#and we can argue back and forth forever on whether its ok for them to ignore moral criticism because it wasnt said nicely enough

[gibbearish]

i will say arguments online did get a lot easier once i started learning to just directly say when people are misinterpreting things, to the point i hesitate to even call most of them arguments anymore? like it's easy to get caught up in responding to the other person as if their interpretation of what you said was correct because you do still disagree with their conclusion based on that, but like once you point out that there was a misinterpretation involved it becomes a lot easier for people to then follow that to "maybe the fact you had to misinterpret me to make those arguments says something about them too"

[wrenhyperfixates]

A Kiss at Midnight

Pairing: Loki x reader Summary: At Tony’s New Year’s Party, you notice Loki is upset. He’s hesitant to tell you what’s wrong, but when he finally confesses, the coming year suddenly seems so much brighter. Warnings: mainly fluff with just a tiny bit of angst A/N: Happy New Year everyone! May it be filled with nothing but love and joy. Thank you all for supporting me. I’m looking forward to producing even more content in the coming year! Enjoy :)

Tag List: @lucywrites02 @frostedgiant @lunarmoon8 @twhiddlestonsstuff @lokistan @thelokiimaginechroniclesficrecs @gaitwae​ @whatafuckingdumbass​

Disclaimer: Gif not mine

Yet another party was raging on around you. There had been far too many this past year, in your opinion. At least this one wasn’t just because Tony was throwing it on a whim. No, tonight was New Year’s Eve. Even so, you would argue that the music was blasting just a little too loud, and everyone was shouting just a little too much. Maybe those were directly affecting each other, you thought with a small laugh.

You glanced over to where the God of Mischief, your best friend, was standing, looking rather glum. After having made the rounds, you were on your way to the corner he had sequestered himself in. If there was anyone who disliked these parties more than you, it was Loki. Too many people, too many glares, he would tell you. It made your heart break a little more every time. Despite your best efforts, you’d only found one reporter willing to write an article on Loki in a positive light, and they only ran a small, though considerably popular, blog. Everyone else just seemed to think it too much of a risk. All these depressing thoughts brought a frown to your face as you approached the god.

“Darling, is everything alright?” he questioned once you reached him. “Are you feeling ill? Or perhaps it is just this blasted party?”

“The second one, I suppose,” you chuckled. “I’m more worried about you, though. How are you doing?”

It still always took Loki aback for a second when you asked him something like that. He smiled at you and took your hand, running his thumb over your knuckles. It made your heart skip a few beats. Yes, he was your best friend, but you wished he was even more than that. But he needed this friendship, you knew, and you wouldn’t take that from him if the feelings weren’t reciprocated. And let’s face it, it was unfathomable that he did return them. After all, you were just you, and he was a literal god. You pushed the thought out of your mind as he replied.

“Oh, same issue as you, really. You know these parties are not really my speed,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “I must say, however, that they are far more bearable when you are by my side. Dare I say, even enjoyable.”

You giggled a little as that beautiful glint you loved returned to his eyes. “Then perhaps you’ll indulge me and join me for a dance?”

“I suppose I will,” he sighed in mock exasperation. “But only because you asked so nicely.”

Still holding your hand, he led you to the dance floor. Of course, as soon as you made it there, a slow song began to play. Just your luck, you thought, though you weren’t sure if it was good or bad. On the one hand, you were getting to dance with your crush. On the other, it was a painful reminder that was all this was; you weren’t actually dating the beautiful god.

You shyly smiled up at Loki, afraid you were about to make a fool of yourself. Knowing he was far more graceful than you, you let him take the lead. Your right hand stayed clasped in his left, as his other hand guided your left one to his shoulder before settling on your waist. He gently tugged you closer so that your chests were pressed together, your head naturally dropping to rest on his shoulder. It seemed to surprise him that you didn’t mind being so close, but once he got accustomed to the idea, he placed his head atop yours. It was a perfect moment, and you pushed all your anxious thoughts out of the way so you could just enjoy it.

“Thank you, Loki. For dancing with me, I mean,” you said as the music stopped, lifting your head but standing just as close. “That was amazing.”

“Thank you, too, darling. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I do not suppose you would want to stay and dance again?” he asked, uncertainty obvious in his voice.

Before you could answer, Peter came pushing through the crowd, calling your name over the constant noise. You gave Loki an apologetic look and pulled away to greet the boy as he reached you.

“The foosball table is finally open!” Peter exclaimed. “Mr. Bucky is just finishing his game with Mr. Rogers, and then it’s all ours. Oh, and hi Mr. Loki. Do you want to come too? You can play the winner.”

“That is alright, spiderling. I will skip, but thank you for the generous offer. You two have fun.”

“Ok. If you’re sure,” you said. You squeezed Loki’s hand one more time before leaving. “I’ll see you later, ok?”

He nodded his head and walked in the opposite direction Peter led you. You sighed, assuming that he went back to his corner. Was it bad you already missed being held against him? Probably, but you couldn’t help it. Maybe if you were lucky, he’d still be in the mood to dance again later. Even if it wasn’t another slow dance, maybe he would hold your hand as he spun you round the floor.

After three games of foosball with Peter, two of which you lost, you got a couple Shirley Temples: one for you and one for Loki. Unfortunately, he wasn’t where you expected him to be, and your eyes scoured the room to find him. It was like he had disappeared. Then you spotted the door to the roof and were struck with the gut feeling that you’d find him out there. Still holding the drinks, you pushed the door open with your back. Your eyes immediately landed on Loki, his arms leaning on the railing as he stared off to some unknown point in the distance.

“Hey,” you said, offering him a glass, which he accepted with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. You leaned back against the railing, too. “I was looking for you. What are you doing our here?”

“Just taking a break from the crowd, I guess,” he replied with an unconvincing shrug. “How did your game go?”

“I lost, but it was fun.”

“That is good.”

“Yeah.”

You lapsed into silence, some unspoken issue in the air between you. The last thing you wanted to do was pressure Loki into telling you what was going on, but you could see something was wrong. It upset you that he didn’t trust you enough to let you in, but even more than that, you were upset that he was going through anything in the first place. Instead, you decided to focus on something positive.

“Here’s to another year of friendship,” you said, raising your glass in a toast. “I look forward to it, Loki.”

“Yes. Another year of...friendship,” he echoed, halfheartedly lifting his drink, too, though you could tell he was doing his best to be more enthusiastic.

“Ok, that’s it. Tell me what’s up. You know you can trust me with anything, right?” you asked, laying a hand on his arm.

“Yes. After all, it is like you said; we are friends.” He practically spat the last word, and you involuntarily flinched away from him a little, feeling bad when a look of hurt danced across his features. “I am sorry, darling. I should not have lost my temper. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Maybe so, but something’s wrong. I know you didn’t mean it, but I also know that something is bothering you.”

“Oh, darling.” He set your drinks down on a nearby table and cupped your cheeks. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

“You were just yourself, Loki,” you replied, putting your hands on top of his. “That’s what you did.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he reopened them, his blue-green irises bore deep into your soul. “If I confess something to you now, do you promise to tell no one else?”

“Loki, of course. Your secret’s safe with me.”

His eyes searched yours for another minute before he backed away from you. Your hands dropped to your side as he paced a little. You already missed the contact. He was still obviously on the fence of whether or not he should tell you whatever was on his mind. You nervously rocked back and forth on your heels as you felt his own palpable anxiety in the click click click of his shoes on the floor. Suddenly, he stopped in front of you and stared at you for another moment more.

“I am in love with you,” he blurted out, visibly cringing at his lack of eloquence. He took a deep breath and tried again. “What I mean to say is, well, what I said. I am in love with you. And while I value your friendship more than anything else in this world, I have come to desire more.”

“What?” you gasped in utter disbelief. “Loki. I don’t believe this.”

“It is ok if you do not feel the same,” he said, taking a step back. “Nothing has to change if you do not want it to. But, please, I do not want to lose you completely.”

“No, Loki,” you hurried to fix the misunderstanding. You took a step forward so that the distance he’d put between you was gone. “I don’t believe it because I do feel the same. I just never imagined that you did.”

“You truly do?”

“With all my heart.”

At the same time, you both moved to close the gap between you, kissing each other with a passion too long hidden. As you stood there, two hearts becoming one, you could hear the people inside begin the countdown. You pulled away, eyes shining and lips red.

“I propose a new toast,” you began. “To our new relationship in a new year. To our love.”

“To our love,” he echoed again, much happier this time. “Forever and always.”

“Forever and always.”

As the countdown reached its end, you and Loki kissed again, sealing the promise you’d made. Here with Loki, you knew one thing for sure: This was going to be a good year.

[rahleeyah]

IMAGINE if you will. to go along with the below anon and your POV fics. And I mean this with the utmost respect for you and your ideas. YOU ARE AN INSPIRATION!

BUT BEWARE BESTIE. It ends in the middle because in my mind I don’t know where it would go from there. How would liv and Elliot interact in a professional setting but they are together and their personal lives? What would they talk about? This is new territory for them and I can imagine them being super private about their relationship in the workplace and not wanting to show too much.

Feel free to end it for me! Or rewrite as a whole fic. I can’t and could never capture the characters as well as you. LOL 🤣🥰

They hire someone else to replace Morales and this guy only knows the basics of what happened the year before with Wheatley. He knows the case, that Morales was the mole, and pretty much just what he had seen on the news. 

The squad doesn’t talk about the Wheatley case much and is focusing their attention on their new case. They’ve all been working crazy hours and this new guy knows bell and Stabler, being the leads, haven’t been home at a decent time in days. 

Bell has made comments here and there about her wife being upset at her, but knows it’s the job and this stage of the case doesn’t last forever- but they still don’t see eye to eye on it sometimes. The rest of the squad goes around talking about their lack of social life while laughing and discussing where they’re going to happy hour later-if they get out soon enough.

This guy has noticed though that usually, Stabler just smiles laughs and goes along with the squad but rarely offers any information himself. In fact, he doesn’t think he knows anything about Stabler’s life outside of the squad room.  Not that he hasn’t asked about what the deal is, but usually people tell him to mind his business or to get back to work. 

Until one night it’s just him, Sloot, and Washburn and he hears two kids arguing in the entryway about (enter problem here) and a woman telling them that they’ll figure it out when they get home.  he assumes that this woman is their mother. They all said share similar features and the younger one had even exclaimed that she was when arguing with her about why he didn’t get his way.

She’s leading them into the squad room while looking down at her phone and the older child is carrying a substantial amount of Chinese food. Sloot and Washburn are going over something on the computer and haven’t noticed this woman walk in with her kids so now guesses he has to deal with it.

What is this woman lost? Who comes in here with a couple kids? He had never seen her before and from what he was told this location was pretty secure. 

By now Washburn and Sloot have finished their conversation and he asks this woman if he can help her. It comes out just as exasperated as he feels and she is clearly shocked at the greeting she is getting. The two go back-and-forth, with this woman being understanding, for a little while before he notices that Washburn is behind him laughing. Even more annoyed now he turns around to snap at Washburn. But before he can, Washburn greets this woman and it’s clear that he knows her.

He greets her as Captain Benson and regret is immediately etched on his face. He will knows he will get shit for this later or worse if Stabler and Bell find out. Being disrespectful to a senior officer is a big no-no around here. How was he supposed to know this woman was a captain? Who was she and who are these kids?

It was just then that the younger one high-fives Sloot before turning to his mother and asking where his dad is. Sloot looks at the woman and responds to the child that he should be back soon. They were out following up on a lead and are expected back any minute. Shit. He knows Bell and Stabler are out but for once never made any connection. He can hear Washburn continue to laugh as the confusion is clearly written on his face. Washburn makes some comment about how he’s going to hear it from stabler when he returns. 

The older child has since put down the food they brought for everyone and unlocked his phone to scroll through various apps. Everyone’s head turns in the opposite direction towards the door when it slams open and their commanding officers walk through the door. It’s clear they’re both upset. But whether it’s from exhaustion or their lead not panning out, no one is certain.

...

ANON!!! 🙌🙌🙌🙌 FUCK me this is good lmao

Ok ok ok so new guy let's call him Taylor. Taylor's standing there, looking at this woman he doesn't know, this Captain he has just insulted, however inadvertantly, this Captain who turned up with her hands full of Chinese and her kids.

Bell and Stabler, they're grumbling together as they come walking up, not paying much attention to anything else, but then Bell catches sight of the woman, and she offers a tired little smile.

"Reinforcements?" She asks as they approach. She reaches out, shakes hands with the Captain.

"Dinner," the Captain says. "There's enough for everybody," she adds, and shoots Taylor a knowing look. He wonders if she can see that his face is hot from embarrassment.

"You're a saint," Stabler tells her, steps up to kiss her cheek. He reaches for her hand, too, gives it a little squeeze while he's at it.

Holy shit, Taylor thinks. The kid was asking about his dad and then here's Stabler, kissing the kid's mom. This woman, she's his wife, and those kids, they're Stabler's kids, he thinks, and shit, how did he not know? Not know that Stabler was married, not know that his wife's a Captain, not know about the kids? Yeah, Stabler never talked about his home life, but shit.

"Hardly," the Captain laughs. Bell is busy dishing out the food, and she and Washburn and Sloot are ignoring Stabler, and his woman, and the boys. Taylor knows he should, too, but he can't help but watch. He's a cop, it's his job to be curious.

"We brought you a toothbrush!" The little one pipes up, holds up a toothbrush still in its packaging, proud.

"And a clean shirt," the older one says, not looking up from his phone.

It's just so...nice. Since Taylor's been there, Stabler's been a hard ass with a smart mouth, quiet sometimes, cocky sometimes, but he's never been soft. Just now, though, with his family, he looks warm. At peace.

"We just wanted to see you," the woman tells him softly. Stabler reaches out, tussles the little boy's hair, but his eyes are locked on the kid's mom. On the wife he hasn't seen for two days, the woman he clearly wants, but can't have in the middle of the station, in the middle of a case.

"One more day, Liv," he says. "We're close."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," she tells him, and Taylor's thinking that's probably true. She's a cop, too. She knows what the life is.

"Stay," he says. "Eat with us."

And so they do; they all stand around the table together, Washburn and Sloot and Taylor and Bell and Stabler and his Captain and his sons. Noah and Eli, Taylor learns their names, sees how comfortable they are with the rest of the team, how kindly Bell treats them. How no one else seems to think this is weird. It doesn't last too long, tho.

"I'll walk you out," Stabler says, and herds his family from the room. Mom is holding Noah's hand, and Stabler has one hand at the small of her back and one hand on Eli's shoulder. Taylor wonders if he walked them out just to get a chance to kiss his woman in private. Probably so.

"Listen to me very carefully," Bell says to Taylor once the Stablers are out of sight. "You do not ask him about his family." Her voice is deadly serious. "That man's had a hard road, he doesn't need you getting all up in his business."

"Doesn't look too hard to me," Taylor says. "Beautiful wife who loves him, two nice kids, he's got a clean shirt and none of the rest of us do."

"You don't have any idea what you're talking about," Bell says, shaking her head. "I'm just telling you, leave that man alone. And don't let him hear you call her his wife. I don't wanna have to break in two new detectives after he beats your ass."

And that makes no sense at all, but Taylor isn't stupid enough to go against his CO, no matter how curious he is about all this. So he won't ask, and he won't use the word wife, but he's got questions, and he's gonna bide his time, and keep his eyes open.

Stabler comes back, and he's actually smiling. He's had a hard road, according to Bell, but even if that's true, he looks like he's found his feet. Good for him, Taylor thinks.

"All right kids, back to work!" Stabler calls cheerfully.

It's gonna be a long night.

[comicteaparty]

June 24th-June 30th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from June 24th, 2019 to June 30th, 2019.  The chat focused on Drugs & Wires by Mary Safro & Io Black.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Drugs & Wires by Mary Safro & Io Black~! (https://www.drugsandwires.fail/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PDT), so keep checking back for more! You have until June 30th to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. Who do you think made the Worm and for what reason? Why does it seem to mostly be affecting Stradania and not other places? Do you think Dan’s implant can ultimately be fixed, or is he stuck forever away from VR?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 4. What aspect of the world’s cyberpunk setting interests you the most and why? Alternatively, what aspect are you hoping to see explored a bit more in regards to how it affects the characters?

RebelVampire

1) Gonna be a bit depressing when I say the bridge scene where Dan almost threw himself off it. Which I'm gonna spoiler tag the rest of this just as a suicide trigger warning precaution. I was 100% right there in the moment with him during that scene. Like I understood why he'd arrived at that conclusion, and it didn't come off as patronizing as I feel a lot of similar suicide scenes often do in comics. This is a man who even I felt really had nothing to live for, as sad as that is to say. Not that I wanted Dan to die, of course, but I get absolutely why he would. And then when he's saved, I liked that he is angry about it. Cause that is a dark reality I feel too many comics shy away from. And just all that gritty realism really hit me in the heart. 2) I don't know who made the worm and I don't think it matters all that much. Rather, I think the reason is more important, and the reason I think is to either kill VR or draw attention to Dan's shitty country. Which I kind of want to believe the latter, that this is somehow politically motivated. Or even if its the former, the idea is to get ppl more politically involved. That being said, I do think it's someone in Stradania who made it. As for Dan's implant being fixed, I don't think so. I don't think he'll be let off the hook that easy, and that he will continue to have to face his awful world for what it is, garbage and all.

3) Dan because he is the delicious epitome of a flawed protagonist. He's not mean, but between his drug problems, his crappy attitude towards most people, and so forth, he's got some real issues to work through. But that's great, cause at least that makes the few steps forward he's taken more satisfying. Since he's not getting those steps easy. He has to basically crawl through metaphorical lava to gain even 2 cm. 4) I really like the world's integration of VR and cybernetics. Like it's not on the level it's just there, but there's businesses around it, slang around it, and so forth. It's presented as this super ingrained culture thing, and that is super hard to play off. And it's just really well-done to see all the ways that those aspects bleed into their lives, whether the invention was intended to do so in that way or not.

Historical Jesus

I'm about to catch up. gimmy some time

RebelVampire

itll be going for the rest of the week, so theres no rush.

snuffysam

1) My favorite scene is the basement wake. It's a cool way to introduce those side characters (especially Vlad), and we were shown how our protagonist is seen through other people's eyes.

Like, we as the readers get to see Dan's struggles first-hand, but seeing the way Dan's "friends" think of him as a mindless junkie is really eye-opening

Re-reading the wake chapter made me think of something regarding question (2). Rebel, you suggested that the worm may have been made to kill VR. Could the reverse be true instead? Vlad has this speech about how the victims of the worm are martyrs, and the rest of the cast groans... but maybe he's not so far off.(edited)

My favorite character is Lin. On the surface, she's a terrible, shady person, but she's got heart where it counts! (in a trunk with a bunch of other organs)

Though I also really like Dan, for the same reasons as Rebel. He starts off in such a terrible place, and watching him take baby steps towards improvement is... honestly, uplifting, even if he does sometimes take some big steps backward.(edited)

RebelVampire

QUESTION 5. What has been your favorite illustration in the comic so far? What specifically about it do you like?

QUESTION 6. Do you think Dan will manage to find Eve again? If so, how might that affect him? Further, what do you think Dan’s past history is in general with his family and others that might play a role in the story?

Historical Jesus

Is the person writing this comic Russian

RebelVampire

cant speak for Io, but while not from Russia, Mary does speak Russian

Historical Jesus

SHe might have had family immigrate from Russia. This story just feels very Russian in the sense that everyone is down on their luck

But yeah. This story is freaking great!

Cryo

Hey, Mary here! I'm a Russian from Latvia, Io's German but I usually consult him on any Russian bits we have in the comic : D thanks so much for reading, loved seeing all the replies so far!

Historical Jesus

It's you

@Cryo Do you have experience with information security or bug hunting?(edited)

I mean, you sound like you REALLY understand hacker culture(edited)

Historical Jesus

ok I finished

1: Favorite scene? Hard to tell honestly. I like them all for different reasons. It's the continuum of the story I appreciate. The fact I'm always wanting to see what happens next? 2: Who made the worm. I've noticed that people who were infected had illegal copies of software. From a cybersecurity perspective, worms only work when either (A) someone finds a vulnurability that has never before been seem or (B) people don't update their shit for whatever reason. Hence why most software schedules mandatory updates. This could just be the inevitable conclusion to using pirated or older software. 3: Favorite character: Dan. I can relate to him the most. I don't do party drugs, just psycodelics.

4: Favorite aspect of cyberpunk. Historical relevance. In our past, rulers were privileged to rule because humans believed they were "ordained by God" to rule. European philosophers then said that the right to rule belongs to those who become the height of natural selection/ The premise being that there is no god and that we are "free agents" with "free will." No one is entitled to anything unless they produce something of value. This made perfect sense when manual labor was relevant and everything had to be done by hand. This includes pen and paper math. Hence why pay is exclusively based on labor value. Enter the age of technology fucked this up. Capitalism today is STUPIDLY efficient. We WHOOPED natural selections ass. We also learned that humans can't simply "change their outlook at will." Humans are mortal and are not much different than machines. The have needs and all that pesky human stuff. Some people could argue that healthier people have more free will than others, but poverty is the inevitable conclusion to this "free will" "labor value" mindset. But people think principles are sacred and set in stone. So what we are seeing is devalued labor and everyone becoming more poor and the formation of corporate oligarchies and dependences. Cyberpunk was WAY ahead of it's time in seeing this. We need to revisit this genre because I sure as shit don't want to live under a global illuminati with hard line cultural segregation.(edited)

Cryo

No, no real hacking experience here, I'm a 3d modeller by trade. We do our research when we can but our readers are a lot more technically minded than we are :p

Historical Jesus

I love 3D modeling

Attila Polyák

I'll be totally honest your work didn't really catch me at first, but I kept reading. Aaaaand dang that was a good decision. This is genuinely well made. I'm only at the end of chapter 4 but that bridge scene was great. I'm pretty sure it'll be my favourite scene but I need to read the rest first.

Historical Jesus

I have one of two options in life. Make high detailed models to sell on Gumroad or make comics. Gumroad will require constant adaptation to new software, but I already have my comic story structure fgiured out

Cryo

@Attila Polyák thanks for giving us a chance! Hope you enjoy the rest ( though chapter 5 is a lot less dramatic in comparison!)

Historical Jesus

Do you have a resolution in mind or are you just making it as you go?

Cryo

Yeah, we know where we're taking the story, but how it gets there can vary. Lots of the scenes we wrote years ago have to be tweaked or redone entirely to work

Historical Jesus

If the "free will" capitalist have their way, then we can expect the future to look very similar. Lots of poor people using lots of old tech. All software and hardware is closed sourced and locked down.The division between rich and poor will be larger than ever. Many of the zero days will be state sponsored much like they are now and they can use this to legally infect people and categorize them and use their own information against them if they ever become a threat to the state or the rich tech oligarchy

When I read this I got sense of creepy forcasting

More kids are playing with the Linux Kernal than smoking cigarettes so we might be ok

Historical Jesus

5: Favorite illustration? Anything that involved gif animations. That's not to say it should be overused but it was used at the right time

6a: Will Dan find Eve again? Probably. Since Cryo has a conceptual end in mind, I imagine she serves a key purpose in the plot. If they don't then it's likely that their actions will effect each other in some way.(edited)

6b: What is Dan's history with his parents? Let's look at who Dan is now. He's a poor drug addict who has had a dead end job. Yet he is not an overly angry person. Just depressed. He hangs around computer poetry people and other drug people. As a person who has experience with drugs, I noticed three types of people who do the dangerous drugs. At least in the US. They are... -People who have had repressive or needlessly strict parents. Thus overdoing drugs becomes associated with freedom and eventually a point of rebellion. But you can do too many of them. -People who are poor and need to sell them because they are poor. Naturally many of them do the drugs themselves so they naturally become addicted. -People who's parents are drug users themselves. The people who teach are schools will tell you it's that "people are trying to be cool" and it has nothing to do with that. Truth be told, they are hiding something. There is also a lot of dark racial history behind enhancing substances and the law and that can influence people's decision to take them, but I don't want to get into that because I don't want to get booted from this server.(edited)

Historical Jesus

Actually, @Cryo, would you be willing to give us a brief personal biography? Also, if you are, then can you tell us about your parents, what they did for a living, and the income situation you had growing up.(edited)

Why am I asking this? I think we can come up with more interesting answers about the comic if we know YOU as a person and how that influences your writing. I was able to infer that this story sounded Russian as fuck. Since the setting was Russian, I figured you were either from there or had family there

We can give more interesting answers that can help you come up with more interesting writing

RebelVampire

@Historical Jesus Your questions are getting a little personal, and while I understand the logic behind them, keep in mind we're here to discuss the comic and not the creators' personal lives.

keii4ii

Yeah... I feel even if the creators are okay with discussing it, this stuff is best left to DM

Historical Jesus

I understand. I would like to give her the choice. If she chooses not to then I understand. Biologically speaking, I think art is meant to be personal.

keii4ii

(and of course, if they don't want to discuss it, no one should pressure them about it )

RebelVampire

yeah if @Cryo wants to answer that's fine. Just for the future please keep those sorts of questions to a minimum and watch the wording on them. Cause that statement did sound overly pressure filled.

Historical Jesus

of course

keii4ii

I don't think we should be getting further into this territory?

RebelVampire

Agreed. This isn't a really appropriate topic for #week_long_bookclub, @Historical Jesus and has little to do with the comic.

Historical Jesus

I understand. I'm trying to demonstrate the the relevance and the benefits of understanding the author as a person. And again, it's her choice to choose what she discloses.

RebelVampire

And again, I get the logic. But just not appropriate for this discussion.

Historical Jesus

fair enough. I just want it to be known

I rephrased the question so it's less assertive. I apologies, I suck with social skills. Hopefully by the time she reads it, then it will be more inviting for her.

RebelVampire

thats better wording for sure, thank you.

Historical Jesus

no problem

art was definitely designed to be personal. The reason why a lot of big budget art feels bland is because it's meant for everyone and they have to not get too deep into offending people. Because it has to make money. That requires the work of a true genius. D&W is specialized and it will attract a certain group of people. Mostly people who value anonymous culture like myself. Or so I imagine.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. Which characters do you enjoy seeing interact the most? What about their dynamic interests you?

QUESTION 8. Will Lin actually go through with her plan to get into politics? If so, do you believe she can actually make a difference? What obstacles do you think she might run into, and do you think Dan will be of any help to her?

Cryo

(i would appreciate not having to talk about my life and anyones political beliefs neither here nor in DMs, thanks for understanding)(edited)

Historical Jesus

Understood

Historical Jesus

7: Dan, primarily because he is relatable. He would interact the way I would. Not having money sucks.

Historical Jesus

8: Will in go into politics? Probably not. She strikes me as a neroatypycal character. I could be wrong though.

RebelVampire

@snuffysam If the worm was designed to improve VR, I really want to meet the person who decided that making ppl martyrs was the way to go. Cause that's some backwards thinking, imo at least XD

5) There's a lot of really great ones, but I'm kind of fond of the illustration of Dan puking up rainbows. It's this cool mix of gross, psychedelic, and not what I expected. It expressed a lot of mood somehow for something that's less grand than I usually pick. 6) I think Dan will find Eve again, if only cause from a technical perspective she was introduced super early on to not be important. However, I think meeting her again is just gonna make him feel bad about himself as he realizes how little his baby steps of improvement are. In regards to his family, just gonna be bold and say my theory: his dad is part of that political group that took control and really hates cyborgs and technology and all that. Thus they were probably not the most open-minded and rejected Dan in multiple ways both through emotional abuse and neglect.

7) I like seeing Dan and Troy right now. Everyone else in the comic is kind of...shitty towards Dan. Like i know Dan isn't the greatest person, but I would hate to be in the situation where I'm constantly being told I'm a junkie who won't amount to anything. Which I mean don't get me wrong, those are interesting interactions. But Troy? Troy is this new person whose only experience with Dan is kind of a nice if not high tension one. Troy comes with a fresh, no prior knowledge of Dan perspective, and I think that's really interesting and gonna be a good way to shed new light on Dan's more positive traits. 8) I think Lin will try to go through with it, but I think Lin is fighting a losing game. Short of stuffing the ballot, I don't think those she's trying to help will vote for her. Instead they'll just bitch and be complacent to the world around them. But on that same vain, Lin probably could just stuff the ballots to win. I umm...honeslty don't think Dan can help her in anyway. Dan is really busy helping himself to suck less at the moment. XD

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. What sorts of art or story details have you noticed in the way the comic is crafted that you think deserves attention?

QUESTION 10. What do you think Sandman and Fixer will find in regards to the Worm as the story continues, and what does the VR cafe Sandman has been hacking have to do with anything? How will Nate tie into this given he’s looking for Fixer?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 11. What do you think are this particular comic’s strengths? What do you think makes this comic unique? Please elaborate.

QUESTION 12. Overall, what role do you think Troy will have within the story? Additionally, how will she get out of her situation with having no ID, money, or much in the way of people she knows?

Historical Jesus

9: The art against the web design literally looks like something we would see at Def Con

10: I image he has a lead. After all his motivation is revenge

11: it’s strength is that it's good at making people empathize with characters even if you can't relate to them

12: I don't think Troy will get out of her situation. If she comes back to the states empty handed she will be fired. It might be in her best interest to get wrapped up in finding the worm programmer

Typically speaking large scale worms are state sponsored but it's not clear how far this thing actually spreads.

RebelVampire

9) My favorite details so far have been the small things in the background. Like the random graffiti on the walls, the cracks and dilapidation of the buildings, all the small do-dads in Lin's place. Like none of that needs to be there to create a complete background, but it adds so much character to the setting and each character. So I really appreciate the extra mile taken for that. 10) I think Sandman and Fixer are gonna find that some corporation or someone high up on some food chain made it on purpose. As for the VR cafe? Honestly, I think it's a red herring and Sandman is making an excuse to target them just cause he hates them. As for Nate, I think Nate is gonna join the investigation team but also kind of serve as a negotiator between Fixer and Dan. Cause I don't think those two will get along without help.

11) I think this comic's strengths are a) the setting both visually and story wise, as it's a really strong and vivid setting. then b) Dan. It is very, very hard to write a character like Dan. There are so many things he does that could immediately make him unlikeable, what between the drugs, self destruction, and general assholeness to some of the ppl around him. but yet he is likeable. you do want to see him succeed and not suffer. yet you also still can acknowledge hes unreliable. its a great dynamic that lesser writing could not pull off. 12) I think Troy is gonna be their viewport into the corporate world. Which I think will play a role since there is a themeing here about evil corporations. Plus, she at least knows some stuff better than they do, as she already showed off at the VR cafe. But getting out of it? Nope. Shes stuck and probably gonna make another panicked call to Dan at some point. And Dan will be an angel and help again.

snuffysam

I'm going to go out on a limb here. Not only will Lin go through with running for office, she'll win. And she won't even have to stuff the ballot that much. But... I'm not sure her fight will be over there. After all, there's more than just one corrupt person in the country. I agree with you on the investigation into the Worm, @RebelVampire . I think someone up the corporate ladder is responsible. With that said, I don't think Sandman is targeting the VR cafe for nothing. I think he's trying to draw more attention to their security flaws for... some reason. I guess to get more people involved in investigating? I doubt he foresaw Troy showing up and offering to upgrade the cafe's machines though, so I that probably isn't part of his plan. I think a major part of Dan's character arc going forward will be accepting that he doesn't need Eve. Like, accepting that he doesn't need her help to get better, and that he's the only one he needs to prove his progress to.

Dan's character writing is absolutely my favorite part of this comic. In a weaker comic, I would absolutely hate how a self-destructive character like Dan is portrayed. Like, often characters with addiction/other mental health problems in fiction come off as unlikeable, or too cartoonish, or too depressingly stagnant (at least, from what I've seen in other works of fiction). But Drugs & Wires strikes a great balance where character progression isn't always linear, and isn't always positive, but it's there, and that fluidity makes you want to root for him more each chapter.

Attila Polyák

Now that I finally read all of it... 1, The bridge scene at the end of chapter 4, that was really done. 2, Dan's implant... I'm pretty sure it can be fixed, but I have doubts if Dan will ever have the resources to have it fixed. As a matter of fact I feel like he'll never have the money or influence to have it fixed and the way it is he can't really replace it either, so... He's probably stuck without VR. 3, Lin! She's awesome! 4, Probably the grey market implant dealers, even though that's kinda bog standard cyberpunk stuff. :) 6, Yes, they will probably meet again. And yes, I do feel like we'll need to see more of Dan't past history especially about how he got involved in... well in everything that's his current life. 7, Nagy, as surreally odd, is a great addition to Dan. Like at times I thought his absurdity would actually help Dan. 8, Ofc she will, you don't forge that much "voter trust" for nothing. And Dan, tho probably seemingly unwillingly, will likely help her one way or another.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 13. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

QUESTION 14. Do you think Dan will ever be able to kick his drug habit, or will he continue to fall back into it forever? How will this affect his relationships? Further, how will his habits shape his future role in the story?

RebelVampire

13) I'm looking forward to getting more info about the worm. Cause right now I dont feel any more knowledgeable than I did at the start, and I'm itching to see Sandman, Fixer, or Dan to somehow get a bigger clue to what's going on. 14) I think both will apply. In that Dan will kick the habit eventually but will always be at risk because addiction is not really something you just completely cure. It's a battle he'll have for his entire life, even if he learns to manage it. As for for his relationships, I don't think it'll have much affect, tbh. Maybe things with Lin will improve, maybe Eve. But everyone else is kind of a jerk who already writes him off. Dan is in need of a fresh start somewhere far away.

Historical Jesus

13: Same here. I would like to know more about the worm. I hope that Cyro puts a cool technical characteristic into the worms behavior so that creates interesting and unique challenges for the characters 14: Statistically speaking most people do not kick their drug habit's. Especially not in the position he is in. Based on the story's cultural nature, I doubt the ending will be happy. But I am sure it will be interesting

Cryo

Thanks so much for picking and reading our comic this week! I've had a great time reading all the replies, especially since we don't hear from new readers often, and it's gonna come in handy when we get back into writing more stuff for the comic.

snuffysam

I had a great time reading it, Cryo!

Io.Black

Just wanted to add my own thanks to everybody who took the time to read and comment this past week. As a writer, it’s always incredibly valuable to get a sense of what people are taking away from your work, as well as where they think it’s headed.

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Drugs & Wires this week! Please also give a special thank you to Mary Safro & Io Black for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Drugs & Wires, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: https://www.drugsandwires.fail/

Drugs & Wires’ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/drugsandwires

Drugs & Wires’ Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/Cryodraws

Drugs & Wires’ Merch: https://www.hellovoid.online/

Safro’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/marysafroart

Io Black’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/b_iologic

[betweengenesisfrogs]

OFF-THE-CUFF HOMESTUCK THOUGHTS #4: ALL THAT WACKY GNOSTIC STUFF AND THE ENDING OF HOMESTUCK, OR: THE YOLOBRO PRINCIPLE

DISCLAIMER       FRAMEWORK

[CHECK THE TAG FOR MORE THOUGHTS]

All right! I’ve finally had a night free, I’m hyped up on friends and good feelings, and I’m ready to continue. Let’s make shit transpire. B)

So, one thing a lot of folks were talking about near the end of Homestuck’s run was Gnosticism. Gnostic themes and references (referances) were everywhere in Act 6 Homestuck. A lot of folks were predicting these themes would be heavily involved in the ending. Then, when Act 7 came out, I saw a lot of disappointment and confusion. The major Gnostic revelations they’d predicted hadn’t taken place! Had Hussie dropped Gnostic themes like they were hot and the pimp was in the crib?

I don’t think so. I think, far from being dropped, the Gnostic themes and ideas are KEY to Homestuck’s ending. They’re vital to understanding massive parts of it, and, for me, at least, one of the things that make it so enjoyable for me. The trick, though, is to understand what kind of Gnostic story we’re looking at. So let’s see if we can crack this cueball open.

This is going under a cut, because it’s going to be an essay in itself.

GNOSTICISM, OR: SOPHIA, YALDABAOTH, AND YOU

Okay, first off: what even is Gnosticism and what themes are we even talking about? Many of you may be familiar with this stuff already from the aforementioned posts, but I’m sure there’s plenty of you out there who aren’t, so let’s do a quick recap.

Gnosticism was an early breakaway movement in Christianity back when the new religion was first finding its feet, and in fact it still has some adherents today. This is pre-Bible, pre-general acceptance of Christianity stuff. Think 100s and 200s CE. It was generally a lot more focused on individual experience of the divine than the hierarchy of the developing Church—which, sadly, was probably the main reason it was outcompeted by the hierarchy. It just didn’t have as much unified social or political power. So we’re mostly forced to reconstruct it (like so many alt Christianities) from the texts of the people who were arguing against it.

But, as far as we can tell, its beliefs were and are pretty interesting compared to the Christianity most of us are more familiar with. Basically, the God of the Old Testament, the God of Judaism, was not the God to worship according to Gnostic Christianity. He’s actually the villain. (Which was a pretty huge divergence from Christianity’s Jewish roots, so you can see how that might not have sat too well with some folks.)

Among many different texts, there’s a common mythic story that goes something like this. We live in a realm which is fallen and contains evil, but the true reality is different. The true reality is a perfect realm of perfect goodness, created by the true (very abstract) Creator. This state is called the pleroma, Greek for “fullness.” The pleroma emanates forth perfect worlds with the help of beings called aeons, angel-like beings who exist in male-female pairs, each of which is called a syzygy.

The fall occurred when the pairs became unbalanced. One of these aeons, Sophia (“wisdom” in Greek), broke away from her partner, and went off to explore the void. While she remained perfect, she accidentally emanated a being that was not paired with anyone: a masculine, flawed being known as Yaldabaoth or the Demiurge. Some folks will tell you this means “half-creator,” but that’s a mistranslation. Demiurge in Greek really means, literally, “worker from/of the people,” but less literally it means something like “artist” or “craftsman.” Usually it’s a guy who makes pretty stuff like jewelry or decoration or something like that. (Can you tell I took Greek?)   This being created our world, our whole flawed material plane, believing himself to be the creator, and became the God of the Old Testament. The task of the Gnostic is to transcend Yaldabaoth through self-knowledge, or gnosis. By understanding oneself, one realizes one’s unity with Sophia, the true source of our divinity, and ultimately, with the pleroma and the true Creator.  

All in all, it’s a pretty cool concept, whether you believe in it or not. And already, if you weren’t familiar with Gnosticsm before, I imagine you’re spotting things from Homestuck.  Names like Yaldabaoth and Abraxas (a name used sometimes for the true Creator.) The aeons, who resemble Homestuck’s cherubs in their perfect pairing.  It’s pretty clear that Hussie was familiar with this story, at least enough to draw on it for some references and motifs. So why might he have wanted to bring Gnostic stuff into his story? What might he have wanted to convey?

Let’s find out.

CHERUBS CHERUBS CHERUBS

It all begins, of course, with the aeons. I mean cherubs. OK, so I make no secret of the fact that I love cherubs. God I love cherubs. I’m a sucker for the whole cherub loredump Aranea provides, even if it had to be lampshaded to hell and back as a loredump. I think the thing that makes cherubs so interesting to me is the place that they occupy in Homestuck’s enormous, builds-on-itself-Powers-of-Ten-style cosmos. They’re not just another alien race. They don’t operate on the ordinary scale we’re used to, like trolls and humans do (the microcosm of ordinary life), but they don’t operate on the gigantic universe-spawning scale, either (the macrocosm.) They’re in between, in the “mezzocosm,” to steal a phrase from Joseph Campbell.

Cherubs act on the scale of say, galaxies. They operate within universes, many cherubs existing within each individual Billious Slick. Destructive cherubs cause huge waves of death, wiping out solar system after solar system and species after species of poor innocent aliens and fantrolls along the way. But good cherubs are protectors, defending said species from their cousins’ rampages. While cherubs resemble individual aliens traveling through the void, they also operate like much larger beings, claiming huge swaths of territory as their own, either to defend or to destroy. When they mate, their large-scale nature becomes much more evident, as they transform into AU-long serpents that wrestle for dominance in perfect pairs.

Cherubs fit the idea of the aeons really nicely. Dualities up the wazoo, obviously. (I haven’t even mentioned their inherent bodysharing stuff, where they already have to wrestle for dominance within themselves.) And a cherub, after all, in Abrahamic myth, is another kind of angel. And by being part of the natural processes of universes, they echo the aeons in being a natural aspect of reality that—as we’ll see—gets subverted with disastrous results.

They also fit really well into Homestuck’s running theme of cosmology as biology. Universes are literally frogs, whose DNA has to be combined to create the next generation, and they reproduce with massive amounts of redundancy and failure, like real spawning animals who produce hundreds of eggs.  Doomed timelines are compared to capillaries, which all feed back into the central artery of the Alpha timeline (and maybe they’re literal capillaries within the universe-frog?) I gave your universe cancer, etc., etc. Cherubs, meanwhile, are compared to bacteria and cells: the destructive cherubs to viruses or germs, and the protective cherubs to white blood cells, defending the universe from disease.

Cherubs also make a really nice parallel with the events of the Game. (I’m pretty sure this insight came out of conversations between agenderarcee and zenosanalytic and other such awesome folks, so credit where credit is due.) In the Game, one party supports creation: Prospit, backed by Skaia, while the other doesn’t so much support destruction so much as oppose creation: the armies of Derse, backed possibly by the Horrorterrors. Creation vs Nullification. It’s hard to get a universe going; there’s too much inertia in the way. Meanwhile, Cherubs are an inversion—the wicked ones support Destruction, the good ones oppose it. Creation vs Nullification. Destruction vs Protection. It’s pretty cool, and maybe suggests that Skaia doesn’t just contain cherubs, but relies on them, too, working them into its system as aeons are part of the system of Gnosticism. I’m super stoked that cherubs seem to play a role in Hiveswap somehow, and curious what more we might learn about them when it finally comes out. They’re super cool.

All of which is to say: yeah, cherubs are definitely aeons, and they’re a pretty rad take on them, too.

So…what would happen if your cherubs got fucked up?

But you knew that would happen. The upfuckery was already here.

Enter *our* cherubs, Calliope and Caliborn.

THE MANCHILD DEMIURGE

Caliborn and Calliope are born into a weird code of life (set up ultimately by Caliborn, interestingly) that privileges their more down to earth side, rather than their cosmic side. Ordinary cherubs aren’t supposed to live in rooms and type on computers, but here they do. This is a problem, as I’ll explain later, but the obvious problems are that A) Caliborn and Calliope decide to play a game meant for other, less cosmic species B) Caliborn uses the game to kill his sister through artificial means rather than grappling for dominance the ordinary way and thus dooms himself to being a stunted immature tool forever C) As a solo player, he plays a very different game, with enormous and disastrous cosmic results. Namely, he becomes Lord English, an unstoppable being with incredible power over the timeline and the opportunity to devour world after world at a whim. Note that inflicting destruction is exactly what he would have done as an ordinary cherub…but here he’s able to do it on a much larger scale.

Caliborn/Lord English is pretty clearly modeled on the Gnostic Demiurge. Not only does he control a reality that our heroes are ultimately meant to escape, he also has some other familiar traits. He’s a self-described artist, obsessed with his creation, a terrible and insipid imitation of the story we know as Homestuck. A craft’s man, as he says. The irony being, of course, that the events of Homestuck are also his creation, but indirectly, as the much more powerful and manipulative English.

It’s easy to see LE’s entrance into a universe at the end of its life as an event. But in some ways it’s better to think of it as a kind of territory, marked for his possession. After all, from an outside perspective or from Skaia’s perspective, all universes are already here. Think of how the trolls are able to communicate with the universe they created at any point in its history. Think of how the Furthest Ring—the weird space-time outside of universes and sessions—is inconsistent and an event necessary to LE’s powers, the creation of the Green Sun, can take place within one of the universes marked by his predation. It’s Mobius Double Reacharounds all the way down, is what I’m saying. So really, from a perspective outside of time it’s less a chronological set of events and more a place, a set of universes that LE is able to inhabit.

Actually, I made a couple maps in past posts of what such a territory might look like. Tumblr frequently won’t let me fit images into a long post like this, but here’s two  links instead.

So, just like the Demiurge, LE has a whole realm to his own. A false realm, carved out within the reality of SBURB. LE is Homestuck’s Demiurge.

Wait a minute. Wasn’t the Demiurge’s name Yaldabaoth? Isn’t that the name of a Denizen? More specifically, Caliborn’s denizen? Huh?

Let’s back up a bit. LE’s progression through the universes isn’t a surprise to Skaia. We knew early on, actually, that his actions were “sanctioned by Paradox Space.” And really, how could it be otherwise? If all universes coexist simultaneously, even during the process of their creation, the forces that create reality would be well aware of divergences from their normal pattern.  The Game itself offers him his power!

Now, it’s hard to say how much of what goes on in Paradox Space is Skaia’s will. Skaia itself seems to want to make universes, but most of these efforts fail, and will definitely fail without player intervention. And it’s implied that there are forces acting against Creation. Maybe just inertia. Or maybe these are the Horrorterrors, who seem to advance their own agenda through Derse Dreamers. Maybe they’re just creatures that naturally inhabit the weird tangled space-time of the Furthest Ring. If so, it’s not surprising that they would be opposed to the creation of new universes in their midst. So whatever LE is, like everything else within Paradox Space, he’s hashed out between Creation and Nullification.

Denizens are weird and interesting in this regard. They’re the closest thing the Game has to intelligent cosmic entities that you could actually talk to. They’re like the public face of Skaia. They seem to communicate information to themselves through different realities, and they manipulate events to ensure certain results in the timeline. Their goals, though, are as inscrutable as Skaia’s and the Horrorterrors’ always are. They’re associated with the Game and therefore with Skaia. But they seem to me to be part of the ever-ongoing process of negotiation between Creation and Nullification.

So, when Caliborn finds himself in a dead session where his Denizen simultaneously promises to punish him for his hubris with a grueling challenge AND offers him incredible, godlike power if he succeeds, it probably indicates that these perspectives are once again at play. Skaia likes to figure out who will win its ongoing argument with the void through a Game. Why not offer a different Game as a way of resolving a different question?

I’m not sure if I borrowed this theory from someone, but one idea that I remember thinking about earlier in Homestuck’s run was that LE’s existence was the result of a failed coup by the Horrorterrors that totally backfired. If they really did represent the forces of Nullification, suppose they got tired (non-temporally speaking) of losing matches and seeing new frogs pop up in their precious space-time over and over again. Say they decided to switch from Nullification to outright Destruction, to make a weapon that destroys universes. But their weapon blew up in their face once it started attacking them right back.

Or, maybe let’s turn it around: say Skaia thought, hey, let’s get a leg up on these void-loving bastards for once, and make a weapon that, yeah, sure, fucks up a bunch of universes and some of our player’s lives (not that we really care), but also lets us really stick it to those tentacley motherfuckers for a change.

Both possibilities seem worth considering, depending on how much you think Skaia is willing to sacrifice.

So when Yaldabaoth offers LE the Choice and the chance to play the ultimate game of table stickball, he’s really doing a whole lot more: he’s offering the major parties involved in anything going on in Paradox Space the chance to score points in their own Game.

Denizens sometimes seem to me to represent different aspects of Skaia, or different aspects of this negotiation process. It’s even possible that they could be in competition. So what could a Denizen named Yaldabaoth represent?

The power to make and break certain players. The power to make a Demiurge.

Yaldabaoth is associated with power, and, interestingly, with the Light aspect through his shape. He can’t be easily classified as belonging to a particular aspect like some Denizens can, though, because he manifests to both Dirk and Caliborn. What do they have in common? An interest in power and a considerable amount of it, yes. But also toxic masculinity, arrogance, and an obsession with being the best.

If Skaia loves games, how does it feel about winners? Maybe Yaldabaoth represents the principle of the conqueror. The one who defies even the onslaught and punishment of the dead session. The one who’s good enough at games to become part of the game itself. Maybe Yaldabaoth is the part of Skaia that finds someone like Caliborn deserving of a certain honor. Or at least allows its opponents to make use of such a person. The part of Skaia that says, power comes to the one who overcomes it all, through sheer brutal obsession. To the bro who is the most hardcore of all the bros. Who by throwing himself into his game more than any reasonable person would…somehow succeeds.

You might call it the Yaldabaoth Principle, or maybe…

The Yolobro Principle.

So that’s how you make a demiurge. How do you break one?

With a syzygy.

THE ARTIST, THE MUSE

Ah, dear, sweet, sweet, precious Calliope, I’m sorry to have held off talking about you for so long. Your brother ruins everything. But we all know you’re leagues, no, AUs better than that guy.

There isn’t anyone named Sophia in Homestuck, but Calliope is a pretty close analogue. She’s the other half of Caliborn’s cherub pair or syzygy, and it’s her separation from him that’s the catalyst for LE’s. Much of the personality Caliborn crafts for himself is in opposition to her: she’s a passionate and skilled artist, so he becomes an artist too in order to mock her work. Even his cartoonish misogyny seems to arise mostly out of his hatred for her and everything she enjoys. Even after he becomes LE, he’s still obsessing over her, just as cherubs generally obsess over their defeated halves and seek out mates similar to them in adulthood—creating crafting a parody of her in Doc Scratch, killing limeblood trolls because she’s fond of them, and so on. Honestly, Calliope is a great and wonderful character whom a lot of the fandom can empathize with (indeed, she’s crafted as a celebration of Homestuck fandom), and so it’s a shame that we’re going to spend most of this post talking about her stupid brother. Let’s just acknowledge that she deserves better, but her dumb bro has to go make it all about himself, as usual.

But let’s talk about Calliope as the Gnostic Sophia. Like Sophia, she can kind of be described as an inherently good being who made a mistake. In her case, that was believing that she could play a cosmic game with her brother and reconcile with him, rather than defeating him in cherub puberty as cherubs usually do. This ultimately led to her death, Caliborn’s dead session challenge round, and his Yaldabothification into LE.

It wouldn’t really be fair to be mad at her, though! It was an innocent mistake born out of good intentions, and it cost her her life. Also, the warring forces of the Game totally set that situation up, as did LE himself. The cherubs’ unusual living situation encouraged them to think of themselves as the type of species that would play the Game, and thus LE was born.

But there are two Calliopes: the one who was killed by her brother, yes, but also another from an alternate timeline, who defeated her brother in the normal cherub way. Part of the difference in her timeline was that she never learned to think of herself the way humans do, never followed their adventures as a fan, and thus never believed that they could reconcile in their game. Alt-Calliope is much closer to Paradox Space’s idea of a traditional cherub. She’s much more cosmic, much more like an aeon. But also much less human. She’s a force for good, but, like Skaia, she can only see individual beings as abstractions. From a certain perspective, she’s much more empowered and much more important

And yet the game is rigged against her. The challenges of her dead session are designed for her Lord of Time brother, and it seems to be implied that hers is a doomed timeline. When she consults with her Denizen—interestingly, not Yaldabaoth, but Echidna—she is given the Choice to wait out an eternity to become someone who could bring an end to a Yaldabaoth-like tyrant. And she accepts that destiny, committing herself fully to a cosmic purpose. Like LE, the ascended Muse of Space is happy to be part of Skaia’s machinations—if for a very different reasons.

If the Denizens represent different aspects of Skaia or the Game, then maybe there’s a countervailing force to Yalda that we could describe as the Echidna Principle. A dedication to protecting and preserving life within Skaia’s system. Or at least, an acknowledgement that the reign of any false god needs to come to an end.  The Echidna principle employs Alt-Calliope as a counterpart to Caliborn, bringing the two cherubs back into symmetry.

This symmetry is INTEGRAL to Homestuck’s ending. We’ll see how, once we establish some ending-related Homestuck Facts.

In the meantime don’t forget regular Calliope, either—she’s going to be important to the meaning of all this, too. We’ll catch up with her by the curtain call.

THE MAP HOMESTUCK AND THE TERRITORY ENGLISH

Okay! Homestuck Facts!

As I’ve discussed before, there’s a thing that keeps happening in Homestuck which we might call Map-Territory Confusion. This is a concept from literary studies and stuff. Basically, what we mean by Map and Territory is that representations of things are not the same as the things themselves. Like, a map of, say, Houston, is not the same thing as the actual city of Houston, right? One’s made of paper and the other’s made of, like, buildings and shit.

Except in Homestuck, the Map and the Territory blur together all the dang time. The labels for Prospit and Derse float in front of their respective planetoids. Jack knows how to flip his sprite. Terezi’s scratching the game disc glitches Homestuck the webcomic. Caliborn’s sabatoge of the expansion pack causes significant glitches in the Game Over session. Sooo many examples going on here that it would take forever to list them all. Even the way that the omniscient narration (which is sometimes the same as the character of Andrew Hussie and sometimes argues with him) blurs together with the subjective experiences of individual characters contributes to the confusion. Even though, on some level, we tend to believe that Homestuck is a representation of a set of events going on in a number of universes that all exist out in some conceptual space, we’re forced to question constantly whether what we’re witnessing is part of those events, or part of the frame we witness them through, or whether that question even makes sense.

By the time we reach Act 6, and even possibly earlier, I’d argue this confusion is being used very deliberately.

Remember how we talked about LE’s territory earlier?

In Homestuck, Map-Territory Confusion is used to draw an explicit link between the Map that is Homestuck the webcomic and the Territory that is the set of universes and sessions over which LE is able to hold sway.

This is a big part of the reason for Hussie and Caliborn’s conversation. Caliborn is arguing with the theoretical author of the map Homestuck, screeching at how his choices have affected him, and trying to put forward his own version of the narrative.  Meanwhile the author is literally dead, killed by LE. And after this conversation, Caliborn takes over the narrative prompt by entering his text into the same space where he had conversations with Hussie. He tries to rewrite Homestuck in his own bad-fandom image, while simultaneously A) his sabotage of the the Homestuck narrative cause glitches, confusion, and GAME OVER for the kids and B) his future-self LE’s power over the timeline becomes even more of a concern for both the living and the dead. This, mind you, is all on the heels of us finding out through the last few acts how LE and his agent Doc Scratch have been manipulating every disaster, and indeed, everything that has happened within the narrative Homestuck from the very beginning.

An large set of universes and sessions are LE’s playground.

Homestuck itself is LE’s playground.

The two are one and the same.

The other piece of the LE’s Domain = Homestuck puzzle is of course the house-shaped Juju, and the weird powers John gets from touching it. Now, the weird timeline retcon stuff that the Juju allows John to enact is its own weird, often frustrating subject that probably deserves its own post, and if we were to discuss it here, we’d get more derailed than we already are. What’s important for our purposes is that the Juju is even more associated with the narrative than LE is. When we first see it, it looks grey but is actually transparent, by which I mean it bleeds into the grey background of the base website. This grey background is also the place John ends up when he’s testing his powers and dragging LOWAS between realities. We know that LE used it in the very beginning of his reign to trap his opponents, and we know that afterward it passed out of his control, and became something that could only be used against him. It’s shaped like the logo for the Game, in the kids’ version, which is the closest thing we have to a symbol of Homestuck.

We don’t know much about what Jujus actually are, but one thing that’s frequently true about them is that they have strong effects on time. Well, what has a greater affect on time than a story that shapes all the different universes and timelines into a coherent progression?

I’m pretty sure that what Yaldabaoth gives Caliborn and what Caliborn traps our heroes inside to ensure his ascension is Homestuck itself.

So, when I say that the ending of Homestuck is about escaping Homestuck, please believe that it’s not just some weird meta bs that dismisses the story and says it doesn’t mean anything. It’s an actual plot point. Once we learn to see the link between Homestuck the narrative and Homestuck the events, we can see that to escape Homestuck the webcomic has a deeply metaphorical meaning. To escape Homestuck is to escape the hidden conductor behind all events and enter into a domain he cannot control.

With all that in mind, we’re now ready to interpret Act 7.

ACT 7: COSMIC SYMMETRY

We see two main things happen in Act 7. Alt-Calliope makes her move, and Vriska (oh Vriska, you’re your own post and a half) activates the house Juju against Lord English, which is to say, she weaponizes Homestuck against him. The result is a black hole where the Green Sun used to be. Which of the two are responsible? Wrong question, I think. Alt-Calliope, our Sophia, is serving as the conductor of the orchestra and by implication, the guiding hand of the narrative, while Vriska is bringing the narrative to bear against him. The Juju undeniably has power, but so, too, does a Muse of Space showing that this has been her domain all along. The physical destruction they cause is inextricably linked.

Thought the timeline stuff is knotty and confusing as hell, the actual mechanics of LE’s destruction are secretly fairly simple. As others have noted, the defeat of this pool-themed villain evokes the rules of table stickball. We see the Juju/weapon/narrative briefly resemble a ball of light, like a cue ball. We see LE’s eyes become eight balls. And we see the light from the juju charging toward him, like something about to knock him into a dark hole.

Click.

The symbolic meaning of the eight ball is important to keep in mind, and in fact was evoked earlier in Homestuck. In many games of billiards, you can’t pocket the eight ball until the last shot. With Snowman, that meant that you couldn’t kill her without destroying the universe. But in fact, Snowman did get taken out—when Scratch wanted someone to destroy the universe and bring in LE. The meaning of the eight ball, then, is: the time has finally come. The rules permit victory. The right timeline has been found. Everything necessary to make the final move has already taken place.

That’s exactly what Alt-Calliope represents in the eyes of Skaia or the Game. From the beginning of LE’s power trip, the Game knew that his power trip wouldn’t last forever. It would have limits both in time and in space. For Skaia, Alt-Calliope is those limitations being enacted. She is LE’s end.

Think back to the tangled spacetime of the Furthest Ring. Scratch enlisted Dave and Rose to create the Green sun long before the chronology of their session. Thus he achieved, in one sense, LE’s beginning. The destruction of the Green Sun (which unites all of LE’s universes as an ordinary star unites its planets) achieves LE’s end. It doesn’t matter that this end has to come, chronologically, after his long reign of terror. It still ends it.

It’s an end spatially as well as temporally. LE’s rampage through the furthest ring led him opponents around in a great circle of ravaged space-time. (Like a sucker.) Which by the time of the final confrontation makes a complete loop. Imagine what effect a star collapsing into a black hole might have on that ruined space. Imagine how a fully-realized Muse of Space might be able to manipulate the fabric of the Furthest Ring to achieve exactly that effect. Now recall that the universes and sessions LE’s able to influence are part of the Green Sun’s orbit. Yeah, they’re not going to make it out of that collapse intact. Nor are the army of ghost selves that echo the twisting progression of all the universes and alternate timelines we’ve seen going to escape. They’re going to be caught up in the extinction of the domain, swept up in its wake.

That’s the physical side of things. Looking at the Juju itself lets us talk about the narrative side of things. When Vriska activates the Juju, it takes shape as the familiar house symbol of Homestuck. But that same symbol has another meaning—it’s the shape of the Exit Gate for the Game. At the exact same moment (remember, things that are juxtaposed in Homestuck are circumstantially simultaneous, meaning that they’re somehow associated or related to each other) the Juju becomes the Exit Gate, we also see the kids’ (previously red and doorless) Exit gate flip turnways, turn white, and feature a door. The two look so similar that for a moment I thought the kids were going to walk through and end up in the Furthest Ring. But no—the two aren’t two sides of the same door. They’re the same side of the same door.

Down in front of LE crashes a white door. The same white door appears to the kids at the same moment. The difference is, the kids will walk through, and LE will not. He won’t escape the end of his own ambitions. Where does the door lead from? From LE’s domain, also known as Homestuck. Where does it lead to? A new universe outside of LE’s domain, and outside the canon of Homestuck. So outside the canon that it’s only glimpsed as a flash-forward to the future, unable to be directly shown onscreen before the End of Act 7.

And—whatever interpretation we want to assign to the bizarre timeline questions that surround the retcon, Caliborn’s vision of trapping the kids, and the Juju—one thing stands out clearly. This is the right timeline. This is no longer the timeline trapped under LE’s sway. As the eight ball tells us, everything has finally lined up the way it should. Time to take that shot.

One more thing worth noting—in Homestuck, specific colors have long stood for specific timelines and universes. The curtains of the Beta kids’ acts are red, and the Alphas’ green, and their game logos invert this. Meanwhile the trolls’ curtains are blue. As was foreshadowed in Rose’s walkaround, the three colors of curtains eventually fuse to make, in Act 7, white. The color of everything coming together. The color of the Juju in its final form.

What better way to represent everything from the whole history of LE’s domain coming together? What better way to represent everything from the whole history of Homestuck combining into one victory?

In the ending of Homestuck, weird time shit, cosmic destruction, and the culminating power of the narrative all fuse together into one white-hot path toward victory. And even as all this happens, we see Caliborn smashing his clock, see LE gaining his terrifying time powers in the first place. The end is the beginning, and the beginning is also the end.

For a Demiurge and for Skaia, that’s the same thing. The Game has granted Caliborn unfathomable power. But it’s also trapped him in a false, limited world of his own devising. Forever. His obsession means power, but his obsession is also his greatest weakness. He will never know freedom from the loop he set himself in, has become the loop itself. He will never know the freedom the kids know. His ignorance of anything but himself makes him, in a way, a deeply tragic figure. Tragic because Skaia knows how limited he really is, and he never will.

Skaia, or whatever power is at work in the symmetrical ballad of the twin cherubs, is satisfied. Alt-Calliope has fulfilled her cosmic purpose. The circle is complete. The cosmos is satisfied. And our heroes have left the old world behind forever

…But what does that mean? What does it mean to escape?

A GIRL WHO LIVED

What surprised a lot of people who’d been following the Gnostic themes of Homestuck was that the kids didn’t ultimately escape the game. A lot of folks, I remember, felt sure that the kids were going to leave the Game behind forever by escaping into a limitless realm, the pleroma of Gnostic myth.

Here’s the thing. They did.

What I’ve been trying to show here is that the Demiurge to escape, as figured in Homestuck, isn’t Skaia, but Lord English. And the pleroma, the realm of freedom we’re trying to get to? That’s not some place outside Skaia and its cycle of universe after universe being born.

The pleroma is Skaia itself.

This is deeply weird and it’s easy to see why it would catch a lot of people off guard. After all, the pleroma in Gnostic myth is a deeply positive thing, a realm of perfection and joy. It’s the home of the perfectly good God, as Christians tend to view him. Skaia, however, is depicted as amoral, uncaring, even cruel.

But I think this ties into Homestuck’s major themes. The amoral, almost animal-minded cosmos Homestuck depicts is fascinating precisely because it offers no caring God. Cherubs are part of the ordinary progression of things, just as aeons are, but reconnecting with that progression simply means the continued perpetuation of reality through an infinite frog machine. The deep meaningfulness of mythology clashes, quite deliberately with the deep meaninglessness of perpetual motion.  God is a video game that doesn’t care about you as a person, but as a tool it can use to keep the whole show running. And yet, like a video game, it offers grand, mythic narratives and archetypes you can invest yourself in, to the point where you can lose sight of the fact that they don’t necessarily mean anything for your life. Skaia will always exist, even after the story is done, as the Spirograph at the end of Act 7 suggests. It’s up to us human beings to make sense of that.

I’ve talked before about the difference between huge, archetypal narratives and actual personal experiences. Within the context of Sburb, that usually means the difference between the game and your experience of it. But it can also be the difference between Dave and the toxic masculine narratives he inherited. The difference between your archetype and yourself. Or the difference between Calliope and her doppleganger.

To Skaia, Alt-Calliope is the important one, because she enacts its mythic narrative and brings the ballad of Lord English to an end. To Skaia, the Calliope we know is a footnote, an accident, an irrelevant detail. It doesn’t care whether she lives or dies.

But we do. Because we know her. We’ve seen her suffer and struggle, just as we’ve seen all the heroes suffer and struggle. We’ve seen her yearn to be part of something important, celebrated fandom with her, and wanted to defend her against her horrible brother. We’ve seen her dream of something better than a limited life locked to a monster with a chain. We’ve been rooting for her to achieve it.

There’s no reason, from Skaia’s perspective, that Calliope needed to be brought back to life with the ring of life. The ring allowed Aranea to cause Game Over, which was important to the retcon and thus to its grand plan. Calliope is irrelevant.

But she gets brought back to life anyway. Why? Because her friends care about her. Because we do.

Because our Calliope isn’t part of the construction of a grand cosmic architecture. She’s a person.

She has the right to exist. Not because she fulfils some time loop or causes some outcome. But because she’s a person. She doesn’t exist for the cosmos. She exists for herself.

In our Calliope, what was formerly godlike, angel-like, beyond mortal comprehension, gets a chance to be something more human. Calliope expects her doppelganger to be superior to her. She fears her friendships, her peacefulness, her history make her weak. But it’s just the opposite. She’s strong in a way that has nothing to do with what Skaia values, but everything to do with what we value as readers. She matters in dreaming and striving. In herself.

As Alt-Calliope says, recognizing this truth about her counterpart, even as she lives out an entirely different story:

CALLIOPE: you don't need to do anything.

CALLIOPE: be who you've become, and who i didn't.

CALLIOPE: consume the fruits of an existence i could never understand.  

CALLIOPE: live.

The kids escape Lord English, but at the expense of all their past and possible selves, and are left to wrestle with the meaning of their victory: is it divinely ordained, or just an accident, just Skaia’s whim? Is it truly victory when they’re not sure if they’re the same selves, or have they lost something along the way? Caliborn and Calliope embody a similar dichotomy. Caliborn will forever be archetypal, larger than life. But he’s doomed to live out a foolish, self-indulgent story in a bubble of space-time he will never escape. Calliope will never have the glorious, cosmic importance Skaia granted to her brother and to the ghost of her it conjured up to defeat him. But she has a freedom that neither of them will never be able to possess. Freedom to live.

Ultimately, Homestuck uses Gnosticism, a mythic framework all about the relationship between human and the divine, to show the difference between the two. It suggests that the divine, the archetypal, the stuff of grand heroic stories is ultimately limited. In the end, Homestuck argues, there’s great strength and freedom in being mortal. Being human.

I think that’s a pretty cool story to tell.

Next time: other ways of thinking about the ending.

(PS: This essay turned out to be 11 pages in Word. The first mention of Vriska is on page 8. Of fucking course.)

[EDIT 5/21: A previous version of this post claimed that Abraxas was the name of Sophia’s syzygy counterpart, but looking around, that appears to be unsubstantiated. Instead, Abraxas appears to be used as the name of the Ur-God who created the Pleroma or of another Aeon within the Gnostic system. This is pretty cool, as it ties the Denizen Abraxas and the Hope aspect even more fully into the normal functioning of the Sburban cosmos/pleroma. Pretty cool stuff! Thanks to @revolutionaryduelist for pointing it out!]

[asgardian--angels]

for @maylovely because you asked about why some people don’t see melkor as evil. i didn’t want to hijack your post with this super long thing. this is something of a summation of many different metas i’ve never gotten around to writing but i hope it even begins to express my thoughts on the matter (as nothing i write is ever comprehensive enough...). i’m not trying to disagree, because every person in the Silm fandom views the story differently. Hope this helps you maybe understand where some of us are coming from though? 

OK HERE GOES

I think it comes down to a couple things: what source material you’re looking at (just published Silm, Unfinished Tales, HoME, etc), and what perspective you view Middle-Earth from. I am definitely in the camp that believes Melkor isn’t evil, because to me Tolkien designed a world with no ultimate good or evil, that everyone is a mix, and furthermore, what is ‘evil’? Evil is a human (out-of-universe speaking) construct used mostly to judge other humans. In-universe, evil is used to represent that which actively works against the freedom of the Children of Iluvatar and seeks to mar Arda away from the vision of the Valar, which supposedly is also the vision of Eru himself. These are both extremely flawed ways of thinking when looking at Melkor, because 1) he isn’t human, and 2) defining evil as something that threatens your existence as you know it is super anthropocentric and does not tell a complete story.

To explain:

I know you tend to focus on the elves in the Silmarillion. A lot of people do. We’re going to obviously gravitate to groups of characters that act and think like us. Thus, you and others are looking through the eyes of the elves as they view the acts and deeds of Melkor - of Morgoth, as they call him. If one is looking through a purely mortal lens, then yes, the things Melkor does is the epitome of pure evil and you’re both goddamned terrified of him and absolutely loathe him with a burning passion (I know you don’t, but I’m just saying, if you were an elf). He threatens everything you know and hold dear. He’s tortured your kind and keeps them as slaves. He spilled the first elven blood. By every definition there, yep, evil. That’s valid, that’s fine! Obviously we are supposed to view Middle-Earth and its stories through the eyes of mortals. No one’s rooting for Sauron to get his ring back, not even me.

But I choose to see things from the perspective of the Ainur, and that which is even greater than the Ainur - Eru and the Great Music, and when possible, even beyond that to question what is the nature of Ea and the Void and hell, where did Eru come from anyway? Loads of fun, never many answers. But looking at the story from this POV changes a lot, especially how one thinks of Melkor. Melkor is the greatest Vala, the most powerful Ainu, he who was given the special gift of the wisdom of all other Valar combined - that is, while each Vala governs a specific element of Arda and can only comprehend that one small piece of reality and the great plan of Eru, Melkor can see it all. This is HUGE. One could argue his worldview is actually the most accurate, if you can sift through the resentment and shame and abandonment issues that cloud it. He knows more of Eru’s design than even Manwe (so why isn’t he king? ‘i’m not bitter,’ melkor says, bitterly with a bitter expression). Thus, it is fair to say that his treatment in Arda by the Valar is unjust. This is a really big topic, I’ll tl;dr it. They cannot possibly understand his role in Arda because it’s beyond their sphere of influence. Only Melkor can know what Melkor’s purpose is, even though he can know all of theirs.

So what is it? Like all Valar, he governs a realm, that which he thought of himself in the Song. His is even more expansive than his kin, to match his knowledge of the other elements. Fire, ice, rock. The core materials of Arda. More than that, decay, upheaval, entropy. Change. He is the Vala that maintains Earth’s dynamism. That’s his job. It’s a big one, and Eru made him fit for it. He needs the knowledge of how all things on Earth work. Now, Melkor is ruled by fate and his nature, and he cannot fight this, nor should he. Would one demand Ulmo live on land, or that Orome never hunt again? The rules are the same, and yet, he is treated differently. This is because his duty conflicts, in the limited perspective of the other Valar, with the intent of Eru, which is the maintenance of Arda as a paradise, eternal, unchanging. Melkor’s work destroys their creations, and thus it must be wrong. This is their biased point of view, for they cannot know Eru’s true intent. So you have the Ruling Powers all against Melkor, even his own brother, and they pass this on to the elves, starting them off with that viewpoint, and no one except Melkor (and his chosen few, Mairon included) actually freaking understands that his job is necessary and he’s just doing what he was made for. The Earth cannot be stagnant, change - even cataclysms - must occur for life to grow and evolve. It threatens that which exists, but offers opportunity for adaptation and survival, and a new place for those in the future. In the long run, Melkor’s work would help the creations of the other Valar, particularly Yavanna. It would never wipe out the Children of Iluvatar, just force them to evolve, become wiser, more wary, skillful, and hardy. However, the Valar and the elves see it only from the present - our creations and livelihoods are threatened, he wants to see it destroyed. He is Evil. No, he is the Earth. Impartial to that which inhabits it. The Earth doesn’t care whether you live or die. You are utterly meaningless to the Earth. Your life holds no value. You adapt to this inevitable change, or you go extinct. Not its problem. No one’s asking the Earth to halt continental drift or sea floor spreading, are they? No one can prevent volcanic eruptions or avalanches or mass extinctions, they are a necessary term and condition of dwelling here on Arda. The fact that this force has a face and a voice suddenly makes it subject to our moral code, which is, Don’t hurt us!! Sorry, doesn’t work like that. Melkor’s a force of nature, the biggest one in fact, and since he was made he’s been shamed and ridiculed for being who he was simply because no one else had the capacity to understand his role.

During the time of the elves, a LOT happened. Melkor was fundamentally changed by the silmarils. I put forth the argument that throughout his time here, he’s attacked sources of holy light, the most powerful thing in creation apart from the Flame Imperishable, not (only) because he was petty and bitter and wanted to get back at his kin, but because as a force of entropy, he can’t help but be attracted to them. Bringing things from a high energy state to a low energy state is sort of his gift. The silmarils messed him up. Everything in his life went downhill after he stole them. He’s suffered from a lot of internalized issues forever - what I’d talked about above, but also everything concerning his right to Arda as king and how he was wronged there (I am, also of the belief he does have standing for that claim), and a nice slew of fear (being the only Vala to be able to even feel that emotion - scary imo) and abandonment issues and self-loathing. When he took on the burden of the silmarils, these things intensified and weighed on him. His fear turned into extreme paranoia to the point where nearly all of his actions were driven by it. He was willing to go out of his way to try and secure his safety through torturing for information (not a great success rate there), making rash decisions, and literally cowering in his tunnels like a naked mole rat. He predicted his impending doom and was clawing at any way to avoid it until he fell into such a pit of despair about it that he just gave up and let himself be taken. He was just so tired. But to stay on topic - I just view all of his actions in the First Age from a non-human perspective, as he would, seeing people and individual lives as meaningless and inconsequential (Sauron’s biggest mistake actually, as that became his undoing multiple times. Also, hint, the other Valar don’t really care as much as they claim to about the cost of mortal lives). He acts on the scale of Gods, not Man. To me, from this perspective, he is not evil. I’m not saying from a different perspective he can’t be. We don’t really know for sure Melkor’s true goals and intentions, seeing as no one ever cares to ask him. I have plenty of firm theories, and they concern themselves with Arda, Ea, and the Void, and no where in that list is included Iluvatar’s children.

Whatever Melkor’s done, it is a part of fate. He has not rebelled, he has not broken any rules, everything he’s done has been within the realm of Eru’s intent - and everything Eru’s done in response to Melkor has also been to drive this ultimate plot forward exactly the way it must. The Valar more than any other being are driven by their nature, they have far less, so to speak, autonomous choice. They cannot change. If they did, the world would go topsy-turvy, and that includes Melkor most of all. The others physically cannot see that, illustrated by their audacity to claim that the world doesn’t need him and they can just boot his Vala butt out of Arda. The paradise of the Valar, stowed away for their eyes only (and the elves who were Good Children) cannot last forever, and then it will be Melkor’s time to return. Nothing is meant to last forever. So Melkor may have done things that to the human perspective, were evil and atrocious, but to sum it up, everything happened just how it was supposed to, Melkor’s job is to do things you don’t like and is thus doomed to never getting appreciation, he really is under no obligation to give a shit about the Children, and really the elves killed way more people than Melkor ever did. Melkor’s documented direct casualties can be counted on a hand lol. He concerns himself with Arda, his creation, his charge, not with the little people that are holding onto the skin of the world demanding it stop being itself. Add onto this the corrosive power of the silmarils, basically making the most powerful and potent being under Eru go a bit cuckoo for cocoa puffs in his later years, and that to me is why Melkor isn’t evil. If one insists he is, then he is a necessary one. No two ways about it.