u/mikewheelerfan

Essentially, horror that doesn’t rely on cheap jumpscares or gore. It might have some of that, but the bulk of the horror comes from the actual contents of the story and what it makes you feel. The surreal atmosphere is often very oppressive and isolating as well, which adds to the feeling of you being alone and having to deal with the plot and themes. The entire piece of media is a fleeting dream turned into a nightmare. You’ll be crying for hours, and then the piece of media won’t leave your mind for months afterwards. You‘ll lie awake at night, unable to fall asleep, just thinking about it. In the car, in the shower. It digs deep into your mind and refuses to leave. You desperately try to think of something happy, but your thoughts keep returning to this. You become so empty and it seems like you will never be happy again. Everything is utterly hopeless. Your very mind becomes a prison and you feel you are going insane trying to decipher what any of this means. Does anything even have meaning? Does life? You don’t know, anymore. And this piece of media made you feel that way. This is the kind of vibe I’m going for here. And I wanted to share some of my favorite examples.

SOMA -

Pretty well known as the “existential dread” game. And, yeah. Even over a year after first watching videos about it, this game will pop into my mind occasionally and horrify me all over again. This one explores themes of consciousness and what it means to be human.

The game follows Simon Jarrett, who was in a car crash and had his brain scanned. This brain scan wakes up in a robotic body almost a hundred years into the future, in a ruined underwater facility. This facility houses the only survivors of humanity after the Earth was practically destroyed by a meteor strike. But…they can’t really be called human anymore. The ship’s AI, called the WAU, was told to sustain humanity. So, it does. By twisting people into mechanical and biological monsters that are barely even conscious. Simon was its latest attempt, and seems to be the best so far.

Simon meets another sane person named Catherine, but she’s confined to a digital form. They explore the facility together, working towards the goal of launching the ARK. This is a spaceship housing scans of the underwater facility’s crew, and the idea was that it could be launched to another planet where humanity would rebuild.

Simon reaches a roadblock on his journey, and needs to swap to a new suit. No problem, right? Except, when he does so, the old robotic body is asking Catherine why it didn’t work. It still has a consciousness, and Simon can choose to put him out of his misery or leave him there. Catherine says it was a 50/50 chance and Simon won the “coin flip.” Simon believes her.

Finally, Simon reaches the ARK and he and Catherine are copied into it. It launches…and Simon is left there wondering what went wrong. Catherine reveals that there never was a coin flip, just copy after copy after copy. Enraged, Simon begins to argue with her, and she is destroyed. Then he’s left there to rot for years until his robotic body gives out, while the new copy gets to live in a digital paradise on a doomed mission to revive humanity. How bleak.

Signalis -

Heavily inspired by classic games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill, Signalis is really a lesbian love story disguised as a horror game. But…that love story is insanely horrifying, set against the backdrop of an oppressive dystopian future. It explores similar themes to SOMA, and is very dream like.

The story revolves around a Replika (humanoid robot) named Elster, and her Gestalt (human) partner Ariane. They have embarked on a mission in the Penrose program, designed to find new planets for humanity to inhabit. Although the two individuals aren’t supposed to become close to one another, they do, entering into a romantic relationship.

Unfortunately, as the cycles (days) pass, they aren’t able to find anything. But on cycle 3000, they’re going to receive new instructions. They’re hoping for a way to go home. Instead, the instructions say there is no hope, and it recommends for the Replika to kill its Gestalt. But the two women refuse. Even as the ship breaks down and radiation sickness begin to kill them both, they refuse…but then Ariane wants to die. She makes Elster promise to kill her. But then Elster dies before she can fulfill her promise.

Ariane enters in and out of cryostatis, eventually falling into an eternal dream. And this is where the plot gets insanely fucking confusing. Because Ariane has bioresonance, the power to manipulate reality. And her pain and trauma projects outwards with these powers, which impacts a mining facility on an icy planet. Now, there are two main theories from here. Either what happens to the facility is actually real…or it’s all a dream that Ariane created with her powers, essentially making a new reality. Like Azathoth in Lovecraft’s lore. I personally subscribe to the dream theory, I think it makes the most sense. But some people even believe eldritch gods are the cause of the game’s events.

The mining facility is warped into a nightmarish place called Nowhere, and the residents are infected and turned into monsters. Elster, on her quest to find Ariane and fulfill her promise, has to navigate this facility. She finally makes it back to the Penrose…and dies trying to open the door. But she actually doesn’t, because it’s one massive time loop, and reality itself is decaying because of this loop. There are multiple endings from here which you can get in any order, but I’ll go with the order that makes the most sense to me.

First, Elster reaches the Penrose and opens the door…but can’t bear to face Ariane again. She leaves the ship and dies. In another loop, she does wake up Ariane, but Ariane doesn’t remember her and Elster can’t bring it in herself to fulfill the promise. She dies next to the cryopod. Finally, in another ending, Ariane remembers her and Elster has the strength to do it, ending everything. But…is that the end? Because you can just start a new game, and even get a secret ending. The loop does not end with Ariane’s death. Perhaps it truly is a dream, and she can’t be killed in one. Speaking of the secret ending, it requires very complicated methods to reach. But it shows a ritual with six pillars, all with a Elster. Ariane’s cryopod right in the middle. Then, a red eye (the same color as Ariane’s) watches over Ariane and Elster as they dance once more in the ruins of the Penrose. What does this mean? I certainly can’t tell you. Maybe Ariane has ascended to godhood or something.

Oh, and this is only scratching the surface. There are multiple 6 hour+ explanations of the plot on YouTube to check out.

Mouthwashing -

We probably all know this one, considering how popular it was in like 2024. But I will explain it for those who don’t know. Mouthwashing is a story based game about the crew of the Tulpar spaceship stranded in space after the captain deliberately crashed. But…did he?

The captain’s name is Curly, and the crash left him with utterly horrifying injuries. All his limbs are gone. He practically has no skin and is covered in bandages with only one eye to see out of. He’s kept alive by the ship’s medic Anya through bandages and prayers, although one would argue the moral thing to do would be to kill Curly and free him of his suffering. Especially since he supposedly crashed the ship and left the crew careening through space for months with a ship falling into disrepair and no hope of rescue. This justifiably causes the crew to go practically insane, and they start drinking the crew’s cargo (mouthwash).

We play as Jimmy, the co-pilot who is plagued by hallucinations and messages that tell him to “take responsibility.” It turns out Jimmy was the one who crashed the ship, because he wanted to escape the punishments from being fired and also raping Anya. Jimmy is just the worst person ever, and his actions lead to the death of everybody else. First, Anya locks herself in the hospital room and kills herself (while Curly watches by the way). Nobody knows what’s happened to her, so Jimmy manipulates Daisuke to go through the vent to reach the med bay. Daisuke is very optimistic, the youngest crew member, and the mechanic Swansea’s intern. Unfortunately, his abdomen gets cut up badly by the vent, and Swansea is forced to kill him with an axe to stop his suffering. This mentally ruins Swansea, who truly cared about Daisuke, and was even saving the last remaining functional cryostatis pod for him.

Jimmy uses this opportunity to tie Swansea up and shoot him. Now nobody stands between him and Curly, as he desperately tries to keep Curly alive to pay for his sins. Eventually, Jimmy forces Curly into the pod and then shoots himself. A mangled Curly is left as the only survivor, at least until he finally dies in the pod. All because of one selfish man. God, the isolation and hopelessness of the situation is done so well in this game.

Omori -

Omori is a game about Omori and his friends as they traverse a magical world and fight fantastical bosses. Haha, just kidding. Omori is a game about the depressed teenager Sunny who has locked himself inside for the past few years, imagining a dream world called Headspace instead of confronting reality. Because his sister, Mari, killed herself. In Headspace, Mari is alive.

One day, Sunny’s family is about to move, and his friend Kel finally gets him out of the house to reunite. What follows is split into two sections. The first one is in the dream world at night, where Omori (Sunny’s alter ego) goes on amazing adventures trying to rescue his missing friend Basil. Back in the real world, Kel attempts to reunite the old friend group. But things are different. Hero has gone off to college and can‘t really relate to the rest anymore. Also, he was hit super hard by Mari’s death. Meanwhile, Aubrey has become an aggressive ”gangster” who carries around a baseball bat. Only Basil remains the same. Except even that’s a lie, as we see later.

As both stories merge and Sunny has to accept the truth of Mari being dead, Headspace becomes more twisted. Eventually leading to the dark and horror-filled Blackspace section. This reveals the horrifying truth that Sunny repressed and forgot for years. Mari didn’t kill herself. Sunny accidentally pushed her down the stairs during an argument, killing her. Basil saw, and suggested they hang her to cover it up. Now they’re both haunted by hallucinations of monsters. This comes to a head during a sleepover at Basil’s house.

There are multiple different converging paths from here. If Sunny doesn’t confront Basil, he will commit suicide. Then Sunny goes home and either moves…or stabs himself. But if Sunny does confront Basil, they fight and Basil stabs his eye out. At the hospital, Sunny is faced with another choice. In one route, he loses the battle against his other self Omori, and chooses to remain dreaming...by jumping off the hospital roof. But if he defeats Omori, he can live and finally share the truth with his friends. Now that I think about it, this might be the only hopeful ending in the entire selection of games I have here. Omori still tackles very dark themes like unreality and suicide, though.

Damn, this posted ended up being WAY longer than I expected. But I wanted to provide the full context. Congrats, if you got through all of this.

One thing I noticed about Hannibal is how it lets you “empathize” with Will, as he empathizes with others. Essentially, making you feel how he feels.

This first happens in Season 1, when Will’s encephalitis is progressing. Because at this point, we don’t really know what’s going on. Just like Will. And as he deteriorates further and the show becomes even more non-linear and confusing, it creates the effect of the viewer feeling crazy as well. Will has lost his grip on reality, and we’ve lost our grip on what’s fully happening in the show. Like we as the audience are feeling some of the effects of his sickness. This kind of reminds me of Perfect Blue, or other pieces of media that have done this. Essentially, the POV character (in this case, Will) can’t tell what’s real or what isn’t, and we can’t either.

But my favorite time this happens has to be with Will’s attitude towards murder. Over the course of the show, he changes from being disgusted by killing and Hannibal, to embracing it and him. Killing Dolarhyde together and creating art. And the viewer has a similar experience. Or, at least I did. I used to be extremely squeamish when it came to any kind of blood or gore, whether it was real or fictional. I still can’t handle real gore. But the show overloaded my brain with so much fake gore that I stopped being disturbed by it. Now I can watch basically anything and not even flinch. But this show’s gore I’m especially fine with. Because I can’t even see the bodies as actual dead bodies anymore, I can just see art. The same thing happened to Will, basically. I emphasized with him.

And those are just the two examples I can think of. I’m sure there’s many more. But yeah, that was my silly quick little analysis. Did y’all also experience this?

Basically the title. I want to see fics where Dudley and Harry meet again post-canon, trying to create a positive relationship after their childhoods.

17F, 5’6”, 120 pounds, no smoking or drinking, no applicable medications. Current skin conditions are eczema on hands and rosacea on face. Family history: mother has had basal cell carcinoma on face multiple times.

I’ve had a mole right above my left breast for many years now. Recently (over the past few weeks max, maybe even days. I’m not sure), it has darkened in color, becoming an almost black. There was some redness or irritation under and around the mole. The texture also changed slightly, I think. Because of that, I couldn’t resist the urge to pick at it. Yesterday, picking at it made it bleed. Today, I picked at it and noticed it was looser. I tried to lift it up to see what was going on, and it completely fell off and started bleeding. It turns out this was just a top layer, because the original mole is basically intact under it. Unfortunately, I can’t provide a photo as I have now put a bandaid on the mole.

This mole is covered by my shirt 95% of the time when I’m in the sun. When it isn’t, it’s covered by sunscreen. I can’t remember ever getting a sunburn in this area. But this is strange, and has me worried. Is this actually normal? And can I wait until my next dermatologist appointment in December, or should I go now?

This is honestly pissing me off. I’m working on the current “love is love” challenge right now. Everything is checked off…except having three children with each spouse. Except I did. I got my wife pregnant three times, then divorced her and adopted three children with my husband. Why the fuck is Bitlife not accepting that and letting me complete the challenge?

I made a post a few days ago looking for fics where Will WAS the Copycat Killer without realizing it. Well, nobody could find one. Which means I have to write it, of course. Anyways, u/lyssargh told me about a fic where Will isn’t the killer, but is completely convinced of Hannibal’s framing. That sounded incredibly interesting. I definitely want to read it.

But…they couldn’t find it again. I was going to see if I could find it, but they said it didn’t have many kudos, so it would probably be quite hard to find. Instead, I’m wondering if anybody on here remembers it. I’ll attach the description lyssargh provided:

“The main premise was that Hannibal had completely succeeded. He had framed Will, everyone believed him. Including Will. Which was the problem. I can't remember if Hannibal was bothered by this because of how much it was distressing Will, or if he just really wanted Will to see him. But I remember what hooked me about the premise was that Hannibal was literally trying to explain to Will that he had framed him, that he didn't do it, and Will just got more and more upset because he obviously had done it. I have a vague idea that they were somewhere private for this conversation but that orderlies had to come in to sedate him because he started getting so loudly distressed.”

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Harry always wondered why Professor Dumbledore seemed to be avoiding him. He tried to spend as little time with Harry as possible. Whenever they did meet, the headmaster could never seem to meet his eyes. He seemed almost…scared of Harry. But that didn’t make any sense. What was going on?

In second year, Harry got his answer. Tom Riddle looked remarkably like him, almost shockingly so. And they were similar in other ways, too. They were both half-bloods who could speak Parseltongue, and they belonged in Slytherin (even though Harry convinced the Hat to put him in Gryffindor). All these coincidences meant Dumbledore must have been reminded of a young Voldemort whenever he saw Harry. That was understandable, but Harry was going to make sure to prove him wrong. He would never grow up to be a dark wizard like Voldemort was.

Harry didn’t know the exact moment it happened. The change was quite gradual. Over the next few years, he grew up. Matured into his features. Started taking better care of his appearance, finally conquered his messy hair. Until one day, he looked into the mirror—and an exact copy of Tom Riddle stared back.

He instantly tried to find an explanation for this. Although he hoped it really was a coincidence, Harry knew that wasn’t the case. So, was he related to Voldemort in some way? Maybe he was actually his father? That was a terrifying thought. But the truth was even worse. Eventually, Harry learned more about the Dark Lord…and found out he WAS Voldemort. Some time in the future, he time travelled back to the past…and grew up to be Voldemort.

But that didn’t make any sense. None of this made sense. Harry would never become that monster. And besides, why the fuck would he try to murder himself as a baby? It had to be amnesia, or a spell gone wrong, or…or…just something.

Now, Harry had to stop the current version of Voldemort, while also stopping himself from ever becoming him in the first place.

(No, I haven’t figured out the logistics of this yet. I just thought it was a cool idea and wanted to share it.)

I‘ll admit I’m a bit of a physical book snob, and I refuse to read ebooks. Unfortunately, my library doesn’t have any copies of All For The Game (I guess because it was self-published?). However, I see there are some on Amazon. Just not any box sets. Is there any way I can get a box set and save some money on buying the books?

Ah, vampires. How I love them so. They’re probably my favorite supernatural creature. Another thing I love? Musicals. I follow the Tony Awards every year. Well, lo and behold, The Lost Boys musical was up for several Tony Awards this year. The Lost Boys is one of my favorite movies ever, so of course I was instantly interested. And, once I watched the musical, obviously I had to rewatch the classic movie. But why stop there? I decided I would find some other 80s vamp movies to watch as well. Eventually, I settled on Near Dark and Fright Night. These are my thoughts on each movie.

SPOILERS FOR EACH OF THE MOVIES LISTED ABOVE.

My first watch was The Lost Boys. This one was a rewatch, because I’ve seen the movie countless times. It’s just a great movie, and carries a lot of nostalgia for me. Not 80s nostalgia—I was born in the late 2000s. But when I was a kid, my dad would play the soundtrack for me on his CD. He told me details about the movie, and said I could watch it when I was older. Well, that ended up being around 13 years old. And I LOVED it. How could I not? I was practically conditioned to. It also really is an enjoyable movie. Great cast, great plot, one of the best soundtracks of all time…and it’s extraordinarily campy. But it leans into the camp, which makes it fun instead of annoying (although it is also serious at times). I particularly love how the level of camp varies with each storyline. The three storylines almost feel like they come from different genres. Sam and the Frog Brothers’s Goonie style romp, Michael’s teen angst romance, and Lucy trying to put her life back together after the move. Then they become interwoven, and it’s just so good. All those storylines shouldn’t work so well together, but they do, somehow.

My one gripe is that I want more! Yes, the pacing works great as is. It’s a nice little bite sized 90 minute movie. And I don’t think you could add too much content without it getting bloated. Still, I want as much content as physically possible. Maybe some more scenes of Michael hanging out with The Lost Boys. More of the Emerson family dynamics, etc. Apparently I’ll have to check the novelization out, because that contains all the deleted scenes, which might scratch this itch for me.

Another thing that scratches my itch is the musical. Is it perfect? No. I definitely have issues with it. But it’s still a damn good musical. And above all else, it’s fun. Which is what The Lost Boys should be. But honestly, the best part is the influx of new fans coming in from the musical. Now all these theatre nerds are discovering the original movie, and falling in love with it. It’s great, really.

Anyways, next up was Near Dark. Unlike The Lost Boys, which is literally free on YouTube right now, this one was IMPOSSIBLE to find. It’s not on any streaming services, not even to buy or rent. I couldn’t find it on my usual pirating sites. And the DVD is out of print, so it’s like $40 to get one online. Finally, my last resort was the library. And they had four copies! Praise the public library system. I wouldn’t have been able to watch this movie without it. Unfortunately, the downside of getting a DVD from the library is that the disc is always scratched to hell. Which meant the movie kept buffering, which was incredibly annoying.

Now, to the movie itself. Based on the concept, I expected to LOVE this movie. Instead, I liked it. I thought it was good, but not great. I left feeling a little bit disappointed, because it’s so hyped up online. But let’s start with the positives, because there are a lot. First of all, I absolutely adore this gritty take on vampires. These vampires aren’t the aristocratic Europeans from the original lore. They aren’t even the sexy, cool vampires from The Lost Boys. Instead, they’re white trash who evade the police by riding around in shitty blacked out vehicles. It makes you wonder how the hell they’ve even lived this long in the first place (since Jesse said he fought in the Civil War). But I love how it captures the reality of how being a vampire would actually fucking suck. It’s so romanticized in the media now, but I think being a human mosquito would be a miserable existence. This movie captures that perfectly. And the way it’s shot makes it feel so real too. It’s just so realistic. Heck, the vampires don’t even see to have fangs. They kill mostly with guns or knives. That’s necessarily a choice I agree with, but I admire it. Also, the cast is great. The tension is great. This movie sure has a lot of things to enjoy.

What I don’t enjoy as much is the way the plot went. It somehow feels like both nothing happened, and too much happened. This movie really needed at least another 30 minutes to flesh it out, if not more. We needed more time with Caleb, more time with the rest of the vampires, more time with Caleb’s family… Honestly, this movie would work a lot better as a TV show. With each episode exploring more of the vampire gang’s adventures, and Caleb’s moral dilemma. Because it did seem to me like the movie was building up to the point where Caleb would have to make a choice. Embrace his vampirism, or reject it and step out into the sun?

Turns out he had to do neither, because getting a blood transfusion randomly turns you back into a human. What? Now, I actually didn’t even register that he had turned back into a human at first. I just thought he was getting the blood transfusion for sustenance. And the DVD had a massive scratch right at the scene where the little sister was opening the door and exposing Caleb to the sun. Then it buffered, and when it cut back, it was night again. I just assumed it must have shown him burning in the sun, and then he healed later. But no. Apparently it turns out I missed FIVE PAGES of the script because of the shitty DVD (I looked the script up later to see what I was missing, and found this out). Jesus. Well, anyways, this meant I didn’t realize Caleb was back to human for basically the entire final battle. Then I finally noticed that he wasn’t burning in the sun, and was like “wait, what?” LOL.

I do actually hate that massive cop-out. It’s the only part of the movie I hate, really. Because it makes no sense. And even if I can accept Caleb turning back after only being a vampire for a few days, I can’t accept Mae. Ugh. Honestly, as much as I usually hate remakes, I think this movie is practically screaming for a remake. One that will improve upon the concept a bit, and fix the ending. Preferably a TV show. And…it turns out I might be getting my wish? Apparently A24 is trying to make a Near Dark TV show. I highly doubt that will actually happen, but I’d be ecstatic if it did.

Another thing I’m waiting for is the 4K remaster. Because yes, I did enjoy this movie. And I want to be able to get the full experience without the DVD constantly buffering. Also, I missed some of the dialogue because the audio mixing was kind of weird, and my dad refused to turn on subtitles (he hates them). And to put the cherry on top, I found out I would have to euthanatize my cat not even an hour after finishing the movie, which definitely left a sour taste in my mouth. Not the movie’s fault, obviously. But, yeah. I will definitely be watching the 4K remaster. And if it ever comes out, I will devour the A24 TV show remake. I really hope the remaster and/or remake bring more visibility to this movie. It’s definitely very underrated, and I think that’s because it came out in 1987, the same year as Lost Boys. It probably would have been much more popular if it came from a different year.

Moving on to Fright Night…

Going into this movie, I expected a fun, goofy romp. That’s exactly what I got, so I’m satisfied. Unlike The Lost Boys which is occasionally serious, and Near Dark which is almost always serious, this movie never takes itself seriously. And I can really enjoy and respect a movie that does that. I mean, I enjoyed Velocipastor. Heck, I even liked Troll 2! Although I don’t think my friends will ever trust me to choose the movie for Halloween movie night ever again.

But unlike Troll 2, this movie is actually good. The highlight for me had to be the zesty as hell vampire. I fucking love Jerry Dandridge and his “roommate.” Did you see the way they held each other? Definitely feeding into the trope that no vampires are straight. But all jokes aside, he’s just a really funny and great antagonist. Except for the part where he kisses a high schooler. Um…yeah. That part of the movie did NOT age well. I don’t care that Amy is a reincarnation of his dead wife or whatever the movie was implying. He’s still a hundreds of years old vampire, and she’s a teenager. 💀

Obviously the actress was not a teenager, because I guess teen actors weren’t a thing in the 80s. ISTG, high schoolers always looked like grown adults in 80s movies and shows. Literally the first thing I thought when I saw Charley was that he was definitely an adult. But anyways…

The idea of an actor starring in vampire movies actually having to fight them is a great one. And the gag where Peter Vincent is literally pointing the wrong side of the stake at a vampire on TV is just fucking hilarious. Shows how incompetent he is, and his character growth after he has to go through an actual vampire experience.

I feel like this movie is a love letter to ‘Salem’s Lot, one of my favorite King books. So of course I enjoyed it. Fun protagonist, fun plot, lots of camp…it’s just damn good.

My final ranking from this week’s binge is:

1. The Lost Boys

2. Fright Night

3. Near Dark

Please don’t crucify me, Near Dark superfans 🙏🏻

Ever since he entered the Wizarding World, Harry had been told that he had his “mother’s eyes” about a million times. Yet, strangely enough, nobody had ever talked about his resemblance to his father. Sure, he had heard a lot about James Potter. But did he look like him? There was no way to know. Until he met Sirius, at least.

Sirius was really close with his father! Well, so was Remus. But Harry wanted to try asking Sirius first, get the answers he had wanted for years. One day, in Grimmauld Place, Harry finally had an opportunity.

“Hey, Sirius?” Harry asked

Sirius turned around to look at him. ”What it is, Harry?”

“Well, I’ve been wondering for a while…do I look like my dad? Everybody always says I have my mother’s eyes, but I haven’t heard anything about my dad.”

“Oh…” Sirius looked very uncomfortable. “You mean James, don’t you?”

”Who else would I mean?” Harry tilted his head in confusion.

”Yeah, that’s the thing…I’m not exactly sure if James is your father,” Sirius said, sheepishly.

”WHAT?!”

”Okay, well…the Marauders, we were always very, y’know….handsy. And when Lily joined in….” Sirius trailed off, deep in thought. “Well, actually, I probably shouldn’t be saying this to a 15 year old. But fuck it. James, Peter, Remus, and I…we fucked. A lot. We were just banging all the time. Then your dad started dating Lily. And there’s no other way to say this, but we passed her around like a blunt. Had some massive orgies. So it would already be hard enough to find out who your dad is. We kind of just said James because he and Lily were married. But Lily had a lot of other relationships, y’know. Was with Snape for a while. Had a brief stint with Lucius Malfoy. Don’t know all of them, of course. But, when she was in disguise, she was even with Voldemort. Crazy, right?”

Harry couldn’t muster up a single response. “I…”

”So, anyways. What I’m saying is that your dad could really be anyone. I certainly don’t have a clue. Sorry, Harry.”

Tears began to flow down Harry’s face. This couldn’t be true. “Mom…she…”

”Oh, don’t worry, Harry! Lily wasn’t cheating on James. They had a very, very, VERY, open relationship. That marriage was basically just a piece of paper. Honestly, James was just as bad as her. Worse, even. If he really is your dad, you probably have a bunch of half-siblings running around Britain.“

Harry fainted on the spot.

***

This is a very stupid prompt, I know. That’s what crack is for, though! Honestly, if anyone ever wrote this, I think the best solution would be to have a prologue, and then each subsequent chapter covers a different dad. Kind of like a choose your own adventure, but for who Harry’s dad is.

I’d love to see a fic where instead of Hannibal framing him, Will actually is the Copycat without realizing it. Either because of his encephalitis, or he actually does just go insane and form an alternate personality or something. I found one like this where Will unknowingly formed an alternate personality where he was the Chesapeake Ripper, but it’s only 3k words and hasn’t been updated for 10 years. That’s also different from him being the Copycat (although I really like both ideas).

Is there anything like this?

This fandom seems to have mixed thoughts on the inclusion of the Russians. Some hate them, others think it makes sense with the shows 80s setting. I personally fall into the former camp. But what I think what basically all of us can agree on is that the Russians having a secret base under the mall was goofy AF. It felt like the writers were pulling at strings to make the set piece of the mall be important to the story.

So, I have a different idea for what could be under the mall—the Mind Flayer. Instead of it living in the warehouse (or whatever that building was, I can’t remember), it could be underneath the mall. Luring unsuspecting shoppers in deeper in order to flay them. And maybe the Mind Flayer could have started to take over the mall, like the Upside Down did in Season 1. Instead of some massive flesh monster, tendrils would run through pipes and air vents, essentially turning the mall into a living building.

But I don’t know. Did I cook, or is this even sillier than the Russians?

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Drarry. That’s honestly kind of strange to me, considering I’m normally a sucker for enemies to lovers. But I don’t know. I just don’t think I’ve ever seen Drarry done that well. As is my problem with all Draco ships, the authors tend to make Draco into a completely different person.

But I saw some Drarry art on Instagram that was so good it makes me want to give the ship another chance. What are some fics that will make me fall in love with Drarry? Preferably ones that don’t inexplicably change Draco’s personality (at least at first, character growth is fine and welcomed).

Okay, maybe confused isn’t the right word. But Will was just acting so dramatically. Like he was about to tell the other characters something REALLY important. And, obviously coming out was important to Will. But the way it was framed as such a dramatic moment was really strange, and made me feel like something bigger was coming.

Heck, there was literally a lingering shot of Will’s head smack down in the middle of the drawing of the bridge. If I remember correctly, his head was in a damn circle. As if to say “look here, Will has a special connection to the bridge we haven’t told you about.” It seemed to so obviously be a foreshadowing shot. And, as somebody who believed a lot of theories about Will’s connection to the Upside Down, I was getting hyped.

All of this made me think some massive plot twist was going to be revealed. And then…he came out as gay. Like we haven’t all known that since the first damn episode of the show. And I was left feeling kind of confused and disappointed. Did anyone else experience this?

I love animals more than anything else in the world. So why does God keep taking my pets from me?! I don’t think I’ve ever had a single pet live to old age. Some have been hit by cars. Others just randomly died in the middle of the night. More still, my family has had to put down. I’m 17 years old, and I’ve already lost a dog, a snake, a frog, and three cats.

And now it’s happening AGAIN. I just found out that we have to put my pet cat down tomorrow. She had been sick for a while, but she was doing well! Until she wasn’t. She randomly deteriorated tonight, and it almost feels like she’s on death’s doorstep already. I just fucking can’t. I can’t do this again. She wasn’t even that old. None of them were. How come all these people see their pets live until 20 when mine can’t even make it until 10?! Oh, and my dog is probably going to go soon too. And with my luck, my rabbit. I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t do this anymore.

I know Season 4 is a pipe dream at this point. But, if we ever do get it, I really don’t want it to just be an adaptation of Silence of the Lambs. It would be so incredibly lame if the season started with Hannibal just magically being in the BSHCI again. If we ever get S4, it needs to have multiple episodes exploring the relationship between Hannibal and Will, before adapting SotL. And even then, I don’t want it to. I want the whole season to be focused on that, and I honestly want them to just ignore SotL and have the both of them go free. Or, at the very least, ignore Hannibal (the movie), and have Hannibal escape permanently at the end of SotL.

If I’m being honest, I was underwhelmed by Silence of the Lambs. Everybody hyped it up as some masterpiece, and I came out the other end thinking the show was way better. It was still a great movie, but Imo, it can’t hold a candle to the show. Even the main killer (Buffalo Bill), feels like a one-off killer from the show that’s caught in a single episode. He couldn’t sustain a whole season, or even half like Dolarhyde did. SotL works well because it’s a movie.

This also means I don’t want Clarice. I know Bryan wants to, and only didn’t add her because he couldn’t get the rights. But I think that’s a blessing in disguise, actually. It allowed Clarice to be split up into multiple different characters. Most prominently, Will and Miriam Lass. Now that Will has basically completely taken Clarice’s role, her appearing would feel forced and out of place. She just wouldn’t have a satisfying role in the story.

I trust that a potential S4 would be amazing either way, but I would really prefer if it didn’t try to adapt SotL.

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