ambitious indie project this, surprise box-office hit that, iron lung (production budget: $3mil) is the 'someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this, my family is dying' tweet.
update when markiplier announced he's producing the dvd/blu-ray himself i was like cool he's personally supervising the process and then he was like no i mean i'm making them myself at my house and i imagined some kind of complicated gargantuan contraption dutifully chugging along 24/7 blowing up this man's electricity bill and then he was like
anyway if you buy an iron lung dvd/blu-ray: it was made on a printer-sized machine. at markiplier's house.
youtube with ublock origin experience of the 20 second gap between every video on a playlist where youtube desperately throws itself against the impervious ever-evolving uncaring face of the adblocker's wall screaming and clawing and calling PLEASE! PLEASE, OUR AD REVENUE!! DON'T YOU WANT TO SUPPORT THIS CREATOR? DO YOU NOT CARE ABOUT OUR WALLETS? AND THEIRS? into the vast and empty sky before the adblocker gently raises one of its many iron-banded arms and flicks youtube away into the void just to hear its wails fade slowly into nothing
It's funny when I get the "You seem to be experiencing interruptions. Find out why" popup as if two unskippable 30-second ads wouldn't feel way more intrusive and annoying than a slight delay for a video to start.
Thank you very much to @nervouspursepandapersona for this commission! I had a lot of fun with this one, and I seem to recall touching on a swamp deity Monty a few years ago that never went anywhere so it was nice to revisit.
Request: How about one with swamp monster monty, where female y/n either lives near the swamp or is visiting the area, she goes to the swamp 1 day to feed the wildlife and monty's hiding in the water, he spots her and decides he likes her cause she's giving him food, so monty follows her the rest of the day back to the place she's staying and kidnaps her to take back to his nest and look after her.
Over the muffled murmuring of his river as it flows steadily across his scales, he hears it. A sound he’s come to cherish, to hope for every time the sun begins its lazy descent below the cypress trees and cattails wagging in the breeze.
It’s the gentle push and pull that breaks the surface tension, the swish of wood dipping into and retreating from the water.
A pair of oars stroking overhead, signalling your approach to his bosky little glade.
From well below the waterline, a great, unfathomed creature lets out an excited churr, sending his vibrato across the river and causing ripples to dance along its surface, warning off any that might be foolish enough to contend for your attention.
Slowly, and oh-so carefully, the monster of the Atchafalaya Basin pushes himself off the riverbed and glides to the surface, letting his snout break into the humid air with the softest of exhales.
His eyes come up next, the membrane sliding away to reveal a pair of reptilian eyes, crimson as freshly-spilled blood.
Hidden by the shady roots of a vast and crooked cypress, he’s safe to observe his favourite little human.
The wild heart in his chest, usually an agitated, thundering thing, flutters softly the moment he zeroes in on you. Beautiful, as always, he decides with a fierce sort of pride, not to mention bold as brass to enter his territory without a hint of fear or trepidation.
He likes that.
For thirteen moons and fourteen suns, you’ve been coming here to his home - your presence infinitely unobtrusive. Welcome even.
Today, you’re here – as always – in your little wooden rowboat that doesn’t fill the air with a mechanical drone, sending the birds into startled flight, nor does it churn the water up like those with motors, disturbing the silt along the bed and clogging his eyes and nostrils, or scaring the fish.
Every time, you arrive with soothing strokes of your oars, barely a half-hour’s swim from the metal den you’ve been living in, just off the river’s bank.
He’s followed you there several times, to the place that’s cloying with the stench of other humans who’ve stayed there before you, masking your captivating scent in a way that makes him want to bury his nose into your neck and keep it there until your smell is burned into the walls of his throat and memory, never to be overtaken again.
The water around his head bobs gently as you let your boat drift to a halt, and he feels his tail sweep to and fro of its own accord, pushing him out of the roots and into the open behind your boat.
Eagerly, he wonders what kind of treasures you’ve brought him today.
Chugging out a reverential breath, he watches through a hooded gaze whilst you slot the oars into their restraints and stretch your arms high above your head, selflessly offering him a glimpse of soft, malleable skin as your shirt rides halfway up your back.
You always stop here to gaze out at the shafts of golden light that drift through the leafy branches and hit the water’s surface, sparkling and brilliant in the dying sun. And you never arrive empty-handed.
Like clockwork, you’re soon ferreting through an old, well-worn backpack and pulling out your silver-coated meal, prising away several layers of metal to get at the food within.
At once, his nostrils begin to flare, opening and closing excitedly to pick up the smell of pig meat, wafting across the glade towards him. You never eat any for yourself – a behaviour he intends to rectify soon – instead sacrificing your catch to the river, tearing chunks of sweet, cooked meat apart and tossing them from your boat for him to find. You’re providing for him.
Not for long though, he swears privately. He will take care of you; he knew he would from the moment he first caught a glimpse of you in his waters; a small, enigmatic creature with offerings for a forgotten god and a restful face he can’t tear his eyes away from.
Flicking the last few crumbs off your fingertips, you sit back on the seat and take up your oars once again, turning your strange, otherworldly eyes out to the bucolic glade that curves around you like a fist of trees and reeds, desperate to keep you enclosed within their safe cover.
“There,” you say to yourself in that voice he wants to croon for, “Those are the last of my leftovers. Enjoy!”
He wishes you’d stay to enjoy them with him, and he’s almost convinced himself that you must be addressing him when you speak, and not the myriad of birds perched watchfully in the branches overhead, or the odd terrapin that doesn’t care to heed his threats for space.
He wishes he could see you eat too. So generous in your tribute that you neglect to feed yourself.
It stirs up a long-buried instinct that he didn’t even know was there to begin with. It’s the prospect of providing for you as you’ve been providing for him, not just the delicious morsels you leave behind, but your presence alone breaks the lonely monotony of his long, dragging days and friendless nights.
He isn’t an especially intelligent beast. But even he knows he evolved… differently.
The alligators that avoid his territory like the plague are about as conversational as driftwood, and moody to boot. He doesn’t understand the clicks and chirps and growls of their language, and he’s learned that his own are pitched too deep, too low for them to comprehend in turn.
Humans, he’s found for the most part, are even less inclined to accept his companionship. For centuries, his every exposure to the world of man has provoked a hunt. Those seldom few that had seen him all those centuries ago called him Monster. Monstruo. Monstre…
If nothing else, they helped him fashion a name for himself.
Monty.
It sounded human enough to his ears, a small, insignificant connection to a world that didn't want him either.
But you!
Oh, you… You don’t smell of blood. Or flint, or gunpowder.
You smell of Safety, and gentle wood-smoke from the firepit built outside your metal den, and your hair smells of foreign things that remind him of the flowers growing along the riverbanks.
And you’re kind. He used to wonder at the possibility of human kindness, if your species was capable of mercy, of gentleness, when the mess scars on his back continued to grow with every encounter.
But for the first time, he sees it in you, and knows hope.
You, who share your food, who come into his territory not to hunt, but to help, with a cordial mind for your own presence and a peaceable smile that has him battling the urge to bellow richly in the back of his throat.
He barely realises how close he’s allowed himself to drift…
Without warning, the chirping of insects and quiet hum of the river is interrupted by a pair of short, sharp trills, as abrupt and unexpected as a gunshot.
Violently, Monty flinches, lashing his tail to close the distance between you when he sees you jump as well, and for very good reason – The sound had emanated directly from your boat.
‘Danger!’ that ancient voice in his head roars, and he’s barely a second from surging out of the water to challenge the blaring claxon that frightened you when you promptly pull a slim, black box from your pocket and tap its surface, calm as can be.
And just like that, the trilling is silenced, and Monty’s momentum evaporates like rain off a sun-scorched road. With your back half turned to him, you don’t see the rumbling beast drift to a stop just behind your boat, too distracted with raising the box up to your ear and humming out a soft, very unconcerned, “Hello?”
Monty freezes in place, his eyes springing open in bewilderment.
Are you… talking to him? If only his vocal chords were compatible with your speech, but the difference between learning the human language and speaking it is a biological chasm.
Before he can start to slap his jaw against the water in exhilaration however, you continue.
“Yeah, speaking…? Oh! Oh, hi, Boss! Sorry, I didn’t look at the caller ID.”
At your back, Monty cocks his head, ears pricked interestedly.
“Nah, just going for one last boat ride before I leave… I’m gonna miss this place.”
Suddenly, the identity of who you’re talking to doesn’t matter half as much as what you’re talking about.
‘Miss this place?’
‘… Leave?’
Troubled, Monty lifts his colossal head clear over the waterline, his pulse kicking into a raucous gear as his focus narrows to a single point; the strange box you seem to be speaking into..
“I know… Yeah, I'll be back to work on Monday. This is my last day here… Mhm, I’ll be flying home tomorrow morning.”
It takes every inch of his self-restraint not to let out a belligerent howl in response, though his tail nonetheless goes rigid with alarm and he feels his stomach bottom out at your words.
No…
NO!
That isn’t fair!
For centuries, he’s been condemned to a solitary existence, living alone in the Atchafalaya basin, and now that he’s caught a glimpse of the light at the end of that long, lonely stretch of his life, fate has stepped in to dash his hopes against the proverbial rocks.
Dark, rounded pupils narrow to a knife’s edge as he glares hard at the sleek box clutched in your hand, and he deduces that whoever you’re speaking to, whoever is living inside that alien device, must be summoning you away from the swamp… Away from him.
Monty’s jaw sets into a solid line of razor-sharp teeth.
His nest isn’t ready yet, and there are still preparations he needs to make, but he can’t afford to wait any longer. You’re in his territory. You’re his human.
And nobody – no disembodied voice from an unknowable box, nor Fate itself - is taking you away from your rightful home by his side.
Tonight, he soothes himself, it has to be tonight…
With groggy movements, you raise your head from the pillow, squinting through the darkness of the trailer as you attempt to get your bearings.
Right… Louisiana… A vacation that's swiftly coming to an end...
Huffing out a weary sigh, you let your face flop back into the pillow with an almighty groan, squeezing your eyes shut once more, cursing the weatherman for promising a clear, starry night with nothing but the insects of the bayou chirruping softly to lull you to sleep.
Thunder was not on the report…
The storm must be close, you blearily muse. You can feel the vibrations rattling through the metal trailer and travelling up and into the mattress you’re laying on, powerful and thrumming and… still going?
“… Mmph… Th’hell?” you slur, propping yourself up on an elbow again and screwing your face up in discontent. All around you, a persistent, steady growl seems to roll on and on, louder now that you’re starting to wake up, and decidedly off.
But before you can decipher the oddity of it, just as suddenly as it woke you, the noise peters to a gentle stop, leaving a deafening silence in its wake.
For several moments, you wait, perched on one arm, unable to hear anything except the faint ringing in your ears. You’re about to heave a mental shrug and go back to sleep when a nagging thought occurs to you.
The night is deathly silent…
… It’s never silent out here. Not once during the fortnight you’ve been holidaying in the basin have you ever known it to be this quiet. There’s always the sound of insects buzzing out in the reeds, or the distant call of a nightly bird on the hunt.
And more to the point, though you could clearly hear the thunder – it sounded as if it was right on top of you for goodness sake – you haven’t once heard a single drop of rain patter against the trailer’s tin roof.
Then, it happens again.
‘HRRRRRRRRRR.’
Now you’re wide-awake, lurching bolt-upright in bed. The trailer around you shivers again at the force of the noise.
It isn’t thunder, that much you can now tell. More akin to the engine of some great, destructive machine. It rips right through you, leaves you tingling when, again, the sound passes, and all falls silent once more.
There’s only one way to solve this mystery short of going outside to take a peek. Instead, swallowing anxiously, you turn to the small window that hangs over your bed, pinch the edge of the little curtain between two fingers, heave in a steadying breath, and yank the fabric aside.
Of all the things you were expecting to see, this is not one of them. Not in your wildest imaginings.
A single, scarlet eye peers back at you from the other side of the plexiglass, dwarfing the tiny rectangle and blocking any glimpse of the river beyond.
Your heart just about stops beating altogether, and a sharp, startled yelp flies from your tongue too quickly to suppress. The bite of icy dread floods into your veins so abruptly that you freeze, limbs locking into place as a pitch-dark pupil expands at the sight of you, homing-in on your horrified face like a heat-seeking missile.
Too terrified to utter a sound, too stiff to make a move, you can only sit there in your pyjamas, mouth hanging agape whilst your brain scrambles for explanation.
A nightmare…. There’s a nightmare staring in at you from beyond the window.
What else could it possibly be?
Laying a hand across your chest, you shudder at the force of your heart pounding viciously against your palm, and with a breathless gulp, you let the curtain fall back into place.
No sooner have you done so however, than the wall of the trailer is suddenly punctured by eight, massive spikes.
“SHIT!” you scream shrilly, lurching backwards until you topple off the bed onto your rump with a jolt, your rolling eyes locked onto the black, wicked-sharp sickles that have torn right through the metal.
After that, everything seems to happen all at once.
Scrabbling against the floor with your heels, your spine crashes into the closed bedroom door behind you, and you squawk as the bizarre implements begin to curl inwards, and as easily as you’d tear through a sheet of paper, they crumple the trailer’s wall down and out of the way, leaving a jagged hole behind, just large enough to admit the huge, green snout that immediately presses its way through the opening.
You’re tempted to slap yourself just to make sure this really isn’t a dream.
Through the darkness, you realise you’re looking at the head of an alligator, but one glimpse of the proportions nosing their way inside your trailer let you know that you are absolutely, categorically dead.
It’s big. Too big. Bigger than any record-breaking bull could ever or should everbe. Prehistoric in size.
Its skull is too wide to fit all the way in, and you can only watch, shaking in terror as those nostrils twitch, sniffing at the air with great, billowing breaths.
All of a sudden, giving one more sniff, they widen, and all of its movements fall horrifyingly still.
You can’t help the whimpering sob that hitches in your chest and comes out as a hiccough, breaking the spell of whatever had caused the beast to pause.
With an unexpected lunge, the snout surges forwards through the hole.
Metal screeches alongside your own wails as the monster bullies its head further inside, tearing the wall apart as it twists itself sideways and opens its jaws wide.
The sight of that black, gaping gullet hemmed in by fangs as long as your forearm spurs you into action at last.
Belting out another shriek, you plant your hands on the floor and shove yourself up onto your feet, whipping around lightning fast and grabbing the door’s indented handle.
But you’re too slow.
All the hairs on the nape of your neck stand on their ends, bristling when a hot rush of air blasts across your back and something clamps around your waist with a solid pressure, rounded points digging lightly into the skin.
Teeth.
You scream the breath out of your lungs.
“NO!”
Without ceremony, without effort, you’re lifted clear off your feet and turned sideways in a hot, slimy mouth.
Fangs press into your shoulder blades and thighs, and your stomach is soundly rested on top of the beast’s monstrous tongue, leaving your arms, legs and head free to claw, kick and shriek as you’re hoisted backwards towards the hole in the wall.
Frantic to stop its progress, when the crushed metal passes below you, you mindlessly throw a hand out and make a hasty grab for the sharpened edge, anything to get a grasp on the only place of safety you know.
You wrap quaking fingers around the jagged wall, clamping down with a feverish terror that numbs you to the agony of metal slicing into your soft palm and fingertips.
All for nought, of course.
The massive gator just raises its head, gives the gentlest of tugs, and you’re torn free, leaving droplets of blood to ooze down the side of the ruined trailer.
The only clue that you were ever here at all.
Gasping, you cradle your injured hand and stare bug-eyed at the sandy ground beneath you as it falls further and further away.
Five feet…. Ten feet.
How big is this thing?
From your cage in its mouth, you can only see a pale, yellow underbelly, and arms longer than you are tall, all rippling muscle and verdant scales that shine almost silver under the moonlight.
A wretched sound is tugged from your mouth as it swings its head towards the water and takes a long, loping step towards the bank.
You’re just waiting to feel the crush. The painful, snapping pressure that’ll bear down on your spine and break you in half before you’re swallowed down into that stinking maw.
The water rushes up to meet the beast as it simply strides right into the flow, and it strikes you that it might be merciful enough to drown you first. You know which death you’d prefer.
But to your shock – and dismay – it doesn’t allow its chin to hit the water.
Instead, it holds you aloft, perfectly dry in the cool, night air whilst it swims along your usual rowing route and lets out warm, quiet huffs that roll over your torso with every breath that chugs out of its immense lungs.
---------------------------------
It brings you to the glade.
Trapped between massive teeth, trembling like the flame of a candle facing down gale-force winds, you stare in bleak disbelief at the same spot you’ve been coming for the last two weeks just to dump leftovers from the side of your boat. Scraps of dinners you didn't want to go to waste, meant for the local wildlife.
Is this divine punishment for upsetting the balance of nature?
The water churns past just underneath you, dark and oily and impassive as your tears drip down into it, adding to the basin’s mass.
From somewhere deep in the beast’s ribcage, it pushes out a powerful thrum, paddling towards an enormous mass of foliage constructed near the edge of the clearing, nestled between two cypress trees.
You begin to struggle with renewed terror when it pulls itself from the water and crawls onto stripped bark and dried leaves, debris from plants stacked high and wide in a concave dome.
“Oh god,” you choke through a sob, recognising what you're looking at. You've only seen a few gator nests since you arrived, and none of them were even a fraction of the size of this one. With a harrowing dread, it suddenly occurs to you that this thing might not have killed you yet because it has young to feed.
And yet, nothing rushes from the undergrowth to meet you, no snapping jaws and miniature versions of monsters scurrying towards a meal being offered so freely. You’re simply lowered to the centre of the nest until your knees and elbows hit the foliage, and then, carefully, the teeth surrounding you pull apart, extracting themselves from your body and leaving nothing behind but round indents in skin that seems to have miraculously remained unbroken.
For several, unbelievable seconds, you stay frozen on all fours, mouth as dry as a bone yet eyes that could drown a desert…
... Until something solid and warm nudges gently at your side, and you react as if you’d been poked with an iron brand.
“DON’T!” you scream, hurling yourself over onto your backside and slapping wildly at the snout that’s ventured far too close for comfort.
With a snort of surprise, the beast draws its head back, and at long last, you finally see the extent of what you’re dealing with.
Towering above you like a misshapen obelisk is a creature that simply shouldn’t exist.
You weren't mistaken before. It has the head of a vast crocodilian, though its body stands half upright with the hunched posture of something bipedal, and stretched out behind it is a tail that rivals the length of your trailer, thick and square and covered in an array of triangular ridges.
Eyes – forward-facing, you note with a tremor – seem to glow faintly in the moonlight as they peer down at you, red as the blood that still seeps from the wound on your hand. The beast looks like the terrible amalgamation of a man, a gator, and a nightmare, all rolled into one.
And it's just... looking at you.
Your heart is busy hurling itself against the front of your chest whilst the monster in front of you sits back on its haunches and keeps its gaze fixed unwaveringly on your own, head canting slowly to one side as if you're the puzzling phenomenon.
You wish it'd stop staring at you.
Until it does stop.
Then you curse yourself for ever wishing for anything at all.
It moves like a surging wave, coming in towards you so abruptly that you bark out a short, sharp sound of alarm and topple onto your back, throwing your arms over your head as if they would ever be enough.
A firm, scaly snout worms beneath your right arm, and with a gentleness that catches you completely off guard, it burrows forwards into the side of your neck, crooning out a reverberating thrum that judders the brain in your skull.
This is it, you tell yourself, tears streaking down your cheeks, of course it would go for the neck.
The beast's nostrils flex against your pulse. Your fists thump uselessly at its jaw, glancing off the toughened hide…
Eyes screwed shut, you take the breath you’re certain will be your last…
… And bark out a startled laugh as the gator’s tongue flickers over the column of your throat, right across a ticklish spot.
Giving an involuntary squeal, you try to tuck your chin into your chest, a reaction that only seems to spur the monster on. Huffing excitedly, the scaley brute begins to nuzzle at you, sliding the flat of its snout up behind your ear, softly snuffling warm air into it before it moves on to nose at your hair, drawing in several curious inhales, and it’s every bit as horrifying as it is embarrassing.
Tremulously, you bring your quaking hands up and wriggle them in between your skull and its nose, curling your fingers around the solid curve of fangs and trying to shove his entire head away, hardly caring that you may well lose your arms for the transgression.
Better an arm than your head.
Shockingly enough, the creature seems willing to be coaxed backwards.
Warbling at you in deep tones, it raises its head and swivels its gaze down the length of its snout, landing on the spot where your hands are pressed firmly against its mouth. The beast’s entire body vibrates at the contact, and before you can blink, from deep inside its throat bursts a familiar, resounding bellow, so loud that you wince when your eardrums retreat inwards.
This was what you’d been hearing earlier, you realise belatedly, wondering how you hadn’t recognised the sound before.
You’ve been hearing it a lot these last few weeks. A gator’s bellow, only this one is pitched several octaves too low, and a hundred decibels too loud. It’s a sound with power packed behind it, enough that you feel the vibrations most strongly at the point of contact between your body and its own, specifically in the wound on the palm of your hand.
"Ach!" you hiss, wrenching your arm back. But you only manage to draw it away by an inch or so before a colossal fist snaps out and grabs your arm, tightening around everything from wrist to shoulder.
At once, you give a squeak of alarm, the colour draining from your face when you see the monster’s eyes locking onto your injury.
“Oh, shit,” you whisper. The smell of blood… Will that be what finally sets it off?
Despite the size of the fingers utterly engulfing your entire arm, and the unfathomable strength keeping you from tugging yourself free, its grip is astonishingly lax.
The monster’s jaws peel apart, and it huffs out a hollow, despondent croak, the corners of its long mouth tilting down – though you can only assume that’s a trick of the moonlight. No gator can frown. Then again, no gator has walked on its hind legs and grown to the size of a bus before either.
You aren’t prepared at all for its tongue to slither out between its teeth and give the palm of your hand a wet, prickly lick.
“EUGH!” you exclaim, momentarily more disgusted than afraid as visions of unknown bacteria and diseases that fester on its tongue fill your head. But in spite of your misgivings, the beast doesn’t stop.
Gentle sweeps of its tongue work the blood from your palm, soothing over the sore wound with persistent devotion, while all you can do is stare agog as it administers this crude and bestial form of care.
With a final churr, it pulls its head away and gives your hand a thorough once-over, grunting in apparent satisfaction.
You’re still reeling from the bizarre events as the creature lets go of your arm and settles itself down on its front, wasting no time encircling you with its body, curving that long, muscular neck until it’s nose is almost in your lap and bringing its tail around to complete the cage.
With nowhere to go, and a wall of living, breathing danger gazing at you adoringly through blown-out pupils, you release a shaky breath and let your head fall back against the nest beneath you, squinting up through teary eyes at the canopy of leaves that sways gently overhead.
on the contrary, i think he is having many thoughts! he's pretty attentive towards each thing shown...even observing where the water in the water fountain is going…he's curious and thinking So much about all the wonders of this world he has not yet seen (like rocket pops and Cash Money)
even if the dominant thought may be "what's that what's that what's that", single thought at the very least confirmed
I am skipping your ads as fast as I can. I'm skipping past your sponsor read. I'm muting the tv. I'm muting the tab. If they get too annoying I will simply stop trying to watch.
If advertisers can use every manipulative trick in the book to get me to buy their product, I am fully within my rights to do everything I can on my end to make their job impossible
coming up with aus for your own ocs is so funny like yeah these are my guys i made up but in a different circumstance. yeah no i also made that circumstance up
So it turns out the windows 11 'shut down' button no longer shuts down the computer entirely. I know this because task manager snitched on the runtime. So I shut it down and turn the main switch off and guess what happened on the next boot. American Megatrends. How the hell does windows 11 even manage to fuck up shutting down
For anyone who has any modern Windows PC: This has actually been broken since Windows 7! Maybe 8, I don't remember, I just remember being the exact same level of horrified as OP when I finally noticed an 'up time' of like three hundred some odd hours on my old PC despite it having been shut off regularly. Anyway.
The usual culprit of Windows not "fully" shutting down is "Fast Start Up" being turned on (which was and is "on" by default, because it does help a slow computer or a computer with a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) start up faster). Anyone with a modern Windows PC running an SSD as your boot drive should turn this off. The computer not fully shutting down can lead to weird compounded errors. So please follow along!
Type "power options" into your search bar and click the result, should look like this:
Which should open this:
Now we're going to back up to "Power Options" by clicking that in the upper bar or hitting "Cancel" on the bottom right. Now you should be here:
On the left hit "Choose what the power buttons do". Now you should be here:
Ignore the power button thing, but if your "Turn on fast startup (recommended)" is still on then turn it off! If yours is also greyed out make sure to hit that little blue thing with the shield near the top that says "Change settings that are currently unavailable" and then turn it off. Remember to hit "Save changes". Now your computer should fully shut off!
If you don't know how to check your "up time" to even know if this is a problem for you the easiest way to check is in the task manager. In the "performance" tab under your CPU at the bottom it will have an "Up time" like this:
(No comment on the SVM mode randomly disabling itself, it may or may not be related to this. I've never made use of and therefore never paid attention to mine and a lot of people aren't going to have it because that's AMD and while it's been more popular lately Intel is still really big out there. AMDs known to be quirky though (I say this as an AMD user) so who even knows what happened there.)
I know the post became memeing on windows but this can cause actual issues on modern hardware so figured I'd hijack in case it helps someone out. (It's something I have forgotten to check in the PCs I've helped friends make recently so I'm now having a "wuh oh" moment wondering if quirks one of them has been exhibiting is related to this.)
