#fill in the gaps and get to the end

[theloveinc]

caitie!!! may i ask abt timeskip kats 🥹🥹

Sel🥺 my sweet angel 🥺 my blueberry pancake with chocolate drizzle 🥺 my root beer float 🥺 yes, anything, and thank you!!!!

MY TIMESKIP KATS........ Let's see... this........... LMFAO is ancient. Not super ancient, as in...... I've written most of it within the last few months, but ancient as in I originally started it in.......... 2022? Maybe? and ended up shelving it because I got some heat for talking about some major age gap DC I wanted to write and then had this grouped in with it.

It's really as simple as it sounds, I can't lie. A quirk sends Bakugo from the future back to a younger/current you!!!!!!!!!!! And it turns out, as he reveals, that you're married (even if you barely even know him, currently)!!!!!! And yes....... that means you have to fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!😱😱😱

But honestly what's most interesting about it, is... I think it's going to be the longest smut piece I've ever written AND the best smut I've ever written, as adding to it feels like sewing some very intricate embroidery. So not only am I'm very impressed by my writing of it (hence why it's taking me so long).... I'm also just genuinely excited to keep working on it.

Here's your snip:

[the-sunlit-earth]

a lot of clipping to fix, but hey I got it moving at least! I'll get the Telvanni robe properly physic'd if it's the last thing I do >:0

[justaz]

merthur reincarnation au, merlin is constantly roaming the earth and running into various reincarnations of arthur’s soul. neither know but there is always this draw between them. they’ve met in many different lives with many different dynamics. when do they realize/remember? when arthur’s body is mortally wounded.

in one life they met on the battlefield, leaders of the opposing armies. they often ended up fighting each other and they grew to respect the others tactics and plans. despite being enemies, the level of shared respect grew to an odd fondness. merlin’s rival in his own army grew tired of watching merlin dance with the enemies leader and decided to step in and put an end to it. they attacked arthur from behind and left him for dead. merlin, who saw the whole thing but was too far away to do anything about it, rushed over to be by arthur’s side as he died. arthur took off his helm then and merlin was faced with a man who looked eerily similar to the man who had died just a couple of centuries ago. arthur’s memories began to rush back and he bled out and merlin Knew when arthur stared up at him the same way he had the first time he died. merlin was unable to save him then too.

in another life, merlin had taken to simply roaming, no settling down and no roots. he was homeless and napping on a bench outside a cafe. a woman came out with a bag of perfectly fine baked goods that she was supposed to throw out (dictated by corporate) and she instead brought them over to merlin and set them down by him. merlin woke at the sound of the crinkling bag and met her gaze. it became routine after they closed, she would bring merlin the goods from the day. merlin eventually began to come in and sit at the tables inside every once in a while and talk with her when it was slow. one night, merlin was late to his bench and when he got there the lights were still on and the door was unlocked but he couldn’t see the nice girl who always gave him food. he shuffled in and found her bleeding out from gunshots behind the counter where the cash register had been emptied out. merlin was there for her final breaths and she joked how he could definitely do better than living on the streets. merlin realized who she was as the light left her eyes.

in another life, they were corporate rivals. another they were best friends for five years. another they were pirates and merlin ended up delivering the final blow. another they explored the stars together. etc, etc.

merlin losing him again and again after just finding him. arthur remembering everything right before he dies. a horrible cycle that seems never ending. merlin is forced to live thru the deception arthur suffered over and over again - finding out just who he has known for years is someone else entirely but not having the time to revel in it. arthur suffers the other end of their twisted dynamic of never being able to express his true self until the end wherein death is imminent. the cycle continues for millennia.

eventually, like all things, humans destroy what they had whether it be nuclear war or climate change or what have you, the earth reclaims itself and sends humankind back into their caves. everything there once was is gone and now left with nothing, humans return to their roots. magic flourishes and spreads as new civilizations begin to establish themselves. merlin, oddly enough, hasn’t run into an arthur reincarnation in centuries. not until he ventures into a village and finds a young man toiling in the fields. he dons a face merlin hasn’t seen in millennia. when he looks up and catches merlin’s eye, he smiles wide and calls out for him.

he remembers

[raycatz]

I'm not including a situation where someone might be injured because in that case I'm thinking the bed goes to them by default or they are nominated for it. anyone who wants to be chatty goes to join the living room floor gang.

What are your thoughts and headcanons? Do you have thoughts on how the boys tend to approach assigning beds in inns? Who do the chain choose to sleep near when camping and why? What are their dynamics like when settling down for the night and getting ready for the day?

In "Mirror Vs Open Closet Door: Fight!" by Gintrinsic (here) Four refers to the chain's decision on how to split up between inn rooms as the "Link-per-room ratio" which I find very funny. He, Sky, and Time also talk about their thought process behind why they do or don't want to sleep in a room with some of the others which I find fun and interesting.

So! If you have thoughts and want to share them! *gestures to the post!*

[kayzero]

hello, fellow zero escape fans, i need your help with something

i’m trying to explore the world of vlr, an Earth ravaged by Radical-6, and how such a world might change Sigma Klim so drastically from pervy unserious college kid to one of the greatest omnidisciplinary scientists that has ever or will ever exist

but i don’t know everything, or even a lot of things, so i don’t know what topics to explore. but i am Very Good at rationalizing things i know very little about.

this is where you come in. please send me comments, reblogs, DMs, and asks with topics to write about from the POV of Sigma Klim. anything will do as long as it relates to the VLR timeline in some way, but more specifically i’m looking for things that fit in these three categories:

What Went Wrong (micro, local events, reports from crash keys. e.g. perception of free the soul cult rallies from ‘crazy rambling asshole’ to ‘prophetic messiah’)

What Changed (macro, global events, e.g. antimatter bombs and rhizome construction)

What Sigma Learned (science stuff of all sizes, as minor as clockwork as dexterity exercises or as major as robotic prosthesis)

[sisaloofafump]

Don’t mind me, I’m just crying over the fact that Superman vs. Meshi ended…

[bueris]

okay maybe I should seriously reconsider my path in life and sell my soul to marketing or journalism instead

[sysig]

hhhhh oh my goodness, your art is so cute and soft- And I love your theories and rambles in the tags, it’s fun to read! Have a nice day! 💙

Thanks so much! 💕 Wishing you a nice day as well!

[drinkingdeadpeopletea]

Title: "but hope's not always a course of action, is it?" Fandom: Midst (Podcast) Categories: G, M/M, No Archive Warnings Apply, Complete Word Count: 4061 Characters: Sherman Guthrie, Hieronymus Loxlee | Harry

Of all the people Sherman Guthrie might have expected to walk into the hotel room that's become his prison cell, the ex-boyfriend he hasn't seen in over ten years was pretty near the bottom of the list. He especially wasn’t expecting the new name or the astronomical amount of Valor. Still, it might be the first lucky break Sherman's had all week. And it is sort of nice to see him again.

(I could NOT get the missing scene from the end of s2e7 where Harry just walked in to talk to Sherman out of my head. so i wrote it <3)

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

Look, I love the Castlevania series and the Netflix adaptation made 3 great seasons ("Um there are 4 seasons" LIKE I SAID, 3 GREAT SEASONS), but we have got to talk about how disappointing it is that the main trio never met or even knew the existence of Hector and Isaac - or honestly, that entire half of the plot. I will forever find it weird that the show set up two related but never intersecting plot threads (and arguably a third, go figure during the worst season).

It's sweet and empowering that both of them found their own ways to live before and after Dracula's death, with Isaac being a total badass and even progressing to a better person despite seeing how unfair, cruel, and rude the world is - to the point that he defeats Carmilla not JUST because she was partly responsible for Dracula's death but because he actually wanted to make the world a better place. But even though Isaac could arguably be founding an entire empire and generation of peace, he and Hector don't even seem to know about Alucard's existence or contributions, let alone Trevor and Sypha.

We can debate Hector and Lenore's fucked up relationship all day, but in the end the two of them DID end up bonding through all the lies and deceit. They were able to actually talk to one another and have the other listen; in the end, both of them were just born in different worlds on different sides. Lenore genuinely seemed to want to settle things peacefully, but she got left behind in a world that valued only overwhelming strength; she decides she can't live as a prisoner even though Hector was no doubt stronger than her for enduring his own imprisonment and subjugation, but I think Lenore was already on her way to losing herself. Despite what she did to Hector, she wanted to at least believe she understood him; even though she was a sympathetic vampire, she still believed knowing enough to control someone was the only way they could be friends - so when it turns out Hector was plotting the downfall of Carmilla and her buddies, unfortunate Lenore had to be betrayed as well. Even if Hector wanted her to live, she was a living contradiction. A vampire who is physically very strong and intimidating, but a woman who other male vampires have looked down upon, and even male humans. A creature who feeds on humans, but one who wants to settle things peacefully. She absolutely had a role in Carmilla's gang of women just surviving, but in Carmilla's mad conquest, she was useless at best and a hindrance at worst.

In the end, Lenore was one of the few vampires that might have been sympathetic to the human side of the argument, but she physically couldn't live like that. I believed Lenore genuinely wasn't capable of turning her whole worldview upside down and aiding humanity in any way - being beneath them. Dracula opened himself up to one human and it destroyed him; he saved Hector and Isaac, but he also sacrificed himself and forced Isaac away, that was the extent of his personal affairs with them. I think it's fundamentally difficult for vampires to adopt human ideologies and empathy, making Alucard the only vampire ally we really have in the series - because he's only half. Unlike Alucard, she is a full vampire. She has a divide that she can't just bridge like he can.

Imagine if Alucard got to meet the only other humans beside his mother who genuinely looked up to and cared about his father. What would Isaac and Hector have to say to the son of the man they had admired and then lost as well? Imagine Alucard meeting another human who may have even fallen in love with a vampire, but who understands how far their worlds pulled each other apart. Or maybe Sypha can relate to having her eyes opened to a world outside her Speaker family. Imagine a discussion with Lenore about what it means to be caught between wanting to make peace with humans and knowing how much harm they cause - her actually getting a sympathetic vampire perspective from someone like Alucard who wouldn't look down on her.

Imagine the tension that could come from Trevor meeting a Forgemaster, Isaac trying to explain his control over Night Creatures and his ability to even make them fight for a sympathetic cause. Both Isaac and Trevor have experience being the outcasts, understanding how awful humans can be, but they both found their way to still fighting for the right thing. Trevor understands why killing Dracula's wife would make him want to purge the world in retribution, but he still knows humans are worth fighting for. Isaac fully abandoned his faith in humanity and believed in Dracula completely, and even THEN he managed to find the good amongst the rabble. Is it right to make Night Creatures from the dead, even if they were bad people? Even if it's to champion a good cause? Even if Hector and Isaac have full control over them without a potential for any sort of rebellion?

What I'm saying is, I love the idea of a new Castlevania series, but nothing will beat the OG season 1 and 2, and season 3 should have been answering questions and tying up loose ends - not going off on at least 3, 4 tangents that were just meant to come out of nowhere and make things shitty again after our happy ending and I guess they're kinda related but not really, so now we can fix the new shitty stuff and have ANOTHER happy ending and avoid showing anything resembling resolutions, just teaser after teaser for the fanfics to finish up.

Anyway so I'm going to the fanfics and if I don't come back, tell the Final Fantasy rants I love them-

[rinzler-smoocher]

I genuinely think the only way Flint & Rinz's story can end is in separate worlds & not being able to look back at one another. Realizing that even if they could move fate & fact & fiction, they're not feasible, not possible, not in any probable outcome.

This world is not soft & happy & no one gets an actual happy ending. That's not how any of this works.

Flint decides to leave the Grid before he & Rinz could come together to a final decision, as they were trapped in a never-ending argument about how it'll all end. Trying to justify between sharing their two worlds, balancing realities & lives in both places, doing the impossible & biting off more than they could chew.

So, while Tr.n / Rinz, or whoever he is now, is wrapped up in some important meeting about rebuilding the Grid post-Clu's regime with other head digital figures, Flint wraps up everything he can & swiftly takes his leave.

Flint's just too aware that it wouldn't ever possibly work either way, with him & Rinz having a life torn between two impossible realities. No matter how much love & compassion exists there between them, it never would've worked out. Two different beings from two very different worlds, that don't overlap at all... it couldn't be possible.

So, Flint leaves a note behind for Rinz to find when he's back to their living quarters, written first with a deep apology & promising he'll always love the program, but hopeful Rinz would be able to forget & move on. Making certain that there's no last minute bargaining, no chance of delaying the inevitable, no last begging or pleading or hugs or kisses to cause him more second thoughts, with Flint already being gone before Rinz could ever know.

Yeah, is it a shitty ass decision, of course. Do both of them end up miserable? Most likely, but what does it matter either way.

They wouldn't have been able to bounce back n forth forever, finding happiness & home only in each other as they lingered in a limbo of their own making. Choosing each other over everything and anything, winding them up despite having nothing else.

Flint saw it as being the best choice for them both, only too clearly dooming himself to a very sad life alone, cutting his ties to technology & the world around himself. He picked up a camera & began traveling the world, hoping to find meaning & fill the void he left behind in another reality with something physical & feasible & real he could hold in his hands.

& in hoping desperately that Flint was only imagining how much Rinz cared for him, Flint trapped Rinz behind in a hell of his own, where the program can't leave, can't escape, where he's trapped behind metal bars scrambling for even the smallest hold of the world that Flint drifted away into. Rinz tries sending out messages, he tries to pursue every way he can to make connection with the reality beyond, but his efforts come up fruitless.

Whereas Flint left, taking the only chance of reuniting the two of them together, Rinz was locked up in the Grid with eternal darkness & emptiness after knowing what it was like to have everything in his hold... now left with nothing. Only scratching & tearing & clawing at the very threads of his reality trying to find some way out back to the only one who ever mattered... but only Flint held the key to bring them together as he set out & said good bye to everything he had known & the world they happily shared together, even for just a short time.

. . .

Maybe one day far down the line when the Grid is thriving in a utopia the likes of which Flynn wouldn't even have been able to imagine, with the one remaining admin stuck in a past he's willfully shackled to, watching for any blip or change that would show the other world reaching back out to them.

Maybe eventually Flint makes a return trip. Just hoping to slip in unnoticed, see how things have changed in hopes that the Grid was doing well, before slipping back out with no one the wiser.

But there, at the gate, Rinz is stationed like he hadn't moved a muscle in the decade or so that had passed in Flint's time. Even longer had gone by in Rinz's eyes, still begging & hoping to everything & any being listening for another chance at a life that's already passed him by, so he could snatch Flint back in his claws & drag the user into his hold, promising that it didn't matter what it'd take, they'd find a way - they'd HAVE to - because Rinz had nothing else tethering him to his own existence but hope he could reunite with his other half at long last.

So when Flint finally comes to awareness in the Grid after being beamed in from a world away, he's already tightly laced in the familiar hold of another, quickly breaking Flint down to tears realizing everything he was searching for was right here all along.

It's not a purely happy meeting, but just the fact that they can look one another in the eyes after an eternity had passed them both by, realizing that no matter what they'd try, they'd always be stuck right here... with Flint in the middle of two worlds & in capable of feeling worthy of staying in the Grid as Rinz's partner, but also know that the moment he'd walk away, he'd doom Rinz to an eternity of waiting for just another chance to figure things out & make it work out alright. & Rinz heartbroken & desperate for his user and one last shot to get everything right.

There's anger, feelings of betrayal & unfairness, but they have to swallow it down & allow all the love & sorrow & hurt & pain to come bubbling up to the surface in its stead, as they can't pass by this one last chance to figure something out.

They just HAVE to make it work.

. . .

But it's all a pipe dream. They'd just have the same arguments, but find themselves holding onto one another tighter than ever, both filling into the holes lasting in their souls, where only they were marked belonging to one another.

When Flint wakes up that night in his own bed, having dreamed up the whole thing, he can nearly feel the space where Rinz would be laid down in his arms & it makes him sick. It makes him sob, realizing he threw away the only thing that ever mattered. By thinking he himself was so unloved, so unwanted that he cut ties with the only other being who ever cared about him.

He's ill imagining that Rinz could be waiting still now, haunted by Flint's loss, so it takes everything & psyching himself up a crazy degree to finally make his way to the basement in Flynn's old arcade & log on with credentials he could never forget.

Flint hopes he's wrong & mistaken, that Rinz is thriving & doing well, but he can't risk letting another day pass by without finding out. He's afraid of what he'll find or how Rinz will react, he's horrified of what he's done & how badly it's hurt them both, he's hoping for any sliver of hope that things could somehow work out, but he's ultimately just begging for it to be a smooth farewell, if nothing else.

Not at all certain what he'll find waiting on the other side, but certain he had to give it one last chance, even if it's just to say one last good bye, face to face at last...

But what happens? Who knows. They're not real, they're not canon. There's no definitive happy ending. Maybe Rinz / Tr.n moved on & is doing well. Maybe Flint has to live with the fact that he could've had everything but mucked it all up for himself. Or maybe Rinz is waiting, always has, always will.

I. I don't know. I don't writing happy endings. I just craft stories that make sure it was clear there was always love there.

Even if it doesn't work out - the love was always there & hope that things could be better isn't necessarily a guarantee but. There's always a chance, I guess.

[phantomsaboteur]

staring so intensely at diasomnia tonight. trying to figure out how to write them when we're following rollo's perspective and not my own. fuck

[mmriesoftvat]

me when ava and i have very similar takes on wanderer overall, but still have vastly different portrayals.

[ineed-to-sleep]

I think it's fair to say that sometimes people dislike or hate their own art bc "it's theirs" and they have self image issues etc and all. But. I also think there's another angle that can be looked at here. Like, sometimes you dislike your art bc you're trying to make it into something you think it's supposed to be, not what you really want it to be.

Some of us(me included) can get so caught up in the search for approval from a community that we put aside the stuff we actually like in favor of what we think we have to do in order to be accepted, or to impress. Art is an extension of ourselves, it's an expression of our identities, of the things we love, the things we grew up with, the things that used to impress us and make us happy and that might still make us happy today. The more we distance ourselves from that, the more we might start to feel like something is wrong. Like something is missing. Like it's never good enough, and you might find yourself adding more and more things that are "supposed" to make your art look better but that never really fix the issue.

I think sometimes we have to ask ourselves: am I doing what I like, and am I doing it the way I like it? Look at your favorite artists, look at the stuff you love to see. Look at the stuff you used to love. Is that what you're doing? And if not, then why not?

[irrolyphant]

TIMOTHY OLYPHANT

Straight Line Crazy opening night, NYC, 26 October 2022

[svtskneecaps]

literally it's 3am where i live and i'm on mobile but FUCK IT i haven't posted any actual writing in like a YEAR on this blog whose description include the words "I WRITE" and i can't tell if i'm even going anywhere with this so fuck it under the cut is the prospective absolute mess of the first chapter of the flipo family time loop fic. (for clarity, flipo family as in slime, mariana, and juanaflippa) this covers loop 0, aka the relevant parts of canon. words: 1630

parts of it i popped off with and other parts i hate; up to you to identify them. also the italics and other formatting got erased when i copy pasted and i'm re-adding all of it by hand so if i missed a spot, no i didn't. if i missed an accent on a letter in spanish that was a typo, if i missed a ¡ or ¿ that may have been on purpose.

oh and for obvious reasons, content warning for mentions and mild descriptions of child death and child murder. no blood, and most of it is a three word mention; i'd say the brief paragraph beginning "Tilín didn't scream" is most of the reason this warning exists.

Charlie Slimecicle stepped off the train.

He’d been hoping for a bright, sunny day to start their vacation, but was sorely disappointed. The portal had apparently taken them pretty far, since they’d gone from noon to night time. Talk about jetlag. They hadn’t even been on a plane.

“What happened to the other guys?” he wondered aloud as he stepped onto the platform.

“Yeah no clue,” Phil said, scanning the empty station. “Thought they’d meet us here.”

“Guys!” one of the Spanish speakers--Vegetta, he’d said, when they’d all met up at the first station--called, from a lectern at the wall. “There is a book!”

They crowded around as he read the instructions aloud--something about pressure plates, Slime wasn’t paying that close of attention. He was a little more preoccupied with making sure it only felt like his brain was dripping out of his ears. That would be kind of embarrassing.

Which was not to say that he wasn’t enjoying the constant onslaught of people talking over each other using words he may or may not understand. In fact, it was the opposite; he was frankly thriving in the absolute chaos that kicked back up around him as a timer appeared in the wrist communicators they’d been provided along with their tickets.

“Como se dice ‘we are going to die now’?” He giggled, chasing Phil and Fit to one end of the station.

“¡Vamos a morir!” shouted Spiderman, echoed seconds later by the black bear in the collared shirt.

Giddy over the high of attempting to use his high school foreign language for the first time maybe ever, Slime absolutely didn’t contribute much to solving the puzzle, and before long the sound of the timer ticking down was accompanied by a loud buzzing alarm.

“It’s been an honor!” he shrieked at the top of his lungs. “It’s been an honor!”

The bear ran past them again, shouting, “I’m going to die!” in English this time.

“Adiós amigos!” Slime yelled.

The countdown ended.

And then his communicator buzzed, and there was a video playing on the screen, showing a cartoonish yellow duck in front of a blurry beach stock photo. He skimmed it absently--some generic welcoming message and another side quest for them--distracted by Maximus audibly losing his shit laughing across the station.

“Come on, I’m trying to take a vacation, I gotta work now?” Fit complained. “This is ridiculous.”

Slime wanted to jump on that bit, but the message cut off with coordinates marred by static and the noise of the emergency weather alert system and he lost his train of thought completely.

“I got the English book!” Spreen called, holding it with two fingers like it had personally offended him.

“English leader,” Vegetta said, seeming to find that amusing.

“English leader.” Spreen laughed and flicked the book away. Slime stepped back but somehow it still nailed him in the chest.

“Guess I’m reading then,” he said cheerfully.

“In Spanish?” Maximus said.

“Um.”

Vegetta called something, backing across the plaza with the book open in his hands. Phil backed up to the wall.

“Here,” Phil instructed, “we’ll read it here.”

“Okay okay.” He flicked it open. “So we have to get water wheel planks--”

Their peace lasted a grand total of thirty seconds as voices suddenly began shouting, overlapping in chaotic chorus.

“What is that?” Fit demanded.

“Is that coming from the other side?” Phil stared up at the top of the wall.

“This is the thinnest thick wall I’ve ever seen,” Slime said, giddy laughter bubbling out of him again. “Is this thing made out of pencil shavings? If I sneeze on it, is there gonna be a hole?”

“Nevermind, we’ll read it over here.” Phil dragged them away again, but the Spanish speakers were dispersing into the trees.

“Forget the book,” Fit said, “follow them!”

(In the end it was explosives that took the wall down, which in hindsight was a precursor to how a not insignificant portion of time on the island was spent. The first day, however, it was just funny, much like everything else.)

(That was to say, the first first day.)

The communicator had indicated that today there was something special planned, so he made an extra effort to wake up.

“Morning Jaiden!” he called to his upstairs neighbor.

“Hi Charlie!” He could hear her farming through the wall. “Glad you woke up on time!”

“Well you know, you know, El Backflipo couldn’t miss it,” he joked, sifting through his backpack. “Got any spare food? I’ll trade you uno backflipo.”

“I have so much toast, come here and get some, free of charge.”

With a quick backflip and some toast to start the day, he popped open the map.

“There’s a lot of people down the wall,” he noted, their green dots so clustered they formed one. “Wanna check it out?”

“Yeah sure.” Jaiden tossed some seeds into a chest. “Do you know what this event’s gonna be?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted cheerfully.

She laughed. “Yeah, me neither. I guess there’s an egg involved, but that’s all I know.”

He dug around in his backpack for a paraglider, nodding along. “Yeah, yeah, un huevo, I get you.” Shuffling the landmine from Vegetta to one side, he yanked out his glider and threw himself out her window. “Let’s go!”

(nothing like getting struck by lightning to wake a guy up in the morning)

Slime fiddled with the communicator as he waited for the line of people to get through the ticket machine; he already had his own, a nice B for Backflipo. The new live translations still boggled his mind. He had to fight the urge to chant weird shit under his breath, just to see what the bubbles would say.

He paid a little extra attention when Mariana walked up to the machine. That guy seemed cool. They’d done that pequeño dormir together on day one, and he had a good sense of humor. Egg parenting would probably be funny.

He was thrilled to see the B for Backflipo on the ticket Mariana stepped away with, even if Mariana was decidedly less so. This was gonna be good.

(it was, and it wasn’t)

So, Mariana wasn’t exactly the coparent of dreams. Then again, Slime was pretty sure Mariana could say the same about him. In fact he was pretty sure Mariana had said the same, but in Spanish, when he wasn’t checking the translation.

It was great. They thought they’d killed a child immediately and then decided to fake their own child’s death to get away with it, and then confessed their sins to a bilingual angel and built a farm and then he buried himself beneath an improvised cross and went into a coma until his sins were forgiven, or something, except his sins weren’t forgiven in time to save his own child’s life.

And then Juanaflippa was dead. Dead at Mariana’s hand.

His bitch wife killed their daughter.

(Everything went faster, after that.)

Slime wanted to kill him.

Slime wanted to kill him for killing their fucking daughter, but of course, Mariana couldn’t even be bothered to be around to take care of her alive, never mind to pay for his crimes when she died by his hand!

(in a better world, his rage started and ended there. in a better world, the anger fizzled out with the lack of a target.

this was not that world)

There couldn’t be an Egg Event with no eggs.

If he killed them all, it would bring her back.

(in a worse world, he succeeded. in a worse world, the Egg Event ended there.

this was not that world)

They held a trial.

If he won, it would bring her back.

(in another world, he didn’t convince them. in another world, they left his daughter in Hell.

this was not that world)

Tilín was still before she hit the ground.

Tilín didn’t scream. Maybe they didn’t have time. It happened so fast. He was sure it happened fast. Almost too fast. But everything went so fast, now, even though Flippa was back. Yet, time slowed down for this, like a rubberneck driving past a highway accident, watching him desperately trying to shock their heart back into motion.

“YOU KILL MY BEST FRIENDS,” Flippa wrote. He begged her to understand. She wrote, “i can’t believe it.”

She wrote, “I HATE YOU.”

(in a better world, the error would have been caught in April instead of July.

this was not that world)

His daughter fell to his bitch wife’s sword. The same way. The next day.

They’d only just gotten her back. And Mariana killed her again.

He only left eggxile for the funeral. She wouldn’t stay dead, but he had to be there.

Time went even faster after that. He was Gegg, or maybe Gegg was him, or maybe Gegg was Gegg, or maybe. . . ?

He went back to eggxile.

He wasn’t leaving without them. Tilín. Juanaflippa. He would do whatever was necessary. He would pray to any higher power. Lil J still owed him a goddamn favor, but the guy wouldn’t pick up his calls. Maybe if he put more shit in the shrine; angels liked shiny shit, didn’t they? He went back to the mine, where the gasses swirled in his head. He built the shrine. He mined. He built the shrine.

He went back to the mine.

He went back to the mine.

He went back to the mine.

“This is where I sit, this is where my bitch wife sits, and this is where my daughter sits, if I had one!”

He’d said that before. No he hadn’t. Yes he had.

No, he just needed to clear his head.

Charlie Slimecicle went back to the mine.

Charlie Slimecicle stepped off the train.