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houseki-no-suffering · 5 years ago

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on ch 82 and what the hell is the deal with phos

super long wall of words ahead, you've been warned. also, im not qualified to discuss the emotional effects of trauma, so please correct me where im wrong and don’t hesitate to add on this post

contains an analysis of phos’ character arc, explanation on why and how they snapped and what might happen to our child next:

1. genki phos 2. post winter phos 3. laphos 4. on trauma 5. on snapping 6. speculations about the future

so, first things first, I could not help but notice the sheer number of parallels between this chapter and other significant points of the story. it seems to me that parallels are becoming more and more frequent as the moon arc goes on, and that’s not just because there are simply more chapters to draw parallels from as the story grows in size.

I believe that we’re at a turning point in the story, or even that the turning point has been reached, (aechmea telling barbata to fix phos for the umpteenth time is most likely going to give phos the last treasure, but ill get to it).

so, to try and understand what in the seven hells is going on with our baby at this point (the fandom collectively adopted phos since chapter 2, sign the papers if you haven’t already and donate to the fund to send phos to therapy) let’s retrace phos’ character journey.

1: genki phos

the phos who is too good for this world, too pure, the cinnamon roll who has no idea what the hell is gonna happen to them. oh joy.

hnk sets off as a coming of age story. phos is the youngest, they’re seemingly useless in a society that values usefulness above anything else so genki phos is initially driven by lack of purpose.

i’ve speculated already on the characteristics of the lustrous society, a society that emphasizes sameness over difference and that has no place for outcasts like phos and cinnabar. your value, in lustrous society, is dictated by how much and in which way you can contribute to the survival of the species, with elite fighters (the diamonds) being at the apex of the social pyramid and everyone else coming after.

additionally, while gems live in a highly interdependent and close-knitted society, such interdependence never takes into account emotions, loss, imagination, introspection and free-thinking. the society is extremely practical, apathetic, immobile, and everyone is expected to conform to that.

think about antarc: they’re the poster child of lustrous society: a 3 mohs hardness gem who managed to become an elite fighter out of sheer willpower, who’s blindly loyal to sensei, who sacrifices themselves for the greater good (the group’s interests > the individual’s interests), that does little if any introspection and that is happy about all of this and wants to leave it this way.

phos isn’t like this at all.

since the very beginning of the series we learn that phos is an anomaly. and that’s okay, other gems have been anomalies, like padparadscha, cinnabar, even antarcticite, but while those gems found a way to tip toe to the margins of lustrous society to remain unobtrusive exceptions, or forge themselves into proper, useful members of the group, phos cannot do that. which is ironic, because we know that one of phos’ core characteristics is that they’re able to change and to bring about change in a world that is as immobile and still and stiff as… well.. rock.

like @ruddy-rutile pointed out in a past analysis, phos’ problem wasn’t so much that they didn’t fit in, but that they didn’t fit in the appropriate way: they’re emotional, they’re loud, they’re unreliable, they’re not apathetic. they’re kind. compassionate. imaginative. and imagination is something the other gems lack.

this fuels a deep sense of self-hatred that even at this early stages of the story is lying just beneath the surface and oozes out quite easily, like when phos wants to help ventricosus and mumbles that it’s no problem if they die in the attempt, they’re a good for nothing after all, what difference would it make if they dont come back. at least they were able to help someone, contrary to how they were unable to help cinnabar.

this is the leitmotif of the series: phos is a kind, selfless gem who cultivates a deep sense of self-hatred. the internalized pressure and need to feel useful turns into a necessity for change. they need to save cinnabar, they need to save ventricosus, they need to become a fighter, they need to help sensei.

contrary to most of the other gems, phos loves and loves openly and unconditionally, they’re self-less by nature and that selflessness is a barrier that hides the real reason theyre so ready to put their life on the line for other people: the fact that phos thinks that their own life isnt wort a scrap.

as someone who believes to be worthless, guided by shame and guilt just for being alive and fueled by a deep desire to feel loved and accepted (just like a child), phos is unable to cope with grief and emotion if not by guilt tripping themselves even further.

the fact that the amethysts were almost taken is their fault, the fact that cinnabar is suicidal is their fault, the fact that antarc was taken is their fault, same with ghost’s abduction. the only way phos knows to cope with this guilt is by doing what every other gem does: bury these feelings deep inside their head and throw themselves into work. be useful, like alexandrite, rutile or red beryl.

2. post winter phos

what was a story about purpose, about phos’ coming of age, reaches an end at this very point, with antarc’s death. phos has become stronger at this point of the story, they have agathe legs and gold arms and they have grief to cope with, trauma.

just like alex’s job is studying the enemy and red’s job is making clothes, phos’ job is the one they originally desired for themselves: to fight. because there is nothing as valued as a good fighter in gem society and probably young phos unconsciously hoped to overcome self-hatred by taking on the most useful job there is.

post winter antarc is a skilled soldier, so skilled that bort wants to pair up with them. phos has reached their old goal: through loss and maturity, now they have a place within their society, they’re accepted and appreciated, valued but not loved. because these gems are so, so bad at emotions.

and this is where ms ichikawa begins to fool us all. she had us think that this story would be simple, but now hnk starts its steep and unrelenting detour toward existentialism and phos begins their dance toward madness and bottomless grief.

post winter phos is a soldier, they can fight off lunarians, but theyre still blaming themselves for antarc’s death.

we already said that phos is a very emotional gem and they possess a fervid imagination (probably just like lapis). so what do they do? they start thinking. “maybe i can retrieve antarc if we collect enough pieces. if i can communicate with the lunarians. if i can understand why we’re fighting.”

thinking quickly turns into questioning: why are we fighting? why are we so weak? why am i different? what changed me? is it the new additions, is it just life experiences? can we change? how can we change? antarc told me i shouldnt shy away from life, so im gonna push myself further and further.

that’s when shiro’s arc happens and sensei seems to know something about it, something he won’t tell the gems. phos’ questions suddenly turn to him.

phos is pretty much paranoid at this point of the narrative: they have experienced loss for the first time. consumed by guilt and grief for antarc’s recent abduction (even if phos still doesnt know what death means, we’ll get to that in a while), phos cannot think straight. they can’t be questioning the one authority every gem recognizes, the person phos and everyone else wants to protect, their leader, father, teacher.

phos feels like scum just for even thinking about it, as loyal and young as they are. and yet once you start questioning one minuscule thing about the way you have always lived your life, more and more will follow. it’s a cascade effect and it becomes faster the higher the number of questions, until you’re left with nothing but doubts and you must take into your hands the responsibility to find out for yourself.

this is more or less what happens to phos. they feel awful for doubting sensei the first time, in chapter 27, so they spill their guts to cinnabar, confessing their sins. but what cinnabar says does anything but put phos at ease: of course phos is doubting sensei: he’s shady, everyone knows.

however, while cinnabar is a quiet outcast, extremely prudent (and cowardly if you want) in the way they decide to face life, phos is the total opposite. they just needed a little nudge, they were already on the edge of a cliff of doubts and existential fears. cinnabar’s words are the second, big step that sets phos off on their path to the moon.

chapter 28 is when we see phos self-destructing because of this inner conflict for the first time, a pattern that will be repeated again and again the more phos loses sight of the truth, of a reliable something, a goal to cling onto and find direction.

it is ironic, because phos becomes a direction, a goal, the gems and the moon people’s hope (ch 59 and 72), but in doing so they have no hope left for themselves. let’s not forget that phos is very young by gems’ standards, not to mention in comparison to the moon people. how fair is to expect from a traumatized child to save the world and find answers to questions that run thousands of years deep and give phos nothing in return?

the pressure is enough to break phos and it does, quite literally, over and over and over again.

3. Laphos

lapis’ head comes at a time when phos was literally no longer able to manage this pressure.

it brings a waft of fresh air, it brings what emotional, kind phos needed to detach themselves from grief: coldness, rationality. and yet, it takes something away from phos as well: laphos is the phos that can no longer talk with cinnabar, the phos that brings cairn to reject the gems altogether and launch themselves into their kin’s killer’s arms. laphos is the gems and lunarians’ hope for a brief time, then it becomes the enemy.

i find it interesting how phos feels responsible for goshe and morga’s abduction too, even if phos was unconscious when it happened. phos has no clear boundaries between themselves and the rest of the world. they feel responsible for everything and guilty for everything. whatever they do will never be enough neither to make up for their past mistakes nor to find everyone a clear sense of purpose, safety, truth.

ichikawa plays with truth a lot. truth is that the lunarians are bad people and the gems must defend themselves, truth is that sensei is shady, truth is that the moon people are actually good, truth is that death is real, truth is that sensei is evil, truth is that cinnabar hates phos, truth is that the gems are evil, truth is that sensei is the only one that loves phos. who knows what the next truth will be, but can you call it truth, at this point?

if there is one point, i believe, that ichikawa is trying to make clear is that truth is subjective and that it changes, just like phos’ goal, the more knowledge you acquire and the more mistakes you make. truth is subjective but it must be sought after: you gotta keep fighting, you gotta move on even if you keep making mistakes, even if you cant undo your actions.

and another thing i think she’s trying to say is that you cannot make it alone. the moment phos tried to take it all on their shoulders, they moment they acquired lapis’ head, is the moment everything came crumbling down ten times faster than before.

and the most ironic part is that phos is still kind, even underneath that mantle of aloofness: they tried to do everything by themselves because they didn’t want to put anyone in danger, but in doing so they manipulated the gems just like aechmea. and aechmea knows and he’s been using phos for this.

4. Even more trauma

running after truth and after newer and more nuanced goals, phos has completely lost sight of themselves.

where do their alliances lie? what about their history? phos wakes up in ch 72 after the night raid and immediately breaks into pieces because they’re reminded of how cinnabar attacked them, the one gem they thought was their friend. one of the few truths phos had been clinging to.

phos wakes up after the night raid and asks the enemy “to the lunarians i look like a gem and to the gems i look like a lunarian. what am i?”

they break into pieces because they still believe they’re useless. they couldn't save cinnabar, they couldn't save antarc, they couldn't communicate with the earth gems, they couldn't even see adamant.

this is reminiscent of the very beginning of the manga: phos needs to feel useful, they need a goal, they need to be good at something. and just like they were ready to get lost at sea forever to help ventricosus they’re ready to die for someone else’s cause (not even phos’ own because they have no idea what to believe in at this point) just to be of use. after all, to phos, phos is nothing more than a scrap.

euc disagrees. ch 71 “we need you in our future” is a sentence that phos has probably ached to hear for centuries. “we need you. you are loved, you mean something, you are enough. you belong. we cannot build a future where you aren’t part of the equation. you matter”

and look at the way phos looks at euc. they can barely believe them and in fact they don’t. phos expresses some concern about dying (”after all, those less than 5 includes me”) but they still throw themselves into danger, they still take no care of themselves.

Phos’ self hatred and self-destructive tendencies run deeper than euc’s words could ever cut. those words meant well, but they were too little too late. phos thinks they don’t deserve this kind of hope, they cannot understand it, cannot fathom a world in which they are true and so they will go on believing that they are alone and worthless. next time they go on earth, they’ll go alone and unharmed

it is ironic. they did so much, they went to the moon and back multiple times, put their life on the line multiple times, made more progress toward unveiling the truth about the lunarians and finding a way for them to be free of samsara than anyone else did in hundreds (presumably) of thousands of years. they did it by themselves. in barely three hundred years. that’s impressive. and yet it’s not enough for phos. in their mind, they just keep failing.

so what’s the big deal? they can sacrifice themselves, it’s the least they can do and no one will miss them after all. unfortunately, this is true, at least to some extent.

im appalled by how little even the moon gems care about phos. they’re so self-centered it’s almost funny.

even alex, who has gone through loss and grief if not as much at least in a way similar to phos cannot find enough compassion in themselves to be concerned about phos’ wellbeing after a few months on the moon.

ive heard people mention how this could be a result of the moon people injecting who knows what into the gems or manipulating them someway or another, but i believe that there was no need to. phos is an anomaly after all, their kindness is an anomaly. the lustrous are little more than self-centered children: they are able of little if no introspection and they cannot process complex emotions like grief if not by shutting off those emotions altogether.

the moon gems are still vaguely concerned about phos. in ch 76, when phos departs for earth for the last time, they do tell them to be careful and come back if things get bad, but they do little more than that. it’s little comfort and too little emotional closeness and by no means close to the huge amount of support and (emotional) assistance that phos needs at this point.

phos tries to make do with what they have: a will to end this war and the superficial words of what should be their family, but it’s not even remotely enough. and yet phos, just like any other lustrous, is very bad at introspection: they don’t notice or if they notice they repress it. what’s one more thing down the subconscious after all? it’s fine. phos can take it, until they can no more and they snap without having any idea that they will snap.

phos’ journey, which has made them increasingly more emotional, fragile and human (the last one quite literally) has also made phos even more alone than they were at the beginning of the story. more alone, with the same sense of worthlessness, the same urgency to be good for something or self-destroy, and so much more grief, trauma, guilt and repressed emotions.

5. snapping

“I mustn’t think of anything” phos reminds themselves in ch 76. because thinking never brought anything good and because euc would see right through it.

once again, phos is repressing emotions. here they go, trying to be a cold blooded killer, ready to betray sensei again, the one person who has been good to them and that phos tried to hate with all their heart but just couldnt.

as ive written in a previous analysis, one of aechmea’s lowest blows was to tell the gems he was exploiting and manipulating to reach a salvation he doesnt deserve that if the gems want to acquire freedom they must do so by themselves. talk about coherence.

but that isnt all, he sinks even lower than this: he makes phos and the others question sensei’s affection for them. he says that sensei’s love is fake, it’s synthetic, the gems should totally make him pray or destroy him, no remorse, no strings attached. it’s such a dirty move.

no wonder it confuses phos even more. phos believes it, or tries to, they say they want to break sensei into pieces, but after the night raid they realize that it cant be that simple. sensei never attacked them. he has always been good to phos. and phos feels even more worthless, more of a traitor for daring believe in love, in sensei’s affection, when here they are, on the lunarians’ side, ready to betray him again.

how dare phos hope for anything? they dont deserve love, they dont deserve hope, they dont deserve happiness. they can try to give it to other people, they’ll kill themselves in order to do so, but they have no more hope and no love left for themselves, and they had so little to begin with.

as ive said, phos has little self-awareness and little introspection. i do believe that they had no idea they were going to snap until they did. even in ch 77, when sensei tells them he cannot pray, phos spends their last seconds of consciousness (before being attacked by all of the gems) to kindly ask him to pray. they dont care about themselves, but they dont reflect long enough to consider that reaching out to sensei like that could be interpreted as hostile by the paranoid earth gems. i think this is the first sign that phos is about to snap: they’re quite literally desperate.

tired beyond measure and forced to spend 220 more years in isolation, broken into pieces scattered all over the island, when phos comes to their senses again once kongo reassembles them they’re beyond despair. this war is taking the last toll on them and phos has no more energy to go on.

“please,” they say “pray. do it for no one else but me. grant me mercy,” from one bodhisattva to the other. they’re still somewhat normal, but when sensei fails to pray again phos can’t take it anymore. desperation and rage, fueled by hopelessness, worthlessness, grief and exhaustion make phos launch themselves against sensei, which, ironically, it’s exactly what the story needs.

apparently, phos is human enough to activate sensei but not human enough to make him pray. however, when the two of them join hands, sensei can actually pray. maybe it’s because both phos and sensei are intended to be bodhisattva? maybe because human voice commands are not as strong as contact? i have no idea.

phos has snapped by the way, and it’s weird how they go from “If only you weren’t here” to “sensei actually loves me” in a couple of chapters. in a certain way, we’re seeing phos going back to their roots: they love sensei and trust in sensei’s love, they’re once again openly emotional and impulsive, they’re once again ostracized by the gems (of course, much more violently this time).

i have written about how, after ‘fusing’ with sensei for a brief second, phos doesnt speak for the entirety of ch 81. they look and act like a literal monster, a scared animal, which is ironic since we know that they’re now human. i hypothesized that they might be reborn and that’s why they don’t speak, they’re a literal infant, but in light of ch 82, i think they’re simply hurt beyond measure.

they reversed to their old emotional persona, vomiting out all the emotions and pain and rage and hate they repressed during these 300 years. and yet they still don’t hurt anyone, not as much and as deliberately as they could at least.

they’re conscious enough to recognize the notebook and be reminded of their lost friends, realize how little the earth gems care for phos and for what they’re doing. and, i believe, when phos is rescued and comes back to the moon, they are, for the first time in the whole manga, enraged by the earth gems’ stupidity and sheer ungratefulness.

phos has been fighting for the wellbeing of everyone for centuries, putting their life on the line, never asking for anything in return and always believing that they were doing the right thing. and yet it’s not enough.

aechmea is a clever politician, and like every good politician he’s good at picking up changes and turning them in his favor.

he notices that there’s something wrong with phos and with the way they feel about the gems. maybe he doesnt yet realize that phos is angry at them for being ungrateful, but he senses something so he provokes phos: “you said to leave you on earth last time. did you change your mind?” that is “i’m not your enemy. see? im doing what you want me to do. not quite like those people down there on earth. oh, wait, were those your friends? aw, such a pity. to think they attacked you after everything you’ve done for them. but they’re your family, right? i’ll send you back to them if this is what you want. see? i’ll listen to your wishes. i am grateful.”

look how intently he looks at phos as phos incoherently and obsessively repeats the same thing over and over: “he would have prayed. he would have prayed for me. he loves me. he would have prayed.” if you want, this is also a syìubtle way for phos to apologize: they still feel responsible for their failure, but aechmea must understand: phos did everything they could, it would have worked, it was the gems’ fault.

adamant put phos back together, showing phos that he still cares. he is the only one that loves phos, while the gems (all gems, phos doesnt care much for differences at this point) keep hurting phos even if phos is only trying to help. so they must be killed. to hell with them all. and, notice, phos doesnt include themselves in the ‘gem’ category: they’re no longer a lustrous. they’re a monster, a liminal creature.

with nothing left to believe in if not sensei’s love and a promise to make him pray and then die in peace, phos wants to destroy the only thing that they believe stands between them and finally being useful, but also between them and freedom (freedom from suffering, from guilt, from existing, from their pain, from being): the gems.

this isn’t the first time that phos wants to kill something: in ch 68 they spoke about crushing sensei to pieces. it’s heartbreaking how phos went from “if only the moon people weren’t here” to “if only sensei weren’t here” to “if only the gems weren’t here.” will it turn into: “if only i weren’t here?” who are phos’ allies? who does phos feel kinship with? who is phos? they no longer know, and they’ve not known for a long time.

aechmea has noticed and he’s quick to turn the situation to his advantage. he shakes phos’ hand, he’ll grant them freedom just like phos will grant the lunarians’ freedom. he’ll forgive phos for failing, for their sins, for the bottomless despair and guilt that phos has been living with for centuries. salvation, hope, that is all phos needs.

as @rinboz pointed out, phos’ gold in ch 82 takes the shape of a lotus seed pod, a direct reference to when antarc was abducted and the gold had turned into a lotus flower.

through pain, phos had blossomed into a new character that day, marking the beginning of their long journey toward truth and toward discovering that there is no truth. the day the story changed from a coming of age manga to something much, much more intricate.

phos’ pod is empty, they have nothing left to lose, it’s a dead flower. this is the end of the journey that started with antarc’s abduction. when phos wakes up again, it will probably be with new memories and a new addition to their body, possibly red diamond.

phos’ self destruction has reached its apex because it finally became so intense to extend outwards, to other people that, in their immense grief, phos wants to bring down with them. this might be a minuscule form of progress: anger is better than repressing emotions at least, but phos’ problems are far from being solved.

6. on the future

what will be of phos then? it really depends.

the fact that they’re finally showing all that sufferance and those emotions they tried so hard to repress is good, but aechmea is still there to take advantage of it.

phos will never be free as long as they dont associate themselves with someone that truly loves them and as long as they cant find someone that can help them deal with their emotions. aechmea is just using them and only ichikawa knows what he meant when he told barbata to be careful with those 200 years emotions.

theoretically, phos was unconscious during the timelapse, but if there are emotions to treat carefully maybe they weren’t? maybe the change we’ve seen in phos this chapter depends on what they had to endure during that time. or maybe aechmea simply wants to make sure that his pet is easy to use.

i do believe we’re close to the end. i dont know if it will be the end of the series or just the end of phos as we know them. i could hope for something good to finally happen to them and for them to heal, but it would take a therapist or someone that loves phos.

maybe euclase could side up with sensei, they seemed the most concerned about phos’ status and the most prone to believe them. maybe goshe and cicada could do something again, maybe rutile will fix padpa once more and padpa will talk with the earth gems (not very likely, but im throwing theories left and right at this point), or maybe barbata will refuse to follow aechmea’s instructions, at least in part, and try to help phos.

as always, im afraid we’ll have to wait. in the meantime, please hug phos. if you read up to this point hug phos. hug them now and shower them with love, because no one else will

#houseki no kuni #land of the lustrous #hnk #phosphophyllite #meta #best

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koorinohebi · 4 years ago

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@super-kame-love

Continued From:

I am curious: how would you describe Kiomi's relationship with Jiraiya? And with Koji Kashin? What you've shared about them so far seems very interesting and I must know more!

+ + +

Sorry for breaking it into two different posts, Kame-san. The other one felt so long already.

Quick note: IF you haven't read or watched Boruto, this will definitely contain spoilers.

So for this second one, we have...

Kashin Koji

So the main reason I was interested in him was when rumors were floating around that Jiraiya or someone that resembles him is back in Boruto. One look at his design and I was like, yeah. Unmistakably related in one way or another. Lo and behold my friend, lo and behold.

I have 2 verses for Kashin Koji. One is the one where you often see me mention Takeda. That one is an on going RP with @ambitiousparagon, and the other one is a verse where I pen Koji myself. The one with Takeda is still in the works and currently still very unpredictable, so for this instance I'll talk about my own version of Kashin Koji, which actually...more than Kiomi being the main focus, I tend to lean more towards the man himself. This is heavily influenced by headcanons that are based on what I noticed his personality being based on what we know so far.

So when I first encountered Kashin Koji there was hardly anything on him, which is to say, still very true currently. He hasn't been seen in the manga after his crushing defeat against Isshiki, and in the anime, they've given him a voice, and we see how he acts, but ultimately it doesn't differ from what we've already read in the manga (if you or any of the ones reading this have read it).

So Kashin Koji is, despite being quite whimsical, a no nonsense kinda guy. So he is very...well, I wouldn't call it by the book, but as a shinobi, he chooses the most efficient way to carry out the mission, which is...by default, how Amado had initially programed him-- Not as a perfectionist, no, but as Isshiki would say it, Amado's programming of Kashin Koji rode on his maker clinging onto Jiraiya's mighty fate. However, with Jiraiya being the template, it's not a surprise if Koji would inherit the man's sentiments, principles, and even slight eccentricities as a Shinobi (which I believe Amado had predicted and saw as a weakness. He needs and creates tools as he sees fit, and he'll use whatever he can to further his agenda). Amado strives to emulate within Kashin Koji the "star of change" which Jiraiya possessed. As we know, thanks not only to the prophecy, but also due to Jiraiya's diligence in searching for that revolutionary that could change the world, he was able to bring together (in one way or another) three of the most powerful game changers that we have who affected the course of the current History. If they wanted to defeat Isshiki, he needed that kind of trick up his sleeve. Because however, Kashin Koji has imperfections, and someone Jigen had deemed weaker than he is (because Jigen told Amado to dispose of clones more powerful than he was), our good professor faces a setback and thus needs to come up with a new plan (going to the Hokage, and asking them to kill Isshiki instead while having Kashin Koji show them the "ropes" on how it's done).

My take on him stems from this human weakness. Kashin Koji is aware of who he's supposed to be a clone of. We see this when he comments on his fate being tied to Konoha and the like. And admittedly, knowing your predecessor's legacy, not to mention having been able to perfect something that the original couldn't gives him a bit of an ability to brag, and believe that he can be just as great or even greater than Jiraiya.

But the question is how convinced he is of this himself. I do believe that Kashin Koji wants to be a person of his own, and in being the perfect heroic shinobi tool, even if he dies, it wouldn't be for naught so long as he brings down his target (which happens to be the biggest threat since Madara, Tobi, and Kaguya). Believing that Amadao was entrusting the fate of the world in his hands bolstered his confidence. However, when Isshiki pointed out the painful truth of Amado's betrayal and deception, he internally refuses to accept it. That he was just a pawn, and that he'd never break free from being nothing but Jiraiya's shadow. I always felt that if at the baseness of Jiraiya's personality, you have a decent grasp of his shortcomings, regrets, and insecurities, you'll get a good grasp of Kashin Koji too. Although it's just my headcanon (and people dont really have to abide by it), Koji too, is plagued by this ever looming sense of not being good enough, as well as not living up to the name of his original (very much like how Jiraiya felt his accomplishments dont match that of Sandaime or Minato).

So after this long explanation on my take on Kashin Koji, you may ask where Kiomi comes in. Well, she comes in as a form of support.

Just as with Naruto's unreasonable worry, the first time that Kiomi sees Kashin Koji, she's instantly unreasonably bothered by him as well. Worse, when the mask comes off, and she sees his face she is instantly appalled and angry because everything that she's been keeping inside is dragged to the surface. Of course, none of this was Kashin Koji's fault. It was more of Kiomi's own regret, and seeing him was like opening a can of worms for her, reminding her of all the things she wanted to do and say had her teacher been alive. At the same time, she's very irked that someone was running around with his face, because someone had the gall to deliberately make a "knock off" as she calls it, of the man she respects the most.

With this much animosity, one would wonder how Kiomi becomes his support. While Kiomi and Kashin Koji initially dislikes each other, the woman rejects the fact that he's just "some clone", as he is also a person who deserves to live his life as himself regardless of whether he was created as a tool or as a clone. If you remember from my first post about Kiomi and Jiraiya's relationship, this was exactly the same kind of treatment that Jiraiya gave Kiomi when she viewed herself as nothing more than a disposable chess piece. She doesn't say this outright to Kashin Koji though. He learns this on his own. Seeing that someone believed in his own possibilities gave him a little peace of mind, just a little. In effect, this draws his curiosity. Kashin Koji being an Inner of Kara does his assignment pretty well, so he would by effect, know who she was as too. He believed she would be one of those who would constantly see him as a glorified Kagebunshin, but surprisingly she didn't. In fact, seeing as he was who he was, it would make him a perfect replacement, but she didn't treat him like that. This makes him loosen up around her, enough that his usually snide and sarcastic remarks are now laced with a hint of fond teasing. Ironically, she hates it when he does this, as it reminds her of Jiraiya. (Because Jiraiya often teases her about one thing or another.)

One of my favorite interactions of them is probably this one, just because it shows a little bit of both their internal struggles and how they deal with each other.

===

“Tell me,” Instead of standing to leave, he remained seated opposite from her. Kashin Koji removed the mask which barred a portion of his face that she was surely uncomfortable seeing. And he was right. She averted her eyes briefly, before putting up a look of feigned indifference once their optics finally met.

There was relative distress in her features, that much he could tell while staring at her…curiously, seriously. “Do I resemble him? This Jiraiya of yours.”

Looking at him was like staring into a nightmare, a stark reminder of what she could never hope to have. However, she understood his question. They were past simple notions of physicality. It wasn’t just about his face, nor was it about his origin. It was deeper than that. For Kiomi’s alleged simple-mindedness, this concept was not something so hard to grasp. Not when this was the very base of the learnings she had inherited from the mentor she respected the most. Despite Jiraiya and Kashin Koji’s shared similarities, they were still two very different people, each with their own uniqueness. Besides, denying a man his own identity was probably the cruelest judgment any living being could impose on another.

“You don’t.” The answer came simply; however, he did not miss the semblance of melancholy that lingered upon her visage. To him, it felt indicative of disappointment…such fragile and complicated feelings.

“I see.” Kashin Koji had closed his eyes then, satisfied with the answer. In a sense, he felt his lips curve into a smirk. Two words of reassurance; to think that hearing something so simple had such a significant impact. And as for Kiomi who had only seen the man scowl at her existence, this look on his face for the first time caused her chest to ache. Perhaps in her words, she knew not if a lie existed; if only because such an expression looked frighteningly similar to her teacher’s.

“The two of you must have loved each other very dearly.” At this point, he had refocused his gaze upon the female, only to raise a brow shortly after. He had never seen anyone choke on air before. Her flustered features shouldn’t have been anything extraordinary, but it felt amusing. “Was I mistaken?”

“Yes, you’re wrong! You’re very wrong!” She retorted, her flushed face, easily beating the most crimson of fruits. “Everything, this…my…they’re all just…” She tried to calm down as she explained. “…they’re all just…what I’m trying to say is…whatever they are, they’re all just one-sided emotions…” She looked downtrodden. He recalled Naruto saying that their mentor died while she was away figuring out herself, and had carried a burden none of them could share. Jiraiya had meant everything to them, each within varying degrees unknown just how much to the other.

After learning that all of this was one sided, he looked at her with lethargy. “Are you actually an idiot after all?”

“Oi, you actually dare to call me an idiot in my own house? Besides, it’s not like I stood a chance against the person he sought after.” It wasn’t a secret to her after all, that he had his eyes on Lady Tsunade. What chance did she have against someone who had shared in his losses, successes, strife, and victories?

“Was what you felt actually so flimsy that it lost to someone else’s? Did you confirm it with your own mouth?”

The questions that bombarded her, matched with such an unexpected interrogator threw her off. So much that when she had come to her senses, she found herself face to face with Kashin Koji. If she was distraught earlier, then the ante had been upped then and there. Trapped in between his arms, being stared at, it felt horrible and suffocating for many reasons that she convinced herself that she couldn't understand. “Should I teach you just how lofty your feelings are?” He lingered so close, too close for comfort. But that was where she drew the line. Steeling herself, she pulled her head back just enough to give her some room to drive her forehead down against his. THWACK!

Both of them found themselves clutching their heads, one clicked his tongue and the other was cussing up a storm in her mind--and verbally, apparently.

“Don’t you dare mock me—“

She was on the verge of throwing him out, but there he was, laughing, collapsed on the floor as he held onto his forehead. She stifled her annoyance because she remembered how; pranks of the same nature had been done to her, by none other than her favorite mentor. And he would laugh just the same. At least sensei’s were a little more innocent and subtle. “Don’t laugh at me either!” She demanded with childish vigor, kicking him in the shin repeatedly. He fended them off well enough, which added to her irritation.

“That’s enough out of you.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do in my own hou—hou—“ That was to say, if she wasn’t going to stop her assault, then he would have to play along. Grabbing her ankle when she struck, he pulled her over; just enough to make her balance crumble, bringing her down effectively.

“What the actual hell is wrong with you?”

“Even now, you’re struggling to protect what’s important to you. You may be a bit weaker than others, but it doesn’t seem like you’re lacking in persistence and perseverance. What are you so afraid of?”

Again with questions and commentaries that she did not ask for…

Her silence was enough of a response. Regrets, apprehensions, guilt, it was painted on her face. Shaking his head, Kashin Koji came to a stand and dusted himself, thereafter extending a hand for her to take.

“At the very least, come up to the starting line and show that mentor of yours your resolve.”

She begrudgingly looked at the hand that was offered to her. She felt ashamed and annoyed at herself because she knew that his point was valid. He wasn’t wrong, and in fact, he made more sense than she had wanted to admit. With an inward sigh, she took that hand and he helped her to her feet.

“…” Their grasp on each other persisted for a while. There was no warmth there; no comfort of a familiar friend, but there was a firmness that was enough to uproot whatever doubt it was that crept within the confines of her mind. She wouldn’t exactly call the other’s presence reassuring, but in a sense it was something close to it.

“Tsk, just who do you think you are? Acting all high and mighty?” Compared to before, the scowl had turned a bit friendly, but a scowl none the less.

“In case you haven’t heard or have been mistaking me for someone else, it’s Kashin Koji.” He replied with a tinge of whimsy in his voice. Matched with that was a tighter grip on the female’s hand which she reciprocated in kind. “Kiomi.” She rebutted against his satirical introduction.

When they at last released each other, there was probably a reddening mark there, but it also seemed like they’ve come to a certain understanding. “With a grip like that, what do you even hope to accomplish?”

Everything that comes out of his mouth is a fucking insult… Kiomi mused, unabashed by such a sentiment. Still, she watched him retrieve his mask only to wear it over his face once more. “I’ve a scouting mission at the Hokage’s behest. Two days time.” He stated out of the blue, walking towards her direction, incidentally near the exit. “Join me.”

“And why exactly, should I do that?” Folding her arms over her chest, she asked.

“Learn something useful rather than wallow in your self-pity.” Just before he could pass her completely, the intruder halted to cup her cheeks, moving it side to side casually.

(I made a thing.Lol Kiomi and her tendency to get manhandled.) There was no tenderness there, rather it seemed like he was inspecting a toy for some kind of defect. “You dont seem outclassed by anyone, not even by the Godaime. Put yourself to good use. You are a Shinobi, after all.”

“What does Lady Tsunade even have to do with this?”

“Who else would you feel so inferior to? It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Besides,”

Finally, he’d relinquish his hold to observe her frame carefully. She was a slender woman, possibly bordering voluptuous underneath all that fabric. From the wrinkles and silhouette of her attire, he could tell that she was filled out in all the right places. Fair skin, a set of apprehensive platinum orbs…among other things. “You have the curves. Maybe not the appeal and self confidence, but you have the curves. You’ll be fine.”

Perhaps it was in that retort that Kiomi ran after Kashin Koji as he left her place, albeit with a senbon or two hurled at the man. “I was wrong; you’re probably just as much of a letch as sensei!”

The projectiles were caught between the fingers and twirled around with ease, no troubles at all. He contemplated for a mere second before deciding to keep them as a souvenir. “You wound me with your presumptuousness. I'm a busy man, and have no time for countless women. Such a disappointing assessment.” He waved her off, walking away and finally disappearing from sight.

===

Pardon the length, but this is how they normally interact in my story.

Koji serves as a challenge for Kiomi, while Kiomi serves as a "net" for Koji so that when he falls pray to his feeling of incompetency, he remembers that she expects him to plainly be Kashin Koji, and no one else. Both of them remind each other of something important which they both hope would make them better versions of themselves.

So what kind of relationship do they have? I'm pretty sure it's along the lines of frienemies.

#|| Breaking the Ice || Answered #super-kame-love #I told myself this was going to be an quick explanation for both #Lol. 10 hours later...#Kashin Koji has reached that level of comfort with her where he can just use his face to piss her off.

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papers4me · 4 years ago

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Fruits Basket 2019 (ep,24) Part 1

A monster? suicide? child’s verbal abuse? destructive rage? despair? emotional scene? tons of tears? questionable director choices?.. This 20min ep has it all! Although this ep contain fictional creature & magic, it is one of the realest episodes in furuba, yet.

Kyo’s monster represent the psychological abuse of children in toxic families. Unlike kyo’s zodiac form, the cat, this monster is an alien creature that doesn’t resemble anything in nature (inducing fear), it is misshapen, deformed, reeks of rotten smell (inducing disgust), dangerously powerful (life-threatening). A child is repeatedly told that he has committed the biggest sin there is. Murder. “you killed your mother”, or “you are the reason she died” He’s been told that by many ppl, including the person who symbolized safety & trust (his father). It is so disgusting yet real & common when adults talk bad/gossip about children within a close distance. children take words literally & hold them in their hearts for a life time! Kyo screams “It is not my fault!”, but adults say so, whose faults is it then? “the rat!” Why? “he’s the one who tricked the cat”. Who is the rat? Yuki. A child is trying to rationalize the injustice & stupid accusations of the adults.

“I’ll kill yuki, then kill myself, you would be happy if I die, won’t you?” This is the most tragic sentence in furuba, yet. More tragic cuz it is uttered by a child. A child believes since I’m a killer, then I’ll fix the problem, I’ll kill the source of pain, the rat, yuki, Tragic. I’ll kill myself. So tragic. You’d be happy, father. Extremely tragic. knowing your parent would be happy if you died. Kyo’s mom killed herself, it is her choice, regardless of the hidden reasons or her mental state, he’s told that Your parent chose death over you. How horrible are you that your mother chose death over you. You turn into a literal monster. No doubt the kyo’s mom loved him, but it is so tragic that she herself abused her child unintentionally. by sheltering, locking, hiding him away from the world. Kyo’s monologue is a real depiction of children’s ability to see fake-ness in adults. I love you,son, continues to lock him, I’m not afraid, continue to check his beads, I’m proud of you, no one should see you. No wonder kyo has no trust in ppl.

Kyo harming tohru is a real depiction of his broken mental & emotional state. look at Yuki/Kisa, their response to abuse is to withdraw, hurt themselves by avoiding life, they are like destructive water, has to fill the inside first before it spills. Kyo’s response is rage, it is like fire, spreads outside & inside at once. There is conflicting feelings inside him that drives him crazy, He denies strongly that he killed his mom, but feels tremendous guilt she’s not alive becuz he’s monster. He says there is no hope for him, yet continues to live with tohru wishing she never discovers his true form, says he’ll kill yuki, yet he never grabs a knife & do it. He is fighting his abuse but doesn’t know how. Moreover, I love that tohru approaching kyo in such state of rage is not a safe choice. Realistically, try to approach an angry father/friend, they’ll hurt you in their rage, They are not in a state that make them make a good judgment. I have a feeling kyo might’ve hurt himself as well. He lost his trust in kazuma & thinks tohru is safer away from him, he would definitely hurt himself had tohru didn’t “save” him.

How did tohru save kyo? she didn’t. Did she tell him he’s not a monster or that it’ll be okay or you’re a good person? NO. She didn’t even talk about him! she talked about herself, her desire, “let’s go home”..” I want us to live , worry & study together” screw the sohma’s & all the pain, lets go home! “I’ll listen if you complain” why? cuz you did that to me! she’s implying you are needed without saying it out loud! “I’m scared of you” honesty, No fake-ness, no shallow words with contradictory actions. So, kyo hugs tohru intentionally & this is big coming from kyo!! The guy who flinches whenever someone touches him, hates to show weakness & vulnerability, wants to be strong & doesn’t allow himself to cry. Cries in front of tohru, hugs her, puts his hand through her hair, & calls her name..... This is a huge step!! he completely accepts tohru. She knew it, she felt it & her tears expressed it.

Kyo’s monologue is directed to the viewers. “this is how you melt the ugly feelings” with kindness, honesty & sincerity. Kyo is not healed, yet. he can still transform into a monster, meaning the abuse is still affecting him strongly. but he is giving hope & someone to trust. kyo’s last words are painful cuz they show how low he thinks of himself “ how is it that someone like you stay by me & cry for me”.. he still has a long way.

side notes:

kyo’s ” i dont have right, it is a mistake” that tohru is by him, why?

Kyo said “tohru” with no honorifics. When is yuki’s turn? Cant wait!

I have a strong criticism abt the director’s choices, but will write it in a separate post. hint: “shallow waters”......sigh~

I’m convinced now that if there’s romantic love, it is kyo & tohru. This ep & the previous one is purely about them showcasing their vulnerability exclusively to each other. tohru’s weakness is only seen by kyo & kyo’s tears are only seen by tohru. There is an equal showcase of need & support between them.

If yuki/tohru is going to be presented as a possible romantic love, then, the show must convince me strongly & equally. yuki has shared his weakness with tohru, but tohru is yet to share with yuki.

If the show wants to go the love triangle road with one of the boys ending up as unrequited love, then it can be either one of them depending on what tragic drama will happen.

The beauty & the beast theme is strong. Tohru tamed the monster with sincerity & kindness. Such beautiful strength within weakness! ugh!! Tohru is my all time fave female character!

I’ll talk about kazuma/ yuki/shigure/kagura’s reactions in another post.

I love the diverse depiction of response towards abuse by children in furuba. so real.

#Fruits Basket #Anime Only #long post!#emotional paper #part 1

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losetheweight2day-blog · 6 years ago

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Hey guys and gals thanks so much for checking back in with me. As a bonus and to show my appreciation I'd like to give you a free pdf download of the Fat Decimator System. Basically it is a system focusing and plan centered around dieting,exercise, supplements and mental focus. It is basically the structure I used when I started and I follow many of the tips in here to lose weight and keep it off. You can check out an official review HERE. So if your here right now that means more or less a while back I was in your exact position and had to figure this out all on my own. I'll be breaking this down into pointers for both dieting and exercising providing info and tips that I have found to help me to be more comfortable and stick with my diet. Dieting 1. Understand that on a diet you can eat tasty foods and eat and be full Yes, I'm guilty. When I started I had this notion that on a diet you only eat vegetables and you have to starve yourself. After researching properly I found out this was completely false. and after adjusting the first few weeks to eating differently through my journey I didn't find myself missing out on certain foods or being hungry because I found many substitutes that taste just as good or even better than the what I was used to. I will be posting some recipes I use in the near future so look out for that. 2. Cook your own food. This plays off point number 1 but you may already be thinking to yourself oh but Jerome i'm not a cook so this isn't for me. In todays day and age with you-tube and the Internet it's not difficult to find easy tutorials that show you step by step what to do and how to do it. When you cook your own food you know exactly what is in it, food bought often contains added sugars, tons of carbs and unhealthy fat all things that hinders weight loss. Still scared about cooking your own food? Trust me today my girlfriend says i'm a great cook and when she asks who thought me the answer is always Mr. YouTube. 3. Don't over eat. When on a diet you never should starve yourself your body needs energy to perform daily tasks and a lack of this may actually do more harm than good. I always say eat until your satisfied. In the past I had always eaten until I cannot eat anymore and found that that was unnecessary. Practice to just eat until your satisfied meaning not too full and not hungry and over time your body will adjust to eating less and less making it even easier for you. 4. A "Mild Cheat Meal" once in a while is ok. Ok now I know many of the experts are gonna say a cheat meal is never ok but I beg to differ. When I began my journey tho dedicated once a week I would have a mild cheat day. This means that I would eat food that normally don't fall within my list of foods I allow for my diet. Examples of these would be eat a plate of BBQ, A bowl of pasta, or have some pancakes. Now I would never go overboard with the eating but it is good to reward yourself once in a while, the most important thing is that after this day you get back on track and stick to eating clean. If you dont feel your mentally ready to get back on track if you do this then don't do it and if you want to maximize results in the fastest time then skip this point. 5. Try New Things This is important to keep in mind, don't knock something until you try it. Truth be told I never ate Cauliflower or Broccoli when growing up and now I actually love them both and both are great to have when your on a diet. If you love these already then dieting just became a little easier as many delicious foods can be made from cauliflower. Exercise 1. You don't have to go to the gym to workout. Now before you jump and wonder what blasphemy I'm saying hold on. Through the 7 months of me losing all my weight being completely honest I had not set foot in a gym. Me being an I.T engineer I am often busy and don't have time consistently to go to the gym everyday at the same time so I had to make sure I got in my workout at home. I do have a piece of equipment home which can substitute many of the workouts in a gym but most of the workouts I did to lose weight required little to no equipment and can be done right at home anytime. I'll go more in depth when I do my blog on what exercises I do for cardio and weight lifting. 2. Do workouts that you actually don't mind doing. I don't hate the gym, but I don't love it either and some of the workouts i just down right hate doing or I'm unable to do them because of an injury I had to my knee. As an example I don't like running but I love boxing so I do boxing right at home for all my cardio. No running, no jogging, pretty much just boxing. Find something you love to do that gets the heart rate up and add that in to your workout. If your having fun doing it then its not really working out anymore. 3. You don't need to workout 6 days a week for 2 hours. If you are dieting properly you should be able to workout 3 to 4 times a week for about 30 to 45 minutes each and you should still be able to see results. This is pretty much what worked for me but of course results may differ. Over working yourself however can be very bad especially if you are just getting started. Try to avoid burning yourself out and go at a pace that you and your body can handle. 4. When you don't feel like doing it is when you need to do it. There are just times when you feel lazy and down to get into your workout but that's when you absolutely need to do it. CONSISTENCY is key to achieving your goals. The more consistent you are the more results you will get and the more easier it will get over time. The body is smart and it adapts to repetition. Eventually if you miss a session you will be disappointed more than happy. Final Thoughts It is important to be ready mentally before you can effectively lose weight and not be frustrated while doing it. These tips are just some of the main ones which helped me to stay on track and achieve my goals when it comes to weight loss. I believe that there is some information here that will prove helpful to anyone and every little bit counts. Stay focused, stay confident and stay strong. Trust me its great when you start to see your losing weight its on another level when other people start to notice it as well. LETS GET IT !!!!!

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mental-health-advice · 7 years ago

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Submission about depression

Hi there, Im going through a tough time recently with depression, its slowly killing me and the past week Ive felt suicidal. Im running out of reasons to live, with no job, no friends and a fear of everything. I dont even want to look after myself anymore cause I dont feel like Im worth it and when I try to leave the house I get irritated and recently I feel very angry all the time. I feel like Im at risk of hurting myself today, I just needed to get this out somehow.

Hello Beautiful,

I’m happy that you reached out to us. You are are trying your best. You’re alive and that’s a big accomplishment. I want you to know that you’re worth everything beautiful in this life. No matter what, you have a special unique part of this earth. Don’t give up!

No matter how much pain you’re experiencing right now, you are not alone. Reach out to someone as soon as you can, talk to (Trusted person, Parents, Guardian,Family member). Don’t worry about what time it is right now. Just vent it out and get yourself to a safe place. Don’t let fear or worry prevent you from seeking help.

If you called for help and are still experiencing these thoughts, go to the nearest hospital. Ask someone you trust to drive you! Take a deep breath, let it out slow. Touch your heart with your hand. Listen to the music it plays. It’s for you only.

I really hope that you reach out to a psychologist,counselor, doctor. You should really contact them and explain your deepest emotions. Receiving help is the most hardest step. Once you decide to do this I believe treatment will help. There isn’t a perfect approach to receive treatment but, so many positive ideas and techniques can form.

Other ways to receive help:

Web Counseling Resources

Help Lines

Alternative to self harm

Reasons to stay

Try joining a new group ( yoga, self-defense, crafting, book club, sports). It takes time to meet a true full hearted friendship. But, keep trying and don’t give up! Its not the amount of friends but the quality. Even if its just one person that can be enough to share memories and deep thoughts. I have no friends where I live, so I decided to search for pen-pals. I recommend doing this but, safely. Don’t give out your personal information right away, get to know the person. Ask for a selfie, ask them questions even if that takes few months or longer. Get a P.O. Box . Here in Canada there’s a thing called Flex Mail that is free for people to receive mail to a post office of your choosing. Its secure and it gives you a unique address. Join a local group of gardeners or support groups that are near your community.

Take a note book or open up your phone’s notes

Write down all your worries, fears, thoughts that keep you up

Write down all your inspirations, moments of joy

Goals, adventures, future jobs you would like

What kind of hobby or career most interests you? Write down why and how to achieve it Search it up at the library or online. Set goals to start.

Write about the type of friend you wish to have (qualities, personality, trust).

Now take a post it note or a paper with tape; write down affirmations. Example “ Thank you for this new day, I’m grateful for another chance to live my life, I’m grateful to feel the air in my lungs and the beating of my heart, All of the power I need to create a life I love is inside of me”. Place these affirmations on your mirror, desk, bathroom, closet. Each day look at them.

Motivational speeches/ Music:

Fight Through It - Motivational Video

Prince Ea – How to find your purpose

Prince Ea- How to let go of pain

Christina Aguilera – Fighter

Sia - Never Give Up

Pharrell Williams – Happy

Shane Koyczan- Remember How We Forgot

Reasons to stay alive:

Touching kittens, soft and sweet creatures who love to play all the time

The morning sun, gently waking you up from a good sleep

Eating yummy treats, tasting new food , smelling fresh baked goods

Learning new recipes that excite your taste buds

Gardening for the first time, watching your plants grow as your hard work pays off

Butterflies landing on your hands

Photographs of new adventures you will have in the future, all the places you’ve never been

Walking in the park, seeing people smile

Hearing your heartbeat, knowing how beautiful it sounds

Poetry and new upcoming books

Inspirational music, motivational speeches about life

Visiting a family member

Learning new hobbies

Crafting new things (Sewing, painting, poetry, singing, writings)

“So speak and be heard. One word after the next, express yourself and put your life into context if you find that no one is listening be loud. Make noise. Stand in poise and be open. Hope in these situations is not enough and you will need someone to lean on. In the unlikely event that you have no one, look again. Everyone is blessed with the ability to listen. The deaf will hear you with their eyes. The bling will see you with their hands. Let your heart fill.” –Shane Koyczan

I hope this helped even just a bit. Remember to keep holding on, this life is worth it, you are worth it! ! You are more than what you do. You might not believe it now, but the way your feeling will change. Don’t let anyone stand in the way of your magical light, keep shining. Always choose love.

“I am grounded, my spirit is grounded deep in the earth. I am calm, strong, centered and peaceful. I am able to let go of fear and trust that I am eternally safe. I am worthy of all things beautiful”- Carly Marie

“My soul is not contained within the limits of my body. My body is contained within the limitless of my soul”. Jim Carrey

xxHugs – mha-Lupita

#mentalhealthadvice #mental health advice #help #advice blog #sadness #grounding #support #youareworthit #treatment #resources #emotions #expressions #mha-lupita #submission

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mypoorfaves · 7 years ago

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Positivity Post! :D

Okay so this here is a (freaking long) list of blogs and people that I love, both within my community and outside. Although I understand a lot of people in said community want to remain as anonymous as possible so I’m putting all of the more…um…niche blogs…under the cut! Please enjoy my contribution to this spread of positivity brought about by @wiseinnerwhispers!

@12thdoctorwhomst: You are a great friend. To say so is an understatement. You’re actually one of my best friends. Thanks for always being there :)

@berks-dragon-trainer: We don’t talk much but in see you in my notifs a lot. Also wanna say I’m proud of you for working hard and getting into shape! That takes serious dedication and I wish I could do that myself.

@sellsoulstome: Your space aesthetic is…well, aesthetic! Very calming and I love it so much! I’m sorry life sucks sometimes, but your space children always love and support you :)

@katsukipanya: You are one of my favourite blogs that I’ve had the pleasure of discovering! I can’t get over how CUTE of an idea you bakery AU is! It’s so original and I can’t wait until you get super popular because that WILL happen! I can feel it! I eagerly await each new post from you!

@alexadooodle: Your doodles are so freaking amazing and your content is so creative! I’m sorry idiots have to gall to steal your art. I would actually slap them across the face if I could, I stg. I love our talks and wish nothing but the best for you in life. Keep on fighting, I believe in you :)

@iruutciv: Your Victuuri kissing gifs and art are quite possibly one of the most beautiful things to ever bless this fandom! I love fangirling about yoi with you! Also thanks for introducing me to the beauty that is victuuri smut!

@makeroomfornyoom: Thank you for making my icon! I love it! I also love our chats on discord! I still need to get in Final Fantasy so we can fangirl/fanboy about it together!

@joey-wingster: Thanks for sending me asks, and also for posting that fanfic and gifting it to me! And also saying my writing style is cute! Just so much love for you! Thanks so much!

～～～

@feverflushed: My first and best tumblr friend, and also now my pen-pal! Thanks for being the first person to talk to me in this community. You really encouraged me to open up and talk to more people. My blog and life here on tumblr honestly wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t for you. So thank you. I love our convos! Also thanks for always being my first set of eyes for all of my fics!

@whoareurl: Your writing is amazing! You are quite possibly my fave yoi sickfic writer. All of your descriptions are so vivid and perfect! So immersive, like you can really feel what the characters are feeling. I love seeing you on my dash!

@kittensnz / @kotyonoksnz: Your art is freaking amazing! We are blessed as a yoi fandom and especially as a sickblr fandom to have your talent among us. Also you’re just such a great person to talk to! I love seeing your art on my dash. I can’t even put it into words how skilled you are. Like it was either your sick Victor or your Yuuritto comics that originally led me to the sickblr community in the first place. So thank you so much for that. This community is honestly the best thing to have happened to me, and I have you to thank for helping me discover it.

@my-so-called-trash-blog: I love your yoi fics! I used to re-read them constantly while I was still a lurker lol. (I still do re-read them a lot now too!) Just amazing stuff!

@nnatto: Another blog I used to lurk on! I may not be into sneeze, but your yoi fics are still amazing! I am still not over You Know I Can’t Let That Happen. Thanks for always doing a great job on the drabble prompts I and everyone else send in, thanks for helping me out with that one sick Victor fic I wrote for sickdays 3.0, and thanks for many fun chats on discord! Also your tags when you reblog my fics always make me super duper happy! I look forward to running our contagion event together!

@graceless-fever: Oh man your prompt for fevered Yuuri crying when Yurio snaps at him in his usual Yurio way; I’m still so in love with that prompt. The fic that came from that scenario is by far my most popular fic so I have you to thank for helping bring the idea into existence. All of your prompts, and your fics, are all so good!

@dont-look-so-good: We don’t talk too much but I see you a lot on my dash. You’re a cool person! I’m sorry you had to deal with that drama and I hope it’s resolved now!

@illnessandinjury: Your blog is great, you’re such a sweet person and also hella cute! My poor bi heart can hardly handle it!

@ya-nurse: Another blog I don’t talk to much, but you draw SUCH CUTE DOODLES OMG! Also thanks for always congratulating me on my milestones!

@like-me-a-little-whump: Ayee you post such great whump stuff! Keep it up!

@hothedgie: Thanks for talking to me that one time forever ago when I couldn’t sleep. It meant (still does mean) the world to me. That aside, your prompts always wind up creating some of my fave fics so thanks for that!

@taylor-tut: Omg there’s so much to say. I’m not super into Voltron tbh but the influence you have on the Voltron whump community is astounding. You take such good care of your space-sewer-beef-lump-yeet children. You write such great fics and I love how you’re always willing to take birthday fics and always reblog people’s fics to boost them. Also I love the stories you share from work. You’re just an adorable and hella cute ball of sunshine and I’m so glad to be your friend!

@feverhalo: My lovely plant friend! One of my first tumblr friends! We bonded over plants and we screamed about yoi after I brought you over to the Gay Side. I’m still unspeakably flattered that me writing a fic managed to convince you to start watching!! It’s such an unbelievable honour and just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy that my writing has that kind of influence. I’m so glad we’re friends!

@sitruksista: I love your yoi fics and I love our chats on the yoi whump discord! You’re awesome!

@docjamie: Thanks so much for all of the art you always draw! Especially my requests! Also thanks for talking to me that one time I couldn’t sleep. It means a lot. I enjoy our talks a lot! I’m looking forward to doing that collab-thing (whenever we get around to it lol)!

@fluffyllamas22: Yet another amazing friend who helped keep me sane when I couldn’t sleep. And from there we easily became such good friends! You’re such a ball of happiness and just so easy to talk to. Your writing is great and it keeps getting better, whether it’s yoi or voltron, or your oc’s! You just always seem so positive and I constantly see you in the inboxes of people on my dash (and also in my inbox too)! You’re just an absolute joy to consider a friend! Also I love our chats on discord!

@just-another-sickfic-blog: Another one of my first tumblr friends! Such a joy to talk to! Thanks for always beta-ing my stuff, and also for letting my beta some of your fics too! I know we have fallen a bit out of touch lately but I still consider you one of my closest friends on here and I hope you are doing well!

@the-whump-sidelines: Oh man we clicked instantly! Our talk, well talks, just discussing fevers. Absolutely perfect! You post some freaking amazing prompts and I’m so glad to hear you like my fics even if you haven’t seen yoi. If you ever wanna fanfgirl about fevers, my inbox is always open!

@sneezehq: Bunny you are so amazing! I love your posts about your horses and also just your life in general! I love your fics and I love how you are always in my notifs and always say the nicest things about the stuff you reblog! Keep being awesome!

@fevers-and-flus and flus: You have good prompts/fics and i see you in my notifs a lot, so thanks for that!

@bigbadsnez: Okay I don’t have a sneeze kink but your yoi fics are AMAZING! Like holy moly wow I’m in love!

@whumpapedia: Holy crap bless this blog and this incredible resource! For those of you who don’t know, this blog contains a database of all tv shows, video games, anime, music videos, etc that contain whump! It is far from complete, so if you lovely people have unlisted content, please let the mods know so they can add it!

@blessyoy-2u: Your art is amazing and thank you for the prompt that led to Gold is Cold! It’s one of my personal fave fics that I’ve written! Keep being awesome! Also I see you a lot in my notifs so thanks for that!

@snifflesnuff: YOU are amazing! A truly wonderful human being! I see you in my notifs ALL of the time! And you always scream in the tags when you reblog my stuff and it warms my heart in a way that I could not even begin to put into words, so thank you!!

@tsunderekushami: I love our chats and I love your oc’s! We need to talk more! I promise you won’t be bothering me if you message me! I’m just a mix of busy and forgetful lol.

@emeraldthread: I love talking to you! Your fics are great! And you always seem like such a ball of sunshine and positivity! Thanks for always liking and reblogging my stuff!

@siktornikiforov: Your yoi fics are great and I love your prompts and posts!

@sweetwhump: Okay I know you haven’t really set up your whump blog yet BUT SWEETV YOUR PROMPTS IN THE YOI WHUMP DISCORD END ME EACH AND EVERY TIME! AND I AM STILL NOT OVER YOUR FIC YOU ARE NOT ALONE IN THIS! I look forward to interacting with your blog lots more!

@ambulancemcclain: You are freaking amazing! And I love it when you scream in the tags in response to my stuff. You are probably my most loud screamer lol. Thank you for that!

@wiseinnerwhispers: For the freaking amazing ficlet you submitted *fans self and tries not to faint from remembering* Also this amazing trend of positivity you’re spreading!

@toosicktoocare: We don’t talk but I really enjoy your stuff! Your fics in particular are great! Keep being awesome!

～

The following are people I don’t talk to much, but I see you lot in my inbox and/or notifs and it makes me super happy!

@nightswithoutcontrol, @totallyexhausted, @pie-for-everyone, @qbswhumpsideblog, @sniffleprincess, @seventeen-pennies, @babydollbucky, @katyaton, @thesassygrandmaster, @following-follower, @nightwalker6200, @kaycee003, @damenemo, @beloved-whumpage, @whump-dump, @tippysf

#this may sound weird but please don't reblog this!#just because there are some...brads...on the list #feel free to scream at me in the replies if you want tho!#i tagged over 50 people for this wow #i went through both my following list and also my followers list so i should have almost everybody #im sure im still missing people though #but these were just the people that mean the most to me personally #so if you made this list it means youre super duper special to me!#hell even if you didn't make this list you are still super duper special to a lot of people!#and like i said i probablyーno definitelyーmissed some people #i got tagged by a handful of people for other positivity posts recently so this is my way of answering all of them #i hope this list can help you all find other amazing people to follow!!!

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betweengenesisfrogs · 7 years ago

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OFF-THE-CUFF HOMESTUCK THOUGHTS #5: ACT 6 HOMESTUCK AS NARRATIVE REBELLION, OR: ARCS ARE DEAD, LONG LIVE ARCS

DISCLAIMER FRAMEWORK

[CHECK THE TAG FOR MORE THOUGHTS]

[Note: This one’s a doozy! Still kind of off-the-cuff, in that I tried not to stress out about getting everything perfect, but I did do some revision to make my ideas more clear. That’ll probably be the norm from here on out. Hope you’re in the mood for a long read and a wild ride!

…Seriously, this shit is like twenty pages in Word.]

In my previous posts, I’ve discussed a number of ideas present in Act 6 and Act 7 Homestuck that I think contribute powerfully to the ending of Homestuck, especially on a thematic level.

I’ve discussed Homestuck as a meditation on the nature of a self divided across the many timelines of a dispassionate cosmos, and argued that the Retcon, far from a drastic change in storytelling, is a continuation of that long-running theme. Is victory meaningless if one’s original self isn’t around to claim it, or can a coherent, archetypal identity can be understood as existing beyond all of one’s disparate selves? In the system of Skaia, Homestuck asks, how do we live?

I’ve also discussed Homestuck, especially Act 6 Homestuck, as a Gnostic work, the story of an escape from a cosmic tyrant, a Demiurge whose ultimate weakness is that he cannot see the limitations of the domain he’s been given. In the same post, I discussed how this realm of the Demiurge, Lord English’s domain, is constantly paralleled with the space embodied by Homestuck itself, and how the kid’s departure from the story evokes their escape from this tyrant’s space-time domain as it reaches the end set for it by Paradox Space. From the system of Lord English, Homestuck asks, how do we escape? And at the same time, in the system of narrative called Homestuck, how do we find meaning within its limitations, and how do we escape them?

These themes work together. As we’ve seen, they echo and reinforce each other, provide parallels and points of contrast. In fact, I’d argue that each of these different themes are diverse manifestations of one larger theme, in the same way that individual selves in Homestuck can be thought of as manifestations of one larger Self. This overarching theme is present throughout Homestuck, but it reaches its culmination in Act 6 and 7, in a finale that drives it home in a different ways. To understand Homestuck is to understand this theme.

If someone were to ask me, “What is Homestuck about?” this would be my answer:

Homestuck is an exploration of the tension between abstract, impersonal systems and individual, personal experiences of those systems.

Abstract, impersonal systems are everywhere in Homestuck, systems that don’t always align with the desires, emotions, and goals of the main characters. The central question of Homestuck is how these characters will choose to understand the systems that govern their lives, and how they will carve out meaningful lives in relation to those systems. Gnosticism, metafiction, divided identities, and Sburb itself all play into this theme. As Homestuck’s characters decide how to live their lives within these many interconnected systems, they suggest possibilities for our own lives, for we readers also live in a world that also contains many systems and forces outside of our control. In their choices, we find opportunities and implications for how we should live.

You’ll notice I said there’s a tension, rather than an opposition, between individual experience and abstract systems. I think that gets closer to the truth of what Homestuck is trying to say. Characters in Homestuck sometimes reject its systems altogether, but just as often they exploit them or find identities for themselves within the constraints/opportunities of those systems. While Caliborn’s Gnostic-style domain of control is presented in a negative light, as something worth opposing and escaping, other systems, like Sburb itself, are presented in a much more ambiguous light, challenging us to decide how we feel about those systems and the possibilities they present within their rules.

I’ve talked about several of these systems in my previous posts, but today I want to talk about one I haven’t yet dug into in detail. Narrative itself.

Narrative in Homestuck, the power a story holds over its characters, is another system which the characters of Homestuck are constantly fighting, exploiting, and embracing.

Because another word for those abstract systems in Homestuck is…

Arcs.

Some Dave-Related Groundwork

[Note: If you’ve read previous posts of mine, I’m going to repeat myself a bit here, but I’m going to revisit the subject here because I want to make sure it’s understood.]

When we talk about Narrative as a system in Homestuck, we have to be really, really careful what we’re talking about.

Perhaps no sentence in Homestuck has been more unfortunately misunderstood as Dave’s statement to Rose near the end of Act 6:

DAVE: rose we dont have fuckin "arcs" we are just human beings

This has been interpreted in some quarters as Andrew Hussie throwing up his hands and saying, “I don’t care about character development or giving my characters meaningful growth, because arcs, like magic, are fake anyway, so it really doesn’t matter what I do.”

This would be incredibly annoying and misguided if it were actually what he was saying, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Andrew Hussie is deeply invested in character development, and it shows.

As I’ve said before, if Hussie rejected the idea of character development altogether, if he didn’t believe stories that contained character growth were important, he wouldn’t have given Dave himself one of the most cathartic character arcs in Homestuck! Even among those disappointed with other aspects of the ending, it’s pretty widely agreed that Dave’s growth out of his internalized homophobia, his connection with Dirk, and the chance this affords him to process his feelings about his abusive brother make a story that’s pretty damn powerful and triumphant.

The simple truth is that Hussie handled some character arcs well and not others, like many an author with a large, diverse cast to juggle. While he arguably dropped some balls and made some mistakes while attempting to take on his enormous humdinger of an ending, these failures did not come from any lack of passion or commitment to his characters, but from an inability to handle everything at once.

Dave’s statement, and the discussion that follows it, should not be read as a writer dodging responsibility for completing his work. Dave is talking about something very different, a subject he has a lot of experience with, and which his own development as a character has a hell of a lot to do with.

Dave is talking about the tension between his friends’ individual lives and the narrative frameworks, the overpowering Archetypes, that they, and Sburb, and Lord English, try to construct their lives around.

Dave’s arc, in fact, is about learning to question Arcs.

Arcs are Dead, Long Live Arcs, or Critiquing Clichés With Characterization

Let me explain this statement in a little more detail. By Dave’s arc (lowercase) I mean the series of events and choices that led to his growth as a person. By his Arc (UPPERCASE), I mean a story structure that tries to enforce a narrative on Dave from the outside, rather than exploring who he is as as a person and what path makes sense for him to take.

Think of an Arc with a capital A as something like a cliché. A cliché is a predetermined story structure that is tedious because we’ve seen it a million times before. The hero hooks up with the only girl with a speaking part over the course of his journey for no reason other than that’s what we expect from a movie. That’s tedious, and we all know it’s (heteronormative) bullshit. It isn’t true to life. It likely doesn’t represent what’s natural or personally fulfilling for the characters. It’s something imposed by the writer, the studio, and/or the need to please a certain audience. It’s a narrative structure, overwriting and suppressing a more organic process of growth.

A narrative structure is a set of changes from point A to point B: the hero starts humble, gets more badass, meets girl, achieves badass goals, wins girl. Or something like that. The structure is the shape of a certain kind of story. Meaning, encoded in a certain, archetypal trajectory.

Ideally, we would like to tell and read stories that say something true about our lives, rather than just regurgitate narrative structures that have little to do with our own life experiences. What makes this tricky is that stories rely on structures. Stories are not real life; they’re only representations of life. (Once again we’re getting into the tension between the Map and the Territory that Homestuck showcases so well.) We need structures of some kind to have stories. To tell any story at all is to fix it in a specific, limited set of representations, narrative structures, arcs that create meaning.

Hence the paradox, the ambiguity inherent in the word “arc:” conveying a person’s growth over time requires that you fix it in an arc, even when you’re drawing from how that person would naturally evolve and change. At the same time, though, certain narrative structures are overused; they overdetermine the story you’re trying to tell. They become a certain set of expectations, rather than tools for conveying a character’s development as a person. They become Arcs instead of arcs.

Do you see the difference? Good narrative structures (what I referred to as arcs) depict character growth in a way that feels organic, spontaneous, and real. Cliché narrative structures (what we’re calling Arcs) overpower organic character growth and force it to fit a preexisting, forced model based on a set of expectations.

Dave’s arc is his growth from repressed coolkid with internalized homophobia to a gentle, mature adult whose relationship with Karkat is one of the most positive forces in his life. He’s rightly proud of that growth.

Dave’s Arc was the set of expectations that were placed on him by his society, by the narratives inherent in Sburb, by Lord English, and ultimately by many readers and certain narrative structures within Homestuck itself. Expectations that he might be a powerful, unflappable warrior hero figure destined to slay villains like Lord English. Dave rightly rejects these expectations placed upon him, which had little to do with who he was as a person or what he needed. His arc revolves around him rejecting the Arcs that were harming him.

In Homestuck, Hussie contrasts his protagonists’ organic, individual growth with the harmful power of the narrative structures that try to control them. This is another manifestation of the recurring theme of Homestuck: human lives are spontaneous and personal, and don’t always fit into the structures that try to shape them. True maturity is being able to grow beyond these structures.

Read Dave’s statement this way:

“Rose, our lives aren’t stories. They’re just lives. We decide what they mean. Outgrowing the need for my life to fit those structures has been freeing for me, and I think it’ll be freeing for you, too.”

Now, what Dave’s saying here works on two levels. From an in-world perspective, he’s exactly right. In reality, human beings don’t have inherent structure to their lives. And that’s exactly the tension that exists between the protagonists of Homestuck and forces like Sburb, Homestuck, and Lord English.

But, at the same time, we can also recognize that Dave’s a fictional character and Hussie is, in fact, crafting a narrative arc with Dave’s statement. Dave’s growth as a person (his arc) is about learning to free himself from the overpowering, harmful narratives (Arcs) that surround him.

Hussie is using arcs to defeat Arcs.

Arcs as Archetypes

With me so far? Okay. So, I’ve been distinguishing between arcs and Arcs because I think we want to be clear about the point Hussie’s trying to make, especially in this conversation. Now that we understand that, though, let’s acknowledge again that we’re talking about two different versions of the same thing.

Art is a way of representing life. It can represent life well and with an understanding of the nuances and ambiguities of real human beings. Or it can represent life poorly, forcing characters to conform to predetermined expectations, and robbing us of our chance to learn from other people’s experiences. But it’s a sliding scale. No representation will ever be perfect, and no representation is completely without some grain of realism. Every story structure falls somewhere along the line between the most human arc and the most aggressive Arc.

But one of the greatest things about stories is the way they critique each other. So an author like Hussie can use his own, more naturalistic story structures to critique the harmful, false story structures of others. That’s exactly what Homestuck is doing, and the escape the characters experience is every bit as much an escape from harmful clichés as it is from a cosmic tyrant named Lord English.

A given narrative structure is not necessarily positive or negative. Nor are all the narratives in Homestuck seen negatively. (Again, it’s tension, not opposition.) Before, we talked about the danger of clichés. But now we’re saying they’re not always harmful. What’s a better word, one that takes in both the positive and the negative?

I really like TVTropes’ word trope, which they use, I think, to address this very problem. Trope is like the value-neutral version of a cliché. While clichés have been repeated so often that they become harmful and restraining, tropes are simply things that exist in narratives, structures that authors use to achieve various goals. It’s up to us to decide if they’ve been used poorly or well. Homestuck is built on tropes, and uses some of them to challenge others.

A trope can be a certain kind of story. The hero went and slew a monster. The gods created the world. A young man overcame his psychological demons. These are narrative tropes we know well. We might also call them myths, or stories.

Another word we might use? Archetype. Literally a “leading type,” an archetype is similar to what we’ve talked about as the Ur-Self, or the Forms that come up in discussions of Platonism. It’s the original thing which can be seen behind various manifestations.

Ultimately, what we’re talking about here is an idea. And one of the fascinating things about Homestuck is that ideas are the basic building blocks of reality. In Homestuck, the power an idea can wield is immense.

Idea, archetype, trope, arc—they’re all words for what Homestuck is built on. The stories we bring to it, and the stories it presents to us. Above all, acts of resisting and embracing stories are at the heart of Homestuck and what it’s about.

What I want to delve into in this essay is: what are the narratives that Homestuck contains, and what are the narratives it critiques? What are the new narratives it suggests as more organic, more naturalistic alternatives? What does Homestuck suggest is the way to live?

Let’s find out.

Sburb vs Homestuck

On a narrative level, there’s a tension between Sburb and Homestuck. Sburb is a game and a system heavily constructed around certain narratives, archetypes, and ideas. Homestuck is a fictional work that is heavily constructed around many of the same ideas, but also calls some of these structures into question. This is deliberate as all hell.

Meanwhile, superimposed over the narratives of Sburb, another set of narratives lurks: the rules of reality set by the cosmic tyrant Lord English, who enforces certain narratives, rewarding some and punishing others, and literally rewriting the story in the most juvenile fashion. Homestuck takes on his narratives, too. And, at the same time, it takes on many narratives that we know from our lives, and calls them into question even when they’re built into the structure of the universe.

Let’s take a look at how all this works.

The Narratives of Sburb

Start with Sburb. It’s not surprising that Sburb takes the form of a game. Games are, in a sense, nothing but structure. They’re made of mechanics, and mechanics frequently have narratives encoded into them. The possibilities of a given game system, the choices one is able to make within it, produce narratives and produce meanings. Sburb resembles many different games, including chess, fantasy RPGs, and billiards (to say nothing of the playing card motifs elsewhere in Homestuck). This is because it has many different goals and thus creates many different narratives around those goals. In many ways Sburb can be read as critique and examination of all of these types of games (especially fantasy RPGs). But certain narratives encoded into Sburb seem to be extremely important, and over and over we see them come to the forefront.

Let’s call them Creation Myth, Coming of Age, and Heroic Epic.

The Creation Myth

Hussie has been very up front about Homestuck being a kind of creation myth. In a 2011 Formspring Q&A, Hussie wrote:

Question: So now you've revealed that the trolls' Sburb session CREATED OUR GODDAMN UNIVERSE. How long have you been waiting to spring that on us?

Hussie: Since before Homestuck started.

HS was always going to be a story about an extremely elaborate creation myth. As elaborate as I could conceive…This was always what Homestuck was about. This revelation was carefully guarded, although there are plenty of clues. It has taken 4.5 acts to understand the "what" (as well as some of the "how" along the way.) The rest of the story will be about exploring the rest of the "how", as well as determining whether the players succeed.

A Creation Myth tells the story of how the world was made. It usually tells the story of powerful gods, who represent certain aspects of the universe, causing different aspects of it come into being, often through fighting, procreating with each other, carving up the bodies of other, older beings, and all sorts of other memorable ways. By the end of it, the most dangerous gods have been defeated or made peaceful, and the world is paved for the arrival of human beings. The message is clear: these beings help us understand the world, and should be respected, as they still have power over it today.

This is Sburb’s central narrative. Only for Sburb, the gods are the players of a video game, and power over creation—described in terms of a new universe that is also the body of a giant frog—is offered as a reward for successfully completing the game. So, too, is their godhood (and god hood) a reward. It is not intrinsic to them, as with traditional creation myths, but must be earned over the course of the game.

But they earn it. Not only do they take on more elemental personas with magical power, and even become immortal within a strict set of rules, they also become mythologically important in the newly created universe. For the trolls, this takes the form of them becoming the twelve zodiac signs and constellations of Earth’s mythology. Later on, for the kids and trolls, this takes the form of them becoming venerated hero-ancestors who create the new civilization and guide it into a prosperous future. (Who knows, maybe they have constellations as well? Please, somebody put this in a fanfic.) To say nothing of the way Calliope venerates their journey as holy, almost mythological writ.

Hussie also wrote:

The goal is to create a universe all at once after overcoming an extensive series of challenges, and as is implied, the universe fleshes itself out with galaxies and systems and planets and lifeforms, ready and waiting for entry by the victorious players. The ultimate reward is for the players to enter the universe they created and do as they see fit. They are essentially the gods of that universe, and that is what the trolls are to our universe.

This ties in nicely with Sburb’s other strong narratives.

The Coming of Age and the Apotheosis

Sburb fuses the Creation Myth with the Coming of Age Story, or Bildungsroman (fancy German word for Coming of Age Story.) Sburb is designed to be played by adolescents, children on the cusp of adulthood, and it draws parallels between their journey into adulthood and their journey into the game. Indeed, Sburb seems to view maturity as what qualifies one for inheriting the mantle of a god. You can’t be a god without growing up, it suggests.

And isn’t it interesting that the goal of Sburb is to help a universe reproduce? A biological, evolutionary narrative, the non-narrative of the species blindly shaped by its attempts to reproduce, is introduced to the players right at the point in their lives when they’re also navigating their growing sexual and romantic maturity. The mysteries of adulthood are sublimated into the mysteries of giant cosmic space frogs. (See my Gnostic post for more about Sburb as biology.)

This process can often be cruel, as noted in how Sburb frequently kills off the guardians of its players, and usually their entire homeworld as well. It represents adulthood as a process of loss and grief and needing to move on. Not entirely untrue, but painful, too. It’s a brutal approach to maturity, one that echoes its inhuman, survival-of-the-fittest origins. The last generation must pass away for the next generation to take its place.

One of the most fascinating things about Sburb’s approach to maturity is the way that it tailors it to each individual player. Sburb tells them how they will mature, and who they will mature into. This is done through the system of classes and aspects (classpects) which are assigned, RPG-like, to each player. On the one hand, these are clearly elemental powers, like breath, light, space, and time. On the other hand, these are also descriptors of psychological realities for each player. Space connects with solitude and patience, breath connects with freedom, light with knowledge and agency. And the class side of the equation, the heroic titles of heir, seer, witch, and so on, are even more personal, describing a relationship to those elements and those powers. These are both the god-like roles the heroes will take on and the person they will be. (Or, in prophetic ways, they describe their failure to grow into maturity—see Eridan for an example.)

Thing is, though, they don’t start as these people. Because in Sburb it takes time to grow into being a god, right? As Kanaya says, Sburb frequently gives its players roles to challenge them. So what a Sburb title is…is a narrative. Player A started off as young and brash…but grew into maturity as the wise, reflective Seer of Time. She grew as a person because of her journey in Sburb, and became someone who could be a Seer and a God.

But it goes even further. As Tex Talks discusses in his excellent analysis video here, the elements are literally elemental; that is, the aspects make up the deepest-level structure of the universe. As Calliope tells us, reality is built out of the same aspects that describe the players. So when the players are maturing, part of what they’re maturing into is people who are closely tied to the structure of the universe. They’re becoming gods.

The combined narrative of Creation Gods + Coming of Age we might call Apotheosis. A fancy word for the story of becoming a god.

And as Tex reminds us, drawing heavily on Rose in her apples speech, for Sburb, the basic building blocks of the universe are ideas. Ideas in the Platonic sense; free-floating ideas that manifest in diverse forms but contain a central underlying truth. Tex argues, convincingly, I think, that these are also narrative ideas within the context of Homestuck. Light represents knowledge for both the reader and the player, and it represents importance on a metafictional level. Time and Space are constructs built into any narrative, Breath and Blood have ties to pacing, and Rage represents utter contrivance and bullshit.

It’s narratives all the way down.

So the story of each player’s growth into maturity, and the story of the group of players’ growth into the kind of people who can be gods of a new universe, is rich with narrative meaning on many levels. Each class, aspect, and pairing is a story, and given that Sburb can perceive all space and time, that means the story these descriptors tell is guaranteed to be tailored perfectly to each person’s process of growth or failure to grow.

Whew. Let’s see how Apotheosis, this fusion of the narrative of maturity and the narrative of creation, connects to the third major narrative of Sburb: the Heroic Epic.

The Heroic Epic

The Heroic Epic is a kind of story we’re all familiar with, I think. A Heroic Epic generally pits one or more figures of great might, skill, or intelligence against overwhelming enemy forces. Despite the odds, the hero or heroes are able to triumph, a testament to their inherent excellence as people. This is a story framework as old as mythology itself. A given hero often has one or more traits that a society considered desirable or noble--military skill, tactical cleverness, and so on—and to the degree a hero fails, it is because they fall short of these goals. Often a hero is a special, other kind of person, chosen from birth for greatness or descended from the gods.

An epic frequently takes the form of a long and complex poem or narrative, interweaving many different heroic figures and their struggles against opposing forces. Examples include the Trojan War, the Mahabharata, and the Journey to the West. Victory and defeat, usually in war, are among an epic’s major themes, and despite the complexity of its many interwoven figures, despite death and failure along the way, we generally expect some of the figures the story depicts as noble will succeed in their aims, even if they have to pay a heavy cost.

Sburb structures itself as an epic, and so does Homestuck.

What’s interesting about Sburb’s approach to the Heroic Epic is that it could have come straight out of many fantasy video games. Sburb structures itself as a military conflict between forces who share the players’ goals and forces who oppose them. It depicts the players as the noble figures who have the power to win victory for the forces of good. It even calls them, explicitly, its Heroes. As in Skyrim or a fantasy RPG, without the intervention of the player character, good cannot prevail and the world is doomed. It’s a fantasy that exalts the one who participates in it: you’re the one who carries value; you’re the one who everyone is counting on. You are the hero. It’s you.

This joins nicely with the theme of Apotheosis. The player character in Sburb is able to achieve victory, grow into maturity, and become an immortal god capable of bringing a new world into being. These are all echoes of the same theme: achieving value. Value in Sburb’s terms, according to its structures.

Like many video games, Sburb places value on achievement, strength and victory. While personal growth will be different for every player, the Heroic Epic carries the same theme for everyone: greatness is achieved through victory. By helping the forces of light achieve their goal and defeat the forces of darkness, you become a Hero. By leveling up and growing stronger, you become more worthy.

Beat the enemies, beat the game, by being the best. It’s a theme familiar to us from many a video game. And it’s a theme the video game Sburb places at the heart of its heroic narrative.

These are the narratives, the Arcs, Sburb is built around. They’re not necessarily good or bad, but they have their limitations. They’re tropes, archetypes, that can only say so much. Homestuck is a depiction of these narratives, but also a critique of them.

The central science-fictional/fantastical concept of Homestuck is Sburb. To that extent, Homestuck and Sburb share the same narratives. Homestuck, as Hussie discusses above, is an attempt to tell a very strange creation myth. Homestuck is also a story about kids growing up, and how they deal with the problems in their lives. And Homestuck is very deliberate and self-conscious about its status as a large, complex work where many heroic figures war against opposing forces, not just the forces of Derse, but also Lord English and his many agents. An epic. Homestuck is all of the same things Sburb is.

But it also critiques these things. Homestuck isn’t just Sburb, but a story about Sburb. Like any science fiction work about a particular concept, it has the chance to show both the exciting things and the limitations of a world where that concept is true. Homestuck offers a sharp critique of the narratives of Sburb by showing its limitations and showing how its players struggle against those limitations.

If you’re inclined to anthropomorphize Sburb, you might say Homestuck calls Sburb’s major narratives out as being cruel and callous. But, given that Sburb is fairly abstract, a structure more than it is an entity, perhaps it’s better to say that Homestuck tries to show how a system like Sburb imposes limits on its participants, and what the results of those limits are. We’ve seen this before with Sburb’s approach to the self. Now we can examine how Sburb also places limits through its narratives.

Interwoven with this critique of Sburb’s narratives is a critique of two closely related elements of Homestuck: what we might call the world of Inherited Narratives, and the narrative of Lord English.

Inherited Narratives, or: Everything is Caliborn’s Fault Forever

What do I mean by Inherited Narratives? Remember how I talked about Arcs (in the negative sense) as being like clichés? When we read a story, we don’t read it alone. We bring an entire world to it, the world of all the other stories we’ve ever read. We compare any story’s narratives to the narratives we’ve encountered before. This shapes our expectations, what we want to happen, and this shapes how a story is told. This is where clichés come from: they’re echoes of stories we’ve seen before, from the mind of the writer and the reader. But if a cliché narrative is just passed on without close examination, it creates an unsatisfying experience for the reader, one that doesn’t really say anything meaningful about its characters.

We exist in a world of cliché narratives in everyday life, too. We pick up a myriad of messages about what it means to be a good person, what it means to grow up, what a hero looks like, what gender norms look like. If you’ve been on tumblr for any length of time, you’re probably familiar with how these narratives are embedded in our society and our ways of thinking, picked up from the media we consume but also from everything and everyone around us.

Homestuck’s characters inherit these narratives, too, from their dying word. Much of the psychological growth they go through is found in challenging these expectations, these clichés pressed upon them by society, that no longer make sense for them to inhabit.

These Inherited Narratives even shape our expectations of what a creation myth, growing up, or heroic victory look like, and you’d better believe that when Homestuck’s critiquing Sburb, it’s critiquing them, too.

In our lives, we can blame history, culture, and society for the narratives we inherit.

But in Homestuck, we can also blame Sburb, and we can also blame Lord English.

Let’s get Gnostic again for a second. In case you thought I’d run out of things to say about Gnosticism, nope! There’s more here, courtesy of some great discussion from the legendary revolutionaryduelist and their commenters.

As revolutionaryduelist discusses here, in Gnosticism, the realm we inherit from the Demiurge, the Material World, is viewed in opposition to the World of Ideas. The false god gives us the world of flesh and death and suffering. But we can escape it by connecting through our own wisdom to the world of Truth and Goodness and Ideas. We escape to the world of the Platonic Forms, become more than our limited selves, become something more archetypal, more meaningful, more absolute.

The thing Homestuck does, and does so well, is that it parallels the Material World, the realm the kids inherit, with Inherited Narrative. As the Gnostics believed we inherit the limitations of the material, and can escape into a higher realm that is unlimited and good, Homestuck posits that we inherit the limitations of restrictive Narrative, too, and can escape into narratives that are more meaningful, nuanced, and free. Material Arcs. Transcendent arcs.

Lord English’s Demiurgic tyranny thus works on two levels. He creates Homestuck’s material reality, that is, its stuff, its substance, by devising time loops that perpetuate his own self-indulgent existence. Objects like Cal and the harlequin dolls dance to his whims.

But at the same time, he also creates Paradox Space’s narrative reality, its inherited ideas. The scratched trolls are born into an Alternia rewritten by LE’S agents into a world of bloodshed, competition, and cruelty, where Doc Scratch guides evolution and the Handmaid slaughters the unwanted, perpetuating fear. Earth, meanwhile, inherits LE’s toxic ideas about masculinity and power (ideas we’re all familiar with from our own Inherited Narratives), and a dystopic future. In a bizarre twist, arguably these narratives form another enormous self-perpetuating loop, with Caliborn being influenced by the most toxic elements of Earth and Alternian culture, and then as LE orchestrating scenarios that bring Earth and Alternia into being. That’s the second level on which LE the Demiurge creates a harmful, limited reality.

But remember what Tex taught us? In Homestuck, reality is made of ideas. Paradox Space is literally composed of Platonic forms, narrative and conceptual elements. So these two levels of LE’s influence are really one and the same. He has created our players’ limited world, and their quest is to escape it for a better one.

So, Inherited Narrative, the Material Realm, and Cliché are all the same concept in Homestuck. It’s easy to see how this is a critique of Caliborn and all he represents.

But I think it’s also, implicitly, a critique of Sburb, or at least an examination of some of its limitations.

Because many of Caliborn’s harmful narratives echo structures from Sburb.

Caliborn: Sburb’s Demon

What does Caliborn value? He values his toxic notion of masculinity, but more specifically he values strength, self-glorification, and being the best. Especially when it comes to games.

Caliborn’s ideal narrative, and the one Sburb lets him achieve, is the story of someone who was inherently the best achieving victory over his enemies, overcoming absurdly difficult trials, and becoming recognized for his superiority by becoming a god, a god powerful enough to shape world after world in his own image.

As we’ve seen, this is illusory. What LE is able to influence is actually, like the Demiurge, quite limited. But from Caliborn’s perspective, this is his story.

In it we can recognize many aspects of Sburb’s narratives. Deification comes from the creation myth and from Sburb’s notions of growing stronger and better. Most of all, though, Caliborn draws on the Heroic Epic. He sees himself as being at the center of a great story, in which he proved his inherent worthiness via his victory over the great forces set in his way. Constant conquest is his way of approaching the world. He is a warrior hero, slaying the weak and worthless left and right; he is an artist, triumphing over the haters. He is as arrogant and militaristic as a warrior-king like Agamemnon, but without any of his redeeming qualities. Caliborn takes narratives encoded in Sburb and exaggerates them to a profoundly unhealthy level. He is an echo of what’s harmful about them. He is Sburb’s shadow, its demon, summoned up by what its Yaldabaoth principle encourages, as limited as the Heroic Epic itself can be.

But there is a theme from Sburb that Caliborn’s missing, and that’s the narrative of Growth in its notion of the Coming of Age.

Caliborn rejects his coming of age, or to put it another way, sees it simply as an act of self-glorification. He places deification over inner conflict, victory over meaning. He’s encouraged, in part, by the narrative structure of Sburb’s Heroic Epic, but he also pushes it to new levels, creating his own kind of game. He rejects the normal maturation process for his species, and because of this, as Hussie says, will remain an enormous stunted tool forever, lacking his maturity and his wings.

Caliborn adores one of the most limited parts of Sburb: the aspect of it that’s a Game. He wants to keep playing the game forever, to keep achieving victory at the expense of all meaning. He is the ultimate powergamer, and the game enables him to live out a false maturity, a false coming of age where he never has to be challenged, never has to grow. This is the horror of Caliborn’s love of games: that games are meaningless without our own growth within them. Caliborn misses life for the game, maturity for mere strength, and meaning for cliché. Personal arcs for Arcs. Thus does he perpetuate a horrible Paradox Space and a horrible, cliché set of ideologies, and pass it onto others.

Echoes of his mistake are everywhere in Homestuck, harming and shaping its characters. We could talk about them for pages and pages, but let’s look at just a few examples.

Dave Strider vs the World

Again, let’s talk about Dave. Dave inherited a very toxic narrative, the narrative of the Hero. I use this word to describe the Heroic Epic in part because it carries such emotional weight for Dave within Homestuck. A Hero, in Dave’s mind, is someone masculine, unflappable, perfect, and cool. A warrior whose life is all about fighting and victory. He gets this idea straight from his Bro, who personified ideas of masculine perfection, irony, and constant conquest. Bro is a warrior-hero, untroubled by complexity, and his attempts to force Dave to live up to this warrior-hero ideal through terrifying ironic mind games and daily fighting are explicitly called out as abuse.

As Dave says:

DAVE: it was "training" you know DAVE: but you know what it really was it was some vicious shit that was bad and sucked and i hated it DAVE: it didnt make me stronger DAVE: it did the opposite DAVE: it made me never want to fight DAVE: it made me never want to see blood or be near danger or hear metal sounds DAVE: it made me hate the idea of being a hero cause he was a hero and he ruined the idea of heroism

The narrative of the Hero, like the idea of being cool, was harmful for Dave, and to grow as a person he needed to escape from that narrative and find who he was beyond that story. When he said “I’m not a hero,” what he needed was not to learn to see himself as one, but to recognize that not being a hero was a good thing if that was the definition of heroism. In the end, he’s able to make that escape, and that’s a profound triumph over a harmful narrative.

Bro’s horrible influence was his own, but it was also Lord English’s. The two figures are linked: LE influences Bro through his soul embedded in Cal, but a splinter of Bro (AR/Hal, one of the more negatively-depicted versions of Dirk) is also in that soul, shaping Lord English.

And, at the same time, there’s a distant echo of Sburb here. A video game all about fighting enemies and becoming a victorious warrior figure perpetuates the ideas of value-through-victory that were so harmful to Dave. Bro’s actions within the Game were often to push victory forward on Sburb’s terms. He saw his abusive “training” as a way to help Dave win the Game. So, too, did Doc Scratch see his alteration of Alternian society into something competitive and violent as a way to help the trolls win Sgrub. It doesn’t make either of them less horrible and evil, nor their actions less abusive.

This isn’t to say that Sburb is inherently evil, but that it prioritizes certain things, including the militaristic, fighting-based heroism of a Heroic Epic, and the players of the Game suffer for it. In a way, it’s a critique of games in general: what does it mean for victory to be found in slaying enemies and gaining strength? (It’s probably not a coincidence that we find this theme in Undertale as well.) In a world where those game narratives shapes people’s lives and worlds, there are some deeply troubling consequences, especially after LE gets involved.

Accordingly, Dave struggles more than any other character with what he even wants to do within the confines of Sburb, what he should strive for. In the end, he ends up rejecting Sburb’s idea of heroism in a big way. He chooses to fight for the people he cares about, not for glory, self-exaltation, or conquest. At the same time, he rejects a world of harmful clichés that he inherited from the same sources. Dave chooses to define himself by his own goals, not by his failure to live up to the inherited narratives of heterosexuality, irony, and unshakable coolness. He learns to celebrate his bisexuality, sincerity, and vulnerability instead.

In the end, Dave’s able to leave Bro, Caliborn, and Sburb’s ideas behind him and make his own choices about what his life means. It’s not surprising, then, that he understands the harmful power of overbearing Arcs better than anyone, and what it means to escape them.

Rose Lalonde, Disgruntled Narratophile

Rose’s reluctance to leave Arcs behind makes an interesting counterpoint to Dave, because it comes from an entirely different place. Rose doesn’t define herself by Caliborn’s narrative, but she does define herself very strongly by narratives she’s picked up elsewhere. Initially we see her as a psychoanalyst, trying to make sense of her friends’ minds by fitting them into Freudian and other models of repression. Yet at the same time, we also see her missing the reality of her own repressions because of the narrative she tries to fit them into. Rose misses the reality of her mother’s alcoholism because she turns it into a tale of irony and mutual antagonism between mother and daughter. She writes a story around it and makes herself believe it. Is this in part because the truth is too painful to admit? Almost certainly. It makes sense to us that Rose is introduced to us as a writer, because her way of dealing with the world is to reach out to narrative tropes and make sense of it that way.

Later on, we see her in the context of Sburb, and there she begins to think of her experience with the game as a kind of epic. Her GameFAQ is laced with grandiose purple prose and self-aggrandizing attempts at pathos, even as she mocks herself for it in an ironic-but-not-really-ironic way. She uses it as a chance to depict herself as a protagonist, a hero about to conquer a mysterious world.

Later, of course, as she becomes more disenchanted with Sburb, she turns the narrative around: she becomes an antihero opposing a corrupt world, ready to break the Game for its injustices. But it’s still an act of roleplaying, one that she eventually becomes disenchanted with. And as Dave later observes, it’s probably a narrative Sburb itself wanted her to fall into for its own reasons, giving her a reason to advance the time loops the destruction of Lord English required. After she breaks free of grimdarkness, though, she focuses on a narrative of self-sacrifice, wanting to find fulfilment in martyrdom that lets her companions escape their dire circumstances. Dave’s insistence on coming along with her complicates that narrative, as does her survival and transformation into the God Tier Seer of Light in the fires of the Green Sun.

After Cascade, Rose wrestles with the broken pieces of narrative all around her, not knowing how to put them into a framework. We’ll talk about that more in a bit, but perhaps we can see now why Rose has such a hard time believing Dave’s experience with Arcs—she writes everything that happens to her into her own personal story.

Though Doc Scratch is being his usual asshole self when he tells Rose this:

The plans you were making were based on assumptions and fabrications of your imagination. You were writing more stories, much like those about your false magical men.

…I think he’s actually got some pretty good insight into Rose here. He knows that she constructs stories around her life in the same way that she constructs stories about Zazzerpan and the Learned. In Rose we see someone who’s constantly casting about for narratives that describe her circumstances. The narratives she finds aren’t so much Caliborn’s but Sburb’s—the story of a protagonist of an epic, destined for heroism and achievement.

But once again Hussie is stressing the difference between narrative Arcs, especially Sburb’s, and the random chaos of human experiences. Rose wants everything that happens to make sense narratively, for every event to be Chekov’s Gun, but sometimes shit just happens. Jasprose’s existence in the narrative, I think, is primarily to highlight this tension. Sometimes your dumb cat brings back your alt-universe dead self and fuses with her for no particular reason and it doesn’t really mean anything. That’s life, you know? It be like that sometimes.

It’s not surprising to me that one of the other narrative things Rose is uneasy about in the end of Homestuck is Calliope’s return from the dead. Rose wants to see her as a messiah figure, central to the culmination of an epic (her word) but the fact is, as I said in my Gnostic post, Calliope exists on her own terms, not as part of any narrative structure. This is hard for Rose to wrestle with, but it’s the entire point. Calliope, and by extension all the characters in Homestuck, don’t need to be narratively significant to be worth protecting. They need only to live.

(Okay, I can’t resist making another point, silly as it is: Even Rose’s tongue-in-cheek suggestion that Jade will debunk the concept of endgame ships has some truth in it. Homestuck approaches endgame ships somewhat differently from other narratives, showing a lot of different possibilities for each character’s relationships over the course of the story and leaving it somewhat ambiguous and open to reader interpretation where they finally ended up. This is especially true of Jade, whose close bond with Dave and Karkat is left to be interpreted by the reader. Homestuck acknowledges that relationships don’t always fit into simplistic narratives, and that how a relationship turns out has a lot to do with a person’s maturity, needs, and growth. Rose and Kanaya, interestingly, are among the exceptions, being very clearly defined, but even still, Rose is surprised, I think, at the ways in which her problems endanger the relationship and the fact that it needs communication and upkeep beyond the usual romance trope of “they got together and all problems were solved forever.” So as much as Rose was joking, she’s also 100% right. Okay, I’m done. )

So that’s Rose: someone who attaches very strongly to Sburb’s narratives about importance, heroism, and growth, missing some of the ways in which her own life doesn’t fit those models. In the end, though, I think she ends up in a good place. She begins taking Dave’s remark to heart, as evidenced by how she begins approaching reality’s departures from her narratives with humor and levity rather than angst. And her connection with Roxy, which allows her to see past the story she constructed around her mother and perceive the real facts about their relationship, brings her out of her illusions and into a more mature perspective on her life. I think, by the end of Homestuck, she’s headed in the right direction, and she has a strong, mature bond with her kickass alien wife to help get her there.

Cascade vs Character, or God Tiers Don’t Cure Your Blues

With Rose we touched on how Sburb’s narratives aren’t always what the characters really need. This is something that also comes out in Sburb’s approach to maturity: the god tier. The god tier mechanic suggests that maturity comes from developing into a very specific kind of person. A Seer of Light, a Knight of Time, and so on. Most importantly, it shows this as happening in one cathartic moment, usually involving self-sacrifice, in which the Hero dramatically transforms into their mythological role. Bam—maturity unlocked. It’s growth-as-cutscene, identity as leveling up.

In Cascade, we see God Tiering happen in parallel with moments of catharsis for the characters. Dave and Rose find themselves alive on the other side of self-sacrifice, and Rose is empowered by her aspect to see things clearly, rather than be caught up in her illusions. Meanwhile Jadesprite, caught up in Jade’s self-loathing, is instead transformed into Jade’s greatest strength and glorious furry self-affirmation when Jade goes god tier. These moments are immensely satisfying, and one well might think that they represented the end of each characters’ story.

But Homestuck deliberately calls this catharsis into question. After Cascade, we’re shown that these flashy moments of ascension didn’t solve the characters’ problems. Becoming god tier didn’t keep Rose from having an ambiguous, painful relationship with her mother’s legacy. The strong narrative it suggested for her didn’t keep her from losing direction and becoming unsure of what was important. Similarly, Dave’s ascension to being a Knight of Time didn’t help him reckon with his brother’s abuse; if anything it heightened it because of his ambiguous relationship with heroism and battle. In the Game Over timeline, we see him having a nervous breakdown because of all the ways in which he hasn’t dealt with this! Only a real connection with Dirk, the right person to help him work through the problem, could set him free. And Jade’s reabsorption of Jadesprite didn’t fully allow her to integrate the sadness she represented into her psyche; it remained repressed, as comes out later when she’s under the GrimBark influence of the Condesce.

What stands out to me about the god tiers is that they represent powerful narratives within the context of Sburb—all three received powerful abilities that would help them win the Game of Sburb. But taken out of that context, on the three-year meteor and battleship journeys, the God Tier roles didn’t help them in the least. They needed actual growth, not the narrative structures that Sburb provided for them. This, I think, is the whole reason for the three-year gap: to show how Sburb gave our protagonists Narrative growth without giving them actual, individual growth that they could rely on.

And John? Well, John’s god tiering is taken to represent maturity, and as Homestuck’s everyman, his death and resurrection is a cathartic moment for everyone in their deepening relationship with the Game. But when he finally leaves the context of Sburb for good, we see him lost and aimless, holding onto the past, unable to follow his friends into a more meaningful maturity. He helps achieve a happy ending for everyone else, but he doesn’t know what to do without living in that story. (One hopes that in the Epilogue, he’ll find a way.)

I’m Feeling Just Peachy About Hegemonic Narratives

While we’re making contentious points about Homestuck’s relationship with narratives, let’s talk Tricksters. Yes, we’re doing this man. We’re making this happen. While some confusing signposting and the deliberately off-putting nature of the Trickster arc led to it not being well-received at the time, looking back I think it reads much better (and is much less tedious) archivally, and actually continues the theme of individuals versus narrative tropes rather well. I’m drawing on the aforementioned essay by revolutionaryduelist, which is frankly the definitive work on the topic of Tricksters, so go read their work, not mine, for a real examination of the subject. Cannot recommend it highly enough!

But to summarize how Tricksters fit into what I’ve been discussing here: with the Trickster arc and the candy juju, we return to Inherited Narratives and the toxic narratives perpetuated by Caliborn. The Trickster Arc is a depiction of whiteness, heteronormativity, and hegemonic power as horror, because all these things clash with who the characters are as people. And once again it represents big, seemingly cathartic moments as emotionally bankrupt because they lack the substance of actual growth. The Trickster sequence is off-putting not by accident but by design; it’s extremely uncomfortable to sit through because it is extremely uncomfortable for the characters and not what they really need.

The Juju is explicitly compared to the star in Mario; it’s a game mechanic that allows you to skip difficulty and blaze ahead to the end of the level. Of course, since this is Sburb, it’s paralleled with skipping ahead in one’s maturity as a person. The God Tiers offer catharsis irrespective of real growth; for Tricksters this is turned up to one zillion. It’s not surprising that this “gift” comes from Caliborn, who dearly loves achievement and leveling at the expense of growth, and from Calliope, who’s been led to dismiss the importance of her individual existence and whose hero-worship of the protagonists can sometimes be alien and othering.

Needless to say, the use of a power-up to achieve maturity goes horrifyingly wrong.

Caliborn’s link to Inherited Narratives of aggressive, overpowering masculinity is also here connected to other hegemonic narratives of heterosexuality and whiteness as power. While I wouldn’t call Homestuck’s approach to race perfect, ultimately I think the Trickster arc is written around showing Homestuck’s more usual goal of racial ambiguity for the kids as the ideal, while the departure from that ideal, ie; Trickster versions of the kids being represented as white people, is depicted as negative and horrifying.

This is demonstrated in Jake’s horrified reaction to Trickster Jane. While sober, he doesn’t see her peachiness as a good thing. He reacts with the same terror, and in fact the same panels, with which Nepeta reacted to the nightmare of Sober Gamzeee. Whiteness is being played here as horror, especially in that it’s supposed to be a way to achieve power and advancement. That whiteness would be seen as a tool for success and catharsis represents Inherited Narratives from our world to the highest degree, and we are indeed supposed to be horrified by it, as we are by all things Caliborn. While there was a lot of confusion around this at the time, and in ways it was written confusingly, looking closely, I think ultimately invoking the terror of hegemonic whiteness what Hussie was going for here. Again, see revolutionaryduelist, who puts it better than I could.

Tricksters also evoke inherited narratives of Heteronormativity. Marriage and reproduction are their obsession, and they’re particularly concerned with fixing Jane and Jake’s problems through having a zillion babies. Trickster Roxy, meanwhile, ignores Dirk’s sexuality out of a misguided belief that she is entitled to a romantic relationship with him. Tricksters ignore the difficulty of working out one’s relationship problems by believing makeouts and absurd marriages will solve everything. The Tricksters also decide to head straight to self-sacrificing themselves into being god tiers. And why wouldn’t they? They’re high on the very notion of progress, and that kind of flashy, cathartic progress is exactly what they crave.

Ultimately, we can read the Trickster arc as a much more direct representation of what figures like Caliborn have been doing all along: enforcing seemingly cathartic narratives that are harmful to the protagonists in lieu of actual growth.

The good news for the Alpha kids is that when they wake up hung over from this narrative-induced bender, they’re forced to confront how abysmally it failed. They realize that this wasn’t the growth they needed, and they begin the painful work of actually communicating with one another and working through the problems which the Juju couldn’t solve. It’s a rejection of Caliborn and his ideals, and it’s a sign that they’re headed in the right direction.

This brings us, at last, to the finale, the ultimate repudiation of Caliborn and what he stands for.

Two Endings: Glory vs. Escape

One of the things that most caught people off guard, including me, about the ending of Homestuck was that the main kids, our central protagonists, never directly confronted Lord English.

I remember thinking, as I’m sure a lot of people did at the time, that there would be one more plot twist, that the seeming fight with the Condesce and three Jacks who were connected to Lord English’s power would give way to a fight with English himself, that somehow the kids—especially Dave— would have to confront him and take him down.

That didn’t happen. Instead, Homestuck played things much more straightforwardly. Those who’d said they were going to confront English—Vriska especially— held a showdown with English in the Furthest Ring, while the vast majority of our protagonists, the kids we cared especially about, simply confronted the lingering problems in their session, the echoes of his influence over Paradox Space, and achieved victory not over English, but their Game.

I was certainly surprised by this. Do I think it was a bad choice?

Hell no.

I think it’s an incredible fucking choice, and it’s a big reason I love the ending.

Look. The central narrative of the Heroic Epic, the idea of becoming important through victory over powerful foes, is called into question throughout Homestuck. It’s often a necessity to engage with because the Game asks those kinds of victories of its players, but Homestuck shows that it isn’t the same thing as real growth. Caliborn is the ultimate manifestation of the problems with this idea, someone who’s latched onto the achievement games offer, the sense of power and importance, while rejecting the opportunities to mature Sburb also presents. Caliborn wanted a multiverse in which everything revolved around him, and for a time, he got it.

But for the kids we care about, life doesn’t revolve around Caliborn. It revolves around their own goals, their own lives, their own reasons for being. They have Caliborn and Sburb’s systems to wrestle with, but they can choose how they want to engage with those systems. They can, if they wish, depart from the values of these narratives and be set free.

For John and his friends, the experience of Homestuck isn’t about having the biggest showdown with the biggest bad guy. It’s makings sure your friends are safe and getting to the end of the Game so that you can be free. It’s about finding a way, in a multiverse made out of these narratives and these systems, to live. Their story is not truly a Heroic Epic, that is, an Epic of Battle, of Victory, but an Epic of Escape.

But that isn’t true for everyone. While John and friends are bringing the story of an Escape to a culmination, a completely different story is going on at the same time over in the Furthest Ring. It’s a much more traditional story. The story of a great Warrior, confronting a great Enemy. It’s a traditional Heroic Epic, a Sburban Epic. And who is its protagonist? The one person who most wanted to be. Vriska.

There’s so, so much more one could say about Vriska, and I hope to say it all at a l8r d8. Suffice it to say for now that Vriska—especially this version of Vriska—is caught up in the very same narrative Caliborn is. The narrative of Becoming Important through Achieving Victory. Vriska rejects the growth the people around her have achieved, and berates her ghost self for growing away from this framework that’s so important to her. Like Caliborn, she can’t let herself grow, because to grow would be to lose her central role in the Narrative of Heroism.

It’s a narrative she inherited from her culture, from Sburb, and from Caliborn himself. Because technically, she’s right that what she’s doing is necessary. Lord English called someone like her into existence. It was always necessary that someone confront him, someone with the same devotion to Game Skill and Conquest that Caliborn has. Another powergamer, ready to (Heroically) take the bad guy down. Indeed, as a product of the aggressive, game-winning troll culture Doc Scratch brought into being, she is a reflection of English, his Girl Gamer double, his light mirror. She wins, in a way. She trounces Hussie. She gets exactly what she wanted. She gets to be the most important person to the cosmos. She gets to end his reign of terror, just as he got to have one in the first place.

But just like Caliborn, she’s caught in that story like a trap, and she can’t see it. She throws herself into the same black hole that devours Caliborn’s domain. Indeed, she chooses to sacrifice her relationship with Terezi, and the chance at a happy life it provides, for going out in a blaze of glory. She loses so much by this narrative, and yet she chooses it. This is in sharp contrast with her ghost self who instead chooses—of all the absurd things—happiness. And like Alt-Calliope, by committing to her narrative, she ensures (ironically) a loss of her own agency, ensures that she will be a tool used by Skaia and Paradox Space to end the story of Caliborn, to close a loop that was always meant to end. Just as Calliope and Alt-Calliope stand on two sides of that thematic divide, Vriska and (Vriska) also represent the choice between identity within an overpowering narrative and the more terrifying, but more meaningful possibility of personal growth.

(And isn’t it interesting that while Vriska thinks she’s the most important person to this story, she couldn’t have done it without Meenah, and Tavros, and Davepeta, and Aradia and an army of ghosts, all of whom work together to achieve that moment of victory? Her individualistic idea of her story is shown to be false by the very mechanism of her satisfaction.)

Simultaneously in Paradox Space these two stories take place. In the Furthest Ring, the story of Glory. In the final Sburb session, the story of Escape.

In contrast to Vriska’s story, the final chapter for our thirteen protagonists is about living despite the narrative structures around them, not throwing themselves into a predetermined role. We already talked about this with Calliope, but I think it’s the nature of the victory for all of them.

In ending their Game, John and friends are working within the confines of one system while rejecting another entirely—and yet they find a way of escaping both. They do not choose to live by Caliborn’s values. They don’t go to the Furthest Ring seeking glory but merely seek an ending, seek peace. The peace that Vriska and Caliborn rejected.

Sburb itself offers them that peace, and mediates their victory. Its narratives are a structure that they must turn to their advantage, rather than reject entirely. Because Sburb—or, to put it another way, the rules of the Game, the rules of Paradox Space—has been running the show this whole time. The retcon Juju was Skaia’s creation, and the kids’ use of it to retcon a better ending for themselves was part of its plan to close the loop of Lord English and bring him to an end. This is clear from the way the Denizens approve and sign off on their victory, as they approve of all victories in their Game. The kids’ happiness is incidental, a footnote in the grand essay that is Paradox Space, and not necessary to this larger narrative.

But it matters because it matters to John, and Rose, and Dave, and Jade, to Calliope and everyone in that final victorious group. Their freedom comes not from a grand narrative but from themselves, from the ways in which they’ve grown and the things they want to achieve. They fight the final enemies LE throws at them—a Queen, a King, some Carapacians locked in stalemate—just as they’d fight the final bosses of Sburb, not because they’re seeking glory, but because they want their Game of Sburb to come to an end.

John talks about the importance of his friends in his final conversation, and how glad he was to be able to save them. Roxy talks about everything that was taken from them by the Condesce and LE’s agents—the promise of a better life, a future for humanity and trolls—and how by defeating them, she hopes to take back those possibilities.

But in the end, not much needs to be said, because implied beneath all the humor, beneath the painful memory of Game Over and John’s retcon journey, is that what everyone’s fighting for fighting to be free.

And in the end, Sburb sets them free. For its own reasons, yes. But because they seek this freedom, also for theirs. They’re given a world to define and create for themselves. A world where they no longer play the Game. A place where the narratives they inherited, from LE, from Sburb, from the world, no longer matter. Where they can tell their own stories, the stories that come from their own growth and their own lives, rather than anyone else’s.

The End of All Storytelling

At the end of Homestuck, the camera begins to pull away. In their final moments in the story, we see the kids from a distance, wordless, opening the door to their freed but no longer clearly in the spotlight that once shone on them. We see them gathering together with loved ones, embracing those they thought they’d lost, reconciling after their past arguments. It’s not the end of a story, exactly. It’s an arrow, pointing in the direction of one. The signs that happiness is possible in that world of freedom. Even the depiction of the world they will build together is a suggestion, a projection forward through the door they will walk through. We can’t look on it directly, because it’s out of our scope. And in the Credits sequence we get glimpses into that world, but nothing direct. A series of suggestions, literal snapshots with us left to fill the space between.

The map begins to show only glimpses of the territory. Homestuck begins to pull away from Homestuck. We come to understand the kids are heading into a world in which all narratives cease.

Don’t misunderstand—this isn’t a rejection of the story of Homestuck. It’s an acknowledgement of its limitations. Homestuck sought to present a story of several kids who found themselves in a world of overbearing narratives, and how they responded and reacted to that—some by embracing those narratives, some by creating their own. They inherited narratives, but they made new ones that were more true to spontaneous experience, to their own lives. But Homestuck acknowledges that even the new narratives it creates can only say so much. No representation will ever perfectly be able to capture the spontaneous meaning of real lives. No map can ever perfectly show us the territory. So Homestuck chooses to point at the territory instead. To give us a sense of a future, of the lives that the kids, now freed, will be able to lead, without nailing down the details. In that wide-open space, we can imagine infinite possibility, and infinite freedom. Freedom for the characters, but also for the readers who love them.

In the end, it’s the same question all endings confront: how do you bring things to a close while acknowledging that life goes on, that nothing ever really ends? For Homestuck, the answer is to paint with broad strokes, to suggest that there will be a future, that each person we care about will shape it in their own way while leaving a wide space to explore what that means. For Homestuck, that means lifting away the restrictive structures of story for the wide-open possibilities of living.

Homestuck

So. Let me tell you about Homestuck. What does that word, that title, really mean?

If a home is the context we come from, the world we inherit, the realm we live in, then Homestuck describes our relationship with that origin. There are many origins in Homestuck, and thus there are many levels to that relationship. To be Homestuck is to be stuck in one’s context, to be stuck in one’s universe, one’s home planet. But also to be stuck in one’s narratives, in all the narratives one inherits from one’s guardians and from the world. To be stuck in a game, a set of rules. To be stuck in the corrupt realm of a Demiurge. To be stuck in the story one tells to oneself, to be stuck in a domain that promises glory but also prevents any other story from taking place.

The end of Homestuck is about escaping all of these things. How one achieves that escape, or fails to achieve it.

In the end, some do. Leaving Homestuck, they leave the context they inherited—through the door of a white house that represents their Game, the realm of their Demiurge, and their Story. Leaving it, they become unstuck from the Home they once knew.

They’re free.

Homestuck offers us the possibility of taking that journey with them, and finding our own understanding of that Escape. And it suggests to us the possibility of our own escape in a world that has its own structures, its own limitations, its own narratives, a world that, in its challenges, is really not too different from the world of the comic. It suggests that by questioning our inherited narratives, by writing our own stories, by living our own lives for our own reasons…

We, too, can be free.

That’s the meaning of Homestuck.

[Next time: confronting Homestuck’s reception, the limitations of my model, and the relationship between the fandom and Andrew Hussie. Coming…..at some vague point in the future.That sounds like a good release date. Yes, that’s right! Same day as Hiveswap. *rimshot*]

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dekumidoriyall · 6 years ago

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I am a wreck man. I liked it better when I could go home and cry alone. But now "home" is ykws place and he sees me cry and I'm over it.

And if I just leave the place to cry he will also notice bc he pays too much attention which I'm not mad at I guess it's better than him not noticing anything at all which would probably make it worse. Like I know my brain would turn that into "wow he doesn't even notice when you're upset he doesn't care at all" which my ex never noticed and that was exactly the case sometimes. But then again if I actually wanted to fake it I could, but I try not to as much bc that only makes me feel worse. I'd rather not fake it, bc one that's more exhausting, and two, my brain would again try to convince me no one notices bc they don't care. And then I have to tell myself , like yeah no shit jazz you're great at faking it. So I try not to fake it with ykw, I just tone it down a bit and then will lie about it. Which is dumb and I'm glad he called me out on it. And I get he shouldn't have to drag it out of me but also I really do feel my own thoughts are sometimes irrational which is why I double layer my thoughts and have to think about them. And then it sucks when I know I'm being sad or upset for a dumb reason and then he wants to ask me about it and it's like I already know I'm dumb for even thinking this but I don't want him to know how dumb I think i am sometimes. At least how dumb my first thoughts can be sometimes. Bc like I said, I'll tell myself hey that's nonsensical. I am rational believe it or not, it's just the second layer which I thank God I'm self aware enough to at least acknowledge when my own thoughts or feelings are being dumb.

But I have been feeling distant lately and I'm sad about that at a surface level, bc I know my language is quality time and v close after that is physical touch. Like I think QT is 11 and PT is 8, and then it goes words of affirmation at 7 and then acts of service at 4 (which is weird bc I actually think this is how I show it most but I don't receive it the same) and then of course receiving gifts at 0 bc y'all know I don't care jack shit at all for things or gifts or stuff.

And it sucks bc I just live there. It's like we've said. We're just friends. So at not just the surface level but at the second level, I get even more upset with myself for being upset in the first place bc it's like c'mon jazz it doesn't matter, y'all don't owe each other anything. Y'all can talk to whomever. Y'all can do whatever tf y'all want. Y'all aren't together. It doesn't really matter. You know me, I'm no good in the middle or with uncertainty. Uncertainty is my Achilles heel.

But idk he hasn't been as cuddly lately, doesn't do the hand to waist thing almost at all anymore. We had sex (which I know is opposite of physically distant) but I dont even know where that came from but I craved the small stuff so much that I was like I'll take this if this is all I can get. I mean don't get me wrong I thoroughly enjoyed it (although some foreplay would've been extra nice) and would ten ten do again but Physical touch isn't necessarily sex. For me it's the cuddling and the hugs and the orbiting and the almost hand holding and when the hand holding does happen it's nice. So it's not necessarily I'll take what I can get more so that I've been feeling a detachment and it was nice to feel wanted I guess. And i think this is what I like to use the most which is why I'm always like running my hands in his hair and beard and probably annoy him with the lack of physical space. But lately I feel I have to initiate all that or have to refrain completely bc I don't want to annoy him or suffocate him and again we aren't together so I shouldn't even be concerned with any of that. But I actually drafted a post about the sex thing but I couldn't even finish it bc I still am actually surprised by it. Like I honestly would've thought it was a dream if it weren't for me being sore. Like it had been months and wow it felt so great. But I literally have no idea where it came from. Literally a day before the boy and I were talking about a sermon about that. And don't get me wrong, I'd probably do it again, but there isn't a container at all right now. We aren't even dating and I can't justify it. Like of course I care about him and I have, ya know, those extra feelings, but as far as I know with him, I'm just a candidate. The "only candidate" as he put it a week or so ago, but who knows.

Again it comes back down to insecurity and uncertainty. But I put myself in this position. I started thinking about maybe I shouldve moved in with Momo but tbh I'd feel even more isolated and uncertain there so I cut that out thank God bc the enemy was really trying hard with that one.

Idk I guess nothing is really wrong it's just me I guess questioning my role in other people's lives. And I pray that I stop, bc at the end of the day it's just me and god and that relationship that matters.

Yeah I think my alignment is off, like pastor Steven furtick said in his contentment commandments sermon, if you feel like you're in a hurry, you're alignment is off. So I just need to refocus on God. Nothing else matters and I know it's easier said than done or even trying to convince me, but it won't stop me from trying.

Idk, I wish I cared less. About everything and everyone. All caring has ever gotten me is getting hurt.

And I don't want to talk about this which is why I'm writing it out. And if he needs to then I will try my best to talk it out and I don't want to not write on here bc I know he reads it, and I also don't want to refrain any of my feelings either bc this is the only way I can get them out. And sometimes I can't talk and be open about them and this is the next best thing. But I do promise to try. I am trying to be more open with him. And I wrote that thing about not being vulnerable with him and i don't want to go backwards. It was one of my intentions going into this year and I'm not gonna let one night that was bad timing ruin that. And honestly being vulnerable and open and honest with someone is very unlike me bc I am always on guard with people even though it doesn't seem it if you actually know me unless you're AJ or Kel who have gotten to know me under the surface bc even my daddy issues™ are open forum and I don't mind talking about that. But there are under the surface vulnerable feelings I've had on that that only few people know. So while it seems that I am open, I actually am always playing defense. Observing people and knowing more than I let on and feeling more than I let on. Idk I don't know if AJ gets the fact that I keep stuff to myself not bc I necessarily don't trust him, but bc the more people know about you the more they can hurt you. And idk aj knows more than Kel at this point when it comes to things that could potentially be used against me. And that's fucking terrifying.

And then always at the back of my head is this is all temporary. At any point he could get tired of me and I'd have to uproot and move again.

And you know what I have been giving him a lot of backstory lately. In the last month or so, since we had that talk about me being open, and since the first open up during Xmas and even before then when we kinda talked when we hot boxed the closet, I've been more open these past few weeks than I have the entirely of our friendship. And I don't get much back. I don't pry ever. It's not like I don't notice things. I just let him be and if he wants to tell me things then he can. Idk maybe he shows he cares by doing the prying and getting me to talk to him and tbh that's a good call bc if he didn't then I probs would spiral into a whole he doesn't care headspace. So I'm not gonna complain. And I hope he doesn't think that I don't care or notice, I just don't mind that he plays defense. Bc I do that with everyone. Well it's not that I don't mind, it's just i understand. But I notice when he gets heavy, and he won't talk to me about it or open up to me until after and even then he just brushes over it.

I don't know I feel like this post is going in circles but the more I write the more stuff is just coming to the forefront and i actually feel better but im not entirely sure any of this is coherent and also i probably misspoke on some things. But I feel better.

Long story short, I'll keep opening up bc it's something I haven't done so maybe it will be the thing that will help. And it's scary and I can't promise him 100 percent but I can promise to try and give more. I just need him to understand that I keep stuff to myself out of defense.

I'm not upset at him for anything even all the distance I've been feeling, it's just I'm sensitive to any slight change in behaviour, just like he is. He thinks he's the only keen one, and I'll give him props he's good, slightly better than me, I just don't speak on it. It doesn't bother me that he doesnt tell me everything. But my mind does go crazy with assumptions when I do notice any changes.

I just want us both to be light again. I think we've both been a bit heavy. I think we're both stressed about things that have nothing to do with each other but does affect our friendship.

We just both are people who get in our own heads. But we deal with it differently, which is okay. This is all a journey, a learning curve. And honestly it wont get better unless we both communicate better. But when neither of us likes to feel vulnerable or show weakness, it's kinda difficult. Especially me. I'm not gonna speak for him. I have to actively be aware of it. Its only 8 days into the yesr so I don't think I'm necessarily failing at choosing joy or opening up, I think it's the fact that I'm doing that is such a radical shift that I'm kinda grinding the gears within myself. So it's just growing pains.

Sorry for the long ass post I just needed a big mind dump and to turn my thoughts around from where they were bc I actually feel like I kinda made some progress within myself.

Anyway the other night was great, both AJ meeting my family and ya know coming back home. So I fully intend to still post that draft I was writing (I really still am in disbelief) bc it was about both those things. Just maybe when I let it sit for a bit longer. Also I kinda still wanna keep it for myself for a bit. I have a lot of thoughts about it. Good and maybe some, not bad, but just tangents I guess. So soon.

#personal

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glass-closet · 8 years ago

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I felt Jensen's reply to be sort of rough, rude. I dont know what's up with him this hiatus. Jared's post was cute with all the "nothing to warm me up" and its implication. Not to lie I actually had a hope for a cutesy exchange or just no reply at all so we could have our own headcanons.. before seeing his post. :/

Hello, dear anon!

I can definitely see where you’re getting that, but there are a number of reasons Jensen could be acting grumpy. Can I go wild and speculate a little with this?

Jensen and Jared are in Vancouver together. Someone thinks this is a good time to underline how very apart they’ve been during the hiatus. Jensen finds it ridiculous and can’t contain his sarcasm (while probably being within a few metres from his boy).

Jared and Jensen are really apart. Jensen is less than pleased about it, clearly stating in his post that there’s nobody to fuss about his wellbeing either (where Jared usually would) and perhaps a bit worried to see his boy clad in only a t-shirt in the “frozen tundra.”

Jensen is utilizing his Dean persona and there’s nothing deeper to it.

The first theory is the one I believe myself. I’ve come to think most of Jensen’s recent snark is borne from the frustration of not getting to be seen with Jared openly. They’ve gone to great lenghts to cover their tracks as of late and Jensen just doesn’t seem the type that likes sneaking around.

If he was in Hawaii, how enjoyable could his vacation have been if he was mostly confided to their hotel room or condo? Obviously they’ve decided on staying in the closet together, but that doesn’t mean they have to like the situation. What this instagram mess is telling me above all is that they’re both sick and tired of hiding.

I hope you’ll have mercy on Jensen, anon. Imagine yourself in his shoes for a minute and feel the pressure he must be under. Wouldn’t that make you a little snarky, too? Just because he can appear snappy on social media doesn’t mean he’s snappy to Jared in their face-to-face interactions. We can only imagine what goes on behind closed doors - social media doesn’t reveal the big picture.

Have a great weekend, anon!

#seraresponds #anon #tinhat talk #j2 tinhat

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weareallfallengods · 4 years ago

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Reposting because I'm a disaster and don't know how to pin posts.

Survival

Inspiration: If you’re over 25 and haven’t done something remarkable, you are hunted down and killed. Some people invent things. Some make cures for diseases. Others become established members of their community. You’re pushing 30, and somehow not dead yet, even though you cant think of a single thing you’ve done thats remarkable in any way. Why aren’t you dead?

I write for adults about adult themes with adult language. I try to tag possible triggers (but I know I'm not going to get all of them), so if violence or implied death or cussing bothers you, you'll probably want to find a different author.

********************************************

Somehow, that date came up again. Not quite sure how, but somehow, the number circled on my shitty wall calendar with the coffee splatter on it managed to be today. Again. It's been doing that for 5 years now.

At first I wanted to be a surgeon- save people's lives, make a difference, all that shit. Yeah, I was caught up in the hype for a while too. Just like everyone. Thought I'd make some ground-breaking discovery and change the world. Just like everyone. And then, at 22, I flunked out of med school. That was it. Dream over, kaput, fin.

When I opened my termination letter, it was like reading a death sentence. 10 years of prep and study down the drain. 3 years left. 3 years, and no idea what to do. No clue what I could do to save my own life after all those years learning how to save others.I drank for a solid month. I dont even remember that month now. My only memento from it is an entire skip of liquor bottles. It's a miracle I didn't die from alcohol poisoning. Not that I didn't try.

See, I was afraid. Scared, actually. Terrified would be more accurate, if I'm honest. I knew I only had 3 years left until they came for me. Unless I managed to do something extraordinary within the next 3 years, they'd come for me, and the only thing that would remain is a 2 paragraph obituary in the local paper, followed by a vacancy announcement. When you're suddenly forced to confront your own imminent demise, and see every dream, hope and aspiration you'd had evaporate, right in front of your eyes, its perfectly natural to drown that in a swimming pool of vodka.

But then, after a month of drowning, and a week of curing a hangover that would make Satan shudder, I got angry. Like Bruce Banner angry. As I was leaving an all night diner, the notice board caught my eye. Having nothing better to do with my life, I stood there for a while just reading every single card in detail, every single lost cat, every used car, every 5k charity run. And then I saw it. And I thought, "You know what? Fuck it, why not. I've spent all this time trying to do one thing that I've never actually done just whatever I feel like, had hobbies, anything really. Why the fuck not."

And that's how I ended up 2 days later in some shity warehouse district, rolling around on a mat with some dude I didnt even know, sweating and swearing profusely and having the time of my life. "Sasha's Self Defense" it said on the small, weathered and rusted sign on the brick wall out front, next to a door that looked like it had been transported straight from the proverbial gulag.

I'd naively thought this was going to be one of those Karate Kid knock offs for some reason when I first arrived. Sasha soon disabused me of that notion. In fact, when he saw I'd brought a new gi in a duffle bag, he laughed so hard he had to slap his ass down on a rickety folding chair just to keep breathing. Once he calmed his mirth at my expense, he let me know in a no-nonsense, 'I'm an old-timer and seen some shit in my day' heavily accented tone that this would be a class that focused on survival at all costs. "No bullshit wax on-wax off," were his exact words I believe.

And boy was he right. When I told him I'd set aside my year's tuition for lesson payments, well, wouldn't you know it, I became his most prized pupil; I quickly learned this was not a good thing. It meant 14 hours a day of the most humiliatingly punishing activity ever dreamed up by Moscow's Finest. I couldnt even move the morning after my first day. But somehow I limped my battered frame down to the bus stop and was only an hour late. Ha, only. Sasha seemed to take it as a personal insult. The only thing he hated less than sloppiness was tardiness it seemed. Apparently the 10th Circle of Hell was reserved for those who dared be late. And he made you earn your way out of that circle.

His only saving grace was fairness. If I had to suffer, at least I wasnt alone. Well, at first anyway. The few other students that suffered his wrath along side me doing slavic folk dances with wrist and ankle weights very quickly learned that this wasn't the type of class they had thought it was and soon I was alone with Sasha.

On the days I did well, I got treated to pierogies. Oh man, I lived for those pierogies. They were made by angels and served by someone I can only describe as if Jesus came back as a woman. Who was Russian. And spoke even less english than Sasha, if that was possible. His sister was as completely opposite to that sadistic maniac as it was possible to be and still be a human being. Where he was loud, she was soft. Where he was tough, she was gentle. Where he was strict, she was generous, even indulgent. Blonde to his brunette. Slim to his barrel chest. Cousin by marriage, I think they said. Well, relatives of some kind anyway. And she was the only one who could make him laugh. And when he laughed, the whole block knew! He was just that loud, that boisterous, with everything he did.

But I loved his little Anya. Just like everyone. But like in a wholesome, mom-ish kind of way. I loved her because I got to sit for an hour when she was around. Because she"d always tuck a to-go container of pierogies into my bag. Because she'd chide Sasha for pushing me too hard. In short, she was an angel.

But I have to hand it Sasha- in 4 months, he took a scrawny bookworm into someone who could pose for Men's Health. In 6 months, I could beat Ivan, his partner, in 5/10 sparring matches. In 7 months, I ran a marathon. In 9, he had me enter a triathalon. And I made it into the top 50 out of 500 entrants. Not too bad if I say so myself. In 12 months, I was beating Ivan almost every time.

And that's when the other Ivan showed up. After a year, Sasha decided it was time I learned weaponry. After all, no real fight was fair, he said. And Ivan (another cousin? Sasha had one heck of an extended family) instructed me on everything from broken beer bottles, to knives and pool cues. And my medical training paid off, because more often than not, I was the one stitching myself up if training got a little rough that day.

Eventually, I moved into the gym. Not sure how it happened, but I think I just got too tired to leave one day and never really left. Sasha didnt seem to mind since it meant I wasnt ever late again. Plus the coffee he imported was the best thing ever. Like it was so good that's probably the Extraordinary Thing he did to live as long as he had.

The days just melted together, into one long symphony of beautiful exhaustion and physical torment, as I poured myself into the first activity I could remember doing purely because I wanted to, something that numbed the dread of the finality of my life expectancy.

But then one day, one specific day, the one I'd been dreading in the back of my mind for a year came around.

They found me.

I guess they were a little slow in finding me, not surprising since I'd basically just disappeared from my old life, no forwarding address type thing. It wasnt intentional, it just sort of happened, what with me diving head first into something purely for me, without the thought of doing it for someone else. But they found me. Just like they find everybody.

See, it doesnt matter if you try to run, if you move, or change your name. They always find you eventually. I just hadn't thought about it in a long while. That year was the first time since I was probably 14 that I'm hadn't thought about the Gardeners. I guess that's why it surprised me so much.

Yeah, Gardeners. I dont know who came up with the name, in guess some misguided attempt at a positive PR spin bullshit to pass off squads of government assassins who's only job was to track down the NCs of the world and eliminate them. Sorry, NCs- Non-Contributors; the people who hit their expiration date without doing something noteworthy, something that was deemed to "advance or bolster the Human Condition" to borrow a phrase from the civics classes we had to take every fucking year of school. A cutesy sounding name that was supposed to make the government sound like a benevolent old couple pulling weeds from their garden of humanity. The worst lies always sound the sweetest, dont they?

And I was now 25.

It happened a few weeks after my birthday. Just another routine day for me, going for a light 5k run after my soak in a mineral bath. Light rain, most of the streetlights out, the few lights on in the warehouse district reflected beautifully off the streets. That's why I ran at night, all the colors changed that normally bleak neighborhood into something beautiful. It was just one little thing to balance out the harshness of reality, and I reveled in it.

I don't actually remember what happened exactly. I do recall seeing a suspiciously conspicuous homeless guy huddled under a loading dock awning, and then just a flash of movement from the corner of my eye. I think it happened really quickly; at least that's what Sasha said the next morning as he was making arrangements for me to visit another cousin of his "back in the old country". It could have been. God, after seeing the bodies around me in the aftermath, I hope, for their sake, that it was fast. 5 bodies. All still. I still remember my breath turning to blue fog, blurring the details of them. Helping me to be able to pretend I didn't see the blood mixing with the rain and oil, spreading out over the concrete like a macabre inversion of the cloudy sky above.

I'm glad they wore masks. It's bad enough having that scene burned into my brain forever, without specific people's faces being etched there as well. I'm glad I dont see their faces in my mind every time I close my eyes. I just wish I could still enjoy the rain. They managed to take that from me, even if I'm still breathing, so I guess they didnt completely fail. They just killed a part of my soul instead. But hey, there's plenty of people that don't like the rain, right? But I bet they don't smell blood when it does though.

And that was pretty much it. No sirens, no manhunt, nothing. Before I could process what was happening, I was on a bus, headed for "the old country", which, as near as I could tell, looked an awful lot like Pittsburg. Sasha's 'cousin' met me at the bus depot there, a man of very few words. Not as loud as his cousin, Zhena tended to communicate with looks, grunts and shrugs mostly. Same work ethic though.

And then the cycle repeated- 14 months this time before they caught up with me. Too bad that Zhena got caught up in it, he was a great guy. He and I didn't really become close or buddies or anything, but it still hurt to see what happened to him. To what was left of him anyway. The Gardeners definitely were trying to send a message with that. To quote an old wise man, "I didnt want to know, but now I do, and I'm telling you, you dont want to know." And that's coming from someone who was training to become a surgeon, so just trust me on this one.

This time, they were waiting for me. I think they'd planned on Zhena being enough of a distraction that they'd be able to take me out easily, but since since I woke up the next day on the floor of the sparring ring in a too large pool of blood that wasnt my own, I'd say they failed. The difference this time was I was on my own. No 'cousins' to call in favors from. No family I could call because I didnt want them getting a visit from the Gardeners either. I was alone this time.

Weirdly, I was actually OK with that. I'd been surrounded by family, teachers, advisors, tutors for so long that solitude was actually kind of nice. I could hear myself think my own thoughts for the first time in what seemed like forever.

I'm not ashamed to say that I took what little of value there was from Zhena's gym (I knew him well enough to know that Sasha was his only family) so that I could get a seedy hotel for a while. I did at least have the decency to let Sasha know, and that that would be the last he ever heard from me, to keep him out of trouble. Bad enough that 10 people were already dead, I didn't want Sasha or Anya's name added to that list because of me.

And so I vanished. Completely. Sure I travelled, kept studying and training like I had been, but never staying longer than a few months, never using the same name, copying other random people's habits and patterns so I didnt have one of my own for them to track down. Yeah it was cliche, but hey, I figured my dad watching all those spy flicks when I was young had to be good for something, right?

Sometimes I was a baker, sometimes a delivery driver, even a dock hand. Whatever it took to make a buck so I could eat.

I got really good at other things too. Like disposing of bodies. Not really a skill I ever thought I'd want or need, but Necessity is a harsh and demanding teacher. Sadly, my skill as a surgeon came in handy- bodies are easier to get rid of when they're in smaller pieces. And people are easier to turn into bodies when you know how they're put together intimately. Not what I had in mind for my life, but since it was the choice between this or dying, well, I guess I can put up with it.

I suppose that catches us all up to the present, more or less. OK yeah theres a lot that's gone down between Pittsburg and now, but it was all pretty much the same: lather, rinse, repeat. Literally sometimes. Those were the days it felt like there wasnt enough soap in the world to get all the blood off.

So here I am, I'm my single room in Kandahar, staring at the date that had somehow come up again. Every year, they send someone. Usually a team. And I survive. No matter how they come at me, or when or how many. I survive.

And I'm sitting here, staring at the calendar, steaming cup of espresso, just staring, as a light breeze fluttered the corner of the calendar page, sending the orchids dancing in the vase next to it. All I could think is, "How? How does this keep happening? I'm not even supposed to be here, not supposed to be alive."

As I raised my cup of espresso, something slid under my door. "OK that's weird," I said aloud as I stood.

The chair made an ungodly screech as I pushed it back and made my way over to where a small, cream colored envelope sat on the floor, a couple inches from the bottom of the door. It was heavy for it's size, but not because anything was in it, just the paper was that thick. Probably hand-made. It's odd the little things you notice in times of stress. Heavy, rough paper, no postmark, nothing written on the outside, just the flap tucked in, not even sealed. Reminded me of how my mother used to give out birthday cards. I always thought that was a little weird, but it was just one of her quirks that made her even more endearing to everyone.

I sat down a little heavier than I had planned and felt the chair crack a little. There was a single sheet of paper inside, folded in half; I was right- handmade paper. But that wasnt important, what was important was the heavy, blocky hand-written message it contained.

"We've been looking for you for a long time. It has come to my attention that you may have something unique to contribute after all. We may have been too hasty in judging your Ability to be a Contributor. I believe you do actually have a remarkable Ability to Survive. I'd like to speak to you this afternoon in the plaza outside the Blue Mosque. I will be alone, and you can approach me, so as to allay your justifiable suspicions. I will have a silver coffee set on the table in front of me.

I believe we can help each other, if you're willing to listen to my proposition.

-Soon,

Baddar"

Well, this is interesting.

#survival #original story

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adtwixt · 5 years ago

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Adtwixt - News: 400+ Things to Declutter When Downsizing What I Decluttered

Downsizing the size of your home isnt difficult. It is finding things to declutter to ensure you fit comfortably in your new space that is difficult.

My husband and I learned quickly how to declutter stuff from our home we didnt need or want. Sure, a big part of this was because we moved out of a 1,400+ square foot house into a 600 square foot studio apartment, but we knew we were up for the challenge.

We realized that we dont have to have a lot to be happy. In fact, I now know the opposite is true.

Because downsizing isnt easy, I think it is necessary to walk you through my decluttering list before and after we downsized.

The decluttering list before we moved were things we realized we didnt need early into the process. However it is the decluttering list after we moved that really opened my eyes to what we didnt need.

Everyone is different and the things you need are different from my needs.

So when you see that my iron and ironing board made the list, dont panic! Im not telling you that you dont need them if you use them frequently. By all means, keep them. They havent been used in my home in Im not sure how long, so they dont get space in my very limited real estate.

Another thing I would like to address is that I didnt count each and every little bitty item, because the true number would be over 1,000 easy. Honestly, just thinking I decluttered over 1,000 items is crazy!

Things to Declutter When Downsizing

Before I get into my decluttering list, I want to share with you some quick tips for identifying what you can let go of when preparing to downsize yourself.

1 // Declutter Multiples

If you have several items that are the same, declutter them. They can take up a lot of space quickly, so be sure you only keep what you use.

2 // Consider your storage space

Does your smaller home have adequate storage space compared to where you live now? Most likely it doesnt.

In this case, you need to have a priority list of what youre willing to store in the space you have. Trust me, if there isnt space for something low on your list, you really dont need it.

Youll make space for what is truly important.

Do not worry with a storage container, unless there are moving schedule issues. A storage container enables indecision and costs you a lot more than keeping things that arent as important to you.

3 // Be ruthless and honest

Depending on how much youre downsizing, you may have to declutter a lot more than you anticipate.

Be very ruthless in the things you keep and honest about what you truly dont need. Ensure that the things you keep deserve the space they need.

4 // Get it out of the house quickly!

When decluttering to downsize, it is helpful to remove things to declutter from the house as quickly as possible.

This helps you see what you have that you feel is important. Over the period of a few days, your ideas of the things youve kept will adjust and you will likely declutter a few more things.

5 // Declutter as you move into your new home

This is very important! As you move into your new home, youll see what you do and dont have room for after youve moved.

Dont clutter up a space just because you kept too much before the move. Give the items a second thought and declutter what you do not have space for now.

Things to Declutter When Downsizing

Anything mentioned in my lists were either donated, sold via a garage sale, or tossed depending on their condition. I believe it is our responsibility to declutter responsibly and not simply toss everything in the trash.

One mans trash is another mans treasure.

Decluttering List Before We Downsized

Again, I just want to note that just because I dont find things within this list useful doesnt mean that you dont find them useful.

This list consists of everything I can remember decluttering, but I promise there is more. When youre downsizing you figure out the difference between need versus want, especially if your goal is to be comfortable in your downsized space.

Our specific goal was to have a home for everything we kept, so that we knew where everything was when needed. We also wanted to feel like we still had plenty of space after downsizing and not be cluttered by our things.

Now that all of that is out of the way, lets get to this list! Ive categorized things as best as possible, so if youre looking to see a specific part of the list, you can.

Laundry Room / Cleaning Supplies

Iron

Ironing Board

Sponges

Old Floor Cleaner

Mr. Clean Sponges

2 Windex bottles

2 Comet bottles

All Purpose Cleaners

Clothes Baskets

Clothing Rack

Bag Full of Hangers

Decor I Let Go Of

Christmas Decor one large tote full!

Old Glass Jar

2 Baskets

Wall Plates

LOTS of Picture Frames

Art Pictures

Sofa Table

Dinning Room Table

Patio Set

Couch

Candles

2 Vases

3 Decorative Pillows

Floor Lamp

Table Lamp

Tall Bookcase

Long Bookcase

Walmart Bookcase

34Large Shelving Unit

Fake Flowers

1 Plug In Wax Warmer

3 Full Size Wax Warmers

15 Wax Bars

Dresser

2 Decorative Chairs

Kitchen Things I No Longer Needed

Cookie Sheets

K-cup Organizer

Lunchbox

Blender

Expired Foods

2 Recipe Books

2 Large Pots

1 Pot Lid

1 Small Pot

Several Kitchen Towels

Apple Slicer

Cups

Mugs

George Foreman Grill

Duplicate Measuring Cups and Spoons

Duplicate Everyday Utensils

Tupperware

Glass Containers

Several Butter Bowls

Serving Dishes

Pizza Cutter

Crystal Serving Organizer

2 Sets of Salt & Pepper Shakers

Wine Bottle Holder

Herbs & Spices [by accident!]

Coffee Thermos

Christmas Plates

Christmas Place Mats

Shot Glasses

Cruise Ship Glasses

2 Red Solo Cup Wine Glasses

Waffle Maker

Complete Dish Set with Salad Plates and Mugs

2 Crockpots

Clothes [several of each listed]

Shirts

Tank Tops

Leggings

Jackets

Socks

Undergarments

Lounge Wear

Jeans

Shorts

Dresses

Swimsuits

Accessories I Never Wore/Used

Most of my jewelry collection

Gloves

Scarves

Beanies

Hats

1 Pair of Shoes

1 Pair of Boots

Sunglasses

Brown Cross-Over Purse

Grey Skirt Purse

Office Things I Decluttered

Drawer Organizer

Extra Paper

Pens

Pencils

Paper Clips

Binder Clips

Binder Organizers

Folders

Highlighters

Notepads

Notebooks

Binders

Trash Can

Old Bills

Junk Mail

Receipts [no longer needed]

Coupons

Paperclips

Stapler

2 Tape Dispensers

Old Textbooks

Magazines

Old Electronics

Paperwork

Stickers

Fabric

Yarn

Crochet Needles

Glitter

Crayons

Color Books

Playing Cards

Styrofoam Balls

Push Pins

Felt Squares

Felt Balls

Party Sacks

Gift Bags

Manuals

Play Station

X Box

Storage Boxes

Desk Organizers

Backpack

Computer Backpack

Massive Bathroom Declutter

Beauty Samples

Hair Care Samples

Glass Case

Contact Lenses Case

Plunger

Expired Medicine

Skin Care

Makeup

Makeup Brushes

Cosmetic Roll-Up Bag

Brush Organizer

5 Towels

10 Wash Cloths

Hair Band

Broken Hair Clips

Apothecary Jars [by accident broken]

10 Nail Polishes

Nail File Set

Nail Care Kit

Scale

Perfumes

Brush

Comb

Stretched Out Elastics

Old Lotion

Old Spa Products

Random Things I Let Go Of

Blankets

2 Scuba Gear Bags

Photo Albums

Books

CD Collection

Individual CD Cases

Multiple CD Holder Cases

Gardening Gloves

Photos

Sentimental Items

Old Dance Costumes [from my childhood]

Jewelry Box

Dog Feed and Water Bowls

Who knew we had so much we did not need in our life?! As far as the space we freed to downsize, a close equivalent would be a car and a half sized garage.

I will say we were not hoarders by any means.

Having 1,450 square feet to fill allowed us to have that much excess. With the exception of my Office/Craft Room, everything had a place. When we decided to downsize, we no longer had that much space to fill, and I wanted a clutter-free space.

Related Post: Tidying Goals that were Achievable In A Weekend!

My husband and I discussed what downsizing would mean in terms of what we owned, and decided the best thing was to let go of everything we could, which led us to continue decluttering after we downsized to ensure we achieved our goals.

Decluttering After We Downsized

This process was a bit different. We moved into our smaller space and after some time passed, we felt like something was a bit off. My anxiety was a bit high, so I took some action to clear out a bit more.

Let me take you through the process of what I did, then Ill share the decluttering list below that for you.

How I Decluttered Each Space

For the bathroom //

While the first thing I did wasnt decluttering necessarily, I did paint my aloe vera pot white to create a calmer environment within my bathroom. A small and simple fix!

For the kitchen //

I moved all of the vegetables off the counter top to have more space. Replaced my two small utensil holders with one large basket to hold my utensils better.[I do not have a lot, but some pieces are bulky, and I like having them all together.]

I purged a few items due to excess. [These items will be listed at the end of the post.] I also ordered a sample of fabric to see if it will work to get the kitchen project complete.

For the living space //

I purged my book collection. Looking at it every day reminded me of which books I have not to read, and which book I need to finish. Asking myself why I needed a book helped a lot!

I let go of40% of my collection by analyzing why I held onto a book! For the books I have yet to read, I read the synopsis to see if it still sounded appealing to read. If it did, I kept it. If not, the library received it!

Below are two pictures of the books I donated. The two towers were easy enough to make a decision on, and the other picture were the two items I thought about before making my decision.

For the bedroom area //

I simply cleaned up the space, put everything in its place, and organized my clothes and shoes. I tried my best to simplify the appearance of what we have.

We do not have an enclosed closet, and having empty hangers bother me! I caught up on laundry and hid the extras we have, so that my mind could release this silly annoyance.

For everything else //

I went through and tossed what was not necessary to keep. I have old sports awards that I want to keep, but I told myself I could only do it if it fit in my keepsake box.

Also, I had a couple of boxes to go through and sort, and was able to clean out all of the boxes and rid them from our space. One box contained random cords, another contained office supplies, and a box of things that accidentally ended up in the garage sale stuff.

Having these boxes out of the space is so nice! Since I do not have or need an office anymore, I took my supplies to work and actually use them instead of storing them!

Now I can look around my home and not see just-in-case boxes or a task I need to complete!

By the time I finished, I had 2 large totes and 2 boxes full of things to donate, 1 sack of things I tossed, and a more tidy space than before I started! How in the world did I still have so much excess?!

My goal now is to have the rest of my stored things organized into the empty totes and get started putting my fall and winter capsule wardrobe together.

Now let us get to the list of what I donated! Starting with the list of home goods, and then a list of the books I gave to the library including the reason why I let go of each one.

Decluttering List After We Downsized

1 Three piece jar set 1 full size Christmas wax warmer 2 plug-in Christmas wax warmers 2 scare crows on a stick 1 scare crow and pumpkin decor piece 1 recycles glass bottle 3 Christmas wall plaques 1 Red Dish 1 Christmas 12 piece Dish Set 1 Serving Platter 1 Snowman paper towel holder 6 picture frames 100+ ornaments 2 crochet dollies[?] 2 Christmas decor wall plaques 1 Christmas card holder 1 organizer box 3 Christmas gift boxes [decor] 1 scare crow candy container 1 Trick or Treat candy container 2 Red Beaded Christmas Tree cones 22 cabinet hinges [From a project that did not happen. Returned to store for store credit.] 1 Wine Glass 3 Baskets 2 Perfumes 1 blender cup 1 dish scrubber 1 reusable plastic bottle 2 small boxes of tea 1 plastic tupperware [does not match current set] 4 candles 1 salad lunch organizer 1 pair of earrings 1 blue blouse 1 pair of grey heels 1 vintage cream holder 11 scarves 1 toboggan 1 belt 3 pairs of jeans 1 pair of flip flops 1 random fork 1 feather [decor] 3 Christmas nesting bowls 3 Christmas dish cloths 1 pot holder 1 oven mitt 1 cake pan with lid 3 wooden cooking spoons 2 spatulas 1 cookie spatula 1 pair of tongs 4 vintage picture frames 20 old pictures[ tossed not going to donate pictures of myself of course] Several sheets and pillow cases I did not know we had[I repurposed these into shop rags for my husband.]

Downsizing was the best decision we could have made for our lives! It forced us to identify the clutter in our lives and allowed us to let go of personal attachment to items. This freed us from the stuff that did not serve a purpose in our lives.

Looking back at the things I tossed always leaves me baffled, because I had no idea there was so many things clouding our lives that we truly didnt need.

I know I always talk about how minimalism changed my life, but it definitely changed my husbands life as well.

If youre ready to declutter, I highly encouarge you to check out my 30 Day Minimalist Decluttering Challenge. It will help you not only declutter your physical things, but also your mind!

Also, if you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow me on Pinterest!

How to Declutter Your Home FAST! - 9 Quick Things to Do

4 Things to Declutter for a Simple, Clutter-Free

Downsizing Your Lifestyle; How I Downsized to Get to

2017 Declutter Challenge: Week One - Let's Declutter

6 Fast Declutter Tips for When You have ZERO Time

2017 Declutter Challenge - Created by The Tannehill

The post 400+ Things to Declutter When Downsizing What I Decluttered appeared first on The Tannehill Homestead.

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