#im always down to read how others interpret the characters

[icewindandboringhorror]

Other Misc. Rambling Thoughts on the topic:

(~ !!!!!!!!! if you're just reblogging this post for the Poll section, please reblog the original post without this addition* lol. ~)

(*not that there's anything super personal or weird about the addition, just that it's meant to be kind of casual Side Commentary, not really part of the Main Point Of The Poll, so it would feel kind of weird for it to be emphasized by being included in reblogs unless the reblogs were explicitly about the side commentary, etc..... if that makes sense.. ANYWAY!)

It's neat to read the written descriptions that people are mentioning in the tags, since it's almost like I can see or conceptualize the idea as well, but it's just.. I'm not SEEING it.

Like for example: I can imagine a vase, it's a muted mint green and slightly translucent, elaborate golden birds sprawled down the side in streaks of thin rough watery paint, the base material shimmers gently in the light, there's a small chip where it's cracked on the handle, etc, etc. .. But as I'm thinking about this I see literally nothing.

It seems like perhaps some people can visualize an object first, and THEN describe what they see. But I sort of work backwards. I am building the object in my mind, I can never see it, but it's a collection of concepts. Rather than visualizing all details as a whole at once, I am adding each detail one by one, building onto the IDEA of the thing.

The vase doesn't have a crack on the handle because I just automatically visualized a vase with a crack. It was more that I cognitively understand the concept of a vase, what they tend to be made out of, how they tend to look and feel, the properties they have. So based purely on that knowledge, I can imagine "a chip is something that a vase could have, it would look this way and behave this way" - more like... I'm constructing a bullet point Fact List about the object rather than seeing it.

So if you tell me to imagine an object, I can, in a way, imagine that object in great detail, but it's just.. I'm not SEEING those details, more just knowing it's qualities in a purely conceptual way. Sometimes in the tags when people are like "yeah I can see the skin of the apple, texture, little dots on the surface" it's like… I can imagine that too, I can know it's there, but just with no visual attached.

I guess rather than SEEING something and going ''ah. I know what this looks like because I have seen it''. I more just skip that visual step entirely and go ''I know what this looks like, I just randomly have a list of information about the concept in my mind.'' etc. Maybe similar to how sometimes in dreams, even though a house may look completely different and be in an entirely fake 'dreamlike' environment, you just somehow KNOW intuitively that it's meant to be your childhood home or something. Even when it looks nothing like it in reality. There's a built-in base knowledge of the properties or information of some things within a dreaming mind, etc.

--

This also makes me wonder about like.. how storytelling and myth is so important to cultures all across time. Or how this could tie also into concepts of religion.. etc. etc. If so many people really can kind of conjure these vivid images in their mind, then maybe that's part of why certain things are so meaningful to them? Like a "religious experience" being something you can actually really SEE/feel/lingering with you in your head, rather than just abstract words on a page, detached purely theoretical ideas, etc... hmmm

.

Plus also just for average emotional stuff too, even outside of broader cultural conceptual attachments..

Like, I don't think there's a direct 1 to 1 link (obviously not all people with mental illnesses that significantly reduce their emotional or expressive capacity also MUST have aphantasia or vice versa), but it's interesting as someone who DOES also have a much more lessened emotional range/pretty flat affect/etc. etc. to think like.. Maybe I WOULD be more emotional, in a way, if I could have these vivid experiences..?

Perhaps memories would hold deeper significance if they could really stay with me vividly. Or storytelling would evoke more of a deep emotional reaction to me if I could really picture and feel the things that are going on. If things were more TANGIBLE in my brain, rather than always merely conceptual highly abstracted ideas.

Kind of like, it's probably easier to get over the death of a pet or something, if after not seeing them for an hour you already don't remember what they looked like (beyond just a vague fact list of traits), and you have no vivid memories or mental reminders of them (beyond just factual information stores). COGNTIVIELY you can appreciate the idea of their absence, of course, you still miss them, but there's just no remaining visceral sensory ties. A very "out of sight, out of mind" sort of thing in terms of attachments, memories, emotions, etc. Maybe certain things are easier to "get over", when you're not having constant mental sensory reminders that occasionally rekindle your feelings about the event or etc.??

(like for example, maybe someone could remain angry about an argument longer if they could vividly replay it in their head over and over again. VS just like.. 'Yes I can factually recall the fact I had an argument, and I do have knowledge stored about what precisely was said, but any sort of sensory data such as sights/smells/feelings, etc. from the actual moment of the event are long gone and can never be conjured again in my mind." etc.)

Which again, I think lessened emotional permanence and image permanence in the mind are NOT inherently linked, can all be caused by different things for different people. And, since I can't visualize anything in my head, maybe I'm misunderstanding how it happens and the effect it may have on stuff like remembering things you miss or replaying arguments, etc. etc. But it's still a little interesting to think about, if they could influence each other to some degree.... :0c --

Lastly, It's also weird because I'm actually pretty good at estimating distance and spaces? I can quickly assemble furniture without an instruction manual, pretty easily have a concept of how much space a chair may take up in a room, how two mechanical parts might fit together - BUT, I am literally not actually visualizing anything. I cannot see 3D objects in my mind at ALL. It's like.. just based on the pure List Of Facts About Things Which I Have Observed.. I can intuitively go "oh this works like this/this is this size" just because.. I know it's that size. I don't have to see anything to know..?

But then on the other hand, I'm terrible at directions without a map (I guess because a 3d outdoor environment has WAY more complexity than like.. "Will this square fit into another square?"etc. lol ).

BUT, I also draw/sculpt/etc. entirely without references, and seem to do mostly okay at that..? Like.. I can't even remember the last time I actually used a reference or looked at anything whilst drawing. It's all muscle memory, and me just adjusting as I go until something "looks right" on paper, I never have a set image in my head (or external reference) before hand.. Hrmm....

AND.. I used to say that I had a photographic memory when I was younger, which I know NOW is not true (I always thought it was just an expression, not that people could literally see things in a photographic way). But what I was describing is, I do often associate information with imagery, just... without imagery....

Like "Oh, I know that I took my medicine earlier today because I have a distinct memory, a snapshot of a moment in time, of me rattling the pill bottle in my hands as I looked up at a stop sign while in the back seat of a car". When I say this, I can't ACTUALLY see/feel/hear a pill bottle, or vividly picture a stop sign, but it's more just a factual recall, of. Even though I don't see these things, I know they happened, the information of them happening (me hearing a sound and also looking at a stop sign at the same time) has been stored in my brain as a memory, a collection of linked facts. --

As for other senses, I cannot taste or feel anything in my head AT ALL.. wild that some people mention that. I mean, again, I can have a purely factual recall as if reading a textbook, knowing the information of 'X item typically has X texture, therefore I can imagine what it may be like to feel it' or 'X usually has this taste' etc. - but I can never actually experience those senses in any capacity in my mind alone. I would say audio is my strongest mental sense (maybe a 2.5 or 3 (if it were translated onto the above scale where 1 is most vivid and 5 is nothing)), then visual (4.5 at most, usually 5), and then taste and smell and such are just complete 5, absolutely nothing, I didn't even know people could experience taste or feeling just in their mind alone.. lol...

I know this is just a silly bad quality random screencap of a screencap that I found on facebook lol, BUT it's a succinct enough image to easily describe the concept in a quick/accessible way hopefully :

-

(and of course, feel free to elaborate in tags, etc.! (especially elaborating about other senses as well.. can you "hear" in your mind just as well as you can "see"? taste? etc.) It's an interesting topic to me, as someone who's like a 4.5 at MOST lol. I'm curious what option will be the most common :0c )

[rosquinn]

Thoughts on the dr stone petrification scars

Big disclaimer,

This is just my personal thoughts and stuff I put together n noticed, a subjective interpretation, don't take it seriously Im probably wrong

Some of these are very elaborate while others are just me pointing out details I liked. Sorry. I'll start with the longer rants

This post contains characters (currently) exclusive to the manga and main plot spoilers. Maybe I'm looking to much into it but I swear to motherfucking God there's scar symbolism. anyway

Senku and Taiju

Something that always stood out to me is how similar their scars are both in shape and position, except that Taiju's is cut on the right eye and the points are on opposite sides. Now listen to me... Senku and him are opposites; one's big brained but physically a twig and the other one is the strongest most resistant man you'll ever meet but doesn't really understand anything about science. That's why opposite scars and why they need each other to go on... But their marks are in the same direction because they have the same goal and interests + deep down they're both extremely caring people who would do anything for those around them, despite how different and contrasting their personalities are at first glance.

Oh and Senku's marks are completely symmetrical and do NOT go away. Idk logic perseverance etc + Taijus are more coarse and asymmetrical. To contrast their way of thinking I think. They could be similar because they were the first ones to wake up from the petrification too but you know

Francois & the Nanami brothers

Francois' scar looks like explosion or sound waves. (Manga) Ryusui snaps his fingers to call them creating a similar shape, which is really cool I'll admit. Their scar is on their hand, just like Ryusui's.

So, both Ryusui and Sai also have scars on their hands, except Ryusui's may resemble a glove so pirate-like if we don't count the color + it's on the hand he snaps his fingers with. Mark resembling a rich man or a pirate's glove on the same hand he uses to call his butler and ask for service, and it only covers his fingers. Could be something like a symbol of power/status.

On the other hand, Sai's scars completely cover the lower part of his arms and hands, which are what he uses to code. Sai ran away in order to be able to schedule quietly and is completely locked in his work. Tell me you get it please

Yoo

I'm getting into crack theory with this but please do bear with me. His scar makes him look like Alex, the protagonist of A Clockwork Orange. A Clockwork Orange deals a lot with the theme of unscrupulous rebellion, hurting someone because you think you have complete freedom, and police brutality, which are big parts of Yoo's character. As far as I remember the eyelash marks are left on the MC after being forced to watch 484737 movies showing super brute crimes so he understands what he is doing is wrong and redeems himself. Yoo covers his face a lot to hide the mark and only removes the piece of stone that covers it at the end of the manga when he is 100% team Senku.

IN ADDITION, something important in A Clockwork Orange are the vulgar idioms and slang that teenagers invent and are completely unknown to the viewer and curiously the name and surname of Yoo are formed by informal interjections in Japanese. I've only read the book tho, never watched the movie so if I got anything about the eye marks wrong mb

Tsukasa and Stanley

I really like how similar their scars are, considering both were absurdly overpowered antagonists that had to be defeated using much more advanced science + both kill Senku at one point + their eyes are similar to some extent. I love parallels

Dr Xeno

Scar becomes? White? Splits into pieces? After he's revived a second time and decides to help Senku. Something about his ideals splitting/changing maybe. And being no longer evil thus willing to kill teenagers

Gen

Gen's scar seems to resemble a mouth that changes shape depending on whatever emotion he's feeling (or pretending to feel). I don't have anything else to say genuinely peak character design, specially taking into account that facades are a huge part of his arc and relationships with other characters (let's remember that he's the one to suggest everyone paints their scar again in solidarity with Senku. Hm).

Yuzuriha and Mirai

Yuzu's resemble the roots and vines that protected her body while she was petrified, while Mirai's make her look like a baby chicken breaking out of its shell. I think they're both cute details considering their characters:)

Homura

Considering she's a gymnast who uses her legs a lot to move, I find cool that it's on her thigh. It makes her legs look like they're cracking

Hyoga

Very circular and repetitive, something related to his weapon maybe. I find interesting that he covers them. Insert cursed speech jujutsu kaisen joke

Addition: Ukyo has no visible mark which is also cool on its own way, given that one of his abilities is easily perceiving sounds other people don't notice at all

[cabi-leodrann]

hi, person from infodump question here again! i feel like im being nosy but i couldn't help but notice those little symbols near each character on the ref sheets and that they seem to have a pattern to them. i did decipher the easy ones, like the top elements being the species, the elements of each crown, the little circles at the top of the desciples' symbols, but that's pretty much it. if it isn't spoilery, i would love to see the system of these symbols! it seems very intricate and intentional, like those half-sun elements have different number of x-es at their sides depending on what character we're looking at

if you don't want to reveal this yet it's completely alright, just know that i noticed aha

hehehehehe You fool! YOU'VE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD ANON-FROM-INFO-DUMP-QUESTION! YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO READ MY RANT ABOUT THE WRITTEN LANGUAGE I MADE FOR LAMB! HAHAHAHAHAH You won't need to know this language to understand THaB. It's more for flavor and world-building, so you will see the language in the comic, but if asked, I will give the translation! This language is not very developed, I didn't really have the occasion/time/energy to use it extensively- There are problems with it, things will change over time, but this ask is the occasion to put down what I've got, nice and clean! Thank you very much to @wowowhy and @greenycartoon for your precious help✨ _ _ _ _ _ A BIT OF CONTEXT: This language has no spoken form, it was made to keep/give simple informations and/or orders. It is exclusive to Lamb and their disciples, as nobody else knows how do read it. Very useful to have secret/private written instructions to not cause a fuss in the flock. Context and interpretation are an important part of reading, as this language is not as precise as our modern languages.

HOW TO READ:

The text is written on a straight line, called the guide. It crosses symbols/glyphs throughout the whole sentence. It starts at the base of the first glyph, and ends by crossing the last.

(The post is REALLY long, so Imma put the magic "Read More" button here- I will put the symbol's lexicon at the very end)

-Head/person glyphs are NEVER crossed by the guide, no matter where you put them. It represents sentient beings, and can be customized to match the person's specie and/or looks. -Place Glyphs are pretty vague, and are not really used on their own. -Particles are additions to symbols to give more (often abstract) information. They can change the meaning of the glyph/verb they are attached to. -Punctuations and Regular Glyphs are pretty self explanatory. Punctuations are attached to the guide, unlike Particles which are attached to glyphs. To make a plural of a Regular Glyph, just put it twice, using the guide as a symmetrical axis. _ _ _ _ _

SUBJECT: It is always first in a sentence, and the guide starts from it. There are multiple different structures to format a subject:

-You can use a single glyph (fig.a) for simple concepts, otherwise you use a 3 Part Subject (fig.b). - For the 3 Part Subject, you start with the glyph of the head/object/type of place you are talking about. Then you use the other 2 slots to describe it further by adding other glyphs. The order is important, and there are different kinds of structures.

1- If you put a Head glyph first, followed by a glyph representing an object, and then nothing, you're describing the person's job. 2- A Head glyph in first slot and a Place glyph in last indicate the person in charge of the place. 3- An empty first slot with a Place glyph at the end gives a specific location. The middle slot indicates what this location is about. You don't need to fill the 3 slots. Just add a little line to the unused slot. -The 3 Part Subject with the "hats" is a Cartouche (fig.c), you use those to write names! Cartouche are a bit of an exception to the importance of placement and which glyph goes before/after which. The focus is more on the individual glyph rather than its interactions. You always put a Head in the first slot, then 1 to 2 glyphs signify important features. (The 3 slots limit can be broken if needed, but it's not common. Don't be like him.) -The Closed Cartouche (fig.d) is an abridged version of a cartouche . You don't really want to write the full cartouche again and again, so you can take a Closed Cartouche, and put the most recognizable glyph. (Often, it's the Head glyph, but if there are multiple names with a similar Head glyph, you could use another glyph of the cartouche)

_ _ _ _ _

VERBS: symbolized by a sideways parenthesis that includes the next glyph. This combo gives you a verb. If the action influences something/someone, you put the influenced concept after the verb's glyph, and then you close the verb. You always close your verb, except if it is at the end your sentence. In this situation, you leave it as is.

Some verbs have multiple uses, and change meaning depending on the structure. Here we have the verb "give", that becomes "exchange". The meaning changes when you add a comma (green) after the verb, and it is followed by the object being exchanged. The glyph of the person being interacted with is put at the end.

Particles give the state of what it's attached to, and can be attached to every glyph. Here you have the use of particles on a Head glyph (ex.1), and a verb (ex.2).

When half a particle is used to describe a physical attribute, write it down as you would if that person is facing you. Ratau and Loki's left eyes are injured, but in the cartouche, its inscribed as the injured eye on your right. _ _ _ _ _

PUNCTUATION:

Question Marks are the only instance where the first glyph is not the subject.

Commas are used to indicate a pause between parts of a sentence or separating items in a list. With commas, you can have multiple verbs, and/or multiple concepts that the action influences in one sentence. A lack of commas is the end of a list.

If/Then Commas are used to indicate the influence of the first part of the sentence onto the second. It can replace "Because" "So" "Therefore" ect.

Time arrows are used to indicate when a sentence is temporally affected by the Past/Future, but can also be used as a particle. Time Arrows follow the sentence they influence. They ends when you finish a sentence, or at a comma. When ending at a comma, if the rest of the sentence is still affected, you need to draw the arrow again. The Continuous Arrow (following the guide) is a special kind of Time Arrow, used to symbolize an action lasting in time. _ _ _ _ _

NUMBERS:

Numbers act like normal glyphs, but with the additional dots to indicate the beginning and end of it.

_ _ _ _ _

LEXICON:

[tbmkit]

A Deep Dive on "The End" of Las Nevadas

to start things off, this is my own interpretation of his dialogue. i explained how i feel about the stream here in this post. going off of that, i am going to break down the way quackity (who, for clarification sake i'll just refer to as alex) interpreted him. this is gonna get into random theories and probably get like, a little personal and im going to sound crazy but im also autistic and super invested with a bunch of free time... but i think the whole way this stream was carried out had a double meaning to it, and i will examine it here. not proofread, we 're going in raw. so, let's begin with...

Section 1: The Different Personalities of the Quackities

for starters, i want to examine the personalities of each character. obviously, im not taking much (aside from a few bits) into account from the other streams. this was all carefully crafted in one stream to get each persona down, rather than on-the-fly acting. each one has a sort of "archetype" to dissect.

q!quackity, who is quiet, reserved, skittish - yet smart and observant. he uses longer words, and spends more time observing the conversations, then jumping in for the "kill"

k!quackity, who is battered from the betrayal hes gone through, he feels hurt yet he doesnt feel anger. its internalized, he doesnt trust the others, however he mentions that they need to build trust to get out of the "cube"

ln!quackity, who is extroverted, boisterous, the physical incarnate of a bruised ego. he holds his head high not realizing his neck is always exposed, ready for someone to rip him to shreds if they hit the right vein. he's an asshole, making fun of the others, holds himself proudly on his achievements. but he's the only one that cries. q!quackity is anxious, but he doesn't cry. ln!quackity does.

and... alex. a self-proclaimed introvert, who is kind and observant, who forces himself to get out of his comfort zone, something he called a "finish line." a writer, a director, someone who loves telling stories. and this one, happens to be a story of different personas of his, with one being killed off.

and with that, we get into the topic of what i believe the stream represents. if you'll join me for a long read, i think this stream represents his growth as a person and a content creator, in a very extreme and especially vulnerable way.

Section 2: Pre-Quackities Dialogue

an interesting point about ln!quackity is that his dialogue is very turbulent. he goes from being confident to anxious and scared in a moment's notice.

from...

Slime! Was this you? Did you do this? I didn't mean to do this- the the.. I wasn't… malfunction! An explosive went off! I don't know where I am! I might've done some [stupid] stuff, but it's not- it's not fair to pin it on me. You saw it- you saw it- you saw what everyone did to me…

at first, he's very confused. a topic he brings up later is how he always wins, or rather how the house always wins. he succeeded in killing himself, thus the surprise. he didn't really mean to succeed, he thought he'd fail just like all the other times. that's what he's used to.

then...

I don't know who you are, and you certainly don't know who I am either. […] If you have any answers for me, just let me know, please. Alright fine- whoever put me here, get me out! Or just kill me! That was the point of what I was trying to do!

his ego pops in - "you certainly don't know who i am either" weighing his importance. he can't die, he's just so vital for his country. his carefully crafted country. but he can't stand not knowing what actually happened - did he finally succeed? for once in his entire life? no, surely not. he wants to get out - he didn't really mean to kill himself. just one more chance, he wants. but if he can't have one more chance, he just wants it to be over. either keep fighting and fighting or finally give up, even if you just succeeded for the first time in your life.

finally to...

We can make a deal, alright? Let's do a little bit of gambling, let's make a deal! […] You let me out of here, I… do you want me to do good deeds? I'll do good deeds! […] I'll do it, just let me go… just give me a sign…

"ha! gambling, casinos, money! that's my personality! you guys know me, mr. casino man! ring any bells yet?? you guys know that's what i'm all about!" he cries. that's where his power is held - material possessions, easy wins, his comfort zone. something he can easily control. he tries to paint himself as a "better" version of himself by offering his material possessions, anything to save his ass. something he can live without, something he's comfortable losing because he'll just gain it back double in the end.

Section 3: Pre-Monologue

the first thing ln!quackity says to k!quackity - apart from being taken aback by being called a gringo - is

A foreigner?! Where are you from?

now this might come off as one of the farther reaches in this post, but i feel like this was mean to represent ("this" as in, the way ln!quackity treats k!quackity as a whole) the switch to spanish content that alex did. i feel like ln!quackity is very offput by k!quackity because it was a hard switch for alex to make, given how people in the public - and in private - treated this switch. throughout the stream, ln!quackity treats k!quackity with ambivalence - not with hatred or disgust, but also with an underlying fearful tone - as he does not understand him when he speaks spanish. however, ln!quackity does speak spanish. he spoke spanish all the time. hell, the casino is called el palacio (which you can see on the signs inside), we got el rapids, mexican l'manburg, flirting with schlatt... this is just a front. he just doesn't want to communicate, even acknowledge him speaking to him. his ego gets in the way, not wanting to acknowledge this. q!quackity does not speak spanish, this was clear given the lore of qsmp with elquackity. however, ln!quackity is known as bilingual. so why would he try to hide that part of him? you tell me.

You see? I was also betrayed! And actually I was the one doing the torturing, but I have the better story here.

"hah look at me im so badass! who gives a fuck if you went through so much shit! i also did that shit but to someone else! that also kinda happened to me but who cares!" says the deeply traumatized individual who perpetuates a cycle of abuse.

Tone it fucking down. You don't know who you're speaking to.

he says this directly after being called out by the other two. he, again, deems himself as more important. he's the badass one, he's the one that is more "successful," he gets all the fame and credit. thus, when someone tries to tell him that he's full of shit, he immediately puts up his defenses - the ones he's been crafting for all his life, through the endless amount of trauma he's gone through. did he ever back down? show emotions? no, he hasn't. he's always just been a powerhouse. even when his friends and partners betrayed him, he used that to fuel his drive, not knock him down.

I win. That's my job. My job is to make people think they win. I'm a multimillionaire because I run an extremely successful casino business. I also am the president of the richest country in my world. But you know, the more success, the more people want to kill you. And if I'm here right now it's because they succeeded - although I do think the people responsible might be dead soon as well, because if I truly am dead, then they fucked up. So yeah I'm not worried about it at all. Just a bunch of cowards that stormed my casino, probably shot me, they'll get caught.

here he goes again, flaunting his achievements. whenever someone tries to wiggle through the cracks of his ego, he spits out the same recycled speech about his achievements. everyone wants him, everyone wants what he has. but does he truly want it all? is it to make up for what he had lost, or maybe it's to hide his emotions or his insecurities? will they all be drowned out by material possessions? "the more success, the more people want to kill you," so, himself, since that's who killed him in the end? with how much he's been gaining, does that mean that his will to live dwindled too as he got everything he ever wanted? but of course, this is all one big lie to cover up the fact that he was the one with a bounty on his own head.

Q!Quackity: If you are as successful as you say you are, I would imagine that you would already be on edge for someone trying to kill you. […] so how exactly did you inflict your own death?

bonus! with the context above, i feel like q!quackity picked up on his suicidal tendencies, and is thus asking, "hey, since you have it all and i kiiinda feel like we all killed ourselves here, and you said the more successful you are the more people wanna kill you, doesn't that mean you wanna kill yourself?"

Section 4: The Monologue

Fine. You wanna know how I got here? I fucking destroyed it all, I fucking did it. I fucking did it. I sat on my fucking throne and I lit it all on fire and it was fucking beautiful. You know why? Because you can't trust nobody. You can't fucking trust nobody. Alright… alright… I come from a world where you can't trust nobody. Your neighbour will backstab you for a piece of bread if he has to. There are no friends where I came from, okay? And people will sell you out in a fucking second. I tried it all, I tried politics, I tried businesses, and I never won. You know what made all those fail? You know what made every fucking attempt of mine fail? Trust! You can't trust people! They will kill you! So if I can't win, I did what I had to do.

the first half of the monologue is all about being betrayed. "how did i get here? / i destroyed it all / it was beautiful" for someone who prides himself in his material possessions, this doesn't feel like he'd be happy about getting rid of it all. his entire country, what he loved. las nevadas is his comfort zone. that's why he was confined to it, he never left, nobody entered, truly. sure he had some of his friends, but they betrayed him in the end. he ended up hurting them and they left, or they hurt him regardless.

this is where alex comes into play. this monologue was intentional, this was raw and vulnerable. it represents ln!quackity, yes. but, underlying is alex throughout it all. it's not a hidden fact that he's had a lot of people that ended up betraying him, and others in his life as well. so many people took advantage of his trust and kindness. they wanted to commodify him, use his fame, get a bit of clout, get his money, all for themselves. ln!quackity didn't want to be on top of the world, he rose so high up that from below everything looks so small and lost sight of where he was. this represents the ego. it's so easy for your ego to get ahold of you, but when you're so high up, you get knocked down, all the way to your death...

I fabricated my wins, I created my own country, I built my circumstances. Me! Nobody else! Because nobody else thinks like I do! Nobody can! So there comes a point where it's over, at some point you fucking lose.

the aforementioned fall. las nevadas was his comfort - the only place where nothing could go wrong. everything went his way, and only his. the house always wins, it's his comfort zone. he crafted it himself. "nobody else thinks like i do / nobody can" represents his internal struggle. his insecurities that he had to build four walls and a roof over, hidden away from sight in a city of different buildings. he thinks hes the only one that feels this way, he doesnt think anyone can feel the amount of pain he does. life is a chore for ln!quackity, he chugs through it and never once could he rest. but, he finally got to. and now that he has it all... what else is there left? his insecurities and shame that he trapped himself in with all this time. he's forced to sit with them, ponder, grow attached to them yet still hide them from everyone. nobody can know how he feels, nobody can know what he thinks. he never opened up, he never got in touch with his emotions and thus

My partner, my great business partner… I built him, piece by piece, I gave him the personality that I wanted! He learned from me, he is who he is because of me! Yet he has the audacity to abandon me? To abandon what I built? To defy me? He called me a bad person and guess what? I am a bad person. And I'll fucking own it til the day I die. Everything gets destroyed, I'm not gonna wait for a fucking traitor to put me in my grave, that's my JOB. So yeah, I inflicted it, I'm here because of me. I'm here because of me, nobody else. *starts crying*

this is where it gets tricky. my personal interpretation that fits with the theme is that slime represents alex. ln!quackity - or rather, his ego - molded slime into what he is - a copy of ln!quackity. a hollow imitation of the ego. ln!quackity made slime into precisely that. he was a blank slate, he had so much power over him, and thus he finally had someone who could think like him, without the pain that ln!quackity felt because slime felt none. not until ln!quackity hurt him - his own ego hurt alex, in this sense. the fame, his career had hurt him.

"to abandon what i built / to defy me" taking a step back to keep your ego in check, to finally realize what matters in life, is an act of defiance. to humble yourself, to realize you're nothing more than a person that feels hurt by his environment (calling back to: "I might've done some [stupid] stuff, but it's not- it's not fair to pin it on me. You saw it- you saw it- you saw what everyone did to me…" which he said when he was alone, begging for his life, for a second chance to go back to where he felt safest) it was such a strong revelation that it made ln!quackity cry. finally, he could cry.

ln!quackity, in his own eyes, is perfect. he's what everyone wants to be. money, fame, achievements... but the moment he realizes hes hurt he comes back down from his pedestal. he's not the badass everyone wants him to be, he's not the king of the land, he's scared and sensitive. he just wants to be loved, but every time he is, he gets hurt. so why love when you can hurt? that's why he's so rude and abrasive. because why love when hurting is easier? hurting is the norm, hurting is comfort. las nevadas is a nation that encapsulates nothing but pain.

Where do you guys think you are? What is this to you, just a little game? Just a little more entertainment? Look around us, look at this, look at this sick joke, we're puppets! They think it's real! None of this is! And maybe that's the game, we just need to play it! Who's it gonna be, huh? What am I meant to do? How do I win today's game? I'm not gonna give these bastards a show, I want out!

obligatory "who do you think we're actually talking about here?" fourth wall-breaking segment. you should be able to piece it together here. ln!quackity doesn't want to be part of the show anymore - q!quackity and k!quackity run it now.

Section 5: Post-Monologue and Closing Thoughts

Oh my god, oh my god… Okay… I'm alive- I'm alive… I'm alive, I'm alive… What am I doing? What am I doing? Okay… I need to… I need to leave, I need to get out of here, I need to walk out, I need to walk out…

wait, ln!quackity is alive? he's not hurt? he's... alive? hm. that must've all been in his head. a near death experience, some divine intervention... maybe he does get a second shot! "i need to get out of here..." he wants to get out of the comfort zone, but... letting the ego out, where he's going to suffer? let ln!quackity, the character built on legacy, suffer in a place where he has nothing? the outside? where he wouldn't even dare to-

Slime: Looks like everything is running well. Yeah. Everything's going pretty… pretty great. Slime: You look so tired. I uh… yeah, yeah I uh, I am. Slime: I came back to see you one last time. I didn't like how we had to end. Yeah, no uh… I thought about it, no hard feelings and you know what… you were right actually, this time you taught me some valuable lessons. Slime: After I left, I learned a lot. More than I ever thought there was to know. From more people that I ever thought there were. That sounds great. Slime: I came here to say goodbye, Quackity. It felt… important. Where are you going? Are you going somewhere? Slime: I want to go see it, Quackity. Everything belong this land. I don't think I belong here anymore. Wow, yeah. You deserve it, wow… look at you. Traveling the world, I'm excited for you. Slime: I've learned all I can from this place, Quackity. I'm very excited to go. And maybe even now, someone or something can learn from me. Wow, well yeah. Stay uhm, stay safe man. And remember, don't trust too many people. Slime: Quackity, thank you for teaching me what it's like to be human. Yeah… thanks. Slime: Goodbye, Quackity from Las Nevadas.

he realizes the pain is what makes people alive. you can reconcile with it, you can embrace it, you can live with it. slime was confined to las nevadas for so long that he learned how to live. why can't ln!quackity? what makes slime different? ln!quackity has been immersed in nothing but pain and suffering... and k!quackity too! q!quackity! they are all fine, they can do amazing things, but... they have nothing. they lost it all, but why was ln!quackity the one that's stuck? why did he finally crack?

it's because they love. and slime, well, he loves the world. he loves learning, teaching about life. he has a passion, he wants to experience life. he wants to be free. ln!quackity never wanted to be free. he wanted a place to call his own. with slime leaving... he has las nevadas all to himself. everything he ever wanted, all the money in the world, yet he's alone. he was never loved, only used. it's just a hollow tomb. it was built as an homage to people he loved, but they never loved him. nor did he love himself. all it stands to be is just a reminder that ln!quackity will never be loved.

"you look... so tired." "yeah... i uh- i am."

he doesn't have to keep fighting. he doesn't have to keep relishing in pain. he's happy that slime is traveling the world, thanks to him. he took bits and pieces of ln!quackity - not everything - but just enough to keep his chin high. he is his own person, using the lessons that ln!quackity taught him. slime is ln!quackity's legacy. after the conversation with his other two selves, and with slime in the real world, he realized that in order for him to be at peace, he doesn't have to keep on hurting. the pain that he shared with slime, as the lessons he taught him, inspired slime to be his own person. the pain that ln!quackity went through is what made slime realize that he, too, is human. relishing in pain and not using that to keep going makes you a victim to your own surroundings. the pain becomes comfort, and you can never leave. it's nothing more than a tomb.

and thus, the final lines said are:

"quackity, thank you for teaching me what it's like to be human." "yeah... thanks"

slime taught him how to be human as well. and to be human is to not let pain consume you and to keep forward. make amends with it, keep it in your back pocket. those are memories, it's part of your legacy. but what the other quackities could do that ln!quackity couldn't, is remind themselves that they can be better.

q!quackity, though skittish in nature, is observant and uses his knowledge to get under ln!quackity's skin and finally make him snap and realize his emotions. q!quackity represents intellect, even if he is naïve at the same time.

k!quackity, just as smart as q!quackity, is a fighter. he is observant, but he doesn't use that as much to his advantage as he has strength to back him up. he is strong and he knows it, he can lead a revolution, he is strategical. less naïve than q!quackity, he's more cautious of the posing threat that ln!quackity is. q!quackity helps him as his first instinct, showing that the two work together in tandem naturally.

with both sides working together in harmony, where does ln!quackity come in? he represents arrogance, denial of his emotions, his bolstering ego... there is no room for that to grow as a person. he had to die. the room falls silent as he kills himself, no protests. and, q!quackity and k!quackity will make it out alive. they will be coming back. which shows that they do work together to get out. not by killing themselves, but allowing themselves the best parts of each other.

so, as a finale... what does this mean as a whole? i think, although alex really loves ln!quackity, i think this stream was meant to show his journey as a person. he has said he is very grateful for what he has and where he's gotten, and i think keeping yourself humble and counting your blessings is something that you have to grow into. when you're young, you do stupid mistakes. you're naïve, you trust too easily and people take advantage of that. at the end of the stream, ln!quackity says

"don't trust too many people"

as opposed to what he said earlier, talking about himself:

"you know what made all those fail? [...] trust! you can't trust people! they kill you!"

without letting people in, ln!quackity was his own demise. he never learned how to trust, how to love, and thus he could only die alone in the end. but, slime can. he will learn how to love, how to care for, and how to trust others. don't be naïve, but don't be alone, otherwise you will be your own demise in the end.

and thus, this stream was a way to show alex's journey as a person. he said that he was really counting his blessings and being thankful for everything in his life. he can't redo the past few years, but he can move forward with the lessons he learned. that's something he has been talking a lot about lately, and i think this was his own way of interpreting it through characters he loves so dearly. he had to kill off his pride to grow. moving on is the hardest part, and what's even harder is learning how to begin again after everything. but, at the end of the year and going into the next, he will face troubles. he will face challenges.

but he will grow and learn, as he is human, as we are human. we all feel pain, as well as love. we need to learn, we need to grow. and we cannot shy these away from each other - they need to balance each other out and work in unison, as they should.

[forecast0ctopus]

Any advice on drawing McCoy? I’m not used to drawing ancient wrinkley bastards (affectionate) and it’s surprisingly tough v-v

FOR SURE lmao i made. a diagram. just a warning that i am going to be irritating and long winded because u just hit a topic i really like sorry lmao

so first off i did some traces just to show whats there vs redraws to show my interpretation

ive said this on other asks but again jsyk, tracing isnt bad!! its a tool. theres some stuff with intellectual property and whatnot but using tracing to study shapes and forms is a really valuable practice.

also just taking some time to learn facial structures and anatomy is super useful, reading what bones and muscles are where and how they interact with one another. taking this info and staring in the mirror and moving your face around and thinking about it. just really furthers understanding of how the face works. trying to sound normal about this but i love anatomy and motion and physics and whatever

anyways im going to go through all the numbered points so there's no confusion. 1. forehead lines - self explanatory. more prominent when brows are raised 2. crows feet - at the outer corners of the eyes, more prominent when smiling or squinting 3. nasolabial folds - the folds that go from the corners of the nose to the corners of the mouth. more prominent when the mouth is wide, like smiling 4. brow furrow - self explanatory, most prominent when brows are furrowed. mccoy tends to have two right next to his eyebrows, kirk has one in the middle. everyones face works different lmao 5. chin crease - caused by how the chin and lower lip interact. 6. nasojugal groove - start from the inner corners of the eye and can extent over the cheeks. everyone has these and idk why people dont like them i think theyre really cool!!!! but Society. i guess. :/ 7. eye bags - caused by the skin sagging beneath the eyes. mccoy isnt even that old in tos i think hes meant to be mid 40s by the end of the 5 year mission, hes just got really prominent eye bags lmao 8. idk what the name is for these, but when the mouth is wide and pushes the skin to the sides, these folds sometimes form outside of the nasolabial folds 9. philtrum - the groove above the upper lip. i dont usually draw this but mccoy's struck me as prominent enough that i usually draw it on him 10. masseter - the muscle that moves the jaw up and down. its a pretty rugged muscle and while i wouldnt say mccoy's is especially prominent, it kind of extends that nasojugal groove from certain angles/positions 11. orbicularis oris - mouth muscle, usually easier to see when lips are pursed or frowns are pulled. mccoy's is pretty prominent from 3/4ths or side, his mouth tends to protrude in profile 12. this isnt a muscle but more of a line defining the planes of the face, but since i drew it i felt i should explain lmao

a few points:

im an animator i tend to exaggerate and emphasize certain things so i usually make him more square.

i like to combine eyebags and crows feet for brevity/flow, same with nasojugal grooves, eyebags, and masseter lines. my approach is always subject to change based on pose, expression, reference image, etc.

i take out details that i deem redundant or cluttering and keep what details i need to make things feel Right

all this info is applicable to any character of any age, its just in how you apply it and facial proportions that willl change how old a character is perceived to be

there's a lot more with drawing a Character rather than an Actor, just because the features are there doesnt necessarily mean things will feel correct? its very much in the mannerisms and poses and expressions

i only went over my approach to his likeness but not really body type or posing or anything idk if u want that i could always try to answer that later haha

_______________

anyways all that info kind of exists nebulously in my brain while i draw its not like im sitting there thinking Must Draw. Nasolabial Fold...... i jsut do what feels right with the visual info i have. also i love specificity in faces.... i dont like to be a hater but when every character is drawn the same it pisses me off a little lmao. so

also dont take my word as The Only Way to do anything i just draw how i like to draw and no one should feel like these are things that Must be done to be a good artist or anything do whatever the hell u wanna do

[cassandraclare]

hiii cassie 💛 i hope you’ve been enjoying your time away writing, your locations are always beautiful per usual and you deserve it so much, question regarding a certain tween blondie that loves potato chips (yes, tis’ kit)

i’ve found myself struggling resonate fully with kits character due to the fact that in tda it seemed he was set up as “the new jace” yet..during my current tmi re read, i’m just NOW realizing how completely (emphasis on completely) different they are from eachother. and i also find myself struggling because he’s made to seem like he has an “uncanny resemblance” to jace yet so many of us readers know they aren’t from the same line of herondales at all. i’d figure jace gets his incredibly good looks from stephen, james, cordelia, will etc. HIS ancestors. while kit has completely different ancestors, along with johnny rooks genes.

i fear that if he’s referred to anymore as a “mini jace” that i won’t ever be able to fully resonate w him due to that lack of logic taking me out of the book 🥹 sorry to point this all out i tried to ignore it but im just like “will i have to read about him being jaces twin despite the lack of genetic sense it makes all of..twp?”

Hmm. I mean, I don't think there's anything indicating he's Jace's twin — otherwise people would be constantly mixing them up and Clary, upon seeing him, would be staggered rather than curious. :)

I think you have to decide, a bit, what really bothers you re: longstanding tropes and science in fantasy — after all, the way the Herondale mark is passed down makes no sense genetically. Neither does their ability to see ghosts. None of it has anything to do with genetics, because it is about magic, and so is Jace and Kit's resemblance. The idea that people who have ancestors in common long ago have a sort of ineffable resemblance goes way back to the origins of fantasy. It's about pointing out a preternatural connection, not about common genes. It exists as a mythic trope that isn't connected to science in the same way the mythic trope exists that you can inherit not just, say, eye color, but also personality quirks like loyalty or evilness. (See: TV Tropes page "In the Blood.")

For what it's worth, I don't think of Jace and Kit as characters who are particularly similar, personality-wise or in any other way, really. They both had traumatic childhoods, and were later adopted into new families, and that makes for some points in common, but I have never thought of Kit as a new Jace (we still have the OG Jace, so he doesn't need replacing!) or a mini Jace or anything like that, so anything that seems otherwise is unintentional or open to interpretation.

[jojo-schmo]

hi jojo! im just wondering but ive been wanting to make a comic for a little while but im not too sure where to start 😅. i really love your style of art and your forgotten land roleswap, and i was wondering if you had any tips for beginners?

Hello, hello! Thank you for enjoying my Forgotten Land Roleswap comic, it means a lot! <3

I'm very honored that people have been asking me for tips and advice. All of this is coming from a hobbyist who draws these comics purely for fun outside of my regular day job. Some of my methods would probably deal psychic damage to a professional, LOL. But I'm more than happy to share some things I've personally learned! :)

First of all, the book, "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud ROCKS. It literally gave me a new dimension to understand the medium of comics and how it presents ideas and emotions to readers! And I haven't even had the chance to finish it all the way! I'm very happy I own a copy and I recommend having one of your own if you can, but it's archived here if you want to read it :D

I also like analyzing other comics and thinking about how they get information across to me as a reader. It's helped me learn more effective ways to visually tell a story, like what to include in a frame, how zooming in or out affects the feeling from the panel, maybe building a scene by focusing on other stuff if someone is talking a lot... etc.

ANYWAYS-! Some other tips I've learned through my personal experience-

I had to overcome a lot of negative self-talk in order to tackle a huge comic project like this and stay committed. I was a pretty severe self-deprecator for most of my life so far, and getting help has allowed me to catch myself when I'm slipping back into those habits, look in the mirror, and go, "NO, JOJO! You pour your heart into what you make and that is a wonderful thing! You are appreciated and loved and you deserve to have fun making something you are passionate about!!" Some examples of the negative self-talk I catch myself in....

"I'm a noob at writing and making a story interesting... What's the point of even trying?"

When it comes to starting a project, whether it's 2 pages or 2000 pages, is to just jump in and start! It's okay to be a little insecure or nervous about your technical art skills, writing skills, etc... But writing a "bad" scene is better than no scene- because you can always edit a "bad" scene down the line, but what can you do with nothing? Nothing!! I also put "bad" in quotation marks because I am trying to use that term less, and instead call them "early drafts." or "works in progress."

The first Roleswap scene I fleshed-out was the first Bandee boss fight, in May 2022. I made this drawing on an impulse, getting my ideas down on the page without thinking about the technical stuff like comic panel borders. I consider it like a "pilot episode" almost, haha. The final project is going to be very different from how things play out here. But it got me interested in the concept and excited to see where I could take it, and I made the decision to commit to an entire game plot's worth of AU comics!!

Also, what's the point in trying you ask? The point is to have fun! Making a fan comic in my free time means I don't have restrictions like deadlines, nobody's telling me what I can and can't write, and I can make the story as long or as short as I want! I have full control, which means the world I'm writing is all mine to create! Yes, with a fan comic there is a pre-established world with existing characters. But a universe like Kirby has enough open-ended concepts for people to take basic concepts in the world and take them to whole new levels! I think that's why there are so many amazing fan interpretations of Kirby characters and OCs. The rules are so vague, you can just make up your own a lot of the time!! And it's a wonderful exercise to learn skills for someday building an original world with all original characters from scratch! Magical!!!

"I'm not good enough to make a comic. I don't understand perspective or color and other stuff. Anything I make will look bad.

I once read a two panel comic on here. I can't find it anymore but I remember most of it. First panel showed the artist looking at what they're drawing on their tablet, looking defeated and sad. "Man, I don't even know how to draw this....."The next panel was like them smiling and shrugging, I think rainbows and sparkles were coming out of their tablet, ".....I GUESS I'LL JUST HAVE TO DRAW IT SHITTY!! :D "

IF ANYONE KNOWS THIS COMIC I'M REFERENCING, PLEASE TELL ME AND I'LL LINK IT!!! Because it permanently and positively changed my brain chemistry.

No kidding, making the decision to just do my best even if it's not perfect, helped me a LOT. I was always waiting to "reach a certain level" to tackle a huge project because I felt like I'd never do it justice at my current state. Except I had been telling myself that kind of stuff for years and I still didn't start any projects!!

So the day I said, "Oh well! If I draw backgrounds shitty, then it is what it is! I'll learn from it and draw the next background a little better," Was the day I could commit fully to the project. I'll keep studying how to draw them better for my own benefit, but I won't let my skill issues stop me from even trying!

And for my limited confidence in full-color art, I solved that by making the comic in black and white with no-to-minimal shading lolol. Because I can only address one skill issue at a time before it takes me 25 years to finish this HAHAHA.

It saves a BUNCH of time to work with skill issues rather than against them! Because at least experience is gained in other ways, and who knows, maybe that new knowledge will help address the skill issues someday! So identifying your personal skill issues and deciding which one to try to grow stronger, and which one to work around, could help with big projects!

"Nobody will read this. I'm going to put months or years of my life into a dumb little thing nobody will even care about."

Learning how to draw for my own enjoyment instead of somebody else's was one of the biggest breakthroughs I ever made. Enjoying the feeling of being challenged artistically and just doing my best, even if it's not technically perfect, is the reason why I was even able to start this!

And just because someone doesn't directly like, comment or whatever on a post doesn't mean nobody saw it! I used to get really down on myself for the lack of engagement on my art on other websites.

I was a lurker for pretty much my entire teenage years and never posted my own stuff or commented much. But that didn't take away the fact that I really enjoyed the things I saw online. Those positive feelings were real to me, even when I didn't know how to articulate it in words. Granted, I grew up into a Words of Affirmation main, and I use words to tell people the positive things I think about them as much as I can! But I know not everyone prefers words to express themselves. So I think about the people that I don't know enjoy my work- that just because I don't see it doesn't mean I didn't make a positive impact on someone by sharing my stories.

THIS IS GETTING LONG-- UHHH, STORY TIPS!!

If you work best on technology, start building the story in a Notes app, or a Google Doc! If you work best with pen and paper, start a notebook and rearrange stuff as you need to!

Or if you're chaotic like me, a mix of tech and paper!! I bought a notebook with ring binding so I can remove and rearrange pages of drafts as much as I wanted to! Like here's two very rough concept pages of one Chapter 1 scene made months apart.

I'd say planning out the biggest basic plot points and then filling in between as I went was most helpful! I also have separate notes for character motivations, important story-changing events, etc... So I can have my own reference when I'm writing new scenes!

Okay this was a lot, sorry about the yapping! Hopefully it helps even a tiny bit. If you have any specific questions I'm happy to talk about my experience in the creation process! Or elaborate on anything I said above.

And finally, because I'm not a professional there are probably plenty of other tactics that could work better for some people. My ADHD probably doesn't help with the chaos of my process either, HAHA. But thank you for reading this far and enjoying the peek into the rainbow glitter and soap bubbles that inhabit the right side of my brain, heehee.

[seawing-vibes]

HI THAT WAS ME IM SORRY TUMBLR ATE UR ASK. PERIL IS TRANS I KNOW HER ALSO INTEGRAL TO HER CHARACTER AND IM THE ONLY ONE WHO SEES IT(THATS BASICALLY THE ASK)

HII NO NEED TO BE SORRY TUMBLRS SYSTEM IS ASS!! THANK YOU SM FOR RESENDING THE ASK A <33 OKAY PERIL POST DO-OVER!!

SPECTRUM USED FROM THIS POST!!!!!!!!!

OKAY SO I JUST DECIDED TO FILL THE WHOLE THING OUT! I headcanon Peril as Intersex and nonbinary!! AND SAME FOR ME, they fall fight between “I know them” and “their lore is literally impacted by their transsexualism”!! Peril is a very Nonbinary character to me, the way she was raised to view things as very “black & white” and hosting a sense of little self autonomy— makes them finding a comfortable identity in a very “”in the middle”” gender compelling! Especially within the understanding of how Peril was raised and brought up in someone else’s vision, being able to find self-identity in that nature of breaking down the “black & white” structure that was forced on them through the act of finding identity in neutrality. I find the development of self-love extended through gender expression in that nature something that works well in-unison with Peril’s pre-existing themes! Especially in regards to the layered metaphors of the Necklace. As a nonbinary person myself - I found that to be a pinnacle moment of forced suppression of identity into something more “palatable” to the public perception - in this analysis that being the forcing of femininity onto a gnc aligning identity - speaking to the way many nonbinary identity’s are expected to lean “one direction or the other”. So that moment being involved in Perils story - and her breaking free of it and having a self-realization/control moment - very reflective of nonbinary/gender non conforming experiences !!

With that though - thats just my own interpretation and connection to those aspects of Peril’s characterization! I find her lore and themes within her character to speak to many universal experiences of identity that can be interpreted in a fluid way. Like I personally read it as a very compelling arc about non-conformity and applied my own experiences with gender expression onto it, but other interpretations/analyses are just as strong! Thats why I put this headcanon in the middle, because I find it connects heavily to their lore, but is similarly just an extension of it and not necessarily interwoven in-full. Its a lot of personal interpretation which is why the personable “I know them” also 100% fits my perception of transgenderism onto Peril <33

Also the Intersex headcanon is purely a me thing, I always thought Peril was intersex just like. Factually lmao (one of those “I somehow convinced myself this was canon and was surprised to learn it was not” moments lmao). The reason I included it as well is because within my headcanon I think Peril would similarly absorb her being intersex to a further extension of gender identity! Again, breaking down those “black & white” views that were forced on them through themself - literally! Notably being intersex does not inherently mean gender identity is going to be impacted as well, just for this headcanon I feel Peril’s relationship to their gender identity would be strongly impacted by them being intersex <3 !!

OKAY SORRY THIS GOT LONG BUT THIS WAS FUN TO WRITE! TWICE ! LMAO! I have lots of thoughts on these guys so feel free to ask any questions about the other characters if ya want!!! I have many thoughts lmao…

Also I love analyzing these dragons so if anyone has a different interpretation of the characters & wanna share PLEASE DO!!!! I love hearing other perspectives, especially if they contrast my own interpretations, it’s all so cool!!!! <333

[bookwormbynight]

hello! as a huge fan of ur works i was inspired to write something of my own but im struggling to get L & light's voices down, in both exposition and dialogue, theyre so tricky! 😭 would you have any tips youre willing to share? 💖💖

Oh my fucking God I'm so flattered I'm going to crumple up into a little ball and die you let me know the second I can read whatever u got going on my dms are open

Here's the biggest single piece of advice I can offer you: can you hear their voice actors read the line you just wrote in your head. That's the one I always end up harkening back to. To get a good sense of this, make sure you know the material. Interpret the way the characters say things and deduce how this adds to the person they are beneath everything explicitly stated or shown. Watch the series a couple times, maybe focusing on episodes that the character you're struggling with features strongly in. That sort of thing. I use this in every fandom I've been in that has voice acting. This applies to exposition as well, although that's always a bit more nebulous and can really come down to personal style.

Character specific... Let's see...

L - Be an asshole. State everything eloquently, but basically as plainly as possible and do not pull any punches. His vocabulary tends to be a bit higher-class than pretty much everyone else in the anime, aside from maybe Watari. Lots of SAT words and synonyms for common words. ("I understand" instead of "got it" like Ryuk would say. But don't overdo it, he still speaks like a human being.) Do not hold back on the snark, he's a fucking dick and even more so when he doesn't have to watch his words for cooperation purposes. If you can fit the occasional pun or two in there, do it, you KNOW the scene where he shows a penchant for wordplay and I'm inclined to believe that wasn't out of left field for him. He's constantly cracking himself up and no one else, and he doesn't care, because any jokes he makes are for him. If Light's involved in the scene, have L fixate on him. In the anime, he's CONSTANTLY poking Light, asking questions, and trying to get him to engage. If I'm translating this into prose, I usually take his POV as the opportunity for the most fucking detailed obsessive descriptions of Light I possibly could want to do. (If L describes literally nothing else about his surroundings and all you can envision is a white room, HE WILL LET YOU KNOW HOW LIGHT'S EYELASHES ARE LOOKING.) He also tends to notice little details about others, to be fair, but far less frequently lol simply because he doesn't give enough of a shit to catalog them.

Light - He's a lot trickier for me, tbh. I'll do my best. He tends to avoid slang, but I don't think he goes out of his way to, and he's not afraid to cuss for emphasis, but otherwise he keeps his mouth clean. Other than that, his word use is very average and unremarkable (he pays a lot of attention to not being noticeably weird, even though he's super hindered in that goal by virtue of the fact that he's a fucking weirdo 😭 he's got most of the superficial stuff down, tho). His emotional thought process (and thereby descriptions) depends on where exactly he is in his Kira journey, sliding scale of arrogant but legit sweetheart to full on Regina George. He is kind of a bitch regardless, but he'll be very very polite if it's good for him to do that. He's a hardcore rationalizer, and sometimes he's right, but sometimes he's dead wrong and deploying it as a defense mechanism, which can affect the prose.

Hope this helps.

[angstflavoured]

You have any fic recommendations? Any fandom really lol. You have good takes and interpretation so I feel like you’d have some fire recs

AWH WELL THANK YOU !! I dont actually know how great the ones I read are gonna be since usually the fandoms Im in are scarce on content 💀 but ill go ahead and list a bunch of the ones I really like. I definitely spend way too much of my time reading one shots. REALLY wanna get back into longer fics, but its hard to find ones I care enough to sit down and dedicate time to these days 💔

Smiling Friends

bittersuite, charlie/pim: AND THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED !!!!! THIS FIC CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER !!!!! It is hurt/no comfort, but its soooo good it hurts so good and also there is supposed to be more eventually so i'd get on this one first bc when the second one drops its gonna be a day in history

Dimples, charlie/pim: I just read this last night and was so pleasantly surprised ☹️ Its so damn cute and I love how it delves more into both of their characters.

Portal 2

interface, chell/wheatley: HANDS down, best portal 2 one shot out there. the way the characterize chell is fucking insane, altered my brain chemistry forever. also wheatley is so hehehheheheh

You Do It, adventure/fact: I have a very love/hate relationship with this author..... Im not the BIGGEST fan of how they characterize them, esp Fact, but its definitely the most decent factventure content out there. I so like this one quite a bit, though their ideas are definitely better in theory than completely in practice. That's how I feel abt a lot of their works, but this person unironically holds the title for like 90% of the factventure content. If you just want some quick cute smut of them, i'd say you should check out their acc, cus I get the factventure fandom is starving LMAOO

I've got the fuse if you've got the light, adventure core/reader: ....erm, very self indulgent for me hehe!!! i was so fucking excited when this dropped

Half-Life/HLVRAI

Autonomous Sweet Mesa Response, benrey/gordon: THIS FIC IS SOOO FUCKING FIREEEEE !!! OH MY GOD, I can't even count the times I've read this one. their dialogue is as good as it comes next to canon. If you like this one, this is the first in a huge series and litearlly all of them are just as good as the first. such a good sit down and binge author. They also have a shit ton of other good hlvrai stuff on their page and they make fire art

If You Asked Me To, benrey/gordon: the way they wrote the sex scene in this changed my brain forever, it was so fucking awesome.... frenrey dynamic makes me WILD

Whispers and Moans, barney/gordon: this whole author has a lot of super cute freehoun :'[ this one deals with them before the resonance cascade AND after and shows how things changed between them and its so precious grrraah

Promise, barney/gordon: again, deals with the timeskip stuff which just always makes my heart hurt... also shower sex smiles

It’s Only Natural, barney/gordon: I DIDNT REALIZE THIS FIC JUST GOT FINISHED THIS YEAR OH MY GODDDD I WAS OBSESSED WITH THIS need to reread this immediately

Team Fortress 2

He's a Rebel, sniper/spy: SUPER fucking cheesy and corny but oh my god its like one of my fav fics ever..... it's just so much fun, like stereotypical fanfic and that's always a good time to me. biker gang member/school teacher au are you fucking kidding me i'll vomit

It IS the Size That Matters, sniper/spy: erm.... BLOWJOBS!! always find myself coming back to this one sorry i really like it hehe

Secure, demo/solider: Not a lot of fics of these guys, which really sucks!! super underrated ship. I liked this one a lot tho, its pretty cute and a little emotional

Something to Rely On, sniper/spy: casual sex but really sniper is in love will forever be my favourite thing ever, it never gets old istg

The Silent Game, sniper/spy: can you tell I really like sniperspy, MORE BLOWJOBS!!!

Disco Elysium

The Collision in Cardiozone HQ, harry/kim: holy. fucking. shit. actually life changing i am not joking. so fucking heartbreaking, it left me hollowed out for like a WEEK after the ending. A longer one for sure, but SO worth it like oh my god

The Catacomb Killer, harry/kim: I don't think I ever fully finished this one, but I remember REALLY liking the whole case the fic was set around. there was so much thought put into it, it was genuinely interesting like a murder mystery show

Retour à nouveau, harry/kim: I did really like the whole plot and buildup in this one, but from what I remember, them getting together was super anticlimatic :P i recall being disappointed, but the whole actual case and their interactions during the fic are super cute

Mortal Kombat 1

the game of idiocy, johnny/kenshi: BY THE SAME AUTHOR AS BITTERSUITE!! this one is sooo fucking cute, the way they write them interacting is so much fun. a little troupey and on the cheesier side, but cmon who doesn't love that

Undertale

Flowey is Not a Good Life Coach: no ships but delves a lot into flowey and papyrus relationship and there's so much good sans development too. SUPER GENERIC, it IS one of the most liked fics, but I remember reading it back when I was a teenager and it blew my fucking mind. ghhghggh i love the way they write the brothers interacting so much

The Party Incident and Other Embarrassing Anecdotes, sans/reader: uhmm.... soo sorry, this fic will forever hold a special little place in my heart. I'm sure if I read it now it would be SO corny cus oh my god it was fucking 2016 like are you kidding, but I'm just a fucking sucker for fake dating. there like 5000000 troupes in this one and theyre all so cute and its just a fun and silly time. it subconsciously inspires so much of my writing in fics. will probably forever be unfinished before they get together though HAHAH so definitely do not read if you're looking for a solid ending. its just about the journey i swear

[triforce-of-mischief]

it's very disheartening to see several LU fans have publicly announce how much they despise [trope]/[character interpretation] when they've literally read *my* fics with those exact parameters. it makes me think, what, do they hate my fics now? have they always hated my fics and were just being nice? am *i* the reason they hate these tropes/characters interpretations? i ended up blocking like ten readers because they just came out swinging with, "oh yeah, that thing i told you i liked? well in reality i fucking hate them and im sick of you writing them"

yeah, exactly. nothing good can or will come out of situations like this. it's a low blow that hurts too many people and doesn't make anything better.

i'll have to check the notes on the landslide post again because i've already been filling out my blocklist with it (again, i feel bad for ovega, nobody has the right to jump on somebody's post like that). predictably, there's people taking the opportunity to be ableist as well.

my only problem is that i have to be careful. i've done a lot of "thanos snaps" already, for various transgressions, but if i do too many i won't have anybody left to engage with. it's not like i haven't done my share of complaining, but i do it in private with a single consenting friend. there's a lot of blogs i've never seen before who's only goal in life is apparently to tear down fandom creators, so i won't have any qualms about blocking them. others, though, i'll keep an eye on and hope they learn their lesson.

[windvexer]

hello! another little question on tarot if i may.

when i read more casually my readings were usually very relaxed and with simple meanings, accurate with by the book meanings but not super specific. as i become more ambitious i became super motivated to learn all the nuance i possibly can, its an interesting journey but.. doesnt seem to work in practice. i always knew it but everyone and their mama will always have interpretations that can seem stupid to others, even among experts in the field. question is how do you deal with that?

Im seeing that as my study deepens and Im working with Apollo to achieve that, some interpratations that are organically coming up and rooting themselves in my practice can seem just straight up weird to some people. how do i deal with that? have you experienced that? everyone seems so Agressive about their interpretations being the proper ones.

Listen to me.

Listen to me.

You must engage in the most batshit methods of reading tarot. You must design your own systems of reading with all the glee of a young boy throwing rocks off an overpass. You must read tarot so bizarrely that it makes you feel like a mad scientist.

You must decide for yourself every rule and ritual which makes tarot "work," and you must develop methods of reading that hinge upon destroying those ideations. You must make vehicles of meaning, drive them as fast as you can down the freeway of tarot, and crash them at full speed into brick walls. You must laugh at the fiery destruction you have wrought, and you must sprint all the way back to the launch pad to begin building something else.

They will be Aggressive with you over what the cards really mean? They are fools. They do not know the depths to which you can tear apart their petty systems. They think the extent of tarot perversion is choosing the wrong meaning for the card. They think this because they have mistaken the surface of the water for the depths of the ocean.

They think the height of tarot discourse is whether or not it's okay to not memorize card meanings. They think tarot is a pretty sea turtle languidly drifting in a sunny reef.

Go down in that ocean and dredge up the most horrifying bulbous-eyed god-defying pale abomination you can find. Map out new depths of horror. Make friends with the purely absurd. Perform atrocities with tarot and hang each one around your neck like the badge of honor it is. Crack tarot's spine and drink from the fluid that drips out. Become a monster, do you hear me?

And when they smirk at you because they think they know better words to tape to the Knight of Swords, you will open your mouth and say the most dumbfounding shit that person has ever heard and blast them with a ray of psychic damage so severe it will make them question if they should keep reading tarot lest they be associated with someone like you.

"Well akshually, knight cards do the queen's bidding, so in this case-"

"Haha, yeah! Once for a couple of months I worked exclusively with a system where the four knights were the rulers of the deck. I divided up the major arcana cards between the knights as their servants, but since there's one card left over, I incorporated a system where one of the four knights was the 'ruler' of that reading. Then I laid out all four knights as signifiers and dealt the entire deck between all four knights and the reading was based on which omens were collected under the ruling knight."

"Haha, yeah! Once for like two weeks I assigned all the court cards to be my favorite anime blorbos and I read from a restricted deck that only used court cards and major arcana. I'd draw one major arcana card to be the battlefield setting and then two court cards. To resolve the reading I wrote fanfiction about the characters fighting and whichever character won would decide the outcome of the question. It's actually how I got started using creative writing as a form of exploratory divination!"

"Haha, yeah! One weekend I decided to find out what would happen if I read in such a way that sword cards could 'kill' other cards in the deck, and the Knight of Pentacles ended up getting 'killed' like three times that weekend and ever since then it's always coming up in readings about sadness and depression, isn't that weird?"

"Haha, yeah! Well today I'm reading with a system where I meditate until a recurring character from my dreams appears and asks me to possess one of my tarot cards, and today No-Eyes the Whale asked to possess that knight card, so that's why I'm not using your meanings."

Do they challenge you? They cannot challenge you. Are you not shuffling right? Are you getting scolded for not fOcUsInG enough when you shuffle? Look them in the eye and say something so deranged they will think about it for the rest of their life.

"Haha, yeah! I remember the last time I used those meanings, it was so fun. I got drunk, shuffled my tarot deck, and laid out piles of three cards around my house, sight-unseen. For the next three days I kept running into these little three-card readings hidden everywhere, but funnily enough, they all ended up being past-present-future readings of the ten second timespan when I picked up the cards. I even predicted getting the phone call about losing my health insurance!"

"Haha, yeah! I actually decided to re-assign every single card to my custom twelve element system, so I don't see the same divisions between the suits as you do. Look, this card is the element pearl! Pearls are an element, I decided a couple of months ago. It's a really long story but it helps explain what happened to No-Eyes."

"Haha, yeah! I don't use intuition to choose cards out of a lineup. I turn them all face up and select all the cards that I think are the most likely ones to show up in the reading. Then, I go through the entire deck and match every single card with it's polar opposite. Then, I put the deck face-down and flip cards over. If I flip over a sword or a wand card, I exchange my chosen card with its opposite, but if it's a major arcana card I keep both my chosen card and its opposite."

"Haha, yeah! I don't shuffle. Like, at all. Once I'm done with the reading I put cards on the bottom of the deck and then just draw new cards from the top of the deck."

"Haha, yeah! I mixed all my decks together and sorted the superdeck into piles of every elementally aligned card. In order to resolve questions I have a yu-gi-oh duel with myself."

Eat the tarot. Consume it whole and raw. Tear away at it until you fear there is nothing left, and then go back for more. Each time you eat its heart, it will become refined before your eyes. Assist the tarot in shedding its decrepit cloak of meaning. Rescue it by killing it. Rend tarot in your hands like a child ripping at crafting clay.

And if you destroy it well enough, and for long enough, it will be reborn in your hands as it was meant to be: glimmering and pure, whole and new, ineffable and eternal, your dearest friend,

and so shiny and smooth that no meanings at all can stick to it.

That is what you do with people who get Aggressive about what the cards really mean.

[weirdmageddon]

long meditation on jade and dave's relationship - part 1

here's a three-part heavy homestuck meta. took me about 3 days to scrobble together and format and everything

part 2 part 3 cooking

i apologize in advance for the disorganization of my thoughts. after writing it i realized this is probably one of the clearest glances into how my mind thinks associatively so everything relates in some way to something else in here. the foundations for my thoughts might be invisible to others because they can’t see the connections ive built upon but you can probably see them here, and that strong foundation is also why i care so much about them and why i chose to lay it all out. sometimes i feel like i have Got to get this tangled associative web out of my head and into some form of writing so other people can be like, “oh so This is why you have so much to say” and can just. see into my head and where it all comes from for me. people have expressed interest and the general opinion tends to be that people like hearing my thoughts a lot so yeah. pov you are in my brainwebs. seatbelts everyone get on the magic school bus in that bitch

some time ago i saw this post i saw as i was going through florals jade tag again. my homestuck hyperfixation flared up again and ive been hyperfocused on dave and jade and particular just absolutely entering these monotropic black holes over them and turning them around at different angles and looking at discussions and what people thought both now and in the past and now that im older i can appreciate them even more. ive always been a fan of dave and jade both, but i cant even lie dave has my whole heart so maybe im biased as well. but i like to believe that regardless of my liking for dave and interest in not even x-ray scanning him just straight up 3D mri scanning him and rotating him in my head that my argument is still very reasonable. i just understand his psychology a lot

i want to preface this by saying i absolutely love floral and im so glad she’s on the hsbc team because i know she can do jade harley justice. one of the best jadesters fr. we all come into media analysis with different personal experiences and perspectives, and i understand this was from her perspective as someone who had run ins with dumb boys and relates a lot to jade which is why she can put so much love into her <3 i just found myself disagreeing with some of the arguments that she presented in that post just as a peer who also read the comic from my own perspective. keep in mind i also love jade to bits and want the best for her

so yea this isn’t a targeted post at all. it just got the juices flowing and inspired me to actually write my pre-existing thoughts down and i used it as a springboard for them

i think it ended up being pretty insightful overall especially because i was stoned as fuck writing it and ive come to realize being stoned amplifies and improves the output of my deeply inwardly associative thought processes tenfold. or maybe weed just changes how significant it feels. maybe a little of both

part 1: on using davesprite as a basis for interpreting jade's relationship with all daves

i love what hussie does with alternate versions of characters and. it’s one of the coolest things about homestuck’s characterization. like floral quoted:

… we see that Jack is a simple man, no matter what name he goes by. He is, if not much else (and he’s not), impatient and violent. We only got the briefest glimpse into these qualities when we were first introduced to him on Derse. But now we get to spend much more time with him, albeit in the form of a completely different character. This is another bit of sneaky utility provided by this intermission tangent. It serves as an arc to help indirectly characterize the villain of the early acts. Having multiple copies of a character operating in totally different circumstances turns out to be a great stealth characterization tactic, and it gets used much more aggressively later in the story. In fact, it proves to be inseparable from one of the story’s most essential themes. (Hussie’s Intermission commentary)

so i agree in principle and think the alt self thing is fucking brilliant

however, i disagree with the argument it’s supporting.

So, not the same character, but if switched, I would go out on a limb and say that Dave would experience all the same issues as Davesprite did, but without the “bird” part acting as an easy explanation. That doesn’t make Dave responsible but it does speak volumes to how their personalities respond to each other, insinuates that a relationship involving any Dave would end badly for Jade and that “Real” Dave indeed has Some Issues To Deal With.

i don't agree that dave and davesprite should be compared in this context. yes they are splinters of the same character and floral is right on the money in that canon deflecting the relationship failing on "bird issues" doesn't really explain anything meaningful, but i do not think its the case that all of jade’s relationships with dave are doomed to fail because of what we saw with jade and davesprite.

yes, if switched, dave strider would be practically identical to davesprite since they were the same exact person until a branch in the timeline

however, it's the unique things davesprite has been through that made him like this. davesprite has baggage that dave doesn't. a timeline where john was tricked into fighting his denizen early and died and jade couldn't get in on time and was presumably wiped out dinosaur style on earth. with alt future dave's year-worth of knowledge, gear, loot, and experience, he rescinded his player status and "realness" as a human person to be a game guide for his naive past self right before the timeline split in order for himself and his friends to continue existing.

that would mess anyone up mentally. it's no wonder he's jaded, no pun intended. he's depressed as shit and bitter and probably has trauma issues unrelated to his bro, though they do compound on it. yes they both experienced bro's abuse but i'm talking about the differences between alpha timeline dave and davesprite; right now im not going to talk about things that are the same about them prior to the timeline split because it applies to them both so it's redundant.

essentially what's setting them apart is their experiences playing sburb, their chronological age (alt future dave/davesprite had been making timeloops over a span of four months and he says that in total the time from his chronological perspective is close to a YEAR in sburb grinding shit out before he goes back), their relationship to their friends and how their friends see them and how they see themselves, their ontological natures as beings, what their purposes are.

davesprite had his ontological status as a person and purpose changed. he assumed he'd be the one playing and doing important main shit in the alpha timeline with all his friends but then it turns out that wasn't the case due to the events that went down in his timeline. and becoming a sprite solidly changed his degree of existence. davesprite's best friend john asking if he can talk to "the real dave" is when i think he realized just how fucked up his existence as a person has become despite him doing pretty much everything for everyone for nearly a YEAR before the alpha timeline was even able to get properly started. if davesprite didn’t exist, nobody would have (john needed to live to do ectobiology). davesprite knew this and weaponized it against john who john treated as a secondary, lesser dave. so of course he’s kind of an asshole. it’s like his efforts and sacrifices meant squat to the people he considered his best friends because they didn’t experience it. to john he just suddenly appeared from the future and became a sprite.

this is heavy shit for davesprite that alpha timeline dave does NOT have to go through and it did change him in ways that cannot be said about alpha timeline dave. this is not a universal dave experience. so while it’s true that dave has the capacity of act like davesprite under those exact circumstances, alpha timeline dave didn’t undergo those that led to davesprite’s more miserable traits. therefore i don’t think it’s fair to conflate jade’s failed relationship with davesprite in particular as informing of how most of jade and dave’s relationships would unfold, because davesprite has been in exceptionally tragic circumstances, coming to terms with the state of his own existence. the last thing davesprite needs is romance. alpha timeline dave does not carry this burden.

Everyone believed that what was creating the dissonance wasn’t a central part to Dave’s character but an aftereffect of Bird Syndrome. Which you can’t blame them for because there’s nothing that would lead them to think differently. Every character besides Dirk is completely in the dark about Bro’s abuse and Dave stated he’d probably never tell any of the Betas. Which is fine, no one’s owed to know somebody’s baggage. But when you don’t give people a means to understand what you’re going through, especially when it leads you to hurt them, its only inevitable everyone’s going to be confused and going to come to conclusions using what they do know.

rebuttal to this: as i said earlier i don’t buy the whole bird issues thing and i get the handwaviness about being fused with a bird being john’s explanation for davesprite’s bullshittery. however i think it’s important to mention that john and jade both question if becoming a sprite might have had something to do with his change.

being fused with a bird never bothered him, as jade says. it was all the other baggage that came with the prototyping.

this includes playing the game for way longer than anyone else and mindlessly grinding from the ground up for about a year, then turning himself into a game construct and having his ontological level of existence as the platonic ideal form of dave strider lowered in the eyes of his friends.

JOHN: like what? JADE: its hard to explain JADE: just some slight differences in personality i guess JOHN: he still raps sometimes. JADE: yes... JADE: so? JOHN: i just thought i would mention that. JADE: ok i will admit i cant really tell if his rapping style has changed JOHN: trust me, it hasn't. JADE: i dont know if the differences are because he is a sprite JADE: or because he lived for a while in a different timeline... (p.4733)

JOHN: why is he such a basket case? he's like regular dave, but like, aloof enigma edition. JOHN: maybe it's because he's part bird? i think becoming a bird and a sprite did something weird to him. JADE: i dont think being a bird ever bothered him JADE: like i said... its all more complicated than that JOHN: normal dave was so much more level headed. JOHN: i have to admit, i spend a lot of time wondering what he and rose are up to. JADE: me too JOHN: ehh... JOHN: maybe it's for the best he broke up with you. JADE: why? JOHN: well, what kind of future do you think you would have with him? JOHN: he's a sprite. like really, what even is a sprite? how long do they live? will he still be around if we win the new game we are allegedly trying to get to? JADE: i dont know (p.5294)

as for the bro abuse thing, i can’t tell if floral’s position here is that davesprite is fucked up and had a failed relationship with jade because of bro’s abuse, and that dave would also necessarily have failed relationships with jade because he had the same experiences and also doesn’t tell anybody? the wording there is kind of vague and can be interpreted in different ways but that’s how i interpreted it.

they are right that bro’s abuse is something dave keeps to himself. but remember that dave has also deluded himself about it to cope. he doesn’t know what to think of it himself. both alpha timeline dave and davesprite have this baggage, but we explore it more with alpha timeline dave.

i know dave said in the post-retcon timeline when having a conversation with dirk that he could never tell karkat all of this or any of the betas about his abuse. but i still find this pesterlog interesting and i want to put a spotlight on it. even while dave was still chugging that copium, jade was the person he was closest to opening up about the nature of his relationship to his bro at this point. remember this is quite early on in the comic and he didn’t have 3 years on the meteor to contemplate it yet when he said this to her, his bro had just died at this point

GG: anyway dave im really sorry about your bro/dad GG: you were pretty close with him right? TG: meh it was a pretty bizarre relationship by any standard TG: fightin off wave after wave of face pumicing puppet ass every day TG: always being on guard for stealth attacks in the middle of the night while getting up to go to the fucking bathroom GG: heheh TG: but i guess it all sorta amounted to some vague unspoken semblance of kinship TG: if thats a thing TG: like if honor among thieves is something then lets call it camaraderie among ironic rapping roof ninjas TG: but thanks GG: sure TG: i thought about taking his sword TG: when i was there TG: but i couldnt TG: couldnt really bring myself to try to pull it out it was too weird GG: dave we have to stop him!!!!! TG: what GG: jack! GG: he shouldnt get away with this TG: you think (p.3204)

even if he’s in denial about it, deciding to point out the positivity he can rationalize about it to avoid spending too much time thinking deeply about it (it makes him uncomfortable), he’s getting closer to acknowledging the truth here that shit wasn’t normal, about it being “bizarre” and you can tell hes being genuine here when he thanks jade for her concern about his loss

dave then continues talking about his thoughts/feelings on the situation after jade says “sure”, as if he took her concern as an invite to open up about his thoughts even when it’s something vulnerable for him that he tried putting on false bravado in front of terezi about. jade then abruptly changes topic to what’s to be practically done about these tragedies—dave was still on the topic of his bro and she changed the topic to jack noir without clarifying, hence he goes “what”

this is interesting because terezi tried to get something out of him about this and was met by riddly puzzlecock and false bravado but he’s pretty straight up about his current feelings with jade. basically it really depends on the person dave is talking to.

in this specific argument, floral approaches grimbark jade solely from the position of her being uninhibited which is true in many ways, but grimbark jade is also quite nefarious and not in her right mind. i think that even if jade were unihibited and spoke her mind, she wouldn’t have it in her push the mayor into lava to get dave to fight her. thats the evil. floral does acknowledge this in a separate post though, but it’s not really touched on in her argument im discussing. i also want to reiterate that even though it might seem like im violently ripping this post limb from limb its really just something to bounce my pre-existing thoughts off of. this is all written with civility towards and respect for floral

even roxy says something about this—that the schtick doesnt suit her. like it doesnt feel like something she’d have the natural capacity to really be without some external influence

ROXY: so alt grannydaughter english ROXY: whyre u part dog + evil lookin JADE: DO NOT CALL ME THAT!!! ROXY: what JADE: my surname is harley not english JADE: but you may refer to me as jade, or ma'am if you are feeling especially nervous and deferential JADE: which as it turns out is the way you should be feeling about me, ALWAYS >:B ROXY: LOL!!! JADE: lol WHAT ROXY: jade i am in no way buying that ur normally this pompous and tyrannical ROXY: the shtick rly doesnt suit you its so obvious (p.6291)

so i don’t think everything jade says here should be taken to heart about her real feelings or how she would express them if she was being genuine as her normal self. we know jade can get mad but i think we’re giving her evil possession a little too much credit

that’s why i was personally disappointed in grimbark jade when homestuck was ongoing, is it felt like it didnt really give us anything? it was like empty calories while just waiting for the regular jade to come back which she never did. it is interesting to look at in retrospect to see if there’s anything there but…grimbark jade isn't exactly a reliable narrator. i guess none of them are but like, especially not grimbark jade. if i can’t separate what’s genuinely jade under this mess from what isn’t then what’s the point?

like for example this was left out of floral’s argument when showing this part, but in the comic grimbark jade tells dave that he’s “more messed up inside than davesprite” …. right after dave wouldnt comply with her demands to fight her and doesnt want to fight lord english. that’s…not really telling about anything at all for either of them. jade is evil and if things dont go the way she’s programmed to get them to go she’s gonna flip her lid. this is what i mean about her not being in her right mind

JADE: the fact is youre going to have to rely on those powers if you want to stand any chance against a lord of time JADE: it is safe to expect he can only be challenged by someone with a similar command over the aspect DAVE: why is that safe to expect DAVE: where are all these presumptions coming from DAVE: if you can use swords why dont you take the welsh cueball sword and fight him yourself DAVE: i bet you could fuck him up DAVE: youre probably even more extra strong now that youve succumbed to the bark side DAVE: did you ever think about that JADE: dave i am perfectly aware of the awesome powers granted to me by the bark side JADE: it does not matter JADE: i cant be the one to wield your sword against english JADE: it has to be you JADE: it is the will of the empress, and thats final DAVE: the empress can suck it DAVE: i have no intention of fighting him DAVE: and this isnt even me pulling more lame self aware reluctant hero junk DAVE: i am just straight up not going to do it DAVE: see thats not reluctance its just petulant refusal on my part DAVE: reluctant hero shit is when the guys like aw shucks i dunno if i wanna but deep down we all know he really does DAVE: but i really dont DAVE: why should i DAVE: i dont give a damn about lord english or his nebulous atrocities out in nowherespace DAVE: what kind of villain is someone you never met who hardly did anything evil to you or your friends directly DAVE: or even to anyone in your universe for that matter other than through some vague insidious influence DAVE: who even is this guy and why should i hate him DAVE: am i really supposed to be pissed off at a green muscle monster i never met DAVE: cause i aint pissed off at no muscle monster DAVE: hell wasnt he in some ass backwards way responsible for us existing in the first place? DAVE: or all of humanity for that matter?? DAVE: maybe i should thank him before chopping him up via welshscalibur JADE: jeez you sure have some issues JADE: honestly it has become very tiresome listening to this sort of thing JADE: i thought davesprite had problems JADE: his issues i could kind of understand JADE: i thought you might be different, being the alpha dave and all JADE: but no JADE: you might be even more messed up inside than he was! DAVE: what DAVE: why are you dragging that guy into this (p.6385 / 6386)

part 2

[fantastic-nonsense]

hey i saw your answer to the ask about alfred making damian robin in battle for the cowl. while i 100% agree that is not what happened in bftc, outside of that comic i think alfred has a lot more involvement. im not sure if this is a post-crisis exclusive blog, but in secret origins (2014) #4 we see alfred's feelings on damian and his conclusion that damian would listen to no one else except his father. so alfred forges a letter from bruce that asks damian to be robin. the end of the comic shows that dick knows alfred forged that letter but imo leaves it pretty open-ended as far as dick's decision. if you ask me, i think dick talked to alfred about damian being his robin or alfred picked up that things were going to way and decided to pull this to make that transition easier for everyone. sorry is this is weirdly nitpicky or contrarian im just really a sucker for alfred and damian's relationship.

[referencing this response on how the transition from Tim to Damian as Robin was handled]

Preface: I am not a post-Crisis universe exclusive blog (far from it), but since 1) the New 52 era's attempts at dealing with the Batfamily are a mess and a pain to deal with for a variety of reasons, and 2) the post-Crisis universe was and remains the definitive interpretation for most of the Batfamily's history and the basis for their interactions with each other, it's what I tend to default to when writing meta...especially in cases where the events under discussion originally happened in post-Crisis continuity. The exceptions to that tend to be characters introduced post-Flashpoint (ex: Duke), who have no previous continuity bogging them down, and characters who have had the majority of their stories and development take place post-Flashpoint (ex: Damian).

That being said, while I am aware that Secret Origins (2014) and particularly that story exists and have read it, I tend to default to ignoring it for a few reasons:

One, it's a story whose events make little sense within either post-Crisis continuity or post-Flashpoint continuity as they otherwise exist; minimally, the timeline doesn't match up in either case.

More specifically for the purposes of writing a meta about the transfer of the Robin mantle from Tim to Damian, it rewrites Damian into the pre-Reborn era Batfamily very awkwardly by pretending he was always there. It shows a League clothes-clad Damian taking on Victor Zsasz and Professor Pyg (which he did not do until he was already Dick's Robin) while pretending that Bruce had time to try and connect with him before he "died" (which, he didn't; Damian appears in two stories prior to Battle for the Cowl—Batman & Son and Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul—and his interactions with Bruce are fairly minimal in Resurrection).

It is a clumsy attempt to integrate Damian into the pre-Batman R.I.P timeline that ignores all of the ways in which Damian's early relationships with his father and the rest of the Batfam (particularly Dick and Tim) are directly informed by the fact that he wasn't there during that time period:

[Alfred, Dick, and Tim watch The Magnificent Seven in Wayne Manor in the immediate aftermath of Bruce's death. Damian is not present, as he was still living with Talia. An empty chair between Dick and Tim marks Bruce's usual 'movie night' seat] -Nightwing #151 (2009)

I thus find it very unhelpful to use in any capacity when discussing and analyzing interactions between those characters in the aftermath of Bruce's death.

Two, while I have no love for Battle for the Cowl, Tomasi effectively ignoring it completely beyond "Gotham was in chaos following Bruce's death" doesn't sit right with me either, especially since it was referenced (even obliquely) in several other New 52-era books.

Three, I love Alfred and Damian's relationship. I think it's one of Damian's most important relationships and we should talk more about it. But I also love Alfred and Dick's relationship, so I'm not particularly enamored with a reimagining where Alfred is the one who orchestrates Damian's takeover of the Robin mantle largely unilaterally. That's not his call to make beyond a suggestion to Dick that it might be good for him. I also think it takes a lot of agency away from Dick in the one transfer of his mantle that he canonically actually has control over and undermines a big aspect of Dick and Damian's relationship development to take those decisions out of Dick's hands and give them to "Bruce."

Four, and probably most importantly: that story is never referenced before or after that issue. That origin for Damian is long gone. Its portrayal of his childhood was revamped in Robin: Son of Batman. Its reconceptualization of Damian's entrance into the Batfamily has not been acknowledged since. DC's larger refusal to acknowledge Dick and Damian's time as Batman and Robin beyond subtle references ended during the Rebirth era. New 52!Tim quite literally wasn't Tim Drake and was only restored to being himself again post-Rebirth, so 99% of the interactions between Tim and Damian from 2011-2016 have been effectively discarded as non-canon. And whenever Damian becoming Robin is referenced after Secret Origins #4, it is nearly always referenced as Dick choosing him as Robin rather than him becoming Robin "at his father's request." So there's little incentive for me to acknowledge it given that it generally appears to not be canon beyond the scope of the New 52 era of post-Flashpoint continuity.

I'm sorry that this probably isn't the answer you wanted to read, but I hope this gives you a better idea of why I specifically choose to stick to post-Crisis and post-Rebirth continuities when discussing the transfer of the Robin mantle from Tim to Damian.

[celestie0]

i've always wondered have you ever given the y/n in your fics a personality description? like everything about her just ties the whole story together yet the reader can actually, embody her in some way?? that's one of the things that makes your writing so enjoyable to read and i've always wondered if you see yourself in her when u write ;

IDK HOW TO EXPLAIN IT BUT i hope u know what i mean 💔💔

love u loads btw you're like my comfort writer as we speak

GASP i have neverrr actually, i dont think i’ve formally sat down n really given any of my characters personality descriptions i just kinda have a vibe of them in my head haha but this has intrigued me 🤔 I KINDA WANNA MAKE EM NOW!!! (i hope this is what u mean by character descriptions btw hahah)

kickoff reader.

i think she is a little self conscious at times, easily affected by things going on in her life, definitely tries to bite off more than she can chew, and she’s an anxious avoidant until she can’t take it anymore and becomes overtly confrontational instead alskdjdh i think this can be seen in the way she confesses to gojo, in her interactions w kai, and then also her turning down the newsletter job before she realized it was actually a good opportunity, etc etc. when i write for her, i kinda wanna give the vibe of tired college student that has a lot going on in her head n in her heart, but she’s slowly starting to learn to live again and is looking forward to life after college (aka me all of my senior year loool) i think she has a pretty neutral personality overall :0

in holy matriphony reader.

omg i haven’t written much for ihm reader yet but i already ADORE her so so so much based on what i’ve got planned for the series, and i think i understand her the most of the oc’s i’ve made. she is someone that gets crazy tunnel vision, can only really focus on one thing at a time, often neglects her other responsibilities if it means getting The Main One done, she is hella jaded because of all the financial stress, work stress and caretaking stress which means she doesn’t have much of a filter anymore, she’s very cynical and pessimistic and easily irritated and prideful BUT…..deep down she’s a huge softie and is actually very self aware of her flaws n just really wants to get better but she just can’t find a moment to breathe…im gonna enjoy writing for her bc i think she’ll come off irrational and a bit over the top at times, but in those soft moments, she’ll be very down to earth :)

in another life reader.

aww i haven’t had too much written for ial reader yet, but in my head i picture her as a veeeery soft spoken, sweet natured woman in her older age (she’s engaged to nanami, who i imagine has mellowed her out in comparison to when she dated bad boy choso lol), idk i think she’s kind of basic 😭 not that that’s a bad thing at all, i kinda wanted that dynamic of crazy rock star lifestyle choso mixed w simple lifestyle reader (for when they meet again later in life). when she was younger, she was highly impressionable, often thought she was more mature than she actually was, n loves veeeerryy deeply, so much so to where old scars hurt even after years and years. i think she always tries to do the right thing, but bc of her conflicting emotions, she has the capacity to cause a lot of hurt

AHH idk this is just the vibe i get from them or try to encapsulate while i write them, and i also totally think readers can have diff interpretations of them than me and still be accurate about it (idk as the author i don’t feel like i even know everything ab my own stories sldkdjdh at times i feel some of my readers know more than me haha)

i think kickoff reader is the most confusing in my head, but i like it that way because i suppose she’s the youngest and she’s in college and it makes sense for her since she’s figuring herself out

i definitely do see myself in all of them!! i have certain attributes i share n some that i don’t. for example i don’t think i’m as brave as kickoff reader (to pursue passions or confess to a boy so brazenly or slap tf outta someone at a bar LOL) and i don’t think i’m as crass or no-filter as ihm reader for example, but i definitely relate to certain aspects like the tunnel vision, anxious avoidance, and stuff like that!! but i still try to make them their own characters i suppose, but it really depends on how i want their personalities to mesh w the love interest as well

GOSH THIS IS A LONG FUCKIN ANSWER MY BAD i was just so intrigued by this ask xD i’m soooo sososoossooo happy to be your comfort writer and that you enjoy my works 🥺💕you guys keep my passion alive n i’m always so grateful for you all <33 have a wonderful day/night!! 🧚‍♀️✨ilyy

[maxmoffs]

“ and so there she was , scarlet orbs connect to palms that beamed red hues connecting as one . indulged by her powers , as if she had sunk into the depths of her own destiny , to become —the ultimate being . THE SCARLET WITCH . ” quote by yours truly, ellie ♥️

[ CUSTOM ARTWORK GIFTED BY @jgoldberg ]

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐀 𝐃𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐎 𝐌𝐀𝐗𝐈𝐌𝐎𝐅𝐅. NEXUS BEING !

@jgoldberg just made me uncontrollably sob of their custom art for wanda and it’s making every part of me so happy because , I love her so much and wanda is literally my favourite marvel character. she brings me comfort in like, ways to wanting to get a chance to play a character like she up to to just how complex she is and her strength as a woman and ‘hero’ . she’s a lot, and I think I consider her a comfort character because of that complexity, like she has layers of many characteristics that make her who she is. she’s human despite her powers, she’s flawed like any other and she YEARNS for a life despite her fate even when sometimes she goes astray. she’s a lot of humanity and destruction in one and from a writer/fictional perspective, it’s fun to explore. like I get geeky about her and marvel in general, but it’s very rare for me to fall for such characters , and I’ve written her so much in the past so like being a little older and still having that same passion and love for her is ahhhh , always the best to re-visit her all in all , like even if I wasn’t on tumblr I would rave about her to my friends that love Marvel , and my sister gifting me a wanda ring for christmas which I cherish now like gold bc I feel like her always hexing whenever i look at it lmao.

but most of all. I think what makes me the most happiest and just makes me giddy is when you guys see my V I S I O N of her not just from the comics, but in the way that. I PORTRAY HER is even more fun. I’ve said it before a few times that I know there are others that have a wanda, that’s why im supportive of all versions of her so when you guys appreciate and see MY VERSION + INTERPRETATION OF HER, it makes me bounce from joy. obviously im not perfect, I still always learn about her and research parts of her that I implement in my writing but in the parts that matter, it makes me so swoon to know that you guys do read my headcanons of her.

Beck and her artwork is so 🤌🏼✨ and you guys know how much I RAVE about her hair ( headcanon here ) , if you read it you’ll know why. it’s not just ‘hair’ , hair in witch lore and in general as a female, a woman has many meanings and symbolism and ugh, like it’s so beautifull, like that’s not just a hair. the way Beck drew her hair down so perfectly / the way I picture it to her mannerisms of her confrontation of her own powers , like it’s ? so. spot. on. thank you Beck, everyone give Beck the biggest hug and praise and just shower with love !!!!!

tagging some of my loves just bc they are important too to wanda’s development , @witchkillr @wickedslip @bloodwr4th @renownedagent @unsnare @gravdefy @irnmade @rg4rz @lightcreators @magnetic-regent-magneto @ukusmesti