#AND NOW ITS RESET TO ZERO

[rintoki]

it was great!! i made a lot of friends...i knew i was coming out of my shell but i didn't think i would be able to make a smooth conversation so it's some development lol

and yeahhh traveling is so exhausting...like i literally cannot move after I reach home😭

also i stopped playing genshin and star rail because I was getting too addicted to it that i started spending money on it😭😭 but I'm still up to date with all the events tho

rn the only game i play is tears of themis....and although I'm tempted to spend money on this game i don't really spend money on this game coz it's not like I NEED to have that card yk?? so yeah I just skip some banners...save up and then pull for a card which i really like

-🖤

i’m happy for you !!! i hope you make lots of good friends in college c:

pulling in tot is so depressing tho imo, like there’s no pity and it’s 100 pulls for guaranteed… even back when i played tot everyday and saved my pulls i couldn’t even get the card i wanted within the banner time without spending money lol i even tried buying the monthly supply pass for a couple months and that shit barely helped or maybe my luck is just ass idk

[harri-etvane]

Someone tell me to focus on one (1) fic please

[little-pondhead]

Some fic because I love your au, Fenton is gender brainrot, and little baby dan cracks me up. Full disclosure, my only familiarity with DC is DP crossover fanfic, and a Batman movie I fell asleep during. (If I had a better grasp on the characters I would totally write more :(( i love interactions) also sorry for the weird spacing. Idk why tumblr did that

~~~~~~~~

There was an empty cardboard box on the table of the Justice League’s main conference room. Taped on the top flap, next to a doodle of Fenton’s logo, was a jump drive.

Heaving a sigh, Batman plugged it in and pulled up his screen on the projector. The drive, which was named “little baby dan’s evil playtime”, contained two files; WATCH_ME_FIRST.mp4 and its-a-secreeeet.pdf. He clicked on the video file, and immediately the projector filled with a blurry close-up of Fenton’s goggles.

After a moment of fiddling with the camera, Fenton stepped back, giving a cheery wave. His lab coat and goggles were a pastel pink, which was new. “Heeeeya, Bats! Whoever else is there! If you’re watching this, you probably weren’t there when I dropped the box off, aaand it’s probably empty.”

He clapped his hands together gleefully. “And Connie, if you’re there, this is payback for cussing around my daughter.” Batman was instantly relieved that Constantine wasn’t on base. Hopefully the situation wouldn’t require Constantine’s expertise. (Or any of the Justice League Dark. Fenton seemed determined to drive them all to an early grave with his casual refusal to acknowledge the supernatural air around him.)

“Now, as you’re all heroes, I’m sure you’re all familiar with the whole,” Fenton paused for a moment, as if searching for the proper words. “”You ate a burger on a Tuesday or something equally inane, and it kickstarted a series of events that led to you going insane and evil and murdering 95% of the Earth’s population and now you must fight your evil alternate self, because your time-controlling cryptid Peepaw said so,” shtick, so I’ll skip the backstory. Say hi to Dan!” Fenton grabbed the camera, and Batman quickly jotted down several notes about the concerning number of things the boy had just said.

The camera swiveled around to show Nightingale, holding a strange beast in a manner that reminded Batman of an “elongated cat meme” Nightwing had shown him when he was still a Robin. The creature bared a maw full of razor sharp fangs at the camera. Nightingale adjusted her grip to hold the creature’s paw and make it wave, which evoked a deep growl.

“Haha, he’d kill me if I did that. Dan likes Nightingale much more than he likes me.”

“Because the worst she has ever done is attempt to shoot me.”

The camera had moved, so Batman couldn’t visually confirm that the deep voice had come from the creature, but the voice didn’t match any of Fenton’s previously revealed companions. “Yeah yeah, her aim sucked back then.” Fenton gave the camera a toothy grin that was only slightly less unnerving than the creature’s. “Dan’s not technically me, he’s much more like Dani, actually, but the world would probably end again if we left him with his other... What did you call him?” Fenton glanced offscreen.

“Bane of my accursed existence.”

Fenton chucked. “The other half responsible for his existence.” Batman added more notes to his file. “So, yeah, Clocky left him with us for a bit to help along his rehab. But a certain psychologist-in-training I know says that repressing rage isn’t healthy, and even without a lot of his powers, he can wipe out most of a city in- what, an hour? We tested it. It was around an hour.”

Everyone present shared a look of deep concern. As if able to see their reaction, Fenton quickly held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t worry! Clocky reset it. Approximately zero people have died from Dan in this timeline.”

“Yet.” Came a furious rumble from off-screen.

“Yes, you’re very scary.” They heard Nightingale coo.

Fenton laughed. “Yeah, we need him- and all of you, -out of our hair for a bit while we concoct more evil plans, and you’re all the least likely to die to him, so you get to babysit! Thanks!”

He reached to shut off the camera before pausing and turning away. “Foley! Which of the furries is the one who really likes animals?”

“Man, do you realize how that sounds out of context?” Foley laughed. “I think Tim said it’s the little one. Damian?”

Fenton nodded and turned back to the camera. “Don’t let Damian try to adopt Dan. Or anyone. Dan will bite their hands off. I mean it!” To emphasize his point, he removed one of his hands.

Batman sighed and added “ability to remove limbs” to a list of Fenton’s powers.

“I’ll include a list of “tasks”” Fenton’s disembodied hand made finger quotes, “we gave Dan to keep him occupied. There’s some at the bottom for you guys. They’re mostly just blatant abuse of his powers for the sake of fun and science. I’d appreciate it if you’d let him mark things off the list and add notes on how it goes. Or you can do it. Or I can steal your cameras. Your choice.”

He thought for a second. “I think you’re supposed to leave, like, pizza money or something, but I don’t think you can get pizza delivered to space. Anyway, thanks for letting me blab your ears off while Dan’s probably committing war crimes for twelve minutes. For your sake, I hope he inherited my interest in space. Good luck! Thanks for babysitting!”

Waving with his still detached hand, Fenton ended the video. Batman closed it and opened the PDF as the few other members present murmured amongst themselves. Most of the pages were filled with a curling script Batman didn’t recognize. The fourth page had a huge, bolded header, reading JP TASKS.

The door opened and shut in half a second as the Flash burst in. “Superman!” The speedster wailed. “I can’t get this thing off of me!”

The Flash waved his arm around, sending small droplets of blood flying as he tried to dislodge the creature sinking his teeth into the speedster’s arm. Batman raised an eyebrow beneath his cowl as Superman quickly lent his super strength in attempt to pry the creature’s jaw open. Dan didn’t budge.

Well, he could certainly see the family resemblance been Fenton, Dani, and Dan. Shaking his head, he turned back to the list.

Task 1: Find Dan. He’s probably attacking someone.

He highlighted the text and crossed it out. This was going to be a long shift.

[Anon, this is me crying over the wonderful gift you have given me. You bastard.]

---

"Do you think Fenton's regeneration powers extend to his..." Green Lantern frowned, trying to remember the word the kid had used but coming up blank. "I dunno. But do you think if we cut off little Dan here, he'll heal back up with no problem?" He gestured helplessly to the scene in front of him. Flash was still screeching about the beast on his arm, and now Superman and Wonder Woman were trying to pry him off. Batman was standing to the side, silently bemoaning the lack of quiet. He just wanted one peaceful shift. Just one. Please.

"I'd like to see you try, hero. And I'm not little." Dan spoke, startling all of them. His grip on Flash's arm tightened, making the speedster squeal before releasing the man and spitting out a mouthful of his blood. Batman noticed that his mouth didn't move despite the clearly spoken words. In fact, when Dan closed his mouth, it was like he didn't have one at all.

"So you do speak!" Superman marveled.

"Of course I do. I am not unintelligent, unlike you lot."

Despite his pain, Flash still made sounds of protest that everyone promptly ignored.

Superman flushed. "I just wasn't sure. It was hard to tell in the video."

"Ah, yes. The video that the Fenton menace sent you. Was there a note for me in the flash drive?"

"Uh, no." In one of his less finer moments, Green Lantern stuttered over his words and moved in front of Batman, obviously lying. Dan merely growled and flew through both men, heading straight for the giant monitor. Batman barely suppressed a shiver. Density shifting? Might as well add it to the list. He could see Martian Manhunter, who was in the back of the room, tilt his head at the display.

Dan ignored the room as he used his entire body to manipulate the computer mouse and scrolled back up to the top of the page. Staring intently at the scribbles no one could make out, the heroes could do nothing but shoot each other nervous and confused glances. More than a few of them jumped when Dan chuckled deeply. Honestly, his tiny body was at complete odds with his baritone voice.

"Maybe rehab will be fun if he's letting me do this." Dan sneered, flashing their reflections a sharp fang. No one wanted to ask what exactly he was in rehab for. The little beast turned his gaze to Batman. "You are the one called Batman, who rules the cursed city, correct?" The dark hero nodded, not trusting himself to say anything. "Excellent. You will be my chaperone for now, just as Fenton decreed it. Good luck, mortal man. Pray, I do not destroy your home a second time."

Without any time to unpack that conversation, Dan promptly disappeared from view. Some blinking text caught his attention, and Batman scrolled back down to the English text, glancing at the next few items on the list.

Task 2: Do not let Dan read his portion of this letter until you have a way to track him. There is no containing him.

Task 3: Keep him with a chaperone at all times. (If you can)

Task 4: Do not let Dan back into Gotham unless you're fine with a sudden decrease in the clown population.

Task 5: Take him for a walk in Death Valley. He likes hunting lizards.

Task 6: Make sure he goes down for his 2pm nap every day.

Task 7: He'll ask for it, but do not give him any burgers for mealtime. It upsets his stomach.

Task 8: Dan gets ONE(1) sweet after dinner before brushing his teeth. Those green pop rocks Batman always carries will do fine; he likes those. :)

A sudden alarm blared from his wristwatch, making Batman tear his eyes away from the screen, indicating an emergency at Arkham. This time, Batman actually sighed out loud. There was more to the list, but right now, he really needed to find their new charge before he killed the Joker, from the sound of it.

[physalian]

When To Keep Your Writing Stiff (pt 7)

Part 6

Part 1

Gonna shoutout a specific fanfic, “Salvage” (ATLA) for writing that is even leaner than mine is, and mine has zero fat whatsoever. This was really good. I particularly like how some scenes were only 2 or 3 lines long as an example of what I’m going for here.

When I say “stiff” in the following examples I’m specifically talking about a lot of the same syntax, few similes and metaphors, few ‘said’ synonyms, very little, well, “life” in the prose. And this can be good in a few situations.

1. Your narrator is in shock

Shock doesn’t all look the same, but the kind of shock I mean is the one where the person is really quiet and un-emotive, they’re probably not speaking or reacting much to whatever catastrophe just happened and probably not responding to their name or anything spoken to them. Their body is pretty much going “uhhhhhhhhh factory reset!” when whatever it is, is too much to process.

A asks them a question. Once. Twice. B stares ahead. There’s a brown stain on the wall that looks like a thumb.

So if they’re narrating, they’re probably going to be giving the absolute bare minimum, need-to-know information and won’t be thinking about the best adjectives and adverbs. Especially if you normally write with fluffier prose, a jarring shift like this can really help sell the shock and dissociating of the character, something so traumatizing that it effects how the story is told.

2. Your narrator is depressed

Somewhere between New Moon’s 4 pages of just Months to show Bella did absolutely nothing in a depression rot and normal prose (though it was effective, particularly in the movie when they could draw out the words on the screen for longer and did the whole spin-around-her-depression-chair montage).

January came. It rained a lot.

They’ll probably either narrate very thinly, or listlessly. They might focus on a random detail and start going on a long ramble about that one detail that isn’t at all important, but it’s either all they can think about or all that can move them to feel anything in this moment, like:

On the bedside table, that coffee mug still sat there in a thin sheet of dust. What had been liquid now long since dry and gluey. It still sits there, collecting cat fur.

This might be the best place for sentences that all sound and flow exactly the same, but use it sparingly.

3. Your narrator is having a panic attack or trapped in a traumatic situation

Different from shock in that while they are physically capable of moving and interacting, they can’t let themselves describe what they’re seeing and feeling in grand detail. Maybe they’re moving through the horrific aftermath of a battle and all they can describe is the mud under their feet and how it squelches. Or they simply say that “there’s bodies everywhere” because looking too long or too hard at who those bodies belonged to is too much.

4. You’re writing something that has incredibly fast pacing

This post was inspired by a fic I just wrote that spanned about 5 months in about 18k words. Narrative was skipping days ahead between paragraphs at some point as my character was processing the end of an abusive relationship. It sped up and slowed down where necessary, but compared to its sequel that I also just finished (22k words across 7 days), I’d covered a whole month in about 2 sentences in the first one.

See nearly any part of Salvage (or my fics if you feel like it)

What happened in that month didn’t matter, only what was before and what’s different now and how this character realizes how their life is slowly changing, some things they never noticed that are suddenly right in their face or things that quietly slipped away.

—

TLDR; sometimes the lack of emotion and sensory details and frenetic, dynamic syntax is the point, that can sell the reader on the narrator’s mental state far better than picking the juiciest adverbs. If it’s so impactful to them that the physical telling of the story is changed, you’ve done your job.

[sqtorux]

midnight fiction

an adventure of a lifetime with gojo. a comfort au of sorts?

wrote this on a whim hehe

short af and bittersweet, not proofread

12:00 am. midnight. or what you like to call it zero o’clock.

00:00, the small segment of time where everything just resets, a magical door opens.

“hey you're here” satoru greets you with a charming smile. bright blue eyes beamed at you behind his glasses as he held out his hand for you to take.

with your hands intertwined he carried you through the wind, floating high above the sky as blue as his eyes amongst the fluffy cotton candy clouds.

“oh look a curse. lets go save the world” he grinned cheekily as he heads towards the ground. “pretty, which is your favourite colour amongst red, blue and purple?”

he asked, the curse was approaching rather alarmingly but satoru showed no signs of fear.

“blue” you reply. of course the colour of his eyes could rival even the prettiest of gradients of all different colours.

“alright watch, don't blink!” he smiled as he conjured his cursed technique, blue. the blue forced sucked in and completely obliterated the curse leaving behind only its filthy remains.

“cool or what” he chuckled as he peered at you. you were gaping at how amazing he was and he walked over to you proudly.

now that the curse was exorcised, satoru took you to a beautiful field, beneath the shade of a big tree to have some ice cream, as is customary.

it's something the two of you did everytime you finished your missions. well, his missions, he just took you along.

you scoop the frozen treat and put it in your mouth, savouring the taste.

“hey let me have some of yours” satoru chimed. you held out your cup only for him to lean in closer.

cupping your face with his hands, he lands his lips on yours, gently biting your lower lip for access. as if in a daze, you open it almost immediately as his tongue slid in your mouth.

after a few dance of both your tongues together, he pulls away, wiping your chin off of the ice cream stains. you took the opportunity to do the same to his chin as the both of you giggled like the lovestruck fools you are.

he gently tucks a strand of hair behind your ears as he stares into your eyes, admiring you. being this close made your heart accelerate and your stomach churn.

“you have pretty eyes” he smiled. your heart was hammering against your chest trying to speed off.

“i’d say the same if i could see yours. all i'm seeing are black glasses” you chuckled. he does too.

he takes off his glasses and there was his blue eyes on display for you to admire. you were absolutely mesmerized by it and your world seemed to freeze.

satoru takes his glasses and lets you wear it.

“i can't see anything with this.” you grumble and he takes it off for you.

“that's alright. i prefer you without them anyway.” he flashed another cheeky smile.

your sweet whimsical moment was interrupted by the same magical door opening right in front of you. you were having so much fun with satoru that time flew by without you knowing.

your smile drops and satoru notices.

“it's time for you to leave already?” he asks. you reluctantly nod and smile sadly at him.

the door glows brighter and brighter calling you to it. you stand up and made your way towards it, not before saying goodbye though.

“thanks for the adventure this time too.” you smiled at him, heart swelling both in happiness and sadness.

“see you tomorrow” you could hear his voice calling behind as you enter the door.

opening your eyes, you were greeted by the soft morning sun rays shining on your face, your body on your bed but your heart with the boy with blue eyes underneath the tree, waiting for you at midnight.

this is literally my night routine :3

[last-flight-of-fancy]

hi hello i hope you don't mind but Special Interest Infodump Mode has been activated please keep hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times-

this explanation comes to us courtesy of Dark Road! You know, that cutesy little mobile game where literally the whole cast except the two protagonists dies. This is on brand bc the explanation has it's own fridge horror levels to it if i think too hard about it tbh.

So, worlds have hearts. We've known this since KH1, seen what happens to a world that loses its heart, and how they can be affected. It's rarely been expounded on beyond that however, aside vague allusions to the titular Kingdom Hearts being/harboring the Heart of All Worlds.

(which has. other implications now that i think about it but that's stepping into theorising territory. im sorry im trying really hard to stay on track honest)

fast forward to Dark Road, where we have a bunch of kids venturing out into the worlds for the first time, and as such have to have things explained to them (and thus the audience). NOW i will note here that KH looooooves unreliable narrators and characters imparting incorrect information without knowing it, so there is always the possibility that this could later turn out to be wrong, but currently I see no reason this would be the case and thus for now i feel safe in taking their words at face value unless otherwise contradicted.

Why are there no people? Because each world is alive, and after the Keyblade War sundering THE World into MANY Worlds, each needed to recover and restore what was lost; life, time, movement.

This bit here is important, bc as a result

All of this is the direct result of the Keyblade War of old. Even after so much time, the bits of worlds are *still* recovering, and I do think there's something to be said about how like... the repition between worlds and their apparent stagnation often *stops* after Sora visits them. I don't think it's because Sora's special(tm), but rather just because of who he is; the Dark Road kids are told never to interfere, and as a result the worlds they visit that Sora also visits later are exactly the same to Sora as they were 80+ years before.

But when Sora visits the same world only a short time after his first visit, things CHANGE. Hercules' story moves forward, Simba is having a crisis about being king, Jack Skellington has learned his lesson about Christmas and is on to new shenanigans. And that's only in kh2! in kh3 we see Twilight Town fill with people, barren Olympus expands into a full town (and there's more there too with BBS and how the Wayfinder Trio may have been Olympus' start towards restoring itself completely, and Sora's later arrival more speeding things along)

my point here is *connections*, which is a consistant and overarching theme of the series. Empty worlds are baby worlds, still healing and restoring from being broken away from the rest, and what helps along that healing? Being connected to others.

Which is to say that the keyblade weilder's doctrine of 'do not interfere' while most certainly well-intentioned (as Dark Road also points out, one persons darkness is anothers light, and morality is not a solid truth across worlds, so interfering is risky at best and dangerous at worst), the flip side to this is that without being connected, without that ''interferance'', the world's restoration stagnates and struggles. It will still get there eventually (the Tangled world seems to be doing alright for example), but chances are it might've been a little easier/faster if someone had done a little interfering.

tldr keyblade war broke the worlds and reset them all to zero. As the worlds heal time stops until it's People finally pop back into existance and their stories can resume. And that's how the invisible crowds in early kh games are canon.

[alchemistc]

Eddie practices his arguments with Steve.

The thing is -

Here's the thing. It's not that he's expecting an argument. So far every time either one of them have been irritated with one another, or pissed off about something, they usually just, like, talk about it and shit. Healthy-like, which is -

Totally fucking weird for Eddie My-Parents-Fought-As-A-Love-Language Munson and Steve Still-Figuring-Out-Its-Okay-To-Be-Loved Harrington. It's weird, it is, and Eddie can't help but wonder if Steve is just bottling shit up until it explodes out of him and he realizes that this thing they're doing just isn't worth it anymore.

So.

So Steve does this thing, right?

This thing where he rolls his jaw and sometimes it pops and it makes Eddie want to stick a curly straw up his nose and scramble his own brains. And he's such a fucking neat freak that every time he's over, he ends up rearranging Eddie's room - not even in purpose, just. He likes to touch things, and Eddie gets it, he does, but touching things usually leads to picking things up leads to setting them back down and before Eddie's had time to look up, Steve has swept empty beer cans into the trash and lined up Eddie's models in a neat row like they're troops readying for battle and since he's like a war buff they're always lined up like a little battalion which is cute but also frustrating as hell because - because Eddie's chaos is organized and now he can't find his fucking lyric journal with the song he's very much not ready for people to see, or know about, or -

The point. The point is Eddie has been gearing up to talk to Steve about it for three days now and he's now at the stage where he practices. Works out the scenarios, muddles through possibilities, tries to anticipate every way it could go tits up.

He's never - Steve is most of his firsts, and he knows it's dumb and romantic but he'd like Steve to be all of his lasts, too, and so what if that means he's pacing the length of the trailer (all the while perfecting his Steve-voicr, which has been a tough one to nail but he feels like he's getting there. He's smarter and more eloquent than he lets on, is Steve.) and arguing with himself. Resetting, back to the start, working through a disastrous turn where Steve accuses Eddie of cheating on him (nope, reset, Steve's well aware Eddie wouldn't, cut that from the options).

"And seriously, Eddie, how could you think I'd do that shit to you, you know -."

"What the hell?"

Eddie whirls.

Mike Wheeler is standing in his living room, staring at Eddie like he's grown a second head. Which. Shit. They haven't actually, like, told anyone that they're...doing whatever it is they're doing (There's things Eddie wants to call it, but he hasn't brought them up yet because they're terrifying and super fucking telling and even though he's pretty sure he and Steve are on the same page he doesn't want to presume) so the kids don't know. No one except Robin knows, and she's states away and busy so.

"What the hell right back, Wheeler, what are you doing here?"

"I left my chem textbook here last night. You said I could come get it."

And - sure, he definitely had, but he'd sort of been staring at the hollow where Steve's neck and shoulder met and imagining biting it when he said it, so -

"So you broke into my house?"

"The door was unlocked."

"So you walked uninvited INTO MY HOUSE?" And he's maybe hamming up the annoyance as cover, but Wheeler just stares at him.

"Are you practicing breaking up with Steve?" Wheeler asks without preamble, with zero inflection, not even a quirk of his brow, and Eddie -

Flounders, is a generous term for it. Really what he does is shriek, and cackle, and then cover it up with the weirdest laugh either of them have ever heard which covers nothing at all. "What are - why would you - what makes you think - listen, Michael, you can't just break into people's homes and accuse them of - of - what exactly are you accusing me of?"

"Of having really terrible taste in men, Eddie, where's my textbook?"

"I don't fucking know, Wheeler, Steve rearranges shit all the time so who the hell knows where he would have -."

"It's probably on the bookshelf, then," Mike says, and then squints. "Are you...practicing arguing with Steve?"

"How do you even -?"

"Neither one of you is subtle."

"Shut up, Wheeler."

"If that's how you talk to Steve it's no wonder you have to practice your arguments."

"I'm not - you're infuriating."

Mike squares him with a look that reminds Eddie of when he's calculating hit points and strategizing his next move. He frowns. Sighs. "I have like ten minutes before I have to leave. Steve doesn't think you're cheating on him, so let's start from the top."

---

"The kids know," Eddie tells Steve, fingers shifting in Steve's hair, and Steve's lashes flash as he looks up from Eddie's lap. Mike had been - well, Wheeler might be half a decade younger but he'd been pretty instrumental in helping Eddie nail down the right approach to "Please stop cleaning up my messes you're ruining everything." so another non-argument is in the books, and Steve had looked confused about it but he'd agreed to try not to move shit around at least.

("I'm still cleaning up all the trash, though, you live like a goblin."

"It's hot that you know what a goblin is, baby."

"Nerd.")

"Are you...okay with that?"

"Are you?"

"I asked first."

It's not that he doesn't want to answer, it's just.

Okay he doesn't want to answer. Jesus Christ, he'd used Mike goddamn Wheeler as his Steve stand in to practice an argument that hadn't happened and he's still scared to call Steve his -

"I... don't really know. What to tell them." And that's - shit, not what he meant to say, Jesus.

"What do you mean?"

Steve crinkles his nose, and Eddie hates how goddamn cute it is, because he really wants to just, like, boop the tip of it and then suck Steve off but -

Where's Mike Wheeler when he needs him?

("If you ever tell Steve about this I'll tell Will to TPK your party for the next ten campaigns."

"Why would I tell Steve I'm helping you save your relationship?"

"Brownie points. So you can hold it over Henderson's head. Blackmail."

"I used to be terrified of you, but you're actually super lame, honestly."

"Preaching to the choir, my friend.")

"I mean, what...what do we tell them we...are?"

"Are you freaking out about calling me your boyfriend?"

"...no."

He shifts, and Eddie's fingers slip through the strands of Steve's hair as he shuffles, scoots, sits up and twists to face Eddie.

"I am, right? I mean...you want me to be?"

Eddie hasn't practiced this conversation, because - because it's presumptuous, because it felt sort of like jinxing it, because -

"Yeah. Duh. Of course I - shit. Yeah. Yes."

Steve's smile is bright and a little knowing. "I have a confession."

"I'm not sure I want to hear it."

"Trust me, you want to."

"Okay fine," Eddie tells him, eyes on Steve's hand as he slots their fingers together. Eddie hooks his pinkie along the edge of Steve's sleeve. "Twist my arm, why don't you?"

"I'm actually kind of glad they already know. I've been trying to figure out how to tell them for a while. I've been, like - creating scenarios in my head to try to figure out how they're going to take it."

There's - okay, so Eddie's thinking a lot of things, right at this moment, like how Steve apparently also creates mind-scenarios to play out before a situation happens, and how they might want to test out their creativity in other areas, actually, and that derails his whole train of thought for a moment, but "How long?"

"How long what?"

"Have you been trying to figure out how to tell them?"

Eddie's not insecure, exactly, but he is a big fan of knowing what people he cares about think of him and how often they think of him and -

"I mean, since, like, the first time I kissed you?"

Eddie is stupid crazy about Steve Harrington. He's fully fucking feral for this man, honestly, it's dumb. Absolutely ridiculous.

"I'm in love with you," Eddie tells him, and the tips of Steve's ears are pink.

"I know," he says, with a smarmy little grin because Eddie had admitted (under duress, and screw anyone who doesn't think a naked Steve Harrington in your lap is duress) he'd been obsessed with Harrison Ford for like a full year in his tweens, and Steve takes every opportunity to remind Eddie he knows.

"I'd also very much like to circle back to you creating scripts in your mind about telling the kids about us."

"Henderson's always a nightmare, I swear to god."

"We gotta teach him some humility."

"He respects you more than he respects me, you teach him."

"You gonna say it back?"

"Well not now," Steve says, and Eddie wants to bite him.

---

"I love you," Steve says, while Dustin and Mike and Max argue about who knew first.

Eddie hasn't practiced this one. "I know," he says, and Steve's brow quirks when Dustin catches the exchange and groans.

[harmonictechnicality]

Eddie's Memory Log: Day 30

part 1 here | part 2 here | part 4 here | part 5 here | part 6 here

(ao3 link here)

After one whole month of documenting Eddie Munson’s semi-fucked memory levels, Steve has come across a few crucial bullet points:

Eddie never forgets his own name.

If Eddie’s pain levels are bad, so are his memories.

Eddie likes the lime jello better than the chocolate pudding, except he always forgets.

Eddie’s memory is worse after the weekend, but it gets better throughout the week.

Eddie can hum the theme songs to all of the shitty soap operas (even on bad days).

Eddie’s memory is at its best if he’s had multiple visitors the day before.

And maybe the most important bullet of them all:

Eddie always remembers three people (Wayne, Dustin, and Steve).

Memory Log: Day 31

It’s Monday, which means Steve hasn’t seen Eddie all weekend. The knuckleheads and Hellfire lemmings take the weekend shift since they don’t have school. Steve should be grateful for the time off, but he can’t help but wonder how Eddie is feeling - if he’s throwing hissy fits or being confectionery sweet to all of his guests.

The curiosity and concern has settled its way into Steve’s routine during his days off. That’s just how it is.

And that’s exactly why Mondays are becoming Steve’s (secret) favorite day, despite Eddie’s brain managing the slightest soft-reset after the weekend.

“Is he a Hyde or a Kathy today?” Steve asks the nurse at the visitor check-in counter.

He knows the majority of the staff by now, and they’ve all adopted his Eddie Behavioral Lingo. Steve is getting far too cocky about being the hospital trendsetter.

“He’s um…” the nurse's gaze drifts up to Eddie’s door.

Shit. Steve bursts into the room because he already knows exactly what that translates to.

It’s a high-pain day. Eddie affectionately calls them Grendel Days - he finally decided to play along with their lackluster literary references.

Oh yeah… Eddie remembers Beowulf

“Hey, hero.” Steve speaks in a lower volume because loud noises are brutal on days like this. “I heard that Grendel crashed the party today, huh?”

Admittedly, Steve had Dustin retell the important chunks of Beowulf to him cause there’s no way in Nerd Hell that Steve was going to read that fantasy bible of theirs.

Eddie squints one eye open to look at Steve. “That son of a bitch is trying to slice open my goddamn kidneys, I swear.”

“Should I get my nail bat?”

“You’re what?”

Damnit.

Eddie remembers zero fucking percent about their monster battles (and it’s probably best to keep it that way while he’s still recovering).

“Not important.” It is but whatever. Best to just change topics. “Can I interest you in any pain distractions?” 

“What are you gonna do exactly - open your letterman jacket and offer me a lollipop?”  Eddie snorts at his own joke before slumping over, holding his sides.

Steve wags his finger at him. “See, that is karma for being so mean to me all the time.”

“That?”

“All this pain you’re having.”

“Actually, I think it’s because I’m some type of Demonic Tinker Bell.” Eddie offers, fake coughing into his hand. “If not enough people are calling me freak, I start to die.”

It’s just a joke, but Steve is not so keen on his friends joking about things like Mortality anymore.

Still, he laughs. Plays along easily. “All hail the freak.”

Eddie stops his fake coughing fit.

“And just like that, my wings of darkness have returned.” Eddie flicks his wrist theatrically, giving Steve the weakest smile. “See? Much better.”

But it’s not Much Better. Eddie spends the rest of the visit seething with internal pains. Switchboard style - one area inflicting jolts of throbbing agony, then another. Eddie grabs wherever it hurts the most. Sometimes he can’t touch every pain point, it’s just too widespread.

Maybe Steve should… No. He’s not sure his hands could stop the hurt any better. He’s not a doctor and he’s not fucking magic. Steve is just the guy that wears offensively bright sweaters and watches Eddie’s torture spectacle from a front row seat.

They don’t talk much after that. 

Eddie can’t talk through the pain. And apparently… neither can Steve.

Memory Log: Day 35

The pain has been monstrous all week long. They’ve had to plug Eddie’s heart monitor back in because his heart rate tends to skyrocket when waves of pain hit. It used to be easy to forget that Eddie suffered anything other than head trauma.

Not anymore. Not with his room beeping like a terminal metronome at all hours.

Steve stops asking Eddie’s novel-based behavior levels because he already knows the answer. Wishes he didn’t.

“Munson?” The lights are off, which helps with Eddie’s headaches. That’s good. Less pain in his head, behind his eyes. Small victories.

“Go home.” Eddie’s breathing sounds labored.

Steve settles into his chair anyways. “Can’t.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“Me neither.”

“Steve, I swear.”

“Like a sailor.”

Eddie chuckles. “Hurts to laugh.”

Seeing Eddie like this is god awful. He should be shredding on his guitar or mocking Dustin senseless for his clashing pattern combinations. He shouldn't be wrapping his arms around his torso, confining the pain that’s mangling him from the inside out.

“We’ve gotta find a way to get Grendel out of your system, man.” Steve bends down to Eddie’s eye level. “Cause this fucking blows.”

Eddie opens both eyes this time - they’re so sunken in. “… Grendel?”

Shit no.

If Eddie’s pain levels are bad, so are his memories.

Steve tries again anyway. “You know… from Beowulf?”

“Sounds cool.” Eddie eye’s close again. “Are they a band?”

Eddie doesn’t remember Beowulf.

“You think everything sounds like a band name…” Steve mumbles, ignoring the disappointment pinging in his mind.

Eddie reaches for the guitar pick on his neck - one of his bandmates brought it by a couple weeks ago. He rubs his thumb over it as if he can transfer memories through fingerprints.

“Hometown Slut.” Eddie sends a sideways smile over towards Steve. “Snatching virginities and record deals.”

Okay. Fuck. Eddie remembers inside jokes. That seems like a big fucking deal.

Steve attempts to not overreact with this revelation. Avoid another hair ruffling/thumbs-up situation. “Did you have to use the word ‘snatch’ in your weird little slogan?”

“Oh the word choice was very unavoidable, Stevie boy.”

Steve shuts the notebook, focuses on keeping Eddie distracted from his pain. “What about your band?”

“What about it?”

“Do you remem…” Steve searches for another phrase. “Do you think you can tell me the name?”

“Alright, please stop treating ‘remember’ like it’s a dirty word.” Eddie whines. “I’m not the fucking cable version of Breakfast Club. Stop censoring yourself around me.”

“Right.” Steve opens the binder back up.

Eddie doesn’t remember…

“Corroded Coffin.” 

Phew. Eddie does remember his band.

“Do you remember what instrument you play?” Steve puts emphasis on the un-censored word.

“Accordion.”

“Be serious.”

“Polka is dripping in sincerity.”

Steve pinches the skin between his eyebrows. Truly, it’s impressive that Eddie can still manage to be a massive prick, even when he’s writhing in pain. It’s like he’s going for the goddamn gold medal of assholery.

“Guitar.” Eddie dangles the pick around, somewhat peeved. “Now can we chill with the third degree for today, officer?”

Steve notices Eddie’s monitor is beeping faster than it was when he first entered the room. That sobers him up from his irritation.

“Yeah, sure.” He sighs. “No more questions for today.”

Eddie cuts him a devious look. “Well I didn’t say that now, did I?”

“Huh?”

“Oh the vapid look is not nearly as cute as you think it is.” Eddie lifts himself up slightly from his stack of pillows. He flattens them out and into a pillow wall as he sits upright. “How about I ask the questions today?”

“Why? I’m not the one who’s struggling with brain stuff.” Steve walks over to give him a hand. Eddies seems to be struggling with his strength, which is to be expected after becoming a fucking bat buffet.

“That’s debatable.” Eddie mumbles.

Steve’s close enough to feel his breath as he pushes the pillows comfortably around Eddie’s new sitting position. 

It’s not weird, the close contact or the breath. Steve has been helping Eddie with gross shit for a month - holding his hair when he starts puking or coughing up blood. Unraveling him from tubes and cords because Eddie is notorious for twisting himself into a medical straight jacket with this shit.

It’s not weird… it’s just weird how aware Steve is of Eddie’s breath. How warm and jagged it feels, even through his layered clothes.

Maybe Eddie is aware too, because he starts breathing through his nose the longer the silence is drawn out between them. Steve finally takes a step back, creates a non-breath-touching distance once again.

“Humor me then.” Eddie fills the tense pause.

Steve crosses his arms. “Don’t I always?”

“No. Usually, you aggravate me.” But see, why do Eddie’s eyes get all shimmery when he says snarky shit? And why does Steve suddenly use words like shimmery to describe Eddie Munson?

Why does it remind him of those sequined dresses that girls wear to homecoming dances when Eddie’s eyes do that shimmery thing? It’s like his mind is taking the insults and turning them into compliments, which is so bizarre.

“Steve?”

Shit, right. Say something instead of thinking about Eddie’s sequined eyes, goddamnit. “Yeah?” 

Real original, asshole.

“Just… look.” Eddie taps his fingers against this side of his bed. “There’s sharp pains shooting through every fucking limb on my body right now. I just need a distraction today - not a pop quiz.”

Yeah, Steve offered the distraction idea at the beginning of the week. But really, that’s not what he’s here to do. He’s here for the kids. He’s here to fill his jobless life with a meaningful task. Help Eddie the way he couldn’t help him in the Upside Down.

But the kids have no idea what it’s like every day. How some days, they are friendly and comfortable with one another. How some days, there’s a verbal boxing match between them - and on those days, they’re both the losers.

How some days, Steve is the one getting flustered instead of Eddie (who’s usually being called out for staring at Steve’s hair or arms or whatever else his eyes decide to fixate on).

Nobody else knows how many climates this hospital room can hold. Nobody besides Steve and Eddie.

“Fine.” Steve decides after mulling it over for far too long. “I’ll be your distraction.”

“Careful, Steve.” Eddie breaks the non-breath-touching distance, poking Steve’s wrist. “You almost sound flattered.”

“Hardly.” Bad time to bring up the word hard - when they’re seesawing between taunts and flirtations. Thank god for the binder Steve’s holding, obscuring any part of his anatomy that could potentially betray his coolness at the moment.

“Go ahead, Munson.” Steve backs away from Eddie’s touch. “Ask your questions.”

Eddie runs the entire thing as if he were a late night talk show host. Uses his hospital side table as his interview desk. Pretends his empty jello container is his microphone. Calls Steve his ‘special guest’ the whole time. Steve scoots his chair right next to Eddie’s bed, just to keep up the talk show charade. 

An hour into it, they’re both feeding off one another’s energy and attention. Steve can tell by the way Eddie’s fingers unclench from his sides and his teeth stop gritting together, that his pain is subsiding - or perhaps it’s no longer at the focal point of his mind. His heart monitor is at a tempo that seems ideal - less fast and less choppy. More like a ballad than a pop song.

Eddie’s questions range from common to outright strange. He asks Steve shit like, ‘what’s your favorite breakfast food?’ And then follows it up with, ‘okay - but if you could only eat scrambled eggs for dinner, would they still be your favorite breakfast? Or does time of day play a vital role in your food preferences?’

“Does it fucking matter?” Steve rolls his eyes. More than annoyed by Eddie’s constant need to play devil’s advocate.

“Nothing matters, Harrington.” Eddie replies. “And please stop answering my questions with more questions. This isn’t a goddamn improv game.”

Eddie remembers how to be a pain in the ass.

Steve doesn’t write it down, doesn’t really need to. “What the hell is an improv game?”

“I swear to Johnny Carson, I’ll kick you off my show.”

“Whatever.” Steve isn’t any less confused, but what’s new. “I guess time of day does matter a little bit.”

“Ha! Knew it. You’re so predictable.”

“And you’re a fucking handful.”

“That’s high praise coming from such an esteemed guest of the show.” Eddie’s hand is splayed over his chest, over his heart. The heart that’s beating like a ballad and not a pop song according to his monitor.

Okay stop.

Steve knows this is a game. A shtick. So why is his face heating up? Why are his palms sweatier than they were twenty minutes ago? Why does Steve keep wondering what Eddie’s eyelashes feel like against his cheek when he flutters them in that overly dramatic way?

The clock interrupts his questioning. Probably for the best.

They exchange goodbyes. Eddie always gets a little concerned that Steve might not show up again. Steve always tucks his bitchiness away to reassure Eddie that he’ll be back on Monday.

It’s their routine. Not just Steve’s routine. It’s theirs now.

Memory Log: Day 38

It’s Monday. Soft-reset day. Steve’s new favorite day.

“Hey, Steve.” One of the nurses stops him on his way to Eddie’s room. 

Her name is Sam - Steve likes Sam the best because she lets him stay longer on days when Eddie feels his shittiest. She also gives him gum to help with his nerves. 

Hospitals do that sometimes. They just activate his nerves like glow sticks. Snapping and crackling the radioactive colors that make his stomach churn.

Anyways, the gum helps.

“What’s up?” Steve asks.

“Just wondering,” Sam gives him a pleasant smile. “Do we have a code for Eddie’s good days?”

“Good days?” They don’t hear that phrase often around here. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe you should think of one.” She starts flipping through some files. “He’s been in great spirits for three days now.”

Three days? Steve rarely gets three hours of Eddie being in great spirits. The guy is a perpetual ghoul, so this is definitely something to celebrate.

Steve makes a pit stop to the vending machine. Grabs them a couple of root beers and candy bars for the occasion. Look, it’s not champagne and hors d’oeuvres, but it’ll suffice. Besides, Eddie doesn’t strike him as a ritzy kind of dude anyways. He’d probably make some joke like, ‘you mean to tell me that a whore made these d’ouevres?’

Jesus christ, Steve’s been hanging out with Eddie for too long.

“There’s my favorite lady killer.” Eddie is already grinning as Steve walks in the door. 

Still remembers Steve is a Hometown Slut (of all the things that would stick to his brain… why that?)

“Seriously, you look sharp today.”

Steve’s knees lock at the compliment. “Um. Thanks. So do you.”

And the crazy part is, he means that. There’s a peachy color returning back to Eddie’s skin. The bags under his eyes are a faded gray instead of an Almost Black. 

And his hair. Eddie’s hair is actually untangled. His curls are fluffed out, sort of feathery at the ends. Maybe somebody trimmed all of the dead pieces off because it looks... Well, it looks nice.

Steve kind of hates to admit that.

“Guessing your pain levels are better?”

“You guess right.” Eddie nods. “Whatever meds they gave me Friday night finally kicked Grendel’s lousy ass.”

Eddie remembers Beowulf again.

“Glad to hear it.” Steve is trying to process how great things are going. Eddie’s complexion. Eddie’s memories. It’s never this clear on Mondays. Steve tries to just be grateful to have a day like this, but he can’t help but wonder why.

Why now?

“Eggs for breakfast?” Eddie is fiddling with his necklace again.

Steve jerks his head up. “You… didn’t forget?”

“Don’t get too excited.” Eddie gestures to Steve’s pants. “Because I wish I could forget those ridiculous khakis that you always wear on Mondays.”

“Shit, really?”

“What’s the deal with that anyways?” Eddie’s nose scrunches up at the question. “Laundry day or something?”

“I…” Yes.

“Or do you think your ass just looks better in lighter colors?”

“Well…” Also yes.

Eddie winks. “Looks like your ability to complete a sentence is just as fucked as my memory, huh Stevie?”

Steve nervously runs his hands through his hair. “This is just a lot to process, sorry.”

And it is. Steve starts jotting everything down before he starts to forget:

Eddie remembers Steve’s favorite breakfast food.

Eddie remembers Steve wearing khakis on previous Mondays.

Eddie remembers Steve’s Memory Fucked inside joke.

Eddie remembers a shit ton about Steve.

Eddie remembers.

Very lightly, Steve scribbles on the corner of the page:

Eddie notices Steve’s ass…

The rest of the visit is pretty awesome, one of the best ones they’ve ever had. Eddie recalls practically everything from Friday, which is blowing Steve’s mind. They talk about his visit with Dustin on Sunday, and how excited Eddie is to see Wayne on Thursday. Steve doesn’t even bother with taking more notes because Eddie remembers it all.

They talk like real friends today. Friends that occasionally notice other friend’s asses or get lost in their sequined eyes, but still. It’s somewhere in the ballpark of friends, right? Whatever it is, it’s better than ripping each other apart with insults. That’s gotta count for something.

Eddie falls asleep an hour before visiting hours are over. He falls asleep still smiling from the last joke he told before dozing off. Steve studies his facial features because he can finally see more of them (Eddie’s bangs were trimmed too, thank god). 

He’s still pretty banged up. Cuts that overlap and bruises that change gradient the further up they spread. As if the softer parts of Eddie are still freshly wounded. That’s not how it works, Steve has been beaten up enough to know that people don’t bruise like fruit. Not really.

Steve can just see more of Eddie now, which is proving to be a dangerous road to travel down. Way too many detours to let his mind wander. Think. Overthink.

He thinks Eddie is attractive. That’s the detour he’s taking tonight. And if this person didn’t already occupy so much space in his mind, that detour might be more shocking to him. But it’s barely registering on the shock-meter.

Eddie’s unharmed features are highlighted in attractiveness against the purples and grays and reds. It’s almost impossible not to notice that he’s attractive when his face has this many colors. This much character.

Steve doesn’t know what’s going on. This could all be his exhaustion kicking in. Or maybe Eddie’s great spirits has twisted Steve’s outlook on things. Or maybe it’s an illusion from the Better Day they’ve shared together.

The only clear answer that Steve has right now is that Eddie remembers him. And that fucking means something.

Steve stops by to tell Sam the good news on his way out.

“I think he’s getting better.”

Sam nods once. “He definitely feels better, I’ll give you that.”

“Sure, but…” Steve begins. “I think his memory is getting better too. He remembers the littlest details about me.”

“Steve.”

“That’s huge, right?” Steve is so awestruck. “Like… I don’t know, Sam. Maybe he’ll get to go home soon.”

She doesn’t respond right away. Her eyes just keep shifting between Steve and Eddie’s door.

“I think I need to show you something.”

That can’t be good. Her tone is very, ‘speak with me after class, young man.’

They quietly walk back into Eddie’s room. Sam motions her head for Steve to approach Eddie’s bedside. Cautiously, Steve does.

She gently pulls back Eddie’s thin blanket, and Steve feels the air vacate his fucking lungs.

Eddie’s arms. There’s tape and IVs and tattoos and scars - all of the usual stuff. 

But then there’s writing. Eddie is covered in black ink, scribbled notes filling in all the gaps of his pale skin. Steve can’t make out most of the words - it’s all messy.

But there’s one word he spots over and over again.

‘Steve.’

It’s all messy, sure. But it’s all about him.

“Holy shit.” Steve whispers, quickly looking towards Sam. “Sorry, didn’t mean to swear.”

“No, that’s an appropriate response.” Of course she’d be cool about him swearing.

Without waking up Eddie, he begins to decipher the notes as best as he can: 

Scrambled eggs. Extra hold hairspray. Hyde or Kathy. Yellow sweater. Khakis on Mondays.

There are notes on things they haven’t talked about as well. Things that Eddie has just observed:

Steve visits Mon-Fri.

Steve laughs at all of your jokes, even the mean ones.

Steve applies chapstick when he’s nervous.

Steve will untangle your wires without making it weird.

The name Steve no longer sounds the same after reading it fifteen times over.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie.” Sam places a hand on Steve’s back. “It’s not that he’s remembering everything again.”

“Oh.”

“He just doesn’t want to forget you.”

No. That can’t be right. That can’t be possible. Of course Eddie knows who Steve is. Of course he does.

Steve finds a shitty excuse to get the hell out of this place. He’s polite about it because Sam is a kindhearted person, but this is so fucking unfair. Every last bit of it, down the last ink stain on Eddie’s nondominant arm.

Max isn’t awake. Eddie still has a skim-milk memory. Nothing has gotten better?

Well that shit ends today. Because whatever detour Steve’s mind discovered tonight, it’s leading him down a fucking freeway of tenacity. He’s fueled by whatever attraction or feelings he’s developing for Eddie. Whether it’s friendship or something more, it really doesn’t matter. Not after tonight.

Steve just cares about Eddie way too much to let his mind rot away like this. He’s too close, too connected to the problem to let it go unsolved forever.

As soon as Steve gets home, he calls Robin.

“Really, dingus?” Robin answers the phone like that. Annoyed and groaning already. “It’s late and I’m neck-deep in a John Hughes marathon.”

“It’s about Eddie.” Steve gets right to it.

“Is he okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh fuck.” She exhales loudly. “How can I help?”

“You’re friends with his bandmates, right?”

“Yeah, kinda. Why?”

Steve flips through the memory log. Locates one of his crucial bullet points:

Eddie can hum the theme songs to all of the shitty soap operas (even on bad days).

“I need you to ask them to make a mixtape of Eddie’s favorite songs.” Steve requests. “And it should be in chronological order. From stuff he liked as a kid, to stuff he’s into now.”

“Okay…” Robin pauses. “And you think this will help?”

“I don’t know.” Which is true, it could be a big waste of time. “But I’ve gotta try something.”

This might be dumb. But music helped them defeat(ish) Vecna. So there’s a possibility it could massage the knots in Eddie’s mind. Relax him enough to remember his life. All of it.

“Oh, and one more thing.” Steve adds before hanging up.

“What?”

Steve hits the accelerator on his freeway of tenacity.

“I need my fucking car back.”

[genericpuff]

welp, this kinda sucks

I'm currently at odds with the PC that I got a couple months ago, it's started freezing and soft-resetting randomly for seemingly no reason. It would usually be after hours of use that I could chalk up to the memory overloading, but now it's happening as soon as I boot up the frigging thing. And just to make it clear how much I've done on my own to diagnose the problem, our attempts to fix it have included the following:

Limiting startup applications

Running virus / malware scans

Swapping out display monitors

Updating the GPU drivers

Setting a lower overclock profile in the BIOS settings

Swapping out power cables and outlets to check for power surges

So far none of these things have worked and if anything, the issue has just gotten worse in the last two days. Like, it can barely make it to the startup screen sometimes, despite the memory and CPU usage being >20%, there is zero reason it would be the PC overclocking itself just from startup.

(and no, it doesn't even compel me, i'm just annoyed to shit LOL)

So I dropped it off with the guy who built it (he runs an electronics / pawn shop downtown that's very reputable and well-known so it's not like I don't trust him or anything, he's been building PC's for people in the area for years) and it's now in his care for the next day or two while he tries to isolate the problem. Right now the only thing I can imagine being the problem is the power supply or my display monitor, which is my old Huion Kamvas 22 Plus that still works as a monitor, just not a drawing tablet - but if something's still fucking around in the tablet, it could be causing problems through the PC, maybe.

When I dropped it off with the guy, he went and set it up in his office and came out and told me that so far it seemed to be running just fine, when he asked me if I was doing anything specific I told him it was crashing even after startup so I gave him permission to overclock the shit out of it, run 53879205893 browser tabs, run my games, software, anything he needed to do to push it to its limits and see if he could replicate the problem.

I am terrified if it has to do with the motherboard, because that will be an expensive replacement that will also potentially lead to losing files / installations / etc. depending on how big an issue it is. It could also potentially be Windows 11 having a hissy fit especially seeing as how it's freezing up on startup, but doesn't freeze on the BIOS screen when it loads up in safe-mode after hard resets, so something is clearly happening between the hard boot-up and the startup of Windows 11 itself.

Thankfully I do have Google Drive sync support and plenty of external HDD's that I can back my stuff up to, but with the freezing and restarting getting as bad as it's been, I haven't been able to back anything up, and I don't want to risk doing it manually if it'll just freeze and potentially corrupt my files in the process. So I told the guy to call me if he needed to mess with anything concerning the system storage so that, if he could at least keep it running stable in the shop, then I could swing by and get everything I needed synced up safely before he messes around with anything.

It could also very well have something to do with the power supply itself, the house that I occupy the main floor of isn't exactly built with electric optimization in mind, we've had fuses blow on us before just from running the hair dryer at the same time as the TV, so if it's something to do with the PC drawing too much power for the electrical system here to keep up with, either (hopefully) the guy will be able to instruct me on how to lower and manage that power intake through the PC's BIOS (I believe you can but I'm still a massive noob on custom builds and I don't want to go tinkering with it myself) or, idk, maybe I'll have to get my landlord to drop by again with his electrician and check out the fuses to make sure they're all operating properly. I'm not an electrician either, so fuck if I know at this point what could be going on. I feel like it can't be the house itself because everything else is running fine and it's just become a recent issue, but our city's power grid is also not exactly praised for being good at its job, especially not in the winter.

So yeah, I'm a little - well, a lot - stressed right now, but all I can really do at this point is wait. Fortunately, I have my iPad and also remembered that I still have my old PC, so I've hooked it up, at best if the problem repeats itself on this PC then I'll know it has to do with the display monitor, at worst I'll just be stuck working with my clunky old hardware for a couple days, which is annoying, but it'll get the job done. Fortunately I had the newest episode of Rekindled uploaded to the cloud in Clip Studio so I can still download it and work on it, which was my biggest worry when everything started to go belly-up (next to just, like, having a working PC).

Sooooo yeah. It's annoying, but I'm hoping for the best. Send good vibes y'all, I really could use it rn, between this and slow traffic at work and some other personal shit that's been going on, it's been a shitty few days (╥﹏╥)

And yeah, I'll keep y'all updated on if it affects this week's update, it really shouldn't honestly as most of the work left is doable from both my iPad and PC, but obviously at this point anything can happen so if anything has to be postponed or changed to accommodate the current situation, I'll update y'all as soon as I can! Thanks everyone, y'all are the best, wish me luck <3

[coraniaid]

You said a few days ago that you would have liked if season 7 went more in the direction of Help rather than the direction of the First. I know you're not a big fan of the First but I was wondering what you meant by that specifically, and what kind of direction you might have preferred season 7 go in overall?

I don’t have any good reason to think it actually happened, but I always get the impression from watching or thinking about Season 7 that the early plans for the season changed pretty significantly at some point after most of the first few episodes had already been written.  (Perhaps when they decided that it would also be the last season?  I’ve heard conflicting accounts of when that decision was made.)

If you go back and look at the then-contemporary discussions of the show, the whole season was initially marketed as something of a ‘year zero’: a return to the show’s high school era roots, to something much more upbeat than Season 6, to the original Scooby Gang as the focus of the show.  

And just to be clear, I rather like Season 6 – it doesn’t always work, and I think some of the subplots are pretty dreadfully executed, and sometimes I respect the episodes more than I enjoy watching them – but it inarguably has a clear vision for the story it’s trying to tell, one that builds on and recontextualizes what came before it.  But for the payoff for that season to land, we needed Season 7 to be different.  To be less cynical, more hopeful.  It needed to show us that Buffy was right to promise Dawn in Grave that things were going to get better.  

And that sort of reset is what we got … for about half a dozen episodes.  Then, of course, it goes rather horribly wrong.

I like Help in particular because it is, for me, the closest the show ever gets to delivering on that promise of a return to the high school era.  It’s not quite a regression or a soft reboot: Buffy is still an adult with a job, even if she’s suddenly unexpectedly back in high school.  Her more mundane responsibilities haven’t suddenly gone away. But now the job she has isn’t something she hates but has to do – it’s something that she actually has a calling for, almost literally, something that harks back to her getting the Class Protector award back in Season 3.   In Help Buffy’s inhabiting the same world she did in the first three seasons, she’s still trying to save people, but this time with a new, more experienced perspective. 

The episode feels very aware of the show’s history, too.  There are nods to Lie To Me (a teenager Buffy knows is going to die because of illness, not anything supernatural Buffy can stop) and Reptile Boy (the cult trying to sacrifice a teenage girl to a demon for material riches) and Beauty and the Beasts (with Buffy herself taking on the role of Mr Platt, worried that Mike is going to turn out to be another Pete), and of course the whole episode is a callback to Prophecy Girl.  Because Cassie – probably the show’s last great one-episode character (and yes, the actor comes back later but the person doesn’t) – isn’t just somebody Buffy is trying to save, she is Buffy: a Season 1 Buffy who struggles to make friends and has a supernatural gift she doesn’t like to talk about and knows she’s going to die heartbreakingly young.  I don’t think it’s merely chance that Cassie’s big speech to Buffy about her destiny (“You think I want this?  You think I don’t care?”) echoes Buffy’s own words to her mother in Becoming either (“You think I choose to be like this?”).

Plus, while the episode ties into the wider story arc – with Spike in the basement and hints that Principal Wood might be up to something and our first appearance of future Potential Amanda – the whole thing still tells a coherent, self-contained story.  It stands on its own right; it makes sense on its own terms.  it’s not just another installment in the long running saga of General Buffy and the friends she never talks to who later kick her out of the house she owns.

And I think there was a lot more ground there to explore, in the same vein as Help.  At least a full season’s worth.  There was so much more the show could have tried to do in terms of going back and revisiting some of the classic moments of the first three seasons from a more mature and more grown-up perspective, instead of summarily kicking Buffy out of her new job and then blowing the school up (again).  If this season is about the future – about new Slayers being called, one way or another – then what does that mean?  How else are Buffy and Willow and Xander engaged in the challenge of trying to pass on what they’ve learned about life on the Hellmouth to a new generation?  

At its best, Buffy has always been in conversation with its past, building on ideas that were touched on in one season and asking the audience to think about them again from a different angle.  And the beginning of Season 7 sets up the perfect stage to try to do more of that.

I’d have loved to have seen a whole season of Buffy trying to keep her students alive while also preparing them to go out and live in the world.  Of Dawn making new friends and finding value in being herself, not just the Slayer’s sister or the mystical Key.  Of Buffy and Willow and Xander really getting to know each other again, and having a chance to talk about everything that happened to them last year.  A whole season of, in a way, seeing the show from the very beginning, but this time from the perspective of people like Giles or Jenny or Joyce.

But instead we got a lot of boring wank about an impossibly old super-god who can’t actually touch anything (but one who Buffy would definitely let Dawn die to defeat because this godlike being is so much more impressive and scary than Glory, trust us guys, please, we swear) and her army of interchangeable and personality-free super vampires (and of course Caleb, who’s somehow even more mind-numbingly boring than they are).  Instead we get a second half of the season in which Andrew Wells has more screen time than Willow or Xander or Anya or Giles or Dawn.  Instead we get to wonder whether Giles is the First and try to pretend to care that Spike has been hypnotized.  Instead we get Lies My Parents Told Me.

Oh well.  At least Faith shows up near the end.

[princess-of-the-corner]

I forget if I ever mentioned The Batman's Clock King to you (Saw your TAS Clock King reblog) but I adore The Batman's version.

Literally just a regular guy with a new born son and a household strapped for cash. His attempt to steal something to keep them afloat leads to a daisy chain reaction that sees a lot of people hurt so the court throws the book at him for what otherwise would have been petty theft.

He's good at fixing clocks due to it being a hobby, so prisoners & guards keep having him do it cos its free. But constantly being surrounded by clocks steadily causes him to suffer sanity erosion as he languishes in all the time he's losing. The ticking becomes to deafening and all consuming all he can think to do is scream.

STOP

& it does, for just a moment.

He has such a close bond with time by the time he gets out he can reverse time by about 5 seconds, but that is as far as he could go. With his wife having had to leave him, his son now basically an adult and not knowing him and no prospects he sets out for revenge.

IE, he plans to basically blow up a huge chunk of Gotham, they stole his life, so he will steal theirs. Fighting Batman is just like, something that has to happen when the caped crusader shows up to stop him stealing the tools he needs to build his mega bomb.

What's fun, even outside all the drama and clock stuff, is that he's otherwise a literally hilarious villain. He doesn't have a suit or a gimmick, he's just a regularly dressed guy in pants, shirt and jacket. He also makes it a point to rewind time so he can deliver effective banter that doesn't make him sound dorky & sometimes steals people's insults.

IE in the opening he steals something and trips, the security guard says "Nice job captain kluts" so he rewinds time and trips the guard on it instead, and returns the favor before bailing.

This also allows for a lot f comedic screw ups like trying to spring a trap by dropping tons of barrels on Batman only to hit the wrong button, "Typical" he sighs.

This minor time rewinds also lets him beat Batman, Robin & Batgirl, simply cos he can keep replaying till he knows exactly what they'll do before they do.

Though a weakness I stole for my Snake Miraculous, is that if he does this enough times others start getting a sense of dejavu, only a little but it an help.

What's extra interesting is that he actually 'wins' in the sense that even that dejavu thing isn't enough for Bruce to think he can be assured victory. So he sends Batgirl to get the guys son, which means his kid is at ground zero of the poison when it goes off and starts killing everyone in Gotham.

Cue him freaking out and resetting time back tot he moment he tried to steal the watch and not doing so. Then smash cut to like 18 years latter and he and his son are clock repair guys and it ends on a happy note.

Dunno, he's just a great villain and fun character; plus the premise feels like it could be its own original movie. Plus I do lie the dejavu weakness, its just subtle enough that it wouldn't help most people, but just enough of an Achilles heel that it means time rewinding doesn't mean auto win.

that's cool actually

[pinksbrickwall]

Flowey's Final Message: Undertale's Perfect Ending

One of the best things any piece of media can do, in my opinion, is leave a lasting impression. A lot of my favorite games/movies/albums are those which, upon finishing, impel me to lay down for a while so as to process exactly what it was I just experienced. And it's so poetic that, for all its bombastic characters, fun humor, and wonderfully absurd melodrama, the moment in Undertale which stuck with me the most involved nothing but a still white sprite juxtaposed against a black screen.

Flowey's final speech is just about the most devastating final note Undertale could possibly have ended with. Upon first completing the game and falling in love with the characters and the world, there was a certain melancholy upon seeing the game finally wrap things up with an elegant bow, complete with a montage of the characters I had helped and befriended living happy lives on the surface, their respective journeys having been completed. But even despite this melancholy, I was contented by the fact that, like with every other game, I could go back and re-experience these characters' journeys any time I wished.

Only for the game, in its final moments, to shatter any sense of security I may have had with a final, desperate plea: to let these characters I had helped throughout the game live their lives in peace, to leave the game behind without ever looking back.

And herein lies the central theme of Undertale: moving on. This final moment with Flowey is perhaps the greatest final test the game could have presented to the player--not a battle or puzzle, but a moral dilemma. You've spent the beginning and ending of the game helping characters to move on from their unhealthy obsessions, Toriel and Asriel both having to let you go by the end of their respective battles. Now, in the game's final moments, you must learn to do the same thing.

No other game has ever scrambled my brain like this, exploring the inherent selfishness in resetting the progress of the characters whose lives you had claimed to value, re-experiencing their journeys like puppets strung by marionettes. So much weight is put on a mechanic which I had completely taken for granted otherwise. Would the act of resetting everything back to zero inherently cheapen your relationship with these characters? Are you able to immerse yourself so deeply into this fictional world that you're willing to never return to it again if it would mean allowing its characters to live happily? In the end, as the game so eloquently posits, the choice is up to you.

[silverbirching]

So I'm big mad, BIG MAD, about umbrella academy. I'm going to be purposefully vague but there may be spoilers. If you haven't watched season four, DON'T. Just don't. Pretend it got canceled after the flawed and aimless but still overall fun season 3. Grr, netflix, another great show canceled before its time, shake fists, etc.

You gotta understand, for all it's flaws, I love the shit out of this show. It's one of the foundational connections between me and my best friend. I felt like it saw the shortcomings of the MCU and the modern superhero wave and saw what the fandom was up to and went yeah, let's make a show for them. Let's make a show about messy, queer, codependent weirdos with wildly dysfunctional relationships built on an unshakeable foundation of love they refuse to acknowledge or cultivate. Let's make a show about hopeless traumatized trash goblins who happen to have superpowers.

I thought they got it, y'know? That the people who watched and loved the show weren't doing it because they were invested in the frankly bonkers and never-very-good plot about timelines and time travel and all that other bullshit fuckery. I thought they understood that what we loved, what kept us coming back, was the humor, the quirky tone, and the characters.

Luther the world's biggest puppy, learning that he isn't Superman and that's okay. Diego, never quite figuring out that he isn't Batman (because Batman is, y'know, smart) and that also being okay. Allison and her constant struggles to be a good person up against the fact that she has cheat codes enabled and can have literally anything she wants, at the cost of the free will of everyone around her. Klaus and his struggles with addiction and narcissism, dear sweet Ben and Alternate Universe Asshole Ben, Five the unbearable little shit who nonetheless loves his family in a way he wouldn't admit to under torture, Viktor and his journey to define what he is apart from his father and feelings of inadequacy. Prickly, at-least-30%-insane Lila learning to accept a family she wasn't looking for.

AND BOY HOWDY, DID SEASON FOUR FUCK IT ALL UP.

Character relationships? Reset to zero or not really touched on. Allison's slide into villainy after season 3? Treated as an awkward family in-joke. Her broken relationship with Viktor? Still broken, not fixed, but at one point they make eye contact and kinda smile so I guess that's our catharsis. Diego and Five come into conflict? Never resolved. The show ends with them hating each other. Lila and Diego? Same. Ray? Naw, who's got time for that. Sloane? Who? Oh, that chick. I think Luther mentions her once but who cares. Klaus? We don't really care about him so let's give him a three episode subplot that erases all his character growth and contributes fuck-all diddly squat motherfucking nothing to the overall plot. Ben? Still an asshole despite the time skip. Viktor? He's around I guess. He yells at his dad once. That was cool.

And nothing they did ever mattered, they never mattered, and now thanks to the bullshit timeline fuckery equivalent of "it was all a dream" (an INFAMOUSLY unpopular and audience-alienating way to end a story), they never existed. We were all stupid to care.

Man, fuck a lot of season 4.

[aotopmha]

Being too exhausted to play has made me think about the Dawntrail story again.

I wanted to take a break, but it occupies my brain too much, turns out and I engaged with takes on the internet again.

(Some of it is really dumb and a negativity void with zero substance, which is, in fact, unfun and exhausting, as it is designed to be, so it probably is better to not engage with, but I also do very much enjoy discussing what I love and it offers fantastic springboards for that.)

Spoilers for the Dawntrail story!

You know the complaint that it's "not as good as Shadowbringers or Endwalker"?

Well, I think a lot of people have actually echoed this, but I really like that Dawntrail is not trying to one-up them.

It's really good that it's not only pulling back the scale, but also lightening up the tone.

In particular, there was a complaint I saw that said HW, ShB and EW were these "deep and dark" stories and had issues with DT not being that kind of narrative and I think a story being Endwalker all of the time would become boring in its own right.

If all you see is positivity, eventually it means nothing, but this is also true in the opposite sense.

If all you see is misery all of the time, at one point, it doesn't mean anything anymore.

Eventhough I myself mostly enjoyed it, I can see the argument that it went too far in the other direction and handled some ideas too simplistically, but I think the general idea to do this is a really good, refreshing move.

It's similar thematically (which is actually my biggest issue), but I really like that it mostly focused on new stories with new characters.

I also like that the Scions are taking a backseat.

I saw an opinion that "you can't have your cake and eat it, too" in regards of the Scions being minor roles and you should either write them out completely or entirely focus the story on them, but personally I don't see any issue with this.

They were set up to be support and behaved as such. I don't understand the take that they were "teased" too much when the setup was that it was not their story to begin with.

Now, I do think the friendly rivalry aspect was underutilised. I feel like getting to fight Thancred and Urianger in good fun would've been great, for example.

I love the vibe of adventure we haven't really had for such a long time, and I really think the mystery of the City of Gold might be one of the best ones in the entire narrative because many of the mysteries so far at least have some aspect of retconning to them.

The gate and everything with it is entirely new and didn't need any retconning to fit within the current concepts of the story, whereas you could always tell they had to slightly tweak everything with the Ascians once in a while.

I think the fact that most of the characters that people do like from this expansion are entirely new or characters we knew fairly little about before Dawntrail says it all.

People actually do want new stuff. I think the mostly positive response towards the actual gameplay content says this, too.

So I hope they don't give up on what they've built here despite some of the really loud negative voices.

Don't start trying to do Endwalker or Shadowbringers again before building a new bigger picture.

We've talked about legacy and memory and loss a bunch of times already; evolve from this and do something *entirely* new with new characters and ALSO entirely new theming.

Don't give up on making content just a little more engaging.

That's my worry in light of these very loud complaints.

And the thing is, during the Endwalker patch cycle and even before, these are things so many people wanted.

People wanted a break from the Scions. People wanted the story to reset and relax after Endwalker because it had been within that dark tone for so long.

People wanted us to go back to being an adventurer.

People were tired of the increasingly same-y encounter design (and lack of stuff to do during patch downtime, which you can also see improved in terms of certain rewards; thing is what I've seen is people loving the new content so much they just like playing it and I feel the same way, so it isn't always even more grinds or rewards people actually want).

And that's exactly what they gave us.

Again, I don't know the overlap between audience groups here, but in terms of sentiment, that's the craziest part to me.

They kind of gave us exactly what we asked for.

And I really hope they stick to their guns and get braver from here because new is fun and even if it doesn't always succeed, you can look at what people like and don't like and go from there in a more nuanced way, rather than leaning on overcorrective decisions as they have in terms of certain aspects of the game. It just stops the game from stagnating and getting boring in all aspects.

[captain-mj]

In honour of spooky month I have a horror prompt

Soap/ghost trapped in a time-loop by a malicious entity (super angsty) until they learn they can either annoy or scare said entity enough to stop fucking with them because I can’t read horror without a happy ending

If your stuck with something forever chance is your gonna find someway to piss it off

Thank you have a great day

God I hope I finish this by Halloween

Ghost woke up on October 30th again. He sighed and sat up, body aching from the way he just died.

His body had clipped through the floor and been shredded. Shockingly, it didn’t hurt that much, just tickled. But he still died and despite the reset in time, his body hadn’t quite caught up.

Ghost ignored the recruit that knocked on his door. He could recite the little speech that she gives him down to her cadence.

“Sir, there are reports of someone stealing-“

“Everyone's Left shoe. I know. Its Sergeant Daves. Check his locker." The recruit stopped in her tracks and nodded. “Uh, thank you sir.."

Ghost had spent about 60 days finding that out. It was very annoying because no matter how much evidence he got at the end of the day, he'd die in some strange eldritch way and then be right back at the beginning. Eventually, he figured out who it was. For the first few days afterward, he went through the motions of finding evidence but so far, there were no consequences he could see from just... telling her and making her leave.

He brushed her off and went looking for Soap.

His breath of fresh air.

Even if he was still bitching about working Christmas.

“Do you know how mad my Mam is??” Soap moved his hands a lot as he talked.

Ghost hated this next part. “Johnny.” He waited for the movement of his hands to go away. “We’re in a time loop and I have proof.”

Soap stared at him. "Nae. Can't be in a time loop or you'd give me the passcode."

"That's the thing you fucking muppet. You refuse to give me the passcode. If you'd give me the passcode, just for once, I could tell you it the next time I wake up."

"Why haven't you tortured it out of me?"

Ghost huffed. "The one time I do that is the day my loop breaks."

He had actually tried. He had ripped off one of Soap's fingernails and immediately stopped. Then, he tried to torture Gaz to get Soap to admit it. Same situation. Despite knowing this would have zero lasting effects, Ghost even planned to kill himself right as he got the passcode, he just... couldn't bring himself to hurt them.

He had been tempted to try again with Price, but he knew he wouldn't be able to do that either.

"Well, I'm not giving it to you. I'd only give it to you if we were in a time loop."

"This is a paradox. You see that right."

Soap shrugged and smiled at him. This is what Ghost hated. That Soap never believed him.

"One day, I hope I get the right words for you to believe me." Ghost said softly. So terribly sad. He stood up and got out his gun. Soldiers were immediately alert, but not frightened. While it was unusual for a soldier to whip out a pistol during breakfast, this was Ghost and well... his behavior was usually excused.

Soap frowned. "What are you doing??"

"Right door." Ghost shot the thing that came in. It looked like a dog. Not quite, but close. If he had to describe it in a coherent way, it would be a dog's skin that was stuffed with too little meat.

Soap grabbed his own gun, never went anywhere without it, and held it up. "How did yo-"

"Time loop." Ghost answered. "Don't go and investigate."

"Why?"

"Just watch."

Soap didn't go because Ghost told him not to, but he was clearly unhappy about it. He lingered where he was, the urge to move and figure it out and save the day, while all normally admirable traits, were now causing a power struggle in his silly little brain.

Ghost had went through this day enough to know that Soap would not go. He'd stay. Maybe if more time got to pass, he'd disobey Ghost. Soap was always loyal, but obedient was never a good descriptor for him.

But right as someone poked the dog with his foot, it broke. The skin broke into fractals, letting something ooze out of it that melted through the floor.

Poor guy that poked it managed to get his boot off in time, but Ghost knew that despite Soap's distaste for dogs, he wouldn't be so callous as to kick it. He would use his hands and lose his hand. He'd know because it happened three times already. One time, due to either how Ghost worded it or how he shot it, he couldn't be sure, it killed Soap.

Ghost was quick to blow his own brains out and reset the day. He didn't even want to risk a world where Soap didn't make it out of this.

Ghost tried not to think about how easy dying had become. Most of the time, it was simply to reset things. Sometimes though, he did it because after this point, things just get worse.

For days 6-10, a little bit before he stopped counting, he didn't bother to leave bed. He died by being mauled, drowning, a fire that broke out and Sergeant Daves breaking in and shooting him for ratting him out for hoarding left shoes.

Fucking freak.

He also died in ways he didn't think possible. Like no clipping through the floor, being sent to space, freezing to death on a regular day and melting.

All of these were punishments for doing certain things. Ghost had figured out the rules and tried to follow them as not following them seemed to irritate it. And also, he did not want to get melted again.

One, he could not kill the girl in the beginning. Torture was fine, he tortured her for information about the time loop. He tortured Sergeant Daves too. He specifically could not kill her.

Two, he could only talk about this to Soap, Gaz and Price. Mostly because none of them believed him. At least, that was his theory. Strangers meant instant death. It was the few breaks in the pattern he could find.

Three, trying to sleep past 4 pm. He tried to sleep the remainder of the day away and that's when he got shot into space.

Ghost sighed. "Soap, I love you."

"What??"

Ghost left the cafeteria. Soap would be too shocked to follow him for about 8 seconds, which gave him just enough time to escape. He made his way to the gun store to grab his sniper and then up on to the roof.

Things would move like clockwork. More of those dogs. If he wasn't fast enough, Gaz would be killed in the center of the training field. To do so, he'd have to shoot a recruit in the leg and let the dogs get to him first. Around 3 pm, Gaz would scream at him for it, but it was the only way Ghost had found for Gaz to survive until 3 pm.

Then, Ghost would have to go to Price's room an-

While thinking over his plan, Ghost made one of the dumbest mistakes a sniper could. Stop focusing on his target.

There goes Gaz.

Fucking hell. Ghost groaned and hit his head hard onto the floor. For a moment, he considered bashing his brains out instead of shooting himself.

Then, he got a funny idea. He sat up and found her among the rushing recruits. Ghost took aim and fired, watching her die. The girl from the beginning.

Ghost felt himself combust. The fire burned so fast he didn't feel any pain.

He woke up.

Ugh.

His mouth still tasted like smoke and flames.

Ghost rolled out of bed and groaned.

A knock at the door.

"IT'S FUCKING SERGEANT DAVES."

"Uh. Okay, sir. Thank you?"

"Get fucked and tell Soap to come here."

"Okay?" She left to do as she was told.

Soap walked, looking concerned. "Ghost. Why are you on the floor?"

Ghost slammed his head hard enough back into the wooden floor it made a cracking noise. Soap cringed and quickly grabbed him by his shirt and forced him to sit up.

"I'm in a time loop I can't escape from. This is so fucking annoying." Ghost groaned and grabbed Soap, squeezing him like a teddy bear for stress relief. "I just want it to end. I can't believe I'm going to say this. I want it to be fucking tomorrow." He bit Soap shoulder before screaming his frustration out.

"Calm down, Lt, calm down." Soap writhed in his arms.

"Never going to get out."

Soap frowned. "Is this your first time telling me?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. How long have you been in here?"

"I don't know." Ghost groaned and squeezed harder.

Soap nodded. "So you haven't gotten a chance to get my passcode?"

That was it?? He just had to seem more pathetic and sad??

“I haven’t. Can you give it to me?”

“My passcode is 4497.”

Ghost squeezed him tighter. “Thank you thank you.”

The room span So fast they slammed into the wall, almost obliterating them.

Ghost woke up and screamed into his pillows again.

His body ached a lot from that one but… it sparked an idea.

Ghost grabbed his knife from under his pillow and went outside. He stabbed the girl over and over again.

The moon slammed into Earth, killing him instantly.

Ghost went to the mess hall and stood up in front of everyone. “I’m stuck in a time loop and I bloody hate all of you.”

He was teleported to Saturn.

Ghost shot the girl, set the base on fire with everyone inside and told Soap the pass code over and over again so he’d know what was going on. He carried Soap around when he fought him and he killed himself and everyone else so many times.

The girl didn’t knock this morning.

Considering he was in the base after blowing it up, he knew the day reset, so this made no sense. Quietly, he came out, gun in hand. He started to walk around the base, surprised by the quiet.

This was new. A way to stop him from breaking the rules? Maybe?

Ghost went to bed at exactly 4 pm and he was speared through his chest.

The girl knocked again. When he opened it, she was pissed.

“You are so Fucking unfun. What the fuck is wrong with you??”

“Kill yourself.”

“Motherfucker.” She shoved him. “You suck.”

Ghost shrugged. “Gonna kill Me again?”

“Yes.”

He slid through the floor and died again.

Ghost woke up and groaned. “Ow. Ow. Ow.” His whole body hurt. Every one of his deaths had caught up to him.

A knock at his door.

“Fucking hell.” He threw open his door. “Soap?”

“Hey Lt! Happy Halloween, sir.” He was in a zombie costume. “You okay?”

“Oh. It’s Halloween?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you remember anything from yesterday?”

“No.”

“Thank god. I love you.”

“Huh??”

[larks-birdhouse]

GENLOSS FOUNDERS CUT THOUGHTS

i want to make it so so clear i don’t want to dunk on genloss. this is my braindump and i LOVED genloss. please support young creators as they grow and improve i beg of thee

im putting this under a cut because i expect it to be long 😭

❤️ - negative

💚 - positive

💙 - neutral

💚 once again reminded how much ranboo’s acting has improved since dsmp <3

💚 AND a fantastic reminder of how great the other actors are!!!! all the deaths still hurt and the security officers did SO SO GOOD

💚 i love that hetch is more evil now. hurts even more watching hetch manipulate ran even harder up to his death

💚 ranboo has survivor’s guilt :’[ god him slowly accepting it was his fault (even though it WASNT) broke me

💚❤️ i think redubbing certain parts makes sense, but for some reason it was just really obvious during niki’s intro?? it felt so jarring

💙 ngl i paused the premiere to catch the qr code. in my defence i was about half an hour behind already :’]

❤️ GOD i wish we saw more of the carousel folks. so much time spent on setting up mousetrap, so little on them. is that in of itself a commentary? genuine question i do not know

❤️ also i am so sad we didn’t see more of austin’s “hey what the fuck is happening.” there was plenty of it but i want MORE

❤️💙 and i wish there was a little more time on ethan’s fashion show simply because it is funny

💚 the play on words with austin being the straight man is still fantastic

💚 someone else pointed this out (i’m not sure who i saw it from first but i’ll find them) but hetch near exclusively calling ranboo “hero” is such a good detail. not their name, but their character

💙 i forgot about the charlie stream! but honestly i would fully believe that is something charlie would just Do

❤️ I WANT MORE SNEEGGGGGG WHERE WAS HE

💚 the ART!! the DESIGNS of the devices!! adds so much to the story and i’m so glad they were shared. such fantastic art too!!

❤️ the create-a-creature kinda came out of nowhere, i was so confused and i wish there was a bit more buildup

💙 about hetch saying they aren’t themselves anymore: how many times can the actors get tortured and brainwashed before they stop being themselves? how much of them can be taken and replaced before it stops being them? (theseus’s ranboo)

💚 I LOVED THE SQUIGGLES ANIMATIONS!!!! SO GOOD I NEED TO FIND MORE OF THE CREATOR’S WORK

❤️ i might have missed it so correct me if i’m wrong but i don’t think we had the wide shot of the hero-kill-inator or whatever and i WISH we did because it goes so hard

💚 in terms of ending changes, i loved both endings!! both so good for different reasons, and the “thank you” KILLS ME IM SO SORRY BOO I HOPE YOU CAN JOIN YOUR FRIENDS IN THE CANON AFTERLIFE

💙 actually only hell is canon. maybe heaven just Doesn’t Exist. only suffering

💚❤️ at some points i thought the gore was great and at some points i wanted MORE. all the blood seeping out from under the doors, the room they haven’t “reset” yet, the guts instead of food were all great. but i wanted more of surgery charlie’s suffering to contrast the absurdity and just generally more carnage

❤️ i also wish there was more audio gore with austin & sneeg’s deaths. the wall just kind of Stops with no indication of them being crushed and its not apparently obvious that they died

💚 gen zero preview!!! i’m so excited, wondering who will be brought in for that one

💚 hearing the echos of “just let me die” in the beginning was haunting, fantastic stuff loved it

💚 HOW DID I FORGET THE PHOTOS THAT WAS SO GOOD ARE THOSE REAL BABY RANBOO PHOTOS?? INCREDIBLE

💚 overall i quite enjoyed the founder’s cut! can’t wait to see what comes next and i’m so proud of ranboo!!

💙 what is it with media about content creator self inserts that suffer immensely with little to no comfort that draws me in so? why has this happened so many times??