Spoiler heavy fnaf ruin dlc rant up ahead

I am so fucking proud of steal wool they really took every criticism from the original game and fixed it and even added more

Like Cassie actually acts like a human being?? And like her knowledge of the original characters and cute little comments on every item are so endearing there is so much detail going into this.

The fact that they expanded on one of the fan faves Roxanne and giving her a great arc I’m in love I’m so happy

They honestly gave more depth to all the animatronics too like we finally see Bonnie’s design and get and get a taste as to what happened, also that poster Freddy gifted him I’m crying they are so cute and gay I love them

😭😭😭

Also the whole dark ride section with Monty is so fascinating like is that narrative kind of true or is it just fabricated by fazbear inc to cover up the decommissioning of Bonnie

Why replace Bonnie with Monty?? Why not make a new Bonnie model?? With the prototype label on Freddy it may be confirmed that they make multiple models (well we already kinda knew that with Freddies comments but oh well)

Also Freddy?? Like is that our Freddy or a different one?? They very clearly highlighted the prototype label so they want to emphasize it, but then the head is still missing like in the princess quest ending so what is the truth??

Feel bad for chica fans tho she really was sidelined hard

Aaaaa and my baby boys!!! There’s 3 now aaahaga

I was really not expecting eclipse to be the way they were, very… normal? Is that the right word?? Like obviously a little delusional on when the daycare is gonna open again, but in the right mindset of like this child needs to leave this place is not safe. It is interesting to me that both he and Roxy thought that it was Cassie’s birthday, maybe that was the last day before she left the plex? Or maybe that was the day the plex caught fire? Or maybe most depressingly we are playing on Cassie’s birthday so the animatronics have it in their systems what her birthday is and wish her a happy one (if they are in the right state of mind lol)

Some peeps are upset moon is a little too villainous

I think you can still say it was mainly the virus but I would argue even if it’s not the virus I feel like moon is kinda justified here. Like sun has been shutting him away for a long time before this (if the books are to be believed but also in general) so when he finally gets a chance to roam free of course he’s gonna take it. And idk about u but if my alternate personality was constantly trying to shut me out and I finally got control, I probably too would try and keep my control for as long as possible. Also from what I have seen so far, not even moon is all that aggressive? Like he grabs you at the beginning, but I think that’s just his very ineffective way to get kids to sleep and other than that he just kinda stays away

Poor sunny baby is stuck in the ar world 🥺🥺 I didn’t notice at first but yeah everytime you talk to him it’s only in the ar world. And the end part where you switch them out for eclipse if you do that in the ar world, he says not for me it’s for moon.

I will say though I noticed the voice acting for them changed a little this game, like both have a higher pitch and are more goofy sounding? Like more gremlin energy than evil villainy. I wonder if that was on purpose? Both of them sounded more like the other so maybe that was the reason? Interest interest

Also their mouth moves?? Sort of?? That’s so silly to me they have a whole working mouth system and their face mask doesn’t work with at all 😭

Does give me lore intrigue tho cause like why do their mouths move but not anymore?? Did something happen?? Are they just not maintained enough?? They also move outward instead of up and down (at least from what I saw) so is the mechanism different?

Also the way that sun and moon talk about eachother is so interesting. Like moon says the light hurts “us” and sun says “no the other me” like they seem to almost consider eachother more connected than we first thought, like they’re not just coworkers or strangers they are almost like two sides of the same person. It’s very interesting and I wonder where people will take this.

Overall great job I’m so excited to comb through the game and find every little secret (especially regarding the dca) aaaa

Ok ok update moon does have a jump scare but it’s ridiculously hard to get and I’d still argue he’s not as vicious as he was base game. I mention in another post but eclipse being as kind as he is and being (presumably) a combination of both AIs, gives even more evidence moon is supposed to be kind and caring like his posters suggest but something went wrong. Also Cassie’s comments on their plushes show that there were kids who truly liked the daycare.

I took a hot minute to get around to this but I dug up something I don't mind sharing - ty for the tag @silvercap ❤

Rules: Share 9 lines from your writing and tag 9 people!

I don't have anything I can share from undertow / AR at the moment but I remembered I have the opening of the claire-centric jill/claire death island fic that I haven't circled back around to yet. it's a rough draft but I am kind of fond of it so!

Claire’s doing fine. Sure, she’s on a prison expedition from hell, knee deep in the beginnings of another wide scale bioterrorism attack. And sure, said bioterrorists have come up with some miraculous mechanism of getting people infected without a bite, leaving her with a ticking time bomb of t-Virus to deal with. But other than that, she’s doing absolutely fine, just peachy, thanks for asking. The villain of the week and his associate have already made their exit, monologue delivered. It’s been a while since she’s had a face-to-face experience with one. This guy’s no Alex Wesker, that’s for sure. Dylan’s more of the common garden variety - someone with a grudge he needs to take out on the whole world, and a handful of half-baked reasons to justify his plan to make everyone else suffer like he did.

it's roughly 9 lines on the doc idk I wasn't about to cut it off mid-paragraph lmaooooo

not to do a total cop-out as per usual but I'm leaving the tagging part of this open to anyone - on the off chance you see this and want to share something you're working on, feel free to say I tagged you, I would love to see it :>

Custom Toonami Block Week 127 Rundown

Inuyasha: So right where we left off last time and someone fucking left a boiling pot of water overflowing in the school kitchen and that’s a terrible idea even when there’s not dangerous dehydrated fungus demons threatening to pop out from every corner. Still the fungus demons are so laughably not a threat, they don’t even get close to attacking anyone and can basically be punched into dust so most of the episode is this funny little farce of Kagome balancing between the biggest social threat she’s ever faced and the smallest physical threat she’s ever faced. Admittedly she does have some cool moments of storming the convenience store to replace the food and ad-libbing the whole play scene, no wonder Yashahime stole this plot point to do in like a quarter of the time frame. Watching Hojo try and rush a giant mushroom that was nowhere in the script with a toy sword and having Inuyasha Wind Scar the entire gym is pretty entertaining, really gotta wonder how the school justifies all the collateral damage as ‘just part of the play’ like when I was in High School the staff flipped their shit when someone put soap in the water fountain so I can’t imagine how destroying half the auditorium is just like ‘yeah okay, things happen’. Also Kagome’s family is pretty funny with Sota carrying on the running gag from the episode with his crush and thinking he can really use Inuyasha’s attacks and Grandpa trying to use his absolutely worthless sutras on dudes in costumes while Kagome’s Mom tries to rein them both in (I didn’t realize they never gave them names until Yashahime and it’s really weird, like at least the anime made up names for Kagome’s friends when Rumiko didn’t do it for them so idk why they couldn’t pick something for her mom and grandpa). Also the classic ‘oh everyone’s in cosplay so they don’t notice the fantasy main character’ deal is pretty funny since I actually recognize a lot more anime than I did when I first watched this, I guess Japan’s a lot more lax about cameos like that than the West is.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke’s fight with Doctor continues and the guy tells him he works on One Piece rules and the only way to stop his virus is to forcefully knock him out but thanks to his powers he’s on the spirit equivalent of Trucker Anti-Sleep Pills so the only way to stop him is to kill him and they do this whole Dark Knight Joker thing and it’s hard to tell if Doctor wants Yusuke to kill him and stain his hands or if he’s counting on Yusuke just letting everyone die and not killing him in a fit of rage after which judgding by what happened in the Dark Tournament would definitely happen. Like he seems to be betting on Yusuke not doing it and genuinely fearful for his life when Yusuke looks like he’ll kill him but at the same time he keeps egging him on There’s a lot of cutting around in this episode while Yusuke agonizes over killing a human which like I mentioned last time seems kinda racist given all the virtually indistinguishable demons he’s killed but okay. To be fair at least he makes up his mind to do it relatively quickly and goes to just fucking disintegrate him with a Spirit Gun but Clone Ally Stand User guy takes the form of a sick nurse and gets captured to be a hostage before throwing acid in his face which is pretty dope but like Yusuke had the guy dead to rights so idk why he had to get involved at all unless he was just not wanting Yusuke to blow the guy’s head off but even after the acid thing they’re still basically in the same situation so idk what that accomplished really. Doctor tries to bargain with a cure for his life but Mind Reader Stand User Guy comes in to tell them the cure is fake which it’s kinda nice that all the Stand Users get something to do given they can’t really fight on their own. Yusuke decks Doctor through a window which is apparently enough to kill him after all his ‘I’m a doctor so I told my spine to not break’ shenanigans and everyone (including Keiko who is there to be a damsel but Yusuke is legit the only one who doesn’t know she’s there so what’s the point I guess it’s just for our benefit? That’s kinda silly) is cured. Genkai does Spirit CPR on Doctor to bring him back to life and is like ‘this guy doesn’t deserve it but you’d be a mopey little bitch if you killed someone and we got shit to do so don’t worry about it this one’s on me’ and the more I think about it the more I realize Bleach just kinda stole half its plot from Yu Yu Hakusho.

Fate/Apocrypha: It’s the start of the final fight and everyone has their big ‘goodbye and stay alive’ speeches before they set off with a fleet of airplanes to Semiramis’s Hanging Gardens. Everyone on the enemy side wants to punch Shakespeare in the face which is understandable given he presumably become a Heroic Spirit solely based on having the world’s most punchable face and they navelgaze for a while about if it’ll be cooler to see Shirou succeed or fail and it really doesn’t amount to anything. Shirou goes into the Bigger Cup to do Bigger Cup things and meets Iri who is apparently still the projection of the Grail’s form even in this world even though Zero didn’t happen in this AU idk how that works but he wants to summon Sakura’s Route of the original and idk what that means exactly but feel all the heavens you want kid, go nuts I guess. Anyway there’s a lot of airplanes and Atalante has her eyes solely set on Jeanne d’babykiller and won’t listen to orders to take like five seconds and blow up the planes that Achilles misses so if there’s something important there it’s all her fault. Also Chiron shoots down Achilles’s chariot with the arrow equivalent of Hellzone Grenade and has them fighting on one of the planes, though given Atalante demonstrated that Semiramis can just open portals for them and Chiron can’t fly idk what’s stopping him from just destroying the plane and dipping out to let horse boy fall to his death. Anyway yeah just kind of a fight setup episode which is fine, Sieg and Astolfo are off being gay somewhere and Mordred’s presumably got her biplane ready to swoop in at some point so we’ll see how this goes.

Speed Grapher: So this episode has Saiga being chased through the subway tunnels by Mr. Speaker Politician guy and apparently it’s really hard to kill a Euphoric with vibrations because this guy absolutely blasts Saiga to hell and despite killing normal dudes in under a minute Saiga has like three brain hemorrhages and stays standing. He uses his mini-camera to blow holes in the walls to keep running away while the guy monologues on about how Saiga just documents pain and suffering for glory and doesn’t help anyone and how only politicians and powerful people can enforce order for the good of everyone. I mean to be fair a couple of the pictures they show in this episode of like bleeding children reaching out to him do show Saiga as more focused on photography than helping the suffering but that doesn’t mean his photographs did nothing either. Meanwhile, Kagura, Friend Doctor, and Shady Doctor have been abducted by Politician guy’s friends and Shady Doctor was apparently promised Kagura for his research and when he finds out he’s not going to get her he straight up abducts her and drinks the carrier virus for Euphorics. Now all he has to do here is kiss her and get superpowers and since the bodyguards are breaking down the door while he’s doing this he has to be quick right? Except he decides instead of just going for a kiss to see if he gets extra superpowers from full on sexual assault and it’s really pretty hard to watch. It’s kind of funny how confident he is that he can fuck Kagura quickly like he’s that sure he’s a three pump chump but luckily we don’t have to find out because the guards bust down the door before he can even really undress Kagura. Still Kagura’s understandably shaken by the whole affair and it’s kind of really hard to see her go into full PTSD mode and briefly turning against Friend Doctor in a rage given it was hard enough for her to take just being forced to kiss random guys at the beginning of the series, though if it’s any consolation Shady Doctor just gets dragged out of the room with his pants down. Ginza and Saiga’s boss finds the White Eagles all dead and she looks at Joe’s membership list for the Roppongi club and sees the head of the police department is on it and since she can’t find Saiga atm she’s just like ‘well better go kill my boss’ which is kind of an odd swerve given how focused on Saiga she’s been this whole series but maybe she’s become self aware of how she’s always a step behind him. Turns out her boss is the opposite of the guy from the beginning of the series with a hand fetish and he’s the foot fetish guy that cuts off legs and mounts them in his study because we’re not done with the weird fetish shit yet. He captures Ginza and straps her into a full on sex chair so this is not a good episode for our heroines not getting sexual assaulted like geez we really hit the gas on that real quick, luckily Ginza’s probably smart/strong enough to get out of this so hopefully next episode she’ll shoot her boss in the head. Meanwhile meanwhile, Saiga’s pinned to a railroad track by Politician dude’s vibrations while a train’s coming. His eye’s on the fritz which feels weird given he DEFINITELY has not been using his Euphoria Factor as much as much as the rich weirdoes he’s been fighting but maybe it either dies quicker because it’s all focused on his eye or Suitengu has treatments for Club Member Euphorics to extend the longevity of their superpowers like he does for himself but needless to say unless Saiga gets the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan soon he’s gonna go blind. Politician dude knocks his main camera out of his hand but luckily Saiga’s able to make his way over to him and just put his little camera right up to his chest and blow a hole right into him with the line ‘If your picture’s no good, you’re not close enough’ which is fucking badass. So now going into what looks to be the final arc Saiga’s half dead crawling through a subway, Ginza’s in a sex swing and Kagura’s going through sexual assault trauma, so… yeah not looking great.

OH WOW thank you for answering so fast!! I wanted to ask because in my opinion, Shadow is written kind of... poorly.. at the metal virus arc :c and I love how you characterize Shadow!! I was wondering, if you could, how would you have written him in it?

okay so this got. RAELLY long. it’s under the read more.. hhaaa... get ready for rambles.

before i start on what i would love to see different, here’s a few things that i really liked about his characterization in idw:

shadow being persistent about what he thinks is right, being very straightforward and strict in wanting to execute his ideal

the way he stepped down and let sonic try his way instead of being stubborn because sonic made a very good point. Shadow wants to be fair, and if he of all people deserves a chance, then so should eggman. kind of ties back to maria also, which is a nice nod to have considering it seems like modern writers for sonic usually treat the ending of shth as “ok she never existed to him anyways”

i like that he uses his GUN affiliation to his advantage to do good and help people (even if by rouges account he does it because he doesnt want to deal with zombots)

he has great devotion to make sure the truck is safe and peole get a chance to get out, giving (according to the comics anyways) more than 100% of his power dealing with hundreds if not thousands of zombots alone

I like that there’s a nod to shadow being insecure about his status as ultimate life form, and he is tempted to get infected just to prove to himself he really CANT get sick and he really IS a perfect being. He struggled a lot with the high expectations that were laid upon him, the expectations he’s laying upon himself.

I like how he had a great sense of shock and defeat when he realized that he DID get infected. It’s very true for him to be thrown off by it, get a little careless due to shock. its natural. it’s good.

his “i told you something like this would happen” towards sonic in the beginning of #19 is justified. He hates that he was right, he always is, and he wishes he wasnt. he could’ve prevented this, but its too late now. then later he risks getting infected with the metal virus, and he DOES get infected. He suddenly wasnt right anymore. This sense of irony... it’s probably one of the reasons he has trouble to concentrate on the fight. it’s a nice parallel. IDK if ian intended it to be this deep, but that’s what i read into it.

(i also want to point out that i like that herms gives everyone slightly diverse “skin”-tones. like diverse undertones. im still peeved they are all pretty pale but its hoenstly a nice little nod)

okay so here’s what i think could’ve gone better:

I feel like shadow being the one to drive the truck into the city is a reference to 06, where he is driving around in various vehicles. That in itself is nice, and i think shadow is a person who prefers to do things himself if there’s a lot at stake (which there was a lot of peoples lives) but i also think that he would think of himself as a powerful shield. He would rather be the one overseeing the battlefield insread of being the designated driver. He knows he was created for the frontlines, and he is someone who knows he can survive the front lines. He is not a sacrefice tobe made, he is the one who will make sure that no one else has to sacrefice themselves. Shadow should’ve been on site from the very beginning. Where is the rest of GUN anyways? Those low level humans should make an effort to protect the life on their planet.

Shadow did absolutely NOT use 100% of his pwoer to protect the truck. He could EASILY have done more. He can lift trucks. He could use chaos blast. He could easily have prevented just faling victim to the zombots so easily.

As mentioned above it kind of DOES make sense for him to go down easily due to being infected, but I think this was the wrong time to let him get infected. I think he wouldn’t let his guard down and carelessly touch a zombot. He would not give in to the temptation to test his limits like this if there was not a greater cause. I think he would easily break if someone he cared about (other than sonic) fell victim to the metal virus. This is something that would get him emotional, to get careless. He knows sonic can outrun the virus, but rouge can’t. Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Vector, all of Sonic’s friends can’t outrun the virus. There’s a big chance that he is immune, there’s a slim chance he is not. But even with that slim chance, he knows he could outrun it, just like sonic. Losing someone he cares about to the virus would remind him of his superiority, of how fragile life is and of his responsibility to protect life itself. Any restrait would be gone. He would be driven by guilt and anger at himself, that he could’ve done better, that he HAS to do better. It’s something that spirals him totally out of control. It’s something that would make him want to prove to himself that he has the ability to fix it all. because it’s all his fault.

this is honestly something that is so important. he feels responsible for this, because he did what was right and gave sonic and eggman a chance. In his mind, sometimes the right hting to do is the wrong thing to do, because sometimes only wrong actions get you to the right goal. he is a gray character like that, and i think it’s not shown enough. his regret and guilt don’t surface enough so that anyone who is not as invested in the character would be able to read it out of #19. there’s a lot of stuff going on inside shadow in this issue and its just. not enough time to unpack it all. this whole deal of him getting infected was too rushed. (as mentioned above i wouldve preferred he get infected a little later or under other circumstances)

I think shadow is aware of his responsibility as living weapon to not fall into the hands of the enemy. he has learned what it means to be manipulated, he learned what it means if he was used as a weapon by an enemy of life on earth. he does NOT want to be used as an object of destruction ever again. He would RUN. even if hesitant, but his emotions would make him excell even in that. he would make sure he’d run faster than sonic. he’s want to make sure that he’d give 110% and cure himself, something sonic couldn’t do.

the way he would go down in my mind is him excerting himself. He would absolutely reject help. he would prefer to not have any contact with anyone at all. For one because he feels guilty and he doesn’t want to deal with that emotionally, also because he doesn’t want anyone to see him in this state of weakness. He absolutely would loathe the idea of anyone being able to see him go down and surrender to the enemy. He would absolutely exhaust his entire energy reservoir building barricades and being the sole and only front line protecting evacuation efforts from a distance, to make sure that they have enough buffer to escape, should he fail.

shadow is someone  who is rash and has a tendency to boast his strength, but he also is someone who tries to consider any and all possibilities, no matter how painful they are to admit to his pride. he will shove them to the back of his mind, but they are still there. and if it COMES to those scenarios, he will have a plan for them. only if unpredictable things happen, or things that shake him emotionally, he would lose grip.

also in all those talks abt things shaking him emotionally, i dont mean that other people who arent his friends are not important to him, its just that friendship has a bigger impact on people. i think that should be pretty obvious, but since people like to misinterpret shadow id like to make sure people understand that i think that shadow values all and every life on the planet. he griefs over random deaths as much as his friends, it’s just that it hits more personal. mostly because he thinks... of himself as someone who always protects, but never has to be protected.

shadows relationship with himself is complicated. he thinks very low of himself. he pretty much hates himself. but that is because he thinks oh so highly of himself. he is perfect, ultimate, unbeatable, unstoppable, immortal, immune.... he expects all this of himself... even though he knows that it’s not true. it’s the one thing that he knows of himself. The one thing he feels that he could maybe achieve if he tried hard enough, and of course he is never trying hard enough; and at the same time he is trying so hard. He gives 300% and yet he still feels like he halfasses everything and he still feels like he could do better. On the outside he presents it with his strict edgy persona, that looks down on everyone. but really he feels so small. most of all towards sonic. sonic is so so tall compared to shadow (pun intended).

he looks up to sonic so much, because he always manages to go out of hisway to do what is right. even if it meant risk, even if it meant weakness. Sonic, the guy that easily could just get killed and hurt and not recover. the funny jokes dude that never thinks more than a single step ahead. This boy is out there risking his life for the life of this planet on the front lines and he shows not a single care about his own safety, always putting everyone else before him. shadow envies him. he really really does. thats why he values his opinoin. thats why he listens to him and even steps back from his OWN ideals, something he would do for only VERY few people, because of course shadow is always right. this is referenced in various sonic games (sa2 most of all,shth,sth) and in sonic x (yea its not canon but like. They Really Got His Character).

ADDING SOME RAMBLING AFTER ISSUE #33 RELEASED

Do you think this seems accurate for Wesker? He comes across as a man who puts everything in boxes. If he's done with it, the box is closed. If he isn't, he's obsessive and perceives everyone as confined to their box because he thinks he knows everything about them. While he does come across as arrogant and full of himself, RE5 makes it feel as if Wesker needs his life to fit into something as neat as a box. His identity, Chris being able to fool him, Jill being able to fight off the serum for a minute. He responds to these things by promptly 'shoving them back into their box' so to speak. A return to his certain status quo gives him security. I'd they remain wild, he can't stand it.

What if he did think in his own clinical/brainwashed way that he was helping the world by working on viruses? And when he finds out that what he was certain of most, his identity, was almost a fabricated product, Wesker tries to cause the ultimate return to status quo? This isn't a man angry at the world. He's trying to justify himself to himself. Look at me, I am Albert Wesker. Fear me. Fight me. Don't even think of me as breakable.

.

-

okay let me begin by saying that i am in no way a Wesker-expert, I find my own grip of his characterization still a little bit shaky too as I have written him like... three times? so. this is in no way a “word of god” lmao it’s just my own two cents to what you’ve said.

but yeah, that does make a lot of sense. for me, he seems like a person who first of all values his intellect beyond everything else. he is the great scientist, he is the great mastermind, he is the one who can make a plan that will not have any flaws because he’s just that good. even if he does have his grand world domination plan in re5, sorta, i feel that a lot of it is because he just wants to prove that he can. because he’s the most brilliant mind.

and because of this “scientist brain” of his he’s obsessed with analyzing everything and making sense of it. which is why I hc that he doesn’t really give a rat’s ass about feelings, because to him they’re not logical, they’re not something that can be analyzed scientifically, so he has no use for them. which is why he’s so enraged when he actually does feel shit :’D for him, hate and anger are multiplied, just because he doesn’t even want them, so he’s at least as much angry at the anger itself.

and I mean, he could very well be operating under the assumption of a some kind of a superhuman mentality, like... “regular” people don’t know what’s best for them so the best thing that he can do to the world is to actually unleash the virus? because he knows what’s best? idk. but it could be plausible. 

and sure some of his arrogance and attitude could very well be a defense mechanism. the only justification he finds for his own existence is to be the best. so he’ll be the best. at any cost.

idk if I even make sense anymore? :’D 

COVID-19 Day 3

Why did I start on day 3 you might ask? Well day 1 was reserved for crying, self pity, deep bouts of depression, restless anxiety, and a shit ton of edibles. Day 2 was consumed by coming up with a plan. So let’s back track to what I can remember about those days and the questions I have been asked:

1.  What made you get tested? Did you have symptoms? I very honestly get routine tests. If I am exposed to larger groups of people than my norm, I get tested. If I have a bunch of makeup gigs, I get tested. I get tested for my clients and customers. It is my moral obligation and civil duty to make sure I am 100% healthy to perform justifiably in all the fields I conduct business…which is a vast amount of service based income. I am a makeup artist, and Esthetician, and a Bartender. I either have my hands physically on someone or I am serving masses of people at a given time. Now doing all of this I have become insanely hyper aware of sanitation. In my studio I have Clorox wipes at arms reach, I sanitize with Barbicide and I am Barbicide certified, all sheets and blankets get washed after every client, and if you have had your makeup done by me before you know I wont use the same brush twice and it must be sanitized in-between clients. This has all been second nature to me for years. So when I had a bunch of photoshoots and clients on the books I knew it was time to get tested for peace of mind. Only a week and 1/2 after my last COVID test. The only thing I can even consider a symptom would be the night before I had a headache. I took Advil and it went away no problem. I was also on my cycle and having cramps…or could they have been “body pains”? Shit idk. All I know is I made a joke about having COVID on my way to my rapid testing…

2. Have you heard that the rapid tests are not as accurate? When I got my results back in 15 min and it was my first ever positive I was shocked. I did not trust it right away and pretty much everyone in my circle said get a second opinion. So I got 2 more. One was another rapid test. The other would get back to me in 3 days. I mentally claimed it was a false positive. 

My brain: “shiiiit. There aint no way. No way in hell girl. You careful as shit. You got all these blessings coming your way. Business is booming. Opportunities are rising. Aint no slowing down for 2 weeks right now.” 

I of course made my partner come with me and get a rapid test as well as the test that would take 3 days to get back to us. While waiting for the results I wanted to get vitamins and snacks and what ever else I may need if this does become my reality. We get to Publix and my heart sinks into my asshole and I’m like…. SHOULD I EVEN GO IN THERE?! The anxiety started building right then and there. I thought to myself “Just keep your mask on, Social distance, you know wtf goin on just be safe” … as we get into the store I wasn’t feeling it. I saw older people around me and I just didn’t feel right and in that moment my phone started to ring. I bursted into tears and couldn’t even stay in the store. I just knew it. It was legit.. 

The lady on the phone was so nice. She asked if it was what I expected to hear and I honestly said “no”. Because I just knew I didn’t have it. I knew how careful I had been.I am not a perfect person by any means but I see y'all reckless ass Mfer’s out there and we are not the sameeeee man shit nawwww this couldn't happen to me. But it did. 

3. How did you get it? OMFG IDK! I have exhausted my brain with this question. How could this happen to me? Shit did I drop my mask at some point? Did I get too close to someone outside at ( insert bar name here ) when I went to have a drink on Saturday night? But it was outside? 

Googles : “Can you catch COVID outside? “

    “Can you catch COVID with a mask on?”

    “Can you catch COVID from  it being on your clothing?”

    “Can you catch COVID from a toilet seat?”

I mean you name it I Googled it. And the unfortunate answer was yes to all of the above. I got tested on the 4th. So I know I got it sometime after that. I of course contacted everyone I came in contact with….which was horrible! I felt freaking terrible!!! I swear it was worse than narrowing down an STD culprit. It’s like shit… you get an STD…you hit up your top 5, or top 10…look idk your life like that…and have everyone get tested. Let’s be real though you got it narrowed down and think you probably know who did you dirty….Get the results back and boom its over with. Take the meds move on with your life no-one has to know. COVID on the other hand can fucking KILL YEW, PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT, GRANDMAS THAT THEY CARE ABOUT, CHILDREN WITH PRE-EXISTING ISSUES, IT CAN KILL PEOPLE. So you gotta back track back track. Make sure all bases are covered especially when you work multiple outlets which is mad important these days. THE MORAL of all this is… idk. Idk how I got it. I am mad careful. I be judging you on social media for being out and reckless without a mask on. I get tested frequently. I have hand sanitizer in every bag I own, in my car, and all over my home. I AM A NEAT FREAK and a GERMY! I am careful. To say the least..but not perfect I am sure after working 10 hours in a mask I have let it fall for a few min! I am sure on my bike I have dropped it out of pure exhaustion. I know I have tried hard, but I am still human and this is all new.  So y’all non-maskers out there think you on to something…in reality you could have it too and not even know. Psh. Anyways. Next question…

4. Does your partner have it too? No. Somehow no. This is where we had to start coming up with a plan. We work together so this puts us both out of work. LUCKILY we have been saving incase of a shut down and we also have back up savings for a home we *hope* to purchase next year so that plan was solid…. But how to keep him healthy? Just because I do not have symptoms does not mean his body will react the same way. I need to make sure he does not get infected as well. We are going to continue to get him tested for the next several days to monitor that. He is quarantining and I am in what is called “isolation”for a minimum of 14 days. We try our best to stay in different rooms. We have a tiny apartment with one bathroom, so I am just constantly sanitizing right now. Everything I touch or may have touched gets a Clorox wipe. We both wear masks 24/7 in the house. Even if he goes outside to walk the dog, I am keeping a mask on. I have learned so much in the past 48 hours about contracting the virus that I do not even want to risk a drop of my saliva in this house. I am doing disposable masks every day. I luckily have plenty of masks and gloves from working on clients. If I cook I wash my hands, sanitize, then put on gloves. We eat in separate rooms or at the edge of the room so it feels like we are eating together. We are really trying our best and that is some shit they do not prepare you for. Your partner has to be careful around you. They cannot touch you or even come near you and sometimes have to remind you of that. Try to do chores in separate rooms. Try to not get your feelings hurt because its not that they don’t want to be around you, but it is dangerous and they cannot be. So my poor lil feelings keep getting hurt, but I’m a tough gal it’ll be alright I just want to make sure he stays healthy. 

5. Can you breathe? So this brings us to day 3. We have a plan. It has been working. I have my little cleaning things I am doing in one room, he has his in another…and I am pretty much in Go Mode. Before all of this I had a Cleaning Babe coming to help me with things so I had a list for her. I just embodied her and did the list myself plus some major decluttering. I have a ton of clothes to donate (that I am letting sit bagged up for 14 days just to be cautious before donating…some shit I read idk…might get anxious and throw it all away…tbd) so while I am going to town cleaning out my abyss I start to get really short of breath and kinda lethargic. I laid down on the bed to catch my breath for several minutes then took a little break from cleaning. This is the first time I have felt any type of crazy. I still have a lot of anxiety about the days to come. Will it get worse? Will I start to feel like actual hell on earth? Will I be able to keep my partner safe? Shit idk but I am trying really hard. They simply do not tell you about the anxiety that you will have. It is normal. You are going to be generally overwhelmed if you are a good person. Just stay good. and Stay aware.... and Stay tuned. I may not write every single day. But I will keep you updated. If you have any helpful stuff for me to read, please send it my way! If you have any questions feel free to ask. If you have been in this situation with a live in positive and negative… what’s your advice? My DM’s and PM’s are open. 

hrm, I have several asks that all imply a similar premise in their questions, so I’m answering that particular part of those asks, all in one, here. 

and the premise is that I hated S6; but truthfully,I’d be reluctant to say that. Instead, I’d say I found its flaws even more glaring thanks to contrast with parts that I did like, but that what goes in the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ columns depends on the hat I’m wearing when I’m asked. 

See, if I were to break out the various levels in which I consume any story, in any media, it’d be something like this: as a writer, as a student of visual media, as an anthropologist, as a technologist, as a philosopher... and that’s not counting the various other things I love that -- if reflected well in a story -- will make me happy: engineering, mechanics, architecture, intercultural communications.

behind the cut: an example in how those parts of my brain react, and a quick rundown of the real issue of the season: failure to be inspired evenly across the character spectrum. 

Take a scene like the one where the castle is hijacked. I don’t know for sure, since @ptw30​ is too kind to smack the shit out of me, but I had to have sounded like a chaotic jumble in reactions when Pidge realizes there’s a virus, tries to barricade it in, discovers it’s got a counter-attack tailored to defeat her defenses, and then must use her stored shutdown systems as final defense. 

writer brain: okay, the series of events is kinda cliched but it’s handled solidly, moving at a good clip, aaaand yep there’s the backlash, aaaaand yep, the final pivot, dialogue is jargon-heavy which reduces tension slightly but that emotional reaction beat at the end, good job there

visual brain: not bad, kinda predictable angle, oh, that’s a nice shot, good grief hate that cliche, glasses do not go full reflective like that, ohh that’s a different angle, lovely contrast with the character’s words, not earth-shattering but solid composition

technology brain: FKN STOP IT THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS NO OMFG JUST STOP WTF OF COURSE THERE’S DEFENSES WTF WERE YOU BORN YESTERDAY FKN FIND THE VULNERABILITY NO THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS NO WONDER PPL NEVER GET WHAT WE DO GADAMMMIT ANKERLNSDFOIXCVUDX OMFG

mechanics brain: uhm, does this castle have no isolated systems? did no one in all this time ever look at the castle and say, gee, all of this is connected by a single computer system and boy maybe we should, like, isolate this shit, where are my physical real-world levers and a big red button that will physically break connections in a case like this wtf

architecture brain: my HOUSE has a shut-off valve so I can turn off all water to outside spigots when there’s a chance of freezing, without putting interior water pipes at risk, what genius built this castle and never thought to do the same for all their crucial and vulnerable systems?

philosophy brain: is this meant to shut the castle down, or an act intended to make the castle explode, how to draw a clear conclusion as to the moral reaction to such an act, ramping up danger gives impression that purpose is simply shut-down, as opposed to going for the jugular by taking out life-support vs turning castle into bomb, (technology brain interrupts to say FKN CASCADE FAILURE DAMMIT) and reaction is good but lacking something (writer brain pops in to say but emotional beat! we have emotional beat!) bc still not enough to leap from here to seeing friend as enemy, where is the ethical decision point to justify murder in self-defense

...you can see there’s a lot going on in any one scene, in my brain. 

But that also means I can analyze anything -- from an entire story down to a single dialogue exchange or image -- from one perspective and find it satisfying. And there’s no real contradiction imo to turn around and in the very next analysis put on a different hat and be frothing at the mouth over all the failures and numerous flaws. 

No work is perfect, just as no audience is a monolith and neither are any of the individual members of that audience. Every single one of us has experiences across many areas and will bring all of them to bear on our enjoyment of a story. Up to and including sometimes willfully shutting down parts when they get too noisy -- like the way I have to grit my teeth through stories showing tech stuff because visual media pretty much never gets it right. 

Here’s the bottom line, though, and the one thing that will overrule every other complaint (not neutralize those complaints, mind you, only backburner them in comparison): 

do I give a damn about the characters?

As long as the answer is yes, I’ll be riveted, regardless of the goings-on. And that’s where S6 was a fascinating object lesson in how my reactions to some characters have changed, thanks to events in S3/S4/S5. 

I honestly skipped every scene with Coran fixing the castle. I don’t hate him; I just didn’t find him half as compelling as the other plot threads. 

I tuned out roughly half of what Pidge had to say, because her descent into amorality (and the lack of ever being called on it) has turned her from one of my favorites into one who doesn’t deserve my time. 

I only gave Allura half my attention, b/c her deus ex machina in S5 is too OP and that takes away a huge amount of risk. She’s a walking powerhouse now which means a lot less at stake, and what could’ve been a truly dramatic moment (Lance’s near-death) had no drama for me b/c of course Allura can make it all better. (Plus the compressed pacing in that episode meant the story ran roughshod over that reaction beat.)

I skipped Lance’s scenes once I figured out they’d amount to him pining away (but not actually doing anything about it) -- once again, everyone else is working hard and Lance is wrapped up in himself, and I’m tired of it. Get over it, act on it, move on, I don’t care, just shut up. 

I paid attention to Lotor until he went over the edge. I’ve heard enough descent-into-madness speeches from fictional sociopaths, and he didn’t even present a good enough motivation to make his actions riveting. 

Uh, did Hunk have anything to say? Other than doing engineering stuff in the first episode... frankly, a chunk of which I skipped ‘cause I’d seen that four-minute teaser. Too long, enough I had no interest in sitting through it again. 

If Keith, Krolia, or Shiro was on the screen, I was on it. If it was the clone, though, I kinda half-listened. I wanted that one storyline resolved already, so I could decide whether to stop caring for any of these three, too. 

I paid attention to the generals... until Axca revealed she’d been working with Lotor all along, and then I realized the story had been lying to me. I do not forgive that. When Zethrid and Ezor shrugged over previous betrayals (Narti) and agreed to work with Lotor, I stopped paying attention to them, too. I’m here for characters, not plot devices. 

Also, Romelle was left-field unforeshadowed swerve exposition fairy with an accent almost as annoying as no-name-father’s attempt at, uh, idk what that accent was (but goddammit it hurt to listen to, so I just muted him when I saw his mouth move). Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll drop Romelle off at the nearest mall so she can go buy herself a reason to be in the story. 

And lastly, wtf was that about the castle’s destruction, whhhhyyyyy did we get a larger reaction space for AN EMPTY SHIP than we did for, oh, say, LOSING THE CLONE who’d been part of the team for how many months? wtf was that. 

If you look up at my list of reactions to the castle-virus point, you’ll notice that there aren’t any mentions of personal stakes or characters. At no point was I thinking, oh no will everyone be okay (or even oh no not the poor castle) -- because any remaining connection with the core cast was tenuous by that point, at best. I had minimal to no emotional reaction to Pidge’s final emotional beat, because I’ve lost all respect for her as a character, so I don’t care anymore whether she cares or not. 

Which means that there will be things -- depending on the hat -- that I either have found, or may be shown (via other peoples’ analyses, usually) are worth my time and/or have a reason to be there and/or make me reconsider. But without that connection to the characters, at least half the story is just going to go by at arms-length for me, now, and that’s a lot harder to come back from, all things being equal. 

(1) As much as I enjoy jim experiencing consequences, ed's line about jim being more of a killer than him makes me uncomfortable. First it shows that ed hasn't got an ounze of regret for killing his victims, he's minimizing their memory and using them as a petty argument against jim. Also, i took this as the answer to the question of 'why is lee dating ed if he killed kristen?' but jim killing to save people's lives or under the influence of the virus and feeling guilty for it

(2) afterwards is not the same as ed unapologetically killing lee's coworkers and friends like officer pinkney or kristen and his general attitude of 'KiLliNG iS fUn!!!11 loL :)' maybe i'm exaggerating and lee thinks that she can calm their murder instincts with love or whatever, at the end of the day ed can be really unsympathetic sometimes and that's the only thing i understand

Sorry this has you feeling uncomfortable! x

I think that Ed’s comment was very much SUPPOSED to highlight how his kills are RADICALLY DIFFERENT to Jim’s ie. Jim’s body count may make him ‘ten times the KILLER’ Eddie is (a fact I now have official numbers to support :p), but the context of all their kills does, I believe, definitely make Eddie much more of a MURDERER than Jim. 

So yes, it shows how Eddie does not regret his kills (possibly not even Kristen anymore!) and how self centred Eddie is. Which is pretty much the state of play for Eddie I think? He is egotistical/egocentric/narcissistic/arrogant. That’s been his character from the start, although at the start those traits were less ofc, since he was all cowed and trying to please at the GCPD and be a good person and all that. As he’s started to pursue crime more and more, however, Eddie’s dark/negative/unsympathetic/unhealthy character traits have been slowly but surely intensifying, which I think makes sense for his development into Riddler, since that’s what a lot of versions of the character is like.  

You make a fair point that the exchange seemed to be offering an answer to the  issue of why Lee would be sexually/romantically involved with Ed (idk if I’d call what they are doing ‘dating’ :p), when he is the guy who killed Kristen. I’ve mentioned before that Ed killing Kristen has been kinda a non-issue for me when it comes to Lee being involved with him, because I have been cool to assume Lee is just... over that *shrug* But now you mention it in relation to this I can actually see how the exchange between Jim and Ed CAN be taken as offering a real insight into Lee’s state of mind / feelings -

Because Jim agrees about being more of a killer and says that’s could be why Lee isn’t with him any more, which I had been sort of shrugging off as just a throw away comment, but thinking about it now it ties in to what @five-p-m says over here

Ed refrains from killing people now - because Lee doesn’t want him to - and that doesn’t stop him from being the Riddler (being the Riddler doesn’t necessarily involve killing anyone). When Jim was with Lee and she wanted him to walk away from Gotham and his work at the GCPD - which necessary involves him killing people in the line of duty and sometimes not because he has to but because of this drive he has, not to back down from a fight, hating to lose, etc.- he wouldn’t do that for her.

So from Lee’s POV, I guess she sees Jim as persistently putting himself in situations that REQUIRE him to kill, and regardless of whether those kills are justified or not they leave Jim with emotional/psychological baggage that Lee doesn’t want to deal with. Meanwhile, as five-p-m notes, Ed has seemingly found a way to live his life WITHOUT killing, to the point of going out of his way to arrange situations so people don’t get killed, and more than that he has done it EXPLICITLY FOR LEE, which is exactly what Jim WOULDN’T DO. So to Lee, the bottom line is perhaps that Ed WAS a killer/murderer, but he has STOPPED being one (she did talk about him as a man who’d changed when he was rescuing her from the GCPD). But Jim IS STILL a killer.

Hence the current preference for Ed. To Lee’s mind he has changed how he lives his life for her, and in doing so has changed himself, and she believes he can be persuaded to continue to do so. So Ed is a double whammy - he has both (seemingly) become a better man, or at least a man she finds more preferable than who he was before AND he is prioritising her needs/desires. 

Jim on the other hand has proven himself unwilling to change who he is and how he lives his life for her. 

As you point out though, comparing Ed and Jim’s kills alone overlooks the attitude towards killings each of them holds. So if the ‘Jim is more of a killer than Ed’ idea is part of Lee’s thinking then it adds to my interpretation of her as being INCREDIBLY NAIVE when it comes to Ed. She is overlooking/downplaying the fact that he is still selfish and doesn’t actually care about others in general (with a few exceptions, inc. her), meaning his lack of killing people is NOT due to morality. And she is putting too much stock in the idea she can keep Ed from killing again (via ‘love or whatever’ as you succinctly put :p). Because as I see it, with Ed’s enjoyment of killing and urge to do so not at all being confronted and/or dealt with, it is therefore foolish of Lee to think he will ‘indulge’ her (as she said of his use of dart guns during their heist) indefinitely.  

Hi ho. Lee will learn her mistake very soon I think!

It Comes At Night was a really fucking intense film and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time but...this was not a film that benefited from leaving things unexplained, in my opinion. There's just so much shit that is hard to line up so that it's really difficult for you to draw a coherent theory. That being said, here is what I think transpired:

SPOILERS BELOW

My theory is definitely that Travis contracted the virus from the dog. The fact that nightmares and sleepwalking both appear to be symptoms of the virus -- as suggested by Travis and Andrew's delirious actions -- could suggest that when the dog runs off in the film, perhaps it had been asleep and was therefore sleepwalking itself. This is could also account for how the door was unlocked when they find the dog dead, Travis was sleepwalking and did it himself. This seems impossible at first since Paul always has the keys to the door on him, but iirc the last scene we see Paul in beforehand is the one where he leaves the room with a bottle of alcohol in hand. He could have been passed out and Travis was able to take the keys off him. Also, Andrew had been sleepwalking, and was thus sick and that's what kicked off with what happened in the ending. That's my best guess of what happened in this film.

What doesn't make sense to me is how those sleepwalking moments could have happened? Even if Paul was blacked out, it seems unrealistic that Travis' unconscious mind would know to steal the keys off Paul, go out to find his dog, drag the dog back inside, and then go back to bed. Like it doesn't really make sense unless you go with suspension of disbelief that a symptom of the virus is having like full critical thinking skills while asleep. I was a pretty bad sleepwalker myself as a child, and while you can do some wild ass shit while sleepwalking, there's very little method to the madness. There might be some cognitive thought but definitely not the level this movie would require you to believe.

Not only that but let's be real, teasing monsters or that this was some kind of zombie epidemic only to show that there wasn't anything like that actually going on just served to confuse the audience. Be honest, everyone who has seen this film was definitely predicting some sort of zombie or mutant or whatever reveal, especially after the scene where the dog runs off and it sounds like it was being attacked. That was a huge red herring, and for a film that refuses to explain itself, a red herring is not justified.

Idk I really liked this film for the most part but I honestly just thinking actually showing us what really happened would have been more powerful than leaving everything open ended. Some horror movies do benefit from open ended endings, but this was not one imo.