#i have an alt version of this where its flipped but i think this one is esp funny

[the-force-awakens]

#just sleep-deprived starfighter pilots things

[occasionaltouhou]

the most fucked up thing about lost word is that the plot, conceptually, is actually kind of cool. you play as fuckin, amnesiac girl who everyone loves instantly but kind of in, like, a "oh she's so cute and sweet, trying to do things, so earnest" kinda way. like a small child or a pet. i'm not joking that's exactly what it's like. you have to play as a girl btw

anyway right after you show up a bunch of Cubes begin appearing. some of these Cubes transport you and other touhous to fucked up alt dimensions with something wrong with them that you have to fix, and the actual, like, mechanics of that? are really cool.

a Word is missing from the world. it cannot be remembered or acknowledged by anyone inside that world, including your character and the other characters who come along with you. the removal of this Word has an Effect - for instance, in what amounts to the tutorial world, the word missing was simply "hakurei", but the removal of this word caused the barrier to go haywire and begin eating all of existence. by the time you get to that gensokyo it's like. the three sages and suika and That's It. also that gensokyo is flooded because The Moon Was Destroyed (the moon is also destroyed in the second alt world, for different reasons)

so how do you find a word you can't remember? well, you know how gacha games usually have like, logs of events and stories and stuff? the one in lost word is diagetic, and it Remembers and Records everything that happens to the protagonist. it's all in there. all you have to do is work out what's probably missing, flip through the journal to find it, say it out loud, and problem solved! kind of! the worlds still have to rebuild themselves from the ruins but they're no longer Totally Fucked

so like, this is a really strong concept, right? a straightforwards idea with a lot of potential for interesting stories.

they get bored of it after the second alternate universe. they start doing a whole bunch of random bullshit in the third one that turns out not to be relevant, and then they do so much alternate universe shit in the fourth one with no real purpose to any of it that it all just completely slides off your brain because None Of It Actually Matters. it sucks

lost word has a looooot of problems but one of its key issues is a lack of confidence in its own material. it needs to keep trying to do whatever it fucking can to be Interesting in spite of the fact that its Core Idea is interesting!!!!

it's the same thing as the status quo issue. characters who travel to the alternate universes don't remember them after leaving, and that way the peaceful little status quo of gensokyo is maintained. that way you can have a bunch of 2008-doujin-style events in which nothing happens but everyone just generically has a good time. and none of the events deal with the alternate universe shit, only the actual story chapters, and the story chapters are so disinterested in the actual nature of their alternate universes

(there's actually one counter to the "alternate universes being irrelevant" thing but it's Dreadful. the yukari from the flooded gensokyo made a video game one time to help rebuild her world, the hecatia of that world pirated, and every so often there's an event where you go into that video game to hang out, and let's be clear, not alternate universe versions of the characters, but video game alternate universe versions of the characters, who don't actually meaningfully exist. the worst part is these events are usually the best one - who'd have thought a game about alternate universes would have its best material in alternate universe stories?)

as you can probably tell, i played it for a while! the story was just vaguely interesting enough to keep me going, and every so often there'd be a cool design, but one day i just hit an event so boring i just. stopped. i don't even remember which it was (i think it might've been a rerun actually) but i just. saved the transfer number and uninstalled it. haven't looked back. terrible fucking game with incredible wasted potential

i hope this answers your question!

my complaints about lost word are many and various, going from constantly being annoyed at how they wasted the core concept, general complaints about how badly the story is told (even for a gacha game) and the irrelevant doujin-style events, but i think one of my biggest complaints, still, is that a lot of the alts that you see? aren't even, like, in the story. or the events. they just try to sell them by virtue of their being alts of touhou characters that you recognise. truly dire

[corvus--rex]

So, I started this back in December, wrote about 25 words for it, and then it just sat there doing absolutely the fuck nothing. Until tonight apparently when I added 1k+ to it out of nowhere. To be totally clear, I have no idea where this is going, but figuring out cis swapped versions of everyone is interesting.

~*~*~*~

It happened gradually.  One by one they just disappeared.  All five Paladins, gone from the castle.  The Lions were still in their hangars, but neither Allura nor Coran could find any trace of their pilots.

Keith woke with a groan, uncomfortable on the hard floor.  Maybe that gladiator drone hit him harder than he thought.  He was immediately aware of a toe nudging him in the ribs.  Reflexes kicked in before rational thought and he grabbed the leg attached to the toe, throwing its owner to the floor.  His attempt to pin them was thwarted, their positions flipped, and he once again found himself on his back on the floor.  Keith felt like he was looking into a mirror, or more accurately, some hologram simulation Pidge might have come up with.  The French braid hanging over one shoulder didn’t particularly surprise him, he knew his own hair was getting long, it was the narrower jaw, softer lines, slimmer frame.  While the person pinning him to the floor looked like his clone, he knew that unless Zarkon’s witch had upped her genetic experiment game, she couldn’t be.  He also knew he didn’t have a sister, he’d had enough visions in the Quantum Abyss to tell him that.  So who the actual fuck was this girl that looked like his copy?

She released him without warning, getting up and extending a hand.  “Come on, I don’t bite.  Much.  I’m Keira.  And who the fuck are you, besides being my not-clone?”

Keith accepted the assistance cautiously.  “Keith.  And who the fuck are you?”

Keira rolled her eyes at him, the expression familiar even on a feminine face.  “I already told you.  Keira?  Let’s go, I know Lea’s going to want to meet you.”

“Who?” he asked, following her out of what looked exactly like the castle’s training deck.

“Lea.  Sorry.  Leandra.  My girlfriend.  What about you?”

“What?  Oh, right.  I have a boyfriend.  Lance.”

“Huh.  Even alt-me is gay.”

“Yeah.  Very much so.  Where the fuck are we?”

Keira turned around, gesturing to the walls as she walked backwards.  “This is the Castle of Lions.”

Keith stopped.  “And next you’re gonna tell me you're a Paladin of Voltron.”

Keira stopped as well.  “What else would I be.  But that means that you're one too.  Holy shit, I think you're from an alternate reality.  One where it’s very similar but slightly different.  I wanna know how similar.  How’s your dad?”

“He…died.  When I was-”

“Six?  That’s when my mom died.”

“And yours?  Your dad, I mean.”

“Blade of Marmora.”

“So’s my mom.  I think literally everything is flipped.  I think your girlfriend is the other version of my boyfriend.  Our parents are flipped.  Next you’re going to tell me that Allura and Coran are flipped too.”

“I need to find Lea,” Keira said as she turned around again, leading the way faster than before, “And who the fuck are Allura and Coran?”

Keith broke into a jog to catch up.  “Princess Allura, and Coran.  When we found them in cryosleep we thought they were the last Alteans.  Turned out we were wrong about that, but that’s an entirely separate story.”

“Oh, you mean Prince Allurant and Corranore.  Yeah, we thought they were the last Alteans too.  But then I took an accidental road trip with my dad and we found a secret Altean colony.  Met Romellus there.  He’s a little scatterbrained, but I like him.  Dad kind of adopted him.”

“Yeah, Mom basically adopted Romelle when we found her.  It sounds like all our events are the same.  Like, nothing is different except for this,” Keith said, waving a hand between himself and Keira.

“I think we should be able to figure this out with Pidge’s help.  He’s our tech genius, and probably yours too.”

“She is.”  He stopped again before following Keira.  “Goddammit, that means that Matt’s a girl here.  I don’t want to know what that looks like.”

Keira turned to walk backward again.  “Maddie’s a guy?  That dork?  But hold on, you didn’t call Pidge anything different.”

“No, she goes by Pidge and threatens to stab anyone who calls her Katie.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Pidge.  Ok, this was the last place I saw Lea.  She’s usually with Hana now.”

They were in front of the kitchen, and Keith could only assume that Hana was their Hunk.  Keith stopped short, suddenly realizing that Shiro had to have a female counterpart in this reality as well.  As much as Pidge liked to tease him about being the emo loner, he really didn’t know how to hide his emotions other than literally running, and he knew that this realization was written all over his face.

“What?” Keira asked.

“Your Shiro…”

“What?” she asked again, but the confused crease between her dark brows smoothed when she realized, “Oh…Shiro, Shirogane…yeah.  That might be…interesting…I’m assuming your Shirogane adopted sibling is a guy too?”

“Yeah.  Shirogane Takashi.  Six-three, built like a brick shithouse but is actually a massive dork, metal arm…”

Keira nodded.  “Shirogane Yukiko.  Or just Yuki.  Adalie, her fiancée back on Earth, used to call her ‘The Amazon’.  But that was before Kerberos.  Before Yuki, Maddie and Sam – Samantha Holt, Pidge’s mom – got captured by the Galra.”  She shook her head, clearing the memories of her last days at the Garrison.  “Anyway, we’re here to find Lea.  And probably Hana.”

Keira turned on her heel, soundlessly stomping into the kitchen.  Keith had met Lance’s sister Rachel before, and if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought it was her sitting on the counter, nearly knocking a bowl over with her storytelling.  Keith noticed the other girl moving around the space, Hunk’s twin sister if he’d had one.  He was distracted enough that he didn’t see the other two people at first.  Not until a familiar high-pitched shout of his name came through.

“Keith!” Lance yelled, leaping over the counter.  He stopped when he got closer, cautious.  “You are my Keith, aren’t you?”

“Probably?  As long as we’re still together and you still leave dirty clothes all over the floor.”

Lance made a shrill indignant sound.  “…Yeah, that’s fair.  Ok, you are my Keith.”

“Well, fuck, Lea, you’re the same in every reality,” Keira said, wrapping her arms around her girlfriend.

“Rude.  Laundry is not as important as good skin care.  Not that you’d know anything about that,” Leandra shot back, muttering something about shower soap not being anywhere near the same thing.

“What?  Soap is soap,” both Keith and Keira said at the same time.

Hunk and Hana just shared a look and sighed.

~*~*~*~

Links to the rest of the series:

1 | 2 | 3* | 4 | 5* | 6* | 7 | 8 | 9* | 10 | 11 | 12* | 13 | 14 | 15* | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19* | 20* | 21* | 22* | 23* | 24* | 25

[bladekindeyewear]

THE DEVICE

I don’t usually put images from the latest updates on main outside a read-more cut, but I’m getting further people messaging in today saying they think THE DEVICE hidden under a sheet in HS^2′s latest -- the one at the very center of the noncanon singularity, where they believe bringing Vriska and having something too important for Canon to ignore happen will make a difference -- matches the shape of the Hiveswap door.

And it definitely, INTENTIONALLY matches the general SHAPE of the door as well as its “trapped under a tarp” aesthetic, but in Homestuck that’s no guarantee that the device is the SAME, much less even similar.

Plus, as much as a Hiveswap door gives things a “trading between worlds” feel in a story where we’re ALREADY bifurcated between Meat and Candy sides, and as much as Dirk is specifically afraid of Yiffy in a metatextual making-that-story-better-than-mine sense, there’s some reason to believe from Calliope’s language that the goal of the device is a bit more esoteric:

CALLIOPE: as far as everyone else is concerned, we might as well not even exist! JOHN: is there no way we could let anyone know that we're in here...? CALLIOPE: almost certainly not! CALLIOPE: there are very few ways for anything to escape the kind of predicament that we are in right now.

If the device’s purpose were to more or less directly enlist the help of those in Canon -- at the present time, at least -- or pull one of them away while shoving another in their place who could relay the status of their current predicament, then Calliope answering John’s question this way would be pretty weird.  Though, by using the weasel-wording “very few”, she does not rule OUT the idea that this device DOES allow SOMETHING to take place between Canon and Non-Canon.  Especially since, considering their goal:

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more. CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it. CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

--could easily be accomplished by forcing all of canon to heavily, HEAVILY depend on noncanon, by inserting some crucial event or extraneous factor at some important time and place, important beyond even the typical canon-centric doomed timeline’s occasional importance to the plot.  Note, Calliope already mentioned, earlier in the conversation:

JOHN: you mean we ended up with the bad possibility. CALLIOPE: not at all! since both possibilities depend on one another's existence, it really doesn't make sense to call them "right" or "wrong". they both just "are".

--that Meat and Candy could not exist without each other.  Which could just have to do with the fact that “choices” matter to Paradox Space, especially the choice to do something Heroic for the sake of reality or to relax and sit back, and that if it weren’t important enough to have required a choice, then it wouldn’t have been important enough at all.  But Terezi had interactions with people across BOTH sides of the coin flip, and Vriska specifically was able to get a message through to her on Meat Earth C from deep in Candy (which Calliope lampshaded she would have been very surprised to find out happened-- another thing that makes Vriska powerful for sending things back and forth even if the "event" may or may not directly involve her, (edit:) not to mention John too with Breath's mail/messages association!).

So, simply sending ANYTHING or ANYONE across the gap, if this tarped machine even DOES that, wouldn’t do on its own-- it would have to be something important, important possibly to all existence.  If you wanted to get super-serious, maybe even the as-of-yet-unsourced final frog sent to young Jade.  Thus proving that without the Candy timeline, Earth C’s universe -- not only the place of the kids’ victory, but the eventual birthplace of Calliope and Caliborn and the origin of Lord English -- couldn’t exist at all, and consequently either forcing the Candy version of Earth C out of the singularity or forcing reality to acknowledge the fact that the WHOLE singularity -- all of “non-Canon” -- has relevance, and thus stability. Alt!Calliope would have made her fanfic-timeline come true.

But, that’s just one theory.  I wrote this post so y’all could reblog and debate other possibilities for both the machine under the tarp and the dramatic act of relevance that they intend to have take place.  Some sort of silly dramatic kiss?  Shoving Vriska into Hiveswap’s timeline?  An “oops, all Vriskas” disaster?  I’ll keep this up to date with some of your theories and addendums under the cut as y’all reply/reblog and send in asks.  What exactly do YOU think is the eventual, silly-serious-or-both purpose of all this bullshit?

titenoute said: “There has been people thinking at the beginning of Hiveswap that the Portal could link the characters of Hiveswap to Earth C. Tbh, knowing that Earth and Alternia are going to be destroyed in Hiveswap no matter what it makes sense to have the possibility they’d survive this way, by going through the portal.”

Anon points out that Dirk could have the other side of a Hiveswap door on his end under the tarp he’s hiding from Terezi, and I had some thoughts on that in the link, including what he might use it for.

[nothingsolutions]

EMMA Koo... a year later/ Conversations About Nothing

Emmas new Radiohead record blares on the floor

We’re in her room

Gone are the signatures and bright red walls

Her freshly painted room

Is a calming shade of white

Any comment on the white room? I feel clean

Y: ummmm the writing was holding onto peoples energy I no longer hold onto

//Flips thru diff songs on the vinyl 

//Thom yorke sings

Is Lola still your alter egos name: yea but she’s on hiatus 

Where did she go? I have no idea she’s somewhere far far away 

On a plot of open space

Right amount of pillows on a bed: honestly 5 but I move all of them so I can fall asleep flat on my back

Lately I’ve been sitting like a shrimp

Dream social media: none at all. ever.

Not even? Everyone should just write books, make music and make art

Big creative project: ummmm large-scale: still my boyfriends a rockstar. small scale: Arya’s Christmas present

thoughts on the travy patty: PR nightmare

Something 2 get into: reading books and Pilates 

//Emma messes with the tone and speed of the record

Most inspiring color: black

Y: its relatable but scary too

Skittles or em n m’s: neither

Top 4 designers: ooh hyein seo, takahiro miyashita, virgil (rip),.. I don’t even like anybody’s clothes.. oh Yohji duh

Fav song carried by its feature: animal by miike snow the mike ronson version wait no I change my answer completely palm olive by Freddie Gibbs, the pusha t. feat carried heavy.

(y/n q) Emma chamberlain: yes 

from a biz standpoint: big yes

Her new vlogs are so ominous she’s so lonely.

That humans though.

I still haven’t tried the charilie dude 

YOU GOTTA TRY THE CHARILIE

Fav alt girl: pipilotti rist

Fav aphex song rt now: ageispolis

the superior gec: number 7

Most important part of an outfit: confidence

Popcorn: no butter

I want an eyebrow piercing: hell yea I’m kinda mad I don’t have one yet but the nose will suffice for now

Perfect perfume 4 a rainy beach day: California dream by Louis Vuitton or nightclubbing by Celine for the post beach dinner

//Proceeds to pull out nightclubbing and its intoxicating

//It smells like raw positive pessimist confluence spirit

Freestanding mirror: I need the biggest one possible 

Im James Corden and ur on carpool karaoke: we are singing fashion beats by the black eyed peas and there’s a song that came to mind but left instantly oh yea before I forget by slipknot

New yrs res ur not gonna keep: to ponder a tattoo a year before getting it

I got advice 

If you ever want a tattoo wait a year and if you still want it

get it

And to keep my room clean

halloween next yr: 3 outfit changes

//I have to wait…

Can’t have you dressing up like me for halloween

r u internet kid: sadly yes

Hello kitty hellcat? Postponed due to gas prices but u know what they gonna put v8s outa of productions in 5 years

We’ve reached the plug part of the interview: spirited gallery and my boyfriends a rockstar and sea moss (like from the sea) also alkaline water.. life changing

Its been a quiet year

And I think my answers reflect that

I also don’t have pink hair anymore

She will make a comeback in 3-4 years 

Once my hair heals

See you next year? See ya next year 

Au revoir!!

[licantropa]

YO! are you a mind reader?? I’ve literally had the Spark & Capsize being alts as a frequent unshared thought. I’ve been racking my brain on this more so I’ll even share why! (Although I can’t articulate my thoughts for shit, so it’s more a ramble of an idea of something 😅)

I don’t think ‘alts’, as explained to us by Martha & S2 Ianite, exist. It’s less that the other person in another realm is you exactly, they’re more your twin, and twins aren’t the same person. Even that analogy would be wrong, because twins have the same beginning, alts don’t (at least not necessarily).

It’s the big ol’ psychology question; nature or nurture? What makes us…us? Is it our dna, are we predisposed to act/like/ think a certain way? Or is it our environment, the way we were brought up? And that’s the big issue with Alts! There are so many little things that make us an individual that even when met with someone else who is “us”, they still wouldn’t be.

It’s their history! Sort off. More their story has a similar pathing. Like Spark and Capsize, they’ve both lived a life surrounded in Ianitee culture, caught the attention of their (respective) Ianite, and went on a journey on behalf of her health. But they’re both very different people! Capsize leans on destruction and violence, arguably its what her situation has demanded of her. Spark leans more so towards the creation and diplomatic side of things, given that it’s what his own situation called for.

Andor and Jordan, I feel they follow a similar path. Both of them being in a culture they know very little of. Sort of like kids of immigrants whose parents ‘americanized’ them. A very distant relationship with a culture, even if they want to learn it. And they both have a distant relationship with their (respective) Ianites. Never really getting to meet her before having to leave. And for Andor, it becomes to late to ever get to know her past the little he heard/did know. For Jordan, he meets too many versions of her, at a certain point one must become disillusioned and disappointed by a goddess who is and isn’t the lady he never got to truly meet.

And!! What you said with Botan and Wag! Yes yes yes!! Both having killed gods to gain power and the way they go about it being different! And on top of all of that they have a similar look. (I think the funnier route would’ve been having Nvidia be Wag’s alt. But lore wise Botan is super good choice)

On the flip side of all of this you have Alyssa and Sonja. There’s nothing connecting them, mostly because Alyssa is literally still growing up and a child (if my math is right she’s 16 by the time Mot goes back to Ruxomar), not to mention they look nothing alike and don’t follow the same god. (Alyssa in an entirely different religion altogether)

Even then, I think you can mix n match because it’s less about the people and more the specific event paralleling/mirroring. Which is why I said a while ago s2 Dia and Capsize’s deaths were similar.

ISLES IANITE TOM N JORDAN!!!! That’s just Capsize Tom n Jordan all over again!!!! at least for the one bit where Tom pretends to be on team Ianite and Jordan doesn’t believe him. I might not have watched isles but the situation reminds me way to much of s1. Also I don’t know it verbatim but when asked what she [isles Ianite] had done for him, Jordan responds with “Nothing”. That’s exactly how it went for him with Capsize! She gave him nothing! And he felt irritated all the same with her when she paid more attention to Tom!! Like the situation is similar but I wouldn’t say that that version of Ianite is capsize just because she n Jordan don’t get along. That wouldn’t be fair to her character. That situation however, very reminiscent of what went done s1, just lacking the romantic aspect of it.

History seems to be similar across realms not exactly the same but certainly similar…

But I mean even after all of these words I still could be very wrong, so who knows. Certainly not me.

((On your OCverse stuff. You don’t have to confront that, me personally? I respect just taking characters from franchises and like morphing em into your own. I’ve done that! I think it’s fine! Idk if this super long over explanation of something I don’t understand has helped you, but if it does great! also you don’t have to apologize for tag rambles, I like reading tags 🥰))

I don’t take Martha and Capsize to be alts. Personally, I think that’s a boring way to go about their characters.

To be fair, I also think the same about Steve and Wag canonically being alts.

In general the topic of what makes someone an alt is a bit headache inducing. They aren’t the complete opposites but also they’re a reflection of you but also they aren’t you in the way that it matters to be you but also their biggest strength is your biggest flaw but also…you know what I mean?

Maybe I just don’t get it.

[gofu-kurself]

Lance Headcanons

Lance Headcanons that I just think are so him idk why man. enjoy! 

-He did gymnastics as a kid until he was in middle school when he decided he wanted to go to the garrison so he dedicated himself to academics and played soccer for school to stay in shape. 

-This being said, he can do backflips and handsprings and lots of other tumbles on command. At the garrison he was that fun kid that just ran around the quad and flipped and did cartwheels if anyone mentioned anything about gymnastics.

-He cannot sing. Like his voice is terrible, he is aware of how bad it is, but that does little to stop him from singing along to every pop song on the radio. When he's alone he just hums along to music he's listening too, and that sounds nice. 

-He loves music. Truly any kind. Pop, oldies, rap indie, rock, latin, alt, EVEN COUNTRY! Lance would never discriminate, he loves it all. Pidge pretends to hate his country playlists but every once and awhile he catches her singing along to some of the slower sappy songs.

-His teeth are perfectly straight except for one canine that is slightly crooked. He was the only sibling in his family that didn't need braces and he holds his ‘perfect teeth genes’ above all their heads. 

-He lets his nieces and nephews paint his toenails and they are always chipped with sparkly and rainbow colorful paint. He loves to wear flip flops and walk barefoot on the beach to show them off. If people give him shit about it he just laughs and tells them hes sorry their toxic masculinity forbids them from seeing how awesome they look. 

-He loves the rain. In Cuba it was always hot heavy rains that he would sit and watch from the garage. He and his little siblings would always go out after the rain and pick up the worms on the pavement and put them near the grass so they wouldnt get lost on their way home. He has memories of dancing in the rain in the street to old american pop on the radio with his siblings. 

-He's that one friend that always sits on the side of the couch. Not like a cushion, but just perches on the handrest part. Because of this, hes always on snack and drink duty, because hes ‘practically already standing anyway’. 

-Lance doesn't really care for fashion. He's not a slob, but he doesn't actively search out perfect outfits. He grew up shopping at secondhand stores, and practically lived off hand-me-downs, so even when he grew up and moved out, he likes places like goodwill because he can save money and they have a huge variety of clothes. He likes to be comfortable, so he has a wide array of t-shirts. He does really like to wear color though, and sometimes he wears colors and patterns that should clash, but on him it actually looks pretty good because he can pull off that kinda thing. 

-He always stole his sisters shampoo from the shower they all shared, and even when he moved out he kept buying the pink bottle with a lady with shimmering hair on it because it reminded him of home. He likes the way it smells, and it's better for his hair than that 3 in 1 shit all his hook ups have in their showers. 

-He has a huge C.D. collection. Before he got a phone, he was always blaring music on a beat up boom box he got at a garage sale. He collects 50 cent C.D.s from goodwill and he buys them whenever he can. Even once he got his phone and spotify and other streaming things became prevalent, he still liked to play his C.D.s in his boombox or car. In high school he did that funny thing where he asked a girl out to prom with a boombox on his shoulder and blaring music in front of her house. 

-Would be totally obsessed with gay tiktok. He also learns all the little dances and trends from his nieces and nephews and he makes his own account where he does dances with them. He also makes those cute couple tiktoks with a grumpy Keith and he gains a pretty big following. 

-He can skateboard really well. In Cuba he always skated to his friends house and there was a skate park near his house where he got pretty good. Before Veronica left for college, she taught him tricks sometimes after school.  He has scars on his knees from too many poorly healed scrapes he got from skating. During his freshman year, he had pretty long hair because it was the ‘skater’ thing to do. Hunk still makes fun of him for it because Lance always wore it with a middle part lmao. 

-Lance likes having sex, but only if its with a person dating. He cant do casual hookups because he KNOWS he will get attached. Its his fatal flaw at the Garrison. During college he hears about his friends casual flings and hes like bruh HOW??? He had 2 girlfriends in highschool, and a ‘thing’ with a guy the summer before college, but he only had sex with them if he knew they were exclusive and committed to the relationship. Once they’re dating though??? Lance is ALWAYS down for a good time. 

-He can braid hair really well. He always did his siblings' hair for them for school dances. He could braid, curl, straighten, all that jazz. He carries this over to the team. Hunks hair is fun to do little box braids on one side. He does a headband braid on Pidge to keep her hair out of her face. Keith gets a french braid that makes him look like an edgy emo version of Elsa. 

[housewarningparty]

Thanks for recommending Gideon the Ninth! It was so good! Do you have a book rec tag I could check out? :)

honestly i should, huh? i’ve read more books than probably ever before this year and i’ve talked about ‘em intermittently, but not with a consistent tag. i’ll recommend some right now, though, with a healthy dose of recency bias!

sf/f

the priory of the orange tree by samantha shannon - a truly epic fantasy novel with one of the most beautiful, satisfying f/f romances i’ve ever read. the novel takes account nearly everything i hate about fantasy as a genre (overwhelmingly straight, white, and male centric, bland medieval European settings, tired tropes) and subverts them. incredible world-building, diverse fantasy cultures, really cool arthrurian legend influence. one of my favorite books i’ve ever read tbh.

gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir - which you’ve read, obviously, but for posterity’s sake i’m keeping it here! sci-fi + murder mystery + gothic horror. genuinely funny while still having a super strong emotional core and more than enough gnarly necromantic to satisfy the horror nerd in me. makes use of some of my favorite tropes in fiction, namely the slowburn childhood enemies to reluctant allies to friends to ??? progression between gideon and harrow. absolutely frothing at the mouth for a sequel.

the broken earth trilogy by nk jemisin - really the first book that helped me realize i don’t hate fantasy, i just hate the mainstream ‘medieval europe but with magic’ version of fantasy that dominates the genre. EXTREMELY cool worldbuilding. i’ve definitely described it as like, a GOOD version of what the mage-vs-templar conflict in dragon age could have been, with a storyline particularly reminiscent of “what if someone got Anders right?”

this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar and max gladstone - i’m not usually big on epistolary novels, but this one really worked for me. spy vs spy but it’s gay and takes place between time traveling agents of two opposing sides of a war. the letter writing format really plays to el-mohtar’s strengths as a poet, the unfolding love story is weird and beautiful. it’s a really quick read, too, if you’re short on time or attention.

empress of forever  by max gladstone - i just finished this one this week! if you’re in the mood for a space opera, look no further. imagine if steve jobs was an asian lesbian and also like not a shitty person. this is where you start with vivian liao. you get the classic putting-the-band-together arc with beings from all across the universe, your romances and enemies-turned-friends and uneasy alliances all over the place. really satisfying character development and some extremely cool twists along the way. it’s just a fun good time.

the luminous dead by caitlin starling - this one rides the line of horror so it’s closest to that part of the list. it reminds me of the most inventive low budget horror/sci-fi films i’ve loved in the best way possible because it makes use of the barest narrative resources. it’s a book that takes place in one primary setting, featuring interactions between two characters that only meet each other face-to-face for the briefest period. the tension between the two characters is the most compelling part of the story, with competing and increasingly unreliable narratives and an eerie backdrop to ratchet things up even higher. the author described it as “queer trust kink” at one point which is, uh, super apt actually and totally my jam. the relationship at the center of the book is complicated to say the least, outright combative at points, but super compelling. plus there’s lost of gnarly sci-fi spelunking if you like stories about people wandering around in caves.

horror

the ballad of black tom by victor lavalle - we all agree that while lovecraft introduced/popularized some cool elements into horror and kind of defined what cosmic horror would come to mean, he was a racist sack of shit. which is why my favorite type of ‘lovecraftian horror’ is the type that openly challenges his abhorrent views. the ballad of black tom is a retelling of the horror at redhook that flips the narrative by centering the action around a black protagonist. 

lovecraft country by matt ruff - more of what i just described. again, lovecraftian themes centered around black protagonists. this one’s especially cool because it’s a series of interconnected short stories following related characters. it’s getting a tv adaptation i believe, but the book is definitely not to be missed

rolling in the deep / into the drowning deep by mira grant - mermaids are real and they’re the ultimate deep sea predators! that’s really the whole premise. if for some reason that’s not enough for you, let me add this: diverse cast, a romance between a bi woman who’s not afraid to use the word and an autistic lesbian, really cool speculative science tangents about mermaid biology and myth. 

the haunting of hill house by shirley jackson - it’s halloween month so i’m thinking about hill house again. one of the greatest american ghost stories ever written. especially worth the read if you follow it up w the 1964 film adaptation (the haunting) and then the 2018 netflix series.

the hunger by alma katsu - i’ve always been fascinated by the donner party even though we now know the popular narrative is largely falsehoods. still, this highly fictionalized version of events scratched an itch for me and ended up surprising me with its resistance from the most expected and toxic racist tropes associated with donner party myth.

wounds / north american lake monsters by nathan ballingrud - nathan ballingrud is my favorite horror writer of all time. one of my favorite writers period regardless of genre. in ballingrud’s work the horror is right in front of you. you can look directly at it, it’s right there. but what permeates it, what draws your attention instead, what makes it hurt is the brutally honest emotional core of everything surrounding the horror. the human tragedy that’s’ reflected by the more fantastic horror elements is the heart of his work. it’s always deeply, profoundly moving for me. both of these collections are technically short stories, but they’re in the horror section of the recs because delineations are totally arbitrary and made solely at my discretion. 

short stories

her body and other parties by carmen maria machado - tbh i almost put this in w horror but there’s enough weird fiction here for me to be willing to straddle the line. it was really refreshing to read horror that centered queer women’s perspectives. the stories in this collection are really diverse and super powerful. there’s an incredible weird fiction piece that’s like prompt-based law and order svu micro fiction (go with me here) that ends up going to some incredible places. there’s the husband stitch, a story that devastated me in ways i’m still unraveling. the final story reminded me of a more contemporary haunting of hill house in the best way possible. machado is a writer i’m really excited about.

vampires in the lemon grove by karen russell - my friend zach recommended this to me when we were swapping book recs earlier this year and i went wild for it! mostly weird fiction, but i’m not really interested in getting hung up on genres. i don’t know what to say about this really other than i really loved it and it got me excited about reading in a way i haven’t been in a while. 

the tenth of december by george saunders - i really like saunders’ work and i feel like the tenth of december is a great place to start reading him. quirky without being cloying, weird without being unrelatable.

misc

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid - there’s something really compelling to me about the glamour of old hollywood. this story is framed as a young journalist interviewing a famously reclusive former starlet at the end of her life. the story of how evelyn hugo goes from being the dirt-poor daughter of cuban immigrants to one of the biggest names in hollywood to an old woman facing the end of her life alone is by turns beautiful, inspiring, infuriating and desperately sad. by far the heart of the book is in evelyn finally coming out as bisexual, detailing her decades-long on/off relationship with celia st. james, another actress. evelyn’s life was turbulent, fraught with abuse and the kind of exploitation you can expect from the hollywood machine, but the story is compelling and engaging and i loved reading it.

smoke gets in your eyes by caitlin doughty - a memoir by caitlin doughty, the woman behind the popular ‘ask a mortician’ youtube series. it was a super insightful look into the american death industry and its many flaws as well as an interesting, often moving look at the human relationship with death through the eyes of someone touched by it early and deeply.

love and rockets by los bros hernandez (jaime and gilbert and mario) - this was a big alt comic in the 80s with some series within running on and off through the present. i’m not current, but this book was so important for me as a kid. in particular the locas series, which centered around two queer latina girls coming up in the punk scene in a fictional california town. the beginning starts of a little sci-fi-ish but over time becomes more concerned with slice-of-life personal dramas. 

[at-the-exd-of-everythixg]

][All questions for otp meme for Sal + Rhys][

@blind-mutant

Coffee shop AU: Who is the barista, and who frequents the coffee shop?

Sal's at the coffee shop...what? Every night? It always feels a little different and a little bit the same each time. Sometimes Sal appears in suits and a slick charm while other times he's there in luxury dresses and patiently putting on makeup while Rhys rushes to get his over sweetened drink ready. Rhys never really says anything about the fact that Sal's lazy flirts make his stomach flip, or the fact that Sal usually calls him Moonie so sweetly.

And Sal's just as drawn to the pretty little drink maker, who always gives him extra whipped cream. How could he not want to flirt with the beautiful man? The one who smiled so sweetly whenever Sal got there and felt like the only person who seemed to really listen to him. Sweet drinks and sweet men are all Sal wants in life.

Highschool/College AU: Who is the straight-A student, and who’s the backrow slacker?

Sal doesn't exactly want to be a good grade student. It fucking sucks and the stress piles on more and more, but he knows that even failing for a moment would result in Giles yanking him away from other people and back to the same little house where he and his siblings would just be hurt more and more. It means everything to Sal to work hard, and it isn't like Rhys Brennan helps any.

What makes it worse? Rhys is...aware of it, in a way. He can hear the stress and pressure in Sal's voice and maybe he likes to flirt and tease the smaller man, just to have he pleasure of Sal snapping back and even occasionally when Sal joins him. He wants to know more about Sal, wants to know why he's so odd and so...not human. And Rhys has always, unashamedly, been drawn to secret and rude little men.

Rivals to loves AU: Who takes their rivalry seriously, and who is half in it just to push the other’s buttons?

Rhys came into Eden's Fruit, eager to impress and find his place at a workplace where he could be appreciated. And maybe Rhys does want to be the best, because the best always have the most trusted positions and the best always get assured of their worth. Instead, Rhys has Sal, who wishes to snark and play rivals, who thinks it's funny how much Rhys seems to care about being the best.

Its funny to tease and watch the taller man grow frustrated, funny as shit to flirt shamelessly while Rhys flushes and scowls. The other man doesn't seem to have that same sense of fun that Sal had beaten into him. Rhys just needs a good kiss and a shove off the highest balcony so Sal can rip that sense of terror away and not remember the fact that he shared it so strongly once.

Enemies to lovers AU: Which one switches sides? 

Aspherane and Earth come to a clash and it's something everyone should have seen coming. Sal knows it's his part to leave Earth and go to the one place that won't one day kill him, just as Rhys knows that he should stay in Krakoa, the mystical island where everything should be safe and fine. Really, it's for the best that they stay apart and in their own separate world of shifting darkness and varied powers. The heavens and Earths were never really meant to mix.

So why do they still meet up? Like some sort of fucked up version of Romeo and Juliet in Sal's opinion, but it isn't like he can even think of not meeting up with Rhys in secret. Aspherane and Krakoa are meant to be their paradise and yet Sal won't ever stop thinking about simply meeting up with Rhys again and being able to kiss the other man. He considers trying to find a way to escape all of it, whether its beyond the stars or unde the Earth, where hell and demons reign strong.

Soulmate AU: Who is eager to meet their soulmate? Who absolutely does not want to meet their soulmate? 

Rhys used to want to meet his soulmate. Key word used to. Years of being locked away shut down those thoughts. Better to not care about any soulmate than to hurt himself with facing someone who won't think he's good enough for them. It's a big difference from Sal, who looked over himself every day, hoping to find any mark or symptom of a Soulmate, to prove that he was human enough and to prove that maybe he was still good enough to at least have one.

And then he meets Rhys and the taller man us everything Sal wants, he bares the mark of the soul that can only mean he belongs to Sal, only...he's spoken before about how much he didn't want a soulmate. Rhys wanted Sal, not whoever was supposedly written up for him by fucking fate of all things and now they're both stuck in an awkard position really; Rhys wants Sal and doesn't want a supposed soulmate while Sal wants Rhys but now thinks the man he loves doesn't want him. They don't even deserve to be called himbos.

Single parent AU: Which one is the single parent? (Alt. if they’re both single parents: Which one is open to starting a new relationship from the start? Which one is never planning on finding love again… Until they meet the other and are instantly smitten?)

Sal is...more than aware of the fact that maybe he should have told Rhys about his child before inviting him to come live with him. But then again, why should he have to tell Rhys? If Moonie likes him so much, then Moonie can deal with his Starling. The rules are simple and it definitely helps keep a barrier up in case things go to shit.

Unfortunately, Sal didn't account for the fact that Rhys adores him enough to adore his Starling, the only other part Sal has that's enough like his own and how could Rhys resist wanting to protect someone just like Sal? Ugh, he became a dilf though emotions and Sal isn't happy about his newfound attraction for the fact that Rhys is the only one who can seemingly handle a half alien and a quarter alien child, but damn if he doesn't get buzzy when watching Rhys interact with the brat.

Doctor AU: Which one is the longsuffering doctor? Which one is the patient? 

Rhys isn't...entirely sure what to make of the new patient in his institute, but Sal's angry scremaing and the way he quietly clings to Rhys at times means more to him than he would ever let on when trapped in such a dangerous place. Still, he tries to enjoy the brief moments he has between Blue and Sal while he can still get them.

And eventually they all get out. Blue dies and Rhys is grief torn and everyone leaves. Everyone except Sal, who was on his way to dying himself from the constant fluorescent lights. Rhys's constant darkness pulls him through though and now? Now Rhys is all he has and he saved him in more ways than one. Sal won't ever be Blue and that stings constantly, but the very least he could do is keep his feelings behind his teeth while doing what he can to keep him and Rhys alive.

Bodyguard AU: Who is the bodyguard? Who are they protecting? Which one is secretly pining for the other? 

Rhys is...not entirely sure how to deal with the little brat he's been assigned to guarding. Sal is apparently some fancy alien...explorer? Ambassador? All Rhys knows it that Sal tends to use more than just his words to charm high assed men of Earth and never seems to fully realise the danger he puts himself in. It doesn't help the fact that Sal is...exceptionally cute and often expects Rhys to do certain customs that fluster him terribly and Sal has no idea why.

And really, what's so odd about asking your bodyguard to get in the bath with you? To help with your safety and self care? Sal knows that maybe it's a little odd, but how can he trust someone with his life if they haven't seen him when vulnerable? It's so dumb and that's exactly why he's fine of sleeping in the same bed as Rhys ans eating together. Not to mention that his bodyguard is....very fucking cute in his suits and the way his voice sounds rougher in the early mornings.

Pirate AU: Who is the pirate? Who is the member of the royal family who did not sign up for this? 

I uh. Since were already doing this......Persephone and Hades au instead???

Rhys is....aware that his parents hated him, thought him to be evil and even he sees the irony of being a reborn Greek god of death when he's Irish. Getting out of the asylum was easier though and Rhys is grateful thay he cannot be held down as Kronos once did to him. Now Rhys travels looking for his reborn queen, whether she stays as she is or decides to be his husband or monarch of life.

And just as, Sal knows he was reborn oddly. Knows that flowers and Greek summers run through and that was enough for his Demeter to cast him out into the wild winters. Sal knows he should find his Hades, knows that a part of him aches for blooming spring and being able to kiss the person he loves primally. But Sal knows he bares the name from Maiden to Chaos Weaver and then it is his task to take, to perhaps hide from Hades and to save this reborn form of his husband from having to he stuck with him.

Then Rhys moves in and uh. Sal's kinda fucked, you know?

Childhood best friends AU: Which one was super obviously in love with the other the whole time? Who was oblivious until they were older?

How can Sal NOT be smitten with Rhys? The older boy is pretty and speaks funny and he always looks happy to see Sal, which is great because Sal likes his brother and sister, but he likes Rhys differently, like how Pap an' Mamné do. Rhys likes Sal too, but he doesn't ever seen to be aware of the way Sap clings to him and the manner of the kisses that get pressed to his cheeks, doesn't see the way Giles and his own parents narrow their eyes at it.

Then the institute happens and Sal's heart gets torn from him as Giles kicks him out. He's torn for years as he searches for Rhys and gets torn more when Cecil crushes and loves him sickly. By the time he finally meets Rhys...well, it's a big What If as to whether Rhys can truly stand someone whose been as ruined as he has, whose pale and scowls and flirts so horribly with anyone else but the reminder of his heart.

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 9

back at it again, and its time for the shadowplay arc, HELL yeah

oh I'm so excited i love this arc lets DO this

oooh its nightbeat and quark!! way before they become relevant, which is so cool

‘one of those recepticon fanatics’ lmao imagine if they were...the recepticons. just doesn't have the same ring to it 

god i fucking love all the politics of mtmte. i love how they’re talking about the senate here before we really get to See how bad they were (we heard a bit about it from whirl a few issues ago, and now here)

love how nightbeat is pretty much agreeing with the decepticon ideology here, even if its clear that he isn't Actually a decepticon - it just drives home the fact that, in this story, The Decepticons Were Right About A Lot Of That Stuff (or at least, they had a reason other than ‘destruction’ for rebelling). 

AND THEN THERES RUNG!!!!!!! WITH HIS MODEL OF THE LOST LIGHT....god i fuckgin LOVE the continuity in this story bc the first time reading this ur like oh ok rung is old yea makes sense...but then later all the time travel stuff happens and then its like OHHHHH 

damn poor rung nightbeat can rlly tell he's lonely just by looking at him vbhjdkdfhbjsjkdf geez. also nightbeat that's ur mystery stick bf from the future js!!

quarks extreme POV on all of the stuff is so interesting, and makes so much sense bc of Course he would think that as a non-combatant scientist who, due to his functional value in current society, wouldn't really benefit much from a revolution - in fact, he’d probably lose a lot. and that’s the sort of thing where you’re like, ok well think about everyone else dude, have some perspective - but at the same time, quark did suffer a pretty terrible fate, so his fears weren't entirely unfounded...augh, its so fascinating...im sorry I'm not gonna shut up about space robot politics this Entire time

HOW did nobody notice that dead body before now

ratchet spray-painting the hands he stole from pharma to match his own paintjob is like...kinda gruesome if you think about it hvbhsjkdfbkjdf

i love rewind sooo much oh my god 

he rlly stashed rung’s comatose body in a wheelchair behind the bar hbkjdhfbshjkdf rewind 

rewind and chromedome’s tag-team explanation....ough hhhhh THEM 

wait a sec, rewind, you have medical records in your database? that is, at least according to regular medical laws, very illegal lmao. my favorite long-running theme in mtmte: the fact that hipaa and osha laws on cybertron are either basically nonexistent, or just universally disregarded 

what the actual fuck is up w/cybertronian time units. that shit is wack as hell 

ooh i love how chromedome looks different in the flashback - no shoulder tires! - that's a cool detail

how come prowl just said ‘minute,’ rewind was busting it up w/all the wack ass fantasy time units just a second ago. geez

also goddd i love the scenery of pre-war cybertron, its SUCH a cool setting like, visually and aesthetically and politically

like, i adore details like the sign in the bg that says ‘everyone’s shape serves a purpose.’ really adds to the ‘society on the precipice of civil war currently controlled by an increasingly-desperate faction who are doling out propaganda like crazy in an attempt to maintain their image and control over the populace’ vibe

good ole murder mystery setup. love it!

pre-war prowl is such an interesting character. actually prowl in general is such an interesting character...I kinda wrote him off during my first read of mtmte (and even a little during my second readthru) as just this dude who’s an asshole (espec bc my prev tf experience involved watching tfa as a kid, and this prowl is very different from tfa prowl lol)...but prowl is SUCH a multi-faceted and interesting character, even in the relatively little we see of him in mtmte 

plus it was interesting to learn later that prowl was one of the characters that jro wanted for mtmte and didn't get, and MAN i wish he got prowl bc I would've loved to see what jro would've done w/prowl on the lost light, that would've been amazing. like, just imagine the arc he would have...I have no idea what that arc would BE, but I know it would be awesome. plus I’d be really interested to see how prowl would factor in, relationships-wise, amongst the crew of the lost light. so much potential!

anyways. I'm in a very talky mood tonight it seems. its currently 4 am so that kinda explains it. ok, moving on!

chromedome and prowl bantering....in their own morbid forensic-cop way...

skids bvhjdbsfjasf. speaking what we’re all thinking: is prowl gonna keep showing up in mtmte despite not technically being part of the cast??

swerves drawing of prowl lmaoooo

AND THEN REWIND IN SOME OF MY FAVORITE MTMTE PANELS....fuckgin cracks me up every time god. rewind was rlly about to flip their entire ass table just to demonstrate that prowl is a serial table-flipper...and then he cant even make the table budge and he just stares at his hands like ‘how could you betray me like this’ hvbajkhhsfdhksdf PEAK hilarity

drift hvbshfdjbasdfj his forcibly cheery expression even tho he’s being harassed by rodimus, who is a big whiny toddler w/drift lmao 

rodimus is the type of guy who, upon drift not replying to one of his texts, would post a whole twitter thread being all like ‘these days u cant trust any1 to hav ur back...u think u kno someone and then they just ghost you...(1/14)’

again, rewind, HOW and WHY do you just Have medical reports, oh my god, somebody please call a hipaa agent I’m scared, 

ratchet interrupting the story to give a quick medical PSA....that's Such an on-brand thing for Me to do that I feel like jro is assigning me ratchet kin as I read this

also, hey, its sonic and boom, those two decepticons from delphi! nice little continuity there

AND HERES ORION PAX SUPER COP

can’t believe idw made my dad optimus prime into a cop. smh. shouldn't be that shocked tho, I feel like half the idw characters are cops

orion rlly hit them w/the omae wa mo shinderu arrest strat

orion: I cant believe you're beating this guy up. anyways, now I'm gonna beat YOU up,

when ratchet puts his hand over drifts mouth and then gets spray paint on drifts face bhjdfsvsdjhfgbjdskf

pre-war ratchet and drift ;_; ratchet’s little inspirational speech...the fact that he tells drift that he’s special...the fact that drift remembered all of this even after 4 million+ yrs...it gets me bro it GETS me

ALSO the layers in the fact that drift then goes on to become a well-known murderous decepticon...so this little scene of him and ratchet in the past gives a lot of context to ratchet’s general attitude towards drift - ratchet clearly feels at least somewhat responsible for all the blood on drift’s hands, since he saved drift’s life way back in the day

the whole relinquishment clinic thing is such cool worldbuilding, bc of course that's the kind of thing that would develop in a society of robot aliens who are only allowed to work within the rigid confines of their alt mode 

I love the whole matrix thing bc its kinda like being the pope or st but also you have a ton of political sway, so its a super important position, so of Course the corrupt senate would want full control over that power, and would assassinate the current prime to try to get their own guy in 

god vhbhjsdkbgshjdf rodimus is such a dick lmao poor drift

HHHHH I love that the cybertronian version of an autopsy is taking the dudes body apart into the smallest components and laying them all out. that's so fucking cool

hmmmm chromedome maybe you should Not be interested in mnemology, how about that,

oh god. time to start being sad about op and senator shockwave. oh god

senator shockwave more like senator sexy 

also the first time I read this I thought I had just missed his name and like halfway thru the story I went back and scoured the pages looking for it hbvhsjdfbshgfdsbj then I was like oh ok so we’re maybe supposed to just know who this guy is from another comic? but NOPE it was very deliberate and I only realized very close to the end that they were setting up some sort of reveal

its funny bc normally I'm not a huge fan of stories where politics play a huge role but I fuckgin love it here, the politics and worldbuilding is all so interesting and also balanced out with a healthy dose of cool sci-fi hijinks, so

lmao there's chromedome being obsessed w/people making the ‘pfft’ sound 

also wow yet more hindsight, maybe you Shouldn’t be so interested in the Institute, chromedome, 

OHHHH shit I forgot abt the red alert stuff happening at the same time as this :( :( :( 

AUGHHH what a fucked up situation. god 

oooof i gotta continue now!! what a solid issue, I love the shadowplay arc

[shikai-the-storyteller]

WFC: Siege watch!

Part 1: Episodes 1, 2, and 3

[Part 2] (Linking because Tumblr isn’t even showing the post on my blog or on my dash 🙄)

As a side note: every single person in this fandom is horrible at tagging their spoilers, you guys really need to do a better job at that because I’ve got a bunch of blockers on and I was STILL almost spoiled multiple times. Come on you guys...it literally came out today, be better about this.

Alright going to try and keep expectations low because I feel like the target audience for this is G1 dudebros who take a series about transforming cars way too seriously, but I’m still cautiously optimistic because a friend vetted for the dudes working on this show so WE”LL SEE

Episode 1

Aw man there’s only 6 episodes??? Bummer, I wonder if they’re already working on Season 2 or if they’re going to see how this does and let it die in the water if it’s not popular enough.

Things I know going in: Skyfire / Jetfire is in this, Megatron has big lips, and Elita is in it. That’s literally it, I’ve managed to avoid spoilers thusfar (though a few of the promo images implied Skyfire’s a Decepticon, so you KNOW that’s gonna break bad eventually)

WHEELJACK Wednesday THURSDAY

OH MYG OSH IS THAT SKYWARP??? EXPECTATIONS ARE NOW SKY-HIGH

The transformation sequences look so reminiscent of those stop-motion videos people do of their Transformer toys transforming. This isn’t a dig at the animation style, I think that’s rather charming and I wonder if it’s intentional.

Wow Bumblebee sounds like a jerk. I’m instantly on-edge, please don’t make all the characters ~hyper-masculine mean guys who don’t know how to have fun or talk about their emotions~

“The Autobots aint paying you for attitude” YOU TELL HIM WHEELJACK

Yooo Velocitron exists!

Ahh so Bumblebee IS just a mercenary, not an Autobot

OHOHO HERE”S JETFIRE

Wow Jetfire you’re really going the bad dude route huh

Ayyyyyy there’s Starscream

YOOO THERE”S THUNDERCRACKER

Thundercracker I appreciate that you’re using fancy tech to identify wheeljack but his Autobot badge is literally Right There

WTF

WELL THAT DIDN”T LAST LONG HUH...that’s a bit disappointing

OH NVM THAT WASN”T A HEEL-TURN THAT WAS JUST A STRAIGHT UP “I”M THE BOSS” MOVE

huh so they’re making Skyfire the target of Starscream’s desire for power. hmm

WHY ARE YOU GUYS RUNNING JUST TRANSFORM INTO CARS unless they’re too low on energon to do it??

There he is...Mr. Big Lips

Well that’s a surprising take Megatron

Isn’t that Cybertron and Luna 1 in the sky though?? Are they on Cybertron rn or not??

Megatron’s voice is really throwing me off, if it weren’t for his helmet and color I’d really think that was Overlord

ITS TRUCK DAD

OHOHO HE SAID THE THING!!!!

Why does bumblebee have lips too

“What do you know of slavery?” Alright that line did make me go “OHHHH”

“Alpha Trion would be ashamed!” “Of us both, I think” ouch, but nice to see Alpha “Grandpa” Trion back in a series

Megatron PLEASE don’t say “I’m enjoying this, Prime” in that voice while I can hear Optimus groaning in the background

AYYY ELITAAAAAA

Why are the Seekers chasing these guys, who are running on foot, ON FOOT??? CHANGE INTO YOUR DANG ALT MODE

WHEELJACK SWORE

man I’m only like a few minutes in and I’m already bored. I’m going to watch the whole thing, but I feel like this is really lacking soul or personality so far. It very much feels like the script was written by people who aren’t familiar with these characters, so they’re writing them how they EXPECT them to sound, not writing them as they actually are. It’s more than a little disappointing, but this is only the first episode, so I’ll keep going and see if this is consistent throughout the series.

Oh man, just listening to Elita you can tell she was written by a dude. Oof.

There’s the Ark!

Dang everyone’s running low

Jeez Optimus and Elita wouldn’t just walk by all these injured Autobots!

And Optimus wouldn’t brush off his officers!! Agh!!!

YO Ultra Magnus!

Chromia!!!!!

oh my gosh is THAT Red Alert??

Hey where’s Ratchet though

Gosh the writing is so STIFF!!!! I can’t stand this, if I wasn’t a die-hard Transformers fan I would’ve bounced a few minutes ago

 It might also be the way the VAs pause between words, please speak normally, these constant pauses between words are frustrating

Ok but where the frick is Soundwave

“His arrogance I actually like” pfft

Annnnd here comes Ultra Magnus to accept the treaty on Prime’s behalf, where he’ll get held hostage and probably wind up beefing it.

Episode 2

SOUNDWAVE!!!! BABY

And Shockwave!!! 

YO SKYWARP ACTUALLY GOT A SPEAKING LINE

I want to know where Megatron got all this fabric for those stupid flags and where Ultra magnus got that cloak

Is. Is that Prowl with a weird paint job

Wow bad aim dude

Ultra Magnus you dummy....

Ok but if it was a battle then who were they fighting against???

Wow you’re really just gonna stand there and take that Magnus?

I know they’re on a time-crunch because they only have 6 episodes, but they have to do more to make me care about the characters. I’m inclined to care about them already because I’m familiar with the series and because as a stand-alone, even I’m like “Ok. So?” whenever new problems come up for them. I’m not invested!

Not to compare the two, because I feel like this entire liveblog will turn into a comparative essay, but Cyberverse got me invested in characters within the first episode! They were on an even TIGHTER time-crunch because their episodes were only 10 minutes, and yet they did a great job weaving a tight narrative and making good use of their time to tell a story and have characters charm the audience.

Optimus: Til All Are One Rodimus, coming out of nowhere: TIL ALL ARE ONE

WELL THAT”S NOT THE VOICE I WAS EXPECTING FOR SHOCKWAVE he sounds a bit reminiscent of his TFA version

What does de-rez mean

Ok but that’s assuming that this thing will automatically reprogram them?? Reformatting doesn’t automatically mean someone will turn into a Decepticon!

You know, there’s a lot of talking in the show but the dialogue doesn’t actually say a lot. It doesn’t reveal much about the characters or tell me who they are.

YOOO THERE”S SOUNDWAVE

AUDIO BOOB

It really annoys me that characters always pause after saying “I”. It’s always “I.........[long pause] rest of their sentence.”

what do you mean “Teams” Optimus there’s like 5 of you guys

I love you Soundwave!!!

Whoa wait was that Impactor in the background?

ughHHHHHH I HATE THAT MY BIGGEST PET PEEVE IS “what have you done?” SAID UTTERLY MONOTONE WHEN IT’S NOT EVEN A BIG DEAL!!! YOU CAN”T FLIP THAT LINE OUT WITHOUT ACTUALLY PUTTING IN THE FOOTWORK TO EARN IT!!! AGH!!!

Again, it feels very much like the writers read the wikipedia page for Transformers and maybe the first sentence of each character’s bio page and then wrote the entire script from there. It’s frustrating. I hate being so severe in my reviews because I hate dunking on my fellow writers because they don’t always have final say in what happens, but this is astonishingly poor writing.

Like, I can see what they’re TRYING to accomplish, but it feels like they whiff so badly.

YO IT IS IMPACTOR

oh thats Barricade that’s why I thought that was Prowl

Chromia!!!! My darling!!!! I can’t believe there’s only two girls in this show so far

Oh that’s Cog, I wasn’t sure if that was Beachcomber or what

Nice one Chromia

Oh is that Mirage?

Ugh ANOTHER WRITING PET PEEVE: Constantly having characters start to say something but then then their dialogue gets cut off. It’s fine if it’s once in a while but over and over it’s annoying

I also feel like a lot of the VAs lack...emotion. They don’t emphasize the lines. Like, “Get him into the repair bay” is one example. Depending on how you emphasize certain words in that sentence, you can infer a lot! Emotion, the state of mind of the character, etc. But when it’s delivered in such a bland way, it’s a bit like “ok whatever”, which is how I’m starting to feel about this whole show. This doesn’t go for all the VAs or all lines, but it’s consistent enough that my mind’s wandering.

RAVAGE??? RAVAGE???? RAVAGE?!?!?!??!?!

It was probably Bumblebee.

Not to be nitpicky but it should be “Neither we nor the Autobots”

The idea of reformatting is so stupid!!! It implies that Autobots and Decepticons are inherently different, which is stupid!! It’s so dumb WHY DO YOU GOTTA GO THAT ROUTE IT”S SO STUPID (ESPECIALLY SINCE THEY”RE TACKLING THE TOPIC OF OPPRESSION??? THEY”RE SAYING THEY”RE LITERALLY DIFFERENT SPECIES AND USING IT AS A PLATFORM TO SAY ONE GROUP IS INHERENTLY BETTER THAN THE OTHER. THAT SUCKS)

Episode 3

RATCHET!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lmao love your lipgloss Megatron

Ohh is Ratchet going to fix Impactor??

PROWL??? HE”S SO SHORT

Gosh please, please don’t have humans in this show

lmao Skyfire called Starscream a tool

RATCHET!!! :D

I’d like to see who was on the writing team of this show

Isn’t that Mirage?

YEAH THAT IS MIRAGE

Again with the sentences consistently being cut off....

Is that Sunstorm?

Points to Chromia and Mirage for showing the first bitof personality in this show.

Yooo Ratchet! Oof he’s not chummy with Prime huh

YOO CAMINUS EXISTS TOO

LMAO FEISTY GRANDPA

Oh Mirage come on

Actually no, don’t shut Impactor up he’s right

“I didn’t patch you up just so you could blow a valve here” *snorts*

Wouldn’t it be frickin hilarious if Magnus just popped open a panel and Minimus came out and just dipped outta there

lmao nice lightsaber Jetfire

LMAO “PULL THE TRIGGER MAGNUS”

JEEZ JUST PUNCH HIM RIGHT IN THE FACE WHY DON”T YOU 

Ratchet is the ONLY character they’ve given personality in this show so far.

Jeez Mirage cool your jets

Oh for frick’s sake Optimus be cool

Megatron please stop torturing your ex boyfriend

Ok but who did they rise against??? Were there Quintessons in this universe too?

oh come on you guys

Oh boy something tells me Skywarp isn’t going to survive the rest of this episode

Oh jk, Skyfire just let him go. Well alrighty then

I’m not sure how they found the Autobot base, they implied that it was because of Impactor but that doesn’t make sense

This post is getting long so I’m going to spit it between two posts

[autobuttonsanddeceptistitches]

Viper’s Vengeance Chapter 1

Hello everyone! I am happy to announce that I am returning to writing once again! This story in particular is one I’ve been looking forward to posting. I’d like to give credit to EngineerHoist, a person on YouTube who did a live reading of the first two paragraphs of this story. Without his reading, I wouldn’t have the motivation to continue writing the rest of this chapter and figure out ideas for the future ones to come. Here’s the reading itself alongside the two paragraphs to follow along.

...

A pure black visor stared at the acid green flames dancing higher and higher above the fallen Cobra base. His acid gun slipped down worn fingers, Viper's knees gave way to the course sand surface. Wings lowered and bullet ridden. Spent a whole day, by himself getting rid of his creators. Humans, they've done nothing but cause chaos in his life. Memories racing in his head. Torment, lobotomy, neglect. They're dead, all of them. The red symbol he detests on his wings, the first born human made Cybertronian. Meant to be a weapon against other inferior humans. He got up, taking his battered body away from the sea of acid he'd inflicted on the pitiful humans.

The pain overwhelmed him, those tanks, the copters, forced him to land into the sand once again. Tiny grains blowing against ruined true blue paint. Maybe its best to die now, he killed those who brought him to this world, to stifle his life because of a failure, yet, he danced with Decepticons. As he listened to the fire cackling from back at his 'birthplace', a shadow overtook his vision. One with yellow optics; processor trying to bring back any memories of those with yellow. It stung, its always hurt to look through memories due to the lobotomy. Got difficult to remember important things, most assumed short term memory loss that Shockwave didn't bother to look through. Maybe if he does survive this pit he'll force that lazy scientist to help. For now, this mysterious fellow seemed to be helping him out. Other colors became recognizable. Nightbird...

His processor kept repeating the same visions. A record player of rotating screams of torment. Flesh melting away into the puddles of their creation's tears. Among the fragments is of a human cowering in a corner, his face cut and green jacket torn off. Instead of fear, he scowled.

“I gave you a new life Viper! You can't do this to me when I wasn't involved with what happened! I freed you from your prison!” Luca screamed, shaking his fist up.

“You betrayed the Decepticons, for a few dollars more...” Viper replied, taking aim and letting the green flames come to life... One traitor down, never deserving to wear the silver badge on his jacket.

The agonizing screams started to grow numbing as the malfunctioning processor stopped thinking. Focused on preserving the battered soldier, for his mission is complete at last. Nightbird, the last thought on his mind, wondering why she came. Did Megatron ask the ninja to investigate? Too tired to question, gotta sleep...

Music began to play, the kind that'd be relaxing to whoever took a listen with its keyboards. Optics lit up to the sight of the bright lights meant for surgery. A figure came into vision again, this time, its one with a red visor. Dang it, more faces to identify. At least his bright green paint job helped determine which of the Constructicons this is.

“Well, I thought you wouldn't turn gray because your human made.” Hook smirked, stepping back to grab a few more tools.

“How'd I get here?” Viper tried sitting up, yet pain spiked in his back, forcing him to lie down again.

“Nightbird dragged you in here and told me to get to work. Sounds like you made them all pay. Megatron will be glad to hear the details.” He grabbed one of the wings and began to pluck out the bullets. Viper's servos clenched, wishing he could get up and clobber the mech. Everything's too numb, like something's in his system. It could be either that or armor is still recovering from the trauma.

“Did Megatron ask her to come along?” Optics watched as the boxy helmed mech shook from left to right. His tray piling up with small metal pieces. Other Constructicons began to assist their brother and repair the damaged armor. Hook pulled off the broken black glass, revealing two vibrant blue optics underneath.

“Nope, he didn't order anyone to see your attempts. We thought you would've died. Looks like you're made of sterner stuff.” Viper didn't retort, rest, must rest and wait until he could find that canary and force the answers out of her.

It felt odd to not wear a visor anymore. His once unseen optics inspected the long hallways of the military base. A few Decepticons walked by the broken freak of a soldier. Some glanced by, but others chuckled, giddy that they aren't made by flesh creatures. Viper remained firm as he walked, wings still in pain, but will get repaired another time. Hook and others had to deal with other tarnished things. He's already broken, always been since the failure. All to think about was the silver emotionless face before his processor got torn apart. The former Cobra mech didn't notice the three fingered hand grabbing his shoulder. A great smirk embedded into one's golden face.

“Well done Viper, I enjoy human sacrifices. They were my favorite parts of Aztec history.” The one whose name would send shivers down one's Energon veins. His grin became twisted as a Cheshire Cat's. Viper glanced back, seeing the purple glowing in his vision.

“I don't care Malus, you can interpret it any way you want, but its my story, and I ended it.” Viper tried moving, yet the demigod kept a firm hold.

“Where are you going? Do you believe that I am not worthy for a conversation?” His frown changed as much as a mask for the audience of an opera.

“I want some time to myself. I spent all day fighting for my freedom while you and everyone else sat back and enjoyed my suffering like a show!” Viper's wings flared, even if he's shorter than him, that fire burned in blue optics.

“Your war, not mine.” Oh, if the snake had his acid gun, then there wouldn't be any trace of this rotten fruit anywhere. Who cares if he's the guardian to some shiny balls, none of his business.

“Be lucky I spent all my rage on the humans, rather than you.” He stomped away as Malus scoffed.

“Toodle pip Viper.” Spat out as he transformed into his spider tank alt mode and crawled away.

More faces, the same faces rewinding faster as the figures passed by. Some showing hints of concern, but hidden by their tough attitudes and looks. Viper shrugged each off, not caring if anyone was walking around this morning. Sometimes questions about the ninja, yet none replied. Until he reached up to Swindle with a fist aimed at his face.

“You're the last scumbag I'll ask today, where is Nightbird?” Viper hissed, showing the scars on broken fingers. The mech smirked, trying to cower away from the situation.

“Come on Viper, I know you had one heck of a night, but give me some credit. I didn't sell anything to Cobra,” bam! A fist to the face, letting fresh pain reel in pristine faceplates.

“Say that word again, I could go for another injection of their venom into my veins.” He goaded, before noticing a glimmer of yellow that vanished down the hallway.

“Hey!” The Rattler ran, leaving Swindle to cough up some Energon.

A giant hanger, of all places to hide in. Dark blue came in, broken glass trying to inspect wherever the femme could be. He noticed her shadow among the dim lights. Dancing around old machinery that'd been defunct for a long time. Human made items, Hook would use them for spare parts when needed. Swindle pawning off each piece for big bucks. A flicker of yellow again right beside him. Nightbird, what is she doing? She held up a blade against his neck.

“Sever the cables, and you will do nothing.” She spoke in such stillness that wouldn't alert anyone of her presence. Viper tensed, gripping the yellow weapon and making sure it wouldn't leave its mark.

“I want answers to why you were following me!” He yelled out, flipping the femme over. Nightbird groaned, unable to get up before he pressed his arm onto her neck. His other servo gripped the blade in her hand. They stared, optics burning in the morning sunlight as it crept from tiny windows in the room. Blue and yellow, much like an electric storm.

“Didn't want to continue living?” She whispered, leaning up even when he tried pushing her down.

“My life is over, I have no reason to continue, so why bring me back?” Nightbird looked away.

“We're soldiers, and you're purpose shouldn't end in such a way.” She exhaled, kicking the mech off, Viper stood back up, retaining his balance.

“Then why try killing me if I wanted to say thanks?” Blue optics observed Nightbird's own. A hint of concern behind that bright yellow often coated in anger.

A large hangar door opened, letting Soundwave come in. His armor is much more chunky on the legs and torso. A result from getting kidnapped by Cobra. Red visor caught the attention of the duo, with his cassettes tagging along.

“Viper, our lord Megatrons request to meet with you.” Said in his monotone elegance.

“I'll not keep them waiting, we'll talk about this later.” The Rattler strode away from the short conflict. Soundwave looked at Nightbird, seeing how upset she appeared to be.

“Is something wrong?” The femme shook her helm.

“No, how do you feel about that armor?” She tapped onto his shoulder, feeling the strong materials constructing it.

“It is an inferior version of myself, but I will adjust.” He transformed and let his little minions climb aboard before driving back outside. Nightbird stared, pondering what thoughts are rushing in Viper's processor right now.

Chapter 2

[theorynexus]

62

Yeah... somewhat to be expected.  This is why it would have been best to return with her early. And... yes, Home is a fluid, complicated concept.  That’s why they say it’s where the heart is.  That’s why this must be so difficult for her.

“I,” he says.  Disgusting.    I don’t really have all that much in the way of energy to comment further on this.  I still don’t see how it could have been possible for Dave to fail to stop him, though.   Certainly, it wouldn’t have been without narrative interference. It feels natural for there to be a little bit of a time skip, here, by the way... .  The amount of leverage that fact gives Dirk is making this feel like it’s losing its coherence and mooring in factual plausibility, though.  It’s strange. For some time, the characters have had sputtering fits of being closer to real people than gods who have the minds and hearts of real people.   I drift now into the future of the tale, uncertain how invested I shall be in this dubious canon. (Now I understand the vague wording on the top of wiki pages, which if clicked would presumably lead to the epilogue or post-epilogue version[s] of the characters’ stories.)    However, I will attempt to pursue the reading as logically as possible, and puzzle out what I can that interests me and might interest you. Perhaps this is just a logical result of my crying.  I always seem to have somewhat muted, dour emotion after I am done with it.

Ugh, gah, this truly demands some sort of reversal by means of dramatic irony, some time in the future.

***eyes twitch with frustration***

***facepalms and groans***

Sad, sad, sad.   Dirk treats politics as if it’s just some amusing diversion for him to “win” at, unrelated to and unimportant to his greater goals for the most part. He just wants to dominate everything.  I am actually beginning to pity the fool, and not in the trollish meaning of the word.

I look forward to seeing what those changes are.  Also:  Yeah, it’s sortof natural that Roxy smells a bit like Dave. I will not begin to speculate on that Legacy of Responsibility~ Oh, hey, Dirk recognizes the same thought/defense as I do. What a shock.

***laughs weakly, for I truly do enjoy the mockery of SSJ3 and its monologue on Goku’s part, but am not feeling it fully***     Oh, umm... and good for Roxy, trying to figure things out.

Surprisingly moderate of you. Glad she’s finally got shades~   Have fun on the Archimedes... or the Daedalus... or... let’s see, what was the actual name?  ***remembers that it was plastered on the side of the ship in poor penmanship, along with stupid-looking scribbles on the side***   Theseus. ***flips him the bird***    Screw you and your disinterested, petty garbage, you ignorant, horrible calamity incarnate!

Heh heh... heh.

That’s very nice of them both...~

Eh...?    In dorkiness, or because she’s mean instead of sweet, or...?  ***sighs***

That is creepy but also very sweet. I’ll actually approve of this.   As for that... the question of whether she’ll wake up is definitely an important one.  I sortof imagine that she miiight wake up right after Dirk blasts off, so that he’ll be just beyond Alt!Calliope’s influence, somehow, when that happens~

Sounds like Calliope’s getting visions of Gamzee. Could be wrong. The nudity factor is very intriguing.  This is all very, very intriguing, in general, and I think it’s probably very important for the future. Their drawing paintings on the walls doesn’t seem too terribly bad, though.  They’re a very artistic person, and having some sort of major awakening like that after the revelation of Alt!Calliope’s revival poses a very... curious probably-not-a-problem for their (collective) future(s).

Good to hear that  most of it is nice and cute.  THAT SAID...  Terezi should take this as an opportunity to investigate, and to bring things into proper order.  A criminal investigation is at hand!

Okay, then, you’re the Seer of Mind. I’m sure you’re a better judge of such choices than me.

Ahhhhh!!!~   Please answer the phoooone! >^< Also, that’s a silly thing to think. I’m sure that you’ve talked to more people than that. Like Dave.  Man, her mind is sortof messed up, right now.

(Hehehe~)

Well, I wouldn’t call The Furthest Ring “The Medium,” but okay.  You probably haven’t been thinking about these things for quite some time. That’s alright. Also: Pffft.  (I really do hope that, like Doc Scratch’s inability to see past pockets of void such as those around Equius, this shall in turn cause Dirk a great deal of consternation in the future, when she does something important.)

Mind. Lies. Facade.  She is grieving. There’s no need to fault her, here.

Feels like this is a mock reflection of Hussie and the Homestuck fandom on various different levels.

Dot dot dot.   Seers being able to hear the voice of the narrative like this = quite logical.  It is much more interesting that Terezi is able to sense that Roxy is trying to express masculinity that way, though, when Dirk seems to be struggling with the comprehension and coherent expression of Roxy’s gender.  It’s quite funny to think that Terezi could act as a messenger from Dirk to the characters otherwise involved in the story, like that, though.

***eyes narrow a la the Fry meme, for I am not sure whether this is suddenly sincere (and probably somewhat sexist) or sarcasm on his part, and unreliable narration***      (Probably more likely to be the latter, though~)

***slow blink***     I appreciate that she recognizes this as nonsense. Also that she is speaking for the audience, here.  I also also really quite do appreciate Roxy’s affinity for Silence, every now and again, which is a thing of Void.

Neither of these are very nice thoughts to put into words. Very petty of him.  And he most definitely should not be trying to stop her from finding a way to create a home for herself there, even if she, like John, had/s trouble embracing the place. >:

Yeah, I’m not sure that they’ve ever talked, either, outside of these narrative interactions.  I am at least willing to hear him out, though. I sortof have to be, or otherwise quit.  I don’t feel like abandoning Homestuck right now, sooo...~

Oh, so you want to have her come with you on the Theseus and maybe figure out a way to revive him later, huh?  Well... that could certainly be interesting, though I sortof have doubts that it would work out.  Hmm.  : |

This is why I accused him of orchestrating Egbert’s death. He’s just exploiting it now to his ends like the piece of garbage that he is inevitably suggests by nature that he would. Ugh... .      (Also, interesting that he can choose not to let her hear his narration, or indeed to let her do so.  I assumed in fact that he had been purposefully having her do so from the start, given the fact that he’d shielded her from the noise at every point since she met Egbert [Calliope interlude not included], but still, interesting.)

[superbruelsmash]

The Hero's reveal was lit as heck. It takes place in the World of Light(if you know me I'm a big fan of WoL) and I dreamed of having a character reveal take place in WoL but I didn't think it was going to happen(a recurring theme in the Smash community when someone wants something but doesn't think it's going to happen), but when I saw Dharkon, I flipped out and I knew this E3 was going to be HYPE from the start. It shows Link fighting Dark-cloned versions of Meta Knight and Marth(one person I saw pointed this out that it could be a reference to Subspace where Meta Knight and Marth team up, another person said that it references that the Hero represents the Light and will slay the DARKness, Dharkon, and I personally think that this match up references that they're all sword fighters like Hero, but it could also be just a random set up or a reference to all three of these theories idk) and he's getting jacked, but when we see those horse hooves, we think we KNOW that its Erdrick but they blow us away by revealing all 4 heroes of Dragon Quest being alt skins and THE MOVESET LOOKS SO CONFUSING THAT ITS AWESOME(I love how they reference RPG elements in it) and I will definitely pick the Erdrick skin out of irony from the leaks and why not(plus hes goku). He looks awesome.

[bardofv0id]

Meat vs. Candy: Meat

Here’s the thing.

I’m hearing two main arguments online... a lot of people saying the epilogues are Terrible, for various reasons, and a few people saying they're Good, with a smaller but vocal subset of those people arguing that if you don’t like them then you’re obviously just expecting to be spoon-fed a fluff ending in which the Character You Like gets a wish-fulfillment storybook epilogue.

There are probably some people who are mad about not getting that. However, I think misrepresenting the range of anger various parts of the fandom are experiencing as being purely some kind of childish knee-jerk tantrum at not getting the toy they wanted is disingenuous, at best, and parallels some of the mistakes of the epilogues themselves.  Note that this in no way excuses or justifies people sending the writers or anyone else death-threats or whatever the hell else has been going on.

Honestly... the Meat ending was pretty good writing, in my opinion.  It wasn’t comfortable or happy or flattering in any way to a number of characters who I recognize people care deeply about, but it was nothing really worse than I expected from Earth C, based on the fundamental narrative of Lord English’s giant closed-loop system.  The loop had to close, in order for Homestuck proper to occur at all.  That means that Earth C is where Calliope and Caliborn hatch and grow up, far, far in the future. And that means that universe, like the others, will be destroyed by a SBURB session one day. Sorry, folks.  It was never meant to be a 'happy ending'.

Meat was deeply metatextual. It was gristly and greasy and discomfiting.  It raised questions about what it means to have a narrator, and whose biases are implicitly included--and I think those are very interesting questions to raise, whether or not they are particularly satisfying to someone who is also reading for the characters.

Spoilers beyond the read-more, for obvious reasons.

That said, there were elements that did surprise me.  The removal of the other kids from different points in different doomed timelines, to fight with John against LE, rather than being his teammates from Earth C--but from John’s perspective, it doesn’t seem like there’s much difference.  Either way, they’re not fully ‘real’ to him (and barely feel real to us, as quickly as they appear and then die). He’s from the Game Over timeline, he’s battling depression, and nobody in the retcon timeline is really quite authentic to him, either--just as to many fans, they didn’t feel quite authentic, when the retcon happened and we had to suddenly let go of the characters we'd watched grow and change, replaced by funhouse mirror reflections and could-have-beens.

I’ve also seen some reasonably interesting arguments that a lot of Dirk’s narration, in the Meat route, either sounds eerily like Vriska talking or flips back and forth between Vriska-mode and Dirk-mode, well before alt!Calliope ever gets involved.  I’m prepared to believe some Serket element (whether that is potentially Vriska, or the Aranea who was abruptly displaced from her attempt at wresting control of the narrative by John) was involved there, and Dirk was not acting entirely of his own accord.  I’m also prepared to shrug and say “okay, maybe it was just a narrative parallel--Homestuck does that a lot”.  Some narration, especially when Terezi is involved, doesn't sound at all how I would expect a Serket-influenced narrator to sound with regards to her, in particular.  It doesn’t particularly grind my gears to think some version of Dirk, in the right environment, might make a series of choices that leads him to behaving like this, entirely on his own.  I recognize that it’s upsetting to DirkJake fans in particular to see their favorite pairing written like this, but it doesn’t feel wholly out of character to me for either of them to develop in these directions, given the right (or wrong) pressures and external situations. This Dirk is the culmination of a very wide multiplicity of Dirks, including at least one if not more who ended up directly subsumed in Lord English and/or under his explicit influence.

I’ve heard that some people were attacking the Meat route on the grounds of transphobia, which... I think is a rather weak argument, given that it’s recognized in the text itself, as pronoun changes are handled respectfully by one narrator-character and inconsistently by a second, who is being set up as the villain of the story. That seems like a pretty solid metatextual rejection of the action, no?  Like, if a villain does a bad thing, in a story, while the hero is fighting them, do you argue that the story itself advocates for that thing? There has to be some kind of distinction between ‘character does X’ and ‘author of story advocates X is Morally Correct’, or we would never have any villains at all. Dirk's dismissiveness toward Roxy's agency grows, the further toward 'villain' he slides.

Were there some things I liked, in Meat?  I guess.  From a sociopolitical and cultural standpoint, the shitty repercussions of the way the retcon gang set up a planet, dumped a bunch of chess people and clone grubs, then left them to do all the work of creating its society and waiting for their eventual 'godly' return... were pretty logical. I'm actually happy that it was acknowledged, instead of just brushed off as inconsequential.  It was interesting, too, to see some of the kids playing with notions of gender identity as they grew, and how their companions adjusted. It was telling (in terms of Dirk's character development) how he thought of Roxy and Calliope's gender explorations as something he could choose to 'allow' or not. Also, with how truncated most of the gang's personal development (and plot development) was in Homestuck proper ('thanks', retcon!Vriska), I think it kinda made sense how stunted and incapable of like... dealing with regular life in a functional way a lot of them seemed. Jumping straight to teenage 'godhood' didn't make them experienced or smart. It's sad that all of them just kind of... stagnate there, but Earth C has always felt incredibly stagnant to me.

Retcon!Vriska getting swallowed by the black hole was at least thematically fitting, though I'm wondering why she is using such Seer-themed language, suddenly. I also like that the wallet is finally back in play. Rose and Dirk's philosophical debate about individuation and free will is delightfully creepy, given the themes of the story. There are moments, within the story, that the turns of phrase and the humor just hit me full in the teeth and remind me this is Homestuck, and I do love those moments.  And of course, my xenobiological worldbuilding interests enjoyed that apparently, earth onions are quite toxic to trolls.

Were there things I didn’t like in Meat?  Yeah, of course. I don't particularly like that John, an Heir of Breath--one who is innately positioned to awaken Breath, freedom and motivation in the people around him--callously shoves an unresisting teenager he's barely met into a refrigerator and just leaves him there, apparently convinced he deserves it.

Did some of the things I disliked relate to the storytelling itself, rather than just how characters were characterized, or what actions they took?  Yeah. Why are we still out here queer-baiting with Dave and Karkat?  Years have passed.  They have spent literal years sitting 1.5 feet apart so it's 'not gay'? I sincerely don't think this pairing is actually healthy or beneficial to either of them, the way it developed in canon, but come on. Then, they still balk and drag their feet unless it's being narratively pushed on them by someone else. It's just painful to watch.

I also take a certain level of personal offense as a Tavros fan when the narrative goes out of its way to repeatedly harp on Tavros being useless and no one giving a shit what he's doing.  Ghost Tavros was awesome, okay, and was personally responsible for gathering the ghost army, so fuck you, Vriska-coded narrator. You have bad judgment. But that is not a crime of writing, if it is an intentionally biased perspective and not just writers taking cheap shots at a character they don't happen to like. I'm just incredibly tired of it being done habitually and collectively, as a fandom, to that character in particular. Furthermore, I'm really discomfited by the way Tavros's development (am I the only one who remembers him dancing and telling Vriska to suck it?) is completely ignored and de-legitimized by having him immediately fawning on her, trailing around after her, hiding against her shoulder, etc.  Tavros was a victim of emotional and physical abuse, at Vriska's hands.  Can we just agree to stop narratively forcing victims back into contact with their abusers, period? It's not a good look.

Moreover, there's the whole misogyny angle.  When does a story about misogynistic characters (and narrators) doing misogynistic things while misogynistic shit narratively happens start being a critique of misogynistic tropes rather than a tired old rehash?  Every step Jane (allegedly a strong, independent woman, though also stepping into her dictatorial role as 'Heiress') takes is either dictated by Dirk, sent into a complete tailspin that upends her confidence by Jake, or verbally decried as factually wrong and/or stupid by Dave and/or Karkat.  Rose and Kanaya both have their agency overwritten and end up separated from each other through the actions of Dirk, and Rose becomes an extension of Dirk, losing her very selfhood.  Jade is treated as an accessory to the DaveKat trainwreck, simultaneously discounted as actually emotionally relevant and blamed for its ludicrous problems.  She, of course, also ends up having her agency overwritten as she's plunged into a coma and possessed, prevented from actually having reactions to the things that are going on, or taking action for herself. Borrowed!Rose and Jade are KO'd almost instantly in the fight against Lord English, and become either literally erased, or dead weight for a male character to drag around until it's no longer convenient. Terezi admits to wasting a huge amount of time trailing around after Vriska--who was an emotionally abusive gaslighter to her, on the retcon!meteor. (And we're back to victims being constantly evaluated according to their proximity to their abusers again.) Then, she's on to redirecting herself into some quest on John's behalf, instead. She's still not living for herself. Finally, you show me an Aradia who would ever, ever be concerned about 'saying more embarrassing stuff' around Dave, or thinking of him as an ‘outrageously cool dude’, and I'll show you a bridge I'd like to sell you.  That ain't any Aradia I've ever seen. So who’s narrating there, Dirk again? A third party?

Other weird things: apparently Jane's kidnapping in the snapchats just... never gets explained or referenced again? I went back to reread those, and they connected to Meat even more than I realized at first.   I guess Jane grew up to be... exactly what she was raised/groomed to be, which is *uncomfortable* but not particularly shocking.  I feel bad for people who were hoping for happier endings for the human kids, but I don't think I ever really expected Homestuck to serve up happy endings.  I don't buy that things in the snapchat were just thrown in at random, though.  Those elements were there for a reason, and arguing that everything in the snapchats were connected to the epilogues EXCEPT that one major extended plotline doesn't make sense.  Especially when it visually and narratively seems to be a direct link to the events of the Meat storyline. 

Also, where the fuck are the sprites?  We never see or hear from Jasprosesprite, Gcatavrosprite, or the Nannasprite(s?) again. I’m not sure anyone cares, but. Uh. Yeah.

I have other thoughts regarding the classpect-coded language that crops up pretty frequently in the epilogues, but I think I will devote a separate post to that, if I get around to it, given that this *is* at heart a classpecting blog.

So anyway, Meat ends, it's depressing and futile and grim, I get it. I don't like every element, but it hangs together as a story with a narrative, overall.

Then we get to Candy.

Hoo boy.

I’ll tackle that one next, but as it was considerably more upsetting for me to read, rereading it for fact-checks and commentary is going to be a lot harder for me.  I’ll get through it here sooner or later, though.

[cleighwrites]

Dean’s Djinn World

SPN Fanfic

Characters -  AU!Sam x Dean

Summary -  Dean wakes up to his average life with Sam, but it's a little too good to be true

Word Count -  1,808

A/N -  I wrote this as part of my Wincest Big Bang for 2018, The Ones We Leave Behind (Ao3 link) I Wincested season 2... with an alt ending, but it was running a little long so I cut out Dean's Djinn world scene.  

Warnings -  SMUT in the form of shower sex, happy Sam, djinn world oddness, dream suicide

Dean jerked to consciousness then relaxed as he felt warm, strong arms wrapped around him, and his baby brother softly snoring into his neck. His mind raced, he couldn’t remember going to bed, or getting back to the motel for that matter. He tried to think of the last thing he could remember clearly, but he couldn’t picture anything after he had left to check out that warehouse for the Djinn. Maybe he had been knocked out, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Dean let himself settle back into Sammy as his breathing regulated. He was surprised that his sudden tenseness hadn’t woken him up, they had both always been light sleepers, but he didn’t think too much more of it as he drifted off back to sleep. Dean had a fitful night’s sleep, his dreams filled with a girl who looked like she was having the life drained out of her.

The following morning Dean woke to an empty bed, the sheets tangled around his legs, and immediately jumped out of bed as the morning light showed that he was not back at the motel like he had thought. He was in a bedroom, a shared bedroom; both his and Sammy’s things scattered across a dresser and mirror set on the opposite wall from the king size bed that he was now standing beside. He quickly took in his surroundings and made his way to the closet, hoping to find some clothes since he was in nothing but his boxer briefs.

After dressing he heard noises from somewhere downstairs in the assumed house that he was in. As he made his way down the short hallway and started to descend the stairwell he became more and more uneasy. There were pictures of him and Sammy on all the walls, and even more inexplicable there were pictures of the two of them with their mom, recent pictures. Dean’s mind was in a haze, how hard had he hit his head? Am I in a coma, or dead?

The sound and smell of bacon frying lead him to the kitchen, where his baby brother was cooking breakfast in his underwear. The sight stopped him dead in his tracks as he openly gawked at Sammy swaying to some unheard tune, flipping bacon in the pan while chewing on a piece that was half hanging out of his mouth. Dean couldn’t help the laugh that fell from his lips at the absurdity of Sammy dancing while cooking what looked like an entire pound of bacon. He had never seen his baby brother eat more than two pieces of bacon with his breakfast, and that was a rarity.

Sammy turned at the sudden noise behind him with a grin on his face, “Mornin’ De. You didn’t seem to sleep well last night, so I figured I’d let you sleep in. I should have known the smell of bacon would have woken you up.”

It was then that Dean noticed the lightness in Sammy’s words, the carefree way he turned back to his cooking, the heartbreaking ease with which he was smiling as he worked. This was not his Sammy, something was definitely wrong. Dean needed to figure out exactly what was going on, and quick; whatever it was couldn’t be good.

“De?” Sammy was looking at him, concern evident in his eyes, just like the last time he had seen him; the real him.

“Yeah, uh, sorry. Long night.” Dean tried not to back away as this happy Sammy came around the kitchen island with a plate full of bacon and eggs, just the way he liked them.

“I noticed, you haven’t slept like that since Dad died. Was it the same nightmare?” Sam noticed Dean’s hesitation and moved past him to set his plate on the table next to two glasses of orange juice, motioning for him to join him.

“Yeah, probably.” He wasn’t really sure what he should say until he figured out what was going on.

Dean walked over and joined his brother at the ornate dining room table, grinning as he noticed that Sam’s plate had more eggs and fruit than bacon, while his was mostly bacon with a couple of eggs. He figured that no matter what was going on, he would need his strength, so he ate his breakfast quickly, only noticing Sammy staring at him when he went to down his orange juice.

“What?”

“Nothing, I’ve just never seen you eat so fast. Are you in that much of a hurry to get to Mom’s?”

Dean swallowed hard, “Mom’s?”

Sam chuckled, that left dimple making its second appearance that morning, “Yeah, Mom’s; it’s Sunday. Dean are you feeling alright?” He reached for his forehead and Dean grabbed his wrist to stop him from touching him. Sam got a hurt look on his face, but took his hand back.

“I’m fine Sammy, just forgot what day it was.” He tried to flash him a reassuring smile, but Sam didn’t seem to buy it.

Dean sat awkwardly at the table, looking out the window at the strange neighborhood, while Sammy finished his breakfast. When he was finished he grabbed the plates and glasses and went to take them to the dishwasher.

“Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” Sam looked both amused and worried, if that was even possible.

“Yeah, why? Since you cooked, I figured I’d clean.” Dean tried to brush off the feeling that he was doing everything wrong and that something terrible was going to happen because of it.

“That’s just it- you know what? I’ll take it, I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, right?” Sam stood and walked toward the stairs, “I’m going to take a shower…” he trailed off, lifting his eyebrows and grinning when Dean turned to look at him.

Dean’s cock was half hard before he tossed the plates haphazardly into the dishwasher and made his way back upstairs, right on Sam’s heels. Even if this wasn’t his Sammy, at least this was the same. He had his shirts off and his pants undone by the time they made it to the bedroom. Sam turned and caught him with his lips as he struggled to get his pants off of his legs. They were laughing into each other’s mouths before they pulled apart so that Dean could finish getting undressed.

Sammy was in the bathroom getting the water up to temperature and Dean took the moment to take a closer look around the room. There were more pictures of the two of them, some from when they were younger on a lake, teenagers on a road trip, Sammy in a cap and gown with Dean smiling proudly at his side. Photographic evidence of a happy childhood and a happy life lived. Dean couldn’t help but smile, even as his uneasiness grew. At least some version of Sammy got to grow up happy and live a normal life.

“You coming, De?”

Dean cleared his throat, “Yeah, Sammy, be right there.”

Their shared shower was huge, obviously designed so that the both of them could shower together comfortably without too much thought of having to avoid rogue elbows; it was strange. What was stranger still was how Sammy had grabbed Dean’s hand and led it from his hip to his ass; that was generally Dean’s move. He didn’t argue though, Dean would give Sam, any Sam, whatever he wanted.

Sam came quickly with Dean’s fingers massaging his prostate and other hand gripped tight around his flushed cock. Dean had to make himself focus and not lose his head as this Sam took him into his mouth like they’d been doing this for years. He knew exactly how to swirl his tongue just under the head, just how hard to suck and when, and that flick of his tongue on his over sensitive head was enough to make Dean’s knees give out.

They dressed in comfortable silence, needlessly brushing up against one another while reaching for articles of clothing. Sam wore khakis with a baby blue sweater over a simple black and white button up shirt. Dean had found a dark pair of jeans, a black tee shirt, and a solid maroon flannel that looked like one that he already had, it made him feel more comfortable.

****

Dean was in shock as he raced to the abandoned warehouse. He knew everything was too good to be true. Him and Sammy living happily together, his mom being alive, his mom, not Sam’s, because Sam was not his brother. Apparently, they had been inseparable since middle school, fell in love in high school, and had bought their house and moved in together after college, which they had both attended. One thing that hadn’t changed was that their dad was still dead, a stroke in his sleep after his softball team had won the Championship. It was just too much.

Sam was sitting beside him, having refused to let him drive off “hysterically,” alone. Dean didn’t like bringing this Sam with him on a hunt, unsure of how entangled this fantasy Sam was with his Sam. Fuckin Djinn dream world. Dean had hit up the local university to see what he could find out about Djinn and their “wish fulfillment” tendencies. The best he was able to figure out was that the Djinn had attacked him and put him in some sort of dream world where his wish that his mom had never died was granted. Of course, since their mom never died, their dad had never gotten into hunting, and being that him and Sammy weren’t even brothers meant that everyone they had saved had gone unsaved in this world. All of those people, all of their hard work and sacrifice had never happened; all those lives just lost.

Dean had a moment where he thought that he could just let it go. If he didn’t save himself, if he let himself accept this dream world, he could live a happy, long life with Sammy, he could make his mother proud. In the end he knew that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did that; hell, he was likely half dead already in the real world.

The dream world put up a fight in the end, all the people in that life coming forward, trying to get him to stay. It was Sam that had almost won him over, but it was also Sam who had made up his mind that he had to wake himself up. Dean knew there was a wives-tale that if you die in your sleep that your mind will wake you up, otherwise you would die for real. Dean decided that he was dead either way, so it was worth the risk; he shoved the silver knife into his body, just under the ribs.

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