five nights at ice-e's WOULD be really fucking awesome and like, the whole idea of horror/creepypasta as a form of escapism would fit with the themes of chapters 1–5 but. it does just make more sense for it to be at the holiday house, in light of the newsletter. a shorter chapter, a simple story focus, easier to develop.

another thing from the newsletter that I started thinking about is the fact that fangamer should expect less merch of these final two chapters, which tells me that either:
* the major characters are all lightners
* there won't be many New major characters
* any new darkners won't be "worth" making merch for
which... fits quite well with a holiday dark world. I can see Carol being the final boss and like, the only major darkner I can think of from that is the guitar?? and if that's some kind of representation of Dess it miiight go against the "no merch of lightners" rule

an idea I still like is that Noelle upon learning the dark world wasn't a dream would go to the hospital to cast healing magic on Rudy.

if she learns about Gerson, she could very well rush home to open a dark world in Dess' room. Yeah that could also work.