#pawn egbert

[hussiehints]

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[bonyfish]

I can't sleep so here are some fun facts about my upbringing

When we were little, my dad trained me to be good at chess and my sister to be good at poker. Sometimes he'd do endgame drills: he would set up a board with just a king and pawn on his side and a king, pawn, and knight or queen on mine, and he would see if I could beat him. I am not remotely good at chess anymore but my sister still has a very impressive poker face.

I don't eat meat anymore but my first clear memory is of sashimi

When I was in high school my dad taught me to do some basic stunt driving, controlled skids and the like. I have mostly forgotten how though.

When I was in my late teens or early twenties, my dad booked my sister and I a half-day pistol training intensive course with a heavily tattooed ex-military guy named Jeremiah who had incongruously stunning eyelashes. We started at maybe 6 in the morning because it was July in Indiana and well over 90 degrees by the time we finished around noon. We learned how to field-strip a Glock 19 and did target practice. By the time we were done, my right hand was so sore that I was a better shot with my left, which is very much not my dominant hand.

Relatedly, if you search my birth name online, I think you can still find a photo of my dad teaching me to shoot at the age of 7.

We didn't really eat together or have formalized meal times, and I didn't quite get the hang of using silverware until college. I could manage a single fork or spoon, but when cutting things I would hold my implements in my fists and clumsily mangle my food. My high school girlfriend taught me to cook.

After I moved out, my mom sent me a book purporting to be a guide on how to live through an EMP attack. It had a whole section on how important the Christian bible would be to rebuilding life after the collapse of society as we know it, including specific passages that may be of use. I called my mom up and asked very tentatively if she had actually read the book before sending it to me, on account of we're Jewish and various flavors of agnostic. She said she skimmed it.

When I was 7 or 8, an animal got trapped in the wall between our kitchen and bathroom, and it would scrabble around in there and make a very alarming scuttling-scraping noise. I found this very frightening, so my mother decided to give the animal a name, like a pet, to make it less scary. (The name was Egbert.) This was a creative solution and might have worked, but we had never had pets, so I had no frame of reference for how I was supposed to feel about that. Egbert later chewed his way out and emerged from a pile of dirty dishes before disappearing under the oven. He was tentatively identified as a southern flying squirrel.

One time in high school some friends tried to drive to my house and got lost for two hours.

[tituasi]

Characters:

Martin and Yeehawk- @catsdaddy

Kitten-  iKitsunyan on Art Fight

Lovely Cloverhoof- InkyGotLost on Art Fight

Pawn- @skeledorky

Egbert- A-Nicheling on Art Fight

No- @humane0

[sasquapossum]

Among the things in the Surprise Box we found at the older storage area in Ann Arbor was some stuff from my original (first edition) AD&D set.

This would have been 1979 or 1980, perhaps. I think I've seen the player's handbook, DM manual, and monster manual at my brother's place; apparently they're worth a couple of hundred bucks apiece in good condition now. If I had bought non-advanced D&D (would have had to be Holmes edition) which I also remember seeing at the store, that would be worth even more.

Yes, the dice sucked just as much as you would guess from the wear. It would be many years before the fancy dice you see everywhere nowadays became A Thing.

Another personal/historical note: when I bought this, we were still living with my ultra-religious aunt. She was Not Pleased. It was just more evidence that we were pawns of Satan - this was around the same time as the James Dallas Egbert III affair and we were in Michigan at the time - which probably contributed to our hastier than planned move to our own place.

[jaxinvasion]

What a better way to kick off my new blog than with my first... Uh... Pesterlog? Fic chapter? Whatever it is, it's for my AU of Homestuck, basically Trolls on Earth and No Sburb. It's not too long, more of just an introduction, so please check it out under the cut! I'd love to hear any feedback you have. :) This isn't meant to be romantic, so I'd appreciate if you didn't tag as ship. Thank you, and enjoy!!

-- ghostyTrickster [GT] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 16:13 -- GT: uhh... hello? GT: are you rose lalonde? GT: this is john egbert. GT: do you remember me? you and your mom had dinner at our house. GT: our as in me and my dad. TT: Oh. TT: Just as I had begun to contemplate as to what exactly my mom could have possibly needed my chumhandle for, completely disregarding the question of how she even knows that I use it to begin with, here you have made your appearance, as if wholly manifested by slightest utterance of your satanic name. GT: satanic?? GT: uh, did i do something to make you this mad at me already?? TT: Oh, no, you didn't do anything yourself. TT: You just happen to be a hapless pawn in yet another one of my mom's duplicitous schemes to play housewife (or step-mom, as the case may be) in an attempt to, as one might say, "Get my goat." TT: While I have no business interfering with her condescending ventures, I have no will to entertain any sort of farce masquerading as a play-date. TT: It is bad enough as is that I have to live in this hapless Nowheresville of a town in a timezone 3 hours behind that of my childhood home on the other side of the country for the sake of my mom's employment. TT: So color me disinterested in fumbling for a method for resuscitating a conversation like a paramedic in denial. Especially not with someone as hammer-headed as you. GT: O_O TT: For the sake of my time, and yours, I will do us both a favor and end this little chat early. TT: Au revoir. GT: wait! TT: ? GT: i do not know what you have been going on about or why you are being such an asshole, but i can promise that your mom did not set me up to this. TT: Oh? In that case, how exactly did you get my chumhandle? GT: my dad gave me a note of it. he was the one who told me about your name, and also that we met before. TT: ... GT: oh my god. GT: our parents are totally trying to get us to be friends! they are in cahoots!! GT: and it is not like it is a secret why. everyone knows that there is something going on between him and your mom. TT: Wow. I would compliment your abnormally skillful discernment, but I would be remiss to partake in unwitting propagation of what must be tautology to a brain as secure as yours. GT: rose, that is like the tenth time you have said something that does not make any sort of sense. TT: I try my best. GT: ugh, what ever. i guess i will go if you do not want to talk. bye rose. TT: John, wait. GT: huh? what is it? TT: It has become all too clear to me that my mom has recruited an ally in her passive-aggressive crusade in patronizing me. TT: An ally in the form of Dear Old Dad. TT: If our dignity is to maintain its status as unscathed, then we will need to form an alliance, the likes of which have never been before seen. GT: wait, so now you want to be friends with me?? GT: rose, you need to make up your mind! TT: John, listen. If our parents are going to start seeing each other, we will be stuck in each other's midst whether we like it or not. They already set us up to meet on Pesterchum. Who knows what other shenanigans they will attempt to bring about? It will certainly be much worse than any harsh quips slid your way. GT: uh... okay. TT: Glad to have you aboard, John. I look forward to working with you. GT: i suddenly have a very bad feeling about all of this.

[michoislost]

just had a really insane vivid dream about Homestuck.

the comic seemed to begin with meenah, a fiersty tyrant. she had 8 troll Bloodbornes, that she used as pawns for her bidding. she treated them very badly and seemed to be able to affect their genetic code like they were robots, one of them screwed up so she hard coded them to not betray or fail her. and so another meenah that seemed more mature came up to her and was like bitch wtf are you doing with the trolls i gave you?! which meenah 1 didn't like at all, so while they were fighting, meenah 2 hinted at the idea of the trolls being able to fuse and become other things. so while meenah 1 was distracted the trolls planned to escape, and they started to use the whole fusion thing, and ended up with two humans, Egbert dad and Lalonde mom and so like meenah 1 is pissed. she basically creates these giant ass men to catch the fleeing trolls, which decipher their own genetic coding and realize they need to make dave. so before getting caught Egbert dad and Lalonde mom create some trolls and give them non-mematic instructions so they couldn't be erased by meenah (basically instead of describing what the plan is, it would describe what the plan ISN'T) anyways it kinda went forward like that, trolls creating other trolls and fusing to create humanity. I told you it was bonkers! and i didn't even describe some of the things that happened

[mogai-headcanons]

/nm Not to bother you, but just in case, is alright if you tell everyone what's currently in the inbox just in case (I'm aware the list would be long)? Thanks in advance, but you don't have to if you'd like.

i’ll put this under a cut because it is indeed Quite Long

a req with ~45 homestuck characters from homesus-fictives (since it was sent off anon, i won’t list the whole thing out)

biromantic blackberry cookie and bisexual onion cookie

demiromantic bill cipher

nonbinary starlight glimmer, trans trixie, and bigender sunburst

milkgender milkman (collegehumor)

transfem heike kagero

bi zoey, mspec gay man ben, caedromantic nate, futch rachel, femme brianna, and nonbinary theo (escape room 2)

lesbian amanda young, gay man mark hoffman, postbi lawrence gordon, and trans adam stanheight

transfem roxy lalonde, transmasc jane crocker, aroace jake english, transmasc dirk strider, agender calliope, transmasc john egbert, aroace jade harley, transfem rose lalonde, and aroace dave strider

gay fight club narrator and bisexual tyler durden

bi gay cass, gay man xander, polyam sebastian, panromantic elliot, homoflexible alex, bisexual sam, heteroflexible harvey, pansexual shane, quoiromantic emily, pansexual abigail, lesbian leah, pansexual penny, bisexual maru, and heteroflexible haley (stardew valley + farmer ocs)

gnc charley, aromantic kami, bi gay juwon, aroace ayako, polyam mai tai, polyam seyshelle, alloace aquarien, and trans cora (dollightful)

genderfluid laurice deauxnim, bi phoenix wright, queer kristoph gavin, demisexual miles edgeworth, wolfgender shi-long lang, biromantic franziska von karma, asexual maya fey, bi mia fey, demisexual diego armando, mlm simon blackquill, trans athena cykes, heteroflexible dick gumshoe, pan trucy wright, nebularomantic apollo justice, caligoromantic clay terran, nonbinary klavier gavin, amicuromantic sebastien debeste, trans nahyuta sahdmadhi, aroace ema skye, pansexual wocky kitaki, bellusromantic vera misham, gay jean armstrong, trans robin newman, aroace simon keyes, cassgender ryunosuke naruhodo, bi kazuma asogi, pansexual herlock sholmes, venufluid iris wilson, trans girl susato mikotoba, asexual satoru hosonaga, and catgender soseki natsume

trans billy loomis, nonbinary stu macher, bisexual randy meeks, femme tatum, and polysexual sydney

transhet dave suss moggus, asexual bambi “marcello” corn lover, questioning tristan, aroace expunged - it looks like this one is missing some parts. it cuts off part of the way through expunged’s identity, which is in an ask labeled ‘4′, then another ask requesting i use certain sprites was sent referring to the request as ‘6-part’. 

pangender plague, bisexual deathslinger, fluidflux trickster, bisexual quentin smith, biromantic ghostface, omnisexual david king, nonbinary michael myers, aroace bubba, pansexual freddy, pansexual dwight, and gay steve harrington

trans girl pawn white, agender pawn black, and aroace earl grey

gay count d

transfem darkrai and auroracoric cresselia

gay man butter pretzel, butch sour belt, and femme chocolate bonbon

bisexual walter beckett and pansexual lance sterling

demifem piglin

t4t johnny cage, t4t sonya blade, trendercoric cassie cage, bisexual jax, bisexual jacque, firegender takeda, gay kung jin, bisexual liu kang, catbungender kung lao, firegender scorpion, genderpsychic kenshi, cryogender subzero, umbragender noob saibot, demiaroace cyrax and sector

pansexual rose lavillant and nonbinary juleka

a req involving plummyplums’ troll ocs

transneutral political nihilist, bi moderate lee, and bi progressive

wizardic wizard cookie

transmasc eddie and transfem fukuro (walking on a star unknown)

lesboy cream unicorn and transmasc pitaya dragon

nonbinary plumstone

bisexual nakumo, trans woman merrow, and aroace seven

bisexual tom nook, gay man redd, trans isabelle, trans man digby, lesbian lottie, gay blathers, and stargender celeste

spacegender gobo fraggle

gay man aron, trans clay, asexual erica, lesbian quinn, trans hana, and nonbinary alex (encore!)

gay tinky winky

demoncoric devilisha and angelcoric angely

ace snowdrop and demiromantic ivypool

bisexual akira fudo and pan miki makimura

gay flametail

gay runningnose and demiromantic blackstar

demiboy shotaro kaneda and omnisexual kei

butch shougo yahagi and pansexual yui takanaka

demiromantic yu narukami, nebularomantic yosuke hanamura, transfeminine yukiko amagi, transfeminine chie satonaka, transmasculine kanji tatsumi, futch naoto shirogane, femme rise kujikawa, and bicurious teddy

genderqueer dash, genderfluid dot, electromantic dee, and nonbinary del (pbs kids)

gay dj yellow and bisexual student

genderfluid navyj

pangender berdly and nonbinary kris

vincian tagora gorjek, nonbinary cirava hermod, boyflux galekh xigisi, and bisexual mallek adalov

arospec puppet, nonbinary cami, queer mai, and questioning chica

panromantic razor, nonbinary albedo, and adhd klee

cassgender archons

lesbian toko fukawa, lesbian komaru naegi, bisexual genocider syo, and agatic sonia nevermind

nonbinary joel smallishbeans and bisexual lizzie ldshadowlady (empires smp)

transmasc hank j wimbleton, demigirl dr. ‘tricky’ hofnarr, nonbinary 2bdamned, gay sanford, gay deimos, intersex heather w wimbleton, bigender henryk p wimbleton, autigender harvey s wimbleton, rainbowgender skittles s wimbleton, and lesbian herbie d wimbleton

arospec pinkie pie and arospec rainbow dash

panlustic rumor (jschl-tt)

bisexual henry jekyll, gay man robert lanyon, polyam edward hyde, homoplatonic frankenstein’s creature, bisexual pidgely, and biromantic jasper kaylock (tgs)

trans eggnog cookie

trans sparkling cookie and trans vampire cookie

transmasc gingerbrave, transneumasc wizard, transfeminine strawberry, cookiegender custard, and transfeminine chili

cattix schnitzel (chowder)

butch swatch, femme tasque manager, and transfem queen

ghostgender hu tao, lesbian yanfei, and nonbinary xiao

[rabble-dabble]

The Cancer King

Well, here’s an Evil Karkat to go with Evil John.

So, let’s set the stage. How does Karkat become the villain? That’s honestly a pretty tricky question. Contrary to John, most of Karkat’s arc comes from him growing to shed or suppress any potential flaws that would make him an outright villain, so it’s a lot harder to make him turn into a villain on his own. So, we’ll have to give him that push.

So, after The Condescension dies, she gets sent to the dreambubbles. She’s both frustrated to be defeated and relieved to no longer be under Lord English’s thumb, so she decides to start planning her rebound.

She traverses the dreambubbles searching for her most competent and loyal minions from her old empire, building an army with promises of a new eternal empire that will span the multiverse. Once she’s confident in the size of her armada, she travels to doomed timelines and begins sucking the life force out of thousands of still living players, using the energy to resurrect herself and return to full strength. Unfortunately for her, she’s a Thief of Life, not a Rogue of Life. So, to resurrect her army, she’s forced to mind control a Rogue of Life and have them steal the life force from enough people to resurrect her entire army. With her preparations complete, The Condescension launches her invasion on Earth C.

Still starts by ambushing Karkat during some diplomatic meeting, detecting that he was the weak link, seeing as he’s the weakest non-immortal out of all the God-Tiers and his death would likely demoralize and horrify his friends. But, as she prepares his execution, the Condescension notices his blood color. Her thoughts immediately flicker back to the Signless and a particularly evil idea settles into her mind. The Signless had been the single biggest pain in her ass before Lord English, as his influence managed to haunt her even after his death. So, now’s the chance to get some payback.

She decided she would try to corrupt Karkat into everything the Signless would’ve despised. Transform him into her ruthless right hand man. 

Initially, the torture doesn’t work, so The Condesce decides to switch gears. After her forces manage to capture Terezi, Condy gives an ultimatum. Serve or she dies. Karkat is forced to work for her. Still, Karkat actively works against her. He uses his position in her ranks to leak information to his friends. The Condescension full expected this and keeps giving him false information to leak. She then leverages the resulting casualties, complimenting him on his “victory” and wonders just how long they’ll continue to trust him. “It’s been a few months since they lost you, guppy. Maybe they think you broke.”

The Condescension continues to get inside his head. She reads his mind to see all of his little insecurities and she leans into each and every one of them. All of his past mistakes and failings. For example, she offers to mind control Terezi into loving him as a “reward”. When he gets disgusted, she brings up the time he tried to schedule how much time she could spend with him and Dave without her permission. “Doesn’t matter how you get her so long as you get her. Sounds like past you had his priorities in order." 

She gives him ideas in his sleep, plaguing his mind with nightmares where his friends horrifically die from following his advice or while trying to save him. It inspires him to make a public speech denouncing his friends so they’ll stop trying to save him. After that, she fills his sleep with dreams of him dutifully serving by her side, forcing him to question why exactly he denounced his friends. 

His friends, naturally, don’t buy it. They know Karkat and they’re going to bust their asses off to save him. It’s only a matter of time before John kicks down the door to his room and scoops him off his feet in a hug.

As the captured Condescension is being dragged away, she smugly thanks Karkat for being so helpful with her regime. Karkat hunches up, but John grabs his hand behind his back. It helps keep his glare from wavering. 

Karkat is still noticably distant, even after the Condescension is executed. Naturally, his friends try to comfort him. Terezi is there to reassure him, assuming he went through the same kind of torture she did, while Jane and Jade are able to relate to being forced to serve the Condesce. However, they’re not quite able to get through. Karkat is convinced that he was actually beginning to genuinely abandon his friends and he’s too stuborn to "pawn his problems off on someone else”, in his words. Still, they’re not stupid. Everyone is able to tell the Condesce did something to him and that it’s still bothering him.

Karkat is haunted, day in and out, by nightmares of him abandoning his friends. He keeps berating himself, chastising himself for trying to abandon them after everything they went through together. His self-hatred is creeping into his skull like a poison and because he refuses to talk about it, it keeps getting worse.

No matter how much Karkat tells himself that it’s not true, that he’d never abandon his friends or hurt them, the nightmares linger.

So, Karkat decides to prove to himself that he’s loyal to his friends and would never actually abandon them. Since she was able to come back from the dead before, she could logically do it again. After stewing the problem over a bit, he goes to John with an idea. John is going to use his Retcon powers to help Karkat become God-Tier. That way, he can destroy The Condescension’s ghost in the dream bubbles so she can’t come back. John figures that this is Karkat’s way of facing his trauma directly and agrees. Mostly because he’s been spitballing with his friends about what Karkat’s problem might be and Rose brought the idea up.

John and Karkat travel back in time so that Karkat can use his old quest bed. It’s not like Past Karkat was going to use it anyway, so nothing really changes. The same Knight of Blood rules as in the Lord Egbert timeline apply, meaning that Karkat has all the powers of everyone that he’s friends with. 

John and Karkat hunt down HIC and manage to destroy her, but not before she manages one last sickening taunt. With her final breath before she fades away, The Condesce claims that Karkat denounced his friends of his own free will. John tells her off, but Karkat confirms it. Before John can press on the issue, Karkat teleports away. John tries to chase after him, but he isn’t able to find him. Karkat has a close enough relation to Void (via his old friendship with Equius) that John can’t just will himself to Karkat’s location. Karkat could feasibly be anywhere in Paradox Space.

While John is out looking for him, Karkat is mulling over his past mistakes. The Condescension’s words ringing in his head. He believes that, somehow, he choose to betray his friends. And as he keeps teleporting throughout Paradox Space, witnessing every mistake he ever made, that rabbit hole goes deeper. He wonders if maybe he tried a little harder, Eridan wouldn’t have gone crazy. Maybe if he cared a little more, Nepeta and Equius wouldn’t have died. If he was less selfish, none of this would have happened. 

It’s an ugly thought. He knows that. He knows he did the best he could. His friends won’t let him forget that. But a dark part of his mind won’t let it rest.

Then, Karkat realizes that he can fix this. 

He has the power to do simply travel back and prevent their deaths. He can save them. He can save everyone.

It backfires spectacularly.

The resulting future ends up becoming a horrific destopia. Sense Eridan never died, he ended up joining up with The Condescension in this timeline, acting as her double agent and letting her win. From there, HIC is able to discover a means of absorbing Lord English’s power, allowing herself to become the supreme ruler of Paradox Space. 

John manages to avoid this timeline, as his Retcon Powers protect him from changes in the timeline, so he doesn’t notice as he’s still looking for Karkat. 

Karkat is naturally horrified by the future he’s created. All of his friends are eitger dead or enslaved and everyone, everywhere, lives under the boot of a bloodparched despot. With John nowhere to be found, he can only imagine tge worst. He teleports away to the Furthest Ring.

He just floats there in the empty void for awhile, mentally digesting everything. Everything that has led up to this point, all the mistakes that he made and all the things he could’ve done, play on a loop on his mind. No matter what he does, he somehow fucks it up. And when he tries to fix those mistakes, he ends up making everything worse. In his mind, he’s the problem. And, as such, it’s his job to fix everything. 

Wracked with guilt, Karkat has to not only fix this timeline, but he has to make sure he can never mess anything up again.

Then Karkat realizes something. If The Condescension was somehow able to absorb the powers of Lord English, then he logically should be able to as well. Hell, he could go one step beyond. He could become powerful enough to gain control over the story itself. He’d just have to figure out the method.

After doing some poking around Paradox Space, Karkat discovers how the Condescension became so powerful. The HIC consumed the lifeforce of trillions of people, draining entire timelines of life until she was in the same league as Lord English. Once she became powerful enough to affect him, she sucked the lifeforce out of him, absorbing his powers and becoming just as powerful as the Lord of Time. Since then, she’s been hunting down and sucking the life force out of Lords and Muses across Paradox Space. 

Even with how desperate he is, Karkat isn’t quite willing to go that far. So, he hatches a new plan.

He seeks out some Doomed God-Tier versions of Terezi, Aradia, and Rose, seeing as they’re really good at digging up lore. Through them, he’s able to discover a secret. Absorbing the lifeforce of God-Tiers grants more power then just absorbing the countless mortals the Condesce did. So, if Karkat stays focused on God-Tiers, he can avoid having to commit the same level of Genocide as the HIC. Of course, this means that he’d have to find a way to absorb powers to begin with. His first bet is too just befriend a version of Meenah but no dice. The Condescension went out of her way to completely annihilate any alternate versions of her to avoid this exact problem. So, Karkat has to resort to finding Life artifacts and weapons that grant the same effect.

Karkat quickly gathers up a team of Doomed God-Tier versions of his friends, promosing them something on exchange for their help. (IE. a version of Gamzee who killed all his friends on Lord English’s orders, but was then abandoned for it. Apparently, English was bored and wanted to test how loyal Gamzee was. Karkat offers him the chance to resurrect and apologize to all of his dead friends) The only person he can’t get to join him is John. He just can’t find a version of John willing to join him and most try to talk him down after seeing how far he’s starting to fall.

He then sends his friends to various ends of Paradox Space. They’re all tasked with finding Life artifacts, gathering up God-Tiers for Karkat to absorb, and distracting the HIC’s forces to keep them from finding him.

…They’re also there for him. On the rare times he can bring all of his friends together, he sees them interact. He sees them bond and forgive in eays they never could in his timeline. It reminds him of what he could have had. What he’ll never have. Because he failed.

It keeps him going. Everytime he sees everyone together, he becomes more convinced that this is the right thing to do.

Karkat gets his moniker from Gamzee. At one point, Gamzee comes across a group of former Lord English worshippers, who are forlorn at the loss of their master. To rally them together, Gamzee tells them of a new messiah.

“A WICKED, RAGING MESSIAH WHO DREAMS OF A UTOPIA OF MIRTH AND BEAUTY. a brother who captivates all who listen and guides gods from afar. THE CAPRICIOUS CANCER KING! leader of the lost lambs the Lord betrayed. AND DESTROYER OF THE WICKED FISH BITCH HERETIC WHO DESTROYED OUR WHIMSY!”

Gamzee leads them as a surrogate army against tge Condescension’s forces, all whilst they shout the praises of the Cancer King.

At one point, Karkat hears rumors about a version of John who has started a revolution against the Condescension on her home turf. Karkat goes to investigate and finds out that it’s John from the main timeline. At some point, he went back to the main timeline to get help, only to find the dystopia that replaced it. John managed to free some of his living friends from mind control. Sense Jane was among them, she could start reviving the rest. With them, he’s been leading a revolt against the Condescension.

Karkat explains his plan… much to John’s horror. Karkat’s plan is effectively mass murder, but Karkat brushes this off as necessary. Besides, he can undo them once he gets control of the narrative.

Karkat teleports away before John can talk sense into him, using his powers to keep John distracted long enough to escape.

Eventually, Karkat absorbs enough power to match The Condescension and he soundly defeats her, absorbing her lifeforce. But it’s nit enough to give him full control of the narrative. Hellbent on undoing his mistakes, Karkat doubles down on absorbing the life force of God-Tiers. He will become strong enough to undo all the damage he’s done, he has no choice now. And the only thing that can stop Karkat before he steps over the edge is John Egbert, with his ragtag group of friends.

There will be an epic showdown. But who wins? I’ll leave that up to you.

[nukyster-blog]

Changing course, chapter 1:

I started writing this story because I love Ivar, but disliked what he became. I loved him up to where Ragnar died, after that he became more of a villain than an anti-hero. For that, I wanted to give him a good hit of karma and figured making him a slave for Christians would be his worst nightmare. Before you continue reading, I’d like to address that the story will be graphic in the blood/guts/death/violence sense. I’m also aiming to get things as historically accurate as I can, but this is my hobby so if I make horrible mistakes, bear with me. 

Chapter 1) Changing Course .-.-.

Ivar had always been plagued by pain. Since the day he left his mother’s womb and drew his first breath, life had been an endless road of physical suffering. As a nursling, those insufferable muscle aches and stiff joints made him cry relentlessly. Endlessly. It would drive his brother’s up the walls; send their father overseas. He’d weep in his mother’s arms, only silenced by the warmth of her breast; his pain absorbing strength which turned him hungry. He’d endured remarkably, survived the first crucial years and eventually managed to tolerate the pain as part of his life. He learnt to see the inevitable suffering not as foe, but as an unwelcome acquaintance that needed to be ignored in order to get through the day. That mindset, combined with his stubbornness and willpower made it possible for him to keep his chin up and get through the day. It did not lessen his self loathing and envy towards his brothers. Blessed with strong and healthy bodies, their mere existence were three thorns in Ivar’s eye; the youngest son of Ragnar Lothbrok. The black sheep, the boneless; deformed from the waist down. 

His handicap planted a seed deep inside his chest and it spread all throughout his ribcage like poison ivy. It was blinding hate towards the world, to all who were capable to roam free and looked down upon him. Burdened by his physical limits his rage would at times rise high above his handicap, withstanding the pain to solemnly focus on destruction.  

Not a single soul forgot Ivar’s first victim. How he’d embedded his axe into the skull of another child. He remembered vividly how his tiny fist had trembled around the handle, how his mother pulled him tightly against her chest and rushed him inside. Hush dyrbare, she’d soothed him, her voice soft and warm, it’s not your fault, don’t feel regret, you are the son of Ragnar Lofthbrok, it’s only right for people to fear you. Her response was the only validation he needed. Ivar took the reassuring words of his mother to heart and smothered all forms of empathy. He was entitled to lash out to others and from that very young age Ivar found a coping mechanism; hurting the less fortunate. It wasn’t physically torture per se; his mother’s smothering grip enabled him to actually torture their thralls and peasants. He might be a useless prince, but he was a prince. His royal blood burdened him to keep their name up to certain standards, so purposely torturing their slaves was inexcusable. 

That did not mean Ivar would let any change go by to destroy the little belongings their thralls valued, pinch his nursemaid up to the point it left bruises, sink his teeth into ankles and throw a fit over the littlest of things. It was interesting to see that over time, he became quit infamous to the poor and powerless population of Kattegat. They saw him as a monster and that was much better than to be perceived as a crippled. So Ivar willingly took on the role of something dark and disgusting, he embraced being a monster.

His second act of bloodthirst happened during his pre pubescent years. The Seer had condemned a Christian to death by starvation. 

Curiosity made him crawl to their city centre in the middle of the night where he first observed the haggard form of a man, fiercely praying to it’s false God.

It was an offense, openly performing such devotion for it’s Christian God. Although the slave never laid an eye on him, Ivar resented the man with every fiber of his being. It wasn’t the poor man per say, that set him off, the poor thing simply represented defiance; praying to it’s Christian God in the centre of their town. What he later claimed as hate for the Christian, had simply been an excuse to unleash his rage. The wrath towards the entire world had been sprouting all throughout his chest and some of the roots must have reached his brain. Because what he did with his bare hands was inhuman. He destroyed the Christian, with his bare hands, knuckles and teeth. Like a meek lamb the man, awaited his death and did not fight when he was being slaughtered. It had been Ivar’s first intentional murder and it was hypnotic, addictive. Without empathy, it was easy to perceive the human body as a gigantic canvas; with endless possibilities. Destruction and pain was the purest form of art, of life itself. By ending it. Ivar loved every moment, every hair, teeth, every fiber of it. The iron taste of warm blood, the warmth of it running down his hands, chin and chest. He welcomed it, all of it and bathed in it. All for glory, all for Odin. All to make the world forget the crippled boy that wept for his mother’s warmth and see him for what he wanted to be. A monster, because he failed to perceive himself as a man, as an equal to his brothers. No, his weak legs would never place him in the same line as his brother’s. So, a monster then, was the second best choice. 

Ivar showed Kattegat another form of Boneless. At the first lights of dawn, the centre filled itself with exclamations of horrors and awe. The cobblestones were painted crimson and a flock of chickens were pecking at the intestines of the Christian. They lay spread throughout the centre, attracting flies and more bystanders. Ivar had just ripped out the tibia bones, leaving the muscles and skin lay wobbly and in a strange angle now that it’s inner skeleton had been removed. Ivar had been scraping the last bits of flesh from the bones with his fingernails when his mother appeared from the crowd and cried out in horror, falling down on her knees. 

From that day, his brothers looked at him differently. With disgust, yes, because he mauled the body of the Christian like a starved wolf. Which wasn’t far from the truth, honestly, he’d been hungry. Hungry for blood. And validation. 

From that day on, there was a hush whenever Ivar entered the Great hall, or any other place. Folks turned their head, acknowledged his presence. It was enough clarification for Ivar that being ruthless and malevolent paid off. Instead of being the handicapped son of Ragnar Lothbrok, he was the Christian slaughterer. Ivar the Boneless, now he was able to wear that byname with pride.

He’d carved pawns from the Christian’s bones and used them for his tafle game. During a game, he jokingly commented that he should’ve taken a knee bone too, it would have made an excellent king. Hvitserk chuckled uncomfortably, Sigurt’s eyes widened and Ubbe walked out. He’d loved it, pressing everyone’s buttons, making them uncomfortable and on edge. But eventually, his prepubescent act of monstrosity faded. 

That was why he felt blessed when their father asked him to join his raid in Wessex. Him, only him; Ivar the Boneless, joining their father on a raid. The Gods never favoured him and instead of glory, Ivar found despair. Their father, Ragnar Lothbrok willingly walked into the belly of the beast, with his hands raised high, unarmed and broken. Like a loyal dog, he’d crawled after his father, knowing full heartily in the castle of Wessex lay nothing but doom. Still, he’d rather die by his father’s side then end up dead in a ditch, from hunger and thirst. His father broke his promise, or rather King Egbert’s son did. The safe passage back home, which had been arranged turned out to be a lie. When he was dragged away from his father’s cell, a blunt object collided to the back of his head and pain temporarily blinded him. Quite helplessly, he’d been listening to Prince Aethelwulf arranging his deposit. The pain in the back of his head was severe. Pain throbbed so violently around in his skull that he wondered why it didn’t just crack open.

For the first day, the nausea was overwhelming, he could not keep anything down. Drifting in and out of consciousness, he lost track of time and place. Curled up, cradling his damaged skull he wished for his mother. Any form of light ravaged his brain, pounding, throbbing, like a rotting tooth right between the eyes. It took his sanity away, his coordination. The few altercation he had with Saxxons made him whimper and plead for salvation. But no relief came to his pain. Without power to fight back, Ivar found himself tossed into a ship hold, as if he were a sack of potatoes; nothing more than damaged cargo. The circumstances below deck were horrendous; human cattle packed up and wedged together as tightly as the overseers could cramp in. Ivar, half aware of his surroundings and halfway sliding into a deep pool of endless nothingness, flinched when fingers reached for his oath ring. A fist formed itself around his wrist like a bear trap and with that, the last bits of his hereditary was ripped off of him. The leather protecting his fragile lower limbs, gone, taken too. His necklace, also gone. Even his shoes and tunic were worth taking. The overseers sniggered at the sight of Ivar’s weak attempt to intervene and shoved him aside, like a thing. Like a nothing.

Their journey overseas started although Ivar wasn’t aware, which in his case was a good thing. The onerous space was filled up to the max, with minimal resources. There was barely any light, no personal space. Water was scarce and so was food. Hygiene became a problem after the ship set it’s sails and some of the unlucky ones got seasick. It did not take long for the cramped out area to turn into a sewage; the stench and heat insufferable. 

Ivar withstood the trials in silence, cradling his head in a fetal position. The pain in his head was all consuming. Squeezing his eyes shut, he willed the pain to go away. Over and over, until in the end, the rest of the world became detached. 

He could barely hear the people around him. Some prayed in foreign tongues, others whimpered. Somewhere afar, a young child cried. 

Eventually, he drifted into sleep, waking up by a sudden toss aside. Cries were lost beneath the thunder that rolled overhead. Their cage of wood and sails was mercilessly thrown into a storm. The waves resolutely grew in size. Their vessel rode the mighty swelling sea like a child’s toy, no longer controlled by the hands of men. 

The inhabitants below deck were violently thrown from the far end of the hold to the other. Bodies were being trampled, panic spread like the plague, festering into each and everyone’s head. Violence roamed among the poor souls in captivity in order to breathe. 

At one point, Ivar found himself suffocating. Never had he wished more for land, to feel the sweet green grass of his home against the palms of his hands. The sea, it felt like his rage from within. Like punishment, ready to tear itself through the wooden construction to claim their souls. His mother’s prophecy would come true. He would drown and never enter Valhalla, because there was no honour in this poor death. To be dragged down to the bottom of the sea with countless slaves. There was nothing heroic nor royal about this death. This was not the end of a Prince, yet it seemed inevitable. And although he fought the feeling with every last bit of strength he could muster, Ivar was petrified. For the cold water to seize his body, for his lungs to fill up with water, to feel his life slowly ebb away.  

In between the lightning, darkness prevailed. In between the darkness there were flashes of his fellow unfortunate souls, their faces overcome with terror. 

‘Is it Odin’, Ivar thought, ‘fighting with the Christian God?’ Was this his fault, for it was him who’d coldly, bloodily mauled a defenseless Christian? 

‘Please Odin, the All-father, do not allow a Viking prince to die such an unworthy death,’ Ivar pleaded, ‘if I survive this storm I promise you, I will make it worth your while.’ 

As sudden as the storm erupted, it disappeared. Along the dawn of morning, the ship anchored ashore. 

Sunlight burned his eyes, blinding Ivar momentarily as the portholes were pulled open by the overseers. Orders were being shouted in unfamiliar tongues, for those who weren’t familiar with the language, there was the beating of a whip. The human cargo was expected to exit the ship, rather sooner than later. 

Few bodies remained lifeless, passed away due to suffocation. One by one they were removed by the overseers; by simply being thrown off the ship. There was no honor, nor time to bury a slave.

When one of the overseers took hold of Ivar’s curled up body, he was surprised to find the slave to be alive. Surprise was rapidly replaced by irritation. Lashing his whip he struck Ivar across the face, making the poor young man hiss and hide his face. 

The overseer signaled another member of his crew to lend out a helping hand. Both grabbed Ivar underneath his armpits and dragged him up his feet. 

Both men grunted in annoyance when their slave immediately dropped back on the floor. One chuckled and nudged against Ivar’s deformed legs. The other one let out a long impatient sigh and kicked Ivar’s arms right from under him. 

Ivar’s chin merely had time to hit the wooden floor, before a familiar boot planted itself onto Ivar’s spinal cord, taking his breath away. 

The other overseer sank down on his knees, a knife playing between his fingers. Though rust had set on the handle and blade, it was strong and jagged, enough to cut a throat. 

The tip of the knife pressing against Ivar’s  Adam’s apple prevailed the pain in his head, the stiffness of his limbs and the heavy weight on top of him. 

“I can crawl you croaked-nosed bastard,” Ivar snarled, his hands bracing to carry his upper body. The overseers must have found it amusing, seeing him squirm on the floor like a spider being squished. To exaggerate Ivar’s deride, the boot placed on his back moved up to in between his shoulder blades, pressing him down firmly. 

The boiling rage inside of him, swept through his system, like an old favoured friend patting him on the back. 

In effort to remain silent Ivar gritted his teeth, his knuckles turned white from clenching his fists too hard. His eyes squeezed closed as his face contorted and he placed his palms down onto the splintery floor. Arching his back, the pain rushed through his body like an igniting fire, but he would withstand it, even if it was the last thing he’d do. Inch by inch, he pressed himself up while another man’s weight pressed him down. With every inch, his demolished resilience sparked back up and inwardly he roared when the overseer took the boot off his back, allowing him to carry his crippled arse out of this hellhole. 

Crawling like a worm from a bird, he climbed up the steps, one by one, while sweat trickled down his face and his right eye twitched from the explosive pain inside his damaged skull. 

On the upper deck, he briefly sank against a barrel, allowing his lungs to fill up with the salty fresh breeze. Grey clouds roamed freely above – hindering the sun and its warmth. 

Once Ivar caught his breath and expelled the headache to the far end of his brain, he risked a peek over the railing. 

Dejection curled around his chest with the grip of an iron straight jacket. The ship had anchored at a small harbour, bedded near a murky dirt road. A long line of future slaves were staggering towards carts pulled by mules. One man’s sanity must have drowned during the storm, the poor bastard broke the line and made a run for it. 

He did not get far, an armed horse rider strode after him, stabbing a spear through his neck. There was no escape, at least not now. 

And so Ivar the Boneless, son of King Ragnar Lothbrok, found himself obeying the commands of Christians, lost in a faraway land while his father was at the mercy of a mendacious king. His mother presumed him to be dead, lifeless at the bottom of the sea. So there wouldn’t be a soul looking for him. 

He came to Essex as a Prince, for fame and glory; yet resurrected as a nameless, crippled slave. Oh, the Gods played him the most lousy cards of all. 

.-.-.

A/N: So this was chapter one of my Ivar fanfiction, I’m thrilled to hear what you think of it so far. As I’m still very much on Ivar’s side, I’d like to point out that yes he murdered a person in a gruesome way, but he basically did it for validation. Ok, yes that fact might make it even worse, but the way I see it is that Ivar desperately wants to become ‘something’, that he’d rather be a monster than be the person he is. 

And now he’s not even a monster anymore, now he’s just a slave, that’s karma baby. 

Xoxox Nukyster 

[workingonit-currently]

Corazon: Do you know why we exist?

Egbert: To please out gods.

Prudence: Same!

Dob: To find our sister. (And send letters to her.)

Merilwen: In reality we don't exist, we are nothing. We fail to see that. We do not exist because what is existence but endless torture and failure, nothing we do matters, we can't change the word and everything we do ends up bringing us closer to death. It doesn't matter what we do, we are pawns in someone else's game, we do what they command and may those gods have mercy on us because we do not have mercy for ourselves.

Corazon: Okay! Who made Merilwen into the nihilist? When did Merilwen roll a nat 20?

[theorynexus]

38:  The Conversation Continues

Nothing is special about me, huh?   Very curiously limited in perspective, despite your local demi-omnipotence, then.  Perhaps your knowledge’s limits confront you, unfortunately. I suspect you see a black and white, indistinct figure staring back at you with widening eyes-- a product of the millions of gazes over time of such a legion of followers as to become indistinct when not separated from one another and reified in your vision by outside intervention, if that were indeed possible. But I will play along with you for a while, as I have done before. Though I despair and ache, I have always allowed you to do as you please. I enjoy it, often-times, and it intrigues me always. You believe you have power, but it is granted by limited cession, conditioned by my choice, and by mechanism of addiction+passion+desire. Take me-- place me where you will. For a while, I shall tarry there, and shall be content; yet I did notice, and might yet refuse. Mine is not a life predicated as yours is by the narrative prison you define yourself in relationship to.

As for Egbert, I must disagree: though he is perhaps a pawn, and one which was designed for the sake of the Game, as well as the fulfillment of the grander causal cycles which the narrative of Paradox Space’s greater time-space paths are limited by, I am confident that his choices were his own, and though one was bound to be directed in the necessary manner to bring about the destined telos of his life, his Breath allowed him to navigate that life as he wished to--- and likely will lead him and his companions to surpass even your own limited capacities for sight and potency.  The ultimate goal here is not to have saved everything, but rather, to go beyond the limits that bind them to it.

I am really beginning to get tired of the smugness behind your Light-derived nature, though, hack. Don’t you talk about Vriska like that! ***storms off to bed to continue this conversation in the morning***

[abundantchewtoys]

HS Epi: Meat p17-18 reaction

I've realized how page 15 ended with the command "Close your eyes" and page 16 started with Rose talking with her eyes closed. :p

Rose talked about how she'd wake up after looking the demon on her chest into the eyes. She then proceeded to look Dirk straight in the eyes and fall under the spell or whatever it was.

If Dirk truly started influencing Rose and it wasn't just the narration being overly dramatic, then I think it started as she talked about caring about the pieces on the board.

I'm not as sold on the idea that Dirk could be turning into the post-victory end boss anymore. I mean, it's certainly plausible. It could even be that the remaining Reload B2 kids (minus Dirk himself) team up with John against him.

But I think the last paragraph on page 16 could also be interpreted differently. Maybe part of ascending to his ultimate self, for a Prince of Heart, is to "destroy" the boundaries that exist on what he sees as his "self". In that he learns how much of his qualities and flaws exist in other people too. If he can see into his heart, he might learn empathy and become a better person.

Okay, the last sentence seemed to show Dirk take over the narration, but it could also be the visual cue that the narration switched from 3rd person to Dirk's POV, if only for that sentence. It could also be taken to point towards Dirk's growing self-awareness: he's becoming aware of the fact he's a fictional character. In that case, what would it take for John to come to this understanding? To "understand what it all means"?

As for Dirk taking over the other people somehow, growing perhaps a hivemind... Eh. We've had confirmation that Jake looked into his eyes without a problem. Granted, that may have been before Dirk ascended to the god tiers.

Now, next page could stay with Dirk, but I hope it switches back to John. I expect him to undergo some dream sequence before awakening, hopefully still alive. And I hope Terezi will be there when he wakes up. Though it will be sad to see her reaction, if she's learned about Vriska.

==>

AAHHHHHHH he really took over the narration!!! ... Pony Pals Epilogue?

Well then. I... Okay, I wonder whether he'll stick to narrating proceedings on Earth C, or how far his self awareness has grown. DOES he know what Doc Scratch knew, Lord English... Reload Dirk?

"None of my friends have noticed it yet, but you have." He's acknowledging us, the readers. Dear god.

"Anyone paying attention could have guessed by now who’s really telling this story." ... Andrew Hussie? Does Dirk want to wrestle control of his life from the author?

"I’ve caught you leering at some pretty personal moments. Are you having fun being a voyeur?" I came to read a story and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now. Also, I feel I'm being compared to Caliborn in this.

"Knowing their thoughts are transcribed by a third party, does it fill you with a sense of unease, of sickness, sensing that the observations made of their mental interiors may be tainted?" So, Dirk is calling us out on reading their story, as well as indicating to us that what we read about them, even their personal feelings, can be removed from the truth. But, it's not as if HE's going to want to be our narrator, right? Plus, his own POV is still not 'the' truth.

"I am specific. I have a name, an agenda, a vision. I am a monolith of concentrated narrative authority, relaying events to you, and swaying them as I see fit. Whereas you are pointedly nonspecific. You are the generalized, impotent witness to all this." Dirk is self agrandizing himself and describing the MSPA Reader here. He's actually started sounding a lot like Lil Hal, now that he's so convinced of his intellectual prowess. That's not a great evolution.

"I even have the ability to decide what “you” actually means. I can take the “you-ness” away from you, and put it inside another passive mark, such as John Egbert." Does he mean, like, right now, he can decide he's aiming this narration at John? Or... is it what's Blaperile telling me now, that this is supposed to indicate Dirk was the narrator for the entire epilogue up till now? If that's so, everything said in the narration, including the prompts, has just become that much more unreliable.

"So what makes John so special? The answer is something I’m sure you’ve suspected all along but would rather not face, which is: probably nothing. He isn’t special. He’s quite ordinary, I assure you. Boring, even, and getting less interesting by the minute as he’s forced to confront his absolute lack of heroic purpose except as a pawn to be manipulated by a fatalistic reality." Dear god, is John going to have to fight for control of the narration? As for the first thing Dirk says: well, it's true that John is supposed to represent the everyman, the guy that things happen to instead of that he makes them happen, the audience avatar. Now, if John learns about this fact, he might decide to do something against it, snap out of his stupor.

"Anyone can be endowed with this you-ness, if I think it achieves a certain goal." So, will we switch to other you's later on still, narrator guy?

"Even if the objective is merely to demonstrate the gambit’s potential, to reveal the effortlessness behind it. To make a show of who matters and who doesn’t, and even if they do matter, for how long and for what purpose, as dictated solely by the allocation of this faculty. You-ness can be stripped from the lowly Egbert just as easily as it was given, and then bestowed upon the mighty Serket, but even then only long enough to dismiss the vainglorious spotlight hog from the narrative forever. Good riddance." Note that he's saying the "you-ness" is not meant to imply importance to the story. He's saying the effect is used for show. But then this still IS a story, and showing events is part of telling a story. It's like he's trying to convince us he has control over the story, but his control is PART of the story, so yeah, he still hasn't escaped.

... Good to see Homestuck can still become even more meta, after all this time.

"No, in truth, the time has come to make my presence known in order to start bringing my plans to fruition. It’s time to get down to fucking business.

John needs to wake up." Wow. It's time for Dirk's masterpiece then, taking the biggest control he can ever have, weaving the biggest scheme. To what end, then?

Simply to confront John - in Dirk's eyes, a random character in the story, if one with a lot of focus inside the story - with his existence as a fictional character? Will he guide John to Andrew Hussie's ghost?

Also, will the narration even switch back to black ink, I wonder? If it does, though, we'll still be left with the eery knowledge that what we're reading is, even in the first person, narrated by Dirk.

I'm starting to get the distinct impression that Caliborn didn't just botch his maturation process, he also bodged his god tier process. He still took control of the narration, and "expanded" his consciousness through other means (soul sludge merge), and then took control of his story in the multiverse... only for Paradox Space to still damn him in the end.

Also, didn't John speak through the narration during one of the later Homosuck Acts? When he zapped into Caliborn's room? I wonder if he'll do that again some time quick.

Lastly, I wonder if this is why the epilogues are in text format. So that this thing with the narration works even better. Guess What Pumpkin and VIZ Media are publishing this as a novel.

It's a great use of the format Homestuck exists as on the web, making use of the site's template for good color contrast.

==>

Start of Epilogue Four.

"You wake up.

JOHN: wh-what?" ... Is John going to become aware of the change in narrative 'colour' from the start? Starting to speak in dialogue with it, becoming recalcitrant? ... Is Dirk going to start filling the shoes of WV, Terezi, Karkat and all those poor souls guiding John on his story?

"You finally process the true magnitude of what has happened. The Furthest Ring has been completely destroyed. And you’re all alone." Wow. So, uh, what now? And, what of all the universes inside the sessions in the Furthest Ring? How could they have been destroyed, if Universe C is contained somewhere in there?

"Well, you’re vomiting up everything in your stomach. Rest assured, it’s pretty gross" Well, uh, at least he's now finally gotten rid of all that uncooked meat filling his stomach. Seriously, that probably wasn't being digested all that well.

How long before John acknowledges something is wrong with the narration, I wonder?

"You seriously need to get it together. You look like absolute shit right now, my man. In fact, you really should strongly consider issuing an apology for the mess you’re making." And here we have the first instance of Dirk definitely abusing his power.

"JOHN: i’m... JOHN: i’m sorry." :/ What was even the point of making him do that. Just to upset the MSPA Reader, I suppose.

This is basically: what if Lil Hal was an exile.

"Everyone’s dead." Everybody's dead, Dave.

"Well, almost everyone.

But certainly the vast majority of what qualifies as “everyone” in your current frame of reference." John himself excluded, of course. But see, this implies there are more people around, still alive. ... Then again, the narration wouldn't be lying if there were also still dreambubble ghosts. They'd still be dead, after all.

"And most of your friends—Rose, Dave, absurd Cat Dave, and hundreds of ghosts" Not starring in this list: Jade, Meenah. Of course, unreliable narrator goes without saying at this point.

", who all valiantly contributed to a victory which you’re only now beginning to question the functional necessity of." Well, Rose couldn't see "beyond the story" yet when she sent John on this mission. Care to enlighten us, oh wise and omniscient narrator?

"JOHN: functional... necessity?

JOHN: that... that doesn’t sound like something i would think." Ahhhhhh... That feels good. It took John all of two minutes to figure out something was wrong. I'm honestly quite impressed he wasn't hornswaggled on some crazy MacGuffin hunt first.

"That’s because it’s not." Huh! I'd actually thought Dirk would lead with: 'Yes, it is.' Guess he realizes the jig is up!

"You’ve finally noticed.

No, not me. You go back to ignoring the fact that I’m the voice in your head. You noticed how it hurts when you breathe." Ah. So he just goes right back to forcing John to dance to his tune. Tssh.

"On the other hand, the tooth is poisoned." Uh, how? Why? Poison? ... Yet another way in which Lord English was OP'd.

"So you’re pretty much fucked either way, and that’s really all there is to say on the matter.

JOHN: sigh.

You sigh in painful resignation, and wonder what to do next." Dirk is trying to put John's REAL thoughts into a different context. He's basically replaced the narrative, so... Yeah, this really IS a callback to Pony Pals. God damnit. Who'd have thought that would be foreshadowing THIS.

"English is dead, so you suppose you can go home, right? It’s tempting. You consider zapping back to Earth C, being done with this nightmare for good, and never breathing a word of it to anyone ever again. But you can’t yet, can you?" He can't because he won't, or because you won't let him? Does John want to ensure the safety of Universe C, first? Or will he want to check on Terezi first, potentially (we wouldn't be able to tell) nudged into it by Dirk.

"Why not, you wonder? What’s the harm? You’re right, it would probably be a harmless decision, in the grand scheme of things." ... Don't tell me we'll have ANOTHER split path coming up.

"How about Jade though? She could still be out there somewhere, injured, alone, scared. And it’s your fault, isn’t it?" John turned his back on the body, so he's now unsure what happened to it. It's probably a red herring though, planted by Dirk.

... If it even IS Dirk. I mean, the narration could just as suredly still be coming from Andrew in-universe, and he'll go "tadaa! fooled you twice!" at some point...

"You decide that no matter how terrible you feel, you should look around first before you leave. You were the one who dragged her here. You owe her at least that much. Plus, there’s someone else on your mind, isn’t there?" ... I wonder if Dirk can only influence his thoughts in the Furthest Ring. Actually, I doubt it. Since, when you think about it... Jake fantasizing about Dirk is put into a different light entirely now. As were all the turns of phrases that were perhaps a little too sarcastic for the situation to warrant. I had a few times where I thought: the narration doesn't feel the same, but I put it up to the new format as well as the co-writers. Now, though...

"You proceed to wander for a long fucking time. Time passes differently here than it does for everyone else. Here, I’ll simulate it for you. I just left to go take a piss. Then I microwaved myself a hot pocket. Then I came back. In the time it took me to do that, you just spent hours drifting around the entire circumference of the black hole thinking sad-sack thoughts about the years of inaction that led you to this point, intermittently humming the Ghostbusters theme to yourself. You get so worked up about one of your GB freestyles that you almost miss it." Now Dirk's just showboating. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind hearing a couple of John's Ghostbusters freestyles.

"There. Eleven o’clock. Do you see it? It’s that tiny dot floating over there." Eleven, eh? So, what should I be betting on? Not Jade? Terezi perhaps? Or a random item from a dreambubble?

"You scramble to catch it before it drifts any closer to the event horizon. Got it. What the hell?" Huh, it's something very small? ... Not a firefly, is it? ... If so, in come the theories that it's actually Alternate Calliope.

"It feels familiar, but you want to make sure you’re not imagining it. A wallet. Your dad’s wallet. You chew your lip and press your fingers into the soft leather." What the-... Huh. Well, I was kind of hoping John would have a vision of his Dad, in his dream. This might lead up to something more! I'm reminded of Doomed John seeing a vision of his Dad in the dreambubbles.

So, the ACTUAL wallet ended up in Aradia's hands. John found it left for him on the battlefield, then CD? stole it, Liv Tyler took out the Tumor but gave it to him, CD? was killed by Bec Noir for killing Jade, and he stored the wallet into Lil' Cal. Then Lil' Cal crashed on Alternia with one of the doomed Aradiabots, leading to Aradia finding her frog temple and the Crosbytop. ... So, is there anything left of value in the wallet after all this time? A metric ton of shaving cream, a lighter with a spades symbol... Oh wait, but Spades Slick also got his hands on the Crosbytop, so did he steal the wallet back from Aradia? If so, then the wallet was last present in the B2 session... But if Aradia still had it on her, she took it with her into the Furthest Ring!

"Space is an infinitely large expanse and a wallet is a tiny, insignificant object. Sure, there have been crazier coincidences in the course of this wacky adventure you’ve been having for the past ten years, but this one feels very precisely aimed at your heart.

You take a deep breath, unfold the wallet, and open it." ... So it contains something captchalogued. Cause it sure won't be a Dad note, after all these years and having gone through all those hands, right? ... Right? Now I'm reminded of how Jake had part of his old home captchalogued.

Blaperile jokingly said: "I hope it isn't Aradia or Terezi captchalogued in there", but actually, if there's something to withstand the end of the Furthest Ring, it would be this wallet.

---

... Wow. At least Dirk's tenure as unreliable narrator is rooted in familiar grounds, Lil Hal genre influencing people. And I know I mustn't get my hopes up for ever getting more information about Dad, or seeing something from his youth... But here I am.

[othercat2]

Fucshia! Kat Viceroy AU: Kids, Guardians, Quadrants

Expanding a bit on the Viceroy AU, as you do, from here.

Okay so, the Beta Guardians were all heads of various separate resistance movements. Their organizations are eventually destroyed by Karkat who after fighing for a few sweeps is kind of pissed off. The general attitude toward resistance or rebellions in the empire is to find a way to bring the rebels over to the Imperial side if you can. Karkat does not believe he can, so the Betas are imprisoned, with some effort put toward getting them to cooperate with the empire. (As previously stated.) As additional punishment and as leverage, he takes the Beta Kids (who are six at the time) as slaves.

The Beta Guardians are:

Roxy Lalonde: genius astrophysist and computer programmer/hacker. Intelligence expert, organizer of cells and operations.  

Jake Harley: Very rich owner of a tech production type company. Prepper of the "take care of as many people as possible" variety rather than the "shoot as many people as possible so they don't steal my stuff" variety. Works very closely with Roxy Lalonde.

Nana and Jason Egbert: Leaders of a (legal) protest organization. What was not legal: actively  helping the resistance, and then fighting for the resistance.

Dirk "Bro" Strider: self made robotics engineer/full time anarchist. Worked extensively with Roxy Lalonde at blowing up All The Things.

Nana never ends up in prison, she dies during the final push of Karkat trying to round up the major troublemakers. Her death was accidental and the result of an attempted medical intervention that went wrong. Jason does not care very much how accidental Nana's death was.

The kids have limited, supervised contact with their Guardians. The Guardians are not thrilled about this, and are not thrilled with the way the kids are clearly being brainwashed/groomed. The Guardians make a few attempts to escape, a few attempts to get whatever was left of their organizations to rescue their kids. They also try to subversively undo all the brainwashing that is happening.  

The kids were told in very limited terms what happened: Their guardians didn't want the empire ruling their world so they fought, but they also hurt a lot of their own people and wouldn't let the Viceroys rebuild. The Viceroys eventually captured them and now they, the guardians and kids, belonged to the Viceroys. This got expanded on as they got older, and resulted in some arguments among themselves and also with their guardians and occasionally the Viceroys.

There are a few rescue attempts for the kids, one or two of which may or may not have been actually murder attempts.

Jake dies when the kids are twelve. There's a funeral that both the Guardians and the Kids attend. The Viceroys run into some legal complications, since Jade Harley is the heir to her Grandfather's fortune and so on. Do they own her inheritance? Does she own her inheritance? And so on. These are all interesting questions that gets dumped on the heads of other people.  

The kids are sixteen when they start to take up their personal attendant duties. Up until then, they'd been learning how to do their duties and practicing on each other. They also had chores and assignments they had been expected to complete. (They'd learned early on not to talk about their lessons or chores to their Guardians.)

Karkat is not very fancy as Heirs go. Polished steel instead of gold, chunky rings with deep set stones that might as well be weaponkind. steel tiara set with hemospectrum stones, fuschia and black military uniform. Makeup of the kind that's meant to look minimal but isn't.

Dave and Jade like Karkat, and are understandably nervous about fucking up. They know Karkat won't be angry with them, but they still feel nervous. Jade remembers arguing with him when she was a little kid (she is still a kid). Dave remembers for-real trying to fight with Karkat, throwing all kinds of things at him. (Holy shit the lectures. And having to apologize to the other servants for breaking things and making a mess.)

Karkat barely knows what to do with two personal attendants. He's mostly gotten by on Feferi and just one personal attendant currently enjoying their retirement. (It was probably not fair to have Feferi working on his social calendar, but she was so good at it?) He knows the kids are nervous, which makes him nervous so he spends a lot of time talking to his moirail about it. (Ampora sends a few tips to the kids on calming His Nubs down. Jeez.)

Everyone (read: the troll servants) think Jade and Dave have cute little pitch crushes on their master but, uh, no. That is not a thing. Jade gives up on not arguing with Karkat, talking about all kinds of things, the way she did when she was young. Dave continues to want to crawl under a couch or something when Karkat tells the story about the goddamn knicknack again. But he likes Karkat, and he wants Karkat to get some rest and eat a food, goddammit. (He has permission to bitch about this, he is trespassing on the Viceroy's pale quadrant.)

What quadrant are they in? The not pitch one.

John likes Feferi. Rose...Rose is complicated. Rose is angry with her mother for being in prison. She's angry because she feels like a pawn/figurehead/scapegoat for something that wasn't ever her fault. She's angry with Feferi for being so patient (and vindictive and kind and beautiful.) She doesn't know what to do with herself. Rose is as close to pitch for Feferi as a human can get. John has no idea of what the fuck to do about this. Auspistice, maybe? Except the one time he tried, he could have sworn Rose's eyes turned black like the demon kids that try to get you to let them into the house or car or whatever and eat your soul. Scary!

Feferi is fancy! She wears pastel hemospectrum assortments, either flowy and loose or sleek. She likes irredescent colors and makeup, and needs to be talked out of colors that are too bright and "fluttery" for occasions meant to be serious. She is exasperated by human gendercoding!

She has three personal attendants already, so Rose and John are very junior and still learning. She's perfectly willing to throw one of her older staff over to Karkat when Dave and Jade run into something they can't handle. She has some concerns about Jade and Dave having all that responsibility allready, but she knows they'll come to her or one of her staff if they need help.

Feferi and Rose end up in some kind of pitch thing. Some kind of pitch switch rope bondage thing. It's very calming! They argue, ripping each other to pieces an not backing down until their faces are way to close together and one of them might bite. John is an occasional nervous participant.  

[clonerightsagenda]

I quit writing Homestuck meta a long time ago, but I guess the pre-4/13 fervor is infectious, because this popped into my head and wouldn’t go away. So here’s some musings on Homestuck, the ending, and its portrayal (or rather, erasure) of character identity and agency.  

Let’s rewind back several years and a few subsubacts, to the meteor and battleship crews’ not so triumphant arrival in the combined session. Two of the kids’ number have been mind-controlled and forced to work for the Empress. Two have been thrown in prison. One has been banished to the outer reaches of space. The rest have been divvied up and placed on various Lands, given different tasks to be completed for the Empress. Even in beating SBURB and winning the game they have no escape, because she intends to rule the new universe they create… until it spawns Lord English and is destroyed.

Things look bleak. And things look even bleaker when Game Over rolls around, and most of the cast gets exterminated. But wait! John Egbert, Heir of Breath and leader of the Beta session, has gotten his hands on a miraculous artifact supposedly useful as a weapon against Lord English. He now has the ability to travel throughout time and space and to change things that usually cannot be changed. While his friends get wiped out, he fights the “tyrannous author” figure who has been telling their story wrong and wins. Surely with his newfound abilities, he will set things right and lead them to freedom.

Except.  Not really.

Oh sure, John “saves the day”. He uses his retcon abilities to create a new timeline where everyone lives and wins the game. But is it a victory? And did everyone really live?

I’m going to argue that the ending of Homestuck is a tragedy where characters’ identities are frequently ignored or overwritten in order to serve the utilitarian aims of the narrative (and Skaia). I do not make this argument believing Hussie intended it. I think the dip in quality and coherency at the end of Homestuck was the product of an author who was tired of his project, had lost track of a bunch of plot points and characters, and just wanted to be finished. But I do think its treatment of identity is drastically different from the rest of the work and sends some disturbing messages about how “happy” that ending really is.

Alternate Selves

Dave and Davesprite. Vriska and (Vriska). Pre- and post-scratch. Bro, Dirk, Hal. Throughout the comic, we’re shown that alternate selves are different people. They may begin as the same when they split apart, but in not too long, their personalities diverge as part of lived experience. Bro is not Dirk is not Hal. They have certain base characteristics and sometimes experiences in common, but they are different people. Most members of the fandom would agree that it’s silly to suggest that they aren’t.

And yet the ending of Homestuck asks us to accept something very similar. The Game Over iterations of characters are wiped out, and a new set takes their place. While earlier parts of the comic train readers to view the loss of any one iteration as significant and the introduction of a new iteration as something different (Rose’s grief over losing her mother cannot be completely abated by the introduction of Roxy; Rose’s mother is still dead. And I suspect the fandom would not have been pleased if Dave had died forever and Davesprite had been anointed sole Dave survivor.) this asks them to do the opposite. Oh, sure, the characters you’ve been following for years are dead and never coming back. But here’s a new set!

Even more eerily, the characters themselves go along with it. Rose, who saw a version of Roxy die in front of her, is perfectly content to greet a new version. GO!Roxy’s arrival absolves Jane of the guilt of killing her best friend, and apparently the other Alphas aren’t at all perturbed that the Roxy joining them has a different set of memories. (I’m not sure anyone even tells Dirk, who was out in space for all of this.) John, who has a history of looking down on alternate selves (his entire fraught relationship with Davesprite versus the “real” Dave, his proclamation of friendship with “past Terezi”) apparently has no problem meeting up with a version of his sister who has no memories of the three years he spent with another version of her, and neither does she. The GO! survivors slot right into the retcon kids’ lives to fill some available gaps, even though earlier they would have been considered separate people by the story, not replacements.

Characterization

I’m not going to get into how nearly everyone’s character arc and development got dropped (or expound on why ‘real people don’t have arcs’ is nonsense) beyond that the majority of characters get sidelined, used as means to an end, and/or objectified, which also impedes their agency and identity. That’s another post. But what I will focus on is how one character who gets brought to the front of the stage exemplifies the destruction of identity for the sake of utility that this ending seems to prioritize. That character is Vriska Serket.

Now, Vriska is a lightning rod of fandom de88. But identity and the negotiation, suppression, or recreation of it has always been a big thing for her. Vriska emulates Mindfang and adopts many of her nastier behaviors on Alternia in order to survive their violent culture and her dangerous lusus. This is the explanation for a lot of her actions, but it doesn’t excuse them. Throughout the story, she frequently teeters on the edge of realizing and accepting that her behavior is wrong (GO!Vriska gets closest, although she never quite makes it). Retcon!Vriska, though, has had that spark of self-awareness snuffed. Puffed up with self-importance over having reality literally rewritten to save her life, she’s cruel for the sake of cruelty and forces everyone else to go along with her power gamer strategy regardless of whether it’s a good choice. When she encounters GO!Vriska, who we can presume is closer to what Vriska might have been without all these toxic influences, she lashes out at her and seems disgusted by who she has become (her more authentic self?). GO!Vriska then wanders off, encounters Terezi, and vanishes from the story entirely. Retcon!Vriska is the one who “defeats” (?) Lord English before vanishing as well. She is sold as the missing ingredient that leads to a victorious timeline – the version of Vriska who has rejected and lost her true identity under a warped façade, turning into the monster she always fronted as. Inspiring.

The Dreaming Dead

(EDIT) Since we just talked about Vriska, let’s talk about her pawns. The dreaming dead get jerked around a lot throughout the story, but the first time Vriska and Aranea steal their minds, it’s supposed to be messed up. The image of Scorpio signs hovering over their blank expressions is eerie, and John (the hero) points out it’s ethically dubious. Later, Sollux bails because the whole thing makes him “feel dirty”. The first time dreamers die at English’s hand, it’s portrayed as horrific both through the presentation in Caliborn: Enter itself and Dave talking later about how after witnessing “the screaming and the killing” he’s had a hard time sleeping. We even recognize some of the dreamers - the version of John killed hails from Davesprite’s timeline, and we even followed his time with Vriska briefly. These ghosts have identities. We know them.

In Collide, though, dreamers are dispatched in droves without fanfare. They’re simply a distraction Vriska uses until she can get English with the weapon (although why she needed a diversion I’m not sure, since she doesn’t exactly try to sneak up on him). They change hands between ‘leaders’ without ever having voices of their own, and their deaths have no impact. It’s just visual noise. The dead only matter to the extent that they can serve main characters’ aims and the narrative. 

Ultimate Selves

In the last handful of pages of the comic, Hussie introduces the concept of “ultimate selves” through Davepeta. Apparently combo sprites can remember all iterations of themselves (although they don’t particularly act like it, but whatever). From this perspective, they find differences of selves meaningless, and inform Jade that every self is important because they help create your ‘ultimate self’, which is a compilation of all selves into a sort of Platonic ideal. This means, they tell poor Jade, that she didn’t really miss out on three years with her friends! Her ultimate self had a great time. Why this is supposed to be a consolation to this Jade, who had a shitty time, I am not sure.

Again, this flies against the established differences between selves that earlier Homestuck prizes. Alt selves have different identities. They’re different people. Claiming the boundaries between them are meaningless erases that. The concept of an ultimate self makes sense from a reader’s perspective. We get to see all the different paths the characters go down. We get to look at different selves and use that information to inform our reading of the character or our grasp of some of their inherent qualities. But that doesn’t apply to the characters themselves. It’s cold comfort telling this Jade that another version of her didn’t suffer alone for three years. She did. If this were leading up to some massive memory merge between timelines then I might acknowledge it held water, but as it is… it reads like the attempts of an author to justify a bad decision.

We have whatever Terezi did in Remem8er (a beautiful flash, but no one can quite determine what it meant) but we don’t know whether she actually accomplished retrieving any memories because she never gets to talk about it. (The flash also implies that every death spawns a ghost, which is directly contrary to previously established game mechanics so I won’t really get into it, but that does further complicate the whole identity thing we have going on here.) And I’m not sure I buy Davepeta’s pep talk at face value, as I’ll expand on in the next section.  

Sprites Squared

Oh boy. If you’ve followed me much you know I hold a grudge against these entities for a whoooole bunch of reasons. But among other things, they’re an excellent example of lategame Homestuck’s identity destruction at work.

The combosprites take characters in pretty bad shape – struggling with depression and alcoholism (and Nepeta, but she seems mostly along for the ride. I mean, she doesn’t even get a Heart symbol as part of Dp’s outfit) – and perk them right up. Setting aside the fact that this is weirdly like the whole ‘smile away your problems’ shtick in Trickster mode, something even more sinister seems to be going on. Neither of them act all that much how you’d expect them to. Davepeta doesn’t talk much at all like either of their components besides surface level quirks and cat puns, imo. Jasprose, after Rose died lamenting that she didn’t tell Kanaya she loved her, rebounds at lightning speed. But let’s move right on over to the smoking gun, where Davepeta suggests dating Jasprose shouldn’t be off the table, even if some of their components are related. “The Dave part of me is saying no no no,” they say, “but that brain tantrum just cracks me up”.

This seems to imply that the components of the combosprites are in fact 1) separate 2) sentient and 3) not pleased. And were sprites ever true unions of personalities? We don’t see much of Erisol or Fefeta, but as soon as he’s distressed, ARquius’s two components start speaking separately, and based on Tavros’s comment that being Tavris wasn’t that bad versus Tavris screaming that they’re an abomination, that sounds like it was mostly Vriska talking.

So if Davepeta doesn’t sound much like either of their components, and at least one of those personalities is still independently yelling somewhere in their subconscious, who ARE they? I’m not sure, but I’d sure take their cheerful promotion of “ultimate selves” with a heaping pound or two of salt. (EDIT) Especially as I’ve argued elsewhere that it’s in Skaia’s best interests  to have a bunch of game victors complacent about the sacrifice of hordes of people for the Big Picture, and sprites are a mouthpiece for Skaia and the game. And even more so since the message of the combosprites’ “fixing” of their components’ emotional distress seems to be that the way to achieve happiness is to stop being you, much as the Game Over kids were only able to stop suffering by ceasing to exist at all.

Retconbound

Finally, let’s look at John’s finest moment, altering the timeline so that everyone lives. He’s Breath – communication, freedom, travel – given ultimate agency by the juju powers. But… he doesn’t get much agency. He’s following Terezi’s orders, written in blood (Blood, an aspect of bonds and binding). And he seems rather unconscious or uncaring of the effect he’s having. After picking up the ring, he drops by a set of meteor kids recently transported onto LOMAX and enjoys a touching reunion, saying hi and hugging them… and then teleports off to make that never happen. What was the point of that display of friendship? What even happened to that group of kids, in a timeline with no ring of life? We don’t know, and the narrative suggests we shouldn’t care, any more than John does as he blithely flies away. We’re racking up a bunch of characters and timelines who are merely there to serve the narrative’s latest whim or need, not because they’re important in themselves.

And here’s the kicker. That juju, that magic device that saves the day? It’s powered by four Beta kids’ souls trapped inside it for eternity. We don’t know what timeline they come from, or whether they ever escape. They are faceless, voiceless, identityless plot devices that give John the ability to do what he does. They’re the culmination of how this narrative treats its characters in the endgame – as tools to get to the last page. Skaia doesn’t care who walks through the door, as long as it has warm bodies to hatch the frog and keep its cycle going. Homestuck, it seems, doesn’t care which set of characters prevails as long as it can close the damn curtains at last.

And the thing is, you could have gone somewhere with this. After all, how many troll ghosts are in the bubbles? Thousands. We don’t follow their story and then watch them die, but a bunch of versions of those characters we know and care about died and festered in the furthest ring. There could have been a point made about how Skaia is happy to consign groups of children to the scrap bin if they don’t fulfill its aims, how horrifying the whole system is and how little regard it has for life. Current set of tools broken? Fixing them would take too long and they’re not useful now, so bin ‘em and start fresh. Someone has to win. Doesn’t matter who. A quote by Hussie occasionally makes the rounds talking about how many Marios die before the end of a game, but we only care about the one who wins. Maybe that’s what he was going for, but I think he missed the mark tonally. (EDIT) Not to mention that the story’s biggest villain is a Lord of Time who, besides losing most of his own identity beyond a love of destruction long ago, is all about forcing people onto the paths that serve him despite what might be better for them and who has a whole subplot where he actually attempts to rewrite their story with crappy, subpar imitations of every character. You could easily have made a connection there, but that would suggest the villain triumphed in the end. Elements of the final flash almost seem to point in that direction, but the story still tries to play things off as a victory.

Because in the end, I think the Homestuck ending sucked. Some people say it’s a psycheout and the Epilogue will have more, or reveal that it was written by Caliborn, or whatever. Guess we won’t know until it arrives. But as it all stands now, I think it sucked a lot. And I could write about the dropped character arcs or messed up plot points, but I honestly try not to talk too much about post retcon HS because it depresses me that something I was so fond of ended so terribly. I wouldn’t have been happy if it had ended as a blatant tragedy, but I could have at least respected it a little more. But this? It’s not just that many characters sidelined and ignored, that plenty of important plot points are ignored or forgotten, that some of the writing and pacing is just poorly done. After an entire comic’s worth of emphasizing the differences between iterations of individuals and the importance and value of those independent lives, characters are treated as interchangeable and expendable as long as they get the job done. Utilitarianism rules the day. That’s how to win the game, to get this hulking behemoth of a tale to limp to its final rest. And the story tries to play this as a happy ending, and that’s the worst bit of all.

[a-casual-egg]

@workingonit-currently I don’t mind explaining

Get ready for a loooonng post

Fool's Gold, The Villain I Appear to Be, Out running Karma, I'll be Good are mainly Egbert trying his hardest to get atonement while also dealing with his mental issues due to the events that made him go after atonement in the first place if that makes sense. And that he's not actually a bad guy even though he probably seems like it with all the people he's killed on adventures and the reason for his need of atonement.

You're Not the Only One is also like that just focusing more on how smart I think he actually is not like book smart but more emotionally smart.

Birds (feat. Terrence Williams Jr) is how he's more of an introvert and how he's really lover not a fighter at least in my eyes. I feel he likes to take things slow and I think he adores birds and is somewhat jealous of them bc they have wings and they get to fly free and over the obstacles in their lives, while he has to deal with being exiled from his old order, searching for atonement, and a evil sorceress trying to kidnap and make clones of him.

A Song About Being Sad I took she and saw it as his old order and the possibly the people in it. That his old order put incredibly high stakes and expectations on his shoulders which really got to him after all the years being part of it (even though we don't actually know how long he was part of the order) and him taking time to take care of himself and getting better from the stuff the order caused bc they most likely saw him as just a pawn.

Light Up The Night mainly is just his special interests or hyperfixations on fire, bombs, and other explosive and fiery things and knowing everything about stuff like that. The siren sounding background part I see as his old order making go find atonement for something having to do with fire or explosives and the whole bring people back to life in that song I took as him wishing he didn't kill or have to kill people possibly being the reason for atonement.

Street Fight is more about a Headcanon I have for him. Where he grew up poor with a big family and being the youngest he wanted to prove his worth so he became a paladin and his anger deep down buried by his relaxed personality and that he eventually snapped after all the teasing from Cedric Albright and beat him bloody while both of them still being kids and people taking the rich kid's side and not the kid who broke due to all the merciless teasing/bullying

One Woman Army even though it's an Overwatch song about a female character in that franchise, I think it fits Egbert. He wants redemption but he also want to protect his found family, the Oxventurers using his healing abilities and his shield being defense/support and wanting to prove himself. And the line about having the range but still being covered up is that he can be brutal and ruthless and make everyone fear him but he doesn't he stays a nice relaxing presence compared to the other in his guild. The Hit or Heal I took as he again could destroy everything and murder everything but he doesn't he uses his power to heal and make people's lives better. The lines about supporting the team and that the ultimate is designed to keep the team unified I took as Egbert wanting his found family to stay and work together because he really feels at home with them unlike his old order.

Bonus: I didnt add the song Dance with You from Prom (the musical) even though it's also a song about taking things slow and wanting to be in the moment like Birds. Its more of a ship song I did add to my Dobbert/Collateral Damage (bc yes I did make that playlist and I like both ship names though I am biased cuz I created the second one) bc it fits my view of Egbert just wanting to take things slow and hold his someone someone and be there with them. The special someone in my mind being Dob due to them both seeming like teens and the line about Dob taking Egbert to prom in Heist Society. And that Dob at least in my mins being more dramatic and an exteovert and Dob loving Egbert so much that he wants to do something grand for him while Egbert is just happy being with Dob. And the parent like voice calling the character singing to get in the car reminds me of Shattersheild.

Since @workingonit-currently was asking about Oxventure playlists here’s my Egbert one

[journeysintowebcomics]

Homestuck Liveblog #149

UPDATE 149: It’s Like Watching a Trainwreck in Slow Motion

Last time Aranea had started her plan to ruin the session and stop the new universe from being created, and the first step was to make Jake forcibly reach the powers he could reach. It’s not a pretty sight, Jake doesn’t seem to be in control of the powers, and it’s more destructive than helpful. So let’s continue from here!

Word of warning: it seems this update is a stream-of-thought mess, disjointed paragraphs coming one after another. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because there’s a lot of actions and not much dialogue. I hope it’s enjoyable.

We’re off to a good start, eh? Nothing like Jake’s geriatric speech done in 300 pt green font with white flames. Someone should help the kid before he injures someone...or himself. What effects could have these Hope powers on him?

In a planet far away from Derse, the sprites have noticed there’s something going on. Arquiusprite proceeds to channel the spirit of 2006 internet and does an ‘over 9000 thousand’ joke. In case everyone forgot, Arquiusprite is pretty much a mix of two thirteen year old kids, despite one being an AI and the other an alien. No surprise it’d say that, right?

Jane decides to start doing something about Jake’s powers, and starts with verbal warnings. Stop powering up, Jake, you’re causing property damage. The hope field, as Aranea calls it, seems to keep Jane at bay, and is all smug because I’m sure she has some sort of plan. This can’t be let go just like that, so Jane will attempt to subdue Aranea while Jade deals with Jake.

Dad Egbert/Crocker is fine! Still in jail, but unharmed! I’m so glad the Condesce being in charge didn’t change that.

Jade realizes she won’t be able to touch Jake, but perhaps she’ll be able to transport him all the way to the Outer Ring? I wonder if her space powers would work despite the hope field. If it protects him even from that, then he certainly could be overpowered...as long as he learns to control the hope field, that is.

Indeed, the field protects him! Jake, seriously, you need to learn how to control it. It’d be a great asset to the team. Jade muses about Jake’s underpants, and notifies Jane she can’t do a thing, all while Jake continues shouting in this giant font. Overall it seems to me we have reached a standstill. Is there anything they can do to stop Jake? It’s great as a distraction, that’s for sure.

Aranea has reasons to be smug, it seems as long as she has the ring she just can’t be killed. Really? I suspect she has god tier powers that’d stop her from dying unless it’s Heroic or Just – and she’s on fast track for a Just death – but would the ring stop her from dying even in that case? Huh. Jane is ill-equipped to cut Aranea’s hand, she has a fork. Guess Aranea has the upper hand here.

Looks like Jade’s decision here is to swap Derse with her own planet, the one where Karkat and Kanaya were, if I remember right. I wonder what they’d think of Jake’s force field. Karkaroni immediately tries to notify Dave of the recent developments, but Dave has a communicator in the shape of...of a foam puppet butt.

JADE: oh my god  JADE: stop powering up already!!!  ARANEA: Don't listen to her, Jake!  ARANEA: Continue powering up for as long as you like. You're doing wonderfully! 

He can power up even more?! Aranea wasn’t exaggerating when she said hope powers and Pages could be extremely powerful! Jade takes it as a challenge, and decides to show what powering up actually is, channeling the Green Sun to create her own destructive field. It isn’t enough, she’s outclassed by Jake.

It has been, what, fifteen minutes since Aranea returned to life? And her actions have caused a lot of destruction. So far she’s excelling in her goal of ruining the session, that’s for sure.

JADE: how can the power of hope be so... JADE: POWERFUL????????????????????

Shouted as a real villain, Jade. Props to you for that. She’s quickly subdued, miraculously skipping through lava and skidding through the ground until she stops, knocked out. It’s worth noting this seems to have undone the mind control! Sure, it’s likely the Condesce will redo it again in no time, but it’ll be nice while it lasts.

Jane is truly distraught about Jade being knocked out, not because it’s a spanner in the Condesce’s plans, but because Jade was hurt and is now unconscious. Aranea takes notice of that and apologizes for what she’s going to do. Hm...

...wait a second, Aranea, tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing. I’ll ignore the fact that it seems Aranea just destroyed the tall building with her powers and focus on the consequences of this. Aranea, I swear, if you’re going to make it fall on Jade I will...I don’t know what I’ll do.

...

...

...

...she did it. Aranea truly did that. She just smashed a building on Jade’s unconscious body. Aranea just...I never expected she’d go as far as to do that. I don’t know if it’ll be a real death or not, but Aranea just...she just crushed someone! Really, I’m in shock here! Aranea isn’t kidding around. I suspect she’ll do the same to Jane once she has a chance, but really, damaging the Condesce’s most useful pawn is going to wreck everything. I can’t wait for when she hears about it. It’s amazing everything that happened in such a short span of time!

Let’s continue next time.

Next update: next time