spent the whole night inside the realmode thunk with a fine comb. it is NOT the thunk. SCREEN 0 actually switches modes fine, which makes SCREEN 13 doing nothing even weirder. also found out my kernel thinks graphics is already on before i ever turned it on?? the flag says 255. TWO HUNDRED FIFTY FIVE. its supposed to be 0 or 1. memory corruption somewhere (see kpan 7), or im losing my mind. probably both.