really a dream? You've felt it touch you, it was so real.

"...Y/n?"

And it asked you for help to find it. What does that mean? Find it, inside? Does it mean the arcade? Should you check inside the arcade?

"Y/n!.."

You jolted upwards to sit. You look around, only to see Moon with a worried face.

"Y/n... What are you doing here?"

Loss of words, you shakily pointed at your phone. He seemed to get the memo, as he went for it, he turned it on and went into your emails.

Hi Y/n,

Jamil, your coworker, is here. You were asked by the Fazbear manager to repair the arcade game in the daycare attendant's room. He claimed that kids have a lot of requests for an arcade game that is centered on them. I'm confident you'll be able to locate the movie pirate poster at the theater where their room is located.

You can take your time, but with Fazco, they would like to have the required completion by tomorrow morning. We deeply appreciate on what you do for us, and please be careful.

Regards,

Jamil Mariano

The moon themed animatronic sighed. He went to you and gently picked you up. "I'll take you down stairs.. You need to rest Starlight."

You fidgeted with your fingers. "But what about that?...The Fazco, and the arcade?"

"That's why I'm taking you away from it, Star. You've been through enough, you deserve to sleep well."

You leaned on his chest. You could worry about the machine later, right now you trust Moon to have your back... Just, a little nap wouldn't hurt..

The night themed robot emits a lullaby, a great distraction for you to not hear him talk with his other half, that's been talking inside their shared minds.

'Moon?...Do you think they saw him?'

He lets out a tired sigh. "They probably have.."

The Sun began to ramble question after question to fill their minds with. What should they do? Do they need help?- Oh, of course they do! But how do we help them?? Can't we just destroy the arcade machine?! No wait, what if it went to another arcade machine, or worse, what if went through their phone?! Who knows what he have done to our Starshine-

The moon softy hissed at his counter part. it annoyed him to hear him worry like this, yet he understands. He too is worried for their friend's safety, that's why they need to deeply think this through before they might do something rash.

"Let's... Not worry for now, they're safe here.. And we should focus on the present, to be aware of our surroundings... to protect them.."

The rambling died down, and Sun agreed... However, they couldn't really push back down their thoughts, they need to act quicker than him. If they dont want to loose the only friend they have.

[inposterumcumgaudio]

I was rewatching some old Letsplays on We Happy Few, and I noticed that a few commented on how the Protagonist only take Strawberry (I'm pretty sure the Wellies take all three). And I realize this is hinted at in the first act where Arthur goes to the Labs for Cod Liver Oil, there's a couple notes before the fight with the Bobby that states Sally created Strawberry. In the game, Sally is the better Chemist, compared to Verloc who is hyperfocused on a Permanent Solution. In the 'We All Fall Down' DLC, the workers at the Labs start a riot over wanting Sally back, which implies she was a better boss and more efficient. Anyways, I'm like 98% sure this is Canon, but I am curious to read your take on it if you have one, I know it's just a small thing but the grip We Happy Few on me is iron strong. Anyways, I've always been curious on Victoria and Sally's relationship. Does Victoria know her dad is taking advantage of the local chemist? I can't imagine she would know, I feel like she'd be repulsed by that.

You don't have to answer any of this, I just like to rant about this underrated game.

Not only will I answer this, I'm gonna do so in parts so I can cover all the topics you're asking about in some detail, starting with the prevalence of preference for Strawberry.

Functionally, this is because they made one first-person animation for using the Joy Booth that all protagonist characters share between them and that animation always draws from the third canister. If you play the Night Watch mode, you'll note that the Strawberry canister has been replaced by a Blackberry one. It's much easier and cheaper to change the texture on the Joy Booth model than it is to make two additional animations for the other two flavors.

But you also only ever find Strawberry Joy out in the world, indicating that most Wellies share this preference for Strawberry.

This is, I think, a result of a concerted effort on the part of the Executive Committee to push the populace to switch flavors. I also think this is the start, or at least the exacerbation, of a lot of the problems in Wellington Wells.

'Cause see, the original Joy formula used for the Chocolate and Vanilla flavors was invented in 1953. That means that by '64, the town has been on Joy for nine years now. But the problems with food production couldn't possibly have started then or the town would have starved ages ago. That change, the preference for growing pretty flowers in their leftover victory gardens over ruddy little vegetables that aren't much to look at? That's gotta be more recent or the effects would have been felt sooner. But, it also can't have been too recent (as recent as Sally's departure from Haworth Labs) or there would still be enough stores and active gardens started earlier in the current year to keep the town going. Strawberry was developed in 1962, available two years thus far, which makes its introduction the much more likely culprit for the change in Wellie gardening priorities.

I also think the integration of Strawberry into the choices available resulted in more frequent cases of Joy rejection, such that the town had to further relinquish Eel Pie Holm to the increased Downer population (having already designated Barrow Holm as the dump for troublesome members of society at Joy's initial introduction before the problem really started getting out of hand). Mixing flavors is not recommended, due to the difference in compound and interactions between them. Most people were probably able to switch relatively well, but there's always some for whom side effects are most severe.

Despite the problems Strawberry introduced (which they probably couldn't have forseen anyway), the Executive Committee had to push the new flavor because the raw materials for making the original formula - leftover German "goodies" - have a finite supply without any trade over the bridge. Eventually, they will simply not have the ingredients to make Chocolate or Vanilla.

Unfortunately, due to the toxic bi-product of Strawberry Joy production that causes food to rot on the stem, fungus to mutate, and the resultant plague from exposure to its spores, they'll not have poppies, bufotoxin, or liberty caps - the key ingredients in Strawberry - for much longer either.

It's a lot of kicking the can down the road.

Anyway, I'm getting away from the point. Why is Strawberry preferred?

Because it was marketed to be.

You will note in the game that you only ever see posters and other marketing materials for two flavors of Joy: Strawberry and the upcoming Coconut.

Sally mentions that there was an annoying jingle for Chocolate in the past, so that tells us there was marketing for the original flavors when Joy was first introduced. Even here though, you can see that the shift is already beginning, that the Executive Committee is building hype for Coconut and will stop promoting Strawberry once it's available.

(As a side tangent, since I don't know when else I'll get to mention it, I also believe that the original formula was given two flavors - that is, there is no appreciable difference between Chocolate and Vanilla - as a psychological trick to make early adoption more complete. With only one flavor, the question is if you will take it or not? With two flavors, the question becomes which one are you?)

Since the problem of Joy is always limited materials, shifting promotion is done with the knowledge that the old flavors will need to remain in production for people with genuine preference, but that most Wellies (since the culture is very conformist) can be convinced to switch to the hip new thing to preserve those older flavors for as long as possible.

And I expect that Strawberry was promoted as the flavor to take if you want to be a cool kid. It's the preferred flavor of Nick Lightbearer, even described as his muse. It's the only flavor you'll find all the town's most beautiful people taking at the Design Centre. You don't need color television to know when Uncle Jack pops his Joy on screen, his pills are pink.

But beyond that, I think it was also implied to be a patriotic duty to at least try the new flavor. Victoria takes Strawberry Joy, often and publicly, as a signal of leadership to the townspeople. It is a gesture of civic pride, particularly pride in Wellington Wells' spirit of scientific advancement, to immediately adopt the latest innovations with complete trust.

However, it should come to no surprise that trust is not well placed...

[snugglebug-92]

Mark Estapa x Reader

SMUT

NSFW 18+

It was the first day of freshman year when Y/N and Mark first met. They had the same first 3 periods and the teachers sat them right next to each other. They didn’t talk much but they always competed in their classes. You wanted good grades so you could get into a good college. You wanted to go to UMich. Mark wanted good grades to play hockey. This caused the two to always compete for a better grade. At first, it was fun and games the two would study together and they were decent friends. 

Once sophomore year started the hung out more. You would wear his jersey to his games and they had their first kiss. They were together all the time. It was perfect. You had good grades and a cute boy to hang out with. Everything was great.

But once junior year hit it was like a switch was flipped. Mark had to do everything better than Y/N. He stopped talking to her other than to brag about his test scores. He did everything he could to make her life miserable and the two hated each other. He would always rent out the study room You used and would always come into the dinner with his friend right before closing and order the food that took the longest to make.

When senior year rolled around things only got worse. When Mark got an academic scholarship you were the first to know. He rubbed it in your face knowing you had got waitlisted the day before. Their friendship fell apart and you were crying almost every night. How could someone who was once so nice be so mean? You didn’t have too much time to think about it because soon you were getting a call saying that you actually got in and they sent you the wrong information. From that day forward you told yourself you would never fall for the likes of Mark Estapa again.

But that was a short lived promise. While they didn’t see each other over the summer he had no problem sitting down right next to her in their business 101 class. You looked over to see the boy sitting next to you. You slowly got up and moved a few rows back while he was busy trying to connect his laptop to the wifi. It was at that moment Mark realized he really fucked up. 

You go to the rest of your classes and switch to a different business class hoping to never have to see Mark again. But you aren’t so lucky. Not only is your roommate’s brother on the hockey team but so is her boyfriend so she drags you to every game. You try your hardest to come up with excuses but you have such a hard time saying no to her. That’s how you find yourself at a hockey game wearing a spare jersey for your roommate's brother picking at the maize fuzz of the Beecher jersey.

“So what do you think so far?” she asks, smiling.

“It’s hockey,” you shrug.

“You really don’t like hockey huh?” she laughs.

“No I just don’t like Estapa,” you say, turning your attention to the loose thread. 

“I hope you know when we get back to the dorm you’re telling me everything,” she says, turning her attention back to the ice. And when you get to your dorm you do. You grab the bottle of vodka you had and crack it open taking a long drink before you start. By the time you finish the story the tears are flowing and the bottle was taken away.

“I’m sorry,” she frowns, not knowing what to say. To her marks were nothing but sweet. Obviously she believes you but there has to be something missing. She pulls you into her side as you wipe your tears. 

“It’s okay,” you shrug.

“You don’t have to go to any more games if you don’t want to. I’ll find someone else or go with the other girlfriends. I shouldn’t have forced you.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know,” you wipe away the remaining tears. The next semester is a little better. You have more business classes which is nice. You almost forget about Mark until you see him at a party. You can’t help but want to punch him for being so perfect. You leave not long after.

Soon it’s sophomore year and Mark is practically unavoidable. You both have the same major so most of your classes are together. You don’t have to deal with him until a teacher assigns you together for a partner project. It ends in a screaming match and 2 separate projects being turned in. After that you never get partnered up again. 

Before long it’s the second semester and with that comes spring break. Since you’re from Michigan you let your roommate drag you to a game to watch her boyfriend play. They win and you guys all go to a small party to celebrate. You end up leaving halfway through the party.

Everything is fine until you hear everyone talking about it or him. Mark fucking Estapa. He had an article published about him and how cool he is or some bullshit. You almost throw your phone when it appears on your Instagram feed. You can’t believe how much of a stuck up asshole the boys become. You roll your eyes before heading to the gym to blow off some steam.

That Saturday you find yourself at a party celebrating the hockey team's big win. You’re just there for the free alcohol. You’re standing in a corner watching everything happen when he walks up beside you.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Mark smirks.

“Shut up Woodruff,” you growl at the boy.

“Hey white flag, put the claws away,” he laughs.

“What do you want?”

“To talk?”

“Oh now you want to talk. Mr. High and Mighty want to talk to me. Wow boy do I feel special.”

“Let’s go up stairs,” he grabs your hand leading you up to his room. 

“What do you want to talk about?” you grumble at the boy.

“I’m sorry. Look I know I fucked up. I’m sorry.”

“Well you’re about 3 years too late,” you say leaving. Your hand grabs the handle and you twist it about to exit. That's when Mark does the only rational thing in his mind. He grabs you and kisses you. You let go of the handle and move your hands to his hair. His hands rest on your lower waist and he pulls you flush against him. His hands move to your thighs as he carries you to his bed. He takes his sweatshirt off before placing his lips back against yours. You fist his t-shirt as he continues to kiss you. You pull away and realize the position you are in. Straddling the hips of the man you hate the most. You take off your shirt before tugging at the edge of Marks hoping he gets the hint. He takes his t-shirt off and starts to kiss down your jaw line.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he questions.

“Yeah. But I haven’t,” you whisper.

“Really?” 

“Yeah.” He flips over so he’s on top and kisses down your jaw to your neck.

“Can I take this off?” he asks when he gets to your bra. You nod and he unclasps it. He tosses it aside and latches his mouth to your right nipple while his hand attends to your other one. You moan having never felt such a sensation before. Mark kisses down your stomach to the waistband of your jeans.

“These to babies?” he questions.

“Please,” you whine. He unbuttons your jeans, pulling them down leaving you in your panties. 

“Can I touch you?”

“Yes.” He slowly drags a finger over your clothed core causing you to jolt up at the contact.

“Can I take these off?”

“Please Mark,” you moan out. You lift your hips so he can pull your panties off. He runs a finger through your folds before slowly circling your clit causing you to let out a loud moan.

“Can I have a tasty baby? Please I wanna be your first,” Mark asks.

“Yes,” you say, bucking your hips. Mark licks a stripe through your folds before giving your clit plenty of attention. He switches between sucking the nub and grazing it with his teeth.

“Baby I’m gonna put my fingers in you okay?”

“Okay,” you moan, having never felt such pleasure. You feel one of Mark’s fingers prod your entrance before he inserts it. He thrusts it in a few times before adding a second finger causing you to moan again.

“Mark that feels good,” you moan.

“Yeah baby,” he says against you. You’re cumming within a few seconds and you’ve never felt such an immense pleasure in your life.

“How was that baby?”

“Good. Was so good Markie,” you moan as he pulls his fingers out. 

“Got another round in you? Think you can take my dick?” he questions cupping your face.

“I wanna try.”

“Good girl,” he says standing up to take off his jeans and boxers. He kicked them off before rolling a condom on.

“It’s gonna hurt baby,” he says, positioning himself at your entrance. He rubs himself in your slick before grabbing your hand. He slides in and he feels you squeeze his hand.

“You okay baby?”

“Yeah I’m okay. I think you can move now,” you say. He slowly pulls out before thrusting out causing you to moan. He slowly starts to thrust in and out of you before he sets a pace. He moves to kiss you and you dig your nails into his biceps to help ground yourself. Your moans get louder as you start to get closer to your high again. He moves a hand to your clit circling the nub.

“You’re doing so good baby,” he says, causing you to moan. 

“Fuck Mark,” you moan as he leaves a hickey on your neck. He picks up his pace which causes the both of you to reach your highs.

“I’m going to pull out now baby,” he says pulling out. He discards the condom before looking at you.

“Baby you gotta go to the bathroom now and then we can do whatever you want,” he smiles cupping your face. He helps you into one of his shirts and to the bathroom. Once you get back to his room you both cuddle into each other. You’ll deal with the consequences tomorrow. 

[nburkhardt]

5 Random Words Fic

Got tagged by @estrellami-1 and @i-less-than-three-you 🥰

Rules: generate 5 random words using this generator and then write something using those words! Tag 5 (or however many you want) mutuals to challenge! (If you don’t like your 5 words, try again. This is supposed to be fun!)

(Challenge/game originally from @a-little-unsteddie!)

My words: Capital, Something, Haste, Bandit & Neural (I’m switching neural to nerve btw)

There was something going on behind his back but he can’t quite figure it out. It was small enough that nothing was actually out of place but big enough for him to even notice anything wrong to begin with. Not that it was wrong per se, it was like something was being misplaced or maybe taken? But it wasn’t anything that important?

Eddie isn’t quite sure what to make of it, but given his place as second in command at the Capital, he needs to know what’s happening.

Wayne could possibly make him doing basic training again if he doesn’t figure out what the issue is.

“I don’t get it, Gare. Have you noticed anything?” He groans, taking a seat next to his friend.

Gareth shrugs, “Jeff and I did another round, found nothing wrong. Whatever is going on, it’s either being replaced immediately or whatever is being taken isn’t important to any of us.”

“You think it’s what, someone stealing?” He rolled his eyes, “Like what, a bandit around here? That’s impossible, Gareth! Ever since Wayne took over, we’re very fair and generous! If, if someone needed help we’d-”

“Look, you keep having that freakish feeling whenever this thing happens. There’s no issues around the place, nobodies dying and it seems like everything is in its place. So what could be going on? It’s gotta be a someone stealing and replacing it!” Gareth crossed his arms, looking at him with a glare, “unless you’ve been playing us and making us look like idiots for your own amusement”

Eddie snorted, shaking his head and patting Gareth’s arm, “I’m not, I swear, why waste our time with a silly game of-”

They’re both jolted out of their seats by the loud alarms going off, they quickly get up and start running.

“Do not say I told you so right now!”

Gareth snorted, throwing up a middle finger behind him as they run.

In their haste to find the others and the cause of the alarm, they failed to notice a person slipping by them and out the door.

They only slow down once the notice not just Jeff, Frankie and Chrissy standing by the main entrance but also Wayne.

“Please tell me no one is dead” is the first thing out of Eddie’s mouth, judging by Chrissy’s eye roll and Frankie’s snort, there thankfully, isn’t anyone dead.

Wayne’s serious demeanor breaks a little by the crack of a smile but still keeps the serious look on his face, “no one is dead, but there was a few things stolen. My boy, aren’t you supposed to be in charge of this problem?”

“Wayne!” Eddie whined, “I am, but everything so far has been in its place every time I check!”

The group all roll their eyes at him, “Not this time, a few pieces of jewelry was taken, your late mother’s ring and my grandfather’s near priceless necklace.”

Eddie’s heart dropped, their family heirlooms?! He could’ve sworn his mother’s ring was locked away in his room! “What idiot had to nerve to steal from us?”

Steve’s heartbeat was fast as he makes his way over to the next town, it’s been a long few hours but he couldn’t handle doing a trade within the capital this time.

Taking these pieces was a huge risk and he knew it but he needs the money. It’s his last time and attempt to make the offer, if the dealer takes and hands the money over to him, he’ll breathe easier and hopefully; his family actually survives.

He didn’t want to turn to stealing but after his siblings got sick, he had to. It was the only way. Their parents are shit and he couldn’t just stand around as both his twin and little brother got the worse and worse. Currently, he hopes at least, Robin is doing a little bit better. But Dustin has been in bed for a week straight now, even their Aunt Claudia can’t figure out what it is.

It was the last resort. He had to steal even if he tried his hardest to replace the items if they were worth next to nothing. Wasn’t too hard to get in and out of the Capital building anyway, with the Munsons being genuinely good and open.

It makes him feel a little bad for all the stealing. But it’s nothing on him panicking at his siblings health.

“I’m sorry boy, but this piece?” His dealer, Rick, jiggles the necklace again “it’s worth the money but I can’t accept it. Everyone knows it’s the Munson’s. I’d imagine they’re already letting everyone know”

Steve hope dies a little as he slumps against the counter, “what about the ring? That wasn’t even in the safe! Come on, Rick, I need the money!”

Rick held up the ring again, it’s a beautiful ruby with black gold accents.

He couldn’t believe it when he saw it, just under a simple glass case with no alarm attached to it. Not even a lock, just sitting on a shelf in the random room he hid in after grabbing the bracelet.

“Yeah this could be worth something, maybe a few hundred.” Rick nods to himself and slipped the ring back in the box, “deal?”

“Just a few hundred? But I need more!” The bills piling on their table back at home was definitely more than a few hundred, “are you absolutely sure about that bracelet?”

Rick opened his mouth, then snapped it shut as he paled. Dropping the bracelet on the floor and shoving the box away from him, “actually, boy, I can’t do either”

Steve looked at him confused, “what? You just said it was-”

He jerked when he was roughly shoved against the counter, eyes widening as he’s met with Eddie Munson. “Gotta hand it to you, managing to steal from us- from me, is impressive.”

“I-”

Eddie shook his head, a small ‘tsk-tsk’ coming out of his mouth. He let go of him and grabbed the box, “This? This is mine.”

His heart was beating fast, that ring was supposed to get him- get Dustin the help he needed. And now it’s being shoved into Eddie’s pocket, “But I need the money!” He blurts out and cringes at how whiney he sounds.

Eddie scruffs and let’s go of him, stepping away and crossing his arms, “oh, for what? Drugs? Payment back to some other shady person? You like all the other bandits and idiots?” He looks him up and down, “sure don’t look like them”

Steve looks away, his cheeks burning and his hands shaking. “Wish it was that simple” he mutters to himself, he wouldn’t be here at all if it was drugs he needed.

“What was that?”

“I said,” Steve shook his head, “I wish it was that simple, look, can I go? Rick wouldn’t take the necklace and you already took the damn ring back.” He grits his teeth, holding back a breakdown he’s absolutely ready to have.

Eddie frowned, seeing the guy tense up and red marks form on his arm from his own hands. “Uh, yeah, but don’t come anywhere near the capital building again. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, yep. Got it.” Steve nodded, blinking hard to stop the tears, already thinking; Not with Dustin’s health issues and Robin’s panicking. “Like I’ll be able to go anywhere” he muttered out, making his way away from his last hope.

He can feel eyes on him as he manages to hold himself together, putting off the inevitable until he’s out of sight and alone. Once he’s completely out of sight of Eddie, he lets the tears fall.

“Good job, Steve, you’re even a shit bandit” he huffs a pathetic laugh as he roughly wipes his eyes, “can’t even make enough to help your brother”

Making his way into the alley, he finds a spot out of sight to continue his pity party before he has to go home and figure out a new plan. Pulling his legs up against his chest, he tries to blink away the tears and hold his sobs in.

Hiding his face in his knees, he doesn’t quite hear the footsteps come up to him. Moving his head to rub his arm against his eyes, he finally notices the feet next to him.

Freezing, he looks up, finding Eddie Munson.

“So, Steve,” Eddie shoves his hands in his pockets, “I’m a little curious, if you were just stealing for drugs you wouldn’t be having a breakdown beside a dumpster.”

“how would you know?” He bites out, “my dealer could’ve left”

Eddie laughs, “yeah, I’m sure this is the reaction someone has after getting their fix. Come on,” he held out a hand and Steve eyed it, “I’m not going to hurt or arrest you.”

That didn’t exactly ease anything but this is a low moment for him, so he grabs it and Eddie easily helps him up.

“So?”

Eddie raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching into a smile, “So, what?”

“Why are you out here, you already got your jewelry back and you think I’m doing drugs” he crossed his arms, ignoring how hot his face feels from both his breakdown and the fact that Eddie hasn’t moved away from him.

“I told you I’m curious,” Eddie shrugged, taking a step back only to lean against the wall, “I overheard you say something about being a shit bandit, it got me interested. So, what lead you to stealing?”

Steve mirrors him and leans against the dumpster, looking at him for a second before sighing and tipping his head back. Closing his eyes for a second, “It was my last decision, my parents are shit and my aunt’s job doesn’t pay enough for my siblings. So, I resorted to stealing because my brother is getting worse”

He refuses to actually look at Eddie now, knows the look he’ll get. It’s the same look he’s been getting for weeks now, almost months now. Always “oh you poor boy” and “maybe it’s time to give up” from neighbors and strangers alike because they think Dustin won’t survive.

“Oh man” Eddie whispers and Steve can only hear it because of how quiet it is in the ally, Eddie clears his throat and out of the corner of his eye sees Eddie shift, “Is he sick? Is he dying? That’s why you were stealing?”

“He’s not dying!” He snapped with a glare, his hands in fists, “He’s- he’s going to be okay. I just, just gotta,” his eyes are watery again and he takes in a sharp breath, “he’s not dying!”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Eddie has his hands raised and inching closer to him, “he’s not dying and I’m going to help, okay? I’ll help you.”

He shakes his head, let’s out a laugh or maybe a sob, he can’t tell anymore, “oh yeah? How?”

“I’m not sure, yet! But I can help, come on, let me help you.”

Entering the Capital building in the main entrance is a bit strange, especially after all the times he’s entered by windows and side doors. It was even more jarring to be entering with Eddie Munson.

“Eddie, who’s this?”

He nearly jumped at the new voice, looking behind them to find Wayne Munson coming up to them. He paled at seeing him, knowing he stole from this man and that his nephew is standing next to him who caught him stealing.

“Oh! Wayne, this is Stevie, he’s a new friend” Eddie spun around and pulled him closer to him, “I’m helping him and his brother out”

Wayne only raised an eyebrow at Eddie before looking at Steve, then he looked back at Eddie, “This the one who stole?”

Eddie gasped dramatically, tightening his arm around him, “Wayne! Of course not, I just so happened to catch him having a moment of weakness. Now i’m off to show him around and then we’re going to his place and-”

“Son, you ramblin’ like that gives ya away. What’s going on?” Wayne interrupted him, shaking his head and crossing his arms, “Be honest now”

Eddie felt Steve tense up as he squeezed his shoulders before moving his arm, “Uncle, look. Could we possibly talk about this in my room?”

Wayne’s face grows concerned, looking back and forth between him and Steve before nodding. Eddie smiles and grabs Steve’s hand to lead them towards his room, once inside Eddie only lets go of Steve’s hand to close his door and set the ring back in its place.

“Eddie,” Wayne eyes the ring and then at Steve who’s focus is only on the glass case again, “Ya think I’m gonna believe that ya just helping him out?”

“Look sir, I’m-”

“Wayne, I’m serious-”

Eddie and Steve looked at each other and Wayne shook his head at both of them, “Steve, was it? If ya did steal from us, be honest”

Steve paled and nodded, his heart sinking already. “I’m sorry sir”

“Wayne, we can’t punish him,” Eddie shifted to stand closer to Steve, “I have the jewelry, isn’t- can’t we let him go?”

Wayne sighed, knowing his nephew’s bleeding heart, “Steal anything else?”

Steve cringed, pulling his arms up to wrap around himself, focusing his eyes on the glass case to avoid looking at either Munson. “Yes, sir”

“For good reason, Wayne!”

“How much?” Wayne ignored Eddie and stared at Steve, watching as the boy gripped his arm harder and blink several times, clearly trying to get tears away. “How much did you steal?”

“A few pieces of jewelry, sir.”

Wayne raised an eyebrow and looked at Eddie hand up in question, “and how much did you get”

Steve cleared his throat, “about two hundred, sir.” He avoided their gazes but looked around to catch a peek, Eddie frowning and Wayne sending Eddie a pointed look. “I- I still have it”

“Steve no,” Eddie took a step closer, “Wayne you don’t- Wayne, his brother is sick. He needs the money and the stuff he stole- they aren’t that important to us”

It was silent and Eddie felt his face get hot, he looked away from Steve and back at his uncle, “it’s okay, I swear, the dealer he was selling to is caught- he’s being arrested as we speak. I have the pieces we cherish most back. Now,” he spins back around not waiting for Wayne’s response, “I’m going to help Steve and his family, got it?”

Three Months Later

There was something going on, Eddie can already tell and a smile is forming as the giggling behind him gets louder. He’s not sure what it is but he can’t wait to find out what it is.

The giggling is right behind him and he spins, his face breaking into a wide smile at the brothers in a pose to grab him standing there. Robin and Jeff next to them rolling their eyes but smiling.

“My loves!”

Steve and Dustin grinning wide as Eddie throws his arms around them, holding them close and his smile is starting to hurt his face as Steve presses a kiss to his cheek.

~~~

So. Uh. This wasn’t supposed to be this long and if I keep going it won’t stop. So! Here’s a thing that doesn’t have an exact time period, it’s definitely not set in the 80s and I went and switched roles up. OH AND IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Steve & Robin are a year apart, Dustin is the baby of the family. Don’t ask me what his issue was it was serious tho. Eddie’s a few years older than Steve. They got together only once Dustin was completely healthy. Eddie totally fell first and Steve wasn’t very far behind him. (Eddie also fell harder toooo)

Also I know the ending is kinda blah haha sorry like I said it wouldn’t end 🤣

No pressure tags: @simplebtromance @tartarusknight @zerokrox-blog @steddieas-shegoes @eriquin

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[rireraa]

just a little bit of my midorima fanfiction

There was a stuffy air in the room, even though the doors were open. Midorima Shintarō stood in the middle of the field, a ball basket next to him, and tried to throw his famous three-points.

However, none of the balls even hit the basket and bounced onto the floor. His problem would cause us to join forces. At least if I managed to persuade him.

After all the balls were scattered on the floor, he set about picking them up again. He had probably done this process several times today.

While he collected all the balls from the front, I took care of the few that had rolled further back. That would be my moment, I would surprisingly stand behind him, chatter about something and then the matter would fall into place.

He startles when I lay three balls in the ballbasket at once, so he could see me out of the corner of his eye. At first he looked at me with wide eyes, then disapprovingly, then surprised again.

"What are you doing here?"Okay, don't say anything wrong. "Please listen to me. This may sound strange, but I know about your problem and I want to help you. On the contrary, you'll help me with mine.

His face no longer showed any emotion. “I don’t need any help, with training I will get back to my old self.” He threw the remaining balls into the thing, ignoring the last, sad ball in the back corner.

I took a few steps back so that I was standing about in the middle of the field. “You’ve been saying that for weeks. Has it achieved anything so far? You can’t even hit the basket anymore."

My obvious words stung him a little, but he tried to look annoyed. “You should go. I won't help you with your problem, nor continue to tolerate you here. This is a private school, you have no business here."

Just as I expected. Luckily, I had just come up with a new plan. Midorima would now turn around to continue training. At that time I would go to the ball in the corner and throw it there to the basket. Well, whether I scored was another matter, but I had watched enough videos to know what sequences I had to go through to score.

As I thought, Midorima ignored me and turned back to the invincible basket. He thought I was leaving, but here I was, at the other end of the field, about to throw. I just had to hope that this time my skills didn't fail.

Midorima was about to jump, but froze when a ball appeared above him and landed straight into the basket. Lucky. He slowly turned to me and looked all the more surprised when he saw how far back I was standing.

I had to admit, if Midorima could pull off these throws multiple times in a game, it was pretty incredible. I was already exhausted just from this throw, and I hadn't even managed the big arc that he always uses to buy time.

"How did you do that?" He came toward me in a sort of menacing way, but that was only because of his size. Sure, his aura was also shuddering, but I could sense that only his desperation was speaking from him.

I almost tried to push up my glasses myself, like he always did, but I wasn't wearing them anymore and I had actually gotten used to that. “You want to know, then get involved with me. You can help me just as I can help you. What do you have to lose? Or do you want to spend more hours watching your litters become more and more miserable?”

A switch seemed to flip inside him. But something still held him. “First tell me what you helped with.” Distrust and reason. Actually qualities I liked, but right now I was really bothered by him, but it was probably better if he knew what he was getting into.

“I have to take my final practical exam in two months. The theoretical is unimportant. But my professor won’t let me pass if I don’t fulfill his condition.”

“And this would be?”

If I didn't tell him about it now, he wouldn't agree to my deal. I sighed. “He thinks I have to learn to play with my heart, even if I can’t understand it.”

He remained silent. Just when I thought he was declining: “Alright. But we still have to set conditions if we want to work together.”

The tension in my body disappeared. “We can meet tomorrow after your classes, I’m free.”

His gaze turned to the clock on the wall. Half past seven. “How about now?”

dedicated to @shintaru

[misc-obeyme]

i need more sibling angst w all the seven bros. i keep getting those siblings/brothers slideshows on tiktok and it’s killing! me! ☹️☹️☹️

especially between mammon and lucifer,,,,,,their relationship is actually sad. the game kinda plays it off as a joke and makes mannon the comic relief by spiting him as a fool 24/7, which i get. like ok. it’s an otome game first and foremost. they’re not gonna go super hard with lore and interpersonal relationships. but if you take a step back and see it beyond that, there’s much to dissect AND digest. lucifer plays this stereotypical authoritative role and mammon is the opposite. i know lucifer means well and he truly loves his family, but he has a heavy hand. the trauma of losing lilith? he can’t fathom losing another, so he’s sworn that he’d protect the rest even if it meant despising his own father. mammon feels the same way, but he copes differently.

i feel like both the two eldest are just trying to keep things together. where lucifer is so scared he doesn’t realize he sometimes hurts his brothers, mammon picks up all the pieces and holds it together. they mean a lot….😢

here’s some songs i think would fit:

“shame” by mitski (also “real men”)

“neptune” by sleeping at last

“kyoto” by phoebe bridgers (her song “i know the end” is also very good)

“not strong enough” by boygenius

also i would recommend fiona apple in general! one of my fav artists 😋

Okay, anon, I had to go on TikTok to look up those slideshow videos 'cause I haven't seen them (I rarely use TikTok and when I do it's all cake decorating videos because I have a problem). So I was seeing a bunch where it's a picture of the siblings as kids and then switches to one of them all grown up?? Can you imagine something like that with our bros??

But you happened to touch upon a subject here that I have opinions about. You're right. It's an otome game and the point is for the MC to be able to have all these hot guys fall for them. I get that. But it means that I'm never sure what they're going to sacrifice in the name of silly otome vibes.

The Mammon/Lucifer dynamic is a perfect example.

In fact, I would argue that just by himself, the "Lucifer as authority figure" concept is a disservice to his character. It sets him apart from all of his brothers in a way that makes it so they don't get to fully flesh out his relationships with any of them. He's too strict, too overbearing, and too often puts himself apart from the rest. It's annoying because all of the brothers indicate that they love Lucifer. They love him and that's why they followed him to the Devildom to begin with. Satan loves him, too, albeit with far more complexity attached. But Lucifer can only express his love for them through strictness. He's trying to ensure he never loses them and I get that, but he also never allows himself to be soft with them. We only get very rare glimpses of that. Lately in NB I feel like they tried to help with that, as evidenced by the way the first season ended. But generally speaking, they too often play to his role as authority figure, in my opinion. And yet he's the star of the show. The way he's always last like they think MC is going to choose him over the rest every time. The way we get more insight into his history, the way he has a far more involved and complicated character, where other brothers are just regulated to very simple personalities. I don't get why they do that, personally.

As for Mammon specifically, that whole thing confuses me still. I went through a hardcore Mammon phase where he was actually next to Barbatos in my ranking (this was before I figured out how much I love Solomon lol). And I really had an issue with Lucifer constantly punishing Mammon all the time for things that seemed relatively minor. If we consider that it's actually Lucifer's fear that is the motivation behind his tendency to be strict, though, it changes the meaning. Mammon gets punished the most because he's the one Lucifer cares about the most. But that doesn't make it okay in my mind. If anything, that's just even more fucked up. But the annoying thing about all of this is it's only our fan interpretation. It is far more likely that the only reason Mammon is the one who gets strung up all the time and so on is because it's funny. Or it's supposed to be. I'm pretty sure they just wrote it that way to be a joke, not because they're making some grand statement about Lucifer's relationship with Mammon and how he deals with the trauma he's endured.

Mammon is often depicted as kinda silly and moronic, but that's also a disservice to his character the way Lucifer being the strict one is to his. Because you're completely right. Lucifer doesn't realize he hurts his brothers and Mammon is the one keeping things together. It always struck me as far more likely that Mammon is playing a role for his younger brothers' benefit. We get enough flashes of insight from Mammon that indicate he understands things far more than he lets on. He deliberately acts out to draw Lucifer's attention because Lucifer's fear of losing his brothers makes him too harsh on them. And if Mammon is always Lucifer's top priority, then he's more likely to leave the younger ones alone. This is also fucked up. And again, this is all just outside interpretation because I don't think any of that is something they meant to imply with their Lucifer-always-punishing-Mammon joke. That's just how it comes across.

The problem with these jokes is that if you take them in any kind of serious context, you get analysis similar to the unfortunate three paragraphs I just made you suffer through. Because these jokes, if looked into more deeply, imply all of the complicated stuff I talked about. But I don't think they meant to imply any of that, which is why it's kind of fucked up when you look too closely at it.

That's how a lot of it goes with this particular game and that's why I always have such a hard time trying to figure out what's going on. Because they definitely have all this lighthearted nonsense sitting right beside some actual deep character development. So what are we supposed to take seriously and what's meant to be just silly stuff? (Another example is my issue with the reason behind Barbatos being angry with Solomon all this time - I took the joke as something serious lol.)

I apologize for the length of this response, but it's just something that I have a lot of thoughts about! I have a tendency to come at everything from a storytelling perspective where I want everything to have a reason and to make sense. But I think some of the stuff in this game really isn't meant to have a deeper meaning, so I'm just creating extra analysis where there is none. I've had to kind of balance my expectations and even then I end up with moments like the Barbatos reveal where I get annoyed lol. But that's on me, I really should know better by now.

Anyway! Thank you for the song recs, I'll have to listen to them all! I loooove "Not Strong Enough" by boygenius, I've been listening to that song a lot lately! So I'm sure I'll enjoy the others you've recommended as well!

And again I'm sorry about how long this response ended up being! I never realize I have so much to say until I've written four or five paragraphs and then I'm like ohh oops.

[marashi96art]

Questions for the fanfic writers about Leon S. Kennedy's lack of background story: How do you deal with it?

I've been haunted by this problem for MONTHS and I needed to spit it out. I feel like Tumblr is a better place for long text and reasoned discussion, and most importantly: fanfic writers.

It's long and I sincerely look forward to your opinions. Even though I only draw Cleon, I didn't mention any ship in this post so I won't add ship-related tags here; if you're gonna list examples based on your ship, please respect each other.

So hear me out:

The best part and the worst part about Leon S. Kennedy is that HE DOESN'T HAVE A BACKGROUND STORY and a CONSISTENT characteristic development...and it's driving me insane.

The benefit of it is that I can shape his past into whoever I want to fit my stories. But it brings out a bigger problem: the development is solely depending on my understanding & knowledge of character design. He's pretty much a blank sheet of paper, except he's extremely famous, and I don't want to stray too far away from the canon info that we've got on him(and get "canceled" for OOC).

(I don't actually write stories into fics, but I DO write short scripts for my art when they are intended to be a series. I guess the prep work to start anything is the same: write it down in words, then expand the idea.)

I love AUs and I'm more interested in sci-fi/fantasy than modern/zombie-apocalypse kinda thing. But when I wanted to dig deep into their backgrounds, to start world-building, there's NOTHING for me. It's so frustrating.

For example, I'm currently working on a Monster Hunter AU based on the RE4R DLC Hero Outfit, which basically is the whole RE gang running around in the woods hunting supernatural creatures. (Not just CAPCOM's MH series but with the general mythical creatures, werewolves .etc)

And they have a Hunter's Guild, different tribes and clans, you know the drill. Since the setting was in a fantasy world, their surnames have caused me great pain from the start.

The easiest one is Redfield. It can be interpreted as "fertile land" or "battleground", and from these I immediately have quite a few visual ideas of how they'd look like, and what they'd do for a living. Chambers, Valentine, and Oliveira are "OK", but the surname Kennedy doesn't fit in ANYWHERE.

(Yes, I googled. It's Irish; but let's be honest, our first impression was a certain American political family.)

Then I read this article that shares a similar concern: Is Resident Evil 4’s Leon S. Kennedy Italian? An investigation

It pretty much sums up the most common FANDOM theories of Leon's background info. But all of them are still just, headcanons.

The more I try to dig in, the lack of this crucial element--a character's canon background story--is really blocking me to create things I enjoy. Even though I've been drawing him for almost 50 pieces of fan art, I still don't know what he's actually like. I can only imagine his personality by referencing other fictional characters/actors whom I think share a resemblance. (I have a soft spot for Keanu Reeves, Faramir from TLOR, and Sanji from One Piece. But that's another story for another time.)

Of course, I'm aware of the fact that, instead of spending this huge amount of time to rewrite a fictional character I don't own, I can create my own OCs and build everything from scratch. But that's not the point. I only started playing video games in 2019 when I bought a Nintendo Switch; and my first-ever, modern game experience was Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

The whole game-wise fandom and RE series are pretty new to me. But I've been in fandoms of books/movies/TV shows for over a decade. It shocked me that Resident Evil, this world-popular series has almost 30 years of history but non of the main characters have a consistent background that follows through the in-game timeline. There're huge gaps between the games even if we add all of the movies in it. How did that work? How do you get to know them? How do you get attached enough to write your own fan story?

In conclusion, I don't think I like Leon S. Kennedy, cuz he remains a mystery. Instead, I just combine all of the good qualities of other characters I like, create my version of Leon Kennedy, and hopefully pray that when he reappears in a new RE work, I didn't do him wrong.

[nickelstudy]

JLPT N1 Experience

So first of all, Happy New Year. It has been a while since I've updated this blog. I've been feeling depressed in the past few weeks, I think it's because of drawing? I feel like I haven't been performing well in art, and that it's hard to accept painful truth that I cannot please everyone- not that it matters on this blog, but it's WHY I decide to take some time to write an update here.

I was supposed to talk about my first experience with N1 but I got busy after. I caught up in many stuff, I guess, plus I was busy with my birthday and helping my family's work throughout the month. But now that it's over, let's talk shall we?

Before That

I haven't talked about my last week strategy, here's what I did.

Stopped learning Kanji and do the drills instead

Finished Shinkanzen Grammar in the first section. I had some days left, so I skimmed through the second section without doing the exercise (I did for A - D i think but- I definitely shouldn't)

Borrowed these two books (pic below). For reading, I did every bit of every question style (there were like 6 of them right? Short passage, Long, etc.)

And for listening, I tried to rush through it but I kinda gave up with the chapter III or IV I'm not sure.

I switched between two of them on the last day

FYI the blue book is actually fantastic! I think I've said it before but it has explanation for each answers. I think it's super cool.

Now For N1

Chapter 1: Before exam

For context, I travelled to the exam location alone, so I wasn't bounded by anyone and I could roam anywhere. I got out early, and arrived there pretty early. But walking from the entrance to the exam spot took a while, to the point where I doubted to myself if I was going in the right direction. There were many people there already. I think the morning peeps had already entered the room when I arrived.

I had lunch and... wander around (Typical Pikmin Bloom player). There wasn't much to do anyway. I decided to take a quick review of some onomatopoeia and other vocabs. I think at that point, nothing is more important than vocabs. It was a while before they allowed us to go up the building. Anyway, I SAW A KID in a highschooler outfit in front of the same room as mine! IM- I DON'T KNOW?? HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO BE THIS GOOD AT THAT AGE?? And of course we entered the room. I sat not so far from the entrance.

One thing that bothers me is the fact that they never announced to bring a mask but they asked everyone to wear it in the room?? Luckily, I had it on already.

Chapter 2: The Exam

Sorry for the long introduction haha. SO, starting off with vocabs, grammars, and reading. I skipped to grammar secion first because it's not too hard or too easy. It's all fuzzy now but I did okay(?)

There was あっての that's pretty easy. But there was one of them that bugged me and I was wrong on that one too. It's といたしまして... so weird, I didn't expect it to answer that. ALSO, HONORIFIC VERB CAUGHT ME OFF GUARD but i think i answered it right.

Then onto reading section because I was really scared if I couldn't finished it. It- took me a while to finish each of them but in a fair amount of time. It's like 10 minutes left that I switched to doing vocabs with a lightning speed because I FORGOT there was a fill in the blanks and not just guessing kanji's reading.

I almost got 誇張 (こちょう) wrong as こうちょう

There were 奇跡、偏り、矛盾、賄う、軽率 in which i had no problems

Filling the words is where I had problem due to hurriness. I missed the 快挙 cause I don't know the word.

見返り too, because there was a word that I thought it meant (repay) and not the first

I GOT ONOMATOPOEIA WRONG ANYwAY HECC YEA i didn't know what つくづく means so i went with きっかり or きっぱり im not sure

Also there was a sentence that was supposed to mean "His body condition was..." I thought it was "worsen" so I went with 崩れる except no it's the opposite "ほぐれる". I didn't know that word but i've seen it before it's the goodamn spirit's name from the game.

I didn't know what 尺度 means or how it is read but I got the meaning substitution right (yay) (it's standard)

Here's the fun one. デマ... THIS WORD THAT I NEED TO GUESS HOW IT IS USED WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING ITS MEANING. I tried to came up with the word this word could come from. Dermatologist? Demand? Theme??? (that's テーマ) I had no idea and got it wrong eventually. Can you guess?

It's "Demagogie", a German word meaning false rumor... WHO WOULD'VE GUESSED. I asked one of my Japanese if she knew. Of course she did. She even gave me an alternative for it too... but I forgot. I only know that's it in katakana (im sorry)

Last minute i left one Mondai randomly answered!

For Choukai, it was so goddamn fast. I am certain that if it wasn't fast, it would be manageable for me. I honestly don't know if I scored it well or not, the last listening part were as hard as ever. ONE THING ABT IT THOUGH, there was a part where they were talking in a cafe about how the shop owner use a coffee beans? I think?

ANd FOR GOD'S SAKE WHAT'S WITH THE BACKGROUND MUSIC??? My concentration was popped away, I kept glancing around wondering if what I was hearing was someone's phone or the tape's music. I don't even know what the question really was to be honest.

What's Next?

I- I don't know. I just need to wait for the result. But I'll try to slowly get back to learning a bit Korean and Japanese every day again. Probably need to brush up Memrise and Anki. At least 5 mins a day haha. Thanks for reading til here. Keep on learning! I'll make sure to do my best for learning languages this year too!

I don't have new year's resolution but I guess.. continue ASL? I got busy that I have no time to do it anymore. I doubt if I can do it, considering I'll be busy with internship next academic year.

Anyway, have a great year everyone. Hope you have a good luck and success with studying and anything you are willing to pursue this year.

[thehandwixard]

well friends and lovers i am officially one hour into kingdom hearts 1 on steam! i will be taking frequent breaks because i get motion sick very easily and i refuse to let that taint my experience. some notes!

i am still on destiny island

this game starts off very... not conceptual, but close to it right off the bat. it commands a certain kind of drama you either get or you dont, and i am certainly primed to give it all ive got, so im loving it. there's a surprising amount of dialogue you can get from tidus selphie and wakka on destiny island that give a bit more context into the kids' lives, and its illuminating.

the major thread im picking up on is that many of the kids think they know what the others are thinking, and don't at all. it's even easy for the player to look at sora and say that compared to riku and kairi, he doesn't seem to have a lot on his mind, but that's not true, and the player knows its true because of the dream.

"i've been having these weird thoughts lately. Like, is any of this for real, or not?" as the opening lines of kh before the opening movie have stuck in my brain since i saw them. anyways its easy to forget just how lovable these kids are. i forgot how cute the disney scenes are too, i can say this for the cutscenes in general but while theyre a little clunky at times, theres a lot of heart in them. as much drama that the original character cutscenes command from the outset, the early disney scenes bring forward as much like. whimsy and slapstick. its just a very charming opening hour with the deep sense of "ah. so no one knows what is happening"

thoughts are scattered. get used to that because of liveblog purposes. i'm just incredibly happy right now. The controls will take some getting used to, and i might have to switch the camera to auto. i chose the path of the mystic, so thatll cause me problems no doubt but sue me i like magic. i was not able to beat riku. sora has no movement tech. no maidens. his bitch isnt bad enough.

but like yeah selphie does small stuff like talk about how wakka probably hasnt noticed kairi riku and sora doing stuff, but he does. one example. these kids dont really know whats going on in eachother's heads.. also strikes me how explicitly they do consider destiny islands a kind of paradise away from their parents' nagging, and how despite wakka being the oldest, riku is far and away considered the most capable. sora comes off as very quiet in a certain way, and its a vibe i really enjoy. no one pretends to understand riku, but he explains himself pretty clearly. vibes are good. the door is not yet open

[maleyanderecafe]

would you consider chip from the cable guy (1996) a yandere?

I watched this one with Cherry yesterday and it's a fun movie for sure. I like the kind of comedy and hijinks the two characters get into, and Chip is the best wingman, even if he probably goes overboard. He just wants to have friends is all I'm saying. Still, I wouldn't say he's a yandere, even on a platonic sense. Also every time I see this image it makes me laugh, I can't get over how funny his expression is.

The story starts out with Steven, who has just broken up and moved into a new apartment calling his friend Rick about his cable. Rick recommends bribing the cable guy so that he can get all of the channels on the TV, something that Steven gets iffy about. When Chip the cable guy comes in, he tries to bribe him but ends up befriending Chip instead. This leads to the two of them hanging out, playing at basketball games together, watching TV together, even going out to a Medieval themed restaurant together. Steven and his ex, Robin, start to get back together with the help of Chip, however, this causes Steven to want to distance himself from Chip so that he can spend more time with Robin and hopefully get back together. Chip actually tries to get the two back together by pretending that Steven bought her free cable, as well as beating up the person that she was dating, something that does work, however, Rick feels like Steven has started to overstep on his boundaries, kicking him out. This leads to Chip framing Steven for stealing things (such as a TV, speakers etc) when they originally were just gifts from Chip, which leads to Steven getting fired. When asking for Rick's help, we learn that Chip isn't even actually a cable guy, and has actually had this pattern of obsession with other people in the past. Chip ends up kidnapping Robin, and Steven comes to save her. After a fight on the giant satellite dish, Chip jumps off after losing Steven as a friend, but survives. Robin and Steven get together, while Chip goes through the same level of obsession after the pilot says that the two are buddies.

This movie is a lot of fun watching Chip and Steven's dynamic. Chip is very much into television and references it a ton, with his main thing being that he doesn't realize that he's not living in a movie/tv show and that reality is a different beast. It's a bit of a dark comedy with just fun moments in character.

Chip does maintain a lot of yandere traits. He's very clingy towards Steven, constantly wanting to hang out with him, invading on his personal space and genuinely just being kind of a menace in general. He leaves Steven hundreds of voice mails and gets mad when he doesn't pick up, as well as pretty much tries to get Steven and Robin together to make sure the two of them are still buddies. He even buys Chip a ton of things, and when it all backfires, he goes back hard with vengeance, kidnapping Robin and framing him for stealing. Still, the genuine problem I have with Chip as a yandere is that he switches targets too fast. In the end of the movie, he pretty much is implied to have ditched Steven in favor of the pilot and that's after Steven made a plea to him before jumping off of the satellite dish that the two of them would still be friends together, and even in the end, Steven still never really says that he wants to stop being friends with him. You can also argue that he has, at least according to Rick, done something like this in the past, however, you can argue that we don't really know the extent to how far he went so that's up in the air, but really, a yandere, even one that's platonic shouldn't really switch up targets that fast, as yanderes are very well known for their devotion and persistence towards one person, even if it is in a platonic way.

Overall, very fun movie that I enjoyed with a obsessive character, however, for my money it doesn't really hit the yandere mark due to the fact that again, he switches targets far too fast.

[iiryebreadii]

EoW thoughts!! I wrote them as I was playing :)

It is Long so it's under a cut!

OKAY these bullet points I made as I was playing, but I stopped writing things down after a while just to focus on the game. and then I got distracted and finished the entire zora section

My first surprise, I went "YOU PLAY AS LINK??" which is an utterly deranged thing to be surprised about in literally any other zelda game

Return of dedicated jump button!! parkouring time

Ganon laughing after being murderized is probably not a great sign I'll be honest

Zelda breaking out!! RUNNING FROM THE CRACKS IN REALITY!! and little golden light to guide us!! Intriguing

She's been gone a week and there have been rifts in that time already? So what link fell into wasn't a new phenomenon

Some of these villager voice lines are very very reminiscent of botw/totk, i wonder if they reused some of the sounds??

okay so the rifts are Really not new, if they been appearing for 'a long time' according to the king, stealing specifically children? and now adults, too, for whatever reason

DAD NOOOOOOO

WRIGHT AND LEFTE TOO?? WE CANT HAVE ANYTHING NICE

ooo this is clever, I was wondering why Zelda was wearing Link's cloak in the trailer, but if the people all think she's the one causing the rifts then it makes sense! She's gonna have to hide her identity (to avoid EXECUTION?? ok nintendo. good heavens). Also, generic King of Hyrule sacrificing his life to save his beloved daughter, king rhoam bosphoramus hyrule could never

TRI!! It's nice to meet you :) you are very casual about this whole execution thing, friend. They feel very inhuman, but in the fun way, like they don't quite understand human limits. like what do you mean you can't phase through these bars? i mean, that's weird, but you can have this magic stick I guess

I really enjoyed the stealth bit getting out of the dungeons! And Impa!!! IMPA!!! I love you badass old lady :') thank you for coming my escape and giving me a musty old dress. maybe taking off the crown would've helped the disguise. whatever. zelda's going through the wringer, she deserves to keep her crown if she wants

This game is very pretty :) also I just got my first piece of heart! Had to do some clever stacking on various objects to reach it, but I managed!! I really like the problem solving so far

second heart piece acquired

LINK'S HOUSE. WAAAAAAAAA I NEED TO SAVE HIM

As soon as I gained access to monster echos I started saying "go my scarab" every time I make one to fight other monsters for me

OK so after all that, I started just playing without writing things down, but I still wanna keep track of my thoughts!! I found a bunch of other heart pieces, and I REALLY like the puzzle solving in this game. The switches to more 2D platformer sections are SO fun and such a great idea, since it has way more of that classic, tightly designed puzzle stuff that zelda is so known for. At the same time, you have so many options for other ways to solve problems and think creatively, im having so much fun with it!

The wealth of options kind of makes me overthink things lol, like the first heart piece I found would have been incredibly easy to access via the water, but for some reason I didn't think that was an option, and instead spent a solid 5 minutes figuring out the right combination to stack items and get on top of something two blocks high, so I could climb the surrounding cliffs to reach the heart piece. But also, I felt so dang accomplished by the end, I wasn't even mad that there was an easier way! Plus, I used the knowledge I gained there in the future, to help me access various parts of the terrain :D

The dungeons!! I've finished the first one, and also the zora questline :) im really enjoying the return to more classic dungeon design, but like I said before, it's still open to plenty of options in solving the puzzles. The still world is very cool, I like the vibes. The fact that a ton of children have been taken there and never returned? Spooky. I'm gonna give my early-game theory now, and guess that Tri's friends come from the lost children that fell into the rifts. Idk those are the vibes rn.

The combat is fun! mostly in the way I'll send out a monster and stand back to watch them rip each other apart. the peahat is my favorite I love that thing

Also!!! Link!! Falling into the rift, but escaping with a few others? Losing his ability to speak from it? The way you meet so many other characters around the world that have met him and been touched by his life??? He's had his own whole adventure before zelda!! That's reflected in his abilities and hearts and stuff in the beginning, but still!! It's cool to see glimpses of what he was up to before saving zelda.

I'm working on the gerudo questline right now, just started the dungeon, and link(?) is here! It might be another shadow like the one from the first temple, but it would be neat to think that he's been working to help from the still world while we help in the original one :)

ANYWAY I'll make another post when I've got more to say but so far im really loving echos of wisdom!! Zelda's characterization in this is so fun, I love her :')

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'Night Slashers: Remake' Switch Review

However baffling it may sometimes be to process, just about every game you can name is someone's favorite. That's something I had to remind myself when trying to understand the very existence of Night Slashers: Remake. The original game is a passable arcade beat 'em up, a gory slice of DECOge that is a fun enough way to kill some time if it's all you have. It's fine, but not something I ever would have thought merited a full-on remake decades later. And yet, here we are. This must be a passion project, because I can't imagine anyone else wanting to put this much effort into Night Slashers. Well, let's see how this turned out.

So, the most obvious thing going on here is that the game has a completely new look. If I had to guess, the developers were inspired by the new style of Streets of Rage 4, because Night Slashers: Remake has a similarly cel-shaded 3D toon appearance. It doesn't look as good here, and I would go so far as to say that this game looks the way some feared Streets of Rage 4 was going to. Some of the models don't blend in with the 2D style properly, and most of them are so stiffly animated that it creates a weirdly inconsistent presentation. It feels really cheap at times, and it makes me wish I could switch back to the original graphics.

I'm also not sure this was the right choice for Night Slashers in particular. By tooning everything up, the gore and grit loses a lot of its power. And that's a bit of a problem, because that over-the-top WHOA gore was a big part of what Night Slashers had going for it. Mechanically, this is just about as standard of a brawler as you can find. Attack, jump, press both together for a special move that uses some of your health. As far as advanced moves go, you can dash, and you can charge up a more powerful attack. Guards are available, but only once your health is too low to do your super attack.

I'd have to go back to the original to check, but my gut feeling here is that the difficulty of the game has been significantly reduced in this Remake. Even at the highest difficulty level, the mob enemies can be ripped to shreds without much effort. You'll occasionally run into bigger fellows that can cause trouble, but they're not too hard to bounce around if you keep on top of them. The bosses are where most of the challenge lies, and even they only have a few patterns at most. The enemy AI just seems completely stupid at times, just standing around or walking in weird directions.

Really, Night Slashers was always a game best enjoyed with others, and it's the same case for the Remake. There's a fourth playable character (hopping over from another Data East game, Fighter's History) who is wholly new to the game, and she's a lot of fun to use. More importantly, she enables an all-new four-player mode. Regrettably, this is local multiplayer only. I guess I've been a bit spoiled by Streets of Rage 4 and Shredder's Revenge, but it's not easy for me to find enough people nearby to fill chairs to play Night Slashers in the current year. Perhaps it is easier for you, however.

While this isn't the fanciest of affairs, there are a few options here to play around with. You can toggle screen shake, character indicators, and bloom. There are some color palettes and filters to choose from. You can pick whether you want the new Remake soundtrack or the original tunes. There's a Music Room where you can listen to both soundtracks at your leisure, and a Custom Game mode where you can set various gameplay options to your liking. There are five different difficulty settings, and the game keeps track of your best scores and times on each.

Night Slashers: Remake is a decent but flawed remake of a game that could itself be described the same way. As beat 'em ups go, this version of the game is perhaps a little too mindless for its own good. I like the new character, the new soundtrack is nifty, and adding a four-player feature is a big boost. On the other hand, I don't know that the new look really fits Night Slashers and it's not pulled off very well at all. For whatever its shortcomings are, I think this is a very earnest effort at remaking a relatively lesser-known game. Maybe that's enough for some.

Score: 3/5