#anyway. i LOVE hags!

[monsterfucker-geralt]

It's a lonely life for witchers

[raviollies]

DMed a oneshot for the friendos and got a new achievement : making a player cry!

The premise was that a Hag pulled them into her domain which was shaped by their dreams and desires, particularly Blythes! So it was a big fancy Villa with a ballroom, opera haus, fancy dinner, everything - and immediately somethings were different.

Arameia woke up NOT a werewolf and Lorelai woke up a HUMAN and not undead. Rosy cheeks, freckles and all (she was very weirded out over not being able to hear or smell as good).

For Arameia - the dream manifested her parents, alive and well, and her pet dog Lancelot, no longer geriatric. The horror of becoming an orphan never occurring. For Lorelai, it took away her vampirism, and the root cause...her father alive and well - though distant. It wasn't that she wanted to see him...but rather proof of wiping her sin away. For Eirwen, it wiped away her Sharrian past, and the tattoo that came with it, and gave her more friends, so she'd never be lonely. And for Raha.... Well let's just say he folded like a lawn chair in a hurricane.

Upon meeting her the gang had a lot of discussion as to how & why, though the concept of a motherly Blythe left everyone...concerned.

Since the party was a bit of a pickle not sure where to find Raha or Blythe since they're the only party members they haven't met up with, a certain special someone made an appereance...in the form of a kitty cat!

Theta explained that the dream is made up of Blythes wishes and desires : to have her friends with her and never die, her favourite food, a library full of artifacts, an extravagant villa with ballrooms - and the little changes to them was the Witch tapping into their own desires to keep them placated and comfortable...so they may just decide to forego reality and dream...like Blythe and Raha have. She does not want her precious petal just slowly withering away, being a meal, in another Witch's domain, that's her job, so she gives the party hints on how to break out before the Witch zaps her the hell out (she couldn't just enter as Witch's power is absolute within her domain, so it would take a lot longer for her to wiggle in strong enough to do anything substantial)

She introduces herself as Wunsch...the party can deduce she is a Night Hag (this is where I say I just made her Fae and idgaf) (as per my fae characters, she has freaky eyes...in this case it's a starry sky instead of pupil!) . She asks the party if there is "anything else she can do"...the party notices little things change around the dream, like suddenly even more food, some of their favourites, or new faces.

In order to find Blythe they needed to restore stopped time, and find the three clockhands for a magical clock...1 of them was behind some riddles, the other one, behind a test of friendship where they had to answer 3 things correct about the person in front of them. The last key, most horrifyingly...was inside Arameias parents.

THIS IS WHERE I MADE THE PLAYER CRY HEHE....Arameia decided she will do it herself, as she already buried them once...she does eventually manage to kill them (it was very sad because they did not Want to Die), and get the key...but not without a lot of heart ache and tears....Thankfully Lorelai was there for plenty of hugs...

Then they finally meet Raha! Who has fully drank the kool-aid and started dreaming, and he stands before them...he doesn't want them to break the spell. He fights for Blythe's dream...and his own...unwilling to let them take way her or his daughter....and that he and Blythr have nothing in the real world, no family, no home. Just hardship...and eventually he'll just die, and leave Blythe all alone.

After defeating him, the Witch takes matter into her own hands, as the party falls into the "bedroom" where Blythe is sleeping & have to fight the actual Hag herself in her true form...or rather wake up Blythe until the clock strikes 12 and the dream is fully manifested and unable to be stopped.

Wunsch's true form is a giant marble like lion with white feathers and a 4 armed upper body reminiscent of a sphinx. In the cracks of the marble a night sky can be seen, she doesn't particularly have many offensive spells, mostly relying on her enemies being slowed/confused/held/dominated until the timer runs out. (All the reflective shards were of Blythes &co's dreams and nightmares...the party gone, Raha withering and dying in bed, Theta, herself becoming a true hag ... or happy family for Arameia as an example...Eirwen surrounded by friends and Lorelai laughing with the party)

But the party manages to wake Blythe up using all that they've learned!! That yeah she wants these magical tomes and artifacts...but everything in here would have been things she's already found...she can never 'discover' anything new in a dream she's created, so let's go adventuring!

How she's always wanted to try Tarrasque steak but without trying she could never imagine the taste...so why not come with them and kill one?

That she's not safe from Theta in here, and if she was able to get in once, she can get it in again...so lets get out of here and break your curse!

That yeah they'll live eternally, but they won't be 'them' anymore...over time they'll have their edges smoothed over and it won't be the same people because we don't get to grow and experience new things...That Raha loves her the way she is...and that she's not a hideous monster...

When the party awakens, completely normal with..all the curses and stuff, they find out that time hasn't moved since they've fallen asleep, and immediately run to find Blythe and Raha...who don't remember anything that happened, and assume that maybe some ghost got them into a nightmare but they broke out of it. Arameia/Eirwen/Lorelai decided to keep some facts to themselves, like the presence of the child or fighting Raha.

Hilariously, they assume they had too much 'willpower' to be got by such a spell, despite in actuality being the only ones to fold. The gang did have a newfound appreciation for them realizing that yes...Blythe does love them a lot and that they don't know much about Raha and haven't been very good friends.

BUT IT ALL ENDED BITTERSWEET.,....with the gang now being sure all of them love each other and they can move from confronting their trauma and go forward...with fwiends :)

[homestuckreplay]

There Was Actually No Need For The Steed

(page 1669-1683)

After a flash heavily featuring former fourth wall owner Jack Noir (see p.955), we cut right over to the scoundrel who stole this wall: a stylized drawing of noted Homestuck creator Andrew Hussie. So that I can make this clear distinction, I’ll use ‘Hussie’ to refer to the actual author of Homestuck, and ‘AH’ to refer to the author-insert character we see here, who’s intended as a representation of the real author but isn’t literally one and the same.

AH is drawn wearing green, which I’ve said before is the most important color in Homestuck – the generic Sburb color, the first color we see, the color of our protagonist’s shirt, the color circling links in the adventure map, and more. The logo on the front of AH’s shirt is a white sword with oily black wings, reminiscent of the crowsprite prototyping for enemies on both Prospit and Derse. The logo on the back AH’s shirt is also the seal associated with Problem Sleuth’s typewriter, or his ‘most powerful set of keys in the universe’ (PS 1511). AH uses Jade’s scribblepad (p.1373) as a drawing tablet, Jade being the kid who’s closest to the fourth wall. Disturbingly, Lil Cal is on AH’s side of the fourth wall. AH’s office is also shown with a heavy blue filter, as though the room is lit only by the computer, and they’re drawn with incredibly bad posture. Finally, there’s the statement that their side of the fourth wall does not have an off switch (p.1672). Overall, this characterizes the fictional AH as a talented but overworked and tortured artist whose entire life is their work, possibly due to external forces, and who is closer to their characters than to people in the real world.

I definitely think it’s significant that this fourth wall sequence happens one page after Jack and the Black Queen’s fight destroys two of the other walls in Jack’s cubicle of vigilance.

@sincerelywasserious said the other day, before this update dropped:

‘if the fourth wall is the wall between audience and actors, maybe the second and third walls are between actors and behind the stage? So now our actors have access to what’s going on behind the scenes and not just what’s in the play?’

and they basically called it!! All of these walls have multiple views – Jack can switch them to see different areas of the Incipisphere, and the Black Queen can also switch them to appear suddenly to Jack. And the first time we see this cubicle is also the first time we see AH’s fingers (p.953-4), because those walls can also show that view. Now that those walls have been destroyed entirely, we can’t just see a viewport, we can actually go to the space ‘behind’.

AH’s fingers on page 1674 are identical to those from the earlier Jack pages, although it’s worth noting that here the fingers are typing in the narrative text, while previously they were typing character names and commands. In general, the boundary between author and readers is a lot more flexible in this AH section. In one instance, the narrative text contains a command: ‘> MSPA Reader: Shut the hell up.’ (p.1675) and in another, it contains instructions to whoever is supposedly submitting commands: ‘(Type "==>", I am about to make a joke.)’ (p.1677). And of course, there’s a lot of first person ‘I’ pronouns here, while the second person ‘you’ pronoun refers directly to the reader instead of to the player embodying the character. Readers aren’t actually submitting commands for this section, so this is essentially AH talking to themself.

As well as AH’s characterization, the MSPA Reader is given a distinct personality. Their commands (our commands?) tell AH to ‘Go back to work’ (p.1673), ‘Do something less boring’ (p.1675) and ‘Stop being a wiseass’ (p.1679). However, they’re kinder when we actually go back to the story, politely asking ‘Can you show us what’s going on with John again?’ (p.1680) and saying ‘That sounds like a good idea.’ (p.1681). This suggests a world where AH and the readers are aligned on wanting to make the story work and to progress John’s adventure, but hold different opinions on the specifics of how it’s created.

Another line reads, ‘If this website becomes any more self-aware in a playfully self-deprecating yet weirdly self-aggrandizing manner, you're going to go drown a bag of puppies in a sewer.’ (p.1682). Speaking as a MSPA reader, I can tell you that I’m actually not gonna do that no matter what happens in Homestuck, and wouldn’t even make a joke along those lines, as I’m not directly susceptible to a command prompt. I think this is an assumption about the readers’ sense of humor, and suggests the type of person this story is apparently being written for – which doesn’t reflect the diversity of a fan community of hundreds of thousands of people.

But the line’s broader sentiment is essentially, ‘people aren’t going to like this section, and by mentioning that in the text directly, I’m shielded against that criticism’. It’s actually identical to John drawing a Squiddle on Rose’s birthday note and adding the caption ‘(crappy, sorry)’ (p.1091). I think that works can comment on themselves in interesting ways, but that this line comes across more defensive than as exploring this theme. I also think that the author self insert isn’t the worst part of this section by a long way. At the end of the recap, AH mentions their ‘cool horse painting’ which appears in the background of their Photoshopped study. This references a real and ostensibly true blog post from Hussie, found in the Collection at /blogspot/need-for-steed – and it’s a post that makes Hussie look really bad in terms of their respect for other people’s art, time and money. This story has now been incorporated into Homestuck itself, and all of AH’s hints that MSPA readers are in the wrong for expecting too much from them as a creator really fall flat when juxtaposed with a story about how poorly Hussie treats other creators.

AH’s defensiveness doesn’t come from nowhere. I know that a lot of people have strong negative feelings towards direct author inserts, which if I had to guess, comes from a similar place as the dislike of fan-insert OCs in fanfiction, or reader insert fics, or the concept of self-shipping in general. Two opinions on this I’ve seen expressed are seeing it as an ‘amateur move’, assuming that somebody doesn’t have the skills to make a story work internally without resorting to these external ideas, and not liking it when people have a high opinion of themselves and see themselves as ‘important’ enough to be in a story. For sure there are probably lots of other reasons too that aren’t coming to mind, though.

Personally I’m not a purist about the rules of stories and I don’t believe in cringe, so, neither of those arguments ring true to me. In Homestuck, the fourth wall has always been very malleable and this insertion was definitely foreshadowed. So I’m open to it, especially if it goes on to serve a role in the wider story. But fan reactions to author inserts, not just in Homestuck but in media more generally, is something I’d like to learn more about, particularly as it relates to the idea of parasocial relationships. So I might do some actual research on this topic and come back to it in a little while.

A few miscellaneous thoughts on this section. Page 1678 features AH surrounded by a swirling sky and a bunch of Homestuck characters, but where the fuck is my best friend the Peregrine Mendicant? She is easily more important then Mom or Bro and you can’t tell me otherwise. I also have this instinct to read way too much into the joke on this page, especially this line: ‘I WEAVE THIS AUDACIOUS COCOON OF EXQUISITE LIES. AND WHEN IT HATCHES A GREAT MOTH OF TITILLATION WILL AWAKEN AND ROAR AND BEAT ITS WINGS’. I would love so much to think that this joke actually contains hints to the plot of Homestuck, and that the ‘great moth of titillation’ is a reference to Jack, because like, he’s got those big wings and was definitely being dressed up like a doll for the queen’s entertainment.

There’s a new cursor on page 1681, AH’s computer cursor, bringing Cursor Count to three along with the player’s cursor (p.6) and the Sburb cursor (p.139). There’s also a statement in the recap about commands being ‘authored by WV’ (p.1674), which almost positions him as a co-author in what’s already an author insert section.

And finally, the simplicity of the question ‘What do you want me to draw?’ (p.1679) reminded me of another question once posed in the narrative text: ‘What will the name of this young man be?’ (p.1). These direct questions are rare, and they make a nice symmetry between the start of year 1 and the start of year 2 – especially given that the answer to both questions, in text, is ‘John Egbert’.

[jouyato]

ganbare nakamura-kun parody 👍

[luna-the-cretar]

Edge of Midnight episode 6 spoilers

Jericho describing his past, and insisting that the hags must’ve cared for him because they said they did. And everyone else just quietly listening to him, asking questions when need be, and then saying that Jericho is as much of a victim of the hags as he is their creation, I just.

And it’s not like Jericho is innocent, of course. But also…he’s not entirely guilty? It feels kind of like an automaton pied-piper sort of situation. They made him for a purpose, and that purpose—from what I’ve gleaned so far—was to lure people to the hags hut so they could do whatever ritual they wanted to, and then once they did that, they turned Jericho into some kind of living cage. To wander alone, an abomination to many, with only the cruel words and ideations from Virgil to accompany him.

[dent-de-leon]

wait your tags is that really what happened to lucien????

yES and it's absolutely haunting. So, Lucien's childhood: he came from a little family of traveling players in Shadycreek Run. He had an older brother and younger sister, but the eldest brother Elric was always their parents' "favorite." (This did not stop his parents from abusing him either, and there's a flashback where Lucien tends to his wounds while he's still crying.)

His parents end up deep in debt to the Jagentoths--the...the same family in Shadycreek that the Iron Shepherds work for. And when his parents can't pay up, Elric is the one that gets killed for it. His parents, distraught with grief, put Elric's body in the snow until they "decided what to do with it," tried to keep the body fresh.

Maybe at some point they tried to look for a cleric. Maybe. But what they ended up doing was digging up their son's body and handing him over to a hag in the Savalirwood. A witch who has this habit of sucking souls out of people's bodies, skinning their corpses, and sewing them back together as life sized puppets and dolls to display in her little cottage. It's referred to as "Hollowing" someone, because you just carve out their very soul and just leave them "empty"--and it's Lucien's greatest fear.

There's something to be said I think, for Lucien's parents getting too deep into debt with the Jagentoths, and their oldest child being the one to pay the price for it. Then they make a deal with a hag, but it's Lucien who's forced to uphold their end of the bargain. His father gives him a list of people--with the implication that they are not good people--and whoever was chosen, that's who Lucien was tasked with luring back to the witch's cottage.

Lucien is still just a child, couldn't have been older than ten (because by the time he's twelve, he's already been living alone on the streets of the Run for a few years.) And what kinds of people was he trying to get to follow him out into the cursed Savalirwood? Thieves, murderers--and any number of them could have hurt Lucien before he ever made it back to the hag.

And then there's the hag herself, who confesses to Lucien that she always wanted to add him to her "collection." So much of Lucien's story is about loss of autonomy--being controlled against his will, or else coerced into following orders. He's continually manipulated by powerful mages, only ever knows magic as another source of pain.

Eventually, Lucien can't bear it anymore, can't take all the blood on his hands, can't be complicit in his parents' sins any longer. He sets the caravan on fire and escapes with his little sister. Spends the next several years doing whatever he can to build a better life for her, get her a way out of the Run. Eventually, things fall apart.

Lucien spends the rest of his childhood trapped in the Run. Doing odd jobs for other families like the Mardoons to try and survive. He spends most nights going cold or hungry. Waking from nightmares screaming, still feeling the heat of that fire.

He loses touch with his sister. Gets her a way to Rexxentrum, but is too ashamed at himself for not having anything to "offer" her--just barely scraping together enough coin to get by, but nowhere near enough to give her the life he promised. He feels like he failed her, and he stops responding to her letters.

Eventually, he joins the Claret Orders. Nineteen, impatient and impulsive; eager to finally have the power to kill the monsters that always haunted him as a child. Goes back to the Savalirwood, stabs the hag in the heart. But for all he'd dreamed of the revenge, it feels so hollow and empty. She doesn't even fight back, and it makes him feel sick.

Oh--Lucien is also fate touched, which is one of the few things he doesn't loathe about himself. It's something to hold onto, this faint hope that maybe he's destined for greater things, for more than just dying in the Run, that one day he'll escape all this.

There's more, but. That's a good bit of his childhood.

Lucien ends up alone. And when the philosophers start sinking their claws in him, the dream they promise him is a world where Lucien's family actually loves him. It's just....all so very tragic and really drives home that, in comparison to Ludinus, Lucien just....feels like a kid who got in way over his head and just couldn't find a way out--

[swordmaid]

What is Shri'iia's relationship with Minthara? (if you managed to recruit her) :3c

glad you asked!! i love drow knight yuri their relationship is soooo complex to me because you'd thiiink they would get along with them being lolth drow paladins and all but i don't really think they would. or it's more like it's a bit complicated - in surface level i think they would see eye to eye but in regards to more personal situations, that's when they would start to clash. i don't think they'd be able to get close too - or as close as shri'iia gets with the other companions because of the difference in their natures and of their own oaths which is so fundamental to both of them since they're both paladins.

like one of the glaring difference between them is how they both reacted with being forsaken by lolth. minthara sought for revenge since she's a vengeance paladin, and post game she's making her own army to challenge the spider queen again whereas shri'iia shed all that behind her and went to a new path instead. she's not revenge oriented and she doesn't seek power either, she's more concerned with pursuing her own freedom and keeping that freedom, and making sure she's not bound to anyone anymore. she never held a grudge against lolth too and that's such a big difference! especially in the context of lolth drows because power is what they covet! and minthara is born in power - she's from house baenre after all - she knew what power is like and she wielded it well. meanwhile shri'iia was born with nothing, and she had to give away so much of herself to taste a fraction of what minthara had at birth. she only seeks power because that's what she thinks you need to do meanwhile minthara actually wants it. and when they meet, shri'iia is well on her journey in being an oathbreaker and she's pursuing things she actually wants rather than things she thinks she should want (since she aspired to be the lolth drow ideal) so that's a difference between them too. minthara would want control over the absolute cult as revenge for what happened to her but shri'iia is looking for a way to free herself (and others) from them.

and another thing is that they're both born and raised in such a structured, hierarchical society and i think that would seep into how they interact with each other as well. minthara is very used to looking down on others and being treated highly because she was born into nobility, and shri'iia is very used to treating others with a higher regard and lowering herself as well because she was born in the lower class (like she's just above the slaves and non-drows btw and that's only because she's born a drow). and it's interesting because that ^ dynamic gets flipped since shri'iia is now seen as the leader and minthara as a follower, but i think they would slip back into old habits and old roles where minthara would look down on her because she would be able to tell that shri'iia is not nobility, and shri'iia would be cowering around her because that's how she used to be before.

i also don't think minthara would think highly of what shri'iia has done when she swore her fealty to the matriarch of faen tlabbar. the potential that minthara personally knows who that matriarch is aside, the whole thing where shri'iia swore fealty to that woman in exchange to be part of her house it's giving very social climbing. not classy 👎 kind of tacky 👎 and she would think shri'iia a fool for believing lolth and that matriarch so fiercely bc ofc she knows well that these are all lies - but shri'iia never had that luxury or space in the matter to consider other alternatives. she never had the privilege to think otherwise when her days were spent surviving than actually living.

all in all, complicated relationship to me!! but surface level - they're both pretty terrible LMFAO and they'd get along well in that regard. not to mention i really do like the idea that they would speak drowic with each other, and minthara would be one of the people who helps her to speak better in common - or correct her at least since she's still very much learning the language. and as much as me ^ typing that out i think there would be spaces where they would find solidarity within each other as well just because they're just two women who have left their own homes behind, and they both know what it's like to fiercely believe in their own causes. so i could see them being in situations where they would understand what the other is doing but they would also not agree with it because of the clash in their own beliefs.

[allpromarlo]

no u don’t understand. i NEED megumi to come back and beat the brakes off of sukuna so badly, he’s gonna regret ever looking at him the wrong way

[letoscrawls]

Congratulations house of the dragon for bringing back my obsession with dragons

[shodangf]

mom told me im already starting to have wrinkles and i should go to a dermatologist to get them "fixed"

[fluxweeed]

hey. hope this message doesn't bother you. I love you. I love your work. you are one of my favorite fic authors, I am absolutely obsessed with everything you write. reread everything ten times over, drarry or not, fluffy or angsty - even when it absolutely shatters my heart (e.g. for lack of wanting, SUCH a great fic btw i'm so obsessed with it). the four doors? life changing. two to lie and one to listen? engraved into my brain for eternity. what's mine is yours? what a ride holy shit, im VERY normal about it. wrapped? my comfort read. and so it goes.

if I could aggressively smother you with kudos and love I WOULD!!!

awhile ago you said that there's no such thing as "big deals" in fandom and I 100% agree but at the same time you are a big deal TO ME!!! not in the sense of any kind of hierarchy but purely based on the fact that I think you are such a cool person and your writing is amazing and poignant and your presence in fandom makes it so much better. it's been a pleasure following you here on tumblr and just reading your tags and posts.

idk I just think you rule. that's it. thank you for hanging with us. MWAH 💛

ahhhh anon sorry for leaving this message sitting in my inbox for a couple of days but !! i have zero idea how to react to this!! you're so kind!! thank you!! please discard any and all inclinations u have that i am a cool person bc i can assure you i am NOT!!

[svnnnne]

I love ur art so so much, I still stare at ur jokerlove week drawings sometime in awe. U hv the best ideas & such a gorgeous style

appreciate the nice msg anon!! always willing to share my snackies(art) to nice people who wanna snack with me o(｀ω´ )o

(can’t say my ideas are the best tho compared to the rest of the fandom - im just old and just wanna see my blorbos being cute/silly with the occasional “wtf” moment but yknow, its food good enough for me!!!)

[gardenerian]

Hope this fandom is doing well. I guess it was sorta inevitable but this summer felt so quiet on here in this Gallavich bubble. A bittersweet thing but the memories still live on.

hi ❤️ i'm sorry if i played any role in making you feel this way. my brain has just been so..... quiet? lately? weird, right? if you can believe it, i just don't feel the need to run my ridiculous mouth and i don't think anyone needs to hear the crickets and/or circus music in my head 😬 but i'm still so in love with you all and i love to pop in and see what's going on. i don't quite know wtf this blog is right now, but it always comes back around 🍅 i'm still haunting the fanfic library and SCN, you can't get rid of me so easily.

but it seems to me that the summer has been pretty productive! gallavich week was a good time, then we had AUgust and kinktober is right around the corner. and the tropes challenge is also upcoming. so there's been plenty of art and fic posted from what i can tell! gallacrafts and galladrabbles are going strong. we're still here, still queer, etc. 🏳️‍🌈 much love much love ✨

[navree]

"you can't put alicent in a mother's day asoiaf comp because she's not a good mother and that's okay :)" but you have no problem with cersei fucking lannister in it when half her affc chapters are just about how abysmally she fails as a mother to her children so i think you're just a cunt

[sightofsea]

burdened with the knowledge of being one of maybe five people who actually know and understand amy and rory

[medicatedmenace]

*talking about a character i used to be really obsessed with*

*two minutes later hear "...hi i'm miles"*

*thinking 'oh no just my silly imagination again ha ha ha ha'*

*"no this one is very real i can assure you"*

*screams*