#dont forget 3 october 11

[card-of-the-day]

Today's Card Is: IX The Hermit, Van Hohenheim

[theginkosakata]

[wearewatcher]

hey

love you guys

thank you! here, have a top secret ghost files s3 screencap

[mios-art]

I have failed you brothers

[borninolympus]

it’s October 3rd, happy FMA day

[witzwarapron]

Old post from X

[damibee]

Don’t forget.

[weirdmageddon]

the shift in lore literacy in homestuck’s fandom

i was thinking about how the people who got into homestuck after it ended—whose interactions with the comic are in a static, archived state, not an ongoing thing—missed out on information that was more common knowledge in the fandom at that time. i don’t know if this is true since i’m not on tiktok, but i wouldn’t be surprised if it was. the fandom certainly isn’t the same as it was before.

ive found that many people reading homestuck now simply do not understand things in homestuck that were common knowledge back in the day, with calls for “homestuck literacy classes to become mandatory” in response to baffling takes because so many people just now seem to have glazed over the comic without absorbing important plot points, and i think i know why this may be. i ended up writing a post reflecting on my time with the comic, my perspective and how ive seen this change. i still think and write about homestuck because it still fascinates me. earlier i quote retweeted that call in my thread talking about the temporal relativity of dave and rose’s god tier ascension in the green sun, saying “my homestuck literacy is 100% so guess im doing my part as a teacher by pointing out whatever i think is really cool about it”. this post im writing now started out as a reply to this tweet i got in response.

i joined the fandom in 2013. i was 11. i had been aware of it since at least late 2011, early 2012 when my friend ryan in fifth grade told me to read it but i couldn’t get past the first few pages. i remember writing a journal on deviantart around this time (late 2011-early 2012) that was mocking people who typed like gamzee, which ironically was very karkat of me. and i remember someone on flipnote hatena i was following was making flipnotes with the alpha kids.

i dont know what caused me to flip the switch into reading it but 2013. i got into it somewhere between april (i think closer to april—i remember it being quite a span of time between the last update before HOMOSUCK dropped.) this was the most recent page the comic, meaning there was no > [S] ACT 6 ACT 6 at the bottom.

i got into it during a pause in updates, which looking into it, was the year 4 megapause. i wasn’t sure of the month until seeing the news post detailing the reason for the hiatus and the status report of the comic’s development at that time. pretty cool i could narrow it down by referencing the dates of those updates and the news post to correspond with the pause!

according to readmspa, the year 4 megapause was a 59 day hiatus from Apr 14, 2013 ==> (EOA6A5) running to 12 Jun 2013, [S] ACT 6 ACT 6. then for a few months there were the first updates that i was apart of the fandom for.

and what an exciting time during the story get into the webcomic! when the updates resumed in june, part 4 of homestuck had begun. here was a glimpse of the updates in that span of time before the next hiatus began in october.

that hiatus was none other than the gigapause, the longest hiatus in the comic, which started october 2013 and lasted for a YEAR, and i already posted about what happened on the date of return.

but here were the main events happening in the story at the time i first actually got interested in it. i wasn’t aware of the full context of them then like i am now, but i was looking at the most recent updates anyway with interest:

the alpha kids just emerged as god tiers from their slabs in derse and prospit, blown up by the condesce and caliborn / lil cal-possessed b2 jack noir.

the journey to the new session started 24 hours after jack called an early reckoning in descend—for context that was about when dave entered around midnight central time and before jade even entered. it’s pretty easy to forget that side 1 of homestuck basically happens within the span of a single day—and at this point in the story, the 3 year journey (which was also 3 real life years) had just ended. john and jade emerged from the other side of the yellow yard through the fenestrated plane on LOMAX. john’s real body was asleep upon arrival in the new session, while his dreaming projection out in the dream bubbles came across vriska’s ghost ship to learn lord english lore with vriska and aranea, and go on the treasure hunt where they found the ultimate weapon at the X mark out in in the furthest ring. in the dream john stuck his hand in the juju, started warping all over canon which removed his real body from the ship on LOMAX. he zapped around for a while but eventually zapped back to LOMAX, now awake, completely out of the loop of what everyone else is up to, and bored as fuck. what was everyone else getting up to while john was asleep?

jade was now once again within the domain of the green sun. im pretty sure her space god doggy essence comes with the power to sense what was anywhere within the domain of the session since her face looks like she arrived at that spot with intent (and she literally has jack noir’s exact powers from bec’s prototyping. also this panel). she immediately dispatched b2 jack to the edge of the incinisphere, defending the newly god-tiered jane and jake. i think even if they weren’t in any danger, she would have warped to them instantly anyway because she COULD now, and i can imagine she wouldve been sooooo eager to meet everyone. even davesprite comments about her rapid departure.

the pre-scratch refugees arrived during the only time serious shit ever went down in the nobles’ months-long inert void session. the condesce used her freak psychic bronze-cerulean powers to commune with jade’s bestial side and mind controlled her, which is super dangerous as someone with the powers of a first guardian. she then used jade’s powers to corrupt jane with the tiaratop. no funtime meetup allowed!

the trolls’ meteor with rose, dave, and the remaining trolls was pulling up into the new session with no way to slow it down. grimbark jade warped there once it was in the incinisphere and took active control. she warped everyone off the trolls’ meteor and sent them to LOMAX.

as john was losing his mind on LOMAX waiting for everyone, the meteor crew warped in. after 3 years he finally reunited with rose and dave, and at least saw the trolls in person. close curtains, end of A6A5. this was the newest [S] flash page at the time, one of my first impressions of this comic, and still one of my favorite flashes. knowing the context of the flash in the story only enhances the retrospective joy i have at getting into the comic at the time i did because it’s such an anticipated moment in the story for everyone, while for someone with no context of the story it was still enjoyable.

so that’s what was going on plotwise when i joined the fandom.

from this time, through those few months of updates and through the gigapause, i was familarizing myself with the characters in the story and overseeing the state of fanbase, getting myself acquainted with the story and wrapping my head around everything.

at that time i found that a new-ish group called colab HQ who were producing a let’s read homestuck series on youtube. hearing the voices and the pacing of it like that really, really eased me into it (maybe it was my adhd that gave me trouble actually starting it?). i caught up to a certain point using lets read homestuck and from that point was able to continue with the comic on my own, and by the time the gigapause came to a close i was fully caught up. i remember the rebranding of colab hq into voxus about a year and a half after i discovered them.

but.. back to the main point of my post. even these posts from hussie’s tumblr exist in archived states. how many new fans know about hussie’s old tumblr? i don’t know, unless theyre a new fan that must scour the internet for more deep more dives on homestuck and its fandom as a whole. but since hussie deleted his tumblr (it exists archived now on homestuck.net which, alongside from the unofficial homestuck collection, has nearly singlehandedly kept the most important relics of the fandom and lore archived), that page is not an active part of the fandom now, because it’s gone. it’s a pile of bones. it’s not living and breathing. it’s in an archived state. the whole thing is already there. homestuck and its fandom history is something you now binge instead of slowly consume and meld with as it comes out. it’s now this rapid information intake that you might forget about if you read it now instead of engaged alongside it. you’re not surrounded by people actively talking and theorizing about developments anymore. the ability to have those sorts of conversations during the ongoing development of the story reinforced concepts, ideas, and lore over and over as we tried to make sense of it.

being in a fandom when the author is still delivering the story is like nothing else. it allows you grow alongside the characters and engage meaningfully with the media and people in the fandom space around you. it feels like you’re participating IN the media itself, especially if you’re interfacing with the creator. it’s in always having something to theorize or talk about and speculate. and people become very aware of these sorts of forgotten story facts because they were applying the logic of the newest official post from hussie into making their sburb ocs or something and share resources and discussion posts about “what just happened in this update?? recap????” it was this cultural osmosis thing. i think this is why homestuck literacy is now at an all time low, at least from what i can see on twitter.

reading homestuck then vs now is like the difference between serialized shows with spaces between episodes to discuss stuff and time to reflect and learn and become attached to the story, narrative, worldbuilding and its characters, vs the netflix model where it’s all dropped all at once and people forget about it after binging.

at this point in time im getting the sense that “homestuck elders” now are no longer just people who were there since 2009-2010, but now also people who were there while it was still updating, probably stretching into 2014-2015. there are many sources of lore that were common knowledge in the fandom at the time that, since becoming susceptible to the deletion of content and link rot, and with the thanosing of mspaforums, are no longer accessible at the source. and a lot of people moved on after it ended, especially following the epilogues, the kate drama, and the whatpumpkin-sarah z drama, leaving a void of information behind if not for archivists and people such as me who continue to keep old facts relevant in discussions. my friend has called me a fandom scholar before and seeing this post i think i get what they mean.

EDIT: there is a series of video essays ive watched multiple times (because theyre that good) and they are exactly what modern fans need to see more of. they really help contextualize the comic and the themes present in it help you appreciate the basic fabric of homestuck a hell of a lot more. i highly recommend them and encourage any fan of homestuck to watch them, or someone considering getting into homestuck to watch the first one.

i think this is arguably as close to the “mandatory literacy class for homestuck” that person was talking about as you can get, especially the first video.

additionally, there is also the website https://rafe.name/homestuck which is essentially a sparknotes for homestuck and can help you follow developments in the comic itself.

[misstarsss]

OMG OF THE NEW EPISODE

SPOILER!, THIS IS MY ANALYSIS, DONT GO DOWN IF YOU DIDNT WATCH GO WACTCH!!!!

In this new episode they revealed something important to us, the victim's past, something that many of us had previously theorized as how he would have lived if he was discarded.

They gave us very important things, number one, the name is fundamental when creating because as we realized the second time Alan created victim, he remembered what happened and from there began Alan's torture/revenge towards victim for a year which ends on March 25, 2007 when he escapes, but do you know who emerges a month later that same year? Chosen!

In his trajectory, the victim escapes from a rocket that he himself made with parts of Alan's windows, flees throughout the internet to get as far away as possible from his tormentor, we see firsthand how the internet goes through newgrounds and then creates all the outernert's connections to everyone's computers, I pause here.

Victim, before reaching the outernet, arrived at a computer belonging to a girl who had created, so to speak, a civilization, creating someone who would be a strong victim for Misti, a sweet girl who helped him in his lowest moments and his traumas due to him. Alan's year of torture.

Returning to the plot, four years pass where victim lives with the beings of a village, creating over time rocket corp, where it appears to agent smith that he went to the place where misti and victim fixed things for the ghent and with the passing of years (more precisely four years) the empire that we know as Rocket Corp was forged, which before being an agency dedicated to capturing Chosen and the others, was only about technology.

(PSDT, we can notice that purple's parents are there)

(misti and victim)

As the years go by, the victim forgets the source of his torture, Alan, and only focuses his life on creating technology, spending his time with both the girl who brought him forward and with Agent Smith, who were a trio of best friends.

(agente smith was working already with rocket corp)

Then it is reflected to us that four years have passed, both of the life of a victim and the torture of being an adblocker in search of freedom, more specifically, October 2, 2011

Misti gives a party for Rocket Corp's anniversary, where at one point as much as she and Victim dance, we focus on Victim when he turns to see his friend but from one moment to the next he disappears. He turns his back on Misti where he hears an explosion, and she disappears, turning around, not seeing her there and only her triangular-shaped hat (reference to the pointer or how the victim identifies, Alan)

NewGrounds is being attacked, By whom?, The chosen one and The Dark lord.

In ava 3 they explain to us what happened but in ava 11 we see the perspective of the victims, how they died and suffered at the hands of both TCO and TDL, everyone flees and attacks, a normal mechanism in each being when they feel attacked

When NewGrounds is attacked, it takes everyone out of the outernet, returning to the place of origin where they were published, getting the terrible surprise of a massive attack.

Another thing I should add in theory is that possibly Purple's mother died in the TCO and TDL attack, since they were there and that Purple experienced that attack firsthand.Being the originator of NewGrounds, who sends all creations to the outernet.

Misti and Agent Smith meet again where she helps him get out of a box that indicates his origin, they give us an understanding of Misti's nature in wanting to help everyone else by making them safe but it is something that unfortunately costs her life, although in theorizes, I can understand that sacrificing herself to help others or those she helped gives shim peace, and she dies.

After Misti's death, before, Agent Smith tried to help her but he died and we are given to understand that her murderer was none other than The Chosen One, where a massive hatred arises from Smith against Chosen, who murdered his sister and best friend.

(happy to know my baby tdl is there)

Agent Smith flees, knowing that he was a rival for them and where he follows a group as they escape through a hole that leads them to the outernet.

(smith escaping)

Agent Smith returns to Rocket Corp, where there are only three people and two of them comfort each other, while a gray stickman guides him to the victim where he uses the artifact to see his memory (in his prototype base) remembering over and over again how Misti disappeared.

(Memory machine prototype)

Victim tells Agent Smith to sit in the memory machine where he does it and they review his memory of everything that has happened, leaving the death of his best friend and his safe place being a badass captured in Victim's memory. impact for him and also for agent smith by reliving that painful memory again.

(victim knowing misti dead and agent smith suffering again)

Victim finds out about the murderer of his friend, chosen, generating an unimaginable memory towards him, as time passes being a calculated one (nine years), where the shutdown would be, the fight between chose, Alan against dark, which is in the year 2018 dates, August 19, again give us two perspectives, based on a certain thing.

Victim had let that version be that he warmly mistook, leaving a cold, calculating and vengeful being, a more specific day, the date August 19, 2018, agent Smith arrives in a dark room with an employee who brings a tablet, Smith tries to give him I console ViciTM but he rejects it and tells them to get to the point, showing on the tablet the video of the worker who was entering a forest who was suffering an attack and there they show the image of Chosen and Alan, two parallel images.

(Ava 11, 14/12/2024)

Ava shutdown 8, 19/8/2018)

Victim in a certain state, perhaps of denial or seeking confirmation from the worker of the veracity of the video, he nods that yes, where the victim only stands and claps to turn on the lights in the room, reflecting the victim's obsession towards the chosen one, where the victims are discharged from the room. Rocket Corporation is lost by stopping manufacturing and focusing on searching more for its killer, previously only being the target of the victim, chosen

But after Alan's revelation everything changes there, Victim assumes and affirms that the culprit of the entire attack and the mastermind is none other than Alan, relating both Alan and Chosen in a wrong idea, we can justify the fact that the culprits They were chosen and dark but without victimizing everything that Alan has done against chosen and dark but chosen, here it takes us to a certain point, dark and chosen only joined together because chosen asked them to, dark only had the objective of destroying a chosen, they both joined together to destroy Alan, achieving only the PC, then all the events happen and we arrived here.

We can understand before that the victim had panic attacks when he saw the image of Alan's cursor in mirrors or windows, but as time went by, those attacks stopped when he overcame that fear and found his tormentor because at first the victim was mentally broken from Alan's torture by him. an entire year, living them every day of his life, wishing to have a peaceful death that his creator does not grant him, an unbridled punishment for merely defending himself against his death; Misti is like a safe haven that he goes to, where he feels at peace and over time they let him know that Alan will never return, he is safe on the outernet where it is impossible (for that time) to bring him back and torture him.

Creating a company with his friend where he lives in peace for 4 years until his death where for 7 years he searches for the chosen one, giving a clue so relevant to him and where he possibly lives those memories, imagining that his creator upon learning of so much happiness he had sends to his henchmen, chosen and dark, to take away all those years of peace and improvement, turning them to pieces, tearing apart that being that they had created so much and dying with Misti, spending another four years up to three years where captures chosen and the second coming, who with the memory machine learn many things among them only two notable ones, the powers of the second coming and that yellown can bring Alan Becker (the cursor), Yellow being essential for their revenge and how good, they are quickly captured when the stickmans want to rescue chosen and second, hahaha, I laughed a lot at that

I guess that would be it, an exciting analysis of everything that happened and I'm glad to wait more years to see what happens!

[gg-selvish]

i genuinely dont understand dreamnap at all and i forget about them and then remember things and get like angry because what the fuck are those two hiding???? theyve known each other since they were 11 and lived alone for 2 years and refer to each other as their brother and best friend and having this like never-ending devotion and love where they always hype each other up but also WE NEVER SEE THEM INTERACT LIKE EVER CONSIDERING ALL OF THIS. WE'VE SEEN THEM HUG LIKE 3 TIMES???? HAVE A ONE ON ONE CONVERSATION IRL A HANDFUL OF TIMES IN THE LIKE GOING ON 4 YEARS THEY'VE LIVED TOGETHER DOES ANYONE ELSE FEEL LIKE THEY'RE CRAZY BECAUSE OF THIS WHAT ARE THEY HIDING WHAT DO THEY DO WHAT HAPPENED IN THAT HOUSE

the dreamnap move-in was one of my first big events in this fandom and i was like wow i can't wait to hear all of the fun anecdotes of their time together and then all they said was they mostly stay in their rooms but like IT WAS 2 YEARS THEY HAD TO INTERACT PRIVATELY. I NEED A PLAY-BY-PLAY OF DOMESTIC DREAMNAP FROM JANUARY 2021 TO OCTOBER 2022 can anyone hear me

[tendebill]

OCtober day 3 - old oc

i bring you Paul and Caroline! i believe the two of them are some of my oldest ocs? probably not THE oldest, but they're up there (featuring their old designs)

here's their current look on its own:

(more info/prompt credits under the cut)

fun fact: a lot of my "older" ocs either started out as ponies or otherwise had pony versions of themselves (Seph and Ellie had pony version at one point, i have like 2 drawings of them like that i think). i started drawing more frequently because of ponies. and for future reference, most characters from Aliterra (like Caroline and Paul over here) used to originally be ponies. but also Huen used to be a pony originally, so its not a hard rule. Seph & Ellie and most of the main gang were human from the start tho.

another fun fact! caroline used to be my ponysona, and later she was my main character, before i created Ellie and co! also the story of Aliterra used to be the main story, probably before Drakenterra was even created. and i originally made Paul as a ponysona for my friend :3 also those are not their original names, they used to have "pony names". no i will not reveal what they were. imagine something cringy that an 11 y/o might think is cool and edgy.

this is the first time i've drawn Paul in a WHILE. i think the last time might have been in like??? 2019??? crazy. unless im forgetting something.

also there ARE ocs that are oldier than them, all of which are now the queens in Aliterra (Victoria, Ava, Tamara and Daisy) or the queen killers from the same dimension (Alex, Carmen and Benjamin). i dont think ive ever talked about these ocs on here. tbh i still havent refreshed their story enough to comfortably infodump about them all xdd. Paul and Caroline too. i mostly know what happens to them in their story but idk all the details yet.

yea if u have any questions about them please do drop an ask into my silly box. i love talking about them sm

prompt list by @/_bweird on twitter!

[nutzo0001]

decline into insanity

3am, 16/7/23

AGORA, NOSTALGIA, LEARNED LAZINESS AND MISTRUST INC.

1/30, 13/8/23 (posted/written 14/8/23. after 18/37)[past 11pm, 15/8/23]

PAVLOVIAN EDU -VS- SELF (Agora September Blogging)

1/46 ~ 47, 23/9/23 (Agora Road, September - Vol. II)

AGORA ROAD TRAVELOGUE - OCTOBER <II.>: "faking feeling Fine" / 10/10/23, cca 0:45~1:05AM

1/21, 3/11/23 =Only (or two) Ways of Life= (Nov-I-Agora)

12.11.2023 17:19:38 - Kitty Burrito? (Agora - NOV-II)

i like to write. just like that. this is a shitpost. because it is the (for) sake of it. it feels good and bad. it makes no sense. it is all i hate; and love. i just wanted (to). this should have a theme wouldnt it. i feel bad. ive been played on. futures that never came to be. glorious post-2000s, 2010s, where we... lived, and shit happened. it only get worse. instead of GVC „idealism“, corporate neoliberal surrealism that looked good, became cyberpunk. do, or be banished. obey, or question your morale and sanity, reality.

are you here with me? lets hold hands, cry, demise and curse. lets *** with me. do you need me? what about others, do the need you? what are you to them those? and why, why you think that? have you ever knew anything for sure, no doubts? it feels like Smashing (whatever) Patriarchy was just switch-a(n)d-bait to get you on hook. the net that dont forget and forgive. instead of net to wrap as close as „kitty burrito“, it became...

what it became? finding the words! it, it, it - net of lies. of false smiles. smiles so familiar - fake smiles, those always there, present since forever - those, amplified! instead of kitty burrito, it was abused. no fighting patriarchy (whatever it means), no questioning authority or sanity - it, the authorities, stole it. kitty burrito became dome that reflects all of the toxicity humanity want to get rit of themselves. the greenhouse effect - only mental one. instead of positivity and love, support;

it is easier to cry, vail and blame yourself, others - like this - this Effect, it cooks us, „let (him) us cook“ alive. and oh yes. these fake smiles. everything is fine because you, me, we are, afraid. the old „good“ ways feels, „are“ safer that anything new. stockholm syndrome of sorts. do you hear? the Mark. F for Fisher. press F. press those Fuckers outta consensus. when good is questioned and evil is normalized, all we can hope for is, to be proven wrong.

but how we can ever know if we ignore things? because it is easier, easier than to face consequences, truth, than to admit... we are not special, we are not „new generation“. people simple cant outsmart themselves. only to heal. it takes ages, generations. to take the bitter pill - to get out of your ways. to get out of your ass. to... to help. but if you fake it? it feels bad. but if it dont hurt anyone , anyone else, and if it even helps them - then let it be. you suffered enough, so why would others too?

you can dream of revenge. but what out of it? hurting is easy. but to admit you are not special, not messiah, not angel - that you dont have to dance around eggshells to make others, and on alone some Globalists who predicted everything wrong - to prove them you are afraid, controlable, able to be lied to... this is not protest. this is listening to yourself. this is, to make - do, return to senses! „i said so!“, so they [say]. but what they are, your mother!? (no! if you see bad - listen your conscience)

[sandrashaine]

✨ Weekly Tag Wednesday Saturday ✨

thank you for the tag! @blue-disco-lights

im sorry for doing this late. uni has been beating my ass lately

=======

name: shaine

age: 21

your time zone: Philippine Standard Time (PhST) / UTC+08 

what do you do for work? i am jobless, full time student. But I used to work as a call center agent for a few months as well as do academic commissions

do you have any pets? i have 3 dogs in total: one senior dog (13 yrs old) and two 7 yr olds

what first drew you to this fandom? we watched the phantom of the opera when i was in 9th grade (2015) and I liked emmy rossum so i went to check her filmography. I watched Shameless for Emmy but after S1E1 I continued it for Ian

are you a morning person or a night owl? night owl since birth. my parents told me that they had a hard time putting me to sleep at night when i was an infant lmao

what are your hobbies? reading, writing, watching films and tv shows, i bake as well

how tall are you? 158cm (5'2-ish)

if you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? anywhere that's colder than the ph. I am not built to live in a tropical country where it feels like summer all year round with yearly superstorms lmao. But preferably any country around Europe.

favorite color? rose gold

favorite book? Life Is A Dance by Marissa Jarmin Hartwig

favorite movie?  this is tough but... Dead Poets Society

favorite fic? This is rly rly tough T.T But my current faves are My Beloved Mickey (this no longer exists in AO3), Cooperative Gameplay, LRPD, The Mask of Insanity, Technically, Paragon (HanniGram fic), A New Beginning Series, TCCC, ITQD... and more

favorite musical artist: Melanie Martinez, Sasha Sloan, Olivia Rodrigo, Conan Gray, NCT, aespa, Riize

what is your average screen time so far this week? according to my phone I spent an average of 11 hrs this week per day

what's the first app you open in the morning? messenger, ao3

how long have you been on tumblr?  i've had tumblr accs since I was 14 but I kept on forgetting the password and remaking another acc so I gave up. I only started being active just last october

finally (and i know this one is hard) tell me a fun fact about yourself: I like biting my dogs (I am a boring person im sorry i dont go out much)

=======

hi! pls ignore this if u already done this. I hope you all have a good day! @artofobsession @lil-domestic-bitches @callivich @thisdivorce @wehangout @swiftfootedachilles @psychicskulldamage

[card-of-the-day]

Today's Card Is: The Sun, Edward Elric

[kittykatz009]

Don’t Forget 3 October

A little late, but I finally got something written for FMA Day! It’s short and I was in a rush, but I hope you all enjoy!

Rating: General

Word Count: 695

Summary: Since the Promised Day, all he wanted to do was forget about that day. But now, he is more than happy to remember it. 

Tags: EdWin, FMA day, post-promised day

FFN/AO3

All he could see was red. It started as a small blaze on the tip of a torch but soon turned into a raging inferno. The flames swallowed all that it could reach, licking up until the entire house was consumed, leaving no trace of evidence behind of the crimes they committed. The heat was unbearable, a layer of sweat forming on his face as he stared into the blaze. He was sure that he would have a small burn on his face from standing so close, but it was a small price to pay as he looked at Al out of the corner of his eye, the knowledge that he was unable to feel anything ringing loud and clear in his mind. His left hand was clutched around the silver watch in his pocket, the metal biting into flesh with each small, hiccuping sob that came from Winry. He wished he could turn around and hold her, comfort her, assure her that they would be fine. He wished he could turn back time and stop himself from convincing Al to perform the transmutation that led to this. But he wasn’t God; he could only move forward, his watch the only thing serving as a reminder as to his convictions.

“Brother? Are you okay?” Al asked, snapping Ed from his memories. “You look somewhat pale, and you just cracked the arm of the bench. Do I need to get Granny to come look at you?” he questioned, worry shining in his golden eyes as he surveyed his brother. Ed looked down to the bench, noticing the splintered wood, the dull pain finally registering in his brain.

“I’m fine Al,” he replied breathlessly while digging splinters out of his skin. “Besides, there’s no need to bother Granny. She has more important things to deal with right now.” Groans and screams of pain floated down the stairs causing Ed to tense up with each one. As much as he wanted to be upstairs helping out in some way, he was given very specific instructions from Pinako to stay downstairs as soon as the doctors arrived. Staying still was easier said than done, but he knew better than to interfere with Granny.

“If you’re sure,” Al said hesitantly, reaching over to help Ed pull the pieces of wood from his flesh.

“Do you ever think about today?” Ed finally asked, breaking the silence.

“What do you mean?” Al asked, eyebrows knit in confusion.

“It’s October 3rd.”

“Oh, I didn’t even realize,” Al admitted sheepishly. “But to answer your question, yes, I do.”

“It’s hard to believe that our journey started eight years ago.”

“Yeah, and what a journey it was,” Al sighed, leaning back. Ed leaned back as well, tipping his head back and staring at the ceiling.

“Once we got our bodies back I thought that maybe the memories of this day would fade. But every year they hit me hard.”

“Pain takes time to fade, Brother.”

“I know that. You know, I never told you this, but inside my watch I had the date inscribed. I wanted to make sure that while we were on our journey that I never forgot what pushed us forward,” Edward admitted. “But now, I just wish I could forget this day entirely.”

“I understand. But soon enough you will have better memories to associate with this day,” Al reminded him with a smile. Another scream of pain filled the house but was followed shortly by a sharp, wailing cry. Edward’s breath caught in his throat from the sound and he stood up, shaking slightly as he made his way to the bottom of the staircase. Pinako appeared at the top, a wide grin crossing her wrinkled face.

“Ready to meet your son, Shrimp?” she laughed, beckoning him to follow her. He ran up behind her and the moment he entered the guest room and saw Winry lying there sweaty with a tired smile on her face and their child in her arms, he felt joy fill his heart.

Once again, he could never forget the third of October. But this time, he was more than happy to remember the date.

[witzwarapron]

It's sad that Ed misses Al but not himself.