Copy Paste (Geometry Dash) - Tealy and the Crew

-

Beric said nothing for a full minute after looking at the editor.

Not a long, dramatic minute. Just a quiet, technical minute of a person looking at something and arriving at a conclusion that was simple and complete and did not require additional investigation.

"Tealy," he said.

"Yeah."

Beric pointed at the screen.

Specifically at the copy and paste button, which was present in the editor, clearly labeled, in a location that could not be described as hidden or obscure or difficult to find. It was simply there. It had always been there. It would continue to be there.

Tealy looked at it.

Looked at Beric.

Looked at it again.

"I didn't see it," Tealy said.

Beric looked at Tealy with an expression of profound technical patience. The expression of someone who had fixed a lot of broken things and had developed, through that experience, a deep well of composure for moments like this.

"You placed 1,630 orbs," Beric said.

"Yeah."

"Individually."

"Yeah."

"One at a time."

"Yeah."

"Over four days."

"Yeah."

"When there was a copy and paste button."

Tealy said nothing.

"The whole time," Beric said.

"I don't want to talk about this," Tealy said.

Beric recreated the level in ten minutes.

Tealy watched him do it, which was a decision he made in the moment and immediately regretted but from which he could not look away, the way you can't look away from a car crash or a very large number on a bill.

Beric opened the editor. Selected the appropriate orb. Placed one. Copied it. Pasted it. Selected all. Adjusted spacing. Copied the entire row. Pasted it. Repeat. His hands moved with the efficient economy of someone for whom this was not a creative act but a technical one, a simple application of available tools to a defined problem, and the problem was solved in ten minutes because that was how long it took when you used the copy and paste button that had been present in the editor the entire time.

The level that had taken Tealy four days took Beric ten minutes.

"Done," said Beric, with no particular inflection, because it was done.

Tealy looked at the completed level in the editor. Identical to his. Same orbs. Same spacing. Same frame perfects. Same unbeatable wall of consecutive inputs that Zoink couldn't get past 2% of and DumbDird had heroically clawed to 3%.

Same terrible decoration, because Beric had not improved the decoration, because Beric was recreating the level not improving it, and also because the decoration was Tealy's creative vision and Beric respected that even if the creative vision was just blue.

"Ten minutes," Tealy said.

"About that, yeah."

"I spent four days."

"I know."

"Individually placing—"

"1,630 orbs, yeah."

"And you did it in ten minutes."

"The copy paste button is right there," Beric said, gesturing at it again, not as an accusation, simply as a statement of geographic fact. It was right there. It remained right there.

Tealy looked at it.

"I genuinely did not see it," he said.

"For four days," Beric said.

"Beric."

"Yeah."

"Stop."

"Okay," said Beric, and stopped, because Beric knew when a technical debrief had reached its natural conclusion.

Tealy sent one message to the group chat.

"I didn't know there was a copy paste button in the editor"

He sent it with the energy of someone ripping off a bandage. Fast. Committed. Done.

The responses came in.

Dird reacted with 👍, then, in an unprecedented development, actually typed a response:

"The copy and paste function has been in the editor since 2.0."

Tealy stared at this.

Dird had typed a response. An actual sentence. With words. In the group chat. Voluntarily. The event was so unusual that for a moment Tealy forgot to be upset about the copy paste button.

Then he remembered.

"I know that NOW, Dird," he typed.

Dird reacted to this with 👍 and returned to his natural state of silent thumbs-up-based communication, apparently having used his word allocation for the week.

Greeny replied: "You placed 1,630 individual objects over four days when a copy and paste function was available."

"Yes."

"And then Beric recreated it in ten minutes."

"Yes."

"Using copy and paste."

"GREENY."

"I'm just confirming the sequence of events."

"I know the sequence of events, I was THERE—"

Blara posted cheese. Then, unusually, an actual message:

"four days"

Just that. Four days. No punctuation. The most efficient possible delivery of the observation. Tealy read it and felt it in a specific place.

Beric sent: "The level is structurally sound regardless of the creation method. The frame perfects are legitimate."

This was the kindest thing Beric could have said and Tealy appreciated it more than he was going to express.

DumbDird called.

Tealy answered because not answering would not make the copy paste button not exist, would not give him back four days, and would not change anything about the fundamental situation, so he might as well.

"DURR TALLY"

"Yeah."

"DURR TALLY YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT COPY PASTE"

"I know."

"DURR TALLY IT'S RIGHT THERE"

"I KNOW—"

"DURR BERIC DID IT IN TEN MINUTES—"

"I KNOW DUMBD—"

"DURR TALLY" A pause. The pause had a specific quality. "Durr. That's kind of impressive actually."

Tealy stopped.

"What."

"DURR LIKE, TALLY, YOU PLACED 1,630 ORBS ONE AT A TIME. DURR. THAT'S A LOT OF DEDICATION."

"That's not—that's not a compliment DumbDird—"

"DURR, IT KIND OF IS TALLY, DURR, I COULDN'T DO THAT—"

"NOBODY SHOULD DO THAT, THAT'S THE POINT—"

"DURR, BUT YOU DID THOUGH—"

"BECAUSE I DIDN'T SEE THE BUTTON—"

"DURR, TALLY." DumbDird's voice had shifted into the register it sometimes hit, the one that was inexplicably sincere. "Durr. You made something really hard. And you did it the hard way. Durr. That's pretty Tally of you."

Tealy sat with that's pretty Tally of you for a moment.

"That's not a phrase," he said.

"DURR, IT IS NOW TALLY—"

"It means I did something inefficient and unnecessary—"

"DURR, YEAH, BUT YOU DID IT—"

"DumbDird—"

"DURR, DUH, TALLY. YOU BUILT THE THING. DURR. BERIC JUST COPIED IT."

Tealy looked at his ceiling.

The thing was, and he was never saying this out loud, that was kind of a point.

A wrong point. A DumbDird point. A point that only made sense inside the specific logic of DumbDird's worldview where dedication and efficiency occupied the same value and dedication sometimes won.

Still a point.

"Go away," Tealy said.

"DURR, OKAY. DURR, TALLY?"

"What."

"DURR, I'M STILL AT 3%."

"I know."

"DURR, THE BUTTON WOULDN'T HAVE HELPED WITH THAT PART."

Tealy almost laughed. He didn't. But it was close.

"Goodnight DumbDird."

"DURR, GOODNIGHT TALLY. DURR, COPY PASTE—"

He hung up.

Opened the editor.

Looked at the copy paste button.

It was right there.

It had always been right there.

Four days.

He closed the editor.

Got a Banana Nacho gummy.

Ate it.

The level remained unbeaten.

The button remained right there.

Some things you just had to live with.

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