#mans did not deserve to be compared to the biggest shithead

[paintedmage]

^^^^^^^^ Kaiba is infinite times better than Elon Musk. If you're an Elon supporter, please get off my blogs. I don't welcome you.

No more jokingly comparing Seto Kaiba to Elon Musk, pretty please.

[alexthemagicaldevil]

Of Medea, Jason, and Other Tragedies

Some of you might remember a post I made a little while ago comparing how Quackity and Technoblade fit into the lore of the DSMP. Here are my thoughts via a 3k words of angst:

Read it on AO3

There was nothing left of L’Manburg.

It was something universally understood and known. Something that was never questioned. Something that everyone just accepted so that they could move on and not think about the nation that had too many traitors, too many broken promises, too many memories. It was something that everyone thought they believed so that they wouldn’t go looking for little pieces left behind, pieces that miraculously survived the desimation.

But Quackity knew the truth. Those little pieces could be found without looking too hard, whether it be in the fractured relationships of the SMP or the physical evidence that managed to not become ash at the bottom of a crater. And Quackity, well, he held both of those pieces in the palms of his hands.

In one hand, he held the souls of those fractured by L’Manburg��s memory. Fundy and his desperate need of a stable family, with a past scarred by a father that went mad and nightmares that haunt his waking actions. Sam and his futile attempts at control, gradually being poisoned as he pushes everyone away and tries to single handedly keep the server’s god locked in his own prison. Purpled and his lack of legacy, even in a place he so heavily influenced and his skills so valued yet so dismissed. Foolish and his beautiful builds and broken heart, running away from his destructive past and wanting peace despite the possibility of godhood sitting at his fingertips.

In the other hand, Quackity held a poster, one of the last remaining remnants of the place he had once fiercely declared home. He has no idea how it survived. Most of the physical pieces of L’Manburg that could be found were sections of buildings just far enough away from the explosions, items in random chests, or whatever was on the citizens at the time. Yet somehow, through all the fire and TNT, this poster had survived.

Technoblade. Wanted dead or alive.

Quackity had found it relatively soon after Doomsday, wandering around the crater where L’Manburg once stood. It was slightly singed on the edges and an entire corner was gone, but there it was, lying on the ground innocently, Technoblade’s mocking eyes staring at him with something like satisfaction.

He should have left the thing there. It would have eventually faded away like the rest of L’Manburg with enough time under the elements. Or maybe he should have burned it and forgot it was there in the first place. Whatever he should have done, picking it up, carefully folding it, and stuffing it into his back pocket was definitely not it. But he did. And it stayed with him for a long time.

At first, it was just there, a burning reminder in his back pocket of all he failed to do and what he promised to accomplish. It was there as he built Las Nevadas from the ground up, barely noticeable besides the constant nagging reminder in the back of his thoughts. It was there when he hired Purpled and Technoblade to take care of the Eggpire that had gone on for far too long, growing heavier and heavier each time the Blood God looked at him. It was there when he found out about Kinoko Kingdom for the first time, how the only three people he thought he could trust, the reasons he built Las Nevadas in the first place, left him behind without a second thought.

(The poster didn’t feel heavy then, but it did feel like it was laughing at him. Low and monotone, coming from deep within his memories.

The poster didn’t feel heavy then, but the two rings threaded through a chain around his neck did. They felt like shackles threatening to weigh him down and drown him.

Quackity removed the rings and hid them in a chest after that. Somehow, though, they still felt suffocating).

The poster was there for everything, tucked away in his back pocket, even when he began recruiting members for Las Nevadas. Through Foolish and Fundy, Purpled and Sam, and even through Slime. It knew everything, Quackity would find himself thinking. Of course, there was no way for a poster to know anything, but it didn’t stop the thought.

It wasn’t until after Wilbur visited him with Tommy after his revival (and so many memories of Pogtopia) that he finally took the poster out of his pocket. He was alone at the time (as he always is these days, it feels like, even surrounded by other beings) and in his unfinished casino. Sam had left nearly an hour ago to continue his duties as the Warden at the prison. The echoes of their conversation reverberated through Quackity’s mind.

Technoblade is going to the prison to see Dream tomorrow, he remembers saying. I trust you know what you have to do.

Of course, Sam had replied, the intense green of his eyes sparking in the dim lighting of the casino. You’ve done your part. Now I’ll do mine.

Quackity stared at the glass of whiskey in his hand. It had always Schlatt’s drink of choice, when he was still breathing. The smell reminded Quackity of the long nights he spent as Vice-President to a man barely sober enough to stand, let alone run a country. How many times had he put the smallest amount of poison in Schlatt’s drink, hoping that this time, it would be enough to end him for good? How many days had he spent hiding bruises and putting on fake smiles, wondering if it was all worth it? How many nightmares had he endured, thinking about everything Schlatt did and made him do?

He drank all the whiskey in one go. It burned his throat and pooled like fire in his stomach.

The glass made a satisfying thud on the counter as Quackity set it down. It was then that he finally reached for the poster in his back pocket, holding it almost gently in his scarred hands. He traced the edge of it with his finger, thinking deeply.

Quackity unfolded the poster, one fold at a time. The folds were deep from the sheer amount of time it’s spent in his pocket. It was honestly a miracle that it was still intact, given the state it was in when Quackity found it and the constant strain it’s been under since.

When Quackity finished unfolding the poster, he placed it against the wall and used his empty whiskey glass to hold it up. It looked just like he remembered, even back when the Butcher Army was first created. Sure it was faded and threatened to fold on itself at any moment, but it was still there. The reward, Technoblade’s face, the L’Manburgian flag.

Quackity stared into Technoblade’s red eyes. It was only a drawing, but whoever had done the picture nailed the resemblance to the Blood God. The scar over his eye and lip itched just looking at it.

“You know Technoblade,” Quackity found himself saying. “Before we met, I always had a healthy respect for you. Who didn’t? Everyone was in awe over the Blood God, the most terrifying fighter of our generation, rumored to never be able to die.” He sighed. “Of course, fighting was never my strong suit. You found that out first hand,” he added with some humor, though it felt flat. “Still, a part of me longed to do what you do. Words can only get you so far, get you so much respect.

“They say you should never meet your heroes. Something in that has to be true, because ever since I’ve known you, my life has been nothing but one bitter failure after another.” The poster didn’t reply, and Quackity understood with some absurdity that he was literally talking to a poster as if it were a real being. Still, he continued on.

“Well, maybe that’s giving you too much credit, but it sure feels like that. It’s just,” he trailed off slightly, moving his hands around, trying to figure out some way to articulate his point. Words were supposed to be his weapons, but here, vulnerable and trying to express something that’s been gnawing at him for so long, they scrambled in his throat. “Somehow you come out of every battle, every conflict without a single mark, yet I’m punished for every decision I’ve made since I came to this Primeforsaken SMP.”

And those words, Quackity realized, are when the floodgate inside his chest burst.

“No matter what you do, who you hurt, who you kill, what everyone wants or tries to accomplish, you have never paid for anything you’ve done to the people of this server. I remember when we took down Schlatt with Pogtopia, how you were so insistent that the government had to be taken down, all the while talking about how it was the people’s choice to live how they wanted to live. Well guess what, shithead? The people, L’Manburg, us, we decided that we wanted a government, one that listened to us and one that we could trust. And what did you do once the people made their choice? What did you do after we had called you our friend and said you didn’t have to live by our ways if you didn’t want to? You called us traitors. Said we used you, when all you ever wanted was an excuse to push your own anarchist bullshit down the throat of any server that would give you the time of day. You’re somehow the biggest hypocrite I’ve ever met, even in a world where Dream runs around as the Admin.

“But that’s not even the worst of your sins, isn’t it? I’ve watched you blow up countries with no remorse, execute a child on the whim of a dictator, corrupt and hurt every single person I’ve ever cared about, destroy what I put every ounce of my heart and soul into like it was nothing.”

There were tears aching behind his eyes now. Quackity took a shuddering breath, trying to calm his hurting heart. He thought about Schlatt and his time in Pogtopia, thought about Tubbo and Tommy and Niki and every other L’Manburgian face as they realized the nation they loved was gone at Technoblade and Wilbur’s hands. “And what were your consequences for all of this? What karma did the oh so powerful universe decide you deserved?

“Nothing. Not a single, goddamn thing. For all your violence and bloodshed, you get to live in a nice cottage in the Arctic, filled with friends that celebrate your birthday, and not a single regret.”

Quackity smiled blankly at the poster, raising his hands. By now he was full on pacing in front of it, his shoes making soft noises against the tile. All the while, Technoblade’s red eyes watched his every move.

“But what about me? Prime knows I’m the furthest thing from a saint this server has to offer, but at least I had good intentions. I went against Wilbur during the elections not because I wanted power, but because I saw what he was doing and no one else was going to call him out on his bullshit. I mean, come on! Running a single party election in a so-called democratic nation? Now, that doesn’t mean I didn’t do bad things. I should have left Schlatt the moment I realized just how bad he was. I shouldn’t have waited until after he ruined L’Manburg and executed Tubbo to join Pogtopia. It haunts me every waking moment.” Quackity stopped his pacing for a moment, lost in the memories. Tubbo screaming, the flash and bang of a firework. The explosion of color from the second firework immediately after, because the first one hadn’t been enough. The burning in his chest as he was hit with a firework of his own.

“And then, after you and Wilbur decided to blow it all to kingdom come, I did everything I thought was best for L’Manburg. I helped people. I rebuilt everything you destroyed and made it better. I wanted to hunt you down and make you pay for everything you did.” His scar began to itch again. “But I guess we both know how that turned out.

“And what were my consequences for this? For doing my best, realizing my mistakes, trying to fix them, trying to protect those around me? What karma did the oh so powerful universe decide I deserved?

“Everything. I was punished for everything. Every place I called home, every person I called a friend, every time I fell in love, anything I tried to protect, every time I tried to be happy, I was punished for it. Somehow in this fucked up version of the story, I’m the villain that needs to be punished for their actions, while you’re the blameless hero that gets a happily ever after!”

Quackity was near yelling at this point. It felt good to let out all of his emotions after so long, putting everything into the open even if no one else heard him. He forced himself to calm down slightly, running a hand through his hair.

“Have you ever heard the story of Medea and Jason?” he asked abruptly. The air of the casino seemed to shift uncomfortably with his sudden change of tone, lighter and lower than before. “You probably have, with your obsession with Greek Mythology and shit. You know something interesting about Medea, though? Even though she did horrible, and I mean horrible things, she never lost the favor of the gods. She abandoned her country for some random dude she fell in love with, plotted the murders of her brother and father, as well as murdered a princess with a poison so strong that it killed anyone she touched, and even killed her own children. Yet she doesn’t pay for any of it. Through all of the murder and sorcery, the kept her favor with the gods, and was allowed to have a happy ending. Hell!” Quackity let out a barking laugh. “She doesn’t even die as far as anyone knows! Greek mythology is known for its love of horrible and dramatic deaths, yet of all of the myths she shows up in, never once does it mention her eventually dying, even of old age! Sounds like someone else we know, doesn’t it?”

He paused for a moment, as if expecting a reply. Of course, there was none.

“Now Jason, Jason, on the other hand, we see something interesting. You see, he loses his favor with the gods, specifically his patron Hera, because he was trying to marry another woman even though he was already married to Medea and had two children with her. Can you imagine your patron goddess being the lord of marriage and family, and then you trying to marry another woman? The balls on that man, I’m telling you. The point is, none of his heroic deeds mattered in the end. He lost favor with the gods, lost his wife and children, and ended up dying alone, crushed under the weight of the Argo. The only thing left to immortalize his heroism ended up being the cause of his death.”

Quackity suddenly paused. His words echoed in the casino around him. No longer was he pacing. Instead, he stared long into the distance, as if he could see something through the thick walls. The weight around his neck was nearly unbearable. When he spoke again, it was just above a whisper.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is you are an awful lot like Medea. Doing horrible things left and right with the gods still choosing to favor you, still getting a happy ending despite all the pain and grief you’ve caused. But…” he trailed off, looking back at the poster. It may have been his imagination, but Technoblade’s eyes seemed less mocking, somehow.

“I have hope. Maybe you’re not Medea. Maybe, just maybe, you’re Jason. You’ll do something so terrible that you’ll lose your favor with the gods, lose everything that ever mattered, and you’ll be crushed under the weight of what once proved your worth.” Quackity walked forward, reaching out his hand. His fingertips stopped less than an inch from the surface of the poster, just hovering. Waiting. Contemplating.

“But I can’t wait for that to happen. I can’t wait for the universe to finally decide you’ve lost its favor.”

He dropped his hand. “You once said something, Technoblade. You said: treat others as they have treated you. That was your excuse for everything you’ve done. I tried to enact that saying once before, and I lost a life because of it. This time around…”

Quackity finally snatched the poster from the place on the wall, rattling the glass in the process. He refused to acknowledge that there was the finest tremble in his hands, making the poster shake.

“Well, the universe already made me the villain of this story. Might as well act like one.”

Quackity ripped the poster to shreds, piece by piece, one of the last remaining pieces of L’Manburg destroyed at his hands. Soon it was so shredded that it was unrecognizable, a pile of paper falling softly to his feet. When it was gone, it felt like pressure was relieved from Quackity’s shoulders. For the first time in a long while, he smiled genuinely.

He walked out of the casino, leaving the pile there for another day. He was sure Slime would clean it up without much fuss.

And if the weight around his neck grew to be nearly unbearable-- well, that was no one's knowledge but his own.

[darkespeon11]

Alright guys. Here we go. It’s time to get on the shit wagon.

Since the meat epilogues are so obviously affected by our resident little shit, Caliborn, I’ve gone back to the part of homestuck we all collectively scrubbed from our memories like you’d scour horse shit out of your favourite shirt- homosuck.

Let’s go

Ill explain the whole ultimate self thing in a sec, but other than that whole logic thing here we have our biggest and most obvious clue; caliborn calling his acts Chapters. Goodness, I hate this shitty idiot so much. He doesn’t even deserve to be called a shitty idiot because the minuscule potential for endearment that phrase has is too much for him. Anyways

The Ultimate Self theory is just a logical leap from what we’ve been told. Rose claims that when you assume your ultimate self, you are (I’m paraphrasing) reunited or merged with all past, future and alternate splinters of yourself. Not only this, but looking to Dave’s candy route ultimate self ascension, we also know that versions of yourself which have been merged with other characters are also included. Thus, when ascending to their ultimate self a character may gain the consciousness of other characters.

If we look at Dirk, not only do we have the original shithead Bro reflecting most of the qualities Dirk never wants to become (and thus freaking out half the fandom with his heel turn), but also caliborn who’s soul influenced Bro through Lil’ Cal, and the caliborn who merged with ARquiusprite, who is part AR who is a splinter of Dirk.

Starting with Bro, Dave remarks on how he wasn’t ‘angry’ or ‘malevolent’, he just had a ‘grand scheme’ and was ambivalent towards Dave, screwing him over royally and abusing him in order to achieve his own goal. This is a pretty obvious link to how Dirk acts in the Epilogue.

Bro is also possibly where Dirk gets his transphobic side, since it would be pretty hard for him to get that on his one-man island in the middle of fuck-all nowhere in sea hitler’s water apocalypse. Though he did have access to media, so yknow. This one’s more of a theory than fact.

Then we’ve got ... *sigh*. Caliborn.

Alright, so aside from shithead McGee no. 1, we can move onto the ultimate shit himself. Here’s some of the links I found in Caliborns.. (ugh) “masterpiece” that resemble the new plot.

Right off the bat we’ve got a parallel to dirk’s dramatic ‘I’m not being dramatic’ humblebrag reveal as the narrator, in which he claims that ‘of course that was what the final outcome was always going to be’.

While I had assumed the narrative powers came from Dirk’s Prince of Heart powers somehow, in retrospect that doesn’t make much sense compared to this. Caliborn unlocked control over the narrative a long time ago, and in merging with Dirk gained access to AltCalliope’s bubble world, ready to pop it with his baby tantrums. Also, it looks like Dirk is now haunted by a new sarcastic spectre.

This is just here to note that Dirk went on his own self-flallegating tirade on how he can change what ‘you’ means. I swear the signs were all there I just erased this whole garbage montage from my memory so there was nothing to jog. And will do so again after typing this, even if it proves to be relevant in the future.

Oh my goodness. Shut up. Anyways I think the next word in that sentence is masturbatory, which brings me to the next unsavoury point because I can’t bring myself to rifle my brain for what shitty moment this mess is linked to. That is, dirks constant reference to our viewership being a weird sexual voyeur thing, when the past Dirk couldn’t give two shits about that. Meanwhile, Caliborn is obsessed with the idea of anything, including hand holding, being ‘illicit’.

Pretty sure I screenshotted this because of dirks new obsession with relevancy, canoninity, and ‘the meat’. Seriously, why would dirk even use meat as a metaphor, it’s been way more prevalent in caliborns life as a cherub. Why did I just blindly accept that Dirk was *like that* now??

Ditto for the last two points. The flippy-dippy struggle with the narrative framing included. It’s like Ultimate Dirks personality was ripped straight from here with dirks overthinking propagating itself over thousands of iteration and splinters layered on top.

We get more into the meat of things in the next act of caliborns eye searing torture comic. Where he discovers... anime.