#ultimately it's great news that i dont have to do that. but i still very much would like to have a new phone.

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

never have I played any nights at Freddy fazbears

pls explain the whole plot and all lore to me as if I were small and slightly stupid

oh great timing i literally JUST explained this to my asoue discord

this is a VERY simple summary, but things to keep in mind while reading:

very very VERY little of this is directly spelled out for us. the creator, scott cawthon, LOVES to confuse people on purpose and the vast majority of the lore is gleaned from hidden minigames, secret cutscenes, and easter eggs. this makes things very confusing and controversial within the fanbase, so im gonna try to explain where there are differing opinions

really, there's two main stories: the first main story was completed with FNAF6 and Ultimate Custom Night, the story going on rn is the second and it is still ongoing. as such, a lot of the lore is still a mystery to all of us.

For clarity's sake, I will divide this between: THE AFTON STORY, the one the movie's gonna tell a part of, and THE GLITCH STORY, which the games are going through

dont worry i will make it fun to go through so it doesnt feel like school

ok lets go

THE AFTON STORY

First, let's get a visual chart in here. don't worry it's just for show

These are the important families we will be talking about; the Emily family, with father Henry and daughter Charlie, and the Afton Family, with father William, two sons (Michael and a boy who is still unnamed, he might get named on friday? We call him Crying Child "CC") and a daughter, Elizabeth. Don't worry about the mothers they're not important

Okay so here's the thing: of these four children, all but Michael die VERY early on in the timeline

The problem is we do NOT know THE ORDER each of them died. There's a lot of arguments on all sides but I personally think the order is sad boi->charlie->baby so imma present it in that order. But keep in mind that we don't actually know because of the confusing way the lore is dropped.

okay so for starters.

Backstory/FNAF4

purple guy is william afton and he and this guy vcalled henry start opening a restaurant chain starring freddy fazbear

in the original location they've got two animatronic suits, fredbear and spring bonnie. the other location has freddy, bonnie, foxy, chica

the og location suits are ~special~ tho, bc henry and william are crazy inventor dudes. these suits are called "springlock suits". they function as full animatronics but you can wind all the wires and gears and endoskeleton and shit back and step into the costume yourself. only problem is the safety is jackshit and if you like. cry or sweat or breathe wrong the springlocks will fail and the metal will come crashing back and crush u to death. u should have enough time to get to the back room so u dont bleed out in front of the customers tho. springlock suits are important remember those

michael is in his early teens and has just learned how to be a shit to his siblings and is trying out this hot new bullying thing. he's picking a lot on CC because CC is terrified of the freddy animatronics. it is said that he "saw something" that scared him, it could be anything as benign as "saw someone go into the suit and got freaked out" to something as serious as "saw one of those aforementioned springlock failures and person bleeding out." could also be charlie or elizabeth's death if those happen earlier in the timeline. again we dont know bc cawthon likes to confuse us

CC is not scared of the freddy characters tho, he has all the plushies and calls them his friends. he's just scared of the animtronics. unfortunately his dad works there so he has to be there like 90% of the time so he's having a wonderful time. hence the moniker "crying child". bc he cries all the time

anyway at his birthday party, michael decides it would be really funny to shove CC up into the animatronic's mouth for kicks. this goes about as well as you'd expect cause the mouth closes and fuckin. crushes his head

kid goes into a coma for a while but eventually flatlines. while he's in the coma we hear michael tearfully apologizing, and his fredbear plush talks to him (presumed to be william) saying he will "put him back together"

anyway that was fun. so next up charlie emily gets FUCKING MURDERED

Backstory/FNAF1-2

for some reason charlie gets locked outside the pizzeria. william's driving by and decides to stab her bc why not

honestly most of us believe that this occured after CC just bc it gives william motivation to be pissy at his business partner and kill his kid abt it, but also a book that released a month ago implies that william might have been nightmare gassing his kids for shits and giggles so. who knows. dont worry about that btw its not relevant rn

anyway the thing is willie and henry had an animatronic designed to protect the children called the puppet. the puppet sees charlie outside and goes out to help her but it's raining so it fries up the puppet's circuits and it crashes on top of her dead body. cheery!

except this is where it gets wild bc charlie proceeds to like. possess the puppet

possession is really complicated in this universe but basically there's no real way to communicate openly with people and the possesser might not even be aware of who or where they are or anything really but. yeah the lil girl def possesses the puppet

its after this that william starts killing kids for funsies. a lot of us presume that he saw the puppet getting possessed and was like "holy shit a way to bring crying kid back" but again he might've just decided this was fun

anyway he lures five kids into the Secret Freddy's Backroom That Is Not On The Maps by wearing the spring bonnie costume. after killing them he shoves them into the other animatronic suits (freddy, bonnie, chica, foxy, fredbear "golden freddy") and yeah they start gettin possessed

the fifth missing kid was stuffed in fredbear and here's where it gets veeery theoretical cause we dont have straight confirmation of this but just some theories. it's VERY likely that crying child was also haunting fredbear at this point, and shoving another kid in there got two kids haunting the same bitch and it causes fredbear (golden freddy) to be really fucking weird and glitchy and eldritch or w/e. anyway you dont have to worry about that rn cause golden freddy doesnt show up much they're too busy ascending or smth

now this is where the lore gets confusing-- the first game claims that after the last two were lured, someone was caught on camera, arrested and charged. however we know for a fact willie-boi wasnt caught so either 1) this got retconned when cawthon decided to actually make lore, 2) he wasnt convicted and somehow still kept a hold on the fazbear empire during this, or 3) a lot of us theorize that henry was framed for the crimes and thats why he disappears from the timeline until the sixth game. cause yeah he disappears from the timeline until the sixth game. personally i believe the third it makes a lot of sense but yeah willie-boi stops killing at about five kids

anyway will is going full scientist with all these animatronics and he's like. ripping parts off them and putting them on other animatronics to see what happens. we THINK. again this is really vague but this is just kinda the most logical explanation here.

anyway this is what happens in fnaf2 and what it does is like. split the souls and shit. and he's like "oh this is sick" except this makes all the suits act erratic as hell and very angry towards adults (theyre cool with kids tho) and eventually one of them causes the infamous Bite of 87. we're not entirely sure what it was but one of the animatronics bit off the frontal lobe of someone in 1987. this caused this location to get shut down and willie boi just puts the pieces back on the og animatronics and is like "well shit what do we do now boys"

FNAF5: Sister Location

anyway so this is where we think elizabeth dies in the timeline. william makes these things called the "funtime animatronics"-- we know they are made after a fnaf location shuts down, though it's not specified which. these animatronics are built SPECIFICALLY to kidnap children. ballora is built as a distraction for parents, the other two are built to only move when not seen, and then Circus Baby™ has an arm that can grab kids and drag thtem into her until willie lets em out. she is programmed to only do this when a child is alone in the room so william tells elizabeth "do not go see baby when you are alone in the room"

so elizabeth is like 6 and she goes to see baby when she is alone in the room and baby grabs her but the arm is fucked up and the kid dies p badly

funtime's location is then immediately closed due to "gas leaks" and william rents out the funtimes for parties. at the same time he starts shoving some haunted parts into the funtime animatronics to see what happens. we THINK.

important location here btw is the "scooping room." it's actually very good horror but basically it's a bitch that is supposed to rip the endoskeletons out of the suit whenever theyre malfunctioning. super smart idea that will cause no nightmares going forwards.

anyway the animatronics all kinda know that william killed them so after a while (a few years??? who knows) they start trying to kill him and he's like "hmm. i cannot go into this bunker anymore. let me send michael, my last surviving kid who i hate." this is where michael, now an adult, re-enters the timeline.

mikey boy is told by his dad that he can bring his baby sis back to life if he goes down into this bunker and does some shit. michael is like "oh sweet" bc honestly he probably still feels guilty about literally killing his bro and so he goes down to the bunker.

the animatronics eventually tell him "go into the scooping room it'll be totes mcgotes" and when he gets there he finds out that the animatronics have killed all the other employees, scooped themselves, and fused their endoskeletons into one conglomerate called ennard

ennard is like "yeah we cant escape here cause they just bring us back so we're gonna use you as a skinsuit k thnx" and they scoop him and use him as a skinsuit

it's really good horror i promise

BUT this turned out to be a bad plan because Humans Decay so after like a week ennard gets puked up by the MikeSuit and escapes into the sewers.

here, meanwhile, is where mike pulls a reverse uno card and possesses his own decaying corpse

LIKE A FUCKING BADASS

he then calls up his dad and is like "hey dad :) elizabeth's fine now :) BUT :) they fucking killed me :) because they thought i was you :) you sure sent me down here to die huh :) anyway :) im gonna come find you :) you have a ten minute head start start running :)"

actor really fucking sold that monologue too ngl

so he's like. PISSSSSSED and rightfully so he is walking around in his own corpse. so he goes to find his dad

Backstory/FNAF3

this is about when peepaw willie goes back to the original fnaf location (we THINK) and is like "ok im just gonna take apart all the animatronics and do something with these"

only when he destroys the suits the missing kids' ghosts show up and spook him. so this guy who's been studying ghosts is like "oh fuckshit there's ghosts here" and tries to hide in the spring bonnie suit. only he laughs and this causes the springlocks to malfunction and FUCKING VIOLENTLY KILL HIM. get springlocked idiot

except then HE possesses the spring bonnie suit and this is springtrap. but also he's in a super secret back room while this happens so he is trapped there for a while

FNAF6

so ennard, michael and william are fuckin around for a couple years. at some point ennard decides that elizabeth is kinda a freak actually and kicks her out of the hivemind so she just rebuilds herself a circus baby suit and keeps wanderin around so now we got four bitches doing who knows what

eventually it's been 30 years since the last freddy's closed and someone opens up a haunted house parody of it. mike goes to work there as a security guard* and guess what they found springtrap and bring him to the attraction thinking he's just an animatronic. after five nights of fucking with him mike sets the place on fire to try and finally kill his dad fr. it does not work

*note that this isnt confirmed to be michael but we kinda. all know it's probably him. it really seems to be him

anyway then michael finds out that an actual fazbear's is opening and needs an owner so he goes and becomes owner of the restaraunt. while some guy on a cassette tape is giving him tutorial instructions he sets up the place and also collects several animatronics. these are:

scraptrap (peepaw post-fire and really pissed)

scrapbaby (elizabeth now thinking that maybe if she kills things her dad will pay attention to her)

molten freddy (remains of ennard still not entirely sure what's going on)

lefty (a bear solely built to capture the puppet, who was still fuckin around the fnaf2 location i guess. anyway now the puppet is here thats important)

so after our five nights scrapbaby comes on the speaker system and is like "omg dad if we kill people will you love me. we're gonna kill soooo many people it's my passion actually" and that's when the cassette tutorial guy interrupts her

and he just goes "yeah. you're not doing that"

anyway he's like "hi guys. you remember me??? henry??? from 30 years ago?? i owned half this business? you killed my daughter and stuffed her soul in a puppet? lmao yeah i literally lured you all here and you came like the fucking idiots you are. im setting the place on fire, we're all gonna die and go to heaven. except for YOU, WILL. you are not going there. lmao bye" and he sets the place on fire and they all burn. it's more epic when he says it tbh

now henry mentions that he had an escape route ready for the building owner but he figured out the owner was michael and was like "i feel like you wanna stay and burn with us" and michael's like "fuck yeah"

you might think that wraps up the story nicely but OH NO THERE'S MORE

Ultimate Custom Night

see, the next game is ultimate custom night where you can choose which animatronics hunt you and their level of difficulty. it is through hidden messages and shit that we find out that ucn is, canonically, william being tortured in hell. which is sick af

anyway the tormentor is a spirit labelled "the vengeful spirit" in the files, and "the one you should not have killed" by the animatronics. we sometimes hear either a light voice behind the other animatronic lines (could be either a woman with a light voice, a little girl, or a little boy), and the pic that sometimes shows up as a hallucination is a distorted photo of scott cawthon's son. we know for a FACT this spirit is someone from the fnaf6 fire cause they reference the fire more than once while poking willie with a stick. it's probably not elizabeth cause she was just tryin to get her dad's attention. it's not charlie/puppet bc one of her lines is like "ffs just stay out of my way for ONCE." we also know for a fact it's not henry cause they were like "henry sure tried to release us huh. not happening im not letting you go that easily bitch haha" so that narrows it down to michael and the missing kids

now here's the thing.

the vaaaaast majority of the fandom is convinced that the vengeful spirit is cassidy, the missing child that was stuffed inside golden freddy with cc. this is because golden freddy is in a looot of ultimate custom night and if you beat the hardest mode you just get a quick cutscene of him glitching and then everything fades to black

however. i have seen legiterally no convincing evidence that this is the case. all we know about cassidy is she is the golden freddy missing kid and was talking to cc through the logbook. and we BARELY know this. in the alternate universe book she first showed up in (the silver eyes) she wasn't even the golden freddy kid. people point out a similar situation to her and cc in fazbear frights where one of the kids was tormenting william (stitchwraith) but that's literally a whole separate universe and completely separate characters with separate backstories and personalities

there's a sprite in security breach who fights glitchtrap (explained below) who was named in the files as "cassidy" so ppl point to that but 1) they changed that name after people made a deal out of it, 2) that could mean literally anything, 3) the protag of the next game was named "cassie" and her story kinda paralleled the sprite's first game so uuhhhh anyway

honestly i think it's WAY more likely the vengeful spirit is mr michael "i'm going to come find you and set you on fire twice" afton, using his childhood likeness to fuck with his dad. this is strengthened by one of the easter egg cutscenes in ucn, where the vengeful spirit talks to a benevolent spirit who tells them to "leave the demon to his demons. there is nothing for you here." the audio in the background is someone distortedly screaming "HENRY" and "MICHAEL"

one of the animatronic lines also says "is this a prison for you or for me? perhaps both" implying that the vengeful spirit feels like they belong in hell, which would fit with mike's "i killed my brother" self-loathing. the golden freddy glitch could very easily be his mental anguish as well as william's, with the optional cutscene telling us that while michael is self-harming by torturing his dad in hell, he has the ability to move on and find peace if he can forgive himself. honestly i really like that open ending there

another point towards "vengeful mike" theory is that we play as him for most of the games (definitely 5 and 6, most likely 1 and 3, some theorize 4) and so him being the vengeful spirit is way more emotionally impactful than "random kid #5"

however every time i bring this up to the fnaf fandom they get really really pissy at me because y'all love ur angry lil girl cassidy headcanons and honestly that is completely fair i also love angry lil girls. im just saying this bc we're going over whats canon rn and i firmly believe in vengeful mike (thank @birdsareblooming for that) but yknow. cassidy is also fun as hell

i wrote a whole essay on this btw these are just the cliffnotes. do you guys wanna see the essay

anyway that's where the afton story ends but OHHH NO MR CAWTHON CANNOT STOP

if you just want a quick catchup before the movie you can stop here but anyway. let's talk mimicry

THE GLITCH STORY

the games coming out recently are kinda a sequel-story and bc theyre still coming out we are still very confused about what the fuck is canon and what is not so this one will be a lot more guessing. i digress let's talk about

Help Wanted

so back on earth, it's the 2020s-2030s. turns out the fazbear company is still functional and they're like "well shit guys what the FUCK do we do about all of That"

so they decide they need a brand cleansing and what they do is they secretly hire an "indie game developer" to make the fnaf games in-universe, to make light of the tragedies and make people take them less seriously. they pretend to have beef with this indie dev but eventually put all of his games into a VR game as a show of "good faith." somehow this actually does work in revitalizing the brand image

also sidenote but the books imply that the indie dev was kidnapped and gaslit into making the games but thats not important

now see there's a glitch in the game and the beta-tester jeremy mentions it and then gets increasingly withdrawn and obsessive. because it turns out there is a Bitch in here

now. the identity of the Bitch is uh. controversial in the fandom rn. i will say for clarity that i am in Party Two and will probably be biased towards that but here's the thing. the Bitch is either:

a digital upload of william afton's soul (somehow escaping hell)

THE MIMIC

Help Wanted Interlude: The Mimic

see, the other books (silver eyes, fazbear frights) are set in a parallel universe-ish to the books, similar rules and worldbuilding but cawthon can fuck around all he wants with no consequences. there were charliebots and springtrap mpreg at one point it was nuts. but the thing is right now they're kinda trying to tell us that the current series, tales from the pizzaplex, is game-canon. god only knows if they'll stick to that so some people think the books are in the game's universe, others think they're parallels to the games and not 1-1 exact much like the others

but anyway they give us crucial lore on The Mimic so here we go

some guy named edwin (some think he's a parallel to henry or william, but rn we're just gonna assume he's canon) is a single dad to a toddler. however he's working for fazbear making all these animatronics and he's sooo busy and needs something to distract the toddler so he creates a fucked up nightmare animatronic called The Mimic, whose programming is extremely basic: "copy whatever you see being done"

the toddler actually loves the fucked up nightmare animatronic and teaches him to play patty-cake and carry around stuffed animals or w/e. anyway then the toddler runs out into the street and gets hit by a car

edwin is still grieving and the mimic comes up carrying the toddler's stuffed animal and still copying him and when the mimic that edwin programmed to copy things is still copying things edwin snaps and just beats the fuck out of it bc he needs a grief outlet. he then abandons the thing but however the mimic has just learned Violence

some employees come by to see where edwin's animatronics are and the mimic just starts killing all of them bc. well. it's supposed to copy things. it will copy things

there's a BIG GAP here in what happens to it next but it disappears for the next 30 years. however it is heavily, HEAVILY implied that it witnessed at least one of the missing children incidents

fazbear actually has a Lot of mimic endoskeletons but bc they start copying violent shit they shut them all down. however they all run on the same program, "mimic1" and fazbear keeps that tech around cause you know it could be helpful

Back to Help Wanted

now here is where the "we only THINK this is canon we dont knkow yet" comes in

back to the vr game, they are just shoving random old pieces of code in there to speefd up the process of making the game cause capitalism doesnt like long development times. this puts the mimic1 program into the program and it immediately sees All Of Afton's Crimes In 4K. it decides "oh yeah i can mimic this but i should probably get a physical body in order to do that"

so beta tester jeremy sees the mimic program, which takes the form of Spring Bonnie Suit. this is Glitchtrap

now keep in mind that some people do still believe that all this aint happenin and the spring bonnie glitch is just william. again i personally believe the mimic cause it makes more sense than "william escaped hell somehow" but w/e

anyway, glitchtrap is fuckin around. it tries to possess beta tester jeremy and in order to stop it, jeremy does the sensible thing and cuts his own face off

so glitchtrap is like "hmm. that didn't work out" and decides to go for the more subtle approach. the next beta tester, currently unnamed, starts recording tapes inside the game to send to the next beta tester so they dont fuck with glitchtrap. glitchtrap however seals itself inside the tapes so that when the beta testers try to delete it, it'll instead be inside the tapes and cant be removed lmao. it then "mimics" tape girl's voice and adds a last tape saying "let him possess you its ok i promise"

it also mimics her intro of "hello can you hear me" in the one time it speaks so. mimic

anyway the next beta tester is this gal named vanessa and she gets possessed like suuuper quickly and glitchtrap is like "oh fucking FINALLY"

Security Breach Therapy Tapes

vanessa's acting weird at work so company requires her to go to therapy, however she has the same therapist as Another Patient. this patient will be named later however right now we're calling them Patient 46. they do not talk but have the same therapist as Vanessa and is creepy about it. anyway whenever a therapist prods too much into either Vanessa or P46's life, or discovers them fucking with fazbear tech, the therapist mysteriously goes missing and shows up later dead and mangled by machinery

they go through like five of these bitches at least, but it's clear P46 is another bitch possessed by glitchtrap but they're like more possessed than vanessa is so glitchtrap likes them better

BUT THAT'S ALL BORING, WE'VE GOT A PIZZAPLEX NOW!!!

Security Breach

fazbear opens a giant 80s-style mall with a ton of attractions like disneyland or w/e and call it the Mega Pizzaplex. There's state-of-the-art animatronics in here that are basically sentient ai. they might be possessed but we're not actually sure rn they might just be advanced robots

they start with "glamrock" freddy, bonnie and chica, along with roxy wolf instead of foxy. we're not sure why rn. anyway at some point something suspicious happens and bonnie is found mangled and he's replaced with montgomery gator, a c-list animatronic they had to run the golf course. he doesnt seem to take the spotlight well and has started breaking things but its probably fine

anyway they eventually realize they can automate the staff and stop paying human beings and they jump on that cause they love cutting costs. they've got staffbots everywhere except for ONE person- vanessa, who is hired as the security guard. we find a note saying that her interviewer found her too inexperienced for the position, but someone "very" high up in the company pushed her into the role. this is implied to be glitchtrap taking over the systems

so vanessa and P46 are shoving glitchtrap into the systems because, well, guess what? the pizzaplex is built on top of the fnaf6 location. the one where henry set them all on fire, and they're trying to do some sort of shit with the burnt remains of springtrap. if you believe in william!glitchtrap he's trying to get his body back; if you believe in mimic!glitchtrap he's trying to fuse himself to afton's corpse in order to gain a corporeal form. it also helps that there is The OG Mimic Endoskeleton in this area (its explained in the books im not going into it) but it's pretty fuckin damaged so they gotta spend some time fixing it before fusing it with peepaw's corpse

but the night they're supposed to do that, something goes wrong: a child is loose in the pizzaplex

glamrock freddy had a malfunction onstage, and when he wakes up in his room, there is a child hiding in his stomach compartment (used for oversized piñatas and cakes). this child is named gregory and he looks suspiciously like the crying child and we dont have an explanation for that but no, matpat, he's not a robot, it's probably just symbolism

anyway gregory actually has like very little memory of what's going on and barely remembers his own name but he says that vanessa the security guard is trying to fuckin kill him so he needs to get tf out of the pizzaplex. freddy's like "well you're shit out of luck cause the doors close and seal until 6am but that's fine we can make it til then" and gregory's like "fucking JOY"

long story short gregory has to run around the pizzaplex while every animatronic but freddy is trying to kill him. freddy is not trying to kill him bc his malfunction caused him to enter Safe Mode and it turns out that Safe Mode is safe from the glitchtrap virus. everyone else, however, gets glitchtrapped and is trying to kill this kid

you dont find out why until like laaaate in the game and even THEN you're confused until one of the goosebumps-knockoff short stories confirms a thing, and that thing is:

gregory is patient 46

oh shit

turns out gregory was possessed by glitchtrap for FUCK knows how long and was used as its body for like the entire time. and when he eventually wakes up un-possessed (no idea how that happened) he has no memory of whats going on at ALL and is understandably fucking terrified. doesnt remember being possessed or killing ppl or anything he just wakes up and runs. glam freddy likely malfunctioned cause glitchtrap was like "oh my god go GET that stupid kid" and glam freddy was like "but???? protecc????" and entered safe mode

so gregory eventually fuckin DEMOLISHES all the other animatronics and uses their parts to upgrade freddy. freddy is like "hey where'd you get these parts" and gregory's like "uhhhhhhhhh dont worry about it" "hey where are my friends" "DONT WORRY ABOUT IT"

while this is happening, a possessed vanessa is in a bunny suit calling herself vanny and also trying to kill him. this is just as confusing to us as it is to you

anyway there are six endings to security breach. according to the most recent game, there is a chance that two of them are canon. WE DO NOT KNOW which of the two is canon. these are the endings:

Princess Quest Ending: greg and freddy try to confront vanny and she gets freddy ripped apart by staffbots. gregory then finds an arcade game in her room and plays and beats it which sets her soul free (presumably he knew how to do this cause he's remembering bits and pieces of being possessed??? idk). anyway once the game is beat she is unpossessed and takes gregory and freddy's decapitated head out of the pizzaplex

Burntrap Ending: gregory and freddy avoid vanny and go to the fnaf6 basement where freddy starts acting all fucked up and then thtey find the Springtrap corpse, now Burntrap (fused with the mimic? glitchtrap? yknow). it tries to kill them so you have to Boss Fight everything and then set him on fire again. THEN a tangled mess of animatronic wires with a funtime freddy head (remains of ennard???) shows up and drags him off. again, just as confusing for us as it is for you. freddy and gregory escape. no idea where vanessa is

ONE of these is canon. we do not know which. this is making the fanbase super chill and normal /lying

Evidence for Princess Quest: in ruin, we see a headless glamrock freddy in the exact same area he is in pq. we also have no sign of vanny trying to help glitchtrap. you can collect gregory's fanart of his own game and pq is the only one he didn't draw. princess quest arcade game has sword sticking out of it

Evidence against Princess Quest: aforementioned headless freddy is labelled a prototype on his foot and we know for a fact that our freddy does not have that stamp. he also has a gift inside his stomach when freddy gave his stomach gift to gregory already (and it was a diff color). the pq arcade game has sword sticking out of it BUT that could symbolize the princess being skewered, and surrounding the game is art of the escaped glitchbunny

Evidence for Burntrap: labelled as "true ending" in the files, only ending to be FULLY animated instead of switching to comic form and also only one with boss fight, the tangled animatronic mess is definitely canon (we see it, gregory draws it so he saw it too which means he went in the basement where it was), while vanny isn't seen her grafitti is everywhere and appears to be recent

Evidence against Burntrap: the "true ending" label, like cassidy, could mean literally fucking anything. also if vanessa is still under his control why the fuck doesnt she help him where is she

so yeah we're having fun figuring THAT out

Ruin (the end so far thank god)

the most recent game we got, then, was the dlc for the above game, this dlc is called ruin. a few months after this, a lil girl named cassie wanders into the ruins of the pizzaplex cause her best friend gregory told her to meet him there. when she gets there she finds a walkie-talkie and he's like "girl im trapped under the pizzaplex you need to shut down the security and come get me" and she's like "sounds great"

she finds vanny's mask and puts it on and enters an AR world where a glitched bunny is trying to kill her (this one isnt glitchtrap actually) and a friendly little AR bear is telling her to keep going she's doing a great job (this one IS glitchtrap probably)

anyway it turns out her backstory is her dad worked for the pizzaplex and she had a birthday party there with her Favorite Character Roxy and literally none of her friends showed up. she was sad about it until gregory showed up and became her friend. then gregory went missing and she was sad

anyway the last security node is favorite character Roxy and roxy recognizes her and is nice to her and its very sad

cassie eventually goes down to the fnaf6 basement and is like "ok gregory i opened the door are you okay" and PSYCH, IT'S NOT GREGORY

IT'S

THE

MIMIC

the mimic immediately tries to kill her bc it likes violence but roxy shows up to save her. the real gregory calls her on the walkie-talkie and is like "bITCH GET OUT OF THERE" and she's like "IM TRYING" and gregory's "friend" (whose pronouns are very specifically blurred out, so it could be either freddy or vanessa) uses the building maps to help her to an elevator. however when she gets in the elevator gregory's like "yeahhhhh sorry we cant let you be followed :(" and drops the elevator, trapping her there

it's like a 99% chance this last bit was not gregory but it was the mimic, seeing as gregory is not even in the pizzaplex and the mimic lost cassie right next to the elevator fuse box that it could easily rip out. so you know

anyway we end with either roxy finding cassie or the mimic using roxy's voice finding her so this kid's fucked lmao

also other questions about if mimic is burntrap is that we see the mimic p naked in this game and not in a fun corpse skinsuit so where did bunny go??? however i will also mention that there is a secret ending that shows us that the FUCKING SCOOPER is here so. personally i think that answers that question. get scooped idiot

oh also if you noticed "hey 'cassie' sounds a lot like 'cassidy,' the golden freddy kid who was sharing a body with the crying child, who has a similar design to gregory," congrats! we've noticed that too! we have no fucking idea what it means! :D

and thaaaaat's five nights at freddy's

that didnt take too long did it

[ponett]

I spent a whole sunday reading through immortal hulk with the free trial, is there anything else good you would recommend to go through before the week's end? (I dont read many comics, the last one was I read was archie megaman)

Oh hell yeah, glad my tweets exposed at least one other person to Immortal Hulk. It's great

Admittedly I've only really started reading a variety of Marvel comics recently. I've liked characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men all my life, but I've only recently gotten over my aversion to just diving into random popular 616 stuff and not worrying about having the full context for everything. (I was finally like, oh yeah, I don't have to put up with the MCU and most of the cartoon adaptations being extremely mid, I can just go jump around and read the good stuff.) So I'm not the best person to ask. But here's stuff I've been enjoying recently:

Fantastic Four (2022) by Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics fame. Easily my highest recommendation here. Extremely fun and funny and heartfelt and creative science adventures. Immediately made me care about the Fantastic Four way more than I ever have. I subscribed to this one immediately upon catching up, and I hope North stays on for a good long while. (On a related note, I need to read North's Squirrel Girl run soon.)

Unbelievable Gwenpool (2018). As a series about a normal human girl transported into the comic world and getting by with her knowledge of comics, it's EXTREMELY meta, but instead of just going "haha isn't this all so dumb and tropey?" it ends up being a story about searching for meaning in superhero comic books where creative teams change all the time and the status quo reigns supreme. It's good stuff that goes some wild places. My only real gripe is the inconsistent art.

And they're only a few issues in and are still setting things up, but I'm enjoying the new Ultimates and Ultimate Spider-Man comics, which pick up following the Ultimate Invasion miniseries and the Ultimate Universe one-shot.

And uh... actually that's all the Marvel stuff I've been reading recently aside from Claremont X-Men - which is of course very good, but it's not as easy to recommend as these shorter, more standalone runs.

Some other relatively self-contained Marvel stuff I'd like to read soon:

Immortal Thor, the current series by Immortal Hulk writer Al Ewing that I hear is just as good

Ms. Marvel (2014)

Hawkeye (2012) by Matt Fraction

Spider-Man: Life Story

The Vision (2015)

And I hear Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2022) is pretty good and has Miles doing some crazy shounen anime shit while still being a street-level series, so I'm interested in checking that out

I'm also open to recommendations! I'm aware of many of the big hits, but, y'know, there's always gonna be good stuff that gets buried given the sheer volume of comics Marvel puts out every year

[kedreeva]

as someone who is ace and entering college years, how has your dating life been as an ace? what other struggles have there been that you have advice for? i dont know any aces or similar around me older or otherwise. thank you for your time and i hope you have an easy day!

Okay this will get a little long so I'll put it behind a cut

Honestly I'm probably not the best person to ask, since I never really...struggled? Not specifically with asexuality or with anything related to it. I can tell you my experiences, though, and you can decide if there's anything worthwhile to take away from it!

I grew up in a house run by science and math. I knew the prefix a- meant without/not and I knew there was heterosexual and bisexual and homosexual, so when young and, importantly, before really ever interacting with other queer folk, I went Ah ha, these are (prefix)(sexual) and so therefore I am asexual (without sexuality), and that was that. That was literally all the thought I gave to it. People had crushes on other people, I didn't have crushes on people, end of story. If, for some reason, I developed a crush on someone, I would deal with it then.

Maybeeeee midway through HS, a very good friend of mine asked me about it, and I said well, some people like everyone the same, and I dislike everyone the same. And she said well, then it sounds like you like everyone the same, that amount is just zero, so that seems like bisexual? (she didn't know the term asexual was an actual sexuality term either at that point, just the biological term for reproduction and, well, I could reproduce theoretically so couldn't be that) And I said well, alright then, and called myself bisexual for the next 6 or 7 years. THEN I found out asexuality is a sexuality not just a mode of reproduction and I said Ah Ha, I was Correct, and that was that again.

So I guess if I was offering advice it would be... you know you. Don't let someone else tell you about you if you think they're wrong. Make up a word if there isn't one. Use a new word if you find one that already exists and fits.

Also, that it's fine to not worry about it. Literally it's fine to just never think about it if you have better things to do. I think a lot of people get really wrapped up in finding the right label and/or "what happens if-" when like... you're not a canned good. You don't need a label. Worry about what-ifs when they come up, don't borrow anxiety if you can help it.

I dated a few people in HS, like... three people I think, and one Almost. One predatory mistake I thankfully recognized (HEY because I had older folks online I could talk to about it!) and got out of quickly, and one hot mess relationship that was a LOT of fun- my boyfriend, Sark, and then his ex-girlfriend, and then I stepped out so they could get back together, and then they said wait no, and invited me back in, and that went on for most of the end of HS, and nearly into college, when I stepped out again (and peacefully, I am still friends with both of them and I married Sark in the end). There was one guy whom I was always, perpetually, extremely fond of, and we hung out a lot, kissed once, and I think we would have had a lot of fun dating, but ultimately it was a near miss that became a fond memory, because we were never in the right place together. Sometimes life does that, and that's okay, too.

In college, I simply didn't date anyone. I had better things to do. I met my best friend, @idkfandomwhatever, online that year (and still talk to her almost daily, sometimes for hours, despite that we are on opposite sides of the world!!), and in person @mishapeep who was the best roomie I ever had (hi!!!!! i love you!!!). I had great friends, I went on a TON of adventures, worked a cool job where I had awesome coworkers, and just all around had a blast learning stuff and napping in sunbeams or on couches at the food court. A couple of guys made passes, and I turned them down because I just wasn't into it, and we remained friends. There was one coworker at my dispatch job that I got along with like a house on fire, and everyone ELSE thought we should be dating, but neither of us ever brought it up- I can't say why he didn't for sure, but I know I never brought it up because I was 85% sure he didn't swing for the right team to date me, which I ALSO never brought up until he found me on facebook years later to tell me about his husband running for local election somewhere. so. again, don't let anyone else tell you what to do lol there was ALSO another guy that I had NO interest in that spent a lot of time around me, but we mostly sat in my bunk watching Queer as Folk, which I KNOW was his first exposure to queer material. I never talked about queer stuff with him otherwise, but I heard from a mutual friend of ours that he's also happily married to his husband. Sometimes just being yourself, openly and without shame about it, does more than you think, even if it's not doing anything directly for you (but it is, it's good for you too).

SINCE college ended, I dated one guy I met through an online game and that was great in person briefly, but ultimately didn't work out because he couldn't be a nice person, another guy I met through the same online game and that didn't work out at ALL in person, and then I started hanging out with Sark and co again. I was on the phone with him driving somewhere, and I said something to the effect of someday you're gonna find a gf and she's not gonna want you to keep going on adventures with your ex, and we won't be able to talk anymore and I had a real recordscratch moment where I realized absolutely NOT on MY watch, I wanted that boy in my life forever actually, and we've been married now for... this is year 8.

I may have landed in a soft place, but I didn't seek it out. I just lived my life and didn't worry about my sexuality or about who I was or wasn't gonna date. When I DID date, I was up front about what I wanted from any of those relationships and part of the problem with the relationships that didn't work out was sometimes that I did not KNOW what I wanted, yet. But, it was IMPORTANT I think, that I gave the chances I did, because I did learn about myself and what I wanted. That's probably the hardest fucking thing to learn, that relationships sometimes happen not because they're likely to be permanent, but because it may be fun or be a way to learn what you do or don't want. Maybe alongside of that, the lesson that it's okay to go "hm, actually this is Not For Me" and exit peacefully whenever possible. But it's okay to give temporary things a shot and see how it goes, even knowing up front it may be temporary (honestly maybe that even takes some of the stress of it off? if you don't have to worry about it being forever, and you don't have to worry about "what if I never experience other things," and you don't worry so much about messing it up so it feels easier to take chances saying and doing stuff you might otherwise consider too risky to ask for etc).

I'm aware I'm lucky that things went pretty smoothly for my entire life so far, insofar as dating or sexuality is concerned. Part of that was definitely because even the worst of the people I dated weren't really all that bad of people. A lot of it was that I just didn't date if I didn't want to. I didn't care about sex, so I didn't have sex for the first time until a few years after college, and only one guy ever pushed the issue at all (the guy in HS I immediately dropped all contact with).

The thing is... I dated or nearly dated like ten people, flirted with countless others (because it's FUN), and the only one I still have regular contact with (not just occasional friendly hellos) is the one I kept at the end.

But the friends I made in college? I kept a lot of those. I still talk to several of my college friends on a regular basis. I have made other friends since, some of whom I talk to every day, some of whom have become irregular contacts I am still fond of. But those bonds are important and the ones you make with your friends from here out do have the potential to span at least huge chunks of your life, if not the entirety of it. If you only take away one thing from this little novel...take that knowledge.

also this has nothing to do with asexuality but for pete's sake find SOME kind of hobby club to be a part of, or make one if there isn't one, follow your stupidest instincts for adventure on occasion (like playing freeze tag frisbee in a lightning storm on the PAC lawn at 11pm until the campus cops show up to make you go home), and take at least one "fuck it this sounds fun" class. Mine was archery at 7am, the only early-morning class I ever took. Worth it, we were all TERRIBLE but god it was awesome.

Good luck out there!

[tomwaterbabies]

Heyy :D

I really love your takes and I enjoy sappy things so if you ever feel like it I'd love to hear more from you about the 'lots of genuine sappy stuff because of which Varian fell for Hugo'

Thanks in advance and have a nice dayy!! 🎉

LMAO well alright ! and ty muchly for enjoying my takes........ u see the world and u understand it

im gonna do my best here but i admit not only am i prone to rambles im ALSO not super great when it comes to more genuine sentimental things but this will be a general idea at the very least (also tagging @exis-j-harvey out of courtesy lol)

this is long as hell btw

varian falling in love with hugo i think has to do a lot with varian's whole dream of going out into the world for his own adventure, to find his own discoveries, and to just. find himself. i like that the concepts for vat7k mention that varian has a desire to gain a greater understanding of himself, and i think that's an important aspect

the thing is, varian and hugo- to me- arent all that different. im not saying theyre one-to-one lol, they do have their differences. but i think sharing similarities both causes them to not get along at first as well as eventually causing them to be really, really close friends. i am a believer that this is a case of enemies to best friends to lovers

varian has always stood out as a little bit of a weirdo in corona (understatement). his friends and family love him dearly, but he obviously is still someone who kind of stands out and might not always feel like he fits in. when he goes on this adventure, he finds others (yong, nuru, hugo) who are so much like him. so much so that finding his blood family of inventors, while incredible, ultimately does not end up being where he feels he belongs- where he feels the most like himself. if i were to attach a disney love song to him, "strangers like me" would be applicable, just to give an idea

to actually, like, Talk about hugo here; i think varian sees something so much more than even hugo sees. hugo appears as pretentious and particular about many things, and he is, but varian sees that it's hugo's strong spirit that guides him. hugo is unique, he's opinionated, his will is hard to shake. varian sees someone who is so sure of things and confident, that he cant help but admire him. he sees someone so wildly complicated and full of intrigue. hugo is like a discovery of something new and wonderful to him. of all the incredible, amazing things he's been able to see and experience, i think hugo exceeds all of that to him

hugo is also charismatic and charming to him of course. i've mentioned Many Times that i subscribe to the take that he isnt flirty whatsoever and this is still true. he's just charismatic in other ways. he's sarcastic, cocky, and mischievous. many of these things have a chance of making varian laugh or will have him finding hugo endearing (and while hugo doesnt intend for this: varian definitely does still get really flustered on occasion- though i dont think hugo even realizes that varian is flustered because he finds him attractive)

and then there's the times where hugo opens up more. where varian sees hugo's genuine love and passion for things. he sees his kinder side, his softer side. and that all just makes varian feel so, so much more intensely for someone he is starting to consider his best friend. he also sees his talent, his intelligence, his bravery (for the things that really matter), and so so much more. to varian, he is full of spirit, larger than life. god this is so sappy but im talking about varian so!! it just HAPPENS!!

and these are just some aspects of him. like i said, he's a very complicated person. for all of hugo's hidden insecurities and self-loathing, varian sees just how Bright and Brilliant and Wonderful of a person hugo is. this is his partner in crime (sometimes literally), someone he can experience this life with- and there's something so indescribably wondrous about it all. to varian, hugo is Everything. and hugo most certainly feels the same way

(and since i've already used a song to help describe things- i'll say now that the classic "i hear a symphony" is applicable to varian's love for hugo too)

[pixelatedbugs]

ive been playing stp for a few hours now. but i’ll say my thoughts here…

holy shit its so good! i love it its fucking great. i think i managed to get some of the new update things but since i held back on playing before the pristine cut came out i wouldnt actually know. i have a guess considering how rare certain achievements are, though…

listing more specific, very rambley, VERY SPOILERY thoughts on the paths ive gone under the cut. do not click if you dont want to be spoiled I know what you are.

so, the endings i’ve gotten! so far:

The Cage - the part of being trapped in chains is a fucking nightmare scenario for me so kinda funny that i got it for my first one. the whole thing of “we can’t control where the story goes” being shown in both our character’s heads being cut off and having the bodies fight was. wow. i didnt say anything to convince her that she was wrong about the lack of free will, though maybe i should have. or maybe i should’ve picked up her head. too late now though… the image of her body walking towards us holding her head in a cage is SO fucking good.

Happily Ever After - hwat the fuck! fuck! ow? so i mean, i got to see a bit of narrator’s “happy” ending even though i let skeptic kill me in the end. so then getting that sort of ending, again, but having the narrator realize that it’s a horrible ending to have, and sounding so broken about it, and that last line from the narrator too…i miss this narrator. he’s the only one so far who’s realized that eternal, stagnant happiness isn’t a happy ending.

and the princess trying so hard to say she’s happy when she isn’t, trying to come up with new ideas to keep being happy, ultimately ending in “I don’t think I ever was”. even that first part of “dinner’s ready” really sent a chill down my spine because it just, sounded so sad. her walking outside with us, dancing under the stars, looking so much happier, even if it was a little cold..USUUHFHDJDNXKS

and the shadow behind her - smitten i assume - even though she isn’t literally chained this time, the shadow still holds her there - he kinda acts like the narrator does when you get the “happy” ending. does that make sense. this false happiness becoming her new chains - what the fuck. what the fuck!

and i mean, im the one who said we should stay in the cabin the chapter before (though i wasnt the one to rip my chest open Smitten CHILL) because i didn’t want her to leave. but at least we got to dance with her. at least she really was happy dancing under the stars before it ended. this is probably my favorite ending so far.

Mutally Assured Destruction - this one was so good. hearing all the different voices talking at once, them all coming up with their own ideas, and all of them failing until, in the end, we silence them all and having one final fight, with the princess and us stabbing each other, just like it was in the first chapter - fucking cool as hell.

[anonzentimes]

You're one of my favorite people on here, I love komaeda so much, oh my god

infodump about whatever you want about komaeda NOW!! (if you want, you dont actually have to)

RAGGG!!!!! you're so so sweet oh my gosh ❤️❤️ Sure i'll talk about komaeda! I'll just say what I've been thinking about specifically today.

I was thinking about the fact that Nagito can suppress sides of him today, when he needs to he's able to suppress some of his personality for people. I think the reason Nagito is "normal," before his freakout is not only for the plot twist but because he's trying to make a good impression for Hajime. And once he's even more interested in Hajime he wants his attention, He's always by his side at any chance he gets. I think Hajime just generally stood out to him because he felt a connection with him on a spiritual level and acted upon his curiosity. Why would he be the only one to stay behind and wake up Hajime otherwise? I think he had the gut instinct I do when I feel as if I need to talk to somebody who interests me.

His "facade," is sort of like how when you meet new people and you're not entirely showing your true self fully yet, I think he does that. He's able to suppress parts of himself for other people.

Nagito is always wanting Hajime's attention, he respects his personal space and beliefs but mostly wants to be around him. He's also VERY observant, even when he doesn't understand social cues sometimes his ability to observe others is a big factor about him. He observes Hajime a lot.

Which is honestly weird, isn't he afraid of getting close to people? He usually avoids his classmates, he thinks he isn't deserving of reciprocation, and yet he stayed by Hajime's side. He made an effort to talk normally enough that Hajime would like him. He even went swimming without any complaints, probably because he still doesn't want to lose his attention.

He continues this behavior throughout the game, even in Chapter 4 he uses the fact he has information to get Hajime's attention.

He doesn't think he's worth the ultimates time, and yet, he's always drawn to Hajime. He's always after Hajime's approval, it's so oddly fascinating to me. It's not an obsession thing, but he just really loves him for some reason. It feels more like an irrational emotion, it's not warped love, it's not about status, and It proceeds on even when he knows he's a despair.

I wonder if maybe, just maybe, if Nagito saw his suicide plan as freeing Hajime from Despair. Maybe that's how he justifies it with his emotions. And in an odd sense a horrible proclamation of love.

Sorry this kind of turned into Komahina more than anything lmao, but mostly I'm just thinking about how weird it is that he likes him, like why? What is it about him that Nagito is so infatuated with him? It goes against what he usually does, was he just really that special that he becomes irrational to his typical behaviors?

And in the free time events he's even more infatuated because he believes Hajime is amazing for tolerating him. He pushes him away so he doesn't get harmed by his luck cycle, but also to hopefully to get Hajime kill him. He wants him to escape, he wants him to create hope. Because he believes someone as great as Hajime can create amazing hope. And then his love confession???? AUGH his love confession like, it's so complicated. Did he bail out because he didn't want him to get hurt by his luck cycle? Did he bail out because he doesn't think he's worthy? LIKE??? He's so crazy.

Nagito's so interesting, his irrational infatuation with Hajime next to his warped beliefs, luck cycle, warped love, and intense obsession with hope to the point that he becomes morally grey over it makes him such a wonderful and entertaining character.

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2024-08-14 continued #2

(Previous post - current page 587)

We ain't STOPPIN WE AIN'T STOPPIN (well okay we are at the end of this post for a couple days)

==>

SO ANYWAY HERE THEY ARE IN THEIR MATCHING OUTFITS THEY'RE SO FUCKING CUTE AND THE SPIRAL ON CALLIE'S CHEEK ON HIS OUTFIT AND THE SPIRAL ON ROXY'S HAIR ON CALLIE'S OUTFIT THEY MATCH SO WELL AND THEY'RE A WONDERFUL COUPLE IT'S GREAT, WHAT ANDROGYNOUS SLASH GENDERFLUID SLASH TRANS ICONS YESSSSS

JADE: roxy, calliope, and is that kanaya? KANAYA: Calliope Roxy And Is That Jade

It's possibly been a bit since they've shared a proper Dream together without Feferi's earlier help having persuaded the Horrorterrors to set up a set of stable dream bubbles for them all to dream together in, but between Roxy's powers being able to knock people out and Calliope's powers of imaginary construction, a space like this in the Void for them to share asleep like this ends up being something they can do and it's sweet and wonderful. :D

==>

The image is nice and all but I'm mainly posting it for my own sanity as a confirmation that Calliope still has the Ring of Life on like we knew she would.

JADE: roxy ROXY: yo JADE: where... are we? ROXY: this is a special dream bubbie callie set up! JADE: i dont even remember falling asleep ROXY: yea i used callies special magic sleep dust on ya ROXY: sorry for conkin yall out also but callie said we had to do this tonight

Hm, something special about the here and now? Also I can buy that Calliope used special sleep dust, I think she's used that before to wake someone up FROM a dream (distantly recall?), but I still blame Roxy for being the vehicle this time due to her hero role.

KANAYA: I Thought The Dream Bubbles Had Been Destroyed CALLIOPE: i thoUght so too! CALLIOPE: the origin of these new bUbbles is Unclear, thoUgh it seems like they might actUally be emanating oUtwards from oUr destination, bUt i mUst admit i'm happy to see them back!

WHAT THE FUCK

OKAY THAT'S A BIG RED FLAG THAT THIS IS THE REBIRTH AND ORIGINAL CREATION OF THE HORRORTERRORS THANKS TO DIRK AND ROSE CREATING THE ORIGINAL SESSION THAT GAVE BIRTH TO ALL SUBSEQUENT BRANCHING UNIVERSES IN PARADOX SPACE. THE FRESHLY BORN HORRORTERRORS ARE CREATING BUBBLES AGAIN. ALL THAT'S LEFT IS FOR (god-tier?) KANAYA TO SEW UP THE BREACH IN PARADOX SPACE SO THAT THE BLACK HOLE IS LOCKED OUTSIDE OF IT FOR GOOD AND FREEDOM FROM CANON AND THE PLOT IS IN THE HANDS OF THE NEWLY STABILIZED TIMELINES OF FANDOM IN A NEW REALM OF PROMISE FREE FROM LORD ENGLISH'S INFLUENCE. Gosh I know it was all pretty obvious from the very start of Homestuck^2 but I'm still surprised to see confirmation SO QUICKLY LAID ON SO THICK

They're really doing this! They're making this hapen! The session to shape and begin all sessions!

==>

ROXY: ladies ;)

Smooth as always

Alright, what has Callie prepared for this dream and why is it not just for fun but also she's implying it's so important that it happens NOW???

Does this have to do with the activation of the Plot Point outside canon?!?

==>

Nothing?

KANAYA: Wow KANAYA: I Must Say That This Vast Expanse Of Nothingness Was Well Worth The Minute Inconvenience Of Being Majyyked To An Untimely Slumber KANAYA: Via A Substance That I Am Still Not Altogether Sure Isnt Actively Harmful To Biological Life CALLIOPE: a-hem. CALLIOPE: tUrn aroUnd!

I bet it's another stage

==>

WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING

What a daring dream.

==>

JADE: whoa ROXY: intense right JADE: so what exactly are we looking at here :o CALLIOPE: oUr Cosmic Canonical Correspondent. CALLIOPE: yoU coUld call it a visUal representation of oUr... CALLIOPE: well, oUr everything! KANAYA: Forgive My Ignorance But I Recall Our Universe Looking More Um KANAYA: Amphibian KANAYA: This Looks Vaguely Closer To The Door We Took To Claim The Ultimate Reward KANAYA: Albeit More Fucked CALLIOPE: this is trUe! bUt this diorama exemplifies something far grander than any single Universe.

Is it a "diorama" of Paradox Space, of the Alpha Timeline... or of their story? Of Homestuck itself? Or of the Game that creates sessions?

ROXY: i think it wasnt all crazy like this last time KANAYA: The Last Time KANAYA: Youve Been Here Before ROXY: yea it was like a million years ago by now but i came out here once on my way out a dream looking for my boo thang CALLIOPE: u///u ROXY: and it was more or less just a regular lookin block house back then CALLIOPE: i believe its cUrrent appearance is dUe to the work of oUtside inflUence

So is this the story Dirk is building, alt!Callie is building, or Calliope herself is possibly-unknowingly building, or all of it put together? The way it represents how HS^2 and the Epilogues built atop the original Homestuck would be a good reason it only looked like a block house when Roxy rescued Calliope back in the original story.

==>

I LOVE ROXY, HIS DETERMINED GRIN IS SO FUCKING ADORABLE.

JADE: you're saying he did this? CALLIOPE: i'm not entirely sUre! CALLIOPE: bUt yes, that is my cUrrent working theory. U_U CALLIOPE: i broUght yoU here together so we can discUss what is to be done aboUt this KANAYA: Is There A Reason You Neglected To Add Karkat And Dave To This Socratic Slumber Seminar CALLIOPE: while the knights will no doUbt prove invalUable in the impending conflict... when it comes to these erm... finer points of discUssion their chins do tend to wag... KANAYA: What ROXY: love em to death but they cant shut the fuck up CALLIOPE: in so many words.

Hahahahahah true.

CALLIOPE: oUr trUe goal with this endeavor has been rather vagUe these last few years and as oUr time on this ship begins to draw to a close i believe we shoUld start a serioUs dialogUe aboUt what we plan on doing once we toUch groUnd. ROXY: god i love seeing u boss up

We all do! <3333

KANAYA: I Understand That KANAYA: But Couldnt We Just Talk Normally KANAYA: Without All This Chloroform Ninja Shit JADE: it was a bit much! CALLIOPE: i apologize for my draconian methods bUt i needed to make sUre oUr discUssion coUld be held free from the prying eyes of oUtsiders.

OH COOL IT'S A VOID BUBBLE, if it works as well as they're saying it does then it means Dirk can't hear what they're planning!!! Not even Rosebot with her ultimate Seer of Light powers because this is as far from the Light as you can hide!

ROXY: yeah cuz this is about us! our family, our future KANAYA: What Is There To Discuss KANAYA: I Thought My Plan Was Well Understood ROXY: ok sheesh well thats hella badass and vengeful but like ROXY: damn shawty idk maybe theres other options then just goin in slicing his shit to smitheroons ROXY: and also like ROXY: COULD you, even?? KANAYA: Id Very Much Like To Try ROXY: lets maybe try something less fucked up first?

Oh wow, they want to SAVE Dirk from himself? That's about as ambitious of a plan as I would expect of Roxy in the full swing of his hero role! :D

I've been thinking more and more about the "Soul-powered Jujus" idea I keep linking to from earlier, and how alt!Calliope's narrative and possession powers were STUNTED when she was splintered in two... which could mean that they could save both Ultimate Dirk and Ultimate Rose by sealing away parts of their broader souls or powers into VESSELS. Possibly creating Skaia itself with fractured shards of Rose's Seer of Light nature or sealing it in the Cueballs, possibly creating Crowbar's Crowbar with part of Dirk's soul-- basically depriving them of their ULTIMATE powers and the corruption that comes with ultimate power, while still leaving enough of them left to be an individual self, see sense and survive.

There's almost no question left anymore with that latest revelation about the returning bubbles from their destination that the nature of the competition between Skaia and the Horrorterrors that forms the nature of the game itself is going to be established in this new Delta/Omega session or whatever you'd like to call it, and that means that the guidance and storywriting potential of the Great Powers that are Skaia and the Horrorterrors must be created, and only an absolutely incredible power could possibly become such quiet yet nigh-omniscient guides. Countless hints like the Orange/Purple "tick, tock" when Jade bet on alt!Calliope freeing her are hinting that the color themes of the Prospit/Derse alignments are retroactively the responsibility of the wills of Dirk and Rose in the first place, somehow diluted and conveyed all across Paradox Space to write these "stories" for every set of heroes and the challenges they have to face. The fulcrum between which the heroes' wills are the only force capable of finding hope and new life from the seeds of the doomed conflict. To quote Aradia back in Act 5:

FAA: a pr0duct 0f c0llusi0n between the disparate f0rces at play FAA: a bargain struck between what skaia kn0ws already and what the g0ds demand up fr0nt FAA: t0gether they 0rchestrate trials sufficient t0 ensure FAA: that in 0verc0ming them we w0uld be pr0ven w0rthy FAA: 0f inheriting the ultimate reward

Dirk is one of the only people with the power to divide a soul such as his, however... unless the awakening of Brain Ghost Dirk out in (Candy) land serves as enough of a fulcrum to partially disarm him like alt!Callie was disarmed earlier. (Or unless that taxidermied body Jade dropped wasn't just Dave's as would have been most obvious, but possibly Dirk's too...) Maybe things can turn so disastrous that they can convince Dirk to shatter HIMSELF, as he may be one of the only ones who can possibly do it, not just Ultimate Rose? Maybe seeing what he's wrought can eventually change a mind even as stubborn as his to some extent? Or maybe fracturing himself to become responsible for EVERY STORY THAT EVER EXISTS IN PARADOX SPACE is at the same time a core part of Dirk Strider's endgame plan, and by that point he'll have already won from his perspective, except to realize that the reality they've sealed OUTSIDE Paradox Space is more free and worthwhile to the readers than the one stuck inside it?

KANAYA: Im Not Sure If Youre Aware Roxy KANAYA: But We Are More Or Less The Foremost Experts When It Comes To Being Quote Unquote Fucked up KANAYA: Anyway He Started It KANAYA: Nothing Remains But To Finish It JADE: yikes! JADE: why don't we all cool off for a second, i wanted to ask calliope something. JADE: who did you mean by "outsiders?" CALLIOPE: er, yes. CALLIOPE: well, CALLIOPE: i began prepping my Dreamly Majyyks as soon as you were released from *her* hold. we needed to do this before she comes back.

Right, because alt!Calliope DID SAY that she would be taking the original Jade back over when they neared too close to their destination. So Calliope and Roxy are helping form a plan to earn an even better ending than what alt!Calliope can direct them to achieve alone...

==>

"Before she comes back." It seems this constellatory quartet doesn’t quite understand.

Oh SHIT. I guess Calliope can't actually hide from alt!Calliope.

==>

calliope: i never left.

YOU MESSED UP THE MEME

CALLIOPE: GAAAAAHH!!! ROXY: callie chillax ROXY: how did she sneak up behind us like that while shes glowing like a christmas tree calliope: i do not sneak. i was always behind/before/alongside you. calliope: i am always alongside/behind/before you. calliope: i simply made my presence known to you. JADE: what are you doing here! calliope: to make a correction to my counterpart's assertion. calliope: you believe the current appearance of the Home is due to the actions of the prince. calliope: that is a half truth, the root of the issue is far deeper than that.

Ooh, so we get some exposition from the source herself, who may actually be on-board with their planning, hopefully, as much as her hijacking of Jade Harley for so long put them at odds with her and her tendency to try and dominate with her power.

Explain what we just figured out to them, will ya, with juicy more details for us to boot? :)

==>

Oh yeah you have pissed EVERYONE off, miss alt!Callie. Might need to defuse things a little so they'll listen.

calliope: though the prince's actions have exacerbated the damage, they are not its origin point. calliope: it's due to the beliefs and desires of those far beyond even my grasp. calliope: it is all that we are/were and its current form is representative of what those outsiders think we are/should be calliope: this Home, in its current form, has become abominable. ROXY: idk i think it looks kinda cool calliope: it is not cool. calliope: it is an eyesore and worse, its purpose has become obfuscated, form plagued with an ever-expanding amalgamation of wings, and rooms, and atriums, and winding exhibition halls. calliope: all uncurated, thoughtlessly tacked on to accommodate garish, self-indulgent new installations. ROXY: and stairs calliope: and stairs. ROXY: it keeps happenin huh calliope: yes. calliope: it keeps happening. JADE: (har har har)

So we're picking up again and continuing to run with the theme that the READERS' need for loops to be tied up and satisfying conclusions to the story the kids successfully ESCAPED, at the end of Homestuck original, is what DRAGGED THEM BACK IN and is keeping them tortured by being "stuck" in a story other people are telling? Like the Monkey's Paw analogue Andrew originally described in his Q&A after the Epilogues about them always having been meant as a flawed wish because the readers wanting to know what happened next, by necessity, trapped the characters in a plot again instead of leaving them free? Daring for this to be brought back again along with all the other themes Dirk as the author avatar who must be stopped, who must be outdone by the fanmade story (Candy) outside canon, needing to be defeated.

calliope: although i doubt it can be restored to its original state, the growth can be curbed. calliope: with or without your assistance, these antics can be brought to a satisfying and hopefully timely conclusion. calliope: the prince thwarted, the renovations finished, and the rest of the recalcitrant furniture bolted neatly back into its place. JADE: are you calling us fucking furniture? ROXY: whos the couch KANAYA: Shut Up ROXY: sorry

Yeah this is a very alt!Calliope view, and the reflections of a different but similarly somewhat villainous sort of author avatar to mirror Dirk Strider -- alt!Calliope reflects the author's need to close every loop, patch up every hole, get all these fanmade additions under control and create a story that wraps up in a neat bow... even if the characters would still be better off FREE of said story. There are extents to which she's as much the author as Dirk, and can't be certain she's not another villain, having done so much damage to shatter the Green Sun and Paradox Space in the first place by leading her brother around in a shitty circle.

KANAYA: Calliope CALLIOPE: hm? KANAYA: No Not You The Dead One KANAYA: The Alternate Calliope ROXY: we gotta come up with a different name JADE: how about bossy dead bitch ROXY: oh snizzap calliope: you can call me al ROXY: aw thats almost cute KANAYA: Is This Cryptic Expositing Truly Necessary KANAYA: Al KANAYA: Actually No Im Not Calling You That calliope: for you, no. but there are other invested parties. KANAYA: We Were About To Engage In A Rather Important Discussion

"AL" is an ominous name, reminiscent of Cal, Hal, LE. Is it for "ALternate!calliope"? Or is there a deeper meaning?

==>

calliope: yes, you were. however, to make it simpler for you i'll tell you this. calliope: ultimately, what you plan here has very little bearing on what you will do. calliope: we will arrive on Deltritus and i will move this story to its conclusion without further complications. calliope: little else matters.

The emblematic author avatar choosing complete dominion over their characters...

ROXY: what the hell is dometriosis KANAYA: And Why Should We Believe Any Of That calliope: it is my duty to tell the truth to those i protect. JADE: well i think we're all better off without your "protection" ! calliope: you can choose to believe that. but my duty grants me authority that surpasses the need for your consent.

...And the emblematic hero OVEREMBRACING their hero role in a way that stomps on the wills of those involved and necessarily leads to a Just death.

==>

ROXY: im sure he thinks the same way

FUCKING EXACTLY, SPILL THAT TEA DUDE!

==>

snap.

calliope: meeting adjourned.

I wonder if and when events will finally convince alt!Callie that she may have chosen wrong.

Perhaps when the Plot Point does its thing and she finally sees the story that the original Calliope, the one she has always overlooked, and how the readers are more compelled by it than by the author-forced march of suffering alt!Callie and Dirk are forcing the story through to tie things back to the beginning, necessary as it SEEMS to them.

==>

*wake*

Dirk: Say hello.

Oh look it's this douchebag again!

Well, well, well. Look who comes crawling back. Had your fill of splashing around in the narrative kiddy pool? Sick of its sterile, chlorinated, artificial reek, its mind-numbing placidity punctuated only by the occasional thrashing tantrums of whiny fucking crybabies and the shrill rebuke of the lifeguard? Ready to take the floaties off and dive back into the depths of the churning, primal ocean from which everything that matters in this story evolved, and to which it must inevitably return? Of course you are. Come join me, the water's fine.

I still love how the moral of this ENTIRE sequel is supposed to be that we're finally shown the origins of Paradox Space's propagation system itself and every loose thread that could have ever been tied up in the entire story, and we're all going to care infinitely more about Yiffany Longstocking Lalonde Harley and all the characters and their unlikely children finding happiness in a ridiculous fanfic timeline than any of that LORE SHIT. What a cool Death of the Author moral for a story to have. --I forgot for a moment that alt!Calliope, one of the competing authors, is literally DEAD and still trying to maintain absolute control of the story from beyond the grave. Moving beyond HER too sounds like it may also have some meaning.

==>

Smug prick and his too-wide smug prick panel

As you've hopefully gathered by now, things are happening again. They've been happening again for a while now, since a certain handsome somebody decided to get off his toned, muscular ass and ascend to godhood for the sake of getting the narrative and all his friends' lives back on track (you're welcome, by the way), but they're especially happening again here and now. When last you left us, our Contest had just begun. Rose and I were beginning the lengthy and convoluted process of engineering our own races to populate Deltritus, meticulously tweaking their genetic profiles and respective collective unconscious-es in an effort to create a species fit to conquer the next session of the Game. 

Blah blah blah, recap recap recap. Guess it's been so long that you feel like you need to outline the whole premise of the contest again for us because we've been too busy having fun seeing everything else that was going on, and you needed to hide the two alien races you'd set up from us a while longer. (Are Rose's the necro-something?)

Well, I was. Rose dipped pretty early on in that visual montage to spend some quality time trading barbs and bumping uglies with the supposedly impartial proctor of said Contest, next to the vacant meat-sack that once housed her consciousness. Irresponsible, sure, but to give credit where due, it was irresponsible in a poignant and symbolically weighty sort of way. Classic Rose shit. Rest assured, however, that since then she's spent at least as much time throwing herself into the work as she has cruising for the occasional caliginous bruising.

He's really tailor-made his tone of voice to piss everyone off, hasn't he.

It's been a pretty good time, to be honest. Every now and then I can feel her interest waning, but she's done an incredible job cooking up a witty retort of a race to the deep rhetorical questions posed by my equally-if-not-even-more-bombastically-inspired offspring. She's proven herself a worthy rival, and a worthier collaborator. Her patience for this particular stage of our grand designs is starting to fray, but it's just as well; both of us have essentially done all we feel we can do to lay down solid bio-physio-psycho-sociological foundations for our chosen peoples. Rose's growing discomfort with and desire to move on from this process helps to curb an urge of mine that she's correctly identified as a deep-seated need to micromanage things I care about. A few days back we both agreed that it's high time we get this fucking show on the road, so we've put the finishing touches on our scions and are just about ready to drop them kicking and screaming into the wilds of this beautiful, doomed planet.

Time to stop dirkblocking us and show us your "fantastic" pair of alien races then? Are they going to have any characters we actually begin to care about? You'd better hope so for your sake.

Odds are the whole races either transform to some other force in the eventual game that becomes Sburb or simplify themselves into the white and black Chess People, but you (Dirk) probably knew that already.

==>

Seahorses, connected with pipes to white and black ichor, looking much like the Meteor biological engineering labs, huh? White and black like Life (white (reproductive?) bio-fluids) and Death (ashen ink), the chess and Order colors?

Actually, give me a moment. I need to fix something that's been bugging me.

Huh.

Dirk: Render yourself in a more age-appropriate manner this instant.

Makes sense, with the depiction movement we've been seeing lately. And embraces his awful older bad-parent-to-Dave self more. Reflecting that facet of his broader Soul/existence more.

--Alright, phew. I should pace myself a bit and actually stop here for the day. As much as I'd love to get back to Vrissy seeing Yiffy for the first time, there isn't TOO much of a rush back there yet it looks like, and whatever is between there and here seems to be too wide and juicy, and I've been liveblogging for something like eight hours straight, so I probably shouldn't push myself too hard. I'm definitely coming back to this within a few days, though, because Homestuck^2 is hooking me more and more.

We'll probably see those new races finally this next time!

[dykeseesgod]

How was the remake :-3 was anything changed u dislike. Or whats ur favorite part

IT WAS GREAT I HAD A GREAT TIME.UM ok so there was one big change that i do not like and that is that beethovens csa was removed. which like. like i very much understand why this change was made i understand the motivation and i can even see the effort made to make up for it. but the problem is is that this takes a lot away from beethoven as a character. like theres a lot of little things related to it that just dont make much sense anymore and it kind of like. god for lack of a better word gives beethoven a lot less of a reason to be an asshole? especially considering he says some absolutely HEINOUS shit in this revision [WHICH I AM A FAN OF] but at the same time it feels unjustified bc like. he doesnt even have trauma anymore he just got homophobicly bullied. bitch me too youre not special LMAO. its not as big of a deal as i thought itd be in the end because i think it was ultimately made up for, but i feel like it makes beethovens character a lot weaker, and by extension makes cb look like less of a dick, which is a big part of the story. how much of a dick cb is.

anyways little rant over its still good for the most part. this is probably my favorite new bit

[thearchercore]

Hi!

You mentioned Daniels nonexistant social media presence in one of your posts.

Can you please elaborate?🥺 What do you think why doesnt he post? I noticed redbull not posting him so much.

I read it in a lot of places how he will be great for alpha touri rebrand but will he really?

I started watching this year and I simply dont see it.

I would love to read one of your deep dives on Daniel

well, let's say daniel is a very interesting case when it comes to PR as of lately. he was in his prime when DTS started filming and they essentially picked him as the unofficial narrator of the series.

he was fairly popular, especially in the US market because of it. then, however, his career got twisted by a series of questionable team moves -- from red bull to renault, then immediately to mclaren.

his mclaren move was also affected by the way he was mistreated as a driver (bad mental health support, had to lose more weight than usual, contract terminated earlier etc etc) to the point daniel had to leave F1 for a bit.

that being said, daniel's personality and history still makes him easily marketable. just look at all the tiktok edits of him, he has an audience without a doubt.

he also has a lot of potential to be relatable to the new audience, he's funny, a solid driver, great marketing weapon for other marketing side quests. he also, for example, is a huge harry styles fan. (and harry even wore a shirt with daniel's name!) little fun facts like these would make him very appealing to the new audience.

the first thing i did not enjoy with his PR was the way he's gunning for checo's seat. sure, he wants to go back to red bull, we all get that it's his ultimate long term endgame. but because of him, alpha tauri terminated a contract of a rookie driver to basically offer him a set. which was a questionable move.

even after he scored an f1 seat back, he was still making comments about how his dream would be back at red bull, the RBR accs also posted him significantly more than they should have.

then, his treatment towards his alpha tauri seat is also questionable. he treats that team more as a back up and rather presents himself as a third RBR driver than an alpha tauri driver, or yuki's teammate per se.

daniel finished the season by saying in abu dhabi "this year was for me to prove myself that this is still my passion, and it is." which GREAT STORY. he could do so much more with it, but the narrative of him stealing other people's seat (nyck, potentially checo) is somehow louder than that, and that makes him look a bit like a villain.

again, his mistreatment at mclaren would also be a great PR asset -- his journey of going back to his original form and re-building confidence, but he's not doing much with it on social media. in fact, his presence outside of daniel.jpg is little to none.

just look at how his fans act when he posts something random, he's not exactly selling himself and his assets online and it's really quite a shame because it means he's not really connecting with the new audience that was not there for his prime at RBR.

also he had multiple PR oopsies as of recent, for example showing up to this known problematic podcast and laughed at misogynistic jokes about female drivers. he could be spending his time doing PR anywhere else, but what he's doing now is not exactly working.

so yeah, that got a bit long but really, daniel is just a package of potential that was never really used that well and i wish he got a better PR team to help him rebrand himself to the general public on social media.

[selkieioe]

read: playlists are super down below so keep scrolling!!

Our Life: Beginnings & Always.

Hello Hello! Welcome to my first ever post on tumblr that just had to be about my ultimate top tier favorite visual novel of all time..Our Life: Beginnings & Always or OL:BA for short.

This game has such a special place in my heart that im afraid I’ll forever be attached to it because at this point it’s not even a phase anymore lol. I still remember that heated summer day of scrolling down on my steam shop out of boredom and i kept getting recommended OL:BA but back then i really couldn’t care less and would not even spare a glance on it until i got so fed up of it popping up in my recommended for the next few days that i decided to finally check it out.

Reading what it was about made me curious but what really got me downloading it was because of the customization of our character/characters.

And finally into the game i was! I remember when the story started, i was very surprised already by the environment, narrative and world building of the game. It truly felt like i was part of it and i didn’t get bored at all. In fact right from the start i was hooked already!

I loved ALL of the characters that was introduced, i love the fact that it was SO multiple choice that it felt like you were really integrating yourself/oc onto the game and that you’re not just forced to say the same thing as a different choice or feel as though your options are limited. Its definitely a game that you’re supposed to replay over and over because its just that fun!!

And as someone who has never had a great childhood and adolescence, absentee parent, chaotic household, unsupportive friends, want to be understood (you know…this and that) i was so happy that this game was doing that and it genuinely gave me hope to live despite going through the darkest of times in my life :)

This game has changed me into a better person and made me want to be the best version of myself that i want to be in the future! I will infinitely recommend this to anyone who wants to have a feel good game/read (+1 it will make you cry!!)

Anyway enough yapping 💀 Time to get to the point.

Here are some playlists i made dedicated to the lovable characters of OL:BA that i personally listened to during my walkthrough and may relate to their route/lore ;)

read: playlists are super down below so keep scrolling!!

1# COVE HOLDEN

the og love interest!

summer with cove holden.

this playlist is the epitome vibes of the game (growing up with them and having fun, making memories.)

from beginnings to always with cove holden.

spoiler alert!! MARRIAGE DLC WOOOO!! really love this one cuz its all full of cute romance and wedding songs. i also put some songs that i think mc and cove would have when they get kids :3

#2 DEREK SUAREZ

MY PERSONAL FAVORITE!!

DEREK IS JUST SOOOO AAHHHH He’s my ideal man and i KIN him so bad you dont even know!!!

derek suarez crushing on you.

THIS PLAYLIST. IM TELLING YOU. one of the FAVES i made!! the pining, secret crush on mc for a loong time, the angst GOSH. so cute. every song in this plays a part on each moment with him i swear

#3 BAXTER WARD

ANGST MAN.

5 years after baxter ward.

one thing i noticed about our life is it lacks certain angst aspects when the baxter dlc didn’t exist YET back then. like i LOVED the fight between mc and cove in mcs room and i wanted it to escalate more ngl just cuz i LIVE for angst! but if you want to get real hurt you should choose baxter. this playlist focuses more on the last step of his dlc and its full of taylor swift songs.

baxter ward.

honestly this playlist is catered more to his vibes, his character (i listen to this playlist and i imagine edits of him lol) but i guess some songs are related to his story/lore? i made this waaay before 5 years after baxter ward and when the baxter dlc didn’t exist yet and we all just knew him to be as the new neighbor in sunset bird but people like it i guess so here it is xD

anyway thats all for OL:BA series! GB Patch is cooking up Our Life Now & Forever and it’s not released yet! just on demo on steam and itch! i already have a playlist for it but so far i have only made Qiu Lin (one of the leads of the game) i also have a privated filo inspired playlist for baxter if you want to listen to it let me know so i can put it up in public!

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

i could be wrong about this (i've been following this blog so long i wouldn't be surprised if im confused lol) but you changed/shifted denominations, right? im catholic, born catholic, but i struggle with what much of the church preaches/supports, and the catholic communities i grew up in are not a great place for queer people. so im looking at other affirming churches where i live, which are mostly united. they all seem great, but i find that im struggling with all the ways they aren't catholic. i find it uncomfortable that there isn't a priest (and find it uncomfortable that i find it uncomfortable), i miss the hymns from my old church, and receiving the eurcharist every sunday, and all the other little rituals i can recite on rote (which i like!). and then i suppose i feel strange for taking space in this church that isn't my own, just because it's more 'convenient', since i dont have much intention to abandon the parts of catholicism i want to keep (like mary and the saints). im not sure whether i should just suck it up and shift denominations entirely, or retain my (kind of shaky, ill admit i reject a fair amount of catholic teachings) catholic beliefs. and even then, im also not sure how to make myself more comfortable with attending a church without the rituals and mass im used to - even though i really really want to attend church again. sorry for blabbing on, but... any advice?

Hey there anon, so sorry for the very long delay; I hope you're doing all right. I was indeed born and raised Catholic, and still deeply love so much about Catholic tradition; I know how hard this decision is — whether to stay or go, whether to keep one foot in and one foot out, etc...

(Oh, one thing I want to mention right away is that you don't need to worry about "taking space" in a church you're not part of yet. Churches are meant to make room for visitors! There is plenty of room for you, and if a church makes you feel otherwise somehow, that's on them. Just bringing that up here because the rest of this long response goes in a different direction lol.)

Ultimately, you're the only one who can decide the right path for you. The good news is that you have as long as you need to figure it out! You might lean in one direction for a while and later realize you need to shift a bit; you don't have to do it all at once.

I can share a bit about my own journey to help you imagine a bit better what it even looks like to walk this path; your path may end up looking similar, or very different from mine. Putting the rest under a readmore because it's so long lol.

I was super devout Catholic all my life, into college. Then going into sophomore year of college I started figuring out I was queer — plus I was encountering more and more kinds of people than I'd ever met before, and questions about where they "fit" into Catholic doctrine and the like.

Sophomore year I started crushing on my then-roommate, now-wife, and exploring my gender a bit more, and I started getting extremely anxious each Sunday at Mass. I couldn't stop wondering what people in the pews with me would think, what they'd do if they knew. That spring semester and then into the fall, I started going to Mass less and less frequently and eventually not at all.

Meanwhile my roomie was going through similar issues with feeling way too alienated from her conservative church to keep attending. So together, we found an LGBT-affirming church near campus and walked there one Sunday. The relief we felt walking in there, seeing other queer people and couples; the warmth and welcome, the chance to hold hands in public for the first time; getting to share communion, which was a big warm loaf of bread, with folks who knew what we were and loved us in, not despite it...was like nothing I'd ever experienced.

We kept going there the rest of the school year. That summer, back in my hometown, I kept going to my childhood church for Catholic Mass. I really loved the affirming church we'd found, but like you I missed so many things that Catholic church has and they just don't: there's a higher sense of reverence at Mass; the singing resonates through my psyche; I weirdly feel Christ more strongly in the little wafer host than in that warm loaf, though the latter made me feel more spiritually connected to the humans around me...

I wanted both. I wanted to keep my relationship with my Saints. I wanted Mary and the rosary. I wanted the high reverence. And I wanted the warmth and connection I found at our new church. I wanted the laughter as children dunked their big chunk of loaf into the chalice, getting crumbs everywhere, even if it made my Catholic sensibilities cringe a little (I write about the "culture shock," getting more accustomed to those eucharistic differences here). I wanted to be surrounded with this much more diverse group of people.

So for years, even as I graduated undergrad and started my studies at a Presbyterian seminary, I've tightrope walked between Catholicism and Protestantism. I took every chance I got in my classes to write my papers (or a whole website) about queer-resonant Saints, or to bring up a book of the Bible that Catholics have but Protestants don't, or to teach classmates what it means that Catholics venerate but don't worship Mary. I went to a Presbyterian church most Sundays, but to Catholic Mass on holy days like Good Friday.

Keeping one foot in the Catholic Church — going to Mass a few times a year, cultivating my relationships with Saints privately, writing lots of poems about everything I was feeling (like this one and this one) — while spending most of my time and building up community within the PC(USA) was what worked for me for many years. Sometimes it would get frustrating; often when visiting a Catholic church I'd feel that anxiety wonder what would happen if someone there called me out for being queer. Often I'd feel alienated, lonely, wishing I could bring my whole self into one place if that makes sense; but I made it work.

Then things took a painful turn late last May — content warning for religious trauma & transphobia from a Catholic priest. I was visiting home, and that meant dropping by my childhood church for Mass. When the priest I've known almost my whole life, who gave me my first communion and Confirmed me, got halfway through his homily, it suddenly turned into transphobic condemnation. I felt like the floor had dropped out from under me. I decided to speak up; I interrupted Mass to assert that queer people are beloved by God; I was escorted out of my childhood church. It was really, really painful; it still really hurts.

I haven't visited a Catholic church since then. And it breaks my heart I'll never feel safe about going back to my childhood church again :'(

I bring up this traumatic moment not to scare you away from keeping some part of you in the Catholic Church — so many of us do remain partially or all the way in it despite its failures. Hopefully you'll never encounter something this overtly queerphobic. But I bring it up to say that if you stay in the Catholic Church, you probably will encounter things over the years — hopefully small, maybe big — that bring you pain. Little ways comments chip at your sense of worth and dignity; new documents from the Vatican that speak against queerness.

But honestly, you'll probably encounter a little hurt wherever you go. No church, no community at all, is perfect. People say and do thoughtless things. You'll probably experience less of that in an LGBT affirming church, but wherever you go, you'll need to gradually amass spiritual shields — connection to the divine, to other people, places you go for refuge.

I haven't returned to a Catholic church since that incident — but I have made relationships I wouldn't have made otherwise. Various people who attended my childhood church's grade school reached out to me to thank me for my courage; one of them even wrote an article about what I did and what she and her friends experienced as students there. Someone from my home state's branch of Dignity USA reached out to me.

I've sort of "officially" let myself sever that last thread connecting me to anything Roman Catholic, to the institution; but I hold on to the elements of Catholic tradition that bring me spiritual nourishment. They can pry Mary and the Saints from my cold dead hands (no actually! not even then!)

...So that's my personal journey up to the present day. (I also sum up my sort of situationship identifying as an agnostic Catholic Presbyterian in this post.) But others have different paths.

I know so many queer Catholics, ex-Catholics, not-sure-where-they-fit type folks...there are:

queer Catholics who stick with the Catholic Church completely;

or who occupy a sort of liminal in-between, sticking to the Catholic edges but still interacting with Catholic institutions.

I know others who completely left all things Catholic behind, not just the institutions but all Saints, songs, etc.

If you're interested in listening to / reading about a few other people's experiences, I've interviewed a few queer Catholics on my podcast:

there's Emma Cieslik, who archives all sorts of queer Catholic experiences in her own oral history project;

There's K Kriesel, whose life has taken them all around the Catholic center and many different peripheries;

There's Amy Neville, who studies art history and incorporates Catholicism into their queer art; and others too.

____

Sorry if all that was way more than you were looking for! But I hope exploring some of the journeys of others who've been in a similar place to you might help a bit.

A few other things I'll tack on:

If there are any Episcopal churches near you (that mention being LGBT friendly on their website), their vibe will be much closer to what you love from Catholicism than a UCC church is. Lutherans are also closer in vibe and often LGBT affirming.

It's possible there might be a (non-Roman) Catholic community near you that is LGBT-affirming — check out this post for more about liberal Catholics, Independent Catholics, and more.

The previously linked post also brings up organizations that aim to make the Catholic Church more LGBT-inclusive, like DignityUSA. You might find that one of those orgs has a branch near you where you can find support and commiseration.

Finally, you may also like looking through my #queer and Catholic tag, and also maybe my #lgbta patron saints tag.

Sending you love and wishing you peace, joy, and a sense of belonging. I know how hard this in-between time is, when you just don't know what to do or where to go — but God is with you on this journey. They will be with you wherever you go; in fact, the liminal spaces, the in-between not-quite-this-or-that people, are the places and people through which God most often acts <3

[ceratosaurtalks]

Cheap custom backgrounds?

Hi! Want to give your enclosure something like this?

Well let me help you do this in a affordable way to give your animal some new enrichment and climbing opportunities!! Theres a misconception fancy backgrounds are hard to do or are expensive to do. This is... Very much not true! So lets do the one above together! Heres an overview of the supplies you'll need: -Your Enclosure of choice -Cocofiber and Sphagnum moss(OPTIONAL, can opt to paint) -Aquarium grade Silicone -Great stuff pond and Stone -Cork bark, roots, sticks, small rocks(OPTIONAL) First things first, you're going to want an enclosure.

This is a DUBIA 4ftX2ftx2ft[LengthsXwidthXHeight), Also known as a 48"L x 24"W x 24"H(Inches) or a 120 Gallon Enclosure. This is considered the researched minimum size for common exotics like Ball pythons, Corn snakes, Bearded Dragons and the like to thrive. *Disclaimer: Im aware there is several groups and movements who are pushing for a 5x3x2(ft) minimum for Bearded dragons, I ultimately agree with them and the advancement of exotic keeping, but a Bearded won't suffer in a 4x2x2. Dubia Enclosures are some of the cheapest in the market, however they're decent for the price. They are stackable which makes it great for saving space, but please note they can NOT hold a lot of weight, so be mindful of that.

I own 3 of these. Two Version 1s and on Version 2, which is the one above. The V2s are generally nicer in design in my opinion, theyre functional more importantly. Once you have your enclosure of choice, lay it on its back as shown in in the first image. Next, you're going to want to prep your dry background. I use Organic Cocofiber and Sphagnum moss. I buy these extremely cheaply from Home depot or in bulk off Amazon. Make sure your material is COMPLETELY DRY! It will NOT stick if it has any moisture. Break apart your Cocofiber block and mix it with your dried Sphagnum moss in a container and have it ready on the side. I use the bulk Coco fiber, which costs about $23 for 5 bricks on Amazon. You can get them cheaper if you dont buy bulk, I do a lot of gardening and have a lot enclosures so its easier for me! https://www.amazon.com/Organic-Coco-Coir-Bricks-Compressed/dp/B01N1YP8O6?th=1 for a 4x2x2, I only use 2 bricks. Likewise, I buy Bulk moss for the same reason: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BK7XMNWL?ref=nb_sb_ss_w_as-reorder_k0_1_10&amp=&crid=1RDHFNSAUX0DF&sprefix=spaghnum%2Bm&th=1 You will only need. ONE BRICK. For the Sphagnum moss. Maybe even less than a brick. You're going to want to wet this then dry it before use. Dont be me. Dont be fooled over how small and thin those moss bricks are. I made the mistake of trying to wet an entire brick and I had to use a deep soup pot to contain it. It *explodes*. You will be buried in moss. You will scream and cry and beg for mercy as you are overwhelmed by the amount of moss Expanding from a singular brick. I am not exaggerating, I learned my lesson, please god, do not make the same mistakes I made. I still have. So, so much moss. Sometimes I still find Moss from my Mossaggeden. NOTE: Please make sure to use organic, and do not used DYED moss! Double check your ingredients, Dyed moss can be toxic to your animals! Next,

Silicone time, baby! You're going to want to use Aquarium grade Silicone from Home depot, please double check to make sure you're getting Aquarium grade! This will cost you a whopping $3 At Homedepot. The Caulking gun was an additional $12 if you dont have one already, however, it is re-usable so its a great one time purchase because I use that bad boy for a lot of my projects lmao. Once you struggle to open your stupid bottle of Silicone without exploding it like I have on several occasions; time to be silly!

We're going to Silicone this bad boy up reaaaaal good. Dont be me, USE GLOVES! It makes your life so much better I promise. So why are we doing this exactly? Its simple, this will help your background last! It gives it texture and helps the spray foam stay in place. It also keeps your background from peeling so easily, texture matters! Your hands going to be very tired after this. Youre going to want to leave this alone for the next 24-48 hours. Minimum. You want your silicone to dry and want to make sure the smell is gone before continuing to the next step!

This is the funnest part. Spray foam time! For the 4x2x2, I use about 3 Bottles of this stuff. Make sure you're using NON-TOXIC Spray foam! Pond and Stone is my favorite to work with. When I add things into the background, I make sure to have a 4th can of this stuff on me. This will be the most pricey part about it. Lowes has it for $12-14 a can, but its $15 a can on Amazon. This is really the only big 'expense' when it comes to backgrounding. Smaller enclosures use less, but bigger enclosures will need more. !!!!!!!THE NEXT STEPS NEED TO BE DONE TOGETHER!!!!!!!! Youre going to want to be fast about it if youre using my method. Start spraying random patterns into the background. Youre going to want to make sure youre covering every inch of the enclosure, you can do zigzags, cut it into triangles, squares, it doesnt matter. Different shapes give you different background textures, so go nuts!!! Dont leave space between the foam, and go ham. Theres no wrong way to do this. Once thats done though, you're going to want to do the next step IMMEDIATELY:

Adding your background texture and features!! This step MUST be done while the spray foam is still wet. First, take any rocks, cork, sticks, ext if youre adding them and shove them into the background. Dont have money to pay for expensive Reptile decor? You can sanitize your own rocks and sticks from outside yourself for free. I will make a guide about how I do that soon ahah. Press any features you want into the spray foam background nice and firm, then use the extra to spray around the items to secure them in place. Once you got your features in, its time to take your pre-prepped background and begin pouring it in! Spread it evenly across the enclosure. Do NOT worry if you have excess, poor it in anyway. Once you've poured the background in. GENTLY pat it over the sprayfoam. Next, you'll want to leave this to dry for the next 24 hours minimum. Leave it laying on its back so nothing drips or sags where you dont want it to!!! After 24hours, lift the enclosure and gently tap the back of it to knock off your excess background to reveal your background!

Annnnnnd you're done!!! Now you're free to add your lighting, real or fake plants, heating, substrate and other decor as you please! This can add so much more enrichment to your animal and give them so much more room to utalize their space. My individual personally loves his background and utilizes it all of the time! Contrary to belief, a lot of snakes aren't 'pet rocks' if you give them stuff to explore and climb. My guys out pretty often! Of course it comes down to personality too ahah.

Heres some pics of him using his climbing features! He prefers the middle climbing feature here and the one off to the right, where he uses to bask when he doesnt want to be seen and hangs out the top of it, or his bird perch when he doesn't mind being right there out in the open. c:

[sighthounds-and-sketches]

Let's talk about flying to pick up a puppy by yourself

And some ways to make it easier on you.

Your prep starts honestly, about a week before baby actually comes home. Maybe 2 weeks.

For my pre-flight prep, I first picked out a flight carrier. I went with the one my breeder recommended.

It has expandable sides, and a little storage pocket. And it's resistant to chewing. I'm really glad I didn't buy a cheaper one, and I can't stress enough that it's cheaper to buy a quality one the first time than have a zipper break or a tear in the middle of your trip. My trip in total was 4 flights and 4 hours in the car, with him being with me for half of it and having the longest layover of my day. I could only really let him out a couple times, so this next part was incredibly helpful.

I mailed the carrier to my breeder,

at her behest. This was *huge* because the siblings got their scent on it and he was acclimated to being in it before I got to him. It acted as a secure place for him to ride in the car and for his first few nights here, he slept in there through the night.

And now that he's in his crate, the removable pad with scents on it has been instrumental in establishing the crate as a safe place for him.

Video of why I'm really glad I got the durable carrier.

Please consider what you're wearing that day.

Wear clothes you don't need to fuss with *at all* that's normal airport protocol- but I can't stress this enough, you're carrying the puppy in your arms through the TSA checkpoint and other people will be fussing over him. Make sure your appearance and personal bag is no fuss.

See: jeans, hoodie, puppy treat and potty bag that can be shoved into my personal Item, and a no fuss backpack.

In my personal travel bag I kept:

Pee pads, his food from the breeder, a change of clothes in case of incidents, a portable battery to charge my phone, collapsible food and water bowls, collar and leash incase one wasn't provided, and SEVERAL toys in there.

The toys were great for waiting in the terminal. I'd expand the sides of the crate and introduce a new toy to him to help him run a bit of energy out before we had to board.

Peepads: Even though airports have animal relief areas, chances are they're either kind of gross or your dog may be a little too young for it to be safe. I was traveling through one of the busiest airports in the world, and nobody was checking jack shit so I opted for potty breaks to occur in bathrooms with pee pads. He didn't end up going but it's better to be prepared.

I flew Delta and used Skymiles accumulated from our credit card with them that we pay off monthly, so the only thing I paid for out of pocket was 95.00 to bring Argos on board. My flight only costed 20k miles total, and that was only a small portion of what we'd accumulated over the 6 months we've been using the card. I think it's worth considering if you're planning to fly to a breeder. It enabled me to go anywhere in the country that Delta flies and not worry about costs.

Day of hack: double check your flights on the airlines app and switch your seat if possible. I swapped one of my return flight seats to an empty row for 15.00, which meant I could have my carryon and him with me at the same time and that was very nice for readjusting where my stuff was and taking a damn nap. Because at this point, I'd been up for about 18 hours and still had 7 hours of traveling before I'd get home.

I think my last thing is that if you're like me and you do have an invisible disability- ask if you can preboard. Dont be afraid to say "hey, i have this problem and standing in the heat while carrying a bunch of stuff is potentially going to cause an episode. " The employees were extremely nice, and willing to work with me. Ultimately, I went through all of this because he's a service dog prospect and will hopefully help.

Small things for me specifically prior: ate in the morning and right before I picked him up, he was able to chill in his carrier while I ate dinner at a restaurant in the airport- didn't make any sounds. He slept the whole time. I don't think I couldve eaten in the food court, too much to carry between him and my main bag.

I think that's it. I may add to this if I remember anything I forgot.

Edited to add: for my besties with miscellaneous illnesses-

A baggie with your medicines is IMPORTANT. Do not forget some dramamine, advil, Tylenol, whatever, pack it if there's a small chance you'll need it!

I ended up getting migraine symptoms like 5 hours into travel, and that was not a day I could afford to have blurred vision. <3 remember to take care of YOU on the journey.

[deafeninggardenerpanda]

Do you have any Mirror GSA headcanons? 👀

i was going to draw some more stuff with the actual mir gsa but im going through some weird artblock rn so heres some text instead 😍

unlike my gameverse mirror counterparts where they have their own world and own histories, animeverse mirror counterparts are manifestations of the regular counterparts most aggressive worst traits or critical flaws. (ironically thats more in-line with the real game lore than my game lore but anyways) rather than being its own dimension, ultimately the purpose of the dimensional mirror in this universe is to create adversaries to help the regular versions of those characters realize their own flaws and thus become a better version of themselves. they arent meant to be defeated through regular combat, theyre a good bit stronger than the regular counterparts for one reason or another and just respawn through the mirror indefinitely if you can manage to shatter them anyways. theyre supposed to be like a puzzle. once the regular counterparts have some sort of epiphany about their flaws and themselves, the mirror counterparts have served their purpose and so shatter permanently

thats not to say the mirror counterparts arent their own people though... they dont have their own histories or world they came from (which causes some conflict with arthur later down the line) but the mir gsa are still very close with each other relationship-wise and have their own feelings on things going on. once they start shattering one by one, it becomes a sort of existential and moral crisis for people on both sides. is it worth it becoming a better person if that means one of you automatically dies? something something is it possible to escape one's own fate and purpose; the whole gang attempts to answer that question by attempting to get the remaining mirror counterparts somewhere where they can just live their life. but how i have it written right now is that all of them just shatter in the end and the regular counterparts come out of it with a great, but grim, appreciation for them, despite how much the mirrors initially antagonized them. and then they seal away the dimensional mirror so no one else, mirror or regular, needs to suffer the same fate

my friend keeps telling me thats really sad though, that the mirror counterparts just Dont get a happy ending and inherently cant. which... YEAH.... it works out as advancement of the regular counterparts characters just fine but its pretty unsatisfying to be like yeah they all die, its sad and the reg counterparts are traumatized but better people I Guess and then the mirror is sealed away like a game of fucking jumanji to be eventually dug up and have new people go through the same experience again. ill most likely rewrite some aspects of it because of that but thats how it is for now *jazz hands*

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

someone on twitter posted this chart that showed the average ratings for the inside no 9 episodes and i was FLABBERGASTED by the results of it... and like i didn't think my opinions on the eps were particularly Hot Takes but... now i'm not sure lol...

anyway prepare for a (very VERY long... i wrote over 4700 words what is WRONG with me lol?!?!) ranking list that no one asked for and no one wants lol

firstly check out the post i was talking about here (and potentially be equally as shocked at the results as i was lol)

ok so i will preface by saying i have seen most of the episodes twice, but some only the once atm... also, i kinda haphazardly put this list together so it's potentially subject to change lol

final thing is that i dont thing any of the episodes are BAD, even my least favourite are still good bits of telly, but ultimately i liked them less for whatever reason (which i'll go into because i love to ramble)...

i'll try not to do any spoilers in case anyone's reading this (lol) and hasn't seen the series (double lol)

also also we're going from my least to my most favourite because that builds suspense soooo.... here we go!

55) 1.4 Last Gasp

ok so i've not just put this one last because reece isn't in it lol (though that is part of the reason(ha) lmao). though i found the premise of this episode interesting, i think ultimately the characters and direction of the story felt a lot like something you would see in a sorta run-of-the-mill sitcom... which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just not really what i personally look for in an in9 ep lol...

54) 2.5 Nana's Party

another with a similar sorta vibe to the previous one, this is just slightly higher because i enjoyed the characters a bit more here lol... i think the 'twist' of this one was a little bit lame, though, if i'm being totally honest lol...

53) 5.3 Love's Great Adventure

i appreciated what this one was going for, and i think it built up the characters with each new day in a really believable way, but mostly i just found it Okay and not super memorable... i will say that i wish i could put this higher because the kid in this was genuinely adorable & his interactions with everyone were so sweet lol

52) 1.6 The Harrowing

a slightly disappointing episode for me, especially when the set up was SO good... and yes it was DEFINITELY let down by steve not being in it lol! i totally get why they wanted to try some eps without the both of them, but yeh it really felt like it was missing something for me...

the end was alright, but i kinda wish they'd gone further with it? i did enjoy the characters though and ofc helen mccrory is a goddamn LEDGE in it lol

51) 3.2 The Bill

this might be the first of my potentially Hot Takes(tm) lol... i thought it was just Fine lol... definitely some great interactions, and the premise is hilarious, but i wouldn't say it was one that stuck with me particularly? it kinda felt like a cut league of gentlemen gag which isn't a BAD thing, but because of that it didn't feel totally new/unique to in9... idk lol... great supporting cast, though, ofc!

50) 7.3 3 by 3

this one was definitely good fun, and lee mack is great in it, but it's not one i necessarily see myself watching again any time soon? i think part of this is because i didn't see this live, or witness all the Bus Episode(tm) fuckery so i think i am at a kinda disadvantage lol... but yeah mainly sad that neither steve nor reece are in it :(

49) 1.2 A Quiet Night In

another potentially Hot Take here lol... though i liked the whole idea of it being silent comedy, i think it was let down by a couple things. first, i kinda wish it had leaned more visually into the sorta slapstick/charlie chaplin era they were referencing (like i get they probably thought that it being in black and white would be a bit TOO on the nose, but idk... i kinda think it would've added to it? that might just be me though lol... i just like when things are in black and white lol)

honestly though? my main issue was the lame transphobic joke they made w/ oona chaplin's character lol... like even for 2014, the whole 'haha woman have penis = peak comedy' was a bit tired of a trope, coupled by what happens to her at the end of the episode? idk... rubbed me the wrong way and kinda stopped me from fully loving this episode lol

48) 5.1 The Referee's A Wanker (no i'm not censoring it like it does on the iplayer fuck that lol)

i'm kinda let down by being infinitely bored by anything football related with this one lol... like i liked some of the twists, and also the final twist (after my dad explained it to me because at first i was like huh what lol...), and the characters were fun, but yeh... not really much to say other than 'it was alright lol'

47) 4.5 And The Winner Is…

i actually did mostly enjoy this one lol! we're mostly getting to the ones now that i have minimal bad things to say about (which at number 47 out of 55 is p impressive lbr)

but yeh, the reveal of this was great, and i loved the individual characters (shout out to zoë wanamaker, she stole my heart lol <3) i suppose it's just kinda low because it wasn't that exciting lol? but yeh, a solid episode anyway lol

46) 8.5 Nine Lives Kat

i loved a lot about this one, the kinda russian doll style of reveals were really clever tbh! this is one that i've only seen once and i really do feel like i should watch this one again to get my full thoughts... so who knows, its ranking might change if i were to watch it again lol

also that kiss though 👀

45) 5.4 Misdirection

i loved the opening bit, plus the tension of this episode was fab! the twist was kinda predictable, which i don't consider a negative thing generally but it just means that it falls lower against episodes with more surprising twists lol... it's definitely one i wanna watch a few times since there's a lot of details you miss with just one!

44) 8.4 Love Is A Stranger

this one was probably the most black mirror-y feeling episode they've ever done (which is a compliment, btw, because i genuinely love black mirror lol) not just because of the technological elements, but also with the general tone and that twist! i actually kinda liked that steve and reece took more of a step back in this one, it let the other characters really shine imo!

43) 5.5 Thinking Out Loud

i feel kinda bad for putting this one so low since i think it's probably one of the most interesting both conceptually and stylistically, but... there are just so many good episodes what am i supposed to doooooooo?? (not much i can really say about this one without giving things away... i did really enjoy steve's american accent though lol!) 42) 7.4 Kid/Nap

i thought i was gonna kinda dislike this one when i started watching, the premise is pretty simple and i like the split screen stuff but was worried it was gonna come across as a bit gimmicky, but honestly? i had a lot of fun with it! some really brilliant twists and turns, and genuinely one of the funniest of the episodes imo! held together by the great performances and simple but effective story!

41) 8.6 The Last Weekend

this probably would have been higher if i had just based it on my first watch (which was before a certain other episode came out), but on second watch (and with the context of that other episode that has a similar sorta premise but, imo, done much better)

regardless, though, this is a pretty iconic and VERY memorable episode lol!

40) 1.5 The Understudy

ok so my very tiny complaint about this is i wish there were more of the surreal elements (kinda hard to describe but if you've seen the episode you know what i'm referring to lol)... anyway i generally really love things that are set around the theatre tbh and this one really highlights just how good they are as writers with a very limited setting and selection of characters!

but yeh... wish there were more of the surreal/strange moments if had dotted around!

39) 9.5 Curse Of The Ninth

i generally loved the spooky atmosphere of this one! another one that i feel i need to rewatch, i feel like the ending felt a bit abrupt on this one and i definitely kinda wish it had been slightly longer (just like an extra 5 minutes come ON lads) but overall i really liked it! it's my least favourite of series 9, which really shows how strong of a final series it was tbh lol!

38) 6.3 Lip Service

there's so much to like in this episode; great layers of comedy and tragedy, plus the twist really caught me off-guard lol! definitely one of the more complicated episodes (and yes, i also need to rewatch this one lol...) 37) 5.2 Death Be Not Proud

i first watched this one with literally no knowledge of psychoville, but even then i still enjoyed it (also jenna coleman!!! kinda wish we'd seen more of her since she kinda got overshadowed by the psychoville characters, but she's still great lol), though rewatching it once i had watched the other show definitely made a lot of the references make more sense lol

wish i could put it higher just because mr jelly!!!!! love that guy, but the overall story isn't the most interesting or unique compared to the others, but it's still great regardless lol

36) 9.4 Ctrl Alt Esc

another episode that has a similar concept to an episode i like more, which is sorta preventing this from being any higher, but regardless i adored the setting (i've never been to an escape room but i have a strong feeling i'd love them lol), and i think it did such a good job at making us understand the family dynamics really quickly and effectively! also one of steve's strongest performances, i gotta say! he plays these kinds of understated characters so well imo

35) 7.5 A Random Act Of Kindness

i really like the episodes of in9 that feel like almost love letters to a particular subject and how that relates to people and their relationships... curse of the ninth was about music and the act of creation, misdirection was magic and revenge, and this one is dedicated to science, regret and loss! i think i kinda wish it ended in a different way, but i don't think the ending took away any of the rest of my enjoyment of the episode lol

34) 6.6 Last Night Of The Proms

i was most shocked that based on the ratings this is apparently the least liked episode lol? it's arguably the most political of the in9 episodes so i don't know if that's why people are a bit torn about it? or the religious elements lol?

either way overall i really liked it! i think it did a good job of combining the absurd premise with the slight political commentary, plus i really enjoyed the characters (and loved the thick west country accents lol)

33) 2.6 Seance Time

there are so many great elements of this that i can't talk about cos i don't wanna give away any spoilers, but honestly this one has some great twists as well as some genuinely pretty intense moments! i can't explain it but i feel like this would be a really good episode for anyone who hasn't seen the show before to start with? i just feel like it has a perfect 'inside no 9' energy to it lol

32) 8.1 The Bones Of St Nicholas

this might be one of my favourite interpretations of a typical ghost story tbh! possibly genuinely one of the only episodes of the show that actually scared me a bit, ngl! the overall spooky atmosphere is just so great. plus simon callow!!!!!!!!

31) 6.1 Wuthering Heist

another of my potential Hot Takes since a lot of people didn't seem to like this one? i found it genuinely really funny, plus the whole commedia dell'arte + the breaking the fourth wall thing were such unique concepts to throw into one episode lol! i think maybe it's because there were so many slightly strange concepts that people felt it was a bit unfocused??? idk... the ending wasn't my favourite, but i just felt generally the episode felt like nothing i'd really seen before!

also gemma whelan (whose name i had to google oops... she's SUCH a familiar face to me but i don't think i ever learnt her name lol) was so good in this lol

30) 9.6 Plodding On

sorta hard to know where to put the finale tbh... i've only watched it the once through, so definitely need to watch it again at some point. at the same time it's basically a love letter to the rest of the show itself, so it's sorta difficult to judge based on its own merit lol...

that being said, i loved the drama and tension, plus all (well most, ahem) of the cameos from all the people who were in the show in the past were really lovely!

but yeh... definitely a weird one to try and rank... almost feel like i need to put it in it's own list pfft

29) 7.2 Mr King

one of the first truly Bat Shit episodes on my list so far lol! i love the setting and the kid actors in this were INCREDIBLE honestly! another one i don't wanna say much about it because it's kinda better to go in blind lol

only thing i'll say is: ok but whose dicks were those pictures of? they probably mentioned it in a behind the scenes episode or on twitter or smth but i've not seen anything and i'm kinda intrigued did they just.... find them online? did they ask staff? how does one find random pictures of penises(peni?) to use in your dark comedy show lol???

28) 9.1 Boo To A Goose

there's a lot to love about this episode, SO many absolutely incredible british actors (joel fry, susan wokoma, mark bonnar!!!!) plus drag queen steve!??! hELLO???? AND it's on a train!!!! the twist definitely felt reminiscent of a lot of other older horror media, but that didn't stop it being surprising or memorable!

27) 4.4 To Have And To Hold

1st thing: good for her.

2nd thing, this episode was SO good! i had no idea where it was gonna go with the story so the reveal was super shocking to me, plus nicola walker seriously KILLED with her performance ngl!

this is definitely a slow burn episode, so if at any point you're feeling like it's dragging i do implore you to stick with it!

26) 4.6 Tempting Fate

now, if we were ranking these on 'how cute reece looks' then this would be in the top 3 at least sorry not sorry... unfortunately we're NOT ranking them based on that criteria so it'll have to remain at 26th place lol

i really enjoyed the premise and characters of this one! i also especially liked how the hare from this episode is featured in every episode of the show which creates this really kinda insane idea that what if every single story is actually connected lol?!?!

25) 1.1 Sardines

i feel like i should put this one higher because it is pretty iconic first episode of the show, but there are just so many good episodes what am i supposed to DO?!!!!!!?!?

this is technically the episode i've seen the most, i believe, and i do still find so much to enjoy about it even though i've seen it like 3+ times at this point! so many great actors involved lol

side note, i had not actually heard of sardines as a game until i watched this and wasn't entirely sure if they'd just made it up pfft... anyway maybe it's just a northern thing or smth because i'm sure we didn't have this in the south pfft... just plain ol' hide and seek lol

24) 8.3 Paraskevidekatriaphobia

one of the most jarring twists (literally kinda feels like it comes out of nowhere, at least to me pfft), but i definitely still liked it! there was a nice bit of slapstick comedy in this which i appreciated! there were also a lot of superstitions in this that i wasn't familiar with (like the peacock feather one lol)

not really much else to say, it's just a really solid episode lol!

23) 7.1 Merrily Merrily

i did love that this one felt legit like a reunion between the (3) members of the league of gentlemen tbh they were obviously still playing characters, but their interactions just felt so natural and i really enjoyed it! plus diane motherfucking morgan is one of the funniest people alive i SWEAR to god lol! the pee scene made me cry with laughter ngl lol

i honestly think this one is kinda underrated? idk if it was because it was more emotional and character driven than some of the others? (which doesn't make sense since The most popular episode is an emotional, character driven one pfft... idk... people are strange)

22) 6.4 Hurry Up And Wait

so if we were ranking these based on 'how cute reece looks' then this would be RIGHT at the bottom because girl WHAT was that fucking wig?!?! thankfully we're NOT ranking it on that so this gets to be at 22nd lol

as said before, i really like films and shows that deal with theatre or actors, so it was really fun to see actors acting like complete divas lol i was a little worried that the mystery element was going to be another kinda lazy lame joke, but they actually went more of an interesting direction with it imo!

21) 2.3 The Trial Of Elizabeth Gadge

part of me kinda wished they'd done more historical episodes like this because I genuinely loved the setting! there's also a great load of humour in this one, which a pretty legendary couple of twists at the end that made me go like 'OHHHH!??!!' when i first watched it pfft

20) 3.4 Empty Orchestra

arguably the most wholesome episode of the entire show, and usually i wouldn't be a big fan of this kinda episode (like i said i didn't the bottom 2 eps because they felt too much like generic sitcoms lol), BUT there was something in the characters and the genuinely really uplifting and kinda sweet vibe of this one that i couldn't help but love lol!

it's also the closest we got to a musical episode which i'm STILL bummed we never got... like yeh i get logistically it's super hard to do but .... i wanted to hear them sing :((((((

19) 9.3 Mulberry Close

another case of 'there's another similar episode that i liked more' which is sorta why this isn't higher lol regardless, it's such a clever concept to be told entirely through the cctv footage, and the general story and collection of characters were super interesting! i haven't rewatched it yet so definitely need to give it another go lol!

18) 4.7 Dead Line

ok so i need y'all to know that i was watching this literally YEARS after the ep aired with me dad but we STILL got bamboozled by the show cutting out pfft... which might just be because we're dumb but i like to think it's also just because it's so well crafted! it is another one that you need to go in blind imo so please just check it out if you haven't!

recently watched a great video essay on yt where someone spoke about this episode (check it out here!)

17) 2.2 The 12 Days Of Christine

gasp 12 days of christine? not in the top 10???!?!

ok this is IS an amazing episode, and sheridan smith is honestly one of the most under-appreciated british actors imo

BUT idk i think on rewatch the impact of the twist had definitely lessened? like i remember coming up with all these theories on my first watch which were TOTALLY wrong lol... and yeh like there are definitely just other eps i like more... it's good! it's SO good! i still love it! i just... idk lol

16) 3.6 Private View

maybe it's the art nerd in me but i really did love this one lol! i liked the murder mystery vibe of this one with a group of people being invited to an mysterious location and as a viewer you spend the whole time desperately trying to figure out their connection lol!

i liked the small peter kay cameo, plus morgana robinson as a big brother celeb was so fucking funny lol! plus the twists were really mad and i loved them lol!

15) 2.1 La Couchette

very similar to the previous one, but i really did love the collection of kooky characters here lol plus as someone who has been in several hostels (not on a train, but hostels are hostels) i relate HEAVILY to being surrounded by just the strangest and loudest people you will ever meet pfft...

(shout out to the korean guy that came in at like 2am, showered (the shower was right next to the beds so we could hear everything) and he appeared to have everything he ever owned in paper bags which he rustled about for like 20 minutes... i really contemplated murder that night lemme tell you...)

uh anyway yeh this episode is great lol!

14) 6.2 Simon Says

we're onto my ultimate favourite episodes at this point btw lol

this episode is full of great twists and suspense, plus nick mohammed! i like the way they explored fandom culture in a way that didn't feel like it was being overtly mean to the idea of fandom itself (cough unlike sherlock cough and supernatural cough)!

also if we were ranking these episodes based on 'how cute steve looks' then this would be number 1 hands DOWN lol!

13) 1.3 Tom and Gerri

my highest rated series 1 epsiode! i'd actually forgotten about the twist of this one when i rewatched it recently, but i still really loved it tbh!

a great combination of horror with a really emotional through line, plus even at the end you're never really sure what is real or not lol...

12) 3.3 Riddle Of The Sphinx

this episode is SO fucked up and SO good lol!!! you never guess where the story is going next and it's just a wild experience lol! again, don't wanna say too much to give anything away but i will say i understand cryptic crosswords even LESS after watching this twice pfft...

11) 4.1 Zanzibar

if i had any skills i would write my review for this in imabic pentameter ... but alas i do not

this episode felt like such an amazing demonstration of reece and steve's writing prowess! it's funny, the story is absolutely mad with so many crazy twists, and a stellar cast! so worth a watch, especially if you like anything vaguely shakespearan and theatrical lol!

10) 6.5 How Do You Plead

another one where i had SO many theories of where the episode was going to go only to be completely wrong and the twist shook me and i LOVED it! there isn't really much to the story, but it's truly carried by the brilliant performances imo!

9) 3.1 The Devil Of Christmas

i've not really heard anyone talk about this episode much but i was so taken aback by how much i really loved it! jessica raine absolutely NAILS her performance as a 60s/70s actor, and the general film aesthetic and dialogue style is just perfect, and the reveals throughout the episode just add so SO much to the enjoyment of this!

i have a feeling this might actually go up in my rankings when i eventually rewatch it because there are just SO many interesting layers to it imo!

also i just realised i've included the two episodes derek jacobi was in back to back pfft.. wasn't on purpose but he is a legend lol!

8) 9.2 The Trolley Problem

highest rated 9th series episode woop woop!

i rewatched this one recently and realised it reminded me a lot of the story in Last Weekend, but just as i said in that review, i much preferred the way this story was handled to the other one!

(don't get me wrong, they're VERY different just... sorta similar vibes lol)

anyway this is a very dark episode, both physically (it's set at night and i can't see a THING) and conceptually, but the way this combined the psychology elements with comedy is truly masterful!

7) 5.6 The Stakeout

ok so Funny Story about this one

i'd been on a big binge of in9 episodes a few years back and i got to this one and was about half way through when i realised i needed to take a break lol it didn't help that the episode itself is pretty slow burn, especially after watching some of the others that are a lot more fast paced lol... so basically, i paused it with the intention of returning in a few days or so except... then several years go by and i STILL hadn't seen the end of it pfft

anyway, finally watched it this year and it instantly got transported into my top 10 because that twist was SO iconic lol! it's so simple of a concept (steve and reece spend the entire time yapping in a police car) but it's so cleverly written!

6) 8.2 Mother's Ruin

i was a little bit surprised that this one had a lower rating than the rest of series 8 tbh? anyway i LOVED this one lol! the incense line make me laugh every time i hear it, and in general i loved the relationship between the brothers and everything surrounding their mother!

also as someone who recently watched the film reece was in called 'the cottage' (which also starred andy serkis), i can't help but think it was at least somewhat of an inspiration for this episode lol (they may have talked about this already btw but idk)

5) 7.6 Wise Owl

oof... this episode made me go Oof about 500 times after i watched it

it's a good oof... but it is an oof lol

i haven't rewatched it yet and i'm kinda nervous about doing it cos it did sorta emotionally devastate me lol

4) 4.3 Once Removed

in terms of how this story is told, i'd honestly say it was my ultimate favourite inside no 9 format! it's not something i've ever really seen before and it felt so interesting and built the story in such a unique way! also shout out to monica dolan (whose name i forget EVERY time idk why) who is honestly one of the best british actors ever yes i know i've said that about everyone on this list but shhhhhhhhhhh lol

also absolutely loved all the andrew lloyd webber stuff (which isn't a spoiler btw lol...)

3) 2.4 Cold Comfort

another one where i mentioned before that in Mulberry Close there's another episode with the concept of the story being exclusively filmed through cctv footage (deadline also does it but shhh)! i love that concept, especially with the multiple screens where you're constantly aware of things happening in the other booths which just keeps you on edge!

the reveal is super chilling and though i haven't rewatched it yet, i am honestly really excited to because i feel there were SO many things i missed on my first watch!

2) 4.2 Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room

oof part TWO lol... another one i haven't rewatched because it made me cry and i need at least another few months to recover from the first watch pfft... it is still funny btw! i think a lot of people talk about episodes like this and how sad they are, but it has a lot of great comedy in it which is i think part of why the emotionality hits so hard!

side note, i keep accidentally calling this 'bernie CLIFFORD'S dressing room' and i have no idea why lol... i don't think there's anyone called bernie clifford lol??? help?????

1) 3.5 Diddle Diddle Dumpling

trying to figure out my favourite episode was kinda hard, and i think any one of my top 15 could ultimately take this place, but honestly? rewatching this one i just was so overwhelmed with how beautifully crafted this episode is!

it also features my favourite performance by reece... a amazing combination of subtle moments with the bigger explosions of emotion, you instantly feel so much for his character tbh!

the twist isn't necessarily as shocking or intense as others, but there's something so heartbreaking when you realise it that changes the entire feeling of the episode... also mathew baynton is briefly there which i enjoyed lol!

i'm so sorry this post was so long lmao i'm sure no one will have read this far but if you HAVE then THANK you <3 i really love this show can u tell? WHY did it take me so long to get into it smh smh smh smh

anyway if you have read this far then let me know what your favourites were or just if you have general thoughts on my general thoughts u know? idk basically my ask box is always open if anyone wants to ramble about this show or whatever else lol

[sammyloomis]

2024 completions #1

part 2

back back back again!! gamers gamin'

06/12 update: posting this earlier than the new year because im gonna be rushed off my feet with work so i aint got time for gamin til late janurary :']

doing these is always fun and i know its mainly for myself fghj not sure many people even read these posts when i make em, but theyre fun to look back on!! in 2 parts cause i gamed too hard again smh smh

total games: 30

21/01 - Spider-Man 2 - 7/10

peter and miles return for double the spidey shit and double the big bads. why does anyone even live in this city anymore?? this sure was an insomniac spiderman game!!! like dont get me wrong, none of these games are Bad, theyre kinda middle of the road imo, but theyre still fun so ya cant fault em for that!! my main gripes with this game, as has been with the other 2, is just the overall story and dialogue being kinda boring. also, some of the side missions/collectibles stuff can be a bit of a pain BUT as i said, the combat is still very fun... tho mostly unchanged aside from some new abilities n gadgets

08/02 - Cozy Grove - 8/10

you are a spirit scout who has washed ashore of what seems to be a deserted island. except OOPS wait its not deserted, its haunted, and its YOUR job to help out the wayward souls stuck here into the afterlife if youre looking for a console version of animal crossing this is ur best bet imo!! tons of collectibles to find over the seasons, a bunch of decorations to spruce up the island, and a surprisingly rich story for each character u meet. this game covers some pretty heavy topics for how bright and cozy it looks, it was a pleasant surprise. my main gripes are how repetitive the quests are and how buggy it is; the game freezes a LOT and u have to restart the whole app multiple times just to get going some days. other than that, very fun and relaxing :]

22/02 - Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery - 10/10

you are frog detective, worlds number 2 best detective!! head off on 3 exciting cases and solve the Ultimate mystery - IS there a hat that can fit on frog detectives weird shaped head?? only time will tell im being dead serious about the 10/10 btw. this game is a collection of all 3 games in the series and theyre all super short, but super fun and cute and Funny. like genuinely. i love the low poly art style so much, i think the jokes are great, just the overall vibes are Brilliant, rly cant rec this enough :']

22/02 - Fran Bow - 8/10

fran bow follows the story of a young girl struggling with strange visions and evil entities i mean fran bow is a pretty iconic point n click horror game, idk what else to say abt it that hasnt been said already!! the art style is obviously a highlight, and the writing is iffy in some cases but surprisingly emotional a lot of the time for how messed up the visuals can get. theres a Lot of back and forth which can get a bit tedious, but the puzzles are pretty fun and overall its just a decent game imo

01/03 - Little Misfortune - 6/10

a young girl called misfortune goes on an adventure to find Eternal Happiness after a strange voice begins speaking to her inside her head the spiritual sequel to fran bow!! the vibes are similar for sure but something about this one didnt grab me the same as its predecessor. the character of misfortune can oscillate frequently between cute and annoying for me, as could the voice acting, but theres clearly a lot of heart in this one still :] the world didnt feel As fleshed out as fran bows but still a decent game

07/03 - Castle on the Coast - 7/10

you are a giraffe named george, washed ashore on an island with a castle (on the coast, if you can believe it). after meeting the residents, you gotta platform and collect ur way to the very top to help resolve some bad blood pretty cute n short platformer!! controls are kinda floaty/slippy and its very clearly meant for a younger audience, but its still pretty fun :] low poly art style is always a plus for me and i do always love a good platformer

09/03 - Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel - 9/10

the card game as you know and love it, now digital! i mean. its yugioh fghj if ur a new player its a great way to learn the basics and begin crafting some decks of ur own, if ur a returning player its a fun way to experiment with some new deck ideas and just play, and if u dont wanna play against other people online u can always just take it to a private match and duel there with ur friends :] the ui is sleek, yugioh itself is a fun game. honestly the only bad thing is the other players but u cant do much about that fghjk

15/03 - Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolutions - 6/10

a single player yugioh game where you can duel through iconic scenes from the og anime and beyond kind of the unrefined, solo play version of master duel. its not as good imo, and master duel brought a lot of quality of life upgrades from this one, but if ur after a decent single player yugioh game this ones ur bag :'] this version has 6 different animes to chose from and u can play thru all of them, build ur own decks, etc etc. theres also an online mode but its pretty dead and if u wanna duel real people u might as well just use master duel

19/03 - Chasing Static - 5/10

having just buried his father, chris pulls over to a late night cafe after getting lost in the welsh countryside. while exploring the area, he finds a mysterious bunker and a voice over the radio pretty 'meh' horror game but i rly like the ps1 style graphics, always a plus for me. the actual plot and gameplay is fine, nothing too special, and its Extremely short, but not much else to say :']

20/03 - Steven Universe: Unleash the Light - 8/10

more gems are determined to disturb the peace of era 3 and its once again up to steven and the crystal gems to stop them another steven universe rpg!! apparently this is the 3rd in the trilogy, but the first one was never ported to ps so ive only ever played this one and 2 fghj BUT honestly?? these are rly good rpgs; the art style is gorgeous, the gameplay is fun, obviously the characters are cute too. its just a blast :] the Big Gripe is that its glitchy as hell fghjk you can get stuck in certain areas and be unable to move unless u exit the game, but i still highly recommend for su and rpg fans alike

28/03 - The Addams Family: Mansion Mayhem - 3/10

when a seedy businessman shows up on their doorstep looking to buy and demolish their house, the addams family have to scour the place of artefacts to prove their homes importance .....i mean. its. fine. its ur standard 3d platformer fare, nothing to write home about really. its one of those overpriced ip games that dont take long to beat at All. i only got it for the meme and cause it was on sale and like i say, not bad, but its just kinda meh. the "story" is boring and feels not very addams-y but at this point thats par for the fkn course for anything with their names on it fghj

31/03 - First Class Trouble - 1/10

its a shitty among us clone, and thats all i have to say about this mess this thing has been on my backlog for 2 years and i NEVER. thought id every finish it because its Literally just among us but not fun. all the trophies are online only and specific as Fuck. the only reason i did it is cause i unlocked One (1) trophy when it was free on ps plus with my mates and it was bugging the fuck outta me. so yuh. dont play fghj. p sure the servers are gonna die soon too

07/04 - Burnout Paradise: Remastered - 7/10

burnout paradise has you getting behind the wheel in one of the best racing/stunting/crashing games in the world. try not to wreck your car Too bad MAN. this bad boys been on my backlog for 3 years, holy shit. i bought it because i was nostalgic and i remember playing the original with my brother all the time, so it was defo an experience to go back :'] while it is a very fun game as a whole, it gets repetitive pretty quickly, even with all the new cars you unlock, and some of the online trophies can be a pain to get (2 specifically involving full lobbies) BUT cant deny its an entertaining time

27/04 - LEGO DC Super-Villains - 7/10

the justice league have gone missing and a new band of "heroes" have swept in to take their place. our titualar super villains arent too pleased about this standard lego game fare :'] if i had to pick, im certainly more of a dc fan simply for harley, and lego games are always fun collectathon type deals, so this wasnt half bad!! lego games humour is always a lil hit or miss, but these things are always aimed at younger audiences anyway so eh what can ya do

04/05 - Overwatch 2 - 5/10

one of the most famous fps shooter games out there, do i rly need to explain overwatch to you?? no your eyes do NOT deceive you, i did in fact 100% overwatch 2. not Completely on my own merit, i had the help of a boosting group, but still!!!! twas a journey :'] i never played overwatch in its heyday so i cant speak to how it Used to be, but from what ive played now its just... not rly for me. i like the characters a bunch, and the world/story building is interesting, but thats not rly the focus of the game itself tho i wish it was

07/05 - Control - 9/10

jesse faden inadvertently becomes the new director of the federal bureau of control aftering finding the previous one dead seemingly from a self inflicted gunshot. overtaken by entities called the Hiss, jesse fights to reclaim the Oldest House, while also searching for her long lost brother WHEW!! love this one holy SHIT. big big BIG scp vibes, the way this game handles its horror and aesthetic is brilliant and exactly my cup of tea. tbh i found the actual gameplay the least interesting part fghj i would've spent the whole time going around collecting files and reports just to read them if i could :'] that being said, combat and traversal feel Awesome, every new ability is so fun to use. great stuff!!

10/05 - Carrion - 9/10

you are an unholy, fleshy, offal abomination, free from ur confines within a secret underground facility. time to escape. and kill everyone on the way out :] honestly ive been wanting to play this for ages so im glad i finally could! just as fun as i expected, visually amazing i Love the pixel art style paired with this rly disgusting Thing ur controlling dfghj its incredibly satisfying to just grab people up and start ripping them to shreds. u unlock new abilities as u progress and encounter stronger enemies as u go, but the feeling of being some unstoppable force never rly goes away (positive). p short game, but very fun!!

13/05 - Coffee Talk 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly - 7/10

coffee talk 2 takes place a while after the first game, introducing a couple of new faces and reconnecting with old ones this games just p pleasant to play :'] like the first one, its a kind of a barrista/visual novel type deal where people come in and u make them drinks/listen to their stories/etc etc. the musics lovely, the arts p nice, but like the first one i feel like its all a bit surface level. i never Really feel like i connect with any of these characters, even the returning ones, but its still a pretty game and theres not much else to say about it fghj

18/05 - A Way Out - 5/10

two guys, brought together by a mutual goal, escape prison and begin a journey to exact revenge on the man who ruined their lives tbh i didnt actually finish this game since the plat pops Wayyy before the end and i already knew how it ended so... yeah fghj i only played this for a platinum bingo event im doing rn and needed a co-op game to do so here we are :'] that being said, its an interesting story with interesting mechanics!! defo fun to play with a friend if ur looking for a short impactful story to get thru together

23/05 - NORCO - 10/10

kay, finally coming home after her mother passes away from cancer, learns that she had been doing some investigating in the nearby swamps and begins trying to figure out what she was looking for a sci-fi southern gothic point-n-click game that BLEWWW me away dude. holy shit this story is so SO good, i loved every second of it. its such an interesting setting with worldbuilding to match, gorgeous art, haunting soundtrack AUGH cannot recommend this one enough

01/06 - Heavy Rain - 2/10

the origami killer kidnaps ethan mars' remaining son and he must go on a set of trials to get him back. and other stuff happens too i guess. bad. its just bad dfgh. lets try to start with a positive tho; the actual concept is pretty cool and the mystery/crime stuff is alright, but the writing and characters are fkn boring and annoying and gross. i hated ethan as a main character, i thought he was so annoying, the plot twist makes no sense, and all the female characters are so clearly written by a man who hates women. yuck.

01/07 - Pesterquest - 10/10

you're a lean, mean, friend making machine and the ceasless call of platonic relations beckons you even now!!! time to befriend some regular degular teens (and aliens) okay so HUGE preface on this game you kinda.... Have to have read homestuck to understand literally any of it. im a homestuck fan, and ive never read the epiloges or the "sequel" and even I was lost on some points, but REGARDLESS i fkn loved this so much. its just ur run-of-the-mill visual novel, but i genuinly had such a fun time revisiting these characters and seeing them again that i dont even care dfghj and great art too!!

04/07 - Hiveswap Friendsim - 7/10

you have just crash landed on a strange alien planet. your bones are broken, you're lost and alone, you're hungry and thirsty. only one thing can save you now... FRIENDSHIP!!!! so i think i was supposed to play this one before pesterquest dfghj but i got too excited to see characters i already knew again :'] ANYWAY this game acts as a little introduction to some characters you can meet in the ill-fated homestuck point and click adventure game, hiveswap. while i didnt find this one as engaging as pesterquest, it was still an interesting insight into alternian life!! which im all about. i doubt it ever will, but i wonder if they'll ever port hiveswap to console... a man can dream

09/07 - Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy - 5/10

apollo justice, an up-and-coming defence attorney, begins his journey at the wright anything agency so i wanna start with a good thing off the bat because my opinion of this collection kinda plummeted towards the end. i rly like the 3d models, i think they capture the same level of character that the og 2d ones did and add new dimensions to everyone. everything else tho... hh idk man, i just rly didnt vibe with these at all, which sucks. i feel like it was just ret con after ret con after character assassination. big L tbh

23/07 - Grotto - 8/10

in the middle of the woods, in the heart of a mountain, lives a soothsayer. a startamer. using the constellations, you must provide the people who visit you with answers to their most pressing questions the art style of this game kinda drew me in, and the story ended up surprising me with how dark and interesting it is!! you end up making a lot of descisions that seem to have no good options, or giving people an answer that they end up misinterpreting for the worse due to ur limited options. for playing such a limited perspective, you get such a clear, vivid picture of whats happening outside your little cave. really interesting stuff

27/07 - Broken Age - 8/10

vella and shay are two teenagers with seemingly totally unrelated lives. they long for change, for freedom, and to do that they must break the traditions forced onto them from birth a point-n-click adventure with a surprisingly star studded cast!! and i didnt even know this was made by the same people who made psychonauts until i started it up :'] which means the art and humour were brilliant! honestly super fun, engaging characters and fun puzzles, and the way these two finally converge was honestly so brilliantly done, i did Not expect it at all

31/07 - Horizon Zero Dawn - 9/10

aloy grew up an outcast her whole life and its only when her past comes knocking does she finally begin to get some answers to her life long questions. also theres a bunch of huge killer robots :] this ones been on my backlog for so damn long, im so happy i finally got around to finishing it!! the combat in this is so addicting, i played it for like a week straight going for all the side quests n upgrades n such. the story was fkn brilliant, i feel like it balanced the the sci-fi elements really well with all the more fantasy stuff, and theres even some horror aspects that i really enjoyed!! im docking a point for glinthawks tho. FUCK glinthawks.

06/08 - Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective - 8/10

a man wakes up in a junkyard about to watch a woman get shot by an assassin. he has to help her but theres only one problem: hes dead. using his new ghostly powers, "sissel" must discover the truth behind his death and the strange events taking place tonight, before he disappears forever a game that id been super excited to play for how much it was hyped up by literally everyone i mentioned it to :'] the mechanics are simple but super satisfying, very rube goldberg machine, and the story is a tantalising mystery that unfolds at a great pace with plot twists and reveals happening at just the right moments to keep you engaged

10/08 - Cat Quest 3 - 9/10

the third installment of the cat quest rpg games takes on the open ocean, as our main lil cat buddy and their ghostly guide search the purribean for the north star treasure!! listen, i fkn Loveeeee the cat quest games and i recommend them to anyone who will listen and i mean that from the bottom of my heart. this one continues the trend of fun combat, an excessive amount of cat puns, and a surprisingly in-depth story that carried over from previous games. my big gripe is that this game is short as hell and it feels like even outside the story, there isnt as much to do as there is in the past games. still incredibly fun :]

27/11 - Bioshock: Remastered - 7/10

after your plane crashes in the middle of the ocean, you wind up in an underwater city called rapture where things seem to have gone completely tits up the gamer is back after 3 months with a game almost 4 years in the making on my backlog :'] not sure if this'll be the last game i have the time to complete this year but hopefully i got time for one more at least!! so theres a reason it took me so long to finish this one, its just cause it never rly clicked with me :[ which sucks cause its a rly cool premise with a ooky spooky atmosphere which is totally my vibe. ive been adamant i wouldnt play the rest (mainly because i thought the remasters would have the online trophies but, to my surprise, they dont) so time will tell if i keep on goin with this series