#if so its very tiring

[hailsatanacab]

"Well, this is a bad idea," Tim says, hands on his hips as he surveys the mess they’ve made in the cave.

"Nah," Danny replies, twirling his screwdriver in the air in what is probably meant to be an impressive trick to inspire confidence, except he fumbles it and it clangs to the floor loudly, "we good. If a younger version of myself hasn't come forward in time to stop me, how bad can it be?"

"Shouldn't it be the other way round?"

"What?"

"Normally, it's an older version of yourself going backwards in time to stop you, right?"

"Not in my experience."

Danny's grin is impossibly feral and a shiver runs up Tim's spine.

"This is definitely a bad idea."

[one-strugling-bean]

Random Thoughts on Homestuck pages 3466-3468 & 3472-3475 (aka, Vriska and John talk about feelings post Tavros’s death)

This conversation right here was the first time Homestuck was genuinely able to impact me on an emotional level. Therefore, I wanna talk about it.

(A quick reminder though: this commentary is purely subjective and no one is forced to agree with it.)

(Actually, as long as you are polite and respectful, I encourage you to discuss this matter with me, and point out anything that you might think I have understood wrong.)

(Also, I have only read up to page 3490, so cut me some slack if I say anything wrong story-wise. And no spoilers please.)

But yeah. Let’s do this.

Sooooooo, Vriska. From my light browsing through the Homestuck fandom, there seems to exist a lot of discourse between the fans that like her and defend her actions, and those who hate and blame her for all the crap she does. Right now, I think I fall somewhere in a grey area between the two, although closer to the latter specter of the argument.

She’s an incredibly interesting character, that’s for sure. For me, it’s her extremely grey morals that make her so.

Vriska is someone who consciously plays the role of the “villain” because that’s who she thinks she has to be amongst her friends, and what troll society seems to ask of her – from her perspective, at least. Also, her ancestor was apparently a super badass pirate lady who did many amazing things, so Vriska feels encouraged – pressured? – to also become strong and live up to her ancestor’s image.

She had a demanding lusus, the kind of lusus that apparently only choose to raise “strong trolls”, and fed off of other young trolls, which charged a young Vriska with the responsibility of killing her kin(?) in order to maintain the high-maintenance spider.

She was definitely shaped and molded very harshly by the conditions of her development and growth. So, the Vriska we are presented to in the comic is someone who would’ve probably been a very successful troll in Alternia society, strong and willing to do whatever it took to reach her goals, but also with the emotional maturity of a 5-year-old. At least by human standards.

This is my interpretation of Vriska. Am I too far off? I really hope not.

Right now, I’m at a point with her where while I appreciate her character – what she brings to the table in terms of narrative – I’m far from being a big fan of her as a person. Because like, she’s a bully. :/

And it’s with that notion in mind that we take a step back from Vriska for a little, and focus on someone else: Tavros, aka, the apparent main victim of Vriska’s meddling.

Tavros is weird by troll standards. Karkat mentioned so himself, at some he said something like he doesn’t think Tavros could ever hate anyone.

He is much gentler and overall nicer than the rest of his fellow trolls, and is seen as “weak” by their society's standards. And that's wgy Vriska, from what I understood, decided that she’d “help” him by basically antagonizing him to hell and back in hopes that he'd grow a tougher shell.

I’m mentioning all of this because earlier, I read the opinion of someone that was trying to defend Vriska’s actions towards Tavros, specifically the events leading up to her acquiring God tier, and later on, his death by her.

Basically, their point was the same Vriska herself was trying to explain to John, that she only bullied Tavros because she liked him, and knew that he wouldn’t survive in their world if he kept being “weak”, so she messed with him to try and toughen him up.

Tavros was simply too much of a coward, and so eventually, when the time came and Vriska needed him to be strong (to kill her so she’d get God Tier) he was unable to do it and ran away, leaving her to die alone from blood loss.

And this is the thing that truly leaves me kind of confused and upset because in case it’s not obvious by now, I actually like Tavros and relate to him, and the whole spiel of “weak vs strong” upsets me quite a bit, and I really don’t understand the point of the person that defended her.

I might have interpreted this wrong and let my bias get in the middle of my critical thinking, but…. isn’t it obvious that Vriska’s intentions when she was bullying Tavros were far from wanting to help?

I'm being genuine here, btw. Because I've read a fair ammount of people arguing this.

This was my train of thought: I don’t doubt she did to some degree appreciate Tavros, but you can’t tell me she wasn’t enjoying having power over him. She would relish in messing with Tavros, call him names, insult him for being crippled (despite, or perphaps, especially because she knew she’d been the one to put him that way). She loved being more powerful than him, and using her advantages to give him hell.

At the same time, I also don’t doubt that Vriska believes she was helping him all this time. That she was the one in the right. That the suffering he get from her was Tavros’s own fault for being so weak. That, while yes, she does feel some remorse now, she was still in the right for killing Tavros. And yeah, by Alternia standards, I guess she is. Can’t argue there. As she told John, he was a much lower-class troll actively disrespecting her, and she had already been super merciful not to kill him before, instead "befriending" and playing with him. But enough was enough and all that.

She still feels guilty about it, but that shouldn't be relevant because whatever her own feelings and other people's beliefs may be, according to their society, she's justified. She had something to back her up.

The crux of the problem is, there’s no Alternia anymore, no Troll society, and most of the trolls that she’s left with don’t really care about the way things are supposed to be.

And this leaves her – and me – with the current conundrum: now what is considered “right”, and where does that new "right" leave her standing?

She doesn’t know. But by her friends' reactions, she probably has some clues.

Vriska is still a teen with feelings, so remorse and guilt are a given for her since she did care about the people she hurt. I’ve also read some people trying to defend her with that – the fact that she’s obviously feeling regret – but I honestly don’t see what that changes. What should that matter, if she keeps repeating the same mistakes?

Regret and guilt aren’t really valid unless they’re able to stop you from re-committing said mistakes, and try to make amends instead. Which, yeah, she tried a few times, but none of those tries were exactly sincere or convincing.

(I was trying to say unbiased here, but I think I blew that by now. Oops.)

When she kills Tavros, I can’t see anything there but an emotionally stunted kid having a tantrum and destroying the core of her misgivings instead of trying to sort through them.

She was upset to realize that Tavros had finally gotten more confident, but only to act against her of all people, and let that emotion fester, blind and control her. This led to Tavros dying by Vriska’s hand in an act of thoughtless violence, although later on, when she finally calms down from the tantrum, she feels remorse and realizes she fucked up. Again.

What happened with Aradia could be interpreted as pretty much the same, right? Vriska got upset, didn’t know how to deal with it, so she destroyed the source of her anger. And when guilt knocked on her door, she could lean on the rules of their society to condone herself.

But again, the reason why now with Tavros things are slightly different is that that society doesn’t really exist anymore and no one really gives a fuck about its rules.

I guess the question right now is how many times Vriska will continue to fuck up this way until she realizes how “weak” she actually is.

The reason why I appreciate her character so much is that I think it just gave me so much insight into the insides of the mind of a bully.

Meanwhile, the reason why I don’t really like her all that much is that she’s just generally a bad person, and has yet to show honest signs of wanting to change for good. As much as I loved her conversation with John, I really don't think that qualifies as such.

I honestly hope this is the last time this crap happens and she finally learns for good now. Maybe John can help her get there. I believe he could.

It just makes me sad that lives were already taken, meanwhile.

RIP Tavros. I liked him a lot, really. Maybe it was just me, ‘cause I’m a bit of a softie myself, but his gentle ways were a breath of fresh air when I was reading Act 5 Act 1. Everyone was so intense all the time, it was kinda nice to have someone calmer I could relate to in all the brashness going around.

But then again, that’s also what made him a target for Vriska, and what eventually got him killed. His “weakness”.

It’s like what Vriska said about Karkat, who’s just as much of a softie beneath all his grumpiness. They probably would’ve thrived a lot better on Earth. The alpha kids’ Earth, I mean. Not sure about ours, sadly.

I am getting sad writing this. Homestuck, why would you do this to me?

Eh anywayyyyyyyy, I doubt ayone will read this, but if you have gotten this far, thanks a lot ^^

Imma gonna continue reading now, have a nice day

[gooseinsoup]

save me nanny ashtoreth.... save me

saw this dress on instagram and then the worms in my brain took over :D

if anyone has a dress theyd like to suggest to see a femziraphale in... send it thru my askbox or dms cause im on the hunt too :3

[xxplastic-cubexx]

what kind of underwear do you think Erik and Charles wear (i'm not asking this to see them half naked) ((please believe me)) (((PLEASE)))

My Personal Belief is charles is a briefs guy while erik's a trunks guy. trunks/briefs kinda couple because i can

and idk just a lil bonus or somethin. as i do.

[b4kuch1n]

study of this masterwork

[sicc-nasti]

On this episode of: It’s always Sunny in Tuefort

The Mercs Make Scout A Dating Profile

Its going as one might expect

[arundolyn]

"Oh, this? Don't be ridiculous! It's not a marriage certificate! Look closely, okay? Throw away all your hangups, and simply do what you feel. Aren't you just dying to sign it? Won't it feel good? 3... 2... 1... sign!"

[bluerosefox]

Timelines, Red Robins, and Kings

When Tim Drake, who was tossed in the Pits after losing his spleen, suddenly crash lands in Clockworks Tower during Danny's Ghost King lessons, all the time keeper says with a 'I know more than you' smile "Ah, so it's this timeline being played out. How fun this will be. Danny, come. I have a new... friend for you to meet."

"CW...." Danny starts, staring unbelievable at his Ghost King mentor before sighing "Why are you like this?"

"Hush now my King. You will thank me later for the introduction between you both but for now summon forth Frostbite, we'll need his medical expertise for this one "

[ego-meliorem-esse]

My late contribution to the beautiful bride and ugly groom trend

It pained me to make François the beautiful bride but by god and all his angels The Rat is just not it

[vanyafresita]

after seeing this post by the artist afkeii on instagram, i got inspired to write a poem... and then i drew something to make it into a zine...

the way i feel about romantic love is... complicated... but i've known i'm on the aromantic spectrum for over a year now ! yippiee !

if you'd like to have a physical copy, feel free to [download the print version here] , and check [how to put it together / make a 8-page zine here]

[einkleinesmittelding]

Since the elden ring fandom has been incredibly sensitive as of late, let me put a warning: under the cut there‘s a ship art of Radahn and Miquella hugging :)

Nothing NSFW but I don‘t want people to see smth they really dislike for multiple reasons in the tags of their favourite characters lmao

Let‘s all enjoy whatever brings us delight in this game 🙏

[szakkale]

look at my monstrosity

[ruporas]

can’t talk about it

[ID: Black and white comic of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. The comic starts with the sounds "thud, thud, click". Vash, mid-action of peeling an apple, turns to the sound, noticing who it was that entered, and says, "Oh, Wolfwood, you're back." He resumes back to his apple in the next panel as he speaks, "Where'd you go? You snuck out of bed quickly this morning..." Wolfwood's hand then enters the panel, hovering over Vash's cheek and Vash looks up as Wolfwood asks, "Can I?" Vash responds, "Not going to talk about it?" while using a hand to gently hold Wolfwood's hovering hand and presses a kiss to his inner palm.

Vash then gets up fully, setting down the knife down on the table and the apple onto a plate, He leans into Wolfwood as Wolfwood explains, "Had to meet someone. Nothing interesting to talk about." Vash kisses Wolfwood's left cheek and a hand moves to cup his other cheek while muttering, "You're being vague." Wolfwood says neutrally, "If yer really that curious, keep askin'. We  can talk about that instead of doing this." Vash leans back and responds, "Let's talk after, since... You look so tired."

The panel pans to a close up of Wolfwood's downcast eyes, bags heavy underneath his eyes. He doesn't allow Vash to sit in that moment for long though, then saying, "Yer not helping, Spikey. Being all slow with it... I could fall asleep right now." He moves his hand to start unclasping Vash's coat, starting from his collar. Vash with red cheeks, responds briskly, "Oh, shut up. I'm worried about you. I can't be worried?"

The final shot shows Wolfwood's back to the viewer while Vash's softened expression can be seen as he holds gently onto the side of Wolfwood's face and a hand firm on his waist. Wolfwood responds, "I'm fine, seriously," pausing for a moment before continuing, "Is it okay to still..?" Vash responds, "Yeah, it's okay."

The next image is a shot from later that night after the previous comic. Vash and Wolfwood are now in bed, half naked. Wolfwood's buries his face into Vash's chest, his arms wrapped around him, while Vash is petting at his hair. Vash reminds him, "Hey. You said we'd talk about it." Wolfwood pauses for a moment before piping up, "In the morning? I'm sleepy." Vash says, "Okay..."

The next two pages start from the morning after. Wolfwood is already fully awake, pulling on his outer jacket as he says to Vash, whos' still bundled in his blankets, "Breakfast is on the table. Make sure to eat it. I'm going to grab some things in town and then we're leavin'. Got it?" Vash says, "Mh." Wolfwood responds, "Good. See ya in a bit." The dialogue starts to shift into Vash's inner thoughts now, as he gets up and eats toast, thinking, "Wait. Weren't we supposed to... talk about it?" The next shot then shows him fully up, meeting Wolfwood in town. He carries a half worried expression with him while Wolfwood slides on his glasses for him. A quick panel shows Wolfwood's tired expression from the night before and quickly juxtaposes with Wolfwood in front of him who's smiling gently, the shades covering his eye bags. Wolfwood asks him, "Still not awake yet?" Vash pauses, his thoughts stirring, thinking, "Oh. I guess I was getting ahead of myself... thinking you owe me that kind of honesty." He smiles at Wolfwood and responds, "I'm awake!" His thoughts continue, "Maybe one day, you'd trust me enough to share your burdens."

The final image shows Wolfwood pulling at Vash's cheek and Vash complains, "Owwwww why..." Wolfwood quickly says, "You were thinking something stupid, right? It's all over yer face." Vash mutters, "Nooo, I wasn't..." END ID]

[r0semultiverse]

Hey um I'm concerned...

"Is this true, fellow Petrikov?"

Something something about the cycle repeating. 👀

[nordidia]

having a very rough night so raph doodles needed to be made

when in need, mash two interests together

[vigilskeep]

when you first start the cousland origin, you can have some conversations with arl howe, teyrn cousland, and duncan that shed some interesting light on the political situation in ferelden. it’s definitely the origin where you get the most context on the rebellion and on cailan and his father. while howe isn’t exactly the most trustworthy of sources, he is also one of the most openly critical of cailan that we have access to, which i think is worthy of interest

howe remembers maric with what the toolset describes as “genuine fondness”: “your father hasn’t spoken of our time with him? that man took care of his friends. as they say, he was large as life and twice as tall!” i think we should pay particular attention to that man took care of his friends.

what howe’s talking about is a really important aspect of kingship, where you win the consent and enthusiasm of the nobility for your rule by offering rewards like wealth, land, and prestige to the loyal. kingship is always less stable than it’s portrayed, and this is one of the ways that kings must essentially sell to the nobility that answering to them is worth their time, which would be especially important in ferelden given everything we know about its culture. fereldans believe someone only has power when it is given by the loyalty of those below them, who have the right to freely rescind that loyalty. the dao codex says that “the sight of [fereldan kings] asking for—and working to win—the support of ‘lesser’ men is a source of constant wonder to foreign ambassadors.”

i suspect howe is remembering a maric fresh from the victories of the rebellion, who was able to reward those who had followed him with the spoils of those victories. at the end of the stolen throne, we see that in the final days of the rebellion, maric was killing those who had betrayed his mother to the orlesians even when they arrived under truce to meet him on holy ground. in dao, we see no lingering orlesian nobility except for those who married in and continue to be met with marked hostility. i think we can safely surmise that maric elected to make no conciliatory measures and give everything to those who had followed him; with the orlesians on the run and his people out for blood, he was in a strong enough position to do so, and it certainly served to win the fond memories of men like howe.

by contrast, howe goes on to say, “it’s too bad cailan isn’t half that.” the toolset notes establish very clearly that it’s the same issue, elaborating on howe’s thoughts: “bitter turn, i don’t get as much from the current king”, and “disdainful, i have no use for him, he does me no favours”. this isn’t a minor character detail, if howe’s last words when killed by the player are anything to go by. “maker spit on you... i deserved... more...” whatever it is that howe feels he should have been given, by the crown or anyone else, it characterises his actions and his defining treachery.

it’s in these same conversations that we see another side of this demonstrated. there are two points where howe can openly criticise the king, and bryce immediately admonishes him for both. one even has the toolset note: “speaks sharply, as a lord to a lesser man, not a friend to an equal”. it definitely comes across that way; the way he tells howe “that’s enough” is not far off the voice he uses when the player, his child, displeases him. bryce can’t tolerate any criticism of cailan, as the couslands in dao are ardent supporters of the king. to venture some hc, i suspect that this is not merely royalist fervour, and that howe’s resentment for having been given less is matched by bryce’s awareness of the precariousness of having more.

over the centuries, the theirins have consolidated their power and eradicated almost all the teyrns (the noble rank that is second only to the king). with the only other lingering teyrn being loghain, who is essentially part and parcel of the royal family, the couslands stand alone as the only real rivals to theirin power within ferelden. there are rumours that bryce was once considered for king instead of the theirins; he too could have decided to believe he “deserved more”. but unlike howe, and perhaps understandably given his strong position and happy growing family, he is satisfied with what he has. he will not take the risk of even the slightest challenge being made within his hall

(i expect that bryce’s satisfaction with the current situation further spurred howe’s dissatisfaction to its heights, given the complicated cousland-howe history and the fact that he was expected to accept a friend he had fought beside as a superior for the rest of his life.)

i don’t think howe’s judgement on cailan is likely to be without basis. we don’t hear about any victories the young king has to his name, from which he could have passed around spoils. (to be fair, cailan had harder luck than maric in this regard. a king who raises a successful rebellion gets to bring glory and prestige to everyone who follows him, whereas a king trying to rebuild after that rebellion mostly gets to bring, uh, taxes probably. especially on wealthy centres of trade like howe’s amaranthine, one might assume.) cailan also takes a far more diplomatic approach to the question of orlais, which perhaps predictably did not win over many nobles of howe’s generation. it makes sense that cailan’s strongest supporters would instead be men like bryce who hope for things to simply continue, peacefully, as they are. perhaps in another world where cailan had won the battle of ostagar, he might have earned wider respect. (you could actually argue on this basis that there’s more sense and purpose to cailan’s glory-seeking than he usually gets credit for.) but howe already acts before ostagar, which can only demonstrate his certainty in cailan’s failings at this point: his belief that even if cailan could win, he would not be stable enough to pursue justice for the couslands