#page 368

[sharry-arry-odd]

"One, that's not going to work. Two, I fucking hate needles," said the corpse. "Three–Sex Pal, if that's how you get a lady's pants off, holy shit no wonder I stole your girl." Palamedes rocked back on his heels. "Not my girl. Unlike some of us, I've never much seen the allure of an evil cougar," he said crisply. "Good morning, Gideon."

Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

[pesterloglog]

Karkat Vantas, John Egbert

Page 365-375

KARKAT: ROUGH DAY, HUH.

JOHN: karkat?

JOHN: what are you doing here?

KARKAT: IT'S NICE TO SEE YOU TOO.

KARKAT: JOHN, YOU MAY NOT HAVE NOTICED, BUT I AM THE LEADER OF AN ARMY. MY PLACE IS ON THE BATTLEFIELD.

JOHN: i suppose that is true, but that doesn't answer my question!

JOHN: this isn't a battlefield, it's just...

KARKAT: THE OBLITERATED, SMOLDERING HUSK OF YOUR FORMER HOME.

JOHN: well, yeah.

KARKAT: WHICH WAS DESTROYED AS COLLATERAL IN AN ONGOING MILITARY CONFLICT.

JOHN: oh all right, fine.

JOHN: it just feels weird to call it that.

JOHN: i guess i'm used to thinking of home as somewhere far away from all that war stuff.

KARKAT: JESUS *CHRIST* JOHN.

KARKAT: I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO LIST ALL THE WAYS IN WHICH THAT CONSTITUTES A SHORT-SIGHTED AND PUKE-WORTHILY IGNORANT THING TO SAY TO ME, PERSONALLY.

KARKAT: AND FRANKLY I DON'T HAVE TIME TO BOTHER, THANKS TO THE COUNTLESS FIRES I HAVE BEEN PUTTING OUT ALL DAY, THE ONE PRESENTLY CONSUMING YOUR HIVE NOTWITHSTANDING.

KARKAT: YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE MADE THINGS GO A BIT MORE SMOOTHLY? JUST A FRACTION?

KARKAT: IF YOU HADN'T JUST DECIDED TO WANDER OFF THE INSTANT SHIT STARTED HAPPENING.

JOHN: jeez, i'm sorry karkat.

JOHN: i had no idea how much time had passed.

JOHN: i must have gotten a bit distracted by my house being blown up.

KARKAT: NOT WANTING TO POINT OUT THE OBVIOUS, BUT I FEEL LIKE THIS WAS A PROBLEM THAT YOU OF ALL PEOPLE WERE UNIQUELY AND MAGICALLY EQUIPPED TO DEAL WITH.

JOHN: huh?

KARKAT: YOU KNOW.

KARKAT: WITH YOUR SHOOSH THING.

JOHN: my shoosh thing.

KARKAT: YOUR SHOOSH THING.

KARKAT: THE GUSTY NONSENSE? THE GIFT OF GAS??

KARKAT: YOUR SBURB ALLOCATED BLOW JOB???

JOHN: uh.

KARKAT: THE SUPERNATURAL COMMUNION YOU HAVE WITH ALL THINGS WINDY, YOU ASS!!

JOHN: oh right, that.

JOHN: that would have let me put the fire out, maybe.

JOHN: i don't think there's anything in my skillset that would have unexploded my house though.

KARKAT: THAT'S FAIR.

JOHN: i suppose i'll add one more notch to the daily tally of crazy stuff that happened which i just have to accept as my life now.

JOHN: so...

JOHN: what else happened while i was caught up watching the symbolic representation of my former life get consumed in a giant fire ball?

KARKAT: OH BOY. WHERE TO START.

KARKAT: SO FIRST OFF, IN HINDSIGHT, TODAY WAS PRETTY OBVIOUSLY JUST ONE HUGE BAITED TRAP.

KARKAT: I SAY "IN HINDSIGHT", BUT FORTUNATELY IT WAS ALSO EXTREMELY APPARENT EVEN IN FORESIGHT TO THOSE OF US WHO SPENT A FEW SECONDS THINKING ABOUT IT.

JOHN: ...right.

KARKAT: OH COME ON EGBERT, SERIOUSLY?

KARKAT: KIDNAPPING A PERSON OF IMPORTANCE, ONLY TO LET US KNOW PRECISELY WHERE AND ON WHAT OCCASION THEY WOULD BE MOST ACCESSIBLE FOR A RESCUE ATTEMPT?

KARKAT: HAVING THAT OCCASION BE NONE OTHER THAN THE CORPSE PARTY OF A HIGHLY NOTEWORTHY POLITICAL FIGURE, WHOSE CASKET MIGHT AS WELL HAVE HAD A GIANT "KICK ME" SIGN DAUBED ON IT?

KARKAT: THERE WAS BASICALLY NO WAY IT WASN'T A FRONT FOR SOMETHING HUGE. AND IT WAS!

KARKAT: WE HAPPEN TO BE SITTING IN FRONT OF ONE FACET OF THAT HUGENESS AT THIS VERY MOMENT.

JOHN: well, when you put it like that...

JOHN: i guess we all got pranked pretty hard, huh.

KARKAT: THIS IS NO TIME FOR YOUR SHITTY NERD PRANKS JOHN.

KARKAT: FRANKLY I'M INSULTED THAT YOU THINK SUCH A WORD IS EVEN REMOTELY APPOSITE TO THE PRESENT SITUATION.

KARKAT: OTHER THAN TO DESCRIBE THE WAY I AM PERSONALLY BEING "PRANKED" BY REALITY IN HAVING TO EXPLAIN ALL THIS TO YOU.

KARKAT: ANYWAY, THE RESCUE ATTEMPT.

KARKAT: THIS IS THE ONLY POINT WHERE ANY SEMBLANCE OF GOOD NEWS COMES INTO PLAY, SO SAVOR IT.

JOHN: okay.

KARKAT: IT TURNS OUT THAT WE DIDN'T NEED TO PUT SO MUCH EFFORT INTO THE RESCUING YIFFY PART OF THE OPERATION.

KARKAT: SHE BASICALLY RESCUED HERSELF WHEN ALL WAS SAID AND DONE.

KARKAT: AND TOOK CARE OF KICKING GAMZEE'S CORPSEBOX OVER WHILE SHE WAS AT IT, IN A STUNNING DISPLAY OF EFFICIENCY WHICH THE REST OF US CAN ONLY ASPIRE TO.

JOHN: oh wow, haha.

JOHN: i knew she'd be a bit of a character, being rose and jade's daughter and all...

JOHN: but that's impressive!

JOHN: it sounds like she'd be a pretty welcome addition to your ranks then.

KARKAT: SHE'S A CHILD, YOU MORON.

KARKAT: OH, AND SPEAKING OF WHICH.

KARKAT: PAUSING BRIEFLY TO NOTE IN ADVANCE HOW MUCH I LOATHE THE FACT THAT THIS IS AN EVENTUALITY THAT THE UNIVERSE HAS *ONCE AGAIN* SEEN FIT TO CURSE US WITH:

KARKAT: THE VRISKAS, PLURAL.

JOHN: shit.

KARKAT: THEY'VE BOTH BEEN CAPTURED.

JOHN: shiiiiiiiit.

KARKAT: YEAH.

KARKAT: GREAT WORK KEEPING AN EYE ON THEM, BY THE WAY!

KARKAT: YOU LITERALLY HAD ONLY ONE JOB, AND YOU MESSED IT UP IN THE EQUALLY SINGULAR WAY IT WAS POSSIBLE TO DO.

JOHN: urgh, i know, i know. ):

KARKAT: HAVING SAID THAT, THIS WAS THE ONE THING UP CROCKER'S SLEEVE YOU COULD BE EXCUSED FROM NOT HAVING SEEN COMING.

KARKAT: I GUESS BECAUSE, ON THE FACE OF IT, IT'S JUST TOTALLY FUCKING BANANAS!

KARKAT: JANE'S PLAN FOR THIS CONFLICT HAS THUS FAR CONSISTED ALMOST ENTIRELY OF KIDNAPPING VARIOUS HIGH PROFILE CHILDREN.

KARKAT: IT'S BIZARRE.

KARKAT: AS THOUGH WE ARE FIGHTING A WAR OF ATTRITION, WHERE THE MAIN RESOURCE BEING UTILIZED IS THE OFFSPRING OF THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE ON THE PLANET.

KARKAT: IF IT WASN'T ONE OF THE CORE TENETS OF HER FASCISTIC PHILOSOPHY, I'D BE TEMPTED TO SAY THAT CURBING REPRODUCTION MIGHT HAVE BEEN A GOOD IDEA, IF ONLY TO PREVENT THIS KIND OF FUCKSHIT NONSENSE FROM HAPPENING.

JOHN: wait.

JOHN: wait a minute.

JOHN: you said that both vriskas have been captured, right?

KARKAT: EXCUSE ME WHILE I WEEP FOR JOY AT THE REVELATION THAT YOU HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION FOR ONCE.

JOHN: okay, well putting that emotional outburst aside for a moment.

JOHN: how is that even possible?

JOHN: doesn't vriska, the original vriska, still have her magic alien mind control powers?

JOHN: it seems like it should be basically impossible for anyone to kidnap her.

KARKAT: YOU'VE STUMBLED ASS BACKWARDS ACROSS THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT OF THIS UNFORTUNATE DEVELOPMENT.

KARKAT: YOU ARE CORRECT, IN THAT WITH HER CASTE-TYPICAL, *COMPLETELY SCIENTIFIC AND NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT MAGICAL* PSYCHOMANIPULATIVE ABILITIES, STAYING OUT OF CROCKER'S REACH SHOULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY TRIVIAL FOR SERKET PRIME.

KARKAT: EVEN ACCOUNTING FOR THE FACT THAT SAID ABILITIES ARE NOT NEARLY AS POTENT ON HUMANS AS THEY ARE ON FELLOW TROLLS, THEY STILL OUGHT TO HAVE TIPPED ANY ALTERCATION SQUARELY IN HER FAVOR.

KARKAT: BUT SOMEHOW, IT DIDN'T!

KARKAT: INSTEAD, THINGS APPEAR TO HAVE GONE GLOBES UP IN CLASSIC VRISKITE FASHION, AND NOW ONE OF THE MOST UNEXPECTED AND UNWANTED BUT NEVERTHELESS USEFUL WEAPONS IN OUR ARSENAL IS DOING TIME IN CROCKERJAIL.

KARKAT: THAT'S ABOUT ALL WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO GLEAN FROM TAPPING INTO THE BATTERBITCH AIRWAVES, WHICH IS A FANCY TERM FOR EAVESDROPPING ON THOSE OF HER AGENTS WHO TALK A LITTLE TOO LOUDLY IN SEMI-PUBLIC SPACES.

JOHN: jeez.

JOHN: i really screwed that up, didn't i.

KARKAT: I'M RELIEVED TO SEE THAT YOUR GRASP OF THAT FACT IS PRETTY GOOD AT LEAST.

JOHN: ):

KARKAT: HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT, AND WITH THE RECOGNITION THAT I AM CHOOSING TO NURSE YOUR BRUISED FEELINGS DURING A PLANET WIDE CONFLICT FOR THE FATE OF MY SPECIES,

KARKAT: IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO TO EXPEDITE YOUR GETTING THE FUCK OVER IT?

JOHN: i... hm.

JOHN: i don't really know?

JOHN: this all feels wrong, karkat.

JOHN: no offense, but when you're around, it's usually a lot...

KARKAT: A LOT WHAT?

JOHN: a lot funnier.

KARKAT: FUNNIER.

JOHN: how to put this.

JOHN: normally listening to you go on and on about how much we've fucked everything up is just very funny!

JOHN: but now it's just not the same.

JOHN: maybe it's part of what's going on with this entire reality? i don't know.

JOHN: once upon a time i would have put down your ability to pull a silly rant out of your butt as a fundamental law of physics or something.

JOHN: remember back when we first knew each other?

JOHN: it felt like all you ever said to me was how much you thought i was screwing up and being a useless asshole.

JOHN: and once i realized that you were also just a dumb kid who didn't know what was going on, i started to kind of enjoy it.

JOHN: but now it's like... the only one who's still a dumb kid is me, and everyone else has something big and important going on that i just don't understand.

JOHN: i thought that i finally got what was going on with this whole war and everything. i wanted to be useful!

JOHN: i guess i got a little too wrapped up in the feeling of something finally happening again.

JOHN: and then watching it all blow up in my face, kind of literally now that i think about it...

JOHN: it's hard not to feel even more dejected about the situation than i was before.

JOHN: and now even the patented karkat vant rant has lost all its sparkle.

JOHN: maybe if you had like, painstakingly itemized a list of all the things wrong with my plan in a comically overdone fashion or something.

KARKAT: I CONSIDERED IT, BUT HONESTLY THERE WAS SO MUCH WRONG THAT I CONCLUDED THAT THE BEST THING FOR EVERYONE WOULD BE TO NEVER SPEAK OF IT AGAIN.

JOHN: oh. okay.

KARKAT: IF WE'RE BEING HONEST, YOU DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A PLAN, JOHN.

KARKAT: CALLING IT A PLAN WOULD IMPLY THAT IT WAS A STRUCTURED SEQUENCE OF STEPS DESIGNED TO ACHIEVE A GOAL.

KARKAT: WHAT YOU CAME UP WITH WAS A CONVOLUTED MESS WHICH STILL SOMEHOW INVOLVED DOING FUCKALL.

KARKAT: AND I USE CONVOLUTED HERE IN THE SAME WAY THAT I WOULD TO DESCRIBE THE FRENZIED DRAWSTICK SCRIBBLES OF A SQUALLING HUMAN INFANT.

KARKAT: SPEAKING OF WHICH:

KARKAT: DRAWING A SHITTY PICTURE WITH "THE ULTIMATE PLAN" AT THE TOP AND A BUNCH OF ARROWS DOES NOT, AND TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE HAS NEVER, CONSTITUTED AN ACTIONABLE PLAN.

KARKAT: DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS CRITICISM WITH ANOTHER MISERABLE EXPRESSION, I AM BEGGING YOU.

JOHN: okay ):

KARKAT: LOOK.

KARKAT: I APPRECIATE THAT YOU SEEM TO HAVE DUG YOUR PAN OUT OF YOUR OWN CHUTE THE FEW MICROMETERS NECESSARY TO NOTICE THE PRECISE DEGREE TO WHICH THE WORLD IS BEING JUDICIOUSLY BATFUCKED RIGHT NOW.

KARKAT: AS HARD AS IT IS TO BELIEVE, THAT'S A FEAT WHICH NO SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE ARE COMPLETELY INCAPABLE OF DOING!

KARKAT: BUT NOTICING THE PROBLEM AND MAKING MEANINGFUL PROGRESS TOWARDS SOLVING IT ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS.

KARKAT: THE NEXT TIME YOU GET THE IMPULSE TO "LEND A HAND", YOU'D BE BETTER OFF CANNING IT FOR FIVE MINUTES AND LISTENING TO THOSE OF US WHO'VE BEEN TRYING TO SOLVE IT A LOT LONGER THAN YOU HAVE.

KARKAT: THIS ISN'T AN EXERCISE BEING CONDUCTED IN ORDER FOR YOU TO PROVE YOUR PERSONAL DEGREE OF MORAL RECTITUDE.

KARKAT: AND IF IT WAS, YOU WOULD HAVE ALREADY FAILED MISERABLY! SO DO YOURSELF AND EVERYONE ELSE A FAVOR AND STOP TREATING IT LIKE ONE.

JOHN: well... all right. if you say so karkat.

KARKAT: I DO SAY SO, EMPHATICALLY AND AT GREAT VOLUME.

KARKAT: AND NOW THAT MY OBLIGATION TO CATECHIZE YOU ON THE SUBJECT OF YOUR OWN LIFE IS FULFILLED, I HAVE A WAR TO GET BACK TO.

JOHN: wait, hold on.

KARKAT: OH MY GOD WHAT NOW.

JOHN: you can't be leaving already.

JOHN: there's... so much we still need to talk about!

KARKAT: OF COURSE I'M SHITTING LEAVING.

KARKAT: WHAT MORE COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE FOR US TO DISCUSS??

KARKAT: PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME YOU JUST HAD ANOTHER EMOTION THAT WE NEED TO DROP EVERYTHING IN ORDER TO DISSECT.

JOHN: no, that's not what i'm talking about at all.

JOHN: karkat, we still haven't spoken about *you*!

KARKAT: ABOUT ME?

JOHN: yes.

KARKAT: ABOUT *ME*?

JOHN: about you.

KARKAT: WHAT THE FUCK ABOUT ME.

JOHN: well...

JOHN: you know, how you feel!

KARKAT: HOW I FEEL.

JOHN: or just...

JOHN: argh, i don't know!

JOHN: it's just been so long since we've seen each other.

JOHN: all sorts of things have happened in that time, and it doesn't feel right to just not even mention any of it!

KARKAT: LIKE WHAT??

JOHN: oh, i don't know karkat, literally anything!

JOHN: i mean, look at you.

JOHN: you are decked out in a tight body suit and have an eyepatch and everything. there is simply no way there isn't something to discuss there.

JOHN: or like, forget the eyepatch, we don't have to talk about the eyepatch.

JOHN: i feel as though my point still stands?

JOHN: there is basically a bottomless well full of stuff to go through.

JOHN: i mean we kind of glossed over it when you brought her up earlier, but what about yiffy?

JOHN: this might not come across so easily due to human troll cultural boundaries, but her existing is kind of a big deal??

JOHN: i feel like somehow i missed the part where we all sit around and talk about how strange it is that two of our friends went off and had a secret child without any of us knowing!

JOHN: is it too much to ask that we have that part now, karkat?

JOHN: i mean, maybe it just doesn't mean that much to you.

KARKAT: JOHN.

JOHN: which is a little strange, given that it ties in to the whole conflict that you had with jade and dave.

JOHN: oh god we have to talk about dave.

KARKAT: JOHN.

KARKAT: FUCKING HELL!

KARKAT: I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT DAVE.

JOHN: no, this is what i mean, karkat.

JOHN: we need to talk about dave!

KARKAT: HAHA! LIKE SHIT WE DO!!

KARKAT: I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE HOW THIS IS EVEN A RELEVANT TOPIC OF CONVERSATION.

JOHN: oh come on.

JOHN: there's no way you aren't feeling kind of messed up about him, right?

JOHN: i know i am.

JOHN: whenever i think about how things ended between you two...

JOHN: especially now that he's...

JOHN: ugh, i'm sorry. i'm SO sorry karkat. sorry doesn't even begin to cover it.

JOHN: this whole thing feels so impossibly sad.

JOHN: all i'm trying to say is...

JOHN: it's not healthy to bottle these feelings up and not acknowledge them.

JOHN: even if you aren't feeling anything right now, and i don't for a moment believe that's true, *i* need to talk about dave!

JOHN: so can we please just talk about dave for a moment.

KARKAT: NNNNGNGNGGGGGGGUUUUUUGUUGHHHHHHHH FINE.

KARKAT: IF IT WILL GET YOU TO SHUT UP ABOUT THIS TOPIC FOR EVEN A BRIEF MOMENT, THEN FINE.

KARKAT: REGARDLESS OF HOW POINTLESS AN EXERCISE I CONSIDER IT TO BE, I WILL DISCUSS WITH YOU MY "FEELINGS" ABOUT DAVE.

JOHN: okay.

JOHN: thank you.

KARKAT: ARE YOU PREPARED TO BE INUNDATED WITH NONE OTHER THAN AN UNINTERRUPTED SPATE OF HARD, UNEMBELLISHED DATA VIS A VIS MY SWEEPS-SUPPRESSED, BISCUITFELT EMOTIONS ON THE DAVE SITUATION??

KARKAT: WELL HERE GOES.

KARKAT: *DEEP BREATH*

KARKAT: YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW I REALLY FEEL ABOUT DAVE?

KARKAT: HOW I FEEL IS THAT I WISH THAT EVERYONE WOULD STOP FUCKING BOTHERING ME ABOUT HIM!!!

KARKAT: ALRIGHT, SO HE AND JADE GOT HUMAN MARRIED!! BIG DEAL!!!

KARKAT: DO PEOPLE FORGET THAT I WAS THERE?? I FEEL LIKE EVERYONE IS FORGETTING THAT I WAS LITERALLY INVITED TO THE OCCASION.

KARKAT: I'VE EVEN COME TO EXPECT THIS KIND OF AMNESIAC BEHAVIOR FROM EVERYONE ELSE, SINCE I ADMIT THAT I DIDN'T EXACTLY STICK AROUND OR ACTUALLY SHOW MY FACE FOR MOST OF THE ORDEAL, BUT YOU EGBERT SHOULD HAVE NO FUCKING EXCUSE!

JOHN: wait, karkat, that's not what i

KARKAT: SO YEAH! THAT WHOLE THING HAPPENED, AND I CAME TO TERMS WITH WHATEVER THERE WAS TO COME TO TERMS WITH, WHICH WAS FUCKING *NOTHING*, AND THEN I GOT ON WITH THE ACTUAL IMPORTANT BUSINESS OF TRYING TO PREVENT THE WORLD FROM CRUMBLING!

KARKAT: WHICH, NOW THAT WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT, IS *STILL FUCKING HAPPENING*!

KARKAT: I AM UTTERLY APPALLED THAT THIS IS AN INFO MORSEL I KEEP HAVING TO SPOONFEED DOWN YOUR WINDCHUTE EVERY FIVE SECONDS, JOHN, I REALLY AM.

KARKAT: I MEAN HOLY SHIT, NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR THIS!

KARKAT: AND ONE THING I CAN SAY WITH ABSOLUTE IRONCLAD CERTAINTY IS THAT IF DAVE WERE HERE, HE WOULD SAY THE SAME THING!!

KARKAT: SPEAKING OF WHICH, WHERE *IS* DAVE??

JOHN: um.

KARKAT: I FEEL LIKE IF ANYONE COULD HAVE PREVENTED TODAY FROM DEVOLVING INTO A HEADLESS CLUSTERFUCK, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN... OKAY, MAYBE NOT HIM, BUT AT LEAST HE MIGHT HAVE HELPED DRAG YOU OUT OF YOUR DEPRESSIVE FUGUE A LITTLE SOONER!

JOHN: (oh shit.)

KARKAT: NOT ONLY THAT, BUT MAYBE WITH BOTH OF US HERE WE COULD HAVE DISPENSED WITH THIS ENTIRE SORRY TOPIC ONCE AND FOR ALL, IF ONLY FOR YOUR BENEFIT!

KARKAT: OH HI DAVE, JOHN SEEMS TO BE UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THE UNSPOKEN HISTORY BETWEEN US IS OF SUFFICIENT IMPORT THAT WE NEED TO HASH IT OUT THIS VERY SECOND IN FRONT OF THE BLASTED REMAINS OF HIS HOME!

KARKAT: yo karkat that does seem to be a strange thing for my best friend john to be concerned about given that he has spent the past five years wallowing in the depths of deepest divorce fever

KARKAT: and especially since jade and i have meanwhile been working as part of your resistance with no complaints, but sure, we can brofist each other and arrange our limbs in an unambiguously platonic way

KARKAT: a way which is also flawlessly calculated to communicate to everyone present that here are two guys who are totally and unequivocally over each other

JOHN: (oh god. you don't...)

KARKAT: THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT IDEA DAVE, AND WITH THAT MAYBE THAT WAY WE CAN WASH OUR TOUCH STUMPS OF THIS WHOLE ORDEAL AND NEVER HAVE TO SPEAK OF IT AGAIN!

KARKAT: WOULD YOU LIKE THAT, JOHN?

KARKAT: WOULD THAT SATISFY YOUR CRAVING FOR CATHARSIS ON THE SUBJECT OF DAVE??

KARKAT: WELL WHY DON'T WE TRY IT THEN.

KARKAT: IN FACT, WHY DON'T YOU CALL DAVE AND GET HIM OVER HERE RIGHT NOW!

JOHN: (oh my god...)

KARKAT: MAYBE WE SHOULD GET JADE TO COME AS WELL!

JOHN: ):

KARKAT: FUCK, WHY NOT INVITE FUCKING EVERYONE!!!

KARKAT: WHY NOT PRESS "PAUSE" ON THE RACE WAR FOR A MOMENT AND HAVE ONE HUGE FEELINGS JAM LAWNMEAL WHERE WE ALL PUBLICLY EXPATIATE OUR VARIOUS CONVOLUTED EMOTIONS.

KARKAT: FORGET PEACE TALKS, GET FUCKING *CROCKER* TO COME!

KARKAT: MAYBE THE SIGHT OF A DAVEKAT RECONCILIATION IS THE SECRET KEY TO UNLOCKING THE PART OF HER BRAIN THAT STOPS HER FROM BEING A GENOCIDAL RACIST BITCH!!!

KARKAT: HOW COULD WE HAVE POSSIBLY BEEN SO BLIND!!!!!!

KARKAT: IF GAMZEE WASN'T DEAD, YOU COULD HAVE INVITED HIM AS WELL!

KARKAT: HAHAHA, THAT'S OKAY, WE STILL HAVE A VERITABLE MENAGERIE OF PEOPLE WE KNOW WHO AREN'T DEAD.

JOHN: ))))):

KARKAT: ALL OF WHOM I AM SURE WILL BE SIMPLY DELIGHTED TO ATTEND WHAT WILL UNDOUBTEDLY BE THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT IN EARTH C'S BULLSHIT HISTORY.

KARKAT: IF THIS IS WHAT IT TAKES, EGBERT, THEN I AM PREPARED TO DO IT!

KARKAT: DON'T THINK THAT I WON'T!!

KARKAT: IF JUST FOR AN *INSTANT* IT WILL GET EVERYONE OFF MY CASE ABOUT THIS, I WILL STAND UP WITH DAVE IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE ***FUCKING WORLD*** AND SOLEMNLY VOW THAT I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT!!!!

JOHN: KARKAT!!!!

JOHN: ugh, fuck, this is just too much!

JOHN: i thought you KNEW!

KARKAT: KNEW WHAT???

JOHN: dave's GONE, karkat!

JOHN: he's...

JOHN: he's dead.

JOHN: i didn't mean for you to find out like this at all, i thought...

JOHN: i mean, i only heard about it yesterday, but i was convinced someone would have told you already!

JOHN: apparently one minute he was there, and the next...

JOHN: none of us even know how it happened, and it doesn't make any sense that he's dead, but he is.

JOHN: he is dead and he's not coming back.

KARKAT:

JOHN: talk to me karkat, please.

JOHN: please talk to me karkat.

KARKAT:

KARKAT: HE...

KARKAT: HE DIDN'T EVEN SAY GOODBYE?

[mp3-pplayers]

the phone numbers in question

[livvyofthelake]

ok i read 40 pages of that book. it’s fine. i wish it was chain of thorns though.

[bqstqnbruin]

The book I'm reading isn't bad but like I'm simply not into it ya know

[lady-phasma]

I felt compelled to cite my sources for Armand and Lestat being an item off and on over the years. I’ve been in this fandom too long to get involved in ship wars or to really have an OTP for these crazy-ass vampires. I happen to love Armand and Lestat from the books and think that Assad and Sam make it work so well on screen. I hope we get loads more of them for season 3.

Anne wrote all of her characters as deeply flawed, we can all agree on that, but the nearly fanfiction level of “let’s see what happens when two of my most flawed characters get together” writing she did in TVA is brilliant. Book spoilers below.

Here's a link to a post I made about Lestat's perspective of Armand from TVL. (I have included one quote from TVL below because it's too precious to exclude.)

Lestat spends almost a full page describing how he sees Armand at a ball at the Palais Royal:

Yet never had Nicolas, mortal or immortal, been so alluring. Never had Gabrielle held me so in thrall. Dear God, this is love. This is desire. And all my past amours have been but the shadow of this. - The Vampire Lestat, p. 275

They literally feel the same about each other: instant attraction, love, desire, and so on. And it is powerful.

So powerful that hundreds of years later (in one of my favorite passages from any of her books) Armand is the only person allowed to approach an unconscious Lestat. Not only approach him, but allowed to lay down next to him and cuddle, caress, and console Lestat, to cry onto him.

I looked down on Lestat, who was unchanged, his hair fallen as before, a little over his left eye. His right arm was out, and his fingers curling upwards, and there came from him not the slightest movement, not even a breath from his lungs or a sigh from his pores. I knelt down beside him again. I reached out, and without flinching or hesitating, I brushed his hair back from his face. I could feel the shock in the room. I heard the sighs, the gasps from the others. But Lestat himself didn't stir. Slowly, I brushed his hair more tenderly, and I saw to my own mute shock one of my tears fall right onto his face. It was red yet watery and transparent and it appeared to vanish as it moved down the curve of his cheekbone and into the natural hollow below. I slipped down closer, turning on my side, facing him, my hand still on his hair. I stretched my legs out behind me, and alongside of him, and I lay there, letting my face rest right on his outstretched arm. Again there came the shocked gasps and sighs, and I tried to keep my heart absolutely pure of pride and pure of anything but love. It was not differentiated or defined, this love, but only love, the love I could feel perhaps for one I killed or one I succored, or one whom I passed in the street, or for one whom I knew and valued as much as him. - The Vampire Armand, pp. 368-369 (emphasis is mine)

But the contrasting absolute annoyance Armand has for Lestat is hilarious! He loves him but can barely stand him sometimes (that isn't unusual for Lestat's admirers).

Lestat, not a bad friend to have, and one for whom I would lay down my immortal life, one for whose love and companionship I have ofttimes begged, one whom I find maddening and fascinating and intolerably annoying, one without whom I cannot exist. The Vampire Armand, p. 276

But it's the way he describes things that happen to him that maddens me, the way that he connects one incident to another as though all these random and grisly occurrences were in fact links in some significant chain. They are not. They are capers. And he knows it. But he must make a gutter theatrical out of stubbing his toe. The James Bond of the Vampires, the Sam Spade of his own pages. - The Vampire Armand, p. 288 (emphasis mine)

Though Armand's head on Lestat's arm might be the most beautiful image of the two of them from any of the books, this line gives me chills every time:

"Lestat, my Lestat - for he was never theirs, was he? - my Lestat was crazed and railing as the result of his awful saga […]" - The Vampire Armand, p. 320 (emphasis mine)

Yes, your Lestat.

[plumbobpaparazzi]

Peek into my Mods folder...

This is dedicated to @alltimefail-sims or anyone who needs a little help with lag!

I have several mods I refer to as "efficiency mods" that are little quality-of-life tweaks that make the game smoother for me, either by reducing lag or reducing immersion-breaking hiccups. As always, your mileage may vary, but hopefully this is helpful to someone. :) List of mods under cut to keep your dash clean.

No Intro - Whether you are trying to 50/50 your mods, testing new CC, or just need to shave time off your game loading... get rid of the cinematic intro.

Free Will Delay - Do your sims curbstomp their queue and proceed to fuck off to something unrelated? Yeah, me too, until I got this mod. From the mod description: "[E]very time you tell your sim to do something, they will be forced to listen! …For 5 minutes. Then they get free will back again. This is probably why controlling Sims in Sims 4 feels so bad! Because you lose control the second they start doing what they're told. Even if you queue up actions, the total time is STILL five minutes- because it goes from the last direction you give your sim. So you can tell them to do 3 hours worth of stuff while paused…and they'll get control back after 5 minutes. This mod changes this timeframe to an option of your choosing, to make controlling your sims feel more rigid."

Simulation Unclogger - This is an oldie-but-goodie mod from Turbodriver that helps interrupt when Sims get stuck in an endless action loop.

Evolve/Fertilize All Plants - Kind of weird how we can Harvest All but you can't Evolve or Fertilize All, right?

No Empty Venues When Arriving - Helps with the issue of going to a community lot and waiting around for Sims to show up. May cause increased lag if you are bottlenecked by RAM.

Food Autonomy Overhaul - Stops your stupid Sims from eating ingredients, AND allows Sims who hate cooking to autonomously grab quick meals. Didn't know they wouldn't do that? Yeah. That's a thing.

Don't Do That! Version 1 and Version 2 - Removes autonomy on annoying actions that can't be affected by MCCC tuner, like reactions and some trait idle animations.

Less Obsession - Lowers autonomy for certain things without disabling entirely. I still want my Sims to paint, but I don't want them to start a new figure painting any time they are left unsupervised.

Smarter Self-Care - Makes Sims prioritize their needs better before they are uncomfortable. I only use the packages for NPCs and Pets.

NPC Relationship Autonomy Fix - Stops random Sims from breaking into your house to ask to be your BFF (and tunes the requirements so they actually have to be your friend first.)

Buy More Upgrade Parts - Allows you to buy a package of 50 upgrade parts for when you are grinding out handiness or robotics.

The following mods are all by Bienchen and don't have a direct page for each package. You can search by name pretty easily on their website. I recommend flipping through and grabbing anything you find useful - I have a total of 368 of their mods installed. Here are some highlights:

novisibleecoeffects - The aurora will nuke your framerate. I know it's pretty, but oh my god.

noautonomousbakewhitecake - Does what it says on the tin, keeps your house from being overrun by cakes.

harvestnogroupinteraction - Stops club members from autonomously harvesting plants. Those are MY death flowers!

lessemotionidles - Reduces unnecessary idle animations from emotions, great for preventing your Sims from looking flirty at inappropriate times...

lesspreferenceidles - Stops your sims from thinking about how much they like fishing/fitness/etc. when they should be doing things.

happytoddleridledisabled - Stops the idling from the Happy Toddler trait. SUPER useful for family gameplay.

laundry_buffsandsoloidlesfix - Stops or reduces idles related to laundry. It's just clothes, bro

eldertweak - Reduces elder animation idles.

hastopeewalkstyleforchildonly - Helps get your Sims to the toilet in a reasonable amount of time.

tinyhousebuffhider - I know I'm in a Tiny Home, I don't need a moodlet.

lottraiteffectshider - Hides the little floating lightbulbs around Sims heads from lot traits.

notraitnotifications - I know my geek likes video games, I don't need the pop-up every time I play.

noholidayoutcomenotification - Please don't rub my nose in the fact I forgot to celebrate.

nofestivalnotifications and nofestivalnotificationsound - Helpful when a pack is new, but years later... no thanks.

noenrollmentandscholarshipinfo - No more info screen about the two universities. I think most of us know it all by now.

nouprootplant - Never cry because of a misclick again

simschangeoutfitwhenhotorcold - Should have already been autonomous, but alas.

novisualpoliteintroeffects - I don't know if I am the only one, but the glowing really bothers me.

restaurantsittweak - Sit down and eat your dang food! No more wandering Sims.

longerprom - Takes 6 hours instead of 4 so you can actually do something.

I probably have other QoL mods that could be helpful, but these are my recommendations to start with. Love to all the modders that keep this game playable <3

[robins-egg-bindery]

Windows by @drgrlfriend

Derek has a new neighbor who won't stop looking.

fic by @drgrlfriend

art by @maichan808 & @andavs-main

368 pages / 83,266 words

Title Font: PP Hatton

Body Fonts: Cardo, Geo

HAPPY FFWAD!!! Thank you @renegadepublishing for putting on this event in celebration!

More on the process below the cut!

I'm so excited to be posting this book! Super grateful @drgrlfriend was so down to let me bind Windows for Fan Fiction Writer Appreciation Day. This is one of my all-time favs, and I was thrilled to give it the treatment it deserves! @maichan808 & @andavs-main were also incredibly kind to allow me to include their stunning art pieces in the book <3 And thank you @renegadepublishing for putting this event together!

I wanted the typeset to be visually interesting and move around the page, without making it difficult to read. I created unique headers for each of the 28 chapters with royalty free art, and varied placement on the page in six different configurations. I also played with the text warp to make the text work as part of the image - one of my favorites is chapter 26, "Banshee", pictured above!

I used Brick duo for this bind, as part of the vision for the front cover, which was done in silver permanent vinyl. I think the rich rust color is perfect for how I would imagine Stiles & Derek's apartment building, and the silver is incredibly reflective - my favorite part is how the vinyl catches the light on the spine, and can reflect "Windows" on whatever surface it's on (pictured above). That's not an added effect, it's just doing that!

I did @tankbredgrunt's faux double-core headband with some Sulky Gutermann I bought at a secondhand store for $0.25, and it's so pretty! A bit thin to work with, but totally worth it for the multi-color effect it gives off.

And I finally got a proper crisp hinge! I think it really brings the whole book together, thank you knitting needles (even though you were a pain in the ass).

This project also marks my 100th book! I'm rapidly approaching the two year mark of my fanbinding career with no sign of stopping; thank you to this entire community, and all of the fandoms I've been able to bring this hobby to. I love how cross-fandom it is; and for an old floater like me, it's wonderful to bring all of my interests together and have something that transcends those lines.

HAPPY FAN FICTION WRITER APPRECIATION DAY!

[orion-archives]

MegaSound Week - 2024

Day 5: Pride / Regret

Soundwave swings a roundhouse kick that takes Bumblebee in the side. Bee goes down, falling among the wreckage that was his friend.

"I'm saving you for last, Autobot," Soundwave tells him. "You've earned special treatment.” He pauses to look at the vast wall of attack ships nestled beneath the battle cruisers. With firepower such as this, any remaining resistance from the Autobots, from humanity—from anyone or anything—would be brief. "Better have our fun while it lasts."

He steps forward and kicks Bumblebee viciously several more times, and still Bumblebee does not cry out.

Then Soundwave looks toward Megatron to see if his lord is entertained by his actions.

Megatron gives him a pitying glance and then looks away.

Suddenly the enjoyment of his actions ends for Soundwave.

TRANSFORMERS: Dark of the Moon by Peter David. Pages 368-369.

I had done this prompt before, but didn't like how it was turning out so I rushed a little bit and experimented with brushes and a different canvas. I really like how this one turned out! It may be my favorite piece for MegaSound Week so far!

Original (warning, it's ugly lmao):

Bayverse MegaSound has so much angst potential aND I INTENT TO CHANGE THAT

WHO'S WITH ME?

[yamasakiko---ji]

DON'T THINK JUST SHOOT - LENINGRADSKOYEOPTIKOMECHANICHESCKOYEOBYEDINENIE

I bought this Lomo Photo Book against my will on impulse because it had 368 pages! and the price was 1,980 yen! The camera that frees me from the curse of “photography” was always the lomo lc-a.

[stillness-in-green]

Chapter Thoughts — Chapter 423: One For All vs. All For One

At the request of a few asks, have some chapter thoughts. I will warn everyone in advance that some portions of this post are extremely bitter. This is less salty than it is bile-flavored. It's also not quite as thorough as other posts have been, as my disillusionment with the material limits my willingness to comb the chapter for details to muse about beyond the ones that jump out at me.

None of which is to say that this post is short.

CONTENT WARNING: Confrontational rhetoric about irl prisons and the hypothetical of committing suicide to avoid them. I have strong personal feelings about some of the language I've been seeing from defenders of this chapter and I'm in no mood to prevaricate around them.

o Danger Sense continues to be some real bullshit.  My initial response to the leaks was that it was yet another dumb contrivance to make things arbitrarily harder for the villains than equivalent things would be for the Heroes, but reading the official release, I actually just think it's dumb that AFO thinks Danger Sense would have alerted him to his/Shigaraki's failing body at all.  Why would it?  Danger Sense nominally (nominally) activates based on hostility, and where's the hostility in super-regeneration failing?  If it were the remnants of Shigaraki/OFA attacking him from within his own body, that'd be one thing, but that doesn't seem to be what the first few pages are getting at. 

Rather, it's just that the power of OFA is being too much for his body, in the same way it was for Deku at the beginning.  As if, you know, Shigaraki hasn't already been surgically modified to handle both AFO and, presumably, OFA the whole time.  Ujiko only mentioned the former specifically, but given that the plan was always for AFO's new vessel to be able to steal OFA, why wouldn't that also be accounted for?  The best I can think is that AFO and Ujiko didn't know that OFA would put such strain on the body, but it's not like AFO couldn't have observed that the quirk's been growing stronger over the generations.  If he and Ujiko just failed to calibrate the body correctly, it's a failure of Ujiko's warped genius as a mad biologist and quirk scientist—which again takes us back to dumb contrivances that make things harder for the villains than they would be for the heroes.

    

o The Kurogiri scene would be very touching if it, you know, actually amounted to something.  If it didn't apparently end with Bakugou coming in to murder him.  Except we don't even quite get that level of commitment because Kurogiri was falling apart already, so you get the impression that he would have collapsed with or without Bakugou's intervention.

    

o This in turn makes Bakugou's intervention really silly and pointless.  My god, I don't care.  I do not care!  I do not care about Bakugou pushing Deku two steps forward past a barrier that was already failing.  I do not care about Bakugou getting one last stupid victory lap when he's already dramatically endured a severe beating and emotional assault, stood back up from the stupidest heart surgery in the history of fiction, and faced down everything AFO could unleash on him, far outstripping that same villain's climactic efforts fighting All Might in Kamino in what remains AFO's only semi-emotionally resonant battle in the whole manga.  As it is, this is just one more ludicrous handwaved magical cross-country teleport like every other one the Heroes have been enjoying through this whole fight.

    

o Yoichi paying attention to AFO now?  Man, imagine if we could have just skipped a bunch of bullshit and gotten this way back in Chapter 368, when Yoichi first told AFO that it was over.  Imagine if Vestige Yoichi had something like this when his actual for-real flesh-and-blood brother died, rather than having zero reaction to it whatsoever, not even looking over Deku's psychic shoulder and making a sad face about it.

o It actually kind of offends me that Horikoshi thinks he can get away with taking a stab in the direction of making AFO "sympathetic" now.  Now, after he's spent the entire endgame portraying AFO as a two-dimensional Demon Lord who was literally Evil In Utero.  And, you know, I'd buy AFO as being Evil In Utero but also capable of loneliness, sure. And I'm even more than on board with interpreting AFO as a man who's spent the last century working 24:7 to convince himself that he's heartlessly evil to deal with the loss of the only family he ever had. But the fact that this statement has been put in the mouth of Deku, who has never indicated the faintest trace of sympathy or understanding, much less compassion for AFO?  Fuck off.

    

o All that Yoichi hyping up Deku's incredible finesse in attacking Shigaraki with the stored-up OFA quirks makes me think is, "Welcome to My Hero Academia, where the stakes are made up and the past doesn't matter!"  I am so abominably weary of the endgame's—and the series in general's—willing to just baldly lie to the audience's face about what is actually happening at any given point in the story.

That was the moment when we should have had a response from Yoichi, what with Shigaraki having apparently torn AFO's vestige limb from psychic limb and Bakugou overseeing as the real man rewound out of existence.  That Yoichi didn't respond back then just made him seem like he'd written off his brother generations ago; it makes his sorrowful-yet-grateful act in this chapter incredibly unearned.  Of course, the actual reason we didn't get a beat like this back then wasn't for any reason consistent with Yoichi's feelings about his brother, nor because Yoichi was too far away to know that the brother he has a psychic bond with was dying.  No, it was because Horikoshi was already writing towards this beat instead, so he didn't need to bother.  The last time Yoichi looks the real AFO’s way was the chapter-ending Bakugou blast of 409, when it takes the first eight pages of 410 for AFO’s Rewinding death to finalize itself.  The Hawks vestige talked more to All For One in his last moments than AFO’s own brother did.

    

Internal monologue is placed where internal monologue cannot possibly exist.  Characters' plans are backdated to points in the story which are completely irreconcilable with how those characters were behaving at the time.  Surprise and dismay are pantomimed from characters who are revealed to have anticipated and planned for the very eventuality they're acting so shocked about.

The main character, a kid who was once characterized by his tendency to mutter his thoughts out loud, who had a running gag of tightly packed, densely worded speech/thought balloons, has been reduced to an empty marionette, devoid of internal monologue, scoured of thoughts more complex than the multiplication tables of his quirk combinations.  The story can retroactively say that Deku did—intentionally and willfully!—anything it wants and not have to worry about belying its phony stakes and made-for-Twitter cliffhangers because it has deprived Deku of his own capacity to reflect.  He can't spoil twist reveals of his own true intentions if the narrative completely locks us out of his head!  Nevermind how much of his final battle has occurred inside a shared goddamn psychic space.

All of this has made it totally impossible for me to read the story as a story.  Not only do I see the strings, the strings have become all I can see.

Of course the vestiges are back one last time for a dramatic punch, despite multiple chapters swearing up and down to us that we were seeing a big emotional sacrifice play.  Last chapter we witnessed the word vomit that was Horikoshi trying to justify Star's pilots surviving their planes blowing up, because that's how determined Horikoshi is that no one on Team Hero actually die.  Of course the vestiges came back.

Who cares?  Truly, who the fuck cares?  I don't care about them; I don't care about whether they'll be back again in the epilogue; I don't care about why Vestige Might and Shinomori are missing from the punch; I don't care about the story finally trying to pretend that anyone in its pages has ever given a single starving river rat's ass about All For One's humanity.

—NOW ENTERING FULL-FLEDGED RANT ZONE—

I care about the only characters who have ever been facing actual stakes in this war: Shigaraki and his followers.

    

o Even though I care, I don't have it in me to weigh in much about Shigaraki's seeming death here, and especially not his last words.  I'm far too jaded about Horikoshi's cliffhangers to think that anything I say now about Shigaraki dying and what it means for both Hero Society and the people Shigaraki leaves behind can be assumed to still be accurate two weeks from now.

I hope it's a fakeout.  I hope a chunk of Shigaraki's body fell through Kurogiri's last portal and the hyper-regen can kick back in once he's no longer being assaulted on all sides by the allies of the kid who was trying to “save” him.  I hope Horikoshi has one last stupid asspull up his sleeve.  I hope for a complete Karma Houdini ending for Shigaraki and the rest of the League.

If we don't get that, it's gonna suck, and it's gonna turn Deku into a fraud and a liar.  I don't care if the story wants me to think Shigaraki was saved; I don't care if Deku is satisfied with having saved "that crying boy."

I have not forgotten that "that crying boy" gently refused to accept Deku's "save" when the bell rang to go home. He wanted to go back to his friends, instead; he reiterated his desire to be a Hero for the Villains.  The crying child returned to the form of Shigaraki Tomura and then AFO devoured him.  Deku didn't save the child then, and he hasn't saved him now.

Remember how Eri didn't count as truly saved from Overhaul until the first time she could smile fully and freely?  Guess what stops you from doing that?  Right—being fucking dead.

And those touching last words of Shigaraki's won't do Spinner much good on account of him still being brain-damaged from a bunch of extra quirks no one can remove, because the only people who could are, again, fucking dead.

Unless, of course, the theorists are right and Deku is going to be not only not quirkless in the epilogue (meaning all that drama and emotion about sacrificing OFA is going to be another fucking lie), he's going to have the "unified" OFA+AFO quirk via Shigaraki's fistbump.  Meaning Deku can remove the extra quirks, presumably just before telling Spinner that Deku saved-via-killing the love of Spinner's life.

Solidarity among outcasts is false and toxic.  Everyone should just rely on Heroes more, no matter how much Heroes have failed them in the past.

o One last thing I want to address, less about the canon and more about the reactions I've been seeing elsewhere to the prospect of Shigaraki (and any combination of Dabi, Toga and Spinner) being dead: the idea that being dead is the best possible outcome for them because if they don't die they'll only have to spend the rest of their lives "rotting in jail."

Great job, team; nice message to take home.  Everyone pack it in.

    

Firstly, and to get this out of the way, that is a false binary that totally ignores the long history of Shounen Jump villains getting absurd Karma Houdini endings where they walk off into the sunset free as birds because they've changed their minds and resolved to be better, or at least have decided mass murder is no longer worth their time and effort.  (Vegeta wasn't the first mass murderer a Shounen Jump story rewarded with freedom and friendship, nor was he the last.)

But more importantly, that false binary is one that could only be presented by someone who truly does see prison as a fate worse than death.  No rehabilitation is possible.  No supervised release or house arrests in the care of assigned guardians who want better for them.  No lenience can be granted in recognition of the League's mental states; they can be admitted to no mental hospitals focused on therapy.

The "better death than prison" line is the product of a perspective that has never had to seriously consider the prospect of living behind bars.  It's a childish imagination of prison as a nebulous Bad Place where Bad People go to be Punished For Being Bad, or a self-righteous fantasy of a cold hell where sinners are sentenced to suffering eternal.

People can tell that the League have suffered too much to sentence them to Forever Bad Times, so they comfort themselves with the idea that at least they died happy, instead of living forever in a pop-culture-informed crayon doodle of concrete and solitude.

I’m not here to tell these readers that there aren't people in the world who would rather die than live under watch for the rest of their lives.  I won’t deny that Japanese prisons are bleak and there’s every chance that the prisons in Horikoshi’s fictionalized Japan are even worse.  But I am asking people espousing the view that death would be better than incarceration to seriously consider all the angles on what that sentiment means.

If it were you facing the life sentence, are you so sure you would prefer to take your own life?  If it were someone you loved who would rather die than face imprisonment, would you help them—hand your older brother the gun, or your younger sister the knife?

Or would you want to hope that they could get some help instead, have an opportunity to connect to something meaningful—find religion, take up reading classic literature, connect with someone inside or via letters?  Would you want them to accept the lawful punishment for what they'd done rather than evade it by ending their lives?  Would you want them to hold on in case their case could be reassessed someday, that they might eventually finish serving their sentence or be moved to someplace that would focus on helping them rather than punishing them?

Would you want a glorified cop in a cape making that decision for them—or you—based on that cop's ability to "forgive"?

If you think prison is a fate worse than death, why is it okay that people like Gentle Criminal or the Shie Hassaikai Trash Trio have to endure it, while mass murderers, serial killers and insurrectionists like the League get to escape through death?  Think of every purse snatcher who gets paraded in front of cameras with their arms bound and their face muzzled; think of Twice at sixteen; think of Mr. Compress now.  Do these people deserve to suffer in the kind of torment you're imagining prison must entail?  Would it be better for them to die rather than endure it?

If prisons in BNHA's Japan are so terrible as all that, isn't that something the kids should try to fix?  Shouldn't that be a part of the mass societal improvement project people are swearing up and down the kids will have nicely sewn up in the epilogue?  If the kids aren't going to fix these prisons—these places that take suicide risks like Ending and spit them out worse than ever; these places like Tartarus where the wardens call the people in their charge monsters and animals—then why should I believe the kids are going to fix literally anything else?

Or is it simply the case that it's perfectly fine that prisons should be this way; shitty prison conditions are only bad when it's the villains whose sympathetic backstories we know who're facing them?

"It's a shame, but the League has to pay for their crimes."  But why does that “have to be”?  Isn’t it because no one involved—not the characters, not the author, not the people who accept this ending—can envision a world where the “has to be” could be otherwise?

That's the problem with, "Killing someone can be a way of saving them," and, "They would have just spent the rest of their lives in prison anyway."  It's a stunted mentality that leaves no room for the radical reforms and systemic improvements that are necessary to stop this whole cycle from repeating.  Worse, as I very much suspect we're going to see in the epilogue, it's a mentality that says the system is actually fine as it is—the only real problems were caused by a tiny handful of bad actors, and now that they've been removed, everything else will self-correct, and things will go back to normal.

    

That precious, perfect status quo that Deku swore to return: this is the way he brings it back, it and everything that comes with it.

    

o In summary: if this ending sticks, then what we have in My Hero Academia is thus:

A world that played at being grounded, but which turned out to run on arbitrary rules, magic thinking and Evil Babies.

Characters that were presented as radically kind, but whose endgame resolutions represented a cruel underlining of the status quo, in which only those who suffer in silence deserve not to have to.

A story that wanted to be staunchly idealistic but which ultimately entrenched to hollow, meaningless platitudes.

o P.S. So like, Nana’s vestige saved Shigaraki off-screen, right?  So even after all her fear that Shigaraki would have to die, even after all the efforts she and Deku made to help Deku break him down, at the very last moment, she wanted to save him.  And she did so in the only reason she could, as one psychic scrap to another: she held his soul together when he was shattering apart.  But when Deku comes to the very last moment, when Shigaraki’s body is shattering apart, does he do anything to try to hold Shigaraki together?  Try to tell Shigaraki how to use Black Whip to hold his body together, call for Sero and his tape, Aizawa’s Erasure, anything like that?

If it doesn't stick?  That I'm less sure of.  But I'm pretty sure Deku's fucked as the Symbol of Hope no matter what.  There’s no way, at this point, to fix his portrayal as the kid who has a drive to save that eclipses all common understanding.  Every part of the story, before and after that declaration of Yoichi’s in Chapter 287, has served to undermine that claim.  This is just the last nail in the sky coffin.

    

Nah.  Instead, he just administers one last punch to finish the job.  The boy with the drive to save that eclipses all common understanding, everyone.

[crinklemommy]

I've been a bit too busy to get back to all the Discord requests, so I'll leave this link here for a few days :3

If you do join us, please read the rules page entirely! <3

[creator-chaos]

Mairuma ch.368 thoughts...

Something I've noticed a lot is how the author plays with time. Despite this being a fairly linear story, we're still given these feelings of being embedded in the past and future by being shown characters at different points in their lives. Doing this with the antagonists too adds this depth of character so succinctly, without having to spend a lot of page time. I really love how this technique gets deployed throughout.

Hmm, really not sure what we're meant to take from this. Everyone knows Delkira isn't here, so what does using his crest signify?

"Are you my future brother-in-law?" lol

Ok but this really got me. The imagery of life hanging on underground through violent oppression... Something I need to remember when things seem beyond hope. There's always life hanging on.

I wouldn't actually expect it from any media that isn't actually literally radical, but it's a shame Nishi isn't going to commit to a systemic ACAB and is basically going with a "bad apples" portrayal.

[sage-nebula]

@sharpidiot — making a new post since the other one is super long, but yeah, considering the position of the Sheikah at this point in Hyrule's history, and how they got there and the existence of the Yiga Clan? It's a big problem.

It's not mentioned in BotW itself, but the entire reason why the Yiga Clan exist is because 10,100 years ago, after the Sheikah helped save Hyrule from the Calamity by building the Divine Beasts and Guardians, the King of Hyrule felt threatened by them and basically attempted a genocide on the Sheikah. All Sheikah tech was ordered to be destroyed, Sheikah were forced out of the main parts of Hyrule, and Sheikah were banned from doing anything more with science on punishment of imprisonment at the least. The Sheikah who survived all this dealt with it in one of two ways: they either went on to found Kakariko Village and live in secret, or they formed the Yiga Clan and swore revenge on the royals (and more importantly the goddesses) that betrayed them.

All of this is in the Creating a Champion book, scattered throughout the history section and in detail on page 368. It casts the Yiga Clan in an entirely new light. While they can't exactly be excused for wanting to kill those that had nothing to do with the paranoid king's decision and destroy the world, we also can't say they're just bonkers or that they formed for no reason. The Sheikah were sworn to the goddesses (and Hylia in specific) to protect the royal family of Hyrule (Hylia's descendents). This was their divine duty. And then they were punished for it, exiled and had their culture destroyed and were oppressed and imprisoned. Their goddesses did nothing to help them. The king and people they had protected were the ones doing this to them. Can we blame them for turning the way they did? I can't.

But now, a huge chunk of that just seems . . . gone, from TotK. If the Sheikah tech didn't exist, then the king from 10,100 years ago wouldn't have done what he did to the Sheikah. And if he didn't do that, the Yiga Clan wouldn't exist. It makes zero sense. What's worse is there are parts of the Zonai things that are very reminiscent of Sheikah things, such as the orbs in the shrines. We could say perhaps the Sheikah inherited those things from the Zonai, but . . . that's plot putty to try to spackle the holes.

I'm still early in the game (I have only finished the Rito portion) so I do not want any spoilers for anything that comes later. Maybe this will be fixed. I hope it is. But if it isn't, then I will probably consider TotK to be yet another video game fanfic, a la Age of Calamity (albeit one that is higher quality at least).

[days-until-burnout]

Day 94 -

Characters - Etho/Bdubs Words - 368 Time - 15 mins Content - Hermitcraft | Part 1

It’s a couple of days later when everyone is finally released from limbo. Goodbyes and superficial promises are made—Etho even makes some of his own, cheeky as he rolls his eyes in response to Joel’s exaggerated requests—then they leave. Back to their respective servers, lighter already when the soulbound leaves no traces behind other than the memories in their heads. 

Etho can look at and think about them fondly, because it had been fun. This brief moment with Joel had been fun, they had fun. But he wants to go home now, planted in a server where death meant nothing. 

And usually, he’d go to his own server, fall into solitude until he was ready to rejoin the other Hermits. This time, however, he goes straight to Hermitcraft, stepping through the portal and coming out at his base. 

Even the air is different. Much lighter—finally he can breathe. 

He situates himself, checking around his base aimlessly until he has full control of his body. More than that, he idles until his shoulders relax and the ghostly burns leave his skin. 

It’s a couple hours later when he finally deems himself ready, making the walk to the door out to his base. From the claustrophobic room to the openness outside, so much air to overwhelm his lungs. He smiles under his mask, tugging it down after making sure he’s alone. Not that it matters, but he likes the effort. 

Deep inhale, long exhale. 

Rockets break in the distance before two bodies land blocks ahead of him. A smile creeps into his lips as Bdubs stumbles on the landing, too preoccupied by rushing over, practically tackling into his chest. 

Etho’s arms are quick around him, tightly as he buries his face into the crook of his shoulder. Bdubs hugs him back, smiles against his neck, everything warm. 

They stand about long, their grip easing but not quite ready to let go. Etho looks up to see Impulse, noticing the smile on his lips. Impulse knows, he reminds himself. Bdubs told him as he told Joel, they are all on the same page. Everything is fine. 

“Love you,” Bdubs whispers easily like breathing. 

Etho replies with a kiss on his jaw.

_____

idk. just felt like writing a part 2. i was going to do a req but i am terrible with time management 😌

[ramonag-if]

Crown of Exile - Chapter 5 Update

Chapter 5 is now available for the public!

Play the game here. Please RESTART your game. Old saves will not work.

The chapter includes:

The entirety of chapter 5;

Dealing with the Nomad Tribe prisoners;

Arriving in Ishari;

Learning more about the other Temple of Ehulla;

Convincing the Ishari people to help Prince Irus;

Freeing prisoners from the Blood Guard prison;

Uncovering major revelations about a certain prisoner;

Dealing with the aftermath of these revelations;

Spend time with your chosen RO;

Introducing a new RO - Anu;

Deepen your bond with Prince Irus;

The first (optional) NSFW scene of the game with Prince Irus.

Word Count: 78 368 words. Total game word count: 324 810 words.

Things to note:

As always, this is a first draft so expect scenes to be lacking some choices;

I wanted to include a lot more interactivity as well as more romance scenes, but I ultimately ran out of time;

Please report bugs to me via Tumblr, the game page or through this form;

The issue with the return button should be fixed and you should no longer get stuck in a loop;

For exclusive side stories posted monthly and weekly devlogs, sneak-peeks and general rambling, consider supporting me on Patreon.

I hope you enjoy the chapter and have fun!