#A Little Bit Broken

[inkskinned]

you said you were stuck in a time loop, which was fine. i feel like late-stage capitalism has us all in a time loop, ammiright? you came barging in at 5:33. in the morning. i hadn't even processed the idea of coffee.

but you had this look of utter panic in your eyes. terror like the ocean. you grabbed my cheeks. im in a time loop.

i don't know why in movies the first reaction is to deny it. when someone is panicking like that, it's not appropriate to ask them to calm down. it didn't matter if i believed it, what mattered was that you believed it so much that it was consuming you.

so here we are. i pour you some of the dark roast. "you look like utter and entire hell," i say.

you push your fingers into your eyes. "you always say that."

i try to think of something funny to say that i wouldn't have said on previous time loops, but jokes don't land without the proper timing (lol). "remind me to think -"

"-yeah, of a joke that only works in the future. and before you say anything, i know you're pissed i just stole your punchline." you bolt the coffee, which is wild. it's very hot. you don't seem to notice.

i blow on mine to cool it down. i both am very pissed at you and also i can't see you in this amount of panic without wanting to help. but i'm also not really sure what we are, not since i saw you kiss her like that, no offense. it just was like, kind of rude when you knew i liked you.

and besides. i'm just like, barely a person. i write omegaverse fanfiction. i love the concept of a time loop, but what the fuck am i gonna do? send an alpha in there? i open my mouth.

you point at me. "you're about to ask why me. and then say some disparaging shit about yourself. i'm just a nerd who plays dnd or something. that self-own is slightly different each time." you sigh. "i know you think you can't really help me. i don't know who can help me. i only came to you because you fucking believe me." you check your watch, sigh, and throw your head back. you cover your eyes with one hand. "i've come here on 26 separate revolutions," you say. "you have believed me every time. and yeah, i have no idea how you fit into this but i just -" you sigh again. "i just like fucking talking to someone about it."

"do you need more cof-" i start, but you're already holding the empty cup out. i frown at it. "you're not getting any more until you promise not to bolt this one like an animal."

you laugh a little and sit up, pushing your hair out of your face. "okay, that's new dialogue. but to be fair to you, i'm not usually this rude. i'm still pretty new at all of this." you check your watch again. another sigh. i guess you're cruising for a personal best in the Sigh Olympics.

i almost tell you im not an NPC but i've played enough video games to know i'm very much an NPC. i pour you another cup. "so what happens in the loop?"

"really bad explosion." you mutter into the mug. you put your elbows on the table (rude) and bury your face in your arms like an angsty teenager. one hand floats up while you talk, because evidently you literally can't talk without your hands. "i have to save the day and there's this bomb and i have no bomb training and it keeps moving, you know."

"do i die?"

you peek up from your arms. "yeah. bigtime. you keep trying to run or stay or do anything and you always super die."

"oh."

"to be fair, like, everyone dies in it though.... so you're in good company."

i hate that you make me laugh. i hate that being around you always feels tingly and strange, this electric tension between us. something that is evidently (given how you stuck your tongue down a stranger's throat literally 3 days ago) (well. 3 for me) super one-sided. i take a sip of my coffee and close my eyes.

i die today, i guess. a little spark of panic starts at the top of my hands and starts whipping up my wrists.

"shit," you say. you look at your watch and jump to your feet. "i have to go. if i can come back, i will. i am still trying to figure out when is best to do everything, you know? the order of stuff. maybe morning isn't good for us."

i look up at you and think about how you keep kissing me in the back of my car and in alleyways and in the dark. and i can never fucking get a read on you. and i also think about how incredibly panicked you look. how broken. how long have you been doing this? "i don't want to die," i say.

you glance downwards. "well, you're not really dead, you'll come back in the loop."

"but i will have died." my hands are shaking. i am trying really hard to stay calm.

you push your hands through your hair again. "i really have to go. i will have this discussion with the next version of you, though. it is like, something i am thinking about."

"but i don't get a next version," i say. i don't really have the language for this, because i haven't had 26 tries with you. i only have my memories: you, a week ago. drunk and telling me you loved me in my ear. you, kissing her anyway. you, months ago, throwing up on my birthday, whispering to me i ruin everything i touch, always, over and over. please don't ask. i can't ever fucking have that be you.

i run my finger along the rim of the mug. "i don't want to die in this one."

you seem baffled by this. "i get that but - time will reset, you'll be fine, you won't even remember we talked about this."

"but i know now." i stand up too. "i have to live the rest of this day knowing i could die. knowing i probably am going to."

"you could always die, to be fair."

i feel my hands get out of control. "earlier, you said i always say a different insult about myself. what if you're just going through different parallel universes and those are all just different - but real - versions of myself? what if you're not in a time loop, you're in a fucking universe loop?"

"if it helps, i've wondered this too. also, you're hot in all of them. if that helps."

i point at you. "no flirting. i'm trying to figure out if i die today."

"who's flirting?" you catch my wild hands and give me that long, perfect smile. like we're in this together. "i won't let ya die." you check your watch and sigh again. "well. maybe not this time."

i grit my teeth. you are so not making quips at me while i try to explain the existential dread i'm having. "does the time loop reset if i fucking kill you?"

"honestly i don't know how long it continues after i die, because i just wake up. it could be that the loop goes until the explosion for everyone, and we're all in the loop, or it could be that when i die, the loop restarts. when i die i wake up, is all."

i pull away from you and stalk into the kitchen and start doing all 3 of my dishes. "okay, first, you know i was joking. and secondly, this is exactly my point. you don't know if this is just a parallel universe. maybe in the ones where you died, the explosion happened and nobody reset and it's just you travelling." i have to stop and push the heel of my palm into my eyeball. "... how often have you died?"

i look at you. you look at me. you give me this very sad, halfway smile and a little what can ya do shrug. something in that action seems so old and weary that i want to burst into tears.

"i have to go," you say. "really. for real. there's this family of five i save from getting into a car crash. and i know it's like oh but we're all gonna die in the explosion anyway, what's the point. and..." you shrug again. "it matters to me, is all. at least i saved them for now. at least i saved anything."

you pad over to me and wrap me in a tight hug. you always seem so tall against me. i feel your cheek rest against the top of my head for a moment. for a second, it's just us, and the space is warm, and my heart is a little broken hare.

you leave me there, and i stand in my stupid badly lit kitchen with my stupid mugs. i think about you. i start texting my mom that she needs to get out of the city, but it feels pointless.

i don't know what to do. tomorrow is the same day for you. but i have to prepare to die in my today.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Look what we've become.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[morganbritton132]

Eddie, sharing way too much with his Tiktok following: One time when the band was recording an album in Australia, I was having sex in the kitchen of my rental and-

Eddie: Balls d- no, don’t wanna say that. In the middle of it, my boyfriend-at-the-time says, ‘what do you think these countertops are made out of?’

Eddie:

Eddie: Anyways, that’ll humble ya.

[its-haughty]

“I'll kill every one of you who killed Kanna…!!”

(my sorry ass could NOT stop thinking about them and all i can muster is a sketch turned lazily rendered doodle whoops)

[beatcroc]

there's no way the bathroom at peppino's pizza is actually that big but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . hey ummm anyway.... i care them...... anyway there's a lil ramble on my take on fake pep's like psyche or whatever in tags on the og post if ur into that kinda thing :y

hey! it's a series! fake peppino world tour: [noise] [noisette] [peppino]<- u are here [gustavo] [gerome] [noisette again]

[mvshortcut]

Perilous Journey AU where Curtain does end up with the duskwort and successfully puts everyone to sleep except it fails because it simply makes Number Two take a twenty-minute nap and then she's up and chasing Curtain with a baseball bat

[countlessgifts]

I bet Buggy's secretly pretty clingy

[trappedinafantasy37]

Oathbreaker

[sysig]

Just keep getting back up (Patreon)

[boxofthings]

Meat and Roach, watching Ghost uncomfortably interact with a random girl at the bar:

Meat: Wow that guy's aloof. Can't imagine wanting to sleep with him.

Roach: ...yeah

Meat, jokingly: You wouldn't sleep with him, would you?

Roach, deliberately not making eye contact:

Meat, who made a bet with Royce on who could seduce Roach first (he bet on himself): You haven't slept with him, have you?

Roach:

Meat, now shaking Roach: You haven't slept with him have you??

[fear-no-mort]

i like that he’s all pissed off and yelling but when morty comes in he just looks kind of embarrassed 😭😭

[cconfusedkat]

H-💥💥💥💥💥🛬🛬🛬🛬

Sorry my brain is like. About to Explode if i work Another minute on this and its only at 46 seconds so im gonna continue on it (probably up to 1m56s???) Tomorrow x_x

[neverpathia]

okay I felt like writing so off I go

average broken and smitten interaction I guess. my AU. nothing much here, not really, except them being toxic and mutually enabling each others' horrible codependent coping mechanisms. platonic smitbroken. not a ship, keep that in mind.

once AGAIN it's a little OOC because I cannot write broken for the life of me. but hey broken mentioned please give it a shot

pristine cut spoilers

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

"Do you ever feel...hollow?" A voice, mellow yet deep.

The Broken sat listlessly on the grass, legs resting sideways against each other. Gently, slowly, he leaned down to trace something on the dirt. He wasn't quite sure what it was going to be, though.

The Smitten knelt and clapped him on the back firmly in jest. Broken blinked, eyes wide in mild surprise like a baffled, scraggly kitten.

"Ow," he mumbled.

Smitten ignored the 'ow'. "But surely not! How could I ever allow my soul to remain barren; when her beauty walks the face of this very earth?"

Broken pondered this. "I guess so."

Smitten leaned forward, closer to Broken. "Why do you ask, friend of mine?"

Friend. The others saw him as a friend now, or at least one of them did. Broken didn't know how to feel about that. He wanted to be happy. He wanted to crawl into a hole and die for daring to let someone else actually look at him as if he were a worthy person.

"I don't know." Broken's finger left a trail amidst the dirt; a shallow, curving depression with no particular direction. He smiled. It seemed a little fitting. "I kind of always do. Feel empty, I mean."

As if he hadn't said something like that to the other Voices a billion times.

The Smitten laughed. How was he always so amiable? Where did he find that energy? "Fear not! For she is never far off from us, and her radiance permeates all."

"You say 'she' like there aren't a lot of Princesses walking around now," said Broken.

"Isn't that even better?" said Smitten. "More of my dearest Princess, more love."

Love. The concept that had once felt so familiar, now completely foreign. But something about it was still familiar somehow. Broken didn't know if he understood it, if he could understand.

"You...haven't seen mine, have you?" Broken glanced up, away from his meaningless scribbles.

"Oh, I may not have seen all of her, but I most certainly love every facet of the Princess with all my heart." Smitten's bold voice resonated far too loud.

Broken said nothing and only looked at his stained fingertip.

"I have loved her at her best, and I shall continue to love her at my worst." The Smitten was clearly having fun. "Undaunted I shall trudge, for she is of endless permutation: but each face of hers is pure perfection! Do you not feel the same, my comrade, my kin? You are among the first to show her respect beyond mere camaraderie; to revere her as I do."

Broken didn't know how comfortable he felt about Smitten's words. They sounded a little too close to...something he himself would say, but more flowery and somehow almost worse.

"I loved...love her too." Broken picked at one of his braids with his clean hand. The ribbons embedded inside, the ornaments holding it in place. "One of her."

Smitten raised an eyebrow at him. "And how shall that do? You ought to love all of her!"

"She is above me. She showed me mercy, and I...love her for it." Did he have a choice? Would he have made a choice? "She...You've seen her, haven't you? The one they call The Tower."

"Ah. She who reigns above, is she not? She who dwarfs us all beneath her looming glory."

Broken didn't know how to respond. He hesitated for far too long before he forced the words out. "...I miss her."

"But of course! It's her, after all."

Broken didn't have the heart to tell Smitten that he didn't think he was really listening.

But he didn't like the weight of it all from before, and he wanted to get it off. He needed to get it off. So he went ahead anyway, even if he didn't like it; even if he was going to hate himself forever for speaking those words and thinking those thoughts.

"I don't know. She hurt me. And in one life, I hurt her too. But in another I forgave her. As if I was in a position to, as if I should have done that, as if I was above- as if I was equal- but...she let me. She showed me grace. She..."

The Broken brought his knees close to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, huddling into himself, the dirt on his finger smearing across his thigh.

The Smitten tilted his head, loose ringlets shifting across his shoulders. "And why else should she show you grace, if not for her sheer perfection?"

Broken tried to recall what Paranoid and Hero had said. She hurt you. She didn't know you. She wasn't who you thought she was and she never had been. She was...She was...

"I shouldn't love her." Abruptly, he covered his mouth with his hand and averted his eyes. But he continued speaking into his palm, each syllable slow and deliberated. "But I should. But she hurt me, but I hurt her, and I hurt the others too, I should have been hurt, I should have been used, she should have... I don't like this. I miss her. Maybe I shouldn't miss her. But I really miss her. And I don't want to miss her anymore but maybe I should."

"So you question yourself?" The Smitten was growing more wary now. "So you doubt the greatness of your love?"

Broken shook his head. Long lashes brushed across gaunt, cracked cheeks. "I really don't know. Is it right? Am I right to love her? But I don't want to hate her anymore. But I don't want to love her, not when it hurts so much-"

He was silenced by a strong blow across his face. The Smitten had slapped him, fast and hard. Broken cupped his cheek, astonished, reeling against the ringing pain.

"Have you lost your mind?" The Smitten was enraged. "Have you no heart at all? I believed you had always understood. Always, always, you have known! A being of devotion just as I am!"

"Oh..." Unsteadily, Broken looked up at Smitten. "I see."

"You miss her, or so you claim. You yearn for her, do you not? These are the feelings of the heart! Never have they led one astray, ever! You find yourself cherishing her presence. You find that her wrongs cease to be, because they have never mattered! For Princess and Voice were meant to be one. You used to feel like you were hers, and you still are. You love her. We love her. You love her as I do, you love her."

The Smitten stepped backwards after his monologue, heaving slightly, as if it had taken something out of him.

"Believe me." Broken dropped his gaze again. "I wish I did."

Smitten spared him a disdainful glance. "Then you do. Wherein do you unearth such frivolous problems?"

"Smitten, why do you love so much?"

"I was under the impression that you were much the same manner as I. To love is the one true right."

"Is it really the only right thing, or are you just telling yourself that it is?"

"And how could it not be echoed within the halls of my being, were it not such an absolute?"

There was another moment of silence.

"I don't know." Broken rose from the ground and began to stand. "I think you're blind."

"Blind? Blind? Fie! I daresay, the only blind one here is you!"

"I want to believe in love. I do."

"Then so you shall. Nothing stands in our way."

"There's something you're refusing to see, Smitten." Broken met his eyes. "We're separate beings now. Bodies and all. You think of me as a traitor. To love, and to you. You think I'm supposed to be like you, and you're still trying to see yourself in me."

Broken took a long breath before he said, "But I'm not one with you, and we're not the same. Not anymore, not ever. Please...let yourself be."

Smitten didn't reply for once, rendered speechless somehow, though Broken couldn't tell if it was due to anger or shock.

Broken sighed. "Maybe what I thought was love wasn't even real. If I let go of it, could you let go too?"

Smitten clamped his hands around Broken's shoulders, his grip harsh and unyielding.

"Nonsense." A low, raging undercurrent belay Smitten's tone, still orotund and loud as ever. "It was real, and it is real, and nothing can ring ever truer. Harken to your heart, its beatings, it's sensations! Harken to your soul and the very person that you are! Is it not clear, then?"

But then Smitten relaxed his grip on Broken. "I just want the best for you, my friend. I wish for you to be at peace. Why? Why must you choose otherwise?"

And at this brief, unprecedented show of kindness, the Broken was unresponsive at first.

Then it hit. He couldn't help it. He didn't want it. He began to cry.

Small, nearly imperceptible trembles and snivels. Tears gathering at the corners of large blank eyes. Why was he suddenly being nice to him? Why now, after what he had dared to say? After he had made himself a traitor in Smitten's eyes?

"It's not a choice, Smitten," said Broken. "It's what I've always been. Maybe...this is it. I still feel so numb. So tired, from forever. Maybe you're right. Because when I used to love her, it didn't feel so empty anymore. I had something to believe in. I had hope."

So what if the hope was false? It was better than this. It was better than this dark and barren and sad and pathetic thing that was his soul, his body, his entire being. It was at least the illusion of a safe refuge. A sort of escape from what he was and what he had become.

The delusion felt good. Perhaps it was all that mattered.

The Broken spoke between sobs. "How could those moments have been my worst when...they made me feel the best?" He felt the descent of tears down his face; the taste of wet salt on his tongue. It was disgusting. Weak. Pitiful. Like him.

Smitten reached over and patted Broken on the back, and he caved, melting into his friend in a sort of embrace. Too readily, too vulnerably.

"Are we just playing pretend?" Broken whispered, pressed against the frills of Smitten's vest.

"No." The Smitten spoke softer this time, keeping his voice lower. "It cannot be pretend."

Broken let him talk. He'd had enough of the argument.

"When all the fibers of your being are peeled back," Smitten murmured, "love is the only thing left. No, it cannot be pretend, for we cannot help but find them beautiful and what we feel is so profound, so pure. It cannot be pretend because it's who we are and what we were meant to do. Make her happy. You seek it. You desire it."

"I do want to," said Broken.

Smitten smiled. "And she's out there."

"I...do want to, right?"

"You do want to. Your hesitation is a lie, to none else but yourself."

The Broken felt wary and he felt truly seen. He felt uncertain and he felt resolved. He felt terrified and he felt at ease. He wanted to turn away, to return, to relapse. He wanted to love, to obsess, to languish in the comforting cage of those thoughts forever. He wanted to flee, and forget about everything, and never even think about Her again.

Despite everything, after all, the Smitten was still his friend.

Smitten pulled away and tousled Broken's hair. "You poor, poor, misguided soul. Once you saw the light and now you shun it."

Broken wiped his tears with his sleeve. "And it was brighter, wasn't it? And it felt safer...I think..."

"Sit awhile with me, my friend. Mayhaps comfort may be found in the silence yet; a calm to precede a change."

And so they sat on the grass. And so it was still.

And so it was all horribly wrong.

[otterlycurly]

Blushing giggling kicking my feet rn 🤭🤭🤭

[puppetmaster13u]

When you discover your friend is practically a giant wooden puppet after a battle

This is @phoenixcatch7 's Possessed Doll Au and I highly recommend yall check it out

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Ok, I'm about to get all goofy and emotional here.

I was thinking about why I'm feeling so emotionally overwhelmed this morning, and part of it is definitely that I'm recovering from a migraine and had a terrible night of sleep, so I currently have the emotional regulation of a toddler.

But I was also thinking about how the world just has a lot of really shitty stuff happening right now, and we all have to deal with both being hyper aware of it all, and very aware of our limited capacity to change it on an individual level. Like we all do our little collective piece (I hope), but I'm still trying to sort my own shit out, and I can't fix any of the things out there that are hurting people.

And then there's this little place I found, a little escape hatch into a niche world that makes me really happy. And I found it at a time when it was still rather new, and then over the last few years I've gotten to witness this *explosion* of this niche getting bigger and bigger, and deeper and deeper, and we're getting to a place where there's a little something for almost everyone, and there's going to be even more in the future. And yes, at its core, it's a profit-driven thing, but it means something that so many people are being drawn to it, and it brings feelings of seeing the world as it could be, and how love can win, and how it's ok to take time to figure yourself out, and how there will always be people who love you as you are.

And there's a community that surrounds this thing, that keeps getting bigger as well, and it doesn't care about borders, and you get to make friends who live across the world from you, because you all find this same niche such a warm and happy space. And you can be serious with it and goofy with it, and it's all embraced.

And in a world where real joy is of such limited supply, I think it's a genuinely beautiful thing.