#love stories in time loops man

[salty-an-disco]

relistening to Hadestown's soundtrack from start to finish again and the. the. they so. they

[scribblekinqq]

After making an impulsive buy after seeing people talk about it, I've spent my whole weekend playing this game in a vc with my friends (and we uh... kinda went a little crazy w/ it)

Uh. I'm only in Act 2 (But I might be beating the King very soon) and... oh I have so many theories. (WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS GAME HAS 6 ACTS?) So hopefully I'll remember to post the art I inevitably make when I get further.

(I also have a spotify playlist for Siffrin - thats how Crazy I Got about this game)

[nidbaesenpai]

Viet blasts Loop as well ✨✨✨

[sysig]

Time Loops are they/them culture (Patreon)

Bonus of my little guy in ISaT style:

[dropespeon]

god. me when characters escape the narrative

[loopsisloops]

I'm not sorry I still believe in love

Last year I was talking with some coworkers during our closing shift. The conversation jumped from topic to topic and then Janice [fake name] asked "Hey [Me], do you have boyfriend?" I said, "No, I've actually never had one." These women are all twice my age. I've known them for a few years now and I wouldn't say we're close friends or even best friends but I'm chill with them and trust them enough to know they would take a punch for me. They're a little confused about my answer and continue to press.

And before you say anything, yes we talk about nsfw topics at work sometimes so the beginning of this conversation wasn't really anything out of the ordinary for me. I stay in my lane and tune it out most of the time anyway. The spotlight was bound to land on me at some point. Alexa [fake name] yells from across the floor, "But you've at least fucked, right?" "No. I have not." I say a little quieter. Jane [fake name], pops her head in from around the corner, "What about a blowjob?" "No." "Handjob??" Alexa raises her hands above the endcap does a stroking motion with her hands. "Nope." Alexa has a quizzical look on her face and says, "You're a cutie, what do you mean you've never gotten down like that girl?" Jane hums in a agreement and adds "Yeah I mean, I lost my virginity at 16." You and I had very different bodies at 16 Jane. But, okay. Alexa leaves her cart of things in the aisle and makes her way over to where Jane, Janice, and I are by the registers. "If I were gay or bi or a man, girl I'd definitely go for yah." Alexa winks at me. I give her a deadpan look, "Thanks Alexa." Janice continues to count the money from the register, "But why?" I look back at Janice. "Why haven't you?" I think for a moment. "I don't know...I just haven't really met someone. I'm waiting for the right person y'know?" They all laugh and now it's my turn to act confused. Janice speaks up again, "Ohhhh I see. So you're still waiting for your knight in shining armor, is that right?" Jane chuckles, "To be saved and whisked right off your feet?" Alexa leans into Janice and says "Oh knock it off, she's still young." Janice hums in agreement, "Yeaah, life hasn't broken her yet. It's okay, soon enough you'll realize people are terrible, and princes don't exist, you'll see."

In the moment I just laughed all of this off but I knew, deep down, they were wrong. I shouldn't feel stupid for having a little hope...

I don't blame them for thinking like this. I know each of them have had their struggles. Teen pregnancy, loss, life has thrown enough shit at them for them to have these points of views be justified. But to say "don't worry life will break you soon enough." The thing is, life has. Time and time again. Believe me. It has.

I'm not sorry I still think love is real. I am, however, sorry life was not kind enough to you to keep believing in it.

[faksyan]

Ugh I love fanfiction people are so good at writing sometimes (a lot of the time)

[mymp3]

I had a lot of the same issues with reload as I see you’re having, and I do think most of it is from the new team’s inexperience. They’re trying to recreate a game that made very purposeful decisions in its mechanics and cutscenes without understanding why those decisions were made, which really undermines the experience.

If the team had more experience under their belt, or had full creative decision on an entirely new game, I feel like they could make a really good game! Reload is not that though.

I completely agree anon. It's a shame too, because it's not an awful game, just a different one. I wish they hadn't tried to recreate FES as a test project on a shoestring budget when it was literally the benchmark for our modern Persona games. It changed so much, it's iconic, a cult classic.

I really wish they wouldn't have lied about not planning EpiAi beforehand so they could cover the fact that the game doesn't look all too good. I wish they hadn't charged $200 for an "Aigis Edition" and not include the dlc. I wish they hadn't sanitized and scrubbed the game about death and grieving of all things that were slightly upsetting. That's what ended up happening though, and as you said, they're trying to recreate a game that was very purposeful in its creation.

Reload was a cheap quick test that they knew would work because it has a wonderful story and dedicated fans. As long as they make it a fun popcorn game, they don't have to put in those purposeful additions or think about it much at all.

[the-maladjustedjester]

The inherent eroticism between a condemned and their executioner

[legionofpotatoes]

there is a. fundamental flaw in horizon's combat design that I can't quite put a finger on, but I definitely feel it reaching a breaking point in burning shores. the jank was palpable

[lucybellwood]

Lemme tell you a gay little story about an eagle.

Our town (~9,000 people) has a couple garages, but there's a big one on the main drag. My family has been going there for decades. I drive past it every day.

There used to be a huge pine tree on the corner of their lot, but last year it became a hazard and had to be taken down.

Shortly thereafter I drive by and see they've hired a guy to chainsaw sculpt the stump into a bald eagle.

Birds own my heart, but nationalism makes me twitchy. I withhold outright condemnation of the eagle, but I'm skeptical. (The original owner—an objectively Good Dude—sold the business to a younger couple a few years ago, and I don't have any knowledge of their whole deal.)

Then it turns out someone on staff is really into making costumes for the eagle. Every holiday. Every month. Stuffed turkey, witch costume, menorah headpiece, bunny ears. These people love to dress their bird.

The changing of the eagle suit becomes a source of joy every time I drive through town.

Until June, when the eagle is bare.

Now look, maybe I'm expecting too much asking my garage to celebrate Pride. But this is a small town. Every time I drive by that stupid eagle—this thing that has previously brought me so much joy—I feel hurt. I feel reminded that there are plenty of people in my liberal bubble who don't consider my community worthy of celebration. I drive to work, I feel bad. I drive home, I feel bad. The eagle is mocking me.

Then my A/C quits working.

So I book an appointent to bring my car in—and realize what I have to do.

I pick all this up at a thrift store for under ten bucks. I print the shirt with some weird heat-transfer fabric crayons I find in a cupboard. I loop gold elastic around the sunglasses and pray they'll fit on the eagle's head. (It is also important to draw your attention to the price of the feather boa.)

(Nice.)

My reasoning is thus: if I show up with a complete costume ready to go, someone will have to look me in the eye and say "We don't believe in that," at which point I'll be finding a new garage. But if they let me dress the eagle, then people in town get to have the joy I've been missing since the start of the month.

I listen to a lot of hype-up jams on my way over. I hate confrontation. I also don't wanna have to find another garage. I want to believe that this decision isn't actively antagonistic, but I'm not particularly hopeful.

I talk through the A/C issue with the guy at the desk, hand over my keys, then take a deep breath.

"Who's in charge of the eagle?"

"Oh, that's all Dylan. Second bay from the end."

I walk down the row of hydraulic lifts and find a disarmingly smiley middle-aged man pouring fluid through a funnel. I introduce myself and explain that, since the Pride parade is this Sunday and the eagle seems to be missing a costume, I have taken the liberty of making one myself, and can I get his blessing to go put it on?

Dylan grins this absolutely giant grin and goes

"Oh hell yeah."

So that's what's up now.

Happy Pride.

[aparticularbandit]

how do you feel about time loops? reading them and writing them!

I LOVE TIME LOOPS.

I love the constant attempts to change things but not being sure of what needs to change to reach the result you want (if the protagonist is intentionally making the loops) or to reach the result required to end the loops (if someone/thing else is causing the loops). I love when people realize halfway through that they're in a loop because they retain no memories from the previous loops. I love when they don't realize until later because their life already feels like a loop and so they only notice because one of the few things that's new (like a new episode of a beloved television series) suddenly isn't new (and then they blow it off because maybe it's a rerun in the middle of the season after last week's half-season finale).

But also they are a pain to write.

For me, anyway.

My brain wants to write them the way that the Haruhi Suzumiya anime did Endless Eight - the same thing, over and over, with a character making a change and then seeing how that flows out - or even just writing the same thing with subtle changes - but that can be. extremely tedious - both to write and to read.

(I actually - a while back - planned on doing all of Homura's timeloops from Madoka. I had it extensively outlined. I did not write much of it because the intricacies of it and the exact nature of what changes and how that changes things can get really overwhelming.)

The last looping fic I wrote, I just did snapshots of things instead, and that was a lot easier (ish), but there's a part of me that still wants to do that...longer thing.

[cielospeaks]

honestly im so weak for the trope of "(original) character does everything they can to save/help/whatever canon character but in spite of that the end result is still the same"

[inkskinned]

how odd, to watch the creative writing exercises of angry men in the comments of instagram. you noticed it first in the comments of conventionally attractive women - but then it started appearing everywhere else, too.

a young man talks about what lunch he's packing his wife. there is a little story under it, with 300 likes, fabricated from nothing. "this is pointless. if you treat her like this, she will take the lunch to her office and fuck her boss and divorce him and take all his money."

you scroll. a young woman talks about what lunch she's packing for her husband. it is always uglier when the subject of the video is a woman, you've noticed. "you sit on camera and you smile and you are cheating with the neighbor and then you're going to lie about being sexually assaulted by your husband and -"

you stop reading. it has 567 likes.

where did this even become a thing? people making up stories in their head, disgusting long-winded assumptions about intention and sexual disgrace. the evil twin of fanfiction.

like - it's just a lie. it's a lie that they are telling, baldfaced and assumptive. the undercurrent is of course misogyny, but the trouble is that they're so fucking certain. that's what makes the hairs on the back of your neck rise. there is this pervasive, inventive desire for them to be right. that they must be right. all women are cheating, lying, gold-digging bitches. no exceptions.

in the reverse, when women say i'd rather meet a bear in the woods than a strange man - men funnel in from the sides. they defend each other with a vibrance and capacity for empathy you wish applied to like, the other half of the population. a man could be saying i absolutely did kill her and these creatures in the comments would rise up with king shit. she made it happen. they love each other to the point of this sick strange self-gaslighting, a fervent and unhinged cognitive distortion. all men are good, wonderful people. all women are terrible, conniving, seditious, annoying.

and when did it become okay to just, like... say that kind of a thing? at one point, you find yourself typing out a witty and snappy retort. why are you spending so much time fantasizing about other people babe. but as you stare at the screen, some part of you pictures this man in public, saying these things to your face. his soapbox, high and mighty. his mirrored sunglasses and his empty life: tired and lonely.

what a sad and horrible loop he's locked in. he is terrible to women, so women don't talk to him, which he uses as an excuse to act more terribly. he blames this "failure" on women, rather than on his behavior. it cannot be that he is the problem (that the solution is to just put his ego down and accept women as equals) - he begins to invent a sculpture to replace the flesh frame of each person he sees.

it isn't just a woman posing on the beach. it is now a slut with a desperate need for each person to crave her body. it isn't just a woman yelping with surprise during something upsetting. it is a hysterical, unhelpful cretin who will probably make things worse instead of better. it isn't a person.

someone's very sweet wedding vows get moderate attention on instagram. in the comments, a man says good fucking luck you'll waste your life providing while behind your back she's absolutely fucking the best man. this will be so cringe in 2 months when she walks out on you.

you think - is that what you need to be true? is that what you need to happen, for the world to make sense to you?

[thisdudedoesntexist]

Danny has been out of the hero game for a while now.

You see, when clockwork reset the timeline to one where the disastroid didn't happen Danny made it his mission to quit the job for good. This involved forming an actual defense from Ghost invasions (though he's sure his parents loved testing out what the magic community likes to call "An awful combination of sentience and technology.") and also giving rights to ghosts. Hell, even Vlad's started to come around. The old fruit loop actually changed his ways and is setting him up to the heir to DALV.co while trying to fix the shit they did to the environment when doing trial runs of Val's suit.

(Mostly because sam threatened to break Vlad's knees, both of the halfas think she could do it.)

He finally do what wants with his life and satisfy his obsessions with space and protection. Danny's got all sorts of projects he's tinkering on like air purifiers and growing food in space. He's been just, doing his thing for so long that his powers had gone into a kind of reserve mode. Danny's strength and speed are back to just above average, his ice only good for ice cubes and being a human AC, can't even feel ghostly presence if it's not right on top of him.

But Danny is actually happy.

Or he would be if not for Lex Luthor. He hates that vindictive, capitalist egg. The male pattern baldness horror story managed to weasel his way into a partnership with Vlad when he was still trying to put the (now reformed) GIW on his leash.

The first time Danny met the man his hair nearly turned all white, literally. He's lucky Lex was more interested in Vlad, his investment partner than him otherwise he'd have seen. He wouldn't have been that mad if not for Lex's pocket full of (condensed mass of kryptoian suffering.) kryptonite, and his kryptonian clone? who kept eyeing that pocket. Kon was the kids name BTW, also he DEFINITELY saw Danny's hair change.

Now he has to deal with the pair every other week, one reason being Lex is not so subtly trying to get his hands on some ectoplasmic generator schematics. The other is that Kon is helping him catch Luthor before he does.

[pseudowho]

"Kento...can I...can I paint you?"

Kento glanced back over his shoulder, sleepy, to where you sat massaging knots out of his back. He didn't know why he'd bothered perusing his shelves beforehand; your hands had moulded and made him heavy, and he sunk, unbidden, his book forgotten and his eyelids made of lead, groaning in bliss.

Your eyes traced Kento's back...his arms...his hands. All ripped and reformed, broken and made stronger, the scars (both old and new), criss-crossing him, his life-story turned roadmap.

At some points, Kento's body seemed as though it would last centuries and end up in a museum somewhere, with futuristic admirers who did not know him as you did. At other points, he was just a porcelain man, full of cracks, to be handled with care lest he break.

Kento hummed; a cover-all rumble, unsure.

"...paint me?" He teased, a coy half-smile on the corner of his mouth. "Like one of your French girls?"

You laughed, kissing his shoulder blades, still stroking those seams of pink flesh with your fingertips. He shuddered, the hairs on the base of his undercut standing on end.

"Not quite...do you trust me?"

"Yes." No hesitation.

"Then just...close your eyes."

Kento huffed through his nose, leaning forwards on his elbows and clasped calloused hands. He heard you rattling around behind him, the tap running, the soft dompf of you resettling on the sofa. More rattling, and your quiet voice.

"Stay still..."

Kento jumped, shivering as the tip of a fine, wet brush licked at the skin on his shoulder blade. He hummed again, dubious.

"Oh...you meant paint me."

"Semantics."

"Bless you."

You laughed at his gentle idiocy. "Keep still."

In truth, as your brush traced idle patterns over his shoulder, his arm, and his hand, Kento didn't need to be told to keep his eyes closed even once. He meant it when he said he trusted you; and he meant it when your presence rocked him to sleep. Time lost meaning as he dozed, sat like The Thinker as you finally removed your brush from his hand.

"There. All done."

Kento opened his eyes...to art.

Patches of the back of his hand had been brushed matte with a soft jade green, fading out against peach flesh. Through the jade, where pink seams had once scored the skin, they now ran golden, liquid beauty joining the edges of his pain and history. And it was...lovely.

Kento swallowed thickly, laid bare beneath your eyes. He gently flexed his hand, seeing how the green and gold flexed with him, held together by your very own repairs. He tracked more and more patches up his forearm, his bicep, over his shoulder...

Kento was quiet, stoic, vulnerable. He whispered, as you took lamplit photos of your work. "I adore you."

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Christmas had come and gone, and still, Kento did not allow you to touch him as he once did.

The air between you was as taut as the flesh of his left side. You washed the dishes, and he dried, kept company only by the hush of the taps and clink of the plates. Kento reached for a mug with his left hand, and, numb-fingered, dropped it with a spitting curse, to where it shattered beyond repair around your feet.

Barefoot, and pausing with an oh!, you lifted your foot as if to move, and Kento berated you, growling, snapping.

"Stay where you are."

"Kento, it's alright, I'll get it--"

"No. It's my mess. My fault. Sit down."

"Really, it's fine--" Your words cut off with a squeak, as one strong arm looped around your waist. Kento grunted as he lifted you out of the shards with ease, to his body, only to drop you to safety the moment your hands began to brush his bare chest.

"Sit down." Kento rumbled, dark and sullen, his one good eye glowering at you beside the patch. You prickled, rejected. You refused to sit. Watching Kento, as he finished vacuuming, your eyes drifted without thought between him, and your paint set in the chest beneath the kitchen cabinet.

On his way over to the sofa, Kento spotted you, and scoffed, hissing with pain as he dropped himself to sit. He sneered, nasty.

"Sorry, my love. Not enough gold in that box to repair me."

You gritted your teeth, your mouth twisted in disgust, tears in your eyes. You pushed your chair away in a tearful rage, and padded over to Kento, fast, determined.

The briefest flicker of alarm crossed his half-burned face as you straddled him, trapping him to the sofa with a hand on each cheek. You spat, forcing him to see you, gripping him down as he writhed to get away.

"Then I'll break into palaces. I'll rob museums. I'll be a thief in the night. Because they don't deserve it, not like you do."

Kento cursed at you, twisting like a rat in a trap, and you held on tighter, sick of being pushed away, and you forced the words out of you as tears spilled over to drop onto his chest.

"And if there's not enough gold there then I'll melt myself down, but you don't need gold because you're not broken--"

"--get off me-- let me go--"

"No." You cried, looping your arms around his neck, your core pressed to his. The air stilled, his rejection rejected.

You panted, your shoulders heaving, weeping into his neck. Kento and you sat this way in silence, the tap still running and forgotten, your sniffles muffled into his neck. You felt him soften, his hands coming to rest on your hips, stroking you.

Kento's voice was thick, agonised. "You...deserve someone whole."

"I don't want them. They're nothing to me. It's you, or no-one."

Kento's teeth bared, his face stinging as it crumpled, salty tears washing away the grief. He gripped onto you, the fracture not breaking under stress; the bond, golden.

And when you finally did paint him, how he shone.