#wandererintheocean

[star-going-supernova]

hiiii how u doin!!! beena while since i've heard from ya so i wanted to see how everything's been on ur end since i think ur cool

hi!! sorry for the complete disappearance, November kinda just ended up being one of Those Months, y'know? i'm tentatively hopeful that now that a specific big, stressful thing is done and over with that i'll be able to catch up with comments and writing and stuff

thanksgiving was fine! we had a tasty cake! hope it was a good day for y'all too!

[springtrappd]

Yeah, GGY irks me as well. It’s good as a spin-off story, but when you try to make it canon with the games, it just falls apart. I can’t say who Patient 46 is, but if it is Gregory, that would be a massive retcon. I always thought it was Vanny, because they always act opposite to Vanessa. Maybe they axed that bit because they didn’t want to give Vanessa D.I.D.

P.S., who do you think 46 is?

vanny-as-46 does make more sense, yeah, but i also don't think it's quite right. i've been of the opinion for a while that vanny is meant to be the red herring for the twist of 46's identity... but as for who i think that is, i've already answered that before :)

[star-going-supernova]

Did you ever read any of the Animorphs books?

I didn't, no—I actually remember holding one when I was a kid and being so freaked out by the cover that I didn't even consider giving it a try, lol. Around that age, if I'm remembering correctly, I was super into series like The Baby-Sitter's Club, A–Z Mysteries, and The Bailey School Kids.

[star-going-supernova]

How bad was the storm in your corner of the world?

i didn't see so much as a single snowflake!

[star-going-supernova]

Say, did you have the American flag in your classrooms and sing the anthem every day?

if by anthem, you mean star-spangled banner, no, but we did do the whole pledge of allegiance thing every morning. i only did it in elementary, as the middle/high school i went to didn't do it

[springtrappd]

It’s not really the concept of the Mimic itself that gets to me, but what it takes away.

To be honest, I don’t mind Afton coming back after Pizza Sim. I think it was done well, because he upped the ante when he did. He did something WORSE than killing children by making Vanessa do it for him. And in every single ending to Help Wanted, Afton wins. There’s no way for us, the player, to stop it.

The thing is, we can clearly see what happens to Vanessa. There’s the VR emails, that allow us to see the effect he has on her, and the CDs. So, I think it’s safe to say that she’s one of the more fleshed out characters in the franchise.

I saw an earlier post where you said SB’s story is about survival. I disagree. I believe the message is, ‘it’s not enough to survive anymore.” Gregory can leave the building any time after 6 A.M., but him doing so results in his death. It’s only staying, fighting another animatronic, and confronting Afton that we get the canon ending. (Well, what I THINK is the canon ending).

And to get back to Vanessa, her fate in SB varies widely. Dead, left as a spirit, still in Afton’s control, (I think) or, what the game tells us is the best ending, being freed. She can escape the nightmare, but only if we put the effort in. Gregory’s fate also varies, from being killed to alone or with Freddy.

SB, to me, was showing us that this series, a tragedy, was getting some hope in it. Heck, the fact that Gregory, a child FNAF, lives at all is a spark of light. And when I first saw the poster for Ruin, I thought the story would be about saving that spark from the dark Pizzaplex.

The struggle to keep hope alive, to me, would make a far better story. But because of the Mimic, the narrative has been bogged down by shock value twists and exposition.

YES! EXACTLY! i don't disagree with the mimic in concept -- i was actually pretty receptive to the idea back when tales began dropping hints about it, and i do genuinely love frights' agony -- but what it does, functionally, is take away the interesting parts of the story in favour of endless questions. (and "this is fnaf, what do you expect" is a common response to this kinda criticism, so: A. just because something is the status quo doesn't mean it can't be criticised and B. at what point did classic fnaf ever take FIVE YEARS to go "and the guy we've been calling purple guy isn't actually purple guy, it's just another guy that looks and acts exactly like him and has been treated like him in every way. except he isn't. and also he's even more evil and super strong and super cool and he murdered even more babies because he's so tortured.") (and, sidenote, you notice how "motiveless antagonist that has to commit cartoonish acts of evil accompanied by multiple entries worth of exposition to justify their existence?" is just exactly what's wrong with eleanor again? Wow i wonder what THAT could mean)

and yeah, there's a reason hw1 is one of my favourite games in the franchise (and vanessa one of my favourite characters); it does a really good job of putting you in vanessa's headspace simply by playing it, and its story is the exact right blend of cheese and fridge horror to leave you up at night. it's been years and i still think about the implications of the lock of the box glitchtrap, well, traps you in being covered in fingerprints (from your side)! you get conditioned to accept glitchtrap's presence in the hub through repetiton & come to anticipate him being there to break up how suffocatingly silent the place is otherwise! it's great. love it. (which is very funny, considering i hated it on release, but my feelings changed a lot after i played it myself!) it's pussy shit compared to sl's endless body horror, yeah, but it's still frightening in its implications.

and speaking of vanessa...

i will die on this hill.

regarding the survival stuff: i'm fairly sure this is the post you're referring to? relevant excerpt provided below for context (& post continuing below the cut, because this shit got loooooong):

i think the whole “is gregory evil?” argument is exactly why his fans latched onto it [ggy] so hard – because it provides an easy defence for his behaviour. but what that misses is that not only is gregory’s behaviour completely normal – he’s a young kid trapped in a building with dozens of machines that want to kill him! – but even if it wasn’t… well, it doesn’t have to be. characters require flaws to create conflict that pushes the narrative forward; it is a story, not real life. we are not actually judging a real preteen, we’re judging a character who was constructed the way he was for a reason. sb received a lot of criticism for not having any way to “save” the other glamrocks, but this is – for once – a critique i don’t think it deserves. you do not save the glamrocks because this is not a story about saving them (in that sense) – it is gregory’s story, and his story is one of survival. he is not an empathetic person and he does not have to be (which is why the game/freddy does not treat him as evil for it) (because he is a child and his survival should be his #1 priority). the cycle ends when he cares, but him caring is something that develops over the course of sb’s (hodgepodge, barely coherent) story – something that happens because of freddy. he starts off kinda mean and rude but freddy’s support brings out the caring kid beneath, while gregory’s fight for survival makes freddy finally let loose (outright encouraging him to fuck up monty, going after vanny in multiple endings, burning down the pizzaplex, telling gregory to kill vanny on his deathbed, etc). you cannot reach an arc without the push necessary to get there, and this kind of thing is the force behind it. you can’t turn gears without teeth to catch each other’s ridges. and… well, from a meta standpoint, ‘curing’ the glamrocks means removing them as potential future antagonists. we wouldn’t have ruin if sb hadn’t left their stories open to continue, the same way we wouldn’t have pizzasim if sl hadn’t left the door open. it is an ongoing series – and a fucking tragedy at that. the story about adults with delusions of grandeur sacrificing dozens of children on the altar of their self-esteem is always gonna be bitter-sweet, and expecting otherwise is genuinely baffling. freeing the missing kids doesn’t make them any less dead, and i wish i could circle that word in red pen, because! reminder! the happy ending of fnaf has always been letting go!

& what i was referring to here was criticism of gregory's story (not sb -- distinction's important!); specifically, the common idea that gregory is a terrible person for trying to survive. which is a stance the game doesn't take (in which case his death would be treated as comeuppance rather than tragedy)! and i actually think we agree on this, because you're right -- in most endings gregory does not survive... because he doesn't break the cycle. this is something i left off of the post in question because it felt distracting from my criticism of patient 46!gregory/ggy (and why i feel the fandom latched onto it), but (when given the benefit of the doubt/taken seriously) sb's story is about a cast of colourful characters who have been trapped in the next stage of a cycle of tragedy -- and who are saved by their empathy. freddy's empathy for gregory saves him; gregory's empathy for vanny saves her, etc. freddy has no stake in gregory's safety, not really -- he's never met him before this -- and gregory only knows vanny as someone out to get him (ignoring evilitis, precisely because it undercuts this)... but by reaching out to her at her most cruel he finds a way out. the redemption ending is a branch of the vanny ending, after all; gregory either kills her or saves her, and in both routes he has no idea if he's gonna be leaving that building without his best friend. the friend who, in his last moments, tells him to pull the trigger. it is the kind and caring freddy who tells gregory how to kill vanny, and it is gregory's choice to go through with it. and if he doesn't, then they all get to have their ice cream and eat it too.

our other "good" ending, the afton burntrap ending, has our dynamic duo leave vanny behind but stop burntrap -- effectively cutting the cycle off at its source. the commonality here isn't saving vanny; whatever she does from that point (whether that frees her, if she makes it out alive, etc) is up in the air... but whatever becomes of her, バーントラップ(仮称)* is dead. there is no-one to force her to follow anymore. she's as free as she can be with her own demons. there is nothing else.

(and, hey, if we're acknowledging ruin: the redemption ending being canon in that would mean that the story continues for this exact reason; they won the battle but gave up on the war, and so the next stage of tragedy finds its actors.)

and again we agree, because that story -- that spark of potential it has -- getting buried in endless twists that require twists to justify more twists that are all just gateways into more exposition... well, it's sad to see. gregory's story (and kinda sb as a whole) very much sets you up to get thinking about what comes after survival -- what does it matter if you get out & no-one else? how far can you run from the spectres of the present? there's so much to go from there! it is (like most of sb, lmao) telling you how much there could be there! it's begging you to think about it! and then they took that momentum and went... nowhere. ruin is prequelbait disguised as a sequel, hw2 is a minigame collection disguised as a prequel and sotm is a bad game disguised as just a prequel. because nothing says "we've got this handled guys, don't worry" like making 2.5 games to explain that your story has an antagonist!

and, as you said: what point is there in having hope in this story when it refuses to have it itself?

(*) as in burntrap. sometimes you gotta write jokes for yourself, sorry!

[star-going-supernova]

Looks like Cassie’s dad went somewhere, and left a note:

There is not a single character in fnaf who can catch a break.

[star-going-supernova]

Okay, here’s a prompt I’m a bit surprised I haven’t seen yet. Only three words, but with near infinite potential.

Gregory. April Fools.

Have fun.

I’m picturing the kids as being thirteen or fourteen in this one. 

Expectations (And the Breaking of Them)

Cassie couldn’t help but snicker to herself at how tense her classmates and teacher were that morning. Some kept eyeing the doorway, perhaps praying that Gregory wouldn’t walk through it on today of all days. 

April Fools Day.

Gregory’s pranks the previous year were a thing of legend, and she truly regretted having been out that week with the flu. Rumor had it that multiple teachers had been clamoring to give him detention (or even have him suspended) for some of his stunts, but the true brilliance of his school-wide torment wasn’t how elaborate or funny or distracting the pranks were. It was that there was no proof that Gregory was the culprit. 

Oh, everyone knew, of course. But they had no way to truly pin any of it on him, and it was even less of a secret that his moms would gladly rip into the administration if their son was punished for something without proof of guilt. 

The only thing the teachers had on him was being one of the five instigators of a massive food fight during lunch. 

Needless to say, Gregory had a lot to live up to this year, and all his potential victims were already flinching. 

At last, Gregory sauntered into the classroom with a satisfied grin. Over a dozen pairs of wary eyes zeroed in on him. 

“Hey, Cassie,” he greeted her as slid into her desk behind her. 

“Good morning,” she replied dryly. 

He chuckled. “It certainly is.” 

Attendance was taken soon after, and hour by hour, the day passed by agonizingly slowly. Every time Gregory made a sound or shifted in his seat or raised his hand, someone would flinch or duck or give him a suspicious look. Their teacher looked like she dearly wanted to refuse when Gregory asked to go to the bathroom, and she watched the clock like a hawk until he came back an ordinary amount of time later. 

But nothing happened. 

Lunch arrived, and many students cautiously checked their lunches for tampering. Even those who’d bought their lunch were hesitant to eat. Cassie sat beside him as usual, and they chatted about their after school plans while everyone else watched Gregory over their shoulders for any signs of mischief. 

But nothing happened. 

Gregory was a model student for the remainder of the day as well, even as the spark in his eyes never dimmed. The silence during their final free period was thick; the unlucky few to be seated in Gregory’s immediate vicinity unsubtly scooted their desks away until only Cassie remained in a five foot radius around him. 

But the final bell rang, signaling the end of the school day, and nothing happened. 

• • •

Once they were safely far away from any potential eavesdroppers, Cassie finally let out all the laughter she’d been swallowing back. Gregory joined in, snickering gleefully as they walked down the sidewalk to Cassie’s house. 

“They were all so afraid!” she giggled. “Everyone was acting like you were about to explode or something!” 

“I could practically taste their fear,” Gregory said proudly. 

“Best April Fools ever.” 

“Not yet, it’s not.” Gregory pulled out a phone that wasn’t his and tapped around for a minute before holding the screen out to her. “Care to do the honors, my dear partner in crime?” 

“Gladly.” And Cassie tapped a single button, launching the prank to end all pranks that she had spent most of the day setting up. Because while everyone else had been so focused on Gregory, no one had paid any attention to her—not as she’d fiddled on that very phone, not as she took an extra long bathroom trip, and not even as she slipped into the main office under the guise of making copies for her teacher. 

It’d been Gregory’s idea, just as much as it’d been his idea that he would effortlessly keep the spotlight on himself while she put everything into place. 

A moment later, their phones received an official email from the official administration email address sent to all students and parents announcing there would be no school the next day on account of “a prank that has caused some property damage.” No doubt, everyone would assume it was the prank they’d all been expecting from Gregory. 

The teachers, though, would be getting no such email. In the morning, they would be faced quite bewilderingly with a completely and utterly empty school.

The phone, borrowed from the pizzaplex’s lost and found, would be returned to the box of junk that evening, wiped clean of any incriminating evidence. No one would ever know how, or even truly who, had pulled off a prank that got everyone a free day—

—but it was generally accepted to be the best prank ever committed at their school, and Gregory was the favorite suspect. Naturally. And while no one would ever seriously suspect kind, quiet Cassie as an accomplice, there were some who noticed that that April Fools Day, her eyes had been just as bright with mischief as her best friend’s.