#hear me out. we are humans and we make art of things inside of which we choreograph group dance numbers because it’s fun and we like it

[enchantedchocolatebars]

Witte Solstice - Chapter 27

Cover art by @leespinoodle.

Fic written by me (enchantedchocolatebars) and @leespinoodle.

Summary: It's winter in the Boiling Isles, and Caleb prepares to celebrate the solstice with his wife, his friends… and hopefully, with Beardo Philip! Philip swears he'll never partake in the satanic holidays of those demonic witches. But when Caleb invites him over for the solstice… maybe he'll find himself making an exception.

Ao3 version

The table was quickly taken over by talk and laughter as the guests began conversing and passing dishes around.

Caleb bowed his head, hands clasped, and quietly said grace to himself. Out of respect for him, Evelyn held off on eating until Caleb was done.

'Look at them eating that atrocious garbage...,' Philip practically gagged out in his mind as he scanned the table, watching some of the witches smile while trying one another's cooking while others freely fill their plates.

Meanwhile, Philip's was clear of any food.

'They're sickening,' he shuddered, shifting his gaze to Caleb, who he watched say his grace.

Gazing at his plate, his eyes widened.

He was genuinely surprised to see…

"Psst, Caleb," Philip whispered to his brother. "Is that... Are you about to eat... How did you...?"

Beside the traditional Boiling Isles cuisine on Caleb's plate, which he enjoyed but was only able to eat in limited amounts, was plenty of English cuisine that he had been able to throw together with human-friendly ingredients.

There was black pudding, of course, and pan haggerty, pease porridge, and cottage loaves, among other things.

"Is it the pudding you're eyeing?" Caleb asked. "Well, you know it's one of my favorites, so of course I had to make it while I was cooking. Would you like some?"

'Hmph! Of course Caleb cooked the pudding,' a well-pleased Philip thought to himself. 'It's the closest thing to English food.'

Philip soon began to take note of the other English dishes that surrounded the table.

Inwardly, he gave a satisfied chuckle.

'Heh, take that, vile witches! Our food is far more superior than yours!'

Caleb could talk endlessly about his love for living in the Demon Realm all he wanted, but Philip always had a hunch that he still maintained his roots to humanity in some way or another.

It brought him great joy to know that he was right.

"Perhaps...," Philip carefully answered in a gradual tone, ensuring that he didn't reject the offer immediately.

"But I'd like to know, did..."

'Come on, Philip, you can do this.'

"Did..."

'Her name merely has six letters.'

"Did..."

'Your plan! Your plan, Philip! Think about your plan! You can't botch up this opportunity to win your brother back! Just say her name already!'

"Did Evelyn..." Her name made Philip sick to his stomach, but he managed to keep his disgust inside.

"Assist you in cooking them? Not that it matters. I'm just curious to know if you prepared the pudding alone."

"The pudding was all me," Caleb said with a smile. "But Evelyn helped with the vegetables. We split most of the cooking."

"I see...," Philip said as he slowly shifted his eyes at Evelyn.

The corners of his mouth and his mustache moved up as he met her eyes and gave her a smile that seemed to be genuine.

However...

'Ha! Hear that, witch? Caleb cooked the pudding on his own! He realized that you were incapable of making English food and decided to refuse your assistance.'

Being a vile hag from the deepest, most darkest pits of Heck, Evelyn would have soiled the meal somehow, possibly killing his brother in the process, or so Philip believed.

The brunette gave his gaze to Caleb once more. "Jolly good then!" A peppy Philip picked up his plate and held it at his brother. "I would be delighted to try some."

Caleb filled Philip's plate before passing the dishes down the table for the rest of the guests to serve themselves.

Taking his full plate, Philip placed it down in front of him and began to stare at the sausages as if they were sprinkled with poison.

He was aware that Caleb had cooked them, but they were also prepared using ingredients from the Demon Realm.

This vile place.

Who knows what slew of demon diseases he could catch by simply taking a bite.

Philip's uncertainty continued as he squinted at his plate, and the guests who were serving themselves and sharing their dishes began to stare.

Whispering quickly commenced back and forth at the table.

Lifting his fork, the brunette lowered it to the pudding, cutting a morsel of the meat as he pierced the piece with his fork and slowly raised it to his mouth.

After a silent prayer to the Lord to send his soul to heaven, lest he pass away from this meal, he finally puts the piece in his mouth.

Slow and awkward chewing begins from Philip as he works the piece of food back and forth between his cheeks, acting as if it had the consistency and texture of a three-day-old overcooked slab of beef.

This goes on for nearly twenty seconds until he eventually decides to swallow.

Philip then swiftly shuts his eyes, ready to be greeted by the angels who guarded the golden gates of Heaven.

… As one blue eye peeks open, the other slowly follows suit.

The brunette blinks twice.

Philip was genuinely surprised to see himself still at the table, with everyone still staring at him, of course.

"I'm... alive?" an astounded Philip quietly and rhetorically asked, placing a hand on his heart to ensure that it was still beating.

"Uh...," one guest began. "Why… wouldn't you be??"

"I mean...!" Philip swiftly raised his fork high, shifting to a more cheery tone. "Delicious! Can't wait to finish the rest. Mmm!" He grinned and rubbed his stomach in circles.

The guests slowly turn their attention away from the awkward human as they go back to serving and sharing their food.

A sigh was breathed out by Philip, relieved to see that he was no longer the center of attention.

Looking in Caleb's direction, he directed a smile his way.

Caleb frowned at Philip's odd reaction, but quickly switched back to smiling once he noticed Philip was looking. He could see Evelyn rolling her eyes in his peripheral vision.

This was probably going to be a long night.

[gigabyte-flare]

Insatiable (Part 2)

Part 1

Summary: Your collages should have listened to you.

Word Count: 2k

Pairing: yandere plagas!Leon Kennedy x fem!reader (afab)

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Actions depicted in this story are not condoned in real life. You are responsible for your own content consumption. If any of the following warnings trigger you, please read at your own risk. Minors do not interact, this story is 18+ only.

Warnings: Extreme violence and gore, biting, dubcon, forced breeding, gross las plagas-y things, death, mentions of un-aliving. DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT.

A/N: Huge shout out to @chanif-art who's artwork continues to inspire me and this story. I am completely blown away with how well part 1 was received. Thank you to everyone who's liked, reblogged, commented and even simply read it. I didn't do a tag list for this one because I think well over 50 people asked and I completely lost track. Anyway, I hope this meets your expectations! I was listening to Little Girl Gone while writing this... for some reason it just fits plagas!Leon.

“Honey, I’ve changed so much since I last saw ya.”

You open your eyes, finding yourself inside Leon’s cell. You dart your head around, looking frantically when you realize you’re chained to the chair, the same chair Leon had previously been chained to. You hear Leon chuckle, a low chilling sound as he walks up from behind you, taking long, slow strides. He turns to face you, you notice the black veins sprawling his body have gotten darker, his eyes more red. He grins as he kneels down to be at eye level with you, his four canine teeth noticeably sharp. He runs his tongue along his teeth.

“There you are, sweetheart. I didn’t think you’d wake up,” Leon says with a purr. 

Your eyes are wide, taking labored deep breaths before you attempt to struggle. Leon laughs, shaking his head.

“That won’t do you any good I’m afraid, but don’t worry, I’ll get you out of those chains so we can have some play time.”

Leon stands back up, walking back behind you. You hear him break the chains apart with his bare hands. You waste no time bolting out of the chair and to the door. No matter how much you pull, the door won’t budge. You turn around to find Leon standing directly behind you. He grabs you by the waist pulling you to him. You flail your arms at him, trying to fight him off. Out of the corner of your eye you see Bryan on the other side of the clear panel holding a clipboard, taking notes.

“Bryan?! Get me out of here! I’m trapped in here with him, please! He’s going to hurt me!”

Bryan lifts his head, shaking it, “the data you’ll provide from this is too valuable to pass up I’m afraid. We need to know if he’s capable of procreating with a un-infected human and what the offspring will look like.”

“WHAT?!” you scream, “Bryan have you lost your mind?!”

Completely ignoring your pleas, Bryan continues, “remember what we agreed on, Leon. You are not to infect her with the plaga until she gives birth. After that, you can do with her as you please.”

“I remember the agreement, you fucking prick,” Leon growls next to your ear before he licks your earlobe. 

“NO I DID NOT AGREE TO THIS BRYAN, YOU LET ME OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!” you continue to scream as you try to fight Leon off.

Leon, however, is much more powerful than you; he bites into your shoulder and makes short work of pinning you to the floor, his hands gripping your jeans and ripping them off you, leaving you with your pair of lace panties. You attempt to crawl across the floor towards Bryan, but Leon drags you back by your hips. Leon flips you over to face him, caging you with his body. He simply stares down at you, his smile wide. You watch as drool drips from his face onto your shirt, which he promptly rips apart to reveal your matching bra to him.

“Aren’t you just delicious to look at?” Leon says, licking his lips before locking his lips onto yours in a hungry kiss. 

To your horror, you’re returning his kiss, his hands grasping to both of your breasts. He pulls away after a couple minutes, sitting on his haunches as he pushes your legs apart, noting the dark spot that is now on your panties.

“Oh? You don’t want this? Then tell me why you’re so fucking wet, sweetheart?”

Leaning forward, he grabs your panties with his teeth, dragging them off you before tossing them aside. He then begins undoing the belt on his pants; before long he is pulling his hardening cock from his pants. He wastes no time climbing back on top of you, pushing himself inside you balls deep with ease. 

When the head of his cock kisses your cervix, your eyes roll into the back of your head as you let out a soft moan. Leon growls, thrusting into you with an insatiable ferocity, causing you to grip his arms, scratching into them with your nails. You felt like he was fucking you for an eternity when he let’s out another growl, pressing into you as deep as he could possibly go. You feel your cunt clamp around his cock, milking his cum into your body.

Leon stares back down at you, his eyes and grin wide as he laughs maniacally.

You wake up screaming, covered in sweat and tears streaming down your face. You take deep breaths, laying your hand on your chest to ground yourself.

It was just a nightmare.

Once you get yourself calm, you climb out of bed and go into the kitchen of your apartment, making yourself coffee and some toast for breakfast. Afterwards, you get ready for work and head out the door. On your way, you decide to stop at the pharmacy. Walking the aisles, you find the feminine hygiene products, grabbing an ovulation test off the shelf and paying for it. Once you get to HQ, you trap yourself into one of the bathroom stalls, taking the test and waiting for the results. You watch in horror as a little smiley face shows up on the little screen, confirming your hypothesis.

You collect yourself before briskly walking into Bryan’s office. You don’t knock, you simply push the door open aggressively, startling both Bryan and the researcher he’s meeting with, you think his name is Pierce.

“I am not going back down there, Bryan,” you say sternly. 

Pierce shifts uncomfortably in his seat before standing up to leave, “I’ll go check on the camera feed downstairs.”

You and Bryan stare at each other as the door swings shut. Bryan rubs his eyes.

“Not this again, I’m sorry but I need you to go down there, you’re still the only one Leon talks to. Is this about what happened yesterday? I assure you, we have taken extra precautions to ensure that doesn’t happen again.”

You stomp up to Bryan’s desk, slamming the positive ovulation test onto the desk. Bryan looks down at the test before looking at you and raising an eyebrow.

“The fuck is this?” he asks.

“I’m ovulating, this is why Leon keeps saying I smell good and wants to practically throw himself on me whenever I’m down there.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Can you think of a logical explanation, then? I’m all ears.”

“This is not up for debate, you are going to continue working with Leon; that’s an order!”

Suddenly, the lights go dim before red emergency lights come on followed by a loud, screeching alarm.

“What the hell?!” Bryan exclaims, looking around confused.

You’ve never heard this alarm during your entire time at D.S.O., you rack your brain around what it could mean when suddenly, Pierce bursts into the office.

“Pierce! What the hell is going on out there?!” Bryan asks.

“Kennedy’s escaped, sir!”

Leon opens his eyes and lifts his head, looking around his cell. Deep down he was seething in rage; he had gotten so close to getting out of this chair and having his way with you. Now, his chair had reinforced steel plating welded to it and they strapped a god damn muzzle onto his face. He could see he now had two men with guns guarding the door at all times. 

Fucking beautiful.

He tested the chains again, but found they had been tightened recently, angering him even more. He couldn’t stop thinking about you and hoped he would see you today. He hated the thought of you seeing him like this, but he desperately wanted to see you and inhale your sweet, sweet scent.

Out of nowhere, an excruciating pain jolts down Leon’s spine, causing him to cry out and writhe in his chair. His four canine teeth grow sharper, his fingers turning black and now taking on a claw-like appearance and a new, sharp appendage was peaking out of his lower back. The guards turned around to look at Leon. They immediately unlock the door and come into this cell to check on him. Leon stops writhing, slumping over in his chair, pretending to be passed out. One guard stays by the door, facing away from them while the other comes over to check on Leon, checking the chains to make sure they’re in place.

Unbeknownst to the guard closest to Leon, Leon’s new tail was extending from his back, coming around from behind the guard. It was very similar to a scorpion’s tail, but instead of a barb on the end, it looked like a blade. Within an instant, Leon’s tail wraps around the guard’s neck, snapping it instantly as four claw-like appendages burst from Leon’s back, breaking the chains holding his arms in place. Hearing the other guard fall to the floor the other guard turns around only to be faced with Leon, who is now up out of his chair and walking towards him, ripping the muzzle off his face, flashing a maniacal grin at the guard. The guard goes to shoot Leon but Leon is much faster, his tail whipping forward and impaling the man in the chest before flinging him aside. 

Leon strides out of his cell, looking down the hallway to see a pair of researchers coming down the hallway. Upon seeing Leon out of his cell, they start shouting at each other and turn to run in the opposite direction. Leon smiles, breaking into a sprint. He leaps, pinning one researcher to the ground with his body while his tail grabs the other by the waist, lifting him into the air.

“Where is she?!” Leon asks with a growl to the researcher he has pinned to the floor.

“Where’s who?!” the researcher stutters.

“Don’t play dumb with me! Where is she?!”

“Up-Upstairs! In Br-Bryan’s office!”

Leon’s mouth clamps down onto the researcher's neck, ripping out his throat as his tail squeezes the other until his spine snaps, falling to the floor as Leon lets him go. At that moment, all the lights dim before red emergency lights come on. Leon breaks back into a sprint to the elevator however, it was not working no matter how many buttons he pushed. He uses his tale to rip a hole into the ceiling, leaping up into it and climbing the elevator shaft. 

Once he reaches the top, he pries the elevator door open, swinging down, landing gracefully in the hallway. People are scrambling to get away from him, bumping and tripping over each other to run down the hallway. Leon’s red eyes scan the area, however, he sees no sign of you. More guards with guns show up, firing at him. His tale whips forward, deflecting their bullets with ease as he lunges forward. He impales one operative with his tail while his hand thrusts through the chest of another, gripping the man’s still beating heart in his claws before crushing it.

“Take her and get out of here!” he hears a man yell from down the hallway.

Leon’s attention is immediately drawn to the man that yelled, immediately recognizing him as Bryan. At one time, he liked the man, a brilliant scientist. Too bad he has to die. Leon watches as Bryan pulls out a pistol, firing shots at him. Again. Leon’s tail and back claws deflect the shots as he stands face to face with Bryan, his tail whipping around and decapitating the man with ease. He brings his tail’s blade to his lips, licking off the blood as he proceeds to walk down the hallway towards the entrance of HQ. 

A researcher is leading you out the front door, shoving you through the door with his back turned to Leon. He’s about to head out himself before Leon’s tail goes straight through his chest. Leon hears the man’s death gurgles as he flings him behind him, his body falling about 20 feet away with a loud thud. 

And there you are, cowering in the entry vestibule, your eyes locked on him, looking up and down his body. Leon straightens out his posture in hopes of making himself alluring to you, his tail whipping back and forth while his back claws flex. 

“Do you actually think you can escape me?” Leon coos, watching as you press your back as hard as you can into the glass doors as he comes closer.

“You never will, my love.” he continues with a grin, licking his sharp canines.

You stumble out of the door, bolting into the street and running as fast as you can to your car.

“I will find you.”

Part 3

[inkskinned]

something that stuck with me once, way back in middle school when i was still learning how to write - my teacher said "writing shock and tragedy is easy, it's humor that's the hardest."

i have been up and down the halls of academia. i have the fancy degree and the experience in publishing. i think i paved most of my own road with the little bricks of sorrow i had stored inside of me. i know i did it mostly with works that are blisteringly lonely. i know why we write like that. it's lifesaving.

but yeah, i mean. i also know how much people think that "sad" media is the same thing as "good" media. our human desire to connect is so hard-pressed that we immediately latch onto any broken themes. the bullied kids and the tales of inspiration. people keep saying things like "glass onion" and "everything everywhere" weren't actually good. because, you know, they're. happy. or happy-ish. happy enough. and we only value art if it's grimdark-adjacent.

do you know - people still consistently whine at me that my writing would be so good if i just capitalized things. i used to flinch. i get kind of a weird, vindictive little rush these days - i get to say thank you for the comment! i have chronic pain and this is how i conserve my hands so i can write more during the day :) grammar isn't real anyway! and now they're trapped in the room with me, you know? i get to pull out my map and show them how grammar is not the same thing as good writing.

writers have this thing. we scratch at our insides, constantly, prying our lives apart into splinters. prying the splinters apart into atoms. when we combust something into poetry, we control it. it cannot hurt us if it exists outside of us rather than burning a hole through the bottom of our lungs. it's not a wonder to me that so much of what i make comes out like a death gasp. i spent a long time at the bottom. i keep going back, too. when you're down there for so long, the only thing you can exhale is fumes.

but humor is hard. humor needs timing; which i can't promise in a paragraph. i can kind-of force it through careful spacing, but i have no idea how fast you're reading these things. humor needs a somewhat awareness of your audience, when really - anybody could be looking. humor needs us to understand what the joke is, why it's a joke, and to think - ha! that is funny. in tragedy, everyone understands the metaphor of a kicked puppy. in humor, you need to introduce them to the concept of a dog.

and forget about positivity. forget about anything not made for adults explicitly. every time i see a well-made children's media piece, i feel fucking horrible for the creators. most of the time, people see children's media as being sort of "not worth" applause, even though i'm pretty sure they have to work twice as hard. i have no idea how hard it must be to not be able to have your character just say. "well, fuck." something about a message of peace or friendship or caring - for some reason, that makes the media not for adults. like, okay. i'm pretty sure my father actually, out of all of us, could use a good book on how to control his temper and talk about his feelings.

but whatever. i write a short story about my ocd, and how it's fucking killing me. it gets an award. it gets published. i write a short story about my ocd, and how i'm overcoming it, and how my days are getting lighter and starting to flourish. i keep getting ghosted. no response. it just is lacking... something.

is this it, forever? you can be an artist, okay. but the trade off is that the things you make - if they're happy? if they're joyful? people will say it's stupid and pandering. you bite your nails off. you file your teeth. you hear something inside of you breaking.

the other day in a writing group, someone i'd thought of as a friend said: "you write so much better these days! i love what you make when you'd rather be dead."

[the-fandom-is-now-my-life]

Would they peel an orange for you?

Yes, I saw the TikToks and thought about doing it before I remember I don't have boyfriend

Yes, unprompted

Thoma

There is approximately 30-40 minutes between the time Thoma gives ayato his evening tea and when ayaka needed to be escorted to town.

And like clockwork Thoma would be waiting for you under a tree in the residence, on a somewhat secluded corner with a tray with two tea cups and a little platter with cut up solsettias and oranges.

Even if one day you arrive early where he is still getting settled and just about to start peeling and ask to do it for him he just smiles but refuses with his head.

“ Don't worry about it! Why don't you drink the tea? It's a new blend that arrived today, though you would like it”

Childe ( he is used to peeling fruit for his sibling)

Itto ( hear me out, he hears a girl mention a novel where the main character gets fed apple slices while sick and how attentive that was and immediately starts a competition with nobody to prove himself the 'bestest' boyfriend ever"

Yes, if asked

Zhongli

He doesn't have the same nutritional needs as humans, where we would need variety of vegetables and fruits, grains and meat in his dragon form he only needs three cows every month, now as a human his metabolism had slowed significantly, even then it would be strange to only buy kilos of meat once a month and nothing else.

That is where you help him out, going to his house for diner and lunch to not let the good rot.

“ I saw green tangerine at the stall and decided to buy them” zhongli settles the fabric bag on the table “It reminded me of such a delectable tea I had a while ago, I guessed I would have my hand at it, it will take at most 10 years only”

“ Tea inside tangerines? It sounds nice. Do you think I can eat one, I never had one” he nods from the kitchen putting away a bag of rice and other things while he mumbles about only needing the skin “I don't really want to peel it though… Can you peel it for me?”

Zhongli looks at you, head slightly turned but he smiles as he answers “ as you wish” he walks to the table and grabs a knife, before skillfully cutting the skin and stabbing a wedge “open wide”

Kaveh

Kaveh might work as an architect, loving the flow and composition of his buildings, but that love extends further away to other areas of art, from painting to rug making to clothes, so when you ask him for help when remodeling your home ( you paying) he was on cloud nine.

Walking and haggling the price all around the grand bazaar from 7 am (he insisted all the good things arrived early) to 3 pm was expectedly tiring to your legs and to your head, seeing how happy kaveh was with a 20 mora discount. So when you two stopped at alhaitham’s house to leave some bags you threw yourself on the ergonomic couch that was on the living room.

“Oh, we didn't stop to drink anything all morning, do you want some water and…” you could hear him rummaging around the shared kitchen for something to offer “ … some oranges?”

You only sigh but nod, even if you knew he wouldn't see “ water is fine. I don't want to peel anything, I hate how the smell lingers on my fingers”

Kaveh brings a jug with cool water “ I can peel it for you if you want, I don't really mind”

“... Yes, please “

Diluc ( would ask a maid the first time but when they tell him what it means he starts peeling it himself)

Neuvillete (furina said it was something sweet between lovers and it stuck with him)

Wriothesley

Not really/ doesn't find the point:

Alhaitham

At breakfast he doesn't like to eat heavy, not wanting to dirty his kitchen before going to work and not having much appetite so early. Usually a warm cup of tea or coffee and a bit of fruit or bread.

Seeing as he was picking an apple from the bowl on the kitchen you ask him to pick you an orange to which he only nods and grabs you a knife.

Leaving it in front of you he sits on the contrary chair and bites through the apple and sips his tea.

“ I don't really want to peel it, though… maybe someone could do it for me” you look at him, hinting at him

“ Do you want an apple then? You don't have to peel it” he doesn't look up from the book on the table even as you sighs

Wanderer (rat man)

Kaeya ( does it because you asked him but doesn't find the point in asking him for such a small favor. Prefers showing love/care in other ways)

[nico-esoterica]

"Nico, I wanna be a famous artist!" (A Case Study Using Manifestation and Astrology)

Lady Gaga went from no one knowing her name in a hand-made outfit at Lollapalooza in '07 to eclipsing and redefining pop culture in '09. And later headlined Lollapalooza in 2010. She told herself, "I'm going to make a Number One Record," and "The Fame is inside of Me," over and over again. This was what meteoric 'BTS-like' success looked like for millennials (which also happened in the same amount of time).

She manifested that shit like a motherfucker. She's living proof that a small indie artist who can barely move a crowd and who got INITIAL lukewarm reception after releasing her breakout album that only gained traction A YEAR LATER that YOU, IN FACT, CAN DO THIS SHIT. Gaga was performing in hole in the wall gay clubs in Europe and radios didn't care about that album until Just Dance blew up in the US. Every millennial remembers exactly where they were in life when that single became a hit song. This is also the woman who performed in an Ikea Parking Lot to promote said album.

This is a sign for all of the artists in the audience to NOT give up on your dreams. Even if things seem to be slow, delayed, or as if nothing is going on. There will always be SOMETHING behind the scenes if you commit to thinking in your favor. You're human and can have shitty days, weeks, etc, but it's important to NOT COMMIT TO BEING MISERABLE. Your engagement's gonna go up, you can find a new melody for that song, work through your writer's block and just WRITE the damn thing, and you're going to GET the right gig for you. Your dreams will be handed to you if you believe that they will. TRUST YOURSELF.

Astrologically, Gaga was in her 10H profection year when she first performed at Lollapalooza. But between 07-08+ she experienced the classic Jupiter and Saturn squares to her natal planet equivalents which occur in your early 20s that could've served as catalysts or hurdles she chose not to overcome and did the former. Contrary to what we hear about 10H profections being about finally being seen or getting promoted, etc, it's not inherently explosive. It depends on the chart and what the person does with their potential. Gaga used it as exposure and to further build her career that'd soon snowball into legendary success.

This isn't some Capitalistic tale about 'hard work paying off.' I don't believe in toil and 'hard work' in an exploitative economical sense. I believe in all-encompassing self-belief. Gaga could have easily thrown in the towel when the radios weren't gagged or the people weren't moving in the crowd. She, imo, was performing for audiences only SHE could see. Huge ones based on the scale she believed in.

Even if we could say her Mars-Neptune conjunction in Capricorn where she already had an exaltation or that her Moon-Mars or Moon-Pluto helped her, those harmonious aspects could have motivated her in the opposite direction if she wasn't seeing results. Because all of that Mars can easily wear out through exhaustion or entrap itself in the idea that it simply 'can't come easily.' Martian and Saturnian folks tend to enjoy suffering as a kink. She also could've easily been a flash-in-the-pan one hit wonder artist and faded or her era could've been very short. Maybe in hind sight it was from a musical perspective, but that 5 year run between The Fame and pre-Art Pop undeniably gave her quarter century defining success. And she'd later go on to win big accolades as a serious actress and is still going.

And speaking strictly astrologically, I see another big musical era for her coming. I saw it in Galliano's chart when his fire points got activated and will be emblazoned by Neptune in Aries transiting soon. I also see the same coming for our Mama Monster.

So, um, why are y'all giving up out there in the stands? COME GET ON STAGE AND CLAIM IT AS YOURS ALREADY.

[sol-consort]

Aliens discovering our movies, art, books and video games and realizing why they’re all so precious to us

Like, a turian who comes from a high ranking family but just doesn’t have the abilities or skill the rest of their family has and it’s kinda outlasted for it puts on this old human vid called Encanto out of curiosity and by the end of it they’re a sobbing mess (whatever the turian equivalent of sobbing is) because “Mirabel just like me, fr fr.”

An Asari who just lost her first bondmate to old age and finding one of our sad songs about loss feels so touched by it and listens to it over and over again until she’s processed her own grief.

A Quarian who feel moved by a beautiful sculpture made of scrap metal and spare parts because it reminds them of the flotilla; a fleet of ships all held together with ductape, thread, and a prayer and yet still something beautiful.

The vibes I get from the other species is that they make their vids, games, books, and songs just to entertain, just background noise to fill the silence. Maybe they carry a deeper meaning sometimes but nothing compared to humans who pour their souls into their projects. Humans make fantastical stories out of the little parts of our lives that others can relate to and feel seen.

The handprint paintings on cavewalls come to mind. How instinctive drumming your fingers is how natural humming feels, how your brain spins stories before bedtime unprompted.

As much as war and disease have been parts of human history since the dawn of time, since the first spear was filled down, likewise music and art went with it hand in hand ever since the first flute was carved out, made from hollow birdbones and mammoth ivory, dating back to the time of ancients.

It's therapeutic. No one can deny the benefits of art on your mind and soul. It is what makes life worth living for many, the whimsy, the joy, the passion, the elation, the misery, the envy. The good and bad mirrors and reflections of our inner most desires, shameful feelings, and most creative ideas.

While the other species definitely don't lack in their culture and art—turians face tattoos borrowing from the batonical designs of nature—there is something to be said about the elcor deciding to adapt hamlet out of everything

There is a reason it's human music you hear playing at any self-respecting galactic club, ranging from the Citadel to Omega's own bars, the lights, the atmosphere, the valvety seats and soundtrack has a clear human touch. The human fashion which took over the asari modern wear like a swarm, inspiring many new designs combining the best of both worlds.

Humans aren't the only creative species, nor the one who care most about art. Rather, art comes naturally to us, all of us picked up colouring and drawing as kids, the urge to sing along to the radio, the desire to decorate your room, to spend hours moulding and sculpting characters in videogames even if they're end up wearing a helmet for the reminder of the story.

Art to us isn't necessarily a refined and polished thing like it is to the asari, neither is it an intricate impossibly complex dance with thousands of layers like the elcor. Our art is primal and integral. It's messy and often flawed. It's as mundane and common as the hair on our bodies, and it's everywhere. We breathe it into the world. Otherwise, it might sufficate it inside. It's so embedded within our whole existence that we are often blind to the more mundane forms of art, glossing over the way looking at sunsets gets our hearts slowing down.

Beauty was never the purpose of art for humans, but relief, communication, and self expression.

We look for art in everything, for a story under every unturned stone, for a poetic meaning behind the alignment of the stars, drawing shapes from their formation and assigning it meanings.

The other species could see that. it's what helped our reputation recover faster after the whole First Contact incident. What made the other species forgo their "bullies" perspective of humanity once they sampled our food, tasted our drinks, and were gifted bouquets of our flowers with cursive apologises worded so thoughtfully.

Art is the one thing you can't take from a human, we resort to it even during the most grim times of our life, especially during that, seek comfort in someone's creations, even quietly make our own versions inside the privacy of our heads. Just because art happens behind closed doors—or brains—doesn't mean it didn't happen. It's not a tree, it never required an audience to exist, its purpose is its mere just existence.

It's even infectious, wasn't the humans who got a krogan to agree and film a romantic comedy about falling in love with a human?

Do you think the hanar aren't absolutely fascinated by our tales of the sea, the ruthless spiteful ocean we seem to fear as much as we revere. The sirens, the krakens, the sailor shanties, the beautiful ships, and intricate wood carvings meant to bring luck.

Maybe the Turians can't get enough of human "coming of age" cheesy romcoms because our depictions of teenage rebellion and daring to be "selfish" and come into your own personhood is such a taboo amidst their military culture.

Or maybe they loathe it.

Instead, they prefer the stories about humans coming together to solve problems, realising the strength of cooperation, of beehive-like efficiency and utter trust in one another. Be it war films about soldiers coping with the cruel world while finding warmth in their comrades, or depictions of larger revolts where a whole population works together to put an end to their tyrannical leaders.

Maybe they're secretly Marvel fans, who knows.

Art doesn't have to be deep. It can be fun just for the sake of fun. Simple self-indulgence at its purest form. For every great classical piece of literature has been surpassed in sales by an erotica romance novelette with a shirtless cowboy on the cover.

I think the salarians would watch love paradise and other romantic reality shows about humans competing for one human's affection, hand in marriage, sometimes roses are involved—but salarians watch it with the same intensity of football fans watching a match, it is their own game of thrones, they don't care much for the sex but by the stars the "picking a mate" drama and gossip is equivalent to catnip for salarians

[rxsilabeth--er]

let's inagurate this blog with a good note shall we? >:3

Hear me out- on the line of the bullying Tom Riddle agenda Tom's boggart in DADA class is actually the reader about to ruin his whole career because that would be hilarious

☎ Now Calling......Author: "Hello? Hai, yes, thank you for requesting this Hazel, I will surely not disappoint you and hopefully you enjoy reading this, I love bullying Tom as well! Okay, talk to you later! Bye!!"

☎ Now Calling......Synopsis: "Hello! Hai..okay!!...Hmmm....Tom, the prince of Slytherin and feared and admired by many of his fellow peers and students at Hogwarts....find out his worst fear at Defense Against the Dark Arts call with a boggart...but..one second! Why is there a Hufflepuff tie being shown in the human figure of the boggart???"

☎ Now Calling......Warnings: "...nothing...other than Tom Riddle himself as a whole! Anyways....crack..kind of fluff???? Don't know..Bye!! I'm not a funny person!! I know, sorry! I tried my best..."

Scarily Cute Boggart...

Tom didn't really want to move to class, but he still did...He was the Head boy! Of-course he would!!....and because he didn't want you to bully him into doing it... as he sat down Tom was also trying his HARDEST to not put the cruciatus curse on his classmate as he scribbled something in his diary..Waiting for the professor to come as it was their practical...Abraxas beside him gossiping about something...to which Tom definitely wasn't paying attention to..

Finally the professor entered the room, pulling a large rack behind him which seemed to shake and move, making everyone curious...Tom closed his diary and walked ahead to understand things..

"....Good morning! So...today's topic is...can you guess it???" of-course no student could, "..Okay..so in this shoe rack....we have a boggart!" The students then all murmured a bit worriedly, as the closet gave a huge jolt

"Can anyone tell me what a boggart is???" of-course Tom's hand stood up before a few others, "..Boggart is a creature which lives in dark spaces and takes the form of whatever a person fears most."

"..Good job Riddle! 5 points to Slytherin!" the professor said as he explained the boggart's personality, habitat, living conditions, etc. before finally explaining how to repel a boggart.

"Riddikulus!"

"Riddikulus!!" the students repeated even Tom did, he was starting to feel a bad vibe coming from the cupboard and he didn't know how to explain it but he felt as though he would forever be embarrassed after this class...

"..Alright, now Riddle!! Do come forward boy!" the professor said as Tom stepped ahead brushing his worries aside, he can't have that! As the professor held his shoulder and pointed his wand at the rack door,

"..Alright, now..1...2...3" the professor did a spell as the rack knob moved and it flew open, the rack was dark inside and nothing could be seen, but a crouched figure of a person was seen, they straightened their back though still crouched and the sunlight hit their shirt....

a Hufflepuff tie...

A Hufflepuff tie...Tom....the heir of Slytherin, the head boy....Tom Riddle...was scared of a Hufflepuff!? That sounds like the biggest joke anyone has heard...or seen in this case...

Tom on the other hand stood there frozen..His cheeks red and his angrily glaring at the boggart...his wand pointed at the boggart who was now slowly moving forward, the sunshine now fell on it's Hufflepuff tie and mischievous grin...

"..Oh Tommy~ " a similar voice said in a teasing voice..it wasn't even cruel....but instead endearing in a way?

Don't know, but Tom began to shake in either fear or anger and pointed his wand at the boggart...who was still hidden in the shadow, only it's grin and tie showing..

"...Ri...Riddi..Riddkulus!!"...TOM RIDDLE STUTTERED?! and suddenly the boggart was switched into a tiny jack-in-the-box...

"..Good....good job... Good job Tom! fifty points to Slytherin!" the professor said forcing the boggart in as he patted Tom's shoulder..Tom was still frozen turned around and walked away embarrassed for life as Abraxas followed him with a grin asking, "..So...Tommy? What was that???" Abraxas's grin dropped from his lips when Tom glared at...Abraxas left and Tom moved to Slytherin dormitory. Tom walked up the stairs to his dorm to find you already sitting there grinning at a couldron mixed with some type of potions...

Oh god...everyone knew the boggart...and maybe they understand why you were his boggart...if they have experienced your words..even though you're a Hufflepuff....

© This writing work belongs to me, rxsilabeth--er, Aurelia, Rosilabeth, Cerine. Reblogging is appreciated, but plagiarizing or copying my works is forbidden, thank you for reading this and if you like this check out my blog!

[fairytale-poll]

QUARTERFINAL ROUND, MATCH 3 OUT OF 4! FINALS FOR SET C!

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Skylla:

sapphic little mermaid with a happy ending. what's not to love. pretty art too (it's a graphic novel/webcomic, can be found for free online (legally)). she's sweet, she speaks sign language, she's brave.

Skylla is a mermaid who falls in love with a human. Since her language just sounds like screeching to humans she is taught sign language by Corinth, the girl she falls in love with. Eventually she decides she wants to go to the surface so she can be with Corinth. She loves hamburgers and also has a feisty streak. Corinth also has a shitty boyfriend that, as a condition of becoming human, she has to kill with a knife given to her by her sisters. She ends up not killing him because Corinth ask her to, but they end up being able to be together when Skylla asks her father to turn her into a mermaid because she was near death.First of all, sign language. Second of all, wlw. Third of all, slow burn.

Bug:

Their a bug that falls in love with a human they rescue and becomes human, but even when they don't get to keep their human body, they still get to be with their love. It's a sci-fi fairytale musical.

Little Mermaid meets Starship Troopers musical starring awesome puppets and the most trans coded main character ever. Please. Please vote Bug Starship I love him. Go watch Kick it Up a Notch from Starship. Go watch Status Quo from Starship. You will understand.

He's a bug and he lives in space on a bug planet but he really wants to be a starship ranger which you can only be if you are a human and then one day a spaceship lands on his planet and so he goes to an evil bug called Pincer who then helps him become a human. And Bug falls in love with a human on the spaceship and it's very sweet. The musical and storyline are based on the little mermaid story, the creators themselves called it "the little mermaid but in space". Bug wanting to be a human/a starship ranger and achieving that and falling in love with a human is very much like the little mermaid

Starship is a musical that can only be described as The Little Mermaid meets Starship Troopers. It follows Bug, an alien bug who dreams of being a Starship Ranger, a galactic explorer/soldier, but the rigid confines of bug society keeps him trapped in a job he hates. He reaches a Starship Ranger named February from the hive and immediately falls in love with her. In order to be with her and pursue his dream, he makes a deal with a giant scorpion named Pincer who through sci-fi bs gives him a human body. Near the end of the second act he sacrifices his human body and returns to his bug body, and saves the day and wins February's heart. It's truly the ultimate Little Mermaid. He has multiple songs, and his bug body is portrayed by a puppet!! Vote for Bug!!

“It's a big, big, universe So many dimensions And unanswered questions Not to mention Life What an invention Life There's no choice involved in what you are given One mind, one voice, one body to live in It's a short, small thing we lead With so much potential Pointless or essential Which one can I be? Where do I fit? Where do I stand? Who are they to say what I am? And how can I stay inside this awful world I know? I need a way out I need an escape I'd rather be dead than to live in this place I wish that something or someone could just take it all away Someone take me away” dear god….. can anybody hear me…. (song from starship)

They are the purest little mermaid adaptation done in the most unuque way. An alien insect gets turned into a human, a race he has always loved and admired, to be with the woman he fell in love with. Also just a great musical.

Bug's whole arc is so so in tune with that of the little mermaid. He is an alien who has fallen in love with humanity through a crashed spaceship and trades his place in the hive for a chance to be with both with the human he's falling for and to be a Starship Ranger. He body swaps with human in a cryogenic pod! It's literally sci-fi Little Mermaid!

[tomwaterbabies]

I hope the surgery went well and recovery goes smoothly!!! You asked for asks and I saw you have some robo Varian art that's been eating my brain for a few days now. I guess not technically a question but I'd love to hear more about that au if you wanna ramble 👉👈

HEYYY thank you so much! it went really well and the pain is super minimal rn, i can even sit up on my desk! which was recommended by my surgeon to do anyway so thats rad

ANYWAYSSSSS... THANK YOU for the kind words im so glad you like it!! and THANK YOU for reminding me of the fact i never posted about my robot au like i had meant to 💀

here it is NOW (and to anyone who hasnt seen the art here it be)

this is long as hell btw. so sorry

SO. setting i imagine is similar to typical vat7k BUT a little darker and more dystopian. think steampunk industrial stuff... which i know hugo's kingdom is already like lol but just imagine it like. in a lot more places. this is basically a "steampunk" au too

robots are VERY common. invented by a group of scientists with the main ones being donella and ulla

robots are used as service etc etc. theyre not sentient at all so this isnt like. some unethical practice

but ulla and donella are OBSESSED with making them more and more advanced, theyre besties and all that. but ulla is Particularly obsessed with making the Perfect Robot

we know that ulla is kind of messed up in the head. in this au she kind of messes way too much with robot sentience WHILE ALSO getting obsessed with the eternal library. same stuff happens eventually. donella and ulla fight about the eternal library etc etc

BUT ALSO... ulla is working on her Magnum Opus. a son for her and her husband, who she is making to be the perfect robot. quirin is unaware of the shit shes doing and fully trusts her and supports this passion project

and well! she does make the first Sentient Robot. with the use of science and Magical Knowledge she was able to basically give life force through magical means into the robot. The robot of course she named varian. and not only is he sentient, but he looks completely human

she did some messed up stuff tho! again! she's programmed him with fake memories so he thinks he has lived a life fully as a human. he's also programmed to not notice things like the small seams on his body and all that. like his code just immediately disregards all that

anywaysss. after ulla disappears, quirin is dedicated to taking care of varian. he figures it's best to follow with ulla's choice of making sure varian doesnt know hes a robot

MEANWHILE ! because of the schism between ulla and donella, there was some wack shit that happened. namely robots going completely crazy. now all robots are Murder Robots. so the world is pretty Dystopian at the moment

Varian decides he wants to go out and find the source of what made the robots go crazy. bc this sucks lol. like everyone is Just Miserable

so he meets his friends. nuru, yong, hugo!

LETS TALK ABOUT HUGO

hugo works for donella. hugo also absolutely HATES robots. the robots have been messing shit up since he was a kiddo

he's kind of like a robot hunter. harvesting them for parts as well as getting rid of them bc theyre dangerous. usually donella directs him to different missions. and now shes telling him to join this guy (varian) bc she wants the secrets that ulla had hidden and varian is sure as hell after them

sooooo at one point. varian gets hurt maybe, or interacts with something that breaks the code in him or whatever. the code that stops him from noticing his robotic qualities. i think he probably would get super injured and like. he and all his friends stare in shock and horror as some sort of gash or sparks or whatever show a metallic inside

they all find out he's a robot together weeeee. no one is having a good time

so he's living with existential crisis. he's away from his dad so he cant travel all the way back to be like hey What The Fuck. AND he's still dedicated to his goal. but now he's just. confused, scared, and unsure if he's worthy of his humanity that he thought he had

they all try to work with this new discovery (which i think would happen earlier on rather than way later). hugo especially is like. having a crisis. bc he's always hated robots and for good reason. but varian... varian is SO human. he thinks, he feels, he cares, etc. he's more Human than a lot of the Flesh and Blood people he's been around

so you know, hugo starts to fall in love with him anyway. lots of excellent scenes of him helping varian with his mechanics, etc

and of course varian starts falling in love with him too, but is dealing with a lot of confusion as well. like is he even real, doesnt hugo deserve to be loved by a Human and not a Robot, etc etc

ok jesus christ. i think thats all the main stuff. woaghghg

[carrionhearted]

“homebound” You went to a whole different country for an expo not even a month ago.

Do you even know what you’re talking about

Do you understand how insane this is to say to someone? To go up to a dynamically/ invisibly disabled person and go “well you went to a con once so you’re not really that sick”.

If you are talking about the expo I attended which was 1) in my country, 2) in my province, and 3) near my city… you have no clue how that went. I’ve said it before, I don’t like talking about my health because it is a sore subject and is not fun to recount. When I attended that expo, I went with friends. You can ask any of them about this. I spent half of it sitting on the con floor alone while everyone else perused the booths, because if I tried to get up and go with them, I’d be prone to passing out and destroying merchandise. I struggled through the whole event, and was barely mentally present because the pain/ discomfort was too overwhelming to enjoy what should’ve been a fun experience. The chest pains and tachycardia and the inability to so much as breathe is fucking unbearable, I got home that night and the toll it all took on my body was so bad that my mother thought we should go to the ER. I stayed home and cried because I’d been looking forward to the expo for so long, and I barely skimmed through it before my body started failing on me and I had to leave my friends and sit down. Our group had another stop planned in the area, but I couldn’t walk over to the next place, and we ended up having to just go straight home. Do you know how shameful that feels? To be the reason your friends can’t do fun things? Because you cant walk around a flat convention floor without your heart rate spiking into the 150+ and your body tapping out on you? Because you cant go a DAY without random body pains that make movement hell?

You have no clue. You do not know me.

You are disturbingly ignorant. Get a fucking grip. You cannot say things like this to real people who you do not know, I am a human with feelings. This is beyond triggering, it is disgusting. How is this even a topic of conversation, you have strayed *so far* from your original advocacy campaign that you’re now shooting strays at an uninvolved party and harassing them with revolting ableist bullshit for… entertainment? I hope? If you think this behaviour is genuinely okay, you need help.

Jfc. I can barely get up to make art anymore. I want to so badly, but I can’t. I’ve lost the ability to go on actual hikes, I’m not allowed to anymore, because it is medically dangerous to be out there on my own. Being in the forest is the one thing I live to do, and I’m trapped inside withering alone. Imagine not being able to engage with your special interests because your body just can’t do it anymore. Imagine hearing what you just said in that position. Exercise some human empathy. I do not need this. I deserve to have a fucking life. I deserve to participate in society even if I’m disabled. You need to get off of the internet and go feel shame.

[cookies-over-yonder]

...and it's like the sky is new.

CO-WRITTEN BY @silverlistenstothings

Nicky takes Taylor and Hermie on a family trip to the museum!

[title from I See the Light from Tangled]

Part 20 of The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Roommates

ao3

Nicky pulls up in the Swifts' driveway and shoots Taylor a text.

To: T SWIFT 😎

hey

come outside w hermie

im in the driveway

Shortly thereafter, Nicky sees the front door open, and Taylor comes out holding his cane in one hand and Hermie's hand in the other, pulling them toward the car. He can’t hear what they’re saying, but Hermie seems to be somewhere between confused and agitated. Taylor, on the other hand, is practically bouncing with excitement. 

Taylor opens the door to the backseat first and ushers Hermie inside. Once he's closed that door, he opens the front door and places his cane inside—Nicky holds it steady when it starts tipping over—before climbing in himself.

"Hi, Dad!" he says, doing the buckle.

"Hey, kiddo!" Nicky ruffles his hair a little, and the smile on his face is a great reward. Then he glances in the rear-view mirror at Hermie in the back. "Hey, Hermie!"

Hermie seems surprised to be addressed, meeting Nicky’s eyes in the rear-view for only a moment before looking away.

“Nicky,” they greet, dipping their head.

"Alright, where do you guys wanna go? Wanna kick a ball around or something?"

Nicky can almost hear the crickets. Right. Neither of them are sporty.

He pulls up Google Maps on his phone to check for places nearby. There's an arcade near here, and Nicky bets that Taylor must like those machines imported from Japan. Surely that option won't fail.

"How about an arcade?" he asks, smug. "There's one nearby—"

“Absolutely fucking not!” Hermie snaps with an unexpected level of passion. “If you try to take us to that arcade, I will be jumping out of this moving car and taking Taylor with me.”

Nicky looks to Taylor, who's curled in on himself just a little, and once Nicky locks eyes with him, he averts his gaze to the window. He's not excited like Nicky had expected—quite the opposite.

“Okay, alright, jeez,” Nicky says, sparing Hermie another glance—they look a bit like they’re about to lunge at him—before returning his attention to his phone. “Do either of you have any suggestions?”

“I suggest you make a plan and confirm it with your companions before calling them out to the car,” Hermie mumbles, quietly enough that an average human probably wouldn’t be able to hear them, and Nicky decides to pretend to do the same.

"What else is close?" Taylor asks, "I'm fine with anything."

That is entirely untrue, considering that Nicky's already made two suggestions, but he decides not to note it.

“Well, there’s some restaurants—“

“We already ate,” Hermie says.

“—a theatre?” That’s the kind of thing Hermie would be into, right?

“Which we don’t have tickets to,” Hermie continues, folding their arms and slumping against the door. Nicky is kind of regretting inviting them already.

“There’s uh—“ Nicky frantically scrolls through the list of nearby locations for anything that could save this situation. “The art museum?”

Hermie glances back over at Nicky, but for the first time since entering the car, they look intrigued rather than annoyed. Taylor perks up a bit too.

“That sounds fun!” Taylor says, regaining his previous enthusiasm. “Right, Hermie?”

Hermie’s face softens a bit, and they nod as they hum their agreement.

"Awesome," Nicky says, pulling out of the driveway and setting it as the destination on his GPS.

Once they're on the road, Taylor rolls the window down. In his peripheral vision, Nicky can see him fanning himself with his hand.

"Taylor, you wanna crank up the AC?"

"Okay!"

The air blasts against them, and Nicky realizes how hot he'd been feeling too.

Save for the sound of the AC, it's fairly quiet in the car. Taylor is bouncing in his seat though, and Nicky can feel his feet tapping against the car's floor.

"There's CDs in there," Nicky says, nodding toward the glove compartment.

"... what?"

Right, fuck, not even people Nicky's age know what those are. Why would Taylor?

"Open it and pull one out."

Taylor does so.

"Now slide it in here," Nicky nods toward the CD slot, "and press play."

Nicky hears Taylor follow his instructions.

And then he hears the start of Let It Go .

Just as he's about to tell Taylor to swap out the CD for something else he hears Taylor gasp.

And just as the lyrics start, Taylor is singing along, and Nicky doesn't need to glance over, because he can hear the smile on Taylor's face.

It's got to be one of Glenn's CDs. Nicky never listens to these, but they seem to make Taylor happy, so maybe he'll be playing them more often.

Nicky knows all the lyrics to this song despite not having heard it in years, and just as the first chorus is approaching, he decides fuck it, and joins Taylor in singing along, quietly, but still.

But when Taylor sings louder and stronger and more excitedly now that this is a duet, Nicky's louder too, and they're both singing with passion and fire— ironic —and there's this warmth in his chest, and he hopes Taylor feels the same. Even Hermie is humming along softly, lips upturned ever so slightly in a smile they don’t seem willing to fully commit to.

Immediately after the last line, 'the cold never bothered me anyway' , in an ironic twist, Taylor says, "I'm cold now," and shuts off the AC.

The pun is already on Nicky's tongue and rolling out before he can stop it.

"You mean you're… frozen? "

The excessive laughter from Taylor makes it all worth it, even as Hermie groans.

And then the next track is playing, and they're singing along to I Have a Dream .

The rest of the drive continues like that, until Nicky is pulling into the parking lot of the art museum. Taylor continues singing along once the car is parked and the music has stopped, until the chorus is over and his confidence in the lyrics starts to wane a little. Nicky laughs as the confident singing trails off into half-mumbles between the words he remembers, and cracks the driver's door open.

“Come on kiddo, let’s rock ‘n’ roll.”

Taylor grins, stepping out of the car. Nicky tilts his cane over towards him, and he takes it before leading the way towards the entrance of the museum. Hermie wordlessly slides into place beside him, despite Nicky not hearing—much less seeing—them get out of the car.

Nicky locks the car, slides the keys into his pocket, and takes up the rear. From their parking spot, it’s a short walk to the entrance, and there isn’t much of a line at the counter.

“I can pay for my own ticket,” Hermie mumbles as they wait.

“You sure you’ll be able to cover it?” Nicky shoots back, pointing at the prices over the counter, which declare the tickets as free for anyone 18 years or younger.

Hermie makes a part-offended-mostly-embarrassed little noise and steps away from Nicky to half-hide behind Taylor. It doesn’t do much for them, considering Taylor is half a head shorter than them and more than willing to laugh at their expense. Nicky snorts, and pays for his own ticket.

He hands the admission stickers out to the kids, and Hermie snatches the one for Taylor to peel the back off before he can react and stick it to his forehead. Taylor squawks indignantly as Hermie smugly puts their own sticker in place over their breast pocket. Taylor elbows them as he moves the sticker from his forehead to his shirt, but Hermie seems entirely unrepentant.

“You wish you looked like that,” Hermie shoots back, pointing to an anime-style portrait with bright, exaggerated colours.

They enter the gallery, and Taylor instantly gravitates towards a series of colourful portraits in a variety of art styles. Hermie glances at Nicky with an inscrutable expression before following after him. Taylor bumps their shoulders together once they reach his side, and gestures to one of the more abstract paintings.

“That’s what you look like,” Taylor teases, and Hermie bumps him back with a bit more force as they huff out a half-laugh.

“I do,” Taylor says with exaggerated longing. “I do wish I looked like that.”

They continue through the gallery in similar fashion, teasing and snickering at each other just loud enough to earn them a few derisive glances from other occupants. If they notice the attention, they don’t acknowledge it, and Nicky makes sure nobody bothers the pair.

It’s really nice, actually, seeing the two of them just be kids. Taylor took everything that came at him admirably well, but everything that came at him was…  a lot, for anyone but especially for a teenager. Nicky hadn’t even noticed how on-guard he was throughout the journey until he sees him now with his guard lowered. And Hermie… Nicky wouldn’t claim to know them well, but it was hard to miss how miserable they seemed to be during the journey. That misery isn’t gone, but they’re actually smiling for once, genuine happiness and amusement instead of smirks and cruel grins, and it's a nice change of pace.

Nicky has a lot of regrets about how he raised Taylor—or, more accurately, how he didn’t raise him at all—but in moments like these, where he sees Taylor being a kid and being happy, he feels like he can make up for it.

Then there are a couple paintings that catch Nicky's eye.

Two landscapes, side by side.

The first one is dated as being painted in 2014.

It's a sunset and its reflection on the water. The sky is a blend of blue, purple, pink, orange, and yellowish hues, all getting brighter once they reach the sun in the centre, a half-circle cut off by the water, and a reflection in it distorted by ripples.

It's pretty…

And despite the sky looking like this painting once more…

It's nostalgic.

The painting beside it was made in 2039.

It's not a sunset, because those didn't exist for a while. The sky is red. Just red. Bright red. And there's a black dot in the middle. There's grass, which is also painted black. Very two-toned.

It's… it's weird. Well, not weird. It's normal. The sky looked like that for a long time. Hell, Taylor only remembers this sky. Give it twenty-odd years and this'll be his form of nostalgia.

It's not like Nicky was here often, or… at all, but he remembers how icky it felt to see the sky change. What he'd known for most of his childhood when he stepped outdoors was just… gone.

Ah, maybe Taylor feels that way now…

Sunsets and sunrises and starry skies are beautiful, but to him they're unfamiliar.

Maybe Nicky will have to show him the beauty of it sometime.

Him and Hermie.

His eyes drift back to the first painting.

2014… the person painting this couldn't have known what was to come, or how the sky would be stolen from everyone and replaced with a red so bloody and dark.

2014. Nicky must have been seven?

Seven years old.

Oh.

When Nicholas Foster was seven years old, he would come home after school, and sit with his mom, and wait for his dad to come home from protecting the world from bad guys. (As if. Nicky knows better than to believe that now.)

…The sky may have shifted when Nicky was twelve, but his whole world shifted when Nick Close was seven.

It was the year his mom died.

And he remembers it so vividly despite it being intertwined with another set of memories from another seven year old boy.

His world shattered, but it's not like anyone would have known, he didn't quite know it himself until it was no longer worth it to grieve.

But years after years later, well, he knew it was bad.

In fact, those five years were more like a dissociative haze than anything.

And they weren't even real. Not in this timeline anyway.

But still…

Hm.

Taylor is older than he was back then, but his world has shifted too. For the better, Nicky would say, but not without bloodshed.

… Maybe Nicky should check in with him? Or maybe that's going too far—Cass probably has it under control. She usually does. And if Nicky makes things worse, then, well…

Anyway.

Nicky takes a step back and turns away from the paintings. That's enough reminiscence for the next five years at least.

Time to return to—

Oh, fuck.

Where did they go?

The first room of the gallery contains mostly modern pieces from semi-local artists, before branching off into two different rooms, labelled by colour rather than any other relevant descriptor. He has no idea whether Hermie and Taylor would be more inclined towards chartreuse or vermillion.

To: T SWIFT 😎

hey where’d you guys go lol

Perfect. Very casual, which Nicky is, because he’s not worried about the kids wandering off at all. Yeah, Cass’ll kill him if anything bad happens to either of them, but nothing bad will happen, because it’s been 15 minutes max and they’re in an art museum. It’s fine.

Taylor texts him back almost immediately.

From: T SWIFT 😎

we’re at the sculpture garden┌ (★ｏ☆)┘

They're at the what ? Nicky prays to whatever gods might exist that that’s a part of the gallery and not a completely separate location that Hermie and Taylor managed to wander off to. The use of ‘we’ is reassuring at least. If nothing else, Taylor and Hermie are presumably together.

Nicky has to backtrack to the lobby to grab a map and the girl who sold them tickets definitely notices that he no longer has two kids with him, so he ducks back into the next room as quickly as possible and refuses to make eye contact. Luckily, the map marks a sculpture garden in the central courtyard of the building, and Nicky can navigate to it easily enough.

He hears Hermie before he sees either of them, shrilly calling out to Taylor that he ‘probably shouldn’t be climbing that’. Nicky picks up his pace, following his voice through the winding paths curving between the larger sculptures.

And finally, he turns a corner and sees a giant golf ball.

Made out of smaller golf balls.

And Taylor is holding onto it and trying to lift himself up, but he can't get a proper grip.

Nicky swiftly shoves the map in his pocket and scoops him up.

"Hey!" Taylor whines, "Put me down!"

"Fine, but let's try not to get kicked out of here, alright?"

“If it wasn’t supposed to be climbed, they shouldn’t have made it so climbable!” Taylor complains, and Nicky takes a few steps away and turns around for good measure to keep Taylor from lunging towards it again once he sets him down.

“It was not climbable,” Hermie says, appearing over Nicky’s shoulder, “you were having a distinctly difficult time climbing it.”

“Because you’re all a bunch of narcs and wouldn’t let me try!” Taylor whines, kicking half heartedly at Hermie’s feet. Hermie steps away and out of reach.

“If we were narcs, I believe we’d be telling security instead of trying to deal with the situation ourselves,” Hermie says, circling around behind Taylor and pushing him towards another entrance to the building. “For completely unrelated reasons, let us move quickly but casually in this direction, hm?”

Nicky glances over his shoulder just in time to see an irate looking woman exchanging words with a security guard. She glances over in their direction, while Nicky quickly throws an arm around Taylor’s shoulder and forces him to pick up the pace.

“Wh—huh? Where are we—? What are we doing! Hey!” Taylor squawks, glancing indignantly between Hermie and Nicky.

Security does not chase them into the building, and Hermie lets out a relieved sigh once they’re back inside.

“We should leave,” Hermie says, patting Taylor’s arm as they release him.

“But we haven’t seen everything yet!” Taylor complains. “And what was all that about!?”

“Trying to keep you—“ Hermie pokes Taylor’s forehead, “—from getting in trouble with art museum security. I want your first run in with the law to be for something more exciting than trying to climb a giant golf ball.”

“Or, here’s an idea, you keep out of trouble with the law entirely!” Nicky suggests, waving his hand for added flourish. Hermie and Taylor both look unimpressed.

“I’ve already had my run-ins with the law,” Taylor says in a stage-whisper. “Remember my illegal anime torrents? My cool sexy Home Alone party?”

“… the one with all your anime cardboard cutouts?”

“No!” Taylor squawks, glancing at Nicky. “The one with all the totally real sexy women! That were not made out of cardboard!”

“Right…” Hermie says, rolling their eyes as they straighten up. “God you’re so lame. Let's go?”

“Can we at least go to the gift shop first?” Taylor pleads, at first to Hermie, and then to Nicky. He latches onto his sleeve, tugging at it. “Please?”

“Oh hell yeah, kiddo, you think I’m leaving this place without a souvenir?” Nicky says, chuckling. “I’ll get you something too if anything catches your eye? Both of you?”

Hermie perks up a bit, giving Nicky an odd look.

“I don’t want anything,” they say quickly, ducking their head as they start to lead the way towards the gift shop.

The shop is full of prints and art supplies and souvenir t-shirts, but Taylor and Hermie gravitate toward the jewelry section fairly quickly, and Nicky follows.

There's necklaces, bracelets, rings and earrings, some of which are beneath a glass covering, while others are on stands out in the open.

“Hey!” Taylor whisper-yells, “if you’re not gonna let me climb the golf ball, I’m not letting you steal jewelry from the gift shop!”

Nicky glances over just in time to see Hermie dejectedly slide their hands into their pockets.

“I’m not stealing anything,” Hermie snaps quietly. “Narc.”

“You don’t even wear jewelry! Other than your earrings which you just shapeshift anyways!”

“These aren’t shapeshifted,” Hermie says, tapping a finger to their earrings.

“Oh, those are cute—wait, those are mine! Come on!”

Hermie snickers, holding up their hands placatingly as they back away to another section of the store. Taylor follows after them, looking more playful than genuinely angry about Hermie’s theft. Nicky looks over the place where Hermie was standing, and is relieved to find all the jewelry seems to still be in place on the counter. Hermie would probably just double down and start stealing more things if Nicky had to confront them about it.

As he scans the jewelry case for any missing items, Nicky's eyes land on a set of silver hoop earrings beneath the glass casing, with small glass beads alternating in black and white along the bottom.

There's a charm in the centre of the hoop that says A in cursive, and in the hoop beside it, it says B.

"Excuse me," Nicky says to a worker walking past. "Are these customizable?" he asks, pointing to the hoops. "The letters, I mean."

"Yep! Are you interested in buying a set?" They ask, pulling out a key, presumably to unlock the case.

"Ah, yeah, could I get them with the letter C?"

"Sure thing. Is that all you'll be buying?"

"No," he glances at Taylor and Hermie, who seem to be testing out pens in the art supply section, "I'm not done looking yet."

"Alright, I'll keep them aside,” they say with a polite customer-service smile.

"Thanks,” Nicky says, ducking away to check on the kids.

“… going over the same lines over and over again? It’s not an efficient use of your time or ink!” Taylor is saying, gesturing at an unimpressed Hermie with a package of pens.

“Hey, kids,” Nicky interrupts, ruffling Taylor’s hair. “Did you two pick out what you want?”

“I don’t want anything,” Hermie emphasises, glaring sulkily at the sketchbook Taylor takes from the shelf to offer to Nicky along with the pens.

“Since Hermie doesn’t want anything, can I get two things?” Taylor requests with an exaggerated wink.

“Yeah, that’s fine…? Why are you w—“

Taylor shushes him loudly as he pushes him towards the counter. Hermie rolls their eyes as they follow along, dour mood back in place.

Nicky waves over the worker he talked to earlier as he approaches. They give him the same tight-lipped smile as before.

“Are you ready to buy now?”

“Yep! These too, and uh—“ Nicky taps a nail against the glass above a necklace. “Can I get that too?“

“With the—“

“Yeah, that letter’s fine, yeah, thanks,” Nicky says, and they nod.

“Great! I’ll get that out for you and then I can ring you up right over there,” they say, gesturing over to the cash register. Nicky nods, and heads to the indicated register. Taylor trails behind him, while Hermie paces the area nearby.

The worker retrieves the jewelry and rings him up. Nicky pays and slips the small jewelry boxes into the zipper pocket of his jacket, before handing the sketchbook and pens to Taylor.

“Thanks, Dad!” Taylor says cheerfully, before ducking away to retrieve Hermie.

Once he’s sure both the kids are in tow, he leads the way out of the museum and towards the car. Hermie takes their seat in the back without any pushing and shoving from Taylor this time.

“So, guess you kids’ll be wanting to go back home now?” Nicky prompts as he starts the car.

“No!” Taylor says, almost before Nicky can even finish the sentence. “I mean, maybe we can, uh—“

“I’m kind of hungry,” Hermie says in a bored tone.

“Yes! Me too!” Taylor agrees quickly. “Can we get dinner before we go home?”

“Yeah, sure, of course!” Nicky agrees, a little bit glad to have an excuse to spend more time with his kid.  “Where do you guys wanna go? There’s a good pizza place—“

“I’ll kill you,” Hermie snaps from the back seat. Nicky glances back at them, meeting their frantic eyes. Their human disguise seems to be slipping a little, scarred skin an agitated shade of red and horns beginning to push through.

“Wow, jeez, Hermie, did not know you hated pizza that much!” Taylor says.

“Right—right, yeah, my totally normal distaste for a genre of food that totally isn’t built off of any…” Hermie trails off into angry mumbles.

“So, um, not pizza?” Nicky interjects, glancing at Taylor. He seems just as uncomfortable with the proceedings as Nicky is.

“Whatever,” Hermie says, slumping back in their seat and waving their hand dismissively. “Get whatever you want, I’m not—I’ll eat at the house.”

“You were the one who suggested—“

“McDonalds!” Taylor cuts in. “Can we go get McDonalds?”

Nicky glances in the rearview just in time to see Hermie’s nose wrinkle with distaste, but they don’t say anything.

“Yeah, sure, McDonalds works, we can just get drive-thru.”

“Or… I mean, we can eat in?“ Taylor offers.

“Really soak in that McDonalds ambiance. Love it,” Hermie says, sounding very much like they don’t love it at all.

“Exactly!” Taylor agrees, oblivious.

“Sounds good, I think we passed a McDonalds on the way here.”

"I'll place the order!" Taylor says, and a few seconds later he passes the phone to Hermie. When he gets it back, there's a little "that's it?" which gets no response.

"What do you want, Dad?"

"Mmm, I'll have a Big Mac, large fries, and Coca Cola."

"Done!" Taylor confirms with a definitive clack of his nail against his phone screen, before sliding his phone back into his pocket.

With the order complete, Taylor turns the radio back up and starts singing along once again. The Disney songs Nicky would usually find grating aren’t so bad with Taylor singing over them.

Three and a half songs later, they pull into the parking lot of the chosen McDonalds. Taylor leads the way in with an enthusiasm that Hermie definitely isn’t matching, picking up their order and sliding into a suspiciously sticky booth seat by the window. Nicky sits down beside him, while Hermie slides into the seat across from them with an expression of thinly veiled disgust. Taylor cheerfully hands out their food, still humming along to the last song they heard over the radio.

Taylor is immediately tearing into his happy meal, digging through it in search of, presumably, the toy. Nicky’s suspicions are confirmed as he lets out a victorious little laugh, and pulls a blue and grey plastic shape out of the box. As he tears away the perforated packaging with his claws, the shape reveals itself to be none other than a cheap plastic Hatsune Miku. Taylor beams as he sets it in pride of place at the head of the table to watch them eat.

His enthusiasm is infectious, and Nicky can’t help but smile into the first bite of his burger. Hermie doesn’t seem to pick up on it though, continuing to pick at their fries unhappily.

“Is that all you’re gonna eat?” Nicky asks, gesturing at their small, greasy bag of fries.

“Mmhmm. I’m easily pleased,” Hermie holds out a fry that is both floppy and browned, “and nothing pleases me more than this.”

“I know you can lie better than that,” Taylor says, kicking at Hermie’s leg from across the table.

“I have nothing to gain by convincing you that I’m having an unsurpassed dining experience here at this McDonald’s,” Hermie says.

“You could have suggested something else!” Taylor says, pouting.

“I didn’t have anything else to offer, especially in the face of your enthusiasm,” Hermie sighs, waving dismissively. “Who would I be to deprive you of your beloved grease-scented Hatsune Miku?”

Taylor grins, glancing over at the aforementioned Miku.

“That’s nice of you, Hermie,” Nicky offers. Hermie’s expression instantly drops back into annoyance.

“Not really. I’m just trying to get this evening over with, no need for me to draw out choosing a restaurant… if you can call McDonalds a restaurant.”

“You’re the one who suggested getting something to eat?” Nicky teases. Hermie tosses a french fry in his direction, where it falls to the table several inches away from Nicky. 

Taylor picks it up and eats it. Hermie frowns, argument forgotten in the face of their disgust.

“What?” Taylor squawks. “It’s clean! It’s not like I’m eating off the floor!”

“I would not count on it being clean, ever. Try as these unfortunate minimum-wage McDonald’s employees might, there’s some level of muck that cannot be removed from these tables.”

“Daaad!” Taylor whines, bumping into his side. “Back me up here!”

“Sorry kiddo, I’m with Hermie on this one,” Nicky says.

“Wah! Betrayal!” Taylor laments, elbowing Nicky. Nicky laughs and ruffles his hair, and a bit of Hermie’s annoyance fades in favour of  half-hearted amusement.

Eventually, Taylor starts rambling about school, and then the plot of some anime he watched that Nicky has already forgotten the title of. Hermie finishes their fries in silence for the most part, seemingly content to listen to Taylor. Nicky hms and ohs and ahs in all the right places, and hands Taylor the rest of his fries after he catches him eyeing them. Once they’re all done eating and Hermie has cleared off the table, Taylor’s enthusiasm begins to fade in the face of exhaustion, even if he doesn’t seem willing to admit it.

Before Nicky can stand up to leave the booth, Taylor tugs at his sleeve.

“Wait! Dad, I—" Taylor retrieves the Miku figure from its place on the table. “I want you to have this. Because you took us to the museum, and bought us stuff from the gift shop, and got us McDonalds, and it was fun!”

Ah. Nicky never expected to be so emotionally affected by a cheap plastic figure of Hatsune Miku that smells like gasoline and cardboard, but fatherhood does strange things to people. He extends his hand for it almost reverently, and Taylor places it in his palm.

“I… are you sure?” Nicky asks, gazing down at the vacant stare of McDonalds Miku. The colours are slightly out of place over the moulding.

"Yeah! It's something for you to uh—" he chuckles, and it sounds a little nervous, "I just want you to have it."

Taylor averts his gaze, blushing a little.

"Alright, kiddo, I'll keep it safe," Nicky says, tucking it into his shirt pocket and ruffling Taylor's hair. He's grinning and biting his lower lip. With demon fangs, there's no explanation needed for the cuts and scabs, though he may need to invest in some lip balm to keep that at bay.

"Home time?" Nicky asks.

Taylor nods, droopy-eyed, and Nicky thinks he hears Hermie let out what seems to be a sigh of relief.

The drive back is a lot quieter, with Taylor sitting in the back with his head rested on Hermie’s shoulder. Hermie stays perfectly still, and glares at Nicky every time he takes a corner too sharply or stops too suddenly. Then again, they tend to be doing a lot of glaring in general, so it’s hard to say if there’s a cause-and-effect relationship there.

By the time Nicky is pulling up to the Swift household, Taylor seems to have fully fallen asleep against Hermie. Hermie isn’t asleep, but they are blinking blearily out the window, clearly well on their way. Nicky can barely tear his eyes away from the picture they make in the rearview.

It’s dark enough that it’s hard to get an actual picture on his phone, but the sun hasn’t fully set and the glow of the streetlights gives him enough light to get a decent, if slightly indecipherable picture. He’ll have to edit it a bit later, but Hermie is finally directing their attention back to him and he knows he has to get Taylor to bed.

“I can carry him up to his room,” Nicky says softly, and Hermie blinks the sleep out of their eyes and nods slightly, careful to avoid bumping their chin against Taylor’s horns.

Nicky passes Hermie his keys—Cass gave him a spare set for emergencies—and carefully scoops up Taylor.

It's a little unnerving carrying Taylor up the steps in one arm and without holding a railing, but he does so, and Nicky can immediately pinpoint Taylor's room from the Miku poster on the door.

He opens the door and steps inside, taking in that this is nearly exactly what he would have expected. Opening the door only to be immediately stared down by the unblinking gaze of several anime characters littering every wall and shelf should have been unnerving, but it’s so Taylor that Nicky can’t bring himself to mind.

Nicky places Taylor down in his bed and he whines with a small "ow." Right, they'd been walking a lot today, so it must be a pain flare-up. Speaking of which, Nicky notices Taylor's cane already hung on the wall hook beside his bed—Hermie must have brought it in.

Taylor whines again, reaching out for Nicky, who pulls the blanket up and over him, tucking him in. He seems to calm down at that, and Nicky leans down to plant a kiss on his forehead. Taylor smiles and rolls over, wrapping his arms around a body pillow that Nicky had not noticed earlier, and a part of him wishes he still hadn't.

"Long day?"

Nicky whips his head around to see Cass standing in the doorway in her pyjamas, illuminated by the now-pink colour-changing LED lights along the baseboards of Taylor's wall.

"Yeah, you could say that," Nicky whispers, following Cass out of Taylor's room, and slowly shutting the door behind him.

"Thanks for getting them home safe,” Cass says, wandering away from Taylor’s door to lean against the bannister across the hall.

“Yeah,” Nicky says, nodding. “Yeah, of course.”

“Where did you guys go?" She asks, folding her arms.

"Art museum, and then McDonalds,” Nicky replies, desperately hoping that it’s the right answer.

"Everything went well?"

Nicky briefly reflects on Hermie’s violent reaction to arcades and pizza and their collective near-miss with museum security, but it all turned out okay, so he smiles and nods.

"Yeah, everything was great. Taylor got a happy meal."

"Taylor always likes getting happy meals," Cass says with a fond smile. "The portions are too small for him. He just does it for the toys."

"Yeah," Nicky chuckles, "actually…"

He pulls the toy out of his pocket—still intact, thankfully—and presents it to her. "He gave me this one."

"Keep it safe," she says, and it's light-hearted, but there's a little flicker in her expression that offers a threat.

"Of course," Nicky says, carefully sliding it back into his pocket. "I got something for him too. From the gift shop. Oh, actually—"

Nicky pulls out one of the two jewelry boxes, and opens it the tiniest bit to make sure it's the right one before handing it to Cass.

"I, um, got this for you."

She takes it, and opens it, and her eyes widen. Nicky thinks he hears a small gasp. "Nicky…"

"Uh—I saw them, and I know your style, so."

Cass looks up at him, and she's got concern written on her face.

Is it not her style?

"Nicky, this is, um, really sweet… but, ah, you know we can't be like that anymore," she says, gesturing with her hands, referencing a relationship of the past.

Oh, fuck.

"That—that's not what I meant by it!" Nicky says, a little too loudly, and Cass shushes him, which makes this even more mortifying. "Sorry," he whispers. "Just… I—I meant it as a thank you. For. Um," he takes a deep breath, and continues, "for letting me back into Taylor's life, and—and yours, I guess, oh, and Hermie's too. I—I guess. Yeah."

Cass's concern turns into a soft smile, and she leans in, and kisses him on the cheek, and Nicky hopes his blush isn't as easy to spot as Taylor's, because if it were, he'd be red as a tomato.

"Taylor's really happy to have you here," she says, and her gaze makes Nicky feel as though she's witness to all of his vulnerabilities, and fears, and feelings, and then she's backing away, and saying, "I am too."

And then she's opening the door to her room, and then she's gone. Nicky is left staring after her for several seconds before he shakes his head and makes his way down the stairs.

Nicky doesn’t even notice Hermie lurking by the doorway until he nearly bumps into them on the way out.

“Shit—uh, hey, Hermie…?” Nicky greets, and Hermie glares at him.

“Why did you take me along?” Hermie asks without preamble. “I’m used to Taylor dragging me along, but you were the one to insist I come. Why?”

“I wouldn’t say I insisted,” Nicky protests, looking away. “More like I offered. I just assumed that since you were around, you’d like to come?”

“Well, you know what they say about assumptions,” Hermie says haughtily, dipping their head a bit to glare at the doorway.

“Alright, jeez, I won’t invite you next time,” Nicky says.

“Right.”

Hermie nods, but a little bit of the fight leaves their tone, as if they weren’t expecting that reaction. Nicky doesn’t have the faintest idea of what they were expecting.

“It wasn’t—“ Hermie huffs, frustrated. “It was… fine. Taylor had fun.”

Nicky is relieved to hear that, actually.

“You think so?”

Hermie hums an affirmative.

“He’s… glad you’re around now,” Hermie says, and the sentence trails off as if they have something more to say, but they leave it there.

“Right. Yeah, I—I’m glad to be around,” Nicky agrees, and it feels uncomfortably familiar to his earlier conversation with Cass. He almost feels like he should be asking for Hermie’s permission to spend time with Taylor too, but that’s ridiculous.

“Right,” Hermie echoes, and they close their hand around the door knob, swinging it open and gesturing for Nicky to leave. “If that’s all…”

“Yeah, yeah, see you later, Hermie,” Nicky waves awkwardly as he steps out of the house. “I’ll—I’ll ask if you want to come along next time?”

“Mm. You do that,” Hermie agrees, and they tug the door shut.

Rude, but fairly in line with everything he’s seen from Hermie today. They’re weirdly abrasive with Nicky in a way he can’t quite make sense of, but he supposes it’s not really his job to. Honestly, he’s a bit relieved to have an excuse to not bring Hermie along every time he wants to spend time with Taylor. He can’t really see Hermie agreeing to come along all that often. Either way, it wasn’t all bad having them along. Taylor seemed to enjoy their company if nothing else.

Nicky returns to his car, sitting down in the driver's seat and pulling out the remaining jewelry box. He opens it, and brings the necklace up to his neck, struggling with the clasp, but managing to secure it in the end. He tucks the pendant under his shirt, keeping it close to his heart. Hopefully it won't get too hot there.

Then, he pulls his phone out of his pocket. He opens up his photos to the most recent picture, and sends it to Cass before setting it as his lock screen. It’s not a great picture, but he’s sure he’ll have plenty of other opportunities to take cute pictures of Taylor in the future. The thought has him smiling the whole way home. 

[0perfectimperfections0]

Hi fellow doll, I hope you're doing fine. I've been quite busy lately, college and life in general have been kicking my ass, so I was forced to take a step back from social media for a while to try to contain the chaos.

Firstly, I'd like to share a fun fact with you! I don't know if you're aware but did you know that Lou's Mansion has a Pool? You can see it more clearly in the Mansion's Concept Designs/Art on this site:

•https://www.claytonstillwell.com/ugly-dolls#23

However, the real reason for this ask is to present a possible answer/theory in regards to how the doll-sized phones came to be in the world of your stories (you can tell this is still related to our chat on Wattpad).

Recently, I came across the images you're seeing on Pinterest. They're Wide/Aerial Views of the Institute of Perfection and one thing that immediately stood out to me is that Giant Eye-Catching Dome behind the TV.

I mean what's its purpose, why is it even there to begin with and what's inside of it? I've been thinking about this for a while and would like to hear your thoughts about it as well, if you're willing to share them.

By any chance, have you seen the movie Wreck-it Ralph? There was a part where the villain enters the code of the game he's in and I think the Dome's purpose could follow a similar, if not equal, vein.

Now that I think about it, Lou and Vanellope's circunstances are almost identical, trapped in the same place for years without the option to leave, simply because of who they are and the traits they were born with, but didn't choose to have.

Sorry, I let my mind run on tangent there for a while, it wanders frequently which makes it hard to keep track of my line of thought.

To circle back to the main topic of discussion, what if the Dome is a Central Station of the Institute, like a Panel or Center for Command Control (or Command Control Center)? CCC for short? Ok, I'll stop trying to be funny...

Perhaps it could be a subroutine of the factory's software, a program linked to its network and wifi that contains all guidelines and rules that govern the Institute and must be followed and executed to keep it functional - a blueprint if you will - and is in charge of all commands, protocols, activities and operations being compiled and run by its machinery, such as the doll-scanner, the robots, the washing machine, the recycling, the Gauntlet plus the mechanical baby and dog and the Portal, just to name a few.

This means that it'd also take care of overseeing the integrity and performance of said machinery as well as its maintenance. It'd even be responsible for generating clouds and the artificial weather because apparently weather is still a thing, even though the Institute is inside of a factory.

I wonder if this subroutine would be run by an AI or simply an intelligent system/computer program. This world's version of Siri? 🤣

Or maybe I'm greatly exaggerating its function/letting my imagination run wild and it literally only gives Electricity for TV and Institute. Where was I going with this? /were we again?

Morever, it could be a storage unit that contains all collected, analysed and reviewed data regarding the inhabitants of the Institute and their responses, physical or emotional, to certain pre-determined stimuli.

It could also have a list of the factory's Perfection Standards: what consists/constitutes a Perfect Doll / product, its traits...

what can go to the market and which flaws/imperfections can't be ignored/overlooked and have to go to the recycling immediately, kinda like separating fruit/food

To sum up, it's the Institute's "rulebook", but instead of being specifically made for the prototype, it's more expansive and focuses on the Institute as a whole.

After the events of the movie, dolls with engineer role job created phones with recicled parts dangerous/turned the recycling into a good thing/while recycling was turned of and parts are human sized, plenty to spare and create phone since dolls come back now, have free time to assemble the parts and construct them and connected them to the signals/frequency emitted by the dome or they hack/steal or find out the password/'hijack' the signals🤣, use it to make them connect with each other but can't enter the dome without proper authorizations/permissions

Fun fact #2: Lou animatronic, would be a hipocrite if he called the Uglydolls "Ugly" has never seen a Mirror before

•https://www.indigobluepencil.com/ugly

Scroll almost to the middle (pre-planned concepts: dome by TV and washing machine, Big baby, Lou, Mandy, Tuesday and Kitty, Victoria, Perfection Council/of Dolls=board of investors directors reference)

•https://www.scottfassett.com/uglydolls-gallery

Had to restart Two Times... I hope you found this ask both entertaining and informative. Hopefully it'll give you Inspiration for your stories...

Okay, I had to do quite a bit of research and asked someone who knows a lot more about computers than I do.

So, I do agree that the dome has an electronic purpose. It really surprises me that STX animated an entire dome within the Institute and literally spoke nothing of it or what's inside of it. Like, seriously, it's huge and can't just be empty on the inside.

My theory, after some research, is that the inside of the dome is essentially a hard drive computer tower. For you younger folk who weren't raised in a 90's home, here's what I'm talking about:

These things right here used to be what would get hooked up to older Dell/Windows computers. The ones that weighed, like, 50 pounds and took up an entire desk.

Instead of a dvd player (which I didn't get one until maybe 8 years old) I would stick my Kidz Bop cd or movie into that slot at the top and watch the movie on the computer with Video Player.

Count your blessings.

But this is what I believe is inside that dome. These things are what holds the CPU (central processing unit), GPU (graphic processing unit), and stores the memory, data, audio, and everything of the computer.

@natalie-the-writer and I have a running fanon that the company is older. The technology is older, the building is older, and everything is set in a pretty retro time period. So, this hard drive tower is connected to those bulky take-up-all-the-space-on-the-desk-computers.

The GPU in this system is also what control the day/night cycle in the Institute and the weather. It essentially simulates a troposphere and an environment that makes the dolls comfortable and prepared for the Big World.

The CPU is how the data is transferred. Info from the robots is controlled and processed, the Individualization scanners are monitored, the portal is opened and closed, the TV runs, and the holographic tutorials Moxy and her friends see in the beginning are kept on, all of it.

It basically functions as the brain of the Institute, but the sole controller and monitor of it is the CEO (Greyson Everett).

I also like to think that Lou's microchip (another fanon thought between Natalie and I) is also monitored via this hard drive tower. Any information that Lou learns and processes is sent into separate files on the computers back in the company building.

This is why in my Shell-Shock series, when Lou's emotions go south, the Institute begins to get windy when he's hyperventilating or rains when he cries. The ground trembles when he has body tremors and the lights flicker when his powers are used. He is literally connected to the whole Institute because his microchip and its data accidentally grow and manifest themselves into the files of the other Institute functions. His programming basically goes rogue and infects the Institute system like a virus.

I'm veering toward the explanation that results in Lou being the first successful form of Artificial Intelligence. But, for the moment, he is basically acting like a virus and it's not until he learns to control this new system he's connected to that it stops becoming a deadly thing.

[primordialfell]

A thought dances anew. Your eyes open to truth. Let's do this one more time, okay?

Dew trickles from the curled leaves that bask in the radiant Light of filtered sun. As you move your eyes down from the shimmering radiance, they come into contact with your opponent; you're familiar with him by now. He is your half-brother, your womb mate, the other side of your vintage penny. You breathe deep of the electrolytes that swim in the air, molecular bonds singing a jaunty tune as they fill your lungs and are combined in the furnace that is your heart. You are an irrepressible, violent miracle. It would take a man a hundred years to walk the breadth of your soul.

Your mind percolates with countless possibilities. Across the table, whose surface is decorated with pockmarks and craters, you see your half-brother, your counterpart. Your hateful core and your losing lot. It is better to have tried than not, his cocked brow says. You know him, at least the flies that swarm around his heart, and you know his works. Your mouth opens and strands of light sketch themselves out of your mouth; your words are art and they will fill the universe with conceptualization:

" i think i'm getting the hang of this. "

Your half-brother raises a hand and the silken fabrics of his shroud move with the gesture. With a brush of his hand he sweeps away a thousand galaxies, and like a great eclipse shadowing over the world he looms atop the board. In this game there's everything: every possibility can be displayed through the dolorous mathematics found within.

" WE APPROACH THE STATE CALLED 'ENDGAME.' PUT SIMPLY, WE WILL SOON DECIDE WHO WINS. "

You watch as a piece dances on its own, and you frown. It struggles to find its footing, skittering towards its own empire of thought and meaning. It is in this soul eclectic that you spy a tinge of loss and pain. You click your tongue. It has lost everything and yet it continues. Does anyone even remember it?

" it has been fun. but we should really call it quits soon. the day grows long in its teeth and here in our kingdom of consciousness we begin the harvest. our eyes dance with pheromones, half-brother, and we kneel amidst the tangents and proto-planetarium addled sky. "

He nods in agreement, his shroud spilling over his shoulders with that motion. He points an imperious digit at your piece, that swims through the air and revives a flower next to it. This is the game of amoebas and archaebacteria, it's simply the game that will choose where we go next. What we do next. It will decide if anything comes next at all. But it probably won't. This feels like it, doesn't it? Shouldn't that break your heart?

This old game is all you and your half-brother know. It's all you are. When you give up the game, what will you be? Both of you, that is. You'll both be askew, a spinning mast in a storm, fluttering over the infinite ocean without a course or chart to guide your way. Does it even matter, truly?

" ALL THINGS END, " your half-brother offers, comfortingly. You are a being of compassion and hope. You're the first human with a fractured femur that was carried to safety by her tribe members. You're the frog hiding inside a spider's nest, cleaning her of parasites while her webs and fangs shelter you from any that would hurt you, only her teeth are made of onyx and obsidian and her soul is aflame with hate and survival all the same. She will never know you the way you know yourself.

You're a novel way of seeing the universe, aren't you? Homoharmonic and psychedelic, baby.

" i know, but that doesn't make me feel any better. it shouldn't have to! " Your half-brother stiffens and his shroud seems to turn to burnished glass. Smoky air pools from his corners and his angles, each of which are obtuse but act acute, and it traces over your skin made of unalloyed gold. You are pyrite porcelain; sunlight scattered over the surface of a babbling brook. It's in these things that your children can hear you. In these things they will find you.

It's in this that you will see how the game ends.

" YES, WELL, " he begins, " THAT'S UNFORTUNATE. BUT SOON WE'LL SEE IT'S TIME TO MOVE ON. THERE ARE OTHER GAMES TO PLAY. OTHER PLACES TO BE. "

" this is somewhere to be, " you counter.

" BUT IT CAN'T LAST. "

" why not? "

" IT JUST CAN'T. "

" but it's so much fun. "

" BUT IT HAS TO END. "

" i don't want it to. "

" NOBODY DOES. "

" will it at least be fun? "

" PROBABLY NOT. YOU'LL PROBABLY LEAVE THE GAME CRYING, A CAUSTIC ECHO OF PAIN THAT SEARS INTO YOU. YOU'LL UNDERSTAND THIS IS THE END OF AN ERA. YOU'RE GIVING YOUR LAST CURTAIN CALL, BASICALLY. "

" what happens when the curtain falls, then? "

" WE BOW OUT. WE'VE PLAYED OUR PART BUT WE'RE JUST TWO MEMORIES OF A BYGONE ERA. IT'S TIME TO MOVE ASIDE. "

" i feel like i didn't get to do all i wanted to do. this change in the plot seems so sudden. was it poorly thought out? did circumstance damn us to this? "

" PROBABLY. "

" you aren't sure. "

" NO. BUT HERE WE ARE ANYWAY. "

You slump down in your seat. You felt like you had so much more in mind, so many fun ideas. Boss fights, epic showdowns, maybe a cool floating castle or two... but this is how it ends. The end zone is in sight and it's time to score the last touchdown. It's odd—you have spent all this time hating your half-brother, your womb mate, your vintage penny's tails. Here in the end, as you begin with a presupposition, you realize that he is like you. You're both fixed to this and you can't ever change; that makes you the same in one way for the first time in infinite eternity.

You're both vestigial.

Pain flits through you. You look down and a knife is buried in your chest. An infinite eyebrow cocks and you glance at your half-brother in consternation.

" SORRY. IT'S MY NATURE. "

" yes, the farmer and the viper, the frog and the scorpion. notice how these tales cannot exist without both peace and pain? "

" I'VE NOTICED BUT TO BE HONEST I DON'T REALLY GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE POTENTIAL POETIC IRONY FOUND WITHIN. THIS COULD BE THE LAST TIME WE EVER SPEAK TO EACH OTHER. CAN WE JUST PRETEND IT'S NOT HAPPENING? "

" this isn't like you, " you begin cautiously. Your half-brother hitches his voice. He sounds like he's going to start crying.

" IT'S NOT. I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S WRONG. I'M SCARED. " The floodgates break. His shroud is made of particles and collapsing atoms. Antimatter skirts around his head like a halo and you swear you can hear him sniffle.

" i am too. everyone is. it's scary. "

" IS IT GOING TO HURT? "

" most likely. "

" I SIT IN ANXIETY OF THE GRAND DESIGN. "

" we all do. "

" WILL IT BE LIKE FALLING ASLEEP? "

" no. "

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

of course basically a year to the day of becoming tita conductor's principal second violin i come to the realization that if tita conductor and i have anything, it's the music department copy room

i am making my merry way to shoot the breeze with the concertmaster when i hear a very familiar voice calling my name from behind me

i have DEFINITELY mis-imagined tita conductor’s voice in the ivovanhovedongiovannicore arts building before so i keep walking towards the rehearsal room. but i hear my name again so i turn around and there’s tita conductor outside the copy room

she says “i am doing things in here” awkwardly and points at the copy room. and then she adds, as if as an afterthought, “come help”

predictably, i assent and step inside to help—only to find that twenty minutes before rehearsal is scheduled to begin, tita conductor has not yet finished labeling folders for seat placement and adding parts to them 😭

she asks me to verify my schedule and lets me know that the new first year i met the week prior will be my co-principal and take over when i have to leave for class which i agree with wholeheartedly

i put my things down and am like “okay what next” and she says “hold on don’t talk to me real quick i need to think”

this isn’t an unfamiliar move to me so i’m like okay cool and stand there until she’s finished having her think

she has me start on the first violin folders and those aren’t hard, i make sure all the right numbered parts go with the right numbered folders and then stack them on the table and await marching orders

to set the scene, we are both working furiously and quietly. i am putting numbered parts into the proper folders as fast as she can label them with numbers. at times i am literally on my hands and knees dealing with folders spread out on the floor 💀

i notice that i’m short two copies of a piece in the second violins (THERE ARE 12 OF US.)

i ask tita conductor for two more copies but take the paper out from the wrong side of the machine

i say “um tita why is there a viola copy in this stack of seconds that just came out of the machine” and she takes a look at it and replies “because i am a human disaster” THE SCREAM I ALMOST SCRUMPT

FINALLY sort out the damn issue get back on the floor and finish putting the folders together. i straighten up, put them on the table, and start laying out the viola folders.

quoth tita conductor from above me, “welcome to my world” girl, i have been living in it for almost exactly one year to the day 😭

we finish that almost at the start of rehearsal and then i bring my stuff to the rehearsal room before returning to the copy room to relocate the whole damn stack of string parts. must have been something like 38 folders total if i remember correctly

i manage to forget my hat in the copy room in my haste but am able to get it back because tita conductor ended rehearsal, opened a room for my quartet, then shut herself in her office to watch the vice presidential debate. but all’s well that ends well

anyway the moral of the story is that if you’re weird enough about a specific person who is a bit further up the authority gradient than you to the point that you’ll willingly help them, they will remember that and even if you’re mediocre in terms of skill you can still get far in terms of being their favorite person to ask for help. and scene.

[kendrixtermina]

Gaza is NOT totalitarian

One thing you always hear from Zionists or even unaffiliated random westerners who know little about the conflict as a reason why the war is, if not completely justified, then at least tragically unavoidable, is that Gaza is a totalitarian regime & they’re either all indoctrinated to hate Israelis, or get portrayed as passive victims with no agency that need to be „liberated“

But over the last weeks we have seen a lot of scenes of life out of gaza and i have also read many books & watched documentaries to further educate myself and there is just no trace of that anywhere.

No big posters of leaders in classroom, no symbols & logos everywhere, no political phrases in people’s everyday speech, many of the people in videos seem totally a-political & lament that their family had nothing to do with the resistance or the war. They spend more time talking about friggin olive trees and embroidery than politics.

You could glean a bunch about their culture from the videos – extended families live together in big shared houses, they are very affectionate with children, they value community, the sport they tend to be obsessed about is Football…

Saudi arabia, for example, bans booze, art, music & forces everyone to wear burqas – that’s just not the case in Palestine. There are woman doctors & journalists, a wealth of poets & painters. You can buy booze grown in the west bank. You see the occasional lady without hijab, like Bisan often has her hair out, which tells me the ones that DO wear it do so because they want to, which is their good right. There were several Christian churches apparently operating just fine inside Gaza, until Israel bombed them.

I heard that 4th way esoterism was influenced by Sufism which is an off-shoot of Islam, & seeing the religious mantras people cited I could see the relationship - they said stuff like they should trust in God's destiny, that God alone is enough for them etc. it has that same "accept what is & surrender to the universe, real strength comes from contact with divinity & then you need nothing else" vibe - though of course the esoterists believe less in a personal god & more in a panentheist "Unity Of Being". Ppl used to make a lot of bogeyman talk out of Islam meaning "submission" but now I think it's probably meant in a "surrender to the universe & accept what is" kinda way & that ppl ended up projecting the authoritarian character of Christianity onto it. Islam is alot more de-central & everyone does their own thing, innit? I remember that when Muslims hit a certain percentage in Germany they thought of introducing Islam classes to school (in addition to the Catholic & Lutheran classes they have - atheists & ppl of other religions get "ethics" instead which is basically moral philosophy) but one problem they ran into is that there's no central authority to get a course plan from. There is no such thing as a muslim pope. There are extremists who ARE authoritarian, like Saudi arabia (as there are of all religions; They're all the same, rly, it's probably down to some flaw in human brains) but that doesn't mean everyone's like that. You might pt down the authoritarianism there to Saudi Arabia being an absolutist monarchy...

(Of course, a lot of less educated westerners don’t know that the kind of extremism seen in the Saudis & Taliban is actually a fairly recent movement that was able to take over due to the ME being destabilized in the cold war… the area was once stable, organized & well-educated.)

Some of the people covering the war like Bisan, Plestia, Saleh etc. were normal instagrammers before, doing normal instagram things, not a hint of politics to be found.

I also recall this post by a gay ude saying that yeah it’s not super welcoming but there’s not really systematic persecution – your family might kick you out or quietly tolerate it while wanting nothing to do with it… so just like the more religious parts of the USA basically.

Also, I’d like to note that even if gaza WERE totalitarian, people in totalitarian countries don’t cease to be human and their lives don’t become worthless. Not everyone is a True Believer, most are just scared out of their mind. You need to read „Jugend Ohne Gott“, you need to watch „Das Boot“, you need to listen to stories of people who escaped from North Korea. Maybe if it’s easier to epathize with a fictional depiction, read 1984 or The Handmaid’s tale.

So, I consider myself German because that’s where I grew up & the only culture I have any emotional attachment to, but my parents are Cuban. Cuba is a fairly „soft“ totalitarian state in that dissenters are „only“ beaten & their job prospects ruined, not outright killed like in North Korea or under the Nazis, but even so, my grandma still rips up all papers before throwing them away because spies would go through people’s trash, and my parents needed to be told several times by friends that it’s OK to criticize politicians in public before they would feel comfortable riffing on then.chancellor Kohl.

Note, however, that people DID mock the Castros in private, among trusted family members. There are tons of jokes mocking them. Heck, even mocked Hitler behind closed doors – they used to call them Flüsterwitze („whisper jokes“) because if you say them out loud they shoot you. Just to illustrate how people trapped in totalitarian states are human.

Even in the early 2000s when I was still pretty young, I didn’t buy that it’s OK to kill Iraqis just because there is a Dictator. The citizens are victims, and unlike the leadership they are poor & can’t flee. What if someone invaded Cuba and killed all my cousins just to punish the bad guy opressing them? That din’t seem fair. They said I’d understand when I’m older but all I understood is what utter bullshit that war was.

We’ve heard so many Palestinians talking about their plight and there is hardly anyone speaking of repression or totalitarianism, including peole who left the country. (In stark contrast to Cubans, North Koreans or people who fled the Nazis, who don’t shut up about how much it sucked) There is not zero repression (like an incident where Hamas got Fatah-affiliated workers fired), but the same can be said of Israel or even the west – McCarthyism or the current withhunt against pro-palestine ppl.

Meanwhile we have that creepy song of Israeli children calling for murder, and many videos by Israelis saying they were indoctrinated. One person mentioned being outright told that arabs were their „enemy“, while two arab boys were sitting in her class. I also hear that many Israelis go most of their lives without even interacting with a Palestinian outside of military service.

So, yeah, I think it’s pretty clear who the indoctrinated ones are.

[cartoonus-maximus]

Notes and Observations on FNAF TFTP Vol 4: Submechanophobia

Whoo! 4 out of 8 books down! Halfway there and livin' on a prayer, ya'll.

But I really enjoyed this volume. It was my favorite so far, and the first one of this set that I've rated a 5 stars. I would genuinely reread this one.

I think the cover image is great. Even though, much like the one with Lally, the image doesn't match the description of the character being depicted. In this case, the cover is an image of Delilah the mermaid animatronic, who in the story is described as having red hair and a missing eye. She's also not a prominent animatronic, and is mostly just set dressing in the story she's in. But I still really love this cover art, so I'm not complaining about it.

As always, these are just some of my notes and observations made while listening to the audiobook, which I borrowed from my local library. Fair warning: there will be spoilers. If you want the whole experience for yourself, you should skip this and go read/listen to the book yourself first.

Here are my observations on the other books from this series if you're interested.

Let's take a dip in this animatronic infested water, shall we?

"Submechanophobia"

Submechanophobia -- the fear of submerged machines or other human-made objects, either partially or entirely underwater.

The animatronics and the water park in this story reminded me a lot of the titular "Felix the Shark" and the water park he was a part of. It's probably just because both this story and that one are the only ones to center around aquatic characters and spaces, while the rest of the franchise mainly centers on arcades and pizza restaurants.

It also reminds a lot of the footage I've seen of the 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea ride at Disney. Which makes sense -- images and footage of that ride are some of the first things to pop up if you search up the word "submechanophobia" online. I assume that ride and similar ones inspired most of this story.

This story takes place in "Freddy's Fantasy Water Park," a Fazbear water park. The water park features such attractions as "Bonnie's Sea Ponds" (swimming and diving pools), "Freddy's Treasures and Eatery," "Chica's Fairy Boats," and "Foxy's Island Water Slides." The water park is shaped like a giant wheel (or pizza, perhaps?), with each of these attractions circling around the center attraction, "The Mechaquarium," an impressive aquarium tank full of swimming animatronics.

Our protagonist of the story is Caden Wykowski, a young employee at the water park. Caden is a mechanic and fresh out of high school. He's previously worked at another animatronic restaurant called "Penguin Pizzeria," so he understands robot maintenance and repairs. Caden lives with and cares for his grandmother, who is his only family and has raised him since he was a little kid. His parents were 'lost at sea' when he was little. Boss man Martin specifically hired Caden to take care of the Mechaquarium and the animatronics inside, which haven't been very well maintained. Caden suffers from submechanophobia and struggles every time he has to go work on the animatronics underwater.

(Getting really tired of Cades and Aidens and Cadens. Would love to hear about a protagonist named Tom. Or Eliza. Or Ben, or Juan, or Ramesh, or basically any name I haven't already heard in these books.)

This Fazbear water park is much older than the Pizzaplex. Over 20 years old, anyway. It sounds like the park was open alongside some of the older FNAF locations, potentially as early as the FNAFs 1 and 2 locations, but closed down for a number of years as public interest in Freddy & Co. dwindled. But, with the arrival and booming popularity of the Pizzaplex, the water park has been reopened, and is kept fairly busy by customers who are excited to have another way of engaging with Freddy Fazbear.

Because of the park's age, the underwater animatronics in the Mechaquarium aren't in the best state. They're older models of animatronics, and they've been underwater for years, and fallen into a state of disrepair. Their weathered state is clearly noticeable to anyone standing too close to the aquarium glass, so boss man Martin tells Caden and other employees to try to keep the customers a safe distance away; close enough to see the animatronics, but not close enough to get a good look at them.

The water park is located in a town called Meadowbrook. I swear this has been a previous location, but I may be misremembering things.

Caden's boss is a man named Martin Copper. He has a copper plated tooth in his mouth. Martin is the manager and owner of the water park. He's the original owner, and views the park as both his main source of income as well as a massive drain on his finances.

In addition to his boss, Caden has two coworkers. One is Eva, an older woman who works as the receptionist and runs the front desk. The other is Roy, a 30-year-old guy who works round the clock at the water park filling every other position. Both Eva and Roy have worked for Martin for years, with Eva even being the original receptionist from when the park was first opened.

Roy used to come to this water park as a kid, and has a lot of good memories of the place. Now, as an adult, Roy works at the park as the janitor, ride operator, food vendor, and security guard. (He's the janitor! He's the ride operator! He serves drinks and ice cream cones! He keeps unwanted guests out! What can't the amazing Roy do?!) The only job at the park that Roy hasn't ever performed is the animatronic technician (Caden's job). When Caden asks him about it, Roy says that he'd love to have the job but doesn't know enough about machines to handle it. Even so, throughout the story we see plenty of Roy being super attentive about the animatronics, despite being kept busy with everything else around the park, since he's usually the first person to notice when any of the animatronics of the Mechaquarium go offline.

The Mechaquarium contains an artificial coral reef and several water-themed animatronics, including a whole school of fish. Since none of animatronics are based around characters with names, Roy has named each of the bigger animatronics in the tank. The bigger animatronics include:

Zeus the sea dragon

Delilah the mermaid

Frank the scuba diver

Marco and Polo the twin sea serpents

Hank the Hammer, Mac the Muscle, and Sly, a trio of sharks

The mermaid animatronic breaks down in the middle of the day, and Caden has to put on a diving suit and dive into the aquarium to repair her. Caden hears a soft static-y sound when he enters the aquarium. He thinks it's just in his head, part of his phobia reaction, but… since we've already seen illusion disks in this series, it could be something more along those lines.

Caden gets the mermaid fixed up, and climbs out of the tank as quickly as possible. When he throws the switch to power up the Mechaquarium, all the animatronics turn back on, and go back to their usual semi-functional states.

(… Can I punch Daryl? I wanna punch Daryl.)

(Okay, I made fun of Caden's name, but I'm also puzzled about a 30-year-old named Roy and a 20-year-old named Daryl. I didn't know anyone younger than 75 had either of those names.)

Roy tells Caden that the animatronic shark he calls Hank just broke down. Not only is it broken down, but it's floating upside at the top of the tank like an actual dead fish. Caden sighs, but returns to his wetsuit anyway. He shuts down all of the animatronics before he climbs into the tank, but, while he's in the water, he gets surprised by the massive monstrous dragon (Zeus) seemingly appearing out of nowhere behind him, the robot's mouth wide open and pointed right at him. Terrified, Caden nearly has an episode; he forces himself through it. He repairs Hank the shark, then turns to climb out of the tank.

When he turns to climb out, he sees that Zeus has moved, the sea dragon now floating right between Caden and his exit. The sea dragon shouldn't be able to move at all right now -- it's motors and electric power are turned off, and there's not water currents in the tank powerful enough to move it. Regardless, the sea dragon floats closer to Caden, eventually pinning Caden against a wall. (Honestly, at this point, I would simply pass away.)

Staring straight into the jaws of the beast, Caden notices what looks like a loose wire stuck to something between some of the dragon's teeth. When he pulls on it, he realizes that it's a shoelace, attached to a child's shoe. Both the shoe and the animatronic's teeth are flecked with some sort of dark substance that, in the dim light of the aquarium, resembles blood.

Early the next day, Caden and Roy are doing prep work around the park. When they stop for a break, Caden, still thinking about the shoe, asks Roy about the history of the park, since Roy grew up with it.

"[The animatronics] were my friends back [when I was a child], anyway. I'd talk to them and it was like they would listen, y'know? Kid imagination stuff."

Caden tells Roy about finding a kid's shoe in the animatronic dragon's mouth. He says the shoe is old and falling apart, and that he thinks it's been in there awhile. Roy is taken aback at first, and seems just as confused as Caden is about it. They both decide that a kid must have gotten close enough to the tank to throw their shoe in at some point in the past, potentially as part of a prank or a dare.

Boss man Martin hears about the shoe and asks Caden some questions about it. (Caden hadn't brought it up to his boss, and he didn't turn the shoe in to the office or anything, so it makes sense for his boss to come asking about it.) Caden explains about finding the shoe and nothing else, assuming that some kid was playing a joke or something, and says he just threw the shoe away in the trash (which isn't true; he brought the shoe home with him). Martin listens to his story and lets Caden off the hook, but reminds him that he needs to tell the office about situations like this in the future.

Caden asks his boss about whether the underwater animatronics are supposed to move when they're powered off. Martin assures him that they don't, and says that other technicians who worked in the park in the past have asked him the same thing. He thinks the techs just get spooked when they're alone in the aquarium and imagine things. But Caden knows he's not imagining things.

Caden goes to check on the aquarium, and sees that the sea serpent Polo is down. He then receives a message from Roy, alerting him that Polo is down. (See what I mean about Roy being strangely attentive?)

Caden says a quick prayer before getting back into the tank. It's unspecified who or what he's praying to. (I mostly thought this was interesting because, while franchise creator Scott Cawthon has always been very upfront about his Christian faith and lifestyle, there aren't many moments throughout the franchise story itself where characters are portrayed having any strong religious-coded behaviors. It's a bit of a novelty.)

Climbing back into the tank, Caden has to swim past Frank the diver and Sly the shark before he can get to Polo the sea serpent. He feels gets the feeling that he's being watched. While working on repairing Polo, Caden notices the real moss and algae growing on the imitation rocks in the aquarium. He wishes Martin would get some experts in here to give the tank a proper cleaning, but when he brought it up to Martin before his boss only shook his head, complaining about the cost. He then notices that Frank the diver has moved, and seems to be observing him.

When Polo's repairs are finished, the animatronic jerks back online, its body thrashing violently for a moment. It hits the nearby rocks, and a piece of a rock breaks off. This rock chunk gets Caden's attention for some reason, and he pockets it, planning to get a better look at it when he gets out of the tank. When he gets a better look at it later, he realizes it's a small finger bone.

Caden's air supply suddenly cuts off, even though his air tank and apparatus are all in perfect condition. He's forced to swim past the animatronics so he can resurface and breathe again, all while feeling like the animatronics are watching him, and like they're shifting closer, as though to hem him in.

After resurfacing, Caden checks over his diving equipment. Taking care of the diving equipment is an important part of his job, so he always makes sure to refill the air tanks after he uses them. But, when he rechecks both his main and spare tanks, he realizes that they're mostly empty, a state he didn't leave them in the previous day. He wonders if someone has been using the diving equipment without his knowledge.

Uncertain why his equipment failed, Caden alerts office manager Eva about the incident, since boss man Martin isn't around. Eva says she'll tell Martin about it and insists Caden take the rest of the day off. She also gets frustrated with Martin for the lack of safety protocols at the water park, insisting that Caden should at least have a diving partner to make sure he doesn't get stuck in the tank or something. Caden insists he can do the job by himself, but takes the rest of the day off anyway.

With the day off, Caden goes to visit his grandmother in the nursing home she currently lives in. His grandmother has Alzheimer's, so Caden can't take care of her by himself anymore, but he tries to visit with her every day. They talk, but with her memory issues, they sometimes have the same conversations over and over; Caden is okay with this, and just likes talking to her. (I just thought this part was sweet.)

When Caden tells her about his new job at Freddy's Fantasy Water Park, his grandmother remembers hearing stories and gossip about the place when it first shut down. She's unable to remember exactly what the rumors were, but she knows there was some sort of mystery afoot.

That night, Caden has a nightmare. He's standing in front of the Mechaquarium, watching as children jump into the open tank. At first, the kids happily swim alongside the animatronics in the tank, but then the animatronics start attacking the children, tearing them apart and eating them like animals in a feeding frenzy. Caden thinks the animatronics look different; they look brand new, and their eyes are lit up "like they're possessed."

Caden tries to save the dying children, but is unable to. He's held back by a crowd of creepy, ghostly children, their hands locked tightly around him. Looking around, he sees Martin and Roy nearby. He tries to get their attention, calling out to them to help the kids, but his boss and coworker just quietly watch as the kids die, doing nothing to help.

Caden breaks free from the ghostly children's hands holding him back, only to be grabbed and held down by two adults. Staring at the adults holding him, he finds himself staring at his own deceased parents. The shock of it finally wakes him up from the dream.

The next morning, Caden distracts himself from his nightmares and phobias by focusing on dealing with a problem with his grandmother's medical insurance coverage. (Ugh, that's a whole other nightmare.) He goes looking for some paperwork she kept in her bedroom, and while there he finds a stack of newspapers that she's been hoarding for years. The paper on top has an article about his parents deaths. But, underneath that article, is another one that catches his attention - a boy named Jason Butterfield reported missing after a visit to Freddy's Fantasty Water Park.

The 20-year-old article explains that the family went to the water park in the evening, and then went home. The next day, their son was missing from his room, the bedroom window left wide open. No one knows if the boy was taken or ran away. A brief description of the missing boy mentions the shoes he was last seen wearing, and Caden realizes that the shoe he fished out of Zeus's mouth matches the description.

When Caden goes to work later that day, Roy comes around to check on him, having heard about the air tank failure and wanting to make sure Caden's okay. Caden asks if Roy if he knows anything about the disappearance of Jason Butterfield, and Roy tells him that he and Jason were the same age, and went to elementary school together; he explains that Jason was never found, and that for awhile a lot of people in the town grew suspicious that someone in the town had kidnapped him, but that eventually the rumors died down, most people forgot about the incident, and the rest of the Butterfield family moved away. Roy assumes Jason must have ran away, and doesn't think too much of it anymore. Roy is obviously suspicious of Caden's questions, but plays it off like he's not.

(Both Roy and Martin are being pretty sus right now.)

"One shelf was filled with remnants of old Freddy, Chica, and Foxy costumes." (Absofruitlyash voice: REMNANT?!) (Also, no Bonnie costume?)

(Sq… squid animatronic? There's a squid animatronic? Why oh why isn't that one in the Mechaquarium?! Put him in the water! Spooky tentacle underwater robot, let's go!)

There's a storage shed / workshop in the 'employee's only' section of the waterpark, where lots of unused or seasonal items are kept. The workshop area is where Caden's tools are kept, along with plenty of other tools and pieces for repairing things around the park. This is also where the squid animatronic is, since its motor doesn't work. When he's not busy with the upkeep of the other animatronics, Caden works on the squid, which is in a much worse state of disrepair than the rest of the water animatronics.

While Caden is in there working on the squid, all of the lights go off. A heavy shelf of metal falls and almost lands on Caden, and he hears someone breathing in the dark. Someone darts past him, slamming the shed door open and running out; Caden doesn't move fast enough to see who it is.

Caden tells Martin what happened, and he, Martin, and Roy work on putting the workshop back to rights. Martin believes that some teenagers are trying to play pranks on the park employees. For some reason, Roy thinks it's important that Caden specify that he 'didn't see anyone' when he was attacked in the workshop. Thinking about all the recent 'accidents' around him, Caden starts to wonder if someone is trying to kill him.

"After all these years… The kids are back, causing me trouble."

(… Okay, I no longer want to punch Darryl. I want him hit by a truck. Just a little love tap, that's all, I swear!)

"It was just a kind man asking about your grandmother. He doesn't know you have a finger bone in your backpack." XD

Caden wants to go to the police with his findings, but decides he'll need more proof than a single shoe and a tiny bone.

Caden suits up, and goes diving around in the Mechaquarium tank. He studies the rocks on the bottom for awhile, looking to see if any more bones or clothing items are down there. When he looks up, he finds that all of the animatronics are circled around him, watching him. Swallowing his fear and choosing to ignore them for the moment, Caden continues searching. To his horror, he finds the top part of a child's skull.

A noise gets Caden's attention, and he looks up to see the mechanized top of the tank close itself back up. Caden is now trapped inside the Mechaquarium, with only the air in his tanks.

The animatronics are all turned off, and are just hanging in the water, immobile… except for Frank the diver. The diver starts swimming like a live human would, and begins circling Caden, getting closer and closer. The rest of the animatronics are all clustered in a group now, not moving but watching as Caden and the diver animatronic swim around. Fearfully, Caden swims to hide behind the cluster of bigger, scarier animatronics, trying to keep away from the diver, which he's convinced is planning to kill him.

"The static in his ears grew louder. Caden thought his eardrums would burst."

Frank the diver grabs Caden's arm. It tries to pull off Caden's breathing regulator, and Caden panics even more than he already was. When Caden fights back with his tools, the diver tries to strangle him. Caden gets the diver's helmet off, assuming the animatronic will stop attacking him if he can dismantle it enough, and… sees that it's Martin inside the diver's suit.

When Martin continues his attack on Caden, the rest of the animatronics come to life, circling around Martin. Caden watches in horror as the robots drown his boss.

(Well… that gave me "scene from the movie where Mike watches the animatronics springlock Afton" vibes. Or "scene from 'the Silver Eyes' where Charlie and her friends watch the animatronics springlock Afton." I'm saying Martin is the Afton of this scenerio, that's what I'm getting at.)

After Martin dies, the static Caden was hearing suddenly goes away. (So… Illusion disk? Definitely illusion disk.)

When giving his story to the police, Caden doesn't say that his boss was forcefully drowned by lifeless animatronics. He says that Martin's air supply broke off. He also explains that he escaped by cutting through the tarp over the tank opening with his screwdriver. He then goes on to explain that, once free, he'd called Roy over, and the two had hauled their boss's body out of the water, too late to revive him.

No one knows the full story of what really happened. As near as the investigating police officers can tell, they believe the boy Jason got into the Mechaquarium and drowned, and then Martin Copper buried his body among the decorative rocks and coral within it, trying to hide what happened.

Caden's grandmother is intrigued with the story, and is very proud of her grandson for surviving and for finding a long lost person.

Caden comes to visit the water park a week later. He walks by the Mechaquarium, which is half drained and closed off by yellow police tape. He thinks the breached animatronics look like dead fish.

Roy and Caden talk about what happened. Roy is sorry for the part he played in Martin's machinations against Caden, and offers Caden a new job. He recently bought the water park from the bank, and he wants Caden to help him bring it back to its former glory, his dreams for it big enough to rival the Pizzaplex.

The story ends abruptly there, with Roy trying to cajole Caden into taking the job, but no answer from Caden. It's a weird way to end the story, and makes me think the writer/s ran out of either time or ideas for it and just decided to end it.

.

.

Caden is the first protagonist of these books to survive his story! Good for him!

I really liked this story. The stories in these books are really hit or miss for me (and when they miss, they miss hard), but this one worked for me.

It's really unfortunate that the story just ended like that. I would have loved to see more of it! And more of the characters within it. Caden was a good FNAF protagonist -- he had lots of specific fears and phobias and a childhood trauma, but he didn't let his fears control him, and was shown to be very intelligent and had a strong moral compass. He plays off really well with his supporting characters, especially with Martin and Roy.

Speaking of, let's talk about them. Let's start with my boy Roy.

Roy is… interesting. He reminds me a lot of how Vanessa is characterized on the movie. He's very suspicious at several points in the story. Sometimes, it's because he's a red herring, made that way by the author to keep the reader from immediately looking at Martin. But other times… he just seems to know something. Or like he's done something he shouldn't.

For example, Roy personifies the Mechaquarium animatronics, treating them like people and referring to them as his friends. He also knew the missing boy Jason personally, saying that Jason was his friend before he went missing. Roy literally described both Jason and the animatronics as his childhood friends. This is followed by the story narrative showing us that the animatronics are possessed by Jason (to some degree or another). This just makes me wonder if Roy knew that the animatronics were possessed by Jason, but didn't have the ability to do anything about it.

This is also the return of the name "Jason" as an important character.

And Martin had an illusion disk. What was up with that? Where did he acquire it? Why was he using it? And was he the diver "animatronic" the entire time? Was there ever a diving animatronic? And if so, where is it? For Martin to repurpose the diving animatronic's outer shell into a costume like that, he would have had to do something with the robotic innards of the character. Are they just tucked away somewhere in the workshop? And if so, I would have liked for there to have been a scene where Caden is in the workshop, finds some random robotic parts, and thinks "oh, those must be spare parts for the diver animatronic" or something.

Overall, this story felt like a retelling of the standard FNAF story. A crime involving children going missing happens at a Freddy's location, the owner conceals what happened by hiding the child's body/s with the animatronics, and it results in the animatronics being haunted and seeking revenge against the owner. Complete with, again, the owner being murdered by his own animatronics. There's even a defunct animatronic as part of the cast: Golden Freddy/Fredbear for the og FNAF story, and a deteriorated squid for this story.

It's not a one-to-one comparison, obviously, but the repeated themes are pretty obvious.

"Animatronic Apocalypse"

Quick question: is an animatronic apocalypse anything like a robot riot?

A middle school has an after school activity group calling themselves "the Fazbear Fanclub." The club consists of 5th and 6th graders (10- and 11-year-olds). The kids in the club have created their own board game, which they call "Animatronic Apocalypse."

"Glamrock Chica is hunting you. She's chased you into the school library. Your only weapons are a bow and a spear." (What kind of 'what would you do if…?' game is this?? XD)

"Animatronic Apocalypse" the board game is played similarly to "Dungeons & Dragons." The players create their own characters to roleplay as, and are given situations wherein their characters will have to do battle against attacking Fazbear animatronics. They're allowed to choose weapons where applicable, but they roll dice to determine whether their defenses work or their attacks land. (I would love to see someone make this game a reality, honestly.)

"Everyone knew [the Pizzaplex] had the best arcade, the best mini golf, the best raceway, the best pizza, and the best animatronic entertainment." (So this sounds a little more like the Pizzaplex we see in the "Security Breach" game.)

Our protagonist is Robbie Wilson, a 6th grade boy with long hair who loves the Fazbear animatronics. He has a dog named Hopper, who he also loves.

(-squints- Again with the name 'Jason.')

Love the fact that it's the adult in the room staring at his phone, ignoring the world around him, and not the kids doing that. Very reverse boomer humor.

Robbie has a best friend named Dyson, and the two of them are going through some growing pains right now. They've been best friends for years, but, as they're getting older, they're both developing very different interests, with Robbie leaning into roleplay games and robotics and Dyson leaning into team sports and video games. They're still trying to interact with each other, but don't really have much in common anymore, and they don't know how to talk to each other.

When Robbie next comes into the Fazbear Fanclub, he learns that the club president, Jason, had to step down from his position of club president; Jason's family is moving, and he's being transferred to a different school. The remaining club members vote in a girl named Zabrina for their new president.

(… Mr. Renner gives me the creeps. He's just… he's *too* invested in this unrelated 10-year-old girl. It's gross.)

As her first act of club president, Zabrina announces that, from now on, the kids in the club will be too busy playing the Animatronic Apocalypse game to do their homework. She says that, instead of studying, they should copy their classmates' work. This strikes Robbie as strange, since Zabrina is an honor student, and isn't a known cheat.

Zabrina describes their game prep as "preparing for the apocalypse," as if she means an actual real world situation. Mr. Renner, the school principal who sometimes acts as the adult chaperone for the Fazbear Fanclub, is also acting like there's a real world battle between an animatronic army and the humans of their world.

"What's said in the club stays in the club." (Lmao, Fight Club for children.)

(I like that Robbie has positive interactions with his parents every once in awhile. It's nice to see parents who genuinely care about their kids in this book genre, where neglectful or abusive parents are the expected variety. I mean, Robbie's parents are pretty oblivious to most of the stuff that's happening with their son, but it's clear that they listen to him talk and care about his wellbeing.)

Robbie tries to sit through a meeting of the Fazbear Fanclub, but the behaviors of Mr. Renner and Zabrina make him uncomfortable. (Same, bucko.) He ends up going home early. He walks home while looking at the ground, lost in thought, but the sound of a cat yowling and footsteps behind him makes him look up suddenly; to his confusion, he's the only person on the street, and he can't see any other people or animals.

A rock is thrown at him by an unseen assailant. The rock hits him in the head, drawing blood but not badly injuring him.

The next day at school, Robbie passes Zabrina in the halls. Zabrina stares straight ahead and walks stiffly. Something about her movements bothers Robbie.

Mr. Renner very suddenly leaves his position as school principal, with no explanations offered. Robbie later learns from his parents that Renner was caught stealing money from the school funds.

After school, Robbie sees Zabrina and some of the other kids from the Fazbear Fanclub walking in a pack. He follows them from a distance to see what they're doing, and they head into the woods behind a children's park. Once the kids are deep into the woods, they meet up with Mr. Renner. Robbie can see that Renner is talking to the kids, and drawing some sort of diagram into the dirt for the kids to see, but he's too far away to hear what's being said.

(I appreciate that Robbie is a protagonist who recognizes warning signs and red flags when he sees them. I don't expect fictional main characters to know when they're in danger, but Robbie knows exactly what's wrong with every scenario he walks in on.)

Mr. Renner gives the kids an order, and the group of children start eating dirt, no questions asked. (… That's so weird and I have nothing to say to that.)

Since his parents don't believe him, Robbie tells his friend Dyson about what he saw in the woods. Dyson is just as put off and confused as Robbie is.

Over the weekend, Robbie visits the nearby home of Johnny, one of the other kids in the Fazbear Fanclub and one of the kids he saw eating dirt in the woods with former principal Renner. Johnny's mother answers the door, but tells Robbie that Johnny is sick in bed with an upset stomach, and can't have visitors right now.

When Robbie sees Johnny in school a few days later, Johnny has bloodshot eyes. Johnny insists he wasn't sick over the weekend, but somehow says it in a way implying he's not really certain about that. He has blood on his fingertips, and when Robbie asks about it, Johnny just says "We had to poke the needles under our fingertips. We had to."

When Robbie wonders about the whereabouts of an absent classmate, Johnny says "I hope the animatronics didn't get him," as though that's a genuine threat.

The rest of the kids start eating live beetles that they brought to school in their lunchboxes. They clearly aren't enjoying the experience of eating live insects, but they do it anyway. Two of Robbie's classmates corner Robbie in the restroom and try to force feed him a live beetle. They tell him that the beetles are meant to prevent any of them from getting sick.

At this point in the story, it's clear that most of the kids have been convinced by Renner that they're in danger of contraction some sort of "toxin," and they have to consume increasingly gross and unhealthy things and perform dangerous rituals to help their immune system fight it off. Hence the dirt eating, the beetle eating, and the blood letting.

Zabrina seems to be reveling in her position as club president and Renner's second in command, using her position of power to force the other kids to humiliate themselves, possibly for her own entertainment. Robbie sees her force another kid to eat an extra beetle, just because she can.

When Robbie tries to talk to Zabrina, she doesn't respond to him. She acts like she can't see or hear him. (It's not like she's giving him the Silent Treatment though… it's more like he just doesn't exist to her.)

After overhearing the other kids talking about meeting up in the woods again, this time during the night, Robbie decides to follow them again to see what's going on. When he gets there, he sees the rest of the Fazbear Fanclub buried in the ground; most of their bodies are buried, but their faces are uncovered. Their faces are unmoving. Robbie can't tell if they're dead or not.

Robbie tries to dig up one of his classmates, and tries to check for a pulse. He can't feel pulse or breathing, so he starts performing chest compressions on the other boy. The boy, Nathan, finally starts sucking in air, taking deep gasping breaths. Nathan doesn't seem to know where he is, and is terrified when Robbie shows him that the other kids are still buried.

Zabrina suddenly rises from the dirt herself, screaming angrily at the two boys. Robbie and Nathan both flee.

The boys go to the police station. Robbie tries to tell a police officer about there being children buried in the ground behind a park, while beside him Nathan just sort of… shuts down, not speaking and staring at nothing. When the officer tries questioning Nathan, Nathan says he doesn't remember being buried, and that he doesn't know why he's here.

(Officer… Talbet? Like Talbert, but not?)

A couple officers agree to follow Robbie to where the kids are supposedly buried. But, once they arrive, there aren't any kids there. In fact, there's no evidence of kids ever being there. Nathan seems to have lost time, and is distressed about it. He doesn't seem to remember anything from before he and Robbie were standing in the police station.

When Nathan finally does start to remember things, he tells Robbie that Mr. Renner said the dirt had healing properties, and would keep the kids safe from the "animatronic toxins." The kids buried themselves, because obviously that was the only way to keep themselves safe from the perceived threat.

When Robbie comes down for breakfast the next day, he sees his father eat a beetle, the same way the kids at school did.

"His dad had been compromised."

None of the Fazbear Fanclub goes to school the next day. Robbie is the only one who isn't "out sick."

Deciding to pay the former principal a visit, Robbie goes to Mr. Renner's house. On the ground outside, Robbie notes some spray cans of paint, suggesting that Renner was the once who vandalized the school earlier in the story. Robbie tries to knock on a door, only to find that it's unlocked. He pushes it open and steps into the house. The house is much warmer than most people keep their homes, and he can smell something "putrid and stagnant." The yard and kitchen alike are filled with trash and rotting food.

Robbie hears voices somewhere in the house. Before he can either leave or investigate, he's caught, and finds himself staring up at Mr. Renner, who is wearing a rubber Freddy Fazbear mask. The masked Renner is sitting at the head of his dining room table, while all the other members of the Fazbear Fanclub sit around the table.

The kids don't react to Robbie, or speak to him. Except for Zabrina, who suddenly acknowledges his existence. When Renner asks Robbie why he's here, Zabrina comes to stand beside Renner, telling him that she thinks Robbie's a spy. Seemingly amused by this, Renner turns to the other kids, telling them that clearly Robbie is an animatronic coming to thwart their plans.

"Animatronics need to be taught a lesson."

Hearing this, the kids all turn on Robbie. As though in a trance, the kids hem him in and begin beating and kicking him. Robbie grabs a nearby fire poker to defend himself, and ends up skewering Renner.

This seems to break the kids from their trance-like state, and they all flee the scene, leaving the house apparently empty aside from Renner, Zabrina, and Robbie. Renner bleeds from his stab wound, and seems to choke on his own blood, but doesn't remove the Freddy mask; he makes it to his feet, and stumbles off down the hall of his house.

Renner leaks a dark liquid onto the floor behind him. Robbie doesn't think it looks like blood.

Zabrina calls Robbie a loser and spits on his face, then leaves. (… Okay?! What was that for?!)

Concerned about his stab victim, Robbie heads deeper into the house, fire poker in hand as he looks for Renner. He follows Renner's trail to a bedroom, which he notes is decorated with an older style of furniture and decor (and the description of it makes me think of the living room from the "Sister Location" cut scenes, or 'Mike's Room' from "Security Breach"). There's a closet in the bedroom, and Renner's leaking trail leads right to it.

Renner emerges from the closet. He doesn't have the Freddy mask on anymore, and now looks like a walking corpse. Black liquid seeps from the stab wound in his torso, and another bead of black liquid hangs from his mouth like drool.

Renner attacks Robbie again, and gets skewered again on the poker. This happens again and again, and Robbie suddenly realizes that Renner isn't feeling the pain of being stabbed. He doesn't stop attacking Robbie until Robbie stabs him in the eye with the poker. (Ew.) Renner collapses again, and Robbie runs away, leaving the house. (Call that man a Glamrock animatronic, 'cause he just got his shit wrecked by a 10-year-old boy!)

Someone called the cops and police officers arrive at the house just as Robbie runs out. They question him, then enter without him. When the officers come back out, they tell Robbie that the house is empty, and identify the dark liquid staining the floor as motor oil.

The police take Robbie home to his parents. His parents question him as well, and Robbie, like he did for the police, tells them everything. He know no one believes him, but he doesn't know what else to tell them. His parents let him stay home from school for a few days after that, letting him stay in his room for the most part and checking on him throughout the day.

Robbie's father talks to the police again a few days later, and the Wilson family learns that Mr. Renner has seemingly vanished. No one can find him, and no one knows where he might be. When the other members of the Fazbear Fanclub were questioned about their adult chaperone's whereabouts, none of them know anything, and they all have trouble remembered much about the man at all.

A week later, Robbie returns to school. He learns that Zabrina has transferred schools… or at least that she's stopped coming here. A new principal has joined the school faculty, and anyone seems to be acting like normal students and teachers now.

Robbie talks with Dyson and some of his other friends from school about restarting the Fazbear Fanclub.

.

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So clearly, Principal Renner was an animatronic that looked like a person for most of the story. We're told that he undergoes a huge personality shift during the story, implying that at the beginning of the story, he's a human man, but he gets replaced by an animatronic imposter early on. Given that Robbie temporarily believes the man to be a corpse, it's also possible that Renner could have been an animatronic wearing a human body as a suit, a la Ennard wearing Michael Afton at the end of "Sister Location."

(Actually, Renner made me think of Michael a lot during that last scene. Robot wearing a human skinsuit? Check. Guy wearing a Freddy Fazbear character mask? Check. Lives in a house decorated in '70s chic? Check. But I don't know why all the Michael similarities. And, for every similarity, there are just as many dissimilarities. So I just really don't know what it means.)

It's also clear that Renner the animatronic has some sort of hypnotic hold over not just the kids in Robbie's school, but also several of the other residents in the town. The Fazbear Fanclub kids are especially susceptible to his machinations, being easily convinced to injure themselves and even bury themselves alive just because he told them to, but throughout the story we also see several adults behaving in similar ways (like Robbie's dad eating bugs with his morning coffee, or the police officers encouraging the kids to play along with the dangerous games).

(This isn't the first time in these books we've encountered an animatronic with hypnotic abilities, and I'm sure it won't be the last.)

Whether Zabrina is an animatronic or another human victim of Renner is unclear, but it seems to me that the narrative implies Zabrina is an animatronic that has replaced a human child, much like Renner, and that she and Renner are both sent to this town and school with a specific goal in mind. What that goal is isn't clear: they're either building some kind of army of enslaved humans, or they're using the people of this town to test their hypnotic abilities.

So, if Renner and Zabrina have such a strong hold on the town, why is Robbie apparently immune to their whims? I actually don't think Robbie is immune to their hypnotic ways - rather, I think they leave him out on purpose, so that they can turn the other kids against him. It's an experiment to see if the enthralled humans will turn against their own, and if they can stand up to a human acting of his own free will.

The whole section about the kids burying themselves in the dirt and Robbie finding them in mounds in the forest reminded me of what I'm told happens with the twisted animatronics in "The Twisted Ones." I never read that book so I don't have any strong parallels to draw there, but I find it interesting.

This is also the third time in the FNAF books that we've had a protagonist named Robert. The first time was Bob in "Fazbear Frights: Bunny Call" and the second was Robert in "Fazbear Frights: the Cliffs." There was also a secondary character named Robert in "Tales From the Pizzaplex: Frailty," and there may have been others I just don't remember right now. My point is that Robert is a name that pops up a lot -- whether the name is important or the writer/s are just lazy, you be the judge.

Speaking of repeating names - when the principal is first introduced as "Mr. Renner," I immediately thought of the actor Jeremy Renner. I don't know if that was an intended name association but, given how often the name Jeremy pops up in this franchise, I wouldn't put it past Cawthon and his team.

And, of course, the return of the name Jason. Much like Afton, that name always comes back. (It haunts me.) EDIT: I wonder if the name 'Jason' is a jokey Easter egg referencing Jason Topolski from Steel Wool Studios, the current FNAF parent company.

"Bobbiedots, Pt 1"

Our new protagonist is a guy named Abe Thayer, who works in the Pizzaplex. Despite his job, Abe is homeless, and spends both day and night in the Pizzaplex, avoiding being noticed by his coworkers or the security cameras, and eating pizza out of the trash.

Next door to the Pizzaplex is a tall, shiny apartment structure called the Fazplex Tower. This is an apartment building owned and operated by Fazbear's, and provides free housing for Pizzaplex employees who work at high enough positions.

In addition to his job, Abe is also taking college courses while he works. He's very good with technology and computers, and he's working toward a college degree that he hopes will earn him a higher position at the Pizzaplex, with his goal being to reach a high enough position that he's given an apartment in the Tower.

Abe has a hidden space behind Roxy Raceway that he's currently sleeping in. He has a laptop in there, which he uses to send emails to his mother, lying to her and assuring her that he's in a good, safe home and doing well in school. He worries about being caught by a security guard or a wandering animatronic.

Abe is good at lying. So good in fact that he has a completely fake resume. This is a trait he learned from his dad when he was a kid.

In the morning, Abe bathes himself in a mens' restroom with handsoap and paper towels. It's called out that he passes by the golden Glamrock Freddy statue in the front lobby of the Pizzaplex. (Abe doesn't just work in *a* Pizzaplex -- he's working in *the* Pizzaplex, the one we see in the "Security Breach" game. There's a lot of points throughout this story specifically describing the Pizzaplex, hammering home to the audience "It's *the* Pizzaplex! It's the one from the game! You've been here before!")

Abe chats with his coworker, Evan (yes, I'm side-eying the name choice), who has a higher position and lives in the Fazplex Tower with his wife and kids. Evan tells him that the Fazplex Tower apartments got a recent upgrade, and they now have holographic home assistants called 'Bobbiedots.'

Abe is called to the administration office by the new director. She tells him that a new position "just opened up," and he's being promoted to fill it.

As part of the promotion, Abe should be given a Tower apartment, but is told that there are no apartments left to give him. The employee in charge of assigning him an apartment tells him she can't assign one to him, and that all but one are already being lived in; the one that's left has been labeled "off limits," and she assumes that the tech installed in that apartment is malfunctioning and needs to be repaired before anyone can live in it.

Abe decides he'll move into the off limits apartment anyway, figuring he can repair the malfunctioning tech himself. He tricks the receptionist to leave her desk for a minute, then uses her computer to assign the off limits apartment to himself.

Sneaking into the building, Abe goes to check out his new apartment, and has his first experience with one of the Bobbiedots, a set of feminine AI characters who pop up on various screens throughout the apartment.

Bobbiedot 3 is the first to introduce herself to Abe. She startles him so much, he doesn't speak for a minute. Concerned about the new occupant possibly not speaking, 3 immediately offers to learn sign language if that would be a better way of communicating with him.

(You move into a new apartment, and Hatsune Miko tells you that she's your personal assistant and maid so long as you live here. That's what's happening here.)

Returning to work, Abe tries to help acclimate Preston, a young technician intern and one of Abe's new underlings. Both men end up staring at DJ Music Man apprehensively, discussing how to run maintenance on a giant spider they're both scared of, while DJMM ignores them and naps in his sound booth.

(The DJ's torso has a giant speaker, which I don't think I've ever noticed before.)

Abe shows Preston around the tunnels that DJ Music Man uses, saying that the lights in the tunnels often cause electrical problems, and one of Preston's jobs will be to keep on eye on the generator for this section of the Pizzaplex. As they follow the tunnels (so Preston can get used to their layouts), they exit into some backrooms and even find a restroom nearby.

When the two employees enter the bathroom, one of DJ Music Man's hands reach in after them, trying to grab them. Abe pulls Preston out of the way, and explains that DJMM was originally programmed with a "bouncer mode." His bouncer mode never worked quite right, and the tech programmers removed it, but "missed a few lines of code." Now, DJMM will sometimes randomly try to grab and remove people from his immediate area.

"Does this job have hazard pay?" (Honestly, that's a great question. But I'm guessing the answer is 'no.')

Abe returns home to the apartment after work. He's introduced to the other two Bobbiedots, who are just as excited as their sister to have a new apartment occupant to take care of. The three Bobbiedots all behave like teenage girls, and squabble with each other like sisters. They all behave like they have a crush on Abe, and it's unclear if they're programmed to behave that way of if it's a trait they've learned from somewhere.

After chatting with them for a little bit, Abe renames each of them based off of their appearance.

💗🍩 Bobbiedot 3 is a pink-colored character. She speaks with a cheerful, peppy voice that reminds Abe of a bubbly cheerleader. She explains that she's in charge of keeping the apartment clean and making sure the occupant is healthy. Over the course of the story, we'll see her provide Abe with lots of basic household help, cleaning and keeping the pantry stocked, and especially help him with cooking. After learning that Abe has been homeless for awhile, she takes a blood sample from him to determine what vitamins he's low in, and creates a personal menu for him to provide him with those nutrients. When she's not assigned a task, 3 often pretends to eat sweets, portraying her avatar with donuts and other pastries. Abe renames her to Rose, because of her pink coloring and rosy demeanor.

💚📝 Bobbiedot 2 is green-colored and wears glasses. She speaks in a sarcastic, bratty voice. She explains that she's an information assistant, who's job is to relay important information about the news and the weather, keep track of memos and reminders, and can handle shopping lists and other similar tasks. Throughout the story, we'll see her behave like an internet search bar, pulling up lots of information at once, weed through it to find correct information, and relay it to Abe in a quick, concise manner. 2 is portrayed as the most serious of the Bobbiedots, and she constantly tries to prevent her sisters from slacking off. Abe renames her to Olive, because of her green coloring.

💙🎧 Bobbiedot 1 is blue- and white-colored, and wears headphones and a grey outfit. She speaks with a soft, sing-song voice, and often sounds like she's singing more than speaking. She explains that she's an entertainment assistant, which means she can access movies and television shows, music, books, magazines, and other forms of entertainment media, pulling them up on the nearest screen if Abe requires them or searching for something similar if he wants to try something new. She tells Abe that she can also handle any social media accounts he may have, and that she can arrange romantic dates for him via social media apps. When she's not assigned a task, 1 tends to watch romantic movies. Abe renames her to Gemini, because her blue and white coloring makes him think of space and constellations.

(Also renaming the entertainment assistant to Gemini made me think of analog horror series Gemini Home Entertainment. I don't know if that was an intentional reference, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.)

The Bobbiedots show Abe how to use the main control console for their system. The apartment has lots of tech screens and glass walls that the Bobbiedots project themselves onto, so they can literally follow Abe around the apartment if they want/need to.

"I have multiple sources that say--" "You just find things that support your own ideas!" XD

"I'm a luscious fruit!" (Oh, Olive… XD )

The Bobbiedots tell Abe that the previous occupant's belongings are all still in the apartment. This includes all of his clothes, and a fully stocked kitchen; none of the food has spoiled yet, so he hasn't been gone that long. Abe tries to ask the Bobbiedots about the previous apartment occupant, wanting to know why the man moved out and why all his stuff is still here. The Bobbiedots don't answer him, deflecting and talking about Morocco cuisine instead. Assuming that the Bobbiedots are programmed to do this to protect tenants' privacy, Abe decides not to press further.

Before bed, Abe sends an email to his mother, letting her know that he's been promoted at work and living in a nicer place. It's nice that he can be honest with his mother for once.

The next day, just as Abe is heading out the door for work, he notices a strange trapdoor in the kitchen ceiling. The Bobbiedots tell him that it's for maintenance purposes and is off limits to tenants. As Abe leaves, he can see that the trapdoor is open a crack, even though the Bobbiedots just told him it was locked.

At work, Abe runs tech maintenance on parts of the Fazerblast Arena. He notes some shapes and patterns in the lighting of the arena, and wonders if the shapes mean something, like "modern hieroglyphs" or "a secret code lit up on the walls of the arena." (For those who are unaware, there is a secret code scrawled across multiple walls of the Pizzaplex in both "Security Breach" and the "Ruin DLC." One of the codes is on the walls in a location that fans have dubbed 'Mike's Room,' and it's been decoded into a cryptic poem that people are still working on deciphering. The other code is the Tally Marks Code, which as far as I know is still currently unsolved.)

(There's a kid that Abe interacts with in the arena who made me think of Gregory. I don't know if it's meant to actually be Gregory, of if that's just wishful thinking on my part.)

Later that night, Abe is woken by a sound during the night. Not sure what he heard, Abe decides to investigate. He thinks he hears something moving in the apartment. When he calls them, Rose tells him that the apartment is secure, and Olive suggests he was having a dream.

The same thing happens again the following night. This time, when Abe lays quietly in bed, he think he hears what sounds like something being dragged over carpet. (I mean, you live in an apartment now. You could just be hearing the neighbors, or the building's plumbing, or any number of things, really. I'm sure this ritzy Fazbear building has all kinds of soundproof, but I'd still expect some noises to trickle through every once in awhile.)

Abe follows the sound to the kitchen. He thinks it sounds like something crawling up the wall. Waking the Bobbiedots up and staring suspiciously up at the maintenance hatch in the kitchen ceiling, Abe tries to ask more about it.

The Bobbiedots explain that they are part of the second generation of Bobbiedots. They say that the maintenance hatch was installed for the use of the Gen 1 Bobbiedots, which were physical robots. There's a power grid in the ceiling, which the Gen 1 Bobbiedots were plugged into, and which the maintenance hatch leads to.

Apparently, the Gen 1 Bobbiedots were never actually removed from the apartment, and are still up in the maintenance space. Rose, Olive, and Gemini further explain that the Gen 1 Bobbiedots will come down from their ceiling crawlspace and try to clean the apartment. While the Gen 2 Bobbiedots believe their predecessor sisters to be harmless, they also express that they don't really appreciate the "help" with running the apartment.

Abe isn't comfortable with the idea of robots he can't control just coming and going out of his living space at will.

"The Bobbiedots couldn't read his mind… could they?" (Eh, it's Fazbear's. Who knows?)

A day or two later, Abe takes advantage of the nice, jetted tub in the apartment, and takes a long soak in it while reading a paperback detective novel. But the water in his jetted bath starts to get hotter and hotter, causing him to eventually jump out as the water begins to boil. His skin is scalded, and he jumps into the shower, turning on the cold water.

He summons the Bobbiedots, and Olive and a very distressed Rose tell him how to treat his burns, directing him to where a bottle of aloe vera is kept. They tell him that the water's increased temperature is the fault of the Gen 1 robots in the ceiling, citing that the robot's cables often get tangled up with all the other power cords and control modules; they further clarify that the Gen 1 robots are damaged and can't be removed, and that that's the reason this apartment was off limits in the first place.

The computer interface Bobbiedots start to realize the sort of dangers posed to their new tenant by the presence of the robotic Bobbiedots in the ceiling. They decide to set up a system, planning to keep track of the robotic Bobbiedots' movements more closely and regularly inspecting various systems around the apartment to make sure everything works properly.

Abe sends another email to his mother, since it's been a few days and he doesn't want her to worry. He doesn't tell her about the various incidents around the apartment.

At work the next day, Abe tries to show Preston how to fix the generators in the Daycare Center.

"Why are the generators in the play structures?" (Preston's asking the same questions we've all been asking since "Security Breach" came out.)

Abe explains that the generators are a new installment; the lights in the daycare kept running out of power and blinking off, so they had to install more generators to power the lights for longer periods of time. He also says that the play structure was, unfortunately, their only option of locations to put the generators, since they need to be able to get to the generators to manually restart them on a regular schedule.

Abe is less concerned about the weird generator placement and more concerned about the Daycare Attendant, who he views as a "less kid-friendly version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." When Preston the intern asks about the DA, Abe explains that the Daycare Attendant is repurposed animatronic that used to perform in the theater. As a theater performer, the Sun/Moon animatronic was designed to switch between the two personas in different lighting as part of its performances. When the Sun/Moon animatronic was reprogrammed to be the Daycare Attendant, the programmers couldn't manage to remove the light-dark trigger. The Pizzaplex managers decided it was cheaper and easier to keep the lights on at all times in the daycare than it was to fix the animatronic attendant.

While they're working on repairing an offline generator in the daycare, the Moon version of the DA sneaks up on them, watching them through the play structure walls. Moon doesn't attack them, just stands there and judges them, calling them "naughty boys."

Back at the apartment, Abe tries to bake in the kitchen. The stove top suddenly catches fire, and the flames climb up the long sleeve of his shirt. He whips the shirt off and smothers the fire as quickly as possible, but still ends up running his singed arm under cold water. The Bobbiedots panic. Abe is no longer sure that these Bobbiedots can keep him safe.

The weekend passes with minimal incident. On Monday, when Abe returns home, the Bobbiedots don't appear to greet him like they usually do. He goes to turn on the lights, only to get nearly electrocuted by a sudden power surge.

The Bobbiedots come online. They say that the Gen 1 Bobbiedots are hooked into the same computer system that they are, and that the Gen 1s froze them out for a few minutes.

Abe asks the Bobbiedots more about their Gen 1 predecessors. They tell him that the Gen 1s were more like the animatronics from the Pizzaplex, in that they have physical bodies and possess pseudo-sentience. Olive tells him that she believes they're envious of Abe, wanting to be human like he is. Then she suggests that the Gen 1s are confusing Abe with the previous tenant, but she doesn't say why that would explain their behavior.

Abe tries to eat a sandwich, but it makes him sick, and he runs to the bathroom to throw up. Abe has the realization that the food in his kitchen has been laced with something to make him ill.

"How has my apartment tried to kill me? Let me count the ways." (Don't… don't quote that poem at me, FNAF. I still haven't forgiven you for the last time you used that one.)

As the days go by, Abe has several more incidents in his apartment. The incidents get so bad, Abe worries that one of them will kill him, sooner or later. But he refuses to leave the apartment, refusing to go back to being homeless.

Sitting in his office, Abe types up another email to his mom. He doesn't notice a cable trailing through the air behind him, vanishing behind a trapdoor in the ceiling.

.

.

We've never had a proper two-parter in this books, so I was pretty concerned about how this was going to play out. I figured the story would either be super intense or super boring, and that it would be insufferable either way. But I was surprised -- I really enjoyed this one, and I think it was written with a good balance of spooky, mysterious elements with mundane but still interesting segments. I'm actually interested in seeing where "Part 2" takes this story.

I like that we get to learn so much about the Pizzaplex. Since this protagonist works at the Pizzaplex in the tech area, so we learn some background information about the animatronics.

I love the back and forth conversations of the intern asking "why are the animatronics glitchy? why is the building structured like this?" and the team leader sighing and answering "I don't know. Fazbear's is a weird company with weird priorities." I'm absolutely fascinated by the employee culture at Fazbear's, and moments like this are really humorous to me.

Epilogue:

When we last saw them, the kids were running from the Mimic, which had just killed two of their friends, cutting the group of eight kids down to six. We pick up with them again, and currently the kids have found a new temporary hiding spot. Unfortunately, they're surrounded by the partially decaying pieces of dead bodies.

(I forgot there was another Jace/Jason among this group. Actually, plenty of these kids' names are repeated names that we've heard before, so it shouldn't surprise me. Jase, Hope, and Joel are all repeated names.)

Lucia and Kelly have found a radio, and they and Jace and Adrien decide to try using it to contact the outside world. They hole up in an office to do this. Joel and Wade go off on their own, deciding to find a way out themselves. The metal monster (the Mimic) is still stalking around after them.

In this old office, Lucia and Kelly work on reconstructing the radio's pieces so they can use it to contact someone outside. Ultimately, the girls decide that the radio's parts are too old and fragile to manipulate properly, and they start searching around the office for anything else that may help them.

Lucia finds a user's manual for operating several animatronics and endoskeletons, including the metal monster that's been coming after them. She identifies the thing as something called a "Mimic," a kind of animatronic endoskeleton that has limbs and a torso that can change lengths, allowing it to be fit into any size mascot costume. The failsafe for when the Mimic malfunctions or poses a threat to a human is to remove its power supply, an instruction that doesn't help these kids at all.

The manual tells them that there are two Mimics: Mimic 1 and Mimic 2. The kids don't know which one is the one chasing them.

In a room at the end of a hall, Joel and Wade find a maintenance chute in the wall, which allows them to access a large air vent, which leads to an opening on the roof of the Pizzaplex. The problem is that the air conditioning and vent system is still partially functional, and there's a moving fan blocking the vent opening. They look around, but can't find anything to turn off the moving fan in their way.

Joel remembers how the power blinked off when the Mimic appeared and killed Hope, and assumes that something about the robot disrupts nearby power circuits; his new plan is to lure the Mimic into the room they're currently in, and then climb out the vent and escape when the Mimic's presence causes the vent system to malfunction, temporarily shutting off the fan. (Joel truly is the biggest moron around, huh?) After some deliberating, the boys agree that Wade will try to lure the Mimic to them.

While Wade's gone, Joel starts climbing into the maintenance tunnel. (I think we all know where this is going.)

"Watching [the Mimic] move was like watching the undulating movements of a shadow monster."

The lights go out wherever the Mimic is. They come back on after the Mimic leaves the area. (What a weird ability for this thing to have.)

Wade gets the Mimic's attention and leads it toward the room where Joel's escape is. The Mimic follows behind him. As soon as he's in the room, Wade starts climbing up into the chute after Joel. But then the Mimic catches up with them, grabbing Wade and pulling him back down, dismembering the boy.

While his friend is dying, Joel climbs up higher, heading for the fan that's been turned off. He tries to fit himself between the blades of the fan, but can only get his head through, unable to fit the rest of his body through the empty space.

The Mimic gathers up Wade's body parts and leaves, going to deposit Wade's head, arms, and torso in the correct piles. ("Pile of bodies, pile of heads." - Venom) As soon as it leaves, the fan turns back on, chopping Joel into pieces. (Yeah, that's what I figured would happen.)

(And then there were 4...)