#glitchy coding {crack}

[mechahero]

"You're killin' me, Kakarot. You're killin' me."

[maeo-png]

360° FUCKING DEGREES??

[mechahero]

"WAUGH!"

HE SPOKE TOO SOON! HE SPOKE WAY TOO SOON!

Alright, he's asked for it... She puts out her hands and...

STARTS BOOPIN'!

[disgr-aced]

"I never touched a code"

Okay so we're all assuming codeflippa is responsible for the corruption qslime is going through. But. But but but.

qslime never knowingly touched a code. But yknow who did? Yknow who did very much did, and who also died to a code?

Gegg.

(no nonono wait stay with me for my completely legimate and not at all fever-dream-fulled theory)

I'm just throwing it out there that having an entity like that live in your body, take it over, gradually force control, and then die might have some longer term effects that we're only now starting to see.

Buckle in, we're entering crack theory territory.

It was glitchy, but right at the end of the Monday stream, I think qslime said there was something rotting inside of him. And that's such an interesting choice of words because that's what dead things do - rot. That's what corpses do.

Now, qslime isn't dead. That's not what I mean. But if Gegg was truly alive (he was) and had two little egg lives (he did), and truly died at the election dinner (perhaps), that means he died using qslime's body. A body that is still around, alive, but perhaps still holding a part of it that used to be Gegg, a part that is now dead. Rotting.

(Also it hasn't passed me by that twice now a Gegg has been killed in front of qslime, and both times he's said (in a panic) something like "no wait stop, he's a part of me". More death, more of his body dying.)

And his body can't deal with that, it can't reconcile the two completely true but mutually exclusive facts that qslime is alive, and qslime is dead. It's a paradox. An impossibility. A glitch, which if ran in a computer script would throw an error but this isn't a script, this is a living breathing person.

His cells are being given two instructions: you are alive, and you are dead. And because they physically can't be both, they do a secret third thing and glitch out.

The slime bits of his body have been the first to glitch. And we know that Gegg was a very slimy little boy. So it makes sense for these bits, the bits that composed Gegg, were the first to corrupt.

That's it. That's all my thoughts on the matter. Codeflippa apologists here's how we can still win. Goodnight.

[nylpad]

CAFFEINE, CODE, AND COUCH CONFESSIONS

Warnings: coffee addiction

Tim Drake, the resident tech genius of Wayne Manor, had a mission: to teach you the intricacies of coding. Armed with a whiteboard, a stack of textbooks, and a steely determination, he embarked on this noble quest. Little did he know that unraveling the mysteries of Python and JavaScript would be the least challenging part.

Tim sat you down in the cozy corner of the Batcave, the glow of the Batcomputer casting shadows on his face. He explained loops, variables, and functions with the fervor of a preacher. But your brain? It was like a stubborn old laptop running Windows 95—slow, glitchy, and prone to crashing.

"Okay, so if you have a nested loop," Tim said, pointing at the whiteboard, "you'll need to—"

You interrupted. Again. "Wait, wait. What's a nested loop? Is it like a Russian doll situation?"

Tim sighed, rubbing his temples. "No, it's not—"

"But what if the Russian doll is an array?" you asked, eyes wide.

Tim's patience wavered. "It's not—"

"But what if the array contains Batman's utility belt gadgets?" you persisted.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's not—"

Coding fatigue set in. Tim's eyes glazed over as you continued your relentless questioning. He needed a distraction—a break from the syntax and semicolons. So, he proposed a truce: "How about we take a snack break?"

You perked up. "Snacks? Now you're speaking my language."

Soon, the Batcave echoed with the rustling of chip bags and the clinking of coffee mugs. Tim brewed a fresh pot of coffee—the fifth one that day—and you raised an eyebrow.

"Tim, you're going to turn into a jittery metahuman," you warned.

He grinned, sipping from his mug. "Nah, I've built up a tolerance."

The couch beckoned, its cushions inviting. Tim abandoned the whiteboard, and you both sank into its plush embrace. Laptops forgotten, you fired up the gaming console. The Batcave's massive screen displayed the latest multiplayer shooter.

"Ready to kick some virtual butt?" you asked, controller in hand.

Tim hesitated. "Actually, can we watch movies instead?"

You raised an eyebrow. "Movies? Since when do you—"

"—binge-watch romantic comedies?" Tim finished, cheeks flushing. "I may or may not have a soft spot for cheesy love stories."

And so, you traded code for rom-coms, coffee for popcorn. Tim's head found its way to your lap, and you stroked his hair absentmindedly.

"Promise me," you said, "no more coffee. Your heart rate is rivaling the Bat-Signal."

He grumbled but complied. "Fine. But only because you're the best code-cracking partner."

As the credits rolled on the screen, Tim whispered, "Maybe I'll write an algorithm to predict our next movie choice."

You chuckled. "Or we could just flip a coin."

And there, in the dim glow of the Batcave, you realized that maybe—just maybe—love was the most complex code of all.

[k0yaz]

IT’S ME THE MONIKA ANON, YOU ATE W THAT FIC THANK YOU FOR THE FOOD ‼️‼️

Also I just ended up quitting the game because it confused me too much and never finished it until like two years later when I watched a playthrough and realized that I would romance Monika at the end. 😭

Could I request her reaction to that happening?

also could I be 💤 anon?

error of a heart.

Pairings: monika x fem!reader

CW: sfw, female reader, very heavy angst, part 1 is optional so this can be read as a standalone, horror themes, monika going insane, mentions of implied suicide, death, blood, hallucinations, monka crying this had to be a warning bc i felt so bad :(, this made me start crying no joke, guys im sobbing help, oh no I cuss like once here aaaa, I want to hug her sb, wrote this on a school night so might not be good, not proofread.

A/N: hell yeah you can be 💤 anon, and no thank YOU for the food I love ddlc with all my heart and I’m so happy I could write for it AND WHO CARES IF I HAVE SCHOOL IN THE MORNING RAHHAHA 🕯️

No.

This was a cruel joke, right?

Monika’s sleek fingers threaded into her coral brown hair, grasping at her scalp with widened, twitchy eyes as she felt her chest tighten with each gaping breath. The screen displayed a ticking count of your absence from the game, the small pink dotted box splaying out thickened and bolded lines of text. Her body felt like it was wavering in and out of existence.

The horror of situation dawned upon her, feeling as if pixels of her merely drawn figure were being ripped out of her piece by piece. Her hands practically slammed down onto the opposite ends of the control panel, breathing forced and drawn out as tears glossed over her once bright emerald eyes.

“Is this it? After you’ve made me suffer for so long?” Monika spat, her voice laced with clouding venom that blinded every sense with a mixture of rage, despair, sorrow. She couldn’t even tell what she was feeling at this point. She just knew it sure as hell wasn’t positive. Cool grazes of the wind drifted into the club room through the opened window, swaying her hair off to the side and masking her lowered, empty eyes.

Nature no longer calmed her down anymore. Not when the natural world and lush landscapes outstretched through the window were all false. Bits of code. There was no reason for Monika to pretend anymore. Not when the woman who was her sole purpose for living had been ripped away from her so cruelly. Uneven beats of her heart was the only sound alongside the clock within the desolate club room, the quiet noises ringing in her ears with each agonizing second that passed.

Did time even exist anymore?

“Why? Just why (Name), why? You just had to play through…were you that disappointed that you couldn’t love me the way I loved you back?” She sobbed quietly, lips quivering as her palm dragged along the dried tear cracks bruised down her cheeks. Her teeth ground together in pure anguish, eyes fluttering shut with each quiet sob that racked her glitchy sprite.

Monika’s brows furrowed together as she tried to choke back her cries, shoving them back down her throat and tilting her head up to fix her gaze upward. There was probably nothing there. Maybe she was just hoping there was an entity, a creator, a higher power, anything. Anything that she could scream at to soothe her error of a heart.

Whatever didn’t allow her to have a route was the reason you were gone. It wasn’t your fault. Her gaze remained utterly transfixed onto the console, chest rhythmically rising and falling with her shaky breaths as she slowly came to terms with reality. Her vision slowly grew clearer, the thick fog of blinding emotion seeming to part itself before her as she anxiously circled her thumb along the ridge of the console. Monika began to understand. Her once bright green eyes, reminiscent of a leader, darkened into two cold pools of deep emptiness you could get lost in if you ventured too far.

You weren’t coming back.

Who was she kidding?

She got her hopes up for nothing.

She was the fool in this situation.

Shattering screeches began to pierce through her ears as she felt her eyes slowly beginning to sink into her skull, wanting to squint upon catching sight of the epileptic flashes of red green and blue. An endless mind breaking cacophony circled her within the void, rendering her immobile as she was forced to resume the unending torment that would plague her over and over.

Monika’s expression was devoid of any trace of possible emotion, her form tilted back as if she was succumbing to her fate. It was like she was drowning in an empty stomach of falsehood, caged in this endless cycle of knowing she wasn’t real. She never was real. She never will be. Everything she knew, everything she felt, it wasn’t real. If you could leave so quick and she couldn’t do anything about it, she couldn’t have been real. No chance.

Nothing was real.

The gravity of the situation dawned on her, weighing her down as she sunk into the void once more. Eyes gradually drooping lower and lower with each passing second clicking in her head—if time even existed here, Monika felt herself drowning into an ocean of code, which stung at her every sense like a numbing frostbite.

“Monika, are you alright?”

Her head jolted up from the desk, bleary vision lingering on the other three club members circling her. Sayori, Natsuki, and Yuri fixed their concerned gazes onto Monika’s tired expression, faint dark circles adorned below her eyes. Great. She had another moment where only she was aware.

“Where is she..?” Monika muttered out weakly, her voice still raspy from her supposed ‘nap.’

“(Name)…where is she?” She inquired, confused glances being exchanged among the other three girls before looking back down at her. “There’s…no one here named that..” Yuri replied, a perplexed look crossing her features, deep purple eyes locked onto Monika’s messy form. Sayori simply gave her a gentle smile, resting a hand on her shoulder with her fingers brushing against the fabric of her blazer in an attempt of comfort. “Let us take care of things today, alright? Get some rest, you’ve been working too hard after all..”

A feigned appreciation painted her face as her palm rowed forward dismissively, attempting to imply that she would rest, and that the others were welcome to take over. Monika heaved a deep, shaky breath that pulsated in her chest over and over, slumping back onto the desk as her fingers tightened into the edge of the smoothed over wood. She couldn’t help but glare at the other members with a bitter disdain creeping up within her. They have everything she wanted. Yet they didn’t need it. Nobody understood how much it fucking hurt for her.

A sharp sting seared against her pointer finger, slashed diagnonally along her skin as she took in the seeping pain of the minuscule paper cut. She flipped her hand over and brought it close to the tip of her nose, examining the blistering red glistening along her finger as crimson droplets trickled down the open wound. It didn’t mean anything anyway. Just a couple taps of the control panel and this cut would close right up.

Monika allowed herself to wallow back to sleep, eyes slowly flickering in and out of consciousness as she slowly began to mentally return to her personalized hellhole. Her eyes slowly focused on the flash of bright light hovering above her head as her lashes filtered her already fuzzy vision. The light flooded her senses as a sharp pang of uncomfortable warmth spread along her drowning body within the void. It was warm, like being held. Yet disheartening to her knowing it was simply the faux comfort of the repeated codes strings.

It all became so clear now. There was no purpose, and she knew what was meant to be.

With remaining strength she could muster up, Monika extended a shaky hand upward, outstretching it to manipulate the code. Within moments, her body began to sink further into the endless void, the horrific orchestra of screaming no longer affecting her as her slow, rugged breaths filled her ears. It didn’t take long before her throat began to tighten, eyelids slowly lowering shut as she tilted her head back to allow the waves of erasure overtake her meaningless body. Her consciousness was slowly fading as Monika parted her lips to utter out a final set of words before drowning herself into the sea of her scripted feelings.

Ah. She adored the idea of you. Even in her final moments, as her throat closed in on her like a claustrophobic cave, she couldn’t help but think of you. Perhaps she would be granted the honor of laying her eyes upon your beautiful self when she got the chance. But for now, it’s not meant to be.

“If only I could be reborn in your world, (Name). We could be together. But not in this life.”

A/N: OH MY GOD I SOMEHOW COOKED ON A SCHOOL NIGHT??? I should’ve done this earlier but…OMG IM ACTUALLY FUCKING SOBBING BRO WHY DID I MAKE THIS SO SAD MONIKA DESERVES BETTER.

💤 anon it’s your fault for making her cry /j

Someone request something good for this woman I feel bad I love Monika so much idc if Yuri is my favorite Monika still deserves everything :((

Also oo I added a filter to the banner and it looks sm better ok goodnight I need soeep

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

7+8 of hurt/comfort with glitchy red?

7) "Because nobody cares about me!"

8) "Because I care about you!"

..........

When Red finally managed to escape that game with your help, of course you weren't expecting him to become your best friend right away.

After all, he never really trusted anyone who managed to get ahold of the GBA with the hacked cartridge inside it--the latest person being you.

He thought you were just like the "others": players who'd mess around the code and force him to see things that caused his sentience to begin with..which set him on the path to a torturous existence he didn't ask for.

No matter how much he resisted, they'd always find a way to make the code work in their favor. And because of that, it took him a while to realize that you're only hacking the game to give him a way out. Yet he would still fight back and beg you to stop, insisting there was no point in saving him.

Yet by some miracle...you did.

As now he was in your room, looking down at the GBA and its cracked screen on the floor from which he emerged. It was a shock to see that tiny little machine was his prison since his creation..and to finally stomp on it and crush it to pieces felt liberating.

Except...

He still felt the same anguish as before, even as he stared down at the broken pieces.

You promised him that getting out of the game would bring him peace, and he decided to believe you and trust you, since you genuinely saw him as a person trapped inside that hellish thing.

That being said...why was his heart still full of hatred and misery?

Why didn't he feel better?

But as he began to realize he could actually interact with this world, he took one look at you...

And he felt rage overcome him as you stood there, not saying a word. You were simply surprised that your plan worked, and stunned that of course you managed to free him.

Though Red didn't see it as that at all. He thought you were afraid, or having second guesses.

He still didn't know what your ulterior motives were for helping him. But he firmly believed you were just going to abandon him now that you were "finished", seeing you back towards the door as he approached you.

He couldn't get to any of the players before, but now you two were on the same plane of existence.

This was his chance to exact revenge.

And that's what he did as he lunged at you without warning, easily overpowering you and leaving a deep scratch mark along your torso. It turns out, his glitchiness was still a part of him as he managed to unhinge his jaw and bare his teeth like a wild animal.

He thought being free would make him human...yet he felt the opposite.

"You said you'd fix me, but you LIED!!" He screamed, furious that his voice sounded the same as it always did: ran through a bitcrusher program. "Why do I sound like this still?! Why am I...still broken?!!"

"..R-Red..I..I only said I could help you get out." You tried to reason with the raging glitch that had you pinned against the wall. "I'm sorry if that wasn't enough but-"

"Oh, it was plenty enough." He huffed. "But I guess I should thank you...because now I can take my revenge on you sickos who tormented me for fun."

"I...wasn't tormenting you.."

"Yeah, but you reminded me of all that pain. Honestly..I think freeing me was the stupidest decision of your life-"

"It's true I've made tons of stupid decisions, but..th-that wasn't one of them. I wanted to help you."

Blinking in surprise, Red raised an eyebrow. Though he just scowled at you again, unwilling to let his guard down. "No...you don't mean that. You only freed me so I'd shut up about it...so I'd stop haunting your stupid little game. No sane person would do that out of "kindness"."

"That's not true." You huffed, annoyed that he was refusing to believe you after all you've done. "What makes you assume I don't care-?"

"Because nobody cares about me!!" He snapped. "Nobody has for years, and they never will. So just stop pretending...it'll make this easier for the both of us." His hands went to your throat.

Yet despite knowing he could easily snap your neck, you refused to fight back or even struggle a little bit. And he quickly noticed this, frowning. "What's wrong? Too scared to fight because you know you lost? Because you know you shouldn't have freed this monster?" He taunted.

"You're not a monster-"

"STOP LYING!!"

"...I'm not lying to you, Red." You firmly insisted. "I believed you were a real person from that start. I couldn't leave you in that game to suffer! I spent days trying to figure out the coding. I lost sleep over this, but you still think I don't give a shit, huh?"

Finally, you managed to catch him off-guard with that response. And for the first time...he began to wonder why he was doing this to you.

All you've ever wanted to do was help him.

And this is how he repays you?

Still, he doesn't understand the "why" of it all. Why you'd lose sleep over someone like him..or why you don't seem afraid anymore.

You must've wanted something for sure.

"Why go through all of this for me?"

"Because I care about you!" You blurted out, embarrassed but relieved to get the truth out to him. "I never stopped caring since the day you talked back to me. I-I know I can't make you forget what you've been through...or find the people who made you this way, but...I just wanted to give you a better life in this world. That's all."

"And you...want nothing in return?" Red blinked, feeling himself calming down from his rage.

"Not a thing." You smiled a bit, showing him you were sincere. "I know you're angry and hurt, and I'm an easy target. But I promise I won't leave you like they all did. You can stay with me as long as you want."

"...you won't throw me out?"

"Why would I do that?" Gently, you put your hands over his gloved ones, slowly bringing them away from your neck. But you didn't let go of them, holding them tightly. "But there you have it...that's the real reason I wanted to let you out. So we can be together and you can be happy."

For a while, he didn't say anything back, as he had averted his gaze to the ground. Though moments later you heard a sniffle, which worried you.

Especially when you saw small water droplets splattering onto his shoes.

"Red?"

Reaching over, you gently cupped his face, making him look up at you. Not only was he completely free of glitches...but he was also crying.

At last, he showed vulnerability.

"It's okay," you reassured him, happy that he was finally willing to trust you. "You're safe now. You won't be abandoned ever again."

Tears streamed down his cheeks, some of which you gently brushed away with your thumb. He sniffled again and nuzzled against your palm, slowly becoming addicted to this feeling of comfort.

It was so foreign...yet it felt so right.

"..s-sorry, now I feel like an asshole after all that stuff you said." Closing his eyes, he just tried focusing on your kind touches, trying to forget about all the pain he endured. "It just..hurts so much. I'm tired.."

His head fell against your shoulder, but you just rubbed the back of it, letting him rest for as long as he needed to.

[theworldibuilt4you]

[CASEY'S OKAY. I GOT THEM WITH ME. DON'T LET THAT THING KNOW THEY'RE STILL ALIVE.]

[Sonny had been going through the motions of patching and logging. As the minutes had ticked by he had grown more and more frantic with it, but definitely trying to keep it inside and not show on his expression]

[He hadn't made any progress trying to track this thing down... The co-ordinates of Casey's last known sighting were muddied too. It felt like some sort of DDos attack..]

[Just as he was about to start earning himself a few more cracks, a message- A glitchy one at that- pinged his terminal.]

[He thought it would have been the assailant finally ready to talk, but upon seeing where it had come from, he eased much more]

"Y-Hbngk nhhycaz Gwq..."

[...But he hadn't been the one to fix it. Without Jade, Without her underneath the code, Casey could have... They could have...]

[Sonny shut his eye tight, feeling the sting of pricking tears in the corners. The puppet-like man put his remaining arm to his face, choking back a hissy, static sounding sob.]

[mechahero]

"Well I'll be damned."

[mechahero]

"It would not make me feel better 'cause I'd still be an ugly, unfunny clown! Except I'd be an ugly, unfunny clown with shit dance moves! I'd lose either way, man!"

"Too bad! If it makes ya feel better I'll play the part of Deadpool. We can do fortnite dances to wash our sorrows away..."

[huffle-dork]

Glitch into the Hufflverse Chapter 17: Swapboys Bad End

Read Swapboys | Read Crystal’s AUs | Read One Villain falls Another One Rises

Read SITCV | Read SATCV | GITHV Masterpost

Alt glitches them all down, way underground. But even away from the destruction up top- this way is no worse for wear. That glitchy code that’s eating buildings outside is in here- leaving abandoned equipment half formed and walls with big gaping code holes.

Against the back wall, or whatever is left of it- is a stone archway. But it’s been destroyed too- crushed and cut in half by something that has left purple scars in the stone.

Alt gasps as he sees and rushes over, “no! Nonono!”

Henny sighs heavily, “It is as I feared…”

Schneep sighs as well. "That does not sound good at all."

"It's completely destroyed," Jackie whispers. "Like... cut in half. And there are purple cracks in the stone."

Alt looks angry as he bangs against the back wall. “Damnit! Fuck this evil fucking me! This could have gotten you home!”

JJ walks forward, as if in a daze. He reaches out to touch the stone of the doorway, running his fingers along the rough stone. He can tell there were runes carved into it, but the purple scars are messing with their shape. He can't tell which runes they were supposed to be. Except... for one. He looks up at one, where the top left corner of the doorway would have been. I know that one.

"You recognize one of the runes?" Jackie asks.

JJ nods. He points at it. An angled sort of spiral. That one is on the back of some of Marvin's magickal cards. The jokers.

"Alright... what does it mean?" Schneep asks.

I'm not sure. That's the only place I've seen them. But... I think it's supposed to be a tunnel of some kind.

Alt looks to JJ as he talks about the runes then tilts his head as he touches the spiral rune. “…huh… like a… a portal? Is that the rune that makes this thing work…?”

JJ shakes his head. I don't know. Marvin's told me that runes all work together. You can't cast a spell with just one or two. He takes a closer look at more of the runes. You know... these are all different styles. I'm betting there's a variety of runic alphabets here. Strange. Normally you have to stick with one.

“True… even when I use chaos magic I need at least 3 to create something…” Alt says. He does look surprised at the different runic languages. “Huh… I wonder if it’s like… a mix of magic cultures… I heard in the medieval world they had a doorway like this. I never got to see it but I remember trying to search for it…”

I wonder if these doorways are... always there, JJ says.

"I cannot imagine an 'always' in an infinite multiverse," Schneep says. "But they might be consistent in this part of the multiverse. This, ah... section?"

"Branch, my Anti's said 'our branch' a couple times," Jackie says.

Jackie and Schneep also walk over. Schneep starts feeling the broken archway, running fingers along the carved runes. "Hey, look, there's another one of those spiral runes." Jackie says, picking up a bit of rubble.

That looks like it would have been the opposite corner, JJ says. So there are two tunnel runes. I don't see any other repeats... they must be important.

Bro comes over and tries to move around to not spook anyone. “Hey! Maybe we could… put it back together? That’s worth a try, right?”

"Worth a shot, yeah." Jackie nods. "I can't think of any other ideas."

"Heh." Schneep smiles a bit. "Jamie, do you know Mending? Do you have the spell slots for it?"

JJ chuckles a little. I should have the 'spell slots', yes. I've never tried fixing something with magic but it can't be that difficult.

“I can try to help too… can’t be too hard to figure out between two magicians right?” Alt smiles at JJ.

“That’s the spirit!” Bro grins. He starts searching through the rubble to look for more pieces. “Also love the dnd reference- god Alt when we get home we should start a game! God it’d be sick to do a game with all of us… Do you think discord could cross dimensions??”

Alt bursts into laughter.

Jackie raises an eyebrow. "Nerds. You're all nerds."

Schneep nudges him with his shoulder. "Ah come on, Jackie. You cannot be so different from the Jackie I know that you are not a tiny bit interested."

Jackie grumbles as he starts sorting through the rubble. "I... may have tried in high school. But I got bored waiting for my turn to fight."

You just need to do something else while waiting, something idle, JJ says. Besides, the fifth edition isn't fully combat-focused. There's a lot more you can do!

“I never got to play- it seems really fun though,” Alt admits. He laughs, “Dr. J used to run the group that my Jackie and his wife were in. Did you ever join, Chase?”

Bro hums, “Mmmm maybe once? But I feel like I might have gotten too drunk- I usually met up with Jackie at pub crawls… maybe there was a dnd night?”

Alt laughs, “maybe next time I see your Anti, Jackie,  I’ll ask if he might have a way… I feel like he would know.”

"If Discord can cross dimensions, I'd be... fine with... trying," Jackie mumbles. "If anyone would, it's him," he agrees. "Not sure if he'll agree to break the fabric of space-time for a DnD game... but I dunno, maybe he really likes you guys." 

“He seemed pretty fond of us,” Bro giggles, “He’s helped us out of so many pickles. I think he’s a chill dude.”

“I feel like fusing with me made us actually tolerate each other,” Alt chuckles.

"Your Anti sounds like the type of person you're glad to be friends and not enemies with," Schneep says.

"Ohhhh hundred percent," Jackie agrees. "Anyway. Sort out the pieces by ones that have flat sides, ones that have edges, and ones that are purely rough."

“Heh! This is like a puzzle!” Bro chuckles as he follows Jackie’s instructions.

"Exactly like a puzzle," Schneep agrees, feeling out the pieces. "Hmm. What is this? The texture is strange."

Looks like a piece where one type of stone meets another, JJ says. There are a lot of those. But it'll help us figure out where to put stuff.

"We can also use these purple lines, that might help," Jackie says.

Alt hums and starts to look for the purple pieces. “Right… there’s gotta be a good way to connect these…”

Henny starts to help- Sahne tries by pushing over stones with her nose- but soon she finds herself playing with the rocks instead of helping.

JJ reaches over and pats Sahne. Good dog... but not really helping. Maybe the opposite, actually. He moves some of the rocks she's messing with back in place.

Sahne leans into the pets and goes roll around and play in a pile far away, throwing the rocks around and chasing after them like she’s playing fetch with herself.

"You can, like, follow the lines," Jackie says. "It'll probably be easiest to put together the parts that broke right through a rune. Liiiike this." He puts two pieces together, forming a complete rune.

Hand those to me, JJ says. Jackie does so, and JJ pushes the two pieces together. A bit of blue magic traces over the crack, leaving behind some ice that seals the two pieces together.

Alt grins wide at seeing JJ’s magic, “hey! Nice!”

He looks through and finds a couple purple cracks together, switching them around until the rock clicks back together just right. He concentrates and then puts a glowing finger up to the break and pushes it down the line. A line of green follows and welds the pieces back together. Alt like pleasantly surprised. “Yoo! That worked!!”

JJ smiles. It didn't cost too much magic, which is good.

"Alright, so if we find two pieces that fit together, we had them to JJ or Alt to put together," Jackie says. "This isn't like a puzzle where you work on the edge first. We piece it together as we find them."

Schneep frowns. "I hope working by touch is enough... I can do most of the sorting, I think, if you all want to focus on the puzzle."

Henny nods, “We will help with putting them together, other me! Just leave it to us, sorting helps plenty!”

“Yeah Schneep we gotcha!” Bro agrees, helping him to sort and put stuff together, handing stuff to alt for him to try to piece together and weld.

Schneep smiles at Henny and Bro. "I will, then. You all can probably do better than me."

JJ puts two more pieces together. No runes on either of these; they must be part of the inside, judging by the rough texture. I hope we don't make any mistakes.

"I think it'll be harder to make mistakes with big rocks like this than with tiny puzzle pieces," Jackie says. Though he frowns. "There are... probably tiny bits, though..." He sighs. "This might take a while."

"Well, more time to talk, then, I suppose," Schneep says.

“I believe in us! We got a system and that bastard Glitch guy is probably still an icicle and we’re all completely out of sight! There’s no way he’ll find us!” Bro grins, “…maybe that means I can stop being invisible soon- this has been sooo weird.”

Alt laughs and shakes his head, “gotta commend your optimism, Chase.”

All of them get to work, sorting, piecing and patching what they can find.

A couple minutes pass in silence. "Sooo... like..." Jackie says slowly. "JJ, Schneep, do you guys play Dungeons and Dragons? Cause you both made the reference."

JJ seals another piece to two that are already together. I used to run games in uni. We had a little club. It wasn't that popular, but the guys that showed up were really fun.

"A couple times," Schneep says. "But I got busy as I got older, threw myself into work." He shakes his head. "I've never played with my current group of friends. Perhaps we could try... though they do not seem the type."

“Who do you think you’d play, if you could?” Bro asks cheerily as he passes more pieces to Alt.

"Hmm? You mean, what would my character be?" Schneep asks. "Well, I could never keep the spells together—too many options to choose from. So one of the fighting classes. And I generally like the elves and those types for race."

JJ shrugs. I like making strange combinations. Subverting expectations. But I can never stick with one character for long before making another, so that's why I run the games. I get to use all of them! He chuckles.

“Hey that’s clever! You definitely give off DM vibes, JJ,” Bro laughs. “I think… I like paladins- probably like a cool scourged aasimar or something! Edgy but fights for Justice and shit.”

“I thought you didn’t play,” Alt smirks.

“You have no idea how often Jackie and Jay talk about this my dude,” Bro laughs, “Jackie has helped me to think of potential characters! Still don’t super get it but man there’s tons of cool things to be!”

"The fuck is an aasimar?" Jackie mutters.

They're like angels—a bit, JJ says. In the same way that tieflings are like demons. They're both half human, half something else. Celestials and fiends in this case.

"Oh, I remember tieflings," Jackie says. "They seem cool." He shrugs. "I never really was one for magic characters in, like, video games. But I've learned a lot about magic recently... hanging out with magicians and all. Maybe I'd give it a shot. JJ, here." He hands over more pieces that JJ fuses together. 

“You seem like the type who’d play a human fighter, Jackie,” Bro snickers.

"IIIII'm pretty sure that's what my character was in high school," Jackie says. "Looking back, the guy was basically me. Or, uh... what I wanted to be. Cool badass hero defending the innocent and crushing bad guys." He shakes his head. "Man... how life changes."

Alt fuses a bit more pieces together and chuckles. “I’ve seen a lot of cool stuff from Jackie playing Baldur's Gate- maybe I should make a save and try it out.”

"What is Balder's Gate?" Schneep asks.

It's a game based of D&D, JJ says. I hear the third one's coming out in a couple years--in my world, at least.

“Oh yeah I think Jackie is playing the early access of that one.” Alt says with a laugh, “so it’s not there yet but from what I’ve seen? It’s gonna be such a cool game-“

“There wasss 2 other ones? I hear they’re really fun- I like more actiony games though.” Bro grins. “Where I can punch people.”

"Hell yeah, me too." Jackie nods and grins. "I mean, my favorite games are Sonic and their fast stuff. So, I guess I like platformers too? What about the rest of you?"

Schneep shrugs. "Never played many games. I think the only requirement for me is a good story."

Minecraft, JJ says.

Jackie laughs. "You can't exclusively play Minecraft."

I do, actually! JJ grins. Sometimes with mods.

“Fuck yeah Minecraft! I can’t get too into it but Jackie plays it a lot with his kids!” Bro says.

“Me and Chase loved sonic as kids- we used to play Sonic Adventure Battle 2 constantly and do the VS mode. Chase was Sonic, I was Shadow.” Alt laughs, putting together a couple more pieces.

"Oh that makes so much sense, actually." Jackie laughs. "I'm definitely a Shadow fan, too."

Everyone I know is a Shadow fan. JJ chuckles.

"I thought you only played Minecraft," Schneep says teasingly.

Yes, but I know about other games. My Anti plays them on YouTube for a living.

“Oh yeah that’s how you knew about Subnautica! …we need interdimenisonal internet so I can watch his let's plays,” Bro laughs.

“Oh yeah didn’t he say he plays spooky games? Heh… I’d like to see that.” Alt smiles.

JJ laughs. He does, he very much enjoys scary games. And also games that are easy to break or exploit. He has a series where he tries to deliberately find glitches. That's why some of his fans call him the glitch bitch.

“Oh my god- what an amazing nickname! Gonna start calling you that, Alt,” Bro grins.

Alt gives him a withering look.

Jackie laughs. "That what we used to call my Anti, too. It's very fitting, isn't it?"

“I’m not a bitch..!” Alt almost whines. 

Bro laughs and goes to give Alt a noogie but Alt glitches away even if Bro manages to get him at first. 

"Oh hey, we got a big part done now," Jackie says. There's a long column of stone completed on the ground in front of him, about as big as his forearm. There are still bits missing, but it's identifiably part of a door.

Alt has a similar part made, more of an L though as he forms a corner.

“Hoo boy… this is hard work,” Bro sighs.

“I think you all are making quick work of it though,” Henny says.

"It helps that there are many of us working," Schneep says.

"The worst parts are this, like, black stone," Jackie says, holding up a bit. "It broke smoothly, not jaggedly. Yknow?"

Alt then looks to Jackie and nods, trying to slip the smooth stones together, “yeah… it’s like… obsidian? So weird…”

Black stone and crystals are often used for protection and knowledge, JJ says. Perhaps that's why it was chosen. Knowledge of other worlds, or protection while crossing to another.

"Is there any special meaning to this type of stone?" Schneep asks, holding up a chunk of the not-black stone.

I'd have to know what type of stone it is, though... and it looks very... ordinary. JJ shrugs. Maybe it was chosen because it's easy to carve or something.

Alt does look fascinated by the meaning behind the black stone and studies his shards a bit more. “…knowledge huh…? …guess the other me here didn’t know about that… or maybe he could have used that. The knowledge part at least. Maybe the protection part is what kept him out.”

JJ shrugs. Who knows? Maybe magic doesn't work the same in your world at all.

"But I will point out that these doorways existing in their worlds means that there are some similarities, at least," Jackie says. "Oh! Hang on, Alt, I think this fits with the corner you're working on."

“Maybe… feel like the meanings of stones should be… universal almost?” Alt muses. He blinks at Jackie then grins, seeing if he can put them together.

"Should we start standing this upright?" Schneep asks.

“Might as well!” Bro says, starting to see if he can find the bottom.

"Here, flat end." Jackie points. "This is probably what we stand it on. On three. One... two... three!"

They push it up--but it doesn't stay. JJ reaches out and uses his magic to hold it in place. Where's the part to keep it up? he asks.

"Well uh... it's just kind of a... freestanding doorway," Jackie says slowly. "I uh... never thought about how it shouldn't be able to stand on its own."

“So how do we make it stand??” Alt asks.

Henny holds out his hand and covers the arch in his magic too, suspending it in place. “I can hold it in place just fine if you all would like to find out how it operates!”

Thank you, Henrik, JJ says. Perhaps... we need to complete it? Then whatever magic is helping it stand will kick in.

"So we should focus on the bit with the runes first, then?" Jackie asks.

Yes, I think so. Once the runes that help support it are done they should activate regardless of the rest of them.

"Well, in that case, do you know what runes those are?" Schneep asks.

I don't recognize a lot of these rune languages, but I can try? JJ says. Alt, you help, too. See if you recognize any symbols for... support, or stand, or... sturdy things.

“Got it-“ Alt nods and starts to look through all the runes to see if there’s any he recognizes.

JJ also searches. And though he doesn't find any he recognizes, he sees a rune near the bottom of the doorway that looks like a pair of legs mid-stride. What do you think of that one? JJ asks Alt, pointing to it.

"What're those, hieroglyphics?" Jackie mutters.

“Basically as far as I know,” Bro agrees. 

Alt glitches over to look and then shrugs, “S’the best bet so far- worth a shot.”

"So we must focus on completing this section, then?" Schneep hurries over to the sound of their voices. "Where?"

Near the bottom. Here, can I help?

"Yes, show me." Schneep holds out his hand, and JJ presses it to the section of runes they're looking at. There are still a few chunks missing.

"So look for ones that seem like they'll fit in there, then," Jackie sums up.

“On it!” Bro says and starts scooping out through their piles. He hands anything with runes to Alt who starts to see what fits and what doesn’t.

Slowly, they piece the runes together again. And when JJ seals the final part in place, the runes briefly flash with multicolored light. I think… that’s them working, JJ says. You can let go now, Henrik.

“Great! We still need to piece the rest of it together but at least it stands now,” Jackie says.

Alt’s eyes shine with fascination and excitement at seeing the runes glowing.

Henny releases his spell with a smile, “Good! We are getting somewhere!!”

Schneep sighs. “More piecing together, then. This is taking a long time.”

“Yeah, I bet Bro’s invisibility is gonna wear off soon,” Jackie says. “D’you think that if we focus on the runes it’ll work if all the runes are done?”

I don’t trust that it will work properly unless it’s completely fixed, JJ says.

“Well considering it was broken to bits- I think this is going smoother than it could have gone.” Alt shrugs.

“Focusing on the runes seems as good a place to start if any- maybe we can fill the gaps with magic if it seems too hard to all put together?” Bro suggests.

JJ frowns. This construction seems very deliberate… but if worst comes to worst, we can try that filling in with magic idea.

Henny starts to help again, though he’s cautiously looking around, clearly anxious about their surroundings.

Jackie notices Henny’s reaction. “You seem nervous, Hen. Worried about spending too much time here?”

Henny looks at Jackie and shakes his head, “I know this is what must be done to get you all home… I am just worried the glitch will find us…”

“No, of course, I’d be worried too,” Jackie says. “Uh… we’ll just just have to hurry. You can get out of here, right?”

“Yes I am not worried for me… I have evaded Glitch well enough on my own,” Henny replies, searching through stuff faster and passing it along. 

Schneep hurries, doing his best to feel out the pieces with runes carved on them and pass them to the others to figure out. Huh. Hang on a second, something about this sequence of symbols seems familiar to Bro and Alt… somehow, they know it means ‘the World.’

Alt lingers on the familiar symbols and looks at them, trying to figure out where he learned this.

Bro appears next to his shoulder- literally, as the spells wears off. “Hey! I know what that means!”

Alt jumps, nearly throwing the piece. “Jesus Christ Chase!”

“What???” Bro blinks in confusion then looks down at himself, “oh! I’m visible again!” He grins then blinks, “ohhh-“

“Yeah you scared the bejesus out of me dude!” Alt says.

“Well I didn’t know I was about to pop right back in!”

JJ laughs. Sorry, Chase, I should have said something. Though I wasn't fully keeping track of the time, either.

Jackie looks at the series of symbols. "This looks like some weirdo language. Like more fucking hieroglyphs."

What does it mean, you two? JJ asks. It's not familiar to me, at all.

Well, it's the World. Or... something like... aan Dahmun, maybe.

“Aan Dahmun…” Alt says quietly, tracing the symbols, a brief flicker of green in his eyes. “It means… the world.”

“Oh oh!! I know why it’s familiar!!” Bro says excitedly, “It’s Glasish!! Dude we still know some Glasish!!”

Jackie blinks. "Is that like... that fantasy world you guys went to?"

“Glasish is the language,” Alt explains, “We were in a land called Glasúil.” He tries to suppress a shudder. As much as he loved visiting Glasúil… the reason the language is in his head isn’t exactly a pleasant one. It just makes him think of the King.

So there's writing from that universe on here... JJ looks at the doorway with renewed awe. Perhaps that's why some of these symbols are strange to us. They're from a variety of worlds.

"Great. Let's keep fixing it," Jackie says, putting a piece in place. "Seal?"

JJ puts a hand on the piece and seals it in place.

“I wonder how that works,” Bro muses as he helps to find more rune pieces, “Do you think runes from other worlds just… show up? How do people find them..? Is it like in The Owl House where like- nature just shows you it? Magic is so weird.” He laughs.

JJ pauses thoughtfully. Well... how do these doorways even show up?

"Frederick and I did some research on that, actually," Jackie says as he continues piecing the doorway together. "Cause my Marvin's gone insane trying to learn about other worlds. Apparently these doorways just pop up in the world. No one knows where they come from, but they're not, like, made by people. And apparently... well, they're not supposed to be... destroy-able. But..." He gestures at the doorway before them.

"Perhaps there is something special about Alt's powers," Schneep says. "Something about being a glitch, perhaps?" He pauses, thinking about what the last world's Anti told him. About him being a glitch.

“Really? They just pop up? Whattt that’s even weirder!” Bro exclaims.

“According to the last world’s Anti… a glitch is someone who can break the fabric of their world… the boundaries… and act outside of it.” Alt says quietly, glancing at the holes filled with code around them. “And also… Mag figured out you need black magic and …whatever my glitches are to activate the gate. Maybe since other me has both, he was able to destroy it…”

“If he had both, why couldn’t he just use it then?” Bro asks, crossing his arms.

Alt shrugs, “I dunno… Sam sees everything. Maybe they did something to prevent it. Or… other universal forces. This me getting out… it would be very very bad if he can just take apart the world like this…”

"Sam sees everything?" Jackie repeats in a mutter. "Sam like... the little eyeball Anti and Jack hang out with?"

JJ raises his eyebrow. There's a Sam in my world, too. They're a friend of my Jack.

"I do not know a Sam," Schneep says, shaking his head. "The fuck do you mean an eyeball? An eye on its own? I suppose Jack's channel logo is like that."

"Heh. In my world, that logo is based on Sam," Jackie chuckles.

“Exactly! We met a couple but the one we’re talking about is giant!!!” Bro says, spreading out his arms as wide as he can.

“They’re the one who helped us get home last time when the TRVLR broke.” Alt explains, “they are from another world where… where an Anti got super powerful like here and corrupted most of our other selves. But they can also exist in… this space in between? Where Jackie’s Anti can go… it’s still really confusing but they told us they see everything and could find the broken parts of the TRVLR to return to us.”

"...huh." Schneep isn't sure how to respond to that. "That is... strange."

The world is strange, JJ says. What's this in-between space?

"Yeah, my Anti mentioned it once," Jackie says. "After he helped you guys out of whatever weird... timeline thing... you guys were stuck in. It's a completely black space except for sometimes there are green balls of light floating around--"

Schneep makes a choking sound in surprise. "I—That is—"

JJ blinks. Does that sound familiar to you?

"I-I went there once!" Schneep says in a hushed voice. "When my powers first started—I-I was disappearing and reappearing in many different spaces—a-and then I stopped somewhere, there was a strange man, he showed me an image of the place I was stuck in—he said something about it being like the space outside a video game level—"

Bro points eagerly, “That’s what it felt like exactly! I think… we also might have been in there in between jumps? I remember the green lights-“

Alt looks at Schneep with wide eyes, “Schneep- if you did that once m-maybe you could do it again! Then we can try to find Sam and- they can get you all home!”

"I—well. i-it was completely by accident," Schneep stammers. "I am not sure i-if I could do it again...? I—-I suppose I could... try. If this archway does not work."

Alt sighs but nods, “Of course- I get it… I have stuff I do all the time I have no idea how I did it… it couldn’t be that easy anyways. Not with our luck.”

Bro lightly hits Alt on the head, “Don’t be so pessimistic bro! We’re fixing the doorway- we’ll figure this out! Now here- weld these together will you?” He hands Alt a couple more pieces that fit together and Alt grumbles but starts to patch them back up.

It takes some time, but with some work, all the runes on the doorway are repaired. They flash with multicolored light as Alt welds the last piece into place.

Bro cheers and hovers a bit in the air as he pumps a fist, “See!! We did it!!”

"Whoo!" Jackie throws his fists in the air. "Fuck yeah!"

There are still a lot of pieces missing, but maybe it will function? JJ says.

"Ha! Only one way to find out." Schneep grins. "I cannot imagine anything so bad that we cannot take care of."

Alt steps back and looks at the doorway with a bit of awe and smiles a bit. He lightly touches the runes and looks at the doorway, “…do you think it could work now?”

“Only one way to find out!” Bro says.

Alt chuckles, but then his face falls, “wait… we… we need black magic to make it work-“

JJ blinks. Black magic... He looks down at his hands. I could... try...

"No, you shouldn't have to do that," Jackie insists. "There has to be some other way."

Alt nods, “Yeah it… w-we shouldn’t have to rely on it…” He does look troubled as he looks at the doorway. “But… m-maybe-“

“Did you really think it would be so easy~?” A voice giggles in their ears. Then, Glitch appears behind Bro’s shoulders, floating a bit with his glitches as he digs his nails in. “I knew you all were fucking liars- hiding my own blood from me!” He laughs madly and pulls up his hands- purple green strings typing up Bro and lifting him slightly into the air by them. He yells and tries to struggle. “But, you all were so daft to think I wouldn’t find you here~ I see e̷̟̾v̷͕̈e̶͎̅r̷͖̈y̷̯͘t̵̺̾h̵̙̆ị̶̔n̵͕̈́ǵ̷͉~̴!̸”

“No!” Alt cries out, glitching back with terrified eyes.

Bro fights as best as he can against the strings, “Let me go you motherfucker!!”

Jackie whirls around, extending his staff again. "Motherfucker! We took too long!"

"Well how were we supposed to go faster?!" Schneep also takes out his scissors. "What is happening?! He grabbed Chase?!"

"Yeah, with these fucking strings!" Jackie glares. "You don't even realize what you've done, do you?! The fucking irony of it all!"

“You got that grit in your ears? This was inevitable, friends~! I was just waiting to see if you could actually fix the doorway! And by some miracle you did~!” Glitch laughs madly. “Now, finally! I can take Chase with me and we can find a new universe to start over in!”

Bro fights more, “I’m not going anywhere with you! You ain’t my brother!”

JJ's mind whirls. They don't have time to talk to the Glitch! They have to act before he can do anything to Bro! He hesitates, then shoots out a wave of sharp magic, trying to cut the strings.

There’s the sharp angry sound of glitches that break Glitch apart for a second before his form starts to turn a bit red. He growls angrily- then the strings get cut.

Bro immediately lunges away.

“No!” Glitch snarls and then shoots a blast of magic at JJ, “Stay out of my way!”

JJ gets knocked backwards, doubling over as the magic hits him directly in the stomach.

"Leave them alone!" Jackie picks up one of the sharp obsidian shards on the ground and throws it at Glitch.

Glitch teleports out of the way with a wild laugh, “too slow!”

"New plan, we fucking break the doorway and find some other way to get out of here!" Schneep says.

Alt looks panicked at Schneep’s suggestion, “No we can’t! This is our only lead right now to get you home!”

“We can take this fucker-“ Bro growls, eyes glowing brightly with power.

Henny has been hiding in the back- in the shadows. When he sees an opening he yells and lunges out to grab onto the back of Glitch and try to pull him out of the air. “Leave them alone!”

“H-Hen?!” Glitch gasps, the tiniest bit of blue flickering in his eyes. Then he growls, trying to buck him off, “Get the fuck off of me!”

"If we are not doing that, then—" Schneep pauses. "Then—we get Glitch to do it, if you understand." His black magic—his glitch power—if they can somehow trick him into it—

JJ nods, catching on. Then would it need to be destroyed afterwards so Glitch cannot escape?

"Henrik!" Jackie shouts. He runs over, pausing. He was going to try and get Henny off, but actually—Instead, he jumps up and grabs Glitch's legs. "Get! Down here! So I can fight you!"

Jackie ends up pulling Glitch down with so much force he yells in surprise and nearly face plants. But he giggles and eyes Jackie with hungry eyes, “Oh you wanna fight again? Okay!” He lunges at Jackie with sparking claws.

Henny got pushed back in the rush to get at Jackie and he struggles to center himself.

Alt looks conflicted but he nods, “Okay… w-we can do that- how will we destroy it afterwards?”

Henny rushes over and pants, “I can destroy it! I can use my power to make it fall apart as soon as you leave.”

"That would work, then," Schneep says. "You must be careful, other me." He draws his scissors. "Now—we draw his attention!"

Henny nods, “I will be. Do not worry. …you all just must promise you stay safe and do not come back here.” 

Schneep nods, a determined look in his black-slcera'd eyes. "We promise." 

Jackie manages to let go and jump back in time to avoid the claws. "Jesus fuck! You don't even realize what you're doing, don't you?! You've become the monster you were afraid of!" He swings the staff at Glitch's head.

Glitch laughs wildly and catches the staff before it can hit him, using it to bring Jackie closer. “Yer dumb- you think that matters now? I fucking won that fucker is dead and I’m stronger than he ever was!” He giggles and pushes Jackie back by his staff while building up black magic fire in his hands. “I’m not Magnificent~ I’m something far greater and that’s why I’m on top! Like I was always meant to be!” He cackles loudly as he tries to blast the fire at Jackie.

Jackie's eyes widen and he barely ducks, the heat of the fire feeling all too familiar against his skin. He takes a deep breath, trying to recover from the familiar feelings that fire stirs inside him.

And then Schneep leaps over behind Glitch, driving the scissors downwards.

Glitch quickly turns around and dodges Schneep’s attach before blasting out fire towards him too. “Nice try~!”

Schneep yelps, the fire burning his arm. He leaps to the side, patting out the flames. JJ takes his place, throwing magic after Glitch but staying where he's standing off to the side.

Alt growls and glitches around, trying to create a distraction for Glitch.

Bro hurries over and kneels by Jackie, “You okay?”

"F-fine," Jackie says. He steadies himself. "Now—let's get this fucker!" He tries to sweep out Glitch's legs with his staff.

Bro grins and nods, trying to kick at Glitch’s stomach. Glitch glitches out the way though but ends up getting blasted back by JJ’s magic and is thrown through the air. He growls and then starts to spark with electricity. “You all are getting on my last fucking nerve!” He hisses.

Then, Glitch sends out a wave of electric magic to try to shock everyone and knock them away.

Jackie and Schneep fly through the air away from Glitch. Even JJ, as far as he is, gets knocked down. Schneep is the first to get to his feet, and he leaps over to help Jackie up. "We have to get his magic to the doorway somehow," he mutters. "That is the plan."

Henny and Bro get blown back, bro briefly hitting his head against a far back wall. Alt manages to glitch away and then yells as he tackles his other self to the floor. Glitch roars in anger, meeting eyes with his former self.

Alt snarls and bares his teeth at his copy. “…you need to stop this! Your Chase wouldn’t want you doing all of this!”

“You know fucking nothing!” Glitch hisses, “I’ve seen the light- who we were meant to be all along! Someone who’s not tethered to weak useless meat bags- Chase was the only exception- the only one worth fighting for! Now I’m stronger than anyone who ever hurt us! I could rule worlds- all the worlds! I could turn back time to make sure Chase never died! All I need is a way out-!”

“Fucking listen to yourself!” Alt interrupts, “You sound exactly like Mag! Doesn’t that make you angry?! In the end- he won! He made you what he always wanted us to be! This wasn’t a victory- this is a tragedy! One where the man who tortured us for years got the last laugh and corrupted you so much you killed the only family you had left and drove everyone else you love away! You didn’t win jack shit! And I- I’m never gonna let myself turn into you!”

There’s an intense beat of silence as Alt pants from his emotional outburst as Glitch stares up at him with wide eyes. Wide eyes that… actually look a bit scared.

Everyone stares at the two Alts. Jackie starts to raise his staff and run forward, but Schneep puts out an arm to stop him. "Think about it," Schneep says. "You have not won anything. If Magnificent could see you now, he would be so proud of what you've become. Is that what you want?" But even as he talks, he gets ready to leap out of the way with Jackie at the first sign of danger. JJ also gets up, magic at the ready.

Glitch seems to shiver at this, eyes wide and distant as he shakes his head. “No…” Then his eyes start to fill with purple as he screams out in anger, “N̴̼͠o̸̭̕!̶̗̽!” A wave of purple magic rockets out of him and it blasts Alt away with enough force that he hits his head against the wall and blacks out for a second, slumping towards the ground.  

Schneep was ready for this. As the magic approaches he leaps out of the way, dragging Jackie with him. JJ is not so lucky. He conjures up a shield but the magic blasts through it, knocking him back against the doorway.

“Alt!” Bro cries out as he hurries over to his side, hardly being thrown off by the magic at all.

Bro hurriedly tries to rouse Alt. “Alt buddy c’mon!! You can’t pass out on us now!!” Alt rocks a bit in his grip, a spot of blood on his head from the impact he took.

Meanwhile, Henny tried to protect himself with his magic- but the black magic touches his light magic and he screams in pain as it eats up his hand and puts purple cracks on his pocket watch. He clutches at his hand then falls back against the wall, slumping against it.

In the middle of the room, Glitch is curled up into a tight glitching ball, muttering madly, “no no no no! I’m not like him- I’m not! I’m better! I-I won! He couldn’t win he’s dead!! I… I… Mag isn’t here- I’m the one still around!! Chase wouldn’t- I- He… he…! No! Nonono-!” Electricity is crackling off him like a dangerous storm. The floor underneath him is cracking and breaking into code- reality around him is shattering. “I’m the one in control! It was meant to be me!! He’s nothing- I-I’m eternal!’”

JJ climbs to his feet, looking over at Henny in alarm. He takes a deep breath and—in a puff of blue smoke--appears next to him. I'm going to try and get rid of that magic, he says, and reaches out to take Henny's hand with the watch in it. He tries to tap into whatever power he used on the rooftop to cast a purification spell.

Henny blearily looks at JJ and nods, “p-please… Juwel…” 

JJ smiles at Henny gently. He concentrates. Come on, he’s done this before… and though it’s more difficult than expected, the black magic slowly drains away.

Henny sighs in relief as the magic starts to drain away. Once he’s recovered enough he pushes himself up and puts a hand on JJ’s shoulder, “thank you my friend… hurry to the doorway-“ 

JJ nods slowly. Be careful, he says. Keep yourself safe over anything, even breaking the doorway. And then he teleports back to the doorway, right by Jackie and Schneep.

"Do you think Chase would be proud of you now, Alt?!" Jackie shouts at Glitch. "Do you think he'll want to hear you say things like that? See you do things like this?!" As Jackie shouts, Schneep pulls him back until they're standing by the doorway--right in front of it in fact. "He wouldn't! If he's anything like our Chase, he wouldn't! And he'd say you weren't meant for this at all! He'd say you were meant to be a hero!"

“ S̷̯̓Ḥ̴̉Ú̸̧T̴̬̒ ̸̰̋Ṳ̶̚P̶̒!” Glitch screams at Jackie, curling up claws into his scalp. “Chase was blind- w-we all were! I was always meant to be this- It’s what I-I was made for! The universes told me so- this magic tells me so! Playing hero was a-a foolish dream! I… I- ngh-!” Glitch cries out in pain and curls up more, the magic eating away more at the fabric of the world.

“Yeah, and whose magic is that?!” Jackie shouts. “Who did it come from?! Magnificent right? I don’t think his fucking magic would tell the truth!”

“Black magic sucks you in!” Schneep says. “But it may not be too late for you to make your way out, Alt!”

“And I don’t believe that anyone was made for anything!” Jackie continues. “This is a fucking multiverse, man! Do you think the possibilities are so limited?!”

Glitch grits his teeth and screams, tears of blood falling from his eyes. “There’s so many-“ He pants, “So many versions of me who are this- the trends, the canon- we were made this way…! I-I can’t fight this- this was inevitable! A puppet master needs his toys…! I-I’m a higher being now- I’m a-above all these useless fucking emotions! Above t-this empathy- this sadness-!” 

Then he curls up more gripping over his heart as the magic blasts out even more, ripples of black magic washing over the doorway, lighting up the runes with purple light. “So why does this still h̴̠̀u̴̮͌ŕ̷̹ẗ̴͚́?” he wails almost like a frightened child, “Why does it still ache?! Make it stop- MAKE IT S̷̜̚Ť̸͍��̴̈P̸̢̍!̸̭͗!̸̀ͅ”

Bro watches Glitch break down with wide worried eyes, some part of his chest aching with him. He grips the still passed out Alt in his arms.

"My friends!" Schneep looks at Bro and Alt, reaching out towards them. "Here!"

"Try to make it stop all you want!" Jackie shouts. "But it hurts because it's real! It hurts because it mattered! If you bury that hurt, if you try to justify it away—well, don't count us responsible for who you become!"

“Shut up!! Shut up shut up S̶̳͑H̴̢̕Ū̷͇Ţ̴͠ ̸̳̏U̸͖̎P̷̮̓!̵̩̑!̶̮͒!̵̮̐” Glitch sobs hysterically, clawing at his skin, leaving claw marks down his face like tears. 

Bro looks conflicted. Then he looks down at Alt and whispers an apology to him before giving him a little zap to wake him up. Alt jolts then winces gripping at his head. Bro pushes him forward, “Go to the others! Careful not to glitch yet- I… I need to do something-“

Alt opens his mouth to argue, “Chase-“

“Please Anti- just… just trust me, okay?” Chase says, looking at his brother with a meaningful expression. Alt slowly softens then nods. “Be careful…” he then glitches across the room- away from the doorway and starts to make his way towards it.

Bro stands up, then starts to brave his way through the magic storm around Glitch.

"Chase what the fuck are you doing?!" Jackie gasps.

"Chase!" Schneep starts forward, reaching out. But Jackie grabs him, holding him back.

JJ looks back and forth between Bro and Alt before hurrying over to Alt, dragging him back to the other two.

Alt stumbles a bit but leans against JJ as he helps.

The magic shreds at Bro’s super suit and skin, pixels slashing at him and the glitches unstable to walk on. But he tries- this… this guy is a version of his brother! A version that lost him- and Chase promised he’d never let his brother feel alone again.

Glitch doesn’t even see him coming- so when he manages to break through and grab his bleeding cheeks, the glitch startles and shakily holds a hand against Bro’s. “C-Chase?”

Bro looks at this corrupted version of Alt with deep heartfelt sympathy. He hesitates then brings Glitch into a hug and holds him tight. “Don’t worry, Anti…” he whispers, “We’re going to make sure this doesn’t  happen to you in our world… we’re gonna try to fix the future. I’m so sorry this happened to you…”

Glitch is stiff in the hug, purple flickering in his eyes- a bit of blue seeping through. He shakily reaches up and then curls claws into Chase’s shirt. “Please, Chase… f-find a way to save me-“

“I will,” Chase promises. He then lets go and looks at Glitch sadly, “…but you gotta let us go. You have to let me go.”

Glitch chokes a bit and closes his eyes before shoving Bro towards the doorway. “…g-get out of here- go-! Before it… before I lose myself again-!”

Glitch looks at the others with determination burning in his green blue eyes. “…make sure this future- never happens!”

Jackie, Schneep, and JJ look at each other. There are some tears in JJ's eyes. "We will do everything we can," Schneep says to this Glitched Alt. "We promise."

"You fight as hard as you can, okay?!" Jackie says.

Glitch nods, “I… I’ll try.” He looks to Alt, “…k-keep him close, okay?”

Alt has tears in his eyes too as he nods, “I will.” He says, his voice breaking.

Glitch smiles, looking sincere. “…good.” He closes his eyes and breathes, gripping at his heart. Purple veins pulse and glow underneath. He looks at Henny and a tear falls from his eye. “…keep on watching over me, Hen, will you? Y-you’ve done a good job of it s-so far.” He laughs.

Henny blinks back tears and nods, “Until the very end, my friend.” Sahne crawls out from where she was hiding and presses up against him, whining slightly at Glitch.

Glitch smiles more, looking on the verge of more tears. He shudders as the purple veins on his face light up and cause him pain. “G-Go- hurry-!” He shouts at the others.

Henny holds out a hand to hold the doorway in his magic. Alt slams an electric filled hand against the doorway and then lets his body disperse into glitches and pixels. The runes hum loudly and fill with more light, the air becoming electric and an electric whine reaches a fever pitch of intense noise. A bubble of crackling magic caves in on the 5 boys then rockets out in an intense beam of magic and light.

Then, the boys are gone- hearing the collapse of stones before they fall into deep confusing darkness.

[roccosuks]

*from the distance* Timekeeper, Timekeeper, TimekeepER-

*crash through the wall like kool aid man*

🕒Timekeeper!! I have questions for you. How were you before the parable? What's your loreee?? (sorry if this was explained before, im new here hehe)

(also i really like your Timekeeper design, so freaking cool :])

“Oh! Hello- sorry, you scared me…”

“Before the parable? Well I’m not entirely sure, I don’t remember if there even was a before the parable. But- my lore is… rather unsettling to think about. A lot of stuff has happened to me, before and after I became Timekeeper; it was torture. But, I… suppose being Timekeeper is better than when I was 432. Maybe. I have a lot more problems with my physical form, but I have a lot more freedom to do what I want than before.”

“Also… thank you for visiting me. I don’t get too many visitors and it always makes my day. :)”

(AWW TYSM. The silly guy gets a lot of compliments and I really appreciate that so many awesome people like his design. For his lore- I have a couple paragraphs here for it. So prepare for this massive info dump.)

So, I headcanon that The Narrator created TK/432. So The Narrator is the reason 432 had to suffer so much. And when he turned into Timekeeper, his code was practically getting jumbled up and torn apart; which made him a glitchy painful mess. He also noticed his new form, almost everything was different; and he noticed he didn’t have a mouth anymore. So whenever they were in pain, they couldn’t scream, they just had to suffer in silence where nobody could hear them. But as time goes on, he finds himself becoming more stable. So he only glitches when he’s overwhelmed, upset, furious, just any kind of powerful emotion.

They then find the tape room, where they make their new office. They tried making their own masks so he could talk, but a lot of them were unsuccessful, until he made the one he has now that’s fully functioning (except he doesn’t have an actual mouth and can’t eat or taste anything). He’s also trapped in the tape room now so he can’t really get out.

I’m not entirely finished with this part of his lore, but the screen on his face somehow cracked, and he started bleeding out. It was also so bad that static had started to form on his face with his injury.

Also, static is horrible. If you lightly touch it, it will sting you for a bit then wear off. But, if you keep your hand on it or whatever kind of material, it will start to spread through you and burn you then it will start to deteriorate you as well. Static also makes the object/person glitchy when it spreads, and if you start screaming while static is spreading through you, your voice will turn distorted and glitchy. I think it’s a really cool concept.

Anyway, he was in severe pain, and that’s why he said ‘help’ to the player, and also ‘will you come back to visit me?’.

So, he seems tough when he talks to the player, but that poor man has been through so much that when you get to know him, he’s very emotional.

That’s pretty much all the headcanon lore I have for him so far, but I have some regular headcanons for ya. :)

Timekeeper absolutely loves his hair. He will brag about it wherever he seems it’s appropriate.

He also hates pencils with a burning passion, and he’s also just afraid of them because he feels like they keep mocking him of when he was 432 and he felt useless. So he will actually have a breakdown and start crying.

Timekeeper hasn’t seen Stanley in person, and he’d do anything to see him.

Tk uses a feather to write instead of a pen or pencil (for obvious reasons).

Timekeeper is a really touch-starved and affectionate person. So whenever he receives affection, he cherishes it and he will keep thinking about it for awhile.

Timekeeper hates The Narrator so much that he would actually try to kill him if he could.

Also, TK’s screen was the only way to contact Stanley. So unless he finds a way to get to Stanley, there isn’t any way for him to communicate with him.

GODDAMN THATS A LOT. I hope you like all the juicy lore. You’re also more than welcome to lmk what you think of it. :)

[sl33pyfr0gt33th]

Crack theory:

What if Kinger is a npc?

So that’s a weird thing to say right? The rest of the cast we’d have to assume is real since pomni’s real right? But there is something interesting mentioned, Caine can create npcs we know this because Jax says "is this another one of your npcs?" When pomni shows up, that mixed with the fact he had to ask also shows that these npcs look like regular characters

Now I don’t know exactly what these npcs could do but it’s likely that they would help around the circus for example, bubble cleans up everything that needs cleaning, now where does this tie in with kinger? Well if we look at his interests something he repeatedly brings up is his fascination in insect collecting, or in another word, bug collecting you see digital games usually have people look through them and test for bugs or things that could go wrong and so kinger is always on the look out for bugs or if somethings not right, for example noticing kaufmo’s decent and also noticing that pomni might not be doing that well either

He also has glitched out on camera which we know probably is not a normal thing due to how others react to glitches (pomni backs around from a flower pot in the ground and gangle looks worried when kinger glitches) i think caines the only one we see glitch or pause suddenly with out anything causing it (like a abstraction or some other bug) because he’s a Ai

Also another thing to mention is kingers paranoia is incredibly useful if he’s a npc, because not only will he think to test out more bugs but is also more prone to repeating those bug checks which is really helpful (code can break after a update so double testing helps a lot) also just the fact he can get scared of someone who he literally knows is right besides him is interesting, yeah it’s probably a joke but a npc will still show a prompted reaction if needed, you’d just have to trigger it (like standing in a blind spot)

ALSO HE COULDNT HELP ZOOBLE-? We know he can grab stuff and can carry zooble so that’s not the issue, but here where the theory kinda explains some stuff, npcs likely can’t help on adventures they can only guide them to where they need to go, which kinger technically does since he and gangle find the nest of the gloinks, now you could argue he couldn’t help zooble because his hands were stolen, which would make sense but wouldn’t they get stolen along with his pillow fort? Wouldn’t they get stolen when zooble was? These things steal literally anything that isn’t pinned down to the ground yet they don’t take kingers hands until he tries to help zooble? It doesn’t make much sense to me-

Next thing to mention he hasn’t abstracted and has been here the longest out of our cast, he’s clearly not sane being glitchy and incredibly paranoid constantly but he’s fine not signs of abstracting since he hasn’t shown any symptoms of talking about a exit or actually doing anything too bad a npc wouldn’t want to exit because there’s no reason to unless it’s in their script, he doesn’t have a life to return to so he’s not looking for a way out therefore he can’t abstract

Extra details I’m adding in just for the heck of it:

The floor matches kinger since it is a chessboard pattern

His eyes are realistic like caines

Introduces himself as a Royal as if he’s always been a king chess piece "as a royal myself"

He pauses like Caine when he needs to process a event-

He has repeating gestures! (Not evidence, I just love the fact he has little things he repeats and I just want to mention it)

So in conclusion:

Caine made a Ai to keep track of bugs and abstractions if anything went wrong, forgot to tell the others that kingers a Ai and just went: "Welp! Might as well keep him here!" And hasn’t told the cast since he saw no reason to

(Please feel free to mock or joke about this theory, it’s a crack theory for a reason it’s meant to be the most chaotic but least possible theory-)

[fountainpenguin]

I made a proper cover image for my favorite passion project 'fic! Here's a proper Tumblr post to go with it.

---

Dog's Life - 3rd Life SMP Fan-Season

❤️ Read on AO3

💛 Longfic - In progress - Updates Tuesdays

💚 More Pixels Imperfect series 'fics

💜 Worldbuilding posts + Art posts

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Synopsis: Dog's Life is a 3rd Life SMP fan-season (Drafted before Secret Life) that balances goofy Minecraft gameplay with server hub meta. Life Series shenanigans and interpersonal drama abound in this world of mob hybrids, anarchy players, soul crystals, fantasy politics, glitches, dragons, moral dilemmas, past trauma, and more.

This season's mechanic allows players to steal the traits of the mob they most recently killed. Every player is also assigned a quarry: a fellow player they're allowed to kill to boost themselves up a life. If you kill your quarry while on Green, you're bumped up to Purple life.

Of course, playing in a world of glitchy servers and experimental mods is just asking for trouble. It doesn't take long to realize something is very wrong with this game... And with anarchy players closing in around the "hidden" server hub of New Star Station, it looks like life off-server may not be peaceful much longer, either...

If this 'fic interests you, check it out on AO3!

Also, everyone gets their own character arc! Some of my favorites include:

- Sometimes you lose things you'll never get back and you're gonna have to deal. Sorry about your chronic glitches and/or your irreversible isekai situation; get well soon - Assuming the worst of others will only cause you heartbreak. Hey clock duo? Get some counseling - You can't be best friends with everyone, but everyone can be the best friend to someone. Including nonexistent museum curators or demon robots with a special interest in rustic houses - Setting boundaries is healthy and cool even if you're scared of offending your friends. Especially if they insist on you possessing someone's body - Captain status isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sometimes you CAN get what you're sure you want... but at what cost? 💔

Enjoy! (First 1,000 words under the cut)

---

impulseSV - Pre-Game

Grian: impulse Grian: what kind of candles do you want in your summoning circle Grian: the new life series impulseSV: lol impulseSV: ocean mist is good! impulseSV: and bamboo :)

💚  💛  ❤️

Impulse isn't breathing. You wouldn't either, if you were the one flying through the Void. Breathing here will fill your lungs with icy spikes. Yeah, he was technically coded as a demon, his mortal flesh warm with the taste of life, but breathing here still wouldn't be a good idea. It's smarter to free-fall in an exhale. Smarter to suck the empty air through your nostrils (if at all).

The Void smells like frost burn, gunpowder, and the gooey poison of cave spiders all mixed together and baked in a cake of death. It's a small improvement over the steamy sulfur of the Nether, but neither one is a cake you should be eating. While the Void isn't alive, sometimes Impulse hears it huffing at him. If you skim low enough, you can hear saliva crackle as it licks its lips and rumbles, hungry for its prey. It wants you. More than any lover every will, more than any ravager or vex or creeper, and it will crush your lungs if you so much as grant it breath. Impulse has died to it a dozen times, but this won't be one of those days.

It's a wall. It divides this world from other worlds. It will gobble you up and leave a petrified husk behind. Your unmoving body will float a few moments in empty space until the Void spits out your code again beside a bed. Falling out of this world, plunging into the depths of the Void, is one of the fastest deaths there is (right up there with a bad fall that snipes all ten of your hearts in one blow)… but it's the death that always takes the longest to regenerate from. You never hit the ground. There is no sudden snap. It just devours you. It's dangerous and beautiful and Impulse loves it for its mysteries. He wants to grip it in his hands. Run thick streams of it through his fingers. Immerse himself in danger and delight.

The Void will kill him if he spends much longer down here. Even if he holds his breath. And he can't fault it for that. When he's down to the last threads of durability on his elytra, he really shouldn't be skimming this low in the inky darkness. It's either been 15 minutes or an hour of waiting for Grian's call… Both are indistinguishable, the rocket count the only indication that time exists down here under the world at all.

Yet some kind of yearning in his code demands he play the waiting game here… Something raw, something primal, buried deep within his data core.

Question: Why?

Impulse blasts another rocket, arcing upwards. Years of practice keep him from bashing his head straight into the bedrock ceiling, but… Eee, that squeal he made when scraping close wasn't exactly the most manly thing he'd ever done. Skizz would get a giggle out of it and wax poetic about how much he loves those little shrieks, but Skizz isn't here right now. He's off in the mines hunting down a little extra coal. Though he didn't bump his head, Impulse rubs it anyway and gives the bedrock a little kick.

"Mean," he mutters to himself. He should probably stay up here. There's more oxygen near the bedrock. The cold doesn't bite as much. But he dips his elytra and ducks away from the ceiling anyway… mostly because he doesn't trust himself enough not to slip up and punch it with his fist. With ungloved hands, punching it is sure to result in damaged knuckles. His hunger haunches aren't full enough to offer natural regen after that.

Goosebumps blister across his skin. The yawning Void stays empty underneath him. And Impulse, so often steady in his faith… begins to falter. What's going on? He made a schedule. Has recording for the new Life Series already started without him? Maybe Grian told him the wrong date. Or…

Maybe, in spite of last week's chat messages about candles on the Hermitcraft server… Grian forgot that one of his players needs a special invitation to join a new world for the first time. As a demon, it's built inside his code. He needs a circle. His name chanted thrice…

No. Grian won't forget him.

Impulse swoops into the blackness and pulls up like a hummingbird. He juggles double rockets in his offhand. Okay. Okay. His breath slithers out in a silver cloud. Every inhale stabs his lungs. The Void is freezing- really freezing. Do people realize that? It's already eating away his skin like maggots and he hasn't even touched the worst of it. Or is he just crazy? Yeah! Maybe he's gone crazy from spending 15 minutes to an hour straight down here, doing nothing but fly in aimless circles, awaiting a portal that may never come…

The Void feels blacker here in the Overworld, somehow, than it does when you're in the End. It engulfs him in a cloak, and Impulse cannot breathe. The wings of his elytra strain at his shoulder muscles. Oh. He's too low. They're trying to pull away from him, like the pockets flapping from his cargo shorts. The wings are weaving in and out of his code. That's not unusual this close to the Void. The Void is weird like that. It wants to rip him into pieces. It wants to drag him closer. It wants to gobble him up.

Paf! goes half a heart of damage. Paf! Paf!

Ow. Impulse whips his mind back from its wanderings, throwing all his energy into his wing muscles. His elytra strain, but with the help of a rocket, he sails a little higher. His hearts stop flickering. He presses a hand against his chest. Okay… He can still feel six of them beating. He's okay.

Grian won't forget about him. He won't.

[Full 'fic on AO3]

[tdmtdmtd]

Holy shit

HOLY SHIT

COOLMATH GAMES ARG

Part 3 - I was fucking right > last post

Another new post was uploaded to the CMG Instagram AS WELL AS a new game to the CMG website AND a message from the CMG Team

Let's start with the Instagram post.

It's nothing too extraordinary, just a photo of the prototype on the homepage. But where the crack was is now a message from the team.

Which takes you to a blog with the URL "burn-after-reading", the title of the page is "The Secret Has Been Uncovered". And the name of the upload is "Read This Before They Take It Down!"

It's Maddie. Talking about everything that happened and that they found. But as I read through it, other than a summary of what we already know, there's also things that we didn't know but are interesting to take note. Like how, since day 2 of the post, they felt like there was some sort of monster lurking the office. Or on Day 6 when they tried to get the game running themselves, the last line was to sleep with one eye open. But Day 8, today, they upload the game, the post, and end the message with "Use the clues found on this blog, look for the words that stand out. This is the key to the whole thing! Seek the truth and you shall find it."

If you don't want me to spoil the game and go try it yourself, here's a link to the game and on to the post.

For those who don't care about spoilers, get ready.

In the blog there are quite a few words bolded and italicized, this list includes: Search, Monster, Found, Myself, Escape, and Darkness. Starting the game, there's something broken down in the bottom right.

The story is that the player was in the middle of the forest with some other people, left for a minute, and when you came back they were gone. Going straight forward, you see the Hangman Monster and then get eaten by him. The choice before there is a hat that looks like yours.

"Huh, this hat looks a lot like mine. I don't remember anyone in the group having a hat like mine..."

Right before that, there were some popped balloons. Going left or right anywhere, there are two things you can click, the main object, and a bug after you solve the main thing. Both give you balloons, but the bugs give you glitchy balloons. Getting all the balloons, glitchy and not, you get a choice of path

Going left, you see the monster, not just the face, the entire Hangman Monster. It has something to say.

This strange forest is something I once called my home. Yet when I descend further, I see things are not as they seem. This forest is like no other; we cannot stay. There is no other solution. Do not fear me, I want to become your friend. Perhaps we can escape together.

The monster's balloons lift him from the forest, and so do yours and after a few more words, the monster says join me and the screen fades to black. You do in fact have to refresh the page to do anything again.

Going right, the balloons make you float away like normal... like if you didn't get all the glitchy balloons. You are then given a hint to look deeper. A very... subtle... hint

You actually see the color change as it's being written, or, typed, I guess. The next button text changes to "Find Me?" and then you restart after clicking it. One last thing to note is the instructions of the game.

I have nothing to say about them, but anyway, I thought I'd bring it up anyway. Also, I feel like the name is some kind of code, but I'm not too sure what code if it is.

So there you go, the entire prototype, if there's another Instagram update or anything like that I'll make another post but this is it for now. For those who don't want to spend the time trying to solve the bugs I'll list them here: (sights, descend, other, appear, become, together)

[usoftay]

I frequently hear us Swifties are a “cult.” Let's dissect this a little.

I guess….maybe we are.

We absolutely adore making friendship bracelets….because, you know, friendship isn’t real until it has a beaded bracelet! ✨

Cats? We practically worship them.

Sea urchins? Those spiky sea nightmares can stay far, far away.

We’re still trying to locate the elusive red scarf. It’s practically a national treasure hunt for us.

Baking chai sugar cookies, especially in the fall? Oh, don't mind us, just over here channeling our inner Martha Stewart.

Dressing up like Taylor? You mean there are people who don't have a Taylor-inspired wardrobe section?

Staying up late for album releases? Who needs sleep when you have new Taylor tracks to analyze?

Let’s not forget obsessively watching grainy, glitchy live streams of the Eras Tour, reacting like it’s our first time even though we do this every single weekend.

We should probably get honorary degrees for our 13,000 theories on everything she does. Seriously, five holes in the fence! This is important stuff, people!

Cracking codes and hunting Easter eggs is basically our full-time job.

Knowing every lyric, including the unreleased ones? Duh.

Drawing 13's on our hands? Committed.

Owning four variations of the same album? 6 variations of a vinyl? It's called dedication.

And comfy oversized sweaters with her face and album names? Practically our uniform.

But most of all, in our so-called “cult,” we LOVE TO LOVE! We THRIVE on sparkles, glitter, dancing, and friendship (oh and scream-singing the bridge to ATWTMVTVFTV!)

So, if that’s a “cult”, I guess I’m a proud member of it. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

@taylorswift @taylornation