#started thinking about them and the implications

[punkierights]

simon being absolutely GRILLED by a blunt psychologist reader…

warnings: like the tiniest bit of sexual implication and simon pops a boner at directness

a/n: i didn’t take my meds today and i was listening to your blood by aurora and this came of it, pls be nice i’m not used to writing and i feel like this is ass anyway love y’all :)

him sitting in your office because price sent him to you as a punishment for not taking the “suggested” leave he refused.

now he slouches across from you as you sit, neatly put together, formal attire fitting you snugly. he admits that he finds you attractive. you have an air of professionalism and cool confidence in your abilities that almost makes simon’s dick hard. almost.

“mr. riley, you mean to tell me that you don’t engage with others outside of necessity when you’re on leave?”

“ ‘s not that necessarily.”

“when was the last time you had a conversation with someone where you felt vulnerable?”

he shuts up very quickly. it irks him how he feels less and less intimidating and more intimidated the longer he sits in this suffocating room.

you close your eyes, rubbing between them, “mr. riley, i realize you probably haven’t been in many sessions like this, but i am not here to make this a difficult process for you. you’ve been ordered to twenty five sessions of counseling and i know that you know your captain is hoping for improvement.”

he nods his head curtly. the next time he sees price, he’s going to punch him.

you sigh as you stand, stepping towards the bookshelf next to your seat. simon feels only a little guilt as his eyes roam over your figure, appreciating the way your slacks curve around your ass.

you sit down again, sliding a notebook across the coffee table towards him, “i’d like you to start journaling. daily. at least once.”

simon can feel his eye twitch as he watches you rip a piece of paper from your notepad and scribble something on it, “i’m also giving you the name of a grief counselor. i’m encouraging you to reach out to him; he’s highly sought after and i’ll put in a word to have you be seen as soon as possible.”

he takes the notebook, tucking the paper into his pocket as he stands. you stand as well, escorting him to the door.

“we’ll discuss what you journal about in our next session on friday.” he turns and silently stares at you.

“wha’ if i don’ write anythin’?”

you shrug, “then i guess these sessions will be filled with silence. have a good day, mr. riley.” you shut the door and he’s left staring at the plaque with your name on the door.

he already feels exhausted thinking about the next time he’ll be in your office, and the tent in his pants isn’t helping.

[iwillstabyou]

TMAGP 31 - A Computer Nerd’s Breakdown Of The Error Logs

It’s round 3, bitches! (tumblr crashed twice when I was writing this so I’ve had to start again multiple times. I do in fact see the irony, considering the subject matter)

I was listening to TMAGP 31 and as a computer nerd, oh my god those error messages just HIT DIFFERENT. There are so many subtle details hiding in those lines that a typical non-computery person would probably miss, so I feel it is my duty to explain them and their possible implications. So that’s why I’ve decided to fully break down each part of the error report, complete with what they could potentially suggest — think of this as “the TMAGP theorist’s guide to deciphering Chester’s yapping”

So without further ado, let’s get this party started…

(NOTE: lines from the transcript are in red, ‘translations’ are in purple, jmj specific stuff is is green, explanations are in black)

Starting off with Category: fatal programmer error, notice it says programmer, not program. There is nothing wrong with the code - the user has truly fucked up. Uh oh, Colin has made a big mistake…

Also, clever double meaning here with the word fatal. Obviously we know it was fatal to Colin (RIP king 🥲), but error logs also typically have a criticality level describing if immediate action needs to be taken. There are 6 commonly used levels, with the most critical being, yep you guessed it, ‘fatal’ - this means that whatever Colin was doing was a critical threat to the system. In other words, Colin had figured out the problem and was dangerously close to fixing it so Freddie just went “oh shit, we need to deal with this guy quickly or we are in serious trouble.”

Then we’ve got the next line, attempted host compromise (the Errno611 isn’t significant - error codes vary from system to system). When it comes to network terminology, a host is basically just any device on the network, so in full this line basically means “somebody’s tried to damage part of the network.” Importantly, “host” seems to suggest that the computers aren’t the source of this evil but merely a vessel for it. Freddie is just the mouthpiece for these supernatural forces - a bit like a non-sentient (as far as we know…) avatar. Whatever these forces are, they didn’t come from within/they weren’t created by Freddie.

(NOTE: I will come back to jmj=null in a bit)

The program traceback, Traceback <module> by extension BECHER, is rather interesting. A network extension is a way of providing network access to remote users (think along the lines of a VPN) by creating a personal direct ‘route’ to the network. Therefore if it’s the subject of an error report, it means there’s been an issue with data transmission along that path. So this bit means “there’s a problem with this specific network route that’s allocated to Colin.” However, the darker implication here is that Colin is an extension of Freddie. Although he wasn’t initially a part of all of this, he’s become tangled in the web (no pun intended) to the point that he and Freddie are inseparably intertwined. The OIAR employees may be able to quit their jobs, but they’ll still be a part of Freddie…

There isn’t much to say about Host=self.host in this context. It’s just convention when it comes to object oriented programming. Not important here.

Extension BECHER compromised isn’t just saying “there’s an issue here.” It’s saying “there’s an issue here that is a serious threat to network operation.” In other words, Freddie’s going “uh oh. Colin needs to be dealt with.”

The next bit is pretty self explanatory. I really don’t think I need to explain what <hardware damage_crowbar> means for you guys to understand. This bit made me laugh so hard. One thing that’s interesting though is that it gave it a DPHW, so Freddie processed this like it was an incident… Perhaps this fully confirms that the ‘thing’ controlling Freddie is of the same origin as the cases - it’s not something else entirely?

And now onto Administrator privilege revoked. This was the moment when I fully realised “oh no. Colin is fucked,” because any control that Colin may have had over the situation is now gone for good. Freddie’s basically just said “fuck you Colin. You’re not in charge anymore. I am.”

As you can probably guess, Unexpected data isolated/resolved just means that the crowbar’s been dealt with and the program can run as usual. Similarly, the Colin threat is fixed now he’s not an administrator i.e. he can no longer control the system. However, it then gets weird with Independent operation permissions revoked… It’s not saying Colin can’t use the network independently, it’s saying that Colin can’t be used independently of the network. Remember what I was saying earlier about Colin being a part of Freddie? Yeah, well now he purely is a part of Freddie. They’re turning our boy into data!

NOTE: I know in the audio it said everything was discarded but I’m going by the transcript. Idk why they’re different

You know it’s a bad sign when you hear Re config: self.host - Freddie’s evolving. The network is literally reconfiguring itself to now include Colin. And then Freddie goes through each of his alchemical elements one by one and fucking deletes them! How rude. You go and eat this man only to spit everything out!? I guess he’s feeling generous though, because he decides to keep the sulphur, which in alchemy, refers to the soul… If this isn’t just a coincidence, then that means Colin’s actual soul has been uploaded to Freddie. That could be really cool. And messed up. But mostly cool.

Starting with the final line, everyone knows what New administrator permissions assigned means, but we don’t know yet who they’ve been assigned to. Maybe it’s Gwen? Maybe it’s a new character? Maybe there is no system administrator anymore? It’s a mystery.

Now that’s out the way, let’s get on to the real juicy stuff…

The top few lines are pretty simple - it’s Freddie’s way of saying “Colin was a problem. We ate him. Now he’s not a problem anymore.” The next line, however, is a reminder that none of this is simple” - .jmj error not resolved. There it is again. The infamous jmj error. What does it mean? Jon? Martin? Jonah? Is that you???? Nobody knows. One thing we do know though is that jmj=null (from the start of the error log). Now when it comes to interpreting values, null is weird. It’s not zero, it’s not empty, it’s sort of nothing but it’s not nothing. It’s just null. It means no value, but it doesn’t mean that the variable doesn’t have a value (if that makes any sense to you guys???). Ooh I think I know how to explain it?? Imagine you’re Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute and you’re digitising some archived ID photos when you find one without a name. The recorded name in the database would be null - you can’t put anything in particular, but that doesn’t mean the person in the photo doesn’t have a name. I guess null means unknown or missing here. So basically, what jmj=null means is that the jmj is unknown and that is a problem because it can’t get ignored/it is important. So what it’s basically saying is that jmj is a mystery not only to us, but also to Freddie.

Take a look at Data integration cycle ongoing <0.02%> - Data integration is the process of combining data from multiple sources into a single source of truth. There are 4 stages: data ingestion, cleaning, transformation, and unification. Thanks to the whole Colin ordeal, I’m sure you are all quite familiar with these stages by now (and that, students, is what we call a case study!). The peculiar thing here though is that we’ve just witnessed most of the data integration cycle - surely it should be higher than 0.02%? Yes, that’s correct. It should be far higher than that. It makes no sense. UNLESS this isn’t about Colin. Most of Colin’s data has probably already integrated. This is something else entirely - something so much bigger and foreign than these computers were designed for (the only comparison I can think of is trying to run the sims 4 with all expansion packs on a 15 year old laptop. It really shouldn’t work, and it probably won’t, but it’s gonna try regardless). This seems to follow on nicely from the jmj=null comments above, because Freddie is clearly struggling to integrate something (hence System function margins down to 82%), and when you try to read data that hasn’t been fully integrated with the system, you end up with a lot of missing & unknown values. Sound familiar? Yep, that’s right - until more data is synchronised, many values will be null, like our good friend jmj. Why is it taking so long to integrate jmj? We don’t know. Perhaps its origins are so supernatural and otherworldly that it’s simply not tangible enough for Freddie to process it? That’s what I think at the moment, at least.

So yeah, that’s my line by line analysis done! Hope you found that helpful/interesting. This podcast is so well written I’m actually going insane! Jonny and Alex, you are the guys of all time! As I’ve already said, feel free to expand on any of this - I’d love to hear your theories

Signed, your friendly neighbourhood computer nerd who is very autistic about TMAGP :)

[sal-absinthii]

It is frustrating when people make a show about how open-minded they are but then apply it inconsistently

That being said, I would still have an issue with it even if they weren't also being hypocrites about it, for the same reason the entire ~body positivity~ thing went so off the rails when it started getting flattened into "everyone's beautiful!" (which, I'm sorry, but it's just not true -- beautiful is a relative descriptor indicating that something has more beauty than another and by definition cannot all be equal; what an individual considers beautiful can certainly be very different from another individual's idea of beauty, and it's true that no matter what a person looks like, there is probably someone out there who thinks that is the height of beauty, but that does not mean everyone is obligated to find everything and everyone beautiful) when it was supposed to be "your worth as a person doesn't change based on how many people consider you beautiful."

I know there are people in the fandom who get extremely upset when Snape is called ugly, and insist that he's actually very attractive. Now, that is entirely subjective and they are perfectly free to consider him attractive. However, I have a problem with this weird knee jerk reaction some of them have about it where no one else is allowed to think he's ugly. Whether or not you personally have conventional tastes, he is not described as being conventionally attractive, and I think it's important to be ok with that as well, to accept that how he looks definitely causes people to judge him, but that it doesn't actually say anything about him as a person. And to that end, I don't think there needs to be a reason why his hair is greasy or his teeth are crooked or whatever. It's possible he has some skin condition, it's possible he has sensory issues...but something rubs me wrong about the line of thinking that involves finding some "excuse" (especially when there's absolutely nothing remotely in canon about it) as to why he's "allowed" to look a certain way, because the unspoken implication is still that appearance matters, and he gets a pass because of some special circumstance, and that if he is actually just a regular neurotypical straight white man without any other issues it would not be acceptable, and it's only acceptable as long as we can come up with a reason. You are actually allowed to think that something is unattractive regardless of why (biology, aesthetic or cultural choice, situation, condition, etc) and you are not obligated to defend that, at the same time, you probably shouldn't be going around bullying people for features beyond their control whether you know the reason or not. I dunno, this just gets into a lot of identity politics issues I find very fucked up about Tumblr.

I know the point of this post was about the hypocrisy and not whether Snape's good-looking or not and I fully agree with that. I just additionally think that those people's fundamental premise of "everyone's beautiful! uwu" is itself missing the real point and I am strongly on team Let People Be Ugly.

I love how the Marauders fandom is like everybody is perfect the way they are, they can be black, brown, white, fat, skinny, tall, short, everyone is pretty. Except Snape, no no no, he cannot be pretty, he has greasy hair, you cannot be pretty with greasy hair

[malk1ns]

march 1 vs bruins, 3-2 loss

lotta angry penguins out on the ice today in that one, huh? wowie.

this postgame puts this project over 100k. dang. thanks for coming along with me!

Zhenya narrows his eyes across the weight room where Sid is grunting through a set of bench presses.

There was no skate before today’s game, but the gym session is still mandatory even if most of the guys are phoning it in a little, half-heartedly racking weights and getting in a few reps before they pause to chat.

Not Sid. He’s pouring sweat, mechanically running through his sets like they don’t have a game in just a few hours, adding more weight than Zhenya remembers as his usual but still lifting it like it’s nothing, biceps straining and forearms veiny.

He’s hiding something.

Sid came back from Four Nations doing his best to pretend that his left arm wasn’t practically paralyzed, and he’s been spending pregames and most intermissions holed up with the trainers, getting wrapped and re-wrapped and injected with all sorts of shit to numb the pain and get him through games. He won’t hear a word of sitting any more out, but Zhenya’s seen the toll it’s taking on him.

Not today. Today, he’s going through his exercises like his elbow never was hurt in the first place. Not a wince, not a poorly-hidden grimace, nothing.

Whatever they gave Sid this morning, Zhenya wants it. His knee is better, but it aches when he skates for too long, and it’s making ominous creaking noises every morning when he gets out of bed.

Sid’s been cagey all morning, but Zhenya’s going to track him down and force it out of him. All hockey teams are secretive about their less-than-legit methods of keeping their players on ice no matter how injured they are, but Zhenya’s not used to being shut out of a new miracle cure. Is he not as deserving as Sidney Crosby of pain relief and enhanced performance?

The doctors and trainers are a dead end, they’re used to Zhenya by now and won’t give him anything. The weak link, as always, is Sid himself.

Zhenya times his approach perfectly; Sid’s in the middle of carefully lowering the bar back onto the rack when Zhenya plants himself between Sid and the rest of the room. If Sid tried to slither away now, it would be noticeable enough to cause a stir.

“Hi, Sid,” Zhenya says sweetly, baring his teeth in a smile. “Look good. Elbow better?”

Sid sits up and rolls his shoulders back, eyeing Zhenya warily. There’s a droplet of sweat making its way down from his hairline. Zhenya’s eyes trace it all the way to Sid’s cheekbone before he gets a response.

“Lots better, thanks,” Sid finally says, shaking out his left arm a little. It’s for show; Zhenya’s not an idiot, and it rankles that after all this time Sid thinks he’ll be fooled by something like that. “I figured I should get a pump in before we play, you know, get the blood flowing.” He swings his legs over so he’s sitting sideways on the bench. “That all? Because I was gonna find Ned, give him a little pep talk.”

“What they give you?” Zhenya says, furious suddenly—with the evasion, with the way Sid won’t meet his eyes. “Shot, maybe, or pill? Why you get and nobody else?”

He’s raised his voice enough that guys are starting to look at them, and Sid’s face goes hard and unpleasant before he gets to his feet, grabs Zhenya by the shirt, and hauls him out of the weight room.

Zhenya starts to protest, but Sid hisses not here at him, and the promise of an answer makes Zhenya pliant as Sid drags them down the hallway and into one of the video rooms the team never uses anymore.

“Fuck, you’re annoying,” Sid complains, slamming the door shut and whirling on Zhenya, crossing his arms over his chest. Zhenya frowns at him—he could have sworn Sid’s shoulders weren’t this big on Thursday. Is there some new fast-acting steroid he’s testing out?

He’s so busy thinking through the implications of a shot that can give you that much more visible, functional muscle in under four hours that he must have misheard what Sid said. “Sorry, huh?”

Sid narrows his eyes. “I said, I’m in a time loop,” he snaps, dropping his arms to his sides. “I’ve been in here for…six weeks now, when I wake up tomorrow. Today, again. Whatever. It’s been today 41 times as of this morning.”

“Shit,” Zhenya says blankly, sitting down in one of the chairs and abruptly remembering why they don’t use this room anymore when a spring jabs him unceremoniously in the ass. “Sid, Jesus, how this happen?”

“I don’t know!” Sid says, throwing his hands in the air. “Obviously, like, if I knew why I was here I’d just…take care of it, end this damn thing. Do you really think I’m doing this by choice?” His voice cracks.

“Sorry,” Zhenya mutters, guilt lurching through his gut. All he could see this morning was Sid’s perfectly-functioning elbow seemingly mocking Zhenya’s achy knee, but now that he’s looking closely Sid looks frayed around the edges, exhausted and tense. He’s got black circles under his eyes, and he can’t stand still.

Sid’s usually so calm on game days, a soothing presence in the arena that settles everyone down no matter how nervy they are. Seeing him like this is unsettling. Zhenya wants to bundle him into his car and drive them to the safety of his house set back in the woods until they figure this out.

Time loops are vanishingly rare, at least the ones publicly talked about are. The people who stumble out of them are usually fundamentally altered somehow—traumatized even, in some cases. It’s not as simple as waking up on the same day over and over, as if that in and of itself isn’t a total mindfuck—if you’re in a time loop, time doesn’t stop for you. Whatever happens to you on a given day stays with you when you wake up the next morning, weeks and months and in some gruesome cases decades piling onto your body and mind until you figure out how to break free.

Sid’s only been in for six weeks. Not long enough for significant changes, not really, but certainly long enough for him to have visibly bulked up if was taking his stress out on the weight machines. Zhenya can see razor burn on his face from where he must have been shaving every day to try and maintain his stubble.

“Okay,” Zhenya says, getting to his feet. “You tell to me before? You tell to anyone?”

“No,” Sid says, shoulders slumping a little. He looks like he’d been expecting a fight, or maybe like he’d have to spend more time arguing his case—as if Zhenya can’t tell when Sid’s trying to lie to him by now. “I thought about it, but…I think I know what I’m supposed to do, and it’s not anything anyone can help me with. I just…haven’t figured out how.”

Zhenya presses his lips together. “Stupid. Maybe it’s big pain for tell every day new again, but you should be tell me first thing, like, call me before we leave house. Shouldn’t be doing alone, even if you’re think I can’t help.” Sid’s probably wrong about that, Zhenya adds to himself. Sid always thinks he has to do everything alone, that he has to shoulder the burden of an entire team—an entire league—all by himself. 

“Maybe,” Sid mutters, slumping back against the wall. He looks so exhausted. Zhenya wonders how sleeping words in a loop—does Sid wake up feeling refreshed for a few seconds before it all comes crashing down, or does the reset happen when he’s only gotten a few hours? “Well, you know now. We’ll see how happy you are when I wake you up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to read you in.”

“Not have to, because we fix today,” Zhenya says, injecting his voice with as much confidence as he can. “What you think you need to do?”

Sid sighs heavily. “I have to figure out how to get us a win today,” he says, voice dire. “I’ve tried everything, G, I really have. I’ve even called and said I was sick and needed to be scratched just to shake stuff up and still no. I called my mom, god, she thought I was dying or something. Basically anything that can happen in a hockey game, I’ve watched it happen.” His eyes go dark and distant for a minute, and Zhenya doesn’t want to know what he’s reliving, what he’s seen. Hockey is a lot more dangerous than any of them like to think too long about.

Shaking his head, Sid meets Zhenya’s eyes. “Basically anything that can happen I’ve seen,” he repeats, “and not a single time have I been able to pull a win off in this one. There was one where I thought maybe…it was a ten-round shootout, but even then we fell short.” He sighs, looking down at his hands. “I don’t know what else to do,” he admits. “I’m so tired. My entire body aches, so badly. The gym helps, you know how a good workout makes you kind of forget how you’re feeling, but…I can’t do this for much longer.”

That’s the other danger of a time loop, the one nobody likes to talk about too loudly.

Zhenya isn't going to let that happen.

“Well, you enjoy last time today,” he says, clapping Sid’s shoulder. “We get win, you go to bed tonight, still have to play tomorrow but this time it’s Leafs, okay, still bad, but different. Yes?”

“Sure,” Sid mutters, but Zhenya can tell that he’s feeling better. It really was stupid of him to not say anything; six weeks is too long to be totally alone.

Sid leaves to hunt down Ned for whatever ghoulish pep talk he has in mind, and Zhenya makes his way to the lounge, head spinning.

He doesn’t know a single person who’s looped. There was an experimental vaccine back when Zhenya was a child, something that claimed to block a person’s ability to fall into one—when he’d disclosed it to the Penguins’ medical staff for the first time they had exchanged horrified looks, but nobody in Zhenya’s entire city that got the shot has looped.

Zhenya wants to help Sid. Is determined to, really. But now that he’s alone and thinking about it, he doesn’t know what to do. All he can do is control his own play, make sure he’s giving it his all out there and give the team the best chance to win.

That will have to be enough. He won’t let them fail Sid again.

—

They come agonizingly close. 

Close isn’t good enough, though, and Zhenya shatters his stick in the hallway back to the locker room after the final buzzer sounds.

“Easy, big guy,” Rusty says, skirting his stall with an odd look. “It’s one game, eh, save it for tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Zhenya mutters, plucking at his skates and swearing as his trembling fingers fumble at the sodden, ice-cold laces. 

From across the room, Sid barks out a bitter laugh, one he cuts off quickly. Zhenya keeps his head ducked down.

Four points last game and not a thing to show when Sid actually needed him. He doesn’t think he can meet Sid’s eyes.

He settles some in the shower, thinking through what’s next. Maybe Sid was wrong. It’s still so early in the day, after all, and who knows what Sid’s been doing post-game this whole time—maybe there’s something else he’s missing because he got fixated on winning this game. He’ll just go to Sid’s after the game and they’ll keep trying, and if they can’t get it tonight, he’ll make Sid promise to call him first thing tomorrow and explain it right away.

The logistics make his head spin. He doesn’t fully understand how it’s possible that Sid could pick up the phone to call him tomorrow—today again—and Zhenya won’t remember a thing, but Sid will. It should be impossible.

All the more reason to work as hard as possible to fix it tonight.

Sid dawdles in the room like usual, but Zhenya’s lurking at the door must get his attention, because finally he packs away his stuff and gets to his feet, patting Ricky on the shoulder as he makes his way to Zhenya’s side.

“We tried, eh?” he says as they walk to the garage. Zhenya doesn’t like how defeated he sounds. “That was a new score at least—before this one it’s been the same for a few days. Maybe it means things are moving in the right direction.” He doesn’t sound like he believes a word he’s saying.

“I come home with you,” Zhenya says, and Sid snaps his head to look at him, eyebrows nearly up to his hairline. “Well, first I stop at my house, get freezer pelmeni. You need real food, not shit from meal service. We eat, you feel better, we think about maybe it’s something that’s not game, we try stuff.”

“You’ll let me have some of the freezer pelmeni?” Sid asks, and he sounds so pathetically grateful that Zhenya’s heart breaks a little.

“You get all freezer pelmeni,” he promises recklessly—there are several pounds stuffed in his kitchen freezer, and more down in the basement ice box, but Zhenya will give it all up if it makes Sid smile in a real way. “Want good vodka too? I bring.”

Sid’s eyes crinkle a little. “Nah,” he says, shaking his head. “Either way, I’m playing a game tomorrow, so…better not.”

“Right,” Zhenya mutters, calculating how much sour cream he’ll need to bring. Sid only has Greek yogurt at his house, and that won’t work. “Okay, I go get food, then come over. You change code yet?” Sid changes his gate code every Saturday out of what Zhenya used to call paranoia but after the break-in earlier this fall is starting to think is maybe just good sense.

Sid hesitates. “I didn’t for a while, I wasn’t sure if it…but it felt weird not to, so yeah, I actually just changed it yesterday. Um, it’s 073186.”

It takes Zhenya a second, but— “My birthday!” he says, charmed. “Sid, so sweet. I remember for sure, maybe you keep for a while.”

“Maybe I will,” Sid says, looking at Zhenya for a shade too long before shaking his head. “See you in a bit.”

Zhenya watches the way Sid clambers into his car, the slowness in his movements. He really is reaching the end of what he’s physically capable of. They have to figure this out tonight.

He stuffs Sid full of his mama’s cooking first. Sid protests the full-fat sour cream, but when Zhenya ignores him in favor of dolloping several spoonfuls onto his plate he stops arguing. Zhenya watches until Sid’s had his entire first serving and is helping himself to more before he relaxes. He might not have been able to win Sid this game, but he can at least feed him properly.

After dinner, they talk. Zhenya prods at Sid about unreturned phone calls, events he might have forgotten to attend, anything that could be hanging over his head that might be the key to all of this. 

Sid gets prickly at the implication he’s forgotten anything, of course, but Zhenya keeps pushing until Sid relents and walks them both through everything he did the day before he started looping. Try as he might, Zhenya can’t find a single thing that Sid forgot, a single transgression that would be egregious enough to tip him into this nightmare.

Once they run out of things to say, they fall silent, sprawled out on Sid’s big couch. Zhenya thinks about Sid spending the last six weeks alone in here, watching the clock tick by and waiting for the day to end, falling asleep hoping that he’d figured it out only to wake up the next day and have to do it all over again, and his throat gets thick and his eyes prickle with tears.

“Oh, G,” Sid says, and Zhenya scrubs furiously at his face. This isn’t about him, he shouldn’t be making Sid give him comfort. “No, c’mon, it’s not that bad, I mean…” The sofa cushion Zhenya’s occupying dips as Sid scoots closer until they’re pressed together. “It sucks, yeah, but now I’ve got you, right? I can…like you said, I can call you and tell you, and I’ll have you all day, and maybe we really will figure it out. Just having someone else know…you were right. It was dumb of me to not talk to you right away.”

Overcome with emotion, Zhenay wraps his arms around Sid’s shoulders and hauls him close, ignoring Sid’s protests. He can’t stand it—Sid doesn’t deserve this, he doesn’t deserve living through this shit, not after everything he’s already sacrificed his whole life

“Not fair,” he whispers into Sid’s hair. “Sid, so sorry, I want to fix so bad for you. It’s not fair.”

Sid squirms in his arms a little, pulling back so he can look at Zhenya. “No, it’s not,” he agrees. “It hasn’t been all bad, though. I mean, the loss sucked. But otherwise today’s been pretty great. And it’ll be okay if I do all this again tomorrow with you.” He hesitates for a minute, eyes flickering over Zhenya’s face. “I guess there’s one thing I haven’t been honest about,” he admits, and Zhenya’s heart leaps. “It won’t…I mean, it’s been years. If the loop was from that, it should have happened way before now. But, well.” He leans forward and brushes a kiss over Zhenya’s mouth, dry and soft and over before Zhenya can even properly react. “You won’t remember this tomorrow,” he says quietly, cupping Zhenya’s chin, “and I’m sorry I didn’t ask first. But it’s not like I’d ever tell you this for real, and maybe that makes me a coward, but I may as well tell you once even if it doesn’t stick, eh?”

Zhenya touches his lips. Sid’s mouth on his had been so brief, but he feels like his whole face is buzzing. He doesn’t know what to say.

Sid smiles sadly at him. “It’s okay,” he says, correctly interpreting Zhenya’s stunned silence. “I’m not expecting anything. Don’t worry about it, eh, you’ll wake up tomorrow and it won’t have ever happened for you. I guess maybe I thought…” He shakes his head and gets to his feet. “I’m going to go to bed,” he says, glancing at the clock. “I know it’s early, but I’m so tired. Game day tomorrow, after all.” He waits for a minute longer, but when Zhenya still doesn’t speak, he purses his lips. “You can take a guest room if you want. You know where everything is.”

Zhenya listens to Sid’s heavy footsteps. It’s not until Sid’s bedroom door shuts that he feels like he can move again.

There are things that you don’t think about when you’re a pro athlete, feelings you’re not allowed to have. It’s part of the sacrifice to make it this far—damage to your body, and denial of your self. Zhenya did the math on that years ago, weighed his options and made his choices with clear eyes.

He’s never been good at tucking away his emotions long-term though, not like Sid is. Zhenya wears his heart on his sleeve, always has. It makes him a better hockey player, but it also leaves him more susceptible to heartbreak and far too aware of feelings he’d be better off shoving down and ignoring.

Zhenya always thought Sid was bad at lying, or at least bad at lying to him. It turns out that Sid’s been holding in a secret for…fuck, he’d said years, years he’s kept this from Zhenya, and Zhenya had no idea.

He’s not sure he would have been brave enough to do anything if he’d found out any earlier. Now, though?

He drives home in a daze. Staying at Sid’s house doesn’t feel right, not like this. He had a momentary fit of insanity where he considered crawling into Sid’s bed, wrapping his arms around him and letting Sid’s loop suck him in too, but he’s pretty sure that’s not possible, and if it was it wouldn’t help anything anyway.

I have to remember, he chants to himself as he gets ready for bed. I have to remember. I have to remember. I have to remember.

He falls asleep mumbling to himself.

—

When his alarm goes off the next morning, it takes Zhenya a minute to blink sleep out of his eyes.

His eyes fly open. He remembers. 

The display on his phone reads MARCH 2. Heart in his throat, Zhenya pulls up Sid’s contact and hits call.

Sid’s phone barely rings once before he answers. “G?” he says, voice raspy like he spent the night crying. “Is it really tomorrow?”

“It’s tomorrow,” Zhenya whispers down the line, clutching the phone to his ear. “Sid, it’s tomorrow. And I remember.”

[ace-and-the-rpg-horrors]

i was sort of wondering why exactly i've been sympathising with Eva so much, apart from, admittedly, bias- i did start considering that due to that, maybe i'd been internally exaggerating how Wolfgang & Co had been treating her. but i replayed some of Chapter 1, and honestly? now i'm of the opinion that Eva was justified to be afraid of Wolfgang, even if what she did in response was inexcusable.

because it wasn't just that Wolfgang told the others to be wary of Eva (and Damon) which caused them to feel othered. consciously or not, he literally attempted to control their movement on at least two occasions- when he attempted to stop them joining in on the exploration of the pharmacy, and then when he demanded to know where they were when they reached the dining hall last.

in his defence, i don't think Wolfgang was being malicious in doing so, i reckon he did genuinely believe he was protecting the others. but in doing so, for the two members of the group he disagreed with, he actively attempted to further restrict their freedom- in a situation where they're all already trapped!! i'm not surprised that Eva, with frustration, mentioned during the trial how much she'd been watched and suspected- multiple times, if i recall correctly. of course it got to her.

but that probably wasn't even the scariest part for her. it was probably just how easily Wolfgang had taken a leadership role within the group and how willing they were to listen to him without question. only Diana really spoke up against him on one occasion and got him to begrudgingly "allow" Eva and Damon to tag along. i mean, on that note, the fact that Wolfgang even casually commented that he wanted group decisions to be allowed by him, following the minor incident of Desmond taking initiative and checking the room locks, was extremely alarming!! like i mentioned, i don't want to villainise Wolfgang, but it does seem like he has the tendency to be rather controlling, whether or not he realises it. i would be willing to bet that the herd mentality implication was done completely on purpose, considering that Wolfgang's animal motif is a sheep and the writing team have done the symbolism in the game so well.

for all this, i can understand Eva's point of view. i know that, as Wenona had mentioned, there's a chance that Eva didn't actually feel threatened by Wolfgang, but i personally am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. because if she was honest about being on edge, that would be a rather reasonable emotional response, in my opinion.

what else are you to feel when you're at odds with an honoured individual who effortlessly holds the power to turn so many others against you too and potentially put your safety at risk, if not terror?

[nyabsolart]

>Begin Eidolonstuck

i thought a lot about these so im gonna explain them below the cut

[Original Prankster] by The Offspring. goofy for kiddo june, much like homestuck she has the most straightforward. Fun experience. if this were like, an "au" i imagine imps would just start showing up, shades slipping free from the undertow and completely overwhelming the planet with numbers. they would get popped into. eidolon grist. by errant anvils, tripwires, and all manner of cream pies. the song is upbeat, catchy, and fun. the body is made out of a ghostbusters statuette :3

[Body]

by Mother Mother. it is chaotic, nonsensical, and confusing. why does this represent her soul? very light and rain. its designed to confuse and frustrate her. light into dark magic is pretty grimdark-y. she can direct her eidolon with the wands, causing it to shine a black light from its chest. design notes are the princess hat like jaspersprite, the needlewands, and just a fun fact but the legs are a vector of a slot machine handle

[Die Anywhere Else]

from Night in the Woods. this ones one of my favorites, die anywhere else as a power for dave rules to me. not to suck my own dick but like. yeah thats what he does! the power allows him to postpone death, not prevent it. one more hour, one more dave, die somewhere else, not here.

[Friends With You]

by The Scary Jokes. another favorite! jade probably gets her eidolon way before everyone else, but i dont think shes a veteran. she just peers through the scope and watches from afar. its cool how the only way she can interact with her friends is through the barrel of a gun! you figure out the implications of this

--------

[I Remember It]

by someone on twitter idk search it on youtube. Funny song, funny guy! song is about doug walker taking on the burden of every nightmare, remembering it so you dont have to. davesprite remembers and changes it so it never happened. not really sure how the sprited players fit into this, i guess they split off from the main eidolon? but yeah davesprite remains super fucked up and came back to fix things.

[Dog Days Are Over]

by Mitski. vibe of the song should be obvious, this was on allll the sadstuck jade playlists back in the day. she focuses on the only thing that matters, keeping her friends safe

--------

[Burning Down The House]

by The Talking Heads. aha bdth reference. this is a pretty straightforward retcon thing so i dont have much to say about it not from the comic, though it looks cool. shed have to like, realize something latent within herself and then her dinky eidolon would grow into the House, and shed need to climb the steps and enter the door. pacing wise i think she should have gotten a new eidolon when she god tiered as well, so i guess it MIGHT not be dinky, but cmon we know june, it is. its some vrillyhoo shit. the songs vibe fits with Original Prankster, and with june, i think. art notes: the texture in the cuts of the House are purple meat, and theres lava under the foundation

[Same Bones New Body]

by The Variants. boom. body upgraded into this, its a great naming scheme. Body gets melted down in the green sun and is reconstructed into this, still a confusing amalgamation but with more purpose. the abilities are obviously seer of light stuff and once again read the comic for info on that. my fun fact is my best friends sister had a falling out with someone in this very small band, which i didnt know before listening to them

[One More Time]

by Daft Punk. big fan of the band here. i mean im not a daft punk fan, but in this context. something about it is like. dave chill the fuck out, have some fun! which feels like a thing the sburbian universe would force on him. relax, take it less seriously! heres a strong as fuck metal beast to punch your enemies out of time. it has a similar shape to his og eidolon but its built of different parts. a metaphor?

[Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf)]

by AWOLNATION. sacrifice into change is crazy for jade, the universe reallyyy hates her. loneliest girl in the world shit. it pretty much sums her up, when she meets up with her friends her old eidolon isnt as useful. now she gives up parts of herself until theres nothing left. one of the bigger visual departures from her first eidolon, its probably completely destroyed and out of it comes this and Dog Days

thanks for reading to the end :3

[day-azevir]

Your goddess

[egophiliac]

don't think I'm not still obsessing over 7-12

[tawnysoup]

the fritter (frin critter)

[humming-fly]

Wonder what it's like to feel grass under your feet for the first time in your life. Wonder how it feels knowing you'll be the one to destroy it.

[turtleblogatlast]

Imo the most impressive thing Leo’s done is hold this pose for as long as he did while covered head to toe in gold paint:

[thecocodrille]

I just love drawing this gremlins, they so cute and they love each other. ( I’m crying for the implications of this au, and how they need to hide how much they care for each other :’c )

[juniemunie]

"Why am I still doing this?"

"Don't you get it?"

"This is all just a show... and we're playing parts~"

[darkholdharkness]

can you even begin to comprehend how absurdly you need to be loved to become a scar on death’s body?? she’s been around since the dawn of time and the only person to take residence in her heart was agatha. i need a minute

[dutchs-paisley-vest]

Been thinking about Hosea a lot as I write this analysis on Dutch and Micah.

Maybe I’ll eventually whip something up about him, but for now I’m left with thoughts about knowing that not only is Hosea just as guilty as Dutch when it comes to how their boys were brought up (and continued to be treated through adulthood and ultimately up to their deaths), but also the way the two irreparably damaged John and Arthur’s entire lives beyond even their own comprehension. FURTHERMORE, they set forth a viscous cycle of familial violence and neglect that maintained momentum into the next generation. (See: John and Jack.)

The way Hosea’s action, but more importantly his inaction had in part led to… well, [gestures vaguely to RDR1 + RDR2].

Hosea might have been gentler than Dutch on the surface, but he saw it all, and at times both implicitly and explicitly encouraged it through the meticulous timing of his decisions to remain a “silent watcher.”

Yes, refusal to mitigate the violence makes him complicit, but the matter of the fact is… Hosea can’t even feign partial innocence as a third-party bystander because of how calculated he is in nature.

Additionally, there is no “third party.” Dutch and Hosea are a single unit. They occupy the same space even as two separate individuals in John and Arthur’s lives.

The deliberate nature of Hosea’s inaction puts him in the same position as the “perpetrator” because he isn’t just a watcher, he corroborates directly with Dutch and agrees with what he is doing on principle. He reenforces it in perhaps more subtle ways, but that doesn’t make him any less responsible for the outcome.

The only difference between the two is that while they’re dealing different cards, they are playing the exact same game.

[wiredalienvampire]

another friend slaughtered

everytime I think about the lore of abe being a midwife to the cattle at RF I end up wanting to cry forever.