#I blame the trickster

[lovelylittlewordsmith]

I have reluctantly come to terms with the fact that there are only 16 fics on Ao3 for Kooza, so I'm going to have to be the change that I want to see in the word.

[sandymybeloved]

I'm a Sarah-Jane Adventures fan first and a human being second, Doctor Who is the just part of the Sarah-Jane Adventures extended universe to me

[sentient-carrot]

T'is my birthday yet again. Huzzah or smth hahaha

[reckless-glitch]

so I'm pretty convinced okc glitches and matches me with people ive declined sometimes

which is fine like whatever

but um

I got a message from someone named fucking

Odin

today

who i KNOW i swiped left on because...I just don't need that heat in my life rn

anyway I'm just glad its not wednesday because that'd be a little heavy handed

[yeticantfeelyou]

Serious note... Take from me... Please don't think drugs are the solution, only more serious problems will arise from using..

I want to cry for the kids, the teenagers who just started using... Why ? Who gave that shit to you? I promise you. I promise with my whole heart and soul... Your life will be ruined... You're digging your own grave.... Your life will be drastically shortened...

I know it's hypocritical, I sound idiotic saying this because I'm on here joking about drugs and laughing about this issue. I already explained why.

I just never want anyone to be in the same situations Ive been in

If I could prevent that by telling people what the fuck happened and what's going to happen to me, I hope it sticks with atleast one person. I hope someone understands my message. I really hope and pray for sober lives. Never fall into this mess. I'm so fucked up. Everything is wrong in my life. I am working on a better life, I just can't do it alone like I originally thought.

[teapsoon]

girl leah's put so many wounds on me over the past week im a bit afraid like my friends or smthn are gonna start thinking im self harming lmao

[deansguns]

“the world is gonna end dean, we don’t have the luxury of a moral stand” kind of a key quote in understanding sam

[ase-trollplays]

I uh... Wouldn't refer to her an "heiress", Sayble. She really dislikes being seen as royalty :(

}}-I see. My apologies. I don't wish to offend.-{{

[preciouslittletoonette]

I think on an evolutionary perspective, Mahogany changed the least personality-wise.

Both Ophelia & Trickster shifted personalities a bit as I continued to write The Nanny. And not like character development ways, but in "I'm adding and removing new traits as I go" kind of way (you can definitely see it better with Trickster)

Mahogany didn't get that.

And alongside that, as I'm going through what I want for the story in the end, Mahogany's role becomes lesser and lesser truly involved. Trickster took over her big villain role because I attached his past not only to Ophelia's, but to the Warners and Bugs as well. I think it just fits better with Trickster in the end.

Mahogany compared to Trickster just doesn't have much personal motivation to fuck with both Ophelia and the Warners other than for money or to cause them pain.

Yeah, so Mahogany's level of importance definitely decreased. She's still important, as she's the one who pushed for the Warners to be sold to Warner Bros and that in essence allows the plot to happen. But on a personal relationship level with the main protagonists, then yeah, Mahogany definitely got usurped by Trickster.

[suckinitup]

ir read thsi earlier and i keep trying to reread to respond but theyre. theyre so. waauaghg. whgagahgah. gbg.

Hi here to ask nhw quastion again :3 ik ashe and the wards have Problems once ashe gets detrickstered because theyre all triggering each other and dying horribly and messily and its miserable but ! microphone emoji. do you have thoughts about how that would work specifically between virion and ashe

- @suckinitup

(also ik i havent rbed the other thing yet so yee the suck tag works for now akdhskdh i am Between Internet Names atm. and ofc i chose a url thats hard to nickname 😔)

HI!! GOD. YEAH MAN. YEAH I FUCKING DO. literally their dynamic post trickster is something i think about so much. awesome question to ask me. augh. okay. bullet pointing this for now bcos i'm on my phone....

>post-muse ashe & virion have a shared understanding of both.... enacting & witnessing close violence? in a way that nobody else really does. dakota and wibby have been through some fucked up shit!!! they have seen and been victim of and done some incredibly awful things. of course they have. they still don't understand it on as personal a level as virion does-- virion, hiding and watching his family die one by one, virion, killing capes with their own powers. (whenever i think abt virion's stint as a vigilante i think abt taylor saying it's more personal to kill a cape with her power than with a gun. perhaps it's even more personal to kill a cape with their own powers.) the intimacy of violence & the feeling of being nothing except a vessel for it & not being really sure who or what you even are anymore is something that. ashe struggles so much with, & virion Gets. he isn't, like... sympathetic? they're not wailing and crying and virion isn't pitying him. he's just... easier to talk to, sometimes. he isn't.... loudly emotional. he gets it.

>virion also is very quiet and always moves deliberately and with intention. he is like..... as opposite the trickster as possible, in terms of physicality. this-- ashe is triggered easily. wibby's eternal taut vibrating anxious energy, dakota's quick movements n loudness & such... the body language there is. similar, sometimes. it's bad when he catches it out of the corner of his eye, or feels it behind him. virion is absolutely nothing like the trickster. it's calming just being around him. (well. when you're someone he likes.) & being able to relax that constant tension that ashe still has. leading into:

>ashe doesn't touch his hair for weeks, months, maybe, after he gets back. because of. obvious reasons. (i don't remember if an actual post got made abt it but we came to the conclusion that while the trickster loves styling ashe's hair & playing with it like doll hair he does Not have the commitment or attention span for taking care of long hair. frequently he makes him do that part himself. drops his control every so often & throws him a brush & is like. clean it. ashe getting jerked back to awareness sitting very very very scared and alone and small and brushing dried blood and meat out of his hair & braiding it with shaking fingers knowing that he's only lucid as long as it takes to do this. every time it happens he's in a different place and wearing something different.) so like.... when he gets back. he has a really hard time taking care of his own hair. and also obviously a very hard time letting anyone else touch it. it gets tangled and matted and greasy & he's ashamed of it & can't do anything about it & can't bring himself to cut it off and lose one more thing that brought him joy to the trickster. it's virion who eventually helps him with it. it takes so long-- both of them sitting fully dressed in the shower for hours, ashe trying so hard not to shake apart virion going through most of a bottle of conditioner to carefully tease the knots out. virion who doesn't like talking a lot and is always quiet trying to keep up a soft running one-sided conversation the whole time so ashe knows who's behind him. (they tried mirrors and mirrors didn't go well. the trickster had a lot of mirrors.) u know. it doesn't get done in a day or even a couple weeks & sometimes virion accidentally brushes the shell of an ear or the base of his neck in a way that sets off bad sensory memory & they have to take a panicking badly break.

>re: their Problems specifically. another reason why they click like this post-muse is because. virion isn't worried about him hurting him. he and ashe are on a level playing field, when it comes to powers. like, obviously he doesn't. think. anything would happen. & ashe absolutely refuses to use his power anyway. but there's an equality there that lets ashe breathe a little easier too. and muse never hurt imprint the way that he did will or dakota. so virion's hangups when it comes to ashe are 1. he fucking Looks Like Muse. even though his body language is different and he looks like a different person with his hair back down in loose black layers & he doesn't have those orange threads around him. virion sol most paranoid guy alive. he tenses seeing him out of the corner of his eye sometimes & wakes up to see the silver mess of his hair spilling out from under the covers (u know ashe sleeps 100% under the blankets. how is he breathing under there.) & has to breath slowly for a couple minutes and watch the rise and fall of the ashe blanket lump's breath and run through every scenario in which this is muse under the comforter and not ashe and why and how it's incredibly unlikely that this would be muse etc. 2. he is afraid that. ashe/muse will hurt william and dakota. it's irrational. he's spent the past year afraid that muse will hurt william and dakota. he's paralyzed sometimes because he thinks if i leave the room and i leave will and ashe alone in there i'll come back and he'll be dead. & then also especially in the first couple months back there were. a handful of instances when virion was startled and caught off guard and ashe is up against the wall with an arm across his throat or caught in a lock before either of them realize. & it is bad for Both of them because holy shit ashe is panicking and frozen and not breathing at being manhandled like that and he's going to blame himself for this so badly in an hour because obviously it's his fault and he should have known better and of course he's a threat to them. & of course virion has to drop the grip and run away and lock himself in the bathroom out of horror because holy shit he almost just hurt ashe he almost just killed him. he would have killed him. (he wouldn't have.) he hurt him.etc etc. etc.

>ashe knows how v thinks abt him sometimes & understands it & it doesn't make him feel Very miserable because he does get it.but it makes him a little miserable sometimes. but virion's still the one who bumps their hands together so he can copy his power and float the remote over. before the trickster, ashe used to play games on his switch on the couch & virion would sit on the couch back and watch him (v hasn't really played games since his trigger event. all the ones he used to like are covered in the Ooze now.) & it would be their weird quiet bonding thing. and now virion's the one who sits near ashe on the couch and starts up animal crossing & ashe watches him play. (it takes a while for him to get his fine motor control back. he's shaky.)

>givingthis one its own bullet point because it's important post-muse ashe has a really fucking big mental block w/ using his power. he's terrified to he refuses to he Will Not. he doesn't want to hurt anyone again. virion keeps stealing his power & using it for the same shit he always uses (mundane daily little tasks) in a very pointed look. see? it's not inherently evil. it's okay. i'm not feeling threatened by what u can do right now. see? way.

[bloobydabloob]

Holy shit I love your Dirk interpretations, it's so true and I could talk about this shit forever. I feel like another part of his character that people seem to forget (along with Roxy for some reason) is that he's from the future in solitude in an apocalyptic wasteland. I just see that part of his character always removed which is disappointing because I feel like that's a pretty big part, especially regarding his themes around technology, his brother's theme of Time, his own isolation, and how he plays in the vastness of the universe and spacetime.

Art I drew related to the subject because I like to respond to asks with art.

But absolutely. I certainly understand where the lack of discussion over his isolation + upbringing comes from, considering a majority of the fanbase that I have seen builds their ideas based on their own version of postcanon. I’m not entirely sure how that would be fixed, but certainly even in the somewhat recent past I would see a lot more content regarding his upbringing both literally and symbolically. I don’t have much to add regarding the things you’ve mentioned, because they just are what they are. Dirk being confined to a singular room left to him by a father figure he never met, in a future where the only other person left on the planet is someone he cannot pursue a relationship of because of himself, with purely 3 robots to keep him companion, one being an exact replica of his own brain who is *also* trapped inside a pair of glasses, is about as literal as it gets to me.

The contrast to me involving the flooded, organic world in comparison to the little speckle of Dirk’s apartment packed with the dude and his technics is not only a representation of his isolation and entrapment within himself, but also of his lack of control. I think his obsession with & themes of control are a direct product in the case of Dirk specifically *of* this kind of upbringing. His themes of technology are also related to his themes around control. So much of his character is actually revolved around this to me like so much. Dirk is so deeply disconnected from humanity in every way and so much of his character + symbolism is based around that.

It doesn’t even have to be about the symbolism or anything though. It’s just pretty *interesting* in the literal sense that he lives in the middle of the ocean in the future. There’s not only a lot to theorise on to do with his young life there, but on how it might affect him in the way he acts for the rest of his life. The latter part is probably what I see mentioned the most by people talking about Dirk regarding this, I’m surprised I don’t see more discussion on the former too though. I really ought to actually talk more about Homestuck stuff on here. I will do it myself.

Roxy & Dirk’s relationship is largely ignored though because there is a narrative a certain demographic spreads that Dirk resented and blamed Roxy for her interest in him, and thus too many people believe that their relationship was or would continue to be an abusive one. Realistically, I believe it’s important to acknowledge that the way Roxy treated Dirk regarding his homosexuality wasn’t right while still acknowledging the obvious amount of respect and admiration Dirk had for Roxy. I mean we have a huge piece of dialogue from their post trickster mode conversations on the quest beds from Dirk purely stating how he feels about Roxy that people completely ignore somehow. I think this usually happens to characters that are women though. I know everyone says it, but it is true. Jane gets the exact same treatment of boiling her down to solely her negative aspects. The things I see completely mischaracterising both of them are horrific.

I mean how much more explicit can it get that their relationship is obviously very important to Dirk? But I digress. I think the best or I should say “most interesting” interpretations of their relationship usually come from DirkRoxy shippers actually.

I would be interested to hear about Dirk’s relation to his brother’s theme of time though. I don’t have any thoughts on this and I don’t recall ever hearing anyone talk about it before. If you or anyone else would be willing to enlighten me I’d be thrilled.

[harunayuuka2060]

Ortho: Hello, Mr. Leviathan!

Levi: Hello, Ortho-kun! *chuckles* Good morning!

Ortho: Are you here to play with my brother?

Levi: Yes. And I also need to talk to him about something.

Ortho: In that case, I will wake him up.

Levi: Eh? Why? Is he not awake yet?

Ortho: Well, you played games with him until 4:07AM.

Levi: *awkwardly smiles* Sorry...

Ortho: It's fine! But please try to decrease your game time. My brother is still a human and his health is important to me and everyone else here in Ignihyde.

Levi: Yeah. I'll keep that in mind.

Idia: Huh? Leona has teamed up with Belphegor? What does that mean?

Levi: You know what it is!

Idia: Yeah, I get you. But I don't think it would be ideal for the Prefect to add another lover to their existing number of husbands.

Levi: Do you honestly think that is the case?

Idia: What?

Levi: Seven avatars of hell, the future king of Devildom, the demon butler who can manipulate time and space, the most powerful sorcerer, one archangel, and one reaper wife who likes to set up traps.

Levi: And on top of that, there are two who are crushing on them from both Devildom and Celestial Realm.

Idia: ...

Idia: Geez.

Levi: Right? And I can't blame them because MC is so amazing and you couldn't help but to love them—

Idia: Time, time!

Levi: Huh?

Idia: You're not helping your case, Levi. Every time you say MC is amazing, the listener will be interested and it would urge them to know them better, to form a relationship with them.

Idia: And with the way you rant right now, it seems to me that you are recruiting me to be their boyfriend.

Levi: If you can't beat them, join them.

Idia: Noo! MC is already tired with all of these things! They don't need another socially-awkward gamer lover and a lazy lion prince!

Idia: Give. Them. A. Break!

Levi: ...

Levi: Idia-kun... You really care about MC... *sniffles* *smiles* Are you sure you don't want to be their boyfriend?

Idia: Ask someone who's more willing and wouldn't mind sharing a relationship with a bunch.

Levi: If you're referring to that dragon guy, no way. Nuh-uh. I don't like him.

Idia: Malleus? Why?

Levi: He's got a long lifespan.

Idia: ...

Idia: Wait.

MC: *has finished the necessary steps to become a noble and has gone straight to their third year's class*

MC: *didn't notice that they're still wearing their formal demon outfit*

The third-years: ...

MC: Do you have any questions before we start this class?

Trey: *raises his hand*

MC: Yes, Trey?

Trey: Um... Are you forgetting something?

MC: Hmm... No. I think I have everything here.

Trey: O-Oh... Haha... Okay.

MC: ...

MC: What are you all staring at? *raises an eyebrow*

Rook: *raises his hand*

MC: Yes, Rook?

Rook: Beauté, Trickster! Admirably sinful even!

MC: Huh?

Lilia: *who's giving Malleus a teasing look*

Malleus: *his cute, little expression while staring at them*

MC: Cater, why didn't you tell me that I looked weird earlier?

Cater: I was busy admiring your pact marks.

MC: You were staring at my leg?

Cater: And shoulders. 😩🙏

MC: ...

MC: Did I really look that good?

Cater: Yes, bestie~ We almost kneeled in front of you.

MC: ...

MC: You're exaggerating.

Cater: But it's truue~. *chuckles*

[sorceresssundries]

'Time can prove to be a trickster on one's recollections - what would be multiple lifetimes for others now separate me from my captivity... Perhaps I have lost perspective on what happened to me.

I... have not had true confidantes for some time. The Shadow Curse robbed me of almost all my peers, and replaced them with the weight of responsibility. Perhaps that caused me to gild undeserving memories of my youth. '

Discussion of mental health below the cut.

Halsin breaks my fucking heart, man.

He spent so long shouldering the weight of the curse that he neglected dealing with his own shadows.

Right before this, he mentioned being chained to a bed for three years as a prisoner, yet he has convinced himself it may not have been as bad as it seemed, thinking perhaps he was actually a 'guest.'

As someone with CPTSD, I'm convinced Halsin has some form of it as well. Trauma and (C)PTSD affect the areas of the brain where memories are formed and kept. When traumatic memories are recalled, the perception of them can be altered leading to self-blame or minimisation of the trauma's severity.

Halsin's struggles are often downplayed, especially by him. - He doesn't have a tadpole, he isn't trying to ascend, he isn't being tempted by a dark path, and he doesn't require you to convince him to be good. He plays the part of the healer well, despite still needing healing himself.

Time can be a fixer, but it is also a trickster—and the more of it that passes, the trickier memories associated with trauma become to unpick. Centuries have passed for him.

I'm happy with the outcome of the game for Halsin, that he gets to relax, settle, and find his place alongside nature in the land he helped to free—but I almost wish there was more to explore with him. He deserves the world.

Sorry, i'm not sure what the point of this was I just have a lot of feelings about Halsin.

[anachronistic-falsehood]

wow guys it’s muse from new haven wards!!!!!

throws up blood hey guys i picked out a muse inspired costume for halloween

[respectthepetty]

Joke's (Sad) Face

This post is about Joke's face.

But it's not about his actual face.

It's about his Joker face.

While Joke was surrounded by Jack's blue at the hospital, I just couldn't stop thinking about how pretty War is.

Which is why it's so tragic that his character, Joke, spends so much time being sad.

He has been sad since the very beginning and has remained in this state throughout the series.

Which is probably why he created the red Joker moniker.

A joker is a trickster. A joker is similar to a jester. A joker should be happy.

But Joke is anything but happy and his sadness began when he was child who couldn't cope with academic stress, so he began to use the sad face.

Then a kid he never met fixed his frown and turned it upside down. Jack made him smile.

And years later, at a bar late at night, that kid would make Joke smile again.

By simply sitting with him.

Joke was sad about his life, and Jack told him that it was okay.

Then he told him to smile.

Because like I believe, War Joke is so beautiful when he smiles.

Jack, with his blue (spray bottle), has been wiping Joke's sadness away for years, even without knowing it.

And as Joke returned to his childhood home to all the sticky notes marked with red sad faces, he believed he would never be as happy as he was with Jack again.

The time Joke spends with Jack is the happiest of his life because Jack makes Joke happy, which is why Joke got the smiley face tattoo.

Because Jack was a truly happy kid when they first met, and gave that happiness to Joke.

But things change.

Joke's other tattoo is of a dual smiling face and sad face, and when Joke approached Jack after five years, he said he wanted to bring back the old Jack. After that encounter, Jack asked his grandmother if he had changed to which she responded that he couldn't stay a kid forever.

Jack let Joke escape in the fashion event. Jack was blamed for the necklace being stolen, yet showed up to the hotel to help Joke. Jack put himself in the way during the fight to keep Joke safe. Jack always turns the worst situations around and has sacrificed parts of himself as a result.

So Jack is darker now. He is no longer blue. He is black. He can't be Joke's source of happiness when he is struggling to find the good in life himself, so while Joke is in the hospital surrounded by Jack's blue with family and friends, Jack sits alone wearing a red shirt with one tiny lamp to give him warmth.

Jack has his grandmother, who blends both his and Joke's colors, but she's all Jack has ever had, and now she cares for Joke just as much as she loves Jack.

And this is a point Aran made in the very beginning and Hope repeated this episode — Jack, just like Save, doesn't really much. He doesn't have options. Joke does. Jack had to do what he had to do to survive and keep his grandmother safe, but Joke gets to return home to a family and a room that has been kept spotless. Jack doesn't. Well, not if he doesn't fight for it.

And that's what hurts. Jack has to fight for everything. So even though Joke has done a lot for Jack, Jack has done just as much for Joke. He gave Joke a place to stay, food to eat, friends, family, and happiness when Joke had nothing to give and nowhere to go. Jack himself has nothing, yet still gave Joke everything he has had to fight for, including his limited happiness and even the last bits of his color.

So it's important that the episode showed Joke not only giving Jack his color, but also his happiness. Joke has finally turned his sad face into a happy face, on his own.

Joke is depressed, and for so long, because of that, he believed that he couldn't be a source of happiness. Yet on this journey, he has brought happiness to his friends, grandma, and countless people along the way, so here he is, not only giving his color to Toi Ting and Jack, but also his happiness.

Jack has never wanted to see Joke's sad face, which is why he gave Joke his happiness.

And now that Joke is realizing that he is happiness, hopefully Jack never will.

But they'll have to fight for it first.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Stolen Moments: A Fairy Tale

A spur-of-the-moment story for @inklings-challenge

The princess steps into the center of a whirling masquerade. She is resplendent in green as the Queen of May. A man slips through the crowd and stands before her, dressed all in brown as the Autumn King. He bows with a flourish, silently asking for a dance.

She stands like stone. “You should not be here,” she says.

“Can I not dance with my wife?”

He reaches for her hand. She pulls it away. “I have no husband.”

“In this place, no. Yet I remember otherwise,” he says. “And so do you.”

She turns on her heel and strides away. He follows, quick as ever. The dancers part around them like water. She scowls. He was always too clever for her, always too quick. Even a world of her making bends to accommodate him.

“Do you know what I’ve done to find you?” he asks. “The countries I’ve crossed? The mountains I’ve climbed? I’ve fought gryphons and giants. Searched for treasures lost since the invention of time. Flown to the moon and tunneled to the center of the earth.”

“I’m sure you enjoyed yourself immensely.”

“I bargained with the four winds, gave up my shadow, traded three days of my life just to have this moment with you.”

“I am sorry you wasted your time,” she says. “Do what you will, you cannot take me from here.”

“No,” he agrees. “You are trapped here by your own will, and only by your will can you escape.”

She chose this day well when she arranged her escape. The grandest ball the Mountain King ever held, the day of her sixteenth birthday. Long before she ever met that too-curious trickster who stole away her heart with cheap promises. Here there is music, beauty, bounty, every pleasure she can imagine. She will gladly live in this day forever if it means freedom from her ties to him.

“You think you can persuade me,” she sneers.

He laughs. “No one in the twelve worlds can do that.”

“You think you can steal me.”

Even behind his mask, she can see his gaze darken. She has offended him. “I will not steal a wife.”

“What do you call our wedding day?”

“You chose me.”

“Do you call it choosing, when you hid your true face behind so many lies?”

“You had your own secrets.”

“Do you blame me for hiding them?”

“No,” he says.

She stops. Of all the things she imagined him saying, this was not one of them.

“No,” he says again. “You were right to keep your secrets. I was wrong to seek them out.”

She turns to look at him. He removes his mask, revealing his deceptively young face. His eyes, once blue, have turned greenish-gray. His face has three jagged scars.

“You hid from me,” he said. “As I hid from you. I should have been patient--proved that you could trust me. Instead, I forced my way into your secrets and destroyed everything. I'm sorry.”

She is speechless. She expected excuses. Dazzling explanations.She had never expected contrition.

He reaches beneath his jacket and removes a small glass pendant. It shines the same bright blue his eyes had once been.

“This is yours,” he said.

Her heart. Taken from her in a childhood curse so long ago. Only her husband could put it in its proper place, if it remained unbroken during five years of marriage. Prince of thieves that he once had been, he had found it and broken it on the eve of their second anniversary.

“You repaired it,” she said.

“I replaced it. With mine.”

She has seen him in a million lies. This is not one of them.

“You may stay here if you wish,” he says. “I came only to atone. I do not expect you to forgive me.”

He places the pendant in her hand, bows, then turns away.

When he leaves, she knows she need never see him again.

“Wait,” she says. She removes her mask. “Don’t leave without your wife."

He stops. The other dancers disappear.She puts her hand in his and kisses him as she did on their wedding day.

He is alight with joy as she pulls away. "Does this mean--?"

“I forgive you,” she says.

He laughs aloud.

The heart he gave to her, she freely gives to him. The blue returns to his eyes as their hearts are restored, new and whole.

As the curse crumbles around them, they leave the ballroom behind.