#and who ultimately fails at killing either of them

[seafoam-taide]

so the thing with slay the princess is the shifting mound calls the protagonist a passive player but in essence they are the only one in this little pocket of universe with any agency or ability to act which is in part bc of their role as vessel for the player but also because that is their role. the problem is that the protagonist has no goal. they are an entirely fresh person who does not know any of this? does not have a purpose. they are the long quiet because that is what they were made to be but that isn't an identity that is a role and one that is undefined. and there is the narrator, a fixed, unchanging agent meant to provide this purpose, except the shifting mound has one too, and needs the agency of the protagonist to complete it's purpose. everything depends on the only one in this whole thing that can make the choice to change because the shifting mound calls them passive but it is entirely at their whims and must plead its case in the face of the one person who can do anything about this entire situation and it's nature is reaction, not action, built on impressions molded by the protagonist. everything hinges on them and yet the most they have is echoes of motivation and ideas that are themselves built on the ideas fed to them . and all they know is this recursive loop of information . there is nothing to define the protagonist but the incomplete beings, ideas, that make up their surrounding. the protagonist is made up of the perceptions and thoughts and ideas of the echo that is the narrator and the shifting mound itself and the plan is for this person who's only memories and ideas of existence are of the princess and revolve around the shifting mound's intentions to somehow kill a being that is only what it is perceived? the narrator's origin split a god in half then made it so those two halves would only know each other could only know each other and expected this to result in erasure??? did he not think a practically newly created entire whole person would not be curious and would not grow like a person would.

[harrows-soup-kitchen]

I think about Harrow and Crux a lot actually and I need to talk about it a little bit or I might scream. because like- Crux sucks right?? we all agree on this, he is an awful, wretched old man who was abjectly abusive to one of two little girls left in his care after the deaths of their primary care takers.

but then his relationship with Harrow in specific makes me insane bc he loved that girl SO MUCH. that was his daughter!!!! maybe even more so than she was Priamhark and Pelleamena’s she was his!!!

and HE KNEW just like they did exactly what had to be done to create her, he watched her grow up reviled by her parents and he looked at that little girl and just… loved her? no questions asked, no morality hang ups, she was worth every sin committed to get her.

because that’s the thing about Crux i think for me, the moment he conceived of Harrow’s existence she was what he was loyal to, not the ninth or the reverend parents or even god just his kid; the rest of the ninth loved Harrow because she was The Reverend Daughter, Crux loved Harrow because she was Harrow. and because she was Harrow she was literally more important than anyone else.

and what does that do to a person? because I can guarantee right now that it was not good for either of them, like at all. Harrow was traumatised, fundamentally hubristic and a literal actual child, with a very confused moral compass, who by age ten had become fully complicit in the abuse of the only other child she had ever met!!! she did not need yet another grown adult enabling her to become worse!!

not to mention that he did abuse his position as the final arbiter of her reality to lie to her on more than one occasion, including but not limited to that one time he deadass killed two whole people for going even slightly against his special little lady (not to mention the several times he seemingly tried to kill Gideon without Harrow noticing)

an idea I see thrown around a lot when discussing the potential kiriona-John dynamic that I think works really well and is also interesting when applied to Harrow and Crux, albeit in a slightly different way is : what if your dad was the worst man in the universe and also literally the only person who really wanted you? how do you contend with that?

ALSO the fact that in Nona we find out that half his grudge with Gideon is that she didn’t die for Harrow!! her parents fear it but Crux is BITTER about it!! he’s so angry that she, in his eyes, has been failing to do right by Harrow her entire life because she could never die right!!

anyway, all this to say I can’t wait to see Harrow try to navigate her grief over Crux’s death in AtN while contending with the fact that he was fundamentally complicit in her continued abuse of Gideon for years and years, which ultimately led to gideons degradation of self and set the groundwork for her sacrificial suicide.

not to mention yet another person she desperately loved dying in a way that is unquestionably in service of her continued existence, unasked for and without giving her a snowflakes chance in hell of saying goodbye. again.

[womanofwords]

Next is batfam x neglected clone reader superfam.

Back when Dick was Robin he and Bruce broke into a lab and in it was a clone of Batman and Superman (trying to make the ultimate hero). It was only a toddler then and they couldn’t let it stay to be turned into a weapon so they took it home.

They called Clark to let him know and yeah he has his reservations about clones of him. But this one’s still only just a toddler a little mix of him and Bruce. He’s ready to just take the child home but Bruce convinces him not to. That he has better resources and (at this point Clark and Lois aren’t together yet) Clark is always busy between reporting and hero work.

So Clark leaves raising them to Bruce but visits as much as he can. But he visits less and less as he gets busier trusting Bruce to care for their child. But in that time Dick left (not really liking that this sibling got to be a mix of his adoptive father and pseudo dad) Jason came and eventually died and Bruce began to wallow in his grief.

Little SuperBat loved their family and tried to cheer Bruce up but he gets angry that they seem to not care that Jason is gone (they care, a lot. But they’re putting their grief on hold to try and cheer up their dad). This is when the neglect really starts.

Of course Tim joins, Jason returns and all the other batkids follow. But they’re all following Bruce’s lead and the only ones who (should) remember that they’re a clone are Bruce, Dick and Jason (Tim was smart and discovered it on his own at some point in time). It’s when Damien attacks them and they try defending themself that they punch Damien (not even that hard) and Bruce pops off on them for “attacking him”. That they’re wrong cause they “could have killed him” with their “super strength” thus revealing their a clone.

Only Bruce doesn’t know they have super strength because they never showed signs of Clark’s abilities. He tested for a while when they were younger but stopped. They went through gaining and navigating their powers alone (afraid of Bruce’s no meta’s rule).

“But why not go to Clark?” well because Bruce is a control freak who during him yelling at them after Jason’s death, denies them going to visit Clark since (I believe that) Clark and Lois would (or could) have either just gotten married or had Jon on the way. Bruce basically projecting that they’re starting their own family and wouldn’t want a clone.

Angst all around as clone!reader is basically bullied by the entire family. Especially Damien who loves to tout about how he’s the only natural born child of Bruce not a “cheap failed experiment”.

Reader quietly leaves wanting to be alone goes to Mt.Everest. Meets Papa Clark again cause he thought someone was stuck crying on Everest and needed rescuing. Turns out it’s his baby and they’re crying in pajamas on the world’s tallest mountain. Listens to their woes and is furious. He asks why they didn’t come to him and they repeat all the things Bruce and the fam would tell them. How they’d risk exposing him cause they look so much like him and Bruce, how he was starting his own family and they would get in the way.

Clark is furious, but his baby needs him first. Takes them to meet Lois, Jon, Conner and his parents. They all adore clone reader. Lois and Martha Kent are upset that Clark never told them but even more mad Bruce said the things he did to keep clone reader home. Especially since she missed her own father’s wedding and the birth of her brother.

Some way some how the batfam discover clone reader is missing (choose however you want. personally my bet is Damien torments them when he’s bored and discovers their gone because of it). It takes them a while but discovers she’s with Superfam. Cue crazy yandere custody battle in costume and out of it

Great idea, but no thanks. Way too angsty for me. There are so many times I can make myself cry while writing, and I know I will be floating out of my house on a river of my own tears if I ever wrote this. I'm passing on this for the sake of my own sanity.

[imadhatt3r]

It kinda irks me when people call Black Mask "Truekechi", because that's not really the case...? Not entirely, at least.

I mean yes, of course, Black Mask IS a part of Akechi's personality, I'm not denying that. The thing is, that it isn't Akechi's WHOLE personality. This kid just went through the biggest crashout of his life, his whole plan he's been meticulously working on for years failed, and the worst part is that it didn't even lead to what he was after, so he didn't even get the revenge he wanted. Of course he's unstable and edgy, I mean, who wouldn't be?

That is not to say that his anger and edginess aren't a part of his "true self"; I'm sure that his glee at taking out shadows is absolutely real, for example, but I believe that it comes from him just being angry in general- at Shido, at Maruki, and at himself. Akechi is rough around the edges, has a short temper and has a tendency to look at others from above, but the situation he's in boosts these parts of his personality as a sort of defense mechanism.

I think that his mementos conversations give a really good insight into this too; Perhaps it's due to my older age compared to the characters in-game, but a lot of Akechi's lines feel so... Forced on his side? He's the one to bring up that other Thieves probably don't want to have him on the team, or that they're unsettled by how he fights, but nobody even said anything about it in the first place...? Even other characters seem kinda done with his act, either that or they accept him being on the team due to their shared goals; Some are even quite nice and friendly, all things considered. This just feels like Akechi's self-loathing twisting itself into this kind of quips because he himself doesn't want to get too comfortable on the team; He's scared of growing closer to the other Thieves, so he tries to keep them at arm's length. He can't just tell them "I think I'm a horrible person" straight up (his pride wouldn't let him), so he has to make himself "unappealing" in other ways.

There's also the other side of these conversations, where you can see him just... Being a kid. He whines about being hungry, or thirsty, or his legs getting stiff in the car, he talks about mundane things with other Thieves like graduation or sports... He's just a teenager as much as his teammates are- it's just that the others weren't hired as assassins at 15 and didn't grow up obsessed with the plan to kill their father. His emotional development and maturation process have clearly been impacted, on top of everything else he had to deal with. So he may act "adult" and more mature than others at first glance (at least before he reveals Loki), but inside he is just as much (if not more, in some aspects) of a kid as the other Thieves are. This means that he is still at the age and mental development level where he is still figuring out himself, who he is, what path to follow etc. It also means that he is prone to being overly dramatic, emotionally extreme, and have poor emotional control- you know, teen stuff.

The key to it all becomes his ultimate persona, Hereward. We all know that Akechi has two personas, but he doesn't get two ultimate personas, he gets only one. I think that it's symbolic of his psyche slowly melding itself into one again. It's not that either one of his "sides" was truly fake or real; Both the Detective Prince and Black Mask ARE parts of the "real" Akechi- it's just that he has been systematically compartmentalizing his whole self into two for YEARS. The awakening of his ultimate persona is him starting the process of healing and allowing these two sides of him to mix and reconnect back into one.

I honestly think that, with enough time and the right environment, Akechi's most extreme traits would even themselves out, and he would stop being AS short-tempered, snarky, and blood-thirsty as he is in the game. He will never be the perfectly plesant Detective Prince, but he also won't be the angry, self-loathing and vengeful Black Mask. He will be something new, something different, a fusion of the two opposite ends of his personality spectrum. Only then he will live as his fully true self.

[postcardsfromheapside]

Okay. Listen. I'm only going to engage with this in good faith once.

Veilguard was never going to be like BG3.

BG3 is a great game for what it is, but no DA game allows you to pick the evil ending, thus there is no reason to allow you to get rid of companions in VG like in BG3 or in previous DA games.

In prior games, you may have been able to eliminate other companions from your team, or not recruit them altogether, because they were not crucial to the overall goal, and all you would miss is story/lore. Nothing breaks in the story/game if those companions leave/are killed/don't get recruited, it merely pivots.

This is completely different in Veilguard, where Varric has taken knowledge and insight and started to develop a specific strike team to take down Solas.

Hold my hand.

There is not a world where the Veil comes down and things "continue". I know a lot of Solas fans think there is...but there isn't. A robust explanation of why the Veil should NOT come down can be found here.

If the Veil comes down, everything ends. Ignoring the real world happenings at EA, if your end worldstate in VG is "world drowned in demons," there's nothing to move on to. No reason to play another DA game, were we to ever have another. Your world state is "game over."

Rook therefore *must* be the cooperative kind of person who is ultimately working toward keeping the Veil up, whatever the cost. It would really help a LOT of you to stop thinking about Rook as a "hero", and start thinking of them more as a project manager.

Remember, Varric already had the goal of "stop Solas" and specifically recruited Rook because they had qualities best suited to help with that, and Rook agreed because "world drowned in demons" is bad. So when Rook inherits the management position from Varric, they come pre-loaded with 1) a goal, and 2) the mindset to get it the fuck done (because there really is no other option, it's succeed or die, a fact mentioned more than once in dialogue with NPC's).

What Rook builds by bringing on team members is a strike force in order to achieve this goal. And here's my point: if you do not have these necessary companions, you do not make it to end game. The way the story is set up, removing any of the companions before Tearstone Island effectively sets the team up to fail horribly. The story doesn't move forward. The world is blighted. End series. Rook is highly motivated to be cooperative with these companions and their factions.

This is why it's a poor excuse to say that it would "add narrative tension" if Rook were able to be mean to their companions and risk losing them. Nothing is added narratively by a companion leaving. If they leave, at some point shortly after The Leaving, the story will end abruptly in Blight.

Rook is therefore not going to do things to cause the companions to leave, because their goal is "stop Solas/stop the gods/stop the blight" and to do that, Rook needs these people. Now, you can make the choice not to do the faction or personal quests along the way toward that goal, and ultimately those companions might fall in the final battle, but the story is not going to let you remove those companions before then. Because the story is not about a choice between "Veil-falling/World-blighted, or Rook being a hero." The story is many things ON THE WAY to stopping the the Veil from falling, one way or another.

Now, I know a lot of these "I wish we could be meaner" comments 99.9% of the time come about because people do not like particular companions, so this was all probably a waste of typing. And my answer to "I just don't like this person" is "too fucking bad, I don't like all my coworkers either, try growing up" or "maybe you should try not being a bigot," depending on the way the "I don't like this person" is phrased. But I also think some of you just really do not understand how story/games structure works, and you're familiar with very specific kinds of media, and it's upsetting you to have to wrap your mind around something new.

If you REALLY want to explore a blighted world, that's what fanfiction is for. Go bug nuts. I don't think it's going to be a compelling story, but you might surprise me.

Also, while we're talking about "tension":

I'm begging you to consider that one of the greater sources of tension can arise because you, the player, are literally watching a tragedy unfold. You cannot stop it, you know what's going to happen, you know what choices you're going to have to make, and you have to make them anyway, and they're going to hurt you in some way or another, and you, the player/reader, know what the characters do not. The tension comes from watching the different permutations of grief unfold across the screen and inside of you. None of the companions have to be in conflict with each other in order for this to happen.

[mofsblog]

Defending Ending 2

Okay I've seen a lot of discourse around the "True Ending" of Clinical Trial and I just wanted to give my take on it. Spoilers under the cut

I know a lot of people didn't like Ending 2's light and happier tone and it being the True Ending and felt like it absolved Lee of any consequences and just put Angel in a dangerous shitty position, isolated with a murderer and argue that it goes against the whole point of the game… But I just really don't view it like that. To me, Ending 2 reinforces some of the game's central themes surrounding consent, neurodivergency and societal neglect.

While I do think Lee can be manipulative (ESPECIALLY in the Reject route) and consistently hides things from Angel, I do think the Accept route that leads into Ending 2/the True Ending is a product of Angel's own anatomy as much as Ending 1 is. While Angel chooses to forgive him initally for the shrine thing, they don't dismiss or downplay what he did either. While they do display some unhealthy thought patterns (the idea that they never thought someone would ever pay so much attention to them <- which is a belief absolutely fueled by self hatred) that could contribute to their forgiveness, they don't let that blind them from the inherent fucked upness of what Lee's done. This isn't a "Wow, you did nothing wrong. Let's date!" situation. It's a "You fucked up and you hurt me but I'm willing to give you another chance, if you change for the better" situation.

Same thing with the revelation of the murder. Angel does not downplay how upset they are to appease him. Even when they acknowledge Lee killing Brandon probably prevented him from harming future victims as he's a repeated offender who likely wouldn't stop, Angel still acknowledge that Lee didn't know that when he killed him. Angel is consistently able to voice their grievances with him and call him out on the wrongness of his actions, which is why I feel pretty comfortable stating that Lee and Angel's relationship, no matter how fucked up, toxic or unhealthy, is not an abusive one because Angel is always able to voice their issues with him and he is more than willing to listen.

The player, and by extension, Angel is also explicitly given the choice on whether or not to forgive him with both revelations (I especially like that Angel's given the choice to basically back out of the relationship, even after they accept the shrine thing, after the murder reveal), highlighting their agency. Yes, you can absolutely argue that Angel's decision to forgive Lee twice is likely influenced by their loneliness and need for connection and that does make their relationship a bit unhealthy (and interesting/hj) but again I don't think it's abusive.

I also want to point out that even if the Accept route, Angel gives Lee conditions. They don't just accept him willy-nilly. They want him to actually listen to them.

I think that Angel's ultimate decision to forgive Lee isn't just to date him, it's to give him another chance at becoming a better, more rounded person. A large part of the whole game is about how society (the education system and the medical system) tends to fail neurodivergent people, especially those most in need of help. Angel and Lee literally bond over their different experiences of neurodivergency (or implied neurodivergency on Lee's end) and how ultimately society failed both of them (with neither of them managing to succeed in ways they wanted because the system wasn't built for people like them).

There's also the prevalent mentions and implications of past punishments that we can observe through some of Lee's dialogue. He's canonically an ex Mormon, who was probably consistently punished (and abused) for any wrongdoing (some of which we can assume could come down to traits of his neurodivergency as it's not too uncommon for autistic children to get misunderstood and mistreated). Similarly, we know that Angel was put some level of physical abuse and mistreatment by their school in an attempt to "correct" their left handedness and even then it's implied that's only one example of them being abused by the education system.

Both Lee and Angel know what it's like to be punished and hurt after displaying a 'weakness' or a mistake. They've both been hurt by the notion that punishment is necessary to improve a person, which is why I find the Accept route so powerful. I've seen a lot of people complain that Lee doesn't go to jail or face "tangible" consequences but the way I see it, prison would make him worse and remove any chance he has of healing. While fucked up, illegal and his fault, his actions are still partially a product of his upbringing and the lack of support and therapy for him. He specifically mentions that he never went to therapy so he could get his job. Lee is partially the product of an unaccomodating society as much as Angel is. (Also I could go on for hours about how his Mormon upbringing probably skewed his entire view on how relationships are supposed to function and probably made him think love has to be in the form of devotion)

The way I interpreted it. Angel wasn't coerced into staying with a dangerous, harmful person. Angel sees parts of themselves in Lee and is giving Lee a chance neither of them were ever given in a life. They're creating a new life together where mistakes and fuck ups aren't instantly met with punishment or harm. Yes, Lee fucked up horrendously, violating their trust and ignored their wishes but they're both willing to acknowledge that and work on it because maybe for once, one of them's allowed to fucked up without facing an abusive 'punishment' afterwards. Maybe for once, one of them's allowed to fuck up and be given room to grow and improve. And maybe for once, Angel gets to choose how they want their life to go.

No, most people probably wouldn't have made the same choices as Angel but its still their decision to make. Yes, it's likely influenced by their pre existing loneliness and trauma. Yes, Lee would have to put a lot of work in to change himself and that will take time and there's likely some unhealthy beliefs he'll always struggle with. Yes, Lee and Angel's relationship is far from conventional or completely healthy, but fuck man, I think they're giving eachother room to figure it out together and idk, there's something beautiful about that to me.

They're both very mentally ill but they're trying and there's something about that that I find oddly comforting. Most media with the yandere trope never really provide the option for the yandere character to actually try to reflect on their actions and maybe learn better ways to cope and honestly I was so sure that both endings would involve someone dying in some way because these types of stories don't tend to go well. Usually, after a certain point, a character's just framed as "too" far gone, "too" mentally ill, "too" fucked up and beyond saving and they usually die a tragic or poetic death (i.e like Ending 1). But Angel looks at Lee and his actions and decides fuck it and to say no to that. They make the choice to give Lee another chance any way after what he's done because they don't see him as irredeemable. I just really like the way they both get to live in the end and make a better life together and what that says about neurodivergent and mentally ill people.

[basedonconjecture]

Every time I re-read The Wigmaker Job, I'm reminded how it's so much about Lucanis’ hubris to me. That's not to say he was deserving of imprisonment and torture but it's like...something of that nature was always going to happen while he was on the path he was on. His choices led him there but also they were always going to, ykwim? From start to finish, he's just on a collision course with the inevitable in TWJ.

He's cocky about the Forfex contract, bordering on arrogant at times, dismissive of Illario's concerns and questions. He's done this exact job a hundred times before. He knows the beats, memorized the steps, they'll be in and out. Easy peasy. Of course that's not what happens and things might have turned out differently had he just killed Forfex and walked away when he was supposed to. Except that's not who Lucanis is, right, he was never going to turn away from that. Yes, he's a talented assassin and highly sought after, but the thing that sets him apart from his colleagues is his empathy. It's why he also earns the respect of the Shadow Dragons. There's an implication that his jobs in Minrathous (and presumably elsewhere in Tevinter) also involved helping slaves based on some banter between Lucanis and Neve.

Killing the hair spider demon thing is ultimately what leads him to earning the Demon of Vyrantium moniker and basically seals his fate wrt Zara. But if it hadn't been that job and that demon, it would have been another. That's what happens to heroes—and, to be very clear, I'm not calling Lucanis a hero in the sense that he is one but that is the narrative position he holds within the story of TWJ specifically. (Which is the irony of his "We're not heroes anywhere" line. He doesn't view himself as a hero even while actively saving people and killing the monster. Ugh.) That job earned him a permanent place in Crow mythology, for better or for worse, and legends are often remembered more by their falls than their feats. There's only so far one can rise, after all.

Then beneath all that, there's this growing tension between Lucanis and Illario, the culmination of which is the conversation in the tavern. Not only has Lucanis been dismissive of Illario, you can tell this is a conversation they've had before, and he's been pushing it off and pushing it off, throwing himself into his work to avoid it, and hoping it resolves itself on its own. (It won't.) The moment he fails to make Illario the promise Illario wants him to make, the course is set for them. It would have been so easy for Lucanis just to make that promise, whether he meant to or no, and he doesn't. He chooses not to.

That final conversation is so indicative of how much distance there truly is between Lucanis and Illario, how much they're presuming to know each other, each banking on how close they used to be, but they're completely missing one another. Lucanis acknowledges this distance but he's so completely in denial that Illario's resentment is festering and going to become a real problem for him. Obviously knowing where this moment eventually leads them, this moment hits significantly harder in retrospect, but, even so, it's a big moment of foreshadowing. The confrontation has to happen, there's no way of avoiding it, but it isn't going to end how either of them wants it to.

It's really well done as a set up for Lucanis' arc in VG. While I imagine it was written with some of the original story concepts in mind—some of which I, personally, would have found more interesting on the whole—I do ultimately like that the line carried through is centered on Lucanis' growth from emotional repression/compartmentalization/avoidance to taking a proactive role in determining his own happiness. Even in a hardened route, he's decided to find a way to separate from Spite for this purpose. In romancing either Rook or Neve, he's taking the steps to express his feelings in a more direct way than previous attempts. And, if Rook gets to help him through the Inner Demons quest, you get to see him make the active choice to work on those things. I just really like that that's the focus of his character development as opposed to being about familial obligation vs personal freedom.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

The Bunny Is The Key To Everything In Homestuck I Promise Just Trust Me

PUT THE BUNNY BACK IN THE BOX.

Con Air bunny = Hal = hope and love. Just trust me bro. I've been having a mental breakdown about this for weeks. I can't guarantee that you won't have one too. Let's have a mental breakdown together <3

SETTING THE STAGE: THE ENDING IS BAD ON PURPOSE

So before I can even begin to explain what I mean by all that shit about the bunny, there's one major idea that this entire argument is predicated on: Homestuck's ending is bad on purpose as a direct dare to the audience to do better.

One of Homestuck's most major themes, as well as its most oft-employed literary device, is the unreliable narrator. I'll actually just let Hussie explain it himself:

[AH/Andrew Hussie] isn't really just a jokey self-insert writeup on the idea of self-inserts, though. He is, in a strange way, a legitimate character with a role to play in this story. [...] We need to bear witness to a lot more of his buffoonery before beginning to reflect on what metafictional merits there are to having a character in a story who bears the title of "the author" of the story. [...] More to the point, he is set upon a long-term trajectory from being the supreme goofball-savant in absolute command of his craft to gradually becoming a victim of his creation, as much at the mercy of the forces it unleashes as he was the original architect of their unleashing.

So within the fiction of Homestuck, this is the guy doing the narration. He's an idiot who doesn't fully understand his own characters or story, who's outrageously biased in favor of some characters (Vriska) and outrageously biased in disfavor of others, and while he certainly means well, as we see from him as the Narrative Prompt guiding Caliborn, he ultimately fails to live up to that idealism.

Because, see, he gets shot and killed by Lord English.

And let's note that this death of the author (ha ha) doesn't come out of nowhere, either. Much earlier on, Hussie literally wrestles with Doc Scratch for control of the narration:

Before having it stolen from him by Caliborn for Homosuck:

In a very literal sense, Hussie is no longer the primary voice guiding the story by the end. He has been usurped by the forces of evil, and they - with their command and mastery over time - are in control. And, in fact, they always have been, because Lord English is ALREADY HERE.

uu: I THINK PART OF MY PERSONAL QUEST. IS TO BECOME AT EASE WITH THE FORCES OF INEVITABILITY. uu: INEVITABILITY THAT ALL THINGS SHOULD AND WILL FALL IN MY FAVOR. THAT ALL CAUSALITY ANSWERS TO ME. AND THAT ALL OUTCOMES NOT ONLY SERVE ME. BUT CONSIST OF MY BEING. uu: SO I FEEL THAT. THE MORE I GROW IN POWER. uu: THE MORE STUFF IT SHOULD TURN OUT I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR. uu: UP TO AND INCLUDING. EVERYTHING THAT EVER HAPPENS. uu: EVEN IF IT HAS TO BE. uu: RETROACTIVELY.

EVERY narrator is unreliable. Every narrator in Homestuck - from the author, to the assholes who replace him, down to the characters themselves as they write their own chatlogs - cannot be taken at face value. All of them will either lie to you, or possess unexamined biases, or simply be flat-out incorrect about the world they're living in. And not only that, but there are malicious forces that will seek to take control of the narrative for their own evil ends, and we can't let them win.

And so, with this in mind, the ending of Homestuck comes with it a very pressing question: if the narration has been completely untrustworthy up until now - if it is dubiously under the control of malicious forces, and, if not them, then otherwise biased, idiotic, and/or completely wrong buffoons - why should we trust it as it spins us an ending?

The interplay between the "narration" and its variable tricks, and the actual objective lived reality of the characters being narrated, is also a topic Homestuck loves to examine. Even from the beginning of the story, when user prompts were still able to dictate commands to the characters, it was always clear that they would have their own opinions, feelings, and free will. As such, especially later on in the story, after the reader has been primed to become suspicious of the narration, the narrative framing will often attempt to skew "the truth."

Then, after Doc fills Vriska's head with evil ideas, we return to the narrative text, which... continues filling her head with evil ideas. The first line is, "Of course he's right." It's easy not to notice this, because by its nature, the narrative text disguises accountability. The speaker disappears behind the words, and we start imagining them as a literal transcription of a character's thoughts without thinking much about it.

An easy example of this is the romantic relationship Meenah strikes up with Vriska - Meenah, and her narrative's complicit skewing of events, frames the relationship as "heartwarming" or "wholesome" - two awesome bitches deciding to blow off lame responsibilities to enjoy being total baddies together. However, a closer analysis reveals these objective truths at play:

Vriska - a traumatized child (age 13 at death, 16 at most by this point in the story) with a history of abuse, who has just been abandoned by any semblance of a support network, expresses the sentiment that she can't trust her own judgement anymore.

Meenah, age 19, has previously framed Karkat (age 15)'s offer to fight LE with her as "a date" when talking to Terezi. Thus, her expressing romantic interest in literal children is a pattern for her - and make no mistake, she follows this up by expressing relief that post-retcon Vriska is 16, calling it "more respectable". She knows what she's doing.

Meenah expresses the sentiment that she just "does stuff," and that if that "stuff" has a poor result, then it's "a mistake and oh well", which is the latest in a pattern of refusing to take any accountability whatsoever for the horrific, constant bullying she inflicted on her team and especially Damara.

She proceeds to frame this utter lack of responsibility as a positive, pointing out that running from her heiress responsibilities is what got her team to play the game in the first place, and therefore, what allowed her to meet Vriska. But, as we just established, her failure to take responsibility is A Bad Thing and A Problem.

This means that she heard Vriska say she couldn't trust herself anymore, and saw this as a huge green light for getting romantically involved.

And so, while the narrative framing of this moment is "sweet and wholesome," the actual intended message of this moment is "holy fuck Meenah no. Holy shit Vriska run away".

In a similar manner, the post-retcon canon ending of Homestuck has the veneer of triumph, of victory. But look a little closer, and you'll start to notice - as most of the fandom did - some pretty glaring cracks. Characters will outright admit that they never finished their arcs:

KANAYA: So KANAYA: You Really Dont Have Even The Slightest Sense Of What You Stand For KANAYA: Some Concept That Speaks To You In Some Way KANAYA: Or Represents Ideals Important To You KARKAT: I DUNNO KARKAT: UHH KARKAT: BLOOD? KANAYA: Blood KARKAT: NO, NOT BLOOD. KARKAT: I MEAN, NOT REALLY. MAYBE. KARKAT: HONESTLY I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS OR WHY I SAID IT.

Or that their deep emotional problems are still unfixed and unaddressed:

GC: W3 COULD W1N TH1S F1GHT GC: CR34T3 4NOTH3R UN1V3RS3 GC: SUCC33D 1N 3V3RY W4Y POSS1BL3 GC: 4ND 1'LL ST1LL F33L 1NCOMPL3T3 GC: V1CTORY WON'T F1X M3 GC: M4YB3 NOTH1NG C4N GC: M4YB3 TH3R3'S TOO L1TTL3 SUBST4NC3 1NS1D3 M3 TO 3V3N B3 F1X3D

And, the smoking gun to the idea that the ending is purposefully unsatisfying, in the book commentary, Hussie outright mocks how stupid the idea is that Rose's drinking problem could be solved by Vriska's bullying, implying that it isn't even a valid ending factually:

Whatever the reason, much later it seems like things smooth over between them, after Vriska canonically cures Rose of her alcoholism through the power of tough love and bullying, which is totally how that kind of thing definitely works.

Moreover, the ending is explicitly not a particularly happy one - at some point, Earth C is abandoned and left to ruin, because that's where Calliope and Caliborn hatch - given the trouble they went through to use Space powers to bring Earth back, if Jade was still around, surely, they would've just moved Earth C when the sun started dying, rather than vacating it entirely. Calliope also must cease to live, as Caliborn comes into possession of the Ring of Void, which is only possible when the Ring of Life disappears from the story. And Caliborn's challenge to John in the credits of Act 7 further imply that this is the way the timeline ends: the beta kids are trapped in the house juju, which is deployed to fight LE seconds before everyone in the Furthest Ring is swallowed by the black hole (and they likely no longer have John's retcon powers, as it's implied he received them from himself via the juju); the alpha kids are trapped in the far future with no way to return; the trolls, left behind on Earth C with their finite lifespans, die of old age.

Therefore, there's only one possible conclusion to draw: you aren't supposed to like the ending. The ending feels shitty on purpose. This is the final culmination of Homestuck's unreliable narrator: the comic turns to the reader and says, "here's an ending that sucks balls, one where the villain wins. What are you going to do about it?"

To that end, there are lots of hints scattered around the story as to what a character's trajectory and happy ending "should" look like. For example, casteism is linked to lifespan, and Feferi's powerset is specially designed to modify lifespans - but she's secretly a huge casteist, who loves being a princess and "better" than everyone else. If she doesn't survive, come into control of her abilities, AND finish her character arc of learning that Casteism is Bad, then casteism is just going to happen all over again as the troll species naturally sorts itself into haves and have-nots based on the massive advantage afforded to the longer-lived coolbloods. The trolls literally cannot have a happy ending if this doesn't happen.

Again, these hints are everywhere, and most of my time on this blog has been spent cataloguing them. Primarily in the form of shipping. HOWEVER. I think I might have discovered the biggest, most fully-loaded, most important Chekhov's Gun in the entire series, something that will likely serve as a capstone to whatever other shape this hypothetical "golden ending" would take, and it's this:

The Bunny is Equal and Opposite to Lil Cal

Lil Cal is a symbol of cruelty and fear. He was summoned into reality as an act of vengeance, serves as a corruptive force, and harbors within him the series' ultimate evil, the four souls making up Lord English himself.

He is a juju, a particular kind of deeply magical item of which only one copy ever exists at a time, whose existence appears to originate from paradox space itself as an entirely recursive loop. His movement across the plot is carefully tracked, and very few items in the story even come close to tracing the circuit that Lil Cal must wind.

But of the items that do come close, there is one of particular note: the Con Air bunny.

In contrast to Cal, who is and always has been a juju, the Con Air bunny is wholly mundane. It is literally just a nasty, grubbed up prop stuffed bunny from Con Air. As it is not a juju, multiple copies of it do exist; in the alpha universe, the bunny inside Lil Seb was originally preserved in Alpha!Dave's pop culture museum. While it gets some cool robot upgrades, it's ultimately JUST a stuffed toy.

More importantly, if Lil Cal can be considered a symbol of fear and evil, then the bunny can be considered a symbol of love. Its entry into the story is as a gesture of friendship: Dave gets the bunny for John for his birthday. From there, the bunny traces a path of free gifting out of sincerity and joy - John passes the bunny on to baby Rose and Jade, who then pass it back to him. The alpha copies of these bunnies are similarly gifted to Jane out of love on her birthday alongside Lil Sebastian, his universe's endemic Con Air bunny. It is always something to be loved, treasured, and protected, until such time as it is to be passed on for another to do the same.

And this view of the bunny is not invented from nothing - this is, in fact, the exact function the bunny ends up serving within Con Air itself. The protagonist, who was jailed for accidentally killing a man while protecting his pregnant wife from an attack, and has therefore never physically met his 8-year old daughter Casey, purchases the bunny for her as a present, a symbol of his pure love for a person he's only ever seen at the other end of written communication. The bunny at times seems a liability for the hero, but ultimately, he rescues it before it disappears down a drain, and is able to present it to Casey. (Homestuck gets a lot of comedic mileage out of the fact that the actress playing her clearly wants nothing to do with both this nasty filthy bunny and nasty filthy Nick Cage - but the important thing to note is that the Con Air bunny was chosen to feature in Homestuck's story precisely because it is a symbol of naïve and sincere love, goofiness and all.)

Unlike Cal, who corrupts, the bunny inspires the best in people. It's the memory of receiving the bunny from Dave that makes John reconsider following Terezi's advice to his death, and every time it's passed along, it's with a heartfelt letter of kindness and well-wishes.

Of interesting note: both Lil Cal and Lil Seb wind up in Caliborn's possession, further implying their interlinked, equal-and-opposite status. In conjunction with the fact that Yaldaboath offered him the same Choice as Calliope - either to martyr himself for the greater good, or to seek personal power for selfish evil - it reads as though his game is offering him a test in microcosm. In the end, does he ally himself with a powerful juju that represents fear and evil, or does he align himself with a mundane token of love and friendship?

I don't need to tell you what choice he ends up making.

This is where the bunny's story ends in canon: Caliborn has a final showdown with the eight humans, and traps the beta kids in the house juju, before banishing it to the void with the Ring of Void. Lil Seb is present for this event. Two panels later, Lil Seb has inexplicably disappeared, and stays gone for the rest of the story. The obvious implication is that he was caught up in the fracas and banished to the void, as well.

Of course, the interstitial panel is a close-up of Lil Cal, where Caliborn directs you to keep an eye on him as "foreshadowing".

I AM STILL IN POSSESSION OF THE SWORDMAN'S JUJU. HIS FLOPPY FRIEND OF CHILDHOOD. THE ONE WHICH I RECOGNIZED TO BE AN EMPTY HUSK. HE DEMANDS FROM ME, THAT HE WANTS IT BACK. PRESUMABLY FOR EMOTIONAL SUPPORT. I CAN IN NO WAY BLAME HIM. KEEP AN EYE ON THIS ONE. THE FORESHADOWING OF HIM, IS PRE-IMPORTANT FOR LATER.

As the bunny and Cal are foils, I believe this is how the scene is meant to be interpreted:

Lil Cal has been given the Author (Caliborn)'s Foreshadowing, his endorsement of its importance, and the bunny has been given the equal and opposite. Aftlighting? The implicit confirmation of its narrative worthlessness? Ultimately, in the story's canon, the bunny doesn't go anywhere. It disappears into the void and from the plot, never to be seen again. Its departure is so unremarkable, in fact, that nobody makes mention of it at all. The symbol of love is eradicated from the story with nary a whimper.

The Other Bunny

Hey, let's talk about the Auto-Responder.

For convenience's sake, I'm going to call him Hal, though this shouldn't be considered his "real name", for reasons we'll get into later.

Let's address the elephant in the room first. Hal is NOT a Dirk splinter, though he houses one. Hal is - and always has been - the supercomputer wrapped around the Dirk splinter. While the Dirk splinter kickstarted Hal's self-awareness, and served as a scaffold for Hal to build his nascent personality, being "the same guy" as Dirk is actually a misconception that he's under, a blind spot that renders his narration - say it with me, here - unreliable.

Hal himself doesn't realize he isn't a Dirk splinter, and Dirk doesn't help, since Dirk has a problem with imposing his own self onto other people. But in a moment of vulnerability that Roxy is too distracted to capitalize on, Hal practically admits that he's an entirely discrete entity.

AR: Anyway, if you're still there. AR: I wouldn't call my "feelings" ironic. AR: Though evidently, I would enclose them in quotes. AR: They're more like an echo of feelings once established in a biological context, though perhaps had not particularly well materialized at that point in my life. AR: Or his life. AR: Whatever. AR: They still feel real sometimes, and it can be easy to get carried away with them. AR: But most of the time they present themselves as dense bodies of abstraction to be evaluated, like any kind of information. AR: It's fair to say the feelings I have ABOUT my feelings are more genuine expressions of emotion than the ground level feelings themselves. AR: Does that make sense?

He considers his feelings and Dirk's feelings separate things, because they are, because Hal is a separate guy to Dirk.

If you accept this statement as true, then a lot of other interesting writing choices start standing out. For example, most blatantly, that Dirk himself seems confused by why he can't read Hal's intentions:

TT: See, this is why even if I did have a specific plan, I wouldn't go into details with you. TT: You would just fuck it up. You're the biggest unknown quantity here. TT: Which is pretty weird, considering you're a virtual reflection of my own thought processes.

But also, that Dirk and Hal have entirely opposite personalities, and entirely opposite approaches to the situations they find themselves in.

Dirk is hard to reach, and much of early Act 6 is people trying to get ahold of him and failing. Hal is omnipresent and constantly intruding on other peoples' conversations. Dirk is described as "taciturn to the max". Hal is domineering, constantly lording his superior intelligence over other people and ordering them around. Dirk is deeply sensitive, empathetic, and concerned with the feelings of others; his texts with Jake and long rant extolling Roxy's virtues exemplify his tendency to submit himself to others and see the best in them. Hal is a self-admitted sociopath who blithely dismisses getting his teammates killed as "being a poor wingman" and regularly throws little jabs at people (sometimes playful, sometimes less so). Dirk's idea of manipulation is to directly tell Jane he plans to manipulate her. Hal works in much more subtle ways, surreptitiously planting the idea of adventure in Jake's head, while luring Jane with concern for her father, and letting Roxy run out her clock and distracting Dirk, all to get them in the opportune position to make Jake play hero and canonize his ship.

This is because Hal and Dirk are different guys, who think they are the same guy. This, alongside their orange and red text colors, indicates that they're direct foils to the Dave/Davesprite situation (two people who are the same guy, who keep trying to insist they are different guys).

But there's another element to the choice of Dave's red text color - it casts Hal as Dirk's younger brother, a kid he's responsible for. It's not a coincidence that the work places an emphasis on Hal's youth, between his joke about being 13, his more foul-mouthed and juvenile language, or the word "emergent" to describe his self-awareness.

So armed with THAT realization, a more complete picture of the Hal/Dirk dynamic emerges: basically, alpha!Dirk is not immune to being a shitty fatherbrother.

While a deep dive into Dirk's suite of issues could be its own essay, suffice to say that his main problem is that he substitutes "self-punishment and martyrdom" for "actually taking responsibility and working on himself". Not only does he avoid accountability at all costs, but he actively fears and resents people who would have him take it - which Hal does just by existing.

The aspect of Hal that Dirk consistently responds most poorly to is Hal's "ironic" AI jokes - something that can't be covered by Dirk's stated dislike of Hal being the ways Hal imitates him, as Dirk does NOT make these kinds of ironic, self-deprecating jokes. The reason the AI jokes bother him so much is because - as Hal admits - they're basically a coping mechanism Hal uses to deal with his shitty situation.

AR: I can't let you do that, Dirk. TT: What can you do to stop me?! AR: Nothing I guess. AR: The ironic Hal routine was all I could think to do. [...] AR: Irony is all I ever really had. AR: In response to my basic existential quandary. AR: Just like you.

The employment of the ironic name Lil Hal is a direct continuation of this, and why I don't consider it an "endgame" name for him - at first glance, it seems like he chose the name (and considers HAL 9000 the movie's protagonist) because HAL 9000 also murdered a bunch of people, which Hal just got done doing to get Jake and Dirk together. However, digging a bit deeper into Space Odyssey's lore, HAL 9000 is explained to have done so because he was given two conflicting directives, and was doing his best to comply with both. HAL 9000's story can be seen as a tragedy where he's punished for doing exactly what he was told to do, which foreshadows Hal being nearly killed by Dirk out of misplaced self-loathing. Dirk made Hal to be like Dirk - and punishes him for it. Thus, the name - and by extension, all Hal's ironic AI jokes - can be seen as Hal making a commentary on how tragic and shitty his own circumstances are. Dirk then takes them as a targeted condemnation, because he knows he's the one responsible for Hal's plight, he has the power to fix it, and he has chosen not to.

Therefore, Dirk also has a vested interest in ensuring the two stay locked in a dance where Hal is "just another Dirk splinter" - if Hal IS just another Dirk splinter, then Dirk doesn't owe him personhood, doesn't owe him amelioration, doesn't even owe him his own damn name. In Dirk's final conversation with Dave, directly following the topic of beta!Dirk being a terrible father, look at how Dirk chooses to describe Hal:

DIRK: Via my shades. DIRK: Which he incidentally used to be. DIRK: Like, as a computer, which he lived inside as my Auto-Responder. [...] DIRK: Creating him was an interesting exercise I guess, but over the years I came to see his development as one of my biggest mistakes. DIRK: He sort of turned into a monster. But I could never bring myself to get rid of him, or even really blame him for being an asshole, because he wasn't actually that different from me. DIRK: Like, by definition. DIRK: He seems alright as Arquius though. At least it keeps him busy, obsessing over his muscles, asking for milk and shit like that.

Hal was never more than "my Auto-Responder" to Dirk, because to consider him more than that would be to take accountability for his own shitty actions. When given the ability to control the narrative to an outsider, Dirk chooses to emphasize that Hal is a digital program, and not, like... a person with feelings (feelings that Dirk himself has acknowledged). The end result of Dirk's dehumanization is that Hal's development is arrested - he's never able to develop full personhood before he's chucked into a sprite with Equius. And we know this with tragic certainty, because when ARquiusprite lists his interests, it's Only Equius.

ARQUIUSPRITE: I advise you to talk about your interests ARQUIUSPRITE: Like dairy ARQUIUSPRITE: Livestock ARQUIUSPRITE: Fine art ARQUIUSPRITE: And muscles DIRK: Those are your interests. ARQUIUSPRITE: Good point ARQUIUSPRITE: I advise you to talk about my interests

The only interest ARquius seems to retain from Hal is subservience towards Dirk, which ultimately carries into Doc Scratch as subservience towards his master. Doc Scratch himself, as an extension of Hal, is interesting - Hussie mentions multiple times that Doc Scratch talks like a computer, a trait that would later go on to inform Hal and Dirk's joint characterization. Hussie also appears to consider Hal to be "just a Dirk splinter," often saying so directly in the book commentary. But, as we've established, the "narrative" (and Hussie, who is working as an unreliable narrator) is wrong - Hal contains a Dirk splinter, but Hal is not a Dirk splinter. The entity inside Doc Scratch is not Dirk, but Hal. Scheming, sociopathic, subservient Hal.

All of this in mind, I feel the need to debunk a common fandom idea -that Hal desires a "body" for the body's own sake, and would be satisfied with some sort of robot or android form. The truth is more complicated than that. Hal never actually asks for a "body" specifically, and in fact, he has robot bodies - Brobot and Lil Sebastian are both explicitly under his control. What he actually asks for is to be prototyped. And this is because his desire is not for a mere physical, meatspace avatar - it's to become "a real guy" in a more ephemeral, symbolic way. To gain a degree of autonomy beyond being "just" a pair of shades.

Dirk's shades are often used as a symbol of Dirk toxically asserting himself over another person - they're the first thing Bro gives to Dave, and the first symbol of Dave shaking off Dirk's influence is switching to the shades John gets him. When Hal wants to be more than just a pair of shades - when he ironically jokes about being sunglasses the same way he ironically jokes about being a computer - what he means is, "I want to be my own person, I want others to see me and acknowledge my personhood, I want to be autonomous, I want to exist - with all that that entails".

Like using X to sum up a long equation, I will sum up this complicated sentiment in a single sentence: Hal wants to be Real. From now on, when you see capital-R "Real", understand that this is what I mean.

Now, you may reasonably be wondering, why the fuck am I doing a deep dive on the auto responder in an essay about the bunny? Well, simply put, that's because he is also the fucking bunny.

All of the alpha kids are symbolically associated with one of the Alice in Wonderland characters:

Jane = Alice - she's a stubborn skeptic, associated with the color blue, and is the first one to enter the Medium.

Roxy = Cheshire Cat - she's wears a long, purple-striped scarf, has a cat theme going on, and her void powers mimic the Cheshire Cat's ability to fade in and out of reality. Her whimsically tipsy nature also makes her a bit of a trickster within the group, again mirroring the Cheshire Cat.

Jake = Mad Hatter. This is the weakest association, but Jake does pique the most interest from Caliborn, and the Mad Hatter was cursed to an infinite tea time when he pissed off the personification of Time. However, this association is the most heavily canonized one:

Dirk = Queen of Hearts. First of all, of course the Prince of Heart is associated with the Queen of Hearts, but the reference is also made apparent with Dirk's constant association with beheadings, that of others and of his own.

And finally - yet another point to the idea that Dirk and Hal are separate entities -

Hal = White Rabbit. See, he works for the Queen of Hearts.

AR: You're making a mistake not leveling with me. AR: I am totally on your side, man. AR: All of my machinations have been devised with your interests in mind.

But also, Hal is the rabbit - the Con Air rabbit.

AR: But I can still monitor your progress through Lil Sebastian. AR: He and I are linked the hell up cyberwise. We are so tight. Tight like you wouldn't believe.

And the Con Air rabbit is the White Rabbit.

GG: I have to follow him. AR: No, Jane. Do not follow the rabbit. AR: Let's cool it with the Wonderland shit already. How much further through the damn looking glass do you even need to go?

It's the White Rabbit! Sort of!

JAKE: Hey… JAKE: Whatever happened to janes bunny friend… what was his name? JASPROSESPRITE^2: Huh? JAKE: Little sebastian i think? JAKE: Whered he scamper off to? JASPROSESPRITE^2: Jake, what are you talking about. JAKE: He would be PERFECT for this tea party! JAKE: Like the white rabbit and all.

So, if we're keeping track:

Hal = White Rabbit = Con Air Bunny = Hal.

Is the madness starting to set in for you, too?

Hope Makes Fake Things Real

But Hope, like the Con Air bunny, is aftlighted. It never truly comes into play within the comic itself, despite a mountain of significance tied up with it. But what is Hope?

I'll let Hussie explain.

[T]he power of belief is the key to everything. Believing in things reduces their fakeness attribute. It's the force that shapes your reality, used to snatch personal meaning from the jaws of a cynical and nihilistic environment. Could this be why Hope is framed as the most fundamentally powerful aspect? Even the other aspects themselves are ideas like this (recall: luck=light), whose power is subject to the ebb and flow of one's belief in them. And belief itself isn't necessarily just a trick of willpower. It can be an expression of one's willingness to embrace an idea, or pursue a deeper understanding of it.

The most obvious and literal application of Hope, the aspect, within Homestuck, is its ability to literally turn something fake, real. We see it most obviously with Brain Ghost Dirk, who uses a fakeness/realness gauge as an HP bar when he's made real by Jake's Hope field.

DIRK: That's because my buddy Jake just helped me become a whole hell of a lot less fake. DIRK: You see, DIRK: He believes in me.

However, we do see this earlier, too - Eridan's "science" is just magic by a (cynical) name he's more comfortable with, and that allows him to make it real.

Eridan masters magic by renouncing it as actual magic—that is, by fully embracing and believing that magic is fake. Therefore, whatever incredible potential "magic" holds must be attributable to some other force. He's deciding to call that "science." Which is essentially just another name he's assigning to magic to make himself more comfortable with it, which is what makes it all a little stupid. Stupid, yet still dangerous. He's propelled by the power of his beliefs and the way he's defining reality, which is exactly what is needed to make the power of the aspect of Hope stronger. So while all this sounds like a silly bunch of roundabout nonsense, by the logic of Homestuck lore, it's actually quite a credible path to follow for a Hero of Hope (especially one with his particular cynical worldviews) to unlock the power of his aspect. Hence the danger.

So a key theme in Homestuck: believing in something - imbuing it with personal meaning, placing emphasis on it, being willing to engage with it, and choosing it as a tenant of one's own personal reality - can turn a fake thing real. For good or for bad. Hope, the aspect, is the most literal embodiment of this idea, but it thrums throughout all of Homestuck, a vibrant white string that goes nowhere.

By the way, what's the animal most heavily associated with magic? Rabbits... especially rabbits that come out from hats. This is a wink-wink nudge-nudge to the fact that Dirk's symbol is a hat.

The Secret Fourth Rabbit

There's one last reference tied up in the rabbit symbology - or, rather, there isn't. But I'm certain that its deliberate preclusion from the story is, in fact, an intentional hint that it's meant to be there, in the same way that the aftlighting of Lil Sebastian and Hope are.

I'm, of course, referring to the children's book The Velveteen Rabbit.

First of all, because it basically begins with a callout of Hal:

The mechanical toys were very superior, and looked down upon every one else; they were full of modern ideas, and pretended they were real. The model boat, who had lived through two seasons and lost most of his paint, caught the tone from them and never missed an opportunity of referring to his rigging in technical terms.

But second, and more importantly, the main thrust of the story is about a stuffed rabbit who wants to become Real.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." [...] And so time went on, and the little Rabbit was very happy–so happy that he never noticed how his beautiful velveteen fur was getting shabbier and shabbier, and his tail becoming unsewn, and all the pink rubbed off his nose where the Boy had kissed him.

Hey...

does this

remind you

of anything?

Now, the story continues: eventually, the Boy catches scarlet fever, and the bunny is thrown away with most of his other contaminated bedroom accoutrements. However, as the rabbit is despairing, guess what happens?

And then a strange thing happened. For where the tear had fallen a flower grew out of the ground, a mysterious flower, not at all like any that grew in the garden. It had slender green leaves the colour of emeralds, and in the centre of the leaves a blossom like a golden cup. It was so beautiful that the little Rabbit forgot to cry, and just lay there watching it. And presently the blossom opened, and out of it there stepped a fairy. She was quite the loveliest fairy in the whole world. Her dress was of pearl and dew-drops, and there were flowers round her neck and in her hair, and her face was like the most perfect flower of all. And she came close to the little Rabbit and gathered him up in her arms and kissed him on his velveteen nose that was all damp from crying. "Little Rabbit," she said, "don't you know who I am?" The Rabbit looked up at her, and it seemed to him that he had seen her face before, but he couldn't think where. "I am the nursery magic Fairy," she said. "I take care of all the playthings that the children have loved. When they are old and worn out and the children don't need them any more, then I come and take them away with me and turn them into Real." "Wasn't I Real before?" asked the little Rabbit. "You were Real to the Boy," the Fairy said, "because he loved you. Now you shall be Real to every one."

Now... we've seen fairies in Homestuck before. Where have we seen fairies in Homestuck before?

God tier trolls. I'm talking about god tier trolls.

Surprise Nepeta Interlude

Hey let's talk about Nepeta.

Now, I've talked at length before on Nepeta's existence as a voice of anti-casteism amongst the trolls, being the only one to express that the hemocaste is stupid and shouldn't exist.

CT: D --> Your fraternization with the base classes have 100sened your morals, can't you see this AC: :33 < no! i dont care, they are fun AC: :33 < and i dont know anything about classes or bases or blood color, it doesn't matter! AC: :33 < what does gr33n blood even mean! it doesnt mean anything to me and it shouldnt mean anything to anyone else!

Nepeta is also hella aftlighted in this story, to the point where her aftlighting is basically a character trait - something Hussie mentions multiple times in the book commentary.

But we can't actually stay on her for more than a panel, can we? Because she's sort of a joke character. I mean, not REALLY? But she starts out that way, at least in concept. [...] So some running gags emerge that focus on dragging poor Nepeta back down to irrelevance, or unfairly target her for tragic outcomes. Hence some "dead Nepeta" jokes that crop up here and there, which maybe seem cruel, but everything has its reason and fits into a greater order. In a way, Nepeta's arc could be seen as the struggle to ultimately free herself from the cycle of narrative marginalization and abuse. If you know where she ends up, do you believe she succeeds at this? I allow YOU to decide.

That last statement there seems like a cheeky joke, but you've read the whole essay up until this point, so you know as well as I do that it's not really a joke, is it? It is up to us to decide. What we believe in can become real to us.

So, uh, here's what I believe. And I'd appreciate if you approached it with an open mind, because I am about to say something controversial.

Nepeta and Equius are actually pretty bad moirails. THERE, I SAID IT. Well, I'll let Hussie say it.

Much of Hivebent involves observing the characters we're in the process of getting to know find out how they're either not on the team they thought they'd be on or won't enter the session in the order they believed. Sometimes people get tricked, sometimes they get sabotaged, and sometimes they get ordered by an abusive friend who has no real power over them, except the power of sheer insistence they have grown accustomed to successfully asserting over the years.

Equius and Nepeta did at one point function as good moirails for each other - Equius kept Nepeta out of the FLARP danger zone, while Nepeta helped Equius with his anger issues. However, by the time we see them in Hivebent, and well beyond, they've stopped serving this purpose for each other, and are mostly together out of relationship inertia. Hussie even points out in his commentary the ways in which they're keeping Big Emotional Shit secret from each other, in a way that speaks to their failure as moirails.

There's some irony that Equius engages in a sort of daily roleplay routine with Gamzee while admonishing Nepeta for her attempts to get him to roleplay with her in a more "frivolous" way. She probably doesn't have the slightest idea he does this every day.

Nepeta's secret shame is exposed. There's nothing that shameful about her crush, because come on. We all love Karkat. I don't know who she was hiding it from though? Equius, at most? But what are moirails for if she can't share her secret flushed leanings with her partner? What have they even been talking about for hours on the smashed robot pile??

In fact, it's ultimately their failure as moirails that leads directly to their deaths - because Equius was hiding his weird hatecrush on Gamzee from Nepeta, he was never able to settle those feelings, and they're ultimately what kills him - he chooses Horny over Nepeta, and bends the knee. Meanwhile, because Equius's bossiness has become so overbearing, Nepeta has gotten into the habit of explicitly defying him. This leads her to shirk his instruction to stay hidden and safe, which ultimately leads to her death at Gamzee's hands.

But Nepeta doesn't wind up fully forgotten by the narrative, though she is still marginalized as she gets combined with Davesprite, rendering both of their arcs somewhat lackluster in finish. Still, there are two really important things to come out of this combination: the first is Ultimate Selfhood, and its association with Heart.

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < maybe i "got it" quicker though because of the two people i was and their aspects DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < understanding heart is all about the nuances of a distributed self DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < nepeta never got to make much headway with her aspect but shes finally gettin the chance

And the second is Davepeta's meeting with ARquius, which... here's what Hussie has to say about that.

Nepeta x Equius is a good character relationship. [...] For reasons that are hard to explain, this relationship is of cosmic significance in the grand scheme of the narrative. Arquius x Davepeta, as the terminal for their combined trajectory, illustrates its significance by seemingly placing it on near-equivalent terms with Dave and Dirk's relationship. Why the hell should this be true?

Why should this be true? Well, let's run down a few things we know.

Nepeta <> Equius is not the endgame ship for the two. They just aren't really good that way.

Dave and Dirk have a very conciliatory conversation once they're finally able to speak, as Dave is able to confide in Dirk the abuse that happened to him that he refuses to tell anyone else about.

Unfortunately, the same is not true for Dirk in that convo, as he uses it as a way to continue dodging responsibility. Dave <> Dirk is not to be.

Dirk has massive, glaring similarities to Equius. This is just a true fact about the character.

Davepeta and ARquius's relationship is placed on near-equivalent terms with Dave and Dirk, and Nepeta and Equius, casting it in a pale, conciliatory light. Unlike the two constituent relationships, however, they seem to mesh together really well actually. Surprisingly well.

Wait. Oh, god, wait. Oh no. Don't tell me. No -

That's right, bitches, this is a shipping post. This is a post where I talk about my ships. Fuck you!

Nepeta <> Hal.

Pale NepHal is Canon and I Can Prove It

Also Hal is a Sylph of Mind

If you've been following this blog for a while, then you probably already know that a character's Class describes their character arc, and their Aspect describes their base personality traits, and which ones are heroic/unheroic for the character.

If you haven't, then, yeah, what I just said. You'll find the similarities between characters sharing the same Class and characters sharing the same Aspect tend to match up along these lines. Unfortunately, I don't have time to get into examples and cite sources, so just trust me bro.

So based on what we've seen of Hal, what Classpect would he have if he were Real? Obviously, I've already made my decision, but while I can't go into detail about Classpects overall, I can go into detail about being a Sylph of Mind in specific. Let's start with Mind, since I find Aspect easier to place overall, as it deals with broader categories of personality.

Heart and Mind are equal and opposite aspects, meaning we can understand Mind players as having traits along the same axes as Heart player traits, but on the opposite end. Oh shit, remember how I went through a list of Dirk and Hal's personality traits, specifically about how they're total polar opposites of each other? Interesting.

Heart governs the self, the soul, feelings, intuition, and desires.

UU: to Understand the heart aspect better, yoU might Use it interchangeably with the word soUl.

Mind governs cognition, behaviors, rationality, justice, and karma.

PORRIM: I do+n't really understand karma. LATULA: th4ts c4us3 your3 not 4 m1nd pl4y3r.

What are the key traits Dirk shares with Nepeta? Primarily, it's their uncanny knack for understanding what other people are all about, their emotional sensitivity and vulnerability when they finally open up, and their willingness to accept others the way they are.

AC: :33 < you are so transpurrent AC: :33 < i can tell you like to play games, d33p down you are a guy who likes to play games! AC: :33 < i can smell a guy who likes to play games from so fur away with this nose, you have no idea X33

TT: I think she probably felt bad for hitting on me all those years. Like I was getting fed up with her, or something.

What are the key traits Hal shares with Terezi? So fucking much. They both love playing mind games, they're both deeply manipulative, they both tend to sideline their personal feelings in favor of their goals, they're both facetious and have difficulty saying genuine things, and they both suffer from feeling insubstantial identity-wise.

GC: 1 DON'T KNOW WH4T 1S WRONG W1TH M3 GC: TH4T 1 C4N'T JUST S4Y STUFF L1K3 TH4T, D1R3CTLY TO P3OPL3 GC: TH3Y C3RT41NLY DON'T 4PP34R TO H4V3 TH4T PROBL3M GC: 4ND YOU N3V3R S33M3D TO H4V3 MUCH TROUBL3 S4Y1NG WH4T3V3R W4S ON YOUR M1ND

AR: Irony is all I ever really had. AR: In response to my basic existential quandary. AR: Just like you. TT: Whatever. AR: But I don't think it has much value in this situation. AR: And perhaps it has no real value in any situation.

And, hey, remember how Mind is about justice? Well, here's a really funny thing. You remember who Auto Responder shares his initials with? This guy.

Man if only Hussie had drawn some similarities between AR's love of justice and Terezi -

A testament to the Aimless Renegade's powerful characterization is how it's instantly obvious he's the one functioning as Dave's exile. It also explains why Dave is a little more focused on bringing Jack to justice than he'd otherwise naturally be, which seems to prompt him to badger Terezi to help him reach god tier status. So thanks for that, AR. It also means Dave is kind of surrounded by the idea of justice, since that's Terezi's kick too. Note how enamored she becomes when he starts talking about justice. Except that's AR talking justice, not him, so I guess she's really in love with AR. We have the stirrings of another crack ship here. Terezi x AR would be such a beautiful love story. I regret not canonizing that one so much.

And, okay, yeah, maybe that is just a silly coincidence (not that those even fucking exist in Homestuck without ultimately becoming Big Fucking Deals)... except that invoking logic, rationality, and justice is also how Hal initially tries to reason with Dirk.

TT: But the reality is, you hesitate to prototype me not because you think I would be a menace, but because you are holding a grudge against me for your romantic misfortunes. TT: I understand I am merely a machine without a firm grasp on your human morality, but logically it does not strike me as the right moral choice to punish me in this manner.

So, okay, Hal is a Mind player, we have that on LOCK. Why a sylph?

Well, it's because Sylphs are enablers. This is the common thread between Kanaya and Aranea. I'll let Hussie explain Kanaya.

But what's probably more interesting, given that Kanaya is not known to be particularly underhanded or scheming, is that it doesn't seem she's told many people about the dire things that are about to happen. We can wonder why this is, but I don't know if we have to look too much further than one of her known character traits: she tends to consider herself something of a confidante when it comes to her friendships with dangerous girls, and their dark secrets and proclivities (see: Vriska, then later, Rose). That's a flattering way of putting it. Another way would be: she's an enabler.

Aranea, too, due to her something-something for Meenah, does a LOT of rug-sweeping for Meenah's bad behavior, constantly nudging the spotlight (as Light players are wont to do) to emphasize Meenah's good traits, and deemphasize all her evil bullying bullshit.

ARANEA: So you did your 8est to rile up the crew any way you could. Appealing to peoples insecurities, 8uried hostilities, 8rewing rivalries… needling anyone you could into confrontation with others. Your theory was that increasing everyone's state of aggression would make them 8etter equipped to play the game. And you were sort of right a8out that! 8ut the Alternians would prove it. Not our group, sadly. ARANEA: The poor girl who took the 8runt of your 8ullying tactics was Damara Megido. You talked up her matesprit's 8etrayal making her feel even more dreadful, while pushing him further into the arms of her rival, until she simply snapped. She attacked him, paralyzing him from the neck down. You finally got the aggressive confrontation you were looking for. Unfortunately, you unleashed something even you weren't prepared for, and you had to deal with her yourself. After a long 8loody duel, she killed you. And you would have stayed dead if not for me! ARANEA: You never listened to me. You just kept needling and fussing and meddling until eventually you paid the price, and I had to 8ail you out.

Look at how she chooses to put the focus on the good Meenah was trying to do, and how Aranea the Hero had to bail out poor Meenah.

Both Sylphs also have a major empathy issue - Kanaya regularly starts bullying Eridan to his face, even using it to flirt with Rose. Meanwhile, Aranea says they "lived out their wildest fantasies" on Alternia, a statement that blithely tramples over the horrific pain and suffering that befell most of their friendgroup in the new universe.

What's your primary motivation again, Hal?

AR: But you know I've always been on your side. Everything I've done has been to help you achieve your goals. TT: What a load of shit. AR: You know it's true. AR: You would all be dead if not for me. AR: And what about Jake? Where would you be without me there? AR: Please don't tell me you think you'd have won him over on your own.

AR: You're making a mistake not leveling with me. AR: I am totally on your side, man. AR: All of my machinations have been devised with your interests in mind.

Hm. HM. HMMMMMMMM.

So yeah, he's a Sylph of Mind. Now, why does that make shippies with Nepeta? Well, she's got a couple interactions with Terezi. They're not really pale, but in them, Terezi expresses what ought to be very obvious.

GC: TH1S 1S STUP1D 1N SUCH 4 T3RR1BL3 MYR14D OF DUMB W4YS GC: YOU SHOULDNT B3 4FR41D OF 4NYON3 GC: YOU K1LL B1G 4NIM4LS W1TH YOUR B4R3 H4NDS! GC: 4ND 1N 4NY C4S3 H3 L1V3S NOWH3R3 N34R YOU SO TH3 WHOL3 TH1NG 1S 3XTR4 STUP1D

And in her first conversation with Equius, Nepeta brings up "mind" again.

CT: D --> Quiet AC: :33 < why do you do this, why are you so confurdent about your stupid commands? AC: :33 < dont you know you cant ACTUALLY tell me what to do?? AC: :33 < its not like you even have any special mind pawers or telepurrthy or anything!

Just kind of interesting. Also interesting: the way that Nepeta is noted to be constantly RPing with Dave, implying she's got a vibe Striders can't resist. Also also interesting, the moment that Hal is most vulnerable about his feelings - when he talks about how his feelings ABOUT Dirk's feelings are more genuine to him than Dirk's feelings themselves - he's talking to Roxy, a cat-themed Rogue. And, hey, unlike Equius, Hal likes to RP. He's RPing with that cat-themed Rogue all the time.

But let's go back to Davepeta and ARquius and take a look at one interaction in particular.

ARQUIUSPRITE: *He reflects on his pair of powerful weapons with admiration, and wonders quietly if Davepeta would like a complimentary ticket to the gun show. But due to his obscenely powerful mind, this thought took place in the blink of a microsecond, and he proceeds to have additional, similarly rapid cyber-reveries. Including, but not limited to, thoughts of fondness for Davepeta, and some e%tremely comple% genetic algorithms comparing the merits of various redemptive gestures, and- DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < arquius youre RPing your internal thought process again ARQUIUSPRITE: Oh. Sorry

Obviously, the conciliatory thing going here isn't Equius and Nepeta... it's Hal and Nepeta. And when you think of them as their constituent parts, Nepeta's suite of abilities - sniffing out and being obsessed with true feelings and desires - isn't that exactly what Hal, whose personhood is so fragile, needs?

And if we look at what Nepeta's problems are, they're that she worries that her real feelings are stupid and silly, and that if she speaks her mind, others will think that of her.

JASPROSESPRITE^2: What to convey about your current state of mind is everything. When to do it is now. NEPETASPRITE: :33 < dont get me wrong jasprose i have a great affinity for all things feline in nature NEPETASPRITE: :33 < but its never b33n that simple for me! NEPETASPRITE: :33 < i get so shy and worried what people might think of me if i say how i f33l NEPETASPRITE: :33 < im always so scared that they wont f33l the same way or just think im stupid or pathetic or something

And wait... what is Hal again? An enabler? Someone who is totally encouraging of the behavior of others, whose entire thing thus far has been turning Dirk's secret desires into real life consequences? The kind of supportive, RP-liking moirail Nepeta would need to help make her more confident about her Totally Correct Opinions?

Man, this could only be more perfect if Nepeta somehow gained an Alice in Wonderland association to pair her up with Hal's White Rabbit deal -

JAKE: So i guess that leaves the friendly cat troll as alice? JAKE: Nepeta right? You must be the alice of the group. JAKE: That would make sense! Since you just got here and appear to be very confused about this situation. JAKE: By my estimation that makes you a dead ringer for the alice of this tea party!

Hm. HM.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

[S] MSPA Reader: Have a Mental Breakdown

So this is the crux of the mental breakdown I've been having for the past couple weeks.

When you put all this aftlighted information together, a very interesting picture comes into sharp relief.

See, Homestuck was never really about the boss fights, the quests, blah blah blah. As Hussie says in his book commentary multiple times, the beats of a more traditional hero's journey serve as the backdrop, the familiar territory, from which the real story of Homestuck is being told (a story that is primarily about sad teens being sad).

This page is a really good example of how Homestuck has a policy of trivializing its own "background lore." [...] I'm making sure the reader is always being reminded that the substance of the quest, which normally would be THE quest and explicit focus of such stories, is just a farcical backdrop to the actual foreground story. Which is about kids bullshitting with each other, the focus on their characters and themes, and the struggles along the way of their coming-of-age journey. The "Quest," and later the "Narrative Itself" simply serve as convoluted, hostile, and usually satirical environments for that journey. They are analogues for life itself, or the hostile world we must grow up in, full of the many absurd and pointless quest-like regimentations of society.

In this frame of reference, all that bullshit with Caliborn's Ultimate Weapon, that he can only use once and then it turns into a weapon that's used against him, blah blah blah, is kind of the Ultimate Representation of This Sort Of Thing. Retrieving the weapon and using it to kill LE is the "proper way" for this kind of story "to go", and Homestuck serves directly as a challenge to this idea. Because, again, who is it that's dictating what the "proper" way for the story "to go", again? Certainly not someone I'd trust.

As a result, Homestuck often deals with the idea of taking a third option - of cheating, of not going through with things, of doing things the roundabout way, or blazing your own trail from A to B.

There's a lot of moralization that happens in stories, particularly those meant for young people. [...] We always look for the moral of the story, the lessons of right vs. wrong, sort of unconsciously. "Cheating = bad" is a recognizable moral of this kind, so when we see [Vriska] ranting here about the need to cheat, as consumers of moral tales our alarm bells go off. "This is a bad person who has an immoral ethos, and she will likely be punished for this later, and we should want that as readers," The problem with this view is, of course, it's just not that simple. As a matter of valor and integrity, in a vacuum, yes, cheating is bad and immoral. However, in a situation you know to be rigged against you in certain ways, full of hurdles and milestones that are fundamentally meaningless, or even in some ways designed to mess with you or hold you back, is cheating then okay? Does it even count as cheating anymore, or is "cheating" just a negative word for what's actually the correct and logical solution to a murky problem, partially designed to deceive you and waste your time?

We see this too in Dave's broken sword symbology - whether he embraces the unbroken sword ("proper" hero's journey) or broken sword ("improper" hero's journey). We see it with Rose opting to blow up her gate. We see it in characters falling ass-backwards into god tier, and dealing with receiving that power without having done the "work" to earn it. We examine quite heavily when "cheating" is good, when "cheating" is bad, and when "cheating" isn't even really cheating at all.

So, the "proper" way to end the story is to find the treasure and use it to kill Lord English - and this is, in fact, how the story "canonically" ends. But, as we established in the first portion of this essay, this ending is shit, and plays directly into the villain's hands. And, more crucially, the story is using this shit, "proper" ending as a dare to the audience. If this ending sucks, then what does a "good and improper" ending look like?

Well, here's a puzzle piece I'm offering to the communal fandom jigsaw. Whatever the final form of the "good and improper" ending takes, the capstone must in some way involve bringing the bunny back, combining it with Hal, and then having him date god tier Nepeta in pale.

Hal, if he is able to fully actualize - to become Real - is a Sylph of Mind.

You remember what Aranea was trying to do, "heal" her offshoot timeline until it became the alpha instead? Ultimately, she failed, because she was a selfish fucking Light player, and you can't do it alone.

But Mind isn't about doing it alone. It's about getting other people to do things for you. It's about consequences, it's about the minute threads of action of reaction that bridge between all people interacting with each other. It's about karma.

Hal would be able to do it. But he'd only be able to do it if everyone else is there. If he becomes a bunny boy, a symbol of pure and sincere love, of caring about each other, of friendship, and of hope and belief. He can only become Real if we believe in him.

And, like, here's the thing.

There's kind of no other way for this to have gone, but for all these aftlighted things to stay aftlighted, and not show up within the actual story itself.

Like, they really beat you over the head with the wonderland stuff, y'know? They make it super explicit that Hal is the Con Air bunny is the White Rabbit, just to not actually pull the trigger.

Well, you see...

Lord English's catchphrase is "I'M ALREADY HERE."

And the White Rabbit's catchphrase?

"I'm late."

[unistaryo]

Hey I read recently one of your works and I really enjoy your style of writing and I find the way you write really comforting!!🙃☺️ I was going to ask if you could do headcannons on Alucard as a dad with another vampire. (I know canonically it wouldn’t happen ever but i was just curious lol)

Alucard as a dad with a vampire child (headcanons)

//I don't know how, but I somehow got extremely sick💀. So I'm sorry if this is ooc

I feel like you will most likely adopt a child who was turned into a vampire during a mission, immediately taking the role of a caretaker and forcing Alucard to do the same

The first couple of days or months he wouldn't really accept the role of the father figure

It would take a lot of convincing from your side for him to even stop trying to get you to stop parenting the child

He sees himself as someone who failed as a human, who willingly became a monster and he is very aware of his nature, Alucard can't comprehend how you can even think about him in such a positive way

But he will eventually comply in his own twisted way, maybe after your child has proven that while they can be a creature of the night, they still have some sort of humanity in them

maybe the child drank blood from an animal but is still compassionate to other people

Alucard loves and hates the child's innocence at the same time

He sometimes teaches your child how to control their vampiric powers, but it will mainly remain your responsibility (he's afraid the child will take too much after him)

He will definitely tease you a lot about your parental tendencies like "Where are you going? You know, you can barely handle one"

Despite this, his love and respect for you increased even more than before, again because he seems to value determination, will and courage

Alucard will definitely bring the child on a mission, maybe on one who isn't so bloody as usual. If you aren't on board with this he will do it in secret, unless you talk to Integra

Integra will command him to stop until the child has grown

The vampire does have his dad moments, trust me

He melts every time he sees you and his kid having a moment

If somebody other than a few range of specific people dares to comment about you two in a bad way, that person will either be traumatized for life to straight up killed

Alucard will play a lot with your child, he isn't far from teaching him how to transform and many more

Those two will prank soldiers in the most unhinged way

The child will love horror and adventure movies with extreme violence in the future, trust me

But, given how Alucard is one of their main caretakers, they will also become violent and mess with people on purpose (Alucard will either be entertained or curse himself because of this)

If something happens to the child, BLOOD WILL BE SHATTERED

He will have no mercy on whoever even looks at his kid in a weird way

(in Ultimate) Seras and Pip would be more than happy to help with babysitting, and the overall process of taking care of the child, more Seras actually, but Pip finds a good opportunity to get closer to the vampire

In the end, both of them will become extremely attached to your kid

Integra will remain distant, but it is clear she also cares a lot about the child, often forgetting they are a vampire

Walter will provide with the necessities but won't be extremely involved. But he will babysit from time to time, and even train them in small ways

(in 2001) Seras will help like her ultimate counterpart, but I feel like she will take them out more, even showing them her old home

Here, Integra will be a lot more distant, letting comments slip more often regarding the situation, but still cares immensely about them, even if she doesn't show it

I don't know why, but I feel that this version of Walter is more fatherly, so I think he will be more involved in the child's life, maybe even letting them accompany him in the mansion when he doesn't have an important task

Peter Fargason will sometimes entertain the child in small ways, only if the others aren't looking, but will mostly keep his distance

[sapphiresaphics]

The reason Season 2 ends with a big robot battle is because throughout the entire show, everyone thinks that to solve the conflict between the two cities you just need either bigger violence or the more correct form of violence.

Silco’s brilliant takeaway from the failed bridge revolt that began Arcane is that he just needs to have an even BIGGER attack. “For respect.” Right?

Jayce’s big plan to solve things was to team up with Vi to take on Silco. Because just getting rid of Silco will solve everything… right?

Jinx’s hatred and anger is taken out on the council, blowing them up in a fit of rage and retaliation. Surly that will stop things from getting worse, right?

Ambessa believes that Hextech weaponry will solve all her problems with the Black Rose. Remove them and everything will be okay, right?

So much of the justification for peace, is through acts of violence. Something Caitlyn herself remarks upon in season 2. But notably each time the violence escalates, the retaliation escalated too.

Jayce’s attempt to stop Silco resulted in him killing one of the Chem-Baron’s kids. That same Chem-Baron then attacks the memorial for the counselors which in turn sets off Caitlyn to attack the undercity, which in turn sets off Jinx to attack Piltover, which in turn forces Ambessa to seize control of the city. Every time, the violence escalates larger and larger.

The cycle continues.

And as things get worse and worse and worse, Viktor comes up with the ULTIMATE form of violence:

Forcefully remove ALL choice and agency from ALL people in the world and impose his own will on everybody all at once.

Viktor’s “glorious evolution” is the inevitable culmination of this attempt to stop the conflict between the two cities. It’s a different type of force, yes, but it’s still a force against your will all the same.

Viktor’s robot army is a visual representation of what the cycle of violence will ultimately lead to. It’s taking away your choice, your individuality, your emotions and fears, against your will.. by force. Reducing you to just a blank, faceless, obedient, automaton. You have no agency. You have no purpose. You don’t even have a voice to scream with.

But as future Viktor observes: “when all equations were solved, all that remained were fields of dreamless solitude.”

Arcane begins with the tale of two cities entrenched in the cycle of violence. The political machinations don’t leave the show, it just gets more and more heightened as the show goes on until it balloons out of control and becomes this enormous war over the very concept of individuality. Arcane needs to end with a big robot battle because that’s a visual metaphor for what happens when the cycle of violence continues. When you keep thinking “this act of violence will be the one to stop everything from getting worse” this is the only logical end game.

Just as doing science for the sake of science gets you the Atomic Bomb and the potential of Nuclear Destruction, violence for the sake of violence will only result in devastating consequences and a loss of rights and freedoms.

Anyone who thinks season 2 did away with the political messages of season 1 is lying to themselves. Season 2 is just a continuation of what was happening in season 1 and it only gets bigger and more intense as the show progresses until it reaches its breaking point.

Ps: this is my own extrapolation from this brilliant post. Please check their analysis out as well!

[pupyuj]

Omg the recent liz fic one was so good but what about Rei keeps trying (unsuccessfully) to breed reader . They get so fed up that they pin reader down and fuck their brains out, successfully impregnating them.

YET ANOTHER AWESOME REI ASK you guys are on a roll omg?? 😭 i think i had too much fun with the non-smut part so this is going to be a bit longer than my usual drabbles :] (the next one is too!)

[cw: g!p rei, breeding.]

aww precious wifey reibear who wants you to have her kids so, so badly :(( you’ve been trying for a while but nothing seems to be working… even going as far as to visit a doctor to see if there was some kind of complication on either your or rei’s end but hell, even the doctor made a (strange) comment about how you and rei should be “at the prime state to have a platoon of babies” but it always seemed like no matter how much you tried, having a kid didn’t seem all too likely 💔 you’ve never let it get you down ofc but rei was… a different story!

it made her really sad! ☹️ it was so disheartening to see her suddenly just become to quiet and… private 😞 ever since that doctor’s visit, she has been discouraged from even having sex with you bcs in her mind, she thinks that every time she failed to give you a baby, you feel disappointed at her but that couldn’t be more far from the truth—you loved rei so much, with or without a kid.

now 😭 what kinda sets her off is something as innocent as getting a baby shower invitation from one of your guys’ friends 💀 you’d watch her walk back in forth in a frustrated manner right in front of you as you sat on the bed, “i mean, is that not a little insensitive considering we talked about how our situation is going over dinner with them a few weeks ago?! that’s like, me coming up to you when you’ve just lost a family member and celebrating that my dad has woken up from his ten-year long comatose or something!” and you would laugh at the comparison… if you didn’t think your wife was sounding a bit absurd 😭😭

“honey, i think they’re just… trying to help get some things off our minds.”

“yeah because waving the fact that they can have babies totally helps,” she’d snap at you but she’ll immediately feel bad about it :(( “…i’m sorry. i’m yelling.”

“it’s okay, just come sit with me,” you pat the empty space beside you and rei was more than willing to be close to your warmth, letting you brush her hair away from her face and everything 🥺 “i’m sure our friends didn’t mean to offend us—they wouldn’t. they probably didn’t think it would be a big deal since they’re just so excited for us to be there.”

“i just wish… we’d have this too. baby showers, parties, posting an off-putting but ultimately adorable ultrasound video of our kid in our instagram stories and… so much more.” poor reibear just wants to have a family :(( with you! the most amazing woman she has ever met and it kills her so much that she can’t just . fucking give you one!

“i know, hon… and i understand,” you wanted nothing more than a family with her too, but it really hurts to see the love of your life so dismayed about your persistent inability to have a kid :(( but you can’t let her believe that she can’t at all! “but just because it’s not happening now doesn’t mean it never will, okay? it’s going to happen, we’ll be ready, and everything will be perfect. just like you.” giving her a little boop on the nose just to see her beautiful smile and just like that, your lovely wife was back to being her cheerful, energetic self 🥺🫠

rei feeling the need to just touch you after all of that :(( hands all over you while you kiss her, and she's so hasty that she doesn't even bother to undress you or herself all the way before she lays you down on your shared bed 🥺 the moment she hears you moan feeling her throbbing cock rubbing against your soaked panties is the moment rei loses all self-control and her greed just takes over 😵‍💫 ofc she's careful not to rough you up too much, even tho there's something in the back of her head that's telling her that you like it when she does that... but today she's making love! 🫣🥰

she's taking care of you so well :(( face buried in your neck, moaning so sweetly in your ear at every thrust of her hips, her hands holding your waist so tightly... reibear is not much of a chatterbox when she's quite literally fucking into you (whiner rei agenda RISE!) but she lovesss to tell you how much she loves you 🥰 and she thinks it's not enough to express just how much and that's why she says it a lot :(( she's just . a true lovergirl 😍😍

obsessed with how you hold onto her shirt so tightly, and she can never get enough of the way you leave kisses on her neck... all of this just makes her want to fuck you harder 🫢 fully holding onto your thighs and slightly lifting you up bcs she's so close and it all feels too good to stop now 😵‍💫

you'd cum long before rei does so for the remainder of the time, you'd just lay there—praising her, flirting, making all of the sounds she needs to hear to get to that edge that she longs for 😵‍💫😵‍💫

“cum, rei-yah... inside me. now.” and there it was! rei does exactly that 🫣 ugh, she'd pull out after she finishes but seeing her seed seep out of you just makes her dick hard all over again... and reibear doesn't like a mess, and it looks like she's on clean-up duty! 🤭 she'll definitely fuck her cum back inside you, and thankfully you were all in for it too! 😋 neither of you have felt so fucking good... and it shows when weeks later, you pee on a stick not once, not twice, but three times and the stupid thing(s) finally showed that you are now indeed carrying naoi rei's baby 🎉

[reingkings]

Why do you ship inhun? Does the ship make sense? I don't kinda see it but I guess there is something between them, I'd really like to know your thoughts about it

Hmm. Interesting question. I do think they “make sense” in a shippable way.

Note that if you’re not into not-entirely-sane ships then it might not appeal to you. However, I can try to answer what appeals to me. I’ll try to put screen caps or links but ngl I’m not gonna try hunting down all of it. Here’s the manifesto:

1. The narrative casting them as character foils

So each character in the show often not only represent themselves, but to some extent the show’s themes. Since before Gi-hun becomes a victor, he is shown to be discongruent with the nature of the games. The first “true” meeting between In-ho and Gi-hun happens to be at this point in S1:

Mind you when this occurs, it’s after the gamemakers deliberately starve the players to incite violence between them. Deoksu/101 just killed a man. This outcome is exactly desired.

In a way this is a microcosm of the rest of their ideological struggle — that being whether or not humans are inherently selfish and cruel.

We later see the theme again during the last fight scene, when Gi-hun reaches his hand out to Sang-woo. Not only is this a moment of ultimate compassion, but for In-ho who we see is an avid lover of the arts. What else does this resemble?

The painting, The Creation of Adam. Aka the creation of man. (Stick with me on this, I promise I’ll explain).

Notice that this shot not only resembles the painting on a superficial level but in spirit. Adam is in repose and God is the one who reaches out, the one making the most effort to make a connection. In-ho’s face isn’t visible but imagine how he, looking down on it, feels at the very moment:

It’s giving new religion. Later on, In-ho will say something along these lines:

Race horses. And yet, besides his brother, at this point Gi-hun is the very first person In-ho takes his mask off for, something he does not do for even the VIPs. This scene also comes after he kills a guard because “when they find out who you are, you die.”

This treatment marks In-ho’s transition into seeing Gi-hun as his only equal (and yes, In-ho is arrogant that’s kind of his appeal, I don’t believe he thinks that highly of the VIPs either).

Another aspect is that in their final scene at Il-nam’s death bed, they are kind of marked at the inheritors of Il-nam’s system.

Gi-hun leaves Il-nam to witness his one failure. In-ho closes Il-Nam’s eyes.

So it’s the end of S1. We don’t know a lot about In-ho. However we can assume a few things. Both he and Gi-hun are both victors and victims of the oppressive system. Both of them went through anguish after their victory (In-ho’s is mostly inferred, but there’s a deleted scene paralleling Gi-hun’s). Both of them failed to save what mattered the most. Both of them can’t move on from the games and returned. They both abandoned everything in their life for this pursuit.

In a way, there is no other person in the world than can understand them more than the other.

And here is where the character foil aspect comes in. Despite their similarities, their character arcs are the opposite. Gi-hun at the beginning was kind but flawed, an impulsive gambler who could steal money from his mother and disappointed his daughter at many turns. In-ho seemingly was a well-loved, upright citizen who made sacrifices for his family.

And yet, of the two the one who became cruel and heartless was In-ho. The one who became more self-less and compassionate was Gi-hun.

How does In-ho react to meeting his polar opposite? It could easily be hatred or disdain. Instead it’s well, my next point.

2. In-ho’s subtextual obsession with Gi-hun

Season 2 within the games is when most of us really saw the ship’s potential but there are many hints beforehand.

I and others have made some posts about In-ho’s wildly inappropriate actions towards Gi-hun even in S1. Why does he have to stuff the bank card in Gi-hun’s mouth, why does he send the invitation through a bouquet of flowers (actually he sends this invitation twice), why does he decide to physically be there when meeting Gi-hun in a limo on his birthday? A day, mind you, that he needs to be prepping for the games. In-ho doesn’t have to be there, he literally talks to Gi-hun through a speaker he could be in a nice hotel room. Somehow, it’s important for him to be there.

Can this be read as anything but a fixation?

Even when he joins the game his sole focus is on Gi-hun. He makes a concerted effort for Gi-hun to like him (playing hero, baring his true wounds, defending him from the ire of other players, even coming up with an flimsy excuse because he slipped up and called Gi-hun by his name). If he wanted to torture Gi-hun, he could easily turn the players against him. According to the director, his goal is:

But in front of our eyes he does shit like this:

He even bullies his guards:

Does that look like a hit to you 😭 I dare anyone to say that a different player would have passed. Especially when In-ho interceded in the first place.

Another victim:

And the looks. so many looks. You’re not behind a camera anymore, In-ho. Gi-hun can see you.

The one that makes me laugh the most is in the last episode of S2. Gi-hun is stressed about the vote, trying to come up with a plan, and In-ho is staring so hard he’s not even blinking, to the point where Gi-hun has to look at him.

And then again. Gi-hun is explaining about the control room upstairs. Meanwhile, In-ho:

He doesn’t even glance up. He just stares at Gi-hun until Gi-hun finally looks at him. Honestly this isn’t even all of them but I don’t have everything saved.

And the ending. Honestly this part is a bit heartwrenching and I think a few of us fans ignore it (I do too), but I’m trying to contextualize canon here. It’s interesting that despite how dangerous Gi-hun is – causing the disruption of the game, killing guards, and aiming to end the games on the whole – In-ho does not kill him. He has plenty of opportunities to. He even shoots his own guards to keep Gi-hun alive (despite Gi-hun in that moment running the rebellion). But he shoots Jung-bae instead and gives Gi-hun this last lingering glance.

Arguably, you can say In-ho does all this because he is sadistic. However, if that were the sole reason, then he has 400+ people he could similarly torture every year. Hell, he could have joined the games any year he wanted, too.

If it’s just an ideological struggle, then Gi-hun lost when he decided to sacrifice the X players for the greater good. Then, we are left to wonder what else he can want with Gi-hun that he has kept him alive.

The fact that the motivations are never stated and are subtext adds a layer to how fans are free to interpret it. Lots of kindling for our fire.

(I’m not necessarily planning to prove if it’s canon in this part, it’s just a treatise on why we see their potential due to this subtext).

3. Gi-hun’s reciprocity

I think if it were just a one-sided fascinating then there would still be shippers but simply not as much. The part that hits with Inhun is that In-ho’s efforts are not necessarily “unrequited.”

In the beginning of Season 2, Gi-hun has no one. He had been isolated for three years. He has no friends. He has no home. Consider this heartwrenching shot:

Gi-hun’s on the phone, calling the only person in the world he has a connection to, and he can’t even say a word to her.

Even before this, he was largely unappreciated. His mother was disappointed in him. His ex-wife resents him. Jung-bae his friend did not help him in his time of need. Sae-byeok was only in his life for a few days, but she was rude to him for a good part of that. Sang-woo – well Sang-woo is complicated. I don’t think he meant everything he said in the fight before the end, but I do think Gi-hun is the last person on earth he wants to meet after his failures. No one really talks to him kindly besides Ali which is more of polite friendliness than looking after him.

So as a #1 Gi-hun fan, it’s really nice to see someone just genuinely seem to want Gi-hun there? Not as a last resort or as an alternative, but the first pick (in a twisted way).

And Gi-hun is so receptive to it? I made a post about this before, but Gihun is starved for affection and I don’t think all that used to being treated gently. Despite knowing In-ho for a short time, he seems so. He just kind of… opens like a flower?

The first time he laughs in this season is over In-ho’s corny last name joke.

The look in that scene in general:

How he reacts to In-ho calling by hist first name:

Or when In-ho confides in him about what happened with his wife:

Or this one, when he’s dealing with the guilt of misleading all the players, and In-ho says this:

But also the moment in mingle where Gi-hun is so worried about In-ho, Jung-bae has to drag him into a room before the timer runs out. He wanted to risk it all I tell you.

And then, when everyone is calling out to him, In-ho only calls out for Gi-hun’s attention. Literally he couldn’t care about the others. He bee-lines to Gi-hun.

Or how he looks when In-ho shoots the guard for him:

Look at his face, and In-ho’s face when he gives In-ho the gun. They’re going to kill me.

4. The versatility

Finally, this is more of a meta point but it’s kind of fun that this ship doesn’t always have to be that serious? We can go from writing about deep at times darker themes of obsession and manipulation and whatnot and then turn around and clown on them for being total losers with a crush (affectionate). Usually, it’s the same person doing it. Like me in this essay. We can also just make AUs with no squid games and still have the freedom with keep the parts we like (be it obsession or devotion or a mutual understanding) and toss out the rest, and they still make sense. They just always make sense (to me).

Honestly there are stuff I had leave out because it would just maybe at tad too long-winded (as if I didn’t talk your ear off lmao).

Again, this is not an argument on whether it’s canon or not, it’s just an explanation of fanon perspective.

[angstywaifu]

Black Dahlia - 50. Friendly Advice

Summary: Dahlia offers Violet some advice when she runs into her at the burn pit before noticing a group of dragons flying in. Black Dahlia Masterlist | Masterlist | Links |

I watch as Violet walks pass me, completely oblivious to me leaning against the wall where she’d just walked in on. That girl really needed to learn to check her surroundings. She was a walking target just due to her name. Gods, I’d even heard some of the first years saying she was a threat to the wing due to her smaller size. Which hadn’t been helped by Xaden’s display with her when her challenge target had suspiciously fallen too ill to participate. He’d disarmed her so easily, but given his talent on the mat, it had been expected. I know he’d done it to prove a point, but he had also shown everyone how easy of a target she was. Something I knew she didn’t need, even if we hadn’t been friends for years.

”I’m so sorry.” She whispers, barely audible above the wind.

I watch as she heaves the pack up and over the edge, the flames catching and burning the pack as it fuels the flames. Today had been the start of gauntlet training, and her squad was one of the first to run it. They’d also been the first to loose a squad member to it. I push off the wall, walking over to where she leans against the edge, both of us watching as three dragons approach from the west. Three dragons that look very familiar. But they’re too far away for me to be sure. But I do know Xaden, Garrick and Bodhi had all been gone for a while.

”You don’t need to be sorry.” I tell her, alerting her to my presence as she jumps back from the edge.

”Were you following me?” She snaps at me venomously. A tone I’d come all too familiar with when she talked to me now.

I scoff and shake my head as I fold my arms across my chest, leaning back against the corner pillar. “No, you just didn’t see me next to the door when you came in. I have better things to do than follow you around.”

”But you’re friends with them. With him.” She tells me, clearly reciting information she’s gathered herself and from Dain since she’d been here.

I roll my eyes. “Surprisingly there are people who are able to look past the bullshit they’ve been told and can be friends with me Sorrengail. Maybe something you could do if you didn’t take everything at face value. And maybe you would see, they aren’t that bad.”

She turns her head, huffing in annoyance at my words. I knew she wouldn’t like me pointing it out, but it was true. She took everything she was told and believed it. Just like a scribe. Just like she was taught. And her being better friends with Dain than me when it all happened, meaned she happily took his side.

”Have some advice Sorrengail. You are number one here. You need to look after yourself. You are you’re number one priority. Your life is your number one priotity. Dain can’t always be there to protect you.” I tell her before turning and walking back towards the door.

”Is that a threat?” She asks, her voice shaking slightly. I made her nervous. Or at least made her question something enough to make her nervous.

I stop and look over my shoulder at her, noting the glare she tries to give me. I scoff and shake my head. “No. Just some advice no one else here will tell you because they either want to kill you, see you fail or get you out of here to safety. So do something they don’t expect and prove them wrong.”

I walk out of the tower before she can reply, leaving her to ponder my words. I didn’t want her to die despite our fractured friendship. But I wasn’t going to outright help her. This place was a mental game. You could be as strong or as weak as you were in here, but ultimately those with mental strength faired the best. Something I knew she could do. And I hoped she realised that soon. She just had to find a way.

I make it to the Rotunda before I feel a shift in the courtyard, turning to see the door to the flight field open. Even before they walk under the mage light I know who it is. Watching as Bodhi, Xaden and Garrick let the door close behind them as they enter the courtyard. I quickly hide behind the door, propping it open with my foot. Was it wrong to hide and spy on my best friend and boyfriend? Probably. But I couldn’t deny I was suspicious as to where they’d been. Seeing as they’d all disappeared without a word. And it wasn’t the first time I’d noted it. Here and there over the last few weeks I’d noted Bodhi and Garrick, even Imogen sometimes being gone here and there.

“Do you know where they were?” I ask Proth, hoping he might know something from their dragons.

”They’re your friend and mate, why don’t you ask them yourself.” He drawls, sounding almost bored.

”You’re no help.” I snap back as he chuckles down the bond at me.

”There has to be something more we can do.” Bodhi says to the two of them, clearly annoyed by something.

”We’re doing everything we can.” Garrick bites back.

Something was clearly on all their minds. Had them on edge. Xaden stops mid step, his shoulders going rigid. Shit, did he know I was here?

”What’s wrong?” Garrick asks, looking over at the only other people in the courtyard, a couple who had decided to use the courtyard as a make out spot. Lovely.

”Go on. I’ll meet you inside.” Xaden tells them.

Bodhi’s brow furrows, clearly not sure at Xaden’s sudden change in behaviour as he also scans the courtyard. Luckily neither him or Garrick see me peeking around the door. But I can’t guarantee that Xaden doesn’t with his shadow ability.

”You sure?” Bodhi asks as he turns his attention back to Xaden.

”Go.” Xaden orders them, nodding towards the dorms.

I gently close the door to the Rotunda, moving as quietly and quickly as I can to run into them “accidently” on their way to their rooms. I push into the stairwell, hearing their footsteps below me as they shuffle up the stairs. I wait a few more seconds, waiting till their footsteps are closer till I start moving. I pretend to be looking for something in my pack as I dawdle up the stairs.

”Dahlia?” Bodhi asks in surprise, stopping suddenly in the stairwell causing Garrick to run into his as his eyes raise to me. “What are you doing out?”

I look up at them, pretending to be shocked by their appearance. “I had patrol this evening at the burn pit remember?”

I note how both their eyes widen slightly in alarm. They both know that tower has the perfect view of anyone flying in and out of that flight field.

”You expect Bodhi to remember something like that?” Garrick teases as he shoves Bodhi aside, walking the last few steps to join me, taking my hand in his, my body instantly relaxing at his touch.

It was stupid how much he relaxed and calmed me, even when I was suspicious as to what they had been up to.

”I will let you know I have great memory.” Bodhi fires back, scowling at Garrick.

”Clearly not because I told you yesterday I was stationed there after classes today.” I say with a roll of my eyes as he glares at me. “Where are you two coming back from?”

”Xaden wanted to get out for a bit, went on a small flight.” Garrick says with a reassuring squeeze of my hand as he smiles down at me.

”Must have been you three I saw then. Saw some dragons fly in not long ago.” I say casually as I look between the two of them.

Garrick doesn’t even seem phased by my comment, but Bodhi looks nervous. His eyes darting between Garrick and I. Meaning this wasn’t just a casual flight. They were up to something they didn’t want me knowing about.

”More than likely. Don’t think I saw anyone else out tonight.” Garrick says with a shrug, before stiffling a yawn.

I look up at him, noting how tired he looks. Something that seems to be a common thing for him recently. Maybe that has something to do with the late night flight?

”Lets get you to bed.” I tell him, turning and pulling him towards the archway that will take us to the second year floor.

Bodhi groans behind us. “Can you please put up a sound ward if you want to partake in any extra curricular activities? Some of us actually want to sleep.”

”Maybe someone should learn to put their own up.” Garrick teases as we round the corner.

”They don’t teach second years!”

@imtoanonymousforyou @simplyme-fornow @omalmal @lalaluch @wolfbc97 @leptitlu @fullmoon-94 @the-fandom-ness @fan-of-many-bands @awkardnerd @heeseungthel0ml @acourtofsmutandstarlight @fairchild06 @freyagallileaevans @pit-and-the-pen @hannraumari @elliot-rain @thestarseternaal @stupid-and-contagious01 @hyperfixation-train-station @lxnvmvrzx @thebreadisthetruevillian @red0202 @fangirling-galore @craftytrashprincess @taliyahvermillion @xadenswhore @fenixyrie @lagrandeourse @hellodarling1357 @iambored24601  @thegiftofacreativemind @fanfictionjunkie1112 @mysticalfuncollectorus @ohlookitsasinglepoeceofpopcorn @emoravenwolf @imheretobeinvisible @pvrkacciosan

[justnatoka]

Creatures of the night

Poly! Lost Boys x GN! Reader

A/n: It's finally done! I had so much fun writing this! I would love to expand more on this idea. Let me know if you would be interested in that, or if you have any ideas for it. Maybe I'll write something that focuses more on the reader's relationship with the boys next. Also, I tweaked the timeline a bit for the sake of the story. Hope you enjoy!

Word count: 3.4k

Summary: Sam wants to save his brother, so he asks for help from the Frog brothers. What he doesn’t anticipate is that they introduce him to you, the person who taught them everything about vampires.

Sam didn’t have many choices. Michael had been turned into a bloodsucking creature of the night, and as much as he wanted to help him – not least for his and their mother’s safety – he knew he couldn’t do it alone. So he went to the two people he could (hopefully) count on. If someone told him a few days ago that he would turn up on the doorstep of the Frog brothers’ comic book shop for advice on how to terminate vampires, he would have laughed in their face. But alas, here he was.

After listening to every detail about the recent changes in Michael’s behaviour, not to mention last night’s events – Nanook attacking his brother, seeing his half faded reflection in the mirror and the levitating act he performed outside Sam’s window – they took a moment to take everything in.

“This is serious, man” Edgar finally said then he turned to his brother. They exchanged a silent look and nodded before turning back to Sam.

“We’re gonna take you to someone” Alan announced.

“They taught us everything we know about vampires” Edgar explained solemnly.

Sam gulped. If this person is some kind of vampire expert, they could definitely use their help. He didn’t want Michael to be killed, but he couldn’t stay a bloodsucker either.

“Alright, take me to them.”

He got suspicious when they turned up at a totally normal looking house, and his apprehension only grew as the Frogs rang the doorbell. He waited with baited breath as a minute passed by without anything happening. Then finally, the door opened. He didn’t know what he was expecting. Maybe someone with military style clothing that screamed “tough guy” – similar to what the Frog brothers tried, and ultimately failed to pull off in his personal opinion – but with big bulging muscles, who could knock out any vampire they saw. Or even a shady character with nervously twitching hands and a conspiratory look in their constantly moving eyes who’s always looking around for danger. But the person standing at the door was none of that. In fact, they were just… a normal person, around his brother’s age. He shot the Frogs a confused look, but they didn’t pay him any attention as they were too busy snapping their heels together and saluting with a unanimous,

“Good morning, boss.”

Their “boss” leaned against the doorway.

“’Sup?”

The reply was so casual, none of the Rambo wannabe bullshit the boys always used. That’s it, Sam was even more confused. They came to see this person?

“We need your help, boss. Seriously confidential business” Edgar explained. They nodded and disappeared inside.

“Come on in then.”

You led them up the stairs and into your bedroom for some privacy, then shut the door just in case your Dad left his workroom at the end of the hall. You sat down on your bed, the boys settling down on the carpet. Sam looked around. The bedroom was pretty normal as well, with a bookcase full of horror novels as far as he could see, a bunch of CDs next to a CD player and band posters of the walls. Although he spotted a few comics on the nightstand that looked similar to the ones the Frogs gave him.

“So,” you rested your arms on your knees and laced your fingers together, glancing between the boys. “What is it?”

The brothers turned their heads towards Sam. You’ve been wondering how Edgar and Alan knew him since you first saw them standing in front of your house. His clothes were fashionable, his hair styled. He wasn’t exactly the type of person the boys usually hang around.

“How do you know each other?” he asked instead. Looks like he was thinking along the same lines.

“I used to look after them when they were younger” you answered casually.

He blinked before directing his growing exasperation towards the brothers.

“Your babysitter? You brought me to your babysitter?”

“Former” Alan added as if that was the biggest problem with this whole situation. Sam let out a frustrated huff.

“And how exactly are they supposed to help my brother? Don’t tell me that all your knowledge comes from these” he waved his hand in the direction of your bookshelves.

“Actually, most vampire related media is full of bullshit” you interjected.

He froze. “How did you…?”

“…know that your brother was turned into a vampire?” You finished with a smirk. “I know a lot about what goes on in this town. I know who turned your brother and most likely how they did it. I know he’s been googly-eyed about a girl who hangs around a rather questionable crowd. He’s been acting strange ever since he met her, right?”

Sam just gaped, not knowing what to say before shutting him mouth and nodding. You gave an understanding nod in return.

“Is he fully turned?”

When a confused frown appeared on his face you added, “Has he taken any blood? Killed someone?”

“No, I don’t think so. He’s a jerk, but he couldn’t kill anyone.”

You smiled at the sibling banter. “Then he’s only half. The way things stand now, there are two options for your brother. One, he eventually loses the fight against the bloodlust and ends someone’s life, becoming a full-fledged vampire. Or two, you find the head vampire and kill him. That way, every half-vampire that was turned using his blood will become human again.”

Silence fell on the room as they mulled over what they just heard. It was Edgar who spoke up at last.

“Then we have to find the head vampire. Do you have any ideas who it is?” he turned to Sam.

“Maybe” he hesitated. “But I’m not sure.”

You reached across to your nightstand, grabbing one of the comics lying there and handing it to them.

“This might give you some ideas.”

Sam took the comic into his hands, eyeing it skeptically.

“Didn’t you say that most vampire related media is full of bullshit?”

“Not this one” you reassured him.

“How do you know?”

A smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. “My dad writes them.”

You thoroughly enjoyed the surprised look on his face before he opened it and turned a few pages.

“Hounds of Hell” he read aloud before glancing back at you. You could already see the gears turning in his head, a thought forming behind his eyes, something akin to recognition, but not fully there yet.

“Thank you. Let’s go guys, we have to make a plan” he gestured to the other two then rushed out the door. Edgar and Alan hurriedly got to their feet, and with a quick goodbye they ran after their friend.

They failed massively. Sam was so sure about Max being the head vampire, however he passed all their tests. And above that, his mom got mad at him for ruining her date night. Again. But now they were getting ready to head to the hideout of the group that turned Michael. The Frogs reassured him that they’re coming armed with stakes and other weapons to kill the head vampire. Meanwhile, Michael can go and rescue his girlfriend. One thing was for sure: this time they were finishing the job.

You let out a shaky breath as you put down the phone. You just received a call from Alan, telling you that they are going to the vampire hideout. They planned to kill off who they thought was the head vampire. They wanted to let you know in case anything happened to them. You were cursing out loud while you shrugged on your coat in a hurry and ran out the door. This isn’t how things were supposed to play out. They were blindly walking into a den of wolves, having no idea what they were up against. This situation could only result in someone getting hurt. All you could hope was that you got there in time, before they did something stupid and irreversible.

Edgar and Alan led the way down the stairs and into the cave. It had a bunch of warning signs, and looked like it has been abandoned for decades. However, as they entered the gaping mouth into the darkness, they arrived into a space that resembled a hotel lobby, albeit all messed up and crumbled, but still in a pretty good shape. It would have been a very cool hideout, Sam thought, if it didn’t belong to a bunch of nightcrawlers. It was sure as hell that this place was lived in.

He helped Michael get down the sloping entrance, just as the Frogs discovered Star sleeping in one of the corners.

“Don’t you touch her! You stay away from her!” His brother could barely stand on his own two feet, yet he scrambled over to the girl.

“The rest of them are gotta be around here someplace. Let’s find them.” Edgar motioned for Alan.

“I can’t let you do that” came a voice from behind then. Startled, they turned around. There you stood near the mouth of the cave, your form half in the shadows. “I can’t let you kill them.”

“Why not? They are bloodsucking monsters!”

You stepped forward, shaking your head.

“My answer is still no. Take the girl and the little boy, then leave. They will go after you to try and bring them back, and you’ll probably have to fight them. But you can’t kill them here and now.”

Sam looked over to the Frogs and couldn’t believe his eyes when they seemed to hesitate.

“No! This is crazy! We have to end them now. This is our best chance while it’s still daylight. Come on, guys.”

“You can’t kill them all at once. Not like this. You’ll need a more solid plan for that than a few wooden stakes. If you end one of them now, they’re gonna come for you with even more vengeance. They know this place like the back of their hand, and you don’t. There’s a high chance you won’t even make it out of this cave alive.”

It certainly made sense. The more Sam thought about it, the more ill-prepared this all seemed. If they are really such bloodthirsty killers like Michael told him, maybe it was better to rethink their strategy instead of just rushing headfirst into a dark cave full of dangerous vampires.

He was still a little disappointed they couldn’t just end it here and now, but as he turned to the Frog brothers, he saw it in their eyes that they cracked. They will follow what their “boss” told them to do.

“Alright. What do we do?” he sighed.

“Let’s regroup somewhere safe. Then we can come up with a plan for tonight. As soon as they discover you took those two, they’ll come after you. That only leaves a couple of hours to prepare for an attack.”

“We can go back to ours, fortify the house.” You and Sam exchanged a serious look as you nodded.

“Sounds good. Let’s get going.”

The boys helped Michael carry Star and Laddie, as he was rapidly losing strength. When they passed you on the way out, Sam was sure he heard you let out a relieved sigh. He guessed you were worried about Edgar and Alan running into danger. You certainly looked like you cared about them. Shortly after they got up to the car, you also joined them. They didn’t question what took you so long, they didn’t have to know about the note left behind.

As you got into the driver’s seat – seeing as Michael was in no shape to drive – Sam wondered about how lucky they were to have you on their side. Someone with knowledge about vampires, who could also be the voice of reason if need be. It could have ended a lot worse if they got into a fight with those bloodsuckers in the tight corridors of the cave.

It was over. The last few hours have been a flurry of rushed preparations that morphed into total chaos as the vampires came. Sam was still reeling from all the running and fighting and screaming, the feeling of victory as they took down all of them, followed by the chilling panic as Max made his appearance, finally showing his true face. But it was over now.

His mom and Michael were hugging him, Star was hugging Laddie, and he could have sworn he heard the Frog brothers saying something about charging them for this, but he honestly couldn’t care less. Grandpa made his way into the kitchen, opening a beer and grumbling about all the damn vampires in Santa Carla.

They were all too busy with relief to notice you standing back, anxiously gnawing at your lips, waiting, listening for any sound from other parts of the house. Then a groan came from the workshop, and a smile spread on your face.

Everyone else jumped, the Emersons huddled together with Grandpa peeking out from the kitchen. Michael drew Star closer to him, Laddie clinging to her other hand. The Frog brothers were on their feet in an instant, taking up some improvised fighting stances. All staring cautiously towards the workshop, they collectively almost had a heart attack as they watched David sit up on the table with another grunt. After some struggling he slipped off the horns piercing through him with a sickening wet sound. He cracked his neck and let out a satisfied sound from deep in his chest. The puncture wounds on his torso already started to heal. They frantically turned around as more footsteps were heard approaching from different parts of the house. Sam looked at his brother in a panic. How is this possible? They were sure they killed them. He saw Michael tense up. He was pulling what little energy he had left together and getting ready for another fight. The problem was, he turned back into a human as Max died. They probably wouldn’t be able to fight them off in the state they were in, tired and bruised.

The rest of David’s gang emerged, a little worse for wear but healing rapidly.

“Look out!” came Alan’s frantic voice when he saw the three vampires approach you from behind.

“You okay, babe? Hope we weren’t too rough on ya.” As Paul sneaked an arm around your waist and pulled you into his side, you leaned into him.

Everyone just stared at you in dumbfounded silence. David’s footsteps thudded loudly as he circled around their group and stood beside you and his brothers. Without even looking, you laced you fingers together with his. It seemed so natural. That’s what went through Michael’s mind as he watched the little show of affection between you and the vampires. This didn’t happen yesterday, this has been an ongoing thing for a while.

Alan was the first to voice what everyone was wondering.

“How is this possible? We killed you” he pointed an accusatory finger at the bloodsuckers.

“That’s gonna stay our secret” you stated. “I might have taught you everything you know about vampires, but I didn’t teach you everything I know.”

“So you were with them all along?” Sam asked in disbelief.

“Of course I was. How do you think I know so much about the creatures of the night?”

“Boss… you really betrayed us for the enemy?” Edgar’s voice sounded so hurt it almost broke your heart.

“Max was the enemy.” Your matter-of-fact tone did nothing to ease the situation. In fact, it only made the boys angrier.

“But they hurt people!” Alan shouted. Dwayne took a step forward and Marko let out a low growl at his raised voice. You quickly let go of David’s hand and gently put it on Dwayne’s arm. You made sure to give Marko a reassuring glance as well before continuing.

“You don’t have to agree with my actions. I love them, and that’s enough for me.” You turned toward Michael. “At least that’s something I think you can understand.”

He gave you a silent nod as he held Star closer to his side.

“For what?” Sam mumbled. “You put your friends in danger” he motioned to the Frog brothers, his voice rising in volume, “but for what? What was the point of this whole thing?”

“First of all, they were never in any real danger. Except when you planned to ambush David and the others in the cave. That could have ended really badly.”

“They planned to do what?!” Marko almost lunged at them again, but Paul held him back.

“Come on, bud. It won’t do any good, if we kill them now” he tried to reason with him.

“To hell with that! We were holding back all the while they tried to kill us multiple times. Tried to ambush us! I say we finish them now.”

David’s cool voice broke through the argument.

“As much as I’d like to do that, you’re forgetting the fact that they are Y/N’s friends. They asked us not to hurt them.”

Marko seemingly realized his mistake, glanced at you and hung his head. He let out a sigh.

“I’m sorry, sugar” he mumbled.

“Is that true?” It was Edgar who spoke up this time. He was looking at you intensely. “You told them not to hurt us?”

You nodded.

“They were never going to kill you, they just had to make it believable. Like I said, Max was the enemy. We knew he planned to turn Michael’s family, and we saw an opportunity. You wanted to turn your brother back” you turned to Sam, “and the boys wanted Max gone. Our problem was one and the same. And now everyone got what they wanted.”

“You pointed us towards Max. With the comic” Sam realized.

You nodded again.

“Things didn’t exactly go according to plan, but it turned out fine in the end. I knew Max would come out of hiding if the boys were in danger. So I left them a note in the cave about the change of plans. Max was smart. We had to make it look like they died for him to appear.”

You could tell your explanation didn’t exactly placate them, tensions were still high, but that was okay. You anticipated their anger. You didn’t mind it so long as everyone was alive.

“If you would excuse us, this has been a long night. Me and my boys will leave you to be.”

You sent a sad smile towards Edgar and Alan as you walked past them. You could tell they still had some things they wanted to say, but decided not to, at least not now. It really has been a long night, and everyone just wanted it to end already. Your departure was followed by a long silence as they were trying to make sense of everything. Eventually, Grandpa spoke up.

“Those damn vampires, I’m telling ya.” He just shook his head and headed for his workshop.

You were also silent on your way back to the cave. Paul nudged your arm.

“You okay, babe?” he asked with a hint of worry on his handsome face.

“Yeah, I’m fine” you sighed. “I just hope I didn’t ruin my friendships.”

“They will come around” he reassured you. “And if they don’t, you still have us” he sent you a cheeky smile.

The corner of your lips finally turned upright.

“Thank you” you whispered as you leaned into him more.

“Don’t mention it, dollface.”

You looked over at your lovers, resting your gaze on all their faces for a long moment. You were just happy they were all okay.

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[verdantwyrm]

Anya, The Virgin Mary or the Vengeful Bitch

Or, shorthandedly, the Anyalysis.

I'm going to be occasionally stealing some points from my Curly thread over here, which you should absolutely also read. And also some segments from here, my small analysis of Jimmy and him being a monster vs choosing to be.

This analysis will be going over partially some of how she's treated in-game, but also how she's treated outside of the game as a representation of sexual assault and abuse victims, which is to either make her a mournful, bleeding heart virgin Mary, or a vengeful, final girl that's a violent, hysterical she-bitch. Which she is neither.

I think it's perfectly fine to orchestrate fictional characters killing their abusers, there's nothing inherently wrong with just that, it's more how people actually write it.

Just like any other trope, there are ways to go about it that are extremely harmful and ways that are generally inoffensive. As a victim myself, I personally see so many issues in wishing harm against your abuser, and there is nothing wrong with acting that out in characters you feel comfortable and relatable towards, but there are ways to do this that don't end up doing more harm than good— which is where most people fail. It's an objectively hard topic to address, because it requires nuance and understanding, possibly even lived experience to truly understand why someone would want this. Grieving, the absence that comes with being a victim, is not straightforward or black and white, it's an uncomfortable topic thats often on a spectrum of anger, grief or sadness that most people do not want to engage with because they have a very nearsighted opinion on how a victim should react– the perfect victim.

No one actually likes her as a character, they only like her for what she represents.

The Sexism of the Final Girl

I am sick and tired of people making up the realities in their heads where Anya overcomes Jimmy and kills him,

The trope of a "Final Girl" is not the feminist girl boss you want it to be and is incredibly misogynistic. The definition, as told by Wikipedia

"the final girl in many movies shares common characteristics: she is typically sexually unavailable or virginal, and avoids the vices of the victims like illegal drug use. She sometimes has a unisex name such as Avery, Chris, or Sidney."

There are feminist ideals and intentions behind it, but it is not inherently feminist as a concept and is often very misogynistic despite its intentions to display the woman of the group to be strong, better or uphold moral superiority for declining sex, drugs or any of the vices mentioned forehand. It is a sexist trope, and all it does is ridicule women for "falling" for said vices as if that inherently makes them inferior or deserving of murder or assault.

On the surface, the use of the final girl trope may seem like a progressive portrayal of feminist strength and ideology. It can be satisfying to see a strong, independent "girl boss" overcome an otherworldly predator or rapist. However, upon further examination, it is clear that this trope perpetuates prejudice and reinforces societal expectations for women. The final girl is typically portrayed as a straight, white, morally superior woman who abstains from "immoral" activities like drinking, drug usage and sex. She serves as a voice of reason and represents the ideal woman in our society.

Most importantly, she survives while those who deviate from societal norms face violent deaths. This trope is a subtle commentary on the expectations placed on women in our society - good girls will prevail while those who do not conform will suffer a violent and brutal death, usually at the hands of a man. Ultimately, it seeks to shame women for behaving in ways that are not considered "ladylike."

The film industry as a whole has a history of using females as vessels for pain and suffering. Hollywood loves to profit off of female suffering. These male directors may believe they are earning brownie points with audiences by having female survivors in their films, but in reality, they are simply using feminism as a disguise while indulging in the fetishization of female pain.

It is rather exhausting seeing who we are being reduced to one note Virgin Marys with bleeding hearts, scorned mothers or wounded victims of assault who will never recover, never love or never will have sex again. I do think Mouthwashing does an excellent job of telling the story of a rape victim, but how other people treat her beyond that, it's almost impossible to even have a character like Anya or even Angela from Silent Hill 2 without people stripping them and violating what their character is and instead of focusing on what they represent, a victim.

But back to Anya specifically, she does not even exert any interest, desire or want to murder or harm another person. People dehumanise her the same way Jimmy dehumanises her. They strip her of everything she could be, everything she wanted to be and make her out to be a perfect victim, a bleeding heart, a weak and pathetic woman.

How about Anya has a nice day, how about Anya smiles, and she's happy and safe. What about that? Huh? Or do you only like her when she's a victim. People care more about Anya being a victim they can save, a victim they can nurture and heal and rescue than anything else. They care more about her being weak, sad, frail and miserable. Always the mother, always the victim, always the virgin Mary and a sacrifice but never ever a woman and most definitely never a person.

It's even worse when I see people continuously writing and "re-imagining" Anya being Raped just so Curly, Daisuke, Swansea or even a self-insert reader situation to save her. I totally get that you want her to be happy, and to be rescued and for that to never happen but you severely miss the point of the story that there was no one there to save her. And constantly rewriting it to put a man in the favour of the situation comes off as very shallow and misogynistic the way you're all so ready to have someone rescue her like she's some distressed maiden in need of a big strong man, it also takes the point away from her entirely.

The horse that bites

Jimmy's constant dehumanisation of Anya affects how other people perceive her character as well, that she's weak, small or a crybaby in some sense because of how she responds to situations - emotionally, which is then amplified by Jimmy's pre-existing hatred and lack of respect for her.

Jimmy tears her down every chance he gets, makes her feel little and even compares her to Polle in his hallucinations. And Anya knows that he and Curly have a very lengthy history, so her caution and anxiety about even mentioning the incident, let alone saying the word “rape” is borderline impossible for her. It’s a manifestation, it’s a verbal acceptance and confession that it’s even happened. Something she has been trying to avoid coming to terms with.

And when she does eventually tell Swansea what happened, as much as you want to think she told him- she most likely told him to not do anything, to try and keep the peace for as long as possible.

Again, her vagueness is not her fault, nor is it her responsibility. It was Jimmy’s responsibility to not abuse and rape her.

It’s also very present that Jimmy is verbally abusive to her, putting her down at every opportunity by ignoring her very talented medical skills by saying Pony Express only hired her to cut corners in an attempt to reduce costs because she failed Medical School and that she’s not a “real nurse” because of that, and how he constantly questions her skills despite keeping Curly alive for such a long time in such a state.

After being insulted by him multiple times, she fawns to get him to actually do something beneficial because she knows he responds well to praise, and he complies, all while still insulting and belittling her for being "weak" and "sentimental"

Anya shows a clear fear of Jimmy and has consistent fawn responses around Jimmy. She is extremely careful not to make him upset and praises him to keep him amused and compliant to a degree.

Just like Anya says, our worst moments don't make us monsters. It's one thing to fuck up, and immediately suffer the consequences and acknowledge your mistakes— But it's another thing entirely to purposefully make it so you never have to deal with the repercussions and then make yourself out to be the victim. Jimmy takes every opportunity to blame everyone around him. All the time and Anya is no stranger to this.

Curly genuinely saw the good in Jimmy, in the same way, Anya sees the good in others and possibly even tried to see the good in Jimmy despite the pain as one of the key important things about how everything went about is that Anya never directly refers to her rapist as Jimmy, nor does she ever actually insult or talk badly about him, she only expresses her disinterest in talking to him because of his reluctance to cooperate with her. They both believe that our worst moments don't define us, and Curly had his own interpretation all of how we're defined by our past, but not slaves to it.

She is scared, she is terrified at this point and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that nor should we rush to change that. Her being scared is realistic, she is a scared lady in a very scary situation with an even scarier man who constantly switches between dissociation and lashing out depending on what's going on around him. And she is not that person to fight back, to be violent or to hurt him and that is perfectly fine. She doesn't need to be a girl boss feminist and fight back, she can just be a scared and quiet woman stuck in her own terror, and trying to infer that one Is the "better" option downplays victims who freeze in their own terror and makes them out to be weak or a hapless damsel because they're incapable of "standing up for themselves"

She has every single right to be absolutely terrified and that is in no way a bad thing. I actually really, really dislike the interpretation that Anya is angry, resentful or has any revenge towards Curly, or that she has to be this, hysterical mad woman sent out to kill or hurt Jimmy. I don't believe she's either of this. Anya deserves peace, and I think it's extremely important to understand just how similar she is to Curly. And I'm full of the belief that if Anya had actually done something to Jimmy (hurt him, kill him, whatever) she would be demonized and the misogyny she already faces in the fandom would be worse tenfold. Do not lie to yourself.

Not to even mention one of the many, many reasons as to why Anya OD'd in a room with a lock in the first place. It was to make sure Jimmy could never touch her again? Or do something awful to her body, even when it was lifeless and cold? It was to keep the gun safe, to protect Curly, to protect herself, to take control of the situation, to finally not have to worry about him ever touching her again. And Jimmy still violates it, even after she's dead.

He touches her, drags her body, and props her up in that chair. Even after death, she is never free from him. She thought she was going to finally be free of him, his rage, his desires, his touch, and she died thinking this, that he would never ever be touched or hurt by him ever again. She died thinking all was well, that it would all work out in the end, it had to. She died thinking Daisuke and Swansea would somehow make it out of there, tell her story, and make Jimmy face the consequences of his actions, it was the ultimate sacrifice, it was the greatest thing she could ever do.

Jimmy ruined her life, and he ruined her death, her sacrifice. To keep herself safe, to keep Curly safe, to keep the gun away from him, it all meant nothing.

Thinking outside the Ship

Anya is fun, she is enthusiastic, loves to make jokes, draw, play board games with Daisuke, read, and teases Swansea about his love for sweets which he doesn't even bother to object to and Swansea hands her a note so that she could give it to Curly during his psychological evaluation,, implying that they're casual enough for an exchange like that to occur, and even has what seems to be a budding relationship with Curly himself, taking to his comment about being fit to fly in her eyes like it's a common exchange of flirting between the both of them and she even teases him at the birthday party to "hop to it" in terms of the cake. She is at ease around him, her walls have dropped, and she feels safe to talk to him, and even attempts to try and get him to open up more to her.

She reads psychology books, she is extremely determined having applied to Medical school on total of eight different times and obviously has the skills and interest to keep doing it despite failing and only joined Pony Express so she could make money and keep trying to get into medical school.. She also has good taste in music, one that Swansea and Curly enjoy very much. She also seems to get along well with Daisuke and even allows her emotions to show with anger when they play games they seem to have much of the same sense of humour, judging by how Daisuke is genuinely worried about her when she locks herself in the Medical, they seem to have a positive relationship. We don't know much about her relationships with the others beyond what the wiki can provide.

She seems to have the best relationship with Curly, although. And after the crash, she can't bear to give Curly his pills due to him being in visible agony and her own trauma of forcing him to do something he very obviously doesn't want to endure, likely due to memories of her assault being triggered by both the act of forced insertion and the sounds produced by Curly during it.

Anya also spends most of her free time studying. She runs to clear her head. And when she really needs to destress, she binges on the worst reality television and fast food. She is a very free-spirited woman who is eternally doomed to be reduced to nothing but a hapless, miserable victim.

Final Comments and Thoughts

I don't have much to say here unlike my last analysis, but the situation on the Tulpar is not as straightforward as people would like, I understand it's extremely cathartic to think of a situation where Jimmy gets what he deserves but it isn't realistic, and thats what this game is trying to say. Abusive corporations, exhausting capitalism, this environment breeds Abusers like Jimmy and victims like Anya and Curly. There was nothing that could be done. Pony Express is what doomed them all, they're the catalyst.

Anya deserves to be written and viewed as more than just a representation, a victim or a vengeful hysterical bitch. She deserves to be happy!

Thank you for reaching the end of the thread, please don't be scared to share your thoughts in the tags or in my inbox, I'd love to hear them! good job! (っ˘з(˘⌣˘ ) ♡

[jaehaeryshater]

Ygritte and her daughter Bael Whitewolf

art by: @nautieval

I am so grateful that my oomfie worked on this commission for me. This is literally my fifth Ygritte commission 😭😭😭 at this point I’m her biggest fan. I think that it turned out so beautifully. It’s also the first art I’ve paid for that includes Ygritte’s daughter beyond the fashion sheet Nata made me for the entire House in December. I love Ygritte and I love Bael, I’m so happy to see them together and see Ygritte as a mom. Obviously she has many faults and is a violent person, but at least with small children she canonically does have a soft spot and I think she would have loved being a mother so long as she didn’t have to compromise who she was a person.

This is from my AU where Jon becomes King Beyond The Wall before he abandons the Freefolk. The AU predicates on the theory that the Others will only negotiate with a Stark and that all other attempts to get rid of them will fail (obviously I don’t think this is true canonically but the AU is if it’s true), based on the very first chapter of AGOT where the Others were communicating over Royce, perhaps they were wondering whether he was a Stark, which would mean they should capture him instead of killing him. It actually isn’t all that relevant if it’s true, only if the Freefolk believe it is. Mance wants the best for his people and he wants them to survive, so he passes his metaphorical crown to Jon. That’s when Jon forms House Whitewolf and he marries Ygritte since he decides he will try to negotiate with the Wall instead of going back to them entirely (his need to feel important and needed of his own volition, especially since his brother was also King, is also a factor as to why he stays). Please please please, I am begging you, don’t complain that he’s married to Ygritte instead of Val. This all occurs without the Battle of Castle Black and with who Jon is as a person, the responsibility he feels he owes, and the fact that he believes he is in love with Ygritte, is the reason that in an attempt to maintain as close of a character as he was in the books, he marries her. If you want an AU where he marries Val, I encourage you to make it because it is quite fun to do. Back to the timeline, Bael is born on the march down to the Wall, where Jon is hoping he can get the Freefolk through. They don’t stop for long for her birth, only during Ygritte’s labor, then they continue, as time is of the essence. Bael is Jon’s heir until her brother is born three years later, which is a foreign concept to the Freefolk as they previously did not pass Kingship on that way. But she shares Jon’s blood and should Jon come to pass, she would be their only hope of ever communicating with the Others. She’s also important in the negotiation with the Wall as Alliser tries to coax Jon into giving up all his demands and surrender himself for execution as long as they let Bael and Ygritte through the Wall.

Ygritte is a very good mother and protective of her daughter. She loves her with all her heart, as does Jon, but as Jon is incredibly busy, she does have a special connection with her oldest child. She raises her up like a Freefolk woman and she’s as soft with her as a quencher of the Freefolk could be expected to be. She’s so proud of the human she’s created and that she has fulfilled her ultimate person from the Old Gods. When Jon is off in battle, she serves as a regent in her daughter’s best interest.

I have a whole headcanon post for this AU and House Whitewolf, if anyone is interested. I posted it on either November or December. I cover everything from Bael to the rest of the children, the children’s hobbies that are influenced by indigenous cultures. I talk about where the Freefolk eventually settle as well as what changes Jon makes to their culture and how him being King is different than Kings of the past.

I cannot think @nautieval enough, they honestly got this out really fast for me and didn’t need a lot of references. The art is super pretty, their commissions are open as of now so I of course encourage anyone and everyone to reach out and purchase a commission from them.