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roxyteal · 1 month ago

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(Jesus Christ it happened again. Mobile decided to not only publish the draft but also not save any of my edits. Pardon me if you see any appear) (Oct 30: Put context about his sobriety in the beginning, as opposed to in the middle out of nowhere.)

Today I am compelled to talk about Joe 5. It may include things I already mentioned in a different post, but those were in the tags so if any of this seems like not new info, sorry about that.

ANYWAY

Joe 5. Also this gets long so bear with me.

Joe 5 (but you can use either Joe or 5) came from a complete set copy of "Joe`s basics joke game". He was relatively fine as a person, with highs and lows. He's a bit of a snark but it's usually lighthearted. He even realized he had a problem and got clean, though... Alcohol still kinda haunts him as a result.

At some point, he and his entourage found the Webspace. On that day, they were among two others - a copy of Denied's Basics (the 10th apparently), and the 82nd Dave, who was a rogue for some reason.

Things were alright until it was mentioned that there was a pre-existing Joe and company around, and whether or not they'd like to merge with him, and so on. 5 thought that was weird as Hell and said no. But his companions said yes.

This resulted in 5 distancing from them since they're "not my friends anymore", and "I don't even know them anymore". And from then on, he resented the idea of merging, and that damned "Joe 1" for being so Goddamn happy. What's he all smiley about, he thought. The fucker.

But at least he still had his school. His empty, ghost town of a school. He quickly realized he couldn't live alone in that so he started staying in a tiny apartment, which quickly became a mess because of his plummeting self-worth. If only he'd just gone with everyone else, this could've been avoided, he also thought. It's his punishment for going against the grain. Being different. Maybe even "defective". Well shit, let's be defective. Why not.

He would have his code and model changed so that his hair would grow naturally. Somewhere in his reasons for this was needing to feel responsible for something, so he wouldn't completely fall apart. And maybe having it would make him feel better, whether about himself, in general, or both. He recalled that he considered asking his player about it in the past, but never got the nerve. Better late than never, he tried to rationalize. That's what people say to forgive themselves, right?

But the shoulder-length he requested (and wavy to boot, he didn't realize he had that...) spiraled out of control and now reaches his waist. Of course he couldn't keep up the end of the deal he put upon himself. It really needs the trim, but he couldn't be assed to try, and it disgusts him. The only good thing was how it never tangled. Game magic shit or whatever. But regardless of that, he looked like a cryptid, and he felt like one too.

At this point, his only comforts was TV, eating, and sleeping. He didn't need to do the last two obviously, but it gave him something to do, a distraction. When he ate, he could focus on the taste and nothing else. When he slept, he would stop being able to drown in his thoughts, welcomed instead into nothingness. When he watched TV, it numbed him enough to stop caring.

But even in his lowest moments, he refused to give in to his old addiction of... That. Diving back into it would truly mean the end had come. He'd rather be tortured to the brink before he had a sip again. Even now. Especially now.

He rarely ever left the apartment, kept the lights off, curtains to the balcony closed, and didn't allow visitors. He rarely ever left his bed, in fact. Sometimes he'd lie there and daydream about leaving. To where? Who knows. But this place was so painful to live in because everyone else has it great and he's got nothing so it's like... Just leave. But where?

He'd ponder it. Maybe just go out that tunnel and see where the Internet busses take him. Leave it up to fate. Maybe he'll find a nice little NeoCities domain. That whole area's so fuckin' large, there had to be a place where even 5, a worthless piece of shit, could fit right in! Yeah...

But he never gets out of bed. Out of the apartment. To the entrance tunnel. To the bus stop. To NeoCities. He just lies there, thinking about it. And nothing happens.

One day, he realized he was running out of food. The only reason he'd ever leave his trash heap of an apartment. By this point it was a matter of looking presentable enough to go out into that bright, colorful, vapid world crafted by that... Uh, mask man, and his spooky associates. Or keep staring at the dump that is 5's living space and contemplate if he could live without the sensation of eating. He still had his two other trusty vices, is it okay to lose one?

But, fuck. He loved the instant noodles. The frozen meals. The rice cups he could drizzle a little soy onto. And all the other kinds of convenient, packaged stuff. Goddammit.

So, he stepped around the trash, and next he knew, he was out the door. Fine. Fine. Fine! He'll get so much, he'll never have to come out again!

But as soon as he was outside the building, hair almost encasing his torso like a shroud, something shifted. Today's the day he's going to leave. Yeah. He'll get this done, pack up, make a pitstop to Vincent's or whatever pretentious name that supernatural son of a bitch had, flip off the gaudy building, then head straight for the tunnel. If he had time, he might even egg that fucking place!

This is it! God, it'd been so long since he was excited. Genuinely excited. He wanted to hold onto this forever.

Mood improved, he carried on with his mission. He ignored the other shoppers, checking off everything he picked up from his list. It was one of his first lessons here, because how could anyone remember everything they needed? He sure couldn't.

Things were going fine, until... He bumps into someone. Baldina. And she single-handedly became the craziest thing to happen to him.

He barely recalled the conversation, but it led to her hiring him as an assistant at her school, despite his clear lack of qualifications. It seemed that like Mr. Strobe-bow-skis, she too had plenty of people under her thumb, in numerous positions. A whole network of them.

One of which, 5 got to meet while struggling pitifully with the coffee machine, just seconds away from having a breakdown right then and there. This guy called himself, er, "I'm never"? But one word. Okay sure whatever. And in spite of 5's threatening tones and verbiage, Imnever was patient enough to show him how to use the brewer. Even informed him of how Baldina takes her coffee.

So what's Imnever's story? Oh, he teaches art here. He's more of an animator by trade, but this suited him just fine. Huh. Well, still more impressive than anything 5's ever accomplished.

The three of them became friends. He wasn't sure how that was possible, but finally he had a reason to go outside more often, instead of stewing in his own suffering for weeks at a time. In fact, slowly that poor excuse of an apartment turned into something a little more decent. It wasn't super tidy, but if Imnever, Baldina, or both wanted to visit, finally 5 could and would allow it.

It got to a point where, one morning, they surprised him with a present. A motorcycle. Apparently the two had taken his daydreaming musings seriously, about how cool it would be to have one. Also, 5 had forgotten what day it was - his birthday.

He cried. He couldn't possibly accept this. He didn't know how to ride it. He'd ruin it or hurt someone. All the classic, self-depreciating excuses he was told he was using.

But, as Imnever said, what you don't know, you fear. Once you do, you don't. Frankly that sounded confusing, and yet, these types of phrases helped him get this far, so... Just accept the damn thing.

The helmet was really cool, but he had so much hair that it wouldn't be able to fit. At long last, he got the trim he had desperately needed; up to just below the shoulders. But Baldina did it for him. Almost ironic, but at this point, who cares?

He forgot how light his head felt after the excess was cut down. It was a nice feeling.

Once he actually tried to overcome that fear of failure and took the chance to learn something, he was surprisingly quick on the uptake. And before long, he was zooming down streets in that badass chopper of his.

Maybe the Webspace isn't actually so horrible. But, thinking that, he reminisced about that day, where he was so sure he was gonna leave this domain behind and start over somewhere else. He slowed to a stop in front of Infinite School or something like that. Hm...

And he gave that treacherous high-rise building the bird, laughing manically as he drove onward. Of course he was going to stick around nowadays, but it still felt right to do. And boy was it worth it.

Life here had finally looked up for 5. Until, well... The demon showed up. But that's a whole other fuckin' story.

#baldis basics #BBAU #WTTW #musings #joe 5 #denied mentioned #dave 82 mentioned #viktor mentioned #baldina #imnever #is this a fanfic? hm... more like a summary #so about dave 82. i think he probably asked viktor + baldina + denied the “cats or dogs” question #later than what the in-character posts seemed. a while later #and joe 5 having long hair... i was inspired. also god i cannot hear his voice in anything other than brandon rogers. help #“so why imnever” idk

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noomsu · 7 days ago

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ladybug, caramel popcorn, and sunlight for whatever pairing you like ^^ and feel free to throw in other ones from that ask list too!!

selfship ask game

you're giving me TOO MUCH FREEDOM asjkdhkafdf I'm too indecisive for this. I stared at my phone for like 20 minutes trying to decide HAHA, but let's go with ayatsu, I've been neglecting Ayato for a while

ladybug ৻ꪆ if they were to send a bouquet of flowers to your home, what kind of flowers would they send? and what would the notecard say?

I know I said I'd work on the profile this weekend, but I got lazy, so bear with me. For in-game flowers, he would send her a bouquet of dendrobiums. Odd choice? Sure, but they are very expensive, and though they are thought to be ominous, it's also a peace offering from him. I can see Natsu at Yae Publishing, focused on her work, and someone tells her they got something for her, and everyone is kinda freaked out by the bouquet, but she just knows. She doesn't even need to check the notecard because she knows it's from Ayato. Only he'd know those are her favorite flowers. And only he would know they remind her of her late father. So I like to think that, after they broke up that one time, he sent her one of those in a silent gesture. Both because he wanted to respect her distance, but also because he wanted to tell her that he hasn't forgotten. For irl flowers, he would send her forget-me-nots because 1. The color will remind her of him, 2. They are tiny like her, and 3. He can never forget her. The notecard says: To the one who lingers in my thoughts, Though time and duty have drawn me away, not a day passes without a fragment of our shared past finding its way into my heart. The laughter we shared beneath the cherry blossoms, the promises made under starlit skies—I have not forgotten. You are as much a part of who I am as the Kamisato name I carry. Even in silence, you remain irreplaceable. If fate allows, I hope we may speak again, to bridge the distance that I have caused between us. Yours, always, Kamisato Ayato

caramel popcorn ৻ꪆ do you and your lover have any children?

Absolutely. Not only because he does need a heir, but because, after everything they've endured, they deserve a big, happy family. They do have a boy first, which makes Ayato panic a little because how can he handle a boy that may be just like him? But Natsu helps him see that there's nothing unloveable about him, just like there's nothing like that about their son. When their son is seven, they have twin girls (that Thoma adore). I don't have names yet because I also wanna check the kanji, but they also might have more kids, who knows sdjkflfdg

sunlight ৻ꪆ what does a perfect saturday morning look like for the two of you?

Before they have kids, a perfect saturday morning is spent sleeping in. Ayato is always so busy tending to his duties that they barely have time to enjoy each other's company, so after they get back together, he makes a rule of staying in bed with her on Saturdays. Natsu is the one who decides when to get up. After lazing around in bed, they do take a bath together because he's a little shit and will pout and whine like a child if she says no. Then they have breakfast with Ayaka (and force Thoma to sit down with them), until they all have to go tend to their own work. Sometimes Natsu works with him in his study, sometimes she takes the day off to help Ayaka with her own work.

I hope you know that I almost had a heart attack because of the FEELINGS this man causes me, Aoi jskadhfljhgfjd (I also cracked up because Yae Miko would be SO concerned about the flowers).

#natsu.txt #aoi-memoriae #yume things #ayatsu #genshin impact #selfship ask game #kamisato ayato #I HAD SO MUCH FUN WITH THIS #ty aoi for giving me the chance to babble about him #i also had a lot of fun writing the notecard

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mythserene · 1 year ago

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From my Lewisohn post:

THE STORIES KEEP GETTING BIGGER: "And all those people had to die"

There is a story Lewisohn tells in “Tune In” about Ringo going home after the flood in Hamburg. His grandmother who raised him died on February 7, the flood was February 15th and 17th, and maybe most importantly, his contract was up.

“

"Ringo might have stayed, extending his two-month contract, but he took the opportunity to go home, because his beloved grandmother had died."

- Lewisohn, “Tune In” p. 577, (emphasis mine)

”

So he did not extend his contract. And when he got four different offers, one of them being to play at a US Army base in France, the pickiest eater on earth who has been dreaming of America his whole life chose the US Army base over going all the way back to ratty Hamburg to be in a band that was tanking and be yelled at in German.

“

"As it was, he’d gone home and picked up other offers, new adventures to explore, not old ones to repeat. While he’d had a great time in Hamburg and was very tempted to return, he said no. As Sheridan and Young stayed in St. Pauli more or less continuously from this point, year after year until later in the decade, Ringo’s instinctive decision was crucial to his future. Sheridan’s was just one of four offers Ringo received in the space of about three weeks. The second was to join Howie Casey and the Seniors on the road, and the third was the one he accepted—to rejoin the Hurricanes. It wasn’t so much that he craved their company or musicianship, though they were all still mates, it was what they were doing that interested him: they were off to France for a month or more, to play to the soldiers at a United States Army base.

“Only four months after Ringo reluctantly ended his Houston emigration plans, he’d be inside the little American enclaves that dotted the postwar European landscape, enjoying access to PX shops full of amazing American goods. And as it also happened that the Hurricanes’ return from France would lead into a third straight Butlin’s summer season, running from the start of June to early September, Ringo would be back with Rory another six months before considering his next move.

- Tune In, Ch. 26, “Us Against Them” p. 293

”

He hated it. His contract was up. So he left. Why does he need a flood to leave after his contract ended?

While in Liverpool he was offered another contract in Germany for one whole year, though April 1963. He turned it down and went to a US Army base in France.

You do not need an act of God to explain this decision.

But in the years since “Tune In” was published the way Lewisohn tells the story, if not the story itself, has grown to make it another example of the magic of fate. It’s big. It’s dramatic.

🪄 the new, improved, Magic Beatles Version 🪄

There was this moment in history where an act of God that killed more than 300 people might have proved a turning point on which the entire existence of The Beatles hung. But they were meant to be and “all those people had to die” for The Beatles to live.

(Since he’s probably going to sue my ass, this is an artist’s interpretation. He does say, “All those people had to die,” and in some places he sneaks in a hedge, but all-in-all my “for The Beatles to live” editorialization is wholly reasonable.)

The entirety as well as many of his direct statements are kind of shocking. Also kind of funny, but then also not. Because this is exactly why “Tune In” is so damn good. It’s dramatic and it is magical. It’s a magical story anyway, but the way he tells it is immersive and addictive. He tells it great, he really does. But my great-grandmother was the best storyteller I ever heard, and that’s because the woman would say things like, “I once cussed a man’s gun out of his hand” in her “true” stories. They were definitely true stories mythologized into genius tall tales–(a gift I rarely see today)–but sometimes when she finished we’d make a game of trying to guess which parts were stretched. And usually it was obvious, at least in some places. Because we knew she didn’t cuss a man’s gun out of his hand, but there was a well-known story about her facing down a rival moonshiner with a gun and walking away not only alive, but with more territory. And her family craved and cried for stories where the truth and the myth were brilliantly woven together. We wanted the element of folklore that made it magical. The wanted the repeatable lines. That’s what bonded us together as a family. What made us feel special.

And that is exactly what Lewisohn’s narratives of Beatles’ history do. The magic helps to bond us to The Beatles and to each other the way my grandmother’s stories bonded our family together. But the way my grandmother told the stories there was no mistaking the sparks and the crackle for verifiable facts.

It wasn’t dressed up in “historian” packaging.

THE FLOOD: LEWISOHN EVOLVED VERSION

The story now is this fate-interfering near-miss of The Beatles Not Happening. If not for this flood Ringo would not have left Hamburg after his contract ended and might have just stayed there and waited around for no reason until two months later in April when this new contract came up with the enticing offer of shackling himself to Hamburg for another year… instead of leaving Germany after his contract ended LIKE LITERALLY EVERY ONE ELSE DID. If not for the flood Ringo would have just hung around in Germany. We came so close to not having him in The Beatles because obvs, he would have hung around in Germany and not gone back home if not for that flood.

When you listen to this clip imagine the preeminent Civil War historian telling it. Or a serious WWI historian telling it with a few changes to make it about a crucial battle. Imagine if a historian told a story like this to say that a war would not have been won but for this act of God, and the facts supporting that sweeping statement were as thin, contradictory, and tangential as these. That “historian” would be a joke within 24 hours. A laughingstock. I’m sorry, but it is just so evidently true. This is tabloidish and unserious.

ML: …Arguably, had the flood not happened, he wouldn’t have been available for The Beatles.

CS: Yeah.

ML: So he would’ve still been there in the Top Ten Club. But, uh– or maybe moved to the Star Club by then.* But– He– It was because of the flood that he was available for The Beatles again.

[crosstalk]

CS: That’s another one of those Beatles stories, isn’t it?

ML: Yeah. And all those people had to die for that- for that to happen. It was over three-hundred.

*Why? Why would he have still been there if his contract was up? Why would he have stayed in Germany?

#the beatles #Lewisohn #AKOM #Fine Tuning #Historiography

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archiveikemen · 2 years ago

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Liam Evans Main Story: Chapter 12

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When I returned to Crown’s castle, I didn't feel like going to my room, so I headed for the pavilion in the garden.

I looked at the bundle of letters Marie gave me earlier in the day.

If I read through those letters, I might be able to grasp the cause of what was haunting Liam’s heart.

(But… I feel like I’m prying too much into Liam’s past without his permission.)

Liam: Found you, Kate.

Kate: WAH! Liam!

Liam: Ahaha! You look so shocked. I was looking for you because I have something to tell you.

Liam: I’m fully recovered!

Kate: Oh, really!?

Liam: Mm, really. Want to check by touching me anywhere you like?

(Then—)

I touched Liam’s cheek.

Liam: My injuries are healed, right? It’s all thanks to your help. Thank you, Kate.

Kate: I’m glad you're recovering well. Ah, and please never do that to yourself again.

Liam: Okaaayy.

Liam: — Anyway, what are those letters? By any chance, are they love letters addressed to you?

Kate: These letters were left behind by Jacob for Marie…

Liam: Jacob?

Kate: I’m so sorry if I’m overstepping boundaries—

I tried to apologise, but Liam put his index finger over my lips to stop me.

Liam: No need to apologise. I’m fine with it if it’s you.

Kate: … Huh?

Liam: On the day that article was published, you must’ve been so curious, and yet you still said “this isn’t the right time to ask”.

Liam: And you must've been very hesitant about whether to read these letters.

Liam: You being alone here is enough to prove that… am I right?

Kate: … Liam.

Liam: Besides, I want to read them too. Jacob was… someone precious to me.

Liam said with a smile and sat down next to me with movement as smooth as a cat’s.

Liam: Wow, this is a lot of letters. … Is this the first one?

This was the first letter Jacob wrote to Marie, it was written on his first day of work as a butler for the Evans family—

“Dear Marie, my fiancée who lives so far away from me.”

“Hey, how have you been? I'm working as a butler for the Evans family starting today. They own a major confectionery production company.”

“How laughable that I became a butler. The household consists of a husband and wife, and they have a son named Liam.”

“Honestly, I’m not very good with children. He’s a friendly boy, so we’re getting along well. It's miraculous.”

“Well then, I’ll write to you again another time. Take care and don't catch a cold, Marie.”

Kate: Fufu, seems like you’ve been a friendly person ever since you were a child. I can imagine it.

Liam: I still remember that time very well. I desperately wanted to get along with him, so I kept trying to talk to him…

The second and third letters were all about Liam and Jacob’s happy moments together.

They had snacks in the middle of the night, and spent sleepless nights reading stories together.

Liam: … I miss those times. I was so happy to have an older brother figure because I was an only child.

However, approximately half a year later, their peaceful days started to grow dark.

“Liam hasn't been very lively lately. He used to be so smiley, but recently he's been smiling a lot less.”

“I don't know what caused this change. Therefore, I took him to a theatre to cheer him up.”

“I felt relieved to see that he appeared to be enjoying himself. I guess even children have their own troubles, don’t they?”

(The next letter…)

“Liam came home with wounds on his cheek and arm. But when I asked about them, he only told me that he fell down.”

“That's a common occurrence for children, right? Let me know what you think, Marie.”

(... He was injured? How about the next one…)

“... Hey, Marie. Liam has been acting strange lately.”

“The moment I take my eyes off him, he gets severely injured in the most bizarre ways possible.”

“Sometimes, his behaviour shocks the people around him and he even damages the place.”

“Both the master of the house and the madam are bewildered by Liam’s wild behaviour.”

Kate: …

I looked up at Liam upon seeing the unsettling nature of the letter, and he signalled with his eyes that he didn't mind me reading on.

(... This is the last letter. In this letter, Jacob wrote—)

“Liam has been smiling a lot lately. But… his smile is different from the one I saw back when we first met.”

“A child’s smile — should be flawless. His smile was so adult-like… I thought it was strange.”

“Liam has… “something”.”

“I don’t know what that “something” is.”

“I wonder if there’s anything I can do for Liam. … I want this child to have his innocent smile back.”

That was the end of the final letter.

After that letter, that fire broke out and killed everyone in the Evans family. All except Liam.

I had so many questions that I found myself at a loss for words.

Kate: Liam, this is…

Liam: It’s nothing special.

(Huh…?)

Liam: The Evans family established their company and made it successful in just one generation. As their only son, I was the heir to the company.

Liam: Simply put, it was inevitable that I would take over the company. Therefore, I had to receive a special kind of education known as “kingcraft”. It was definitely more rigorous than normal studies.

Liam: That’s probably why I looked depressed to Jacob.

Liam: But that’s a common thing, right?

Kate: Common…?

Liam: Parents have high expectations of their children.

(... I guess so?)

Kate: … Then, what about the behaviour that shocked the people around you and got you severely injured?

Liam: I was having episodes. You witnessed one yourself that night, didn't you?

== Flashback Start ==

Liam: Fufu… fine, you just want to get rid of me, right?

Liam: Then let’s try to kill one another, starting now! … Haha, I wonder if you two can even kill me…?

== Flashback End ==

(The look in Liam’s eyes was so dark back then… it was almost as if he were a completely different person.)

Liam: The curse itself is inborn, but it appears at a different stage in each individual.

— Liam said that his curse first started appearing when he was five years old.

It was when he accidentally stepped onto the railway tracks and was nearly run over by an incoming train.

At that point of time, Liam didn't know about curses, so he was confused at first.

Liam: When the curse shows itself, people around the cursed person won’t know of its existence until something big happens.

Kate: The only difference between people with the same curse is their special “ability” that's unique to each person, am I right?

Liam: Mm, correct. However, on top of having my special ability, I started having episodes.

Liam’s rose coloured eyes had a far away look.

Liam: … It always rains in my heart right before I have an episode.

Kate: Rain?

Liam: It starts raining without any forewarning, neither can I voluntarily stop it.

Liam: And when that happens… I also hear a voice coming from somewhere.

Liam: I always end up listening to everything that voice says. By the time I snap back to my senses, I’ve already done something horribly wrong.

Kate: … What do you mean?

Liam: Things like destroying the seats at a banquet, or jumping from places where one wrong move would kill me.

Liam: Haha… when I come to my senses, I’ll remember everything I did. I’m pretty nasty, right?

Liam: My parents and Jacob couldn't figure out what triggered my episodes, so they were constantly worried about me.

The article by The Shadow wrote that the fire was started on purpose by Liam, who was nine years old at the time.

I remembered Liam’s lonely smile as he said “all of it is true”.

(Could it be…)

Kate: … Were you having an episode when that fire broke out at the Evans family’s mansion?

Liam: …

Liam: Yes, I was.

Liam: That fire broke out because of my episode—

Liam: The Evans family hosted a party at the mansion that day, and the fire happened after all the guests had left.

Liam: I had an episode and went wild, so I accidentally set the curtains on fire with the fire from the fireplace…

Liam: By the time I came to my senses, it was already too late. The fire had engulfed the entire mansion.

Liam: I was panicking as I stared at the roaring flames, and that was when Jacob came running towards me and shielding me—

== Flashback Start ==

Liam: Jacob…! Don’t save me, save yourself…!

Liam: … Just leave me here, Jacob! I was the one who started this, so… run!

Jacob: … *cough* Young master. Stop resisting. What if… you get… burnt to death too…

Liam: Jacob, stop! Hurry… you have to escape… or you’ll die, Jacob…!

Jacob: … Listen… carefully. You… you aren't to blame… for this.

Liam: … What?

Jacob: You… definitely have “something”. But even so… you’re not… evil.

Liam: No! All of this, everything… I…

Jacob: *cough*... ugh. If you still… believe that you are…

Jacob: Then… please survive, young master. For me.

Liam: … Survive?

Jacob: Please… live…, young master. Promise… me…

Jacob: To have been… able to… protect you…

Jacob: … I’m gla—...

Jacob: …

Liam: JACOB. JACOB…!?

Liam: UWAAAAHHHH…!

Liam: Help…! Someone, anyone, please help…!

== Flashback End ==

Liam: Jacob stopped moving, the fire was extinguished, and I was the sole survivor.

Kate: …

(... I don’t have anything to say.)

(Because it’s obvious that no matter what I say, nothing can comfort him.)

(But I have to say something. Anything…)

Liam: … Hey, Kate.

Kate: …?

Liam: Am I really “not evil”?

Liam: I didn't choose to be born with a curse. Some people say that curses are like a disease.

Liam: … But I disagree. They’re not something that's easily forgivable. Moreover…

Liam: As of now, it's been defined that only people with cat curses experience episodes.

Liam: However, those deceased people with cat curses… did they also experience episodes?

(What…?)

Liam: There aren't many records and documents about curses. Most of them aren't very accurate either.

Liam: If my episodes are independent of my curse, then…

Liam: … Maybe I’m the cause?

(That means Liam’s episodes may not be linked to his curse—)

Liam: But what’s the point of talking about “maybe”, right?

Liam: That’s why Roger is working so hard to figure this out.

Liam smiled lightheartedly, as if to dispel the dark atmosphere.

His rose coloured hair swayed in the gentle night breeze.

Liam: … Kate, there has never been a single day wherein I don’t remember what I’ve done.

Liam: That's why I’m still here… alive.

Liam: Jacob told me to “survive”, so this life is important.

(Liam is being honest with me about his feelings, and this isn't a matter that's easy to talk about.)

(But what is this… uncomfortable feeling?)

Drops of black ink fell onto my heart, gradually spreading and corroding.

Kate: Um, Liam.

Liam: Mm, what is it?

Kate: What you just said about… living because your life is precious… are you being serious about it?

#ikemen villains #ikemen series #cybird ikemen #cybird otome #otome #ikevil main story #liam main story

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postgamecontent · 10 days ago

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It's Arcade Archives Sale Time Again, Featuring Tetris The Grand Master, Metal Slug 2, and More

Cyber Monday? Black Friday? Whatever you want to call it, there are a ton of sales going on right now. And with that, a rare Arcade Archives sale appears once more. I'm sure regular readers know the deal with Arcade Archives. A vast assortment of arcade games from a variety of manufacturers spanning from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s, generally released for both PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch on a weekly basis. There are hundreds of them now, and that library is always growing. Sales are rare, only a handful each year, and each of those sales typically covers no more than ten games. That means when one comes up for a game, you should assume you will never see one again. It's only a few bucks, but we can all use an extra few bucks here and there.

As usual, this sale has ten games included. We've got five titles from the NEOGEO line, and five others from a few different publishers. The NEOGEO games are 50% off, and the others are 30% off. Note that if you don't see the sales appear yet, they might not have popped up in your region. Check tomorrow or something. All of these sales run until the end of the day on December 2nd, 2024. Anyway, let's look at what's included this time.

ACA NEOGEO Games (50% off)

Stakes Winner

Don't write this one off because you aren't interested in horse racing. This is actually a pretty fun, unconventional racing game. You need to aim to come in the top three in each race to earn money, collecting power-ups and avoiding power-downs on the track as you go. You can train between races to get permanent upgrades, too. Quite fun on your own, and a genuine blast with a friend. The second one is better, but this is a fine pick-up for four bucks.

Aero Fighters 2

A solid vertical shooter with a wacky cast and story, this is one of the better games of this genre on the NEOGEO. It's from that era where the genre had matured quite a bit but hadn't shifted into the bullet hell trend yet, and I know some people find that the most agreeable sort of shoot 'em up. I mean, how can you resist a game where a dolphin named Spanky pilots a fighter jet?

Metal Slug 2

Metal Slug 2 sometimes gets the short end of the stick since it basically got a re-do in the form of the much better Metal Slug X. But there are enough differences to make it worth owning both, provided you can tolerate this game's massive amounts of slowdown. I think it's hard to argue with any Slug game for this price, even if this might be the least interesting pick from the series.

World Heroes

This one-on-one fighter is early enough in the genre's boom period that it feels a bit strange to play. The cast is an assortment of colorful characters from various times and places, and it's a real highlight of the game. This is one series where the sequels made dramatic improvements, but if you're looking to complete your set I'm not going to stop you.

League Bowling

A simple and straightforward bowling game, but that's exactly what makes it appealing. You get some little graphical flourishes to remind you that this is a NEOGEO game, but for the most part you're just rolling that ball to hit the little white pins at the end of the lane. Lots of fun with friends. If you're flying solo, keep in mind that this makes no attempts at offering a deep experience.

Arcade Archives Games (30% off)

Tetris The Grand Master

Arika's challenging take on Tetris can be a little hard to wrangle if you're used to the long-running standards the Tetris Company has maintained. With that said, this is a pretty great version of the ubiquitous puzzler, with its key feature being in how it grades your play. A fine side dish to the Tetris Forever Digital Eclipse documentary.

USAAF Mustang

A horizontal shooter originally developed by NMK and published by UPL, USAAF Mustang is a workmanlike effort that is fairly enjoyable up until its absolutely brutal final stage. A nice score attacker, and one that might appeal to fans of military-themed shooters like UN Squadron or P-47. I don't dislike this game, but it's a perfect candidate for a sale like this. It's fine enough, but nothing too special. You'll want to be paying less for it than, say, Gradius II. Now you can.

Gunnail

Here's another NMK shooter, this time a vertical one. In a lot of ways this is a Raiden-style affair, and even some of its weapons seem drawn from that game. But there's an extra twist to this game that makes it really fascinating for score chasers. Your shield can absorb a couple of hits, but the closer you are to death the more points you'll get from killing enemies. If you want an optimal score you need to keep yourself at the edge of dying at all times. Nifty. I like this one a fair bit.

Vandyke

Originally released by UPL, this is a pretty odd game. It's a vertically-scrolling action game, along the lines of things like Commando or Ikari Warriors. But you play as a barbarian who swings a sword and can jump. There are other weapons to collect, plus various power-ups to find. It's quirky but very charming. I think it's a solid pick-up on sale for those who want something outside of the more commonly represented arcade genres.

Roller Jammer

Nichibutsu time, and this is another unusual game. It's kind of a horizon-chasing racer where you're on roller skates, but most stages task you with simply passing a certain number of other racers before time runs out. You'll have to avoid obstacles and avoid wiping out, like in most racers. But you can also jump and punch, and a big part of your strategy can and should involve beating up the other skaters. Vaguely Road Rash-ish? Compelling in its creativity.

#nintendo switch #playstation 4 #arcade archives

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brazenautomaton · 4 months ago

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oh here's the missing interstitial / montage scene of Misa showing off how she do and Naomi learning the lesson about paranoia. I am concerned the exposition is too unnaturally dense but don't know if it'd feel any more natural if it was sprinkled in to the dialogue, since Naomi is already making observations

As L, I have a functionally unlimited expense account provided by “the Trust.” But said Trust knows where every dollar goes. We need some money for ourselves, money we can spend on things they don’t know about. Misa makes money from stream subscriptions and donations from playing video games online, but it’s not enough. That’s why Maki-Maru Investigations has come into play.

It turns out I can be a private investigator. It’s not THAT bad. We don’t do marital infidelity investigations, those just made Misa depressed in a way that even murders didn’t. We do just about everything else. We consult with the police sometimes when they need our help -- a setup I learned from an acquaintance in San Francisco. For civilians, we do skip tracing, insurance fraud, corporate sabotage, missing persons, anything the police don’t feel like doing. It’s not like working as L. We get to see things in person, talk to people, gather our own evidence.

Two Asian women, one of whom is outgoing and energetic, the other of whom is scarred and can’t talk, that’s a <i>very</i> distinct profile to fit. There were already stories -- conflicting and fragmentary ones, sure, but stories -- about Misa Amane and her bodyguard in the Kira investigation. But what was I going to do, tell Misa it wasn’t safe and we couldn’t go out because we’d be made? I had to try harder than that. I had buckets of the Trust’s money laying around, that I didn’t want to spend on myself… so I dug up anyone else in media production who was inspired by that story, and I gave them a bunch of money. You self-published a novel, well, here’s enough money to distribute it. You want to shop a script around the major networks, here’s a mysterious backer who wants to fund both NBC and Fox’s pilots. You make indie comics, how would you like a two year contract to write this premise I came up with?

Now, we weren’t the only people who fit this profile. We weren’t the most super popular archetype in the world, but we were a <i>shtick</i> people could recognize and run across. The bodyguard was always mute, so my occasional aphasic stammering just looked like I was slipping up.

Misa appreciated the hell out of being able to go out and do stuff with people, and I didn’t as much as her, but just like with the blood, I appreciated how much she appreciated it. That was enough for me. She got to bounce off of people. I got to see her bounce off of people.

This time, corporate sabotage. Someone in this office had been selling proprietary information to a competitor. The company who hired us expected us to take weeks poring over records and financial statements, but we were going to do it in a couple of hours. Misa was going to do it in a couple hours, with my help. I’m her bodyguard. I’m her bodyguard, and she’s my interpreter, and each of us is the other’s assistant in a way I just think is poetic.

“Hey, everybody!” Misa addressed the group of office workers. “Good morning, good morning, how is everyone doing?” Almost, but not quite, like a motivational speaker. Her Japanese accent was light enough to be easily understood but still distinctly notable. The assembled staff didn’t seem to be having a notable enough day to respond.

It was one of these nine people, the corporate office had told us, so we gathered them in a conference room. Well, it was an open-plan office, so it’s more of a central area surrounded by cubicles. The cubicles could provide ample cover if someone started shooting, but escape would be difficult. I took up standing position just outside, where I had line of sight to the elevator and a mirrored glass door propped open to see around the corner to the stairway. When the elevator door lit up, I could pull back behind this file cabinet until I saw if they were armed. Anyone came in shooting, I’d have several seconds of warning. The odds of someone coming in to shoot you are low, but they are never zero.

“Let me introduce myself!” Misa said, and she made a little heart shape with her fingers. “I’m Aiko Maru, from Maki-Maru Investigations! I’m a private eye.” Said it like it was a badge of honor, which it was. One of the two bald guys with glasses looked dubious. I didn’t memorize his name, I didn’t need to. I was just looking at how he walked, how he stood, to determine if he had a weapon. He didn’t. If he decided to just lunge at her with his hands, she was standing far enough away that I could draw my weapon and drop him before he reached her, assuming she ducked for me to make the shot. “Now, I know everyone is busy, so I’ll make this quick. The home office says they think someone has been stealing corporate secrets and selling them off. And that’s no good, right?”

General expressions of disbelief and amusement. The Indian woman near the back tittered a little longer than the others. She wasn’t armed, but she was up against the cubicle wall, and there might be a weapon on the other side. She’d have to jump over it, and in that dress it would be impossible to clear the hurdle faster than we could react.

“So now, if anyone wants to admit they’ve been stealing corporate secrets, now is the time. Just say you did it and that you’re sorry, and you won’t be in as much trouble.”

A few seconds of silence. They started looking around, scoffing in disbelief.

“Nobody?” Misa took a swig from her bottled water. From home, not from the break room here. We didn’t have time to immerse every bottle here in water to see if they’d been punctured by someone injecting them with poison, you need to be looking pretty close. “Okay, how about this. Everybody put your heads down, and close your eyes.” Only one head went down. “I meant, like, now!” One more head down, another, and as the rest looked to each other they figured that this was happening and followed suit. Except the woman in mid-back right, her head just kind of lolled, her eyes were open, so I concentrated on her. “Okay, now, if anyone has been stealing secrets, raise your hand now that nobody else can see you. Anybody?” Scattered chuckles. “Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Okay, okay, heads up.”

Hands on her hips, she exhaled in dissatisfaction. “I knew that probably wouldn’t work. But I had to try because, like, imagine how funny that would be if it worked? Right?” The guy with the Voltron T-Shirt under his unbuttoned dress shirt laughed, the only one who thought it was funny. “If I pulled that off, I would tell that story, like, forever. Now I have to do a bunch of boring interviews. Okay, so, everyone, back to your desks, I’ll come by and talk to you. It’ll be about fifteen minutes each. Have your job description and your recent assignments and stuff ready and all that. ” Rolled eyes, grunts of frustration, as Misa peeked over the top of her green filter glasses.

The workers left out the other side, not walking past Misa, not getting within 12 feet. Misa stepped back, leaned over the short cubicle wall towards me. I listened, but didn’t make eye contact. I was flicking my gaze back and forth between the office workers, looking for anything suspicious.

“Okay, it’s probably //KELLY SANDINO//, she whispered. “//DAVID PLEM// was just trying to be polite, everyone else was bored with my bullshit, Kelly was the only one who was paying attention like she thought everything I said was important. Like she was concerned I was trying to lull her into a false sense of security.” I could hear her smile. “So I’ll pull her file, but we’re gonna start interviewing David for about a minute and a half, then hop over to Kelly’s station, where hopefully she’s started to get rid of something incriminating she thought she had 15 minutes to finish disposing of. If she turns off her monitor when we walk in, we know it’s her. Otherwise, grab her trash can.”

I nodded. I looked over to Kelly’s cubicle. Back to the wall, no concern about her screen being seen from behind, no direct line of sight to stairwell or elevator. We’d make her step out of the cubicle before talking to us to ensure she hadn’t picked up a weapon stashed there. If she was calling someone in, then they wouldn’t be showing up soon enough. We could pull the records from her office phone later on. If they already were on the way, I’d have to rely on being able to hear the elevator or stairwell doors open, but that also meant they wouldn’t be able to fire on us right away. I could set something by the stairwell that--

ACK! What the hell? Something smashed into me, bowling me over. My hand was inside my jacket and on the handle of my pistol before I even landed, but I didn’t draw until I could see where the attack came from. From the floor, teeth gritted, pulse pounding, I looked up for an assailant. All I saw was Misa’s concerned face leaning over the low wall, and a bunch of stacked boxes of paper. Paper boxes, stacked up on an office trolley.

An intern, skinny and awkward and panicking, poked his head around the tower. “Oh, Jesus, I’m so sorry! I didn’t even see you there!”

“Oh my God, Shoko, are you okay?” Misa said, and already she offered her hand to help me up.

“Oh my God, oh my God, don’t sue me, don’t sue me,” the intern half-begged half-muttered, “I just started here this week, I didn’t know you were here…”

I wasn’t going to sue him. I wasn’t hurt, and I fell over mostly out of surprise. He just bowled into me with a cart full of paperwork.

I was thinking about how I’d deal with it if this white collar criminal had called in a hit squad, and I was thinking about it so hard, an intern had smacked into me with a cart.

He couldn’t even see around it. How fast could he possibly have been going? Not very. And he just… he bonked right into me.

I’m watching sight lines and evaluating cover and thinking about poison and the intern just bonked into me. Bonk! Full slapstick.

I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. It was just so perfectly absurd. As perfect a lesson as I could have seen. What are the odds that an office will have armed goons burst in, and what are the odds that an office will have a guy pushing a cart and not looking where he’s going? And what was I more concerned with?

I tried to hold in the giggles as Misa pulled me to my feet, but not too much. “Ooh, the laughter is good, I like that!” she said. “Use that. Moment she starts explaining something, laugh just like that, okay!”

#spub #my fiction

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satoshi-mochida · 1 year ago

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Rusted Moss coming to PS5, Xbox Series, and Switch in spring 2024 alongside major update

Gematsu Source

Publisher PLAYISM and developers faxdoc, happysquared, and sunnydaze will release physics-based grapple hook Metroidvania game Rusted Moss for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and Switch in spring 2024 alongside a major update, the companies announced.

Rusted Moss first launched for PC via Steam on April 12.

“We’ve been working hard on the major (and final) content update of Rusted Moss,” the developers said in a press release. “While Rusted Moss will not have a sequel, it sometimes feels like this major content update might as well be one! And as you can see, we probably enjoyed making this update a little too much and will need more time to add in and polish all these new features. On the plus side, this also coincides with some exciting news, that being the console release! Thank you all for your patience and support!”

Get the details below.

Major Update

The major content update is currently in the works. In our previous roadmap announcement, we’ve revealed that the content update would be released early to mid Q4 2023, but due to development and porting adjustments, we are pushing the major content update back and releasing it on Steam alongside the console release next year. We sincerely apologize to those who have been waiting for the final major update, and we kindly ask for your patience. What you can expect from the major update:

Two new areas to explore

Seven to eight hours of additional content

Over 300 new rooms

Boss Rush Mode

Maya Mode – Play through the game as Maya after you beat it the first time. Speedrun mode rules apply so there are no new dialogue or endings, but you’ll be introduced to some new nifty ways to play.

Console Versions

The console versions of the game coming next year will include the major content update for PC and all other updates released to date.

Watch a new trailer below.

Console Announce And Major Content Update News

English

youtube

Japanese

youtube

#Rusted Moss #Playsim #faxdoc #happysquared #sunnydaze #Metroidvania #PS5 #Xbox Series #Nintendo Switch #Gematsu #Youtube

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kenokola · 2 months ago

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For the reference:

Male Human Noble Warden - Stoic and sometimes kind of aggressive, yet he still does the right thing

Male Mage Hawke - Sarcastic of course, because he’s the best

Male Qunari Inquisitor - Diplomatic, always willing to help others, which comes out as odd considering the view the people of Thedas have about his race

Also, I’ll have them answering as if the three are being interviewed. Picture them sitting on the same big couch, like a talk show.

Your Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor's opinion on Orlais?

Warden: I’m not a fan of having to deal with them, but I do appreciate Empress Celene for keeping Morrigan and Kieran under her protection while I was away.

Hawke: I did get away with murdering Duke Prosper with no repercussions and I would rather not tempt fate with Orlais ever again. They are pretty good at holding grudges.

Inquisitor: Even after the Winter Ball, I still don’t think I get those people that much.

Are they skilled in The Grand Game?

Warden: No

Hawke: Fuck no

Inquisitor: The people of Orlais must believe that I am better than I really am, but not every night you will be served on a silver plate everything you need to blackmail three of the most powerful people in Orlais, with the extra help of the Venatori.

Opinion on blood magic?

Hawke: The tool of the weak. Nothing good ever comes from it

Inquisitor: I share the sentiment

Warden: If Morrigan has taught me something, is that there’s not evil magic, only evil mages

Attitude towards Andrastianism?

Warden: I was raised as an Andrastian, and I pretty much maintain my faith, but I’m not what you would call a devoted believer.

Hawke: I still try to be a proper Andrastian, for my mother and Bethany’s memory

Inquisitor: I wasn’t raised under any form of religion. If you would ask me what I do believe in, it is to respect other people’s beliefs.

Attitude towards the Chantry?

Hawke: They could have prevented the mage-templar war if they would have gotten their heads out of their asses for just a little bit, and it pisses me off to even say this because it makes me partially agree with Anders.

Inquisitor: There’s still good people in the Chantry that want to do good. I just hope Leliana can lead them in the good direction now that she’s the Divine.

Warden: That would be a refreshing sight, because for too long they have been more worried about themselves than anything else.

Attitude towards the Qun?

Warden: I wouldn’t want to have to fight Sten in the future

Hawke: Same, I think one Arishok is enough for a lifetime. How about you Inquisitor?

Inquisitor: Never been part of the Qun and I’m happy with that. I’ve heard enough from both my parents and my old mercenary company to give me a clear enough picture.

If they had to choose one person most important to them, who would that be?

Warden: You are asking me to pick either Morrigan or Kieran. Fuck you.

Hawke: Varric, but please don’t publish that. Carver is going to get mad at me again.

Inquisitor: Cassandra.

Who do they hate the most, and do they have an arch-nemesis?

Hawke: Maybe in another time I would have picked Corypheus, but now he’s dead. Thanks for that Inquisitor.

Inquisitor: You’re welcome

Warden: I’m too good at putting down my enemies to ever get an arch-nemesis.

What is their love language?

Warden: You won't see neither Morrigan and I using pet names or fanciful words. We see what we want, and take it. It works for us

Hawke: I’m just terrible with relationships

Inquisitor: Cassandra likes the ideal. Poetry, candles, flowers. She’s a very romantic girl. Wait, I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t publish it!

Are they good horse riders?

Warden: Yes, my father taught me.

Hawke: Good enough. Kirkwall is not very horseriding friendly city to begin with.

Inquisitor: I’m good, and you can’t go wrong with Dennet’s steeds.

What are their religious beliefs, if any?

Warden: Didn’t you ask this question before? I said I’m Andrastian

Hawke: Yeah, same

Inquisitor: I already answered as well.

Attitude towards Mabari?

Warden: They are the best

Hawke: They are the best

Inquisitor: I wish I have one :(

Their thoughts on the Grey Warden order?

Inquisitor: Ok, apologies to you Hero of Ferelden. I do think that the Grey Wardens can be a noble order, but they are so focused on their mission against the Darkspawn that they are not able to see the trees from the forest.

Hawke: Can’t disagree on that.

Warden: Hey, do you see me upset? I couldn’t believe how stupid they were when I got word of what happened in Adamant Fortress.

Who are they closest to from their family?

Warden: Morrigan and Kieran

Hawke: Carver, but it doesn't mean that much when the only family I have left besides him is my uncle.

Inquisitor: My parents are not here anymore, and the Inquisition became my family.

Preferred weapon of choice?

Warden: Sword and shield

Hawke: A staff with a sharp end for stabbing.

Inquisitor: A big two-handed sword

Do they get sentimental about their weapons or armor?

The three at the same time: No

What were they like as a child?

Warden: What you would expect from the second child of the Cousland family. I don’t think they expected that I would be such a good warrior. By the time I was fifteen I could already beat Fergus.

Inquisitor: I demonstrated talents for fighting at a very young age as well. I’m pretty much self taught by observing training grounds from a distance. The people at the Free Marches won't be more welcoming with a qunari just because you're a child.

Hawken: I had to look up after my siblings especially after our father passed away. We liked to go exploring outside of Lothering a lot. You know, no templars out there.

Do they have any irrational fears?

Hawke: Spiders, I admit.

Inquisitor: Oh yeah, that’s what we saw in the Fade back then.

Warden: Wait, you guys don’t like spiders as well?

Are they afraid of death?

Warden: No

Hawke: Kinda

Inquisitor: I’m more afraid of failing someone by being killed.

Where would they like to be buried?

Hawke: Buried? We Andrastian are cremated.

Warden: And I already told Morrigan that if I die first, to cremate me and take my ashes to Castle Cousland.

Inquisitor: Well, even though I’m not Andrastian, I think Cassandra would want me to have a proper service and all. I suppose not doing it wouldn’t look good for the Herald of Andraste.

What is their biggest regret?

Warden: Missing my son’s birth

Inquisitor: Haven

Hawke: Where do I begin?

Have they ever been to Tevinter?

Warden: Not really.

Hawke: Me neither, and I haven’t heard that many good things to want me to visit.

Inquisitor: Dorian has invited me, but I haven’t had the chance yet.

Do they have, or want to have, children?

Warden: I have Kieran

Hawke: I already told you I’m terrible with relationships. Do you think I would be better as a father?

Inquisitor: Can a Qunari and a human procreated to begin with?

What languages can they speak?

Hawke: The common tongue in Thedas

Warden: Same

Inquisitor: That and some Qunlat.

What did they plan for their life to look like before the events of the game happened?

Warden: I didn’t have any plan, and probably my life would have turned out to be pretty boring.

Hawke: We were a family with two apostates. Our day to day was trying to not get caught doing magic, so as you can see, I was more living in the present than thinking about the future.

Inquisitor: I suppose I would still be working as a mercenary, but despite everything I wouldn’t change what I have now.

Do they get a happy ending?

Warden: I don’t believe in happy endings

Hawke: The fact that I’m still alive after all the shit I’ve been through is enough.

Inquisitor: No until I stop Solas and save him from himself.

This was fun

your canon DA worldstate

as veilguard's premiere comes closer, an ask game with a couple of lore-heavy questions for your warden/hawke/inquisitor — answer for all three in your canon worldstate, or for the protagonist of your choice.

your Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor's opinion on Orlais?

are they skilled in The Grand Game?

opinion on blood magic?

attitude towards Andrastianism?

attitude towards the Chantry?

attitude towards the Qun?

if they had to choose one person most important to them, who would that be?

who do they hate the most, and do they have an arch-nemesis?

what is their love language?

are they good horse riders?

what are their religious beliefs, if any?

attitude towards Mabari?

their thoughts on the Grey Warden order?

who are they closest to from their family?

preferred weapon of choice?

do they get sentimental about their weapons or armour?

what were they like as a child?

do they have any irrational fears?

are they afraid of death?

where would they like to be buried?

what is their biggest regret?

have they ever been to Tevinter?

do they have, or want to have, children?

what languages can they speak?

what did they plan for their life to look like before the events of the game happened?

do they get a happy ending?

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cartoonus-maximus · 9 months ago

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Notes and Observations on FNAF TFTP Vol 2: Happs

Before we get into it, I need to say… I did not enjoy this volume. I thought the first story was pretty good, but the second and third one were not fun, man. I really liked the character of Steve in the first story, and the plot of a man being essentially kidnapped and continuously gaslit by "his family!" It really worked for me! But those other two… oof.

I have two main complaints about the second and third stories. The first problem is how long the stories are - so much of the stories is just long segments of nothing happening, and I was so bored for so much of them.

My second complaint is that both of these stories portray subject matter that I don't think is appropriate for the book's target audience of young, impressionable teens. "Happs" is told from the POV of a teenager who thinks about harming his classmates, with a narrative that encourages the reader to understand his reasons and rationalizes them, not offering alternatives for dealing with his negative emotions. And "B-7" is… well, I saw a few book reviews that referred to this story as "tone deaf at best and outright offensive and cruel at worst," and I'm inclined to agree with that statement. I'll get more into it later in this post.

Also worth noting: according to the wiki, these stories were written solely by Andrea Waggener and Elley Cooper. Whether the initial story outlines came from Scott or not I don't know, but I thought it was interesting that he isn't doing any of the main writing on the books by this point.

Here are my observations on the other books in the series, if you are interested.

Overall, this volume was a disappointment. But, with that said, let's get into it.

"Help Wanted"

This story centers around a gas station employee named Steve Snodgrass. Steve wanted to be a video game developer but never got the chance, so he's stuck in a low-paying job he doesn't want.

"Sometimes stray cats followed him…" I see this as an absolute win.

Steve is working on making a computer game on his own time, largely just as a way of sorting out what his actual abilities are and to hopefully turn it into a portfolio project. The game is a family friendly game of fetch quests starring playable chipmunk characters, and is called "Chip Off The Old Block."

(Steve is definitely a stand-in for Scott himself, isn't he? Down on his luck game dev? Making a game that sounds similar to "Chipper And Sons?" He's gotta be Scott.)

At work the next day, a strangely well-dressed man approaches Steve in the gas station and offers him a job. He gives Steve his business card, which labels him as one of the higher-ups at Fazbear Entertainment.

(The man's name is Brock Edwards, which absolutely SENT ME when I first heard the audiobook narrator say it. Sorry, but I've been a Marvel fan for years and all I could think of in that moment was an image of Eddie Brock wearing the Venom symbiote as a business suit.)

Steve's first thoughts about the Fazbear company is remembering all the rumors that used to float around about why the pizza places closed down - rumors involving murders and paranormal events. He doesn't know much about the company, though. Edwards assures him that the rumors are untrue, and explains that the company is trying to turn their public appearance around.

Steve has previously published two computer games that he made online, and Edwards says that Fazbear's found Steve through his games, and that they want him to make games for them. Specifically, they want him to take all those rumors about murder and hauntings and make horror games out of them, specifically to make fun of them.

"The idea seemed distasteful at best, cruel at worst." Yeah, that's just how Fazbear Entertainment rolls, baby!

Edwards explains that the company wants 4 of these games. He also says that, if Steve takes the job, he'll be taken to live in a fancy condo with luxurious amenities, all paid for by Fazbear's. FE will pay for his every want, need, or expense so long as he makes four simple games. (This… sure seems like a lot of kick-back for a game dev in this particular job. Especially given that Steve hasn't even accepted the job yet, or shown that he's remotely interested or even capable. His portfolio is made of family friendly fetch-quests, not tongue-in-cheek horror, but Edwards talks to him during this segment like Steve already has the job. A lot of it is just Edwards trying to sell the job, I get it, but Steve doesn't obviously seem to be a good fit for the role.)

Steve was under the assumption that the murders really happened, and the idea of creating games strictly to capitalize off of them makes him uncomfortable. He says as much to Edwards, and privately thinks to himself that he doesn't like the idea of making horror games for kids. He turns down the job offer and returns to mopping the gas station.

The next morning, he gets messaged on a dating app by a woman named Victoria, who texts like a chat 'bot. I'm sure it's nothing, though. /sarcasm

Victoria immediately invites Steve over to her house over the weekend, saying she'll make lunch for him. He agrees. (Damn, woman! The grass doesn't grow under your feet, does it? XD )

Steve talks to his buddy, Matt, about the message from Victoria. Matt works at a computer store. (And this what… our third 'Matt who works with tech' character? Unclear if meaningful reference or running gag.)

Steve goes out to Victoria's house, which turns out to be a quaint little thing out in the country. He enters the house, but it turns out to be empty, completely devoid of any furniture. He wonders if this woman is actually a real estate salesman who's tricked him into coming to a house showing or something. A mechanical whirring and high-pitched ringing takes him off guard. The sound almost breaks his brain, but then seems to fade away, and he finds himself staring at Victoria, who's appeared in front of him and is somehow even more beautiful than her profile picture.

"Steve was instantly besotted." (Scott has really been letting Andrea's romantic fiction writing background come out in these book recently. XD I'm not complaining! But there are certain vocabulary words that I just simply do not expect from a FNAF book.)

The high-pitched ringing and mechanical screaming come back, and Steve falls unconscious on the floor. When he wakes up again, he's in the same house but the house is different. There's furniture in it now, and many personal items of his own, as well as those of Victoria's. While he's still disoriented, Victoria walks into the room to check on him, telling him he had a strange dizzy spell and talking to him like they've been together for years.

Victoria tells Steve that he was in a car accident a few years ago, and that because of it he sometimes forgets large chunks of his life. (Oof. Been there. Hate the feeling.) She's very patient with him though, and helps him fill in those blanks. As they talk, Steve realizes that he and Victoria have been married for a few years.

There's another time jump. This time, Steve is in bed, and is woken up by two children, a boy and a girl who look like both himself and Victoria. Steve assumes they must be his, but has no memory or knowledge of them. Assuming this is a normal part of his life, Steve follows them into the kitchen, where Victoria is making them breakfast. He learns that the kids are named Abigail and Avery. He and Victoria are both aware of his strange memory lapses, but they do their best to hide the situation from their children, who are too young to understand.

Steve learns he's still working at the gas station, since no other job opportunities came to him. Victoria tells him she's currently between jobs, and that they don't make enough money to keep the house they're living in. They're currently facing a foreclosure. Shortly after they're discussing their financial woes, a car drives up outside, and Brock Edwards himself steps out of the car.

Edwards and Steve have another conversation about a potential job with Fazbear's. Desperate to keep his house and provide for his family, Steve accepts the job.

Steve's cell phone is on the fritz. He doesn't remember how long it's been inoperable. The house Steve and his family live in is a ways out in the country, with no other human-inhabited structures nearby, rendering them completely isolated.

Steve is awoken during the night by the sound of someone moving around in the living room. Thinking it's a burglar, he grabs a softball bat and goes to investigate. It turns out to be his four-year-old daughter, Abby, who is walking in place and bumping into things like a Bethesda character. Her eyes are "blank" and "staring at nothing." This strange behavior stops when Steve calls her name, and she snaps back to behaving like a normal child (but not like one who's been sleepwalking).

All the doors in the house are kept partially ajar. "For some reason, none of them would fully close, let alone lock."

Victoria tells Steve that the kids both sleepwalk sometimes, and tells him that it's a trait inherited from him. She says that Steve sleepwalks and suffers from night terrors, but that so far the kids only have the sleepwalking part.

Steve doesn't sleep well. He keeps getting the feeling that there's something else in the house that's going to harm his wife and kids.

(Not me drawing parallels between this story and that time Scott was talking to fans online and said that he suffered from night terrors, leading to him convincing himself that his own characters were coming to attack his wife and kids. I'm not thinking about that at all.)

Now with his new job working for Fazbear Entertainment, Steve gets to work on the first of their line of games. He works from home, and works at it very diligently. He's determined to make the games as scary as he can, and pours a lot of his own fears and night terrors into the them.

One afternoon, the kids want their dad to play hide-and-seek with him (a game that never goes well in these books). This scene is actually pretty cute, with Steve pretending to struggle finding his son, who isn't a good hider, and loudly and theatrically asking "Where is Avery?"

Steve has trouble finding Abby, and gets worried. He starts to spiral, thinking about situations where kids go missing and are never found, or are taken and their parents never find out what happened to them. He starts to panic, seemingly for no reason, and he starts desperately searching for his daughter.

"Something about her invisibility triggered a primal parental fear."

Steve is also scared of certain locations in his own house. Certain closets and doorways that feature prominently in his nightmares, or spaces in the floor and walls that creak loudly when he doesn't expect them to. He loves the house, and is happy to live here with his family, but he also attributes his nightmares to the house, believing that something in the house is causing his increased anxieties and phobias.

Steve thinks about this while getting back to work on the Fazbear's game. He's programming jumpscares into the game now, largely inspired by his children jumping out at him from their hiding places.

That night, Steve goes to bed keyed up, and can't get to sleep. He's scared to go to sleep. (Ugh, been there too. My guy really is just like me fr.) While laying in bed not sleeping, he hears mechanical whirring and rumbling sounds in the walls of the house.

"Whatever was after him was inside the walls. Scurrying. Scratching. Looking for a way out."

"The surface of the wall began to pulse and throb, forming a large bubble on the surface that reminded Steve of the way cheese bubbles up on a pizza. Then, with a wet 'splat,' the bubble popped like a zit, and an oily, black substance spattered across the room." (Again with the pulsing doors and walls???? Dude, that's so gross! I love it!)

Victoria wakes up and tells Steve that he's having a nightmare and sleepwalking. She gets him back to bed, but he doesn't get to sleep.

Lol, "DJ Dan the Music Man!" XD

O the weather outside is frightful, and Steve and his family are trapped inside the house for several days as snow piles up outside. Steve becomes more fearful of the house and more manic about it over time.

One night, when Steve is taking a shower, he finds strange little cuts and abrasions on his arms and legs. They remind him of shaving cuts, but they're all in places where he doesn't shave. He remembers playing a game of Tickle Fight with his kids earlier, wherein they touched him in a lot of these places, but he can't imagine that's connected at all.

Steve is also suffering from constantly hearing a high-pitched ringing sound. He doesn't know what it is or where it's coming from, but he's convinced it's something that means to hurt him. (Have you considered that you might have tinnitus? I'm told that's what it's like.) The high-pitched ringing only stops when he's working on the games for Fazbear. (… Huh.)

"Here's the latest hit from Sailor Thrift!" (Lol! What's her latest hit? "Fortresses Falling?" "Exurban Tall Tales?")

Steve has another round of apparent night terrors, wherein he sees giant mechanical snakes burst out of the walls of his home to attack him. He tries to warn his wife about the snakes. Victoria suggests it's time to find him a therapist. (Which is a fair call to make when your husband is hallucinating giant snakes in the dead of winter in the northern hemisphere.)

Oh! And now there are spiders! Steve hallucinates giant spiders next. (And boy howdy do I *adore* the nightmare imagery of this segment! It's soooo gross, lol.)

Steve comes to the conclusion that the high-pitched ringing he keeps hearing is a malfunctioning smoke alarm in the house. He finds the smoke alarm and yanks it off the ceiling, and then destroys it against the floor. This stops the ringing, but now he hears more mechanical sounds, sounds that make him think of "the production floor of a small factory."

As he looks around himself, he can also see that the house around him is different. There are treadmarks on the floor. There are trapdoors in the walls and ceilings, located in the same places where he keeps hallucinating monstrous animals emerging. As he looks around, he thinks the house looks like the inside of an amusement park's haunted house ride.

(The "smoke alarm" here is definitely something akin to the illusion disks from the earlier books, right? A circular object with a flashing light in the center of it, makes a high-pitched noise, causes those nearby to see and experience things that aren't real? Def illusion disk.)

Something approaches from behind him, and Steve ducks into a coat closet. The door doesn't close all the way, taking away his sense of security. Peeking through the gap in the door, Steve sees a robot wheel into the room, a simple steel design with a feminine mask. The robot is clearly looking around itself, and calls out Steve's name in his wife's voice and mannerisms. This robot is soon joined by two smaller robots, these ones with masks of children's faces on them. These smaller robots speak in Abigail and Avery's voices, and ask the first robot "Mommy? Where's Daddy?"

Steve has the unfortunate realization that his beloved family aren't real. Despite this, he has to sit still and keep silent so the robots won't find him.

As the robots search the nearby rooms for Steve, they begin to act less and less like humans, their searching becoming more aggressive and violent. (They pick up furniture to look under it for Steve, and it just made me think of that one bit from the graphic novel where Circus Baby picks up the couch while looking for Carlton. XD)

There's been a radio in the house that Victoria keeps on a lot of the time (the one with DJ Dan the Music Man!). During this scene, DJ Dan addresses Steve personally, trying to convince him to come out of his hiding spot. The DJ's voice tells Steve that he needs to come out, and that his wife and kids are worried about him, all while Steve's robotic "family" continue to tear apart the room searching for him. There are also multiple of these radios spread out around the house, allowing the DJ to speak to him in each room.

The DJ talks to Steve in a way that makes it clear that Steve is being watched, either by the DJ himself or by someone else. It's also clear at this point that someone has been watching Steve for years, since the DJ references private aspects of Steve's life from before he met Victoria, and even before Fazbear's approached him.

The DJ tells him that yes, the "night terrors" were caused by an external force (likely Fazbear's, but he doesn't say), and that their only purpose was to inspire Steve with making the games. The DJ offers to stop the night terrors altogether if that's what Steve wants.

Steve realizes that he's been both happier and more fearful in this house than he ever has in the rest of his life. He decides to stay here, in a fantasy world with scary robots and a fake family. He asks the DJ how he can stay in this house, and the DJ instructs him to walk to a specific part of the house and press a button. When Steve pushes the button, the high-pitched ringing returns, knocking him to the ground.

Once the ringing dies down, Steve finds himself facing Victoria again. Choosing to forcefully forget that she's not real, he goes to his wife, hugging her and kissing her. Victoria holds him lovingly and whispers comforting words to him… while stabbing him in the heart over and over.

Presumably, Steve dies in the arms of his robot wife, happy to do so because of whatever mind control device exists in the house.

He never did finish those games for Fazbear's, though. Like yes, he was hired to create the in-universe equivalents of FNAFs 1, 2, 3, and 4, but he never finished them.

I wonder if DJ Dan the Music Man is meant to actually be some form of everyone's favorite spider animatronic DJ Music Man, or if he's just Brock Edwards or another person from Fazbear's who's just using the DJ's name as a joke. Because the idea of the DJMM speaking into this fake house set-up is much funnier to me than the alternative. Just a big ol' spider standing over a house, playing pop songs while watching a man and three endos wander around inside.

"Happs"

The hero of this story is a high school boy named Aiden, who, of course, gets bullied by the other kids from his school, even when they aren't at school.

I… I didn't realize "jackass," "crap," and "pissed" were appropriate words for the age rating on these books. They definitely weren't when I was in that age bracket and reading Scholastic books. It took me by surprise but y'know, if your audience is willingly reading stories about murder robots, they're probably fine with some edgier vocabulary words.

Aiden and his friend Jace (short for Jason, I assume?) go to the Mega Pizzaplex, where Aiden gets a black eye from one of his bullies while playing Fazer Blaster. His new injury is then mocked and laughed at by some girls from their school, causing Aiden to mentally spiral a bit, thinking about how much he hates his classmates.

(Side note: because I'm listening to the audiobooks, I don't always know how characters' names are spelled until I hop onto the wiki later to check the spelling. Since I assumed Jace's name was short for Jason, I spelled it "Jase" all throughout my notes. And because there's a bit about Aiden's bullies and a teacher mispronouncing his name, I was led to believe that his name was an intentional misspelling of the name Aiden as "Aedon." Like his parents were those kind of parents who spell their kid's name strangely. I believe I corrected every instance of the spelling, but if you happen to notice a "Jase" or "Aedon," that's why.)

Aiden and Jace joke about stabbing their classmates. I get the feeling Jace is actually joking, while Aiden isn't really joking at all.

The Pizzaplex they're at has an indoor roller coaster and complex system of plastic climbing tubes, both of which run across the building, between smaller attractions and over the walking traffic of customers. This sounds similar to the description of the Pizzaplex from the earlier story, "Under Construction."

"Happs," or really H.A.P.P.S. (the Helpful Automated Pipe Protection Server) is a safety and maintenance robot that Aiden and Jace have encountered at the Pizzaplex before. Happs' job is to systematically crawl through the plastic climbing tubes, checking for structural damage, cleaning the tubes, and helping any kids who have gotten stuck, lost, or simply scared.

Aiden is neglected at home, largely ignored by his parents. Jace lives with an abusive father, and talks about locking his father out of the house for his own safety. (What the text actually says is that Jace's father is "mean." And really? We're allowed to use words like "jackass" and "pissed" but we're not allowed to say "abusive?")

"The Pizzaplex was shaped like a pizza."

There's like… a long section describing the inside of the Pizzaplex.

The tubes are called "Freddy's Fortress" by the way. There are also decorative illusions throughout the tubes. These tubes are also soundproof, a fact that I'm sure won't cause any bad situations later in this story.

"How unsafe can it be?" In Fazbear's? Very.

The boys crawl around in the tubes, and they come across a section that's closed off. Aiden tries to break into the section, curious to see what's behind it, but he gets in trouble when Happs comes across them. The robot seems to understand that the boys are messing with the structure, but proclaims that the boys must be lost, and tries to forcibly guide them to an entrance point. Aiden and Jace get mad and assault the robot, beating and kicking Happs, breaking the robot into pieces. Their actions also cause the segment of pipe they're in to come loose, and the whole thing crashes down into a secluded part of the Pizzaplex.

The boys have the wind knocked out of them when they fall. When they come to, they find themselves in the dark, but in the hidden segment of the maze they had been trying to get into. Happs is nowhere to be seen.

A mechanism inserts a pipe partition behind the boys, blocking them into this section of the maze. Aiden realizes that the partitions are made of two-way mirrors, allowing him and Jace to see out but preventing anyone else from seeing in.

(I… don't understand this story. The pipe they were in broke off and fell, due to their roughhousing in it, but there's now a whole section of pipe maze to explore??? I don't understand how that happened.)

The boys explore this section of pipe for a bit, but slowly begin to realize that they may be trapped in here with no way to call for help. They start to get hungry and thirsty, and they have injuries from their fall. It's also pretty clear that Aiden and Jace can see through the pipes, watching people outside the sections, but no one else seems able to see them.

The boys try to break out of their new prison. They're interrupted by the arrival of the broken Happs. Happs' face and arms are broken, making the robot look like it's sneering and leaving the robot with sharp, metal limbs. He keeps stabbing and scraping with the dangerous remains of his arms.

"Happs appeared… And he did not look happy." I'm pretty sure the name 'Happs' was selected for the sole purpose of using this sentence.

(I think it's funny that "jackass" was acceptable dialogue earlier, but this section of the story insists on referring to the boys sitting "on their butts." "Ass" is no longer an appropriate word.)

Afraid of being stabbed by the robot, the boys run away from Happs. They just end up cornering themselves, becoming trapped deeper in the maze.

The boys end up forced into a physical confrontation with the broken Happs. They get injured, but don't succeed in damaging the robot any more than they already have.

… Back into a ballpit? So soon?

Happs catches up with them. He tries to grab Jace by the ankle, but, with no proper hands, the robot ends up slicing Jace's right foot clean off. While Jace screams in pain, Aiden grabs his friend and tries to carry him away.

Between the two boys, Happs keeps focusing on Jace. We were told earlier in the story that Aiden is further along in puberty than Jace is, and that Aiden looks a bit like an adult while Jace looks a bit like a little kid. A human could recognize that they're both teenagers in that weird, awkward stage of puberty, but I wonder if that's why Happs keeps focusing on Jace so much.

Aiden tries desperately to save his friend, but is unable to. Jace ends up impaled when Happs tries to pick him up, and Aiden both feels and watches while his best and only friend dies in his arms. Aiden tries to carry his friend's body with him while he tries to escape, but ends up unable to, and is forced to leave Jace's body behind.

"Jace was in the ballpit. Jace's blood was in the ballpit." … Sorry, I'm having thoughts about Eleanor's ballpit from the previous series. Y'know, the one filled with old blood and Remnant? Like a body (or multiple bodies?) was stored there? Yeah, I'm just… I'm just thinking.

I do not appreciate that moment of victim blaming. It's not the fault of Aiden and Jace that their classmates bullied them. A kid being "weird" or "a loner" shouldn't give the bullies clearance to harass them. While this moment of victim blaming happens inside Aiden's head, and he's a teenager who doesn't know any better than to blame himself in the moment, I just worry about including moments like that in a book series for teenagers. The younger members of the audience might get the wrong idea.

But, at the beginning of this story, I also wondered (and worried!) about Aiden's violent feelings being presented so openly. He literally suggests gutting a classmate like a fish as an appropriate way of handling the bully, and he fantasizes about shooting a classmate. He means shooting him with the Fazer Blaster gun in the game, but the point still stands. While I personally think it's important to present dark topics in fiction, and while I recognize this book series as a horror series about torture and child murder, I can't help but worry a little bit about these kinds of characters. These aren't side characters, or even just characters who happen to exist -- these are the main characters of these stories, built into a narrative that actively encourages the reader to relate to them. Aiden isn't the first protag of these books to fantasize about harming a classmate, and I'm sure he won't be the last, but I have some concerns about using them as pov characters in a book series for teens, many of whom are a certain level of impressionable.

"Aiden had been essentially herded like an animal into a killing zone. And now he had nowhere to go."

This story is so long, and most of it is just prolonging this kid's death. He doesn't even actually die during the story! The story ends before he actually dies. Presumably he ends up going out the same way Jace did, but… *shrugging.*

"B-7"

This story opens on a happy family enjoying an evening in front of the television: a mother, a father, and a little boy named Billy. Billy watches "Freddy and Friends," enraptured.

Billy is a miniature copy of his father in a lot of ways, both in appearance and in personality. Billy and his father have matching brown hair, brown eyes, and similar facial features, and Billy doesn't think he looks anything like his mother, who has blonde hair and different facial features.

Billy has previously been a very sickly child. He's too young still to know exactly what was wrong with him, but he knows he's spent a substantial amount of time at the hospital as a patient, and that he's "had his back stuck full of needles."

Billy's father is away at work most of the time, and has some sort of office job. Billy's mother works from home as an investor and financial advisor.

Billy's father (Dan) doesn't like "Freddy and Friends," and tries to switch the TV to a sports game… y'know, while his preteen son watches his favorite show. Parent of the year right there.

On screen, the Fazbear characters sing, dance, eat pizza, and point to a security camera mounted on the wall above them. The characters ask each other "Who do you think is watching us?" and decide to go find the person watching them through the camera.

Freddy is Billy's favorite character. Billy decides he wants to be like Freddy, pretends to be an animatronic for the rest of the evening and into the next morning. He walks stiffly and speaks robotically. He likes the idea of being big and strong. He also believes that animatronics don't feel pain, and likes the idea of not feeling any pain.

Billy's dad spends three seconds with his son at breakfast and then decides to go get breakfast at the office. (My god, dude, could you at least try to be a decent parent? Would it kill you?)

At kindergarten, some of Billy's friends play robot with him, while others don't. He gets in trouble with his teacher for singing loudly all through class.

… This kid's inner monologue actually gets more robotic over time. It's meant to be a game, this little boy playing pretend and acting like a robot, but he's referencing how robots are designed and programmed in ways he shouldn't understand, and it using big words (like "visual processor") that I wouldn't expect out of a kindergartner. Sure, we could assume that he just really, really likes robots and has absorbed a lot of information about them, but he started playing this game last night. He hasn't had time to gain knowledge like this yet, has he?

At dinner, Billy regales his parents by listing off all the contents of his "memory banks," reciting everything he saw throughout the day. His parents are surprised by his memory recall, but don't think much of it.

Billy continues to pretend he's an animatronic the next day. His parents and kindergarten teacher are already fed up with it, and express concern to each other about how long his game will go on. (Which is ridiculous, because it's only been two days. Plenty of kids will quit a game like this within minutes, while others will continue with it for weeks or longer. Kids are just… like that.)

Billy decides he's a much more advanced animatronic, deciding that now he's one that's been designed and programmed to behave like a little boy. He "updates his programming" during the night, and the next day he behaves like an ideal child.

… Most of this story is the inner monologue of a robot child narrating its actions and processing the new information it's given. It's really not particularly interesting for story material.

In grade school, Billy learns that robots need oil. He gets some oil that his dad has in the garage and drinks it, convinced that it's something he needs. It makes both his head and stomach hurt, but he drinks more of it anyway. One day, Billy wakes up extremely sick. His mother ends up taking him to the hospital. The doctor tells Billy that the best oil for him is olive oil.

Billy is unable to keep track of the passage of time. Summer vacation from school and holidays take him by surprise.

Billy overhears a lot of whispered conversations throughout the story.

Billy has pretended to be a robot for four years now. Billy is so devoted to this game of make-believe that he genuinely believes himself to be a robot, and acts as one, carrying out tasks in a simple, joyless manner.

His parents, Dan and Vera, have a fight about Billy's mental state one evening. It's implied that Billy almost died as a toddler, and because of that Vera is willing to accept any oddity of her son's personality, so long as she knows he's nearby and healthy. Dan, on the other hand, expresses that Billy should be institutionalized, and seems to believe that having a potentially special needs child is "hell on earth." (Have I made it clear yet that I find Dan insufferable? Because I do.)

Billy overhears the argument. He has no emotional response at all - as a robot, he doesn't care if his father likes him or not.

Dan blames Billy's behavior on the "Freddy and Friends" cartoon. (Which would have been such an interesting idea! Like if Fazbear's put subliminal messages in their cartoons, and any audience member who picked up on it started behaving robotically, their minds and bodies hijacked. That would have been neat. But this is just a throwaway line that goes nowhere.)

A day later, Billy watches impassively as his father leaves them and his mother cries.

"It is not possible for a thing not to be the thing it is. The thing is the thing."

"Have you ever heard of an animatronic growing before?" "No, I have not heard of a growing animatronic." (Oh, oh! I have! I have!)

More time passes. Billy should now be starting 7th grade, but he decides not to go to school anymore, finding it too restrictive and frustrating. He decides to educate himself by reading books from the library.

Billy has had his mother replace his bed with a steel table, deeming it more suitable for his "recharging" schedule.

(I'm listening to the audiobook, and the narrator is still reading Billy's lines of dialogue in the voice of a little kid, despite him presumably being about 12-ish at this point.)

At this point in his life, Billy thinks he looks more and more like his absent father with each passing day. Meanwhile, he recognizes that his mother looks more and more tired with each passing day, but he doesn't know what to do about this.

Billy has been seeing a therapist the entire time he's been acting as a robot. The therapist clearly hasn't exactly helped him much. Mainly, she seems to encourage his belief that he is a robot, but she also shows him ways to "behave like a human," so as not to scare strangers.

"Animatronics do not efficiently digest color." (Please save this kid from his self-enforced all-white diet!)

Billy is now 18-years-old. If anything, he is even more robotic than he has been before. He refers to his birthdays as "his creation day," as robots are created instead of born. He lives exclusively in the (unfinished) basement of his mother's house, and eschews all personal possessions and effects.

One day, Billy finds his mother dead in the bathroom. It's implied that she tried to overdose herself, but then ultimately drowned in the bathtub.

His mother left a computer file for him to read, instructing him in detail how to "upgrade his programming from an 'animatronic son' to an 'animatronic adult.'" And, because of something his late mother said, Billy can't tell anyone that he's an animatronic. It "goes against his programming."

"In other words, Billy was a robot, but his physical systems were like those of a human."

Now in his early 20s, Billy starts to get the feeling that he's human after all, but obviously that's incorrect; he's been a robot for the past decade and a half of his life, so obviously he can't be human. This leads to him seeking out and finding an unlicensed doctor who is willing to perform illegal surgeries on him, removing Billy's limbs and replacing them with robotic prosthetics.

"As an animatronic, Billy did not experience pain. He did, however, have tactile senses that reported pain-like awareness from time to time. … Billy had not chosen any of these reactions [of bleeding and crying in pain]. He had to assume they were programmed. The blood and tears were not welcome."

Sentence: ends with the word "agony." Me: Oooh, they said one of the secret words!

Again, Billy has his arms and legs removed and replaced with metal prosthetics. He doesn't think he needs physical therapy or any time to heal, as he doesn't believe he's an organic creature. This entire process goes about as well as you might imagine.

Billy starts hanging out on internet forums. He befriends a woman named Maliah who expresses that she isn't happy with her body, a sentiment he shares even though her reasons are different. They talk, and she tells him about her abusive father (Oh! So now that word is appropriate??), her daddy issues, and the abusive men she's dated in the past who picked up on and took advantage of her daddy issues. Billy learns a lot about interpersonal relationships from her.

Maliah flirts with him. Billy doesn't know how to respond.

Maliah talks about not liking her face, and tells Billy that she wants to get a nose job. This gives Billy the idea that, now that his limbs reflective his robotic nature, he could get his face and even other body parts changed as well.

(While Billy and Maliah are talking, Billy tells her he "wants to change his outer self to match his inner self," and otherwise expresses that he wants to change his body to match how he perceives himself. On the whole, Billy gives off very autistic and trans vibes.)

Maliah agrees to meet him in person. She arrives at his house and, strangely, despite his appearance and behavior, they hit it off at first.

"If he kills you, it'll save you money in surgeries. You won't have to try to look good for someone other than a serial killer." (In love with this woman, actually.)

"This was why Billy liked Maliah. She made him think in ways his processors had not thought in before." (… Why is that cute and wholesome? "She makes think differently!" It's weirdly sweet.)

Billy and Maliah start dating. (Not a turn I expected this story to take.) Billy learns that he likes having a girlfriend, and that he likes kissing.

Billy goes back to the unlicensed surgeon, this time to change his face. He has metal plates inserted into his face, making his face look more square and robotic-looking. Maliah is a little concerned about this.

Next, Billy has the whites of his eyes dyed black. He can still see, but now his eyeballs look completely black. Interestingly, Maliah actually likes this modification.

Then Billy decides to have his tongue removed, and a synthesizer placed in his throat. He also decides to have his ears removed. Maliah is decidedly not into these modifications. She doesn't understand these changes Billy is making to himself, and Billy, still acting under his mother's "programming," doesn't tell her that he believes himself to be a robot. Maliah still tries to be a supportive girlfriend to Billy, but it's an obvious struggle for her.

Billy changes his name to "B-7," feeling that that's a better name for an animatronic. This seems to be the final straw for Maliah, as she stops interacting with him at all.

"B-7" goes to admire his new body in a full-length mirror, and it's seeing his reflection that breaks the spell, as it were. He's frightened by his own reflection, and realizes that he's only human after all, not an animatronic, and that his mind and body were never originally built to be an animatronic. He realizes that his pursuit of becoming a robot was doomed from the beginning, and that, in that pursuit, he's also ruined any change he could have ever had of being a normal man.

(Weird that this story is titled for the name Billy calls himself for about 2 paragraphs.)

Billy dresses himself in his father's clothing, then sits and thinks for a few hours. Late that night, Billy leaves the house, shambling into the night. He goes to a junkyard, thinking it's the only place where a freak like him belongs, and he climbs into the backseat of an old car, where he falls asleep.

He's awoken the next day by the sounds and sensations of the car being put into a trash compactor. Understanding what's happening, Billy stays out of sight, eagerly awaiting his own death. Fully human once more, Billy feels himself being crushed, watches himself bleed, and otherwise accepts his own death.

… Really? Really, Andrea? Really?

Okay, listen… Billy/B-7 gives off such strong trans vibes, even though he's not supposed to be. Like, on the surface, he's a human who perceives himself as a robot, and that's fine. But you could read him as an analogy for the feelings and experiences of a transperson - he perceives himself as a different identity than the one he was assigned at birth. I genuinely couldn't tell you how intentional that aspect of his portrayal is.

But, if he's supposed to feel like a trans character… it's extremely frustrating that his choice of identity and lifestyle causes his family to fall apart, and ultimately causes him to off himself!? Especially when there are so many queer and queer-questioning kids in the FNAF fanbase… I don't think they should be presented with a story that really feels like it's trying to portray a trans character who believes themselves to be a freak that's better off dead. Like, whether intentional or not, the text is very much telling any 12-year-old reading this who is questioning their gender identity that they're better off killing themselves, which sucks for obvious reasons.

Also, to me, Billy/B-7 gives off very strong autistic vibes, another thing I'm not sure was intentional or not. He's genuinely a kind and intelligent person, but he lacks knowledge about social etiquette, causing him to come across as weird and awkward and even self-centered at times. He doesn't emote the way others do, and doesn't make facial expressions. He only wears certain kinds of clothes and only eats certain kinds of food (very much like a texture-sensitive person would do), and he gets easily overstimulated by hearing too many noises at once.

And again, we're in the same boat of "is the author/writing team saying that autistic children are too much work to care for? Or that there's no place in our society for autistic adults? Do they know that that's how the text comes across?" Because, again, and I cannot stress this enough, Billy commits voluntary suicide. And not only is that how the story ends, but the text very overtly tells us that his parents would have been better off if he'd died as a child. What kind of message is this sending to the autistic kids (and adults) in the audience?

And I don't mean to dump all the blame on Andrea Waggener. She's just the convenient scapegoat. Even if she's the sole writer on this story, she'd still only be partially responsible for it: the story would have been greenlit by (presumably) Scott or someone else in charge of the FNAF brand, and it would have had to go through multiple people at Scholastic before being published. Multiple people looked at this story as said "yeah, this is fine" and didn't give any thought to the textual implications.

This one just… AGH! I haven't been this angry at one of these stories since "Blackbird!"

Epilogue:

(The audiobook didn't make it clear that this was a different section, and, at first, I was confused about why we were spending so much time with a large group of random teenagers and what they were doing in Billy's story.)

We're introduced to some teens who are having fun (or trying to) at a local carnival in the late evening.

Soooo much teen drama… -rolls eyes-

This new cast of teens decide to go check out the new, half-built Freddy Fazbear's Pizzaplex. The main focal girl, Lucia, has heard rumors that the new building is being built over top of an old Freddy's, one where supposedly crimes took place. The new building is under construction, and the kids are interested in crawling around the unbuilt place.

Too many teens, can't keep track of them all. -_-

Their high school colors are purple and gold. (Which makes sense, those are pretty common high school colors, but given what those colors are generally used for in this franchise, I just found that vaguely amusing.)

This does kind of have a similar vibe to that of Charlie and her friends urban exploring in Freddy's in "the Silver Eyes."

The kids go looking for animatronics, knowing that the Pizzaplex received a shipment of them, despite the building not being finished. They go poking around in the basement, only to accidentally trap themselves. They find the remains of several dead construction workers.

They hear a metallic creak and a hiss. Believing this to be coming from a vent, the kids go looking for the source of the sound, thinking it might lead to a way out. They then hear footsteps approaching, and run to hide, assuming that anything down here isn't something they want to tangle with.

And that's where we leave them: scared and hiding from (presumably) the Mimic.

#five nights at freddy's #tales from the pizzaplex #a brief analysis #my thoughts and theory noodles #my tftp analysis

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askagamedev · 3 years ago

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How do developers know how many copies their game is selling? While digital sales I imagine is an easy number to track, how do companies track how many physical copies they sell?

All of the companies involved care about how many physical copies are sold for a variety of reasons, so it's pretty easy to track. Let's imagine the game publisher sells a million copies of the game to distributors. Those distributors pay the publisher for those copies. The distributors thus have a million copies of the game. They turn around and sell those million copies of the game at a small markup to a bunch of retailers - Target, Walmart, Costco, Toys R Us, Gamestop, etc. Each of these smaller retailers spends their money to buy some number of copies of the game from the distributor that they think they can sell at their retail shops. Those retail shops then sell the individual boxed copies to customers like you and me.

If the distributor or retailer buys too many copies of the game, they end up with a bunch of unsold copies that they spent money on and haven't been able to sell. In those situations, they will often cut the price (i.e. put it on sale) in hopes that they can get something for the extra product they can't sell at full price, rather than take a loss because they can't sell the game box. Regardless, they lose money because the unsold inventory takes up space they pay for and sits on shelves that could hold other products that are selling. For these vendors, it is walking a tightrope - they want to buy enough of a product to meet the needs of all of their customers who want them, but not so many that they have too many leftovers that they have to take a loss on.

Every separate retail version of the game (e.g. PS5, PS4, Switch, PC, Collector's Edition PC, Collector's Edition PS4, Ultimate Edition PC, etc.) has a specific SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) number. These are usually stored in the barcode on the box and are what get scanned when you buy an item from a store. Each retailer keeps track of how many copies of a specific product they have on hand and have been sold in order to decide if they need to restock - that is, buy more copies from their distributor in order to sell them to their customers. Similarly, the distributors keep an eye on their stock - how much they still have of each item and how many retailers are buying from them, in order to decide if they need to restock by buying another batch from the game publisher. The companies at each step of the process clearly watch their sales numbers and inventory very closely, and that information goes up the chain. The publisher knows exactly which distributors bought how many copies from them because they have that sales data. If the distributors and/or retailers want to share their own sales data with the publisher (which they sometimes want to do), they can.

Obviously, reality is more complicated than this. Not all retailers are the same and not all distributors are the same. Some distributors are enormous and others are small. Sometimes the retailer is the distributor and is big enough to handle both distribution and retail itself (e.g. Walmart or Amazon). Sometimes there are guarantees in place - if the retailer or distributor cannot sell all of the copies they bought, the publisher might agree to refund the difference. All that said, you should be able to see how the physical sales numbers can be counted quite easily - every sale to a customer can be tracked through the retailer to the distributor to the game publisher in some way, because anybody who spent money on a product for resale rightly cares a lot about making their money back and that is directly tied to how many copies they were able to sell.

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#the business of video games #game publishing #distribution #where the money goes #Game Sales

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heloisedaphnebrightmore · 4 years ago

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Brilliant Plan [Anthony Bridgerton x Reader]

Title: Brilliant plan Pairing: Anthony Bridgerton x Female!Reader Word count: 3.3k Published: 10 February, 2021 Author: Heloise Daphne Brightmore Notes: My first ever Bridgerton fic, please don’t be too hard on me :) Summary: Even as a new debutante you have your eyes on the eldest Bridgerton, Anthony and it seems he is just as interested in you. That is until he halts your relationship in the courting period, leaving you confused.

Bridgerton Masterlist | Masterlists

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You stood in front of the enormous, wooden doors leading you to the unknown. As one of the new debutantes of the season, you felt slightly pressured and nervous. It’s been an endless waiting game, or so it felt like one, but now that you stood in front of the entrance of your future, every little problem you ever had felt mediocre.

Taking a couple of deep breaths seemed to calm your nerves, but as soon as your mother placed her hand on your shoulder, all your worries came back at once. The event has been one that you have been waiting for eagerly, you were happy to be a part of such an elite society, but no one prepared you for the mental battle you were going to be having deep inside you.

“Shall we wait and take a seat, dear?” your mother interrupted your chaotic thoughts, gesturing towards a golden bench outside of the ballroom. A voice within you screamed for those additional seconds away from your grand entrance, but instead you shook your head.

“No, mama, let’s head inside,” a small, phoney smile spread across your face. Your mother nodded in agreement and gently nudged your back as if wanting to help you to take the first step.

As the gigantic doors opened, your gaze fell on the sea of people dancing in the middle of the room, each wearing their finest attires of the most expensive materials with the shiniest jewelleries. You felt slightly out of place even though you were just as stunning as anyone in the room.

First step, second step, it took a couple of them to finally make yourself present and when you finally felt more comfortable walking into the room, you felt as if hundreds of eyes watched every step of yours, making you feel self-conscious once again. It was scary to feel all those eager eyes on you, but after an inner monologue, you finally lifted your head high, straightened your back and forced a small smile across your face.

As you looked around you recognised quite a few people, for instance the Bridgerton sisters, Daphne and Eloise who were although younger than you, had found a dear friend in you, someone they could turn to if needed. Gazing around the room you found the Featherington sisters who you only knew through the annual dinners your family organised.

You were older than the usual debutantes as your mother wanted you to be highly educated before marrying you off. Although you couldn’t wait to be a part of these high society gatherings, you understood that your mother didn’t want you to marry just anyone.

Finally, the curious gazes felt less intimidating and as Daphne walked up to you, you greeted each other with a smile. “I thought you’d never join us,” she joked with you, but you just shook your head with the least lady-like laughter.

“I couldn’t have deprived you from my company. I’m delightful,” you chuckled at your own joke. Your mother placed her hand on your shoulder excusing herself as she headed off to the opposite direction.

“Are you excited?” Daphne asked with an innocent, but enthusiastic smile painted across her face.

“I have been waiting for it for quite a while. Of course, I’m excited,” you replied giggling.

“Shall we find you a husband then?” she chuckled joyfully. You cleared your throat, feeling slightly awkward, but Daphne wasn’t silly nor was she naïve. She immediately understood that her question made you feel slightly uncomfortable. “Do you not want to?”

“Daph, I really wanted to be a part of these gorgeous balls and chatting away with people throughout the evening, however I can’t picture myself getting married just yet,” you offered her a pleading look, hoping she would understand you.

Of course, it was a dream of yours to finally start attending these balls, but there was a reason or two for your hesitancy. You didn’t feel ready to marry anyone, especially not if you didn’t love your significant other, on the other hand, you already had your eyes on someone. Someone who was closer to Daphne than she could ever imagine.

“Sister, I have been looking for you,” his voice made you shiver, tiny goosebumps revealing themselves on the surface of your skin. His slightly messy brown hair and curious brown eyes wandered up and down on you, studying every inch of your body shamelessly as he joined beside Daphne, making you feel flustered under his intense gaze. “I don’t think we have met before,” he spoke to you finally, for the first time ever, reaching for your hand to leave a soft kiss on your silky gloves as you formally introduce yourself. “What a beautiful name,” he smiled confidently, a trait that seemed to radiate through his whole presence, almost knocking you over.

“Interestingly we have met before,” you added, trying to avert the subject, before you felt overwhelmed by a simple compliment to your name, which your parents decided on and basically had nothing to do with you. “But then you always seem busy when I visit,” the confusion across his face was evident, trying to organise the little pieces of the puzzle he seemed to be missing.

“My apologise, I don’t seem to remember and I’m sure I would have remembered such a pretty sight” he shook his head with a smile that sent your heart into overdrive. His words made you feel 20 pounds lighter, but instead of letting the compliment get to you, offering him a small smile, you continued the conversation confidently.

“Don’t you worry about it.I usually only catch a glimpse of you as I pass through the hall,” you lied. In reality you caught yourself not once staring at the man as he worked in his office and your steps halted just in the right spot to take a moment to admire his handsome features.

“I’m certainly glad to have officially met you,” he replied with a proud smirk across his face, leaving you gazing at him for a moment longer than it was deemed appropriate. The moment was quickly interrupted by Daphne who seemed to feel slightly out of place, but before she could have said anything, Benedict joined your circle, quickly dragging Anthony away who endlessly apologised, before following his brother.

“Hmm,” you heard Daphne, slightly lost in her thoughts. “And so, she said no to marriage,” she stated with a wicked smile.

“Whatever do you mean?” you asked furrowing in confusion.

“I might be younger, but I’m not an idiot. I saw the way you looked at my dear brother,” she watched you eagerly with a sceptical gaze.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” you replied casually, trying to disguise your embarrassment, which only confirmed Daphne’s suspicion.

“If that makes you feel better, I would gladly be your sister-in-law,” she chuckled loudly at the astonished expression on your face.

“Daphne!” you tried to scold her, but deep down you were imagining a future with the eldest Bridgerton, shamelessly planning each and every single detail of your shared life.

Throughout the evening you have caught Anthony’s eyes on you not once, shamelessly watching you as you danced with the most eligible men of the evening. You wished he was to ask you to dance with him, but he never attempted. He forgot his eyes on you at all times, making you feel as if you were a unique jewellery, one that everyone admired, but when it came to actions, he has taken none.

You walked out to the terrace with a glass of champagne in hand, watching the dark blue, night sky covered in a sea of stars. It was a beautiful evening, although slightly colder than you initially expected. Gently rubbing your skin, you tried to get rid of the small goosebumps that started spreading all over your body. You knew it would have been smarter to go back inside, but it was a slightly suffocating feeling, smiling at everyone, dancing with every other person. Whilst you enjoyed it, it was certainly exhausting.

Feeling two cold hands on each side of your arms, you jumped in the least lady-like manner, before they were replaced by a warm material. “You scared me,” you breathed, holding your hand in front of your chest, before you pulled the two sides of Anthony’s tuxedo coat together, enjoying the warmness engulfing you. “Thank you, you shouldn’t have-,” however before you could have finished your sentence, he interrupted you.

“I still don’t understand how I didn’t see you,” he spoke as he leaned against the terrace fence, gazing up at the sky. The confusion across his face earned a small smile from you as you placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Sometimes you don’t see what’s right in front of you,” you replied as he turned around, watching your hand rest on his shoulder, before you quickly removed it, hoping he didn’t think you meant to be disrespectful. However, the playful grin playing in the corner of his lips reassured you, making you smile just as well.

From that night there wasn’t a day you didn’t meet in his house or he didn’t come over to yours with an excuse, even though he needed none, your mother was delighted to see the Viscount in her house. Although he didn’t make it official that he was courting you, it was a known fact. He had his eyes on you and he made sure everyone knew of his unspoken intentions.

But Anthony was also a man of freedom. He had to take over the Bridgerton household, he had no place to object, but the freedom he practiced in his personal life was a necessity. You thought your relationship was going in the right direction as he courted you and you accepted his advances. However, after months he seemed as if he still had no intention of proposing to you, whilst he still kept other men as far away as he could from you.

You were tired of waiting. You didn’t want to marry just yet, but you have been waiting for his proposal for the longest of time and his indecisive manners made you doubt his intentions. Of course, you voiced your concerns to Daphne, who concocted a brilliant plan to make his brother jealous. Or so you thought it was brilliant.

As the next ball came and you walked inside the room with an innocent smile, dressed as beautifully as never before, many men gazed at your beauty, lips parting in astonishment. Surely, you enjoyed the attention, especially the one whose eyes seemed to burn holes into your body. But you didn’t look at him. You decided that if he couldn’t take your relationship a step further, then you would pay no attention to him.

“Miss, would you like to dance?” you heard from behind you as Benedict appeared in your vision with a mischievous smile. Although you were aware of Daphne’s plan, she was very secretive about the details.

“Daphne, isn’t it?” you asked, chuckling.

“Let’s just say I had no objection as soon as I heard that there was a way to irritate my brother,” he smirked proudly.

“Is this some twisted way to show your love towards your brother?” you asked, giggling as you felt Anthony’s eager eyes on you.

“I just enjoy seeing him sulking,” he shrugged carelessly.

“I take no responsibilities for any consequences,” you pointed your index finger at him with a mocking seriousness.

“Don’t you worry, miss,” he chuckled as he took your hand in his and led you to the dance floor. Eager eyes watched the pair of you, amazed by the bravery Benedict showed, even though everyone was aware of Anthony’s interest in you.

“If eyes could kill, I would drop dead at this moment,” he laughed, taking a peek at his brother as he led you around the circle, the quartet playing a rather slow song.

“I certainly feel daggers piercing through my back,” you snickered at the absurd situation.

“My brother means well, he is just an idiot,” he added.

“I wish I could object. I mean against the idiocy, of course,” you replied casually earning a heartfelt laughter from Benedict.

“Surely, he will open his eyes now,” he tried to reassure you which earned a sceptical look from you.

“I thought we had just established that he was an idiot,” you raised a questioning brow.

“I certainly think they are mutually inclusive,” he scoffed, earning an eye roll from you.

As the song stopped, Anthony walked up to you with a stern look and serious expression painted across his face, holding his hand out to you. You raised a questioning brow, before you placed your hand in his, letting him take you into the sea of people.

“What was that all about?” he asked as he pulled your body flash against him, his chest pressing against yours. Your breath hitched at the sudden closeness, his proximity clouding your mind. You could feel your body move to the rhythm of the music, but it didn’t register in your head.

“I don’t know what you mean,” you breathed, completely engulfed in his scent.

“Why were you dancing with my brother?” he asked in a stern voice, pulling you out of the mist covering your mind. You certainly didn’t like his tone, nor did you like the way he looked at you.

“Why wouldn’t I? You never ask me to dance with you nor am I engaged to you. I can dance whomever I would like to,” you replied with a straight face, hiding all your emotions.

“You know how important you are to me. Don’t play such games with my brother,” he hissed in frustration.

“Would you like me to play it with someone else?” you asked, feeling as if you were playing with fire, waiting for the moment he’d had enough.

“You very well know that’s not what I meant. You know of my feelings for you,” he groaned in anger, feeling useless, unable to find how to solve this problem.

“Do I? Have you ever expressed them clearly? As far as I know, we are just a man and woman in a close friendship,” you shrugged as the song finished and tried to pull away from him. However, he didn’t let you.

“There is no friendship between women and men,” he replied, clearly dissatisfied with your answer.

“We are acquaintances then,” you scoffed as you removed his hand from your waist and turned around, walking away from him. It felt as if your lungs were about to explode, as if you couldn’t breathe. The fact that he dared to say he had feelings for you when he clearly chose his freedom over you made you feel more upset than you wished to be.

“Where are you going?” you heard his voice as you headed towards the exit, trying to get some air into your lungs. “Where the hell are you going?” he tried again, his tone more frustrated this time.

“None of your business, Bridgerton,” you hissed in anger.

“B-Bridgerton?” he questioned, slightly stuttering, clearly astonished by your choice of name.

“That’s your name,” you replied with a groan as you headed down the stairs, grasping the side of your dress as the chilly weather hit your warm skin unexpectedly.

“Just stop for a second and let’s talk,” he attempted to catch your wrist, but you pulled it away just in time.

“I don’t want to talk to you, Bridgerton. You are the last person I want to see,” you scoffed.

“Surely, that’s not true,” he argued.

“You had months to talk to me, don’t come looking for me now,” you replied, but before you could have comprehended what was happening, Anthony got hold of your wrist and dragged you behind the building, away from the praying eyes, closing your escape route with his palms against the wall on each side of yours.

None of you spoke up, both of you studied one another as if waiting for what the other would say. You had the time to admire his handsome features, his messy hair that resembled more of a bird's nest as the wind blew it in all kinds of directions in his hurried steps.

“Why did you do this?” he asked, his tone finally calm and collected.

“I wanted to see your reaction,” you confessed, not even feeling guilty.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he frowned at your words.

“I thought there was something between you and me. I thought it was more than a friendship. I honestly believed you felt more. But you never attempted to talk about the future, you never wanted to discuss marriage, you never even mentioned wanting a family. I was certain that you would never look at me as a lady. I would always just be a friend,” you scoffed with a small, pained smile in the corner of your lips.

“What are you talking about?” his confusion sat clearly across his face. “I always tell you how madly I miss you when I can’t be around you. I keep saying how I wish to be near you more often. I couldn’t be clearer about my intentions,”

“You see, it’s still not clear to me. What are your intentions exactly?” you asked, cruelly ignoring his previous words.

“Surely, you understand,” he scoffed in disbelief.

“No, I don’t,” you replied, shaking your head.

“I- I just,” the stuttering mess he has become gave you the answer to your questions.

“You see, Bridgerton, you can’t even get yourself to say it,” you heaved a deep sigh and pushed his arm away from the brick wall, heading back towards the entrance. However, before you could have taken another step, he caught your wrist and pulled you back against the wall, his body pressing against you, the cold bricks making you shiver. You could feel his breath on your lips, one of his hands on your waist. You have heard so much about that first kiss and even though you knew it was wrong, that it shouldn’t happen, you waited in utter anticipation.

Anthony tried to control himself, knowing how important you were to him, but the proximity between you clouded his mind as he abruptly closed the gap between you, attaching his lips to yours, hungrily exploring the new territory.

It was wrong, so wrong, but the moment was bittersweet. The kiss was sweet and passionate, one you couldn’t even imagine in your wildest of dreams and you couldn’t even care about the consequences if anyone saw you.

The shock across his face as pulled away from you scared you for a mere second. “I sincerely apologise, I have no idea what came over me,” he tried to take a step back, but you got hold of his arm.

“Why did you kiss me?” you asked, still under the influence of his actions.

“Because I love you. Because I wish to marry you. I want you to be my wife,” he breathed in a sudden confidence. You gently slapped your hands against your lips, his words surprising you, making you feel as if it was a dream.

A small smile spread across your face. “You do?” you asked, uncertainty lacing your voice.

“I would like nothing more,” he rushed to add.

“Is that a proposal?” you asked, chuckling, but what came next was something you didn’t expect.

He dropped down on one knee, pulling a tiny, blue box out of his pocket, opening the lid as he looked up at you, admiring your astonished expression. “Would you do me the honour of marrying me?” he asked, his eyes full of hope.

“Yes, yes, yes,” you shouted excitedly, jumping in his neck, engulfing him in a hug, his broad shoulders barely fitting your embrace.

“Thank you,” he chuckled happily as he placed the ring on your finger, not expecting the quick peck you placed on his lips in the process. He stood up, wrapping his arms around your waist, before he lifted you up from the ground and spun you around with a happy laughter.

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kozykricket · 7 months ago

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the TLDR of this is -animal well according to most people is sick as hell -maybe check it out if you're into funky funky games -secondhand embarrassment(?) from seeing people talk a lot about the dude behind the publishing company, fearing it might overshadow the devs themselves -but also it IS really freaking funny that dunkey just said "i will only publish good videogames" and then did that. just feels weird to attribute that as something that... he did. like. publishing is weird to me. -its kinda sad that good publishers are needed for good games to really get noticed sometimes. a bit of an unfair world sometimes but -back to the main point, its clearly a good game. i dont even need to play it to tell you that, since enough people have said it that it must be true also yes i rewrote the post since it felt poorly worded

ANIMAL WELL THOUGHTS (+ bigmode dunkey publishing thoughts)

so, animal well came out, and... i remember hearing about it sometime around february or march, but i hadnt realized bigmode was publishing it lol i havent played it yet, but i definitely plan to heres what i know: its a very funky and mysterious game, surreal kinda vibes. if you liked rain world for being a metroidvania but then also deciding to do weird shit with its world and go founky, but you maybe wished it was more about weird funky stuff, then... maybe you'll be interested! ive heard from furyforged, a yter i watch, that through following its development it has given him noita vibes in terms of the mysteries afoot in the world, and how there were even ARGs for stuff like the release date... but its supposedly all meant to be reasonably solvable without the internet? its supposedly quite surreal, and ive heard nothing but "oh my god this is literally one of the best games ever" even from people who i... really thought wouldnt give a darn about a quirky indie game which helps with the segue into the bigmode in the room

so, i honestly forgot dunkey did that whole thing with starting a game publishing thing... and now everyones talking about "wow, the first game that he publishes comes out and its a 10/10 GOTY contender according to most outlets. after we all laughed at him for saying i will only publish good videogames" and i think that no matter how you spin it, that is definitely quite hilarious, and huge congrats to the devs of animal well for having such positive reception. but it got me thinking about ... well, a game being published by someone well known for their career before publishing. by an influencer, content creator, whatever you'd call dunkey, and... like yeah, i suppose the duty of a publisher IS to help spread the word of the game and do the marketing and stuff, so the devs themselves dont have to, but it must be kinda strange to have people not just talking about your game for its pure contents, but talking a lot about DUNKEY and like. HIS achievements. i guess i just... don't want that to overshadow the game itself? i mean, it probably wont since... yknow, people separate publishers and games pretty darn easily. its what publishers do: they give games attention. dunkey said what he wanted to do with bigmode was to like, invest in games that he BELIEVES in and that he thinks SHOULD get more attention instead of just being yet another indie swept under the rug... which is great, because theres too many good indie games that go underappreciated just bc they dont get enough good marketing. it just kinda feels sad being reminded of that though but like, i just hope it isnt confined to being "the dunkey owned publisher, no way funny haha man" out of... yknow. well. i dont want games published by bigmode to be overshadowed by him. ...probably a silly worry though. again people dont say stuff like "oh yeah i really love [game publisher] they did so great" they talk about the devs when it comes to the contents of the game. the reason people are talkin about dunkey is probably because this is the FIRST game for bigmode to publish, and ... that he proved himself right, at least so far i mainly just ... think its a bit of a unique experience, and it makes me simultaneously happy for animal well, and bummed out for other small indie games, knowing that ultimately there are games of this quality coming out and flying under peoples radar just bc they dont get the resources and marketing of a good publisher

edit: cleaned up post

#jake ramblings

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stetervault · 3 years ago

Note

Hiii! Been delving into Steter now, in the year of our lord 2021, even though I never really did when I was active in the fandom years ago and I was wondering if you'd have some longfic recs for the ship? Like, fics that are Classics(TM)? But happy endings! And I'm not super into those in which Stiles is still underage 😬 do u have any recs? Thanks!

Welcome to the Steter fandom! I definitely have some long fics to rec, some of them are super old lol, and I'll stick to ones around 20k or over, and most of them are finished. And hmm, considering the ship, and a lot of fics like to start off in season 1 where Stiles is still technically a teenager, I'll try to limit these to ones with Stiles being at least 16/17 before anything starts happening, and only 18+ if there's explicit content. I hope that's okay.

drowning in the sea of you by Corpium

Beacon Hills was perfect for Stiles growing up, but now, with werewolves, hunters, and an anxious best friend running around, it's turning into a place too chaotic for an empath like Stiles to handle alone. And pain killers can only go so far.

Wake Me Up by ToAStranger

Stiles has been in a coma for six years. Now he's awake.

Tremors by Corpium

(Stiles has a taste for him now. All Peter needs to do is wait.)

Surviving Peter and the Zombie Apocalypse by Nopennamesleft

Its the end of the world and Stiles has run out of luck. He saves a werewolf from certain death. Will they begin to rely on each other to survive or will the wolf just eat Stiles for a midnight snack?

Bite Down by EclipseWing

In which Stiles is forced to survive the zombie apocalypse with a sociopathic murdering werewolf for company.

as you are by veterization

Stiles runs straight into a tree and suddenly, things are... different. Namely, he's in a world where Peter Hale is his boyfriend.

Call My Name by KouriArashi

After moving to Beacon Hills, Stiles starts having recurring dreams of a man in some kind of prison, who needs his help. Things get so bad that he ends up in Eichen House, where he finds out that the man is real.

Devil of Mercy by KouriArashi

Peter's heard people talk about what it felt like when they saw their mate for the first time, from those who actually believe in the mystical bullshit. Like a magnet, like gravity. Peter just feels... sharply curious.

Whiskey is My Kind of Lullaby by taylorpotato

Peter is a simple saloon owner on one of the outer planets between the Aaru Belt and the Olympus Galaxy. He’s done with trouble. Done with adventure. So fucking done with rustlers. That is, until a cute young outlaw named Stiles wanders into his bar. Peter has this problem where he can’t seem to resist charming narcissists (perhaps because they remind him of himself). And when said narcissists turn his life upside-down, the worst part is he’s not even that upset about it.

Proposing To Strangers by moonstalker24

At the end of a strained relationship, crime novelist Stiles chooses to hide from the world inside a bar with far too many motorcycles outside it for comfort. Here he'll meet the man of his dreams, eat food and propose marriage, all within the first five minutes.

Peter doesn't know who this kid is, but he's cute and looks like he could use a break. So he feeds him. He's not expecting a marriage proposal, but with what comes after, he doesn't really mind.

Stiles Stilinski, Disaster Chef by Guede

The zombie apocalypse forces Stiles to learn how to cook.

The Will by Guede

We are gathered here today for the reading of Gerard Argent’s will.

On the Importance of Lunar Influences in Gardening by Guede

“Oh, it’s you again,” Stiles sighs. He puts down his basket and drops the bunch of onions into it, and then dusts off his hands. “Can’t you get your own strawberries? I mean, I have it on good authority that wild strawberries? They’re a thing. They exist. They’re out there.”

“But Stiles,” says the werewolf dangling by one foot from the tree, sticky red smears around his mouth and all over his fingers. “Your berries are so juicy, so ripe. Those ones in the woods are mere passing indulgences compared to the royal feast you have in your garden.”

Genii loci Stiles and his father run a community garden, and it’s all good, except for the werewolf who keeps sneaking over the fence to raid Stiles’ strawberry patch (and the hunter who’s constantly hanging around his father).

Runes and all kinds of things by FeelingsDusk (WIP)

Enough is enough. Stiles is tired of being always a last choice when he always tries to do his best for his precious people, so they better get their act together or face being left behind.

The things in the Argent's basement get nearly fatal, the Sheriff finds about the supernatural, Allison can have a wicked, wicked mind and Peter Hale appears to be everywhere.

Oh, and Stiles can't seem to stop breaking the laws of physics with his magic.

Sanctuary by DiscontentedWinter

The Hale Wolf Sanctuary isn’t just for wolves.

It turns out it’s for Stilinskis as well.

Out Of The East, Never See The Sun Rise by neglectedtuesday

In the beginning, there are three absolutes.

One. Stiles is a god, forged of starlight and collapsing galaxies and he is eternal.

Two. Peter is human, fragile bone and viscous blood and he is temporary.

Three. Stiles and Peter are in love; love that claws its way inside one’s heart like fish hooks; all encompassing love that is beautiful but dangerous.

Stiles is a god. Peter is human. They love each other.

Three absolutes.

You Had Me at Canapes by LadyArinn

Stiles doesn't mean to sneak into the Hale wedding, and he certainly doesn't mean to have cliche coat-room sex with the bride's uncle, but what had happened, happened, and it wasn't like he could just leave. At least, not until he got to have some of that cake.

Infinite Space by DiscontentedWinter

Stiles needs Peter's expertise to help stop the latest threat to Beacon Hills. And, as the pack falls apart around him, he might even need Peter for more than that.

Hook, Yarn, Sinker by pprfaith

Stiles is happy with his store, his hobbies, his friends. Peter's just trying to figure out how to raise his nieces and nephew without fucking them up too badly.

Paths cross.

Open Wounds by Guede

Talia got out of the fire with Peter, but everyone else died. Years later, they’re still struggling with injuries, but they’ve at least settled in with oddball werewolf Stiles. And then other werewolves start showing up. Familiar ones.

Bittersweet Creek by Guede

When Stiles finally steps off the westward trail to California, he’s the last of his pack. He starts building a den, but then he finds a dying man next to a burnt-down house and it turns out he’s not really much of a settler, after all.

For Great Justice! by Green

Stiles is a vengeance demon, drawn to Peter just as he's waking from his catatonia.

"Whoever did this? We will make those fuckers suffer. I promise you."

Bone Deep by ShippersList

A body in the woods, a mate, and a long-awaited revenge.

Peter had no idea how his life would change when he followed the strange pull in his chest.

Love What is Behind You by KouriArashi

Basically what it says on the label. Hunger Games type fusion. Stiles doing way better than anyone anticipates. Peter finds him intriguing. Ruthless, devious assholes working together to ruin bad guys, as the Steter ship is meant to be.

Soothing the Burn by Therapeutic_Steter (WIP)

Peter is burnt out and breaking down. Stiles notices and offers him solace, along with the one thing he wants most: Pack.

Til Death by Bunnywest

“How long do we have to find him someone?” Stiles asks. “Two weeks,” says Derek, eyebrows pulling down even further. The fierceness of his expression tells Stiles just how concerned he is. “He marries, or he goes to the camps. And you know what your father told us,” Scott reminds her. The camps……aren’t camps. Peter either finds a wife, or he dies.

Ink Blossoms by Triangulum

"So, you're going to ruin your niece's baby shower with flowers in the wrong color?" the florist, Stiles, asks when they reach the counter. He pulls out a binder and starts flipping through it.

"Not ruin. Mildly inconvenience," Peter says.

"Right, messing with a hormonal pregnant woman seems like a great plan."

"To be fair, her fiance and the father of her baby is my ex-boyfriend," Peter says. "And we weren't broken up when they started 'dating'."

Stiles looks up at him in surprise. "And you're still getting her flowers?" he asks.

"It's under duress, I assure you," Peter says. He absolutely wouldn't be here if his alpha hadn't ordered it.

"Well, shit, yeah, let's get you some purple revenge flowers," Stiles says.

After You by FlyAwayMeow (rjaejoo)

It’s true that sometimes what you want the most, you can’t have and that you’ll miss what you once had all along when it’s finally gone.

After breaking his engagement to Chris, Peter heads to New York to start over. He meets Stiles, a young author at his publishing house who helps him piece his confidence back together. When tragedy strikes, he discovers how to finally let go of his past and have the family and future he's always wanted with the pieces already in his life.

love me lights out by veterization

Stiles and Peter get snowed in together. (Or: what happens when you accept phone calls from people you haven't spoken to in over five years.)

Uncle Peter Doesn't Date by Mellow (SweetCandy) (WIP)

“Oh don’t lie, you love it.” Peter purred and winked at his newest arm candy, who spluttered for a few seconds, before blushing like a 16 year old virgin. Considering how young he looked Laura wouldn’t be surprised if he was actually 16. “Shut up Peter!” Bambi squeaked, still flushing and averting Laura’s eyes. “Well, anyways, I’m,” ‘Bambi’. “Stiles. Stiles Stilinski, pleasure to meet you- again.” Stiles smiled sheepishly, obviously nervous. Stiles Stilinski. Definitely a stripper then.

Or: Laura was prepared for whatever piece of armcandy her uncle had decided to show up with, what she hadn't been prepared for was Stiles Stilinski...her uncle's boyfriend.

Under the Songbird’s Wing by mia6363

Captivity easily destroys the will of escape. It can break the fiercest of animal. It can strip the most regal man and woman down to nothing but animal needs.

Captivity can, if met with unwavering determination, shape a person into something unimaginable.

Stiles is sixteen when he's captured. Stiles's first thought is, "I won't die here."

Baby Whisperer by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (somanyofthekids)

“What. Is that.”

Scott looked up at him, apprehensive.

“Her name’s Lily.”

Stiles stared at the fuzzy head peeking out of the papoose.

“Her. Her name. That is a real live human baby. Oh my God-”

“Actually I don’t know if she’s human?” Scott said with a confused frown. “Becca didn’t say.”

“Who the fuck is Becca?!”

Sacrificial Lamb by Bunnywest

The Alpha has a scruffy beard, unkempt hair and dazzling blue eyes. The scar on his face is raised, running down his cheek like a twisting, gnarled rope. Stiles knows that it came from the blade of Kate Argent herself, and that the Alpha got it fighting in the battle where Kate killed his lover, cutting his head clean from his neck, if the stories are to be believed.

The Alpha lets Stiles look his fill, before indicating that Stiles should take the other couch, and Stiles does so, his father’s words echoing in his ears. He can do this, can be pleasant and amenable. The lives of his people may depend on it. The Alpha spends long moments surveying him, before saying, “I like you, Stiles.”

You don’t know me, Stiles wants to blurt out, but he bites his tongue.

The Various Triumphs of Mischief Bilinski by Whispering_Sumire (WIP)

"Hello, Chris," sings a honeyed voice from behind.

Chris' attention snaps toward the intruder, his gun already out of its' holster and aimed at whoever it is — a boy, apparently, with braided russet hair, a red jacket, and wise eyes. He's wearing a gas mask, but Chris can tell by the way his eyes crinkle around the edges, the way sun-burnt sand swirls in his irises, that he's smiling.

Chris cocks his gun.

"You killed my father," he says.

"No offence, but he totally deserved it," the stranger agrees with cheerful solemnity.

"What the hell are you doing in my home?" Chris demands. The kid is perched on a windowsill in Chris' office, as nonchalantly as if this were something he did every day, as if they were familiar.

"I was just wondering," the kid speaks softly, fond amusement sewn through with a peculiar resignation, "how you'd feel about putting down some nazis?"

[Or: The one where Stiles goes back in time and subsequently fucks with everything.]

A Curious Magic by Triangulum

Overall, Stiles is very well-known in the supernatural community. It’d be hard not to be, not with how his reputation has grown like wildfire. He knows and is on good terms with nearly all the fae that reside in the preserve, the asrai that live deep in the lake, the Ito pack, the vampire couple that lives over in Beacon Valley (they buy an ethically-sourced food supply from Stiles), as well as almost every other supernatural entity in the area. But Talia Hale doesn’t like him, and a werewolf pack tends to do what their alpha tells them to.

So it’s a definite surprise when the wards at the edge of his property trip, the tingling down his spine telling him it’s a werewolf, the lack of burning sensation letting him know there’s no hostile intent. Stiles, in his office in the second floor turret, sets down the amulet he’s packing up for Marin and moves to the large window overlooking the front of his property. He’s expecting to see an Ito packmember, even though they nearly always call in advance, and is surprised to see a man that he recognizes as Talia’s brother, Peter.

Light in the Dark by cywscross

It still surprises Stiles sometimes, how easily he’s adapted. Seven months in a world filled with train tracks and soul-sucking fae, and it feels like he’s never known anything else.

Or, the one where diverting the Ghost Riders from Beacon Hills to prey on a different town only succeeded in setting them free.

Vengeance Looks Good On You, Sweetheart by cywscross

Just because Scott refuses to see the Argents for what they truly are - prejudiced serial killers sitting proudly on a mountain of innocent corpses - doesn't mean Stiles will. It's about time someone did something about the Argent Empire anyway, and what a coincidence - summer vacation is just around the corner.

Or, the one where Gerard Argent kidnapped the wrong fucking person to torture. Stiles has never subscribed to the policy of forgiving and forgetting anyway, not when razing the problem to the ground and salting the earth for good measure has always been a far better solution in the long run.

He doesn't expect to have company.

#rec list #teen wolf #steter #stiles stilinski #peter hale #fanfic rec #akielosrises #ask

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wenellyb · 3 years ago

Text

Anthony Mackie is homophobic

There’s no way around it, Anthony Mackie is homophobic and here’s why.

This is how you make a headline..! You make a shocking title and then a catchphrase and the job is done.

You want it to be provocative, intriguing and you want people to click on read more, you want to catch everyone's attention.

Who cares if it's misleading or not accurate, right? People will get the rest of the idea/article when they read the whole article.

But what about those who don't click on the link and read the article? Who see the headline and then their idea is set.

Most people don't have the time to read the full article for further explanation. Some people will read the headline, take the information and move on. Sometimes they will even share that headline... without even reading the article. And I won't pretend I haven't done it too... I have done it and still do it. I've read headlines, retweeted them and shared it without reading the content because the headline was enough information for me.

And a lot of people on the Internet do this...and I think that it's part of the game. But, if you're going to use those headlines to throw accusations at someone and then share those accustions with people, the bare minimum is to read the article first.

And I feel like there has been 3 types of people in the Anthony Mackie story:

Those who read only the headlines and tweets but didn't read the article

Those who read the FULL article but didn't listen to the podcast ( This is much much better than the first one btw)

Those who read the article and listened to the audio.

And I also feel like people making the most noise are part of the 1st category.

I keep receiving some asks that I feel that some of them are missing the point so I'm going to write what I think about all of this and hopefully I can just link this post whenever I get a question.

And I am also disturbed by the fact that this is the 3rd option I get when I type Anthony Mackie on Twitter.

Now that the situation is calmer and the story died down a little, I wanted tovshare my thoughts. And of course you don’t have to read this, but I had to write this down, at least for myself.

I will be exploring 3 angles, so feel free to skip the ones you are not interested in.

It should have never been about the ship

If you say someone is homophobic, at least you have to explain why

Your minds were already made up on Anthony Mackie even before the article was published.

Part 1: It should have never been about the ship.

For the people who read only the headlines... It's a shame because the headlines made the interview all about “Anthony not liking Sam and Bucky's relationship as romantic”. '

A lot of the people based their opinion on the articles and didn't even look further... it was set that Anthony didn't like Sambucky as a couple.

It was revealed with the audio of the podcqst that it wasn’t what Anthony said at all, and he wasn't talking about Sam ans Bucky's relationship but was answering another question that the interviewer had asked about male friendships. And in fact, and it was the interviewer who said that male friendships were rare in the superhero context... He set up the question that way.

But that is the not the point, the point is that EVEN IF Anthony had said he didn't see Sam and Bucky as romantic... that is not enough to say he is problematic or homophobic.

And the intensity of the backlash he received is because he is a Black man, sure... but the accusations of being homophobic would have been there anyway.

Because fandoms are not rational.

When Sebastian Stan said he didn't play Bucky as in love with Steve in 2016, he also received backlash from the fandom and got accusations of being homophobic, even though he had said people were free to interpret it as they wanted. And guess what he still got the accusations lesser level than Anthony, but still...

Anthony and Sebastian have both played gay characters in the past, more than once. And I repeat this so you understand, they have played gay characters more than once. So maybe, MAYBE if they say their character isn't gay or bi, maybe it isn't because they're homophobic, or because they don't want their characters to be ....but because that is how their character is written in the script?

Again, Anthony didn't say any of this about Sambucky but even if he had, it would certainly be because he played the part they were supposed to play.

Some people want to make Anthony this big bad guy who "killed the ship" but I'm sorry, Anthony doesn't own the production company, he isn't the writer or the executive producers.... The actors who be the last in line to blame for this.

And I don't want to make it seem like it's only the general public doing this...Because even some journalists have been writing articles about how Anthony shouldn't be "shutting down ships or dismissing Sambucky" because there is so little representation in the MCU... I'm sorry but what??? WHAT???

I understand the sentiment and I know that a lot of ships are there to compensate the lack of representation on screen...but how is it Anthony's responsibility or his fault?

It’s great when actors go along with the ship, do not invalidate it and leave the doors open, but it is not their fault or their responsibility if they don't, especially actors who have no clue about how shipping or fandoms work.

If it's written in the script that the charcter is straight and the actor says the character is straight you shouldn't be lashing out at the actors for "killing the ship"...Do you want him to change the script? Go blame the production company instead.

I know actors are an easy target because it is much more easier to tweet about them than look up the names of Executive Producers or CEOs and write them letters to ask for more representation. Actors are an easy target but it is literally not their call.

Some of these articles making headlines blaming Anthony because he shut down the idea of romantic Sambucky when there is so little represenration and not making headlines blaming the multibillion dollar company that refuse to have decent representation!

Sure, let's blame the Black actor who said that Sam and Bucky are just friends for the decades of nothing expect a total of 10 seconds screentime for a character nobody remembers and just calls the “Russo cameo”.

And again, Anthony Mackie didn't even say anything against a romantic reading of Sambucky, nothing! But it shouldn't matter, even if he had said they were just friends... it wouldn't justify any backlash at all... if it is about the ship.

Him shipping Sambucky or not should be the last point the fandom is focusing on.

An actor doesn't ship your ship and it bothers you? Move on, ship another couple if you want to... Don't start calling him names because of the ship.

When you make the debate about the ship, it kills the discussion before the discussion can even start because how can you have a constructive discussion if the debate has no foundations?

For instance, if Anthony made hurtful or problematic comments, the right way to deal with this, would be to ask for apologies or for a better explanation of his words .... But since a lot of people, and even news outlet made this story about the ship, what do you want to do?

Ask Anthony to apologize for thinking/saying Sambucky is platonic? We do realize how insane this would sound right? Or are there people who really want Anthony to come out and make a public statement about how he apologizes and supports romantic Sambucky? Is this were we want to go?

People made it about the ship, so he will also think the problem is that he doesn't "ship" Sambucky... but that wasn't the problem right? At least I hope it wasn't.

All of this should have never been about the shipping...If you are bothered by an actor not liking your ship ...it's ok. Stop shipping it if you want to and move on, but don't act like they're the worst human being on the planet because of it.

When I first read the article I was surprised by Anthony's comments about Sambucky because he had never talked like that about the relationship before... but the first thinf I said ia that he is an actor... he reads and interprets the script he has... he doesn't make the decisions...

But when I listened to the audio... I was even more horrified by the way the whole story was handled.

Part 2. If you say someone is homophobic, at least you have to explain why

This might be an unpopular opinion but I don't mind people saying that Anthony Mackie is homophobic. I don't know him, so I won't pretend to know what he is or isn't. What I do mind is people saying he's homophobic but not giving any explanation or evidence.

And I have seen people do that. A lot... And I have receiced asks like that.... "Have you seen those articles? Anthony is homophobic," “He dug his own grave”

But all of the articles and headline are talking about the ship...is that your evidence?

If your opinion is based on a headline or some tweets, I don't know how you expect people to believe you.

I have seen people calling Anthony homophobic because of his comments on the explotation of homosexuality. But to me it was clear that he wasn't talking about the Queer fans, even though I could be wrong... (I talk abour this more in the part 3)

The part where Anthony Mackie has made comments that could be dubious are the comments about how he is bothered that he can't go to bars with his friends anymore.

No matter how you turn it, making it seem like it's a problem that people think you're gay when you're with your friends, has homophobic undertones.

That is the part that really bothered me personally... It really made me feel uncomfortable.

But is it enough to say he is homophobic? I don't think so, but if I'm wrong and it means he is, in what way? You need to give an explanation. Even a short one.

And even with that comment about the bars, if you add the context, you could imagine that maybe he's not talking about the characters but about his real life experience because we know that some people ship him and Sebastian romantically, and if he was talking about that... It could be understandable that he is bothered by that because he's a celebrity and when people make assumptions about celebrity love lifes they can become annoying or even toxic sometimes.

People shipping the two of them romantically makes me unconfortable so I can't imagine how it would make HIM feel.

But anyway, that part of the interview bothered some people and I personally don't think it's enough to call him homophobic but I do think it is worth a discussion.

Unfortunately, most people didn't focus on that... they focused on the shipping or other words that were taken out of context... By mixing everything with the shipping, the battle for a legitmate discussion was already lost before it even started.

Part 3: Your minds were already made up on Anthony Mackie even before the article was published.

I think that what bothers me the most were that some people were waiting for this moment... They were holding their breath until the moment he would finally slip up so they can be hateful in peace.

This is a screenshot of a post from April 2021, way way before this whole story.... Some people already had in their mind that him being a Black masculine man, he was homophobic... and were just waiting for a confirmation it seems.

( I cropped the OP’s blog name to avoid any problems going their way)

I have said this before... But I don’t follow celebrities foolishly. If you think Anthony Mackie gives off homophibic vibes or could be homophobic... you may be right.... but I would need evidence, or an explanation, not just a “vibe”... I asked evidence to that OP or at least an example of an homophobic joke he had made and they blocked me...

I have watched a lot of Anthony Mackie interviews and never got that "vibe" so I really wanted to know. Later, I asked one of my mutual to reach out to ask them about it and the OP finally answered to my mutual and said that an example of a moment they could tell he was homophobic was the interview were Anthony talks about his soft spot.

So that person based their impression of Anthony being homophobic on the fact that Anthony doesn't like to be touched in the back by strangers...Imagine me staring at the camera like I’m in The Office

And this isn't about racism because that person who wrote the post is Black apparently. But it is about how Black men are perceived and stereotypes that are often attached to them.. People make all of these asaumptions on then wait for the moment they can be proven right.

For this OP, a masculine Black man from the south =homophobic ...

And I don't think they are the only one.

What's worse is that they make it sound like all of this is on Anthony:

"Sambucky won't happen because Anthony gives off homophobic vibes"

Not only are they sharing accusations without even a small proof... they are the acting like he would be the only one to blame if Sambucky doesn't happen... Let me tell you that sometimes when I come to Tumblr I want to scream at how irrational people are... Disney has a history of being homophobic and never having any kind of representation, but if Sambucky doesn’t happen, it would be because of Anthony Mackie.

Please, PLEASE!

Anthony Mackie isn't writing the scenarios, he isn’t a Disney Exec.... Does anyone really belive he would walk away from the movie and the contract just because his character is gay, bi or pan? When he has played gay characters in the past??? Why are people trying so so hard to put all the blame on Anthony? I don't understand....

I have also seen "Sambucky won't happen now that Anthony made that interview and said he didn't like it...." How??? How does that even make sense????

What I believe is that a lot of people already had their minds made up about him and were holding their breath until they could finally throw accusations at Anthony because the minute there was a potential scandal... they didn’t try to look for more or try to dig deeper...their mind was already set.

And from then on... their idea were already set on how they were going to interprets the things he said.

For instance, When I first read the article without the context of the audio... I thought a lot of the things Anthony said weren't contreversial because those are ideas expressed on Tumblr every day...the fetishization of some MM ships etc,... But I thought he had expressed it in the worst possible way because he seemed like he was mixing a lot of stuff.... well, I found out later that it was because it was taken out of context.

But even in the context of the article, it was clear to me that Anthony was talking about anybody BUT the Queer fans when talking about the exploitation of homosexuality etc,...

We talk about the fetishization of MM ships by straight women on a weekly basis on Tumblr etc.... What would make anybody think that when Anthony was talking about the some things being “twisted” explotation of homosexuality he was talking about the Queer shippers???

I have joined and left BL fandoms after 2 weeks because of the problems exposed by Anthony. I have seen people who shipped real life actors to the point where it affected the actors's lives. I have seen an actor from a popular M/M ship make a dramatic public statement explaining that nothing will change for his fans that he still loved them and still loved his costars... and made it seem like he had a terminal illness or something....It turned out he had just gotten a girlfriend......?????

And these examples are specific to the BL genre but I have seen similar behavior with some MCU stans.... look at how some (I insist on some) Seb stans react to Seb having a girlfriend (I have seen things).

What made people think Anthony was talking about the queers fans if not the fact that you already had your mind set on the fact a Black man talking about a topic like this was homophobic in some way or the other and some people were just waiting for a confirmation?.

I’m not going to pretend that I wasn’t confused by some parts of the interview. What is “There’s nothing more masculine than being a superhero and flying around and beating people up” even supposed to mean? And it wasn’t the only sentence. But I don’t think any part of his interview deserved the backlash he received.

A discussion? Yes. Remarks? Yes. Blacklash and hate? No.

TL:DR: If you're going to call out Anthony for what he said.... you better be ready to give a few arguments other than.... "bohoo he doesn't ship Sambucky" or “have you seen the headlines?” and you should probably check your own pre-conceived ideas first..

If you come in my asks to tell me I write too much I will save you the trip and tell you... I already know that😂

#anthony mackie #sam wilson #sebastian stan #tfatws #sorry for the long post again #And some words I didn't know how to write but was too tired to look them up #long post

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