#but that's irrelevant to my question of ''how do I accept thin bodies as neutral instead of dangerous when I'm trying to escape anorexia''

[lemememeringue]

okay so we all know it's gross and wrong to ever expect or ask someone to censor or add disclaimers to their own bodies that are just existing out there,, so what actually are some good ways to engage w ppl whose appearances are triggering without making the other person feel uncomfortable?

I think the answer involves exposure therapy, which I am familiar with, but I don't know how to safely use the techniques in this sense.

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 13 - Candy Page 23

==>

This is going well, despite all the weirdness... it might not be so bad by the time I get to the end of all this.  Maybe my stomach can stop clenching as much from the Meat poisoning.

Then again, that’s what I thought when I was up to four-fifths through Meat and thought things were going to be resolved before the end.

So.

Anyway.  Reading.

In fact, all she did was tip her head at him and blink a few times, her long eyelashes catching the light, making her eyes look like mirrors. It was disconcerting for reasons that he couldn’t put his finger on. It’s not like Roxy had ever been argumentative, exactly. He just seems to remember someone from his youth who was somewhat more contrarian in spirit than this person he’s married to now.

God damnit... hypnotized, basically dead Roxy is worst Roxy.  I need that fucking explanation soon.

If she doesn’t get upset after what he’s about to pull today, then...

John doesn’t know what he’ll do.

Gosh that’s horrible.  I wish I didn’t have to go back to Meat if I ever wanted any more Real Roxy again... please, PLEASE, if NOTHING ELSE gets fixed in this stupid fucking Candy arc, PLEASE HAVE ROXY BACK TO NORMAL BEFORE THE END

That... that would be just the fucking icing on the cake, wouldn’t it?  I was already upset about Dirk not getting his due.  I was traumatized over how Jane, Jade, and Rose were left.  But ROXY was fine.  Roxy, pretty much my favorite character next to maybe Jade, or a good number of the others.  If this timeline gives me an alternate cliffhanger to lean on that spares the others to leave HER to shit, then I’d basically be left with nothing to stand on!  It’d be fucking worthless almost.

My stomach isn’t clenching YET, but I’m starting to fill with dread.

JOHN: harry anderson, don’t tell your mother but... JOHN: we’re getting a new addition to the family today!

Pfffff

serious kidnapping

And who said John was just a blank slate with no will of his own?? Fuck you, Dirk.  You knew about this timeline and you STILL said it.

Dave and Jade materialize behind everyone, he in a pressed red suit, she in a glittering Space dress. They’re both holding gifts wrapped in spare printer paper.

Look, you two looking cute is just rubbing salt in the wound of the relationship you fucked over, Jade.  You should have waited to make sure Dave and Karkat FINALLY ACCEPTED THEIR FUCKING RELATIONSHIP before moving in and potentially pushing one of them out, WHICH HAPPENED.

Oooh, smart human babby Tavvy.  ...He isn’t going to want to leave his family situation, is he.  John’s off the mark isn’t he.

Dave ruffles Harry Anderson’s hair. It’s nice that Dave is so woke and great with kids, but that really does invite the question of why he and Jade don’t have any yet. There’s still something sad and wistful about Dave at the moment, as he pointedly avoids letting Jade take his hand while they’re led into the game room.

GAAAAHHHHH

Could we at least BE ALLOWED TO PRETEND THERE’S A POSSIBLE FUTURE WHERE THESE PEOPLE’S RELATIONSHIPS ARENT THOROUGHLY FUCKING MESSED UP?????

I KNOW THESE CHARACTERS ARE MESSED UP BUT YOU HAVE TO AT LEAST GIVE US HOPE

AND WHERE’S THE HAPPY POTENTIAL PAIRING FOR JADE??? IT SEEMS LIKE THERE’S NO POTENTIAL FOR REAL MUTUAL HAPPINESS FOR HER BESIDES JADE X COMA!!!!!!!!!!

X(

God damn it Jane can be creepy.

She gained his affection the same way she gains everyone’s affection: she fucking bought it.

UUuuuuuuggghhhhh

...pff stars vs enemies of the state

John, stop making this so stranger-danger.

JOHN: are you ACTUALLY happy about it? JOHN: about... everything going on here? TAVROS: I suppose,,, TAVROS: My mother tends to get displeased when i’m unhappy, so,,,

uuuugughghghuhh

TAVROS: It just seems like a thing that would eventually happen to me, does it not?

D:

Oh wow, callback to Dirkbro abuse.  THAT’S gonna set John off.

Oh wow, Tavros knows his situation is bad enough that he’s willing to GO for it. All he’s worried about is the security.  YEAH John!!  Do your Breathy thing and get him out of here!!!

Tavros takes in a sharp breath before spinning on his heel and stumbling toward his closet. John catches the ghost of a smile on his face before he turns and that’s all it takes to turn the pounding of his heart from terrified to thrilled.

AAaaaaAAAAAH THIS IS ADORABLE SOMEHOW

She twitches her dog-ears and raises her face. Her mouth is a neutral line, but her eyes are burning furiously.

OH NOOOOOOO

FUCK, Jade don’t stop it!!! She’s... she’s gonna put her foot down and stop this just so everything can be all candy-coated and good on the SURFACE without hurting people OPENLY even if she and Jane and all the others are DEEPLY hurting everyone else under the surface!!!! D:

JOHN: jade, i don’t know where you’ve been these past few years, but i don’t think things CAN get any worse!

Yes exactly

JOHN: but there isn’t one, because everyone’s been all... brainwashed by marriage, or whatever the hell happened over the last few years that made things be this way!

Hmmmmmm

JOHN: well, you’re nothing like the jade i used to know either!

D:

Alright, huge blowup. Let’s air out some feelings.

JANE: I let go! I was actually RELIEVED to hear he died!!! ROXY: uhh ROXY: janey wut

HAhahahaah YES let’s get all that dirty laundry OUT IN THE OPEN

......Okay that didn’t end as well as expected.  Or... well I guess I KNEW it wouldn’t end well, but I’d hoped otherwise.

==>

Wait, so Terezi and John’s conversation is “in the dream bubbles”? Is that just because he’s talking to her while she’s skirting the edge of the storm in the Void rocketways, or because John’s from a somehow doomed/irrelevant/side timeline?

(Why does Terezi always have to be dying.  She figured herself out and how awesome she is.  Stop dying.  And I don’t mean like the sad walking off in Meat, though I guess that kind of counts.)

JOHN: if she cared about you as much as you care about her, she wouldn’t have fucked off like this forever.

YES JOHN

LAY

ON

THE

TRUTH

(Ghost!Vriska is the only one who really deserves to matter anymore.  This “alpha” Vriska just sank deeper into her problems and delusions beyond being able to really redeem herself or recognize them.  That diatribe she gave her ghost self was horrible back when.)

Wait, wait hold on

JOHN: if she cared about you as much as you care about her, she wouldn’t have fucked off like this forever. JOHN: driving you crazy with doubt and uncertainty, making you chase her through infinite nothingness until you almost starve to death... JOHN: she would have at least given you the courtesy of closure!

Is... is Andrew talking about the comic here and his relationship with the readers

is this some sort of apology for not giving this closure, like, as if he were the vriska that launched himself into the sun over his own artistic ideals or

hmm

JADE: doomed is not a word i would use to describe the condition of those on this world. JADE: even if my work is unsuccessful, the stakes for everyone here have nothing to do with the issue of mortality. JADE: to frame the matter that way would be misleading. JADE: to the extent that it is my naturally endowed duty to defend the innocent from wanton acts of destruction, from degradation and dissolution, JADE: it is also my duty to tell the truth to those i protect. JADE: and the simplest statement of truth for all of you to know is this: JADE: we are the lucky ones.

Calliope lets out a long, thin sigh from between the teeth of Jade’s corpse. It’s more for effect than anything, as corpses don’t actually need to breathe.

JADE: we are the ones fortunate enough to live in a reality that is beyond the influence of the prince.

Geez, it’s like escape from Lord English’s influence all over again.

They won only for everything to just fucking start over, everything they struggled to stop?  That sucks!!!  >:(

Anyway, still reading... god damnit Terezi don’t fly off and die for no fucking reason.

JOHN: then what DID you want?! TEREZI: L3TS S4Y... TEREZI: 1 JUST W4NT3D TO G1V3 YOU TH3 COURT3SY OF CLOSUR3

Fuck.  Yeah, let’s just keep fucking over Terezi, another one of my favorite characters.  Yes she lives and goes to fuck off somewhere in Meat with the villain of the week, but FUCK, couldn’t we get a SLIGHTLY clearer picture of her potential happiness than just THAT?????

It’s like the whole purpose of these epilogues was just to remind us that these characters were too fucked up to ever be happy!!!!

Couldn’t we have at least been left to IMAGINE OTHERWISE?!?????

JADE: not until i am able to deal with the prince myself. ARADIA: and when will that be

The meteor is passing beyond the fall of night. Dead-Jade, standing half in light, half in darkness, looks up at the sky.

JADE: not soon enough.

Ahh.  I’m getting an idea of the Postscript’s circumstances, then.  That was alt!Callie in this black-hole-powered Jade body going from THIS Candy timeline to go chase after Dirk and help stop him like everyone else, giving her a more powerful card to play than just the adult Jade she was having guide the others. (Maybe she could have that adult Jade FUCKING WAKE UP AND ABLE TO HELP instead of keeping her in a coma. That would be a pretty fucking nice change of pace.  Too bad we have to just IMAGINE IT without any reassurance that she’ll be awake or okay for YEARS TO COME, HUH.)

Also that means that resistance fighting is gonna break out with artillery and stuff because Jane is apparently a dunpass in both timelines.  Fuck.

==>

Swifer, can you stop swifing?

KARKAT: HOW THE HELL DO YOU TWO TOLERATE EACH OTHER? KANAYA: Quite Thoroughly Enthusiastically And Often

Pffffff :D

...Oh my God MEENAH landed here???  All ring-of-lifeways from the other timeline?  I guess the Furthest Ring was outside the scope of those timeilnes so she could’ve fallen in any of them... huh.  Heck, maybe the same Terezi who experienced those conversations eventually met the John from the Meat side of the timeline too.  And she said John smelled younger than she thought he was, oh my GOD, it WAS that.  It was that exactly.  The Terezi we’re hearing was the same across both Epilogue-halves.  That’s actually fucking fantastic!!!

MEENAH: capisces?

Fuck that pun

(Also Meenah is talking about how they lost, but she was knocked away before she saw the conclusion of the fight, so.)

...Holy SHIT Meenah is really taking to this!!! This is adorable.  :D

==>

John’s having some canon/existential ditherthoughts, hm.

He’s been contemplating this melodramatically for maybe ten minutes when the sky rips opens above him and flashes violent waves of red and green across the landscape.

Hm.  So do the black hole wormholes have some tie to the cherubic portal device from Hiveswap?

It’s his father’s car.

Mhmm, that confirms all of it, really.  Same Terezi in both stories.

A vast cry of sorts.  :(

Heading out for a while; gonna start from Page 27 in the next post.  I feel pretty good, somehow.  The way these two timelines tied together with Terezi outside them makes it feel like it all may have ultimately meant something.