#ramblings from the notebook

[neo-homestuck-au]

Here we go!

A little bit on the grubs

And then I'll get started digitalisation and eating the next page

Click read more to see the rambles from the notebook 📓 📔 📒 📓 📔 📒 📓

[galactic-rhea]

Do you guys ever think about how the generational cycles of abuse slowly crumble in The Simpsons? Do you ever think about it?

I love The Simpsons, and by no means it's supposed to be taken as a show that takes itself seriously, because it doesn't. But yet it handles heavy themes, it does handle strong subjects, particularly first seasons had certain, strong character's driven episodes meant to actually make you take it seriously. Even later seasons, albeit it becomes less and less of a thing (it becomes a bit heartless), has certain episodes like that. And is what makes The Simpsons a bit unique on the adult shows landmine.

Not to say it's completely original on this, because The Simpsons come from an era where sitcoms were everywhere, and sitcoms tend to be 70% comedy and then a few strong, heart-felt moments. This is because to keep you laughing, you need downs, otherwise, joke after joke after joke, you get a monotone story were there's no stakes nor pauses between a punchline and another. Comedy needs a tiny bit of seriousness, so you feel your feet on the ground, and then they will throw at you a joke, that, if is well written, is meant to surprise you, you don't see it coming. In the Simpsons, many of the classic jokes you remember best? You don't see them coming, not really, because the way they wrote the jokes in the simpsons is actually very clever, if I were to graph them, there would be several curves and points because they're jokes within jokes within jokes.

And then is a bit of dark humour, that is meant to reasonate with the audience somehow. So you laugh a bit at the fact that Homer's dad let him drink beer just so he would stop bothering him, but then the show makes you care, sometimes, about Homer being extremely hostile with his very old dad. But then you also laugh at the fact Homer's mom was a hippie, a rebel hippie, at that, that took him to Woodstock and is one of Homer's happiest memories of his childhood, and then you don't expect her literally dying.

And returning, in a way, just because she wants Homer and his family to continue what she started, and the show makes you care, the show makes you feel for the characters. Because Abe is a war veteran, he was awful to Homer and to his wife, but you also know he cared, and you also feel bad because he lives in a retirement home and wants to live with Homer and his family, but Homer will literally start the engine and leave him there, and at his age, he doesn't deserve that, but what does he deserve? Should Homer forgive him for everything? No, not really, you don't have to forgive abusers, but then it gets messy and complex because abusers don't deserve to be abused.

Homer, however, does forgive Abe, sometimes (and because of the nature of the show, it gets retconned, or forgotten, or brushed away, and etc). But more interestingly, he forgives his mom. Homer's mom was a much nicer parent, she was kind and Homer's refuge for happiness, so it's easy to forgive her, despite the fact that leaving Homer with someone like Abe was certainly, not a good choice, and we know that many, MANY of Homer's problems, all come rooted from either trauma or behaviours he learned from his childhood. And he's rightfully angry about it, he acts a bit like a rebellious teenager, because Homer is fairly inmature and this is because a extremely troubled youth.

But he forgives her right when she's literally a corpse in a chair, and then the closure comes from finishing what she started years ago as a radical environmentalist advocate.

So Homer knows, extremely well from first hand, his parents' flaws, and he is, to some degree, aware of how these affected him, which is more than most of the audience he represents realizes. But he's still an awful parent. He is abusive, towards Bart, but he also cares and tries deeply. He does an incredible much better job as a parent and as a partner than his parents.

And that's still not enough. That's not enough because trying doesn't mean sucess. The nature of the show makes it a bit harder, because sometimes it can be uqite inconsistent. There's a whole episode focused on how Homer decided to give up a lot and to stay under the awful working conditions from Mr. Burns because of Maggie, and then there are episodes where he literally forgets he has a third child.

But that's still better, somehow, than his upbringing. The bar was low, quite low, but he doesn't know anything else, and yet tries to be something different. And that's, from a narrative sense, interesting.

The cycle is breaking, is not completely over, is not a good job, but it is an attempt, it is watering down the abuse, it is making it less awful. Is like trying to purify a river, you're starting to remove the trash bags, you blocked the wastes tubes, the water is still contaminated, there's no grass and the ground is infertile. But it's a start, you need to start somewhere.

And then, in the futures episodes with Bart (and Lisa, and Maggie, even) we learn that, he isn't doing that much better either. Bart is divorced, his ex hates him because he's inmature and his children aren't very fond of him. Lisa's marriage is a bit of a mess, and her relationship with her daughter echoes a bit the one she had with Marge and Homer: She can't understand her, there's a lack of cummunication.

But it's still incredible, much better, than what they knew while growing up. Bart tries to be more responsible, he isn't abusive, his problem is that he's inmature and therefore can't connect with his children. But he doesn't quite yell at them, or tries to choke them (at least in the future episodes I remember, there are several). And unsurprisingly, he resents Homer a lot, which is logical, given everything, but he's also baffled that his children love Homer, and as a grandparent, he actually does quite a good job.

And the cycle is almost completely broken. Perhaps you can't absolutely clean it all, at least not in so few years, but it's happening and the change and evolution is logical, despite it being a sitcom, it is quite well written and sadly realistic. Bart and Lisa and Maggie don't have perfect lives as adults, and they struggle and the narrative shows you that a lot of these struggles come from their toxic enviroment.

And they're still doing better, because Homer and Marge chose to do slightly better than their parents. And so the cycle is near to the end.

I could talk about Marge, but sadly, in terms of her upbringing, there isn't much, besides the fact that she grew in a conservative home. We know her mother told her to held back tears and always pretend to be happy and force a smile, which is how she carried out in her life in many facets. And then we see she tries, at first, to teach the same to Lisa, and then decides to break that rule, to break what she forced herself to do and let Lisa be sad and express her emotions fully.

We also know she was quite bullied by her older sisters, and she's the one to always try to stop fights between Lisa and Bart, and the first one to try to stop rivalry between them when Homer tried to make them fight the other for attention.

Marge is flawed in a sense that she internalized a lot of misoginy and conservative ideals and then, sometimes, she tries to spread it, unwillingly, because is what she knows. Despite this, we know she supports Lisa's interests in studying and artistic skills. We know her mother was cold, and a bit detached, but Marge tries to be as warm and supportative as possible.

The Simpsons reasonates, mostly, with a generation that came from similar home enviroments, and, to some degree, some people in the audience could realize of their own flawed origins or how they carried those flaws, because I think the creators and writers had this in mind, the change and the struggle with trauma, the "not being good, but being better than what I remember".

So there's that. Deeply, deeeply flawed people that were raised in awful enviroments, and ultimately fail at being "good" parents, but they tried to change, and they tried to be better, and trying does matter in the end , because it's a start. They didn't end the cycle, but they planted the seeds for it. And to me, that's extremely interesting, and more so because this is the fricking Simpsons, a comedy, but like the context and narrative it generates, reasonates deeply with me despite not being for any of the generations the Simpsons represent, I'm a queer person in their 20s that was raised and still lives with an awful, awful family, but that I know their upbrinding was just so so so so much worse. And I know they try, and is not enough, and I can't quite forgive that, but I can see they try. And I know the cycle ends with me, at the very least.

[syncrovoid-presents]

Wally and the Colour RED

Wally and the colour Red have an interesting relationship in Welcome Home. This is a rambling/analysis of different things I've found that makes me believe it's an important detail moving forwards with the Welcome Home Mystery!

First! Why do I think this matters?

There's a few reasons why I think this matters! First, while all the members of the cast seem to be tied to a colour, none is as focused or as consistent as Wally and the colour red! The two primary examples I'll use to cover this is one that we've had for a while, and two that we got in this update. Those being the signatures at the bottom of the guestbook, the interactable telephone, and the name graphics on the transcript page!

Interestingly, all of the cast are directly tied to a specific colour! The signatures at the bottom of the Guestpage and the colours of the "calls" on the telephone are the same for each character. This being pink for Julie, orange for Sally, yellow for Frank, green for Poppy, turquoise for Howdy, blue for Barnaby, purple for Eddie, and red for Wally. This is consistent (and possibly something to pay attention for in the future?)

Notably however, Home is signed by Wally, while the audio file for Wally's "call" recording is also called "duet" when you open it in another tab. Audio files with "duet" is a sign that Home is present. This means that red is not strictly a Wally colour, but also the colour for Home!

(if you're curious, the other audio called "duet" is Wally's little song he sings)

This is interesting, because Wally and Home are often treated as a duo, moreso than any other characters of Welcome Home. I would also like to point out another detail, one that I think ties into this tie between Wally, Home and the colour red.

The Records

All the records from Wally's hidden message ("I will help you understand neighbor, I will find a way soon.") are red! Sure, some are glitched, but they are all red. As is this record with the strange audio (has anyone decoded this yet?). This audio is directly tied to Wally, as it's called "(DRAWING?) WITH WALLY DARLING".

However the hidden one's may not just be Wally. Though they are all name the tab "answer" when opened, I'm tempted to say that "answer" is wally prompting us to answer (or, alternatively, Wally is trying to answer us, however he perceives us).

I believe that Home is there too in the audio. If you listen to all of them in a row, turning up the audio will reveal that there is a heart beat in the background. This, I want to say, is Home and not Wally, as Wally does not seem to register them. It peaks about halfway through with Neighbor, coincidentally the audio that is both glitching and is made of a series of clicks rather than voice lines.

I have seen people say that this is "Help Me" or "Hello" in morse code. I do not know which is the agreed translation is (to me it sounds like "…. . ..-.. .. -.. ---", which translates to "HEĘIDO", which is not a word. However it most resembles "…. . .-.. .-.. ---" which translates to "HELLO")

Regardless of what Home may be saying, it shows that the hidden recordings can be put together into a timeline that sounds like one recording, which means it's most likely all recorded at the same place. Ergo, Home is in the hidden recordings as well!

Other spots where red is brought up

There are other instances of red being tied to Wally. Some are obvious, like his love of apples (red ones specifically), the Wally prints/finger paint on the bottom of the guestbook, the background of the "i <3 Wally" gif/sticker in the sticker section of the site (also shared with Home. Wally's character description is also shared by home!), Wally himself in the "so-below" page, among other things. Such as the Wally themed telephone being red, despite his more iconic blue swirled hair (or blue and yellow-trimed sweater), his clothing in multiple official artworks, the Wally cereal box, and more.

(Like something I've noticed, which is that Home is the only house that's a solid colour (red!) without any pattern breaking it up, plus the most "standout" red that Wally typically wears being tied around his neck (symbolism?). Plus the "W" of Welcome Home is red! That's fun too!

There's also some... stranger ones. Such as this hidden piece of morse code found by this person, which spells out ".. -- .-. . -..", or "IM RED" when translated to english.

And more hidden ones too, that tie into the hidden staff page (I have a post breaking that down that you can find here!! I cover everything I could find plus went through the website code, if you want to know everything about the secret staff site check it out!)

There is the red safe, which has in WHRP universe lore!! I delve into this in my other post, just know that it is something that exists both in the secret website (it is what introduces you to the hidden website!) AND it exists in the WHRP world, both written about in printed emails and as a physical object seen within The Room:tm:. You may also notice everyone is represented by their original colours, except for home, who is now white (or blank?).

There's also scrap pieces of red paper spilled on the ground in The Room:tm: (that have drawn spirals), a red clock in the style of Wally's red car, a red painting of some sort on the wall of The Room:tm: (that we never get a good look at, though it may have a drawn yellow eye in the upper center), a red apple, and most importantly of all, this:

The Red Notebook

This is no ordinary notebook. This here is the notebook that the WHRP team have "loaned" the Question Answerer, also known as the Head Curator of Question Answer! according to the printed emails. This book is very important because there are multiple signs that it was written by Wally. Inside is a sketchpad attached to the lefthand interior bookcase with little paintings and a handprint suspiciously similar to that on the bottom of the GuestBook page and doodles in the styles Wally has used (spirals, finger paint smiley face, the drawn apple, etc).

(by the way, if you're interested in what the note says the most accurate translation I've found is by Tumblr user truckfreaks

"Hello,

My name doesn't matter. I am here to catalogue something I'm not sure is fully real. But it must be. I'm holding all the evidence in my hands. Pictures. Characters. Text I can barely read. It's called "Welcome Home" and it looks like it might've been a children's book? Like I said, I can't tell.

It was sopping wet when I found it. When I first reached into one of the brightly colored envelopes, my hand was already covered in some gross, [unknown - possibly “oozing”] material. It feels like antiques are always covered in some kind of grime. I'm trying to clean up what I have and do a little more digging.

There's only one name I can make out right now... Wally. Probably important, but like I said, I'll keep looking.

XOXO"

The wrap up (don't want to make this too long!)

Regardless of what you make of this, it shows that there is even more proof of Wally, not just the character but the Wally ""haunting"" the website and the Wally within the WHRP universe, all being tied to the colour red. (Quick clarification: The Wally we see in branding, clips of the show, etc are all Wally, however he isn't current Wally. He is the Wally of the past, the original Wally, the base Wallly, whatever you want to call him. Therefore I separate him from the "now" Wally. It's unconfirmed whether the Wally that's seemingly trying to communicate with us through the website is the same as the Wally that seems to be related to all the objects being sent to Question Answerer, who is the same Wally that is constantly calling them. If so, then there is only one "now" Wally. If they are separate, then there are two, possibly one in the website itself and one focusing on Question Answerer. Please note, this is all speculation).

While it's true that red is Wally's favourite colour, I believe that it's far more than just that tying Wally and the color red together. Going forwards, anything red that isn't immediately branded as a Wally related object should be considered important, at least I think so.

As for the connection between Wally and Home, both sharing the colour Red? I think this primarily is a display of how the two characters either rely on each other or are, in the vaguest of ways, tied together by fate.

Good bye for now!

[steakout-05]

medic tf2 doodles?!?!?? in this economy!???!?!? (art from yesterday)

most gentle and sweet middle aged german man in the whole entire world smile vs planning to swap all of your organs with a series of interconnected frogs smile

a doodle i did of Medic and Archimedes.... he looks too round in this drawing, not smug and evil enough..... also Mitzi from the RAE appearance :D

i LOVE the voicelines Medic has with Haunted Archimedes, he's not disturbed or even slightly put off by the fact that his zombified dove is 1. talking and 2. has a violent and constant craving for brains. he's just like. being a slightly irritated pet owner about it. he's just like "ugh yes archimedes vants all zhe brains doesn't he. now shut up". also i think this is the most on-model medic drawing i've ever done wtf

[ilovedthestars]

finally caught up on copying all the poems and things that i wanted to copy into my commonplace book :D which means maybe i can start keeping it regularly again!

this is my commonplace book, aka a notebook where you write down quotes and excerpts that you want to remember or keep with you. it's the second physical notebook--the first one had bees on the cover and i started it in a senior year humanities class, and kept quotes from all our readings. in college i've been reading less and i fell behind, so i haven't been using this one much. but now i can go back to keeping it with me as i read, and writing things down as I go!

[wren-writes-things]

As of episode 2 of Amphibia the amount of stuff in Anne’s backpack is officially insane. Like a list for emphasis.

A Tooth brush + assumedly tooth paste

Sun screen

Swim shorts + top

Sandals

Beach Towel

Phone

Toe nail clipper

Bicycle pump

Book (possibly a textbook?)

Three pens (one clicky)

One pencil

An eraser

Tennis racket

And of course the Calamity Box (which she placed in her backpack when she first stole it so it counts).

I don’t know why I’m amassing this list but it is just funny to me.

[wrathofachilleus]

7th of november, almost midnight

november is the season of exams. every year i wonder if i've finally overdone it - if my god complex finally got the better of me, if taking thrice the amount of classes than recommended is too much after all. today i pondered over my exam schedule - is doing two undergrads and a masters at once actually possible? my latin books are piled up in the corner of the couch, a notebook fell between the pillows yesterday and i'm yet to retrieve it, the museum studies books are filled with post-it's and the archieve books open by themselves on certain pages after being open too long; i know i've worked some but is it enough? i know the deadlines are self-imposed, and i know i don't have to rush this education. people tell me it's impressive and i know that, too; while i manage just fine (or so i tell myself) and excel nine out of ten of my courses, i still wonder if what i'm doing is right and enough and a good idea. there are classes i could've done better in, exams that could've had better marks, lectures i could've paid better attention in. sure, i always pass, and sure, it always goes well - but is that enough? is that right? is it okay for me to manage like this, putting less effort into the studies others dedicate three years of their lives to and still doing worse in the classes than me? i might be good at bullshitting through these papers and exams, and the concepts make sense to me instinctually - but do i love these subjects the way my classmates, staying up at the library, reading into the night, do? it's such silly thoughts to have, such entitledment keeping me up past bedtime, something about horses and mounths and gifts - and yet i cannot sleep.

[naralanis]

Desperately need a system to organize my notebooks because I KNOW I wrote a whole ass chapter for something, but can I find it, NO I CANNOT

WHERE ARE YOU

[volixia669]

Potion Permit isn't flawless (whyyyyyyy does this small town of like 15 need three cops?) but I'm liking it!

A little disappointed the whole incident that causes the town's distrust of chemists was an oopsie daisy that's quickly resolved. I dunno. Seemed a perfect set up for a whole, "the capital didn't give a fuck and you need to learn to distrust the state and work with rural customs while 'science isn't bad, greed is' is learned by the locals."

But I suppose if that was the plot we wouldn't have THREE fucking cops.

Still, if you like grindy games, it has a pretty solid gameplay loop. The character designs are diverse and pretty good! Aside from Rue, who I think could have been made older.

That said, the writing has a lot of poteeeential, but given what other folks here have mentioned, it doesn't go as far as it could.

[skyward-floored]

aight i really need to go to bed i m barely seeing straight anymore but what do youthink would happen if i worte a chain meet wild fic

[neo-homestuck-au]

This is my collection of au's this blog was originally just for saostuck but [bluh] I got a bit too ambitious and made too many au's lol so.... yeah, I'm going to throw then at you becaus I can and so I will

Acrully their technically only dubiously au's so... yeah, I'll just call them aus for simplicity but they could kinda be called their own original story it it weren't for the fancomicness

Tags:

Saostuck —the entire saostuck au

Saozee— one of the fics

Grubzzz —one of the fics

Ficstuck —about the fics

Tama & glamor — one of the fics

Ramblings from the notebook — what I wrote down in my notebook

Violet indigo & candy together — one of the fics

More to be added for this au later [bluh:[ ]

Flames in the fire – a not so au au with a really long name and is inspired by the crow strider au, this tag is for the entire "au" (it used to be an au but u changed that :P)

The acronym for this au is fitf

Kraken <troll> – an original charecter, and makes the troll count 13 :3 , expect similar tags for the other trolls and <even the original species I'm adding to this> this tag is an example for the charecter tags <all of them>

This au is quite a bit different, because all of the hemocast is also a bit different (see, this isn't really an au :] it's more ... a twist of the original lore and also with entirely different charecters [but spades slick/ Jack noir is still there along with the other three :P ]

Candyblood fitf – tag with my explanations on what I changed for the candiebloods in the au :]

Limeblood fitf – tag with my explanations on what I changed for the limebloods in the au :]

Hemocast fitf - tag with my changes to the other bloodcasts

I feel like I'm missing some au's but that will be rectified in due time

And that's all for this pinned post!!! :]

[galactic-rhea]

Referring to my previous posts, In retrospective, I think one of the reasons why I got to love SW so much was because it actually tended to NOT do what I was expecting, and I consider myself a bit of a nerd when it comes to watching movies because I rarely ever turn off my brain while watching something, which means I usually will catch on little bits, tone, narrative and that sort of stuff. Which means, many movies become fairly easy to guess (not that it kills my enjoyement of a movie, but it makes way more fun and refreshing when a movie doesn't do exactly what I suspect it will)

SW is both subversive and tropey, it's a nice balance of it. A lot of these mistakes, i find them a bit refreshing because is imperfect but it has charisma and personality, it's not a product.

Luke (and later Anakin) isn't your usual male hero. The damsel in distress is actually a strong-headed character and has a lot going on for her (and still, Leia, and later Padmé's writting was still underwhelming and eclipsed, but seriously compared to other movies?)

These movies somehow manage to be very black and white and very gray and muddled.

For example everyone hates the bad weird dialogue, yet so much of these are so well remembered and quotable, and is not only because of the memes, but also because they're just that unique, they become part of SW's style just like the silly movie-maker transitions. After I finally watched the movies, I realized the SW references were EVERYWHERE, and a lot of it it's because people quote it all the time, they're well ingrained in people's mind and that's fun, is not perfect, it's really silly and overdramatic and clumsy, but it still left a mark on people because of it.

Being forgettable is a bigger sin than being silly, I think.

[dazzlerazz]

I spent a solid minute searching my house for Sebastian to give him his morning coffee only to realize it was Saturday and he was outside working on his motorcycle. I’m losing my touch smh

[yourlocalkitkat]

HELP ME I START SCHOOL IN 3 DAYS....

[theradicalace]

searching on amazon like. i want this product. here are 10000 results. 9995 of them are visibly the exact same identical product being sold by different sellers.

[nevert-the-guy]

Honestly, shout out to the Transofrmers designers, the animators and artists, the fan artists, and the fan artists with their own original characters.

Y'all gotta be able to draw full on robots, vehicles, and make those robots look like they can turn into those vehicles and those vehicles look like they can turn into those robots.

And if you're working for Hasbro you gotta make them AND make them work in 3D, AND if it's a new character or a wildly different version of a character, you don't have all that much to work from. Same for the OC makers, but at least the Hasbro folks have teams to divide and conquer.

Don't even get me STARTED on the combiners and the triple+ changers