#maybe i should check out this hiveswap thing? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blankerthought · 2 years ago

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I posted 31,129 times in 2022

That's 20,516 more posts than 2021!

779 posts created (3%)

30,350 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@yellumina

@alien-girl-21

@blaze--boy

@sunshine-in-a-bottle

@hiveswap

I tagged 2,310 of my posts in 2022

#lo's stuff - 507 posts

#dsmp - 124 posts

#dreamwastaken - 86 posts

#my art - 78 posts

#mcyt - 73 posts

#cornered au - 54 posts

#quackity - 38 posts

#c!dream - 38 posts

#liveblogging - 35 posts

#check (change of game) - 32 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#gets smoother at knowing when to use one mask or the other to use his words to pave the way people thought much like he used to back at “hom

My Top Posts in 2022:

for @baka-monarch ‘s prompt of a pack of simps, part of it is under the cut bc it’s long

There was something about Dream that called to people. Whether it was his sunny personality, his loud, optimistic approach to life, the way he was always willing to stand up for his friends and help out wherever he was needed- it made people flock to him. The fact that he had gorgeous green eyes full of life, cute freckles and an ass you could bounce a quarter off of was also probably a factor.

The one fact that made his friends despair, however, was that despite his quick wit and occasional hilarious yet dirty jokes, that man wouldn’t know how to spot someone being attracted to him in a serious way if it slapped him with a sign saying “hey, i think you’re hot and smart and fun, we should date”. Which had basically happened, given that more than once one of his- self described- “pack of simps” had said those words or even more and had still been met with… nothing. Just Dream thinking it was a joke. Again.

This was not an isolated incident for them.

It had started, as a lot of these things did, with a childhood crush. Sapnap had always seen Dream as his best friend ever, and it had not taken much time at all for those feelings to turn into something more. And that something… never turned to anything. At first, Sapnap had kept those feelings locked up, deep inside of him, a little scared that he’d run his best friend off. As the years passed, and both of them grew up, and he witnessed exactly how his best friend handled love confessions, he realized it was, maybe, a little pointless to hide it. At this point, no matter how often Sapnap made a not-so-joke about them banging, or dating, or living together, or literally getting married, it seemed like Dream would just let it pass him by. Which, honestly, kind of worked out for him pretty well. Yes, his best friend never got his hints, but on the other hand he could stare at him (and check him out) as often as he wanted and not be told off or anything, so. He’d take his wins where he could get them.

Then, there was George. The man had moved to America from England back in Dream’s second year of highschool, and it became increasingly obvious that Dream felt something for him from pretty much the get-go. Blushing, flirting (a little badly, but that was teenage boys for you), always wanting to hang out with him. Sapnap had been jealous as hell- and then he’d met George.

The guy was equally as head-over-heels as him, and he still didn’t know it yet. Sapnap’s jealousy had abruptly vanished, and he’d debated telling George something about how maybe he should ask himself why he was always blushing, give him a hint or two. Then George beat him at Mario Kart and the decision to leave him to figure it out himself was clearly the only good choice to make. Fair was fair, and all that.

Of course, it kind of came back to bite him in the ass when George woke him up with a call at three in the morning about how he couldn’t be in love with Dream, oh my god, Sapnap stop laughing-

And then there were two. They sat together more often, bickering and laughing and also occasionally just loudly sighing about how their best friend was hot as fuck and apparently, kind of dumb emotionally.

Then highschool turned to college, and there were three and four.

Punz had gone to their same highschool, but aside from sharing a single class and sometimes detention, they’d never interacted; except for, apparently, Dream’s secret sign-up for fighting classes. Apparently, they’d both ended up in the same class, and as competitive as they both were they’d enjoyed having someone to fight against with the same type of passion. Fighting in class had led to training together, had led to sometimes sparring alone and well, once you had someone pinned or got pinned by someone to the floor enough times, it got a little easier to see that you thought the other guy was insanely hot. At least, for Punz. He’d taken a minute or two to consider his feelings, and then immediately launched himself into flirting with Dream. Not that it was that much of a difference with the sort of things he’d been saying before he’d realized, which in hindsight explained why their fighting instructor sometimes referred to them as ‘Lovebirds’.

Okay, so maybe Punz hadn’t been subtle at all, ever. But that just made it worse when, despite Dream blushing and sometimes flirting back at him, any actual attempts at anything were just ignored. He’d met Sapnap after he’d been by to pick Dream up, and apparently just the sight of him was enough for the other man to include him into their little pining club on the spot.

On the other hand, Fundy’s thing had been a bit more of a ‘wham bam thank you ma’am’ type thing, because the man had seen Dream after meeting him at the flower shop he worked at and then immediatly fallen stupid in love. Nobody could really judge him, but they did rib him hard anytime someone mentioned love at first sight, because for Fundy all it had taken was a single talk, a flower, and a smile, and he was part of the club.

So there they were. Four single, hopelessly pining idiots, all of them madly in love with the same man, all of them trying their best for that man to fucking notice. It got so bad that Sapnap had officially declared them as ‘a pack of simps’, the name partly brought on by the constant furry jokes at Fundy’s expense. Sometimes they met up to brainstorm a way to confess, but a lot of the time it was just them, hanging out, joking and playing games and only sometimes bragging about something Dream had done with them (George was almost always on top of their unofficial list of brags, but the time that Dream had made Sapnap pancakes while shirtless had made more than one of them green with envy).

And of course, in the end, it all came to head with a couple of simple events, no plans, no elaborate confessions, nothing. When they’d recounted it all later, it was almost painful to see how stupid it was.

Fact number one: All of them were loud people. They yelled a lot, they liked to say stuff that most people would probably blush with shame and hide away. They’d discussed, quite frankly, a lot of things that would’ve made old grannies have a heart attack. One of those topics tended to be Dream, because the title of simps had indeed not come out of nowhere, and they were all healthy, sometimes horny people with a crush the size of Russia on a man that wasn’t only hot, but regularly drove them crazy.

Fact number two: Up until Karl had offhandedly mentioned it to him one day, Dream had had no idea polyamory was even a thing.

Fact number three: One of Dream’s lectures had canceled unexpectedly, and he’d started heading back to his place before deciding to swing by Punz’s, just because.

Fact number four: The ‘pack of simps’ had been meeting at Punz’s loft before planning to go meet up with Dream after his lecture ended, intending to go out for the night somewhere.

Fact number five: Dream had, apparently, been attracted to all of them right back. Maybe not from the very start, but almost.

Fact number six: Apparently, a more apt title for all of them would have been ‘a bunch of dumbasses’, but they quite happily accepted ‘polycule’ instead.

66 notes - Posted August 30, 2022

sometimes i wish i could mail people their dtiys, but a picture shall have to do; here's @vioarry 's!

81 notes - Posted July 3, 2022

“arts and science are inherently tied but different” blah blah LISTEN TO ME. linguistics is like maths except the numbers are constantly evolving and also hate you personally

89 notes - Posted November 24, 2022

oh, here's my sketchbook's cover and back, since i was done with it i thought "might as well"

104 notes - Posted June 14, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

here’s a little something i started yesterday

c!dream gets deaged- but instead of being an immortal, like the cornelius fic, or a kid, he’s a teenager; specifically, manhunt!dream.

He gets a potion thrown at him by fundy during- actually. He gets deaged during the disc war finale, in the moment he starts chasing tubbo once everyone’s there. Fundy panics and throws the first thing he had in his inventory, an experimental potion he had to bring along because it was too unstable to leave alone.

The potion shatters against Dream’s side, in a loud crash that seems to resonate in the hall of attachments, and normally it’d be forgotten with the threat of the man himself against them, but his immediate scream catches their attention.

Dream drops his shield, using his free hand to clutch at his face under the mask, seemingly in pain. The weapon in his other hand seems almost forgotten, too focused on whatever the potion had done.

Sapnap doesn’t lower his axe, not when he’s not sure what’s truth and what’s lie with the man in front of him anymore, but there’s hesitation in his movements when he takes a step forward.

Dream doesn’t move. Doesn’t react at all. Not to bring his own axe up, not to pick up the shield.

Then the clang of armor moving reaches him, and he snaps his head up, flinching back from his position as he looks around.

The movement knocks his mask askew, and he doesn’t seem to care.

But Sapnap, in front of him, seeing not the face of the man he knows but instead the face of a long-forgotten past, cares. He cares a hell of a lot.

“What? Wh- where…” He knows he shouldn’t flinch, but the trying-to-sound deeper voice of his once-friend brings out that part of him, the part that remembers being fourteen and mad and hungry and looking for cash, and it scares him. It can’t be. It shouldn’t be possible.

The person in front of him doesn’t pass for 21. He doesn’t even pass for overage.

He looks fifteen, young and scared and trying not to show any of it as he bares his teeth at them like a feral thing, clutching the axe like a lifeline, like it’s the only thing between him and certain death, his suddenly just a little too big armor looking off on his frame.

This isn’t the man that committed the atrocities that they’re here for. This is the teenager that’s been hunted for longer than most people could ever try and escape for. Sapnap knows those eyes, he knows the prey drive that dwells behind them, and he knows how a cornered prey like that reacts, one that’s learned that there’s no use in pleading for mercy.

Dream reacts exactly like he’s been taught to.

He runs.

(edit: this fic is now on ao3, and is on its fourth chapter!)

255 notes - Posted March 20, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #false #huh a Lot of those were a surprise #had no idea i reblogged those ppl so much too

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emperorblargus · 2 years ago

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Why Blargus thinks you Should Back Democrats in the Georgia Special Election

Originally posted by equius2004

Today there's a Georgia run-off election to see who goes to the Senate of the United States, coincidentally, for six years. The race is between a pastor/vicar named Warnock, who is coincidentally a Democrat, and then there’s a former NFL player named Walker with a bunch of women claiming he pressured them into abortions and then there's a bunch of deadbeat dad and domestic violence allegations too on the side.

Really, commander?

youtube

In defense of Walker, at least he is not also a wrestler and porn star claiming to be a “conservative republican” (see video at bottom) while bashing gay people (actually Walker is doing that) and tweaking out on amphetamines (no comment) he uses to keep his private parts working (and Walker sure doesn’t keep them to hisself there) WAIT WHAT AM I FUCKING TYPING.

I should add there's a reason why my Twitter Handle is like this lately.

Perhaps it is because Warnock decided to back "werewolves" over "vampires", and went on a rant over Martians or something, and I decided to update my name accordingly. We're dealing with levels of off the rails that haven't been seen before, well, except they kind of are becoming normalized in the Republican party.

I should also note I am deeply skeptical the Republican party would actually back the rights of aliens. Also "equal rights for all" kind of means that werewolves and vampires, if they existed, would have the same rights as one another along with the protections as such.

I mean do you really think they would? Interactions with aliens with *these people* would probably only be somewhat cordial if it involved trade of drugs. What do you think this guy is on.

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The Republican Party sure does seem to attract a certain kind of candidate, and it’s not just one thing that’s wrong with them. Sure, under the principles drilled into our heads in free western society everyone has a point, but it seems there’s something immediately off about these candidates, and when you start scratching beneath the surface things just get worse. Walker’s one of those people, and he isn’t the only one.

The whole Republican lineup, WITH VERY FEW EXCEPTIONS, kind of looks like this screecap (off Hiveswap: Act 2), but to be fair it's a lot worse than that. They always seem to find someone worse. Would you bet on the off chance ANY Republican candidate would somehow turn out otherwise?

In Georgia, and I guess this article is specifically aimed at folks living IN GEORGIA, Walker is actually bashing gay and trans rights, while Warnock has committed to defending the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community. That’s important, because these people deserve rights. LGBTQIA+ of course is short for some of what I call “other people”: anyone who doesn’t conform to certain bigoted narrow minded concepts of what someone deserving any rights whatsoever looks like.

Having grown tired of trying to make sense of the bigotry, Blargus decided to create his own Hoochie Daddy Short Short Abridged Short Shorts version of that book, which comes down to two words: “Other People”. We don’t need to extend any more intellectual effort and should not need to extend any further intellectual effort to quantify this.

Put that way, it sounds like these people have a real bloody problem, innit. Conservatives, that is. Or whatever these people call themselves now, something like “national populist pro-herrenvolk...” maybe, you know, maybe, put a cork in this before it gets to where things were in nazi Germany?

The choice should be clear BY THEN. Check your birth certificate, skin colour, age, bank balance, credit card statements, property ownership, and most people will fall afoul of Republican views.

And this is before I get to social security, which is to say you’re one of “needs social security now” or “will need social security in the future”. It’s before I get to voter suppression, and if you’re going to live in a Democracy, you know, it’s kind of important to be able to vote somehow and get your ballot counted or you might as well be considered disenfranchised. You’re disenfranchised in all but name, I get.

There ARE checks and balances, but as it is the US Supreme Court seems to have taken on a number of reactionary judges lately who aren’t actually going to back up voting rights (in fact the voting rights act was gutted if I remember rightly), and might even work to create a constitutional crisis where the logical contradictions build up to the point where nothing works and people, particularly those in power could get away with anything. In other words, those checks and balances are fraying. Fortunately, you CAN assert yourself in this election by adding one more Senator who will actually vote for a progressive or at least not-nihilistic judge and also the Democrats gain control of all the Senate committees instead of them being divided in two.

If you’re worried about “diversity” up there, and “one party rule”, remember the Democrats are a broad church. The fact that there’s constant wrangling between progressives, liberals, and a few outlier conservatives within the party should tell you that there is a functional structure in there that’s not all-out trying to impose a cultish totalitarian agenda in lockstep. No, it’s not ideal, but that’s what you’re working with.

Yes, a functional democracy is supposed to have checks and balances but when those fail, it is the citizens who have to step up where they can. This is what you'll have to do today in Georgia.

Will Warnock do everything he promises? Probably not, but that’s OK. It’s better than the alternative, which is opening the floodgates to insurrectionists and so on.

There’s always something more, isn’t there.

The next couple of elections are more focused on “America Remains a Democracy” or “America descends into Neo-Confederate Hell”. That’s how I sum it up. Democrats are the party of the former, Republicans are mostly of the latter with a few exceptions that are extraordinarily rare (and most have been pushed out or are actively being pushed out).

There’s a lot here but I think there should be enough information out there to convince you WHY this is important. And it’s not just for millennials (Gen Y and Gen Z) but also for everyone else, because anyone living in America (and actually most of the rest of the world) WILL be impacted by this election as by all others down the line.

Go vote.

#georgia #election #senate #raphael warnock #warnockforsenate #Youtube

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thewebcomicsreview · 4 years ago

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Homestuck 2 has updated! Christmas is ruined!

Previously, on Homestuck 2: Literally nothing happened, and a non-trivial portion of the patreon supporters gave up and quit. Can this update pull a Christmas miracle and right the sinking ship of Homestuck 2? Probably not, but let’s find out!

youtube

We’re back in Candyland, having completely skipped over Karkat and John talking about Dave’s apparent death, because this comic is only interested in long conversations when they’re boring and not about anything at all. That’s alright, I got the gist of it.

When Karkat is finally gone, John still doesn’t move. It isn’t as though he has nowhere else to go, since there are quite a few places he might attempt to make himself useful, for better or for worse.

So, it appears to be morning now, meaning that John’s son has been missing in a war zone for almost 24 hours and I guess John literally forgot Harry existed?

Prediction: This conversation is going to end in some variant of “Where is our son?” “Oh shit!”

ROXY: hey john can u do me a quick solid

ROXY: actly idk how quick itll be but its definitely solid

ROXY: harry anderson says i just missed u being here but could u skip back on over?

What.

So, I went back and checked, and apparently nowhere is it explicitly said that Harry Anderson was also looking for the Vriskas, so I guess he....stayed home? Which makes sense, I suppose, but maybe a “Stay here I’ll go look for them” would’ve helped. I wasn’t the only one who thought Harry was out looking for Vriska too.

ROXY: sup

ROXY: follow me

ROXY: well were just going to my room so i guess technically u know the way

JOHN: haha ok.

John follows, trying to shake the ominous feeling he got from what she’d just said. He’d been in and out of this house a lot in the past few days. Why should this be any different?

Is Roxy....horny? Is the solid she’s looking for John’s dick? I mean, that’d make her saying Harry wasn’t available kind of weird, but I think this framing is a fake-out.

...

What the fuck is that lamp, Jesus Christ it’s awful. Just a cat’s asshole, facing the door.

ROXY: r u kiddin me rn egbert

JOHN: i’m not? unless you were, in which case yeah lets say i was also kidding.

JOHN: oh my god, i’m sorry, i don’t know why this making me freak out.

ROXY: i remember our past boot knockin with fondness but that is a situation im not interested in revisiting

Oh hey, it was a fakeout. Good job, Homestuck 2. You successfully implied something just through the art. Art which, by the way, looks a lot better than the last chapter. There are backgrounds and everything. I wonder if Chapter 15 was rushed out due to Hiveswap and that’s why it was so weak?

He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced?

I’m not the biggest fan of the way the narration is going JOHN IS AFRAID OF SEX WITH ROXY LIKE HE’S A TEENAGE VIRGIN AGAIN (LIKE IN HS1!) AND IT DOESN’T REALLY MAKE SENSE PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IT’LL BE IMPORTANT LATER, but okay, noted.

ROXY: u said ur house is gone??

JOHN: yep.

JOHN: completely.

ROXY: jeez

Heh. I like Roxy, still.

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

If this comic actually uses the phrase “home” and “stuck” in the same sentence I’m turning this blog around and we’ll go right back to Winnipeg.

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

I feel unqualified to talk about how hard Roxy is pushing the June Egbert thing.

....Is that the fucking portal from Hiveswap under a tarp? Also hi Candy Callie, appearing in HS2 for the first time. One of the Calliope’s is nonbinary, I think, but I honestly can’t remember and I think it’s Meat Calliope?

JOHN: do i get to know what that big thing under the sheet is?

ROXY: hmmmmmm no

JOHN: oh ok.

JOHN: are you sure? i mean, it seems like a pretty prominent feature of the room.

JOHN: space.

JOHN: wherever we are.

ROXY: and a totally mysterious n COMPLETELY inconspicuous feature it will have to remain for now

ROXY: we r kinda in a hurry here fyi

ROXY: and by that i mean

ROXY: we are in precisely the amount of hurry that means im excused from having to a that specific q rn

JOHN: right, sorry.

JOHN: i will pay no attention to the object behind the curtain.

ROXY: u catch on fast egbert

Oh thing HS2 has not been great at is that it has a lot of plot mysteries that are supposed to keep us enticed but they don’t really get implanted into the audience’s head (Remember Vrissy mysteriously collapsing that one time? Probably not, she did it off screen and the boys kind of laughed it off). This one’s hard to miss.

JOHN: so... this is all downstairs?

JOHN: it seems like you had a lot of work done.

ROXY: well no not x actly

ROXY: were in the old meteor

It’s kind of weird how this meteor keeps popping up like this.

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

This is an unexpected but not unwelcome direction for Callie to have gone.

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

CALLIOPE: how much do yoU know aboUt black holes?

Oh, wow, we’re going right there, then. This does seem like a bit of a reaction to complaints HS2 wasn’t shmoovin’ enough, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

CALLIOPE: no, i mean, what if oUr whole WORLD was inside a black hole.

JOHN: ok.

A’ight, that got a laugh out of me

JOHN: ugh, i fucking KNEW it!

JOHN: i'm so sorry.

JOHN: i'm so sorry that i put the earth inside a black hole everyone. ):

I like this conversation a lot.

ROXY: iirc at least part of y u got so weepy was the fact that u couldnt believe a version of earth existed where ppl got 2 watch more mcconaughey films than you

JOHN: listen.

JOHN: i simply don't think you all appreciated the gift you were given.

Quite a bit, in fact.

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

Roxy and John have a good dynamic.

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

JOHN: ...right.

John’s phone has very good coverage, since he was able to talk to Terezi in the epilogues, as we’re being subtly reminded of here with that ... before the “right”. I wonder if it still works after alt-Calliope left.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

Okay, so we are now being explicitly told that living in the black hole is fucking with the characters and is part of the reason they make such baffling decisions, like Rose not telling Kanaya about Yiffy, or naming her daughter “Yiffy” in the first place.

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

So, the plan is literally for Vriska to be such a Huge 8itch that the black hole itself gets sick of her and yeets Earth C out of its own event horizon to freedom.

This is actually a great plan.

And that’s Hamsteak. This definitely feels like a bit of a reaction to complaints about HS2, but hey, I dig it, I guess? Definite improvement over the last chapter.

#homestuck #homestuck 2 liveblog

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fictionkinfessions · 4 years ago

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MPC, I'm really, really bored. Can you tell me about your week or something? I hope you've been keeping safe. - 🍬👿

Ok bestie, so.... ! This week

sunday: made latkes, beef stew with extra beans [because *bursts into tears* I burned my rice], and roasted brussel sprouts for the week. Stayed up way late watching movies on zoom with friends. [@ horror fans, watch The Wailing 2016. It's amazing. Ghost story. Kinda fucked up. Do check content warnings for it. Scary!! I might've slept with the ceiling light on, don't tell my friends, they think I'm brave xd]

monday: accidentally finished 'my time in portia'? I liked the conclusion, don't recommend exchanging money on account on some gross things in it. Nothing like Stardew valley tho, so don't buy it on that account. I installed thumbleweed park because it kinda looked interesting? Idk what else to play. Most of my games are those freebies from epic game store or things I bought on steam sales. Wait I have hiveswap and Night in the Woods, I should probably play them! I'm not sure what my laptop can handle. Alien isolation was very laggy and upset my poor compoopter :/ Fighting type games is hard without a dedicated controller. Also made cinnamon rolls!!!! With too much icing, which I drank the excess of... don't judge me <3

tuesday and wednesday: I finally got around to reading my stash of Neon Yang, Aliette de Bodard, and Oyinkan Braithwaite. Oh my god everyone should read 'My Sister the serial killer'. I loved the ending. Wow. I’m hoping to read 100 books this year! So far I’ve read 61! A lot were shorter novels but whatever, it’s the fact that I’m reading that is important! My brain feels so expansive and moisturized! Though it deflates when Storygraph says I have over 1000 books left to read. Well! I’ll get there! I also had a picnic in an open field with some friends which was nice. I miss looking at people?? Friendly people I mean, not customers. We didn't have to wear masks since the wind blew in a steady direction, but we still sat apart just in case. :| Kinda like frogs on a log lollerskates! [See we are totally keeping safe! Thank you for thinking of us!!! <3]

Cinnamon rolls didn't last long with me and my room mates, so I made two pound cakes with bananas and poppy seeds. I was going to make puto ube but my bananas looked accursed and afflicted, and on the brink of being a Darkest Dungeon character lollerskates

Thursday: you are here. welcome! We made green onion and sour creamed savory pancakes! Mostly because I ate all the latke and still had a bowl of green onions and sour cream left :v I finished Wicked Fox by Kat Cho, which was fun but kinda below my reading level though. I spent two hours cleaning the inbox

friday: probably after work grocery shopping :/ I've run out of some spices and will have to turn in my PoC card if I don't restock asap lollerskates I'm going to make pancit but I'm not sure what vegetables I'll make. Maybe steamed brocolli. Though I do love a roasted carrot and mushrooms. WAIT I have chickpeas I could toast for snacking too!! Idk, I'll think about this at work tomorrow!

I hope you have a happy friday, if fridays are ever kind to you! May you eat many toasted crunchy chickpeas!

Mod Party Cat!

#🍬👿#not confessions #food cw #mod party cat!

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bladekindeyewear · 4 years ago

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HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-12-25

I’m not going to spend time BLOGGING an upd8 on Christmas morning!

...yes I am who the fuck am I kidding. (Bonus stuff and Hiveswap are still well on hold though.)

So are we gonna follow up on the main ship? Probably not, right, with that perfect Karkat point to cut away, right? We’re just going to leave Roxy’s question hanging, as well as makeouts etiquette, and leave while having seen a COUPLE FRAMES of non-possessed canon Jade with only whatever fun fanart was inspired across the internet by the moment to tide us over????

Yeah, probably.

Ugh, more Dirk. I guess it’s overdue. :(

> CHAPTER 16. Welcome to my Secret Lair

Oh huh, I guess not? So... Jane’s, or Rose and Kanaya’s?

Karkat stays for longer than John thought he would. They talk a bit, but mostly they are quiet. Eventually, Karkat gets called away on yet more important war business, leaving John with one final touch on the shoulder. John leans into it in response, though he’s a bit ashamed of chasing down a sliver of physical affection so soon after obliterating Karkat’s evening like he had.

Pretty much, yeah. Can’t blame either of them.

You’re still abandoning the task that was explicitly yours to protect your literal kid and his friends, but, oh well. Low-point. Dave dead, house dead, broke news, I get it.

He just doesn’t feel ready for that yet. The remnants of his house are still smoldering, and he can’t stop staring at them. It would make sense, he thinks, to want to root around through the rubble for anything that’s still intact; some half-charred keepsake to claim as the last thing left that’s still his. But he doesn’t want to do it, and he doesn’t want to think about it. And he still can’t move.

Can’t move. No Breath huh? What’s going to get him to, then?

> (==>)

Oh boy, that might help. XD She’s pretty good at that.

> (==>)

Still with the waistline gap. And was his phone always yellow like his God-Tier shoes?

ROXY: hey john can u do me a quick solid ROXY: actly idk how quick itll be but its definitely solid ROXY: harry anderson says i just missed u being here but could u skip back on over?

Nice, huh! No judgment, just a hey-any-chance-you-could-swing-back. He sort of needs to be needed right now, in a simple, almost everyday non-judgmental way I guess. (That’s what he NEEDED anyway-- whether he deserved it though is up for debate.)

ROXY: i need help w/smth and yr darling boy is holed up in his room working on some fuckin craft project or other and cant be bothered

YES SEW JOHN A BETTER FITTING FUCKING OUTFIT

ROXY: and now that me and u are freshly on speakin terms again i might as well take advantage of that olive branch and put u to work ROXY: assumin you havent died in an air raid, that is ROXY: which id also be interested in knowin about so if u wld be so kind as to reply instead of leavin me hangin

Heheheh. Gosh Roxy is always the best.

JOHN: yea yea sorry im here. JOHN: i just had a hard time getting my phone out of these fucking tiny pants.

Hah.

JOHN: and also my house is bombed out so i'm kinda grappling with that. JOHN: but i honestly am not sure how much longer i need to sit around staring at it. trying to align my memories of my youth with whatever is happening right now so JOHN: short version is no i’m not dead, and yeah i can come back over there and help you out. ROXY: oh sweet yr alive and down to do manual labor its a win/win JOHN: see you soon.

Yep! Pulled away from all the metaphorical, ultra-meaningful bullshit, back to some brass tacks with some easy humor. Definitely something Roxy can do well.~

> (==>)

EXCUSE ME. What is that outfit and pose. Did you--

ROXY: sup ROXY: follow me ROXY: well were just going to my room so i guess technically u know the way JOHN: haha ok.

Did you invite him over for the manual labor of banging you while your son is sewing in the other room

Or maybe the labor is making him a new sibling. JFC

Is this plan part of why we got the sudden content warning that was mocked or was that mainly for Hiveswap

John follows, trying to shake the ominous feeling he got from what she’d just said. He’d been in and out of this house a lot in the past few days. Why should this be any different?

I DUNNO JOHN DOES THIS SEEM DIFFERENT TO YOU

> (==>)

Yea this seems like a fucc room.

JOHN: it’s not like i could forget! ROXY: ya i guess u only really saw the living room when you were here the other day but i have changed some stuff up ROXY: done a lil redecoratin here n there

So it’s MORE of a fucc room than previously >__>”

ROXY: may have to do a smidge more if my old bff decides im next on the list for bombing out ROXY: but so far so good

Ah geez.

ROXY: just a coupla exploded cars in the yard from some shenanigans our dear son and his friends were in but u kno it is what it is!!!

Well, that’ll buff out easy.

ROXY: can i get u anything? ROXY: just made some coffee JOHN: no, uh, i’m good.

Of course she has a fancy handled winecoffeeglass (and the handle does look ridiculous but it’d be too hot to hold otherwise)

Roxy shrugs and swirls her own coffee around in her novelty mug. John looks around. A lot about the room is the same. The family photos, the rug. There’s a lot more cat stuff in there now, though. The bed is new. John feels like he’s about to take a test he hasn’t studied for. He makes himself focus on what she’s saying.

That would be the feeling.

> (==>)

MY GOD. Roxy is so fucking good at this holy shit

She KNOWS she’s making him squirm and she loves it

JOHN: so uh anyway. JOHN: what was this favor? ROXY: yo why dont u just come rest yr tush for a bit ROXY: take a lil relax next 2 me here JOHN: haha uh. JOHN: roxy i uh. JOHN: im flattered, but i don’t know if that’s really the right step right now. JOHN: don’t get me wrong, everything seems so fucked up right now that when i try to think about what might actually BE the right step, it feels like a huge cartoon question mark might physically manifest over my head. JOHN: but I’m not sure if um rekindling our physical relationship is really the best--

So is Roxy trolling him, about to reveal she wasn’t thinking of sex and was just making things seem sultry? Or just had “lol jk” as an option-select, maybe.

> (==>)

ROXY: r u kiddin me rn egbert JOHN: i’m not? unless you were, in which case yeah lets say i was also kidding. JOHN: oh my god, i’m sorry, i don’t know why this making me freak out.

OH NOOO NOT THE DISDAAAAIN - CRITICAL HIT D:

ROXY: i remember our past boot knockin with fondness but that is a situation im not interested in revisiting

boot knockin XD

ROXY: look john ROXY: i was trying to be polite about it ROXY: offering u sustenance n rest n all ROXY: but you look like shit ROXY: i just wanted to catch up on the whole heinous war situation were in and maybe check in on e/o before leaping strait to the real n actual nonsexual manual labor favor i have in mind for u JOHN: oh.

Hey, she can’t help looking sexy she’s too good at it.

Is the manual labor moving the crashed cars? Can’t Roxy pull that off on her own, or... banish the cars to the void or something? (Oh, but WOULD she want to do it on her own when she can rope in John and bring him down to earth by giving him a useful task? And admittedly his strength and wallet would make things easier.)

John feels his shoulders unbunch. Of course. Yeah. He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced?

Probably some gender stuff mixed up in there too, June.

He doesn’t know, but he believes Roxy that he must look pretty haggard. He probably feels haggard? Maybe sitting down will feel better.

Just put your feet up yeah

> (==>)

WHAT A CUTE IMAGE

JOHN: sorry. like i said, my "how to react to stuff" meter is completely fucked right now. ROXY: thats fair bud

she’s used to being patient with you don’t worry otherwise you never would’ve gotten this far

ROXY: real fast i do need to do a quick takeback of all that shit i said last time we talked about janey not being literally the most evil person we knew or whatever ROXY: i guess i was hopped up on arguin or somethin since that was before we hit our conversational vibe bc of course u were right and i shoulda listened

Ouch. Yeah, we saw just lately just how far off the deep end she was. (Where was that funny upd8 reaction art summarizing the bit where Kanaya was holding Tavros hostage and Jane was transparently debating “hmm do I let my son die?” and Kanaya and Tavros were just looking at each-other flat-mouthed nervous? I REALLY wanted to share that but I don’t usually want to reblog or put most stuff HS^2 not under a read-more, for spoiler purposes, usually.)

ROXY: im just glad ur ok ROXY: or like alive JOHN: yeah, jury's still out on "ok" but, you know. ROXY: ya ROXY: u said ur house is gone?? JOHN: yep. JOHN: completely. ROXY: jeez ROXY: i would ask how ur feelin but like the answer 2 that has got 2b "prtty bad"

Talk it ouuuut~~ get those feels out there and articulated john

JOHN: yeah. JOHN: i mean. JOHN: no? JOHN: it’s weird. JOHN: it feels like it should be a bigger deal, I guess? JOHN: like it’s my HOUSE. JOHN: but mostly it always felt like my dad’s house? JOHN: and when i started living there after i moved out of here, it was like i crammed myself back into whatever was left of my kid self? JOHN: and it didn’t feel good, but it at least was familiar, you know? JOHN: like living there let me feel closer to my dad, trying to be like the way i remember him, or like how i remember him wanting me to be, or something? JOHN: and i didn’t realize how much i hated doing that until i saw it all go up in flames. JOHN: so i guess i could have used my powers to stop the fire and save whatever was left of the place, but i couldn’t bring myself to do it. JOHN: like some fucked up part of me was glad i got there too late? JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison. JOHN: and even now i keep trying to explain it away, as though it’s because of how fucked up everything else is that it made me feel good. JOHN: but that’s just bullshit. JOHN: it DID feel good. JOHN: i DO feel free. JOHN: sorry.

I was kind of saying some Breath/Blood stuff at the time of him losing his last tie to his stubborn sticking-to-his-kid-self bit? Except now we’re mixing it in with June Egbert and his gender-identity questions too.

ROXY: no need 2 apologize ROXY: we just delved in2 my whole gender thing last time so it seems fine for u to have a turn JOHN: i didn’t say it was a gender thing.

Oh shit

ROXY: well no i just meant like i did some sharing ROXY: like referrin 2 the topic i brought up when we chatted last ROXY: but like now that u mention it ROXY: *meaningful pause* JOHN: … JOHN: i JOHN: ROXY: lol well we can move on 2 the favor part if youd rather ROXY: stick a lil pin in that topic n come back 2 it when u have had sleep

Are you just INCREDIBLY incisive Roxy or have you and John talked about this before?

ROXY: like i said the other day its not like this shits figureoutable in 1 sitting anyways JOHN: yeah... ROXY: sooooooo ROXY: movin on

It’s just fine for Roxy to slow-roll this yeah, if she’s going to pry open that door a little

ROXY: dont be mad but theres a part of the house u didnt know abt the whole time u lived here JOHN: what? ROXY: yea ROXY: i got a secret lair ROXY: for my sciences

OH FUCK YES SCIENCE LAB, of COURSE Roxy would want a cool science lab basement because she always wants a cool science lab basement

ROXY: and i get to it via a transportalizer underneath our bed ROXY: which is 2 heavy 2 move by my lonesome so i just needed to borrow some o your aforementioned powers of wind

Okay no. Wait. What the fuck?

First of all, as funny and MSPaintAdventures-y as furniture being in the way of things is, why would you block it with a bed too heavy to move, but,

Second of all, more importantly, how is a GOD-TIER ROXY not strong enough to lift a heavy bed?!?!?!? Either she’s lying to get John involved in things or this is a gendered cop-out because these characters are superheroes at the TOP of their echeladders, given obnoxiously powerful video-game strength and athletics only to then have ascended into DEITIES. God-Tier Roxy could probably have lifted a bed like that when she was SEVENTEEN! And now she’s an ADULT, out-of-shape or otherwise! If this were a whole CAR I might be willing to handwave it, but just a heavy BED?!? And none of the GUYS are going to have this much trouble lifting a bed like this, are they?? This just feels like following classic cartoony gender tropes in the complete absence of these characters’ super powers, what the fuck, and also Roxy if you didn’t make it Transportalizer-only access you could have given it an entrance you could phase through with your fancy powers to get to. FUCK.

This feels stupid.

ROXY: so if u dont mind woosh away JOHN: uh ok, well... JOHN: a secret science lair, sure, i can deal with that. JOHN: why not! JOHN: it doesn’t work out great when i do the windy thing indoors, though. ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

You’re already THIS sensitive about gendertalk?

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push ROXY: we both got sick muscles ROXY: no other adjectives necessary JOHN: yeah ok. ROXY: on 3?

Please, please reinforce the idea that they both have sick strength, because they fucking do and the idea that Roxy actually a hundred percent NEEDED John to do this is BS.

> (==>)

JOHN: holy shit? ROXY: sorry to lop yet another huge scoop onto ur lil brains ice cream revelation sundae JOHN: so wait, if this thing's always been under the bed, how’d you get down here before without me? ROXY: well thats neither here nor there john JOHN: i mean it is kinda. Here. ROXY: fine ok checkmate ROXY: i dont ACTUALLY need ur nerdgrit for this escapade ROXY: like im sorry but i said it ROXY: i mostly just wanted to see you and show u wats down here

THANK FUCKING CHRIST.

If that wasn’t actually just a lie to get him involved I was going to stay SO mad. Of COURSE Roxy can move a fucking BED no matter how heavy it is. OF COURSE.

ROXY: and also uve been ~sent for~ JOHN: ok but like ROXY: john i am inviting u 2 my inner sanctum ROXY: i am literally bringing out the word "sanctum" in case u werent already clued in 2 how cool this is ROXY: so do u wanna go into my secret lair or wat JOHN: yeah!? JOHN: yes? i guess? ROXY: aight good

Yes John of course you want to stop fighting it

ROXY: then as they told me in the hospital before lil h a was born ROXY: just push

eyeroll, but yeah, of course

> (==>)

Oh cool, sprite form version of her loungewear.

> (==>)

Sorry for my compulsion to post every full-frame image of Roxy in this awesome outfi-WERE YOU KEEPING CALLIOPE UNDER YOUR BED THIS WHOLE TIME?!?????

That’s like... almost a fucking metaphor isn’t it???? For the relationship you preferred in the other timeline and possibly THIS one TOO or

ROXY: hey callieee i got him ROXY: o damn john sorry i shoulda also told u callies here weve been hangin out again ROXY: 1 more freak for ur bean

Oh huh, so this isn’t an always thing. And these two can get close in more than one timeline where it would’ve worked out nicely. :)

JOHN: oh it's ok, my bean feels pretty well adjusted to freakage at this point so keep them coming if you like! ROXY: k cool i will JOHN: do i get to know what that big thing under the sheet is? ROXY: hmmmmmm no JOHN: oh ok. JOHN: are you sure? i mean, it seems like a pretty prominent feature of the room. JOHN: space. JOHN: wherever we are. ROXY: and a totally mysterious n COMPLETELY inconspicuous feature it will have to remain for now ROXY: we r kinda in a hurry here fyi ROXY: and by that i mean ROXY: we are in precisely the amount of hurry that means im excused from having to a that specific q rn JOHN: right, sorry. JOHN: i will pay no attention to the object behind the curtain. ROXY: u catch on fast egbert ROXY: anyway theres more cool info coming so just follow me

I don’t have any big theories. Is it just the Hiveswap device or something? If Calliope helped with it it’d help explain the Cherubic theme.

> (==>)

JOHN: so... this is all downstairs? JOHN: it seems like you had a lot of work done. ROXY: well no not x actly ROXY: were in the old meteor JOHN: under the house??? ROXY: ok so ROXY: in hindsight it may have been a bit misleading 2 say like ROXY: "downstairs" ROXY: in reference to a place which is hells of buried underground and may not actually be literally under the house ROXY: but there is no time to explain all that rn john so instead im going to refer u to my adorable little green friend here CALLIOPE: #U_U# ROXY: (hehe) CALLIOPE: *AHEM* CALLIOPE: hi john! CALLIOPE: long time no see. ^u^

Cherubs just really like dark cavelike places full of weird tech don’t they.

> (==>)

THEY’RE SO CUTE

JOHN: oh, uh. hey callie! JOHN: it sure has been a while huh. JOHN: now that i think about it, the last time the three of us hung out like this... CALLIOPE: was when i was aggressively third wheeling yoUr prenUptial coUrtship? CALLIOPE: if yoU dont mind, john, i'd rather not rehash that period of oUr lives. CALLIOPE: it was more than a little painfUl for me. JOHN: oh. JOHN: god, jeez, i'm sorry. i didn't mean to-- CALLIOPE: hee hee john i am only pUlling yoUr leg, don't worry. CALLIOPE: if anything i was personally a little thrilled with how things shook oUt in that respect. CALLIOPE: imagine, if yoU will, a yoUng cherUb raised in solitUde, whose only solace was the convolUted and tUmUltUoUs romantic schemata she projected onto her only friends from another Universe. CALLIOPE: and then fUrther imagine that this yoUng cherUb, throUgh varioUs even *more* convolUted contrivances, ended Up in the company of those selfsafe friends as an eqUal participant in their sphere of social discoUrse! CALLIOPE: it is a joy the like of which yoU possibly cannot fathom. u_u

Reinforcing that things turning out this way was in fact the FANTASY that Calliope was writing over in the Canon timeline. Just, heavily, HEAVILY implied that the Candy timeline is -- or at least originated as -- Calliope’s fanfiction as a Muse of Space, and its competition for audience interest with canon is the essential conflict between alt!Calliope and Dirk (or Dirk and Andrew Hussie).

CALLIOPE: so to pUt it simply, getting to experience sUch emotional drama myself was an impossibly enriching experience. CALLIOPE: possibly a first for my species! CALLIOPE: it's actUally qUite interesting, if yoU ROXY: *nudge* CALLIOPE: oh, right. yes. i'm getting a little carried away, haha. CALLIOPE: argh, i'm sorry, this is not how i planned to begin this vital conversation.

Vital conversation? What sorta truth-bombs are coming?

CALLIOPE: but to sUmmarise, what i was trying to say is: CALLIOPE: don't beat yourself Up aboUt it john. CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr. CALLIOPE: so i consider Us aboUt even at this point. JOHN: hahaha!!! JOHN: okay, well that's good to know! CALLIOPE: ^u^

Holy SHIT that was savage! And we’ll NEVER know whether or not she really intended it so savagely, either.~

JOHN: so um... JOHN: i hear that there's this big secret thing you wanna tell me about? CALLIOPE: oh right, yes of course! CALLIOPE: let me jUst say first of all how thrilled i am that yoU're on board. CALLIOPE: i wasn't sUre if yoUr natUral inclinations woUld have preclUded yoUr coming to such a place as this, and yet here yoU are. CALLIOPE: this whole endeavoUr will be *so* mUch easier with yoUr help.

Uh oh.

Hopefully babies aren’t involved.

JOHN: oh! well, shucks. JOHN: not really sure what that means but i'm just glad to be of use somewhere, haha. JOHN: which, speaking of somewhere, CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are. CALLIOPE: how much do yoU know aboUt black holes? JOHN: um... like, the big space things? CALLIOPE: they aren't always big actUally, and in fact their relative smallness is practically their defining qUality. JOHN: oh. CALLIOPE: bUt okay i think we are on the same page. CALLIOPE: so, what if i told yoU that we are inside of a black hole right now.

Oh dear, we’re getting into the canon/noncanon divide?

JOHN: um... JOHN: like, HERE? JOHN: we just transportalized into a black hole? CALLIOPE: no, i mean, what if oUr whole WORLD was inside a black hole. JOHN: ok.

Yeah, that’s gonna be John’s reaction. “ok.” Pretty much inevitable.

CALLIOPE: earth c, or at least oUr version of it, has, from the moment we crossed the victory threshold, been inside a black hole. JOHN: ok. CALLIOPE: and not just any black hole, bUt the very black hole in which the green sUn Ultimately met its demise, allowing oUr victory in the first instance! JOHN: huh! ROXY: ("huh!") ROXY: (rofl my fucking ao egbert) JOHN: (shhhh!)

And Roxy enjoys his non-reaction reactions as much as we do, hehe.

CALLIOPE: bUt, paradoxically, the critical moment which determined its capture within the black hole happened *after* that point. CALLIOPE: i refer of coUrse to yoUr decision not to retUrn to the mediUm and fight my brother. JOHN: wait, wait. JOHN: you mean, the meat and candy thing? JOHN: oh my god. JOHN: you mean i actually DID make a mistake that day. CALLIOPE: well, that's not exactly what that-- JOHN: ugh, i fucking KNEW it! JOHN: i'm so sorry. JOHN: i'm so sorry that i put the earth inside a black hole everyone. ): ROXY: john ROXY: listen ROXY: u have got to get out of this mindset i am begging you JOHN: ):

Yeah shake him out of this shit.

ROXY: your choice literally didnt matter ROXY: the whole thing was symbolic in the first place ROXY: literally symbolic in the case of the picnic i mean come on ROXY: it was just some steak and a plate of candy suckers JOHN: oh. CALLIOPE: i mean, i wouldn't go so far as to say that the meal we shared was unimportant, given the sacred significance of the two options i presented. CALLIOPE: but yes, yoUr choice of snack was infinitely less important than the choice which it presaged. CALLIOPE: and even then, calling it a choice woUld be sorely misleading. CALLIOPE: think of it like a coin flip. CALLIOPE: the series of events that led to Us being trapped beyond the event horizon of an Ubermassive black hole could be considered "tails", while the events which would have occUrred otherwise could be considered "heads". CALLIOPE: since both were possible, and paradox space is the way it is, they actUally both happened. and we jUst "happened" (hee hee) to get tails instead of heads. JOHN: you mean we ended up with the bad possibility. CALLIOPE: not at all! since both possibilities depend on one another's existence, it really doesn't make sense to call them "right" or "wrong". they both just "are". JOHN: o...kay... CALLIOPE: u_u

Yeah, it’s going to take a bit more than that to convince him he didn’t make the “wrong decision”.

CALLIOPE: i realise that this may be a lot to process. CALLIOPE: it's easy to forget that this wasn't obvioUs to everyone from the beginning. CALLIOPE: anyway, the reason i went on this tangent in the first place was to explain that the space we are standing in right now has a special significance, in that it is the location which corresponds to the black hole's singUlarity. JOHN: oh, wow. JOHN: um. JOHN: ok so, sorry if this is a dumb question to ask suddenly, but what does being inside of a black hole actually... mean for us? JOHN: is that bad? JOHN: is it like in movie, um, JOHN: shoot. JOHN: roxy what was that matthew mcconaughey movie from your earth that we watched? ROXY: u mean interstellar JOHN: RIGHT. JOHN: the one with the organ. JOHN: man. i cried at that movie so much. ROXY: lol u can say that again ROXY: iirc at least part of y u got so weepy was the fact that u couldnt believe a version of earth existed where ppl got 2 watch more mcconaughey films than you JOHN: listen. JOHN: i simply don't think you all appreciated the gift you were given. CALLIOPE: i don't believe i'm familiar with this particular film ^u^;; ROXY: oh dont worry cal you didnt miss much JOHN: (gasp)

This is all gold

ROXY: but the important point is that no its not really an interstellar type situation here egbert ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love JOHN: aw.

Dammit, now we have to be on the lookout for that possibility. Or it did sort of already happen more than once to John. ...Whatever.

CALLIOPE: to go back to your original question, john. CALLIOPE: it's not strictly speaking "bad" for Us to be inside of a black hole, mUch thoUgh that contradicts most of what anyone knows about them. CALLIOPE: of coUrse, if we had fallen into it, that woUld be a whole other kettle of fish. CALLIOPE: the tidal forces woUld have stretched Us all into spaghetti and then ripped us apart! CALLIOPE: bUt the natUre of oUr arrival was more akin to simply "being" here, sUddenly. one moment we were not, and the next moment we were, and somehow always had been. CALLIOPE: in everyday, practical terms, being inside of a black hole has very little bearing on Us. CALLIOPE: i mean, the natUre of space and time is a little finicky in here, bUt for the most part it doesn't seem to be anything too oUt of the ordinary. CALLIOPE: bUt beyond that, it means that we are sealed away from the rest of existence. CALLIOPE: oUr sphere of inflUence is limited to the sphere of the black hole's bounding horizon. CALLIOPE: as far as everyone else is concerned, we might as well not even exist! JOHN: is there no way we could let anyone know that we're in here...? CALLIOPE: almost certainly not!

No? So this doesn’t have to do with the divide?

CALLIOPE: there are very few ways for anything to escape the kind of predicament that we are in right now. one of them is to be an all-powerfUl being with control over the very fabric of space, with the energy of two Universes at yoUr disposal. CALLIOPE: in which case, escape woUld become rather trivial, if a little Unscientific. JOHN: ok. i am going to assume that we can't just do that. CALLIOPE: yoU've hit the nail on the head, UnfortUnately. U_U CALLIOPE: the method i described was the one employed by my alternate self, who yoU may recall crashed through the event horizon in the body that once belonged to jade harley. CALLIOPE: she departed through a pUnctUre she created in the black hole's surface shortly after consUming my brother, a deed which provided her with the necessary "oomph", and which was frankly rather breathtaking to watch. =u= CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

What the heck? Calliope SAW all this? Is this her Muse powers at work, letting her observe these things, or was she there? And John certainly did NOT see ANY of what Calliope just said happen.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

So we’re going to find that out if we haven’t already. Maybe something to do with the way Vrissy just conks out narcoleptically?

JOHN: ...right. JOHN: so... let me just get this straight. JOHN: knowing that we're inside of a black hole... does that actually change anything? JOHN: like, can't we just go on living like normal? CALLIOPE: oh absolUtely not. CALLIOPE: i don't know if yoU've noticed john bUt this world is on the brink of a total cataclysm. JOHN: oh.

Um, what?

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval. CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality. CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u JOHN: that's... certainly one way to put it, yeah...

No plot-armor for your entire timeline, I guess, yep. Outside of canon, we can imagine and write about ANYTHING happening to the characters, or just drop their existence entirely, much like a doomed offshoot timeline. It’s a plot stability that depended heavily on the threat of Lord English and being trapped in a story, and without it things are bound to see a BIT chaotic (or “degrading” if you view it as subjected to the whims of fanfic writers, certainly).

CALLIOPE: at first, i believed that this was simply necessary. Us playing tails to oUr coUnterparts' heads, the black to their white, and so forth. CALLIOPE: bUt over the years i have come to the conclUsion that this is simply not kosher. ROXY: its total bs is what it is CALLIOPE: right, yes. CALLIOPE: a steaming pile of bUllshite. CALLIOPE: and so we have decided that something needs to be done aboUt it.

Ah fuck. You’re going to regulate non-canon? “Canonize” it? Is the fact that you eventually succeed at whatever it is you’re trying to do part of why we have the story presented to us in this bifurcated structure?

ROXY: this is finally where u come in jegbert ROXY: we gots quests for yous CALLIOPE: hee hee, yes. CALLIOPE: or *a* quest, to be specific. JOHN: oh boy! ROXY: (this fkin nerd i s2g)

Roxy and Calliope setting him on this quest as a Rogue of Void and a Muse of Space feels fitting.

JOHN: i'm not sure how i can go about freeing us from a hellish space prison, but i'm up for giving it a try i guess? JOHN: i have... literally nothing better to be doing at this point. except for maybe hanging out with harry anderson. ROXY: nice save lol

YEAH WE’RE STILL GLOSSING OVER HOW YOU LEFT HIM UNPROTECTED, JERK

ROXY: but u dont need to worry abt busting us outta space jail tbh ROXY: thats not ur problem to fix JOHN: oh. JOHN: i'm... not sure i follow, then. ROXY: i mean yeah ur gonna obvs facilitate it in a sense ROXY: but only by going and busting the person who can actually help us outta normal earth jail CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity. ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan. CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more. CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it. CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak. CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself? CALLIOPE: ... CALLIOPE: phew. okay, i'm finished. CALLIOPE: CALLIOPE: sorry, that took longer than i expected to go throUgh.

..............................

OOooooh, kay.

Whatever this is, it’s going to be really weird and PROBABLY infuriating and/or shippy, and I’m probably not going to like it. Plus it seems like it’s some sort of inverse belated canonization of some other black-hole-rescue theories I went on about at some point. Although, related to that link, “aspect of freedom” if anyone wasn’t paying attention! That’s a (sorta-)canon mention of the purpose of it!

They’re going to attention-wh-- attention-hog themselves out of the black hole so that they’re “considered canon” too, or close enough. Huh.

ROXY: what r u talking about cals that was great ROXY: i could listen 2 u plotsplain for years CALLIOPE: oh you >u< ROXY: fyi this was why i wanted u to get a move on eggbread ROXY: so callie could have more time 2 infodump ROXY: thats love bitchhhhhh JOHN: hahaha. JOHN: ok, well, i think i understood all that?

Love with who? Callie, John, both?

In reality, John isn’t sure what most of this means. But on balance, it feels okay? He’s gone back and forth about a hundred times in the last week about where his place in everything is, so he might as well ride this out. Plus, the last time a Lalonde kind of told him to do something, he thinks that he chose not to, and look where that got him. And it’s not like he has other plans. He may as well do this! It’s at least going to get him involved in things again, if nothing else. He turns to go, and then hears a sound. It’s the sound of feet and knocking on doors, echoed through stone and digital static.

Oh shit. Is Andrew trapped behind some fourth walls behind the curtains.

> (==>)

Oh RIGHT also that DEVICE is where they want to bring Vriska. Are they going to overturn part of canon itself with a super-retcon thus making this timeline unbelievably relevant or--? Maybe make all the PESTERQUESTS canon or something?! I don’t know. Maybe they’re INTENTIONALLY starting the game like Vriska wanted to??????

Guh, this is something so big that I don’t WANT to theorize about it, do I.

JOHN: did you hear that? ROXY: wha ROXY: oh yeah uh ROXY: i may have messaged rose and kan and jade to check on them too ROXY: so its prob onea them showin up ROXY: they don’t need to know bout all this tho ROXY: we got time to chat with them b4 u go get vriska

No, even if it’s a knock at the somehow-top-level-house-even-under-buried-- oh, right, maybe it’s covering in part a monitoring system that looks up there. But still, part of that sound was DOUBTLESS these two hiding something, all standing in front of the curtain like that.

JOHN: i’ll go stall em. ROXY: thx babe ROXY: oh is it 2 soon for that joke or JOHN: no, weirdly enough, that one’s fine. ROXY: oh good ok see u up there soon!

How is calling your significant other “babe” not cool REGARDLESS of gender?! Like wasn’t that always cool? --Oh wait is it because they’re not together or... but... guh, I don’t know.

Anyway, see y’all after the holidays at least.

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #spoiler #spoilers #Roxy Lalonde #John Egbert #Calliope

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ramblefang · 5 years ago

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Welp, I finished the Homestuck epilogues. I was pretty positive about the experience early on, but I have to say a lot of that was challenging to read. I suppose I should have paid attention to the content warnings; they only registered to me when someone I was telling about my struggles asked if there were, indeed, such content warnings. What probably happened is that I rushed through that page, what with my seemingly insatiable desire for more Homestuck content—particularly to see what the epilogue had to say about those loose threads.

Though, one thing that concerns me about the content warnings is that some of them are jokes? Stuff like “The Economy”, “Honk”, and “Super PAC”. While I was talking to them about it, my friend recalled that some people thought the content warnings were a joke, likely because of those particular tags. Though, most of the warnings are legitimate, and there are a lot of them. Regardless of jokey tags, some people would likely have difficulty believing that Homestuck could get that...dreary and sordid.

Anyway, I was actually intending to write more about the actual content of those epilogues, but I’m finding it difficult. There’s a lot of stuff to unpack, and it’s all really heavy. (Also, I’m on a new medication.) While I’m collecting my thoughts, I can at least describe the manner I read the epilogues in:

Meat, up to chapter 25

Candy, to the end

Meat, to the end

The reasoning for this is that in chapter 25 of Meat, when Rose has begun to awaken/ascend and see/remember/know stuff from the alternate epilogue [and all other realities]. Dirk’s narration suggests switching over just to see what Rose was talking about, so I did. Though, in retrospect, it feels icky to be manipulated by anything Dirk suggested.

On that note, Dirk seems like a reasonable enough place to start. In short, everything he does in these epilogues is abhorrent and contemptible. (Even his suicide in Candy, because his reason is, essentially, that he doesn’t get to take control of everything the way he does in the Meat timeline.) They wanted to make Dirk a villain, and they succeeded in making him one of the loathsome characters I know of.

(To be clear, within these epilogues and, apparently, into Homestuck 2: Beyond Canon. There’s enough of a distinction between the main story and all of this that I’m still relatively okay with kid Dirk, though I wasn’t ever too warm on him anyway.)

The most challenging thing for me to read through was the way Dirk narrated—and thus manipulated—Jake. The history these two had was already in questionable territory in Homestuck proper, and all of that is just turned up to eleven in Meat: manipulating Jake into being obsessed with him, the way Dirk’s narrated insults affect Jake’s mentality. It’s all the more painful to read because of the brief segment of respite from Dirk’s machinations, in which Jake was so confident and chipper. Dirk just breaks him, and there’s no reason to it.

Ugh, I wanted to talk about more topics, but it’s just exhausting to think about these epilogues. I’m... probably not even going to read Homestuck 2. All of this has successfully chilled me on reading more Homestuck content in general. Maybe I’ll still check out Hiveswap or Pesterquest sometime—I was strongly considering jumping into them after reading the epilogues—but it might not be anytime soon.

#homestuck #homestuck epilogue #suicide tw #abuse tw

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abundantchewtoys · 4 years ago

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Hiveswap: Xefros’ balcony & bedroom

Last time we played, we had just become Xefros! We saw the neighbourhood getting culled and a strange light erupt from our neighbour/friend’s hive!

---

PACKAGE > Oh my god it's a FLARP manual! Hahahahahh, he's a FLARPer. .... Pfff Dammek used the manual as a real life "guide" to rebellion. Well, it'll just have to be seen whether "SCYTHIAN" (I guess that's the publisher?) has noble or nefarious intentions in creating this particular role play.

MANUAL > Those are completely ridiculous amounts of references. It's like a Wikipedia article. :P

MANUAL + BOX > Okay so he USED to play it, but not any more. I have a feeling we're going to get a lot of intel about the disadvantages of his caste, like no returns.

MANUAL + BILLBOARD / SKYLINE > I get the feeling a lot of FLARP storylines have been suppressed, lately. Seems like Trizza (if she ordered it) is maintaining a Big Brother like oppressive state. I mean, more oppressive than vanilla Alternia, even.

ENTER HIVE >

Oooooh, look at all them attributes! Hahah, nice. He's got a lot of different clothes hanging on the rack, a lot with his symbol - that was mandatory, wasn't it? Or at least showing off your caste. He's got a baseball-equivalent poster up, too!

Those pool themed items though. Oh boy, I wonder what that means, where he got them, and whether it'll be plot relevant later.

He's also got a sports helmet (with horn openings) and padded clothes, so he's actually physically able! Maybe to compensate his weaker telekinesis?

BUTLERY BOOK > "involuntarily aspiring butler" Uuuuhmmmm. Oh yeah, look at the glass ware and cutlery on his desk! Is that the only occupation he thinks is open to him? The spoons seem to be bended, seems like he uses them for a different kind of practice, namely his powers.

POSTER > Oooohhh, the pool theme comes from the fact he's in a sports team, and the pool balls are part of the logo. Huh. Maybe TROLL POOL is a physical sport. :P ... Oh, so the pusher is a traditional rustblood position. Seems like they actually tactically use the ability to communicate with dead players! So it's something Xefros should also (weakly, I suppose) be able to do! That seems like it could, tragically, become relevant later on in some capacity.

SPOONS + TELEKINESIS > Bent spoon get! Now, to create the ultimate strife specibus - BENTSPOONKIND! :P

WAREGRID STUDYSCROLL > ... Pffff, yeah, of course Indigobloods would both care for etiquette and then proceed to sin against it by crushing everything in their palms. I guess all indigobloods have raw STRENGTH, though I presume only Equius' and Horuss' was so very obscenely OP.

SCROLL + MANUAL > Hah, he's only comfortable with spoons, not knives. Something he and Jane could've related on. Before she went off the deep end, I mean.

RECUPERACOON > Ooooh, Dammek trained Xefros to no longer need recuperacoons! That's actually very useful for when he and Joey have to hit the road in their quest, and sleep wherever possible. Seems like the slime in the 'coons might have been addictive to some extent, which isn't surprising considering Gamzee. Even if it protects against the nightmares, in the long run it might have made them all more vulnerable or susceptible. Especially if it were the purplebloods creating chucklevoodoos to give them the nightmares.

TELEKINESIS + 'COON > So the slime keeps his powers at bay at night. I wonder if it's just propaganda, or that it isn't actually something he should be afraid of anymore, now that he's hardened enough to sleep outside of the slime. Even if his powers weren't weak, he might be able to resist the nightmares better now.

LAMP > Pffffffffffff. "Arena Stickball". With all these terms he throws around, I think it might closer to Quidditch than Pool even. Blaperile has a good point! (Table) Stickball is how the Felt call pool! So this is like a massive arena-wide version of pool. I can definitely understand how people get killed in a game where heavy poolballs are flung through the airs with pads.

LAMP > REMINISCE : The Dozer? The snowglobe? ... Are the names for the nightlight and the cue ball? Or the 8-ball and the cueball? If the cueball makes him nervous, then the rebels are definitely aware to some extent of Doc Scratch!!

TROPHY > Yyyyeah, there's no way this "trophy" isn't one of Scratch' seeds masquerading as a trophy, right? Through which he can keep a closer eye on the rebels? Maybe? Maybe Jude is rubbing off on me. And hey, this actually is relevant to Blaperile's theory that Joey would bring the cueball Jade has in the future, from Alternia to Earth! Maybe this is the one? Lol, I dunno.

POSTER > Pffff, Dammek was ALSO being forced into butlerhood, it seems.

MIC + PICKUP > We continue the conversation where we left off. Cool that Xefros, concerned for his own life, also took the time to check up on his friend. Ahahahh, yes, Joey is becoming rather concerned with Xefros. Either his actual wellbeing or his mental one, she hasn't decided yet. :P It'll take some more to convince her everything he's saying is actually true.

"what's a brother" > what are parents? >:]

ooooh, so there ARE other tetrarchs, meaning it really IS a title Xefros is using to continually refer to his "friend" with. Kind of sad.

MIC > Pffffff, are you serious? The batteries are out on this thing. Oh if only Xefros knew someone running around with a spare set of batteries. :P How's that for shizo tech? Human batteries in a troll microphone!

MIC + MANUAL > Pfffffffff, espiacrooner class. A spy/crooner combo. That's definitely difficult to pull off.

#homestuck #hiveswap #xefros tritoh #reaction #alternia #arena stickball #joey claire

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woopim · 5 years ago

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im ranting about homestuck for the sake of myself so ignore :p

also major spoiler warning for the Epilogues.

{also color coded cause its fun}

im gonna vent about homestuck mainly for myself so i dont have to go through this complicated ass thought process again

this also has nothing to do with ships (they all cool you good), pesterquest (me likey that), or hiveswap (i just havent checked that out yet)

also images arent mine, in gif section ٩( ᐛ )و

i love homestuck, got into it waaaay too late (my bad) i read it during the summer (2019) and read it in my free time, all i did. i love all the characters, they mean the world to me Caliborn and Bro cant eat a dick but ya know, good characters...just die tho

so with that said

fuck the epilogues

i know cliche but heres the thing: i read the first chapter of meat and just gave up and read a summary, it didn’t engage me that much and i was warned to not read it anyways

there are some things i do like in the epilogues, you get more in depth with how the kids grow up and their personalities and emotions, i like that. i like the weird obama thing that was funny, or gamzee getting out of the fridge (get him help), vriska coming back, karkat being president or even his resistance thing that was neat.

whennnn jane started being racist, jade being a cock block for davekat (very bad way to word that but i feel as tho jade deserves more for story telling than just that. i wasn't really a huge fan of jade, but how she was written in the epilogues bug me. Totally just made jade this "3rd thing" in a well developed relationship. Jade's more than that, and has her own story and growth. She didn't need to be shoved into that. Also Dave just randomly being uncomfortable with his sexuality again after excepting himself??? Like- why we pit the man back in the closet?), the shit ton of toxic relationships, the shit ton of babies, the VORE SCENE????? and dying....

just no

Example: Dirk fucking said bye world, yep. thats it, Dirk's gone now. And what do we do with this tragic character? One of our most mentally broken characters? Oh we just oop he dead now, lets have a funeral where his own brother is just "well...that fuckn sucks." And then ROXY AND JOHN GET HITCHED??? ON THE SAME D A Y?????????????

and homestuck 2, i was already weary cause it takes place after the epilogues. and i kinda just dropped reading it. i like seeing the kids grown up, i like seeing their kids, the designs are nice. but....the og characters deserve better. they had their good ending after a long battle and complicated time lines. they just deserve to find love without loveless marriage to whoever they feel, healthy lives, happy homes. and for story telling maybe some of the tough stuff, but should be worked through together like the big ass family they are.

just reading homestuck 2 keeps reminding me how screwed up the og characters are now, or the fact some are just dead, and it hurts :/

there are scenes i do appreciate in the epilogues and 2, but the majority just leaves a sour feeling.

so im pretending epilogues and homestuck 2 doesn’t exist, cause honestly it just hurts to know the characters didn’t just get at least a calm ending. maybe will go back to it if something interesting happens but for now its a nope

no hate to Andrew Hussie tho just...owie :p

#homestuck 2 #homestuck epilogue #homestuck #my thoughts #have a nice day :)#long post

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fantroll-purgatory · 6 years ago

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I know! Where’s her symbol? Where’s her horns????

I’m hoping for some help on classpect and lunar sway so I can settle on a symbol before designing her horns.

World: Alternia - Hiveswap Era? Maybe??? Name: Whimam Natron - Whimam based on “whim-wham” the origin for the word “whimsy”. Natron, as in the mineral used during mummification in ancient Egypt.

I love this name, it’s a Good One. Combining mummification and a clown character together is fun to me since jesters were pretty popular in ancient Egypt. Worldwide clownery. Age: 9 Sweeps

Theme/Story: Whimam is a Subjug going through a bit of a crisis of faith. After an especially intense rage led her to maim her lusus she’s begun actively suppressing her highblood rage and trying to a live a quieter, more peaceful life. This is of course at direct odds with worship of the Mirthful Messiahs, that pretty much mandates regular culling and attendance to a (literally) bloody church.

She’s also found that not culling most every troll you run into and embracing the less murdery side of clown-hood nets you more friends and she’s quite happy about this development. As a result she’s torn between being devout in her faith and the bits of a new life she can now see. Goals: A general overview would be nice! Strife Specibus: Chain&hookkind - or just “Chainhookkind”. Not to be confused with the tool. It’s literally two large meat hooks connected by a length of chain. It has various uses in combat, but she prefers to hook someone and pull them in before finishing the job up close.

I do think that’s very great for the intimidating aesthetic, a good time all around. If you wanted something more Clown-y/circus-y, you could consider Devil Sticks or a Cyr wheel, but I think this fits the slaughtering tendencies of clown church. Fetch Modus: I don’t know

You could probably work out a juggling modus where she has to catch the ball she’s looking for without dropping any of the others in order to extract the item! Or if you wanna focus in on the hook concept, maybe slide in an interest in fishing and give her a fishing modus, haha. Blood Color: Purple Symbol and Meaning: Hoping to get classpect help that will decide that.

We’ll discuss that when we get down to that section! Handle: merryMausoleum [MM] Quirk: This is something I was also waiting for my symbol for deciding. If you have non-symbol related ideas (or even ideas for the symbols you recommend) I’d love to hear them though!

Okay not to bring up HxH, but could theoretically take inspo from Hisoka to add card suits to the end of sentences depending on the mood she’s feeling. It has a double function since card suits are associated with relationship statuses on Alternia!

This is also a bit of a niche reference, but Saggi the Dark Clown is the 34th Yugioh Card introduced, so you could replace E and A with 3 and 4 respectively, in traditional homestuck fashion.

Special Abilities: Chucklevoodoo - Can send psychic images of her violent intent to others, letting them see in vivid detail just how awful their death is about to be. Lusus/Guardian: Crocodilehound - Giant crocodile with scaled wolf limbs and paws. Their relationship has been testy ever since Whimam blinded her in one eye during a fit of rage. Think cold companionship – Whimam feeds her and she helps keep Whimam safe, but they don’t stay around one another often (not that Purple Lusus tend to be the most attentive, anyway.)

I’m almost tempted to say, like, Crocodilion instead. Lion legs instead of wolf. Since lions get used in circus performances a fair bit! Or crocodelephant? But crocodilion sounds fun. Interests: Whimam really loves taxidermy and, through intimate contact with plenty of troll and animal guts, has developed extensive knowledge on troll and animal anatomy. A desire to entertain has led her to become well-versed in various party tricks including: juggling, sleight of hand, and balancing acts. She hopes to eventually become a subjugglator.

Does she have any interest in the more medicinal aspects of biology, or just the guts and blood? If she isn’t interested in health, it could be something she starts to look into more as she leans into her nice side. Another fun little idea is that you could have her interested in drawing? Purely for anatomical drawing. Catch her with this on her walls.

And taxidermy isn’t the only form of animal preservation, you could get her into mummification and wet preservation, too. And does she do other preservative forms? Like tanning, maybe? Skull mounts? Insect-collecting?

Appearance: Since I’m attaching a talksprite (I can’t for the life of me make one of the classic sprites for her, even after extensive time fiddling with parts and bases) a few things aren’t shown. Her pants are in fact poofy waist-high shorts. She also wears a ton of jingling bracelets and some comically large shoes.

CUTE. All of this is great and I really wouldn’t change a thing. Personality: Whimam is a recovering murderclown. The life she led up until recently was defined by violence and a close relationship with death (which made her feel close with her faith). She grew up culling trolls for her gods and beasts for her Lusus. Eventually she started culling both for her own interest – taxidermy. Her massive hive has multiple rooms dedicated to the stuffed remains of her victims.

After she let her rage get the best of her and tore out one of her Lusus’s eyes she began repressing that side of herself. She culls only as is required for her Lusus to eat and has even withdrawn from her church life. Despite this she’s still faithful to the Mirthful Messiahs – a fact that as mentioned earlier has left her in serious conflict with herself.

Keeping her rage in check is harder than she expected and so she’s more or less just started bottling it all up. She puts on a chill, affable affect and pretends she’s always calm even when she’s absolutely bristling, and avoids extraneous conflict as much as she can. This can and does lead to moments where she experiences serious outbursts when she hits her limit.

On the upside she’s now making friends for the first time in a while and is learning to channel a fun side of herself that doesn’t rely on brutal murder. In conversation she’s a fairly mellow woman who focuses on listening over talking. She’s vulgar with a dark sense of humor, but deceptively sensitive to insults. Usually she’d just kill someone for hurting her feelings, but lately she’s taken to awkward attempts at deescalation. She’s, naturally, more patient with highbloods than lowbloods.

I love this writeup, this is a great and very strong personality and a wonderful arc setup for a character. I don’t really have a lot of commentary to give besides saying you should think of more specific calming techniques she uses! Highblood rage can be so potent that we’ve seen that, like, Gamzee goes off sopor and is immediately in murderclown party zone. How does she chill out? Calming music? Woodburning? Really, really aggressive juggling?

Lunar Sway: I don’t know. I was thinking Prospit, but the more I’ve written the less certain I’ve been. She’s been comfortable in the church and the hemospectrum, feeling no need to rebel against either, but she’s now in a more conflicted head space than ever before.

I think she’s definitely prospit. One of the things that is noted about prospitans is that they’re adaptive- they try to change themselves rather than change others. She is honest about herself even if she tries to hide her blowups and she is dedicated to altering herself and her behavior rather than trying to tear down the clown church’s socially ingrained patterns of violence. She is also emotionally reactive and somewhat impulsive, which is a prospit trait more than a derse one. Title: This is the big point I’ve been stuck on. I’ve been waffling between several aspects and I can’t for the life of me settle on even just a handful of classes.

Too Obvious as it may seem given her story’s focus is on Rage, Too Obvious is sometimes right- I think she’s a Sylph of Hope. She spent a long time inverted as a Prince of Rage, acting out violence, but she has come upon a new set of convictions that she is dedicating herself to. She is opening up and broadening her own choices and paths and using her behavior to passively create new hope that wasn’t there before!

Which would make her symbol CAPRINIUS, SIGN OF THE CREDULOUS.

I hope this review was helpful! I didn’t have a WHOLE lot to say, she was already pretty solid. Thank you for sharing!

-CD

#purpleblood #submission #cd review #review #whimam natron #whimam #natron #justsomesonso

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momestuck · 6 years ago

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Let’s read Hiveswap Friendsim - volume 10!

We’re over the halfway mark. Nineteen friends. This time, Of Faraway Lands and Nearby Pals.

Our trolls are going to be...

These two.

Incidentally, I haven’t commented, but every troll select screen has a different drawing when you mouseover the troll. Usually they’re just the same troll with a light shining on them, looking more enthusiastic, but you gotta see Tegiri’s one...

In addition to the Jojo-like art style, that’s the katakana character ゴ ‘go’ repeated. For some reason, katakana is commonly used over hiragana for sound effects in manga, such as laughter. So yeah. We’ve finally found the mall katana guy mentioned waaaaay back in Polypa’s route!

Oddly, while ‘Tegiri’ would be valid romaji (although not, I checked, on lists of Japanese names I could find... I wouldn’t want to guess at a pseudo-’translation’, there’s a few possibilities), ‘Kalbur’ is decidedly not, and would be turned into something like ‘karuburu’ if it was transliterated into Japanese. That might be significant...

But that’s as far as my rudimentary Japanese knowledge can take me. We’ll come back to Tegiri shortly. First of all, it’s...

youtube

...beloved The Magic Roundabout character, Zebedee!

I really hope that’s not a coincidence.

Zebede

Zebede is the third and final troll by Magdalena Clarke, author of Vikare and Elwurd. Well, I enjoyed Elwurd, so that’s a good sign... hopefully...

This begins with getting a chittr notification. God, push notifications, am I right?

The name suggests we’re going to deal with the bees that made Sollux’s ‘mind honey’, granting goldbloods fantastic powers. (The game seems to have decisively chosen ‘gold’ rather than ‘yellow’, so I will defer to this.)

Who is this new friend? It seems to be someone who knows Cirava...

Their speech quirk seems to be using z in place of s, but not always.

Zebede invites us to download a video chat app...

Surprisingly, this does not result in our phone getting inducted into a botnet. Apparently the app we downloaded is called ‘grype’.

It’s weird to have so many Skype jokes given that Skype has pretty much given way to other messaging apps, at least in my experience...

He’s really excited to hear about how we know Cirava, and we tell him. He lets on rather unsubtly that he’s lonely and would appreciate a visit. Apparently he lives a long way out, for the sake of the bees.

We get our first choice...

Honestly no idea which one is the instant death option here. Probably asking if it’s really fine, but the ways we die are so random in this game, who knows?

Let’s go with asking where he lives.

We mention we went out to visit Skylla in the countryside, which leads him to... more self-deprecation. Wow, this guy sure is insecure.

And he decides like... we’re not really interested in visiting him. ‘A wall has been raised’, as the game puts it.

Dude, no wonder you don’t have friends.

OK, well, that was a short branch. Let’s try asking about his living situation and his lusus, whether it’s really fine.

Ah yes, play on his feelings of resentment. Get him to complain and wheedle in that way. That’s our narrator.

This guy’s face is so... pointy... I don’t have much commentary to add.

This leads us to a non-choice of saying we’ll go visit him immediately. This seems like a really healthy, non-manipulative friendship we’ve got going on here.

Apparently Zebede’s got some of whatever concentrated loneliness and fetishisation of friendship our narrator is suffering.

The narrator goes through a few friends to try and figure out who to get a lift from... and after rejecting Tagora, Amisia, Zebruh (oh god no), taxis and public transport, they decide the only option is to do crimes. Hey, I can get behind it.

By crimes they mean, finding an unlocked car and nicking it. Unlike Konyyl, they can’t punch locks off.

Apparently we know how to turn on the auto-pilot in a troll car. Not sure when we figured that one out!

Fittingly, Zebede’s hive is full of bees.

Inside, too, it’s a nice rustic bee farm.

We get a text message from... Cirava, it turns out. I wonder what they want...

We have the choice of ignoring it or letting it go to voicemail. Wow, we’re getting a lot of phone calls in this episode! Let’s try chatting with Cirava, maybe we can invite them over and all chill here...

It’s nice to see Cirava again. The protagonist’s weird obsession with collecting more friends instead of spending time with the ones they’ve made is highlighted...

What’s up with that?

The matter of Cirava’s clothes comes up.

Oh right so that’s what happened to Cirava’s clothes... I honestly forgot.

Anyway, Cirava’s a little worried when we say we’re hanging out with Zebede, who they know by chittr handle if not by name. They are worried that we’re tight, and we say we’re working on it.

Called out!

Anyway, Cirava warns us about getting too close to Zebede, and links... his fanfiction. OK, sure. It turns out to be... RPF. Of Cirava.

Oh dear, we’re gonna get into the RPF discourse in this episode, huh? That is something I generally want to stay a long way away from.

Anyway, Zebede comes back while we’re reading one of his fics.

That sure is an expression.

Anyway, when we explain that Cirava linked this, Zebede decides we’re not prioritising him after all, and clearly Cirava is more important than him.

I’m really not sure we want to be this guy’s friend.

He breaks down crying at the perceived slight of mentioning that we have other friends.

The protagonist starts feeling like a dick. There’s a poke at the blurry line between inner monologue and spoken dialogue on the protagonist’s part...

But anyway, that’s that for Zebede’s route.

So, how do we actually befriend this guy? Trick seems to be to pretend we care about literally nothing other than him, I guess. So let’s go back and ignore Cirava’s grype call.

Instead of answering the call, we work on our chittr profile. God, that’s hard enough irl, let alone when you’re on an alien planet...

So, we assure Zebede that we weren’t about to take a call in the middle of a hang sesh, and he starts showing us some pirate films. Then, switches to space pirate films. Poor guy’s really thrown for a loop by our indecisiveness.

The narrator is sympathetic, but unhelpful. Honestly narrator, just pick something. Fake some enthusiasm. If you really want to be friends with this kid...

We suggest watching the last thing he watched on grubtube. Which... seems like a shitty suggestion to me, since like, if it’s the last thing you watched...

But to Zebede, that seems to be something much worse.

You promise you absolutely won’t judge him. We may regret this.

Mostly, it turns out to be videos of Cirava. Yeah, we get it, he’s got a crush.

He shows us some music videos of a group called hatched2dance. I’m guessing this is a KPop (or perhaps JPop) parody, especially given the whole RPF angle...

Honestly like I probably couldn’t stand this guy in real life but I have some sympathies for his whole awkward gay teenager reading fic thing.

Anyway, seeing themselves reflected in Zebede prompts some reflection in the narrator.

The narrator has kind of a freakout on realising how offputting they’ve been - that they’ve been ‘a big phony’.

We’re saved from an existential crisis by someone showing up to reclaim their scuttlebuggy.

The narrator decides they should probably go out and face the music before this troll carves their way into the hive. This wins over Zebede even harder.

We learn that Zebede’s psychic power is... controlling bees. Using the bees, they drive off the troll outside.

And so we chill with Zebede, and the protagonist takes notes on ‘not being such a desperate piece of shit’.

We’ll see if this whole change of heart actually lasts.

The Alternian text in the picture says ‘ALTERNIA K-POP ALL-STARS’ in the Hiveswap version of the alphabet. Just in case you had any doubt what videos he’s into.

Tegiri

And now... time for things to get anime. This is the debut of David Turnbull.

The protagonist notices the edges of sunrise, and concludes they need to make a friend before daybreak. At that moment, someone accosts them.

Tegiri also gets chiptunes, in common with our other anime troll. I think it’s a remix of one of the tracks elsewhere in Homestuck. But it could easily fit in with a genuine 8-bit game.

Reassuringly, Tegiri concludes that since we’re an alien not a troll, he doesn’t have to cull us.

His typing quirk is that he replaces the letter ‘L’ with slashes.

And his character trait is, sure enough...

HUGE WEEB. Though, glass houses, stones, etc....

Naturally, the initial instant death choice is...

Unusually, we get three choices.

I can assert with 100% confidence that if I click anything other than ‘subs’, I will be executed by katana. So let’s try... both are good.

He casts us out for our indecisiveness.

The Alternian text here reads ‘PATHETIC.’ The drawing here recalls a particular anime meme... after some digging I was able to identify it as a screencap of Asuka from eva:

Think this is probably from End of Evangelion? But I can’t really recall.

...god I’m not helping my case for not being as much a weeb as Tegiri here, am I?

OK, let’s try subs now.

...lol, I’m wrong. He prefers dubs. What kind of weeb is this guy?

However, even though we’re wrong on the Most Important Question, we get to come back to his hive.

We can see body pillows around his recuperacoon, an improbable number of katanas, a bunch of figurines... the text above his bed says OPPAI, which is, well... Japanese for boobs. Yeah.

If you look closely at the anime figurines, I’m sure you can identify a few.

But except for Luffy in top right, I’m not sure about the rest. Someone who knows more about anime, feel free to fill me in. Bottom right might be a machine lifeform from NieR Automata, but that seems too recent, and wouldn’t 2B be a more in-character one for him to have?

Anyway...

I like how this casually assumes that the reader knows what an otaku is, but then again who reads Homestuck without knowing that I guess.

The narration says Tegiri has sorted his merch by blood colour, which is like... contradicted by the illustration which clearly has a bronzeblood troll at the top, but who cares I guess.

This guy is just too quotable lol.

Anyway, we get to meet a lusus again. This time, the lusus is actually drawn, not just a filtered stock photo!

It’s also mildly terrifying :D

It’s called Tadashi Inu, which means... well it kind of doesn’t mean anything (‘however dog’???), but if it was Tadashii Inu, it would mean Correct Dog.

Anyway, naturally what does an anime club do but watch anime?

He’s presently in the middle of watching ‘Philosopher’s Half-Iron’, which I’m guessing is a joke about Fullmetal Alchemist? Instead, he proposes Schoolfed Heroism (BNHA maybe?) and Kismet:Stuck Morning (no guesses for this one... I’m a fake weeb).

It’s also interesting that we’re watching on DVDs. If they wanted to go full weeb, they could put in fansub jokes here... but then this guy prefers dubs to subs, so maybe he likes to buy official releases.

Naturally, we run into translation issues.

He wanted the first edition and ‘paid extra for it’. So rather than enjoy the rest of the episode, we set off to have a word with the importer...

I have to ask... how does the troll economy work? There’s hints at a capitalist economy, money is mentioned and we had the guy running the club just now, but none of the trolls seem to have jobs. They seem to just get issued money according to their blood colour?

Speaking of which, we get some comments on troll retail...

So yeah, we’re gonna find another weeb I guess.

If that’s the billboard in the background, it's too small and blurry to work out what it says, unfortunately.

He seems pretty opposed to any ‘rebel sentiments’. Which of course he discusses with the weebiest metaphors. Alternia balances on...

He goes on about katanas for a while, like he’s going down a checklist of orientalist tropes. Naturally it’s a prelude to a challenge to ‘dance’.

We say swords are cool and this gets a little rant about bushido. You know, that self-serving horseshit some guy in the late 1800s fabricated as nationalist mythology...

We arrive at the anime store.

More text to transcribe, oh joy. At the top of the store it says the name of the shop, mentioned in dialogue, ‘SUPER TOPATO IMPORTS’. Above the door behind the counter it says ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY’. On the bookshelf full of manga it says something too squished to easily read.

Anyway, we’re having a look around, but Tegiri starts kicking up a stink.

It’s basically the navy seal copypasta, slightly modified to be more trollish.

Meanwhile we’ve accidentally knocked some anime and manga out of someone’s hand.

Still not getting these references, unfortunately.

The troll with a pink sign is apparently against troll law - ‘depiction of nonstandard hemological attributes’.

This is all going over my head at this point. The references, I mean. Obviously the text - that Tegiri is an entitled douchebag - is clear enough.

Oh, this one I get - Ace Attorney, of course.

Anyway, this is where we get a choice. Do we stop Tegiri straight up murdering someone for peddling the wrong kind of anime?

Obviously we will try. Even though this seems like a great way to end up dead ourselves.

We speak up for the shopkeeper, and manage to convince Tegiri not to straight-up kill him. This leads to... a story, of a previous time he showed mercy, in contradiction to the law.

Of course, we know who this baby - who should have been culled for lacking a lusus, by troll law - would have been. God, I’d sure rather be hanging out with Polypa than this guy.

The narrator, of course, has one thing on their mind...

We suggest that the law, and what is right, are maybe not the same thing...?

The hard decisions such as ‘do I murder this baby?’

The narrator decides they know something about bad ways to manage loneliness...

The narrator manages to divert his rant by asking about his eyes. Which are... any guesses? Contact lenses. For cosplay.

Before we can make the error of accusing him of breaking the law by cosplaying a nonexistent blood caste, who should show up but...

Oh thank god. Save us, Polypa.

Of course he says 何 nani instead of ‘what’. And as for 後輩 kōhai, that’s basically the counterpart to senpai, the junior partner in an informal hierarchy within an organisation, dictating the use of certain honorifics. If my reading of the wiki article is right, he’s using it quite incorrectly.

Polypa lets on that we’re moirails. This causes Tegiri to be a little taken aback. The narration has some fun.

Tegiri claims - despite his huge stack of body pillows and figurines - that he has no time for quadrants.

‘Were it not for the laws of this land’ is most commonly associated with a meme from a Ghanaian film, not anime, but the sentiment surely fits.

Polypa tries to talk some sense into him.

So we end up doing an anime sleepover...

The dog is saying ワンワン (wanwan), which is standard Japanese onomatopoeia for a dog barking.

The text in this screen says... ‘Ore wa kaizoku-ou ni naru otoko da!’, which is a One Piece reference, meaning ‘I'm the man who will be the pirate king!’.

So, Tegiri may be insufferable, but at least with Polypa around we can keep him more or less under control.

There’s a few more options to explore. What if we’d picked dubs, not subs, near the start? He praises our choice, but otherwise, the story proceeds in the same way. I think that’s actually the first time we’ve had branches merge.

Now, what if we let him kill the shopkeeper?

Shockingly, he’s not as much a swordsman as he makes out. And the shopkeeper, it turns out, is psychic, and zaps him before legging it.

I was under the impression that psychic abilities were rare in goldbloods, but what do I know?

We ask like... was that really necessary?

Well, he’s certainly a tool, he got that part right. (Sorry.)

We go to report the shopkeeper’s terrible crimes to the drone, but unfortunately... it seems that the protagonist has a rap sheet themselves!

They can’t pin it on us! We’re innocent!

God, the ‘everything happened’ approach to continuity is still fucking with me. Did we make friends with Remele? Did we not? Earlier, the narration mentioned making ‘between 1 and 19′ friends. What if someone didn’t obsessively explore and replay every branch? They’d be so confused!

But despite his ineptitude with a sword, our attempted escape over an overpass leaves us...

Dead.

I’m sure this shot is also an allusion to an anime meme, but I can’t say which one, so yeah.

That’s Zebede and Tegiri. Not the best friends we’ve made, but I enjoyed the chance to be a huggggeee neeeerrrd in this post. (>implying that I could be anything other than a huge nerd on my homestuck liveread blog)

#momestuck #lets read hiveswap friendsim

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captainarchmage · 2 years ago

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Why CaptainArchmage thinks you should vote Democrat in the Georgia Special Runoff

Once again, I did not, at all, want this particular blog to be devoted to politics or make any political posts. On November 8th, I was thinking I'd *have* to do two, but I'm now leaning towards three as there is this Georgia run-off to vote in a Senate election to see who goes to the Senate, coincidentally, for six years. The race is between a pastor/vicar named Warnock, who is coincidentally a Democrat, and then there’s a former NFL player named Walker with a bunch of women claiming he pressured them into abortions and then there's a bunch of deadbeat dad and domestic violence allegations too on the side.

Really, commander?

Over in Pennsylvania, the candidate was some “doctor” pushing fake medical advice, who tortured puppies (and had a license revoked over that incident), who drank his own piss, tried to suck his sister’s brain out with a needle, and because that wasn’t enough he also mocked a stroke survivor. Also that guy lost, thank God, but quite frankly none of this should be that close at all. That’s one of the reasons you should get out and vote, and, ideally, not for these people. Like any of them.

https://warnockforgeorgia.com/issues/lgbtq-equality/

And all of whom fall on what I call the “Bumper Book of People Conservatives Don’t Like”. I’m toning down what I think about it here, down to that it’s a huge book.

Having grown tired of trying to make sense of the bigotry, CaptainArchmage decided to create his own Hoochie Daddy Short Short Abridged Short Shorts version of that book, which comes down to two words: “Other People”. We don’t need to extend any more intellectual effort and should not need to extend any further intellectual effort to quantify this.

The choice should be clear BY THEN. Check your birth certificate, skin colour, age, bank balance, credit card statements, property ownership, and most people will fall afoul of Republican views.

Yes, a functional democracy is supposed to have checks and balances but when those fail, it is the citizens who have to step up where they can. This is what you'll have to do today in Georgia.

Will Warnock do everything he promises? Probably not, but that’s OK. It’s better than the alternative, which is opening the floodgates to insurrectionists and so on.

There’s always something more, isn’t there.

Go vote.

youtube

Will

#runoff #georgia #@election

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vanillabeenflower · 2 years ago

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Should I Get Into Homestuck?

hhhh.. Should I get into the Homestuck fandom? I’ve been curious about it for a few months now, but I’ve never checked it out fully, usually from being overwhelmed, but I saw the odd video here and there, but recently, it’s piqued my interest again. I’ve been reading a bit of the wiki, and all the information in it overwhelmed me a bit and made 0 sense to me, but it was interesting. The world looks extremely fleshed out and expansive, which is mostly what is making me consider watching some of the readings of the Acts.

I usually have a thing with getting into something that is way bigger than it used to be when I first saw it, mostly because of how much time it would take to “catch up” (like JJBA). Homestuck is no different, I tried to get names of all of the stuff that’s in the HS universe, and I got Homestuck, Homestuck Epilogue, Hiveswap, Hiveswap Friendsim, and Pesterquest (let me know if I missed any). I’m kind of overwhelmed by the first one in the list, which I didn’t know was 8,000 pages long!

Idk, maybe I’m thinking too hard about it, it’s just that I assume this fandom has been around for years, but I was still very young when the original story was first started, and it’s just that the amount of story that accrued while I was growing up until now just sort of intimidates me, mostly because of how long any reading of one act would take.

If you think I should, suggest some places to start and a few things to let me know before getting into it.

#homestuck #I’m kinda scared 😅#idk what to expect #long post #stuff i wrote #random #pesterquest #hiveswap

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irregodless · 7 years ago

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its only like a dollar but heres a review anyway if youre not sure if you want it

so lets review. 38 trolls in total, counting the trolls who come in twos. assuming these trolls are released as individuals for their friendsims, that makes a total of 38 trolls. which makes 19 sims at MOST, otherwise, 18, so either way a full experience for roughly 20 dollars

thoughts:

the art is not bad. ardata’s was better than diemen’s frankly. diemen had a lot of squiggly imperfect lines. most of the backgrounds seem like subgrub caps from the game, but some seem to be unique.

im not good with music so i cant tell how much of it is original and what comes from hiveswap, honestly i couldnt even tell just by memory if the two even had different music. but it wasnt bad.

the writing isnt bad either. it’s very andrew hussie. and where hiveswap felt in its first act like it was going to be very soft and easy, friendsim has that good old dark alternian culture going on. there was one major typo near the beginning and they forgot to highlight one of diemen’s hotdog synonyms like they did for all the others. i know a lot of work goes into making these (music, art, writing, coding, etc) but when the main deal of the work is that its a written and read experience and there are typos (granted only the 2 i noticed) its really disappointing. but not enough to ruin any hope for it

related to that each troll (or should i say both for now) has 3 routes, as expected. there is a “good” end, a “bad” end and an instant loss. the instant loss, for these two, occurs literally within the first interaction and ends, literally, with the character saying “never speak to me again” and leaving. for ardata, her bad end and instant loss were the EXACT SAME with the exact same end screen and name. diemen had three individual endings, even though one of them was just him saying “never speak to me again.” the ending screens are kinda poorly drawn like jailbreak era art, but isnt MEANT to be spectacular. i think considering the entire focus of the game was story and art the sprites could have been higher quality, but i wont harp on it too much

there are not many options. in fact, theres only roughly four. the first which determines whether or not youll fail immediately or progress, and then two decisions that determine if you go to the good or bad route. (ardata had a fifth option but it was only one single option you HAD to choose and might as well have not been an option anyway.)

gameplay for me, lasted roughly an hour, maybe about ten-fifteen minutes under. worldbuilding was not enormous, and theyre still kind of banking on non-homestucks playing it by lightly explaining the hemospectrum and lusii (though to be fair, our character isnt a troll so its fair pc wouldnt know these things immediately. its my hope that depending on framing for future installments that these obligatory pleasantries, but considering theyve made it in a way where you can only buy the ones you WANT to play, i doubt it will play out as a linear story and itll be the same scenario but with different options. i kind of hope once theyre all released theyll condense it into a singular set of options or something i guess

a dollar per hour of gameplay really isnt that promising, but its possible future trolls will have more complex stories which involve either more routes, options, or story.

so, under the assumption the soleils and folkyl and kuprum are their own characters, we have 38 trolls. 19 possible games. 3 routes per troll (including an immediate failure). summing at 114 total routes for 18.81 dollars (might as well say 20)

its........ fun. i guess. i like learning about the new trolls. and its certainly cheap. but if you really just cant pay a collective 20 dollars +about 10 or 15 for individual hiveswap games, id recommend just checking out a lets play of it

if nobody does one id even consider doing one myself for people who are curious or dont want to spend their money on it if there was a demand for such a thing

overall grade: A Repetitively “Not Bad” Experience (That Will Hopefully Get Better With Consecutive Releases).

EDIT: i forgot to put this in but also diemens route is really creepy and like. pedophilic. dealing with trolls is kind of hard in this respect but knowing everyone on the planet is a kid and theres like awkward moments between pc and him just makes it........... erh. maybe im too old, maybe its aimed for people 17 and under. maybe diemens just especially pushy as a person since ardata wasnt quite like that. i dont know. i just didnt like it. it was uncomfortable.

#friendsim #liberal use of apostrophes #id lp it if there were a demand for such a thing as explained at the end

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utopianparadoxist · 7 years ago

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The neverending Page & Knight discourse

I’ll start off with saying that your ideas on the Page and Knight classes are a pretty fresh take, clearly original ideas that draw from a solid foundation in the canon.

From your explanations however, I think that the Knight is the active class, and Page the passive, given that the only direct canon explanation for what the passive/active distinction amounts to is that active classes directly do something with their aspect, and passive classes invite others to do that same thing. The knight herself is still Serving, whereas the page is still inviting others to Serve, regardless of whether they are serving him. Just because Serving seems to imply acting for another person doesn’t mean it’s any different than the Prince who can destroy others (aspect). Both are acting impressing their will on another, the distinction being that one is trying to help, the other is most likely hurting.

However, I can’t say I’m convinced on Serve being the primary verb for the pair. This debate is a old as the classes themselves, yet we still find ourselves here. Serve is good, and you’ve found evidence for it, but I say it’s not Enough.

From my own theory crafting experience, I’ve cycled through most of the different words thought of as being the Key Verb. Be it Exploit (which really works for Dave’s time looping powers, and to a lesser extent Karkats victory over Clover) Wield or Use (which I then extrapolated to mean the knight was some sort of item using class, that they had a favored weapon that they could summon, an aspect themed mount, or perhaps a batman like toolbelt that contained a variety of aspect aligned tools that only they are proficient in using, eventually boiling it down to the idea that the Knight can use aspect associated items without any difficulty) as well as Protect (the knights armor is such a sound power concept). The most clear non HS example I could think of was Guts from Berserk, who is the Knight of Rage (though anyone with the Brand becomes an Heir of Doom). Guts’ dragonslayer sword is described as being more a slab of iron than a blade, basically the thing is way to big for a human, he was Wielding a Contrivance. That, and he eventually obtains the berserker armor, which protects him with his rage (protect being a strong word here, but it let’s him keep going). The Page I’ve described as the sidekick, the one who puts Armor on other people, who brings them their weapon, or car keys, given the knights penchant for having a mount. Anthy himemiyas ability to pull a sword out of her or others chest seems on surface level to be a obvious page move (Another time I’d like to discuss with you whether or not Anthy was a Page, or if the swords were complete powers in of themselves, metaphorically far more than swords, making her a Muse. But I digress)

I’m Making/playing a Sburb tabletop game with some of my friends, and the Knight of Doom has never been satisfied with his powers, and I have changed them over and over again to no avail, which Is why I have looked at the knight through so many lenses.

The most recent idea I’ve had for the Knight is something I’ve not seen touched on. When I asked my Rogue of Mind to describe what a knight traditionally is, he gave me a simplistic, shounen answer of how knights go around challenging others for the honor of their lord, and to test their mettle. I thought it was silly, until I realized the Knights in canon all did that in some form. Knights seem to challenge others to a competition related to their aspect. Dave regularly got into Rap Battles with the trolls, as well as Ironic oneupsmanship games. Karkat incessantly Argued with people, especially over Relationships and Team related things. And latula played video games I guess. The same thing is also present in the pages, to a lesser extent. Tavros was an avid fiduspawn player. Jake physically fought the dirkbots, while also playing romantic games with the alphas (while relationships are Blood, and your preferences are Heart, I give Eridan and Jake as examples that Unrequited Feelings are Hopes domain). I’ve got nothing for Horuss, which maybe is part of it? I’ve struggled with whether to call this Fight or Compete. It’s pretty obvious once you look back at it, but it still leaves questions; how do we find a word that includes the concept of Protect, Wield, Exploit, Use, Serve and Fight? They all have grounds in the canon, and all of the classes have to have one Key Verb to them. So what is it?

Also, should you find this all interesting, Check out the game I am developing, SKRUB: a Tabletop Creation Myth, a pen and paper role-playing game made to give players a complete Sburb experience.

so shit kinda hit the fan for me and i am mostly cleanin up and getting ready for some announcements, so im gonna keep this pretty short, i just wanna knock a bunch of asks out of the way:

1) once i like, can, i’d love to talk about Anthy. I’ve been reading her as a Witch or a Muse depending on my mood--I don’t really think she’s a Page at all, though I can see how you’d think so if you read them as Passive. On which point,

given that the only direct canon explanation for what the passive/active distinction amounts to is that active classes directly do something with their aspect, and passive classes invite others to do that same thing.

That’s not true? That isn’t the description of Passive classes, for starters. Passive classes invite the Aspect Itself to act through them, or invite Y action onto the Aspect. That can include influencing others, but it also includes simply acting as a channel for the “will of the Aspect” itself.

Calliope gives us the “For themselves” vs. “For others” definition seperately, but I don’t really see a reason to single that one out as Class-specific while not doing so for the description she gives for Prince/Bard. And all classes employ both “exploit” and “allow” behaviors at various times.

Hence why I think understanding the classes is easier when you parse whether they tend to benefit themselves or others.

Protect, Wield, Exploit, Use, Serve and Fight They all have grounds in the canon, and all of the classes have to have one Key Verb to them. So what is it?

It’s Serve. Hiveswap makes me even more certain, since it’s way less subtle. For starters, I don’t really think Wield, Exploit and Use make sense as Knight/Page verbs.

Eridan, Vriska, Roxy, Rose, and countless others can be said to “Wield” their aspect like a weapon through items--the dice, roxy’s cubes, eridan and rose’s wands, etc. Rose can easily be said to be “using” Light when she uses the cueball Scratch gives her. And “Exploit” is basically synonymous with the idea of “using” one’s aspect directly, as Active classes are said to do.

There’s way more examples than I can even count, but basically I think all of those verbs are too general. As for Protect, it falls under the Serve verb under the idea of “Service”, which can mean to help someone or to literally be in their service. Redglare is referenced as a civil servant in allegiance to the Subjugglators, for example.

Help is a concept strongly associated with Knights and Pages, and often in terms of providing protection. Jake “invites” Dirk to give him Heart through the form of a bodyguard doppleganger that is referenced as a butler, and the Brobot later literally Serves Jake his heart like a butler offering it up on a platter--giving it to him, which falls under the second definition of Serve.

The “Fight” verb also falls into Serve as it’s third interpretation, because to Serve someone can also mean to own them completely or kick their ass--Caliborn directly references this definition. “You got Served”, etc.

This, by the way, is a big reason I think Knights are Passive and Pages Active. Knights are invested in working hard to protect and Serve others, while Pages are more inclined to get others to Serve them--and that can be contentious on both ends given the “fight” association, but at their respective bests Knights are still predominantly working for the benefit of other people, while Pages are rallying others to work for their own benefit.

RE: The tabletop game, i’ve been interested in tabletop sburb potential for years, so I’d def love to check it out! could you drop me a link?

#submission #Knight/Page #Butlerwarrior #analysis asks #long post

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