#i made a google doc timeline

[ink-wells-and-feathers]

...would you love me if my taz hyperfixation is back?

[ziyechs]

joe'marr bengals reunion — a (somewhat) comprehensive timeline

1 — “have you spoken to the cincinnati bengals and what would it mean to reunite with joe burrow there?” — “i have talked to the bengals. i don’t know how many times i’ve talked to them though. but, me and joe, you know, i wouldn’t mind going back with joe. if we go back together we’re trying to do nothing but get back our chemistry and have some more fun.”

2 — “i'm really excited for this draft. i don't really know what's coming but, you know, if me and joe could get back to it... i’d love to have some fun with him again.”

3 — “i assume you'd be okay with a potential reunion in cincinnati if that were to happen?" — "yeah, i wouldn’t mind.”

4 — “me and joe talked about [a reunion] maybe like three, four times actually. we talked about it a good bit of times. he texted me this morning, just letting me know: ‘get your bags packed’, so i guess that meant that was gonna be the pick. i don’t know if that was a hint or what. so, he sent me that little text this morning, i was like ‘okay… i'm ready, bro’.”

5 — “what was your reaction like when he was lowkey recruiting you?” — “i actually was believing him sometimes, sometimes i was like ‘stop playing with me’ and sometimes i was just like ‘okay bro, i gotcha, i'm ready now’ so. i believed him this morning when he told me, you know, pack my bags. so that's when i finally was like: ‘yeah he might really be calling this’ so that's when i took his word.”

6 – “jimmy burrow, did joe tell you—he’s always been kind of coy about what he said to the bengals—did joe tell you that he wanted the bengals to select ja’marr?” — “yes, i think we figured that… and eventually… yes, he pretty much told us that he wanted ja’marr.”

7 — “it was like a week before the draft, ja'marr said: ‘dad, joe texted me.’ […] he didn't say what he said, you know. but he said: ‘joe just texted me’, [...] so he had talked to joe like... or texted with joe once or twice that week. and then he told me, he said: ‘dad, if i get with joe, we're gonna kill’ [...] so he was all excited about getting with joe.”

8 — “what was the first thing joe texted you when you got drafted by the bengals?” — “make sure your bag's packed and ready. yeah, that was what he told me.”

9 — “the cincinnati bengals are on the clock now. earlier that morning, i had got a text from joe. he said: hope your bags are packed. i know it's me, at the moment, that's what i'm saying to myself. i can't wait to be a part of it.”

10 — articles: 1, 2, 3, 4

[mr-electr1c]

been sporadically working on a full timeline of the events of tf2 for a bit now. it's really neat how many things have specific dates that all line up reasonably with each other.

For Example:

[this has spoilers for the update comics, but not for the main comics]

Based on the teufort reader article for wizardcon and pages 6 and 19 of Doom-Mates, it's pretty likely that he went to the con for the 28th-30th, meaning the start of doommates is halloween morning (which makes sense because. you know. scream fortress comic).

Because the same teufort reader page also has both a job ad for the robot wars and a rental ad for the alamo, it's safe to say red+blu are still alive and the mercs havent been hired to fight gray yet. According to the catch-up comic, it's "currently" 1972, and the brothers died "last year", meaning they died in '91.

So we can say without much doubt that merasmus was evicted on October 31st, 1971.

[bearimba-reblogs]

Replaying a game for the nostalgia: lame, overrated and overdone

Replaying a game to build a comprehensive timeline, find random minor details that would otherwise be missed by looking through wikis, and build headcanons based on the tiniest bits of flavor text: 10/10, obviously the only valid reason to play, definitely won't be ruining the experience by stopping every five minutes to take notes

[joetastic2739]

Statement Regarding False Claims Made Against Joetastic by Dylan/ @anyamusumesonlywife

Author: Concerned members of the Mouthwashing community, friends of Joe, and Joe himself

Introduction

This post is a joint statement written in defense of Joetastic (hereafter referred to as Joe), a creator in the Mouthwashing community, who has recently been the target of misinformation, mischaracterization, and public defamation. The accusations originate from a former collaborator, anyamusumesonlywife (hereafter referred to as Dylan), and have been circulated via a written document on Google Docs, two TikTok videos, one Tumblr post, and several word-of-mouth messages in community servers on discord.

While Joe has remained silent publicly until now, the scale and intensity of the false claims, combined with the reputational damage they have caused, make it necessary to issue a detailed and factual response. This statement reflects not only Joe's perspective, but also that of peers, colleagues, and neutral parties who have reviewed the evidence and feel compelled to clarify what truly occurred.

This document is not intended to cause harm, incite harassment, or encourage retaliation against Dylan in any form. Its sole purpose is to clarify the facts, present context, and refute the false claims that have been made about Joe. While emotions are understandably high, we ask that readers approach this with maturity and respect. This is about defending someone’s character, not attacking another’s. Any form of harassment directed toward Dylan or anyone involved is strongly discouraged and not condoned by Joe or anyone contributing to this statement.

Context & Timeline

December 26, 2024: 

Joe contacts Dylan on Discord asking permission to use their OC in a fan animation. Dylan responds enthusiastically, stating: “YOU CAN 100000% USE MY OC IN ANYTHING!! ID BE SO HONORED.”

Over the following weeks, Dylan provides detailed reference material, lore, and expresses gratitude. They never object to any creative decisions made during this period.

Joe maintains professional, transparent communication throughout. Even clarifying their pronouns so as to not misgender their OC accidentally. There is no indication of discomfort or distress from Dylan.

January 11, 2025:

Joe starts becoming increasingly uncomfortable using someone else’s OC for public-facing content. This is influenced by private feedback and the growing popularity of his work. Joe begins planning an original character, Eira, as a way to tell WLW stories while keeping personal and professional lines clearer. 

January 12, 2025: 

Dylan noticeably starts to change attitude and starts pressuring Joe

"Yeah if I paid for something I'd want it to be posted D: I don't mean to argue at all /gen I was just super looking forward to finally being seen with my Oc and thought that maybe you posting about them would get selfshipping a bit of a better representation" 

Joe talks about making the OC video for free to make it up to Dylan and labeling it as a commission in order to protect both of them over harassment regarding favoritism which Dylan agreed with and voiced no complaints.

Keep in mind that at this point, despite Joe quoting Dylan $40 for a casual model of Dylan’s OC, the transaction has not been made yet and Dylan has not paid for anything.

Dylan later tells Joe that they are in a hospital before proceeding to mention Joe abandoning Dylan’s OC again

Joe pays the $40 out of his own pocket for Dylan’s Casual OC model on Dylan’s behalf first and offers Dylan to pay him any amount for it as he feels bad and wants to make it up to them.

Dylan mentions how the model has a bigger chest which was a misunderstanding by the modeler that was cleared up quickly.

January 15, 2025: 

Dylan tells Joe that people are sending cruel messages to them because he was going to use their OC

Joe suggests to Dylan to turn off anonymous inboxes in order to stop the harassment. Dylan states that they chose not to turn it off on their other RP account and continues showing Joe the harassment Dylan has received.

Joe once again sympathizes with Dylan and makes a post telling people not to harass them on his Tumblr profile.

February 27, 2025: 

Joe debuts Eira publicly. The character receives instant fan praise, with followers eager to see more interactions between her and Anya.

March 2, 2025: 

Dylan voices being upset that their OC did not get the chance to be used by Joe.

Joe points out it’s for the best incase they mischaracterize Dylan and end up hurting Dylan’s feelings.

Joe tries to reassure Dylan again.

March 4, 2025: 

March 8, 2025: 

Dylan starts blaming Joe for harassment and taking the spotlight from sapphic people like them. Joe states that those harassing Dylan do not represent him and that he does not condone them harassing anybody. Joe once again reassures Dylan it isn’t his intent to steal attention away from anybody’s OC.

At this point, Joe began to feel that Dylan was manipulating him. Blaming him for things beyond his control and growing increasingly hostile. Though he agreed to make another Tumblr post at Dylan’s request, he hesitated, wanting first to confirm whether his suspicions about Dylan’s intentions and feelings toward him were valid.

Joe once again made it clear that it was never his intention to make anyone uncomfortable. He expressed this repeatedly, hoping to de-escalate the situation and reassure Dylan of his good faith. However, the constant accusations, shifting expectations, and increasingly tense tone from Dylan left Joe feeling emotionally drained and deeply uncomfortable continuing the conversation. Despite his efforts to resolve things respectfully, it became clear that nothing he said was enough to satisfy Dylan. After enduring repeated blame and pressure, Joe ultimately decided, for his own well-being, to stop engaging with Dylan after March 9th.

March 12, 2025: 

Despite their agreement to part ways after the free video Joe made for them, Dylan begins circulating a document on a private server framing Joe as manipulative, inconsiderate, and abusive. 

The document was then intentionally sent to the developers of Mouthwashing.

March 13, 2025: 

When Joe learned that Dylan had created a document filled with false claims and had shared it with the moderators of the Mouthwashing server, knowing it would reach the developers, he felt that a clear line had been crossed. This wasn’t just a personal dispute anymore. Iit was an attempt to damage his professional relationships and potentially jeopardize his future opportunities within a community he had contributed to. It was deeply hurtful to see someone he had once collaborated with try to turn trusted colleagues against him. 

In light of this, Joe made the decision to formally request that Dylan no longer use the free work he had created for them. He asked that all related posts be removed from Dylan’s social media, as continuing to showcase the work felt exploitative and disingenuous given the circumstances.

March 15, 2025: 

Although Dylan initially respected Joe’s request and removed the content he had worked on, they soon chose to go public with their version of events. Dylan published a Tumblr post detailing their side of the situation, painting Joe in a negative light and reigniting the narrative despite previously agreeing to take a step back. When Joe became aware of the post, he was disappointed but chose to remain silent. At the time, the post wasn’t gaining much traction, and Joe hoped that by not engaging further, the situation would deescalate. His priority was to move on quietly and avoid fueling more drama, even if it meant allowing false or misleading narratives to go unchallenged, for a while.

March 21, 2025:

Joe publicly releases a new animation featuring his characters Eira and Anya. The video shared a few thematic similarities with the earlier animation he had created for Dylan, but it was completely re-animated from the ground up.

Shortly after its release, Dylan sent Joe a direct message accusing him of stealing their animation idea. This was despite the fact that Dylan had never contributed to the production of the video in question. Not in writing, animation, direction, or execution. Furthermore, the themes Dylan claimed ownership over were not unique: they were common story beats that had appeared in Joe’s videos months before he and Dylan had ever interacted.

What made the accusation more troubling was the emotional pressure that followed. Dylan told Joe that because of this video, they had been unable to sleep, were throwing up, and feeling physically ill. The blame was placed entirely on Joe for Dylan’s emotional distress, adding yet another layer of guilt and responsibility to a situation already fraught with manipulation and false claims.

While Joe acknowledges that there are surface-level similarities between the new video featuring his OC and the animation he previously made for Dylan, it’s important to clarify that both videos were conceptualized, animated, and completed entirely by Joe himself. As the sole creator, he has every right to revisit themes, scenes, or stylistic choices from his own body of work.

March 28, 2025: 

Joe begins experiencing increased hostility, especially in the Wrong Organ server. 

Rumors originating from Dylan began circulating within the Wrong Organ Discord server. Some concerned members of the community reached out to Joe directly to inform him about what was being said.

One of these individuals, growing increasingly concerned, chose to inform Joe about what was happening. It was revealed that Dylan had also been privately messaging random members of the Wrong Organ Discord server out of the blue to talk about Joe.

According to this individual, Dylan not only reached out to people to talk about Joe, but also frequently used these conversations to vent their personal problems and frustrations. When the topic shifted away from their issues, Dylan would quickly lose interest and disengage.

March 30, 2025: 

Dylan decides to be bolder and creates 2 TikTok videos claiming Joe has been stalking and harassing them. Dylan also lies to everybody about Joe’s age and sexuality in order to make him seem more creepy, and accuses him of fetishzing lesbians. Dylan also claimed Joe purposefully shared suggestive content to minors on discord when what he did was simply share the videos he made to the Wrong Organ discord server. The Developers and Moderators have stated those videos were not suggestive and are okay to post.

Wrong Organ Discord Mod statement after Dylan started saying the Video Joe posted there was suggestive, confirming that the video would remain up and would not be removed, as it did not violate any server rules:

Confirmation from Wrong Organ themselves:

Dylan’s accusations that Joe is being creepy and fetishizing lesbians are based on out-of-context screenshots. In this example, Joe was not referring to lesbians in general, but specifically to Dylan, who is not a lesbian. The comments were a direct response to Dylan’s repeated criticisms, not a dismissal of the broader sapphic community. The framing of this exchange to suggest Joe was targeting all lesbians is intentionally misleading.

These TikToks that Dylan posted were quickly gaining traction and starting to snowball out of control. When Joe woke up to these videos, he saw that it had already gotten 20k views, 3k likes, 270 comments and 500 bookmarks with these numbers quickly increasing each minute.

In the comments of both TikTok posts, Dylan continued to spread false information and actively engaged with, and at times endorsed cruel, demeaning remarks directed at Joe.

Fearing for the safety of his reputation and watching the false rumors gain increasing traction, Joe realized that remaining silent was no longer an option. After weeks of trying to avoid conflict, it became clear that Dylan had no intention of stopping. The only way to set the record straight was to speak up. Shortly after, Joe made a public Twitter post addressing the situation:

[Tumblr only allows 30 images per post. This post will continue in a follow up]

[svenjaliv]

I usually make spreadsheets for NaNoWriMo every year, but after all the *waves hand at the scandals and assorted nonsense* that, I'm not doing NaNo myself anymore. So I made a new spreadsheet, inspired by the old website to still get the NaNo feeling without using the site.

For anyone who wants to use it, it's available here for download. I've also put it up on Google Docs here, but it looks a little different because the fancier chart effects aren't supported. You'll have to download it or make a copy to be able to use it. (Please don't ask me for edit access, that won't work. File > Make a copy, and you'll have it on your own GDrive.)

I also made this in four other designs, available here. They all come with character and plot development sheets, and pages for novel info, chapters, timeline, etc. There are also versions for other months because really, there's no need to be confined to November, right?

And I've also updated my NaNo spreadsheets for anyone who wants to use those!

[bahnloopi]

[DBS AU] - Kale Black AU

*cough* I made another one

<LONG LORE POST AHEAD>

This AU features a Femasu (Fem-Zamasu). Femasu is one of the Zamasu's from (a) alt universe created by the divergence from when the first time ring was used. She inherits "some" of the memories of the Zamasu that fused with Goku Black.

The setting is post-TOP when Vegeta ACTUALLY takes Cabba up on the offer to see Planet Sadala and Goku tags along too but Caulifla notes that Kale's been missing for a few days with no warning.

Femasu doesn't receive the memory where Zeno ultimately destroys the timeline but she knows enough to try and go for an ""easier"" target that will likely grant her greater power to combine with and destroy everyone.

During the tournament, Femasu takes interest in Kale's for her timidness and Legendary power. She sees that Kale has a strong bond with Caulifla but is aware of her insecurities of being abandoned, jealous, unwanted, or a burden to Caulifla. Some doomed yuri sprinkled in

Femasu (fused with Kale) is within her 2 subconsciousness: her normal and Legendary. In order to keep control of Kale Black, Femasu has to feed Kale's normal subconsious sweet-nothings and stoke her rage for Goku because of their interaction at the tournament she didn't like.

Kale Black tries to convince Caulifla that she's doing everything for her sake and wants her to join her but Caulifla denounces Kale's action and pleads for her to stop. The denouncement was taken as rejection by Kale Black and her Legendary then manifests.

Coupled with Femasu's immortality, Kale Black can't be put down by force so Caulifla once again tries to reason with her. She manages to disturb Femasu's hold on Kale's Legendary subconscious which will eventually forcefully expel Femasu from Kale's body completely.

I have to figure out the ending. I was gonna have Goku (successfully-spoof) Hakai her out of existence or pop another Zeno button but that's the easy way out. I like it so far. I'm gonna write the full google doc soon enough.

[physalian]

You don’t have to pay for that fancy worldbuilding program

As mentioned in this post about writing with executive dysfunction, if one of your reasons to keep procrastinating on starting your book is not being able to afford something like World Anvil or Campfire, I��m here to tell you those programs are a luxury, not a necessity: Enter Google Suite (not sponsored but gosh I wish).

MS Office offers more processing power and more fine-tuning, but Office is expensive and only autosaves to OneDrive, and I have a perfectly healthy grudge against OneDrive for failing to sync and losing 19k words of a WIP that I never got back.

Google’s sync has never failed me, and the Google apps (at least for iPhone) aren’t nearly as buggy and clunky as Microsoft’s. So today I’m outlining the system I used for my upcoming fantasy novel with all the helpful pictures and diagrams. Maybe this won’t work for you, maybe you have something else, and that’s okay! I refuse to pay for what I can get legally for free and sometimes Google’s simplicity is to its benefit.

The biggest downside is that you have to manually input and update your data, but as someone who loves organizing and made all these willingly and for fun, I don’t mind.

So. Let’s start with Google Sheets.

The Character Cheat Sheet:

I organized it this way for several reasons:

I can easily see which characters belong to which factions and how many I have named and have to keep up with for each faction

All names are in alphabetical order so when I have to come up with a new name, I can look at my list and pick a letter or a string of sounds I haven’t used as often (and then ignore it and start 8 names with A).

The strikethrough feature lets me keep track of which characters I kill off (yes, I changed it, so this remains spoiler-free)

It’s an easy place to go instead of scrolling up and down an entire manuscript for names I’ve forgotten, with every named character, however minor their role, all in one spot

Also on this page are spare names I’ll see randomly in other media (commercials, movie end credits, etc) and can add easily from my phone before I forget

Also on this page are my summary, my elevator pitch, and important character beats I could otherwise easily mess up, it helps stay consistent

*I also have on here not pictured an age timeline for all my vampires so I keep track of who’s older than who and how well I’ve staggered their ages relative to important events, but it’s made in Photoshop and too much of a pain to censor and add here

On other tabs, I keep track of location names, deities, made-up vocabulary and definitions, and my chapter word count.

The Word Count Guide:

*3/30 Edit to update this chart to its full glory. Column 3 is a cumulative count. Most of what I write breaks 100k and it's fun watching the word count rise until it boils over.

This is the most frustrating to update manually, especially if you don’t have separate docs for each chapter, but it really helps me stay consistent with chapter lengths and the formula for calculating the average and rising totals is super basic.

Not that all your chapters have to be uniform, but if you care about that, this little chart is a fantastic visualizer.

If you have multiple narrators, and this book does, you can also keep track of how many POVs each narrator has, and how spread out they are. I didn’t do that for this book since it’s not an ensemble team and matters less, but I did for my sci-fi WIP, pictured below.

As I was writing that one, I had “scripted” the chapters before going back and writing out all the glorious narrative, and updated the symbols from “scripted” to “finished” accordingly.

I also have a pie chart that I had to make manually on a convoluted iPhone app to color coordinate specifically the way I wanted to easily tell who narrates the most out of the cast, and who needs more representation.

—

Google Docs

Can’t show you much here unfortunately but I’d like to take an aside to talk about my “scene bits” docs.

It’s what it says on the tin, an entire doc all labeled with different heading styles with blurbs for each scene I want to include at some point in the book so I can hop around easily. Whether they make it into the manuscript or not, all practice is good practice and I like to keep old ideas because they might be useful in unsuspecting ways later.

Separate from that, I keep most of my deleted scenes and scene chunks for, again, possible use later in a “deleted scenes” doc, all labeled accordingly.

When I designed my alien language for the sci-fi series, I created a Word doc dictionary and my own "translation" matrix, for easy look-up or word generation whenever I needed it (do y'all want a breakdown for creating foreign languages? It's so fun).

Normally, as with my sci-fi series, I have an entire doc filled with character sheets and important details, I just… didn’t do that for this book. But the point is—you can still make those for free on any word processing software, you don’t need fancy gadgets.

—

I hope this helps anyone struggling! It doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Everything I made here, minus the aforementioned timeline and pie chart, was done with basic excel skills and the paint bucket tool. I imagine this can be applicable to games, comics, what have you, it knows no bounds!

Now you have one less excuse to sit down and start writing.

[taravangians-storming-balls]

How to Write Moash - A Breakdown of Moash's Personality

A while back someone asked for some advice on writing Moash - they wanted to include him in their story, but since he’s such a divisive character they felt nervous about representing him accurately. Um. I accidentally made an entire document about it and figured I might as well share in case it's helpful to anyone else. It's long. (I'm sorry)

This is by no means exhaustive, and I’m very certain there are aspects of his personality I’m missing here, but it’s certainly a good start if you need a refresher on his personality or have never written him before. Obligatory these are my opinions and you’re free to write Moash in whatever way you wish ♥

Click here to read it in google doc format with headers and things or you can read the whole thing here below the read more:

Appearance

Might as well start here, just as a quick reference. Moash’s body type has been described as strong, lean, solid and tall. He has a narrow hawkish face, brown hair speckled with black, and a faded scar along his chin. The official figurine gives him curled, shortish length hair. His eyes are canonically dark brown that turn tan when he has his Shards, however, his eyes were accidentally described as dark green in an early release of TWoK and some people prefer to give Moash dark green eyes so you can do whatever the hell you want. Kaladin describes him as “a younger man, perhaps near Kaladin’s age”. More on that later.

Moash does not have slave brands on his forehead, and gets his Bridge Four tattoo on his left upper arm. Hot writing tip - depending on when in the timeline you’re writing Moash, you can have some fun with this tattoo. He’s no longer a part of Bridge Four, but forever will have marked in his very skin a reminder of the people he loved and then pushed away. Yippee.

General Personality / Tone

I feel like something some people forget with Moash is that he really is just some guy. Imagine a generic, grew up in a very masculine society, never got any therapy, doesn’t connect well with others DudeTM. He goes out with his friends. He's blunt. He wants the cool swords and powers. He doesn’t deal well with his emotions. He loves manual labor. Moash really is just some guy who is absolutely going through it.

In no particular order, here are some things about Moash. Some things I’ve left out of this list and only talk about in the Life Experiences section, because it’s more in the realm of analyzing than just selecting quotes to show off the things he does.

Skepticism

He didn’t expect or need their admiration. He knew what it felt like to be beaten down, despised. When you’d been treated as they had, you didn’t trust someone like Moash. You asked yourself what he was trying to get from you. (Oathbringer Ch. 51, Moash POV)

In the above quote Moash is referring to the singers he helps (Khen and Sah’s group), but to me, it’s clear he’s also talking about his own experiences. This was likely his exact internal dialog when he was busy hating Kaladin in the beginning of TWoK. Moash doesn’t trust easily, and generally needs people to prove one way or another their intentions before he accepts them. At the very least, he needs proof of what he’ll get out of a situation.

“I never promised it would work, Moash. If you’ve got a better idea, go ahead and share it.” Moash hesitated. “Well, if you really do teach us the spear like you promised, then I guess I don’t care.” (TWoK Ch. 46)

Moash has insecurities though, and can be played like a fiddle if people know where to press. Praise (of himself, his ideas, or his actions) and promises of power primarily does it for him.

He is also openly skeptical of things that don’t make sense to him and won’t hesitate to speak up about it, usually bluntly.

“Sigzil said these violet eyes of mine aren’t native to Alethkar. He thinks I must have Veden blood in me.” “Your eyes aren’t violet,” Moash said. (TWoK, Ch. 46)

This skepticism can lean pessimistic, and pops up in serious situations and normal everyday conversations.

To the side, the bridgemen turned back to work. Kaladin caught a few of them grumbling. “Bastard,” Moash said. “I said this would happen.” (TWoK Ch. 43, directly after Kaladin yells at Bridge Four that it’s hopeless and he won’t try any longer)

“Bah.” Moash dusted himself off. “He just saw a group of undefended archers and took the chance to strike. Lighteyes don’t care about us. Right, Kaladin?” (TWoK Ch. 62)

“It could have just been posturing,” Moash said, folding his arms. “Political games, him and Sadeas trying to manipulate each other.” (WoR Ch. 2, after Moash asks if Kaladin is willing to trust Dalinar)

Moash grimaced, looking at the bridgemen. “You assume some of them will be ‘more eager,’ Kaladin. They all look the same level of despondent to me.” (WoR Ch. 2)

“I think I’ll look silly in this,” Moash grumbled, but walked over to change. (WoR Ch. 2)

Trust

Moash is usually all in when he does put his trust in somebody or an idea, and it’s hard to shake him of this trust once he’s grasped it. In general, once he decides on something, it's hard to change his mind. This doesn't mean he doesn't listen - there are plenty of scenes where he listens to what Kaladin says - but it's hard to shake his worldviews once he settles on them. In any case, as soon as Moash decides he’s going to trust Kaladin, he’s immediately defensive of him and loyal.

“I’d surrendered my plans, but you’ve returned them to me. I’ll guard you with my life, Kaladin. I swear it to you, by the blood of my fathers.” Kaladin met Moash’s intense eyes and nodded. (TWoK Ch. 63)

“I have a plan,” Kaladin said. He waited for the objections. His other plans hadn’t worked. No one offered a complaint. “Well then,” Moash said. “What is it?” [...] Kaladin’s men nodded, and Moash seemed content. As contrary as he’d been originally, he had grown equally loyal. He was hotheaded, but he was also the best with the spear. (TWoK Ch. 62)

“I’ll never outrank you, Kal,” Moash said, faceplate of his helm up. “You’re my captain. Forever.” (TWoK Ch. 68)

It’s important to note that no matter how much Moash trusts someone, it won’t stop him from asking questions about what they’re doing - he won’t follow completely blindly.

Confidence

Moash acts with a lot of confidence, and will firmly state his opinions or what he thinks is true in blunt ways. Can be very confident of his own skills, and sometimes seems to take on the belief that if he just tries hard enough, he’ll be able to succeed at whatever lofty goal he has, sometimes in a way that feels boyish or naive.

“You shouldn’t speak so casually about the Fused, human,” Sah said, standing up. “They’re dangerous.” “Don’t know about that,” Moash said as two more passed overhead. “The one I killed went down easy enough, though I don’t think she was expecting me to be able to fight back.” He handed his waterskin to the overseer as she came around for them; then he glanced at Sah, who was staring at him, slack-jawed. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned killing one of their gods, Moash thought. (Oathbringer, Ch. 51)

He walked straight-backed with his chin up. Save for those dark brown eyes of his, he could have passed for an officer. (WoR, Ch. 2, Kaladin POV)

“Any man can win a Shardblade.” Moash said. “Slave or free. Lighteyes or dark. It’s the law.” “Assuming they follow the law,” Kaladin said with a sigh. “I’ll do it somehow,” Moash repeated. (TWoK, Ch. 46)

“We could swallow them,” Moash said. “You would choke. Spheres are too big, eh?” “I’ll bet I could do it,” Moash said. His eyes glittered, reflecting the verdant Stormlight. (TWoK, Ch. 55)

Questions

These trust issues, skepticism, confidence and bluntness leads Moash to asking a lot of questions and pushing back against things he doesn't get. He does seem to be genuinely curious why people do things, and was constantly theorizing why the Fused are doing certain things as he travels with the army. This isn’t scholarly curiosity, like Sigzil might have, just what feels like a need to know what’s going on. Moash isn’t afraid to walk up to nearly anyone and ask them about a situation, or why they’re doing something, no matter the position of the person he’s asking. I’d describe him as having a constant idle curiosity.

“What’d they do, anyway?” he said as he took up his rope. “What was that?” she asked, looking back at him. […] He didn’t actually expect an answer. (Oathbringer Ch. 48)

“So the gods,” Moash said, nursing his own drink, “were pleased that you solved problems on your own . . . by going to other gods and begging them for help instead?” “Hush,” Rock said. (WoR Ch. 46)

Moash strode right up to the creature. “I need to talk to someone in charge.” Behind him, Moash’s overseer gasped—perhaps only now realizing that whatever it was Moash was up to, it could get her in serious trouble. [...] Moash took a deep breath. “Can you tell me, then, why you treat your own so poorly?” (Oathbringer Ch. 54, it should be noted that Moash is a slave at this point)

To quote a Tumblr post of mine: This was 100% why he was talking to gaz in twok btw. I figure it was moments after kaladin punched moash in the stomach that he walked over like "yo where the fuck did this asshole come from"

And then, my personal favorite section which shows a lot of various Moash personality traits in my opinion:

“Something wrong, soldier?” Kaladin asked. Moash blinked in surprise at the use of the word, but he and the others had grown to expect all kinds of unorthodoxy from Kaladin. “Why did you make me leader of a subsquad?” “Because you resisted my leadership longer than almost any of the others. And you were flat-out more vocal about it than any of them.” “You made me a squad leader because I refused to obey you?” “I made you squad leader because you struck me as capable and intelligent. But beyond that, you weren’t swayed too easily. You’re strong-willed. I can use that.” Moash scratched his chin, with its short beard. “All right then. But unlike Teft and that Horneater, I don’t think you’re a gift straight from the Almighty. I don’t trust you.” “Then why obey me?” Moash met his eyes, then shrugged. “Guess I’m curious.” He moved off to gather his squad. (TWoK Ch. 30)

Defending Others/Reactiveness

When Moash is a target of hostility, he will often glare and grumble, or is snappish, but isn’t very explosive about it.

“Why do they do that?” Moash said quietly as a passing soldier tossed an overripe pile-vine fruit at the bridgemen. Moash wiped the stringy, red fruit from his face, then sighed and fell back into his stance. Kaladin had never asked them to join him, but they did it each time. (TWoK Ch. 57)

Moash climbed to his feet, rubbing his stomach and glaring at Kaladin. (TWoK Ch. 14, Moash directly after being punched in the stomach)

However, he’s very reactive when he sees something he doesn’t like, or when someone he’s attached to is being insulted.

“I’ll find a way to get them up,” Kaladin said. “You say things like that a lot,” Skar noted. “Leave off, Skar,” Moash said. “He knows what he’s doing.” Kaladin blinked. Had Moash just defended him? (TWoK Ch. 55)

The man looked him up and down. “I heard you held a bridge, practically by yourself, against hundreds of Parshendi. How’d you do that?” He did not address Kaladin with “sir,” as would have been appropriate for any other captain. “You want to find out?” Moash snapped from behind. “We can show you. Personally.” “Hush,” Kaladin said, glaring at Moash. (TWoK Ch. 5, Kaladin and Moash talking to a lighteyed Kholin guard)

The whipping began. The cries, the crack of leather on skin. That’s enough. (Oathbringer Ch. 48, Moash POV before he catches a whip to defend Khen and Sah’s group.)

He can also be fairly reactive in high stress situations.

“Would you two just storm off?” Moash snapped. “It doesn’t matter. You heard Kaladin. Even he thinks we’re as good as dead.” (TWoK Ch. 43)

Moash spat. “And this will accomplish something? Damnation, Kaladin, I feel like I’m already dangling from the noose!” (TWoK Ch. 62)

There is a balance to be found with Moash’s reactiveness, you don’t want to lean too far one way or another.

Moash moved up beside him. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “You’re right.” Kaladin smiled, this time genuinely. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t hate them,” Moash said. “But I’ll be civil. We have a duty. We’ll do it well. Better than anyone expects. We’re Bridge Four.” (TWoK Ch. 5)

Power

Moash is very routinely interested in the cool shiny things, things that give him power, and basically anything new as well. In many other spots I’ve included the quotes of Moash wanting a Shardblade, and in Oathbringer POV Moash says he dreamed of one for years.

The lean man had turned immediately at the mention of Shardblades, and now watched them hungrily. (WoR Ch. 16, Kaladin about Moash)

“I’d join them in a heartbeat,” Moash said, walking up behind. (WoR Ch. 46, about lighteyes)

He’s really eager to possibly learn Kaladin’s Radiant skills, and keeps butting in while people are talking to Kaladin about it to ask if he could teach them.

“Can you teach me to do what you did?” Moash cut in. (TWoK Ch. 73)

This is veering into the next main category about his life experiences, but I theorize that at least a portion of this desire for a higher position and power is that his life continuously beats him down and disappoints him over and over, and Moash wants to feel capable of fighting back. He's had very little control in his life, and craves it. Also power is cool and I’m pretty sure Moash likes cool things.

Worldviews

Moash believes in higher structures and relies on systems working. He likes structure, and likes to fit things somewhat into their spot. It’s a funny bit of contrasting ideals in Moash’s character, that he can be so skeptical of things and yet so willing to do what he’s told and believe in the correctness of societal structures he knows. He hates lighteyes, but he believes his society would work if there were only the correct people ruling. It’s almost as if Moash has a hard time imagining another option, the way he treats it. This gives him a certain naivety or childishness to his worldviews.

“Oh, I’m happy to punish [lighteyes],” Kaladin said. “But I have no desire to take their place, nor do I wish to join them.” “I’d join them in a heartbeat,” Moash said, walking up behind. He folded his arms across his lean, well-muscled chest. “If I were in charge, things would change. The lighteyes would work the mines and the fields. They would run bridges and die by Parshendi arrows.” [...] “Eye color is not so odd a method, compared to many others I have seen. If you were to overthrow the lighteyes and place yourselves in power, Moash, I doubt that the world would be a very different place. The abuses would still happen. Simply to other people.” Kaladin nodded slowly, but Moash shook his head. “No. I’d change the world, Sigzil. And I mean to.” (TWoK Ch. 46)

Moash shakes his head no to the abuses still happening if he were in charge and made lighteyes do those less desirable jobs. It doesn’t seem like he’s envisioning a world where lighteyes are abused, necessarily, but it’s hard to say what he IS actually thinking this would look like. He seems to trust that it would all just work out, thus the naivety I mentioned earlier.

More on this in the life experiences section, but Moash lost his family support structure at a young age (parents, and then grandparents), which likely made him lean more heavily on these outside society structures. 

Adding into this section that Moash is okay with a certain amount of violence and sacrifice. He likes it when people get what's coming to them, so to speak. This is a section I want to add more thought to later, but a good way to look at it is that Moash is rather typically Alethi.

Fixation

I touched on this in the Trust subheader, but Moash tends to go all in on everything he does.

“I’ve noticed you keep training when Teft lets the other men take breaks. Dedication is good, but don’t work yourself ragged. I want you to be one of the decoys.” (TWoK Ch. 63, Kaladin to Moash)

“Let’s get those armorers and help you take it off,” Kaladin said. “No. You go to Rock’s storming feast. I’m going to the sparring grounds to practice! I won’t take this off until I can move in it naturally.” (WoR Ch. 66)

“I came to this war to get myself a Shardblade,” Moash said. “And I still mean to do it, somehow.” He blushed, then turned away. (TWoK Ch. 46)

He’ll also get fixated just on random things. When they find an emerald broam in the chasms, Moash gets really enamoured by being able to keep that specific sphere. The bridgemen find and keep an amount of spheres equal to the worth of the emerald broam, but Moash practically pouts when Kaladin says they can’t keep it.

“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Moash asked, staring at the emerald. [...] “We could get all of the spheres,” Moash said eagerly. “Even the—” “No,” Kaladin said firmly. [...] Moash looked crestfallen, but the other bridgemen were eager. (TWoK Ch. 55)

You could even consider his desire to get revenge a fixation, and I think it is, but the trauma of losing his grandparents affected him so much that I think it gets pushed into a slightly different class. I’d say that once he becomes Vyre, Kaladin becomes a fixation for Moash.

Silence

In extreme states of duress, or even just shock, Moash often times will fail to respond verbally to others talking to him. The most extreme example we see of this is in Oathbringer Ch. 45, where he goes fully nonverbal after realizing that lighteyes are still in charge of the human slaves despite the opportunity under the singers to remove them from power and stop obeying them. He responds numbly to everything happening around him, and does not respond to the question Brightlord Paladar asks Moash, even when Paladar shouts at him to speak up. Paladar orders Guff to be beaten for bringing him somebody that “has something wrong with him”, and Moash remains silent.

Old Guff cried out as they seized him. Moash just nodded. Yes. Of course. That was what they would do.

They throw Moash out, and Moash barely hears their words. There are two other minor examples that come to mind to show off this silent response Moash sometimes has. In Ch. 40 of TWoK, Moash freezes when he notices Kaladin come out of the barracks alive, and doesn’t listen when Torfin yells at him, instead ducking out from under the bridge they were practicing with wordlessly. Also in Oathbringer Ch. 45 when Guff asks if Moash was a soldier, Moash just. Wordlessly stands up and stretches to show off his uniform coat? That last one more so shows off the weird way Moash can sometimes respond to things. Guff had to squint in the darkness to see his coat. Why did he do that instead of using his words. Anyway, that brings us to:

Social Skills

Moash isn’t awkward in social situations, and like we’ve already talked about, brings an air of confidence to most things he does. As far as I can tell, he feels comfortable in social situations. He does however, have a certain … extra-ness to him? He’ll just sort of say things sometimes.

“It was the king,” Moash said. “He had my family executed.” It took Kaladin a moment to realize what Moash was talking about. (WoR Ch. 44)

Moash says this completely out of nowhere. I’m not even talking about Moash bringing up his past out of nowhere after a period of silence between Kaladin and Moash, I’m talking about “it was the king” was not connected to anything Moash was talking about in the scene prior. It’s amazing Kaladin figured out what Moash meant by this.

He stepped up to Kaladin, then knelt down on one knee, Plate clinking. He saluted, arm across chest. (WoR Ch. 68)

Did you know that, besides Szeth kneeling for people holding his Oathstone, Moash is the only person in the books to go down on one knee like this to salute a superior? Moash is just Like That I guess.

“They tried to break me. Damnation, they did break me. But then he made me again, a new man.” Moash paused. “I threw it all away.” “Sure, sure,” Guff said. (Oathbringer Ch. 45)

Moash goes to find his old coworker/friend, Guff, and immediately starts waxing poetic to him about his time with Bridge Four in the most vague way possible, not really explaining anything. Moash just ignores Guff calling him weird.

Bridge Four

Moash valued the camaraderie and friendship of Bridge Four, and really attached himself to it.

“It just…” Moash said. “It didn’t feel right to go to sleep until we’d had a chance to… well, do this.” (TWoK Ch. 73, Moash talking about having Bridge Four stew around the fire after being freed)

Moash held up the patch, trying to catch the firelight for a last look, and then couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. [...] Were the others sitting around Rock’s stewpot somewhere? Laughing, joking, betting on how many mugs of ale Lopen could drink? Ribbing Kaladin, trying to get him to crack a smile? Moash could almost hear their voices, and he smiled, imagining that he was there. (Oathbringer Ch. 43)

He seemed to hang out with Bridge Four frequently for fun activities like going to the tavern, and was often a part of group activities. He brings that teasing quality to the one scene we get.

“You weigh about as much as a starved axehound, Lopen,” Moash said skeptically. (WoR Ch. 46)

Moash will often say “We’re Bridge Four” or other such chants of their name, like a thing of pride. It should be noted that this next quote is from after he ran away from Bridge Four and feels awful about it. He still feels attached enough to say this.

Orange blood coated him, steaming in the chill air. He seized his spear again, fingers slick with blood, and pointed it at the three remaining Voidbringers, who regarded him with stunned expressions. “Bridge Four, you bastards,” Moash growled. (Oathbringer Ch. 43)

Parshmen

Moash displays a lot of the casual microaggressions towards singers that many of the characters do - such as early Bridge Four interactions with Rlain in Oathbringer - including Moash referring to them as “shellheads” when speaking with other caravaneers. He doesn’t seem to display any hatred or ill feelings towards singers, but definitely was used to using parshmen in his line of work, as his caravans he worked on used parshmen frequently to pull the wagons when they weren’t using chulls. Moash frequently will just accept things as the way things are, and I imagine he never particularly gave any mind to parshmen or whether his society’s treatment of them was just. Parshmen existed, people used them because they were useful, and Moash would as well. 

Skills

The most skilled were Skar and Moash. In fact, Moash was surprisingly good. Kaladin walked to the side, watching the hawk-faced man. He was focused, eyes intense, jaw set. He moved in attack after attack, the dozen spheres giving him an equal number of shadows. (TWoK Ch. 63)

Moash is a great fighter, and proves it again and again in the books. He kills Leshwi with only a regular spear, and during the Battle of the Tower, is the only one to survive of his group defending a particularly hard section of the bridge. His dedication means he tends to learn things fast, and he has a lot of tenacity once he sets his mind to something.

It hadn’t even been a week yet, but Moash walked in the armor easily. (WoR Ch. 68, Kaladin about Moash walking naturally in Shardplate)

Kaladin normally wouldn’t have started resetting exercises until the second or third day. Yet here, Moash was drinking it in after only two hours. (TWoK Ch. 49)

Manual Labor ♥

Moash straight up loves hard, manual labor. 

The last station was the most interesting to Moash. This was for hard labor. (Oathbringer Ch. 45)

I’ve been trying to keep Vyre out of this section because he’s a different beast, but I can’t not note that he says people not telling him about the marble that needed to be hauled was like “keeping sweets from a child”. Odium is taking his pain at the time, and hauling around marble and working himself all day seems to be one of the few things he genuinely enjoys doing.

In general, Moash seems to be fond of physical exercise and moving around.

“Silversmiths. I never picked up on the trade. Liked to be out walking. Going somewhere.” (WoR Ch. 44)

Moash found himself enjoying these weeks hiking and pulling his sledge. It exhausted his body, quieted his thoughts, and let him fall into a calm rhythm. (Oathbringer Ch. 48)

While he does seem to genuinely enjoy it, Moash also uses working himself hard as a way to avoid any pain or feelings he’s having. When Moash is in distress, he tends to seek it out.

Lighteyes

Moash really hates lighteyes. Obviously, probably.

With a start, Moash realized that the man had pale green eyes. Yet he still raised his hand and volunteered to carry water—something that had once been parshman work. Well, that was a sight that couldn’t help but brighten a man’s day. (Oathbringer Ch. 45)

They’ll need to press the people into this, Moash thought. Maybe they can round up some lighteyes and make them trudge across the rock like beasts of burden. He’d like to see that. (Oathbringer Ch. 45)

When he has his own light eyes, Moash is firm in insisting he’s not a lighteyes.

“Everstorm tonight, Brightlord. We were given a half day off, in celebration.” “I’m not a brightlord,” Vyre said, checking the sky. (RoW I-4)

He does seem capable of respecting lighteyes however, if they prove themselves. He talks highly of Graves, and uses the fact that Graves married a darkeyed women to help prove to Kaladin that Graves doesn’t treat people differently based on their eye color. Moash comments in Oathbringer that he used to admire how refined Graves seemed.

Extra Bits

Moash painted his Shardplate blue with red accents, and then later got a custom made uniform that looks like a Bridge Four uniform but it’s black and red. Do with this what you will.

-

He sticks his hands in his pockets to walk around a lot. In general he has laid back mannerisms, such as scratching his chin, shrugging casually, or resting his elbows on his knees.

-

The caravaneer salute is visually close to a rude gesture, and apparently they squabble a lot like a family. Moash probably fit in pretty well, even if he didn’t make good friends. It’s also fun to note that caravaneers have a distinct accent. Does Moash have this accent, or does he not for some reason? Does he suppress it? It’s a fun thing to add into writing.

-

“You did it, Kaladin!” Moash exclaimed. “You found the secret. We need to make this work. Expand it.” (TWoK Ch. 62)

“Your eyes are really changing.” “Yeah,” Moash said. “But I’m not one of them, you hear me? I’m one of us. Bridge Four. I’m our . . . secret weapon.” (WoR Ch. 68)

There is something about these two lines that are connected in my brain. I don’t know what it is, but it’s important. Something about Moash’s use of secret in these scenes reads as so boyish and endearing to me.

-

“Now, there’s a soldier!” the quartermaster said with a laugh. “Still think you look silly?” He gestured for Moash to inspect his reflection in the mirror on the wall. Moash fixed his cuffs and actually blushed. Kaladin had rarely seen the man so out of sorts. “No,” Moash said. “I don’t.” (WoR Ch. 2)

Moash has a praise kink. Sorry but I’m not wrong.

He isn’t a total asshole, actually

This section is because the way Fuck Moashers write Moash pisses me the fuck off. Moash is gruff, he can be a bit of a bitch, but he’s not a monster. Here are some random quotes of Moash being normal and caring about people.

They were joined by Moash; despite the latter’s protests that he didn’t trust Kaladin, he looked almost as concerned as the other two. [...] “You did this for us,” Moash put in. “We’d have died on that field. Perhaps as many as died in the other bridge crews. This way, we’re only going to lose one.” (TWoK Ch. 34)

Moash stepped in. He wore his Shardplate, as always. “Storms, Kal. Were you asleep? I’m sorry!” “No, I was awake.” “In the darkness?” Kaladin shrugged. (WoR Ch. 77)

“Idolir and Treff?” he asked. “We lost them,” Moash said, growing solemn. “We did two bridge runs while you were unconscious. Nobody badly wounded, but two dead. We…we didn’t know how to help them.” (TWoK Ch. 40)

He barely had time to take a fresh breath of air as the bridgemen reached him, calling out with joy, nearly tackling him in their excitement. “You fool!” Moash said. “You storming fool! What was that? What were you thinking?” (TWoK Ch. 62)

“Head back and get some sleep,” Kaladin said. “You too, Bisig. I saw you on shift this morning.” “And you?” Moash asked Kaladin. [...] Moash raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got to be at least as tired as I am, Kal.” [...] “Then you’ll get some sleep?” Moash asked. (WoR Ch. 22, Moash encouraging Kaladin to sleep.)

Moash rarely glanced in their direction without finding one of them being beaten, yelled at, or abused. Moash’s heart wrenched to see and hear this. [...] His sledge soon caught up to the parshman crew. The two sledges walked side by side for a time, and Moash liked to think that keeping pace with his crew could motivate the poor parshmen. (Oathbringer Ch. 48)

Life Experiences and How That Influences Him

A lot of this becomes speculative as opposed to the above section that was just commenting on directly what we see in the text, but hopefully it’s clear enough what is directly from the book and what is me theorizing based on what we know.

Childhood is important, so lets talk about why Moash is fucked up. Moash lost both of his parents at an undisclosed, young age, and his grandparents raised him. His grandparents were 75 when they died, so Moash was raised by people fairly old. This can have all sorts of fun effects on Moash that you can add into your writing if you so choose. Moash might be familiar with certain pain medications he’d pick up for them, or maybe he’s used to speaking at a louder volume. Moash seems to be aware of how fragile they were.

“You doubt that sending a seventy-five-year-old couple to the palace dungeons is a death sentence?” (WoR Ch. 44)

Moash’s grandparents are also second nahn, which puts him at an interesting and also probably confusing spot in his society to navigate - important, nearly as much as the lowest lighteyes, but still not a lighteyes.

Before we go further we need to talk about Moash’s age. This is all speculation, because we don’t know more than that single line I quoted from Kaladin in the Appearance section earlier. “Younger man” could probably mean anything in your 20s, as low as 18. Kaladin is about 21 in WoR, and if Moash is near Kaladin’s age, I’m going to assume they’re within five years of one another. We also know that Roshone shows up in Hearthstone near the end of 1166, so by those parameters, Moash was anywhere between 10 and 18 when his grandparents were killed.

Personally, I think he needs to have been at least fifteen, because not only is Moash going on caravan trips and working at that point, but he also is completely on his own after their death and I just can’t imagine that for anyone younger than fifteen.

That’s extremely young to be dealing with the sudden death (and practical murder by your own government!) of the people that raised you, after already losing your parents at a younger age. It’s no wonder he didn’t process it well. On top of that, it doesn’t seem like he had any other support structure, and likely no one helped him through those feelings after finding them dead when returning home from a caravan trip. As of WoR, it is eight years since Moash’s grandparents passed, and he still seemed tense and angry about it when telling Kaladin what happened to him. He clearly hasn’t done much healing.

This event was huge in shaping who he is, and is important to keep in mind when writing him. Possibly even more important however, is this feeling of being alone and unwanted.

Huddled groups of people regarded him with hostility, even though he was just another refugee. He’d always been met with hostility, no matter where he storming went. A youth like him, too big and obviously too confident for a darkeyes, had been considered a threat. He’d joined the caravans to give himself something productive to do, encouraged by his grandparents. They’d been murdered for their kindly ways, and Moash … he’d spent his life putting up with looks like that. A man on his own, a man you couldn’t control, was dangerous. He was inherently frightening, just because of who he was. And nobody would ever let him in. Except Bridge Four. Well, Bridge Four had been a special case, and he’d failed that test. Graves had been right to tell him to cut the patch off. This was who he really was. The man everyone looked at with distrust, pulling their children tight and nodding for him to move along. (Oathbringer Ch. 45)

Okay so let’s unpack all that. Joining the caravans “to give himself something productive to do” screams troubled childhood to me, and it sounds like Moash has always had a hard time making real friendships outside of Bridge Four. Moash seems to be ostracized even from other darkeyes and a common target for hostility, and even Kaladin targeted Moash, choosing him of all the bridgemen to punch in the stomach and throw over his shoulder. There were likely a million little things Moash found himself in trouble for throughout his life, his fault or not.

He slid his knife from his side sheath—he still wasn’t used to being able to carry one that long. A knife that was too big could get you into trouble as a darkeyes. (Oathbringer Ch. 43)

It makes sense then why Moash is so standoffish, bristly, and distrustful of others. When everyone you meet immediately brings this hostile or defensive energy, you learn to expect it and guard yourself by being defensive first. Of course, then it becomes a vicious cycle. If there is one thing about Moash, it’s that he loves a vicious cycle. This is a fun thing to include in your plots - make that boy a target of abuse! Make him expect the worst from people until proven otherwise, and in turn people expect the worst from him.

Note that Moash lies to himself, and is good at burying his feelings in layers. If this is just who he is, it helps cover the pain of his life, because then it wouldn't have been possible for his life to have played out differently. Moash rationalizing away pain that he can’t handle feeling is something to keep in mind while writing him. As touched on above, Moash lost his support structures, and he never seemed to really learn how to process his emotions well.

Moash doesn't have a particularly high opinion of himself, likely due to all this bullshit.

“I always do that,” Moash whispered. “Why must we always take something precious, Guff, and find ourselves hating it? As if by being pure, it reminds us of just how little we deserve it. I held the spear, and I stabbed myself with it.…” (Oathbringer, Ch. 45)

Until a specific point in Oathbringer (we'll get to it) he views himself as defective compared to others, but it's important to separate how Moash views his skills and how Moash views himself. One of these things he is confident in, and will train hard until he's very skilled, the other is stuck in this belief that its inevitable that he'll fuck things up, and that is simply “the way that he is”. There is a thing that can happen when you find yourself frequently alone, where you simultaneously hold the belief that you’re better than everyone else and also a piece of shit at the same time. Moash doesn't want people to see things bother him, hell, he doesn’t want himself to know he’s bothered by it, and so he battles this with overconfidence, which is also backed up by him being genuinely good at practical skills. 

It's very possible that he was beginning to feel good about himself as he existed for longer in Bridge Four, as he had companionship and people who trusted him and respected his abilities, but after the betrayal it would send all these feelings crushing back down as we can see in his Oathbringer POVs.

Moash looked down at his Shardblade, the wealth of nations, the most valuable possession a man could own. Who am I kidding? he thought. Who did I ever think I was kidding? (Oathbringer Ch. 43, directly before Moash decides to fight Leshwi with a spear instead)

Side note - if he hasn't had very many friendships or people he feels he can be vulnerable with, that helps explain why he doesn't always navigate friendships elegantly and has trouble connecting with others. I also feel the need to note that I have a personal headcanon that Moash is autistic, but that’s not what this document is about so I’m not going to go into it. All the pieces to that are in here though, so you can form your own opinions.

Oathbringer

So Moash has been let down in his life, over and over and over and over again. Everything he tries to do goes wrong, including joining the military, as he gets sent to the bridge crews instead. After the next string of mistakes, Moash finds himself again a slave, but this time under the singers. The world appears to be ending, and Moash is desperately clawing for something to believe in or to relieve the pressure of his pain. Moash thinks he finds it in the fact that under the singers, lighteyes and darkeyes are finally put on the same level, and the lighteyes no longer have power.

Then this too, gets shattered. That’s when we see Moash have a severe crisis, and we get that mentality shift that’s important to inspect if you’re writing Oathbringer Moash.

He wasn’t broken. All of them were broken. Alethi society—lighteyed and dark. Maybe all of humankind. (Oathbringer Ch. 45)

Moash still believes himself a piece of shit, but now everyone else is too. He truly has nothing left in this moment, nothing to believe in. He is isolated, without friends or guidance or help. The world has done nothing for Moash, so he becomes disillusioned. Note that immediately after this, Moash does a classic Moash move of avoiding his feelings and seeking out something that will help numb him - this time, hard labor. My favorite thing when writing Moash is to play around with the various things he uses to avoid feeling his feelings. He is set up to be particularly susceptible to what Odium offers.

They told him to stay away, but Moash barely heard. He picked himself up, dusted himself off, then walked to the third of the work stations—the one seeking hard laborers. (Oathbringer Ch. 45)

Moash often fishes for a reason why things are happening, a justification for why it’s all going wrong. Moash also needs a structure to believe in, and so he flips to giving all his admiration to the singers, who comparatively, have treated him pretty okay thus far. More importantly, the singers aren’t humans, who have done nothing but disappoint him.

And he goes all in. Like he tends to. Boy doesn't do things halfway.

“Stop it!” he snapped, then shoved the other overseer aside. “Don’t you see what you’re doing? You’re becoming like us.” The two overseers stared at him, dumbfounded. “You can’t abuse each other,” Moash said. “You can’t.” (Oathbringer Ch. 48)

Moash needs there to be something good in the world, and he’s latched onto this idea that maybe the singers could be that, and Moash fights to try and keep this world view from shattering too. It’s not really about the singers, it’s about them not being the people who have hurt him over and over.

Hopefully this breakdown of his thought processes is helpful for creating your own disasters for Moash to go through.

Plot You Might’ve Forgotten

Bridge Four doesn’t know why Moash left at the end of WoR. 

Moash had been the closest to Kaladin, but he wasn’t in Bridge Four any longer. Kaladin hadn’t said what Moash had done, only that he had “removed himself from our fellowship.” Kaladin got stiff and unresponsive whenever Moash’s name was mentioned. (OB Ch. 35, Sigzil POV)

I don’t know how Kaladin got away with just not telling anyone, but apparently that’s what happened. Sometime between Oathbringer and RoW people seem to be aware of it, or are at least aware that Moash killed Elhokar in Kholinar. Still unclear if they know about WoR events, though a line from Adolin in the court scene in RoW implies at least he knows about Kaladin’s struggle with deciding to kill Elhokar with Moash or not. 

-

Kaladin betrayed Moash. The timeline goes as such: Moash tells Kaladin about his grandparents, and Kaladin puts it together that Moash was behind the shitty attempt on Elhokar’s life. Moash convinces Kaladin to meet with Graves, and Kaladin is not on board for the regicide. Kaladin meets with Graves, and is still not on board for regicide and tells Moash not to meet with them anymore. Kaladin is making plans to round up Graves and his men, but oops Kaladin gets thrown into prison after Whitespine Uncaged. Now Kaladin IS on board for regicide because he got too sad in prison. Kaladin gets wishy washy, but does continue to give Moash the green light. It’s not until literally the last moment that Kaladin is like “wait! Moash we have to get revenge on Roshone instead actually” and understandably so Moash is like “wtf is wrong with you.” It's important to note that Moash breaks Kaladin’s ribs after that, so he definitely wasn’t an angel or anything.

If you want to headcanon that Moash was going to kill the king anyway whether Kaladin agreed to it or not, that’s up to you, but Moash before now wasn't in the habit of lying to Kaladin and he insisted he wouldn’t. He’s been honest the whole time when Kaladin asks.

Kaladin frowned. “Have you still been meeting with them?” Moash looked away. “Only once. To assure them that you’d come around.” (WoR Ch. 56)

-

Moash got put into the bridge crews for no reason. Remember that thing I said about him continuously being a target of abuse?

“You joined up assuming they’d make you a spearman, didn’t you?” Kaladin asked. Moash hesitated, then nodded. “Some of those who joined with me did become soldiers, but most of us got sent to the bridge crews.” (TWoK Ch. 46)

Interesting to note that he tried to run away.

“This plan of yours had better work, lordling. Last time I ran away, I got a beating. I was told if I tried again, I’d get a slave’s mark instead.” (TWoK Ch. 46)

-

Moash did not kick that kid. It’s very important to me that you know this. He did kick Lift though that one did happen.

Relationships

Just a brief overview of people Moash has interacted with.

Kaladin - All of ThatTM. They’re foils, they’re best friends, they’re rivals, their fates are bound together, whatever.

Elhokar - Also All of ThatTM.

Bridge Four - Rock pats him on the back, Sigzil and Moash were the biggest haters, Moash jokes with Lopen, etc etc.

Graves - Moash respects him, despite being a lighteyes. Then he dies.

Danlan - The only human woman Moash knows? She was working with Graves to kill Elhokar and is in the meeting Moash brings Kaladin to. They never directly spoke.

Rill - Mercenary working with Graves. He worked as a mercenary on some of the caravans Moash worked on, and is apparently the one that initially approached Moash after Moash was freed to connect him with Graves. This implies Moash probably did a lot of loud complaining about Elhokar while he was working the caravans after his grandparents passed.

Guff - The man Moash asks about after spotting caravaneers in Oathbringer. He’s a wheelwright, and used to work with Moash. I’m not sure of their relationship - Moash starts pouring his heart out to him immediately, but it’s unclear how familiar their relationship is since Guff doesn’t seem particularly caring towards Moash. Moash doesn’t try to seek him out again.

Uncle - Moash apparently used to run caravans with his uncle “as a youth”, but appears to not consider him family. My belief is that Moash’s uncle is the one who got him started in working the caravans.

Ana/Da - Moash’s grandparents. Moash describes them as kindly, and they ran their own silversmith shop. They were second nahn. “The only family he ever had”. Unclear if Ana and Da are their real names, or Moash’s name for grandma and grandpa.

Parents - Moash never mentions his parents except the one time - that they died when he was a child. He was likely pretty young when this happened.

Leshwi - Leshwi thinks he’s silly

Khen / Sah / the other singers - Moash catches a whip and punches somebody in the face for them, so that’s pretty cool. Moash teaches them how to fight with spears so they have something of a chance in the Kholinar siege to be promoted afterwards as Leshwi promises, and they seem somewhat reverent of Moash after he becomes Vyre.

Odium - drug dealer and boss combo. Has seen Moash’s gay thoughts for Kaladin. Appears to Moash as a singer, not human.

Jam - Moash rode in Jam’s caravan to travel to the Shattered Plains to join the military. Kaladin also knew a Jam in Hearthstone. Same Jam? I dunno.

Abrobadar - Moash got this guy’s Shardplate from the duel. Just putting this here because I worked hard to puzzle this out based on Plate color and so I’m gonna bring it up as often as possible. Especially because Abrobadar’s name is stupid.

Gavinor - Moash doesn't kick him. Gav wants to kill Moash anyway the little bitch

Vyre

Sorry I’m not going to finish this section right now, come back later.

[tomatosauce5]

What exactly happened in arc 17 of Pale again? I made this timeline as a community resource to help wrangle this enormous book.

Full and I mean full spoilers for Pale below!

Imgur link for higher quality image. Google docs link to Phaerlax' Pale amalgam sheet, which this document was based on. I'm not sure if people on Tumblr are even aware of this incredible resource since it was mostly a Reddit/Discord thing. It has chapter synopses, a fanart index and character lists!

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 09/06

Anonymous asked: Now that you're so far in, I urge you to check out Ichellor's 3D Homestuck animations! They're super cool, though you may need to be cautious. They're mostly at and prior to cascade, but you can't be too careful.

(All of these were made after Homestuck finished, so many still contain spoilers. Their first video is definitely safe, though. -V)

It's an excellent piece of work, and a great taste of what's to come. I've also watched their Cascade animation - although, according to Vamp, it does contain some subtle spoilers that I missed.

I've been able to check out a lot of the earlier Ichellor videos, but I'm probably going to have to wait a while before I can see their full body of work. Looking forward to it, though.

@mrjocrafter asked: so in literally act 1 rose tries to prototype the tier-1 harlequinsprite with a box of betty crocker cake mix. like imagine if it actually went in. what a doomed timeline that would've been. there's a MSPFA called Nepetaquest 2022 that deals with exactly this. it's peak

That does sound peak. Is the implication that the Sprite would turn into some iteration of the Condesce? I think that's more than the kids could handle, unless Rose had already gone Grimdark.

@manorinthewoods submitted:

The Star Wars example is one that many people already know, but Discworld is also a great shout here. You can easily tell that Pratchett is a sci-fi nerd, through-and-through - and, despite their aesthetics, the Discworld novels have as much fantasy in them as your average Monty Python production.

@adorable-animus asked: just to nitpick, but in an earlier post you said that aradia and equius were together due to mind controlled aradiabot and- you are semi right? equius wanted to be FLUSHED, but the control chip was completely shattered, and aradia instead felt PITCH. i get where youre coming from, but i just wanted to point out that facet of the relationship.

I'm pretty sure they were both - or, at least, they were described as both in the infamous quadrant infodump. Granted, I don't know if this animation necessarily means that both parties are experiencing both quadrants, or if it just means that things are complicated.

And, oddly enough, I don't think Aradia stayed with Equius due to the mind-control chip. That was definitely his intention, but the chip was immediately destroyed, and she kissed him anyway - implying, I guess, that she did have a genuine thing for him, as unlikely as that seems.

...I don't even know, girls. This was a weird one, even for Hivebent.

@mrjocrafter asked: Not sure if you know or have been told this but the reason Kanaya wields a chainsaw Well, Google "why chainsaws were invented"

For a member of a species without mothers, Kanaya sure is drowning in motherhood symbolism, isn't she?

@walkerbehindyou asked: One day, may you be introduced to the fanwork that was Marchingstuck/Promstuck

Apparently, Promstuck still contains some spoilers, and I'd like to experience these two as a unit. Hopefully soon, though!

@count100 asked: I submitted an ask a while back and got a notification saying I was mentioned in an ask comp, but I didn't actually see my ask. In case it was lost: I never really considered just how much it took to make the trolls into monsters, I LOVE your analysis about that. Alongside the factors you discussed, It's possible that the "dreams of blood and carnage" that haunt the trolls originate from Gl'bgolyb, given it is a gift from Doc Scratch.

I'm pretty sure I remember that ask! Sorry it didn't get a response -and yes, it's honestly a little heartwarming to realize just how much the trolls resisted Scratch's corruption.

I could have sworn I answered it, actually, but I can't seem to find it anywhere in this year's ask compilations. It's possible I accidentally deleted it while editing the post, because deleted tags will actually still notify the blog in question when the draft is posted. Tumblr, eh?

@mrjocrafter asked: this is classic old homestuck fandom nonsense from 2011

I'm losing it at the implication that 'Vriska' is an allegory for some real-world political ideology which shares her name.

This is great, anyway. Can you imagine an analogous post being made about today's political climate?

@the-jaffster-official asked: On the subject of Dirk Gently, as someone who read the book and watched all of the show, they have almost nothing in common besides a character named Dirk Gently. However, the show still feels VERY Douglas Adams, especially in the first season. Worth a watch.

Noted. I have been looking for a new show to binge...

Anonymous asked: Damn, you do not trust Gamzee at all.

Well, no! Jesus, would you?

@pineapple-temporarily-moving asked: "ricky schrodinger" was terezi misremembering the name of ricky schroder! @likelyvampirical asked: Ricky Schrödinger is a pun on Ricky Shroder, child star in the 80s sitcom Silver Spoons, which Terezi used to make the gifs featured on pages 2779-2782. This is what Terezi is referencing during the coin incident on page 3097. @morganwick asked: I think "Ricky Schrodinger" was originally a pun on "Ricky Schroder", who was the star of the sitcom Silver Spoons, which Terezi used for some GIFs she sent to Dave. @sanctferum asked: Ricky Schrodinger is a reference to Ricky Schroder, a child actor from the 80s. Terezi defaced gifs of him during that conversation back in Act 4 I think? It's just his name combined with Erwin Schrödinger's name. As for Davesprite, he could already talk out loud on screen via Spritelogs Anonymous asked: Ricky Shcrodinger is a combination of presumably Ricky Schroder (I have no idea who that is, but I believe Dave mentioned him before) and Schrodinger's Cat. Anonymous asked: Ricky Schrödinger is a pun on Ricky Schroder @weltinator asked: Ricky Schrodinger is a reference to Erwin Schrodinger and Ricky Schroder. Former is known for possibly having a cat, latter is known for starring in Silver Spoons, which is the source of the gifs used in Dave and Terezi's MOTH3RFUCK1NG D4NC3 P4RTY.

Also featuring Alfonso Ribeiro (who was later Carlton in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) @semusepsu asked: If you are still wondering about the Ricky Schrodinger joke, I'm pretty sure it's a reference to Ricky Schroder, an American child star from the 70s who starred in a film called 'Little Lord Fauntleroy'. He looks more than a little like Dave in some pictures from that era.

Hell fucking yes.

This is the kind of reference humor that is quite hard to search for on the Collection. Ricky Schrodinger is a pun, not a real name, so it wouldn't have given me any connections to this dance party - and besides, they never actually said Schroder's name in that conversation, so even that wouldn't have worked.

To catch some of these references, you really do need helpful askers. Thank you for your service. o7

@herestoanotherweirdo asked: "ARADIA: i guess ive spent enough time here that i just dont see death as the terrible thing the living make it out to be" i've read this line as like. not just spending a bunch of time in the bubbles, but also having literally been dead herself for a not-insubstantial amount of time!

Oh, that's true, isn't it?

I don't think Ghostradia was ever in the Dream Bubbles herself, but it is true that her months as a wandering spirit would give her a different perspective on death.

Most obviously, it would show her that it's not actually the end of existence in this reality; despite what the living believe, death doesn't obliterate your soul, so it's really not as tragic as everyone thinks.

@liliflower137 asked: The more I reread the more i love karkat He's just such a spicy kitten type of guy. I wanna pick him up and give him a hug and tell him he's going to be safe But he'd definitely bite me and given how dangerous bites from humans can be I think I would probably get all kinds of infections He's just... really a sweet kid underneath it all. He's just scared, so he has to be angry instead. Reminds me a lot of Sanji from one piece :) At least, the parts of him I like haha

I actually think Karkat would fit in pretty well in the world of One Piece. He has exactly the right kind of personality to form and mobilize a crew, and I genuinely believe he has enough determination to manifest Haki.

@liliflower137 asked: I wonder if perhaps Hussie ever read one piece, because the way navigating the furthest ring sounds, it reminds me just a little of the grand line But then again its also just sort of a logical way for a place devoid of time and space to behave, I just really like one piece I wonder if you could get a hyper modified log pose to work out there...

Speaking of One Piece, I've really got to get back to it. I started the manga during the liveblog, and I'm currently most of the way through the Dressrosa arc.

I've been loving the series, but god damn, is it a serious marathon.

Anonymous asked: You're aware that the author for the locked tomb was a Homestuck fic writer, right?

Absolutely. The Serendipity Gospels is probably the fanfiction I'm most excited to actually read - that, and Sburb Glitch FAQ!

Anonymous asked: That scene when Gamzee tells Karkat to settle down is why they’re my favorite ♦️ ship Because in all the others we’ve seen it’s very onesided, with one party needing to placate the violent impulses of another But for them it’s like Karkat says! He stops gamzee from killing everybody and gamzee in return helps him calm down.

It is very funny to me that Gamzee's actually contributing to the moirallegence - for now, at least.

Slightly hypocritical, Makara, but you do you.

@drakethedeep asked: One of the benefits of the Homestuck quadrant system, arbitrary as it is, is that it allows for more platonic and romantic shipping. For example, Karkat<>Kanaya is a fairly decent morail ship, because a) the relationship of their ancestors makes it poetic cosmic symmetry, and b) both of them have a tendency of trying to be the responsible ones amidst their friend groups, and a lot of their interpersonal struggles are very similar.

Plus, one's a Blood Player, and one's a vampire, so we even have thematic synergy!

@liliflower137 asked: I think a lot about your assignment for Fedorafreak as a hope player It really really makes me smile, and I will hold onto it forever

He even references hope directly! Come on, Hussie, the guy deserves better than Piss.

Anonymous asked: so, your theory about karkat weaponizing teamwork and leadership- what do you think about his and gamzee's relationship in that light?

I suppose you could say that if Karkat is able to gain Sober!Gamzee's loyalty, then the group would gain a powerful ally - and consequently, Karkat's team would gain a powerful 'weapon'.

That said, I don't currently think it's possible for Karkat or anyone else to win Gamzee's loyalty. Right now, he's only loyal to Cal.

@duorogue asked: i just looked up your name in some DMs i have - it's with someone who's read homestuck, and I like to point out specific times you've made remarkably good or bad predictions, or figured something out really well, and just realized that the first time you were mentioned in those DMs was october 20th, 2022. five months off three years of following this, and yknow? time well spent

It was time well spent - for me, too. Here's to another three years, I say!

@liliflower137 asked: I've passed you in my personal reread and I keep getting to interesting conversations and lore dumps and going "oh Sally is going to LOVE this!!"

I hope you're right, and it's good to hear there are many loredumps in my future!

@morganwick asked: "#(also. does this mean mind ≈ choices/decisions? because seers 'know' their aspect and terezi can see people's possible decisions?) #(or does mind ≈ 'outcomes'‚ whatever that means?)" I think if you de-purple prose what Rose says it's not really inconsistent with what Terezi has said about her own aspect in the past, same with what Aradia says. Terezi has talked before, and in the confrontation with Vriska demonstrated, how she can trace the decisions people make and the thoughts they have inevitably lead to certain "outcomes". As for "knowing her aspect comprehensively", Terezi has talked about reality being something that people "4R3 M4K1NG 3V3RY MOM3NT W1TH 3V3RY THOUGHT", so at least to her, understanding people's minds means understanding reality, or at least one Aspect of it, and how to extrapolate from what's in people's Minds. (Also, does the link to "my own interpretation of her powers" go to the wrong place? I don't see anything in the linked post that relates to Rose's powers...)

I suppose Terezi's abilities could indeed be themed around sensing outcomes, rather than decisions, as I previously theorized - or, it could also represent some abstract 'Mind' idea with ties to both. With only one Mind Player to analyze, it's hard to say anything definitively.

Also - yeah, I fucked up that link. Will fix it once I get this comp out!

@relaxxattack asked: AAAAAAAAAA YOU FINALLY FIGURED OUT THE BLOOD THINGG!!!! karkat’s powers are quite literally the friends he made along the way… you can see the blood aspect appear in the panel where karkat befriends slick and adds him to their party! karkat’s powers have always been about whether or not he can forge meaningful connections between people to prevent tragedy… or at least, this has been the popular fan understanding now it might make more sense how the troll session might have “lacked blood” as that other ask theorized :)

They're literally blood brothers - and a handshake is also pretty decent shorthand for what I think Blood's all about.

Mind you, I'm not sure if the troll session did lack this interpretation of Blood. Hivebent seemed to imply that the trolls were, in fact, an extremely effective team, all thanks to Karkat's leadership - and the trolls have forged plenty of meaningful relationships across their group, too. If Blood represents strong relationships, then the trolls have Blood in spades, as well as hearts, clubs, and diamonds.

@baeddel asked: Your interpretation of blood definitely seems correct to me! I think blood and breath are a pair, where blood is leadership and bonds while breath is freedom and individuality

I was thinking that those two might be related, since they're both biological functions. Blood might also be in a dyad with Heart, since they're both aspects of the circulatory system.

After all, Nepeta's a shipper who loves relationships, and that seems adjacent to the 'teamwork/bonds' theming that characterizes Blood.

@manorinthewoods asked: I think Dave and Rose are an 'unbeatable combination' because Rose has a very powerful ability to navigate the present and future to ensure optimal outcomes, and Dave (being a time traveler) has a very powerful ability to actually enact what Rose needs done. Rose, after all, is a squishy wizard - and one wouldn't imagine Seers have any physical *or* magic damage. ~LOSS (22/5/25)

Good interpretation. I suppose Dave is technically one of the more 'durable' God Tiers around, since his time duplicates can't die in the Alpha Timeline until they've fulfilled all their loops.

Anonymous asked: I'm not familiar with Worm, so Contessa wasn't my first thought re: Rose's new power, but I did think of Sagume Kishin from Touhou, whose power is kind of similar to the Contessa example but in reverse: "When she speaks about a particular situation or event, that situation will eventually proceed to reverse itself, through whatever means possible. If she speaks about an attempt to achieve a goal, it will fail in some way. If she speaks about something bad occurring, it will be resolved in some way. [...] Note that it is the situation or the event she talks about that will be reversed in some manner; it is not that the opposite of what she says must occur."

I like this power a lot. Touhou seems to have a lot of really clever powers - which is weird, because I always thought it was a mostly plotless bullet-hell game. I guess there are tie-in materials?

I've really got to play Touhou sometime, but there are so many games, and I have no idea where to start.

@clueless-rarito asked: I remember I once come up with a characters with a power very similar to this "path of victory" stuff by pure coincidence. He was able to see "the realm of fortunes" a ethereal plane where one could discern the chance of success or the possible outcomes of any one actions. By completely shutting down his own mind and giving it to the "the will of fortune" his body would automatically lead him and carry any action needed to guaranteed the most favorable outcome for himself in any given scenario.

Nice. These abilities are sort of the ultimate expression of a 'luck-based' power - a power that guarantees the most optimal outcome possible. Now that Rose has a similar ability, she's finally thematically cohesive with Vriska!

@catofulthar000 asked: There are SO MANY classpect things (and other things) I desperately want to theory swap about with you because you are picking out SO MANY delicious classpecty details (and other things) but not always quite connecting them to classpects- BUT I am: A) not caught up with your live blog on account of being busy with doctorate degree stuff and trying to be responsible by not getting totally sucked into Homestuck stuff again (failing) so I have no idea if FWS (FUTUREwertSearch) actually HAS connected the dots (or some dots) already so I, PUC (PASTultharianCat), would just be saying redundant stuff to you B) not sure if pointing out things that you're pointing out are maybe or maybe not linked to things that might be solidified later even if they're being hinted at throughout- or might just be linked to wider collaborative aggregations of themes and patterns- would be too spoilery... [EXAMPLES THAT MAY OR MAY NOT REQUIRE REDACTION BY CAT (yours) OR BE REDUNDANT TO FWS] Like Time being strongly linked to the concept of Death and all time players having an affinity for it (archaeologist/necromancer Aradia, Dave's oft overlooked hobby of collecting preserved dead things (and less death related but his photography enjoyment could also be seen as him preserving moments in Time)) or [REDACTED] or [REDACTED] And basically that one thing you said about Sburb's Aspects maybe also being linked to authorial elements (or perhaps, I might nudge your thinking, metatextual narrative elements?) and oh my gosh I have SO MUCH I want to posit theorywise to you about that because you point out so much good stuff and just sdfalskjdfhakg;kskjfasdfhlkajsdfrrrraaugh! [END REDACTIONS MAYBE PROBABLY] (I'll say this much, both redactions above are meta interpretations of an aspect, but I'll give you an opportunity to come up with them yourself. -Vamp) Anyway there is just a lot I want to say, and a lot of idea threads you have made I want to tie into other thoughts, or perhaps cables you have laid that I want to plug in to other extension cords, and I have been trying to bite my tongue at least until I catch up but I have still added some replies to old posts of yours that I'm not sure you will ever see- tbh idk how popular you may have gotten or how many asks you get now or if you can even realistically reply to all of the ones that you get but I guess what I'm getting at is that you make me so excited about all of the really complex interwoven stuff in Homestuck and I really want to talk to you about it. Also you're very cool and smart and thank you for sharing this liveblog it is excellent. -PUC

If Time is death-themed, though, then where does that leave Doom? Because Sollux's arc was saturated with themes of death, and I've always assumed that was because of his Aspect.

Anyways, thank you for the kind words! I'm still doing my best to reply to the majority of asks, so if you do want to talk Homestuck, my ask box is always open - and as for your replies, I'll be checking out all the blog's replies at the end of the liveblog.

Anonymous asked: does john have the context to be making that joke on purpose, though? iirc, the only time it's come up for him, vriska opted Not to tell him what it Actually means, instead just saying All cleaning products are Vaguely Taboo. funny either way

There's no definitive answer - but personally, I think that John was at least able to pick up that buckets were an innuendo in troll culture.

When it comes to pranks, our boy's got a killer instinct - so I think his specific reference to the bucket's 'heartfelt payload' was just a very lucky shot.

@sanctferum asked: watch Karkat's mental breakdown again. Particularly the end of it. There might be a special little secret hidden in there to perchance click upon...

The inner mechanisms of Hussie's mind are an enigma.

@dopplesgryndthloggle submitted: Here u go

https://www.tumblr.com/aerofarce9/91930492500/got-bored-so-i-got-on-google-and-made-this?source=share (og post)

@wickedsick submitted: A handy rOWOse for whatever you may need it for

Hell yeah. I knew y'all would come through!

[fabbyf1]

*taps on microphone* is anybody still there?

hi besties!

it's... been a while. i have lots of good, valid excuses stuffed up both my sleeves that i could give you about where i've been and why i've been avoiding writing, but i'll spare you the details. the most important thing is that i'm back and i'm finally feeling good about things again.

i have dusted off the old mastermind fic in my google docs, and have made a lot of edits to the timeline for the rest of the fic... and i think we're good to go! we're looking at around 9 chapters (unless i decide to add an epilogue) which means we're halfway there!

i know it's been months since i've updated this story, but i promise it's not dead. chapter 5 is officially in the works. and since it's been a few months... as a reminder, in the last chapter The Smut™ finally happened and then Charles asked Max if he wanted to meet for padel in the morning.

and we go!

snippet under the cut :)

i hope everyone is having a great weekend! happy oscar pole day!

“How was your birthday?” Rupert asked as they were walking to the sports complex. 

“It was, uhhh...” Max trailed off as they waited to cross the street. “Unexpected.” 

“How so?” 

Max chuckled at his question, looking down at his feet and wondering how he would even begin to explain what happened. There was no way he could just come out and say, well, Rupy, I had a few drinks and fucked Charles Leclerc last night, so he ultimately decided to say nothing at all. 

It was probably for the best that he didn’t kiss and tell. 

When Max didn’t answer, Rupert continued. 

“You must not have gone too hard since you were up at dawn asking me to play padel with you.” 

Max rolled his eyes. “I went hard enough.” 

... so much for not kissing and telling. 

“Is that right?” Rupert mused, laughing at him and not missing the implications of his words. “Got yourself some birthday cardio, did you?” 

Max snorted. “That’s a ridiculous way to put it.” 

“I’m not hearing you deny it.” 

“Yeah, whatever,” Max huffed, grinning as they turned the corner and the sports complex came into sight. His heart did a funny little jump in his chest when he recognized Charles’s black Ferrari parked out front, but he would blame it on being hungover. 

(Even though he wasn’t hungover at all.) 

“Good for you,” Rupert said genuinely, which was an equally ridiculous thing to say after admitting to having birthday sex the night before. “You deserve to let loose now and then. It’s good for your mind and your body. Some studies have shown that having an orgasm releases around a million different endorphins in your brain that—”

“Mate,” Max said, laughing and shaking his head. “I’m begging you not to finish that sentence.”

[arn359]

Wine is waaaay to worse than i imagined😭😭😭. I will blame all the fic that i read about him and make like he was a nice guy. The fact that i will immediatly shoot the other au without question if he meet them is insane. And the way he always want more power and he will always try to manipulate the king . Also poor coffee😓.

Anon, I’m using your ask to ramble about Wine. And it’s too long…. So i think i will put the rest under the cut. After the pic.

I haven’t read much of fics that have Wine in it. But with so little information about him, the way it scattered around and languages barrier. I understand that ppl may have different view of him, also is the setting of the fic. If it’s on the surface, i guess he could be better???

But there’s a thing about FSG(Fellswap-Gold) being set in communist theme , Wine being the head of the royal guard, AKA he the head government. Idk about you guys, but for me. Any head government of a dictatorship system could never be a nice guy. NEVER. IT’S UNACCEPTABLE.

Though, you guys can have fun, just don’t forget it exists in real world. And even thought it’s not real. Propaganda exists, so is the media effects.

I summarized some of the timeline in the second pic (The art is based from the creator)

I hate Wine so much, but here i am defending him(?) nope just explaining my insight. (i still haven’t read the setting with proper translation , so this is my headcanon from what i understand)

Wine will immediately shoot other AU.

It’s both Gaster and the system that made him that way. He’s born to be the best solider. He trained hard, deem to be love by Gaster but Gaster only see him and Coffee as tools. After Wine feelings toward Coffee became ‘his only family’ Wine wants to protect Coffee. Wine changed to rely on Coffee being relied to him. Wine betrayed Gaster cuz Gaster want to get rid of Coffee.

Wine is a conservative, because that what the system always is.

So Wine will shoot other AU immediately because for the system. AU is see as threat. The AU would bring new possibilities and that’s against the conservative view that is to continue the old/current system.

(The dictatorship and conservative control the knowledge of their citizens. Keep their knowledge low so it makes them easier to control. Risks of having the AU be seen by citizens is not good. Citizens can’t see new things, can’t have more knowledge of other AU, can’t know that world with freedom exist. So the AU is see as threat)

But of course, Wine is not really a full conservative as we seen in some settings about him, like Wine doesn’t discriminate toward Undyne&Alphys, Wine support Grillby and Muffet interracial wedding. But the system, the time(their au set in old period), and social. Also is the way he grow up, the way he need to be ‘the best’. It rooted too deep into his mind. And it show with what he said toward Coffee.

Yes Wine always seek power.

Because he’s a coward. Wine felt loved when Coffee relied on him as a child. But when they grow up, Wine still think that way to the point of unhealthy. Because he feared of being alone and lost his only family. And because of the system in underground is like that, he needs power to stay safe. To stay alive and hope that the thing he fears the most never come true. So it lead to seeking powers.

Wine for me, he’s a coward, he fears and the only way he knows how to ease those fears is to have more power.

Kinda words these badly, cycling nonstop. But it’s really just the way it is. Cycle. The system can't be changed. It needs to be perished.

Yes…. Poor Coffee…he also has a problem… but that’s for another time. Another post… the bairnrot hitting me bad…

These information are from @/fsg-settings go check it or you can see my post and a link to my doc i collected all the information in one doc and used google translated on them. So you can just read there. Or maybe opening the web would be easier?

[gatheredfates]

Hi there! Are you a FFXIV roleplayer? Are you looking for more opportunities to meet people/engage in one-on-one scenes and roleplay beyond event spaces? I may just have a solution for you!

To preface: my name is Sea, and I run far too many community projects (no, seriously, someone stop me); most notably my Community Compendium and question drives. Playing in the creative side of the XIV community, but most notably the roleplay community, brings me the most joy, and it's something I want to continue to foster both with this project and the others attached to it.

The meet-cute idea was originally based around this vent post I made regarding the difficulty of people wanting to get into the in-game ffxiv scene. While a lot of my venting was to do with mods/player expectations, the fact it resonated with people made me wonder if there was anything I could do in order to help people find and connect with other roleplayers. Based on an indulgence qotd, I came up with the idea of a meet-cute!

WHAT IS A MEET-CUTE?

A meet-cute typically refers to a scene in film/television where people meet for the first time, typically under unusual, humorous or cute circumstances.

Having a predetermined first-meet scene between two characters allows players to meet new people and expand their roleplay horizons.

While a meet-cute normally has a romantic subtext that is NOT the focus of this drive, and it is not mandatory or expected for players/characters to be looking for romance in their roleplay (though you absolutely can if you want)! It’s about the opportunity to create fun, first-meet scenarios for characters and their players.

WHY A MEET-CUTE?

Creates simple, predetermined scenes based on character hooks/stories and shared roleplay interests between players.

Eliminates the fear of an initial reaching out through assured mutual interest in roleplay. You know the person you’re interacting with wants to write!

Allows people to roleplay in-game or out depending on their comfort levels; no need to stand in the city or go to a bustling event (unless you want to).

The focus of a short, first-meet scenario allows players the ability to set up long-term scenes if they want… or just fun one-offs with lots of different people!

If this is something you may be interested in, I highly recommend you check out this google doc that goes over player expectations and links to the google form. ✨ As this is the first iteration of the meet-cute, rules and information is subject to change at a whim, so I encourage people to also check in with my tag ｡･ﾟﾟ･ — sea's community meet cute just in case.

ROUGH TIMELINE

Applications Close: Saturday April 19 Partner's released: Anywhere from April 26 to May 3

[howlsofbloodhounds]

Hellooo! Can you tell more about Color Sans? I always see stuff about him, but I know nothing??? Like, I know that he has some connection to Killer, but I never undertand it :(

Gladly! I am actually working on a Google Doc for Color and his AU, Othertale, at the moment. It is not complete, but here is a link to the Doc if you’d like to give it a look. Not everything is on there yet and it’s not very organized I don’t think, but there’s some links, pictures, and the creator’s socials.

If you’d like to look up the creator, you can give superyoumna and othertale-blog here on Tumblr a look, or superyoumna over on YouTube.

Now Color’s connection to Killer is that they’re friends, and Color is trying to help Killer leave Nightmare and potentially fix his soul—as Killer has asked him to.

The exact nature of their meeting is left up to interpretation according to Killer’s creator, rahafwabas, and the exact nature of their relationship—platonic, romantic, queer platonic, etc—is also left to interpretation, although Killer’s creator has stated they see it more like bromantic than romantic.

Both Killer and Color’s creators, who were and still seem to be good friends (killer’s creator even helped design backgrounds for Othertale), also were very supportive of shipping them.

Color, according to Killer, is someone who gives him hope. He brings light to Killer’s grey, lifeless world; and Killer feels safe with him. Color makes him feel seen, heard, respected. And Color just really wants to do right by Killer, and help him to the best of his abilities.

Now, on to Color’s AU—Othertale. It’s probably more accurate to say that Othertale was an alternate timeline that, due to a choice, became an AU.

After going through his own sets of Genocides and Resets, Sans made a hasty choice in a moment of desperation—absorb the six human souls. This gave him new, very strong abilities—as you can see in the links in the Google Doc—yet his body is very fragile. Overusing his abilities can and will kill him.

So Sans manages to finally permanently kill the human, but this causes a Reset. Sans is sent to the Void with Gaster where he is forgotten by everyone, Frisk and Chara are erased and forgotten as well. So the world attempts to adapt to the absence of the six human souls and its major players.

This results in Othertale, in which Undyne is actually the main character. In this AU, Undyne encounters a young Papyrus in the garbage dump—dealing with bullying, appearing to be alone and homeless without anyone to take care of him, and only coming to Undyne for help from bullies since they met after “the explosion”—and proceeds to take him under her wings as her baby brother. She finds a passion for playing the piano, and often uses her abilities to entertain the Underground.

Because she was too concerned with raising Papyrus, she never attempts to join the Royal Guard; and so Gerson remains its Captain. As a further result, Papyrus has no interest in fighting or joining the Royal Guard either; instead becoming a math teacher.

The promise to Toriel never happens because Sans was not there to give it, although Color remembers it.

The amalgamates do not exist in Othertale, and so Alphys is a lot more sure of herself and confident. There is no way to break the barrier, although admittedly monsters in Othertale seem a lot more content in the Underground, although they still maintain hope. Mettaton was given his body a lot earlier, and seems more like a weapon than an Underground star.

However, trouble arises when an error suddenly reveals itself—going by the name of corrupted chara, although it seems pretty obvious that it is the Player, here to keep playing by taking other vessels now that Frisk is gone. In an attempt to stop this, Color and Gaster elect Undyne’s help—despite how she has no idea what’s happening.

And that’s the general premise of the AU. I am unsure if it is discontinued or if there’s still plans to continue, but it’s just delayed.

As for Color’s character on its own, we unfortunately don’t get much on him canonically due to him not being the main character and the AU not being finished.

He still has a lot of characteristics that Classic Sans does, however the traits and influence/compulsions of the six human souls he absorbed—kindness, patience, perseverance, justice, bravery, integrity—have an immense effect on him and his life, even to the point potentially being dangerous for him.

He is said to not make jokes as much as anymore, although he still does, and he often is quicker to emotional outbursts or anger. He has an intense fear of being alone or forgotten again, to the point he’d get involved in things that are harmful for himself or stick around groups to avoid being lonely—although his creator said he’s often likely to take on a “voice of reason” role in any group he’s in.

If you look of the effects of prolonged solitary confinement and isolation, it is understandable why he has a harder time controlling his emotions and doesn’t wish to feel that sense of being alone again.

A common interpretation in parts of the fandom is that, not only due to his isolation, but due to a hc that he is Autistic, he is often prone to overwhelm and overstimulation—often needing his alone time anyway, even if he’s likely to deny himself what he needs.

A common HC is that he is a nomad, full of wanderlust, not wanting to feel trapped or stuck in the same place again—having developed perhaps some special interests in traveling and keeping track of the lores of AUs he encounters.

It is due to his nature and being Autistic, but also the fact of wanting to stay near Killer wherever he happens to currently be, that it’s headcanoned that Color takes seasonal or part time jobs.

Enough to stay afloat without having to be tied down to one spot or burn himself out trying to keep up with 9 to 5 jobs.

It is also headcanoned that, due to his fear of being forgotten, that Color develops a special interest in photography. Keeping a camera with him, filling up scrapbooks and walls, and journaling.

Maybe he even takes up baking and gardening sometimes. Color’s creator is also Egyptian I believe, so both he and Killer could likely speak Arabic, and it’s possible to implement parts of the culture and beliefs into his character. And also elements of his physical disability, given one of his eyes are gone and his skull is busted open.

Color is also said to be friends with Delta!Sans and Epic!Sans, forming a group known as the Epic Sanses, and I HC’d that when Color first accepted Core!Frisk’s offer to live in the Omega Timeline, that he and Delta were roommates.

Color also hates Nightmare. For how he treats AUs, innocent people, Color’s friends, and especially how he hurts Killer “the most.” Due to the fact that Nightmare canonically replaces Killer with other versions of himself, it is often accepted by Color!Sans lovers that Color’s PTSD worsens, he develops separation anxiety, survivor’s guilt, and compassion fatigue due to the many times he has tried and failed to save and protect all the Killers that Nightmare replaces.

Color struggles to give up on Killer, he can’t do it, and it very likely comes close to killing him more and more every time. Leaving Color to have to rely on the support of his friends Epic and Delta. Color’s opinion of Nightmare is formed by the absolute cruelty Color has consistently witnessed first hand from him, but also the cruelty he’s been on the receiving end of.

Color is often seen as that burnt out therapist friend, the one who everyone wants to go to in order to talk about their problems and ask for advice, and Color struggles to set boundaries in these areas—not only because he doesn’t want to run the risk of pushing people away and being alone again, but because kindness and justice often struggle to let him to.

Essentially, Color has been completely forgotten by the world he only ever tried to protect. For his attempts to save and protect the people he cares about more than anything, the world seems to just consistently punish him for even trying.

He’s forgotten, he’s alone, he’s pushed aside, he fails. He’s forced to watch everyone go on without him, and when Killer becomes his world, he’s forced to watch as he’s constantly destroyed over and over and despite everything Color somehow still survives.

Yet he refuses to give up. Doing so would go against everything he believes in, everything he is.

(. @qin-qin16 ).

[bleue-flora]

Thought in light of my playlist with all of the Tommy lore, (btw if I missed anything let me know and I’ll try to find and add it) I’d also share all the playlists I have saved that could be useful to people watching lore or making their own playlists. There are also some other ones on my channel that you can check out if you want to, some of which I’m still working on (marked *). I have also posted lore resources before [here] and [here], which mention people like @spit-bite-glitch and @Wishdreamerx on youtube who have playlists by month.

{Also, I am trying to put together a dream playlist, which since he mostly doesn't have his own pov and sticks his head into everything, is quite a challenge, so if you are currently going through lore or something and come across the green boy it would be a big help if you would let me know, no need to provide time stamps or anything just a link, or even like just informing me of maybe some smaller lore you know he shows up in. I'd really appreciate it<3}

Timeline Playlist Links:

<> - <> - <> - <> - <> - <>

Anyways, this one is probably one of if not the best playlists I found. It does a pretty thorough job and includes lots of povs, it is understandably missing a few small things, but it’s really good and can definitely help you get a good view of the timeline too:

Characters:

Awesamdude - <> - <>

Sam Bucket*

Badboyhalo - <>

Dream*

DreamXD*

Eret

Eryn

Foolish - <>

Fundy

George

Michaelmicchill - <>

Niki

Philza

Ponk

Puffy

Punz* - <> - <>

Purpled

Quackity

Ranboo - <> - <>

Sapnap

Seapeekay

Skeppy - <>

Techno

Tommy

Tubbo - <> - <> - <> - <>

Wilbur - <> - <>

Arcs:

Disc Saga

War for Independance

Exile

Egg - <> - <>

Las Nevadas - <>

Prison Arc - <>

Post-Prison Arc

Daedalus * - <>

Finales*

And just for fun, while I'm at it, here are some other lore resources for you:

Transcripts Archive

Exile Transcripts

Exile & Prison Visitors

DSMP Members' Ages

DSMP Map Coordinate Archive