Lightbulb wakes up in Hotel OJ to find everything... perfect. Too perfect. Everyone's acting like the best possible versions of themselves - Knife is gentle and soft-spoken, Taco and Pickle are happily together with no tension, and Balloon has completely dropped his desperate people-pleasing act. Even MePhone seems more stable and kind. At first, Lightbulb thinks this is amazing! All the conflict and drama that used to stress her out are gone. But something feels fundamentally wrong. The conversations are too polite, the smiles too consistent, and everyone keeps insisting they've "always been this way." When Lightbulb tries to bring up past arguments or drama, everyone looks at her with genuine confusion. "Lightbulb, why would you think Knife ever threatened anyone?" "Taco would never manipulate people, that's such a mean thing to suggest!" They seem genuinely hurt that she'd imply they were ever anything but perfect. She has to choose: pretend to be the "normal" version of herself that they want, or risk everything to restore her friends' true selves. But the more she fights against the artificial normalcy, the more she questions if maybe being "fixed" wouldn't be so bad after all... Content warning: Contains descriptions of medical content such as needles, surgeries, and existential stress. Also implied Lightbrush and a tad bit of Mephoj. Inspired by Will Wood's "Love Me, Normally", along with other songs. All characters are courtesy of Adamation, song references are courtesy of Will Wood. All cover art is mine. Woaahhh love me normallyyy woahh yeahhh woah yeaahhhh

(im putting this as dialogue for a chapter so you can just read all that when you start the book) When Balloon and Nickel were shot out of the portal, they both fell to the floor as the portal closed up. Ugh, just great, now that Balloon and Nickel are eliminated, they have to deal with each other even more than usual! Not to mention OJ made it that whoever gets eliminated, has to share a room with the person who gets eliminated next. He didn't even make that rule until now they're pretty sure! But honestly they were tired enough, so they just accepted it. Now that weeks have passed by, their relationship hasn't gotten any better. They constantly fight and annoy each other every now and then. Balloon wishes that something can change between them, and even though it actually did, it worked a little too well...