#also if you notice errors

[crowtallyho]

[galindaelphaba]

RINACENTRAL — EVENT 1: FAVOURITES ↳ my top 3 rina episodes in every season

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 2 - Halloween Town

[hawkinasock]

artist's rendition of an interaction i had on pony town a while ago

[momentomori24]

Keiji is a character that I'm pretty sure every one of us can recognize is an absolute weirdo (ok maybe some are too hard on copium for the "weirdo" part) and sketchy as hell, but thinking about everything he's done it really feels like he's so much shady and ruthless than we give him credit for. So here's me bulletpointing some the moments that I haven't seen too many talk about, a little theory throwing his status into question and addressing the massive elephant in the room that almost everyone refuses to acknowledge. If there's something else you feel I missed or wanted to evaluate on, do leave it in the comments.

[Also, disclaimer: I will be discussing Keiji and Sara in a romantic light near the end of this post, so if that makes you uncomfortable please proceed with caution or skip entirely. This should go without saying but for my own sake I will say it anyway-- No, I do not condone their relationship in real life. No, this is not meant to be "shippy" or endorsement of any kind. This will simply be pointing out their dynamic as another example to prove the whole point of this rant. But if someone else does ship them that's totally fine. Fiction doesn't equal reality and if you harass a real person over fictional characters you will not see the light of heaven. Be civil, please and thank you. My block button is rated E for Everyone and if anyone decides to ignore the warnings and be an asshole I won't hesitate to use it. Thanks for listening. Disclaimer over.]

*Being a murderer.

I feel like I should start with the most obvious and undeniable. I don't think this is debatable to anyone here. Mr. Policeman may have been an accident and kinda confirmed by Midori to have been set up, but he still shot and killed an unarmed man in a moment of panic and recklessness. Even putting that aside, there's no denying that he killed Megumi in cold blood to get out of his debt to her and covered it up to the group to preserve his credibility. Regardless of what you think of Megumi, he has no excuse here. Not only is he one more kill away from being a serial killer, he's the only participant in our group that has actually killed people directly aside from Alice. Another reason why I bring this up is cuz something that completely flew over my head is this:

At the start of the game he had the audacity to complain about not having a partner or someone he knows with him like Sara does as if he didn't literally let Megumi get ripped apart by chains probably not even an hour ago Keiji what the hell--

*Throwing Kanna under the bus repeatedly.

Despite positioning himself as a protector and someone to rely on, he's far from above putting their youngest members in danger. Next to voting for the fourteen year old girl to die, he had the great idea of letting said fourteen year old be the one to babysit their biggest liability. Up to the point where they would stay in the same room both day and night. While I absolutely 100% trust that Sou would never EVER do anything to her, Keiji had no guarantee of that when he send her off. Hell, he literally just got done accusing Sou of setting Joe up to die (which I don't believe almost solely based on the fact that he said it, more on that another time maybe). He knew Sou was bad news, and openly acknowledges how adults can be terrifying, but he did it anyway. The dubiety of throwing the already traumatised little girl to keep watch on what they thought to be the most dangerous adult that had manipulated her once before is not lost on me, and that he didn't take any responsibility for her afterwards isn't lost on me either. To be fair, the Sou and Kanna thing doesn't just fall on him, it falls on everybody (Alice gets a pass because he actually swapped out with Kanna to watch Sou for her), but he was the one with the final say on the matter and who encouraged her to take the role despite Reko's rightful protests. The fact that he also voted for her to die in the Main Game, and is the only adult to do so, doesn’t help his case.

*Attempting to frame Sou knowing Reko was actually responsible.

While you could argue he was trying to cover for her since he knew why she did what she did, trying to pin this act on Sou to cast more doubt on his is extremely shitty. Never mind the blatant corruption and the irony of a supposed man of the law abusing his power to knowingly frame an innocent person (in this situation at least), and him sowing more seeds of confusion and resentment within an already rattled group, and giving Sou legitimate reason to be suspicious of him (and by extension Sara)-- this makes it so difficult to trust him after realising he's done this. Literally every time he accuses someone of being or doing something suspicious (mostly Sou), I always have to think in the back of my head if he’s telling the truth or just telling a blatant lie. He's shown that he's willing to not only lie to cover for himself, but to lie to delegitimize someone else. And Sara never caught onto it (Sou and maybe even Nao likely did tho). She never openly acknowledged it-- No one did. The complete lack of mention of what he did here makes this action quite missable. Hell, I didn't even catch it the first time. Has he done this before? Who else has he lied about? Who else would he lie about? Who else would he knowingly pit against the group? You don't have to wait for that answer, because I will provide an example later. And with "later", I mean now.

*Casting suspicion on Gin before the vote while hiding the fact that he killed Megumi.

While it's not as blatant as with Kanna, there are two instances where Keiji shows a readiness to either put or leave Gin in harm's way. The biggest one for me is in the Main Game. Like, how dare you. That is a furry child, sir. This kid’s like TWELVE. Even though he makes a valid point about calling out suspicious actions to clear them up so we can all trust each other, casting doubt on Gin of all people right there feels pretty screwed to me. This was before the preliminary vote. His words could’ve very well gotten Gin voted for if he couldn’t disclose why he did what he did for whatever reason and therefore being unable to clear himself from suspicion. It’s even more fucked when you realise that Keiji has literally murdered his partner and is currently planning to get Sou killed while giving this whole spiel about doubting others so that we can believe them and pointing the finger at a little kid to make an example to the group. But when Nao, Sou and Sara call him out on his suspicious actions that could rightfully damage his credibility, he tries to shut them down completely. My brother in Christ, you brought it on FIRST (don’t get me wrong I’m very much aware he didn’t really mean the whole “trusting each other” bit but come on dude)--

Speaking about not meaning what he says:

*Letting the group think he’s Ok to vote for knowing he’s the Keymaster.

This kinda got to me because I thought this was Keiji actually being… vulnerable? Accepting the consequences of his actions and allowing them to vote for him in their distrust without protest even tho it could cost him his life, maybe. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I can’t remember a lot of times-- or any times, really-- where Keiji has willing put himself into the line of fire, at this point at least. He always finds a way to keep himself safe, give himself insurance, and I thought that this would be the one time he doesn’t do that. But this feels so ominous looking back knowing that he was the Keymaster the whole time. That our distrust and betrayal and his resignation to it all didn’t matter because he was going to be safe no matter what. That he knowingly allowed us to assume that he was a safe vote because he didn’t want his plan to kill Sou to be ruined, which narrowed down choice of people we can safely vote for even further. That this action is ultimately the reason why Sou and Kanna were our only options to kill off in the end. If he had admitted it there, we could’ve found someone else to vote for so our final options could consist of three people, not two. But he didn’t, and the rest is history. There’s a lot of things he’s done I can’t get over. This one ranks pretty high. The second Main Game is already a huge sore spot for me for obvious reasons; knowing that a lot of the things that happened were due to his inaction where it truly mattered and activity in all the wrong places doesn’t make me fee any better. He didn't say he was a safe vote-- he didn't lie-- but his words carefully omit that voting for him means a total party death, something he should've stated then (and before this, really).

*Leaving Sara with the sacrifice card.

Despite making a big show about “always being by her side” and being her “reliable policeman”, he chose to look away when she was in real danger. He attached himself to her as her right hand man, made her shoulder the responsibility of being the leader, constantly manipulated and flattered her to win her trust and gain her favour-- but when she needed him the most, he basically left her for dead because it was the most beneficial to him. Keep in mind that not only did he know about her getting the sacrifice (he was also the sage so he'd have seen the trade happen), but he had the tokens to help her get rid of it. But those tokens weren’t for her life. They were for his. He used them instead to give himself the Keymaster as insurance for the Main Game (the Keymaster he stole from Sou/Kanna most likely to buy Sara’s trust btw). His desperation for survival outweighed his sense of obligation to keep her safe, and that’s the most subtle yet transparent he’s been about his selfishness. What makes this so much worse is that Keiji is our support character. He’s an ally, and our closest one at that, to the point where Sara burned her hands in a futile attempt to rescue him and signed her life away to save his. And yet his loyalty and protectiveness pale in comparison to other characters. Compare his actions to Sou’s: one of their many parallels and similarities is that both their girls get hit with the sacrifice card. As we’ve established, Keiji was fully aware of Sara being send the sacrifice by Sou, had 50 tokens ready to go and chose to secure his own survival than save her life. Kanna ended up doing it instead, attempting to trade the card off Sara with Sou realising what happened immediately. And what does Sou do? Completely bend over backwards trying to keep her alive. He lied about being the Sacrifice so the others wouldn’t suspect Kanna of having that role, meaning he could try gathering vote for her without anyone seeing his true intentions. He tried to stop her about coming out with the truth of what she had done so she doesn’t sentence herself to death. After everything he did to survive-- after how much he lied, how much he schemed, how much he hurt, and how he had thrown himself away to replace everything that made him Shin with the man that had traumatised him years before the game began to scrape together even the tiniest chance to survive-- he threw it all to the wind and was willing to let it all be in vain if it meant she got to make it out of the Main Game alive. The worst part is that Sou had never intended to make it through that Main Game. He confessed to already knowing that Kanna would choose Sara over him if she truly had the Sacrifice card. Yet he still did what he did all in the hopes that she could win. Because it was all about her survival first, not about them surviving together.

It also gives a different context to Sou's panic and him stumbling over his words trying to come up with any argument to get them to stop. At first I thought that Sou was afraid for his life. Which would make sense-- Keiji and Q-taro set him up to die and seemed pretty adamant on having everyone voting for him to get it all over with. But he was already prepared to die the minute he realised Kanna traded with Sara. So it means it wasn’t his life he was fearing for here-- it was hers. To him, if they voted for him there, it wouldn’t have just been his end but hers too. But we know that Kanna isn’t the one who has the sacrifice. It’s Nao, and considering how the Main Game can end either or both of them dead, I wonder if he regrets not having given up there, not letting Keiji get away with that shitty stunt he pulled knowing it would’ve at least guaranteed her safety than leave her fate in hands of a girl with enough reason to kill her. Ignoring the sounds of my heart shattering into pieces for the 100th time thinking about the Greenblings, it’s so fascinating that our biggest rival and most distrusted member has a greater sense of loyalty and responsibility for his ally than Keiji has for his own. Sou can be a liar and manipulative and selfish, but for how unpredictable he is something I can always trust is his love for those he holds dear (Kanna) and general desire to protect our most vulnerable (Gin). Sou loves Kanna, and so he’s fine with protecting her even if it comes at a price he never wanted to pay. Keiji surely cares about Sara, but unfortunately that is something I can’t say about him-- at least at that time (also the fact that Sou ended up taking more care and responsibility for Kanna despite Keiji having been the one to throw her on him in the first is so ironic).

*Continuously pushing Sara to take on the role of leader.

I think one of Keiji's biggest failures in the game come from his treatment of Sara despite positioning himself as her most reliable ally and her partner. From the very get-go, he was very adamant of making Sara be the one to shoulder the responsibility of the group. He, along with Joe (he didn't do anything wrong here), pushed Sara to be the Challenger during the Russian Roulette, despite Q-taro and Kai being readily available. He made Sara be the one to interrogate the suspicious convict while distancing himself from the situation. And he encourages her to lead them through the Main Game, lets her make the choices that steer them all forward and as a consequence take the fall for them as well. Rather than take on the role himself, or let another adult take it, he places his full trust in her and makes her shoulder everyone's weight so he doesn't have to. And he can see the effect it has on her: having horrific hallucinations due to the immense guilt she feels. But having Sara as their leader gives him a greater shot at survival and helps his credibility, so even though he tries to provide her comfort he still continues to keep her in that role. Again, the high schooler taking responsibility for the adults falls on a lot of the older people here, but Keiji was the one who kickstarted it rather than just go along with it like everyone else had. Gin, Nao, Kanna, Reko and even fucking Sou to an extent all have moments where they take the burden off her and relieve her of that pain she shoulders all the time (or at least try to). I need Keiji to take more responsibility for both the group and for her.

*Pitting Sara and Joe against each other.

This is just another example of the previous point. This isn't as bad, and I could give him the benefit of the doubt that this might have not been intentional, but it's something I want to bring up regardless. I'll be the first to say that Keiji wasn't wrong here. Prying into everyone's votes is a very bad move, especially since no one knew that Mishima would actually die (it was introduced as a practice round, after all). I agree with him, Joe was being rash, but instead of leaving the conversation there, he decided to throw Sara into it to pick a side. Which is... not good. He already won the argument and already had Reko on his side. Bringing in Sara could not only make Joe feel worse and potentially strain their relationship (especially if she rightfully chooses Keiji's side like he was expecting and hoping for), but just puts Sara in the spotlight during something she doesn't want to be part of. While there's a chance he might've done this because he know Joe is more likely to listen to her than him, he should've known better than that. It again makes her take the responsibility of giving the final verdict that would've otherwise gone to him.

*Asking Sara to take responsibility for his life

I've got nothing other that the grown adult swearing his life to the grieving, unstable teenager to take responsibility for while asking her if she'd die along with him is weird as heck. Keiji's said weirder things prior to this, but this one is a different weird. I think Beanieman's post mostly echoes my thoughts on this on, so I'll link it here for this point. This part kinda bothers me:

He shouldn't be encouraging her taking on anymore responsibility than she already is. He knows that the deaths that happened under her leadership haunt her. He knows that she's very much unstable enough already, to the point where he takes baby-steps to avoid triggering her trauma over Joe. He positioned himself as her reliable partner, her rock to lean on (quite literally sometimes). We see first hand how emotionally dependent she is on him. If he died, it would destroy her-- she'd destroy herself over it. He knows this (or should) but he still does it. His disappointment and dismissiveness when she understandably rejects him makes it worse. The guilt of potentially not living up to his expectations is not what she needs.

*Potentially working for Asunaro

This is more ambiguous than everything else here and more a theory than anything but it's been on my mind for a long time that Ranmaru might actually be onto something here. We know that Asunaro has a strong hold on the police. Midori was able to infiltrate the force, and they were able to get rid of Mr. Policeman for looking into the corruption going on, first having Megumi fire him and secondly getting Keiji to kill him by planting false info about the suspect having a gun. Megumi was also able to get Keiji off the hook for murder, which I believe Asunaro had a hand in too (I theorize this might've been her wish). There's also Alice, who was arrested and sent to prison despite the fact that he (legally) didn't kill anyone since Midori was a doll. The police are connected to Asunaro-- by extension Megumi and extending further potentially Keiji.

Something I've seen someone rightfully point out is that neither of the options you're given to say in response to the accusation... actually deny it? Both choices dance around answering directly, which is suspect as fuck. If Keiji truly wasn't with Asunaro, why not shut that theory down immediately? There's no benefit to answering anything but "no" when he's innocent, and he's lied straight to people's faces for less. So why not just debunk it? I think it's cuz there might be some truth to what Ranmaru was saying here. The biggest reason I think this is because despite the fact that Keiji quit the force, he and Megumi were still associating with each other years later. They were kidnapped together and partnered up for their first trial. One missable piece of dialogue is Keiji admitting that he was with his partner-- or rather a "coworker"-- before getting knocked out.

That slip of the tongue and backtracking makes me believe this part to be true. Him switching from "my partner" to "a coworker", which is a lot more distant and impersonal, makes me think it's got to be Megumi. However, I don't believe that Keiji would wanna keep in touch with her after what happened willingly, so I can only imagine that it's due to that debt he has to her. My little game theory here is that after the shooting, the debt he owed her was a forced recruitment into Asunaro. It's the only thing I can imagine he meant by "the worst kind of debt", a debt he'd literally let her die for to get out of. And if this is true, then it could also explain away his instant attachment to Sara, since he'd know beforehand that she's someone he can depend on due to her having the highest chance at survival. Maybe he already knew about her beforehand, one way or the other. We know Hayasaka did (which I think we as a fandom moved on from way too fast btw). Kai and Sou did too. There's always a chance. And unlike Sou's victory rate and Midori's favourite number, it's not zero. One person made a comic about this idea I recommend checking it out, it's tastefully unsettling. But still very much unsetling and uncomfortale. Be warned that it's also Keisara-centred, so if that makes you even more uncomfortable they did the job right you can ignore it. Proceed with caution or don't read if you don't like.

*Being a predator

I have been waiting so long for this one XD For context: a while ago I made a longpost discussing the sanitisation of soushin and this kind of toxic attitudes in fandoms regarding "problematic content" (ships, characters, shows, you name it). In it, I mentioned that it's not only soushin that receives this treatment but a certain other dynamic too. It's not a rainy day, however this has been way overdue and if I don't get this done now I never will.

Something I've seen a lot, and I mean a LOT-LOT is this notion that Keiji acts "like a father" to Sara and that their relationship is a completely platonic father-daughter bond and that he's the resident dad of the group? Like, it's cute, but that's not at all what their relationship is. At all. Not even a little bit. We called Sou and Kanna siblings before the Greenblings reveal. The difference is that not only does half the fandom think this man is gay, but he's only ever been protective and caring and loving without any romantic intentions towards Kanna ever. His title as her brother was deserved, based on the genuine affection and platonic protectiveness similar to that of Alice's. Keiji has made advances tho, on many occasions, and his flirting is repeatedly acknowledged by other characters. Namely Sou and Reko.

(Sou grills him for being a creep every chance he gets I love him XD) But yeah, these are not the type of reactions and comments you receive when being a "father-figure" to the teenager. You get all this when you hit on the teenager. Which he does all the time by calling her "cute" every time she asks something and his "cute little detective", swearing himself to her by saying that "he's always on her side" or something like that, asking her if she'd die alongside him, repeatedly claiming or insinuating that they're on a date, or ""having a moment"" and going to ""take the next step"" when in private (*cough* groomer *cough*)-- you name it, he likely said it. He's a walking-talking ladykiller machine and teenage girls aren't safe, apparently.

(Quick note: The dialogue for the Russian Roulette one is a tad different now. In the new translation he says "cause you're so darn cute" now. I dunno if that makes it sound any less weird, but I felt like putting that out there. What I'm also putting out there is that according to the trivia he calls her cute 8 times throughout the game so. Yeah. *Cough* groomer *COUGH COUGH*)

Like, who tf says this?? Especially that last part 💀 Even if you wanna die on the hill that these are supposed to be "jokes" not to be taken seriously, we should all be able to agree that the (ex)police officer in his late 20s jokingly hitting on the high schooler he follows around is still weirdo behaviour at best and down right despicable at worst. The fandom seeing lowkey predatory/inappropriate behaviour from a figure of authority persistent for almost three entire chapters and dismissing it as "fatherly" and "platonic" is, well, concerning. It's very concerning. If your dad acts like Keiji, you should probably call the police. Unfortunately for Sara, Keiji is the police. And considering this guy got away with manslaughter, I don't think said police would do anything anywho. But yeah-- he uses flattery and flirting to distract her from prodding to much at him while simultaneously aiming to gain favour in her eyes. He showers her with reassurance of his loyalty and affirmation of his deeper attachment towards her and her alone every chance he gets to cement his position as her closest and most trustworthy ally. He insinuates a romantic partnership between them to others to mostly keep her to himself or the two of them alone (he always does that when they're investigating or going to investigate by themselves). There's such an obvious romantic undertone to their relationship and his actions that it going almost completely ignored in the fandom feels weird to me.

I want to make clear that there's nothing wrong with headcanoning Keiji as a father figure to Sara. It's cute. Keiji didn't have a dad himself, and the closest thing to a father figure he had was the man he shot dead. He's a damaged and hardened guy. But Sara's dad is involved with Asunaro and Gin's is an alcoholic, and in a situation where they both need guidence and protection he tries his best to grow and change, fumbling to become that decent father none of them got to have. It's nice, and a wholesome dynamic for our "characters with memorandum counterparts and only non-determined deaths" trio. But that's obviously not what their dynamic is. There's a difference between headcanoning something and erasing canon and the Yttd fandom leans heavily into the latter. Keiji's a creep, he always has been, yet 90% of people I see always portray him as a Mr. Dad Guy or completely sanitise him to hell when him being creepy and unnerving to be around is what made him such a fascinating character. Just like I said with Soushin, the sanitisation to make canon more digestible is one thing: harassing or insulting the people that explore canon is another. I'm gonna take a bullet, derail this rant and say it-- Keisara shippers get so much shit for literally being right it's so infuriating. Keiji does hit on Sara, a lot. He's creepy and weird like that. Him flirting with her isn't a "mistranslation" or a joke or anything like that; his dubious wording and antics are very much intentional. Yet the only people I see actually addressing and acknowledging that without adding fluff is keisara shippers and other ""proshippers"" only for them to get fucking sniped for it I cannot 💀💀 I have yet to meet a single eastern fan who calls this cop "fatherly". This really feels like such a western issue cuz the majority of the japanese fandom agrees that this man's a predator (correct me if i'm wrong but keisara is the most popular ship in the japanese side of the fandom, right?). Then again, eastern fandoms are more chill over there when it comes to separating fiction and reality in general anywho.

*Yeah, I think I'm done with the Keiji slander. Yay. Time to unceremoniously end this.

There's more to say about that, but this is a Keiji post, not another shipping discourse post (although it's hard discussing Keiji's predatory behaviour without bringing it up too). Before I do spiral from the original point, I'm going to try and reach some sort of conclusion here. While I did spent the majority of this post just reading Keiji to filth, and am very salty towards him in particular, this was not just to rake him through mud for my own sanity (tho it's part of it XD). Keiji's character is that he started off as someone who wanted to do the right thing, someone who wanted to be good and moral and protect others by joining the force only to kill all the progress he made along with the person who inspired him to become an officer in the first place. It heavily contrasts the Keiji we have now, a sleazy, unreliable and corrupt ex detective who flirts with underage girls and is willing to resort to the most bankrupt of decisions to save himself. A man that has long lost hope of his wounds healing that he lets them fester and his rot spread onto others. And while I headcanon Keiji to just inherently be a piece of shit, his former self tried his best to be genuinely good before he became so convinced he can never be better that he made peace with his shittiness in the end.

With all this I wanted to highlight some the shadier and bankrupt things he's done that I haven't seen much discussion around and refresh myself on them before the final part. Both so no matter how emotionally dependent and therefore rose-tinted Sara is about the man I don't forget what he's actually like and what he's done while also being able to appreciate how much he's changed for the better. Some of my favourite examples about how he's changed are these:

Before the second Main Game Keiji was willing to let Sara and Kanna die because it was the most beneficial option for him, but in Chapter 3 he takes the on the role of "it" from Kanna and refuses to tag Sara when he thought he was gonna die after failing to beat Midori.

Actually showing more sympathy towards Sou after the Main Game. He was very mean about dismantling his pretence of a cold front to Kanna's death, don't get me wrong, but he showed a lot more consideration and understanding for Sou's feelings and acknowledgement about his active role in it than he ever had beforehand.

He was genuinely fighting for everyone to survive the game, not just himself. While Keiji would prefer everyone making it out safely, he has a tendency to guarantee his own survival first through any means necessary. His plan to corner Midori in the banquet could've cost him his life if it weren't for Q-taro's final stunt, yet he still reassured Sara to save Gin even tho it could've resulted in his execution from Meister potentially finding him guilty of violating the rules.

Him hugging Mai and trying to be more cheerful was cute as heck. I'm sorry but him showing more vulnerability around his allies and being less closed off in a way he hasn't been before is something I'm very head empty about. That he was hugging and interacting with Mai without making any unwanted advances or ladykiller jokes and generally just having a more friendly vibe was nice. It makes his creeping on Sara more unfortunate, but I'll take what I can for now. The bar is in hell.

And that's it, I think. Overall, I hope they do address some of his actions here in the final part or make them have an impact on his and Sara's relationship. Especially that Asunaro part. The person who wished for Sara to join the death game is still unknown and so is Keiji's consent form wish (same goes for the Dummies, Hinako and Megumi), so I'm curious if they're related or not. If he's going to go down an even darker path or redeem himself as much as he can we'll see when the final part drops. He has the potential to go both ways. This is going to be kinda awkward if the next part reveals him to have been a decent guy all along, so hopefully that doesn't happen. Please be morally bankrupt, man. This post didn't end up the way I wanted it to, nor bring up as many points as I would've liked, but I know I won't finish it if I went full perfectionist on it (I already spent months on this writer's block do be a bitch) and it's looking kinda long already. Hopefully it's still decent enough as is right now. I'd like to say that this is my apology for the last longpost I made, but I brought up one of the most controversial and hated ships and traits of Keiji's character and defended them, so maybe I shouldn't 🙃 Anywho, hope you enjoyed and cheerio.

[ancha-aus]

RealAgeAU Drabble - Found

After some thinking I decided to write this little thing :3

I was thinking between this drabble and one that was about Dream and decided to go for this one.

Mostly because the timing for later in the series is just so much FUNNIER if this one is done first. (you guys will understand later)

First Drabble and original prompt by @spotaus Prev Drabble Next Drabble

No beta and no edits. We jsut going.

*---------------------*

Killer sighs as he rubs the sweat of his skull. You would think it is cooler now than the summer but it hardly matters when you are physically active.

Ugh. He hates cleaning duty.

Still he looks around the area he is cleaning up and grins proudly. They had realised that the decliding cliff was facing the south meaning it had so many sun hours.

Horror had offered they could grow grapes using the cliff side and because those where plants that liked to climb up they could use the vertical area to create more space!

Also leaving the flat area for them to do soemthing else with. Killer had been thinking about trying to convince the others to agree to animals but he may need to plead a bit more for that idea.

Still he looks over at Cross nad Horror, both are setting up trellises along the side to help start to grow. All preparation work for their first season of course.

Tehy hadn't quite decided what they would make of the grapes, maybe even just sell the grapes themselves. But they will figure it out. Killer had offered the obvious wine but he hadn't been too excited about it himself. Seemed like a bad idea to make wine when you have a babybones running around.

Even so. Tehy aren't in a hurry. They first need to manage to grow some to begin with.

Killer stretches his limbs when he hears a strange sizzle. Killer blinks and looks back up the side of the cliff before looking at Cross and Horror confused. Both looking up themselves as they no doubt heard it as well.

They assend their, newly repaired, stairs and get to their normal area. It looks fine but Dust is also out and looking around wiht a frown on his face.

Killer gets to his side "Ngihtmare?"

Dust hums "in the nest. Sleeping with his bat." he looks around again and shoots Killer a look "sound?"

Killer shrugs, he has no idea. Cross shoots upright as he looks up "oh no..."

Killer looks up himself and feels himself freeze. becuase he knows those glitching effects. The sizzling gets louder and with the sound of ripping fabric the very universe opens up.

Moment later a figure they all know appears.

Error blinks as he looks around before spotting them. He huffs annoyed "hello abominations. I am looking for your boss." he looks around and frowns "Why are you in this dump?"

Killer freezes. Waht do they do?! Normally it was Nightmare who contacted Error about things he wanted or shifts or jobs or anything. Error coming to them?! Unusual! Also! How the fuck?!

Killer huffs as he crosses his arms "We are busy. How did you even find us here?" Did they leave traces? Did they mess up? Do they still need to move around again?!

Error looks smug as he jumps down from the roof and lands in front of them soundlessly "I obviously looked into the code of the multiverse, antivoid and void."

Killer feels a part of him relax. While most of them can in someway check a universe's code. Checking the code of the multiverse itself is a skill only Error can reliably do.

Error looks very annoyed as he crosses his arms "Do you ahve any idea how long it took me to find you? It is so annoying! Now. I got to talk business with nightmare. Where is that octopus?" he looks around.

Dust growls and glares at him "leave."

Error blinks and tilts his skull "Since when do you talk?"

Dust keeps glaring "Nightmare doesn't want to see you. Leave. You are not welcome."

Killer must admit Dust has guts but also Dust not the time!

Killer tries to nudge Dust further back but Dust refuses to move from his spot. Oh shit.

Error glares at Dust "You dare try and get in my way? The destroyer!?" he chackles as he raises a hand. Strings slowly appearing in the air "I will show you what happens if you do. Now. How about you-"

"Wait!"

Killer feels his skull freeze as he looks at the door. Oh no.

Error frowns and turns before looking confused at Nightmare. A large error sign in Error's sockets as he just stands there frozen. Nightmare doesn't say a word but just keeps looking at the other god.

Error blinks and slowly turns to Killer and points over his shoulder "you abominations made a tiny abomination?" Error looks utterly confused.

Killer almost wants to laugh at that notion but he just isn't sure what to say. What can he say to make Error leave them be? More importantly what can he say that would keep Error from telling everyone about what he saw here? Where could they even go if Error can just check the code of the multiverse to find them!?

Before Killer cna say anything else Nightmare takes a step closer. A very panicked sound leaves Cross before he just sprints by Error to stand between him and Nightmare. Keepign his arms spread in front of Nightmare as a living shield.

Error frowns at him and studies Nightmare.

Nightmare gulps before he has that same tiny grumpy stubborn look on his face that Killer just adores. Nightmare huffs as he crosses his arms "What? I thought you wanted to talk?"

Error stares and then he takes a step back "what the fuck?"

Killer mutters it before he cans top himself "language" look they all had just been trying to fix their own cursing a bit but it is habit for all of them.

Error dismisses him as he takes a step closer. Cross summons a weapon and growls at Error "Not a step closer. you can talk from a distance."

Error rubs his sockets. Stares at Nightmare. Rubs his sockets again. Stares at Nightmare again. Then he calls up the code screen for this universe. Looks at Nightmare again. the he looks at Killer and just mutters "What?"

Well would you look at that. Aparently even the destroyer hadn't seen everything in the multiverse.

Dust takes this chance to get to Ngihtmare as well and pick him up. he huffs "What is wrong? You are acting like you have never seen a child before."

Error stands there before waving at Nightmare "That is Ngihtmare! The Nightmare?!"

Horror just crosses his arms and raises a brow "so?"

Error blinks and the error messages around him get a bit worse before he waves at Ngihtmare again "So!? Since when is he a child?!"

Killer grins himself even if his soul pulses quickly. He makes a show of leaning against one of their new fenches "I mean. For a while now. Since his birth. Then again his age was frozen when he corrupted so..." he shrugs.

Error stares at him "No?! He wasn't a child?! He was... You know! Adult? dripping goop and tentacles?! Remind you of anything?!"

Killer raises a brow and shrgus "yeah. Turns out? Not an adult. Just a babybones with magical god apples making a corruption shield around him and temporarily giving him the body he needed to do his god thing." Killer figures it is fine to tell Error. Error will be able to find out anyway and honestly they don't need Error being mad at them for lying.

Error stares at him. Looks back at Ngihtmare. then looks back at Killer for a moment "you aren't shitting me? You are fucking serious?"

Killer sends him a look "dude. seriously. there is a six year old here. Try to not swear." he shrugs and walks over to join Cross and Dust, and Horror for that matter. Killer continues speaking as he walks "It is hardly needed to curse the whole time."

Nightmare shoots him a look and mutters "hypocrit."

Killer grins "you know my tiny boss!" he grins and pokes the tiny cheek. Nightmare looks away embarresed and flustered. mh... weird.. normally he doesn't mind the poking...

Error frowns as he looks to the side before looking at Nightmare "So what now? No goop?"

Ngihtmare glances at Error for a moment before nodding. It takes him a bit to find the right words. Nightmare still speaks softly but with how quiet it is his voice still seems loud "I... I am sitll a god... I think... Just not of balance anymore. I can't do stuff with that anymore..."

Error stares at them for a moment. looks around the area. Then looks down thinking. there is a small loading bar showing his thought process.

It hits full and he straightens "well... I am leaving." he turns to the side adn starts to mess with a coding window again.

Killer frowns "That is it?!"

Error pauses and shrgus "obviously? I was looking for Nightmare, you know, king of negativity and god of balance and all that sh-... stuff..." he glances at them before looking back at the window "Nightmare isn't that anymore. So I will have to figure something else out."

Cross looks anxious as he steps forwards "No one can know! If they know...." he rubs his hands "Just... please..."

Error pauses again and shrugs "Don't see the point in sharing. After all. He isn't the god of negativity. And when people ask about him they want to find the gooped up bas- guy who had all powerful magic and abilities... Why give them the location of a child and his group of babysitters?" and Error disappears through a portal.

A long silence.

They... are fine?

That... that was pretty much him saying he wouldn't tell anyone right?

Like... They are good?

Killer glances at the others and they all share slightly unsure looks. Nightmare however looks at where Error disappeared.

Nightmare just stares before getting a very tiny grin as he hides his face a bit and mutters "he is cool..."

Killer freezes. Nightmare's tiny blush. the embarresment. the way he tried to looks tough and controlled and cool... before when Ngihtamre always searched Error out. The fact Nightmare was always very willing and easy about helping Error even if it hardly helped his own goal.

No.

No absolutely not!

Killer turns to Nightmare and makes him look at him. Ngihtmare huffs and looks annoyed while Killer stares at him "No."

Dust shoots him a look "Killer what are you even saying-"

Killer continues as he stares at Nightmare "No. No crushing on Error. I don't care he is technically the only other god who was nice to you or was understanding about your work. You are not allowed to have a crush on him. He is dangerous and crazy and you can do so much better."

Ngihtamre has a lsightly panicked look on his face as he looks away and mutters "I don't... he is jsut..."

Cross blinks before laughing "Killer calm down. It is just a little crush. Kids have those all the time."

Killer shakes his skull "Nightmare will evnetually grow up again!" may take them ages or not. Hell they don't know how gods grow up but still! Killer isn't allowing it! No way! He looks back at Ngihtmare "You are too young and too tiny to even think about liking others like that so stop that. And even if you do start thinking like that WHEN you are an apropriate age! You aren't allowed to like him because he is crazy and you deserve so much better!"

Horror chuckles "what is the appropriate age?"

Killer's mind blanks before he answers "When he is thirty! Physically! AT LEAST!" and even then Killer isn't sure about it.

Cross snorts "you aren't even thirty... physically."

Killer huffs "And I am a bad example. We don't do what i do." he stares at Ngihtmare.

Nightmare just looks down embarresed before pushign his face back into Dust's shoulder.

Killer will accept that answer for now. But maybe he will need to look through the stuff they have. Clearly no romance novels or movies are allowed anymore. He will have to check it all. Honestly what are those people thinking?! Showing romance to such young minds!

Cross snorts and leans closer to Dust "Somehow I did not expect Killer to be the anti-date parent. Yet here we are."

Dust hums "same. expected it to be me."

Horror chuckles as he leads them back inside.

They still remain watchful and pack some emergancy bags. If they notice even the tiniest sign that their location is compromised they are leaving. They give Crop and update and ask him to watch out as well.

But..

Nothing happens.

Not even a peep.

Nothing.

days go by and they slowly start to relax and get into their own rhythm again. Cleaning and repairing stuff. Getting ready for the next spring and talking with some town folk.

Today is a day that Killer, Dust and Nightmare are just laying in their nest watching an old western movie on the repaired tv, thank you Dust.

It is nice and calm untill.

sizzling.

Killer shoots upright and a small portal opens up. only for a black skeleton hand to drop something through it before it closes again.

It had fallen right in Nightmare's lap and Ngihtmare blinks confused at the small hastly packed present.

Dust looks over his shoulder and a check later and it seems fine. Dust nudges Nightmare and Nightmare first opens the small card.

Killer leans close and reads wiht them.

It is just a card saying 'so he knows which side to aim towards when he grows up.'. Which, weird.

Nightmare blinks at it before opening the present and he lets out a tiny gasp.

Killer stares as he sees a small woolen doll octopus. It is bright purple with a tiny grumpy face on it.

Nightmare feels the plush carefully as he stares at it with pure awe. A tiny purr starts to leave their baby bones.

Killer is going to have to make plans in advance to make sure that WHEN Nightmare is a teen he doesn't try and hang out with Error. Killer will also have to figure out how to successfully threaten a god.

On his 'to do' list it goes.

*---------------------*

First Drabble Prev Drabble Next Drabble

Also Also

Error finds them

gang: *panic*

Error leaves again because whatever but leaves a little plush for Nightmare.

Gang: ... okay.

Nightmare hugging the plush: I did always think he was real cool... *slightly wishful stare*

Killer realises baby has a first crush: ... *PANIC TIMES FIVE* absolutely not!

[ittybittyremy]

imagine how dorian felt during that whole kerfuffle

Two days ago, his brother died and the Crown Keepers separated, all because of the Spider Queen.

A couple of hours ago, he and Orym reminisced about how Orym put a blade to his chest and told him not to put the crown on his head. Something that Dorian is clearly grateful for now. ("Otherwise, I wouldn't be here right now")

Now, he woke up to two of his friends fighting. Then, Laudna claims that the blade on Orym's back will corrupt him "just like it corrupted Otohan." He's still catching up on everything, but he knows that's the name of the person who killed Orym's husband and father. To put it simply, he just heard that Orym may become corrupt like his family's killer was because of a sword.

And here's the thing: He's seen a real cursed item before. He's felt the lure of one and has seen/experienced the consequences of holding onto one. His brother's death was one of those consequences 2 days ago! And now there's apparently another cursed item that's on his "very good friend's" back. The same "very good friend" who he just talked about the crown with. The same "very good friend" who put a blade to his chest so long ago.

Then later, it turns out that the item Laudna was so insistent on being cursed (to the point of injuring another party member [be it unintentional]) is actually not cursed.

Now he's listening to Laudna talk about how she wants to take the blade in energy while belittling Orym for taking it in hand. (Yes, I am aware that this is very simplified)

After all this, Dorian finally gives his opinion.

I think [Orym] should keep it. It's just a thing. I'm so tired of things having control over us. You two are friends. It was his to possess and you tried to steal it from him... It is just a thing. Its history doesn't shape us. Our actions do. [Laudna's] actions tell me that [she did] not have enough trust in [her] friends... What would it have mattered if [Otohon] cut him down with a handaxe or a stick from the street? It was not the thing that did the action. It was the person. It does not matter.

I believe that there are two routes to Dorian's mindset

Gilmore's Wisdom: When the Crown Keepers discuss the circlet with Gilmore, he says something very interesting. "The Spider Queen herself is dark, is evil, but the vestige is simply power, and it is whatever you make it into. Power simply is." (E1x03).

Orym's Threat: Orym confronted him when he saw that he could hold the circlet without issue. He put a sword to his chest and told him to put it down. Dorian did so, saying, "I care about you more than this" (E1x05).

Dorian's point is a combination of those two things. To put it simply, Dorian's point was that friends are more important than objects because objects are just things.

And before I see anyone else blabbering about how Dorian is a hypocrite because of how Cyrus died, Opal didn't kill him, and neither did the circlet itself. It was the Spider Queen that killed him.

During all this, he discovered that Orym, Fearne, Laudna, and Chetney had died due to the blade. He also discovered that Orym made a deal with Fearne's grandmother "to help [them] do the things that [they] have to do. Hopefully in the next episode, Dorian is able to fully process all that information

Side Note: In between those words, Dorian admits that he doesn't fully understand the situation ("You do not know what you speak." "I do not"). Apparently, this is a hot take, but I think that him being the outsider of the situation made him the most clear-headed of the group. He wasn't hurt by Ottahan like the rest of Bells Hells had been. So, he has the least biased view of the bunch (still biased but not as biased as the others).

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk!

[plulp]

JORDAN PLEASE DONT WEAR SO MANY CLOTHES. PPLEQASE

[cultivating-saplings]

In honour of 4/13x15 I'm posting (a very slightly edited version of) the paper I wrote on the Unofficial Homestuck Collection for one of my classes last term. The language/tone is a bit more academic than what I would usually put up on here, but it's exam season so... 

Don’t Turn Your Back on the Body:

The Resurrection of Homestuck After the Death of Flash

Digital media is, broadly speaking, very difficult to preserve. The rapid pace of technological development means that obsolescence and decay present a consistent threat to the availability of natively digital works. Most computers produced in 2023 no longer have built in CD drives, and I feel fairly confident in asserting that none are being produced with floppy disk readers outside of hobbyist spaces. Issues with the accessibility of physically stored digital media can be mitigated (at least for now) by the use of external readers, but the preservation of fully digital media, born and hosted in its entirety on the Internet, is a different beast entirely.

This is, in part, an issue of pure volume; no one organization could ever hope to archive the vast amounts of stuff that the Internet is constantly producing, let alone organize it into a resource that could be used effectively. Like Borges’ cartographers who created “a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire,” to fully archive the Internet would be to replicate it in its entirety. Thus scope becomes a central question of fully digital archiving. 

The Internet Archive, which also operates the Wayback Machine, answers that question with a resounding and all-encompassing ‘yes’ — their stated goal is to “provide Universal Access to All Knowledge,” but even this comes with caveats. The organization freely permits members of the public to upload files to the archive and save pages on the Wayback Machine, but the work carried out by its official volunteers is more curated, and prioritizes webpages which have been identified as particularly important.

The Internet Archive is very effective within its own space, yes, but it has its limits. When the piece of work you are trying to archive is composed of not just static text and images, but longform animations and complex browser-based games, where do you put it? What do you do when the software necessary to access these elements of the work has been taken offline? And what happens if the people who were supposed to safeguard it fail to do so?

These were the issues that the fans of Homestuck faced in 2020 as the impending deactivation of Flash loomed on the horizon.

But first, before I properly explain what the Unofficial Homestuck Collection really is and why it is so effective as a digital archive, let me tell you about Homestuck. 

Frustrated with the poorly implemented official preservation of the comic, and with a lot of free time on his hands, one fan began the Unofficial Homestuck Collection as a personal project during lockdown, during the “depths of 2020.” As the project changed hands and more fans became involved over the following years, its true scope came into focus: the Collection would preserve not only Homestuck itself, in its entirety and with its Flash-dependent pages intact, but also as much of its contextual material as possible, thus making it a prime example of the effectiveness of fan-driven digital archiving and preservation. Because the people who created the Collection are long standing fans of Homestuck, they know which pieces of peripheral material will provide the context the comic demands. The Collection preserves Homestuck as a text in a way that would be impossible in an analogue format, creating an archive both of the work and of the experience of reading it in a serialized format.

Andrew Hussie began* Homestuck on April 13th of 2009, and published it serially on mspaintadventures.com, his personal website at the time, until its conclusion on April 13th, 2016. Prior to beginning Homestuck, Hussie had been publishing short webcomics and pieces of fiction for several years on his older website, Team Special Olympics, since 2004, which had gained him a small but very loyal following. This following was centered mostly around the forum attached to the TSO website, which hosted the first of Hussie’s ‘MS Paint Adventures,’ Jailbreak, in September of 2006. Jailbreak was a short comic which Hussie produced as a collaborative writing game on these forums, in the style of early text adventures.

Beginning with the prompt, “You wake up locked in a deserted jail cell, completely alone. There is nothing at all in your cell, useful or otherwise,” Hussie then wrote the rest of the comic according to the first comment posted after every page. This, perhaps predictably, resulted in a barely coherent mess of a story.

Following the conclusion of Jailbreak after a short 134 pages, Hussie would produce two more comics prior to beginning Homestuck: the unfinished Bard Quest (June-July 2007) and Problem Sleuth (March 2008-April 2009), which was his longest work so far at the time of its conclusion. Problem Sleuth in particular represented a substantial increase in production quality and general coherency over Jailbreak, as Hussie gained experience using the MSPA forums as tools for collaborative storytelling, reigning in the meandering narrative by allowing himself to be more selective about which forum responses he followed.

Hussie would continue this more controlled style of forum collaboration throughout the first three Acts of Homestuck, which followed a much more focused story than any of his prior work, thanks to his decision to use reader input only in specific parts of the comic. In the introduction to the print edition of the first Act, Hussie described his own role during the production of these first Acts as “dungeon master, a game engine responding to input, and an improv comic all in one.” During the process of writing Act 4, Hussie stopped taking prompts from readers entirely, and would construct the rest of the comic ostensibly as its sole author.

‘Okay,’ you might now be thinking, ‘you’ve given me the context, but what the hell is Homestuck? And what’s it about?’ Well, to wildly oversimplify a very complex piece of media, Homestuck is a webcomic about four young online friends who play a video game that causes the end of their universe and grants them the power to create a new one as they see fit. It is a story about growing up and realizing you’ve been forever changed by your experiences, a story about leaving behind the life you knew and constructing a new one. It is also a story about time travel and paradoxes, genetics and cloning, a large number of aliens, a possibly larger number of puppets (at least one of which is sentient), and an unfortunate amount of clowns. 

This story slowly unfolds over the course of 8126 pages, 817,929 words, and 166 animated panels, 95 of which contained some degree of interactivity and all of which total over four hours in length. Most of the comic’s pages consist of a main image, usually a short looping gif, accompanied by a text description or dialogue, which is almost always written in the format and style of online chat-logs between characters. As mentioned previously, however, these simpler gif-and-description pages are interspersed with longer videos, animated in Flash and soundtracked by one of Hussie’s several collaborators.

The first of these animated panels was uploaded a few weeks into Homestuck’s publication — an animated opening title-card for the comic, scored ominously with sounds of howling wind and windchimes. This first Flash panel was relatively simple, but the next would introduce a bespoke soundtrack (“Harlequin” by Mark Hadley), and the third would include simple interactivity. These soundtracked animations and interactive segments increased in scope and complexity over the course of the comic’s run; the final animated page in the comic, “[S] Collide,” comes in at nearly twenty minutes in length, and some of the larger interactive segments can take upwards of two hours to fully explore. 

While some of the later interactive pages were developed in an engine based on HTML5, most of Homestuck would be built using Adobe Flash, and would depend on the program for basic functionality. This would prove disastrous for the comic’s long term preservation. Flash was very popular, and had become ubiquitous by the early 2010s, but it had security issues which were easy to exploit, its range was fairly limited in terms of what kinds of animations it could produce, and, as its most fatal flaw, it couldn’t run on mobile. Thus with the expanding use of smartphones and tablets, Flash became less and less practical as a tool for web developers, and Adobe began slowly preparing to kill it. On December 31st, 2020, Adobe sent Flash off to the farm where it could frolic and play in the digital sunshine, leaving many online communities facing a crisis. How do you preserve a text when its foundations have crumbled?

With Homestuck using Flash in such an integral way, the issue of preservation was an important one. After the finale, Hussie would post some short post-credits stories to Snapchat from October 2016 to August 2017, as well as a longer epilogue in April 2019, before stepping away from any formal involvement with the comic in 2020. In 2018, Hussie had given the distribution rights for Homestuck to VIZ Media, which primarily handled the English-language publication of several manga series, and had left the rights to the IP and the freedom to produce new work to former collaborators. Thus it was VIZ who took on the task of officially preserving Homestuck against the death of Flash.

To say their efforts were unsatisfactory would, I think, be paying them too great a compliment. The complex and highly detailed Flash animations were replaced with embedded YouTube links to low-quality screen-captures of the originals. The hours-long walkaround games were not translated at all, replaced with ‘choose your own adventure’ style pages of text and links. The official version of Homestuck as it currently exists fails to capture a lot of what made the comic work, because it removes a lot of the gamified elements of the comic that are so integral to its storytelling.

There are many snapshots of the website from before the walkaround games were taken down on the Wayback Machine, but the Flash emulator that archive.org uses is very inconsistent, frequently becoming stuck on looping loading screens or failing to process assets correctly. While the dubious preservation of the long Flash animations is a real issue on its own, the lack of any attempt to replicate the format of these longform games represents the loss of something essential to the comic. Homestuck is, throughout the whole of its story, intertwined with the visual and cultural language of video games. The loss of the complex interactivity of these panels fundamentally changes how the reader is permitted to engage with them and, by extension, with Homestuck’s narrative as a whole. The official version of Homestuck that exists online is no longer complete. 

This incredibly poor preservation was the impetus behind the creation of the Unofficial Homestuck Collection. In its most basic form, the Collection is simply a preserved and restored version of Homestuck, intact and in high quality, accessible through a downloadable client, rather than online — reducing the Collection down to this basic description does it a disservice. The Unofficial Homestuck Collection includes not just Homestuck, but all of Hussie’s prior work: Jailbreak, Bard Quest, and Problem Sleuth are in there, but so are the full contents of his first website, Team Special Olympics, alongside archived versions of his now-deleted accounts on various social media platforms, and copies of threads from the MSPA forums that he would later reference in the main comic. The Collection also includes material that Hussie released alongside Homestuck, like the in-fiction blog of one of the main characters, various short comics written by guest authors, and a full episode of an in-universe childrens’ cartoon.

These peripheral materials are interesting and provide context for some of the more obscure references throughout Homestuck, but many of them were not produced until well into the comic’s run, and assume an audience that is caught up with the most recent update, making them dangerously full of spoilers for the unaware new reader. This issue is solved by the appropriately named ‘new reader mode.’ One of a variety of useful accessibility tools included in the Collection, the new reader mode tracks which page a user has reached, and implements a universal spoiler cloak over the whole program, hiding all materials that were released after their most recent page’s publication. This tool is what transforms the Unofficial Homestuck Collection from an archive of a text, into an archive of an experience.

De Kosnik argues that fan-driven archiving serves as a way for fans to mediate their own temporal experience of a text, describing websites hosting fanworks as mechanisms which “maintain the possibility of individuals joining fandoms… long after a media text has ceased to air.” While De Kosnik’s focus is on archives of fanworks and their function in ongoing fan spaces, I would argue that this framework, which centers the impact of serialization on the dynamics of fan communities, fits extremely well when applied to the Unofficial Homestuck Collection. Homestuck was published serially over the course of seven years, accompanied by blog posts, side comics, music, and other pieces of peripheral media that were released in tandem with the comic itself.

Updates were highly anticipated events, and fan communities were structured around them — one user on Tumblr found an unlisted part of the MSPA forums where Hussie posted new pages before they were published, and this “MSPA Prophet” became a fixture of the fandom for their ability to predict when the next update would come. The event that was an update (or upd8, after the typing style of a popular character) was a central aspect of the experience of reading Homestuck during its publication, and it is one that is very difficult to recover now that the comic exists as a static, completed work. The Unofficial Homestuck Collection, through its new reader mode, functions as a solution to that absence. It does more than safeguard the reader against unwanted spoilers: it temporarily transforms Homestuck back into an incomplete text. 

Homestuck makes use of the assumed preexisting knowledge of the reader, and their “intuitive familiarity” with various types of digital media and culture, especially ones which are inherently participatory. The story’s use of narrative motifs and referential easter-eggs allows Homestuck to function, in Hussie’s own words, as “both a story and a puzzle,” but that “There [are] a range of ways to interface with it[…] Failing to grasp everything shouldn’t preclude basic enjoyment, nor is it a symptom of failure by either the reader or the story.” In the most frequent example of repeated symbology in Homestuck, Hussie peppers the text with references to the number ‘413,’ simplified from April 13th, the day the comic began.

The story follows four friends who are all thirteen years old, many of the songs on the comic’s soundtrack are exactly four minutes and thirteen seconds long, and the timestamps on chat-logs show that characters frequently begin important conversations at precisely 4:13, to name just a few of the number’s appearances. The combination of puzzle and story in Homestuck extends beyond these kinds of motifs, however, and into the way Hussie employs referential humour.

Some of these references are fairly easy to catch; in Act 4, one of the main characters is gifted the Warhammer of Zillyhoo — a brightly coloured weapon which originally appeared in Problem Sleuth. Others, however, are much more obscure. The older brother of another main character runs a business creating bizarre, semi-ironic puppet pornography. Most of the audience read this as an absurdist joke about the internet’s love for offputting porn; the subset of fans who had been following Hussie for several years, or those who looked into Hussie’s early activity on the MSPA forums, however, would find themselves with new understanding of a long-running joke. This element of the experience of reading Homestuck is something that the Unofficial Homestuck Collection not only preserves, but makes readily accessible to the comic’s readers in a way that would not have been possible during the comic’s publication.

On a purely theoretical basis, I would argue that the Unofficial Homestuck Collection is valuable not just in the context of contemporary fan activity, but as a potentially valuable resource for future research. Homestuck is a foundational piece of the current cultural landscape, its influences permeating both digital and analog media in subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways.

Undertale, titan of online culture that it is, was created by Toby Fox, who was the composer behind a large amount of the music in Homestuck and was, during the game’s production, living in Andrew Hussie’s basement. Tamsyn Muir, author of the Locked Tomb tetralogy, began her writing career as a prominent figure in the Homestuck fandom on Tumblr and Archive of Our Own. Although the reach of her original work has thoroughly outgrown her fandom roots, Muir includes sly references to Homestuck in several places in her books. Hell, one of the animators working on Bluey, a cartoon aimed at very young children, included references to Homestuck in the backgrounds of episodes they worked on, as easter-eggs for the benefit of parents in the know. All of this is to say that Homestuck has its hooks deep within the culture of the Internet, and its impacts will, I think, be felt for a long time yet.

The Unofficial Homestuck Collection is certainly not immune to digital decay or link rot, but it is resistant to them, since it is hosted on a large and well established website (GitHub), and, once downloaded, can be accessed without an internet connection, and shared freely. For the hypothetical future researcher, the Collection contains resources to mitigate the frustration of trying to hunt down pieces of contextual or peripheral material by packaging them with the text itself — it functions like a sourcebook. 

Bibliography

Bamboshu, and GiovanH. The Unofficial Homestuck Collection. 2020. https://bambosh.dev/unofficial-homestuck-collection/ 

De Kosnik, Abigail. Rogue Archives: Digital Cultural Memory and Media Fandom. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/10248.001.0001.

Glaser, Tim. “Homestuck as a Game: A Webcomic between Playful Participation, Digital Technostalgia, and Irritating Inventory Systems.” In Comics and Videogames. Edited by Andreas Rauscher, Daniel Stein, and Jan-Noel Thon. 96–112. Routledge, 2021. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003035466-8.

Hussie, Andrew. Homestuck. MS Paint Adventures, 2009-2016. https://homestuck.com. 

Nakhaie, FS. “Reproduce and Adapt: Homestuck in Print and Digital (Re)Incarnations.” Convergence, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221141961.

Read MS Paint Adventures. “Statistics.” Last modified April 7, 2018. http://readmspa.org/stats/.

Veale, Kevin. “‘Friendship Isn’t an Emotion Fucknuts’: Manipulating Affective Materiality to Shape the Experience of Homestuck’s Story.” Convergence 25, no. 5-6 (2019): 1027–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856517714954. 

[the-star-and-the-smols]

Sean McCool

Chapter 1: A Big Day For The Irish

Word count: like 3600

Rating: Teen

Warnings: fearplay, injury

Arthur is startled awake by the most unusual of sounds in the night. Thunderous booms, the deafening sound of shuffling against grass and dirt, the horses crying. His first thought is a strong storm, but opening his eyes to a starry morning sky peppered with small white clouds dismisses this possibility. As he forces himself awake, a number of awful scenarios run through his mind: bounty hunters, Pinkertons, O'Driscolls, common thieves. He draws his pistol as he blinks, scanning through the blur of his sleep.

"Who goes there?"

Not a word or sound save from the panic of the horses hitched on a nearby tree. However, something else immediately captures his interest. Something very large, taller than he is, and spanning an impressive distance, like a long wall. Different colors, too, as it goes along. Browns, a deep blue, a light patterned blue, some soft reds and greens, softly glowing in the moonlight.

"Arthur?"

From behind him, Hosea rises to his feet and comes to stand beside him.

"Hosea.... Do you know what the hell I'm lookin' at here? I can't make heads or tails o’ this thing right now."

"Might've been what spooked the horses.... I don't know. Give me a minute, will you?"

Hosea makes his way toward the wall, studying it with an intense curiosity. "Looks... strangely familiar, though I can't put my finger on why."

"All I see is a wall. ‘Course, that don't make much sense. Got an interestin’ shape to it, that's for sure."

Hosea backs up cautiously as the wall seems to move upward and downward with a sound that can only be described as a low, deep sigh.

"I don't think this is a wall, son," he croaks deeply, his gaze shifting back and forth between different ends of the so-called wall.

"Then what the hell do you think it is?"

"I-I think it's a giant!" Hosea wheezes.

"A giant?! Hosea, you must'a drank more than you thought you did. Giants ain't real, now I know you of all people got sense enough to know that," he barks at the older man with a confused look.

"Shh, not so loud," he whispers, "You'll wake it. And-and it don't make a lick of sense to me either, but-but look." He points shakily to a light-colored, oddly shaped section of the wall that seems to jut out from a strange tunnel of cloth. "That's a hand."

Arthur's brow furrows curiously as he takes a few steps toward the appendage, holstering his gun but keeping his hand on it.

"Don't touch it, Arthur."

Arthur nods as he continues to inspect the thing, looking down at his hand then back up again at the towering object, curled up and still taller than himself. Up, down, up, down again. He stumbles back, his mouth becoming an entry point for any flying insect that dares to become breakfast.

"What. The. Hell?!"

"See, I told you. What else could it be?"

"I see yer point," Arthur surrenders, continuing to back away until he's behind Hosea. With the realization, the wall seems to morph into something a lot less wall-like and a lot more human-like. It rises and falls rhythmically with a low gust of air. Arthur watches as Hosea makes his way to the other end of the giant, the part with red and green.

"We need to wake Sean and get the hell outta here!!!!" Arthur scans the environment for any sign of his friend. "Hey, where is that little Irish weasel anyway? He was right-"

Arthur freezes in place, an icy chill running through his veins as his mind starts putting two and two together.

"There.... OH MY-"

"-I'm afraid we're looking at him," Hosea interjects, his voice wavering with emotion. "His head is up this way." He motions for Arthur to come closer.

Arthur doesn't believe it. He doesn't want to believe it; it all seems so absurd. He has to prove it for himself, as gut-wrenching as that may be, if only to convince himself he hasn't gone completely nuts, or had too much to drink, so he walks toward Hosea's position, his light step on the dirt feeling like a trudge through mud. He approaches the patch of soft orangey reds that starts to make a lot more sense, running the strands through his fingers like long, thin cables. He recognizes Sean's ear, what must easily be the height of his own body. Maybe even more.

"Goddamn..." He mutters in utter disbelief. Blue eyes widen, his chest tightening uncomfortably.

Just then, a deep, loud, Sean-like grumble is heard and felt in the ground. The curtain of hair begins to shift, moving toward the two at an alarming pace.

"We gotta MOVE!" Arthur bleats, turning tail toward the woods. Hosea follows him as quickly as he can, soon falling into a coughing fit and forced to stop in his tracks. Arthur sees this, but before he has the chance to run and assist him, his father figure is halfway pinned underneath Sean's massive cheek, his legs almost completely buried. The giant grumbles in his sleep as he settles on his side, completely unaware of the mess unfolding before him.

"Hosea!" Arthur runs to his aid. Sean's breath washes over his whole body in warm, damp gusts as his face is now turned toward the pair, yet it chills the surface of his skin. It's an eerie, disturbing feeling he tries his best to disregard; there are more pressing matters at the moment.

Shit, that’s still pretty hard to ignore.

"Well, at least he was considerate enough to spare my head and torso," Hosea croaks, trying to make light of the situation. He pulls at his legs with his hands to free them, but they only barely budge.

"You alright, Hosea?" Arthur kneels down next to him, searching his features for any trace of discomfort.

"Not too bad right now," he grunts in a pained voice, "but I need to get the pressure off these legs, quick. Give me a hand here."

"Mhm." Arthur pulls at one of Hosea's thighs with the weight of his arms and upper body. It budges a little, but still remains wedged under Sean's cheek.

"Shoot. No luck," Hosea mutters, eyes welling with tears.

"Lemme try somethin' else here." Arthur gets down in a seated position next to Hosea, pressing his boots against the cheek. He tugs the skin and fat of Sean's cheek upward with his boots, the friction with his stubble emitting a sound akin to a shave, then once again using the force of his upper body strength to pry Hosea's leg free. This time, the limb easily slides outward, giving Hosea a bit of relief.

"Great, now the other one."

Arthur moves to Hosea's other side, doing the same for his right leg. The prodding of Sean's cheek makes his nose and mouth twitch, drawing the pair's attention to it briefly before focusing back on the task at hand. "Alright, this one's in there pretty deep, so, try and pull with me, okay?"

Hosea nods as the two pull, heaving and grunting before finally freeing his foot of their friend's face, as well as his boot.

"You okay?" Arthur asks, inspecting the leg and foot for any sign of injury.

"Somewhat." He flexes the limb, wincing and groaning with pain. "I think it got pretty banged up. Still, I don't think it's broken."

"Sorry to hear. You don't look so good. Hopefully it ain't broken, at least. " Arthur sighs, taking in the sight of his gang brother's massive head. He chuckles at the sight, then turns back to the older man. "Good lord, he's enormous... Can't even imagine what kinda shit he'd get into when he wakes up. His ego was already big enough before." The thought gives Arthur a headache.

Hosea's eyes are still set on the giant's features in front of them, concerned. "Looks like we're about to find out."

Sean's eyelids peel open only very slightly, and he rubs his eyes with massive fingers. He grumbles, vibrating the ground underneath him in a pained voice.

"Oh, me head... Feels like… egh, shite…"

Sean's voice is startlingly loud and deep, and the two back away to give him some space, with Hosea forced to shuffle back on his rear due to his injured leg.

"Ugh..."

Sean sits up, casting the two in shadow. His hat remains on the ground, his eyes opening further.

"Where the hell am I?"

He scans the environment, the rays of the morning sun creeping over the trees and blinding him. Holding his hand in front of him, he turns his gaze downward to avoid the sun's glare, trying to make sense of the two little blobs he notices on the ground. He blinks.

"What's this now?"

He picks one of them up, Arthur, who is unpleasantly surprised by the fingers that effortlessly wrap around him almost painfully, pinning his arms to his sides and restricting his mobility. As he's whisked dozens of feet in the air in seconds, his stomach seems to want to linger on the ground for a few moments, and Sean certainly doesn't give it the opportunity to catch up. His surroundings are a blur until the movement slows and halts at his friend's face. He knows it's Sean, he's known him for years. The young redhead's always been like an annoying little brother to him, but that closeness and friendship was left at the ground below. As he’s enveloped in the massive hand of a familiar stranger, a frigid heat crawls over his skin, up his spine. He can hear nothing but the throb of his own heartbeat in his ears, his head thick.

Little brother? Not so little now.

Now, Arthur is constricted by an enormous hand, and his entire field of vision is filled with nothing but Sean. Green irises like serving plates pierce through Arthur's invisible armor, making him feel unusually vulnerable under his gaze. Here he was, at the complete mercy of a powerful fool. If it had been a total stranger, he manages to think, it would be less scary right now. He knows this behemoth, impulsive and reckless, and it leaves Arthur petrified, hardly able to breathe.

The brow furrows, eyes and pupils expanding, and as he speaks, Arthur can feel a gentle buzz through his fingers.

"..Arthur?!?"

Sean’s expression becomes warmer as he recognizes his friend, so teeny in his hand. Creases form around his eyes, a sign that he's smiling; there's just so much of Sean to take in that Arthur is really only able to focus on those massive jade irises, burning so intensely with curiosity it becomes impossible to tear his gaze away, no matter how desperately he wants to.

And Arthur knows better than most, there's a lot you can tell about what a feller is thinking through eyes and eyes alone. The sense of wonder and amusement in the younger man's gaze is palpable, and although familiar, is so much bigger and brighter than he’s ever witnessed. He can feel Sean's pulse through his fingers, and the grip finally loosens enough to not be uncomfortable, allowing for Arthur to move his arms finally. Not that that's much help, since he really only has Sean's thumb to grab onto.

"Wh- what the fuck? How-how'd ya get so- uh... little?!"

He stammers in disbelief.

Sean's breath rustles Arthur's hair as he speaks, the scent of whiskey and cigarettes. His rough voice is painfully loud and detailed in his ear, and slightly deeper than he's used to. Arthur can't help but chuckle awkwardly at the unusual situation; it's really the only response he can muster other than the scream lingering in his throat.

"I-I ain't little, Sean. Just.. take a look around ya!"

Arthur is momentarily relieved of the intensity of his gaze as Sean looks around, noticing the ends of his hair brushing against his blazer like an enormous broom. It's easier for Arthur to take everything in when he's not being stared down by a pair of humongous eyes. A breath of fresh air.

The Irishman looks upon the landscape surrounding him, noticing how he easily dwarfs the trees, even from his seated position.

"Jeeeeesus..."

He lets out a low, piercing whistle, then turns back to Arthur, a smug grin stretching out further than Arthur is tall.

"Y'know, Arthur Morgan, you aren't nearly as ugly from this point of view. Dare I say it, yer almost adorable."

"Oh, please-" Arthur can feel the wall of fingers constricting his limbs once more, and Sean becomes giddier than ever as he seems to get further away, moving Arthur back a bit to inspect him with better focus. The sensation is dizzying.

"I mean it! Yer like a tiny little doll in my hand. A grumpy one at that~!!! It's endearing! Y'know, I've always liked the idea of bein' bigger and stronger, but this is somethin' else! A right fantasy, this is!!! A dream!!! Am I dreamin'?!"

"SEAN!" A voice barks from below them.

Sean’s gaze turns downward toward Hosea, who sits with his legs stretched out on the grass.

"Put him down, son! Right now! You're hurting him!" Hosea commands.

He looks back at Arthur, who seems quite a bit more purple than usual at the moment. The younger man's features immediately soften with concern, and he loosens his grip on the outlaw as he lowers him to the ground, much more slowly than his startling ascent moments ago.

"O-of course, Mr. Matthews!"

A disoriented Arthur slides off of Sean's fingers and onto the ground, landing in a heap with a soft "oof."

"Sorry, English. Y'okay?"

Arthur lets out a muffled "yep" from his crumpled position before righting himself, sitting with his legs sprawled out like Hosea.

A small smile tugs at the corner of Sean's mouth from the affirmation. There is a moment of stunned silence between the three of them, the gangster-turned-giant running his fingers through the grass, his eyes glued to the two on the ground as he orients himself to this reality. His fingers suddenly brush up against a solid object, which he lifts up to eye level. A boot. Realizing Hosea's sock is exposed, he lowers the boot pinched between two fingers to Hosea, receiving a soft "thank you."

"No problem."

He yawns, rubbing his temple.

"Could surely use a cup of coffee right now, though. What a way to wake up."

"I don't think they make coffee cups that big," Arthur laughs. "I'm afraid you're outta luck."

"What the hell happened anyways?! Last thing I remember, I was celebratin', havin' a few drinks with the pair o' yous. Now this!"

"I don't know," Arthur replies. "Maybe it was that special shine you got all excited about. 'Course, moonshine can do a lot, but I ain't ever heard about it makin' men grow into giants.”

Hosea chimes in. "No, you got a point, Arthur. Don't make sense to me that it happened in the first place, strange as it is, but, as you said, so was that vendor."

Arthur groans. "I never shoulda bought that shit for him. Why couldn't I have just got him a new shirt, or a holster, or somethin' for Ennis-"

"-You serious, Morgan? My birthday, and you're giftin' a horse-"

"-or a muzzle, for that goddamn mouth of his!!"

"Well, as they say, never look a gift horse in the mouth! Hahahahaha!"

Sean retorts playfully.

"Shut up," Arthur growls. "This ain't no joke!"

"You just findin’ that out, Englishman?! This is bloody remarkable! Just look at me!"

He gestures to himself, his arm span the length of a baseball field, eyes wide beyond belief.

"I gotta test somethin' for meself here!"

The pair watch as Sean reaches for the trunk of a nearby cedar, the length of half his arm. He wraps a hand around it near the bottom, and twists it free almost effortlessly, shaking the dirt from the roots.

"HAHAHAHA! Look at this, boys! I'm the strongest man on Earth!"

He brags, his tone livelier than ever, booming and echoing in the mountains with a bassy tone. He lifts his arms above his head in a strongman pose, fist still clenched around the tree he so easily uprooted.

"Just wait 'til them girls see me! I'll be havin’ to fight ‘em off me-"

"Will you quit mouthin' for ten goddamn seconds and LISTEN?!" Arthur barks up at Sean, clenching his fists. When Sean lowers his arms, he continues. "We gotta get Hosea to a doctor."

Sean's smile fades.

"..Doctor? What for? You alright, Hosea?"

He leans in closer, inspecting the older man.

Hosea hums, pain apparent in his speech. "Not particularly. Leg got busted up pretty bad. But I'll make it."

"... How'd that happen?"

Arthur and Hosea exchange glances, unsure of how to respond.

"D-did I..?"

Sean points to his chest with tightening fingers.

Hosea purses his lips, sighing. "I'm afraid so, Sean."

The redhead shuffles back slightly, sending slight shockwaves through the earth below him.

"Shit, I-I-I'm sorry!"

"Accidents happen, Sean," Hosea assures him. "It's okay. It could have happened with anyone."

"Could it, really?" Arthur remarks skeptically.

Hosea pulls out a mortar and pestle from his bag, beginning to grind some herbs. "Let's just get ready. We've got a long journey ahead of us. Would you mind brewing us some coffee, Arthur?"

"Sure." Arthur takes the pot and grounds from his bag.

"Anything I can help with?"

Sean asks, his eyes darting between the two as he sets the tree down near the forest with a crash.

"Now you mention it," Hosea responds, "the horses seem awful spooked. Maybe now's a good time to get 'em used to ya. Wouldn't want 'em,” he grunts, “runnin' away soon as they got untethered."

"Will do. Though I don't suppose I'll be ridin' Ennis back to camp,"

he chuckles half-heartedly, getting down on his belly, the tremors in the earth from his movements making the horses whinny and cry.

"Shh, it's okay, now, it's only me."

He reaches his hand out toward the horses, uncertain.

"I won't hurt ya..."

No luck. The horses buck, trying to break free.

“Woah, easy there!”

He pulls his hand back slowly to avoid startling them further.

"Y'know, Sean, I've been thinking," Hosea adds, "Somehow it seems whatever you were wearing when you slept grew with you overnight-"

"Thank God for that," Arthur mutters, getting a scoop of coffee grounds.

"-So, what did you have in your bag? Edible, I mean?"

Sean looks to his satchel, still draped over his shoulder from the night before. He shuffles through it.

"Tin o' crackers, peaches, a carrot-"

"Perfect! Feed that to the horses!" Hosea yells out excitedly.

Sean grins, finally catching on.

"Ohoho, they're gonna love this one!"

He pulls out a fresh carrot, the height of a two-story building.

"Damn," Arthur remarks, "Sure don't see that every day." The two smaller men share a chuckle.

"Hey beauties, ya like carrots? Well I've got a real whopper for ya!"

Sean experimentally holds the carrot out, wiggling it slightly to entice the horses, which still buck and neigh at Sean's movements, but less so.

"C'mon, horses. Sean's got a real treat for ya!"

The first horse to seem interested is Ennis, who nudges his snout in Sean's direction hungrily.

"That's it! That's my boy!"

Sean pinches a small piece off the end of the carrot with his finger, very slowly reaching out toward Ennis, the bit of carrot pinched between his fingers. Ennis whinnies, and Sean shushes him, speaking in an almost whisper.

"It's okay! You know me!"

Ennis seems calmer, eager to bite the carrot. Sean opens his fingers, the chunk of enormous vegetable sitting on the tip of his middle digit. The horse approaches him warily, finally taking a bite.

"Yes, that's it! Good boy! Tasty, innit? Hehehe."

Seeing Ennis enjoying the carrot piques the other horses' interests, and they begin to point their snouts toward him.

Arthur pours Hosea’s coffee, handing it to him and receiving a quiet ‘thanks.’ The two watch Sean with a mixture of awe and disbelief.

"Hosea, what in the hell are we gonna do about this?" Arthur whispers, trying to maintain enough volume to be heard over Sean’s re-taming of the horses.

"I don't rightly know myself. I’ve seen a lot in my day, but this sure as shit beats all!"

“Well the way I see it, it looks like we got a mighty big problem on our hands.”

“The biggest yet.” Hosea empties the ground herbs into his coffee cup, swirling it around. “We’ll find a way to get him back to normal. Sean's a good kid, got a lotta heart. He just needs some direction, and discipline.”

“I ain't so sure discipline is gonna cut it now, Hosea. He could overpower all of us, easy! Hell, he don’t listen to me half the time at normal size; I can only imagine he'll laugh in my face now if I so much as disagree with him on how we should go about things.”

Hosea lets out a light chuckle. “Let's… hope not.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “He may be young and foolish, but he cares about this gang. And if he cares, he’ll listen.”

“Maybe. I just hope you're right. I guess we’ll just… take it as it comes.” Arthur shrugs.

“That’s seemed to work for us so far.” Hosea smiles a little as he watches the horses, now all happily eating chunks of carrot out of Sean’s palm.

[seaofthesoul]

🪷 The Lotus Flower in Mysterious Lotus Casebook 🪷

i. Growing Deep Roots

As noted by difeisheng, Li Xiangyi is an image more than he is a person. He’s the “symbol” and “beating heart” of the Sigu sect; “he embodies everything [the sect] stands for” and “has become one with every person he represents” in his role as a leader. As such, one might say he doesn’t exist as an individual who’s allowed the luxury of flawed, fluid humanity. Rather, he’s fixed into an object: a shield protecting those under his care, a mirror reflecting those he’s taken upon himself to be the champion for.  

While a heavy burden to carry, this identity as image is also shown to be brittle, hollow, like a hazy mirage which is more dazzling appearance than substance. Even Fang Duobing introduces Li Xiangyi to Li Lianhua by showing him a painting of his shifu — ink on a page, a person turned into a hero to be worshipped and idolated. 

Li Lianhua, over the ten years that pass after the Great Battle of the East Sea, works to plant and cultivate a new identity in the same way one might grow flowers. Li Lianhua forms deep roots and grows out of the mythical hero’s shell he’d been carrying as Li Xiangyi, thus developing an identity which is solid and grounding in contrast — an identity which involves “walk[ing] within a crowd instead of [soaring] above it.”

This shift from image to person is itself rooted in the lotus mantra (written by Buddhist Layman Pang during the Tang Dynasty) which Li Xiangyi first encounters after monk Wu Liao rescues him:

一念心清净 莲花处处开

The heart attains peace with a single thought; Lotus flowers bloom all around.

Although the exact timeline is left to interpretation, it’s implied that the lotus mantra operates as a catalyst of change for Li Xiangyi and that he changes his name to Li Lianhua after reading it. Now what is it about it that speaks to Li Xiangyi so deeply in that moment? As noted in 《 人間福報 》, the lotus mantra teaches us that a pure heart will result in an open and enlightened mind. One subtle, profound thought rife with compassion is enough for a person to glimpse Buddha in a flower, a leaf, a grain of sand or a speck of dust. In short, “if you can find peace within yourself, then you will find peace everywhere.” Perhaps Li Xiangyi, at his lowest point, finds solace in the prospect of stripping his life down to its very core and searching for purity, wisdom and peace within his troubled heart.    

By renaming himself 莲花/liánhuā lotus flower, Li Lianhua takes his destiny into his own hands; he empowers himself into reshaping his identity and laying down the foundations for the person he wants to become. Similarly to The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity which tells us that “names are the shortest spells in the world,” Li Lianhua’s new name functions as a spell which speaks a new him into existence. It’s a deliberate choice, a conscious attempt at breaking free from the suffocating shell Li Xiangyi was trapped in and become a person of his own choosing. 

The act of (re)naming notably also extends to Li Lianhua’s abode which he dubs 莲花楼 “Lotus Tower.” In addition to this significant choice of name, it’s interesting to note that Li Lianhua starts growing vegetables inside Lotus Tower when he’s left with nothing after his demise at the East Sea and is facing starvation. As such, his home is quite literally a site not only of self-sustenance and survival, but also of growth — a growth which requires hard work, patience and faith and nearly brings Li Lianhua to tears when his hopes are finally rewarded and the seeds he planted begin sprouting. The act of physically planting vegetables and learning to cook those vegetables speaks of a refreshing and grounding simplicity — of something disarmingly vulnerable and human after playing the role of a god-like figure. Li Lianhua has sweat on his brow and hope in his heart; he plants seeds, watches them grow and keeps himself alive by his own hands.

It seems it’s not only Li Lianhus’a home, but also his very person, which steadily grow into a lotus flower. Li Lianhua wears a variety of hairpins directly linked to the lotus, and the colour coding of his garments moves from the red he used to wear as Li Xiangyi to a lighter palette filled with greens and blues — colours which are more obviously linked to nature.

ii. Life Borrowed and Given Away

The lotus, both traditionally and within the drama itself, is closely connected to the theme of rebirth. On a literal level, the exotic lotus flowers of Cai Lian Manor grow directly from the corpses of the victims drowned in the pond, thus embodying life born from death. thawrecka writes in their story that Li Lianhua is “nothing but a lotus nurtured by a walking corpse, a body that doesn’t realise it should already be dead.” On a figurative level, the lotus grows in muddy water but blooms unsullied every morning, thus symbolising rising from a dark place and growing into something beautiful and colourful despite all the odds. The different stages of the lotus’ blooming can be taken to represent the beginning, middle and end of a spiritual path in Buddhism — a parallel to the theme of 趟/tāng taking a journey which underscores the drama in various ways.

Li Lianhua’s journey, more specifically, is that of a lotus being reborn. The soundtrack piece 《 一壶莲花醉 》 “A Pot of Lotus Wine” emphasises this connection in the following lines:

问一句莲花的悲喜 断一柄弃剑入青泥

I ask about the joys and sorrows of the lotus; A broken, abandoned sword is thrown into the mud.

Not only does Li Lianhua keep stressing at different points of the drama that Li Xiangyi is dead and all that is left behind is Li Lianhua; he even breaks his own sword Shaoshi at the end of the story, thereby physically reenacting a process of destruction—death—and rebirth. As Li Lianhua writes in his farewell letter: 

剑断人亡

My sword is broken, and I will be gone.

The significance of Li Lianhua’s action is further intensified here by the fact that the sword in the song is said to be thrown into 泥/ní mud, the site from which a lotus flower grows.

Considering that Shaoshi operates as a device embodying Li Lianhua’s character development throughout the drama, the fact that Li Lianhua decides to break it in the last episode should be taken as a key moment in which he chooses how his own narrative is going to end. Li Lianhua decides to kill for good the glorious image of Li Xiangyi which has become sullied with pain and regret in his heart, so that a simple, fragile peace can begin growing in its place like a lotus flower amidst the mud.

However, the tragedy of Li Lianhua’s narrative is that the rebirth he works to achieve for all these years is not his own to enjoy and never was intended to be. After the Great Battle of the East Sea, as Li Lianhua is reborn from Li Xiangyi and starts planting seeds all around him, he has already accepted that he’s nothing but a ghost, “wandering in the jianghu to close his loose ends and finally [...] vanish without a trace, not even a body left behind.” As mx-myth remarks, even the shift in his garment colours to an overwhelming amount of white as the story progresses makes it clear that he’s resigned to go and has “already started dressing for his own funeral.” 

The lotus flower symbolism permeating the narrative accentuates this bone-deep, unshakable resignation. While imprisoned by Jiao Liqiao, Li Lianhua is full of an aching, bittersweet fatalism when he recites a section of Guan Hanqing’s《 窦娥冤 》“The Injustice to Dou E”:

花有重开日 人无再少年 不须长富贵 安乐是神仙

Flowers will blossom again, But a man can never be young again. Seek not eternal wealth; You only need to be content.

Independently from the original meaning of the lines written by Guan Hanqing, the words seem to take on a sad, wistful quality when spoken with a bitter smile by Li Lianhua. In this scene, while the speaker reflects that rebirth occurs outside of themselves in flowers, they acknowledge that their own reality is one inevitably bound to end in old age and decay. Instead of looking forward to a bright future, the speaker doesn’t express any dreams nor ambitions and is only grateful that they’re alive this minute, this second, without any future prospects awaiting them. Perhaps a similar sentiment is reflected in the following lines from 《 一壶莲花醉 》 “A Pot of Lotus Wine”:

了了心事只 不负众生 而已

After settling my worries,  I just want to live up to all sentient beings.

Li Lianhua’s connection to the lotus flower, in fact, was always meant to be one of non-attachment. While Buddhism believes desire to be the root of all suffering, the lotus symbolises non-attachment due to being “rooted in mud (attachment and desire)” while “its flowers blossom on long stalks unsullied by the mud below.” This explains in part why the lotus is considered pure and noble. For Li Lianhua, this non-attachment takes on sorrowful connotations: it means that he stubbornly refuses to reap the seeds he sows and focuses his purest heart and will into ensuring those around him get to reap them instead. Non-attachment means allowing himself enough (a roof over his head, food on his plate) to survive, but rarely letting himself indulge in the precious luxuries of reciprocated love and care — of carefree joy and thirst for adventure.  

The ten years he lives after his first death at the East Sea are, for him, only borrowed time he didn’t deserve — borrowed time not dedicated to himself, but rather dedicated to others.

In many ways, Li Lianhua’s path effectively goes full-circle by the end of the narrative. When he and Di Feisheng reminisce about the moon they remember from ten years ago, they conclude that today’s moon isn’t any brighter than the one alive in their memory: rather, it remains constant, unchanged, as though the past ten years never existed as anything other than a short pause in the story, a coma, long enough for wrongs to be righted but not  for an already-dead person’s fate to be changed.

It’s interesting and particularly significant that the Styx flower (忘川花, from 忘川 “River of Forgetting” in the original Mandarin) is said throughout the drama to be the only thing capable of saving Li Lianhua’s life. In traditional Chinese culture, the Styx or River of Forgetting is part of the process of reincarnation; only by crossing it (and forgetting everything they’ve ever experienced and everyone they’ve ever loved) can a person finally reincarnate. For Li Lianhua, salvation through rebirth comes at a high cost — a price he’s evidently been ready to pay since the beginning, even if it means turning him into a ghost who must vanish from the story in order for those around him to grow and thrive further.

When Li Lianhua breaks his own sword to allow for rebirth, it’s not himself he’s saving. His sole purpose throughout his journey as Li Lianhua is to use whatever meagre strength he has left, whatever passion and drive are still alive in him, to save the world in any small ways that he can. He becomes a doctor who heals people; he looks for answers and solves mysteries to atone for the sins he thinks he has committed and rectify the mistakes he thinks he has made, so that those he has hurt can finally find peace and comfort.

The most powerful legacy Li Lianhua intends to leave behind by the end of the story has nothing to do with himself and everything to do with the people around him who he never truly admits he loves — the messy, imperfect world that’s caused him so much pain but that he nevertheless insists on saving with everything he has. 

Most strikingly, Li Lianhua chooses—whether consciously or not—to leave the life and future he’s renounced for himself to his companions Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng. The only traces he purposefully leaves behind live in them: in the Yangzhouman coursing through Fang Duobing’s body; the home, dog and recipe book he passes onto him; the worthy opponent he leaves for Di Feisheng to fight in his stead after he’s gone… 

Fang Duobing, by the end of the story, has grown into more than a disciple and a friend to Li Xiangyi/Li Lianhua: he himself has become the lotus flower bringing renewed life after Li Lianhua has left the narrative, thereby taking Li Lianhua’s legacy into a hopeful, vibrant future. As mx-myth mentions in their colour analysis, Fang Duobing notably wears bright pastel tones including a large amount of green/blue — a colour coding which emphasises Fang Duobing’s connection to spring and, by extension, new life and beginnings. “Life will always go on if there’s spring”; and so Fang Duobing’s youth, vitality and optimism can grow in the empty space left behind by Li Lianhua after he fades into the autumn of his life.

While Li Lianhua’s predominantly light colour palette might appear to align him with other characters in the drama who have left the past behind and are looking towards the future, Li Lianhua made peace long ago with the knowledge that he’s destined not to belong in that future. Just as the Lotus Sutra teaches us that “the inner determination of an individual has great transformative power” and “gives ultimate expression to the infinite potential and dignity inherent in each human life,” Li Lianhua focuses all his transformative efforts on creating a future which, despite having no place for him, will be fertile ground for the entire martial arts world to grow deep, healthy roots. In Li Lianhua’s own words:

幼芽生枝 新木长成 武林也一样 这未来如何 谁又能说得清楚呢

The young sprouts and the new trees grow. The martial arts world is the same. What does the future hold? Who can say clearly?

Should we say, then, that Li Lianhua’s story is one of sacrifice, self-renunciation and resignation — of drifting inevitably towards death as a flower carried by a stream? As he disappears on a boat and is asked where he’s going, Li Lianhua gives a response which echoes his first death at the East Sea in a way that feels entirely deliberate:

小舟从此逝， 江海寄余生

From now on I would vanish with my little boat; For the rest of my life on the sea I would float. 

How are we to understand a person being reborn simply so they can pass on that new life to others, and being convinced that their only true value lies in their death?

Perhaps, in spite of it all, we can find some small comfort in the knowledge that, no matter how sorrowful Li Lianhua’s fate, it’s at least one that he chooses — one that he has full control over, even poisoned and robbed of his life force as he is. As the lyrics of 《 一壶莲花醉 》 “A Pot of Lotus Wine” underline, “it’s just a matter of picking an ending that you like.” Perhaps that’s all that truly matters. 

wuxia-vanlifer makes an excellent point when asking: “What would be more tragic? That he never believed he was loved? Or that he did, but vanished anyway?” While I don’t have an answer to offer, there’s one thing I can say. Li Xiangyi, Li Lianhua — they live and die by love. They can’t conceive of themselves as anything other than a sacrificial tool because, for all that they pretend to be aloof and untethered, they actually love others—and the world—in a bone-deep, profound way they’ve never loved themselves. That love is not only the true driving force behind Li Lianhua’s character and the fate he chooses: it’s the beating heart of the entire drama.

“In this life, I have loved and I have been loved. That is enough.”

Shoutout to the following authors and bloggers whose brilliant words and ideas inspire me, as well as this gorgeous video 💖

ao3: @extraordinarilyextreme @thawrecka

tumblr: @difeisheng @extraordinarilyextreme @mx-myth @wuxia-vanlifer @xinyuehui

[divine0]

Just Monika.

[oofouchstovehot]

THE DRACULA AU

Geno makes the perfect Harker cause he already has the perfect lawyer personality.

Reaper makes a perfect Dracula because Social Skills? What's a social? What's a skill?

While Dust is getting his ass beat by creatures of the night, the rest of the Gang are living out the ultimate gay cowboy au

Oh no.... X Gaster.. he's old and crusty and dying.... how awful....

Maybe Fell getting turned into a vampire is a hidden blessing in a universe where he's forced to spend several months living with Fresh

Error in the asylum where he belongs

Who made Ink a doctor

Fell and Fresh have the normal white eyelights until they get vampirized as a way to change their appearance besides making the teeth sharper. Cross and Dust kept their eyes +scar, but only for the sake of helping them stand out

Geno has a lot of scarring after a serious, unnamed, completely made up illness he experienced in childhood. Particular in his mouth and on his chest, and they reopen if he's not careful. It also completely took out his right socket. Theoretically, he should be staying at home and not traveling 3 days to spend a month with a reclusive stranger in a castle, but Error is hospitalized and Fresh is a child, so he literally cannot let it stop him.

Originally I was straight ripping every story beat and scene from the original, but of course, that got boring quick so if I do take another shot at writing it, it'll definitely be at least a little different. I'm also not sure if I'll keep the Crell or switch em around a bit. For flavor. Cross has enough on his plate he doesn't need to get married.

[askdarkpinky]

[fizzlehead]

if i could see all my friends tonight

(an homage to riverdale's many friendships set to one of my favorite songs)

[snowangeldotmp3]

i wanted her to look at me;

(or the one where robin can't stop staring at nancy, who can't stop staring at steve and his stupid hair)

(or, a prequel to the rebel robin: surviving the upside down au)

It starts with five words that Robin’s surprised didn’t leave her own mouth. “You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.” Robin’s not sure she can survive the rest of the semester like this. Watching Nancy Wheeler, grinning and giggling and batting her lashes at the douchebag that is Steve Harrington.