#fuck gotta edit it later

[elizeshiro]

sorry to literally everyone who follows me but there's. theres just gonna be 4851 content for the next few days. I WILL FUCKING PICK UP MY LAPTOP AND CONTINUE THAT FUCKING FIC I WROTE YEARS AGO AND STOPPED IF I FUCKING HAVE T-

[vitrificvitriol]

Alone time

[j00stkl31n]

Another video I’m gonna put up and walk away from 🫣

[seventh-district]

Could've left me just the way you found me, but you came and put your wings around me. You went out of your way, to fix what you didn't break.

This song is so incredibly Sam & Darlin' coded and no one can tell me otherwise.

[lots of lyrical analysis below the cut] [there's also a short little fanfic blurb of them stargazing down there too (this post got really out of hand lmao)]

For those not fully caught up, note that the following commentary contains various spoilers for Sam and Darlin's stories.

Note: Unfortunately this song is gendered, using the word 'girl' several times. Which sucks a little bit for immersion purposes, not only for keeping Darlin' gender-neutral, but also because I see this song as a duet between them, and Darlin' obviously wouldn't be addressing Sam with the word 'girl' either. So! As with most songs on their playlist, we're just gonna mentally omit any gendered terms we come across.

Side note: Frustratingly, this is one of those songs that didn't really even need to gender the subject in the first place. No part of the story or message is lost without it. But alas, many songs are like that, and so the playlist-makers of the world shall continue to suffer. [/lh]

Anyways, preamble's over. It's lyric time now yay!

Sam's Part

I was a ten-year train wreck

Technically for Sam I suppose it was 13 years, but ten is close enough (and 'ten' admittedly flows a lot better in the rhythm of the song than 'thirteen' would.) Anyways, we're not here to split hairs, (I have to remind myself), we're just here to point out similarities.

In Sam's Dec. '22 HBW, he says "For the last 13 years or so I haven't had to care too much about how I look. Seemed a little redundant after turnin', considerin' I didn't wanna be around much'a anybody anyway."

I think he's mentioned or alluded to that roughly 13 year period of time more than once, but that's the one I remember best so it's the example I'm using. There's still about 4 Sam audios I've yet to listen to as of making this post, so if I'm missing some Key Lore I'll edit this later. But for now, I don't think Sam has given many specifics on exactly how bad things got during that time. Luckily, 'train wreck' is a pretty broad and subjective term, so it easily covers any degree to which he may have fallen apart during those years.

It also feels like a very 'him' way of quickly brushing over the details of his past/his hurt, as he seems to tend to do with Darlin', (not all the time ofc but it's still something I've noticed) putting his own hurt on the backburner to prioritize and attend to theirs. Even outside of his dynamic with them, I think as a healer, it's something he learned to do. And now he does it with everyone. Put on a brave face, compartmentalize things and unpack them later, etc. I could go on and on but there'll be time for that in other posts I'm sure. For now, lets get back to the song at hand.

With a last-call longneck

Due to personal reasons, I've yet to decide if I want to HC him as having used alcohol as a coping mechanism during that time. I don't recall him having mentioned alcohol much, if at all, (maybe one mention of whiskey that I don't have time to find right now) so I don't think it's necessarily canon that he did, but it's certainly possible. My personal preferences aside, I'll admit it makes for some good additional angst. (And- self-indulgently- it makes some other songs on my playlist for them more fitting.) So, for the sake of this song, let's imagine that he did.

I was searchin', I'd been hurt real bad

This one feels pretty self-explanatory given what Alexis did, (and, if you wanna get even angstier with it, whatever his family did earlier on in his life) so there isn't much commentary to add on my end.

I HC that in spite of 'not wanting to be around anybody', he- like Darlin- still had a tiny part of himself buried deep down that was, in a way, 'searching' for someone to find solace in. (No this isn't me projecting onto them both haha what are you talking about-)

Movin' on, gettin' sidetracked One step forward and five back

This is generally applicable enough that I don't feel the need to give too much of a specific example. Anyone who's recovered or is recovering from trauma knows this non-linear, back-and-forth struggle well already, and I'm sure he was no stranger to it.

If I were to give some examples though, I could point to Darlin's (and subsequently, Sam's) encounter with Alexis at the summit, or the shit that Quinn dredged up about Fredrick and threw at Sam in the interrogation room. Those are both more recent examples and I imagine these lines of the song to be coming from a place of him prior to meeting Darlin', but still, they're some instances where I'm sure he felt like the past was pulling him back in. I'm sure that there's been many throughout those 13 years that we were never witness to.

Not your fault, I was scared to fall

This line reminds me of their 'Cuddles and Confessions' audio. I don't think he ever explicitly said he was 'scared' per se, so afaik there's no specific line I can quote, but in that and every audio prior, he was obviously hesitant to admit, perhaps even to himself, that he was gradually falling for them. Even after the initial confession, there's certain limits of his (e.g. biting) that he carries for far longer, and some that I (and others) HC that he'll carry forever. So this line feels to me like him reassuring Darlin' that his reluctance isn't the fault of them, but his past.

Darlin's Part

You were the star in the pitch black Shine the way on the way back

We don't have any canon instances of them comparing Sam to a star, but I can see it being something they'd say (perhaps less poetically, but the sentiment would be there) one night while laying up on their roof watching the stars with him. Maybe they're dead-tired, talking nonsense with lidded eyes at the end of a long day, fighting sleep in favor of more time spent with him.

"What- what're you pointin' at Darlin'?"

Their hazy focus is trained on the brightest star visible in their line of sight, arm stretched out to the sky above them. "That really bright one, to the... to the left."

Sam does his best to follow their less-than-specific directions of 'to the left', their pointed finger doing little to help given the difference in perspective. Luckily, after all these years, he knows this stretch of night sky like the back of his hand, so it isn't hard to locate the brightest one. Ghosting his fingers up along their arm, he takes their hand in his and brings it back down to earth. "Okay, yeah, I see it now. What about it though?"

"That's you." They say, matter-of-factly.

"That's me?" He questions, humor in his tone.

"Mhm." They nod with finality, blinking slow.

Sam considers the odd statement for a moment before gently correcting them. "I'm uh, I'm pretty sure that's Sirius, actually."

They scoff. "I am being serious."

Sam stifles a laugh into their hair. "No- no I mean- like... what's another name for it... Oh! It's also called the Dog Star."

"C'mon Sam, at least call it the Wolf Star if you're trying to turn this around on me..."

He shakes his head and readies himself to explain further, but they cut him off before he can start. "But no- no, this one isn't about me. That's you."

He decides to play along, finding something endearing in their overtired nonsense. "Okay... then would'ja be so kind as to explain to this confused old man just how, or why that star is me?"

Their frown is audible in their voice as they latch onto the wrong part of his sentence. "You're not old, Sam. ...Do I need to tell Asher to kick the jokes down a notch?"

He smiles at their over-protectivity. "There'll be no need for that, now. Was just a joke, darlin', I promise."

They huff, but thankfully shift focus back to the prior topic. "It's... I dunno. It's just you, Sam. It's... bright. Light. Something warm, out there in the cold dark. Standing out amongst all the rest. Calling to me, stealing my attention. I... I didn't come out here looking for it, but there it is. ...There you were. In the dark. The only bright thing I'd seen in... fuck, in years. Years of chasing fleeting warmth, tripping over myself in the pitch black, falling into... places 'n people I shouldn't have. You were the light in that darkness. Even there, surrounded by the ghost of him. You outshone it. Your warmth didn't hurt. I didn't have to squint when I looked at you. You weren't the blinding sun. You were the brightest star I'd ever seen. You guided me back home."

In the back of their mind, they recall something they once heard, something about light, and time, and distance. Space. Something about... how you can see a star that's already burnt out, because it's light hasn't reached earth yet. The ghost of a star that's already died. Only still perceptible thanks to time, and distance.

They remember Sam's words, once whispered to them on this very roof.

"Whatever your choice is... I'm not gonna live forever. I made that decision a long time ago."

They think about dead stars.

They think about time.

"...-lin'? Darlin'?" Sam's calloused hand slides up their forearm, pulling them out of their thoughts. "There you are. Think I lost ya' for a minute there... you good?"

They look up at Sam, concern creasing his features, shadows cast across his face from the light of the dying stars above him.

They reach out, pulling him down into them. Burying their face into his collar, Sam's concern grows when he feels it saturate with tears. A human might struggle to hear their words, muffled against the thick fabric, but his hearing catches it just fine.

"Don't burn out too quick. Please. I still need you here. I don't- I don't wanna be left in the dark again. Please, please Sam. Don't leave me here. I'm not selfish enough to ask you for forever, but please. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet."

.......Whoopsies! Really, genuinely didn't mean to improv an entire scene there, good god. Also didn't mean to swerve hard into angst at the end but uh. that's what came out! so I'm rolling with it lmao. Aaanyways let's move on, it's getting late and this is a song analysis post, not a fic.

Out of nowhere, answered all my prayers

'Out of nowhere' reminds me of Sam's words from the same HBW video I referenced earlier. "You came into my life like a damn wreckin' ball. There was no preparing for that, clothing or otherwise." While those were Sam's words, not Darlin's, I still feel like they feel similarly to how suddenly Sam came into their life as well. (Not in a bad way, mind you!)

[the significance of 'answered all my prayers' edges into my own personal more headcanon-y/personal/OC-ified Darlin' territory, so we can just gloss over this one for the sake of at least attempting to keep this more universally applicable]

Picked up the towel that I threw in Took in a heart that was ruined

Again, largely self-explanatory I feel. (*proceeds to explain anyways*) I imagine that Darlin' was at the point of throwing in the towel, hellbent on a solo-mission to find Quinn regardless of the danger it posed to them. I doubt they were looking toward the future anymore, (to reference Sam,) fully willing to throw themself at their problems until they really did break.

The specific use of 'ruined' hits hard here, because after everything they went through with Quinn, and especially after he recounted it all to Sam in that interrogation room, I imagine that they really, truly did feel ruined.

Showed me the past ain't a tattoo Loved me even when you didn't have to

These lines in particular make me sick with emotion every time I hear this song, because I feel like they hit the nail on the head for how Darlin' feels.

I'll be here citing various quotes all night that I feel showcase that sentiment, but we don't have time for that! So instead I'm just pointing to the entirety of 'Quinn's Aftermath' video, and leaving you with this single quote from it.

"Everything that he said reflects nothin' on you, and everything on him."

Equally Applicable Lines

And I don't know why Why you saw something in me, baby But you saw right through All the pain, and you came and saved me Yeah, I know you didn't leave me lonely Weren't the one that put the heartbreak on me Picked up the pieces It wasn't the mess that you made Could've left me just the way you found me But you came and put your wings around me You went out of your way To fix what you didn't break

Again, I think these lines are all pretty self-explanatory, and are just as accurate coming from either one of them. To me, at least, their entire dynamic is that they saved each other, in their own ways.

(But I will admit, the final verses about 'going out of your way to fix what you didn't break' are definitely conjuring up memories of Sam in the early days, literally going out of his way to visit and heal Darlin' after their fight with the two vamps. In general, his continued/repeated healing of them after they once again hurt themselves is the very literal definition of fixing what he didn't break.

But! While we may have more blatant examples of Sam being 'the fixer' so to speak, I think he'd argue that Darlin' has done plenty fixing of their own. Physical wounds aren't the only things that need healing, after all.)

-------

[shameless self-promo of my Sam & Darlin' playlist for those few of u interested enough to make it to the very end of this wall of text. if u liked this then u might like some of the other songs on there soooo maybe go check it out and maybe perhaps give it a follow so i can get a little serotonin boost or dopamine or whatever the chemical is that's released when Number Go Up. ...okay that's it i hope u enjoyed my fixation-induced ramblings! thank u and goodnight]

[robottheodorlasso]

…… so there is this generic medieval au with light fantasy elements that has been living in my head rent free…. 

[essektheylyss]

I have finally hit 30k on my current book draft and this section is roughly outlined to my liking and I have worked out a number of later plot kinks in the process and truly, if I can get through this and the next section before the New Year, I might actually stand a chance of finishing this thing with some efficiency. And thank FUCK.

[coridallasmultipass]

Guys I missed the countdown by 7 minutes can we redo it?

[multishipperbish]

HEY HI HELLO

-> my name is Nico but I also use Alex :3 -> I use he/xe pronouns -> I have a really hard time interacting with anyone ever but I'm working on it!! -> I'm aromantic and pansexual we ballin -> I listen to like. folk punk and goth music and midwest emo it's horrible inside my head -> I'm gonna post mostly about LOTF because I have insta and discord and ao3 to post about my other interests so if you're not into that... tough luck bucko -> other interests include South Park, the Riordanverse (particularly Magnus Chase), Houseki No Kuni, Wings of Fire (me when i'm stuck in 2014), Artemis Fowl (except i gotta reread it and the movie was foul), Good Omens, and horror movies -> I write and I draw... mostly traditional but I might post some digital art too :3 -> I speak English and French and write in both -> I have an ongoing LOTF fic that's surpassed 40K words and it's kind of scaring me -> I'm open to discuss anything!! dms always open -> dni proships and any kind of nefarious -phobia. shoo. none of that allowed here. -> me personally i have trypophobia and emetophobia and cynophobia (for the really big dogs not the silly ones i'll reblog) so don't do that to me!! alright peace out fags

[applestorms]

questions of pacing aside, i actually think the progression from one set of kids to the next in homestuck is quite good, and also at least in part explains why the comic shifts so heavily into the more blood-based relationship/character dynamic focus in Act 6 and onward, as opposed to the more breath-based plot emphasis that was more present in the first half.

the most basic way you can see this is in how the characters age over the course of the story, actually. you start off with the beta kids--13 years old, four humans, related by blood even if not explicitly stated from the start--who generally stick to the plot and keep away from the relationship drama. john doesn't seem particularly interested in romance other than through celebrity crushes and as a plot point in his movies, rose is (presumably) confident in her lesbianism and doesn't converse w/ jade enough in-canon to push much of a dynamic there. dave is the main one that very obviously (and, imo, cutely. d'aww) has a crush on all of his friends, but his latent internalized homophobia (and the uncomfortably Freudian implications of the Other One) means that jade is the only real candidate he can pursue. jade herself ends up being into the idea too, so there ends up not being much of a struggle anyways, at least at the beginning.

the trolls are also 13 years/6 sweeps old, but notably they're coming from an entirely different social context, one that pushes the necessity of relationships much more strongly (note the underlying "fuck or die" implications of the imperial drones). there's also 12 of them, meaning a lot more potential options for romance, not to mention the 4 quadrants for pursuing it in the first place. fitting, then, that the introduction of the leader-ly blood player adds more romantic drama to the story.

karkat bitches about his fears of troll/human sloppy makeouts enough that the story was destined to devolve into some degree of that at some point, but the rapidly rising number of troll/human interactions in A5A2 in general was bound to add to the already present interpersonal drama that drove a lot of A5A1. even looking past the burgeoning powerhouse that is rosemary at this point in the story, terezi, dave, & karkat have enough drama amongst themselves to power a fucking rocket, and that's before you add people like vriska, jade, & john into the mix.

so by the time you get to the alphas it really doesn't surprise me that so much of the plot of their early pages revolves around The Jakestakes and it's corresponding drama. the kids are also 15 going on 16 and a lot more explicitly horny by this point (bound to happen w/ the smuppets & blue women, roxy's overwhelming Thirst aside), pushed to new levels by the similarly new levels of isolation almost every character is surrounded by. the kids want interpersonal connection, and it seems natural to me considering the (human) Society they're coming from that they would default to romance at this age, REGARDLESS of whether or not they are actually interested in it. (i see you, aromantic jake headcanons.)

the same thing happens with the dancestors, actually, who are probably the most explicitly horny set of characters in the comic iirc? or at the very least, the ones who have the most canon basis for that kind of relationship history, even considering how little they show up in general. i see this as a combination of both being around 19 years/9 sweeps old and being stuck in the dream bubbles, honestly. what else is there to do but delve into a bunch of nuanced relationship drama and awkward post-death situationships, really? (unless you're cronus, of course.)

but anyways, alongside the age difference resulting in more relationship drama, there's another thing the progression lends itself to: identity crises!

this is maybe less clear in the dancestors, but it's definitely clear for the first three groups. where the beta kids all have fairly distinct, natural identities revolving around their interests (maybe more strongly stated in the case of dave & rose, fitting considering their level of maturity in comparison to the prospit kids), a lot more of the trolls are concerned with the Image they project out into the world. take rose's pre-grimdark interest in the occult & psychoanalysis, fairly genuine interests i think that do shape her identity into something fairly distinct, in comparison to the fucking Lifestyle Choices of vriska & terezi with their respective mindfang & redglare roleplay. not all the trolls are that level of dedicated so they make for a smoother transition from the betas, but there's definitely a lot stronger of a theme of personal reflection & identity within the trolls, especially in how they view/treat their ancestors.

the alpha kids take this to another level, which again i think is fitting considering their age. the alphas are a bunch of fucking liars, yes, but the key thing to note here is that when they lie to themselves, it's probably just cause they don't really know who they are yet? like, dirk is certainly Aware of some core, unchangeable parts of himself, yes-- but none of these kids have really gotten the chance to figure out who they are yet. when roxy talks about being a sick haxxor bitch, or dirk about being a multitasking, hyper-competent puppet master, or jake about being A Goddamn Adventurer-- they're playing with costumes. they're rp-ing, and trying to figure out who they actually are in the process, what parts they're willing to show the world and what parts they're more inclined to hide. even jane (or perhaps especially jane?) is just fitting herself into the role she's been placed under since childhood.

this is one idea i think the epilogues/post-canon content really missed in its interpretation of the alphas. these kids aren't uniquely terrible, their relationship drama is not world ending (despite how it may feel. looking at you A6A5A1x2), they are not harboring some exclusive seed of evil deep within them. i honestly think that if you had chucked the john/vriska/terezi/karkat/dave/jade love hexagon from hell into a different context it would look no different to the alphas' English Sweepstakes.

which kinda leads to my final point, actually: the third thread. miscommunication.

communication gets more and more obtuse the further along in the story you go. i feel like i've mentioned this before, but hussie really starts taking advantage of the medium of pesterlogs the further in you get w/ the whole concept of Biased Narrators (also see: doc scratch, homosuck), which is part of the reason why i think the story gets more and more misread the further into it you get as people skim more and pay the price even harder.

prospit/derse differences about directly vs. indirectly saying what you mean aside, the kids get more and more cagey as the story progresses. this development is actually the clearest imo when you look at how it goes from the beta kids (friends talking to friends) -> trolls (online strangers, ready to fuck w/ you but ultimately sympathetic in their own right) -> doc scratch (literally just an internet predator). as who you're talking to online increases in potential danger, so too must the required level of Fuckery.

caliborn might be a little shit w/ some violent tendencies & questionable taste in art when he's talking to the alphas (in particular, dirk & jake), but he's also the future (V)illain of The Comic and shouldn't be taken too lightly. at the very least, the power that he and calliope both have over the story as a whole is nothing to scoff at.

as much as it doesn't feel like it at first, the alphas take a lot of the themes previously established surrounding the more personal/emotional/relationship-oriented aspects of the beta kids & trolls and crank it up to 11. everything just feels so much more intense, even if the game mechanics and plot shit is dialed down significantly in turn. it's no wonder A6A5A2 (the tricksters) and A6A5A1x2 (the conversation on the quest beds) play out the way they do-- i mean, those two acts alone basically sum up the Entire dynamic of the alphas & all of their interpersonal problems in one big dramatic swoop. more lonely, more longing, more confused about who they are and who they love and who they want to be. the alphas got it all.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

CRYING SCREAMING THROWING STATIONARY THE CURSE OF BEING A DISCOVERY WRITER WHEN YOU'VE GOT SOME BUT NOT ALL OF YOUR SHIT FIGURED OUT!!!!

[celestial-toys]

*crawls out of my isolation cave. slaps a 10 thousand word document on the ground. passes out.*

[figofswords]

stephanie brown essay is now 6500ish words long and 22 pages, not including the 5 pages worth of works cited. and it is not done. i never want to talk about dc comics again

[soymikki]

REIGNANT IS TOO FUNNY TO BE HIDDEN IN THE TAGS

AGDJDKDKDKF DLSLD I CANT TAKE THE CREDIT it came from the tags from this person who reblogged the comic

[loverboybitch]

knit sweater i made drying out after i dyed it in my kitchen sink.//.

[calronhunt]

How that the im no longer haunted (finished writing act 1 of kibby cats) work has been a lot slowly as I don't have a rotating list of thoughts to go through

[teaboot]

Yall gotta stop stealing. Not for any specific objective moral reason but because you fucking suck at it

Edit: BECAUSE 95% OF YOU ARE GETTING CAUGHT AND NAILED BY BIGASS CORPOS OVER FUCKING LIP GLOSS AND REDBULL AND THAT SHIT ISNT WORTH CRIMINAL CHARGES. CAUSE YOU DONT KNOW HOW OFTEN SOMEONE SEES YOU ON CAMERA AND REPORTS IT LATER. BECAUSE YOURE BAD AT IT.

GET BETTER OR STOP CAUSE YOURE GONNA GET NAILED AND OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM WILL FUCK YOU OVER