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insomniamamma · 2 months ago

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The One That I Call Baby: Marcus Pike x F!reader

A/N: I have no excuse for this. Peri menopause is fucking wild y'all. I got hit by the horny meteor. And who better to explore something you're not sure of with Marcus Pike?

Warnings: Reader is old enough to be divorced. Reader has a shitty ex. Reader has limited sexual experience. Implied infertility. Shame surrounding sex. Look. My period hit like a freight train and I'm making it everyone else's problem. Face fucking. Blowjob. Toys. Soft!Dom Marcus needs his own warning. Egregious use of Baby as a nickname.

“You checked my search history!” You feel your ears and cheeks going hot. You wish with your whole heart you had a nuclear bunker to crawl into, or maybe a way to launch yourself into the sun.

“You fell asleep with your laptop open,” says Marcus. You can barely glance at him because you know what you’ll see. No judgement, just him, those warm eyes that peer into yours, that see right down to the roots of you.

“You weren’t supposed to see-“ you laugh and it comes out high and strangled, “You’re not even supposed to— your flight-“

“There was an empty seat,” he says, “I wanted to get home to you, Baby.” And you melt. As you always do. The first time Marcus called you Baby you’d almost laughed in his face, sharp retort crawling up your throat and then you’d seen his eyes. Childless and divorced, you were nobody’s baby, but the way he looked at you, the way his hand slid soft along your side to rest on your hip, the feather-light brush of his knuckles against the curve of your cheek, Baby, can I kiss you? And you answered the only way you could.

“Is this something you would like to try?” He asks and you nod, embarrassed. Only ever been with your ex before Marcus, and his idea of foreplay was to kiss you and paw at your tits and then rut his way inside. His idea of changing things up in the bedroom was doggy instead of missionary. Made you feel like sex was a mechanical necessity, a way to get a baby out of things and nothing more. Did the bare minimum to get you wet enough for him to jam himself in there. “Use your words, Baby.” And he watches you mull it over, watches you worry at your lip, and when your eyes flick up to his and you say yeah, it fills him with equal parts pride and melancholy. Grief that you were ever so ashamed of your own desires and your lack of experience (rage at the absolute piece of shit who made you feel this way) pride at how far you’ve come, how safe you feel with him now, and a tinge of sadness about how even the mildest of fantasies cause you such consternation. “Yeah. It just—it was really hot.”

“Suck it,” he murmurs, presses the dildo to your lips. You lay on your shared bed and he stands beside you, cock tenting his boxers. There’s comfort in knowing that he’s as turned on as you. “That’s right. Take it real deep.”

You whimper around the intrusion, slow shallow thrust between your lips, his other hand stroking feather light over your panties, “Show me how you’re gonna suck me. Show me you want it.” Shoves deep into your throat and you buck against his fingers, cry out against the silicone and he draws it slow from your mouth, little teasing movements. "You like this,” says Marcus, traces the silicone cock over your collarbones and across your aching nipples, and when your mouth falls open in a soft cry he pushes his fingers in, salt of his skin on your tongue. “There you go. You need something in that mouth, don’t you, Baby?” Presses the spit-slimed dildo into you, sinks it deep and you whimper. “That won’t do at all, will it?” Thrusts his fingers in and out of your mouth, mirroring the movement of the fake cock inside you, his other hand grabs yours and guides you to the toy’s flared base.

Marcus takes himself out, grips the back of your head, and slides himself shallow in your waiting mouth and then withdraws, smearing his leaking head over your lips, draws back when you chase him “-please!” “Please, what?” “Marcus-“ “Words, Baby, you need me? You need me to fuck that pretty mouth while you get yourself off?” Teases your lips with the rough pad of his thumb. “Yes.” “Say it.” “Need your cock in my mouth,” “Good girl.” Slides himself into you, salt of pre cum on your tongue, fills you, soft, velvet skin sliding against your lips, but when try to you draw back he doesn’t let you, grips the back of your head and pushes himself deep, filing your mouth, pushing against the back of your throat, remember the signal, he murmurs, and then snaps his hips and you can’t breathe, so full of him, nose pressed into his wiry curls.

“Keep fucking yourself. Did I say you could stop?” And you can breathe again, stuttered sob as he pinches a nipple between his fingers. “So pretty like this. So good for me. You can take it even deeper. I know you can.”

Your body burns, you nipples throb like embers, soft involuntary cries around Marcus’s cock as the thrusts into your mouth, shallow and teasing and then so deep you lose your breath, pinned like a bug as he rocks rocks rocks into you, bright edged spots dancing behind your eyes, and his hand folds over yours, pushing the toy deeper into you, matching the rhythm of his cock in your mouth. You keen, muffled cries around him, need like a coiled spring in your belly, wound ever tighter. “Come for me, Baby,” he says, “Come with my cock in your mouth.” Purr of his voice tips you over the edge and you arch hard against him, even as he spills down your throat, scream around him, voice muffled my him, breath constrained by him. You come. Hard. Pinned. Writhing. And then he’s withdrawing, pulls his softening cock from your mouth, and the toy from your weakly fluttering cunt, feel wetness slip warm from you, and that old embarrassment tries to creep in but he’s there, Marcus is right there, gathering you into his arms, kissing your wanting mouth, dipping his tongue between your trembling lips, soft and languid and unhurried, kisses the crown of your head.

“Pretty Baby,” he speaks into your sweaty hair, cups the back of your head in his warm palm and tucks you into the hollow of his shoulder, “You did so well for me.” And you prickle with a mix of shame and pride.

The rise and fall of his chest, calloused fingers tracing over the curves of your arms, the planes of your shoulders, his breath in your hair lulls you. “Marcus?” “Hmmm?” “I like when you call me Baby. Makes me feel safe. I don’t know why.” His arms tighten around you. “You’re always safe with me. Always.

#marcus pike #marcus pike x f!reader #yeeting this into the void and running away #soft!dom! marcus pike #marcus pike smut #don't look at me

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hypostatic-oath · 1 year ago

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I'm so happy you like my ask (this is long overdue).

I bet that the people of Fontaine are very happy because i have been doing nothing but hanging out with the Melusine instead of doing the archon quest(though that will eventually come to an end soon). I also bet that new laws/regulations are being proposed because the amount of wacky stuffs the Traveler and their companions is up to all the time. Imagine you just joined the Traveler's team and your first experience is watching a forest watcher beat up some of Fontaine's local legends lmao (and after your recent post, Childe is seething if he learned of this).

Can i be 🚬 anon?(unless you don't do that here)

Named anons? On my blog? Omg I feel honored - of course you can be 🚬 anon! Welcome :D

New laws being proposed because of the traveler is amazing. It has the same vibe as that gliding law in Mondstadt about taking off using anemo slimes (yes, it works, no, it is not very useful as far as I know. I don't even remember if you get an achievement), because you KNOW there's a story behind it, someone must have tried it and it must've gone very, very wrong, and the wacky circumstances that lead to the creation of new laws would be hilarious to witness.

However, on a more serious note, Wriothesley and Neuvillette would be grappling with the issue of teleportation - how do you arrest someone who can simply just... leave? It doesn't matter how secure a prison is if a bored entity can just take control of one of the prisoners and whisk them away on a whim? Worse yet, since Wriothesley is officially a Vessel, what would happen if an Overseer decided to take control of him and sign official pardons? New rules in the Fortress of Meropide have been implemented - any orders given by the Duke while he is on the team are automatically overruled unless it can be proven that he is acting of his own accord.

I can only imagine how confusing it feels for the newcomers to suddenly join the team and find themselves in the kind of situations the Traveler faces daily... and for the onlookers, of course. "Oh, I wonder who that newcomer is... such a distingushed gentleman, perhaps he's here on business?" "Guys, not to scare you or anything, but that 'distinguished gentleman' dropped a meteor on a crab." "Oh, yes, that huge crab in the-" "No. A regular crab. On the smaller side, even. He just threw a huge meteor at it - didn't even bat an eye. The crab practically disintegrated." "What the hell."

And for those that don't know their teammates - any of the knights of Favonius being placed on a team with Klee know exactly what she's capable of, but someone less familiar with her is about to be shocked. "What in Celestia's name is the Overseer thinking? This is a child, she'll get hu- oh. Oh no."

On the other hand, imagine being a nun-turned-idol, looking to the side to check who your teammates are, and there's the Raiden Shogun standing there as if it's no big deal. A little bird lands on her fingers. She watches it with a wistful expression as it flies away. You look to the other side and see the Dendro Archon chatting with that kind but often drunk bard as if they're old friends. You find yourself in what looks like a domain but soon realise, with no small amount of dread, that you're in the Abyss. At least you have two Archons beside you... Barbatos help you, the challenge has started and there are more monsters than you thought. You're doing your best to keep all your teammates alive - you wouldn't forgive yourself if you were the indirect cause for the fall of a god. So you sing your song and put the hydro circle around your team, but there's just too many enemies, coming from all sides... And then you hear a faint "ehe", and the specters are pulled into a vortex of wind. The Shogun doesn't even need to pull out her signature move, just the swirl reaction the bard has caused is enough. You see him shoot down one of the things with a single Anemo-infused arrow. It dies immediately. He's dealing damage on par with the two Archons on the team. Just what is this bard capable of? Suddenly those rumors about him being Barbatos are starting to seem a little less nonsensical. Surely, it couldn't be true, right? You have half a mind to ask him about it once the four of you exit the Abyss, but as soon as you find yourself outside and able to regain your breath he just gives you a "whoops, gotta go!" and floats away on a wind current you're pretty sure he just created.

Now that I think of it, it'd be fun to imagine how different team dynamics would work - I'll make a separate post for this, but if you've read this far and want to send in asks with your team comps... 👀

#cube.answers #sagau #genshin sagau #self aware genshin au #sagau overseer #🚬 anon

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homestuckreplay · 4 months ago

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Today Is A Gift, That’s Why They Call It The Present: Who Is Jade Harley?

Character Deep Dive 4 – 11/26/2009

Jade Harley, the silliest and most unknowable of Homestuck characters. Jade’s first pesterlog appearance was way back on page 110, and her existence and involvement in forces beyond our real world comprehension has been teased ever since – but it took hundreds of pages and months of real time waiting for Jade to finally become a point of view character. Just like with Rose and Dave, what we learn from Jade’s pesterlogs isn’t a complete picture of who she is. Jade is excitable, bubbly and supportive in her conversations, aware that she’s seen as mysterious and working to cultivate that. As a point of view character it’s harder for Jade to maintain her own mystery, and we see a fuller spectrum of her emotions, as well as a picture of her day to day life. In many ways Jade’s life is easier than her friends’, but she has a few of her own challenges.

Organized by the list of Jade’s interests given on page 789, here’s a discussion of what we learn about Jade during the early part of act 3. It's about 5k words below the cut and only covers up to page 916 of Homestuck.

1 - You are an avid follower of CARTOON SHOWS OF CONSIDERABLE NOSTALGIC APPEAL.

Jade doesn’t spend a lot of time on this interest, but she surrounds herself in it by falling into her plushy pile before she uses her computer. She has posters on her walls for Squiddles and Green Slime Ghost, both of which were invented internally to Homestuck, unlike John whose bedroom posters are all for real world media. Jade also has a large number of Squiddle ‘Tangle Buddies’, and a squiddle and (blue) slime ghost are symbol options for her shirt.

Owning so much merchandise, Jade clearly isn’t embarrassed by this interest. As Rose’s shirt is a doctored Squiddle, Rose may have previously shared this interest, but moved on from it – Jade describes these shows as ‘nostalgic’ on both page 789 and 790, so she’s trying to hold onto these articles of her youth. They also give the sense of an eclectic taste; as they’re unfamiliar to the reader and no wider fandom is established for them, they feel like cartoons found only on budget TV channels or dusty corners of the internet. MS Paint Adventures being the only modern media we see her consume only enhances this.

Jade’s nostalgic media extends beyond board games, as her fetch modus options are common childhood board games. As well as retaining these childlike interests and playfulness, Jade is described by the narrative as ‘silly’ – a silly girl with silly antics and a silly name (p.760), a silly flute refrain (p.769), an awfully silly idea (p.774), and a silly girl with silly fortune telling knickknacks (p.802). As well as setting up a contrast between Dave (regularly described as ‘cool’, which by some logic is an antonym of ‘silly’), this feels like it diminishes her importance, casting her actions as entertaining but ultimately meaningless. Between pages 838 and 860, the story flips back and forth between the peril of Rose’s imminent meteors, and Jade whose only goal is to feed her pet.

There’s a surface impression that life is easy for Jade. She has a large, comfortable house, a sylladex she’s confident with, a guardian who she doesn’t hate and isn’t outright cruel, toys, space, safety from danger, mastery over all her own hobbies. From day one, John had to struggle with sylladex mechanics and retrieving his own arms, but Jade is unaffected even by the inconvenience of stairs, and is later shown as having more knowledge than the player. It almost feels like she’s spoiled by the narrator with this easier existence, which isn’t necessarily good for her, just like being spoiled by a parent might not be good for a kid. Ultimately, if there’s no sense that Jade needs to learn or overcome anything, she becomes less compelling – so I’m invested in noticing where she has room for growth.

2 - You have a profound zeal for marvelous and fantastical FAUNA OF AN ANTHROPOMORPHOLOGICAL PERSUASION.

In addition to her cartoon show posters, Jade has two pieces of furry art on her walls, plus a picture of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff as furries. This of course was a gift from Dave, the friend Jade sometimes discusses her furry tendencies with. These plus her FurAffinity account show an enjoyment of the furry aesthetic, but her relationship with being a furry is complicated, and something she adopts far less uncritically than her other interests.

Jade insists that she does not have a fursuit as they are ‘raggedy synthetic tufty piece[s] of crap’ and that dressing up like an animal ‘seems ridiculous’ (p.802). We don’t learn whether Jade has made a fursona or makes furry art of her own (vampireprincess007, the FurAffinity account Jade is looking at on page 834, doesn’t seem like a username she’d pick), but we get a sense of the ways Jade distances herself from the furry community. She thinks of combining the ‘finest qualities’ of humans and animals, wishing for ears and a ‘proud snout’ to ‘assist… in the hunt’. She also seeks a ‘more visceral sapience’ that is ‘untouched by the concerns and burdens of the upright’ (p.797). When she imagines being an animal, she wants to ‘run wild’ or ‘purr and frolic’ (p.802).

Jade collects Manthro Chaps, dolls with assortments of human and animal body parts who may have hands and flippers, snouts and mustaches. They have human names and attend events such as balls, need vaccinations, and take care of bodily needs in animalistic ways. Much like Jade’s desire for animal senses and experiences, Jade’s Manthro Chaps are a true physical merging of the human and animal. Jade does not want to wear the trappings of an animal if she can’t also have that biological change, and if she can’t develop that instinctive behavior of eating bugs, hunting, and losing the language and inhibitions of human existence.

Jade has a pet named Becquerel who is also her ‘best friend’ (p.791), and while we don’t know his species, it’s possible that spending so much time with him has fed into the desire to live like him. He also may not be a regular animal – both Dave and the narrator refer to him as a ‘devilbeast’ (p.382, 800) and he eats his steak not just well cooked, but irradiated. This could also be why her rifle’s ‘cross-hairs would never settle on an innocent creature’ (p.790). Jade is likely an animal lover in general, as she has this deep and considered understanding of how it must feel to be a different creature, and is very in touch with the natural world.

3 - You have an uncanny knack for NUCLEAR PHYSICS, and not infrequently can be found dabbling in RATHER ADVANCED GADGETRY.

Jade’s forays into gadgetry are all over her room, and she’s downplaying her own skill with ‘rather’. So far we know about Jade’s Wardrobifier, Atomic/Electic Bass with portable amp, Sonar boxes transmitting her music into the atrium, Cookalizer, Refrigerator, and Lunchtop. Her house also has several Transportalizers, although their designer is unknown. Jade’s orb and spire bed, the atomic cabinet beneath her room, the strange flat window device whose design she borrowed from her grandfather, and a host of other objects on her gadgets table are unknowns but it’s clear that just like Rose with her knitting, Jade is prolific, dedicated and puts a lot of time into her hobby.

Jade doesn’t feel constrained in the design of her technology. Sometimes she uses squares and cubes like those in the Skaianet labs, sometimes she’ll play on common designs by giving a refrigerator a rotary interface or adding extra heat settings to a cookalizer, and sometimes she’ll invent something with no relation to existing tech. Jade hits all the design notes – smooth and sleek vs greebled, futuristic vs retro vs encased in a lunchbox – so she’s willing to try different things.

We learn that for Jade, ‘experimentation is not a particularly exact science, and [she] lean[s] heavily on SHARP INTUITION for consistently and eerily optimal results’ (p.790), so she’s basically living the scientist’s dream of fucking around without having to find out. It’s a lot easier to take risks and experiment with an intuition that guarantees success. To what extent does Jade understand the theoretical principles of nuclear physics? When she can’t get something to work, like right now with the window device, what’s her troubleshooting process like? Is she used to working through this emotionally? Jade did claim to have worked on a present for John ‘for years!!!!’ (p.442) so I think that even if Jade has an intuitive understanding of design, she still has to do the work to put these gadgets together, which can be time consuming and technically difficult.

Jade’s interest in gadgetry is tied to an interest in music. Like her friends she is highly proficient in an instrument, but Jade’s is ‘heavily customized to accommodate a high level of musical virtuosity’ (p.821) – its ‘advanced setting’ has two sets of strings and three keyboards, which Jade can apparently handle from a musical perspective. I think this is something she’s worked at, because when she attempts to play the flute, the narration comments, ‘Maybe you should try playing an instrument you actually know how to play instead’ (p.770). If Jade’s music was entirely based on her intuition, picking up the flute would be easy. She’s also limited by her own physical form; the advanced bass cannot be played ‘in person’ (p.821), so only having two arms and five foot something of height feels like a bigger limitation in this hobby than her brain.

Despite being generally competent with technology, Jade is surprised by its misuse, shocked and angry when carcinoGeneticist trolls her despite her blocking them and logging out. Jade is not a gamer, knowing Sburb by reputation but not by name, and saying that John and Dave are ‘way more into all that stuff than i am!!!!’ (p.442), and therefore she’s not immersed in the gamer culture that leads to cruel online behavior. It’s nice to think that Jade, despite being an internet user, has escaped the cynicism and hatred that is common online and has found positive spaces for herself.

Jade is a proficient sylladex user, easily mastering technologies she didn’t make too. While John struggles with remembering how many cards he has free, Rose doesn’t realize she can pull the leave instead of the root, and Dave has to use Y as a consonant to get the hash map to work, Jade is educating the player on correct sylladex management and can perfectly guess the memory modus on the first try. But this has limitations, too. Jade captchalogues a pumpkin on page 778 and by page 785 it’s vanished, so Jade’s sylladex isn’t a safe storage place. In fact, her house is a hotspot for other people’s strange technology as well as her own, which I’ll discuss more later. Additionally, there are some problems that Jade can’t solve with technology. Any issues with her grandfather, for example, or with her remote location. Jade sends a parcel several months before its delivery date (p.442) and receives mail via hot air balloon (p.822) but for some reason has never invented a disappearifier that could instantly take her to a friend’s house. Despite her many talents, she remains stuck at home.

4 - You enjoy sporadic fits of NARCOLEPSY;

Jade is sleeping when we first meet her, so this is technically the first interest we see her engaging in. And the word ‘enjoy’ is crucial here. Most people do not enjoy their medical conditions, and regularly, uncontrollably dropping off to sleep can cause serious problems, but Jade treats this like many intentional nappers do, slumbering ‘peacefully’ such that it’s ‘a shame to wake her’ (p.760).

Jade doesn’t know the details of her condition. When she wakes, it’s sudden and ‘as usual, [she] ha[s] no recollection of having falling asleep’ (p.768) and in a conversation with Dave, he asks ‘do you even know if you are [asleep]’ (p.829). Jade is driven by impulse and intuition, and doesn’t question those impulses much. In a more extreme example, she doesn’t question her sudden falling asleep in inconvenient circumstances, but figures out how to work around it.

When John takes a rooftop nap between battles, Jade’s silhouette appears in his dreams (p.644) and when he wakes, she tells him ‘i really think you need to wake up first!… not literally, well ok maybe KINDA literally!!’ Jade’s connection to sleep goes beyond her narcolepsy, and she places importance on sleeping, waking, and possibly the balance between the two. Jade is defined by her faith in a higher power, so she probably trusts this same power with deciding when she should move between sleeping and waking. It’s also likely that Jade’s orb and spire bed has something to do with this interest.

It’s not possible for Jade to be woken with the player’s cursor (p.762) but it is possible to both put her to sleep and wake her up while she’s playing the flute (p.769) by pressing the Z key – which highlights how quickly she sleeps and wakes, because any other button has her bouncing right back up.

Sleep is crucial for health and relaxation; gardening and gadgetry both involve some manual labor, and Jade valuing sleep ties in with her enjoyment of nostalgic television, lying down in a pile of dolls, and carrying fresh fruits and vegetables. Despite her exterior silliness and forgetfulness, there’s a strong sense that Jade has internalized her grandfather’s lectures, and knows how to take care of herself and her pet – she cares about health and safety, and even though she programmed an ‘explosion’ setting on her cookalizer, she refuses to use it. Having such state of the art technology helps with taking care of herself, but it still takes work, and by cooking steak for Bec Jade is the only kid who’s helping with personal and household maintenance. So, Jade’s enjoyment of sleep stands in for a more general understanding of daily necessities.

5 - your love of GARDENING transcends the glass confines of your ATRIUM;

Long foreshadowed by her chumhandle, when we caught our first glimpse of Jade on page 665, she was already surrounded by her plants. Jade grows a variety of fruits, flowers and vegetables, and doesn’t have much concern for their typical growth conditions. Peas, for example, grow best in a cooler climate, while squash likes it hot and humid, but Jade has these next to each other. Jade’s vegetables are best suited for temperate climates while her citrus fruits prefer things more tropical. Some quirk of Jade’s atrium or gardening methods means she doesn’t have to worry about this.

Gardening is another hobby Jade has tied to her gadgetry. When Jade plays her bass, it transmits sonar into her garden atrium, causing the plants to grow rapidly. It’s possible that these speakers are amplifiers for Skaian technology, and turn Jade’s house into a beacon, and a target for appearifying pumpkins. Some of Jade’s plants are ordinary, but her fruits have faces and are able to bounce around on the table (p.812). This is uncommon for us, but to Jade these are just regular fruits. This could be another effect of the sonar, or more generally, of the environmental conditions on the island. We know that volcanic activity creates a geothermal power source on Jade’s island (p.801) and can guess that mystic activity surrounding the frog statue creates a similar Skaian power source. And that places her as the (0,0) coordinate that all Skaian technology gravitates towards, and is maybe even the ‘default location’ for technology such as appearifiers.

Jade has plants in her bedroom, but she also has a large, four-wing garden atrium dedicated to this passion (p.780). It’s another big difference between Jade and the other kids that Jade’s interests are allowed to spill outside of her room. Her grandfather does control the aesthetic of most of the house, but giving Jade the garden atrium leads to a slightly more balanced relationship between the two.

Gardening as a hobby is something that requires regular input, something where results can’t always be seen right away, something imprecise as it involves living things that will behave surprisingly, something very messy, and something historic, engaged in by humans for millennia. Much like sleep, it links to the idea of routine, as plants often need watering on a set schedule. Plants are a way of providing food; especially on a tiny island where packages take months to deliver, Jade’s gardening must play a big part in keeping her healthy and alive, so again this ties into Jade’s responsibility for herself. Jade won’t hunt animals so this is her way of being a provider.

Jade is also connected to the messier, more unpleasant sides of nature. The player temporarily names her ‘Farmstink’, she will happily ‘squeal like a piglet and fertilize some plants’ (p.775), she’s delighted by the Manthro Chaps with their slop troughs, and she cares for a pet, which is always messy business. Clearly Jade isn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty, and understands the messy realities of giving life.

6 - and you are at times prone to patterns of PRECOGNITIVE PROGNOSTICATION.

Seemingly affecting all aspects of her day to day existence, Jade has spent her whole life tapped into a source of esoteric knowledge. Broadly, this gives her the ability to know certain events in the future, intuitively understand various games and technology, and possibly to understand the fourth wall and her place within a story. This ‘interest’ in prognostication is really more of an uncontrollable habit, and subsumes all Jade’s other interests, as it alters the experience of them so much.

Jade dispenses knowledge to her friends through pesterlogs, with varying levels of specificity. Jade has clearly given Rose a lot of information on their upcoming Sburb session – the fact that John and Rose begin play first, that it will happen on April 13, 2009, and that the game has the potential to revive the dead – and Rose describes her predictions as ‘frighteningly accurate’ (p.838). So she’s very honest with Rose, but maybe less so with John, as she gives him a vague ‘maybe this is your destiny’ (p.293) and asks him if he’s received a package when she knows he hasn’t. So not only does Jade have knowledge her friends don’t, but she’s careful about when to share it and with who.

Currently a lot of Jade’s visions involve gifts, which is funny because they don’t only relate to the present. In a flashback, Jade asks Rose about a different package, but gives Rose a future tip instead of sending her something – sharing her gift (as in talent) in place of a gift (as in present). Jade uses colorful reminders on her fingers to remember her own predictions, which is another limitation on her powers – predicting the future is great but it’s important to remember what’s been predicted, at the time it will be relevant. If Jade lost these reminders somehow, she might struggle to make sense of her predictions.

Jade’s visions appear specific in their timing and detail – at the end of conversations, Jade tells other people when they have to go, and sometimes tells them the reason (p.652, 838) although it’s uncertain whether she makes these predictions in advance or in the moment. Jade doesn’t only know that her friends will play Sburb, she also knows that Rose will lose her internet connection and that John will battle a pair of ogres – minutiae that are only available to the reader. And her predictions can understand people’s interiority, they’re not just visions from an outside observer - ‘you will have your questions answered, but they will be the ones you havent thought to ask yet!’ (p.838). Ignoring in-universe time, Jade’s predictions get more specific as the narrative progresses, so there’s a sense that she always knows slightly more than the reader or player and is staying one step ahead (even though this can be best explained by the author crystallizing their plans as they continue writing).

However, Jade’s predictions feel largely passive, always phrased like an unconscious understanding. She is a conduit for information, but there’s no sense that she could ‘choose’ to know the answer to a specific question, especially as she doesn’t know how these powers work. So if Skaia wanted to hide something from Jade or was itself incapable of knowing something, that would place another limitation on her abilities. We may have already seen this with the window device that Jade can’t get to work, despite gadgetry usually coming so easily to her.

Jade previously had an oracle’s trunk, but is slowly turning it into a gadget chest, as its contents were ‘completely bogus’ (p.802) – a crystal ball, velvet pillow, tarot deck, magic 8 ball, magic cue ball, and copy of Problem Sooth, mostly standard equipment for somebody interested in the occult. Jade dismisses the magic 8 ball as she has tested it against her own knowledge, but she is still superstitious about breaking it, suggesting a more general belief in supernatural powers, even while she sees them as inferior to her own.

Jade presents herself as all knowing, but she’s not sure why things keep appearing and disappearing around her atrium, she’s not sure why she falls asleep and importantly, she imagines John as ‘undoubtedly gallivanting around his house in a state of barely restrained birthday mirth’ (p.827) – so Jade’s knowledge is sometimes incomplete, sometimes inaccurate. But Jade turning her fortune telling chest into a gadgets chest shows that she sees her predictions scientifically, as more akin to understanding radiation or the atom than to tarot readings or horoscopes, without acknowledging the uncertainties that are still present in hard science. In fact, the way Jade talks about occult paraphernalia and fursuits are fairly similar. She is, or wants, the ‘real deal’ of everything, and doesn’t have time for what she sees as cheap imitations.

I believe that Skaian power breaks down the barriers between technology and reality, allowing creations such as Jade’s lunchtop, but also allowing Jade to see the fourth wall between herself and the readers’ computers. When we first meet Jade, she’s holding a note directed to the player, slightly offended that she will be/has been named Farmstink Buttlass (fair enough). Jade addresses the player directly during the ill-advised sylladex escapade where she gives a non-seer a chance to play the memory modus. She’s the first kid to refer directly to the author of the in-universe MS Paint Adventures - ‘looks like he was just finishing up some sort of weird tangential intermission’ (p.831), the ‘he’ presumably being Andrew Hussie. And Jade gains a sudden awareness that 413 years in the future while flying over the Pacific, the Peregrine Mendicant is asking ‘Don’t I know you?’ (p.900). Part of Jade’s prognostication involves knowing about all these different forces that are surveilling and controlling her, and being able to talk back. Jade is prepared to assert her dominance, whether that’s about knowing her sylladex better than the player does or frying PM’s command station with lightning because she doesn’t like being mind controlled. In this way Jade is more than a passive recipient of knowledge, she’s willing to look at the source of that knowledge and hold her own. Right now Jade feels like the most likely character to mess with the narrative itself – if she decides she wants to change something that’s predestined, it’s easy to see her arguing with the author directly.

7 - But you quickly realize this is only one half of your room, and is therefore host to only half of your INTERESTS to choose from.

This line from the end of page 789 is mostly a lie – the following page mostly recaps Jade’s previous interests, only adding her strife specibus and relationship with her grandfather. It is curious how Jade’s interests overflow from the page the same way they overflow from her room, the same way Jade’s introduction isn’t confined to her room and her existence spills out of the narrative. It gives the sense that Jade can’t be constrained by any force we yet know about. That’s a fun feeling – a wild card character makes everything more exciting.

Jade is a ‘skilled markswoman’ (p.790), owning four old fashioned looking guns. Two of these are long rifles for her riflekind specibus, and two are smaller and more portable. One is a hunting rifle, although it’s uncertain what Jade is hunting, as Jade’s ‘cross-hairs would never settle on an innocent creature’. It’s possible that she’s likely to encounter dangerous creatures if she leaves the house, or thinks she might in the future. Target practice is also a physical activity like bass playing or gardening, and one that can’t be taught through prognosticative powers, so it’s possible that Jade has honed this skill to have hobbies that take actual work, practice, and failure.

Although Jade claims to be a ‘great admirer’ of her grandfather’s (p.790), her actual feelings seem more complicated. He’s the person who taught her to hunt and lectures her on leaving the house without a rifle, but they differ ethically, with Jade really disliking the big game trophies he displays around the house. She especially dislikes his Typheus trophy, which he won’t move from the transportalizer even for practicality’s sake. Jade reluctantly supports his valiant knight collection, cannot stand his decrepit mummies, and seems confused by the Daughters of Eclectica, uncertain of why her grandfather likes them so much. Jade also describes her grandpa as ‘a little strict’ (p.772), giving ‘stern lectures’ (p.790), and especially ‘intense’ (p.382, 790, 916).

Like the other kid-guardian relationships, I think there’s a lack of understanding between the generations. Grandpa Harley has only been seen in silhouette, but from his home decoration, his monopolizing the grand foyer, and his apparent job title of an explorer-naturalist-treasure hunter-archaeologist-scientist-adventurer-big game hunter-billionaire, he comes across as someone bragadocious who likes to be surrounded by his own success and is in love with his own mythos, someone who has high expectations for Jade to live up to his own standards, and is controlling but in a hands off way. Needing to display so many of his achievements feels like he’s putting on the same act of coolness as Dave’s bro, but Grandpa cares about what was cool in 1909, not 2009. Jade’s grandpa has traveled a lot and been shaped by many years of adventuring, while Jade has likely never left the island or met many other people, so there’s a gulf in their experiences that’s hard to bridge. Jade can’t know what it’s like to live under the weight of her own history and celebrity, but her grandfather similarly can’t understand growing up in that shadow and in the expectations of eclipsing it.

If Jade is full on, excitable, a prodigy and a polymath, it’s clear who she gets it from. And Jade is maybe 50% between buying into the public image of her grandpa that he’s surely put across in media coverage, and 50% understanding the reality of him as a human being, the way somebody famous and star-studded can also be difficult, inconvenient, and make life harder when interacting on a day to day basis.

Final Thoughts

With a life much harder to relate to than John’s, Rose’s or Dave’s, I’m fascinated by what it’s like in Jade’s mind – to hold knowledge about the past, present and future all at once, to be certain what tomorrow will bring, and to communicate with an entity centuries in the future is a radically different experience to my own, and must really affect how Jade engages with the world. The main characters have gotten progressively weirder as we’ve been introduced to them in turn, but Jade is the only one to feel truly fantastical, guided by her powers as she is.

I can’t think of another piece of media that introduces characters so starkly, with no artifice, just a cleanly presented list of their interests. I love this framework; it paints an immediate picture of where these kids are in their lives as of April 13, 2009, leaving space for these interests to take on greater or lesser roles as the narrative progresses, but still shaping their perspectives and giving them texture from the first moment.

It’s also really interesting seeing the narrative work in introductions for these characters while the main story is still happening, allowing the new character space to explore without grinding the story to a halt. With around 75 consecutive pages, Jade’s introduction is much more leisurely than Rose or Dave’s, as they only had around 25 pages each. Slowly, and in narratively satisfying ways as Jade thinks about or talks to each of her friends, the other characters have been worked back in, turning Act 3 from Jade’s story into an ensemble piece.

As I get further into Homestuck, I’m finding myself with fewer burning questions, and more faith in the story’s method of revealing itself. But here’s the things on my mind as our fourth and final Beta Kid takes her place in the narrative.

What is Jade bad at? What are the skills that don’t come easily to Jade, or the everyday tasks where she struggles and makes mistakes?

Under what circumstances does Jade receive her knowledge, and in what form? Would she still have access to these powers in a different location? Is what Jade knows at all tied to what the player or reader knows?

Does Jade’s grandfather know about Skaia, and is this why he chose to live on this island, or is this coincidence? What exactly are his expectations for her, and what does he lecture her about beyond carrying a rifle and becoming a Daughter of Eclectica?

What does it mean for the narrative when a character knows more than the player? More than the author? How does an author even write a character like that? When does everything start falling apart?

Will these be our four main characters for the rest of the story, with WV and PM as secondary characters? Is this the end of major character introductions? Or are there more to come?

#homestuck #analysis #jade harley #collect the set! ive done all 4!#jade is pretty tough to analyze tbh! rose and dave were WAY easier for me at least #but writing this out definitely brought some insights! and new considerations!#chrono

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multi-fandomdisaster · 3 months ago

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Here you go Soup anon! One order of Paul getting taken over by Pokey/the Hive!

(Word Count: 687)

All eyes were on him. Paul Matthews. Probably the most normal man in Hatchetfield. There was nothing particularly interesting about him, and yet they all watched him with those unnatural blue eyes. The meteor - the presumed “brain” of the Hive - was only a few feet ahead of Paul. This was the end. The “final boss." The atmosphere in the Starlight Theatre felt unnaturally thick, like something foreign was in the air. It made Paul uneasy. And then he heard it.

Music.

It was music in its most perfect form. It was Its music. The Song oozed into his thoughts, coating his mind like a thick coat of slime. It was disgusting, yet...oddly pleasant. It was so tempting...

The Song leapt from his mouth without warning. It was terrifying; like an odd sort of lapse into nothingness for a brief moment. Empty. Relaxing. Horrifying.

“What was that?” he asked.

“You let it out,” the Hive responded.

“Was that a note? 🎶Or just a sound? Am I finally coming 'round to a rhyming scheme?🎶”

Oh God.

Paul wanted it to stop. He felt like he was splitting in half, part of his mind - the sensible, real part of his mind - very adamantly protesting this sudden musical affliction that was taking over him, and the other part that thought that maybe letting it out wouldn’t be so bad...

NO!

The Hive surrounded him, Singing to him, urging him to join - to Let it Out. Paul wasn’t sure if he wanted it to stop or if he wanted to Sing along anymore.

The words left his mouth so effortlessly. Sure, he was still incredibly distressed, but there was a strange soothing feeling that overtook him as he Sang. It wasn’t just the Hive watching him anymore. There was an audience. If he looked beyond the spotlight, he could see a full crowd watching him with a thousand eyes. It was horrible. He couldn’t take this anymore.

Paul fought. And fought and fought and fought with all his might, until he managed to break through the sludge in his thoughts and pull the pin of the grenade in his hand. This was it. He was going to win. It didn’t matter if he had to sacrifice himself to get there. Hatchetfield would be safe. Emma would be safe.

“We will not be resisted!”

Paul looked out to the audience one last time, his own eyes slightly bluer than before, as he let out one last defiant shout.

“I DON’T LIKE MUSICALS!”

And that was the end.

....or maybe not?

Paul didn’t feel the pain he’d felt what had somehow seemed like simultaneously only moments, and yet an eternity before when his body had been partially decimated in the explosion in the Starlight. He blinked. His mind was clear. There was no Song. Just an odd silence.

I have to commend you, Paul. You did put on quite a show.

The Voice surrounded him. Paul should have felt fear, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t feel anything. He was a husk. A puppet ready to be used. A mind glazed over in a newly reformed body.

“Thank you,” Paul simply replied. It...felt...good to be praised.

I think it’s time you finish what We started. She’s waiting for you, you know.

Emma!

For a brief flicker Paul felt again. He wasn’t quite sure what it was that he felt anymore, but it was something. Fear? Excitement? Horror? Relief?

Oh God. He didn’t make it. He sacrificed himself for nothing. Now he was going to be used to get Emma too. Oh god, not her-

And then the Feelings and Thoughts ceased again. Paul was puppet once more, waiting for direction.

The finale is approaching. It’s almost time to take a bow for all of your hard work, Paul.

Paul smiled. Yes. It was the end of the show. The grand finale was growing ever nearer. He would get the girl. Unity would spread throughout the world. He would be a hero. He would be happy. He and Emma would be happy under the Singular Voice. It was Inevitable.

#fanfiction #hatchetfield #hatchetblr #hatchetverse #starkid #tgwdlm #the guy who didn't like musicals #paul matthews #infected paul matthews #pokotho #starkid pokey #pokey starkid

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starryg4rden · 18 days ago

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SBG Slime Rancher AU!!

In this AU, everyone's aged up by a few years just so it makes sense for them to live alone

Also, time is very... vague. This is my silly AU just let me have fun

I don't have designs because, well, it's Slime Rancher. Have a field day they can wear whatever, they're not even on Earth

This post is actually much more detailed than my Twitter thread tbh

And do ask me questions!!! I love to yap

Ashlyn and Aiden are the only ones who have been living on the Far, Far Range their whole lives. Both Ash's parents and Aiden's parents came to the Far, Far Range before having a kid.

Other than them, Ben has been there the longest. Ben was sent to the Far, Far Range to live with Aiden's family after the whole thing with Shane. Ben's parents write to him semi-often.

Logan came next, and has only been on the Far, Far Range for 2-3 years. His parents disappeared mysteriously dw about it. His grandparents were worried at first, but let him go, and they still write to him all the time.

The twins came the most recently, only being there for a few months to a year. In this AU, Ethan is alive and Mariana is well!! Yippee!! They also write to their kids often.

Ashlyn's parents live on Beatrix/Hobson's ranch from the game (and have the same slimes as are from the game, excluding SR2), and it's where Ash grew up, but she lives with Taylor now, because they're married, because I said so. Ash kind of takes Hobson's place here.

Aiden and Ben live at Mochi's Manor, where Aiden's parents have quicksilver slimes.

Everybody else lives on their own ranch (which I just made up with vague ideas of places from the games).

Taylor and Tyler live on a place like Starlight Strand, Taylor's ranch being on the blue side, and Tyler's ranch being on the pink side. The blue side connects to an area like the Moss Blanket, and the pink side connects to an area like the Dry Reef and a beach like the one already on Starlight Strand in the game. Like I said earlier, Ashlyn is living with Taylor.

Logan lives in an area that's basically just the Ancient Ruins and the Glass Desert. His Glass Desert would connect to Ashlyn/Her parents' Glass Desert.

Ashlyn's parents, like I said, have all the normal slimes from SR1, and, again, like I said, Aiden's parents have quicksilver slimes.

The blue side of Starlight Strand (Taylor's side) has: (blue) flutter slimes, tabby slimes, tangle slimes, honey slimes, twin slimes, cotton slimes

The pink side of Starlight Strand (Tyler's side) has: flutter slimes, tabby slimes, tangle slimes, twin slimes, cotton slimes, pink slimes

The Moss Blanket has: (blue) flutter slimes, hunter slimes, tabby slimes, tangle slimes, honey slimes, phosphor slimes, shadow slimes, ringtail slimes, cotton slimes, yolky slimes

The Dry Reef & beach have: dervish slimes, angler slimes, puddle slimes, rock slimes

The Ancient Ruins have: quantum slimes, glitch slimes (Logan didn't make them, the rancher before him did), phosphor slimes, mosaic slimes

The Glass Desert has: quantum slimes, mosaic slimes, sloomber slimes, dervish slimes, crystal slimes, meteor slimes (I don't care if they were never actually added!)

And Ben has a portal to The Wilds! Don't ask why, I just wanted him to.

On their Ranch, of course everyone has the slimes from the areas connected to them, but here's what else they have (from Range Exchange):

Ashlyn & Taylor: puddle & (normal) flutter slimes (Stolen from Ty), mosaic slimes (from Logan), saber slimes (from Ben)

Tyler: hunter slimes (stolen from Tay), boom slimes (from Aiden), meteor slimes (from Logan)

Aiden: rock, boom, rad, & crystal slimes (all from Ash & her parents), fire slimes (from Ash, who found it and thought he'd like it), hunter, tangle, and dervish (from Ty)

Ben: mosaic slimes (from Logan), cotton slimes (from Tay)

Logan: cotton slimes (from Ty), saber slimes (from Ben), yolky slimes (from Tay)

Here's their favorite slimes:

Ashlyn: phosphor

Taylor: tabby

Tyler: twin

Aiden: fire

Ben: cotton

Logan: meteor

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valle-de-sombra-de-muerte · 7 months ago

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Homestuck Reread: Act 4, Part 4/4 (p. 1865-1988)

Read the previous post here.

Oh boy it's the final stretch for this Act. I want to take a moment to express my appreciation for all the new followers I've gained over the course of this reread. I have 60 now, which is incredible. Thank you all!

With that said, this post will contain some... sticky subject matter. I wonder how many of you will choose to dip after this.

[CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of incest starts below the second image]

Oh my fuck it's the ectobiology section. Out of all the convoluted and frivolous mechanics in Homestuck, this one might be the worst in my opinion. Worse than the adventure game jokes cribbed from Problem Sleuth, worse than the punch card alchemy and other ponderous Sburb mechanics... I'd say it's worse than the time travel shit, but this is actually more of a subset of that. So yeah, time travel continues to be the worst thing about Homestuck, and shit like this and the bunny subplot are prime examples of that. But my ire is fully directed at ectobiology at this moment.

The stuff I mentioned before at least has a purpose; they parody needlessly complicated video game mechanics. But ectobiology doesn't have a purpose. It's not funny, nor does it serve the story in a meaningful or even interesting way. So why does it exist? Is it to drive home the point that these select individuals are the "chosen ones" by Sburb? If I had to hazard a guess what Hussie meant by that...

Earth is a vile place and must be destroyed, so sayeth Sburb. Everything living on it is flawed by extension, so its chosen destroyers must be fully disconnected human society and the planet itself. These destroyers have been plucked from the aether and reconstituted from bullshit plot slime in a faraway part of time and space, ensuring that they are unquestionably divorced from anything from Earth, and therefore pure.

Now that I type all that out, it's no wonder none of the kids were all that shaken up about bringing about the apocalypse. Considering that they're essentially game constructs with no actual ties to humanity, it really throws away any sort of conflict and sense of sacrifice brought about by destroying the planet. All the innocents who perished in the meteor showers? Eh, fuck them! They were all NPCs anyway. All hail the slime people!

Okay, I'm sure this wasn't Hussie's actual intent, but if there's no grander symbolism at play, what else is there? None of this adds anything to the plot. The fact that the main cast are non-humans is never touched upon and the whole thing reads as superfluous sci-fi garbage. The only significance the meteors carrying the babies had was that John's Nanna died from a meteor strike. But it was already suggested way earlier that she died because she was crushed by the Colonel Sassacre book.

That was a perfectly serviceable, slightly comedic death befitting of a family of jokesters. There's no need to escalate it and involve a giant meteor.

One other thing I take umbrage with: because the cast were all birthed from the same slurry, this means that Dave and Rose are now """related""". They aren't related by blood, no, but by slime. Which, in the eyes of Hussie and the fandom at large, means the same thing, I guess. Even though they never grew up as siblings, lived separate lives in different parts of the country, and only met online as strangers before developing a (very flirtatiously charged) friendship, the fandom treats them as if they're flesh and blood brother and sister. It boggles my mind. Why is this being treated as legitimate? Did Hussie plan all along to take the two characters with the best chemistry only to pull a Luke and Leia on us? Why would he write them like that if this was his endgame? Does he just have an incest fetish?

I wouldn't doubt it because themes of incest are actually quite pervasive within Homestuck. And that's without even mentioning how Hussie developed an alien race that fundamentally relies on incest to reproduce. Ectobiology creates several relationships, incidental or otherwise, that tie nearly the entire main cast in a complicated web of pseudo-familial dynamics. Like John is actually the kids' progenitor/father because he's the one who brought them all into existence. So even if he isn't related to Rose or Dave by genes or slime, he still gave birth to them in a sense.

I've even seen people say that since Betty Crocker/The Condesce was Nanna's adopted mother, that makes the Egbert/Crocker/Harley/English family tree "related" to the Peixes trolls, so any ship with that combination is "incest." What if I told you that Feferi is related to all the other trolls via bullshit slime mechanics as well? I guess that makes Johnkat incest too. And if John is Dave's father... gasp! Davekat is also incest!? It's over folks, burn everything down.

Anyway, I don't acknowledge Rose and Dave as biological siblings because I don't treat being born from a vat of slime as the same as being birthed from the same womb. That would be treating ectobiology as valid and sensible, which I refuse to do. I don't want to lend Hussie's fixation on incest any amount of approval. All I know is that the trolls are made of the same stupid plot sludge and nobody cares if you ship them. There are no humans and trolls: only slime constructs. Either everyone is related or none of them are. You can't have both.

In the end, none of this matters. The world would be a much happier place if we all collectively agreed to forget ectobiology's existence. If this ruffles your feathers, just block me. Don't come at me because I'll just ignore you.

So Grandpa Harley had time-traveled forward to the future and into Sburb before returning to the past, living out his life on Earth, and dying. Fucking okay I guess!

At least this answers the question I had that yes, Mom Lalonde knew what she was doing before entering the game because Grandpa told her everything. Same with Bro and Dad, it seems.

Ah yes, Dad x Mom. A relationship that ends nearly as soon as it begins. Let's put this right alongside the Exile love triangle and DaveTav in the "relationships that are teased but never manifest into anything meaningful" pile.

"Ackshually, everyone was born from a vat of slime on a distant meteor and sent back to Earth to live out their lives!" - the ramblings of an utter lunatic.

Like god fucking forbid the kids be normal people placed in extraordinary circumstances.

The babies all gravitate to the things they'll have a connection to in the future. Nanna gets her son's hat, Bro gets Cal, etc. Dave clings to Maplehoof, which doesn't seem like a clear connection. Except... that's Rose's horse, isn't it? Ohhh. It all makes sense now. 😏

This exchange is a top 10 Karkat moment for sure.

The supposed saviors that will revive the human race aren't even human, they're slime creatures! Beyond the fact that none of them are human, the Superman analogy falls flat because none of these kids are humanity's protectors. They're just following the whims of a game that ultimately does not give a fuck about any of them.

I need "JOHN EGBERT, YOU HAVE ASSASSINATED MY PATIENCE." emblazoned on a banner or something.

Also Karkat calls Superman a "Caucasian alien" and he also refers to a genie as an "Earth Arabian" in an earlier log.

He really knows a lot about different human ethnic groups, for some reason.

I think about "you always call jail the slammer when you are extra angry" on a somewhat regular basis.

Sassacre is killed, but since he was a human, his death is inconsequential. Grandpa, a slime homunculus just like Nanna, is given new life, which is a cause for celebration. This whole sequence is quite morbid with Sassacre's bloody corpse just hanging out in the frame.

But wait, if Nanna and Grandpa are adopted siblings, and John and Jade are their "genetic children"... augh, never mind! This is what I mean when I say ectobiology produces all kinds of unfortunate relationships. I don't want to think about any of this pseudo-incest anymore. How are there people who make it their whole online careers to dissect this garbage so they can harass people about this shit? Don't they get tired? It's giving me a headache.

Rose is even referred to as John's "daughter" in the title of this flash. I'm not just blowing smoke when I say that John is everyone dad. That's literally what just happened.

Now that we're finally done with this segment, I'll cap it off with this: Nothing of value was added with the inclusion of ectobiology. I know I've been throwing around the phrase "waste of time" in these posts, but this bit of worldbuilding is unequivocally, without a doubt, the biggest fucking waste of time in this entire comic.

Woof. Shall we move on?

While Davesprite and Terezi sort of reconciled in their conversation and formed a bit of a bond, Dave doesn't receive her nearly as amicably. Why is she doing the "1S TH1S YOU" joke with Dave when that was a bit she did with Davesprite?

Oh right, because she thinks that same relationship will carry over to "real Dave". She sees them as the same person just like everyone else. Lovely.

Dave thinks he can burn Terezi by repeatedly insulting her blindness, even though it's clear that it doesn't bother her at all. This is really weak, especially when compared to his log with Tavros where he forced Tavros to block him.

Terezi seems to have completely given up on John and now wants to be annoying and nasty to Dave instead. She has officially been downgraded from minor antagonist to obnoxious interloper.

Tavros could only ever enjoy himself when he could escape to Prospit, be mobile, and most importantly fly. Nobody ever wants to talk about how Tavros has a lot of avoidance issues, how he always shrinks away from action and confrontation, and how he copes with adversity through escapism (both in a figurative sense through his interest in fantasy, and in a literal sense when he dreams on Prospit). A big part of his character comes from Peter Pan, the archetype of childlike escapism! IDK man, it sucks to see people reduce him to this lovable, pure-hearted woobie while ignoring the key part of his character.

Just like with Davesprite, Terezi just needed to send the right drawing for Dave's opinion of her to flip. Fantastic conflict resolution right there.

[S] Descend is the End of Act flash for Act 4. It might be the most ambitious flash up to this point. Lots of guest artists contributed here, and it's at this point where Homestuck really begins to feel like a much more collaborative project instead of solely Hussie's work. I don't mean to discredit the music team when I say that, because they've been around since the start, but this feels more substantial since Homestuck is a primarily visual work.

Anyway, Bro slices a meteor in half to save Dave's life, and later has his rocket board transport Dave into the game safely. Chalk that up to his list of noble deeds to try and balance out his dastardly ones.

Jack fucks shit up indiscriminately, so why does he spare WV? Feels a little out of character for him.

The brief Jack and Bro fight is pretty sweet. I'm not a shonen guy, but I'm getting that same sort of energy from this. Knowing that Bro probably knew all about the kinds of monsters he'd have to fight in Sburb, he has probably been training for something like this for most of his life. Had Jack not gotten god powers, Bro probably could've wasted him.

I like to think that Rose's merging with her doomed self is what causes her to act so destructive and nihilistic from this point on. She wants to destroy the game that killed her.

So okay... when Dave and Rose gave John their bunnies for his present, both of them clearly put a lot of thought in their gifts. Dave gifted him a piece of merch from his favorite movie. Rose restored an old heirloom using John's previous gift to her. Jade assembled "a fun and completely ridiculous thing" that has no sentimental meaning and only carries a vague sense of importance.

Does she just not know what he likes? This is less a gesture of friendship and more of her blindly fulfilling the whims of Sburb. I really struggle to see how Jade fits in this friend group dynamic. She's like the weird kid that the others let hang around out of pity.

Waow! After all that buildup with the box mystery, the bunny and Jack are going to have a showdown! Finally we can see what all the fuss is about and why this bunny is so important.

... Or Jack can just fly away and they never fight at all. Cool Hussie. It's so cool how you spent several pages devoted to this plot point only to let it fizzle out like this. Incredible writing.

How much time do you think elapsed between Grandpa bringing Dream!Jade's corpse aboard his airship and gutting, cleaning, stuffing, and mounting her? He probably did it all after he flew off, but I like to imagine him doing this all before that while Mom and Dad just stood around awkwardly waiting for him to finish.

Act 4 had its ups and its downs. A lot of downs. The ups also felt a little bittersweet because for every intriguing story hook like the Exile love triangle, Dave's relationship with Tavros, Rose and her mother, or anything involving Davesprite and doomed Rose, they all amount to nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Homestuck truly is a collection of fun ideas all unfortunately cobbled together by someone who doesn't know how to properly execute them in a story. The colorful art and the kickass music can only serve to cover up the flaws so much before the veneer peels and you see the ugly cracks underneath. I wish we lived in a world where Andrew "writing is easy" Hussie had an editor to salvage the good stuff and throw shit like ectobiology into the garbage.

If it sounds like I'm wrapping things up, think again. This journey isn't over yet. It's time for Act 5! People like to joke about how you should skip all the way to that one, but after everything I've read so far... I wouldn't blame anyone if they did.

Read the next post here.

#homestuck #homestuck reread #cw incest #john egbert #rose lalonde #dave strider #daverose #jade harley #grandpa harley #dad egbert #mom lalonde #bro strider #nanna egbert #karkat vantas #terezi pyrope #tavros nitram #aimless renegade #jack noir #wayward vagabond

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slimewashingau · 5 months ago

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slimewashing incorrect quotes

all from tiktok or incorrect quote generators!

curly: hi! welcome to 7Zee corp! i dont work here..

daissuke: i have several bees in the place youd least expect them.

jimmy: could a slime love a man? anya and bea: .. <:| curly: …should a slime love a man?

curly: i think i have a condition of some kind and i dont know which one-

bea: AND WHO CRASHED THE TULPAR?

…the baby??? (jimmy)

jimmy: your phosphor iss dead. but your honey slime is also dead-

swansea, talking to ogden: the company had to let be go on account of all the product i kept eatin. its hard to work at a mouthwash delivery company ogden: o_O

bea when anya told her what jimmy did: who. him? no. what? GASP. au-

anya: im pregnant. ..with my own baby- (bea: damn 😭.)

bea, pointing at curly: look, a person from earth! .. oh his views are mostly centrist

ogden: my coupon for 7Zee expired… (looking at jimmy) AND SO WILL YOU.

daisuke: the crash was fatal, but we survived.

jimmy: I crashed the tulpar! there was a meteor ahead of us and i got scared! eep!

bea: drowning? more like.. drowning- someone save him! (save daisuke 😭)

bea: Why can’t we all just get along? anya: Because most of us are assholes, bea.

bea: I've been expecting you, anya. anya: How did you do that without turning around? bea: Let's just say the first few people I did that to were not you.

when the Squad drops food daisuke: Eh, oh well. swansea: FIVE-SECOND RULE! jimmy: FUCK! curly: just gets more food anya: drops to their knees and mourns the food bea: eats the food off the ground

anya: A mouse! daisuke, pulling out a knife: Go back to where you came from or I'll stab you. jimmy, pulling out a frying pan: It'll make a nice meal! bea, giving the mouse cheese: You deserve a treat, little guy. curly, gasping: It's Ratatouille! swansea: His name is Remi, dummy. anya: …I was going to say to just trap it and throw it out the window… what is wrong with you people.

daisuke: What's worse than a heartbreak? curly: Waking up in the morning and your phone wasn't charging. anya: Waking up in the morning. swansea: Waking up. bea: Waking up in the morning… bea: And seeing jimmy. jimmy: Hey! Rude!!

jimmy: Who the fuck added me to a fucking group chat? curly: >:O language bea: Yeah watch your fucking language anya: Okay, who taught bea the fuck word?! daisuke: 'The fuck word'. swansea: Are you stupid? You guys use the f word all the time bea: Oh my god they censored it daisuke: Say fuck, swansea. bea: Do it, swansea. Say fuck.

curly: How do you sleep at night knowing people don’t like you? mochi: With the fan on.

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grapefaygodude69 · 9 months ago

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watch me become national geographic reporter about sober dude cuz,,, dont have a reason but head canons are fun :o)

other sprites i remade [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

down there's the sprite edits cuz i made these vvv

AUTISTIC YAPPING DONT MIND THATR ... SORY MY ENGLISH IS BAD???

ALSO SH MENTION TW IG \\\\\

the fact that he was sober for example would have been in the past but has never been seen by anyone other than his moirial once but thats a long story,,, how to get him to calm down and get back on the slime is to just pap him until he stops hissing and give it to him and he'll just eventually want to take it again. the thing with karkat is the example of gamzee naturally being an asshole and using his strength against people instead of like in his stoned state barely using it or teasing people by lifting them up,,, my point is karkat almost got choked to death because of gamzee being sober around him, he just attacks anyone around no matter what. the state of being sober for the clown is kind of very overwhelming and gets transelated in violence or whatever something like that for no apparent reason even if its the kind of wholesome thing about him, after that incident with karkat, he got high again it took him like idk maybe 4 months to stop saying sorry for hurting karkat like that because he didn't meant to and its silyyyyyy how he's basically more "sober" (as in more calm) and nice when he's high and more voilent and whatever when he's actually sober.

the other thing is that sopor itself is kind of like alcohol in the sense of how it can effect people differently, gamzee gets high but also very tipsy from it so he needs to sit down most of the time and not move much or he might just break something falling over he isnt much of an active guy but he isnt lazy y'know but being addicted to it gives him extreme withdrawal symptoms which also can be another thing that fuels the violent behavior. but that's all pre sgrub, but post sgrub the meteor shenanigans go on with multiple murders because of the obvious he's pissed and his boyfriend got impaled yadda yadda… gamzee never does recover from the constant need for sopor but learns to put his anger into more productive things that i dont have an idea for but ehhhhuhuhhhhhyh yeahs that's it bye :o)

day 150

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beetleviolet · 1 year ago

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So uh... anyone remember this post? About rottmnt Raph and Leo post invasion?

@midwesternvibes i did it.

I didn't go super deep into it because like. What do you even do in that situation lmao. And I'm not sure I did the idea justice. Idk. Might do another draft before I post it on ao3. Super proud of all my metaphors and shit tho.

(Tw: PTSD, panic attacks, crying, negative self talk, suicidal thoughts (kind of?? Blink and you'll miss it. Its a hyperbole anyway but better safe then sorry))

meteor shower (quick, take cover)

The worst part about it was that Raph had seen it coming.

They were all jumpy. Trigger-sad and still pulling themselves back together. The crashing of pots as they spilled out of the cupboard, and everyone in the kitchen jumped out of their skin. Leo flinched a second time as Raph landed from his (admittedly embarrassing) hop. His little brother's breath hitched and hitched and he ducked his head to the floor, staring staring staring. His cane clattered to the floor.

“Oh buddy…” Raph dropped his voice soft. Leo's eyes locked onto him. He stumbled, arm reaching blindly behind to find its grip on the counter. He fell, frame shaking. His eyes didn't leave Raph's, Raph's right eye, droning up and down his arm. Hitch, hitch, hitch hitch hitch.

Raph took a step forward. And Leo-

Leo

Leo raised his arms, taking himself to the floor without the support. He ducked his head, limbs already starting to retreat into his shell. And Leo looked up at him, eyes big and shaking and welled up tears and and and

Beside him, Mikey unfroze, bounding forward before Raph could stop him.

“Mike, I don't think-” He trailed off as Leo peaked up, reaching for Mikey with unrestrained sobs. He held his little brother close, only looking up to watch Raph. Again, their eyes locked.

Terror. Panic. Horror. Fear. The hitch hitch hitch when Raph raised a hand. So he stepped back instead. Back and back and back until he was running out of their kitchen, glancing over his shoulder in time to see Leo relax, just a little. Just enough.

Raph punched his wall. His wall, this time. Not Leo's or Leo or anything else. He breathed, hard eyes roaming and landing on a pile of stuffies by his pillow.

He'd like to say he did anything else, but Raph fell into bed, held a stuffed cat tight to his chest, and cried.

The plushie's name was Kitty-Kitty. Once, when they were really little, Leo tore her arm off in a fit of rage and safety scissors. Raph cried and then Leo cried and then Mikey cried, overwhelmed with it all. Leo sewed the arm back on and even added a little heart on her sleeve. The clumsy stitches had long since fallen out, but Raph had sewn them back year after year and kept it and held it close, tight to his chest as he cried like a child. He cried and he cried. It seemed the world was constantly finding new and creative ways to break his heart. (Or maybe not so creative because)

(Well)

(He'd seen it all coming)

Raph let himself drown, let himself toss and turn and wallow in the salty leftovers on his cheeks. Like a beached whale, he let himself wallow, just a bit.

Donnie once said that dead whales could explode. Maybe Raph would explode. He wished he would, just a little, if only so he wouldn't have to get back up and see that look in Leo's eyes ever again. Ever, ever again.

But he would, wouldn't he? The next panic attack, the next mission gone awry, the next the next the next… It kept going and going. The next… what if Raph got weird again? Leo had always been the best at calming him down, bringing him back. What if Leo couldn't do it? Got too scared, was hurt too bad? Decided that it just. Wasn't worth it.

Raoh let another wave of tears wash over him. Usually after a good cry he felt cleaned out, hollowed chest and burning nostrils, insides sanded and painted with white wash, fresh and new. Maybe it was just a bad cry, because he still felt all stuffed and overwhelmed and big and heavy and gross, insides all slime and goo and and and

Raph picked up that train of thought, dragged it through his mind palace, and threw it in the moat.

He took stock.

Raph was tired. His nostrils burned and any emotion was still a messy, unnamable blarehorn, though his eyes had nothing left to produce but the liquid ache that flowed like a lava lamp behind them.

Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock

That was Leo's knock. Raph tensed. Leo's knock was usually accompanied by a greeting or a yell or the sound of something breaking. It was odd to just…hear the knocks, all hesitant and lonely.

“You there, big guy?” There it was. Leo's voice was still gravelly from earlier, still a little quiet. Raph's heart clenched. He stacked his courage and spoke,

“Hi.” Wow. Nice one, Raphie.

“Hey.” Leo was close to the door. Raph could imagine him, shell against the wall, his arms crossed and head tilted back so he could speak without having to face the quiet subway car, a new dent on its side.

Maybe he had his forehead up against the cold metal of the sliding door, condensation decorating its surface, staring at the floor. Staring, staring, just a little.

Or maybe he was just standing there like normal. Raph doubted it, somehow.

“Listen, Raph, I..” His voice broke, a lightning strike down the middle. Lightning actually does hit the same place twice, Raph remembered Donnie explaining, more likely to, even. “I'm so sorry.”

“‘s not your fault.” His voice was a twin wobble. Leo chuckled,

“Heh, snot…” Raph felt his mouth twitch up.

“...do you wanna come in?” He asked, trying to keep his voice from being all nervous and weird. Like Raph was anything but nervous and weird. Super weird.

Leo didn't answer, but Raph heard the jerk of the handle and the door slid open. And…

Post-panic attack Leo always made Raph want to scoop his brother up in his arms and never let him go. With red eyes, shaky and distant, quiet breaths before a quick deep one, like he suddenly remembered how. Everything about him was… dialed down. Like he was too tired to keep his brightness up all the way.

It's not that he wanted Leo to pretend he was okay, but reminders that he wasn't hurt too. And Raph couldn't scoop his brother up and never let him go. Besides the obvious impracticality, he would just make everything worse.

But his palms turned up without him meaning too, and Leo stumbled forward and wrapped his arms around Raph's neck. Not too tight, just there. Secure. Raph's hand hovered over his brother's shell, not daring to brush the cracks, almost trembling at the thought of falling anywhere near Leo's throat. So small. Leo was larger than life, but Raph's little brother was so, so small.

“This is lame,” Leo whined, “Hug me!”

“You sure?” He asked. Whispered. Leo grumbled, tucking further into Raph's chest.

“It was the Krang, not you.” Raph took a breath, a little shudder,

“Then it was your brain juice, and not you.” Leo didn't answer for one beat, two, three,

“Then hug me, stupid.”

“Aye, watch it!” But Leo didn't so much as flinch as Raph's arms wrapped around him, held him close. They breathed for a bit. It was the Krang, not you. Not you. Not Raph.

Raph pressed his head down, tension whirlpooling down the drain. It was a little odd, wasn't it? Because, well,

He hadn't seen this coming.

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