#this is just supposed to get the label out there

[cianfries-stuff]

Dean has a secret soft rock mixtape full of Sam’s favorite songs stashed in the driver’s side door, tucked under a dirty rag.

It was supposed to be Sam’s 19th birthday present, but then he left for Stanford, and Dean never knew what to do with it.

He kept it for months, wrapped up in a T-shirt crumpled at the bottom of his duffel, until one day he found it and decided to play it.

Now the tape’s reels are worn out, and the label—sammy’s hideous music—is peeling at the top right corner because Dean played it the whole time Sam was gone.

It’s pathetic, and he doesn’t need it anymore because Sam is right there next to him. But every now and then, when it’s late at night and the road ahead is just a long stretch of blacktop, and Sam is asleep with his temple pressed against the seatback, Dean digs around in the door compartment for the dirty rag and slides the tape into the deck.

He hates it and he’d rather put a bullet in his head than admit that maybe, just maybe, he kind of likes listening to it.

He hums along under his breath, just loud enough to rise over the low, comforting rumble of the engine, and lets the nostalgic taste of the lyrics settle on his tongue. They taste like Sam, and he never gets enough of that.

If Sam sometimes drifts up from sleep just enough to crack an eye open and catch him nodding his head along to I Want to Know What Love Is, well—no one else has to know.

[zhoumeyourlove]

Interested as always!

My top 3 pairings (i.e. my favorite LIs with my semi-developed self-insert MCs that kinda are me but are also definitely not me...it's complicated okay):

OG High School Story: Xavier Lee x Aiden Zhou

The Cursed Heart: Xavier x Kieran

Blades of Light and Shadow: Xavier Parnassus x Mal Volari x Aerin Valleros

If you have any questions, feel free to send me an anonymous ask! I'm also planning to post dedicated MC profiles for OG HSS and TCH (and mayybeee blades depending on how much time i have) during MC appreciation week as well.

Info under the cut!

Also so sorry for submitting this like one hour before the deadline I've been hyperfocused on my art for the MC appreciation week woops

Xavier & Aiden

i think this image loses pixels every time i take it from one exchange entry to the next lol

Headcanons:

HSS!Xavier is an extremely social introvert - he's the life of the party until his social battery runs out

He's a cat person, and Maria's cat Oreo is practically his BFF. He can't have a cat himself because Scott is allergic, but he loves Paquito the hamster as well.

Other than the main 5 friend group (love interests), he's closest to Myra and Cameron since they were all in band together. The summer after Book 3, he made Cameron a genderqueer-flag-colored friendship bracelet to match their necklace because he likes arts and crafts.

HSS!Xavier is a HUGE K-pop fan. Aiden pretends he doesn't like it, but at this point he's been stockholm-syndromed into liking it. I wrote a fic about it <3

Xavier & Kieran

these two are literally bouncing around in my brain all day long you don't even get it

as seen as my profile picture and banner <3

TCH!Xavier is definitely autistic. Obviously that label isn't applied to him, but if you met him in the modern day, you would know.

He and Kieran work well together because they both hate Fae social events. TCH!Xavier hates them because they're overwhelming - too loud, too bright, too many arbitrary social rules. Kieran hates them because he's just antisocial in general lol

Kieran has enchanted all his clothes so that the textures don't bother him <3

He's hyperempathetic

He has a special interest in medicine, particularly medicinal herbs. As a kid he always followed his mother around and learned from her. One of his favorite parts of living in the Fae Woods is discovering all the new plants there and cataloguing their properties. Post-canon, he becomes an apothecary.

He's very physically affectionate

His favorite animals are rabbits. Whenever he sees one in or around the Moon Court gardens, he sits down to watch it (from afar, so as not to scare it)

Xavier & Mal & Aerin

they are a throuple. To Me. But I would also love anything with just MalMC or AerinMC! Or AerinMal, if you want to go for that.

Headcanons:

They are all so mentally ill. This is canon but I want to emphasize it

Blades!Xavier loves the entire party, but his platonic best friends are Imtura (besties since book 1) and Valax

They all take care of the orphanage together!! Mal is obviously great with them. Blades!Xavier is naturally pretty good with kids as well, but not on Mal's level. Aerin is NOT good with kids at first (he gets slightly less awkward later on, but he's still nervous). He's genuinely confused as to what he's supposed to do with them. He does his best! His best just isn't very good.

Blades!Xavier and Mal get together during Book 1, Blades!Xavier gets with Aerin in Book 2, and Mal and Aerin get together probably towards the end of Book 3 timeline?? Still figuring that out.

They abolish the monarchy, so neither Blades!Xavier nor Aerin are princes they're just Dudes. Mal never stops calling Aerin princeling, though.

Choices Secret Admirer: a Valentine's event

What it is:

Think secret Santa but for Valentine's Day.

Everyone who shows interest in participating will be given a match for whom they should create (or commission) a small work (drabble, art, edit, moodboard, etc)

How to participate:

Reblog this post stating your interest AND include your top 3 books/characters/pairings to help guide your match on what they should create for you. (reblogs that do not include a top 3 will not be considered entries for participation)

or, message me here or at @lovealexhunt stating your interest and include your top picks

Note: When listing your interests, please include any preferred gender/race characteristics you may have for customizable character. If you have FCs you are welcome to list them as well.

If you want to participate but would rather not create for a particular user, feel free to message me privately and if you get that person, I'll re-spin the Wheel of Names should you land on that person.

Deadline to participate: February 1

What comes next:

On, or about, February 2nd, I will message you with your match and what they listed as their top interests. [I use Wheel of Names to match users]

You create something for them based on their interests and post it for them on February 14-16.

You do NOT have to create for all 3 pairings, one is enough. The 3 is to give you a choice for what you're comfortable with!

It would also be really nice if you could include a brief positive message of encouragement and/or support with your creation for your match

Please tag this blog and #ChoicesSecretAdmirer2025 as well so I can keep track of who posted and who is missing.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out.

[emmg]

I’m TA’ing for a class this semester that I fundamentally do not fucking understand, and if I, a barely-functional adult who is supposed to be helping, don’t get it, then these poor students are absolutely doomed.

It’s an honors history seminar. And by that, I mean they sit on the floor like a kindergarten yoga class, roll their muscles out with some bougie therapy balls the prof personally purchased, take a 15-minute “reflective staring” break out the window like a bunch of Victorian women recovering from a fainting spell, and then share their feelings about the city. At some point, music just… started playing. 10 more minutes of silence as they were asked to listen and “think.”

The first project, due in two weeks, is just vibes. No specific guidelines, just that it’s worth 10% and don’t go over 6 pages. Just “walk around the city, listen to a social theory audiobook, and draw… something?” Draw what? The concept of capitalism? A deconstructed map of your anxieties? A sad little stick figure contemplating the void?

I have yet to figure out what the fuck this has to do with history. Maybe I’m just a dumbass, but when I took seminars, I learned actual things. Like how to write historiographical papers, research like an academic, and cite sources that existed outside of my own damn imagination. Not whatever avant-garde nonsense this is.

I wouldn’t even be pissed if this was labeled as literally anything other than a HISTORY seminar. Call it “Urban Vibes 101”, “Advanced Feelings About Buildings”, or even “Abstract Interpretations of Public Transportation.” Just not history.

Like, if I signed up for a history seminar, I expect history, y’know, dates, events, historical analysis? Not some experimental art therapy meets existential crisis bullshit where we interpret the soul of the city through interpretive doodles and vague social theory quotes.

At this point, just slap “ethereal musings” on the syllabus and call it a day.

But sure, yeah, let’s roll on the floor and commune with the architecture. I’m sure that’ll prepare these kids for grad school. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[11queensupreme11]

I feel so bad for Percy’s daughters…..

Not just the ones with Cu chulainn, but I mean in general

Cuz like you said, their only options in life is rto be eternal virgins or be married off and that just seems so depressing 🙃

IKR??????? 😭😭😭😭 this isn't even just a god thing, i feel like even pjo goddesses got it better (cuz rick made the books more child friendly and NOT so much like the myths so we can expect the goddesses there to have more freedom) 😭💔💔💔

even we humans got it better to be honest (most, at least). like, we can go to school, get an education, go to work, be independent, we aren't required to get married cuz we now have social security and can live without needing a man. our societies (some at least) are more liberal and no longer as outdated as before!

but the goddesses in my fic???? LMAO 💀👎

their only options in life are:

-- become an eternal maiden goddess and take a vow of eternal virginity; never to get married or have sex and have children

-- remain a virgin until you're married off, which can happen VERY quickly cuz as i mentioned before, gods grow up FAST, some are even born fully grown 💀 live ur entire eternity serving your husband and popping babies for him. be loyal forever, oh but ur husband might not 💀

-- don't do either and be labeled a whore and a disgrace

-- if you're lucky, you could be born as a war goddess and be strong enough to fend off men but you'd also need thick skin to ignore/fight back against any vitriol thrown at you

(do note that all of this strongly depends on the strictness of the pantheon ur from)

percy's poor daughters can't even afford to have crushes or dates like normal girls can. can't experiment. it's literally nothing or marriage 😭😭 NOT EVEN MALE FRIENDSHIPS 😭💔 their dad's would get a heart attack LMAO 😂😂😂

they think this is perfectly normal though cuz this is how they've been raised and how everything else works around them. hopefully they never find out how bad they actually have it, though some might still not even get it 😭💔 poor girlies would get be shocked if they found out their dearest mother had tons of guy friends back in the pjo verse LMAO 😭😭😭

percy would try her best to give her daughters a better life, but they're never gonna get the amount of freedom she once had back in the pjo verse where everything was less conservative, even the gods were chiller back there 💀 it's so hard for her though.

simple things like a crush would be fine back in pjo verse, but in here she'd have to be careful. back home, if you have a crush, it could blossom to a simple date, and then more, and maybe some sex later on and that's FINE, but in ror verse???? helll fucking no. she'd have warn her daughter to be careful. if she gets "sullied" (has sex before marriage), people might turn against her, and her father would either kill the guy or force a marriage, OR punish the daughter. percy HATES the fact that she has to treat something as innocent as a crush as something disastrous, but she's stuck in the ror verse now and things aren't the same as before

befriending a guy? percy would have to plead with her husband to let this happen. it's just a friendship, nothing more! let it happen! but the yan would argue that the male/female friendships aren't normal and that guy might not have friendship in mind, and percy would actually have to pause and think about that because she's not back home anymore, and things here don't work the same way. her husband has a point. male/female friendships ARE considered uncommon here; could this guy really want to simply be friends with her daughter? could he have another motive?

she hates that the most simplest and innocent things aren't so simple and innocent here, that she has to tread carefully on things that were perfectly fine back home.

crushes are supposed to be normal. dating cute guys is supposed to be normal. sex before marriage is okay. not being ready for marriage is okay. wanting time to figure yourself out is OKAY. but in here it's not.

a girl being friends with a guy is normal. she had tons of male friends back home. attended parties with them. went over to their houses. had sleepovers. went on life-altering quests with them. ate with them. etc etc. it's normal and fine. but not here.

she wants to give her daughters freedom, but she's terrified of the thought that this could backfire and do more damage for her daughters.

[transrecursive]

TRANSRECURSIVE

[Image description. First image: One version of the transrecursive flag. The flag has 7 stripes. from top to bottom the stripes are baby blue, pale blue, white, light purple, white, pale pink, and baby pink. The flag is flanked by a baby blue arrow pointing down on the left, and a baby pink arrow pointing up on the right. Second image: Another version of the transrecursive flag. The same as the previous version, but rotated 180 degrees, so now the pink stripe is at the top with the pink arrow pointing down, and the blue stripe is at the bottom with the blue arrow pointing up. End image description.]

Transrecursive when used as an identity label describes an individual who may have one or more of the following experiences with their gender:

a feeling or desire for a simultaneous and harmonious transition in both masculine and feminine directions

a feeling or desire to transition in alternating directions (for example, transitioning towards masculinity then back to femininity, or vice versa, perhaps multiple times.)

a feeling or desire to transition to a gender similar to what they were assigned at birth, that they may have felt denied access to earlier in life and now want to reclaim on their own terms. (E.G. unwanted gender reassignment, rejection from similar gendered peers, or being pressured to conform to the expectations of their assigned gender to the point of feeling alienated from it)

another similar experience, leading to what may be felt or described as a "repetitive" or "fractal" gender.

In use as a broader term, transrecursive is meant to act as an inclusive umbrella term for "contradictory" identities such as afab transfem and amab transmasc, without relying on assigned gender language. It also includes transfemmasc/transmascfem, and certain expressions of multigender or genderfluid.

Intersex voices should be centered in discussions of the transrecursive identity and community, but the label is not exclusive to intersex people and may be used by anyone.

Recursive transitioning is not the same as detransitioning. The distinction is in that the goal is not to "return" to the previously assigned gender, but to instead transition a second/third/nth time, continually transition, or to transition to a gender considered similar to what the individual was assigned at birth. That being said, people who have detransitioned are not inherently excluded from using the label.

Transrecursive people might identify as:

AFAB transfem, AMAB transmasc

FTM transfem, MTF transmasc

Transrecursive [man, woman, person, transfem, transmasc, or any other label] (or with no addition at all)

Gender recursive or sex recursive

Recurfem, Recurmasc, Recurgirl/woman, Recurboy/man, etc. Combinations such as Recurgirlboy or Recurfemmasc are also acceptable.

FTMTF or MTFTM (or other variants such as FTNTM, FTMTN, MTFTN, MTNTF)

Or anything else they want, as it is not mutually exclusive with any other identity label, even cisgender.

The flag's meaning and symbolism:

The use of pinks, blues, and white and the order of stripes are meant to pay homage the original transgender flag. Purple is added as the center stripe to represent the centering of intersex transrecursives, as well as to be evocative of the lavender stripe, representing diversity, added by Gilbert Baker to his original pride flag in 2017.

The arrows and their opposing orientations represent a "circular" or "contradictory" transition, as well as symbolizing movement and personal growth.

The flag is meant to be reversible, and may be flipped or drawn in any direction according to personal preference, as long as the stripes remain in their original "ombre" order with purple in the center, and the arrows remain in opposing directions.

This flag and label were designed/coined by me (the creator of this post and mod of this blog, @transrecursive.) No credit is needed to use the flag individually, but please at least let me know and consider citing this blog/post if you're going to be making money from using it (E.G. making pride merch)

[inkskinned]

you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.

you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.

he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.

a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.

he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.

you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.

people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.

wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.

also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.

he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."

you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.

"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."

he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.

you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.

is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?

you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.

[kyouka-supremacy]

//

[serpentface]

What's the Wardi cultural take on Akoshos sleeping with/partnering with/marrying other Akoshos?

It's not highly regulated to a degree that there are overwhelming cultural norms about it. There's a lot of societal focus on akoshos being theoretically suitable sexual partners for both men and women due to being dual-gendered, but not to an extent that relationships with One Another are stigmatized.

They also largely get to escape from the most severe concerns about penetrator/penetrated power dynamics because they're not regarded as Men (they're regarded as dual-gendered, and they're a female social class on every practical level), there's no status of manhood to Lose by receiving sexual penetration. The only real thing you see in that department is people assuming that one acts as 'the man' and one acts as 'the woman', but this is largely due to preoccupation with a notion of sex being Penetration With A Penis (and that Penetration With A Penis means that one person is in a Man's Role and one person is in a Woman's Role). But this will not be regarded as unnatural as in same-gender male relations, akoshos will Have to take up a position in this sexual dichotomy if they want to have Real Sex (Penetration With A Penis) with each other, and this is not unnatural and doesn't involve gaining or losing status since they are simultaneously male and female, not men.

So like you might see individual culture critics finding stuff to nitpick about it as their annoyance of the week or a singular Guy here or there who thinks it's weird, but this isn't a widespread norm. The vast majority of people don't give a shit about akoshos having sex with each other. The worst thing you're likely to experience Solely by virtue of being in an akoshos-akoshos relationship is someone asking you (probably with genuine curiosity) which one does the man stuff and which one does the woman stuff.

Akoshos also don't experience Hard expectations for marriage (though there are societal pressures that make marriage an attractive safety net all the same, ESPECIALLY marriage to a man) so unofficial life-partnerships between akoshos are pretty much the Only same gender partnerships between unwed people that are going to go unquestioned. ((Sworn brotherhood is technically a same gender life partnership for men that is Functionally similar to marriage (in that it's a kin-making practice between unrelated adults), but the tradition is Built upon the assumption that both parties will be married to women and that a primary goal of this kinship is to provide security for both parties' wives and children)). Marriage obligations in general are more lax in the economically secure but not Wealthy lower mercantile classes (as obligations to support and perpetuate one's family are universal, but these obligations can be filled simply by having at least One son who can get hitched, and marriages in the lower classes have no political functions and therefore there's less reason to ensure All your children are wed (there's still incentives like dowry, but this is not desperately needed when a family is economically secure)). So akoshos in this class group tend to have a Lot more freedom in terms of their life arrangements and chosen partners (though still experience the limiting frameworks of structural misogyny in other capacities).

The only thing that is out of the picture is akoshos/akoshos marriage. Marriage in this society has a predominantly reproductive function, the concept of reproductively non-viable marriages is generally considered absurd. This is not JUST this culture's form of homophobia, as marriage is a very practical arrangement at its core - both in a reproductive capacity and as bedrock for the patriarchal blood-kinship family system that forms the core social unit. The idea of same gender marriage isn't just absurd because 'ewwww weird' it's like, that Cannot work within this system, it Cannot fill core functions of what a marriage intends to do here, the ways on which marriage and kinship are BUILT makes same gender marriage practically (rather than just socially) untenable.

The sole exception to the 'marriage = reproductively viable" rule is that akoshos can be married to men (which in practice is almost always as a remarriage after a man has secured At Least an heir). This has a Little bit of internal logic here in that they perform predominantly female social roles (thus are suited to being a wife, even if they can't bear children) (and also on practical levels of them having the same legal status as women) but it's really more of a 'this is just how it's always been' kind of thing. A lot of the older pre-Wardi identity dual-gender roles that got mashed together under the 'akoshos' name would have involved marriage to a man as a second wife/concubine, in addition to his primary wife who would bear his children. Men potentially having multiple spouses has not been retained as a cultural practice, but the notion that an akoshos Can be a wife to a man has survived into modern day legal and doctrinal practices around marriage.

So like this being said, marriage as it is legally defined is only between a man and a woman, a man and an akoshos, or a woman and an akoshos. In practice the latter two are comparatively VERY rare- a man/akoshos marriage cannot provide children (though an akoshos can practically fulfill all other obligations and duties of a wife), a woman/akoshos marriage Can provide children (and while akoshos cannot function as a male heir, these children Will take their akoshos-parent's family name (though the wife retains her father's family name)), but akoshos are legally grouped with women in terms of rights and privileges (including being permanently under legal domain of their father unless they have been legally handed off to a male husband) and Cannot provide hard power patriarchal support that this family system is built upon and therefore depends upon, which makes these marriages socio-economically insecure. They can obviously still be a good partner and parent, but this is not the same as having the Legal hard power of a patriarch.

Akoshos marrying each other would be reproductively and socially nonviable, and is treated as a similarly absurd concept to a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman. It's just not a part of the marriage and kinship framework, it's not a thing that you can Do.

[phoenixcatch7]

Security breach's story (including ruin) was super weird, right? Left a lot unexplained, introduced a lot of confusing elements, cleared nothing up, and made it worse with the ending of ruin. Very frustrating.

But.

I have a bold claim - in this essay I'm going to tell you that I think I've found the unifying theory of security breach, INCLUDING ruin. And no, it's nothing that's mentioned in the actual game.

It's 'Remnant'.

Now presumably matpat or some other theorist has made more detailed connections and I just haven't been able to find it, and I'm a casual fan at best lol. But I'm quite chuffed, so. I'm sharing.

Remnant is basically glowing soul juice produced by high emotions - children, trauma, excitement, suffering, death. Ectoplasm, essentially. It gets into physical objects and stores that emotion, like how a stuffed teddy is full of love or a torture device is full of pain. Yay!

Afton, during his killing spree, harvested this remnant from kids to fuel his plan for immortality (or something). He discovered along the way that if it was infused into a material like metal, then it could be shaped and, when combined with any form of intelligence ('even ai', he says!) it acts as a source of independent power 'that translates into movement, which is why things may appear haunted'. Ergo, animatronics. His perfect army of golems and test subjects.

The first round was, of course, fnaf 1, with the children literally stuffed into the suits to power them, which, yikes, horrible, and in a food establishment? Later he figured out how to skip the rotting corpse step and directly infuse metal, which made it temperature volatile and apparently hard to store. Anything is better than the first round. This resulted in sister location with the scooper, which could (as best I figure?) take the remnant out directly and store it for later use. It could also recycle animatronics, to scrap them without wasting all that precious soul juice that could theoretically power something forever.

Anyway, decades later, the same company is still running, and their precious 'animatronics' are now full on artificially intelligent robots with an army of drone cleaners and a dozen well covered up missing children.

You see where I'm going with this?

I think the glam rock animatronics are crafted out of the newest, highest grade remnant metal to bring them to life (maybe a little too much)... and to aid in the gathering of remnant to power Trap/afton, in his little recharge pod under the earth, at vannys direction. (And presumably all that after hour neon lighting, let's be real.)

The animatronics are all secretly equipped with track and destroy technology - roxy with her sensitive ears and x-ray eyes, chica with her stunlock voice box, monty with his metal rending claws and pouncing ability... Freddy with his chest cavity big enough to fit a small child. Like old times!

I swear the daycare attendant has infrared vision and very possibly direct access to the cctv, but anyway. (I also swear freddy collapsing on stage and triggering the safety protocol after hours was the only thing keeping him from joining, even leading the pack of machines to comb the place and take Gregory down to the scooper by trick or by stick, and Gregory almost made a fatal decision when he hid in the chest cavity. No freddy has ever been nice after hours, and there's no reason given why this one is.)

Back to the DA, it gives the implications of their old power core (freddys original upgrade and heavily theorised to have previously belonged to the only 'tronic out during the hourly recharge) a whole new meaning. Perhaps the setting of the daycare and all that happy sugar high children energy making happy memories was a perfect environment for a low level (experimental? Inefficient?) sort of... Emotional photosynthesis? It would explain why one half is the daycare and the other is the security patrol. Food for thought. Obviously freddy isn't able to receive all those benefits for a number of reasons.

(And it might explain the poor treatment of the DA, too, if the core was removed for some reason, and why sun is struggling so hard to keep his hopes up if it can no longer absorb and process literal happiness vibes for the best haunting ever. Poor guy always gets the short end of the stick. Maybe it also explains why the DA is the only animatronic to glow... because of the remnant metal? The extra juice they were supposed to have?)

Yeah, but what about ruin? How does it fit into this?

Well, for one, the new scooper. It's the literal gathering tool and storage place for all this remnant, so it's presumably pretty vital. Afton is parked directly above it in a recharge pod, sucking up all that sweet sweet juice. He's literally drinking children's tears, the monster.

And the mimic. Because there's a second part to remnant that only becomes relevant now. It's the worst and strongest emotion that can only be created through immense pain and suffering. 'Agony'. A black sludge of distilled horrors. And the thing is, it's highly infectious. But agony is useless. Unless it's combined with remnant in a specific way, and the resulting reaction is extremely powerful and dangerous.

The mimic is infected with agony. And it's found itself probably the biggest source of remnant in the world. The battery of (potentially) the whole pizza plex, and every animatronic inside it. (Moon may well have been the first infected... If the patrol animatronic encountered the mimic on its arrival. Ooh, now there's a thought. It's more likely it saw and tried to stop vanny from some unethical activity (it's a purely robot job!) And she... Prevented it from becoming a recurring issue with the glitch code. Ah, but there's no proof.)

Either all that remnant is now corrupted, or converted. My money is not on converted because the mimic is not spreading a plague of suffering across the land, and is instead trying to lure kids in again to replenish the remnant. And the poor animatronics are still clinging to blackened, crippled life.

It certainly would explain why the company just dropped the entire location without either bulldozing it to the ground or trying to scavenge and repair. With the animatronics infected with agony, it's far too dangerous to do either, and of course officials absolutely cannot find out.

TLDR: I think the missing puzzle piece is 'Remnant' to explain aftons presence, the strangely alive animatronics, the point of all those child disappearances Gregory was supposed to be investigating, the scooper, the mimic, vannys actual job as head enabler for afton, the animatronic's violent upgrades, the true goal of the pizza plex and why it was built over the sinkhole, but most importantly... how they're footing that electricity bill.

But hey ;D! That's just a theory!

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Loudest Silence

YA contemporary

a newly Deaf-Hard of hearing girl moves across the country and starts a new school, struggling with navigating her disability and love for singing and lost friendships - determined to not make any new friends for the year she’s in Florida

and a boy struggling with family expectations and anxiety, after being made the fútbal captain even though he secretly ways to be on broadway, who quickly befriends her

bi & aroace-coded MCs

[poorlydrawnjoey]

as someone who has a history with denying their gender identity and trying to be "normal" despite VERY clearly knowing what they want, seeing a character who is actually repressive and in denial about their sexuality means the world to me. I love you girl I hope you get through this.

[Joey Claire sitting grumpily with a ripped up lesbian flag behind her]

[jrueships]

guess whos not going in at all this week, actually

[arillusionist]

IM ACTUALLY GONNA HAVE A BREAKDOWN WHAT IS THIIISS???????? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEYRE BREAKING UP????????

[dewgongs]

ughh why do i have to have njghtmares about them

[shiikiyun]

I find the woobification of milgram characters and the oversimplification of their crimes to pull a "but theyre all murderers" equally annoying and i think yall would benefit of critical thinking

[threnodians]

the way that i desperately do not want to go to work tomorrow night, i am genuinely so over it for the first time ever (at least it’s only 3hrs but i am probably going to have to stay late which seems to be a recurring thing nowadays but hey extra money am i right)

anyways ily all and i appreciate you all and i hope that you’re all having a lovely day/night/whatever it is where you are 💕