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marinerainbow · 6 months ago

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Since you asked me about my Mario au tell me about yours!!!!

Thank you so much for asking me!!!

Hum... Well, my AU is nowhere NEAR yours or anybody level of awesome. But I hope you still like this! ^^

So, to begin, I do want to pinpoint that I do believe in MatPats theory that Rosalina is the daughter of Luigi and Peach. I know that MatPat has a reputation of WAY overthinking things, and I don't agree with all of his theories, but I like this one. And the reason, as he also put in his video, for how Rosalina can be the same age as Peach, how Peach can be alive even though Rosalina's mother is dead, and why she would choose Luigi over Mario, is because the Mario Universe's galaxy basically resets itself every 100 years with various differences; Rosalina is from a previous cycle of the galaxy, and since now she's a part of the ship and with the lumas, she is nearly immortal.

The reason I took the time to get into that theory is that I applied that to my AU. The galaxy resets itself every 100 years or so with little differences here and there, hence the various inconsistencies throughout the Mario Franchise. (This is partially so I can have the excuse to have multiple Mario AU's and just claim it's another galaxy cycle 😅 but also because I genuinely think this is cool ^^) for now, we'll talk about the current galexy cycle. Or at least my version of it.

Since there is SOOOO much to dissect in the Mario universe, I'll try to cover a little bit of everybody. Or at least the main crew. If you want individual headcannons, feel free to ask! ^^ I'm gonna do this in bullet points since I feel that format will be better for this.

The World

Even though Rosalina states 100 years as the galaxy's cycle time in Super Mario Galexy, I'm gonna stretch this too... 1,000 years, at least. Because think about it; one century isn't as long as you may think. Peach, Mario, Daisy and Luigi can all be born and grow old to be 100, and maybe not even die considering the oldest person alive is 117 years old, a whole new galexy is supposed to be born within one or two generations?? It doesn't exactly sit right with me tbh. So even though it's explicitly stated in the Mario canon... I'm gonna toss that out the window for my AU 😅😅😅

I know that the Mario TV shows are considered non-canon, but I do draw inspiration from them; in the sense that in this cycle at least, Mario and Luigi did originate from Brooklyn and accidentally found a magic pipe that took them to the world of the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario and Luigi, after getting over the initial panic, decided to lay low and continue their jobs as plumbers in this strange world while trying to find a way to get back home (as plumbers, they can get closer to pipes anywhere and can easier find a pipe that can take them home). It wasn't until that they witnessed Bowser kidnapping Peach while fixing the pipes of her castle that they were promoted to heros.

Speaking of Princess Peach's World, everything is bigger here. Like, everything. From the plants, the wildlife, the coins, and even the people. That's why we have gold coins as big as Mario's head, and why Bowser Jr., a b a b y, is half his size. I headcannon Luigi to be 6'2 and Mario to be 5'3, which although is still small for the average man... Princess Peach is 7'3. Yeah. Which compared to Bowser, that's still small. They truly are the land of giants. Toads are considered some of the smallest inhabitants of this world, as well as other characters such as Fawful. (I heard that Nintendo made Mario's official height to be 5'1, which would make the other characters a more reasonable size when you do the math... But this is a different cycle of the galexy (*cough* my personal AU) so XD)

From now on, I'm gonna refer to the world as The Strangelands. This is the world as a whole, not one specific land like The Darklands or The Mushroom Kingdom. They have their own separate space and galexy from us, hence why we aren't affected by the galaxy rebirth. The land where the fairies of 3D world come from, however, is also a separate universe from the Strangelands, and that's part of why their pipes are transparent rather than green. Ever since Mario and Friends and Bowser discovered the land of the fairies, it's become more accessible... And yet Mario and Luigi still can't find a pipe back to their world 🥲

Building up on that; the boos are a separate entity from ghosts. We see in Luigi's Mansion both boos and ghosts of various shapes and sizes. The boos have never been alive, or at least not as humans or toads or anything. They are the natural born citizens of the Strangelands' underworld- or rather, The Underlands, as they are called in this universe. It's where you go when you die regardless of the kind of person you were in the Strangelands, and King Boo rules over the afterlife. He sets up haunted mansions up in the land of the living both for fun and to 'recruit' more ghosts... Since boos are aggressive towards Mario and Friends when they enter the houses, use your imagination on what this recruitment process entails.

Peach, the Toads, and the Mushroom Kingdom

I'm gonna say that for my AU, Peach is an adopted Strangelands human of the Mushroom King and Queen. For whatever reason, they couldn't produce an heir, but found Peach when she was a baby. That's why Peach looks different from the toads.

The clothes and building materials of the Mushroom Kingdom are made from the fibers of the kingdoms own mushrooms and toadstools. It allows the clothes to grow back when they get torn or something, and the houses and buildings can easily recover from an invasion (afterall, we were able to create bricks out of fungal mycelium that can literally grow. Why not have the same be true for the toads?) The clothes are also pretty soft despite not being cotton, silk, or anything of the like. Which is why Kamek and Luigi canonically love Peach's dress... And also it's because her fashion is on point.

As we know, Peach is becoming bigger than just a damsel in distress. In my AU, Peach took a vow of pacifism when she took the throne, believing that that was the true path. However, the more that Bowser kidnaps her and the more threats that she encounters, Peach has been starting to get tired of it and learning how to defend herself with Daisy as her mentor. She's still the sweet, kindhearted princess and would rather avoid conflict. But she's not afraid to fight some koopas anymore. (Bowser thinks it's hot-)

According to the original games' manual, the goombas were traitorous toads of the Mushroom Kingdom. The reason why they look so different from the toads is because the magic in the Darklands corrupted their forms, making them closer resemble the very fungai of their former home.

The Mario Kart and sports games take place in the far future, when Peach and Bowser are finally on peaceful relations like she had always hoped. She now always invites him and his family to the tournaments. It took a while for the toads to trust him, considering his reputation, but in good time, he was accepted in the Mushroom Kingdom again ^^ in fact, Iggy helped invent the gravity defying wheels we see in Mario Kart 8.

Bowser, the Koopa Kids, and The Darklands

Toadsworth and his wife, the grandma toad in Mario RPG, are basically the Kameks of the Mushroom Kingdom; being Peach's advisors and teaching her what magic they know. Granted, their magic is more light than Kamek's, but it was how Peach was able to change her citizens back to normal after Bowser turned them into bricks, stones, and horsetail plants in the first game/kidnapping.

Speaking of horsetail plants; they are considered illegal in the Mushroom Kingdom with how deadly they are to the citizens. They can make a toad gravely ill just by being near them, and is the most effective poison against a toad, being able to kill them in mere minutes after consumption. And, with various things in the kingdom being made of mushrooms, the horsetail plants can also potentially destroy the very foundation of the city. Bowser intended on taking the mushrooms of the kingdom and turned some of the citizens into the plants to keep any potential survivors away from the princess, and once he took full control he would turn the toads that were bricks and stones back to normal since they know how to create these mycelium inbued buildings.

Mushrooms in real life can boost plants' immune systems and even defend them when they are connected to their 'shroom network. The same applies to the mushrooms of the kingdom. In fact, because these are magical mushrooms, it makes Peach's Kingdom not only the healthiest, lushest and most colorful place in the Strangelands, but it also means her land is the most valuable for agriculture. Not only could you grow whatever you want in the kingdom's soil, but it can also thrive. If the Mushroom Kingdom was in charge of our farming, we would have so much produce we wouldn't know what to do with it! Those $6 boxes of strawberries could go down to as little as 50 cents! No wonder people are constantly invading Peach's kingdom!

The initial reason why Bowser kidnaps Peach in the first place was A) part of his plan to conquer and rule all of the Strangelands, and B) because her lands' mushrooms are valuable for the reasons I stated above and then some. However, at some point, he fell in love with the princess in pink and his kidnappings became less hostile (as in, unlike the first time, he'll leave the toads alone for the most part. He'll still cause destruction, but he doesn't go out of his way to kill anyone. Except the Mario brothers since they are constantly in his way and wrecking his plans). He wants to court Peach, but after the first time, he's pretty certain that she only sees him as a monster. So he thinks that the only way to get her to even look his way, let alone get her to talk to him, is by force. But as we see in the Super Mario Wonder promotion video, we see Bowser is starting to try more gentler tactics of charming Peach when he offers her flowers. It doesn't excuse his actions, but my version of Bowser just wants Peach to love him back.

He does love Peach for her, but he also gained memories of a past incarnation of the galexy where they were genuinely in love. He's not sure how these memories exist, or why they only came to mind when he first met Peach, but it did spur him to find answers, and that led to his falling for the princess (in this world, there are only a few characters who remember their pasts lives. Kamek is one of them, and he used an experimental spell to jog Bowsers memory, and later on the koopalings and Junior once he perfected the spell. And that's how Junior knows that Peach isn't his mama without her or Bowser telling him otherwise. But he and the koopalings still want her to be their mother)

The reason why we see so many dry koopas in the darklands is because the darklands are the closest connection to the underworld. Like you're more likely to find a pipe to the underworld in Bowsers castle than in Sarasaland or sonething. That's also part of why Bowser and King Boo have developed an alliance. Boo has taught Bowser the secret of his paintings, hence Super Mario 64, and provides him a way to utilize his citizens who have passed away. In return, Bowser agreed to allow King Boo reign over part of the Stranfelans whenever he takes over. As long as each of his kids still get their own kingdoms.

Speaking of the Koopalings; kamek only casted the spell on them after their own first encounter with Peach. The kids were confused as to why Bowser would go to such lengths for Peach, but when they got to interact with her, she was... Actually, very nice to them. Almost maternal. Peach couldn't believe Bowser had children and was even afraid for them, considering she's only seen his tyrannical side. For the brief time she interacted with them, she expressed concern and care for their wellbeing and even got to play with some of them like Lemmy, before Mario rescued her. That was enough to convince the Koopalings they needed Peach in their lives, but once they got to remember the past cycle where she was their mother, they really started to get involved in Bowsers schemes to get her back... Even if they are exasperated with him not just talking with her 😅

Wendy: Dad, trust me. Us girls love it when a guy just walks up to us and tells us how we feel! You need to try it!

Bowser: Hm... Maybe-

Bowser: Wait! Have there been boys talking to you, Wendy!?

Wendy: -_- Dad, if there were, Roy would have beaten them up by now.

Bowser: Well, as your father, I need to get a beating in myself! Where are they!?

Wendy: *facepalms*

Edit: I originally said that Bowser requested Kamek to jog his children's memories, but I realized the plothole in that; if he knew that the kids knew that Peach was only their mother in a past life, why did he look so guilty, shocked, and was almost crying when Junior confessed to him that he knew Peach wasn't really his mama? So I fixed it, and Kamek did it on the koopalings request instead, when they snuck in his lab and read his notes on this whole thing. Bowser only finds out later. (Also, Bowser up above is threatening to beat up the hypothetical boys that talked to Wendy not only because he's protective, but because he figured out she's a lesbian and isn't tolerating some guy putting the moves on her. Wendy hasn't told him yet, he's just waiting for her to come out if at all. He's intense, but he's got the spirit.)

In this galexy cycle, Bowser birthed Junior himself (I saw a headcannon floating around that koopas can reproduce with another, or by themselves, and I love that ^^), but adopted the koopalings in different times. Ludwig came first, followed closely by Iggy. Larry. Mortan. Roy and Wendy were adopted around the same time. And finally Lemmy. Junior was born a little before Roy and Wendy came into the picture, and has very vague memories of first being introduced to Lemmy. Other than that, as far as he's aware, his siblings have been with him from the beginning.

As for the Koopalings' ages, I do mostly agree with the mainly agreed census that their order of appearance in Super Mario Bros 3 is indicating their ages; Ludwig, Lemmy, Roy, Iggy, Wendy, Mortan, and Larry... I say I mostly agree with this because I actually headcannon Lemmy to be the youngest of them all next to Junior. Just- LOOK AT HIM!? He's so baby!! I know, he could very easily just be immature and short for his age... But he is the true baby of the Koopalings in my heart.

Rosalina and the Lumas

As for Kamek, he's been working on this memory spell for some time. The past... 50 or so galexy cycles, in fact. It's only before the lumas sacrificed themselves in SMG that he finally cracked it, after experimenting on himself and other koopas (one cycle, he even accidentally wiped all of his memories and had amnesia for the rest of his life. Fortunately, he had all of his memories back in the next cycle and made a mental note not to do what he did to cause that again 😅)

As stated above, Rosalina is from a previous cycle where she was Peach's and Luigi's daughter. It did take her some tie to get used to witnessing new timeliness where her mother fell in love with Mario instead, or stayed single. Bowser being her mothers love interst especially threw her off. Though, because of that, she has developed a tiny sense of a big sister role with Junior and the Koopalings. It grew when she got to meet and interact with them in Mario Kart, though she keeps her secrets from them; they don't know that she's technically their sister from another timeline.

By the end of Super Mario Galexy, Rosalina has made her presence known to the cast, and has decided to be more hands on from now on as her role of watcher of the galexy. She comes to the Strangelands to physically check in more often, and that allowed Peach to invite her to the kingdoms events. Rosalina hasn't told Peach of her true identity, though the princess does feel a strange, maternal warmth towards her that she can't explain.

The reason why Rosalina and the lumas were so involved in SMG was because of the black hole. It was unexpected, and they stepped in hoping to help Mario stop it, but he couldn't. That's why the lumas sacrificed themselves to emergency reset the whole galexy before it's scheduled time. It's because of that emergency cycle that the cast are still around rather than being reborn as their ancestors and clearly remember everything.

Just because Rosalina has accepted her role as watcher of the galexy, doesn't mean she's too happy about it. I mean, she has to watch her family who don't even remember her continue on with different lives every 1,000 years, and is unable to communicate to them who she really is... I think Rosalina might have even developed depression at some point. She loves the lumas, but she still wishes she can truly be with her family. Even if they aren't her family anymore.

After the events of Galexy, Kamek wants to find Rosalina and figure out what the hell is going on. He remembers past lives, but doesn't know how it's even possible. But he knows Rosalina has to know, and he wants answers. He's also hoping to find a way to get everyone to remember their pasts for his own reasons. But since Rosalina lives in a spaceship, it's kind of hard to accomplish that... But hey, with the strange stoic women being invited to the Go Karting tournaments, as well as the koopas, it gives our favorite wizard a chance to finally confront Rosalina...

This is all I have so far, aside from character headcannons. I also have my own original concepts and characters. You know Princess Boolina (the poll is still going, but I'm gonna refer to her as Boolina since that's the winning name), as well as a kingdom of music with a king, queen, princess, and prince. I'm not sure if I'll develop the second one more. It depends on whether or not people would be interested and if I can figure out how to fit them in the Mario world. But I hope you like this AU! It may change as I develop it more ^^

Part of the need for the emergency reset was also because of people like Kamek trying to change the course of this cycle. In this iteration, or at least the one before the lumas sacrificed themselves, Peach was supposed to end up with Mario, but thanks to Kamek, Bowser kept getting in the way and trying his way of courting her and getting her back rather than letting this cycle run its course, to the point where he made up his own universe and caused the events leading up to the blackhole consuming everything just to have his love back. After these events, Rosalina has decided that she should keep a better eye on Bowser and Kamek in particular...

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duckapus · 9 months ago

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Squid Memes Squidbeak Splatoon (part 2)

Part 1 Here

More Harbor because he gave me Brain Worms

Born and Raised in Littol Beeg Bluff (yes the same Littol Beeg Bluff from "The Ballad of Dusty Grumpton" in the Factory Reset AU. I'm allowed to re-use my own ideas if I damn well please)

Comes from a blended family, and his stepmom and younger siblings (twin boy and girl around eight) are actually Koopa Troopas of all things.

The only playable Agent to both know and like his parents

Seriously Habor's moms are fucking awesome. Everybody in the NSS loves Harbor's moms

About 80% Humboldt Squid (aka Jumbo Flying Squid), which is why he's so fucking tall. It also means that he's really fast in swim form, to the point that he could probably outswim someone who'd filled all the slots on a piece of gear with Swim Speed Up without any Swim Speed Up investment of his own. (this is inspired by Lucky, another, very different version of Agent 4 made by EikaPrime on Ao3)

Eight

Yes she just goes by Eight. She was a little self-conscious about it at first but then she found out about SMG4 and the other SM64 Blooper Youtubers and no longer gives a shit

If she remembers her old name yet she's not mentioned it

Obviously doesn't remember her parents, but given the Domes are the kind of place where you can Start Training to Become an Advanced Military Hardware Engineer and Elite Soldier at Fucking Nine Years Old, I imagine she wouldn't have many memories of them even without the Amnesia

Contrary to popular fanon, my version of Eight doesn't have a scar from the Test Failed Bomb. This is because Respawn Pads (as long as they're fully functional) completely erase whatever the fatal injury was, leaving no trace apart from maybe some phantom pains if it was particularly nasty

She does, however, have plenty of scars from all the other shit she went through in that hellhole

Managed to complete every single test before she escaped

My version of Eight is a single year younger than Marina canonically is when they meet so I'm not going the Off the Hook Adoption route for this one (maybe in another AU with a more lose interpretation of Canon, but given this AU is specifically meant to adhere to Splatoon Canon as much as possible we're out'a luck this time), though she does still become very close friends with them

She's got Craig literally right there for any potential adoption attempts anyway

Very rarely speaks, but is expressive enough that most people can tell what she means anyway (you know Ferb? It's the exact same thing as what Ferb does)

Doesn't have a weapon preference. She's comfortable with any weapon she gets her hands on

Except Splatanas

She fucking hates Splatanas and everything they stand for

Configuring Frye's Palette in the Memverse was legitimately harder than dealing with her own Palette's stupid "Hacks or Chips, you can't have both" Gimmick Bullshit

Andi Finn

Has no fucking idea who her parents were and does not care

Actual supergenius who could probably build a functioning replica of Grizz's rocket out of scrap metal from just her memory of fighting on top of it. Never learned how to read before the NSS got ahold of her because she lived alone in the desert

Swears more than Bob

Can't remember where she learned Salmonid from

Somehow even the homeless kid has better hygiene than Paige

Made up her last name on the spot when she was signing up for a Turfing License (if you're wondering how she managed to sign up for a Turfing License when she couldn't read; With Great Difficulty)

Figures she probably isn't a full Inkling given her weird beartrap beak but doesn't give enough of a shit to take a DNA test about it

Yet

Paige dragged her home to their apartment almost immediately after the final battle against Mr. Grizz and she never left. It's not an official adoption but that's only because Paige is a bit oblivious to their own feelings on the matter and Andi doesn't know that paperwork is supposed to be involved

Almost exclusively calls Paige "Cap" even when they're out of uniform. I mean, she can't very well call them "Mom" or "Dad" since they're nonbinary, now can she? Paige has no idea that's what she means by it and just thinks it's a nickname because Andi gives everybody nicknames. Usually as insults

It took her 333 tries to get through "Splitting Crosshairs" (I legitimately Cannot beat that stupid kettle no matter how hard I try and want her to share my frustration but also want all four agents to have 100%ed their respective adventures so I'm just having it take her a comically long time to do)

Mains Explosher because it's the closest she can get to a Turf-Legal grenade launcher (for now...)

The Eternal Hunger, Devourer of the Bear

Is fine with people using Crabcake instead

Uses It/Its exclusively

Officially designated Agent 5 I will die on that hill

Was "The Eternal Hunger, Stabber of Ankles" before going through Return of the Mammalians

Will stab anyone who points out that it didn't actually eat Mr. Gizz, he just exploded

Extremely eloquent, but most people can't speak Salmonid so it just sounds like it's making the same gurgley noises as every other Smallfry

Once looked Marie dead in the eyes and said "No one will ever believe you" in perfect Inklish while they were alone. Has never said anything else in anything other than Salmonid where someone can hear it

Andi and Crabcake fucking hated each-other for the first third of their adventure before bonding over kicking Frye's ass and now they're inseparable

Actually gets its own uniform after everything's said and done. It consists of a little high-rez safety vest (like the one on Paige's field uniform), an earpiece (suction-cupped in place since it doesn't have external ears) in the same style as Andi's headset, and a clean black-with-thin-yellow-racing-stripes-on-the-sides pants...wrap...thing

It also got a new switchblade from Sheldon (the old one got lost in the space battle after it turned into Hugefry) with the same kind of black-with-blue-LEDs aesthetic as Paige's gear and a blade made of Sardinium

Also thinks that it and Andi are already adopted by Paige but that's for Salmonid Culture Reasons instead of Not Having an Education Reasons

Got separated from its swarm during a Run a few months before Return of the Mammalians. It wasn't too fussed about it and figured it could handle itself in the desert for a while and then either reunite with that swarm if it ran into them or join a new one if it happened to come across one. Because Salmonid Culture

Considers the NSS its current swarm

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gagsolineoilrefinery · 8 months ago

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brian headcanons? pretty please

Smiles so big and wide at you yes absolutely I love that little freak

putting under a read more for convenience's sake

- I'm 100% a Bug Brian truther, that man is an insect you can't convince me otherwise, I like to think he can make weird little chittering noises and climbs up walls with his hands and feet for enrichment

- He's trans and has no last name because he didn't care enough to pick a new one so he went with none, acts all mysterious about it because he thinks it makes him look cool

- This man needs glasses so fucking badly but after a litany of "nerd" comments growing up he refuses to wear them, has attempted contacts but cant get them in his eyes for the life of him

- He would genuinely rather die than go to the factory, he does all his needed repairs on himself unless he's forced to (usually by Ben or William)

- He gets along with his co workers in, his own way when he's forced to interact with them. He does not understand how to behave "appropriately" around other people, he's my favorite rude autism icon (he is going to insult your intelligence at any given opportunity with what he sees as good intentions and does not understand why everyone hates him)

- I'm also a Bellthinker truther I think that british man should kiss that bug right on the brain dome and make him so flustered his systems soft reset

- Every time theres a meeting that he's in the second he's at the front of the room the entire mood changes because everybody knows he's gonna have a whole presentation planned thats no less than 1 hour long, and he will yell at you if you try to stand up for any reason

- I like to think living in the heart of toontown (right in the playground no less) definitely has some side effects on him, the silliness is rubbing off on him more than he realizes, most obviously things like his brain exploding comically when he starts baby raging

- Im sorry this man is absolutely a cog reddit user (coggit? idk) you can't change my mind, hes a power mod and proud of it, keeps getting talked to for using it on company time though

- He's very attatched to the Desk Jockeys but absolutely hates to admit it, I like to think its a Dr. Robotnik with Scratch and Grounder type dynamic (thinking especially like that one scene where Robotnik says "I don't even know why I bother to repair you guys, I suppose I'm too sentimental" shit like that)

- With his dynamics with the other toontown central managers, I think he actually feels very guilty about the incident that happened with Buck- but instead feigns a petty hatred for him so nobody will ask him about it and he doesn't have to admit how monumentally he fucked up

- He's on relatively chill terms with William, they're both angry big mouthed autistic people who do not know how to shut up so they mesh pretty well, I think they like to fight eachother to let off steam and then makeup immediately after, Brian isn't too fond of the whole oil leakage problem thing though because it makes a mess of his basement but he doesn't exactly hold it against him since he knows he can't help it

- When he can spare the time he loves poking around in the systems of his co workers just to see how they operate out of morbid curiosity and to see how he can make the jockeys more efficient, he's on that medic tf2 shit, not many of them let him do it though (understandably so)

- Probably went to whatever the cog equivalent of medical school was but lost his medical license after The Buck Incident™️

(And I think thats probably good for now because I am dangerously treading the line of infofumping about my AU sorry I have so many thoughts about this creature)

#sludgetalkz #answered asks #prethinker #brian ttcc #fuck it yknow what this is getting character tags. look at my thoughts boy

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howlingday · 1 year ago

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Nora & the Valkyries: Thunderstruck

Imagine a world where instead of being Hunstmen and slaying Grimm, Jaune and his friends are "killing it" in a Battle of the Bands-centric world.

He just so happened to get roped into the one called "Nora & the Valkyries" with a REALLY CUTE lead...

...who is completely OBLIVIOUS to how she makes him feel!!!

Jaune just tries to shrug it off at first and doesn't even realize how bad he has it for her until their first debut...

Meanwhile, Ren's the smuggest little drummer boy because he totally called it, and is still figuring out how to ship them.

How do you imagine it playing out?

Youtube Inspiration/Reference

https://youtube.com/shorts/lJ6XAjZFtyc?feature=share

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Aw~! This sounds adorable! I approve!

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Jaune panted as he finished his set. The crowd was roaring with excitement. He'd never felt so alive. His heart was pounding somewhere between two hundred to a thousand miles a minute, and there was only one girl to blame.

"Thank you, Vale! Good night!" Nora shouted into her microphone, fist pumping to the crowd as they sceamed her name. She reset the mic and skipped off to the back-stage. Jaune followed into her to the dark as he lifted her knees with every step, just like he did when they first met.

Jaune was miserable before. The girl he tried to woo with his guitar skills left her less than impressed and him with a broken heart. But he wasn't to be deterred so easily in his love pursuit, so he looked online for anyone who needed a guitar player. That was when he found 'Nora & The Valkyries,' a band for, as Nora put it, 'only the worthy!'

The next morning, he received a call from a soft-spoken young man, and that afternoon, he met the most beautiful angel he would ever meet... But he didn't know that then. What he first met was a very loud, chipper, and scary strong girl who was probably half his size. He auditioned with his guitar, and she... wasn't impressed either.

"Uh, you do know this is a rock band, right?"

"Y-Yeah?"

"So why are you bringing wood to metal audition?"

"...Insulation?" Jaune chuckled.

Nora looked to the other young man there, her manager, who shrugged at her. Nora then beamed.

"I like it!" She jumped from the couch. "Everybody knows trees catch lightning!" She wagged her finger. "You're smart. We need smart around here."

"Hey."

"More smart, Renny." She corrected. "But I think you still need some work. And some actual metal."

"Oh." Jaune slumped his shoulders. "Well, thanks for letting me try."

"No problem!" She grinned. "So what size shirt do you wear?"

"Huh?"

"What size shirt do you wear?" She repeated. "I need to know so I can order the T-shirts!"

"T-shirts?" Jaune did a double take. "W-Wait! You mean... I'm in the band?"

"Duh! Wasn't that obvious?"

Jaune hugged her and tried to pick her up in his excitement. He couldn't, but she could, and did. Since then, Jaune had been one of Nora's Valkyries ever since. It was just him at first, but then came Ruby and Pyrrha, who backed him up as bass and backup vocal, respectively.

Pyrrha and Ruby were about to start packing up backstage when Nora stopped them.

"Hey, hey, whoa!" She waved her arms. "What if the crowd wants an encore?"

"We're not doing an encore, Nora." Pyrrha giggled.

"Why not? Did ypu not hear that crowd? They're just BEGGIN for another dose!"

"We're supposed to stick to the schedule, though." Ruby pointed out. "If we take up Schneiss's time-"

"Ah, who cares about that fuddy-duddy Ice Queen?" Nora waved. "People don't come to a rock concert for a snowstorm. They come out for THE THUNDAH!"

"While I agree with your enthusiasm," Ren said as he entered, "I also agree with Ruby's statement of punctuality. Besides, there is an after-party to attend."

"Fiiiiiine..." Nora groaned, low carrying her drumsticks as she slumped.

"Jaune, a word?"

"Uh, sure." Ren guided him to a corner and spoke in a low voice. Too low for the girls to hear.

"You need to tell her."

"What?! Now?!"

"Either now or soon. Sooner than soon." Ren checked over his shoulder. "You missed a few chords during your last song."

"I did?" Jaune looked over. "Uh, did-"

"I noticed, which means everyone noticed." Ren summarized. "Everyone except..." He nodded to Nora. "But that's just one person. One person who is distracting you."

"She's not-"

"Nora, don't take off your jacket in here!" Jaune whirled around, finding a still jacketed Nora.

"I wasn't gonna! Gosh!"

Jaune looked to Nora, who was packing up her drum set. Her angelic voice carried over her beats without overpowering them, and kept the band rolling as they played. She then handed her case off to two roadies with one hand , while the roadies hefted it with their arms.

"Now, Jaune." He looked to Ren, who held a stern look.

"I... I don't know." Jaune sighed. "What if it doesn't work out and the band breaks up?"

"Did it not work out when Pyrrha asked you out?"

Jaune looked to Pyrrha, who was drinking the rest of her water bottle, before crushing the thin plastic in her hand with a satisfying crunch. He still remembered the tears she cried when he broke things off. "Y-Yeah?"

"Did the band break up?"

"No."

"And who is Pyrrha dating now?"

"She's dating Ruby." Jaune looked over to see Ruby hack and cough as she tried to chug, too, but failed. Pyrrha giggled and patted her back. The two shared a loving look.

"Do you think the band will break up?"

"If it does, it'll be long before those two."

"Exactly, so go ask her."

"I don't-"

"Jaune!" The two looked over to see Nora tapping her foot at them. "What's the holdup? Is Ren picking on you again?"

"Uh," Jaune looked to Ren, then back to Nora, "yes?"

"Well, lecture him later, Renny! We gotta go!" She patted her belly. "There's a pancake buffet in town that serves a full pound flapljack, and they close before midnight!"

"Remember what I said Jaune." Ren walked away, leaving the two alone.

"Uh, Nora?"

"What?" Nora covered her mouth. "You're sick, aren't you?!"

"No, no, I'm... Well, I am, but I don't think it's contagious."

"Okay, fine, but I'm not cleaning up your throw-up." She tapped her chin. "It would explain your screw-up earlier, though."

"Wait, you noticed that?!"

"Duh! Of course I did!" She tapped her brain. "I know everything that happens in this band, Jaune. Even Pyrrha's crush on you, and Ruby's crush on Pyrrha. Nothing slips by me!"

Jaune felt his heart sink. She knew, but she was too nice to let him know she knew. He slumped over and got to work packing his stuff. She knew and she was being too nice.

"Try not to throw up, Jaune." She rubbed his back. "Last thing we need is my second best friend missing the after-party."

Jaune slumped further.

"Aw, c'mon! Don't pout!" She pulled him up, holding him by the shoulders. "Flapjacks, Jaune! A whole pound of them!"

Jaune chuckled. "All right, all right."

"There we go!" She let go of him. "Now come on! If we get there and they're closed, I'm making you cook them for me instead!"

"Sure thing, Nora." She skipped away into the dark once more, and he followed her, same as before.

'Ugh, now that sounds like a bad romance.' Jaune thought.

#submission #my submissions #rwby #jaune arc #nora valkyrie #lie ren #nora's arc #ruby rose #pyrrha nikos #milk and cereal

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isayoldbean · 11 months ago

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my other alt! when they announced the new data center i was debating whether or not i should be a character there, and then they announced one of the servers would be called maduin and my ff6 obsessed self couldn't just Not have a character there. and then one of my friends came to me and asked if i'd be interested in going in half with them on getting an fc house on the new server for workshop sub tax evasion purposes and i was like oh hell yeah. so for those two reasons i had to come up with another idea for an alt

remembering that i had originally planned on making an au ra before being foiled by only having access to base arr races, i decided to try my hand at making the au ra i most likely Would have made if i had been allowed to make one from the beginning. it turned out to be hard because i was trying to make a character for a game i know almost everything about with the idea that it was supposed to be a character made when i knew nothing about it. after a while, this is who i wound up with!

this is the first picture i ever took of her, in all her dripless sprout glory

anyway, this is hikari! she was originally supposed to have a different surname but i created her literally as soon as the new servers went live on reset day and i was too tired to remember what it was so now she's hikari mistdweller. it is what it is

i'm still working on her overall backstory because i learn more about her the longer i play but she's still in arr, but more or less her deal is that she was raised in a small village near the ruby sea. her parents were really shitty and emotionally abusive and she was basically their unfavorite child. then one day in her early teens, her sister died in an accident, and her family blamed her for it and got her kicked out of the village.

she kind of wandered for a while just doing her best to survive, clawing her own existence out of the dirt as best she could. eventually she heard tales of adventurers earning fortunes and glory in eorzea, and decided that she was going to go become really successful and cool and famous and make everyone in her town regret kicking her out.

as she got closer to eorzea she started hearing tales of raubahn aldynn's unlikely rise to syndicate member and flame general and decided to make for ul'dah to attempt to follow in his footsteps. and that is where the beginning of arr picks up, more or less

she's kind of uptight and serious and emotionally repressed but she is learning how to human better, slowly but surely. she is a perfectionist and a workaholic. she likes to bite people. she's a little feral. she can't cook and is perfectly happy eating tree bark if she can't scrounge up anything else. she was voted most likely to say 'what do you mean you're being murdered. they can't do that. that's illegal' in a crisis. she likes gemstones and mining and smithing her own weapons and armor. she thinks of herself as a weapon first and a person never. she's so determined to prove to everyone, herself most of all, that she's deserving of love and attention and respect, that she will give and give and give of herself until she is completely empty and then do it some more. she's a self loathing closeted gay but not in a homophobic way which shouldn't even be possible, and yet. she's a poor little meow meow. and she may or may not have autism.

even though she's still in arr i know two things without a doubt about what lies in store for her in future expacs:

in stormblood she returns to the ruby sea, eager to return to her hometown to show everybody that she's hot shit now and don't they feel bad for kicking her out... only to find that at some point between when she was exiled and when she returned, the garleans completely razed the town to the ground. there's nobody left. she will never have her catharsis

her skin/scale color combination kind of reminds me of wedgewood jasperware china, so in shb her sin eater form would be some sort of porcelain construct looking creature with kintsugi ribboned through damaged areas

anyway this is my sadgirl lesbian lizard that i like to put in the torture nexus i hope you enjoy her

#Final Fantasy #Final Fantasy XIV #ff14 #WoL #Hikari Mistdweller #tbh she's kind of a repurposed version of a character from an au i was working on. probably obvious which one if you've known me for a whil #please don't say though lmao

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bloodsadx · 2 years ago

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every time i go to print a new shirt theres a few feelings. the first feeling is annoyance and lots of fretting over the art part of it. im rly precious abt what a drawing for a shirt should look like most of the time so i will redraw the same idea like 40 times until it feels charming. then i gotta print transparencies which is always a pain in the ass especially since i do big ass shirts thats like such an annoying process gotta do math gotta split the art up into chunks gotta do color separations. then i get excited cause im like yes this is gonna be such a cool shirt. then i get annoyed again bc i have to reset like 4 to 20 screens for my dumb shirt. then i get rly worried im gonna print super badly and waste a bunch of expensive blanks cause like the shirts and hoodies i print on cost like at least 7 or 8 bucks some of the hoodies i have rn are like 30 bucks wholesale. they would cost u like 80 dollars to buy them Not wholesale. so like thats a decent amt of pressure. then i start printing and its like 4 hours of like doing a print then standing there while i wait for ink to cure under the heat. then printing. then waiting. its a lot of waiting. waiting for office stores to open so i can buy ink for my printer then waiting for my time in the studio then waiting for screens to dry then coating them then waiting for them to dry then washing them out then waiting for them to dry then printing then waiting for the ink to dry. but after like a week i have a bunch of shirts, most of which i will never see again after i mail them out. so the final stage is sort of waiting indefinitely for somebody who has one of the shirts i made to @ me on somewhere and be like shirt by bloodsad and then im like Yes. anyway im just sitting in the studio rn bc my legs hurt and ive been here for like 9 hours and i was here like 9 hours 2 days ago and then yesterday i was also here cleaning stuff and 3 days ago i was here for about 9 hours and the day before that too and it all sort of blends together and a lot of it is me sitting in a chair at 3 am when my legs hurt. this is what a job is but i guess because most of it is spent like alone it doesnt feel like real. i often feel like its going to go away soon or like im doing something illegal even though it wont and im not. a lot of last year i kept standing on the street corner at like 4 am by myself smoking looking at the asphalt and thinking “how much of my time in portland will i remember as just times when i was not at the studio, preparing to go to the studio, and then how much of the time will i remember as me being at the studio, thinking about how soon i will no longer be at the studio, i will be somewhere else, somewhere not in portland?” its weird when u think that u will not be in the place youve been in a year repeatedly for a year soon and then that turns into two years and then you realize that probably u will continue to be in that place indefinitely. i see older people who are in portland and i think about how many of them live here intentionally or just forgot they were supposed to move somewhere else. i think about if thats just the state of living for everybody or if its a factor of my age or being a zoomer or whatever. but idk i guess im printing shirts. no joke or point to this post

#from the mind of the author

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iamthedukeofurl · 4 months ago

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True, but I think the underlying logic: That the game's root mechanics are more interested in asking the question "What will it cost to overcome this challenge" rather than "CAN you overcome this challenge" remains the same whether the "Challenge" in question is contained in a dungeon room or a wilderness hex. To use the Wilderness Hex as an example, if you are able to successfully forage for food, you don't need to eat your preserved rations, which means you can keep going longer, since you can now pass through more hexes that you don't manage to find supplies in. This is relevant because the instinct is to treat something like D&D as an episodic heroic adventure, where each challenge is supposed to represent a possible failure point for the PCs. The PC's are attacked by an Ogre, can they defeat the Ogre or will the Ogre defeat the Heroes. With the trouble of assembling a group for a session, and the length combat takes, the instinct is to build sessions around a single "Centerpiece" combat as the Big Action of the session. The game itself mechanically tends to take the PC's victory for granted, it's more interested in what resources are expended in defeating the ogre. Actual Defeat isn't supposed to be on the table until the PC's are well worn down a few encounters later. The strategic challenge is supposed to be spread across the entire adventure, rather than individual encounters, and so the "Duration" of a challenge tends to go until the PC's get to reset their resources (A Long Rest in 5e Terms). If you go by the standard of "A few minion fights and then The Boss", the challenge as the mechanics treat it is supposed to be more about "Did you make it past the minions with enough resources left to beat the Boss" rather than "Are you good enough to beat The Boss". The assumption is almost always that a fresh party can wipe the floor with the boss, and D&D isn't especially good at making interesting fights where a fresh party gets to go all-out but still faces a serious threat of defeat. At least, not without some extra work or doing a multi-session fight scene against multiple waves of enemies. Of course, I think this might be part of why D&D DOES work so well as a heroic fantasy game, even though the underlying mechanics don't necessarily lean into that, is because telling stories with your friends is fun, and it's quite easy to embrace the Kayfabe where you can go into a long rest with your fighter barely bloodied and your wizard still having enough Fireballs in the tank to wipe out a small army and go "Whew, that was a tough fight we barely escaped from", and everybody has a great time with fairly little in the way of actual risk of defeat. Simply by embracing the kayfab and shortening the "Adventure" such that it reaches a finale before the "Party is exhausted and needs to seriously consider turning back or risking TPK" stage, you get a pretty good Heroic Adventure game so long as people are more interested in having fun than doing the math to see how close they were to an actual defeat. Actual interesting challenging encounters I've seen tend to take a form of dealing with some objective beyond "Make the enemies fall down before the PC's do". Something that can't be solved by simply expending resources until the threat is over.

Perhaps you've talked about this before, but what do you view as D&D's "comfort zone" as far as the rules expectations are concerned? If I'm playing a 5e game with my friends, what kinds of stories are generally going to be most enjoyable to run with the ruleset as it exists already?

Broadly speaking, D&D's narrative comfort zone revolves around stories about small groups of highly skilled weirdos whose core competences lie somewhere in the vicinity of "hurting people and breaking things", trying to achieve a goal that can be accomplished by travelling from point A to point B (and hurting or breaking whatever they find when they get there). This journey will take the form of a picaresque series of set-piece encounters, characterised by the ever-present threat, if not necessarily the eventuation, of violence, in which various only-semi-avoidable horrible things will happen to the group – potentially up to and including death – and they will do horrible things to others in turn. Though the framing of this series of set-pieces may involve some sort of mystery or intrigue, the rules don't care about that dimension of the story's premise and offer few tools for engaging with it; rather, the spotlight lies on the logistical dimension of the journey – i.e., how the group marshals the limited resources available to them in order to accomplish the getting-from-point-A-to-point-B part.

(Some folks reading this may be thinking "wait, you just described a completely standard RPG", and given the influence of D&D on the evolution of that standard, you're not wrong; however, if that was your reaction, it may be worthwhile to back up and count how many weirdly specific assumptions about the shape of the game's story I just outlined – there may be a few you didn't realise you were making!)

#dungeons & dragons #d&d #tabletop roleplaying #rambling #talking out of my ass probably

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blue-opossum · 1 year ago

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Shopping for a CD after Jumping through a Circle of Fire

Tuesday morning, 21 November 2023

I pretend to be a young female. I practice escaping from the front glass doors of a shopping mall as it is quickly surrounded by a circle of fire, though lit from the back of the building in the daytime. I do not define who set this trap for me. I joyfully and confidently jump through the minimal fire before it forms a higher circle around the building. In the final version, I run through it into the parking lot and jump into a raised parking lot garden to my right. Knowing I am only navigating my imagination, I reset and repeat the event a few times before integrating into the next staging as "myself." However, I do not have real-world recall of my current life.

There is a music CD of this event. The cover features the girl (of whom I no longer am) titled "Flames." An advertisement of it is on the eaves of an apartment building. I walk through an unknown city at night.

I enter a pawn shop that only sells CDs. The owner, though friendly, is pushy about selling me a CD. The television series, "Everybody Loves Raymond," is in the back of my mind, but I mistake the name for Marone (instead of Barone) though pronounced as "Ma-ro-nee." The owner reminds me of Brad Garrett. (We were both born in 1960.) However, because of the natural virtual amnesia of dreaming, I think he resembles the owner of a pawn shop in La Crosse (though he looks nothing like him). I ask him if he has a brother in La Crosse and mention the shop's name, and he cheerfully shouts, "We're twins!" I leave because I think the prices are too high. Even so, he tells me that I can also exchange any CDs I have for ones in the store.

The next store has what looks like a movie theater's ticket booth at the front. It is nighttime. An unfamiliar woman is attending the counter. The sizeable glass door is open, but I know I am supposed to ask what CD I want instead of going into the place. I go to the front of the booth to give her $26.00 in American currency for the "Flames" CD. However, she gives me a dollar back. I drop it but pick it up again. I am unsure why she gave me a one-dollar discount.

I walk past the pawn shop, and the owner seems annoyed that I bought the CD elsewhere. I go in to look around again. He tells me he does not have a twin. He was joking. While standing near one shelf, an unfamiliar man in a raincoat drops several CDs into a duffel bag I am suddenly carrying (even though I did not have one seconds ago). I am unsure why he did that. I decide to leave. While walking through the front door, I wonder if an alarm will go off, but no drama occurs.

It is suddenly daytime again. After I cross the street, he yells that his name is Scruli (pronounced SCREW-LEE). He seems amused. I am uncertain which route to take. I go back to the pawn shop for a short time.

I decide to leave again, but when I walk out of the shop, it is now inside a large shopping mall. Not only that - but it is also now on the second floor rather than being a one-floor separate store on the city street as it was minutes ago.

I walk to the elevator. Even though I recall how elevators in dreams may be problematic (because of variations in kinesthetic outcomes while dreaming), I confidently enter it. My dreaming experience becomes the most vivid at this point. A friendly dog had followed me, but I am unsure if it entered the elevator. I recognize that I am in my dream's typical kinesthetic outcome (because of changes in REM atonia), and I soon wake. (Elevators occur regularly in my dreams because of the kinesthetic effect of naturally changing depths of sleep.)

#dream journal #meaning of dreams #dreaming #my dreams

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the-firebird69 · 2 years ago

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Marco

Zues

Polo

Brad

Marco

Zues

Polo

Brad

Okay okay so you know each other are now I see something funny what are you two like together fooling around got in a fight song get huge deal just wondering what the hell he was doing it's like on drugs he was on drugs and you were on drugs just downers and he was an upper and someone said something really despicable to him he's not doing his judging us and saying it I didn't see anything just didn't want to go there cuz it's against my religion so he stops and everything stops but really it was horrible and yeah you guys know where each other are and stop it and yeah what are you guys doing and he's a milk fanatic but Tommy Allen is out of control it's a huge amount of cracking milk they're not even harvesting it so I'm wondering why supposed to do it body good

Becka

It's terribly made up all these slogans and we're not saying it all and some people know and lots of people don't he thought of that one cuz I put into action it does do a body good I'm thinking of homogenizing it and put it in bottles

Bja

I'm going to go do that

Brad

Going to find the hole and get it so it's more milk than water although you can separate it I heard

Hera

It's like 1/3 milk it's not bad it's very powerful and knock you on your ass too it's got some poison in it you can take that out a little but man it really makes you big fast I grow a foot and like an hour it is incredibly powerful the other stuff does that faster you end up sick pretty quick with this stuff you don't you have the stem cells and if you condense it you grow twice as fast I'm going ahead and do that now

Brad

Don't have my son drink that stuff it's illegal and everybody on Earth will want it

Thor Freya

You're gross you idiot don't pretend you drink some it's funny though he acts like a baby but yeah it's illegal and we have a whole bunch of things happening very soon and it's going to happen here

Hera

Any plans for this place besides the security force moving in from the USA military we're going to start building stuff because you guys are busy doing other things now it's because we need to be here they need to be here you're not supervised by anybody and say where the hell is everybody all the time and it's like the community it takes too long to go through the water and they're trying to tell us how to do it fast it just doesn't work so we have to move it now

Thor Freya

we need force her for big actions but geez you need a daily thing and people to tell him now I'm moving out and I'm going to build those places we have 50 of them I think in the Port Charlotte and punta Gorda and they say yes they're 100 to 400 and it's a perfect size all the time Thor and Freya say so go ahead and we said the above

Olympus

Asking Mac to resend the 50 and you say yes and get the others going so he's resetting all the resendings right now too

Thor Freya

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wither-rose-circus · 3 years ago

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Imma be honest I found the finale really anticlimactic and like they were adding a bunch of stuff to make it unique but just ended up feeling unfinished in the most avoidable way possible

I didn’t want to tack my personal opinions on the summary post just so people could reblog it objectively, but honestly? Yeah I kinda feel where you’re coming from [disclaimer: I know nobody wants to listen to somebody rail on a series they enjoyed, so here’s your warning that I’m gonna be complaining a lot in this post and it’s all just my personal opinion, don’t take it too seriously]

Certain finales do feel a lot more complete than others, but all together? They feel very....disjointed and hollow. Based on the few details I’ve heard and the fates of certain characters, season 2 sounds like it’s going to be a hard reset, so I’m saying all of this under the assumption that this is where their stories end, full stop.

Scott’s death feels a bit unnecessary, he didn’t save anyone, they all still fell apart without him. I’m not sure if it was meant to imply that he transferred Xornoth’s soul with him? If he did, then I think it would’ve been more clear by having both of them confused, that way we could get Xornoth’s reaction to finally being free of Exor and getting to live a happy life. If that wasn’t meant to be the case and Scott is the only one who’s soul was transferred, well then. . . what exactly was the point? I suppose he theoretically saved everyone from Xornoth, but the world still ended in its own way. Scott’s death doesn’t feel like it saved anyone but himself, but maybe that’s the tragic point. That the cycle cannot ever be truly broken, just postponed.

Gem and fWhip’s endings feel. . . kind of selfish, honestly. And that is, to some extent, in character. I don’t have as much of a problem with fWhip’s as I do with Gem’s, though. I’m a little annoyed that they didn’t so much as mention or say goodbye to Sausage. Like if they met up and he insisted on staying behind to fix this mess, I would’ve been perfectly happy. It’s the fact that they didn’t even acknowledge leaving him, or anyone, behind. They spent so much of the series intertwining their trio that to just abandon him without a second thought doesn’t sit right with me. Sausage specifically made a point to emphasize how much his character cared and would sacrifice for his friends (going as far as to namedrop Gem!), so why they didn’t at least include some sort of goodbye baffles me. Gem’s finale especially bothered me because she treats her ending like this storybook, the wizard lives happily ever after in retirement, the Crystal Cliffs are fine, etc. It doesn’t fit. There’s not even a courtesy hand wave to anyone else, she doesn’t even acknowledge missing any of them, she’s just living happily ever after and that’s it. (Not to mention the dragon egg getting tossed away. They built it up like it was the only thing that could possibly stop Xornoth and then never touched on it. It’s just there! It never did anything, what was the point?)

Other than those two, I didn’t have nearly as much beef with anyone else’s individually. In a vacuum:

• Lizzie’s ending feels anticlimactic. I think if she had drawn out losing the blessing, it would’ve been perfectly fine. If we had gotten to see her panic and slowly begin forgetting everything she knew and loved, it would’ve been gut wrenching. The fact that it just stopped and she left without a thought makes it feel as if all her buildup, all these prophecies and developments, meant nothing. It all just falls flat.

• Jimmy’s ending is depressing as all hell and it sucks that when he finally tries to stand up for himself and take charge, it literally blows up in his face and ruins everything and he just ends it feeling miserable and worthless. That’s not so say it’s bad in an objective story telling sense, but it just leaves you feeling sad (once again though, not necessarily a bad thing, just not for everybody).

• Joey’s ending feels a bit vapid. It doesn’t feel like he got much character growth and he clearly never moved past Xornoth, but it was decently tragic and admittedly still in character.

• Pixl and Joel’s endings are whatever, honestly. It’s sad that Pixl didn’t get to make one but it’s understandable. Joel kept up the same energy throughout the series so his is at least consistent and I expected nothing less.

• Kathrine and Pearl’s endings are both fine in my opinion. Outside of the general idea of what could’ve been, neither leave me feeling particularly empty. (Pearl especially kinda got screwed over by real life events). All and all, I thing they’re perfectly reasonable sad endings individually, though I was not personally invested in them so Kathrine or Pearl fans probably have more so say than I do.

• Surprisingly enough, the endings I enjoyed the most were Sausage and Shubble, one I followed religiously and the other I did not actively watch! My only criticisms are pretty minor. I’m disappointed Shubble’s relationship with Xornoth wasn’t explored more, but damn she set a reasonable end goal and she went for it. I feel pretty content with her ending where she did. As for Sausage, aside from never saying goodbye to Gem or fWhip as I mentioned earlier, I’m only really disappointed that the clone arc was cut so short. There wasn’t much of an explanation as to what he was, how exactly he got there, and what he was even gonna do. I’m sad there was no confrontation, Sausage just tricked him and that was that. That particular story beat felt pretty anticlimactic. The actual ending of Sausage sacrificing himself felt fine, though. Outside of a few loose ends and missed opportunities, I think both Sausage and Shubble had the best individual endings.

All that said, Empires was unfortunately not a vacuum. All together, their endings feel like a bunch of loose ends. There was no final tie together, everyone just sort of faded out alone. A lot of us were disappointed with the initial Xornoth defeat because so few members actually participated, but this honestly feels even worse. The book of prophecies wasn’t very actively explored, it just said some things and then they kinda happened, it didn’t feel like it really built up, yknow? It feels like a lot of things they seemed to be building up to fell flat. Not all of these endings even feel like they were part of the same story.

Like you said, it all feels very disjointed and unfinished, which is really a shame. I still think it’s a good series overall and I enjoyed most of it, but a lot of the finales either felt disappointing or even a bit frustrating. Of course, I’m still looking forward to season two regardless.

#this wasn’t meant to start an argument or anything (these are just my personal opinions on each finale)#but I will still be tagging this as discourse for the sake of empires fans that don’t care to listen to some asshole tear down their show #mcyt #empires smp #mcyt discourse #asks #anon

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hard--mode · 3 years ago

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Here's the notes for everything that would happen up until the end of the story.... as far as I had it figured out. You'll notice things are a lot less fleshed out the later things go. That's a big reason why this never got finished. the longer I tried to keep the thing running, the more I realized I never had any idea what I wanted to actually DO with this story which made it pretty hard for me to keep up. it's hard to write a story you're trying to take seriously if all you really have are jokes, it turns out.

I haven't reread any of this or edited it at all so who knows what kind of notes I might have written in between things haha

P: so as i was saying about undyne-

C: who’s undyne?

Everyone freezes. Chara just walked right up to papyrus without being noticed. Paps freaks out for a sec before he pulls sans into a huddle. Chara frowns and tries to peek around.

~Montage of papyrus’s excitement and harder puzzles, death montage

~Junior jumble: its sudoku now

Chara’s doing puzzles and sees flowey spying. They shout him over

C: HEY! still following me, loser? Don’t you have anything better to do? (but they smile)

F: somebody’s gotta make sure you don’t get killed too much out here

Flowey pops up closer to them

C: nah, I’m fine! I’ve got that reset power!

F: not for long considering how much you use it (mumbles. Rolls eyes??) (some depiction of chara dying a lot in the bg)

C: by the way…. In the ruins you were telling me to use it… care to tell me more about it since you seem to know so much?

F: I-... uh… well you already know the most of it. It just resets you back to your last SAVE point like nothing happened. Only beings with a powerful SOUL can use it, so monsters with their weak souls can’t.

Chara stops their puzzle work and sits to even the heights: Can flowers?

F: what the heck are you-... oh, no no no. I’m different.

C: so you have the power too.

F: No! I mean-, i used to before you came around. Yeah.

C: so you’ve done resets. (urging him on)

F: yep.

Chara waits a while: ...thats all you have to say?

F: yep

Travel scenes from here on out depict chara and flowey together

Gauntlet:

Flowey remarks that he doesn't remember a save point being before it. Chara goes along and gets paps’ bit. He does to activate it

C: wait this isn't for real right? U can't be srs!!!

P: yeah I am, this is hard mode!

Just show chara repeatedly spawning at the save and running back in with flowey watching them

Then cut to the end chara on the other side of it panting and exhausted, papyrus shocked but also beaming

P: wow you did it!! I'm so proud of u human! I didn’t think you would actually be able to get through it--- I mean- drat! Foiled again! I'll get u one of these times!

Papyrus runs off and Chara watches him with a look of wonder in their eyes.

F: don’t get too excited. his pride is cheap, he’s proud of everyone and every thing

Chara grumbles and marches forward: whatever. I don’t hear you saying you’re proud of me, so why do I have to listen to what you have to say

F: You know, you’re gonna have to fight him soon. Didn’t sans say so? What are you going to do then, die over and over until you give up or are you going to try to murder him just like you did with Toriel? :)

C: I am not! I’m gonna talk him out of it and go right past him like everyone else. Who knows! Maybe he won’t even fight me because he’s that cool. Even if he does, he’s probably a wimp anyways.

F: I wouldn’t be so sure! I bet you don’t stand a chance.

C: shut up! Quit following me if you’re gonna be this useless.

Paps fight

As papyrus carries their body to the shed to rest. Opens on their vision returning and they see their hands hanging toward the ground.

C: why didn’t you kill me? You’re stronger than everyone else, you could easily do it. Why dont you finish me off so everyone can leave or whatever it is you need me to do? Why did you hold back?

P: OH! YOU’RE AWAKE!

C: you held back…

P: OF COURSE i DID! I COULD NEVER KILL YOU, YOU’RE MY-- I HOPE I’M NOT BEING TOO FORWARD, BUT I LIKE TO THINK OF YOU AS MY FRIEND! AND EVEN THOUGH WE DO NEED YOUR SOUL, YOU DESERVE A FIGHTING CHANCE TO DO… WHATEVER IT IS YOU’RE TRYING TO DO.

Chara is too shocked and confused by the sentiment: I don’t… I don’t understand?

P: WHAT’S SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT A FRIEND NOT KILLING YOU? HUMANS ARE SO STRANGE ...OH! I SEE NOW! THE REASON WHY YOU CARRY YOUR KNIFE LIKE THAT. IT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE MORE AFRAID OF US MONSTERS THAN WE COULD EVER BE OF YOU!

He sets them down in the shed on the dog bed.

P: I’M SORRY, HUMAN! I WOULD HAVE GIVEN YOU MORE WARNING IF I HAD KNOWN HOW YOU FELT.

C: then… does that mean you’re going to let me go?

P: ABSOLUTELY NOT! I ALREADY CALLED UNDYNE TO MEET ME SO SHE CAN TAKE YOU! AND YOU NEED TO REST NOW AFTER ALL THAT!

C: !! I-I don’t know who Undyne is, but I can’t do that. I’m in a hurry to get out of here.

P: HMM… IF YOU’RE IN A HURRY THEN… NO, NO YOU CAN’T! WE NEED YOUR SOUL, I CAN’T JUST LET YOU LEAVE. UNDYNE’S REALLY COOL TOO, YOU’LL LIKE HER!

C: No, I have to go.

P: AGH, WELL… I SUPPOSE IF YOU CAN GET PAST ME BEFORE I CAN CATCH YOU, THERE’S NOTHING I CAN DO. BUT I WON’T GO EASY ON YOU!

Cut to chara walking toward waterfall, papyrus calling after them to come back and hang out sometime. They keep walking and mutter to themself: Sorry, but I’ll get out of here before that ever happens.

WATERFALL

They see monster kid and side eye sans as they charge in, hurriedly.

Chara keeps flowey around and asks him to read the words for him. FLowey says it’s not important at all to anything they’re doing. It’s just monster history junk that means nothing if chara’s trying to leave. Chara’s like shut up cmon help me out maybe there's clues. FLowey reads some history stuff in waterfall treating it like shit they already know

F: why do you care about all this garbage anyway?

C: I dunno, I guess it just sounds familiar. Like a story I heard a long time ago.

Chara stops suddenly and checks their phone. Flowey asks what’s up

C: i thought it rang… you didn’t hear-

The phone starts ringing. Papyrus is cheerfully on the other end and they walk and talk.

He tells them about how he heard so many horrible things about humans and the surface but chara was much nicer than he ever expected. Chara asks where he heard that and he says a flower told him. Chara covers the receiver and looks around for flowey, suspicions of him raised.

Montage w monster kid and umbrella

Chara falls from undyne’s spear attack and wakes up in the trash with flowey over them.

F: hey, wake up. I can tell you’re not dead so hurry up and get moving.

Chara’s kind of bummed: she killed me four times back there. And it wasn’t even a fight. I couldn’t talk her down or… i couldn’t even talk to her, I could barely see her.

F: what, are you giving up or something? You know she can kill you as much as she wants and you aren’t gonna die.

C: I know that! I know this is just like a game where you can keep on going but… it hurts. And it’s exhausting.

F: what will you do then? Sit here in this trash and do nothing?

C: *sigh* no. I’m just feeling down in the dumps.

They smile and get up.

As they’re walking out, they hear a click and someone to tell them to “hold it”

Mad dummys behind them and she just has a gun. Pointed directly at chara. She starts on her thing about the cousin and then blook saves the day.

Chara meets up with blook again. They go to where the snail races used to be. It’s all busted and unused

C: what’s this supposed to be…?

B: oh…. this used to be a snail farm…. And this was a race course…. For snails…. But a long time ago people started to call the races “insensitive” so we had to close them…. Sorry you can’t have any fun racing snails…

C: why was it insensitive…?

B: ...i’d… rather not talk about it………..

Timeskip

C: hey flowey! What’s up with this place and snails?

F:...i wouldnt know.

montage

After waterfall where undyne says how many souls they have

C: flowey… if they have 6 human souls, that means 6 others fell down and died here, so…

F: what?

C: i just- i mean you were the first one i met-

F: no, no, no, ive never killed anyone. You’re the only human i’ve seen since i woke up

Chara relaxes: ok. So you dont know anything about them.

F: no. i heard some things from toriel, not much. It’s too late to try asking her, but she’s seen all of them. She was there at the beginning even.

C: the beginning?

F: you know…. When humans started falling down here and monsters started killing them.

Chara goes silent in thought: wait… how… long has this been going on? How old is toriel?

F: dunno

Chara after having a rough time: it’s hard, but no matter what happens i can just keep trying. I’ll make it out of this! You believe in me right, flowey?

F: no i think you should give up.

Page/chapter ends there. Next is chara going up to fight undyne.

Open on a riff on the “long ago” cutscene that chara cuts off by saying they already know this story

Undyne screams SHUT UP!!! I’m doing my HEROIC MONOLOGUE!! Whatever, I bet you haven’t heard the part about the King and Queen’s human child who died of illness and their other son who was killed by the humans when he tried to return their body to the surface?!

C: No I think I heard that one too? Why are you telling me all this anyways??

U: because this is an UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENE!! NYAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!

Chara’s getting their ass beat and on low hp: I’ll die in a hit or two. But that’s fine because I’ll just start this over. I’ll start from… where was the last save point…

A vision of them with flowey. Their eyes go red and the flashback cuts in between shots of them running from undyne

F: I think you should give up

Ch: what… give up?? I thought you were on my side with all the telling me to keep going and-and the hanging out with me?!

F: as if you had any other choice but to keep going! We both know you don’t.

C: so you’ve just been following this whole time waiting for me to give up and die, huh?! Why, are you trying to steal my soul just like everybody else?!?

F: it doesn’t matter how hard you try, you’re going to die! And die and die and die! You can reset as much as you want, it won’t change that! So what if I am waiting for you to give up? You’re the last thing keeping monsters trapped down here. If you give up, you’ll give everyone what they want!

C: I thought you wanted to help me?! I thought you were my friend!

F: I would never be friends with a human! You’re all nothing but killing machines!

C: I haven’t killed anyone!

F: You killed Toriel! No number of resets can change what you did! You’re a horrible, disgusting human just like all the others and everyone would be happier if you were dead!

Flowey could say something about dying down here is better than their inevitable death on the surface. Their death would at least be worth something. Mean something

Chara escapes the fight, undyne collapses, and they walk away. they tell themselves they won’t give up. They don’t need help, especially not from that dumb flower. They’ll live to spite him and everyone else who tries to kill them

Chara goes in and meets alphys and overall is p meh abt it bc bad mood. Alphys helping them through the underground makes them talk to themselves about how they dont need flowey, they can do this themself. Friends are no good.

hotland is as normal. probably figure out some indication of things not right. make the game seem broken bc they arent supposed to get so far like this

Chara meets with sans at mtt resort for food reluctantly. Lets him say his piece. After he’s done threatening to kill them chara says to his face that they really don’t like him.

Need some hubbub about them having to kill asgore to get out. Theyll be like yeah I know that (somehow)... oh but I need a plan… how will i come up with a plan..

Flowey finally appears to chara again just before they get to new home and tries to talk them out of leaving. Disparaging the surface and telling them they could live happily down here. Chara says no, it’s too hard because people are constantly hunting them down and being the last soul, no ones going to stop that. He says that he’s sorry for the way he was before

Chara smiles back, and then looks away: What you said before… about.. My inevitable death on the surface…

F: that was… don’t worry about that.

C: are you afraid of it?

F: well- yeah, it’s a dangerous place. Everyone knows that.

C: I’ve died a lot more times down here than I ever did up there.

A beat

C: you go back and forth a lot between talking about how I should stay down here because it’s better… but also if I die down here… everyone gets to go free… to the horrible, awful surface.

F: uh,, did I say all that…? I may have contradicted myself a little… I guess… in the end I just wanted an excuse for you to stay around. I really don’t want you to die.

C: so you did see me as a friend after all?

F: well…you reminded me of someone who was my friend. I wish we could have been friends.

C: Do you think… If I reset back to the beginning and did this again, if I said the right things… we could have been?

F: No… You could be as nice to me or as mean to me as you want. No matter how many times you reset, some things never change.

C: ...Did you ever… have to reset because you killed someone?

F: ……….once… and then I never reset ever again. The power to reset… makes you do bad things. It’s wrong. I had to stop because i knew… I’d make someone really upset if I kept messing around.

C: well, in that case… I guess I’ll just have to get the rest of the way out of here without any resets!

Flowey smiles: I dunno, keep one or two under your belt. You’re a pretty big klutz.

C: Thanks for helping me out of here, flowey. Even if you just did it because you were begged.

Can you imagine a more paranoid flowey who is less interested in attacking you and regaining the reset ability, but is pleased af that you have the reset ability because that means you can't die, and instead he spends the entire game trying to convince you that humanity is hopeless. That there is nothing on the surface world returning to. That it's safer, down here.

he's part of the reason why things are so much harder

he's the one that starts the rumors about the dangers of teh surface world

there's a definite sense of paranoia all across the board

When they approach new home, flowey appears one last time and grabs chara by the hand, telling them not to go. They can live in the underground, they’ve made a lot of friends here. Chara says that they have to go, they’ll find a way to get out without killing asgore. Flowey says that he tried to stop them, this is as far as he’ll go. This is goodbye. They bid their farewells and chara goes along, but flowey secretly follows them, much less detectable than ever before. It’s revealed when he’s hiding with the flowers.

Chara walks up to new home, regarding it as a vaguely familiar sight. They walk down the many halls knowing exactly where to go. The monsters speak as they go through the motions. They find a cookbook in the kitchen with a page for snail pie missing. Chara mumbles about already knowing the story and that they should all shut up. They walk more quickly to stay ahead of them. Then one mentions the snail pie and chara stops dead in their tracks. No that’s not how it happened- they stop, and take back off.

They are stopped by sans in the judgement hall, glaring at him.

S: well I had a whole speech to give ya, but you look like you’re in a hurry. You’re a weird kid, but you’re fine. The king’s up ahead.

OTHER alternative: chara realizes something’s wrong and runs back to get everyone, probably threatening to kill asgore to convince them to come quickly. Sans is avoided due to the mob approaching behind them “I heard the word that you’re on your way to kill the king.” c: are you here to stop me? “Nah. But you’d better have a good plan to back yourself up, kid. King’s up ahead”

They run up to asgore, no nonsense. Some time is taken to progress things. As they leave the throne room, flowey watches from the flowers, chara looks back to confirm he’s there.

Asgore draws up the souls, the fight is about to engage, before he can smash “MERCY” chara yells: ASRIEL. Get the souls.

Everything stops. Flowey is behind them, stunned and confused. Chara turns and asks him what he’s waiting for. Hurry up and take the souls before everyone else gets here. Nearly every last monster is coming, if he can become godlike and absorb them, it will be enough strength to break the barrier.

Flowey is confused, how do they know that? Chara tells him he did it before. Doesn’t he remember? Doesn’t he remember them?

Either flowey does it and something happens, or flowey waits too long and chaos erupts which gets them killed, and then chara and flowey have to meet up and workshop.

Final fight:

He probably says some shit about frisk and how he cant lose frisk again, chara must insist that theyre not frisk. When they say their name is chara, he hesitates for only a moment. Finally, when chara’s pinned and about to seriously die…

C: you remember it now too, don’t you? It took me a while, I couldn’t remember a thing until i started hearing your name around. You’re an all powerful god now, you should be able to remember it all better than me

A: shut up.

C: would frisk want us to fight like this?! Would frisk want you to kill your own sibling?!

A: c-.... You’re… you’re really chara?

He lets them go

They reach the conclusion that frisk messed with everything and put them here with no memories so they could do something frisk could never do. Frisk thinks they deserve to live, no matter how much the two may disagree. They have to play along. Asriel is a god and can use his powers to break the barrier and bring EVERYONE back to life so they can live together happily.

go to final fight and everyones already there, things are very confused, flowey takes the souls and things glitch out (screen phases between bosses) and chara realizes this isnt how things are supposed to be, tells asriel theyre sorry for their baggage but he doesnt understand bc he isnt theirs, and then they gotta find frisk somehow

OR... they realize things in the speech and don't go to fight asgore bc theyre finding flowey... they feign fighting asgore and then suddenly tell flowey to take the souls("Asriel! get the souls!" and thats the first time they call him by name)...? i like that a bit better. they start going on about crazy shit that makes roided out flowey kind of lose it at them which leads to them apologizing to their own asriel but then realizing they need to find frisk

but HOW do they find frisk

The end shows chara asriel and frisk hugging eachother, all alive and well. Then the two are “processing…” and remember that oh, theyve done some dark messed up stuff.

#unsure what to tag this as lol #sorry if the readmore doesnt work for any reason

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sirenofthegreenbanks · 3 years ago

Text

i was watching wenzhou fmvs and thinking about zzs, who seems to hold himself perfectly still everytime wkx comes too close as if he is afraid he would go up in flames if he dares to move. and that reminded me of the many “break-ups” they had and of how ive often seen viewers of the show express their disdain, frustration, and lack of appreciation about the “break-ups”. (im putting that in quotationmarks not to ridicule, but because i dont particularily agree with that choice of term for what is happening, but use it here for better understanding because i think, everybody knows what im talking about when i do, so i do). i do understand that, of course. clearly these two love eachother / are insanely attracted to each other, so 4 break-ups seem a tad too much like artificial drama, as if the producers only wanted to create tension and make the romantic plot a bit more interesting that way. so i get that. but i want to give my two cents regardless. i think that take is a bit unfair to the producers and a bit too one-sided. it views wenzhou only in the context of romance and oversimplifies the situation, instead of acknowledging their humanity and the individual stories they carry on their back.

so, because it is handy, a little list of my thoughts on this:

wkx and zzs are two highly traumatized people who are constantly hurting each other as a result of their own wounds. im talking a bit about that in this post.

neither of them, to our knowledge, has been in a romantic/sexual relationship before, which makes my next point all the more important since

neither of them is particularily close in general on an interpersonal basis in an actual social context with other people. there is no practice, and there is no desire and even a fear, to start. the few relationships (non-romantic, non-sexual) they do have are either overshadowed by an overwhelming amount of shared violence when they were formed, or created in an environment of survival and therefore unable to grow in a way it would be good for them

wkx in particular has a history with physical, psychological, and possibly even sexual, abuse

neither of them is open to a romantic relationship at the point they meet, and that doesnt change for a very long time in the story, no matter how much wkx pretends otherwise (i see u, wkx, i see u). and no, yearning, sneaked glances, curiosity, all of that doesnt equal an actual consent to partaking in a relationship, or the welcoming of one. flirting is not the same as being in a relationship and choosing a relationship.

i say it again, because i feel it gets too easily overlooked though it holds so severely a weight: these two are deeply, deeply, deeply traumatized, jaded people with sharp edges and broken shards for souls and a destroyed trust in both humanity as a whole and themselves as people. theyre trying to breath through that, tolerating another person’s breath who gets too close too fast too soon too intense on top of that is hard. like, fucking hard. believe me, its so freaking fucking ducking hard.

a natural connection does not equal a relationship, doesnt make it neccessarily easier to be in a relationship, or magically creates answers for all your natural questions if you are in a relationship and find its hard, actually, to let someone that close to you and not instantly combust or clam up

before wenzhou is able to come together as an actual team, romantic/sexual and otherwise, they need to be able to exist in the same space first. all their “break-ups” are just them, trying to redefine, reposition, and reset their relationship, themselves in their relationship, and their boundaries with and around each other. its not the way we think romance is supposed to be as media tells us, but its authentic, healthy, and probably neccessary.

i appreciate it all the more when they do succeed after i witnessed the messy, very unflattering for either of them, totally not easy to watch, imperfect struggle because i know, dear god, they worked hard for it

this is how i see it.

#wenzhou meta #woh fandom discourse #trauma in woh #i dont remember if it were 4 breakups but it seems accurate enough #i realize after i wrote a longass post that i just wanted to say #actually #miscommunication is human #communication does not solve your trauma #no its not as simple as Just Talk About It #like the trauma that made you avoid emotional vulnerability in the first place #is still there after you would have talked about it so #there is that #quickly whipped up but we die like wkx

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bluejayblueskies · 3 years ago

Text

the before, the after, the in-between

Chapter Three: return states Words: 3.3k

Relationships: Jon & Daisy, Jon/Martin Tags: Post-Canon, Scottish Safehouse, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mute Jon, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Nightmares

Work Summary:

There was no knife, no blood, and Jon was not dead. And when he heard a strangled noise from beside him and looked over to see Martin standing in the doorway of the safehouse, flung open and letting in the frigid bite of near-winter and sunlight, there was sunlight, he felt such a dizzying, intense wave of relief that he could hardly breathe around it.

Then, he opened his mouth to say Martin’s name, and nothing came out, and all of the relief fell away in an instant.

Jon wakes up in the safehouse in October of 2018, alive and well but without the Eye and without his voice. In the days that follow, he finds himself confronted with a world that has reset itself in space and in time, a version of himself that is no longer the Archivist, and the fact that death during the end of the world had not been so permanent as it had seemed.

Chapter Summary:

Daisy's mug rests beside her, emptied and with a small ring of tea leaves at the bottom of it as the three of them sit around the kitchen table and try to work out what, exactly, the state of the world is at present and what it means for them.

Apparently, Daisy tells them, things are “rough.”

Read on Ao3 (link in source)

Or read below:

(cw for mentions of death and blood)

Daisy takes her tea with no milk or sugar, oversteeped enough that it sticks to her tongue and the roof of her mouth when she drinks it. Jon recognized the faint twitch of Martin’s nose when she told him this, the one that meant he was trying to hold in a look of displeasure, and smiled to himself, burying his grin in his own mug of tea. Now, her mug rests beside her, emptied and with a small ring of tea leaves at the bottom of it as the three of them sit around the kitchen table and try to work out what, exactly, the state of the world is at present and what it means for them.

Jon has his notebook now, which makes things easier. Still, it remains mostly closed and set to the side as Daisy explains, in greater detail, how she found her way here. How the farmer who had found her offered her clothing and, hesitantly, a meal and a ride. “He said I couldn’t stay,” Daisy says with a sigh, rubbing the handle of the mug between her fingertips. “Makes sense, I suppose. Everyone’s still scared, unsure what’s next. I don’t think he was particularly keen to take in a stranger. Especially one covered in blood, waking up days after everyone else. Still don’t know why. Wonder if it didn’t want to let me go or something. Don’t know if it matters much, though.”

The radio had been on in the kitchen when the farmer had slid a hastily-made bowl of soup in front of her before settling across from her with his own. They hadn’t spoken, so Daisy had listened instead.

Apparently, she tells them, things are “rough.”

“Rough,” Martin echoes, curling his hands around his own mug of tea. “What does that mean?”

Daisy shrugs, leaning back in her chair. “It means they’re rough.” At his sour expression, she sighs and continues, “There’s a whole world of people who have memories of horrible things but who opened their eyes a few days ago to find themselves sitting back at their desk in their office or lying in their bed or in the middle of walking their dog.” She laughs, a small exhalation through her nose. “The radio host tried to claim it was a ‘mass hallucination.’”

Jon taps his fingers on the cover of his notebook, trying not to let the sick feeling in his stomach bleed over onto his face. He tries to focus on Daisy’s words so he doesn’t get swallowed by the swirling mass of guilt and regret and frustration and self-loathing that’s currently forming in his chest. He’s only partially successful.

As far as Daisy’s been able to put it together, the situation is this:

When the Fears exited this reality, it reset itself in space and in time, putting people back in the places they had been when the first eye in the sky blinked open. Like turning back the hand of a clock, Jon thinks, except in the time it had taken the hand to traverse the face of the clock, it had seen and felt and experienced irreparable horrors that stuck with it even as it was adjusted back into place. People still have their memories; he still has his scar, the one that Martin won’t look at.

But Daisy is alive. And as far as she can tell, she’s not the only one.

The farmer who had found her had been trapped in an End domain. He’d only told her because he’d asked if she’d been in “one of the death ones as well”—said that she had the same glassy-eyed, confused look of someone who was sure that they’d died only to find themselves very much alive and well again. She’d said no and had left it at that, and he hadn’t mentioned it again. On the drive to the safehouse, he’d had the radio on again, and one of the hosts had talked at length about return states. People who remembered being twisted and reformed had woken up humanoid once again; people who had forgotten which face was meant to be theirs had looked in the mirror and recognized the version of themselves that they thought they’d lost. And people who had died opened their eyes just like everybody else, hearts beating one again.

It makes sense, Jon thinks as he scribbles two words in the notebook and holds it up for Martin and Daisy to see: dream logic. At least, it makes as much sense as any other outcome he might have expected. A reset button of sorts. Reality stretched and warped, snapping back into place as the things warping it were sent away.

It would explain how they’re here, at least. How Jon woke up unbleeding and Martin found him and held him and sobbed into his shoulder and neither of them quite remembered the transition from being unraveled and undone to being solid once more. Maybe he did die, standing in the center of the Panopticon with tape spilling out of his mouth and the wound in his chest, and he was simply reborn.

“And that’s all I know,” Daisy says with a small shrug. “Remembered that I had a safehouse in Scotland and got a ride. Didn’t expect to find the two of you here, though.”

Jon scribbles quickly in his notebook as Martin says carefully, “We had a… a bit of a rough time of it and needed somewhere safe to stay.”

Jon holds up the notebook, which reads pulled martin from lonely hid from el jonah didn’t work. Then, while still holding it up, he writes messily, like it here. And then: shitty books though.

Dryly, Daisy says, “I didn’t come up here to read, Jon.”

Jon rolls his eyes, then settles the notebook down on the table so he can write, more legibly and in complete sentences now that he’s not rushing, Yes, I gathered that much. The pulpy romance novels were a nice touch, though. Then, he hesitates, his pen hovering over the page for a long moment. Daisy and Martin are patient, though Daisy cranes her neck to read what he’s already written, laughing under her breath as she reads the words. He shoots her a glare without much heat, then turns back to the page and writes, slowly and carefully, We I like it here. Do you Would it be all right if I would like to stay.

He doesn’t bother holding up the notebook, given that Daisy is already reading the words as he writes them. Instead, he sets the pen down in the center of the notebook and looks at her, not quite able to write the last sentence. The one where he asks her if she’s going to stay.

He doesn’t know if he wants to know the answer. And the answer, for now, is yes, which is all that matters.

“Okay,” Daisy says with a small shrug. “I’m not kicking you out if that’s what you’re worried about.”

It’s really not. But Jon gives her a shrug anyway, because that’s as easy an answer as anything else, and writes, I mean, it technically is your house.

Daisy snorts at that. “Sure. And it’s my pictures hung up on the fridge and my vegetables planted in the back and my clothes in the bedroom, then?” She laughs again, quieter this time. “You can have the place. It’s got a draft.”

“Speaking of,” Martin says, “I should go get some more wood for the fire. And, um. Probably some supplies from town.”

He looks a bit uncomfortable at the thought, and Jon understands. They haven’t been to town yet, having had enough supplies to last them the past few days, and after what Daisy’s told them, he imagines Martin isn’t keen to face whatever situation is outside the safety of the walls of the safehouse. Jon is about to offer to come with—for support if nothing else—but he’s not halfway through inking the words on paper when Martin shakes his head, placing a gentle hand on Jon’s shoulder to prompt him to stop writing.

(The first day, when Jon had been getting used to writing down his thoughts and Martin had been getting used to waiting for them to appear, Martin had placed his hand atop Jon’s to interrupt him, and the words had smudged across the page. Jon had looked at the marred sentence, something twisting and choking spreading in his stomach and throat, and he must have looked distressed because Martin had stammered out an apology and held his hands up in the air, his mouth twisted into something equally as upset. There was just something about seeing his words sat upon the page, smeared and ruined, that Jon couldn’t stand to look at.)

“I’ll be quick,” Martin promises. “We don’t know what it’s like out there, and I just… I think it’ll be best if it’s just me. For now.”

Jon wants to argue. Instead, he worries his bottom lip between his teeth and then nods, twisting the pen back and forth between his fingers. “Okay,” Martin says, sounding relieved. “I’ll go get the wood, and then I’ll be off. We’re, um. We’re all out of tea.”

Jon remembers the thing that was not tea, and even though it’s not particularly funny, he still finds it within himself to laugh, albeit a bit humorlessly. He nods, and Martin leaves, and then it’s just him and Daisy, sat at the table with three empty and tea-stained mugs. The yellow daisies in front of them sit directly in a beam of sunlight, bright and cheery.

“I’m going to take a nap,” Daisy says at length, standing and making a displeased expression when her back pops. She looks at Jon for a moment, forehead pinched as if trying to make a difficult decision, before saying, “You can come. But only if you stop making that face.”

What face, Jon wants to ask. He settles for a glare that lacks significant heat and that only serves to make Daisy huff out a breath and turn away from him. “Your choice,” she says as she walks away, disappearing around the corner. There’s no soft click of the bedroom door closing, and after a moment, Jon stands, takes his notebook and pen in hand, and slowly makes his way to the bedroom.

Daisy is standing in front of the bed, unmoving, a strange sort of tension in her body. Jon frowns and steps into the room, coming around so he can see her face.

She’s staring at the bed—sheets slightly rumpled from where Jon hadn’t quite pulled them taught when making it this morning, the firmer pillow that Martin prefers and had packed with him settled next to the cheap thing Jon uses and Martin insists is bad for his neck. Jon’s glasses are settled on the nightstand next to his side along with the book he’d been working his way through before things had gone wrong and a small framed picture of the Admiral that Martin had definitely made fun of him for but had admitted later he found incredibly endearing. Jon looks at the bed, then back at her, then places a hand on her arm just below the elbow, trying to convey his confused concern with his expression and body alone.

Daisy stares at the bed a moment more before sighing and turning away. “I’ll take the couch,” she says, starting towards the door. Unthinkingly, Jon tightens his grip on her arm and pulls her back. She pauses and gives him a flat look that he takes in stride, not letting go of her arm. “I’m not sleeping in your bed, Jon. It’s not…” She pauses, then says with the slightest hitch in her voice that Jon wouldn’t have heard if he hadn’t heard it dozens of times before, back in the Archives, “It’s not mine.”

Jon thinks that’s ridiculous, frankly. He doesn’t mind, and he knows Martin won’t mind either, and the couch is absolutely atrocious—a threadbare, broken-down thing that Martin had glared at quite thoroughly their first night here before declaring that if they stayed here any longer than a month, they were going to have to buy a new one. Jon, pleased at the thought of staying here for the near future, had agreed readily, even more so once he’d sat on it and found that the springs sagged considerably under his weight. He pulls on Daisy’s arm, nodding towards the bed, and gives her his best come-on expression.

Daisy stares at him for a moment before sighing. “Fine. But I’m getting my own pillow.”

She does, swapping it out for Martin’s before curling up on his side of the bed and giving Jon an amused look as he crawls in beside her, sitting against the headboard, pulling his knees to his chest, and balancing the book from the nightstand on top of them. But she doesn’t say anything—just closes her eyes and lies still until her breathing levels out and she begins to snore, a heavy, rumbling thing that Jon had come to find comforting when it had just been the two of them together in the Archives. He lets it fade into white noise as he opens the book to the first page, resigning himself to starting over from scratch rather than trusting his memory, and begins to read.

Martin is still in the village when Daisy wakes with a gasp, mutters something about needing the toilet, and disappears into the hall before Jon can fully disengage himself from his book. He tells himself it’s fine—it’s not like he has any shortage of nightmares, and neither had Daisy even before the world had ended—and returns to the text, trying to get back into the rhythm of the words. After ten minutes though, he finds himself still distracted, rereading the same paragraphs over and over as he waits for Daisy to return. At fifteen, he finally snaps the book shut, slips out of bed, swaps his book for the notebook, and makes his way to the bathroom.

The door is firmly shut, so he knocks. Then, he knocks again, wishing he could call Daisy’s name but resigning himself to standing outside and affixing the door with a rather impressive scowl for being in the way. After a moment, he hears a faint rustling noise from inside before Daisy says, sounding somewhere between exasperated and resigned, “It’s not locked.”

Jon doesn’t know if that’s an invitation to enter, but he does so anyway. Daisy is standing in front of the vanity, staring at herself in the mirror. She looks away when Jon enters, and at his questioning expression, she says, “Figured you were just going to stand there until I let you in.” Then: “I’m done anyway.”

Jon frowns and flips open the notebook. Daisy watches him, something vaguely amused on her face, as he writes, Are you okay? then holds it out for her to see. She shrugs—an overly casual gesture—and says, “Less than a day ago I was dead. What do you think?”

Jon frowns and writes, Can I help?

Daisy pauses, then sighs. “Nothing you can do about it.” She glances back at the mirror, then down at her hands, turning them over so she’s staring at her palms. “It’s all in my head. Just… lingering memories, I think, of what happened. Of who I became at the end.”

Not your fault, Jon writes in thick, dark lines.

“It’s not a matter of ‘fault,’” Daisy says. “I made a choice, to help you and to protect Basira, and people got hurt because of that choice. It just is.”

Jon bites his lip and writes, slowly and unsure of whether or not the words will be helpful, They’re probably alive again. If everything really has reset itself. It occurs to him that that means Trevor and Julia as well, and a small thrum of anxiety rushes through him that he suffocates. They don’t know about this place, and even if they did, they’re not Hunters anymore. They’re safe here. They’re safe.

“Doesn’t change what I did,” Daisy says, still looking at her hands. Her fingers curl in slowly towards her palms, and she drops her hands to her sides, looking up at Jon as she does so. She looks haunted, he thinks; it’s a look he’s only seen on her once before, and it had been partially hidden by the dirt and sediment packed in around them. “It’s like I can still smell the blood. I can’t hear it, so I know it’s gone, but every time I look at my hands, I swear I can see it, just for a moment.” Her fists tighten, knuckles pulling white and fingernails biting into her palms. “I can’t decide if I’m glad or not that when I blink, it’s gone. I don’t feel weak, it’s not… it’s not calling to me, but I still feel as if something’s missing. Like I’ve… lost something. Some part of me. And I can’t decide if I’m meant to miss it or not.”

Oh. Carefully, Jon sets the notebook down on the vanity and reaches for one of Daisy’s hands, giving her time to pull her hand away before taking it in his and uncurling her fingers, one by one, until her palm is laid bare in front of him, clean and unmarked save for angry red crescents where her fingernails had bit into her skin. He rubs a thumb over one of the marks, squeezes her hand gently, and looks up at her, glad that he doesn’t have to try to put into words the tangled mess of sympathies and placations that she won’t want to hear that are currently swirling around in his head. He thinks some of them bleed out into his eyes and onto his face, though, because she gives him a look and says, “I’ll be fine.” Then, after a moment: “You feel the same.”

It’s not a question, though Jon’s sure he could refute it if he wanted to. But he doesn’t. He feels that ache inside of him, the itching at the back of his throat sometimes when he wants to ask a question but can’t find the voice to do so, the pressure behind his eyes when he automatically goes to Know something and finds only black nothingness where once there had been everything. And he feels an ache all his own, in the center of his chest where his heart still beats, so intense at times that it steals his breath away as he mourns the loss of something that he had loved and despised in equal measure.

So Jon nods, looking down at where their hands are joined, and rubs his thumb over one of the marks again, watching them begin to fade beneath the fluorescent light. They’re human-shaped, nothing like the sharp claws that had once torn through the fabric of his trousers or the sharper teeth that had torn through the skin of his leg soon after. Daisy lets out a slow breath, her other hand relaxing in increments at her side, and neither of them makes a sound for a long while.

The rattle of the front door opening breaks the silence, and Daisy slips her hand wordlessly out of Jon’s, the marks fully vanished and the tension having vanished with it. “I hope he got Ceylon,” she says with a twitch of her lips that Jon thinks is meant to be a smile. She steps to the side, brushing past Jon to get to the bathroom door. Just before she opens it, though, she bumps her shoulder against Jon’s, lets it linger there a moment, and says, “Thanks.”

It’s short and unelaborated on, and Daisy pulls away a moment later, opening the door and slipping out into the hall. But Jon feels a warmth spread through him all the same, concentrated at the point on his shoulder where Daisy had pressed hers. And when he collects his notebook off the vanity and catches his reflection in the mirror briefly before he follows her out into the kitchen, he finds that he’s smiling too.

#tma #the magnus archives #jaisy week #jonathan sims #daisy tonner #martin blackwood #my writing #my fic #before tag

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justletmeplayminecraft · 4 years ago

Text

xisuma doesn’t smooth over a server glitch fast enough. the others have to save him from the consequences.

in this fic, i play loosely with minecraft mechanics to create angst. very loosely. don’t think too much about ‘em. you can also date how long i’ve spent on this by the projects they’re working on.

featuring: being an admin gives you a connection to the server, xisuma has a less than stellar day, angst/comfort, zed is an ender hybrid, false & tango are minor admins, getting stuck in blocks is not a fun experience, the hermits care a lot about each other.

warnings: sensory deprivation, starvation, suffocation, its a death loop babyyy, a fair amount of panic, fighting code, glitches, helplessness, it’s pretty whumpy before the comfort. let me know if something’s missing here.

also on ao3. link in replies.

Xisuma sighs as the sun beats down on him. It's barely let up, even on the outskirts of the jungle. He enjoys the brief stints in the shadow of the giant quartz walls. Even then, waves of heat come off them. All of the structures in his base are a heat trap. Clearing out several layers of dirt and stone is a necessity he should've left for another day. With a click, he tugs his helmet off his head. The humidity outside is worse than his filtered air. He tucks the helmet under his arm, pushing sweat slicked hair from his face.

He's made good progress levelling this arena space. He leaves his helmet on his bed and heads to the temporary storage chests. They're filling up quickly, he notices, as he starts emptying his inventory into them. Except, something's broken. The stacks of blocks aren't all moving. He tries a few times before sighing, ruffling his hair. When he turns to the area he's been mining, it's still empty. It's been a long time since they've had desync this bad. He's not even sure when it started.

Stepping gently across the stone, he can feel the heat rising from them. He'll rollback the world and then he'll relax by Keralis's river. The farm is delightfully cool. Anything will be better than this oppressive heat.

He's almost reached his bed when something takes hold in his chest and pulls.

He stumbles forward with a gasp. Of course, the server decides to fix itself this time. He forces his feet forward, trying to reach his helmet so he can smooth things over. He only makes it two steps until his eyes are forced shut as the server reloads. For a split second, all he feels is the chill of the void as chunks reload around him.

He opens his eyes to darkness. It feels like he's suspended in space, unable to move. There's a suffocating pressure around him. Though it's with shallow breaths, he can still breathe. Did something go wrong? He blinks hard. All of his limbs are accounted for, he's certainly present. Even when he's working in the void there are still particles around him. His attempt to raise his arm fails, finding it impossible to open his back up admin panel. His helmet is- where even is his helmet?

His breath hitches, a feeling of panic escaping his controlled calm. He feels like he can't breathe. He can't move. He's trapped in his own body.

What's happening?

[MumboJumbo] anybody else just experience some major desync?

[Keralis1] Oh, is that what that was?

[Zedaph] I had nearly finished my redstone! All of that work, gone!

[FalseSymmetry] didn't you notice you weren't actually... losing anything from your inventory?

[Tango] he was probably too caught up in his supposed mastery

[FalseSymmetry] everybody okay though?

[Grian] all good here!

[Zedaph] Only my pride's wounded.

False looks down at the bedrock layer at her base. Like half an hour spent placing glass, all gone to waste. She groans, closing her chat as it pings away. Sure, she can rib Zedaph, but that doesn't change the fact she just did the exact same thing. She kicks off the sidewalk, gliding to the bedrock layer. She can feel the cold of the void float up with specks of grey.

"Good going, False," she murmurs. Some patches of glass survived. It's almost worse, that's going to be so much less satisfying to fill in. She takes her goggles off, tugging her hair loose to tie it in a low ponytail. Usually Xisuma gives them a warning before the server resets like that. It always messes up her hair, leaves it floaty and static.

She adjusts her goggles on her head, opening the player menu. Xisuma's currently online. She checks chat. He hasn't said anything. She considers it strange, but it's not unusual. Maybe he's been at a farm and isn't AFKing. She types out a private message, sending it across to him.

[FalseSymmetry to Xisuma] hey x, server blipped, might need to check it when you get back.

She'll see if he returns her message. She's got glass to place.

Iskall looks through his in-progress sorting system with a frown. It's broken somewhere. The stupid server reload has glitched it out and he can't find how. He's checked the redstone, he's checked the hoppers and he's checked the chests! Which means it's glitched. Either Xisuma reloads the chunk for him, or he's going to have to tear it down.

Actually, he'll probably have to tear it down anyway. Reloading the chunk will only roll it back.

At least he's not the only person who's redstone has been ruined. The thought brings some comfort. If he has to be miserable, somebody else should be too. He opens his communicator, checking who's around at the moment. That might take his mind off it.

He notices that Xisuma's online. Their admin has been quiet in chat since the reload. Maybe there's something going on behind the scenes he's having to sort out. He'll reach out to Mumbo and Grian, but first, he sends a message X's way.

[iskall85 to Xisuma] hey is everything alright? nothing broke?

[iskall85 to Xisuma] don't forget you can reach out to us if you need help.

He has no idea how much time has passed. Usually he's connected intrinsically to the server. It helps him keep track of the world, dig out any errors or mishaps - sometimes before his suit alerts him. It's essential for his job in order to keep things running smoothly. The server is always there, at the edges of his consciousness.

In this nothing, he can't even keep track of his internal clock. Perhaps it's his own panic, but the code he tries to reach out to feels fuzzy. It feels like it's glitching, sending shooting pains through his head if he focuses too hard. He couldn't take a guess how long he's been trapped. His breathing still comes too fast and shallow, ignoring his attempts to calm down.

He's completely helpless here. And he doesn't even know where here is.

Tango stares up at the stars on his ceiling. He checks his inventory again, counting aloud. He flicks it off with a frown. Yeah, he's definitely missing some. It's not a massive deal, Impulse will be happy to help out. But if he's having problems then some of the other hermits might be. Perhaps they fell and despawned in the reload. Either way.

"Tangoooooo!" The cry is accompanied by several rockets, something hitting the ground and the sound of damage. He chuckles, stepping away as Zed soars over the edge, stumbling forward with a flutter of his elytra. Tango straightens him up with his free hand.

"No, I'm not doing your redstone for you." Zedaph gasps, dusting off his jeans. He bounces up with a grin.

"You really think I'd come all this way for that?" Zed questions.

"So why have you come all the way here?"

"I'm bored," Zed replies. "And it still stings too much to do my redstone again." Tango laughs, opening up his chat. Xisuma's online, though Tango doesn't expect an immediate response.

"How do you feel about some wither grinding?" He types a message to Xisuma, Zedaph attempting to peer over his shoulder.

"Mmm, I don't see why not."

[Tango to Xisuma] Hey, seem to have lost some stars when the server reset

[Tango to Xisuma] might wanna check nothing important got eaten.

"Right, let's go."

Keralis hums, staring at the plot he was about to start building on. The area has been a bit... Funny. He'll break and replace a block, only to have it switch again. He might have to work on another area until it sorts itself out. His attempts at working here started after the reload, so he doesn't know if that caused it. He's not been able to spot Xisuma nearby either. He's been online, but Keralis hasn't spotted him in chat for a while.

He sighs as he watches the last blocks he placed switch back as if nothing happened. Crossing his arms, he examines the area. He wonders how big this is. Definitely more than one chunk. His new house is going to have to wait. He was excited to show Xisuma around, too.

With a glance at the sky, he realises it's late afternoon. He yawns, stretching his back out. Perhaps it'll be best to settle in his office and work on some future designs. He'll drop a message in chat first, in case this is affecting anyone else. It might give him an excuse to hunt down Shishwamy. He always feels guilty bothering him about things. Their admin takes far too much responsibility on his shoulders. They’re all adults. Keralis wishes he’d ask for help sometimes.

[Keralis1] Has anyone else been having glitchy blocks?

[iskall85] some of my redstone is broken but it's no biggie

[Tango] lost some of my nether stars with the reload but it's been fine since.

[FalseSymmetry] been placing glass without any problems since the reset

[MumboJumbo] I haven't had any problems either.

[Keralis1] A bunch of chunks around our bases are glitching

[Keralis1] but it seems like Shishwamy is busy :(

[Grian] well it looks like he just went afk

[iskall85] that answers that lol

His mind is becoming blurry. It's hard to focus on... Anything. He can't tell if it's because he's struggling to breathe, or something further, tugging him down and away. He tries to fight against it but there's nothing he can do to stay present. He can't hear anything, barely even his shallow breaths. He can only feel the consistent pressure on every inch of his body, the wet tears on his cheeks. He tries pulling on every one of his senses, but nothing comes up.

He slips under.

False empties the last of this glass stack, stepping back at a job well done. She smiles, rubbing her aching hands. It's nice to finally work on this part of her base. Even better now it's not going to pick itself up. At least she hopes so. She'll be right annoyed if it happens again. Something's been tingling at the back of her head, though. She wonders if it's because of the reset.

She looks up at the late afternoon sky. That's enough work for today. As she stretches, she can feel each and every ache in her body. She brushes away her hair, already falling loose. Maybe she'll have something nice for dinner. Some steak, potatoes and pumpkin pie. If she has pumpkin, of course. Xisuma was planning to build a pumpkin farm, wasn't he? His traditional pumpkin and melon combination. She chuckles to herself as she pulls out her rockets.

No matter how things change from season to season, there will always be things that don't. Hermits might come and go, but they'll always be her family.

She launches up, shooting through the water barrier. It's fast enough it doesn't stick. She lands gracefully, making her way to the kitchen. She hopes this nudging in her head doesn't get worse. She just wants to enjoy a nice meal. That's all.

"Well, I think we have a plan," Grian declares, grinning from his perch. His legs are crossed, hands resting in his lap.

"I mean, we didn't exactly need a plan to fix our redstone," Mumbo replies, slouched in his chair the way he only ever does in front of them. Iskall chuckles, resting his hands behind his head. They've really helped take his mind off the broken redstone. Mumbo had a similar problem, so tomorrow they'll meet up again and attempt some fixes.

"Always helps," Iskall says, shrugging. "Especially when one of us spends so much time in the Nether depths, now." Grian laughs, his legs kicking.

"Hey, I'm doing good work out there!" Mumbo yawns, looking between them.

"Well I don't know about you two, but I'm exhausted."

"Food then sleep?" Grian suggests. Iskall nods. It's been a long day.

It's dark as Zedaph and Tango return from The End. Zedaph yawns, running a hand through his hair, messing it up. Tango rubs the side of his own hair. Something's been bothering him, but he can't tell what. Like there's something just not... Right. Zedaph is chatting beside him, a bounce in his step. It's like he doesn't feel it at all.

"Do you want to have dinner together?" Zed asks, twirling his sword by his side. They've repaired their tools, done everything properly. It's been a hard day's work, but they've achieved a lot, even with the setback.

"Yeah, dinner sounds good." He looks at the night sky, squinting his eyes. Zedaph tilts his head at him. The purple eyes are concerned, particles floating up in his worry.

"Tango, are you okay? You seem... Off." Tango sighs, waving Zedaph's worry away.

"Something's nagging me. It's not a big deal." Zedaph's still frowning, but the particles die down.

"Let's just get you something to eat, yeah?" Tango nods, leaning into Zedaph when he squeezes his shoulder.

"Sounds good to me."

Keralis watches the night sky overhead. He's sat in the doorway to his office, a blanket around his shoulders. The stars are always a beautiful sight. It's the perfect way to relax after such a, hm, busy day. Not busy in a conventional sense, no, but still busy. His specially commissioned noteblock song plays in the background, a perfect accompaniment in the peaceful night. He thinks it's strange how the stars always seem the same no matter what world they're in. Maybe he should ask Xisuma about it in the future.

He pops up his screens open. Xisuma is still afk. He misses seeing his neighbour out and about. Xisuma often spends time at his farms, it's nothing new. But Keralis enjoys saying hello to him! Especially after missing well... Years of his life. He tries not to think about that.

With a sigh, he lies against the doorway. Time for bed soon. He laughs at the sound of Bubbles' voice in his head. His communicator beeps and he glances over to it.

Huh. That's interesting.

Xisuma is thrown into full consciousness. His stomach is still cramping with phantom hunger. He opens his eyes and finds...

Black.

No, no, he died. He died. Why has he respawned here? He chokes on his sob, realising no air is entering his lungs. His cheeks are still wet with tears, more leaking out as he gasps at nothing. His lungs burn, unable to take the shallow breaths he needs to. Would it even help? He wants to curl up, clutch at the growing pain in his chest. But he can't move an inch. Heaviness sinks into his limbs and head.

He wakes again in the same place. He doesn't know if he wants to scream or cry. There's not enough air for him to scream, anyway.

[Xisuma starved to death]

[MumboJumbo] X?? mate?

[Tango] X?

[FalseSymmetry] do we need to get your stuff?

[Keralis1] I'm by his base.

[Tango] he's not afk anymore

[Grian] x???????

[iskall85] maybe he's getting his stuff rn

[Keralis1] Shishwammmmyyyyyyy

[MumboJumbo] starving isn't a nice way to go

[Zedaph] It really isn't.

[Xisuma suffocated]

[iskall85] oh no

[FalseSymmetry] x???? im going over

[Keralis1] so am i

[Tango] this isn't right, this really isn't right

[Xisuma suffocated]

[Grian] what's going on???

False shimmies back into her elytra, reaching for the one jacket potato that finished cooking. So much for having a sit-down meal. She rubs her head, pushing away the fear that has something to do with this. Her communicator continues beeping as she grabs her rockets. She runs to the entrance, kicking off and launching into the air.

"We should go and help," Iskall decides, already picking up his armour.

"Thought you'd never say." Mumbo straps his elytra on, grabbing a spare shulker box and an ender chest. Grian nods with a seriousness that doesn't fit on his face.

"Let's go."

"We're going?" Zed asks. He's already stuffing food into his mouth. Tango rubs his temples, nodding. He takes the elytra that's thrusted into his hand.

"Yeah. We're definitely going." He watches the particles floating off Zed in waves, glowing the same purple as his pupils. Tango presses his eyes shut against another spike of pain as their communicators beep. "C'mon."

Keralis scrabbles until he balances on the tower roof. He's searched each one and not found X anywhere. Tapping his foot, he meddles with his communicator to turn some settings on. He has no minor admin powers - that he has to leave to False and Tango - but he can at least try this.

"Ah-hah!" He grins as hitboxes light up beneath him, hopefully a better clue where his currently red coloured friend may be. He scans the towers closely, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary. There are a few mobs, especially as night sets in. Then he sees Xisuma's new build.

He has to take a step back at the sight. The chunks look- a mess. The outline of the blocks are overlapped or flickering. It hurts to look at. Blocks aren't meant to highlight like that. He glides across the treetops. It not only covers the area he was trying to work earlier but spreads into Xisuma's current build. Yeah that's- that's bad. That's not good. His communicator has continued to beep with messages as he searched. He goes to read it, and spots different colours in the mess. The red of an eyeline. He stands on his toes, leaning off the leaves. The outline flickers in and out, accompanied by a beep.

He thinks he's found X.

[Xisuma suffocated]

[Keralis1] he's in his new build!

[Keralis1] I think I can see him in the ground

[Keralis1] it is very very broken

[FalseSymmetry] tango? you on your way?

[Tango] as we speak

[Tango] been a long time since we've had to use these powers

[FalseSymmetry] not long enough

Tango and Zedaph are the first to land by Keralis's side. They kick up loose powder from the road, taking in the massive structure in front of them. Tango's shoulders raise, cringing at the sight.

"That's definitely broken," he agrees, his eyes twisting as they focus.

"And Xisuma's in the middle of it?" Zedaph looks at Keralis. He nods, usually big eyes sharply focused. He points beyond the walls.

"You can just see his name tag. I think the glitched blocks have got him stuck. I tried to build there earlier but nothing would stay." Tango presses his lips together in thought as False lands. They nod to each other in acknowledgement.

"How long does it take until the blocks pop back?"

Keralis hums, tapping his chin before answering, "About ten seconds, I think."

"That's not going to be enough time to reach him," Zed says. "Can't you just teleport him?" He looks at Tango and False. Tango opens his console menu, typing something in. Zed can tell the answer before Tango says it.

"What ideas do we have?" Keralis asks. "We can't just leave him there!"

"Of course not!" Tango replies, sounding shocked at the suggestion. "We just- need a plan." False nods.

"We're not as powerful as X," she explains, "Together we should be able to roll back these chunks but- I have no idea what that would mean for Xisuma. We don't really work with player code." She brushes her hair back. The conversation is paused as the trio of Grian, Iskall and Mumbo land beside them. The three slot in, listening as they're caught up.

"There has to be something that's making him spawn there." Iskall points out, his hand held towards the structure. False searches through the control panel, whilst Keralis and Tango simply examine the messed up blocks.

"He has a bed in there," Tango answers. False taps where Xisuma's spawn is tied to on her screen.

"Since the blocks are glitched, it must mean the bed isn't like... Registering them. Since they don't fully exist." She thinks about it carefully, putting the pieces together as she explains.

"So if we break the bed, he'll respawn at the world spawn?" Grian suggests.

"But how do we get down there?" Mumbo turns to look. It's pretty far down in the ground. They'd have to move quick to get near where Xisuma is.

"There's a few of us." Iskall waves at the gathered group. "I say with enough TNT and manpower, we could do it."

"Wait-" Zedaph holds his hand up, "-Get me close enough and I can teleport in there, get the bed. Less blocks to destroy."

"Zed." Tango turns to him, glaring at the blond. "That's a stupid idea, don't you get how dangerous that is-"

"Xisuma is stuck in a death loop, Tango!" Zed cuts in, raising his voice. The others fall silent, not sure how to handle this exchange. "Sure, I might die a bit! That's nothing compared to what Xisuma's currently experiencing."

"TNT will destroy a fair amount, but it already puts us on a time limit," Grian adds, a sideways agreement.

"I'm willing to do it. Either we reach the bed, or I teleport in." Zed says it with finality. The others don't argue. False checks his spawn point. Zedaph will respawn back in his cave, safe and sound. Even if it goes wrong, it'll be recoverable.

"We need to be ready to roll back the chunks," False says, focusing on Tango. "If I have this headache for much longer I'm going to go insane." Tango smiles tiredly.

"Fine. Let's try this." He shrugs. "I don't think we have a better idea."

"Well, come on! Let's go!" Keralis claps, placing an ender chest. Tango sighs, typing in a command.

"I think I'm allowed this time," he says, a stack of TNT appearing in his hand.

"And other times?" Grian asks. Even through the teasing, they can hear the fear in his voice.

"Don't push it."

There's noises. He blinks his eyes open into the unending darkness. He tries to focus past his burning chest and the weight of his body. There's... Definitely noises up above him. It sounds like explosions. The space he's stuck in shakes slightly. After another lapse, he gasps back to life in the same position. He wants to scream, tell somebody he's down here. This opportunity might not come again.

Then he feels a sharp stab of pain. Something is there, near him. Everything hurts and he still can't breathe. For a moment, he thinks he hears the trill of an Enderman. His tired mind can't figure out how as he runs out of air.

He wakes up to a chill. He slightly opens his eyes, spotting yellow sand as he falls, blacking out.

[Xisuma suffocated]

[Zedaph suffocated]

[Grian] have we done it?

[Keralis1] he's at worldspawn! got him!

[iskall85] YES!!!

[Zedaph] Oh thank goodness I don't want to do that again

[World reloaded]

[Tango] Z, you okay?

[Zedaph] I'm good. Bring my stuff? I'm going to worldspawn

[FalseSymmetry] will do

"Keralis!" Zedaph's elytra beats as he lands, feet digging into the sand. "Is he okay?" Keralis nods. Xisuma's head is resting in his lap. The admin's eyes are closed as he breathes slowly. His expression is relaxed. It's a good sight to see. The spawn island is lit up well, but Keralis keeps his eye on the surrounding oceans.

"He's sleeping," Keralis says, messing with strands of brown hair. "I don't think I'm strong enough to move him on my own." Zedaph drops onto the sand next to them, crossing his legs. There are still bright particles floating off him, his eyes fully purple. "What about you, Zee?" Zedaph seems to notice Keralis's focus, ducking away to hide his eyes.

"Um, not the best. That kind of sucked. But, it worked, and that's what matters!"

"Make sure you look after yourself, too," Keralis tells him. "Fighting the server's code isn't easy." Zedaph laughs, resting on his hands.

"Can say that again. Forgot we have anti-enderman griefing." Keralis cringes, realising why Zed looks so much like he might collapse. It'll pass, but it's never fun to go against programming like that. The architech trio arrives next. All of them look relieved to see the three on the island.

"Oh, Zedaph, I have your stuff." Mumbo starts emptying it out, the few things Zedaph couldn't fit in an ender chest. Zedaph smiles, tugging his helmet on and feeling a lot more comfortable. He tries not to meet anybody's eyes.

"Tango and False will be on their way. They're just checking everything's good," Grian tells them, hands moving quickly as he talks.

"Should we try moving X somewhere safer?" Iskall suggests. "The shopping district isn't that far."

"If you're willing to boat him." Keralis is firm. "I don't want him dropped in the ocean."

"I swear nothing will happen to him under our watch." Grian puts his hand on his heart. Iskall and Mumbo nod in agreement.

"It'll be the safest boat journey on the server." Iskall's hands are on his hips. Keralis tilts his head up.

"Look into my eyes and nothing but my eyes, if anything happens to my Shishwamy, I will not hold back." The architechs look suitably threatened.

"Can I boat with someone?" Zedaph asks. "I nearly crashed so many times flying over here."

"Hop in the back of mine!" Iskall calls, placing one in the water. Grian plucks Xisuma into his arms, carrying him to the edge of the water. He sets the admin in the boat before climbing in himself. Keralis checks him over before nodding and allowing Grian to keep him.

"I've told the others to meet us there," Mumbo says. "I'm going to fly across and see where's best to bunker down. I think we could all use some sleep."

Zedaph looks at the moon hanging overhead, "Yeah, I think we could."

[MumboJumbo] we're heading to the shopping district.

[FalseSymmetry] thats a good plan

[MumboJumbo] any idea who's shop we could stay in?

[FalseSymmetry] my dimension shop is pretty empty

[FalseSymmetry] plenty of room for some beds. pretty warm.

[Tango] we'll get it set up for you

[MumboJumbo] ok. ill protect the others

[Keralis1] so will I.

The first thing Xisuma picks up on is the talking. He stays still, trying to tell if his brain is playing tricks on him after so long in the nothing. His body is like a rock. He's barely able to move. His lungs still ache and it takes some conscious effort to continue breathing. He blinks his eyes open, wincing at bright lights. Light. There's light. He rolls forward, a sob leaving his lips before he can catch it.

"Xisuma, hey, hey." The voice is soft, casting a shadow over him. Xisuma forces his eyes open now the worst of the brightness is blocked out. Keralis is crouching in front of the bed. His fingers gently brush across Xisuma's cheek. For once, Xisuma doesn't feel the dried tears that had become his constant. "You're okay, you're safe. We got you." Xisuma takes a shaking breath in, squeezing his arms to feel the pressure of his own touch.

"Do you want your helmet?" He flits to look at False. The mere sight of his helmet is overwhelming. He reaches out and wraps it close to his chest. Keralis laughs gently, scratching through Xisuma's hair. The admin sighs, his eyes slipping closed once more.

"There you go." He can hear the smile in Keralis's voice. "We've got you, right here." The sound of movement. Cracking his eyes open reveals False sitting in front of the bed, weaving her hand into Xisuma's. He squeezes it gently.

"You're in my shop, in the shopping district," she tells him. "It's past midnight. You're completely safe here. We've got things sorted, there's nothing you need to worry about." A tear slips from his eye. Keralis wipes it away.

"What happened?" He can't make his voice louder than a whisper, and even that hurts.

"Something went wrong with the world reload," False tells him. He can trust her not to sugarcoat things. "We all had a few bugs, but the chunks around you glitched out badly. Created a bunch of like... Invisible blocks, but they were visible, if you get what I mean? They weren't fully there. Ugh, Tango's better at all this technical stuff." Xisuma tries to peer around for him, but the light still hurts if he looks for too long.

"You were stuck in a bunch of them," Keralis finishes. "We didn't realise until you starved and got stuck in a death loop. I'm really sorry, Xisuma."

"We broke your bed to get you out. Well, Zedaph did. The others got him close enough then Tango and I fixed the area. It's all sorted." Xisuma forces his sluggish brain to put the pieces together. He didn't dream up that enderman sound. That was-

"He's over there, sleeping. Tango's with him." Keralis points at a bed nearby. Tango's back blocks any sight of their part Ender friend, but Xisuma can see purple particles floating into the air. A concerning amount of them.

"What did Zed do?" He asks, the vice around his lungs tightening in concern.

"Um," Keralis answers, False looking at him. "He mentioned fighting the anti-enderman griefing code? So I think he picked the bed up." Xisuma's stomach drops. He tries to push himself up but collapses onto his back again.

"Hey, X, careful," False warns. Her voice is stern but Xisuma shakes his head.

"No- I-" He shuts his eyes, fighting off disorientation. "The server's going to keep fighting him. I've got to reset it." False helps him sit up, but she still watches him with concern. He picks up his helmet, pulling it on and relaxing slightly as all the displays flicker to life. Now when he looks at Zedaph he can see the extent of the damage. His very code seems to be fighting itself. "Help me up?"

False gets an arm around his chest. He ends up leaning his weight against her to stand, his legs shaking. She's firm, grip only tightening to accommodate his need. Keralis hovers nearby, ready to jump in if he has to. They take slow steps across the room. Xisuma strains to see under the light, but the tint of his helmet helps. He can see the architechs sat nearby, watching without any attempt at discretion.

Tango looks up as they approach. Xisuma can see the resignation on his face.

"This isn't going to fix itself, is it?" He asks. His hand in clasped tightly in Zedaph's, whose usually bright expression is twisted in pain. His skin is all too pale, black freckles spreading into larger patches across his face. He doesn't open his eyes, not even as Tango moves so Xisuma can sit down. The grip on each other's hand remains tight.

"I need to reset the code that's attacking him," Xisuma explains. His words have a tired slur he can't quite hide. "I'm gonna write an exception, I can't believe I haven't already just- not right now. Don't wanna do it wrong."

"Xisuma, it's okay." Tango smiles, pinched but genuine. "I'm sorry you need to do this." Xisuma shakes his head.

"It's nobody's fault," False says, "Do what you need to do, X. Then you're going back to bed." Keralis hums in agreement. Xisuma laughs softly as the command screens in his helmet boot up.

He zones out the others around him, leaning on Keralis's shoulder when his friend perches beside him. He scrolls through information as he brings up Zedaph's data on one screen. With one eye on it, he unlocks the data packs, searching through them. He gives voice instructions with his microphone muted to the outside world. Finding the pack he needs, he disables it and checks Zedaph's data. It looks like his code is straightening out again. Thank goodness. He makes sure all activity is deactivated before he turns the pack back on.

"That should do it," he mumbles, before realising his microphone is still off. He reactivates it before repeating himself.

"Maybe you should teach us a bit more sometime," False squeezes his shoulder, helping him up. Xisuma slings his arm over False with a nod. That would be good.

"Thank you, X." Tango smiles. He rubs his thumb across Zedaph's hand. The ender hybrid has relaxed, face slack. It looks like he's properly sleeping now. Xisuma can finally rest.

"Come on. Don't you fall asleep here, I don't want to carry you across." Xisuma hums, too tired to commit to any words. Before he knows it, he's sitting down on the comfortable bed again.

"Shishwam, lemme get your helmet." Xisuma nods, tilting his head up so Keralis can unlatch it and bring it off. His head rolls onto his shoulder the moment it's gone. Keralis giggles, ruffling his hair. "Come on, sleepy time." False lies him down, his helmet tucked safely in his arms. Keralis's hand slips into his. Xisuma shuts his eyes, before blinking them open again.

"Stay?" He asks, too tired to worry about being needy. He doesn't want to be alone in that darkness again.

"Of course," False replies.

"We're not going anywhere," Keralis adds. Xisuma smiles at them both, eyes slipping closed. The darkness is manageable with his friends by his side.

"Don't you dare wake them up," False hisses, watching as Grian and Iskall play with redstone. The morning sun is beginning to shine through the cracks in the windows. She's exhausted, having only caught a quick nap. Keralis is asleep next to Xisuma, sitting on the floor with his head resting on the bed. Tango's slid into bed beside Zedaph, holding him close to his chest. Mumbo's dead to the world across the room.

"We won't!" Grian calls, trying to figure out the game he could make out of this mechanic. Iskall has a Statues book open, an armour stand sat in front of a piston.

"You know, this would be a lot easier if the two people who have done this with armour stands were helping," Iskall points out, flicking through the pages.

"We're fine, it's part of the adventure!" Grian watches as the piston shoots the armour stand across the room. False smiles, leaning back against the bed. Some of the other hermits have been coming online with the early morning. Thankfully, they don't seem to know about everything that went down yesterday. It's best things are quiet for Xisuma whilst he rests. She's sure he’ll tell them about it. She'll make sure he does.

As the sun grows higher with the dawn, she dozes off again. Grian is yawning, him and Iskall only catching a few hours of sleep. He's still buzzing with activity. He'll crash later, easy enough.

It's to this quiet atmosphere that Xisuma wakes up. Iskall and Grian are still experimenting. Grian’s laughter rings out as the armour stand bounces in the air. The beat of the piston is monotonous, but they're nearly falling over each other at the sight. Xisuma watches with a soft smile, eyes barely opened.

"It we got one on top, do you think it would-" Grian holds his hand up, demonstrating an armour stand shaking up and down aggressively. Iskall chuckles, shaking his head.

"It's only the morning, we don't need to break physics yet."

"It's for science," Grian protests. He sounds breathless, half-delirious with his need for sleep.

"Please don't make me do work," Xisuma whispers, all too aware of the sleeping hermits around him. Grian perks up, Iskall turning to him with a grin.

"'Suma!" Iskall calls. Xisuma smiles at both of them, making no attempt to move. He's comfortable here and he doesn't want to wake his friends.

"Exy-Suma!" Grian slides across, leaving a gap from the sleeping hermits. Iskall stands by his side, resting his hand on Grian's shoulder. "How are you feeling?" Xisuma wraps his arm tighter around his helmet.

"Not the best, my friend," he answers honestly. "But I'm certainly better than before."

"Well, we'll just have to make that even better then." Grian is committed to the cause now. He's going to make Xisuma's day.

"You don't have to rush back into things," Iskall says, offering a smile. "I'm sure we can handle ourselves today."

"I don't think I'm getting out of this bed anytime soon." Xisuma looks down at Keralis, dark hair brushing Xisuma's chest plate. False is asleep slouched in the chair beside him. Even without being able to see the other occupants of the room, he can still tell they're sleeping. "Feels a bit weird not going for a jog at this time, though."

"I'm sure your legs won't wither away after one morning, X," Iskall jokes. "Be lazy like the rest of us." Grian grins.

"We could always play some mini-games later, too!" Xisuma laughs, stretching as much as he can without shifting Keralis. He's beginning to regret sleeping in his armour, but it's too late now.

The three chat with each other, Xisuma offering advice now he's awake. They're gradually building up a system to launch the armour stand across the room. Sure, they'll have to clean it all up later, but it passes the time and it makes them laugh. Hearing Xisuma laughing is good for all three of them, despite the roughness reminding them of last night's ordeal. It's safe to say that nobody envies Xisuma's experience.

The three jump at a strange, shrill noise, until the realisation kicks in. Zed is sitting up, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Hair is falling into his face, ruffled from sleep. Tango remains slumped against him. He even rolls into the warmth Zedaph leaves behind. It takes a few seconds until the hybrid notices his audience. Zedaph jumps, smiling sheepishly.

"Oh, hi, sorry! Forgot I wasn't alone." His eyes are glowing brightly in the morning light. He looks down at the arm lazily clinging to his waist. "This oaf is used to it."

"No, no, you're okay," Xisuma tells him. False is stirring beside him, blinking to life, but Keralis remains out. "How are you feeling?" Zedaph taps his chin, resting his finger on his lip.

"Pretty well-rested, actually." Then his attention turns to Xisuma. "What about you? I should be asking you that question!" Xisuma laughs, flexing his fingers against his helmet.

"I'm okay. Taking it easy." He tilts his head towards Grian and Iskall. "Whether I like it or not, it seems."

"Too right," False agrees, yawning. "T'others can handle admin duties for today. You're ours."

"Is that a threat?"

"We can make it one!" Iskall tells him, his voice a lot more cheerful than the implication of his words. "We just need a good leash-"

"Oh absolutely not! Don't you dare!" Keralis pokes his head up next to him, trying to tune into the conversation. Zedaph laughs from across the room. He's tugging a bleary Tango to rest on his shoulder so he can wrap the blanket around them both.

"Oh come on, X, it'll be fun!" Grian wraps his arms around Iskall's shoulders. Xisuma shakes his head.

"You two are terrible. Absolutely terrible. Goodness me."

"I'm sure X will agree to take a day off willingly," False says, sounding far too threatening as she rubs sleep from her eyes.

"I already agreed. No leash required!"

"Why are we talking about leashes?" Keralis finally asks, looking more confused than anything. They break down into laughter.

[Grian] hello everyone

[iskall85] HALLO!

[iskall85] we are stealing your admin for the day!

[Grian] yeah he's ours.

[falsesymmetry] x had a rough night so he's having a day off

[falsesymmetry] so if any admins besides tango, x and i could step up please?

[cubfan135] yeah I'm on it.

[joehillssays] of course, and send our well wishes to our dear admin!

[Xisuma] your dear admin thanks you :-)

[Xisuma] please try not to break anything

[Etho] have a fun day lol

[joehillssays] don't make us lock you out of your screens, x!

[Keralis1] Nothing will get past us.

[iskall85] he's been suitably threatened.

[Renthedog] Should uh... We be concerned?

[Grian] about x-i-sooma finally getting a break?

[falsesymmetry] he's in safe hands. promise.

"Should we get this day started?" Tango asks. Grian is about to answer, only to yawn. He covers his mouth, face turning red.

"Another hour of sleep first?" False suggests. They look around the room, everyone in varying states of awareness.

"It never hurt anyone." Iskall shoves Mumbo over, fitting into bed beside him. "See y'all in an hour." Keralis smiles at Xisuma. He bumps their heads together.

"You deserve a break without being traumatised first, you know that Shishwamy?" He checks. Xisuma laughs, pressing their foreheads together.

"Yeah, I know." He leans back. "And I think I've got some good friends to remind me." False pats his back, getting comfortable enough to doze off again.

"And don't you forget it." Xisuma looks around the room. The architechs are fighting over the bed, Tango and Zedaph curled back up on theirs. He smiles, the fear from last night already on its way to being a distant memory.

"Don't think I can."

#hermitcraft #xisuma #falsesymmetry #keralis #grian #iskall85 #tangotek #zedaph #feel like mumbo's role is too minor to tag him lmao #my writing #this fic took so loooong #but i wanted to get it done #more brain space for my other projects

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