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retrievablememories · 3 years

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afterdeath | lucas

title: afterdeath pairing: vampire!lucas x fairy!reader genre: angst, forbidden romance, fantasy, vampire!au request: May I request a Vampire!Lucas with a fairy!s/o (Forbidden romance perhaps?) word count: 8.6k warnings: descriptions of death and sickness, mentions of a funeral, viewing, and funerary preparations, major character death (but...with a slight twist), mentions of blood and drinking blood, smoking cigarettes, arguments/conflict, mentions of physical violence, some romeo and juliet elements? a/n: hmm this fic probably could’ve been more detailed but i was trying to avoid triggering my own damn self with so much talk of death...ha...not sure why i went this route but i wanted a forbidden romance with an actual decent ending for both characters and this was the first idea i had recommended songs: OLLA - jhené aiko

Year 1508

“We’ve felled the demon!”

“Indeed, we have!”

Cheers ring through the dawn as a large group of fairies dance around an immense bonfire, raising their shouts of celebration to the sky. Within the fire burns the body of the Primitiva Vampire, the One and Only Pureblood, haphazardly thrown over the wood pile and relieved of her head—which sits near the bottom of the burning mass of wood, her face still twisted in a mien of anger.

As the sky begins turning lighter with the onset of sunrise, the fairies continue their celebration, staying close to the fire all the while. They carry large flaming torches to guard against any of the Primitiva Vampire’s followers who might try to sneak upon them and strike in that sliver of space where the sun has yet to rise.

The Primitiva Vampire had a long reign of terrorizing fairies and turning humans and other supernatural creatures into vampires. Each transformed being became a terrible revenant, one which viciously hunted villages and stole into people’s homes for more blood, more death, and more unwilling adherents to the vampiric cult.

Mass numbers of fairies had been decimated once the vampires first tasted their blood and took a unique liking to it. For over 200 years, the carnage continued on at the hand of the Primitiva Vampire, who had one day blinked into existence in a way that could never really be explained by any conceivable means, either human or magic. And without ever giving a hint to her strange conception, she tore across cities and towns, converting others into night creatures like herself and building a loyal following of half-bedeviled beings.

When fairy populations had dwindled to nearly extinction-level quantities, they were left no other choice—fight back or be wiped completely from the universe’s ledger. So they took up arms, honed their magic skills, and did just that.

And now, all their efforts culminate in this blood-stained morning. It marks a much-anticipated moment of revelry before they have to return to their posts to watch for the night creatures inevitably waiting on the other side of the sunset, ready to avenge their slain Goddess.

Present Day

“You probably shouldn’t be here right now.”

“I wanted to come,” Lucas replies, taking your hand is his large one. “I wanted to see you.”

“I can figure that.” You laugh quietly, a little afraid to let your voice rise higher in case it carries too far. “But that doesn’t mean you should’ve come.”

Lucas holds your hand tightly. His skin is cold against yours due to his slow blood, and colder still from the chill permeating the air. It’s only one of many vampiric traits that the other fairies would think of as strange or barbaric, but you don’t see it that way. The chilliness just reminds you solely of him.

“Well, I missed you. And I’m here now, so you’ll just have to deal with me.”

The building you’re standing behind is damp, old, and dilapidated, and it’s not even one of your pre-designated meeting places. In front of you is a rusted chain link fence, which barricades a field of tall and unkempt grass. More aged and crumbling buildings scatter themselves across the distance, taken over by grass and climbing vines.

You don’t know what’s out here. This is one place within your district you haven’t been to before. It was Lucas’s idea to come here, after your last meeting place had nearly been discovered and he found it too risky to keep going there.

The entire city of Beijing is split up into different districts, each belonging to a different faction of supernatural beings. Some nonhuman races have close ties with each other and allow frequent cross-district mingling; others are sworn enemies, forbidden to fraternize with each other under pain of death. In these latter cases, crossing into another’s territory without express permission—or in rare situations, ties to a powerful ally (or allies) on the other side—is asking to get arrested, injured, or worse.

Lucas would be your tie to the vampire side and you his tie to the fairy side if your species weren’t centuries-long enemies. Instead, you’re relegated to having him sneak in and out of your district and hide what he is with blood-scent blockers and eye contacts to make the trickery easier to get away with. There’s only so much you can do to disguise your fae nature; stepping into vampire territory would turn you into a shining beacon.

“Hmm…” you sigh, shaking your head with a small smile on your face. You grasp Lucas’s hand so you’re now holding it with both of yours. “How long do you think we can keep this up? Going from place to place like this. Hiding like criminals.”

Lucas gives a lopsided grin—one that cannot morph into a full smile because of the sadness coloring it. “I don’t know. Forever, if we’re lucky.” He chuckles.

You stare at your intertwined hands, unaware of the sheer intensity of the longing expression on your face, though Lucas sees it clearly. It threatens to burn his heart to ash. “Unfortunately, fae don’t live forever like you do, so maybe not. Besides, your people would probably find out and come after me before we could even settle into a ‘forever.’”

He shakes his head fretfully at your words, squeezing your hand. “Do we have to talk about all that now? You know we don’t have much time together. Let’s just enjoy it for what it is.” Lucas pulls you into him, tucking your head into his shoulder.

“That’s fine by me,” you say, and resist the urge to make some dark joke about how scandalous it is for a fairy to have their neck so close to a vampire’s mouth—or a vampire’s anything.

You both stay together in that dingy and old spot for a while, talking in the dark until he tells you he has to go. He follows you the whole way back home to ensure you’re safe, keeping to the shadows until he sees you disappear past your front door. Then, he slips away again to head back to the familiar manor in his own district.

It’s nearly morning when Lucas gets back to the large house he shares with the other six men. By this time of day, he knows they will either be in bed or getting ready to turn in.

“Still visiting that fairy, I see.”

The unexpected voice doesn’t scare Lucas, but it does make his body tense up a bit in irritation and a slight sense of anticipation. He sighs and stops in his tracks on the way to his room, though he doesn’t face the clan leader just yet.

“Is that a problem? Because you know I’m not going to stop.”

Kun makes a noise of disbelief. “Of course it is. You know what the consequences are if anyone outside of us finds out.” Lucas turns to him slightly, and the look on Kun’s face is more disappointment—maybe even slight fear?—than anger. “I clearly can’t stop you from doing what you want to, but I can’t help you if the Association gets involved.”

Lucas rocks back on his heels and sighs, rolling his eyes at the mention of the vampire organization. “Fuck the Association. They’re nothing but a bunch of old ass hags who have no purpose in their lives other than ruling over every other vampire in the world.”

Kun looks weary at his words. “You really don’t care, do you, Xuxi. They’d have your heart on a stake if they ever heard that.” He pauses and rolls his eyes. “They’re also not that much older than me, so I wonder who you’re calling an ‘old ass hag’...”

“Isn’t it a good thing that they won’t hear it, then?” Lucas laughs, but it’s not an entirely humorous sound, and he gives Kun a searching look as his chuckles die off.

“Don’t look at me like that. I have no interest in telling them anything, mostly because I also have no interest in our whole clan being wiped out.”

Lucas nods, reaffirming his somewhat shaky but still present trust in Kun, needing the regular reassurances for his own calm. He stretches his arms above his head and takes a few steps like he’ll go to his room, though he doesn’t move to leave just yet. “Just don’t see what the big deal about all this is. All this over some ancient bloodsucker who died like 500 years ago...who cares.”

Kun winces again, though he doesn’t bother with reprimanding Lucas this time; he only shakes his head and sighs heavily like it’s already a lost cause. “A vampire and a fairy together is more than blasphemy—it’s ridiculous. It’s illogical. They all think we’re bloodsucking demons hellbent on killing them.”

“To be fair, there’s definitely a sect of vampire zealots or two who are trying to do exactly that despite the laws.”

Kun sighs. Lucas is right; what can he say to argue that? “Xuxi…”

“I’m telling you I’ll be fine, Kun-ge. You don’t need to worry about me and Y/N. Things have been going fine for this long.” Lucas nods, then heads off to his room for real this time. Kun watches him leave, feeling a lot less reassured than the younger man.

Ten takes Xiaojun and Lucas on one of their weekly outings to a blood lounge. Blood lounges are an easy and accessible way for vampires to get blood, though the legalities of this practice are a little muddy. Before getting with you, Lucas didn’t mind drinking straight from the source—going to one of the back rooms and sucking some willing, vulnerable being just to the point of death—but now, it feels like a type of transgression. Drinking someone else’s blood can be an intensely intimate act, on the same level as sex depending on the context, and he doesn’t want to do anything to make you think he’d be unfaithful.

To his fortune, there is no club rule about having to feed off other beings; many vampires take their blood in fancy champagne glasses, just like drinks in a human club. He does that now as the three men sit in a darkly lit booth.

Their conversation is unexciting for a while, with Lucas keeping careful not to mention you or any of his recent visits to your district to avoid any prying ears in the lounge. However, things soon get interesting. “We all know how Renjun got taken off the Association’s Registry a year ago, right?” Ten asks suddenly.

“Yes, of course.” Xiaojun answers like he’s already bored of this turn in the conversation. “That’s what happens whenever a vampire dies.”

Ten nods, but his eyes are wide like he has a secret he’s itching to tell. “But I don’t think he actually died.”

Lucas’s ears perk up at that.

“Why?” Xiaojun asks.

“He was seeing that human before he supposedly died, you know—”

“The one who lost it and drove the stake in his heart? We all know how it happened—”

“Can you let me finish? Anyway, I’ve heard some...suggestions that he faked his death—that maybe he got a magic user to set the whole crime scene up and make it look like it was real. Illusory magic, or something like that.”

Xiaojun sits forward. “A magic user. As in a fairy? Or a witch? Who?”

“I don’t know, just someone who uses magic. People are starting to think he and the human faked it all and ran away to Tianjin. I heard someone even claimed they saw somebody who resembled him when they went to Tianjin recently, though I don’t know how true that is…”

Xiaojun’s interest is thoroughly engaged now. “Think the Association will go looking for him, if it's true?”

“I don’t know if they’d care enough to hunt down an unregistered vampire who’s laying low and not creating chaos with other citizens. We all know Tianjin is way more relaxed about inter-species relationships, too. But the Association doesn’t like looking stupid. And that kind of trick definitely makes them look stupid.”

Lucas sits back, taking all of this information in. He is uncharacteristically quiet, but he doesn’t know what to make of that situation or why Ten is telling them about it. He thinks he can guess why, though, by the way Ten’s gaze lingers on him, and that scares him a little. The way this rumor piques a forbidden interest in him scares him. Lucas lifts the glass of blood to his lips and drinks from it, trying to distract himself from the current conversation.

“All this for a damn human. Only an idiot would try something like that,” Xiaojun says, shaking his head.

“Maybe a smart one. It did get him off the Registry.”

“How can you be a smart idiot?!” Ten and Xiaojun start arguing over the semantics of the term, and Lucas watches them in amusement, though his mind remains in two different places for the rest of their time in the blood lounge.

—

Later that night when they are back at the manor, Lucas pulls Ten aside, just like the older man expected him to.

“What’s wrong?” Ten asks, though his expression shows he already knows exactly what’s the matter.

“You...the stuff you said about Renjun earlier. I…” Lucas doesn’t know how to start or break his idea to him softly, so he decides to just say it. “Is it really possible?”

“I think it’s possible. It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to get off the Registry…though many other attempts were way less successful.” Then Ten hesitates before saying, “You could try it.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am.” Ten’s expression softens a little. “I know you and Y/N love each other a lot, but there’s no way the Association will ever let you stay together if they find out. Y/N’s life could actually be in danger. Both of you are, every moment you spend together while living in these districts. If you really want to stay with Y/N, then…”

“...But I wouldn’t be able to see any of you again.” You and Lucas have become so entwined with one another that he can hardly imagine a life without you, but he also finds it difficult to picture his existence without his brothers. They’ve become like blood family to him over the last couple centuries.

“Yeah.” Ten sighs deeply, and although his reply is short, Lucas knows that one word is carrying the weight of all of his stress and sorrow about the idea. “Maybe we could find a way to visit you sometimes. Get the fairies or witches to do some of their magicky shit.” Ten laughs quietly. “But...it’s still just an idea. You don’t have to do it.”

Lucas shakes his head slowly. He wants to put the idea to bed and try to continue on with his life, managing his clandestine visits to your district when he can. But now that he knows of an alternative way, no matter how unreasonable or unbelievable it is, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to forget about it. “Kun-ge is going to kill you once he finds out this was your suggestion. You know that, right?”

Ten shrugs, and the sadness lifts momentarily in the curve of his lips. “He can try.”

The next time you and Lucas meet up, it’s in yet another different place under an ancient and mostly abandoned bridge. As a precaution, you stand together underneath the darkness of the bridge and stay out of sight, though there are few chances of anyone being around to see you in the first place.

He has to muster up the courage to tell you of his idea, unsure of how you’ll react or what you’ll think of it. It’s a lot to ask of you. Your kinships and friendships are not as extensive as his, only having a brother and two cousins left in the world, but he doesn’t know if he could ever ask you to leave them behind like this. Or if he could shake off the guilt that would remain from it.

“There might be a way for us to change things…” Lucas starts, skipping the build-up because he knows it would take him forever to think of something appropriate to say. “But I don’t know if you’ll like it.”

“Change things?” You glance at him curiously. You wish you could see the deep red of his irises, but they are hidden behind his brown contacts. “As in, with us?”

“Yes. So that maybe we wouldn’t have to sneak around anymore. Or at least...not sneak around as much as we do now.”

“What is it?” you ask. Despite yourself, your wings flutter against your back as wonder and excitement rise in your chest. You and Lucas have waxed poetic many times before about how you wish things could be different; and neither of you have ever been able to come up with a workable plan. But now, his claim that maybe something is possible has you dangerously curious.

“Taking myself off the Registry. I could basically just...disappear. The Association can’t harm what technically no longer exists.”

You stare at him in confusion. “But you can’t do that, right? Only under special circumstances…”

Lucas sees the question in your eyes and nods. “Right. Like if I die…” You flinch, shaking your head immediately. “...or pretend I’ve died.” This makes you pause, not expecting to hear something like that come from him.

“Pretend...you’ve died. Faking your own death?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but...there’s another vampire who we think has done it before. And...it worked. Supposedly.”

You shake your head again, but you turn the idea over in your mind. “How would you even do that? Someone would have to know you’re not really dead. That can’t be as easy as it sounds...”

Lucas swallows hard. “I know, it doesn’t, but maybe if we plan it right...I think we could pull this off. Some of the others...already know about it.” Only Ten, really, but that’ll inevitably change soon.

Your heart is hammering in your chest just thinking about this plan—the small, undefined plan that it is—and you’re unsure how to approach it. “If we leave under those circumstances, we can’t come back here to Beijing. Which means we won’t see anyone else again, our families and friends...”

“You understand that.” Lucas’s voice comes out strained.

You sigh, wringing your hands. “I do.”

Lucas hangs his head, closing his eyes tightly. “It’s too much to ask of you. We can just forget about this, really. I know sneaking around has been difficult, and I just—”

“I never said I wouldn’t agree to it,” you say softly, interrupting him before he can begin deriding himself about the idea.

Lucas’s head perks up again, and you both look at each other for a long moment. A cold night breeze flows through your clothes and rustles your wings, which remain tucked close against your back.

“Just think of it as leaving the nest, I guess,” you say, though there are tears welling in your eyes. “Growing up and making a life for ourselves. We can do that...right?”

Lucas bites his lip and closes his eyelids to stave off the tears trying to form in his own eyes. “Yeah. We can do that. Even if it’s a bit...unconventional.”

You nod hurriedly, wiping your eyes with the backs of your hands before any more tears can make their way out. “If you really want to do this, then we need to visit my brother.”

—

Your brother is predictably not thrilled about the idea. He likes Lucas well enough, but he’s never been very good at hiding his skepticism about your relationship. Though he would never say this to you directly, he never expected your relationship to make it past a few months; and yet it’s been a year and a half since you and Lucas started seeing each other. Maybe he’d be glad about your relationship’s stability if your partner was anyone other than a vampire. Alas, he instead spends all his time stressing over whether either of you will be found out at any moment’s notice.

“You’re playing with fire,” your brother says as he sits down at his desk within his apothecary office. He shakes his head the entire time, but he rifles through his collection of books on magic anyway. If there is anyone who knows a potion or spell that could work for this scheme and would actually be willing to keep it all secret, it’s your brother.

“I know that, Aldriel.” You cross your arms, sighing impatiently at your brother’s continuous reprimands since you’ve stepped through his door. “That’s why we came to you. You’re one of the best magic wielders and potionists around.”

“Oh, I’m well aware. No need to blow smoke up my ass,” Aldriel replies, never one to let a moment to brag slip away. He continues flipping through his book fast enough to make the words on the pages blur, his brow creased with focus. He is paying attention to the words and pictures on the pages, though you also know him well enough to realize this is him trying to distract himself from the many thoughts that must be crowding his brain.

“Don’t be so worried about it,” you say, trying to speak against the lump that’s suddenly forming in your throat. “You’ve always complained about wanting me out of your hair, anyway.”

Aldriel pauses in flipping through his spell book to look directly at you now, his brows creased even further and his face creating a visage of bitter desperation. “Not like this.”

Sighing, you turn away from him and let him go back to his textbook, knowing you’d probably start to cry if you look at him any longer. And who knows what will happen once that begins.

You go back to Lucas, who is sitting in the other room with his face turned to the window. It is nighttime and the blinds are closed, so you know he’s not looking at anything in particular. His mind must be similarly preoccupied.

“You okay?” you ask, touching his arm.

“Fine,” he answers, though he doesn’t turn to you. He just grasps your hand where it slides down to his own, gripping your fingers tightly. “As fine as I can be in this situation, I guess.”

You sit down in front of Lucas on the floor’s intricately decorated rug, resting your head against his knee. “It’ll be okay.” You aren’t sure of the words when they leave your lips, but you have to believe in them or else all will be lost.

—

You both spend a few hours at Aldriel’s place. At one point, you try to prod Lucas into going back to his clan to avoid raising suspicions for being gone too long—you can just get the potion to him some other day—but he insists it’ll be easier for him to stay and receive the potion now.

Finally, in the hour before dawn, your brother’s door opens and he steps through. “It’s ready.”

Both you and Lucas come alert at that, and you step back into Aldriel’s apothecary to see what he’s developed.

“This is an advanced death glamor potion,” your brother says, holding up a small glass bottle. “It contains a magic incantation that will leave you dead for a week and only a week. Seven days. Your body will remain in perfect stasis, so there’s no risk of the regular side effects that come with death.”

“A week?” you repeat, nervousness coursing through your body. Lucas looks equally apprehensive, and he squeezes your hand tighter.

Aldriel nods, pushing his glasses further up his nose. “That should be enough time to take care of the funeral arrangements and make everyone else think you’ve passed.” He says the last bit while gesturing to Lucas. “I’m not super clear on how vampire funerary customs work, though, so—”

Lucas nods. “No, it’ll work. That’s enough time.”

Your brother’s mouth creases into a thin line. “Good.” He passes the vial to Lucas, makes an expression like he might say something else, and then shakes his head, glancing to you instead. “You plan to go to Tianjin, right?”

“That’s right,” you say quietly.

“You’ll need to find a place to stay, then, until you can get one of your own. And I think we both know exactly where that will be.”

The potion works just as Aldriel said it would. It’s hard to know whether to be dismayed or relieved about this, though the former emotion quickly wins out with everyone.

Lucas takes it a week after meeting with your brother and procuring all the necessary fake documents, claiming it’s best not to wait any longer for it. You feel apprehensive about doing it so soon; or maybe you just want to stall for a little while longer. By now the other five men in his clan all know, each with varying reactions to it but ultimately unable to do anything to change his mind—not even Kun.

On the night Lucas uses the potion, Kun makes one last ditch attempt at reasoning.

“You don’t need to go to this extreme,” the older man insists. Though his voice is cold and sharp and deceptively calm, his entire face is a picture of perfect anger. Everyone had already had their turns talking to Lucas alone and telling him what they needed him to hear—and now it’s just Kun left.

“It’s my decision,” Lucas says, keeping his voice steadier than he feels. “I want to be with Y/N. There is no other way.”

“You’re endangering the entire clan with this. You’d throw us all away for one person?” Kun’s eyes are red-rimmed, but not just from the rage; Lucas knows he’s been crying. Lucas shuts his own eyes, his forehead creasing as he presses the pads of his fingers to his temples.

“Don’t say it like that.”

“That’s exactly what it is.”

“You wouldn’t understand.” Lucas shakes his head, knowing he is treading on very dangerous waters with what he’s about to say. As if the situation weren’t already contentious enough. “You closed yourself off to love a long time ago. After Jingyi died. You just wouldn’t know.”

The vivid red hue of anger bleeds into Kun’s irises at the mention of his late human lover, and he has to make a very concentrated effort not to reach for the younger’s neck. “How dare you speak of her.”

Lucas opens his eyes again and looks directly at his elder now. “You’ve let the Association run your life too much,” he says, though the words come out sounding a bit defeated. He’s not even sure why he invokes Kun’s lover now; maybe he is trying to make the split easier by provoking the other man into hating him. “You’ve let them beat it into you that love is not worth trying for. What did you gain from that, in the end? But more loneliness.”

Lucas gets the breath knocked from him when Kun slams him up against the wall, and the unpleasant sound of wood splintering strikes against his eardrums. A long vertical crack forms in the wood behind Lucas, but not wide enough to make the wall separate completely. Not using his full strength, then, Lucas thinks to himself.

Kun looks for all the world like he might kill Lucas then and there without the younger man ever needing to take a potion—just bite his heart right out. He crumples Lucas’s shirt in his hands, fisting the fabric tightly enough to create small rips in it. His irises are the color of newly spilled arterial blood, and alongside the red rimming of his eyes from his earlier crying, it makes for an agonizing sight—one that sears itself into the back of Lucas’s mind. It’s made even worse by the new tears spilling down the older man’s face.

He chokes out through the tears, “You cannot do this. I raised you. You would have me destroyed twice?”

Lucas wishes he could shut every one of his senses off right now, but he can only manage to shut his eyes, once again, against the pain in the other man’s gaze. “I’m sorry, Kun-ge.”

—

After that, Lucas goes back to his own room and sits on the bed for a long time, replaying the events in his head and growing colder with the realization of what he’s about to do. He stares at the small vial on his dresser until he can’t stare at it anymore, and then he downs it all at once. He looks at the vial with renewed interest as it actually disappears once the fluid is gone, the glass evaporating away in the palm of his hand like water droplets under the sun. No evidence.

Lying on his side, he stares at the wall across from his bed and waits for the spell to begin working. He doesn’t know how much time passes, but eventually his vision begins to blur, almost so imperceptibly that it’s difficult to realize until he notices everything in his field of view is doubled, objects bleeding out of their lines like pictures drawn by a drunken artist—there’s a strange ringing in his ears too, a sound on the edge of his hearing but still present, and he doesn’t know what any of it means, or if this is how other beings feel when they are on the brink of death—it’s frightening, and he feels a momentary pang of sympathy for other nonhumans and humans alike who have no choice but to experience this terrible ordeal at the closing of their lives—

It’s harder to keep his eyes open now, so he closes them and lets all sounds and sensations fade out of his hearing—he only holds one last memory of you in his mind, of the soft and filmy texture of your wings underneath his fingertips, of you laughing whole-heartedly at something silly he’d said, and he joins his hands together in the universal symbol of prayer even as they grow weaker, hoping and praying even to his cursed vampire ancestor that this won’t be the very last memory of you—

—

“Yes, he has...most certainly departed from this world.”

An Association council member known as Belial announces this to the room of men after doing a thorough check of Lucas’s body. His voice is distant and saddened. The texture of it is almost tangible, dragging everyone down with it like a physical thing—akin to a rock being dropped into a thin sheet. “Such a fledgling, too. Truly tragic and strange circumstances.” Belial stands beside the bed, shaking his head and looking down at the still form of the younger man as if he might discover an answer if he stares for long enough. “Was there no indication…?”

“He was probably exposed to bad blood,” Ten replies, his voice tense and quiet. Though Kun is clan leader, he doesn’t say anything at all, leaving all the dirty work of explaining the lie to Ten.

Belial’s gaze turns to Ten. He shifts his head slightly to turn his ear towards him, as if he didn’t understand what the other man said. “Bad...blood? As in death by blood weakness?”

The room feels like it’s been sucked of air once these words are spoken, and the younger men shift uncomfortably. Sicheng never lifts his gaze to look at Belial, though Yangyang’s eyes keep darting between Belial and Lucas on the bed like he’s waiting for something to happen. Hendery is just as anxious beside Yangyang, both of them passing uneasy energy between each other. Xiaojun’s face is still fixed into the same permanent frown it had been in since Lucas first told them of the plan. His eyes remain downcast and fixed on Lucas, silently asking Why did you have to be the idiot this time?

“Yes, blood weakness. He hadn’t drank as much blood as usual in the last few days...maybe he seemed a little restless...but we didn’t think it was unusual. He...didn’t seem sick.”

“Where would he have gotten bad blood from? We vampires always take such care…” Belial’s tone turns condescending, as if he could expect no better from a young vampire—someone not even wise enough to tell bad blood from uninfected blood. How could one let themselves be taken out of this world by such a fundamental, basic mistake? Kun curls his fingers into a fist at his side, though he quickly remembers himself and tries to let them relax.

“The blood lounge,” Hendery blurts out. Every eye turns to him now, and Ten’s mouth thins into an agitated line. This isn’t what they agreed on. “M-maybe it was spoiled blood from the blood lounge. It had to be. He’s more careful than that…”

Belial’s eyes are whirling with so many emotions that it’s hard to pin any singular one down. “Serving bad blood, with or without knowledge of it, is an incredible offense within any vampire district. In that case, the establishment must be shut down—after an exhaustive investigation, of course.” This statement causes more discomfort among the gathered men, almost too much of it to be properly concealed.

“I think that won’t be necessary,” Kun interjects quietly. Belial looks at him with an expression that reeks of offense, and Kun returns the stare, glaring straight into the elder vampire’s eyes. “He died of blood weakness, most likely from drinking from some disease-ridden human. Even though he used the blood lounge and blood bags, he was in the habit of getting outside blood on occasion. It was a moment of poor judgment that cost him his life...and nothing more than that.”

A tense silence stretches over the room, and Belial’s eyes still don’t leave Kun’s. The other men remain statue-still, waiting to see what will happen—if it will work—until Belial says, “Yes. Of course. I’ll file his passing with the Keepers of the Registry, as protocol states.”

The other men stay quiet and motionless until Belial departs from their house.

“You used your compulsion on a council member,” says Yangyang, and even his voice is trembling when he speaks.

“I didn’t think that was possible,” Xiaojun notes, though his tone is more irritated than awed. “They’re all so much more advanced.”

That action obviously didn’t come for free, though, because Kun is holding his head like it hurts, turning away from the rest of them. “Such recklessness is not my style. Primitiva help us all. We’re all dead if we’re found out.”

“Why did you say that,” Sicheng deadpans, his words directed to Hendery. Even though Sicheng hasn’t said or done anything since stepping into the room, he looks thoroughly exhausted. “You almost gave us away.”

Hendery holds himself up on the bed as if he’ll collapse, his body bent with all the weight of their lies. He makes a motion like he might sit on the bed before remembering it’s where Lucas’s body is resting, and he straightens himself with some effort. “I...but he was thinking badly of Lucas. Like it was his fault.”

“It was,” Kun says faintly.

“You can’t let your emotions get the best of you right now. Just let me handle the talking.” Ten’s expression is stressed, and for a moment he starts to wonder if he should’ve ever said anything to Lucas at all.

Xiaojun shakes his head. “For now, there is a lot more we need to do than just talking.”

Vampire funerary procedures are much different from what many other supernatural races are used to—even blasphemous to some. Everything is handled at the home of the deceased instead of a funeral home or mortuary, in keeping with the tradition of honoring one’s vampire ancestors—and ultimately, the Primitiva Vampire. After the Primitiva’s gruesome death hundreds of years ago, all that had been left was her ashes once the fire burned out, but her followers still gave the remains a proper processing and burial.

The men dress Lucas in one of his nicest suits and perform all the necessary actions that would be involved at a funerary home, including preparing the casket. All of them help throughout this process as tradition dictates, though it is more difficult than any of them expected it to be. (No one even makes a dark joke about you’ll have to do this for me when I’m gone, which speaks to their inner turmoil.)

The viewing is equally challenging to get through, if not more.

Many of their vampire friends and acquaintances attend, including various members of the Association. Everyone seems to buy the blood weakness lie perfectly, which means Kun’s compulsion worked as it should have. That knowledge does very little to relax any of them in the grand scheme of things, though.

Though they know Lucas is not really gone, the sight of him lying there in that dark coffin with other vampires looking sadly down at his still face and dabbing their tears away is deeply frightening.

The night of the viewing goes by at a glacial pace, and every other night after that up until the funeral passes even more slowly, like time itself has dropped its speed to prolong the torment.

When the last few straggling visitors for the viewing are gone, the men go their separate ways to try to deal with the not-so-small trauma of the day’s events. Kun goes up to one of the manor’s several wide balconies, one that they’ve all used as a familiar hangout spot or simply a place to unwind over the years. The sun will not rise for another forty-five minutes or so, giving him enough time to sit and think before it becomes unsafe. He is not very surprised when he finds Ten already there, though he decides not to leave.

“You stopped smoking three decades ago,” Kun comments, waving his hand in a pitiful attempt to clear out the smell of smoke filling the air. There’s no hint of teasing or personality in his voice, only hollowness and exhaustion. He sits beside the other man in one of the chairs sat outside. “Where did you even get cigarettes from?”

“Don’t worry about me. This is just for the nerves.”

“Why would I worry, it’s not like you can—” Kun pauses before saying the word they both know, realizing it hits far too close to home right now. Silence falls between them until Kun asks, “Do you actually believe this will be worth it?”

“It will. We’ve worked too hard for it not to be.” Ten takes a drag from his cigarette. “We’re giving them a second chance. Isn’t that something to feel good about?”

“A second chance. How interesting.”

“Everyone deserves one.” Ten glances at Kun from the corners of his eyes and doesn’t say anything more, but Kun already knows what he’s vaguely implying.

“And yet everyone doesn’t get one.”

“All the more reason to take the opportunity when it becomes possible.”

Kun doesn’t reply to that. Ten places a hand on his shoulder, but the older man meets this with little regard as he rises from his seat and walks away at a sluggish pace.

You stand in the train station ready to buy a ticket, clutching documents falsifying your identity and feeling more terrified than you possibly ever have. Today marks the seventh day, and you don’t even know if Lucas is alive right now. It was too risky to have any of the other clan members contact you—not until you and Lucas meet up in the designated place. You know Aldriel is an excellent potion master, and if he says the spell will work as intended then it will, but there’s always that seed of doubt.

Your parting with Aldriel had been typical of your relationship with him—you crumbling before him and him pretending like he was fine, lending enough strength for the both of you to survive on, though you knew he was also bleeding from the heart.

“You better not forget about me,” you’d told him, smushing your face into the sleeve of his shirt to hide your tears, though there was no stopping the flow. It was staining his shirt sleeve right through.

He’d scoffed at you, though it was a watery sound. “I couldn’t if I wanted to.” He’d held your head closer against his shoulder, the both of you glued together in whichever way seemed fit when you’d walked through his door one last time to say goodbye. “We’ll see each other again. Don’t worry.”

You’d lifted your head from his shoulder then, looking at him with an aggrieved expression. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Aldriel put his hand on top of your head, petting you like a small puppy. It was a thing you’d disliked since you were both children, but which only made your heart hurt even more now. “Have more faith in me than that, dear sister. You’ll see.”

When it’s your turn to get a ticket, you step up to the counter and hand over your information, trying to keep the shaking in your hands to a minimum. The teller behind the counter is also a fairy, their wings tucked against the back of their uniform but peeking out at the sides. You childishly try to take some solace in that, hoping there will be some solidarity between you two. Maybe they’ll be less critical of your legitimacy than any other being might be.

The process is scarily easier than you’d thought it would be, though you are sweating the entire time. A fake name and birth date, and no one suspected anything. All of this would have to be your new identity now if you were to live with Lucas in Tianjin without being discovered.

Getting on the train when it comes is only part of the long journey ahead. It doesn’t provide you with much relief, but you are at least thankful to have one segment of that journey complete.

—

It takes another cab to get to your destination once you’re off the train, but you soon arrive at the house of one of Aldriel’s friends and his similar-name twin—Raziel. Raziel was Aldriel’s most trusted and oldest friend, their woven history extending back to childhood. The three of you had grown up together, and you’d even been quite familiar with Raziel until they left for Tianjin some years ago. Now, you’re back in front of each other again under circumstances that you never could’ve guessed.

“You’re here. Good.” Raziel welcomes you into their house with open arms, tugging you into a jittery hug that you anxiously return.

“Have...you heard anything?” you ask, though you know it’s futile. Raziel wouldn’t have gotten any more information than you have, not until Lucas was standing right on their doorstep. They shake their head and give you a sympathetic look, patting your hands.

“He’ll be alright. Everything will go well. I believe it.” Raziel guides you further into their house, presumably towards the room you’ll be staying in while you’re there. “It’s all so romantic, though—even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. I hope you know you’re doing a good thing, in the end.”

You force your facial muscles into a smile, though it is a ghostly and fleeting one. “Thank you.”

Either way, you will have to wait until nighttime to know if Raziel’s words come true or not; the sun is still high in the sky. It’s only midday. You’ve never before hated the sunlight, but right now you curse the sun’s rays that elongate the time between you and your lover.

—

“You all, give him some damn space,” Ten says, trying to pull the younger vampires away so they won’t crowd around the coffin. “He doesn’t need the scare of his life looking at all your faces when he wakes up.” Despite trying his best to be the voice of reason, Ten also has to refuse the urge to station himself beside the coffin and watch for the slightest movement of eyelids, the tiniest twitch of the lips. His hands shake from the frayed nerves of a week of nothing but death and gloom, and even though he doesn’t need to sleep, he thinks he will be out for at least two days after all of this is over.

There is no set time, no designated signal for when—or the dreaded if—Lucas will awaken. The waiting game feels longer than it really is, especially with the hours until the funeral commences steadily counting down. However, it is not very long before there’s a big sucking breath coming from the coffin, the sudden sound of lungs being filled after a week of complete stillness. Everyone rushes back to the bier when this happens, peering wildly inside the coffin.

Lucas’s eyelids flutter for an eternity before shooting open. He immediately seems distressed upon waking, sitting up out of the coffin so quick that it stutters on its stand, and the others have to steady it before it tips over.

“Xuxi...are you okay?” Sicheng asks, voice hushed with nervousness. Despite his unending anger and distress about the situation, Kun has also crowded in to witness Lucas’s awakening, and he visibly sags with relief to see the younger man is at last awake.

The look in Lucas’s eyes is wild. They are momentarily afraid that maybe something has gone wrong with the potion—maybe it has affected his mind somehow and he doesn’t remember any of them— but then he says,

“Y/N. Is Y/N okay?”

“We don’t know,” Sicheng replies. “I mean, hopefully. But it was safer to not have so much cross-communication going on—you’ll have to go to the meeting spot to find out…”

Though the reasons for this make sense, this does not provide consolation. Lucas fumbles his way out of the coffin with the men’s help. It’s clear he’s still disoriented, which makes them even more nervous, if that’s possible at this point.

“You should drink some blood before you leave,” Hendery suggests, and everyone else agrees. Lucas won’t argue that, so he downs one of the blood bags they have stored until he feels a little more like himself.

“You have to go soon, the funeral is set to start in another hour—we’ll have to leave—” Yangyang warns him, though the words fade at the end of his sentence. He doesn’t know how to continue his thought or how to even begin saying goodbye.

Lucas fills that gap by steeling himself and saying his farewells to each of them in turn, though his eyes are troubled and his chin crumples like he might cry at any moment.

“Don’t say I never helped you out with anything,” Ten says, a few tears slipping down his cheeks. Being separated is painful, but it’ll ultimately serve its purpose of giving Lucas a chance at having a love that none of them could. After seeing Kun suffer the way he did after losing Jingyi, Ten wants to spare another one of his mates from dealing with the same fate.

When Lucas gets to Kun, there is a slight awkward silence and a swift exchange of glances—Lucas’s soft gaze butting up against Kun’s more solid one, which is simultaneously pleading to him and rebuking him for his actions. Still, Kun embraces him tightly enough that their bodies could join together.

“Xuxi…” Kun starts, “I don’t…” And then his words break, leaving an unspoken thought between them.

“One day, you’ll forgive me for this,” Lucas whispers to the older man. Kun gives him an endlessly hurt look in return, silently asking him how he could even conceive those words. When they separate from each other, it’s with much reluctance. Lucas looks at them all and nods once, his mouth tight with grief.

“Right. Time to go, then.”

—

You awake in the middle of the night to cool fingers on the side of your face, which startles you completely out of your sleep. Opening your eyes to an unfamiliar room scares you even more, and it takes you a moment to remember why your surroundings have changed. The knowledge comes back to you quickly when a large palm slips against your own, long fingers twining with yours.

“Xuxi,” you whisper quietly, the sound of his name hanging in the air like a prayer. One of the last few times you’ll be able to freely call him that, except in private.

You can’t see his figure well with all the lights turned out, but he had no problem navigating through the dark to reach your bedside. Wanting desperately to see his face, you fumble around for the bedside lamp switch before turning it on.

“Y/N…” Lucas’s face is suddenly illuminated to you in all its golden glory, a myriad of emotions flickering over his features.

“I didn’t even hear you come in,” you say breathlessly. You’re somewhat sad and wish you could’ve met him at the door, embraced him after his long trip, but it doesn’t much matter anymore because he’s here now.

“Poor Y/N. My baby must’ve been so tired.” Lucas bumps his forehead against yours, his whole body drooping with relief as he practically sinks into you, and you giggle a little as you complain about having to hold his weight up. There is a tingle behind your eyes that threatens to turn into a sudden burst of tears, but you try to hold them at bay for a while longer.

“Are we safe?” he whispers, needing your confirmation. “Raziel said so. But...are we really safe?”

“That’s frightening to even think about,” you reply quietly. “We can’t stay here too long, but for now…I think we will be.” Lucas nods without a word, still holding your hand. His blood-scent is completely absent, as it usually is when he’s around you, and you know he’s used the blockers. Soon, with the ability to go out together and not be arrested or threatened for it, that will not be necessary to disguise his vampirism anymore. “It...won’t be easy.”

“No, but the things we want out of life usually aren’t.”

You squeeze his hand. “Raziel will help take care of things for us. It won’t all be trials and tribulations. I hope.” More hesitantly, you ask him, “What was it like? Being dead?” You know that vampires, being once human, still have souls and an afterlife to go to like most other living beings.

The look on his face is worrying. He doesn’t meet your eyes; he only shakes his head and stares at your joined hands. “It was cold without you.” His lips pull into a weak and chapped smile, if only to quiet your worrying, but that doesn’t work as intended. You decide to leave it for now, figuring there will be more time to talk about it when he feels ready.

Turning the light back off, you both press your bodies together as close as they can physically get, Lucas’s head on your chest and his long legs all jumbled together with yours. You fall asleep before he does, lulled away by his comforting and safe presence. He stays awake for a while longer, staring into the dark and the dark staring back into him, before everything else falls away.

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tlbodine · 3 years

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The Horror Genius of Five Nights At Freddy’s

I’ve been playing FNAF: Help Wanted VR on my Oculus Quest lately (a birthday present to myself -- I know I’m late to that party!) and it’s reignited in me my old love of this series. I know Scott Cawthon’s politics aren’t great, but I don’t think there’s any malice in his heart beyond usual Christian conservative nonsense -- and I think he stepped down as graciously and magnanimously as possible when confronted about it. Time will judge Scott Cawthon’s politics, and that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I want to talk about what makes these games so damn special, from a horror, design, and marketing perspective. I think there’s really SO MUCH to be learned from studying these games and the wider influence they’ve had as intellectual property.

What Is FNAF?

In case you’ve somehow been living under a rock for the last seven years, Five Nights At Freddy’s (hereafter, FNAF) is a horror franchise spanning 17 games (10 main games + some spinoffs and troll games, we’ll get to that), 27 books, a movie deal, and a couple live-action attractions.

But before it exploded into that kind of tremendous IP, it started out as a single indie pont-and-click game created entirely by one dude, Scott Cawthon. Cawthon had developed other games in the past without much fame or success, including some Christian children’s entertainment. He was working as a cashier at Dollar General and making games in his spare time -- and most of those games got panned.

So he tried making something different.

After being criticized that the characters in one of his children’s games looked like soulless, creepy animatronics, Cawthon had his lightbulb moment and created a horror game centered on....creepy animatronics!

The rest, as they say, is history.

The Genius of FNAF’s Horror Elements

In the first FNAF game, you play as a night security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a sort of ersatz Chuck-E-Cheese establishment. The animatronics are on free-roaming mode at night, but you don’t want to let them find you in your security room so you have to watch them move through the building on security camera monitors. If they get too close, you can slam your security room doors closed. But be careful, because this restaurant operates on a shoestring budget, and the power will go off if you keep the doors closed too long or flicker the lights too often. And once the lights go out, you’re helpless against the animatronics in the dark.

Guiding you through your gameplay is a fellow employee, Phone Guy, who calls you each night with some helpful advice. Phone Guy is voiced by Cawthon himself, and listening to his tapes gives you some hints of the game’s underlying story as well as telling you how to play. A few newspaper clippings and other bits of scrap material help to fill in more details of the story.

Over the next set of games, the story would be further developed, with each new game introducing new mechanics and variations on the theme -- in one, you don a mask to slip past the notice of animatronics; in another, you have to play sound cues to lure an animatronic away from you. By the fourth game, the setup was changed completely, now featuring a child with a flashlight hiding from the monsters outside his door -- nightmarish versions of the beloved child-friendly mascots. The mechanics change just enough between variations to keep things fresh while maintaining a consistent brand.

There are so many things these games do well from a storytelling and horror perspective:

Jump Scares: It’s easy to shrug these games off for relying heavily on jump scares, and they absolutely do have a lot of them. But they’re used strategically. In most games, the jump scares are a punishment (a controlled shock, if you will) -- if you play the game perfectly, you’ll never be jump-scared. This is an important design choice that a lot of other horror games don’t follow.

Atmospheric Dread: These games absolutely deliver horror and tension through every element of design -- some more than others, admittedly. But a combination of sound cues, the overall texture and aesthetic of the world, the “things move when you’re not looking at them” mechanic, all of it works together to create a feeling of unease and paranoia.

Paranoia: As in most survival horror games, you’re at a disadvantage. You can’t move or defend yourself, really -- all you can do is watch. And so watch you do. Except it’s a false sense of security, because flicking lights and checking cameras uses up precious resources, putting you at greater risk. So you have to balance your compulsive need to check, double-check, and make sure...with methodical resource conservation. The best way to survive these games is to remain calm and focused. It’s a brilliant design choice.

Visceral Horror: The monster design of the animatronics is absolutely delightful, and there’s a whole range of them to choose from. The sheer size and weight of the creatures, the way they move and position themselves, their grunginess, the deadness of their eyes, the quantity and prominence of their teeth. They are simultaneously adorable and horrifying.

Implicit Horror: One of the greatest strengths to FNAF as a franchise is that it never wears its story on its sleeve. Instead of outright telling you what’s going on, the story is delivered in bits and pieces that you have to put together yourself -- creating a puzzle for an engaged player to think about and theorize over and consider long after the game is done. But more than that, the nature of the horror itself is such that it becomes increasingly upsetting the more you think on it. The implications of what’s going on in the game world -- that there are decaying bodies tucked away inside mascots that continue to perform for children, that a man dressed in a costume is luring kids away into a private room to kill them, and so forth -- are the epitome of fridge horror.

The FNAF lore does admittedly start to become fairly ridiculous and convoluted as the franchise wears on. But even ret-conned material manages to be pretty interesting in its own right (and there is nothing in the world keeping you from playing the first four games, or even the first six, and pretending none of the rest exist).

Another thing I really appreciate about the FNAF franchise is that it’s quite funny, in a way that complements and underscores the horror rather than detracting from it. It’s something a lot of other properties utterly fail to do.

The Genius of Scott Cawthon’s Marketing

OK, so FNAF utilizes a multi-prong attack for creating horror and implements it well -- big deal. Why did it explode into a massive IP sensation when other indie horror games that are just as well-made barely made a blip on the radar?

Well! That’s where the real genius comes in. This game was built and marketed in a way to maximize its franchisability.

First, the story utilizes instantly identifiable, simple but effective character designs, and then generates more and more instantly identifiable unique characters with each iteration. Having a wealth of characters and clever, unique designs basically paves the way for merchandise and fan-works. (That they’re anthropomorphic animal designs also probably helped -- because that taps into the furry fandom as well without completely alienating non-furries).

Speaking of fan-work, Scott Cawthon has always been very supportive of fandom, only taking action when people would try to profit off knock-off games and that sort of thing -- basically bad-faith copies. But as far as I know he’s always been super chill with fan-created content, even going so far as to engage directly with the fandom. Which brings me to....

These games were practically designed for streaming, and he took care to deliver them into the hands of influential streamers. Because the games are heavy on jump-scares and scale in difficulty (even including extra-challenging modes after the core game is beaten) they are extremely fun to watch people play. They’re short enough to be easily finished over the duration of a long stream, and they’re episodic -- lending themselves perfectly to a YouTube Lets Play format. One Night = One Video, and now the streamer has weeks of content from your game (but viewers can jump in at any time without really missing much).

The games are kid-friendly but also genuinely frightening. Because the most disturbing parts of the game’s lore are hinted at rather than made explicit, younger players can easily engage with the game on a more basic surface level, and others can go as deep into the lore as they feel comfortable. There is no blood and gore and violence or even any explicitly stated death in the main game; all of the murder and death is portrayed obliquely by way of 8-bit mini games and tangential references. Making this game terrifying but accessible to youngsters, and then marketing it directly to younger viewers through popular streamers (and later, merchandising deals) is genius -- because it creates a very broad potential audience, and kids tend to spend 100% of their money (birthdays, allowances, etc.) and are most likely to tell their friends about this super scary game, etc. etc.

By creating a puzzle box of lore, and then interacting directly with the fandom -- dropping hints, trolling, essentially creating an ARG of his own lore through his website, in-game easter eggs, and tie-in materials -- Cawthon created a mystery for fandom to solve. And fans LOVE endlessly speculating over convoluted theories.

Cawthon released these games FAST. He dropped FNAF 2 within months of the first game’s release, and kept up a pace of 1-2 games a year ever since. This steady output ensured the games never dropped out of public consciousness -- and introducing new puzzle pieces for the lore-hungry fans to pore over helped keep the discussion going.

I think MatPat and The Game Theorists owe a tremendous amount of their own huge success to this game. I think Markiplier does, too, and other big streamers and YouTubers. It’s been fascinating watching the symbiotic relationship between these games and the people who make content about these games. Obviously that’s true for a lot of fandom -- but FNAF feels so special because it really did start so small. It’s a true rags-to-riches sleeper hit and luck absolutely played a role in its growth, but skill is a big part too.

Take-Aways For Creatives

I want to be very clear here: I do not think that every piece of media needs to be “IP,” franchisable, an extended universe, or a multimedia sensation. I think there is plenty to be said for creating art of all types, and sometimes that means a standalone story with a small audience.

But if you do want a chance at real break-out, run-away success and forging a media empire of your own, I think there are some take-aways to be learned from the success of FNAF:

Persistence. Scott Cawthon studied animation and game-design in the 1990s and released his first game in 2002. He released a bunch of stuff afterward. None of it stuck. It took 12 years to hit on the winning formula, and then another several years of incredibly hard work to push out more titles and stoke the fires before it really became a sensation. Wherever you’re at on your creative journey, don’t give up. You never know when your next thing will be The Thing that breaks you out.

If you want to sell a lot of something, you have to make it widely appealing to a bunch of people. This means keeping your concept simple to understand (”security guard wards off creepy killer animatronics at a pizza parlor”) and appealing to as wide a segment of the market as you can (ie, a horror story that appeals to both kids and adults). The more hyper-specific your audience, the harder it’s gonna be to find them and the fewer copies of your thing you’ll be selling.

Know your shit and put your best work out there. I think there’s an impulse to feel like “well, nobody reads this anyway, so why does it matter if it’s no good” (I certainly have fallen into that on multiple occasions) but that’s the wrong way to think about it. You never know when and where your break will come. Put your best work out there and keep on polishing your craft with better and better stuff because eventually one of those things you chuck out there is going to be The Thing.

Figure out where your target audience hangs out, and who influences them, and then get your thing in the hands of those influencers. Streaming and YouTube were the secret to FNAF’s success. Maybe yours will be BookTube, or Instagram, or a secret cabal of free librarians. I don’t know. But you should try your best to figure out who would like the thing that you’re making, and then figure out how to reach those people, and put all of your energy into that instead of shotgun-blasting your marketing all willy nilly.

You don’t have to put the whole story on the page. Audiences love puzzles. Fans love mysteries. You can actually leave a lot more unanswered than you think. There’s some value in keeping secrets and leaving things for others to fill in. Remember -- your art is only partly yours. The sandbox belongs to others to play in, too, and you have to let them do that.

If in doubt, appealing to furries never hurts.

Do I take all of this advice myself? Not by a long shot. But it’s definitely a lot to think about.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go beat The Curse of Dreadbear.

#horror analysis #writing advice #fnaf

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life-rewritten · 3 years

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WHAT I WANT FROM BLS IN 2021 AKA A LOOK AND DISCUSSION ABOUT HOW TO IMPROVE THE BL GENRE

Hi, Hello; Bls have become incredibly saturated and growing each day, every single day we hear about new projects, new ideas, latest trailers, and it's been so great to see how BL has changed from 2015 to now. It's been a positive upward trajectory; however, again, we have to mention that it's being overfilled and not always with good shows. From the six or more countries that fight to get our energy and time to watch their shows, movies and animations, to the low budget, lazy plots that don't need to be written, Bl can sometimes be a phenomenal experience and incredible stories that make us cry and feel and learn or it can be this flop with no message, no structured plot, stiff acting and more. Am I being harsh? Should we just be okay with the fact there are more BL shows now to binge and to watch? Should we just settle for these bad stories just because there's nothing else available? I don't think so, I think with shows like ITSAY, Cherry Magic, GAYA SA, Bls have the potential to be so prominent, so unique and even beat out other heterosexual shows. So I am here to make a list of what I would like to see in 2021 with these new BL shows. Because it's quality, not quantity we want, we want better stories, better characters, better developments, just better. If we can be better, we can take over a lot of media, and there'd be more representation, education and more for the voices that want to be represented through BLs. Okay so without further or do let's get into it;

The problem with Skinship

Now I hate to be the one that has to mention this issue, because sometimes in BLs this is not an issue; in fact sometimes some shows have too many kisses/skin ship, that end up making fans bored and frustrated with how much screen time is not being used to tell a great plot. But for me, since I started this journey into this genre, kissing has always been an issue with forced censorship that makes no sense, and stiff actors that clearly aren't comfortable with doing that. To couples that are meant to be so devoted and in love they resort to acting like buddies who can't touch each other to cut scenes and weird camera angles for a scene. Skinship isn't always needed but when a couple is meant to be obsessed with each other or addicted to thinking about touching the other, or there's a build-up of longing, and they're a long term relationship, passionate couples kissing makes it more believable to me. What's up with this pattern of BLS avoiding kisses; please stop it's irksome I know I sound like a fujoshi but those couples that do this make me want to throw something because they're not believable no matter how much they scream from the top of their lungs, that they love being with each other, or are attracted to each other, the lack of skinship just makes me get annoyed by it all. I also love shows like Cherry Magic where it's a softer relationship but teasing kisses and then like hiding behind an elevator for the main couple, not cool.

I'm not going to make it a big deal, but I did feel somehow cheated at the finale of the show because one, in the manga this is not a problem, there is a lot of kisses with Adachi and Kurosawa, two, why would the second lead couple get a kiss scene but then when it comes to the main it's hidden behind an elevator, it's such a cheap way to censor it in my opinion especially since we've been teased about these two's kiss since episode 2/3. I don't need to see Adachi losing his virginity or whatnot, but I was disappointed when the elevator scene happened I was like but why it could have just been a cute kiss scene on the roof. It didn't need to be so covered and hidden. Make it make sense.

So I don't particularly appreciate being teased by stuff like this, because it's not a sin for two people to show they care about each other like an average couple and kiss. It doesn't make the show not tasteful, or too crass, it just means that the couple are attracted to each other. I don't know, maybe it's just me, perhaps I am a fujoshi, and this is bothering me. But it's seriously to me more than that; there are some shows where this isn't a problem, where we don't need kisses and all that, but there are some where it feels so hypocritical and odd to censor a kiss like it's a sin or something. And with these shows (2gether for example) it doesn't sit well with me, it really doesn't. Just my opinion

The Issue With Side couples.

Side couples need to add something to the show's plot or be balanced: there's the saying too much or too little. And with BLs I have found that the screen time of side couples can ruin or elevate a show. If you can't write a well thought out plot for extra couples, then don't add them. Normally some side couples are written powerfully and interesting as the central couple like Tin and Can from LBC or KingRam from My engineer etc., other times side couples just steal screen time for no reason, we could be using that time to make the other main couple stronger and it would be fine. Not in every BL show, that every single person have to turn out gay in the show, it's not by force. What side couples should do in a show, is add to the structured plot, give information/exposition about the world of the show, the ideas of the show, the themes of the show, they should be just as 3dimensional, just as important and fleshed out as the other characters are otherwise there's no need for them.

Why R U, for example, had great bases for every side couple but failed due to rushed editing, lazy directing and more to make use of them. At the end of the day, the confusion with the side couples ruined the show and made everyone feel frustrated and tired by how the show was done because it felt unsatisfactory for the other plots of the side couples. An example where a side couple was done right in terms of plot but also didn't have enough coverage was TharnType season 1 with Tum and Tar, their plot was fantastic, essential and necessary to the storyline and it made sense. However, it still left a weird empty feeling because their relationship was still confusing, in LBC 2 we were meant to sort that out and Love by Chance 2 was one of the worst ways side couples are done.

They used them for product placement (same as TharnType 7 years). Their stories were just repeating the same things we've already seen before, with no effort, no energy, and no direction given to the actors who were working hard to portray these roles. It's frustrating when side couples could be just as great in the show, but they're ruined by bad writing.

Either have side couples with depth and storytelling that is good or don't add them at all. An example of a show without a side couple is Gaya Sa Pelikula and ITSAY. And you didn't see us moaning or crying about the lack of side couples instead it was praised because every side character had a purpose, a story of their own to tell, and depth to their characters that was needed to get us to the rest of the plot. Everyone had their own important role in the plot, and it was brilliant. So you don't need a show with many couples, you can just focus on one, or if you do have many storylines for couples, please just make it worthwhile. Please? 2021? I'm begging

More unique BLS:

When we think about plot lines for BLs, we tend to especially in Thailand have one thing in mind which is engineering, medical students, university angst and guys in white t-shirts playing the same role over and over and over again. Don't forget the sotus gear being a symbol of their heart. I find it funny because I don't have a problem with this; if the storyline is unique/addicting enough for me to not focus on the fact it's a university plot. For example, Theory of love, but it is funny that for a very long time BLs have been focused on one type of setting; the university. We had other BLs that came from China, and Taiwan and others that weren't always based on this setting, especially China which has fantasy and more but those ended up being sad, censored or ruined.

This is the problem. Luckily in 2020/2019, Bls started to want to be different, with new stories based on mafia-like worlds like Trapped, with supernatural storylines like He's coming to me, with the introduction of Korean BLs and Philippine BLs, we're starting to see different tropes soulmate aus, paranormal, fantasy, action, adventure etc. And 2021 already has a line up where most of the storylines veer from this engineering university plot. It's exciting. To think every country is trying to move away from student/ university storylines or give them more depth and change the normal tropes and ideas with them is so exciting and needed. I still love these tropes, but less is more, and a unique plot is even more because it shows BL can be more than just stories, can have depth, can have different versions, and can reach out to a new audience, to other tastes etc. It's been changing, and in 2021 I can't wait to see these new stories come to life.

It’s Quality not Quantity :

This is so important, bls are becoming saturated as happy as this makes me; it also suffocated me with bad shows not worth the praise of effort and energy and these aren't put into some shows. In 2020 we got shows like ITSAY where the producers, actors and directors fought and worked so hard to make it happen, they went through obstacles, struggled with days, they pushed through just to make sure ITSAY was created to the best of its ability. This was so incredible, and it made me almost tear up each time I watched the documentaries about how ITSAY came to life.

Shows like ITSAY and Gaya Sa again that have directors and producers with fixed goals of trying to make a BL show more than just a typical low budget show, putting all their effort, time and ideas to make this mean something is so incredible, so excellent, words can't explain the masterpieces that are created from people who take what they're doing with this genre seriously. And for a long time, we've struggled for people to take this genre seriously, to put in effort and energy to ensure that the story they're telling makes sense, and is done well.

I'm always harsh because you know sometimes the things needed to make something high quality isn't always available. Some people are genuinely putting everything they can into shows. However I feel like you can tell which shows do that, you can tell when a show is doing all it can to be as great as it possibly could be, for example, the History series; it's a low budget, but it's brilliant, some shows like Love By chance season 2 yes I'm going to keep on calling out this mess, you can tell did not try at all with what they were given, it was a lazy attempt just to feed fan girls and make money. And the thing about things like that is that it's just insulting, to the fans who waited with anticipation only to see the sequel come to life, to the actors who put in the effort and tried to make it be something, it's just disappointing.

I'm sorry, but like in 2021, we don't want a repeat of that. If you don't want to put in the effort and make something that is high quality despite the low funds or whatever then don't make a show. Other shows are being made and you won't be missed. Luckily 2021 seems like we will be getting shows of better quality, GMMTV appears like they've invested a lot this year into making BLs be more, we have the incredible Filmania KinnPorsche that is just outstanding for just a 10-minute pilot teaser, we have new channels with budgets and research ready to make new shows like Channel 3, and we have China with new directors wanting to make more danmei donghuas (with incredible quality like TGCF, with excellent live actions like the Untamed) and we have more countries just making good stories and good productions with all they have. So yeah I'm excited to see what shows will be created with this type of energy in 2021.

Let’s make it more risky

So already discussed about unique plotlines and better quality. But one thing as well in the same category as all of these suggestions is BLs being riskier. There are times where BLs try and go overboard and take risks to do new stories that make people uncomfortable, or agitated like Friendzone but the thing is I live for these storylines because it's not just fluffy or tropey stories that are based on novels that need to be told. BL can be so much more. Sometimes bls are stale, and sometimes they try to do riskier messier stories with more depth. And for example, with a company like GMMTV where they have sources and sources of stories they can tell that can be riskier and be different to the pattern they usually follow, we can get such great plots and tales based on new ideas. I want to see a show like the gifted with bl plotline, the shipper season 2, focused on WayKim, things without using a book adaptation and without basic plots we needed to settle for. GMMTV is trying to do that now with Not Me coming soon and shows like Friendzone, Baker Boys etc. But I want more riskier stories. Again so that BLs are more than just what they're known for, the same tropes all over and over again, the same ideas and plotlines, but new screenwriters, unique stories not based on books or what's already been made, just new ideas. That's one thing that will pave new ways for BL. Like Give us a historical Thai BL, give us a sageuk Korean show, give us time travelling. I don't know just new ideas, sci-fi, new genres, more psychological thrillers. It could be anything, and it would be so fantastic. Let's see what 2021 offers.

Let's keep with the PC Energy;

Shows are being called out for unnecessary toxicity, sexism, bad females that don't get the point that they're beards, problems with non-consent; these need to stop in 2021. I'm not saying we can't have shows that talk about the results and consequences of these kinds of issues, because I find it fascinating when shows take a risk and mention that, like TharnType, but it is 2021 , a new decade, we really need to stop having shows that romanticise topics that aren't okay, emotionally abusive relationships should be seen as emotionally abusive and not praised, character toxicity needs to be called out and shown as that, not as a typical bad boy who needs to be saved trope etc. I don't want to get rid of angsty haters to lovers or flawed characters that need to grow; because those stories are so exciting to watch, and analyse, but don't just add trauma for no reason and not take it seriously, don't just make characters do things without making sure the audience knows this isn't okay. We're getting better, and we're getting more healthier relationships, tropes and conversations, but there's more work to be done in some shows in 2021. Some shows like the shipper in 2020 that had predatory behaviour, incest (not dealt with properly) which felt like a flashback to the past.

Longer BLS:

Looking at you Korea, don't mess around you literally can have this genre in your hand,s if you make a worthy production like a typical kdrama it doesn't have to be 16 episodes. Ten is fine, even just 30 minute per episode is okay with us. If you just add more minutes and more depth to the stories, so there are more character flesh outs and more chances for your stories to be developed and not rushed. Then Korean BL will literally take over everything. There's nothing else to really say, Korea has fantastic plot lines, intriguing characters, fun storylines that make you addicted. Yet, it always feels unsatisfactory and annoying because it's just 10-15 minutes per episode. Make it make sense. I mean there are reasons for it because of budget, and lack of mainstream support but I still think we can just focus on one show, with all the money and effort from the other shows add it to one show, make it long, make it big and create a masterpiece and it will explode. The potential is there, plus with Channels like Channel 3 in Thailand, Bls are really starting to be one hour long and have like 16 or more episodes. That's been a fun journey. But Korea, please join this energy and make more shows that are longer and better. Please??

China it's enough:

I'm being serious; I don't know how we'll ever pass this problem, but TGCF tried to, and I can see many companies are trying to find a way to overcome this. I know with China it's not fair to demand this it's not a full representation of the Chinese culture or whatever, but it's irksome; there's a lot of shows that can take our breaths all away in China, so many great shows so please stop ruining that. I'm tired of the PTSD of the shows potentials we lost (The guardian) because of censorship and other issues, sad forced endings, cutting scenes and deleting episodes like it needs to stop in 2021. Because now, don't pretend that the success of BLs isn't making money and causing the Chinese industry to make more shows like these. But this is my wishful thinking like I said I don't fault writers for trying to be careful with laws, but it is incredibly frustrating when you have a country with the best creativity, storylines, acting etc., and it's ruined by censorship. Let's hope 2021 finds a way to get around this.

Let the BL animation rain; 2020 saw a remarkable rise to danmei donguas! I'm talking MXTX universe with scum villain, TGCF, Mo dao zu shi and more, so let's keep that energy; what I love about danmei is how unique the plots are we can have transmigration, fantasy, supernatural, mafia etc. it never ends, these stories are incredible, the quality of the animations are so excellent, and the love of the characters always get me. We just need to see more come to life.

The Brilliance of Meta;

With ITSAY and Gaya SA and Cherry Magic taking over 2020, meta in BLS have been delicious to watch and analyse, and I want more. This is such a selfish ask, but what can I say, I live for shows filled with meta, with depth, with analysis, with characters that are not just one way on the surface but they tell a different story in subtext. I live for clues, and evidence, and production choices, hidden facial gestures, and objects with meanings; more symbolisms, more foreshadowings, more dramatic ironies, more character dynamics, more use or other literature/media as bases for the story (like Theory of Love with Flipped and movies). I live for this. It makes a show so much more special and exciting when we're part of the journey; it gives something to do other than just watch the story unfold, we can predict, we can guess, we can analyse, we can just be part of the world of the story and fully understand the message that the writer is trying to tell us. Give us something to look for; clues to watch for, to see where the story is going. Change my mind. For example with Cherry Magic, the fact that it was already precious and made us smile, was even more enhanced by how relatable it was with the meta, the pain, and the struggles the characters went through was so fascinating to analyse and read into and relate to. That's what I want from more BLs, like it's incredible when any kind of show has meta. I think it's one of the best signs of a great writer and production team.

More Dimensional Characters;

Especially villains, we don't want stale girlfriends who know they're a beard but refuses to let go, we don't want the stale homophobic parent all the time, we don't want the bullies that always try to out people. Give me villains with revenge that makes me question who's in the wrong, reformed villains who become love interests, powerful villains we can't help but hate, but we also love, shocking villains with plot twists we can't see coming (like Lhong from TharnType). Give me depth give me angst, give me plot.

Villains can make or break a show, they can make the show so exciting and thrilling to watch like we want to see them be discovered or end up where they deserve to go, we like feeling bad for people, and getting to see another side of a villain, we enjoy seeing villains that are different from what we initially thought about them. We like deep villains; we don't always need the same villain, like give us unique ones, give us interesting, weird ones, give us conflicting ones that make us side with them. I want that. Example of a show where there's no actual villain, but they all act like it, is Friendzone and it's so incredible to watch and see how these characters behave, grow, regress etc. I want more characters like this, real, human and makes mistakes. I want more flawed characters with deeper reasons for why they're the way they are. It makes a show very addicting to watch. Maybe that's just me.

The problem with streaming services, YouTube and international fans;

It's weird international fans need to be taken seriously, international fans are part of your shows rise to fame, more fame, more success , more projects can be made, and more bls can be seen. Some shows in 2020 lost their chance to shine because of the streaming issues (My engineer), subtitle issues and more. Please stop, please take this into account; try harder, there is always someone internationally willing to help translate or help. Just let us know. Putting shows on Aisplay without subs when you can find a contract that enables you to do so, is a bad move. It's just making you lose because international fans will always find an alternative source to spite you. Like it makes no sense to me, if in 2021 we're still struggling with subs, and where to watch a BL show. It makes no sense because 2020 showed that international fans could break or make a show (2gether) and as much it's privileged for me to say this, international fans should be respected and taken seriously. Luckily Channel 3, GMMTV and others are starting to put more effort into recognising international fans. Finally thank you. Let's see if we improve in 2021.

This has been a fun rant and discussion to write. I sound so spoilt, and annoying complaining about each of these minor issues, but it really does mean a lot when a BL show tries hard to make their show worth it. Like it might seem like a small issue, with like the skinship, censorship, meta, saturated stories etc., but if BLs just stop focusing on the genre and what other people think this genre should be if people stop focusing on BLs as just BLs and see it as stories of love and representation and more, BLs can be incredible, they can be better than other dramas out there with better budgets, and mainstream support, they can have meaning, and create incredible, incredible one a kind stories. I just want that so badly for this genre. Like I don't want BLs to be seen as just the same tropes, and same issues, and same ideas that we had about them in 2015, we want growth and improvement and effort, this is not just for weird rabid fangirls only, this can be more, it can be for representation, education, for entertainment, and it can be for more people and cause a shift in the media in the world. It really can one day become just as big as many other versions of media like the world of kpop, kdramas etc. in the world. I don't know, that's what I've always thought it could be. And if that happens, it'll be just a great thing. Anyway Let's defeat 2020, we need to keep this upwards trajectory going, and from the shows coming in 2021, I think it's possible.

#thai bl #bl series #bl drama #korean bl #japanese bl #gmmtv 2021 #wrpup #2021 #itsay #cherry magic!

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genderfluidtechnoblade · 3 years

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okay so i get the Concept of vh(also it's such a pretty mod holy shit sometimes i watch just for visuals) but i just have a hard time following along in the moment. like pete will open a crate or get an item and either be disappointed or excited and i have no idea why. i havent grasped the specifics of whats good/bad yknow? i feel like a mobile user while chat is spamming widepepOMEGAKEKHappyChampHands- i get what its supposed to be but i dont See it

AAAH yea thats the part that looses people the most is the specifics of those rare items. i cant go through all of them but i could give a quick run down of any of the more important ones

-during the most recent event, every boss crate had a gear (like a cog) (everyone called them cogs) that were important to the event. those were good, and now they are gone.

-if there is ever a brown square with a question mark, THATS AN ARTIFACT!! THOSE ARE GOOD !! we need 25 unique ones from each player in order to win.

-skill orbs and star cores are very rare, and very good- they are the equivalent of 20 rare vault gems and 9 even rarer gems called vault diamonds that you can't even mine (they rarely drop from a certain mob that's only inside the vault), so getting them for free is good

-large amounts of vault bronze/silver/gold can be used to buy things from vending machines that viewers can give, and those vending machines can have rare items. any amount is good, but if a player doesn't get a good amount of it, it's disappointing

-same deal with skill essence/star essence- you can save up to get a skill point/knowledge point, so any amount is good, but low rolling it is disappointing.

-vault gear is usually good- almost all vault gear is better than diamond armor, and most of it is better than netherite, HOWEVER vault gear has tiers (actually, most things in vault hunters has tiers, according to the way iskall likes to rank things). vault gear goes in scrappy, common, rare, epic, and omega. omega is the best of the best. if you get common+ vault gear, it can only be common rare epic or omega, which is good! if its epic+ thats even better! if its just scrappy+ or even just scrappy, that means there's a really big chance you won't get something that's better than your current gear (since most active players are rocking mostly epic+ gear) so its kinda meh

-levels for the gear are also very important! sometimes you'll get an omega armor which is theoretically the best you can get, but it low rolled on levels/stats, and a lower tier piece of armor can be better. omega just means a better chance of being better, like a sliding scale. so its possible to get something thats theoretically good but still disappointing to the spoiled streamer who has too many omegas that he doesnt know what to do with all of them rolling eyes emote

-idols are also like gear, they can have the same tiers, and getting one is good, but if it doesn't roll anything interesting, its disappointing.

-gems are also sometimes in boss crates- echo is the rarest gem of them all, and pete actually gets more of it than everyone else because of his role in the game. seeing echo is very exciting, because he can trade it with others for things he needs. other player gems are also very important, esp for the players who dont log on as much (players get more of their own gem and all players are meant to trade with each other). other gems are rare and MOST hunters would be excited to see one in a crate/chest, but pete has... uh. a lot of them. so its underwhelming to find a single one.

-everyone loves CATALYSTS. they're rainbow swirly things. fragments are smaller and full catalysts take up the whole item frame box. these catalysts can modify the vault to have very rare things in higher quantities. everyone likes to use them to create super powerful vaults with like, 20x the amount of ores you normally get, or a large amount of chests with good loot.

-a lot of boss crates are also just filler material that can come in handy later, like diamond ore and cake. these things are important but if its mostly that with no Big Shiny Thing streamer is gonna be sadge

the specifics are definitely the hardest thing to explain because of how many specifics there are, and how far everyone is into the season, but tbh i still very recommend vh because if you keep it on and just passively watch for long enough, eventually some of it will rub off and you'll recognize what thing gets used for what and if that thing is good. eventually.

#sorry if this confused you more i dont know how to shut up #asks #s3er #again. my discord dms are open and i do not know how to be quiet

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dalekofchaos · 4 years

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The Fireflies’ vaccine wouldn’t have worked or why Joel did the right thing

In the last part of The Last of Us, Joel kills all the fireflies and saves Ellie but by doing so he may have doomed humanity by ending the possibility of a cure being made, making the ending bittersweet and morally ambiguous. The thing is, Joel didn't really do anything wrong, and saving Ellie was the right choice, here are my reasons:

The doctors would remove Ellie's brain to try to create a vaccine, but that's not how vaccines works, a vaccine is a tamed version of a pathogen that "teaches" your body to defend against it, to do a vaccine you need to use the pathogen in small quantities or a modified version of it, Ellie is immune to it, you don't create vaccines from the immune system, that's called a serum, and it works differently, a serum is used when someone comes in contact with a disease and it contains a series of antibodies that fight the infection, but it doesn't make anyone immune. So what they were trying to do was pointless;

Even if the doctors know what they were doing, it was a wild shot a with no guarantee that it would work;

Even if a vaccine was successfully made they wouldn't save the world, the world was destroyed 20 years ago, society collapsed and was rebuilt again on a new way, and everyone already new how to deal with it, also the greatest threat were not even the cordyceps fungus anymore, it was the infected (that the vaccine couldn't do nothing about) and the crooked humans that walked the earth. Besides that, the fireflies had no way to distribute the vaccine worldwide, not even in a national level.

If you listen to the tapes in the Colorado segment, it pretty much confirms that Ellie is not unique and they wouldn’t be able to make a vaccine anyway. The doctor has practically lost his mind and Ellie is just his white whale. Ellie was not the first subject and she most likely wouldn’t have been the last.

The doctor pretty much went against the common ethical code of all medical practitioners just for a CHANCE at a vaccine/cure.

And wouldn't it take a lot of time to study her? A day to do all the tests is outright impossible. Just look at the corona vaccine. With all the tech the world has the biotechnologists are going to take more than a year to make a vac.

Vaccines for Fungal infections are nearly impossible and are a logistical nightmare.Even in today’s world,they can only be treated with antibiotics and anti-fungal medicine. They didn’t even bother with thoroughly researching Ellie’s blood and trying to extract the fungal specimen without killing her. The tests were blood samples and samples from the area where she was bit and then only cutting her brain open as THE LAST POSSIBLE USE for her, then when their step 1 was "lol just kill this incredibly rare specimen" I was shocked.

BTW, PS4 version actually removed a piece of paper that's available in all the other forms of the game. What is this piece of paper? Just the one that describes how they've tried this process dozens of times before and how they've NEVER gotten any useful info.

The Fireflies are terrorists. The Fireflies are terrorists, and not even competent ones. Here we go. We first hear of the Fireflies in credits, where they are taking credit for attacking the Federal Disaster Response Agency. Not a good start.The next time we start to see hints of them is through graffiti in the quarantine zone. What does this graffiti say? Fireflies will take it all back. That sounds great! Burn it all down. ...oh. That’s, uh, a little less great. Fucking die, pig. Um… Uh, that’s uh, not a great look here guys.And that goes on and on. The graffiti does not exactly inspire. All it does is get angry.Next time we see them, it’s when they literally bomb a checkpoint and supply truck, then begin firing wildly all over the place. This is straight terrorism. They don’t care if there is collateral damage, in fact, Joel gets injured in this scene.Then we meet Marlene, the so-called Queen Firefly. Injured and on the run, the military is slowly wiping them out. This leads to a line of dialogue that is absolutely hilarious. Marlene starts to preach about “We’ve been quiet. Been planning on leaving the city, but they need a scapegoat. They’ve been trying to rile us up. We’re trying to defend ourselves”Those are big words from someone who just bombed a checkpoint.This clearly shows us that Marlene cannot be trusted as a narrator. She has an agenda and is lying to Joel and possibly herself. And that despite how effective guerrilla tactics usually are, her group is still managing to get absolutely devastated. They are failing so badly that they have to recruit smugglers just to try to get Ellie out of the city.So begins the trek showing dead Fireflies at every turn. Downtown subway station? Dead Fireflies. The Capitol building? Dead Fireflies. Pittsburgh? Oh, let’s talk about Pittsburgh.Pittsburgh is a monument to Firefly failure. Pittsburgh was originally another Quarantine zone held together by FEDRA. So what happened here? Well, times got hard, and the Fireflies instigated a civil war or insurrection. This fighting lasted for months, with Fireflies lynching soldiers that they caught alone, burning soldiers alive after dousing them in gasoline, and FEDRA retaliating by executing Fireflies. FEDRA finally gave up and retreated from Pittsburgh, putting the Fireflies in control- and then it all fell apart. The people of Pittsburgh discover that the Fireflies had planned to move right into the space FEDRA had previously occupied. And so, after this was discovered, the Fireflies were driven out just like FEDRA had been. Only much faster, and with less fight. And now Pittsburgh is nothing but anarchy. People gunned down in the streets for nothing. Rooms full of bodies, clothes and shoes. Almost looks like after images of Dachau. Bravo, Fireflies. Excellent revolution.Next up, we meet Tommy, Joel’s brother, and disenfranchised Firefly. He worked for them for years, going all the way to Colorado for them. Somewhere along the way, he lost faith in them and left their cause. He doesn’t specify exactly why, but it seems he might have lost faith in their methods.Then we come to the University. This is where we really discover how incompetent the Fireflies actually are. One of the first notes you see at University is about a guy who is angry he got yelled at for falling asleep on guard duty. Real professionals. This same note indicates that while they’re still getting some supplies, it’s not enough for what’s needed, with gasoline being particularly short. The next note comes from a recording, telling us that they’re losing more guards, with the doctor clearly concerned about how much equipment and data will be lost if they have to move. The doctor even calls the Fireflies incompetent in this note. And then we have this genius.. That’s right. Bitten by his own lab monkey. Because he just had to set it free, rather than putting it down humanely. Brilliant work sir. Brilliant. He kills himself before turning though, but not before informing us that they hadn’t accomplished anything for over five years. And even that small breakthrough was ultimately a failure. And now the entire lab is compromised, and abandoned.And then there’s a long break from Fireflies until Salt Lake. Ellie, having just gone underwater, isn’t breathing. Joel attempts to perform CPR on her when our hero Firefly shows up, and knocks Joel unconscious. Ah, violence. The first solution. Willing to forgive it, since it strongly mirrors the scene with Sarah, only the Firefly is in the soldier’s shoes this time. But still. Military was gentler.And now for the hospital. The final failure of the Fireflies. This is where so many people are convinced that Joel screws the world by preventing a vaccine. But somehow, I just don’t think so. This is one last desperate bid by the Fireflies for control. How do they intend to do this? Comprehensive bloodwork? No. Vigorous testing with laboratory animals, like, oh, maybe monkeys? No, someone let all their monkeys go. Crack open her head and hope for the best? Hell yeah! Does the fact that they’ve lost their biologist concern them? Nah, it’ll be fine! Does the fact that this is the only time they’ve seen immunity to this degree even give them pause? Pfft, crack her open! Does the fact that there has never been a successful vaccine against fungus give them pause? PASS THAT SCALPEL! No need to think this over, let’s blow our whole load on this once in a lifetime lucky strike as fast as possible. No, I’ve never heard the story about the goose who laid the golden eggs, tell it to me after I finish butchering surgery. Even if we make this vaccine, how will we deploy it? You're thinking too hard, hand me the saw!This is just bad science. Done by bad scientists. Cheered on by fools. Fools who wanted to murder Joel after he made that long trip.And for people who insist on government and democracy, it’s funny how they didn’t risk telling Ellie their “plan” and just sedated her and rushed her to the table.

Even by SOME MIRACLE they managed to make a vaccine, the world ain't gonna automatically return to what it was. It's a dog eat dog world and that is the new normal. Infected, cannibals, more psychos like David and raiders are still there and it ain't going away soon or maybe ever. On top of that, mass production and distribution of a vaccine is an absolute logistical nightmare in a post apocalyptic world- they simply don't have enough resources for that. And who's to say The Fireflies wouldn't use it to as a bargaining tool to put everyone, willing or not, under their new rule? And even given all that, they debated killing Joel after he delivered Ellie. He did the job and the payment he received was getting knocked out and being marched outside of the safe zone AT GUNPOINT WITHOUT HIS WEAPONS AND SUPPLIES! The Fireflies broke their deal and fucked Joel over. Joel had ever right to kill them and save Ellie.

So I believe what Joel did in the end was the right thing, the fireflies was an extremist group that was willing to do anything not to save the world, but to prove their point, even kill an innocent girl under a delusional precept.

#The Last Of Us #Joel Miller #Ellie Williams #The Fireflies #Marlene #Jerry Anderson

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disneyat34 · 4 years

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Saludos Amigos at 34

A review by Adam D. Jaspering

In 1941, World War II was raging. A number of Latin American countries were beginning to sympathize with the Axis Powers. The Roosevelt administration did not want fascist ideology creeping into the western hemisphere. The State Department needed an ambassador to steer South America towards US interests. They needed Walt Disney.

Walt Disney Animation Studios was in a precarious situation in 1941. For starters, Disney Studios made an irreversible pivot towards feature filmmaking. After the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the company expanded. The Hyperion Disney Studio had been abandoned for the larger, more lavish, and pricier Burbank Studio. It was a great cost, but one Disney hoped to offset with his next few pictures.

Disney expected up to 75% of his gross revenue to be earned internationally. Because of the war, the European film market had dried up. As a direct result, Pinocchio and Fantasia were financial losses. Disney had spent too much money and was not earning it back.

These financial struggles culminated in the most infamous labor dispute in the company’s history. Layoffs were imminent, and Disney could only promise security to a small fraction of his 1200 employees. This was the tipping point for the Disney Studio staff.

While Disney proved his mettle as a cartoonist and filmmaker, his business savvy was underdeveloped. Disney was running his big company like a little company, not delegating tasks or departmentalizing. There were wild discrepancies in employee pay and benefits. Animators earned anywhere from $12-$300 a week for the same output of work. Disney, unsympathetic to his employee’s complaints, refused to amend his practices. The ensuing Disney Animator’s Strike lasted from May 29 to September 14th, 1941.

As a result of downsizing and retaliatory firings, Disney Studios exited the strike with only 694 employees. A majority of them, rather incensed by the ordeal. Disney needed three things to keep his company afloat. First, enough money to keep production financially stable. Second, a new market to sell his films until Europe became viable again. Third, he needed to recuse himself from duty until animosity subsided. The US Department of State could provide all three.

The deal was simple. Disney would embark on a 10-week goodwill tour to South America, financed by the United States Government. He would visit Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru. Disney would convince the populace, media, and politicians that The United States was an ally worth keeping. For his cooperation, Disney was given federal loan guarantees, staving off bankruptcy.

Disney brought sixteen faithful employees along on the journey. They were a combination of animators, writers, and composers. They were tasked with soaking up the culture, atmosphere, and influence. Disney Studios would use these inspirations to create two films especially for Latin American audiences: Saludos Amigos (1942) and The Three Caballeros (1944).

Saludos Amigos is comprised of four independent segments, each one centered on a different area of South America: The Peruvian highlands, the Chilean Andes, the Argentinian Pampas, and Rio de Janeiro. Between these segments is video footage of Disney and his crew touring the continent. Perhaps to bookend the segments. Perhaps to ground the cartoons in a sense of reality. Perhaps to pad the runtime; Saludos Amigos is only 42 minutes long!

The first segment is titled Lake Titicaca, taking place at the namesake body of water, resting on the Peruvian and Bolivian border. The short features Donald Duck on vacation.

Donald Duck is one of the most popular characters in the Disney pantheon, and this is his feature film debut. He is appearing in a short within a movie, but it still counts as a feature film debut. Donald is a very static character. You know exactly who he is, what he is capable of, and what sort of situations he will find himself in. Some misfortune will befall him, he’ll overreact, and his anger will exacerbate the situation.

How he behaves in Lake Titicaca is exactly how he behaves in every short. Donald plays a tourist vacationing in Peru. He gets altitude sickness. He upsets a llama. His boat sinks and he’s plunged into the lake. The rope bridge he’s walking across falls apart, sending him careening down a gorge. It’s funny, the slapstick is well done, and it is paced well. It is a very typical Donald Duck cartoon.

It is so representative of Donald Duck, it could easily serve as a stand-alone short. It didn’t need to be part of a movie at all. There’s no massive increase in artistic style. No daring adventure in animation techniques. No groundbreaking backgrounds or design. Disney raised the bar for five consecutive films. Now he was lowering it.

In fairness, the artists did depict the Peruvian environment in a vivid manner. It’s a travel advertisement that doesn’t feel like one. The native craftwork, clothing, and culture are on full display, just as intended.

For the first half of the short, anyway. Partway, the focus drifts away from Donald Duck visiting Peru to Donald Duck’s wacky hijinks with a llama. In short, Lake Titicaca does a decent job of portraying Peru. However, the focus is on Donald Duck first. Peru is simply the backdrop.

The second featurette is Pedro. Pedro is a personified airplane, the baby in a family of personified airplanes. Pedro’s father’s job is carrying the mail between Chile and Argentina. Every day, he flies over the treacherous Andes. One day, Pedro must fill-in for his father. It’s a parable about growing up and accepting responsibility.

The task and the journey is formidable. It’s made all the more complicated by Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in South America. More than an obstacle, Aconcagua is also personified. He is an angry and territorial mountain, with the ability to control the weather. Whenever planes bother him, he creates storms. It makes little sense. Personified airplanes also make little sense. Clearly, we can accept a large quantity of silliness.

Much like Lake Titicaca, Pedro is enjoyable, but offers little in terms of cinematic grandeur. It’s easy to understand why. Disney and his group returned from South America in October, 1941. Saludos Amigos debuted in August, 1942. Cinematic grandeur was not the goal. A finished product was the goal.

Throughout the rest of the 1940s, Disney would be releasing a series of package films. Shorts, cobbled together without much rhyme or reason, released as a feature. The combination of Disney’s financial woes and reduced staff forced him to dial his filmic aspirations back. For the foreseeable future, his productions needed to be fast, cheap, and accessible. Saludos Amigos was the forefather of these films.

While the cartoon is underwhelming, it’s not necessarily bad. The major problem is, Pedro offers a very poor representation of Chile. Lake Titicaca offered Peru and its environments as a backdrop. Pedro seems determined to ignore its setting. If young Pedro was carrying mail from Denver to Sacramento, and a personified Pike’s Peak was giving him grief, very little would be changed. There is no Chile in this cartoon dedicated to Chile.

Chileans themselves were well aware of this slight. Chilean cartoonist René Ríos “Pepo” Boettiger was especially frustrated. After seeing Saludos Amigos, Pepo created a truly Chilean cartoon character. Condorito, an animated condor, debuted in 1949. Beginning as a simple comic strip, Condorito has been syndicated internationally, featured in his own comic books, been adapted to TV, film, and a webseries. He remains popular in Chile and throughout Latin America. It’s easy to get inspired by art you like. You can also be inspired by art you don’t like.

Next in the program is El Gaucho Goofy. Here, Disney staple Goofy makes his feature film debut. By 1941, Goofy’s schtick was drifting away from narrative-driven comic shorts and towards a parody of instructional videos. Already, he had “instructed” on baseball, skiing, swimming, fishing, and martial arts. These themed shorts would continue all the way to the 1960s.

El Gaucho Goofy aims to teach the differences between an American cowboy and a South American gaucho. Both have the same job, tending to cattle on the open prairie. The short highlights the regional and cultural differences.

A defining aspect of these satirical Goofy shorts, Goofy is at constant odds with an omniscient narrator. Goofy either tries and fails to follow the provided instructions, or follows the instructions too closely, resulting in disaster. The slapstick is one mere aspect of the humor. The remainder is a dissonance between what the narrator deadpans, and what Goofy actually delivers.

El Gaucho Goofy is funny in its own right. What’s more, Goofy is truly representing the life of a gaucho on the Argentinian Pampas. The short is basic, but entertaining, informative and detailed. Another strike against Pedro, outclassed in dignity and competency by Goofy.

The final segment of the film is Aquarela do Brasil (Watercolor of Brazil). Here, Donald Duck is employed once again. Not simply a sightseer in a foreign land, Donald is paired with Jose Carioca, a parrot and enthusiastic Brazilian patriot. Donald’s fiery temper and bad luck are sidelined for a whirlwind travelogue of Rio de Janeiro.

At the time of filming, Rio was the third most populous city in the western hemisphere (it’s currently fifth). It was the clear intention of the filmmakers to highlight the urban metropolis in all its modern glory. A deliberate rebranding of South America as not just farmers and rural villages. South America also houses centers of industry, culture and commerce, on par with New York.

But when featuring Brazil, one has an obligation to depict the country as a whole. The urban splendor must be paired with the natural beauty. The Amazon river basin and the Pantanal are magnificent natural wonders. Their unique ecosystems and indigenous life contribute to Brazil’s evolution as an empire. Even miles outside the city, there are sights to behold.

The Disney animators depict the natural landscapes well. They create a beautiful watercolor wonderland. A disembodied paintbrush swoops in from offscreen, creating the world in real time. We are given a contrast of deep greens, vivid fluorescents, and rich pastels. It’s very post-impressionistic in style and saturation.

When the short introduces Jose, it shifts into an exploration of Rio de Janeiro’s cityscape. Jose shows off trademark Brazilian interests, including nightclubs and a cachaça bar. Here, Donald partakes of his first glass of cachaça (a Brazilian spirit distilled from sugarcane, quite similar to rum).

Saludos Amigos, not fully intended for children, has no shame depicting Donald Duck drinking hard liquor. For what it’s worth, he doesn’t seem to enjoy it. Not that the drink tastes bad, Donald can’t stomach alcohol at all. It’s a strange thing to both feature alcohol as a cultural highlight to be respected, but also outwardly discouraging the beverage to a percentage of the viewing audience. Such is the problem of using a children’s cartoon character as a cultural ambassador.

The character of Jose Carioca has a lot of personality. Even more when compared to an oddly subdued Donald, serving as an everyman and American analog. Jose is a passionate, excitable motormouth who launches into long monologues in his native Portuguese. He is often oblivious to Donald not understanding. He has much love for his native Brazil, and is quick to share it with everyone. He especially loves music and dance.

So much so, the movie has no choice but to end on a samba number. Like Fantasia before it, Saludos Amigos has no coda, no outro, and no farewell. Just a title card reading “The End.” Combined with its 42-minute runtime, I can imagine many audience members sitting confused in the theater, waiting for the movie to continue.

Saludos Amigos was never intended to be a masterpiece. It was a piece of propaganda and a tax write-off cobbled together in less than nine months. There are individual elements of the movie to be enjoyed, but nothing especially noteworthy. Had it been made by any studio besides Disney, it would be relegated to obscurity. Not that Saludos Amigos is a celebrated entry in the Disney canon.

The story behind the film’s production is more interesting than the movie itself. Walt & El Grupo, a 2008 documentary, fully detailed Disney and his South American tour. It’s clear that The Walt Disney Company, owner of the archival footage and distributor of the final work, had creative control. Details of Disney’s interoffice troubles and financial debts are briefly mentioned, but the film focuses instead on a recreation of his South American tour. The end result is a very dry, unengaging film.

Despite every problem with Saludos Amigos, it did improve American/South American relations during WWII. The Axis powers had tried to influence South America, but by 1944, Latin America fully embargoed both Germany and Italy. Saludos Amigos didn’t achieve much, but it helped stop fascism from conquering the world. How many movies can make that claim?

Fantasia Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Pinocchio Bambi Dumbo Saludos Amigos

#Saludos Amigos #Walt Disney #Walt Disney Animation Studios #Disney #disney studios #Film Criticism #film analysis #review #Disney Canon

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catgirl-kaiju · 4 years

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🔎

Spin time!

So, Godzilla, right?

What exactly is he?

WELL... depends which one you're talking about.

The 1954 Godzilla is stated in the original Japanese cut to be a "prehistoric marine reptile", however this is somewhat contradicted by the appearance of the creature being clearly based on now outdated recreations of famous dinosaurs like tyrannosaurus rex and stegosaurus, so it's generally believed that he's a dinosaur of some sort. But, technically not, I guess. The Showa Eiga Godzilla is stated to also be the same species, so same deal with him.

The Heisei Eiga Godzilla is a species of dinosaur which has heavily mutated by atomic testing. It is revealed in Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (through time travel shenanigans involving WWII and people from the future, it's a whole thing and I won't get into it here.) That he is specifically a Godzillasaurus (yes, really) which was a herbivorous late surviving dinosaur resembling then outdated reconstructions of therapod dinosaurs. It is also implied that Godzilla has some level of a healing factor which contributes to his invulnerability. Also he has a nuclear power plant for a heart, but I'm just gonna move on.

The Millennium Eiga is kinda all over the place, as there are, like... 5 different continuities. Pretty much every movie technically exists in its own continuity, which I think is fun. I'm tired of cinematic universes, do shit like this. Anyway, pretty much all of the millennium movies are just, like, the original Godzilla died in 1954 and this is another one, with a few exceptions. The Godzilla vs. Megaguirus continuity shows a world where Godzilla was never killed, and has been terrorizing the world (but mostly Japan) since 1954. It's clarified that he feeds on nuclear radiation and radioactive materials, and he is notoriously hard to kill. Partly because of his insane healing factor (which is kind of a trend in these movies). He is so hard to kill, in fact, that the Japanese government's best solution is to build an ORBITAL BLACK HOLE GUN to shoot a small black hole at Godzilla from orbit, and it's implied that even THAT doesn't entirely get rid of him. In Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah: All Monsters All Out Attack (yes, that's a real title) Godzilla is a zombie of sorts, resurrected and possessed by the angry spirits of the Japanese sc soldiers who died in WWII, seeking revenge on modern Japan for disrespecting their memory. Just... just, what the fuck.

Oh, yeah, even though the 1998 Godzilla has been retconned into being a completely different monster, and touch on it briefly. Giant radioactive marine iguana, mutated by atomic testing near a French owned island chain. It also can asexually reproduce, so that's cool.

The Monsterverse Godzilla is a Titan, or a giant ancient lifeform that was around during a point in Earth's prehistory when the planet was heavily irradiated, but now live deep inside the Earth. Some Titans were apparently worshipped as gods by unspecified ancient civilizations, and Godzilla is consider an "Alpha" (uuugghh) Titan that asserts dominance over all other Titans.

Shin Godzilla is... god what the fuck even is it. It's stated in the film that it's some sort of HEAVILY mutated ancient sea creature that has been exposed to radioactive deep sea nuclear waste dumps. It can rapidly mutate its physiology to adapt to various environmental conditions, most exemplified by it transitioning from an entirely aquatic animal to a mostly terrestrial amphibious one. It also has it's own unique kind of radiation that it emits in intense quantities wherever it goes.

And, um...

Oh yeah, anime Godzilla. He's um...

He's a tree? I think? At least his design is heavily based on trees. His origins are never really touched upon, but he is definitely not like any other organism on planet earth, well at least when he first appeared. When humans (an two alien species) arrive back on earth, thousands of years in the future... basically most life, both plant and animal, is now derived from Godzilla... some how... I can't remember if it was explained.

Anyway, that's your spin info dump for today!

If you would like to send me an ask, check out my pinned message!

#spin #special interest #info dump #ask #answer #godzilla #kaiju #everyoneneedsasam

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yanderedbdimagines · 4 years

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Okay this is a bizarre one but I curious. But how will the Doctor, Wraith and Hillbilly behave towards a survivor they have a crush on but who also happens to have a baby. (Like maybe they had them in the realm and lets say for no added complication that they are a single parents with no SO waiting for them)

—————–—————-

Oooffff this is a unique request xD But I’m very curious now myself.

I had to scratch my head for a bit with the baby though. Maybe it’s because I’m dense, but I might have misinterpreted the question since I have written it differently than what you might have meant. It’s something I got slapped in the face with when I was halfway through my writing.

Long story short, I accidentally thought you meant that the Entity pretty much dropped the baby at the main campfire knowing that you would be the only survivor willing enough to run some more trials in order to secure the wellbeing of the child.

I hope it’s still alright, and if not, I hope to hear what you actually meant so that I can edit this post.

———————————–

The Doctor

He has extensive documentation about child psychology and development stored somewhere within his office, so he’s knowledgeable enough to be able to offer up his services to you as an excellent infant psychiatrist and as a sub-par pediatrician. Pity for him, seen his reputation, it’s nearly impossible for him to confront you with this proposal since you wouldn’t exactly come near him willingly(for obvious reasons).

Instead, he’d have to call upon the Entity to make it so, in exchange for an increased quantity in trials he’d need to follow himself.

You’ll be very scared, freaked out and even a bit awkward and annoyed to actually be brought to him at the memorial institute with the baby wrapped tightly in your arms and with barely any choice to the matter.

But you’ll get to see a different side of him which you didn’t know he possessed. His facial contraptions are gone, his voice is much deeper than usual and the glow in his eyes has degraded. His usual attire has also been replaced by a clean suit which conceals the tampered skin from your curious gaze. To you, he’s direct and professional. Kind even… A whole different man than who you’ve gotten to know him as during the trials.

Underneath his care and your watchful eye, the baby’s health will thrive; mentally as physically.

However, don’t be fooled. This man is very deranged in his own unique fashion. He’s unbelievably smart; no doubt about that. But he’s lost most of his moral and ethical mindset somewhere within his life. To him, an ordinary human life has become nothing more but a simple tool for a much higher purpose. A purpose where no expense is too high and no risk is too great. In some regard, the child plays a similar role in an objective quite different, if you know what I mean.

If you’re smart enough, I’d recommend keeping the child away from him for as much as you can. Especially once they’ve reached adulthood, for they might end up as one of his many victims if you’d turn your back for a bit too long… He does so for reasons which most people might actually be surprised by…

The Hillbilly

Surprisingly aloof. Don’t misunderstand him on this one; he’ll be unbelievably jealous and he will even be a little bit repelled by the baby because he/she receives the exact type of attention that he has always craved and genuinely needed from his parents during his own childhood. Deep, deep down, he even still wishes that the Entity hasn’t ever given you that little bundle of drooling flesh and bone. He did so even more when he found out that you ran more trials than the average survivor in order to secure the baby’s well-being to the best of your abilities. A child who doesn’t even carry your blood…

Still, he’s sharp and sane enough to know that trying to separate you from the baby is the worst thing he could possibly do to you. You’d break, and will see him as the monster his own family has always perceived him as if you’d somehow find out that he’d be the culprit behind such an action.

Instead, he will have to force himself to adapt and to learn to accept the child’s lingering presence if he’d ever hope to be at the receiving end of your tender love and affection. Although, he might never develop a soft spot for the little one at all, no matter how important they are to you. Even if you’d end up in a romantic relationship with the disfigured man will that aspect stay the same.

He simply can’t…

The Wraith

A baby? In a realm as vile and wicked as this one? The Wraith has lost a great deal of his humanity, but he’s still human enough to feel at least a shred of sympathy towards the infant for his/her inescapable future. At least, if the Entity’s as scummy as the Wraith currently believes it to be. He doubts the parasitic being would let the child go once they come of age; their fate sealed to become a survivor instead, no matter what their origin is.

As a selfish plus side, this might be the right moment for him to support you from the sidelines and to show you that he won’t ever pose as a threat to you nor the baby. He’ll leave beneficial flowers and medical herbs at the border of the survivor camp’s clearing and he will let you escape from his trials whenever he can, for example. After a time, whether you’d end up reciprocating his love or not, he might even attain a liking towards the baby as well depending on how their personal identity develops.

The Entity will be very displeased, but there’s only so much it can do towards a killer who is brainwashed by an unnatural form of love.

No amount of torture can ever force such a thing out of the Wraith now…

#dbd #dead by daylight #yandere #reader #doctor #hillbilly #wraith #herman carter #max thompson jr #philip ojomo #insert

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four-loose-screws · 4 years

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What would you rank all the fire emblem games that you have played.

Thank you for waiting, anon! This essay is finally finished! XD I don’t know if either of us ever intended for this to end up so long, but it did.

It’s interesting to see how each person experiences each game, so I hope everyone enjoys reading this. If anyone wants to ask questions for more details or just for conversation, please do!

I did a tier grouping ranking as well as ordering from bottom -> top, because that helped explain my feelings a little better. This isn’t really reflecting my nostalgia or personal feelings for the characters/world quite as much as “how much fun I had in my initial playthrough(s).” Because I think that’s what these sorts of lists are generally asking for.

First, I’d like to make a general statement about why I love FE games so much: Well, most simply it’s because I have more fun playing FE than any other series. That much is obvious though, right? I also love them because they all stand out in their own way, with their own unique combination of features, and because they are all super ambitious titles. It may lead to some rushing and half-baked ideas, but ambition is what excites me the most in any series. Even if the creators are not able to fully realize the ideas they had, the hard work still wows me as I play, and I can see hints of the full vision they had in every nook and cranny. Even the lowest games on this list are pretty high up there for me in fun level. The “fun but flawed” games just had glaring issues that interrupted the fun from time to time.

...FEs 1 & 3 are overall exceptions to the “unique and standing out rule,” being early games in the series; and FE6 set up post-Famicom FE, so it’s pretty basic, too - but they still get their own awards for setting a solid foundation for a fun video game series that withstands the test of time.

I can’t fully explain it, why I attached to FE the most over all other game series out there. But when I play FE, I usually don’t think about what’s not so great about the games. I just have fun. The gameplay always has me thinking, and I get engrossed in the stories and unlocking convos and supports.

Basic Tier

These games are really hard to judge properly in the ranking system, because they are just so basic for the series.

FE1 / FE11

When FE11 came out, I remember it getting so much flack for being really, really boring. But I didn’t get that. I like FE gameplay and storytelling at its core, so I don’t need the bells and whistles to have a good time. I knew this is where the series started, and was surprised with what content there was considering this is a remake of a game on the Famicom (NES).

FE1 set a very solid foundation for what the core of the series would be. Load it up next to a modern game, and it feels so the same and different all at once. I’ve only played a little bit of FE1 itself. I just can’t get through it because FE11 is SO similar to FE1, so you really only have to play one to get the whole experience. I didn’t feel like playing the same game over again at the time, so FE1 is still on my unfinished list.

Basic, solid foundation for the ages / 10

FE3 / FE12

After FE11 played it “safe” and took an “upgraded graphics with a few new ideas tacked on” approach, I was blown away by how much FE12 did, even if it was more for worse than better sometimes. It added so many conversations, was the first to tinker with the idea of a more fleshed out Avatar, added more story… and so on.

From what I’ve read recently, the new story stuff isn’t that great, but I don’t remember now. I’ve only played this game once. Overall, despite some clunk with the giant maps and so on, this game really challenged itself to improve from FE11, and it’s how I learned to love remakes that aren’t afraid to deviate from and add a lot to the original!

Set the stage for what kind of fun and ambition an FE remake could have / 10

FE3 is way more of a classic than any of us in the West can truly understand. It sold insanely well (the best in the series until Awakening I believe?), challenged the programmers to put FE1 on the cart as well, long before re-releases were a thing in the industry, and the game even made it to the Super Famicom Mini! I haven’t played it yet because again, it’s hard to get the motivation to play through the slow speed and clunkiness when I’ve already experienced the remake, but I’m looking forward to it some day.

The good ol’ days of the Super Famicom & SNES / 10

FE6

This was the first game without Kaga (the series original creator), so it set the stage for a future without him. The series might have strayed far from his plans for story and such, but this game, while it was pretty basic, firmly established a new foundation for the series on a new system, and gave a glimpse of what greatness the future had in store.

Overall though, this game is harder to commit to memory than others, except for classic characteristics like how terrible Roy is until, finally, BAM he gets his sword in the final stretches of the game; and running in circles from Douglas so you can avoid fighting him and successfully recruit him after the chapter.

Awkward, but sets a solid foundation for post-Kaga and post-Famicom FE / 10

Fun But Flaws Distracted From The Fun A Lot Tier

FE16

I really, really hate to say it, because this game tries to mix up the FE formula with the school setting and other new features and changes, and brought in a good mix of old and new, just like all the other FE games. But this game left very little impact on me for such a big experience. And I’m leaving out the fact that trying to play all four routes is dull as heck when I place the game this low. I’m basing it off of just how much I enjoyed the first playthrough.

Overall, I was most turned off by the class system. Which is funny, because I’ve seen others praise this as FE’s best class system. Everyone’s different. Classic classes like troubadours are just gone. The top tier classes are super limiting. Of course, you can just stop one tier down, but that’s not emotionally satisfying to me - I want my characters to reach the top! Despite having such free choice, I feel more limited than anything. If they’d just stopped at 4 tiers and not tried to go to 5, I think that would have been best. They had to stretch out the available classes too much to get to 5. ...Although being able to have an army of dragon riders is awesome, I’ll give it that. Dragons are too cool.

I was also really disappointed by the story. Fire Emblem has established that it can write a really emotional plot, and not be afraid to pull punches, with games like 4 and 8. I was expecting a huge contrast between part 1, where everyone is friends and classmates, and part 2, where war rips them apart, transforms them into different people, and forces them to brutally slaughter each other.

But in reality…the hate between Dimitri and Edelgard has nothing to do with the school at all… That was jarring to me. Of course there is no one right direction to take a story in. But the worldbuilding and story writing… feels even less coherent than Fates. That’s an accomplishment.

This is the one time I say ambition was really just too much. The game didn’t get enough polish. A game about the seasons doesn’t even have seasonal differences...

While my friends who don’t usually play Fire Emblem have had a fantastic experience with this one, after all I’ve been through, I found that I liked other FE’s more.

I think the best part about this game is the characters and supports. After Fates had a ton of supports in it just because it had to have them, the creators of this game weren’t afraid to change up the support formula once more, so they could balance quality and quantity. ...And then, ironically, this game went for the (almost entirely) mute, personality-less avatar character. Funny how that works out. XD

Dragon Lord Army Go! / 10

FE14

I feel this game deserves way more credit than it gets, while also agreeing with the critiques. The ambition was as great as ever. But then it got stuck in development hell and we got what we got. (For those who don’t know, the team was divided in two - the team that wanted a more fanservic-y experience, and the one that wanted to make a standard FE.)

I think the gameplay is the best part of this game, Conquest is great, and the gimmicks are indeed gimmicks, but still fun. In offering three different experiences, the entire package will please few, but that was the point of the multiple routes, to give everyone one route they would like, not to please everyone with all three.

But beyond the gameplay, the story is all over the place, the multiple routes just create more questions than answers; and features like an increased number of support convos and children feel like they are there only because of a desire to bring back “popular” features. After multiple food/cooking supports in a row, I couldn’t take it any more. There was so little that the characters were actually talking about in their supports vs. Awakening. I generally feel that more supports = better, because character interaction through supports is of course a highlight of post-Famicom FE, but in this case, the numbers did not do any favors.

Bringing back weapons that don’t break didn’t feel well done, either. I just ended up using basic weapons the whole time because I didn’t want to deal with the drawbacks of the higher level weapons.

Back to a positive for me: The hub world was neat, though it needed some convoluted story writing to be included. I was amused by going through the different features and collecting the items. I agree with Nintendo of America taking out the “petting minigame,” but since I lived in Japan when Fates released, it was amusing to do on the train and weird out the bored Japanese people who peered over my shoulder.

Since all three routes were different, this game was fun enough until the end in comparison to Three Houses, of which I am STILL trying to slog through the last route one year after release. But Fates was made for every route to be different, whereas Three Houses was not, so it’s not surprising I feel like that.

But time for the real talk about this game… why is everyone’s HP so low??? What happened?????

Up and down and all around in quality from start to finish / 10

FE15

I really want to like this game more. Oh, do I. It’s absolutely GORGEOUS, the character art makes my heart skip a beat, the game proved that full voice acting does fit FE really well, it fleshed out things like the dungeon crawling & story, and added support conversations & skills, etc. while still staying kind of basic, retaining the feeling that the original was on the NES. The momentum for the fun and ambition that an FE remake could have transitioned well from FE12 to here and led to this being a stunningly presented game.

But the creators totally missed the point on what were the defining features of the game in my opinion, and that mismatch of vision ruined a lot for me. I loved the imbalance, struggling as I placed my units in corners of maps just to survive, until I obtained all those OP items, and my super soldiers marched into battle and did wild and amazing things. Valbar with +5 move and 40 speed with the Speed Ring is the one thing I remember the best of FE2 and oh man was it fun, and did I love it.

And I mean, I understand why the creators weren’t going to keep that imbalance, it doesn’t make the game good for everyone. It’s just something I found fun, and made the game stand out among the other FEs. But the developers really just replaced old imbalance with new imbalance, the dread fighters being the one thing I remember in particular.

And they defined FE2’s best defining features as “the maps and the terrain effects” and I just did not agree. That was the stuff I DISLIKED about FE2! And that’s what they wanted to keep most? The terrain that made battles one giant miss, and the gigantic maps where I’d spend half the time just getting to the enemies? No thanks.

Then the story only cranked up the horrible treatment of the women, with Faye… being Faye, and I hated the direction they went in with Celica’s story... Ugh.

For every step or two forward, there’s one back / 10

FE10

FE games are always ambitious, but this one cranked the dial up to 10 and tripped over itself a lot. Still, it provided (even if it is info dumped) an intense and satisfying ending to the Tellius saga, and is another classic for the ages. I found the pacing boring and slow until then, though.

I think now that I’m older I can appreciate the story much, much more - and how it shows the story and aftermath of the Mad King’s War from multiple points of view - but the lack of the support conversations, and too much going on for any aspect of this game to be properly refined, still make this one lower on my list.

If only I could have played it more than once, to really get a good memory of the events of the game. My Wii actually scratched up my disk (How this happened, I don’t know, and it’s the ONLY disk my Wii ever slaughtered). It only held out long enough for my sibling and I to enjoy one playthrough each. I’ll get to playing my Japanese copy eventually!

Part 4 = Laguz Royals Emblem / 10

Somewhere Inbetween Tier

FE5

The last of the Kaga games. Still clunky and difficult, but with it’s own super unique features in capturing, stamina, and stealing weapons.

The brokenness of staves is not at all a flaw, but a feature in my opinion. Encouraging bizarre thinking and finding new ways to plow through maps is fun. I would probably be critical if this was a modern game, but I think older games need these quirks to stand out among modern titles with better graphics and decades of gaming history behind them.

And you still can complete the maps in a more traditional manner if you are determined. I did even for Reinhardt’s map.

Also, I gotta say... I don’t agree that this is the most difficult FE overall… it just has the hardest individual maps. The difficulty spikes are all over the place. The game goes from bashing your head against a wall to snoozefest constantly.

Fog of war was a mistake though, if I was a time traveler, I’d go back and make sure the programmers never figured out how to include it. XD

Steal ALL the tomes! / 10

FE13

Experiencing this game and its release in real time was an experience. The fandom really, truly thought this game might not only be the last FE ever, but also that it might not get a localization. Thinking there would never be a localization, I spent a night of my first trip to Japan buying a Japanese 3DS and a copy of the game. I only had 2 weeks on that study tour, but I was so determined that I used some of my precious free time to go shopping for it. To afford it, I even used the money my college gave to me for food, then subsided off of cheap convenience store meals with what little I had left. I barely had any true understanding of Japanese at the time, but I wanted other fans to experience this game, so I worked as hard as I could to translate as many supports as I could. This game is why I got into translation, and was what I really thought might be the end, so it will always have a special place in my heart for that.

Now to actually talk about playing the game itself. I really enjoyed it the first couple of times. Who cares that pair-up and the kids were OP, you either blast through the game with them and have a good laugh, or ignore them, set some challenging rules, and enjoy having at least a little challenge. I didn’t care much that the supports were a little lower quality because of the sheer number of them, I eagerly awaited unlocking each one, and reading what the two characters would talk about. (We fans have fanfiction to turn to if we hunger for more development. :p) The bonus content was plentiful, and a great fanservice-y way to bring the series to a close.

After all is said and done though, the game left me feeling empty when I thought about replaying it any further. The maps and story felt empty in comparison to previous games. Now that it’s been 8 years since the initial release, I’d of course enjoy a replay or two, but after having played FEs7-9 5 or 6 times in a row before moving on to the next game… anything less than that level of excitement was surprising for me. I placed this game kinda high on the list because it’s fun when you play it. It’s just doesn’t have as much replay value, I feel.

Also, as a group, the children characters are my favorite in the series. They all come from deeply traumatic backgrounds, and the way they work through that trauma and navigate being given a second chance, but also not a true second chance because this timeline is different from their own, is endlessly fascinating for me. I don’t know if other fans give them enough credit, so I wanted to point them out in particular.

Would have been a fantastic way to send off the series, despite the flaws / 10

FE2

This game is flawed, imbalanced, makes me want to throw things, and it’s all, somehow, in a way that makes me LOVE IT. ...So long as I’m playing using an emulator with a speed up button.

This game is so hard, and the hit percentages are such garbage. But as I played, and unlocked more and more OP weapons and items, until I reached a point where the zombie dragons - what once took all my efforts - were an enemy that can easily be slaughtered in 1-on-1 combat... I felt so satisfied.

Old games need some kind of charm to make them still worth revisiting in a world of much better graphics and features that have now had decades to be refined. For me, this game has that perfect kind of quirky charm in spades.

The maps and terrain though… I have no words, just bash your head into the wall and you will understand how I feel.

Also, this game reminds me of Zelda 2 in it being a black sheep of its respective series… that’s a fun little nugget of info.

Duma’s sprite / 10

FE7

I don’t remember this game as well, despite it being one that I’ve played about 5 times? I don’t know why, it’s yet another fantastic Fire Emblem with its own ways that it stands out, managing not one, not two, but three lords, introducing the tactician, and so on. Guess time has just not been kind to my memory on this one.

I remember being really impressed with the length of this game back in the day, and Hector’s mode offering enough differences to make it totally fun to replay the main game again.

Lyn gets kind of pushed to the side (because that’s what generally happens to women main characters in Fire Emblem, if there’s a male lord around), but having the three lords was really fun. With three people, you get a great balance between all of their personalities, and they all play off of each other well.

Of course I loved Lyn and Hector, most everyone does, but I was always just as much of an Eliwood fan. His average stats pushed people away from liking him as much as the others, but I always looked up to his kindness. Eliwood / Ninian was an especially favorite pairing for my sappy teenage heart. Eliwood was just so romantic and sweet to me.

And though the game was made easier with international audiences in mind, the developers hadn’t invented all of the “easier/for convenience” features yet, so this is the last time we got to enjoy some “harder” features like needing to buy weapons during battles, and a convoy separate from the main lord. That’s cool if you like that stuff.

Unlocking the paralogues is hard though / 10

Favorites Tier

FE8

When it comes to FE8, while there’s plenty to like about the gameplay (despite the game being so easy, but again, like I said with Awakening, you can just set your own challenge rules), what I really love to ramble on about is the story and its emotional impact. Lyon is so precious and kind, but has so many inner conflicts stewing deep inside of him, leading him to elder magics, and… The Demon King is just ends up as a sideshow compared to Lyon coming face to face with his own demons. Both the characters - and many players, I’m sure - hope and hope to find a way to save him, but there just isn’t one. There are never any real leads. There’s nothing. Only the harrowing reality that some people cannot be saved, no, that some people do not want to be saved. The inevitability of Lyon’s demise, and seeing it all play out, packs a punch most plots can only dream of.

But it’s not like I won’t talk about the gameplay features either. Bringing back much of the best of FE2, the overworld map and everything to do really enhances the experience. I mean, yeah, I guess two side dungeons isn’t that much to get excited over, I can see that critique… but I didn’t care, it allowed me to easily chase support conversations, and (with some RNG abusing to obtain enough Boots and money to buy the stat-boosting items, but hey, whatever it takes) I could max out my characters’ stats and truly “complete” a Fire Emblem game.

Sacred Stones is so awesome.

Finally! A postgame! I sure hope the developers keep this up in all the future games… oh. / 10

FE9

This is the first FE game I ever played, so it will always occupy the most dear and special place in my heart, even if FE4 eventually won over as my favorite.

Do you believe in first sight? I do, and this is what taught me it’s real. From the first second of the first cutscene, I was enthralled. ...And that’s saying something, when the FE9 cutscenes are the kind of thing only a mother could love. But I just knew. I may have been a wee lass of 14, but I knew a love that would last a lifetime was being born. ...Or that would at least last 14 more years. I can’t predict the future. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and hate Fire Emblem with a burning passion? 2020 has taught me that tomorrow is always a big fat question mark.

Fun fact: in case you are wondering exactly what inspired my very initial interest in this series, it was a TV commercial. Probably this one. I just remember Ike running, of all things. My sibling and I both thought FE9 looked interesting from this commercial, and sought out the game all on our own with zero private knowledge that anything FE even existed.

This is where obsessions are born. Or mine at least. / 10

FE4

As I’ve established, this is my favorite of favorites. The bizarre way money, arenas, items, and more were handled, actually made the game more and more fun for me. Big maps are just so fun. Gen 1’s story is a tale for the ages, and Gen 2’s story is… well, classic FE, which never gets old for me. It will never cease to amaze me even today what the SNES/S Famicom could handle.

All I’d want added is a “warp between conquered castles” feature. I’m completely neutral on a remake otherwise. Of course a lot more could be added and detailed upon that I’d be happy for, but that’s my one specific wish.

Calvary Emblem Forever / 10

Bonus:

FEH

I played this game every day for around 2 ½ years before I finally felt I had to break the habit, so I’m not leaving it out! This title got a lot of flack for simplifying FE gameplay, but… looking at it that way completely disregards the niche app games fill, and the interesting ways developers view what type of games app games should be, and how the developers work hard to both innovate for the format yet stay faithful to the source. It is surprisingly deep, and the maps + higher focus on unit skills make you think entirely differently about how to win in what is, in essence, the same gameplay as the main series.

Plus, what fan couldn’t get suckered into the fanservice of it? My best moments include attaining a +10 Nephenee while only spending money to get 2 of her, the other 9 were all F2P orbs; and becoming a Narcian/Valter shipper after supporting them on impulse because they were both on my flier team, and realizing the sick, twisted chemistry afterwards. Discovering rare-pairs is fun.

Also, finally, this game dared to nerf magic users a bit by making them RNG 2 only. If only the main series could do something like that.

I really enjoyed Heroes a lot, I just quit solely because it was a time drain. It was time to move on and play other things. And I’m glad I got out when I did. Seeing the game stoop to over-the-top powercreep (above and beyond what it was always implementing) and add the monthly service to keep the $$$$$ raking in was hard to watch.

Perfect app-style game gameplay-wise and fanservice-wise, but why aren’t gacha illegal yet / 10

FE Warriors

Oh yeah, this game exists too! It’s a Warriors game. If you like the formula and it never gets old for you, you’ll have fun with this game. If you don’t mind the limited game representation too much, you’ll have fun with this game. For me, the answers to those questions were a yes, so I enjoyed FE Warriors. Yay for wailing on hordes of enemies / 10

#fire emblem #favorites

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biostudyblog · 4 years

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Motivation and Emotion

Theories of Motivation

When Charles Darwin came up with his theory of evolution, many psychologists attempted to use it to explain all human behaviours through instincts that were weeded out through natural selection. There is still a debate about how much of our behaviour is decided through instinct, but it is agreed that many human behaviours are not.

Drive Reduction Theory

You’ll notice the creative naming of most of these theories. This theory is that our behaviour is controlled by physical needs. A drive is an impulse to act in such a way that satisfies an unfulfilled need to reduce that drive: you’re driven to eat a sandwich when you’re hungry. Every drive is your bodies attempt to maintain homeostasis or internal balance. When your brain determines that it doesn’t have enough glucose, that triggers a series of signals which eventually cause you to feel hungry to replenish glucose reserves. There are primary drives and secondary drives. A primary drive is a biological need, such as sex. A secondary drive is a learnt need like money.

Arousal Theory

Arousal theory states that we are constantly seeking an optimum level of arousal (not just sex. Get your mind out of the gutter.) Every person has a different optimum level of excitement someone with a high optimum level may be drawn to high thrill activities like rollercoasters or skydiving. That level also changes based on activity. We may do great at an easy task when extremely aroused, but not so well on a more difficult one. The relationship between arousal and performance is modelled by the Yerkes-Dodson curve.

Another theory of motivation similar to arousal theory is the opponent-process theory of motivation (Yes, it’s the same name as the opponent-process theory of colour vision. Psychologists hate us and want us to do poorly on exams.) This theory tends to be used to explain addiction. People are usually at a baseline (normal) state. We may do things that move us away from that baseline state, such as having a pint. Initially, that action may be pleasurable, but eventually we feel an opponent-process, a motivation to return to our normal baseline state. An alcoholic may get sick of feeling drunk and want to quit drinking, but due to withdrawal it’s made extremely difficult, and moves us away from our natural baseline. That alcoholic may have a godawful hangover without alcohol, so he is motivated to return to the baseline state of feeling all right, motivating him to have more pints to feel normal again.

Incentive Theory

Incentives are stimuli we are drawn to due to learning- we learn to associate stimuli with rewards or punishment- for example, you could play Halo for 3 hours the night before an exam, but you learn to associate that with poor marks, motivating you to crack open a textbook and revise so that you get high marks.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Humanist Abraham Maslow states that not all needs are equal. Our needs can be modelled as a pyramid, detailing which needs we want to satisfy before the others. To model, imagine a man trapped on a desert island with a few other survivors.

Physiological Needs: Needs like hunger, thirst, and sex. Say you arrived and you were extremely hungry. Before he can think about anything else, he’d likely start hunting down some food, and some water.

Safety Needs: The need to feel safe and out of danger. The island gets scary, especially at night, so the man constructs a hut that completely shelters him from the creatures that may roam the island.

Belongingness and Love Needs: The need to be accepted and belong somewhere. With the bottom two needs satisfied, the man may start trying to befriend the other survivors to try and form a community with them.

Esteem Needs: The need to gain approval and recognition. With his new community, the man may want to feel like he has a purpose with the new community- he may feel connected to his identity as the fisherman of the group that everyone recognises and appreciates.

Self Actualisation: With all of his other needs met, the man is now fully capable of fulfilling his unique potential.

While this theory explains a lot of human behaviour, there are many behaviours it doesn’t explain. Many poor parents go hungry in order to save enough money for their children to enjoy small luxuries. People are constantly putting their own lives at risk in order to save others; Malala Youzafi risked her life to speak out about women’s education in Pakistan.

Hunger Motivation

Some human behaviours can be deceptive in their complexity. Why do we get hungry? Because we need food- but that’s not always the case. For example, people tend to eat junk food like crisps while watching films despite not needing those crisps to feel full, and despite not feeling hungry at all.

Biological Basis of Hunger

There are several known biological cues which trigger hunger. By putting balloons into research subjects stomachs, and deflating and inflating them, researchers found that when the stomach is full we feel less hungry. The hypothalamus also plays an important role in hunger. By stimulating different animals brain, it was found that different parts of the hypothalamus are acting in opposition to controlling hunger. The lateral hypothalamus, also known as the hunger centre causes animals to eat when stimulated. The ventromedial hypothalamus, also known as the satiety centre causes animals to stop eating when stimulated. These two regions of the brain balance each other out.

The set-point theory is one theory that explains how the hypothalamus picks the correct impulse. The hypothalamus has an optimum body weight it wants to remain at. When our weight goes down, it lowers our metabolic rate (how quickly our body uses energy) and tells us to eat. When it goes up, it raises our metabolic rate and tells us to stop eating. Some researchers feel that psychological factors like learning and cognition are more important in weight maintenance. Along with that, the brain is analysing glucose and insulin levels to determine if food needs to be eaten.

Psychological Factors

Some reasons we get hungry have nothing to do with physiology. Some research has shown that some people (appropriately dubbed externals) are motivated to eat by external food cues and presentation of food and less motivated by internal food cues. An external food cue would be watching people eat Mcdonalds in an advertisement. An internal food cue would be feeling stressed and wanting to eat to feel better. Everyone responds to both to greater or lesser extents. The Garcia effect drastically affects what foods make us hungry. If you eat something and feel sick soon after, it makes it extremely difficult to stomach that food again. One time, when I was younger, I ate some ham, and soon after came down with the flu, and was puking my guts out. Logically, I knew that the ham had nothing to do with my sickness, but for a long time after I couldn’t even look at ham without flashing back to that sickness. Our culture also has a massive effect on what we find more appetising. I’m from England, so food that sounds appetising to me (beans on toast for example) may sound completely unappetising to readers not from there.

Eating Disorders

(Trigger Warning for discussions of different kinds of eating disorders. I’ll put a picture of my pet rat at the end of this section if you need to skip it. If you feel like you need help, please click this link for a list of hotlines with trained professionals on the other end of the line who can help you or someone you know through a crisis: https://www.bulimia.com/topics/eating-disorder-hotline/)

Another extreme example of hunger motivation not matching up with physiology is eating disorders. 3% of adolescents are diagnosed with one type of eating disorder, and disordered eating habits have become a massive problem in American culture. The three most common eating disorders are as follows:

Bulimia- Bulimia is characterised by periods of binging and then periods of purging (or non-purging in the case of non-purging types). Bulimics tend to eat massive amounts of food (although this is not always the case) and then purge it in any way they can, whether that be by throwing up, using laxatives, intense exercise, or fasting.

Anorexia-Anorexia is characterised by starvation. Anorexics tend to deal with a condition known as body dysmorphic disorder (although bulimics tend to suffer from it as well) where the brain obsesses over perceived “fat” even going so far as to having sufferers see themselves as larger than they are. Anorexics will starve themselves, or eat hardly anything for long periods of time.

Binge eating disorder- A harmful narrative surrounding eating disorders is the lack of conversation about the other end of the scale. Those suffering from BED tend to have recurring episodes where they eat massive quantities of food, often eating to the point of discomfort, and feeling a loss of control.

EDNOS/OSFED- (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified or Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder). Not everyone suffers from the 3 main eating disorders. This diagnosis encompasses people who deal with disordered eating, but can’t quite be diagnosed into one of the 3. Some examples are purging disorder, night eating syndrome, and atypical anorexia nervosa.

The emphasis a culture places on weight tends to influence rates of eating disorders. It’s likely for this reason the US has some of the highest rates of documented eating disorders.

Sexual Motivation

Here’s the part of the discussion I’m sure you were waiting for once I mentioned arousal (you dirty-minded bastards.) Sex, like everything else has biological influences and psychological ones.

The Sexual Response Cycle

William Masters and Virginia Johnson were responsible for documenting the 4 steps in the sexual response cycle in adults (and I’m sure they had fun doing it.)

Initial Excitement: This is the point where blood rushes to the genitals. The clitoris will swell and the penis becomes erect. Heart rate and breathing rate also increase, and the skin may become flushed.

Plateau Phase: This is the point where genitals secrete fluids to prepare for sex. The heart rate and breathing rate also continue to rise.

Orgasm: Genitals begin to contract- heart and breathing rate continue to rise even further and men typically ejaculate. The release of neurotransmitters like endorphins and dopamine contribute to a sense of euphoria in both men and women.

Resolution Phase: Respiration and heart rate return to normal, and men enter a refractory period. Women, however, can enter back into the cycle immediately.

Psychological Factors

Hormones don’t strictly motivate sexual desires. One elusive aspect of sexuality is sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is an extremely (and unfortunately) controversial aspect of sexuality. Researchers like Alfred Kinsey (who developed the Kinsey scale which tracks the variety of human sexual behaviours) haven’t been able to push back against many of the rumours that exist about less “traditional” sexualities. There is little known about what causes sexual orientation, but no correlation has been found between trauma in childhood, parenting styles, relationship with parents, or masculinity and femininity and sexuality. Twin studies have found a genetic influence- one identical twin is likely to be gay if his twin is, and hormones in the womb may influence orientation.

Social Motivation

Humans aren’t robots. We experience more motivation outside of satisfying our needs for sex and food. Why are you reading this Tumblr post instead of reproducing, for example?

Achievement Motivation

One theory that attempts to explain more complex behaviours is a desire to master complex tasks and knowledge and to achieve personal goals. Research has found that people with high achievement motivation are consistently motivated to challenge themselves more than others, constantly setting the bar a little higher. This motivation varies between people and between activities. Clearly, I’m extremely motivated to do better in my classes since I’m sitting at my desk at midnight writing this- but I know how to cook 5 meals, and only 3 well because I have no motivation to do better at cooking.

Extrinsic/Intrinsic Motivation

Another way to think about social motivation is where the push is coming from. Extrinsic motivators are rewards we get for accomplishments outside of us (treats, high marks, salary etc). Intrinsic motivators are internal rewards like enjoyment or satisfaction. Are you reading this Tumblr blog because you want to get an A in your psychology class, or because you’re interested in psychology? Research into this form of social motivation tends to benefit managers and other leaders- studies show that advantageous behaviour we want to continue persists when influenced by intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation tends to be more short-lived.

Management Theory

Studies looking into different management styles have found 2 main attitudes which affect how good managers are at their jobs.

Theory X: Managers believe employers will only work if rewarded for good work and punished for bad.

Theory Y: Managers believe employees are intrinsically motivated to do good work so policy should foster this motivation.

Theory Y has shown promise in promoting a better work environment and longer employee satisfaction.

When Motives Conflict

When discussing motivational conflict, psychologists tend to split them int 4 categories. Approach-approach conflict occurs when you have to pick between two good outcomes (Do I want to get ice cream or do I want to get brownies?) Avoidance-avoidance conflict occurs when you have to choose between to negative outcomes (Should I clear out the garage or deep clean the bathroom this Sunday?) An approach-avoidance conflict occurs when one event has both negative and positive features. (Even though I’m lactose intolerant, should I have some ice cream?) Finally, there’s multiple approach-avoidance conflicts. This is a situation where people are forced to pick one of multiple situations all with good and bad aspects about it. (Should I attend University A, B, or C?)

Emotion Theories

James-Lange Vs Cannon-Bard

One of the older theories of emotion came from psychologists William James and Carl Lange, who states that we feel emotion because of biological changes caused by stress. This theory was eventually challenged by Walter Cannon and Philip Bard who found that similar physiological changes occur due to drastically different emotional states- sometimes your heart races when you’re terrified or when you’re really excited. Cannon felt that the thalamus was both responsible for the biological change and the cognitive experience of emotion. When the thalamus receives signals informing us about our environment, it sends signals both to our cortex and the autonomic nervous system, making the physiological change and the conscious experience of emotion occur at the same time.

Two-Factor Theory

Stanley Schachter’s two-factor theory does a much better job of completely explaining emotion than both James-Lange and Cannon-Bard’s theories do. He thought that both our physical response and our cognitive label combine to form an emotional response. He found that people who are already stimulated will experience emotions more intensely than those who aren’t already stimulated.

Nonverbal Expressions of Emotion

Our nonverbal methods of communicating how we’re feeling have been found to be universal. Most every culture has the same basic facial expression to express happiness, sadness, anger, fear, etc. Research into sociobiology suggests that our facial expressions are actually a part of our genetics.

Stress

Stress and emotion are inherently linked. Psychologists tend to use stress to understand motivation and emotion along with help deal with problems caused by it. Stress can refer to life events (stressors) or our reaction to those stressors (stress reactions)

Measuring Stress

Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe were the first to design an instrument that could measure stress. They used a social readjustment rating scale (SRRS) to measure stress using Life Change Units (LCUs). Someone taking this test would report a change in their life, such as having a new baby and each change would be assigned a different LCU. Different events were ascribed different LCU levels based on their intensity and their positivity- being married counts for more LCUs than being fired does. This method is not as widely used anymore as we now have more sophisticated ways to measure stress that include individual perception of events.

Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome

Hans Selye’s general adaptation syndrome (GAS) is a description of the general response humans and animals have to a stressful event. His GAS Theory moves through the following stages:

Alarm Reaction: Heart rate increases, blood diverts from other parts of the body to the muscle, sympathetic nervous system is activated

Resistance: The body stays physiologically prepared. Hormones are released to ensure this preparedness lasts- spending too long in this stage can cause the body to exhaust itself.

Exhaustion: The parasympathetic nervous system is activated and returns our physiological state to normal. We are most vulnerable to disease in this stage especially after spending an abnormally long amount of time in the resistance stage.

Perceived Control

Studies have shown that a perceived lack of control contributes to stress. Rats who were given control over the duration of an electric shock were less likely to develop ulcers- patients given control over their morphine dosage tend to report better pain control. The feeling of a loss of control the COVID-19 outbreak has caused has massively contributed to the spike in mental health cases occurring as people are stuck in their homes.

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fourangers · 4 years

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Fate and Choices (ch.03)

Summary: When Naruto discovered who was going to be his soulmate, he jumped straight at this opportunity, looking forward to spending the rest of his life with his better half. Sasuke well…he was less eager in this regard though. NaruSasu. Soulmates tattoos. M-rated.

Content: AU!Office, Romance, Comedy, Drama, it’ll get a little too philosophical in some parts talking about free will Vs fate, basically Sasuke is a cynic ass and Naruto is an idealistic moron (great amirite), Anal Sex, tattoos soulmates

Chapter 02 here

AO3 link

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Itachi knocked on Sasuke’s door to catch his attention, muttering. “We have the first polyamorous client that succeeded finding her soulmates using Shinrei. Maybe we should post it on our Instagram.”

“Oh? How many?”

“Four.”

Sasuke blinked. “Four? That’s quite unusual. What’s the biggest number recorded in history?”

“Seven, if I’m not mistaken. But you’re right, at least in recent history the biggest demographic is monogamous relationships first, and then polygamy with three people.”

“I guess it is pretty complicated having to deal with that many people in your plate that even the soulmate system limits its number.” Sasuke wondered out loud.

“Maybe you’re right, but I also have a couple of friends happily married with their soulmates where they both enjoy an open relationship. Another proof that the system that you claim to despise so much, knows how to match people with similar interests together.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I’m not going to waste my time to convince you otherwise.”

“Talking about soulmates…contact Naruto-kun so he can schedule this post ok. We’ve been gaining new potential clients every day so I don’t want to lose the momentum.”

Sighing, Sasuke obeyed his older brother, also ignoring how his heart skipped a beat when Naruto answered his call.

“Aren’t you too early for a booty call, Sasuke-chan?”

“Moron, it’s nothing like that. It’s about work.”

“Mmm.” There was a long pause then Naruto’s voice was a little rough from yawning. “Lemme get some coffee first. Can I call you in the next five minutes?”

“Five minutes, nothing more.”

“Yeah yeah.”

Seven minutes and thirty seconds later, Naruto returned his call, his voice chirpier. “Alright, now I’m ready for the booty call.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Usuratonkachi…”

“Oh hey, it’s been years since you used this nickname!” Naruto’s boisterous laugh made his mood lighter, and Sasuke did not notice a smile curling on his own lips. “Are we going back to pet names? What should I call you then, darling? Honey? My smooching buddy?”

“I’m hanging up.”

“No, no! I’ll behave, I prooomise.” Naruto singsonged on the other side of his phone. “So, what do you want to talk about?”

Sipping his coffee, Sasuke said. “One of our clients managed to find her partners using Shinrei and we’re going to post about our first successful polyamorous example.”

“Really? Congrats to them! Imagine, being able to have more than one option while I’m here stuck with an uptight, inconsiderate bastard.”

“Your observation while accurate is wholly unnecessary.”

Naruto chuckled. “At least you admitted that you’re a bastard.”

“No point denying it.” Grunting, Sasuke considered asking the next set of questions but shook his head. “Anyways, I need this post as soon as you can. Do you need any help with it?”

“Yeah, for now we’re going to post about this milestone but in the future maybe it’s better to ask if they want to talk about this experience and all…you know, to keep feeding the account. You have a contract for them to sign about allowing us to publish their story?”

“We do, but your company is more experienced, I’d prefer if you can handle it.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to Neji ‘bout it. I’ll send you the layout and the script and if everything goes well we’ll be able to post it in the next three days.”

“You can’t for tonight?” Sasuke enquired, slightly annoyed.

“Hah. Ah, that’s the biggest issue about clients, they really think that we take care of only you, and no one else. I have five other accounts aside yours, bastard, my team is crammed with other stuff to do and you just asked out of the blue, we’re gonna reorganize to fit with this request.”

“Hn.”

“And I’m not giving you special treatment just ‘cuz you’re my soulmate.”

Sasuke snorted. “Good, because I don’t want any. I’ll talk with my older brother about it, but I’d appreciate it if you guys can manage to deliver sooner. By the way…” He scrolled down his calendar and muttered. “Are you available tomorrow afternoon for a meeting? I’m going to talk with a potential investor but he’s an older generation that won’t understand much about social media, so if you could help out…”

“Tomorrow afternoon? Hm, sure, I think I can help you out. I’ll just talk to Neji ‘bout it first and I’ll give the confirmation later.” There was a noise of flapping of pages, then Naruto paused and exclaimed. “Hey, maybe we can have lunch together before we go to this meeting! How about that? Remember all the good ol’ times, catching up and so on.”

“Hm…if you manage to send me the polyamorous post today, I’ll consider it.”

“Whoa, you can’t dangle the possibility of a date right on my face just so you can bribe me to do your things!” Naruto said incredulously, even if he laughed afterwards.

“I’ll strongly consider it.”

Naruto was still laughing, Sasuke could picture him shaking his head too. “Nah, I really can’t. I’m not the only one involved ya know, so I can’t force my colleagues to drop everything just so I can have some special lunch with you. Anyways, Neji’s here, gotta talk to him. See you soon!”

“Hn.” Turning the phone off, Sasuke felt someone appearing close to him, so he raised his head, narrowing his eyes from Itachi’s knowing smile. “What?” He barked.

“Nothing, nothing at all…you look pretty happy, otouto-kun.” Itachi’s beam widened despite his younger brother’s growing suspicion. “You talked with Naruto-kun?”

“Yes, he said that he’ll only be able to send that post you talked about in the next three days.”

“Oh. While I appreciate you informing me, that wasn’t exactly the answer I was looking for.”

“I know what you are expecting but I’m not going to give you the satisfaction, so beat it, nii-san.” Sasuke growled, focusing back on his laptop.

Itachi chuckled, before sobering up. “Tomorrow you’re going to talk with Takashi-sama right? She’s the chairman of Essity’s branch in Japan, so I really hope she’ll invest in us. It’ll bring us closer to our first goal.”

“I know. Don’t worry about it. Leave it to me.”

⏤.⏤

The opulent decoration in the rich marbled walls intimidated him at first, but it didn’t deter him from fulfilling this mission. Steeling his nerves, Sasuke took a deep inhale and glanced to the side, Naruto was rechecking the speech he’d give alongside the presentation. The comforting knowledge that he had Naruto by his side calmed him somehow.

The blond man was also a very pleasant addition during the trip, with his playful banter peppered in between adjustments and touch ups. It’s been so long since Sasuke had felt so relaxed around anyone, almost as if all the years without Naruto never happened in the first place. And even if he’s adjusting to seeing the teenager Naruto to now a professional adult one, at least their interaction didn’t change one bit.

Takashi was a middle-aged businesswoman that accumulated many exploits due to shrewd decisions and flexible strategies using Western offensive attacks, mixed with Japanese well-rounded management. She must have heard many starry eyed, inexperienced men trying to sell their product in the past, so in her point of view, Sasuke must be just the umpteenth one. It was rattling the look of apathy she gave while he summarized.

“Based on our clan’s background, my brother and I decided to create a new technology to help people find their respective soulmates, and we named this technology Shinrei. We first catalogued all the types of tattoos, if it’s written words, or animals, or symbols, all based with the long list of most tattoos that existed in history. Then, once we identify the type of tattoo the client has, the database will search using all social media that match with the tattoo, and then we’ll personally select and filter till we find his or her soulmate, or soulmates. Actually, we recently found a case with four people being their soulmates using Shinrei.”

“Your competitors all claim that they have similar technology, how is yours any different?” Takashi countered in a bored tone.

“We choose quality over quantity, limiting the numbers of clients we’ll help so we’ll ensure 100% successful cases. Also…” Sasuke thinned his lips, taking a deep breath. “Our clan has a long history in being able to find soulmates using our unique abilities.”

“What? Are you talking about mystical powers? This doesn’t look good on paper, how are you going to convince people to trust your technology if you don’t have scientific proof that your method works?”

Blue eyes peered Sasuke’s distressed expression, so Naruto stepped in. “Well…the soulmate system by itself is also shrouded in mystery right? All that we know is part of humanity’s nature, if it’s due to some higher power or anything else, it just exists. Scientists can’t explain how it works, only that they have successful rates in improving people’s lives. So I think that using some inexplicable abilities makes Shinrei unique.”

The old woman contemplated for a while, crossing her arms.

“Also, the Uchiha clan must have a long list of successful examples, even before the advance of technology, we can show for you Takashi-sama as proof to trust Shinrei’s technology. I’m sure that Sasuke can look for some documents stored in their headquarters, right?”

“Of course, I’ll make sure I’ll inspect thoroughly if necessary if it pleases you Takashi-sama.” Sasuke agreed.

Takashi stared and focused her eyes on the blond man. “You called Uchiha-san by his name, are you two close friends or…?”

Before Sasuke could react, Naruto grabbed his left hand to show their palms, broadening his grin.

“We’re soulmates!”

This piqued her attention, she even tilted her body closer to study their matching tattoos. “Oh, congratulations! You used Shinrei’s technology to track your soulmate?”

Sasuke opened his mouth but Naruto intervened. “Oh no, back then we were just 18. But Sasuke used Uchiha’s clairvoyant abilities to find me, so here I am.”

“Well, at least then I have a successful example right before my eyes.” She nodded, picked her name card and scribbled some numbers on it. “Here’s my personal cellphone number, I look forward to your older brother to contact me so we can continue our conversation. Send me all the statistics as soon as you can, and also send me this presentation you just gave so I can properly study later.” She stood up, and shook hands with both of them. “We’ll talk soon, I hope.”

They both bowed respectfully, thanking for her time as they exited the building, breathing a sigh of relief at the same time.

“Thanks for the save.” Sasuke muttered, Naruto grinned back. “I’m not entirely comfortable that you lied about how we realized we’re soulmates though.” He added.

The blond man rolled his eyes, shrugging. “The only people that know about our history are our close friends, there’s no harm lying a little. Plus, we were fooling around for so long that anyone would also consider that you might be the one who knew that we’re soulmates too.”

“Right…”

It felt weird that they talked about their entanglement in the past tense, like Naruto was some sort of ex that was trying to get back to him. Except that Naruto was his soulmate, so it complicated this situation even further.

Sasuke cleared his throat. “Anyways, since we’re already in the same city of the Uchiha’s shrine and I’m going to take a quick detour so I can get the documents Takashi-sama asked. You can go back to Tokyo if you’d like.”

“Huh? Oh, I don’t mind waiting a little, the trip back to Tokyo is 1 hour and a half long, man. It’s really boring going by myself so if you’re around at least you can provide some entertainment and let me tease you all the way through.”

“Do I look like I’m some kind of toy to you?” When Naruto curled a mischievous grin, Sasuke harrumphed unimpressed. “Whatever, I’m not going to rush for you, usuratonkachi. I might take the whole afternoon, so if you wait for too long it’s going to be your loss.”

⏤.⏤

No matter how many times he went, being in the Uchiha shrine always made him uneasy. He could practically feel the millenia age weighing down on his shoulders. While he was using his own hand to fan his face, Naruto excused himself for a second to buy some beverage in a nearby kiosk.

“Sasuke, hey Sasuke!”

Raising an eyebrow, Sasuke obeyed this call and approached the ditsy blond. Naruto gesticulated in excitement, next to two elderly women that appeared to be the owners of the shop.

“Those two nice ladies, Yachi-san and Kiyoko-san are married for over 50 years! Can you imagine⏤being in such a happy relationship with your soulmate for so long⏤”

Sasuke huffed, but responded politely. “Congratulations to you both for such a long and happy matrimony. Well Naruto, unfortunately the Uchiha shrine doesn’t allow strangers, even though I talked to my mother to try authorizing your entrance.”

Naruto waved his hand, untroubled. “Eh, it’s fine, don’t worry about it. I can use this opportunity to have a nice chat with those two young and jovial ladies.” He beamed and the women giggled in return. “Is that ok for you though?”

“…sure, why not?”

“Uh, it’s just that, I don’t know. You looked kinda uncomfortable somehow.” He rubbed the back of his blond head.

At this admission, Sasuke could feel his shoulders relax somehow. “I’m fine, don’t worry about it. But thanks for getting worried over me.”

Naruto snorted, and puffed his chest. “Well, of course! After all, I’m your soulm⏤”

“See you later.” Sasuke turned around and ignored the squawk of indignation.

As expected, the Uchiha clan contained a long array of documents and ancient scrolls neatly put in the huge archive. There was no point collecting all information since day one, so Sasuke concentrated getting most information from the latest decade, and photographed some old scrolls in case he needed it to impress future sponsors. He took for about half an hour or more, patting the dust away from his clothes as he went to retrieve Naruto.

However, as he was approaching the blond man, he noticed the frantic and desperate look while he chattered with the old ladies. Naruto noticed him, giving a quick bow to them and sprinted towards him.

Quirking an eyebrow, Sasuke mumbled. “You look pale. Is everything alright?”

“Uh, yeah! Sure! Everythin’ ‘s alright, they were just telling me some sad story. But we gotta go right?”

Sasuke observed in silence, but didn’t ask anything further. On the way back to Tokyo, Naruto managed to find his usual lively mood, though sometimes he still appeared to be rattled with whatever news the ladies had delivered.

⏤.⏤

Several weeks have passed without a hitch, as Sasuke and Itachi managed to accumulate more capital for further investment in developing Shinrei. So far with Naruto’s strategies, they have been the talk between youtube influencers, Itachi even gave some interviews to further explain their product.

Sasuke figured it was time for him to look for some international sponsors, at least those in the neighboring countries. After contacting and rescheduling, he called Naruto.

“Naruto, I’ll not be able to attend our meeting tomorrow. Can we change to Friday?”

“Yeah sure, no problem. Why? Is everything going alright for you?”

“Hm, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. I have to go to Beijing to show to some potential sponsors.”

“Oh? You know how to speak Chinese?” Naruto perked up, curious.

“No, we’re going to talk in English.”

“Hey, if it’s English I can help you out! You want me to go with you on this trip?” Naruto exclaimed.

Pausing in mild surprise, Sasuke said. “You can? It’s not too much trouble for you?”

“Nah. I think. Neji said that you guys are now giving a percentage of your profit to our company right? So he’s pretty onboard with anything that will help Shinrei. I think I can get some plane tickets for a good discount, we can meet at the airport.”

It was becoming increasingly disconcerting how he was getting used to having Naruto by his side, giving presentations, sharing meetings, to the point that he was looking forward to seeing the familiar grin and brilliant pair of blue eyes. Sasuke sighed.

Stop. This is nothing. Those emotions are fabricated, some lingering primitive vestiges that he’s forced to face from time to time.

And yet, he appreciated knowing that Naruto would aid him, swift response to defend their position whenever they were in a dispute with a potential sponsor. After four meetings or so, they finished their meal and took a cab to their hotel, laying tiredly on the seat.

Sasuke was first to give his name to the hotel receptionist, mirroring Naruto’s yawn as the blond man slugged over the reception desk.

“Excuse me, Mr. Sasuke Uchiha? I think there must be some kind of mistake, but we’re not finding your name in our reservation system.”

Sasuke tsked, and grumbled. “Maybe my older brother booked with his own name. Try to find Itachi Uchiha.”

There were efficient typing noises, and the receptionist mumbled embarrassed. “We’re very sorry, but we’re not finding your older brother’s name either.”

Sasuke furrowed his eyebrows.

“Yes? What’s the matter Sasuke?” Itachi answered his call.

“For some reason, the hotel you booked is not finding my name.”

“What hotel?”

“Hotel? In Beijing? I’m spending the night here nii-san.”

“Oh.” There was a pause and then. “I forgot.”

Sasuke blinked. “You forgot.”

“Yes, how foolish of me. So sorry my dearest otouto-kun.” Itachi’s amused tone raised red flags in his mind.

“Don’t bullshit me Itachi. Are you telling me that you, that can practically remember how you exited mom’s womb, forgot to book one room for me??”

“I guess I was so busy programming and talking with clients and everything…I’m just human otouto-kun.”

Sasuke wasn’t having any of this. “You’re not human, you’re an evil demon. I’m going to kill you when I get back to Japan.”

He heard Itachi’s amused chuckle in response. “Sure sure. Say hi to Naruto-kun for me ok? I got to go.”

Sasuke groaned loudly, picking Naruto’s attention while the blond man was signing the papers. “Jesus, what happened?”

Sasuke glared at the receptionist, causing him to yip in terror. Sasuke rubbed his eyebrows, and enquired in a calmer voice. “Alright, give me a single room, I’ll pay with my credit card now.”

“I’m…very sorry Mr. Sasuke, but we don’t have any vacant single room.”

“Oh?” Naruto’s face was now 90% wide grin. “Did I just hear that Uchiha Sasuke-sama doesn’t have any place to stay? What tragedy!”

This is karma, this had to be. There was no way Sasuke would be so ill-fated to be surrounded by utter sadists.

“Hey, lucky for you I booked a double bed room!”

“You and Itachi didn’t plan this stupid idea together once again, did you?”

Naruto rolled his eyes. “Obviously we didn’t, have you forgotten the fact that I offered on the last minute to go to Beijing with you, while you booked this flight last week right? Ugh, you’re so skeptical over everything.”

Sasuke wrinkled his nose, and muttered back to the receptionist. “What kind room do you have available then?”

“Well…VIP, Deluxe and presidential rooms.”

“They all sound very expensive. You sure you don’t want to share the room with lil ol’ me?” Naruto offered, impish beam stamped on his face.

Fuck this. Picking up his suitcase, Sasuke turned around towards the exit.

“Whoa, where are you going?”

“Any other hotel, so I can avoid whatever trap you’re laying on me.” Sasuke glared.

Naruto didn’t even bat an eye, cooing in a fake, shrill girlish voice. “I mean, maybe you’re right, maybe you need to go to another hotel. Poor wibble, delicate Sasuke-chan can’t defend himself against my evil clutches because I’m a very bad, bad boy.”

⏤.⏤

One day, one day, he’ll stop falling for whatever goading Naruto would do to rile him up. The blond man was practically skipping on the way to their room, doing an exceptional extra flair with his hand as he allowed Sasuke to enter first.

Graphite eyes scanned everywhere, unfortunately the room wasn’t big enough for one adult man to sleep on the floor.

“Hey Sasuke⏤”

“Just to be clear, we’re not going to have any sex.”

Naruto gawked, tilting his head to one side. “I just wanted to ask if you mind if I put my luggage over there geez. We’re just going to share a bed, not prepare for some fucking sex marathon.”

Sasuke’s eyes were still narrowed, sharp and cautious.

“I mean, unless you were thinking ‘bout it⏤” Naruto curled a sly smirk.

“Absolutely not.”

“Well, so what’s the fuss is all about. ‘M going to take a bath first, I stink.” Naruto picked up a set of clean clothes and went to the bathroom.

Naruto’s complete lackadaisical attitude, however, just increased his suspicion even further. He used his laptop with a guarded stance, steering clear from the blond man, especially after he exited fresh from the bath, all golden locks dewy, tanned skin glowing good GOD he’s not falling for this. Sasuke grabbed his pyjamas and shut the door with a loud click.

The warm droplets coming from the shower managed to calm him, savoring how it massaged his tense shoulders. Sighing contentedly, Sasuke was ready to call it a day and jump on the bed when he saw Naruto sprawled all over it, patting on the empty spot in front of him.

Sasuke growled. “You’re not spooning me.” Besides, if they really need to spoon, he’d be the bigger spoon.

“You’re always such a ray of sunshine. Just lie down here ok? It’s not like we've never done this before.”

Pursing his lips, Sasuke sat on the edge of the bed, gradually lying down his body stiff. Naruto turned off his lights, his back turned to Sasuke.

After several minutes, the brunet was getting sleepy and adjusted the covers, shutting his eyes. He felt arms enveloping around his waist. “Naruto…” He growled.

Naruto’s voice was sluggish and tired, already ready to slumber. “Mm, ‘s just som’ thing, you’re so grouchy, I swear to God…” he continued muttering until he quieted down at last.

Sasuke sighed, revelling the warm body breathing close to him. Just this once, he’d indulge himself. Next time would be different.

(little did he knew, he slept with a pleased smile)

Chapter 04

--.--

AN: Aw, I noticed how much I missed writing Naruto and Sasuke bantering. It was really entertaining.

#NaruSasu #snstext #sn fic #sns fic #drabble

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